The British production company Tigon, which enjoyed success from the mid '60s to the mid '70s, has a lot to answer for. As well as acclaimed classics like Reeves' WITCHFINDER GENERAL and Polanski's REPULSION, they released a glut of B-movies in the horror and exploitation genres most of which are must-sees for the British cult fan. ZETA ONE is one of their sexploitation efforts and generally an appalling movie, only to be watched for nostalgic purposes. The story is plot less drivel, lurching from one scene to the next with no continuity, and the lame sci-fi additions to the story simply consist of supposedly alien women (the only alien thing about them is their dress sense!), who stand in a darkened room with silly-looking sets and lighting and spout nonsensical drivel about alien invasions which never happen. It's hideously dated of course, whether in the garish attire or in sequences in which people float around in dark rooms with lava-lamp footage superimposed over the top.The paucity of the budget is very much in evidence in the first twenty minutes of the movie, which consists of two characters sitting in a flat, flirting a lot and finally engaging in a silly, never-ending game of strip poker which will test the patience of even the most hardened bad-movie lover. After this timewasting footage finally grinds to a halt, we get lots of interconnected characters like a secret society of sadists; aliens kidnapping earth women and the "hero" of the piece, a wannabe James Bond spy who spends all of his screen time bedding naked women (I don't know why they bother - he's pretty repulsive). The fact that his moustache appears and disappears throughout the film suggests some kind of post-production problems and tampering with footage.After endless scenes of naked and half-naked women wandering around aimlessly, the finale arrives, an action sequence set in the woods in which loads of alien women (dressed in VERY skimpy clothing) arrive and zap the male bad guys. Well, I say zap, but really all they do is stretch out their arms and the men fall down dead, with an appropriate sound effect superimposed over the action. It's so cheap that this scene is laughably incredible. All of the female cast (aside from Dawn Addams, wasted as the alien queen) lose their clothing for various silly reasons, and the camera is always on hand to capture them crawling through air vents or being stripped in a makeshift torture chamber! Robin Hawdon is the spy, and I think it's pretty fair to say that he's a very bad actor indeed - perhaps one of the worst I've seen! Amateurish at all times and totally incompetent...it comes as no surprise that he was never heard of again. Two 'big names' have been drafted in to give the film some kind of status. The first is James Robertson Justice who sleepwalks through his performance and picks up the cheque at the end, and the second is the inimitable Charles Hawtrey who has some of the funniest sequences in the film and is a delight as ever - in fact he's one of the main reasons to watch and he makes an effort too. Don't you just love the man? Most of the female cast are unknown and can't act (for obvious reasons), but B-stars Valerie Leon and Yutte Stensgaard are a welcome sight amongst the rest of the heaving naked female flesh. Sometimes fun, mainly dull, this inexplicable offering is for those fans who are VERY forgiving for their movie's lackings - I don't think anyone would claim that this is a good film at all.

It's another cold snowy winter day here so I once again took advantage of our Amazon Prime subscription and picked a flick. This time I watched a film from 1969 called 'zeta one' (aka 'The Love Factor'). It's a British made secret agent film...sort of... maybe it's more a sex-ploitation film. I can best describe it as a cross between the over the top spy films like 'Our Man Flint' and the recent Austin Powers films. Also a touch of James Bond. There is a 'Barbarella' sci fi element to it too. There's a race of alien women with advanced technology who want us for mating purposes or something. I'm not really sure. Like so many other B-movie female aliens they only seem to have women in their society. Women who like to dress as male fantasies. Even their warrior women dress in pasties and G strings. Evidently it's their favorite combat gear no matter how impractical and uncomfortable it must be. Yes, this is one of those movies. It's loaded with 60s era nudity, mini skirts, boots and even a psychedelic trip or two. It reminds me of the Austin Powers movies because it seems more an exaggerated spoof of the 60s then what it really is, a real 60s film. I lived through that time as a young teen so I know a little. It even had 'Laugh-in Style' girls dancing topless in body paint. It's more 60s then I ever remember the 60s as being, it you can understand that. It's like what people now seem to imagine those days to be who weren't there.Anyway, it's a funny film if you're in the right frame of mind. There is one agent who looks like a British version of Barney Fife in round glasses. Their version of M here is more into 'S & M'. Yes, it's a strangely entertaining flick that bad movie fans should enjoy.

A race of topped, average-breasted women from the planet Angvia, in another dimension, come to earth to kidnap women to repopulate their planet.There were a few things I liked about about this film. One was that the spy was named James Word, who I assume was named so because his "word is his bond". Or something along those lines. The joke names (such as Angvia being an obvious anagram for vagina) are not very deep.The other was that the elevator seems to be an inspiration for Marvin the Paranoid Android in Douglas Adams' books. Adams was 17 when the film first came out, and being a British science fiction film, he may have seen it. Someone might know this... I do not. But I found the similarity striking enough.

If anything, "Zeta One" (a.k.a. "The Love Factor" and "Alien Women") proves that the U.S.A. doesn't have a lock on cheesy soft-core porn movies. In this one, a race of alien women (many of whom run around topless) kidnap earth women to repopulate their world. What sounds like a fun spoof of spy movies and sci-fi flicks fails miserably, due to many factors, not the least of which is that there's simply no point of view. The cast (and the script) seem to meander around without any real purpose. The secret agent character, James Word (played by Robin Hawdon of "When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth") seems to have two purposes in the movie: to have sex with every woman who crosses his path, and smoke cigarettes, since he doesn't seem to do anything else. A part like his takes a deft comedic touch, which Hawdon just doesn't have. The story is told in flashback, and the framing sequences featuring Hawdon and lovely Yutte Stensgaard seem to indicate trouble with the original film (Hawdon has a moustache in the main body of the film, but is without it in the framing sequences). Scenes dealing with a strip-poker game and Word's ultimate fate go on for what seems like an eternity without any real payoff. And top-billed James Robertson Justice gives a textbook example of a "where's-my-paycheck?" type performance. The British have a reputation for stuffiness, and if this movie is any indication, it is a reputation well-deserved.