Made a year after 1966's Dr. Goldfoot And The Bikini Machine, this second (and final) film in the run was directed by none other than the Italian Maestro of gothic horror, Mario Bava (it was the only film Bava and Price would work on together). Having said that, don't get too excited… this one is widely considered to be one of, if not the, worst films that Mario Bava ever directed. But is it a total waste of time? That depends on how you look at it…

When this sequel begins, we learn that Goldfoot (Price reprising his role from the first movie) is back at it, but this time with an added kick: the foxy female robots he was building in the first movie now have the ability to explode, making them literal ‘girl bombs!' He sends these beautiful weapons of mass destruction out into the world, each one programmed to make out with and then blow up a high ranking military officer of various NATO countries.

There's more to this than that, however, because Goldfoot turns out to be a dead ringer for one of his targets, General Willis (also played by Price). Once his beautiful bombshell takes him out, he's able to usurp his identity and effectively impersonate him. Why? So he can start a war between the United States and the Soviet Union! Thankfully there's a secret agent named Bill Dexter (Fabian) on hand to put a stop to Goldfoot's evil schemes… but will he succeed in time… or at all?

A far cry indeed from Bava's excellent spy spoof Danger! Diabolik this tepid follow up to the reasonably enjoyable first film, the most you can say about this one is that, well, it teams up two horror legends in Bava and Price. It's unfortunate then that they didn't make a horror movie together, or even a moderately good comdy/spoof, because Doctor Goldfoot And The Girl Bombs is a dud. The comedy is lame and the presence of the Italian Abbott And Costello style comedy pairing of Franco Franchi and Ciccio Ingrassia as Franco and Ciccio respectively doesn't help matters much in that department. Maybe something gets lost in the translation here (this is the English dubbed version complete with another Les Baxter/AIP score and supposedly they get more screen time in the Italian version) but these guys just are not funny. Most of the gags that pop up in the movie involve sped up camera work where guys chase scantily clad women around colorful sets. It's eye candy at least, but nothing more than that.

The movie isn't racy enough to titillate much, though the ladies in the cast who play the girl bombs are all quite beautiful, and the action and suspense scenes don't really add up to much. There are a few dashes of effective humor here and there but not enough to carry the picture. There's an unexpected tip of the hate to Dr. Strangelove towards the end that was probably quite timely when this hit theaters but that adds only curiosity value, not entertainment value. It's a shame. As most Euro cult fans know, Bava was capable of delivering amazing genre pictures and could do comedy nicely as well, but here it just doesn't come together behind the camera, and that would seem to have carried over to the finished product as well.

Having said all that, is there anything that makes this mess worth sitting through? That depends on how you look at it. Price is, once again, very watchable here. If his work isn't anywhere close to the top of his filmography his performance is at least interesting. He hams it up and plays the part fairly similar to how he did it the first go around, but then there are stranger bits where he takes things in a noticeably darker and considerably more sinister direction. These moments are fleeting but every once in a while you get the impression here that Goldfoot could be quite menacing (that never happened in the earlier picture). On top of the fact that Price's screen presence is what it is (and is therefore at least a partial saving grace) the movie is also well shot at times. It never rises to the top of Bava's best looking films, not even close, but for a lackluster comedy it does make good use of color (and black and white) and there are some nice camera setups.

Video:

Kino gives Doctor Goldfoot And The Girl Bombs its Blu-ray debut in a nice AVC encoded 1080p high definition transfer framed at 1.85.1 widescreen. The ‘recap' footage that plays while the opening credits work their way across the screen look soft and excessively grainy but once that gets out of the way, it looks pretty clean if a bit soft. Detail is never outstanding and often inconsistent with some shots looking nice and crisp and others looking a little fuzzy. Colors are nice and pretty consistent, black levels are fine and skin tones look nice. There isn't any obvious noise reduction, edge enhancement or compression problems to note. Could this have looked better? Probably, but it's a ‘better than DVD' transfer even if it does leave room for improvement.