Movies I love: Moment to Moment

MOMENT TO MOMENT in 1966 is a glossy romantic thriller by old hand Mervyn Le Roy (his last film in fact) set in the South of France and is a fabulous treat to see now at this remove. It was part of a double-bill on release initially.

The first half is lushly romantic as Jean Seberg drives around Nice in her snazzy red sports car, sporting a Yves St Laurent wardrobe that would still be the height of chic today - she is a bored wife whose (dull) husband Arthur Hill is away on business, and she gets romantically involved [as one does] with a sailor on the loose - Sean Garrison, a bit wooden but does what is required of him, ie - he fills out his uniform nicely. Jean resists at first but ... add in Honor Blackman [just after her stint as Pussy Galore with James Bond] as the maneater next door and the stage is set for some fireworks.

Then it turns into a Chabrol-like thriller with a missing body, police on the prowl, the return of the husband and the missing body (very much alive). It is though all nicely worked out, a lot of it studio bound, but nice locations too. Jean is perfect here and its a perfect mid'60s treat. Great Henry Mancini score too .... it deserves to be much better known and would be a much better chick flick now than some of the current examples. There is a lovely moment at the well-known Colombe D'Or restaurant (still going strong at St-Paul-de-Vence - I read a recommendtion on it last week) with the doves flying into the sun .... perfectly romantic then with a few Hitchcockian twists and Seberg is in her lovely prime here. What's not to like? My IMDB pal Timshelboy loves it as well.

Dana Wynter R.I.P. / Arthur Laurents

I have been meaning to write about the lovely Dana Wynter [1931-2011] so was really sad to to hear she has now passed away at almost 80. Dana has been on my radar quite a bit lately, as SHAKE HANDS WITH THE DEVIL and SINK THE BISMARCK! have been screened regularly here lately on TCM UK and Film4 channels (UK), also D DAY SIXTH OF JUNE and of course INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS, and she plays nicely against type as the dipso rich girl in IN LOVE AND WAR. I have not been able to see SOMETHING OF VALUE though since I was a kid.

One of her first (silent) roles was as a fashion model parading in different outfits in the English drama IT STARTED IN PARADISE in '52, which also had the up and coming Kay Kendall. She is very sympathetic (and stylish in that naval uniform) as the only female in SINK THE BISMARCK!, 61, a nice foil to Kenneth More.



Dana was married to that Hollywood lawyer Greg Bautzer, and seems to have retired to Ireland, and she had a lengthy career in television as well. She may not have been a major star but, during that era of the '50s and '60s she was a lovely leading lady (along with the second-tier likes of Dorothy Malone, Martha Hyer, Vera Miles, Barbara Rush etc). There is that wonderful moment in Siegel's classic INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS when we realise she has changed and is now one of "them"... R.I.P. indeed. Here is my recent review of IN LOVE AND WAR:

IN LOVE AND WAR – back to 20th Century Fox and another of these Jerry Wald productions featuring their contract players (like ‘57’s NO DOWN PAYMENT). This 1958 one has regulars Robert Wagner, Jeffrey Hunter [their 4th together?] and Bradford Dillman as the three marines having a last night of freedom in San Francisco before shipping overseas the next morning. We are told it is 1944 but what is on the screen is pure American ‘50s (just like KISS THEM FOR ME or THAT KIND OF WOMAN there seems to be no effort to get the period look right). Rich boy Dillman heads home to his disapproving father and “rich tramp” girlfriend Dana Wynter who drinks a lot – but nice nurse France Nuyen (who is from Honolulu!) is just around the corner. Hunter heads to his warm family and pregnant girlfriend Hope Lange, while Wagner has to have a few drinks before meeting his working class folks including the new stepfather he does not get on with. They all meet up at the hotel suite Wagner has reserved, but newly-weds Hunter and Lange have no place to stay … and Sheree North pops in as Wagner’s girl. Wagner’s drunken scenes through soon get rather tiresome. The second section shows us the boys in war and we wonder who will return home and who will not ... solidly directed by Philip Dunne, screenplay by Edward Anhalt, with a poignant climax.

also: R.I.P Arthur Laurents [1918-2011] - the venerable screenwriter and director also passed away aged 92, after being in the news lately over a new proposed production of GYPSY (for which he worte the book) to star Barbra Streisand, depending on which version one read either Laurents or composer Stephen Sondheim nixed the idea. Laurents also of course wrote the book for WEST SIDE STORY and the short-lived ANYONE CAN WHISTLE, screenplays for BONJOUR TRISTESSE, ANASTASIA, SUMMERTIME, Hitch's ROPE (he and Farley Granger were an item for some time), he also wrote THE WAY WE WERE and THE TURNING POINT among others, and left a very candid memoir. The best story I read was that Streisand rang him recently and he told her to call him back as he was about to have his breakfast. She did! (her first big break at 19 was in his show I CAN GET IT FOR YOU WHOLESALE where she was the sensational Miss Marmelstein). Certainly a legend in his own time then... even if not the most popular!

