Lists: Those Trash Classics ....

We have been here before - call them what you will: Bad Movies We Love, Guilty Pleasures, Trash or Utter Trash ... those delirious melodramas and just plain bad movies that are so enjoyable - most of the great ladies did some: Lana and Susan and Joan and Bette specialised in them later in their careers, while other great ladies like Olivia and sister Joan dipped their toes in the muddy waters too. 

I have covered them in more detail in my earlier reviews - click on Trash-A label to read on ...http://osullivan60.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/trash-favourites.html

Right now, I list them:

• PORTRAIT IN BLACK - Lana's crowning epic, from 1960 (whereas IMITATION OF LIFE is a cult classic)
• LOVE HAS MANY FACES - Lana does Acapulco, with Ruth Roman and those beach boy bums in speedos in 1966
• WHERE LOVE HAS GONE - Susan and Bette go head to head in this 1964 stinker 
• I THANK A FOOL - Susan and Finch should have been a great team but not in this weird meller shot in Ireland ...
• ADA - Susan in fighting form
  
• BACK STREET - the best of the Susan's ?, 1961
• STOLEN HOURS - love Susan's British remake of Bette' DARK VICTORY, in 1963
• SERENADE - Fontaine is stupendous in this Mario Lansz sudser, 1956
• ISLAND IN THE SUN - Joan 'romances' Harry Belafonte ... 1957
• LADY IN A CAGE - sister Olivia is trapped
• THE SINGING NUN - Debbie's worst in 1966, a travesty of the real Nun's Story
• A HOUSE IS NOT A HOME - Shelley chomps the scenery. 1964.
• SYLVIA - a Carroll Baker epic, its delirious, its delovely 
• SINCERELY YOURS - Liberace's sickly starrer, with Dot Malone and Joanne Dru competing for him ... a 1956 howler.
• MAMBO - a 1954 discovery, torrid saga with Silvana Mangano and Shelley Winters, in Italy.
• FOUR GIRLS IN TOWN - the perfect 1957 Universal-International meller, as is:
  
• THE FEMALE ANIMAL - thats Hedy Lamarr in 1957 with Jan Sterling, splendid as ever.
• GO NAKED IN THE WORLD - Gina ! 1960.
• THE CHAPMAN REPORT - Shelley, Glynis, Claire, young Jane Fonda ... we love Cukor's starry drama, The Higher Trash.
• THE REVOLT OF MAMIE STOVER - Jane Russell ! with Agnes Moorehead as the madam, 1956.
• A GIRL NAMED TAMIKO - one of Laurence Harvey's worst 
• WALK ON THE WILD SIDE - ditto, but with Stanwyck, Capucine, Fonda, Baxter ...
• THE LOVE MACHINE - a scream with gay David Hemmings and Dyan Cannon both wanting John Philip Law
• THE CROWDED SKY - best of the airline disasters?, 1960
• DORIAN GRAY - Helmut ! in 1970s London 
• GOODBYE GEMINI - one of the terrible British flicks of the era, 1970 - as was:
• MY LOVER, MY SON - why Romy. why did you make this terrible film?
• 10.30 PM SUMMER - fake arty 1966 Eurofare, but it does have Melina, Romy and Peter Finch
  
• POPE JOAN - Liv may have been great in those Bergman films but made some stinkers in English, none worse than this in 1972.
• Glenda made some stinkers too, none worse than THE INCREDIBLE SARAH in 1976, where she flounces around as Bernhardt in a Readers Digest travesty. Its a scream. 
• BLUEBEARD - Edward Dmytryk helmed some Trash Classic favourites like THE CARPETBAGGERS, WALK ON THE WILD SIDE, WHERE LOVE HAS GONE, but came a cropper here, aided by Burton's worst performance, in 1972
• THE SQUEEZE - rather good Brit gangster flick, from 1977, with down on their luck Boyd, Hemmings, Carol White ...  BRANNIGAN (John Wayne) and HENNESSEY (Rod Steiger and wasted Lee Remick) were amusing mid-70s British thrillers too ...

