Late Night Movie House of Crap: The Nude Bomb

October 3, 2012

No Classic Repost today, Mr. Blog is all new!

I consider it a hard and fast rule to never put the word “bomb” in the title of a movie. You’re just asking for trouble. And it this case it is justified.

I’ve seen this film. And I have asked myself, over and over and over, “why would anyone make a softcore porn version of Get Smart?” Now I admit, calling this softcore porn is a stretch. There is no frontal nudity. But the jokes are a little on the risqué side, especially for anyone who grew up with the sanitized 50’s-era TV show upon which this is based. And Don Adams working blue? Why? As you’ll see in the trailer, they take a typical Get Smart joke- Don shooting himself with his gun- and turn his catchphrase into a double entendre. Meanwhile, the rest of the TV cast? Gone. In later years in later Get Smart revivals, this film is mercifully ignored.

As befitting a bomb of a movie, I’ve gone to a bomb of a website for more info. From wikipedia:

In the film, Smart is called back into service in order to stop a nefarious KAOS terrorist plan from exploding a bomb that destroys only clothing, so as to leave KAOS as the only supplier of clothes to the entire world.

Adams’ cousin Robert Karvelas (Larrabee) is the only other cast member from the television series to return for this film. Dana Elcar plays the Chief in this film (as Edward Platt had died in 1974); no reference is made to Barbara Feldon’s character from the TV series, Agent 99, or even her marriage to Smart. Sylvia Kristel, at the time well known for her appearances in the Emmanuelle film series, makes a brief appearance as Agent 34, with actress Andrea Howard playing as Agent 22 (Agent 99-type role) and Vittorio Gassman playing the Blofeld-like villain. Agent 13 was recast as Joey Forman, who played Harry Hoo in the TV series. Pamela Hensley, who was by now well known to science fiction fans for playing Princess Ardala in Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, appeared as Agent 36.

Smart’s agency, called CONTROL in the TV series, was called PITS in this film, an acronym standing for Provisional Intelligence Tactical Service.

In spite of the title, the film was given a PG rating because there was no frontal nudity in the film. There are five times in the film where the bomb is detonated, but in each case the actors cover up their private areas with strategically placed briefcases or guns (Buckingham palace guards) or are shown only from the waist up. In one case members of a football team are in a huddle when a bomb detonates, revealing bare behinds of some of the players. In the final scene, the three stars of the film are rendered nude by fallout from the destruction of all the bombs at the enemy headquarters, but are seen from the backsides from a distance, and then with a “the end” caption covering each of their backsides.

The film was a box office disappointment. Nearly a decade later another revival film was produced, this time for TV, on ABC. Get Smart, Again! would feature most of the surviving original cast members and ignored the events that took place in The Nude Bomb for continuity purposes. This was followed by a short-lived revival TV series for Fox.

And just for fun, here is a truly funny foreign movie poster.

Tags: bmj2k, Dana Elcar, Don Adams, Ed Platt, KAOS, Late Night Movie House of Crap, Maxwell Smart, Mr. Blog, Mr. Blog's Tepid Ride, Mr. BTR, Pamela Hensley, Sylvia Kristel, The Nude Bomb