Operazione Goldman

Shot in Rome,usually known in the English speaking world as "Lightning Bolt"(so like "Thunderball"!),this movie is an especially tacky example of the Euro-Superspy genre of the 1960's.Often these movies starred second string American actors to help US sales-and this has Anthony Eisley(best known as a lead in the TV detective series "Hawaiian Eye"),who spent a lot of his career in such Euro schlock.Handsome,tough looking and businesslike,Eisley was suitable for these kinds of roles,but here he is immersed in a distinctly third rate "Bond" caper.The story has elements from "Dr No"(villain who shoots down US moon rockets-cue the grainy stock footage of Cape Kennedy which fills the movie),but here the tale is clumsily developed and full of absurdities.The villain,vaguely resembles Goldfinger,and is-wait for it-a fiendish beer manufacturer,just like the villain in the Matt Helm movie "The Ambushers"(1967).Eisley's hero "Harry Sennet" at times acts with incredible stupidity.He drives right on to a rocket launch site to try and stop it leaving-just as it blasts off!In another unprofessional moment,Sennet,captured and surrounded by thugs,goes into a rage and tries to attack the gloating villain,when it's obvious he will fail and just gets more battering from the bad guys for his trouble-007 would be appalled!And here is a hero who more than once tries to "buy off" enemies by offering them cheques!(a wonderfully absurd scene has him doing a cheque for a gunman who's ready to shoot him!). The English dubbing is clear but often incongruous(a renowned rocket scientist who speaks in a "Barry Fitzgerald" Irish burr?).To try to make the narrative more coherent,we have Sennet providing a frequently cornball "tough guy" voice-over at certain points.

I did quite like the villainess with an acid squirting gun,and the "underwater city" hideout has a certain threadbare pop art mid 60's charm(with its ice-chamber where the villain stores his frozen victims).The final action and destruction scenes are far better done than the rest of the movie,the director seems more at home with fighting/mayhem than other aspects of film making.

There are a lot of better examples of 60's Eurospy out there,but "Lightning Bolt" is tolerable if you are interested in the genre.

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.

Anthony Eisley is cast as Harry Sennet, a top secret agent who goes into action to foil a bad guy who keeps interfering with rocket launches, using a weapon that he somehow managed to put on the moon. Sometimes Harry gets help from his boss, Captain Flanagan (stunning brunette Diana Lorys), but mostly he goes it alone.

There certainly were plenty of these "James Bond" imitations and spoofs to come out of the 1960s, and "Lightning Bolt" a.k.a. "Operazione Goldman" provides quite a bit of enjoyment. Granted, a fair amount of the entertainment value is derived from the various absurdities on display:

Sennet attempts to stop a rocket launch by driving right into the tower. Needless to say, this does not go well.

He actually attacks the bad guy when his nemesis has plenty of time to see him coming, and the henchmen have enough time to get there first and beat him up.

Plus, he actually tries to bribe some of the bad guys with cheques! (He's usually allowed to spare no expense during his missions.)

Our dastardly villainous mastermind is Mr. Rehte, played with brio by corpulent Italian Folco Lulli. You have to love this guy: not only does he have big plans for domination of the Earth, he also has a side business as a beer manufacturer!

In addition to the lovely Ms. Lorys, other eye candy is provided by Wandisa Guida and Luisa Rivelli. Another big laugh occurs early on when Ms. Lorys pops a cigarette in her mouth and all the guys present offer her a light.

Eisley is a studly, engaging hero, although modern viewers will either chuckle or wince at his casual sexism. In order to carry out the mission, Sennet must pose as a rich playboy, and you can tell he likes this kind of gig. At one point, he actually smacks the ass of this lady who's supposed to be his *boss*!

You add to that ninja-style costumes for the henchmen, amusing narration by Sennet, a fairly colourful visual approach for a movie done on the cheap & cheesy side, a decent forward pace, and a good amount of explosions, and you do have the ingredients for an agreeable Euro-spy schlock flick, all brought to life by the prolific director Antonio Margheriti.

Seven out of 10.

