Horst Buchholz

That late '50s was a fascinating period for young European actors, with all the opportunities coming their way in the booming international cinema.

We have mentioned the likes of Delon and Belmondo a lot here - as per their labels - but lets have a look at that interesting Horst Buchholz ...

Other French actors on the rise then included Brialy and Trintignant, Robert Hossein and Jean Sorel (usually in genre films like thrillers), Gerard Blain and Maurice Ronet. Marcello led the field in Italy with Raf Vallone, Renato Salvatori, Vittorio Gassman also prominent. Germany had Hardy Kruger becoming very international (in England's THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY, BACHELOR OF HEARTS, Losey's BLIND DATE, and the French SUNDAYS AND CYBELE and in Hawks' HATARI! with Blain, as well as with Monty Clift in THE DEFECTOR, 1965, and in Kubrick's BARRY LYNDON), while Carl Boehm went from the kitsch SISSI films with Romy, to being Michael Powell's notorious PEEPING TOM in 1960 and he was later in Fassbinder's very gay FOX AND HIS FRIENDS in 1974.

Horst Buchholz (1933-2003) was initially tagged "the German James Dean" due to the punks and teenagers he played in the '50s, as in DIE HALBSTARKEN (1956), which made him a teen favorite in Germany, he did several with Romy Schneider - MONPTI in 1957 is particularly charming, as per my review, (Horst, Romy labels). Being able to speak several languages he was soon in international cinema: in the English TIGER BAY in 1959 before going to America for John Sturges' western THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN, as big a hit a you could get at the time, one we loved as kids. Billy Wilder chose him for his Berlin comedy ONE TWO THREE in 1961 - one of my favourite Wilders - and Josh Logan wanted him for FANNY with Caron, Boyer and Chevalier. He then went Indian for NINE HOURS TO RAMA, which we will be re-seeing and reviewing shortly, a drama about the assassination of Gandhi, made in 1962.  
A versatile actor, Buchholz appeared in comedies, horror films, wartime dramas and other genres, but his best work was mostly behind him by the mid-1960s, again like most popular young actors, he had ten good years. THE EMPTY CANVAS was an odd Italian drama he did with Bette Davis. He could have done roles in WEST SIDE STORY and LAWRENCE OF ARABIA and also turned down A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS, and continued filming in Europe, later roles included LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL. 
Below, with Romy in MONPTI in 1958.

He had married and had 2 children. Usually reticent about his private life, in a 2000 interview in the German magazine "Bunte" Buchholz publicly came out saying "Yes, I also love men. Ultimately, I'm bisexual. ... I have always lived my life the way I wanted." He explained that he and his wife of nearly 42 years had a stable and enduring arrangement, with her life centered in Paris and his in Berlin, the city that he loved.Their son Christopher Buchholz also an actor and the producer of the feature-length documentary HORST BUCHHOLZ ... MEIN PAPA (2005), has publicly acknowledged his father's bisexuality.

Buchholz died unexpectedly at the age of sixty-nine in Berlin from pneumonia that developed after an operation for a  hip fracture. Its another fascinating career. 
Next up: Gerard Philipe.

Redmond Barry meets the Countess of Lyndon

Hard to believe Stanley Kubrick's BARRY LYNDON is 40 years old this year. I have just been looking at the Blu-ray, its still a towering achievement and certainly one of the greatest costume dramas ever, as Kubrick recreates the 18th Century before our eyes - we certainly liked it at the time. After the enormous success of 2001 A SPACE ODYSSEY and the controversy over A CLOCKWORK ORANGE a lot of people were baffled that he next turned to a hefty 18th century novel by Thackeray (who also wrote "Vanity Fair" about another operator making their way through society, though Becky Sharp seemed sharper than Barry, who is often seen as a bit dim here). It seems Kubrick could only get the finance from Warner Bros if he cast his hero from a list of 'names' of the time, but only Robert Redford and Ryan O'Neal were suitable. Redford passed, so Ryan it was. He is actually quite right here, and does what Kubrick needed from him. Marisa Berenson is also perfectly right as the pallid, passive Countess.

