DEADLIER THAN THE MALE took the rogue adventurer ‘Hugh “Bulldog” Drummond’, who’d been in print and on film for four decades, softened and updated him for the Bond era in this 1967 crime spoof. Despite the pedigree of a successful producer and director and a capable cast, it flounders as yet another one of the mostly lame attempts to cash in on the 007 mystique and cash machine. Stick with Our Man Flint.

Independent British intelligence agent Drummond (Richard Johnson) investigates murders of influential businessmen. Suspicions lead to a snide master criminal (Nigel Green) who employs a bevy of female assassins (all beautiful of course), led by the gleeful Venus spytrap ‘Irma Eckman’ (Elke Sommer) and her slaypal ‘Penelope’ (Sylva Koscina), who revels in sadism.

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Ralph Thomas directed, Betty Box produced: they’d had a long and successful run of comedies and light adventures, but they missed the Aston Martin boat with this rudderless torpedo. Made for $1,700,000, at least it looks good, with the Italian locations—Lerici and La Spezia—and the attractive stars, and Malcolm Lockyear tries to goose it with a decent if rather obvious jazzy/sultry score.

But the script wanks—insurance fraud over oil concessions (yawn wider than the Persian Gulf), the tone is off—neither amusing enough (the humor injections are painful) to work as camp or exciting enough (the few action scenes are lame) to jog attention. The insertion of Drummond’s American nephew (Steve Carlson, frankly pitiful) was a bad call.The murders inflicted by the femme fatales are too rough for a spoof, and having Koscina torture Carlson with a lit cigar and yanking out his fingernails is on the sick side.

You’re left with just gazing at the partially dressed actresses; that we can manage. Elke in particular is sizzling: when she asks Drummond “Do you like my body?” it’s hard not to choke on your M&Ms peanuts. Sommer did a lot of work in the era but was generally much better than the projects she ended up in. She and Koscina (dubbed by Nikki Van der Zyl) do what they can with the cheesy material.

The Bond/Flint/Helm wave helped it make $2,800,000 in the States, with apparently enough registered elsewhere that the Thomas-Box duo decided a sequel was warranted. Written by Jimmy Sangster, David D. Osborn and Liz Charles-Williams. With Suzanna Leigh, Laurence Naismith, Leonard Rossiter, Milton Reid, George Pastell. Mercifully just 98 minutes.

* Bulldog Drummond, created by novelist H.C. McNeil in 1920, had been on film as far back as 1922, in 22 movies featuring 13 different leads including Ronald Colman, Ralph Richardson and Ray Milland, the last (Calling Bulldog Drummond) 16 years earlier with Walter Pidgeon and in which 23-year-old Johnson appeared uncredited. Johnson did the sequel to Deadlier Than The Male, 1969s Some Girls Do; it went nowhere and Bulldog has been out to pasture since.

’67’s raft of spy spoofers, in order of box office attention: Casino Royale, In Like Flint, The Ambushers, Caprice, Billion Dollar Brain, Deadlier Than The Male, Fathom, Come Spy With Me. At least there was Connery #5 in You Only Live Twice and a dandy in the serious vein via The Deadly Affair.