Bad Movies We Love (1): Lana, Hedy & Genghis!

Lana Turner certainly had a career resurgence in the late '50s with the success of PEYTON PLACE and then IMITATION OF LIFE after her sensational court case in '58 - then in 1960 Ross Hunter cast her in his glossy thriller PORTRAIT IN BLACK which was also quite a hit - but maybe for all the wrong reasons! Like his MIDNIGHT LACE with Doris Day the same year PORTRAIT is a daft thriller, more comic than thrilling in fact. Lana - again gowned and furred by Jean Louis - is the rich unsatisfied wife of wealthy cripple Lloyd Nolan who can give her everything but sex. They live in luxury in San Francisco. We are told right away that Lana and Lloyd's doctor Anthony Quinn are having a clandestine affair but the only way they can be together if is the doctor gives the husband a lethal injection ...

Sandra Dee and John Saxon are teamed again, as the invalid's daughter and her beau. Anna May Wong (her last role) is the sinister housekeeper, Richard Basehart is Nolan's business partner, Ray Walston the annoying chauffeur, and Virginia Grey the office secretary, who may know two much. The guilty lovers seem to have got away with their crime, but then a note arrives - someobody knows what they did. Will they be exposed or blackmailed? The red herrings pile up as Lana suffers in style. But it all hilariously over the top. They have to commit another murder which requires Lana to follow Quinn in a separate car as they dispose of the body - but Lana cannot drive! A hilarious sequence ensues ... until we get to the final twist - do not read on if you have not seen it yet: it is Lana herself who is sending the blackmail messages to keep the increasingly guilty doctor tied to her as he has been trying to get away. Then Sandra finds out and is in danger too ... delicious fun then - particularly when in a double pack dvd with Lana's 1966 sudser MADAME X ! Or, as they say over at IMDB: "Adultery, murder, blackmail, and Lana Turner, what more could one ask of a Ross Hunter production? Perhaps a good script, but that would spoil the fun. "Portrait in Black" will have lovers of camp in stitches at dialog that makes daytime soaps seem Shakespearean...Lana is the ultimate drama queen, and she is in peak form" as she suffers and emotes in different gowns and jewels in each scene. Directed by Michael Gordon. It is very 1960, I remember it's release well, being about 14.

THE FEMALE ANIMAL – From the lush Ross Hunter productions to bargain basement schlockmeiser supreme Albert Zugsmith for Hedy Lamarr's last film in 1957, this is another delirious melodrama which would in fact make a great double feature with Joan Crawford's FEMALE ON THE BEACH, with which it has certain similiarities - the beefcake there is Jeff Chandler. Here Hedy is the ageing movie goddess who picks up studio bit player George Nader, very wooden, and she installs him in her beach house, but George also meets her daughter Jane Powell – rather old for the part, but everyone’s career is in decline here – who drinks a lot. Add in Jan Sterling, as a rival actress and has-been cougar in a ratty wig and mink coat, always with a young gigolo in tow, who has some amusing lines and would like to get George for herself. Its mercifully quite short at 80 minutes but each one packs a punch. I am saving a second look at it for a nice rainy day. Director is one Harry Keller.

GENGHIS KHAN arrived at the end of the great epic era in 1965, and seemed rather tatty by comparison, but I like it a lot now. Here we find Stephen Boyd as the villain Jamuga to Omar Sharif’s mongol chief. One thing about Boyd, when playing evil he attacks it head-on with relish! Omar seems a bit too drippy to be a Mongol warlord. Francoise Dorleac is the very 60s love interest and hilarity is provided by James Mason and Robert Morley as Chinese warlords! Its certainly an epic to savour for all the wrong reasons, as the likes of Yvonne Mitchell, Telly Savalas and Eli Wallach pop up now and then and its fun to see Michael Hordern mugging as usual. Young actors of the time like Don Borisenko and Kenneth Cope are also present and Henry Levin keeps it moving. It is any better than John Wayne's THE CONQUEROR? probably not, but certainly as much fun.

