Khartoum. again.

KHARTOUM, 1966. I had forgotten how good KHARTOUM is, directed by stalwart Basil Dearden, and 2nd Unit (presumably those battle scenes) by veteran Yakima Canutt (the chariot race in BEN-HUR etc). It has two towering performances - Charlton Heston, steadfast as usual, as General Gordon, in his element unpeeling the layers of Gordon's complex character,  and a mesmerising turn (in a handful of scenes, but dominating the film) by Laurence Olivier as The Madhi - 

he is almost unrecognisable, blacked up here. This was Olivier's great late period, running the National Theatre, films like TERM OF TRIAL and BUNNY LAKE IS MISSING (where he is almost ordinary) He was also playing OTHELLO to great acclaim at the time, also blacked up as the Moor, (it was also filmed, with Maggie Smith), after those iconic performances in RICHARD III, THE PRINCE AND THE SHOWGIRL, THE ENTERTAINER and SPARTACUS.
His Madhi is a stunning creation.  The film is quite topical now, showing as it does the confrontation between Western imperialism and the rise of Islamic fundamentalism - this time in the Sudan of the 19th century. Fascinating for those interested in its history and that of Egypt.
Add in Ralph Richardson on prime form as Gladstone, and familiar faces like Richard Johnson, Marne Maitland, Peter Arne, Nigel Green, Michael Hordern, Alexander Knox, Douglas Wilmer, Johnny Sekka. The story of how General Gordon (a fanatic to some) manages to hold Khartoum as the Madhi's forces attack is well told here and its totally engrossing as the beseiged city holds off the Madhi's forces., also effective is that opening sequence as the British army is led deeper and deeper into the remote Sudan as the Madhi's forces wait to attack ...

I didn't want to see it back in 1966 (when I was 20 and there were more trendy movies around), but seeing it now its marvellously done, with Heston back at what he does best, after his tepid performance in THE AGONY AND THE ECSTASY the year before, where Rex Harrison had the showier role as Pope Julius (as per recent review of that). Dearden too was branching out into international films after those British classics like POOL OF LONDON, THE BLUE LAMP, SAPPHIRE, VICTIM ....

Weekend treats ..... six from that fab year 1962

It should be in widescreen reallv....

Stills of the day: The Heiress, 1949

Wyler's THE HEIRESS remains one of the great movies of the 1940s, with a trio of perfect roles for Olivia De Havilland, Ralph Richardson and Montgomery Clift, as per my previous post on it - Clift, Richardson labels. It was great seeing Olivia up close (in a lovely multi-colour chiffon outfit) when she gave a lecture/discussion/Q&A at the London BFI NFT back in 1972 (left) - she will be 100 this summer! 

New Dr Zhivago trailer

A confession: I have never seen DR ZHIVAGO at the cinema, or all the way through on television - though I have the DVD for all those extras, including those interviews with Lean and Christie. I have though seen bits of it lots of times from various screenings 
The film has now been restored by the BFI (British Film Institute) and is the centrepiece of their latest big season, on Love. So perhaps its time to finally see it as Lean intended ...

1949: The heiress

THE HEIRESS: William Wyler's 1949 classic is the very definition of the well-made picture, and is a perfect 1940s golden age movie. It still fascinates and enthralls now. Olivia de Havilland may well be too good-looking to play the rather plain Catherine Sloper of Henry James's novel "Washington Square", but she certainly conveys the character's gaucheness and reserve, while Ralph Richardson as her wealthy surgeon father delivers one of his best performances - one cannot take one's eyes off him. Then there is Montgomery Clift, in maybe his best role to date, as Morris Townsend, a poor young man with an eye for the finer things in life ...

A young naive woman falls for a handsome young man who her emotionally abusive father suspects is a fortune hunter.

