Lots of Los Angeles Sixties Spy Screenings Coming Up in August

There are a lot of very stylish Sixties spies playing on the big screen in Los Angeles this month.

First up, on August 7 and 8 (a Sunday and a Monday), Quentin Tarantino's New Beverly Cinema will screen the fourth and final Matt Helm movie, The Wrecking Crew (1968) on a Sharon Tate double fill with Roman Polanski's wonderful Hammer spoof The Fearless Vampire Killers. Besides Tate, The Wrecking Crew stars Dean Martin (The Silencers, Murderers' Row), Nancy Kwan (Wonder Women), Tina Louise (Fanfare for a Death Scene), Nigel Green (The Ipcress File, Deadlier Than the Male) and my own very favorite Sixties Spy Girl, the stunning Elke Sommer (Deadlier Than the Male, The Prize). Sure, the silly, spoofy Helm movies are very poor representations of Donald Hamilton's terrific, hard-hitting, and very serious novels, and sure, they're not very, er, good (in the conventional sense), but they are certainly entertaining! It's rare to see any of them play the revival circuit, and when one does it's usually one of the first two. I don't think I've ever seen The Wrecking Crew playing in a theater during the 16 years I've lived in L.A. The Wrecking Crew will screen in 35mm. Tickets are just $8.00 for both films, available at the box office or online.

Then, on Sunday, August 21, the American Cinematheque's Aero Theatre in Santa Monica will present a double feature of two particularly pop art spy movies, Our Man Flint and Modesty Blaise (both 1966) as part of their series "The Groovy Movies of 1966.") The first of the Derek Flint spy spoofs stars the inimitable James Coburn as the suave, know-it-all superspy, along with Lee J. Cobb, Gila Golan and Charlie Chan regular Benson Fong. But the film belongs, 100%, to Coburn. It simply wouldn't work without him, and because of him it's a must-see.

Joseph Losey's Modesty Blaise has about as much to do with Peter O'Donnell's series of novels and comic strips as the Dino Matt Helm films do with those books... and also like the Helm movies, it can't really be called good. But it's still an eye-popping miasma of glorious Sixties design excess with a wonderfully infectious score by Johnny Dankworth (The Avengers). In fact, it boasts by far the best production design of any of these three films, and would be well worth seeing on the big screen for that reason alone... except that there is another reason. And that reason is Dirk Bogarde (Hot Enough for June) as Gabriel--positively the greatest Sixties spy villain trapped in one of the decade's otherwise weaker mainstream genre entries. Bogarde is an absolute treat in this film. Every line delivery is exquisite, and surely this role ranks among the all-time great camp performances. Terrence Stamp (Chessgame), Harry Andrews (The Deadly Affair, Danger Route), Clive Revill (Fathom) and a hopelessly miscast Monica Vitti in the title role also star. These films will be shown on DCP. Tickets to the double feature (which kicks off at 7:30pm) are $11.00 for the general public and may be purchased online or at the theater box office.

L.A. spy fans, don't miss the rare opportunity to see any of these campy Sixties spy spoofs on the big screen!

Deadlier Than the Male and Some Girls Do Double Feature at LA's New Beverly Cinema Next Week

Attention Los Angeles spy fans! Heck, attention West Coast spy fans in general, because this one's worth a drive! The New Beverly Cinema in L.A. will screen the two Sixties Bulldog Drummond spy movies, Deadlier Than the Male and Some Girls Do, next week, in honor of their late star Richard Johnson, who passed away last month. This unmissable double feature will play on Sunday, July 19, and Monday, July 20. Deadlier Than the Male (1967), as most readers are probably aware, is the best James Bond knock-off ever. To learn why, read my in-depth review here. Besides Johnson (Danger Route), the main attraction is the deadly duo of Elke Sommer (The Venetian Affair) and Sylva Koscina (Hot Enough For June) as a pair of bickering, speargun-toting assassins who steal the show. Nigel Green (The Ipcress File), Steve Carlson (The Wild Wild West), Laurence Naismith (The Persuaders!) and Leonard Rossiter (Otley) round out the stellar cast. While Some Girls Do (1969) doesn't live up to its predecessor, the more comedic sequel is still highly entertaining Sixties spyjinks. In that one, Johnson is joined by Daliah Lavi (Casino Royale), James Villiers (For Your Eyes Only), Yutte Stensgaard (Lust For a Vampire) and Robert Morley (Hot Enough For June).

Both movies will be shown in 35mm, Deadlier Than the Male in an IB Technicolor print! Both evenings, Deadlier Than the Male plays at 7:30 followed by Some Girls Do at 9:30 There's also a 5:40 screening of Some Girls Do on Sunday. Tickets are $8 for the double feature and are available for pre-order on Brown Paper Tickets or at the theater box office.

It is extremely rare to see either of these movies on the big screen (each has played only once in the fifteen years I've lived in Los Angeles, and there are many repertory cinemas here), and even if you're a Bond fan but have never seen a Eurospy movie before, I encourage you to go. Deadlier Than the Male is the perfect gateway Eurospy title! Seriously, this is sure to be the spy event of the season! Personally, if I can I'm planning to go both nights.

Other Johnson tribute movies playing this month include The Haunting, Zombie and Beyond the Door. Check the New Beverly calendar for details.