We don't bother with the insultingly bad, like THE OSCAR or HARLOW ..... then there are the Troy Donahue and Ann-Margret clunkers, and you know how we love those Bette and Joans: TORCH SONG, HARRIET CRAIG, FEMALE ON THE BEACH, QUEEN BEE, AUTUMN LEAVES, THE STORY OF ESTHER COSTELLO, THE BEST OF EVERYTHING, BERSERK! or two Bettes in DEAD RINGER.

An Olly double bill: The System / The Triple Echo

Back to 1964 and 1972 for these interesting Oliver Reed films, from that time when the British film industry was thriving ... This is my 2008 IMDB review of THE SYSTEM (now getting screenings on UK tv):

"A blast from the past for those young in the early 60s is the belated DVD release of THE SYSTEM (US Title: THE GIRL-GETTERS) made in 63 and released in 64 - when I saw it aged 18 when it would have played here in the UK for a week on release as part of a double bill and then promptly vanished without trace until I saw the DVD yesterday. It comes with a nice 8 page booklet too setting the film in context which is a model of its kind, if only more DVD re-issues followed suit! (The Best of British Collection: "films that entertained the post-war generation"). Its the kind of movie that talks to you if you are the age of the characters on screen ...

The film directed by Michael Winner with marvellous black and white photography by Nicholas Roeg (and a title song by The Searchers!) is set in one of those English seaside towns (Torbay and Brixham in Devon) following a gang of young men, led by the then very charismatic Oliver Reed, and their amorous pursuits over the summer and is actually a perfect compendium of European cinema trends of the time - there are Antonioniish moments (the tennis game here has a real ball) and it ends like LA DOLCE VITA in a Felliniesque dawn at the beach as the disillusioned characters realise the summer is over. Fellini's I VITELLONI is also a reference here. The script by Peter Draper anticipates elements of DARLING and BLOW-UP (particularly that long scene with Reed and Merrow at his apartment, and yes, her blown-up photos are pinned to the walls too - he too is a photographer becoming disillusioned with it all). 

It sports a great cast of English young players of the time (Barbara Ferris, Julia Foster, Ann Lynn, John Alderton) as well as reliables like Harry Andrews. Of the young cast David Hemmings (rather in the background here) would two years later personify the 60s when chosen by Antonioni for his lead in BLOW-UP. Jane Merrow (Hemmings' girlfriend of the time, and a replacement for Julie Christie who was doing BILLY LIAR) is perfect as Nicola the cool rich girl whom Reed falls for but she plays the game better than he does and is in complete command of any romance, as he realises she was just toying with him for the summer, so its payback time for all the 'birds' he discarded. (I got to meet her myself and had a nice long conversation with her when she was doing a play in 1966, while David was off filming BLOW-UP; she also co-starred in another favourite THE LION N WINTER in '68).

Winner of course may be a figure of fun now [he died in 2013], one forgets that in the '60s before those DEATH WISHES etc his films caught the moment as well as any by Richard Lester (THE SYSTEM could be Winner's THE KNACK), Losey, Schlesinger or the underrated Clive Donner, with titles like THE JOKERS and I'LL NEVER FORGET WHATS'ISNAME where Reed was meant to be his character from THE SYSTEM five years later.

In all its a perfect early '60s movie full of sounds and faces and the mood of that time just as the Swinging Era was taking off. For anyone interested in English cinema or remembers the era, its a real pleasure to see again 50+ years later !"

THE TRIPLE ECHO is perfectly 1972 too, though set in wartime England in the early Forties, and Glenda gets that 1940s look perfectly right with her swagger coats and perms. This is from a H E Bates story and is a perfect little British film of its era, as directed by Michael Apted. 
Brian Deacon is good too as the soldier who deserts to stay with Glenda on her remote farm, after fixing her tractor, and who disguises himself as her 'sister' and finds he likes it as he makes the mistake of leading on Olly's brute of an army officer .... as per my review, Glenda/Reed labels. Good to see it on television again too. They tried to jazz it up for America titling it SOLDIER IN SKIRTS with a lurid poster, but it is so much better than that. 

