Magazines 1: 'Honey' 1971 hunks calendar

Thanks to Colin for sending me this spread from a vintage magazine - girls' magazine HONEY, popular in the 1970s. I have not seen any of these before, not being a "Honey" kind of guy - I was more TOWN and all those movie magazines.....

Here though is their ad/order form for their calendar for 1971 (click to enlarge) with a hunk a month - its interesting seeing who is on it, and who are still here and still working. 

The surprise here is the inclusion of the young Ian McKellen, who seems an odd choice here, was he on the "Honey" girl's radar then? as in 1970 he had only really done a small part in ALFRED THE GREAT (with my favourites David Hemmings and Michael York, neither chosen here), A TOUCH OF LOVE with Sandy Dennis, and several television roles including a David Copperfield and Hamlet. Not quite in the same league as Paul Newman, Steve McQueen, Robert Redford, Terence Stamp, or the popular boys of the time like Leonard (ROMEO) Whiting, Martin (FELLINI SATYRICON) Potter, or Helmut Berger (Visconti's THE DAMNED and DORIAN GRAY)! Pop boys Marc Bolan, Mick Jagger, Tom Jones and Elvis also made the cut. 

Well, Sir Ian is probably the busiest name here now, Sir Tom now judges the BBC talent show "The Voice", Sir Mick does his thing, Terence looks great in the new VANITY FAIR Hollywood issue, and a weather-beaten Redford was terrific in ALL IS LOST last year. Leonard, Martin and Helmut are still here too having long shed their pretty boy images.... More hunks at Hunks label.

(I've been accused of name-dropping - thank you, Martin in Derry - when I mention I have met people, but I was chatting with Ian when out clubbing over a decade ago (at The Royal Vauxhall Tavern pub and Crash club in London); we used to see Terence around town a lot as his then apartment at The Albany in Piccadilly backed onto my office in Regent Street; Marc Bolan guested at one of the early Elton John shows I saw at Croydon in 1973, and Leonard relieved himself next to me at the Gents urinal at the BFI back in 1970, in a blue crushed velvet suit ... it didn't seem appropriate to speak though! - we were both attending a discussion on nudity in the movies (with Billie Whitelaw among others - oops there I go again), a hot topic then as actresses - and actors (as Leonard had to for Zeffirelli) - had to get their kit off for those daring new movies of the era.).

The travelling lady

I just had to buy an expensive book on Lee Remick, one of our favourite actresses, which turned out to be good value, as it is a comprehensive biography (below) with full details of her career on film, stage and television, and it led me to a terrific interview with her, in 1988, where she looks back at her career and comments on all her roles, "while curled up on a sofa at her mother's apartment in Park Avenue" (she died in 1991). This is in the November 1988 issue of "Films In Review", that compact size terrific little magazine (I had a few copies back then) which I easily located on eBay, for a fair price. 
 
Its been a season of Lee Remick discoveries, what with the BBC magazines "Radio Times" covering her BBC roles in SUMMER AND SMOKE, THE AMBASSADORS and THE VISION - as per Remick label; and then Roddy McDowall's home movies where she features several times, at Malibu in that 1965 summer (below) .... so I have gone back to some of her films. First up: BABY THE RAIN MUST FALL, Robert Mulligan's neat drama from 1965, which we have posted about here before ...

Steve McQueen and Lee Remick ignite sparks in this impassioned drama about a rootless drifter and the woman who loves him. We first see Georgette with her small daughter on the bus to Columbus, Texas, where she joins her husband Henry who has just been paroled from the state penitentiary. He was serving time for stabbing a man in a drunken brawl. He hopes now to have a career as a songwriter as he returns to singing and playing his guitar in rowdy roadhouses. Slim (Don Murrary) is Henry's childhood friend and now the deputy sheriff and he now grows attached to Georgette and the child and does what he can to keep the volatile Henry in line. But when Henry's tantrums become increasingly more violent, Slim is forced to stop him, bringing the film to an unexpected climax.

This all looks marvellous in that perfect black and white photography of the time and is the equal to those other Mulligan-Pakula films of the era: TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD and LOVE WITH THE PROPER STRANGER, and it also has another just right Elmer Bernstein score. It is based on Horton Foote's play "The Travelling Lady" and is another perfect role for Remick, full of that yearning longing, as good as her role in WILD RIVER, and captures that small town, rural America perfectly - like William Inge territory in THE STRIPPER and BUS RILEY IS BACK IN TOWN.  There is also a hint of American Gothic in Henry's childhood demons and that creepy house where he was abused by his domineering aunt ...

