THEY CAME TO ROB LAS VEGAS 1968

“Nobody Touched Las Vegas Loot Until… They Came to Rob Las Vegas” 

An oozing coolness Gary Lockwood and a gang of European character actors hatch out a heist plan to knock-off a hi-tech armored truck in this unjustly forgotten caper film. A French/Spain/Italy/West Germany co-production that also features Elke Sommer along with Lee J. Cobb and Jack Palance (in a rare good guy role) bringing some acting and publicity gravitas to the production. Lots of vintage Vegas exteriors and awash in 60's decor, it also features a script with some quirky & witty moments but at 129 minutes is kind of ponderous in places.

Opening with a COOL HAND LUKE-like frenzied escape through a swamp complete with angry dogs and shotguns, Gino Russo (Jean Servais RIFIFI 1955) makes good his escape via car and ends up in psychedelic 1960's L.A. where he looks up his younger brother Tony (Gary Lockwood 2001: A SPACE ODESSEY 1968). Gino tries to talk his younger brother into an armored car robbery on a heavily armored and fortified vehicle operated by the Skorsky Corporation, but Tony declines as he reminds the elderly Gino that times have changed and the caper is doomed to fail. Sure enough, Gino and his gang although armed with a bazooka (!!) are bloodily gunned down in a freeway overpass attempting the robbery while a gang of spectators including Tony watches impassively from atop the freeway. 

Now in Las Vegas Tony works as a blackjack dealer at The Flamingo and is running a scam on the casino with Jill Bennett (Elke Sommer DEADLIER THAN THE MALE 1967) and planning a revenge caper on the Skorsky Corporation which is headed by Steve Skorsky (Lee J. Cobb MARC THE NARC 1975) whose specially designed armored cars (that looks like an armor-plated Winnebago) are used to transport money from Vegas to Los Angeles. Sommer's Jill Bennett is also the secretary/mistress of Steve Skorsky and it is with her that Tony will obtain the secret route timing of the money shipment. Adding another twist to the proceedings is that Skorsky is also using his armored trucks to transport gold for the Mafia which brings in Treasury Agent Douglas (Jack Palance RULERS OF THE CITY 1976) to start nosing around.

Tony brings together his gang to pull off the heist which includes a gaggle of familiar faces including Gustavo Re (SUMMERTIME KILLER 1972), Daniel Martin (A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS 1964), and Enrique Avila (PLAY DIRTY 1969). Unlike other caper films, there's not a lot of time here devoted to the actual planning as Tony just gathers his gang around a pool table and then marches them out to the desert with the long shots of men trudging over sand dunes giving a flashback of sorts to LAWRENCE OF ARABIA. The film also seems to draw upon the previous year's John Wayne/Kirk Douglas western THE WAR WAGON (which in actuality is a western caper film) as they both share a supposedly impregnable method of transporting money that's controlled by a corrupt power-hungry businessman.  

With both the Treasury Agent Douglas and Tony looking to get into the armored truck it's inevitable that this leads to both of them trying it on the same day which leads to the film really kicking into gear with double-crosses, triple-crosses and I think even a quadruple cross(??)! When the film sticks to the nuts and bolts of the heist it is holding your interest but when it invariably moves to character interaction it falls a bit flat. There's a lot of Lee J. Cobb in his high-tech office building (which looks to be lifted right out of Euro-spy villains liar) yelling and growling at people along with some tedious filler toward the end and at 129 minutes it could have lost about 20 minutes easily. 

Directed by Antonio Isasi-Isasmendi (who also had a hand in the screenplay) and shot in beautiful widescreen by Juan Gelpi, it was filmed in Spain particularly around Almeria which gives the desert scenery a very spaghetti western feel (along with a host of familiar voices dubbing the European actors). The shots of Las Vegas & Los Angeles (including a nifty sequence at Angels Flight) were done separately with none of the principal actors (and most of it done in obvious rear-projection). The Las Vegas footage is spectacular with glorious views of a pre-theme park Vegas complete with marquees hyping Juliet Prowse in Sweet Charity at Ceasars, Dean Martin in the Copa Room, Jimmy Durante at The Desert Inn, and topless revues at The Sahara all followed by a steak dinner at Mr. Porterhouse. 

Gary Lockwood was in the midst of a great run in this period including 2001: A SPACE ODESSEY (1968), MODEL SHOP (1968), and the underrated western FIRECREEK (1968). A handsome brooding actor, even when playing a decent guy he always seemed to have a sullen intensity smoldering underneath.  In his scenes with Elke Sommer (here improbably playing an American but who the heck cares its Elke Sommer) there's a vague hinting of S&M in their relationship and one gets the feeling there's something more (or less) than love going on here. Through the film, it is left vague as to whether Tony is simply using her in order to get close to Skorsky.

It's odd seeing Palance play a character on the law & order side of things, but this brings am ambiguity to his role as it's always in the back of your mind on his true motives are.  Both him and Lee J. Cobb both were lending their names and faces to various Italian productions at the time and both of them bring some gravity to proceedings as after the initial prison escape it seems to take on a more light-hearted tone but then gets progressively darker. It is pretty cool to see Jean Servais from the all-time classic heist RIFIFI film show up.   

The film features a great jazz-tinged soundtrack moving around cool, sexy, and thrilling sounds and is way overdue for a new release. Long unavailable and hard to see except for occasional showings on TCM, this now available on DVD through Warner Archive. 

