Eighties nights ...

The Jewel In The Crown / Your Cheatin' Heart / Wish Me Luck

How did I ever miss THE JEWEL IN THE CROWN back in 1984? Well, I was moving around and out a lot .... This 14 part series is one of the best British television productions ever, up there with BRIDSHEAD REVISITED. It is a fascinating saga of the British in India in the 1940s, as adapted from Paul Scott's four novels "The Raj Quartet". 

The British Raj: though their position seems secure, thoughtful English men and women know that "their" time in India is coming to an end. The story begins with an unjust arrest for rape, and the consequences of this echo through the series. Questions of identity and personal responsibility are explored against a background of war and personal intrigue.

Television moved at a slower pace then, long scenes unfold, which would be edited quickly now, and we have time to take in all the details of the many strands of narrative and all that fascinating scenery. The first two-hour episode draws one in, as one wants to see what develops between Daphne Manners, new in India and local boy Hari Kumar (Susan Wooldridge and Art Malik) and that rather sadistic army man Ronald Merrick (superlative Tim-Pigott Smith, who died recently).  After episode three, the story changes gear and we follow the aftermath. The casting again is the thing here. with a great array of British thespians: 

Peggy Ashcroft superb as ever as Barbie, Geraldine James, Judy Parfitt (in superbitch mode), wonderful Fabia Drake and Rachel Kempson, Anna Cropper, Rosemary Leach, Wendy Morgan, and good to see veteran Marne Maitland too, from all those 1950s films. plus Charles Dance, Warren Clarke and Eric Porter among the huge cast. 

We are now half-way through this 14-episode saga, seeing an episode a night. Bring them on, Directed by Christopher Morahan and Jim O'Brien.

More India coming up too: I never saw Lean's A PASSAGE TO INDIA then either, I can record it tonight - more Dame Peggy and Malik and that great cast in Lean's Indian epic, which has to be seen finally. 

YOUR CHEATIN' HEART: We loved this six-episode series back in 1990, its quirky and off the wall. Super to get it on dvd now, as we return to that late 80s country music scene in Scotland, with a young Tilda Swinton and John Gordon Sinclair, with great music from Eddi Reader. Ken Stott shines too, as we follow the misadventures of Cissie Crouch (Tilda) and Frank McClusky as they go on the run from some weird gangsters .... its full of Scottish humour, as written by John Byrne and directed by Michael Whyte.

WISH ME LUCK. More conventional stuff - another series of wartime resistance in Occupied France, as the plucky Brits parachute in female volunteers to help the Allies defeat the Hun. This ran from 1987 to 1990, three series. Cool Kate Bufffery is marvellous the main character Liz, with rather annoying Susannah Hamilton as the annoying Matty, 

Jane Asher is perfect of course as Faith Ashley, running the department back in London, with Julian Glover, and another agent is young Jeremy Northam. Warren Clarke is the German commandant who begins to suspect ......  We get thrill and spills as the agents try to keep ahead of the Germans, as the those radio broadcasts have to get made .... who will get caught? The 40s period flavour is well done,.

Jane

In the pantheon of 1960s British actresses (led by Julie Christie, Susannah York, Sarah Miles, Rita Tushingham etc), Jane Asher was the posh one, with that standout long red hair. A child actress, she was Susannah York’s young sister in THE GREENGAGE SUMMER in 1961, and we liked her in Roger Corman’s 1964 THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH –she was interesting on radio recently saying she enjoyed working on it and with Vincent Price. 

She was also one of ALFIE’s girls in 1966, and went on to a lot of interesting items like Skolimowski’s DEEP END in 1970 – now on Bluray with lots of extra interviews, where she is the perfect 1960s dolly bird with those white boots and yellow PVC mac setting off the hair. She also did a lot of television and stage (I saw her with Laurence Harvey in Shakespeare’s THE WINTER’S TALE in 1967), and she is currently part of the hit musical AN AMERICAN IN PARIS ensemble., 
and I am watching a boxset of the 1980s war drama WISH ME LUCK, which we enjoyed at the time, where she is ideal as Faith Ashley, organiser of the secret agents operating in France during World War II. She was also in BRIDESHEAD REVISTED among others, and er, the short-lived rebooted CROSSROADS.

She was of course famous in the 1960s as also being Paul McCartney’s girlfriend – he lived for a time with her parents at their Wimpole Street address. Her brother Peter was part of  Peter & Gordon and later record producer for the likes of James Taylor. She has though never capitalised on her Beatles connections, and was also later famous for her cakes and baking, Perhaps she should take over THE GREAT BRITSH BAKE-OFF ? She is married to cartoonist Gerard Scarfe and it is always a pleasure to see her. She even tackled Lady Bracknell a few years ago. We should have seen that. 

