New year re-views 4: The Chapman Report, 1962

I have written about it several times here already, but simply have to again - that favourite lost movie of ours, THE CHAPMAN REPORT from 1962 is finally on dvd – a Warner Archive no-frills issue, but I went for a Spanish edition (CONFIDENCIAS DE MUJER) which has the trailer and chapters, and a lurid painting of Claire Bloom on the cover, in full nympho mode. Cukor’s 1962 film of that sensational best-seller (I read it when I was a teenager) still looks good, with that early ‘60s look in spades, 
with different backgrounds and colours for the 4 ladies – costumes by Orry Kelly, colour co-ordinanation by Cukor regular Hoyningen-Heune, with costumes by Orry-Kelly, all very 1962, Veteran Henry Daniell was another Cukor regular, he gets a scene here, advising Efrem Zimbalist Jr on the dangers posed by his sex survey in suburbia. The credits are amusing too, styled like early computer cards for a electronic filing system. 

 
Claire Bloom steals the show here with her magnetic portrayal of the self-loathing nympho (she said in a recent interview Cukor was the best director she ever worked with), as we see her like a vampire in the shadows watching the water delivery boy (Chad Everett in tight trousers), before her encounter with those sleazy jazz musicians led by Corey Allen.

Meanwhile arty Glynis Johns gets an eyeful of Ty Hardin in those spray-on shorts at the beach and wants him to pose (and more) for her; while bored housewife Shelley Winters is having an affair with no-good theatre director Ray Danton – her boring husband Harold Stone just wants to  watch tv. young Jane Fonda is the fourth wife and makes the least impression here, as the frigid widow whom Efrem gets to comfort. Soap opera then, but a superior one, and a Trash Classic finally available again. 

Summer re-views, briefly

WOMEN HE'S UNDRESSED. Gilliam Armstrong's 2014 documentary on Hollywood costume designer Orry-Kelly, which we have mentioned here a few times before (Costumes label). The documentary, based on Orry's lush memoir which I enjoyed a lot, has taken its time appearing here, in fact in has not yet, but I got the Australian (Region 4) dvd, which plays perfectly on multichannel players. 

Its a fanciful conceit, with an actor playing Orry, who seems to be rowing a boat a lot of the time, but then we get all the clips: Orry's costumes for CASABLANCA, GYPSY and his three Oscar-winners: AN AMERICAN IN PARIS, LES GIRLS (where Kay, Mitzi and Taina look divine in his creations), and of course Marilyn's still daring costumes for SOME LIKE IT HOT. Orry continued up to 1964, so we get Jane Fonda and Angela Lansbury talking about his costumes for their 1963 IN THE COOL OF THE DAY - one I have never seen and can't get now, so thanks for the clips. 

Bette Davis also reigns supreme here, with those costumes Orry did for JEZEBEL, MR SKEFFINGTON, NOW VOYAGER, THE LETTER etc. 

Other talking heads include the notorious Scotty Bowers, and it rehashes all the Cary Grant and Randy Scott gossip and pictures. In fact, Orry gets sidelined for a while while the documentary focuses on Cary, who "roomed" with Orry when they were both young and starting out. But then legendary tightwad Cary always needed someone to pay the rent, hence all those years sharing houses with Randolph .... between their many marriages.

JANE EYRE - the Franco Zeffirelli 1996 version. There have been a lot of Janes around, the 1944 one with Orson and Joan Fontaine is still the one to beat for me, with delicious roles for Agnes Moorehead and Henry Daniell - but this Zeffirelli one is a nicely paced (if rather hurried at the end) version, with Charlotte Gainsbourg a suitably very plain Jane indeed (unlike Janes Joan Fontaine or Susannah York)  but William Hurt (so ideal in films like BODY HEAT or KISS OF THE SPIDER WOMAN) all wrong here and hardly making any impression, 

It is all grimly Victorian and Franco as usual ramps up the supporting players: a very severe Geraldine Chaplin and Amanda Root (PERSUASION) at the Lowood Orphanage; Fiona Shaw as Aunt Reed, Billie Whitelaw as Grace Poole, Joan Plowright as Mrs Fairfax, Samuel West, and two sadder appearances: Richard Warwick (whom I knew slightly) silent here in his last role as the manservant, the year before he died (he also pops up in Zeffirelli's ROMEO AND JULIET and HAMLET); and poor Maria Schneider as the madwoman in the attic ..... a worthwhile but low-key JANE then.  