Italian peplums 1: spoofs and thrills

TWO NIGHTS WITH CLEOPATRA - Sort of an Italian CARRY ON CLEO? This Alberto Sordi comedy seems to be a spoof of the sword-and-sandal genre churned out in Italy during the ‘50s and early ‘60s. This one is only of note now because it features the 19 year old Sophia Loren in the dual role of Cleopatra and a slave girl who looks like her. Cleo needs to escape for a night or two and the slave girl Niscia has to impersonate her. Cleo though is in the habit of sleeping with her guards who are then killed the next morning – and Sordi is the latest guard. Alberto though is one of those annoying comedians (like Benny Hill or Frankie Howard or Norman Wisdom or Jerry Lewis – I dare say every country has their own) whom one either likes or dislikes. I am afraid it is the latter for me, but Sophia looks like she is going places here and has that swim in the pool … direction is credited to one Mario Mattoli. Very average but then Italian comedy does not always translate well abroad. It is of course a Ponti-De Laurentiis production.
NERO’S LOST WEEKEND or MY SON NERO – This 1956 one features Sordi again as Nero on holiday at his seaside villa. The cast though is the thing here: Vittorio De Sica as Seneca (one of his take the money and run jobs to finance his gambling no doubt), the pre-Vadim Brigitte Bardot lovely as ever as Poppea – AND Gloria Swanson as Nero’s fearsome mother Agrippina. She makes a fantastic entrance parting the curtains of her carriage as she is all in red with a red veil – quite a contrast to Norma Desmond. She enters into the spirit of all, so it is amusing nonsense. My copy is in Italian though – but with that cast one hardly needs English!. Steno is credited as director but Mario Bava and Lucio Fulci are also involved and it has the usual Titanus production values. Peter Ustinov’s Nero though was a lot funnier in QUO VADIS!



MESSALINA IMPERIAL VENUS – a 1960 routine Italian sword-and-sandal saga I had been meaning to see as it features a fascinating starlet Belinda Lee, who was one of the British Rank Organisation girls and who featured in British moves in the ‘50s before moving to Europe and the popular peplum movies of the era, before being killed in a car accident in 1961 while still in her 20s. Maybe she would have had a better career … Here she is the evil Messalina, wife of Claudius (a minor character here) as she plots to take control using lovers and having people assassinated. There are also some Christians of course, but Messalina the ex-vestal virgin gets her comeuppance eventually. It is a good German issue actually with German and English subtitles and interesting enough, though without a strong male lead. Directed by one Vittorio Cottafavi.

JOSEPH AND HIS BRETHERN – Another interesting biblical, released in 1962 but must have been filmed about 1960 (as star Belinda Lee died in 1961), directed by veteran Irvin Rapper (who lived to be 101!). It has decent production values, and a score by Mario Nascimbene, as it expands on the biblical story of Joseph sold into Egypt and his coat of many colours. Geoffrey Horne from BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI (and BONJOUR TRISTESSE and THE TEMPEST, both ’58) is Joseph, biblical veteran Finlay Currie his father and one of the brothers is Terence Hill as Benjamin. Robert Morley has a whale of a time hamming it up as the merchant Potiphar and Belinda Lee, looking sensational in a black wig, is Potiphar’s deceitful wife who puts the make on Joseph. It is all quite watchable as Rapper (a long way from NOW VOYAGER) makes it seem effortless.

and: not a sword-and-sandal but certainly an oddity I finally caught up with:



THE TROJAN WOMEN – Funny how one resists certain movies. Despite my admiration for those leading actresses I just never wanted to see this Michael Cacoyannis 1971 version of the Euripedes Greek tragedy, and despite having the dvd for over a year, I was in no hurry to see it. But as it is a week of exploring female roles I gave it a go, and it certainly lived up (or down) to my expectations. Perhaps Greek tragedies are now unfilmable (though Cacoyannis’ ELECTRA was an exception). Here he is showcasing Katharine Hepburn, Vanessa Redgrave, Genevieve Bujold and Irene Papas who all get their moments but they are Acting, Acting, Acting. It just gets tiresome and is in fact rarther risible as they are dressed in rags, scrabbling around in the dust in a barren desert landscape (rather like out-takes from THE LIFE OF BRIAN) – but these are Trojan noblewomen and Troy has just been captured, it would not be reduced to rubble just yet, so one queries the look of the film. Redgrave produces a weird animal-like shriek as she is told her son has to die, and it is fascinating to see the leonine Hepburn, as the queen Hecuba, at this stage of her career after her late ‘60s successes and before her frailties set in. Papas scores best though as the caged Helen, proud and defiant in her nakedness. Brian Blessed and Patrick Magee are the only males of note. It is certainly an interesting oddity, but hardly one to re-see.

