Something camp for the weekend 3: a lesser Agatha Christie

A star-laden Agatha Christie from 1974: AND THEN THERE WERE NONE. We quite like those camp all-star Agatha Christie adaptations popular in the '70s and '80s, started by MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS and getting camper as they went along: DEATH ON THE NILE, EVIL UNDER THE SUN, THE MIRROR'S CRACKED (see Christie label). A lesser one is AND THEN THERE WERE NONE, which features a fascinating round-up of Euro-players, and is set in a luxury hotel in Isfahan, Iran - and features rare footage of the little-seen ancient city of Persepolis, where Alexander the Great hung out. Despite all this, there is something cheap about it though, its very much a minor Christie, but none the less camp for all that. 

A group of ten people, strangers to each other, have all travelled to a hotel located deep in the deserts of Iran. Upon arrival they discover that their host is mysteriously absent. Though some find this odd they decide to make the best of the situation and settle into the isolated but luxurious hotel. But soon they are accused by a tape recording of having committed various crimes in the past which went unpunished by the law. Then one victim dies of poisoning. Then another is strangled .... and the remaining guests deduce that their unseen host is determined to kill them one by one .... and as there is no-one else at the hotel, the killer has to be one of them ..... finally, there are just two left - one of them has to be the killer - or is there a twist ? 

This hoary old Christie chestnut has been done several times. I have not seen the 1940s one, but this 1974 version follows the amusing 1965 British TEN LITTLE INDIANS almost line by line, scene by scene - they are almost comedies. That black and white one was set in an Alpine fortress and had a fascinating 1960s cast with Bond girl Shirley Eaton and Hugh O'Brien, exotic Daliah Lavi, and Fabian, with British stalwarts Dennis Price, Wilfrid Hyde-White, Stanley Holloway and Leo Genn.  

Here in '74 we have Oliver Reed and Elke Sommer as the rather bland leads, with French Stephane Audran and Charles Aznavour, and two Bond villains Gert Frobe and Adolfo Celi, plus Brits Richard Attenborough and Herbert Lom. If you know the twist its reasonably amusing. This one is a Harry Alan Towers polyglot co-production, directed by Peter Collinson. At least it reminds us how much we like the very slinky Stephane Audran, who is marvellous here. Aznavour sings one of his popular hits "Dance in the old fashioned way" before he croaks .... and thats when the fun starts ! Oh, and the voice on the tape machine is Orson Welles ! 

RIP, continued

Richard Attenborough (1923-2014) aged 90, later Lord Attenborough. Who would have thought that the young actor playing his first role as the scared sailor in Lean and Coward's IN WHICH WE SERVE in 1942 would go on to have such an enduring career as actor, director, producer and represent the British film industry. Busy acting throughout the '40s, '50s and '60s - he is also one of the airmen in my favourite A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH. BRIGHTON ROCK is an enduring classic where his Pinky still chills - he and his wife Sheila Sim were established by the early '50s (both were in the first cast of THE MOUSETRAP, still runnng now) and he was one of those BOYS IN BROWN along with Dirk Bogarde, it was fun to catch up with that last year.. I liked his late '50s movies like SOS PACIFIC, JET STORM, I'M ALRIGHT JACK, THE LEAGUE OF GENTLEMEN. All the gushing tributes ignored all his acting roles in those '50s programmers. 
He went into production with pal Bryan Forbes as they formed Beaver Films setting up their own projects like THE ANGRY SILENCE (a good discovery this year), WHISTLE DOWN THE WIND, SEANCE ON A WET AFTERNOON (where he delivered another powerful peformance. He was in THE GREAT ESCAPE, GUNS AT BATASI, THE SAND PEBBLES and later 60s roles included DR DOLITTLE and two with Lee Remick (Inspector Trustcott in the dreadful film of Orton's LOOT, and A SEVERED HEAD from the Iris Murdoch hit), he was another chilling murderer in 10 RILLINGTON PLACE and in Satyajit Ray's THE CHESS PLAYERS. 

