We have Dr. No to thank for starting one of film’s most iconic franchises, although it’s a slow, cheap-looking ride compared to a modern Bond film. At the time of its 1962 release, however, it shook up the spy genre and unleashed a tidal wave of imitators looking to replicate its box-office fortunes. Most, whether serious stories like The Quiller Memorandum, copyright-dodging rip-offs like 008: Operation Exterminate and Agent 077: Mission Bloody Mary, and parodies like the Vincent Price-starring Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine, are long-forgotten. One, meanwhile, is only remembered thanks to its sheer lousiness.
Immortalized by an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000, Agent for H.A.R.M. sees smarmy spy Adam Chance (Mark Richman) work to foil a Soviet plot to dust American crops with a deadly spore that reduces human skin to a bubbling green slurry. In theory, this involves a cat-and-mouse game between hardline communist Basil Malko and Soviet defector Dr. Jan Stefanik, who’s developed a deadly spore pistol. In practice, it involves a lot of Chance sitting around Stefanik’s house, occasionally stepping outside to shoot at something.
