Peplum veterans

Let's praise some of our peplum/epic favourite actors, great dependables who always 'add value' and make their scenes come alive .... (I am only focusing on their peplum/costume roles).

Frank Thring (1926-1994): Australian Frank was deliciously evil with a streak of camp, particularly as Aella in THE VIKINGS chopping off Tony Curtis's hand and ending up in the wolf pit, Pontius Pilate in BEN HUR ("A long life young Arrius, and the good sense to live it"), Ad Kadir in EL CID (when the starving citizens of Valencia revolt he gets thrown off the city walls), and his Herod Antipas in KING OF KINGS.  His published biography should be quite interesting.

Sir Cedric Hardwicke (1983-1964): The distinguished thespian was Sethi the old Pharoah in Cecil's THE TEN COMMANDMENTS, King Priam in HELEN OF TROY, the Judge in THE STORY OF MANKIND, Tiberius Caesar in SALOME, King Edward in RICHARD III, and the owner of the balloon in the amusing adventure FIVE WEEKS IN A BALLOON. 

Finlay Currie (1878-1968). 90 year old Finlay clocked up 145 credits, his busy career included lots of epics and costume dramas - in fact any epic had to include Finlay for extra gravitas: David in SOLOMON AND SHEBA, Balthasar in BEN HUR, Magwich in GREAT EXPECTATIONS, the traitor in DANGEROUS EXILE, Peter in QUO VADIS, Cedric in IVANHOE, the Mullah in ZARAK, in TEMPEST, Jacob in JOSEPH AND HIS BROTHERS, the pope in FRANCIS OF ASSISI, Titus in CLEOPATRA, a senator in THE FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. Right: Finlay with George and Yul in SOLOMON AND SHEBA.

Then, theres: Harry Andrews (1911-1989)  - prolific Harry did some great peplum roles too: I like his Baltor, advisor to Gina's Queen in SOLOMON AND SHEBA. He was in blackface too as Darius the deposed king of Persia in ALEXANDER THE GREAT, Peter in BARABBAS, and Hector in HELEN OF TROY, and in 55 DAYS IN PEKING, Lord Lucan in THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE (1968).. More on Harry at label. 

Stanley Baker (1928-1976). The very prolific Stanley also did sterling duty in peplums:  starting with Olivier's RICHARD III, Achilles in HELEN OF TROY, Attalus in ALEXANDER THE GREAT, and of course being very nasty in SODOM AND GOMORRAH. Ditto more on Stanley at label. 

We cannot forget George Sanders (1906-1972) who did a whole string of costumers and some epics among his 135 credits..... IVANHOE, Adonijah in SOLOMON AND SHEBA, Charles II in THE KING'S THIEF, hilarious in JUPITER'S DARLING, SON OF FURY, raising his goblet to toast Delilah as the temple falls around them in SAMSON & DELILAH, King Richard in RICHARD AND THE CRUSADERS, the villain in MOONFLEET etc. 

Henry Daniell (1894-1963) too - sardonic Henry had some good peplum/costume moments in a long career: he is good in THE PRODIGAL 1955, and the Sheik in FIVE WEEKS IN A BALLOON, 1962 - and in the 1930s MARIE ANTOINETTE, THE PRIVATE LIVES OF ELIZABETH & ESSEX, Baron De Varville to Garbo's CAMILLE, Mr Brocklehurst in JANE EYRE,  THE SEA HAWK, SIREN OF ATLANTIS, THE EGYPTIAN, etc.   
Then there's Vincent Price ... and of course Kirk Douglas, Anthony Quinn, Jack Palance have also done iconic work in peplums - not to mention Steve Reeves & Co ...
Peter Ustinov too for scene-stealing beyond the call of duty in QUO VADIS, THE EGYPTIAN, SPARTACUS, where he, Olivier and Laughton seemed to be out-acting each other ... 
and the recently departed Douglas Wilmer - see RIP below.