'60s / '70s British cinema: Olly and David

Lets now look at those two interesting British actors Oliver Reed and David Hemmings through the decades. Both were young jobbing actors at the dawn of the Sixties, and were established by the middle of the Swinging Decade .... thanks to directors like Antonioni, Michael Winner and Ken Russell. They worked together several times and their ends were rather similar too. They are both in THE SYSTEM (left) in 1964, THE PRINCE AND THE PAUPER in 1977 and GLADIATOR in 2000. Both took to the hell-raising life as their careers waxed and waned and both died in their early sixties (Reed at 61, Hemmings at 62), no doubt from all that excess - at least David left an enjoyable and fascinating memoir.

It was an exciting time for young actors as the likes of Peter O'Toole, Albert Finney, Alan Bates, Tom Courtenay came to prominence in the early Sixties, with Michael York, Terence Stamp and more following .... Oliver with his striking looks had lots of small parts, including that hilarious moment when his camp ballet dancer invades Jack Hawkins' LEAGUE OF GENTLEMEN in 1960, he was more typically cast as werewolves or bullies (as in THE ANGRY SILENCE) and had a good role in Losey's THE DAMNED in 1961. Michael Winner's THE SYSTEM in 1964 was a terrific role for him, and it a terrific British 1960s film ushering in that Swinging Era. David Hemmings is also in THE SYSTEM in a rather nondescript role - who would think two years later he would be starring for Italian maestro Michelangelo Antonioni who made him the face of the decade in BLOW-UP ? Hemmings also came up in small parts in films like NO TREES IN THE STREET, SINK THE BISMARCK!, SOME PEOPLE, PLAY IT COOL, WEST 11, TWO LEFT FEET etc - see Hemmings label. I had a good conversation with his then girlfriend Jane Merrow (star of THE SYSTEM) in the summer of 1966 when she was doing a West End play, about the time he must have been filming BLOW-UP - 50 years ago. 

The Antonioni classic did not hit London until 1967 when it became the talk of the town and it was the film (and still is) one had to see and have an opinion about. Being 21 at the time it was like seeing oneself up there in the screen, as Antonioni transformed David into that decadent dissatisfied cherub. He was soon seen in more '60s classics like CAMELOT, BARBARELLA, THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE and kept busy into the 1970s, was married to Gayle Hunnicutt, also directing (RUNNING SCARED, JUST A GIGOLO with Bowie and Dietrich) as well as lots of American TV series like MAGNUM PI and THE A-TEAM as he had re-located to America and became a top action director for TV. 

Oliver did more Michael Winner films (THE JOKERS, HANNIBAL BROOKS - did anyone see that?, and that magnum opus I'LL NEVER FORGET WHAT'ISNAME) and then Ken Russell stepped in, not only with WOMEN IN LOVE and the notorious THE DEVILS (see Ken Russell/Reed labels) but he also impressed in Ken's 1967 BBC film on Dante Gabriel Rossetti DANTE'S INFERNO. His popular movies continued with THE HUNTING PARTY, THE TRAP, his Bill Sykes in OLIVER!, TOMMY, ROYAL FLASH; THE TRIPLE ECHO and THE CLASS OF MISS MACMICHAEL, both again with Glenda Jackson, and American movies like BURNT OFFERINGS and THE SHUTTERED ROOM, and of course his brooding Athos in the Richard Lester MUSKETEERS films. 

