The Assassination Bureau


The Assassination Bureau Limited is a 1969 UK Technicolor black comedy adventure film directed by Basil Dearden and starring Oliver Reed, Diana Rigg, Telly Savalas, and Curd Jürgens. It was produced by Michael Relph. It is based on an unfinished novel, The Assassination Bureau, Ltd by Jack London. Unlike London's novel, which is set in the United States, the film is set in Europe. It was released in the U.S. by Paramount Pictures.
The Assassination Bureau Limited was the penultimate film of Basil Dearden.

Plot

In London, during the early 1900s, aspiring journalist and women's rights campaigner Sonia Winter uncovers an organisation that specialises in killing for money, the Assassination Bureau, Limited. To bring about its destruction, she commissions the assassination of the bureau's own chairman, Ivan Dragomiroff.
Far from being outraged or angry, Dragomiroff is amused and delighted and decides to put it to his own advantage. The guiding principle of his bureau, founded by his father, has always been that there was a moral reason why their victims should be killed – these have included despots and tyrants. More recently though, his elder colleagues have tended to kill more for financial gain than for moral reasons. Dragomiroff, therefore, decides to accept the commission of his own death and challenge the other board members: Kill him or he will kill them!
With Miss Winter in tow, Dragomiroff sets off on a tour of Edwardian Europe, challenging and systematically purging the bureau's senior members. Little do they realise that this is a plot by Miss Winter's sponsor, newspaper publisher Lord Bostwick, to take over the bureau. Bostwick and the other members of the Bureau plan to get rich quick by the "biggest killing" of them all — buying stocks in arms factories and then propelling Europe into war by assassinating all the heads of state of Europe while they attend a secret peace conference where the kings, emperors and prime Ministers of Europe are trying to avoid a possible war caused by a Balkan prince who was killed by a bomb intended for Dragomiroff
Dragomiroff and Miss Winter uncover the plot — dropping a bomb from a hijacked Zeppelin airship onto the castle in Ruthenia where the peace conference is held. Dragomiroff steals aboard the airship and destroys it, killing the remaining members of his board of directors. He is then decorated by the heads of state he has saved. It is implied that Dragomiroff may wed Miss Winter as well.

Cast

Main cast

The film was based on the Jack London novel, The Assassination Bureau. London purchased a storyline from Sinclair Lewis in 1910 and used it as the basis of two stories and a novel. He was two-thirds of the way through finishing the novel when he died in 1916. The novel was later completed by Robert Fish and published in 1963. The New York Times called it "delightfully ridiculous".

Development

Film rights were bought and in May 1966. United Artists announced that Burt Lancaster would star in a film. Lancaster, however, pulled out and film rights reverted to Paramount, where it was made by the team of Basil Dearden and Michael Relph; it was their 25th film together.

Filming

Filming took place in April 1968.
Michael Flint of Paramount later said the film wound up costing a lot of money "because it was decided that it must be a locomotive", namely, a sort of film which "would really carry weight with exhibitors and eventually television networks buying batches of our films, by virtue of stars or production value". He added that in the case of Assassination Bureau "we laboured under the delusion that this could be ensured by spending more on 'production value'."
By February 1969, the film had not been released. According to Diana Rigg, "the film company is stuck with the rather awkward - for America - title and hasn't made up its mind what to do".

Home video

This film was issued on LaserDisc in the mid-1990s. It was also released on VHS at the same time and later on a Region 1 DVD.