Top Secret! **** (1984, Val Kilmer, Lucy Gutteridge, Peter Cushing, Omar Sharif, Jeremy Kemp, Warren Clarke, Michael Gough) – Classic Movie Review 6,005

Making his film debut in the 1984 spoof Top Secret!, Val Kilmer raises lots of laughs as Nick Rivers, a rock ‘n’ roll singer hero mixed up with Nazis, a beautiful heroine and the French Resistance on a performing tour of East Germany.

In 1984 there were things to laugh about and funny people to make us laugh. Writer-director Jim Abrahams, David Zucker and Jerry Zucker’s neglected and underestimated 1984 World War Two spy send-up and Elvis films spoof Top Secret! is a hoot.

The young and carefree Val Kilmer proves he is a talented Presley impersonator and shows he can really move his hips around and raise plenty of laughs as Nick Rivers, an amiable rock and roll pop singer hero mixed up with Nazis, beautiful heroine Hillary Flammond (Lucy Gutteridge) and the French Resistance on a performing tour of East Germany.

The story is more of just a situational starting point and the loosest framework for what is only really a series of jokes – visual and verbal. But they are mostly very funny ones, and there are hilarious cameos from Peter Cushing as the Swedish bookstore proprietor and Omar Sharif as Agent Cedric, too.

An instant star, the 24-year-old Val Kilmer is making his film debut after an off Broadway stage acting role, TV commercials and an episode of ABC Afterschool Special, an educational drama on drinking and driving that co-starred Michelle Pfeiffer.

Also in the cast are Jeremy Kemp, Warren Clarke, Michael Gough, Christopher Villiers, Harry Ditson and Jim Carter as Resistance Member Déjà Vu (well, really!). Plus Eddie Tagoe and Dimitri Andreas as fellow Resistance Members as Chocolate Mousse and Latrine! How very Carry On of them!

Top Secret! runs 90 minutes, is made by Kingsmere Properties, is released by Paramount Pictures (North America) and United International Pictures (UK),  is shot by Christopher Challis, is produced by Jon Davison and Hunt Lowry, and is scored by Maurice Jarre.

Release dates: June 22, 1984 (US) and October 5, 1984 (UK).

It was relatively cheap to make and fairly profitable. On a budget of $8.5 million – $9 million, it took $20.5 million at the box office. Everybody enjoys a good, harmless laugh. Even so Airplane! was made for $3.2 million and took $171 million at the box office.

The ZAZ team (David Zucker, Jim Abrahams and Jerry Zucker) were fresh from their success with Airplane! (1980) and later went on to make the equally exuberant The Naked Gun series.

David Zucker recalled: ‘We needed a subject that we would be excited about. We were fans of those black and white World War Two movies that were made during the war but we wanted to make it contemporary. It would have this heightened sense of craziness – even in the concept of a hybrid between Elvis movies and the World War Two movies.’

The ZAZ team were writing in the offices of their lawyers, but they needed inspirational help and a fourth writer, Martyn Burke, was brought in to work on the plot.

The ZAZ team saw Kilmer in an off Broadway play called Slab Boys and he arrived at his audition dressed like Elvis Presley.

Key pasts of the film spoof the 1944 Hedy Lamarr film The Conspirators, including the street scene with the novelty vendor.

It borrows the title of a lovely old British comedy of the Fifties, Top Secret.

David Zucker has the last word: ‘Top Secret! is very funny, but it really isn’t a good movie. It really didn’t have a plot or real characters or real structure.’

The cast

The cast are Val Kilmer as Nick Rivers, Lucy Gutteridge as Hillary Flammond Christopher Villiers as Resistance Leader Nigel “The Torch”,  Billy J Mitchell as Nick Rivers’s agent Martin, Jeremy Kemp as General Streck, Omar Sharif as Agent Cedric, Peter Cushing as Bookstore Proprietor, Michael Gough as Dr Paul Flammond, Warren Clarke as Colonel von Horst, Harry Ditson as Du Quois, Jim Carter as Déjà Vu, Eddie Tagoe as Chocolate Mousse, John Sharp as Maitre’D, Ian McNeice as Blind Souvenir Vendor, Gertan Klauber as Mayor of Berlin, Richard Mayes as Vladimir Biletnikov, Tristram Jellinek as Major Crumpler, John J Carney as Klaus, Dimitri Andreas as Latrine, Vyvyan Lorrayne as Madam Bergeron, Doug Robinson as Sgt Kruger (uncredited), and Max Faulkner as East German Officer.

© Derek Winnert 2017 Classic Movie Review 6,005

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com