Sixties rarities: bawdy fun with Kim, Susannah etc.

It’s a return to that bawdy, lusty 18th century with LOCK UP YOUR DAUGHTERS, Peter Coe’s 1969 film of a stage show with songs, though the songs are gone here, as this vainly follows THE ADVENTURES OF MOLL FLANDERS in trying to capture the success of TOM JONES. It ramps up the squalor of the era and plays like a CARRY ON on speed – all it has going for it really is that cast. It basically follows the misadventures of three sailors on shore leave: Lusty (Jim Dale), Shaftoe (Tom Bell) and Ramble (Ian Bannen) who are all looking for some action – willing to provide it are Susannah York (Hilaret) who is rather underused here, Vanessa Howard (Hoyden) and Glynis Johns (Mrs Squeezum). Fabulous Fenella Fielding has the Joan Greenwood role as Lady Eager, allowing herself to be seduced at the theatre and ensuring her seducer has the correct window to call on later – Kathleen Harrison and Roy Kinnear are also funny as Lord and Lady Clumsey, and Roy Dotrice is the Gossip. Other familiar faces include Arthur Mullard, Peter Bull, Fred Emney and its good to see Georgia Brown (the original Nancy in the original OLIVER) as the local strumpet. Top billed though is another extraordinary performance by Christopher Plummer as Lord Fopington with a grotesque wig and what looks like a false nose and who can barely walk he is so effete - he is as stunning as his Inca king Atahualpa in the film of THE ROYAL HUNT OF THE SUN, also that year.. Shot in Kilkenny, Ireland it is an amusing trifle to see at this remove.

THE AMOROUS ADVENTURES OF MOLL FLANDERS in 1965 was obviously following in TOM JONES' footsteps with Kim Novak in the lead as amorous Moll, but is good-humoured fun as Terence Young directs a good cast and practically every British comedian and character actor of the era. There is that terrific star quartet of Angela Lansbury and Vittorio De Sica having fun as impoverished aristocrats, Lilli Palmer as leader of the criminal underworld, and George Sanders as Moll's first husband. Kim was so iconic in the '50s [PICNIC, EDDIE DUCHIN STORY, VERTIGO, BELL BOOK AND CANDLE, STRANGERS WHEN WE MEET etc] but - rather like Carroll Baker - she seems diminished in the '60s as items like BOYS NIGHT OUT, OF HUMAN BONDAGE etc did her no favours. She plays along gamely here ... its still a laugh.

Sixties rarirty: The Pleasure Of His Company, 1961

A clutch of '60s rarities we have re-visited, before moving on to some current releases like NOCTURNAL ANIMALS and DR STRANGE. 

THE PLEASURE OF HIS COMPANY. This 1961 release is perfectly Paramount, another of those smooth Perlberg-Seaton plush comedies, with a leading role for Fred Astaire as the wayward playboy Pogo who returns to San Francisco for his daughter's wedding. He has not seen her since she was a child but his visit causes all kinds of repercussions for his ex-wife, Lilli Palmer, as elegant as ever, and her current husband Garry Merrill (a decade after his Bill Sampson in ALL ABOUT EVE). The young folk are Debbie Reynolds and Tab Hunter, Add in Charlie Ruggles as grandfather and the stage is set - another mansion overlooking San Francisco bay, rather like the location for the rather similar GUESS WHO'S COMING TO DINNER?. 

San Francisco debutante, Jessica Poole, is marrying Napa Valley cattle rancher, Roger Henderson, and hopes her peripatetic father, "Pogo" Poole, whom she hasn't seen for years, comes to the wedding. He arrives, disrupting the household of his ex-wife, Katharine, and her long-suffering husband, and befriending their cook, Toy. At first it seems that Pogo is set on breaking up the engagement, making up for years of neglect by wining and dining Jessica, showing up Roger as a hick, and enticing her to come to Europe with him. Then it seems his real goal is to win back Katharine's heart: why else would he have two tickets to Paris booked on a plane leaving right after the reception?

We are also in THE MAN WHO CAME TO DINNER territory as Pogo is a monster - with no regard for anyone, he takes over the house, ejecting Merrill from his study, and is determined to sabotage the wedding as he now wants his daughter for himself and to take her travelling with him as he circles the globe. Will Debbie fall for it? Will Tab erupt? Will Lilli see through his plans, and who is Pogo taking with him on the plane at the end?  It is fitfully amusing but rather predictable, I last saw it when I was a kid, good though to see Astaire again and the ever radiant Lilli - one of our favourites here - after her good roles then in BUT NOT FOR ME in 1959 and CONSPIRACY OF HEARTS in 1960, we also saw her in another Perlberg-Seaton THE COUNTERFEIT TRAITOR in 1962, where she gets shot by the Nazis, and in the German ADORABLE JULIA, then her other supporting roles in THE ADVENTURES OF MOLL FLANDERS and that very determined secret agent in OPERATION CROSSBOW. 

