Danger!! Death Ray
January. 28,1967Secret Agent Bart Fargo chases the kidnappers of the inventor of a death ray.
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Reviews
Such a frustrating disappointment
good back-story, and good acting
A Masterpiece!
To all those who have watched it: I hope you enjoyed it as much as I do.
I'm probably being generous by giving this a 3 but it is in color and the people do speak on camera so that rates it higher than my all time low 1 of 10 standard, Beast of Yucca Flats. Oh man is this a really bad flick. No it's not as bad as the Attack of The Eye Creatures (also in color and having the "actors" speak on camera) but man for a spy flick from this glorious era, this one is close or is rock bottom. I mean this is worse than the Operation Double 007 and that one was really bad! I'm typing this out as the movie plays it's just going nowhere, and I'm not missing anything. Thank god for Italian film-making though, as bad as this turd is they put out out some other great stuff. At least if it had some hot Italian babes it would be worth watching but there ain't no Sophia or Gina wanna be's around here, just mid 30's producer/director wives (which aren't dogs but are not the kind of eye candy one would want in a bad flick like this to make it worth something rewarding). You'd think that a crappy flick like this would make a great Mystery Science Theater 3,000 episode but even that commentary only makes this a 5 in my book. So in summary, to each his/her own, worse than even Operation Double 007, no hot babes under 30 here, toy sub's and cars and helicopters, really boring, the guy doesn't get any action, the Death Ray is lamer than Battle Beneath The Earth, the MST3K commentary barely makes it tolerable. Avoid at nearly all costs, you have been warned! 3 out of 10, 5 out of 10 with MST3K commentary.
And here we have yet another cheesy Italian knock-off of the spy film genre, trying to capitalize on the 60's popularity of the Bond films. Our super agent, one Bart Fargo by name, is a bland layabout loser, who'd rather be sleeping than out saving the world from bumbling super villains. Smart man, actually, but it doesn't make for very good cinema to watch Bart lounge around his various hotel rooms for at least half of the movie.Bart's boss is a morose, whiny guy with a thoroughly festive racist attitude and an extreme dislike for Bart(not surprising, really). He summons Bart from his perpetual snoozing and has him dragged to the office by two pretty girls(who rough him up a bit, but what female wouldn't want to?). There, he tells Bart his next assignment is to retrieve a scientist who's built a 'peaceful death ray'. Huh? The scientist was kidnapped at the opening of the film by several accountants in a huge car, set to a bouncy tune that gets on your nerves after about the first five minutes of endless repetition. The accountants haul the good doctor off to a toy helicopter stolen from a Godzilla set, then transfer him to a model submarine swiped from the Godzilla vs. the Sea Monster set. They then blow up the toy helicopter, like a five year old gleefully setting off a bottle rocket.So Bart's mission seems to be accomplished by his flying off to yet another vaguely European city and lounging in a different hotel room. the bad guy's thugs conveniently come to him, so there's a set of lame fight scenes in the hideous 60's hotel room. At one time Abe Lincoln uses a time machine to hunt down Bart and try to kill him, maybe because Bart resembles John Wilkes Boothe. There's an amazingly slow car chase, in which Bart shows what a useless super spy he is. I mean, did he really think that the thugs wouldn't notice the candy red sports car practically kissing their bumper? And then Bart demonstrates how incompetent he is, letting the thugs drive the car over the cliff. In an unforeseen tragedy, Bart was not in the car at the time.Bart saves one of the thug's lives, so the guy helps him find the lair of the super(or not so super, really)villain. It looks like a badly decorated bordello, with wall mounted machine guns. Wow, this madame REALLY likes to discourage bad customers. Like Bart, I'm sure. Anyhoo, the bad guy buddy gets fragged, and Bart rushes in to save the girl and the idiot scientist(I mean, a peaceful death ray?! come on, man!) and kills the tepid villain. The 'death ray' causes a lot of wallboard and plaster to fall on their heads, and then there's a scene in yet ANOTHER hotel room of Bart and the red-haired artist chick he saved from 'certain death'. There's a final scene where our hero chucks a talking watch out the window to avoid talking to yet another one of his girlfriends, his bosses' secretary. Was it a Timex? And did it signal the wasted hour and a half that we spent watching this dud? We'll never know.
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.
This spy shlocker isn't that bad. Sure, the acting isn't anything to brag about or the excitement (yawn!) of guys showcasing their butts climbing down ladders. Definitely Gordon Scott is for the ladies, but he actually does a decent job. Bart Fargo (Bart Fargo, Bart Fargo, Bart Fargo!!) has got to be the most hilarious spy name ever. How can you introduce yourself as "My name is Fargo...Bart Fargo." HA HA HA!!There's also Abe Lincoln turned wrong, European guys, cool box switches, and the best special effects ever. I was fondly reminded of Matchbox and simulated naval tub warfare (Das Toy Boat) and it always gets me laughing (Special effects by Billy!). Plus, the best soundtrack ever with the "Bap-Bah-Dap-Bah-Dah-Dah" being grinded into your skull, but it's really fun to hum along with! A great tribute to Watermelon Man just adds to the kampy fun of it. Even the actors look like they know the movie wasn't that good, so there's ham a plenty to go around.Plus, watch this MSTified and see Mike and the bots really bust their guts laughing. They really loved the helicopter scene too!"The ocean is beautiful in this part of the tub."