508. Operation Double 007 (1967)

Oh, easily.

Season 5 is one of the strongest MST3K seasons, pound for pound, riff for riff, and Operation Double 007 goes a long way towards that argument.

As a spy episode, I find that it’s narrowly nosed out in a photo finish by Secret Agent Super Dragon. But they’re both very good. What helps is that 007 is both exuberantly goofy and hilariously/lazily self-referential (to the Bond films, I mean).

The opening theme song sequence is a winner for amazing riffs, and having an ENNIO MORRICONE SCORE is something spectacular for an MST3K movie!

The goofiness is key here, but I’m also partial to all the brother jokes in reference to Neil Connery’s character being identified as the brother of the organization’s top agent. My personal favorite? “Mola Ram, prepare to meet Kali’s brother… NEAR HELL!”

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You know, wouldn’t Double 007 really just be 0014?

(I don’t think this was a riff in the episode, but the details on this one just don’t stick)

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(rimshot)

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Operation Double 007 (1967) like its inspiration has a good old time with itself and Joel and the Bots magnify that to great effect. The Ennio Morricone stab at John Barry, the appearance of so many Bond alumni, Neil Connery, the Italian excess of it, the story, and how these pieces fit or don’t are a gift to the riffers.

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Eegah and Mitchell are definitely better. Haven’t seen I Accuse my Parents. One of the few I haven’t seen

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Not to go too far off the topic at hand, but… it’s very, very good. I think you’d like it a lot.

Oh, no doubt. Operation Double 007 isn’t QUITE on that uppermost plateau, but it’s close there. I will say that Season 5 was overall rich like that.

Just for scale, in my book, Mitchell’s my second favorite episode behind Jack Frost.

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I Accuse is the episode I want to see most ( of the episodes I haven’t seen). Eegah and Mitchell are classics to me. Operation Kid Brother isn’t in their stratosphere.

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I agree on Jack Frost. Not my favorite episode, but the best of the Russo-Finnish movies hands down.

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Say what you will about Largo/Thayer. We didn’t have to watch a half-hour scene of him getting a shave from the Cracker Jack Girls, or y’know… picking up beer cans with his feet.

(Unless the memory was just too much for me and I blacked it out. :grimacing: )

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Ooh, hope you get a chance soon. I’ll just say it’s my personal #1 favorite of them all! :smiley:

(And it’s Joel Hodgson’s favorite too!)

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I love the spy movies, Danger!! Death Ray being my favorite. At first I was less excited about Su Muru than many of the other Season 13 episodes, but then watching it I remembered: oh yeah I love the stupid spy movie episodes!

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The Morricone score put you into a trance. :sunglasses:

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Here’s what Connery thinks if you didn’t vote for him…
Connery

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I genuinely like this movie. But a couple of things bug me.

The main one is Yashuko. Neil introduces her as his patient. In his capacity as one of the top surgeons in the world, he worked with her for months, building up a rapport while painstakingly undertaking reconstructive surgery (and also hypnotizing her for some reason - I always assumed in lieu of anesthesia?). That’s an almost parental level of responsibility over her care and wellbeing.

Then she gets kidnapped right from the middle of his presentation, and he seems mildly distraught? Admittedly, a lot did happen. Presentation interrupted, violent mob attacked everyone and threw things into chaos, he had to kill a man in the fight, and they got away with Yashuko. But when the British government says they’re looking to retrieve Yashuko and they need his help, he refuses until they tell him they’ll use diplomatic pressure to get him out from under the murder charge for killing the guy. (Which is inconveniently keeping him from… what was it again? Oh, right. His responsibility to his patients. The ones waiting for him in NYC. Not Yashuko.)

Adventure happens and they retrieve Yashuko and pull her away to relative safety. But time is short. So instead of getting her to a safe house or something, he hypnotizes her to extract the information from her while they’re still within jogging distance of the bad guys’ base. And, while he has her hypnotized so that she’s immobile and completely unaware of her surroundings, one of the bad guys sneaks up on her and shoots her. She dies in his arms. Neil’s emotion? Dull surprise.

He’s not angry. He’s not grief-stricken. He’s not remorseful. He’s not guilt-ridden. It’s just… well, dang. At least I got some of the information we needed. Time to move on.

Was it that IRL Neil had zero acting experience? Was it the writer? The director? The idea of James Bond as this unflappable battle-hardened emotionless Brit?

But, speaking of James Bond… I’m not entirely sure why they couldn’t use the name. Neil Bond would have worked, and wouldn’t have had any trademark issues. It’s not like they even own the name James Bond. Ian Fleming, looking for the most boring, forgettable, and unassuming name in the world, happened to look at the bookshelf and see the Audubon Society’s Field Guide to Birding, written by James Bond. And he just outright stole the name. It’s not like they own the copyright to the letter M (short for Minister, as Q is short for Quartermaster), either. Moneypenny is about the only name that might have gotten them in trouble. Honestly, “double o seven” seems more likely to hold up to a copyright claim than anything. It’s weird.

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The treatment of Yashuko as little more than an object, really makes me dislike this film.

Let alone the one woman Neil keeps running into, and who he lets go leading to Yashuko’s death.

Plus, there’s that moment where Neil and the one guy discuss the info he got from her, while they stand over her body. I imagine they then just left her there for the birds to peck at.

Plus, I just think how psycho the one girl acts, happily reporting that the one guy died in the plane crash.

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I think this film helped solidify an idea I have that Italian films are emotionally nuts.

The way people react in this film often defies normal logic.

Like when Connery tells the one blind guy he’s stitching radioactive materials into those rugs (…why were they doing that?).

The guy at first questions why he says that, then when Connery repeats wha the says, THEN the guy panics and everyone else runs away?

But yeah, this, Danger: Diabolik, and stuff like Devil Fish definitely make me believe some Italian directors are seriously messed up, emotionally.

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“Really fun sketch, Joel!”

“I know.”

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I learned that early, thanks to this little gem that HBO played all the time in the early 80’s:

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Oh, wowwww…

That preview shot made me hope for a blink that this starred Italian Rowsdower.

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