Martini movies: The Garment Jungle, 1957

'Martini movies' are a new concept for me, but they are a series of dvds of pulpy noirs and gangster flicks, mainly from the '50s, but also later '70s titles like THE ANDERSON TAPES or DOLLARS and flicks like Rita and Glenn's AFFAIR IN TRINIDAD. They include details of martinis to sip while watching. Mainly Columbia titles, like THE GARMENT JUNGLE which is a nice discovery: a top-notch Crime/Mob/Racket thriller like those recent mellers 5 AGAINST THE HOUSE and UNDERWORLD USA (see Dramas label).

On the mean streets of the garment district of New York City, Alan Mitchell (Kerwin Mathews) discovers that the dress business owner by his father (Lee J Cobb) is being controlled by the mob. Alan must join forces with rebellious labour union leaders in order to save his family's company from thugs. THE GARMENT JUNGLE is a fast-paced noir set in the cutthroat world of fashion. 

Kerwin Mathews is a recent re-discovery of mine (as per 5 AGAINST THE HOUSE, 3 WORLDS OF GULLIVER, 7TH VOYAGE OF SINBAD etc, see Kerwin label) and he is quietly terrific here as the son returning to the family business. Gia Scala is a very pleasing presence and attractive leading lady as the Italian wife of one of the guys who are offed by the mob - she of course was in GUNS OF NAVARONE, and a nice one I liked then 4 GIRLS IN TOWN (Gia Scala label), she later committed suicide, another Hollywood casualty like Gail Russell (see 7 MEN FROM NOW, below). Lee J Cobb is firing on all cylinders as usual and is another terrific role for him (like in MAN OF THE WEST, PARTY GIRL, ON THE WATERFRONT etc) as the father finally seeing the corruption around him caused by Richard Boone and being reconciled with his son just of course before the mob hits back.
New York in the '50s looks authentic here. It seems this was directed by Robert Aldrich but he was replaced by old hand Vincent Sherman who gets solo directing credit. Its a tough fast flick more in keeping with Aldrich's direction. I liked it a lot. Kerwin and Gia make a nicely attractive couple. That heavy from NORTH BY NORTHWEST Adam Williams is also involved, along with DR NO Joseph Wiseman, Valerie French, dependables Harold J Stone and Celia Lovsky, and evil Wesley Addy. Boone gets his comeuppance nicely too. 
One unusual scene for 1957 is where Gia breastfeeds her baby in the restaurant ...

We also learn how to make martini's like a Manhattan, ideal to sip while watching this: 6 parts rye whiskey, 1 part dry vermouth, 1 part sweet vermouth, garnished with a cherry. We like Martini Movies !

Jet Storm, 1959

AIRPORT is of course the grand-daddy of bomb-on-airplane movies, but JET STORM a proficient little British thriller (all wrapped up in 84 minutes) from 1959 is a neat entry in these "doomed flight" movies popular in the '50s and is one I had wanted to re-see for a long time. Nearly every one of the 32 people on the plane is a well-known face from the time, and director Cy Endfield (he also co-scripted and wrote the theme song, sung by Marty Wilde) keeps it moving nicely, like he did with HELL DRIVERS, his tough thriller in 1957 also headlining Stanley Baker (with the likes of Patrick McGoohan and Sean Connery in support).

This was also the year of SOS PACIFIC, another one I liked then, and the very silly JET OVER THE ATLANTIC, while 1960's THE CROWDED SKY had the required Warner Bros gloss and cast, the '50s also had THE HIGH AND THE MIGHTY, a John Wayne starrer from 1954 and another Sunday matinee favourite then BACK FROM ETERNITY with Anita Ekberg in '56 where the plane crash-lands among head-hunters! (see Airlines label for reviews of these).

Richard Attenborough plays Ernest Tilley, a man who lost his daughter in a hit-and-run accident. He tracks down the man responsible for the accident and boards the same plane, threatening to blow up himself and everyone on board as an act of vengeance. What follows is an Airport-type movie with all the passengers having their own little subplots and fears.

