That Blow-Up bluray ...

Its better than I imagined, after only having the bog standard dvd for years. As in the recent 4-disk LUDWIG pack, there is another chunky 64 page booklet, 1960s interviews with Antonioni, two interviews with David Hemmings from 1968 and 1977, that long 2016 interview with Vanessa Redgrave, a Jane Birkin interview, a marvellous documentary featuring people involved with the making of the film, including model Jill Kennington, and more. It puts it all in proper context, and yes the park and the studio and London then in 1966 - which I knew as I was 20 there then - are all just perfect. Even the street I lived in, Draycott Place, SW3 in 1972-73, crops up, as its next to that restaurant. We return to the park and studio as they are now too. Lots more at labels ... one funny thing: the characters are never named, but Hemmings is Thomas, Vanessa is Jane, Sarah is Patricia, Castle is Bill, Bowles is Ron.
The booklet points out something I and most other viewers miss, no matter how often we have seen it. As Thomas is driving through London, after leaving the park, just as the girl puts the protest placard in his car, the car following has the Jane from the park and her accomplice (we see her in her check shirt) who are following him, which is how she is able to turn up at his studio just as he arrives back - I never got that before. They were also trying to get into his car while he is in the restaurant, but that sequence was cut short by producer Ponti. 

There were two video-cassettes of BLOW-UP, then the dvd - I always loved the soundtrack album, on vinyl and cd, and now finally the bluray - its Region 1 though, 

A new BLOW-UP

Finally, its on Blu-ray and dvd in a new Criterion edition released on 28 March. For far too long there has only been a standard dvd, with a terrible commentary track by a professor presumably discussing the film with a class of American teenagers who knew nothing about the Swinging Sixties or cast members like Vanessa Redgrave .... it is hilarious for all the wrong reasons.

I have written about Antonioni's BLOW-UP so many times already, so this is just a summary of the new edition. I was going to watch the dvd as part of my new year re-views, but we will be waiting till March now. Here is the Criterion blurb and contents:

In 1966, Michelangelo Antonioni transplanted his existentialist ennui to the streets of swinging London for this international sensation, the Italian filmmaker’s first English-language feature. A countercultural masterpiece about the act of seeing and the art of image making, Blow-Up takes the form of a psychological mystery, starring David Hemmings as a fashion photographer who unknowingly captures a death on film after following two lovers in a park. Antonioni’s meticulous aesthetic control and intoxicating color palette breathe life into every frame, and the jazzy sounds of Herbie Hancock, a beautifully evasive performance by Vanessa Redgrave, and a cameo by the Yardbirds make the film a transporting time capsule from a bygone era. Blow-Up is a seductive immersion into creative passion, and a brilliant film by one of cinema’s greatest artists.

New, restored 4K digital transfer, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray

New pieces about director Michelangelo Antonioni’s artistic approach, featuring photography curators Walter Moser and Philippe Garner and art historian David Alan Mellor

Blow Up of “Blow Up,” a 2016 documentary on the making of the film

Conversation from 2016 between Garner and actor Vanessa Redgrave

Archival interviews with Antonioni and actors David Hemmings and Jane Birkin

Trailers

PLUS: A book featuring an essay by film scholar David Forgacs, an updated 1966 account of the film’s shooting by Stig Björkman, the questionnaires the director distributed to photographers and painters while developing the film, and the 1959 Julio Cortázar short story on which the film is loosely based.

Of course the plot does not bear too much examining. How for instance, in that pre-internet world,  does the mystery woman Vanessa Redgrave turn up at the photographer's studio just as he arrives back, when she does not seem to know who he is in the park, let alone where he lives or works. They must have followed him from the park, via that detour to the Chelsea restaurant (which I used to know, as I lived near it in '72/'73). 
There was supposed to be more about someone rifling through his car there, but producer Ponti nixed the rest of that sequence. The whole murder in the park and leaving the body undiscovered there seems all a bit far-fetched, but one is swept up in the mystery of it all, and that perfect London 1966 ambience. 
I was 20 and part of it all then. It was of course the film to see and have an opinion on when it opened in London early in 1967 before going to the Cannes Festival. Terence Stamp too is on record about it, as he had been promised the part, and is still annoyed about it .... David Hemmings though delivers a major performance as the typical disillusioned Antonioni male - he had been fairly nondescript up till then,  but was soon the icon of the era. 
We just love the images and the spaces - that park, that studio, London changing as it was then, and that perfect Herbie Hancock soundtrack, which has stayed with me, on vinyl, CD, and ipod. Now for the Blu-ray ...