The Slopers (the house also incudes Sloper's widowed sister Lavinia) live in an opulent house at 16 Washington Square in 1860s New York. Catherine is a plain, simple, awkward and extremely shy woman, lacking in social graces, who spends all her free time doing embroidery. Catherine's lack of social charm and beauty - unlike her deceased mother - is very obvious to Dr. Sloper, forever comparing her to her late mother. The first man ever to show Catherine any attention is the handsome Morris Townsend, who she met at a family party .... Is Morris though a fortune-hunter? Maybe he would love Catherine (and her fortune)?  Dr Sloper is not convinced and Catherine comes to realise how he really feels about her and retaliates in kind.

Wyler directs it all perfectly, from the play adapted from the Henry James novel, and it has a perfect score by Aaron Copland. How the plot works out, with Morris leaving and then returning, Catherine waiting in vain to elope with him, and then grimly taking up her place back in her father's house, as her resentment boils over, Lavinia trying to get him back in her favour, her father's illness and death as Catherine suggests he change his will to disinherit her .... and then Morris's return and Catherine's final resolution, are all marvellous to watch.  Like those versions of THE ASPERN PAPERS or THE TURN OF THE SCREW (THE INNOCENTS) Henry James is very well served here 

Dr. Sloper may be right about Morris and only wants to protect his daughter, or maybe his actions are those of a vindictive man who blames her for the death of his beloved wife (in childbirth). Morris could be a fortune hunter, or he could be a man who does care for Catherine, in his own way, and would make her happy. 

It is a perfect Wyler picture with the three leads (and Miriam Hopkins as Lavinia) all at their peaks. There was a later remake, but I felt I did not really need to see it - despite having Albert Finney as Sloper and Maggie Smith as Lavinia in the cast. 

Costume drama heaven with Tom and Lady Caroline

What bliss over this bad weather to watch that 1963 hit TOM JONES again, and also to see a rare screening of the 1972 LADY CAROLINE LAMB on television. I have dvds of both, but nice to see them getting an airing. 

TOM JONES of course is utter bliss, a perfect costume version of the huge Fielding novel, but also capturing that early 1960s spirit too, as Tony Richardson's inventive direction deconstructs and re-creates the novel, using all those split cuts, razor sharp editing, characters talking to the camera and so on. Albert Finney is perfect here, and has great scenes with Susannah York delightful as Sophie Western, Diane Cilento, Joyce Redman (that food scene at the inn!) , and Joan Greenwood as the very demanding Lady Bellaston: "Sir, I know not of country matters, but in town it is considered impolite to keep a lady waiting". Indeed! Tom and Lady Bellaston meet at the Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens (below), where as Micheal McLiammoir's fruity narration puts it people go "to do and to be undone".

Then there is the divine casting of Dame Edith Evans and Hugh Griffith at that country estate, where Dame Edith is appalled at the rude country manners, and has short patience with the highwayman holding up her coach with his "Stand and deliver", to which she retorts: "What, sir, I am no travelling midwife"!, Rosalind Knight as Mrs Fitzpatrick, another randy lady, and Peter Bull and young David Warner as Tom's rivals. Young Lynn Redgrave pops up too. Its a constant delight and deserved all the Oscars and applause, and it of course set up Richardson and Woodfall Films to make their less successful films, like those two with Jeanne Moreau: THE SAILOR FROM GIBRALTAR and MADEMOISELLE. 

I have written about LADY CAROLINE LAMB here before - see Sarah Miles label. But I wrote this yesterday on a friend's review of it on Facebook:

Glad you liked it - I looked at it again last night - its marvellously done and maybe the last of the great British costume dramas (well, there's Lester's ROYAL FLASH in 1975). I have always liked Miss Miles (she seems retired now - her last credit, guesting in a Miss Marple was over a decade ago, but I saw her last year with her THE SERVANT co-stars at a special screening for the blu-ray launch of the Losey classic, and she looked fine then, of course as Bolt's widow - they married twice - she probably doesnt need to work now). But I digress (and namedrop), as usual - she also did 2 other iconic 60s movies : Antonioni's BLOW-UP and I WAS HAPPY HERE. Bolt indeed assembles a great cast - 

Leighton has another superb role (after Losey's THE GO-BETWEEN the previous year), Olivier (back with Miles after TERM OF TRIAL), Richardson, Mills etc all shone, and Jon Finch was the man of the moment (starring for Polanski and Hitchcock too then)., handsome sets and score by Richard Rodney Bennett - and Chamberlain an effective Byron. Leighton gets the last word and its perfect! The scene with Caroline as the blackamoor servant to Byron is fun, as Lady Caroline goes over the top and becomes "notorious"; she was surely an early drama queen as her histrionics and capacity for making scenes becomes rather tedious. 

