Deadlier than the Male ** (1967, Richard Johnson, Elke Sommer, Sylva Koscina, Nigel Green, Suzanna Leigh) – Classic Movie Review 5260

Director Ralph Thomas’s 1967 British thriller Deadlier than the Male is a rather desperate attempt to bring classic author Sapper’s hero Bulldog Drummond alive and kicking into the swinging Sixties.

Nigel Green plays criminal mastermind Carl Petersen, who is killing off the world’s oil-company bosses, and it is Sixties dolly-bird Euro-lovelies like Elke Sommer and Sylva Koscina who are playing the killers. But luckily main star Richard Johnson is on hand as British agent Bulldog Drummond to save civilisation as we know it.

Deadlier than the Male is campy and jokey, but in a totally lame way, and it lacks the tongue-in-cheek, James-Bond-style suave and sophisticated style that it would need to work enjoyably. Despite the acting talent – particularly Johnson and Green – and the other talent involved, the film is draggy and often pretty painful and pitiful. The 1969 sequel, Some Girls Do, was even more tedious, and ended this out-of-its-time series.

Also in the cast are Suzanna Leigh, Steve Carlson, Zia Mohyeddin, Virginia North, Justine Lord, Lee Montague, Laurence Naismith, George Pastell, Leonard Rossiter and William Mervyn.

RIP Richard Johnson (30 July 1927 – 5 June 2015).

© Derek Winnert 2017 Classic Movie Review 5260

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com