Roman revels

Two more Ruth Roman movies from that busy year for her, 1951 - when she also played the female lead in Hitchcock's STRANGERS ON A TRAIN, probably her best remembered film. Ruth, as I have mentioned here before - see label - was a tough gal, who did lots of melodramas and routine actioners (ok, B-movies) in the '50s and into the '60s, having began in the '40s - she is in Bette's BEYOND THE FOREST, and thanks to my IMDb pal Jerry for a mid-'40s serial she is in: JUNGLE QUEEN - I am saving that one for "some snowy night in front of the fire" and I am the lookout for her 1955 take on Shakespeare: JOE MACBETH (with her as the mobster's Lady Macbeth), which I remember seeing as a kid.  Ruth should have been as big a name as those other tough gals like Susan Hayward, or Barbara Stanwyck - Ruth could have played a lot of Stanwyck '50s roles like CLASH BY NIGHT or BLOWING WILD (she is the good girl in that, while Barbara is the bad wife, they have a nice scene together), or even some of Joan Crawford's roles, or Lizabeth Scott's or Jan Sterling's, and of course we love her in 1966's LOVE HAS MANY FACES where she gives Lana  Turner a run for her money in that delirious soap/trash classic. Ruth (1922-1999) ended up in shows like MURDER SHE WROTE and KNOTS LANDING. 

TOMORROW IS ANOTHER DAY teams bad boy Steve Cochran with cheap dime-a-dance girl Ruth - looking very glam in a brassy blond wig (like Jane Russell's 'hostess' in wartime Hawaii in Trash Classic THE REVOLT OF MAMIE STOVER, Russell label). 

Here is the blurb:

What kind of future awaits a couple with a past? Ruth Roman and Steve Cochran in a film-noir gem.

A man who spent his formative years in prison for murder is released, and struggles to adjust to the outside world and escape his lurid past. He gets involved with a cheap dancehall girl, and when her protector is accidentally killed, they go on the lam together, getting jobs as farm labourers. 
But some fellow workers get wise to them. Steve Cochran conveys the loneliness of his character, freed for killing his brutal father when he was only 13, and now he's still a tentative, gawky pubescent operating inside a man's hulky frame. Lonesome, he visits a 10-cents-a-dance palace and falls for brassy, grasping Ruth Roman. But the sudden shooting of her police-bigwig boyfriend causes the ill-matched couple to hit the road, ending in a California migrant-worker camp. Directed by one Felix Feist.

This conjures up a world of diners, drab rooming houses, people on the move hitching lifts and riding on trains and cheap motels like the Shady Nook where our couple on the run hole up, before they join that settlement of farm workers and make friends and seem to have a whole new life, leaving their sordid pasts behind them. Ruth even lets her hair go natural to black. But Steve's photo turns up in a magazine and the neighbours have to decide whether to turn him in for the reward .... fate however intervenes, but the ending is uplifing as our newly free couple can start all over again. Though surely a good time girl like Ruth would hardly settle for living in a shack and working in the fields ?

Both Cochran and Roman are ideal, he is in his prime here, as magnetic as Brando's WILD ONE in his tee-shirt and jeans, at least Warners didn't insist he shave his chest, like William Holden had to for PICNIC! - he was also good with Anne Baxter (another dame who could be tough when called for) in CARNIVAL STORY in '54, and of course his best known film, as the lead in Antonioni's IL GRIDO in 1957 (review at Cochran/Antonioni labels), and we reviewed his last film MOZAMBIQUE a while back. (He died aged 48 in 1965 while sailing a yacht in the Pacific, a notorious Hollywood bad boy in the Erroll Flynn tradition...).

LIGHTNING STRIKES TWICE is a more routine meller, directed by the great King Vidor (the '56 WAR AND PEACE, RUBY GENTRY, DUEL IN THE SUN, SOLOMON AND SHEBA etc), with British actor Richard Todd, and sterling support from Mercedes McCambridge firing on all cylinders as usual (as in JOHNNY GUITAR!) and that seedy lothario Zachary Scott (in a similar role here to his in MILDRED PIERCE). This time Ruth is the touring actress recuperating in the desert small town and getting to know Todd who is on reprieve from murdering his wife and facing a re-trial. Mercedes is the possessive woman who was on the jury, so it has all the elements for a romantic murder mystery suspense. 
Is the heroine in danger? - though hard to imagine Ruth not being able to fend for herself. It all plays out nicely, but if only it was as over the top as that other meller set in the desert in lurid colours: 1947's DESERT FURY which had Lizabeth Scott and Mary Astor as well as the young Burt Lancaster and that odd couple of John Hodiak and Wendall Corey, as per my review (Astor label).  

