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!

Peplum trio: Pompeii, Marathon, Caesars

A timely look at the 1959 Steve Reeves' THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII, just as a new POMPEII hits the weekend screens and from what I saw of it on tv, its a laughably unreal GCI schlockfest which looked totally created in the special effects suite. What one needs from a peplum or biblical or any costume epic is a sense that it is "real" - we want to see real buildings collapsing and all that carnage. There are a few Pompeii movies around now (and Robert Harris's great novel too of course). Steve's one does not disgrace itself, as he and Christine Kaufmann lead the cast, with Fernando Rey as the evil one with that Egyptian sect. When the volcano goes up there's lots of fireworks and general mayhem with people running all over the place as they too head for the sea, after Steve saving Christine and her blind sister from the lions in the arena ... Steve is terrific here and is everything a peplum hero should be. Set in the shadows of Mt. Vesuvius just before its famous eruption, the film begins with Glaucus, a Roman legionnaire, returning to his home from far-off wars. Upon arriving, however, he discovers that his father has been murdered by a gang of black-hooded looting bandits. Glaucus vows revenge against the killers, but just how high up are those involved? In all, quite good from that great era for peplums. Sergio Leone had a hand in this one.

GIANT OF MARATHON - Maybe the best peplum of all? Directed in 1959 by Jacques Tourneur with an uncredited Mario Bava, this looks good with terrific underwater sequences as Steve and his pals in those skimpy white briefs do their best to halt the advance of the Persians. We leared about the battle of Marathon at college, it looks pretty effective here, particularly when Mylene Demongeot as Andromeda is chained to the prow of the advancing ship with those pincer claws, as Phillipides (Reeves) comes to the rescue. 
Singer Sergio Fantoni is the hissable villain, and Daniela Rocca scores as Karis, the good time girl who sacrifices all. The Persian army is invading Greece as Steve leads the defending army including those underwater sequences with terrific special effects. Almost as good then as those Belinda Lee favourites APHRODITE (LA VENERE DI CHERONEA) 1957 and MESSALINA.

GOLD FOR THE CAESARS. Mylene Demongeot features again here, with an older Jeffrey Hunter, in 1963. A slave architect in Gaul is ordered by a Roman governor to lead an expedition, constantly under danger of attack by Celtic warriors, to the Valley of the Sil to find much-needed gold for Rome. Jeff is Lacer and Mylene Penelope, with Ron Randall - who was with Jeff in KING OF KINGS, and with Ettore Manni and Massimo Girotti as the gold-mad would-be emperor-in-waiting. 
Exciting from the start as Jeff saves that bridge under construction as the Gauls wait to attack ... Made at the height of the sword-and-sandal era its a better than average peplum with a good cast and battle scenes. Jeff shows an impressive pair of legs in those mini-togas and Mylene is the perfect peplum heroine. I had dismissed her initially as a Bardot clone, but she in fact has had a longer and better career and is still working.I remember seeing her initially in FAIBLES FEMMES a French comedy and an early Alain Delon film, and she tried to come between Dirk Bogarde and John Mills in trash favourite THE SINGER NOT THE SONG. She was also effective in that 1957 WITCHES OF SALEM and BONJOUR TRISTESSE .... and in LA NOTTE BRAVA among others.

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 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

Those British comedies ....

An affectionate look at some of those late '50s/early '60s British comedies we liked - its the performers that matter here, those comedians and character players who made even the dullest movie watchable. So we dedicate this to the great Joan Sims and Hattie and Kenneth and Charles and Richard Wattis and ...

PLEASE TURN OVER, 1959 - An early CARRY ON in all but name, by the regular team Peter Rogers and Gerald Thomas, with regulars Leslie Philips,  Joan Sims and Charles Hawtrey (guesting as a jeweller). This is set in smart suburbia where martinet father Ted Ray and ditzy wife Jean Kent (her driving lesson with Lionel Jeffries is a hoot) preside - their daughter Julia Lockwood (Margaret's daughter) writes a raunchy best-seller and the locals recognize that she has written about them and soon chaos erupts throughout this small English town with predictable results. Its good fun, with Joan Sims as the maid and others like Colin Gordon, Joan Hickson and Dilys Laye providing the laughs. A pleasant afternoon time-waster.

MAKE MINE MINK - This is a delightful 1960 comic caper with a sterling cast headed by Athene Seyler, Hattie Jacques and Elspeth Duxbury as 3 old dears in a mansion flat who discover they can steal fur coats which can be sold to fund Athene's charity. Young Billie Whitelaw is their maid, she is an ex-con herself but is dating policeman Jack Hedley. Terry Thomas is another companion of theirs so cue much hilarity as our foursome plot their robberies. Irene Handl is sheer delight as Madame Spolinski, owner of a fur shop they are targeting. Kennth Williams pops in as well.

