Shot in Rome,usually known in the English speaking world as “Lightning Bolt”(so like “Thunderball”!),this movie is an especially tacky example of the Euro-Superspy genre of the 1960’s.Often these movies starred second string American actors to help US sales-and this has Anthony Eisley(best known as a lead in the TV detective series “Hawaiian Eye”),who spent a lot of his career in such Euro schlock.Handsome,tough looking and businesslike,Eisley was suitable for these kinds of roles,but here he is immersed in a distinctly third rate “Bond” caper.The story has elements from “Dr No”(villain who shoots down US moon rockets-cue the grainy stock footage of Cape Kennedy which fills the movie),but here the tale is clumsily developed and full of absurdities.The villain,vaguely resembles Goldfinger,and is-wait for it-a fiendish beer manufacturer,just like the villain in the Matt Helm movie “The Ambushers”(1967).Eisley’s hero “Harry Sennet” at times acts with incredible stupidity.He drives right on to a rocket launch site to try and stop it leaving-just as it blasts off!In another unprofessional moment,Sennet,captured and surrounded by thugs,goes into a rage and tries to attack the gloating villain,when it’s obvious he will fail and just gets more battering from the bad guys for his trouble-007 would be appalled!And here is a hero who more than once tries to “buy off” enemies by offering them cheques!(a wonderfully absurd scene has him doing a cheque for a gunman who’s ready to shoot him!). The English dubbing is clear but often incongruous(a renowned rocket scientist who speaks in a “Barry Fitzgerald” Irish burr?).To try to make the narrative more coherent,we have Sennet providing a frequently cornball “tough guy” voice-over at certain points.<\/p>\n
I did quite like the villainess with an acid squirting gun,and the “underwater city” hideout has a certain threadbare pop art mid 60’s charm(with its ice-chamber where the villain stores his frozen victims).The final action and destruction scenes are far better done than the rest of the movie,the director seems more at home with fighting\/mayhem than other aspects of film making.<\/p>\n
There are a lot of better examples of 60’s Eurospy out there,but “Lightning Bolt” is tolerable if you are interested in the genre.<\/p>\n
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Shot in Rome,usually known in the English speaking world as “Lightning Bolt”(so like “Thunderball”!),this movie is an especially tacky example of the Euro-Superspy genre of the 1960’s.Often these movies starred second string American actors to help US sales-and this has Anthony Eisley(best known as a lead in the TV detective series “Hawaiian Eye”),who spent a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24076,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","mf2_syndication":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24088","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-b-movie-news","wpcat-1-id"],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["http:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/lightning_bolt_poster_01.jpg",1941,2959,false],"thumbnail":["http:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/lightning_bolt_poster_01-145x145.jpg",145,145,true],"medium":["http:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/lightning_bolt_poster_01-197x300.jpg",197,300,true],"medium_large":["http:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/lightning_bolt_poster_01-768x1171.jpg",768,1171,true],"large":["http:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/lightning_bolt_poster_01-672x1024.jpg",672,1024,true],"1536x1536":["http:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/lightning_bolt_poster_01.jpg",1008,1536,false],"2048x2048":["http:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/lightning_bolt_poster_01.jpg",1343,2048,false],"gridflex-1422w-autoh-image":["http:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/lightning_bolt_poster_01.jpg",1422,2168,false],"gridflex-1074w-autoh-image":["http:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/lightning_bolt_poster_01.jpg",1074,1637,false],"gridflex-360w-300h-image":["http:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/lightning_bolt_poster_01.jpg",197,300,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"admin1","author_link":"http:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/?author=1"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"Shot in Rome,usually known in the English speaking world as “Lightning Bolt”(so like “Thunderball”!),this movie is an especially tacky example of the Euro-Superspy genre of the 1960’s.Often these movies starred second string American actors to help US sales-and this has Anthony Eisley(best known as a lead in the TV detective series “Hawaiian Eye”),who spent a...","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24088","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24088"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24088\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/24076"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24088"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24088"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24088"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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