‘Top Secret’ Has Lived Up to Name

The now-ubiquitous David Zucker-Jim Abrahams-Jerry Zucker team didn’t know how right they would be when they chose the name “Top Secret!� as the title for the follow-up to their hugely successful 1980 comedy “Airplane!�

But for a variety of reasons, this equally broad but savvy satire went straight into the same comedy oblivion that consumed their short-lived “Police Squad� TV series. (The success of the “Naked Gun� movies prompted CBS recently to resuscitate its small-screen predecessor, now airing Wednesday nights at 8.)

Despite the filmmakers’ extremely high profile this summer--both “Naked Gun 2 1/2� and “Hot Shots� are products of Abrahams and one or more of the Zucker brothers--�Top Secret!� remains surprisingly unknown.

One reason it flopped at the box office may be that the vapid “Airplane II: The Sequel� in 1982 turned fans away from anything else associated with the “Airplane!� name, even though Zucker and Abrahams had nothing to do with the sequel.

Another problem more specific to “Top Secret!� itself may have been the lack of any clear sense of period, something that may throw viewers who insist on comedic nonessentials like interior logic. It’s basically a parody of World War II-French Resistance movies, but along the way it also skewers ‘50s rock ‘n’ roll films (Val Kilmer stars as Nick Rivers, a remarkably Elvis-like, hip-swinging singer), ‘60s “Beach Party� movies and “The Blue Lagoon,� among other lampoon-worthy source material.

Like “Airplane!,� but unlike some of its less-consistent descendants, “Top Secret!� makes the gags come so fast and furious that any duds are gone so quickly you barely have time to groan.

Visual gems abound: Kilmer and a mysteriously beautiful Eastern European woman are thrown together at a posh dinner-dance and get to know each other while participating in a genteel waltz that grows increasingly absurd. And without a word, the filmmakers had the final say on the flammability of the Ford Pinto, not to mention the uncanny reliability of German-made motor vehicles.

In the obligatory agent-unmasked-at-the-train-depot scene, German shepherds bark viciously at the package under the arm of furtive-looking man in a trench coat. After he is led off by Nazi-like guards, a rifle shot is heard off-camera. Cut back to the package, which is now on the ground and being pawed open by the canines to reveal . . . dog biscuits.

Later, Nick Rivers stumbles upon a beleaguered scientist who is being held captive by a paramilitary group that’s bent on world conquest. The elderly genius describes his revolutionary desalination machine that “is capable of removing the salt from over 500 million gallons of seawater a day� and then asks the young singer, “Do you know what this could mean to the starving nations of the Earth?�

“Wow!� Rivers says, obviously impressed. “They’d have enough salt to last forever!�

And when he is approached in a restaurant by a gaggle of tittering teen-age girls who suspect he’s their favorite rock ‘n’ roll star, he turns their gazes of lust to mush with a painful confession: “I’m . . . Mel Torme.� In the numerous musical interludes, Rivers gets to deliver such forgotten rock classics as “Straighten the Rug� and “Skeet Shootin’.�

The key to “Top Secret!� is to abandon any expectation of rationality and just revel in the jokes, whether it’s the sight gag about the danger of ordering blind in a restaurant where you don’t speak the language, the backup vocal group that pops up out of nowhere or the chill-inducing threat of having one’s name added to the Montgomery Ward mailing list.

“Top Secret!� (1984), directed by Jim Abrahams, David Zucker and Jerry Zucker. 90 minutes. Rated PG.