JOE MACBETH, 1955. This re-view goes way back to the Fifties, as I first saw this when I was a kid in Ireland, but it made a vivid impression - though I would not have the got Shakespeare part then. It is a modern gangster version of MACBETH, by Ken Hughes, almost impossible to see now, (so thanks Jerry.) Paul Douglas is impressive as usual, and one of our Projector favourites, Ruth Roman, is as ever terrific as Lady M. Its a British production, so supporting cast includes Bonar Colleano, Gregoire Aslan and Sid James. I was pleased to see it again, and to get it on a flash drive. Its more entertaining than that dreadful recent Michael Fassbender version which nearly drove me screaming from the practically empty multiplex ...

THE HONEYMOON KILLERS. For real horror you can hardly beat Leonard Kastle's 1969 chiller, which I first saw as a supporting feature back then. My pal Stan and I were both gobsmacked by it, I can't even remember what the main feature was. 
I had not seen it since then but it lingered in the memory. so its good to see it again now on dvd.  Seems this could have been Scorsese's first feature,but he was replaced. It is a bleak tale of a murderous rampage by two seedy killers: the obese nurse and her scuzzy boyfriend (Tony Lo Bianco) as they plot to fleece lonely widows whom he romances and lets them think he is going to marry them, while she, posing as his sister, tags along in the background. Once seen, it is not easily forgotten. The film is made by the marvellous Shirley Stoler (1929-1999) as the malevolent Martha - she also pops up in KLUTE and is terrifying again as that Nazi concentration camp commandant in SEVEN BEAUTIES in 1975 .... (whom prisoner Giancarlo Giannini has to romance in order to survive - we raved about it, at Italian label). Her 40+ credits also include THE DEER HUNTER.  
It is not violent by today's torture porn standards, but once seen it is not easily forgotten as we enter than downbeat world of cheap motels and diners. It is Kastle's only credit. 

Kim Novak x 2: Boys Night Out / Of Human Bondage

Time for a Kim Novak double feature. We like Kim here at The Projector, one of those essential '50s stars - like Janet Leigh. 1958 must have been her zenith year, not only Hitch's VERTIGO (below) but I also like her other one that year with Jimmy Stewart: Quine's BELL BOOK AND CANDLE (right) where she surely never looked better - reviewed at Kim label.. (It was his last as a leading man, as touching 50 he slid into character roles next year, with ANATOMY OF A MURDER and was soon playing those bumbling fathers in 20th Century Fox comedies and in some good westerns). 

I remember being fascinated as a kid by Kim in THE EDDIE DUCHIN STORY where she appeared impossibly glamorous (before dying tragically), she is adequate in PAL JOEY and JEANNE EAGLES. This item is from a 1965 feature on movie stars in my favourite magazine "Films And Filming" by Douglas McVay (author of "The Musical Film").:

A few years ago, Kim Novak mounted a challenge to Liz Taylor: sailing up the evening river on her floral barge as the Labour Day queen in PICNIC (and that dance with William Holden); conducting touching love affairs in MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT and STRANGERS WHEN WE MEET; and being ideally cast as the witch in BELL BOOK AND CANDLE (one particularly cherishes some literally enthralling close-ups of the luscious sorceress holding her equally seductive Siamese blue Pyewacket). More recently, however, with slightly tatty offerings like THE NORTORIOUS LANDLADY and OF HUMAN BONDAGE, Kim’s goddess-potential has tended to peter out.

That was written in 1965, and 50 years later Kim is still here (82 this year) and we are still talking about her and watching her - I have a few of hers to see including the 1962 comedy BOYS’ NIGHT OUT – not seen that since its release, ditto the 1964 supposedly dreadful version of  OF HUMAN BONDAGE where Kim as the slutty waitress Mildred (one of Bette Davis’s best early roles in the 1934 version) and Laurence Harvey famously hated each other. It’s a confusing film – Henry Hathaway walked off it early so direction was taken over by Ken Hughes, Bryan Forbes wrote the script and also appears and t was filmed in Dublin, so there are several Irish players, like Siobhan McKenna, as well as Robert Morley and …..

