Top Secret!
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| Top Secret! | |
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 Top Secret! film poster |
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| Directed by | Jim Abrahams David Zucker Jerry Zucker |
| Produced by | Jon Davison Hunt Lowry |
| Written by | Jim Abrahams David Zucker Jerry Zucker Martyn Burke |
| Starring | Val Kilmer Lucy Gutteridge Omar Sharif Peter Cushing Michael Gough Jeremy Kemp |
| Music by | Maurice Jarre John Williams |
| Cinematography | Christopher Challis |
| Editing by | Francoise Bonnot Bernard Gribble |
| Distributed by | Paramount Pictures |
| Release date(s) | June 22, 1984[1] |
| Running time | 90 min. |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| All Movie Guide profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
Top Secret! is a 1984 comedy directed by Jim Abrahams, David Zucker and Jerry Zucker. It stars Val Kilmer in his first feature film, Lucy Gutteridge, Omar Sharif, Peter Cushing, Michael Gough and Jeremy Kemp. The film is a parody of World War II films and Elvis films. The original music score is composed by Maurice Jarre. The film is marketed with the tagline Movie? What movie?
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[edit] Plot summary
The film tells the story of Nick Rivers (Kilmer), an American pop singer (whose songs sound suspiciously like those of Elvis Presley and The Beach Boys), who goes to East Germany to perform in a cultural festival. (Curiously, East Germany still seems to be controlled by Nazis and under attack by the French Resistance.) Whilst there, he becomes involved in a resistance movement and helps the beautiful Hillary Flammond (Gutteridge) rescue her father (Gough), a brilliant scientist being held by the Germans and forced to build the deadly Polaris Mine.
The film also features short performances by Omar Sharif as Agent Cedric, and Peter Cushing as a Swedish bookstore proprietor, in a scene filmed completely in reverse.
[edit] Notable gags
- At the beginning a German courier gets off his motorbike and he ties it up like a horse. Also, when he goes inside and takes off his helmet, the straps look like they were painted on his face.
- When Nick is on the train listening to the German teaching tape, he learns phrases like "There is sauerkraut in my lederhosen" and "I want a Schnauzer with my Wienerschnitzel". (Most of the 'German language' heard during this scene is actually gibberish.)
- The East German guards' vehicle is forced to brake sharply upon seeing a car stopped ahead of it. It just touches the car – a Ford Pinto – which of course explodes violently.
- Nick and Nigel have an underwater fight scene, including an underwater Wild West Saloon.
- Hillary Flammond says she can help Nick as she knows "a little German" before pointing to a short man across the room.
- A magnetic mine attracting a submarine to its location, instead of the other way around.
- Peter Cushing's character is shown with a magnifying glass up to his eye. When he lowers the glass, the eye remains the same size. Also everything in the book shop is going backwards, e.g. going up the firepole, and the dog walking backwards.
- The prison priest is heard reading excerpts from Julius Caesar's De Bello Gallico as he makes his last walk.
- After Nick criticizes the Hillary-Nigel storyline and Hillary replies "This all sounds like a bad movie", they take a nervous glance at the audience.
- Before Nick's train pulls off the East German train station, the station itself moves on first. Probably a joke on the German WW2 expansion politics and/or the rapid expansion during the Blitzkrieg.
[edit] Production notes
- Most of the "German" spoken in the film is not German, but Yiddish or just Mock German. Some of the "Latin" spoken is pig latin.
- According to the end credits, all songs performed by Nick in the movie were actually sung by Val Kilmer.
- This was Val Kilmer's first film role.
- Michael Gough later played Alfred and Val Kilmer played Batman in Batman Forever.
- The song the horse sings is "Du, Du Liegst Mir Im Herzen", a North German folk song of about 1820. It is also heard singing A Hard Day's Night as it exits.
- The East German National Anthem music is from the Zucker brothers high school alma mater.