I have now seen a 1987 episode of MURDER SHE WROTE (from Series 4) where Ruth guests as Loretta, the owner of the Beauty Salon (think pink!) in Cabot Cove, where the local ladies - including ageless Julie Adams, Kathryn Grant and Gloria De Haven - get their hair done and gossip.
 Ruth is a joy and obviously in her element presiding over the Salon and dispensing gossip to Jessica .... she did 3 episodes of Lansbury's successful series, I shall now have to see her other two guest spots as well, as Ruth wound up her career here in a good way, in a deliciously entertaining tale. 

B-movie heaven (2)

Another selection of pulpy crime thrillers, routine actioners, and some odd Euro-thrillers, not quite Trash but satisfyingly enjoyable, with those French thriller genre tough guys Henri Vidal and Robert Hossein, as well as Sterling Hayden and Steve Cochran and that tough dame Ruth Roman. Enjoy ...

Ruth Roman

THREE SECRETS, 1950. A nifty melodrama, one of Robert Wise’s early films. A five-year-old boy is the sole survivor of a devastating plane crash in the mountains of California. When the newspapers reveal the boy was adopted and that the crash occurred on his birthday, three women begin to ponder if it's the son each gave up for adoption. 
As the three await news of his rescue at a mountain cabin, they recall incidents from five years earlier and why they were forced to give up their son. The women are top-billed Eleanor Parker, rather pallid here; Patricia Neal as incisive as ever, and Ruth Roman who makes the most impression. It is nicely worked out and keeps one involved. The men pale by comparison: Frank Lovejoy, Arthur Franz, Leif Erickson, Ted de Corsia.

FIVE STEPS TO DANGER, 1957. While driving from California to New Mexico, Ann Nicholson picks up John Emmett at a truck stop. She is looking for someone else to share the driving with her so that she can get to her ultimate destination, Santa Fe, quicker. He agrees to accompany her, he being on a month long vacation and heading to a fishing lodge by bus in that general direction anyway. He soon begins to wonder if it was a good decision. They are first stopped by a nurse claiming that Ann is under medical psychological care, and then by the police who are looking for her for questioning on a serious incident back in Los Angeles. Because of these encounters, she tells him her story: that she is indeed recovering from a stress related condition, but that that stress was brought about by her need to get some politically sensitive military information to Santa Fe. 
Wavering between believing and not believing her story, John decides to trust her and go along with her as far as the story plays itself out, all the while the two being chased by various people. 
This plays marvellously with non-stop action ... it may even have inspired the look of PSYCHO ? - I was reminded of the scenes with Janet Leigh in the car and evading the policeman, while watching similar scenes here as we travel the highways and those cheap motels. Ruth Roman and Sterling Hayden are just right, and the plot teases until the end, as directed by Henry S. Kesler. 

TANGANYIKA, 1954. Movies with exotic names were a staple of 50s cinema, as programmers and actioners were set in places like TANGANYIKA, MARACAIBO, MOZAMBIQUE, EAST (or WEST) OF SUDAN - mostly filmed on the backlot, with second unit photography from Africa fitted in, as in Fox's WHITE WITCH DOCTOR (Susan Hayward label). Janet Leigh in her memoirs said they really went to Africa for SAFARI, a 1956 actioner with Victor Mature I remember seeing as a kid. It was hardly worth the journey. Here we have Ruth Roman again, with Van Heflin and Howard Duff, and lots of local colour with all those dancing and fighting natives in this obscure jungle adventure, directed by veteran Andre De Toth, he of the one eye. Roman comes across as a butcher Susan Hayward, Fox's regular action lady.

In 1903 Kenya, tough colonist John Gale is leading a safari to bring in escaped murderer Abel McCracken, who is stirring up the Nukumbi tribe and endangering Gale's holdings. En route, he picks up four survivors of Nukumbi raids: hunter Dan Harder, former teacher Peggy, and two kids. But Dan has hidden motives for coming along; and the Nukumbi are lying in wait.

