The Love Factor

source: The Love Factor

This is one of those "so bad, it's good" movies that you encounter from time to time. Admittedly, it doesn't start 0ff very promisingly, but it gradually gets down - or rather gets off - to business, although the "business" is periodically interrupted by Charles Hawtrey (presumably he was not required on the "Carry On" set that day) and James Robertson Justice (obviously not one to rest on his laurels but willing to pick up any assignment, no matter how trite!) Despite the delightful abundance of feminine flesh, the screenplay doesn't make much sense - indeed some of the scenes - as well as some of the actors - seem to be playing against each other. I watched the movie twice - in case I'd fallen asleep and missed something (I do like to be thorough) - but it still didn't make much in the way of sense. At least I'm not alone. Obviously both the movie's barber and its dress designer did not have a clue either as to which scenes were which and who was wearing what! Available on a very good Salvation DVD. (You heard me!)

This has got to be one of the silliest films I have ever seen. You watch it and you have no idea what it's supposed to be! Here comes an agent into a flat, complete with 1969 all-the-rage white plastic furniture and pod chair. He produces an automatic. This must be an agent film... But wait, he falls down in the kitchen and loses half of his stick-on moustache, so OK, it must be a slapstick agent comedy, but no, now he's playing strip poker with a very hot girl... Ah, there's Charles Hawtrey, acting exactly like in a Carry On film... OK, so this is, what, 'Carry On Space Amazons', er, no, it's not that either. Oh look, James Robertson Justice, what's HE doing in this cheapo movie? To give an indication of just how weird this film is, there's Dawn Adams, and instead of being 'the one in the Bond film who can't act very well', she's 'the one who is the most convincing of all the actors'. Now, get your head round THAT paradox if you can! Some other reviewer mentioned that one scene reminded him of the Avengers, and I had the same thought; there is a definite Avengers vibe at times, and then suddenly, the action and music is pure Benny Hill! No, friends, nothing makes sense in this amateur-hour production! It's not a spy-spoof, it's not a Carry On film, it's not a sci-fi movie, it's not simple sexploitation, I just don't know what to call it. Really, you have to see it for yourself!

Surely one of the most tatty, inept, and certainly most bonkers productions from a British studio since 'Fire Maidens From Outer Space' over a dozen years previously, it seems Zeta One was originally planned on a considerably more ambitious scale, only to soon run into financial trouble. John Hamilton, Tony Tenser's indispensable chronicler, reveals that construction work on the studio had still not been completed during shooting. James Robertson Justice didn't have a proper dressing room and understandably was not pleased. Not in the best of health following a stroke the year before, he made sure he was out of the mess at the first opportunity. Anyhow he's completely wrong, and not in any good way, as the sadistic Major Bourdon. They'd have done better to have cast the amazonian Nita Lorraine, the 'Angvian' failing to keep a straight face in the fight scene (and briefly memorable wielding a whip in 'Curse Of The Crimson Altar') as Zeta's adversary, or to take it to a further stage of silliness, Rita Webb, who puts in an appearance as a bus conductor with Charles Hawtrey in a scene that misses a chance to be funnier. Robin Hawdon's James Word, so called apparently so they could use a hilarious tag-line on the lines of 'His Word is our Bond' and whose main activity seems to be confined to between the sheets, only function is to attempt to make sense of what passes for the narrative. Mission impossible. One flashback confusingly ends with him in bed with one of the Angvians before switching to him in the same bed with Yutte Stensgaard, as part of the framing device. A typically inane scene toward the end sees him drive up to a field, go through a hedge and then wander around, then back to the car for some waterproofs. And that's it. Meanwhile Dawn Addams' Zeta remains a peripheral figure throughout. At least Zeta can boast Johnny Hawksworth's jazzy, driving opening score, and the costume department made delightful use of their minuscule budget on the wigs and outfits, if that is the word, of Zeta's followers: Valerie Leon, for one, can rarely have looked more alluring. Anyhow, once the deadly tedious opening sequence was out of the way, it was more fun than the laboured attempts at humour of Joe Losey's infinitely more prestigious 'swinging sixties' spoof, Modesty Blaise, which I also watched recently.

