White Hunter Black Heart, 1990

A thinly fictionalized account of a legendary movie director, whose desire to hunt down an elephant turns into a grim situation with his movie crew in Africa.

The blurb states: "For a film of "excitement, wit and intelligence" (Rex Reed) the hunt ends here. As both star and director of WHITE HUNTER BLACK HEART, Clint Eastwood plays one of his most colourful roles and crafts one of the most acclaimed movies of his 45-year career.

He plays John Wilson, a brilliant driven film director (loosely based on legendary John Huston) determined to turn his new project in Africa into personal adventure hunting a wild elephant. Jeff Fahey, Marisa Berenson and George Dzundza co-star in this rugged, robust movie from the novel by co-screenwriter Peter Viertel, who accompanied Huston to Africa in 1950 to work on THE AFRICAN QUEEN. Filmed on location in Zimbabwe and London, WHITE HUNTER BLACK HEART is a bold trek into the heart of adventure". 

Well they would say that I suppose, but there is no "loosely based" about it. Clint's character is meant to be Huston, and the film they are making is THE AFRICAN QUEEN, with Marisa Berenson a convincing Hepburn character (Bogie and Bacall - also on the location - are not as developed here). 

We were discussing THE AFRICAN QUEEN over at IMDB, which got me interested in this, which I had missed at the time, as indeed I had most of Eastwood's films, I just do not find him or his films interesting (apart from the early stuff like PLAY MISTY FOR ME or DIRTY HARRY). Viertel was a fascinating guy too, writer and Hollywood marverick, who married Deborah Kerr, and knew Huston, Hemingway etc. well, as per his fascinating memoir. (His mother Salka was an intimate of Garbo's). There is a strong British contingent here, with Timothy Spall, Alun Armstrong and Richard Warwick, and Fahey is a pleasing presence. Eastwood gets Huston's speech patterns and mannerisms off pat, so its a fascinating look at movie-making, but really anyone not familar with THE AFRICAN QUEEN or who these people were, would be totally at sea. The climax with the elephants is well handled too. Having seen Berenson recently on the stage, see label, it was interesting to see her again here and she too (like Blanchett) sketches a passable Kate. Hepburn's slim  memoir of making the film is a fascinating read too with great photographs. 
Huston returned to Africa in 1957 for another elephant saga, THE ROOTS OF HEAVEN, about saving elephants, not shooting them. 

Summer re-views, briefly

WOMEN HE'S UNDRESSED. Gilliam Armstrong's 2014 documentary on Hollywood costume designer Orry-Kelly, which we have mentioned here a few times before (Costumes label). The documentary, based on Orry's lush memoir which I enjoyed a lot, has taken its time appearing here, in fact in has not yet, but I got the Australian (Region 4) dvd, which plays perfectly on multichannel players. 

Its a fanciful conceit, with an actor playing Orry, who seems to be rowing a boat a lot of the time, but then we get all the clips: Orry's costumes for CASABLANCA, GYPSY and his three Oscar-winners: AN AMERICAN IN PARIS, LES GIRLS (where Kay, Mitzi and Taina look divine in his creations), and of course Marilyn's still daring costumes for SOME LIKE IT HOT. Orry continued up to 1964, so we get Jane Fonda and Angela Lansbury talking about his costumes for their 1963 IN THE COOL OF THE DAY - one I have never seen and can't get now, so thanks for the clips. 

Bette Davis also reigns supreme here, with those costumes Orry did for JEZEBEL, MR SKEFFINGTON, NOW VOYAGER, THE LETTER etc. 

Other talking heads include the notorious Scotty Bowers, and it rehashes all the Cary Grant and Randy Scott gossip and pictures. In fact, Orry gets sidelined for a while while the documentary focuses on Cary, who "roomed" with Orry when they were both young and starting out. But then legendary tightwad Cary always needed someone to pay the rent, hence all those years sharing houses with Randolph .... between their many marriages.