I must also dig out a 1983 tele-series MALIBU, one of those lush American soaps. Kim is the realtor, and cast includes Troy Donahue, George Hamilton, Chad Everett. Also of course in the early sixties there was her Polly the Pistol in Billy Wilder’s KISS ME STUPID, an acquired taste for some but she acquits herself well here. THE AMOROUS ADVENTURES OF MOLL FLANDERS may be simple fun and a rip off of TOM JONES, but the cast is the thing here: not only Kim but Vittorio De Sica, Angela Lansbury, Lilli Palmer and George Sanders as well as a huge raft of British players of the time:

I simply did not care for THE LEGEND OF LYLAH CLARE at all, though it is a camp classic for some. Kim also pops up in the intriguing JUST A GIGOLO in 1977, but the film belongs to David Bowie and Marlene Dietrich in her few final minutes on screen … (review at Kim label), and she is hilarious in those bitchy scenes with Taylor in the 1980 THE MIRROR’S CRACKED …..

BOYS NIGHT OUT:  I saw this one from 1962,  but could barely remember it as it had never surfaced anywhere since. That early Sixties was a good time for romantic comedies pushing the sexual boundaries of the era. I also liked COME SEPTEMBER from 1961 (where Rock and Gina are a treat - with Sandra Dee and Bobby Darin for us teens - but don't bother with Rock and Gina in 1965's absolutely dreadful STRANGE BEDFELLOWS, totally unfunny and set in a Hollywood backstage version of London). 1963's SUNDAY IN NEW YORK is another terrific one, with the young trio of Jane Fonda, Rod Taylor and Cliff Robertson - as per my review (Fonda label). 

Fred, George, Doug and Howie are quickly reaching middle-age. Three of them are married, only Fred is still a bachelor. They want something different than their ordinary marriages, children and TV-dinners. In secret, they get themselves an apartment with a beautiful young woman, Kathy, for romantic rendezvous. But Kathy does not tell them that she is a sociology student researching the sexual life of the white middle-class male.

The delicious thing about BOY'S NIGHT OUT is that early sixties decor in that apartment. Its lush. The film itself is a pleasant timewaster now and didn't do much for Kim - or Garner - but the guest stars amuse: Jessie Royce Landis, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Patti Page, Fred Clark. Jim Backus etc. Directed by Michael Gordon of PILLOW TALK and other frothy items. 

OF HUMAN BONDAGE. Again, not seen here since its 1964 release, I saw it but it was a distant memory, I knew it was panned, and how, at the time. Seems Kim and Harvey (as one note as ever) loathed each other and it was a troubled production with original director Henry Hathaway walking, and Bryan Forbes more or less taking over (so Mrs Forbes, "the lovely Nanette Newman", is the nice girl at the end), though its credited to Ken Hughes. It could be a Trash Classic or a more interesting B-Movie for those in the mood. The Dublin locations and Irish supporting players are of interest now, but its obvious the young Bette Davis owns the role of Mildred (in the 1934 original (right)).  We will have another look at Kim's amusing THE ADVENTURES OF MOLL FLANDERS again soon ... 

ANOTHER Bigger Spash !

Now that the Oscar-bait movies are all released and on show, its good to see some interesting new international movies appearing here in London. I am very intrigued by the new A BIGGER SPLASH - no, not another Hockney - but Luca Guadagnino's new film which - intriguing for me - seems a remake of Jacque Deray's stylish French thriller LA PISCINE from 1969 which re-teamed Alain Delon and Romy Schneider with Maurice Ronet whose daughter was played by Jane Birkin - a very stylish murder story around that swimming pool.

