Some Girls Do

Three years after 'Deadlier Than The Male', Richard Johnson was back as Hugh 'Bulldog' Drummond, this time investigating mysterious sabotage incidents involving the S.S.T.-1, Britain's newest supersonic airliner. The 'Matt Helm' and 'Derek Flint' sequels disappointed, but nobody who enjoyed 'Deadlier' can fail to appreciate this. The same ingredients ( beautiful girls, gadgets, nice location filming, fast-moving action ) are here, but with a dash more humour. Its all so over the top its practically orbiting Saturn. Charles Blackwell's score catches the right mood of '60's kitsch, the opening theme song is a knockout! Tightly edited, the film moves so fast you don't have time to dwell on its absurdities. Daliah Lavi and Beba Loncar head a long line of luscious babes, including a young Joanna Lumley, and the delectable Adrienne Posta! Nigel Green isn't around to reprise baddie Carl Petersen, alas, but James Villiers is not too bad. Robert Morley is delightful as the eccentric cookery teacher 'Miss Mary'!

Greetings And Salutations, and welcome to my review of Some Girls Do; here's the breakdown of my ratings:

Story: 1.75 Direction: 1.50 Pace: 1.50 Acting: 1.50 Enjoyment: 1.50

TOTAL: 7.75 out of 10.00

One thing lept off the screen and into my soul as soon as the movie started. Joyfulness. For some reason, we appear to be missing this element in most of today's pictures, even the comedies. But in Some Girls Do, the gaiety is in every frame, in every performer's performance, and in every twist and turn in the story. It was a true delight and pleasure to watch.

The story is quite simple; a terrorist plans to make millions when he stops the production of the world's first supersonic plane. What makes the narrative so engaging and thrilling are the twists and turns the writers weave into the script; and boy, aren't they plentiful - and they keep coming right up to the end credits. Some are easy to deduce or guess, some are difficult, and others are plain wacky - though logical, in their own way. And the reason why most of them work is down to the first-rate character-building of the writers. Every individual in the story has their own traits and personality, this aids in creating a captivating and enchanting narrative. Throw in the comedy elements of slapstick, verbal gags, witty comebacks, and double entendres, and you have a delightfully enjoyable and amusing picture.

Ralph Thomas' direction adds to the film's cheerful mood. He keeps every scene colourful and full of interest - it also doesn't hurt that the beautiful girls' shorts are short and the minis mini. His timing is superb as he deftly shoots sharp and exciting action sequences and hits all the right beats for the slapstick components. The special effects don't look too terrible because of his speedy cutting. Even though our heroes aren't in a speedboat race, the green screening and quick editing techniques make it more realistic and believable. The only scene which niggled me was when the plane was in flight. This segment should have been reminiscent of The Thunderbirds. Sadly it looks cheap and tacky because the model team keep the aeroplane on a forty-five-degree climb, wobbling its wings. I could, all too easily, reenvision the painted-out rod at the jet's rear, where the puppeteers manipulated its movements. For me, it was the only disappointing moment in the whole movie.

The cast is excellent. I especially loved Sydne Rome as Flicky. Rome got lucky enough to get one of the best characters in the story, and the viewers get lucky because she is perfect in the role. She is witty, sassy, "blonde", and wickedly smart. Her male counterpart would be James Villiers, who does an equally brilliant job portraying the bad guy, Carl Petersen. The one person I had a slight issue with was the lead, Richard Johnson, as Hugh Drummond. He isn't as powerful and distinguished as Drummond calls out to be. He could have done with a bit more oomph and pizazz. However, he isn't terrible, and that is always a bonus.

Some Girls Do is a Boys Own Adventure style movie with blitheness running through its veins. As such, I'd recommend everyone to treat themselves to a viewing. Everyone, at one time or another, deserves to feel this type of euphoria. That said, the story is well written, skilfully constructed, superbly filmed, and splendidly performed, which should be enough to grab the attention of any movie watcher, particularly the Thrillers and Espionage fans out there.

Now you've aided the robots with their seduction techniques, take a time out and look over my IMDb lists - Holding Out For A Hero, The Game Is Afoot, and Guilty Pleasures to see where I ranked Some Girls Do.

Take Care & Stay Well.

If you are tired of all the Politically Correct "no fun" offerings that Hollywood dishes out these days and yearn for some good clean fun from a bygone era when "Womyn" were just happy to be "Chicks" and men were having fun like no tomorrow (their grins say it all, lucky bastards!;-), and would like to indulge in an escapist fantasy with some naughtiness to it on a guys' night in, then you may find this film quite enjoyable. Besides which guy doesn't like watching "hot chicks" in short minis being seduced with kisses that turn their heads, even if they are robot "chicks"? This is obviously from the era when Jim Kirk was doing the same to exotically dressed "Hot Chicks" on TV in the original Star Trek series, and this film doesn't do such a bad job with the same naughtiness factor to it.