Network Brings Deadlier Than the Male to Blu-ray!!!

Are you sitting down? Are you ready for the best news ever? Because you're about to read the best news ever. Unless you don't live in Great Britain and don't have an all-region Blu-ray player, in which case it might be the most frustrating news ever. Or just a good excuse to finally buy an all-region Blu-ray player! Okay, here it is: on April 27, Network will release the 1967 Eurospy classic Deadlier Than the Male on Blu-ray! If that seems anticlimactic to you after my perhaps slightly hyperbolic build-up, then that must just mean that you've never seen Deadlier Than the Male, in which case you need this Blu-ray. And if that doesn't seem anticlimactic to you, then you already know you need this Blu-ray! As regular readers will no doubt be aware, Deadlier Than the Male (which stars Elke Sommer, Sylva Koscina and Richard Johnson) is one of my absolute favorite non-Bond spy movies. It's the best Eurospy movie, and the best James Bond knock-off ever. It's also the Sixties spy title I've most wanted to see in high definition, so I absolutely cannot wait for this release! (For more about Deadlier Than the Male, read my lavishly illustrated, gushing review here.) Network's Region B Blu-ray will be in the original widescreen aspect ratio of 1.66:1 and carry over all of the special features (most in standard def, except where noted) from their Deadlier Than the Male DVD, including the original theatrical trailer (in HD), archive interviews, archive location reports, extensive image galleries (HD), and promotional materials PDFs. Their listing does a disservice to the "archive interviews" and "archive location reports" by calling them that, because they're far cooler than you might expect from that name. These are on-set featurettes filmed during production, and they're fantastic! Retail is listed at £9.18 (a bargain!), and the disc will be available for purchase through Network's website and Amazon.co.uk.

The bad news for spy fans outside of Region B (Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Africa and the Middle-East) is that you will require an all-region Blu-ray player to play this disc. An all-region Blu-ray player is a pretty essential piece of hardware for cult movie and TV fans already (largely thanks to Network's output, like their amazing Persuaders! Blu-rays), but this is a title worth making the plunge for if you haven't already. They are no longer exorbitantly expensive like they used to be. I have an Orei player that I bought cheaply on Amazon and that I love, but it doesn't seem to be available anymore. (At least not through Amazon; you may be able to find one elsewhere.) I see Amazon currently offers a Samsung player fairly inexpensively, and I'm sure more can be found by poking around. Just make sure that any listing specifically states that it plays Blu-rays from all zones, because there are a lot of players out there that function as all-region DVD players, but only play Region (or Zone) A Blu-rays. The cheapest way to view foreign HD may be to get an external Blu-ray drive and find an easy hack to play discs on your computer. I'm sure hacks are available somewhere for standalone players, too. But seeing Elke Sommer and Sylva Koscina come out of the water in their bikinis with their spearguns in high definition will be totally worth any expense!

Now let's hope Network follows this up with a Blu-ray of the (admittedly inferior, but still worthwhile) sequel Some Girls Do, which hasn't even ever been available in its proper aspect ratio before...

Rare U.N.C.L.E. and Vaughn Screenings in Los Angeles

Los Angeles spy fans can look forward to seeing some exciting, rarely screened Sixties spy movies on the big screen this weekend! Quentin Tarantino's New Beverly Theater will show a double feature of two Man From U.N.C.L.E. movies, The Spy With My Face and One Spy Too Many, on Friday, November 21 and Saturday, November 22. The first film starts at 7:30, the second plays at 9:25. On Saturday there will also be a matinee program beginning at 3:15. Best of all, both films will be shown in 35mm IB Technicolor prints! The prints come from Tarantino's personal collection, and I doubt either one has played in L.A. since the Sixties.

The Spy With My Face (1965) is the feature version of the Season 1 episode "The Double Affair" padded out with newly shot material that eventually ended up (used differently) in other episodes. Eurospy vixen Senta Berger (The Quiller Memorandum, Our Man in Marrakesh, Peau d'espion) brings the va-va-va-voom. One Spy Too Many (1966) is the re-edited feature version of the 2-part Season 2 opener "The Alexander the Greater Affair," co-starring Rip Torn, Dorothy Provine (Kiss the Girls and Make Them Die) and Yvonne Craig (In Like Flint). Like The Spy With My Face, One Spy Too Many features some footage not seen on TV, mostly involving Craig. It also excises the worst subplot from the TV episodes, featuring Alexander's parents.

Perhaps even more exciting than the U.N.C.L.E. movies is another Robert Vaughn spy flick of that era (also an IB Technicolor 35mm print!), The Venetian Affair (1967), which plays on Sunday, November 23 and Monday, November 24 at 7:30pm. (There's also a Sunday matinee at 3:15.) Why is that more exciting? Well, if you read this blog regularly, then you'll probably know why I think so. Because it co-stars my favorite Eurospy babe of all, Elke Sommer (Deadlier Than the Male, The Prize)! And Luciana Paluzzi (Thunderball, OSS 117: Murder For Sale) and Boris Karloff (Black Sabbath) don't hurt either. It would have been great if that had been paired with the David McCallum vehicle Sol Madrid to continue the U.N.C.L.E. theme, but I guess Tarantino doesn't have that one in his collection. There is a Sixties spy show connection though, as it's paired with Hickey and Boggs (1972), the private eye movie that reunited the I Spy duo of Robert Culp and Bill Cosby. I guess the timing on that one isn't ideal (especially the promise of a "special bonus after [the] feature"), but it's still a good movie worth watching. Speaking of bonuses, the New Bev always plays a selection of themed trailers from Tarantino's collection accompanying the feautres, so these shows probably promise loads of cool Sixties spy trailers. All in all, it's an excellent weekend ahead for spy fans! Personally, I plan on hitting both screenings.

