Posters - an occasional series

Today's choice: LA NOTTE BRAVA, that 1959 Mauro Bolognini discovery I liked so much the other year. From a script by Pasolini featuring lowlife layabouts and prostitutes but glamorised by Bolognini by casting attractive people like Brialy, Terzieff, Milian, Demongeot, Schiaffino, Martinelli etc. The various posters give a taster.  I like that "The moral bankruptcy of desperate youth ... " Reviews at Bolognini, Brialy labels.
 It is on YouTube too: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5kjDFVL_Us&index=65&list=PLoiWwTmzdQ_8V3J9hQZ47wU19Q00DilnG

Next: the more wholesome Troy Donahue in PARRISH!

'60s moments ...

Some new images from some of our favourite Sixties classics:

Joseph Losey directing Monica Vitti as MODESTY BLAISE in 1966, Sarah Miles and Sean Caffrey in County Clare, Ireland in 1965 for Desmond Davis's I WAS HAPPY HERE, and below, Delon and Ronet re-teamed in Deray's glossy thriller LA PISCINE in 1969, with Romy Schneider. 

Below, filmed in 1959 (as was Antonioni's L'AVVENTURA) but on screens in 1960, Rene Clement's PLEIN SOLEIL (aka PURPLE NOON, now with a new lease of life and looking even better on Blu-ray), where Maurice Ronet, Delon and Marie Laforet are all spell-binding, as per my other Plein Soleil posts (see label), and also 1959 again, those LA NOTTE BRAVA boys, Pasolini's young hoodlums as directed and glamorised by Mauro Bolognini - Jean-Claude Brialy, Laurent Terzieff, Tomas Milian. We like Jean Sorel too, as per previous posts on him, very busy in the '60s and '70s, with lots of thriller and giallo genre movies, as well as choice items like Visconti's SANDRA where he and Claudia Cardinale are a stunning couple. Here he is with Carroll Baker, whom he made a few thrillers, such as THE SWEET BODY OF DEBORAH in 1969 ...

Forgotten '60s movies: BB's Two weeks in September

Serge Bourguignon was one of those new French directors in the early '60s - we didn't get to see his work though - the award-winning SUNDAYS AND CYBELE never showed during my London years, and his 1965 modern western THE REWARD (with Max Von Sydow) never played here at all - and his 1967 Bardot film TWO WEEKS IN SEPTEMBER also mysteriously sank without trace. Its one I had been meaning to catch up with, particularly as a lot of it is set in London in that mythical Swinging year - when I was 21 and we had BLOW-UP in the cinemas and The Beatles Sgt Pepper on the record player, and The Kinks' "Waterloo Sunset" on the radio ... 

Its marvellous seeing TWO WEEKS IN SEPTEMBER now - its another great London movie, with its model girls, (Mike Sarne is the photographer! giving David Hemmings a run for his money), discoteques, the red mini car lanky Laurent Terzieff drives around in,  and BB looking fabulous. I thought VIVA MARIA in '66 was her last great picture, but she is equally joyful and more mature here.

BB is Cecile, married to the rather dull, older Jean Rochefort - she is too animated and in the moment for him, is she a trophy wife, did she marry for security? - it is not explained. She meets a handsome man Laurent Terzieff (my discovery of last year in 1959's LA NOTTE BRAVA, see label) and his adorable dog. He also turns up in London where she has gone on a model assignment. Cecile tries to resist but soon they are getting serious, and then he drives that red mini off to Scotland, where they meet and stay with eccentric laird James Robertson Justice. 
This is the heart of the film as our runaway lovers have their two weeks in September - cue lots of sea walks, gulls, Scottish countryside, as our lovers realise their idyll cannot last forever, as they grapple with passion and its repercussions. There is an amusing scene too where he reads her feet ... It gets rather like UN HOMME ET UNE FEMME here, with even a lilting chorus. 
Bourguignon creates some great images in scope and colour and frames his couple nicely. Back in London, there is a row - a flight to Hong Kong, a mad dash to the airport, and a bittersweet ending .... 

I rather liked it actually, BB looks marvellous (as does Terzieff) and it fits in with her iconography. They do smoke rather a lot though ... 
More BB soon: UNE PARISIENNE from '57, LOVE IS MY PROFESSION with Gabin in '59, and her minute or two in Fox's DEAR BRIGITTE in '65! Interestingly, BB and Loren were both born the same month: September 1934.

The glamour: driving cars in Italy, 1959/1960

L'AVVENTURA, LA DOLCE VITA, LA NOTTE BRAVA : no-one does that sunglasses thing like Marcello and Anouk Aimee; and theres Monica Vitti, Lea Massari and Gabriele Ferzetti; Anita Ekberg; Laurent Terzieff, Antonella Lualdi & Franco Interlenghi in Bolognini's re-discovered bad-boy classic (see recent post).
Did Anouk pioneer that "sunglasses at night" look ?