One I must try to get hold of is JOE MACBETH, a '50s mobster version of Shakespeare with Paul Douglas and Ruth as a rather good Lady Macbeth, which I remember from seeing as a kid ... Ruth was later a staple on tv shows and is always - like Anne Baxter, Jane Russell, Dorothy Malone, Virginia Mayo, Martha Hyer, Vera Miles and other '50s gals - good value. Perhaps she is best remembered now in Hitch's STRANGERS ON A TRAIN, 1951. We like her in the 1966 LOVE HAS MANY FACES which she practically steals from Lana Turner and those Acapulco beachboy gigolos. (Roman label).

MOZAMBIQUE, 1965. This routine, cheesy in a fun way, meller turned out to be the last film of tough guy Steve Cochran, who died that year. He looks fine here and does a lot of stunts in this Harry Alan Towers German production. An out-of-work and penniless American pilot is offered work in Mozambique and promptly becomes an unwitting pawn in a world of drug smuggling, kidnap and murder. Hildegarde Knef is rather good as Ilona Valdez, international woman of mystery (below) and chanteuse in a nightlcub, where she sings German songs to the African natives. Paul Hubschmid and vivacious Vivi Bach are also involved in the derring-do, its rather like a straight version of those Jean Dujardin OSS 117 send-ups. The definition of an amusing timewaster. Cochran was good too with Anne Baxter in CARNIVAL STORY in '54 and was immortalised by Antonioni as the lead in his IL GRIDO in 1957. (review at Antonioni label).

UNE MANCHE ET LA BELLE (WHAT PRICE MURDER?), 1957. A delicious treat from French thriller veteran Henri Verneuil (see French label for reviews of MELODIE EN SOUS SOL, etc). Humble (or is he?) bank clerk Henri Vidal charms wealthy widow Isa Miranda but keeps her at arms length until she practically begs him to marry her .... her secretary is young Mylene Demongeot, whom Vidal is attracted to, but Mylene has her own plans. So who ends up killing who? and will Isa suspect what is going on ? This is brilliantly worked out, with a great twist one does not see coming, from a James Hadley Chase potboiler, and it all looks great in gleaming black and white. Isa has a great role, Mylene is as delicious as ever, and Vidal - this charming man - looks great. 
We like Vidal - from ATTILA in '54, and Clement's LES MAUDITS, as well as those films with Brigitte Bardot and Romy Schneider (Vidal label). What a contrast with Robert Hossein, that other tough French guy. Vidal died aged 40 in 1959 just as Delon and Belmondo were hitting their stride - (so also did Gerard Philipe, also dying in 1959). Hossein on the other hand, is stll here in his 80s and still working unitl recently after a long career. Delon and Belmondo and Trintignant may have been the main French idols, but Maurice Ronet, Jean Sorel and Robert Hossein had long careers too, in mainly action movies - like Franco Nero, Raf Vallone, Renato Salvatori, Vittoria Gassman in Italy. Isa Miranda,below.

TOI ... LE VENIN, (NIGHT IS NOT FOR SLEEP), 1958. This is a deliciously crazy movie, with a great premise. Robert Hossein is out walking late at night when a car pulls up and a blonde calls him over. She wants him to get in, he does and soon they are locked in an embrace, after she removes her top .... but she throws him out and tries to run him over. He manages to get the car number and traces it to a villa where two wealthy sisters live. One is crippled in a wheelchair, and is nursed by her sister. These are played by real-life sisters Marina Vlady (Hossein's wife at the time) and Odile Versois. Our laidback hero is soon caught in the middle between the two sisters, as he romances Odile and promises to stay and run their record store. 

The other sister in the wheelchair is also becoming dangerously obsessed with Robert, but he begins to suspect she is not disabled at all, but cannot prove it. How is all this going to end? Very satisfyingly is all I can say. We liked some other Hossein thrillers (as per my previous B-movie post on French thrillers), like LE MONT CHARGE, and THE WICKED GO TO HELL, which featured Vidal and Vlady. This one is just as good if not better. IMDb describes it as a "Panting psychological thriller", ably directed by Hossein.