This is the first All Star British Disaster Epic. The action takes place on an airliner bound for New York and the passenger list reads like a who's who of up and coming names - Diane Cilento, Virginia Maskell, pop star Marty Wilde with starlet Jackie Lane, future TV star Paul Eddington, established stars - Mai Zetterling, Elizabeth Sellers, Megs Jenkins, David Kossoff, and acting royalty in the form of Dame Sybil Thorndyke, having fun with comedian and goon Harry Secombe, and tv celebrities Bernard Braden and Barbara Kelly. Before he became a "grand" director, Richard Attenborough specialised in weasely roles like this - he is equally slimey in SOS PACIFIC that year. George Rose is splendidly loathesome as the man who killed Attenborough's child (he does a GOLDFINGER!), as is Hermoine Baddely (aptly named Mrs Slatterly) as the lush widow goading on the men like Patrick Allen to attack and find the bomb. Some passengers of course become hysterical and some try to take the law into their own hands. Virginia Maskell is the capable stewardess and you could not wish for a better captain that Stanley Baker - who was quite busy that year what with Losey's BLIND DATE (Baker, Losey labels), and forgotten items like YESTERDAY'S ENEMY and THE ANGRY HILLS, before going on to HELL IS A CITY and GUNS OF NAVARONE in 1960. Again, it shows how different flying was back then, the roomy seats and space the passengers have ... like in PHONE CALL FROM A STRANGER, a Bette Davis drama from 1952.

1959 remains one of the best movie years as far as I am concerned, as good as 1939 certainly - in fact every year from 1957 through to 1964 is, and nicely coincided with my teenage movie-going years. JET STORM should have a proper dvd release, its a popular British film of that year, up there with ROOM AT THE TOP, I'M ALL RIGHT JACK, EXPRESSO BONGO, Losey's BLIND DATE, Dirk's THE WIND CANNOT READ, LIBEL and THE DOCTOR'S DILEMMA and interesting dramas like THE JOURNEY, SHAKE HANDS WITH THE DEVIL etc, and all those 1959 hits from BEN HUR to SOME LIKE IT HOT plus euro-titles like EYES WITHOUT A FACE, THE 400 BLOWS, LES DRAGUEURS etc, as per 1959 label, while also that year the likes of Antonioni, Hitchcock, Fellini & Visconti were preparing their 1960 masterpieces ...

'60s double bill: Bedazzled by Petulia

I had not seen PETULIA since the '60s and always meant to return to it, so finally I have .... this 1968 comedy drama set in San Francisco is probably the perfect late '60s film, capturing that time and place as perfectly as Antonioni's BLOW-UP sums up the mid-60s in London. And then there is Julie Christie, as mesmerising as ever .... Richard Lester's film fragments the story ("Me and the arch kook Petulia"), Nicolas Roeg shoots it all and John Barry did the score, and we get snippets of Janis Joplin and her band .... how '60s is that ? (Roeg also photographed Christie's FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD, FARENHEIT 451 and later directed her in his DON'T LOOK NOW).

 
Sparkling San Franciscan socialite Petulia (Julie Christie) wants an affair. She’s been married six months and hasn’t had one yet. Lucky surgeon and soon-to-be-single Archie (George C Scott) catches her eye and their tentative romance begins. Beneath Petulia’s charming kookiness it becomes clear that her new husband (Richard Chamberlain) is physically abusive.

A film set in late '60s San Francisco is bound to be visually vivid, and PETULIA  is a marvellous-looking movie that makes great use of colour. There are psychedelic light shows accompanying musical appearances by The Grateful Dead and Janis Joplin, striking vistas of Bay Area locations and Alcatraz, and the candy-coloured mod fashions of the era.  PETULIA depicts the messy complexity of relationships, one nice scene being where Scott and Petulia encounter each other on those streetcars going in different directions. He is taking his kids to see the penguins, she follows and sits wordlessly as they meet and touch and she departs again .... then there is that long scene between Scott and ex-wife Shirley Knight (doing wonders here, as she did in Lester's 1974 high seas thriller JUGGERNAUT with a role that barely exists on paper) where frustrations spill over .... Chamberlain is cast against type here as the husband who batters his wife to a pulp, so why does she stay with him?

There are plentiful examples of Lester's penchant for absurdist humor, caustic irony, and the sad/funny details of human interaction, and his razor-sharp editing. There is a lot of jumping around in time as we learn the story of Petulia and her abusive husband and the little Mexican boy very slowly over the course of the film.

Lester's '60s movies really are as essential as the decade's Losey, Schlesigner or Richardson movies, and I love his '70s capers too - the MUSKETEERS, ROYAL FLASH etc, as per reviews here (Lester label).

