Alan Spencer's NUDE BOMB Blu-Ray Commentary

[AndyDursin]

I've been disappointed with some audio commentaries lately (see HEARTBEEPS) but if you are interested in GET SMART, don't miss Alan Spencer's commentary for Kino Lorber's NUDE BOMB Blu-Ray.

They ran out of review copies so I wasn't able to review it back in December, but I bought a copy from Target's sale last week and it's very much worth it. It has all the extras (copious deleted TV scenes) from the Australian disc and has 2 new commentaries.

One of them is worthless but Spencer's commentary is hugely entertaining, diving into the endless problems this movie ran into and all the changes the film went through -- reshoots, recastings, discarded opening credit sequences, preview screenings, not to mention the aborted attempts at making a GET SMART movie leading up to it at different studios (plus the fact this itself started off as a TV movie, hence some of the less-impressive sets).

He's critical (heavily) but also fair, singling out Lalo Schifrin's terrific score and Clive Donner's direction ("it looks like a movie").

Good commentaries can make owning a flawed movie worthwhile -- this is one of those instances.

[Eric Paddon]

A better title for this film would have been, "Sorry About That, Chief".

[Eric Paddon]

Yes, Spencer's commentary was very good (I even appreciated the fact he made sure to do his homework on both Pamela Hensley and Sarah Rush!). The only thing he forgot to explain was why Barbara Feldon got frozen out of the project from the beginning (though I have heard Feldon might not have been interested even if she had been asked).

[NoelUnderwood]

Alan Spencer didn't "forget" anything in his commentary for THE NUDE BOMB. He stated during the first few minutes how the studio wanted Maxwell Smart to be a swinging bachelor and change the concept of the TV show to fit their conception of a movie. On another message board I read how studios monitor commentaries. Those disclaimers at the beginning are there for good reason, so Spencer was very judicious on NUDE BOMB and the Marty Feldman tracks, the first I'd hear from him, navigating what you can and cannot say. Jennings Lang was mostly responsible for messing up NUDE BOMB and I was appalled to hear about the original producer of the show being asked to leave the set, an amazing revelation. It's well known that Don Adams didn't like Eugene Roche or his acting, so Spencer showed diplomacy in his comments. Even after so many years, as I've learned from listening to other commentaries, studios and family members don't want dirty laundry aired.

Also, Spencer was hired by Adams as a punch up gag writer. He wasn't an "assistant" as you'd noted. A wonderful commentary track and I wish more were as entertaining.