Movie Review: DR. GOLDFOOT AND THE BIKINI MACHINE (1965)

AIP’s Vincent Price vehicle Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine was one of the first Sixties Bond parodies I ever heard of, long before I actually saw it. In a way, that was a good thing, because it afforded the movie years to percolate in my imagination, growing far beyond a potential it could possibly live up to when I finally saw it. Ultimately I was bound for disappointment, because, let’s face it, Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine is a far better title than it is a movie. But because of all those years that it lived in my mind as pure potential, I went into it for the first time after college (during college I had tried in vain to track down a 35mm print to program on campus) with a pre-built nostalgia, and nostalgia is a wonderful—and possibly essential—cushion for a movie like this. If you remember it from your childhood, you’ll probably enjoy it more than it deserves to be enjoyed. And the same can be said if you’ve somehow approximated such a nostalgia like I did. But even after that lengthy apologia for liking the movie, I have to admit that I only really like certain parts of it. Most of it is pretty bad.

Made at the height of the Sixties (and here I’m grudgingly conceding that that phrase, which I usually use very positively, can also have negative connotations), Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine is a as much a blend of what was popular then as those Seltzer and Friedberg “parody” movies (usually with “movie” in the title) were in the early 2000s. (Though to be fair it’s a lot better than those!) And since it was made by American International Pictures, it’s a blend of its time that particularly reflects that studio’s output. Therefore it’s as much a parody of their two bread-and-butter genres—Frankie and Annette beach movies and Poe-inspired Vincent Price horror movies—as it is of James Bond. While I’m indifferent to beach movies, I do love those Poe movies… so I’m not being an espionage chauvinist when I say that the only bits that really work are those inspired by the spy craze. And even then the hit-to-miss ratio is probably 50/50... at best.

Appropriately, Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine opens with one of the strangest title sequences of any Sixties spy movie. Under a rather great and undeniably infectious theme song performed by the Supremes (available on the stellar Ace Records Sixties spy theme compilation Come Spy With Us), instead of the Bond-style credits most spy spoofs opted for, Bikini Machine treats us to Claymation, courtesy of Gumby creator Art Clokey. And the entire Claymation sequence is built around the stupidest thing in the whole movie: a pair of stupid gold elf shoes with little bells on their pointed toes that Price’s character wears to justify his name, Dr. Goldfoot. I’m aware that I just used the word “stupid” twice in that sentence, but that’s because these shoes are seriously stupid. I don’t know whose idea they were, but I sure am glad that Ken Adam wasn’t struck by a similar necessity to equip Gert Frobe with jingling golden thimbles.

After the titles, we meet an attractive robot woman (Susan Hart) in a trenchcoat and fedora walking through the streets of San Francisco. We learn that she’s a robot woman through a series of stupid gags (there’s that word again… are you detecting a pattern?), like a car crashing into her and getting wrecked (because she’s metal, get it??), or two bank robbers escaping and crashing into her and getting knocked down (because she’s metal!), then shooting her full of holes with no discernable result (because… you’ve figured it out by now, haven’t you?). Then we meet Frankie Avalon being annoying in a restaurant and sporting a really annoying helmet of hair. (Uh-oh. There’s another word that bore repeating twice in one sentence!) The robot woman comes in and drinks a sip of his milk and then spouts out gallons of the white stuff (all from that one sip, apparently) through the “bullet holes” in her body. (John Cleese would recycle the same questionable gag years later in that Schweppes commercial on the original Licence to Kill VHS.) Despite her leakage, the holes (which aren’t visible) don’t seem to have damaged her mechanics one bit, and in minutes she’s successfully picked up Avalon and is heading back to his apartment with him.

Avalon is Craig Gamble, a bumbling agent of Secret Intelligence Command (or SIC, which I think is supposed to pass for a joke) who decorates his walls with a picture of Sherlock Holmes, apparently for inspiration. The robot woman is named Diane, and she talks with an annoying put-on Southern accent and, we and Gamble soon come to learn, wears only a gold lamé bikini underneath her fashionable spy trenchcoat! (The latter makes up for the former.) But what made her pick him?

The answer comes back at Dr. Goldfoot’s lair, where we meet the diabolical mastermind and his sidekick, Igor (occasional Elvis cohort Jack Mullaney). While Vincent Price deserves an iconic entrance in any movie he makes, it’s kind of undercut here by those stupid gold shoes, which really are quite stupid. (Have I mentioned that?) I am not a production designer, nor a fashion maven, but I am confident I could have designed much better gold shoes for the same purpose. And regular readers will know that I am not given to making such claims. Anyway, it transpires at Goldfoot HQ that the idiotic Igor programmed poor Diane to go after the wrong man. While Gamble hasn’t got two pennies to rub together, she was supposed to be seducing Avalon’s beach buddy Dwayne Hickman, as millionaire playboy Todd Armstrong. (As either an inside joke or laziness, Hickman’s character is named after Avalon’s character in Ski Party, and Avalon’s Craig Gamble is named after Hickman’s character from that movie.) To Igor’s credit, the two actors do look a lot alike (in a very generic Sixties heartthrob way), and that fact actually makes the movie a little bit confusing. The fact that Gamble turned out to be a secret agent was just bad luck—or bad scriptwriting. Luckily Dr. Goldfoot can operate Diane by remote control, and he’s able to reprogram her to suddenly walk out on Craig and set off to lay a trap for Todd.

Diane’s trap for Todd involves bending over and pulling her trenchcoat far enough aside to expose a glimpse of that golden behind as she pretends to inspect a flat tire. It also involves Dr. Goldfoot somehow taking remote control of Todd’s car, and driving him backwards until he sees Diane. (Dr. Goldfoot possesses a magical universal remote long before its time, and uses it primarily for making cars drive the wrong direction and various things blow up. He also threatens people with it a lot, though I’m not sure if he’s threatening to blow them up or to reverse them.) One glimpse of Diane, however, is enough to make Todd forget that it might be a little suspicious and just a tad weird to find yourself suddenly pulled backwards by an unseen force while driving. Their meeting also offers the movie’s choicest bit of dialogue—and, yes, it’s every bit as sexist as you would expect/hope for from a movie called Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine.

“Thank heavens you came along, darling, I’m completely flat!” declares Diane as she opens the front of her trenchcoat.

“Well, I wouldn’t say that,” replies Todd, ogling her gold bikini-clad breasts jutting out of the London Fog.

So what’s all this about? Well, sadly all of Dr. Goldfoot’s ingenuity is expended on a simple gold digging scheme. Diane is supposed to get millionaire Todd to marry her and then make him sign over power of attorney to her (which is of course the same as signing it to Dr. Goldfoot). Honestly, I find it a little disappointing that Dr. Goldfoot has the ingenuity and the wherewithal to build perfectly human-looking robots and universal remotes that control anything, and yet the best scheme he can come up with is gold digging. Why not aim higher, Dr. G? Why not strive for world domination? (Well... that's what sequels are for!)

