More British treats from the 1950s ...

Away from art-house movies and cult and trash items, and some interesting new releases, we also like those old-fashioned, genteel British movies of the 1950s - as reviewed at British, London labels. We grew up on these back in Ireland in the Fifties and feel an affection for them. The 1940s and the 1960s may have been the great decades for British films (with Lean, Powell, Losey, Schlesinger, Lester, Dearden etc) but the 1950s were a lot of fun too with those Rank Organisation and Ealing items. Here is another round-up:

OUT OF THE CLOUDS, 1955. A busy day at London Airport – follow the lives and loves of the crew and passengers.

This 1955 concoction from Ealing Studios is a delight for anyone wanting to see what flying and airports were like back in the ‘50s. Basil Dearden directs and keeps several storylines in the air (get it?) – as we follow dependable Robert Beatty, James Robertson Justice and Bernard Lee as airport types, young pilot Anthony Steel tempted to smuggle stuff past customs, and stewardesses like Eunice Gayson, Melissa Stribling and Isabel Dean as they give individual attention to the passengers, who include Esma Cannon, Marie Lohr, Abraham Sofaer and gambler Sid James. This is one airport one would happily spend all day lounging in. David Knight and Margo Lorenz are two passengers on different planes who meet and suddenly fall in love, but the airport staff play fairy godmother so they finally get to be on the same flight …. Can’t see it happening at Heathrow ! A great airport movie of that era like JET STORM, SOS PACIFIC or THE CROWDED SKY (see Airlines label).

MY TEENAGE DAUGHTER, 1956. Magazine editor Valerie Carr lives in London (a perfectly 50s home in posh Highgate Village) with her two daughters –Jan, aged 17, and Poppet, 13. When Jan is invited to a party at The Savoy she meets dashing young Tony Ward Black (“the Debs’ Delight”) who is mad about jive, owner of a Bentley, and supposedly running through a legacy. Attracted to the daring young man, she rejects Mark, a young farmer who is in love with her. But it soon beomes apparent to everyone but Jan that neither Tony’s fortune, nor even his name, may be his own and her association with him will lead her into delinquency and danger.

America may have had REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE and ROCK AROUND THE CLOCK and THE BLACKBOARD JUNGLE on those problem teenagers and their new music, but it was MY TEENAGE DAUGHTER here in the UK – they have now called it TEENAGE BAD GIRL perhaps to make its sound more alluring, but this kitsch delight delivers in spades. Dear Dame Anna Neagle, a war widow, frowns as teenage Jan starts going to basement dives and learns to jive – this sinful dance drives teenagers wild! as they dance to the same number (“Get With It”) over and over. 

Jan’s young man is not all he seems and she is soon in prison and before the judge, as the rich old aunt Tony goes to borrow money from drops dead and he is accused of murder. Will Jan get off and be reconciled with her mother? And her young sister Poppet and her adorable dog? This is all perfectly enjoyable, another Herbert Wilcox production starring his wife. There is something likeable about Dame Anna and she excels here, with Wilfred Hyde-White as her magazine boss, Norman Woodland and Kenneth Haigh. (This opus was also fondly called MY STONE AGE MOTHER by those witty Sunday Times critics.) 

NO TIME FOR TEARS, 1957. Doctors and nurses at a children’s hospital confront the challenges of their profession.

A pleasant tear-jerker directed by Cyril Frankel (no, not Herbert Wilcox this time) this features Anna Neagle as the understanding matron and this time Sylvia Syms is the young nurse. Flora Robson is the older wiser nurse, and Anthony Quayle is the surgeon and George Baker, Michael Hordern, Joan Hickson, Rosalie Crutchley, Angela Baddeley and Joan Sims as another young nurse also feature. It is in widescreen and colour and shows us the hospital staff getting involved with a pair of unruly children whom they save from an abusive mother who cannot cope with them. Various dramas ensue but all ends happily for Christmas. Maybe the success of this led to the television series (and subsequent film) LIFE IN EMERGENCY WARD 10 ?  

Sylvia Syms - a great British dependable, like Muriel Pavlow or Yvonne Mitchell, is 80 this year (like Dames Maggie Smith, Judi Dench and Eileen Atkins, and still keeps working (as in the recent series REV). She was also terrific as Bogarde's puzled wife in VICTIM in 1961 and FLAME IN THE STREETS, ICE COLD IN ALEX, WOMAN IN A DRESSING GOWN etc. We barely recognised her as the Queen Mother to Helen Mirren as THE QUEEN in 2006).  