I love this photo of Lee and Kate

I have a few days in Ireland coming up now, but when I get back, its on to: A DELICATE BALANCE, Tony Richardson's 1973 version of Edward Albee, with the powerhouse cast of Katharine Hepburn, Paul Scofield, Remick, Betsy Blair and Kate Reid; LOOT - the very funny 1970 version of Joe Orton's black farce where Lee is deliriously funny as the nurse, got up to look like Jean Harlow and with a comic Irish accent; and that 1975 rarity HENNESSY, and one of her later tv movies: EMMA'S WAR.  

Lee at the London BFI, 1970

Lee relates too in the "Films in Review" interview (with Michael Buckley) how she spent an evening with Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy back in 1955 when they were casting for DESK SET, where the young actress was up for the minor role played by Dina Merrill in the film. Kate was of the opinon she should take roles to get seen, while Spence felt she should wait for the proper break - which she did with Kazan's A FACE IN THE CROWD in 1957 !  In all her interviews Lee comes across as totally natural and unaffected, as indeed she was when I met her in 1970, as per other posts here - she lived in London from 1969-1982 during her second enduring marriage. [Her first husband tv director Bill Colleran (who appears with her in the Malibu home movies) with whom she had two children, died in 2000 aged 77, and her second, assistant director/producer Kip Gowans, who had 2 children from his first marriage, died in 2011 aged 80]. I must dig out those other interviews with her from "Films & Filming" and "Films Illustrated" back in the 70s.  
Below: 1962's DAYS OF WINE AND ROSES, another perennial favourite of ours. What a year for Best Actress nominations: Katharine Hepburn, Bette Davis, Geraldine Page, Lee and the winner Anne Bancroft !

Tormenta entre dos Pasiones

No, not some lurid Euro-trash shocker, but the Spanish title for TORN BETWEEN TWO LOVERS, a 1979 telemovie starring our perennial favourite Lee Remick. Here she is a typical happily married housewife who meets cute with George Peppard (a divorced architect, of course) when they are both stranded at a snowed-in airport - he rescues her Klimpt poster "The Kiss" and carries her off to a VIP area he has access to, where they quaff champagne and really get on. Then she gets her flight back to Chicago next morning and resumes her marriage to solid, dependable Italian guy Joe Bologna. Then she discovers George's gloves in her overcoat pocket - they had gone for a walk in the snow (it all takes place in a snowy world) and he had lent them to her .... She calls him about returning them, and pretty soon they are having a full blown affair. Lee's Diane is simply in love with two men, as well as her art gallery job, and various family events, large meals etc, with that extended Italian family.  

Finally her guilt gets too much and she has to confesss. Joe of course is angry ... George applies no pressure but wants her to be with him. Lee prevaricates but finally makes her decision. This is superb tosh, brilliantly done. Delbert Mann directs (he did MARTY, and favouites like SEPARATE TABLES, THE DARK AT THE TOP OF THE STAIRS, LOVER COME BACK etc) and its a good role for Remick who is centre stage, the two men are more oblique characters. We saw Lee and Peppard growing up in the movies, from their early roles in the late 50s through the 60s and 70s. Here they are older and more mature. Its from a hit song, apparantly, but is a nice old-fashioned 'tv movie of the week' treat now, but is only available in a Spanish dvd edition. Lee was always a working actress, combining film, tv and stage until her untimely death at 55 in 1991.

BABY THE RAIN MUST FALL. Remick (I met her in 1970 when she was living in London, and saw her on the stage as Cherie in BUS STOP in London in 1976, with Keir Dullea as that annoying cowboy (Remick, NFT labels), has a rather similar role in 1965's BABY THE RAIN MUST FALL, one of those Pakula-Robert Mulligan films, shot in nice black and white, with an Elmer Bernstein score, set in that fabled American backwoods/deep south, based on Horton Foote's "The Travelling Lady".  It was though thrown away here in the UK as was released as the lower part of a double feature, and edited. Good its on dvd now. Lee, as in WILD RIVER and others, plays with her usual yearning the role of the young wife married to bad boy Steve McQueen.  As the blurb says:
"Steve McQueen and Lee Remick ignite sparks in this impassioned drama about a rootless drifter and the woman who loves him. Georgette (Remick) arrives with her small daughter in Columbus, Texas, to join her husband (McQueen) who has just been paroled from the state penitentiary. He had been serving time for stabbing a man in a drunken brawl. His hopes pinned to a career as a songwriter, he returns to singing and playing guitar in bawdy roadhouses. Slim (Don Murray) a quiet-spoken deputy sheriff, grows attached to Georgette and the child and does what he can to keep the volatile McQueen in line. But when his tantrums become increasingly more violent, Slim is forced to stop him, bringing the film to a shattering climax".
From that nice opening of Lee and daughter travelling in the greyhound bus, this is an engaging pleasing film, good to see it again after this time. Incidentally, one of Lee's early roles was that sad little saloon girl giving her savings to Don Murray in his 1959 western starrer THESE THOUSAND HILLS - here he is supporting as Lee takes centre stage. 

