Back to 1957 with ....

When I was 11 in 1957, a favourite movie magazine - one of the American fan ones - was maybe called "Screen Stories", featuring stories and photos from the current movies. This particular issue featured RAINTREE COUNTY, THE PRINCE AND THE SHOWGIRL, TAMMY AND THE BACHELOR, LOVING YOU, FUNNY FACE and others -- I can still visualise it. This week two of these re-surfaced, the Marilyn and the Elizabeth saga. Of the two I think Marilyn came out the winner.

Both had been working hard throughout the early Fifties, Liz having four movies out in 1954, but once GIANT catapulted her into the  major league, she slowed down to one prestige film a year .... as did Marilyn, who had formed her own production company with Milton H Greene, after moving to New York and was seeking more important projects, than the fluff 20th Century Fox saw her in. Terence Rattigan's play, THE SLEEPING PRINCE, seemed the ideal choice, with Laurence Olivier directing and co-starring, and a good British cast, filmed in England in 1956. We have covered that in detail before here, particularly when the film MY WEEK WITH MARILYN came out. Looking at it again now it is utter delight.

It is a totally different Marilyn from her Fox movies, ace cameraman Jack Cardiff photographs her lovingly, she had never looked better and proves herself a delightful comedienne, holding her own with Olivier, whose sly portrayal is a joy too. Marilyn in that skintight white dress, with the white choker necklace, and the nice period detail. 
Good to see Richard Wattis in a good role for once, and Marilyn with Jean Kent, Maxine Audley, Gladys Henson, Vera Day and with that forgotten actor Jeremy Spenser as the young prince,  (All covered at labels). Of course the production was notoriously difficult with Marilyn's delays and insecurities, but none of it shows on the screen. Its a pleasure to sink into any time. 

RAINTREE COUNTY on the other hand is now a colossal bore and did Taylor no favours. Her damaged southern belle is no Scarlett O'Hara, and the film is a plod through the usual Civil War dramatics. 
Eva Marie Saint is wasted, but we get lots of the young Lee Marvin, Rod Taylor, Nigel Patrick. Montgomery Clift seems to stumble through it, We wonder which scenes were before and after his car accident. He and Taylor though did look great in Bob Willoughby's photos from the set, and seemed to be enjoying themselves, The film was never given the full dvd release initially, as though MGM did not want to bother with it. At least Liz had those Tennessee Williams roles lined up next: CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF and SUDDENLY LAST SUMMER, while Marilyn went back to Billy Wilder and the immortal SOME LIKE IT HOT. Liz may have been the dramatic actress, but Marilyn could sing, do comedy and musicals, as well as dramatics, and seems to have endured better.

Monroe and Taylor would be in contention again five years later in 1962 when CLEOPATRA and MM's SOMETHING'S GOTTA GIVE where making the headlines .... 

Mrs Stone, on her Roman balcony, 1960

We have written about Mrs Stone here before - that beauty on a Roman balcony in 1960. That Tennessee Williams boxset some years back (in the great era of dvds when we had to collect everything) was an ideal compendium of his greatest hits, with A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE (with new added material like Brando's screen tests etc), CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF, SWEET BIRD OF YOUTH, BABY DOLL, NIGHT OF THE IGUANA and the 1960 film of his story THE ROMAN SPRING OF MRS STONE. (I suppose it couldn't fit in SUDDENLY LAST SUMMER, SUMMER AND SMOKE, THE FUGITIVE KIND, THE ROSE RATTOO, BOOM! or THIS PROPERTY IS CONDEMNED (I always forget THE GLASS MENAGERIE, as have never seen any version of it, though I have read the text). ... more on all these at Tennessee label).

Right: Rich, lonely and vulnerable, Mrs Stone is easy prey for heartless gigolo Paolo (Warren Beatty) and his malevolent female pimp The Contessa (Lotte Lenya).

THE ROMAN SPRING OF MRS STONE is always a pleasure to see again, maybe not a great movie, but a splendidly enjoyable melodrama where Vivien Leigh is again ideal - this time as Karen Stone, an ageing famous actress fleeing from her public and taking up residence in Rome where she "drifts" after her husband inconsiderately dies next to her on the plane. She avoids concerned friends like Coral Browne, but soon falls prey to predatory creatures like the Contessa and her stable of young beauties for every taste (viz the old gent meeting his trick in the opening credits). No-one suggests decadence like Lotte Lenya and she certainly scores here, as Mrs Stone is soon bedazzled by Paolo (Warren Beatty in his debut) who treats her mean and takes her money, but as Mrs Stone becomes addicted to sex she throws caution to the winds after coolly resisting Paolo's casual blandishments at the start.