If you’ve never seen Blowup before, prepare yourself for one of the cinema’s most unique experiences. If you have seen it before, prepare as well for rediscovering—much like the film’s hero—something you only thought you knew.

Festive cheer 4

A final Christmas movie choice is 2007's HOW ABOUT YOU? - I don't know if it even opened back then, but its a pleasing end of year amusement. If you are going to film a soapy Maeve Binchy story then the way to do it is to make it look good and get some venerable old thespians on board, and so it is here. There's a nice Irish country house, posing as a retirement home, and the main regulars are Vanessa Redgrave, Imelda Staunton, Brenda Fricker and veteran Joss Ackland (I saw him on stage with Ingrid Bergman 45 years ago.

The plot is about 4 tiresome residents who have upset everyone else and are left alone for Christmas, with young Hayley Atwell (one of the Keeley Hawes-Gemma Atherton school of young actresses) who is minding the place for her sister who has to leave to care for their ill mother. 

She soon gets tired of the antics of the residents and tells them they will have to leave as the home will be closed down if they do not behave. So old showgirl Vanessa, bickering sisters Imelda and Breda, and old curmudgeon Joss have to buckle down and enjoy Christmas.

Its an amusing hour and a half, filmed in nice Irish locations by Anthony Byrne, of course snooty movie buffs would not give it the time of day, but for us others it passed an evening pleasantly enough.

Evening, 2007

A drama exploring the romantic past and emotional present of Ann Grant and her daughters, Constance and Nina. As Ann lays dying, she remembers, and is moved to convey to her daughters, the defining moments in her life 50 years prior, when she was a young woman. Harris is the man Ann loves in the 1950s and never forgets.

Yes, EVENING sounds like one of those nauseatingly soppy afternoon tv movies for the home audience, not suitable for us trendy folk. We avoided it at the time, but seeing it was on telly we had to look it, if only for that cast. One way - the only way? - of jazzing up a story like this is to make it look good and pile in the names, thats what they did here, as directed by Lajos Koltai.

The dying woman is Vanessa Redgrave, and also popping in are Meryl Streep, Glenn Close and the great Eileen Atkins. Add in Vanessa's daughter Natasha Richardson, plus Toni Collette and Claire Danes (as the younger Vanessa). The men, including Patrick Wilson and Hugh Dancy, barely get a look it. It all looks terrific too, Rhode Island in the 1950s .... all those seascapes. 

The grand dames all get their moment with Vanessa, as the memories keep piling up and colliding with the present. It's a deliberately paced, visually gorgeous meditation on real life issues, and you can cry at it and not feel like you're being manipulated too much.

Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this sun of York ...

To the Almeida Theatre in London for their current production, The Bard's RICHARD III in a highly praised production by director Rupert Goold, with Ralph Fiennes and Vanessa Redgrave.

Well, no, not to the theatre itself, but to my local multiplex where the live performance was being screened, as it was in cinemas around the world. This was actually the first of these popular live theatre screenings I had been to - and it was like having a seat in the stalls, well apart from the girl next to me with a tub of popcorn and bottle of cola - I hate the stench of popcorn! - and then two old dears arrived late after 15 minutes in, and yes, they had to sit next to me too, disturbing all of us as they got to their seat and settled themselves. But apart from that .... Lets see what the Almeida says:

The Almeida will broadcast Artistic Director Rupert Goold's production of RICHARD III, with Ralph Fiennes as Shakespeare's most notorious villain and Vanessa Redgrave as Queen Margaret, live to cinemas in the UK and around the world today 21 July.

Almeida Theatre Live will give worldwide audiences the opportunity to see plays from the stage at the Almeida's London home for the first time. The Almeida Theatre and distributor Picturehouse Entertainment are partnering to broadcast RICHARD III, produced by Illuminations.

The production will be filmed using multiple cameras around the stage and auditorium, with John Wyver as producer. 

