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