As always at The New Bev, the cost of one $8 ticket covers both features. Tickets are available for pre-order from Brown Paper Tickets, or at the door the night of the show.

More New Spy DVDs Out Today: The Venetian Affair (1966)

More New Spy DVDs Out Today: The Venetian Affair (1966)

Yesterday I speculated that Warner Bros. might slip another spy title in with today's exciting Warner Arvhive U.N.C.L.E. explosion (read about that here), and sure enough, they did. Appropriately, they're also releasing the Robert Vaughn Eurospy movie The Venetian Affair, co-starring the awesome combination of Elke Sommer and Luciana Paluzzi! (Too bad they couldn't co-ordinate with MGM to get David McCallum's Sol Madrid out at the same time, too.) Regular readers will doubtlessly be aware that Elke Sommer spy movies tend to be my favorites of all spy movies, so I'm personally thrilled to see The Venetian Affair on DVD at last. Despite its colorful, action-packed poster and purposefully resonant title, however, U.N.C.L.E. fans should be warned that The Venetian Affair, based on a novel by Helen MacInnes, is an altogether more down-to-earth sort of spy movie, and Vaughn's character of drunk, disgraced former CIA agent Bill Fenner is pretty far from Napoleon Solo. It's still a must for fans of Sixties spy movies, though, and Venice and Ms. Sommer both look great! Right now, The Venetian Affair is only available through the Warner Archive website for $19.95, but soon it will pop up on Oldies.com, Deep Discount and Amazon for less than that, so keep your eyes open.

New Spy DVDs Out This Week and Last: Elke, Avengers, Bad Hair and Deceptive Bionic Affairs

Wow, this is one of those weeks with just a ton of new spy DVDs! That's why it's taken me an extra day to compile this post. As always, please consider supporting this site by buying these titles from the Amazon links here if they catch your fancy.

Covert Affairs
On a huge day for spy releases, USA's summer hit Covert Affairs (which made my own list of the best new spy TV shows of 2010) is probably the biggest domestic release. Covert Affairs (review here) stars Piper Perabo as freshman CIA officer Annie Walker. While there are a few of the soap opera elements that have haunted the genre since Alias, Covert Affairs is mainly a spy show as workplace dramady. I've always been a fan of the "desk" side of the spy drama, and I think Covert Affairs handles the office politics better than any other US spy series I can think of. (Certainly better than the melodramatic histrionics of CTU!) Of course, this is still a USA show, which means it's got its share of in-the-field excitement as well. It's a solid, fairly believable, character-driven espionage series that should appeal to all fans of the genre. If you missed it on TV, give it a try on DVD. Extras include commentaries on three episodes featuring stars Piper Perabo and Christopher Gorham, executive producers Doug Liman (The Bourne Identity) and David Bartis and show creators Matt Corman and Chris Ord, deleted scenes, a gag reel, an exclusive tour of the Covert Affairs set, featurettes ("Welcome to The Farm," "Blind Insight") and a descriptive narration of the visual elements of the series for visually impaired viewers. Covert Affairs: Season One, a 3-disc set, retails for $59.98, but can currently be ordered from Amazon for nearly half that. 

Circles of Deceit

From Acorn comes another obscure British spy series—this one from the Nineties. Circles of Deceit stars ITV mainstay Dennis Waterman (The Sweeny, Minder) and consists of four TV movies made in 1995 and '96: Circle of Deceit, Dark Secret, Kalon and Sleeping Dogs. Waterman plays a former special-forces operative who remains on call for MI5. His assignments find him taking on Irish terrorists, tracking down professional assassins, and pitting his wits against ruthless drug dealers. But, true to the genre, some of his deadliest adversaries are his devious bosses who keep him on a need-to-know basis, forcing him to rely on his instincts and his training in a world of betrayal, danger, and deceit. Guest stars include Derek Jacobi, John Hannah, Peter Vaughan and Leo McKern (The Prisoner). Retail for the 2-disc set is $49.99, but naturally Amazon's got it for substantially less.

The Prize
Four years ago it was rumored to be part of a Warner Paul Newman Collection on DVD, but that never materialized.  Two years ago, Warner reps said it was still in the works.  But it still didn't appear. Now, The Prize is finally available... but on MOD instead of DVD, from The Warner Archive. It's still fully remastered though. Writer Ernest Lehman shamelessly rips off his own script for North By Northwest in this lightweight Stockholm-set thriller starring Paul Newman, Elke Sommer and Edward G. Robinson. Instead of a biplane, Paul Newman outruns a... truck. (Um, yeah. Not quite as exciting.) Instead of rudely interrupting an auction to evade the baddies by getting himself arrested, he rudely interrupts a nudist meeting for the same reason. It’s not a great movie like Hitchcock's, but it's a damn good imitation and it's seriously entertaining. And, best of all, it’s got Elke... and that’s all that really matters.  A day with another Elke Sommer spy movie on DVD is a good day.