Callas, Medea

To win the kingdom his uncle took from his father, a tale told to him by the centaur Chiron who has reared him,  Jason must steal the golden fleece from the land of barbarians, where Medea is royalty and a powerful sorceress, where human sacrifice helps crops to grow. Medea sees Jason and swoons, then enlists her brother's aid to take the fleece. 
They flee and elude capture by her beheading her brother and she becomes Jason's lover. Back in Greece, the king keeps the throne, the fleece has no power, and Medea lives an exile's life, respected but feared, abandoned by Jason. When she learns he's to marry the daughter of the King of Corinth, Medea tames her emotions and sends gifts via her sons; then, loss overwhelms her and she unleashes a fire storm on the king, the bride, and Jason. That's an outline of the plot...

Laurent Terzieff as the Centaur

 Despite being set in Ancient Greece Pasolini's film is from that time he was fascinated by the peoples and landscapes of Turkey and North Africa, where a lot of this was filmed. Again we have barren landscapes, curious dwellings carved out of caves, discordant sounds and a very graphic human sacrifice to ensure a good crop - thats just for starters.  The first half hour is rather incomprehensible as one imagines this is the kind of arthouse stuff that used to sometimes infuriate one, but once Maria Callas as Medea takes centre stage it becomes a mesmerising experience. Laurent Terzieff (see below in LA NOTTE BRAVA) is the centaur, and Guiseppe Gentile (an Olympic triple-jumper from the Mexico City Games in 1968) is Jason - we get ample opportunity to appraise his stunning legs. Callas of course is mesmerising; as that song from the musical of SUNSET BOULEVARD puts it "With One Look" she commands the screen. The plotline seems rather jumbed though - I did not realise 10 years had passed and she and Jason now had children ... the deaths of the princess and her father the King of Corinth (Massimo Girotti)  are enacted twice - first as fantasy and then reality, which was rather confusing initially.

Callas & Pasolini

Pasolini began of course script-writing for movies like Loren's WOMAN OF THE RIVER, 1954 and that 1959 discovery of mine last week - LA NOTTE BRAVA, see review below - before his first acclaimed films ACCATONE and MAMMA ROMA in 1961. I have not seen those but we all highly regarded his 1964 THE PASSION OF SAINT MATTHEW and then those arthouse hits OEDIPE RE in 1967 and TEOREMA, a sensational film in '68 (Silvana Mangano label), I missed MEDEA at the time but saw his PIGSTY in 1969 - not one I think I would care to revisit - and then in the '70s he embarked on those decorative period pieces THE DECAMERON, THE CANTERBURY TALES and THE ARABIAN NIGHTS.

Silvana as the Madonna

We found his DECAMERON "interesting" but the others seemed more of the same at the time .... Pasolini after his years of realism seemed to be in search of mythical worlds full of pretty people and erotic fantasies. The grimly realistic, if not notorious, SALO though in 1975 was one we decided we could live without seeing, and Pasolini himself was murdered later that year. Was it some rentboy pickup that went wrong or more politically motivated?  Like Fassbinder at that time his films polarised viewers as his politics got more extreme ... now we just have the films. I do want to see the fascinating OEDIPE RE again, and its good to finally experience MEDEA and the stunning presence of Maria Callas.

Actors: those early '60s guys continued ...

I was right about LA NOTTE BRAVA (above and left) - it played in London in 1960 as NIGHT HEAT, my then bible "Films & Filming" is very illuminating on it and those late '50s-early '60s boys making a stir then. (click pictures to enlarge...). 

Tomas Milian is Cuban, trained at the Actors Studio and found his early fame in European cinema. He is still working at almost 80, did lots of spaghetti westerns and police thrillers, as well as films like JFK and LA LUNA, and lots of tv series.

Laurent Terzieff (1935-2010) of Russian descent, had a distinguished career too, in films like Buneul's MILKY WAY, KAPO, TWO WEEKS IN SEPTEMBER with Bardot in 1967. I have ordered Pasolini's MEDEA with Callas, where he plays the centaur.

Jean-Claude Brialy (1933-2007) also in LA NOTTE BRAVA and of course those early Chabrols like LE BEAU SERGE and LES COUSINS seems to have been friends with them all, including Romy Schneider and Alain Delon (whom he took to the Cannes Festival in 1957, launching Delon's career). One of France's openly-gay actors, he also owned a restaruant in cenrtral Paris. 
Others too include Gerard Blain, Hardy Kruger, Maurice Ronet (see labels), Jean-Louis Trintignant, Renato Salvatori, Raf Vallone, Vittorio Gassman,  more on these in due course.

Here in Jean Sorel (see Sorel label) in THE ADOLESCENTS (I DOCLI INGANNI - SWEET DECEPTIONS), 1960, which I reviewd last year.

and a photo-spread on Sorel's unknown to me: LA GIORNATA BALORDA another by Bolognini, with Lea Massari, and below, a first 1960 photo-spread on Rene Clements' PLEIN SOLEIL....

A Discovery: La Notte Brava

"The moral bankruptcy of desperate youth brought stunningly, shockingly to the screen"-  or the glamour of delinquency ?