It's another cold snowy winter day here so I once again took advantage of our Amazon Prime subscription and picked a flick. This time I watched a film from 1969 called 'zeta one' (aka 'The Love Factor'). It's a British made secret agent film...sort of... maybe it's more a sex-ploitation film. I can best describe it as a cross between the over the top spy films like 'Our Man Flint' and the recent Austin Powers films. Also a touch of James Bond. There is a 'Barbarella' sci fi element to it too. There's a race of alien women with advanced technology who want us for mating purposes or something. I'm not really sure. Like so many other B-movie female aliens they only seem to have women in their society. Women who like to dress as male fantasies. Even their warrior women dress in pasties and G strings. Evidently it's their favorite combat gear no matter how impractical and uncomfortable it must be. Yes, this is one of those movies. It's loaded with 60s era nudity, mini skirts, boots and even a psychedelic trip or two. It reminds me of the Austin Powers movies because it seems more an exaggerated spoof of the 60s then what it really is, a real 60s film. I lived through that time as a young teen so I know a little. It even had 'Laugh-in Style' girls dancing topless in body paint. It's more 60s then I ever remember the 60s as being, it you can understand that. It's like what people now seem to imagine those days to be who weren't there. Anyway, it's a funny film if you're in the right frame of mind. There is one agent who looks like a British version of Barney Fife in round glasses. Their version of M here is more into 'S & M'. Yes, it's a strangely entertaining flick that bad movie fans should enjoy.

Found this little gem on Netflix streaming. The story seems made up as they went along, the "action" scenes make WWE look like real fighting, and sometimes I wasn't sure how the characters were supposed to be feeling. It was a great movie. Between the dated, Andy Worhal-esque style, with the actors and actresses taking themselves seriously, and the points mentioned in the first paragraph, this turned out to be a side-splitting hilarious film. This is one of those "so bad it's good" kind of films. A few spots were a little slow, but everything around them more than made up for them. As my wife said, "If I wouldn't be embarrassed to say I saw this movie, I would recommend it to a friend!"

Most of the time, when you watch a film, you think about the film itself, the narrative, the people in it, the cinematography etc. In this case, you spend half the time wondering what the film-makers were trying to do. It really is worth emphasising what a weirdie this one is. Weird in a bad way. It is incredibly disjointed. The stars remain completely separated. James Robertson Justice and Charles Hawtrey are in one lot of scenes. Robin Hawdon sans moustache and Yutte Stensgaard are in another lot. RH avec moustache is in a third lot, and Dawn Addams appears in a fourth. There is no overlap between these. The opening twenty minutes with the charisma-free Hawdon & dear old Yutte playing strip poker are so excruciatingly dull that you wonder how many people lasted the course in the days before fast forward buttons. Or maybe pause buttons. Of course the story is intended to be quirky, and the makers were obviously going for a Barbarella-type vibe. OK, but this one is downright strange. Some of the odd bits include: a completely unmotivated dialogue between James Word and a grumpy lift; the bizarre incident of James Word's moustache, revealed as false in the opening scene; overdubs of Major Bourdon's added dialogue, which sound nothing like James Robertson Justice, but passably like Basil Brush; James Word being fed an aphrodisiac diet of oysters and what appears to be Mackeson Stout; the British secret service employing an American boss and a Scandinavian secretary; the mystery of why Charles Hawtrey's bottom is bitten by one of his own dogs. Other commentators have unpicked the relationships between the various bits of the film - it looks like the Justice/Hawtrey scenes were shot first, and then the Hawdon/moustache scenes shot to make sense of them, and then the Hawdon/no moustache scenes shot to make sense of them. Stensgaard's lines about what rubbish it all is are clearly a tongue-in-cheek admission of the blindingly obvious. Naturally, the whole thing is a thin excuse for some girlie nudity (and that also is laid on thicker in the scenes shot later, as if they realised that nudity would be the film's only saving grace). The basic idea of topless aliens invading Earth is a very amusing one. But given the cast there really is no excuse for making such an awful picture. The nadir of the film is the jokey kidnap-and-torture sequence about half way through. Not erotic, just a gigantic lapse of taste, unredeemed by the reappearance of the kidnapped girl towards the end. That is the problem with this film in its most egregious aspect - it is just not likable enough.

years ago i purchased this drive in double feature from the company; sinister cinema,the 2nd film is;when women had tails(70)it also features all the drive in intermission countdowns,snack bar stuff,etc; anyway zeta one(titled love factor on this double bill)is a fun James bondish spoof from 1969,it features lots of soft core nudity,and psychedelic images.its about an amazon like race of scantily clad superwomen that must fight enemy agents and such,robin hawden(when dinosaurs ruled the earth)is a secret agent like James bond who discovers the amazon race and helps them.its no classic but its a rarity to see a film like this.its drive in fare the 2nd feature however is very silly and lowbrow.but entertaining.look for sexy Valerie Leon,the busty brunette actress from hammers;blood from the mummy's tomb(74)as one of the amazonions.i thought it was a silly but entertaining little film.i recommend it.8 out of 10.

