If its Tuesday this must be Belgium - 1969

A friend who works in travel wanted to re-see this, so I got a copy for him - its passably amusing, dealing with a coach tour of Europe in the Sixties, taking in nine countries in eighteen days. The usual predictable comedy situations take place, ticking off each nation's stereotypes. The American tourists are mainly schlubs married to nagging wives, or rampant lechers .... at least Mildred Natwick, Murray Hamilton, Norman Fell try to create characters, while the leads are tour guide Ian McShane who of course has a girl in every country, and Suzanne Pleshette, looking and sounding marvellous here, as the romantic interest on the trip. The movie is Suzanne's all the way. 

Directed by Mel Stewart, the only point of interest here is the endless walk-ons by assorted European stars who turn up for a minute or less each. There's Anita Ekberg, Elsa Martinelli, Virna Lisi, Senta Berger, Catherine Spaak, Joan Collins (whom I did not even spot so tiny is her appearance), at least Vittorio De Sica gets a few minutes as a wily shoemaker. and Donovan sings the drippy theme song, and Patricia Routledge is the bossy London guide. 

There is one shot at the start of Ben Gazzara and John Cassavetes playing cards - why? it is like they are in a different film, Its hippies and mini skirts all the way, made palatable for the great family audience, 

It catches that late Sixties look and would actually be a good double bill with BUONA SERA, MRS CAMPBELL, that other late 60s look at American tourists in Europe ..... but its hardly essential cinema.

Beatles for sale - in vinyl

Now that vinyl records are back again - and a lot pricier than they used to be, a new collection of The Beatles albums in vinyl caught my attention, now that I can play vinyl again. Its so satisfying dropping the needle on the long-playing album, the way listening to music used to be, rather than pressing 'play' on a cd or streaming music.

The Beatles on vinyl collection starts with that classic ABBEY ROAD, at a decent price of £9.99, and there is a new album every two weeks, retailing at £16.99 - cheaper than buying them at a record store. The next one is SGT PEPPER'S LONELY HEARTS CLUB BAND - I will have to get that one too, though I have the CD, as I do of most of the fab's albums, and I may also have to get HELP, A HARD DAY'S NIGHT, REVOLVER and all their main albums again on vinyl. These may have been originally released as a box set, but this new collection allows one to just get the albums one wants, There are really a dozen original Beatles albums (if one includes THE MAGICAL MYSTERY TOUR,, originally a double EP), the rest of the 23 here are those compilations and anthologies. 

I will be back in 1967 with flatmate Stan and Linda, the girl upstairs, as SGT PEPPER unfolds again. All are in facsimiles of the original albums, with magazines and notes. We Beatles fanatics will be pleased (though of course back then in the late Sixties I also loved The Rolling Stones, Cream, The Yardbirds, The Moody Blues, The Pink Floyd, some Who, The Band, The Doors, Jefferson Airplane, The Lovin Spoonful, and those early Joni, Neil Young, Tom Rush, Aretha Franklin albums....).

Laughter in the Dark, 1969

Or: The Burton film that wasn't .... Tony Richardson's LAUGHTER IN THE DARK seems a very rare movie now, there are only 3 comments on it on IMDB - It had a short London run back in 1969, but I caught it on its one screening on BBC2 here, and it then vanished until I got a copy from my pal Jerry - a rare movie hound, always tracking down esoteric items.

This Tony Richardson film caused some publicity at the time, as it was began with Richard Burton who did a few scenes before being sacked for being drunk and causing problems. His replacement was the equally erratic Nicol Williamson, and its an ideal role for him, (he had just done HAMLET at The Roundhouse in 1968, also filmed by Richardson).

Nicol Williamson, Anna Karina and Jean-Claude Drouot star in Tony Richardson's bold adaptation of the Nabokov novel. Updated to 1969 London from pre-Hitler Germany of the early '30s, it's the story of a successful art dealer (Williamson) who becomes so enamored with a degenerate usherette/grifter (Karina) that he literally destroys his life. He loses his wife, his daughter, his job and his eyesight, and finally his life.

