1963: A castle in Sweden ...

Here's a rarity: CHATEAU EN SUEDE a French film by Roger Vadim from 1963 that never got aired here. I was in London from 1964 and it never showed up here at all, despite that cast ..... and its from a play by Francoise Sagan (BONJOUR TRISTESSE, GOODBYE AGAIN, A CERTAIN SMILE etc). I have now got an Italian only dvd, so while I miss on a lot of talkiness, its fun watching it from this remove.

We start with police cars arriving in modern Stockholm and then the cops visit the castle - English title is A CASTLE IN SWEDEN or, as IMDB call it: NUTTY, NAUGHTY CHATEAU - but it isn't that risque. 
Everyone seems to wear period clothes at the castle as the bored occupants toy with each other: the owner Curt Jurgens is married to husky Monica Vitti, whose incestuous dandy brother is also to hand- a typical role for Jean-Claude Brialy. Jean-Louis Trintignant is the student who visits and soon he and Monica are exchanging long lingering glances, to the chagrin of Brialy. There is also Suzanne Flon as Curt's sister, and Sylvie as the old grand-mother, and also - though I don't know what she is doing here - is French pop girl Francoise Hardy. 

Now,we like Francoise a lot (see label) but she is hardly acting here. Monica gets to do a bit of comedy after those Antonioni roles. It is set in winter so the castle is surrounded by snow, It is obviously a play though as people sit around and talk a lot. 

Its all rather fitfully amusing, and fills a blank in one's viewing, its at least fun seeing these 60s stars in their early prime here. 

Amour, again

Another recent classic its been a pleasure to re-watch is Michael Haneke's 2012 prize-winner AMOUR, also of course a rather painful watch as it deals with a subject we would rather not think about: how people age and fade away ... we see or saw it happen to our parents ... this is a meditation on age and what it does to us as we spend time with that ageing couple in their well-appointed Paris apartment and how they suddenly have to deal with infirmity and its indignities ... this is what I wrote back in 2012:

AMOUR, the second Michael Haneke film in a row to win the Palme d'Or at Cannes is an instant art-house classic, a chamber-piece about love but also mostly about impending death ... a devastating, but humane memento mori, for those - like me - who have been witness to the decline and deaths of our parents .... I fear London is becoming provincial in regard to European films. The buzz about AMOUR started back in May when it won at Cannes (see French label) - but we have had to wait till November for it to open here. 

In a pair of heartbreaking performances Jean-Louis Trintignant and Emmanuelle Riva play Georges and Anne, retired married music teachers enjoying a comfortable old age, (in their 80s so things cannot continue indefinitely). They are happy in their Paris apartment with their books and music and occasional concerts, and are devoted to each other after a long marriage. The films opens with an unsettling flash-forward which renders all that follows a foregone conclusion, as fire-men break into the locked apartment: one morning at breakfast Anne suffers a small stroke. We are shown her deterioration in all its horror as she gradually loses control ...... Georges tends to her with devotion as she makes him promise she will not be put into hospital ...... then there is his final act of devotion, and the aftermath.

Haneke here gives us a love story, compassionate and intelligent, there is also a ghost story element. The two stars are superlative, as is Isabelle Huppert as their daughter, who leads her own life and tries to tell her father what to do, but in vain..I only know Riva (now 88) best from Melville's LEON MORIN PRETE (Riva label), while Trintignant is one of France's leading men ever since Vadim's AND GOD CREATED WOMAN, and an attractive presence in films like LE JEU DE LA VERITE and ATLANTIS CITY UNDER THE DESERT, as well as those hits we still like, like Lelouch's UN HOMME ET UNE FEMME, Bertolucci's THE CONFORMIST, Costa-Garvas' Z, Rohmer's MY NIGHT WITH MAUD, Chabrol's LES BICHES , and I have recently acquired several of his with Romy Schneider (at least 3) to see and review soon. This is my first Haneke film, but I am now curious to see the others like THE WHITE RIBBON and HIDDEN. It would be perfect to see Trintignant and Riva (now in their 80s) nominated for awards .... if only for their courage here in showing what age does to  us. AMOUR isn't for everyone, but for those who have first-hand experience of parental decline, it will be a profound and moving experience, not depressing but cathartic.

AMOUR remains a tender, scrupulous, rigorous, demanding, two-hour examination of a romance well beyond boundaries, as it shows human existence in its most intimate and most elegiac state.

