Lightning Bolt (1967)

Excellent but underrated film

A Major Disappointment

Funny, strange, confrontational and subversive, this is one of the most interesting experiences you'll have at the cinema this year.

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

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.

A cheap but cheerful Italian/Spanish co-production which mixes sci-fi staples in with a "spy" plot involving a Bond-like playboy /secret agent. Apparently these movies were all the rage in Italy back in the mid-'60s as just about every studio jumped on the bandwagon to make their own James Bond rip-off. LIGHTNING BOLT is a film severely lacking in budget which struggles in places to make ends meet, but ends up being a thoroughly entertaining little movie in it's own right. One word of advice, though: all of this film's budget is saved for the finale, meaning that the first two-thirds are a little too low budget and slow. Stick with it, as you won't be disappointed by the action-packed ending.The film begins - as a lot of these movies do - with some copious use of stock footage showing a space shuttle exploding. Apparently it has been sabotaged by a hidden criminal who uses false science to send radio waves which send the shuttles off their target, causing them to be automatically destroyed (the explanation is a little hazy for good reason!). In order to discover the source of the radio wave, the government sends in a scientist and a diver to investigate, as the signal is coming from underwater. In a confusing sequence, their boat explodes, apparently killing the pair of them.It is at this point that we are introduced to the two heroes of the film: special agents Harry Sennet and Captain Patricia Flanagan. Sennet is masquerading as a rich playboy, which means that he has lots of scenes where he makes sexist remarks and checks out an assortment of bikini-clad bathing beauties. Flanagan is supposedly a tough female agent who broke somebody's spine once, but here she's just a weak, woman-in-peril type character who makes loads of mistakes (see later). After some lounging around, Sennet finds himself being attacked by a man at his house; after a brief tussle the intruder is gunned down by a female assassin! Action ensues including unlikely water traps and larking about in flashy red sports cars. Some of Antonio Margheriti's trademark miniature effects work are present in the form of an exploring car scene. Sennet must battle loads of bad guys in a warehouse, where they try to crush him with fork-lift trucks (!) and engage in some exciting shootouts. Luckily he has a gas-emitting pen to use on the bad guys, but sadly this doesn't stop him being captured. He's bundled into a capsule and taken to the underwater base, which is where the film's rather good conclusion takes place.This underwater base has some great, science-fiction inspired set design, and wonders are worked on the small budget. Even the bad guys have funny black suits and balaclavas to give them that extra weird, kitsch look. The locations are expansive, cavernous even, and look pretty expensive. The only clue to the film's budget is that we only see the base briefly from the outside, but otherwise you wouldn't guess! The baddie - Retke - also has a cool cold storage locker where he keeps various people in suspended animation! Sennet himself is nearly frozen before he manages to escape, and from here on he battles guard after guard before going one-on-one against Retke.This section of the film is the best, and thoroughly entertaining. Sennet must battle at least thirty guards in this segment, and some have cool deaths like electrocution, falling on generators and exploding, etc etc. At the very end, there's suddenly a flood of unexplained lava as the base is destroyed, the bad guy gets his just desserts and Sennet manages to escape on the same capsule he arrived in, just in time to get the girl in the (very) cheesy conclusion which apes the Bond films no end.Anthony Eisley has a ball as Harry Sennet, the film's answer to James Bond. He mugs for all his worth and seems to be really enjoying himself, and his good spirit rubs off; I'm looking forward to seeing more of the actor's work on the strength of his performance here. Folco Lulli hams it up as the Blofeld-like baddie, and the various females supply sufficient '60s-style glamour for the production (the box I have claims that Ursula Andress stars: I can confirm that this is a downright lie!). The direction of Antonio Margheriti is okay to good; at times the film suffers from the Italian curse of extreme close-ups (at one point of somebody's cheek!) but for the majority he keeps things pacy and looking good.Margheriti also gets the opportunity to throw in his trademark horror scene in which the frozen victims are burnt alive, leaving lots of grim skeletons behind! The music is a fun jazzy theme which sets the scene well; the miniature effects are worthwhile and the various gadgets a lot of fun. Not to mention Eisley's assured performance as the heroic, wisecracking lead. Although only a cheap rip-off, forgotten to the modern audience, LIGHTNING BOLT is a FUN cheap rip-off and that's what counts in my humble opinion. A must-see for Euro-spy fans!

Lightning Bolt doesn't come close to being what I'd call a "great" Euro-Spy film, but it's harmless enough and can be quite fun if you don't go into it expected the world. The basic plot has Harry Sennet (Anthony Eisley), our would-be hero, being sent to Cape Kennedy to investigate a series of rocket launches that have all ended in disaster. He quickly discovers that a ray of some sort coming from under the water is knocking out the rockets' guidance systems. But who's behind it and why? There are a few other surprises and twists to the plot, but it's all pretty standard stuff for a spy film.Anthony Eisley is easily the worst thing Lightning Bolt has going for it. I found it difficult to root for him. He doesn't come across as a very good actor and is not capable of pulling off the role of the smug secret agent. Like the white socks he can be seen wearing with his suit and tie, he seems totally out of place. In fact, I probably should have just said that I didn't like a lot of the casting decisions in Lighting Bolt. Diana Lorys, normally a winner with me, is horribly miscast as spy boss Capt. Patricia Flanagan. And Folco Lulli's beer-maker turned super-villain Rether is more pathetic than terrifying. I about lost it when I saw this little fat man sitting behind his giant console in that giant room. Too funny! (Now that I'm thinking about it, that might have been what director Antonio Margheriti was going for – and ineffective looking bad guy. If so, he succeeded.) The only member of the main cast that worked for me was Wandisa Guida as Kary, the good girl turned bad girl turned good girl. What a hottie! Another thing that definitely worked for me is the whole look of the film. For example, Rether's underwater lair is awesome in its design and simplicity. It's not difficult to see where a major portion of Lightning Bolt's budget went. I've seen some complaints about Margheriti's use of miniatures. Maybe I'm showing my age, but I liked it. Sure, they're not realistic, but what is in a movie like Lightning Bolt. Riz Ortoliani's score is another highlight. It's a piece of music that fits the movie beautifully. Throw in some good action scenes, bodies frozen in a state of suspended animation, a cool gadget or two, and a group of henchmen dressed like Diabolik and you end up with a movie that I quite enjoyed despite its faults.Finally, before I finish this, I feel compelled to write about one scene in the movie that left me scratching my head. A rocket is about to blast off from Cape Kennedy and Sennet knows it's going to be destroyed. What does he do? Does he call NASA or some other agency to notify them? No! Instead, Sennet drives his car through a fence and directly at the rocket as it takes off. What, does he have a death wish or something? Was he trying to be burned to a crisp? What did he hope to accomplish? What was his motivation? It's just one of the more puzzling scenes I've run across in a while.

This is one cheesy movie and a lot has been written about it (mostly bad) since it is widely available on the gray market but there are things (mostly bad, again) worth mentioning.Lightning Bolt features smart-ass hard-boiled narration by Eisley and many moments of unintentionally laughable dialog, the kind that would make Ed Wood proud. Nonsensical situations and actions abound in this movie and the special effects are as to be expected; not very special, like the old yarn-for-the-laser-beam trick made famous in Italy.Though the movie has a few charms they are outweighed by too much silliness, a weak villain and the sense that one's time is worth more than the budget spent in making it.