By Albert Ohayon
Bonditis (1967 Switzerland, Karl Suter)
Synopsis: Frank Born keeps dreaming that he is an ultra suave secret agent. In every dream, he foils the bad guys, saves the world, gets the girl and…dies a horrible death. Fearing he will soon have a nervous breakdown, he consults a psychiatrist whose diagnosis is “Bonditis”, basically an overactive imagination. He tells Born to go away on a holiday to rest and relax. The Swiss village Born travels to just happens to be full of spies from Russia, China, the USA and a criminal gang who are waiting for a mysterious secret agent to drop off some secret plans. Of course, all of them think Born is that secret agent. Will his crazy spy dreams become reality? More importantly, will he survive?
This absolutely quirky yet enjoyable film comes from Switzerland of all places. It was made during the James Bond craze of the mid to late 1960s. The premise is terrific. When reality and fantasy clash, what do you do? Our hero is just a regular guy who happens to have an overactive imagination. When the movie starts, we are smack in the middle of his latest dream. Clad in a beautiful tuxedo, he is involved in a gunfight, gets a secret formula before meeting a terrible end.
After he wakes up, he has barely started making breakfast when the hallucinations start again. This time, he is seduced by a blonde femme fatale. He wakes up and realizes that he is in his psychiatrist’s office, strangling the poor man. He explains that these hallucinations happen all the time when he is doing perfectly ordinary things. They are much worse when he is asleep.
Cue the trip to a peaceful village in Switzerland to recoup. This is when we meet all the (crazy) secret agents from around the globe. There is also a criminal gang headed by a harp-playing woman and her many “nephews.” The real secret agent with the plans is actually agent Hata Sari (get it?), a beautiful American spy who is deadly with her karate chops. The rest of the film is Born being mistaken for the one with the plans, not sure if he is imagining what is happening to him, or if it is real.
The beauty of this film is that it doesn’t take itself seriously. It is a spy spoof with a much better story and a much better sense of humour than most parodies. All the characters are caricatures but some are quite funny. What makes the film work is the wonderful rapport between Born and Hata Sari. Their scenes together are the highlight of the movie along with some of the very good fantasy sequences.
The acting is mostly good with props to Gerd Baltus as Born and Marion Jacob as Sari. Baltus is great at conveying just how debilitating this constant switch from reality to fantasy is for him. The fantasy on the train and the bit with the nymphomaniac hotel secretary are both very funny. There is also the portrait of the Mona Lisa in Born’s hotel room with the requisite eyes cut out so people can spy on him except in this case it also has an extendable arm to grab things!
The exciting finale is also quite good. The filmmakers took full advantage of the breathtaking Swiss mountain locales. It is very likely that the James Bond producers saw this film. There are many similarities between the finale of Bonditis and the action sequences on top of the Swiss mountain in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service which was released two years later.
I’m sure you are probably thinking that this is a very odd film. You are correct but it has a wonderful charm that is missing from most spy spoofs. Born’s condition is quite humorous (to us, anyway) and it leads him on many an interesting adventure. You can’t help but root for him to foil the bad guys, get the girl and…survive!
I give this film 3 overactive imaginations out of 5.
(at the time this article was published, the film was available to stream on YouTube in its English version)