Poseidon Quickies: Thursday's Early Burt Special

That recent post about unexpected beefcake on The Carol Burnett Show got me thinking about the lean times (in body & wallet!) of Mr. Burt Reynolds and how he was often called upon to take off his shirt. I also happen to be reading a book on his films and realized that I hadn't seen ANY of his films prior to 100 Rifles and Sam Whiskey (both 1969.) There were four prior to those and they are, by his own admission, a pretty sorry lot, but you never know when you might discover a moment of entertainment, even accidentally. Scanning the Internet for evidence of these early epics, I happened upon Operation C.I.A. (1965), his third film - one he claims had a total budget of $70,000!

At the time Reynolds made Operation C.I.A., he was serving time, rather unhappily, on Gunsmoke. He played a half-Indian blacksmith named Quint Asper who mostly brooded about one thing or another (and who had perhaps the hairiest forearms on television apart from J. Fred Muggs!) He welcomed the trip to the Far East to make the movie, which was set in Vietnam, but ultimately filmed in Bangkok and Laos.

This rather startling lobby card is what made me dive into C.I.A. in the first place! Burt in his flimsy undies being slapped around by an Asian lady? Looked like a can't miss sequence to me.

Sure enough, at about the 17 minute mark, Reynolds heads to a massage parlor and there is the gal next to him from the photo.

He enters the room and is hurled onto the table and practically mauled by the two attendants.

He can't get a word out as they systematically pull off one thing after another.

Reynolds' familiar sense of humor was already in place as he glances heavenward in awkward discomfort as his belt is undone and fly opened (obscured by the masseuse.)

Next she's on her knees between his legs giving his trousers a good tug!

Next we see a pretty close view of his hairy legs as his pants are doffed.

But, very sadly, we soon find out that he's suddenly covered by a towel as the massage begins...! The photo was from a run-through or an alternate take. I want my money back!!! (Speaking of money, one of the gals gets into his wallet and takes all of his currency.)

He's understandably distressed over being robbed. I held out hope that perhaps there would be a struggle and the towel might be pulled away, but...

...the promised whack comes along and he's still clad in the towel. The scene is shot from a whole other angle and there are no tightie-whities to be seen.

Incidentally, in some promotional material for the movie, even the (incorrectly) promised tightie-whities must have proved too much and so someone meticulously went over them with black ink and turned them dark! Unreal.

Soon after, Reynolds confronts the shifty manager of the parlor over his missing money.

This moment was accurately captured for another of the movie's lobby photo selections. Note the indentation on Burt's torso above his waistline. That is where a near-fatal car accident (one which ended his football dreams) caused his spleen to have to be removed. This is important because of something that happened during Operation C.I.A.

In a later sequence of the movie, the skiff he's being taken around in is rammed by a speedboat.

He and costar Kieu Chinh are sent splashing into the water. (If she looks at all familiar, it may be because she worked several times on China Beach and later portrayed The Mother in 1993's The Joy Luck Club, among other things.)

Reynolds filmed a rescue scene in heavily polluted water.

Again, later on in the movie, he was once again dumped into this water and was pulled out by some locals.

Once the movie had wrapped, Reynolds flew back to the States to attend a Selma, Alabama march with Martin Luther King Jr., but was felled in Birmingham. Waking up in a hospital with softball sized lymph glands, he was diagnosed with schistosomiasis. Snail eggs were present in his bloodstream and they were about to hatch! Had his spleen been present to clean his blood, he might have avoided the near-tragedy, but as it was he had to be given shots from a treatment that had only been discovered two years prior.

At this stage of his career, Reynolds was continually being compared to Marlon Brando, against his own desire. Brando rebuffed Reynolds when Reynolds tried to meet the established actor, who he idolized. (He later got his revenge, however, in 1980, when he played Brando in a Saturday Night Live skit with Gilda Radner's "Baba Wawa," being interviewed - grossly overweight - in bed, eating constantly and reading his answers to interview questions off of prompts under the covers!)

Surely you can guess that Operation C.I.A. is no cinema classic. And it gets extra demerit for its false advertising of Burt in his briefs! But we do get occasional glimpses of his trim bod. (He's seen here with another costar, Danielle Aubrey.)

Should you wish to, you can see the film here.