The Deadly Bees (1967)

A contemporary Amicus horror film directed by Freddie Francis, starring Suzanna Leigh and a wild eyed, over-the-top and eccentric Frank Finlay, also featuring Michael Ripper as a publican, with songs by Elkie Brooks (dubbing Leigh) and The Birds on screen with Ronnie Wood and a screenplay co-written by Robert Bloch based on H.F. Heard’s bestselling Holmes pastiche A Taste for Honey.

So what could go wrong?

 Actually not all that much at first glance.

Though mainly known for their anthology horror concepts, these always were a bit hit and miss and it’s therefore good to see one of Amicus’ proper feature length forays into horror. Not making this a Gothic horror production wisely set them apart from Hammer while at the same time securing some of Hammer’s key personnel guaranteeing a certain recognition factor.

Suzanna Leigh plays a popular singer on the verge of a mental breakdown who is sent off to a remote island for some respite. (The doctor who diagnoses her is played by a blink and you’ll miss him Michael Gwynn.) The vibes of Swinging London are represented by Swinging Cameras going back and forth while capturing a performance by The Birds (and the bees… nudge nudge). In contrast rural England is frequented by merry publicans, cheerful lasses, eccentric characters and a dysfunctional couple, the husband (Guy Doleman, best known as SPECTRE agent Count Lippe from Thunderball), a brooding farmer/bee keeper who keeps his raging emotions only barely under control and whose venomous, chain smoking wife (Catherine Finn, Michael Ripper’s wife in real life) never lets him forget who it is that has the money in the relationship and out of spite never even bothers answering the phone even when she sits right next to it.

Watching this kaleidoscope of 1960s genre characters is a joy but of course this is the first killer bee movie ever made and based on a popular Sherlock Holmes pastiche, so how does this fare as either a horror or mystery movie?

Not that well, is the short answer……

The only thing frightful about the killer bee attacks is how awful they look. Given that Freddie Francis was a future Academy Award winning cinematographer it is surprising how bland the production looked. The bee attacks in particular are badly process shot in slow motion while the actors were flailing wildly with plastic insects of a kind stuck to their faces.

And for a mystery there really is very little of that. We only ever have two suspects for being the mastermind behind the bee attacks and one of them is so blatantly obviously suspected by just about everyone that the real killer simply must be the other one.

Given that this is an adaptation of a popular book it is surprising to see how much Amicus didn’t even bother with the novel’s main attraction: the fact that its hero, Mr Mycroft, is a very thinly disguised Sherlock Holmes enjoying his retirement as a rural bee-keeper!

In the movie there is no reference to either Holmes or Mycroft or indeed the male Watson substitute and book’s narrator. It appears that in Bloch’s original version of the screenplay these references were much clearer. Bloch had seemingly envisaged Christopher Lee and Boris Karloff in the main parts. Amicus and/or Freddie Francis, however, took a dislike to Bloch’s concept and changed it further on leaving only the barest hints of its initial source idea.

Still, this may be both a failed mystery and horror thriller and at the time those aspects may have been the primary reason for it being critically dismissed. Nearly 50 years after the movie first hit the cinema screens, however, the then current horror flick has started carrying a patina that easily masks its short comings.

For me it will always be a pleasure to watch Michael Ripper behind a bar and encountering a range of off-beat English characters as well as 1960s starlets, a trip back in time to a mythical England where animals attack and civil servants wear bowler hats. Freddie Francis may just be a journeyman director but he is my kind of journeyman director and the film is a very enjoyable way to spend some 83 minutes.

The Deadly Bees was sometimes paired in a double feature together with The Vulture.

 

Deadlier Than the Male (UK, 1966)

Bulldog Dummond was a hardboiled British detective character who appeared in scores of books by his creator H.C. McNeile alias “Sapper” and - following his death – Gerard Fairlie. At the height of his popularity his adventures were also frequently adapted for movies and radio.

Deadlier Than The Male is a curious adaptation in that it was made at a time when the character was hardly as popular as in his heyday and in actual fact if anything this film resembles more a James Bond adaptation rather than a proper Bulldog Drummond movie. Throughout the movie the character is never really addressed as “Bulldog” and nothing much was made of it either in the promotional material. If anything it appears as if everyone was anxious to avoid any reference to the character’s literary origins.

Hammer scribe Jimmy Sangster was asked to provide an original script based on the character and also helped out on the production side. As a result he claims that this was the only film for which he still occasionally receives royalties for his producer status. Hammer’s accountants apparently were pretty efficient in constantly proving that their films never made money.

Deadlier Than The Male is always compared with the Bond movies of the time. I did it, too, and it is quite obviously a production that swims on the popular wave of 1960s spy films. I would, however, go one step further and say that this film is even better than your average Bond movie! If Bond films concentrate first and foremost on Bond, then the baddies and last but not least on the girls, Deadlier Than The Male turns the format around and puts its emphasis first on the girls – and what kinda gals! -, then on the baddy and at last on the spy, pardon: insurance investigator. (Never thought that profession was that glamourous!)