The Bionic Woman: Season Two
Universal follows up last fall's release of Season 1 of the cult classic 70s show with The Bionic Woman: Season 2. Lindsay Wagner stars as Jamie Sommers, bionic agent of the super-secret OSI (Office of Scientific Investigations) who undertakes increasingly dangerous covert missions at the behest of her boss, Oscar Goldman. Unlike the truncated first season, the second season includes a full 24 episodes. Better still, it also includes two crossover episodes of The Six Million Dollar Man so you've got the complete package! Retail is $39.98; Amazon's got it now for $26.99.

The Complete Avengers
Last week saw the UK release of Optimum's The Complete Avengers: 50th Anniversary Edition. This is the big one. This set assembles all five sets (Seasons 2-6 as well as the few surviving first season episodes) of special features-laden, remastered Avengers DVDs that Optimum put out over the past two years. The picture on these discs looks better than you've ever seen it before, but the individual releases were plagued with technical issues. Fortunately, this complete set contains fixed versions of all the discs, minus all the flaws. So if you've been holding out, well, then you're in luck. Buy now. If you've been buying all the individual releases, well, the bad news isn't over yet. You see, the best feature of this massive, 39-disc set is an exclusive bonus DVD containing the Holy Grail(s) of Avengers curiosities (well, my own Holy Grails, at least, ever since I learned of their existence 13 years ago): the 8mm short films Diana Rigg made following her color series, Das Diadem (The Golden Schlusse) and Mini Killers. For reasons known only to her, Rigg agreed to star as a very Emma Peel-like character in these silent fan films made by wealthy German and Spanish amateur auteurs. By all accounts, they're weird and not worth thirteen years of pursuit. But I still need to see them, and they're still wonderful extra bonus features. And they're still available only with this set, along with a featurette on the show's locations, some archival trailers and a few more first season episode reconstructions. And besides that new stuff, of course you also get all the amazing value-added content from the individual releases.  The only thing you don't get is The New Avengers. I'm not sure why Optimum didn't just go all the way and include that too, but it's available on its own (and at quite a bargain price right now on Amazon.co.uk). The Complete Avengers: 50th Anniversary Edition, a must-own spy title if ever there was one, sells for a prohibitive £143.99 on Amazon.co.uk.

The Fortunes and Misfortunes of James Bond and Mrs. Peel
Finally, though it's not a spy series, another new DVD from last week worth noting is the BFS release of The Fortunes and Misfortunes of Moll Flanders starring Doctor Who's Alex Kingston and, more relevantly, co-starring Daniel Craig and Diana Rigg. But the combination of James Bond and Emma Peel together isn't even why I'm mentioning this. I'm mentioning it because of Craig's hair, which definitely counts in the "misfortunes" category of the title.  In fact, all three of those words in that tagline on the cover refer to the hair: "Notorious. Scandalous. Unforgettable!" As a document of the current 007's worst hair ever, this DVD earns a mention here.

New Spy DVDs Out This Week: Probe (1972)

In this week's batch of new Warner Archive made-on-demand titles is the rare Seventies TV pilot Probe, which led to the slightly re-formatted series Search.  Probe stars Hugh O'Brian as Hugh Lockwood, agent of a secret international private spy agency called... Probe.  Coming from Outer Limits producer Leslie Stevens, Probe was considered a science fiction series at the time due to the fantastic gadgets Lockwood had at his fingertips... but today they don't seem all that fantastic.  In fact, things like tiny transistor radios implanted in an agent's ear to maintain constant contact with headquarters and miniaturized cameras hidden in rings and biometric scanners are pretty much de rigueur in today's spy shows.  (The pilot for Exit Strategy, a possible Fox series for this fall, features all three pretty heavily with no hint of sci-fi.)  In Probe, they were still considered a gimmick, one which let technicians at Probe Control (like Burgess Meredith) feed their agent in the field all sorts of information as he needed it in real time.  The Macguffin in the telefilm is a cache of stolen diamonds with a Nazi connection, and among the mysterious figures involved with the loot is sexy femme fatale Elke Sommer, well known to Eurospy fans from movies like the great, great Deadlier Than the Male (review here).  Regular readers will know that Sommer's presence always sparks my own interest in a movie, so I'm eager to seek out Probe!  This being the Warner Archive, retail for this DVD-R is a frustratingly inflated $19.95, so if you want Probe at a reasonable price you'll have to wait for it to become available on Deep Discount, or to get it as part of Warner Archive's occasional bulk sales. 

There's also another classic Seventies TV pilot in this wave, but it's less spyish: Smile Jenny, You're Dead, the second of two pilot films for the David Janssen private eye series Harry O.  Now if only Warner Archive would release those series themselves...

The Prize Is Still In The Pipeline...

Representatives from Warner Home Video Theatrical conducted their annual online chat yesterday at the Home Theater Forum. Well, I say annual, but there actually wasn't one last year. In the previous year's chat, however (which I reported on at the time here), they had promised the 1963 Paul Newman/Elke Sommer spy movie The Prize in 2008. Well, that didn't happen. But they gave an update on it yesterday, assuring readers that, "The Prize is undergoing remastering at the moment. No date set yet." So... not much information, but at least we know it's still in production. The Prize may be a blatant Hitchcock wannabe (written by North By Northwest screenwriter Ernest Lehman, ripping himself off), but it's got Elke and it's a hell of a lot of fun... all of which makes it a classic in my book. So I'm excited to know that the studio is still working on it.