An Irish rogue wins the heart of a rich widow and assumes her dead husband's aristocratic position in 18th-century England, or:

In the Eighteenth Century, in a small village in Ireland, Redmond Barry is a young farm boy in love with his cousin Nora Brady. When Nora gets engaged to the British Captain John Quin, Barry challenges him to a duel of pistols. He wins and escapes to Dublin but is robbed on the road. Without an alternative, Barry joins the British Army to fight in the Seven Years War. He deserts and is forced to join the Prussian Army where he saves the life of his captain and becomes his protégé and spy of the Irish gambler Chevalier de Balibari. He helps Chevalier and becomes his associate until he decides to marry the wealthy Lady Lyndon. They move to England and Barry, in his obsession of nobility, dissipates her fortune and makes a dangerous and revengeful enemy.

I love that whole sequence of where they meet at the gambling table (the painted faces, the wigs, the candles burning), after he earlier noticing her in the lawns with her old husband in a bath-chair, with her young son, Viscount Bullingdon, and his tutor, Murray Melvin again, as Reverend Runt. This is a fabulous scene as Barry and the Countess lock eyes over the cards, as that music throbs, and he follows her out on the balcony where they come together like a pair of marionettes whose wires are being pulled by unseen hands ....

Add in the great Marie Kean as Barry's mother, Hardy Kruger, Patrick Magee as the Chevalier, Frank Middlemass, Andre Morell, Leonard Rossiter and Steven Berkoff and others and all the characters are compulsive too. It is over three hours long but one wants to watch it slowly, revelling in what we we see, as the 18th Century conducts itself in war and at the gambling tables, idling their time away. The battles scenes are stupendous too, as drilled by Kubrick, and lensed by John Alcott, with Ken Adam's production design, and that music by Schubert, Vivaldi, Bach, Mozart, Handel, and traditional Irish tunes by The Chieftians. The candle-lit interiors and seemingly natural lighting of course were sensational and revolutionary at the time, Even now, the candle-lit interiors in the BBC series WOLF HALL are considered too dark and murky! 
It is telling at the end that the date on the money order the Countess is writing for her absent husband is the date of the French Revolution: 1789. Changes would be happening to these idle classes. The end title says it all, as narrated dryly by Michael Hordern.

BARRY LYNDON is a great companion piece to Richardson's TOM JONES, that other sprawling novel and marvellous film about another 18th century rogue!

Sundays and Cybele, 1962

A discovery from a favourite year of mine, 1962, which has so many great movies - see label. I had read great reviews on Serge Bourguignon's film LES DIMANCHES DE VILLE D'AVRAY (or SUNDAYS AND CYBELE) but never saw it till now. Having recently seen its child star Patricia Gozzi in RAPTURE, a 1965 drama by John Guillermin, I was interested to see her in this earlier acclaimed movie (it won the Best Foreign Film of 1962 Oscar).

Pierre is an Indo-China war veteran, psychologically scarred after killing a child. Cybele is a 12 year old girl abandoned by an uncaring father at a small orphanage. After a chance meeting causes Pierre to be mistaken for Cybele's father, they begin a series of Sunday outings together in which they discover a trusting innocent happiness - though their make-believe world is threatened when a neighbour spots them together and word spreads among Pierre's acquaintances about his illicit relationship. With incredible central performances from Kruger and Gozzi as the two damaged people finding solace and childlike love in each other's companionship, this is a beautiful, heartbreaking tale of the redemptive possibilities of love that will live in you long after you have seen it.

For once, the blurb gets it right. This is a leisurely paced absorbing tale. Hardy Kruger is of course sterling as ever, as he was in a favourite Losey: BLIND DATE in 1959, plus THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY or in Hawks' HATARI! or Aldrich's THE FLIGHT OF THE PHOENIX and he pops up in various other films like Montgomery Clift's last THE DEFECTOR, and Kubrick's BARRY LYNDON. In his 80s now, and acting until recently, he is a key European player. 

