Italy or Greece? the Quinn report ....

Still undecided on a Greek or Italian holiday? Let Anthony Quinn show us how in 2 trash items:

She was the most famous woman in the world. He was a peasant, a pirate, a shark. THE GREEK TYCOON is the story of their fiery romance. Anthony Quinn portrays Theo Tomasis - the world's richest and most flamboyant shipping magnate. He's a man who seemingly has everything he could want - who reaches out and captures his final prize: lovely, expensive, legendard Liz Cassidy, widow of a president of the United States. This lavishly mounted drama, which focuses on the international jet set's continual struggle for love and power, was filmed in Corfu, Athens, London, New York and Washington, D.C. against backdrops of breathtaking beauty and luxury. 

It is also a Trash Classic, maybe the last of the great bad films. Dating from 1978 this has it all in spades - Quinn and Bisset ideal as Onassis and Jackie O, with James Franciscus as the assasssinated president (at least they did not try to duplicate Dallas ...), Edward Albert is the son, Raf Vallone as his brother and rival ship magnate, Marilu Tolo the Callas figure, not given much to do here, and neither are Luciana Paluzzi and Camilla Sparv as the discarded Mrs Onassis. We spend our time mainly on yachts and helicopters (don't these rich people have actual homes they spend time in?), as wily Tomasis (Onassis in all but name) lures the President to his yacht by dangling a British ex-Prime Minister (Ronald Culver, maybe playing Macmillan) as bait, while he gets to know the fabulous Liz - Bisset playing Jacqueline to the manner born. The high life looks rather dull actually but it is all fabulously trashy entertainment, as helmed by the once-interesting J. Lee Thompson. 

Thanks, Poseidon!

The best moment is the end - the rich magnate, alone on some Greek island (it looks like Mykonos) drinks, feeds a dog and dances as the sun goes down, and he relates to the ordinary Greeks around him.  He has everything but has nothing really ... as a Trash classic it is almost as bad as Lana's LOVE HAS MANY FACES or PORTRAIT IN BLACK or Susan and Bette's WHERE LOVE HAS GONE or VALLEY OF THE DOLLS or those HARLOW films or THE CARPETBAGGERS (Trash label),  not in their league but it will do for now.  Back in 1978 of course I was too much the movie buff to bother with trash like this, but remember it playing at my local cinema.

THE SECRET OF SANTA VITTORIA. Bombolini (Anthony Quinn), is the mayor of the hillside village of Santa Vittorio... He is in terrible crisis... Where to hide his precious wine? l,317,000 bottles more or less... as the Germans led by Hardy Kruger advance on their town. Add in Anna Magnani as Bombolini's bitter volatile wife and Virna Lisi as the local Contessa ... and let the heavy hand of Stanley Kramer direct (see SHIP OF FOOLS review below). Was this Hollywood's idea of comedy in 1969 ? More utter trash then as every cliche is dusted down, like the Contessa and the civilised German officer being attracted to each other, her true love is that noble soldier (Sergio Franchi) - it took 2 writers to come up with this from a Robert Crichton novel ?

The wine is hidden in an old Roman cave and has to be hidden so well that the Germans will not find the bottles. When the Germans arrives, it becomes a battle of wits for the possession of the wine. Quinn & Co play Italian by numbers, with lots of local colour - all those 'colorful' Italians and those peasant faces. It is set during the war but there is not even a gunshot here let along anyone killed. The germans just arrive without any local resistance! No wonder Anna looks exasperated making this piece of Hollywood crap.. 1968's BUONA SERA MRS CAMBELL with Lollobrigida, was much more amusing. Quinn had played so many nationalities, Greek on several occasions: ZORBA and THE GUNS OF NAVARONE (there is still an 'Anthony Quinn beach' in Rhodes where that war opus was filmed), he had already teamed well with Magnani in Cukor's WILD IS THE WIND in 1957 (Magnani label), and teamed several times with Loren, and Lollo (I loved their 1956 HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME in 1956, when I was a kid.).  This is an overlong way to pass an evening or wet afternoon; not one to keep my copy went straight into the garbage can. Quinn (1915-2001) though was marvellous as that Arab sheik Auda Abu Tayi in Lean's LAWRENCE OF ARABIA.

Forgotten '60s movies: Lost Command

4 of our '60s favourites (Delon, Cardinale, Ronet, Segal)  in 1 forgotten war movie! Let's go ...

LOST COMMAND, 1966. “Anthony Quinn plays a hard-headed officer determined to become a hero at any cost in this dramatic war saga” but what will today’s generation make of this muddled war film dealing as it does with the French army in Indochina and Algeria in the ‘50s?. A Hollywood version of Pontecorvo's THE BATTLE OF ALGIERS? It starts with the battle of Dien Bien Phu in Indochina where the troops surrender to Burt Kwouk. 

George browns up ...

Mark Robson directs ably after touching on India’s problems (NINE HOURS TO RAMA), Sweden (THE PRIZE) and Nazi Germany (VON RYAN’S EXPRESS) not to mention his Hollywood sages like MY FOOLISH HEART, PEYTON PLACE or, his next, VALLEY OF THE DOLLS. Here in a large cast we have Alain Delon and Claudia Cardinale re-teamed but Robson does not showcase them like Visconti did in THE LEOPARD. Likewise there’s Delon and Maurice Ronet, teamed again after Clement’s PLEIN SOLEIL as different types of captains, Delon the idealist and Ronet another career solider determined to do whatever is needed. Most bizarre of all is George Segal, right, (after SHIP OF FOOLS and KING RAT as per recent reviews here, Segal label) in brownface as an Algerian, initially one of Quinn’s platoon in Indochina, but soon he is radicalised and becomes an Algerian “terrorist” determined to drive the French out of Algeria – well there’s topical resonance in that. Michele Morgan is also on hand as a French countess to romance Quinn who gets another chance to prove himself when she gets him a new position in Algeria. The peasant born Quinn aspires to her class and good life. He persuades his army buddies Delon and Ronet to join him in shaping up a unit, but eventually is forced to confront his old colleague Mahidi, now the Arab terrorist leader (Segal). In a desperate struggle to achieve victory he launches a bloody battle against the terrorist rebel forces …. 

LOST COMMAND bitterly shows man’s inhumanity to man – with questions that still ask us who is the terrorist? And why are they in Algeria in the first place? A war scenario that still echoes today in different parts of the world. It’s a serviceable enough war drama with a terrific mid-60s cast in their prime, but like any film that uses real war situations it raises more questions that it answers … 
I still can’t get over Segal browned up as the Algerian who changes sides (with Claudia as his sister who uses Delon to avoid those military checkpoints).  Some exciting moments too with a well-staged roadside ambush (rather like in THE HURT LOCKER) and theres the Hitchcockian frisson as we wait for a planted bomb to go off, and helicopter chases after those rebels in the mountains. It ends with Delon quitting the army while the career guys like Quinn and Ronet ironically get bedecked with medals .... 

An odd film then, one of those big-cast expensive productions no longer seen now - Delon served in Indochina himself I understand, and Claudia hails from Tunis, next to Algeria, but here they are making "entertainment" out of a real war situation, the French military operations in Indochina and Algeria, mystifying to us now - filmed in Spain, and Segal browned up as the Algerian terrorist would surely never happen today ?  Not trashy enough to be a Trash Classic, but Trash all the same ...

Valentines ....

14 February and a quick look at whats on tv here today shows they have scheduled the usual run of rom-coms .... there's AN AFFAIR TO REMEMBER, WHEN HARRY MET SALLY, WHAT'S UP DOC? (yippee!), I LOVE YOU PHILIP MORRIS, BRIEF ENCOUNTER, SABRINA, and VICKY CHRISTINA BARCELONA .... 

No doubt BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S will also be played a lot today .... I did a piece on Valentine choices a year or three ago - see Valentines label.  
My choice today though is:

Martin Ritt's THE BLACK ORCHID from 1958/59 is a perfect romantic treat, as widow Sophia Loren is wooed by widower Anthony Quinn - quite lovable here. He has a disapproving daughter and Sophia (aged 24 with just a hint of grey in her hair) is the mother of teenage tearaway. Its all nicely resolved at the breakfast table and must surely have influenced Cher's MOONSTRUCK, a nice romcom pastiche. That's what I said back then - and it still works now. 

Sophia is the withdrawn widow blaming herself for her husband's death and her son is in a remand home. Quinn is the gruff widower also looking for a second love but his daughter Ina Balin won't let him.  There is that lovely ending around the kitchen table when everything is nicely resolved. An ideal Valentine treat then, almost as good as HOUSEBOAT !

Helen, Aphrodite, Ulysses, Attilla .. oh, and Alexander

 Italian week: 1 - Peplums  "If you want something visual, thats not too abysmal, we could take in an old Steve Reeves movie" - The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Some early classy peplums - those sword & sandal mini-epics of the '50s and early '60s, the heyday of the genre. 1955's HELEN OF TROY is a Warners film made in Europe by Robert Wise (who has turned his hand to most genres after editing CITIZEN KANE, with films like I WANT TO LIVE, THE HAUNTING, THE SOUND OF MUSIC and his STAR! which I posted about here recently, see below). His HELEN is one of the better epics with great sets and is very visual and utilises a great cast even if the leads are rather blank.

Rosanna Podesta is quite lovely as Helen, there is something otherworld about her - is her voice dubbed perhaps? but Jacques Sernas as Paris is rather dull. But there are British stalwarts Stanley Baker (Achilles), Harry Andrews (Hector), Ronald Lewis, Cedric Hardwicke and Nora Swinbourne add gravitas as Priam and Hecuba, and Janette Scott impresses as Cassandra - it all impressed me as a child and I still like watching it now. Oh, there is also young Brigitte Bardot being very amusing as Helen's man-mad slave ... something for everyone then. The fall of Troy is nicely depicted too ...

HELEN gets a hommage of sorts in 1957's APHRODITE, GODDESS OF LOVE as Jacques Sernas again is lying in the surf as a beauty approaches - he calls her Aphrodite in HELEN, but she really is Aphrodite here, or rather Iride the model for the statue of Aphrodite being created by the famous scuptlor Praxitiles who lives nearby.
Iride is Rank Organisation starlet Belinda Lee, who looks terrific here. Sernas is the macedonian  on the run whom the army is looking for, but she and Praxitiles take him in and shelter him - but as Iride and Sernas fall in love Praxitiles (Massimo Girotti) gets jealous and betrays them .... it looks great with good production values and there is a happy ending for our lovers overlooking the sunlit sea. We also get lots of waves crashing on the beach .... (more on Belinda at Belinda Lee label).

ULYSSES is a De Laurentiis-Ponti production in 1954 which is also a great view now, Kirk Douglas as the wandering Ulysses, Silvana Mangano as his wife Penelope and the enchanteress Circe, Anthony Quinn (on a busy trip to Europe for ATTILA and LA STRADA also features) as does Helen, Rosanna Podesta. 

Quinn scores again as ATTILA, also 1954, who he plays as a blood-thirsty savage who kills his own brother who wants to make peace with the Romans. Henri Vidal is the Roman general Aetius and Sophia Loren is Honoria the greedy ambitious Roman who allies with Attila [her death scene was a vivid memory since I first saw it aged 12], and Irene Papas is good as Attila's discarded woman who can see the trouble Loren will bring .... it is splendid stuff, again with great Ponti-De Laurentiis production values.  The blurb says: Attila, the leader of the barbarian Huns and called by the Romans "The Scourge of God", sweeps onto the Italian peninsula, defeating all of the armies of Rome, until he and his men reach the gates of the city itself. They are then defeated by the power of Christianity and turn back as a giant cross illuminates the sky - peplums don't get more mind-boggling than that! Talk about De Mille's SIGN OF THE CROSS (see below!) Sophia (then 19) was, like Quinn, churning them out that great year 1954 (and of course they did 2 later in Hollywood: BLACK ORCHID and HELLER IN PINK TIGHTS. Quinn must have been one of the 50s busiest actors, along with Vincent Price.

