Publicity
poster by the awesome artist Frank Frazetta for The Secret Of My Success
(© Andrew L. Stone/MGM - reproduced on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)
Who remembers this obscure
monster-featuring movie? At least 40 years ago, possibly even longer, and way
before the much more famous 1980s Michael J Fox movie of the same title but entirely
different plot was first released, I saw twice in about 3 years (but never once
since then) on TV here in the UK a delightfully tongue-in-cheek British-themed
black comedy entitled The Secret Of My
Success.
Directed by Andrew L. Stone and originally
released in 1965, The Secret of My
Success or: How Three Beautiful Girls Love for Fun — and Murder for Profit (to quote its very
lengthy and therefore rarely-used full title) is all about PC Arthur
Tate, a hapless young policeman (deftly infused with the required amount of
amiable artlessness by James Booth) whose very astute mother (a Miss Marplesque
tour de force performance by Amy Dalby) successfully manipulates his life to
make him exceedingly successful, before revealing a wonderfully barbed,
unexpected sting in the tail right at the very end.
It also stars Stella Stevens (The Nutty Professor, The Poseidon Adventure, etc), Honor
Blackman (James Bond's Pussy Galore adversary/lover), and Shirley Jones (Carousel, Oklahoma! TV's The Partridge
Family), as three young women (Violet, Lily, and Marigold respectively) who
are far from being the innocent, delicate flowers that PC Tate naively takes
them to be.
The Secret Of My
Success consists
of three separate segments, each one focusing upon a different member of the
above-noted trio of femmes fatales, but it is the second segment that has always
especially fascinated me. This is because it features Movie Land's stock 'mad
scientist' character – here it is Baron Von Lukenberg (Lionel Jeffries), the
husband of Honor Blackman's character Lily, who has secretly created a strain
of gargantuan spiders, the size of St Bernard dogs!
In the 40-odd years since I last saw The Secret Of My Success, I've looked
everywhere for info concerning it but found nothing until the internet came
along, and even now there is not very much. Moreover, all attempts by me to
trace it on video or DVD failed entirely - until 21 November 2019,
that is, when finally I tracked it down on DVD, being sold for only £4 from a
specialist seller of rare/obscure movies. Needless to say, I purchased it
straight away, and looked forward very much to viewing the creepy but
awesome giant spiders segment all over again!
UPDATE: I did indeed get around to
viewing my DVD of this fondly-remembered movie, in January 2020. Although the
giant spiders no longer gave me the heebeejeebees like they did when I viewed them
on TV as a child, it was still very enjoyable, especially as this was the first
time that I'd ever seen it in colour – we still only had a b/w set when I saw
it twice on TV. Consequently, the reason why this film is never shown on the
small screen here in the UK nowadays is all the more obscure.
To get a further taster for this 'other'
Secret Of My Success movie, click here to
watch an excerpt from its giant spider segment currently accessible on YouTube.
And to view a complete listing of all of my Shuker In MovieLand blog's other film reviews and articles (each one instantly accessible via a direct clickable link), please click HERE!
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