Rupert Goold said: "The chance to take the work of the Almeida to international audiences via live cinema screening is a new and timely venture for us that I'm extremely excited about. Working with Picturehouse Entertainment and Illuminations on this broadcast I'm really looking forward to seeing how audiences around the world react to our Richard III on the big screen."

Vanessa had previously worked with Fiennes on CORIOLANUS and THE WHITE COUNTESS film with daughter Natasha and sister Lynn. Great to see her back on stage and in fine form at 79, after that heart attack last year - as per this illuminating interview with her from The Guardian newspaper: https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2016/jun/13/vanessa-redgrave-interview-simon-hattenstone

Fiennes of course is on a roll at the moment, he was also recently in THE MASTER BUILDER this year, and stunning in A BIGGER SPLASH, did a neat cameo in HAIL, CAESAR and of course we loved THE GREAT BUDAPEST HOTEL.

He is of course electrifying as Richard and makes the lines sing, as does Vanessa as Queen Elizabeth, its a sort of modern dress production, complete with cell phones, but why is she dressed in a boiler suit and carrying a plastic doll? 

Anthony Sher was also a terrific Richard, almost playing him like a giant spider, and we love the Olivier 1955 version - see review, Olivier label. The one recent Richard we had not seen was the 1995 Ian McKellen one, unavailable for a long time - we finally got a German dvd recently, but I found it practically unbearable with that 1930s Fascist background and far too tricky and full of special effects, with tanks, and Battersea Power Station as the Tower of London just did not work for me at all - great supporting cast though, including Maggie Smith as Queen Elizabeth. 

Vanessa on BLOW-UP again ...

Thanks to Daryl for emailing me about a new Vanessa Redgrave interview where she discusses making the 1966 Antonioni film BLOW-UP in considerable detail - the interview is 42 minutes - for when you have the time. 

She also discussed filming with Antonioni and his directing methods in that 1993 British documentary series we like HOLLYWOOD UK (right), hosted by director Richard Lester, where she shows what Antonioni wanted from her, how he wanted her to sit and move her body and be part of the fabric of what he was creating. Fascinating stuff for those who still regard this cult classic. 

As the You/Tube text states:

To celebrate the 50th Anniversary of Antonioni's iconic film Blow-Up, the team behind Fashion & Cinema - a series of events, on-stage conversations and screenings exploring the relationship between fashion and cinema - bring together legendary actress Vanessa Redgrave CBE and photography expert and Deputy Chairman of Christie's Philippe Garner, co-author of the book Antonioni's Blow-Up. The film shaped understandings of contemporary fashion photography and shocked with its portrait of London in the swinging sixties, casual sex, drugs and rock’n’roll. Director Antonioni consulted local journalists to help build a picture of the lifestyle of the most fashionable young photographers. David Hemmings's character is a composite of elements that reference David Bailey, Terence Donovan, David Montgomery and John Cowan, whose studio became a principal set.
(Terence Stamp still insists it was all about him and he had been promised the part by the Italian maestro. I have the Garner coffee-table book on the film, which covers it all, with those great images we like so much)..

Vanessa is now on stage here in London in the Ralph Fiennes RICHARD III, being broadcast to cinemas on July 21, we shall be watching. I saw her on stage twice, in a 1973 stylish production of Coward's DESIGN FOR LIVING, and sometime in the '80s in Martin (BENT) Sherman's odd A MADHOUSE IN GOA, Vanessa always mesmerises on stage. 

Another fascinating 1960s interview with Vanessa here:

Prick Up Your Ears, 1987

The story of the spectacular life and violent death of British playwright Joe Orton, through the eyes and pen of that other great British playwright Alan Bennett.

In his teens, Joe Orton (a smart working-class boy from Leicester) is befriended by the older, more reserved Kenneth Halliwell, and while the two begin a relationship, it's fairly obvious that it's not all about sex (they were also sent to prison for defacing library books, hilariously treated here). Orton loves the dangers of cruising; Halliwell, not as attractive as Joe, doesn't fare so well (he is bald and wears a wig). While both try to become writers, it is Orton who succeeds - his plays ENTERTAINING MR SLOANE and LOOT become huge hits in London of the sixties, and he's even commissioned to write a screenplay for the Beatles. But Orton's success destroys Halliwell's sanity, whose response ended both their lives.