More on Jane and DEEP END at label ...

Very 1964

Jane Asher at home in Wimpole Street, London, in 1964 - the year 18 year old me arrived in London, and saw her that year in Roger Corman's wonderful MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH. I saw her on the stage too in '67 (or was it '68?) in The Bard's A WINTER'S TALE with Laurence Harvey. I only went to it as Jane was in it. One marvellous fact about Jane: she has never traded on her Beatles connection, and is still just as fascinating and still working now, and married to cartoonist Gerald Scarfe, Thanks to Colin again for finding the photo. 
Right: Jane as Lady Bracknell in 2011. 

Summer views: more summer madness ...

We reviewed A SUMMER PLACE and SUMMER AND SMOKE here last year (see Troy Donahue, Geraldine Page labels), but here are two more 'summer' titles: SUMMER OF THE 17TH DOLL and THE GREENGAGE SUMMER ... which feature several favourites of ours, like Anne Baxter, Angela Lansbury and Susannah York, not to mention Danielle Darrieux and a young Jane Asher ! (more on these at labels). 

SUMMER OF THE 17TH DOLL (or SEASON OF PASSION, hopefully to make it sound more risque - and as the poster says 'not suitable for children'!) is a raucous 1959 comedy/drama about two Australian sugarcane cutters spend their annual five-month vacations in Sydney with their mistresses.        

This is oddly amusing now, its a daft premise that John Mills and Ernest Borgnine spend 7 months of the year labouring cutting sugar cane in remote Australia and then hit Sydney for the remaining 5 months, with their regular gals. This has got on for 16 years, but Mills' girl has had enough and married someone else. So this, 17th summer, a new gal is required. 

One does not quite see Angela Lansbury as a party girl, but she starts off as a fastidious widow, who soon starts to let her hair down. Anne Baxter though is saddled with Borgnine .... it was filmed in Australia (where Baxter had moved to for some years, during a marriage, which caused a hiatus in her career (detailed in her memoir "Intermission" - on her return she was accepting smaller parts as in CIMARRON and WALK ON THE WILD SIDE).  It is from a play (by Ray Lawler) and directed by Leslie Norman (father of tv critic Philip). The title refers to the dolls Baxter's character collects, one for each summer ... 

THE GREENGAGE SUMMER, 1961 - also provocatively described as "Adult Entertainment".
Pauline Kael in her splendid essay on ‘Movies on TV’ makes the point about how watching old movies allows us to see the career trajectory of actors’ careers as we see them young and old and in between with their hits and misses through the decades all jumbled up on tv. 

Susannah York died in 2011 aged 72, but here she is young and radiant in her first major film in 1961. THE GREENGAGE SUMMER from Rumer Godden’s novel (she also wrote BLACK NARCISSUS among others) is a delight from Lewis Gilbert, and also seems to be known as LOSS OF INNOCENCE – maybe for those who do not know what greengages are! 

This is what I wrote about it, some years ago on here: 

THE GREENGAGE SUMMER – this 1961 film from a Rumer Godden novel ("Loss of Innocence") is rarely seen now, but is an engaging drama by Ronald Neame, with Kenneth More and Danielle Darrieux as the adults, and a trio of youngsters left on their own at Darrieux’s hotel in a lush part of France while their mother is ill in hospital. Teenager Susannah York becomes involved with the mysterious (is he a jewel thief?) More who is involved with Darrieux who also seems to be involved with her (female) hotel partner. Young Jane Asher is terrific as York’s younger sister, and its intriguingly resolved. York is engaging here in her first role after her debut in TUNES OF GLORY.
I actually saw some greengages in the stores when shopping yesterday, will have to try some again this season - like gooseberries, they are not in season for long ...

Terence, Federico & Toby Dammit

An Edgar Allen Poe double bill: I had forgotten about SPIRITS OF THE DEAD (HISTOIRES EXTRAORDINAIRES) from 1968, and I liked Roger Corman's THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH in 1964 and caught it again this week on our Horror channel.

SPIRITS OF THE DEAD was the kind of art-house fodder we liked back in that crazy (it seems now) late '60s era, and the film magazines had ample spreads on its star cast: Jane Fonda with brother Peter in the first story METZENGERSTEIN directed by Roger Vadim; Alain Delon and Brigitte Bardot in Louis Malle's WILLIAM WILSON and the one that generated the most interest - easy to see why once one has seen it - Terence Stamp as TOBY DAMMIT directed by Fellini. Good its on dvd now. It catches Fellini at a good period after his big '60s hits and before SATYRICON, ROMA, AMARCORD, CASANOVA etc.

