Deadlier Than the Male (1967)

Truly Dreadful Film

A Masterpiece!

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Very light spoilers ahead: I was very surprised that this film was so good. I expected an over-the-top Bond spoof in the style of the Matt Helm films but instead got a solid story with good action scenes, dangerous female villains and a suave performance by Richard Johnson as the hero. By the way, Johnson plays Bulldog Drummond, a character from the pulp novels of the 1920s. They have changed the character quite a bit and made him a suave, sophisticated investigator who knows judo and is good with a quip or two. Johnson was apparently one of the actors considered for the first James Bond film and I can see why. He is confident without being cocky and quite smooth. The main villain is revealed about halfway through the film and turns out to be Nigel Green, playing a similar character to the one he played in the Matt Helm film The Wrecking Crew. Smooth, non-pulsed and very droll. Elke Sommer and Sylva Koscina are the two female villains and they are quite nasty. We even get Drummond's nephew helping out the proceedings.There is a terrific sequence with a giant mechanized chess set that must be seen to be believed. Well done. The story is a tad slow and we only get to see London and the Italian coast as locations but the film works well without becoming ridiculous. Give it a chance I'm sure you will enjoy it. I give this 7 giant chess pieces out of 10.

This is the twenty-third Bulldog Drummond film, but it has nothing in common with Bulldog Drummond but the name. The producers, Sydney and Betty Box, evidently acquired the rights to use the name of Drummond (duly credited to Sapper and his stage dramatist Fairlie) as an excuse for a character to compete with, and try to steal some business from, the James Bond films. In other words, this is a pure Bond film without James Bond. There are the bikini-clad babes wielding machine guns, the evil man in the castle, the snarling dogs, the yacht about to blow up, the jet that does blow up, exploding cigars, the whole works. 'Hugh Drummond' has a black belt in judo, a way with the ladies, can solve a case if he chooses to between babes and cocktails, and is played by Richard Johnson. He is up against Elke Sommer, who kills men with a poison ring, time bombs, and even before the opening credits has blown up a plane and parachuted to safety where she was greeted by her bikini-clad friend Silvia Koscina in a motorboat. The villain is that smoothie with the wicked glinting eyes and droll manner of a gentleman, Nigel Green, who did so much of that sort of thing then. This film is pure sixties kitsch. Elke Sommer's false eyelashes are as long as the film itself, and she had perfected pouting lips before botox was invented. The one highlight of this film is the truly ingenious use of a life-sized chess set as part of a duel to the death, and it is really original (or at least I think it is, perhaps I am naive to imagine it could be). The chessmen are ugly, - bad art direction! - but the idea is fabulous. That could be used again. Or is there anyone left who plays chess instead of computer games?

MASTER PLAN: expand a corporate empire via simple assassinations. Capt. Hugh 'Bulldog' Drummond, a gentleman who indulged in detective work, was conceived in the 1920's in a series of novels and was in quite a few films in the 1930's and 40's. The last one before this was a 1951 potboiler "Calling Bulldog Drummond," with Walter Pidgeon. This late-in-the-game restart of sorts has Mr. Drummond (not referred to as 'Bulldog' here) as little more than an insurance investigator. However, the character and plot borrow heavily from the popular James Bond formula of the sixties and results in the closest approximation to the actual Bond films during this period, more so than the 'Flint' duo of films and the Matt Helm series of films, which featured American spies. The actor Johnson, as Drummond, even resembles Sean Connery in some shots, with a similar virile approach, a slight grim smirk & tough demeanor, and Johnson is a fine actor, so this isn't just some silly parody; yet, it does capture that same vicious streak of gallows humor. So, yes, the wicked humor is there - I mean, really wicked. The two main femme fatales (played by Sommer & Koscina) are curvaceous assassins and they're outrageously effective (hence, the film's title). They are completely amoral, enjoying their work and behaving as if they're shopping in some high-end store rather than killing people. Some of their scenes, the terminations, actually made me wince a little, probably because I'm not used to seeing such cruelty and callousness on film from females, even if it is comedic in nature and tone. Ironically, the lethal ladies would be copied by the Bond films in "Diamonds Are Forever," where the assassins were gay males rather than female.The plot tends to be fiendishly funny, if you like that dark satire take on things: the head villain is an out-of-control capitalist, moving through the corporate world with a new set of rules and simplistic ruthlessness. If, for example, members of a board vote on a corporate resolution and it's tied 5 to 5, he simply disposes of the member whom he feels is holding up the vote, to change it in his favor. Drummond catches on to this, of course, and becomes the latest target. The best and most intense scene, straight out of the Bond movies and about an hour in, is the requisite 'villain and henchpeople have a last supper with the hero as planned victim' scenario. But, Drummond taunts the villain and provokes the henchman (a burly poor man's Oddjob) into some bad moves. Drummond proves to be fearless - he's surrounded by characters we now know to be very dangerous and ends up mocking them all - it's one of the best Bond scenes and it's not in a Bond movie. Drummond then defies expectations by refusing to partake in the also-requisite 'hero & femme fatale seduction scene,' much to the lady's surprise and anger. And, even though the budget is understandably lower than a typical Bonder (while we're in London in the 1st half, there's barely any spectacle), the filmmakers do manage to throw in that wild, weird chess board later, outdoing many of the grander set-pieces in the Bond films. Since Johnson plays it straight, even straighter than Connery some might say, much of this resembles "Dr.No" and "From Russia With Love," the Bonders which relied mostly on pure espionage. Sommer and actor Nigel Green would reunite in the Matt Helm Bond-spoof "The Wrecking Crew," playing similar characters. Drummond and Johnson would return one more time in "Some Girls Do." Hero:8 Villain:8 Femme Fatales:9 Henchmen:6 Fights:7 Stunts/Chases:6 Gadgets:6 Auto:6 Locations:7 Pace:8 overall:7

This splendidly entertaining spoof of spy thrillers, brings back detective Bulldog Drummond (debonairly portrayed by Richard Johnson) to do battle with a megalomaniac villain (elegantly laconic Nigel Green), who uses sultry female assassins (Eurobabes Elke Sommer and Sylva Koscina) to do his dirty work. Stylish doses of brutality, sly humor and witty set pieces make this obscure thriller a real winner...a widescreen DVD is due out in May of 2003.