Anyway, Igor’s error with the target has accidentally tipped off an agent of SIC to the mad doctor’s big gold digging plot. Fortunately for Dr. Goldfoot, though, he’s not a very good agent.

Gamble’s code number is only Double O and a half. “Why they won’t even let you carry a gun until you get a digit instead of a fraction!” yells his boss and uncle, Uncle Donald (genuine comic genius Fred Clark, of Zotz! and Hammer's Curse of the Mummy's Tomb). Donald’s not really in any position to berate his nephew, though, because he’s not the sharpest knife in the drawer himself. When Igor shows up in his office dressed in what looks like a Sherlock Holmes Halloween costume (deerstalker and Inverness cape) claiming to be SIC director Inspector Abernathy, Donald believes him despite Gamble’s protestations.

The gags in this movie are mostly lame (as opposed to lamé), and recycled for the hundredth time. When an upper file cabinet drawer is closed, a lower one pops out knocking someone on the head. A beautiful girl robot is mis-programmed (Igor!) and starts talking like a Brooklyn gorilla. When Igor tries to spy on his boss using a periscope, Dr. Goldfoot splashes some ink on the top end giving Igor a black ring around his eye from the viewer. (Actually, that one's still kind of funny.) Even the spy-specific jokes tend to fall flat a lot of the time. Igor shows Dr. G a new attaché case (pronounced the American way, not the British “attachee”) with its own From Russia With Love-style gadgetry. What surprises does it have in store?  Would you believe a fist with a boxing glove that pops out and punches someone when they open it? (Neatly and obviously accomplished by situating a stuntman underneath the table the case is set on, easily able to reach through a hole in the table and the case.)

While the jokes often fall flat, highlights come in the form of random outbursts of go-go dancing, whether from Dr. Goldfoot’s bikini girls (whose default mode seems to be set as “go-go,” befitting their gold bikini costumes) or in nightclubs. (There’s a odd number from a band all dressed up as Fred Flintstone credited as Sam and the Apemen and accompanied by—you guessed it—go-go girls. But for some reason the go-go girls aren’t dressed in fur bikinis, just regular bikinis.)

Price himself camps it up to the extreme (surprise, surprise), parodying his own other AIP performances and even donning costumes from a few of them at times. To that end, the movie becomes more and more of an AIP in-joke as it proceeds (complete with an Annette Funicello cameo), and eventually Gamble and Todd end up in Dr. Goldfoot’s torture chamber, getting a tour that includes portraits of all his illustrious forebears (again bearing certain resemblances to famous Price roles past) and lots of familiar torture implements. It’s poor Todd who ends up strapped down beneath the swinging pendulum from The Pit and the Pendulum.

But then, in its final act, something unexpected happens. The movie becomes… really fun! The undisputable high point of the film is the fifteen-minute-long final chase through the streets of San Francisco in which the heroes and villains keep changing vehicles. It’s accomplished mostly through obvious rear projection, but the San Francisco scenery is quite real. The heroes (Gamble and Todd) start out in a gadget-laden Cadillac spy car whose gags include inflatable seats that inflate when you don’t want them to and a steering wheel that switches sides between the driver and the passenger at inopportune moments. The villains start out in a motorcycle and sidecar that become detached in the course of the chase and eventually manage to re-attach themselves. When Dr. Goldfoot uses his magic remote control device to blow up their spy car, the heroes swipe a red convertible (a Sunbeam Alpine, like Bond drove in Dr. No), and when the motorcycle and sidecar end up smashed on the front of a train, the villains (their faces coated in black soot, just like a cartoon character’s after surviving such a collision) appropriate an E-Type Jag. Eventually the heroes are on a bicycle while the baddies commandeer a San Francisco cable car—and manage to drive it right off its tracks and all over town! By the end the good guys are in a boat on a boat trailer careening wildly down San Francisco’s steep hills. It’s all pretty fun, really, in a typically zany way.

The end titles feature those stupid gold shoes again (though not Claymation this time), performing a disembodied dance (accomplished simply—and effectively—enough with a dancer dressed all in black dancing in front of a pitch black background) alongside gold bikini-clad go-go dancers—and similarly disembodied writhing gold bikini tops and bottoms. (That’s actually a really cool effect!) All of which handily beats (and makes up for) the Claymation opening in my book.

Even though Doctor Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine leaves things open for a sequel with Dr. Goldfoot and Igor surviving their cable car crash (and subsequent bombardment by gunboats) and turning up on the plane winging our victorious heroes off to Europe, the end credits instead tout the next beach movie, The Girl in the Glass Bikini. Which kind of brings us back to this movie’s title. Say it out loud to yourself. Think about it. Based on that title more than my (or any) review, I suspect you already know if this movie is for you or not.

SOME GIRLS DO (1969) Comes to Blu-Ray!

Eurospy fans, your collective prayers have been answered! The Sixties Bond knockoff (a term I use with great affection) title I've heard most often requested is finally coming to Blu-ray! In the UK, anyway. So American Eurospy aficionados who don't yet have all-region Blu-ray players (and you really ought to), add them to your Christmas lists! On February 17, 2020, Network will release the Bondified Jet Age Bulldog Drummond movie Some Girls Do (lesser sequel to the greatest Eurospy movie of all, Deadlier Than the Male) in Region B high-def. On the same date the title will also make its standalone DVD debut (Region 2). Both releases are quite notable, because they mark the first time ever that this title has been available in its native 1.66:1 widescreen aspect ratio. It was previously available only on a Region 2 double feature DVD from Network paired with Deadlier Than the Male (which the company has offered on its own on Blu-ray for some time now). While that title came in widescreen, the Some Girls Do on offer was a panned and scanned 4x3 version--and transferred from a rather iffy source. Hopefully (and presumably, given the new aspect ratio), Network have uncovered a better source print for the new 1080p HD transfer. So even if you don't have an all-region Blu-ray player, but do have an all-region DVD player, you'll still have a way to finally see this movie the way it was meant to be seen!

Some Girls Do (1969) stars Richard Johnson (Deadlier Than the Male, Danger Route), Daliah Lavi (Casino Royale, The High Commissioner), Beba Loncar (Fuller Report, Lucky the Inscrutable), James Villiers (For Your Eyes Only, Otley), and the great Robert Morley (Hot Enough For June,  Topkapi) in a scene-stealing role as cooking teacher "Miss Mary." Here's Network's description of the movie:

Richard Johnson returns as Hugh 'Bulldog' Drummond in this action-packed take on the exploits of H.C. McNeile's famous fictional hero - this time with an added dose of late '60s whimsy when Drummond comes up against a gang of armed, gorgeous fembots! Some Girls Do is presented here as a new High Definition transfer from original film elements in its original aspect ratio.
Drummond is hot on the trail of his nemesis, the devious Carl Petersen, who is hell-bent on sabotaging the new British fighter airplane. Peterson must be stopped - whatever the cost - but this time he's protected by a bodyguard of murderous female androids!

