S+H+E: Security Hazards Expert (1980)

the audience applauded

Best movie ever!

Absolutely Fantastic

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

S H E: Security Hazards Expert (I'm just going to call it SHE for the rest of this) is the story of secret agent Lavinia Kean (Cornelia Sharpe). She's sent to investigate wine merchant Baron Cesare Magnasco (Omar Sharif) and his buddy, Owen Hooper (Robert Lansing) who may be up to no good. Lavinia finds the pair have created something called APM – a microbe that devours oil and makes it useless. Unless they are paid $3 billion per year, they intend to turn their discovery lose on the world's oil supply.I understand that SHE was a television pilot that originally aired on CBS. I'm surprised I didn't see it. The plot summary and the James Bond-esque trappings would have been right up my alley. I caught it last night and, overall, I can say it's not half bad (I suppose that also means it's not half good either). While Sharpe will never be confused with one of the world's great actresses, she does fine in the lead role. She has an infectious quality about her that works. The supporting cast is especially strong and a cut above what you normally found on television in the late 70s. Omar Sharif and Robert Lansing are quite good. Sharif, in particular, plays the love sick puppy to perfection. The cast also includes one of my personal genre favorites, Fabio Testi. I was shocked and delighted to see him in SHE. As for the rest of SHE, the plot is hit or miss. It takes a while to get things going, but once it does, the pace picks up nicely. The comedy is also hit or miss. Some works while some misses its mark completely. I loved the fight scene between Magnasco and Hooper. The action sequences are okay – not great, but decent enough. SHE is filled with enough gadgets to make Bond envious – everything from knock-out sprays, an instant fingerprint kit, small explosive devices, and a gold remote controlled bug that injects poison into its target. The locations are a bonus for something like SHE. The outdoor shots set in Italy are really nice. On the bad side, the female Russian bodyguard is ridiculous, the disco soundtrack is nauseating, and, as I've already indicated, it takes a while to get things going. Sill, like I said, it's not half bad (or half good) and I'll rate SHE a 5/10.

Source where I got this rarity: Old Danish VHS called "S*H*E* - Super Hemmelig Efterretningsagent" = Super Secret Agent.Okay, here is the story: The beautiful Cornelia Sharpe plays Lavinia Kean, a secret agent who infiltrates criminal affiliations by seducing random guys, and in this movie, her main victim is Baron Cesare Magnasco (Omar Sharif), who has made an evil scheme with his old friend Owen Hooper/Hunt (Robert Lansing) to destroy the world's fuel sources by contaminating it with some sort of poison that turns it into sludge.The "poison" was invented by Magnasco's girl friend (as in "a friend who is also a girl") Dr. Else Biebling, played by Anita Ekberg. She is very jealous of Lavinia, and tries to get her away from Magnasco, but with little success, as Lavinia - with the help from her friends Lacey (William Traylor) and Rudolf Caserta (Fabio Testi) cracks all the codes and saves the day.A serious dose of suspense of disbelief is needed to make this movie work, however, but seeing as the writer (Richard Maibaum) has made the scripts for about a dozen James Bond-movies, this one isn't more unbelievable than any of those other movies, except for the fact that there's no "SUPER-VILLAIN", and the heroine is, well, a beautiful woman, and not some guy.Verdict: Overall, I was quite bored with this movie, as I was expecting a LOT more action (the cover said "forbidden under 16 years", but there's no cursing, nobody dies, and there's nothing disturbing about it!) - I can easily recommend this as a family movie, as I'm sure it would entertain children - especially small girls. But for grown-up entertainment, it's a bit too light and uninteresting. The plot doesn't have any twists or surprises, as it's all done straight by the book.5/10 for effort, and an extra star for Isabella Rye as the grotesque Russian she-male Fanya. Hilariously ugly.

This was a made or TV flick back in 1978. One memorable scene is where the lead actress is caught spying by some guy with a gun, who hands her over to her boyfriend and some guy named OtisTo get her to talk, she is stripped naked by a woman who looks like a sumo wrestler. She's placed inside a steam cabinet. One of her captors turns up the steam to maximum, telling her that if she doesn't talk, he's going to cook her alive. None of the guys doing this to her are carrying guns. She's not cuffed and bound in any way. She pretty much allows them to undress her and put her in the steam bath without putting up much of a fight. Out heroine chats with her captors while she roasts, and manages to provoke a fist fight between the two men. While the other guys are fighting, she quietly slips out of the steam cabinet before getting roasted. All THREE of her captors are so pre-occupied that they don't notice a hot, stark naked blonde running away.

Cornelia Sharpe as a sexy agent, unmindful of showing her body off and using her skills and weapons to get the bad guy, accompanied by a bumbling male assistant. Wonder why it did not become a hit! Maybe because of the terrible acting? The unimaginative yet familiar action sequences? One henchman/woman (the gender is questionable because of his/her hormone quantities)who looks a bulky grandma lost in a white sheet stolen from a flea market? Because it's all flash, no substance? Let's be thankful Ms. Sharpe has disappeared.