Allan Bryce is Morocco bound, with Amos Burke, Leslie Phillips and a host of beautiful fashion models. What could possibly go wrong?

B eingeditor of this esteemed magazine give me the right to indulge myself from time to time writing about my guilty pleasures, and pretty high up on that list is the 1967 thriller Maroc 7, produced by and starring the famed comedy actor Leslie Phillips in an uncharacteristically nasty role.

I saw this at the cinema when it first came out, and while its action sequences didn’t exactly impress me I nevertheless loved the film’s very hummable main theme by Kenneth V. Jones, which became a chart hit for The Shadows. I also enjoyed the movie’s picturesque locations and the generous number of beautiful women parading in front of them. Over the years, however, I’ve come to appreciate Maroc 7 much more, mostly as a classic example of late 60s kitsch. If you’ve never seen it, the movie stars Gene Barry as Simon Grant, a cigar-smoking lounge lizard smoothie whom no woman in the film can resist - despite the fact he’s clearly twenty years older than most of them.

The elegant actor was a big fixture of my childhood. He was never off the box back in the 1960s and 70s, most regularly as Los Angeles police captain Amos Burke in 81 episodes of Burke’s Law (1963-66). Far from your typical cop, Amos was a millionaire bachelor who lived in a Beverly Hills mansion and went everywhere in a chauffeur-driven Rolls-Royce. Before Burke’s Law Barry was Bat Masterson, and afterwards he pla§yed another debonair millionaire in 44 episodes of The Name of the Game (1968-71). The actor, who died aged 90 in December 2009 also featured in Lew Grade’s The Adventurer (1972-1973) and had his most famous big screen part as the hero of George Pal’s classic War of the Worlds (1953). His last screen role was, fittingly, a cameo alongside his original co-star Ann Robinson in the 2005 Spielberg remake. Back to Maroc 7 though, and in the opening scenes Gene seems to be auditioning for the role of Milk Tray man, doing a cat burglar routine and cracking a safe to steal some expensive jewellery. The owner of said jewellery is sexy Cyd Charisse, an actress most famous for her dancing skills in musical classics such as Singin’ in the Rain, Brigadoon and The Bandwagon. When she returns unexpectedly our hero is forced to hide and witness her taking a shower. Perils of the job, I guess. He gives a friendly leer to camera, naturally.