Great performances: Olivier's Richard III

Great performances come in various shapes, few as stunning at the spider-like, stunted king who dominates Laurence Olivier's 1955/56 film of RICHARD III, which he produced and directed, as well as starring as the much-maligned monarch. Now that Richard's remains have been found (under a car park in Leicester!) and authenticated there is revived interest in the fate of this king - was he really as dastardly as Shakespeare painted him? 

Yes, this is the work of a ham in full overdrive mode - all rubber nose and moptop wig and a cushion up the back of his shirt, but nobody before or since has told the tale with greater clarity. By making Richard so comical and witty and clever and running rings around everybody else as he exacts revenge for his deformed body by killing his way to the Throne of England, Olivier's performance still resonates now. The stellar cast Olivier surrounded himself with - Gielgud, Richardson, the silent Pamela Brown as the old king's knowing mistress, Stanley Baker, Laurence Naismith, Cedric Hardwicke and particularly Claire Bloom as Lady Anne - none of them steals Larry's thespian thunder. 

From his first approach to the camera as he draws us into his confidence with those lines: "Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this son of York" - to that final "A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse" on the battlefield before he is hacked to death - this is a performance for the ages. I saw it as a child when most of the verse would have been over my head, but that scene where the murderers (Michael Gough and Michael Ripper - both very appropriately scary) drown Clarence (Gielgud) in the vat of wine is one moment that stayed with me, they also get the princes in the tower. It all looks great too, with fascinating costumes, music score by Sir William Walton, production design by Roger Furse, 

There was though another King that year: Yul Brynner, also mesmerising, in THE KING AND I and it was he who won the Best Actor Oscar (the others nominated were Kirk Douglas for LUST FOR LIFE and both Dean and Hudson for GIANT. It must be tough for an actor to have maybe one's greatest role the same year as a standout turn - but this was Brynner's breakout year (he also had his imposing Rameses in THE TEN COMMANDMENTS and ANASTASIA out there), like 1954 was Brando's. 

This though was Olivier's greatest decade - he went on to direct and star in THE PRINCE AND THE SHOWGIRL with Marilyn, his icy Crassus in SPARTACTUS, his great THE ENTERTAINER, TERM OF TRIAL and running the new National Theatre and that other towering Shakespeare role in OTHELLO and blacking up again for KHARTOUM (see Olivier label); his energy must have been prodigious. 

Ian McKellan's modern-dress 1995 version which I did not see seems unobtainable now (unless for very silly money). 

A lot more Shakespeare to investigate over the coming months: 6 cinematic HAMLETs: Olivier again with his Oscar-winning 1948 version, the Russian 1964 one by Grigori Kozintsev with the brooding Innokenty Smoktunevsky as the Dane (that impressed me once at the BFI and I have now got the dvd); then there's Tony Richardson's 1969 one with Nicol Williamson, Derek Jacobi for the BBC in the 80s, Zeffirelli's with Mel Gibson (it also features Bates and Scofield) in 1990 and the 1996 Kennth Branagh all-star one (Julie Christie as Gertrude!) - then there's 6 Hamlets I saw on the stage: Peter McEnery (1968), Michael York (1970), Alan Bates (in '72 with Celia Johnson as Gertrude), Jonathan Pryce (Jill Bennett was his Gertrude in 1980), Stephen Dillane in the '90s and David Tennant's understudy, a few years ago. Couple of MACBETHs too: Orson Welles in '48, Nicol Williamson for the BBC, Polanski's in 1972 and another television one with Ian McKellen and Judi Dench. and of course Welles' 1966 CHIMES AT MIDNIGHT is stunningly marvellous, as is his OTHELLO, both made on very shoestring budgets ..... Its going to be a winter of drama then .... I imagine Zeffirelli's HAMLET should look as good as his TAMING OF THE SHREW and ROMEO AND JULIET.

