Altin çocuk (1966)

So, finally it has arrived: Altin çocuk, Onar Films latest release - and it's a packed DVD! Only a limited release, 500 numbered copies, this will be a collectors item. And not only because it's such a small release, but because it's a darn entertaining Turkish take on our favorite agent 007. But this time it's boyish superstar Göksel Arsoy as Golden Boy and longtime villain in Turkish cinema, Altan Günbay, as the Blofeld-esque baddie.

The movie starts like all movies should start, with a striptease. A woman is dancing/pleasing herself in front of a mirror, until Golden Boy himself comes into the picture and kisses her, and this goes one for the whole pre-credit sequence. Suddenly a man in a diver gear comes into the house and kills Golden Boy! But don't worry, it's only a double that's being killed, an enemy agent trying to get some secret information... and the man in the diver gear is the real Golden Boy.

The Turkish secret service awards him with a nice trip to London, where he literally seem to have one girl in every corner. He just drives around in his fancy sports car, drops one girl of and pick another one up! He ends up with a Swedish blonde at a hotel and just enjoys life. But a colleague in Turkey gets killed trying to inform their bosses about a terrible plan! Four women are escorting Golden Boy to the airport, and off he goes to new adventures.

It's of course the bald Altan Günbay (complete with a white cat in his lap) who's gonna destroy Turkey with a nuclear explosion, and the only one that can stop him is... yes, you guessed it... Golden Boy!

In a way there's not much going on in this movie. The plot is primitive and easy to follow, Golden Boys walks and drives around, gets into fights and shoot-outs, saves women, have sex with them, they get killed and he continues his hunt for the bald baddie. But at the same time it's an effective story, there's no boring scenes, just stuff that we wants to see in a spy-movie like this. It's like a Bond-movie on a hard diet. Chases, fights, semi-nudity, nice locations and an evil bald mastermind with a white cat. I love it. Yes, even a Swedish Bond-gal! Sorry, Golden Boy-gal!

Yeah, the budger are lower than most of the Italian movies in the same genre, but except the language there's not much difference really. It looks good, and the director Memduh Ün stretches the budget, and there's a lot of creative editing and angles, which makes this Turksploitation a lot more slicker than some of the other examples from the same era. Göksel Arsoy is in most of the scenes in the movie, and he's an odd Bond-copy. He looks like a mix between Jon Voight, William Shatner, Conan O'Brien and a school boy, and yes... a bit wimpy. But he's great in the action scenes and confident with the ladies, but it takes a bit of time to get used to his presence.   
What's really cool is that Onar Films has dug up a wonderful print. It has some print damage, and misses a frame or two here and there - but the sharpness, the contrast. Most of the time this movie looks and sounds great. Remember that it's a very obscure movie too, so a DVD like this is a dream!

As usual with Onar Films there's a lot of interesting extras. First of all we have two new trailers, once for a lost Kilink-movie which looks very interesting and dark. It's basically one scene, and it's a grim scene. I don't want to tell to much, watch it yourself. The second one is for Ringo Gestapo'ya Karsi, which looks extremely absurd. There's cowboys in it, and a member of the gestapo... and some whipping. And action. And more cowboys! I have to see it! Turkish Intrigue is a good article about Turkish spy-movies and then there's the usual filmographies and biographies. But the best thing is a 16 minute interview with Altan Günbay, who talks about his work in Turkish cinema. He starred in at least 140 movies (most of them as a villain) and tells how he was forced by producers to keep his shaved head for movie after movie, how he later found out that he was in a Sean Connery-movie and the state of Turkish movies today. Great little interview, and it's hard to believe that this nice old man was spitted at, got chairs hurled after him and a lot more because he always played the villain. 

After thinking a little bit, the final of the movie echoes The World Is Not Enough a lot. Both have the finale in Istanbul, in the bay, close to a house/castle on an island. Golden Boy/Bond goes underwater to stop the nuclear device to explode. After this Golden Boy also breaks the fourth wall and speaks directly to the audience with tongue in cheek and a smile. Just like Lazenby later did in On Her Majesty's Secret Service...

Altin çocuk is a cool movie and the DVD is great, so don't hesitate, buy it at Onar Films now!