RIP, continued ....

Tomas Milian (1933-2017), aged 84.  Tomas Milian, an American actor born in Cuba; was trained at the Actors Studio. He appeared in a few plays on Broadway in the 1950s. Italian director Mauro Bolognini noticed him and that was the starting point of a rich cinematographic career in Italy, 
where he played in all manner of genres. 
We like him as the rich young guy propositioning Jean-Claude Brialy in Bolognini's 1959 saga of Italian youth LA NOTTE BRAVA (below), and he is Romy Schneider's husband in the Visconti episode of BOCCACCIO 70 (right) in 1962, and Claudia Cardinale''s brother in TIME OF INDIFFERENCE in 1964, and with Belmondo in MARE MATTO. He was Raphael in THE AGONY AND THE ECSTASY in 1965.

He progressed to Spaghetti Westerns (DJANGO KILL in 1967) and Italian giallo thrillers, and the lead in Antonioni's IDENTIFICATION OF A WOMAN in 1982. Later films included TRAFFIC in 2000, Spielberg's AMISTEAD, Stone's JFK. He continued working, 120 credits in all, until 2014. Quite an acting career. More on Tomas at label ....

Christine Kaufmann (1945-2017), aged 72. She had a promising European and maybe international career, which she temporarily gave up when she became the second Mrs Tony Curtis (they co-starred in TARAS BULBA in 1962). Other titles included TOWN WITHOUT PITY in 1961, and some peplums THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII with Steve Reeves (below), 1959,and CONSTANTINE AND THE CROSS with Belinda Lee. She later appeared in films like BAGDAD CAFE, and clocked up 110 credits. 

Lola Albright ( 1925-2017), aged 92.  I featured her only a month or so ago, in a review of some interesting careers - see Lola Albright label.

Some interesting careers ....

Hope Lange / Tom Tryon / Keir Dullea / Lola Albright. 

We are fascinated here at The Projector as to how some acting careers pan out, who gets the breaks and who keeps working into old age.  Here are some interesting ones .... maybe more later. 

If you were asked who co-starred with Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley, Montgomery Clift, Bette Davis and Joan Crawford, would you come up with the answer? And if told it was Hope Lange would you be any the wiser?

Hope Lange (1933-2003) was one of 20^th Century Fox’s players who came to prominence in the mid-50s and had a good career into the 1960s, maybe not individual enough to be a top line star, but a pleasing presence (rather like Vera Miles) in several hits of the time. She studied dance with Martha Graham, and was the young ingénue in BUS STOP in 1956, having scenes with Monroe, and then was Selina Cross in the Fox hit PEYTON PLACE in 1957, when she was also in the western THE TRUE STORY OF JESSE JAMES, with Robert Wagner and Jeff Hunter,  and in IN LOVE AND WAR, and then Montgomery Clift’s love interest in THE YOUNG LIONS in 1958. She was the lead and top-billed in a favourite of ours, THE BEST OF EVERYTHING in 1959, teamed with Stephen Boyd, with Joan Crawford in the supporting cameo role as her boss. 

She was the main lead opposite Elvis in the Fox meller WILD IN THE COUNTRY. Her scenes were cut out though from HOW THE WEST WAS WON in '62. Then Bette Davis had a supporting role in the 1961 A POCKETFUL OF MIRACLES  where Lange starred with her then amour Glenn Ford, after her marriage to BUS STOP star Don Murray. She then married directed Alan J. Pakula, and had a successful TV series from the film of THE GHOST AND MRS MUIR, among other television roles. Later films included the 1974 DEATH WISH and BLUE VELVET.

Keir Dullea, born in 1936, now 80, was a very individual young actor with those striking looks and eyes, and in interesting films like DAVID AND LISA in 1962 (for which he won the Golden Globe as “Most Promising Male Newcomer”), THE HOODLUM PRIEST, the comedy western WEST OF MONTANA and the lead in Preminger’s BUNNY LAKE IS MISSING in 1965 (where co-star Noel Coward famously said "Keir Dullea, gone tomorrow"), plus the Lana Turner classic MADAME X in 1966, and THE FOX in 1967. He is immortalised for posterity as Dave Bowman, the surviving astronaut in Kubrick’s 2001 A SPACE ODYSSEY (and certainly looks better now than his co-star Gary Lockwood – see below). 

The 1969 DE SADE (see review – Dullea label) is a hoot now,

Dullea also did several stage roles and we saw him on stage in London in 1976, as that annoying cowboy in a revival of BUS STOP, with Lee Remick as a world-weary Cherie. - right.

He has kept busy with 84 credits and is still working now. Like Michael York, Terence Stamp and others he shows how actors can keep working as they get older, and the next crop of actors take over.