Soon: Lee in SUMMER AND SMOKE for the BBC in 1972.

Natalie - a double feature ...

LOVE WITH THE PROPER STRANGER - Another one not seen since its release here in London in 1964, we liked those Robert Mulligan films then, produced by Alan J Pakula - before he started directing. Another too of those nice black and white movies of that era (like LILITH, DAYS OF WINE AND ROSES, BAY OF ANGELS), it is also a nice New York film of the period, set in the Italian-American milieu, like BLACK ORCHID or MOONSTRUCK, as nice Italian girl Natalie Wood, a Macys shopgirl, deals with her protective family of Mama and 3 brothers (led by Herschel Bernardi) who want to see her marry nice guy Tom Bosley .... but Angie (Nat) has her own ideas - she is pregnant for starters, from a one-night stand with a jazz musician, Steve McQueen, defining cool again. It starts nicely as musicians turn up to be hired and she has him paged over the tannoy. He barely remembers her, but she just wants the name of a doctor she can go to .... after misunderstandings he takes her for the abortion but of course they don't go through with it; she finally leaves home and get a nice little apartment and he begins to see her in a new light ...

Edie Adams (left) is a delight in the small role of Steve's casual girlfriend, a nightclub gal, particularly amusing when she returns to her apartment and finds he has installed Angie there. McQueen always worked best with a good female lead, as with Natalie here, Lee Remick (in that other nice Mulligan, BABY THE RAIN MUST FALL in '65), or with Dunaway in THOMAS CROWN (Dunaway, McQueen labels). The early '60s was Natalie's best time - she had been a child actress in the 40s, the 50s saw her playing daughter to Margaret Sullavan, Bette Davis and others, then her iconic roles in THE SEARCHERS and REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE; she was Warners' mid-50s star, along with Tab Hunter, before the arrival of the new ingenues like Sandra Dee, Carol Lynley and Tuesday Weld. In 1958 she was MARJORIE MORNINGSTAR in the Warners sudser, followed by the love interest in CASH McCALL and one of the ALL THE FINE YOUR CANNIBALS with husband Wagner in 1960 (Wood label). Then the early 60s saw her hits like WEST SIDE STORY, GYPSY (a favourite musical), SPLENDOR IN THE GRASS, LOVE WITH THE PROPER STRANGER was another, and INSIDE DAISY CLOVER (Natalie label). SEX AND THE SINGLE GIRL and THE GREAT RACE were so-so, but she was certainly a Hollywood veteran. She was only 43 by the time of her mysterious death in 1981. 

THIS PROPERTY IS CONDEMNED, was another good drama for her in 1966, her second with the rising Robert Redford, after DAISY CLOVER. (She also pops up for a moment in his THE CANDIDATE).. We are back to Tennessee Williams here, even if minor Williams, as directed by Sydney Pollack, and co-written by Francis Coppola.

Sultry women, sweltering weather, and a handsome new stranger in town ... A railroad official, Owen Legate comes to Dodson, Mississippi to shut down much of the town's railway (town's main income). Owen unexpectedly finds love with Dodson's flirt and main attraction, Alva Starr. Alva and Owen then try to escape Alva's mother's (Hazel) clutches and the town's revenge.

Natalie looks great as Alva, the town beauty with nowhere to go, and the depression period is nicely captured, as the story is told by Mary Badham (from TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD - another of Mulligan's hits) as Alva's kid sister. Kate Reid is the powerhouse mother, and Charles Bronson is also involved. It has its lyrical moments with the young lovers, and it captures that American Gothic deep south territory that Williams specialised in. Redford was also in that powerhouse all-star drama THE CHASE that year, which we will get around to before too long.  This though is one of Natalie's most powerful performances and she was at the zenith of her beauty. Natalie and Redford make a great movie couple, like McQueen & Dunaway, Clift & Taylor, Clift & Remick, Cary Grant and all his leading ladies (Loren, Kelly, Kerr, Bergman, both Hepburns etc) or Peck with his (Ava, Loren, Simmons), or Delon or Bogarde or Belmondo with so many ...
The story seems to falter when our lovers get to New Orleans, but there is a nice wistful coda at the end, with Badham (so affecting as Scout in MOCKINGBIRD) wearing Natalie's tattered dress, as she wanders off along the railroad track ....