WONDERFUL THINGS, 1958 – Another of those ‘The British Film’ reissues (in slim case dvd boxes) re-issuing long unseen rarities from the British ‘50s and ‘60s. This is another of those Anna Neagle-Herbert Wilcox productions, featuring their singing star Frankie Vaughan, who was popular at the time (he made 4 films for the Wilcox’s before heading to Hollywood and Marilyn Monroe in LET’S MAKE LOVE, as per Frankie Vaughan label). This 1958 piece of nonsense finds him and Jeremy Spenser as fishermen brothers in Gibraltar, who are not too successful at making money from the fishing or the tourists. Pretty Jackie (later Jocelyn) Lane (who went on to star with Elvis in TICKLE ME) pouts as Pepita, the local beauty who loves Carmello (Vaughan) but while he tries to be successful in London, she and his brother Mario (Spenser) get entangled … Spencer, that forgotten actor (he was the young prince in THE PRINCE AND THE SHOWGIRL, as well as in SUMMERTIME, ROMAN SPRING OF MRS STONE, FERRY TO HONG KONG and others) comes across like a British Sal Mineo here. 

Frankie finds it tough in London as he tries being a waiter, and busks to cinema queues before working in a fairground. Enter rich girl Jean Dawney with her society friends and wealthy father, Wilfrid Hyde Whyte …. Jean promptly falls for Carmello but will he choose her or go back to Pepita and where does Mario fit in? This is amusing tosh, like a  woman’s magazine story of the time, but the ending is surprisingly nice. It’s a lot of fun, like Wilcox’s previous with Vaughan: THESE DANGEROUS YEARS. Frankie went on to star with Dame Anna in the 1959 THE LADY IS A SQUARE.

ALIVE AND KICKING, 1958. Why does IMDB persist in listing this as a 1964 title? –  it was released in 1958, I knew I saw it then when a kid, and now the new dvd cover confirms it was released in December 1958 (when Richard Harris was doing small parts in Irish-based movies like this – by 1964 he was A Star working with Antonioni in Italy and Peckinpah in USA, and being difficult with both). Well, whatever, this remains a blissful British comedy full of great players.

Dora, Rosie and Mabel, room mates at a home for elderly ladies, discover they are to be split up and placed in other homes. Dismayed by the prospect of separation, they decide to run away together. Heading for a remote island off the Irish coast where it seems they can live without the fear of being parted, the three fugitives quickly turn the situation to their advantage.

Dame Sybil Thorndike is in her element here, ably assisted by Kathleen Harrison and Estelle Winwood. It is hilarious how they make their escape and end up running things at that Irish island, where they create a cottage industry of knitting Aran sweaters which are sold in London. They also have three ideal little cottages side by side, which are actally owned by visiting American Stanley Holloway, who conveniently vanishes, and the locals include Marjorie Rhodes and Liam Redmond as well as Harris. Good to see it on a proper dvd at last – a treat for anyone who loves British comedies of the ‘50s with all those eccentric players. Also directed by Cyril Frankel.

I now see Tommy Steele’s 1958 THE DUKE WORE JEANS and TOMMY THE TOREADOR are on dvd, along with Max Bygraves' CHARLIE MOON, BOBBIKINS and SPARE THE ROD, but maybe that’s a step too far, despite my affection of 50s British movies

Jet Storm, 1959

AIRPORT is of course the grand-daddy of bomb-on-airplane movies, but JET STORM a proficient little British thriller (all wrapped up in 84 minutes) from 1959 is a neat entry in these "doomed flight" movies popular in the '50s and is one I had wanted to re-see for a long time. Nearly every one of the 32 people on the plane is a well-known face from the time, and director Cy Endfield (he also co-scripted and wrote the theme song, sung by Marty Wilde) keeps it moving nicely, like he did with HELL DRIVERS, his tough thriller in 1957 also headlining Stanley Baker (with the likes of Patrick McGoohan and Sean Connery in support).

This was also the year of SOS PACIFIC, another one I liked then, and the very silly JET OVER THE ATLANTIC, while 1960's THE CROWDED SKY had the required Warner Bros gloss and cast, the '50s also had THE HIGH AND THE MIGHTY, a John Wayne starrer from 1954 and another Sunday matinee favourite then BACK FROM ETERNITY with Anita Ekberg in '56 where the plane crash-lands among head-hunters! (see Airlines label for reviews of these).

