By Hank Reineke
The Manila International Film Festival was set to open its doors to guests on 20 January 1982. The date was nearly a year to the day that strong-man Philippine President Ferdinand E. Marco had lifted his controversial eight-year term of martial law restrictions in the country. But the lifting of the martial law brought only small relief to the majority populace. The Philippines was still racked by issues of rampant poverty, wealth inequality and unemployment. Both political and cultural observers thought it folly to stage such a gilded film event during this transitional period. The Associated Press reported the festival was to convene in a building costing some 21.5 million dollars - and still under construction. The film center, designed to house screening rooms and film laboratories, was to also serve as primary archive of Filipino cinema holdings.
The center, described as an eight-story “Parthenon-like Film Palace” was ordered to be built within the time of 170 construction days. In such rushed circumstance, a roof collapse occurred reportedly ending the lives of some fourteen construction workers. The order to erect the palatial center was given by none other than Imelda Marcos, first lady of the Philippines, often chided for her “edifice complex” excesses. Many saw this wild expenditure as sorry government decision-making considering the nation’s significant economic issues. But Marcos – appearing before the press in a pair of lovely pair of shoes, no doubt – saw it differently.
Marcos countered that a strong Filipino “film industry would help reduce Manila’s crime rate, because it would give people something to do in their leisure time.” But she was also mindful that a prestigious festival might burnish her country’s damaged image worldwide – all those pesky claims of human rights violations continued to dog the regime. Though anti-Marco forces promised to disrupt the festival should it be held, the army was prepared to protect. There was, thankfully, no violence.
On 2 February 1982, a correspondent from Variety sent in a dispatch from the inaugural staging of the twelve-day festival. The report made note that Filipino film product wasn’t often seen outside the borders of the Pacific island nation. He reasoned this was due to the selling inexperience of local producers. They had worked in isolation for so long, they simply were not familiar with the film industry’s “aggressive marketing tactics.” Two months prior to the actual staging of the event, Variety described how “reluctant” Filipino producers had been invited to a seminar – one designed to stoke their “sales offensive” skills through “showmanship” tactics. But the trade sighed that despite the well-intentioned marketing teach-in, the Filipino film industry had been too long xenophobic, their business-side interest mostly “half-hearted.”
Regardless, and despite many boycotts of the Marcos-inspired event, there was a bubbling of international interest in Filipino film product. Brokers had expressed significant interest in buying distribution rights to eight of the Filipino features offered and available, the sum of those investments bringing sales of nearly a half-million dollars to local producers. Nearly 300 films had been made available to international film brokers at the event, sixty of Filipino provenance. One of the most popular Filipino films – described breathlessly as the festival’s “Top scorer by far” - was an unusual, over-the-top secret agent pastiche featuring a two-foot, nine-inch actor named Weng Weng as central hero. (Critic Alexander Walker of London’s Evening Standard would mockingly describe the diminutive Weng as “a James Bond type cut-off”). The Weng film, directed by Eddie Nicart, was mischievously titled For Y’ur Height Only, an obvious word play on the most recent James Bond screen adventure For Your Eyes Only.
I can’t say with certainty that For Y’ur Height Only played the grindhouse theaters of “The Deuce” on Manhattan’s 42nd Street, but the film would have fit in well there. It’s a spy-film fever-dream of sorts: the crack addicts and alcoholics in the grungy red seats could awake from their own narcotic-fed hallucinations and behold images on screen even wilder beyond their own madness’s. This was James-Bond-on-a-budget. A very low budget. Weng’s “Agent 00” is even introduced via an ersatz 007 gun barrel sequence, the moment heightened by the pulsing –and very familiar – opening strains of John Barry’s “James Bond Theme.”
The film itself is all spy-film formula. For Y’ur Height Only opens with the kidnapping of a scientist who holds the secret formula to a coveted “N Bomb” weapon. The syndicate behind the kidnapping is led by the mysterious “Mr. Giant” who chooses to communicate with his minions through a blinking-light, oversized facial mirror. Mr. Giant’s crime syndicate is not, all things considered, particularly political. They also dabble in street-level crimes: drugs, prostitution and theft. They’re a cabal of rogues, openly declaring, “The forces of good are our enemy and they must be exterminated.”
In reaction to the kidnapping, little-person Agent 00 (Weng, described as a “man of few words”), is summoned to report to the office of an ersatz “M.” Weng’s boss breaks down the situation before offering the agent a staggering number of gadgets to put to use while working in the field. These include a pen that “doesn’t write words,” a tiny jet-pack, and a razor-brim hat with boomerang-return capability. Of course Weng manages to dutifully employ all of these gadgets while targeting the evildoers: one minion remarks, inarguably, that Weng is “a one-an army,” another tags him as the “scourge of the secret service.”
Honestly, Weng hardly requires all the gadgetry. He parachutes from the top of a high-rise building using an ordinary bumbershoot for ballast (think Batman ’66 Penguin-style). But he more often employs his karate skills to bring down platoons of bad guys with multiple sharp kicks to their groins. Weng also appears a lot smarter than his adversaries as well: he’s always a step or two ahead of their counter-moves. In a film brimming-to-the-edges with non-stop action, Weng is constantly seen climbing above or under structures or sliding across floors to vanquish evil gunmen. The film reaches its climax when Weng engages in mano a mano fisticuffs with Mr. Giant, at the villain’s secret lair on a hidden island.
I believe it’s reasonable to say that for all of its eccentric, energetic charm, For Y’ur Height Only is completely and utterly bonkers. It’s also a very cheap looking feature film, the settings gritty and tawdry, the scripting ridiculous. The faces of the entire cast are entirely covered in the glistening sheen of South Pacific humidity and sweat. The film’s atrocious dubbing (from native Tagalog to English) – not the fault of the original filmmakers, of course – burdens the soundtrack: an additional later of aural nonsense to compliment the madness on screen. Though For Y’ur Height Only is often categorized as an “action-comedy” the original filmmakers took exception, arguing it was no such thing. In their mind, they had made a straight-up formulaic spy film, albeit one with an unusual actor in the lead role.
Following the great reaction and interest in For Y’ur Height Only at the Manila fest, there were discussions of grumbling embarrassment among Filipino artists and intellectuals in attendance. How could this amateurishly produced extravaganza of pure exploitative nonsense have bested the country’s more significantly erudite and artistic entries? But the film brokers at the festival weren’t highbrows. They were interested in buying cheap and making a few dollars off this novelty spy adventure. Kurt Palm of West Germany’s Repa-Film Productions, purchased the rights to For Yur Height Only (and two other of Weng’s films) for $60,000. Sri Lanka chipped in an additional $1500 for Height rights. Before the festival closed, the producers had sold export rights of Height to distributors in Belgium, France, Indonesia, Italy, Morocco, Nigeria and Switzerland, as well as a number of South American countries. Continue reading "AGENT DOWN: THE IMPROBABLE RISE AND SAD FALL OF SECRET AGENT "OO""