THE DAY THE FISH CAME OUT (1967)

Dr. Strangelove gone psychedelic (and a little gay). This is one of those crazy 60's movies that you watch slack-jawed, wondering, what the hell were they thinking? It's set in the near future (1972) and begins as a military plane is flying over Europe carrying two nuclear bombs and a mysterious "McGuffin" box of some very dangerous material (think Doomsday Device by way of the Mickey Spillane noir classic KISS ME DEADLY). With a crash imminent, the pilots must carefully deposit themselves and their deadly cargo via parachutes on a small Greek island. The two men (Colin Blakely and Tom Courtney), clad only in skimpy wet (and increasingly dirty) underpants, scamper about the rocky island trying to contact their NATO superiors while at the same time staying hidden from the populace--the fact that they can't come up with a semi-plausible excuse for their state of undress is ridiculous. Unknown to the pilots, a group of military men, thinking the pilots are dead, move in to reclaim the weapons; they claim to be hotel developers, which allows them to scatter all over the island in their search. They dress up in outrageously tight and colorful tourist garb and are assumed to be gay by some of the villagers, and eventually by Blakely, who doesn't realize that these are the men he's trying to contact. Meanwhile, all the activity causes unwanted attention from real tourists who come to the island by the boatload, including archeologist and half-hearted dominatrix Candice Bergen who carries on a brief fling with soldier Ian Ogilvy. The two bombs are discovered by the military, but the box is found and pried open by a shepherd and his wife who, finding only odd shiny spheres, throw the contents in the ocean (and, by accident, into the island's water supply). In the last few minutes, a coming apocalypse is signaled by the huge numbers of dead fish bobbing in the water, and the heedless islanders and tourists dance away that last moments of their lives, as a voice shrieks over a megaphone, "Pay attention, please!"--a heavy symbolic touch that reminds me of the end of some Spike Lee movies when characters go about yelling, "Wake up!!" Not surprisingly, none of this really comes together, but the costumes and wild frugging of the tourists are fun to watch for a few minutes, as are the underdressed pilots. Bergen is totally wasted, as is the usually dignified Sam Wanamaker as the head military man. Very tough to sit through; recommended only for die-hard fans of 60's cinema. [FMC]