Plus French Jacques Sernas (1925-2015) who died last year. Paris in HELEN OF TROY (right) and Laertes in APHRODITE, GODDESS OF LOVE and in THE NIGHTS OF LUCREZIA BORGIA (both opposite Belinda Lee, below), IMDB lists a lot of his other peplums we do not know here. 

Queen of the peplums has to be our favourite, the tragic Belinda Lee (1935-1961). She also did MESSALINA, MARIE OF THE ISLES, JOSEPH AND HIS BROTHERS and CONSTANTINE AND THE CROSS. Ditto, more on Belinda at label .... including her memorial in Rome. Then there's Scilla Gabel, Rossana Podesta (HELEN OF TROY herself), Anita Ekberg and ...

'60s British cinema: Dirk, Losey, Accident, again

Nice to see ACCIDENT on television again - thanks, Talking Pictures. Been a few years since I last saw it, though the dvd is filed away - we liked Losey's 1967 drama, scripted by Harold Pinter, a lot back then, it was almost the kind of movie we took for granted then, but it seems like an arthouse classic now. This is what I wrote on it here in 2013 :

Joseph Losey's ACCIDENT remains a key '60s movie for me - I well remember seeing it for the first time with my best pal Stan when it was on general release as a double feature - the supporting movie was JUST LIKE A WOMAN another forgotten '60s comedy, good cast though headed by Wendy Craig. ACCIDENT though was the culmination of those Bogarde-Losey films: THE SLEEPING TIGER in 1954 and that quartet which more or less defined the '60s: THE SERVANT, the too little see KING AND COUNTRY, the mod op-art delight MODESTY BLAISE (maybe my favourite cult movie with the divine triumvirate of Vitti, Bogarde & Stamp on that mad, mod op art island, with those witty asides as Dirk goes over the top as the supercamp villain Gabriel in the blonde wig... but I digress as usual). The Losey-Stanley Baker films are fascinating too, I particularly like the 1959 thriller BLIND DATE (Losey, Baker labels) and EVE and THE CRIMINAL ...

ACCIDENT, scripted by Harold Pinter, begins and ends with the sounds of a car crash, and we go back and forth to discover what really happened. There is that long marvellous central sequence depicting a languid lazy summer afternoon at the comfortably upper-middle class Oxford residence of professor Stephen (Bogarde) and his pregnant wife Rosalind, perfectly played by Vivien Merchant. Guests include William, one of the professor's pupils - a golden boy, aristocrat Michael York, and his girlfriend Anna an Austrian princess, Jacqueline Sassard.
An interloper is another rival professor Charley, Stanley Baker at his most aggressive. They shell the peas, go for walks, lie on the lawn, hands slowly touch, as we begin to see the tensions and undercurrents here... Stephen is having a kind of mid-life crisis and is attracted to Anna, the glacial girlfriend who is manipulating these men. She is sleeping with Charley but knows how Stephen feels about her. Rivalies between the men come to the surface over dinner as William falls drunk into his plate - Charley is also a tv presenter, he is good on tv - and taunts Stephen who also wants to be on tv, and in fact has an appointment with a producer, played by Pinter himself. We also see Charley's distraught wife Ann Firbank, watering flowers in the rain, while the pregnant Rosalind watches all - Stephen also has a date with an old girlfriend, silently played by Delphine Seyrig - we hear their disjointed conversation played over that restaurant scene. Her father is Losey regular, Alexander Knox. Upper class rituals are explored - rugby, punting on the river ....

 We know right away that William has been killed in the car crash, as Stephen takes the unconscious Anna out of the car and into his house. Who actually was driving ?
Do they sleep together too ? Does he take advantage of her dazed state? One thing that mars ACCIDENT for me is that Sassard is too blank a presence at the centre - she also had a big role in '68 as a similar object of desire in Chabrol's LES BICHES, though it was her last year in movies. (I also saw her when younger in FAIBLES FEMMES, a French comedy with the young Alain Delon, in 1959). Projector favourite Austrian Romy Schneider, who was originally cast, would have been ideal here, with that teasing, feline quality of hers and would have made so much more of the role. We never get to see or understand what Sassard is feeling or thinking. Baker and Bogarde of course are both pitch perfect, squaring up to each other again a decade after their Canadian adventure CAMPBELL'S KINGDOM, a perfect Rank Organisation movie in 1957. ACCIDENT would be their final film with Losey, who was next making films with the Burtons and going off to Europe (Losey label), as indeed would Dirk. ACCIDENT's reputation has grown over the years, though like Antonioni's BLOW-UP it is a polarising film, some people actively hate it, but like BLOW-UP and THE SERVANT it is for me a major '60s film, and one of Pinter's best scripts. Cinematography by Gerry Fisher, and music by Johnny Dankworth. 

British trio 1 ....

Some British '50s moves I had not seen before and now appreciate a lot …

THE SMALLEST SHOW ON EARTH, 1957.  I can’t believe I had not seen this before. What a marvellous entertainment it turns out to be, as nice young marrieds Virigina McKenna and Bill Travers interit a cinema at Sloughborough (a nice play on English town names!) 
and when they travel there imagine it is the Grand, a very grand edifice, but no, it is the Bijou – a rundown fleapit next to the railway line (and yes its that amusing joke again, as in A LETTER TO 3 WIVES, when the the trains rattle by…). Every town then had a fleapit, though probably not as decrepit as the Bijou (mine when new in London in 1964 was the Coliseum, Harlesden, where one happily saw re-runs of EL CID or FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE as well as new double bills including SHE or 10 LITTLE INDIANS).

This is a perfect 1950s British comedy, produced by that regular team of producer Michael Relph and director Basil Dearden, screenplay by William Rose. It now seems to be called BIG TIME OPERATORS on IMDB! It would make a terrific double bill with  HOW TO MURDER A RICH UNCLE.

The casting is the thing here, apart from the married leads, there’s the trio of the Bijou’s staff: Margaret Rutherford as cashier Mrs Fazakerley, Peter Sellers as Percy the projectionist and Bernard Miles as Old Tom the janitor. Percy is the only one who understands how the old equipment works. Leslie Philips is the suave solicitor who advises the new owners they have to get the cinema up and running again to maximise its worth, as they intend to sell the site to rival Grand owner, hissable Francis de Wolff, who is keeping an eye on their progress and tries to sabotage proceedings with a bottle of whiskey …. Our new owners  do not want a cinema but to travel to places like Samerkand …  How this is resolved is deliciously worked out, Sellers is a revelation here, he really becomes that old man. Sidney James of course is also present and correct. A delicious treat for anyone who remembers the fleapit cinemas of their youth, and another great Basil Dearden film from his very prolific period.

VIOLENT PLAYGROUND, 1958.  Also by Basil Dearden, and scripted by James Kennaway, and is a tough thriller/topical drama of the time about juvenile delinquency, with Stanley Baker as the cop/Juvenile Liaison officer in Liverpool. David McCallum (before his MAN FROM UNCLE era) is the dangerous pyromaniac on the loose and he seems to be apeing Marlon Brando’s WILD ONE as a rock’n’roll hoodlum. Anne Heywood is his older sister (who might get romantically involved with Baker) and the family also includes those two naughty twins Baker is looking after - the school kids all look so typically Fifites. There’s also Peter Cushing as the local well-meaning priest, John Slater, Tsai Chin and other regulars like Melvyn Hayes, as we see how these huge inner-city estates are breeding grounds for juvenile delinquency, as in NO TREES IN THE STREET, below. It builds to a shattering climax where school-children are held hostage by the now demented McCallum, which has echoes of real-life tragedies. I don’t imagine this will be shown on television ever again due to this protracted school siege …  

NO TREES IN THE STREET, 1959. A solid drama from the pen of Ted Willis (WOMAN IN A DRESSING GOWN), and directed at full tilt y J. Lee Thompson, another drama of poverty breeding delinquents, this is a roller-coaster ride, starting in the 1950s present as teenager David Hemmings is caught and warned by Ronald Howard about the dangers of getting into trouble with the police. What follows is a long flashback about Tommy (Melvyn Hayes again) who wants the good life he sees local racketeer Herbert Lom enjoys with his flashy suits and flashy dames like Carole Lesley (right, with Lom). 

