Given my struggles with describing comedies, a good song from Top Secret! (1984) to keep in mind is “How Silly Can You Get.”  When it comes to movies of this ilk, this is definitely what is more likely to get me laughing.  Of course, it helps that this one was made by the same people that gave us Airplane! (1980), which is hilarious.  It is also a little more well known, so if you found that one funny, you will likely have the same reaction to Top Secret!  Yet, to leave you just one extra tidbit to inform your reading of the rest of this review, take another song “Skeet Surfin’.”  If you know the song “Surfin’ U.S.A.,” then you have the melody.  Now picture people on surfboards riding the waves while simultaneously trying to shoot clay pigeons with shotguns.  While this unfolds, everyone on the beach is having a grand old time.  Like the earlier tune says, how silly can you get?

Such aspects are important to explain about Top Secret! because it has a serious backdrop.  It is set in a version of East Germany that appears to be still stuck in its former Nazi ways.  There is a resistance to this oppressive regime, which we learn about by seeing a German officer struggling with Agent Cedric (Omar Sharif) in the opening scene.  He is able to get away and he heads for Berlin to link up with the rest of his organization.  At this moment, the East German government is hosting a cultural festival in order to distract the world from the fact that they are planning on destroying the entire North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) submarine fleet.  They are doing so because they have captured Dr. Paul Flammond (Michael Gough), a peaceful scientist who they are forcing to develop a special mine to destroy the vessels.  This is the information that Agent Cedric has learned.  He meets one of his contacts in the city, who tells him he is to rendezvous with Dr. Flammond’s daughter Hilary (Lucy Gutteridge) at a fancy dinner.  Unfortunately, he is found out before he can make it, and is sent to a junk yard where he is compacted into the vehicle in which he is riding.  Also attending this shindig is a character we have already met, the person behind the aforementioned songs, Nick Rivers (Val Kilmer).  He is the government’s second choice for entertainers, but he is there all the same.  On the heels of his manager, Martin (Billy J. Mitchell), asking to be excused for the evening, Nick spots Hilary having trouble making it into the restaurant and invites her to his table.  They exchange pleasantries and there seems to be an attraction, but she disappears when the military police show up looking for her.  To this point, he has no idea about her affiliation with the resistance. This begins to change the next night when he sees her once more, this time from across a theater during a performance of The Nutcracker.  She believes she is there to meet the leader of the resistance, but it turns out to be somebody working for the government.  Thus, he attempts to capture her, and there is a struggle.  He comes to save her, and gives himself up to see that she escapes.  He thinks he is going to be fine since he is Nick Rivers, ambassador of American music.  Instead, they throw him in prison.  During an escape attempt, Nick stumbles upon Dr. Flammond’s laboratory and learns of the scientist’s connection to Hilary.  However, for such an antics, Nick is recaptured and is about to be executed when it is realized that he needs to perform for the festival.  It is during this concert that Hilary intervenes and helps him get away.  After a night of adult activities, it is time for them to finally join up with the resistance.  It is on a Potato farm, so named because that is the surname of the family that owns it.  Sorry, I could not resist slipping one joke into this summary.  Once they are there, the identity of the resistance’s leader, “The Torch” (Christopher Villiers), is revealed.  It is actually a man named Nigel whom Hilary knew as a child, the two of them being stranded on a deserted island for a number of years.  This sounds like the plot to a bad movie. . . .  There is another gag from the film, though it used in connection to something else.  Anyway, Hilary and Nick bring news of Dr. Flammond’s location, and they immediately begin devising a rescue plan.  It is almost derailed, though, when East German soldiers attack the farm house.  They manage to escape, but Nigel begins to suspect that there is a traitor in their midst.  He blames Nick, but Nick proves his innocence by doing one of his musical numbers.  All the same, they cannot let the singer go free because he knows how to find Dr. Flammond inside the prison.  It is there they go the next morning, and during their assault Nigel reveals himself to be the one working for the East German government.  Nick and the others manage to get Dr. Flammond out, but Nigel takes Hilary hostage.  The goal is to get Dr. Flammond out of the country, but he will not leave without his daughter.  Thus, Nick goes after her ala Steve McQueen in The Great Escape (1963).  There are a lot of references in Top Secret!  Anyway, he catches up to Nigel and they have an underwater fist fight during which Nick triumphs.  They finally catch up with the waiting plane and Dr. Flammond, Hilary, and Nick depart, presumably to live happily ever after.

Like most comedies, Top Secret! is the kind of film you have to watch in order to appreciate.  I will say there is a fair bit of innuendo and a couple pictures of topless women, but they do not overwhelm the proceedings.  Otherwise, there are a lot of jokes going on at once, and most of them are funny.  There is one obvious Catholic moment when you see a priest who you think is performing the anointing of the sick (it is not actually called “Last Rites” people).  Instead, he is there to speak random Latin phrases and is soon executed in the electric chair.  It is a light bit of anti-Catholicism, and nothing that is not easily handled.  In a more general sense, I would highlight how the film handles the notion of oppressive government.  The film underscores this concept by making all the bad guys basically be Nazis, even though the film is set in more modern times when East Germany was a satellite country of the Soviet Union.  This means communism, though national socialism and the former share more in common than people care to acknowledge for some reason.  In a general sense, they represent the opposite of freedom.  This also means freedom of religion, which is one of the reasons why the Church has traditionally been against communism.  Of course, none of these ideas are found in the film, aside from the broad notion of fighting against tyranny.  I give it to you as part of the running subtext in my brain when I which these movies.

Top Secret! is worth watching, if you can handle a little bit of innuendo.  When I see this sort of thing, I tend to just shake my head and wait for it to be over.  By this score, I only shook my head a couple of times.  The rest of the shaking I did was because of laughter because it is one of the funniest movies I have seen.