Powerful

Nice effects though.

Great Film overall

This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

American moon rockets (remember them?) are suspected of being sabotaged when the sixth one in a row blows up. It is believed a "radiation force" is responsible as they discover "signals from the bottom of the sea." So much for science. To find out what is going on they call in...Harry Sennet (Anthony Eisley),the American version of James Bond. He works with Capt. Flanagan (Diana Lorys) who is also a love interest. It is decided the best way to scour the sea bottom off Cape Kennedy is for Harry to go to Florida and buy a seaplane pretending to be a playboy. Harry also provides some gumshoe style narration while Capt. Flanagan has her own jazz swagger music. Harry drives one of those cars that stays stationary while the same scenery quickly moves behind it.Perhaps in 1966 this was a decent film...okay it wasn't back then either. Today this production has all that spy camp value we have come to love including hibernation chambers. Watch it for camp value only. I don't know where they got the drawing of the girl in the red tight jumpsuit. It has nothing to do with the film.Parental Guide: No f-bombs, sex, or nudity. Warning: If you watch this on a Rare Flix DVD there is nudity in the movie trailers.

The Plot. A U.S. agent goes undercover as a rich playboy to stop a madman from destroying a NASA moon project. I saw this under the title of Lightning Bolt.Made in Italy and Spain, this 1966 movie takes it's plot from the James Bond / spy craze of the 60s, with a bit of NASA space work thrown in to make it interesting.It is by no means a great movie, however I can see how this could be fun as a midnite grind-house screening. It's wide screen and technicolor and there are relatively decent special effects. There's also some fun 60's misogyny.What brings the experience down a notch is that it seems like the whole movie is dubbed even though they are speaking English. It gives the film a cheaper feeling.A lot of the sets look very Bond-ish. The acting and directing is a few notches above most cheap-o Italian movies. Although it's a bit slow paced.

An American variation of James Bond is still a poor man's James Bond, and this one really deserves the title of "the rip-off movie". It's all about some convoluted attempt for foreign enemies to interfere with space travel, and starring third string leading man Anthony Eisley, it is short on A talent. What it lacks in a Sean Connery or Dean Martin or even a James Coburn, it makes up for in scantily clad blonds of every side of the spectrum, some of them more cartoonish than Bullwinkle's Natasha.In spite of a concrete, believable plot, there are plenty of engaging action sequences including a very intense scene where Eisley and his companion for the evening get stuck in a giant tank quickly filling up with scalding hot water. The main villain is a total rip-off of the Bond villains, and this makes it ultra predictable. But I still couldn't help bit enjoy it even though at times, I couldn't figure out at all what the heck was going on.

This is one cheesy movie and a lot has been written about it (mostly bad) since it is widely available on the gray market but there are things (mostly bad, again) worth mentioning.Lightning Bolt features smart-ass hard-boiled narration by Eisley and many moments of unintentionally laughable dialog, the kind that would make Ed Wood proud. Nonsensical situations and actions abound in this movie and the special effects are as to be expected; not very special, like the old yarn-for-the-laser-beam trick made famous in Italy.Though the movie has a few charms they are outweighed by too much silliness, a weak villain and the sense that one's time is worth more than the budget spent in making it.