Drummond is called to investigate a mysterious series of murders that appear aimed at destabilising the oil industry. The killings are committed by Elke Sommer and Sylva Koscina who are both drop dead gorgeous and delightfully sadistic. They seem to relish in the idea of off-ing their victims in ever more ingenious ways and appear quite apt at handling exploding cigars and poison rings. The most iconic scene - a wonder Tarantino hasn’t copied it yet – involves them coming out of the sea bikini clad and shooting their next victim with a harpoon.

Sylva Koscina is a special delight: Her character likes to play with her victims beforehand and just can’t keep her paws off other people’s possessions. Little wonder that the German version of the film was called Heisse Katzen (Hot Cats).

Sommer’s best moment is when she tries to turn Drummond into a male whore by promising him freedom if only he succumbs to her charms. And he nearly appears to fall for it! Bond never was so pussy whacked.

Between Koscina and Sommer there is a very flirtatious and rivalrous relationship and they share some of the best lines of the film together. When a character falls from a balcony in a fake suicide we have them say: “I’ve had men fall for me before, but never like this!” And need I say that I thoroughly fell for their European accents?

Suzanna Leigh is one of Petersen’s girls, but changes sides the moment she meets Drummond. Leigh is forced to wear the most ridiculous looking hair cuts and wigs. Later on in the movie we actually discover a dramatical reason for those, however, one can’t help but suspect that her more brunette/mousy coloured tones in the film were forced on her as not to clash too dramatically with Elke Sommer’s blonde hair do and make sure that the limelight is not taken off Blonde #1.

At one stage Leigh is made to strip and thrown off a yacht into the sea, but don’t bother with the freeze frame like I did, lads, as she does end up wearing some flesh coloured little nothings on her way down.

Nigel Green as Carl Petersen, the film’s megalomaniac baddy, has surrounded himself with a veritable harem of girls from every corner of the world. The only guy amongst them is Hammer stalwart and ex-wrestler Milton Reid who does his usual best as a stoic, silent and vicious henchman. The showdown between Petersen and Drummond is on the board of a gigantic chessgame, the figures of which threaten to smash the combatants. A scene that you just have to watch at least once in your life.

Drummond is played by Richard Johnson who comes across very non-chalant and debonair. It is at times hard to recognise him from his later movies such as Lucio Fulci’s Zombi 2 or Sergio Martino’s Island of the Fishmen. In the movie he lives with his nephew (Steve Carlson) who also has his uncle’s eyes for the ladies and brings home Virginia North. North has become a bit of a cult figure due to her appearance as Vulnavia in The Abominable Dr Phibes. Whereas she is more silent eye candy in that film, it is good to see her properly act and talk in Deadlier Than The Male. She admits to her preference for older men and in a hilarious scene ditches the nephew and tries to storm her way into Drummond’s bed room.

Add some gorgeous shots of the Italian coastline and a very strong title song from Walker Brothers’ Scott Walker, and Ralph Thomas has managed to create a very enjoyable piece of wild and funky – or is that groovy? – 60s pop art, an absolute Must See.

The film was a great success and a sequel – Some Girls Do (1969) – was shot three years later to much lesser acclaim. For that film Richard Johnson reprised his role as Bulldog Drummond. Virginia North was the only other person to be used in both films. In the follow up she played Robot Number Nine. Robot Number One incidentally was played by Yutte Stensgaard.

The Pleasure Girls (1965)

I managed to get a hold of the rare Swinging London flick The Pleasure Girls starring a young Suzanna Leigh next to the always watchable Klaus Kinski in a morality play that I probably enjoyed more than I should have.

Francesca Annis plays a young country girl visiting London to start a new job with a model agency. She has one weekend free prior to starting her new assignment and together with her other female housemates immerses herself in all that London has to offer, but soon needs to learn about the dangers inherent in mixing with the wrong bohemian crowd.

Given that this is meant to come across as a warning to the curious it is amazing how easily the girls generally get off. If anything it is the guys in their lifes who get punished, beaten, threatened by loan sharks and generally left for dead.

The girls mainly come away with a few life lessons and one baby on the way. (Certainly not the big shocker these days than it may have come across at the time.) Annis' character even gets a boyfriend, Ian McShane in one of his first roles. He plays a dodgy photographer who realises that he can really fall for the right girl if only she refuses to go to bed with him. Aaaahhhhhhh.......

Suzanna Leigh and Klaus Kinski are the most interesting couple of them all: Kinski playing a ruthless gangster and gambler with a wife in one home and Leigh as his moll in a different luxury apartment. His character secretly aims to go straight and to find a way out of the criminal way of life. He genuinely seems to be fond of Leigh's character and his performance is excellent. Often relegated to short but memorable bit parts, this is one of his longer and most memorable supporting roles. He manages to beautifully convey the two sides of his personality, the ruthless gangster and the caring private man.

Suzanna Leigh has a brief but welcome topless scene in his luxury bedroom and overall holds herself well against Kinski, an actor known to easily drown all other performances around him.

The most amazing WTF moment comes when a character who from the start is introduced as being openly gay and camp and without any apparent interest in the girls outside of a friendship level eventually gets outed as being, well, gay. Shock, gasp, who'd have thunk?

Overall this is a flawed but enjoyable production that never quite seems to be able to figure out what message it is trying to convey, but that regardless makes for an entertaining way to pass a quick hour and a half courtesy primarily of future Hammer Girl Suzanna Leigh and Germany's most interesting character actor.