Start the revolution without me - 1970

Here's a forgotten, over-looked treat for a dull afternoon - I saw it in 1970 but it seems we all forgot about it. 

START THE REVOLUTION WITHOUT ME is a mostly hilarious farce sending up the French Revolution, as directed by Bud Yorkin, starring Gene Wilder and Donald Sutherland (before their 70s peaks) as the mixed up twins - one rather dim (thats Gene) and the other terribly snooty. 

A great cast of farceurs are lined up: Hugh Griffith as Louis XVI, Jack McGowran, Murray Melvin, Victor Spinetti (as Count D'Escargot), Helen Fraser, Rosalind Knight, and best of all Billie Whitelaw as Marie Antoinette! AND Orson Welles narrates. Its  all a weird mix of Monty Python, A Tale of Two Cities etc. 

People we like: Janet Leigh

When I was doing those "People We Like" profiles here a few years ago (see label), one I somehow omitted was Janet Leigh - one of our perennial favourites, and always a pleasure in any movie. Janet (1927-2004) was a blonde California girl who famously got discovered when Norma Shearer saw her photograph at the ski lodge where Leigh's parents worked and, as legend has it, she was soon signed to MGM being one of their ingenues in the late '40s, in a variety of films. She was one of the LITTLE WOMEN in 1949, when HOLIDAY AFFAIR with Mitchum is a delightful Christmas classic. WHEN WINTER COMES was interesting too. The '50s though was her main era.

She is gorgeous in some costumers: SCARAMOUCHE in 1952, and cardboard castle time in comic strips like PRINCE VALIANT and THE BLACK SHIELD OF FALWORTH, with her then husband Tony Curtis. She is a '20s flapper in PETE KELLY'S BLUES, and good in a tough cop drama ROGUE COP with Robert Taylor, both 1954. I somehow missed her and Curtis in HOUDINI. 
She also excels out west in Mann's THE NAKED SPUR in 1953. She was MY SISTER EILEEN in the delightful 1955 musical and gets to dance with Bob Fosse.  We like it a lot, as per review. 1956 saw her in Africa in a routine jungle saga SAFARI with Victor Mature. 1958 was maybe her peak year: with Heston in TOUCH OF EVIL, directed by Orson at his most flamboyant, a modern noir classic where she gets terrorised in a motel, hiding her broken arm most of the time; then the Boys-Own classic THE VIKINGS, filmed in Norway and looking great as photographed by Jack Cardiff, where we love her Princess Morgana, its a perennial that boys of all ages still tune into. There was also a comedy I like, THE PERFECT FURLOUGH (or STRICTLY FOR PLEASURE) in Paris, with Curtis, for Blake Edwards. The marriage to Curtis made them one of the star couples of the era. Then Alfred Hitchcock came calling .... 

I have written about PSYCHO a lot here. Janet may only have been in the first forty minutes, but her Marion Crane dominates the rest of the film, and it is surely a leading performance, and she looks great here. She will always be the girl in the shower at the Bates Motel ... Hitchcock told her he knew she could act and left the role up to her as long as he got what he needed for his camera setups. That long scene with Perkins at the motel is particularly effective.

Frankenheimer's THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE was another classic in 1962, though her part was not major in it and she continued throughout the early Sixties: another musical: BYE BYE BIRDIE in '63, a comedy WIVES AND LOVERS, Paul Newman's estranged wife in HARPER in 1966. There was a Jerry Lewis comedy I saw around that time too, purely because she was in it. 
Lesser roles followed but she had more or less retired after a long happy second marriage (she and Curtis divorced in '62). John Carpenter lured her back with a role in THE FOG in 1980, starring her daughter scream queen Jamie Lee Curtis. She also did a good COLUMBO episode in 1975. Janet also wrote some novels and a charming autobiography and seems to have been well liked by everybody. 