As the blurb says: Zany collection of misfits led by aging military man (Terry-Thomas) go on a spree of robbing mink coats. An unlikely trio of women (Athene Seyler, Hattie Jacques, and Elspeth Duxbury) find new reasons to live ... until their housekeeper (Billie Whitelaw), an ex-con is suspected of the robberies. Again, it captures that cusp of the '60s time period perfectly and shows what good writing and a quality cast can do for a basic premise, as directed by Robert Asher. 

ALIVE AND KICKING - a more '50s offering, this 1958 comedy needs to be better known. Another trio of old dears: redoubtable Sybil Thorndike, Kathleen Harrison and Estelle Winwood are to be split up at their old folks home and decide to run away. They end up in a boat heading to the west of Ireland where they land on one of the islands where they find perfect cottages they can take over.
These belong to returning American Stanley Holloway but he is soon out of the picture as the old gals take over the local industry of knitting Ara sweaters and soon have a booming local industry going. We have to add in the compulsory Richard Harris among the locals as well as Marjorie Rhodes, Joyce Carey and singer Brendon O'Dowda. Directed by Cyril Frankel - there are no reviews on this at IMDB and they insist it is a 1964 title, but it is definitely 1958 when I saw it as a kid.

UPSTAIRS AND DOWNSTAIRS - another delighted 1959 comedy from the Rank Organisation, directed by Ralph Thomas, in colour and with a very colorful cast! On marrying the boss's daughter, Richard takes his father-in-law's advice to hire a live-in domestic. He soon finds good help is hard to come by. Run-ins follow with dipsomaniacs, bank robbers, a Welsh lass who takes one look at London and runs, and an Italian charmer who turns the place into a bawdy house. Then when Ingrid arrives from Sweden things actually start to get complicated. This is one I enjoyed as a kid, as we watch Michael Craig and Anne Heywood as the newly-weds with James Robertson Justice bluff as ever as father-in-law.

Party girl Claudia + sailors

Joan Hickson is of course a delight as the tipsy cook, Joan Sims is Welsh Blodwyn who has never left Wales; those continental girls Mylene Demongeot and that new Italian girl Claudia Cardinale sparkle (five years later Craig would be supporting her in Visconti's SANDRA - a favourite of mine, Claudia, Craig labels) - Sid James is the local cop, Reginald Beckwith, Daniel Massey, Margalo Gilmore are fun and Joseph Tomelty and Nora Nicholson play the aged bank robbers using the kitchen to tunnel through to the bank next door .... laughs all round then.

THE NAKED TRUTH - a brilliant 1957 comedy utilising Peter Sellers in several roles, he was in the ascendant then. Dastardly Dennis Price is blackmailing several celebrities over secrets in their past which he will publish in his scandal magazine unless they pay up, so they decide to club together to kill him after their individual attempts fail - resulting in high comedy, as directed by Mario Zampi. We have crime writer Peggy Mount and her timid daughter Joan Sims, tv presenter Sellers, glamour girl Shirley Eaton and Terry Thomas is not as respectable as he lets on .... This one cemented Sellers' reputation for various roles as he and Terry Thomas became the major farceurs of the era - both starring in the classic  I'M ALRIGHT JACK and CARLTON BROWN OF THE F.O.

TOO MANY CROOKS - Another great 1959 Terry Thomas comedy also by Mario Zampi (the 3 here, MAKE MINE MINK, NAKED TRUTH and this are a good boxset). George Cole's hapless gang set out to kidnap cad Terry Thomas's daughter but end up with his wife Brenda De Banzie instead. Terry though does not play along and does not want her back, so Brenda takes control of the useless gang to exact her own revenge on her scheming husband. Sounds familiar? It must be the same plot used for that Bette Midler comedy RUTHLESS PEOPLE ...  it is an ideal role for the great Brenda De Banzie, Thomas is his usual caddish self and the crooks include Sid James, Bernard Bresslaw, Joe Melia. Add in John le Mesurier, Sydney Tafler and Nicholas Parsons for added humour. It is just as funny now as it was 50 years ago, as indeed all these are.

I covered another favourite HOW TO MURDER A RICH UNCLE from 1957 at Comedy, Nigel Patrick labels, featuring Athene Seyler again, Katie Johnson and Wendy Hiller.  What a great period it was for comedies from those Ealings like THE LADYKILLERS onwards... there's Sellers again in multiple roles in THE MOUSE THAT ROARED, and of course those first CARRY ONs: TEACHER, NURSE, SERGEANT etc;
and that other favourite of mine the perfectly '50s AN ALLIGATOR NAMED DAISY (comedy, Diana Dors  labels) with Diana Dors and Margaret Rutherford, as well as those early ST TRINIANS with the likes of Alistair Sim, Beryl Reid, Joyce Grenfell and the others, not to mention Dirk's DOCTORs: IN THE HOUSE, AT SEA, AT LARGE etc with Kay Kendall, Kenneth More, Brigitte Bardot, Brenda De Banzie and all the regular farceurs. These were very '50s creations - DOCTOR IN DISTRESS in 1963 did not work at all, it was that new swinging era and the Doctors were suddenly very dated. The '60s CARRY ON's began well with CLEO, COWBOY, CRUISING, SCREAMING, SPYING but too degenerated into tat by the '70s.  

