Anyone who read our review of the not-exactly-seminal Dr Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine (1965) will know that we left on a bit of a cliff-hanger. If you didn’t, then we’re not sure why you’re reading this but, just to get you up to speed, it was such a success in Italy that Mario Bava directed this sequel. Just to muddy the waters here, it is also a sequel to the unconnected Italian hit, The Amazing Doctor G (1965). But other than to tell you that they’re both Goldfinger (1964) spoofs (the titular doctor in that one was actually Goldginger rather than Goldfoot), we’re not going to cause anymore confusion because we’re on a word-count here. However, Doctor G did feature the Italian comic duo of Franco and Ciccio, so you get rather a lot of them in this one too. You have been warned.
The plot? Oh, same as the last one practically. Instead of gold-bikinied robot girls that seduce rich men, these ones blow up NATO generals. Clue is in the title. Only Dr Goldfoot (Price) has returned from the original cast but as he was the only one who was any good in the original, this is no bad thing. What happened to Dr Goldginger? Knew we shouldn’t have mentioned that other movie. Forget about Goldginger.
Is it any good? Dear lord, no. OK, there are some nice moments where Vincent Price breaks the fourth wall (very hip in 1966 – see Alfie) and at least it understands that speeded up film (as per Benny Hill) is always funny but in all other respects, this is dire stuff. What was Mario Bava thinking? Actually, he was thinking quite clearly, as he apparently tried to get out of it but was under contract. Executive producer Samuel Z. Arkoff believed the problem with the movie lay in the fact that Laura Antonelli wouldn’t take her clothes off (no, really) but as she spends half the film in her nightie, we think he may have missed a couple of other glowering problems with it. As with Bikini Machine the absence of anything funny is a bit of handicap to a “comedy” but at least that didn’t have to contend with the aforementioned Franco and Ciccio. Now this duo were very popular in Italy, so perhaps it’s to do with the ‘60s Italian humour, but it has to be said that, to the British 21st century sophisticate, these boys are about as funny as syphilis. And on the subject of Italian humour, there is a bizarre gag that, if we’ve understood it correctly, is about General Francisco Franco. Actually it’s one of the best gags in film but we just couldn’t work out why an office in Italy would have a huge picture of the Spanish dictator necessary for the joke to work. If anyone can explain this one, we’re all ears. And while the original had The Supremes doing the theme song, this one has The Sloopy’s (sic) who a) we’ve never heard of and b) don’t even have a grammatically correct name.
Vincent Price summed it up pretty well when he said, “the most dreadful movie I’ve ever been in.”
DR GOLDFOOT & THE GIRL BOMBS (1966) / DIRECTOR: MARIO BAVA / SCREENPLAY: GIUSEPPE MOCCIA, FRANCO CASTELLANO, LOUIS M. HEYWARD, ROBERT KAUFMAN / STARRING: VINCENT PRICE, FABIAN, FRANCO FRANCI, CICCIO INGRASSIA, FRANCESCO MULÉ, LAURA ANTONELLI / RELEASED: OUT NOW
