''Danger!! Death Ray'' (Italian: ''Il Raggio infernale'', lit. ''The Infernal Ray''Blake, Deal, p.56) is a 1967 Italian

Eurospy Eurospy film, or Spaghetti spy film (when referring to Italian-produced films in the genre), is a genre of spy films produced in Europe, especially in Italy, France, and Spain, that either sincerely imitated or else parodied the British James B ...

secret agent Espionage, spying, or intelligence gathering is the act of obtaining secret or confidential information (intelligence) from non-disclosed sources or divulging of the same without the permission of the holder of the information for a tangibl ...

spy film The spy film, also known as the spy thriller, is a genre of film that deals with the subject of fictional espionage, either in a realistic way (such as the adaptations of John le Carré) or as a basis for fantasy (such as many James Bond film ...

starring Gordon Scott. The film was satirized on a 1995 episode of ''

Mystery Science Theater 3000 ''Mystery Science Theater 3000'' (abbreviated as ''MST3K'') is an American science fiction comedy film review television series created by Joel Hodgson. The show premiered on KTMA-TV (now WUCW) in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on November 24, 1 ...

''.

Synopsis

Scientist Jean Karl Michael invents a

death ray The death ray or death beam was a theoretical particle beam or electromagnetic weapon first theorized around the 1920s and 1930s. Around that time, notable inventors such as Guglielmo Marconi, Nikola Tesla, Harry Grindell Matthews, Edwin R. Sco ...

which, according to him, is for "peaceful purposes". He arranges to demonstrate the ray to a group of European

NATO The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, ; french: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord, ), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 member states – 28 European and two No ...

representatives. As he is demonstrating it, a group of enemy agents disguised as NATO officials steals the death ray, kidnap the scientist, and escape by car under the cover of night. Following a pursuit and gun battle, they escape by

helicopter A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally spinning rotors. This allows the helicopter to take off and land vertically, to hover, and to fly forward, backward and laterally. These attribut ...

which lands on a submarine and is discarded as the submarine submerges. As Agent Bart Fargo is about to go on vacation, he is given the assignment of retrieving the

and saving the

scientist A scientist is a person who conducts scientific research to advance knowledge in an area of the natural sciences. In classical antiquity, there was no real ancient analog of a modern scientist. Instead, philosophers engaged in the philosophica ...

. He travels to

Barcelona Barcelona ( , , ) is a city on the coast of northeastern Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within ...

on a lead to find an evil organization that may be behind this. Rooting out a nest of spies in an ever-enclosing trail, Fargo meets a lady when he hides in her house from the opposition and befriends an enemy agent who later helps him to stop the evil organization.

In popular culture

''Danger!! Death Ray'' was 'riffed' (parodied) on ''

'' on January 7, 1995 and remains a cult favorite to this day. Canadian

surf rock Surf music (or surf rock, surf pop, or surf guitar) is a genre of rock music associated with surf culture, particularly as found in Southern California. It was especially popular from 1958 to 1964 in two major forms. The first is instrumental su ...

band Danger!! Death Ray is named after the film.

Bibliography

References

External links

* 1967 films 1960s action adventure films Italian spy thriller films Films directed by Domenico Paolella Italian action adventure films 1960s spy thriller films Films scored by Gianni Ferrio 1960s Italian films {{1960s-Italy-film-stub