Known in Italy as 4…3…2…1…Morte, this Primo Zeglio-directed science fiction movie is based on the German book series Perry Rhodan by K.H. Scheer and Walter Ernsting.
Looking for radioactive material that can be more powerful than uranium, Major Perry Rhodan (Lang Jeffries, The Junkman, Spies Strike Silently) leads the four-man crew of the Stardust on a moon mission. There, he attempts to help Commander Thora (Essy Persson, Cry of the Banshee) save a scientist named Crest (John Karlsen, The Church). Of course, there’s a traitor, a crime lord, some robots and plenty of shenanigans.
You can watch it for yourself, as several copies are available on You Tube.
Santo has battled everyone from his fellow wrestlers to zombies, vampires, vampire women, the King of Crime, evil wax figures, a Hotel of Death, the Strangler, the Ghost of the Strangler and Satanic Power at this point. So yes, it was time to put Martians into the camel clutch.
Santo battles Wolf Ruvinskis, who also played Neutron, and who was also a luchador. He also goes up against Maura Monti, who played The Batwoman. Yes, Martian women have come here and they’re ready to take all our masked wrestlers.
The Martians have Astral Eyes on the top of their heads, which allow them to disintegrate human beings. Luckily, they can’t last long in our atmosphere. And even their most comely interstellar lasses can’t seduce El Enmascarado de Plata.
There’s also a bad guy named Hercules who unmasks Santo, played by Spanish wrestler Benny Galant, who for some reason acted as a Frenchman while in Mexico. Santo pulls a Mil Mascaras years before that was a thing and has another mask underneath, screwing over that red planet rudo. Hurricane Ramirez — a wrestler who started as a movie character before becoming the real thing played by Eduardo Bonada — is in this, if you’re interested in 1960’s luchadors.
I mean, Mexican wrestlers fight aliens. Life can be perfect, if you allow it to be.
Bitto Albertini may be better known for Black Emanuelle and his two bonkers mondo efforts, Safari Rally and Naked and Cruel or his giallo Human Cobras or his other two Emanuelle films — Black Emanuelle 2 and Yellow Emanuelle. You may also know him for his sequel to Starcrash (Escape from Galaxy 3) or his Shanghai Joe sequel (Return of Shanghai Joe) or his three Three Fantastic Supermen sequels (Three Supermen in Tokyo, Three Supermen in the Jungle and Supermen Against the Orient). Basically, I’m here to tell you that he’s known for everything but this Eurospy/lucha libre effort.
I’m here to change all that.
This movie has everything you want: a villain named the Cobra who has relationship issues. A hero named Goldface who also has 99 problems and Pamela — his girl — is all of them. And tons of Caracas, Venezuela’s finest pro wrestlers, who have lengthy battles that take up much of this movie’s screentime.
This is the kind of movie that I sit on the couch and scream at the TV until my wife tells me that I have to start settling down.
The Cobra is destroying industry all over Venezuela and asks for just $2 million dollars to settle down. That seems like a paltry sum. Maybe that’s why Number 2, who seems like his girlfriend, has so many issues with him. When the good guys attack ala Thunderball at the end, he wants to run away. She basically has to goad him into giving his soldiers a speech to get them fired up. She’s the kind of girlfriend that gets you into fistfights with numerous people at bars because someone disrespected her. Except, you know, these aren’t drunken hijinks, this is an entire army led by a masked wrestler with a cape and a submachine gun.
The Cobra has great clothes, like a long-length kimono that covers part of his face. Maybe he wears that to hide him talking under his breath at Number 2 when she makes him do things that he doesn’t want to. If you were dealing with her — she’s played by Evi Marandi from Bava’s Planet of the Vampires — you’d probably do anything she asks too.
The Cobra only rises every thousand years. He’ll be sure to tell you that many, many times in this movie. But hey — are you surprised that The Cobra ends up being one of the very industrialists that he’s trying to scam? He just isn’t sure of his idealogy, but what bad guy is?
Goldface doesn’t have it so easy either. He’s in love with Pamela — who the Cobra keeps trying to kill — but she doesn’t love his scientist alter ego Doctor Vilar. She’s only into that sweet, sweet Goldface. I mean, scientist or pro wrestler? I know where I stand on this longstanding argument. Well, then again, Goldface is pretty much sleeping with every single woman that he gets close to, so his problems aren’t really problems. Even his assistants in his lab are attractive ladies always down for some…experiments.
Our hero is played by Espartaco Santoni, who was in Lisa and the Devil, Death Will Have Your Eyes and The Feast of Satan. He had a lot in common with Goldface, as he was married eight times — actresses Teresa Velázquez (The Killer Must Kill Again), Marujita Díaz and Carmen Cervera (the Ted Mikels-written Missile X: The Neutron Bomb Incident) were three of his ex’s — and romantically linked to Ursula Andress, Princess Caroline of Monaco and Danger: Diabolik godess Marisa Mell. After his acting career ended, he ran disco pubs in Spain.