Tommy though is stuck in a tenement block with heavy drinkers like parents Stanley Holloway, Joan Miller, Liam Redmond, and his good sister Sylvia Syms who tries to steer him in the right direction. Lom though wants Sylvia and finally wears down her resistance until she comes to her senses. 
But Tommy goes to work for Lom, and ends up with a gun and killing a shop-keeper. The snivelling killer returns to the family as the police (Ronald Howard again) close in.  
We are back in the present for the coda, when young Hemmings (left, and right, with Syms)  promises to be good, as Howard and wife Sylvia see him go. 

Next British trio by Anthony Asquith & Anatole de Grunwald: Dirk in THE DOCTOR'S DILEMMA, 1958, and LIBEL,1959, and Sophia as THE MILLIONAIRESS, 1960. Book your tickets now ... 

'70s British gangster movies

London is such an expensive (practically unaffordable), flash metropolis now that its a real delight to re-visit that seedy city of the 1970s - which I remember from my 20s then - with its cheap rooms and jobs where spivs and various grubby lowlifes ruled - from Burton's gangster in VILLAIN - made the same year 1971 as Caine's GET CARTER, to essential thrillers like THE LONG GOOD FRIDAY. Here we look at VILLAIN, THE SQUEEZE, SITTING TARGET, HENNESSY, PERFECT FRIDAY, and a Trash 70s classic THE LEGACY - giving employment to a lot of our favoutires and stuffed with all those British character actors earning a crust here.   These are all as good as our '70s Brit favourites like Steiger and Lee Remick in the IRA drama HENNESSY or that amiable John Wayne western set in 70s London: BRANNIGAN. The seedy early 70s London is also caught in ALL COPPERS ARE - a recent discovery - all at London/Trash labels - along with GOOBYE GEMINI and cult trash classic DORIAN GRAY. 

VILLAIN,1971. Vic Dakin, a sadistic gang leader and a mother-obsessed homosexual modeled on real-life gangster Ronnie Kray, is worried about potential stool pigeons that may bring down his criminal empire. Vic, who enjoys playing at rough trade with his sidekick Wolfe, plans a payroll robbery and directs the blackmailing of Members of Parliament with a taste for unorthodox sex. Scotland Yard Police Inspector Matthews, playing Javert to Vic's Jean Valjean, is moving in on him and the gang. Gang-member Edgar is hospitalized for an ulcer, and Inspector Matthews might be able to make him sing. Will Edgar spill the beans to the coppers before Vic can silence him?
Richard Burton seems to be having a lot of fun here, Cathleen Nesbitt again plays his doting old mother (as in 1969's terrible STAIRCASE) whom he takes on day trips to Brighton, and there is a great gallery of supporting faces. Burton's boytoy Ian McShane also gets it on with '60s dolly bird Fiona Lewis (topless again) - though unlike the same year's SUNDAY BLOODY SUNDAY there are no intimate scenes between the men, Vic usually punches Wolfe, maybe thats their foreplay (below) .... Nigel Davenport and Colin Welland (a PC Plod type) are the cops closing in, Donald Sinden is ideal as the corrupt Member of Parliament, Joss Ackland and T.P. McKenna flesh out Vic's associates, as do James Cossins, Tony Welby and Del Henney - the rapist from that year's STRAW DOGS).  

VILLAIN holds its own in the violence stakes, the payroll robbery is botched and things start to go wrong for our beleagured Villain. Its a prime contender for a great 70s crime drama.  Michael Tuchner directs from a script by comedy writers Dick Clement and Ian la Frenais who later gave us their own more comic Swinging London thriller OTLEY in 1968 with Tom Courtenay and Romy Schneider and another gallery of supporting players, including yes Fiona Lewis again.  