DEADLIER THAN THE MALE 1967

"These are the women to put up a man's pulse rate - and stop it..... stone dead!"

Cool 1960's Euro-Spy featuring Richard Johnson along 
with Elke Sommer & Sylvia Koscina as bikini-clad assassins!!

 

    One of the countless Bond-inspired spy knock-offs that flooded movie screens post- GOLDFINGER, 1967's DEADLIER THAN THE MALE sometimes sadly gets lost in the shuffle. My favorite non-Bond 60'spy film, it's been woefully neglected in terms of home video in the U.S. and desperately needs a nice region 1 Blu-ray.
   Directed by Ralph Thomas (who directed the "Doctor" comedies for Rank), it was written by Liz Charles-Williams, David D. Osborn, and Hammer scribe Jimmy Sangster - which makes me wonder if it was perhaps an unused Hammer project that had been lying about? Although not up to the spectacle (or budget) of the Connery Bond series, it stands as one of the best of the wanna-be's and is boosted by a great cast, some nice location work, and most of all by the presence of Elke Sommer (BARON BLOOD) and Sylvia Koscina (THE ITALIAN CONNECTION) as the main villain's two master assassins.
   Playing insurance investigator Hugh Drummond (the literary name Bulldog was dropped here), Richard Johnson (ZOMBIE FLESH EATERS) was one of many male British actors of the period who could say he was "almost Bond". Johnson, however, could rightly say "he could have been Bond" as he was producer Albert Broccoli's first choice to play 007, but he turned it down as he didn't want to commit to a series.

   The character of Bulldog Drummond was first created by author H.C. McNeile (writing under the pen name "Sapper") in 1920. A kind of "gentleman adventurer", a series of films followed in the '30s and '40s with the character being revived in this film in an attempt to turn him into an international spy.  Although referred to as an insurance investigator working for Lloyd's of London in the film, this is put to rest quickly in the plot as Johnson's Drummond is involved in much more than checking accidents and actuary tables. You wonder if fashioning him as an international spy traveling to exotic locations and hanging out with Elke and Sylvia caused an upswing in insurance investigator job applicants?
    Opening with the spy movie de rigueur pre-credit sequence as we see stewardess Irma (Elke Sommer) in a private jet who kills the sole passenger with a booby-trapped cigar (which she pulls out of her garter no less!!) and then placing a bomb on the plane she skydives off and is picked up in a speedboat by Penelope (Sylvia Koscina) which then segues into the great title song performed by The Walker Brothers (which is the best Bond title song never done in a Bond movie). In a scene reminiscent of DR. NO. and used extensively in the film's promo material, we next see the pair emerge from the water onto a beach of a Mediterranean villa where after a bit of flirtatious dialogue they spear gun Wyngarde (John Stone YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE) whose been on the case of high-ranking executives around the world meeting mysterious deaths.
    Drummond is introduced by practicing karate and living in a swanky London bachelor pad as he's called into the case after the death of his friend Wyngarde. We're also introduced to his nephew Robert (Steve Carlson) who drops in unexpectedly and was probably added to the cast for the American market and his role is like Robert Wagner's in THE PINK PANTHER. At one point, Robert is busy romancing Brenda (Virginia North THE ABOMINABLE DR. PHIBES) while she's having eyes for his Uncle Hugh.

   Irma and Penelope continue offing more executives including Leonard Rossiter (THE WITCHES) whose drugged and thrown out a window. The deaths, while violent also contain a touch of dark humor to them and have a feel to them like THE AVENGERS TV show. Although nothing is going to match the spectacle of such Bond films as THUNDERBALL or YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE, DEADLIER THEN THE MALE succeeds better hen most of the other glut of spy movies in that it has just the right amount of wry humor while not going for the broad humor that was most of the other films stock-in-trade.
    Hugh and Robert end up in the sunny Mediterranean and meet up with the film's arch-villain Carl Peterson, which is the name of Drummond's nemesis from the books and sadly doesn't have quite the gravitas of Auric Goldfinger or Ernst Blofeld but is played by the great English character actor Nigel Green (ZULU). Peterson resides in a mammoth castle and it's here the film attempts some Bond-like grandeur with a huge live size mechanical chessboard along with Peterson's harem of female assassins who include Suzanna Leigh (LUST FOR A VAMPIRE). Plus he's got Milton Reid (TERROR OF THE TONGS) as his hulking henchman.
   Seeing Richard Johnson here you can really see why he was chosen for the James Bond role. He carries the requisite charm and debonair air, but still has a streak of violence such as in a sequence where he crushes a would-be hit man's leg against a wall with his car. The film has some startling violence especially in relation to other spy films of the period. There's a scene where Penelope tortures Robert with burning matches and it's heavily implied that she tore his fingernails out.
    Even though this is Johnson's film, the real stars here are Elke Sommer and Sylvia Koscina. They make a terrific team and when absent from the screen you long for their return. Sharing a flirty sexual playfulness with their soon to be victims, Elke is more cold-blooded & aloof while Sylvia in an amazing performance (and which the movie makes very clear) is a highly sexually charged nymphomaniac with a penchant for S&M. Their banter back and forth is a delight with Elke continually confronting Sylvia about stealing her clothes. "And I told you before not to wear my negligee!"
   DEADLIER THAN THE MALE is out on a Region B Blu from Network or on a DVD with the slightly inferior (but still fun) sequel SOME GIRLS DO.

All above screen caps are from the Network Region B Blu-Ray