Soon though he is mocking her and arranging other dates with that young actress new in Rome (Jill St John), while the homeless young man stalking Mrs Stone (Jeremy Spenser, below) becomes more bold ... finally the abandoned Mrs Stone throws down her keys to the vagrant and thinks that five years more is all she wants ... one almost laughs out loud at Beatty's youthful beauty and petulence as Vivien again sketches her desperation (this of course captures her after the Olivier years) - 
if the film had been better (it was directed by theatre director Jose Quintero) it could have been one of her great roles equalling Scarlett O'Hara or Blanche DuBois, or THE DEEP BLUE SEA or her last appearance in SHIP OF FOOLS and she looks great in those Balmain outfits. 
(Pauline Kael in "I Lost It At The Movies" says: "The Tennessee Williams novella is about a proud, cold-hearted bitch without cares or responsibilities who learns that sex is all that holds her to life, it is the only sensation that momentarily saves her from the meaningless drift of her existance" and who used her youth and beauty to get ahead and now finds she is reduced to purchasing both. Vivian has some delicious scenes with Lotte, who is as perfect as her Rosa Klebb here.   

Penny Stalling in the very entertaining Flesh and Fantasy (1978) says: 
“Tennessee Williams wanted the lead in The Roman Spring of Mrs Stone to go to Katherine Hepburn, after seeing her performance as the scheming mother in Suddenly Last Summer. But Hepburn, who resented the way her advancing years had been treated in that film, had no intention of inviting comparison between herself and the lonely middle-aged actress who buys the attentions of a male hustler. Although the public was intrigued by rumors of an off-screen liaison between the film’s subsequent stars, Vivien Leigh and Warren Beatty, Spring was a disappointment at the box office. It seems that audiences were uncomfortable with the film’s depressing theme, and with the painful similarities between the lives of Vivien Leigh and Karen Stone.”
(Hepburn, of course, had already done the love-starved woman in Italy falling for a handsome man, in Lean's SUMMERTIME in 1955, so would hardly have repeated herself). 

(There was, incidentally, a 2003 remake of MRS STONE with Helen Mirren and Olivier Martinez (right) - they may have shown more flesh and Helen did her usual thing, but (like THE TALENTED MR RIPLEY where they also trowel on period detail) it just couldn't catch that 1960 original, and Anne Bancroft in one of her final roles as the Contessa was somehow all wrong, her decadence amounting to stealing the chocolate biscuits...). 
Contrast with Tom Hiddleston in HIGH RISE: 

'70s British cinema & the curious case of Barry Evans

Today we look back at Seventies British cinema - which brings to mind that famous quote from THE GO-BETWEEN: "The past is a foreign country, they do things differently there". 70s British cinema began quite well with those well-regarded films like SUNDAY BLOODY SUNDAY, THE GO-BETWEEN (an award winner at Cannes) and DON'T LOOK NOW, as directors like Schlesinger, Losey and Roeg were at their peaks; and there were cult hits like THE WICKER MAN (originally sent out on release as supporting feature to DON'T LOOK NOW)..  British television was also good then in the early '70s, with series like COUNTRY MATTERS, WESSEX TALES, the BBC's TAKE THREE GIRLS and the hit ITV series UPSTAIRS, DOWNSTAIRS (the DOWNTON ABBEY of the era). 
The UK still only had three television channels (BBC1, ITV and BBC2, Channel 4 did not start until late 1982), video had yet to arrive - I got my first recorder in December 1979, so one either saw things at the time or missed them. BBC had a great series of sitcoms, we loved HI-DE-HI, ARE YOU BEING SERVED? and DAD'S ARMY. ITV sitcoms were generally weaker, and seen as a bit dim or low rent. I have to admit I did not bother with series like those spin-offs like DOCTOR IN THE HOUSE, DOCTOR AT LARGE or the later MIND YOUR LANGUAGE which ran from 1977 to 1986, all featuring Barry Evans (1943-1997), today's subject, or those series with Richard O'Sullivan, a spin-off from GEORGE AND MILDRED, though that may be my loss.