THE DEVILS

They are both in the 1977 PRINCE AND THE PAUPER reboot, fun but not much more, and both turned up again in Ridley Scott's GLADIATOR, both rather aged now with no vanity at all, though just in their early sixties. Oliver had become a feature on the chatshow circuit where his increasing drunken antics make sad viewing now - there was a compilation on last week: THE OLIVER REED INTERVIEWS, it simply was too depressing to watch it all. Perhaps he was being encouraged to drink too much and go over the top to make car-crash television?
 He died of a heart attack in Malta during the GLADIATOR shoot in 1999 and was buried in Cork, in Ireland, where he had been living with his second wife. Hemmings kept going until 2003 - he had an effective role in Scorsese's THE GANGS OF NEW YORK, and the Brit film LAST ORDERS with peers Courtenay, Caine, Hoskins, Mirren, Winstone - and he also died of a heart attack on location in Romania. His memoir, published in 2004, is a fascinating read for anyone interested in British Cinema and his early life as a boy opera singer for Benjamin Brittan - he sang Miles in the first opera production of THE TURN OF THE SCREW. Hemmings talks about BLOW-UP (as does a still miffed Terence Stamp who had been promised the part) in that 1993 BBC series HOLLYWOOD UK, as do Vanessa and Monica Vitti too ... you also get Polanski, Roger Corman, Truffaut (with Julie Christie) and those other foreign directors wanting to be a part of Swinging London. 

We continue to like Hemmings and Reed and like seeing them on screen. Like Richards Harris and Burton they paid the price for all that excessive drinking, but kept going and working to the end -  of course like most working actors they did their share of rubbish and routine programmers (JUGGERNAUT, THE SQUEEZE, SITTING TARGET, AND THEN THERE WERE NONE), but we need not linger on those - more on them at labels. VENOM in '81 was a choice one for Olly - with the deadly snake going up his trouserleg ...

Dearden and that league of gentlemen ...

THE LEAGUE OF GENTLEMEN, 1960. A witty crime caper of the old school, that one can happily enjoy again, Basil Dearden's film has a perfect lead in Jack Hawkins as a former army officer who repays his shoddy treatment by the military by recruiting a team of similarly irked ex-servicemen down on their luck, to pull off a daring bank robbery. They pull it off ok, but then ....

Forcibly-retired Colonel Hyde recruits seven other dissatisfied ex-servicemen for a special project. Each of the men has a skeleton in the cupboard, is short of money, and is a service-trained expert in his field. The job is a bank robbery, and military discipline and planning are imposed by Hyde and second-in-command Race on the team, although civilian irritations do start getting in the way. These men have "done their bit" for their country in wartime, and now are not needed any more, as they cope with failure and post-war London, faithless wives, and being the "odd man out".

A fascinating collection of Britsh actors of the period here, who were gainfully employed in the '50s in all those war movies, stiff upper lips and all - but are now slightly redundant in the new '60s era. Hawkins and Nigel Patrick, both "People We Like" here (as per labels) are great leads, with lots of witty banter. Richard Attenborough scores too as does pal Bryan Forbes - and yes, Nanette Newman gets a look in too. Theres also Roger Livesey, Terence Alexander, Norman Bird, and Kieron Moore is the coded gay one, the butt of nasty comments by Attenborough's character, which the audience of the time may not have picked up on. The witty script is by Forbes, and also featured are Melissa Stribling (Mrs Dearden),  

The long scene where the Major gathers his motley crew for lunch at the Cafe Royal, is an enjoyable sequence - watch out for Oliver Reed's swishy chorus boy who enters another meeting of theirs thinking it is his ballet class! - a contrast to seeing him in THE SCARLET BLADE the other day (and his THE PARTY'S OVER from 1964 is on its way to me). A nice addition to those British movies of the time like THE ANGRY SILENCE and those other Attenborough-Forbes projects, like SEANCE ON A WET AFTERNOON, THE L-SHAPED ROOM and WHISTLE DOWN THE WIND. 

Basil Dearden (with regular producer Michael Relph) scores too, with another witty movie of his, to follow that thriller SAPPHIRE in 1959, and VICTIM in 1961. 