This time around its Ralph Fiennes in it seems towering form (as he has been since Wes Anderson's THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL), with Tilda Swinton as a Bowie-esque rock star on holiday, who it seems stays silent after throat surgery, and with hunk de jour Matthias Schoenaerts as her lover. The daughter is Dakota Johnson (the daughter of Don Johnson and Melanie Griffiths, and granddaughter of Tippi Hedren). I loved Guadargnino's operatic melodrama I AM LOVE in 2009 - a modern Italian classic, where Tilda was amazing again (see Tilda label), so we are looking forward to this one -  Fiennes and Swinton are never less than compelling and both seem on top form here; we will be rushing to it when it opens here on Feb 12.
Guadagnino came out as gay in a recent interview, and one can definitely see a 'gay sensibility' in his work ... 

Another modern Italian classic I loved was Paolo Sorrentino's THE GREAT BEAUTY in 2013, so his new one, in English, YOUTH also has to be a must-see. I don't rush to Michael Caine films but will have to make an exception here, it also has a good role for Harvey Kietel and it should at least be interesting to see Caine and Jane Fonda (if they have scenes together) 50 years after their teaming in Otto's HURRY SUNDOWN back in 1966 ... what a lulu that was (Fonda label). This poster is not the one being used here in the UK.

Hilarious reading the reviews on DIRTY GRANDPA - maybe the worst film Robert De Niro has churned out in recent years? He is entitled to do as he pleases of course in his 70s, but hard to picture Travis Bickle of TAXI DRIVER or Jimmy Doyle of NEW YORK NEW YORK or his RAGING BULL or GOODFELLAS appearing in drivel like this ... surely he could have said no this time ? I suppose we will be laughing at it in due course ...... 

Jane and Lily hit primetime (Netflix)

This amusing poster for the new Netflix series GRACE & FRANKIE (or was it FRANKIE & GRACE?) caught my eye. This the one where Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin (30 years plus after their 9 TO 5) play the wives and 'frenemies' who are floored when their respective husbands Sam Waterston and Martin Sheen reveal they have been a gay couple for 20 years and now want to get married, to each other. 
How do the women cope, re-invent their lives and get over this ? - do they all remain friends? Grace (Jane) thinks she and husband Sheen were "happy enough" like other couples their age - now she feels the marriage was a sham and it would have been better if he had died. A comedy series for the moment then focusing on older women? I signed up for Netflix to see this, but it may be on dvd before too long, like that other Netflix hit series, the Kevin Spacey HOUSE OF CARDS reboot. Who says television is not seizing the moment these days .....  It is good to see Jane back in a meaty role (and looking her age occasionally) and Lily is super here too, the roles (uptight bitch and ageing hippie) give them a lot to play with. They have a good stoned scene coming up too.

Right -  Jane Fonda at one of the press junkets for the series. How does she do it ? - but as Sophia Loren has demonstrated 80 is the new 70. Good to see Tomlin back in circulation again too. I got Netflix on a month's free trial, so have just seen the first episode. Now for some other stuff to put on 'My List'. 

Thats a double bill!: Barbarella and American Gigolo

For those who saw them initially, or over the years, AMERICAN GIGOLO and BARBARELLA are the height of fashion and glamour and define the 1960s and the 1980s. So, as they were both on Sky Movies the same day (saves getting the dvds out...) let head off once again in Barbarella's space ship and enjoy the lush life as we cruise along with Richard as that Giorgio Moroder soundtrack sets the mood ...

The initial poster we liked

After experiencing Scorsese's TAXI DRIVER last week, scripted by Paul Schrader, now its back to his 1980 breakthrough movie AMERICAN GIGOLO which for me kickstarted the 1980s. I could rhapsodize about this for hours, and have, as per previous posts - see American Gigolo label.  Here though is David Thompson from his huge tome: "Have You Seen..."

"Paul Schrader directs from his own script and puts his every love and desire into the picture, so it thrills to the pulse of disco music, voyeuristic sex, Robert Bresson, the LA light, the Polo Lounge at the Beverly Hills Hotel, driving on the freeway in a convertible, the “privacy” of Palm Springs, and the infinite blossom of corruption in Southern California. It is often like an advertisement (shot with exquisite taste by John Bailey), and it delights in streamlining moderne-ism and the sultry swish of the passing moment. The whole thing is poised on an edge where collapse or public mirth are equal possibilities, yet it survives and brings its fatuous Sirkian plot to a lovely finale. Within the delirium of cliches and pretension, something absolutely true strides forward, personified by Gere’s lounging walk and his shameless attitudinizing. This was a new kind of riveting trash. If you want to know about American in 1980, then go to American Gigolo and Raging Bull."

