The Wages of Fear / Sorcerer

I realised the other day I had never seen Henri-George Clouzot's 1953 classic THE WAGES OF FEAR, that highly regarded thriller about the four desperate men driving two trucks of dangerous explosives over rough terrain in a South American jungle. who would survive?. I almost did not like it at the start as the first hour is spent setting the scene, but once they get going, and Yves Montand takes command - boy, does the tension build...

In 1977 William Friedkin, a hot director after THE FRENCH CONNECTION and THE EXORCIST (and of course THE BOYS IN THE BAND) did a remake, with stunning colour photography of the jungles and Roy Scheider (hot after JAWS) in the lead, and its super fantastic now, with that great score by Tangerine Dream (me neither), but it, now renamed SORCERER, it was a huge box office disaster, as we were all loving those space operas by George Lucas and Spielberg or living the New York life with Woody Allen (ANNIE HALL) and John Travolta (SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER), so SORCERER quickly got lost and disappeared from view, until a new issue recently. Its a keeper and one to see again, even if - like the Clouzot film there is a confusing opening section setting up the characters in various locations like Paris, Jerusalem, New York etc. Highly recommended - if only  for the scenes of the trucks crossing those bridges ... It must have been a tough shoot.
A gangster, a crooked banker, a hitman and an arab terrorist are stranded and on the run in a small village in South America. Their only chance of escape is to drive two trucks filled with unstable nitroglycerin up a long and rocky mountain road in order to plug an escalating oil refinery blaze. With their deadly cargo likely to explode at the slightest bump, the four men must put aside their differences and work together to survive. 
Trapped in squalor, unable to return to the lives they abandoned, they're driven by circumstance to accept a normally unthinkable job. They have to drive old, unstable dynamite from its storage site hundreds of miles over mountain terrain and washed-out roads to the location of an oil well fire so the blaze can be snuffed out. The pay is exorbitant -- but it's commiserate to the danger. The risks are colossal ... and they ultimately have no choice.
SORCERER is tense, suspenseful film-making at its finest. Friedkin creates a palpable sense of place, and Scheider is immensely powerful as a man whose every move suggests that he knows he's doomed. Taut with suspense, completely convincing and breathtakingly human, SORCERER is an unfairly maligned film that delivers in every way.
See both versions and decide which you prefer ...

Goodbye Again, again

GOODBYE AGAIN is a nice entry to those early '60s sudsers like IMITATION OF LIFE, THE BEST OF EVERYTHING, A SUMMER PLACE, BACK STREET, ADA etc. this is a rather low-key one though in black and white, and again we zoom around Paris in the early 60s with rich spoilt Tony Perkins, and his rich bitch mother Jessie Royce Landis (a good role for Jessie here).

It is Ingrid Bergman's show though as 40ish Paula, a successful interior decorator, hired by Jessie and getting involved with her son Tony. Paula has been carrying on for 5 years with businessman Yves Montand who is certainly having his cake and eating it, often letting Paula down at the last minute when he picks up a new 'Maisie' (he calls them all Maisie...). Paula is used to this but longs for commitment. Tony is going to provide it in spades as he follows, woos, flatters and finally gets Paula, which of course in turn makes Montand jealous. There are nicely judged moments along the way as our stars eat, drink, dance and drive around Paris by day and night. Perkins' little boy act gets a bit tiresome actually - he has a nice drunk scene in a nightclub with singer Diahann Carroll.

Francoise Sagan's novel is nicely adapted here, though the end is amusing now - Paula sends Perkins away saying she is "too old" [Ingrid too old at 40!], when Montand decides to marry her - as his single life isn't quite so satisfying without her to return to. But once married he reverts to his old ways with a new Maisie, leaving Paula on her own again, rubbing night lotion into her face. A nice touch too is when she is driving and crying so she turns on the windscreen wipers as she thinks it is raining.

The older female does not fare too well in these Sagan stories: Kerr in BONJOUR TRISTESSE, Joan Fontaine in A CERTAIN SMILE or Bergman as Paula here. Litvak was good with actresses, viz his films with Davis, De Havilland, Kerr (THE JOURNEY) and Bergman previously in ANASTASIA. This is a nicely satisfying soap - Perkins after PSYCHO had a good run in Europe with some super ladies: Ingrid here, Mercouri (PHAEDRA), Orson's THE TRIAL with Moreau and Romy, with Loren again in FIVE MILES TO MIDNIGHT in '62 and Bardot in THE RAVISHING IDIOT.