I read somewhere recently that if Dearden had been a European director he would be feted by retrospectives at the BFI and elsewhere. Its been interesting catching up with his other perfect British films of their era, lately like: POOL OF LONDON, THE BLUE LAMP, THE CAPTIVE HEART, FRIEDA, SARABAND FOR DEAD LOVERS, THE GENTLE GUNMAN, OUT OF THE CLOUDS, VIOLENT PLAYGROUND, ALL NIGHT LONG, THE MINDBENDERS, A PLACE TO GO, WOMAN OF STRAW, KHARTOUM. - reviews of these at British/London labels.

He was killed in a car accident in 1971, aged 60, he and his wife lived at Beel House, in Buckinghamshire, one of Dirk Bogarde's residences, which he had bought from Bogarde, whom he directed in 4 features.  
Two early Deardens I have not seen have now turned up on tv: the 1950 CAGE OF GOLD and the 1953 boxing drama THE SQUARE RING which features Kay Kendall and Joan Collins as the dames in its all star cast, yes Sid James is here too ...

The Devils, 1971: "Hell holds no surprises for them"!

Viewing Ken Russell's THE DEVILS now (Sky Movies are showing it, uncut as far as I can see, several times) after a gap of 40 or so years, is a potent, sobering experience. I initially saw it on the big screen on its initial run in that year 1971 of big movies one had to see, like A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, DEATH IN VENICE, THE STRAW DOGS, SOLDIER BLUE etc. all pushing the boundaries on what could be shown on screen. Ken's THE DEVILS topped them all, even more so than his previous ones, THE MUSIC LOVERS and WOMEN IN LOVE.

After seeing Oliver Reed sleepwalking though so many later movies it is amazing to see him here .... ditto Vanessa Redgrave's Sister Jeanne, a deformed hunchback nun (both her actress daughters worked for Ken too), and the usual team of Russell regulars are all present and correct .... Graham Armitage is a treat as the very effete King, particularly when he produces that box with the relic which sends them all into a frenzy, and then he shows them it was an empty box! and I love his "bye bye blackbird""! Michael Gothard too tops all his other crazy roles as the demented torturer in chief, doing the bidding of devious Dudley Sutton, a pawn of Cardinal Richelieu who wants the city of Loudon demolished, but Father Grandier stands in his way ...

Cardinal Richelieu and his power-hungry entourage seek to take control of seventeenth-century France, but need to destroy Father Grandier - the priest who runs the fortified town that prevents them from exerting total control. So they seek to destroy him by setting him up as a warlock in control of a devil-possessed nunnery, the mother superior of which is sexually obsessed by him. A mad witch-hunter is brought in to gather evidence against the priest, ready for the big trial.

What follows is both a savage satire and critique of religious mania (like Arthur Miller's THE CRUCIBLE) and a crazed, over the top excerise in Grand Guignol, all based on historical fact. Only Russell could have gone this far, showing religious hysteria and human depravity as Grandier is shaved, tortured and cooked before our eyes, and the hysterical nuns strip and run amok, while the inquisitors and their torture instruments seek out evidence of devils ...... it is of course based on Aldous Huxley's novel and John Whiting play "The Devils of Loudon". Ken's vision was realised by Derek Jarman's expressionistic sets and Shirey Russell's costumes, and that cast, including Murray Melvin, Max Adrian, Georgina Hale, Brian Murphy, Christopher Logue - there is perhaps too much of Gemma Jones as the young innocent love of Grandier's. The depictions of plague and torture from that opening image of maggots crawling out of a rotten corpse held high on a wheel, are images not easily forgotten. 

After its initial run THE DEVILS was probably considered too shocking by Warners (who also had problems with Roeg and Cammell's PERFORMANCE) - this was two years before THE EXORCIST - and was unseen for a long time. Now it is back on television and uncut on dvd, it may be time to re-appraise it a one of Ken's best. I caught up with his LISZTOMANIA and VALENTINO last year, - see Russell label for reviews - which I did not like much though liking the grand vision behind them, though I like THE MUSIC LOVERS and his later THE RAINBOW. We still have to see his SAVAGE MESSIAH and MAHLER. TOMMY of course was a big hit in 1975 - we had to go to a late night show to see it. 