Final round-up of late summer repeats

That magic waterfall from UNCLE BOONMEE

A final look at some late summer/early autumn repeats from British television, before we go on to some new stuff ... there's been lots to look at again!

THE QUEEN. A  huge hit in 2006 and still great entertainment now. One just knew Helen Mirren was on course for that Oscar, while Michael Sheen and Helen McCrory are unnervingly right as Tony and Cherie Blair. The glimpses of the real Diana brings back memories of that crazy time in 1997 .....

SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE, 1998. S I L is a huge hit on the stage here in London now - the film though is the one for me, stupendous cast, great costumes and sets, and that endlessly witty script by Tom Stoppard. If Elizabethan life was not like this, it should have been. I particularly like one of Judi Dench's 8 minutes as Queen Elizabeth laughing at the dog.  Its a perfect romance too ....... Joseph Fiennes is one of the most attractive guys ever here. More on him at Fiennes label, and my long review of the film.

KHARTOUM, 1966. I had forgotten how good KHARTOUM is, directed by stalwart Basil Dearden, and 2nd Unit (presumably those battle scenes) by veteran Yakima Canutt (the chariot race in BEN-HUR etc). It has two towering performances - Charlton Heston, steadfast as usual, as General Gordon, and a mesmerising turn (in a handful of scenes, but dominating the film) by Laurence Olivier as The Madhi - 

he is almost unrecognisable, blacked up here. This was Olivier's great late period, running the National Theatre, films like TERM OF TRIAL and BUNNY LAKE IS MISSING (where he is almost ordindary) He was also playing OTHELLO to great acclaim at the time, also blacked up as the Moor, (it was also filmed, with Maggie Smith). 
His Madhi is a stunning creation.  The film is quite topical now, showing as it does the confrontation between Western imperialism and the rise of Islamic fundamentalism - this time in the Sudan of the 19th century. Add in Ralph Richardson as Gladstone, and familiar faces like Richard Johnson, Marne Maitland, Peter Arne, Nigel Green, Michael Hordern, Alexander Knox, Douglas Wilmer, Johnny Sekka. The fascinating story of how General Gordon (a fanatic to some) manages to hold Khartoum as the Madhi's forces attack is well told here and its totally engrossing. 

SPEED. Popcorn movie time: SPEED is 20 years old now, a hit from 1994 - we loved it at the time, and I still like it now. Maybe Keanu and Sandra's best moment - well, till GRAVITY for Sandra (though I like THE PROPOSAL too). Buffed up Keanu is ideal here and De Bont's film delivers stunt after stunt on that bus, the runaway underground train, and that plunging elevator at the start. Jeff Daniels is dependable as usual and Hopper is the ideal nasty villain. As a popcorn classic its up there with Petersen's AIR FORCE ONE and the Indiana Jones movies. 

UNCLE BOONMEE WHO CAN RECALL HIS PAST LIVES, 2010. If there is one director whose work is suffused with a contemporary kind of magic, something you can't quite put your finger on, its Thai art-house sensation Apichatpong Weerasethakul. This sometimes bizarre, always enchanting, film is his most accessible, telling the last days in the life of Uncle Boonmee and the importance of caring and of being cared for, as we roam over his past and maybe future lives.  

My full review (Boonmee label) goes into it in more detail. Its a meditation on death and re-birth as we see those various apparitions of his past lives as animals, perhaps that water buffalo in the moonlight at the start - the the mysterious catfish which makes love to the princess with that waterfall in the background. I like that long scene with when Huay, Boonmee's wife who has been dead for 19 years, reappears at the dinner table and they all talk to her as though she only left yesterday. 

Grand Guignol quartet ...