And if you like this one then try its predecessor film. The "Chicks" in these two films put todays' sour looking super-models and centerfolds to shame. The Movie industry just doesn't have the same level of beauty in their female actors anymore as they try to relate too much to a female audience to the great disappointment of the male audience.

If like me you fall asleep during chick flicks and would love to watch a movie made just for guys then enjoy this one.

Campier, less successful sequel to DEADLIER THAN THE MALE (1967) – basically the only department where this surpasses the original is in the title track! Incidentally, it makes no attempt to be a direct continuation of the earlier film – with, for instance, the figures of the boss and his secretary nowhere to be seen: in fact, here Bulldog Drummond (a returning but not-as-effective Richard Johnson) seems to have gone up in the world as he now has a female assistant of his own and, when we first see him, he is sun-bathing (and ditching a host of Hungarian girls!?) in the company of a debuting Sydne Rome.

The latter's amiably klutzy character recalls those played by Stella Stevens and Sharon Tate in the first and fourth entries in the comparable and contemporaneous "Matt Helm" series with Dean Martin. Indeed, the whole film seems to be closer to the spoofy spirit of that franchise (attributable perhaps to the fact that Hammer's Jimmy Sangster did not collaborate to the script this time around) – which, unlike the Drummond duo, had copied the gadget-craze that were a fixture of the prototypical James Bond extravaganzas.

More illogically, not only does the supposedly-dead arch-criminal Carl Peterson turn up again here (albeit played by a different, younger actor i.e. James Villiers) but the two do not even recognize one another immediately (besides, Peterson had merely dual identities in the first film whereas he has three here and is a master of disguise besides!). That said, it does attempt to duplicate elements that had worked first time out, namely Peterson's two principal hench-girls working as a team, except that Daliah Lavi (who had appeared in the first and best Matt Helm adventure THE SILENCERS {1966}) and Beba Loncar are not nearly as intriguing as Elke Sommer and Sylva Koscina and, what is more, there is little chemistry between them!

Perhaps realizing this, the script singled out not one but two other girls to share the spotlight with them (by the way, most of Peterson's girls are actually robots – which raises uncomfortable parallels to Mario Bava's dispiriting DR. GOLDFOOT AND THE GIRL BOMB {1966]): one is Yutte Stensgard (soon to take the leading role in Hammer's maligned – and Sangster-directed – LUST FOR A VAMPIRE {1971}) and Vanessa Howard (who more or less duplicates the Suzanna Leigh role from the first film, in that she improbably hitches up with the hero at the finale)…with Rome (who proves no nitwit but rather a triple agent!) going all of a sudden for Drummond's comic-relief partner (describing his car as "positively psychedelic" and eliciting a "Cool, baby!" response from Drummond at a party!). By the way, Robert Morley also puts in an irrelevant cameo as a flamboyant cooking instructing named "Miss Mary" (complete with golden earring)!

The 'McGuffin' in this case is a supersonic plane, whose infra-sound is capable of killing but also accelerates the movement of, say, a speed-boat during a race – big deal! Drummond, in fact, is made to fly one but subsequently has to bail out (after an attack by another aircraft!) – only to find the rip-cord of his parachute had also been pulled beforehand! As for the climax, in spite of all the ongoing action at the villain's fortress (which again includes a couple of non-entities for male underlings), Peterson's come-uppance is down to that infallible – and completely baffling – in-built self-destructing switch in his unwieldy controlling device!

After several murders of key personnel involved in the making of a super-sonic airliner called the SST1, "Hugh Drummond" (Richard Johnson) is sent to investigate who the mastermind is behind them. However, his investigation puts him directly in the cross-hairs of two attractive but deadly female assassins named "Pandora" (Beba Loncar) and "Helga" (Daliah Lavi) who are both very good at their jobs. Fortunately-or unfortunately as the case may be-he has a rather inept assistant by the name of "Flicky" (Sydne Rome) to help him out. Now rather than reveal any more of this movie and risk spoiling it for those who haven't seen it I will just say that this film is essentially a remake of the movie "Deadlier Than the Male" which was produced only two years earlier. Obviously, this isn't the first time a film has been remade, but the major problem as I see it is the fact that it was remade so quickly after the first film and had very little to offer in addition to it. To be sure there were a number of attractive young ladies to be found all through the movie but other than the aforementioned Daliah Lavi, and to a lesser extent Sydne Rome, none of them really stood out in my opinion. In short, this was an okay James Bond clone but it wasn't nearly as good as "Deadlier Than the Male" and I have rated it accordingly. Average.