Patricia Gozzi on the other hand only appeared in 7 seven films before retiring from the screen and is perhaps the finest child actress I have ever seen. I caught her 1965 RAPTURE recently, a long-unseen drama, but I did not care for her rather annoying character in that, but she is utterly captivating and fascinating here. It was a big hit for Serge Bourguignon and a key 1962 film, but he soon was doing lesser films like the long-unseen THE REWARD in 1965. I liked his 1967 Bardot film, TWO WEEKS IN SEPTEMBER, which seems to have been his last credit - seee BB label. Nicole Courcel also scores as Pierre's girlfriend. There is no hint of inappropriate sexuality here, but the locals misunderstand their innocent relationship. 

The ending when it comes is inevitable, but we remember a fascinating oddity of a film, which still looks fresh now over 50 years later; the lyrical black and white photography and images conjured up by Heni Decae fascinate too. One of my discoveries of the year then. 

Forgotten '60s movies: The Defector

THE DEFECTOR, 1966. A dull ‘60s spy story, only of interest now as the last film by Montgomery Clift – what a dismal experience it is. Seeing the frail Clift next to the sturdy Hardy Kruger shows us how ill he must have been, compared to how he looked in the '50s (or even in WILD RIVER or THE MISFITS); he died the next year and going by how he looks here would have been in no shape for another tough Huston shoot (on REFLECTIONS IN A GOLDEN EYE) - See Brando label for review of that. 

The mid-60s had some terrific thrillers on spies and spying: THE SPY WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD, THE QUILLER MEMORANDUM, THE DEADLY AFFAIR, Hitch’s TORN CURTAIN and flashy spoofs like MODESTY BLAISE, but THE DEFECTOR is just dull, dull, dull as we follow Clift around some modest East European sites (meant to be Leipzig) as the secret services seem interested in his movements. It all makes no sense and is hardly worth unravelling. Kruger, Roddy McDowall, David Opatoshu and Macha Meril (Godard’s UNE FEMME MARIEE) as the nurse/romantic interest do their best. 

Watching Clift in a long scene with McDowall one suddenly wonders if Monty is actually paying attention and in the moment as he seems totally distracted. Monica Vitti was originally cast as the nurse, which would have been an interesting teaming with Clift. Produced and directed by Raoul Levy, who committed suicide shortly afterwards, (he had produced the Vadim Bardot films among others) … the photography by Raoul Coutard makes it look good, and I am sure that was Jean-Luc Godard seen for a moment in the office ….

More forgotten '60s soon: LES GODELUREAUX, THE 10TH VICTIM, DEAR BRIGITTE, MICHAEL KOHLHASS ...

Heatwave movies: Hatari!

Director Howard Hawks reteams with John Wayne, who heads a group of highly skilled professional game hunters in Africa. Only they don't use bullets - they capture the ferocious big game with strong rope and cameras for zoos and circus attractions. It is an exciting business that pits man against beast. HATARI means "danger" in Swahili, but HATARI also means a spectacular adventure film.

Well yes, though some judicious editing could have removed most of Red Buttons' annoying character, Pockets - a little of him goes a long way. Nowadays we look at animals and game hunting in a different light to what we did 50 years ago .... but this remains an amiable, good-natured film, even if at least half an hour too long, at over 150 minutes! 
We see our hunters chasing all these animals - giraffe, zebra, water buffalo etc - only with the rhino does the danger element come to the fore. What is it with these macho directors and big game hunting - John Huston was always after big game too during his forays in Africa for THE AFRICAN QUEEN, THE ROOTS OF HEAVEN etc.

