The Big Switch

The Big Switch (1968)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

John Carter (Sebastian Breaks) is a playboy who meets up with a beautiful blonde lady. The two plan on meeting in her room but when John arrives he finds her dead and before long he is accused of the crime. It doesn't take long for him to realize that the mob was behind the murder and now he must go up against them.

THE BIG SWITCH is an early film from director Pete Walker who is best remembered for a number of horror films that he made in the 1970s. I guess the best way to describe this movie is that it's a low-budget, wannabe James Bond that runs just 68-minutes and features a bit more sleaze than you'd normally expect from a film from this era. Is it a masterpiece? Not at all but it's a mildly entertaining spy picture.

I think the best thing that the film has going for it is the fact that it's just 68-minutes and it goes by rather quickly. Breaks makes for an interesting lead and I thought he added some fun to the picture. The villains are pretty much your standard bad guys but they too are mildly entertaining. Where the film really stands out is with the female nudity, which there is quite a bit of including some full frontal scenes.

THE BIG SWITCH will mainly appeal to fans of the director who want to see what he was doing before the horror pictures. There's nothing overly great about the movie but it was entertaining for what it was.

Sir Godfrey Beanbag, 9 and and third Earl of WuggPork Estate travels across flormtittsbury Nebula in a spacksuit to be retrieving of the mysterious bottlejohns with only a turtleless shellsnail for company.

He only eats from the Westbury mustard and his hair falls out in every scene so they kept gluing in the scene with his hair on so it's a bit repetitive.

My fabric television didn't have a good enough thread count to see the finer pixons, but I think I could make out little Jimmy Swimmson stealing my counterfeit flower press handle forgery collection and a house, which I live in. Now I don't know where I or my fake pressed flowers are. Small matters in the Grant Scales of Rings.

With his groundpenny thin as a weasel and the mouse door in keeping (tin and rum thistle excluded), the swimming lesson was complete. Jenny said toe, Murray said no. And the kettle drone foo makes us all better for it. And it continued on like that for a bit.

Back at Snailpork manor, a porksnail megapork snail was making its way across the isles of scilly towards a larger-than-usual pork drum snail aquaittence missile tactical coffee morning warhead, but it turns out it was just a tactical meganail pork medallion chamber containing 4 porksnails from the previous pork pail scene if you remembered them but you were probably too busy sniffing the sands. Pork nail.

This was like Ed Wood on a slightly higher budget set in London in the Swinging Sixties--the HEIGHT of that era, in fact. To that end, the ONE redeeming quality to this film is performance footage of a relatively obscure but FANTASTIC psychedelic rock band of the period, Timebox.

Otherwise, the acting is WELL below par, the direction entirely direction-less, and the incidental music used to give the illusion of excitement when nothing more is happening than that a car gets stuck waiting for an opening before merging onto a highway. The number of scenes that were clearly first takes in which the actor moves in some noticeably awkward way like they don't really know what to do with themselves is amazing, but they seem to let these stand probably for purposes of staying within or under budget or something.

But maybe the funniest thing is that British Film Institute chose this turkey to spend restoration money on. I'd have tossed all of it but Timebox's three minutes in the early nightclub scene.

This film takes bad to a whole new level. It's very clear that second takes were never attempted throughout the filming. From actors flubbing their lines and the flubs remaining in the final to waiting for two vehicles to enter a roadway and having to LITERALLY wait as oncoming traffic from both sides delay the shot. We sit and wait for traffic to clear, one vehicle pulling into one lane (blocking one car that had the right of way) and then turning on to the roadway and the second following close behind, still blocking a car that had the right of way.

The acting is terrible, the plot is impossible to follow...as if they made it up according to whatever they were able to catch on a good exposure of film...and the sound track. Oy...the sound track. Trying to imply action where there is none.

If you enjoy schmalz, this might be for you. If you prefer viable films with something to say...avoid.

In the mode of B movies this one is closer to Z than B. The incomprehensible plot revolves around an incompetent gang of criminals involved in smuggling and dodgy plastic surgery. The main character is a photographer who considers himself a man about town and he gets involved with various attractive ladies, most of whom are more than happy to disrobe for no discernible reason. That said there is very little nudity and what thee is tends to be brief and without any eroticism.

The film was described as an action thriller but there was very little action and certainly no thrills. The acting is at best, average; the script is risible and the production is cheap and tacky.

If you are tempted to watch this film, I advise you not to waste your time.