Those good companions

Two versions of THE GOOD COMPANIONS: That 1933 musical by Victor Saville with Jessie Matthews headlining, and - a real oddity now - the 1957 English musical, directed by J. Lee Thompson. Both versions are adapted from J.B. Priestley's famous novel charting the ups and downs of a struggling touring concert troupe "The Dinky Doos" - The future looks bleak for them when their manager runs off with the funds and dwindling audiences force the theatre owner to close their show. Young Susie Dean is particularly disconsolate: the talented singer and dancer is sure the setback will mean an end to her theatrical career. However, a chance meeting of three strangers could bring about a big change in the fortunes of the little company... 

Enter Miss Trant, Inigo Jollifant and Jess Oakroyd, three people on the road and changing their circumstances. Miss Trant is a spinster with a car, which Jess mends for her - he has left home and his nagging wife when he was laid off at work; Inigo is a school-teacher who has rebelled and walked out and has a talent for writing songs ... They meet up with the travelling players The Dinky Doos, a pierrot group, and soon re-vitalise them. Inigo and Susie Dean become an item, but she wants to be a famous star, and thinks Inigo "feeble". He shows her by getting famous impressario Monte Mortimer (Finlay Currie, bluff as ever) to visit to see her act, the very evening a rival theatre-owner decides to wreck their performance. It all comes right in the end of course. Susie and Inigo are a success, Miss Trant finds her lost love, Jess gets off to Canada to visit his daughter and The Dinky Doos are a success again.

This is a delicious entertainment and the English 1930s in aspic. Jessie Matthews (rather shrill at first) is totally perfect as Susie singing that song "Let Me Give My Happiness To You", and is like an art deco figure as she flings her legs about and dances (see 1930s label for her FIRST A GIRL). The young John Gielgud in that hat and raincoat  has just the right gravitas for Inigo, and Edmund Gwynn is Jess to the manner born.

The 1957 remake by comparison is a nightmare where nothing looks or feels right. It may be in Cinemascope and Colour but in its way is more dated than the '30s version. The young lovers here are to the forefront, and as played by Janette Scott (cloyingly winsome) and John Fraser they look like any ordinary '50s teenagers. Scott is the daughter of veteran Thora Hird (who also plays here) and was a good Cassandra in HELEN OF TROY in 1955, Fraser was an effective Bosie in the Peter Finch TRIALS OF OSCAR WILDE in 1960, and that warring prince in EL CID among other good parts. They are totally nondescript here though.
 
There's also Rachel Roberts as a brassy showgirl (her "The Gentleman is a Heel" number is a camp riot), Hugh Griffiths, Shirley Anne Field, Joyce Grenfell, Marjorie Rhodes, Mona Washbourne, Fabia Drake, John LeMesurier, Anthony Newley, Carole Lesley; with Celia Johnson good as Miss Trant, and Eric Portman as Jess. It tries hard to copy those Hollywood big production numbers (like right) which fall very flat here ...theres also that very camp number "Where There's You, There's Me" sung by the very camp lead dancer ...

I saw this 1957 version as a kid and could barely remember it, it never appeared anywhere since until this new dvd. Curiosity value certainly for anyone who likes the '50s, but the original 1930s version is the real deal. I do not know much of J.B. Priestley's work, but remember a good BBC serial of his ANGEL PAVEMENT which would be good to see again. 
J. Lee Thompson did some terrific action movies (NORTH WEST FRONTIER, GUNS OF NAVARONE, TIGER BAY, CAPE FEAR) as well as comedies like my favourite AN ALLIGATOR NAMED DAISY, and interesting dramas such as YIELD TO THE NIGHT, WOMAN IN A DRESSING GOWN, THE WEAK AND THE WICKED as well as this GOOD COMPANIONS misfire.
Right: Rachel lets rip ...

Forgotten British '50s movies: The Wind Cannot Read

Off to India with Dirk ....

THE WIND CANNOT READ was one of Dirk Bogarde's biggies back in 1958, though it would have been 1959 when 13 year old me saw it then, and of course it was a glorious weepie, which I had not seen since till now. Another success then for "the Idol of the Odeons" after his terrific CAMPBELL'S KINGDOM, THE SPANISH GARDENER and A TALE OF TWO CITIES ...

