OK Connery

OK Connery
film poster by Bob Peak
Directed by	Alberto De Martino
Produced by	Dario Sabatello
Written by	Paolo Levi Frank Walker Stanley Wright Stefano Canzio
Starring	Neil Connery Lois Maxwell Bernard Lee
Distributed by	United Artists
Release date(s)	1967
Running time	104 min.
Language	English

OK Connery is a 1967 Italian Eurospy spoof of the James Bond series of films. It was retitled Operation Kid Brother in the United States and is also known as Operation Double 007 and Secret Agent 00. The basic plot of the film is that England’s best secret agent is not available, so his younger brother is brought in to defeat the evil crime syndicate "Thanatos".

Neil Connery, who plays the younger brother (Dr. Neil Connery in the film), is actually the younger brother of the then-current portrayer of James Bond, Sean Connery, and strongly resembles Sean, except that in this film he sports a beard. Neil Connery’s voice is dubbed by an actor with an American accent. In an interview in Cinema Retro, Connery said that he was undergoing medical treatment for appendicitis when voice dubbing of the film was in progress, leading another person to voice his lines in the English version.^[1] Although the "kid brother" of the title — who is actually referred to by the name Connery in this film — has little in the way of secret agent skills, he is an expert at hypnotism and archery as well as some deadly martial arts.

Production

The producer Dario Sabatello read a story of Neil Connery losing his tools during his job as a plasterer in Edinburgh and decided to use him to make one of the many imitation James Bond Eurospy films that flourished in European cinema at the time. Sabatello also hired many actors who had appeared in the Bond series to support Connery, with Lois Maxwell claiming that she and Bernard Lee were paid more for their roles in this film than their respective roles as Miss Moneypenny and M in the James Bond films. Maxwell claimed that Sean Connery was initially upset with her and Lee for allegedly exploiting his brother but later thanked her for supporting Neil. The film also featured Bond girl Daniela Bianchi and Bond villains Adolfo Celi and Anthony Dawson.

Sabatello initially had plans, which subsequently fell through, to star Neil Connery in several spaghetti westerns. When Sean Connery announced he was leaving the James Bond series, Sabatello offered Neil Connery's services to EON Productions who furiously refused to consider the idea.

OK Connery was essentially designed to profit from the spy craze of the 1960s fueled by the James Bond series of novels and films. In September 1993, as Operation Double 007, it was featured as an episode of movie-mocking television show Mystery Science Theater 3000.

The film has never been officially released on DVD, though a number of professionally produced bootlegs have appeared on eBay. The soundtrack by Ennio Morricone and Bruno Nicolai was recently released on CD with several cues that weren't heard in the film along with two English and one Italian versions of the title song by Christy. Plans to release the soundtrack album at the time of release were shelved and only 45 rpm recordings of the title song by Christy were released in Europe.

Cast and characters

OK Connery is notable in that a number of actors from the James Bond series appear to play similar characters.

Bernard Lee — Commander Cunningham

Lee played the role of M in eleven Bond films, beginning in 1962 with Dr. No until 1979’s Moonraker.

Lois Maxwell — Miss Maxwell

Lois Maxwell played the role of Miss Moneypenny in fourteen Bond films from 1962’s Dr. No until 1985’s A View to a Kill. Maxwell’s character in this film, though superficially similar to Moneypenny, is more proactive, carrying and using a submachine gun, and at one point abducting another character by force.

Daniela Bianchi — Maya

Bianchi portrayed Tatiana Romanova, a Bond girl in the second James Bond film, From Russia with Love.

Adolfo Celi — Thayer (Beta)

Adolfo Celi portrayed Emilio Largo in 1965’s Thunderball.

Anthony Dawson — Alpha

Anthony Dawson played two roles in the James Bond films, the first being Professor Dent in Dr. No. He later took on the role of Ernst Stavro Blofeld in both From Russia with Love and Thunderball, but only Dawson’s hands were seen in these films.

The film also featured Ana María Noé as Lotte Krayendorf, who strongly resembled Lotte Lenya's portrayal of Rosa Klebb in From Russia With Love.

References

1. ^ Neil Connery Interview Cinema Retro #12

External links

• OK Connery (1967) at the Internet Movie Database
• OK Connery at AllRovi