Zeta One (1975)

Surely one of the most tatty, inept, and certainly most bonkers productions from a British studio since 'Fire Maidens From Outer Space' over a dozen years previously, it seems Zeta One was originally planned on a considerably more ambitious scale, only to soon run into financial trouble.John Hamilton, Tony Tenser's indispensable chronicler, reveals that construction work on the studio had still not been completed during shooting. James Robertson Justice didn't have a proper dressing room and understandably was not pleased. Not in the best of health following a stroke the year before, he made sure he was out of the mess at the first opportunity. Anyhow he's completely wrong, and not in any good way, as the sadistic Major Bourdon. They'd have done better to have cast the amazonian Nita Lorraine, the 'Angvian' failing to keep a straight face in the fight scene (and briefly memorable wielding a whip in 'Curse Of The Crimson Altar') as Zeta's adversary, or to take it to a further stage of silliness, Rita Webb, who puts in an appearance as a bus conductor with Charles Hawtrey in a scene that misses a chance to be funnier.Robin Hawdon's James Word, so called apparently so they could use a hilarious tag-line on the lines of 'His Word is our Bond' and whose main activity seems to be confined to between the sheets, only function is to attempt to make sense of what passes for the narrative. Mission impossible. One flashback confusingly ends with him in bed with one of the Angvians before switching to him in the same bed with Yutte Stensgaard, as part of the framing device. A typically inane scene toward the end sees him drive up to a field, go through a hedge and then wander around, then back to the car for some waterproofs. And that's it. Meanwhile Dawn Addams' Zeta remains a peripheral figure throughout.At least Zeta can boast Johnny Hawksworth's jazzy, driving opening score, and the costume department made delightful use of their minuscule budget on the wigs and outfits, if that is the word, of Zeta's followers: Valerie Leon, for one, can rarely have looked more alluring. Anyhow, once the deadly tedious opening sequence was out of the way, it was more fun than the laboured attempts at humour of Joe Losey's infinitely more prestigious 'swinging sixties' spoof, Modesty Blaise, which I also watched recently.

This is one of those "so bad, it's good" movies that you encounter from time to time. Admittedly, it doesn't start 0ff very promisingly, but it gradually gets down - or rather gets off - to business, although the "business" is periodically interrupted by Charles Hawtrey (presumably he was not required on the "Carry On" set that day) and James Robertson Justice (obviously not one to rest on his laurels but willing to pick up any assignment, no matter how trite!) Despite the delightful abundance of feminine flesh, the screenplay doesn't make much sense - indeed some of the scenes - as well as some of the actors - seem to be playing against each other. I watched the movie twice - in case I'd fallen asleep and missed something (I do like to be thorough) - but it still didn't make much in the way of sense. At least I'm not alone. Obviously both the movie's barber and its dress designer did not have a clue either as to which scenes were which and who was wearing what! Available on a very good Salvation DVD. (You heard me!)

I believe I first became aware of this sci-fi/sexploitationer via the biography for actress Valerie Leon included among the extras on the Anchor Bay DVD of Hammer's superior BLOOD FROM THE MUMMY'S TOMB (1971); incidentally, the film under review was made by rival company Tigon.To begin with, the script was apparently inspired by a comic strip (such cinematic adaptations were all the rage at the time – no doubt, the makers were encouraged by the success of BARBARELLA [1968]). Still, even reading through the cast list, I knew not to raise my 'artistic' hopes too highly – given that it featured both James Robertson-Justice and Charles Hawtrey, stalwarts of (respectively) the popular "Doctor" and "Carry On" comedy franchises…who actually turn out to be the villains of the piece!! The narrative drew heavily on another then-current fad i.e. espionage – in fact, the hero is a stud-like albeit laid-back secret agent who naturally proves irresistible to the alien women (actually, an alternate moniker for the film) the titular figure (played by veteran Dawn Addams) sends his way in order to derail his investigation into the abduction of several earth girls.That said, the plot is barely there and becomes especially confusing – not to say silly – during the latter stages; for what it's worth, the film culminates in a chase wherein the otherworldly gals kill virtually all of their male pursuers simply by pointing their fingers at them (accompanied by the incongruous noise of gunshots)!! Needless to say, ZETA ONE's raison d'etre and prime asset is its relentless parade of innumerable but anonymous starlets of the era in the nude or otherwise scantily-clad: the above-mentioned Valerie Leon herself is underused, but fellow future Hammer lead Yutte Stensgaard – who engages the hero (to whom he's recounting his non-exploits) in a lengthy and decidedly irrelevant game of strip-poker – comes off quite well (no pun intended). Also worth mentioning are the low-budget but appropriately psychedelic sets and the title tune (featuring a reasonably effective guitar riff).

Most of the time, when you watch a film, you think about the film itself, the narrative, the people in it, the cinematography etc. In this case, you spend half the time wondering what the film-makers were trying to do. It really is worth emphasising what a weirdie this one is. Weird in a bad way.It is incredibly disjointed. The stars remain completely separated. James Robertson Justice and Charles Hawtrey are in one lot of scenes. Robin Hawdon sans moustache and Yutte Stensgaard are in another lot. RH avec moustache is in a third lot, and Dawn Addams appears in a fourth. There is no overlap between these. The opening twenty minutes with the charisma-free Hawdon & dear old Yutte playing strip poker are so excruciatingly dull that you wonder how many people lasted the course in the days before fast forward buttons. Or maybe pause buttons.Of course the story is intended to be quirky, and the makers were obviously going for a Barbarella-type vibe. OK, but this one is downright strange. Some of the odd bits include: a completely unmotivated dialogue between James Word and a grumpy lift; the bizarre incident of James Word's moustache, revealed as false in the opening scene; overdubs of Major Bourdon's added dialogue, which sound nothing like James Robertson Justice, but passably like Basil Brush; James Word being fed an aphrodisiac diet of oysters and what appears to be Mackeson Stout; the British secret service employing an American boss and a Scandinavian secretary; the mystery of why Charles Hawtrey's bottom is bitten by one of his own dogs.Other commentators have unpicked the relationships between the various bits of the film - it looks like the Justice/Hawtrey scenes were shot first, and then the Hawdon/moustache scenes shot to make sense of them, and then the Hawdon/no moustache scenes shot to make sense of them. Stensgaard's lines about what rubbish it all is are clearly a tongue-in-cheek admission of the blindingly obvious. Naturally, the whole thing is a thin excuse for some girlie nudity (and that also is laid on thicker in the scenes shot later, as if they realised that nudity would be the film's only saving grace). The basic idea of topless aliens invading Earth is a very amusing one. But given the cast there really is no excuse for making such an awful picture.The nadir of the film is the jokey kidnap-and-torture sequence about half way through. Not erotic, just a gigantic lapse of taste, unredeemed by the reappearance of the kidnapped girl towards the end. That is the problem with this film in its most egregious aspect - it is just not likable enough.