If you grew up watching late 50s and 60s TV shows, chances are that you would recognize Anthony Eisley but not his name. While Eisley never became a big star, he was rather ubiquitous on TV. I remember him from "Dragnet", "The FBI" and "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" but he's more remembered for "Hawaiian Eye". However, in "Lightning Bolt" he's given the chance to be a star--albeit in a very low-budget Italian spy caper. Often American 2nd and 3rd tier actors were brought in to star in Italian films of the era. Since few knew Italian, the films were completely dubbed and marketed internationally. Many were horrible, some were classics (such as "La Strada" and "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly") and most were somewhere in the middle--like "Lightning Bolt".

In "Lightning Bolt" (a.k.a. "Operazione Goldman"), Eisley (who is inexplicably red-haired) stars as Lt. Harry Sennett--an American James Bond-type hero. His mission is to discover what's causing the rockets at Cape Kennedy to go off course and explode. This means lots of pretty girls, fast cars and danger. The plot is very similar to two films--"You Only Live Twice" (a Bond film about Blofeld capturing manned rockets) and "Strange Brew" (since the evil boss-man turns out to be an insane brewmeister!!).

So is it good? Well, yes and no. The film looks like they wanted to make a Bond film but only had about a tenth the budget. Some of the sets are impressive but all too often the stunts and action scenes come off as not quite ready for the bit screen. As for Eisley, he isn't bad as he isn't meant to be as smooth or sexy as Bond and is pretty decent in the action scenes. The print is often poor. In some cases you cannot blame the filmmakers--such as the scratchy or grainy sections. But, in others they obviously used lousy stock footage. "Lightning Bolt" is a movie with much to dislike. Yet, it also has a certain kitschy fun that makes it worth seeing. It certainly is NOT a film for everyone--but for the right audience it's worth seeing. For a much better Italian action/adventure film, try watching the much more slickly made "Danger: Diabolik"--especially since Diabolik dresses EXACTLY the same as the brewmeister's henchmen. Overall, bad but quite enjoyable.

Six American moon launches in a row from Cape Canaveral have ended in catastrophe in the destroy button needing to be deployed in each case as the rockets were going off course and with the high cost of the destroyed hardware of the rockets . Dr. Rooney (Francisco Sanz) , part of the scientific team behind the launches, believes it is sabotage in having detected radiation signals coming from below the water's surface in the vicinity of the cape that is most-likely the cause of the rockets' change of trajectory. When Rooney himself goes missing in his investigation of the radiation source , the FSIC (Federal Security Investigation Commission) gets involved in knowing indeed that it is sabotage. Then a U. S. agent (Anthony Eisley) is assigned the mission and he goes undercover posing as a wealthy playboy to stop a madman (Folco Lulli) from destroying a NASA moon project. Just like his English counterpart (007) , our special agent to be surrounded by some beautiful female representatives (Wandisa Guida, Diana Lorys, Luisa Rivelli) and luckily , Italian genre cinema is an almost inexhaustible breeding ground for beauties of all kinds.