Let us now turn our attention to some prime ham examples of those grand guignol bloody comedy thrillers dished up by Hollywood in the 1960s and '70s, featuring those older actresses who were determined to go on working. It all started of course with Robert Aldrich and WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE? followed by HUSH HUSH SWEET CHARLOTTE and Bette's British efforts THE NANNY and THE ANNIVERSARY, while Joan went on to STRAITJACKET and BERSERK! while Tallulah went with DIE DIE MY DARLING!. Olivia may have been the best with LADY IN A CAGE in 1964, still very effective and shocking, in the best way. The late '60s though gave us campy thrills with WHATEVER HAPPENED TO AUNT ALICE? followed by WHATS THE MATTER WITH HELEN? and WHOEVER SLEW AUNTIE ROO? with juicy roles for Geraldine Page, Ruth Gordon, Debbie Reynolds, Shelley Winters, Agnes Moorehead et al. Then in 1973 a French film went even further - TRIO INFERNAL, another Romy Schneider-Michel Piccoli starrer .... roll them:

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO AUNT ALICE? is delicioius fun now, with Geraldine Page and Ruth Gordon going head to head, produced by Aldrich and directed by Lee H Katzin.

As Aunt Alice, Ruth Gordon applies for the job of housekeeper in the Tucson, Arizona home of widow Claire Marrable in order to find out what happened to a missing widowed friend, Edna Tilsney. The crazed Page, left only a stamp album by her husband, takes money from her housekeepers, kills them, and buries the bodies in her garden. 

We discovered Geraldine Page's great screen roles here last year: her Alexandra Del Lago in SWEET BIRD OF YOUTH and Alma Winehouse in SUMMER AND SMOKE, both by Tennessee Williams. Gordon has long been a favourite from HAROLD AND MAUDE, LORD LOVE A DUCK, ROSEMARY'S BABY, and The Dealer, Natalie Wood's mother, in INSIDE DAISY CLOVER .... Both ladies are in their element here, along with Mildred Dunnock as the previous housekeeper that Gordon comes searching for as she is hired as the new housekeeper. It starts like a black comedy with widow Page finding out she is penniless after her husband's will is read. Page plays crazy perfectly, with her airs and graces, as her madness takes over. Rosemary Forsyth and Robert Fuller are the attractive couple next door ... and there is that dog sniffing at the contents of Mrs Marrable's garden ...  I loved every minute of it.

Even better is Curtis Harrington's 1971  WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH HELEN? with its perfect 1930s period feel. 

Two middle-aged women move to Hollywood, California after their sons are convicted of a notorious murder and open a dance school for children eager to tap their way to stardom.

Debbie Reynolds is dynamite as Adelle, the glamorous one who soon lands nice rich guy Dennis Weaver - its one of her best roles and she gives it her all. Shelley Winters is Helen, the frumpy one who too is going demented. Irish actor Micheal MacLiammoir has a juicy role as Hamilton Starr - though we do not find out what happens to him after he follows Helen upstairs .... 

Agnes Moorehead, an old friend of Debbie's,  also has a great scene as Sister Alma - a Aimee Semple McPherson type evangalist. Then there are the tots with their Shirley Temple and Mae West routines. Its a shame the poster gives away the climax, but its a marvellous roller-coaster ride along the way. Scripted by Henry Farrell who created the genre with the BABY JANE script back in 1962. Harrington also directed the odd 1967 thriller GAMES with Simone Signoret and James Caan and Katharine Ross (see 1967 label for review) and also the 1972 follow-up WHOEVER SLEW AUNT ROO?. Shame about the bunny rabbits though ...

This was filmed in England with some good thespians having fun here: Sir Ralph Richardson,  Liionel Jeffries,  Hugh Griffith, Rosalie Crutchley, Pat Heywood, Michael Gothard, and young Mark Lester, after his hit in OLIVER!. 