DEATH OF A KILLER, (LA MORT  D'UN TUEUR) 1964. Not much fun here but this is the real deal - a tough, spare, tense thriller with Hossein (forever in his pork pie hat) released from prison and teaming up with his old gang, to find out who shopped him to the police just as they were carrying out a robbery. He suspects one gang member, Luciano who was in love with Hossein's attractive sister Marie-France Pisier, whom Hossein himself is also obsessed about. Mother back at home is weary Lila Kedrova, as Hossein and his pals begin to track down Luciano all over the city (it looks like Marseilles). 
Local gangland gets involved and there is a detour to a nightclub with some exotic black dancers (as in LA NOTTE and other chic nightclub scenes of the time) where Hossein gets off with a blonde (also Pisier). Then the shoot-out and all is revealed at the end. Its a film of great images and creates a great mood of fatalism, again also directed by Hossein. 

Soon: Hossein with Sophia Loren in MADAME, that rarity from 1961 ... and another look at Dassin's classic RIFIFI with Hossein and a great cast; and another steaming helping of Trash classics. 

Back to art house ...

Time to catch up with those art house classics I had been meaning to watch, or in the case of Visconti's SANDRA see again after a gap of 45 years .... its been a dim memory since I saw it aged 19 in 1965, so (again) its been terrific to track down a copy now. [It was on YouTube in segments with Japanese subtitles!]. Its original title is VAGHE STELLE DELL'ORSA or OF A THOUSAND DELIGHTS as it was titled for the UK, and it now seems to be titled SANDRA (much easier all round) and now plays like a classic Visconti drama. Sandra Dawson (Claudia Cardinale) and her husband Andrew (Michael Craig) travel to her hometown, the Etruscan city of Volterra for a homage of the locals to her father, a prominent scientist who died in a concentration camp. The long drive in the car during the credits is fascinating. The couple are welcomed by the servant Fosca, and Andrew becomes fascinated with the house. Sandra has issues over the estate with her stepfather and her mentally ill mother (Marie Bell) and misses her brother Gianni (Jean Sorel), who is an aspirant writer. When Gianni appears in the house out of the blue, Andrew unravels a shadowy secret from the past of the siblings. It is Greek tragedy really in the shape of Electra and Orestes... it unfolds as if a dream, (or a typical '60s art movie), interesting seeing Visconti tackle a "small" film here, before moving on to those more opulent titles like THE DAMNED, DEATH IN VENICE, LUDWIG and that final L'INNOCENTE. His follow-up to SANDRA, a 1967 adaptation of Camus's THE OUTSIDER with Mastroianni, is also a very lost title, I don't think we even got a chance to see it in London...

"Vaghe Stelle dell'Orsa..." ("Bright star of the Bear", a poem that is referred to in the text) has a plot about a once incestuous brother and sister (though he wants to resume their illicit relationship) which in the hands of another director could have become a melodramatic soap-opera, but Visconti explores the sensuality and beauty of Claudia Cardinale [often in close-up, and that amazing voice of hers] to deliver an intriguing and quite erotic family drama, peopled with beautiful leads in their mid-60s perfection. The set decoration, as usual, is another piece of art, supported by a classical music soundtrack by Cesar Franck. Good to see English actor Michael Craig here too - five years earlier he was the star of a British comedy UPSTAIRS AND DOWNSTAIRS and Cardinale had a small part, her first in English probably, as one of the servants!

To add in the next few days: first looks at Antonioni's IL GRIDO, Bergman's THE MAGICIAN, Truffaut's LE PEAU DEUCE...

Hardly a likeable film or one which one would want to return to right away, Antonioni's IL GRIDO has be one of the bleakest views of the human condition ever, more so than say UMBERTO D or AU HASARD BALTHASAR, as it shows the downward spiral of Aldo, the workman abandoned by the woman he loves. It is though totally compelling to see now, Antonioni's last before L'AVVENTURA and those films showing the ennui of the Italian monied classes. Here we are, comparatively speaking, in the lower depths of society - workmen and women in rundown towns along the muddy banks of the Po river.