This 1987 film is a fascinating re-view now, particularly with that great cast: Gary Oldman and Alfred Molina early in their careers as the outrageous playwright Joe Orton and his lover Kenneth Halliwell who ends up killing them both. Add in Vanessa Redgrave ideal as the agent Peggy Ramsay (a small woman actually), Julie Walters as Joe's dotty mother back in Leicester, Frances Barber as his sister, Lindsay Duncan as the wife of writer John Lahr (Wallace Shawn) who wrote that great biography of Orton, as we follow him piecing together Joe's life. Its a fascinating saga particularly for anyone who lived through that 1960s era, as I did. 
I did not see MR SLOANE then but remember walking past the theatre where it was playing when I was first new in London in 1964, when I was 18 - but I saw the 1967 production of LOOT at the Criterion, with young Simon Ward and Kenneth Cranham. In 1976 I saw a great revival of SLOANE at the Royal Court, with Beryl Reid reprising her role in the 1970 film (much better than the film of LOOT - see Orton label) with Malcolm McDowell as Sloane in leather trousers! The actual murder of Orton in August 1967 and Ken's suicide was front page news, I was spending the weekend in Hastings on the coast with friends and it was in all the papers ...

Written by Alan Bennett from Lahr's book and directed by Stephen Frears, PRICK is a treat all round and captures both the 80s and 60s perfectly, and their one-room flat in London's Islington. It should be a better-known cult film, it does not shy away from the seedier aspects of cruising (what gays did before all those bars and clubs opened in the '80s - pity Orton did not live to see all that...) its frank language captures it all too. Its also very moving and sad as well as being wildly funny - Oldman (great legs) is perfect as Joe (looks like him too in that leather cap and tee shirt) and Molina is also marvellous as ever. Great to see him recently in that other gay romance LOVE IS STRANGE (and those re-runs of RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK), while Gary is magnetic in films like AIR FORCE ONE, BRAM STOKER'S DRACULA, TINKER TAILOR SOLIDER SPY etc (and directed NIL BY MOUTH). 
Lahr's book is a great read too (as are Orton's published diaries), capturing it all, like Joe's final visit to Brighton where he was looking at flats as be was thinking of moving there, once he had left Halliwell (before he returns to London that fateful weekend ... when Ken explodes in murderous rage when Joe suggests they could split up, leaving Ken feeling abandoned by Joe's success), and it also details their friendship with Kenneth Williams and their trips to Morocco etc. Orton's own diaries are very amusingly explicit too on his many sex-capades ...
Great quotes in the film also: like that end comment, before The Beatles's "A Day In The Life" reaches that crescendo ...

Leonie Orton:  [Mingling Joe's and Ken's ashes]
I think I'm putting in more of Joe than I am of Ken.

Peggy Ramsay:  It's a gesture dear, not a recipe.

Kenneth Halliwell:  Cheap clothes suit you. It's because you're from the gutter.

[Halliwell puts his hand on Orton's leg. Orton brushes it off]

Joe:  No. Have a wank.

Kenneth:  Have a wank? Have a wank? I can't just have a wank. I need three days' notice to have a wank. You can just stand there and do it. Me, it's like organizing D-Day. Forces have to be assembled, magazines bought, the past dredged for some suitably unsavoury episode, the dog-eared thought of which can still produce a faint flicker of desire! Have a wank, it'd be easier to raise the Titanic.

[Joe and Ken are cruising a strange man]

Joe:   He's built like a brick shithouse!

Kenneth:  He's probably a policeman.

Joe:  I know, isn't it wonderful?

Peggy:  Ken was the first wife. He did all the work and the waiting and then...

John Lahr:  Well, first wives don't usually beat their husbands' heads in.

Peggy:  No. Though why I can't think.

John:  So what does that make you? The second wife?

Peggy:  Better than that, dear. The widow.

'60s / '70s British cinema: Olly and David

Lets now look at those two interesting British actors Oliver Reed and David Hemmings through the decades. Both were young jobbing actors at the dawn of the Sixties, and were established by the middle of the Swinging Decade .... thanks to directors like Antonioni, Michael Winner and Ken Russell. They worked together several times and their ends were rather similar too. They are both in THE SYSTEM (left) in 1964, THE PRINCE AND THE PAUPER in 1977 and GLADIATOR in 2000. Both took to the hell-raising life as their careers waxed and waned and both died in their early sixties (Reed at 61, Hemmings at 62), no doubt from all that excess - at least David left an enjoyable and fascinating memoir.