Made at the height of his box office success, Dirk Bogarde stars as an RAF pilot caught up in a forbidden romance in this classic British film drama set in the Far East during the Second World War. Michael Quinn finds himself grounded in Delhi after his aircraft crashes, and posted to a special Japanese language course for interrogators of prisoners-of-war. He and his fellow inmates are introduced to their new instructor, an exquisitely beautiful young Japanese girl Susuki San (Yoko Tani). As the days pass Michael and Susuki spend their off-time exploring Delhi and their love grows. But there is a shadow between them - something that Susuki refuses to talk about. Michael even nicknames her 'Sabby' - because 'sabishi' is Japanese for sad ... Before Michael can uncover Susuki's tragic secret he is captured by the Japanese and the two lovers are parted .... perhaps for ever. As the blurb gushes ...

I still have my 1959 Picture Show Annual

They (producer Betty Box, director Ralph Thomas) actually went to India for this one, like Cukor's BHOWANI JUNCTION there is lots of local colour, as we see a lot of Delhi, Jaipur and the Taj Mahal. Dirk actually wrote a diary published in one of the fan magazines, his "Indian Diary", I must scan it in sometime. Yoko Tani (1928-1999, a Parisian Japanese, overdoes the winsome bit (she was in several films of the time, playing an Eskimo with Quinn in Ray's THE SAVAGE INNOCENTS). The supporting cast is good with John Fraser, Ronald Lewis, Donald Pleasance and reliable Marne Maitland.

As doomed romances go, this is a good one with the heroine suffering one of those maladies that ensure they still look good even at the end .... As in Hollywood movies of the time (LOVE IS A MANY SPLENDORED THING, SOUTH PACIFIC) inter-racial romances usually end in tragedy .... Dirk plays to the camera splendidly, though some reviewers found it all a bit arch: "he offers too much of the wry smile, the imperceptibly quivering stiff upper lip, the spaniel pathos in the eyes". His skill with the cliches work though, like that scene where he was smoking the obligatory post-coital cigarette, he was not only fully clothed but belted as well, the sole indication that they had been to bed was that she had changed her dress and let down her hair ....

 
John Fraser, who was an openly gay actor, mentions this film in his fascinating memoirs. It seems their co-star Ronald Lewis was a raging homophobe and quite violent (he eventually committed suicide by shooting himself in a Brighton hotel) - unable to get at Rank star Bogarde he took it out on Fraser, giving him such a beating he knocked out some of Fraser's teeth! Lewis had several other movie roles (as in HELEN OF TROY, CONSPIRACY OF HEARTS) but never became a major name. Fraser also wrote a fascinating chapter on the home life of Bogarde ...

Some more Dirks soon, LIBEL and THE DOCTOR'S DILEMMA both from 1959. Only a year or three later Bogade was breaking out of his mould with those daring choices VICTIM and THE SERVANT.

Some actors' biographies ...

I had not realised that actor James Fox had written an autobiography, back in 1983, until a friend, Colin, mentioned it. I got a cheap copy from Amazon and what a fascinating read it is, a short 150 pages, with a 4 page introduction by Dirk Bogarde, who claimed he saw Fox on tv and decided he would be perfect for the role of Tony in THE SERVANT ... (Sarah Miles also claims that she was cast first and demanded that her then boyfriend, Fox, be tested as he would be ideal for Tony!). 

As I saw James, with Sarah and their co-star Wendy Craig in person about a month ago at a Q&A to promote the Blu-ray 50th Anniversary release of THE SERVANT (as per posts below, Fox label) this is all fascinating stuff - for me, anyway. Fox was the typical '60s golden boy, from a privileged, theatrical background - his father a well-known agent, his brother Edward also an actor. He had quite a fascinating life before THE SERVANT - some child actor roles,  a Harrow schoolboy, military national service in Kenya, a coldstream guard (with his bearskin) and stepping out with the young Sarah Miles. In the age of angry young men (or 'the Uglies' as Bogarde called them) he stood out and was soon in Hollywood (KING RAT, THE CHASE etc - as per reviews at Fox label). We loved his Jimmy Smith in THOROUGH MODERN MILLIE doing The Tapioca with Millie Dillmount and her pals. He then did the hippie route in Morocco (like in his film DUFFY). He describes the troubled shoot on PERFORMANCE (below) too ... as the book blurb puts it:

"Unexpected change came in 1969, when James converted to Christianity. For 10 years he worked among students for a Christian organisation The Navigators. Then came the momentous decision to return to acting. Film and television roles quickly re-established his reputation and made his comeback a triumph". 