Aldo has lived with Irma the woman he loves for 7 years and they have a daughter, he thinks they will get married when news arrives that her husband, working in Australia all these years, is killed - but for Irma (Alida Valli) it is over - she may even have a new man already. Uncomprehending Aldo (Steve Cochran, the playboy and tough guy of American films, ideally cast here) after beating her in public takes to the road with their daughter Rosina in tow, as they wander from town to town. First he returns to Elvira (Betsy Blair) his previous love who would take him back, but not when she discovers he only came back because Irma threw him out ... then he takes up with Virginia (the oddly named Dorian Gray, who it seems was dubbed by Monica Vitti, her first association with Antonioni) who runs a petrol pump station. Aldo and the daughter settle for a while but this too peters out, as he moves on to prostitute Andreina. He sends the daughter home to Irma and is now on his own as he seems to give up on life and has no interest in living. The film comes full circle as he returns to the factory where he used to work, sees the daughter entering a strange house so he looks through the window and sees Irma with a new baby. She sees him and follows as he enters the factory and climbs the tower. The cry of the title IL GRIDO is Irma's scream as Aldo walks towards his destiny .... there are the usual Antonioni touches with landscapes, the spaces and lack of communiation between people (Irma can hardly articulate her feelings why she does not want Aldo any more and he can only resort to violence). Its powerful and affecting and certainly paved the way for the films which followed....

Ingmar Bergman's THE MAGICIAN is a baroque tale of a bizarre troupe of travelling players in the Victorian era led by a mute Max von Sydow who may be a magician, or a hypnotist, or even just a charlatan. This is a Bergman film I had not seen before - my Bergman canon includes THE SEVENTH SEAL, WILD STRAWBERRIES, SMILES OF A SUMMER NIGHT, THE SILENCE, PERSONA, CRIES & WHISPERS, AUTUMN SONATA and his wonderful 1975 opera film THE MAGIC FLUTE (we loved that back in the '70s) and FANNY AND ALEXANDER. [I had no interest at the time for his other '70s films like THE TOUCH, SCENES FROM A MARRIAGE or THE SERPENT'S EGG, but I liked his 1970 London production of HEDDA GABLER with Maggie Smith so much that I went to it twice - it was dazzling theatre with the cast clad in black against those red walls...]

THE MAGICIAN (or THE FACE) is a fascinating puzzle from 1958 with terrific photography like those shots of the carriage emerging from the forest with the light shining through the trees... Vogler (Sydow) and his wife Ingrid Thulin (who dresses as a man, as part of the act), and the old crone who may be his grandmother and their florid manager arrive in a new town and are halted by some petty officials who see an evening's entertainment in making the entertainers do their act to see if they are suitable for the public. They certainly get more than they bargained for, particularly Gunnar Bjornstrand as Dr Vergerus, the officious medical advisor who is fascinated with hypnotism and magic rituals and would dearly love to perform an autopsy on Vogler to examine his brain, eyes etc. There is an old drunk whom they pick up en route, who finally dies. Bjornstrand gets to do his autopsy but surely would have realised which body he was examining? Vogler's face is a mask - once the wig, beard and make-up are removed the real Von Sydow emerges, and is an interesting contrast with the silent brooding Vogler in that this new persona is just a money-seeking actor. Other characters also change: the serving wench Bibi Andersson joins the party as the manager stays behind. The town official and his wife, mourning their lost child, also re-discover each other, and Vergerus gets the biggest surprise of all .... its brilliantly photographed, Sydow and Thulin shine as ever, and the Bergman players are a pleasure as usual. The ending seems rather rushed though - certainly a Bergman worth seeing but maybe not one of his key works - it could almost be marketed as a superior horror film. Next on my list will be THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY...

Another batch of '50s rarities ...

O HENRY’S FULL HOUSE – This 1952 20th Century Fox compendium of 5 O Henry stories has never surfaced anywhere during my 40 years here in England, so when I saw it on Amazon I just had to get it, and its quite nice if nothing very special. Odd for a film about one writer’s work it is introduced by another: the much better known John Steinbeck (whom I had not seen on film before) who links the stories. It has that early ‘50s Fox look and a lot of those young Fox players of the time, but the most interesting sequence is a practically wordless one of hobo Charles Laughton trying to get back into jail for the winter – Marilyn Monroe appears for maybe a minute as the streetwalker he insults, and its just great seeing them together. Oddly enough the story directed by Howard Hawks works least of all and is rather bizarre - but Fox stalwarts Henry Hathaway, Jean Negulseco, Henrys Koster and King direct the other episodes: cop Dale Robertson having to arrest old school pal Richard Widmark (guying his tough guy image) is a lively diversion; poor newly weds Jeanne Crain and Farley Granger trying to afford Christmas presents is nicely touching; and sisters Anne Baxter and Jean Peters play in an amusing anecdote with Gregory Ratoff.

