If its Tuesday this must be Belgium - 1969

A friend who works in travel wanted to re-see this, so I got a copy for him - its passably amusing, dealing with a coach tour of Europe in the Sixties, taking in nine countries in eighteen days. The usual predictable comedy situations take place, ticking off each nation's stereotypes. The American tourists are mainly schlubs married to nagging wives, or rampant lechers .... at least Mildred Natwick, Murray Hamilton, Norman Fell try to create characters, while the leads are tour guide Ian McShane who of course has a girl in every country, and Suzanne Pleshette, looking and sounding marvellous here, as the romantic interest on the trip. The movie is Suzanne's all the way. 

Directed by Mel Stewart, the only point of interest here is the endless walk-ons by assorted European stars who turn up for a minute or less each. There's Anita Ekberg, Elsa Martinelli, Virna Lisi, Senta Berger, Catherine Spaak, Joan Collins (whom I did not even spot so tiny is her appearance), at least Vittorio De Sica gets a few minutes as a wily shoemaker. and Donovan sings the drippy theme song, and Patricia Routledge is the bossy London guide. 

There is one shot at the start of Ben Gazzara and John Cassavetes playing cards - why? it is like they are in a different film, Its hippies and mini skirts all the way, made palatable for the great family audience, 

It catches that late Sixties look and would actually be a good double bill with BUONA SERA, MRS CAMPBELL, that other late 60s look at American tourists in Europe ..... but its hardly essential cinema.

Summer re-runs: a summer place in Rome

"A cannily crafted piece of work with mass audience appeal" - The Warner Bros. Story

A SUMMER PLACE: Sandra Dee and Troy Donahue star in this enduring favourite about desire and tumult at an elite Maine resort, from the best-seller by Sloan Wilson. In his first movie lead, Donahue is strong, handsome and unshakably devoted as lovestruck Johnny Hunter. 17 year old Dee is pixieish Molly, a woman/child struggling to cope with adult emotions. Set to a lush Max Steiner score that produced one of the most unforgettable movie themes ever, this box-office hit also stars adults (Dorothy McGuire, Richard Egan, Arthur Kennedy, Constance Ford) also romantically at odds. As Johnny, Molly and their parents discover, love will find a way. They've already found the locale: A Summer Place. 

Any iconography from that great year 1959 has to include that shot (above) of Troy and Sandra from A SUMMER PLACE,  one of the year's popular hits up there with PILLOW TALK, IMITATION OF LIFE and THE BEST OF EVERYTHING - as well as the year's big hitters like BEN HUR, SOME LIKE IT HOT, NORTH BY NORTHWEST, RIO BRAVO and those adult dramas like ANATOMY OF A MURDER, SUDDENLY LAST SUMMER, ON THE BEACH, THE NUN'S STORY or ROOM AT THE TOP.  Sloane Wilson was one of those chroniclers of American middle-class mores (as in THE MAN IN THE GREY FLANNEL SUIT) and I remember his "A Summer Place" being a best-seller. I don't recall the film though turning up at my local cinema - adultery, divorce, pre-marital sex and teen pregnancy were hot potatoes and strictly off-limits in the Ireland of 50 years ago... . the teen fan mags like "Movieland and TV Time" had plenty of colour pin-ups and stories on Troy, Sandra, Connie and the rest....

Seeing it now its a well-crafted movie with the glorious scenery of Maine (or is it California?) and that great Max Steiner score (which also inspired the pop hit by Ferrante & Teicher). Richard Egan is the wealthy, mature ex-lifeguard returning to Pine Cove on vacation, with his controlling, repressed wife Constance Ford (why though does he put up with her so far?, they already sleep in separate rooms) and their daughter Molly (Dee, in that busy year for her). He really wants to see old flame Dorothy McGuire who has married alcoholic hotel owner Arthur Kennedy (first seen with a glass in his hand), their son Johnny (Troy) and Molly are soon sneaking off for romantic walks and kisses in the moonlight, and the two adults resume their affair too.
Busybody Bealah Bondi watches and is in her element. Constance consults her mother to see how she should procced to maximise her divorce. Troy looks a treat in those short shorts and cardigan, but his acting seems rather limited ... (he was ok though in those small parts in IMITATION OF LIFE and THE CROWDED SKY - Troy label). 

