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The Killer Likes Candy
[RareFlix]
1968; color
Directed by Federico Chentrens & Maurice Cloche
Starring: Kerwin Mathews, Marilù Tolo, Venantino Venantini, Riccardo Garrone,
Werner Peters, Gordon Mitchell & Bruno Cremer
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Shot in Italy (but thankfully in English), The Killer Likes Candy is a semi-kitschy, political assassination flick that falls just short of being a classic. Similar to the German-made Kommissar X films from roughly the same time frame, this has all the hallmarks of your basic '60s spy saga, despite the fact there are no spies in it. Instead we have a dogged CIA man, for whom duty always comes first, and his Italian counterpart, who'd rather make time with the ladies than attend to the matters at hand. The story revolves around a quasi-Middle Eastern monarch visiting Rome, the various attempts on his life and the attempts to protect said life by our aforementioned duo. The CIA guy is brought in on the case after his predecessor literally takes a bullet for the king. (Curiously enough, it's some sort of liquid nitrogen or possibly ice bullet that goes through his heart but dissolves, presumably from body heat, and leaves no trace.) Anyhow, the new guy is anal to a fault, going to any and all lengths - including violating pretty much every royal protocol thrown in his way - to protect the king and find out who the mysterious assassin is. Sadly, the only clue he's able to stumble on is that the killer has a mean sweet tooth, leaving candy wrappers in his wake at every turn. As the film progresses and various attempts are made on the king's life and the lives of our American and Italian heroes, we get the inevitable multitude of subplots. First of all, it turns out the king has a rather dire heart condition requiring immediate surgery. If he dies on the operating table, one of his uber-swarthy aides (one of whom is secretly feeding info of the king's schedule to the killer) will become the new king. Attendant to all that, the CIA guy happens to begin an affair with one of king's cardiologists. (A woman he initially suspected of being either a royal hanger-on / slut-du-jour or a co-conspirator in the assassination attempts.) When the killer is tipped off as to what's going on with the king, he kidnaps the cardiologist's mom. His ransom demand? Sabotage the operation - thus killing the king - or mom dies. Meanwhile, some rather intrepid detective work by the American leads to the arrest of the traitor in the royal party literally as the king lays on the operating table. Once he's safely out of the woods everyone sets out to free mom and get the killer, which leads to a rather well done (albeit rather predictable) climactic chase and dramatic conclusion. I wasn't sure what to expect going into The Killer Likes Candy but if you're a fan of '60s spy-fi movies and lightweight political thrillers, this one's a keeper.
—the Kommandant
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