Jump to content


This is a read only archive of the old forums
The new CBn forums are located at https://quarterdeck.commanderbond.net/

 
Photo

Bulldog Drummond in the Sixties


13 replies to this topic

#1 chrisno1

chrisno1

    Lieutenant

  • Crew
  • PipPip
  • 931 posts

Posted 27 June 2014 - 11:12 PM

This is a re-post of sorts as the following reviews had originally been posted in this forum way back in January but subsequently had been removed and entered what I can only describe as the internet ether.

As I had no come back from the guys here at CBN, I just thought I ought to start the topic anew. There are other threads which follow the same line, but not all in one. First a little recap:

 

Bulldog Drummond first appeared in 1920. As created by Herman ‘Sapper’ McNeile, the early incarnation was a gentleman adventurer, ex-war hero and sometime spy. He appeared in 10 novels up to 1937 and then again after the death of his creator in another series of 7 novels written between 1938 and 1954 by Gerard Fairlie. The latter author was often likened to Sapper’s hero and may well have been the inspiration.

 

The books were so successful that first the theatre and later cinema quickly adapted them. The first movie appeared in 1922 and the first sound version in 1929. Simply entitled Bulldog Drummond this famous early American talkie starred the dependable and urbane Ronald Coleman in an Oscar nominated performance. It had strong production values but is relatively weak plot-wise as Drummond exacts revenge on behalf of an American girl and defeats the villain, a cod-German, Carl Petersen. It was successful enough to provide a jokey sequel in 1934, (Bulldog Drummond Strikes Back also starring Coleman) and spawned a popular second feature series which first starred Ray Milland and later John Howard. British cinemagoers had their own series too, a young Ralph Richardson playing a Moriarty-like villain.

 

The books dated badly, the movies even more so, and by the time Walter Pidgeon starred in 1951’s Calling Bulldog Drummond, there was very little life left in the old dog. Spies however did get a rejuvenated life with the debut two years on of James Bond. As the sixties swung in and the Bond stories became a template for outrageous thrillers both on the page and on the screen, some bright spark at the Rank Organisation, decided it was time to dust off the granddaddy of all spies: Hugh ‘Bulldog’ Drummond.

 

Rather than adapt one of McNeile’s adventures, the producers, Sydney and Betty Box and Bruce Newbery, hired erstwhile Hammer pens-man Jimmy Sangster to construct a completely modern script, fashioned less from the premise of the original and more on the idea that sex and violence sells. It was a fairly comic book affair spiced with action and titillating near-nudity. The finished product starred Richard Johnson, ably supported by Nigel Green as Drummond’s nemesis Carl Petersen, and a host of gorgeous actresses, headed by Elke Sommer. The world of espionage was getting crowded in 1966 and Ralph Thomas’ film was compared unfavorably to OO7. Critical reaction was mixed. The film’s violence and suggestions of promiscuous sex merited an X certificate from the British censor.


I’ve not seen the film, though I suspect it isn’t quite the deal critics make out. I often find these dodgy swinging sixties thrillers amusing. There is a sense of wonder and exotica about them as heroes travel to destinations unknown and untenable to the contemporary viewer. Now, post-jet age and writhing in our internet crazy domains, those locations seem banal, attainable every day in our homes. There was a sequel in 1969, also directed by Thomas and starring Jordan, but by all accounts it was a deliberate spoof, lacking even a pretense of seriousness.

 

I obtained the novelizations of the movies first and following feedback from the member here, I caught up with the movies a month or so later on You Tube. A series of reviews follow.