6 lesser known '50s dramas

We are all familiar with those great Fifties dramas, mentioned often here - from SUNSET BOULEVARD to SEPARATE TABLES or IMITATION OF LIFE, taking in those Kazans, Wylers, Douglas Sirks, Tennessee Williams adaptations etc. Here are 6 lesser known ones I like and are worth seeking out ...

NO SAD SONGS FOR ME – Margaret Sullavan’s last film in 1950 is curiously unregarded now, but is a nice little drama set in a mining town where she is the suburban wife who goes to the doctor and finds she has terminal cancer, which seems untreatable back then. She goes into denial but eventually comes to terms with it and plans her husband's and daughter’s future without her. Husband though is dependable Wendall Corey (dull as ever) - enter the young Viveca Lindfors as hubby’s new assistant and Margaret sees they are attracted to each other and she also gets on with Margaret's incessantly chattering daughter, young Natalie Wood. 
It’s a weepie then, but not in your face and the ending is rather nice. In accordance with films of this era she has a large comfy house and a black servant, husband and wife of course have separate beds. A curious choice for action director Rudolph Mate. Margaret Sullavan seems rather neglected now but was one of the great stars of her day, we like her a lot here, as per the label.



THE LUSTY MEN. Nick Ray’s 1952 drama about rodeos (produced by Jerry Wald, with authentic rodeo locations) has not been seen for a long time, I thought this was a Fox film, but its RKO Radio.  It may be one of Ray’s best films, with certainly among the best work of the three leads: Robert Mitchum is Jeff McCloud a rootless, broke rodeo star, Susan Hayward and Arthur Kennedy are the married couple who want a ranch. He teaches Kennedy how to become a rodeo champion, to the disquiet of Hayward, giving a solid, reined-in performance, as she and Mitchum fight their attraction. This is nicely downbeat – seeing Mitchum crossing a wind-strewn rodeo arena brings THE MISFITS to mind, particularly Montgomery Clift playing that other rootless rodeo rider. Also that sequence when Mitchum returns to his childhood home … Lee Garmes’ camerawork makes it all look authentic, and the final scenes are deeply affecting. This is one film that deserves rediscovery.

Mitchum tries to be a ranch hand (to be close to Louise - Hayward)  and passes on his rodeo fever on to Kennedy, whose success alienates his wife as he now hangs around with the rodeo crowd. Kennedy initially took up rodeo riding to make enough money for their ranch, but now has money to spend, drink, with hangers-on and the attention of bar-room floozies. The film creates an exciting atmosphere with wild horses, bucking broncos and leisure time spent carousing in the bars where a day's prize money could be lost in drinking and gambling, then there is the inevitable tragic ending ... It really is a nice companion piece to THE MISFITS, and both Hayward and Mitchum do some of their best work here. Perhaps it might have benefited from being in colour.

WILD IS THE WIND. Another good discovery is this long unseen George Cukor/Anna Magnani item from 1957. Magnani is magnetic as the sister from Italy brought to America to marry her late sister's husband, Anthony Quinn in very gruff mode here. Quinn's protege young Anthony Franciosa is the only one to show her affection as she struggles with life on their bleak ranch, which rapidly escalates to a doomed romance. I did not care for Magnani's over the top performance in the acclaimed ROSE TATTOO when I saw it a while ago, but I love her here, as reined in by Cukor. She has a wonderful scene at the outdoor party when she sings a lovely little song, and has a nice scene with young Dolores Hart too. There is also another great theme tune (by Johnny Mathis - Nina Simone and David Bowie did great later versions of it too) and, surprisingly for Cukor, the scenes of capturing wild horses is as forceful as Huston's in THE MISFITS. Anna is of course marvellous in Renoir's THE GOLDEN COACH, and its fascinating seeing her with Brando in THE FUGITIVE KIND, and in Visconti's BELLISSIMA. 

