Greenes
Please don't spend money on this.
CommentsXp
Best movie ever!
Teringer
An Exercise In Nonsense
arfdawg-1
The Plot. A U.S. agent goes undercover as a rich playboy to stop a madman from destroying a NASA moon project. I saw this under the title of Lightning Bolt.Made in Italy and Spain, this 1966 movie takes it's plot from the James Bond / spy craze of the 60s, with a bit of NASA space work thrown in to make it interesting.It is by no means a great movie, however I can see how this could be fun as a midnite grind-house screening. It's wide screen and technicolor and there are relatively decent special effects. There's also some fun 60's misogyny.What brings the experience down a notch is that it seems like the whole movie is dubbed even though they are speaking English. It gives the film a cheaper feeling.A lot of the sets look very Bond-ish. The acting and directing is a few notches above most cheap-o Italian movies. Although it's a bit slow paced.
Leofwine_draca
A cheap but cheerful Italian/Spanish co-production which mixes sci-fi staples in with a "spy" plot involving a Bond-like playboy /secret agent. Apparently these movies were all the rage in Italy back in the mid-'60s as just about every studio jumped on the bandwagon to make their own James Bond rip-off. LIGHTNING BOLT is a film severely lacking in budget which struggles in places to make ends meet, but ends up being a thoroughly entertaining little movie in it's own right. One word of advice, though: all of this film's budget is saved for the finale, meaning that the first two-thirds are a little too low budget and slow. Stick with it, as you won't be disappointed by the action-packed ending.The film begins - as a lot of these movies do - with some copious use of stock footage showing a space shuttle exploding. Apparently it has been sabotaged by a hidden criminal who uses false science to send radio waves which send the shuttles off their target, causing them to be automatically destroyed (the explanation is a little hazy for good reason!). In order to discover the source of the radio wave, the government sends in a scientist and a diver to investigate, as the signal is coming from underwater. In a confusing sequence, their boat explodes, apparently killing the pair of them.It is at this point that we are introduced to the two heroes of the film: special agents Harry Sennet and Captain Patricia Flanagan. Sennet is masquerading as a rich playboy, which means that he has lots of scenes where he makes sexist remarks and checks out an assortment of bikini-clad bathing beauties. Flanagan is supposedly a tough female agent who broke somebody's spine once, but here she's just a weak, woman-in-peril type character who makes loads of mistakes (see later). After some lounging around, Sennet finds himself being attacked by a man at his house; after a brief tussle the intruder is gunned down by a female assassin! Action ensues including unlikely water traps and larking about in flashy red sports cars. Some of Antonio Margheriti's trademark miniature effects work are present in the form of an exploring car scene. Sennet must battle loads of bad guys in a warehouse, where they try to crush him with fork-lift trucks (!) and engage in some exciting shootouts. Luckily he has a gas-emitting pen to use on the bad guys, but sadly this doesn't stop him being captured. He's bundled into a capsule and taken to the underwater base, which is where the film's rather good conclusion takes place.This underwater base has some great, science-fiction inspired set design, and wonders are worked on the small budget. Even the bad guys have funny black suits and balaclavas to give them that extra weird, kitsch look. The locations are expansive, cavernous even, and look pretty expensive. The only clue to the film's budget is that we only see the base briefly from the outside, but otherwise you wouldn't guess! The baddie - Retke - also has a cool cold storage locker where he keeps various people in suspended animation! Sennet himself is nearly frozen before he manages to escape, and from here on he battles guard after guard before going one-on-one against Retke.This section of the film is the best, and thoroughly entertaining. Sennet must battle at least thirty guards in this segment, and some have cool deaths like electrocution, falling on generators and exploding, etc etc. At the very end, there's suddenly a flood of unexplained lava as the base is destroyed, the bad guy gets his just desserts and Sennet manages to escape on the same capsule he arrived in, just in time to get the girl in the (very) cheesy conclusion which apes the Bond films no end.Anthony Eisley has a ball as Harry Sennet, the film's answer to James Bond. He mugs for all his worth and seems to be really enjoying himself, and his good spirit rubs off; I'm looking forward to seeing more of the actor's work on the strength of his performance here. Folco Lulli hams it up as the Blofeld-like baddie, and the various females supply sufficient '60s-style glamour for the production (the box I have claims that Ursula Andress stars: I can confirm that this is a downright lie!). The direction of Antonio Margheriti is okay to good; at times the film suffers from the Italian curse of extreme close-ups (at one point of somebody's cheek!) but for the majority he keeps things pacy and looking good.Margheriti also gets the opportunity to throw in his trademark horror scene in which the frozen victims are burnt alive, leaving lots of grim skeletons behind! The music is a fun jazzy theme which sets the scene well; the miniature effects are worthwhile and the various gadgets a lot of fun. Not to mention Eisley's assured performance as the heroic, wisecracking lead. Although only a cheap rip-off, forgotten to the modern audience, LIGHTNING BOLT is a FUN cheap rip-off and that's what counts in my humble opinion. A must-see for Euro-spy fans!
Wizard-8
It's pretty obvious that the Italian makers of "Lightning Bolt" were trying to emulate the James Bond movies, but this imitation falls considerably short. That's not to say that everything about the movie is terrible. It looks pretty good, for one thing, with it being well shot as well as boasting some very impressive sets. And the climatic sequence does have a little excitement and suspense. Unfortunately, the rest of the movie leading up to that climatic sequence will have long put many viewers to sleep. There isn't a terrible amount of action in the movie as a whole, and what action there is is mostly flat. Another problem with the movie is with the characters. The hero is a somewhat smug and annoying lead, while the chief bad guy is one you've seen in dozens of mediocre movies before this one. The movie as a whole lacks spark; even Riz Ortolani can't muster the enthusiasm to compose a flashy musical score! Still, despite the flat nature of the movie, it is sort of watchable all the same. I will admit I have seen James Bond clones worse than this effort.
Woodyanders
The immense success of the James Bond movies in the 60's not surprisingly beget a slew of entertainingly campy cheapo cash-in copies. This tongue-in-cheek Italian romp might very well be one of the silliest of the whole lot. Diabolical madman Rether (a deliciously wicked Folco Lulli) sabotages all the U.S. moon-bound rocket launches from his secret underwater lair near Cape Kennedy. It's up to suave, handsome Lt. Harry Sennet (amiable Anthony Eisley) and sassy'n'sexy Captain Patricia Flanagan (lovely Diana Lorys) to stop the nefarious Rether. Director Antonio Margheriti and screenwriters J.C. Balcazar and Jose Antonio de la Loma cram this baby with all the right wacky stuff to make this film qualify as an endearingly goofy hoot: we've got leering sexism (Sennet's snide comments about women certainly wouldn't make him a hit with the feminists), a light, frothy tone, a groovy swinging lounge score by Riz Ortolani, lovably rinky-dink miniatures, dippy sound effects, a bevy of beautiful babes (besides Lorys, there's also the luscious Luisa Rivelli and the delectable Wandisa Guida), polished widescreen cinematography by Riccardo Pallottini, tacky gimmicks galore (one villainess sports a water pistol that shoots acid!), laughably lousy dubbing, funky pop-art sets (Rether's underwater lair is very cool), clumsily staged action scenes, and, of course, the inevitable explosive conclusion. Granted, this movie is complete asinine nonsense, but you can't be too hard on a flick in which the main bad guy sells beer on the side and puts his enemies in a frozen state of suspended animation. An infectiously inane riot.