Howard Hughes liked her a lot, with her perfect figure, she did his JET PILOT with John Wayne in 1951, directed by Von Sternberg, but it was 1957 by the time Hughes stopped tinkering with it and released it. She looks marvellous emerging from that flying suit in that white tee-shirt, but says in her book that she had to arrange to never be left alone with Hughes, till he eventually found more willing actresses .... 
She will always be one of the essential actresses of the 1950s, along with Kim, Doris, Debbie, Lee, Jean, Deborah, Susan, Ava, Natalie etc. and did sterling work with Hitchcock, Welles, Von Sternberg, Mann etc. (above: Janet in a 1969 "Sight & Sound" interview).

1958: Touch of Evil, again

The BFI have reissued that super 1958 thriller TOUCH OF EVIL, and with a new trailer:

Orson Welles' influential, magnificently sophisticated and funny take on crime and US/Mexican relations in a border town (maybe the best B-movie ever) provides a masterclass in how to create atmosphere. The camera (lensed by the great Russell Metty) swoops around like a bird of prey on acid. Henry Mancini's music sends us into a frenzy as idealistic Mexican cop Vargas (Heston) goes head to head with corrupt law enforcer Quinlan (a bloated, padded Welles) as he uncovers the seedy corruption around him as Quinlan has his own way of getting results. Cue Janet Leigh menaced in a motel again - by the craziest collection of hoods (including Mecedes McCambridge), and gangly motel guy Dennis Weaver. Orson regulars like Akim Tamiroff are also nicely sleazy here. 

Janet had her arm in a sling but you don't notice as she often has a coat over her arm. Then there's Marlene, with that great closing line .... This is a classic hepped-up '50s noir (along with KISS ME DEADLY and THE BIG COMBO) and has that great long opening sequence as we wait for the bomb in the car to go off. A perfect Abert Zugsmith production. 
Orson was initially hired to act, but who else could have directed it better? He also appeared in THE LONG HOT SUMMER and ROOTS OF HEAVEN and probably spent an hour narrating THE VIKINGS that year, 1958 was busy for them all: Chuck was also in THE BIG COUNTRY and THE BUCCANEER (before heading off for BEN-HUR), while Janet was kept busy with THE VIKINGS and that comedy I liked, THE PERFECT FURLOUGH (see Janet label). Heston & Janet teamed again for this nice shot in 1999 ....   

Another ship of fools ....

Based on the true story of a ship carrying German-Jewish refugees which was sent to Havana in 1939 by the Nazis but was denied permission to land anywhere. The ship was eventually obliged to return to Germany, where certain death awaited its passengers. This terrible outcome had been cynically anticipated by the Nazis when granting permission for the voyage in the first place.

The 1970s was that era of all-star disaster movies: the US studios gave us EARTHQUAKE, THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE, AIRPLANE 75 and all the rest, while in England TV mogul Sir Lew Grade assembled several all star packages, some of which were amusingly awful like our favourite THE CASSANDRA CROSSING (Sophia! Ava! Ingrid Thulin! Alida Valli! Burt Lancaster! John Philip Law! and more) and others like ESCAPE TO ATHENA was just silly, but VOYAGE OF THE DAMNED in 1976 was meant to be a serious drama but it is so crammed with names that one just sits there bemused by it all - "look, there's Julie Harris talking to Wendy Hiller" - but a lot of them have nothing to do and some barely get a look in: 

James Mason, Katharine Ross as a prostitute, Orson pops in a scene or two, as does Ben Gazzara, Helmut Griem reprises his evil Nazi (a la CABARET and Visconti's THE DAMNED), Malcolm McDowell, playing nice for once, is the young steward having a romance with Lynn Frederick (the last Mrs Peter Sellers), her parents are Lee Grant (who goes over the top spectacularly as the berserk mother cutting her hair in the concentration camp style) and Sam Wanamaker. Other well known faces here are Nehemiah Persoff and Maria Schell (also barely seen), while Jonathan Pryce is one of the persecuted refugees hoping for a new life. 