Special features are limited to the theatrical trailer and an "extensive image gallery," but just having this title in its proper aspect ratio is reason enough to buy the disc! And to have that great, great poster art on the cover! (My own Some Girls Do UK quad with that key art hangs in a place of pride in my apartment protected by UV-coated museum glass.)

Pre-order the Blu-ray from Network here.
Pre-order the DVD from Network here.
Read my review of Deadlier Than the Male here.

Upcoming Spy DVDs: Who?

You do! What? Remind me of the babe. What babe?  No!  Sorry; I'm being silly.  Forget all that.  I'm talking about something else altogether.  And not Doctor Who either, just Who?, with a question mark.  (Not to be confused with What?, an alternate title of Mario Bava's The Whip and the Body, or Don't, Edgar Wright's fake trailer in Grindhouse...)  We first heard about a DVD release of Who? from Code Red two years ago, but that never happened.  Now, DVD Drive-In reports that the 1974 Cold War spy-fi movie starring Elliott Gould and Trevor Howard is finally coming to DVD–next week!–from Scorpion Releasing. (Which I believe is in some way affiliated with Code Red.) The plot mixes espionage and robots–but in a very gritty, serious, Seventies way, not a Sixties Casino Royale/Some Girls Do Way, if you can believe it. Scorpion's DVD will contain a plethora of bonus features, including separate audio commentaries with director Jack Gold and star Elliott Gould, an interview with co-star Edward Grover and a brand new 16x9 (1.78:1) widescreen transfer. Retail is $19.95, though it can be pre-ordered for less on Amazon.

Tradecraft: Enjoy ECHELON On Your TV

Ever since the NSA's massive eavesdropping apparatus ECHELON went online, it's fascinated film and television writers as much as it's fascinated privacy advocates.  ECHELON, which aggregates all the various data signals flying through the ether for intelligence analysis, featured heavily on later seasons of Alias (around the time Terry O'Quinn came into the picture, if memory serves) and inspired thrillers like The Echelon Vendetta (a novel by David Stone, currently being adapted into a movie), Echelon Conspiracy (a Jonathan Pryce thriller more memorable for its hilarious "talk to ECHELON" website) and Eagle Eye.  Now it's getting its own TV show, which is probably a first for a SIGINT program.  According to The Hollywood Reporter, 300 writer Michael Gordon has sold a drama to NBC called ECHELON.  But it's not a straightforward spy show.  The trade reports that there's a supernatural twist: "The show will center on a fictional team called G.H.O.S.T. (Global Hierarchical Observation Strategy Taskforce) whose assignment it is to investigate [the] paranormal data [that sometimes turns up on ECHELON]." Huh.  Spooky spooks.  As if an all-knowing computer program spying on our every phone call and email isn't scary enough already! 

DVD Review: ATTACK OF THE ROBOTS (aka CARTES SUR TABLE) (1966)

DVD Review: Attack of the Robots (aka Cartes Sur Table) (1966)

Yes, Man vs. Machines, the "week-long" COBRAS event that all the other COBRAS actually managed to wrap up in a week, is still trickling on into Week 3 here at the Double O Section. That's the way things work around here. Attack of the Robots was my first foray into the world of Eddie Constantine, one of the most prolific–and unlikely–stars of the Eurospy canon.* And I’d say it was a great introduction! I hope all of his movies are as much fun as this one.

Constantine’s is a tough persona to describe. Just looking at stills of him, it’s impossible to accept that this man was a major, major star of French cinema in the Fifties and Sixties. Tim Lucas (editor of the much lamented–but maybe back? sort of?–Video WatchBlog) once described Constantine’s complexion as “vaguely reptilian.” That’s apt, but it may not even go quite far enough. Constantine looks like a full-fledged resident of Toad Hall! But a physical description alone fails to capture the persona. Fortunately for the actor, he shares not only Mr. Toad’s visage, but also his boisterous personality. What he lacks in looks and "serious" acting chops he makes up for in sheer enthusiasm–and an infectious grin. In nowhere but France, the country that made a sex symbol out of Serge Gainsbourg, could Constantine (already in his late forties by the time of the Eurospy boom) have become a matinee idol. But he did, and that status was cemented by no less a personage than that darling of the French New Wave, Jean-Luc Godard, when the director cast him (in his most famous recurring role of boozy G-man Lemmy Caution) as the lead in Alphaville. (David Foster reviewed Alphaville on Permission To Kill at the very beginning of the Man vs. Machine COBRAS event.)

Attack of the Robots, made the following year, is about as far from Alphaville as one can get, although I would argue that its director, Jess Franco (that notorious and prolific auteur of Euro-schlock), and Godard are unlikely kindred spirits. Godard recycled pulpy American B-movie motifs to make high art out of low, producing pulp movies for the arthouses, while Franco (on his better days) produced art films for the grindhouses.** Both embraced low budget filmmaking and stretched the boundaries of the medium as far as they would go, albeit in different ways. Attack of the Robots is not one of Franco’s artier efforts, though it is not one of his more appalling ones, either. His direction is reliably solid if workmanlike, and lacks most of the regular touches which endear and annoy in equal measures, particularly his fondness for quick zooms. But just when you’re starting to wonder if it really is a Franco movie, along comes a striptease sequence in a nightclub (and then another) and you’re fully reassured. Furthermore, while the zooms may be (mercifully?) absent, the interesting, expressionistic angles that characterized his early Dr. Orloff horror movies do make occasional appearances. The playfulness that characterizes his most enjoyable work is also present, and it meshes nicely with Constantine's own unsuppressable joie de vivre.

Attack of the Robots is in black and white, which is too bad. Some critics praise the black and white, arguing that it–and Franco’s direction–creates a real film noir atmosphere. The problem with that is that despite Constantine’s fedora, this isn’t film noir. It’s Eurospy through and through–and Eurospy should ideally be in color. Weirdly, it’s rumored that the movie was actually shot in color, and then released (at least in America) in black and white for some reason! If that’s true, I very much hope that the color print surfaces one day. Even without the color, though, all of the other Eurospy elements are present: the plot, the locations, the girls, the bad guys (and their weird science) and the typical Eurospy hero.