HERE WE GO ROUND THE MULBERRY BUSH 

As the Seventies wore on British cinema still turned out some interesting films, usually featuring Glenda Jackson (probably England's busiest actress then)  with either Oliver Reed, Alan Bates, Michael Caine or Peter Finch - titles like TRIPLE ECHO, STEVIE, RETURN OF THE SOLDIER - she is terrific leading that cast in NASTY HABITS, and there's the dreadful THE INCREDIBLE SARAH - Glenda kept churning them out; I saw her on stage too in THE MAIDS with Susannah, which was also filmed (and in THREE SISTERS at the Royal Court in 1968 - Glenda label).
People still went to the cinema a lot, the 70s was a great decade for European cinema and that new American cinema of Altman, Scorsese, Coppola, De Palma etc The CARRY ONs and Hammer Films were still going too even if getting tattier by the day, soft porn was invading them too ..... which brings me to a double bill I recorded the other day, which was on sometime during the night on one of those cable channels: ADVENTURES OF A TAXI DRIVER and ADVENTURES OF A PRIVATE EYE, dating from 1976 and 1977, when the tat really hit the fan.

Now lets go back to 1968, when the two Swinging London films we loved (being in our early 20s at the time) were SMASHING TIME (Rita Tush and Lynn Redgrave come down from the North to wreck havoc in George Melly's delightful script as directed by Desmond Davis - see label) and Clive Donner's HERE WE GO ROUND THE MULBERRY BUSH set in Stevenage New Town with a great cast of new faces (Barry Evans, Judy Geeson, Adrienne Posta, Angela Scoular) and that Traffic score - it caught the scene perfectly, my pal Stan and I loved it. The brief nudity in it was fresh and engaging too - not cheap and tatty as in those later films.

Smut though was coming to the fore by the early 70s - kinky as in DORIAN GRAY or GOODBYE GEMINI (see Trash, 70s, British labels for more on these) but generally cheap and unfunny as in those CONFESSIONS OF A WINDOW CLEANER and others featuring the charmless chump Robin Askwith (still going now, as in the BENIDORM series which seems to have lost the plot completely). Then there was PERCY in 1971 and those Hywel Bennett films, like the mess they made of Joe Orton's LOOT .... Then there was that spate of '70s British gangster movies (covered here already, British label), like ALL COPPERS ARE, THE SQUEEZE, VILLAIN, SITTING TARGET, HENESSEY etc. and John Wayne (with toupee) taking on the '70s London underworld in the very enjoyable BRANNIGAN.

After MULBERRY BUSH Barry Evans had a small part in Donner's next, the interesting ALFRED THE GREAT in 1969 (David Hemmings and Michael York leading), and he was busy in television including those series mentioned. However in 1976 he starred in a CONFESSIONS OF ... rip-off titled ADVENTURES OF A TAXI DRIVER, which was an interesting view to flick through quickly (one would hardly want to see them in real time) with its follow-up ADVENTURES OF A PRIVATE EYE - Barry bailed out of that one, the lead was a charmless nonentity called Christopher Neil. There was even a CONFESSIONS OF A PLUMBER'S MATE, but we were spared that - all directed by one Stanley Long - dare one mention him.

What was so depressing about these apart from they being desperately unfunny was seeing Barry and the MULBERRY BUSH girls (Geeson, Scoular, Posta) re-united a decade later but now given nothing to do apart from situations where their clothes fall off, and seeing the likes of Diana Dors (cheerfully playing the blowsy, harridan mother in both epics), Suzy Kendall, Liz Fraser, Harry H Corbett, Fred Emney, Irene Handl, Ian Lavender, Julian Orchard, Jon Pertwee, Anna Quayle, William Rushton etc roped in and given nothing to do. It may have been the only work going, but they would hardly have earned much for doing a day or two on poverty row productions like these. It must have been a lean time for comedians and young actors when the British cinema - so prolific in the '50s and '60s - was now on its knees and just producing smutty rubbish. At least the guys had to strip off too, as Barry or Chris had to run naked from various ladies' bedrooms as the husband returned ... presumably that had them rolling in the aisles. 

Barry's MIND YOUR LANGUAGE series ran until 1986 and his last credit was in 1993. By then he was a taxi driver in real life, in Melton Mowbray, where he was found dead in 1997, aged 53, in rather mysterious circumstances. 

The circumstances of his early death remain a mystery; He was found dead in his bungalow in Leicestershire, England with bottles of whiskey and aspirins nearby. A youth was charged with his murder, but acquitted on lack of evidence. A local coroner later recorded an open verdict.