 



#2 chrisno1

chrisno1

    Lieutenant

  • Crew
  • PipPip
  • 931 posts

Posted 27 June 2014 - 11:28 PM

DEADLIER THAN THE MALE

 

Henry Reymond wrote the adaptation of Jimmy Sangster’s screenplay, DEADLIER THAN THE MALE. I have no idea who Henry Reymond was / is, but his writing while smart isn’t particularly involving. There was a crime writer in the sixties called H.R.F. Keating whose first two names are Henry Reymond, but his biography has no mention of this novel. I can only assume the author is a pseudonym. Given how good a job Sangster did a couple of years later with his female secret agent Katy Touchfeather, you wonder why the producers didn’t ask him to write the novelization. The author handles the proceedings fairly well and Drummond isn’t saddled with out of date attitudes, he comes over as contemporary, intelligent and ruthless. None the less, Sangster’s Touchfeather was a worthy rounded creation, emotive, intuitive and sympathetic. Drummond doesn’t have that depth. She was also damn sexy and Sangster didn’t shove that in your face every page.

 

Not so Reymond, who hardly describes our hero other than in the blandest of terms, and instead tells us with an increasingly repetitive annoyingly simplistic tone how ‘gorgeous, beautiful, pretty, spectacular, etc, etc’ every woman in the story is. Life isn’t as lucky as that and given he’s even worse when it comes to characters’ motives and emotions, it’s no surprise the novel runs a little flat. That’s something of a pity as it starts very well. A mysterious blonde assassin explodes a bomb on the private jet of an oil tycoon, killing said tycoon and thus perverts the take-over of another conglomerate in a series of unwelcome take-overs. Behind the deadly ruse is Carl Petersen, a sort of murder happy venture capitalist, and his cohort of desirable female accomplices, each one dedicated to delivering death.

 

Early on the novel is punchy and moves at pace through spurious action scenes. Most of this involves the two killers, Eckman and Penelope, whose relationship is like warring sisters, providing relief to their mayhem. Meanwhile Drummond spends his time doing detective work and avoiding exploding cigars. There is a splendidly atmospheric chapter midway through the story when Drummond visits an old army colleague, Mr. Boxer, a richer than rich hoodlum who is not only associated with the underground but actually lives there. For a few pages the two men reflect on death and it feels eminently appropriate, given the proximity Drummond is hurtling through. A few more scenes of this nature might have brought DEADLIER THAN THE MALE out of the ordinary.

 

A lot of people die in this tale. There are plenty of nasty goings on, including a vicious torture, car chases, fights, murder, murder and more murder. Some of it stirs the blood.  Overall though it was the narrative’s emphasis on sex which stayed with me, especially how, despite all the flesh on show, hardly anyone has any. That isn’t a criticism so much as a curio; the author is clearly following a script and what might work well on the screen doesn’t always translate elegantly onto the page. The best adaptations usually differ dramatically from the original treatment and Reymond ought to have been allowed license to do just that.

 

Drummond’s nephew Robert is the prime offender here, a louche sort of lay-about teenage student, who really adds nothing to proceedings. His inclusion is an ill thought manoeuvre. He begins to perform things the hero should. At one point it isn’t even Drummond who is being menaced but his nephew and this makes no sense at all. Why are two more than capable and intelligent assassins sending lackeys to take out Drummond? And why are they even bothering to interrogate innocent Robert? The nephew does eventually serve a purpose, but it takes an awful long time to appear and is almost incidental. He’s a joke character which cinema audiences may have appreciated [or not?] but who sits ill at ease on the page.

 

Drummond himself is fine. He lacks charm, plays everything straight and is more than capable. He isn’t a bona fide spy but he has all the hallmarks and occasionally I enjoyed his repartee, particularly when Petersen conducts him on a tour of his grand castle. The women are fairly unexceptional. No one is described in enough depth to become a fully rounded character. Eckman and Penelope share several amusing jousts but their rivalry isn’t explained and their motives are paper thin. Indeed while Petersen makes an okay baddie, his aims seem purely to rest with financial and commercial success and his troupe of deadly girl guides aide him simply because he trained them that way. It’s suggested they have been indoctrinated, but this angle is never explored, probably because the script doesn’t bother either. So Reymond leaves the best idea tantalizingly hanging.

