Another secret service knock-off from serial budget-dodger Lindsay Shonteff. Buxom Diana Rigg-alike Linda Marlowe is secret agent Harriet Zapper, driving round London, straddling a gatling gun and marking time in between martial arts bouts with horny boyfriend Rock Hard. A gobsmacking scene where Marlowe stuns a hapless assailant with a bolt of badly superimposed lightning from her nether regions, apropos absolutely nothing whatsoever, ensured this film’s place in the annals of cult. Enough cash was raked in to justify a sequel, Zapper’s Blade of Vengeance (1974), which upped the body count and beheadings, and lowered the camp comedy angle – slightly. Shonteff carried on in this ramshackle vein, returning in the late ’70s with two films based around uber-randy secret service agent Charles Bind (sic), played variously by Nicky Henson and Gareth Hunt. And so the wheel of the customised Lotus Esprit turned full circle.
Glenn A
November 2, 2009 at 12:32 am
Careful, TVC, she is a black belt in real life. However, if it is a kung fu cash in, then it’s just as hammily acted and cheaply made as the products of Hong Kong, but this explains why I love these films as their low budgets and extreme violence make them cult items. I often wonder if Linda Marlowe was inspired by Angela Mao, the female Bruce Lee of the same era.
Glenn Aylett
September 8, 2018 at 11:12 am
Linda Marlowe later had a respectable career appearing in plays written by Stephen Berkoff and appeared in the revival of Widows in 1994, where again the review revealed she had a black belt in karate and appeared in Big Zapper 20 years earlier.