Review of The Fat Spy

The Fat Spy (1966)
4/10
Bizarre look back at Cape Coral
13 February 2010
As a longtime resident of SW Florida, I had to watch this film after finding out it was filmed entirely in the city of Cape Coral, and showed parts of Cape Coral Gardens (known to local residents as The Rose Gardens - an abandoned water park that was a popular hangout for teens back in the late 70's/early 80's). The story is pretty incoherent, and as a previous reviewer put it, was basically a sales pitch for the city of Cape Coral. It looks like the majority of it was shot at the Cape Coral Yacht Club (the beach scenes anyway), with the remainder being Cape Coral Gardens (obvious sale pitch for the park at about 1 hour in), and the corner of Del Prado Boulevard and Cape Coral Parkway. Pretty low budget... The performances, as well as the music... just plain bizarre (though it was the '60's).

I rated this a "4" simply for the archival footage of the city I've known for 30 years. Of particular interest to local residents is a shot of the Iwo Jima statue - located originally at the entrance to Cape Coral Gardens, left abandoned when the park closed and long neglected for years... is the very same statue that now resides by Eco Park along Veteran's Memorial Parkway westbound from the Midpoint Bridge (one of the entrances to Cape Coral from the city of Fort Myers). And unbelievably...this film is available on DVD!
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