JANE EYRE - the Franco Zeffirelli 1996 version. There have been a lot of Janes around, the 1944 one with Orson and Joan Fontaine is still the one to beat for me, with delicious roles for Agnes Moorehead and Henry Daniell - but this Zeffirelli one is a nicely paced (if rather hurried at the end) version, with Charlotte Gainsbourg a suitably very plain Jane indeed (unlike Janes Joan Fontaine or Susannah York)  but William Hurt (so ideal in films like BODY HEAT or KISS OF THE SPIDER WOMAN) all wrong here and hardly making any impression, 

It is all grimly Victorian and Franco as usual ramps up the supporting players: a very severe Geraldine Chaplin and Amanda Root (PERSUASION) at the Lowood Orphanage; Fiona Shaw as Aunt Reed, Billie Whitelaw as Grace Poole, Joan Plowright as Mrs Fairfax, Samuel West, and two sadder appearances: Richard Warwick (whom I knew slightly) silent here in his last role as the manservant, the year before he died (he also pops up in Zeffirelli's ROMEO AND JULIET and HAMLET); and poor Maria Schneider as the madwoman in the attic ..... a worthwhile but low-key JANE then.  

JOE MACBETH, 1955. This re-view goes way back to the Fifties, as I first saw this when I was a kid in Ireland, but it made a vivid impression - though I would not have the got Shakespeare part then. It is a modern gangster version of MACBETH, by Ken Hughes, almost impossible to see now, (so thanks Jerry.) Paul Douglas is impressive as usual, and one of our Projector favourites, Ruth Roman, is as ever terrific as Lady M. Its a British production, so supporting cast includes Bonar Colleano, Gregoire Aslan and Sid James. I was pleased to see it again, and to get it on a flash drive. Its more entertaining than that dreadful recent Michael Fassbender version which nearly drove me screaming from the practically empty multiplex ...

THE HONEYMOON KILLERS. For real horror you can hardly beat Leonard Kastle's 1969 chiller, which I first saw as a supporting feature back then. My pal Stan and I were both gobsmacked by it, I can't even remember what the main feature was. 
I had not seen it since then but it lingered in the memory. so its good to see it again now on dvd.  Seems this could have been Scorsese's first feature,but he was replaced. It is a bleak tale of a murderous rampage by two seedy killers: the obese nurse and her scuzzy boyfriend (Tony Lo Bianco) as they plot to fleece lonely widows whom he romances and lets them think he is going to marry them, while she, posing as his sister, tags along in the background. Once seen, it is not easily forgotten. The film is made by the marvellous Shirley Stoler (1929-1999) as the malevolent Martha - she also pops up in KLUTE and is terrifying again as that Nazi concentration camp commandant in SEVEN BEAUTIES in 1975 .... (whom prisoner Giancarlo Giannini has to romance in order to survive - we raved about it, at Italian label). Her 40+ credits also include THE DEER HUNTER.  
It is not violent by today's torture porn standards, but once seen it is not easily forgotten as we enter than downbeat world of cheap motels and diners. It is Kastle's only credit. 

Another BBC rarity: The Lost Language of Cranes

Revisiting a gay classic: THE LOST LANGUAGE OF CRANES, 1991.
A young gay man comes out to his middle-class parents, which has repercussions for his father who has long since been trying to repress his own sexuality.

I saw this BBC Screen Two production when it aired in 1991 - the one time it was shown, so thanks to my pal Colin for finding a copy - its a German issue dvd. Its from a good novel by David Leavitt, scripted by Sean Mathias, and directed by Nigel Finch (another who did not survive the Aids crisis), produced by BBC regular Mark Shivas, and with an interesting cast. 

The great Eileen Atkins and Brian Cox excel of course as the parents Owen and Rose - we are back in that intellectual, middle-class milieu of London (as in Schlesinger's SUNDAY BLOODY SUNDAY) - she works in publishing as a book editor and he is a lecturer, and they have to leave to their well-organised apartment in 3 months ... their son Phillip (Angus MacFadyen) who is gay is seeing an American, Corey Parker. There is also Cathy Tyson as their best friend. Corey returns to the States but not before a visit from the two men, a couple, who brought him up after his parents were killed in an accident. This couple is played by veteran director John Schlesinger and Rene Auberjonois. 

Phillip decides he has to be open and honest and have no secrets and so tells his parents he is gay. Rose keeps her silence but this has a shattering effect on the father Owen, who breaks down. He has been struggling with his own homosexuality all his life, and now goes out on Sundays to porno cinemas to meet strangers .... his son's openly gay lifestyle is now a painful contrast to his closeted existence; but lots of gay men of his era did marry then and hope to lead normal, if not double, lives ...
Rose is no fool and has her own suspicions and feels her marriage is failing, particularly when Owen returns at three in the morning (after meeting Frank - Richard Warwick, in what looks like the old London Apprentice bar). 