Jack Palance also essayed a frightening Attila that year in Sirk's delirious SIGN OF THE PAGAN with Jeff Chandler, as well as his Simon the Magician who thinks he can fly in Warners THE SILVER CHALICE, which I also loved as a kid in 1954. [Gerard Butler's ATTILA in 2001, complete with eye-liner and wearing what looks like a big nappy, is nowhere near as good, though Alice Krige as usual impresses as a very tough Roman].

By the late '50s Steve Reeves had arrived with all those HERCULES movies which Joe E Levine shrewdly packaged for international audiences and soon other like Gordon Scott and Ed Fury were heading to peplum-land. I have just seen Steve Reeves in THE GIANT OF MARATHON (which seems to be his best, direted by Jacques Tourneur and lensed by Mario Bava, with Mylene Demongeot),and still have THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII and THE WHITE RUSSIAN to catch as well as Palance and Anita Ekberg in THE MONGOLS, Jeffrey Hunter in GOLD FOR THE CAESARS, while Belinda was a terrific MESSALINA, and in JOSEPH AND HIS BROTHERS and CONSTANTINE AND THE CROSS with Cornel Wilde; and Jeanne Crain as NEFERTITI QUEEN OF THE NILE as well as Jeffrey Hunter and Debra Paget in the hilarious PRINCESS OF THE NILE.

Steve and the boys in whities at Marathon

These peplums are sometimes cheesy, made on a shoestring but have humor with action and drama along with kitsch and camp plus the beefcake and cheesecake - qualities lacking in humourless recent attempts like TROY with its unreal CGI effects and a cast with no idea how to play this material - apart from O'Toole as Priam (or Russell Crowe in GLADIATOR which at least re-invented the genre).  More on these later then ...

One I like a lot is Oliver Stone's take on ALEXANDER and his determination to get it made and then the reaction to it (as middle America did not want a gay or bisexual hero). Its a splendid looking film with some staggering set-pieces - even the CGI recreation of Babylon looks stunning. Its not really a peplum as such but a major work by a visionary director. More on this at epics label. By contrast Fox's 1956 ALEXANDER THE GREAT is rather turgid with a blonde Burton, but Claire Bloom, Stanley Baker and Harry Andrews again and Peter Cushing all command attention. This impressed me as a kid though - Andrews as the fleeing Persian king Darius, and those great shots of Danielle Darrieux as Alex's mother Olympias on the castle battlements ...

One has to include 1962's camp delight SODOM AND GOMORRAH by Robert Aldrich (before he went on to BABY JANE...) with its sometimes hilarious moments as Anouk Aimee as the slinky lesbian queen, Stanley Baker as her hissably evil brother, Stewart Granger with Pier Angelia [pillar of salt], Rosanna Podesta again (rather wasted here) and the stunning Scilla Gabel are all great to look at. It looks like Sodom is hit by a nuclear explosion at the climax but what happened to Gomorrah?

Then of course the heights of the genre are BEN HUR (I really must watch that 1925 silent version), EL CID, SPARTACUS, CLEOPATRA, FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE and then the rather tatty GENGHIS KHAN and the still stunning THE VIKINGS - and of course studio fodder like Warner's LAND OF THE PHAROAHS, MGM's THE PRODIGAL, Fox's THE EGYPTIAN and 300 SPARTANS. 1961's COLOSSUS OF RHODES by Serio Leone is eye-catching too with Rory Calhoun and Lea Massari. DEMETRIUS AND THE GLADIATORS is huge fun for an American peplum in 1954, that great year for biblicals - I must find and include that posed shot of Susan as Messalina dragging a chained Ed Fury around on all fours.   more on all these at epics label. All these look terrific now on widescreen HD televisions.

