Some Girls Do (1969)

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General		Extras
Category	Cult	Theatrical Trailer Gallery-Stills Gallery
Rating
Year Of Production	1969
Running Time	87:45
RSDL / Flipper	Dual Layered	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	1,2,3,4,5,6	Directed By	Ralph Thomas
Studio Distributor	Madman Entertainment	Starring	Richard Johnson Daliah Lavi Beba Loncar James Villiers Vanessa Howard Maurice Denham Robert Morley Sydne Rome Adrienne Posta Florence Desmond Ronnie Stevens
Case	Amaray-Transparent-Dual
RPI	Box	Music	Charles Blackwell

     Beautiful female assassins commanded by arch criminal Carl Petersen (James Villiers) are killing scientists involved in building Britain’s latest supersonic passenger aircraft, the S.S.T.1. Hugh “Bulldog” Drummond (Richard Johnson) is called in by the Air Ministry to investigate. Aided, and sometimes abetted, by the ditzy blonde Flicky (Sydne Rome), while opposed and abedded by the Baroness Helga Hagen (Daliah Lavi) and the sexy Pandora (Beba Loncar), the trail leads Drummond to North Africa. There, with a “comic” sidekick from the British Embassy (Ronnie Stevens) and a powerboat with special “insasound” equipment, Drummond once again comes face to face with Petersen, his deadly assassins and his guard of beautiful female robots in his island headquarters. Can Drummond seduce enough of Petersen’s woman to be in a position to escape and thwart Petersen’s plans to destroy the S.S.T.1 on its maiden flight?

     Some Girls Do was the follow up to Deadlier Than the Male, itself one of a number of thrillers made in the 1960s to cash in on the success of the James Bond films, such as Our Man Flint, The Silencers or even Modesty Blaise (all from 1966). We have a handsome, suave, sophisticated and very cool leading man, pretty women in bikinis, an evil master criminal, exotic locations and very Bond type music including the theme song, this time sung by Lee Vanderbilt. While Some Girls Do retained Richard Johnson as Hugh “Bulldog” Drummond, unfortunately the deadly leading ladies Daliah Lavi and Beba Loncar lack the glamour and star power of Elke Sommer and Sylvia Koscina from the earlier film, while the arch criminal Carl Petersen, previously played by Nigel Green with some presence and menace, has transformed into the less than impressive James Villiers. The production values have also decreased since the first film – the models and the special effects, such as explosions, are very cheap looking.

     These are not the end of the problems. While Deadlier Than the Male had a reasonable plot, a bit of mystery and tongue in cheek humour, the plot of Some Girls Do is all over the place, the film has no wit at all and the humour, such as it is, is campy. Thus, it is pretty much limited to foreigners with funny accidents, comic antics and lines such as: Drummond “I see you’ve gone right off explosives”; Petersen “Unfortunately for Pandora, she does so enjoy a good bang”. It is camp and unamusing, that is unless you’d find the sight of Robert Morley in earrings as Miss Mary, a cooking instructor, as amusing as the film does. And while in Deadlier Than the Male Drummond shares a tongue in cheek romantic seduction scene with Elke Sommer, who he rejects, in Some Girls Do all women, real or robot, seem to find him irresistible and beddable.

     Some Girls Do was the follow up to Deadlier Than the Male (1967) and repeated the same quasi James Bond formula of a handsome, suave, sophisticated and very cool leading man, pretty women in bikinis, an evil master criminal, exotic locations and Bond type music. Sadly, however, Some Girls Do is not a patch on Bond, or indeed on Deadlier Than the Male. It lacks plot, wit and humour, not to mention genuine star power.

Video

     Some Girls Do is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.56:1 and is not 16x9 enhanced. The IMDb does not list the original aspect ratio, however I’d think the original ratio was 1.85:1 as many scenes in Some Girls Do look cropped.

     The print is otherwise not too bad. It is quite soft and contrast could be better, the colours are flat and muted and some skin tones looked a little pale. However, blacks are good, shadow detail is fine and brightness even. There are a number of artefacts throughout the film; some are quite noticeable but they are not as frequent or obvious as to be distracting.

     There are no subtitles.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

     Audio is English Dolby Digital 2.0 mono encoded at 224 Kbps. The film was released with a mono mix. I heard no cracks or hiss, the dialogue is clear and the effects acceptable, if understandably flat, especially the explosions.

     Lip synchronisation was occasionally off.

     The score by Charles Blackwell was James Bondish and orchestral which suited the film without being memorable in any way. The theme song Some Girls Do, sung by Lee Vanderbilt lyrics by Don Black, was slightly better than the theme for Deadlier Than the Male, but not by much.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Image Galleries

     Literally hundreds of colour and black and white images. They are silent, but advance automatically approximately every 3 seconds. I lost count, but there are about 660 stills, a huge number if you like this sort of thing. The sections and the time it takes to get through them are:

• Stills (16:18)
• Portraits (6:18)
• Behind the Scenes (6:27)
• Artists Tests (0:57)
• Original Publicity (0:36)

Theatrical Trailer (2:36)

Collector’s Card

     A two sided publicity card for the film is included with the DVD case.

     I did not find a current Region 1 US edition of Some Girls Do. Our version is region free and would be the same as the version available in the UK. Stick to the local release.

     Some Girls Do is not a patch on Bond, or indeed on Deadlier Than the Male. It lacks plot, wit and humour, not to mention genuine star power.

     The video is cropped, but otherwise not too bad, the audio is good and the extras include more stills than you can poke a stick at.

     Some Girls Do is the second film in a two disc set with the first Drummond adventure from the same director and producers, Deadlier Than the Male (1967).

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall