Start the revolution without me - 1970

Here's a forgotten, over-looked treat for a dull afternoon - I saw it in 1970 but it seems we all forgot about it. 

START THE REVOLUTION WITHOUT ME is a mostly hilarious farce sending up the French Revolution, as directed by Bud Yorkin, starring Gene Wilder and Donald Sutherland (before their 70s peaks) as the mixed up twins - one rather dim (thats Gene) and the other terribly snooty. 

A great cast of farceurs are lined up: Hugh Griffith as Louis XVI, Jack McGowran, Murray Melvin, Victor Spinetti (as Count D'Escargot), Helen Fraser, Rosalind Knight, and best of all Billie Whitelaw as Marie Antoinette! AND Orson Welles narrates. Its  all a weird mix of Monty Python, A Tale of Two Cities etc. 

Another Hard Day's Night

Thats a good way of starting the new year, with the joyous A HARD DAY'S NIGHT, reminding us oldies of what 1964 was like when the world was, as it seemed to us teenagers then, fresh and young. I was a Beatle fanatic so seeing them up close like this, and then in colour in HELP! in '65 was sheer bliss. Here is my 2014 review: (now for EIGHT DAYS A WEEK).

London's British Film Institute is celebrating the 50th anniversary of The Beatles first film A HARD DAY'S NIGHT, with an extended run of 34 screenings. I have the dvd but it would be nice to pop along and see it on the big screen again. It is very special to me. Prior to then, movies with pop stars were lame efforts like those early 60s Billy Fury and Cliff Richard vehicles (see music label), even the Elvis films were starting to look tired - then Richard Lester came along with Alun Owen's witty script and turned it all upside down. It was like a French New Wave zany comedy and not just to expoit the worldwide success of the Fab Four. It is both comedy and almost documentary showing the boys as prisoners of their success, and also some of those songs are staged and filmed like the first pop promos. Lester also included some veteran British players who play perfectly with The Boys. 

It chronicles a few days in the life of the band, on trains (Patti Boyd is one of the schoolgirls), in the studio, trying to get some space for themselves as they are pursued by hysterical fans, clueless reporters, a fretful manager and Paul's grand-dad (Steptoe's Wilfrid Brambell) the essence of a "dirty old man" though they keep saying how clean he is here! The moptops are all individuals - we all had our favourites - and are all great here. The great Victor Spinetti (see label) is a scream as the neurotic tv studio director driven to distraction by the Boys. Add in that dry Scouse humour as the four lads ooze charisma and charm, and of course those songs!. Lester too keeps it all flying - it revolutionised screen musicals at a time when Hollywood was still churning out moribund embalmed versions of stage shows like MY FAIR LADY. Jacques Demy in France though was doing something similar with his UMBRELLAS OF CHERBOURG - and the later LES DEMOISELLES DE ROCHEFORT. 1965 saw Lester with The Beatles again and more pop promos but in colour this time, with HELP! I love that one even more ...

A HARD DAY'S NIGHT covers a very special moment for me, being 18 and new in London, and loving the Beatles and their music. That summer I had to stay out in London all night, as I went to see a late night French movie (at the old Academy in Oxford Street) and could not get home to the suburbs - no late night transport then! - so as dawn broke I was walking down Regent Street (where I would later spend over 20 years working) as the sun was rising over the old London Pavilion cinema where A HARD DAY'S NIGHT was playing, so the posters and pictures were everywhere. It suddenly felt good to be 18 and new in London as dawn was breaking .... its one of those moments that stay with one! 

A movie buff friend of mine, not a pop lover, was "disappointed" with A HARD DAY'S NIGHT when he saw it recently, but as I said, you would not judge it as an ordinary film. Lester created a perfect defining 1960s moment, capturing the youth of 1964 with the very individual Beatles seen up close and surrounded them with some perfect British players like Anna Quayle, Norman Rossington and the marvellous Brambell and Spinetti. And then there are the songs - like early pop videos with that gleaming black and white photography. 

Another ship of fools ....

Based on the true story of a ship carrying German-Jewish refugees which was sent to Havana in 1939 by the Nazis but was denied permission to land anywhere. The ship was eventually obliged to return to Germany, where certain death awaited its passengers. This terrible outcome had been cynically anticipated by the Nazis when granting permission for the voyage in the first place.

