Like a good majority of these spy films of the era as well as the Lee Fu Manchu series, there’s bound to be an army of disciples under the main villain, in this case all scantily clad females in silks and bright colors and an island getaway that just might be rigged to go BOOM when called for. As long as she doesn’t fall in love with him I suppose it’s alright. With Nader playing the main agent and Frankie chasing girls it’s Nader who is captured by Sumuru and forced to yield to both her plot for world domination and her physical desires. Miss Rohm? She was in numerous films of the producers’ and why not, she was his wife. She’s grooming Maria Rohm to marry another, Klaus Kinski! Dubbed as usual, Klaus is cast as an unlikely President of Hong Kong and was another member of the Towers stock company. The pair will discover that Sumuru has married off eleven of her cells to some of the world’s most influential leaders. While Nader gets the majority of screen time, Avalon gets top billing. Nader is the more serioys agent of the two though he keeps his tongue firmly in cheek when faced with death at various points in the film from Canadian born director, Lindsay Shonteff. To prove it she has a woman put to death shortly after the opening credits. Death will come to any one of her all female army who falls in love with a man, a member of the opposition. Sumuru is out to rid the world of male domination. On top of that, Wilfrid Hyde-White (much like Persuader’s Laurence Naismith) turns up as a representative of Her Majesty who pulls the boys off their vacation and enlists them in the fight against Shirley Eaton’s Sumuru. A couple of C.I.A. operatives on vacation with the intention of bedding as many lovely ladies as is humanly possible in the time allotted. I say that because this Honk Kong filmed flick has George Nader and Frankie Avalon as just that. Secondly is that for a brief moment I thought I might be watching an episode of the Persuaders with Tony Curtis and Roger Moore as a couple of crime busting playboys. First off was the fact that yes, this feels like a Fu Manchu flick without the good doctor or Chris Lee for that matter though Lee was a regular in the Towers stock company. Towers seemed to have a talent for casting well known names in his productions that quite often were filmed in far away locations that worked to the advantage of his budgetary restraints. I’m not sure where Sax Rohmer fits into all this but apparently the title character of Sumuru was one of his creations and the film has me believing she was the female version of his world renowned, Dr. Does the name Harry Alan Towers mean anything to you? If you’re thinking of drive-in fodder from the late 60’s and forward that Towers produced by the dozens and wrote under the alias, Peter Welbeck than you’d be right.
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