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.

The Opposite Sex, again

A story of love, revenge and Jungle Red nail polish.

In 1936 the public flocked to see the stage play of Clare Boothe Luce’s THE WOMEN. In 1939 MGM turned it into a huge film hit starring Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford, Rosalind Russell and seemingly every other female star on the lot. Then in 1956 the studio remade it, adding songs, men (the previous versions featured only women) and glorious colour and Scope to THE WOMEN. Re-christened THE OPPOSITE SEX it entertained audiences all over again with the deliciously catty tale of elegant wives who “substitute fashion for passion and the analyst’s couch for the double bed”. The star-packed cast in headed by June Allyson.  She plays Kay (called Mary Haines in the Norma Shearer original) a perfect wife and mother who discovers her husband has been having a fling with mantrap showgirl – the glamorous and malicious Crystal Allen (Joan Collins – a good substitute for the original Joan [Crawford]). To win him back, she must learn to use her claws without ruining her manicure. So Dolores Gray. Joan Blondell, Agnes Moorehead, Ann Sheridan and Ann Miller teach her the fine arts of gossip, innuendo and backstabbing. Its witty, wicked fun!

It looks good too – all those ‘50s gals in those ritzy ‘50s outfits – Dolores in particular as catty Sylvia wears some stunning creations – dig that green number !  Allyson by contrast look rather wan and badly hair-styled (unlike in say WOMAN’S WORD in ‘54). La Collins (maybe the only cast member still alive and in our face at 82 – she is on this week’s Graham Norton Show here) get to wear some flash outfits too, and has an amusing music number set in the tropics, with lots of bananas. Helen Rose dressed them all. There’s also Carolyn Jones, Charlotte Greenwood and Alice Pearce as the Jungle Red saleslady spreading all that gossip. Agnes Moorehead is a blast as the Contessa Kay meets on the train to Reno for her divorce.

The plot is nicely twisted too, its Sylvia who takes up with and bankrolls Buck Winston (not the Contessa as in the original) and the climax at the nightclub is nicely worked out. Kay is a retired band singer (cue a few musical numbers by husky Allyson) and her husband a theatre producer, employing those showgirls like Crystal who is manipulating him nicely until Kay fights back …. The bitchslap above is a posed shot – its done differently in the film. Dolores Gray of course steals every scene, one can hardly take one’s eyes off her – like her other appearances in ITS ALWAYS FAIR WEATHER, KISMET and DESIGNING WOMAN. 

THE OPPOSITE SEX, directed by David Miller, remains a lot of fun - it may be  Trash Classic but its a terrific one - I have seen it lots of times since I was a kid, and lots on it here. I was given a free copy of the 2008 latest remake of Luce's original, but could not be bothered to check how bad it was. 

4 1950s ladies: June, Jane, Joan, Dorothy

Those 1950s leading ladies were certainly kept busy in that very busy decade: not only Marilyn and Liz Taylor (4 films in 1954 before she did GIANT in 1955), Grace (also 4 in 1954) and Audrey, Janet, Kim, Ava, Susan Hayward, Deborah Kerr, Jean Simmons, Julie Harris, Doris and Debbie, Sandra Dee and Carol Lynley and those exciting new girls: Lee Remick, Shirley McLaine, Joanne Woodward, Eva Marie Saint, Natalie Wood, Carroll Baker (a serious actress then) and Jean Seberg.
Bardot. Loren, La Lollo, Mangano, Anita Ekberg, Leslie Caron burst forth from Europe, while Claire Bloom,  Kay Kendall, Glynis Johns and Joan Collins emerged from England (where Yvonne Mitchell, Sylvia Syms, Virginia McKenna, Diana Dors and more were leading players), Then there's that second tier including Angela Lansbury (still in supporting parts in the '50s), Vera Miles, Martha Hyer, Shelley Winters, Gloria Graham, Ruth Roman, Cyd Charisse, Mitzi Gaynor, Dorothy Malone, Jane Russell, Virginia Mayo, Ann Blyth, Jan Sterling, Rhonda Fleming, Yvonne De Carlo, Debra Paget, Jayne Mansfield ... and the arrival of Stella Stevens, Angie Dickinson, Hope Lange, while starlets Pier Angeli, Gia Scala, Inger Stevens, Kathryn Grant, Tuesday Weld, Diane Baker, Suzy Parker got their breaks (or not) ... while the 1940s and 1930s stars were gainfully employed too: Ingrid Bergman back, bigger than ever, Bacall, Baxter, O'Hara. Vivien Leigh, Rita and Lana, sisters Olivia and Joan, plus 'oldies' Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Katharine Hepburn, Barbara Stanwyck. European actresses like Anna Magnani and Simone Signoret delivered Oscar-winning performances. (This is turning into an issue of "Who's Who in Hollywood" - have I forgot anyone?).