SITTING TARGET, 1972, by contrast is nasty and brutal with no redeeming features - Oliver Reed is in his element as he snarls and seethes through this brute force crime thriller, ably directed by Douglas Hickox (ENTERTAINING MR SLOANE, THEATRE OF BLOOD). Olly is uber-thug Harry Lomart who easily breaks out of prison with his sidekick Birdy (Ian McShane again)  and they go on the run, Olly though wants to track down and kill his faithless wife (Jill St John) who has told him she wants a divorce and is pregnant by another man. 

This is all grimly realistic with authentic South London locations - those tower blocks around Battersea and Victoria (as in ALL COPPERS ARE) though St John is hilariously miscast here as the Battersea housewife, with June Brown (Dot Cotton from EASTENDERS) as her next-door neighbour. This is a role that cries out for Carol White or Billie Whitelaw who would be ideal here dishing up greasy breakfasts with a cigarette dangling from their lips. The violence and the shootups continue in this cold, drab London until the climax and the wife's secret lover is revealed .... Edward Woodward, Frank Finlay, Freddie Jones are able support.

THE SQUEEZE from 1977, long unseen here, is however the real deal. I like this one a lot, and it will be due for a rewatch. Tough and brutal yes, but stylish too as a great cast go head to head, as directed by Michael Apted (TRIPLE ECHO, THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH, COAL MINER'S DAUGHTER and still directing now). This is back to 70s London with a vengance, that city of cheap clothes and cheap cars, and grubby rooming houses. Stacey Keach is terrific as Jim Naboth, the shambolic shambling alcoholic ex-cop whom we first see drunk falling down the escalator of the underground - he is as memorable as he was in Huston's FAT CITY. His sidekick who looks after him is, oddly, comedian Freddie Starr, playing it straight here.

A vicious gang kidnaps a woman and her daughter (plus dog) to extort money from her rich husband. He and her down on his luck ex-husband who's an ex cop, decide to try to deal with the kidnappers themselves.
The kidnap scene is nicely handled in the park. The seedy underworld is nicely served up by Stephen Boyd as a frightening mobster - this was Boyd's last main role, he died that year aged 45 and again when playing nasty (as in BEN HUR or GENGHIS KHAN) he ramps it up to the max. 

The main hood is oily David Hemmings, in a good late role too. Edward Fox for once is lively and the kidnapped wife is Carol White, that ill-fated one of the new British girls of the 60s who went from being a child actress (CARRY ON TEACHER) to hits like CATHY COME HOME, UP THE JUNCTION, POOR COW, a foray to Hollywood and dying aged 48 in 1991. The most difficult scene here is where the bored kidnappers force her to strip for their amusement, to a Stylistics song and we see the character's desperation and humiliation, and perhaps the actress's too, it is all brutally unerotic. Keach too is stripped and humiliated by Boyd and his henchman and has to return home stark naked, not even left his grubby underwear. 

The sleaze seems piled up here as the drama unfolds and of course all goes wrong. THE SQUEEZE remains an eye-popping revenge thriller capturing 70s London perfectly (gritty locations, a cigarette smoke-fugged London Underground, dismal pubs and Soho 'massage parlours', and a pre-gentrified Battersea and Clapham - expensive areas now) with a dynamic cast, with several of our favourites here.

HENNESSEY, 1975. A fascinating view now. This thriller was barely seen back in the ‘70s and not at all here since, dealing as it does with the IRA and 'the Troubles' in Northern Ireland. I imagine it was too close for comfort then, and the preposterous plot about blowing up the Houses of Parliament during The Queen’s State Opening ceremony, would hardly have been met with approval. This American-International title though keeps one engrossed, they certainly cast it well, from the opening riot in Belfast – scenes we were familiar with at the time, hardly “entertainment” though. 

The story – by actor Richard Johnson, playing a hard-boiled detective here – features Niall Hennessy, whom Rod Steiger plays in regular scenery-chomping mode, like where he sees his wife and daughter (young Patsy Kensit) killed accidentally in that riot as he falls on his knees in the street and howls like an animal. His revenge involves blowing up The Royal Family and the Houses of Parliament, as the IRA, led by diehard Eric Porter, begin to realise and have to follow him to London to stop him, as the consequences if he succeeds would be unimaginable. 