Williamson, in a role meant for and started by Richard Burton, gives a great performance, playing an even more obsessive Humbert Humbert. Drouot (from Agnes Varda's LE BONHEUR)  is excellent as the malevolent artist/gigolo who is Karina's real love. The casting of Karina is a bit odd and her French accent is never accounted for. Nevertheless she successfully conveys pure evil. It is one of the international roles she was doing at the time (as in JUSTINE, Visconti's THE STRANGER, MICHAEL KOHLHAAS etc). Siân Phillips (before she became a grande dame) is Williamson's no-nonsense wife. Cast also includes Peter Bowles, and it captures that late Sixties London high life perfectly. Like the films of Nabokov's LOLITA and KING, QUEEN, KNAVE (John-Moulder Brown label) it is another mordantly funny heartless tale, and maybe one of Richardson's most effective films.
A nice in-joke here is that the cinema where Karina works is the old NFT (National Film Theatre, now the BFI Southbank in London, where I idled away a lot of the Seventies) - as the cinema did not sell refreshments in the audiorium. (It was also used as the cinema in Winner's I'LL NEVER FORGET WHATS'ISNAME). 
As recorded previously, Richardson had a problematic '60s after the enormous Oscar-winning success of TOM JONES in 1963, bankrolling his and Woodfall's following films, as he indulged himself with Jeanne Moreau in MADEMOISELLE and THE SAILOR FROM GIBRALTAR, and the expensive  THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE in 1968, all of which under-performed, putting it mildly, so big things may have been expected of LAUGHTER IN THE DARK, but as Losey found out, the Burtons were losing their box office cachet by then ...

Bad Movies We Love: Justine

The little-seen JUSTINE from 1969 is one of those 'literary' 20th Century Fox movies - from the Laurence Durrell book, set in Alexandria during the 1930s - that somehow ended up a Trash masterpiece, practically ignored or laughed at back in 1969 when Fox eventually released it. George Cukor somehow created a movie of great moments - well I like it anyway - theres Anouk Aimee in one of her key post-UN HOMME ET UNE FEMME movies, looking sensational as always, and her little girl voice is part of her allure here. Dirk Bogarde is in his element as Pursewarden, young Michael York and Anna Karina too. It is all very lush and colourful using some of the location footage - Cukor keeps everything swirling, like he did with India in BHOWANI JUNCTION. Bogarde and Anouk were old friends from way back (she also appeared - wildly miscast - in the TV film of his novel VOICES IN THE GARDEN), and York had been in ACCIDENT with Dirk in '67. Here's what I wrote about it previously:

JUSTINE gets a couple of rare screenings as part of the Dirk Bogarde retrospective (only his post-1960 career) at the London National Film Theatre - I shall have to amble along and savour it on the widescreen again. It has been unseen for decades but it was a treat to get a copy recently, an enjoyable 20th Century Fox version of the Durrell books set in Alexandria and rather a botched movie. It was began in Tunisia in '68 with director Philip Strick (who did ULYSSES), but the project was then recalled to the Fox lot in California, with George Cukor taking over. Cukor and Aimee had one of THE famous feuds, as they did not get on AT ALL. The fascinating international cast though has Dirk Bogarde giving another terrific performance as Pursewarden, young Michael York as Darnley the narrator who falls in love with the mysterious Justine, also Anna Karina, John Vernon, Robert Forster, Philippe Noiret and Cliff Gorman as one of those dancing girls.

I see that

I just like the look of the film, those mysterious locations and Aimee being very enigmatic, looking alluring with that little girl voice, she seems incommunicative though, as though she does not want to be there – it was silly though to use the nude body double seen in long shot for the beach scene with the horses. Leon Shamroy makes it all look terrific and there is a nice score by Jerry Goldsmith. It really has the look and texture almost of a Von Sternberg picture, and remains one of the great good bad movies. I used to have a photo of Anouk as Justine on my wall back in 1969...by the late '60s everything Moroccan and Tunisian were suddenly part of the new hippie chic, as movies like DUFFY, MAROC 7 and PERFORMANCE showed.

It just looks terrific with those Tunisian locations, Vernon and Forster are the warring brothers Nessim and Narouz, and there are masked balls, belly dancers and lots of intrigue among the expats in Alexandria where everyone seems to be hiding guilty secrets. Bogarde is ideal as Pursewarden - by this time Anouk had become a very big star indeed, having been in movies since the late 40s, those Fellinis and UN HOMME ET UNE FEMME had added to her allure, but by the time JUSTINE she just wanted to be away with her new love Albert Finney, so it seems she had no real interest in the film and didn't film again until 1976 by which time her marriage to Finney was over.

York is the young narrator describing in the voiceover how Justine seemed to move in a golden glow..."blood-sister to a thousand tyrant queens". Everyone is in thrall to the fascinating Justine, the seemingly amoral wife of a wealthy Egyptian, biding her time in 1930s Alexandria with a slew of lovers, who spends her time looking for a lost child in the brothels of Alexandria, Anna Karina is the less fortunate prostitute who innocently lets slip Justine's real political interests to Pursewarden, after her romance with York has finished.