Richard Attenborough plays Ernest Tilley, a man who lost his daughter in a hit-and-run accident. He tracks down the man responsible for the accident and boards the same plane, threatening to blow up himself and everyone on board as an act of vengeance. What follows is an Airport-type movie with all the passengers having their own little subplots and fears.

This is the first All Star British Disaster Epic. The action takes place on an airliner bound for New York and the passenger list reads like a who's who of up and coming names - Diane Cilento, Virginia Maskell, pop star Marty Wilde with starlet Jackie Lane, future TV star Paul Eddington, established stars - Mai Zetterling, Elizabeth Sellers, Megs Jenkins, David Kossoff, and acting royalty in the form of Dame Sybil Thorndyke, having fun with comedian and goon Harry Secombe, and tv celebrities Bernard Braden and Barbara Kelly. Before he became a "grand" director, Richard Attenborough specialised in weasely roles like this - he is equally slimey in SOS PACIFIC that year. George Rose is splendidly loathesome as the man who killed Attenborough's child (he does a GOLDFINGER!), as is Hermoine Baddely (aptly named Mrs Slatterly) as the lush widow goading on the men like Patrick Allen to attack and find the bomb. Some passengers of course become hysterical and some try to take the law into their own hands. Virginia Maskell is the capable stewardess and you could not wish for a better captain that Stanley Baker - who was quite busy that year what with Losey's BLIND DATE (Baker, Losey labels), and forgotten items like YESTERDAY'S ENEMY and THE ANGRY HILLS, before going on to HELL IS A CITY and GUNS OF NAVARONE in 1960. Again, it shows how different flying was back then, the roomy seats and space the passengers have ... like in PHONE CALL FROM A STRANGER, a Bette Davis drama from 1952.

1959 remains one of the best movie years as far as I am concerned, as good as 1939 certainly - in fact every year from 1957 through to 1964 is, and nicely coincided with my teenage movie-going years. JET STORM should have a proper dvd release, its a popular British film of that year, up there with ROOM AT THE TOP, I'M ALL RIGHT JACK, EXPRESSO BONGO, Losey's BLIND DATE, Dirk's THE WIND CANNOT READ, LIBEL and THE DOCTOR'S DILEMMA and interesting dramas like THE JOURNEY, SHAKE HANDS WITH THE DEVIL etc, and all those 1959 hits from BEN HUR to SOME LIKE IT HOT plus euro-titles like EYES WITHOUT A FACE, THE 400 BLOWS, LES DRAGUEURS etc, as per 1959 label, while also that year the likes of Antonioni, Hitchcock, Fellini & Visconti were preparing their 1960 masterpieces ...

Summer re-runs: a lesser Bette !

I had never seen it but it was always considered one of the lesser Bettes after ALL ABOUT EVE, but TCM here dug up PHONE CALL FROM A STRANGER, 1952 which proved quite compulsive. A talky (very) drama with that lovely early '50s 20th Century Fox black and white look - before they went over to CinemaScope and De Luxe Color - written by Nunully Johnson and directed by that favourite of mine Jean Negulesco, it turns out to be another of those "doomed flight" scenarios popular that decade (JET STORM, JET ACROSS THE ATLANTIC, BACK FROM ETERNITY (Anita Ekberg label), SOS PACIFIC (Trash label) and of course THE CROWDED SKY - review at Troy Donahue label).

Our lead here is Garry Merrill, still looking good after ALL ABOUT EVE, who gets chatting to some others on a cross-country flight: showgirl Shelley Winters who looks great here, and her name is Binky Gay! on her first (and last) flight, moody Michael Rennie drinking and nursing his own secret, and that very annoying salesman Keenan Wynn - which increases one's resolve never to converse with strangers when flying. It is no secret that the plane crashes in bad weather and Gary is the only survivor of "the gang of four" - so he tracks down the families and loved ones of the other three ... and we find out all about them. There is exensive footage on the plane (and flying was certainly more roomy in those days) and all those flashbacks. Rennie had caused a fatal crash from reckless driving and blamed his passenger, alienating his wife (Beatrice Straight) who had to cover for him and their son does not know but blames the mother .... Binky (Shelley) was at loggerheads with her old actress mother-in-law but was setting her up as Bloody Mary in SOUTH PACIFIC with Oscar & Hammerstein! - take that Evelyn Varden!  

