It was one of four films starring Dean Martin as Helm, and like the other three films the filmmakers chose to make the movie into an action comedy only very loosely based upon the novel (no incident such as Helm's accidental beating death of a female agent occurs in the movie).
The filmmakers made this film an action-comedy, but they did not follow the book closely. For example, the movie does not include the event of Helm accidentally killing a female agent.