Summer blasts: Pompeii & Atlantis

POMPEII, 2014. We like a good Pompeii film and there have been a few, I rather liked the Steve Reeves one from 1959 again recently, and an odd French one SINS OF POMPEII from 1951 (see Peplums label for reviews), and there was a rather good tv series circa 2010, though nothing could beat Robert Harris's novel "Pompeii" published in 2009. 

I don’t usually go for CGI spectacles, but this has everything a Peplum fan wants: its a vivid comic strip featuring gladiators and brutal action in the arena, romance, intrigue and villainy, plus the volcano finally going up in flames about the half-way point. Great tsunami too and the harbour looks good. Paul W.S. Anderson orchestrates it all, with Kit Harington leading the cast, Kiefer Sutherland is main villain. The plot of course is the usual mix of gladiators, slaves, noblewomen, and twisted, evil Romans. I have already seen it twice in as many days! QUO VADIS was also on again yesterday afternoon - how they spoil us.

Great fun too is the 1961 JOURNEY BENEATH THE DESERT or L'ATLANTIDE or ANTINEA, set in the mythical city of Atlantis, which it seems did not sink into the sea, but is actually under the sands of the Sahara! 
This dotty farrago by Edgar C Ulmer (replacing an ill Frank Borzage) concerts a helicopter crew of mining engneers whose machine crashes in a desert sandstorm and the crew wind up in the underground city of Atlantis, which is presided over by Queen Antinea. They get involved in a slave revolt as an atomic bomb will be tested nearby, destroying her kingdom, unless they can escape within 24 hours. 
The Queen though falls for one of our gallant crew, but she has a habit of killing her former lovers and encasing them in gold - she has a whole gallery full of them. Haya Harareet - so right in BEN-HUR - plays her like a burlesque queen, and is dressed accordingly, and of course she has a pet leopard on a chain. 

Jean-Louis Trintignant though confrms how remarkably handsome he was when he was young.
This is a ropey version of an earlier classic by G.W. Pabst, and the story also has echoes of Rider Haggard's SHE. There ws also a tacky '40s version SIREN OF ATLANTIS with Maria Montez, which I must look at sometime .... It is all quite amusing, a Trash Classic providing camp fun for rainy matinees ....  

The Anouk look

There is hardly a more glamorous couple in movies than Anouk Aimee and Marcello Mastroianni in LA DOLCE VITA - did Anouk pioneer that sunglasses at night look ? 

This is a favourite movie sequence of mine: the "Samba Saravah" (below) from LeLouch's 1966 UN HOMME ET UNE FEMME, I love how the film is cut to the music .... this is that mid-60s high life in aspic. I used to play that soundtrack all the time.

I also like Anouk as JUSTINE, a troubled production and now a trash classic, released in 1969. She and Michael York (above) make another perfect pair. 
 
Anouk is still going strong at 80, and looks as marvellous as ever, and remains one of the most mysterious French actresses. I like her early movies too like THE GOLDEN SALAMANDER when she was a teenager, THE LOVERS OF VERONA, MONTPARNASSE 19, Demy's LOLA, and we can't forget her slinky lesbian queen in SODOM AND GOMORRAH, or Fellini's 8 1/2, or Altman's PRET-A-PORTER, and have several of hers yet to see, like UN SOIR, UN TRAIN avec Montand. 
It would surely have been interesting if she and Albert Finney had worked together during their marriage.
Here she is in New York earlier this year, introducing new prints of Demy's LOLA  and JUSTINE ... More Anouk at label.

Romy x 4

I counted I have 38 of the 62 films featuring Romy Schneider (1938-1982), one of the most prolific stars of the 60s and 70s in European and international cinema, who became a leading player in French cinema as well - particularly with those 5 Claude Sautet titles - see Romy label, for reviews and my other comments on her. Romy has always been a particular favourite of mine (along with those other Euopean ladies like Sophia, Monica, Anouk, Silvana..) ever since I saw those SISSI films as a child. What kitschfests they are now .... 
Being so busy she also made some duds - 1969's MY LOVER MY SON must be about the worst! The early '60s saw her becoming a prestige player in those international films like THE TRIAL, THE CARDINAL, THE VICTORS, BOCCACCIO 70, WHATS NEW PUSSYCAT etc. 
Above: PARIS MATCH's issue covering her death, which I still have, with 46 pages on her!
I have about 10 Romys yet to see, here's just 4 for now .... 2 late '50s ones (CHRISTINE with Delon) and AN ANGEL ON EARTH, plus the '73 THE LAST TRAIN (one of her 4 with Trintignant) and her last film in 1982: LE PASSANTE DE SANS SOUCI. 