Tom Tryon (1926-1991) aged 65, clocked up 39 acting credits before becoming a best-selling author. The tall dark and handsome actor was very individual in early roles like I MARRIED A MONSTER FROM OUTER SPACE in 1958, and in THE UNHOLY WIFE, THREE VIOLENT PEOPLE, THE STORY OF RUTH (see below), MARINES LETS GO, THE LONGEST DAY. 
He was the lead as THE CARDINAL for Otto Preminger in 1963, and also in Otto’s IN HARM’S WAY in 1965. There were lesser roles after that for the gay actor, who had been a marine in the South Pacific during the war, but his novels which were filmed including THE OTHER, HARVEST HOME,  CROWNED HEADS – a great read, which included the short story FEDORA (which became Billy Wilder’s last interesting film) brought him a lot more success and money than acting! He would have been the sailor marooned on a desert island with Marilyn Monroe in SOMETHING’S GOTTA GIVE, in 1962 – if the film had been completed.

Lola Albright, born 1925, now in her early 90s – Considered one of the most stylish, sultriest and beautiful actresses in Hollywood, with one of the throatiest, smokiest and most distinctive voices in the business, she starred with Kirk Douglas in the 1949 hit CHAMPION, after uncredited appearances in THE PIRATE and EASTER PARADE, and a bit part in THE TENDER TRAP in ‘55. From 1958 to 1961 she played nightclub singer Edie Hart in the popular TV series PETER GUNN. She also made TV guest appearances on ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS (1955) – he should have made her a Hitchcock blonde. She played Constance McKenzie in the TV series PEYTON PLACE (1964) after Dorothy Malone became ill. Lola received critical acclaim for her performances in A COLD WIND IN AUGUST in 1961, and was in Rene Clements’ LES FELINS with Alain Delon in 1964, and was terrific as Tuesday Weld’s mother in the hilarious LORD LOVE A DUCK in 1966. A great example of a stylish actress under-used by Hollywood, but who kept busy with lots of television work.

Next:  Richard Beymer? Don Murray ? Tuesday Weld? Carol Lynley? Pamela Tiffin ? Vera Miles ?

'60s comedy: The Loved One / Lord Love A Duck

Finally, Tony Richardsons's THE LOVED ONE - MGM's 1965 comedy "with something to offend everyone" that I never caught until now and I saw it on a Spanish dvd with Spanish sub-titles I could not remove. Fascinating stuff though - it may have opened briefly here in London at the time (it was reviewed in "Films & Filming" magazine) and then shoved out on release for a week,. but I somehow never saw it and it has never surfaced since as it seems MGM either forgot about it or locked it away.

Newly arrived in Hollywood from England, Dennis Barlow finds he has to arrange his uncle's interment at the highly-organised and very profitable Whispering Glades funeral parlour. His fancy is caught by one of their cosmeticians, Aimee Thanatogenos. But he has three problems - the strict rules of owner Blessed Reverand Glenworthy, the rivalry of embalmer Mr Joyboy, and the shame of now working himself at The Happy Hunting Ground pets' memorial home.

Richardson after the "kitchen sink" dramatics of LOOK BACK IN ANGER, A TASTE OF HONEY, THE LONELINESS OF THE LONG DISTANCE RUNNER had that enormous success with TOM JONES in 1963 which (as per my previous post on him - that book on the Redgraves, Trash label, and the "Hollywood UK" tv series, TV label) gave him carte blanche for his next films. THE LOVED ONE has an impeccible pedigree: a Martin Ransohoff production, from Evelyn Waugh's novel satirising the American way of death, scripted by Terry Southern and Christopher Isherwood. Richardson, who despite being married to Vanessa Redgrave, was also gay or bi, juices it up with a great cast of cameos:

James Coburn, Roddy McDowell, Margaret Leighton, Dana Andrews, Tab Hunter as tour guide, Liberace as a casket salesman. We follow naive Englishman Robert Morse arriving in L A and staying with his actor uncle, John Gielgud (quietly hilarious), who is part of the English colony. We also get Robert Morley, Jonathan Winters in 2 roles and Rod Steiger does another outrageous turn as chief embalmer Mr Joyboy, looking after his grotesque elderly mother. Anjanette Comer is startlingly odd as the love intererst, the first lady embalmer with her unfinished home in 'the slide area'. If you are disturbed or offended by the funeral business, death in general, dead pets, or slightly veiled hints at necrophilia then you might want to give this one a miss. It is though a fascinating oddity now, and probably ahead of its time, as black comedy is much more acceptable now.

