Jane

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

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

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

More on Jane and DEEP END at label ...

A new LUDWIG

I was intrigued to see a new 4-disk Bluray of Luchino Visconti's 1973 opus LUDWIG is about to be released. I already have the 2 disk dvd, but this seemed too good to pass up, so it is on its way to me. We have covered LUDWIG and Visconti, Helmut, Romy, Silvana, Trevor Howard in detail here before, as per the labels - so more on it in due course. It should be a nice companion piece to the new Criterion bluray of Antonioni's BLOW-UP also out next week, and on its way to me from Barnes & Noble in New York. A brace of European classics then, all spruced up for the new era ...

Helmut acquits himself well here, and Romy is sheer perfection as the older, more cynical SISSI, while Trevor Howard and Mangano are ideal as the Wagners. Then there are all those attractive footmen as Ludwig battles his proclivities ... As with all Visconti films costume dramas don't get more opulent, and our perennial favourite Romy is simply stunning as the older Sissi. 
It was great seeing it initially on the large screen at a London Film Festival back then, watching at home it may be too long to see all at once, but ideal in chunks as the opulence washes over one ... its certainly up there with the other Visconti classics like SENSO, THE LEOPARD, L'INNOCENTE ...
Its a terrific package, with a 60 page booklet, a 1999 hour-long documentary on Visconti, when a lot of those who worked with him were still living and interviewed here, a documentary on Mangano and the full version of the film, in two parts, at almost 4 hours (238 minutes) or a 5 part TV version. There's also a new interview with Helmut Berger ..... Essential, then, As one review says: 
Among the scenes you’re most likely to remember – from all the versions – will be Ludwig’s wooing of the young actor Kainz in that glorious underground grotto with the swans and that charming little love boat, and Elizabeth’s visit to Ludwig’s most famous castle in the room with all those mirrors. Visually the film is a near-constant treat, with sets and costumes as gloriously garish and/or stunning as you’ll have seen. And then there’s that hunting lodge scene with all the young men perched atop and around the limbs of the giant tree that grows in the middle of the lodge.

Visconti with Romy & Helmut

Laughter in the Dark, 1969

Or: The Burton film that wasn't .... Tony Richardson's LAUGHTER IN THE DARK seems a very rare movie now, there are only 3 comments on it on IMDB - It had a short London run back in 1969, but I caught it on its one screening on BBC2 here, and it then vanished until I got a copy from my pal Jerry - a rare movie hound, always tracking down esoteric items.

This Tony Richardson film caused some publicity at the time, as it was began with Richard Burton who did a few scenes before being sacked for being drunk and causing problems. His replacement was the equally erratic Nicol Williamson, and its an ideal role for him, (he had just done HAMLET at The Roundhouse in 1968, also filmed by Richardson).

Nicol Williamson, Anna Karina and Jean-Claude Drouot star in Tony Richardson's bold adaptation of the Nabokov novel. Updated to 1969 London from pre-Hitler Germany of the early '30s, it's the story of a successful art dealer (Williamson) who becomes so enamored with a degenerate usherette/grifter (Karina) that he literally destroys his life. He loses his wife, his daughter, his job and his eyesight, and finally his life.

Williamson, in a role meant for and started by Richard Burton, gives a great performance, playing an even more obsessive Humbert Humbert. Drouot (from Agnes Varda's LE BONHEUR)  is excellent as the malevolent artist/gigolo who is Karina's real love. The casting of Karina is a bit odd and her French accent is never accounted for. Nevertheless she successfully conveys pure evil. It is one of the international roles she was doing at the time (as in JUSTINE, Visconti's THE STRANGER, MICHAEL KOHLHAAS etc). Siân Phillips (before she became a grande dame) is Williamson's no-nonsense wife. Cast also includes Peter Bowles, and it captures that late Sixties London high life perfectly. Like the films of Nabokov's LOLITA and KING, QUEEN, KNAVE (John-Moulder Brown label) it is another mordantly funny heartless tale, and maybe one of Richardson's most effective films.
A nice in-joke here is that the cinema where Karina works is the old NFT (National Film Theatre, now the BFI Southbank in London, where I idled away a lot of the Seventies) - as the cinema did not sell refreshments in the audiorium. (It was also used as the cinema in Winner's I'LL NEVER FORGET WHATS'ISNAME). 
As recorded previously, Richardson had a problematic '60s after the enormous Oscar-winning success of TOM JONES in 1963, bankrolling his and Woodfall's following films, as he indulged himself with Jeanne Moreau in MADEMOISELLE and THE SAILOR FROM GIBRALTAR, and the expensive  THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE in 1968, all of which under-performed, putting it mildly, so big things may have been expected of LAUGHTER IN THE DARK, but as Losey found out, the Burtons were losing their box office cachet by then ...