Valentines: Lets Not Make Love / Desk Set

One of our Sky channels here has been running Valentine's Day movies on one of its channels, so cue a lot of old favourites - I may be dropping in on MY BEST FRIEND'S WEDDING (if only for Rupert and "I Say A Little Prayer") and SHIRLEY VALENTINE again today.... but we saw LET'S MAKE LOVE and DESK SET once again a day or so ago.

Looking at LET'S MAKE LOVE (I grew up with it really) objectively now it is surely the worst of both Marilyn and Cukor. A leaden farce that would have sunk without trace if not for MM's few sparking moments. She is adorable doing Cole Porter's "My Heart Belongs To Daddy" with those chorus boys and its one of her iconic moments, and a great Jack Cole number, plus her two with English crooner Frankie Vaughan: the title number and "Specialisation" where she is pure peaches and cream. The rest of the dull plot seems to take place in ugly wood-panelled offices as Montand (so great in French films, but all at sea here), Tony Randall, Wilfrid Hyde White go through acres of dull dialogue. Did they bring in guests like Bing, Gene and Milton to try to liven it up? 

I have seen LETS MAKE LOVE many times over the years, it has that odd spot in MM's canon - after SOME LIKE IT HOT and before THE MISFITS. Her looks and hairstyles vary from scene to scene. Most of her later films were made away from Fox, where she was still an indendured servant. It is really the last of her Fox films - would the uncompleted SOMETHING'S GOTTA GIVE be any better? - at least we have the fragments. Marilyn was slim and lovely by then in 1962 facing that new decade, but for whatever reason, she did not linger. I always felt Cukor was not the right director for her, he did not have much empathy with her and his comments were not kind - he was used to tough dames like Hepburn and Crawford. 

Staying with Fox and Hepburn, DESK SET is a pleasure now. I like it a lot, maybe the best of the Tracy-Hepburns after WOMAN OF THE YEAR, ADAMS RIB, PAT & MIKE .... its from a talky play (by Phoebe and Henry Ephron) and the subject must have been topical back in the 50s - those new big computers coming in taking over office jobs. It is also another great New York movie, and Kate and her office girls, led by Joan Blondell, are a great gang. Spence is amusing and droll too as they suspect he (and his new computer ) is going to make them all redundant. Theres reams of dialogue, including that nice long scene on the cold office roof, and that one at Kate's apartment - another Apartment We Love - with its cosy fire, chairs and bookshelves. We want to live there!  - click on this image below to enlarge and see the detail ...

Gig Young of course is Kate's on-off boyfriend - a task he previously played for Bette and Joan. There is a great Christmas scene as the office party gets underway and Kate plays drunk nicely. She is for once given a decent wardrobe of nice dresses and coats and looks great. DESK SET, directed by Fox regular Walter Lang, is a pleasure any time, and Leon Shamroy makes it look good. Its almost up there with her other '50s hit SUMMERTIME! Then after that dreadful Bob Hope film she went on to SUDDENLY LAST SUMMER ...

Young actress Lee Remick was right to turn down the nothing part played by Dina Merrill (in DESK SET) as her debut; it would have done nothing for her, and (as advised by Spencer, see Remick label) decided to wait for a better role to make her debut, as she did that year with Kazan's A FACE IN THE CROWD - she certainly got noticed there! By 1962, five years later, she was competing with Kate for the Best Actress Oscar and announced as replacing Marilyn in SOMETHINGS GOTTA GIVE! (and Montand was also incomprehensible with her in SANCTUARY in '61).

Sunday in New York + 4 more Jane Fonda flicks

A feast of Fonda, lately - Jane that is. I just got SUNDAY IN NEW YORK, and my pal Jerry passed 4 of hers onto me recently.   Then, KLUTE was on again over the weekend, so we had another look at that too - its a key '70s movie for me, as per my other reports on it here - Fonda label.

I saw SUNDAY IN NEW YORK at the time, on its general release here in the UK in 1964, when I was 18, and more or less forgot it. But seeing it again now, 50 years later, its a bright, shiny artifact of the early 60s and is one of the better comedies revolving around sex of that time - COME SEPTEMBER, SEX AND THE SINGLE GIRL and of course the Rock and Doris comedies. It has extensive New York shooting, and an engaging quartet of players, plus An Apartment To Die For - one of those Apartments We Love, which I will have to return to soon.

Its a sparkling comedy from a Norman Krasna stage play (cue lots of doors opening and people arriving unexpectedly) and its amusing to see what was considered daring on screen 50 years ago. Peter Teskesbury keeps it moving nicely and New York circa 1963 looks great in Metrocolor, yup its another great New York movie, like BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S  — we get to see the city just before the decline that caused filmmakers of the late 1960s and 1970s (cue KLUTE!) to use the city as a symbol of urban crime rather than a terrific place for falling in love. There is also a nice jazz score by Peter Nero (who also makes a cameo appearance in a nightclub scene). 

