Double Agent 73

bad acting...poor camera work...bad continuity...god-awful polyester plaid flare pants...obvious wig..poor dub-overs. Having said that, this film is hilarious!! If only John Waters had been a consultant!!!

This film follows the story of an undercover detective named Jane, played (lethargically, as if she were a robot in the EPCOT hall of presidents) by Chesty Morgan. For her next assignment, it will be necessary for Jane to get photographs of important documents and enemy spies. A camera is implanted in her left breast, necessitating that she remove her bra to use it. (again, and again, and again) The camera has a self destruct device to ensure that the evidence gathered will not fall into the wrong hands.

With all of the talent and expressiveness of a quaalude junky and the fashion sense of Maude Finley, Chesty sets off and lands in one run-in after another with thugs, creeps, and low-lifes with only her wit and savvy to protect her. Will she make it back to home-base before the camera (and her only assets) destructs? Will she be able to settle down and finally enjoy the satisfaction of a loving relationship? Will she stop buying all her shoes at Frank-N-Furter's garage sales?

This film is one of those that would have been perfect for Mystery Science Theatre 3000. It has previously been in the series of 'Joe Bob Brigg's sleaziest movies of all time' collection.

Double Agent 73 is the second film exploitation auteur Doris Wishman made with Chesty Morgan, she of the 73-inch bust. The first being Deadly Weapons (1974). The fact that both movies were released in the same year is an early indication that Wishman didn't necessarily waste a lot of time making them and knocked both out very quickly. Consequently, both these films never remotely betray their low budget origins and are truthfully very amateurish throughout, with the camera-work in particular being of an especially terrible standard. Random objects being focused on is the order of the day here. So there's not a massive amount between both films I suppose but I would definitely opt for Deadly Weapons as being the better of the two, I think it has a better overall focus plus the idea of huge breasts being used as deadly weaponry was a more inspired idea than having them being receptacles for a hidden camera.

I guess you would have to describe this as a sexploitation spy film. It's about a secret agent played by Chesty who hunts down a gang of heroin traffickers. A secret camera is installed in one of her mammoth breasts in order to allow her to gather espionage evidence, unfortunately, if she does not complete her mission within a week the camera will self-destruct, killing her in the process. This story-line is more or less a framework to allow for a lot of scenes of Chesty exposing her huge hooters. Not really a bad idea in principle but it is oddly unerotic to be perfectly honest, which means that events in the story-line become more important. But it's all pretty limited stuff on that front, with the odd unexpected moment such as a bloody murder in a shower appearing out of nowhere to enliven events. But on the whole, this one is only interesting to an extent but certainly of curiosity value at least.

I had heard this was an unbelievable movie before I actually watched it, but even that didn't prepare me for what I witnessed when I sat down to watch it. Where should I start? Well, I'll start with star Chesty Morgan. She is an extremely unlikely movie heroine. She's not very attractive, for one thing. Although she was in her 30s when she appeared in this movie, her face looks about 15 years older than her actual age. Then there are those gigantic... well, you know. I did not find the constant revealing of them to be erotic in any way. They look grotesque and unnatural.

The way that the movie was filmed just makes the experience even worse. It was obviously shot silently, and director Doris Wishman tries in vain to hide this by long periods of time with no talking. And when people do talk, most of the time it's shot in a way where you don't see the speaker's face and moving lips. Wishman also brings in next to no production values to the movie, resulting in such things as a hospital sequence shot in someone's house. But the biggest sin Wishman makes is that the movie is so boring. There's almost no plot, and even with just a 73 minute running time it goes on and on past the breaking point. This movie is a chore to sit through

So hard to rate. I want to give it a low score for being one of the worst films I've seen in ages. But I want to give it a high score for being absolutely hilarious. I guess it all depends on how you take the genre. If you're a fan of grindhouse and low-budget exploitation flicks, look no further. If you don't get why people find bad movies good, maybe this isn't for you.

While I think Chesty's unfeasibly large breasts were somehow supposed to be titillating (excuse the pun), they're actually rather unfortunate. As the plot revolves entirely around her hauling them out at every opportunity, it's a bit like watching a car wreck. You want to look away, but can't. Her 'acting' is self conscious verging on just plain scared.

The cameraperson hoses their rig around zooming and panning with total disregard for their shadow. If they'd been able to afford a mic boom instead of badly overdubbing, I'm sure the camera would've caught that too.

The cutaways are absolutely classic. Found footage is spliced in with total disregard for what's around it. My favourite scene involves a car blowing up. If you look really closely, you might just notice it's not the car they were driving. Especially as it's a different colour. And make. And it's not in the same place…

In short, Double Agent 73 is pure genius. You couldn't make a movie this bad if you tried. And that's exactly what makes it so good.

In a comment I wrote about Doris Wishman's 'Nude On The Moon' recently I described it as one of those cult "classics" that you only really watch just so you can say you've seen it. Well this is even more the case with 'Double Agent 73', a movie which is literally a chore to sit through. Despite having a running time of just over an hour and ten minutes I'd say it's still about twenty minutes too long. Wishman's freakish discovery Chesty Morgan plays super spy Jane Genet (hyuk, hyuk) a.k.a. Agent 73, cos she's got a 73 inch bust, see? Chesty can't act to save her life, and is seriously unsexy. I really don't see her appeal, and it's no real surprise that her career as an actress was short lived. The plot? Agent 73 is called in to help kill drug lord Toplar. She's given an address book with some leads but as no one knows what Toplar looks like she's told to photograph all the bad guys she kills, and they'll sort it out later. She does this via a camera surgically implanted in her left breast. Some of her methods of execution are also novel. My fave is death by ice cubes. If you're a big time fan of Seventies sleaze you might enjoy 'Double Agent 73' a lot more than I did, but my response was a yawn and please pass me the Russ Meyer.