 

The climax occurs in the gorgeously futuristic medieval fort Castellomale, its main hall chock-full of robotic chess pieces. It is both interesting and flawed at the same time. Reymond has difficulty creating tension and it’s hard to picture exactly how Drummond escapes being shot. This scene certainly has the OO7 flavour and would probably benefit from being visualized. The coda is a grateful surprise and I rather enjoyed that. The final pages see uncle and nephew scrapping over a woman how children do over toys and it does not befit the gentleman hero at all.

 

For all that, I rather enjoyed DEADLIER THAN THE MALE. It is an easy disposable read and has a few exciting moments. There are disappointments, but I think that’s more down to the shooting script than the abilities of Henry Reymond, who perhaps should have tried to create more and copy less. A sterling, if under nourished, effort.

 

th_1DeadlierthantheMale_zpsa95b4280.jpg

 



#3 chrisno1

chrisno1

    Lieutenant

  • Crew
  • PipPip
  • 931 posts

Posted 28 June 2014 - 08:50 PM

SOME GIRLS DO

 

SOME GIRLS DO was the cinematic sequel to DEADLIER THAN THE MALE. Released in 1969 and directed by Ralph Thomas, Halliwell’s describes it as an ‘abysmal spoof melodrama in the swinging sixties mould; a travesty of a famous character.’ While I haven’t seen the film and can’t comment on its merit [yet] nor read Sapper’s original novels [yet] I have read the paperback adaptation and it is a fairly abysmal romp. Quite what Sapper would make of this treatment of his erstwhile hero Bulldog Drummond, I’d hate to hear.

 

Once again the mysterious author Henry Reymond has been employed to fashion a novel from a shooting script and he does a hackneyed job of it. Admittedly he doesn’t appear to have much to work with: the characters (Bulldog Drummond aside) are bland and uninteresting; worse they are blatant imitations of characters presented in the first film/novel; the action is almost non-existent; the humour is laboured; and the sex about as erotic as a kick in the teeth. I really disliked this book. It hardly cuts any literary teeth. It represents exactly what would be seen on screen with hardly an iota of original thought.

Most alarming is the curious present tense the narrative is conducted in, a devise that does nothing to promote suspense or insight but instead makes you think its been written by a group of ten year olds on the school bus. It probably has some merit somewhere but I struggled to locate it amongst the drivel. For such a short novel, I found it a very long read and could barely finish a chapter before losing interest. It took me almost a fortnight to complete.

 

The plot of SOME GIRLS DO is something about the intended destruction of a supersonic jet plane. Of course Drummond’s nemesis Carl Peterson is involved. So are a couple of beautiful female assassins. So is a ditsy American beach babe. So is a gay chef. So are a horde of glamorous women. There’s a speedboat chase and a skydiving stunt. It’s pretty dreadful. It ends tamely. I’ve forgotten most of it already.

 

After this outing the sixties version of Bulldog Drummond bit the bone. On this reading, it was probably a good thing. I’ll try and catch the movies on You Tube. The trailers make them look intriguingly bizarre. Hopefully they’ll be a tad more enjoyable than the cash-in books.

 

th_2SomeGirlsDo_zps0e91c2dd.jpg

 



#4 Dustin

Dustin

    Commander

  • Commanding Officers
  • PipPipPipPip
  • 5786 posts

Posted 29 June 2014 - 09:49 AM

This is a re-post of sorts as the following reviews had originally been posted in this forum way back in January but subsequently had been removed and entered what I can only describe as the internet ether.
As I had no come back from the guys here at CBN, I just thought I ought to start the topic anew. There are other threads which follow the same line, but not all in one.


Thank you for these reviews, chrisno1. Very interesting and sure to wet the appetite of readers here. Regretfully I have to report that we have still no definite idea what happened to your original thread. We suspect a minor glitch - minor because it's evidently not a regular phenomenon - but are still trying to work it out. Sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused.

