Last summer re-view: La Isla Del Sol

As summer ebbs away here and autumn sets in, our final summer re-view is, appropriately, ISLAND IN THE SUN (or as my Spanish dvd calls it LA ISLA DEL SOL), that sun-drenched trashfest/engrossing drama from 20th Century Fox in 1957, with fascinating casting and it all looks gorgeous, as per my earlier review.  To recap:

ISLAND IN THE SUN. “Scandal, political intrigue and inter-racial romance on a steamy Caribbean island” – well, that’s what the blurb says, and continues: “Its 1957 on the tropical island of Santa Mara (so no, its not Jamaica) where a charismatic new black leader threatens to unseat British rule.” The result though is an engrossing two hours as several plotlines converge around the leading players. Joan Fontaine has a chaste romance with Harry Belafonte (despite the posed still above they do not touch in the film) Which Cannot Be, so they have to give each other up, but it gives her a chance to wear some nice summer outfits and halter tops, with white gloves of course. 
Joan Collins also gets to wear some nifty outfits as she romances a stolid Stephen Boyd (an English lord !); James Mason gets into a murderous rage over his wife’s relationship with Michael Rennie; Dorothy Dandridge (CARMEN JONES) is lovely but rather wasted, and Diana Wynyard is good support, along with John Williams as the police chief tracking down the murderer. 

It was a best-selling novel by Alec Waugh  (a brother of Evelyn) and Darryl F Zanuck produces and gives it that 20th Century Fox plush Cinemascope look mixing in contract players like Boyd, Collins, Patricia Owens, with the more established stars, so another 20th Century Fox literary potboiler like their PEYTON PLACE, THE SUN ALSO RISES, THE WAYWARD BUS, SANCTUARY, THE SOUND AND THE FURY, HEMINGWAY'S ADVENTURES OF A YOUNG MAN. The island here could be a mix of Barbados and Grenada and is a set-designer’s dream. The title song is one of the first pop hits I remember ... A star-studded entertaining chunk of trash then from director Robert Rossen, for a damp afternoon, and so very 1957. 
PS on Fontaine & Belafonte - it caused a furore in America in the '60s when Petula Clark touched him when they were singing on one of her tv shows .... so imagine the fuss in 1957 ! Poor Joan received hate mail! On location, it was the other Joan - La Collins - who got to first base with Harry.

Summer re-views: married folk

Two contrasting studies of tempestuous marriages and infidelity. The very serious THE PUMPKIN EATER from 1964 - not seen that since then; and the 1972 Trashfest that is ZEE & CO, (or X, Y, & ZEE) - ditto.

Upper middle-class life in the black and white early sixties is nicely dissected in Jack Clayton's THE PUMPKIN EATER, from a novel by Penelope Mortimer, scripted by Harold Pinter (so we are in THE SERVANT and ACCIDENT territory). 
Anne Bancroft, after her Oscar win (for THE MIRACLE WORKER, and before she essayed Mrs Robinson in THE GRADUATE), has one of her key roles as the very intense mother of eight children, as she wonders if her current husband, writer Peter Finch, is being unfaithful. He is of course, and with the annoying Philpot (a noteworthy early small role by Maggie Smith). He has also been having an affair with the wife of jealous friend James Mason, who plots his revenge. Jo (Bancroft) has a harrowing breakdown in Harrods store, and is later menaced at the hairdressers by a woman (Yootha Joyce) jealous of Jo's lavish lifestyle and good fortune. 

Her father is Cedric Hardwicke (his final role) and the cast also includes Alan Webb, Richard Johnson as Jo's previous husband,  Eric Porter and more familiar faces.

It is a fascinating drama, often teetering on the brink of pretentiousness and unintentional hilarity, but the cast is the thing here. (A similar movie is the same era's PSYCHE '59, by Alexander Singer, another look at posh London life, here the wife is Patricia Neal, who is blind until she realises what is going on between her husband Curt Jurgens and sexpot Samantha Eggar). 
ZEE & CO is a garish cartoon by comparison ...