Here are 4 more: June Allyson, Jane Wyman, Dorothy McGuire and Joan Collins ...

Remembering the great female stars of the 1950s one usually overlooks June Allyson (1917-2006), but there she was, busy throughout the decade, usually cast as devoted wives (THE GLENN MILLER STORY, THE STRATTON STORY, STRATEGIC AIR COMMAND all with James Stewart), and usually wearing those buttoned up blouses and white gloves .... she was popular in the late 1940s with her sweet smile, husky voice and sunny disposition, the ideal girl next door, with films like LITTLE WOMEN, WORDS AND MUSIC and GOOD NEWS (that "Varsity Drag" number!). Critic David Shipman is rather caustic about her in his "The Great Movie Stars" tome). She did several remakes: MY MAN GODFREY and our favourite here, THE OPPOSITE SEX in 1956, that musical remake of the 1939 camp classic THE WOMEN) - THE OPPOSITE SEX is almost as camp as a great raft of 1950s gals wear fabulous frocks and June leads the cast, laying into Joan Collins as mantrap Crystal Allen - thats a bitchslap above. She is also in a rather good Sirk: INTERLUDE set in Germany, 1957, and a Ross Hunter: STRANGER IN MY ARMS in 1959 See Allyson label. She was also in the all-star EXECUTIVE SUITE in 1954 when she also did our other favourite: Negulesco's marvellous WOMAN'S WORLD where she is another ditzy housewife ... June later went into television and was married to Dick Powell.

Jane Wyman (1917-2007) was also very popular in the 1950s, particularly after Sirk's MAGNIFICENT OBSESSION in 1954 and ALL THAT HEAVEN ALLOWS in 1955. (Review at Wyman label). She began in the early 1930s and her 111 credit on IMDB include JOHNNY BELINDA (for which she won Best Actress Oscar in 1948), Hitch's STAGE FRIGHT in 1950, THE GLASS MENAGERIE, LUCY GALLANT, Aunt Polly in POLLYANNA.and later coasted as devoted wives in HOLIDAY FOR LOVERS and BON VOYAGE. She later had a long stint in FALCON CREST and of course the obligatory MURDER, SHE WROTE. She had of course been married to Ronald Reagan in the 1940s.

Dorothy McGuire (196-2001) always seemed the perfect wife and mother, in films like Wyler's FRIENDLY PERSUASION, a fond memory from 1956, particlarly her scenes with Coop and Samantha the goose, Disney's OLD YELLER, the superior sudser A SUMMER PLACE in 1959 (see review at McGuire label), and the less superior SUSAN SLADE. Then there's the fun SWISS FAMILY ROBINSON and the enrosssing William Inge drama THE DARK AT THE TOP OF THE STAIRS, also 1960. Her other popular films included CLAUDIA, Kazan's A TREE GROWS IN BROOKLYN in 1945, THE ENCHANTED COTTAGE, THE SPIRAL STAIRCASE, GENTLEMAN'S AGREEMENT, THREE COINS IN THE FOUNTAIN,  In 1965 she played the greatest mother of all, in George Stevens' THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD. She had also done a lot of theatre and later television including RICH MAN POOR MAN. 