[A flashback: London, 1968 - that summer of love. I am walking along Kings Road, Chelsea with my pal Stan, we are both 22, and someone hands us a flyer for the forthcoming Doors/Jefferson Airplane all-nighter at the Roundhouse in Camden, which I am going to with my hippie friends (Doors label). We enter a clothes boutique and a trim petite dark-haired woman with an American accent who is sitting on a stool, asks me what the flyer in my hand is for, so I show her and she asks if she can have it, so I say sure and give it to her. We leave the shop and are walking along when we both turn and look at each other and say "That was Natalie Wood"!. - it probably was, as it was between her marriages to Wagner when she was married and based in the UK. ..]

More '50s dramas coming up: Monty Clift in De Sica's TERMINAL STATION  and SUDDENLY LAST SUMMER, return visits to BONJOUR TRISTESSE and others ..and the '60s HURRY SUNDOWN, THE CHASE, and Paul Newman as HARPER, and for comic relief John Wayne (iconic in the '50s, a toupeed dinosaur in the '70s) as BRANNIGAN unleashed on a trashy '70s London ....its delirious!
PS: I just ordered a compendium of Tennessee Williams stories - we need more Tennessee! - I particularly liked his THREE PLAYERS OF A SUMMER GAME collection, featuring two stunning stories TWO ON A PARTY and THE MALEDICTION, which have stayed with me, it will be great to read them again here. 

Faye's hit and miss in 1968

Marilyn and Doris were those early '60s blondes then, along with Kim and Janet, and then Julie Christie and Catherine Deneuve emerged as big mid-60s stars (see posts below..) and then a new girl arrived, fresh from Broadway: Faye Dunaway - THE HAPPENING and HURRY SUNDOWN got her going in 1966 and of course nothing was bigger then than BONNIE AND CLYDE with that new fashion look in 1967 and then she consolidated that in 1968 ...

It was very enjoyable relaxing with THE THOMAS CROWN AFFAIR again one afternoon last week ... where Faye gives a masterclass on how to walk into a movie and/or arrive at an airport. This plays like a perfect late '60s movie now, with all those '60s fashions (Faye's are by Theodora Van Runkle), split screens, and that lovely score by Michel Legrand. Faye has a staggering outfit and hairstyle for each scene - the airport, at the auction (that big black hat), that wispy chiffon dress for the chess playing scene etc. Her Vicki Anderson is a terrific creation, the investigator who will stop at nothing (like fixing up schlub Jack Weston, one of the bank robbers) to nab that daring bank-robber. She knows right away it is Steve McQueen who is the mastermind behind the 5 strangers who never met before ...

A debonair, adventuresome bank executive believes he has pulled off the perfect multi-million dollar heist, only to match wits with a sexy insurance investigator who will do anything to get her man.

Steve is terrific here too - the definition of cool. I find he works best opposite a strong attractive leading lady: Natalie Wood in LOVE WITH THE PROPER STRANGER, Lee Remick in BABY THE RAIN MUST FALL (I really have to re-visit these...) and Faye here - I had no interest in his macho heroics, apart from as part of the gang in THE GREAT ESCAPE or of course BULLITT (but I never wanted to see LE MANS, PAPILLON or THE SAND PEBBLES ...) With his Thomas Crown here its never about the money, but beating the system, as he relaxes in his luxurious town house, goes hang-gliding (cue that song...) or drives his beach buggy along the sand.

Norman Jewison's caper (shot by Haskell Wexler, edited by Hal Ashby) is still a delight now - unlike most heist movies the robberies here are almost incidental and are glossed over quickly with all those split screens. Then he decides to do it again - to test Vicki as she has to realise which side she is on.  I still remember vividly sitting at the local Odeon cinema with my best pal Stan seeing this on release, as we lapped it up - and that marvellous climax with Faye in closeup at the churchyard as Steve flies away in his jet. It was pure movie star gloss.  Vicki is a great role which she attacks with relish - interestingly Anouk Aimee said in that recent interview a few weeks ago, that it was one role she would have liked. Much as I like Anouk I can't quite picture her here. The film though does seem influenced by her big hit UN HOMME ET UNE FEMME, (that othe major '60s glossy movie) as Jewison - like Lelouch - also depicts that '60s good life - as our glossy glamorous couple relax at the beach, in restaurants, playing polo etc. La dolce vita indeed. An essential '60s movie then - a colour supplement in celluloid.

