The Lucifer Complex (1978)

It is a performances centric movie

It's funny watching the elements come together in this complicated scam. On one hand, the set-up isn't quite as complex as it seems, but there's an easy sense of fun in every exchange.

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

There is a passable film here but only if you skip watching the beginning "future man in the cave sequence". The boring, monotoned, bearded man watching boring stock footages, while playing with a snake & putting everyone to sleep. This leading footage doesn't even match the film. So do yourself a favor & skip ahead past the cave historical footage review until you see Robert Vaughn Appear. Do the same at the end & you will find a watchable Vaughn film in between.I also found the commentaries of a couple former actors to be quite interesting to read describing what it was like to appear on this film.It is a shame that IMDb tries to coerce our credit card info & access to our other site logins for supposed "additional authorization" despite some of us being members for over a decade. They even wanted us to pay them for us providing them with free photos for the IMDb site. There is something seriously wrong & crooked about their setup.I would send compliments to the actors who commented on this movie but I'm not about to give IMDb any financial or other site login info for additional authorizations they have no business or justification to ask for. They will never got that info from me. It is their loss if my 10+ years membership isn't good enough to contribute my knowledge or correction of errors.Beware of any site or business wanting your financial info or your login access to other sites.As for the movie, just skip over the man in Cave sequence which has no bearing on the movie whatsoever & it will be fairly watchable like one of those Matt Helm flicks.

*Spoiler/plot- 1978, A Government spy is sent to investigate a strange occurrence of why many world diplomats are disappearing during an international meeting. A reborn/cloned Natzi terrorist group in South America has plans for world domination again with a Fourth Reich.*Special Stars- Robert Vaughn, Keenan Wynn, Merrie Lynn Ross, Aldo Ray*Theme- Just when you think the Natzi regime is destroyed, they rise. They are often too virulent for the world's worries.*Trivia/location/goofs- Hitler's clone sounds in his speech, too Jewish. This film was shot in and around Manhattan Beach area.*Emotion- A rather crazy 'stinker' direct–to-TV film with Robert 'Napoleon Solo' Vaughn playing a spy long after his prime. This time not very well without the UNCLE interesting locations, fellow cast members, writing, spy toys, and high production values. Most war-decorated veteran of WW2 Pacific theater turned actor Aldo Ray also tries his worst here. This is a film of has-been actor's sad performances. Yawn-- boring.

WARNING, SPOILERS. Despite lurid elements, such as Nazi cloning and a bull-dyke prison matron, this one is cold beans, snuffed out by dawdling pace and crummy acting. The opening 20 min. is the framing device: an apocalypse survivor with his own techno cave watches blurry video of past wars and rock festivals while he philosophizes in a monotone on Man's History. Eventually, and it's a mighty long eventually, we realize he's watching "Lucifer Complex." Then it's Robert Vaughn Vs. the Nazis. Vaughn uncovers a compound where chubby "Uberfuhrer Frobe" (!) is creating a master race, most of whom seem to be women cast from the checkout line at a Piggly Wiggly. Johnny Quest-type caper music with plenty of bongos plays over the action. This is Career Hell for Vaughn, Keenan Wynn, and Aldo Ray (who is barely given "Uh-huh" to speak.) Whatever they were paid, it wasn't enough. Filmmaker incompetence provides enough laughs to get you through its 91 minutes: ... underpopulated action scenes, with the same 5 or 6 Nazis getting shot or punched out, over and over ...Middle-aged Vaughn taking out younger opponents with catlike karate chops ... the shag-blonde shooting Nazis, then spitting on them ...Vaughn fires a tank shell at Nazi HQ, and all it does is blow out a window and start a fire ...Adolph Hitler shows up, but he looks more like Mr. Whipple than Der Fuhrer. Pic is like an old stick of gum you find at the back of your suitcase. It's crummy but you stay with it. Anyway, I did.

(spoiler in third paragraph)After a near decade-long layoff, the Grade Z genius David L. Hewitt (WIZARD OF MARS, THE MIGHTY GORGA) once again blesses us with his cinematic charms with this dreary espionage flick whose history is almost as obscure as the film itself. Apparently someone had made a no-budget "Man From UNCLE" wannabe featuring none other than Robert Vaughn, and either the film was not completed, or simply too short to warrant theatrical release. Therefore, the film is padded with a wraparound story of a man on an island (presumably the last survivor of this planet) who watches footage of previous exploits of mankind-- hence, the inclusion of this twisted spy fable. I'm not sure at which point Hewitt (one of the two directors) was hired for this film. It is unclear whether he directed the underlit spy movie or the cold wraparound post-apocalyptic stuff which was meant to "rescue" the movie. In either case, this is classic Dave Hewitt material-- namely, futile attempts at trying to make something out of nothing. Plus, with the tacked-on footage of the sole man watching the other film (abetted with impossibly unenthused voiceover), the ending is thus anticlimactic. It adds nothing to the other story.Because this is a Gold Key release (remember those late-night fillers like FOES, CAPTIVE and TARGET EARTH?), this is also impossibly lethargic. Its attempts at suspense are so dismal (so many meaningless POV shots going through reeds during a chase scene), that even such ingredients as a sudden last-reel change to womens-prison-genre conventions fail to light any sparks. Its sole novelty is the revelation that the mastermind behind the cloning which Vaughn is sent to investigate, is none other than Adolf Hitler! Otherwise the only other memorable moment is the inevitable dramatically ironic moment when Vaughn faces his own clone. In an inspired bit of bad filmmaking, the two Vaughns fight... in a shot that is so underexposed that you can't see either one of them!!Whew. What an ordeal it is to survive this film. I haven't seen this in over fifteen years (and the late-night movie programmers paired this with INVASION FROM INNER EARTH to make for one unforgettable evening of Grade Z badness; I had to watch them both twice), and now that the late show has been overrun with infomercials that cost even less to program than drivel like this, I doubt it will rear its head again. However, THE LUCIFER COMPLEX is another of those strange dichotomies of our youthful memories-- even though it is an unpleasant experience, for some reason we want to relive it, simply because it reflects a crucial time in our lives. That is the perplexing behavioural pattern of those like myself who have a strange attraction-repulsion to bad movies. They outrage and bemuse us at the same time. And now because there is so little in today's watershed of cinema to have such audacity to confound us, perhaps that is why we pine for these films all over again. At least they make us feel something. If anything, you'll probably find this film way, way in the back of some independent video store, with a now-yellowing box with enticing cover art and foisting the names of Robert Vaughn, Aldo Ray and Keenan Wynn to make one think it's better than it is. Ah, the days of the video age-- when any no-buck releasing company would try to transcend the dreck they were trying to put on the shelves. Enter if you dare.