This is a retelling of the old tale of Hansel and Gretel, but set in England in the 1920s. To the children and staff at the orphanage, Auntie Roo is a kindly American widow who gives them a lavish Christmas party each year in her mansion, Forrest Grange. In reality, she is a severely disturbed woman, who keeps the mummified remains of her little daughter in a nursery in the attic. One Christmas, her eye falls upon a little girl who reminds her of her daughter and she imprisons her in her attic. Nobody believes her brother, Christopher, when he tells them what has happened, so he goes to rescue her ... 

Its an American-International replete with a creepy old mansion, and lots of spooky thrills. A Trash Classic then, like the others here. Shelley of course is over the top as usual, though not as much as in the Italian grand guignol by Bolognini: GRAN BOLLITO (review at Winters label).  Now over to France:

LE TRIO INFERNAL, 1974. Like the equally grim THE HONEYMOON KILLERS this is based on an actual story, Georges "Sarret" Sarrejani, a lawyer in Marseilles, and his two lovers, German sisters Philomene and Catherine Schmidt, started their "work" in the 20's. They used to sign life insurances for dying people and keep the money. Sarret shot M.Chambon, another swindler, and Chambon's lover, Noémie, to steal their money... 
But, in order to get rid of the bodies, he placed them in a bathtub and cover with sulfuric acid - when the corpses were just a black kind of glue, Sarret and sisters Schmidt put the glue on buckets and pour the content on the garden. After another murder all three of them were arrested in 1930 and in 1934, April 10th, Sarret was guillotined, the sisters were released after the War. 

This gruesome tale - no camp histrionics here - makes for a gruesome film as directed by Francis Girod ... Romy once again shows how compelling she was, and is another great teaming with Piccoli.  A bit sick though for popular tastes.

Filmed theatre: Long Day's Journey Into Night

Author Eugene O'Neill gives an autobiographical account of his explosive homelife, fused by a drug-addicted mother, a father who wallows in drink after realizing he is no longer a famous actor and an older brother who is emotionally unstable and a misfit. The family is reflected by the youngest son, who is a sensitive and aspiring writer. 

LONG DAY'S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT is the big one, a long, searing drama by Eugene O'Neill, which can be tough to watch for almost three hours. It was hardly seen at all for a long time, as the 1962 film had a very limited release then, despite its cast of 4 getting best actor awards at the Cannes Film Festival. 

It is Sidney Lumet again, and Katharine Hepburn again - see below for A VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE and A DELICATE BALANCE. 
The great Kate is mesmerising here in maybe her finest performance as Mary Tyrone the mother who descends into morphine addiction over the course of that long day. Ralph Richardson too is a perfect choice here - Fredric March had played it on the stage - and the two sons are Jason Robards as the wayward older son, and Dean Stockwell as the sensitive younger one. It is perhaps as searing a drama as WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF? or A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE in the American theatre pantheon, and of course O'Neill's THE ICEMAN COMETH (the 1958 film of O'Neill's DESIRE UNDER THE ELMS with Loren in her first American made film, Perkins and a totally over the top Burl Ives, does not work at all, looking now like overheated trash). As a film LONG DAY'S JOURNEY is one of Lumet's best - his ALL ABOUT EVE perhaps, though not as witty as the Mankiewicz classic, but as iconic in its own right.

Richardson excels as the father unable to help his family - a penny-pinching famous old actor, whose wife Mary is being lost to drug addiction, as he was too cheap to pay for proper medical treatment. This is Hepburn's most intense, frightening role and she gives herself completely to it - when we see her in LION IN WINTER or SUMMERTIME we can see her acting and enjoy her all the more, but this harrowing role is different as she captures every facet of it. It was her only screen work between 1959's SUDDENLY LAST SUMMER and 1967's GUESS WHO'S COMING TO DINNER when we young movie buffs fell in love with her, despite that hokey film, after her long absence, as this 1962 film was not available then. Stockwell and Robards are note-perfect too. Here O'Neill shows us his dysfunctional family, like Tennessee Williams does in his great works. 

Lumet sometimes misfires as with his film of THE SEA GULL in 1968 - as per recent review, Lumet label - but here he is in sure command of the material and it shows.