A Touch of the Sun

Now this REALLY is a terrible movie. Badly directed, shabbily edited and boasting some of the cheapest dialogue and worst acting ever committed to celluloid. Why actors like Peter Cushing and Oliver Reed (the latter with a phoney American accent) ever appeared in this load of old rubbish is extremely puzzling. They must have been desperate for work. Director Pete Curran even throws in a bit of gratuitous female nudity just to keep viewers awake.

For some strange reason this diabolical movie (under the title 'No Secrets') is regularly shown on late night British TV, year after year, so somebody, somewhere must love it.

I say, don't go near it!

I seen this movie years ago on TV. It was called No Secrets then. It's a ridiculous comedy and isn't meant to be taken seriously at all. Give it a watch you won't be disappointed. A hidden gem of a movie.

It has to be emphasized that when it comes to 1978's "Touch of the Sun," one of Peter Cushing's 'lost films,' that it wasn't actually lost, it was hiding! A definite contender for the cherished 'worst film of all time,' filmed on location in the African nation of Zambia, once Northern Rhodesia, a vanity project from editor-writer-director Peter Curran, produced by wife Elizabeth, with son David serving as assistant director. Peter Curran's only Hammer association was as editor of 1970's "When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth," his other obscure efforts as inept auteur including 1971's "Male Bait," 1974's "The Cherry Picker," 1975's "Penelope Pulls It Off," and 1981's "Tell It Like It Is Boys," all sex comedies. That has to be the reason such juvenile antics are supported by a couple of gratuitous full frontal shots of a bathing Sylvaine Charlet, a French starlet of little apparent ability. Top billing goes to an incredulous Oliver Reed, intentionally blundering his way through the entire picture as a bumbling military captain whose long suffering general (Keenan Wynn) sends him to recover a space capsule captured in Deepest Africa by despotic Emperor Sumumba (Edwin Manda). Wilfrid Hyde-White, who had appeared alongside Spike Milligan and Terry-Thomas in Curran's "The Cherry Picker," cameos as 'M-1,' Hilary Pritchard gets fondled by Reed as 'Miss Funnypenny,' while emerging unscathed is Peter Cushing's Commissioner Potts (replacing the absent Terry-Thomas), guiding Reed's native bearers on a trek to the Emperor's palace. Entering at the 31 minute mark, Potts is unaware that WW2 has ended (no deliveries since 1942), continues to treasure a portrait of Queen Victoria, and marvels at the natives relaxing in pajamas and robes while watching television. Basically a reprise of his nutty professor fresh from "At the Earth's Core," Cushing's professionalism is a far cry from the relentlessly unfunny lowjinks, certified proof of his amazing ability to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. As dreadful as it is, third billed Cushing's white bearded explorer is genuinely amusing, quite an incredible feat considering the homemade atmosphere engendered by the filmmakers. Cushing's three other 'lost films,' "Battleflag," "Son of Hitler," and "Black Jack," must look like "Hamlet" next to this meager effort. Oliver Reed followed his worst performance with his best, in David Cronenberg's "The Brood." Playing an effeminate Tarzan (billed as 'Ginger Rogers'), is Melvyn Hayes, the young Baron from "The Curse of Frankenstein," who had also appeared opposite Cushing in "Violent Playground" and "The Flesh and the Fiends," as well as doing later Hammer comedies "Love Thy Neighbor" and "Man About the House." The huge cast list of 65 features nine actors getting double billing (for 74 roles), and specialized lettering difficult to read, another sure sign that nobody gave a damn. A hapless combination of full frontal female nudity and thuddingly heavy handed infantile slapstick, this is the movie that would have forced IMDb to devise a lower rating than one star!

A very weird spy/adventure comedy starring Oliver Reed who looks like he's in trance (or more likely drunk) all through the proceedings. Peter Cushing co-stars and tries desperately to be funny. The beautiful Sylvaine Charlet plays a modern-day Mata Hari and has an out-of-the-blue fullfrontal nude scene every fifteen minute or so to keep the audience awake. Wilfred Hyde-White does a sort of cameo (but why??). There's even a brief scene from the b/w "KING KONG"! However the main attraction must be local actor Edwin Mamba (the film was shot in Zambia of all places) who delivers such an outrageously hammy performance that it almost saves the film. Almost.

This film reveals that Edward d wood was a genius auteur after all. Unlike wood's work, this film reveals a total lack of charm, wit, strange beauty and oddball imagination. All prerequisites for a film if it is to be considered to be so bad it's good. This is an embarrassment to all concerned. Absolutely unfunny, unsexy, unimaginative and totally pointless.

Even the feeble special effects don't make you laugh - TV monitors in Mission Control which are supposedly showing rockets in flight are actually just colour photographs glued to the wall - it SHOULD be funny, but it isn't. Just one of the turkeys Reed mugged his way through for the cash. Does anyone know who commissioned this sorry waste of celluloid? AVOID AT ALL COSTS!! I know just writing about it gives it a mystique but I assure you it has none.