It is a condensed version of Lawrence Durrell's brilliant literary classic "Alexandria Quartet", about the sophisticated game of international intrigue and espionage in Alexandria between the first and second world wars with subtle character portraits from a range of British and European actors at the top of their game; it is just a perfect film of its time and place, late 60s, Europe and Hollywood combining. I can't wait to see it again .....

Two gentlemen sharing - very 1969

I am indebted once again to my friend Colin for unearthing this missing 1969 movie - a very bizarre view now, but capturing that late 1960s vibe in Swinging London perfectly. This was the era where black neighborhoods were seen as funky ghettos where all kinds of hip things went on - as per Hal Ashby's witty and hilarious 1970 THE LANDLORD.

An insecure Briton and a Briton of Jamaican descent share a London apartment together.

This though is a very British and downbeat take on a familiar story (the flipside perhaps of that jaunty BBC series about flat-sharing girls, TAKE THREE GIRLS or the 1965 THE PLESURE GIRLS), its from a David Stewart Leslie novel. Upper class Roddy (Robin Phillips) is looking for someone to share his very spacious flat and posh sounding Andrew (Hal Frederick) who is Jamaican is coming up against racism as he tries to find a flat to share. 
The guys seem to get on, and even the snooty owner of the house Rachel Kempson tries to get along with Andrew, but his noisy lovemaking with his girl-friend brings out her hidden racism and she even uses the "N word" .....

Second billed Judy Geeson does not appear for over half an hour as the dolly bird they meet at one of those funky parties in ghetto-land. Is Roddy really interested in her or is his latent gayness coming to the fore? A vicious gay at the party sets his sights on Roddy ..... we also meet Earl Cameron as the black step-father of Judy, and there are some excruciating scenes at the advertising agency where Roddy works - cue Norman Rossington sans underpants chasing various dolly birds. It all gets a bit Benny Hill ... not quite like John Boorman's 1970 Notting Hill race drama LEO THE LAST - there's one to re-see! 

The pacing seems rather off, some scenes drag on interminably, and the ending is a downbeat botch. No wonder this never appeared anywhere since 1969 .... director Ted Kotcheff went on to better things. Robin Phillips (who died this year aged 75 - see RIP label) became a well-known theatre director, particularly in Canada; as an actor he was rather limited, but was good in DECLINE AND FALL in 1968 and he was a DAVID COPPERFIELD. Hal Frederick kept working until 1980. 

For me, being 23 in 1969, it was "three gentlemen sharing" as I was sharing a large maisonette flat in Balham, South London (a very desirable gentrified area now), in '69/'70 with two friends - Stan and Joe. We all had a room each, living room, large kitchen and stairs down to the garden. [In that pre-internet, pre-DVD world, with just 3 black and white tv channels (colour had come in but most people did not switch to it until the early '70s, as I did in 1972), so music - albums and singles - was our main entertainment as well as going to the cinema and concerts]. 15 or so years later I was house-hunting with my then partner and this same flat was on the market, so we went and had a look - it was all exactly the same, but with the addition of central heating! 

Dolly

Interesting to see HELLO DOLLY again .... back in 1969 when in my twenties this seemed an elephantine old-fashioned film in that era of trendy counterculture, but we went along to see it all the same, and even had the soundtrack album. We were still on a Streisand high and she certainly delivers here, though of course is far too young for the middle-aged Dolly  Levi, a role ideally suited to Shirley Booth in the film THE MATCHMAKER (Mary Martin, Carol Channing and Pearl Bailey had successes as Dolly too). But hey it was a hit show, and 20th Century Fox certainly made it high wide and handsome. Gene Kelly directs (but not so that you would notice), it does though have some nice moments.

I like the opening number "Just Leave Everything To Me" as Dolly sets off for Yonkers to see her latest client, that well-known unmarried half a millionaire Horace Vandergelder. Streisand is perfect here gowned and hatted by Irene Sharaff (who also did the costumes for that other Fox extravaganza CLEOPATRA). Walter Matthau is ideal as the grouch (of course he and Streisand did not get on at all, putting it mildly), and young Michael Crawford and Danny Lockin (later, murdered by a stalker pickup) are fun as the juveniles Cornelius and Barnaby, Tommy Tune scores too. Barbra is a lot of fun actually as she vamps an guys the material.

"Put On Your Sunday Clothes" is a delicious number too, nicely staged and danced (and with a nod to MEET ME IN ST LOUIS) - then there is the huge parade and that finale at the restaurant with the singing waiters and Louis himself to reprise the title number.   On the downside, it looks too brash, the period detail looks trowelled on, the costumes look too new, the two girls at the hat shop - Irene Malloy and her assistant Minnie Fay - are excruciatingly winsome. It is a fun scene though when Horace comes calling, with the boys in hiding and Dolly on hand to get them dancing ..... 