It all comes to a head when Owen invites an attractive American student to dinner, and Phillip is there too. It is all too obvious to Rose that Owen finds the student attractive ..... so everything is revealed and life has to change. Rose did have an affair (as she was so unhappy in her marriage), with a colleague at work, who is still interested in her, so that could be a solution for her, as she realises her marriage has been a sham although Owen does love her and want to stay with her - she can accept her son is gay but now knows her husband is also. We leave Owen staying at Phillip's apartment as he watches his son and his new companion (Ben Daniels) walk down the street, maybe Owen could have a future with Frank ? 
Eileen, so often Mrs Glum, is terrific here - she was also Dirk Bogarde's wife in another BBC Screen Two rarity THE VISION in '87 with Lee Remick, if only one could get a copy of that ... 

This is an absorbing family drama touching on gay issues seen from that well-to-do milieu, I was pleased to get a copy again, following on from THE LINE OF BEAUTY (below), as I had also read the novel. And the cranes? - they are construction cranes, not birds.

We may now go back and revisit those other '80s gay dramas as well: MAURICE, QUERELLE, PRICK UP YOUR EARS, PRIVATES ON PARADE etc. 

Actors want to act

A pleasant surprise watching the latest episde (5th of 6) of the superior BBC comedy series REV, this week, when a surprise guest star turned up - Liam Neeson, as God, no less (its already been transmitted, so hardly a spoiler) - to comfort our troubled vicar Adam when everything is going wrong for him, as this third series gets more sombre. 
I hope there will be an uplifting climax next week. Olivia Colman is also superlative of course, again playing Adam's wife who now has a busy career of her own and in fact we see less of her this time around .... It was good to see Liam and Tom together again - they were the original Oscar and Bosie in that play THE JUDAS KISS which was a successful revival last year, with Rupert Everett, as per my posts at the time - theatre label. Joseph Fiennes (right) too is effective in REV as the bishop. [I have been corrected, thanks Mark - its of course Ralph Fiennes!].

It all reminded me of how much actors want to act (Tom Hollander has just finished playing Welsh poet Dylan Thomas in a new drama) and of course Liam is now an action star, his last one set on the airplane seems a must see when on dvd. I was thinking about how even legendary actors like Jack Lemmon (post below), James Stewart, Henry Fonda et al kept working into old age, when they really didn't need to any more, on the stage as well as film. At least they didn't do too much material of lesser value to damage their reputations - unlike say Ray Milland or Joseph Cotten who ended up in all kinds of dreck, and we won't even mention Joan and TROG !  Right: the 1998 JUDAS KISS with Neeson and Hollander which I saw in London before it went to New York.

I am of the opinion that most fortunate actors who come along at the right time get "ten good years" (that delicious song Nancy Wilson sang in her live cabaret act), certainly the likes of Stephen Boyd and Laurence Harvey did - mid-'50s to mid-'60s, or Michael York (mid-'60s to mid-70s), York being one of the fortunate ones who was able to continue in lesser supporting roles, whereas Harvey's and Boyd's careers had died before they did. Fortunate indeed are the likes of Dirk Bogarde or Alain Delon or Jean Sorel who can go on for decades, whereas in the theatre actors like Jeremy Brett or John Stride can transcend their good looks as they get older. Is there the curse of the very good looking actor who starts out well but then fizzles out ? (Whatever did happen to Jeremy Spenser, Leonard Whiting, Graham Faulkner, Martin Potter et al...?). Left: the kind of period movie actors must like appearing in: Michael Redgrave, Richard Warwick, Martin Potter, Tom Baker in NICHOLAS & ALEXANDRA, 1971.

Sometimes one sees an actor who started out well and seems reduced to nothing parts some years later, like John Philip Law - so promising in the mid-60s as the angel in BARBARELLA, in HURRY SUNDOWN, DANGER DIABOLIK etc, having literally nothing to do in the all star CASSANDRA CROSSING in 1976, as an aide to Burt Lancaster, right, with Ingrid Thulin. Well I dare say JPL (who died aged 70 in 2008) had that 10 good years.

