out and buy the ticket first." He followed this with the similar Agent 505: Death Trap in Beirut (1965) and a second OSS117 film, Atout cœur à Tokyo pour OSS 117 (1966). Stafford made a macaroni combat war film in Italy, Dirty Heroes (1967) with John Ireland. He followed it with Estouffade à la Caraïbe (1967), and L'Homme qui valait des milliards (1967). Stafford made two more Italian war films, The Battle of El Alamein (1969) with Michael Rennie. Topaz These movies brought the attention of Alfred Hitchcock, who signed him in 1968 to play the leading role as agent André Devereaux in Topaz (1969). Universal signed him to a non exclusive contract for seven years. The film was not a success. The casting of Stafford, whose performance was found lacking by critics, was largely blamed for its failure. Channel4 claimed, "Heading the international cast is a very wooden Stafford, who is no Cary Grant." He made Eagles Over London (1969) with Van Johnson. In March 1970 Stafford claimed that Harry Saltzman wanted him to play James Bond in On Her Majesty's Secret Service but he was unable to accept due to his commitment to make Topaz. He said "although at first I thought no one could take over from Sean. But after seeing the latest Bond film... I know I can." He added "I certainly didn't realise this film business would keep my interest like it has. It is a real change from chemistry, and at present I can't see myself going back to that." Later career He made a comeback in 1972 as Commissario Luca Micelli in the Italian Giallo Shadows Unseen. Five years after Topaz, he starred with French actress Claude Jade (who had played his daughter in Topaz) in the Italian thriller Special Killers (1973). In that movie, Stafford's character has a brief platonic romance with Jade's character despite a 20-year age difference. His last successes were the Spanish Movies Metti che ti rompo il muso (1975) and White Horses of Summer (1975, starring Jean Seberg, his co-star from 1966 Estouffade à la Caraïbe), the Italian thriller Werewolf Woman (1976) and the Spanish-Italian-French coproduction Hold-Up (1977). He also made La trastienda and Sfida sul fondo. In 1977 Stafford returned to Australia after 15 years. He announced he intended to make four films in Australia including one about the pyjama girl murder; Our Man in Sydney, a