Le spie vengono dal semifreddo

Plot synopsis:
The foppish mad scientist Dr. Goldfoot (Vincent Price) plots another mad scheme to take over the world by killing off the major military leaders of every country; to that end, he creates in his secret lab a bevy of bodacious girl bombs; full-length, life-size robots that explode when embraced.Goldfoots plans become compromised when the mysterious deaths arouse the suspicions of Bill Dexter (Fabian), a former member of the Security Intelligence Command (S.I.C.) who has been expelled from the organization for being too much of a lady's man at seducing all or most of the female employees of the company. While following Dr. Goldfoot, Dexter runs into two dim-witted hotel doorman, named Franco (Franco Franchi) and Ciccio (Ciccio Ingrassia), who have aspirations toward becoming secret agents. Goldfoot positions one of his girl bombs, an exact duplicate of a lovely hat-check girl, in the hotel where Franco and Ciccio work. The hotel is playing hose to an important Belgian General, and Goldfoot knows that the military man will be unable to resist the allure of his girl bomb. Before Dexter can do anything to stop this plan, he is attacked by the simpleton Franco and Ciccio who mistakenly think that Dexter is a foreign spy. In the ensuing confusion, the Belgian general, "bites the dust."Soon afterwards, a NATO officer, General Willis (Vincent Price in a dual role), is abducted by Dr. Goldfoot. Apart from being the last surviving NATO general, Willis also happens to the dead splitting image of Dr. Goldfoot albeit with a very noticeable stammer, and a black eye patch over his right eye. Willis is killed soon after by one of the girl bombs, and Dr. Goldfoot plots to take his place at an important conference.When Goldfoot receives information that a secret meeting is being held at SIC headquarters, he has the room electronically bugged. General Benson and his associates determine that the only way to catch the man responsible for these bizarre killings is to assign their two best agents to the task. Using a high-tech computer, named Rita, General Benson decides it is the best way to determine the two best SIC agents will be flawlessly chosen. But Dr. Goldfoot sabotages the computer, and the two agents selected to carry out the job are none other than Franco and Ciccio.Meanwhile, General Benson's secretary, Rosanna (Laura Antonelli), convinces Dexter to assist Franco and Ciccio in their investigation. What Dexter fails to realize that he too is being monitored by Goldfoot, who fears that the young man might be more capable than he appears to be. Goldfoot also takes an interest in Rosanna, and has one of his henchmen kidnap her when Dexter leaves her apartment. She is subsequently replaced by a duplicate girl bomb. When Dexter returns to her apartment that same evening, he finds a definite changes in Rosanna's behavior. Whereas she had earlier slapped him across the face for making a pass at her, she now appears seductive and passionate in her disposition. Though Dexter is charged with excitement over the case, the girl bomb does her best to lure him into an embrace, even resorting to an impromptu striptease. But Dexter sees through her disguise and avoids the trap set by Dr. Goldfoot. The duplicate Rosanna is subsequently shorted out in an accident, while Dexter goes in search of the real Rosanna.Having earlier been tipped off by Dexter that Dr. Goldfoot is hiding out in a mansion in the countryside, Franco and Ciccio decide to upstage him by raiding the place and taking full credit for its discovery. When they arrive with General Benson and the authorities, the only find that the place is a private school girls. In fact, this is yet another deceptive illusion arranged by the diabolical doctor, with the girl bombs posing as passive students, and the doctor himself posing as a matron (with his beard concealed by a black veil). Satisifed that the entire trip was a false alarm, Benson and his men depart. Franco and Ciccio decide to stay behind and in so doing, they are captured by Dr. Goldfoot and his henchmen. They break free, and the henchmen search the mansion for them. Franco manages to escape by posing an a girl bomb. Dr. Goldfoot is suprisingly fooled by Francos discuse when he rationalizes the strange looking girl bomb as being the result of failing to "oil the machine". But Ciccio is trapped when he unsuccessfully attempts to impersonate Goldfoot's reflection in a fake mirror (shades of the classic 'mirror scene' from the Marx Brother's 'Duck Soup').That night, Franco returns to the mansion with Dexter to try to rescue Ciccio and Rosanna. In the interim, Ciccio has been duplicated