OK Connery (1967)

Ok. So I took a long time, but I finally put my hands on this very hard to find movie, and it was with a particular weird anticipation that today I watched it. It was as bit as cheesy and as bad as I thought it would be, and I was glad! The movie is, off course, “OK Connery” or “Operation Kid Brother” in its American title. And what, you might ask, is “OK Connery”? Well, after the huge success of the James Bond movies in the early sixties, a lot of copy cats appeared. In Europe, this phenomenon was very wide spread, mainly in England, Italy and France. Spies OSS 117 or Bulldog Drummond are examples of such. Most of them are just spy eurotrash, of small budget, with beautiful girls, and trying to copy the American style with a hint of parody and a lot of clichés. The movies may be bad, but believe me, they are addictive if you are a fan of the genre. So, what distinguishes “OK Connery” in the middle of the huge amount of movies made in the 60s of this genre? Basically, it all comes down to one word… casting! The casting of this movie was “pure genius”… well, maybe not that, but at least it is interesting enough for one to have an itch to see it. The plastic surgeon turned spy is none other than Neil Connery. And who is Neil Connery? Sean Connery’s younger brother!!!!! He only made this movie and another, to then “retire” and go to Scotland back into the plaster business… His acting is difficult to ascertain, because his voice is dubbed by another actor, so he is just more of a puppet who looks like Sean Connery. He just goes here and there, nods his head and moves his lips. Besides Neil Connery (who plays a spy called Neil Connery!), the producers basically tried to get their hands on all the actors they could that had stared in all the 5 James Bond movies that had been done so far. So we have Daniela Bianchi (the Bond girl in “From Russia with Love”), as the bad girl turned good, Bernard Lee and Louis Maxwell (M and Moneypenny) as basically the same roles, Anthony Dawson (one of the villains in “Dr. No”), as Alpha, one of the villains, and lastly Adolfo Celi (the villain in “Thunderball”) as Beta, the main villain. This allows for some nice spoof moments. Maxwell appears to be making an effort not to laugh all the time, and comments that Neil will do because he looks close enough like his brother, despite being less good looking. The references to the brother are all over the place. Apparently Sean is working on the same case, but he never appears (I wonder why). Celi comments that he is the brother of 00… and Dawson interrupts by saying that they are a very obnoxious family. Bianchi also complains that everybody seems to be reading too much Ian Fleming novels… And what about the plot? Wait… is there a plot? Well… unfortunately yes, there is a kind of a plot. But it is so boring, that really there is no interest in discussing it. It involves some hypnotism, plastic surgery, a Japanese girl who has some secrets (a nod to the then Japanese wife of Sean), and a SPECTRE-like organization that has some sort of magnet that can make all clocks, cars, guns, telephones, etc, etc, useless. Usual stuff. The rest is pretty girls, some shooting and explosions, nice Mediterranean locations, a showdown at the villain’s lair with bows and arrows (because the guns don’t work!), and villains doing their usual villain stuff. If Mini-me or Mike Myers suddenly appeared I wouldn’t think it strange, albeit infinitely funnier… This is bad, boring and the only funny or interesting scenes are the one that have the jokes to Bond, Flemming or Connery, or when the Bond cast parades itself. They had the resources to do an amazing spoof… but to waste Neil Connery on a plastic surgeon that can do hypnotism that becomes a spy… my God! An interesting feature on this one is that the score is Ennio Morricone’s. The great maestro shows here how his take on Bond would sound like (despite using some strangely familiar passages…), also composing an interesting and full of rhythm Bond-like opening song. Recommend this one ONLY for the die hard fans of the Bond series (to see what the Bond actors have done) or the ones hooked on eurotrash 60s spy movies… or if you are curious to see Sean Connery’s brother. By the way, Sean Connery celebrated his 80th birthday yesterday. Congratulations!