Bogarde says it is a "moving and searingly honest" biography. James has continued acting and is still working now in his '70s in parts big and small, its a fascinating career. 

John Fraser was perhaps the Jude Law of '50s and early '60s British cinema until that new crop came along ... he is a terrific Bosie (as petulant as Jude in the Stephen Fry film) opposite Peter Finch's Oscar in the 1960 THE TRIALS OF OSCAR WILDE, and was one of the warring princes in EL CID, among other career highlights. His book is a fascinating read, particularly on how an actor keeps going once the intitial 10 years success has receded .... I saw the openly-gay Fraser at the National Theatre promoting this book when it was first published in 2006, and it was certainly an interesting evening. There is also a very different Dirk Bogarde on view here, as Fraser co-starred with him in 1959's THE WIND CANNOT READ, and he was a visitor at the Bogarde-Forwood residence, which makes for a fascinating chapter. There is also a hilarious mad night out John describes, in the mid-'60s when he was summoned by his pal, capricious actress Jill Bennett, to join her and her co-star Bette Davis (THE NANNY) for a night on the town. This catches Davis at her most malevolent and makes for a nightmare night, culminating when they met The Beatles!  A brilliant read ...

Tom Courtenay has also done a terrific memoir DEAR TOM, now in paperback - comprising in part of letters written by his mother to him when he was a student at RADA in London, fresh down from Hull. Its a marvellous read of an actor's development as well as a testament to the love he shared with his parents, and particularly his mother. One cannot recommend this too much. 

There are also of course the Dirk Bogarde memoirs - all 8 or 9 of them, covering aspects of his life and career. I particuarly like SNAKES AND LADDERS on his Rank and international years, and A SHORT WALK FROM HARRODS on their (his and Tony Forwood's) final years in France before age and ill-health forced a return to London .... Apart from claiming he discovered James Fox, Dirk also claimed credit for discovering Brigitte Bardot, in a magazine feature, where he said he was testing young French actresses (for DOCTOR AT SEA in '56) ... whether this is true or not -
BB had already been in films before that, as in HELEN OF TROY in '55,  its certainly a good story. 

We also like and recommend Sarah Miles' volumes of autobiography, SERVES ME RIGHT, being the best and again full of marvellous stories on Olivier, Signoret, Bogarde, Laurence Harvey and others. Sarah was "Dainty Miles" as per Bogarde's nickname for her.  
Left: Sarah's recent interview for THE SERVANT re-release.

Terence Stamp's "Waterloo Sunset"?

Then for more '60s memoirs, there's Terence Stamp's trio, including STAMP ALBUM and DOUBLE FEATURE.  

Terence features in a terrific read "DON'T LET THE BASTARDS GRIND YOU DOWN" by Robert Sellers, chronicling the rise of that new acting generation: or as the cover puts it: "How One Generation of British Actors Changed the World" - a sweeping statement if ever I heard one! (well, they certainly changed their bank balances...).

"It brings alive the trailblazing period of theatre and film from 1956-1964 through the vibrant energy and exploits of this revolutionary generation of stars who bulldozed over austerity Britain and paved the way for the swinging sixties. They are the most formidable acting generation ever to tread the boards or stare into a camera, whose anti-establishment attitude changed the cultural landscape of Britain. Their drinking and revelling was a two-fingered salute to the middle-class acting hierarchy that had always dominated British film and theatre".

They are Albert Finney, Peter O'Toole, Robert Shaw, Richard Harris, Tom Courtenay, Alan Bates, Terence Stamp, Michael Caine et al .... they may have started out as hellraisers on the stage, but soon though some like Caine had settled down very nicely in the movies and began making lots of money - replacing the old guard (Todd, Mills, More and Bogarde...). Others, like Shaw, who had a rivalry with Connery, died too young or burned out too quickly ....  others like Finney, O'Toole (who somehow made it to his 80s), Courtenay, Stamp are still here and working when it (or a project) suits them ... Bates had to keep his bisexuality under wraps while the others defined rampant heterosexuality! A surprising fact is that Sam Spiegel was going to replace the ailing Monty Clift in SUDDENLY LAST SUMMER in 1959 with the young O'Toole - who had to wait a few more years for his breakthrough role .... We have done quite a bit on David Hemmings here too, and his fascinating memoir on the making of BLOW-UP etc, a '60s essential - Hemmings label.