Ditto Barry Coe, left, who was a promising 20th Century Fox contract player in the '50s and early '60s - Rodney Harrington in the 1957 PEYTON PLACE, the hero in 300 SPARTANS (looking fetching in a mini toga) etc. 
but in 1966 he is an un-named "communications aide" repeating commands in FANTASTIC VOYAGE - an amusing watch last week. He was also Carroll Baker's boyfriend in the 1959 comedy BUT NOT FOR ME with Clark Gable and Lilli Palmer. Coe went into television in shows like GENERAL HOSPITAL and continued acting to 1978. Other tv actors like George Maharis or Gardner McKay fared less well in the movies.

Barry, centre, in FANTASTIC VOYAGE

Brett Halsey (left) was another of the Fox pretty boys (RETURN TO PEYTON PLACE, THE BEST OF EVERYTHING etc) as was future producer/tycoon Robert Evans (one of the cads in THE BEST OF EVERYTHING), though Robert Wagner and Jeff Hunter were the main Fox contract players, Joanne Woodward and Stuart Whitman too of course. Ditto Fabian - see HOUND DOG MAN post below.
A Fox film like NO DOWN PAYMENT (Jeff Hunter label) is stuffed with their contract players. Jeff Hunter unfortunately died too young too, in 1969, but found his imperishable role as Martin Pawley in THE SEARCHERS, which is always on view somewhere (as it was here yesterday). Robert Wagner was the most successful of all, with some good movies in Europe (THE PINK PANTHER) and successful in television. The Universal-International pretty boys like Rock and Tony Curtis worked hard through supporting parts to build careers and achieve A-list movie status, as before them did Guy Madison and Jeff Chandler and ...while Warners had those blondes Troy and Tab, and Tony Perkins (Tab and Tony tried singing too with some success - see labels), and Kerwin Matthews over at Columbia ... 

One has to feel sorry though for Richard Davalos, over at Warner Bros: the role of Aaron, the other brother in Kazan's EAST OF EDEN must have been a plum role, but with James Dean as Cal, Davalos was completely over-shadowed. At least the DVD contains those screen tests with Dean and Davalos and young Paul Newman who also tested, and was soon doing Dean roles. Davalos's other credit that year (apart from a bit part in a Jack Palance film) was a small part in Warners THE SEA CHASE, a John Wayne-Lana Turner starrer, where sailors Davalos and Tab Hunter go for a swim in shark-infested waters - guess which one the shark heads for.... ?  He contined acting until 2008 with small parts in films like Newman's COOL HAND LUKE, and lots of television. Right: Davalos, Dean & Julie Harris in EAST OF EDEN.

Heavyweight stuff coming up: Finney in Huston's UNDER THE VOLCANO, Frears' PRETTY DIRTY THINGS with this year's best actor nominee Chiwetel Ejiofor, LOVE IS THE DEVIL with Derek Jacobi as Francis Bacon and Daniel Craig as his criminal lover .... more impersonations with the Liberace film BEHIND THE CANDELABRA and Helena Bonham-Carter a surprisingly effective Elizabeth Taylor in BURTON AND TAYLOR ....  
Left: Jeffrey Hunter / right: Jean Sorel.

More '60s: The IF boys ....

Staying with the Sixties a bit longer, lets look at those new boys who emerged at the end of the decade, in Lindsay Anderson's revolutionary IF .... set in that public school, with its rules and rituals, homoerotic longings and finally revolution - it was in the air then in 1968.

Malcolm McDowell has had a long career, too well known to encapsulate here, full of milestone movies like Kurbrick's A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, and continued his association with Anderson in OH LUCKY MAN in 1973, and BRITANNIA HOSPITAL. He also had some notorious moments as with CALIGULA in 1976, and for me his demented over-the-top Nazi officer in THE PASSAGE in 1979, as per McDowell label, as though director J Lee Thompson was encouraging him to over-act Anthony Quinn and James Mason off the screen - Malcolm accomplished it. 

