Puppet On A Chain (1971)

A narcotics agent (Sven-Bertil Taube) from the U.S. arrives in Holland to find the source of heroin smuggling from Amsterdam to the U.S. But as soon as gets off the plane, his Dutch contact (Drewe Henley) is killed at the airport. Based on the novel by Alastair MacLean (GUNS OF NAVARONE), who also wrote the screenplay, it's a rather routine 70s action thriller. Not quite as clever as it thinks it is, the audience is (or should be) one step ahead of its hero and I had the "twist" figured out about a third into the film. On the plus side is some nice location shooting of the Netherlands and a slam bang motorboat chase through the Amsterdam canals that I suspect influenced the Bayou boat chases that showed up in LIVE AND LET DIE two years later. Directed by Geoffrey Reeve with the boat chase sequence directed by Don Sharp. The pure 70s score is by Piero Piccioni. With Barbara Parkins, Alexander Knox, Patrick Allen and Vladek Sheybal.