Constance & plastic christmas tree

Storm clouds gather as the teens are stranded on a beach all night and Molly's mother insists a doctor examine her to make sure nothing happened ... there are some good hysterical scenes here. The plot moves on, the adults divorce, Egan and McGuire marry and move to a Frank Lloyd Wright house (above), the teens are at their separate colleges but visit and it all gets rather heated again .... until the prolonged (at over 2 hours) climax. Ford is in her element here as the mother from hell. I couldn't help recalling that she and Kennedy were the mismatched parents of CLAUDELLE INGLISH, that other delicious piece of Warner trash from the early 60s, which starred Diane McBain, who pops up next with Troy in PARRISH, below... Dorothy McGuire seems an under-rated lady now, but was terrific with Cooper in FRIENDLY PERSUASION (1956), SWISS FAMILY ROBINSON and others like THE DARK AT THE TOP OF THE STAIRS (1960).

Director Delmar Daves made his name with some great westerns like DRUM BEAT (my father took me to that in 1954, one of the first westerns I saw as a kid), and the original 3.10 TO YUMA, COWBOY and that good Gary Cooper one I liked THE HANGING TREE in '59,  and he scripted WHITE FEATHER - he then turned to these lush Warner melodramas showcasing their new star Troy Donahue; the hit of A SUMMER PLACE was followed with PARRISH and SUSAN SLADE both '61 and ROME ADVENTURE in '62. He also did another Italian one THE BATTLE OF THE VILLA FIORITA in '65 which has been long unseen, and also that 1964 one I saw and reviewed a while ago: YOUNGBLOOD HAWKE (trash label) as well as SPENCER'S MOUNTAIN in '63 which became THE WALTONS. 

PARRISH is another delicious romantic saga now and was a hit too, as Parrish (Troy) and his mother (Claudette Colbert) move to tobacco country in Connecticut. The adults are great here: warring Karl Malden (also terrific in Daves' HANGING TREE) and Dean Jagger, as Parrish romances Connie Stevens, stunning Diane McBain and Sharon Hugueny. Troy looks the business and the girls, particularly McBain, are all equally showcased. Max Steiner scores again and its a lush treat for anytime. (This was as weirdly enjoyable as Elvis over at Fox romancing Hope Lange, Tuesday Weld and Millie Perkins in Jerry Wald's WILD IN THE COUNTRY. Sheer hokum.) 

SUSAN SLADE is certainly a kitsch classic now too ...but a more hysterical sudser, no wonder it has not been seen for a long time. Connie Stevens again is Susan, who has a baby out of wedlock and her mother (Dorothy McGuire again) pretends to be the infant's mother, which causes no end of melodramatics as Susan is wooed by horse-trainer Troy (love the red windbreaker jacket), while Lloyd Nolan is sterling as Susie's father. Max scores the music again and its lushly shot by Lucien Ballard.

Dear Prudence

ROME ADVENTURE, 1962, was titled LOVERS MUST LEARN here, the title of the book our librarian heroine Prudence Bell (Suzanne Pleshette in her debut) resigns over at the start and sets off for Italy to find romance. Rosanno Brazzi is of course the older Italian man who has romantic designs on Prue and Troy is also resident at the nice villa. Rome looks curiously empty as our duo explore the sights on their scooter, and we also get a travelogue of Italy taking in the leaning tower of Pisa, the Lakes and other delights. Italy was popular with Americans then: Gable with Loren in IT STARTED IN NAPLES, Rock with Gina (and Sandra!) in COME SEPTEMBER, Vivien in Rome for her ROMAN SPRING OF MRS STONE,  Minnelli's TWO WEEKS IN ANOTHER TOWN, THE LIGHT IN THE PIAZZA in Florence and Angie Dickinson as JESSICA (after Italy being discovered in the '50s by ROMAN HOLIDAY and THREE COINS IN THE FOUNTAIN. among others as that LA DOLCE VITA era took off).

Angie also co-stars here as Troy's previous lover, who leaves at the start - but, guess what, she returns (and wears a fabulously slinky ensemble to reclaim her lover at that dinner she hosts)  .... we also get Constance Ford again as the bookshop owner where Prudence works - "The American Bookshop" small on the outside but the large interior is actually the library set from Warners THE MUSIC MAN, (right). There is also another lush Steiner score and a great song "Al Di La"- its all a delirious confection as "written for the screen" (rather tongue in cheek surely as each cliche is burnished) by and directed by Daves. Troy though was not in Daves next, as it was the turn of another Warner Bros contract blonde (James Franciscus) as YOUNGBLOOD HAWKE. 
Suzanne was nice too in that one, and of course in THE BIRDS, FATE IS THE HUNTER (Suzanne label) etc, and looked just the same in WILL AND GRACE as Karen's mother! - fun too seeing her in later roles like THE QUEEN OF MEAN! She and Troy were married for a year or so ... Troy though, like Tab Hunter and Fabian, did not stay a heart-throb for too long - by the mid '60s those new guys like Beatty and Redford were taking over .... but these kitch classics by Delmar Daves have stood the test of time and are now all re-issued as a boxset with another of Troy's I do not know: PALM SPRINGS WEEKEND from '63. Troy may have had his limitations as an actor - as seen by his Romeo scene at Juliet's balcony in Verona (this was among 19 minutes of travelogue cut from the English release version! - according to the "Films & Filming" review).  Troy and Suzanne (& McBain) also did a so-so western for Raoul Walsh, A DISTANT TRUMPET in 1964, looking incongrous out west.
[Troy Donahue 1936-2001, Sandra Dee 1942-2005, Suzanne Pleshette 1937-2008].