Pauline Kael though did not like it at all, as covered in her essay "Trash, Art and the Movies" (in her GOING STEADY collection), where she has "rarely seen a more disagreeable, a more dislikeable (or bloodier) movie" and its commercial success "represents a triumph of publicity". "PETULIA is the come-dressed-as-the-sick-soul-of-America-party" and the film is his (Lester's) "hate letter to America" (much the same I imagine as Antonioni's ZABRISKIE POINT was a year or two later). "Probably the director who made 3 celebrations of youth and freedom (A HARD DAY'S NIGHT, HELP!, THE KNACK) is now desperate to expand his range and become a "serious" director..." She does agree though that "Julie Christie is extraordinary to look at"  ....  For me though it is a great '60s American film like the recently-reviewed here THOMAS CROWN AFFAIR, THE GROUP, THE STERILE CUCKOO, PRETTY POISON or LAST SUMMER and Coppola's delightful YOU'RE A BIG BOY NOW.

BEDAZZLED, 1967 - more '60s high jinks and delirious comedy. Peter Cooke and Dudley Moore were possibly the finest comedians the UK has ever produced before Monty Python .... we loved their satirical tv shows (in black and white) then, Cook also had a (large) hand in the comic magazine "Private Eye" that was essential then too (I remember going to their offices to purchase a red enamel cofee pot, a trendy item to have then, and pinning the "Private Eye" covers on the kitchen wall). So it was marvellous to see them on the big screen in Cinemascope and Colour for 20th Century Fox and directed by Stanley Donen (on a roll then, after his '60s hits like CHARADE, ARABESQUE and TWO FOR THE ROAD - he came a cropper though with his next after this, the dreadful STAIRCASE... ). Not only is BEDAZZLED a brilliant modern version of Faust, but it's also a hilarious satire on the '60s. 

Dudley Moore plays Stanley Moon, a short order cook and a loser who works in a Wimpey Bar (before McDonalds came along). The fabulous Eleanor Bron plays Margaret Spencer, a waitress at the fast food restaurant where Stanley works. Stanley's spent six years trying to work up the courage to ask Margaret out, but just can't seem to manage to do so. Peter Cook plays the Devil, or George Spiggott. George has taken an interest in Stanley after his failed suicide attempt. George offers Stanley the standard Seven-Wishes-For- Your-Soul contact and Stanley reluctantly agrees. The problem with the wishes is that Stanley is never specific enough and something always goes wrong to prevent Stanley from having Margaret all to himself, as either an intellectual, then as a rock star, then as a wealthy industrialist etc. 

As each fails, he becomes more aware of how empty his life had been and how much more he has to live for. He also meets the seven deadly sins who try and advise him.We get Raquel Welch as Lust, and Barry Humphries as Envy. Bron is wonderful here (as she was in HELP! and in Donen's TWO FOR THE ROAD as that obnoxious American tourist) as the heavily made-up waitress intoning her hamburger orders "heavy on the onions". The London scene of the time is nicely depicted, even from the top of the GPO Post Office Tower, and the final segment with the leaping nuns will have you helpless with laughter ... Cook is a very petty devil, sending pigeons to drop their droppings on businessmen, scratching vinyl records and pulling the last page out of Agatha Christie novels, his magic words are "Julie Andrews" ! Dudley is great here, before his later less funny films. There was of course that remake, but I didn't bother with it, it just would not have the same funny memories for me. 

Soon: '60s thrillers like Lumet's downbeat THE DEADLY AFFAIR, Ken Russell's flashy BILLION DOLLAR BRAIN ...and some early '60s dramas: THE MARK, THE THIRD SECRET, THE INSPECTOR (LISA).

'60s double bill: In search of what's'isname ...

1967 - London in the Swinging '60s, the Kings Road, the fashionable people, the mini-skirted dolly birds and the clothes and music - and those long forgotten movies that never get revived now. Here's 2 more of them: Michael Winner's magnum opus of the time I'LL NEVER FORGET WHAT'S'ISNAME, and a Julie Christie oddity IN SEARCH OF GREGORY.

Advertising golden boy Andrew Quint is fed up with his fabulously successful life. In very dramatic fashion, he quits his job to return to writing for a small literary magazine. He wants to leave his former life behind, going as far as saying good-bye to his wife and mistresses. He finds, however, that it's not so easy to escape the past.