Next lot: Steve Reeves THE GIANT OF MARATHON, THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII, Jeffrey Hunter GOLD FOR THE CAESARS, Anthony Quinn ATTILA, Kirk Douglas ULYSSES, Jeanne Crain NEFERTIRI PRINCESS OF THE NILE etc

Vile Bodies

A few more literary adaptations - Evelyn Waugh this time, Waugh has now been filmed almost as much as E.M. Forster!



BRIDESHEAD REVISITED – I recorded this 2008 version out of curiousity last week but then decided I did not need to see it, but then I wondered just how bad it could be, so it certainly made for fascinating viewing. The main question though is: Why? Why bother to remake a classic and fillet it down to a 2 hour running time? The bare bones of the story are there but so many characters (like Anthony Blanche and Mr Samgrass) are just glossed over that it makes no sense. We still have Castle Howard though. A few lines of the original pop up here and there, like Carla’s line on how charming the English are with their male romances – Greta Scacchi is effective here. There is no point in making comparisons with 1981 the 11 hour BBC version. I often complain about movies being over-lit but this one seems curiously underlit with lots of interiors looking very gloomy if not almost dark.

Matthew Goode (glimpsed as the dead lover in A SINGLE MAN) is the rather dull Charles Ryder while Ben Whishaw (acclaimed for his Hamlet on stage) makes for a rather petulant, camp schoolboy Sebastian, certainly not as fascinating as Anthony Andrews in the original BBC production. All the subtlety of the original has been removed – Emma Thompson’s Lady Marchmain is just a dragon lady (without any of the subtlety of Claire Bloom's original) – she gets one good moment though when she turns her thwarted rage and withering disdain on Charles, and then a bit later we are told she has died, as though her character has been dispensed with. Despite the occasional nude swim there seems to be nothing going on between the boys and Hayley Attwell is simply not charismatic enough for Julia Flyte. Scripted by Andrew Davies and directed by Julian Jarrold. It reminded me of that dreadful 2005 film PRIDE & PREJUDICE by Joe Wright, again with the story simplified and streamlined and utterly without merit. I threw my disk of that in the bin, but at least didn’t purchase this BRIDESHEAD!

BRIGHT YOUNG THINGS – A much better Waugh adaptation (from his “Vile Bodies”) and as scripted and directed by Stephen Fry in 2003, this is delicious entertainment with just the right touch. Add in a whole roll-call of thespians and nice period detail and it all works a treat. We are back in the 1930s again as James McAvoy as the gossip columnist Mr Chatterbox works for newspaper magnate Dan Ackroyd. Mr Chatterbox is banned from Lady Metroland’s party but sneaks in and files a full report on their cocaine-fuelled existence before gassing himself. Stephen Campbell Moore (THE HISTORY BOYS) is a replacement Mr Chatterbox while he tries to retrieve his manuscript and woo Emily Mortimer. The cast is a dream: David Tennant, Jim Broadbent, John Mills [sniffing cocaine in probably his last screen appearance], Peter O’Toole, Harriet Walter, Imelda Staunton and wonderful Julia McKenzie as Lottie Crump, the landlady always trying to get guests to pay their bill. Even the small parts are perfect like Bruno Lastra as the very camp waiter. There are also Stockard Channing as the evangelist, Michael Sheen, Margaret Tyzack and others, and again the bright young things of the 1930s have to face World War II. I enjoyed it hugely. "Vile Bodies" is classic Waugh and as not well known as "Brideshead" liberties could be taken (I dimly recall a BBC production with Vivien Pickles as Lottie). Can we ever get to see that '68 film of another Waugh: DECLINE AND FALL, and of course Tony Richardson's THE LOVED ONE? - that A HANDFUL OF DUST was well done too.

Persuasion, Persuasion, Persuasion

Away from the Arthouse Classics and Bad Movies We Love and sometimes Utter Trash, we occasionally need a good Costume Drama - and no-one does it better than the BBC or ITV with their Jane Austen adaptations. The recent PERSUASION was an ideal treat after the Royal Wedding, so it was fun to see it again.

