The Bamboo Gods Project: Sabotage (1966)

1966 - Sabotage (Tagalog Ilang-Ilang Productions)

[Release date 19th June 1966]

Director Eddie Garcia Screenplay Greg Macabenta Producer Attorney Espiridion Laxa Music Carding Cruz Layout Artist Marvin B. Panganiban

Cast Tony Ferrer (Tony Falcon, Agent X-44), Miriam Jurado (Garredo’s Moll), Alicja Basili (Irna Martinelli, aka Montenegra), Mary Louise Matheson (Redheaded Temptress), Josephine Estrada (Christine Brown), Max Alvarado (Darmo Durango), Joe Sison (Senor Garredo), Rocco Montalban (Garredo’s Goon), Nort Nepomuceno (Vargas, Garredo’s Goon), Danny Rojo (Rojo), Ray Marcos, Manolo Noble, [uncredited] Joe Cunanan (Garredo’s Goon)

SPY/ACTION

NOTE: This is the ninth in a long-running series of Agent X-44 films starring Tony Ferrer. For a full filmography and detailed article on the X-44 series, click HERE.

Extract from Andrew Leavold's “Ang Artista At Ang Falcon” journal article on Eddie Garcia directing Tony Ferrer’s Agent X-44 films, Pelikula Magazine Volume 5, published by the University of the Philippines, December 2020

Tony Ferrer’s high-profile follow-up to his Agent X-44 adventure Contra Señas debuted at the first ever Manila Film Festival inaugurated by Mayor Antonio Villegas, who commandeered first-run theaters usually reserved for foreign films for ten days beginning June 24th, 1966. Sabotage was Tagalog Ilang-Ilang’s entry amidst stiff competition from other goon films with established action stars: two from Fernando Poe Jr (Sarhento Aguila At Ang 9 Na Magigiting and a reissue of Zamboanga), the Dolphy spy spoof Napoleon Doble At Ang Sexy Sex, rival Bond-alike Target Domino directed by Danny L. Zialcita and starring Romano Castellvi, and the Jess Lapid western Gunfighter, Triggerman with Eddie Fernandez, and Jun Aristorenas as Rico Soliteryo. Incredibly, Sabotage became the top-grossing film, and scored the Best Action Film award. Tony Ferrer had become a bona-fide star.

Before the Manila Film Festival, local films were relegated to only a few theaters; MFF framed local cinema in a way that opened up new venues, new financial opportunities, and most significantly, granted a newfound aura of respectability for Tagalog films. “During those years, ’66 and ’67,” Eddie told me, “it was the glory of local cinema. They were beating Hollywood at the box office!”

A degree of Sabotage’s phenomenal success must be attributed to the perfect fit of Tony Ferrer in the role of X-44. He does indeed cut an impressive image: lugubriously oiled coiffure, stylish suits, a mean hand at karate, and while not conventionally handsome, possessing a certain je ne sais quoi. As a result, the distinction between Ferrer’s real life and screen image was deliberately blurred by articles which spoke of a lifestyle as swinging as his alter ego. There were tales of Ferrer gambling on the casino ship moored off Manila Bay, rumors of affairs with his leading ladies. On-screen he’s polite and attentive to women – ALL women, even the ones he’s forced to kill – if a little predatory, and evidently has the sexual appetite of a hessian sack full of rabbits. In both Contra Señas and Sabotage he does, to his credit, fall in love with the female lead, a trait seemingly peculiar to the Philippines’ Bonds, as if to make their characters more palatable to a local (read: predominantly conservative and Catholic) audience, and to prove Tony Falcon isn’t just a rom-bot spraying romantic interest faster than the Exxon Valdez.

Even without Ferrer, Sabotage would have been a fearsome beast, under the terrifyingly sure hand of director Eddie Garcia. As official MFF entry Laxa allowed Eddie his largest budget to date, and it shows in its next level of polish, film language and sheer glamour. Like Contra Señas, Sabotage is in color, but was also filmed in Scope, taking advantage of its breathtaking Baguio locations, and of its four starlets providing the sizzle: the stunning Josephine Estrada, a red head introduced in Sampaguita films in the early Sixties; Alicja Basili, a hyper-exotic blonde bombshell with a Polish name but believed to be Italian and mainstay of at least seven X-44 features, and with a European accent as thick and impenetrable as her crayoned eyebrows; the welcome return of bad girl Miriam Jurado as the super-villain’s unnamed moll; and English-sounding Mary Louise Matheson in her sole film credit as a literally poisonous red-headed temptress.

Agent X-44 is ordered to Baguio to investigate mysterious blonde Irna Martinelli (Alicja Basili), suspected by his G-2 boss Colonel Campos to be an international saboteur. She is in fact in the employ of Destruction Unlimited, a global crime syndicate headed by the sardonic, chair-bound, Bond-worthy, and possibly Communist villain Senor Garredo (Joe Sison). Accompanied by Christine (Josephine Estrada), the stewardess he meets on the flight to Baguio, Falcon discovers that Garredo and his Destruction Unlimited are plotting to take over the country’s three main hydroelectric plans and hold the Philippines hostage. With his private army of goons in camouflage and red berets, personally trained and supervised by arch-mercenary Darmo Durango (Max Alvarado), securing all three plants, Garredo cuts the power of one station and Manila grinds to a halt, just to show Campos and the Philippine government he isn’t joking. Garredo’s goons then kidnap Christine and overpower Falcon, tie them up (Falcon to the metal floor with a nest of spikes hovering over him), and set the controls on DESTRUCT! while precious seconds tick away.

To a Filipino (and particularly Manila) audience Sabotage’s stunning Baguio locations – Falcon wooing Christine at a mountain lookout with the sweeping Cordillieras behind them - were already exotic, but the sight of Tony Falcon in a cable freight car hundreds of feet in the air locked in a fistfight with one of Garredo’s goons would have proved irresistible. Much of the film’s impact is generated by the use of three actual hydro-electric power plants near Baguio and in Laguna, in particular the Binga station in Bontoc, whose tunnels and cavernous interiors are captured with wide angle lenses for maximum impact. Then there the gadgets – machine guns are everywhere, fitted into the back seat of a car during the Baguio car chase, and in the armrests of a wheelchair (for her treachery in informing on Destruction Unlimited, Miriam Jurado is executed with twin blasts from the seated Garredo!). Falcon’s flame-shooting ring from Contra Señas make a return, as do his X-ray specs, and this time they can also detect poison from Mary Louise Matheson’s drinks cabinet.

More than the X-44 previous films, Sabotage ups the ante on its sophistication and international gloss by the fact that more than 90% of the dialogue is delivered in English. This makes for some awkward dialogue exchanges between actors whose first language is most definitely not English and, if anything, is a not-so-subtle reminder that you are after all watching a product of the Philippines. Take, for example, the scenes between Alicja Basili and the heavily-accented Tony Ferrer, whom she refers to “Torn-knee FarlKONN.” “Are you shoore dat’s all you want frrrrrrom me?” she fizzes at a baffled-looking Ferrer, as his grasp on the English language becomes more tenuous by the second.

A much-belated sequel Sabotage 2 was released in 1979; more Agent X-44 adventures can be found HERE.