Reed was also amazing in Russell's BBC film on Rossetti in 1967: DANTE'S INFERNO, and Vanessa is a revelation here, stepping into Glenda Jackson's shoes .... Ken did THE BOYFRIEND next. THE DEVILS remains a shocking, searing experience but if you can bear the more gruesome moments, then you will find it fascinating viewing, and no matter how hard you try you won't be able to ignore its intensity. 1970s audiences eventually got tired of  Ken's excesses and he fell from favour, dying aged 84 in 2011, but his key works continue to fascinate.  

Something camp for the weekend 3: a lesser Agatha Christie

A star-laden Agatha Christie from 1974: AND THEN THERE WERE NONE. We quite like those camp all-star Agatha Christie adaptations popular in the '70s and '80s, started by MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS and getting camper as they went along: DEATH ON THE NILE, EVIL UNDER THE SUN, THE MIRROR'S CRACKED (see Christie label). A lesser one is AND THEN THERE WERE NONE, which features a fascinating round-up of Euro-players, and is set in a luxury hotel in Isfahan, Iran - and features rare footage of the little-seen ancient city of Persepolis, where Alexander the Great hung out. Despite all this, there is something cheap about it though, its very much a minor Christie, but none the less camp for all that. 

A group of ten people, strangers to each other, have all travelled to a hotel located deep in the deserts of Iran. Upon arrival they discover that their host is mysteriously absent. Though some find this odd they decide to make the best of the situation and settle into the isolated but luxurious hotel. But soon they are accused by a tape recording of having committed various crimes in the past which went unpunished by the law. Then one victim dies of poisoning. Then another is strangled .... and the remaining guests deduce that their unseen host is determined to kill them one by one .... and as there is no-one else at the hotel, the killer has to be one of them ..... finally, there are just two left - one of them has to be the killer - or is there a twist ? 

This hoary old Christie chestnut has been done several times. I have not seen the 1940s one, but this 1974 version follows the amusing 1965 British TEN LITTLE INDIANS almost line by line, scene by scene - they are almost comedies. That black and white one was set in an Alpine fortress and had a fascinating 1960s cast with Bond girl Shirley Eaton and Hugh O'Brien, exotic Daliah Lavi, and Fabian, with British stalwarts Dennis Price, Wilfrid Hyde-White, Stanley Holloway and Leo Genn.  

Here in '74 we have Oliver Reed and Elke Sommer as the rather bland leads, with French Stephane Audran and Charles Aznavour, and two Bond villains Gert Frobe and Adolfo Celi, plus Brits Richard Attenborough and Herbert Lom. If you know the twist its reasonably amusing. This one is a Harry Alan Towers polyglot co-production, directed by Peter Collinson. At least it reminds us how much we like the very slinky Stephane Audran, who is marvellous here. Aznavour sings one of his popular hits "Dance in the old fashioned way" before he croaks .... and thats when the fun starts ! Oh, and the voice on the tape machine is Orson Welles ! 

British double bill

THE ANGRY SILENCE. One 1960 British film I had not seen before from that 'kitchen-sink' era, but I remember it well as it attracted a lot of publicity at the time, when I was 14. About a wildcat strike at a midlands factory and the motives of the various people involved, it plays like a serious version of I’M ALL RIGHT JACK and it’s a riveting view now, capturing as it does that lost world of busy factories, workers arriving on the bicycles, the furnished rooms and apartments they live in. Richard Attenborough is a dependable guy, married to Italian Pier Angeli, and Michael Craig lodges with them. (I remember having that "Picture Show" magazine, above).
Then unrest at the factory begins, as we see that stranger (Alfred Burke) arrive in town, is he perhaps there to stir up trouble?, we also see his leaving at the end, job done. Bernard Lee is the pushy union man looking for any opportunity to strike, Geoffrey Keen and Laurence Naismith the worried but decent factory bosses. Young Oliver Reed and Brian Bedford are among the young layabouts wanting to cause trouble.
 Attenborough gets sent to Coventry by his former workmates and friends as he refuses to join their strike, so no one will talk to him. This leads to tragedy, his son too is bullied at school, as his wife Anne gets more and more frantic. 