#5 chrisno1

chrisno1

    Lieutenant

  • Crew
  • PipPip
  • 931 posts

Posted 01 July 2014 - 08:54 PM

Deadlier than the Male (1967)

 

I finally caught Deadlier than the Male on You Tube the other night and rather enjoyed it. Admittedly I’d drunk a bottle of Riesling, but I don’t think my senses were too numbed. I found the film fun and watchable. I wasn’t cringing like I do when Dean Martin impersonates Matt Helm. In fact at times it really does feel like a James Bond film, all be it one without all the gadgets and the prerequisite choreographed grand mayhem.

 

The film starts with an explosive pre-credit sequence followed with a murder committed by two babes in bikinis. Thus we are introduced to Elke Sommer’s murderous Eckman and Sylvia Koscina’s sadistic nympho Penelope. These two gorgeous beauties are a pair of rampaging Fiona Volpe’s, as likely to make love as commit an assassination, both done to order. There is a brilliant scene where Sommer’s character paralyses the businessman Bridgenorth (a splendid Leonard Rossiter). It’s full of sly tact and sinister intent. She’s both sexy and menacing. We know she’s likely to kill him, but how and when? Her porcelain, almost expressionless, passionless face gives nothing away. Moments later, the two girls are warring over the comatose body, their beauty masking their deadly intent. As Bridgenorth lies on the balustrade of his apartment waiting for death, the director Ralph Thomas, cuts to a wavy, hazy night scape of London, as fascinating to the victim as the sparkling duo of female killers; deadlier, for sure, than any male. The Walker Brothers’ theme song tells it well.

 

Elke Sommer impresses most of the pair. She makes a gorgeous vicious bad girl and is well supported by Koscina’s slinky less prominent turn. Equally good as the bad guy is Nigel Green. His Carl Peterson, a venture capitalist of the deadliest kind, is a suave sophisticated villain with a snazzy lair in a medieval castle staffed by a band of beauties. He shares a fine exchange of dialogue with Drummond and the climatic mechanized chess game is a clever highlight worthy of Ian Fleming. Green would probably have made a decent stab at a Bond villain, he puts his tongue in his cheek and plays it dead straight, letting the silliness speak for itself. Indeed one of the film’s best aspects is that the cast are not playing for laughs. Sure, the script has jokes, and the scenarios are 1960s spy-movie-daft, but they don’t try to send up the material. We can see it’s all a bit cheery; they don’t need to tell us as well.   

 

There is some brutality. Drummond threatens to break a hoodlum’s legs. Penelope burns cigarettes on a man’s torso. There is a close up of the exit wound from a bullet. Lots of people are killed, usually by Eckman and Penelope. It was probably these moments which the UK censors deemed worthy of an X certificate and probably blitzed the movie’s box office chances. Overall though, the film actually lacks something in the action stakes: there’s no extended periods of suspense, the bombs look like clockwork toys, the henchman Chang is disposed of in not just one but two forgettable fights, Peterson’s demise seems too soft and the film ends rather swiftly on a moment of black humour. When it could be gruesome, the producers clearly hold back, possibly a sign of the times, possibly nerves. Given the certificate it got, you might think they’d have tried a bit harder, especially given the taut, well directed assassinations which kick off proceedings. One probably has to thank co-writer Jimmy Sangster for the edginess; this erstwhile Hammer pens-man would surely know an inventive killing when he thought of one.

 

Occasionally the film strikes a dumb note. For instance the scene I referred to in the novel where Drummond meets his old pal Mr. Boxer comes across quite badly in the film and lacks all the mystery and soul searching of the written prose. Also there seem to be an awful lot of women in this tale, more than needs be, and at the end, when there is a whole castle full of them their presence is hardly commented on. Worse, they don’t even attempt to rescue their fallen leader. Perhaps, like the nominal heroine Grace (Susanna Leigh), they all wanted to defect. Or maybe the writers just couldn’t afford the army of extras required to film a pitched battle a la You Only Live Twice or Goldfinger. While moments like this don’t intrinsically harm the film, they do show up its deficiencies, notably in screenwriting and budget.

