Director – Worth Keeter, Screenplay – Phil Behrens, Producers – Robert P. Eaton & Betty J. Stephens, Photography – Irl Dixon, Music – Dee Barton, Special Effects – Greg Hull & Richard Huggins. Production Company – Polo Players Ltd..
Cast
Ian Hunter (Duncan Jax), C.K. Bibby (Star), William Hicks (Baron Ernst von Tepesh), Jill Donnellan (Tiffany Youngblood), Anna Rapagna (Maxie), Stephan Krayk (Dr George Brinkman), Gene Scherer (Dr Kurtz), Shangtai Tuan (Sato), Joe Coltrane (Hammer), James Eric (Juice), Bill Gribble (Cowboy), Flo Hyman (Spike), Wolfgang Linkman (Colonel Stryker), Terry Loughlin (S.D.), Dean Whitworth (Bolt)
Plot
Secret agent Duncan Jax is despatched to South America, accompanied by Tiffany Youngblood. The Nazi organisation The Order of the Black Eagle has abducted Dr Brinkman, the world’s top laser expert. Jax is required to pose as American Nazi organiser Conrad Bladen in order to rescue Brinkman. They arrive to discover that The Order’s head The Baron is forcing Brinkman to build a powerful proton beam weapon that The Baron intends to turn on the USA. Moreover, The Baron has Adolf Hitler’s cryogenically frozen body and is planning to revive it.
The Order of the Black Eagle is a low-budget copy of a James Bond film. There were numerous of these made during the Spy Movie fad of the 1960s, although this was a straggler by the end of the 1980s. It was one of a duo of films made by director Worth Keeter starring Ian Hunter as Duncan Jax and follows on from Unmasking the Idol (1986), which had Hunter up against ninja terrorists.
In place of Sean Connery, Roger Moore et al, Ian Hunter makes for a colourless spy hero who passes through assorted action set-pieces and a single seduction scene. There is even a copy of the Bond series’ Q scenes, although most of the gadgets introduced in the scene never end up being used. One of the more amusing gadgets is the standard-size riverboat that keeps opening up secret compartments to reveal hovercraft and hot-air balloons inside. The latter half also introduces a team of tough guy and one girl action experts, each with their own specialty, who accompany Ian Hunter during the big climactic assault on the Nazi lair.
The film opens with a real WTF element. The opening scenes involve an attack on UN meeting in Geneva where the laser scientist (Stephan Krayk) is abducted. We then follow spy hero Ian Hunter as he breaks into a locked room to steal valuables and flees pursued to find his pet baboon Typhoon waiting – dressed in a tuxedo, no less! – with a microlight ready for them to fly off. In the next scene, they land the microlight on the lawn at a wedding and Hunter unzips his flying gear to reveal a tuxedo beneath – shades of the opening of the James Bond film Goldfinger (1964) – and heads in to attend the reception with the baboon as his plus one.
Secret agent Duncan Jax (Ian Hunter) with Typhoon the baboon
The other bizarre element is the introduction of Nazis, who were popular villains in action/adventure films of the era following Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981). The Order of the Black Eagle taps more into the Nazis of The Boys from Brazil (1978) who have a secret enclave in an unidentified South American country. The Nazis here have a secret plan to revive a cryogenically frozen Hitler or his head, a plot that has appeared in a number of films including They Saved Hitler’s Brain (1964), Flesh Feast (1970) and The New Avengers episode The Eagle’s Nest (1976) – see my more detailed listing Nazis in Fantastic Cinema. The Hitler’s head gets to do a Raiders-styled meltdown at the climax in a badly unconvincing effect.
There are random action scenes at various intervals – Ian Hunter in a motorcycle chase through the jungle; a not-too-badly staged shootout in a Western styled town; river action with Ian Hunter and Anna Rapagna in a hovercraft chase where they blow up pursuers with built-in missiles before the hovercraft drives up on land to then engage in a vehicular chase; and a reasonably well scaled climactic military assault on the Nazi base, replete with the baboon driving an APC into the fray!
The Order of the Black Eagle gives all indication it was shot cheaply – not unenterprisingly, mind. There is some bad acting, all from people who have never been seen again. The worst offender here is William Hicks as The Baron, who channels Victor Buono and gives a broad and over-the-top performance in an entirely unconvincing German accent.
Worth Keeter made his directorial debut working for independent producer Earl Owensby with Wolfman (1979), followed by the killer dog film Rottweiler (1982) and seven other non-genre films for Owensby. Elsewhere, Keeter has made various B movies, including the genre likes of the erotic horror Snapdragon (1993), the alternate world action film Last Lives (1997), the action film Memorial Day (1998) and the space station action film Scorpio One (1998), as well as numerous episodes of Masked Rider (1995) and the various Power Rangers tv series.
