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The Million Eyes of Su-Muru
Sumuru, die Tochter des Satans / The 1000 Exes of Su-Muru / The Slaves of Sumuru / Sumuru
UK 1967
produced by Harry Alan Towers for Sumuru Films
directed by Lindsay Shonteff
starring Frankie Avalon, George Nader, Shirley Eaton, Wilfrid Hyde-White, Klaus Kinski, Patti Chandler, Salli Sachse, Ursula Rank, Krista Nell, Maria Rohm, Paul Chang, Essie Huang, Jon Fong, Denise Davreux, Mary Cheng, Jill Hamilton, Lisa Gray, Christine Luk, Margaret Cheung, Louise Lee
screenplay by Kevin Kavanagh, Harry Alan Towers (as Peter Welbeck), based on the story by Sax Rohmer, music by John Scott
Sumuru
review by Mike Haberfelner
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Female supervillain Sumuru (Shirley Eaton) sends out her girls to get
hold of some of the most powerful men of earth - but somehow, she failed
to get her hands on Boong (Klaus Kinski), president of some banana
republic or other ... mainly because he changes his lovers like he changes
his underwear. However, the Secret Service has gotten wind of Sumuru's
plans, so Sir Anthony (Wilfrid Hyde-White) sends CIA-agent (!) West
(George Nader) along with playboy Carter (Frankie Avalon) to Hong Kong to
take care of the business.
Once in Hong Kong, West seemingly can't help it but to be captured by
Sumuru's girls immediately, but invariably it's either the effect of his
charms on Sumuru's girls (who tend to fall in love with him in a split
second) or Carter to bail him out. Finally though, Sumuru has him dragged
into her headquarters ... and falls for him at least a bit - but not
enough to forget her plans: She wants to make him Boong's chief of
security, so he can smuggle Helga (Maria Rohm) into his residence to kill
him. The plan almost works, but Helga has of course fallen for West, so
she can't do Sumuru's bidding no more.
To vent her frustration over her failed plan, Sumuru has West tortured
and plans to kill him, but Helga has managed to hook up with Carter, and
of course she gives him the location of Sumuru's secret headquarters ...
well, what can I say, everything ends happily for the good guys - but
Sumuru might have escaped to return in a sequel.
After Harry Alan Towers experienced quite some success with the Fu
Manchu-series, it was perhaps inevitable that he tried his
hands on Sax Rohmer's Sumuru as well - after all, the
premise was very similar, and quite in tune with the wave of Eurospy
movies produced back in the day in the wake of the unequalled success of
the James
Bond-series of films - and you simply cannot deny the
influence of the James
Bond-movies on this one, what with the exotic locations, sexy
girls in brief outfits, George Nader trying to duplicate 007's kind of
cool, and of course Goldfinger's Shirley Eaton in a lead role.
However, at times the movie tries to outdo James
Bond when it tries to develop a farce-like atmosphere - which
is of course commendable in theory ... on film though, it becomes a bit
heavy-handed, especially since the thing is not especially well-written
and rather poor on the joke-side of things.
In all, it's a film every Eurospy-fan will of course want to see
because of its weird 60's flair coupled with the genre-immanent
inadequacies - it's just not really a good film.
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