These are 3 Edgar Allen Poe stories freely adapted for the cinema, from that era of portmanteau films (I liked GOLD OF NAPLES, BOCCACCIO 70, YESTERDAY TODAY & TOMORROW, LE BAMBOLE, LE FATE and others (Italian label). We can dismiss the Vadim segment out of hand, a very silly soft-core medieval romp which wastes the talents of all involved, at least Jane Fonda was going on to her great roles; the Malle one isn't much better - Bardot is totally wasted here and wears an unbecoming black wig, one would have expected more from the teaming of her and Delon - we get two Delons though as he plays the wastrel William Wilson and the doppelganger who pursues him or is he a man who is driven to the murder of his conscience; there are some unpleasant sadistic scenes too. Then we go to Rome as wasted English actor Toby Dammit flies in ...

Everything about TOBY DAMMIT shows Fellini at his peak, this 50 minute segment is full of fabulous moments as we share Federico's vision of an airport, a tv interview, an awards show as frayed strung-out actor Toby gets more and more out if it as all the producers and movie hanger-ons latch on to him. It really makes me want to go back to FELLINI 8 1/2 now again ... Nino Rota contributes a terrific score and its deliriously shot by Giuseppe Rotunno, with production design by Fellini regular Piero Tosi.  Central to it all is that stunning performance by Stamp - one of the most attractive actors here looking a total wastrel with that frizzy blonde hair  .... 

Toby Dammit, according to Poe, was a poor, foolish young man who would bet on anything, and, because he had no money, it was his head he used as his ante. Eventually, of course, the devil collects the bet. Here Toby agrees to do an Italian film - a Catholic western - in return for a Ferrari, a long sleek red Ferrari ... and again he sees that little girl playing with a ball.  To him the devil is in fact a little girl ... after a night of demented drinking he finally flees from the movie people and screams off into the night in his low red car ...

Fellini presents a fantasmagoria, a descent into a maelstrom of grotesque settings, props and faces - is Toby embracing his own destruction? Does he know how his car ride will end ? Toby cannot bear the lights and photographers bothering him at the airport - it seems clear that stardom has taken its toll and the spotlight has drained him dry of all his life and he's just going through the motions by the bitter end .... the end is stunning as he drives his car over a gap in the motorway into a blank abyss where we see there is a wire stretched across the road with blood on it .... and the little girl with the ball picks up the dismembered head .... It could of course be a metaphor for selling your soul for 15 minutes of fame and how the bright lights can burn one out. Its surreal, beautiful, and mesmerising and Stamp is stunning here. 

Terry & Monica/Modesty = the height of '60s glamour for me

This was "the look" then

He began as that beautiful BILLY BUDD and the thug in TERM OF TRIAL both 1962, then he was THE COLLECTOR for Wyler in 1965 followed by those mid-'60s essential films, going from Losey and Monica Vitti as MODESTY BLAISE to Schlesigner and Julie Christie in FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD, Loach's POOR COW and that western BLUE and then Italy called: Pasolini and TEOREMA with Silvana Mangano, (sensational at the time) and Fellini here with TOBY DAMMIT. 

I used to have the poster

Terence wrote 3 marvellous volumes of autobiography covering it all, took lots of time off, made some very adventureous choices (unlike his old friend Michael Caine)  and continues filming now. I am looking forward to seeing him and Vanessa Redgrave and Anne Reid in SONG FOR MARION coming out soon. Certainly one of the most individual actors out there. I used to see him a few times in London as I worked for 20 years in Regent Street, just as it curved down to Piccadilly and sometimes in the morning I would see Terry clutching a carton of milk, as his apartment then was at The Albany just behind where I worked, in Piccadilly. I resisted asking him what Monica or Julie were really like .... and I also saw him on stage playing DRACULA ! 

We also liked those early '60s American-International Poe adaptations by Roger Corman like THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER and THE PIT AND THE PENDELUM - that last shot of Barbara Steele! - and the 2 he made in England in 1964: MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH and THE TOMB OF LIGEIA, all starring terrific Vincent Price. Vincent of course was terrifying in Michael Reeves' WITCHFINDER GENERAL in 1967, and later had a lot of fun as DR PHIBES and in THEATRE OF BLOOD where he met his wife Coral Brown, that very individual actress. MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH is a sheer delight with its depiction of the village, the castle and the red death plague. It has moments that suggest Bergman's THE SEVENTH SEAL, and has great images as lensed by Nicolas Roeg. Vincent is in his element as Prince Prospero imagining he can keep the plague from entering his castle, and we liked young Jane Asher here, David Weston, and Hammer scream queen Hazel Court who makes an unwise pact with "a friend of Prince Prospero" ... it all looks terrific. Corman of course shot cheaply and quickly, here on sets left over from BECKET.

