Sat 26 Nov 2011
A Movie Review by Dan Stumpf: DEADLER THAN THE MALE (1967).
Posted by Steve under Authors , Reviews , Suspense & espionage films[13] Comments
DEADLIER THAN THE MALE. Universal, 1967. Richard Johnson, Elke Sommer, Sylva Koscina, Nigel Green, Suzanna Leigh, Steve Carlson, Virginia North. Story & screenplay by Liz Charles-Williams, David D. Osborn & Jimmy Sangster, based on the characters created by Herman C. “Sapper” McNeile. Director: Ralph Thomas.
Compared to the Dick Barton film (reviewed here ), there’s nothing as pre-adolescent in Deadlier Than the Male, which is firmly adolescent in its imitation-Bond fantasies.
I must have seen this six times in my Senior year of High School, and I tried hard to convince my serious-film-student friends there was something really worthwhile there amid the sex, violence and Eastman Color. They told me that even I should be grown-up enough to reject this mindless rubbish, but it became available on video recently and I enjoyed it all over again.
This was the first Bulldog Drummond movie in about 20 years, and the producers approached it with B-movie gusto, garnished it with sexy assassins (Elke Sommer and Sylva Koscina, whose un-self-conscious bad acting seems quite fitting here), a scar-faced Chinese bodyguard, a giant chess game and Nigel Green’s droll villainy, all splashed across colorful locations tricked out with James Bond-style fights and wise cracks.
I have to agree with my old friends about its artistic merits, but the thing is infused with such a low-budget, gee-wouldn’t-it-be-fun-to-make-a-movie elan that if you haven’t read any good comic books lately, you might like it.
By the way, Bulldog Drummond is incarnated here by actor Richard Johnson, who also impersonated British Icons, Lord Nelson and Nayland Smith in films that were much less fun.
November 26th, 2011 at 7:56 pm
I have yet to see it, but Bond inspired some of the greatest cheesiest movies in film history.
The difference between a film and a movie is NORTH BY NORTHWEST was a film, DEADLIER THAN THE MALE was a movie.
November 27th, 2011 at 5:38 am
Michael: Actually, they’re both movies. The difference is that NORTH BY NORTHWEST is a movie costing $4000000, directed by a genius and starring one of the biggest stars of the time. DEADLIER THAN THE MALE cost rather less, was directed by the man who gave us DOCTOR IN THE HOUSE, and starred a popular British character actor. Hitch’s movie is obviously better by a country mile, but they’re not fundamentally different in their desire to entertain.
Did Johnson play Nayland Smith? I know that Nigel Green did in the wonderful FACE OF FU MANCHU, but I can’t remember Johnson playing the character.
I have heard that this was originally intended as the pilot for a TV series, but had money pumped in to make it into a movie. I don’t know how true this is, but it is easy to imagine a telly series with the character alongside THE SAINT and THE BARON. The highlight is really the giant chess game at the climax, which still works very well. It was so good, in fact, that I can recall Marvel Comics ripping it off quite shamelessly for an issue of MOON-KNIGHT!
November 27th, 2011 at 9:19 am
Johnson is still acting at age 84 (not that there’s anything wrong with that) and I’ve seen him play several not very nice characters in such things as the “Ruth Rendell Mysteries” and “Doc Martin.”
November 27th, 2011 at 2:16 pm
Not to mention MIDSOMER MURDERS. There is apparently a new law which requires that if actors live long enough they will eventually be investigated by the Causton CID.
November 27th, 2011 at 4:00 pm
Dan – You made an error. You’re thinking of Richard GREENE who played Nayland Smith.
One of Johnson’s better spy roles was as Jonas Wilde in the film adaptation of THE ELIMINATOR by Andrew York. It was renamed Danger Route. It’s still the only film version of an excellent (and I think) superior spy series.
November 27th, 2011 at 4:49 pm
One of the many great things about IMDB, a site I use constantly, is that not only can you look up actors and movies, but characters, too.
Here’s the link to the Nayland Smith page, for example: http://www.imdb.com/character/ch0028435/
Nigel Green, as per Bradstreet, played the role in FACE OF FU MANCHU, as he said, and Richard Greene was Nayland Smith in two Fu Manchu films, just as J F pointed out. This feature of IMDB is among the iffiest on IMDB, as far as being complete, but Dan, it looks like maybe you were thinking of one of these two guys.
I missed it too!
November 27th, 2011 at 6:32 pm
As an unabashed Bulldog Drummond fan I thoroughly enjoyed this film when it was in the theater and later when I acquired it on DVD. Since Drummond is supposed to have inspired Bond it makes a sort of sense that they should make a Drummond film in the Bond mode.
November 29th, 2011 at 11:29 am
Great post – I have a real fondness for the products of the 60s spy boom and this one is thoroughly entertaining, not least thanks to the work of busy scriptwriter Jimmy Sangster even if it has little to do with ‘Sapper’. It is certainly one step up from the 1969 sequel, ‘Some Girls Do’ …
November 29th, 2011 at 11:45 am
Love the movie poster!
November 29th, 2011 at 6:26 pm
The stuff that dreams are made of…!
November 1st, 2016 at 3:25 pm
A great movie made a massive impression on me as a young boy. I was obsessed with the sexy assassins. I still am! Elke and Sylvia are incredibly sexy and so cruel and heartless marvelous!
January 27th, 2017 at 10:02 am
“This was the first Bulldog Drummond movie in about 20 years”
I’ve read before that Bulldog Drummond was the inspiration for James Bond, but the fact that Drummond predates Bond by decades is proof of it. The Bond series is guilty of what we might call “imitation-Drummond fantasies.”
May 28th, 2020 at 2:38 pm
[…] NOTE: For Dan Stump’s much more personal take on this film, posted on this blog almost nine years ago, go here. […]