It was a busy time for Norman Jewison: those early Judy Garland tv shows, Doris Day hits like THE THRILL OF IT ALL and SEND ME NO FLOWERS, THE CINCINNATI KID (with Tuesday Weld again, and Ann-Margret), the huge success of IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT which we loved in 1967, then on to FIDDLER ON THE ROOF etc. I know the remake of THOMAS CROWN is quite good and different, I shall have to give it a go then ...

A fascinating contrast then to Faye's next one, an MGM art-house glossy made in Italy with maestro Vittorio de Sica, and Marcello Mastroianni as co-star ... A PLACE FOR LOVERS. It should have been fantastic, but turned out to be one of the great bad films (almost a Trash Classic) that has not been seen in decades.  Here she is Julia, a divorced American fashion designer, who is dying of a tragic, incurable disease so with only days left to live, she flees from her clinic to Italy and on impulse contacts a man she met once briefly .... this is a laughably awful concoction about two jetset people in luxurious environments which all the high gloss and stunning scenery cannot improve. It took 5 writers (including Tonino Guerra and Cesare Zavattini) to come up with this plodding tale?

"They're rich, they're glamorous, they're beautiful, they're in love... nothing could part them. Except Julia is suffering from a terminal illness, and is bound to die in a matter of days." - as an IMDB reviewer puts it. Yes its one of those movie maladies that strike down heroines who still look marvellous as they expire. LOVE STORY two years later in 1970 hit the motherlode, while  A PLACE FOR LOVERS was quickly forgotten. We start with Faye arriving at a deserted Italian palazzo which she wanders around for ages while Ella Fitzgerald croons the theme song, while we worry about her luggage left outside (its still there next morning when Marcello arrives). Later the Alpine scenery is a marvellous backdrop to our anguished lovers - he is improbably told of her malady over the telephone ... she then tries to teach the Italian how to respond to Negro spirituals ...then we have the scene where she gives away all her fancy outfits to the peasant girl on the farm ...

That '60s Alpine chalet chic ...

  
Faye though gives it her all and looks stunning - this was her goddessy high-glamour era after all (Kazan's THE ARRANGEMENT was another terrific role for her in 1969, then there was 1970's PUZZLE OF A DOWNFALL CHILD, another to re-see) - I had a glossy still of her from this one on my wall at the time. Marcello of course is as per usual. Our lovers here did become lovers in real life for a few years ... before Mastroianni took up with Catherine Deneuve. Faye writes interestingly about it in her fascinating memoir "Looking for Gatsby". 

The Towerning Inferno

The '70s were good for Faye too: we loved her wicked Milady in Lester's MUSKETEERS films (she and Michael York, right - did two blondes ever look better together?), then her stunning Evelyn Mulwray in Polanski's CHINATOWN - she and Roman may have had one of the great feuds but it is as much her film as Nicholson's, her twisted heroine is the dark heart of the film, it was an Oscar worthy performance. She picked up the award though for NETWORK in 1976, that still stunning satire on television which resonates even more now. (More on that when I get around to Peter Finch ...).

I saw her on the stage in London in the '80s in that interesting play CIRCE AND BRAVO (Theatre label). Some ill-advised films followed (did she have to do Winner's THE WICKED LADY? - and her MOMMIE DEAREST still polarises viewers - Pauline Kael was very perceptive about it, calling her Joan Crawford "a warrior", but the film itself looked like a sitcom of Joan Crawford movie moments), but Faye is still a force to reckon with.

Cannes Festival poster 2011

This is part of what I said about her in a 2010 post: "All careers that endure for decades have peaks and troughs and Faye's is no exception. It would be nice if there was another great part for her - perhaps MASTERCLASS? (like Julie Christie got with AWAY FROM HER - which should have got Julie her 2nd oscar 40+ years after her first; Julie and Faye though embody the '60s and '70s).

It was good seeing Faye getting on famously with Jonathan Ross on his TV show [its on YouTube] here in the UK last year, [unlike the interviewer who needled her about Polanski], Ross is another admirer of hers, but as usual before she could steer the conversation around to the film she was promoting then [whatever happened to that?] she had to go through, once again, how great it was to work with Newman, Redford, McQueen, Nicholson, Brando etc. Most 'civilians' don't have to recall what they were doing or who they were working with 40 years ago or be constantly reminded of their brilliant younger selves (or indeed have their rants on the telephone broadcast worldwide, as per that YouTube clip). Its tough being a working actress in your '60s these days..."