There was also some story about him being involved with a rentboy, and having had a blow to his head - maybe by the youth mentioned above. A sorry end to when he was 18 and won a scholarship to train for the stage at the Central School of Speech and Drama. 

Sad how some actors' careers and lives pan out .... some die too young (Stanley Baker), some careers are over before the actor dies (Stephen Boyd, Laurence Harvey), some simply vanish - like the interesting case of Jeremy Spenser (see label), a 1950s actor who was the young prince in THE PRINCE AND THE SHOWGIRL, and in SUMMERTIME, THE ROMAN SPRING OF MRS STONE, FERRY TO HONG KONG etc, which shows that acting with Monroe, Olivier, Katharine Hepburn, Vivien Leigh, Orson Welles is no guarantee of a long career. As I have said before, most personable actors though if they are fortunate get ten good years and can usually parlay that into smaller roles as they get older: Michael York, Terence Stamp etc. 

Next: a look at those pals Oliver Reed and David Hemmings and how their careers intertwined and changed over the years, as they did ...  

Jeremy Spenser ?

Those old film magazines I have been acquiring, "Films and Filming" had a monthly column on a Person of Promise, which high-lighted, each month, a person of promise. These included Lee Remick and Stephen Boyd (as per my labels on them), plus Belinda Lee, Shirley Eaton, Shirley McLaine, Don Murray, Carol Lynley, John Fraser, Ronald Lewis, Sylvia Syms, Michael Craig, Diane Cilento and lots of rising talent in the UK and elsewhere. (Its interesting now seeing who became big names and who didn't). I was pleased to see a recent one (in the January 1957 issue) on that interesting actor who seems to have vanished - Jeremy Spenser.   Here is what it says on Jeremy:

A young British actor who would seem to combine a first-class acting talent with a sensual appeal for younger filmgoers is 19 year old Jeremy Spenser, who has been repeating in the film THE PRINCE AND THE SHOWGIRL the role of the boy king which he played in the stage production (THE SLEEPING PRINCE) at London's Phoenix Theatre. Spenser, then aged 16, played throughout the 8 months run of the play. Already he was quite a veteran of stage and screen, having began his career when only 8.

As a child actor he had a supporting role with Vivien Leigh in ANNA KARENINA in 1948. He was also in the Alec Guinness Ealing classic KIND HEARTS AND CORONETS. Other film roles followed and stage roles included THE INNOCENTS with Flora Robson (presumably Miles to her Miss Giddens).

His recent films include ITS GREAT TO BE YOUNG with John Mills, SUMMER MADNESS (where he played Rosanno Brazzi's son and has a scene with Katharine Hepburn), and with Claudette Colbert in THE PLANTER'S WIFE. 

As a personality, Spenser has a serious approach to living, a fact which does not deter him at times from gaily enjoying a full and colourful life. He plays chess, the piano and the trumpet. He admires directors like Kazan and Zinnemann, and artists as diverse as Marlon Brando and Judy Holliday. Of Sir Laurence Olivier he says"He happens once in a century". 

Spenser wants to be a writer. He claims to have written a novel at the age of 11. Although he likes the company of young people, he says he does not like parties. He likes brightly-coloured clothes, such as jerseys and jeans. 

Spenser already has the Hollywood touch. At the early age of 19 he has his own London flat, admittedly a small one, and a not-so-small country house of 8 rooms, 9 acres of garden and a miniature swimming pool.

Well, lets hope he hung on the country house and pool while "gaily enjoying that full and colourful life"!. 

I have been intrigued by Jeremy Spenser, who seems to have vanished after some good early roles. It shows one can play scenes with Marilyn Monroe, Olivier, Katharine Hepburn, Vivien Leigh - and still one's career either grinds to a halt or peters out. Or did Spenser just walk away? Who knows now ? His last credit was in 1967 after some television work.

  

After this 1957 article he was also in WONDERFUL THINGS in 1958 (see Spenser label) as a sort of British Sal Mineo, where he and Frankie Vaughan are fishermen in Gibraltar, and was back with Vivien Leigh as the young man stalking her in THE ROMAN SPRING OF MRS STONE in 1960, to whom she finally throws down the keys, and in FERRY TO HONG KONG. and that seems to be about it, apart from a small part in Losey's KING AND COUNTRY in 1964, and in Truffaut's FAHRENHEIT 451 and I did not see him at all in OPERATION CROSSBOW in 1965 though IMDB lists him in the cast list. Of course by then a new generation of actors had come to the fore, all doing very well. That other child actor James Fox for instance .... 