He then directed his first film OH WHAT A LOVELY WAR (one to re-visit) with that astonishing cast (Maggie Smith and Vanessa Redgrave were standouts) and powerful images - in those pre-computer graphic years all those white crosses at the end had to be placed by hand). GANDHI of course in 1982 brought him the Best Director Oscar and was best film, I am looking forward to seeing it on Blu-ray soon, and CRY FREEDOM, A BRIDGE TOO FAR, YOUNG WINSTON, MAGIC, SHADOWLANDS, were all successful - less so were his A CHORUS LINE and his film on Chaplin. 
Lord Attenborough was also very busy behind the scenes, being on the boards of many organisations like Channel 4, the BFI, and Chelsea Football Club, as well as lots of charitable organisations. He returned to acting for Spielberg in JURASSIC PARK. His enduring popularity ensured that he had, for over half a century, played an integral part in British cultural life. 
I found myself standing next to him and his wife at the BFI in 1970, as we waited for the Dirk Bogarde lecture, and he chatted away to me and signed my programme. In declining health in recent years, and having lost his daughter and grand-daughter in the 2004 tsunami, he and Sheila had moved to a retirement home. The BBC had prepared an hour long tribute which they screened this week, highlighting his varied careers and the affection and high regard in which he will continue to be held.  

Sandy Wilson, another 90 year old - English composter and lyricist, best known for his THE BOY FRIEND, that 1920s pastiche which has been very successful over the years (and which gave the young Julie Andrews her first success), and Ken Russell filmed it in 1971, though Wilson hated that version! Set in Mme Dubonnet’s finishing school on the French Riviera, The Boy Friend concerns a group of Bright Young Things intent on snaring “that certain thing called the boyfriend” — a lightweight plot which served mainly as aframework for a series of catchy songs, including It’s Never Too Late To Fall In Love, Won’t You Charleston With Me and I Could Be Happy With You.

British double bill

THE ANGRY SILENCE. One 1960 British film I had not seen before from that 'kitchen-sink' era, but I remember it well as it attracted a lot of publicity at the time, when I was 14. About a wildcat strike at a midlands factory and the motives of the various people involved, it plays like a serious version of I’M ALL RIGHT JACK and it’s a riveting view now, capturing as it does that lost world of busy factories, workers arriving on the bicycles, the furnished rooms and apartments they live in. Richard Attenborough is a dependable guy, married to Italian Pier Angeli, and Michael Craig lodges with them. (I remember having that "Picture Show" magazine, above).
Then unrest at the factory begins, as we see that stranger (Alfred Burke) arrive in town, is he perhaps there to stir up trouble?, we also see his leaving at the end, job done. Bernard Lee is the pushy union man looking for any opportunity to strike, Geoffrey Keen and Laurence Naismith the worried but decent factory bosses. Young Oliver Reed and Brian Bedford are among the young layabouts wanting to cause trouble.
 Attenborough gets sent to Coventry by his former workmates and friends as he refuses to join their strike, so no one will talk to him. This leads to tragedy, his son too is bullied at school, as his wife Anne gets more and more frantic. 

Pier Angeli (above) is a stand-out here, in maybe her best role. (She and Attenborough were in the 1959 programmer SOS PACIFIC (review at Pier Angeli label), which maybe led to her casting her). Craig is reliable as usual, the film is scripted by Bryan Forbes (who also appears) from an idea by Craig and his brother Richard Gregson (who went on to marry Natalie Wood). It remains a riveting slice of life from that era. Directed by Guy Green (that ace cinematographer on Lean's GREAT EXPECTATIONS, who became a director).

KING & COUNTRY. The one Joseph Losey film which never made any money, I had not seen it since its release in 1964 and it never cropped up since (outside of Losey retrospectives at the BFI),  but there it was on late night television, along with BILLY LIAR and THE ANGRY SILENCE, on a minor cable channel.

During World War I, an army private is accused of desertion during battle. The officer assigned to defend him at his court-martial finds out there is more to the case than meets the eye.