A brilliant site by the way is:  http://peplums.blogspot.co.uk/

The most bonkers over the top performance ever?

I nominate THE PASSAGE from 1979 as the most loony daft so-called thriller ever. I thought SHINING THROUGH was bad enough – that’s the one where Melanie Griffith is sent undercover into Nazi germany as a spy and has to be rescued by her boss Michael Douglas who poses as a Nazi but he does not speak German!. Here, in THE PASSAGE, we have the older Anthony Quinn and James Mason with the distressingly frail Patricia Neal who are being chased over the mountains by psychotic WW2 Nazi Captain Malcolm McDowell as the most demented camp Nazi you will ever see.

McDowell said in an interview: "I played this real nasty Nazi who was chasing these people across the Pyrenees. We all knew real early on that the movie was not going to be any great work of art and so I was determined to have some fun with it. My attitude was that if I was going to play a Nazi, I was going to take it totally over the top and do it right. I ended up playing the character like a pantomime queen. What I was doing was so far out that James Mason turned to me one day and said, 'That's wonderful dear boy, but are you in our film? You seem to be doing something different from the rest of us'..."



This farrago was put together by veteran J Lee Thompson in 1979 – 20 years earlier he was helming cracking films like TIGER BAY and NORTHWEST FRONTIER before going on to THE GUNS OF NAVARONE and CAPE FEAR (1962) – here is directing by numbers and allowing McDowell to go way over the top, Quinn is the mainly silent Basque (titled The Basque) and Mason has nothing much to play with either. It is obvious that Patricia Neal as Mason’s wife is so frail she will not last long … the less said about Kay Lenz’s very wooden performance as the daughter the better. One ludicrous scene has her as the prisoner of McDowell who prepares to anally rape her (or so it is suggested) and he strips off to reveal he is wearing a jockstrap (were they in use then?) with a swastika on it! He also camps around with his cigarette holder and has great fun chopping off the fingers of Michel Lonsdale while "preparing dinner", and watch out once he traps that band of gypsies headed by a dignified Christopher Lee …. The party struggle over the Pyrenees aided by Zorba The Basque with some ambushes on the way until the demented climax with some unforgivable fantasy moments as McDowell comes back from the dead …. It all got dreadful reviews at the time and vanished from cinemas in a week or so, one can now see why! McDowell was brilliant in lots of things (I love TIME AFTER TIME) but allowed his head here, the same year as CALIGULA, he certainly seems to enjoy seeing how far he can go. So bad then it’s one to relish.

Sophia

Today we are just focusing on 2 of Loren's many movies: first, HELLER IN PINK TIGHTS that curious Cukor comedy western from 1959, with its stunning use of colour [step forward usual Cukor collaborator, colour consultant Hoyningen Heune] and its amusing blend of cowboys, indians and travelling players [hellers] out west, with their production of "Mazeppa", usually one step ahead of their creditors. Quinn and Sophia are teamed for the third time [after ATTILA and THE BLACK ORCHID] and the cast also features silent star Ramon Novarro and the grown-up Margaret O'Brien, Eileen Heckart is amusing as usual, and Sophia is curiously blonde .. not sure if it suits her. And the best of her De Sica collaborations: the 1965 MARRIAGE ITALIAN STYLE a splendid version of that great play "Filumena" with its multi-layered story of how a bitter Loren tricks long time lover Mastroianni into finally marrying her, by revealing that one of her 3 sons is his. It amusingly shows their courtship during the war and how she runs his business but longs for the respectability of marriage.

Bonus - 3 more De Sica's: Loren and Belmondo in TWO WOMEN / that amusing Naples section in YESTERDAY TODAY AND TOMORROW, '64 / the Raffle episode from BOCCACCIO 70 in '62/ Several other posts on Sophia at label.