It was an exciting time for young actors as the likes of Peter O'Toole, Albert Finney, Alan Bates, Tom Courtenay came to prominence in the early Sixties, with Michael York, Terence Stamp and more following .... Oliver with his striking looks had lots of small parts, including that hilarious moment when his camp ballet dancer invades Jack Hawkins' LEAGUE OF GENTLEMEN in 1960, he was more typically cast as werewolves or bullies (as in THE ANGRY SILENCE) and had a good role in Losey's THE DAMNED in 1961. Michael Winner's THE SYSTEM in 1964 was a terrific role for him, and it a terrific British 1960s film ushering in that Swinging Era. David Hemmings is also in THE SYSTEM in a rather nondescript role - who would think two years later he would be starring for Italian maestro Michelangelo Antonioni who made him the face of the decade in BLOW-UP ? Hemmings also came up in small parts in films like NO TREES IN THE STREET, SINK THE BISMARCK!, SOME PEOPLE, PLAY IT COOL, WEST 11, TWO LEFT FEET etc - see Hemmings label. I had a good conversation with his then girlfriend Jane Merrow (star of THE SYSTEM) in the summer of 1966 when she was doing a West End play, about the time he must have been filming BLOW-UP - 50 years ago. 

The Antonioni classic did not hit London until 1967 when it became the talk of the town and it was the film (and still is) one had to see and have an opinion about. Being 21 at the time it was like seeing oneself up there in the screen, as Antonioni transformed David into that decadent dissatisfied cherub. He was soon seen in more '60s classics like CAMELOT, BARBARELLA, THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE and kept busy into the 1970s, was married to Gayle Hunnicutt, also directing (RUNNING SCARED, JUST A GIGOLO with Bowie and Dietrich) as well as lots of American TV series like MAGNUM PI and THE A-TEAM as he had re-located to America and became a top action director for TV. 

Oliver did more Michael Winner films (THE JOKERS, HANNIBAL BROOKS - did anyone see that?, and that magnum opus I'LL NEVER FORGET WHAT'ISNAME) and then Ken Russell stepped in, not only with WOMEN IN LOVE and the notorious THE DEVILS (see Ken Russell/Reed labels) but he also impressed in Ken's 1967 BBC film on Dante Gabriel Rossetti DANTE'S INFERNO. His popular movies continued with THE HUNTING PARTY, THE TRAP, his Bill Sykes in OLIVER!, TOMMY, ROYAL FLASH; THE TRIPLE ECHO and THE CLASS OF MISS MACMICHAEL, both again with Glenda Jackson, and American movies like BURNT OFFERINGS and THE SHUTTERED ROOM, and of course his brooding Athos in the Richard Lester MUSKETEERS films. 

THE DEVILS

They are both in the 1977 PRINCE AND THE PAUPER reboot, fun but not much more, and both turned up again in Ridley Scott's GLADIATOR, both rather aged now with no vanity at all, though just in their early sixties. Oliver had become a feature on the chatshow circuit where his increasing drunken antics make sad viewing now - there was a compilation on last week: THE OLIVER REED INTERVIEWS, it simply was too depressing to watch it all. Perhaps he was being encouraged to drink too much and go over the top to make car-crash television?
 He died of a heart attack in Malta during the GLADIATOR shoot in 1999 and was buried in Cork, in Ireland, where he had been living with his second wife. Hemmings kept going until 2003 - he had an effective role in Scorsese's THE GANGS OF NEW YORK, and the Brit film LAST ORDERS with peers Courtenay, Caine, Hoskins, Mirren, Winstone - and he also died of a heart attack on location in Romania. His memoir, published in 2004, is a fascinating read for anyone interested in British Cinema and his early life as a boy opera singer for Benjamin Brittan - he sang Miles in the first opera production of THE TURN OF THE SCREW. Hemmings talks about BLOW-UP (as does a still miffed Terence Stamp who had been promised the part) in that 1993 BBC series HOLLYWOOD UK, as do Vanessa and Monica Vitti too ... you also get Polanski, Roger Corman, Truffaut (with Julie Christie) and those other foreign directors wanting to be a part of Swinging London. 