A Clockwork Orange

He was terrific too on the stage as Mr Sloane in a 1975 revival of ENTERTAINING MR SLOANE at the Royal Court in London, with Beryl Reid recreating her role, as Malcolm strided around in leather trousers, being a very menacing Mr Sloane. I particularly liked his H.G. Welles in Nicholas Meyer's marvellous sci-fi fantasy TIME AFTER TIME in 1979, where David Warner (see below) equalled him as that icy Jack The Ripper, at home in modern San Francisco ... Malcolm continues to act and has had a long career. Like Michael York and Warner, he just keeps on going. Malcolm of course was married for a long time to his TIME AFTER TIME co-star, the lovely and intriguing Mary Steenburgen. He is indeed very busy with IMDB listing 230 credits, with several in post-production. Interesting to see him and Warner, like Michael York, continuing in smaller roles as they get older and still keep busy.

Then there was Richard Warwick ... born in 1945, he was in Zeffirelli's ROMEO & JULIET (as Gregory - that does not sound very Italian), before getting one of the main roles in Lindsay Anderson's IF .... and then the lead in THE BREAKING OF BUMBO in 1970, a recent re-discovery, as per Warwick label. 
He was also in NICHOLAS AND ALEXANDRA in 1971, (as was Martin Potter, from Fellini's SATYRICON, reviewed recently), plus in Schell's FIRST LOVE (reviewed below) and among his tv work, a good version of Coward's THE VORTEX in 1969 opposite Margaret Leighton (its included in that Noel Coward boxset). There was also that tv series A FINE ROMANCE in the 80s with Judi Dench. Richard also appeared in Derek Jarman's SEBASTIANE in '76 and THE TEMPEST. Another good BBC play was THE LOST LANGUAGE OF CRANES in 1991 - due for a re-view and a review before too long, a very 'gay interest' title.
He was also Bernardo in Zeffirelli's HAMLET, the Mel Gibson one (which I just recorded from television last night, so that will be re-view soon, when I get around to discussing Hamlets). Zeffirelli's JANE EYRE in 1996 was his last role, as John. We have not seen that. 
As I mentioned before, I used to see Richard around town, on his bicycle, and we chatted at a pub we used to go to to in Earls Court in London in those early 80s days. He died aged 52 in 1997, its a shame he, like Ian Charleson (who was playing Hamlet just before he died), did not survive the Aids crisis. He had an extensive theatre career too, at the National in several prestige productions.

The other main actor in IF... David Wood had a successful career as actor and writer for children's television.

1970 rarity: First Love

As IMDb puts it:

Based on Ivan Turgeyev's novella, FIRST LOVE is about two young lovers in czarist Russia. One is a 21-year-old woman, the other a young man of sixteen. Things take a tragic turn as the girl (Dominique Sanda as Sanaida) falls in love with the boy's father (Maximilian Schell). The film, Schell's first as director, was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film in 1970's Academy Awards

Two icons of '70's international cinema -- Dominique Sanda and  John Moulder-Brown -- play wonderfully off each other in this lovingly rendered tale of youth, love and the loss of innocence. 
The photography by none other the great Sven Nykvist so of course it all looks terrific, shot in Hungary, with that right kind of period look.  Schell assembes an interesting polyglot cast, apart from the two young leads and himself, theres Italy's Valentina Cortese and English character actress Dandy Nichols, playing posher than usual here, plus Richard Warwick from IF... and BUMBO, as well as playwright John Osborne (Schell had performed in his A PATRIOT FOR ME in 1969. Like Lumet's THE SEA GULL (below) it too plays out at a languid pace as we experience those lazy days on the country estate, which, with the house, look marvellous to our eyes now.
Anjelica Huston in a magazine feature on her favourite books, has this to say about FIRST LOVE: "A hauntingly beautiful novella that Turgenev partly based on his own experience. In it, two men describe their first passions, inspiring the third, Vladimir, to quietly write his story down".

FIRST LOVE - I saw it at a sole London Film Festival screening back then - has not been available for years, so its good to see it back in circulation now. It too has that early 70s look, when international and youth culture movies were all the rage.
 Moulder-Brown was also effective that year in Skolimovski's DEEP END, a favourite here, and 1972's KING QUEEN KNAVE (Moulder-Brown label), as well as appearing in Visconti's LUDWIG in '72 as well as VAMPIRE CIRCUS!. He still looks great now, as per the extras on the DEEP END Blu-ray, but does not seem to do much, though IMDb lists 66 credits with him working until recently, like James Fox he was a child actor.