Wayne faced up nicely to young Sophia Loren a few years earlier when he was Joe January in another of our favourites, LEGEND OF THE LOST - here another Italian girl Elsa Martinelli is effortlessly chic as she and Wayne play out that Hawksian courtship - as we see from all those other Hawks items like ONLY ANGELS HAVE WINGS, TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT, RIO BRAVO, MAN'S FAVOURITE SPORT etc. This time she doesn't actually say "I'm hard to get, all you've got to do is ask" (as Dickinson and Bacall said) but its the same situation. With Hawks, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. I was stunned in MAN'S FAVOURITE SPORT - essentially the same movie as BRINGING UP BABY - the same ripped dress scene replayed by Rock Hudson and Maria Perschy, while Paula Prentiss was another delicious Hawks heroine, like Jean Artur or Angie D. Elsa Martinelli's Dallas here has to become part of the group and show she is a good sport before that romantic climax - she even gets co-opted by the local native women for that dance!. 
The baby elephants are a nice touch - as Henry Mancini provides one of his best scores, with that "Baby Elephant Walk". The protracted climax as the elephants run through Nairobi (?) looking for Dallas is joyous fun too.

So, its the usual Hawks fare - the group of men doing dangerous work and their code of comeraderie - and the outsider, the smart woman who has to prove her worth. Basically HATARI is ONLY ANGELS HAVE WINGS set in Africa, with added humour. 
I like too the names of Hawks' characters - the girls here are Dallas and Brandy, then there is Pockets the side-kick, RIO BRAVO had Feathers and Colorado, EL DORADO young James Caan as Mississippi. There is often an attractive younger guy in the mix in Hawks films too: Dewey Martin in LAND OF THE PHAROAHS, Ricky Nelson in RIO BRAVO, Caan in EL DORADO (virtually a remake of RIO BRAVO) and here we get two of them - European actors Gerard Blain (The Frenchman) and Hardy Kruger (The German), who head off together to Paris. HATARI too has that 1962 look in spades - its nice to pour a long cool drink or three, and settle down for a couple of hours in that Hawksian universe.  I hope no baby elephants were harmed during its making. Right: BRINGING UP BABY redux?

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.

Actors: those early '60s guys continued ...

I was right about LA NOTTE BRAVA (above and left) - it played in London in 1960 as NIGHT HEAT, my then bible "Films & Filming" is very illuminating on it and those late '50s-early '60s boys making a stir then. (click pictures to enlarge...). 

Tomas Milian is Cuban, trained at the Actors Studio and found his early fame in European cinema. He is still working at almost 80, did lots of spaghetti westerns and police thrillers, as well as films like JFK and LA LUNA, and lots of tv series.

Laurent Terzieff (1935-2010) of Russian descent, had a distinguished career too, in films like Buneul's MILKY WAY, KAPO, TWO WEEKS IN SEPTEMBER with Bardot in 1967. I have ordered Pasolini's MEDEA with Callas, where he plays the centaur.

Jean-Claude Brialy (1933-2007) also in LA NOTTE BRAVA and of course those early Chabrols like LE BEAU SERGE and LES COUSINS seems to have been friends with them all, including Romy Schneider and Alain Delon (whom he took to the Cannes Festival in 1957, launching Delon's career). One of France's openly-gay actors, he also owned a restaruant in cenrtral Paris. 
Others too include Gerard Blain, Hardy Kruger, Maurice Ronet (see labels), Jean-Louis Trintignant, Renato Salvatori, Raf Vallone, Vittorio Gassman,  more on these in due course.

Here in Jean Sorel (see Sorel label) in THE ADOLESCENTS (I DOCLI INGANNI - SWEET DECEPTIONS), 1960, which I reviewd last year.

and a photo-spread on Sorel's unknown to me: LA GIORNATA BALORDA another by Bolognini, with Lea Massari, and below, a first 1960 photo-spread on Rene Clements' PLEIN SOLEIL....

Summer re-runs: Il Deserto Rosso

Well, reading the reviews the most interesting films of the week are those revivals of Antonioni's RED DESERT and that 1957 WOMAN IN A DRESSING GOWN (see post below). The Antonioni has been hailed as a welcome restoration of his "bleakly intoxicating" 1964 film which is about a woman cast mentally adrift in the desolate, ash-blackened landscape of a new industrialised Italy. 