Pier Angeli (above) is a stand-out here, in maybe her best role. (She and Attenborough were in the 1959 programmer SOS PACIFIC (review at Pier Angeli label), which maybe led to her casting her). Craig is reliable as usual, the film is scripted by Bryan Forbes (who also appears) from an idea by Craig and his brother Richard Gregson (who went on to marry Natalie Wood). It remains a riveting slice of life from that era. Directed by Guy Green (that ace cinematographer on Lean's GREAT EXPECTATIONS, who became a director).

KING & COUNTRY. The one Joseph Losey film which never made any money, I had not seen it since its release in 1964 and it never cropped up since (outside of Losey retrospectives at the BFI),  but there it was on late night television, along with BILLY LIAR and THE ANGRY SILENCE, on a minor cable channel.

During World War I, an army private is accused of desertion during battle. The officer assigned to defend him at his court-martial finds out there is more to the case than meets the eye.

This, from a play “Hamp” scripted by Evan Jones, and it seems star Dirk Bogarde (back with Losey after THE SERVANT) also had a hand in it. It is the downbeat story of a private in the First World War, tried for desertion and executed, as he simply walked away from the guns and carnage, obviously shell-shocked. Confined to one set, we are in the muddy trenches with the common soldiers (Jeremy Spencer and gang) as officers Dirk Bogarde, Leo McKern, James Villiers prepare their case against Private Hamp – 
Tom Courtenay in another sterling performance as the innocent who does not realise the enormity of what he did and what will happen to him, in this brutal system. 
This was an ‘X Certificate’ film at the time, I cannot see why now. It is strong stuff though, bleak and unrelenting, particularly that climax when Bogarde puts the injured soldier out of his misery. Made in 18 days and for not very much money, it is certainly one rare item it is good to see again, and how it fits into the Losey canon between THE SERVANT and MODESTY BLAISE and ACCIDENT. 
KING & COUNTRY is now available on dvd, and, for UK viewers, is being screened again by Film4 this time, next Tuesday afternoon, 15th, and will be repeated the following week. 

Sexplosion !

"Sexplosion: From Andy Warhol to A Clockwork Orange - how a generation of pop rebels broke all the taboos" - this fascinating tome by Robert Hofler is an easy read, particularly for those of us who lived through those heady years. Let's see: "Rich, funny, and comprehensive SEXPLOSION takes you inside the tumultous, energizing years of 1968 to 1973, when artists, film-makers, and writers defied authority and challenged every taboo to create a sexual revolution that reverbates to this day. This is a superb evocation of an era" Patricia Bosworth says. or "Hofler pays tribute to the trailblazing artists who paved the way for the freedom on screen that we take for granted today", according to Jeffrey Schwarz.

It is a different world now looking back to those late 60s when censorship was still in full force - how much society can change over 40 years! Gay liberation and Women's Lib were still in their infancy - equality seemed a long way off then; unlike now, the newspapers were virulently anti-gay - in England the tabloids hounded closeted gay celebrities like Kenny Everett and Russell Harty to their deathbeds, and then the Aids crisis began .... Back in the '60s in America homosexuals were routinely called 'fags' or 'faggots' (it was 'poofs' here in England) even by the likes of liberals like Billy Wilder or John Huston (and in films like VALLEY OF THE DOLLS, THE LOVE MACHINE) - lots of straight men hated women whom they saw as castrating, dominating tyrants. 
Philip Roth certainly felt so - he refused to complete his manuscript for PORTNOY'S COMPLAINT as his hated ex-wife was getting half of what he earned, after tricking him into marriage with a fake pregnancy, as she had bought the urine sample from a pregnant woman, so he was not going to hand her another fortune - then, conveniently for him, not so for her, she was killed in a car crash, so heigh ho, and off to the printers !!! and that very funny book became one of the defining texts of the era, along with John Updike's COUPLES and Gore Vidal's MYRA BRECKINRIDGE, which we loved with a passion. Even the trash-but-fun movie did not dent our affection for it. How we howled at Mae West's line as she arrived at her office crowded with studs: "one of those guys will have to go..!"and poor Rusty gets it in the end, we had seen nothing like it !