The other thing they had promised for 2008 that never came to be was a set of the black and white Saint movies, but there was sadly no update on those last night. (I wish I'd logged on in time to ask!) They did, however, promise that we'd see "all" the Tarzan movies in the near future, so hopefully this means an official release for the Sean Connery classic Tarzan's Greatest Adventure...

The Digital Bits has a full transcript of the chat.

Lipstick Feminism: Gender Roles In Deadlier Than The Male (Or: When Is A Speargun Just A Speargun?)

My review of Deadlier Than the Male took a divergent turn at some point, and became more of a Film Studies paper than a movie review, so I excised those bits to post separately as their own article. It’s a movie that deserves more discussion than a single review, anyway. I’m sure this won’t be the last time I revisit it.

A beautiful, tranquil coastal villa in Northern Italy. A man catches up on some work outdoors, overlooking the water. Suddenly, its surface is broken–by two Venus de Milos, blonde and brunette (Elke Sommer and Sylva Koscina, respectively), rising out of it in tiny bikinis that show off their voluptuous bodies. They’re the perfect model of Sixties womanhood, but they’re carrying spear guns. The man has but a few moments to bask in their beauty, as they toy with him flirtatiously. Then they kill him.

This scene (which you can see recreated in screenshots here) from Ralf Thomas’s 1967 spy film Deadlier Than the Male (produced by the prolific Betty Box, one of the only female producers working in British cinema at the time–and one of the hardest working producers in the business) combines two classic Bond Girl moments: Honey Rider’s famous introduction on the beach in Dr. No, and Domino’s killing of Largo with a speargun in Thunderball. In doing so, it successfully subverts the established Bond Girl formula, and sets a tone for generations of action heroines to follow. This isn’t the classic femme fatale of film noir, using her whiles to manipulate men, and perhaps turning their own pistol on them. No, this is a new type of deadly female for a more sexually liberated era. These women strut confidently forward, completely at ease with their sexuality, their femininity on full display, blatantly brandishing the most phallic weapon of all, a spear gun. Without missing a beat, they penetrate their male prey, establishing their dominance in a traditionally male arena: killing. Within the first reel, we’re shown just how apt the title is. From here on in, these women are in control. They won’t be seduced; they’ll be seducers. Richard Johnson’s Bulldog Drummond doesn’t defeat Sommer by conquering her; he ultimately defeats her by denying her. But I’m getting ahead of myself. It’s clear from the moment of their introductions that Sommer and Koscina are the forces to be reckoned with in this film.

Only after seeing the anti-heroines in action are we finally introduced to Drummond, in the middle of a karate bout. Tough, charming, and in possession of the same distinct brand of masculinity as Sean Connery, this is the man tasked nominally with solving these murders and, more crucially, re-establishing male dominance in a world controlled by women. The odds are stacked against him. The deadly females have struck the first blow, made the first impression. He’s fighting with his hands; they have spear guns!

Ultimately, Drummond can’t hope to defeat Sommer and Koscina. He’s relegated to a battle with the fey Nigel Green instead, and even then it’s an intellectual battle and not a physical one. The two men square off in a life-size chess duel. Not only is this an iconic Sixties spy setpiece (one thinks of Steed thrust into a life-size board game on The Avengers, or The Prisoner’s human chessboard), but by employing giant robotic pawns to do their fighting, it sidesteps the normally requisite contest of strength between the hero and archvillain at the end of any spy movie. That realm still belongs to the women. Sadly, we never get to see a confrontation between Drummond and the ladies. (Of course, that would have been impossible, because in the context of this world, he would have had to lose, and we simply can’t have the hero losing!) His only victory over them, as mentioned earlier, comes by following the female lead of Lysistrata and denying Sommer sex. (And how masculine is that?) As the dominant force in the film, the two women can only be done in by themselves, and that is exactly what happens.

Drummond saves the day (I hope I’m not ruining anything by revealing that), but male dominance never gets the chance to prevail. The battle of the sexes ends in a stalemate at best, but the road has been paved for a new breed of femme fatale, one as comfortable kicking ass as using her sexuality. While Emma Peel and Honey West blazed the way on TV, Sommer and Koscina did it on film, serving as direct antecedents to the women of Seventies revenge flicks, or, later, the Charlie’s Angels movies and Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill.

Movie Review: Deadlier Than the Male (1967)

Movie Review: Deadlier Than the Male (1967)

Deadlier Than the Male, a Bond-age update of Bulldog Drummond (its title inspired by the Drummond novel The Female of the Species), is my very favorite non-Bond spy movie. (And, as should be evidenced by this blog, I love spy movies!) It’s the best Bond knock-off ever, better than all its Eurospy ilk (enjoyable as they may be), and better even than its more famous Hollywood counterparts like the Flint movies. Of all the imitators 007 spawned in the 1960s, Deadlier Than the Male is the only one that can really go toe-to-toe with Bond.