THIS IS MY LOVE, 1954 - Linda Darnell is Vida, the unmarried sister of the more vivacious Faith Domergue married to crippled ex-dancer Dan Duryea who is very jealous of his young attractive wife. Vida lives with the mismatched couple and works in their diner and is engaged (or stringing along) a very dull boyfriend, until one day his friend, Rick Jason, walks in and seems the answer to Vida’s dreams. He is merely leading her along however until he meets the vivacious Faith, thus setting in motion a tale of rage, murder and revenge, played out in lurid colours as the girls sling hash in the diner. 

'50s lurid melodramas don’t come much better than this, as directed by Stuart Heisler. Unlike the glossy melodramas of Minnelli or Sirk, this is a gritty, downbeat affair. Linda is as terrific here as she was in A LETTER TO 3 WIVES. 

A friend of mine, Jerry, loves it too, and his IMDB review is perfect:

As soon as Franz Waxman's lush score swelled up over the credits I knew this one would deliver - and I wasn't disappointed. Vida (Linda Darnell) is a "spinster" who slings hash in her Brother in Law's diner and is engaged to the world's most boring man. Into the diner wanders her fiancée's army buddy - foxy Rick Jason - a "gas station casanova", and when left alone together Rick comes on to her... she plays hard to get - so hard to get in fact that Rick turns to her married sister Evelyn (Faith Domergue) for comfort, and the stage is set for resentment, deceit, adultery, jealousy, sibling rivalry.. and murder. 

This one really deserves to be better known. I'm not sure whether the lurid greens and purples that dominate the colour scheme are symbolic of the jealousy and anger simmering below the surface, and mark out Stuart Heisler as an neglected auteur... or it was just a lousy print. Connie Russell sings the title tune with lyrics as Darnell and Jason go out dancing. Dan Duryea is a bitter cripple. and Darnell is absolutely heartbreaking here - never knew she had it in her. Its everything I wanted from Douglas Sirk or late period Minnelli and never got. Absolutely delicious from start to finish and highly recommended. 9/10

[Rick Jason was also back in the '50s diner milieu in the downbeat '57 Fox film of Steinbeck's THE WAYWARD BUS as the bus driver married to shrewish diner owner Joan Collins (which Linda has tested for and would have been ideal casting, but Fox discarded their old star in favour of the new English girl) and with down-on-her-luck stripper Jayne Mansfield also on board the bus].

Two 1954 mellers with those new Italian girls Sophia Loren and Silvana Mangano:

MAMBO is a film I had never heard of until recently, but its a fascinating puzzle. Its a Paramount film directed by Robert Rossen (an odd choice for him) but its also a Carlo Ponti-Dino De Laurentiis production set mainly in Venice and Rome with two Italian stars, Silvana Mangano and Vittorio Gassman – if only it had been in color with that great scenery and Venetian masked balls and the colourful Katherine Dunham dance group, which Silvana joins. She looks terrific here and in the dance numbers (the mambo must have been big about then as Loren does a terrific one in her ‘working in the river in shorts’ film WOMAN OF THE RIVER). MAMBO’s convoluted plot features Shelley Winters (Mrs Gasssman at the time) in what is surely one of the first clearly implied lesbian roles as she has a major crush on Silvana. Michael Rennie completes the odd quartet. Silvana's numbers are available on YouTube, as is MAMBO in full.

WOMAN OF THE RIVER. I have now re-seen the 1954 WOMAN OF THE RIVER for the first time since I saw it as a kid, and I am amazed at the 19 year old Sophia here in 1954, a very busy year for her - as Nives the proud canning factory girl who falls for hunk Rik Battaglia she does a sensational mambo dance and is just wonderful - no wonder it was her calling card to international films. She also goes cane cutting in the Po river, and it ends in drama with her young child. Its a film for the Italian market and Pasolini had a hand in the script, but its certainly vivid 50+ years later.I loved this and Sophia when I saw it as a kid in Ireland. 

Plus a rom-com treat: 

BUT NOT FOR ME is a neglected gem from that great year 1959 and was a treat to catch recently. Its one of Clark Gable's last films [he had just done TEACHER'S PET with Doris Day, and would next go to Italy for IT STARTED IN NAPLES with Sophia Loren (30 years his junior, but its great fun) and then finally to that fatal MISFITS location]. Here he is guying his older image as the Broadway producer falling for his ambitions young secretary Carroll Baker who also wants to be an actress. Its a comedy set in the theatreland of the '50s and has some nice views of New York back then, particuarly as his car glides through Manhattan in the morning, as Ella sings that great theme song. Best of the cast though is Lilli Palmer enjoying her role as his ex-wife watching on the sidelines. Will she get him back at the end? It's nicely worked out and there is also Lee J Cobb in scenery-chewing mode as a drunken playright, and pretty Barry Coe as Carroll's boyfriend. A nice Perlberg-Seaton production from Paramount.

