Alerta, alta tensión

Made at a time when imitation James Bonds frequently appeared in the world's cinemas, this minor but amusing Mexican entry in that cycle features a lot of the usual Bondisms from the 1960s: evil women in beehive hairdos, go-go dancers in gold boots, men in narrow neckties, a criminal mastermind in a motorized chair, fast cars, flying bullets, elaborate gadgetry, a ladies-man of a hero who -- with the punch of a button -- can play seductive music in his bedroom, etc.

Jorge Rivero, about 30 years old and at his physical peak, makes a handsome leading man and the movie isn't shy about spotlighting his physical attributes. Less than five minutes after the movie starts, he's stripped off his shirt for a romp in an over-sized tub with a couple of eye-candy babes. He's later seen, again stripped to the waist, for a torture-chamber scene in which he's flogged across the back. This flogging ranks 12th in the book, "Lash! The Hundred Great Scenes of Men Being Whipped in the Movies." As usual in Bond movies, the female parts tend to be interchangeable and many details of the plot remain obscure, but this still remains a passable diversion.

Handsome boy this Jorge Rivero, even more than Sean Connery. As an actor, this is debatable. With him in the movie, three beautiful women, one sexier than the other: Lilia Castillo, Claudia Islas and Alma Delia Fuentes. The movie is not great but not bad either. Made with little money (obviously considering the sets) but with a lot of passion, it manages not to be boring, although the story is predictable and trivial. Seen on YouTube originally spoken in Spanish and, although I'm not fluent in the beautiful language of Cervantes, I understood everything, the dialogues being simple. Cool scene when Jorge Rubio (Jorge Rivero), after failing to eat a fried chicken, having both hands handcuffed, makes love with Ana (Lilia Castillo), who is also the sexiest of the three beauties that appear in the movie.

This cheap, late Mexican entry in the Bond imitation game has very limited resources but knows how to use them well enough to be passably entertaining, though far from "good." It gets around the need for elaborate action sequences, sets and gadgets it can't afford by having the hero spend most of his time kidnapped by a mad scientist type (who looks like Dr. Evil), so the movie spends a lot of ITS time trapped in a lair where the hero is tortured, whipped, and cloned (yes, he gets an evil twin, though that isn't as much fun as usual). Nonetheless, women keep turning up to throw themselves at him, and there's the occasional fistfight or shootout to provide a minimum of excitement.

What this movie has is the usual escapist spy-flick array of attractive (well, mostly--some are testimonies to a different era's standards for beauty) women sporting lots of big hairdos and thick makeup. But mostly what it's got is Jorge Rivero, who made up in physical attributes whatever he lacked in personality, and the movie knows it--within minutes he's cavorting in a hot tub, and there other, later opportunities for him to doff shirt and show off his exceptional physique. So, a low-budget, bottom-of-the-bill adventure that isn't terrible but really only squeaks by to a status of "adequate" on the strengths of its cheesecake and beefcake factors. Nothing wrong with that.

LatinSpy with Jorge Rivero

The success of the James Bond series since the beginning of the 1960s gave rise to numerous copycat productions in the Roman-European film industry, which were referred to as EuroSpy. German-language film production also sent the smart Tony Kendall and the muscular Brad Harris to this terrain as part of the Inspector X series. Of course, an established film country like Mexico couldn't stand back.

With the bodybuilder Jorge Rivero, born in 1938, we had an extremely attractive leading actor who cuts an excellent figure in fist fights as well as in the bubble bath with three busty playmates. The adventures of secret agent Jorge Rubio are not particularly exciting as they offer little that is new to the spy genre. What is interesting, however, is that Rubio gets an opponent who has exactly his features thanks to facial surgery. Lead actor Jorge Rivero essentially has to fight against himself in the big finale.

Sympathetic agent infusion with a Mexican James Bond that is worth seeing!

P. S.: In English the title means something like: "Attention, high voltage!" The name is program! ;-)