We continue to like Hemmings and Reed and like seeing them on screen. Like Richards Harris and Burton they paid the price for all that excessive drinking, but kept going and working to the end -  of course like most working actors they did their share of rubbish and routine programmers (JUGGERNAUT, THE SQUEEZE, SITTING TARGET, AND THEN THERE WERE NONE), but we need not linger on those - more on them at labels. VENOM in '81 was a choice one for Olly - with the deadly snake going up his trouserleg ...

Vanessa Redgrave interview

A fascinating new interview with Vanessa Redgrave in London's "Evening Standard" this week, as at link:

http://www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle/london-life/vanessa-redgrave-before-i-didn-t-care-at-all-now-i-find-myself-thinking-what-a-miracle-everything-is-a2954866.html

She had a near-fatal heart attack back in April, when alone in her apartment, but managed to get help just in time, she describes all this and her life now in the interview. She blames her heavy smoking. Now78 she may be slowing down a bit, but is still a vital presence. She was luckier than that legendary smoker Joni Mitchell who also collapsed when alone in her house in May and was not found for several hours, suffering a brain aneurism and may be making a slow recovery. 

Its been quite a year all round - I was diagnosed with cancer of the oesophagus in June after being unwell since April, but luckily it was Stage 0, and the Royal Marsden hospitals in Chelsea and Sutton have been wonderful. After various tests, scans, endoscopies etc and two cycles of chemotherapy I am now eating and drinking properly again, and a further CT scan next week should show how the tumour has shrunk and we can decide on the next stage of treatment, so I expect to make a full recovery and be fine for Christmas and next year for that move back to Ireland ..... 

A new go-between

THE GO-BETWEEN, 2015: Yes, it begins with that famous first line: "The past is a foreign country, they do things differently there" .... as the older Leo Colston (Jack Broadbent) returns to Norfolk 50 years after that fateful summer he spent there in 1900 as guest of the wealthy Maudsley family as 12-year old Leo is a school friend of their son. This of course is the famous L.P.Hartley novel originally filmed by Joseph Losey in 1971 - it was an award winner at Cannes, with a razor-sharp script by Harold Pinter and a score by Michel Legrand, as Losey and Pinter dissect once again the British class system. 

It is also a ravishing period piece, with Julie Christie as Marian, the wilful daughter of the family having a clandestine relationship with tenant farmer Ted Burgess (Alan Bates). Margaret Leighton is marvellous as her mother who is determined her daughter shall marry Lord Trimingham - Edward Fox. Young Leo, too infatuated with Marian to realise how shallow and manipulative she is,  soon gets caught up in their deceit as he becomes their go-between, carrying message back and forth .... It all comes to grief before too long, it seems everyone knows what is going on but it cannot be mentioned until the cold mother has had enough.  Left: Dominic Guard as Leo and Julie Christie as Marian in 1971.

This new BBC version looks great capturing that lazy hazy summer at the end of the Victorian era with croquet on the lawn, tea parties, the toffs playing cricket on the village green against the locals, and the suspicious mother keeping an eye on her daughter .... The new version (directed by Pete Travis and scripted by Adrian Hodges) plays like a retread of the Losey film but with subtle differences - the wealthy family are now portrayed in a more human light.  Young Leo is delightfully played by Jack Hollington, and Ben Batt (more naked swimming) is not quite the equal of Bates, while  Joanna Vanderham is a younger Marian. Above: Margaret Leighton and Lesley Manville as Mrs Maudsley.

Lesley Manville (so good in Mike Leigh's ANOTHER YEAR) is absolutely marvellous as the mother, certainly the equal of Margaret Leighton, and a shrewd piece of casting has Vanessa Redgrave as the older Marian confronting Broadbent - as her father Michael Redgrave played the older Leo in the Losey film, which brings it to a nice conclusion. That final sequence worked better though in the Losey film. In all much better than the BBC's by all accounts tepid and dismal retelling of LADY CHATTERLEY'S LOVER which I did not bother with, all part of their current new versions of classic British literature, and now for the final series of DOWNTON ABBEY. Right: Vanessa Redgrave and Jim Broadbent.

