Secret Weapons

Year releasted: 1985

by Nathan Rabin
July 12th, 2006

Also known as: Secrets Of The Red Bedroom, Sexpionage

Tagline: "Enter the secret world of the Soviet school for sex spies!"

Plot: Wide-eyed Soviet innocents Linda Hamilton and Geena Davis are recruited by a secret school for sex spies. There, they learn the exotic ways of Americans in preparation for luring Yanks into compromising positions, then blackmailing them. But the school never prepared Hamilton for the possibility of falling in love with a target, which was an egregious oversight, considering how often that sort of thing happens in movies like this.

Key scenes: The film opens with a would-be master of sexpionage blowing her cover during a training exercise by giving the time as "1500 [hours]." "Young lady, in America you would be shot!" sputters a horrified Soviet general who apparently greatly overestimates America's efficiency as well as its brutality. The general then blusters of a contingent of sexy she-spies: "If these girls are American, then I'm a herring." Later, the trainee spies dine upon such favored American delicacies as ice water and hot dogs, and Sally Kellerman informs them that America's religion isn't Protestantism or Judaism, it's sex. To illustrate her point in an utterly non-gratuitous fashion, she shows the recruits a montage of naughty, naughty Americans in sexually suggestive poses, and orders the entire class to strip. Damn those pervy Russkies!

Can easily be distinguished by: Its singular combination of Cold War hysteria and softcore titillation.

Sign that it was made in 1985: Hamilton betrays her background when she misses an E.T. reference made by American party boy Christopher Atkins. Apparently E.T. never made it to Hamilton's hometown, even under a more Soviet-friendly title like Decadent Peanut-Butter-Candy-Loving Bourgeoisie Capitalist Alien Swine.

Timeless message: Give impressionable, nubile young women access to decadent American amenities like dishwashers, microwave ovens, and ice machines, and they'll happily betray their glorious workers' paradise of a country.

Memorable quotes: When a Soviet operative suggests his demanding superior will settle for nothing less than an "American beauty rose," the general answers slowly and deliberately: "Precisely. An. American. Beauty. Rose!"