Well, whaddaya know?  An enterprising disc boutique finally stepped forward to give this culturally orphaned Eurospy picture a shot at Blu-ray immortality. One of the oddest of the 007 / James Bond rip-offs, it aims to attain hipness through absurdity … and succeeds only in making a bizarre spectacle of itself.

When I worked at MGM this title was in the United Artists library, but not available in any form. It did leak out to Turner Classic movies a few times. In a fracas of lawsuits between MGM and Columbia over notable ‘runaway’ Bond pictures, MGM ended up with control of both Columbia’s  Casino Royale (1967) and Warners’  Never Say Never Again. But  Operation Kid Brother, originally titled O.K. Connery, wasn’t part of the controversy. Explosive Media’s presentation begins with a sparkling logo for Titanus Films.

Almost all of the spy movies launched by the 007 craze had comedy aspects. Even the most successful were comedies first and sci-fi / espionage thrillers second: James Coburn in  Our Man Flint and Dean Martin in  The Silencers. Europe was inundated by a flood of cheapies, such as the Italian Secret Agent Super Dragon (New York chiama Superdrago) by Giorgio Ferroni, and Spy in Your Eye (Berlino appuntamento per le spie) by Vittorio Sala. Somewhat more upscale were a slightly more serious French series of  OSS 117 thrillers, and an English re-boot of Bulldog Drummond for the SuperSpy era.

With the all-star multi-million dollar Casino Royale in the works, Italo producer Dario Sabatello did what he could to stock his 007 spoof with actors from previous Bond pictures. Producers Broccoli and Saltzman can’t have been pleased to see Daniela Bianchi, Aldofo Celi and Anthony Dawson take roles that could only reflect on their work in the official series. We wonder if Bernard Lee and Lois Maxwell were considered turncoats for moonlighting in Sabatello’s movie. The adventurous Ms. Maxwell had made several Italian films, years before. It’s been well publicized that she earned much more on this show than on any official Bond film. It was ‘found money.’

 

We can’t blame them, as getting paid for a semi-vacation in Italy had to sound like a good deal. Few English actors who were not big stars were raking in the cash. We recall the respected Brit thespian Robert Flemying filming Riccardo Freda’s  L’orribile segreto del dottor Hichcock, hoping that the show would never be exhibited outside Italy. It’s one of his few starring roles, and thanks to cult fans, his best-known movie. Own It, Robert!

007 researchers report that Neil Connery was a professional plasterer in Edinburgh when he attracted the attention of reporters prying for every exploitable angle on his superstar brother Sean. Sabatello found Neil and pitched the movie to him; we can only imagine Sean’s negative reaction. Neil looks good in stills but seems lost as an actor. He doesn’t move very well, and his voice is reportedly dubbed in English. He has a slight beard and mustache, which suits the role. The conceit is that the world’s. most famous spy has a brother, Dr. Neil Connery (Neil Connery), a plastic surgeon whose cosmetic fix-up jobs are enhanced through … Tibetan hypnotism. When recruited for spy work, Neil stays suave and genteel, a little bit like Mandrake the Magician. It doesn’t hurt that he’s a tournament-qualified expert with a bow and arrow.

 

The story is a jumble. A dreaded secret conspiracy called Thanatos wants to control the world with a flaky technological weapon that uses magnetism to seize-up all the machines in a certain area, disrupting everything and wreaking economic chaos. Thanatos is led by two slimy villains, each of whom wants to eliminate the other. Alpha is a Mr. Big type who expects everyone else to do the dirty work. He’s played by Anthony Dawson, who was memorable as Professor Dent in the original  Dr. No, and served as the hands and body of Ernst Stavro Blofeld in two other Bond features. Alpha’s rival is Thair, played by Adolfo Celi, the villain Emilio Largo in  Thunderball. Celi was not dubbed in English by his usual voice, so his menace seems reduced somewhat. The absolute silliness of Thair’s machinations removes the rest of Celi’s appeal.

 

Thanatos safeguards its secret magnetic weapon by killing agents and kidnapping women; it also needs to get possession of something called an ‘atomic nucleus.’  Thair is aided by his girlfriend Mildred (Agata Flori, the wife of producer Sabatello) and his special agent Maya (Daniela Bianchi of From Russia With Love). When Thanatos thugs break up one of Dr. Neil’s symposiums, he is enlisted to serve ‘Allied Counter Intelligence for the Western World.’  In charge is the English Commander Cunningham — played by Bernard Lee, ‘M’ from the official 007 series. Cunningham’s top agent is ‘Miss Maxwell,’ played with professional seriousness by guess who?  In this show, Lois Maxwell is not cooped up in a tiny office, but out in the field rescuing kidnapped women. She even takes part in a machine gun battle.