I have reviewed RED DESERT a few times already (as per Antonioni, Vitti labels). One can't take one's eyes off Vitti as Giuliana, the russet-haired, almond-eyes young mother and unhappy wife and survivor of a suicide attempt as she wanders around Ravenna - all greys and greeens. She finds a kindred spirit in Richard Harris (it should have been Hardy Kruger, who would have been ideal here) who plays the anchorless engineer recruiting staff for a new project in Patagonia, and together they embark on a sort of affair, against a backdrop of what the late Andrew Sarris called "the architecture of anxiety": smoke-belching factories, shacks hidden in the mist. Antonioni's bold modernist angles and innovative use of colour (as in BLOW-UP he painted trees and grass to tone with the industrial landscape - a whole street and stall of vegetables is painted grey to match the heroine's mood or vision of the world). This was his first use of colour.

Almost half a century on, RED DESERT, remains a film of rare beauty and brooding intensity. It is oddly placed between Antonioni's early '60s trilogy (L'AVVENTURA, LA NOTTE, L'ECLISSE) and before his English-speaking movies: his trio for MGM (BLOW-UP, ZABRISKIE POINT, THE PASSENGER), and its his last with Vitti until 1980 (THE OBERWALD MYSTERY, reviewed here recently). Vitti is marvellous as ever but Harris seems like an uninterested zombie here - Hardy Kruger (so good in Losey's BLIND DATE and Hawks' HATARI) would have brought much more to the role  ... I had thought Harris had walked off the film but according to David Hemmings' autobio (as per my post on that, Hemmings label) he caused a brawl on set punching Antonioni in the mouth and was thrown off the film, so he exits and a stand-in was used where necessary. It is good though to have RED DESERT around again.

A '50s Losey double bill

A pair of ‘50s Joseph Losey films: I remember seeing TIME WITHOUT PITY as a kid in 1957 and that it was a gripping drama, so was looking forward to seeing it again, but really it is just a potboiler, albeit a very well acted one with Michael Redgrave as the former alcoholic released from a clinic in Canada who flies to England just as his son (Alec McCowen) is due to be hanged in 24 hours for the murder of his girlfriend. Can the father find enough evidence in that time to prove his son’s innocence? What is the link beween the girlfriend and that wealthy Stanford family, presided over by Leo McKern as the domineering father, with Ann Todd as his wife, and son Paul Daneman, the friend of the condemned man. Redgrave and Todd are of course excellent as is Peter Cushing as the lawyer, but McKern is so over the top that he becomes totally annoying and exasperating. One hardly recognised the young Joan Plowright as a high-kicking chorus girl!



Much more in the Losey style is the 1959 thriller BLIND DATE which nicely captures that end of the 50s/early 60s era. I did not see this at the time but knew it would be a stylish movie, and so it proves. Hardy Kruger is the Dutch painter turning up for a liaison with the attractive, elegant French woman he knows as Jacqueline, only to find that she has been murdered and he is the prime suspect as the police start to investigate. Stanley Baker is the man in charge and we see in flashblacks how Kruger and his Jacqueline (the very elegant Micheline Presle) meet. It turns out of course that there are shady secrets among the upper classes and police chief Robert Flemyng wants the case quickly closed with the painter charged. As usual with Losey there are some great mirror shots, Kruger and Presle are an attractive pair and the resolution is quite neat. Losey was hitting his prime here, he went on to do 2 more with Baker (THE CRIMINAL and EVA with Moreau) and then began that run with Bogarde starting with THE SERVANT in ’63. BLIND DATE and THE SERVANT would be a terrific double bill....

Soon, a raft of other Loseys to see, re-see and review: FIGURES IN A LANDSCAPE, A DOLL'S HOUSE, STEAMING, DON GIOVANNI, ASSASSINATION OF TROTSKY, EVA and that Burton/Taylor double BOOM and SECRET CEREMONY! Several of these were failures then but are cult movies now! Other Losey posts at label, including seeing him and Burton & Taylor in 1970.