Dr. Goldfoot e il nostro agente 00¼

What can one say about this movie? It's ridiculous but iresistable. Vincent is always fun, the film has great color and location photography. A perfect time capsule of how much fun the '60s could be. The Les Baxter score and songs are great and the opening number, with the Supremes, no less, is a rockin' Baxter classic!

A totally dumb, freewheeling comedy, good for some lowbrow fun. With its mad scientists, bikini-clad girls, laser guns and silly slapstick gags, this film has definite cult possibilities, but it's never really very funny (despite campy performances by Price and Frankie Avalon). Plus, the mismatch between on-location filming and rear-projection techniques in the final big chase sequence is so obvious it becomes awfully distracting. (**)

But in the kind of way people like hospital Jell-O. You take it simply because it's there.

A friend brought this over to my humble abode for what seems to be a new tradition of "Bad Movie Nights". This pithy little nugget is quite the mound of poo, but it was so laughably bad that, well, I pretty much laughed.

Hilarity and hi-jinks ensue as Diane the multi-accented robot (and Carmen Sandiego wardrobe impersonator) rips of the wealthy in the name of Dr. Goldfoot (and does he have a bikini machine... but hey, who doesn't have one these days?). The good doctor is played by Vincent Price, and our main hero is Sonic restaurant spokesman and beach movie veteran Frankie Avalon. So for the duration of the film, we get a Motown/claymation intro/theme song, a far out and utterly random dance moment, goofy plot devices, dungeons with motorcycle riders, a dense henchman, a Scooby Doo-esque graveyard, lots of girls in bikinis, quite possibly the longest and most improbable chase scene ever, and the fabled line "stop dinging that dong!" Ah, this is high comedy, or comedy created while someone was high. I'm not sure. It was slapstick that would have made Jerry Lewis very proud indeed.

If this never made it to MST3K, then it should have. My friends and I ripped into it with sarcastic glee. All we were missing were the robots. I was stunned about how laughably bad this film was, and yet when it was all over, I actually had a good time with the thing. This is definitely a film to watch if you enjoy hurling witty insults at bad films. Everyone else, run far away, but stay for that wacky theme song.

MASTER PLAN: marry off rich bachelors to female robots and get rich. Of all the films attempting to capture the absurdity and success of the James Bond craze of the sixties, this one is the most ridiculous. This one combines the weird plots of the Bonders with some elements of the stupid beach movies and campy horror of the decade, complete with dungeons and threat of torture (genuinely if mildly amusing). It's an odd mix, to be sure. Then-popular teen idol Avalon, most famous for his beach blanket bingo pics, is an agent (number 00 & 1/2) of S.I.C. (Secret Intelligence Command), based out of my old hometown of San Francisco - nice location long shots and a focus on the winding Lombard street. He's a hapless dope who becomes involved with a femme fatale robot (Hart) accidentally. She's one of several creations originating from the warped brain of Goldfoot (Price), the mad doctor of the title. He's somewhat typical of a Bondian villain wannabe, but Price is best known for his mad scientist roles in typical horror films of that time, so he's kind of a combination of both. Though a mad genius in the comical sense, his goal is nothing more than making some bucks off his robots, so he's actually a futuristic pimp, running a wild & crazy con artist/prostitution ring.

The plot is pretty amusing and Price hams it up shamelessly, mugging for the camera and even indulging in that cliché - the sinister mad chuckle. His assistant, Igor, is a complete idiot, a further parody of the mad scientist's aid from the "Frankenstein" movies, existing solely as an ego-boost for the mad scientist, to make him look even smarter - presumably why Goldfoot 'returned' him to life (see also the Luthor/Otis relationship from the "Superman" movies). How much a viewer likes any of this depends on how much patience one has for all the slapstick stunts and silly overplaying by the actors. Igor is the most extreme example, but everyone else also behaves like an idiot. The one surprise is actress Hart, who, besides being easy on the eye, proves to be quite talented, required to act with several different accents, besides other things. She virtually disappeared from the movie business soon after this, unfortunately. The entire premise of robotic babes, a commentary on male attitudes of that period, was repeated in later similar fare - "Some Girls Do" for example, not to mention the obvious "The Stepford Wives" in the seventies. Also note the use of musical sound FX in one scene from a couple of famous sci-fi pics of the fifties, "War of the Worlds" and "Forbidden Planet." Goldfoot and S.I.C. would return in the Italian "Dr.Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs" the following year. Hero:4 Villain:5 Femme Fatales:7 Henchmen:3 Fights:3 Stunts/Chases:4 Gadgets:5 Auto:4 Locations:6 Pace:5 overall:5

"Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine" is one of those campy'60s movies that are, basically, an excuse to show bikini-clad girls in a movie. Vincent Price stars as the mad scientist Dr. Goldfoot, with an insane plan to rob all the world's richest men. Frankie Avalon plays a bumbling secret agent trying to foil Dr. Goldfoot's evil scheme, and even pokes fun at his "Beach Blanket" history. This movie has a ridiculous story, but it has some good qualities. For one thing, the animated opening credit sequence is fun and eye-catching. For another, the chase scene is a good laugh. And, if nothing else, is has better production values than its sequel, "Dr. Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs"!