Deadlier Than the Male

Deadlier Than the Male is a 1967 British crime mystery film. It is one of the many take-offs of James Bond produced during the 1960s, but is based on an already established detective fiction hero, Bulldog Drummond. Richard Johnson (director Terence Young's original preference to play James Bond) stars as Drummond, updated to a suave Korean War veteran, now an insurance investigator, trailing a pair of sexy assassins (Elke Sommer and Sylva Koscina) who kill for sport and profit. Drummond's American nephew, Robert Drummond (Steve Carlson, then a Universal Pictures contract star), becomes involved in the intrigue when he comes to visit. The title is a reference to the 1911 Rudyard Kipling poem "The Female of the Species," which includes the line, "The female of the species must be deadlier than the male", and also refers to Sapper's earlier Drummond book, The Female of the Species. The working title of the film was The Female of the Species. "Deadlier Than the Male", the song featured in the film`s opening credit sequence, was performed by the Walker Brothers. Filmed in Technicolor and Techniscope, portions of the film were shot in Lerici, La Spezia, Liguria, Italy. A sequel, Some Girls Do, followed in 1969.