Goldface has a sidekick named Kotar — yes, just like Lothar in The Phantom — who dresses like an African tribesman, bugs his eyes out, speaks gibberish and loves peanuts. Yes, it’s as racist as 1967 was. And Albertini would make plenty more movies that define problematic to today’s eyes. Anyways, Kotar is played by Cuban actor Mario Lotario, who was also in a lot of Venezuelan movies and TV shows.
The end of this movie is astounding, because it isn’t Goldface who ends up taking out the bad guy. No, he falls out of a helicopter and the military forces — anonymous men who are unmasked and not trying to be superheroes — are the ones who kill The Cobra, not long after Number 2 is shot by Pamela. It’s kind of depressing.
The true ending is when Pamela does a run-in to Goldface’s big match — his one-footed dropkicks suck — and pins him to win his heart. She also looks way trashier and hotter than she does in the rest of the movie, kind of like when Ms. Elizabeth joined the NWO. Bravo to all concerned.
Jason (Ty Hardin, Berserk) is a thief being taken back to Greece to do some jail time. However, he escapes and is forced to steal a tooth out of a dead man’s mouth to get a piece of microfilm. This leads to him being chased by everyone, including Michael Rennie (Klaatu from The Day the Earth Stood Still), Gordon Mitchell (Frankenstein’s Castle of Freaks), the cops and two gangs.
Unlike the gadgets and glitz of 007, Jason’s journey is one of survival. He is a moving target in a city that looks beautiful but feels claustrophobic.
His only help? His best friend Pizza and a dancer named Greta. You can do worse than to spend 90 minutes or so with a Sergio Corbucci-directed Eurospy film, even if this one’s a bit more serious than most of the fare that I enjoy. Because Corbucci directed it, this was released as Django’s Overmand in some countries. It’s also known as Moving Target.
Mario Sequi made The Tramplers, a spaghetti western with Charles Band’s father Albert before this Eurospy film, which is all about Captain Kelly (Dana Andrews, who shows up in plenty of other spy films like Bang You’re Dead, Spy In Your Eye, The Satan Bug and Innocent Bystanders).
Peter Martell from Franco’s Killer Barbys vs. Dracula and Death Walks at Midnight is in this, as is George Eastman, who we all know is the patron saint of B&S About Movies. Elisa Montes from Franco’s 99 Women and Anita Ekberg also show up. Ekberg is best known for La Dolce Vita, but she also shows up in Killer Nun and S*H*E*, as well as the Bob Dylan song “I Shall Be Free.” Dylan sang, “Well, my telephone rang, it would not stop / It’s President Kennedy calling me up / He said, “My friend, Bob What do we need to make the country grow?” / I said, “My friend, John, Brigitte Bardot, Anita Ekberg, Sophia Loren.” / Country’ll grow.”
If there’s a Venn diagram of what I love in movies, this movie would be at the center of it. It’s directed by Lindsay Shonteff, who was behind so many spy films and other moments of outright cinema lunacy like Night After Night After Night. It was filmed at the Shaw Brothers studios in Hong Kong. And it was produced by Harry Alan Towers, whose life included moments of bringing rock and roll to Europe, making Fu Manchu movies and oh yeah, running a vice ring. To top it all off, it’s a movie about an army of women ready to take over the world.
Sumuru is a woman as gorgeous as she is cunning, using an all-female army to kill off world leaders — like Klaus Kinski as President Boong of Sinoseia! — and replace them with more capable women. I really have no issues with her plan, her choice of henchwomen or Shirley Eaton in this role (she was also Jill Masterson in Goldfinger).
Nick West (Frankie Avalon!) and Tommy Carter (George Nader, Robot Monster) are on the case, particularly after Sumuru frames Nick for murder.
Krista Nell (The Bloodsucker Leads the Dance), Maria Rohm (Towers’ wife, who would end up being in all manner of Jess Franco films) and Essie Lin Chia (Return of the One-Armed Swordsman) all make appearances.
Sumuru would return in the Jess Franco directed The Girl from Rio. Both of these movies make no sense but are the type of films I put on when I’m down and just let their absolute weirdness just wash over me.
Yet another Kommissar X film — there were seven of them — this entry features the team of Tony Kendall and Brad Harris. They were the Terence Hill and Bud Spencer of their day. Here. Tony is Joe Louis Walker, aka Kommissar X and Brad is New York Police Department Captain Rowland.
