Danger!! Death Ray (1967)

Oh, those Italians and their James Bond rip-offs! While they sometimes have a bit of charm or interest to them, usually they're dull and lifeless. That's certainly the case with Danger! Death Ray. The muddled plot centers on a group of baddies kidnapping a scientist who has developed a "death ray". It's up to secret agent Bart Fargo to rescue the scientist, bust-up the group of bad guys, and, presumably, save mankind.The problem with most of the James Bond rip-offs is a lack of money. The locations and sets in Danger! Death Ray cannot compete with the extravagant places visited by James Bond. You need money to film in those locations. The special effects are laughable. The submarine and helicopter scene was obviously filmed in a bathtub. Again, you need money for special effects. Add to that an incoherent plot, bad acting, poor dubbing, unimaginative cinematography, and uninteresting characters and you've got one bad movie. Finally, what kind of name is Bart Fargo! You can't take someone with a name like Bart Fargo very seriously. Say the name five times and see what happens.I should point out that it's not all terrible. Danger! Death Ray does feature quite a snappy musical score. Even though it was endlessly repeated throughout the movie, the title theme is pure 60s fun. And, despite the film's many flaws, it's still a reasonably entertaining experience. And as I continually repeat, isn't entertainment what it's all about? A very enthusiastic 5/10.

And here we have yet another cheesy Italian knock-off of the spy film genre, trying to capitalize on the 60's popularity of the Bond films. Our super agent, one Bart Fargo by name, is a bland layabout loser, who'd rather be sleeping than out saving the world from bumbling super villains. Smart man, actually, but it doesn't make for very good cinema to watch Bart lounge around his various hotel rooms for at least half of the movie.Bart's boss is a morose, whiny guy with a thoroughly festive racist attitude and an extreme dislike for Bart(not surprising, really). He summons Bart from his perpetual snoozing and has him dragged to the office by two pretty girls(who rough him up a bit, but what female wouldn't want to?). There, he tells Bart his next assignment is to retrieve a scientist who's built a 'peaceful death ray'. Huh? The scientist was kidnapped at the opening of the film by several accountants in a huge car, set to a bouncy tune that gets on your nerves after about the first five minutes of endless repetition. The accountants haul the good doctor off to a toy helicopter stolen from a Godzilla set, then transfer him to a model submarine swiped from the Godzilla vs. the Sea Monster set. They then blow up the toy helicopter, like a five year old gleefully setting off a bottle rocket.So Bart's mission seems to be accomplished by his flying off to yet another vaguely European city and lounging in a different hotel room. the bad guy's thugs conveniently come to him, so there's a set of lame fight scenes in the hideous 60's hotel room. At one time Abe Lincoln uses a time machine to hunt down Bart and try to kill him, maybe because Bart resembles John Wilkes Boothe. There's an amazingly slow car chase, in which Bart shows what a useless super spy he is. I mean, did he really think that the thugs wouldn't notice the candy red sports car practically kissing their bumper? And then Bart demonstrates how incompetent he is, letting the thugs drive the car over the cliff. In an unforeseen tragedy, Bart was not in the car at the time.Bart saves one of the thug's lives, so the guy helps him find the lair of the super(or not so super, really)villain. It looks like a badly decorated bordello, with wall mounted machine guns. Wow, this madame REALLY likes to discourage bad customers. Like Bart, I'm sure. Anyhoo, the bad guy buddy gets fragged, and Bart rushes in to save the girl and the idiot scientist(I mean, a peaceful death ray?! come on, man!) and kills the tepid villain. The 'death ray' causes a lot of wallboard and plaster to fall on their heads, and then there's a scene in yet ANOTHER hotel room of Bart and the red-haired artist chick he saved from 'certain death'. There's a final scene where our hero chucks a talking watch out the window to avoid talking to yet another one of his girlfriends, his bosses' secretary. Was it a Timex? And did it signal the wasted hour and a half that we spent watching this dud? We'll never know.

This spy shlocker isn't that bad. Sure, the acting isn't anything to brag about or the excitement (yawn!) of guys showcasing their butts climbing down ladders. Definitely Gordon Scott is for the ladies, but he actually does a decent job. Bart Fargo (Bart Fargo, Bart Fargo, Bart Fargo!!) has got to be the most hilarious spy name ever. How can you introduce yourself as "My name is Fargo...Bart Fargo." HA HA HA!!There's also Abe Lincoln turned wrong, European guys, cool box switches, and the best special effects ever. I was fondly reminded of Matchbox and simulated naval tub warfare (Das Toy Boat) and it always gets me laughing (Special effects by Billy!). Plus, the best soundtrack ever with the "Bap-Bah-Dap-Bah-Dah-Dah" being grinded into your skull, but it's really fun to hum along with! A great tribute to Watermelon Man just adds to the kampy fun of it. Even the actors look like they know the movie wasn't that good, so there's ham a plenty to go around.Plus, watch this MSTified and see Mike and the bots really bust their guts laughing. They really loved the helicopter scene too!"The ocean is beautiful in this part of the tub."

It's cheap. You can see, that the studio is dirty like nothing else. There's nearly no light. But that a point, why that movie is so funny. It's all dirty and dark. That fits to the story. The German version has a good dubbing. The agent's name isn't Bart Fargo here, it's Mike Morris and his german voice is the german voice of Sean Connery and George Lazenby in the James Bond-movies, too! On my opinion it's one of the best european James Bond-copies of the sixties...