1967: Vanessa in Vogue - by Bert

Sixties glamour with a vengance: A favourite book is Vogue in the Sixties, capturing the glamour of that decade with some stunning images. Here is Vanessa Redgrave in one of their January 1967 issues certainly ramping up the glamour stakes - thanks to Colin for finding it on Twitter. 
These were Vanessa's break-out years after the successes of MORGAN and BLOW-UP and she would go on to CAMELOT and ISADORA and so much more. Interestingly, the photographer here is the great Bert Stern, who did those final Monroe images in his "The Last Sitting". 

Also in 1967, here is Vanessa in another ritzy outfit at Cannes Film Festival with Monica Vitti and Antonioni. In her memoir Redgrave related how her first husband Tony Richardson wanted her to be like Monica Vitti .... Vanessa only went on to star for Antonioni and here they all are sur le plage!  Lots more on Vanessa at label. 

Maggie's and Vanessa's first movies, in 1958

Venerable thespians Maggie Smith and Vanessa Redgrave both made their movie debuts, when they were promising young stage actresses, back in 1958. Its quite fascinating catching them now.

NOWHERE TO GO is a low-budget B-movie (not quite a Trash Classic) by the enterprising Seth Holt (and an ucredited Basil Dearden, according to IMDB), with a script by no less than Kenneth Tynan, featuring '50s London in crisp black and white. It stars American import George Nadar - usually wooden, but not bad here actually. Its sole point of interest now of course is that Maggie Smith walks in to it, about the half-way mark, as the rather snooty girlfriend of the guy whose apartment Nadar, a convict sprung from prison, is hiding out in. We see earlier how he cons his way into the affections of wealthy widow Bessie Love in order to get his hands on her late husband's valuable collection of coins, which he places in a safe deposit box before the law catches up with him. 

His partner in crime, Bernard Lee, turns nasty and George soon has to depend on Maggie for assistance as they leave the city and head for her family's ancestral pile in the country with its remote shepherd's hut, where he can lie low, but of course, in B-movie fashion, things fall apart and our man on the run faces a bleak end, accompanied by the appropriate jazzy music score. So, it ticks all the B-movie boxes, and I rather liked it. It does not linger too long too, all wrapped up in 85 minutes. Maggie is fascinating here, with the distinctive voice already in place. Nader (who was gay and later became an author) who was ok in AWAY ALL BOATS, FOUR GIRLS IN TOWN, THE FEMALE ANIMAL, CARNIVAL STORY etc - see Trash label) - so its more of the same here. If there is such a genre as 'British Noir' this qualifies. 

BEHIND THE MASK, also 1958, is a solid hospital drama by the ever reliable Brian Desmond Hurst, less soapy than NO TIME FOR TEARS or LIFE IN EMERGENCY WARD TEN, it focuses on the surgeons and their problems, it doesn't quite though turn out as one imagines ...

Michael Redgrave is in his element here as the rather pompous senior surgeon, with Niall MacGinnis as his rival eager to trip him up; Tony Britton is suave new doctor whom Redgrave wants on his team and who is almost engaged to Pamela, Redgrave's daughter: a porcelain beauty Vanessa - suitably patrician and Sir Michael's real daughter making her debut here. Carl Mohner - that interesting Austrian actor - is also new to the hospital as he fights a drug problem which was have repercussions on an operation going wrong leading to the death of the patient and the subsequent investigation. 

So the story is a bit soapy, but its the cast that fascinate here: Margaret Tyzack, Joan Hickson, Ann Firbank, Lionel Jeffries, Miles Malleson, even William Roach (TV's Ken Barlow in CORONATION STREET), Ian Bannen, Brenda Bruce excellent as ever for a few minutes (as she would be the near year as the first victim of PEEPING TOM) - I didn't even catch Victor Spinetti, also listed. 

It is a hospital tale of jealously, suspicion, ambition, and features a fascinating operation sequence. This was made at that late 50s time when hospital dramas were in vogue, with EMERGENCY WARD TEN on the telly, and CARRY ON NURSE was in production.  The colours are washed out on the dvd. Apart from television work, Vanessa did not film again until MORGAN and BLOW-UP in 1966 ...

Soon: More British '50s B-movie dramas and Trash Classics like Cliff Richard singing "Living Doll" in SERIOUS CHARGE, Jayne Mansfield in THE CHALLENGE, Ava Gardner in TAM LIN, Oliver Reed in THE PARTY'S OVER, THAT KIND OF GIRL and more ....