Looking at it this time, I was riveted by Lauren Hutton - Gere is so extraordinary here that one initially tends to overlook her, but she is the complex heart of the film and delivers exactly what is required. Whether its Gere's Julian in THAT apartment, or laying out his Armani clothes to that perfect Smokey Robinson track, or Moroder's soundtrack (I had it on vinyl and cd) pounding as he drives to Palm Springs, or "Love and Passion" by Cheryl Barnes as he enters the gay disco ---- Scharader's Calvinist upbringing makes this seem like a circle of hell - it is all a perfect re-working of Bresson's PICKPOCKET as Julian has to turn on himself and wreck his apartment to find those stolen jewels ... and then that moment of redemption. Schrader continued his obsessions with that remake of CAT PEOPLE in 1982 another glossy sexy exercise, as per my review, Schrader label. As much as I like Gere here, after Malick's DAYS OF HEAVEN and Schlesigner's YANKS, I had no desire to see him in most of his following films. This is what I said a while back:  He is so central to the movie, like how Antonioni idealised David Hemmings in BLOW-UP.

I will have to upgrade mine to Blu-ray - as a great looking movie its up there with BARRY LYNDON, THE AGE OF INNOCENCE, THE LEOPARD or THE GREAT BEAUTY. 
Here is some more on it:  http://altscreen.com/03/02/2012/thursday-editors-pick-american-gigolo-1980/

BARBARELLA, 1968, by contrast is a dated, throwaway comic strip but not without its own amusements, a key 60s movie certainly, with some great sequences and imagery, not least David Hemmings as the revolutionary, John Philip Law as the blind, blond angel Pygar, Milo O'Shea as Duran Duran, those dolls with the teeth - and Anita Pallenberg's evil Queen with designs on our heroine and who is surely voiced by the unique Joan Greenwood, and of course Jane's wide-eyed innocent in and out of those amazing costumes. A lot of fun all-round then, almost as good as MODESTY BLAISE! 

Sunday in New York + 4 more Jane Fonda flicks

A feast of Fonda, lately - Jane that is. I just got SUNDAY IN NEW YORK, and my pal Jerry passed 4 of hers onto me recently.   Then, KLUTE was on again over the weekend, so we had another look at that too - its a key '70s movie for me, as per my other reports on it here - Fonda label.

I saw SUNDAY IN NEW YORK at the time, on its general release here in the UK in 1964, when I was 18, and more or less forgot it. But seeing it again now, 50 years later, its a bright, shiny artifact of the early 60s and is one of the better comedies revolving around sex of that time - COME SEPTEMBER, SEX AND THE SINGLE GIRL and of course the Rock and Doris comedies. It has extensive New York shooting, and an engaging quartet of players, plus An Apartment To Die For - one of those Apartments We Love, which I will have to return to soon.

Its a sparkling comedy from a Norman Krasna stage play (cue lots of doors opening and people arriving unexpectedly) and its amusing to see what was considered daring on screen 50 years ago. Peter Teskesbury keeps it moving nicely and New York circa 1963 looks great in Metrocolor, yup its another great New York movie, like BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S  — we get to see the city just before the decline that caused filmmakers of the late 1960s and 1970s (cue KLUTE!) to use the city as a symbol of urban crime rather than a terrific place for falling in love. There is also a nice jazz score by Peter Nero (who also makes a cameo appearance in a nightclub scene). 

Jane is the 23 year old virgin who refuses to put out for her fiance, and is visiting her airline pilot brother (Cliff Robertson) who swears to her that he does not sleep with girls and respects them, while a running joke has he and girlfriend Jo Morrow (super here) being continually frustrated while trying to get together. Enter amiable nice guy Rod Taylor whom Jane gets attached to - literally - on a bus. Further complications follow when they are both undressed back at Cliff's place when her fiance Robert Culp walks in and thinks Rod is her brother - then her real brother arrives!  Needless to say it is nicely worked out, and we just love that bachelor apartment with its brick walls, sunken kitchen, and the spiral stairs up to the bedroom area, which can be shuttered off at night. Urban bliss indeed.  Mel Torme sings the engaging theme tune and its classy work all round, capturing that early '60s Manhattan single lifestyle - almost an update on Rock and Doris in PILLOW TALK!  Its the perfect Valentine Day treat. 

