Le rayon infernal

AH, the exotic thrill and glitz of the big time world of international espionage, where steely eyed men in immaculate suits regularly face off against impossible odds and charm the ladies with polish and flair!

Then there's Bart Fargo.

Bart Fargo, whose pithy comments and sidelong glances have redefined the Spy Game for so many of us who have been unfortunate enough to actually see DANGER! DEATH RAY. Make no mistake about it -- in the dog-eat-dog world of spies and intrigue, Bart's that big, mangy puppy that follows you home, tripping all the time over its oversized paws, in hopes that you'll share some day old bacon with it.

Actually, DEATH RAY is a fun little Italian spy film...once you throw up your mental arms and accept what are clearly a very cheap model submarine and an equally threadbare toy helicopter (no boxtop went unsubmitted in the interests of your viewing pleasure) as being manifestations of a rich, ruthless and powerful man who is out to use every last penny of his personal fortune in his relentless bid to rule the world.

Bart is played rather blandly by former movie Tarzan Gordon Scott. Bart is in some distinctly European city when we first meet him, sprawled languidly beneath the sheets. Yep, sleeping solo, which probably should warn us that this won't be your average spy flick.

Two lovelies from the office ambush Bart, meaning to drag him into work (or possibly simply work him over with tire irons while he sleeps -- you get the feeling that Bart is the type who would really annoy most women).

Bart's no fool. He evidently always sleeps with a gun under his pillow (evidently he's had run-ins with irate girls before). Distracting them with his nearly massive pecs, he niftily gets the drop on them. After flashing his big gun, Bart sullenly dons bunny slippers and sallies forth.

You see, as we're about to hear endlessly, Bart is on vacation and just doesn't have his heart in saving the world and the rest of us working schlubs out here. Thanks, Bart. From the bottom of my heart.

Off to HQ and our first (failed) little attempt at a witty confrontation. His chief is in a peevish mood. Bart had done something particularly well (possibly picked up the Chief's best suit from the cleaners without catching it in the car door), and had been given this vacation week. However, something dire has come up. Pausing only to good naturedly slander the entire Arab race, the boss gives Bart his briefing:

A dedicated scientist has invented a death ray -- for entirely peaceful purposes. No wholesale killing and mayhem for this genius! No sir. This is a better, kinder, gentler...er...well, death ray.

Let's take inventory. Just to make sure I'm not missing anything.

A bland spy, uninspired car chases, and this kind of logic. I think we can all see where this is all heading.

Demonstrating this perky little device for a bunch of bald guys (Pro Spy Tip # 1 -- Bald = Brains!), the researcher is promptly kidnapped and taken by unconvincing toy helicopter to the above mentioned toy sub. Clearly he's being carted away by the wicked people of the land of Wee!

Or maybe it's just cheap sets. Everyone aboard the sub seems to be big. Ah, heck. "Portly" comes darned close to covering it.

And now for a nice, almost bracing shot of plot to spice things up a bit! It seems that a wealthy man wishes to use the peaceful death ray to bring the world to its knees. Peacefully, we presume, but you never KNOW with these rich megalomaniacs...

Bart is instantly off to the rescue, and it is from this moment on that our learning process truly begins. In rapid succession we learn each and every one of his many, many shortcomings.

Bart has only a vague clue as to where he's going. He finds a tavern, his first real clue, more or less by accident. Following a rather leisurely fight, Bart boldly turns tail, winding up pretty literally hiding behind a woman's skirts. Except that the woman in question's working in the nude. Sort of.

Back at his hotel, Bart is again attacked by one of the thugs. Bart, in no mood to play, mauls him mercilessly with a 'phone, then allows him to escape.

Fortunately for Bart, his attacker is even more of a stumble bum than he is. Realizing that he's made a total fool of himself, Bart lets the man go without filing him full of holes. This works out nicely, as it later prompts the thug to come over to Bart's side and help him sneak into the Bad Guy's evil estate.

Back to the "romance". Much vaguely arch dialog, ensues. At the same time, Bart flirts with a blonde who he had met on the flight out, and who is obviously one of the Bad Guys.

En route to the final showdown, Bart tries to do some Spy Stuff, again wretchedly. He puts on his nifty sunglasses, climbs into his red sports car, and attempts a car chase.

