Agent 003 1/2 in geheimer Mission

"For Y'ur Height Only" rivals "Withnail and I" for great dialogue. How often have I howled at lines like "There's a lot of dough in this dough, the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker" - if only we knew what the hell that's supposed to mean. Maybe it's better not to know - as Mr Kaiser warns, "Don't be a nosy parker, Paco: with that curiosity of yours, you're liable to wake up one day and find yourself dead."

If you ever want a shining example of a plot device, then check out the scene where our hero's taxi runs out of petrol. There's plenty of other shortcomings, but you'll never see or hear anything else quite like it. All praise to the visionary who introduced me to this gem. Go seek it out.

A 1979 Filipino movie filmed on a zero budget in Tagalog, and dubbed into English? Can it be worth watching? Absolutely.

It's about a small secret agent named 00 - really small - a dwarf about 3 feet tall, named Weng Weng. Now, I haven't consulted the Guinness records people, but I think it's a fair guess that he's the shortest secret agent of all time, unless you count Tom Cruise in those Mission Impossible films.

The budget is so small in this movie that they couldn't afford enough guns, so they have one bad guy point an umbrella at the l'il nipper, and the sound effects guy adds a gunshot noise to the sound track. 00 then uses this same umbrella to float down from a multi-story building, ala Mary Poppins.

Anyway, unlike James Bond, Weng Weng gets his assignment and his gadgets from the same guy, presumably because the Filipino Secret Service can't afford to have two separate guys do this, or perhaps because there are not enough letters in Tagalog to support having both an M and a Q.

This is one of the great scenes. The M and Q guy, like all the characters in the movie, speaks in 1930's American gangster slang, and he gives the l'il guy his gizmos with some interesting twists. And, bizarrely enough, he keeps complimenting 00 on his listening skills.

First, there is a radio controlled hat which looks just like one of those red, white and blue trimmed straw boaters that they wear on the floor of political conventions. Well, the "secret" agent looks mighty dapper in this, let me tell you. There isn't any explanation of why a secret agent would need a radio controlled Maurice Chevalier hat, but the bad guys seem to be deathly afraid of it. Perhaps there is the ever-present fear that he might break into "Thank Heaven for Little Girls" in his squeaky voice. Of course, if that was the plan, the Agency could have saved a few bucks, since this tactic would be just as effective with a non remote controlled hat.

Then there is a fountain pen which kills. "Of course. It isn't any good if you need to write with it, but we can't have everything."

Then there is a ring which can detect poison. It is made out of gold because the service couldn't afford platinum. Times are tough at The Secret Agency. They couldn't afford any marketing guys to create a catchy name for them, so they're just The Secret Agency.

Luckily, the bad guys are no better off, and have to drive Volkswagens. This is only one sign that their Evil Organization isn't doing that well. I'm pretty sure it's because their plan is to sell heroin to every sandbox and kindergarten in the country. Well, that's certainly evil enough, but it doesn't sound real profitable. I'm not sure if the little 1979 Filipino kindergarten kids had all that much disposable income, so Evil Organization's gross sales must be pretty low, and I think they can forget about floating that IPO. Either that, or the bad guys have priced the heroin so low that they can't make a profit from it. Either way, it isn't much of a plan.

Sample dialogue * "why, he's making a monkey out of the forces of evil" * "alright sister, freeze, the jig is up" * "Oh, my little head" * (about a police photographer photographing a crime scene) "I wonder if she does Bar Mitzvahs"

This movie is available on DVD. As I write this, The Godfather is not available on DVD. Nor is Schindler's List, nor Star Wars, nor American Beauty, nor Raiders of the Lost Ark, nor Rear Window, nor Lawrence of Arabia.

But For Your Height Only is.

This movie cracked me up the whole time, I couldn't stop laughing or commenting,that Weng Weng is a dwarf had nothing to do with it. (ok, there were a couple of times) If you want to watch a movie that is a really terrible production but fun to watch, this is the one for you. Weng Weng truly is a gifted martial artist and fun to watch do stunts, one in particular made me gasp for his safety. If you go in not expecting a lot from this movie I think you will greatly enjoy it, especially if you watch it with some friends.

At the height of his popularity, Weng Weng was invited by then First Lady, Imelda Marcos to the palace in honor for his contributions to Philippine cinema. He was also named an honorary Philippine Secret Agent and was presented a custom-made .25 caliber pistol by then Vice Chief of Staff General Fidel Ramos.

I watched this at 2am and it was entertaining in the way a movie littered with obvious and repeated gags can sometimes be, but then again I was drunk so my judgement may have been slightly impaired. Then again my tolerance for bad movies tends to go down if I've had a few, so I'd say yeah it's worth watching.

Anyway the only reason I'm writing this is because while I was watching the movie I couldn't for the life of me figure out the theme music which is the accompaniment pretty much throughout. It was only near the end that I realised it's a mangled version of Nights in White Satin by The Moody Blues, made to sound "a bit James Bond-ish". I wonder if the Moodies even know their song was used for this?

(53%) A truly unique movie that really has to be seen to be believed. It's a James Bond spoof staring a midget as he takes on the many bad guys with guns, gadgets and his bare hands. Normally a movie like this sounds fun but the film itself is either too boring or too poorly made to be worth a look, but this really is quite a good little fun and watchable film. There's tons of action too as Weng Weng guns down hundreds, well the same five men, in a scene that rivals commando in sheer body count. Overall it's much better made than the awful Godfrey Ho movies, and is perhaps worth tracking a copy down just to watch something a little bit different.