 

My main reservation though is the same as the one I had about the book – the presence of Drummond’s nephew Robert. As played by Steve Carlson, he’s a good looking rake-like jock and a foil for his gem of a gentleman English uncle: witness Drummond’s refusal to bed his nephew’s potential girlfriend, Brenda (a very beautiful Virginia North), despite her obvious overtures. “I like old men,” she breathes, but her American date simply doesn’t get it, thinks his luck’s in and his efforts of seduction provoke the only moments of queasiness in this viewer. I was rather pleased when the murderous cigar exploded and ended their entanglement.

 

Yet there is simply no need for the Robert character to exist, he does very little and what he does could easily be transferred to other characters: his torture could be performed on Wyngard’s housekeeper Carlos; the exploding cigar scene could be carried out with Drummond and Miss Ashenden (the secretary he has dinner with); there’s no need surely for the dapper hero to orchestrate an introduction to an Arab King, he’d be able to do it himself; and lastly, does Drummond really need rescuing from the villain’s castle clutches, I’m sure he’d be quite capable on his own. These instances dilute Drummond’s heroic character. He needs beefing up a bit.

 

Richard Johnson makes a good hero. He looks the part, is physical and good at casting quizzical asides to an unseen camera. He’s a little hamstrung by not having enough to do, despite gallivanting around London in a vintage Rolls-Royce. When he does find goblets of information, they don’t really lead him anywhere, in fact he’s given the clue at the very start of the adventure and it is only a chance remark by his friend Sir John Bledlow (played very well by Lawrence Naismith) that sends him to France and the ultimate conclusion.

 

Interestingly, Drummond’s nickname is never used in the film, although the novelization is at pains to explain it; conversely Eckman has a first name here (Irma) which is never mentioned in the adaptation. A little bit of license offered by author Henry Reymond then.

 

The cast is well dressed, the production values fair to middling, the music okay and the editing up to standard. There isn’t much wrong in the overall look of the piece, though its fashions have inevitably dated. The director, Ralph Thomas, was best known for the ‘Doctor’ series of comedy films. He brings a light touch to the proceedings, but he isn’t fazed by the rough stuff either. It’s worth remembering some of his credits include the war drama ‘Above Us the Waves’, the Bond spoof ‘Hot Enough for June’ and, a year after Drummond, the pulsatingly violent Rod Taylor thriller ‘Nobody Runs Forever’. He’s an assured helmsman who doesn’t lose sight of the horizon.

 

Deadlier than the Male is thus a cut above the usual Bondian fare, but still can’t come close to Fleming’s hero as presented by Broccoli and Saltzman. That’s simply too big a suit to fill, but this version of Bulldog Drummond certainly passes muster.

 

1DeadlierThantheMale-poster_zps955a1482.


Edited by chrisno1, 01 July 2014 - 11:17 PM.


#6 Guy Haines

Guy Haines

    Commander

  • Veterans
  • PipPipPipPip
  • 3075 posts
  • Location:"Special envoy" no more. As of 7/5/15 elected to office somewhere in Nottinghamshire, England.

Posted 02 July 2014 - 02:58 PM

Pub quiz question - which British actor played Bulldog Drummond's arch adversary Carl Peterson and James Bond's best friend in the service, Bill Tanner?



#7 Jim

Jim

    Commander RNVR

  • Commanding Officers
  • PipPipPipPip
  • 14266 posts
  • Location:Oxfordshire

Posted 02 July 2014 - 03:07 PM

Pub quiz question - which British actor played Bulldog Drummond's arch adversary Carl Peterson and James Bond's best friend in the service, Bill Tanner?

 

James Villiers, I think. Might be wrong.



#8 Guy Haines

Guy Haines

    Commander

  • Veterans
  • PipPipPipPip
  • 3075 posts
  • Location:"Special envoy" no more. As of 7/5/15 elected to office somewhere in Nottinghamshire, England.

