The Nude Bomb

1980 film by Clive Donner

The Nude Bomb (also known as The Return of Maxwell Smart) is a 1980 American spy comedy film based on the 1965–70 television series Get Smart. It stars Don Adams as Maxwell Smart, Agent 86, and was directed by Clive Donner. Sylvia Kristel, at the time best known for her appearances in the Emmanuelle erotic film series, makes a brief appearance as Agent 34, with Andrea Howard as Agent 22 (in a role similar to Agent 99) and Vittorio Gassman playing the Blofeld like villain. Joey Forman, who played Harry Hoo in the TV series, was recast as Agent 13. Pamela Hensley, who at the time was well known to science fiction fans for playing Princess Ardala in Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, appeared as Agent 36.

Agent Maxwell Smart is called back into service in order to stop a nefarious KAOS terrorist plan from exploding a bomb that destroys only clothing, so as to leave KAOS as the only supplier of clothes to the entire world. Norman Saint Sauvage, the KAOS fashion designer, finds everyone else's clothing designs gauche, so he builds a machine capable of cloning his favorite seamstress and implements the Nude Bombs. He wears a costume including thimbles over each finger, and his mountain lair is entered via a giant zipper.

Parts of the film were shot in Salt Lake City, Utah. Smart's agency, called CONTROL in the TV series, was called PITS in this film, an acronym standing for "Provisional Intelligence Tactical Service". In spite of the title, the film was given a PG rating because there was no frontal nudity in the film; in the opening theme sequence, a title card reads: "Would you believe a film called The Nude Bomb would get a PG rating". (The PG 13 rating was not created until 1984.) There are five times in the film where the bomb is detonated, but in each case the actors cover up their private areas with strategically placed briefcases (Soviet officials) or guns (Buckingham palace guards) or are shown only from the waist up. In one case, members of a football team are in a huddle when a bomb detonates, revealing bare behinds of some of the players. In the final scene, the three stars of the film are rendered nude by fallout from the destruction of all the bombs at the enemy headquarters, but are seen from the backsides from a distance, and then with a "The End" caption covering each of their backsides.

The Nude Bomb received a 17% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 18 reviews and was a box office disappointment, grossing $14.7 million on a $15 million budget. The film was nominated for a Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Picture. Nearly a decade later another revival film was produced, this time for TV, on ABC. Get Smart, Again! featured most of the surviving original cast members (including Feldon as Agent 99) and ignored the events that took place in The Nude Bomb in order to maintain continuity with the original series. This was followed by a short lived revival TV series for Fox. A feature film remake of the series was a box office success in 2008, grossing $230,685,453 worldwide.

In 1982, NBC broadcast the film on television for the first time with its original title The Return of Maxwell Smart.

The movie was released on VHS for the first time by MCA/Universal Home Video in 1991. The film was released on Region 1 DVD on August 26, 2008. and Region 4 on October 30, 2009. It was released in Australia on Blu ray on June 22, 2016. Kino Lorber released a Blu ray edition of the film on December 10, 2019 featuring new extras, including TV and radio spots, behind the scenes galleries as well as a commentary track by Alan Spencer, who wrote jokes for Adams on the film's set.