Zee and Robert Blakeley are members of swinging London's upper crust whose unique love-hate marriage heads towards destruction when Robert falls in love with a beautiful young widow named Stella, and Zee goes through a series of scheming adventures to break Robert and Stella up.

Thats the plot in a nutshell, but it can hardly do justice to the Trash classic that is ZEE & CO, (or X, Y, AND ZEE) - an unlikely title for action director Brian G Hutton (but he had just directed Burton in WHERE EAGLES DARE) - this time, he puts a wild Elizabeth Tayor and dull Michael Caine through their paces, and a wan Susannah York, plus Margaret Leighton as a kind of aged hippie, and John Standing as the catty gay best friend, and young Michael Cashman (ex-EASTENDERS gay Colin) as the "poncy little fag" shop assistant.

The farrago was scripted by Edna O'Brien - hope she got paid a lot - and the whole thing gets wilder and wilder and funnier and funnier as Liz scheeches and brays as she plots to seduce Susannah herself, to get her away from husband Caine ..... Taylor seems to have a ball letting rip as the over-dressed vulgarian wife of stuffy architect Caine, but really her movie goddess days were coming to an end here in 1972; without a Zeffirelli, Losey or Mike Nichols to direct her she seems to have been encouraged to go way over the top here. This is a Trash Classic up there with the best of the worst - one to relish with THE LOVE MACHINE or THE OSCAR or even HARLOW .... 

Unnecessary remakes: Great Expectations, 1974

I have just read Kenneth Branagh is directing (and playing Poirot) in a new MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS - who needs another one? The 1974 Lumet film is so well known even after 40 years and still gets shown a lot, a television staple in fact. There was also a recent BBC version too with their regular Poirot David Suchet. I am not a Poirot fan as such - the all-star Peter Ustinov ones were rather fun though. 

Now though I have finally got my hands on that rather forgotten 1974 version of GREAT EXPECTATIONS - we did not get to see it at the time, despite several of my favourites here. One would imagine Margaret Leighton would be as perfect a Miss Havisham as Martita Hunt, and Sarah Miles just right as Estella, add in James Mason as Magwich, and Michael York is the earnest Pip - all as one would imagine, and with sterling support from Robert Morley, Joss Ackland, Rachel Roberts, Dudley Sutton, Peter Bull and more - yet it all seems deadly dull and just does not soar; the cast seem to be on autopilot, just doing what is expected of them. We know the story so well of course, this apparantly was going to be a musical version, but seems they changed their minds, so its just another dull telly costumer, ploddingly  directed by Joseph Hardy. 
(York of course is one of the stars of the '74 Lumet ORIENT EXPRESS - made the same year as this EXPECTATIONS). 

David Lean's version is still the one to beat here. Its involving and engrossing every time one sees it, one could even see it ignoring the story and just relishing that fantastic black and white photography by future director Guy Green. That version remains a classic film, this '74 one is just a tepid re-working that rightly sank without trace. It is one of Lord Lew Grade's all-star productions, music by Maurice Jarre, and lensed by Freddie Young. They needn't have bothered. 

A Star Is Born and those Fifties dramas

Nice to catch 1951's A PLACE IN THE SUN again on television, along with SUNSET BOULEVARD and ALL ABOUT EVE, those great early '50s dramas, and of course, as the decade wore on, those Kazan classics like EAST OF EDEN, and the later 50s dramas like ANATOMY OF A MURDER or the over-heated SUDDENLY LAST SUMMER or Susan Hayward classics like I WANT TO LIVE or I'LL CRY TOMORROW, or Magnani or .... See Drama-1 label for my first post here on all those ...

