The Silencers is a 1966 American spy comedy film directed by Phil Karlson, starring Dean Martin as agent Matt Helm.

The film co-stars Stella Stevens, Daliah Lavi, Victor Buono, Arthur O'Connell, Robert Webber, James Gregory, Roger C. Carmel, Beverly Adams, and Cyd Charisse.

[2] Once a photographer by day and spy by night, Matt Helm is now a happily retired secret agent, shooting photos of glamorous models instead of guns and enjoying a close relationship with his assistant, the lovely Lovey Kravezit.

The sinister Tung-Tze is masterminding a diabolical scheme to drop a missile on an underground atomic bomb test in New Mexico and possibly instigate a nuclear war in the process.

Helm's assignment is to stop him, armed with a wide assortment of useful spy gadgets, plus the assistance of the capable femme fatale, Tina, and the seemingly incapable Gail Hendricks, a beautiful but bumbling possible enemy agent.

Along the way, Helm is nearly sidetracked by a mysterious knife-wielding seductress and he witnesses the murder of a beautiful Big O operative, the sultry striptease artist Sarita.

He read a copy of one of the Matt Helm novels at an airport - "The Silencers or The Death of a Citizen, I forget which," he said later[3] - and optioned the film rights in twenty four hours with his own money ("and it was a sizeable amount" he said[3]).

Released at the height of James Bond mania, The Silencers was a major box office hit in 1966, earning $7 million in United States rentals that year.

[citation needed] Helm's mission is to stop an evil organization called "BIG O" (the Bureau for International Government and Order) from their plan of "Operation Fallout": diverting an American missile into an underground atomic bomb testing site in New Mexico.