THE TWO CRAZY SECRET AGENTS (1965)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *comedy*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *sociological*

The above title is the one attached to this spy comedy on the Tubi streaming service. I saw it on television long ago under the title in the image above, THE AMAZING DOCTOR G, which was a necessary legal substitute for the Italian title, TWO MAFIA GUYS AGAINST GOLDFINGER. That title was also a fake-out: while for all I know the Italian producers may have actually called their villain Goldfinger, the comedian-stars of the show, Franco Franchi and Ciccio Ingrassia, do not play Mafiosi. They're just two goofs with the same first names as the actors, bumbling from place to place like a low-rent Hope and Crosby.

I remember disliking both comedians, though Ciccio as "straight man" is a little easier to take than the endlessly mugging "Jerry Lewis type" Franco. However, the script is actually a half-decent spoof of the Bond film GOLDFINGER, though strangely the only thing missing from the zany fiend "Goldginger" is that he cares more about chess than gold (though he does have a traitorous female gilded anyway). Instead of robbing Fort Knox, Goldginger (Fernando Rey) has come up with technology that transforms people into obedient robots. The evildoer plans to robotize the delegates of the U.N. so as to foment an atomic war which will supposedly be to Goldginger's benefit, somehow. The British secret service gets wind of the plot and sends a virtual clone of James Bond (George Hilton) to investigate. 

Franco and Ciccio are bumbling nobodies who get mistakenly picked up by Goldginger's mute enforcer Molok (an inevitable counterpart to Oddjob)-- though within the first thirty minutes there's some confusing exposition about how Goldginger's henchwoman Marlene (Gloria Paul) hired the guys to take pictures of a delegate for some reason. The goofs are almost killed by "James Bond," who thinks they're Goldginger allies, but "Bond" is slain by one of the robotized pawns. Molok transports the dopes to Goldginger's hideout, where Goldginger and Marlene threaten them with a rotary buzzsaw (a device taken not from the movie but from the laser-less Fleming novel). Then the villain gets the idea that Franco can play chess and spares them for a game. This gives the goofs a respite and they're rescued by British forces.

The Brits don't have any good intentions for the Sicilian saps, planning to use them as decoys for some reason. (Why don't they just raid Goldginger's refuge rather than bothering with Franco and Ciccio at all?) For appearance's sake the secret service puts the clowns through spy school, with courses in weapons use, disguise artistry, and rugby (?) The goofballs manage to bumble their way into Goldginger's sanctum as he seeks to use his mind-control device to initiate war and to foil his scheme with their antics. This section features the movie's only funny joke, when Franco accidentally orders the robotized delegates to start brawling with each other.

AGENTS is surprisingly light on femmes fatales, even though Gloria Paul provides ample pulchritude when she's on screen. (Rosalba Neri has two short scenes as a secretary.) Paul's Marlene isn't exactly another Pussy Galore, though she does have a small crew of uniformed females that are probably dupes of Pussy's "Abro-Cat" lady pilots, and she does desert the path of villainy at the end as Pussy does. On top of the robotizing device there are various scientific gimmicks strewn about, but the "two crazy secret agents" despite their "training" are not fighters, and so the movie is subcombative. It was a surprise to me that this was actually the second of TWO spy-spoofs by the same comedy team.