I had not seen Winner's film since its release, its a cornucopia of '60s people and places. We start with Oliver Reed, then in his prime, walking all the busy street with an axe over his shoulder. He arrives at his office and proceeds to demolish his desk. Well, its one way of resigning .... Olly's boss is the devious Jonathan Lute, top billed Orson Welles who looks like he is enjoying himself while no doubt collecting a hefty pay check. Lute is presented as evil incarnate who will do anything to keep Quint (Reed) in his power. Quint goes back to his roots, that little magazine he ran with Norman Rodway and his wife Ann Lynn, their secretary Carol White whom Quint gets involved with; of course there's also his discarded wife Wendy Craig, and assorted mistresses like hippy chick/dolly bird Marianne Faithfull always stripping off for a bath (below). Pot shots are taken at all the usual targets, the braying toffs at Cambridge, well-known faces pop in and out: Michael Hordern, Harry Andrews, Mark Burns, Mark Eden, Edward Fox, Frank Finlay, Roland Curram ... I suppose it was par for the course then for actors to get a day or two on the new Michael Winner.

Winner though, like the budding Ken Russell, had his finger on the pulse of contemporary culture then, this catches the mid-60s perfectly as his 1964 THE SYSTEM (Oliver again, with budding David Hemmings, Jane Merrow and another great cast) catches the tail end of that black-and-white era.

The melodramatics come thick and fast here, as scriped by Peter Draper: Rodway sells out the magazine to Orson, Quint make a commercial attacking the superficiality of it all and the ruthless world of advertising, this is unveiled to applause at the old National Film Theatre I knew so well, one of the leading characters comes to grief in a grisly car accident and we finish with Oliver at dawn on a bridge, as Wendy, his ex-wife, arrives and they walk off for breakfast, with Battersea Power Station belching out fumes in the distance .... they just don't make them like that anymore! POOR COW Carol White of course also lives in one of those Chelsea houseboats we are familiar with from other '60s trash opuses like MY LOVER MY SON and GOODBYE GEMINI. A neglected London classic then like UP THE JUNCTION ... ?  
Oliver Reed was a powerful screen presence then, as shown by his 4 for Winner and 4 for Ken Russell - I only caught his Dante Gabriel Rossetti in Ken's 1967 BBC film DANTE'S INFERNO once and it was a mesmerising experience, and of course his Bill Sykes in OLIVER will be unveiled once again over the seasonal holidays ...

IN SEARCH OF GREGORY:  The mid to late '60s saw lots of these pseudo highbrow arty cod-Antonioni dramas. For every genuine classic like THE CONFORMIST or THE GARDEN OF THE FINZI CONTINI we had to endure oddities like 1969's IN SEARCH OF GREGORY - Julie Christie hunting a mystery man - or De Sica's own A PLACE FOR LOVERS - Faye Dunaway dying of  a rare disease while still looking dazzling (as per recent review) or Vanessa Redgrave & Franco Nero in A QUIET PLACE IN THE COUNTRY. (Trash label) or Anouk and Omar in Lumet's baffling THE APPOINTMENT - these must have emptied cinemas on release, but we never really got a chance to see them at the time, so they couldn't have hung around long. Visconti's SANDRA (VAGHE STELLE DELL'ORSA) in 1965 is one that actually works, its dazzlingly operatic style highlights Claudia Cardinale and Jean Sorel at their best as the incestuous siblings, as per my reviews on it (Italian, Claudia, Jean labels).

Here the brother and sister are Julie and a very young looking John Hurt. This would seem to reach for the Antonioni style with Julie as the Monica Vitti figure we first see walking around Rome. She is lured to her father's 5th wedding in Geneva by the promise of the mysterious guest Gregory who just may prove to be ideal for her. Her brother though wants to keep Gregory for himself - we never see the mystery man but Julie imagines him to be Michael Sarrazin, whom she glimpses in a poster in his leather jacket. Cue several scenes of Sarrazin, in and out of clothes, as the mystery man she keeps missing ...  the mystery here is why Julie, after her triumphs in DARLING, ZHIVAGO and FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD, chose to do this puzzler, maybe it was a final film she owed producer Joseph Janni. Her previous one, PETULIA for Richard Lester in '68 is a genuine '60s classic, before she headed to America, and Altman's MCCABE & MRS MILLER with Beatty, and of course back to Italy for DON'T LOOK NOW ...