Showpeople: miscellaneous photos

Here are some random photos of various people we like ....

A lovely shot of Romy Schneider, and a nice shot I had not seen before of the young Lee Remick (thanks, Colin); Lilli Palmer and Romy in 1958; Sophia, Romy and Alain Delon at that 1962 Cannes Film Festival; Sophia and Ingrid, also 1958, Sophia and Barbra at the FUNNY GIRL opening night in London in 1966 (I saw it during its run then), and Sophia and Robert Redford this year. We are looking forward to Sophia's new book out next month, with perhaps her final word on her life and career ... 

A is for Anita, B is for Belinda ....

Now for some good old-fashioned Glamour! We are indebted to that great site POSEIDON'S UNDERWORLD for unearthing this series of German movie star sketches, from presumably the early 60s. I don't know anything about them or even who created the drawings, but they are quite witty and well done. There is a huge collection, I have just selected a few favourites:

Anita looks like an iceberg emerging from maybe the Trevi fountain, Belinda walks the streets (as in her SHE WALKS BY NIGHT - Belinda label), Sophia has vesuvius in the background, Gina emerges from a bombshell, Lilli looks chic as usual, Romy carries the Austrian eidelweiss, Mylene Demongeot enchants as usual, and Garbo is just right !

A brace of '60s war movies

SINK THE BISMARCK! A very satisfying English war movie from 1960 showing how the Admiralty chased and sank the German battleship “Bismarck” in the battle of the North Atlantic. Directed by Lewis Gilbert it features just about every British character actor from those war films. Kenneth More stars as the strict captain of operations, ably assisted by Dana Wynter (who died this year) who looks terrific in those navy outfits. Also on board are Michael Hordern, Laurence Naismith, Geoffrey Keen, Maurice Denham, Michael Goodliffe and John Stride as More’s son who is missing in action. On the Bismarck “good German” Carl Mohner is over-ruled by the increasingly unhinged captain Karl Stepanek. Clever use is made of stock footage and models in the studio tank but we are mainly at Admiralty headquarters and the growing relationship between More and Wynter is nicely under-stated. Based on true events it all seems very real and keeps the interest.



OPERATION CROSSBOW. Another war movie, perhaps the last of the genre (until those big hitters like WHERE EAGLES DARE and THE BATTLE OF BRITAIN), ably put together by producer Carlo Ponti and helmed by Michael Anderson, well used to handling large international casts. This is an expensive MGM production from 1965 and was a popular movie at the time - I remember being 19 and new to London and travelling on the underground to the big ABC cinema at Bishops Bridge Road near Paddington to see it on a Bank Holiday Monday - and it still gets screened a lot.
The first half shows how the Germans (led by Paul Henreid and German air ace Hanna Reisch) built their flying bombs and V2 rockets to rain destruction on London, as again, all the English war movie actors sit and deliberate: Trevor Howard, John Mills, Richard Johnson, Richard Todd, Sylvia Syms, John Fraser, Richard Wattis etc. as agents are recruited to parachute into occupied Holland and pose as engineers for what would seem to be suicide missions to penetrate the underground bomb-making factories where the Germans are mass-producing bombs. We then get the central segment where the producer’s wife Sophia Loren walks in demonstrating 60s star quality (with no concession to 40s hair or clothes styles) as the estranged wife of one of the engineers, who is now being impersonated by George Peppard. Hotelier and agent Lilli Palmer is very determined the mission should not be put in jeopardy as Loren is kept prisoner at the hotel, as other agent Tom Courtenay is arrested for murder. Anthony Quayle is the double agent who knows Courtenay is an agent impersonating a dead man as he tries in vain to crack Courtenay and gain the truth. The very determined Lilli makes sure Loren does not spoil the mission as the story moves to the underground bomb factory and boys-own heroics take over, as Peppard and Jeremy Kemp sabotage the factory as the bombers approach to blitz it. Stirring stuff then, ably put together (the Germans all speak German) and a war movie perennial. An enjoyable (!) brace of '60s war movies then! My mother was in London during the blitz and we used to enjoy hearing all those stories of life during wartime.....