'Hollywood UK'

I am indebted to my new friend Colin, who discovered my blog, for sending me that 1993 BBC series HOLLYWOOD UK, which I had recorded at the time on vhs cassettes which had since deteriorated (thats what comes from storing them in the garage) - so it has been marvellous seeing all 5 episodes again now, almost 20 years later. It was only ever shown the once by BBC2 and is a fascinating treasure trove for anyone with an interest in British '60s cinema.

Lester at the L-SHAPED ROOM house

The episodes are presented by Richard Lester - a '60s/'70s luminary himself who directed several favourites of mine (I recently caught up with his 1974 thriller JUGGERNAUT, as per recent review) and it has the novel idea of taking the creators of those '60s classics back to the original locations, as the series starts with Stanley Donen explaining how 1958 London had to look for INDISCREET, but then Laurence Harvey arrives at ROOM AT THE TOP in '59 and we finish with James Fox and Mick Jagger in that Notting Hill house in PERFORMANCE, filmed in 1968 but not released until 1970 as it so horrified Warner Bros, ... so we get Keith Waterhouse at the house used for BILLY LIAR and the other locations for the film with Tom Courtenay, Alan Sillitoe at a car park which replaced all those terraced houses in SATURDAY NIGHT AND SUNDAY MORNING, John Schlesinger on A KIND OF LOVING. 

We visit the house used for THE L-SHAPED ROOM, Bryan Forbes goes back to the farm used for WHISTLE DOWN THE WIND etc. Sidney J Furie on his LEATHER BOYS and THE IPCRESS FILE. We follow the rise of the Bonds and Carry Ons ... and we see Rita Tushingham and Lynn Redgrave on their '60s hits (Lester's THE KNACK which makes me feel 19 again,  GEORGY GIRL etc) and Murray Melvin back at A TASTE OF HONEY ...

We return to the BLOW-UP studio in W11 and that park in Woolwich as it is now, as the set decorator tells how they painted the trees and grass and streets;  James Fox returns to the PERFORMANCE house, Terence Stamp [who really must have a portrait in his attic...] insists that BLOW-UP was all about him and he was promised the part; Julie Christie comments on her BILLY LIAR and DARLING roles, Jane Asher on DEEP END, Vanessa Redgrave shows how Antonioni directed her movements to get exactly what he wanted, as does David Hemmings. Sir Dirk sits in regal splendour probably at the Connaught Hotel and expounds on the Losey years: THE SERVANT, ACCIDENT, MODESTY BLAISE. Monica Vitti has a lot to say too, in Italian, and we see her in London in the '60s in Regent Street and Park Lane. Leslie Caron discusses her time in the L-SHAPED ROOM; SEBASTIAN director David Greene discusses the copious drugs around at the time of that hippie era late '60s .... Desmond Davis assisted on TOM JONES and went on to direct THE GIRL WITH GREEN EYES, I WAS HAPPY HERE, SMASHING TIME, CLASH OF THE TITANS etc. No mention of Clive Donner though ...

The early episodes cover that early '60s kitchen sink era; then we get The Beatles and A HARD DAY'S NIGHT at Marylebone Station, THE SERVANT house in Chelsea, DARLING, GEORGY GIRL, MORGAN, THE GIRL WITH GREEN EYES, THE PLEASURE GIRLS, IF etc. and the fascinating story of the rise and rise and then fall of Woodfall Films - 

The Oscar-winning runaway success of TOM JONES in '63 (it was still playing when I arrived in April 1964) allowed Tony Richardson a free hand to make those loss-making films with Jeanne Moreau (MADEMOISELLE, THE SAILOR FROM GIBRALTAR - cult classics in some quarters now, like those Losey/Burtons also failures at the time) and then the commercially disasterous, expensive THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE - a movie I liked, we loved those Hussar uniforms in 1968, and its a perfectly '60s take on the hypocrisy of that Victorian era, with that great cast - but the mass audience stayed away as they did from other United Artists films made in England then, like CHARLEY BUBBLES, ISADORA, THE BOFORS GUN, movies I remember seeing, after Time magazine discovered the swinging city, American money was financing this British new wave.  Critic Alexander Walker covered this territory too in his many books.