Jane is the 23 year old virgin who refuses to put out for her fiance, and is visiting her airline pilot brother (Cliff Robertson) who swears to her that he does not sleep with girls and respects them, while a running joke has he and girlfriend Jo Morrow (super here) being continually frustrated while trying to get together. Enter amiable nice guy Rod Taylor whom Jane gets attached to - literally - on a bus. Further complications follow when they are both undressed back at Cliff's place when her fiance Robert Culp walks in and thinks Rod is her brother - then her real brother arrives!  Needless to say it is nicely worked out, and we just love that bachelor apartment with its brick walls, sunken kitchen, and the spiral stairs up to the bedroom area, which can be shuttered off at night. Urban bliss indeed.  Mel Torme sings the engaging theme tune and its classy work all round, capturing that early '60s Manhattan single lifestyle - almost an update on Rock and Doris in PILLOW TALK!  Its the perfect Valentine Day treat. 

Rod was fresh from THE BIRDS and THE VIPs, Jane had done THE CHAPMAN REPORT and WALK ON THE WILD SIDE, those two Trash Classics we love from 1962 and would go on to do more films of Broadway plays like BAREFOOT IN THE PARK and ANY WEDNESDAY, as well as her French films LES FELINS and the Vadim's like LA RONDE, and as well as the heavy stuff like THE CHASE and HURRY SUNDOWN, before her hits BARBARELLA, THEY SHOOT HORSE DONT THEY? and back to KLUTE and JULIA. We never really liked much of her work after that and she has of course re-invented herself several times since and is now a very glamorous late Seventies ...

Now, back to her first film: TALL STORY in 1960, where she is directed by father Henry's pal Joshua Logan, and co-starred with Tony Perkins - very tall and gangly here as the ace basketball player and Jane as the girl who is determined to bag him. Its a so-so comedy, rather boring in parts, with too much of the older professors. 

The most amusing scene has Jane following Tony into the mens' changing room and seeeing naked Van Williams emerging from the shower... It also features young Gary Lockwood and maybe Robert Redford in one shot.

I did not like PERIOD OF ADJUSTMENT that much either, Tennessee Williams' first comedy from 1962, which makes for a raucous comedy as we follow newly-weds Fonda and Jim Hutton en route to their honeymoon, as they visit another couple Tony Franciosa and Lois Nettleton  who are having problems of their own.  It all gets very tiresome before too long, or maybe I was just not in the mood for it. 

Ditto with Godard's TOUT VA BIEN, a 1972 political tract which sees Fonda (just after KLUTE) and Yves Montand as a couple in Paris, journalists dealing with a factory strike and the capitalist society we live in. It highlighted everything I dislike about Godard films and I just found what I saw of it unbearably tedious. I do want to re-visit Godard's CONTEMPT though, with Bardot in 1963 - which if I remember right is a fascinating treatise on making movies. 

Nice though to finally see THE GAME IS OVER (LA CUREE) again, after all this time. This Roger Vadim piece of exotic erotica dates from 1966 and is a delicious Trash Classic as Jane enbarks on a doomed love affair with her stepson, Peter McEnery. Husband is mercurial Michel Piccoli, and Jane suffers but wears marvellous costumes for each scene, particularly for her mad scene at the climax!. We like McEnery (the first HAMLET I saw on stage, in 1967). It it all delirious nonsense played out in opulent sets which are a scream. 

After all those Janes, we now want to go back to some more Romy Schneider and Catherine Deneuve ... 

Frankie goes to Hollywood ...

No, not that Frankie, nor even one of my favourite '80s groups, but England's "legendary crooner" Frankie Vaughan. Frankie (1928-1999) may be rather forgotten now, but was one the UK's leading entertainers with lots of popular hits ("Tower of Strength", "Green Door", "Give Me The Moonlight" etc) and became an all-round entertainer filling The Palladium, and worked in America too at Vegas and the like.  Of those singers popular in the mid-50s (when I first began noticing music) like David Whitfield, Dennis Lotis (and his pipe), Michael Holliday, Alma Cogan and Lita Roza, Frankie was certainly the most popular and was a looker too. He symbolised that era (as did Diana Dors, Sabrina, Arthur Askey, Norman Wisdom) before the arrival of Tommy Steele and Cliff Richard and the all-conquering Elvis.

