Several oil executives die in mysterious 'accidents' and each time, an anonymous company is richer by a million pounds. Insurance underwriter Hugh Drummond is called in to investigate. Jimmy Sangster had earlier put Hammer Films on the map by reworking old horror favourites like 'Dracula' and 'Frankenstein'. In 1966, he gave Sapper's 'Bulldog Drummond' a Bond make-over. Richard Johnson was well cast; smooth, charming, and sophisticated. The girls are stunningly beautiful, and the film bristles with excitement, invention and good humour. Nigel Green is excellent as Carl Petersen. Some great set-pieces; the underground car park fight is surprisingly violent, while the chessboard finale is straight out of 'The Avengers'. All this plus a cameo by the late, great Leonard Rossiter, and a blinding title song by The Walker Brothers! Wisely, the film doesn't try to compete with the more lavish Bonds such as 'Goldfinger' and 'Thunderball'. Both Drummond films were novelised for Coronet Books by Henry Reymond.

While the B-movies in the "Bulldog Drummond" series in the mid-to-late 1930's where your average sophisticated mystery series in the bane of "The Thin Man", the first two starring Ronald Colman we're very sophisticated International thrillers along the lines of the much later Bond series. There hadn't been a "Bulldog Drummond" film since 1951, so it seems natural that someone would see the original on The Late Show and decide that it could be redone in the Bond mode. Richard Johnson, once rumored to be playing Bond in the original film, is cast as Drummond here, and is perfectly urbane and witty as he deals with an international group of assassins, all of which are women. They smile sweetly before they strike, and as the secretary of the first victim, Elke Sommer is very funny as she arranges for a real bag of an exit for her target. The prelude to the opening credits are very witty and set up a great ball of fun, not a classic, but certainly memorable.

Along with the lovely Sylva Koscina (and other international beauties),Sommer turns her assignments into the opportunity for some very funny wisecracks, and there's also a chess game with very large pieces that is similar to what would later be done in one of the "Harry Potter" movies. The great thing about this film is as sophisticated as its looks, the plot is not complicated and very easy to follow, something is that is wrong with a lot of spy thrillers of the 1960's. This isn't trying to outwit the audience, just entertain them, and some International character actors in smaller roles (usually as the victims) pop in and out. Lavish locations and some great designer fashions make these murderous ladies a lot of fun to watch. Johnson is a great hero, and it's too bad there weren't more "Bulldog Drummond" films to follow this.

Before her time bomb blows a personal airliner to pieces, Elke Sommer bails out over the ocean. Before she bails out, Sommer sheds her long slacks and deplanes wearing only tight white plastic bottoms. This struck me as a very tasteful and artistic scene.

She's picked up by her co-conspirator, Sylva Koscina, and together they swim to a beach and puncture a man with a spear gun. This was also handled very elegantly. Both of the young ladies are wearing only the most perfunctory of swim clothes. Sommer, in particular, is bulging out of her top. I didn't care a hoot about the murdered guy, whom we don't know anyway, but I kept wondering about who exactly fitted those exact swimsuits to those exact figures, and how did they do it? A chef d'oeuvre by some artist in the wardrobe department. How do you apply for a job like that?

Before these magnificent events unfold, we have to sit through the credits while somebody warbles the theme song -- "Deadlier Than The Mail" -- before the musical score switches to speedy thriller noise with a lot of bongo drums.

Hugh Drummond, Richard Johnson, is some kind of insurance investigator, not that it matters. He's James Bond in all but name. Well, not quite so fussy about his dress and his wine, but he speaks Japanese and is a martial arts expert like all high-echelon insurance men. He's going to get to the bottom of this business, which involves a merger of two giant oil companies. Those who object to the merger, one by one, are picked off by the two girls in colorful ways -- spear guns, rolling off a fifteen-story balcony, and the like. These vixens are viciously matter of fact about their misdeeds but this is no place to talk about my five ex wives.

I always enjoy Richard Johnson. Never a bravura performer, he was always reliably proper in his deportment. He doesn't crack jokes with the facility of James Bond. He was the anthropologist in "The Haunting", studying ghosts. I like him for that too, because that's my profession and I even studied ghosts in a culture where ghosts are not just superstitions but something to contend with. The chief villain -- or, in this case, we might call him the head honcho, surrounded as he is by porcelain-doll Japanese women -- is Nigel Green. He's a fine actor, unforgettable really. That suave tonality, that politely superior demeanor.

There isn't that much action in this flick, despite the atmosphere of mock menace and several acts of violence. Johnson doesn't dance off the walls, held up by wires. There are no highly ritualized sword fights, as in "Kill Bill." Nobody's head gets wrenched off, as in so many action movies.

So, it's a shameless ripoff of James Bond, but it's pleasant enough. If you can stand another James Bond movie, you can sit through this simulacrum.