Bette appears in the final scene (just like she did as Catherine the Great in JOHN PAUL JONES in 1959) as the now crippled wife of Wynn whom she had left to run off with a playboy but he abandons her when she bangs her head while diving and is going to be left paralysed, but the annoying Keenan comes back to look after her.   So, nice little stories all tied together nicely with those plush Fox values and a cast and director who know how to deliver material like this. Pity there was not more for Bette to do, another missed opportunity after EVE then. She would have been getting into her mid-'40s here but, like those other early '30s stars, was already considered "old" or middle-aged ....

The Crowded Sky

Back to 1960 when flying must have been more of a pleasure than it is now when we have to deal with crowded airports, tight security checks, airports which are really shopping malls, and all that is before one got on the plane where then there seemed to be more civility not to mention more legroom and bigger seats! This was a popular era for "doomed flight" scenarios as more people took to the skies, if they were crowded in 1960 imagine what they are like now (I live not far from Gatwick airport with its 800 flights a day - thankfully I don't hear them, but the plane lights look nice at night...).

So, we had '59's JET STORM with Stanley Baker as the pilot with a mad bomber (Richard Attenborough) on board, SOS PACIFIC where a rackety seaplane has to crash land near a nuclear test area, can they stop the test in time?, the ropey JET ACROSS THE ATLANTIC, and my favourite the 1956 BACK FROM ETERNITY where a jet (containing Robert Ryan, Anita Ekberg, Rod Steiger) crashes in the jungle near a tribe of head-hunters - again, can they get away before the natives attack? Topping all these was THE CROWDED SKY and of course 1954's THE HIGH AND THE MIGHTY which was far too ponderous when I finally saw it a while back, and of course 1963's COME FLY WITH ME with its 3 hostesses looking for romance is also a nostalgic treat.

Like the others THE CROWDED SKY has if not quite an-star cast, a raft of B-players. Here we have Dana Andrews as pilot of the airliner flying west from Washington to LA, while Efrem Zembalist Jr is the navy pilot flying from San Diego to Washington, with young sailor Troy Donahue on board. Both planes are on a collision course as they should be flying at different altitudes as is normal with flights on these routes. The wooden performances and variable special effects simply add to its kitsch factor; some audiences can't help laughing at it, but nevertheless enjoying themselves at the same time. It would all be so much better done now, the actual collision is obviously done with models, but it set the template for those AIRPORT movies that followed in the 70s, AIRPORT 75 being particularly choice (and of course featuring Dana and Efrem again but this time as pilots in reverse, with Dana flying his small plane into Efrem's jet, leaving stewardess Karen Black to fly the plane until Charlton Heston drops in). Of course AIRPLANE in 1980 sent the whole genre sky high!

On THE CROWDED SKY we get little snippets of the passenger's stories: characters rarely develop in films like this, and most are little more than stereotyped sketches: glamour girl Jean Willes chasing old beau Keenan Wynn (who does not recognise her), the man with the dying wife, Patsy Kelly as a showbiz agent, the couple too shy to speak to each other etc. Stewardess Anne Francis is romancing co-pilot John Kerr (as dull and uninteresting as ever here) who is at loggerheads with pilot Dana. We get several flashbacks to Efrem's failed marriage to calculating Rhonda Fleming (top billed female but with only a couple of scenes).

Tension builds slowly as Jospeh Pevney directs and it all looks good in that Warner colour. A perfect time capsule of its time then, and amusing to see again now. What a wonderful experience flying used to be; beyond slick obvious entertainment, THE CROWDED SKY has the added dimension of evoking nostalgia for a vanished way of travel. Now for the PAN AM series!

Ooh that Ekberg

Those big-bosomed blondes of the '50s were all the rage by the middle of the decade, Jayne Mansfield was fun in THE GIRL CAN'T HELP IT and WILL SUCCESS SPOIL ROCK HUNTER? - probably her best two and then there was Mamie Van Doren - but for me the most mysterious and attractive was that Swedish import Anita Ekberg who certainly got a lot of attention and movie roles in the '50s and '60s as Fellini showcased her in both LA DOLCE VITA and BOCCACCIO 7O. She was married for some years to British actor Anthony Steel. She also lit up WAR AND PEACE in '56, some Martin and Lewis films and lots of programmers like these here:



SCREAMING MIMI, 1958 - Exotic dancer Yolanda Lang sees a man get shot moments after he tries to knife her in a shower, so she goes to a psychiatrist for therapy. He falls in love with her and takes over her life, although she continues dancing at a nightclub. The club's tough owner is none other than Gypsy Rose Lee who also dances and sings and entertains young cuties - “I didn’t realise it was tea (slang for dope apparantly) for two” says Phil Carey, who is trying to solve the mystery of the maniac who is stabbing these dancers. Each victim had purchased a sculpture of a woman called the Screaming Mimi… is Yolanda the next in line or does she know more in her troubled mind? Then there is her dog who protects her … I saw this when I was about 12 and it certainly made an impression, so it has been fascinating to catch up with it again.

From the opening showing the amazon Anita emerging from the sea and taking a shower as the maniac with the knife kills her dog and then attacks her, and that amazing dance of hers which we get to see twice, it certainly holds the attention. Gypsy Rose Lee also does a shimmy and sings “Put The Blame of Mame”. It is 77 minutes of ‘50s noir showing that dark underworld of nightclubs and lonely rooms. Yolanda wanders through it totally distracted with only that great dane for comfort… Phil Carey becomes obsessed with her, as is the doctor from the sanitarium who thinks he is controlling her.

It is really an early version of those Italian giallo lurid thrillers which came to fore in the 60s and 70s. Here Anita Ekberg is the show and she does not disappoint, with that mane of hair and her dance [its on YouTube]. If you like pulpy noir, psycho-killers and hot exotic dancers this Columbia B-movie is one not to miss, and as my friend Melvelvit says in his IMDB review, it could have influenced PSYCHO as “the Hitchcock also has a surprise ending concerning the star and a shower stabbing”, and was also shot in black and white with that pulp B-movie look!

More desert exotica in ZARAK a ’56 release by Warwick Films who seem to be an English company released through Columbia – they often featured Victor Mature and/or Anita Ekberg (SAFARI, INTERPOL, THE BANDIT OF ZHOBE etc). We get both here along with Michael Wilding (with Eunice Gayson as his wife), Bonar Colleano and old reliables like Finlay Currie. – there is also a young Patrick McGoohan. It is set on the North West Frontier between India and Afghanistan, with much crossing back and forth, as Mature is Zarah Khan who becomes a notorious outlaw after being flogged for falling for his despot father’s latest wife, Anita – who does not have much to do but looks sensational as she does a few dances, and of course with that obligatory ruby in her navel (see top). We get all the usual uprising against the British Raj with Wilding as the very correct officer and he and Zarak grow to appreciate each other before the final conflict. There are also a few more floggings. The same team of executive producer Albert Broccoli, writer Richard Maibaum and director Terence Young would provide the first Bond adventure DR NO a few years hence, also with Gayson as the first lady to hear that “Bond, James Bond” reply.



BACK FROM ETERNITY - a good 1956 entry in the "doomed flight" movies, its the one where the plane crash-lands in the jungle where head-hunters are. Can they fix the plane and get out in time as they are picked off one by one? I saw this as a kid and it was quite scary actually, so it certainly made an impression. It's a John Farrow film and his second film on the same story. The motley cast here include Robert Ryan and Anita as a shady lady down on her luck but of course she looks stunning. Rod Steiger has one of his early roles as the criminal being taken back to be tried, Keith Andes and Phyllis Kirk make up the crew and the other passengers include Beulah Bondi. Anita gets a few good moments before the exciting climax, as Steiger predictably goes into over-drive.

'60s ...(2) Trash classics

Pauline Kael wrote of “the higher trash and the lower trash”. Some films which are quite enjoyable but are classics of all that is shoddy and second-rate and cliche-ridden and monumentally banal. But enough high-faluting snobbery, sometimes one needs a good dose of lower trash fun, here are a few choice ones …

LOVE HAS MANY FACES – a deliriously exotic artefact from 1965 and currently my favourite Lana Turner epic. The best thing about it actually is the theme song sung by Nancy Wilson. Lana, looking glazed throughout, is dressed by Edith Head (though that’s no recommendation anymore after the other period films like A HOUSE IS NOT A HOME she dressed in atrocious early 60s styles) and plays a wealthy playgirl in Acapulco married to ex-beach boy gigolo Cliff Robertson. They drink a lot as the police find the body of another beach boy who it seems Lana knew. Hugh O’Brian in skimpy speedos lingers while waiting to get off with Lana, as he trains his room-mate, another bottle blonde beach boy, in how to be a gigolo. Enter Ruth Roman [right, with O'Brian], a dame who knows the score and is willing to pay for her pleasures, with her pal Virginia Grey. Stephanie Powers is the young innocent trying to find what happened to the dead beachboy, and she and Cliff are drawn together. They all go off to a bullfight and ….. but no, I cannot describe how this delirious farrago ends. Its certainly one to cherish though, as directed by Alexander Singer who also did A COLD WIND IN AUGUST and PSYCHE 59. Ruth is terrific, I must see more of her ...