Enter Lee Remick in a thankless role as the Irish widow of a friend, who puts him up without realising what he is up to. Trevor Howard enjoys himself as the chief of Scotland Yard, and others involved include Peter Egan, Margery Mason. Don Sharp’s direction keeps it tight and engrossing as we watch Steiger preparing for his mission, as he impersonates a Member of Parliament. The State Opening is from an actual documentary cleverly intercut with the film, which almost convinces one it is the real thing. It is odd seeing a younger Royal Family here and real political figures like Ted Heath and Mrs Thatcher. It is all quite fascinating now and amusing too, apart from seeing Remick wasted in a thankless role - she and Steiger were a lot more fun in NO WAY TO TREAT A LADY in 1968..

PERFECT FRIDAY in 1970 seems tame and genteel by comparison, one of (Sir) Peter Hall's cinema forays at the time. A bank robbery caper, it captures the flavour of the era - particularly as Ursula Andress and Stanley Baker get out of their clothes. He is the timid deputy under manager of the bank where Lady Britt Dorset and her aristocrat husband David Warner require loans to prop up their lifestyle. Our deputy bank manager though has a plot of it his own and needs the impoverished toffs to carry it out, so who is going to doublec-cross who? Baker, Warner and Andress are all highly watchable - in our out of clothes - and it is an amusing forgettable trifle but pales in comparison with those brutal thrillers that came along later in the Seventies .... amusing now too to see that pre-"computer says no" world of banking with real managers who know their clients! 

and now for a 70s Trash classic: THE LEGACY. This schlock horror film from 1978 has it all - Katharine Ross (sort of reprising her STEPFORD WIVES role) and her real-lifre husband Sam Elliott as the Americans in England and being forced to stay at a spooky country pile, stuffed with odd characters: Margaret Tyzack as that creepy nurse, The Who's Roger Daltry as a rock star, Charles Gray and John Standing, Lee Montague, Hildegarde Neil and more .... what power is keeping them there?
SPOILERS AHEAD: (It turns out they are the descendents of a 17th century witch who was burnt at the stake and who are gathered at an English country house in the hope of receiving part of the family legacy, but why is Katharine included? We wonder until she sees that portrait of the witch from centuries before and she realises she is the chosen one... Then all those nasty deaths - one consumed by flames, another chokes on a chicken bone, a mirror shatters and the fragments impale another, and theres that fatal tumble down the stairs ... to say any more would be too much ! 

Sam too takes a naked walk to the shower where the water suddenly gets too hot to handle and he has to break the glass to get out, more blood ... This kind of thing (from a Jimmy Sangster story) was lapped up by audiences back in the 70s, usually as part of double bills, dabbling with the supernatural, or in this case a version of Agatha Christie and who gets killed next? 
(Pop star Fabian too choked to death in that 1965 version of Christie's TEN LITTLE INDIANS, a camp favouirite of ours, so Roger should have known where his part was going ...). Ross's unique glamour and all that hair are agan well used here, if only the material had been better, still its quite entertaining of its type. Still, I dare say they had a lot of fun making it. Directed by Richard Marquand.

Cops and robbers - English style, from the '40s onward

SLEEPING CAR TO TRIESTE, 1948. This is a delicious treat now, a 1940s train movie stuffed with players of the era, one to rank with THE LADY VANISHES or NIGHT TRAIN TO MUNICH. Here we have spies Albert Lieven (hissably evil as usual) and Jean Kent and a notebook that could change the face of the war, which they must get their hands on, but which is now hidden on that Orient Express to Trieste. Add in Finlay Currie as a pompous windbag, Bonar Colleano as another annoying Yank, Gregoire Aslan as a chef, plus Rona Anderson, David Tomlinson as a crashing bore, among that supporting cast. The plot twists and turns until we happily reach our destination.