What sinks IN SEARCH OF GREGORY is that Sarrazin (who died last year aged 70, see label), fine in other movies, is simply not appealing or interesting enough for us to see what attracts Christie to him ... the story is not realistically worked out, but hey - Julie looks different but marvellous here in 1969 and it catches that Euro-gloss nicely. Adolfo Celi as the father is for once easy to understand here, and Hurt looks like a decadent cherub.
We never see the real Gregory but Julie runs across Sarrazin at the airport and thinks he is Gregory and they end up in the same hotel room. Turns out he is not Gregory, but a complete stranger, while unknown to her the real Gregory is next to her at the airport while she is on the phone to her brother, who is also on the line to Gregory. Thats the kind of Antonioni puzzle director Peter Wood seems to be aiming for here, so its a tale of emptiness, boredom and longing about an idle rich girl (cue acres of footage of Julie wandering around looking glam but glum and disconsolate), as co-scripted by Antonioni regular Tonino Geurra (who also died this year). A genuine curio then...

These 2 (WHAT'S'ISNAME and GREGORY) have the Universal Pictures logo and are more examples of European films financed by Americans in the '60s, Others reviewed here (1960s label) include OTLEY, DUFFY, SEBASTIAN, THE DAY THE FISH CAME OUT, THE BOFORS GUN, SMASHING TIME (actually a Carlo Ponti production), LOCK UP YOUR DAUGHTERS etc.  
Next Swinging '60s double bill: BEDAZZLED by PETULIA. 

R.I.P.s

Oscar Niemeyer (1907-2012), the architect, who has died aged 104, was best known as the designer of Brasilia, the daringly futuristic capital city of Brasil, completed in 1960. His buildings are a tour de force of sculptural and technical invention, began in 1957 they combine modernist geometrics with lyrical fantasy, curves and clean white lines which seem to defy structural logic.

Born December 15 1907 (a Sagittarius like me, and Dave Brubeck below) in Rio De Janeiro, he became a prolific designer with hundreds of buildings designed to his specifications. He designed buildings all over Europe and continued to work into extreme old age. He certainly caught the spirit of the age and that mid-20th Century look. What amazing futuristic beautiful bold buildings, ahead of his time, waiting for us to catch up.

Dave Brubeck (1920-2012) also lived to a good age, dying the day before his 92nd birthday on 6 December. The musician, whose recordings included "Take Five" and "Blue Rondo a la Turk", enjoyed phenomenal success with The Dave Brubeck Quartet in the 1950s and '60s, selling millions of albums. He made the cover of TIME in 1954. Their 1959 album "Time Out" was significant for its use of uncommon, complex time signatures - influenced by the pianist's classical training. The record spawned "Take Five", the biggest-selling jazz single of all time - even people who did not like jazz knew "Take Five". Brubeck toured endlessly, into his late 80s. His final release was the 2007 solo piano album "Indian Summer". I am sure he appeared at a local theatre near here some years ago ....

2012 has certainly seen the departure of a lot of singers and musicians, as noted here (RIP label): Brubeck, Andy Williams, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Etta James, Whitney, Donna Summer, a Bee Gee, a Monkee, a member of The Band, Dory Previn, Joe South, Marvin Hamlish, Hal David, Tony Martin, etc.

And now another titan of world music dies, also at a venerable age, 92: Ravi Shankar (1920-2012). George Harrison of the Beatles once called Shankar "the godfather of world music".

He played at Woodstock and the 1967 Monterey Pop festival, and also collaborated with violinist Yehudi Menuhin and jazz saxophonist John Coltrane. Shankar also composed a number of film scores - notably Satyajit Ray's celebrated APU trilogy (1951-55) and Richard Attenborough's GANDHI (1982). Born into a Bengali family in the ancient Indian city of Varanasi, he gave up dancing to study the sitar at the age of 18. We liked that sitar sound back in the 1960s, which Harrison introduced.

Sir Patrick Moore (1923-2012), a mere 89 - the great astronomer was a genuine and much-admired eccentric who never took himself too seriously and played up to his image as a "mad professor", ideal for television and his writing; just like Jacques Cousteau under the oceans, Moore became an essential guide for generations of children to the wonders of the skies and heavens above ... 

One more 'oldie': Norman Woodland, 91 - the co-inventor of the barcode, which certainly merits a mention! 

Man of La Mancha

MAN OF LA MANCHA from 1972 seems a curiously overlooked musical, despite O'Toole and Loren I never wanted to see it at the time and when I got the dvd I just had a cursory look and filed it away, but some good comments at IMDB got me intrigued, so time for a proper look.