SYLVIA – One of those Joe E Levine [the Mogul of the Mediocre] mid’60s melodramas which the studios were turning out in a desperate attempt to get with it as the Swinging 60s took off, but ended up looking more dated than ever. Thank heavens the like of BONNIE AND CLYDE were just around the corner. Here, old hand Gordon Douglas directs Carroll Baker (in her Harlow phase) as the poetess Sylvia West who is engaged to Peter Lawford (playing a sleazeball as usual) who hires private eye George Maharis to track down the background of the mysterious Sylvia. This is quite enjoyable actually as cue cameos from Edmund O’Brien, Joanne Dru as an ex-hooker who married well, Ann Sothern hilariously overblown, Aldo Ray as Sylvia’s abusive father, Viveca Lindfors as a possibly lesbian librarian, Nancy Kovack as a brassy showgirl and Lola Diamond, a very scary drag queen. Baker is quite nice here as the rose-growing poet untouched by her sordid past, and there is a perfect theme song by Paul Anka. Ok, its trash but in a good way. Its in black and white with that nice mid-60s feel.

HARLOW – The movie I love to hate - only THE OSCAR is worse, and why, pray, is it called HARLOW? We learn nothing about the real Harlow – her first and later marriages are not mentioned, and neither are Gable, Powell, Hughes or any of her films. Carroll Baker is nothing like Harlow, there is no attempt, apart from a few old cars, to re-create the 1930s and Baker looks like a 60s vamp and seems to be doing the twist at one stage, to Neal Hefti’s muzak score. The hair is all wrong too. The men are all over the hill: Mr Sleaze Peter Lawford is the husband who kills himself, Red Buttons the agent who promotes her, and one trusts Angela Lansbury and Raf Vallone got handsome paychecks and enjoyed themselves for appearing as her parents. Poor Jean, frustrated in love, picks up a guy and full of disgust falls drunk into the surf at Malibu, catching pneumonia as the waves wash over her …. And then she dies prettily in hospital. Was that really what happened to Harlow ? Another 1965 release, directed – or should I say assembled – by hack Gordon Douglas, and bizarrely scripted by John Michael Hayes. At least VALLEY OF THE DOLLS is presented as a trash classic, but was this really meant to be taken seriously? It is full of hilarious lines like Carroll's Harlow saying "Oh mother, they only want me for my body" or "A bedroom with only one person in it is the loneliest place in the world". As Pauline Kael said: "No lonelier I hope than cinemas showing HARLOW"!

HARLOW – the OTHER HARLOW film from 1965, a cheapo effect in black and white, but its actually a whole lot better. Carol Lynley is made up more in the 1930s style and looks more like Jean than Baker. Its competently directed by Alex Segal, Ginger Rogers is a barn-storming Momma Jean with Barry Sullivan as her husband, with Hurd Hatfield, Efrem Zimbalist and it does try to recreate the ‘30s with Hermione Baddeley as Marie Dressler and look-alikes for Laurel and Hardy and others. It’s a whole lot of fun actually. Both HARLOWs are essential if you want to run a trash classics all-nighter for your friends’ amusement ….

WHY MUST I DIE? – I wouldn’t bother with rubbish like this normally, but given it as a swop recently (by my IMDB buddy Timshelboy), I had to have a look. It’s a real curiosity now, this 1960 knock-off of I WANT TO LIVE two years earlier, was directed by Roy Del Ruth and produced by and stars Terry Moore in another grim downbeat look at capital punishment. Its hilariously awful in every respect as Terry apes Susan Hayward’s suffering in Robert Wise’s far superior classic. Terry is a good girl gone wrong but decides to leave her sleazy hood of a boyfriend and moves away and becomes a classy chanteuse in an upmarket supper club – but her past catches up with her when Eddy and his new moll – Debra Paget – track her down and force her into helping them rob the joint. Things go wrong when Debra shoots the owner, Terry’s current beau, and Terry gets framed for the murder and sent down. Unrepentant bad girl Debra (who snarls her way through her scenes and wears Capri pants and stilettos) then shoots a helpless blind man while raiding a grocery store and she too end up in the slammer but won’t confess to the murder which Terry, who is now on death row, is condemned for. Will the other inmates break mean Debra down in time before Terry fries in the electric chair? It sets out the rituals of execution, as in the Wise film, and the ending is a surprise. Tawdry cheap noir doesn’t get much cheaper.