Not a GREAT musical then, but fun to see now and then.  

Tea and sympathy for a midnight cowboy

MIDNIGHT COWBOY was on television again and I had to go back to it, after not seeing it in decades, and I have been reading about the 1956 TEA AND SYMPATHY in those old "Films and Filming" magazines I got a batch of recently which led to digging out the dvd of that .... both are very 'gay interest' titles and maybe time to re-evaluate them ...

MIDNIGHT COWBOY, 1969 -The streets of New York are mean and dirty and paved with broken dreams in this Oscar-winning (the first X-rated film to win Best Picture Oscar) tale about the friendship between Jon Voight's rather dumb Texan gigolo/hustler and Dustin Hoffman's ratty grifter. The performances are so good you find yourself truly caring about this poor, luckless pair, and the film's late '60s period detail has its own charm too, as we take in that scuzzy New York of the time, and the Warhol crowd (Viva and others are here).

This was a hugely important movie at the time, and we all loved it. I liked the book too, by James Leo Herlihy (author of ALL FALL DOWN), and Schlesinger's film is a good adaptation, if a bit confusing in the flashbacks to what happened in Texas, setting dumb stud Joe Buck on his odyssey to New York where he finds all manner of lowlife as his dreams of becoming a stud to rich ladies is soon in tatters. 

There is that amusing scene with pickup Sylvia Miles in a scene-stealing few moments, as well as Brenda Vaccaro as the rich girl in a fur coat, and preacher John McGiver, and that poor kid in the cinema ..... The ending is suitably affecting as the greyhound bus arrives in Florida. Voight was probably never as good again (though he won the Oscar for COMING HOME in 1977) and of course Ratso is one of Hoffman's defining roles. Waldo Salt's screenplay and Schlesinger's direction are first rate as is the music score by John Barry and that song "Everybody's Talkin'" by Nilsson. It all defines the late Sixties.

TEA AND SYMPATHY probably defines the mid-Fifties too, a successful play by Robert Anderson, filmed by Vincente Minnelli in 1956, with the Kerrs - Deborah and John (no relation) recreating their stage roles, along with Leif Ericson as Kerr's husband and sports coach. 

Tom Lee is a sensitive boy of 17 whose lack of interest in the "manly" pursuits of sports, mountain climbing and girls labels him "sister-boy" at the college he is attending. Head master Bill Reynold's wife Laura sees Tom's suffering at the hands of his school mates (and her husband), and tries to help him find himself.

No wonder the play is not revived these days, it is excruciating to today's sensibilities, and the film never gets screened either - I don't recall it ever playing in Ireland either during my time there - it may have been banned!. I have been planning to return to Minnelli and his musicals and dramas, and have several lined up: THE BELLS ARE RINGING in 1960, KISMET, BRIGADOON and his comedy that I like a lot (purely for the Harrisons, Rex and Kay) 1958's THE RELUCTANT DEUBTANTE and his 1957 DESIGNING WOMAN - so there will be more on these soon - see Minnelli label for THE BANDWAGON  (maybe my favourite musical ever) and others like his 1962 drama TWO WEEKS IN ANOTHER TOWN. Of course his other dramas include SOME CAME RUNNING, HOME FROM THE HILL, that remake of FOUR HORSEMEN OF THE APOCALYPSE and his delightful comedy THE COURTSHIP OF EDDIE'S FATHER, all during his great period of the 1950s and early 60s. We caught up with GOODBYE CHARLIE too a year or so ago, as per preview, again- Minnelli label.

Back to TEA AND SYMPATHY: Vaguely effeminate boy (sensitive features, wavy hair, bouncy walk) with 'unmanly' interests (poetry, classical and folk music) and 'unmanly' accomplishments (sewing, gardening, playing the guitar) is believed to be "not a regular sort of fellow" by his father, his bruiser of a housemaster, and his fellow college students, every single one of whom sport crewcuts, and enjoy mountaineering, swimming, ball games, horsing around, strength contests, boasting about non-existent sexual conquests and smashing their tennis shots.... It is very easy to laugh at this sort of thing,of course, and years on TEA AND SYPMATHY is a laughable antique, its characters being so blatantly contrived to suit the author's ends.

Of course the censorship problems of the time (Homosexuality was a taboo subject in '50s Hollywood) required the film to be bracketed by a new start and end showing that Laura regretted her "sacrifice" of giving herself to Tom to prove that he was normal and not homosexual (gay was hardly the word here). Tom is now married as he revisits his old school, and gets that letter from Laura from her ex-husband .... and we flash back to how it all began, of course a lot of the boys and the coach seem more gay than poor "sister boy" Tom who is happy sewing with the women and listening to music, rather than playing sports and being one of the gang. It is all deliciously quaint now, but Minnelli gives it his usual gloss and makes it look good with good scope compositions and his usual flair for decor. 