¨Lightning Bolt¨or ¨Operazione Goldman¨ (1966) belongs to ¨Eurospy" subgenre , under this somewhat barbaric Anglicism hides a series of films produced in Europe between 1962 and 1969 that tried to take advantage of the success of James Bond and especially : Dr No , From Russia with love and Goldfinger. One of the peculiarities of the "James Bond¨ rip-offs was wanting to imitate their model without ever having neither means , nor budget , turning to economy like most films of this sub-genre . Operation Goldman could have sunk into mediocrity or conformism , but it was without counting on this good artisan Antonio Margheriti that found the breeding ground here ideal to give us one of those uninhibited and fun movies that he had the secret of shooting with skill and professionality enough . The movie starts slowly like a conventional spy story , but once the hero is in the villain's underwater landmark , the director lets loose by recycling some ideas already exploited in his previous sci-fi movies like frozen humans , etc. The script is obviously just a pretext for Margheriti who does not hesitate to fit models and ideas of all kinds , which does not prevent him from abusing NASA stock footage , this is one of the weak points of this production, but the filmmaker once again demonstrates his incredible knowledge by integrating the explosion of models into real images. Unable the production to afford a designer of Ken Adam's importance , and the lack of budget does not prevent Margheritti from inventing some successful settings , as he cleverly uses some impressive scenarios , such as the large underwater headquarter, the villain's "high-tech" desk, protected by two giant articulated needles or the Italian Olympic team's training pool with a handful of bathing suit extras . In addition , he recreates a Florida hotel without ever leaving Spain or Italy where it was shot . Stars Anthony Eisley who was at the time one of the actors of a series that aired on ABC "Hawaiian Eye" (1959-1963). Subsequently, he also appeared in quite a few budget and genre films such as The Wasp Woman (1960), "The Navy vs. The Night Monsters" (1966), "The Mighty Gorga" (1969), The Witchmaker (1969), "Dracula vs Frankenstein" (1971) or "The Doll Squad" (1974). The film benefits itself from appearances by gorgeous young starlettes to be followed long careers in the Eurotrash genres , such as : Wandisa Guida, Diana Lorys and Luisa Rivelli . But here stands out the really gorgeous Diana Lorys , a Spanish female who has distinguished herself quite a bit in the spaghetti western: "The outlaws of Casa Grande" (1964), "I Gemelli del Texas" (1964), "The charge of the mounted police" (1964), "Murieta" ( 1965), "The border of hatred" (1965), "Django shoots first" (1966), "El texicano" (1966), "Pancho Villa" (1968), "Sonora" (1968), "Río Hondo" ( 1968), "Shoot Django First" (1971), The Four Mercenaries of El Paso (1971), "Chino" (1973), "Goodbye California" (1977), "The Cursed City" (1978) . While Wandisa Guida is a beauty who has distinguished herself in many films of the Sword and sandals genre: "The Revenge of Hercules", "The Rebellion of the Slaves", "The Revenge of Ursus", "The gladiators of Rome", "Maciste in King Solomon's mines", "The giants of Rome" ("Fort Alesia") or "Samson against all" and she will appear again in "A 077, Sfida ai Killers" and Operazione Goldman before stopping her career, making a final appearance in 1982 in "Assassinio al cimitero etrusco" ("Crime in the Etruscan Cemetery"). And being a Spain/Italy co-production showing up here and there some Spanish familiar actors , such as : Francisco Sanz , José María Caffarel , Tito Garcia , Fernando Hilbeck , Barta Barri and Italians : Folco Lulli , Aldo Canti , among others.

It contains a colorful cinematography by cameraman Riccardo Pallottini , though a perfect remastering being really necessary . Displaying a thrilling and moving musical score by Riz Ortalani. The motion picture was well produced by Alfonso Balcazar and professional but regularly directed by terror expert Antonio Margheritti or Anthony M. Dawson , though it displays some failures and shortcomings . Expert filmmaker Margheriti could not escape to shot Euro-spy films : after a series of science films fiction that will considerably strengthen his reputation over time, he continued with this spy genre : an adventure of Agent 077 aka Bob Fleming "A 077, Sfida ai Killers" with Richard Harrison and ¨Operazione Goldman¨, the latter largely inspired by Dr. No and Goldfinger. ¨Lightning Bolt¨ was directed by Stakhanovist Antonio Margheritti, who was responsible for one of the most bizarre and insane space operas ever made : ¨Wild, Wild Planet¨. He was one of the great Italian directors of the era, and has really attracted a cult following, but he made more than his share of half-way decent films in a number of different genres, and a few which are actually goofy enough to overcome their limitations. Antonio Margheritti was a good but uneven craftsman , expert on terror and exploitation films. Being a prestigious filmmaker of Spaghetti Westerns, terror , adventures Peplum and anything else . Notorious Antonio Margheritti directed with skillness and aplomb from 1956 to his death in 2002 . Antonio was a former university engineering student who began shooting in 1956. He made all kinds of genres , some of them splendidly directed and others mediocre or flops . As he realized wartime movies , such as : ¨The Last Hunter¨, ¨Tornado¨, ¨Codename Wild Geese¨, ¨Der Commander¨ , ¨Command Leopard¨ . Sci-Fi : ¨War of Planets¨, Planet of the Prowl¨ , ¨Criminal of the Galaxy¨ , ¨Yor the Hunter from the future¨ , ¨Treasure Planet¨ . Spaghetti Western : ¨Joko¨, ¨Dynamite Joe¨, ¨The Stranger and the Gunfighter¨, ¨Take a Hard Ride¨ , ¨Ghosts go West¨ , ¨Joe implacable¨, ¨God Said to Cain¨. And Terror : Virgin of Nuremberg , Cannibal Apocalypse , Alien From Deep , ¨Flesh for Dracula¨ , ¨Flesh for Frankenstein¨, among others. Rating 5.5/10. Mediocre but passable for the enjoyable cast and adequate direction . The picture will appeal to Euro-spy aficionados.