SOS PACIFIC – Guy Green’s 1959 thriller is a neat British entry (rather like a superior B-movie) in the “doomed flight” type of movies that were popular back then (Warner’s THE CROWDED SKY though remains the best, but BACK FROM ETERNITY also delivers, I must try and re-see JET STORM, also 1959 where Richard Attenborough has the bomb on the plane, piloted by Stanley Baker, with a great cast of the time). This one features a rackety sea-plane piloted by dependable John Gregson with Pier Angeli as the stewardess, tough guy Eddie Constantine is the anti-hero and Richard Attenborough in one of the sleazy roles he played back then is the con man on the run. Add in Eva Bartok as a playgirl down on her luck and Jean Anderson as the prim older lady. Our motley crew crash land near a deserted Pacific atoll (in shark-infested waters….) and discover its going to be the target for an atomic bomb test in a few hours. Can they disable the signal in time ….. Its nicely worked out – I enjoyed it when I saw it as a kid, fun to see again now.

A GIRL NAMED TAMIKO - In between churning out those action hits like THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN and THE GREAT ESCAPE John Sturges also helmed some surprising choices like the Lana Turner sudser BY LOVE POSSESSED and this choice item from 1962: A GIRL NAMED TAMIKO. I can only presume Sturges and the cast signed on for the trip to Japan [probably a rarity back then], as a lot of it does look like it was shot there and not by the second unit.

1962 was one of Laurence Harvey’s busier years what with this, THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE and WALK ON THE WILD SIDE and that unseen Cinerama Grim(m) film. Here he is, if you please, as a half-Russian and half-Chinese but is still the same Laurence Harvey we know and love, going through the film with a pained expression (maybe to signify the Chinese or Russian part of his character?) as the photographer willing to go to any lengths for that visa to America. Its set in Tokyo among the expat colony, but Miyoski Umeki would seem to be only real Japanese involved. France Nuyen as Tamiko, whom Larry falls for, is actually half-French, half-Vietnamese (and she looked a lot prettier as Liat back in SOUTH PACIFIC). Martha Hyer though sizzles as the girl from the Embassy (a variation on her country club girl roles) with the hots for Larry. Good to see Michael Wilding and Gary Merrill gainfully employed in supporting roles. An interesting curiosity then, courtesy of Hal Wallis. It isn't really that racy even if the poster screams: "He was half oriental, but he used the women of two continents without shame or guilt!"

WALK ON THE WILD SIDE – Harvey again in another lulu from 1962 and one of the best trash classics ever, as directed by Edward Dmytryk with that pounding Elmer Bernstein score and that great credit sequence with the prowling cat. (Jazzman Jimmy Smith also had a hit with this theme). Laurence Harvey, as expressionless as ever, hunts for his lost love Capucine in the bordellos of New Orleans in the 1930s, from the well-known novel by Nelson Algren. The movie is quite tame though but the cast are fascinating: young Jane Fonda as Kitty Twist, on the road with Harvey and later in the cat house owned by Barbara Stanwyck who wants haughty sculptress Capucine for herself. There is something fascinating about Capucine, I just like watching her. Anne Baxter has a supporting role here as Teresina, the Italian café owner, who would like Harvey to stay on with her. It all comes to a steaming climax at Stanwyck’s cathouse … one to savour then.

THE CARPETBAGGERS – I really enjoyed this when re-saw it recently. It’s a trash classic made by experts: again directed by Dmytryk in ‘64, script by John Michael Hayes, dressed by Edith Head and another Bernstein score (which sounds rather like a rehash of Walk On the Wild Side). Its enormous fun as Jason Cord (the man you love to hate, as portrayed by George Peppard) discovers why he is such a heel and tries to destroy everyone. Its of course a variation on the Howard Hughes story as novelised by Harold Robbins, and is much more fun than Scorsese’s attempt on the Hughes story in THE AVIATOR. Alan Ladd turns in his final role as the cowboy Nevada Smith (who Steve McQueen also portrayed), Carroll Baker is rather wasted as the Jean Harlow type star, Martin Balsam and Robert Cummings deliver great characters and Martha Hyer comes in late and is sensational, then there is Elizabeth Ashley as Peppard’s real love interest. It plays like a cartoon strip and is terrific fun, even now.