Hofler goes into the genesis of all these, and in the theatre the problems with getting Mart Crowley's BOYS IN THE BAND, Tynan's OH! CALCUTTA! and Rado & Ragni's HAIR on stage with their nudity and depiction of gay life and those new freedoms. It seems critic Kenneth Tynan was more an unmitigated shit than one had realised. We knew about his S&M fetishes and caning women, but he was also rabidly anti-fag, and wanted nothing gay in his revue, and even wanted to hire only heterosexual actors! 

Also in the cinema, John Schlesinger was pushing boundaries with MIDNIGHT COWBOY, which featured some of the Warhol crowd, like Viva, also busy in Warhol products like LONESOME COWBOYS. Warhol's own films, as created by Paul Morrisey - FLESH, HEAT, TRASH - also raked in the money, though they would not pay for Holly Woodlawn to get bail from prison to attend her film opening!  Ken Russell meanwhile was getting the British film censor John Trevelyan (who was a regular on tv and in discussions on censorship I attended at the BFI), to pass his WOMEN IN LOVE (Olly and Alan had their own problems with that nude wrestling scene...) and the even more notorious THE DEVILS, while Visconti ran into problems with Warner Bros over his Nazi orgy in THE DAMNED and DEATH IN VENICE .....  which to the Warner Bros executives was about a middle-aged man chasing but never quite getting his hands on a knowing thirteen year old boy who seems to be leading him on. No wonder they wanted Tadzio changed to a girl called Tadzia !

Hofler though does not mention Fellini's SATYRICON or Antonioni's ZABRISKIE POINT, two other hits of the counterculture era, as we zoon on to BOB & CAROL & TED & ALICE (which earned Natalie Wood more than any other film she made, as she had a percentage deal) and CARNAL KNOWLEDGE, DEEP THROAT and A CLOCKWORK ORANGE (right). Amusing story about that - arch-manipulator Kubrick stayed at home in England but persuased Malcolm McDowell and Anthony Burgess, the book's author, to go to America and handle the interviews for ORANGE. Then Burgess realised he was not making anything from the film's success as he had earlier sold the rights for a few hundred dollars ....

Schlesinger ran into more trouble with his next one, SUNDAY BLOODY SUNDAY, but was now an Oscar-winning director, so got his way, having to replace his initial choices Ian Bannen and Hiram Keller which was not working out, with the more laid back Peter Finch and Murray Head. Princess Margaret though hated the film with its depiction of "men in bed kissing" - surely she knew enough gays! The kinky sex and violence of PERFORMANCE (left) also frazzled Warner Brothers who did not know what to do with it. STRAW DOGS with its brutal rape was also causing lots of problems. Then there was the notorious making of LAST TANGO IN PARIS ....

A fascinating era in all, as the new freedoms slowly became commonplace- as covered by "Films & Filming" and other magazines.  Another discussion I attended in 1970, when 24, at the BFI was on the topic of 'Actors & Nudity' - a hot topic then with more and more actresses and actors too, having to get their kit off. 
I remember Billie Whitelaw being vocal at this, and Zeffirelli's naked Romeo, Leonard Whiting, in a crushed velvet blue suit. He was standing next to me afterwards at the gents urinal  ... not a suitable moment to chat though.
Censorship still raged in Ireland then, a look at WOMEN IN LOVE at the local cinema I grew up in, in 1970 or so reduced us to helpless laughter - the wrestling scene had been reduced to a few shots of them panting on the carpet, making it even more suggestive. They were running MIDNIGHT COWBOY the following week - I wondered how much of that was left ...
How times change: Finland is now issuing quite explicit Tom of Finland stamps!