Ralph Thomas followed his Bulldog Drummond caper Deadlier Than The Male (1967) with the sequel Some Girls Do (1969). This time insurance man Drummond (Richard Johnson) is out investigating a series of murders linked to a new invention: infrasound. The new device is being used by the nefarious Carl Petersen (James Villiers) and his all-girl army of “robo-tized” women to sabotage the construction of a new supersonic jet. Suffice it to say, Ralph Thomas’ duo of Drummond films are imitations of the hit James Bond pictures starring Sean Connery.
But where Deadlier Than The Male saw a return to the pulpy beginnings of Ian Fleming’s oft imitated spy, Some Girls Do opts to embrace the campy excess of Goldfinger (1964) and Thunderball (1965). Some Girls Do takes Drummond out of his swinging London apartment and thrusts him into the world of gadgets, vast country estates and exotic villas on this madcap adventure. One of the most enjoyable aspects of this film is once again the parts with the female assassins, though in Some Girls Do they have fallen prey to one of the most misogynistic schemes of any spy-thriller of the sixties and have had their brains replaced with computers.
This process, dubbed “robo-tizing”, is the ultimate exemplar of the sexual politics that dominated the genre during this period. The majority of the women in Some Girls Do have literally been enslaved and rendered as objects of absolute servitude and pleasure. Agency and autonomy belong exclusively to the men, be they heroes or villains. Even charismatically charming turns by actresses Beba Lončar, Vanessa Howard, Virginia North, and Yutte Stensgaard cannot elevate these female characters beyond the inherently oppressive premise of their condition within the film. Daliah Lavi, who plays the expert sharp shooter Baroness Helga Hagen, is one of the few women exempt from “robo-tizing”, but her agency and general part in the film is minimized by being little more than a sidekick awaiting her comeuppance.
However, the real failing of Some Girls Do is that although it embraces humor to an extent that Deadlier Than The Male did not, it never really finds its angle. Some Girls Do is broad and silly yet never achieves the pre-requisite self-awareness that makes even the worst Bond movies fun to watch. Ralph Thomas directs Some Girls Do not for the comedy in the script, but for the seriousness of the dramatic stakes. Ultimately this makes Some Girls Do neither funny nor all that thrilling. Deadlier Than The Male belongs alongside From Russia With Love (1963), Modesty Blaise (1966) and Danger: Diabolik (1968) as one of the great campy spy films of the sixties; Some Girls Do does not.