He made 4 films in England with the Herbert Wilcox/Anna Neagle team, and was taken up by 20th Century Fox to co-star with Marilyn in LET'S MAKE LOVE - though it was Yves Montand who scored there!. He also did another rare Fox movie THE RIGHT APPROACH in 1961, which I will be receiving shortly .... and then returned to the UK where he was famously involved with charities, and a happy family man. I like this poster for his first film, produced by Neagle, and directed by Wilcox, which tries to make him look mean and moody. Seeing the film now though it is certainly quite effective and captures that 1957 vibe perfectly. My IMDB review said:

THESE DANGEROUS YEARS, 1957. This is an amusing view now, with English crooner Frankie Vaughan who was popular at the time (before the pop boys Cliff and Adam and Marty came along in the early 60s and who were then replaced by The Beatles a year or so later). Vaughan became an all-round entertainer famous for his charity work. This is the first of 4 movies he did with director Herbert Wilcox and Anna Neagle (who produced) and casts him as a singer who is drafted into the army and falls foul of the camp bully. It has that 50s vibe in spades, particularly when starlets blonde Carole Lesley and Jackie Lane (above) are around with their perfectly '50s bedsit, (Carole was another showbusiness casualty, committing suicide in 1974 aged 38). Lots of familiar faces here: George Baker, Thora Hird, John le Mesurier, David Lodge, Michael Ripper, Reginald Beckwith, Eddie Byrne. Frankie acquits himself well, sings a few songs, not long before heading off to Hollywood and Marilyn Monroe. It was titled DANGEROUS YOUTH in America and seemed to tie in with Elvis in the Army ...

WONDERFUL THINGS followed in 1958, I have not seen it but it is out on dvd in a month or so. Here, he and Jeremy Spenser are fishermen in Malta. 
THE HEART OF A MAN in 1959 is unavailable now and co-stars him with our recent re-discovery, Anne Heywood. 

Dame Anna gets with it ...

THE LADY IS A SQUARE though is a real treat from 1959, the last of his British films. This stars Anna Neagle herself as the lady of the title, with Frankie and Janette Scott, plus Anthony Newley.  This now is 1959 England in aspic as much as ROOM AT THE TOP, EXPRESSO BONGO, or I'M ALRIGHT JACK. Delirious fun!  Dame Anna bowed out in style here, its a nice look at London then too as we start at a classical concert at that new Royal Festival Hall and end up on stage at the Talk of The Town nightclub (I've been on that stage too) where Dame Anna gets with it. Frankie plays a rising singing star who works as her butler to woo her daughter Janette.  (Frankie fared better in the movies than Tommy Steele or even Cliff - there seems no interest now in THE DUKE WORE JEANS or TOMMY THE TOREADOR or even THE YOUNG ONES! - Tommy though had roles in Hollywood too with FINIAN'S RAINBOW and THE HAPPIEST MILLIONAIRE. Adam Faith went for the moody vibe with BEAT GIRL and MIX ME A PERSON, while Marty Wilde was on that jet in JET STORM, also 1959 label. We reported on Billy Fury's PLAY IT COOL recently too - music label.).

Quite a lineup: Miller, Signoret, Montand, Monroe, and Frankie ....

We know LET'S MAKE LOVE well, the least of Monroe's later films, and generally a damp squib, but Vaughan does ok, having two terrific numbers with Marilyn, the title track and "Specialisation". It seems Marilyn wanted Frankie to go over their lines at her bungalow, but the family man declined leaving the way clear for Monsieur Montand!  We will report on THE RIGHT APPROACH in due course, a very forgotten Fox item, about 5 bachelors sharing an apartment in Hollywood and trying to succeed. Frankie leads the guys and the girls are Martha Hyer and Juliet Prowse. Should be interesting at least. Frankie continued being one of England's great entertainers until his death in 1999. 

Claude Sautet and muse Romy Schneider ...

During my summer lay-off, I am re-printing a few of my previous posts, which newcomers may have missed. 

As our London BFI is running a Claude Sautet retrospective in September, here is my Sautet piece from 2011 - featuring his films with Romy Schneider. They did 5 together, I still have 2 to track down: MADO and UN HISTOIRE SIMPLE - still, I can see them on screen in Sept...
French label has items on those other French directors we like: Ozon, Techine, Demy, Malle, Chabrol, Melville, Clement, Truffaut etc. 

I have only now caught up with the films of Claude Sautet (who died in 2000). His 1969 LES CHOSES DE LA VIE (THE THINGS OF LIFE) was a big hit in London in 1970 but has not been available for years, but now it is going to be a movie I will return to, as I will to CESAR & ROSALIE from '72, and I have now just seen the 1971 cop thriller MAX AND THE JUNKMEN. Sautet in all did 5 films with Romy Schneider in the '70s, her great era in France - it is fascinating seeing how she blooms in his films, she just looks so radiant, beautiful and relaxed as obviously star and director have such rapport - so along with Dietrich with Von Sternberg, Sophia with De Sica, Monica Vitti with Antonioni, Anna Karina with Godard, we have Romy with Sautet.