Locked up in a dungeon, awaiting a trial before the court of the Inquisition, Miguel de Cervantes tells his cell mates a story (created by his fantasy) of a nobleman of La Mancha, Don Quixote, who, inspired by the ancient tales of chivalry, attires himself in dilapidated armor and departs, riding a bony nag, in the company of an impromptu squire named Sancho. Don Quixote wants to renew the splendors of the knights errant; he fights windmills which he mistakes for giants; he meets a humble scullery maid whom he calls Dulcinea and elevates to the rank of sweet damsel; he takes a beating from some merchants whom he had ordered to recognize the incomparable beauty of Dulcinea; He makes an innkeeper, whom he mistakes for a lord, equip him as a knight, and at last returns hom where Dulcinea joins him to bow lovingly over his deathbed. 

Based on the hit Broadway musical of the same name by Dale Wasserman the film was greeted with negative notices but like many musicals of that era, posterity has been kind - its not quite the bomb its reputation would suggest, even if a little heavy-handed in parts. The colour scheme is drab throughout, all browns and beiges, so when Loren picks some vivid green plants its a stunning burst of colour. It is really another one-song show (FIDDLER ON THE ROOF?) and "The Impossible Dream" is undeniably effective. O'Toole is dubbed but brings a nice sweetness to Don Quixote, an addled old man here. Sophia, though, dominates the film, when her Aldonza spits out her rage she is a real woman who has been abused, "a wounded animal in pain" as a friend says in his IMDB review. 

The cast is the thing here, as directed by Arthur Hiller (PLAZA SUITE, THE OUT-OF-TOWNERS, LOVE STORY etc: There's that man again - Brian Blessed (see recent  FLASH GORDON, review, below) as the beefy mulateer with the hook for a hand, left.
(Brian did a Christmas panto season at my local theatre here a year or two ago, and was also in THE TROJAN WOMEN with Hepburn, Redrave, Papas & Bujold). There is also Ian Richardson, Rosalie Crutchley, Harry Andrews, John Castle (from BLOW-UP and LION IN WINTER). Unlike bloated musicals like CAMELOT, STAR! or HELLO DOLLY this seems a minimal, pared-down musical showing Don Quixote's story to be the ultimate in human heroism, a tragic man of courage struggling to see and live life, not as it is, but as it should be. To dream the impossible dream indeed ... career highlights then for Peter and Sophia, who is certainly stunning here.To think its 40 years old !

People We Like: Michael York

I had been meaning to do a new round on 'People We Like' to cover Peter Finch, Alan Bates, David Warner, Dame Flora Robson and Vera Miles, and I can start now with Michael York.

I have just been watching an absorbing interview with Michael York, part of that dvd set of interviews BRITISH LEGENDS OF STAGE & SCREEN, which our Sky Arts channel are showing as individual programmes. As mentioned earlier they include Glenda Jackson, Derek Jacobi, Michael Gambon, Christopher Lee, Diana Rigg, Claire Bloom, Sir Ian McKellen and York. Its a fascinating set of interviews for anyone interested in actors discussing their craft ...

York, like Terence Stamp (post below) was one of those new actors who fascinated us back in the '60s. He came along at just the right time in the mid-'60s at the heyday of international cinema and, like most attractive young actors who get the breaks, had 10 good years appearing in a wide range of films, large and small - the personable young stage actor with the broken nose was soon attracting the attention of movie-makers like Richardson, Losey, Zeffirelli .... Movies did not all have to open big then, but often built up word of mouth and hung around for a while in the revival houses and got written up about in the various film magazines. York too is a fascinating example of an actor getting older and continuing to work in smaller parts and keeping going while keeping his dignity. He also had some good theatre roles including HAMLET in 1970 and Tennessee Williams plays in New York.

I had a pleasant meeting with him 5 or 6 years ago when he was signing a new book of his at a Borders bookshop (now gone) in Oxford Street in London, where I was able to tell him I saw his HAMLET in 1970 at a theatre in Surrey, which I think pleased him. Michael of course worked with a lot of people I like since his first role in Zeffirelli's THE TAMING OF THE SHREW in 1966, with the Burtons and that nice ensemble of players, it was enjoyable seeing this again recently, so stunningly visual like Franco's 1968 ROMEO & JULIET where York was the volatile Mercutio (I had a poster on my then wall..). Before that he was the young aristocrat in Losey's ACCIDENT in 1967 .... which year also saw his mod photographer in the smashing swinging comedy I like a lot, as per other posts here, SMASHING TIME.