CHRISTINE, 1958 - turns out to be a pleasant surprise and fits in with my recent viewing here - like LA RONDE it too is from a story by Arthur Schnitzler, which was also filmed as LIEBELEI by Max Ophuls in 1933, starring Magda Schneider, Romy's mother. The 1958 version looks great with that bright Technicolour as we are back again in 1906 Vienna with those costume balls, nights at the opera, horses and carriages carrying lovers to secret assignations, those dragoons in their blue and red uniforms and pretty girls in pretty dresses. Like the SISSI films it is all a bit kitsch, but this one has a bitter ending. Dragoons Alain Delon and pal Jean-Claude Brialy meet some new girls, but Delon has been carrying on an affair with mature woman Micheline Presle (so good in Losey's BLIND DATE in '59) who is the wife of his senior officer, who is getting suspicious ... 

after he meets nice girl Christine (whose father plays cello in the opera orchestra) he breaks off the affair with the Baroness, but by now her husband finds out and sets a trap for them, and challenges Delon to a duel - I won't reveal the ending, but it is very bittersweet .... one amusing moment is at the Opera as Christine giggles when we see the aged emperor Franz Joseph in attendance - she had of course by then finished playing his wife SISSI.

Romy is delightful here, but Delon in one of his first roles seems to merely go through the motions - it would take his next, PLEIN SOLEIL with Rene Clement and ROCCO with Visconti, to make him mature as an actor. Directed by Pierre Gaspard-Huit. This was Schneider's first French film and her voice was dubbed as her French was not yet good enough.

AN ANGEL ON EARTH (EIL ENGEL AUF ERDEN). Another early Schneider, this 1959 comedy is quite a rarity. Romy here is an airline hostess secretly in love with frequent flier Henri Vidal, who is about to marry his vacant and mean fiance Michele Mercier. Romy plays two roles - she is also Vidal's guardian angel who has to steer him in the right direction towards the hostess. It is an amusng comedy with nice locations, Vidal (who died that year aged 40 - see label) has young Jean-Paul Belmondo (before his big break in BREATHLESS) as his rather gormless sidekick.

THE TRAIN (or THELAST TRAIN). Not Frankenheimer’s 1965 train in France evading the Nazis, but another equally desperate French train, also evading the Nazis, in this rarely-seen 1973 French film by Pierre Granier-Deferre, from a Simenon tale. It is 1940 and the French are moving out of the way of advancing Germans, ordindary guy Jean-Louis Trintignant joins the train with his pregnant wife and daughter. They get a seat in first class, he is back at the rear in the cargo wagon, with other refugees including mystery woman Anna (Romy). They are gradually drawn together, while the others (including Regine, Anne Wiazemsky Nike Arrighi), drink, fight, play cards, and even engage in sex. They are strafed by enemy planes causing the deaths of some; the part of the train containing his family is sent in a different direction leaving our two leads alone together. 
This is an engrossing, slow-moving drama, with the two leads (one of 4 films they made together) stripped down to their emotional cores. Schneider in particular is very effective, in this her great era in French cinema. There is a coda that takes place 3 years later … It all looks just right with great period feel and Granier-Deferre paces it nicely. (He also did another Simenon I have been meaning to see: THE WIDOW COUDERC, with another great team in Signoret and Delon). 

LE PASSANTE DE SANS SOUCI, 1982. Knowing this was Romy's last film inevitably colours how we view it. It is a standard revenge story, from a story by Joseph Kessel, with lots of flashbacks, as successful businessman Max Baumstein (Michel Poccoli) explains why he shot the president he was visiting. Romy plays two roles, one in the present as Max's wife Lina, and the other as Elsa Weiner back in 1930s Germany ... who with her husband Michel (Helmut Griem) raised the young Jewish Max as if he were their own child. Events (the rise of the Nazis who wreck Michel's printing business), force Elsa and Max to move to Paris, where she sings in a nightclub and attracts the attention of Matthieu Carriere, one of the Nazis in waiting, while Michel is in a concentration camp .... eventually she does what she has to do to get Michel released, but there is no happy ending for them.
The adult Max tracks down Carriere, now that President he is visiting on behalf on his foundation. We see the court case and the aftermath. It is a rich, complex, involving story. Romy in the modern section does not have much to do, but interplays nicely with Piccoli a decade or so after their Claude Sautet hits (Romy label) - they must have done at least 5 films together. She shines as Elsa in the flashbacks, looking after the young Max, coping with drink and heartbreak (after the death of her own son).  I was in Paris in 1982 and posters for this were everywhere, nice to finally see it at last.

