OK CONNERY!.......A.K.A. "OPERATION KID BROTHER"

Operation Kid Brother (1967)   I've no excuse for waiting so long to get around to this one........the Mount Rushmore of 1960's lunacy.........

                 There's all sorts of visual evidence of the James Bond mania that swept the entire world in the mid 1960's........photos of long, long lines of people waiting to get into theaters showing "Goldfinger" and "Thunderball"..........endless ads for James Bond toys, games, even men's cologne....

                 But nothing can give you a more telling snapshot of this craziness than "Operation Kid Brother", the cheapjack Italian knockoff to end all cheapjack Italian knockoffs.......

                 Any rational description of this movie will sound like I'm kidding around.......no, really, it's Sean Connery's younger brother Neil playing Dr. Neil Connery (!!), a combo plastic surgeon, hypnotist, lip reader, and archery champion..........and brother of....uh.....you-know-who......

                 Joining the madness:  an entire roster of  Bond movie veterans, both allies and villains.....Bernard Lee, Lois Maxwell, Adolfo Celi, Anthony Dawson, Daniela Bianchi......and some Italian actress playing "Lotte", meant to resemble "From Russia With Love"s Lotte Lenya.....

                 Where to I even start?

                 Ennio Morricone's rambunctious score kicks off with a woman shrieking 'OK Connery!'....the film's alternate title.  As Austin Powers would put it....yeah, baby.

                  Neil Connery other than bearing a striking resemblance to big brother, maintains a steady gaze, like he's posing for a James Bond Cologne ad.  Everybody's badly dubbed, but at least Lee, Maxwell and Dawson hung around long enough to re-record their own lines........

                  The plot? Beats me.......something about Celi and Dawson's evil outfit 'Thanatos' grabbing an atomic something-or-other. To do this, they employ babes who dress up as can-can dancers and pussycats to beat up security guards......(to the sound of Morricone music peppered with 'Meow Meow'.....)   The villains also hoodwink blind beggars to unknowingly irradiate themselves while toiling in a nuclear sweatshop........

                  Once again, I remind you I'm not making any of this up........(including Celi parading around in what looks like a solid gold camping tent)

                 This one-of-a-kind trainwreck forever stands as a glorious footnote and testament to the Bondmania frenzy that seized the world for at least a few years.........(and probably one more contributing factor in Sean Connery's decision to quit the series, fed up with the ongoing insanity that would lead to a film like this......)

                  But for all Bond fanatics......a guilty, guilty pleasure like no other in movie history.  And for the brass balls it required to make "Operation Kid Brother".....3 stars (***)......(Oh, did I forget to mention the remote control car that features the actual driver hiding underneath the steering wheel?)

                   Yeah, baby.