IMDB says: "A genuine model of sincerity, practicality and dignity in most of the roles she inhabited, actress Dorothy McGuire offered Tinseltown more talent than it probably knew what to do with." 

What can one say about Joan Collins? the great survivor, still visible now in her 80s. After her British movies like THE GOOD DIE YOUNG (1954) and TURN THE KEY SOFTLY, she relocated to Hollywood - we love her evil Nellifer with the ruby in her navel in Hawks' LAND OF THE PHAROAHS in '55 (right), and her Crystal (as bitchy as Joan Crawford in the original) in THE OPPOSITE SEX for MGM (left, in that amusing 'tropical' number), before her stint at 20th Century Fox: improbably out west in THE BRAVADOS, THE VIRGIN QUEEN (that was Bette Davis), ISLAND IN THE SUN, THE WAYWARD BUS, a funny vamp in RALLY ROUND THE FLAG BOYS, a stripper in SEVEN THIEVES etc Television rescued her from the likes of KINGDOM OF THE ANTS in the 1980s as we tuned in to her Alexis Colby every week in DYNASTY - London's gay nightclub Heaven used to show her catfights with Krystle, like that fight in the lily pond, on a loop, as we danced. Her tell-alls have been amusing too, particularly on the likes of Warren Beatty and her other lovers.

The early '60s of course brought in that new lot: the emergence of Jane Fonda, Ann-Margret, Suzanne Pleshette, ditzy Pamela Tiffin; the British new girls led by Julie Christie, Susannah York, Sarah Miles, Rita Tushingham, Samantha Eggar, Jane Asher, Jane Merrow; plus the Europeans emerging from the arthouse to the local Odeon: Moreau, Vitti, Cardinale, Romy Schneider, Anouk Aimee, Ingrid Thulin, Mercouri, sisters Deneuve and Dorleac, Elke Sommer & Senta Berger, then mid-decade the arrival of Julie Andrews, Faye Dunaway and the Redgrave girls and, er, Raquel Welch ... while the late '60s saw Maggie and Glenda, Barbra and Liza ready to sweep the '70s ...

Showpeople: How to smoke and still be glamorous

Thanks to the fabulous Todd Brandt* for this FABULOUS photograph of Elizabeth Taylor with Joan Collins as Liz's companion George Hamilton sits at her side. This must be sometime in the high Eighties - all that glamour is too much ! Joan, according to one of her tell-alls, thought that she would be stepping into La Taylor's CLEOPATRA role, and even tested for it, when Elizabeth was ill. George of course squired all these ladies around town ... 
PS: Thats how you hold a cigarette! Sophia also demonstrates - right, with Gregory. 
* Todd's blog is a must: http://stirredstraightup.blogspot.co.uk/
and Olivier and Monroe at that press conference for THE PRINCE AND THE SHOWGIRL, back in 1956: and Anita Ekberg ramps up the glamour of smoking too ! 

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.

Island in the Sun

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 a rather tedious two hours as several plotlines converge around the leading players. Joan Fontaine has a chaste romance with Harry Belafonte (they barely touch each other, but it was 1957) 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 is 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 potboiler on screen, like their PEYTON PLACE, THE SUN ALSO RISES, THE BEST OF EVERYTHING ? – but not nearly as entertaining as those. 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 for a wet winter 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!

A final (?) dollop of Trash ...

... as we count down to 1,000 posts. (15 to go before I sign off for a while). We like a good or so-bad-its-good Trash classic here at the Projector, there's of course 'the higher trash' and 'the lower trash' as Pauline Kael once wrote. Here are some more delirious farragos to enjoy. See Trash label for lots on those Lana Tuner sudsers we like, and some truly awfully enjoyable bad movies, with Susan ! Bette ! Carroll Baker ! and more.