The 1970s was that era of all-star disaster movies: the US studios gave us EARTHQUAKE, THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE, AIRPLANE 75 and all the rest, while in England TV mogul Sir Lew Grade assembled several all star packages, some of which were amusingly awful like our favourite THE CASSANDRA CROSSING (Sophia! Ava! Ingrid Thulin! Alida Valli! Burt Lancaster! John Philip Law! and more) and others like ESCAPE TO ATHENA was just silly, but VOYAGE OF THE DAMNED in 1976 was meant to be a serious drama but it is so crammed with names that one just sits there bemused by it all - "look, there's Julie Harris talking to Wendy Hiller" - but a lot of them have nothing to do and some barely get a look in: 

James Mason, Katharine Ross as a prostitute, Orson pops in a scene or two, as does Ben Gazzara, Helmut Griem reprises his evil Nazi (a la CABARET and Visconti's THE DAMNED), Malcolm McDowell, playing nice for once, is the young steward having a romance with Lynn Frederick (the last Mrs Peter Sellers), her parents are Lee Grant (who goes over the top spectacularly as the berserk mother cutting her hair in the concentration camp style) and Sam Wanamaker. Other well known faces here are Nehemiah Persoff and Maria Schell (also barely seen), while Jonathan Pryce is one of the persecuted refugees hoping for a new life. 

Topping the bill are Faye Dunaway and Oscar Werner (his final role) - Faye as an embittered wife displays her haughty glamour and gets to wear a monacle and strut around while her husband, Werner, practically reprising his role in SHIP OF FOOLS plays an esteemed Jewish surgeon. The captain of the "St Louis" is none other than Max Von Sydow. It should be a grim drama but the all-star cast and plodding direction of Stuart Rosenberg render it interesting for all the wrong reasons. Kramer's 1965 plodder SHIP OF FOOLS, which we caught and reviewed a year or so ago (Simone Signoret label), did it all much better. 

THE SHOES OF THE FISHERMAN in 1969 was also an all-star spectacular, helmed by the reliable Michael Anderson - one of several that year (BATTLE OF BRITAIN, OH WHAT A LOVELY WAR) - from a novel about the first Russian pope and how he tackles world poverty, from a novel by Morris West - which is another long, if entertaining, plod to see now, but at least it employed Anthony Quinn as the pope, Laurence Olivier as a wily Russian official, Oscar Werner again as another doomed priest, Gielgud as another ailing pope, and many, many more. 

A Hard Day's Night, 50 years on ... + SLIH

London's British Film Institute is celebrating the 50th anniversary of The Beatles first film A HARD DAY'S NIGHT, with an extended run of 34 screenings. I have the dvd but it would be nice to pop along and see it on the big screen again. It is very special to me. Prior to then, movies with pop stars were lame efforts like those early 60s Billy Fury and Cliff Richard vehicles (see music label), even the Elvis films were starting to look tired - then Richard Lester came along with Alun Owen's witty script and turned it all upside down. It was like a French New Wave zany comedy and not just to expoit the worldwide success of the Fab Four. It is both comedy and almost documentary showing the boys as prisoners of their success, and also some of those songs are staged and filmed like the first pop promos. 

It chronicles a few days in the life of the band, on trains, in the studio, trying to get some space for themselves as they are pursued by hysterical fans, clueless reporters, a fretful manager and Paul's grand-dad (Steptoe's Wilfrid Brambell) the essence of a "dirty old man" though they keep saying how clean he is here! The moptops are all individuals - we all had our favourites - and are all great here. The great Victor Spinetti (see label) is a scream as the neurotic tv studio director driven to distraction by the Boys. Add in that dry Scouse humour as the four lads ooze charisma and charm, and of course those songs!. Lester too keeps it all flying - it revolutionised screen musicals at a time when Hollywood was still churning out moribund embalmed versions of stage shows like MY FAIR LADY. Jacques Demy in France though was doing something similar with his UMBRELLAS OF CHERBOURG - and the later LES DEMOISELLES DE ROCHEFORT. 1965 saw Lester with The Beatles again and more pop promos but in colour this time, with HELP! I love that one even more ...

A HARD DAY'S NIGHT covers a very special moment for me, being 18 and new in London, and loving the Beatles and their music. That summer I had to stay out in London all night, as I went to see a late night French movie (at the old Academy in Oxford Street) and could not get home to the suburbs - no late night transport then! - so as dawn broke I was walking down Regent Street (where I would later spend over 20 years working) as the sun was rising over the old London Pavilion cinema where A HARD DAY'S NIGHT was playing, so the posters and pictures were everywhere. It suddenly felt good to be 18 and new in London as dawn was breaking .... its one of those moments that stay with one!  Richard Lester is introducing a screening on the 3rd July.

The BFI are also doing an extended run (34 more screenings) of "the best comedy ever made" SOME LIKE IT HOT - and I can only agree with that. Again, no matter how many times one has seen it - and I have a lot since its release in 1959 - it is always marvellous to see it on a cinema screen with an audience, as that impeccable well-constructed script plays out as played by that cast. SOME LIKE IT HOT will always be in my Top Ten. I will be going again ...

Good too to see the BFI screening that rarity I found a while ago - THE SQUEEZE, that terrific 1972 British thriller capturing the grubby, sleazy gangland in 1972 London with Hemmings and Boyd in great late roles.  