Now, a few more comments on Cukor's A STAR IS BORN, that 1954 musical drama that just keeps looking better and better each time I see it.  There is quite a bit on it here - see the labels - as its one of the first movies I saw that year as a kid of 8. JOHNNY GUITAR was the first, what a vivid introduction to movies that was - but A STAR IS BORN may well have been the second. I loved the widescreen images, like that beach house with the sun reflected on the glass, and that rich Warnercolor just glows now, particularly after the film was restored and the extras included those 3 alternative versions of "The Man That Got Away" and all that premiere footage with all the stars of the time (Doris, Peggy Lee, Crawford, Bacall, the Wildings, the Curtises, the Fishers etc) 

It is one of the great Fifties dramas - a drama with music, as opposed to one of those MGM spectaculars, It was Brando's year of course but for me Mason delivers the performance of the year, and of his career, as Norman Maine. 

Judy of course is something else. It is easy to see now why Grace Kelly got the Oscar for that year. She was the hot new girl in town (like Audrey the year before, and Judy Holliday in 1950 when Bette and Gloria were seen as old-timers; and a decade later in the bright shiny early Sixties when the two Julies - Andrews and Christie - were the next hot new girls in town..).   Judy too had burned her boats a lot and had antagonised too many with her tantrums and delays, maybe caused by a bi-polar or medical condition caused by all her medications and addictions. 

It is though a Hollywood drama at its dizzying peak. Unlike more modern filmed musicals where the performances are edited to pieces (Rob Marshall) or upstaged by other action (Baz Lurhmann), Cukor goes in for long takes and full musical sequences. So many scenes that were phenomenal showing Esther's rise through Hollywood:  "The Man That Got Away" when Norman discovers her again after prowling the nightclub circuit in search of freash cuties (but not from Pasadena!), the number Judy stages for Mason ("I am discovered on a rather simple divan");  the Academy Award scene, the dressing room breakdown scene, Norman's shamed appearance in court ....any one of them would have propelled another actress to an Oscar. At least A STAR IS BORN is appreciated more today - when was the last time anyone mentioned THE COUNTRY GIRL or saw it on television?, its a dull boring film enlived by Grace playing dowdy in a cardigan. 

Yes, Judy's weight fluctuated and she does not always look her best (at only 32) but it is still Garland at her peak and she is thrilling. She was robbed of that Oscar. She and Mason deliver timeless, great performances, maybe the best in any musical. Add in Cukor's great widescreen compositions and lots of savage humour, like Jack Carson's vicious PR man, and Charles Bickford marvellous as the studio head. That first "You Gotta Have Me Go With You" number is brilliantly staged too as the drunk Norman invades Esther's act on stage .... It is full of lovely moments, like the studio makeup men trying to decide on Esther's face and Norman then wiping all the gunk off, or Esther getting her new name Vicki Lester - "Go to L" or the "We can see your face" moment ..... it made no sense to cut the scene where she works in the drive-in burger bar and leave in Norman telling her to "think of a man eating a nutburger" ! The "Born in a Trunk" sequence too has some delicious moments .... 

Judy might well have started out with good intentions but she quickly fell back into her old undependable patterns and habits from her MGM days. George Cukor vowed never to work with her again he was so frustrated with her. Jack Warner lost interest in promoting Judy or the film for any Oscars after his disastrous dealings with her husband and the film's producer Sid Luft, and Judy, (he was also furious to discover they had furnished their house with furniture from the set) and the film was quickly cut to fit in more screenings.  
She did, indeed, burn her bridges with Warners, her last chance to prove that, with all her talent, that she could behave responsibly, professionally.  It irreperably damaged her career. Blame it on drugs or being bipolar or whatever. 

It was the same problem with her last film I COULD GO ON SINGING in 1963, when again she is marvellous, and its a great record of Judy then more or less playing herself, but as Dirk Bogarde related in his memoirs, the shoot was a nightmare with everyone quickly getting tired of Judy's dramas, wanting to sack the director, etc. Mel Torme wrote a book on the nightmare her early '60s tv shows had become. The films continue to fascinate though. More on them at Judy/Dirk labels.

A Star Is Born in 1954 ...

Its interesting for A STAR IS BORN fans - thats the 1954 Cukor film obviously, not the Streisand abomination - to see an original review from 1954 when it had just opened. This is just a few comments (by Clayton Cole) from the Nov 1954 issue of "Films and Filming" which gave the film lavish praise and coverage in those early issues. 

