a harry alan towers production

Courtesy ibīdem, we discover the 1967 spy thriller featuring a female supervillain, demonstrating that megalomania is not an exclusively male trait, titled The Million Eyes of Sumuru.
Starring Shirley Eaton (later Bond Girl), George Nader and Frankie Avalon, the plot revolves around a plot for world domination by replacing world leaders with members of her Order of Our Lady. Eaton would reprise her role in the 1969 The Girl from Rio and there was a remake titled just Sumuru in 2003 from director Darrell Roodt—this time set on an remote off-world colony removed from the rest of human civilization where a matriarchy has taken hold. Such role reversals have fun, pulpy implications and are for a large part relegated to the past until one realizes how such gender stereotypes are baked in and how even the most progressive offerings often have truck in those same, tired ideas—exhibit one being the unceremonious end to Star Trek’s original run with “Turnabout Intruder” where James T Kirk and Doctor Janice Lester switch bodies with the implicit message that putting a woman in charge leads to hysteria.