The films too are fascinating - I will have to catch up with his other 2 with Romy: MADO and A SIMPLE STORY [and his other films like UN COEUR EN HIVER]. I was reminded of Claude Lelouch at times, as there are lots of cars and driving, and that good life where the characters' milieu is that comfortable bourgeois life taking place in desirable mansions and seaside homes.



LES CHOSES DE LA VIE is all driving in fact, as Michel Piccoli is having a fatal crash as he remembers moments of his life. The crash itself is amazing with terrific editing and Piccoli slowly comes to and realises he is lying in a field. We see how he left his happy marriage to Lea Massari and his son whom he had just re-connected with when he visited the family home for some papers, and indeed had agreed to go on holiday with his son which meant postponing going away with Romy, whom he loves but she senses he cannot commit or sign the papers that need completing. Lots of middle-aged angst then on the choices one makes and has one done the right thing, but it is freshly handled here. That score is Phillipe Sarde is perfect too.
40 years later what stands out now is how they smoke all the time - Piccoli lights up one cigarette after another, "I smoke too much" he says at one stage; one feels that the cigarettes will get him if the crash doesn't! One can see why it was such a hit, and, cigarettes apart, it still works now.



CESAR & ROSALIE is a total joy, you may be laughing and also have a tear in your eye by the end. [They smoke too on the poster...]. One does not want to reveal too much of the plot, as it is best to see it unfold for yourself. Yves Montand is Cesar, the self-made man, a wealthy scrap dealer, jovial on the outside but wants things his own way and will not be beaten, even if a car overtakes him. Rosalie is the divorcee he is happily living with, then another man she loved David (Sami Frey) now a successful cartoonist returns from America and quietly tries to win Rosalie back. Cesar realises what is happening and tells David to back off and invents stories that Rosalie is pregant and going to marry him, which only succeeds in driving Rosalie and David together. In a rage, Cesar wrecks David's apartment and art works, Rosalie relatiates by taking David to Cesar's office and taking money from the safe and they move away to a seaside town with her little daughter. Some time passes, and then Cesar turns up, he has bought her childhood seaside home and they all spend the summer there with her parents and extended family. It seems they are going to be a threesome but Rosalie is an independent woman and one day she moves away (to Grenoble) leaving Cesar and David who become good friends ..... and then one day Rosalie returns. What is going to happen now? Montand is marvellous here, Schneider never looked more beautiful or animated, it is just so engrossing. It is essentially a frivolous romantic movie with twists and turns, as scripted by Sautet regular Jean-Loup Dabadie, and scored again by Philippe Sarde. Isabelle Huppert has a small role.



A change of pace with MAX AND THE JUNKMEN (Max et les Ferrailleurs) as we are in Chabrol or Duvivier or Melville territory. Michel Piccoli is Max, a Paris detective who used to be a judge but got tired of letting guilty criminals go free for lack of evidence and he is independently wealthy. The film takes it time, Romy does not appear until half an hour in as the prostitute girlfriend of a scrapyard dealer who is an old acquaintance of Max. Romy skillfully captures Lily, this German streetwalker whom Max becomes fascinated by. He buys her time but does not want her body (yet) and begins to hatch a plan to catch some criminals in the act. He sets himself up as a banker in a new apartment where he meets Lily, who is dissatisfield with her own life and that her junkyard lover Abel. Abel and his cronies are soon hatching the plan to rob the bank, which Max has told Lily about, so all they need is the day when the big money is in, while the police surround the area waiting to pounce. And so it happens - the robbery takes place .... fascinating stuff then, but who has trapped who.



Romy was very prolific around this time and I have seen some others of hers from this era recently, ranging from dreadful (MY LOVER MY SON, BLOOMFIELD) to ok (QUI?) [as per reviews at Romy label] but the Sautet films are in a class of their own.

2013: I now have about 12 Romys to watch - we did GARDE A VUE recently, leaving 4 with Trintignant, her last PASSANTE DE SANS SOUCI, INFERNAL TRIO, CHRISTINE, AN ANGEL ON EARTH, THE LADY BANKER, WOMAN AT HER WINDOW, THE LAST TRAIN, LOVE IN THE RAIN and that Italian language only one with Mastroianni FANTASA D'AMORE ... reviews of these during the autumn then.