People We Like: Gerard Philipe, the Knave of Hearts

KNAVE OF HEARTS (or MONSIEUR RIPOIS). Back to the cinema for a rare screening of Rene Clement’s 1954 film about a romantic Frenchman on the loose in London and his conquests, including young Joan Greenwood at her loveliest – their scenes in the rain are very lyrical. Other women who fall under his spell include the prostitute (Germaine Montero) who takes him in when he is suddenly homeless and destitute, Valerie Hobson, Margaret Johnston and Natasha Parry. It is cleverly done with Clement shooting on the streets of London (with mostly hidden cameras) 5 years before the New Wave were doing the same in Paris.



Gerard Philipe is mesermising with those soulful eyes magnified on the large screen – what a loss he was, dying at age 36 in 1959 – just as Delon, Belmondo and the others got going. Now for his other roles like FANFAN LA TULIPE (with the luscious Gina Lollobrigida) and he is one of the LA RONDE merry-go-round, and I have been promised a copy of Vadim's 1959 LES LAISIONS DANGEROUSES with Jeanne Moreau, his last film. I have already reviewed here his 1958 MONTPARNASSE 19 as the painter Modigliani, a standard biopic, but with Anouk Aimee and Lilli Palmer.

Fantastic French flick

CHAIR DE POULE was directed by legendary French director Julien Duvivier in 1963 and what a treat it is - a blacker than black noir, which seagues off into THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE territory and then goes a whole lot further ... it's English title HIGHWAY PICKUP sounds kind of porny but also captures it's essence.

My friend Melvelvit-1 over at IMDB puts its so succintly in his review:

Locksmith Daniel Boisett (Robert Hossein) and his co-worker Paul Genest (Jean Sorel), friends since childhood, supplement their income with the occasional burglary until life spins wildly out of control one rainy night after Paul kills a man who catches them robbing his apartment. Paul manages to escape but Daniel's wounded by police and, taking the fall alone, is later sentenced to 20 years in prison but, enroute to the big house, he escapes and hitches a ride with the middle-aged Thomas (Georges Wilson) who offers him a job at his roadside restaurant. Daniel quickly accepts but soon finds out that Thomas' sexy young wife, Maria (Catherine Rouvel), has had her eye on the nest egg in her husband's safe for a long time and could use a man like him...

Julien Duvivier's classic French noir, based on a ripe piece of pulp fiction by James Hadley Chase ("Come Easy -Go Easy"), careens into THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE territory at this point but the story takes so many breathless twists and turns, any comparisons are ultimately unfair. All kinds of complications ensue when Maria's husband ends up dead and Paul pops up again but "no good deed goes unpunished" in this perverse universe where greed, lust, and self-preservation trump decent human emotions like love and friendship every time. Daniel's the quintessential noir anti-hero, caught in a vortex of nightmarish cause and effect, and the femme fatale's a feral sex kitten who double-crosses anyone who crosses her path. Like MGM's version of THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE, much of HIGHWAY PICKUP takes place in broad daylight, giving the film an "evil under the sun" aura and even though a stylistic shadow world, hallmark of the American Film Noir, is absent here, thematically the film's as bleak and as black as they come. The bitterly ironic ending, reminiscent of both Robert Siomak's CRISS CROSS and Stanley Kubrick's THE KILLING, is a memorable one.

It is one of life's pleasures to see a movie that rivets one and leaves you exhilerated - and CHAIR DE POULE does this in spades. Duvivier of course is one of France's great directors, ever since PEPE LE MOKO in 1937. As good as De Broca's '64 Belmondo caper L'HOMME DE RIO then! And now for those Jean-Pierre Melville, Chabrol, Malle and Ozon titles I have been meaning to catch up with ...

Another Sorel flick I saw recently was a dreadful Spanish giallo DEATH SURROUNDS MONICA from 1976 which was for me dire on every level. I am not an expert on those Italian giallo thrillers popular in the 60s and 70s - I liked the Sorel ones like SHORT NIGHT OF THE GLASS DOLLS (with Ingrid Thulin), A QUIET PLACE FOR A KILL (one of his with Carroll Baker) and LIZARD IN A WOMAN'S SKIN (with Florinda Bolkan) (as per reviews) but this one was just a skinflick with laughable pretentions...

Here is Sorel with Sidney Lumet on A VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE back in 1962, and with Lilli Palmer in ADORABLE JULIA (also 1962) which, as per my review at Sorel label, is a fascinating German-French co-production set in London's theatreland from the Maugham play, where Palmer, Boyer and Sorel all excel.