Rod was fresh from THE BIRDS and THE VIPs, Jane had done THE CHAPMAN REPORT and WALK ON THE WILD SIDE, those two Trash Classics we love from 1962 and would go on to do more films of Broadway plays like BAREFOOT IN THE PARK and ANY WEDNESDAY, as well as her French films LES FELINS and the Vadim's like LA RONDE, and as well as the heavy stuff like THE CHASE and HURRY SUNDOWN, before her hits BARBARELLA, THEY SHOOT HORSE DONT THEY? and back to KLUTE and JULIA. We never really liked much of her work after that and she has of course re-invented herself several times since and is now a very glamorous late Seventies ...

Now, back to her first film: TALL STORY in 1960, where she is directed by father Henry's pal Joshua Logan, and co-starred with Tony Perkins - very tall and gangly here as the ace basketball player and Jane as the girl who is determined to bag him. Its a so-so comedy, rather boring in parts, with too much of the older professors. 

The most amusing scene has Jane following Tony into the mens' changing room and seeeing naked Van Williams emerging from the shower... It also features young Gary Lockwood and maybe Robert Redford in one shot.

I did not like PERIOD OF ADJUSTMENT that much either, Tennessee Williams' first comedy from 1962, which makes for a raucous comedy as we follow newly-weds Fonda and Jim Hutton en route to their honeymoon, as they visit another couple Tony Franciosa and Lois Nettleton  who are having problems of their own.  It all gets very tiresome before too long, or maybe I was just not in the mood for it. 

Ditto with Godard's TOUT VA BIEN, a 1972 political tract which sees Fonda (just after KLUTE) and Yves Montand as a couple in Paris, journalists dealing with a factory strike and the capitalist society we live in. It highlighted everything I dislike about Godard films and I just found what I saw of it unbearably tedious. I do want to re-visit Godard's CONTEMPT though, with Bardot in 1963 - which if I remember right is a fascinating treatise on making movies. 

Nice though to finally see THE GAME IS OVER (LA CUREE) again, after all this time. This Roger Vadim piece of exotic erotica dates from 1966 and is a delicious Trash Classic as Jane enbarks on a doomed love affair with her stepson, Peter McEnery. Husband is mercurial Michel Piccoli, and Jane suffers but wears marvellous costumes for each scene, particularly for her mad scene at the climax!. We like McEnery (the first HAMLET I saw on stage, in 1967). It it all delirious nonsense played out in opulent sets which are a scream. 

After all those Janes, we now want to go back to some more Romy Schneider and Catherine Deneuve ... 

Julia ? On the Beach ? The Arrangement ?

This week I am looking at and revaluating some "prestige" films that were  big in their day,  but do they still stand up now ? JULIA, ON THE BEACH, THE ARRANGEMENT.

JULIA was one of those hits from 1977 which we all went to at the time, and have been rather forgotten about since - THE TURNING POINT was another one - I will return to that later, when I have re-seen it. 

Looking at JULIA now it screams "prestige cinema" but it sees to have been has been debunked - just how much of it is true? Did Lillian Hellman make it all up? - its part of her memoir "Pentimento". It does all seem rather phoney now. Every scene is designed to be impressive, starting with the older Hellmann fishing in her boat at dawn, then that perfect period beach shack she shares with writer Dashiell Hammett (Jason Robards, to the manner born) as they fry fish on the beach - Cape Cod presumably. It is 1934 as we see from the calendar on the wall - the time of the Great Depression and Roosevelt's New Deal. Hellmann is also a writer (after her success with the play THE CHILDREN'S HOUR), but with writer's block as we see her grappling with that old typewriter. Jane Fonda is actually ideal here, in her 70s prime, like a young Katharine Hepburn. The fastidious Fred Zinnemann carefully fashions it all - I like his other great movies like FROM HERE TO ETERNITY, THE NUN'S STORY, THE SUNDOWNERS and he always gets superior perforances from his actors, and so it is here ....

