If I’ve done one thing this Eurospy month, I’ve watched a ton of Lindsay Shonteff movies. This was his first spy film, although he’d eventually also make No. 1 of the Secret Service, Licensed to Love and Kill (1979) and Number One Gun.
This was called Licensed to Kill in the UK, but Joseph E. Levine was bringing it to the U.S. He’d had great financial success with teh Steve Reeves-starring Hercules and went all out on this one. There’s a new scene at the beginning with a woman pulling a machine gun out of her baby carriage and a new theme song sung by Sammy Davis Jr. Of course, he also took out all teh doubel entendres and enough of the plot to have the ending make no sense.
A Swedish scientist has invented an anti-gravity device and his daughter seek to provide the invention to the United Kingdom, if they can get there safely. With James Bond unavailable, Agent Charles Vine (Tom Adams) comes in.
Veronica Hurst (Peeping Tom) and Judy Huxtable (Die Screaming, Marianne) fill in for the normal Bond girls.
There were two sequels to this film: Where the Bullets Fly and Somebody’s Stolen Our Russian Spy/O.K. Yevtushenko, which was shot in 1969 but didn’t escape the film laboratory until 1976.
This isn’t the best Bond ripoff or the second-best, but it’s not all bad. You can watch the whole movie here:
Have I mentioned that I like Umberto Lenzi movies? Oh yeah. I totally have.
Well back in 1965 — he made this spy caper, which has Ingrid Schoeller (Son of Django) as Macdonald, also known as British Agent 006. She’s working with Frank Smith, American Agent 006. Together, they are hunting down something called “anti-radar.” But it seems like 006 is actually a Russian spy.
Also known as Bang You’reDead, this Eurospy film was released in the U.S. by American International Pictures and released as part of a double feature with Secret Agent Fireball.
Secret Agent Bert Morris (Brett Halsey, The Devil’s Honey) mist rescue Paula Krauss (Pier Angeli, lover to both James Dean and Kirk Douglas, she died of an overdose at only 31 after making Octaman), whose father has developed a death ay. However, his boss Colonel Lancaster (Dana Andrews, Laura) has had a miniature camera inserted into his eye, which is broadcasting everything to the Russians.
As a fan of Yor Hunter from the Future, I feel duty bound to report that Pag (Luciano Pigozzi) is in this. And, of course, the evil Asian is played by George Wang, who covered that role for nearly every Italian film.
Tont means dumb in Italian and this was amongst the first spoofs of the Eurospy genre.
It’s directed by Sergio’s younger brother Bruno Corbucci and Giovanni Grimaldi, who are both known for their comedy work.
Lando Buzzanca, who was in Fulci’s Operation St. Peter’s, stars in this as James Tont and he’s up against Goldsinger, with the help of Barbara Ray, Agent SOS 112 (she’s played by Evi Marandi from Planet of the Vampires).
During the height of the Eurospy craze, so many Italian films used 007 that United Artists threatened the Italian film with a lawsuit. This movie wasn’t given a U.S. release, but did play American television as part of a package called “Continental European film” by RKO. However, United Artists and Danjaq prevented this movie from being shown.
Based on a novel by Umberto Lenzi — and directed by him — this Bond clone starts Roger Browne (The Spy Who Loved Flowers, Emanuelle in America) as Agent Superseven Martin Stevens. He’s joined by Fabienne Dali (Kill, Baby, Kill), Massimo Serato (Autopsy, The Blood Stained Shadow), Rosalba Neri (The Arena) and Paolo Bonacelli, who has the disturbing movie daily double of being in both Salo and Caligula.
A new radioactive metal has been found and its up to our hero to go to Cairo to find it. This means that he must, of course, romance the ladies and kill several people. You know what it’s like for those 1960’s spies.
Jess Franco wrote the script and music for this movie, so between that and me watching over a hundred Eurospy movies in a month, I just had to tackle this. Brett Halsey in the main role? Added bonus.
An international gang pretends to have the means to destroy a small country in thirty seconds. A spy group believes that this could be true, so they set out to take it from them.
Director Tulio Demicheli (who also worked with Federico Aicardi on this) directed Ricco, a movie that takes the crime vengeance genre into very gory territory.
It’s not the most exciting spy movie you’ve ever seen, but if you’re trying to see as many of these movies as you can, it has its charms.
This is the first of three Eurospy films that Ken Clark starred in as Dick Malloy, Agent 077. This time, he’s on a search and destroy mission to take back Bloody Mary, a portable nuclear weapon, from the Black Lily crime syndicate.
Eurospy movies unite more countries than a world war, let me tell you. This was an Italian, French and Spanish co-production with an American lead actor.
It was directed by Sergio Grieco, who would also make the Eurospy films Agent 077: From the Orient, Password: Kill Agent Gordon, Special Mission Lady Chaplin, Argoman the Fantastic Superman and The Tiffany Memorandum.
AUTHOR’S NOTE: Seeing as how so much of Austin Powers was influenced by this film, it seemed natural to bring back this review, originally posted on September 1, 2018. This is one of my favorite of the Eurospy-influenced movies. Enjoy!
How do you avoid warfare in the future? The Big Hunt is the answer. It’s the most popular form of entertainment there is, bringing in all types of people who want to be rich and famous. Every competitor has to complete ten rounds of the game — five as a hunter, five as a victim. If you survive, you retire with more wealth than you can ever dream of. And if you don’t make it…
Caroline (Ursula Andress, Dr. No, The Mountain of the Cannibal God) is one of those competitors, using a powerful shotgun to hunt her final target. If she gets a perfect kill, right in front of the cameras, she’ll make even more money, thanks to her sponsorship from the Ming Tea Company. And that target? Marcello (Marcello Mastroianni, La Dolce Vita, 8½), a man whom she finds herself in love with. The big problem is neither is sure if they have the right target and if you accidentally kill the wrong person, you lose the game.