 

The repetitive storyline chugs along, beginning on a yacht in Monaco and bopping around to several Mediterranean locales. The biggest expenses appear to be the yacht, some helcopters and a lot of crazy costumes. That machine-gun skirmish isn’t much. The final confrontations are drawn-out battles with kung-fu or bows and arrows, that seem to go on forever.

 

The movie will be fun for 007 addicts capable of getting into the silly spirit. The peppy Morricone-Nicolai music might spark the flame. Some of the cues ape John Barry’s compositions, always stopping short of actionable plagiarism. Does some of the music seem to mock the movie, or is that just our bias showing through?

To be honest, plenty happens in Operation Kid Brother, it’s just that things are so sloppy, we wonder why we’re paying attention. Here’s a rundown of crazy stuff to expect:

 

•  ‘Thair’ operates from a luxury yacht manned by an all-girl crew, much like Pussy Galore’s flying circus in Goldfinger. He watches TV via a projection on the back of one of his women, an odd, unfunny joke that imitates 007 title sequences.

•  Many silly disguises are employed. Maya hides herself as a fireman, and Neil pretends to be a blind beggar. The Asian woman Yasuko (Yacucho Yama) is found dead, but her body is really that of another woman, previously worked over with cosmetic surgery. At one point Neil and Miss Maxwell disguise themselves as farmers, in bumpkin-ish overalls. When Neil attacks, he reminds us of Stephen King as a hick in the horror movie Creepshow.

•  Alpha and Thair conduct a Thanatos board meeting as in Thunderball: operatives reporting failure are killed on the spot. The two leaders bid against each other at an auction for a big bronze sculpture of Perseus. The statue is really a murder weapon that fires a knife.

•  Thair and Neil compete against each other in an archery contest, as Bond and Largo had competed at trap shooting in Thunderball.

•  At one point Neil shows up at one point in full kilt regalia, two years before George Lazenby’s appearance in formal Scottish garb in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. Various groups of thugs and combatants always wear nice matching outfits — even vinyl rubber suits in bright colors. When the fighting starts, all can tell friend from foe.

 

•  Another Thanatos menace is Lotte Krayendorf (Ana Maria Noë), dressed and coiffed to resemble Lotte Lenya’s Rosa Klebb in From Russia with Love. She interrogates the real Yasuko, with the dreaded ‘colored lights’ torture technique.

 

For no apparent reason, the action moves to a bull ring in Malaga. Thair’s girl gang breaks into what looks like a missile base, by wearing kitty cat outfits to seduce the guards. Morricone and Nicolai accompany the scene with appropriately idiotic kitty cat music. ‘Meow meow meow’ go the lyrics.

Neil Connery eventually goes to Morocco, invited by Maya to perform another plastic surgery job. Mildred steps in to seduce Neil, but he folds his hands and fixes his stare, just like Lugosi’s Chandu the Magician. She is immediately hypnotized, and divulges all of Thair’s secrets.

 

Neil and Miss Maxwell attack one Thanatos compound by knocking out an electric fence with an arrow. The extended final battle takes place in caves beneath an Alpine castle. Guns can’t be used because the magnetic weapon makes all machinery inoperative. So for the big finale our heroes face a squad of plastic-suited bad guys armed with archery bows. The mass arrow combat is truly unconvincing.

 

You’re perhaps thinking, ‘the story may be silly but here’s an opportunity for some crazy action and clever direction.’  No, the main fun here is witnessing the incompetence of it all. The settings appear to be whatever the producers could come up with cheap — although some locations are very pretty. The action direction is dull in the extreme. Director Alberto de Martino knows how to block people in meetings, at cocktail parties, etc., but the odd mix of actors, non-actors and suspected producer girlfriends is truly awkward.

Neil Connery is an agreeable non-entity who leaves less than no impression, which leaves Adolfo Celi’s high-powered baddie to search in vain for a good opponent. We love Bernard Lee, Lois Maxwell and Anthony Dawson — they look like they’re having fun, collecting a check for vamping through one relaxed scene after another.

I should think that creating a camp / cult crazy picture requires just as much commitment as a serious movie, maybe even more. When floating a big joke, it’s important that the joke not be the movie itself.  Operation Kid Brother is a hundred minutes of very lazy filmmaking, capped with a fun music score. Many ‘sixties spy spoofs have dated in unpleasant ways … this one is so hopeless, we feel a kind of affection for it.