Lady Arabella Chaplin (Daniela Bianchi) is the main villainess in the 1966 Italian action film “Special Mission Lady Chaplin”. The original title was “Missione Speciale Lady Chaplin”. This is the third and final of the Ken Clark 077 Eurospy flicks.
Lady Arabella Chaplin is a fashion stylist and owns an atelier in Paris. She runs a criminal assassin business on the side. Along with her partner in crime, Constance Day (Evelyn Stewart), the two are running a crime syndicate together. They work for the multi-millionaire Kobre Zoltan (Jacques Bergerac), where Chaplin serves as his mistress.
The film begins in Spain, with Lady Chaplin showing up to an abbey dressed as a nun driving a Citreon delivery van. She carries in a basket full of fresh linens that hides a machine gun tucked inside and shoots two false monks before they know what is happening. She then turns her gun on the radio transmitter. After leaving, she is met near the sea by her partner Constance. Chaplin gets out of her nun outfit revealing a yellow bikini and the two push the delivery truck over the cliff into the ocean. They calmly walk to their hotel and lounge out at the pool.
Their goal is to resurface the sunken American atomic submarine USS Thresher, which sunk twelve months previously. On board are sixteen Polaris nuclear missiles.
The CIA sent agent Dick Molloy (Ken Clark) to find out what was going on. The American agents know that Kobre Zoltan’s organization is the only one capable of raising the sub. Zoltan is a submarine research specialist and has his own salvage company. In addition, he has secretly developed ultra-light floating sponge material to raise the USS Thresher. Since he has teamed up with Chaplin, he also manufactures the missile propellant fuel into designer cloth. With this, he can now smuggle the fuel out of England.
Molloy meets with his fellow female CIA contact, Jacqueline (Mabel Karr), and they obtain the dog tags of an officer that was on the USS Thresher, which proves that the sub is in water that is obtainable. Molloy is then chased into a bullfight ring where he escapes death by killing one of Chaplin’s henchmen.
Next, we see Lady Chaplin disguised as an old woman in a wheelchair. She wheels herself into a hospital ward and with a gun harnessed to her wheelchair shoots the remaining spy monk. When Molloy arrives at the scene, he attempts to help the old lady into his car, and accidentally scratches her wrist. Molloy is able to track the getaway car and finds the real old lady, who happens to be acquainted to Lady Chaplin. This is the first meeting between Chaplin and Malloy, and she is holding a fashion show inside the hotel. Molloy notices that Chaplin has a band-aid on her wrist where he scratched her. Later he shows up in her bedroom, where he helps her out of her dress revealing her slip before leaving. She refuses to meet with him for dinner. Nevertheless, Chaplin’s cover as a fashion designer has been blown.
Molloy spies on Chaplin and Constance as they attend a dinner party. Zoltan is there betting on his pet scorpions fighting. Molloy has to battle several henchmen including an older man with a metal hook for an arm.
When Dick goes exploring, he finds the sub, but the missile tubes are empty. When he returned to the surface he discovers that Zoltan’s men have taken it over.
Hilde (Helga Line) appears as an interested buyer of the stolen missiles. She meets with Zoltan and he arranges for her to meet with Lady Chaplin.
Chaplin arrives in London where she is posing as a military officer. Zoltan and Constance are monitoring a meeting between Chaplin and another buyer. It appears as if Constance and Zoltan are more than just friends, which seems as if she is doing this behind Chaplin’s back.
Aboard a troop transport train, Chaplin goes into an officer car and gasses them. She then takes a blow torch and detaches the car from the rest of the train. Her accomplice then switches the track which diverts the car to a cloth manufacturing plant. After making the cash transaction with her contact, she exited the car before he was sealed and killed by lethal gas injection.
Molloy tries to keep Chaplin occupied in the lobby of her hotel while his boss, Sir Hillary (Alfredo Mayo) snoops through her room. However, Chaplin is well aware of this, as she is monitoring Hillary with a compact that has a surveillance camera in it. When she goes upstairs to check, she is about to shoot Hillary, but Molloy rescues his friend. He uses an excuse that he will turn him over to authorities for snooping in people’s rooms.
Next, we see Chaplin wearing a red wig and making contact with Hilde at another fashion show. Jacqueline goes undercover as one of Lady Chaplin’s models. Constance is suspicious of the new model. After Constance models one of the red dresses that Chaplin has designed with the new missile propellant fuel inside it, the dress is purchased by Hilde. Chaplin and Hilde work out the details in the backroom and they agree with the sale. Hilde presents a case full of diamonds worth 5 million dollars.
While snooping in the backroom, she is discovered by henchwoman Constance who points a gun at her. Constance makes the comment that “I knew there was something suspicious about you”. Jacqueline is able to kick the pistol out of her hand and shoot Constance with her own gun, leaving the beauty behind in a pool of fashion. Unfortunately for Jacqueline, she suffers the film’s most outrageous death, when she is blown up by an exploding dress.
Zoltan called to let Chaplin know that Constance was killed. He invited her to meet him to get the missiles. After getting off the phone, Molloy came into her room and smacked her down on the bed. He knew that it was Zoltan’s men who killed Constance and she had something to do with it as well.
Chaplin assured Molloy that she had a plan to bring Zoltan down. She was meeting with him shortly on a plane from Paris to Corsica and once on board would activate a tracking device. When Zoltan discovered that Lady Chaplin was romantically involved with Molloy and had switched sides, he tossed her out of his airplane. Luckily for her she has a concealed parachute.
After she landed, Zoltan had her men hunt her down. Always the resourceful girl, Chaplin had her trusty machine gun. She was able to take down a dozen of the men. However, when Zoltan arrived her gun jammed on her. Luckily, Molloy arrived out of the lake wearing scuba gear. He made short order of the remaining men. When Zoltan made his getaway by jeep, Molloy went after him. Chaplin pleaded to go with him, but Molloy knocked her out and told her she would have to sit this one out. Molloy followed Zoltan to the distribution plant where the two had a fiery exchange of gunfire in the room with the missiles. Zoltan was ultimately defeated when he inadvertently was stung on the hand by his pet scorpion.
Lady Chaplin is next seen showing up at a hotel to meet Hilde. Hilde answers the door holding a pistol. The dress that Chaplin had originally traded to Hilde had been stolen by Jacqueline. Chaplin arranged to finalize the transaction. However, Chaplin then double crosse Hilde and started a cat fight with her. We next see what looks to be Hilde leaving the lobby and getting in a car to go to the train station. Once inside her cabin she took off her mask revealing that she was indeed Chaplin. She had stripped the poor girl and taken her outfit. Must have been quite the scene to see the gorgeous Hilde tied up and stripped in her hotel room.
While relaxing reading a magazine, Molloy knocked on the door. Hilde thinking it was a ticket check, reached out her hand with her pass. Molloy opened the door and handcuffed Chaplin. However, I’m sure this had nothing to do with taking her into custody. Molloy thanked her for having Hilde arrested. He then asked Chaplin if she had stolen the money. She replied, surely you don’t think I could steal the money with everyone around. Molloy reached behind the pillow and found the briefcase full of money and continued to handcuff the cuffs to himself as the credits rose.
Trivia[]
- Daniela Bianchi is best known for her role as Tatiana Romanova in the 1963 James Bond film "From Russia with Love".
- Daniela Bianchi appeared as Nadia in the 1965 Italian comedy film "Slalom".
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