THESE OLD BROADS. Finally, a look at this 2001 telemovie about the problems of staging a reunion of 3 ageing stars: Debbie Reynolds, Joan Collins and Shirley McLaine, and Elizabeth Taylor plays a few scenes as their ballsy agent! How about that for star wattage? This could have been fabulous and is scripted by Carrie Fisher – but somehow it all goes horrendously wrong. It is just a bad cheap-looking telemovie; the scene with the 3 divas wowing the boys in the gay bar with their version of “Get Happy” is hilariously gruesome and other scenes just go on pointlessly. Debbie is fun as usual, Collins in horrendously over the top and McLaine is just her regular sourpuss. Her son, played by Jonathan Silverman, is amusing though as he tries to placate them all to get the show made.

Elizabeth seems to be having a whale of a time as the raucous agent, but her solo scene with Debbie is very odd - It is shot in continuous two-shots with the camera looking over the shoulder of whichever one is listening to the other speak – but they are never completely in the same frame together, so maybe that was filmed with each star and a stand in? Maybe director Matthew Diamond knows?

Reynolds and Taylor were reputedly friends again by then, but maybe both were not available at the same time that day ... though all four pose together in the group shots.

MARTIN AND LEWIS, another telemovie, from 2002, purporting to be all about Martin & Lewis, that oddball duo who were so big in the '50s before their solo careers. Again, its the casting what makes it ... you would not immediately think of Jeremy Northam as Dean Martin, but he gets that Dino laid-back vibe just right, and WILL & GRACE's Sean Hayes nails that manic Jerry Lewis schtick which used to drive me nuts. 
Together they are ideal, as they play out that rise to fame in those '40s nightclubs and then the movies in the '50s, pitting the suave lounge act of Martin against the buffoon version of Jerry's stand-up comedy. It captures Eisenhower America nicely, but again, how much of it is factual, as Dino and Jerry finally can't bear to be together, Dean wants his own career and Jerry can't see how much he is suffocating him. Directed by John Gray. 

MARRIAGE GO ROUND. Now you know how I like Susan Hayward, and how much I appreciate James Mason - just see labels. Put them together and what do you get? A tedious unfunny comedy based on a Broadway play, which also featured the stunning Julie Newmar as the visiting Swedish bombshell who wants professor Mason to father her ideal child, to the amusement and consternation of his wife, Susan, another college professor. It has that 1960 look in spades and I love that spacious house (by Frank Lloyd Wright I think - like the house in A SUMMER PLACE or that specially built one for NORTH BY NORTHWEST, capturing that mid-century look - love those sofas and cushions...). James and Susan though are in Rock & Doris territory and have nothing much to work with. 

Watching it I felt they would have been ideal casting in 1966 for the roles of George and Martha in WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF? The Burtons, excellent as they are, are really stunt casting here. By 1966 Mason and Hayward would have been about the right ages and could certainly go to town on those roles - even if no longer considered top box-office. You can imagine Susan spitting out "What a dump" and "You married me for it", while LOLITA and GEORGY GIRL showed how Mason could have approached downtrodden George - I think Albee wrote it with him in mind.
Walter Lang directs and it has that nice 20th Century Fox Cinemascope look.  I like the scene where Julie wows the guys in the pool, including Trax Colton, a Fox discovery who went on to star with Jayne Mansfield in IT HAPPENED IN ATHENS, (that is now available again and on its way to me, so more on that later).  

COME DANCE WITH ME. Not strictly Trash per se, this remains a delicious 1959 French comedy with BB in her prime - dig that gingham skrit look with the tousled hair that girls in their millions copied, as Brigitte dances in this amusing scene - as mentioned before at BB label.  
In this one she goes undercover as a dance teacher to track down the murderer of the dance teacher (sizzling Dawn Addams) who was blackmailing BB's dentist husband Henri Vidal - who died that year aged 40 - Vidal label. BB dances up a storm and its nicely amusing, taking in as it does gay Paris by night, as the killer turns out to be a drag queen ! Its the best of that BB boxset of 5 titles, though I liked TWO WEEKS IN SEPTEMBER too, a long missing Swinging London item from 1967.