Four Queens for an Ace
1966 film by Jacques Poitrenaud

Four Queens for an Ace (French: Carré de dames pour un as, Spanish: Demasiadas mujeres para Layton, Italian: Layton... bambole e karatè, also known as An Ace and Four Queens) is a 1966 French-Spanish-Italian spy film, directed by Jacques Poitrenaud and starring Roger Hanin and Sylva Koscina. It is based on a novel by Michael Loggan.
Plot
International spy Hakim Gregory escapes from prison by killing a number of guards. With his accomplices, Dolores and Jesus, he flees to Málaga, Spain and pays a doctor to alter his appearance using plastic surgery. Once the task is completed, Jesus kills the doctor. Four agents of the French Secret Service, tasked with finding Halim are killed. The organization then tells its ace of aces, Agent Dan Layton to find Hakim.
Layton arrives in Malaga, disguised as an elegant playboy and flanked blonde Petula, another French agent, posing as a wealthy heiress. Unbeknown to Layton's fiancée, tour guide Marion, is that Layton is a secret agent.
The public source identifies “Four Queens for an Ace” as 1966 film by Jacques Poitrenaud. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Four, Queens and film.
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Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 28, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2940388. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1966.
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This entry incorporates text from “Four Queens for an Ace” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.