Of course, even if the toes match, it only gets up to about Connery’s bow tie in production values. The Bond movies were so far ahead of anything else of their era, budget-wise and effects-wise, that all imitators pale in comparison. But of those imitators (and there were many), Deadlier Than the Male comes closest. Even on a relatively large budget for its genre, it can’t duplicate Thunderball’s underwater spectacle or You Only Live Twice’s volcano base, but it does manage to duplicate the style, the glamor and–most importantly–the wry tone of the Bond movies–thanks to the winning team of director Ralph Thomas, producer Betty Box and screenwriters David Osborn, Liz Charles-Williams and Jimmy Sangster (a Hammer stalwart). Other spoofs fell short because they attempted to lampoon what was already tongue-in-cheek (even at that stage), but Deadlier Than the Male manages the same level of playful self-parody that Goldfinger achieves. It’s sheer fun.

Chief among the movie’s assets are the very... assets that the global marketing campaign played up most: Elke Sommer (A Shot in the Dark) and Sylva Koscina (Hercules in the Haunted World). These gorgeous European actresses play a pair of sexy assassins, enforcers for the movie’s mysterious villain, Carl Peterson. (Yes, "Carl Peterson" hardly has the ring of "Ernst Stavro Blofeld" or "Auric Goldfinger," but that’s the name Drummond creator Sapper saddled his hero’s arch-nemesis with, so apparently the film’s scribes were stuck with it. The Ipcress File's Nigel Green makes the most of the name, relishing his role.) Sommer and Koscina play fantastically off of each other, and as good as Richard Johnson is as the hero, the movie completely belongs to these ladies. Sommer is the sultry, no-nonsense blonde Irma Eckman, and Koscina the playful kleptomaniac tease, Penelope. In a running gag, Penelope always steals Irma’s things, much to her companion’s annoyance. "And I told you before not to wear my negligee!" Irma chastises her at one point.

"Oh, I didn’t think you’d mind," pouts Penelope, hurt.

"I do mind!" snaps Irma.

In one of my all-time favorite opening sequences, Malcolm Lockyer’s memorable (and suitably Bondian) "Drummond Theme" plays as we open on a private jetliner, mid-flight. We’re introduced to the beautiful Elke Sommer in the temporary guise of a stewardess aboard said flight. She uses a trick cigar (handily hidden in her garter belt) to assassinate the CEO of a major corporation. Ever dedicated to overkill, she then covers her tracks by setting a bomb to go off on the plane, putting on a parachute, and jumping out! Cue the Walker Brothers’ iconic title song (the best Bond song ever not actually written for a Bond movie*), and the main titles roll as Sommer parachutes away from the exploding aircraft. Koscina (clad in a memorable bikini) pilots a speedboat below, and waves up to her descending companion as if she’s casually greeting her at the beach. There’s something sadistically–yet irresistibly–sexy about the way these women treat their deadly occupation as a lark. Sommer makes a perfect landing on the speedboat, and away they go. (I once had the opportunity to question Charlie’s Angels director McG on whether the opening of that movie was a conscious homage to Deadlier Than the Male, and he confirmed that it was indeed.) And so director Ralph Thomas sets the pitch-perfect tone for the movie to come.

The ladies’ next assassination is equally memorable. Together, they rise out of the Mediterranean onto the private beach of a luxurious Italian villa clad in jaw-dropping bikinis, an image sure to ingrain itself in the memory of any heterosexual male viewer. It’s an Ursula Andress double-act, but deadlier: these women carry spear guns. This vision of perfect beauty is the last one their hapless victim, Mr. Wyngarde, will ever see, as after a brief flirtation, they skewer him. "Oh! Poor Mr. Wyngarde," laments Penelope with concern immediately after firing her harpoon. This iconic scene formed the basis for the film’s successful worldwide marketing campaign.

Back in London, we meet our hero, Hugh "Bulldog" Drummond, ably played by one-time Bond contender Richard Johnson. Drummond himself is not actually a spy, but an insurance investigator. It doesn’t sound very exciting, but if Eurospy movies are to believed, this was the closest profession out there to being James Bond. I’ve discussed the curious "insurance investigator" sub-genre of spy movies before, but of all of them, the Sixties Drummond films are at the top of the heap. In fact, Deadlier Than the Male could well have been the Top Gun of insurance investigator recruitment films. I’d be curious to know if their ranks swelled after its release in 1967. (Perhaps some enterprising grad student will one day draw a direct connection between Elke Sommer in a bikini and a drastic population increase in Hartford, Connecticut, but until then, we can only guess...) Anyway, we meet Drummond just as he’s polishing off a hulking opponent in a karate match, because in the Sixties that’s the sort of thing insurance investigators did. And Johnson looks suave doing it.

Drummond is called in on the case by his boss Sir John, played by Laurence Naismith of Diamonds Are Forever and The Persuaders! He’s told that his friend Wyngarde is dead, and instructed to look into it. Wyngarde was investigating the suspicious deaths of various CEOs insured by their company, including the one killed on the airplane at the beginning. His only clue is a minute fragment of audio tape Wyngarde was recording at the time of his death, with the mysterious phrase "ate the ruler and the ak."