A STAR IS BORN is a film of almost incomparable brilliance and richness whose brilliance and richness never intrude for their own sakes, but are used solely as aids in the unfolding of the drama, the colour is used in the most subtle way to increase the spectator's emotional involvement, set the mood of the scene and convey the emotions of the characters. The opening shots of a mammoth charity gala perfectly capture the overwrought atmosphere that prevails at any function of this sort in Hollywood: backstage, in the lobby where the struggle is to be seen, and on the street lined with fans who scream at the arrival of every preening celebrity ...(I also love that marvellous opening sequence with that rich Warnercolor adding depth). 

With this film Judy Garland takes her place among the few very great ladies of theatrical art, for added to all that we knew of her before there is now an emotional talent of the greatest depth. Throughout this enormously long film she never makes one wrong move or utters a false sound. Where before she was primarily a great entertainer, she is now that and so much more. The catch in the voice, the bubbling laugh, the pathos under the gaiety, are here used as manifestations of a character and not just as examples of virtuosity. 

James Mason's Norman Maine is no mere foil, but the most finely etched performance he has given since coming to Hollywood. His portrait of great talent disintegrated through drink is completely true, and even in the scenes of sodden drunkeness he is always Norman Maine. A STAR IS BORN is a film of great technical achievement that is illuminated throughout by the sensitivity and quality of its very particular star. (I know it was Brando's year, but Mason gets my award for best actor of 1954).

Ironically though next to the review on the page - below - is a still of Grace Kelly in that year's THE COUNTRY GIRL .... a portent then of the coming Oscars.  

We love A STAR IS BORN here at The Projector, as per the many other posts on it - see Garland/Cukor/Mason labels. It was in fact one of the first films I saw that year when I was 8, and like JOHNNY GUITAR its images were stunning to the young me, and have remained so. 

A Star Is Born, London style ...

Here is an interesting oddity - a 14 minute newsreel on the 1954 London premiere of A STAR IS BORN.

We are familiar with the footage of the American premieres in New York and L.A. when all the stars of the time turned out - these are among the extras on the restored dvd. But this London premiere footage is quite intriguing too - as narrated by and featuring Dickie Attenborough and his wife Sheila Sim. Theres also Diana Dors, Janette Scott and her mother Thora Hird, and at about 8.00 minute mark, divine Kay Kendall. Jack Hawkins, John Gregson, Finlay Currie Kenneth More and more are also in attendance, as is Laurence Olivier greeting the guests on behalf of the Variety Club, I half expected Dirk Bogarde to turn up as well, being such a Garland fan. We see the preparations for the screening - how movies were shown then! There is also some black and white footage from the film, a Projector favourite here, and there is the old Warner cinema too which I knew so well. 

Another ship of fools ....

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

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

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

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

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

5 Fingers, 1952

Here's a civilised treat for a rainy afternoon .... Take some people we like - James Mason, Danielle Darrieux - and a writer/director at the top of his game: Joseph L. Mankiewicz (or Mank) and put them to film a true story, full of exciting twists and turns:

In neutral Turkey during WWII, the ambitious and extremely efficient valet for the British ambassador tires of being a servant and forms a plan to promote himself to rich gentleman of leisure. His employer has many secret documents; he will photograph them, and with the help of a refugee Countess, sell them to the Nazis. When he makes a lot of money, he will retire to South America with the Countess as his wife.

That busy actor Michael Rennie is fine as the intrepid British counter intelligence agent and John Weingraf as the German Ambassador to Turkey also score. Bernard Herrmann does the music score and script is by Michael Wilson. No wonder Hitch wanted Mason for NORTH BY NORTHWEST after seeing him here as Diello the suave perfect valet who is not what he seems. Danelle's mercenary Countess has a great line to a German underling:  "I wish you wouldn't look at me as if you had some source of income other than your salary." Mank had the Award-winning hits ALL ABOUT EVE and A LETTER TO THREE WIVES under his belt, with several more to come - I liked his 1950 rare race thriller NO WAY OUT a while back (Mank label) and must see his Cary Grant starrer PEOPLE WILL TALK from this early 50s era soon too. 

