The Nude Bomb ** (1980, Don Adams, Andrea Howard, Sylvia Kristel, Rhonda Fleming, Dana Elcar, Pamela Hensley, Norman Lloyd) – Classic Movie Review 10,537

Director Clive Donner’s daffy, campy, bawdy 1980 American spy spoof comedy The Nude Bomb (retitled The Return of Maxwell Smart for television) is based on the TV series Get Smart with the drily amusing Don Adams back as funny Maxwell Smart, Agent 86. Adams and Robert Karvelas (as Larrabee) are the only original cast members of the TV series to reprise their roles in the film.

Barbara Feldon’s character from the series, Agent 99, does not appear in film nor is she mentioned. Dana Elcar plays the Chief in this film after Edward Platt’s death in 1974.

Rhonda Fleming in 1951.

It is the last film of Rhonda Fleming, as Edith Von Secondberg. The Spellbound and Out of the Past actress died on 14 October 2020, aged 97. She was nicknamed the Queen of Technicolor.

Norman Lloyd, who plays Carruthers, celebrated his 106th birthday on 8 November 2020. He is also in Hitchcock’s Spellbound.

Sylvia Kristel, from Emmanuelle, makes a brief appearance as Agent 34, with Andrea Howard as Agent 22 (a role similar to Agent 99) and Vittorio Gassman playing the Blofeld-like villain, as Norman Saint Sauvage / Nino Salvatori Sebastiani. Joey Forman, who played Harry Hoo in the TV series, is recast as Agent 13. Pamela Hensley, Princess Ardala in Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, appears as Agent 36.

Get Smart co-creators Mel Brooks and Buck Henry notably have no involvement in the film, but it is based on their characters.

Smart’s agency is called PITS, Provisional Intelligence Tactical Service, replacing the original CONTROL.

There are five times in the film where the bomb is detonated, but in each case the actors cover up with strategically placed items or are shown only from the waist up.

© Derek Winnert 2020 Classic Movie Review 10,537

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