No sooner is Drummond assigned to the case than he becomes the victim of several assassination attempts, including an exciting showdown in a parking garage in which he demonstrates not only a talent for survival, but also the ruthlessness of Connery’s Bond. Instead of the hapless thugs Drummond dispatches so easily, Peterson clearly should have put Irma and Penelope on the job! They’re showing a much better track record across town as they eliminate Leonard Rossiter, the only man who stands in the way of one of their boss’s extortion schemes. Like cats (and in Germany, the film was aptly known as Tödliche Katzen–"Deadly Cats"), they toy with their victims before each kill, bickering all the while. Played differently, their assassinations could power a horror movie, but Sommer and Koscina skillfully keep things light even as they paralyze their victim and then, while he’s unable to move a muscle, toss him to his horrifying doom from a skyscraper balcony. Their killing spree lies somewhere between your standard Avengers episode (which tended to chalk up tremendous body counts, but did so with such style that you hardly noticed) and a giallo; it’s a bit nastier than the former, but less harrowing than the latter.

As Drummond investigates the deadliness of these particular females and dodges death himself, his brash American nephew Robert (Steve Carlson) inflicts himself on his uncle. The role seems modeled on Robert Wagner’s role as David Niven’s nephew in The Pink Panther, and the situations that arise from Robert’s stay in Drummond’s flat mirror that movie as well–but succeed on their own merit. Carlson remains likable while assaying a rather thankless role unfortunately required of many British movies of the period to secure distribution in the States: the token American. (Even worse, the token American youth!) His attempted seduction of the gorgeous Virginia North (when she has her eye set on his cad of an uncle) makes for a welcome farcical setpiece, which culminates (naturally enough) in another one of those pesky assassination attempts.

Mistaken for his uncle, Robert gets caught up in the action–and tied up by Koscina’s Penelope. Koscina lightens the ensuing torture scene by playing it with an appealing, almost childish coquettishness. "We’ve so much to talk about... and do," she breathes, burning him with her cigarette. When he grunts in pain, she cringes, apparently contrite. "Oh!" she squeals breathlessly, "I like you, you know. And I would much rather be nice to you. But Eckman will be back soon. And she will be absolutely livid if you haven’t talked. So be a good boy, please?" She’s playing with a new toy–and indeed duly chastised for it by the sterner Irma. ("That is a very untidy job, Penelope, very untidy.") Whatever her motivations, you can’t really feel too sorry for Robert. The experience clearly isn’t without its pleasures.

In the film’s second half, the action shifts from Swinging London to beautiful, scenic Northern Italy, thanks to that clue about eating the ruler and the ak. It’s ideal Eurospy country–locations just as photogenic as the female stars–and that look great in bold Technicolor. Here we get yachts, speedboats, sports cars and a castle–all the luxuries one hopes for in a Sixties spy movie. Drummond, naturally, is captured in the course of his insurance investigation, and put to the ultimate test: can he resist the allure of the insanely attractive Ms. Sommer, in all of her pulchritudinous, black eyelinered glory? Fortunately he’s aware of her praying mantis-like mating habits, but it would still be a tough choice. Irma proves herself to be quite the proto-Xenia Onatopp.

So we’ve got beautiful women (in bikinis! with spearguns!), ingenious killings, impressive action and breathtaking locations. What else do we need to make this a perfect Sixties spy movie? Oh yes: a life-size, robotic chess set. In one of the quintessential Eurospy finales, Drummond finds himself doing battle with his nemesis on a giant chess board, dodging the looming, stylized chessmen as Peterson commands them to advance on him. (Several of these chessmen, which evidently sat around Pinewood for years after filming, end up in Scaramanga’s funhouse in The Man With the Golden Gun, visible behind Christopher Lee as he searches for his gun at the beginning of the film. I also spotted them, repainted, the the Sweeney episode "Queen's Pawn." I'm sure they've made quite a few cameos over the years.)

This is the movie that opened my eyes to the world of Bond beyond Bond; it showed me that there were still exhilarating places left to go once one had exhausted the Bondian canon many times over. It's the movie that inspired me to write a blog about the wider world of spy movies. It's sheer, unadulterated entertainment that delivers everything I could possibly ask for in a rollicking spy adventure–and delivers in spades. I love it as much as I love the Bond movies of its era. It's a movie I'll never grow tired of watching, and if you've never seen it before (yet are reading this blog), I cannot recommend it enough.

Deadlier Than the Male is mercifully (and surprisingly, given its undeserved obscurity) available on DVD in the United States from Hen’s Tooth video. There are unfortunately no extras on the disc, but the widescreen transfer is gorgeous (if not anamorphic)–as is the cover, which uses artwork from the American half-sheet.

The Region 2 DVD from Network makes up for America’s bare-bones edition by featuring nearly an hour of promotional material from the time of the film's release. There are interviews with the principal stars conducted by a rather silly, blinky British interviewer. They’re not terribly probing or informative (he inquires as to whether or not Elke Sommer is "for glamor in the movies" and asks Sylva Koscina why she has to wear a bikini so often), but they’re still fascinating time capsules, and Sommer is absolutely adorable. On top of that, we’re treated to some black and white B-roll of Sommer filming, Johnson waterskiing and Green snorkeling while on location in Italy. Each interview contains some amusing moments. When asked if its true that she plays a killer, Koscina coyly (and truthfully) distills the essence of her character, claiming, "Oh, but I’m very sweet you know! I kill in a sweet way! With a little smile and with a sexy voice!" and Carlson boasts that he "represents youth and vigor" in the film.