The British production company Tigon, which enjoyed success from the mid '60s to the mid '70s, has a lot to answer for. As well as acclaimed classics like Reeves' WITCHFINDER GENERAL and Polanski's REPULSION, they released a glut of B-movies in the horror and exploitation genres most of which are must-sees for the British cult fan. ZETA ONE is one of their sexploitation efforts and generally an appalling movie, only to be watched for nostalgic purposes. The story is plot less drivel, lurching from one scene to the next with no continuity, and the lame sci-fi additions to the story simply consist of supposedly alien women (the only alien thing about them is their dress sense!), who stand in a darkened room with silly-looking sets and lighting and spout nonsensical drivel about alien invasions which never happen. It's hideously dated of course, whether in the garish attire or in sequences in which people float around in dark rooms with lava-lamp footage superimposed over the top. The paucity of the budget is very much in evidence in the first twenty minutes of the movie, which consists of two characters sitting in a flat, flirting a lot and finally engaging in a silly, never-ending game of strip poker which will test the patience of even the most hardened bad-movie lover. After this timewasting footage finally grinds to a halt, we get lots of interconnected characters like a secret society of sadists; aliens kidnapping earth women and the "hero" of the piece, a wannabe James Bond spy who spends all of his screen time bedding naked women (I don't know why they bother - he's pretty repulsive). The fact that his moustache appears and disappears throughout the film suggests some kind of post-production problems and tampering with footage. After endless scenes of naked and half-naked women wandering around aimlessly, the finale arrives, an action sequence set in the woods in which loads of alien women (dressed in VERY skimpy clothing) arrive and zap the male bad guys. Well, I say zap, but really all they do is stretch out their arms and the men fall down dead, with an appropriate sound effect superimposed over the action. It's so cheap that this scene is laughably incredible. All of the female cast (aside from Dawn Addams, wasted as the alien queen) lose their clothing for various silly reasons, and the camera is always on hand to capture them crawling through air vents or being stripped in a makeshift torture chamber! Robin Hawdon is the spy, and I think it's pretty fair to say that he's a very bad actor indeed - perhaps one of the worst I've seen! Amateurish at all times and totally incompetent...it comes as no surprise that he was never heard of again. Two 'big names' have been drafted in to give the film some kind of status. The first is James Robertson Justice who sleepwalks through his performance and picks up the cheque at the end, and the second is the inimitable Charles Hawtrey who has some of the funniest sequences in the film and is a delight as ever - in fact he's one of the main reasons to watch and he makes an effort too. Don't you just love the man? Most of the female cast are unknown and can't act (for obvious reasons), but B-stars Valerie Leon and Yutte Stensgaard are a welcome sight amongst the rest of the heaving naked female flesh. Sometimes fun, mainly dull, this inexplicable offering is for those fans who are VERY forgiving for their movie's lackings - I don't think anyone would claim that this is a good film at all.

Truly one of the WORST films of all time - and worth watching just to spot the numerous narrative holes, terrible acting and risable dialogue. A group of women led by Zeta One live in another dimension - their home is called Angvia (guess what that's an anagram of). They kidnap earth women and spirit them off to Angvia in the back of big truck - I suspect that the big truck IS actually Angvia. It's not understood why they kidnap women or what they do with them when they get to Angvia, which looks like the inside of a lava lamp. Meanwhile, Major Bourden (James Robertson Justice) and his assistant Swyne (Charles Hawtrey) are trying to find out how to get to Angvia, because the women have thwarted their plans several times (it's never adequately explained what their plans are), nor if the Angvians are good or bad - they do kidnap women, but then they appear to be heroines. Meanwhile again, James Word (a kind of low-grade James Bond figure) tells the story of all this in flashback to a pretty blonde. However, James Word has hardly any contact with any of the other characters in the film - you get the impression that all of his scenes were filmed as an after-thought, in order to add some sort of narrative coherence to the storyline - but in fact the reverse happens. There's lots of softcore (female) nudity, chasing and silliness. The special effects ain't that special. It's a complete mess. You MUST see it to believe how bad it is. The best thing about it is the soundtrack, which tries to emulate a kind of sub-Barbarella kistchness at times.