Condorman

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Movie
German title Condorman
Original title Condorman
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1981
length 90 minutes
Age rating FSK 6
Rod
Director Charles Jarrott
script Mickey Rose ,
Robert Sheckley ,
Marc Stirdivant
production Jan Williams
music Henry Mancini
camera Charles F. Wheeler
cut Gordon D. Brenner
occupation

Condorman is a Disney - action comedy from the year 1981 with Michael Crawford in the lead role. The film is based on the novel Spaghetti with Blue Beans (original title: The Game of X ) by the American author Robert Sheckley and can be seen as an adaptation of it. It's a parody of the James Bond series of films.

action

Woodrow Wilkins, an American comic artist , devotes himself to his superheroes , who delight millions of children in his notebooks. But his favorite character is Condorman , a secret agent who fights against evil with the craziest vehicles and tools. Woody's claim is that Condorman should only experience adventures that would also be possible in the real world. For this reason, Woody - disguised as Condorman - tries at the beginning of the film, from the Eiffel Tower in Paris , a daring maneuver with self-made wings , which ends however in the cold waters of the Seine .

Woody is recruited by his friend Harry, an agent of the CIA , to conduct an exchange of papers with a Soviet agent who only goes by the nickname "the bear". Woody is not at all secret in an Istanbul restaurant, which is partly because other agents want to prevent the exchange. With more luck than brains, Woody and the agent Natalia struggle against the enemy. Woody falls in love with the beautiful "colleague" who disappears again in the dark of the night, but not without asking Woody for his code name. Woody immediately decides on his favorite character: Condorman . Inspired by Natalia, he now also has the face for a second of his comic hero characters : the laser lady .

A short time later, Natalia decides to quit as a secret agent and want to lead a civil life, for which she needs a protector who can get her out of the KGB. She expressly requests her colleague from Istanbul with the name Condorman as an escort. After the CIA has researched who Condorman actually is, Woody demands that he be provided with the following items for the liberation campaign:

  • a submachine gun in the shape of a walking stick,
  • an armed racing car (converted Nova Sterling ), which is disguised as an old motorhome, shoots out from under it at the push of a button, the front can be converted into a ramp and can be converted into a hovercraft while driving,
  • “Nozzle pipes” that you can put on the rope of a chairlift to climb the mountain, and
  • a speedboat with a laser cannon in the stern.

After the CIA grudges its teeth into it, a wild escape across Europe follows. This is followed by a hunt from Yugoslavia across the Alps to the grand finale in Monaco . The Soviet agents Krokov and Morovich try everything to get Natalia back into their hands and are always hot on the heels of their persecuted because Woody has already prepared and published the entire escape route as a comic series in order to test it in reality. The persecution fails. Except for Krokov, who escapes from an enemy speedboat by jumping into the sea at the end of the film, everyone dies. The last chase boat with Morovich crashes on the cliffs and the three film heroes Woody, Natalia and Harry are lifted out of the sea by a helicopter in their escape boat. The lovers get on, Natalia moves to America and can lead a middle-class life with Woody.

Reviews

  • "[...] a somewhat silly Bond paraphrase, since the gripping topic is missing, but the Disney naivete stimulates the laughing muscles." (Rating: 2½ stars = above average) - Adolf Heinzlmeier , Berndt Schulz : in the dictionary "Films on TV".
  • "Undemanding, but complex and at times amusing entertainment film, which can be seen as a parody of agent films and naive enemy clichés, but largely bypasses the needs of the young target audience." - Lexicon of international film :

DVD release

  • Condorman . Buena Vista Home Entertainment, 2006 - British Pal Region 2 DVD with German soundtrack
  • Condorman . Walt Disney Home Entertainment, 2012 - First German DVD release

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Adolf Heinzlmeier, Berndt Schulz: in lexicon "Films on TV". (Extended new edition). Rasch and Röhring, Hamburg 1990, ISBN 3-89136-392-3 , p. 135.
  2. ^ Lexicon of international film (CD-ROM edition), Systhema, Munich 1997.