Deborah is as one would expect sensitive, stong and understanding as Laura. Edward Andrews is at his most venal as Tom's father (a narrow-minded crude character) who is disappointed in him and has a horror of him "being different" and wants the coach to make a man of him! Perhaps the play (and Minnelli's movie) can be seen as a ruthless portrayal of the "straights" - Tom's father is a really dumb man, and most of the boys and the other women are insensitive types. There's Jacqueline De Wit again (obnoxious Mona Plash in Sirk's critique of small town American society: ALL THAT HEAVEN ALLOWS) horrified at the idea of a boy sewing. 
A problem for me is that John Kerr is just not very interesting as an actor, here he is 25 playing 17, and he is all wrong (he was also wrong in SOUTH PACIFIC) - he often comes across as sullen and obnoxious, no wonder the other guys don't want him around and tease him by calling him "sister boy", he also has an annoying monotone voice. I would rather have seen Joan Fontaine and Anthony Perkins (who replaced the Kerrs on stage) in the roles. Its certainly a fascinating oddity now proving that Tom cannot possibly be gay if he slept with Deborah Kerr, as her adultery (for which she must pay) cures him of worries about his masculinity. On, those Fifties ! 

I suppose the film has historical importance. It provides a good perspective for comparing gaylife now to the mid-1950s - when this movie was made. Of course a generation ago the subject could not be hinted at - here in the TEA AND SYMPATHY era gayness is a problem to be avoided, in the early 60s ADVISE AND CONSENT era only the bad guy was gay or queer and of course in VICTIM the good guy had been gay once, was sorry about it, and hoped he would never do it again .... ADVISE AND CONSENT review at gay interest label, or May 2012 Archive.
The film is representative of people's sentiments then as the success of the play showed - apart from Deborah Kerr and Joan Fontaine playing it in New York, Ingrid Bergman did it in Paris. 

Another ship of fools ....

Based on the true story of a ship carrying German-Jewish refugees which was sent to Havana in 1939 by the Nazis but was denied permission to land anywhere. The ship was eventually obliged to return to Germany, where certain death awaited its passengers. This terrible outcome had been cynically anticipated by the Nazis when granting permission for the voyage in the first place.

The 1970s was that era of all-star disaster movies: the US studios gave us EARTHQUAKE, THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE, AIRPLANE 75 and all the rest, while in England TV mogul Sir Lew Grade assembled several all star packages, some of which were amusingly awful like our favourite THE CASSANDRA CROSSING (Sophia! Ava! Ingrid Thulin! Alida Valli! Burt Lancaster! John Philip Law! and more) and others like ESCAPE TO ATHENA was just silly, but VOYAGE OF THE DAMNED in 1976 was meant to be a serious drama but it is so crammed with names that one just sits there bemused by it all - "look, there's Julie Harris talking to Wendy Hiller" - but a lot of them have nothing to do and some barely get a look in: 

James Mason, Katharine Ross as a prostitute, Orson pops in a scene or two, as does Ben Gazzara, Helmut Griem reprises his evil Nazi (a la CABARET and Visconti's THE DAMNED), Malcolm McDowell, playing nice for once, is the young steward having a romance with Lynn Frederick (the last Mrs Peter Sellers), her parents are Lee Grant (who goes over the top spectacularly as the berserk mother cutting her hair in the concentration camp style) and Sam Wanamaker. Other well known faces here are Nehemiah Persoff and Maria Schell (also barely seen), while Jonathan Pryce is one of the persecuted refugees hoping for a new life. 

Topping the bill are Faye Dunaway and Oscar Werner (his final role) - Faye as an embittered wife displays her haughty glamour and gets to wear a monacle and strut around while her husband, Werner, practically reprising his role in SHIP OF FOOLS plays an esteemed Jewish surgeon. The captain of the "St Louis" is none other than Max Von Sydow. It should be a grim drama but the all-star cast and plodding direction of Stuart Rosenberg render it interesting for all the wrong reasons. Kramer's 1965 plodder SHIP OF FOOLS, which we caught and reviewed a year or so ago (Simone Signoret label), did it all much better. 

THE SHOES OF THE FISHERMAN in 1969 was also an all-star spectacular, helmed by the reliable Michael Anderson - one of several that year (BATTLE OF BRITAIN, OH WHAT A LOVELY WAR) - from a novel about the first Russian pope and how he tackles world poverty, from a novel by Morris West - which is another long, if entertaining, plod to see now, but at least it employed Anthony Quinn as the pope, Laurence Olivier as a wily Russian official, Oscar Werner again as another doomed priest, Gielgud as another ailing pope, and many, many more. 