I absolutely love Jane Austen's book "Persuasion" and have re-read it several times and no doubt will again. This latest version is quite nice - though Sally Hawkins is a very put-upon dowdy Anne Elliot while Rupert Penry-Jones positively smoulders as Captain Wentworth, and Alice Krige is the meddling Lady Russell. Anne is only 28 after all but is practically an old maid as she missed her chance with the dashing Captain 8 years previously when she was persuaded to give him up as he had no fortune. Now he is back, wealthy and looking for a wife .... we travel from her estate to Bath and Lyme Regis with its famous cobb where that silly Louisa Musgrove famously falls from, as our star-crossed lovers slowly rediscover each other. For me it is a perfect romance. Anne, as Lady Russell knows, is so much better than her frivolous father and bitchy sisters.



The 1971 version is in 4 parts so can take its time and Ann Firbank and Bryan Marshall are quite ideal but looking at it now it has that bright over-lit look of 70s television. The best version for me is the 1995 BBC production where Amanda Root and Ciaran Hinds (below) are quietly excellent, it is nicely condensed and is a real film, as directed by Roger Michell, with able support from Corin Redgrave, Fiona Shaw, Phoebe Nicholls and Susan Fleetwood etc. The most recent version also alters the ending with our heroine running all over Bath to catch up with Wentworth - but then Austen wrote two endings both perfect but not very filmable for a romantic climax!

The recent SENSE & SENSIBILITY is also a treat, nice to look at - I love their idea of the cottage the poor Dashwoods have to make do with! Dan Stevens and David Morrissey are ideal romantic leads and it all looks a treat.
Emma Thompson, Kate Winslet, Hugh Grant, Alan Rickman and a top-notch cast even in the small parts (Gemma Jones, Elizabth Spriggs, Harriet Walter, Imelda Staunton, Hugh Laurie) all make Ang Lee's 1995 film the definitive version, as scriped by Emma (whose playing of the final scene is a delight).



And of course the only definitive version of PRIDE & PREJUDICE is the BBC's 1995 version, ideally cast too with Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth, plus of course Alison Steadman and Benjamin Whitrow as the Bennetts and the fearsome Lady Catherine De Burgh of Barbara Leigh-Hunt and the oily Mr Collins of David Bamber, and Susannah Harker and Anna Chancellor. The 2005 film by Joe Wright with Keira Knightley enraged me with it's filleted version of the book, major characters reduced to the sidelines and its period all over the place. THAT version ended up in the trash can! - despite sterling work by Tom Hollander as Mr Collins and Brenda Blethyn, Donald Sutherland and Judi Dench. The 1940 film has it's pleasures too though one can hardly take it seriously, Olivier and Garson sparkle though. (A shame though to see Ehle in just the small part of Mrs Logue in Firth's success THE KING'S SPEECH).



The 1999 version of MANSFIELD PARK is also very entertaining with the likes of Sheila Gish, Lindsay Duncan, James Purefoy and Harold Pinter - though Fanny Price is the most priggish, least likeable of Austen's heroines. EMMA and NORTHANGER ABBEY though do not interest me at all! Then of course there are those Merchant-Ivory productions like A ROOM WITH A VIEW, MAURICE, QUARTET, HEAT AND DUST, HOWARD'S END, THE EUROPEANS, THE BOSTONIANS and the great tradition of costume drama continued with CRANFORD and Julian Fellowes' DOWNTON ABBEY, we will be waiting for that second series, let's hope Maggie Smith gets some more great moments. Hmm, maybe it's time to re-visit those '70s hits: Lee Remick as JENNIE Churchill and Francesca Annis as LILLIE Langtry (which also has a sterling Oscar Wilde by Peter Egan)...

A perfect day

Just one image - that terrific Aston Martin car - from a very happy event. I think only the British can carry off events like this - a royal wedding, curiously intimate too, with matchless theatre, royalty, the Abbey looking splendid with those trees, the poise and composure of the leading players, a fashion parade of outfits and hats [winners: Tara, SamCam] - and some frock horrors too! In all, splendid stuff - nice too how it was safe for the most famous couple in the world to travel in public in open carriages .... the public enjoyed it too and with several days off and good weather it made for a perfect holiday weekend. The verger turning cartwheels in the Abbey after it was over summed it all up.

A Good News Day then, after the long recession and now more wars overseas! - fascinating too for those interested in the passing parade. No wonder Victoria Beckham couldn't smile - it must have been agony for a pregmant woman wearing THOSE heels! And the princesses: but why where they there at all - their father had to be as the groom's uncle, but were they so eager to be there that it did not matter that their mother had not been invited? And as for the no invites for the last two Labour Prime Ministers - it may have been discourteous but it shows no-one wants to be associated with Blair and Brown now. Payback time then for Cherie who famously would not curtesy to the royals, she must have been livid not be included in the social event of the season, if not of the century so far. Several of Diana's best friends not included too - I am with Jemima on that one!