Rowland has traveled to travels to Istanbul to bring a shipment of LSD for the U.S. armed forces — MK Ultra anyone? — but the Green Hounds steal the shipment.
Olga Schoberova (The Vengeance of She), Christa Linder (Dracula in the Provinces) and Samson Burke (The Three Stooges Meet Hercules) are all in this.
Also known as Death Trip and Kommissar X – Drei grüne Hunde, this Eurospy film was directed by writer Rudolf Zehetgruber and Gianfranco Parolini (God’s Gun, Three Fantastic Supermen).
Also known as Sadist Erotica, The Case of the Two BeautiesTwo Avenging Angelsand Red Lips Sadisterotica, this mindblast from Jess Franco is kinda sorta a Eurospy movie, but you get the feeling that Mr. Franco just wants to get to the choking and nudity and whipping and forget whatever minor plot there is.
Basically: two lesbian detectives are trying to find criminals, so they themselves pose as a supercriminal named Red Lips (this goes back to Franco’s second movie,Red Lips, which was before Bondmania). The police have no idea and the tone of the films go from swinging fun and humor to outright brutality with no warning whatsoever.
I have no idea if I can explain what happens in this movie, which starts with an attractive brunette — Franco loved his brunettes, so get ready — being ripped to shreds by a werewolf man while a rich guy named Klaus Thiller watches and paints it all.
Then Red Lips steals a painting and we learn that the two lesbians, the blonde Regina (Rosanna Yanni, Count Dracula’s Great Love) and redhead Diana (Janine Reynaud, The Case of the Scorpion’s Tail) wear the mask and outfit when it suits them.
So yeah. The girls get hired to find someone that Thiller probably killed, they sleep with every man around them and yet still wind up with one another. Also: every few minutes, just when things threaten to get boring, there’s a go go dancing scene filled with nudity and blaring music.
This movie made no sense and I loved it for that reason. You might hate it. Who can say?
Sergio Grieco must have been bored making the Agent 077 movies, because he went absolutely insane putting this film together. This is a mix of the craziest parts of the fumetti neri and Eurospy films, never completely serious yet never getting so campy that you lose interest. It’s absolute fun and worth watching to take your mind off our increasingly crazier world.
We start in China, where Argoman is about to be executed. Instead, he uses his mental powers to make the firing squad kill one another. Yes, Argoman has no respect for human life and even less for where he makes his money. He takes a jeweled box as payment from the Russians. Another job got him the Mona Lisa that is in his secret base.
Argoman is suspected of stealing London’s crown jewels. But there are bigger things on his mind, like who should he sleep with: Samantha or Regina (Dominique Boschero, All the Colors of the Dark). His manservant Chandra (Eduardo Fajardo, Lisa and the Devil) has really big worries: any time that Argoman gets his banana peeled, he loses his powers for six hours.
It turns out that Regina is really Jenabell, Queen of the World, a super villainess that Argoman can track through his special radioactive cigarettes. Yes, just plain lung cancer wasn’t enough for our hero.
All manner of hijinks ensue, including cloned world leaders plummeting to their deaths, glowing lipstick and Argoman murdering every clone of Regina that comes his way before blowing up her plane and taking the crown jewels for himself.
Jenabell gets major credit here for outfits that progressively get weirder, intricate hats that totally complete her ensembles and for having the most archaic robot I’ve seen in a Eurospy film.
This movie is completely off the rails from the very first minute of screen time. Jess Franco is an acquired taste, but here, he’s tasting like the finest of wine, as jazzy beats play over Eurospy action. This was his first film working with composer Bruno Nicolai and it all works like magic.
Ray Danton plays Lucky, who is very much a gentleman thief. You’ll recognize him from playing Sandokan in two films, as well as spy appearances in Special Agent Super Dragon, Code Name: Jaguar and the abortive Derek Flint TV pilot, Our Man Flint: Dead on Target.
Rosalba Neri is also in this, who has quite the Eurospy resume, appearing in Superseven Calls on Cairo, Two Mafiosi Against Goldfinger,Password: Kill Agent Gordon and OSS 117 – Double Agent. Horror fans would know her better as the titular Lady Frankenstein and as the wife in the giallo Amuck!
Patty Shephard, who is in this movie for only the briefest of moments, would go on to become a Spanish horror queen. She’s in two of my favorites, Slugs and Edge of the Axe, as well as Nachy’s The Werewolf vs. The Vampire Woman.
Keep an eye out of Teresa Gimpera (Hannah, Queen of the Vampires) and Bebe Loncar (Some Girls Do).
There’s some plot about counterfeiting here, but really it’s an excuse for Lucky to run around and romance women. Quite literally, the movie ends the way it does because, as our hero says, “We ran out of money.”
This movie is a blast. Do yourself a favor and hunt it down.
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