Posted 02 July 2014 - 05:44 PM

Jim, I think you might be right. It was James Villiers - although his portrayal of Tanner in FYEO didn't exactly suggest that the Chief of Staff and Bond were old pals, imho.

 

He played Carl Peterson in the film "Some Girls Do." I do remember that from watching the film on TV decades ago. Also, it is claimed on a Wikipedia page that former Bond girl and Avengers star Joanna Lumley had an uncredited role in the film, in-between filming OHMSS. About that, I cannot confirm.



#9 chrisno1

chrisno1

    Lieutenant

  • Crew
  • PipPip
  • 931 posts

Posted 04 July 2014 - 01:06 AM

Some Girls Do (1969)

 

Oh dear oh dear…

 

While I was not impressed with Henry Reymond’s novelization of David Osborn and Liz Charles-Williams screenplay for Some Girls Do, I found the movie to be an insane ninety minutes. It isn’t any kind of work of art and it isn’t any kind of hard boiled thriller lacking even the moments of viciousness which marked ‘Deadlier than the Male’. What it is is a messy, curious, bizarre trawl through aspects of late 1960s pop culture.

 

Richard Johnson, who did sterling work as Bulldog Drummond before, seems disinterested, almost sleepwalking through the idiocy. I was reminded of Sean Connery’s laid back cheeky performance in Diamonds are Forever, but Johnson lacks Connery’s panache and his dress sense – or undress sense; he enacts a love scene in a bathrobe with trousers and shirt clearly on show underneath. Johnson simply can’t lift the material he’s given. Mind you, the material is fairly shoddy.

 

The basic plot has Drummond’s nemesis, Carl Peterson (played by James Villiers impersonating Nigel Greene), stealing a subsonic particle destructor so he can sabotage the prototype supersonic jet airliner SST1, thus allowing his backers, another aviation company, a free rein to develop a similarly unique aircraft. At the time of course, the Concorde aircraft was in development, so the film cannily taps into a slice of contemporary news. The idea of industrial espionage is always one worth developing, but there is a failure from someone, be it the producers, writers or the director to maintain any grasp on reality and the film peters out into an awful mix of camp smutty humour and bloodless murder.

 

It starts quite well with a series of killings perpetrated by Peterson’s gang of willing girls. This repeats the villain’s fetish from ‘Deadlier than the Male’ but its execution is less inspired here for the writers have chosen to make Peterson’s bevy of beauties an army of robots, controlled through a tannoy and switched off by a button at the nape of their neck. This hopeless charade defuses all tension from the final third of the film. I say all tension as if there was some, but to be honest, there really wasn’t. There might have been, but by the time Drummond reaches North Africa, the film has already succeeded in becoming a tired farce.

 

As early as the overlapping credits Drummond is disengaging himself from the comely charms of Flicky (Sydne Rome), a dumb blonde of a water ski instructor who takes a fancy to him and pursues him around the globe for reasons which only become clear at the climax. Her role has all the familiarity of Brit Ekland’s Mary Goodnight and Johnson’s Drummond treats her with the same disparaging obnoxious temper Roger Moore dished out. He’s tactlessly rejecting her overtures, eyeing up other women, making her cringe as he disarms bombs with foppish, casual disdain. The poor girl seems bemused, bothered, bewildered and freaked out all at once.

 

The two of them bump into Dahliah Lavi’s sex bomb assassin Helga, one half of another pair of female killers along with Pandora, the less photogenic Bela Lacona. Like Elke Sommer before her Lavi is probably the best thing in the movie, especially when she continues shooting submachine guns despite losing her clothes. Next they discover the corpse of Robert Morley’s gay chef, who for some reason was teaching besuited industrial aviation magnates how to make omelettes. This role and its purpose in the film baffled me; I’ll say no more about it. Later Drummond is assisted by a half way amusing undercover socialite, who meets an untimely but badly scripted and poorly edited death, and a virgin attaché who is taught sex by a fem-bot.