Michael and his photographer wife Patricia liked to travel a lot, as per his interesting autobiography...
1969 was a good year: to India for THE GURU for James Ivory, as the Viking chief in ALFRED THE GREAT shot in Ireland that summer for Clive Donner, with David Hemmings, and with Anouk Aimee and Dirk Bogarde in JUSTINE shot in Tunisia and Hollywood for Cukor .... then it was off to Germany for SOMETHING FOR EVERYONE (aka BLACK FLOWERS FOR THE BRIDE, gay interest label) that cult black comedy by Hal Prince, with Angela Lansbury, and later for CABARET, Bob Fosse's still intoxicating musical and ENGLAND MADE ME with Peter Finch - with whom York teamed up again for the disaster film LOST HORIZONS in '73!

That year he shot THE THREE (and then FOUR) MUSKETEERS in Spain for Richard Lester, where he was an amusing D'Artagnan with Oliver Reed, Heston, Christopher Lee and Faye Dunaway's wicked Milady ... and there was the all-star MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS in 1974, followed by LOGAN'S RUN.  Some duds were also in the mix: a royal prince in SEVEN NIGHTS IN JAPAN. I have now got his 1968 THE STRANGE AFFAIR to watch again, and a thriller with Genevieve Bujold: FINAL ASSIGNMENT. - he also of course played "himself" in Billy Wilder's fascinating FEDORA.

Alfred The Great

He continued to work throughout the '80s and '90s, with lots of television work as per his IMDB profile, has an interesting website, and several other projects, and of course those AUSTIN POWERS movies which I liked a lot. This new interview shows a more thoughtful side to him, at 70, and I liked his advice for young actors, not to be afraid to fail. He seemed fine when I met him in 2005 or 2006, but perhaps has been unwell recently. One certainly wishes him well and a full recovery.

PS: York in an interview in today's paper, 7th December, to promote the dvd BRITISH LEGENDS OF STAGE & SCREEN lists his Top 5 movies as: BRIEF ENCOUNTER, HENRY V, DR NO, ANONYMOUS and his own ENGLAND MADE ME!

[Previous 'People We Like' here include, as per labels, David Hemmings, Stewart Granger, Claire Bloom, Julie Harris, Belinda Lee, Michael Craig, Stanley Baker, Mary Astor, Anne Baxter, Capucine, Kay Kendall, Joan Greenwood, Jeffrey Hunter and all those posts on Dirk Bogarde, Anouk Aimee, Romy Schneider, Sophia Loren, Monica Vitti, Lee Remick, Susan Hayward, Alida Valli, Ingrid Thulin, Silvana Mangano, Francoise Dorleac, Jean Sorel, Alain Delon, Maurice Ronet, Belmondo, Jack Hawkins, Glynis Johns, Margaret Leighton, Ann Todd etc.]

Terence, Federico & Toby Dammit

An Edgar Allen Poe double bill: I had forgotten about SPIRITS OF THE DEAD (HISTOIRES EXTRAORDINAIRES) from 1968, and I liked Roger Corman's THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH in 1964 and caught it again this week on our Horror channel.

SPIRITS OF THE DEAD was the kind of art-house fodder we liked back in that crazy (it seems now) late '60s era, and the film magazines had ample spreads on its star cast: Jane Fonda with brother Peter in the first story METZENGERSTEIN directed by Roger Vadim; Alain Delon and Brigitte Bardot in Louis Malle's WILLIAM WILSON and the one that generated the most interest - easy to see why once one has seen it - Terence Stamp as TOBY DAMMIT directed by Fellini. Good its on dvd now. It catches Fellini at a good period after his big '60s hits and before SATYRICON, ROMA, AMARCORD, CASANOVA etc.