We also get a few clips from one I didn't see, and nobody else did either: THE BREAKING OF BUMBO by Andrew Sinclair in 1970 from his novel, with Richard Warwick and Joanna Lumley. also JOANNA, another flop at the time as the Americans realised that the British movie scene was fading out as the '70s dawned ... and withdrew their funding accordingly. ('70s British movies apart from those early successes like THE GO BETWEEN, SUNDAY BLOODY SUNDAY, DON'T LOOK NOW, TRIPLE ECHO and those Ken Russells were mainly exploitation and Hammers and the increasingly tatty Carry Ons).

Roman Polanski discusses his British films REPULSION (as we go back to those Kensington streets) and CUL-DE-SAC at Lindisfarne; we see Truffaut filming FARNHEIT 451; Skolimowski making DEEP END and Roger Corman cheaply making THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH using leftover sets from BECKET!  There are copious clips from the movies and fascinating interviews with those concerned - a lot of whom (Schlesinger, Waterhouse, Reisz, Anderson, Bogarde, Hemmings, John Osborne, Donald Cammell, Terence Young etc) are no longer here - we also see the likes of Losey, Richardson, Truffaut at work. A fascinating document then, I am so pleased to have these programmes on disk now. Thanks indeed Colin.  Click on photos to enlarge.

 

Hemmings's reflection watching BLOW-UP

James Fox back at the PERFORMANCE house

Eastern Promises, 2007

DRIVE bowled me over last week - it seemed the last word in tough, existentalist thrillers about loners but I had not seen EASTERN PROMISES, which inexplicably sat on the dvd shelf for a year or three before I suddenly decided to see it, and boy am I glad I did. This David Cronenberg thriller, scripted by Steven Knight, has it all in spades ! Loners don't get more lone than Viggo Mortensen here.

As IMDB describe it: In London, the Russian pregnant teenager Tatiana arrives bleeding in a hospital, and the doctors save her baby only. The Russian descendant midwife Anna Khitrova finds Tatiana's diary written in Russian language in her belongings and decided to find her family to deliver the baby, she brings the diary home and ask her uncle Stepan to translate the document. Stepan refuses, but Anna finds a card of a restaurant owned by the Russian Semyon inside the diary and she visits the old man trying to find a lead to contact Tatiana's family. When she mentions the existence of the diary, Semyon immediately offers to translate the document. However, Stepan translates part of the diary and Anna discovers that Semyon and his sick son Kirill had raped Tatiana when she was fourteen years old and forced her to work as prostitute in a brothel of their own. Further, Semyon is the dangerous boss of the Russian mafia.

This is a bleak universe set in dark, wet, and noir London and captures the dark side of the city perfectly, where these Eastern Europeans hang out with their own fearsome gang culture. Mortensen is the "driver" and go-to guy for this mob you would not want to cross. It is a stunning performance: every look, smirk, mood of his is conveyed as we try to fathom his motivations for doing what he does, as he casually chops off the fingers of the frozen corpse of the guy who gets his throat graphically slit in the opening minutes ... there is a stunning twist one cannot divulge later on though. Naomi Watts is also note perfect as Anna, the nurse, gradually realising the kind of people she is dealing with, while the softly spoken, avuncular Armin Mueller-Stahl quietly impresses as the underworld boss, as does Vincent Cassel as his unbalanced psycho son. The scene in the brothel with the cowed, vodka-drinking young prostitutes is grimly realistic, as are later violent scenes, particularly that stunning climax at the public baths where a naked Viggo takes on two assassins ... edge of seat stuff! Cronenberg orchestrates it all perfectly, and this dark black-hearted story is also a great London film showing parts of the city we don't see usually .... [London label]. The Promises of the title refers to those girls lured from their Eastern European countries and end up brutalised and as virtual prisoners of gangs like the one here ...

Interesting casting too - Sinead Cusack plays the worried wife of Anna's uncle Stepan (and we worry about the gang calling on her...) - Cronenberg directed Sinead's husband Jeremy Irons in DEAD RINGERS in 1988. I did not recognise Polish director Jerzy Skolimowski as Stepan - Jerzy directed Irons in MOONLIGHTING in 1981, and those films like DEEP END which I have reviewed and written about here before [London, Jane Asher labels] . I now want to go back and catch those Cronenberg films I missed ...

EASTERN PROMISES is a shattering film, leaving one with some stunning images and that mood it creates. But the ending? Is it a cop-out, and why do we not see the gang boss captured and removed, which happens off-screen, as a new gangland overlord takes his place at his usual restaurant table ....