Topping the bill are Faye Dunaway and Oscar Werner (his final role) - Faye as an embittered wife displays her haughty glamour and gets to wear a monacle and strut around while her husband, Werner, practically reprising his role in SHIP OF FOOLS plays an esteemed Jewish surgeon. The captain of the "St Louis" is none other than Max Von Sydow. It should be a grim drama but the all-star cast and plodding direction of Stuart Rosenberg render it interesting for all the wrong reasons. Kramer's 1965 plodder SHIP OF FOOLS, which we caught and reviewed a year or so ago (Simone Signoret label), did it all much better. 

THE SHOES OF THE FISHERMAN in 1969 was also an all-star spectacular, helmed by the reliable Michael Anderson - one of several that year (BATTLE OF BRITAIN, OH WHAT A LOVELY WAR) - from a novel about the first Russian pope and how he tackles world poverty, from a novel by Morris West - which is another long, if entertaining, plod to see now, but at least it employed Anthony Quinn as the pope, Laurence Olivier as a wily Russian official, Oscar Werner again as another doomed priest, Gielgud as another ailing pope, and many, many more. 

'60s double bill: In search of what's'isname ...

1967 - London in the Swinging '60s, the Kings Road, the fashionable people, the mini-skirted dolly birds and the clothes and music - and those long forgotten movies that never get revived now. Here's 2 more of them: Michael Winner's magnum opus of the time I'LL NEVER FORGET WHAT'S'ISNAME, and a Julie Christie oddity IN SEARCH OF GREGORY.

Advertising golden boy Andrew Quint is fed up with his fabulously successful life. In very dramatic fashion, he quits his job to return to writing for a small literary magazine. He wants to leave his former life behind, going as far as saying good-bye to his wife and mistresses. He finds, however, that it's not so easy to escape the past.

I had not seen Winner's film since its release, its a cornucopia of '60s people and places. We start with Oliver Reed, then in his prime, walking all the busy street with an axe over his shoulder. He arrives at his office and proceeds to demolish his desk. Well, its one way of resigning .... Olly's boss is the devious Jonathan Lute, top billed Orson Welles who looks like he is enjoying himself while no doubt collecting a hefty pay check. Lute is presented as evil incarnate who will do anything to keep Quint (Reed) in his power. Quint goes back to his roots, that little magazine he ran with Norman Rodway and his wife Ann Lynn, their secretary Carol White whom Quint gets involved with; of course there's also his discarded wife Wendy Craig, and assorted mistresses like hippy chick/dolly bird Marianne Faithfull always stripping off for a bath (below). Pot shots are taken at all the usual targets, the braying toffs at Cambridge, well-known faces pop in and out: Michael Hordern, Harry Andrews, Mark Burns, Mark Eden, Edward Fox, Frank Finlay, Roland Curram ... I suppose it was par for the course then for actors to get a day or two on the new Michael Winner.

Winner though, like the budding Ken Russell, had his finger on the pulse of contemporary culture then, this catches the mid-60s perfectly as his 1964 THE SYSTEM (Oliver again, with budding David Hemmings, Jane Merrow and another great cast) catches the tail end of that black-and-white era.

The melodramatics come thick and fast here, as scriped by Peter Draper: Rodway sells out the magazine to Orson, Quint make a commercial attacking the superficiality of it all and the ruthless world of advertising, this is unveiled to applause at the old National Film Theatre I knew so well, one of the leading characters comes to grief in a grisly car accident and we finish with Oliver at dawn on a bridge, as Wendy, his ex-wife, arrives and they walk off for breakfast, with Battersea Power Station belching out fumes in the distance .... they just don't make them like that anymore! POOR COW Carol White of course also lives in one of those Chelsea houseboats we are familiar with from other '60s trash opuses like MY LOVER MY SON and GOODBYE GEMINI. A neglected London classic then like UP THE JUNCTION ... ?  
Oliver Reed was a powerful screen presence then, as shown by his 4 for Winner and 4 for Ken Russell - I only caught his Dante Gabriel Rossetti in Ken's 1967 BBC film DANTE'S INFERNO once and it was a mesmerising experience, and of course his Bill Sykes in OLIVER will be unveiled once again over the seasonal holidays ...