Veteran British actress Virginia McKenna has also penned an enchanging memoir THE LIFE IN MY YEARS, on her years in movies and theatre, her marriage to Bill Travers and their work with wildlife, from when they made BORN FREE, RING OF BRIGHT WATER and others. Its a marvellous, delightful story  of a life well lived. I passed Virginia in the street once - she was a very striking lady - she toured with Yul Brynner in THE KING AND I, played Desiree in A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC in London (after Jean Simmons) and of course those films like A TOWN LIKE ALICE and CARVE HER NAME WITH PRIDE. Her one with Bogarde though (SIMBA) does not get a mention .... of course that was not really made in Africa, but safely at Pinewood!  She is still involved with her charities in her 80s. I shall shortly be catching up with her 1957 THE SMALLEST SHOW ON EARTH. Her book has a nice introduction by Joanna Lumley with just the right amount of gush.

English actor Michael Craig (see Craig label) busy in the '50s, a Rank replacement for Dirk Bogarde, co-starring with favourites like Dirk, Susan Hayward (STOLEN HOURS), Monica Vitti, and in films like THE ANGRY SILENCE and Visconti's SANDRA with Clauda Cardinale, and popping up in Losey's MODESTY BLAISE, also played Streisand's Nicky Arnstein (left) in the 1966 London production of FUNNY GIRL which I saw, has also written an engaging memoir on being a young actor and on his long career - he is now in his 80s and retired in Australia - he writes interestingly on working with both Streisand and Julie Andrews (he was her beau in STAR!) and their very different working methods.

Other worthwhile biographiies include those by James Mason (BEFORE I FORGET), Stewart Granger (SPARKS FLY UPWARD) and Rex Harrison and Lilli Palmer (CHANGE LOBSTERS AND DANCE) giving their separate views on those Kay Kendall year; plus Bacall's, Ingrid Bergman's - touching on her last night in the theatre (The Haymarket, London) and before the camera (GOLDA), and Simone Signoret's wise and witty NOSTALGIA ISN'T WHAT IT USED TO BE (Simone by the way was a friend of Dirk Bogarde's as well, though like Ingrid, they never worked together. He used to meet her at the Colombe D'or at St Paul de Vence, and she went to see the farmhouse he was going to buy, which she approved.).... Victor Spinetti's was a joyous read too, not only on his terrific life but his work and play with The Beatles, Marlene, The Burtons and others (he died last year, as per my RIP).
Memoirs we would have liked, if they had been written: Lee Remick's, Deborah Kerr's, Stephen Boyd's ...

More British '50s rare pleasures...

Some more eclectic British films of the ‘50s before we zoom off to the ‘60s (and lots more ‘People We Like’)!

AN ALLIGATOR NAMED DAISY, a delicious 1955 Rank comedy starring Donald Sinden and Jeannie Carson, and Stephen Boyd [the essence of '50s beefcake here] teamed with Diana Dors – both of them going places. Sinden has to look after the alligator and chaos ensues. [This was a childhood favourite of mine and I bought the Donald Sinden box set purely for this still enjoyable comedy..]. James Robertson Justice, Richard Wattis, and - wonderfully - Margaret Rutherford (in one scene as a pet shop owner who can talk to the alligator) are all blissfully funny. Another by J Lee Thompson!

HOW TO MURDER A RICH UNCLE - a long-forgotten 1957 comedy, rather like a new Ealing production, featuring a ramshackle rich family now down on its luck, trying to bump off the rich uncle of the title, but killing each other insead. Its quirky and funny, directed by and starring Nigel Patrick, with Wendy Hiller and dear Katie Johnson of THE LADYKILLERS. Charles Coburn is the wealthy uncle whose relatives are dropping like flies around him...

WOMAN IN A DRESSING GOWN – one of several here featuring Yvonne Mitchell, this 1957 melodrama by Ted Willis and directed by the astonishingly versatile J Lee Thompson was a hit at the time. Mitchell is the slovenly wife, forever in that dressing gown, whose middle management husband Anthony Quayle is being lured away by bright young thing Sylvia Syms. It captures the mood of the late ‘50s with those modern new offices and the rising middle class. Carole Lesley, a starlet of the time, also features. Yvonne as usual makes it very compelling.