Some '50s discoveries...

BUT NOT FOR ME is a neglected gem from that great year 1959 and was a treat to catch recently. Its one of Clark Gable's last films [he had just done TEACHER'S PET with Doris Day, and would next go to Italy for IT STARTED IN NAPLES with Sophia Loren (30 years his junior, but its great fun) and then finally to that MISFITS location]. Here he is guying his older image as the Broadway producer falling for his ambitions young secretary Carroll Baker who also wants to be an actress. Its a comedy set in the theatreland of the '50s and has some nice views of New York back then, particuarly as his car glides through Manhattan in the morning, as Ella sings that great theme song. Best of the cast though is Lilli Palmer enjoying her role as his ex-wife watching on the sidelines. Will she get him back at the end? It's nicely worked out and there is also Lee J Cobb in scenery-chewing mode as a drunken playright. A nice Perlberg-Seaton production from Paramount.

WILD IS THE WIND. Another good discovery is this long unseen George Cukor item from 1957. Anna Magnani is magnetic as the sister from Italy brought to America to marry her late sister's husband, Anthony Quinn in very gruff mode here. Quinn's protege young Anthony Francoisa is the only one to show her affection as she struggles with life on their ranch, which rapidly escalates to a doomed romance. I did not care for Magnani's over the top performance in the acclaimed ROSE TATTOO when I saw it a while ago, but I love her here, as reined in by Cukor. She has a wonderful scene at the outdoor party when she sings a lovely little song, and has a nice scene with young Dolores Hart too. There is also another great theme tune (by Johnny Mathis) and, surprisingly for Cukor, the scenes of capturing wild horses is as forceful as Huston's in THE MISFITS. Anna is of course marvellous in Renoir's THE GOLDEN COACH, and its fascinating seeing her with Brando in THE FUGITIVE KIND.

THE RELUCTANT DEBUTANTE - I did see this MGM comedy from 1958 when young but its a missing title here in the UK and not seen for decades. Its a wonderful as I remembered and - along with GENEVIEVE and LES GIRLS - Kay Kendall's crowning achievement. She is divinely funny and daffy as the diplomat's wife launching his daughter on the London season as a debutante. Add in Angela Lansbury as the catty friend who is also launching her daughter and the stage is set for lots of comedy. Rex Harrison is in his element here and seems enchanted with his new wife in their one main starring film, which at least captures their high comedy style. The youngsters are Sandra Dee and John Saxon (whom I liked then) but they seem pallid now by comparison. It was actually shot mainly in Paris due to Harrison's tax requirements as he was between the US and London runs of MY FAIR LADY, but Minnelli adds the required elements - lots of splashes of yellows and reds (those perfect armchairs and cushions in that perfect apartment) and that perfect shade of green for chairs and lamps. Kay wears her Balmain wardrobe splendidly and has some great moments. Perhaps only Carole Lombard was as glamorous and gifted a comedienne. The play originally featured Celia Johnson and Wilfrid Hyde White (one can just picture them in it) with young Anna Massey as the deb, but with the Harrisons on board it was nicely modernised to make her his second wife and the daughter reared as an American by his first wife. Splendid stuff and ideal for a rainy afternoon. Minnelli had a busy year, he knocked this one out between GIGI and SOME CAME RUNNING!

THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME [1957]. An important movie from my childhood, from when I was first allowed to start going to the cinema on my own, aged about 11. This was marvellous colorful stuff then, widescreen, lots of action and it still looks good now, set around the cathedral of Notre Dame. Anthony Quinn is perfect as Quasimodo and gains one's sympathy while Gina Lollobrigida is sensational and so attractive as Esmerelda. Director Jean Delannoy has a sure hand with the material. That ending with Esmerelda's body being dragged away (with her faithful goat) and Quasimodo following her to the crypt was powerful stuff for the younger me and it still works now.