Bons baisers de Hong-Kong [From Hong Kong with Love] (1975)

(On Cable TV, May 2022) Oh boy, what a film. Bons baisers de Hong-Kong is certainly not the only, the first or the wildest James Bond parody, but I defy to find another such film that has… let’s see… a plot based on the kidnapping of Queen Elizabeth II by a lovelorn villain played by Mickey Rooney; no less than Bernard Lee and Lois Maxwell playing their own Bond roles (how did that happen?!?); cameos by Groucho and Harpo Marx (or lookalikes?); car stunts from Remy Julienne’s team; and noted 1970s French comedy team Les Charlots, for which this is a star vehicle. The film itself is not necessarily successful: you can see it desperately make jokes, but it’s not a given that they’re funny. Still, the film is something wild to watch. Quite a bit of it depends on Elizabeth II impersonator Huguette Funfrock (whose career was solely limited to playing QEII or lookalikes) and her being a reminder that Our Majesty was a little hottie in her prime – and this isn’t baise-majesté as much as an essential plot point when it’s revealed that the villain kidnapped her out of sheer lust. Much of the film takes place in Hong-Kong and borrows liberally from 1970s martial arts films. Having this being a showcase for Les Charlots is a double-edged sword: while the film is an out-and-out comedy, Les Charlots’ humour styling has not aged well, and the film is guilty of quite a bit of “You already know these guys and you’re expecting to laugh, so laugh already” without building a coherent foundation for the comic set-pieces. But that’s hardly the point – most of the fun of Bons baisers de Hong-Kong is simply in waiting for the next wild thing to come out of the film.