Delon, Gabin et le Clan des Siciliens

We like a good French thriller and Henri Verneuil's THE SICLIAN CLAN is certainly a corker. It re-teams, in 1969, Alain Delon and Jean Gabin with director Verneuil, the trio had also delivered a very satisfying stylish thriller, in lush black and white widescreen, in 1963's MELODIE EN SOUS SOL, That was about robbing a casino in Cannes - this one is only hi-jacking a passenger airline carrying an expensive cargo of jewels. One laughs aloud at the audacity of it, but they carry it off .... and its astoundingly well done. Ennio Morricone's score is a perfect fit too, The film has not dated at all, and still works now with those three icons of the French thriller genre.

Hi-jacking the airplane is perhaps too easy, compared to now, and there is certainly an extra frisson now seeing the plane being diverted over New York city to where they land it on a closed highway when the gang's associates are waiting to get those jewels ...

We start with weary (as usual) Lino Ventura as police inspector Le Goff on the trail of cold-blooded murderer Sartet (Delon) who has shot two policemen. Sartet makes a daring escape from that police van with a miniture drill and is soon hidden away by the Manalese clan, who need him for their latest robbery. Headed by Gabin impassive as ever here, as Vittorio Manalese the mobster who controls his enterprises and his family with an iron hand - family includes two sons and a daughter-in-law, Irina Demick. I like the all red and white 60s apartment where they hide Delon, who feeling frustated after two year's inside, is soon cosy with a local prostitute in a shabby hotel, but of course Le Goff''s team are on his trail and he makes another daring escape.

Gabin teams up with an old associate from New York and they inspect the jewel exhbition they are interested in and its security arrangements. We think this is going to be yet another ordindary hoist - but no, the only way to get the jewels will be to intercept it on the flight to New York. This will be a major enterprise but they have the means and the know-how. Things get complicated though when Delon and Demick are caught in a compromising position by the old man's grandson .... 

After the robbery the gang disperse to various destinations, with Delon staying in New York, but is lured back to Orly airport in Paris, to collect his share of the loot, only it does not work out like that. Le Goff is also waiting, and the final showdown features Delon and Gabin with Demick in between - who, if any will survive. Its a lot more complex than this, with a large cast, and is certainly an enjoyable treat now. What though happened to 'Mr Evans' the Englishman needed on the flight, whom the gang intercept when he arrives and Delon takes his place - will the plane take off before Mrs Evans who has been trying to find him realises something is wrong and is interviewed by Le Goff and she sees that photo of Delon/Sartet on the wall? 
Verneuil is an ace hand at thrillers, with maybe not the depth of those Melville classics like LE SAMOURAI or LE FLIC or LE CERCLE ROUGE (see Thrillers/French labels for reviews). We like this one a lot and it will bear re-viewing as I want to share it with friends.
Next French: maybe Delon and Signoret in THE WIDOW COUDERC, from Simenon, in 1971. 

Julia ? On the Beach ? The Arrangement ?

This week I am looking at and revaluating some "prestige" films that were  big in their day,  but do they still stand up now ? JULIA, ON THE BEACH, THE ARRANGEMENT.

JULIA was one of those hits from 1977 which we all went to at the time, and have been rather forgotten about since - THE TURNING POINT was another one - I will return to that later, when I have re-seen it. 

Looking at JULIA now it screams "prestige cinema" but it sees to have been has been debunked - just how much of it is true? Did Lillian Hellman make it all up? - its part of her memoir "Pentimento". It does all seem rather phoney now. Every scene is designed to be impressive, starting with the older Hellmann fishing in her boat at dawn, then that perfect period beach shack she shares with writer Dashiell Hammett (Jason Robards, to the manner born) as they fry fish on the beach - Cape Cod presumably. It is 1934 as we see from the calendar on the wall - the time of the Great Depression and Roosevelt's New Deal. Hellmann is also a writer (after her success with the play THE CHILDREN'S HOUR), but with writer's block as we see her grappling with that old typewriter. Jane Fonda is actually ideal here, in her 70s prime, like a young Katharine Hepburn. The fastidious Fred Zinnemann carefully fashions it all - I like his other great movies like FROM HERE TO ETERNITY, THE NUN'S STORY, THE SUNDOWNERS and he always gets superior perforances from his actors, and so it is here ....

Then the plot begins - we get flashbacks to her youth with her great friend Julia, with her wealthy grandmother Cathleen Nesbitt, and then their years at Oxford - all golden spires, and Vanessa Redgrave radiant as Julia striding around in her tweeds  while declaiming the brave new future to come ... but then of course the War intervenes .... and Julia devotes her life to fighting fascism, putting her life in danger ...