with a 'guy bomb' and Rosanna has, literally, been kept in cold storage. Dexter retrieves Rosanna, and after battling it out with Ciccio's duplicate, the two inept doormen are once again reunited.His plans for world domination still in place, Dr. Goldfoot attempts to flee. A hilariously silly, climatic mad chase ensures, leading through such picturesque sights as the Roman Coliseum (which is slightly damaged when Goldfoot smashes his car into one of the pillars), the Trevi Fountain (which Dr. Goldfoot stops for a second to throw a coin in the fountain for good luck), and an amusement park. The chase culminates in the air with Goldfoot boarding a US aircraft under the guise of General Wilson, and Dexter and his two cohorts pursing them in a hot air balloon. Landing the balloon on the wings of the plane, Dexter and the others foil Goldfoot's escape. The three heroes battle it out with the henchmen, but Dr. Goldfoot takes advantage of the commotion by quietly donning a parachute and bailing out. Before he escapes, however, Goldfoot sets the control panels of the plan on a course for Moscow; once it reaches the designed sights, the bomb doors will open and a super bomb will be released on the Kremlin. While Dexter tries to take control of the plane, Franco and Ciccio head into the bomb compartment to try do defuse the bomb. They manage to disarm the bomb, but the bomb doors open prematurely, and they are dropped into the heart of Siberia, riding the bomb like a horse (shades of 'Dr. Strangelove').Epilogue. Dexter is back in America having been reinstated as a member of SIC, while he starts making plans to rescue Franco and Ciccio from Siberia. But a telex arrives from President Lyndon Johnson that the plans have been scrapped and that the entire incident must be kept under cover. Dexter is emotionally devastated, but plots not to give up, even if he has to go on alone to rescue Franco and Ciccio. Meanwhile in Siberia, Franco and Ciccio are happily residing in a Soviet prison camp, in which the camp director is none other than..... Dr. Goldfoot.

Tags: good versus evil, murder

Review:
I should emend that statement after watching this movie: I'd watch Vincent Price read a phone book IF he was nowhere near a pair of Italian idiots...I saw Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine, so I knew what to expect; but, any camp enjoyment one could derive from this film was nullified by the idiot doormen/spies who mug their way through every scene like a horrible Jim Carey.Price plays the role light and talks to the camera through some of the movie.
His performance made Frankie Avalon look like Lawrence Olivier.The girls are pretty, fleshy Italian types.
GOLDFOOT AND THE GIRL BOMBS.Both films begin with the military leaders of various nations being lured into an explosive, and fatal, kiss by the scantily clad charms of the insidious Dr. Goldfoot's robot girl bombs, and both films end with a climactic confrontation between the forces of good and evil aboard an airborne American jumbo bomber, but the events between produce two very different movies.DR.
GOLDFOOT AND THE GIRL BOMBS stars the popular singer and would-be actor Fabian as well intentioned but barely competent Bill Dexter, an agent of the Security Intelligence Command, or SIC.
Assisted by Colonel Benson's gorgeous, but frigid, secretary, Rosanna, ( the anything but frigid Laura Antonelli ) Dexter bumbles his way through various clichéd perils to save NATO's leaders from being blown to bits.LE SPIE VENGONO DAL SEMIFREDDO stars the Italian comedy duo of Franco Franchi and Ciccio Ingrassia as a pair of totally incompetent accidental spies, who, following information from American agent Bill Dexter, manage to track the villainous Dr. Goldfoot to his lair, and then get trapped there by him.
Dexter arrives on the scene to rescue the bumbling duo, just in time for the climactic chase and final showdown aboard the bomber.What both versions share is that neither will ever be mistaken for a great movie comedy.
An even less appealing team than Marty Allen and Steve Rossi in LAST OF THE SECRET AGENTS, it is truly frightening to reflect on this duo of barely talented "comedians" being so popular as to star in over one hundred motion pictures.Surprisingly, then, it is LE SPIE VENGONO DAL SEMIFREDDO that is the better of the two movies.
Without a doubt the best thing about either film is Vincent Price, and his Dr. Goldfoot character is better treated, though barely so, in the Italian release.
Lastly, several of the American version's most preposterously bad moments, such as the very poorly done demise of Rosanna's robot double, are wisely not in the Italian cut of the film.
