There have been a bunch of murders throughout the world where the killers possessed a similar appearance to one another. They were all dark skinned, in dark suits, and wore black rimmed glasses. They moved similar to robots. After the death of one killer, the body’s skin color returned to normal. When any of them are captured they commit suicide. Again, after they die, their skin returns to their normal color. Autopsies, done on the robot-like killers, reveal that they all have blood types that exhibit the same Rhesus factor, “O” or zero.
Al Pereira (Eddie Constantine) is a retired Interpol agent. The agency reinstates him when they find that he is someone with Rhesus factor zero. Interpol wants to use Al as bait to try to find out who is behind the murders. The Chinese are also interested in what is happening, for their own purposes. He is told to keep an eye on a woman named Cynthia Lewis (Sophie Hardy) because she may be involved in some way.
Eventually Al, who is undercover as Frank Froeba, learns that Lady Cecilia Addington Courtney (Francoise Brion), and Sir Percy (Fernando Rey) are part of a group intending on creating an army of remote controlled assassins. Knowing that Al’s blood type is a Rhesus zero, Cecilia and Percy plan to kidnap Al and change him into one of their robots.
“Attack of the Robots” AKA “Cartes sur table” or “Cards on the Table” was released in 1966 and was directed by Jesus Franco. It is a French and Spanish spy thriller with science fiction elements.
The movie was OK but not all that interesting. There are also some plot holes that got me a little confused. I didn’t see anywhere that mentioned why the organization was creating the assassins or what the Chinese wanted. I assume world domination since that is the theme of most espionage films. The change in the robots from white to dark and the procedure making people into robots is not really laid out either. Why subject them to some strange procedure when all you need to do is put some mind control glasses on them.
I did like Eddie Constantine as the somewhat hard-boiled detective. He fits in nicely with the noir touches in the film and adds some lightly humorous aspects to his character. To me, the only reason to watch the movie is to see Eddie Constantine at work.
The killers are not actually robots but are people who, because of their rare blood, have gone through an unnamed procedure that changes their skin color while it uses mind control and special glasses to control them.
In blood, the Rhesus factor is a protein on blood cells. If the blood cell has the protein, the blood is determined to be positive. If the blood cell doesn’t have the protein it is determined to be negative. There is no such thing as a Rhesus zero.
Director Franco has a cameo as a pianist in a nightclub. Eddie Constantine’s son, Lemmy Constantine, has a bit part in the movie as the kid called X3 who delivers a message to Constantine’s character at the hotel in Spain. Eddie named his son after Lemmy Caution, the character he played in “Alphaville” 1965.