This, from a play “Hamp” scripted by Evan Jones, and it seems star Dirk Bogarde (back with Losey after THE SERVANT) also had a hand in it. It is the downbeat story of a private in the First World War, tried for desertion and executed, as he simply walked away from the guns and carnage, obviously shell-shocked. Confined to one set, we are in the muddy trenches with the common soldiers (Jeremy Spencer and gang) as officers Dirk Bogarde, Leo McKern, James Villiers prepare their case against Private Hamp – 
Tom Courtenay in another sterling performance as the innocent who does not realise the enormity of what he did and what will happen to him, in this brutal system. 
This was an ‘X Certificate’ film at the time, I cannot see why now. It is strong stuff though, bleak and unrelenting, particularly that climax when Bogarde puts the injured soldier out of his misery. Made in 18 days and for not very much money, it is certainly one rare item it is good to see again, and how it fits into the Losey canon between THE SERVANT and MODESTY BLAISE and ACCIDENT. 
KING & COUNTRY is now available on dvd, and, for UK viewers, is being screened again by Film4 this time, next Tuesday afternoon, 15th, and will be repeated the following week. 

War weekend 2: In Which We Serve

IN WHICH WE SERVE. The old warhorse from 1942 remains one of the great war films and is still affecting and emotional now, it is simply one of the great British films of the 1940s (along with THE WAY TO THE STARS, THIS HAPPY BREED, A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH, and of course Lean's later BRIEF ENCOUNTER). (See my comments on those at 1940s/War/British labels).

We follow the men of the “Torrin” which has been torpedoed and is sinking, as they cling to a life raft and see the ship and their lives in the various flashbacks, covering all of society from the high command to the regular sailors and their families. David Lean and Noel Coward directed, from Coward’s script and Noel also played Captain Kinross. His clipped manner is perfect here as is his rapport with his men. All those war clichés were new here – the captain scribbing down dying sailors’ last words for families back home, the coward who redeems himself etc. We have young Richard Attenborough, and John Mills, with Michael Wilding, while Celia Johnson is the perfect navy wife toasting her rival, the ship, 

while Kathleen Harrison is Bernard Miles’ wife, and Mills marries Freda played by Kay Walsh. That scene with the bombs falling on the women still delivers a punch. Young Daniel Massey is Coward’s son (he went on to play Coward in STAR!) while Juliet Mills is the baby. IN WHICH WE SERVE will remain an English classic, a film which can be enjoyed on many levels and repays repeat viewings, the stiff upper lip manner may have been parodied since, but its really affecting here. That scene of Kinross and family on the downs watching the planes above is so perfectly 40s.

Ortonesque: Mr Sloane's loot

1970 saw the release of the two films based on Joe Orton's hit '60s plays LOOT and ENTERTAINING MR SLOANE. Both are outrageous black comedies and were very successful plays, but maybe they were too black and unconventional for movies then, as it seemed the film-makers did not know what to make of them, and even tried to camp up LOOT so the film now is a grotesque piece, not helped by the casting of the two male leads.

I saw the London production of the play in 1967 (programme, left), when 21, when the two boys were young Simon Ward and Kenneth Cranham, and it was a brilliant production, at the Criterion Theatre in Piccadilly Circus, that little theatre with white tile walls and you go downstairs to it, so it rather resembles a gentleman's public toilet, quite apt in the circumstances. Orton was of course the enfant terrible of theatre then, being hailed as a new working-class Oscar Wilde from Leicester, ENTERTAINING MR SLOANE had been a hit in 1964 - I remember being 18 and walking past the theatre, but had not started my theatre-going just yet then, so I was determined to see LOOT on the stage. Orton also wrote WHAT THE BUTLER SAW and tv productions like THE RUFFIAN ON THE STAIR - all brilliantly funny to read now - and was supposed to script a film for The Beatles, all of which he wrote very funnily about in his explicit diaries, which are a marvellous read of the time, detailing his gay exploits (that Irish labourer in a deserted house, boys in Morocco etc) and his holidays with Kenneth Williams, and that last weekend of his in Brighton when he was looking at houses to buy, as he was planning to leave his long time lover Kenneth Halliwell. 
Unfortunately, he was not to know that Halliwell would kill him and then himself, on his return to their studio in Islington, London that weekend in August 1967. I was on the coast too that weekend, in Hastings in Sussex, with friends - and it was the big story that weekend, in all the papers, so that was his career and talent snuffed out at age 34. Stephen Frear's 1987 film PRICK UP YEAR EARS, based on the Orton diaries and Jack Laar's book, and scripted by Alan Bennett, covers it all in detail, with great performances from Gary Oldman and Alfred Molina, ably supported by the likes of Vanessa Redgrave, Frances Barber, Lindsay Duncan and Julie Walters.

