Oh! Those Most Secret Agents/002 agenti segretissimi (1964)

‘You think about women too much. I should have your sexual valves checked.’

An American Intelligence organisation give two stupid burglars a fake secret formula so they can draw agents Russians away from the true couriers. A series of comic mishaps and misunderstandings lead to the thieves evading capture, which turns out to be a good thing as they have accidentally been given the real formula…

Franco and Ciccio were a very popular Italian comedy double act, whose screen career lasted from the 1950s to the 1980s, with the duo being particularly popular in the decades in between. Here they bring their juvenile clowning to the secret agent spoof with a predictable assortment of hi-jinks, physical gags and cases of mistaken identity.

Bumbling housebreakers Franco and Ciccio plan to rob a mansion after a column in the local newspaper suggests it will be unoccupied and filled with goodies. However, it turns out to be a trap arranged by American spymaster Fred (Luca Sportelli) and his talking supercomputer Armando. The duo are rendered unconscious, secret microfilm is inserted into one of the fillings in Franco’s teeth, and the two are dispatched to the French Riviera to lead the dirty Commies astray. Rosa Klebb knock-off Carla Calò leads the red contingent and, in another nod to ‘From Russia with Love’ (1963), one of the few gadgets on display are shoes accessorised with sharp cutting implements. What follows is a madcap series of misunderstandings, misadventures and lots and lots of running about.

‘If we look hard enough, maybe we’ll find one of Lewis and Martin’s old gags!’

This isn’t so much a developing story as a series of broad, comic skits almost randomly thrown together. After the initial set up of the first twenty minutes, it’s just Franco and Ciccio being chased around and foiling the various attempts to capture or kill them while being almost totally oblivious to everything that’s going on.

The best sequence involves a series of assassinations at a night club, facilitated by jackets being marked with chalk in what is a (quite probably) unintentional reflection of Peter Lorre’s identification in Fritz Lang’s ‘M’ (1931). There’s pretty much no plot to speak of, and no sense of escalation as the film staggers towards its underwhelming climax.

The most surprising aspect here is undoubtedly the presence of director Lucio Fulci, who also contributed to the screenplay. He’d only been making pictures for a few years at this point and had begun his filmmaking career almost exclusively with comedies and musicals. He’d already worked with Franco and Ciccio earlier on ‘Gil imbroglioni’ (1963) and ‘Two Escape From Sing Sing’ (1964) and was a long way from the cult horrors which brought him such notoriety during the explosion of the home video rental market in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Among other titles, ‘Zombie Flesh Eaters’ (1979), ‘City of the Living Dead’ (1980) and ‘House By The Cemetery’ (1981) all gave the British Board of Film Classification many a sleepless night.

‘I said I wanted Plaice & Chips you idiot!’

Franco Franchi and Ciccio Ingrassia appeared in over 100 films together during their long career. Typically, Ciccio was the ‘straight man’ and Franco was the buffoon who spent most of his time pulling very silly faces. Their humour was broad, to say the least, and is most definitely an acquired taste.

Later on, the duo starred alongside Vincent Prince in Mario Bava’s ‘Dr Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs’ (1966) which is almost universally regarded as the director’s worst film. In terms of a ‘Bond’ spoof, this is a weak cocktail indeed. There are very few gadgets, little action and no notable stunt work. Third-billed Ingrid Schoeller is the main girl on show, but her part is little more than a few scenes where she plays the wife of jealous Doctor Aroldo Tieri, who keeps finding her in vaguely suspicious situations with our hapless heroes. Eurospy babe Seyna Seyn also makes one of her many appearances in the genre. There’s also some vaguely racist business in a Chinese Restaurant where the menu seems to consist entirely of live worms and beetles.

At best, this is a harmless comedy if a little trying on the patience at times. There are barely enough jokes here for a half-hour sitcom, and those that we do get are weak, repetitive and not very funny.