We open with the assassination of an ambassador at a swank party in Buenos Aires. Then we see a cardinal killed at an airport in Amsterdam. Then an Interpol agent exclaims that there’s a troubling similarity between the assassination of the cardinal in Amsterdam and the ambassador in Buenos Aires! Evidently, Interpol can’t even keep track of who’s killed where. Anyway, both figures–as well as dozens more–were killed by assassins in glasses who behaved extremely oddly. The one in Amsterdam is actually captured and examined. He’s got an odd hue to him. On screen it looks like greasepaint, but we’re told that he has the look of a "mulatto." Then he gets killed trying to escape, and the greasepaint goes away. Ahem, that is to say, his skin tone turns white. That’s weird! What the Interpol autopsy apparently fails to reveal (but we know from the title) is that this man is actually a robot. (Duh! Everybody knows robots wear glasses and have greasepaint skin!) Someone has been kidnapping people with Type O blood all around the world and somehow turning them into robots.

Whether or not these robots are actual machines is debatable. They behave more like zombies, but the robofication process, when we finally see it, seems to involve being sealed in a giant plastic pouch and then blasted with lots of electricity, so perhaps there is some sort of mechanization involved. It’s unclear. But what is clear to Interpol that people with Type O blood are disappearing willy nilly, so they search through their files to find an agent with that blood type to send out as a decoy. But he can’t know he’s being set up as bait; the agent needs to be given a dummy mission. It doesn’t take much searching to turn up Al Peterson (as he’s identified on the English language version, anyway), played by Constantine.

“Where is he?” asks one eager spymaster, practically salivating at the prospect of sending an agent with Type O blood into the field as bait.

“Oh, that’s very easy,” answers his colleague. “He’s somewhere on this planet with a gorgeous blonde and a bottle of Scotch.”

You would think so, wouldn’t you? You would think so for just about any Eurospy hero, and apparently you would think so for Lemmy Caution. But as it turns out, he’s wrong! Al is actually somewhere in the Far East with a brunette... and a Coke! Gambling. Apparently he’s given up drinking. Which is why it’s especially surprising when, as he leaves the casino, a statue starts talking to him! It turns out the (female) statue is a trap, and soon she conks him on the head and he's kidnapped by Chinese agents. The chief agent, Li Wi, demands to know some personal information about Eddie: what’s his weight and his height and his blood type? How old is he?

“Just last August I was 40,” quips Eddie with a grin. “And a few years.”

The Chinese want Eddie to work for them as a double agent. But he doesn’t like the fact that they ruined his “favorite tuxedo,” so he says nothing doing, beats them up and escapes. In the course of his escape, he has to jump over a pit with something growling inside. We never get to see what it was, but a growl can make an otherwise innocuous hole in the floor so much more exciting! It turns out he was being held on a boat (a boat with a tiger pit?), so he has to plunge in the ocean and when he finally gets back to his hotel in a sopping wet tux, the concierge asks if he had an accident. “No, this is the new style.”

Soon Eddie’s back at Interpol HQ where his own bosses also inquire about his weight and his height and his blood type. When Eddie gives the same quip about his age, that’s when he really started to endear himself to me. This guy might not be as young as Tony Kendall or as ripped as Brad Harris, but unlike them, he’s pretty likable!

The "Q scene" reaches new heights in audacity and new lows in budget. Every object used is just a regular object, not modified in anyway. We’re just told that it does something neat. “These gloves!” exclaims the pseudo-Q, putting them on. “They’ve got miniature batteries. When you wriggle your fingers–tick, tick, tick–as I’m doing, the batteries charge. The currents are sufficiently strong to kill twenty adults–or thirty children.” You’ve got to love a Q Branch that takes into account the fact that their agents might one day find themselves up against thirty children! “A ballpoint pen that’s really a flute,” he proceeds. What? “You’ve just got to blow into it here; the soundwaves break a glass vial that’s hidden in it, releasing a gas.” He holds the pen up to his lips and blows. The soundtrack obligingly provides some flute music, and voila! Instant gadget! The Eurospy imitators embraced the jokiness of the Q scenes long before the Roger Moore Bond films did, and this is one of the funniest. I haven’t laughed so hard watching a Eurospy movie since the pervvy version of Q in Fury In Marrakesh!

Here, Franco & co. decide to go right ahead and call out the gag. “How many James Bond films did you see lately?” asks the bemused Constantine.

“More than you think,” comes the reply.

The cover he’s assigned conveniently includes being a gambler and a womanizer. “Well, I’ll remember that,” says Eddie. Proving his point, he wolf-whistles at the girl who’s his only lead in order to make contact. She likes it. Despite his face, Eddie has a way with the ladies. (He’s even got them threatening to break down his door!) He’s always chatting one up, whether it’s a random window-dressing girl, the mysterious Cynthia (Sophie Hardy) or the villainous Lady Cecilia Addington-Something (Françoise Brion), who feels Eddie’s arm muscles and coos, “A real man’s such a rare thing.” (Granted, she spends a lot of time around robots, so that’s probably true.) When Lady Cecilia tries to seduce Eddie, he gets worried about making out in front of all those robots. “You don’t have to worry, you know,” she assures him. “Robots are devoid of sentiment.” So Lady Cecilia’s got an army of willing robotic slaves going for her, but Cynthia has an act at a local nightclub, so Eddie’s got good options, ladywise, either way. The nightclub routine affords Franco an excuse for the aforementioned stripteases, as well as a chance to cameo as the pianist in a band providing unusual classical accompaniment for these routines.

Besides beautiful women, there’s also plenty of humor to be found in Attack of the Robots. During a scenic car chase, a frustrated Eddie (who likes to whistle while he drives) is forced to pause long enough to let a herd of sheep cross in front of him. Impatient, he leans on the horn. At another point, an innocent looking boy watches Eddie leave his room, then revs up the wheels of his toy car and speaks into it! In another example of this film’s resourcefulness in turning ordinary objects into gadgets with no modifications whatsoever, it’s clear that the car is really a walkie-talkie. “This is X3,” the child reports. “Mission accomplished.” Apparently the Q guy was right to arm Eddie against child antagonists!

The film’s main comedic setpiece is a classic bit of farce wherein a gaggle of bespectacled robots trash Eddie’s room (ie, turn some chairs upside down), then hide when he comes in. (Wasn't there a similar scene of hiding robots in Transformers?) When Eddie goes to the front desk to complain, they quickly rush around cleaning everything up, so he looks like a fool to the hotelier. Eventually, there’s a fight, and the surviving robots scamper off leaving Eddie with a dead one to hide in various places from the amorous Cynthia, who doesn’t mind using a stranger’s shower as long as there are no bodies in it! (“There’s a corpse in the bathtub. He’s keeping me from taking a shower.”)

