my moviefu is helpless!

June 7, 2006 3:19 PM

name this movie!

I saw it on TV in the late 70's/early 80's. The scene I remember involves Hero (who may or may not have been Roger Moore), Hot Chick and Bad Guy.

Bad Guy is in his all-white lair when Hero and Hot Chick come in. Hot Chick suddenly falls through a trap door and finds herself in a maze, wearing all yellow with a transmitter on her waist. Bad Guy informs Hero that they are going to play "Cats and the Canary", with Bad Guy's henchmen (wearing red, with similar transmitters on their waists) at various spots in the maze. Bad Guy and Hero can watch the movements of Hot Chick and the Henchmen by colored squares on a map in the lair. Bad Guy and Hero will tell the Henchmen and Hot Chick how to move through the maze via walkie-talkie (or something like that). If Hot Chick can get to the end of the maze, the good guys win, if the Henchmen get her, well....they lose.

Somehow Hero is able to tell Hot Chick to remove her transmitter and make her way through the maze undetected; the Henchmen find her transmitter and shoot, making it look like (to Bad Guy) that Hot Chick was found and killed.

So, that's what I've got. It's been driving me crazy for 15+ years. Help!

posted by Lucinda to media & arts (20 answers total)

I think something like that might have happened in an old episode of Batman...
posted by ITheCosmos at 3:39 PM on June 7, 2006

Damn...I've seen this too....it wasn't Batman.......
posted by bingo at 3:41 PM on June 7, 2006

I was thinking Wild Wild West, but couldn't track it down. So perhaps not.
posted by medium format at 3:59 PM on June 7, 2006

This sounds like a Bond film to me, and I even have vague recollections of a similar scene from one, but none of the plot summaries I can find mentiones a maze...
posted by jdroth at 4:00 PM on June 7, 2006

Was this one of those Flint movies with James Coburn? Basically a lower budget James Bond knockoff?
posted by frogan at 4:10 PM on June 7, 2006

Sounds more like an episode of the avengers to me...
maybe you're mistaking Diana Rigg for one for the bad girl? (mmmm Diana Rigg)
posted by cosmicbandito at 4:17 PM on June 7, 2006

The remake of Cat and the Canary (1979). No Roger Moore, but Edward Fox was somewhat similar.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 4:21 PM on June 7, 2006

I really don't think it was Cat and the Canary. As I remember this was either just one episode of a series, or just one little part of a movie about something else entirely (like life-or-death parlour games often are in Bond films).

I don't think it was a Bond film, though.
posted by bingo at 4:24 PM on June 7, 2006

I don't think this is correct, but for some reason Looker came to mind when I read your question. However, I have not seen this movie since roughly 1984, so I'm probably wrong.
posted by Dr. Wu at 6:36 PM on June 7, 2006

a few more things that *might* help:

It wouldn't have been an R rated movie, as my parents would not have had something like that on the TV with me around at that age (7 or 8).

Hot Chick had long hair. Brown, possibly red. Definitely not blonde.

Bingo is right in that the scene was just one little part of the movie, a life-or death parlour game as it were.

The blips on the screen Bad Guy and Hero watched were squares.

Remember, I said they *might* help. :)
posted by Lucinda at 6:42 PM on June 7, 2006

Could it have possibly been an episode of Buck Rodgers?
posted by bingo at 7:17 PM on June 7, 2006

Hmm...I just read through the episode summaries, and I couldn't find anything like this...but I can't help thinking that it's a TV show...it was just so gimmicky and episodic...
posted by bingo at 7:53 PM on June 7, 2006

An episode of the Prisoner? The main fellow had a sort of Roger Moore look. It had all sort of weird plots, I could imagine something like this taking place.
posted by edgeways at 8:13 PM on June 7, 2006

This sounds like The Man With the Golden Gun to me. There's a maze on Scaramanga's island that he uses to work on his marksmanship and general bad-assitude, which naturally later Bond and the Bond girl (Mary Goodnight) have to deal with. Does the involvement of Hervé Villechaize ring a bell?
posted by redfoxtail at 9:39 PM on June 7, 2006

I don't think so...had a more recent feel than that, and in Golden Gun, Bond himself was in the maze, whereas in the story with the girl in the yellow jumpsuit, it was just the girl in the maze.
posted by bingo at 9:46 PM on June 7, 2006

I know it's definitely not The Prisoner, and my Avengers-expert boyfriend says it doesn't sound like any episode of The Avengers (which was my first thought too).

Another cult-seventies-TV friends suggests The Persuaders, which starred Roger Moore, and another suggests it might be an Italian Mario Bava film from the 60's called Diabolik - about a master criminal who had a white costume and an all-white lair - or else, as frogan says, a James Bond rip-off from the 60s.
posted by andraste at 10:13 PM on June 7, 2006

it was definitely not Looker, Dr. Wu, 'cuz i remember that movie (surprisingly) very well.

i'm seconding the Flint series... i think in "Our Man Flint" there's a scenario like you describe.
posted by Hat Maui at 3:55 AM on June 8, 2006

This is beginning to really annoy me, thanks a bunch Lucinda! Definitely not Bond but I think the Hero and the Chick both wear jumpsuits similar to those worn in Moonraker which may be grounds for confusion. Can remember seeing it on BBC and being disappointed with it. I've had a look through the Persuader's episode guide and can't see anything that matches.
posted by biffa at 4:06 AM on June 8, 2006

Sorry biffa!

It's not Diabolik, because that was a Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode (the very last one!) and I've seen it a few dozen times.

The only Roger Moore-era Bond movies I haven't seen are Octopussy and The Spy Who Loved Me and I would've remembered it from one of the ones I've seen.

I'll try the Our Man Flint series...I've always kinda wanted to see them, anyway...
posted by Lucinda at 4:32 AM on June 8, 2006

I'm pretty certain it's not Flint, I liked them when I was a kid and they're played for laughs a bit more than the film you're thinking of, which IIRC takes itself seriously.
posted by biffa at 5:50 AM on June 8, 2006