Deadlier Than the Male

"Ralph Thomas's Deadlier Than The Male (1966) fared rather better than most of the other James Bond-derived movies of the mid-1960's, including Thomas's own clever Agent 8 3/4 -- Deadlier Than The Male actually made it onto network television in prime time in America, for multiple showings across several years; by contrast, most of the other movies in this vein got relegated to late-night local television almost as soon as they crossed the Atlantic. This DVD gives a good account of the reason -- it looks sensational, and it plays with a wry, tongue-in-cheek sense of humor that's as close to the spirit of the Bond movies as any of the imitators ever got. The image, letterboxed at 2.35-to-1 to recapture the movie's Techniscope aspect ratio, is a dazzling account of Ernest Steward's cinematography, which is a veritable celebration of London and the Mediterranean locales. The soundtrack, featuring music by Malcolm Lockyer that recalls some elements of John Barry's early Bond scores, and features a title song co-authored by John Franz, of Dusty Springfield fame, that's reminiscent of ""Thunderball"" and sung by the Walker Brothers, is mastered cleanly and, for a change, at a high volume level. Indeed, the whole transfer has been done with extraordinary care, matching the work that goes into the Bond discs (except, of course, for the absence of any bonus features), that even if this were a bad movie, the disc would be worth owning. As it happens, the movie is a good one as Bond imitators go, and one of the very few to hold up across the decades. The disc opens automatically to a very simple menu -- there are no extras but there are a dozen well-placed chapters."