Zeta One

Zeta One (1969)

Michael Cort · 86 min · Comedy, Fantasy, Science Fiction

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About the film

Directed by
Michael Cort
Released
December 1, 1969
US theatrical
June 22, 1975
Certification
R
Country
United Kingdom
Starring
James Robertson Justice, Charles Hawtrey, Robin Hawdon, Anna Gaël, Brigitte Skay
More credits
Language
English
Origin
GB
Studios
Tigon British Film Productions
Written by
Alistair McKenzie, Michael Cort
Produced by
George Maynard, Tony Tenser
Cinematography
Jack Atcheler
Music
Johnny Hawksworth
Also starring
Dawn Addams, Valerie Leon, Lionel Murton, Yutte Stensgaard, Wendy Lingham

A British spy film shot in a former wallpaper factory, with a national treasure presiding over a parade of women disrobing for no particular reason.

ZETA ONE (1969) follows agent James Word, who recounts his latest mission in bed after a game of strip poker with his boss's secretary, Ann Olsen, played by Yutte Stensgaard, while a race of women from another dimension abduct and brainwash Earth women to repopulate their world. The plot came from a comic strip in Zeta magazine, intended to launch a series. Only this one got made.

Michael Cort directed this British attempt to cash in on both the spy craze and loosening censorship standards, casting James Robertson Justice as the villainous Major Bourdon and Charles Hawtrey as his henchman Swyne, a role originally offered to Frankie Howerd. Dawn Addams plays Zeta, ruler of the other dimension, and Valerie Leon plays Atropos, one of the Angvian women. Tony Tenser, who also produced Witchfinder General and Polanski's early British films, co-produced for £60,000.

First screened for journalists in April 1969 to hostile reviews, the film sat on the shelf for eighteen months before getting a UK release as the supporting feature to a film called Kama Sutra. It became a curiosity traded among collectors of British sexploitation oddities, less remembered for its story than for the sheer strangeness of watching Justice preside over this particular fever dream.

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