Summer re-runs: those infernal Birds again

Tippi Hedren, 82, was in town this week for a screening of THE GIRL (that new BBC film to be shown this autumn) which has Sienna Miller playing her during the time Tippi was under contract to Hitchcock and starring in THE BIRDS and MARNIE. Its a well-documented story and advance word has it that it presents the currently revered director in a less than flattering light ... Tippi was also at an outdoor screening of THE BIRDS on Friday night at the Somerset House open air summer screenings. I just watched it again on television.

Our 'Hitchcock Summer' continues with, as per my recent posts here, the BFI showing all the films, they have a new publication out 'The 39 Steps of Alfred Hitchcock' - and television has been running some too - those essential '50s titles like REAR WINDOW, VERTIGO (the new "Sight & Sound" number one, in their latest 10-year poll. see post below), NORTH BY NORTHWEST which is a viewing staple, and PSYCHO - which stunned me again after 20 years or so - see my post below - It is perhaps the most perfectly made film of all time; a disturbing black comedy, though the humour may not be apparent on first viewing. Some see THE BIRDS as a comedy too. Though one has the dvds one simply has to watch them again - they are such rich and complex films one just enjoys them all over again and we continue to find new moments in them.

The Mattel 'Tippi being pecked' doll

I simply revel in THE BIRDS and could watch it every week. I like the opening moments with Tippi in the black outfit crossing the San Francisco street and then once she passes the newsagent kiosk there is a very neat edit and we are at the pet shop set for that first wonderful scene with Mitch Brenner and the very poised Melanie dialling the telephone with her pencil, then its into the famous green suit (with fur coat, bag, gloves) and we head off to Bodega Bay .... even the bit parts are nicely played here and of course Suzanne Pleshette and Jessica Tandy supply two other perfect roles along with Tippi. The set-pieces: the attack on the town and later the Brenner house and Melanie going up the stairs ... are still stunningly done. There has been talk of proposed remakes but why bother ....

The dvd extras are extensive showing her commercials which attracted Hitch initially, and her screen tests - Hitch engaged Martin Balsam to play scenes with her, there is also a deleted scene with Mitch and Melanie (in that nightdress she bought) talking that morning while Lydia drives to see the neighbour, which Hitch felt did not add anything. Fascinating stuff.  I now want to browse a 1976 issue of Canadian film magazine "Take One" devoted to all things Hitch. I forgot I had that! and Camille Paglia's fascinating BFI book on THE BIRDS.  I must get out that triple pack I picked up a while ago with MARNIE (which I have not seen since its release), FRENZY (ditto, with its very mixed reputation) and TORN CURTAIN - the one Hitch I never wanted to see, so maybe its time I did.

Youngblood Hawke

At last I have caught up with YOUNGBLOOD HAWKE, a 1964 delicious entry in the Trash stakes that eluded me at the time. Its long - 2 hours and 20 mintues - and in black and white like those other farragos of that time that I like (like SYLVIA, A HOUSE IS NOT A HOME - see Trash label) and finally available on Warner Archives label. Here is the tasteful blurb:

"Herman Wouk's bestseller about a Kentucky-born writer's spectacular rise and fall among the big city glitterati gets the big-screen treatment courtesy of Warner Bros master of melodrama Delmer Daves. Daves, fresh from a string of successes, recruited celebrated composer Max Steiner to score the film, adding gravitas to the glitz.
James Franciscus stars as the title character, a truck driver who arrives in New York City intent on making it as a writer. Aided by a friendly editor Jeanne Green (Suzanne Pleshette) Hawk's star is on the rise, both among the intelligentsia and the jet set. Hawk inevitaby succumbs to the lures of high society, breaking Jeanne's heart and eventually seeing his career destroyed by the jealous husband of one of his paramours."

