Forgotten '60s movies: Blue

 Plus 1999's THE LIMEY with its flashbacks to 1967's POOR COW ....

Thanks to Colin for this terrific shot of Terence Stamp in the 1968 western BLUE, a lost rarity now it seems, not seen in decades or available anywhere. I saw it at the time though. 

A Mexican bandit, part of a gang led by his father, goes on a raid into the U.S. He falls for a beautiful woman and decides to leave his life of crime and settle down with her. Eventually his father and the gang come back for him, and he finds himself torn between his love for the woman and his loyalty to his father and his fellow gang members.

 

Routine western plot then, with the oddity of Terence as the blond bandit (Redford was initally cast, but walked). A good supporting cast: Joanna Pettett, Karl Malden, Ricardo Montalban. One of the interesting films directed by Silvio Narozzano (GEORGY GIRL, that dreadful version of LOOT in 1970). [Edit: I have just seen BLUE is actually available, one for the next cart then. 

THE LIMEY. Take three ‘60s icons: Terence Stamp, Peter Fonda and Warhol’s Joe Dallesandro, add in clips of young Stamp from Ken Loach’s seminal 1967 drama POOR COW, and let Steven Soderbergh direct this 1999 revenge drama. First of all, it looks great with those LA locations and Big Sur and the high life high on those canyons. Stamp, still looking terrific in middle-age here, is the vengeful father out of prison, arriving in America to find out how the daughter he loved but neglected died – seemingly at the hand of well-protected record producer Fonda – capturing that sleazy persona perfectly. 

Stamp though is laughably unstoppable, a virtual cyborg laying waste to Fonda’s minions, including that poor guy who is tossed over the balcony …. till he finally gets to confront Fonda himself. The clips from Loach’s film are well-used, but the Stamp there is not the same character here; and Lesley Anne Warren is good support. I did not recognise Warhol’s Joe till I re-ran it. A neat, brisk little thriller then, Limey of course being American slang for an Englishman; Terry indulges in his own English-speak to confuse those Yanks. 

How to be effortlessly hip: Terry with interviewer Michael Parkinson -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_YmX6QBjEY

Next Forgotten '60s film: THE LEATHER BOYS.