Then the plot begins - we get flashbacks to her youth with her great friend Julia, with her wealthy grandmother Cathleen Nesbitt, and then their years at Oxford - all golden spires, and Vanessa Redgrave radiant as Julia striding around in her tweeds  while declaiming the brave new future to come ... but then of course the War intervenes .... and Julia devotes her life to fighting fascism, putting her life in danger ...

The central scene has Lillian meeting Julia in a restaurant, but they have to be very careful in case they are being watched. Julia is now on crutches .... and has a mission for Lillian to smuggle money (in her hat!)  As a thriller though its rather suspense-less. Max Schell appears as Julia's friend Johann, and the young Meryl Streep has that minute appearance. There is that train journey - will Lillian get the money throiugh safely?. But then the plot goes haywire, and suddenly Julia is dead. Lillian goes to see the body in a suburban funeral parlour (with Maurice Denham) and tries to find the baby Julia supposedly had.   

It is all still watchable, but I think we have to take it with a large pinch of salt. Redgrave and Robards both won Best Supporting Oscars here and it was nominated for a slew of other including best picture and director. It was Zinnemann's last big success (he did just one more), great score by Georges Delerue, and lensed by Douglas Slocombe. Fonda of course is a far prettier Hellman. 

ON THE BEACH

I really cannot find much to say about ON THE BEACH, that big one from 1959 by Stanley Kramer from the Nevil Shute novel. Shute's novels usually featured big ideas: aviation in NO HIGHWAY IN THE SKY, war in A TOWN LIKE ALICE and only the end of the world in ON THE BEACH. Kramer like Kazan, was big in the 50s and early 60s, with those self-important movies on big themes, like THE DEFIANT ONES, INHERIT THE WIND, JUDGEMENT AT NUREMBURG (with their great star turns) and this one set in Australia. Even Gregory Peck and Ava Gardner cannot make it sing as the ponderous affair also drags down Fred Astaire and Tony Perkins as the young naval husband. It is actually set in 1964 as atomic war wipes out humanity in the northern hemisphere; 

one American submarine finds temporary safe haven in Australia, where life-as-usual covers growing despair, as they wait for the radiation to reach them. The only interesting sequence is the submarine returning to San Francisco to investigate a tapping noise (which turns out to be a trapped blind cord), but where is everybody as there is no sign of dead bodies?. Did everyone just vaporise? The end coda couldn't be more in your face: that slogan "There is still time, brother"! That must have wowed them in 1959 as The Cold War escalated, it was one of the main films of that great year - but it simply does not stand the test of time and is a colossal bore now. One simply wants to fast-forward through most of it. 

THE ARRANGEMENT. Elia Kazan of course had his great decade in the 1950s, but like a lot of other once important directors may have felt left behind by the late sixties. THE ARRANGEMENT is from his own novel and it is all just too much as Kazan throws everything at us. Kirk Douglas is the business executive sick of the rat race his life as become as he deliberately crashes his car in that grim traffic scene. Deborah Kerr, getting rather matronly by then, is his worried steely wife doing all she can to help him rehabilitate himself, as he keeps flashing back to his exciting mistress Gwen - Faye Dunaway at the height of her glossy '60s glamour - who keeps taunting him about what he could have been. 

She does have that memorable line: "The screwing I'm getting is not worth the screwing I am getting". But it is all too much and too overwrought as Kirk fixates on his old Greek father Richard Boone and his nude frolics at the beach with Gwen ...

Eddie is a very rich man who has everything he wants; money, family, success, but a car crash causes him to reevaluate the life he leads. Searching for the happiness he lost, he remembers his one-time lover, Gwen, even as his wife conspires to take his fortune...

Like AMERICAN BEAUTY, Kazan's story looks anew at The American Dream and finds it wanting; looking at it now it is not as bad as some reviews said at the time, there's lots of interesting ideas here, but Kazan throws it all at us without being able to streamline it.  Right: Dunaway and Kazan.