The substituted Franco and Ciccio scenes are merely silly, rather than painfully embarrassing.In watching either version, it is difficult to believe that the director was the great Mario Bava.
In the hands of talents like Vincent Price and Mario Bava the result should have been a first rate black comedy.
Unfortunately the combination of too many other factors, both behind and in front of the camera, diminished the final result into films which are little more than interesting curiosities.For fans of Mario Bava, Vincent Price or simply for the curious, both films have been made available on home video.
GOLDFOOT AND THE GIRL BOMBS was released in a fair pan and scan VHS edition in 1995 as part of MGM's Vincent Price Collection.
In regard to Price, Dr Gooldfoot and the Girl Bombs is arguably his worst film(though Green Hell and Story of Mankind are just as poor as well) but he being Price looks as though he was at least he was enjoying himself, though I read somewhere that that wasn't the case.
Fabian is really bland and looks lost, but what truly sinks Dr Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs is the double act Ciccio and Franco, mugging and grimacing with no charm, genuine comic timing or grace whatsoever.
A rather bizarre mix of surreal gags, verbal comedy (including some breaking of the fourth wall) and juvenile slapstick (prepare for lots and lots of fast motion), "Dr. Goldfoot And The Girl Bombs" suffers from often shoddy special effects, and Franco Franchi's mugging will not be to everybody's taste, to put it mildly, but it also has its strengths: Vincent Price is far and away the best thing in the film, clearly having a ball with atypical (for him) low comedy, but hitting some high spots as well, through his excellent delivery ("And then there were none!").
The one with the largest role is a young Laura Antonelli, in one of her first films: not only does she have a steamy seduction scene (playing a robot version of her human character), but she also shows a knack for slapstick comedy.
My wife will be happy to tell you that I watch a lot of bad movies, but usually in the genre of "so bad that they're good." The first movie in this series fell into that category, but this sequel moved the "bad" needle way past the "camp" point to the point of no return.The plot is paper-thin, the dubbing is awful, the sets, rear projections, models, and special effects are grade-school level, and most of the actors are unbearable.
(Why do bad movies like this always use voice actors who use cartoon voices rather than normal speech?) You know the movie is in trouble when the director calls for sped-up action (a la Benny Hill).Vincent Price, who would do anything for money, floats above the cesspool to some degree, especially when he's hamming it up straight to the camera.
How they talked Vincent Price into this, I'm not sure, though he was already hamming it up in the previous movie.
All this is kind of incidental; the main plot has the two main leads/buffoons improbably/accidentally join up with S.I.C. as agents.Goldfoot, of course, is a broad parody of the outrageous villains from the James Bond films.
I've written that the previous Goldfoot movie was the most ridiculous parody of the Bond craze, but this Italian take on the whole thing takes it to yet another level.
Mario Bava made many GREAT movies in his career, but this isn't one of them!
This film is horrible -- the script stinks, the photography is bad (very unusual for Bava) and the staging of scenes is inept -- there is nothing good about this film.I usually defend composer Les Baxter, but his score is also rotten, and the original Italian music is even worse...
And finally, can there be a worse comedy duo than Franco & Ciccio?
Mario Bava is one of my all time favourite directors, and Vincent Price is one of my all time favourite actors; so despite the fact that I didn't like Dr Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine at all, I still felt almost as if catching this needless sequel was a duty I had to fulfil.
Before making this film, Bava had already directed a number of classics including Black Sabbath, Black Sunday and The Whip and The Body, while Vincent Price had completed his work on Roger Corman's Poe Anthology along with several other classic films.
Anyway, the plot has something to do with dubious 'assassin' Dr Goldfoot building an army of robot bombs that look like pretty girls (will be familiar to Austin Powers fans!), and he uses them to eliminate some of Nato's world leaders...or something.Mario Bava's best work was in the horror genre and as such a lot of what I like about his directorial style is relative to the genre; but he has proved on many occasions that he's capable of delivering good films in other genres, but you'd be forgiven for thinking otherwise based on this film!
What a shame that this is the only film he and the great Vincent Price made together!
At a struggle, I could only really think of two good things to say about this film; one is that Vincent Price is entertaining (although he could read out a recipe book and it would be entertaining) and the other is that some of the girls featured are nice to look at.