1970 rarity: First Love

As IMDb puts it:

Based on Ivan Turgeyev's novella, FIRST LOVE is about two young lovers in czarist Russia. One is a 21-year-old woman, the other a young man of sixteen. Things take a tragic turn as the girl (Dominique Sanda as Sanaida) falls in love with the boy's father (Maximilian Schell). The film, Schell's first as director, was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film in 1970's Academy Awards

Two icons of '70's international cinema -- Dominique Sanda and  John Moulder-Brown -- play wonderfully off each other in this lovingly rendered tale of youth, love and the loss of innocence. 
The photography by none other the great Sven Nykvist so of course it all looks terrific, shot in Hungary, with that right kind of period look.  Schell assembes an interesting polyglot cast, apart from the two young leads and himself, theres Italy's Valentina Cortese and English character actress Dandy Nichols, playing posher than usual here, plus Richard Warwick from IF... and BUMBO, as well as playwright John Osborne (Schell had performed in his A PATRIOT FOR ME in 1969. Like Lumet's THE SEA GULL (below) it too plays out at a languid pace as we experience those lazy days on the country estate, which, with the house, look marvellous to our eyes now.
Anjelica Huston in a magazine feature on her favourite books, has this to say about FIRST LOVE: "A hauntingly beautiful novella that Turgenev partly based on his own experience. In it, two men describe their first passions, inspiring the third, Vladimir, to quietly write his story down".

FIRST LOVE - I saw it at a sole London Film Festival screening back then - has not been available for years, so its good to see it back in circulation now. It too has that early 70s look, when international and youth culture movies were all the rage.
 Moulder-Brown was also effective that year in Skolimovski's DEEP END, a favourite here, and 1972's KING QUEEN KNAVE (Moulder-Brown label), as well as appearing in Visconti's LUDWIG in '72 as well as VAMPIRE CIRCUS!. He still looks great now, as per the extras on the DEEP END Blu-ray, but does not seem to do much, though IMDb lists 66 credits with him working until recently, like James Fox he was a child actor.

John Osborne, left; Dominique Sanda, centre; Richard Warwick, right.

Sanda, was for a period, the face of the new European cinema, with so many fascinating roles in such a short time: Bresson's A GENTLE CREATURE, FIRST LOVE, memorable as Anna Quadri in  Bertolucci's THE CONFORMIST - that chilling murder in the woods, and that sensual tango - in 1970, as well as Micol in De Sica's THE GARDEN OF THE FINZI-CONTINI'S, (see Sanda, De Sica labels) and in Bertolucci's 1900 in '76, as well as Demy's UN CHAMBRE EN VILLE (A ROOM IN TOWN) in 1982, and is still working now. She has been luckier than that other lauded discovery, the late Maria Schneider (RIP label).

Schell died last week, aged 83, as per RIP below.

A rarity: King Queen Knave, 1972

I did a piece some months ago on Polish director Jerzy Skolimowski, and the impossibility of seeing his earlier films now.

Since then DEEP END from 1970 has been rescued by the BFI and there is now a 3 disk dvd (as per previous post on it), and I have finally got my hands on a copy of his 1972 KING QUEEN KNAVE, another quirky oddity. Given that it stars David Niven and Gina Lollobrigida with again John Moulder-Brown, its surprising that it was shown so little at the time and hardly since then. It is a very black comedy from the Nabokov novel and features Brown as the orphaned teenager who has to go and stay with his uncle and his attractive wife Martha (Lollo). Before too long of course the teenager has erotic fantasies about his glamorous aunt, there is that hilarious seduction scene and it seems the aunt has a plan of her own to get rid of her husband ....