We will be reporting later on the supposedly gruesome THE INFERNAL TRIO (also with Piccoli in '74, FANTASMA D'AMORE (GHOST OF LOVE) with Marcello in '81 - which surprisingly never played in London and is only available in Italian; LE MOUTON ENRAGE also with Trintignant, plus THE LADY BANKER, WOMAN AT HER WINDOW, Sautet's MADO, Jean-Claude Brialy's UN AMOUR DE PLUIE with Nino Castelnuovo, and some more ... and I love going back to WHAT'S NEW PUSSYCAT? and yes, SISSI ....

Some more forgotten French flicks

We have been looking at a handful of French film noirs from the late '50s/early '60s, some directed by actor Robert Hossein, who also features in some. These kind of popular French thrillers never got shown much outside of France, not being arthouse or 'New Wave' enough?

Delon and Belmondo may have been the flashy French actors, with Trintignant scooping up those 'arty' roles (Z, THE CONFORMIST, LES BICHES, MY NIGHT WITH MAUD) as well as popular crossover hits (UN HOMME ET UNE FEMME) while the less-flashy Maurice Ronet and Hossein played all sorts of roles in all kinds of movies, (Ronet label), and then there were Jacques Perrin, Jean Sorel, Jean-Claude Brialy and Gerard Blain (Gerard Philipe and Henri Vidal both died in 1959, while older guys like Yves Montand grew in stature) .... I also have Hossein to see in WARRIOR'S REST with Bardot, and he has starred with Loren, Vitti and so many others. He has been still acting too until recently, in his 80s. He and Jean Sorel are a terrific team in that Duviviver discovery I liked a few years back: CHAIR DE POULE (HIGHWAY PICKUP) - Hossein, Sorel labels.

Hossein & Loren in MADAME SANS GENE- we have not seen it since 1961.

THE WICKED GO TO HELL (LES SALAUDS VONT EN ENFER) is a stunningly effective thriller directed by Hossein, who also plays a small part, from 1955 -  BASTARDS GO TO HELL would be a better translation, as we watch two brutal criminals in jail: Henri Vidal and Serge Reggiani. They make their escape after some drama featuring a theatrical comrade (who sings, dances and stripteases) whom one assumes is gay, but his wife comes to visit demanding a divorce whereupon he promptly hangs himself! Our two opportunists see their chance and shoot their way out of prison and escape in a car - so far, so brutal. But there is more to come - Serge gets his leg infected and can barely walk as they struggle over an endless rough terrain and finally arrive at an isolated beachside shack, where we find lovely Marina Vlady (all of 17) as the model living with an artist - whom our thugs promptly shoot. An odd menage forms between the girl, mainly silent and with few lines, and the two guys who bicker among themselves as Eve - a suitable name - comes between them and plots her own revenge. Finally the guys get the car repaired and prepare to leave, but things do not pan out quite as they intend, with the local quicksand also making an appearance .... This is smart, brutal, funny in parts.

Marina Vlady (sister of Odile Versois) is a fascinating presence here. She married Hossein and they had 2 children, but the marriage only lasted 4 years.

Henri Vidal cast against type is a splendid tough guy - what a shame he died aged 40 in 1959, he was married to Michele Morgan. (We have seen him in other movies here, French label: Clement's LES MAUDITS, ATTILA with Loren, and coming up will be 2 with Bardot: UNE PARISIENNE and DANCE WITH ME, and a 1959 Romy Schneider comedy AN ANGEL ON EARTH, which also has the young Belmondo.

