Dr. Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs (1966)

The first movie was not what I call a good movie, but it did have a certain campiness and fun to it. This sequel however is just a weird mess in almost every way. The only redeeming qualities were the beautiful girls and especially Vincent Price's more expanded and deliciously arch performance. In regard to Price, Dr Gooldfoot and the Girl Bombs is arguably his worst film(though Green Hell and Story of Mankind are just as poor as well) but he being Price looks as though he was at least he was enjoying himself, though I read somewhere that that wasn't the case. Nothing else however works. The production values look as though that each one came from different films altogether, and it looks cheap, further disadvantaged by some very haphazard editing. In regards to the score, I am going to take a guess and say that the film at some point was re-scored. If that was the case, it didn't work as the music doesn't fit the film at all. The script is poor, with the comedy very ill-judged and everything else has a very overly-corny tone. The story feels padded, and has nothing surprising or exciting. Mario Bava's direction indicates that he was completely out of his depth, because he directs as though he didn't have a clue of what he was doing. Apart from Price, the acting is terrible. Fabian is really bland and looks lost, but what truly sinks Dr Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs is the double act Ciccio and Franco, mugging and grimacing with no charm, genuine comic timing or grace whatsoever. The pratfalls they do here are also hopelessly contrived. All in all, a weird and disappointingly messy film that makes the heavily flawed but somewhat entertaining first film look like Citizen Kane. 2/10 Bethany Cox

My wife will be happy to tell you that I watch a lot of bad movies, but usually in the genre of "so bad that they're good." The first movie in this series fell into that category, but this sequel moved the "bad" needle way past the "camp" point to the point of no return.The plot is paper-thin, the dubbing is awful, the sets, rear projections, models, and special effects are grade-school level, and most of the actors are unbearable. The "funny" Italian duo (who I guess were big Italian stars...the short one reminds me vaguely of Larry Storch) never even APPROACH funny, especially with their dubbed voices. (Why do bad movies like this always use voice actors who use cartoon voices rather than normal speech?) You know the movie is in trouble when the director calls for sped-up action (a la Benny Hill).Vincent Price, who would do anything for money, floats above the cesspool to some degree, especially when he's hamming it up straight to the camera. The other saving feature is Les Baxter's generic 60s score, with whiffs of the Tijuana Brass. If you survive to the end, you'll hear one of the worst closing themes since "The Green Slime."

Dr. Goldfoot (Vincent Price) has a new plan for world domination: he is going to send beautiful women after military men... except that when kissed, these women explode! He has also relocated to Italy, though this does nothing to stop SIC from tracking him down.You can read pretty much any review or look at the rating on IMDb and you will get the idea that this is a bad film. Now, I do not think it is as bad as most people do, but I do accept a number of things: it is not as funny, the continuity from the first film makes little sense, Goldfoot keeps breaking the fourth wall for some reason, and Mario Bava is better than this.Really, all you have is everything from the first film toned down a few notches. And as much as I enjoyed the first one, it is not really what one might call a great film. What made it work (besides Price) was Susan Hart, so without her the sequel was not going to be as good no matter what you did. Throwing in two bungling, unfunny Italian comics does not make it okay.Troy Howarth has written a fine overview of the film (which he rightly calls "a mess") and reviewed it. His words are worth quoting. With regards to Price, Howarth thinks "this sort of material is quite beneath his talents. All told, this film represents an all-time low for both Price and Bava." I am inclined to agree.According to Howarth, Bava "had no enthusiasm for the project and tried to pull out of it" but he was "under contract for one more film". The biggest problem, among many, was that the project "was to be edited into two completely different films" and the "American version, widely hailed as a bomb, is not the work of Mario Bava, as it was re-written, re-scored and re-edited without his participation". I have not seen the Italian version, but it is not rumored to be any better.If you liked the first Goldfoot, I would recommend giving this one a chance, as long as you are aware that the American version is a sequel to this while the Italian version is a sequel to an Italian film, and both were cut from the same film. Despite all this it still makes sense, but the quality is understandably bad.

The 1960's produced a lot of silly movies. This is one of the farces that centers around girls in bikinis. It has its moments that are just plain silly, like its segment that resembles the silent movies. But I consider it a nice little piece of cheese.