So, to the films: LOOT: Dennis (Hywel Bennett) and Hal (Roy Holder) are inseperable. They are also irreverent, boisterous, highly sexed and eager to acquire a quick fortune by the most expedient method - robbing a bank. Only problem is where to hide their loot - fortunately Dennis works as an undertaker's assistant, so a coffin seems the perfect place to hide it. But from the moment they try to fit a body (Hal's mother who has conveniently died) and the money in the coffin, plans go wrong, and soon the boys have a lot of trouble on their hands as the dreaded Inspector Trustcott (Richard Attenborough) arrives to investigate, and then there is the devious, gold digging nurse (Lee Remick) who was looking after the deceased, and maybe planning to marry the widower, Hal's father (Milo O'Shea) or maybe Dennis himself, whom she has been carrying on with. 

This is all jazzed up with the most hideous set imaginable, a dreadful music soundtrack that never stops, Lee Remick does her best and some of Orton's witty lines survive the Galton & Simpson script, but why is she got up to look like Jean Harlow with peroxide hair and a beauty spot, and sporting that hilarious Irish accent? The boys seem all wrong too - Bennett was unaccountably popular at the time (THE FAMILY WAY, THE BUTTERCUP CHAIN, TWISTED NERVE, PERCY) but Holder looks terrible in that awful wig, neither are in the least appealing. One of the few amusing moments is Lee's nurse pulling up Hywel's underpants over his bare bum. Milo is a lot of fun as usual, and I had forgotten comedian Dick Emery is also in it. Add in the missing eyeball, and the body being moved around, and the boys (Dennis is meant to be bisexual, while Hal is gay) robbing the bank naked (so no evidence on their clothes!) and it all gets sillier and sillier, and looks like one of those dreadful early '70s British efforts like DORIAN GRAY, GOODBYE GEMINI, ALL COPPERS ARE, etc. - as we detail at Trash/London labels. 
The play is the thing here, not this awful movie. Director Silvio Narrizano though had hits with his GEORGY GIRL in 1966 and that odd Terence Stamp western BLUE, as well as a prolific tv career. 

ENTERTAINING MR SLOANE, also 1970, fares a lot better, as directed by Douglas Hickox, with sterling performances by Beryl Reid and Harry Andrews, who play the material 'straight' without the need to camp it up, as that eager brother and sister wanting to get their hands on the thuggish young Mr Sloane - Peter McEnery is a good choice here. Everyone's lack of morals is nicely detailed as Kath (Beryl) and shady businessman Ed (Harry) lock horns over the sexy young lodger Sloane.

Sloane, a handsome, sexy and completely amoral young man, joins Kath's household as a lodger and proceeds to manipulate her and her brother, Ed. He is recognized by Kemp (Dadda) as the murderer of Kemp's former employer, whereupon Sloane murders Kemp. Sloane's "just desserts" are not what one would expect.

Harry Andrews is perfect here, eagerly hiring Sloane as his chauffeur, and Beryl Reid has another great comic role after her stage and screen success in THE KILLING OF SISTER GEORGE, and she certainly goes to town with it here (in that see-through day-glo mini-dress) as she and Andrews provide a comic masterclass in how to play this kind of material. I also saw Beryl reprising her Kath role on the stage in a Royal Court 1975 production with Malcolm McDowell dangerously menacing in leather as Sloane (right).  I had seen McEnery as HAMLET - in Leicester! - around then, and of course he was Boy Barrett in VICTIM, and those films with Hayley Mills, Jane Fonda, Claudia Cardinale, Glenda Jackson etc. We also saw him SHADOW OF A GUNMAN at the Young Vic and he was later in a revival of A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC in the late 80s, but his last credit was in 2008.

So, the film of MR SLOANE is still good fun, LOOT is just simply dreadful.

'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.