 

This all reads like the plot to an Austin Powers movie. The result I was watching wasn’t anywhere near as funny. The first Drummond film succeeded because the material only nudged the edges of parody; for the most part it was a fairly straight thriller and was acted with much skill. The sequel misses both those targets and becomes a dull humourless exercise punctuated by spats of unnecessary action: a sky diving stunt, a speedboat race, a couple of badly choreographed fights, some explosions. It’s a pretty dreadful mess which needed a stronger hand on the tiller than Ralph Thomas could provide.

 

SOME GIRLS DO is a crushing disappointment. It could have been an interesting thriller had it retained the bold tactics of Deadlier than the Male, stayed serious and relatively nasty. The slack stupidity on show here doesn’t fool anyone. The project is ill-conceived as a comedy-thriller and that starts from the very outset. The notion of the fem-bot was outrageous in Austin Powers but worked because Mike Myers sent it up so well; time and distance allowed him the freedom to poke fun at the past. Here, with only the slightest inkling of irony, it serves no purpose, other than to provide moments of cod lesbianism, embarrassing prat falls and a host of long legs.

 

I think I ought to stop. Potential doesn’t count for much unless you utilize it and the producers have mutilated whatever good there was in the original ideas. I can only assume they wanted to ensure the film had a lower certificate from the BBFC, but that’s a poor price to pay for lowering your artistic standards. The result is dreadful and the box office, I gather, was even worse.

 

Oh dear oh dear…

 

 2SomeGirlsDo-poster_zps1932dfcc.jpg

 



#10 chrisno1

chrisno1

    Lieutenant

  • Crew
  • PipPip
  • 931 posts

Posted 04 July 2014 - 11:51 PM

Jim, I think you might be right. It was James Villiers - although his portrayal of Tanner in FYEO didn't exactly suggest that the Chief of Staff and Bond were old pals, imho.

 

He played Carl Peterson in the film "Some Girls Do." I do remember that from watching the film on TV decades ago. Also, it is claimed on a Wikipedia page that former Bond girl and Avengers star Joanna Lumley had an uncredited role in the film, in-between filming OHMSS. About that, I cannot confirm.

 

Guy

Nice spotting - great memory - I had no idea until I happened to watch FYEO two / three weeks after watching Some Girls Do - gave me quite a start.

I also cannot comment on the Joanna Lumley issue - I didn't see her (though there were a lot of girls on show and she may have been a mere extra) and didn't see her name in the cast (ditto).



#11 Royal Dalton

Royal Dalton

    Commander

  • Veterans
  • PipPipPipPip
  • 4542 posts

Posted 06 June 2015 - 06:59 PM

Richard Johnson has died.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk...t-arts-33036755



#12 Thevan7F

Thevan7F

    Midshipman

  • Crew
  • 74 posts

Posted 06 June 2015 - 11:05 PM

Richard Johnson has died.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk...t-arts-33036755

Well I just read the article about it. It sad but he had a good career. He could had done a TV series of Bulldog Drummond. He will be sadly missed



#13 PrinceKamalKhan

PrinceKamalKhan

    Commander

  • Veterans
  • PipPipPipPip
  • 11139 posts

Posted 07 June 2015 - 03:39 AM

RIP, Mr. Johnson.

This is well worth a watch to honor his memory:
 

https://www.youtube....h?v=OhdjmZ_uJZU

 

toedliche_katzen.jpg



#14 chrisno1

chrisno1

    Lieutenant

  • Crew
  • PipPip
  • 931 posts

Posted 08 June 2015 - 09:02 AM

RIP, Mr. Johnson.

This is well worth a watch to honor his memory:
 

https://www.youtube....h?v=OhdjmZ_uJZU

 

toedliche_katzen.jpg

Certainly is.

R.I.P. Richard Johnson