THE SINGING NUN – this 1966 monstrosity has been kept hidden for the last 40 or so years here in the UK, until TCM UK decided to haul it out of mothballs for our enjoyment. Is there a more enjoyably awful bad movie? Its tragic in a way, considering what happened to the real Singing Nun, whose “Dominique” was one of the first records I bought as an early teen. Here we have Debbie Reynolds in her worst performance as the simpering sister playing her guitar in Belgium. Add in Greer Garson as the condescending Mother Superior, Agnes Moorehead as the crotchety nun and IMITATION OF LIFE’s Juanita Moore is lost as the happy black nun, Chad Everett is Debbie’s ex-beau, and Ricardo Montalban is an unsufferably cheerful priest. Katharine Ross puts in an early appearance. The ending is downright laughable as Sister Debbie gives up her music as it was taking her away from her vocation, and there she is like a Madonna (or Madonna) holding up a naked black baby in Africa as the natives adore her. Old hand Henry Koster makes this one a religious movie to laugh at. The laugh is on MGM if they thought their happy nun film would equal the success of 20th's SOUND OF MUSIC!

THE LOVE MACHINE – Perhaps the trashiest of trash classics? This 1971 potboiler by Jack Haley Jr from Jacqueline Suzann’s novel was an absolute treat to finally see this year! Like THE OSCAR it is just appalling on every level, as impassive Robin Stone (John Philip Law, left with Cannon and Hemmings) schemes to become the head of a televisison station, using everyone in his way, but meet his match in Dyan Cannon as the ruthless wife of tycoon Robert Ryan (who lends dignity to his role). Dyan demands a key to Law’s apartment so she can call in whenever she wants but naturally she is not pleased to drop by and find him having a threesome in the shower with two young nubile lovelies, so of course she douses the bed in petrol and sets the room ablaze. Then there is David Hemmings enjoying himself hugely as the very gay and camp photographer (a twist on his BLOW-UP persona perhaps?) who also has the hots for John – the film comes to a hilarious climax as he, his pink-clad boyfriend, Dyan and Law fight for an incriminating bracelet that will prove Law is a “fag” (the word must have been in common usage then, as Dyan tosses it around all the time) which means Dyan can get him sacked from his tv post! The girl playing Amanda the model is also terrible and comedian Shecky Greene is unbearable [like Tony Bennett in THE OSCAR]. A hooker is brutally beaten up by our ‘hero’ and as for the homophobia … there is though a nice Dionne Warwick theme song!

Perhaps I should also endeavour to catch up with DOCTORS’ WIVES, THE OTHER SIDE OF MIDNIGHT and ONCE IS NOT ENOUGH ? Though too much trash can make one very queasy …

A QUIET PLACE IN THE COUNTRY – an “arty” choice to finish with. This Elio Petri (he also directed INVESTIGATION OF A CITIZEN ABOVE SUSPICION) 1969 film reunites lovers Vanessa Redgrave and Franco Nero from CAMELOT and is a riot of late 60s symbolism – any film that begins with Franco Nero in his underpants tied to a chair with rope, as Vanessa enters casually removing her panties and then proceeds to bite his nipples has to be worth a look. Is it a dream or one of the mad artist’s delusions? It makes one wonder if respected elderly thespians (Franco and Vanessa are married now) look back in amazement at what they were paid to do as the Swinging 60s drew to a close and the counterculture collapsed. If so, they will have a ball watching this one. Vanessa went on to perform that deformed nun in Ken Russell's THE DEVILS while Franco stripped and went Romany in THE VIRGIN AND THE GYPSY. Redgrave and Nero are presumably more staid now as they are reunited in this new rom-com LETTERS TO JULIET...

Here's a link to Franco in a jockstrap from one of those euro movies that never showed up here in London: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-lOPgxDDQc

Next: back to art house: Antonioni's IL GRIDO, Visconti's SANDRA, Bergman's THE MAGICIAN, Truffaut's LE PEAU DEUCE.