The Fat Spy

Let's not beat around the bush. This movie is terrible. Jack E. Leonard is just not funny. He's fat in a rather unpleasant-looking way, he tries too hard, and he's given nothing funny to do in playing TWO PARTS.

HOWEVER, for fans of the genuinely wrong-headed and insane, this movie has some appealing facets. The music is pretty doggone cool. The film begins very suddenly with two guys singing an acoustic rock number on a dock. Recorded live, they're just singing "People Sure Act Funny When They Get A Little Money", and it goes on for about 5 minutes and you don't know if it is part of the movie or what. It suddenly ends and shifts to a cool, cartoon mid-60s style of credits with a bouncy title tune.

Later the band, The Wild Ones, treat us to their song "The Turtle". It's the "slowest dance you'll ever do," replete with leering camera shots of the chicks in their skimpy suits writhing along. The song really rocks in an intense way. The lead girl character gets a song of her own, which would serve as a brilliant parody of Lesley Gore, if the filmmakers were smart enough. It is unbelievably catchy, but the basic theme is "I'm so glad I never get my way and you are a man, because you put me down the nicest way you can." On second thought, that's the actual chorus!

So these and a few other musical moments bring the movie to a level of disbelieving watchability. Fast forward through all the "comedy".

Here's a sidenote to what everyone else posted.

This film was produced in Cape Coral, Florida. It was only filmed there for product placement purposes, well before product placement was ever really heard of.

The developers of Cape Coral were the typical "bought swampland in Florida" types you heard so much about.. so they thought having a movie filmed HERE would advertise their city. They used all the city landmarks at the time and hoped the movie would sell their property sales.

Eventually Cape Coral became as they say "Lies that came true" and is a thriving city today. It's just a very funny thing to watch this film from the angle of it being a sales tool.

That, and watching them hide Jayne Mansfield's very visible pregnancy with statuary and other methods is funny too.

Truly abysmal beach 'comedy' featuring the fading glamour that was Jayne Mansfield.

I think I would be hard pushed to find a worse movie than this! The acting, direction, stock quality, music, sound recording and plot are all dreadful. The plot, or what little of it there is, has something to do with the fountain of youth on a small tropical island but will leave you bamboozled to say the least.

The only attraction here is Jayne Mansfield and it will only be fans of the actress that will want to get hold of this film. However, by now Jayne was on a downward spiral that would eventually lead to her tragic death. Never averse to making a quick B picture to bring in some cash and push her celebrity, things were by now in dire straits and this is well and truly a Z grade film made for next to nothing. Mansfield takes 50 steps backward here in her personal quest to be taken seriously as a dramatic actress. Her dumb blonde performance in this picture is an embarrassment to behold and her sex pot image is seriously on the wane as her famous curves have been filled by extra flesh.

A disaster in every sense of the word and a real shame to see someone with Jayne's obvious potential wasted in a load of old rubbish. It's hard to imagine that someone who appeared in the classic 'The Girl Can't Help It' and got the full Fox treatment is now doing Monroe rip-offs in nonsense such as this.

Steer clear...!

I am watching it as write and am amazed at how they actually got people to perform for this. I really don't think it is as bad as some of the other viewers have commented. True enough that it is basically a rip-off but if you paid under 10$ for this movie like I did then you should think of it as a bargain. kept waiting to see if Phyllis Diller was gonna do anything exciting with her riding crop. I have seen all of the Beach Blanket movies and find that this is actually a good comparison. Makes Frankie and Annette look really good. I will have to watch it again to see if I have missed anything. Sure I will find something interesting the next viewing. Take care and have fun watching.....

Really one of the worst movies I've ever seen. But funny in the same way "Plan 9 from Outer Space" is. The "musical" scenes are stunningly bad and the songs themselves are worse still. The acting is consistently horrific throughout. The plot and storyline impossible to fathom let alone follow. The 'actors' themselves seem to have no idea what the plot is. High point would be the 'musical' number near the end with Phyllis Diller and Jack E Leonard dancing around in some garden. But even though it's terrible from start to finish, it's watchable on some strange campy level. It's just so incredibly bad ... I kept wondering if it might eventually make some sort of sense before it was all over. But it didn't.

It would be impossible to write a spoiler of 'The Fat Spy' because even after watching it twice, I have no idea what it was about.

I found this on DVD at Wal-Mart for $2.00 CDN.