Back at the robot lair, Lady Cecilia is mad that the robots came back short a man–or a machine. “You’ve made a mess of this!” she chastises them. “But what’s worse, you’ve lost Robot 8! You knew you must never leave a robot behind.” This dialogue is made all the more amusing by the fact that everyone in this film–like Jenabel in The Fantastic Argoman–pronounces robot “RO-butt.” The robot lair itself is rather impressive given the obvious budget constraints. It’s not quite how I pictured a robot lair. There are little cubbies with typewriters for the female robots to do their secretarial duties, and a loudspeaker keeps intoning random numbers throughout every scene set in the lair. It’s here that we finally get to witness the robot-making process as well, in which the unfortunate people with Type O blood appear to be microwaved inside large zip-lock bags. Evidently, this process turns their skin green, coats them in futuristic PVC fetish clothes, and makes them myopic.

Of course the film builds to a climax in the lair, once Eddie has come to the realization that “these robots are out to get me!” The ensuing melee is exciting and suitably surreal as the voice on the loudspeaker keeps intoning random numbers throughout and Eddie proves that you can kill a robot with a speargun. But can Eddie find a way to turn off all the robots? There’s actually a pretty good chance of it, because–unfortunately for them–Lady Cecelia and her mad scientist partner (Fernando Rey) have apparently designed a lair with a big “robots off” button! Of course, even if he manages to overcome the robots, Eddie’s still got the Chinese to worry about... and he’s still got all those nifty gadgets to use! Plus there's the unpleasant matter of being set up as bait by his Interpol bosses to be dealt with.

Attack of the Robots is a great introduction to Eddie Constantine. It’s both lots of fun and genuinely funny of its own accord. How can you possibly dislike a movie where the hero, desperate for forty winks, lies down in his bed only to discover a dead robot lying next to it? That’s the sort of movie that Franco’s Attack of the Robots is. The DVD from Something Weird leaves a whole lot to be desired, but then again this is the sort of movie that falls into the “lucky to have on DVD at all” category, so I’m not complaining. Buyers should be warned that the print is in bad shape (as you can see from the screengrabs) and the picture appears to be cropped not only on the left and right (as most pan-and-scan movies are), but the top and the bottom as well! That probably comes from a sloppy transfer from a 16mm TV print. But they should also know to expect that for the sorts of rarities that Something Weird offers. None of this impedes the enjoyment inherent in this movie. And at just $8.99 on Amazon, this DVD is a bargain even despite its flaws. That said, I would still love to see a gorgeous widescreen transfer of the supposed color print one day. Because Attack of the Robots has that Eurospy feel through and through, color would just seem so much more appropriate. Hopefully one of the companies that specialize in Jess Franco movies will one day get around to such a release. In the meantime, Something Weird’s is a great way to see such an obscure film.

*Well, that’s not quite true. I saw Alphaville in college, but at the time the actor left no impression with me.
**The key phrase here is “on his better days.” Franco was so prolific that he churned out proto-Lynchian masterpieces like Venus In Furs with the same regularity as shoddily-produced, irredeemable trash like Ilsa the Wicked Warden.

Movie Review: Billion Dollar Brain (1967)

Movie Review: Billion Dollar Brain (1967)

Want more men versus machines? How about the greatest man/machine throwdown of all time? To quote the poster (which may or may not have been created by Don King), it’s "Caine vs. Brain!" The titular brain, of course, is a rather pricey supercomputer. And the Caine in question (needless to say) is the inimitable Michael (now Sir), reprising the role that not only made him world-famous, but also launched an incredibly prolific career in spy films.

I love all three original Harry Palmer movies, but Billion Dollar Brain is my favorite. In fact, it’s one of my favorite spy movies ever. (Hence the banner above.) Sometimes purists make accusations that this movie brought Palmer, originally envisioned as the anti-Bond in a film series produced by Bond producer Harry Saltzman, too far into 007 territory. This simply isn’t the case. It’s true that Billion Dollar Brain has a bit more action and a much broader scope than its predecessors, The Ipcress File and Funeral In Berlin, but Palmer is still very much his own animal. The character (named in the films but unnamed in Len Deighton’s novels on which they’re based) remains steadfastly cynical about his work and in a way that the Bond of the movies never was, and defiantly insubordinate in the face of his snobby, hopelessly bureaucratic spymasters, men he knows place no value on his life. Yes, the character remains unchanged, but the film itself is decidedly different than those that went before it, thanks largely to director Ken Russell. I can only imagine that its detractors would have preferred another dose of the exact same thing, a rehash of what went on before. I would posit that the trilogy’s excellence lies in the fact that it never resorts to that. Each film has a distinctly unique feel, and the cycle never repeats itself. Granted, that’s an easier feat to accomplish in just three films than twenty-two, but it’s impressive nonetheless. And by the end of the Sixties, the same thing couldn’t be said for the Bond films. (Don’t get me wrong; I love the repetitious elements of 007, but they wouldn’t have been appropriate for Palmer.) James Bond movies (by this point) ended with a large-scale, explosion-filled battle every time. For Harry Palmer, that was unique to this movie and a change from what went before. Therefore, it was not Bond-like, and entirely appropriate to the Caine series.

At the beginning of Billion Dollar Brain, Palmer is attempting to live a civilian life as a private detective. But he simply cannot escape the life into which he’s been forced. It comes to find him this time in the form of his intolerable boss, Ross (Guy Doleman), who breaks into Palmer’s flat. (Of course, he’s filled out all the proper forms authorizing him to do so with impunity.) Harry walks in on him and pulls a gun (for which he assures his former superior he has a license), and Ross calmly puts his hands up, in which he’s holding one of Harry’s boxes of cornflakes. Ross lets the cornflakes spill all over the floor. In a hilarious bit of business, Harry sweeps up the cornflakes around Ross’s feet as the spook attempts to lure him back for another mission. It’s a great scene that sets the proper tone for a Harry Palmer movie.

Palmer rebuffs Ross’s advances for the time being, but Ross isn’t the only one with a job for him. Soon he gets a phone call from a computerized voice demanding, "Is. This. Palmer. Private. Detective. Of. London. Confirm." When he eventually does so, he’s instructed to courier a package (a thermos) from London to Helsinki. A London cabbie asks him where to, and Harry answers, "Helsinki"... and suddenly we’re there. It’s the first of the film’s many unique and abrupt edits, and it works wonderfully. Most spy movies in the Sixties still included the obligatory shots of the airport terminals and the BOAC jets; Russell sets the breakneck pace and disorienting tone of Billion Dollar Brain by cutting directly from the speeding London taxi to moving trams in snowy Finland.