BOYS IN BROWN, 1949. Juvenile delinquents, British style. How did I miss this one? Well I was too young then for a start. This is an even more delirious look at late-40s England (one that is never revived now) as we join those borstal boys in their short trousers in that institution presided over by well-meaning Jack Warner. Our two main ‘boys’ are Richard Attenborough and the rather more mature Jack Hanley. Chief inmate is scheming Dirk Bogarde, playing here with a camp, Welsh accent – Dirk would have been 29 at the time, so these are rather mature teenagers.
 Attenborough and Hanley are both decent chaps who have had misfortune and gone off the rails, but surely with Warner’s help they can be turned into decent citizens? Michael Medwin, Alfie Bass, Graham Payn, John Blyth, Patrick Holt are among the other ‘boys’ with Thora Hird as mother and Barbara Murry as love interest. Directed by Montgomery Tully, it must have paved the way for THE BLUE LAMP in 1950.
[A postscript: in 1970 when we were waiting to enter the auditorium for Dirk Bogarde’s discussion at the BFI (see Bogarde label for more on that), I got talking to the Attenboroughs who were next to me, Dickie was like an old friend and insisted on signing my programme. What a dear chap.].

THE BLUE LAMP. Despite being a great Dirk Bogarde admirer, I had not seen many of his early films – they simply never appear here, but are now on reasonable mid-price dvds by the enterprising StudioCanal. THE BLUE LAMP was a key British film of the time, 1950, and is an authentic postwar British classic, directed by the ever-watchable Basil Dearden. We focus on several policemen at a London station, Paddington Green. Jack Warner is Dixon, a veteran bobby on the beat, Jimmy Hanley is the new recruit who looks on Dixon as a father figure (he lodges with Dixon and his wife, Gladys Henson). Dirk Bogarde and Patrick Doonan are the two cheap hoods, who plan a robbery during a cinema visit and Dirk shoots Dixon when he gets in the way.
The cheap hood is finally cornered at the crowded White City Stadium, where police and the underworld come together to catch him - great location shooting. Bogarde is simply electrifying here, one could see he was going places. It is a marvellous look at the London of the time, with the post-war bombsites and the different way of life then, people looking up to and trusting the policemen on the street, keeping an eye on everybody. Shot in an influential semi-documentary style, it paved the way for the later tv cop shows like Z-CARS and Dixon himself was resurrected by the BBC for the long-running series DIXON OF DOCK GREEN. Dirk's spiv period was followed by his war heroes in the early 50s (see reviews of THE SEA SHALL NOT HAVE THEM, APPOINTMENT IN LONDON, ILL MET BY MOONLIGHT etc, and then his popular DOCTOR films which made him the 'Idol of the Odeons' before his later more serious films, like those Loseys and others ...

HUNTED, 1952. Another Bogarde spiv role, this is a fascinating Charles Crichton film which never lets up, as it teams a man on the run with a lonely young boy Robbie (little John Whiteley, about 7 here) who, afraid of his stepfather, flees home after setting  the kitchen curtains on fire. He runs into Chris Lloyd (Dirk Bogarde), who's just murdered a man. Chris abducts Robbie and the two go on the run as Lloyd cannot shake the boy off. 
They journey around the country, and a touching and sensitive bond forms between the two fugitives. They end up in Scotland as Lloyd realises he cannot continue with the ill child, so gives himself up. Crichton nicely catches working class life in postwar England, and it’s a gritty but pleasing drama. With Kay Walsh, Elizabeth Sellars, Geoffrey Keen. 
Bogarde and Whiteley were teamed again in the popular THE SPANISH GARDENER in 1956 (Bogarde label). Whiteley is a perfect little boy here in '52, and also starred in that costume favourite, MOONFLEET in 1955. HUNTED could almost be the template for the later TIGER BAY in 1959. 
Right: THE SPANISH GARDENER, 1956.