LE MONTE-CHARGE (SERVICE ELEVATOR or PARIS PICKUP!) is a splendid thriller from 1962, by Marcel Bluwal. Hossein is a released prisoner, on his own and walking the streets on Christmas Eve, seeing all the happy people around him. He eats a solitary meal in a restaurant and notices an attractive woman (Lea Massari) with her young daughter. Does she also notice him and decide he will be suitable for her scheme? They get talking and he helps her carry the sleepy child home, where she invites him in and pours a drink ..... the audience wonders where we are going with this scenario - who is plotting against whom? and how the service elevator play a part? It has a lot of suspense and unexpected twists as we try to second guess what is going on ... a dead body turns up - her husband - there is a lot of Couzot or Duvivier influence here. It is set in a large factory, closed for the holidays, but with that elevator to the private apartment. IMDb says "startling surprises, revelations and numerous cinematic pleasures". If only my copy's sub-titles did not run off the screen .... so could not be seen.

LE JEU DE LA VERITE - a brilliant 1961 thriller, directed by Hossein, with gleaming black and white images and an all-star cast: Jean-Louis Trintignant, Francoise Prevost, Nadia Gray, Paul Meurisse, Jean Servais, Daliah Lavi among the dozen society people gathered at a writer's mansion. Its like an Agatha Christie whodunit, as they mingle, make small talk, but each has something to hide, and someone gets murdered .... Hossein plays the detective who enters to solve the case as each suspect is grilled. Fascinating viewing then.

CHAIR DE POULE:

http://osullivan60.blogspot.co.uk/2011/04/fantastic-french-flick.html

Two more French thrillers, both starrring Danielle Darrieux:

MARIE-OCTOBRE – Its been a pleasure discovering Julien Duvivier’s French thrillers, like CHAIR DE POULE or Gabin in VOICI LE TEMPS DES ASSASSINS. Here we have Danielle Darrieux heading the cast of Duvivier's 1959 mystery. This plays like another Agatha Christie who-done-it as Marie (her code name) gathers together her wartime resistance group, all now doing well and prosperous, as she has just found out that one of them is a traitor who betrayed their group to the Nazis 15 years earlier, resulting in the death of her lover. Who was it? Who will break first? Each one of the group comes under suspicion, even Marie herself, and their faithful retainer Victorine. It is intriguing and entertaining if a little talky and confined to one set. The cast is the thing here, some of France’s finest: Paul Muerisse, Lino Ventura, Serge Reggiani, Bernard Blier, and Paul Guers, who is now a priest. Darrieux is fabulously glamorous and sophisticated here (she runs a fashion house).

MURDER AT 45 RPM (MEURTRE EN 45 TOURS). Interesting French 1960 thriller by Etienne Perier, from a story by Boileau & Narcejac, so we know nothing will be what it seems. Danielle Darrieux is the star here, effortlessy chic and in command as the popular singer whose obsessive husband Jean Servais writes and composes her hits. She and her piano player Michel Auclair are in love and Servais knows and delights in tormenting them. He continues tormenting them after his supposed death in a car accident … as the lovers each think the other killed him. But is he really dead? This is a satisfying re-tread of those familiar themes from LES DIABOLIQUES or VERTIGO, Nice period detail too as the lovers get those disks with messages on which they play on those period record players. 

Soon: Darrieux in some French classics: LA RONDE, MADAME DE... Here's a memory of her 1967 LES DEMOISELLES DE ROCHEFORT, a Jacques Demy favourite - see Demy label. (also new editions of those 2 early Chabrol classics: LE BEAU SERGE and LES COUSINS.)

A is for Amour & Anouk, B is for BB, Body Heat & BBM, S is for The Servant (with Q&A!)

Miscellaneous items that caught my attention over the weekend:

A is for AMOUR. The dvd of Michael Haneke's Cannes prize-winner and arthouse crossover is out today, and I should have mine in today's post. Its not hard to understand its success - we all have to deal with ageing and death, and witness our parents' decline .... This was my film of the year last year (French, Trintignant labels), it is though a pitiless drama showing what ageing does to us. Watch it and weep ... event cinema is rarely this grim. We observe two highly intelligent people, deeply in love, as we clinically observe their end ... the devotion of the frail husband (Trintignant in his 80s) caring for his ailing wife will stay with you for days ... it reminds me so much of  my parents (though their situation was reversed). Haneke tops and tails the film just right.

A is also for Anouk: We were having an interesting discussion over at IMDB (The Internet Movie Database) on UN HOMME ET UNE FEMME - it is still a very well regarded French movie, maybe THE French movie for those who don't usually like French movies ? ! Lots of love too for Anouk Aimee and Jean-Louis Trintignant ... I have posted on it before here, at Anouk label - but I feel like watching it again now, particularly that "Samba Saravah" sequence. Sheer '60s glamour bliss ...