There’s also a pair of excellent vintage promotional featurettes shot on location which give us more behind-the-scenes footage (and more of the ladies in their swimwear), a trailer and (somewhat oddly) the mute, textless elements for the trailer. The featurettes are amazing, showing lots of on-set antics, including Thomas directing, Sommer doing her own hair and makeup, Carlson trying to impress some of his female co-stars with his guitar prowess (that's the youth and vigor he was talking about!) and Johnson conferring with Sapper’s Bulldog inspiration and co-author, Gerard Fairlie. We also see the stars being coached by fightmaster Bob Anderson (a man whose career stretches from Douglas Fairbanks up through Lord of the Rings and Die Another Day, for which he supervised Pierce Brosnan's fencing), rehearsing, and hanging out in their free time. Interestingly, they're allowed to wear their movie swimsuits even when at liesure. The producers really wanted those bikinis on camera whenever possible!

Network’s current version comes bundled as a double feature with the film’s sequel, Some Girls Do. Some Girls Do is enjoyable enough and well worth watching once, but it doesn’t come close to capturing the magic of Deadlier Than the Male–primarily because it’s missing the two key ingrediants to that film’s success. While Johnson returns, even the sexy Dahlia Lavi can’t replace Sommer and Koscina. The sequel also fails to capture the tone that makes the first film so successful, opting instead for a jokier formula that doesn’t gel right. Despite these detractors, though, Some Girls Do makes the ultimate special feature in a great Deadlier Than the Male package! If you have a multi-region DVD player and have the option, this is the version of the film to get. (And it’s on sale for a ridiculously low price through Sunday at Network’s site!)

Stay tuned for more on Deadlier Than the Male later today or tomorrow: Lipstick Feminism: Gender Roles In Deadlier Than The Male (Or: When Is A Speargun Just A Speargun?)

*Lead singer and driving creative force Scott Walker would eventually record an actual Bond song, "Only Myself to Blame" (written by David Arnold and Don Black) for end credits of The World Is Not Enough. The producers regrettably opted not to use it (they went for The James Bond Theme instead), but it did end up as the final track on the released soundtrack CD. The track has spurred a lot of controversy among fans over the years, but I think it’s great and would have been a welcome addition to a fairly lackluster 007 outing. It’s decidedly down-tempo, and maybe more appropriate to a truly downbeat ending like OHMSS or CR than to "I thought Christmas only came once a year," but it has a great world-weary spy edge to it. It’s not a good basis of comparison for "Deadlier Than the Male," though, which is much more in keeping with the classic, up-tempo Bond sound.

DVD Review: The Bob Hope MGM Movie Legends Collection

Covering a fairly long span of the legendary comedian’s career, this recently issued Bob Hope box set offers several titles of interest to spy fans. In addition to classic comedies like The Princess and the Pirate, Alias Jesse James and I’ll Take Sweden, it includes Hope’s never-before-available-on-DVD 1942 spy spoof They Got Me Covered (which sends up Hitchcock thrillers of the time like Foreign Correspondent and Saboteur, among other things) and his final collaboration with Bing Crosby, The Road To Hong Kong (1962). Coming almost a decade after the previous Road instalment, that movie feels kind of weird, with one foot firmly in the 1960s (complete with Peter Sellers cameo and spy spoofery galore, including lots of surprising Bond connections) and the other steadfastly attached to the 1940s! Full reviews of each of those films follow below; unfortunately there are no extras to speak of in this set, not even trailers.

Also worth a look for espionage afficionados (and also making its DVD debut) is Boy, Did I Get A Wrong Number, Hope’s 1966 team-up with that luscious face of Sixties spydom, Elke Sommer. Ms. Sommer gets another chance to demonstrate her deft comic timing (as seen previously in A Shot In the Dark), as well as display her famous figure (as showcased to great advantage a year later in Deadlier Than the Male) as a European actress known best in Hollywood for her bubble bath scenes who would rather display her deft comedic timing than reveal her famous figure! Coincidence and crossed lines (courtesy of a drunk operator) insert her into the lives of Hope and his family after she storms off the set of her latest bubble bath movie, and comedy ensues, largely of the farcical door-slamming "I’m hiding a beautiful Hollywood actress in my basement but it’s not what it looks like!" variety.

It’s all pretty sexist, and despite her character’s defiance of such labels, Sommer is so much treated as "just a body" (includ-ing four bub-ble bath scenes in the course of the film!) that for a good chunk of the movie she’s exactly that, unconscious (having taken sleeping pills) and subjected to all sorts of manhandling (by Hope and the supremely annoying Phyllis Diller as his hopeless housekeeper) and physical gags. But the truth is, she’s great at the physical stuff, whether playing conscious or not, and seems to revel in it. It’s a meaty role for her, and well worth checking out for her fans, even if one has to fast-forward the bits with Diller dancing or racing her motorcycle. The movie plays very dated today (moreso than those reviewed below), but it’s funny and Elke Sommer is fantastic, as usual. There’s a moment early on when Hope, thinking he’s speaking to his wife on the phone, but really connected to Sommer, taps into the zeitgeist of the time by saying, "I’m Secret Agent 007 3/8 who tracked you down, so get your lovely little chassis down here fast or I’ll paint you gold!" Which serves as a nice segue into the real spy movies in the set...

Review: They Got Me Covered (1943)
Review: The Road To Hong Kong (1962)