LA NOTTE BRAVA (NIGHT HEAT), aka "The Big Night" aka "Les Garçons", is an Italian-French co-production starring Rosanna Schiaffino, Elsa Martinelli, Laurent Terzieff, Jean-Claude Brialy, Franco Interlenghi, Antonella Lualdi, Anna Maria Ferrero, Mylene Demongeot and Tomas Milian. It was directed by Mauro Bolognini from a screenplay by Pier Paolo Pasolini and Jacques-Laurent Bost.

This 1959 movie is a socially conscious drama chronicling the exploits of three Roman thugs. The young men spend the day committing petty crimes, beginning with gun theft and culminate it in a rendezvous with three streetwalkers. After taking their pleasure, the guys attempt to cheat the hookers out of their money, but the women outsmart them ahead of time. That night, the hoods return to the city for more exploits, including an attempted car theft, and the harassment and robbery of three rich men. By daybreak, the guys have all separated, with nothing but feelings of loneliness and disgust for their troubles.

This is another of those ground-breaking movies about delinquent youth in 1959 - at the same time Jean-Pierre Mocky was shooting LES DRAGUEURS (THE YOUNG HAVE NO MORALS) in Paris (when Truffaut was shooting his 400 BLOWS there..). Antonioni may well have set the template with his alienated youth in I VINTI in 1953 (Antonioni label), before THE BLACKBOARD JUNGLE or REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE. LA NOTTE BRAVA is a key '50s film too and catches its young cast at the cusp of the 1960s when they were going places. It is a perfectly Pasolini story of low-lifes but with a more attractive cast - Pasolini had yet to shoot ACCATONE or MAMMA ROMA with his own real low-life discovery Franco Citti.

Brialy & Terzieff watch Martinelli & Lualdi

Mylene smoulders ...

LA NOTTE BRAVA is not available now except on YouTube where it can be seen in full and with English sub-titles! Pity it has never played in London since my arrival in 1964; it is a great discovery for those interested in Italian cinema of the '50s and '60s - like those others now only available on YouTube like my recent reviews of SENILITA and LA CORRUZIONE, both early '60s Bolognini's with that perfectly early '60s black and white look and attractive players like Cardinale and Perrin, and that rarity: Vancini's  THE LONG NIGHT OF '43. Mauro Bolognini (he died in 2001 aged 78) is now becoming another Italian director of note for me, I must seek out his other successes like IL BELL' ANTONIO with Mastroianni. GRAN BOLLITO (Italian label) was a great discovery last year. He also did amusing episodes in those favourites of mine LE BAMBOLE and LE FATE.

Brialy, Terzieff & Tomas Milian (background)

Back to the film:

My friend Daryl says: "It's a glittering movie about wasted youth: beautiful young people with no jobs and nothing to do who get into all sorts of trouble". That captures it perfectly.

I had not noticed Laurent Terzieff much before but he is the real discovery here, with that angular face and frame, its a perfect look: the look I had in the early '60s (he died in 2010 aged 75 - he is a centaur, half-man half-horse, in Pasolini's MEDEA). The girls are lookers too: Elsa Martinelli and Antonella Lualdi as cat-fighting prostitutes .... Demongeot as the wealthy girl Terzieff would like to know better - or is she the maid dressed up in her mistress's finery? - and Schiaffino as the nice girl Brialy and Terzieff want to impress. These layabouts want to sell their stolen goods ignoring the fact that their fence is in the middle of his grand-mother's funeral, then the streetwalkers steal their money; then they try to rob three rich young guys and pretend to fight but get taken back to their plush home where a different scenario seems to be unfolding, are these guys gay looking for some rough thrills? some intense homoerotic tensions seem to be simmering - is the stunning Tomas Milian coming on to Brialy?, who wants to borrow money from him. It's all very Pasolini... I wasn't expecting a scene like this in a 1959 film.

Milian smoulders ...

They have to flee though when Bellabella (Interlenghi), a real opportunist, steals a wallet full of cash  - which they then squander in an expensive restaurant (after Terzieff wants them to return it so he can continue his flirtation with Demongeot). By dawn nothing of the money is left as Terzieff screws up the last note and tosses it away - so they start all over again. Its a stunning climax to a fascinating film which is also great social document of that time.  I am currently watching a violent  Italian weekly crime series ROMANZO CRIMINALE here, the gang in it would surely be the less violent NOTTE BRAVA boys 50 years ago.... 

Here it is:   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVZpa8_yHZo

I have now unearthed some rare photos of Tomas Milian, Laurent Terzieff, Jean Sorel . watch this space!

Summer re-runs continue with some choice Italians: THE RED DESERT, YESTERDAY TODAY & TOMORROW, MARRIAGE ITALIAN STYLE, LE BAMBOLE and LE FATE again,  and Wertmuller's unseen since the '70s, the stunning SEVEN BEAUTIES, which I must experience again before I lend it to Jerry on Tuesday when we are having a boozy afternoon out. Then its on to Almodovar, Chabrol, Deneuve and so many others ...

Laurent Terzieff (centre) LES TRICHEURS, 1958
I have been familiar with this image since my teens from "Films & Filming" magazine