Jeremy with Mrs Stone on her balcony

I presume its hard enough to be an actor without trying to maintain a career for more than a decade or so, not many manage it.  Jeremey even had his own fan magazine in 1958!

Then there are those others, like Leonard Whiting or Martin Potter or Graham Faulkner, who are discovered for a big movie role by an important director - a Fellini or Zeffirelli - maybe purely on their looks, but then what? perhaps (as with Whiting and Potter) a few minor roles afterwards, but if they don't have the training or the ambition .... 
Wherever Jeremy is now (he would be 78) one trusts he is well. IMDB says he married his ex-wife and became a drama teacher and was alive and well, some years ago ... 

Another great beauty on a Roman balcony, in 1960 ...

Two beauties actually: Vivien and Warren. I have already featured that fascinating 1960 film of Tennessee Williams' story THE ROMAN SPRING OF MRS STONE here but finding some new stills makes it seem like a apt choice after THE GREAT BEAUTY and that 1960 Bolognini film reviewed here recently, FROM A ROMAN BALCONY ..... More on Mrs Stone at the Tennessee/Vivian/Warren labels. 

More British treats from the 1950s ...

Away from art-house movies and cult and trash items, and some interesting new releases, we also like those old-fashioned, genteel British movies of the 1950s - as reviewed at British, London labels. We grew up on these back in Ireland in the Fifties and feel an affection for them. The 1940s and the 1960s may have been the great decades for British films (with Lean, Powell, Losey, Schlesinger, Lester, Dearden etc) but the 1950s were a lot of fun too with those Rank Organisation and Ealing items. Here is another round-up:

OUT OF THE CLOUDS, 1955. A busy day at London Airport – follow the lives and loves of the crew and passengers.

This 1955 concoction from Ealing Studios is a delight for anyone wanting to see what flying and airports were like back in the ‘50s. Basil Dearden directs and keeps several storylines in the air (get it?) – as we follow dependable Robert Beatty, James Robertson Justice and Bernard Lee as airport types, young pilot Anthony Steel tempted to smuggle stuff past customs, and stewardesses like Eunice Gayson, Melissa Stribling and Isabel Dean as they give individual attention to the passengers, who include Esma Cannon, Marie Lohr, Abraham Sofaer and gambler Sid James. This is one airport one would happily spend all day lounging in. David Knight and Margo Lorenz are two passengers on different planes who meet and suddenly fall in love, but the airport staff play fairy godmother so they finally get to be on the same flight …. Can’t see it happening at Heathrow ! A great airport movie of that era like JET STORM, SOS PACIFIC or THE CROWDED SKY (see Airlines label).

MY TEENAGE DAUGHTER, 1956. Magazine editor Valerie Carr lives in London (a perfectly 50s home in posh Highgate Village) with her two daughters –Jan, aged 17, and Poppet, 13. When Jan is invited to a party at The Savoy she meets dashing young Tony Ward Black (“the Debs’ Delight”) who is mad about jive, owner of a Bentley, and supposedly running through a legacy. Attracted to the daring young man, she rejects Mark, a young farmer who is in love with her. But it soon beomes apparent to everyone but Jan that neither Tony’s fortune, nor even his name, may be his own and her association with him will lead her into delinquency and danger.

America may have had REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE and ROCK AROUND THE CLOCK and THE BLACKBOARD JUNGLE on those problem teenagers and their new music, but it was MY TEENAGE DAUGHTER here in the UK – they have now called it TEENAGE BAD GIRL perhaps to make its sound more alluring, but this kitsch delight delivers in spades. Dear Dame Anna Neagle, a war widow, frowns as teenage Jan starts going to basement dives and learns to jive – this sinful dance drives teenagers wild! as they dance to the same number (“Get With It”) over and over. 

Jan’s young man is not all he seems and she is soon in prison and before the judge, as the rich old aunt Tony goes to borrow money from drops dead and he is accused of murder. Will Jan get off and be reconciled with her mother? And her young sister Poppet and her adorable dog? This is all perfectly enjoyable, another Herbert Wilcox production starring his wife. There is something likeable about Dame Anna and she excels here, with Wilfred Hyde-White as her magazine boss, Norman Woodland and Kenneth Haigh. (This opus was also fondly called MY STONE AGE MOTHER by those witty Sunday Times critics.) 