These are 3 Edgar Allen Poe stories freely adapted for the cinema, from that era of portmanteau films (I liked GOLD OF NAPLES, BOCCACCIO 70, YESTERDAY TODAY & TOMORROW, LE BAMBOLE, LE FATE and others (Italian label). We can dismiss the Vadim segment out of hand, a very silly soft-core medieval romp which wastes the talents of all involved, at least Jane Fonda was going on to her great roles; the Malle one isn't much better - Bardot is totally wasted here and wears an unbecoming black wig, one would have expected more from the teaming of her and Delon - we get two Delons though as he plays the wastrel William Wilson and the doppelganger who pursues him or is he a man who is driven to the murder of his conscience; there are some unpleasant sadistic scenes too. Then we go to Rome as wasted English actor Toby Dammit flies in ...

Everything about TOBY DAMMIT shows Fellini at his peak, this 50 minute segment is full of fabulous moments as we share Federico's vision of an airport, a tv interview, an awards show as frayed strung-out actor Toby gets more and more out if it as all the producers and movie hanger-ons latch on to him. It really makes me want to go back to FELLINI 8 1/2 now again ... Nino Rota contributes a terrific score and its deliriously shot by Giuseppe Rotunno, with production design by Fellini regular Piero Tosi.  Central to it all is that stunning performance by Stamp - one of the most attractive actors here looking a total wastrel with that frizzy blonde hair  .... 

Toby Dammit, according to Poe, was a poor, foolish young man who would bet on anything, and, because he had no money, it was his head he used as his ante. Eventually, of course, the devil collects the bet. Here Toby agrees to do an Italian film - a Catholic western - in return for a Ferrari, a long sleek red Ferrari ... and again he sees that little girl playing with a ball.  To him the devil is in fact a little girl ... after a night of demented drinking he finally flees from the movie people and screams off into the night in his low red car ...

Fellini presents a fantasmagoria, a descent into a maelstrom of grotesque settings, props and faces - is Toby embracing his own destruction? Does he know how his car ride will end ? Toby cannot bear the lights and photographers bothering him at the airport - it seems clear that stardom has taken its toll and the spotlight has drained him dry of all his life and he's just going through the motions by the bitter end .... the end is stunning as he drives his car over a gap in the motorway into a blank abyss where we see there is a wire stretched across the road with blood on it .... and the little girl with the ball picks up the dismembered head .... It could of course be a metaphor for selling your soul for 15 minutes of fame and how the bright lights can burn one out. Its surreal, beautiful, and mesmerising and Stamp is stunning here. 

Terry & Monica/Modesty = the height of '60s glamour for me

This was "the look" then

He began as that beautiful BILLY BUDD and the thug in TERM OF TRIAL both 1962, then he was THE COLLECTOR for Wyler in 1965 followed by those mid-'60s essential films, going from Losey and Monica Vitti as MODESTY BLAISE to Schlesigner and Julie Christie in FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD, Loach's POOR COW and that western BLUE and then Italy called: Pasolini and TEOREMA with Silvana Mangano, (sensational at the time) and Fellini here with TOBY DAMMIT. 

I used to have the poster

Terence wrote 3 marvellous volumes of autobiography covering it all, took lots of time off, made some very adventureous choices (unlike his old friend Michael Caine)  and continues filming now. I am looking forward to seeing him and Vanessa Redgrave and Anne Reid in SONG FOR MARION coming out soon. Certainly one of the most individual actors out there. I used to see him a few times in London as I worked for 20 years in Regent Street, just as it curved down to Piccadilly and sometimes in the morning I would see Terry clutching a carton of milk, as his apartment then was at The Albany just behind where I worked, in Piccadilly. I resisted asking him what Monica or Julie were really like .... and I also saw him on stage playing DRACULA ! 

We also liked those early '60s American-International Poe adaptations by Roger Corman like THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER and THE PIT AND THE PENDELUM - that last shot of Barbara Steele! - and the 2 he made in England in 1964: MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH and THE TOMB OF LIGEIA, all starring terrific Vincent Price. Vincent of course was terrifying in Michael Reeves' WITCHFINDER GENERAL in 1967, and later had a lot of fun as DR PHIBES and in THEATRE OF BLOOD where he met his wife Coral Brown, that very individual actress. MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH is a sheer delight with its depiction of the village, the castle and the red death plague. It has moments that suggest Bergman's THE SEVENTH SEAL, and has great images as lensed by Nicolas Roeg. Vincent is in his element as Prince Prospero imagining he can keep the plague from entering his castle, and we liked young Jane Asher here, David Weston, and Hammer scream queen Hazel Court who makes an unwise pact with "a friend of Prince Prospero" ... it all looks terrific. Corman of course shot cheaply and quickly, here on sets left over from BECKET.