SAPPHIRE. Hardly ever seen now, this is a vivid childhood memory. Basil Dearden’s 1959 thriller is very colourful as it depicts late ‘50s Britain and the racial tensions of the time, with the arrival of those immigrants from Jamaica and Trinidad who were encouraged to move to England and better themselves, but were usually working on buses and trains. Sapphire is the girl found murdered on Hampstead Heath as detectives Nigel Patrick (dependable as ever) and Michael Craig look for clues. Yvonne Mitchell scores as the sister of Sapphire’s boyfriend, as it is revealed that the murdered girl was a half-caste who was passing as white. As in Dearden’s following VICTIM, attitudes are revealed among the suspects and its intriguingly worked out. A vivid scene set in a nightclub shows Craig’s reaction while watching a blond girl absorbed in the music as the owner tells the police that the girls passing for white always give themselves away when they hear that funky beat…. FLAME IN THE STREETS in 1961 is another set in this era as John Mills’ daughter (Sylvia Syms again) wants to marry an ordinary black man (not a Sidney Poitier superhero, as in Kramer's 1967 film) thus testing his liberal attitudes, while his wife, splendid Brenda de Banzie, is violently opposed to the union. This is also by Ted Willis.

THE TRIALS OF OSCAR WILDE is a fascinating and intelligent working of the Wilde story and for a movie made in 1960 about as frank as it could be. Peter Finch was a magnificent Wilde capturing the facets of the writer knowingly facing his destiny, and winning a BAFTA award. Yvonne Mitchell was the perfect Constance, and John Fraser as petulant a Bosie as Jude Law in the 90s Stephen Fry film. There was another version of the Wilde story made at the same time in 1960 by Gregory Ratoff with Robert Morley (playing Wilde as Robert Morley), but the Finch version directed by Ken Hughes won hands down, with handsome period detail and in scope and colour. James Mason and Nigel Patrick shone as opposing barristers and Lionel Jeffries was a malevolent if not insane Marquis of Queensbury. The film still holds up perfectly today. The Stephen Fry version may have been franker in 1997 but this one is just as good if not better and more nuanced.
Marketing Oscar in 1960: Click image to enlarge

The other version had the tagline: "Theirs was a relationship that the world could not, would not tolerate"!

CONSPIRACY OF HEARTS in 1960 from the Rank Organisation remains a superior tearjerker, where Lilli Palmer is the very elegant Mother Superior of a convent in Italy where the nuns save Jewish children from the Germans. Add in young Sylvia Syms, Yvonne Mitchell as the crotchety nun, David Kossoff as a rabbi and Albert Lieven and Peter Arne as dastardly Germans, plus Roland Lewis as a partisan. Experty put together by Ralph Thomas. Lilli is perfect as head nun squaring up to those Nazis.

NORTH WEST FRONTIER is a terrific adventure movie in scope and colour by J Lee Thompson in 1959 and it remains a television staple to this day as its screened at least once a year here in the UK. Thompson also made TIGER BAY that year as well as other ‘50s sterling titles like NO TREES IN THE STREET, YIELD TO THE NIGHT, THE WEAK AND WICKED, ICE COLD IN ALEX before going on to the likes of THE GUNS OF NAVARONE and CAPE FEAR. Here we are in India during the Victorian Raj era, Kenneth More has to guide a train through bandit country while protecting the young Prince whom a lot of people, including someone on the train, want to see dead. Lauren Bacall is the governess, Herbert Lom a shady character and Wilfrid Hyde White one of these decent English chaps. Its great fun to watch anytime.

UPSTAIRS AND DOWNSTAIRS – a very typical Rank Organisation comedy from 1960, with fascinating décor to see now, at the dawn of the new ’60s era. Michael Craig and Anne Heywood are the young marrieds who simply must have a domestic help to do their chores and look after their house. Their trials and tribulations make up the plot as they cope with bank robbers, a drunk Joan Hickson, Welsh girl Blodwyn (a hilarious young Joan Sims) who has never left Wales – Craig has a hilarious scene on a train with her – and Claudia Cardinale as a continental sexpot with men calling to the house at all times [5 years later Craig would be supporting Cardinale in Visconti’s SANDRA, of which more later]. French Mylene Demongeot plays the Swedish girl and its all jolly good fun and so typical of the era, also by Ralph Thomas.