John Osborne, left; Dominique Sanda, centre; Richard Warwick, right.

Sanda, was for a period, the face of the new European cinema, with so many fascinating roles in such a short time: Bresson's A GENTLE CREATURE, FIRST LOVE, memorable as Anna Quadri in  Bertolucci's THE CONFORMIST - that chilling murder in the woods, and that sensual tango - in 1970, as well as Micol in De Sica's THE GARDEN OF THE FINZI-CONTINI'S, (see Sanda, De Sica labels) and in Bertolucci's 1900 in '76, as well as Demy's UN CHAMBRE EN VILLE (A ROOM IN TOWN) in 1982, and is still working now. She has been luckier than that other lauded discovery, the late Maria Schneider (RIP label).

Schell died last week, aged 83, as per RIP below.

More forgotten '60s/'70s British films: Bumbo & more

Well, THE BREAKING OF BUMBO has been re-discovered and is out in a new dvd release. Most people though will not have heard of it - they didn't get a chance to see it back in 1970 (though it was featured in all the film magazines) and it never showed up anywhere since. I got a copy last year though, and it is now available again. Can't see why they bothered though, its rather dreary and dull by any standards, but certainly a fascinating time capsule of that 1969-70 era of protest and demonstrations. It was a novel which I remember, by Andrew Sinclar - who also got to direct the movie, so it is his vision up there. Let's see what the blurb says:

Bumbo Bailey, a newly commissioned Ensign of the Household Brigade, becomes quickly bored with the social life this entails (there is lots of playing rugby in the mud). This boredome is rudely shattered when he falls in with the luscious Susie and her friend Jock, bourgeois revolutionaries whose principal occupation is organising anti-war demonstrations. Sensing Bumbo's general dissatisfaction with everything they manipulate him into a course of action which could have dire consequences for his future.

Richard Warwick and Joanna Lumley star in this sexy, exuberant social satire charting the travails of an angry young man reacting against his environment. Adapting his bestselling novel Andrew Sinclair draws on his own youthful experiences - THE BREAKING OF BUMBO is a time-capsule of Swinging Sixties London. Denied a theatrical release by EMI the film is finally available.

Joanna Lumley - now of course a National Treasure - but here with Very Big Hair must wince now at seeing herself as the posh hippie princess/revolutionary with her furs and chiffon dresses. Richard Warwick (he was one of the IF... boys for Lindsay Anderson in '68, along with Malcolm McDowell) is Bumbo. I knew Richard slightly in the '80s when we used to hang out at the same pub in Earls Court (he usually had his bicycle with him) - he died in 1997, aged 52. He also played in Zeffirelli's 1968 ROMEO & JULIET and his 1990 HAMLET, and Zeffirelli's JANE EYRE in '96; as well as a BBC production THE LOST LANGUAGE OF CRANES (which I have been meaning to review), and in Derek Jarman's TEMPEST and SEBASTIANE, among others. He was one of those new British actors (like Ian Charleson) who did not survive the Aids crisis.

BUMBO is all rather a tourist image of swinging London as it poked fun at the British Army Guards Regiments and rather improbably had Bumbo trying to convert the soldiers under his command to passivism and get them to lay down their arms while on parade. It does not come to a satisfactory ending but just stops. Among the cast are Edward Fox, Donald Pickering and John Bird.

Just one quibble: they say this dvd is the full complete version - it isn't as that marvellous 1993 BBC series HOLLYWOOD UK (see my full report at British or London labels) includes this scene (not on the dvd), showing the leads nude in that groovy '70s apartment.

When I began this blog back in 2010 there were a lot of British '60s movies I had not seen, but we have managed to catch up with and comment on most of them: WEST 11, TWO LEFT FEET, I WAS HAPPY HERE, GIRL WITH GREEN EYES, A PLACE TO GO, THE LEATHER BOYS, THE PLEASURE GIRLS, THE WORLD TEN TIMES OVER etc - as per British/London labels. TWO LEFT FEET is delicious fun too with a gormless (very) young Michael Crawford. And I like this recent 2001 one: LAST ORDERS with that marvellous ensemble: David Hemmings in one of his last roles, Tom Courtenay, Helen Mirren, Bob Hoskins, Michael Caine and Ray Winstone ! I must finally see Courtenay and Finney in THE DRESSER too, from '83 ...