Equally disorienting is Harry’s rendezvous with his Helsinki contact. The computer has instructed him that the password will be "Now is the winter of our discontent." We see Harry waiting in a beautiful, almost surreal snow-covered landscape, then flash to an abrupt closeup of Françoise Dorléac’s equally beautiful face as she utters the phrase. Her sensual delivery is the antithesis of the mechanical recitation we’ve heard from the computer, but both seem equally strange–off–for the Bard’s famous line. As soon as the line is delivered, we cut back from the closeup to the wide shot. What the hell just happened? Is it a dream? No, it isn’t, but the effect of Russell’s shrewd, almost experimental editing is that we’re as disoriented as Harry. He’s been plunged into an alien world at the bidding of a disembodied machine voice, and has no idea what’s going to happen next or who to trust. Neither do we. Russell’s discombobulating direction literalizes the themes of betrayal and dislocation in the totally solid but rather conventional script. Its one of the most interesting interpretations of the world of espionage I’ve ever seen on film. The first two Palmer movies had similarly byzantine plots and double-crosses, but we were outside observers. Now we’re as baffled as Harry is at every turn.

Russell maintains his vision of Finland as a weird, alien landscape, inside and out. Not only is Helsinki a terrific spy setting, but its so different from other European locations that it suits the director’s purposes perfectly. The outside is full of strange sculptures, unique architecture and interesting shapes, all blanketed in white snow. The interiors are equally bizarre, whether they’re steam rooms that hiss out warm air as you open the door or residences paneled in life-size artwork of nude women. Russell uses the artwork of his locations to punctuate the story he’s telling with great effect. Whether it’s the juxtaposition of beautiful, two-dimensional nudes cut in with quick shots of a grotesque, brutally murdered body, or the sudden appearance of the painted Finnish deity Väinämöinen serving as a stern reminder that men, in the world of espionage, are but pawns of larger, unfathomable entities, the ever-present wall art plays a crucial role in Russell’s storytelling.

Camera angles are important, too, as evidenced on Harry’s snowmobile ride to meet his next contact. Handheld shots and jarring angles collude with Richard Rodney Bennett’s remarkable, haunting score to further disorient Harry–and us. The first time I ever saw Billion Dollar Brain was on a terribly panned and scanned VHS, and it looked like a sloppy student film where the director had no idea where to place the camera. What a disservice that cropping did to Russell’s compositions! Years later, I was able to see the movie in its proper aspect ratio on the bigscreen (and eventually on DVD), and I was astounded at how different my reaction was. All of Russell’s angles and movements are meticulous, designed to evoke a very specific reaction in the viewer. In widescreen, it works brilliantly. In pan-and-scan, not at all. I actually had a similar experience with the first Harry Palmer movie, The Ipcress File, as well. Both films are masterpieces of widescreen composition that must be seen that way in order to be properly appreciated.

In Helsinki, Harry meets several other crucial characters. His first contact is Anya, played by Dorléac, whose ethereal beauty fits right in with the snowy landscape and haunting music. She’s like a figure from Nordic myth herself. (Dorléac, the sister of Catherine Deneuve, promised to be an extremely interesting talent, but her life was tragically cut short far too young when she was killed in a car accident shortly after filming Billion Dollar Brain.) Anya leads Harry to another contact, who’s revealed amidst the swirling steam of a sauna to be Harry’s old friend, Leo Newbigen (Karl Malden). Newbigen boasts that Harry is "the only real friend" he has in the whole world, but it’s clear from Harry’s reaction that even that status doesn’t earn his trust. Nor should it. In the course of his adventures, I think Harry Palmer is double-crossed at least once by just about everyone he ever meets. That’s certainly the case in this movie, but it doesn’t give anything away to know that. The real question is who is going to triple-cross or quadruple-cross who? Allegiances shift many times over the course of the film, and Harry knows he can’t rely on anyone but himself in order to survive.

Ross also turns up in Helsinki, and pulls Harry back into his service after all. Poor Harry could have had a raise, but instead he ends up blackmailed into serving his country once again. Returned to active duty as an agent of MI5, Harry is sworn in in the backseat of a moving limousine. Ross then proceeds to brief him as the car speeds along the icy streets. It’s another example of how Russell keeps the plot moving along–quite literally–at breakneck speed. (This scene prefigures M’s briefing of Bond in Tomorrow Never Dies nearly three decades later. Since that movie was so action-packed–even for 007–it was necessary to keep even the traditionally calm M and Moneypenny interactions as breakneck as possible, and director Roger Spottiswoode achieved the effect in the same manner as Russell, brilliantly keeping them on the move and setting the formulaic briefing in a speeding limo as opposed to a stationary office.)

As he careens along, Harry is resigned to his fate, but remains as flippant, cynical and insubordinate as ever. It’s a lot of fun to witness the horrible way that Ross treats him and that he treats Ross right back. Despite the gruffness on the surface, M harbors a paternal (or maternal, as the case may be) care for 007. Ross and Palmer, however, outright hate each other, and therein lies the fun of their interactions. At the end of the briefing, Ross gets the last jab in when he deposits Harry in the middle of nowhere, in the snow, suggesting that he can walk back from here and explaining that he has a plane to catch. Harry is very literally "in the cold," in one of many long shots of isolated figures on desolate white landscapes.

Leo takes Harry to "meet the boss," where Harry encounters a surprisingly small computer (for its day) in the middle of a very large, very empty room. It’s a Ken Adamish set, but actually designed by fellow Bond vet Syd Cain. We get more fantastically bizarre edits and disassociated audio: a conversation between Harry and Anya about some games being "more dangerous than others" occurs over violent footage of a hockey game; we then slam cut from one of the hockey confrontations to an extreme close-up of a virus culture in a microscope. The virus is what Harry unknowingly transported to Helsinki to begin with, and he can see it's part of a much larger plot, but can’t get a grasp on what that plot is.

The orders of the brain take Harry first across the border into Latvia, and then to Texas. In Latvia he encounters strange sights like Soviet soldiers on horseback charging through the woods in the light of a flare and peasants packed into a small house watching listening to the Beatles (the shots with Beatles music have unfortunately been cut from all DVD editions due to copyright issues, but can be watched on the Harry Palmer Movie Site) and eccentric characters. There’s the boisterous Col. Stok (Oscar Homolka, returning from Funeral In Berlin, jovial but still untrustworthy) and the nefarious Dr. Eiwort (From Russia With Love’s Vladek Shleybal, as slimy as ever). But nothing in Russia can prepare Harry for the even stranger sights and more eccentric characters he’ll encounter in Texas.

Gone are the wide shots of open scenery that characterized Finland; in Russell’s Texas everything is shot tightly, and all the exteriors take place at night. Sure, this is partly to mask the fact that they actually shot in Finland and clearly not in Texas, but it also creates a marked contrast between the two locations. Texas is claustrophobic, because whatever trap Harry’s gotten himself into, it’s clearly tightening on him there. Most of the Texan scenes take place inside the brain’s command center, where the giant, room-filling supercomputer spits out its orders. These interior locations add to the claustrophobia.