I wouldn't recommend this movie to even hardcore Bava and Price fans....
That's not a good thing for a comedy to do.I'd be interested to see the US release of this, which I understand features a lot less of Franco and Ciccio.
Even the normally reliable Vincent Price phones it in.Bava can work cinematic miracles with high-camp sixties silliness - see "Danger: Diabolik" - but this is among the very worst films I have ever seen.
(Not that they got them.)  Vincent Price is the ONLY reason to see this film.
Fans of Vincent Price and Mario Bava should avoid..
The first Dr. Goldfoot movie seemed like a lot of fun in theory - a campy, spy spoof starring horror legend Vincent Price as a mad scientist with an army of beautiful female robots.
To add insult to injury it was directed by the (usually) brilliant Mario Bava, and released in the same year as his classic shocker 'Kill, Baby...Kill!' What went wrong exactly is hard to say but EVERYTHING about this movie stinks.
And most of the "comedy" is supplied by a couple of atrocious Italian comedians called Franco and Ciccio.
'Dr Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs' is an all time low for Mario Bava, and the worst movie I've ever seen Vincent Price appear in.
Dr. Goldfoot (Vincent Price) has a new plan for world domination: he is going to send beautiful women after military men...
Now, I do not think it is as bad as most people do, but I do accept a number of things: it is not as funny, the continuity from the first film makes little sense, Goldfoot keeps breaking the fourth wall for some reason, and Mario Bava is better than this.Really, all you have is everything from the first film toned down a few notches.
The biggest problem, among many, was that the project "was to be edited into two completely different films" and the "American version, widely hailed as a bomb, is not the work of Mario Bava, as it was re-written, re-scored and re-edited without his participation".
Dr. Goldfoot And The Girl Bombs (Mario Bava, 1966) **.
To cut to the chase, I have to admit that I was not as intolerant towards the film as I had been on that preliminary viewing: ironically, I used to lap up vehicles by the comic duo of Ciccio (Ingrassia) & Franco (Franchi) as a kid but, somehow, I could not picture them in the same frame as horror icon Vincent Price or 'submitting' to the direction of a technician and master stylist like Bava (in any case, their work has not withstood the test of time all that well, pretty much in the way of the Abbott & Costello comedies – with the one most readily given to mugging, Franco, even supplying the rather noisy song over the opening credits)!; having perhaps checked out the just-as-campy original (called DR.
GOLDFOOT AND THE BIKINI MACHINE [1965], by the way) in the interim may have softened my opinion of the sequel to a certain extent (though it is still a toss-up with the horrendous make-over job that became THE HOUSE OF EXORCISM [1975] in constituting the nadir of the Bava canon).
The film sees Goldfoot (flanked by a Chinese acolyte named "Hardjob", in clear emulation of Harold Sakata's character from the James Bond extravaganza GOLDFINGER [1964]) upping the ante by being intent on world domination (with the female robots turning combustible, hence the U.S. title – since the Italian original is a parody of John Le Carre''s "The Spy Who Came In From The Cold", brought to the screen the previous year, and puts the emphasis on the movie's star comedians!) rather just misappropriation of funds as in the first entry.
To be honest, one is still embarrassed to associate the picture with either Price (especially when disguising himself in a nun's habit!) or Bava (and it is particularly lamentable that the two only managed to collaborate on material clearly below their standards and talents!) but, taken on its own merits (if such a term can be applied here), there are certainly some mild pleasures to be derived from the ensuing concoction – with the most inspired ideas being Ciccio & Franco picking up artillery items from the F.B.I. arsenal as if they were on a supermarket spree, the fact that the voice artist assigned to dub their burly and flustered Chief (remember that Italian films at this time were generally shot M.O.S.) is the same one who does Oliver Hardy in the Laurel & Hardy vehicles (I wonder how it sounded in the English-dubbed version?), and a rather brief reprise of the classic mirror gag devised by Max Linder (albeit most famously adopted by The Marx Bros.' DUCK SOUP [1933]) involving Price and Ingrassia!
Vincent Price, Franco Franchi and Ciccio Ingrassia they do not have absolute no fun, on the contrary, they are more than meager.