PAYROLL. A tough, tense thriller which I had not seen since its release in 1961, PAYROLL is a real treat now. Sidney Hayers film shows the exciting robbery and its aftermath as thieves fall out. Ever since THE ASPHALT JUNGLE and RIFFIFI this is the standard gangster robbery drama and it works again here. Nicely set around Newcastle, Johnny Mellor’s band of ruthless criminals plot and carry out a payroll robbery, with the help of crooked company employee Pearson (William Lucas) whose dissatisfied French wife Francoise Prevost soon realises what he is up to. She and Mellor (Michael Craig) are soon plotting to escape together, but had not reckoned on the grieving wife (Billie Whitelaw, excellent as ever) of the van driver who got killed in the robbery. She begins to track them down herself …. With Tom Bell and Kenneth Griffith as other gang members who soon fall out over the money and come to sticky ends. As the police close in, the gang begins to fall apart, with each desperately seeking a way out, and in their panic no one realises there is one adversary they have all overlooked. Pearson’s wife thinks she has the money, but is in for a surprise …. Mellor escapes to his boat but nemesis in the shape of Whitelaw waits for him.

ROBBERY. Peter Yates’ 1967 film is another perfect gangster bank robbery movie, only its not a bank this time, but the mail train our ambitious band of criminals want to rob. Yes, it is a fictional re-creation of the 1963 Great Train Robbery. This is an uncomprising portrayal of Swinging London’s criminal underworld. In an almost documentary style ROBBERY mixes meticulously constructed, high octane action sequences (including one of the best car chases seen on film – before Yates’s next, BULLITT) with taut suspense and gritty realism, making it the template for future thrillers. Stanley Baker is the lead, coolly plotting the robbery, Frank Finlay has to be sprung from prison to oversee the money, then there is Barry Foster, William Marlowe, James Booth as the detective; Joanna Pettet is rather wasted as Baker’s wife but good to see this 60s actress again. 
The robbery is carried out and our gang start counting out the money in their underground hideaway under that deserted airfield. But soon that helicopeter is hovering overhead …. As Finlay made the mistake of calling his wife from a nearby phonebox, alarting the police to activity nearby. It was ever so …. Baker though escapes, as we see in that closing coda in New York.

The Trash item (see Labels) here is ALL COPPERS ARE. Were the '70s really this tacky? A 1970s twist on British cops and robbers, this is now a deliciously sleazy addition to those grubby early ‘70s movies that the British film industry was reduced to. It pits a young policeman Martin Potter against a small-time crook Nicky Henson, as both fall for the same girl, Julia Foster. The cop though is already married … 
Shot around Battersea and Victoria it is a fascinating look at the city then, and the fashions and interior decors of the era are all here too, to laugh at now. Potter – so right in FELLINI SATYRICON is quite ordinary (and a long way from Fellini) here. 
Supporting cast includes young David Essex, Robin Askwith, Sandra Dorne, Queenie Watts and more, and lets not forget Ian Hendry as that gay gangster with his camp boyfriend in tow .... It is an amusing timewaster now, one pities people who paid to see it at the time. Produced by Peter Rogers it has the cheap look of his '70s CARRY ONs; directed by the prolific Sidney Heyers, who did better with PAYROLL (above), CIRCUS OF HORRORS, THE TRAP etc.  

Henson was quite the lad then - those tight trousers are so '70s - as per his randy guest at FAWLTY TOWERS; uncrecognisbably older he was in the last series of DOWNTON ABBEY. He was once married to Una Stubbs, and is the grandson of veteran Gladys Henson, a favourite here. 
Martin Potter is married to Susie Blake, comedienne from the Victoria Wood shows, she was Bev in CORONATION STREET and recently the bitch mother-in-law in MRS BROWN'S BOYS - one of the more surprising show-business unions. 
Julia Foster of course married vet Bruce Fogle and is the mother of Ben Fogle.

These are also interesting London films, as per London label, fitting in with the likes of POOL OF LONDON, IT ALWAYS RAINS ON SUNDAY, DANCE HALL, SAPPHIRE, VICTIM, WEST 11 and the like ...

Soon: more early Bogarde in PENNY PRINCESS and SO LONG AT THE FAIR, plus late '50s: LIBEL and THE DOCTOR'S DILEMMA / 4 more Bakers: SEA FURY, VIOLENT PLAYGROUND, HELL IS A CITY, THE CRIMINAL and another look at Losey/'s BLIND DATE, 1959.