When CIA Agent Stacey learns of a plan to assassinate the American ambassador to Vietnam, but is killed by a bomb before he can inform the C.I.A. of the details. Secret Agent Mark Andrews is sent to Saigon to take his place as a university professor as a cover while he attempts to prevent the assassination of the American ambassador that is expected to occur sometime within the next five days.[3]
The film was originally titled Last Message from Saigon with an announcement made in 1964 it would be filmed in Saigon, Hong Kong and Bangkok. Allied Artists filmed A Yank in Viet-Nam on actual South Vietnamese locations, but the security situation had deteriorated to such an extent that the safety of the filmmakers could not be guaranteed.[4]
I got to fight a boa constrictor and he gave the best performance in the movie.[1]
Producer Peer Oppenheimer later signed Reynolds to appear with Diane Cilento in Deadly Contest, to be filmed in Germany, but the project did not happen.[6]
In popular culture
Operation C.I.A. was referenced in the Archer episode "The Man from Jupiter", in which Reynolds makes a guest appearance as himself. Sterling Archer claims the film inspired him to become a secret agent, to which Reynolds replies "that film was just god-awful."