Every cliche is lovingly polished as our truck driver hero moves to New York to take the city by storm at the hot new novelist. It must have been an important project for Daves as he also wrote the script. Wouk had written those other blockbusters like THE CAINE MUTINY and MARJORIE MORNINGSTAR - another ponderous Warners melodrama with Natalie Wood and Gene Kelly in 1958, and well worth reviewing too - so must have been a hot writer like A SUMMER PLACE's a Sloane Wilson or THE BEST OF EVERYTHING's Rona Jaffe, not to mention PEYTON PLACE's Grace Metalious. James Franciscus looks good but is rather dull - a taller duller Robert Redford - and all wrong for the hero, it needed a Steve McQueen or Paul Newman, though they had enough similar roles on their hands (like Sinatra is all wrong for me in SOME CAME RUNNING as it needed a Monty Clift or Newman rather than One-Take Frank walking through his scenes, but I digress, as usual.).

The interest here is the great cast: Suzanne Pleshette is warm and sympathetic and lovely as usual as the book editor our hero leaves for wealthy society matron Frieda, a great role for French actress Genevieve Page. She takes the trashy material and makes it something else entirely, in a better film it would have got her an Oscar nomination at least (she is as good as Simone Signoret in ROOM AT TOP). The languid Frieda soon has Youngblood installed in an actor friend's luxury apartment with a great view of the New York skyline ("did it have to be an attic?" she says on visiting his humble apartment) but she pays a hard price for her transgressions when her son falls ill ... also on hand are Mary Astor making the most of a few scenes as a famous actress, and Mildred Dunnock as Youngblood's mother. The drama is piled on with family squabbles over money, as Youngblood rises and falls when the critics fall on his latest tome, as our hero sells out but of course by the last reel comes to his senses with the real girl he loves waiting for him - after that spell in an oxygen tent (just like Carroll Baker's HARLOW, in that trashiest of trash epics, the 1965 Harlow film. It is an interesting curio now like Fox's HILDA CRANE with Jean Simmons in '56 or Warner's delirious CLAUDELLE INGLISH in '61 or even RETURN TO PEYTON PLACE ! (all at Trash label).

Delmer Daves (left, with Mary Astor) had a curious career as director: he helmed some marvellous westerns in the '50s, like DRUM BEAT (one of the first westerns I was taken to, by my father), the original 3.10 TO YUMA, COWBOY, THE HANGING TREE (that great late Cooper western in '59), and he wrote WHITE FEATHER; then he switched to those Warner melodramas of the late '50s and early '50s: A SUMMER PLACE, followed by those Troy Donahue romances for the teen set like PARRISH, SUSAN SLADE, ROME ADVENTURE which also had Suzanne Pleshette (who was briefly married to Donahue then, they also did a Roual Walsh western, his last, A DISTANT TRUMPET, and of course she made a big impression as Annie Hayward in Hitch's THE BIRDS, and I liked her in those other mellers like FATE IS THE HUNTER and A RAGE TO LIVE.

Daves though went with another blonde for YOUNGBLOOD HAWKE - but James Franciscus [1934-1991, he died age 57] is just not that charismatic. The movie is really stolen by the slinky Genevieve Page (left), whom I liked a lot in EL CID as the spiteful Princess Urraca (right) trying to get the better of Sophia Loren's Chimene, and she featured in Dirk Bogarde's SONG WITHOUT END in 1960, BELLE DE JOUR, the 1968 MAYERLING, Billy Wilder's THE PRIVATE LIFE OF SHERLOCK HOLMES in 1970, and another seducer of a callow young man, but played for laughs, in the amusing 1968 film of Waugh's DECLINE AND FALL. She is still with us in her 80s and was working until recently.

We had quite a few seductive older ladies keeping younger men in the movies then: Joan Fontaine's ritzy society dame toying with and discarding her younger lovers in SERENADE in '56 (Trash/Fontaine labels), Vivien Leigh in THE ROMAN SPRING OF MRS STONE in 1960, Patricia Neal as Paul Varjak's keeper in BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S, Page here with YOUNGBLOOD ...

More on those Troy Donahue epics soon.

Discoveries

What happens when toys aren't needed anymore?. The first TOY STORY passed me by, I had no interest in a kids' cartoon about toys, though I loved Pixar's FINDING NEMO. Now suddenly as TOY STORY 3 hits the screens, I have fallen in love with TOY STORY 2 - so will have to see the other two... TOY STORY 2 is an endlessly charming and yes moving delight with superb animation and that fabulous range of toys - I particularly like Hamm the piggy bank! But Woody and Buzz are timeless creations too. This film has more to say about friendship, loss, loyalty and the value of life itself than any of the more mature epics - there are so many delightful moments:

It is Yard Sale Day and the toys are understandably tense. You see, Yard Sale Day means that the old toys go out to the sale. Woody has reason to be nervous, he's starting to show his age. Poor Weezie the Penguin was laid forgotten on Andy's bookcase and he promptly gets put in the sale box. It's up to Woody to save him, which he does. But he gets picked up by a greedy toy-collector named Al and taken to Al's Toy Barn. Seems Woody is pretty valuable and Al wants to sell him to a toy auction. Can Buzz and friends save him in time? Jessie the Yodelling Cowgirl is played brilliantly by Joan Cusack, and the toys have to face the fact that Andy their owner is growing up and will not need them any more as he goes to high school ... its all nicely worked out and it will be fascinating and emotional seeing how TOY STORY 3 finishes and of course Barbie gets her Ken! T S 2 has that splendid scene too where they have to cross the road which is brilliantly designed and directed - Pixar are genius! I am now feeling guilty about all those toys I casually discarded as I was growing up ...!

HAIR (1979). One of my best nights in the theatre was seeing A CHORUS LINE at Drury Lane in London on my 30th birthday in 1976. When the movie came along by Attenborough with Michael Douglas I had no interest in seeing it as I just knew it would not be the same experience [or even the same story] so I have never seen it. Its the same with HAIR although I did not see the stage version, but I know it was unique as a statement about the sixties, culture, war, music and race relations. We knew the songs at the time and there have been so many versions of them. Then the movie by Milos Forman came along in 1979 with choreography by Twyla Tharp, but again I gave it a miss - as it seemed a whole new story was created for the film which of course could not replicate the stage show. But now I have seen the movie and I like it a lot. Treat Williams as Berger leads a small group of anti-war hippes living in Central Park who happen upon Claude (John Savage) new in town, who has been drafted into the US Army for service in Vietnam. Beverly D'Angelo is the society girl he falls for, and Cheryl Barnes as Hud's discarded girlfriend sings "Easy To Be Hard" which is just plain astonishing. I only knew her from singing that terrific song "Love and Passion" for the soundtrack of Schrader's AMERICAN GIGOLO for the disco scene. I also like the look of the film and of course that choreography!

The hippies though come across as selfish and think nothing of wrecking a dinner party, stealing cars or begging for money - at least Treat Williams is terrific and looks the part, with or without clothes. Some scenes pack an emotional wallop like at the start as Claude and his father wait for the bus (reminiscent of my own father and me) and those soldiers heading off overseas - still topical today. I thought the general looked familiar: its director Nicholas Ray in his last appearance! Below: Treat in Richard Lester's THE RITZ with Jack Weston under the bed, and Rita Moreno as Googie Gomez!

EXPERIMENT IN TERROR. Lee Remick (subject of a forthcoming post here) had a big hit in 1962 with Blake Edwards' DAYS OF WINE AND ROSES. Edwards and Remick got together again the same year for the tense thriller EXPERIMENT IN TERROR (called THE GRIP OF FEAR here in the U.K.!) which never gets revived now, so its been good to finally see it on dvd now. Its quite creepy actually as bank clerk Remick is persuaded by the unseen (until the climax) villain Ross Martin to steal a lot of money from her bank and he persuades her by kidnapping her younger sister Stephanie Powers. Enter Glenn Ford as the detective on the case .... its fascinating and gripping as it unfolds.

Ford is a curious case - not forgotten but regularly overlooked in lists of great stars but he was one of the most dependable players from mid-40s [GILDA!, A STOLEN LIFE] to mid-60s, being a major player in the '50s where he could do it all: westerns (THE SHEEPMAN, COWBOY, JUBAL), dramas (THE BIG HEAT, THE BLACKBOARD JUNGLE) and comedies (THE GAZEBO, THE COURTSHIP OF EDDIE'S FATHER) etc. He and Remick are a good team here and its still a very effective creepy thriller.

FATE IS THE HUNTER - Another Glenn Ford drama, from 1964, by Ralph Nelson, one of those proficient directors (like Robert Wise, J Lee Thompson, Richard Fleisher) who can work in any genre without any distinguishing trademark. This one re-unites THE BIRDS' Rod Taylor and Suzanne Pleshette as it features the aftermath of a plane crash where the only survivor is stewardess Pleshette (who is perfect here, as of course she is in everything, above with Tippi Hedren in THE BIRDS). Ford is the airline investigator whose pal Rod Taylor was the pilot of the plane so he has extra reason to discover what went wrong and quickly. The sterling cast also features Nancy Kwan who has a few scenes at the end, Jane Russell "as herself" in flashbacks and an unbilled Dorothy Malone who has a good scene as a ritzy socialite who was engaged briefly to Taylor, who is also dependable as ever here. This was a pleasant programmer at the time, good to see it again after 45+ years.