IN SEARCH OF GREGORY:  The mid to late '60s saw lots of these pseudo highbrow arty cod-Antonioni dramas. For every genuine classic like THE CONFORMIST or THE GARDEN OF THE FINZI CONTINI we had to endure oddities like 1969's IN SEARCH OF GREGORY - Julie Christie hunting a mystery man - or De Sica's own A PLACE FOR LOVERS - Faye Dunaway dying of  a rare disease while still looking dazzling (as per recent review) or Vanessa Redgrave & Franco Nero in A QUIET PLACE IN THE COUNTRY. (Trash label) or Anouk and Omar in Lumet's baffling THE APPOINTMENT - these must have emptied cinemas on release, but we never really got a chance to see them at the time, so they couldn't have hung around long. Visconti's SANDRA (VAGHE STELLE DELL'ORSA) in 1965 is one that actually works, its dazzlingly operatic style highlights Claudia Cardinale and Jean Sorel at their best as the incestuous siblings, as per my reviews on it (Italian, Claudia, Jean labels).

Here the brother and sister are Julie and a very young looking John Hurt. This would seem to reach for the Antonioni style with Julie as the Monica Vitti figure we first see walking around Rome. She is lured to her father's 5th wedding in Geneva by the promise of the mysterious guest Gregory who just may prove to be ideal for her. Her brother though wants to keep Gregory for himself - we never see the mystery man but Julie imagines him to be Michael Sarrazin, whom she glimpses in a poster in his leather jacket. Cue several scenes of Sarrazin, in and out of clothes, as the mystery man she keeps missing ...  the mystery here is why Julie, after her triumphs in DARLING, ZHIVAGO and FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD, chose to do this puzzler, maybe it was a final film she owed producer Joseph Janni. Her previous one, PETULIA for Richard Lester in '68 is a genuine '60s classic, before she headed to America, and Altman's MCCABE & MRS MILLER with Beatty, and of course back to Italy for DON'T LOOK NOW ...

What sinks IN SEARCH OF GREGORY is that Sarrazin (who died last year aged 70, see label), fine in other movies, is simply not appealing or interesting enough for us to see what attracts Christie to him ... the story is not realistically worked out, but hey - Julie looks different but marvellous here in 1969 and it catches that Euro-gloss nicely. Adolfo Celi as the father is for once easy to understand here, and Hurt looks like a decadent cherub.
We never see the real Gregory but Julie runs across Sarrazin at the airport and thinks he is Gregory and they end up in the same hotel room. Turns out he is not Gregory, but a complete stranger, while unknown to her the real Gregory is next to her at the airport while she is on the phone to her brother, who is also on the line to Gregory. Thats the kind of Antonioni puzzle director Peter Wood seems to be aiming for here, so its a tale of emptiness, boredom and longing about an idle rich girl (cue acres of footage of Julie wandering around looking glam but glum and disconsolate), as co-scripted by Antonioni regular Tonino Geurra (who also died this year). A genuine curio then...

These 2 (WHAT'S'ISNAME and GREGORY) have the Universal Pictures logo and are more examples of European films financed by Americans in the '60s, Others reviewed here (1960s label) include OTLEY, DUFFY, SEBASTIAN, THE DAY THE FISH CAME OUT, THE BOFORS GUN, SMASHING TIME (actually a Carlo Ponti production), LOCK UP YOUR DAUGHTERS etc.  
Next Swinging '60s double bill: BEDAZZLED by PETULIA. 

Chuck & Janet in 1999...

A nice shot of a reunion for Charlton Heston and Janet Leigh back in Venice, California in 1999, where they shot TOUCH OF EVIL for Orson Welles back in 1958. As Chuck said it was the greatest B-movie of all time!