There is no doubt something in the water in the Keystone State. Many Vintage Leisure players I run across hail from Pennsylvania and you can add Uniontown’s Larry Pennell to the list. When Larry was still a child, he and his folks moved to Los Angeles where they lived in a studio apartment that overlooked Angels Flight. Later they moved again to a home near the Paramount lot and films began to interest Larry. Until he heard the call of America’s Pastime.

Larry played baseball at USC until being drafted by the Boston Braves. He would play first base and outfield for Boston’s affiliate, the Evansville Braves, where he broke offensive records for RBI’s (147 in ’48 with a .338 batting average and 18 dingers). Pennell’s ball career ended when he entered the Korean War. He worked counterintelligence for the Army until he was discharged in ’53. At that time, the Brooklyn Dodgers bought Larry’s contract but he decided he was ready for Hollywood.

His big break came when he scored his own series, Ripcord, in 1961. Larry played Ted McKeever on this 30-minute action show that focused on the then-new sport of skydiving. The show ran for two years and Pennell’s co-stars were Ken Curtis and Shug Fisher, both of whom had been members of the legendary Sons of the Pioneers. He then scored a regular gig on The Beverly Hillbillies playing Dash Riprock, suitor to Ellie Mae. It was while he was playing Dash that he was given the opportunity to make a Eurospy film abroad.

Antonio del Amo (1911-1991) was a screenwriter and director from Madrid. He was prolific in Spanish cinema before starting Apolo Films to produce and distribute his own movies and those of others. A 001, operazione Giamaica or Our Man in Jamaica was del Amo’s first and only film to feature an American in a starring role. For our film he joined with the venerable Produzioni Europee Associate (PEA), a company behind some of the greatest examples of ExPat Cinema including Ty Hardin’s pioneering Man of the Cursed Valley and Clint’s For a Few Dollars More and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Lastly on board was Germany’s Theumer Filmproduktion.

Pennell plays Agent 001, Ken Stewart. 009, Larry Peacock, has gone missing while investigating an arms trafficking ring that has its base in Jamaica. 001 is called in to find out what happened to Larry and to carry on his work if 009 has met with foul play. A licensed pilot, 001 flies in to Jamaica and meets with the obligatory saloon owner who doubles as the local liaison between 009’s organization and the criminal element of the islands. Ken is directed to a local lady antiques dealer who steers him towards a local artist. Ken runs into Peacock’s sister, pretty Jane, and he promises her he will find out what happened to her brother.

There is action in Flamingo Bay where boats are constantly being loaded and unloaded under shroud of night. Ken is shot at while snooping around but he begins to get the scent. Both Larry and a local informant turn up dead and Jane gets kidnapped. Ken runs into intelligence man Capt. Mike Jefferson and the two join forces. The trail leads to an island off the coast and the mystery man behind the whole affair.

Sometimes I’ll run across one of these deep cut movies that is sneaky good and I’ve just got to tell you all about it. That is not the case here. This film is poor and each scene shows every one of the corners cut to make the film on a shoestring. Sadly, Larry Pennell is a real dud. Handsome, sure, with a bit of physicality and presence but not much of an actor. Pretty German actress Margitta Scherr (born in ’43 makes her 22 here; d. 2020) plays Jane Peacock and Idaho’s Brad Harris (1933-2017) appears as Captain Mike Jefferson. A candidate for a Once Upon a Time profile himself, Brad went to Rome to watch the 1960 Olympics and ended up performing stunts in Spartacus. He then stayed on to appear in sword-and-sandal movies when the boom in European filmmaking began. While working in Germany, he realized that there was no such thing as a “stunt coordinator” on German films so Brad became the original stuntman, stunt gaffer and second unit director in the German film industry. His work also included many starring roles in the German Kommissar X productions. So, the American went from USC football player to bodybuilder to stuntman, 2nd unit director, actor, executive producer – even a recurring role later on Falcon Crest. Well done.

A 001, operazione Giamaica may not be a great movie but it is a perfect – though painfully low-budget – knock off of the Bond films with a decent score by Italian film composer Marcello Giombini. I can still in good conscience recommend this movie and it’s down to the sumptuous visuals. This movie is aesthetically pleasing and is a vintage postcard come to life – the opening credits alone are gorgeous. And while technically the film is “poor”, I can’t help but wonder if a lot of what you see if you watch the film today is down to the dubbing. With a film like this with international distribution and also keeping in mind that prints may have been dubbed and “re-dubbed” multiple times down through the years, maybe something has been lost, quality-wise. How accomplished were the voice actors used? And how much of the quality of this film is lost by this hatchet work? Have some decent films been “lost in translation”?

I sure had a hard time finding this movie to watch so good luck to you. The pirate site I stumbled on was less-than functional. The print was often trapped in “buffering” and a click on any of the controls launched a glut of ads and pop-up gambling sites.

Larry Pennell stayed in Europe long enough to make one more film. We’ve talked previously on Once Upon a Time of Lex Barker and German westerns. Stewart Granger took over for Lex playing “Old Surehand” in three films and Larry joined him in one, 1965’s Old Surehand. Returning Stateside, Larry toiled on in anonymity. He played Cilla’s dad in John Carpenter’s Elvis starring Kurt Russell and he played Clark Gable – whom his looks favoured – three times. Otherwise, Larry is little more than a footnote. But he did make this interesting Eurospy featuring the gorgeous sight of Jamaica, circa 1965.