Leo is part of an anti-Communist group called the Crusade For Freedom Organization, run from America by a mad Texan general named Midwinter. Everyone is clad in cowboy duds and dances crazy line dances in a seemingly constant celebration on Midwinter’s ranch that falls somewhere between a ho-down and a Nazi rally. (The Nazi symbolism is unmistakable.) It would all play as wildly exaggerated if it were even possible to exaggerate Texas. But it’s not, and Ed Begley’s amazing, over-the-top performance (he could have just stepped out of Dr. Strangelove) is just the right degree of over-the-top for a fanatical Texan. The actor chews into long, entertaining monologues as he shares with Harry his deeply held personal convictions and burning hatred for Communism. Midwinter plans to invade Latvia with a vast private army with the ultimate goal of liberating the country from the Soviets. He believes, thanks to Leo, that there is a network of agents comprising a Latvian underground who will help in this operation. Harry’s not so sure. Is there such a network, or has Leo simply been pocketing all the cash Midwinter’s supplied for all of these supposed assets?

Midwinter’s plan, of course (though calculated by a billion dollar computer system) will have the same effect as Blofeld’s best: it will lead to WWIII. But unlike Blofeld, Midwinter is acting based on fanatical conviction, and truly believes that he is doing the right thing.

The action–and Harry–return to Finland where everything builds up to a truly impressive large scale climax. As I mentioned earlier, no Palmer movie before had ever gotten this big. The previous ones were small, more personal spy stories of traitors and defectors. But Billion Dollar Brain culminates in a whole army clad in white snow camouflage moving across the ice in white snow vehicles and a fleet of white troop transports disguised as tanker trucks. (They even have gun turrets on the top.) Things get very large indeed, and the fate of the world hangs in the balance. It may be a Bondian situation, but it doesn’t play out in a Bondian course. It’s just another unwanted assignment for Harry Palmer–one that’s gotten way, way out of hand.

We never do get that promised throwdown between Caine and the brain (although Malden proves adept at reprogramming it by shuffling around its carefully-ordered programming cards), but everything really comes together in this movie. The impressive locations (particularly the Finnish ones) are inexorably tied in to the unique camera movements, editing, score and sound design. And they’re all spot-on. Richard Rodney Bennet turns in one of his very best scores, ideally complimenting Russell’s cold, alien landscapes. Everything about this Cold War is cold, even the sex. Dorléac plays the icy temptress to the hilt, Malden shines in the most morally complex role, Begley lends the presence necessary to make a small part cast a large shadow and Caine navigates it all in his inimitable, cynical way. He’s not a James Bond. He’s not on top of things. Throughout the whole movie, he’s never on top of the situation. He’s an everyman spy and we share his perplexion as he does his best just to keep his head above water. The story plausibly builds from the small scale of the previous Palmers up to the grandiosity of James Bond via Dr. Strangelove, but Caine keeps things grounded the entire time.

This is a spy movie that takes its audience on a ride along with the hero, and it’s a ride well worth taking. Watching Billion Dollar Brain is an exhilarating, incredible experience, and credit for that experience must go not only to Russell and Caine, but also Bennett, cinematographer Billy Williams, editor Alan Osbiston and sound editor Ted Mason. All of their crafts converge perfectly to create a truly unique, must-see spy film.

Be sure to check out all the cool video that Kees has put up for this movie on The Harry Palmer Movie Site, including a vintage making-of featurette!

REPOST: DVD Review: Fantastic Argoman (1967)

Yeah, Man vs. Machine "Week" is still going on around here. This is probably the last repost, but there are still several new reviews to come. Anyway, this one's a pretty recent review, originally posted as part of Costumed Adventurer Week. But the movie features one of my favorite Eurospy robots (or "RO-buts"), so I couldn't resist reposting it as part of the COBRAS Man vs. Machine event. If you didn't read it the first time or want a refresher, read on for the original review. And if you did, I still recommend at least scrolling down and looking at those robot pictures! But remember: "It's not a pleasant fate to suffer at the hands of a robot!"

Argoman is a superhero very much of the Sixties Euro variety. Clearly, Argoman never had an Uncle Ben who died and taught him any lessons about great power and great responsibility. Argoman is gifted with great powers, but he uses them primarily to make his enemies kill each other and to force beautiful women to come to his island and have sex with him! (Exactly what most Eurospy heroes would do were they imbued with superpowers.) And when he uses them for good, he charges people (and governments) for his services! Examples of fees include Peter the Great’s snuff box (which he recognizes on sight), the Mona Lisa and other priceless treasures, all of which he uses to decorate his own impossibly mod pad.

Argoman’s powers allow him to make people do his bidding via psychic suggestion and to levitate objects (up to a certain size). His weakness (recounted in unapologetically blatant expositional conversation with his turban-wearing Indian manservant, Chandra–who looks a tad like Boris Karlof in The Wild Wild West) is that he loses his powers for six hours following any "rendezvous with a woman." And, being a Swinging Sixties sort of bachelor, Argoman likes rendevousing with women!

Argoman is, in reality, pipe-smoking playboy Sir Reginald Hoover (Eurospy star Roger Browne), a man of science and practitioner of PK, or psychokinesis. (Very trendy for 1967.) He’s seen by Scotland Yard (personified by the perpetually flustered Inspector Lawrence) as a "feather-brained fop," yet called on for his advice on any major crime. Lawrence explains to his constable assistant (who has a very strange cockney accent) that Sir Reginald was brought up in America, and therefore "lacks a British sense of duty." (And a British accent.)

As Argoman, Sir Reginald wears a rather silly (and, frankly, quite unflattering) getup of yellow and black spandex with a red cape, a black ski mask and red Geordi La Forge glasses. When he uses his psychic powers, his eyes glow from within the glasses. (It’s possible this image is inspired by Cyclops in the X-Men comics published by Marvel.) Without the ability to fly or swing from webs, Argoman is prone to leaping, prancing and flouncing about in his costume. And he runs like a girl. It’s quite a sight. I’m not quite sure why Browne decided to wave his arms about whilst running, but perhaps he felt it the only natural thing to do when one is wearing tights. Or perhaps he thought it looked more heroic. Whatever the reason, it reminded me of Misty Mundae as Spiderbabe in the low budget Skinimax parody of Spider-man. (Come on, you know you’ve seen it!) Like Miss Mundae, Browne certainly displays an unbridled enthusiasm for running around in such a manner.

