Zeta One (1969) The name is Word. James
Word. Ugh. The secret agent that bears this name and is supposedly the star of
this thoroughly botched experiment to cross-pollinate the then popular genres
of spy movies and sexy space babe movies (let's see - there was Barbarella and um, well did I mention Barbarella?) never actually utters that phrase, but you wish that he did so that maybe
the Broccoli family that zealously guards James Bond's good name would have
sued these dolts and forced them to shut the movie down. Sporting this idiotic
secret agent name is a nondescript British guy that does little else in this
film than lay around in bed with a couple of cupcakes and sports a fake
mustache for absolutely no reason.It purports to be some kind of wild and
trippy affair that apparently is supposed to be funny because of how dated it
all is. You know, what with the go go boots, the free love, the ugly pod shaped
furniture, and the plaid fur-trimmed coats, it's cool because it's kitschy!
Just read the back of the DVD box! It says it right there!
So where does it all go wrong? Why isn't this a rollicking good time? What if I
was to tell you that almost nothing happens for the first twenty minutes? It's
true. I hesitate to tell you what goes on in that awful first third of the
movie because I know that you won't be able to separate the reality of what it
is from your idea of what it is. What occupies Word, James Word's world for
almost half an hour? A long, tedious game of strip poker! That's kitschy,
right? How does Britain's foremost secret agent (He must be the best or else
why would they make a movie about him?) get himself mixed up in this most high
stakes card game? Well, when he comes home from work, his boss' secretary, Ms.
Olsen is there waiting for him and she's even gone ahead and started dinner!  It's about this time that Superspy trips over a bunch of mops and buckets that
he stupidly left out in the kitchen floor, which caused his mustache to half
fall off. Ms. Olsen badgers Word (James Word) for information about his mission
in Scotland that he just returned home from. It's a secret mission so he
doesn't want to say, but since dinner is going to be another half hour they
decide to play strip poker. What? Isn't that what you do with the family when
you're waiting for the old lady to finish the roast? Twenty minutes after James
Word first blows his deep cover status by falling over a mop in his kitchen
jiggling his painstakingly applied mustache loose, the game finally ends with
Ms. Olsen burning dinner. With dinner burned, James, being the secret agent
that he is, realizes that there is only one thing to do, and that's go to bed
with Ms. Olsen. Along the way, they cut the cards once to see who is declared
the winner of the 1969 Strip Poker Invitational and Ms. Olsen wins. She demands
to hear all about the job in Scotland he did as her prize and he says that
he'll squeal to her - in bed! As dull as them rolling around the sheets was, it
pales in comparison to the yarn he begins to spin about the mystery of Zeta One!
It all begins when his boss at the secret agent HQ tells him that one of their
agents has picked up some suspicious communications between Major Bourdon and
his associate Mr. Swyne. Bourdon is a fat guy, so you know he's up to no good
and Swyne is an old skinny guy that looks like a rat or dirty old man, but
Britain is full of those so that in and of itself doesn't tell you much. Word's
man on the street didn't pick up much with the antenna that was sticking out of
his ear, but he did hear the word "Zeta" which has to mean some type of plot to
take over the world (I'll assume that was the point, though I don't think that
they ever went beyond saying that Bourdon wanted Zeta's powers for himself).  It turns out that Zeta is the head of some race of super women, but no one
knows where she lives. She kidnaps women from Britain and turns them into slave
warriors to do her bidding. Periodically we get to see a little slice of life
in Zeta Land and it seems to be one of training in skimpy gladiator costumes
(um, you know - pasties and g-strings - those types of gladiator costumes) to
fight the enemy. Other than that, I never did understand why this Zeta person
existed or what her point was, other than to titillate uneducated English
moviegoers. In an effort to find out where Zeta's sorority is located, the
Major comes up with a brilliant plan: trail some of Zeta's henchwomen to find
out who they are going to kidnap and then get to her (the prospective kidnap
victim) and put a homing device in her and let her go and she'll lead them
right to Zeta. That doesn't sound like a plan that has some rough edges to it,
does it? The best part is that Swyne is the one charged with making it all
happen. Swyne goes out and finds a couple of Zeta's girls (London is just
crawling with them) and trails them on their way to kidnap some woman who
surprisingly turns out to be a stripper.
Somehow Swyne convinces this girl to go with him and they meet up at one of
those gentlemen's clubs that dominate England like kung fu schools dominate
China. There, Swyne and the Major feed her some claptrap about helping them out
and she agrees to swallow a homing device. This is probably the easiest thing
to swallow about the movie. While this is going on, James Word's undercover
buddy is monitoring it all from a nice leather chair across the room, his
antenna sticking discreetly out of the side of his head. Later, Zeta's girls
kidnap this stripper and she gets taken back to Zeta's headquarters for
brainwashing. Zeta is also monitoring the Major's whereabouts and notes that he
has beefed up security at his country estate. And by beefing up security I mean
that he has stapled a "Danger! Electric Fence!" sign up to his chain link fence
and has gone out to the pound and bought himself one dog and one guy to walk
the dog. How will a race of super space women ever gain entry to such a fortress? All
they have at their disposal is some gizmo that lets them pop in and out of
places like James Word's bed. What's that? James Word is still in bed? You
better believe it! I guess Zeta wants to keep an eye on him as well, because he
spends most of the middle third of the movie in bed with one of her ladies. Why
is she keeping an eye on him as well as the Major? Who knows - I'm just
surprised she even guessed that he was James Word, Secret Agent, what with that
rickety mustache he was wearing and all.  James Word is still in bed at this point, but he leaves to take a whiz or put
more sorghum on his mustache for a second and this is when the Zeta girl takes
the opportunity to leave and pop over to the Major's house to see what's
shaking. She gets herself caught and then knees the Major in the nuts and so he
gets uppity and gives her a minute head start and then sends a bunch of his
hunting buddies and their dogs after her. I don't think I have to tell you that
at one point during all this, Swyne bends over and some dog takes a fancy to
his bum and the next thing we know, Swyne is in a tree with the seat of his
trousers torn. Oh man, that is just rich! Is that guy's real name Benny Hill?
In response Zeta launches some kind of invasion, which means a bunch of her
almost naked warriors show up on the estate and zap all the hunters. Word
finally gets on the scene (after a very unfunny exchange with a talking
elevator - don't even ask) and apparently does little more than snap a photo of
the Zeta girls defeating the hunters. Back in the present, Word finishes
telling Olsen this stupid story and the movie tacks on a very tacky surprise
ending. Not funny, not sexy, just embarrassingly inept in every facet of every genre it
wants so badly to ape. The fact that your secret agent does absolutely nothing
in this story but lounge around in bed and then drive out to a house to see
what's happening is probably actually a pretty amusing take on the whole James
Bond mythos, but the way it's carried off (or the way I had to be carried off
after viewing it) completely negates that aspect as commentary or humor. I had
no idea what all this Zeta babble was or why these people were doing any of the
kidnapping that they were doing. The film has some psychedelic sequences that
are several notches below anything seen in Barbarella. At one point in time, the stripper looks like she's just wandering around in
a room with aluminum foil strung up. Avoid this like an afternoon of
unprotected sex with Word, James Word.
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