Tedious. Just tedious, and mostly shot in close focus with both cars very obviously careening around hairpin curves in speeds occasionally in excess of 5 mph. A few random shots are tossed vaguely back at Bart, and his car lazily rolls off of a convenient cliff.

The whole sequence has the same non threatening feel of a dream featuring the Care Bears.

It's non-stop tedium, and thrills a-snore! After some more derring-do, Bart's off to the villain's palacial-yet-cheezily decorated manor house.

He bribes that conveniently reformed thug (remember him?) into being his friend. His pal. His sacrificial target for the local snipers. He's dead within a few seconds of their crashing the gate.

After daring the corridor of hidden cameras and remote controlled machine guns, Bart takes on the baddie and his death ray, rescues the brainwashed scientist and the redhead of his dreams, and conveniently "forgets" about his planned vacation with the boss's secretary.

All in a bad day's work for our boy Bart!

DEATH RAY has its moments (chiefly in the buoyant but endlessly reprised main theme). In the end analysis, though, it's extremely minor stuff.

While this movie is obviously nothing more than a 3rd rate "007" pastiche, I'm still rather fond of it. In spite of the ludicrous miniatures, blandly European-y setting, by-the-numbers screenplay and badly dubbed dialog, this is a fun little lightweight romp. I think this is mostly due to the casting of Gordon Scott in the lead as "Bart Fargo" (you're kidding me with that name, right?). I have fond memories of Scott in some vintage "Tarzan" movies, and I vaguely remember him playing "Hercules" as well; what worked then works now. Scott isn't as hard edged or as dynamic as, say, Sean Connery or Timothy Dalton, but he's an agreeable screen presence, he's pleasant to look at (and still built like a brick sh*thouse), and he can do a choreographed screen brawl with the best of them.

Scott is front and center for 90% of the movie, and he always looks good doing whatever it is he's doing - running down a city street, punching out a bad guy "Mannix" style, playing baccarat in a casino, lounging in bed, or being suave with the ladies. So he carries this movie the way a mother cat carries a kitten, by the nape of the neck and for as long as it takes. He isn't good enough to rescue "Danger! Death Ray" from mediocrity (I'm not sure Sean Connery himself could do that), and it's pretty obvious from the outset that he's just collecting a paycheck...but he at least makes it watchable.

Compare this to some of the other,similar European-y "007" ripoffs that MST3K covered in its fifth and sixth seasons and you'll immediately see the difference. "OK Connery" relied on Sean's poor uncharismatic brother, "Secret Agent Super Dragon" featured a walking Ken doll, and "your dad's alcoholic golfing buddy" (in a girdle) was cast as "Agent for H.A.R.M.". Two of those movies were at least the equal of D!DR in sets, effects, locations, and supporting cast (and were sometimes far superior, especially in the case of "OK Connery")(and I admit that "Agent" wasn't the equal to ANYTHING, including the "ABC Afterschool Special"). But those movies blew chunks, while D!DR is at least mildly entertaining in a completely unoriginal way. And that's 'cause Scott was the leading man, and not those other poor bozos who were completely out of their depth in the lead.

D!DR would be appropriate for a wasted Sunday afternoon matinée when you have too much of hangover to move from in front of the TV, and televised sports just don't appeal. Collect only if you are a spy movie completist, or if you enjoy the MST coverage (which is good natured and mild, compared to the slash-and-burn jobs they usually do).

It deals with a good mad scientist who invents a death-ray in the hope of advancing world peace . A spy-ring led by Carver (Alberto Dalbés) abducts the scientist, in the hope of forcing him into re-creating the weapon for their dastardly uses. Secret agent Bart Fargo (Gordon Scott) is called in to retrieve the death ray and of course, bang a couple of European babes (Delfi Mauro, Silvia Solar) , while confronting Carver's hoodlums (Nello Pazzafini as Ted Carter and Massimo Righi as Max Dean) . Secret Agent Bart Fargo chases the kidnappers of the inventor of a death ray. It's up to the risibly named "Bart Fargo" to save the world from the barely described evil spy organization.