NO TIME FOR TEARS, 1957. Doctors and nurses at a children’s hospital confront the challenges of their profession.

A pleasant tear-jerker directed by Cyril Frankel (no, not Herbert Wilcox this time) this features Anna Neagle as the understanding matron and this time Sylvia Syms is the young nurse. Flora Robson is the older wiser nurse, and Anthony Quayle is the surgeon and George Baker, Michael Hordern, Joan Hickson, Rosalie Crutchley, Angela Baddeley and Joan Sims as another young nurse also feature. It is in widescreen and colour and shows us the hospital staff getting involved with a pair of unruly children whom they save from an abusive mother who cannot cope with them. Various dramas ensue but all ends happily for Christmas. Maybe the success of this led to the television series (and subsequent film) LIFE IN EMERGENCY WARD 10 ?  

Sylvia Syms - a great British dependable, like Muriel Pavlow or Yvonne Mitchell, is 80 this year (like Dames Maggie Smith, Judi Dench and Eileen Atkins, and still keeps working (as in the recent series REV). She was also terrific as Bogarde's puzled wife in VICTIM in 1961 and FLAME IN THE STREETS, ICE COLD IN ALEX, WOMAN IN A DRESSING GOWN etc. We barely recognised her as the Queen Mother to Helen Mirren as THE QUEEN in 2006).  

WONDERFUL THINGS, 1958 – Another of those ‘The British Film’ reissues (in slim case dvd boxes) re-issuing long unseen rarities from the British ‘50s and ‘60s. This is another of those Anna Neagle-Herbert Wilcox productions, featuring their singing star Frankie Vaughan, who was popular at the time (he made 4 films for the Wilcox’s before heading to Hollywood and Marilyn Monroe in LET’S MAKE LOVE, as per Frankie Vaughan label). This 1958 piece of nonsense finds him and Jeremy Spenser as fishermen brothers in Gibraltar, who are not too successful at making money from the fishing or the tourists. Pretty Jackie (later Jocelyn) Lane (who went on to star with Elvis in TICKLE ME) pouts as Pepita, the local beauty who loves Carmello (Vaughan) but while he tries to be successful in London, she and his brother Mario (Spenser) get entangled … Spencer, that forgotten actor (he was the young prince in THE PRINCE AND THE SHOWGIRL, as well as in SUMMERTIME, ROMAN SPRING OF MRS STONE, FERRY TO HONG KONG and others) comes across like a British Sal Mineo here. 

Frankie finds it tough in London as he tries being a waiter, and busks to cinema queues before working in a fairground. Enter rich girl Jean Dawney with her society friends and wealthy father, Wilfrid Hyde Whyte …. Jean promptly falls for Carmello but will he choose her or go back to Pepita and where does Mario fit in? This is amusing tosh, like a  woman’s magazine story of the time, but the ending is surprisingly nice. It’s a lot of fun, like Wilcox’s previous with Vaughan: THESE DANGEROUS YEARS. Frankie went on to star with Dame Anna in the 1959 THE LADY IS A SQUARE.

ALIVE AND KICKING, 1958. Why does IMDB persist in listing this as a 1964 title? –  it was released in 1958, I knew I saw it then when a kid, and now the new dvd cover confirms it was released in December 1958 (when Richard Harris was doing small parts in Irish-based movies like this – by 1964 he was A Star working with Antonioni in Italy and Peckinpah in USA, and being difficult with both). Well, whatever, this remains a blissful British comedy full of great players.

Dora, Rosie and Mabel, room mates at a home for elderly ladies, discover they are to be split up and placed in other homes. Dismayed by the prospect of separation, they decide to run away together. Heading for a remote island off the Irish coast where it seems they can live without the fear of being parted, the three fugitives quickly turn the situation to their advantage.

Dame Sybil Thorndike is in her element here, ably assisted by Kathleen Harrison and Estelle Winwood. It is hilarious how they make their escape and end up running things at that Irish island, where they create a cottage industry of knitting Aran sweaters which are sold in London. They also have three ideal little cottages side by side, which are actally owned by visiting American Stanley Holloway, who conveniently vanishes, and the locals include Marjorie Rhodes and Liam Redmond as well as Harris. Good to see it on a proper dvd at last – a treat for anyone who loves British comedies of the ‘50s with all those eccentric players. Also directed by Cyril Frankel.