I'd heard this thing (movie is too generous a term) was watchable for the presence of Vincent Price.
...is better than either of the two "Dr. Goldfoot" movies."Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine" (1965) and "Dr. Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs" (1966) are spoofs of the early James Bond flicks and, to a lesser degree, the early 60's beach movies with Avalon & Funicello (mainly because Frankie stars in the first one and it shares the harmless, fun-spirited flare of the beach flicks).
Since I love both (and "I Dream of Jeanie") I figured I'd like these movies way more than I did, but I found them pretty forgettable, not to mention lame.
These movies are also enjoyable as period-pieces as it's interesting to see the mid-60's styles, etc.As far as the women go, I was a little disappointed with the first one in this respect; the second one is much better, not to mention it was directed by Mario Bava (which many insist is his worst film, lol).At the end of the day, the Dr. Goldfoot movies are throwaway flicks, but they're worth catching for the highlights noted above, if you're in the right frame of mind.The first movie runs 88 minutes and the second one 82 minutes.GRADE: C-.
Vincent Price must have signed for two pictures otherwise I can hardly believe there was a demand for a sequel to Dr. Goldfoot In The Bikini Machine.
This film was done in Italy and I can hardly believe that Vincent Price and Fabian the only two Americans in the cast weren't slightly embarrassed.
In his second and mercifully last outing, mad scientist Vincent Price (as Dr. Goldfoot) uses his gold bikini-clad robots to seduce NATO generals into compromising positions.
Assisting Fabian are bumbling doormen Franco Franchi and Ciccio Ingrassia.
This would have been both funnier and sexier had it been filmed in the nude.** Dr. Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs (7/29/66) Mario Bava ~ Vincent Price, Fabian, Franco Franchi, Ciccio Ingrassia.
Although his car plunges over a cliff at the end of the previous movie, "Dr. Goldfoot" (Vincent Price) does not die.
Instead he reappears in this sequel and begins using female robots with bombs attached to them to blow up NATO generals all over the world.
First of all, for a comedy it just wasn't that funny with the two bumbling Italian agents "Franco" (Franco Franchi) and "Ciccio" (Ciccio Ingrassia) being especially annoying.
Mario Bava is responsible for some of my all-time favorite movies.
However, if he thought of Five Dolls for an August Moon as his worst then (as I wrote in my comment for that movie) "I guess Bava never had the misfortune of watching his movie Dr. Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs".
Dr. Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs is just that  a complete and utter BOMB of a movie.
Other than Vincent Price's gleeful performance as Dr. Goldfoot, I can't think of another positive thing to mention.
The comedy, especially on the part of the two Italian buffoons Franco Franchi and Ciccio Ingrassia (maybe it's a cultural thing), isn't funny at all.
In the end, Dr. Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs is so bad that it makes Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine (the first of the two Goldfoot movies) look like a masterpiece of cinema (which it most definitely isn't).
As much as I hate to do it, I've got to give this Mario Bava film a 2/10..
Nefarious mad scientist Dr. Goldfoot (delightfully essayed with deliciously lip-smacking hammy panache by Vincent Price) once again plots to take over the world by creating sexy female robot bombs that are specifically designed to blow up top generals of NATO countries.
Worst of all, the Italian comedy duo of Franco Franchi and Ciccio Ingrassia prove to be more annoying than amusing.
I am aware that the first film left the door open for a follow up, but it's too bad that they basically just watched Saturday morning cartoons for inspiration rather than come up with anything clever.Back and as bad as ever, buffoonish evil scientist Vincent Price wants to take over the world, and he's about as likely to as Snidely Whiplash or Boris Badinov.
At least a couple of Sixties teen heart throbs had the good sense not to venture into the sequel to "Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine".
He's probably still kicking himself.However nothing must have scared Vincent Price, an actor who spent a good deal of his own time scaring movie audiences with stuff like "House on Haunted Hill" and "Tales of Terror".
In it's own way, I guess 'Girl Bombs' is scary too; once you see it you'll be clawing the walls for a week until your nervous system settles down.As bad as the first movie was, if you were paying attention you might have been amused by the Annette Funicello and Harvey Lembeck cameos, and a handful of sight gags that made the effort a little bit of fun.