The central scene has Lillian meeting Julia in a restaurant, but they have to be very careful in case they are being watched. Julia is now on crutches .... and has a mission for Lillian to smuggle money (in her hat!)  As a thriller though its rather suspense-less. Max Schell appears as Julia's friend Johann, and the young Meryl Streep has that minute appearance. There is that train journey - will Lillian get the money throiugh safely?. But then the plot goes haywire, and suddenly Julia is dead. Lillian goes to see the body in a suburban funeral parlour (with Maurice Denham) and tries to find the baby Julia supposedly had.   

It is all still watchable, but I think we have to take it with a large pinch of salt. Redgrave and Robards both won Best Supporting Oscars here and it was nominated for a slew of other including best picture and director. It was Zinnemann's last big success (he did just one more), great score by Georges Delerue, and lensed by Douglas Slocombe. Fonda of course is a far prettier Hellman. 

ON THE BEACH

I really cannot find much to say about ON THE BEACH, that big one from 1959 by Stanley Kramer from the Nevil Shute novel. Shute's novels usually featured big ideas: aviation in NO HIGHWAY IN THE SKY, war in A TOWN LIKE ALICE and only the end of the world in ON THE BEACH. Kramer like Kazan, was big in the 50s and early 60s, with those self-important movies on big themes, like THE DEFIANT ONES, INHERIT THE WIND, JUDGEMENT AT NUREMBURG (with their great star turns) and this one set in Australia. Even Gregory Peck and Ava Gardner cannot make it sing as the ponderous affair also drags down Fred Astaire and Tony Perkins as the young naval husband. It is actually set in 1964 as atomic war wipes out humanity in the northern hemisphere; 

one American submarine finds temporary safe haven in Australia, where life-as-usual covers growing despair, as they wait for the radiation to reach them. The only interesting sequence is the submarine returning to San Francisco to investigate a tapping noise (which turns out to be a trapped blind cord), but where is everybody as there is no sign of dead bodies?. Did everyone just vaporise? The end coda couldn't be more in your face: that slogan "There is still time, brother"! That must have wowed them in 1959 as The Cold War escalated, it was one of the main films of that great year - but it simply does not stand the test of time and is a colossal bore now. One simply wants to fast-forward through most of it. 

THE ARRANGEMENT. Elia Kazan of course had his great decade in the 1950s, but like a lot of other once important directors may have felt left behind by the late sixties. THE ARRANGEMENT is from his own novel and it is all just too much as Kazan throws everything at us. Kirk Douglas is the business executive sick of the rat race his life as become as he deliberately crashes his car in that grim traffic scene. Deborah Kerr, getting rather matronly by then, is his worried steely wife doing all she can to help him rehabilitate himself, as he keeps flashing back to his exciting mistress Gwen - Faye Dunaway at the height of her glossy '60s glamour - who keeps taunting him about what he could have been. 

She does have that memorable line: "The screwing I'm getting is not worth the screwing I am getting". But it is all too much and too overwrought as Kirk fixates on his old Greek father Richard Boone and his nude frolics at the beach with Gwen ...

Eddie is a very rich man who has everything he wants; money, family, success, but a car crash causes him to reevaluate the life he leads. Searching for the happiness he lost, he remembers his one-time lover, Gwen, even as his wife conspires to take his fortune...

Like AMERICAN BEAUTY, Kazan's story looks anew at The American Dream and finds it wanting; looking at it now it is not as bad as some reviews said at the time, there's lots of interesting ideas here, but Kazan throws it all at us without being able to streamline it.  Right: Dunaway and Kazan.

Grand Guignol quartet ...

Let us now turn our attention to some prime ham examples of those grand guignol bloody comedy thrillers dished up by Hollywood in the 1960s and '70s, featuring those older actresses who were determined to go on working. It all started of course with Robert Aldrich and WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE? followed by HUSH HUSH SWEET CHARLOTTE and Bette's British efforts THE NANNY and THE ANNIVERSARY, while Joan went on to STRAITJACKET and BERSERK! while Tallulah went with DIE DIE MY DARLING!. Olivia may have been the best with LADY IN A CAGE in 1964, still very effective and shocking, in the best way. The late '60s though gave us campy thrills with WHATEVER HAPPENED TO AUNT ALICE? followed by WHATS THE MATTER WITH HELEN? and WHOEVER SLEW AUNTIE ROO? with juicy roles for Geraldine Page, Ruth Gordon, Debbie Reynolds, Shelley Winters, Agnes Moorehead et al. Then in 1973 a French film went even further - TRIO INFERNAL, another Romy Schneider-Michel Piccoli starrer .... roll them:

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO AUNT ALICE? is delicioius fun now, with Geraldine Page and Ruth Gordon going head to head, produced by Aldrich and directed by Lee H Katzin.