Batman may be a caped crusader who masquerades as a wealthy playboy to protect his alter ego, but Argoman is the opposite. He is a wealthy playboy (and an unapologetic one at that!) who enjoys being a wealthy playboy and who dons a mask and costume for a lark. He spends the better part of the first half of the movie in his Sir Reginald persona rather than his Argoman one. As Sir Reginald, Browne is indistinguishable from any other cad of a Eurospy hero. Bored, he selects a woman from his virtual "little black book" (it’s a video screen!) and invites her over to his private island. But then he gets tired of waiting, so he goes out to the beach and uses his super-vision to scan for a nearer chick. He sees a beautiful woman (Secret Agent Fireball’s Dominique Boschero) out for a ride in her hovercraft (a frequent sight in the Sixties, no doubt) and psychically commands her to "come to the beach." After reeling her in like a fish, he challenges her to a fixed game involving bows and arrows. If she wins, she "gets to leave!" (And she gets a Rolls Royce and some emeralds.) If he wins... he pushes a button and a door opens revealing a swinging bed. (And I don’t mean "swinging" in the typical Sixties sense–although that does apply; I mean it in the very literal sense in that it is suspended from the ceiling by four cables. That's the way Argoman rolls.)

Meanwhile, the Crown Jewels have been stolen. Inspector Lawrence assures the Home Secretary that they’ll get another crown in time for the next coronation, and immediately suspects Argoman of the crime. Not that unfairly, really, because stealing the Crown Jewels does seem to be the sort of thing Argoman would get up to. Before Argoman can be arrested, however, the crown is suddenly returned with a note signed by Jenabelle, the Queen of the World. (Yes, that’s how she signs her notes.) The theft was merely a demonstration of her power. Now she wants the mysterious "Mordof R4" (or Marduf R4 or Morudof R4 or Mordoof R4 depending on who’s pronouncing it) in exchange for... something. For not doing something worse, I guess. What, exactly, the Mordof R4 is is anyone’s guess, though we’re treated to one of those great Eurospy demonstrations of power in which it is apparently shown to have the ability to turn a Franc coin chewy. Who knew?

Even a note from the Queen of the World herself isn’t quite enough to convince Inspector Lawrence of Argoman’s innocence in the Crown Jewels affair; he briefly mulls the idea that Argoman and Jenabelle are one and the same. (Now that would be an interesting twist!) Even while suspecting Argoman, Lawrence turns to his alter ego (oh, the irony!) for advice. When Sir Reginald is sent on a mission meant for a Scotland Yard man or "man of action" (something Inspector Lawrence can’t comprehend this layabout being), he’s instructed to make himself recognizable by wearing a black bowler with a tweed checked suit. Mindful of this foppish aristocrat’s safety, the police ask if there’s anything he objects to. He says yes: "having to wear a tweed suit with a black bowler hat!" He might wear a yellow jumpsuit that makes him look like he’s got a paunch as Argoman, but as Sir Reginald he’s just as much of a sartorial snob as any of his better off secret agent counterparts.

Anyway, Sir Reginald is captured and the self-proclaimed Queen of the World, who turns out to be none other than the beautiful woman he picked up on her hovercraft earlier! If only he’d bothered to ask for her name amidst their lovemaking, he might have realized that there probably aren’t too many Jenabelles in the phonebook... or the world. Oh well. She quickly deduces his secret identity, so he tears off his checked suit revealing his Argoman costume underneath. Easier to operate that way, I suppose.

Jenabelle is quite the dedicated follower of fashion herself. She wears a different outfit in every scene of the movie, each one more outlandish than the last. She’s also prone to wearing rather ridiculous hats! (My favorite one looks like a potted plant sitting on her head.)

Argoman’s clearly had enough of her and her hats, so he naturally refuses when she makes the inevitable offer for him to join her as her consort. Prepared for this rejection, Jenabelle reveals that she’s captured his other girlfriend, Samantha. (The one he called and got tired of waiting for.) She reveals a video screen showing Samantha being tormented by a monstrous robot. It’s not quite clear what the metal brute is doing to her, but Jenabelle assures us that "it’s not a pleasant fate to suffer at the hands of a robot." Best of all, she pronounces it "RO-but," like Dr. Zoidberg on Futurama.

"Your instincts are diabolic!" snarls Argoman.

Jenabelle leaves Argoman in a fiendish trap and goes off to talk to her giant ray. I’m not really sure what variety of ray it is, but I’ll assume that its purpose is destructive, and it probably depends on the Marduf to operate. Whatever the case, Jenabelle loves her ray machine. "You alone make it possible that I accomplish all I dreamt I would do," she coos to it, stroking its metal plating. "You, with your mysterious absorption of cosmic light. We’ll produce... what no ruler in the world has ever had! As many loyal automatons to manipulate as I please. I’m ready to proceed!" So that’s what it does! (I guess.)

"Start the ray compressor!" commands a henchman.

Argoman does get to perform some everyday superheroics while on the track of the Marduf, like saving a runaway train by flouncing atop it and using his psychic powers to change a switch. Detracting just a little from the derring-do, Argoman always looks vaguely confused when flouncing about in his costume.

By the time he catches up to Jenabelle, she’s dressed like some sort of Techno-Medusa in a silver lame tunic and matching headgear with metallic snaky bits protruding from it. She’s also got a three-barreled pistol that looks like something Samuel L. Jackson would wield in The Spirit.
Will Argoman manage to save the world, and defeat its ill-meaning Queen? I won’t say, but you can probably guess. Once all the dust has settled, Argoman’s at least cleared of all wrongdoing, but immediately steals a government motorcycle, claiming it as his prize. Is he a hero or is he a criminal? "Half and half," decides Inspector Lawrence, as he orders his men to give chase. It’s a very apropos conclusion on the Inspector’s part. All European costumed adventurers from the Sixties appear to be half and half, and that’s what makes them interesting. (I suppose the same could be said for all the deeply flawed Eurospy heroes, ostensibly on the side of good but always being total jerks about it.) A general rule of thumb in case you come across a masked man while traversing Europe in the Sixties: if he’s wearing bright yellow or red spandex–or any sort of cape–then the hero half probably prevails. If he’s dressed all in black, however, or looks remotely like Diabolik, then he’s probably slightly more criminal than hero.

Fantastic Argoman is a deliriously entertaining movie, powered by game performances, an enthusiastic effects department and a terrific score by the great Piero Umiliani. The Region 1 DVD, courtesy of a company called Substance, is probably marginal in its legality and definitely marginal in its print quality. Despite the scratchiness of the print and the iffyness of the transfer, however, it does appear to be anamorphic... though you may have to alter the settings on your player to achieve the correct aspect ratio. On regular TVs, it will show up as slightly letterboxed and somewhat squished. Who cares. The movie is so much fun that I’m just glad to have it at all. And there's good news for fans: Dorado Films (every bit as fantastic as the Fantastic Argoman himself) plans to release a legitimate, widescreen version later this spring! (But they need some help with it.) Based on their Eurospy titles, I'm betting this will be much higher quality, so hold out for this one. I can't wait!