Coming up after my trip to Ireland - 4 Jane Fonda items, from IMDB pal Jerry last week: Not seen her first, TALL STORY, or that 1962 Tennessee Willliams comedy PERIOD OF ADJUSTMENT; and not seen Vadim's hilariously awful THE GAME IS OVER from 1966 since then - and then there's Godard's TOUT VA BIEN from 1972 when Jane was in revolutionary mode .... will I like all or any of them ?

In the mood for summer repeats

Rapture! - In the mood for IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE again ... (as per review last year, 2000s label). 

Our heatwave seems to be finally over, as rain and cooler weather arrive,with that autumn nip in the air already! I won't have to be drinking too many cool Italian lagers or Belgian ciders then .... but we often get a good warm late summer here in the British Isles, and over on the West coast of Ireland, where I spend time too, right on the edge of Europe ...

Meanwhile, those summer repeats keep on coming. I have a stack on recent releases to watch: THE WOLF OF WALL STREET, DALLAS BUYERS CLUB, INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS, THE GREAT BUDAPEST HOTEL, CAPTAIN PHILLIPS, SAVING MR BANKS, THE GREAT BEAUTY etc. as well as been entranced by Visconti's THE LEOPARD now even more stunning on Blu-ray (see post below), as is Lean's LAWRENCE OF ARABIA, but instead its more repeats of favourites on tv: ROBIN AND MARIAN, Channing's THE EAGLE and boxsets like LOVE/HATE, HOUSE OF CARDS, WHITE COLLAR etc, as well as vintage boxsets on Lee Remick as JENNIE (Churchill) and Francesca Annis as LILLIE (Lily Langtry, which also has Peter Egan as an exquisite Oscar Wilde).. See labels here for more on all these:

ISLAND IN THE SUN was on again, from 1957. Nice to look at, thats a perfect Caribbean island, from that best-selling novel and Fox gave it the plush treatment. I love Joan Fontaine's outfit for meeting her sort of lover Harry Belafonte (Joan received hate mail for appearing in scenes with the handsome Harry, meanwhile it was the other Joan - Collins - who was getting intimate with Belafonte..) but her white gloves and pink pencil halter top dress ensures she looks great; the above is a posed shot - they never touch in the film, apart from where he helps down from the bus ! 

meanwhile starlets Joan Collins and Stephen Boyd romance in the surf and Dorothy Dandridge is marvellous with John Justin (whom I have seen quite a bit lately, in 1943's THE GENTLE SEX and those '70s Ken Russell farragos, as reported below). James Mason is also here, married to Patrica Owens, and he kills Michael Rennie in a fit of jealousy as  policeman John Williams puts two and two together ... delirious stuff, I loved that theme song as a kid.

I can never resist another look at RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, now, like BODY HEAT (also scripted by Lawrence Kasdan) one of the key movies of the '80s. It all works perfectly here, from that perfect opening sequence with Alfred Molina to the high-jinks in Nepal before going on to Egypt .... This and Harrison's AIR FORCE ONE may well be my favourite popcorn movies. Amusing touches here too, like the (male) pupil with an apple for teacher .... with Denholm Elliot and Paul Freeman sterling support and Karen Allen as that very spunky heroine.

Two years ago we had a Hitchcock summer here, as the BFI showed all his films, and canonised VERTIGO as the best film of all time, in their "Sight & Sound" magazine (see details at Hitchcock label) - now our Film4 channel starts a 'frightmare' season with PSYCHO and THE BIRDS. I never tire of THE BIRDS and that marvellous interplay between the characters, its a very witty screenplay, Rod Taylor and Tippi Hedren are ideal - particularly as she dials the telephone with her pencil - and Suzanne Pleshette is ace too.