From the jazzy score by Piero Piccioni to a scene where Andress kills a victim with a bra that has gun barrels inside it, this film is pure 60’s pop spy retro-future perfection. Director Elio Petri (A Quiet Place in the Country) turned Robert Sheckley’s short story into a comic book-looking film with incredibly gorgeous lead actors. Anne Margaret and Sue Lyon (Lolita herself!) were both considered for the role, but no one but Andress would have been right in my opinion.
If you’re watching this and thinking, this movie looks like Austin Powers, that’s no accident. The character of Austin Powers started in a Mike Myers music side project known as…Ming Tea. Yes, the very same Ming Ting from this movie. Featuring The Bangles’ Susanna Hoffs as Gillian Shagwell, Matthew Sweet as Sid Belvedere, Stuart Johnson as Manny Stixman and Christopher Ward as Trevor Aigburth, the band recorded several songs, including two that appeared in Austin Powers films.
The look of those films come directly from this movie and other 60’s pop art films, such as Barbarella, Danger: Diabolik!and Dr. Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs (it’s not an accident that two of Bava’s films are on this list, he had this look down pat). It’s worth mentioning that the film’s costumes were designed by Andre Courreges, one of the most iconic clothing designers of the twentieth century, who is credited with innovating so much of the mod look and is credited with redefining the go-go boot and inventing the mini-skirt (along with Mary Quant).
If you’re looking for this yourself, Shameless Films put out one that works on UK region players that has a lenticular animated cover. For those of us in the US (and elsewhere), Blue Underground has also released this on DVD.
After James Bond gets killed, who can stop the evil Goldginger? If you said Franco Franchi and Ciccio Ingrassia — yes, the same duo from Dr. Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs — then you’d be right. How did you guess?
Somehow, this movie was bought by American International Pictures, dubbed into English and sold as part of their AIP-TV movie package as The Amazing Dr. G. It’s also known as Goldginger.
Just as a warning: the comedy duo spends a great deal of time in this movie in blackface. This was 1965, long before people understood how horrible this behavior was. It’s not an excuse, but I want you to go in warned.
The henchman Molok is played by Dakar, a Peruvian pro wrestler who fought in the Luna Park against Martín Karadagián as part of Titanes en el Ring. He’s also in the Umberto Lenzi spy film Last Man to Kill, Zombie and played the High Priest of the Spider in Ator the Fighting Eagle.
I don’t know if much media was considered meta in 1965, but this film definitely fits the bill. Somehow it combines everything American-International Pictures did best — Edgar Allan Poe movies, beach films and movies that appealed to the teenage zeitgeist — and mashes and mixes them up into one overall satisfying piece of ridiculousness.
It all started with AIP president James H. Nicholson looking for a way to show off contract player Susan Hart, who would become his wife. It went through plenty of drafts before Norman Taurog (who had made movies with Martin and Lewis, Elvis Presley and was the youngest director to win an Oscar when hs film Skippy was honored in 1931; Damien Chazelle has since beaten him out when La La Land won in 2017) came on board. While most AIP films had slender budgets, this one had over a million dollars to spend. That said, it also recycled plenty of their famous props and sets, but to great effect.
Originally, the film was to be a musical, but the script got rewritten to the displeasure of Price. Susan Hart would say, “One of the best scenes I’ve seen on film was Vincent Prince singing about the bikini machine – it was excellent. And I was told it was taken out because Sam Arkoff thought that Vincent Price looked too fey. But his character was fey! By taking that particular scene out, I believe they took the explanation and the meat out of that picture.”
Honestly, there isn’t much story. Price plays Dr. Goldfoot, who has an army of female robots who seduce, marry and murder men — after taking their money, of course. The femme fatales include Deanna Lund (Land of the Giants, Elves and nearly the wife of Larry King), China Lee (Mort Sahl’s wife who had been a Playboy Playmate for the month of August 1964 ; she also shows up in What’s Up Tiger Lily?), Sue Hamilton (Playboy Playmate of the Month for April 1965; also the first Playmate to have breast implants, as well as be under five foot tall), Marianna Gaba (Playboy Playmate of the Month September 1959), Nicholson’s daughter’s Luree and Laura and Alberta Nelson (who often played a motorcycle girl named Puss in the AIP beach movies).
Speaking of that motorcycle gang, their leader Eric Von Zipper (Harvey Lembeck) shows up. And so does Annette Funicello for the briefest of moments. And Frankie Avalon and Dwayne Hickman just switch their names from Ski Party and play the same parts. Other beach party cameos include one-time Gidget Deborah Walley and Aron Kincaid.
The movie also boasts a Claymation title sequence by Gumby creator Art Clokey, a title song by The Supremes and a reappearance of the set from The Pit and the Pendulum.
There’s also a scene where Goldfoot shows off his ancestor’s portraits, which include Price AIP roles like Verden Fell from The Tomb of Ligeia and Roderick Usher from House of Usher. And the missles that supposedly wipe out the evil doctor at the end were lifted from Mothra vs. Godzilla, which AIP had released as Godzilla vs. The Thing. Due to a lawsuit by Eon Productions, this movie was titled Dr G. and the Bikini Machine in England. It did modest business everywhere but Italy, where it was a major success. That would lead to a sequel, Dr. Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs, which would be directed by Mario Bava.
There was also a TV special that aired in the place of Shindig! on November 18, 1965 on ABC. The Wild Weird World of Dr. Goldfoot featured Vincent Price, Tommy Kirk and Susan Hart, along with the songs that were cut from this film’s release. Through the magic of the internet, you can watch it right now.
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