The Princess and Sylvester are soon the prisoners of La Roche (Walter Slezek) who wants to claim the reward from the King but is also in league with Hook. A chaotic and hilarious sequence at La Roche's mansion ends up with Sylvester impersonating Hook...
A very silly film full of obvious (but genuinely funny) gags and slapstick. Bing Crosby makes an appearance right at the very end.
Luckily Jim is an entomologist and soon discovers that meat eating ants from South America are to blame (obviously). With the help of the Sheriff (Mitch Pileggi) and teacher/future love interest Laura (Julia Campbell), the town is evacuated but no plan goes that smoothly...
Trapped in the town, our heroes are surrounded by ants as the town is overrun by the little things. As flamethrowers, guns and chemicals are not enough to stop the ants wiping out Alaska, Jim has a plan to blow up a dam to drown the ants. Only problem is to get the explosives required means going back into the midst of the ants...
Insect based monster films generally are cheesy and terrible, but Marabunta must rank as one of the worst. Low budget, ropey special effects, average acting and (as this was a TV movie) the action is nicely packaged for the regular advert breaks. It is terrible and somehow brilliant at the same time.
Lord Plumtree (Charles Gerrard) and his wife (Thelma Todd) arrive to rent the house. Oliver pretends to be Colonel Buckshot and Stan has to pretend to be both the butler and the maid, outfit changed where necessary. Oliver manages to agree a price with Plumtree but their plan all falls through when Colonel Buckshot arrives back home early...
This is a fun comedy short though maybe packed with too much going on at times. The comedy replies more on gags and comedic repetition than slapstick though it does end with some remarkable stunts.
We know who the spy is though, the doctor Bord (Noel Willman), who plans to steal M7 and Michael along with it. After a near disastrous first flight, he manipulates Michael into taking him with him on an unauthorised second flight and that is when he will strike...
The film isn't sure what it should be. It could be a spy drama, aviation adventure or melodramatic romance and if it had chosen one of those and stuck with it it probably would have been an excellent film. Unfortunately it tries to be all three with varying degrees of success.
The special effects with M7, which is a classic British 1950s style vision of the future of flight (basically a Victor bomber with nuclear engines), are pretty good. The tension, when it is there, is good. The padding kind of ruins things a bit, but overall a decent watch.
A game of cat and mouse between Andy and Paula, who knows he is not what he seems - at first she just thinks he is just another thief. This ends up with Andy getting a kicking from Eddie's goons. Eddie wants Andy silenced permanently but Paula talks him out of it especially she now knows his true purpose and has taken a bit of a shine to his cocky charms...
A jewellery store is robbed in Chicago, the jewels end up in Eddie's possession in the Bahamas but Andy arranges for Eddie to be mugged and gets hold of the jewels. He uses them in a complicated scheme with the police to get Eddie and his thugs busted and get Paula off the hook...
A decent film though a little hard to follow at times. It is also rather superficial, most scenes look cool (there are lots of hot sports cars in it for example) but lack much energy or much purpose and the plot does meander a bit. Treat it like a trashy airport novel.
With the police still after them, they hide in a workman's lift on a skyscraper building site. They of course end up on top of the building and have to creep along the bare girders with various death defying stunts.
Not the best Laurel and Hardy comedy short but with plenty of invention especially in the skyscraper sequence though this part of the film might go on a bit too long.
Kimberley also contacts his daughter Penelope (Susan George) and uses her help to stay hidden, and recover from an attempted assassination by the KGB. Sir Gerald knows that Kimberley is the man behind the new identity and a game of cat and mouse begins with rival spy boss Sir James (Charles Grey) and top agent Fraser (Robert Powell) who has been sleeping with Penelope.
A fairly complicated plot line ends up with a highly enjoyable and strange car chase through a safari park. The budget was fairly low and it shows, the film is very reminiscent of TV dramas of the time like The Professionals - and that is no bad thing.