LORD LOVE A DUCK, 1966 - where writer George Axelrod treats one social sacred cow after another with amused disdain, skewering religion, motherhood, education, and matrimony, in gleaming monochrome images. Axelrod of course wrote plays like THE SEVEN YEAR ITCH and WILL SUCCESS SPOIL ROCK HUNTER, as well as scripting THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE and BREAKFAST AT TIFFANYS, HOW TO MURDER YOUR WIFE among others, LORD LOVE A DUCK is his first as  director. Another under-rated '60s comedy then, this 1966 production was treated as a second feature here in the UK and also vanished without trace. I remember "Sight & Sound" raving about it though, particularly that scene where Tuesday Weld gets her father to buy her all those cashmere sweaters, its dizzylingly funny as she recites the names of the colours: 'Peach Put-On', 'Periwinkle Pussycat' etc, its a scene most actresses of her era just could not carry off . The following commentators describe it much better than I can:

Andrew Sarris in "The Village Voice" said:

"Tuesday Weld is Nabokov’s grown-up nymphet come to life in a cavalcade of cashmere sweaters, and closer to Nabokov’s original conception that Sue Lyon could ever be".

John Landis: 

"George Axelrod’s unclassifiable satire is one of the oddest Hollywood movies, which over the years has engendered passionate support and derision. For some it’s an incisively bizarre portrait of sixties America, for others it’s a sloppily made, undisciplined mess (with more boom mikes visible in full frame than even Play It Again Sam). However, nothing can dim the luster of the incredibly perverse scene where Tuesday Weld’s horny dad (Max Showalter) practically ejaculates while watching his sexy daughter try on sweaters."

Geoff Andrew (London):

"Axelrod’s patchy but often brilliant first attempt at direction: a kooky fantasy, very funny in its satire of contemporary teen morals and mores. McDowall plays a high school student of enormous IQ and fabulous powers, which he exercises in order to grant a pretty co-ed (Weld) her every heart’s desire, starting with the thirteen cashmere sweaters she requires to join an exclusive sorority, and ending with a husband whom he obligingly murders to leave her free to realise her true dream of movie stardom. Whereupon, realising he did it all for love, he ends up in the booby-hatch, happily dictating his memoirs. Taking in some delicious side-swipes at the ‘Beach Blanket’ cycle, Axelrod reveals much the same penchant (and talent) for cartoon-style sight gags as Tashlin, and coaxes a marvellous trio of variations on the American female from Tuesday Weld, Lola Albright and Ruth Gordon. Daniel Fapp’s stunningly cool, clear monochrome camerawork is also a distinct plus."

and Pauline Kael:

"This satire on teenage culture, modern education, psychoanalysis, and what have you was the best American comedy of its year, and yet it’s mostly terrible. The picture is bright and inventive, but it’s also a hate letter to America that selects the easiest, most grotesque targets and keeps screaming at us to enjoy how funny-awful everything is. Finally we’re preached at for our tiny minds and our family spray deodorants. Tuesday Weld has a wonderful blank, childlike quality as a Los Angeles high-school student who lusts after cashmere sweaters and wants everybody to love her. The director, George Axelrod, drew upon the novel Candy, which he beat to the movie post, as well as WHAT’S NEW, PUSSYCAT? and the Richard Lester movies; there is eating à la TOM JONES and there are other tidbits from all over, even from NIGHTS OF CABIRIA. Roddy McDowall plays a genie; Lola Albright is spectacularly effective as Tuesday’s cocktail-waitress mother; and Ruth Gordon does her special brand of dementia."

Quite a zany mid-60s double feature then - Tuesday is delightful and Lola Albright and Ruth Gordon are indeed formidable - and Martin West (above) as Tuesday's husband Roddy keeps trying to bump off, is eye-catching too. 

Cinema obscura - some more European rarities...

That Michelangelo Antonioni has a lot to answer for... The early '60s saw European cinema awash with "imitiation Antonioni" all trying to recreate the mood of Antonioni's masterpieces. This one, IL MARE (THE SEA) made in 1962 even played at London's premiere art house, the now defunct Academy in Oxford Street, in '64. As directed by Guiseppe Patroni Griffi its a moody piece with long pauses about 3 people, or lost souls, in out-of-season wintry Capri: The Man (Umberto Orsini), The Woman (Francoise Prevost) and The Boy (Dino Mele). It hasn't been seen here since but I saw it at the time and still remember the unintentional hilarity of them stalking each other: The Man sleeps with The Woman, but seems to want The Boy. The Boy and The Woman become friends - she is taking masochistic pleasure in selling her house to a wealthy vulgarian as part of her divorce; The Man and The Boy seem to be flirting with each other - is there going to be a threesome or not? Griffi is very "school of Antonioni", [French actress Prevost also scored about then in a tense British thriller PAYROLL with Michael Craig and Billie Whitelaw]. I will be in Capri myself next month (as part of a trip to Sorrento and Amalfi), wonder if I will recognise any locations?