B is for Brigitte ... The French Institute here in London is currently running a mini-season on Brigitte Bardot at their Cine Lumiere cinema in Kensington. They are only showing a handful of BB films, but they remind us that she had developed into a considerable actress before her other passsions for animals and their welfare took hold, though unlike Sophia born the same year 1934, BB was never that dedicated to her career. She is certainly stunning in the iconic AND GOD CREATED WOMAN in 1956, left, where she is a new archtype, like the female James Dean!
See Bardot label for review of one of my favourites: HEAVEN FELL THAT NIGHT, that Vadim scorcher from 1958 with BB and Stephen Boyd both in their prime. - they were less so a decade later in that dreadful western SHALAKO where she seemed bored with it all and her '60s look was all wrong for this 1890s western ...

her last great outing was really in Malle's VIVA MARIA that international hit from 1966, where she is playful and fun and oh so glamorous with Malle and Moreau. She was lovely too as Helen's handmaiden in HELEN OF TROY in 1955 and with Bogarde in DOCTOR AT SEA ....  '50s glamour then!

We also revisited two favourites on tv over the weekend:

BODY HEAT from 1982, a discovery from last year with Kathleen Turner as one of the great femme fatales ... I love her first appearance as she walks past our dumb hero Ned Racine as the breeze ripples her white dress showing some thigh, you can feel the heat .... then theres that zingy dialogue. 80s glamour !  (review at Turner label).

Also, another wallow at BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN - still one of the great movie dramas ... though I still think why couldn't they have run off to San Francisco or some other big city (like so many other small town/country boys did) and opened a jeans store - they could still be cowboys! - and not ruin so many lives and be more fulfilled themselves. Ang Lee's direction (so good to see him getting another best director award this year, though I am not so sure if I want to see his new one ...) and the performances remain superlative - that moment with Ledger locked into himself, eating his apple pie in the diner, is a heart-breaking moment I won't forget - let along that climax with his visit to Jack's parents, which speaks volumes. Interesting too how Jack Twist begins to meet other people (is this what leads to his murder?), as Ennis cannot see a future for them together, ... including that nicely judged scene with that other husband who casually but eagerly invites Jack to his weekend log cabin, for drinking and outdoor pursuits ... oh those cowboys!

This year is also the 50th anniversary of Losey's THE SERVANT, that ground-breaker from 1963, and the BFI has some screenings lined up. Its easy to forget quite how creepy and daring this was back then, the early '60s was still the era of Norman Wisdom comedies in England, and Bogarde's war movies like THE PASSWORD IS COURAGE and HMS DEFIANT. There was of course that British "New Wave" led by Tony Richardson with A TASTE OF HONEY, Schlesinger with A KIND OF LOVING, and Dirk's VICTIM but then it was back to fluff like DOCTOR IN DISTRESS ...  

THE SERVANT though changed all that, as scripted by Harold Pinter from Robin Maugham's novella. Set is that very Losey house - all those mirrors - (off Kings Road, Chelsea) with that score by John Dankworth and the terrific Cleo Laine song "All Gone", it focuses on Barrett taking over the house of indolent young master James Fox, and soon we have Vera (Sarah Miles) whom Barrett introduces as his sister, and Wendy Craig as the displaced girlfriend.  
1963 was just when things were starting to change as the '60s got underway, the year of the first Beatles album as pop and mod and fashion took off. Of course it was also the year of the Profumo scandal. With his outsider's eye Losey picked up on the absurdities of the British class system ... THE SERVANT continues to fascinate and remains a key Losey-Bogarde film, more on it at Losey, Bogarde, Miles, Fox labels. Hard to think that those '63 classics like THE BIRDS and HUD, LE FEU FOLLET and BAY OF ANGELS are also 50 years old .... they just don't feel like old movies! '60s decadence! plus '63's BILLY LIAR, CHARADE and THE LEOPARD as well ...

PS: I am now attending a screening of THE SERVANT with a Q&A afterwards by surviving cast members James Fox, Sarah Miles and Wendy Craig, at The Curzon, Mayfair on Sunday 24 March, 2.45pm. As I saw Bogarde and Losey in interview in 1970, I felt I had to be at this one too ... more on that next week! (and Sarah is a 'People We Like' on here ...).