CARNIVAL STORY – This was a dim childhood memory but I really enjoyed seeing it again now. Anne Baxter is terrific as the poor girl joining a carnival touring Germany and rising from washing dishes to being the headline act with a daring trapeze stunt, as she falls for no-good hunk Steve Cochran and marries trapeze star Lyle Bettger (usually a western heavy, but nicely effective here). George Nader also gets involved and good old Jay C Flippen runs the show. Anne runs the gamut and the stuntwork is effectively done and it all comes to an enjoyable climax. Nice period feel and colour, as directed by a Kurt Neumann for RKO. A perfect programmer for 1954 then. Glynis Johns did a similar trapeze act in a British compendium of Somerset Maugham stories (ENCORE) which may well have influenced this one.

THE REVOLT OF MAMIE STOVER – This was a real delight, a ’56 programmer which I thought would be a cheapo effort but it’s a Scope and color Fox production from producer Buddy Adler and directed by Raoul Walsh and headlines Jane Russell in one of her bad girls trying to go good mode. Mamie is a hard-boiled but good-humoured dame being run out of San Francisco and put on a cargo ship to Hawaii – the only other passenger is writer Richard Egan. They both know the score but get involved anyway. He already has a fiancée waiting for him, and Mamie heads for the local dancehall with hostesses or is it really a brothel? It is run though by no nonsense madam Agnes Moorehead who has had a makeover and is blonde and quite glamorous here, as aided by henchman Michael Pate she keeps the girls in order and maximises the takings. It does not take Mamie long to see how the operation works as she becomes the star attraction and desperate Aggie has to increase her take to 60% to keep her, as Mamie begins to profit from the war buyng up cheap properties. Oh did I mention it is 1941 and the attack on Pearl Harbour begins… It has a nicely dry ending and Jane is terrific here and those ‘50s costumes are delirious treats now. Below: blonde madam Agnes Moorehead lines up her gals (Jane on the left) before opening time....

INTERLUDE – another dim childhood memory, also long unseen. It’s a '57 Douglas Sirk from Universal and a Ross Hunter production – but its not even included in that recent Sirk boxset. It is set back in Sirk’s Germany in nice Munich and Salzburg locations and drenched in classical music as library assistant June Allyson at the American Embassy gets involved with broody but handsome conductor Rosanno Brazzi – but of course, he has a mentally ill wife (Marianne Koch) tended by old but wise Francoise Rosay, while doctor Keith Andes wants June to return home with him as his wife. Again its nicely resolved but there is no real chemistry between the leads. June Allyson is a curious case in that she is usually forgotten in any discussions on ‘50s leading ladies but there she was throughout the decade, all ladylike in those buttoned up blouses and white gloves, in those popular James Stewart vehicles, remakes of Carole Lombard and Norma Shearer movies (MY MAN GODFREY, THE OPPOSITE SEX (ie THE WOMEN), right up to ‘59’s Ross Hunter sudser STRANGER IN MY ARMS with Jeff Chandler, Mary Astor and Sandra Dee. Allyson is perfect though in WOMAN'S WORLD and THE OPPOSITE SEX. INTERLUDE has a yuckky theme song by the McGuire Sisters which sets the tone here ...
This was also remade in 1968 with Oscar Werner and should be worth a look.

THE TRUTH ABOUT WOMEN – and yet another childhood memory and one not seen since as again it never surfaced anywhere, until a friend got a copy recently. This is a 1957 Muriel Box film crammed with British thespians, as an aged Laurence Harvey looks back over the women in his life. Cue some of the actresses and starlets of the day: Diane Cilento, Mai Zetterling, Eva Gabor, Jackie Lane, Lisa Gastoni in amusing little playlets and gowned by Cecil Beaton, Christopher Lee is also as effective as ever. The heart of the film though is the episode with Julie Harris playing with her usual total sincerity the nice girl Harvey gets trapped with in the lift who becomes his wife and the mother to their children, but … Its all nicely put together even if Larry seems to be just playing his usual self with grey whiskers, and its certainly a period piece now, but good to see Harvey and Harris re-united after their I AM A CAMERA in ’55. English viewers of a certain vintage will be amused to see the final lady is tv Eurovision presenter Katie Boyle in a mink stole!