I now see Tommy Steele’s 1958 THE DUKE WORE JEANS and TOMMY THE TOREADOR are on dvd, along with Max Bygraves' CHARLIE MOON, BOBBIKINS and SPARE THE ROD, but maybe that’s a step too far, despite my affection of 50s British movies

Summer views: Summertime, 1955

SUMMERTIME, 1955. David Lean’s entrancing film of Arthur Laurents’ “The Time of the Cuckoo” effortlessly draws one in again, no matter now many times one has seen it. I wonder though what it would be like if the homlier Shirley Booth, who played it on the stage, had re-created her role as Jane Hudson, the spinster secretary from Akron, Ohio, on the loose in Venice. Jane considers herself independent and happy to go it alone, but you can feel very alone in a strange, new beautiful city, we can feel her ache with loneliness among the crowds in the Piazza San Marco, then suddenly she is aware of the handsome man who is watching her … 

The angular Katharine Hepburn is fascinating here, whether shooting film with her camera, or (famously) falling into the canal. There is also of course the obliatory cute kid to show her around. She wears a fascinating collection of outfits too. Rosanno Brazzi is the very essence of a romantic handsome Italian to set any unmarried woman aflutter, even though it turns out he is married. The other American tourists are amusing cartoons, and Isa Miranda has the most fabuous little hotel with great rooms and views (actually a mix of different locations and a purpose-built set). At least the film catches Venice in the mid-50s before the endless tourists and giant cruise ships which may now be causing damage to the lagoon. 

Our lovers meet in his shop with those red glass goblets and soon he is taking her to Murano that island where the glass is made, she meets his son (Jeremy Spenser) too which makes her realise Vittorio is married. The climax as Jane leaves on the train, after that night of passion, endlessly waving goodbye is certainly an emotional one  … surely she won’t be going back to her old life back in Ohio? Surely Venice and her little romance has awakened her …. It is one of Lean’s perfectly shot and directed “little” films before he went for the larger canvas of his later opuses. Hepburn too scores one of her best ‘50s films.

Arthur Laurents though, at his waspish best, who wrote the original play “The Time of the Cuckoo” is less than enamoured with star and director in his memoir, writing that “Shirley (named Leona Samish) came by boat to Venice on a budget holiday, her clothes were bought on a secretary’s salary, and with an ordinary camera. Kate Hepburn’s Jane Hudson flew to Venice in gowns by Adrian. On arrival she whips out an expensive movie camera and proceeds to photograph everything in sight with the expertise of a professional. She comes to Venice to change outfits, flirt archly with a good-looking man, but preserve her very-long-held virginity at all costs. She does lose it – as a screenload of fireworks in the Venetian sky tells us – and to her surprise she likes what it takes to lose it. But at this point Jane decides to leave Venice... 

Why? Because the picture has gone on long enough. Her given reason is that she has always stayed too long at a party. The picture itself is a beautifully photographed travelogue, a coffee-table book on film. What little story it tells is mawkish and sentimental, made more so by the maudlin performance of its star whose weeping threatens to overflow the troubled canals. At the very end of the movie there is a moment, wonderfully shot and conceived, where Di Rossi runs frantically along a railway station platform with a flower for Jane, who is on a fast moving, departing train. He doesn’t catch up and she is left, looking back at him, her eyes leaking like an old faucet.... 

SUMMERTIME was moderately successful at the box office and Hepburn was nominated for an Oscar. The screenplay was credited to H E Bates, a first-rate English novelist, it should have been credited to Hepburn and Lean, true believers that stars can do anything they want, even write. In this aspect of the movie business they were unoriginal. 

Kate scored again though in 1956 with DESK SET (which I like a lot), from another play which Shirley Booth had originated on stage! She and Kate had become friends during the stage run of THE PHILADELPHIA STORY where Booth had played Kate Imbrie. Booth of course had won her own Oscar with COME BACK LITTLE SHEBA, from the William Inge play, in 1952 and also appeared in other films like THE MATCHMAKER (the origin of HELLO DOLLY). Laurents’ book is one of those fascinating show-biz memoirs, with all the best stories, including his long time relationship with Farley Granger.  

Venice scores here too, usually it is the background for death or plague as in DEATH IN VENICE or DON’T LOOK NOW….