As they say: "If THE SQUEEZE plays like an amped-up, sexed-up feature length 70s TV crime show, its probably down to screenwriter Leon Griffiths ...... director Michael Apted makes maximum use of the London locations, and directs the proceedings with commendable energy by embracing the sleaze and grubbiness of the story. "

The Beatles HELP! on Blu-ray ....

From 1964 (below) to '65: HELP! just out on Blu-ray is exactly the same as on dvd - same graphics, artwork, booklet, and the same extras as on the 2007 dvd (see Beatles label), just in the different package size. I wish I had checked my dvd before I ordered the Blu-ray. There is the same introduction by Richard Lester and the same appreciation by Martin Scorsese ... it is just an exact duplicate apart from being in Blu-ray.
 
I am only a recent convert to Blu-ray, and have not bothered to re-buy too many films in the new format (ok, HELP! is the sixth so far .... at least the Blu-rays of films like 2001, THE SERVANT, BILLY LIAR have new material, interviews etc.) and I won't be shelling out for too many if they are just putting out the same stuff with nothing new. Its brilliant but lazy marketing to put out exactly the same stuff, not even new graphics, for the Blu-ray people to buy again. Chutzpah or what !  
(Left: Films& Filming August 65 issue on the new pop films, I wonder why I cut a picture out of the cover ....).

I was actually going to write about Scorsese's appreciation of the film, but its not new, he did it back in 2007. Just how many others has Marty introduced? I already have his for editions of JOHNNY GUITAR and EL CID, and I have an an audio commentary he did on BLACK NARCISSUS with Michael Powell.. He makes good points though bracketing Lester with Antonioni and Resnais as an important '60s director "inventing new narrative techniques and re-defining the vocabulary of cinema as he went along - everyone was experimenting around this time, Antonioni with BLOW-UP, Truffaut with FAHRENHEIT 451, Fellini and Godard with every movie - HELP! was just as exciting".

I will just be pleased to revel in the surreal comedy (the boys pulling up to the four houses which open into one inside, as Dandy Nichols says how unchanged they are; the brilliant farce of Spinetti, Cargill, Kinner, McKern and the delicious Eleanor Bron, and the great songs shot like first pop videos
- in the Alps for "Ticket to Ride" and the Bahamas for "Another Girl". If you were a teenager then, and I was 19, to be able to see them in colour on the large screen was bliss. George's "I Need You" was always sheer perfection for me. So now its in Blu-ray even if everything else in the package is just the same. 

A year after THE LEATHER BOYS, below, that grim black and white look at 1964, England suddenly burst into colour with HELP! everywhere ... as it was now the new mod era. Leather boys and rockers were suddenly old hat ... it had started of course with A HARD DAY'S NIGHT in '64, suddenly zaniness and the new music were in. Before that British pop movies were those Cliff Richard spectaculars or Billy Fury in the oddity PLAY IT COOL, courtesy of Michael Winner. Richard Lester though upped the ante with the Beatles and THE KNACK ... 
Next: more 1965 magazines ...

Victor Spinetti, Susan Tyrrell, R.I.P.

Two more fascinating people I liked have departed ....  Victor Spinetti [1933-2012], above with The Beatles in A HARD DAY'S NIGHT, where he is hilarious as the "camp, nervy, irritable" [according to The Daily Telegraph] tv director with that mohair sweater; he was also marvellous in their HELP! and THE MAGICAL MYSTERY TOUR, and appeared in many others including TAMING OF THE SHREW in 1967 with The Burtons. Victor, half-Welsh, half-Italian, was wholly marvellous on stage and screen and knew just about everybody from Marlene to Coward and John Lennon, and had great stories to tell, he came across as a happier Kenneth Williams. His long career including lots of stage roles and directing, as well as working with Joan Littlewood in SPARRERS CANT SING and OH WHAT A LOVELY WAR, and the UK stage version of THE ODD COUPLE. You can just picture him in the Jack Lemmon role... RIP indeed. I must see if his biography is available. It is, plus a CD of his live show! I have ordered both.

Susan Tyrrell [1945-2012] an actress who gave one of the screen’s most convincing portraits of alcoholism as the young barfly in John Huston's 1972 boxing movie the very downbeat  FAT CITY, died June 16 in Austin. She was 67.

She appeared in more than 75 movies and television shows, and had used a wheelchair for the past 12 years after her legs were amputated below the knee as a result of complications from a blood clotting disorder.

She appeared in ANDY WARHOL'S BAD (1977), and was Johnny Depp’s biker grandmother in director John Waters’s comedy CRY BABY (1990). Other roles included parts in Lelouch's romantic western ANOTHER MAN ANOTHER CHANCE in '77 (review at westerns label) and FORBIDDEN ZONE. FAT CITY remains her best known role where she is totally mesmerising.

RIP also, the critic Andrew Sarris, aged 82, from THE VILLAGE VOICE. I am not familiar with his work here in the UK, where we got all those Pauline Kael books ...  but he was certainly one of the major 'names' in film culture.