Run-of-the-mill setup shows us the adventures of the secret agent Bart Fargo going after the megalomaniac nasty Carver. Typical plot about a kidnap in which some bad guys steal a highfalutin death ray and abduct the scientist who invented the damn thing. In the end, Bart has to infiltrate the villain's heavily armed villa and put a stop to his nefarious plans. Though Scott is suitably dashing, even he can't inject much interest into the ridiculous and rambling plot, which mostly consists of Fargo walking into various settings and pissing off locals so that he can beat them up and get info from them. This incidents are broken up with a few liaisons with beautiful women, Delfi Mauro, Silvia Solar , no better or worse than others appearing in the Euro-spy genre. However , the film is marred by lousy maquettes, featuring some of the worse miniature effects ever seen in the history of cinema. To call the boats, helicopters, and cars in this movie "miniature effects" is to give them too much credit , they are really , plain and simple toys. Even funnier is the fact that the wielders of the ray gun have this powerful instrument of death and all they do is melt a couple of doors with it.

In addition to a bouncy musical score by Gianni Ferrio , which seems to be one of the few merits everyone agrees upon . The highlight of the movie concludes with a duel between the hero's machine gun and the villain's big but unwieldly death-ray cannon . He only parts of Danger!! Death Ray that I found tolerable were the ones that later went on to influence other spy movies. The scene where Bart Fargo punches out a man in drag was clearly the inspiration for the identical scene in Austin Powers. Gordon Scott played the hunk spy Bart Fargo in his usual style . But he was a known Peplum actor , in fact in great number of movies was randomly assigned the identity of Hercules , Goliath ,Samson or here Aron for U. S. viewing . Gordon was an American bouncing who emigrated Europe where starred several Tarzan movies , subsequently was to Italy and created a true star-system based on pumped-up heroes. Gordon Scott and specially Steve Reeves paved the way for others actors to seek their fame and fortune in Italy playing stocky adventurers . Other stars by the time on this type of movies are Mark Forest, Gordon Mitchell, Dan Vadis, Brad Harris, Ken Wood ; furthermore 'Gordon Scott' who made more important competence to Steve Reeves . Nobody, nevertheless, topped Steve Reeves and Gordon Scott in popularity . Gordon Scott played other epic characters : ¨ , ¨Gladiator of Rome¨ , ¨Hero of Rome¨ , ¨Hercules and Princess of Troy¨ , ¨Conquest of Micene¨ , though also made some Spaghetti as ¨The tramplers¨ and ¨Buffalo Bill ¨, Spy-genre as ¨Secretissimo¨and ¨Death ray¨ and of course his famous Tarzan movies as ¨Tarzan's greatest adventure¨, ¨Tarzan's Fight for Life¨ , ¨Tarzan and the hunters¨ and ¨Tarzan and the trappers ¨ , among others .

The motion picture was regularly directed by Gianfranco Baldanello . He was assistant director and subsequently directed some films . Gianfranco made several Spaghettis , such as ¨Uccidete Johnny Ringo¨ , ¨This man cant die¨ , ¨Son of Zorro¨ , ¨The Cry of the Wolf¨, ¨Black Jack¨ and ¨Blood River¨ . And ¨30 Winchesters for El Diablo" - International title- or "Gold Train" rating : 4.30/10.

Alright, so "Death Ray" isn't 007, and what can be? The main point to be made here is that the movie is FUN. Good fun. So, low-budget effects, corny (but oddly infecting) tunes, beautiful European women, and a muscular star are not what this film is about. It's fun! Everyone seems to have a good time hamming it up. You can see it even through the dubbed voices. Yes, MST3K riffed the film, but that doesn't mean it's bad. Give me 10 more Bart Fargo movies! I'd rather that than another overwrought post Connery/Moore Bond wannabe!!

AKA: Danger Death Ray, the funniest of the cheesy spy films that MST had fun with. Former Tarzan Gordon Scott sucks in his gut for this one. Professor Carmichael has developed a death ray "for peaceful purposes only" but a vague group of bad guys want it instead, so he's kidnapped by doughy guys and taken to their toy sub (via a toy helicopter)Bart Fargo must rescue him cause he's the only American spy who looks good in womany sunglasses. Cool music accompanies him as he searches for Carmichael while he must deal with evil Abe Lincolns, a fey bad guy tuned friend of Fargo's and a couple of women who he must sleep with. In the end the ineffective bad guy gets killed, the professor and the death ray get rescued and Bart gets the woman. There's also a complex scene with a watch thrown in a pool which symbolizes the amount of time that was wasted on smart screen writing for the movie.