Get Smart - The Nude Bomb - 1980

The Nude Bomb (1980)
or
The Return of Maxwell Smart
or
Maxwell Smart and the Nude Bomb

PG 94 min
Comedy|Crime|Mystery

Maxwell Smart is recalled to duty to help fight a villian who threatens to detonate a weapon that destroys clothing.

Writers: Mel Brooks (characters)

Stars: Don Adams

The Nude Bomb (also known as The Return of Maxwell Smart or Maxwell Smart and the Nude Bomb) is a 1980 comedy film based on the television series Get Smart. It starred Don Adams as Maxwell Smart, Agent 86, and was directed by Clive Donner. It was retitled The Return of Maxwell Smart for television so as to avoid any trouble with the censors.
In 1982, the film aired on broadcast television for the first time as The Return of Maxwell Smart.
The film was a box office disappointment.
The Nude Bomb was nominated for a Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Picture.

In the film, Smart is called back into service in order to stop a nefarious KAOS terrorist plan from exploding a bomb that destroys only clothing, so as to leave KAOS as the only supplier of clothes to the entire world. Saint-Sauvage, the KAOS fashion designer, finds everyone else's clothing designs gauche, so he builds a clone machine capable of cloning his favorite seamstress and implements the Nude Bombs. He wears a costume including thimbles over each finger, and his mountain lair is entered via a large zipper.

Adams' cousin Robert Karvelas (Larrabee) is the only other cast member from the television series to return for this film. Dana Elcar plays the Chief in this film (as Edward Platt had died in 1974); no reference is made to Barbara Feldon's character from the TV series, Agent 99, or even her marriage to Smart. Sylvia Kristel, at the time well known for her appearances in the Emmanuelle film series, makes a brief appearance as Agent 34, with Andrea Howard as Agent 22 (Agent 99-type role) and Vittorio Gassman playing the Blofeld-like villain. Agent 13 was recast as Joey Forman, who played Harry Hoo in the TV series. Pamela Hensley, who was by now well known to science fiction fans for playing Princess Ardala in Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, appeared as Agent 36.

Smart's agency, called CONTROL in the TV series, was called PITS in this film, an acronym standing for Provisional Intelligence Tactical Service.

In spite of the title, the film was given a PG rating because there was no frontal nudity in the film. (The PG-13 rating was not created until 1984.) There are five times in the film where the bomb is detonated, but in each case the actors cover up their private areas with strategically placed briefcases or guns (Buckingham palace guards) or are shown only from the waist up. In one case members of a football team are in a huddle when a bomb detonates, revealing bare behinds of some of the players. In the final scene, the three stars of the film are rendered nude by fallout from the destruction of all the bombs at the enemy headquarters, but are seen from the backsides from a distance, and then with a "the end" caption covering each of their backsides.