THE NUDE BOMB

US, 1980, 89 minutes, Colour.
Don Adams, Sylvia Kristel, Vittorio Gassman, Rhonda Fleming, Dana Elcar.
Directed by Clive Donner.

The Nude Bomb is a slightly provocative title for a feature film version of a very popular television series, Get Smart. Don Adams repeats his role as the bumbling secret agent Maxwell Smart. Barbara Feldon was not available for this film version. Adams is joined by a number of Universal starlets as well as Emmanuelle herself, Sylvia Kristel, not getting much other chance in her Hollywood career. She appears briefly in a red jumpsuit in this film. Veteran actress Rhonda Fleming gets a better featured role.

The film capitalises on the humour of mistakes and accidents (a bit like Peter Sellers' Inspector Clouseau). The film is particularly American in tone and uses a tour of Universal Studios itself as one of its features, although there are international sequences (not particularly convincingly photographed). The film is also a parody on all the James Bond films. Maxwell Smart is the American bumbling version of Bond. The film has a spectacular villain in the Bond films vein with Vittorio Gassman having an enjoyable time hamming it up.

The film is interesting in being directed by Clive Donner. Donner was an Englishman who made some striking films in the '60s including a version of Pinter's The Caretaker, Frederic Raphael's Nothing But The Best, Woody Allen's What's New Pussycat?, as well as Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush and Alfred the Great. Working in television in the '70s, he made an interesting telemovie of Geoffrey Household's Rogue Male with Peter O'Toole. Donner has a flamboyant colourful touch which is evident in this film.