Brown as the clumsy, short-sighted teen, wearing thick spectacles, is very funny here and Gina is as ever, sensational. Good to finally catch it, now where is THE ADVENTURES OF GERARD? Jerzy's new one ESSENTIAL KILLING is just out on dvd too, one to investigate.

Next rarity: Visconti's THE STRANGER, from the Camus novel, from 1967 with Marcello Mastroianni and Anna Karina.

Back to DEEP END, 1970

I wrote here a while back on Skolimowski's DEEP END and the impossibility of seeing his other films. We now have a new BFI release of DEEP END, on their Flipside label (featuring British rarities of the 60s and 70s) and are now spoiled for choice: its a 3-disk issue with the ordindary film, the Blu-Ray and an extra disk of extras including a new interview with Jane Asher and John Moulder-Brown - both of whom obviously have mouldering (!) portraits in their attics.

I have admired Jane for decades ever since THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH and others, whereas the more mysterious Moulder-Brown (his IMDB page does not have very much on him) seems to have been low key since those films like Visconti's LUDWIG or Schell's FIRST LOVE. Here they are looking terrific, as is the film in a sparking new print. Jane's apricot hair and that yellow mac are such an ideal colour combination with that dolly bird dress and boots are perfect for the period in that run-down baths ... Nice to see two artists being proud of their work which they did back then, and it getting a new lease of life now.

Jerzy Skolimowski's fascinating movies

Above: Gina Lollobrigida and (presumably) John Moulder-Brown in KING QUEEN KNAVE (from a novel by Nabokov), 1972.

Polish director Jerzy Skolimowski, now in his '70s and still-making movies also writes, paints, presides over Film Festivals and is certainly highly-regarded and attracts quality casts - but somehow his films are practically impossible to see! There was, finally, a recent dvd issue of his 1970 oddity DEEP END, but KING QUEEN KNAVE in '72 seems impossible to see now and I think it barely surfaced in London, despite its stars David Niven, Gina Lollobrigida (looking sensational) and John Moulder-Brown again, who was the lead in DEEP END, set in that East London swimming pool where tease Jane Asher works, he is the new attendant who becomes fascinated by her, and Diana Dors in her blowsy era is also on hand looking for satisfaction!

Jerzy began in the Polish cinema of the early '60s, scripting Polanski's highly-regarded debut KNIFE IN THE WATER - one of his early films as director is the 1967 THE DEPARTURE with Jean-Pierre Leaud which was popular at the time. THE ADVENTURES OF GERARD though in 1970 was tossed away as a dubbed supporting-feature, which I did see at the time, with Peter McEnery as the hussar of Conan Doyle's stories, with Claudia Cardinale, Eli Wallach and Jack Hawkins. THE SHOUT in 1976 was regarded as an oddity and little-seen too, despite the presence of Alan Bates, Susannah York and John Hurt - as I said, top quality casts! MOONLIGHTING with Jeremy Irons about Polish workers stranded in then early-80s London was premiered on the BBC here, and the 1984 SUCCESS IS THE BEST REVENGE with Michael York and Anouk Aimee (reunited from JUSTINE!) was only ever shown once here on the BBC2 channel!

Skolimowski now though has a new film, which has been getting some attention, so hopefully we may get to see it in London before too long - ESSENTIAL KILLING, about a Taliban member who lives in Afghanistan is taken captive by the Americans after killing three American soldiers. He is transferred to Europe for interrogation but manages to escape from his captors and becomes an escaped convict on a continent he does not know. Topical stuff! with Vincent Gallo and Emanuelle Seigner.

John Moulder-Brown is one of those fascinating actors one knows nothing about - even his IMDB page is blank - but he keeps working, now in his 50s. When he was young and pretty, apart from the two Skolimowski titles above, Visconti cast him as Prince Otto in the monumental LUDWIG, 1972, and Maximilian Schell cast him as the lead in his 1970 version of Turgenev's FIRST LOVE which was a nice period piece I caught at a film festival screening, with Dominique Sanda and writer John Osbourne!

DEEP END is now being re-released in selected cinemas (here in the UK) from May 6 and a new dual-format dvd is out in July from the BFI. Interesting comments on it in this weekend's papers by Jane Asher and John Moulder-Brown (now 57). It will be good to see a good print of it again - Now for those other titles like KING QUEEN KNAVE and GERARD!