The Singer Not The Song

It's been fun reading the recent "Shepperton Babylon" by Matthew Sweet, an expose of film-making in Britain during its heyday with memories of those still alive. THE SINGER NOT THE SONG saga is particularly choice, as the author got to interview its director Roy Ward Baker (he died last year in his 90s).

This was Dirk Bogarde's last film under his Rank Organisation contract and by this time he was highly dissatisfied to say the least. It seems nobody wanted to do this western set in Mexico - but filmed in Spain,so it has that Spanish western look and of course all those English accents. This may have been meant as a serious film at the time, but is now regarded as a camp classic and so screamingly awful that it is practically a comedy, and the height of trash. Bogarde is Anacleto the outlaw who terrorises a small Mexican town, aided by his gang - Anacleto hates the church and all it stands for. Enter dynamic new Irish priest- Father Keogh (John Mills) and a triangle forms between the two men and local girl Locha (French Bardot-type Mylene Demongeot) though it soon seems that Anacleto is really interested in the priest [who only wants to save his soul]. Tensions arise as locals are killed off one by one alphabetically until Anacleto is tricked into entering the church where he expects to hear praise for him but instead Father Keogh denouces him and a shootout ensues with both men dying in the dust clutching each other as Anacleto murmers "the singer not the song".

This tosh was from a novel by well-known Audrey Erskine-Lindop (who also wrote BLANCHE FURY and I THANK A FOOL, both filmed), and scripted by Nigel Balchin. Torremolinos and surrounding area stands in for Mexico and reliable Laurence Naismith is among the supporting cast, . Baker recalls how impossible Bogarde was during the shoot, and was more concerned about his tight leather trousers. He makes Anacleto terribly camp which adds to the fun.

It seems Bogarde was furious (and determined to be 'difficult') as John Mills became the object of his affections - someone like Peter Finch (one of the many who wisely turned it down) would have been more ideal, which would have created some dynamism between the men - Mills is just too 'homely' here. The whole thing though is a ludicrously overheated farrago and remains one of the great trash classics. I was 14 when it played at my local cinema and my mother somehow thought it was a musical so she went to see it with me, I don't think she was very pleased to find it was a western - but I was well into my Bogarde and Loren infatuation then!

Dirk would go on to VICTIM next and shattering of his Idol of the Odeons image, the book though is a great read on the making of this troubled masterpiece! - it's not very complimentary about Dirk though!

Bonjour Tristesse

Staying with 1957 for now, I should have been at a screening of BONJOUR TRISTESSE last evening [part of the National Film Theatre's Deborah Kerr retrospective] but a knee injury intervened - apologies, Donal and Jerry (Timshelboy) - so its back to the dvd of this Otto Preminger classic, made in '57 for '58 release. That ace photojournalist Bob Willoughby was on the set (as he seems to have been on all the important-to-me movies of the late '50s, and he shot this classic shot of Seberg (above) and (botttom) best-selling author Francoise Sagan on set with Niven and Kerr.

David Niven plays a wealthy playboy, the father of teenaged Cecile (Jean Seberg). Cecile tolerates father’s girlfriends, particularly Mylene Demongeot, but doesn’t know what to make of the prudish Anne (Deborah Kerr), who will not cohabit with Niven until after they’re married. Feeling that her own relationship with her father will be disrupted by Anne’s presence and the plans for her further education, Cecile does her malicious best to break up the relationship, only to be beaten by Niven, who despite his promises of fidelity to Anne cannot give up his hedonistic lifestyle.

The combination of the daughter’s disdain and the father’s rakishness leads a fatal accident. Niven and Seberg continue pursuing their lavish but empty lifestyle, though both realize that their lack of moral fibre has destroyed a life, but was it an accident or suicide? The incestuous undertones of the original Sagan novel are only slightly downplayed in the film; the “tristesse” (sadness) is visually conveyed by filming the flashback scenes in colour and the opening and closing of the film in bleak black and white, as they drive and party around Paris - another Sagan best-seller "Aimez vous Brahms" filmed in 1961 as GOODBYE AGAIN is another bittersweet tale (which I must revisit) also with lots of driving around Paris by Anthony Perkins and Ingrid Bergman .... TRISTESSE is perfectly directed by Preminger with his SAINT JOAN star Seberg in her element here, Geoffrey Horne is her boyfriend, Juliette Greco sings the theme song "... my heart has no address, bonjour tristesse" in a nightclub and then the colour seeps in as the memories intrude ... Niven and Kerr are perfectly cast here, as opposed to their playing against type next in SEPARATE TABLES.