(Bisexuality and threesomes also raised their head in Griffi's next, A SMALL CIRCLE OF FRIENDS in '69, which was more art house soft porn, and featured actors like Jean-Louis Trintignant and Annie Girardot as well as the smouldering Brazilian Florinda Bolkan. Griffi also directed the art house hit TIS PITY SHE'S A WHORE in 1971, with the incestous Charlotte Rampling, Fabio Testi and Olivier Tobias, which was very bloody and looked teriffic with those renaissance settings and costumes and lots of nudity ... One of his last credits was that bizarre Elizabeth Taylor film THE DRIVER'S SEAT, in 1974, which seemed an incoherent mess when I saw it last week, it was in fact so boring that I had to see most of it on fast-forward! Andy Warhol was among those involved (and a more mature Dino Mele from IL MARE) but why on earth did Taylor bother to appear in it? - even it is from a Muriel Spark book. She plays a disturbed woman [as is evident from her wardrobe] travelling around Europe looking for a man to murder her...)

Another Rene Clement treat! After re-discovering his 1954 KNAVE OF HEARTS (or MONSIEUR RIPOIS) with Gerard Philipe and Joan Greenwood recently, and his classic PLEIN SOLEIL (see separate post on here) and the '58 THE SEA WALL (or THIS ANGRY AGE), ditto posted here - here is his splendid 1964 thriller LES FELINS (THE FELINES), also called JOY HOUSE or THE LOVE CAGE (which would seem the better title). Henri Decae's crisp black and white Cinemascope images, a terrific score by Lalo Schifrin, Alain Delon's first English speaking film and Jane Fonda's first French, what's not to like? It exists in both French and English versions on the disk. Then there is that little seen superb actress Lola Albright ... she is a wealthy widow of a mobster who has a luxury mansion on the French riviera, Fonda is her cousin staying with her; Delon (not as engaging as his Tom Ripley - he is just a blank cypher here) is the guy on the run from some mobsters who is taken in by the two women, who find him in a refuge for the homeless. What are their motives? Who is the strange person behind two way mirrors who is hiding in the house? The goons sent by the mobster turn up again ... its nicely worked out and the jazzy score by Schifrin is a distinct bonus. I will now have to finally see Clement's all-star IS PARIS BURNING? which must be worth investigating, featuring as it does, in 1966, Welles, Belmondo, Delon, Caron, Perkins, Montand, Signoret, Kirk Douglas and Glenn Ford. Not quite one of the New Wave brigade, his films are certainly fascinating, I also need to see those early ones of his like FORBIDDEN GAMES and GERVAISE.

Below: Clement directing Delon and Fonda.

LA RONDE - Roger Vadim's 1964 remake of Ophuls' 1950 classic is worth a look too, seeing as it features the crop of new European players of the early 60s: Jane Fonda in her first with Vadim, Anna Karina, Catherine Spaak, Maurice Ronet, Jean Sorel, etc. They wear the period clothes but somehow just look too modern - perhaps the hairstyles and make up are too modern for the period? Its the usual round of assignations played out in the Belle Epoque period ... perhaps just an excuse to feature these players and have a bit of fun ? The cast is a who's who of the 60s French cinema, as was the Ophuls film was (with Signoret, Simone, Darrieux, et al) Francoise Dorleac is supposed to have a small part too, but I couldn't see her. Vadim's LA CUREE (THE GAME IS OVER) with Fonda and Peter McEnery seems to have vanished, but was a delirious delight at the time.



THE BEST WAY TO WALK - This 1976 film by Claude Miller was a hit on the London art house circuit at the time, I wonder if it stands the test of time? Claude Miller has made some interesting films in France since the 70s - I recall Depardieu in a Highsmith adaptation THIS SWEET SICKNESS, and GARDE DE VUE with Romy Schneider in one of her last roles. THE BEST WAY TO WALK (LA MILLEURE FACON DE MARCHER) is an intriguing tale of the conflict between two teachers at a summer camp, as one - Patrick Dewaere - is a bit of a bully and seizes on the gentler other - Patrick Bouchitey - whom he is always picking on - there is a simmering sexual undercurrent which comes to the fore when Dewaere catches Bouchitey in drag, dressed in his girlfriend's clothes, which confirms his feelings about him. Violence ensures and there is a nice coda set in Paris some years later, when Bouchitey now married to the girlfriend goes to view an apartment, and Dewaere turns out to be the agent showing it to them. Roles get reversed as Bouchitey now has the upper hand and Dewaere dependent on the sale. Its both engrossing and pleasent. Dewaere always seemed to be in the shadow of Depardieu, with whom he made several films, including the groundbreaking LES VALSEUSES in 1974 - very dated now with those flared jeans! - where they are the two tearaways on the run who will have sex with anyone - including each other, when no females are around. Jeanne Moreau and Miou Miou are also excellent here. Dewaere though committed suicide with a gun in 1982, that year that Romy Schneider, Ingrid Bergman and Grace Kelly also died.