PSYCHO continues to amaze me, one notices new things - the opening titles tell us its December 12th, but the only sign of christmas is one shot showing street decorations as Janet drives out of town, and of course its the first time a toilet was flushed in a mainstream American film! Janet Leigh is simply astounding here, and should surely have been nominated for an Award.....

Our Sky Arts channel has discovered Ingmar Bergman's THE SEVENTH SEAL which they are showing frequently, maybe most people's introduction to those foreign arthouse movies. It has of course been parodied many times, but it still has the power to mesmerise us as Death plays chess with the Knight, and the family of simple folk make their escape - the unforgiving medieval world is essayed here as the young witch is burned and people flagellate themselves to hopefully avoid the Black Death ..... its still a stunning film full of indelible images, even simple shots of the sea and the waves and the rocks have a stark power of their own. On his return from the Crusades, a Swedish knight, Antonius Block (Max Von Sydow in his signature role), is accosted by Death but staves off his demise by challenging him to a game of chess. Ingmar Bergman's best known early film is not all existential gloom. Well, all right, it is, but is alleviated by the film's inventiveness and audaciousness, and Death is hilariously sardonic. Pity the doomed souls being led away at the end, dancing on the skyline .... 

THE ELEPHANT MAN, 1980.  Nothing new to say about this apart from that I was stunned and mesmerised all over again. It has to to be one of the most powerful films ever made and David Lynch’s keeper. All the elements are there: that Victorian industrial background, the stunning black and white photography capturing it all, and the superlative cast – did John Hurt and Anthony Hopkins do anything better?, with sterling support from John Gielgud and Wendy Hiller, not to mention Freddie Jones, and that perfect ending as we clear away our sobs. Its still a key 80s movie.

SUDDENLY LAST SUMMER remains deliriously over the top too, as Katharine Hepburn's Mrs Violet Venable descends in her elevator to persuade doctor Montgomery Clift to lobotomise her niece Elizabeth Taylor to remove what she saw happen to Sebastian last summer .... poor Monty seems to be sleepwalking through this as Taylor (in that white swimsuit which was "a scandal to the jaybirds") and Hepburn go head to head ...

And then a large helping of cheese: GUESS WHO'S COMING TO DINNER .....  I tried to avoid it but looked in before the end. It seemed even worse than I remembered, but how we loved it back in 1967. I remember friends and I going to a late night show at 11pm – not so common in London then! Watching it now one can see all the glaring faults – its shot like a tv sitcom, that house full of art and the view over San Francisco are laughably opulent and fake now, and that ghastly score.

Thankfully I missed that excruciating scene at the drive-in ice cream parlour where Tracy comes across as just old and doddery and annoying. The daughter of course is an airhead, and Dr Prentice (Poitier) seems a living saint and they just have to rush to Geneva as he has to work for the World Health Organisation so both sets of parents have to give their approval right away for their union. The black servant ("part of the family") still has to serve dinner though – and don’t get me started on this wealthy liberal family who are not Catholics, with their pet priest (dear twinkly Cecil Kellaway) who is Irish and likes that whiskey !  But of course one has to see it in the context of its time:  race relations were still very problematic then and this sugar-coated pill (along with Poitier's other hits that year IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT (which I loved) and TO SIR WITH LOVE) may have helped things along. At least it revitalised Katharine Hepburn’s career (while her contemporaries were mired in cheap guignol flicks, and Kate was even bigger the next year when THE LION IN WINTER was such a hit, winning her another Oscar) – there she was on the cover of LIFE magazine and standing on her head, as a whole new generation fell in love with her - she had really been off the screen since 1959's SUDDENLY LAST SUMMER, Lumet's LONG DAYS JOURNEY INTO NIGHT in 1962 was not widely seen at the time despite winning awards at Cannes, in fact I didn't see it until the dvd became available). I love her costumes and little hats in this film which she breezes through, particularly the great scene where she fires the art gallery assistant. Like all Kramer’s films of the time, it seems hopelessly overdone now.   below: Visconti's sumptuous 1963 THE LEOPARD, once again.