As Aunt Alice, Ruth Gordon applies for the job of housekeeper in the Tucson, Arizona home of widow Claire Marrable in order to find out what happened to a missing widowed friend, Edna Tilsney. The crazed Page, left only a stamp album by her husband, takes money from her housekeepers, kills them, and buries the bodies in her garden. 

We discovered Geraldine Page's great screen roles here last year: her Alexandra Del Lago in SWEET BIRD OF YOUTH and Alma Winehouse in SUMMER AND SMOKE, both by Tennessee Williams. Gordon has long been a favourite from HAROLD AND MAUDE, LORD LOVE A DUCK, ROSEMARY'S BABY, and The Dealer, Natalie Wood's mother, in INSIDE DAISY CLOVER .... Both ladies are in their element here, along with Mildred Dunnock as the previous housekeeper that Gordon comes searching for as she is hired as the new housekeeper. It starts like a black comedy with widow Page finding out she is penniless after her husband's will is read. Page plays crazy perfectly, with her airs and graces, as her madness takes over. Rosemary Forsyth and Robert Fuller are the attractive couple next door ... and there is that dog sniffing at the contents of Mrs Marrable's garden ...  I loved every minute of it.

Even better is Curtis Harrington's 1971  WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH HELEN? with its perfect 1930s period feel. 

Two middle-aged women move to Hollywood, California after their sons are convicted of a notorious murder and open a dance school for children eager to tap their way to stardom.

Debbie Reynolds is dynamite as Adelle, the glamorous one who soon lands nice rich guy Dennis Weaver - its one of her best roles and she gives it her all. Shelley Winters is Helen, the frumpy one who too is going demented. Irish actor Micheal MacLiammoir has a juicy role as Hamilton Starr - though we do not find out what happens to him after he follows Helen upstairs .... 

Agnes Moorehead, an old friend of Debbie's,  also has a great scene as Sister Alma - a Aimee Semple McPherson type evangalist. Then there are the tots with their Shirley Temple and Mae West routines. Its a shame the poster gives away the climax, but its a marvellous roller-coaster ride along the way. Scripted by Henry Farrell who created the genre with the BABY JANE script back in 1962. Harrington also directed the odd 1967 thriller GAMES with Simone Signoret and James Caan and Katharine Ross (see 1967 label for review) and also the 1972 follow-up WHOEVER SLEW AUNT ROO?. Shame about the bunny rabbits though ...

This was filmed in England with some good thespians having fun here: Sir Ralph Richardson,  Liionel Jeffries,  Hugh Griffith, Rosalie Crutchley, Pat Heywood, Michael Gothard, and young Mark Lester, after his hit in OLIVER!. 

This is a retelling of the old tale of Hansel and Gretel, but set in England in the 1920s. To the children and staff at the orphanage, Auntie Roo is a kindly American widow who gives them a lavish Christmas party each year in her mansion, Forrest Grange. In reality, she is a severely disturbed woman, who keeps the mummified remains of her little daughter in a nursery in the attic. One Christmas, her eye falls upon a little girl who reminds her of her daughter and she imprisons her in her attic. Nobody believes her brother, Christopher, when he tells them what has happened, so he goes to rescue her ... 

Its an American-International replete with a creepy old mansion, and lots of spooky thrills. A Trash Classic then, like the others here. Shelley of course is over the top as usual, though not as much as in the Italian grand guignol by Bolognini: GRAN BOLLITO (review at Winters label).  Now over to France:

LE TRIO INFERNAL, 1974. Like the equally grim THE HONEYMOON KILLERS this is based on an actual story, Georges "Sarret" Sarrejani, a lawyer in Marseilles, and his two lovers, German sisters Philomene and Catherine Schmidt, started their "work" in the 20's. They used to sign life insurances for dying people and keep the money. Sarret shot M.Chambon, another swindler, and Chambon's lover, Noémie, to steal their money... 
But, in order to get rid of the bodies, he placed them in a bathtub and cover with sulfuric acid - when the corpses were just a black kind of glue, Sarret and sisters Schmidt put the glue on buckets and pour the content on the garden. After another murder all three of them were arrested in 1930 and in 1934, April 10th, Sarret was guillotined, the sisters were released after the War. 

This gruesome tale - no camp histrionics here - makes for a gruesome film as directed by Francis Girod ... Romy once again shows how compelling she was, and is another great teaming with Piccoli.  A bit sick though for popular tastes.