Monty with .....

Marilyn in THE MISFITS / Elizabeth in A PLACE IN THE SUN / Lee Remick in WILD RIVER / Donna Reed in FROM HERE TO ETERNITY, and visiting Jack and Tony on SOME LIKE IT HOT ...

Coming back: Rocco and his brothers ....

1960. Black and white. Italian. Glamour. Luchino Visconti.Alain Delon. Annie Girardot. Renato Salvatori. Claudia Cardinale ...
Its coming back in a restored print - one of the big 3 that revived Italian cinema in that 1959-1960 era, the others of course being Fellini's LA DOLCE VITA and Antonioni's L'AVVENTURA. 

RIP continued

Maureen O'Hara (1920-2015), at the grand age of 95. See my post on her from last week, below, for an appreciation ....  

I was watching THE PARENT TRAP on a cable channel just yesterday, bringing back so many childhood memories.

Chantal Akerman (1950-2015, aged 65, Belgian filmmaker, a leading light in experimental European cinema,  best known perhaps for JEANNE DIELMAN, 23 QUAI DE COMMERCE, 1080, BRUXELLES, one I keep meaning to re-see. 

Philip French, aged 82. For 50 years he was the influential film critic for the London "Guardian" and also author His top 50 films from the last five decades are on this Guardian website: http://www.theguardian.com/film/2008/apr/13/features.culture2

Geoffrey Howe (1926-2015), aged 88 - a week after the death of his old political colleague and foe Denis Healey (RIP label). Howe was a likeable Conservative politician who famously brought down Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, whom he had served for years as Foreign Secretary and Chancellor, with his resignation speech in 1990, when he rebelled against her leadership style. His opposite number Denis Healey famously compared a Howe broadside to being “savaged by a dead sheep” – his ponderous, monotone exterior concealed a subtle wit, a profound legal intelligence and a dogged bravery.

Illtyd Harrington (1931-2015), aged 84. British Labour politician who was deputy Mayor of London in the 1980. The flamboyant (newspeak for gay) and Welsh Harrington was often in the news for us Londoners, An old-fashioned Labour man, he later wrote about the arts, books and politics for "The Camden News Journal" newspaper and was a board member of The National Theatre.

New Dr Zhivago trailer

A confession: I have never seen DR ZHIVAGO at the cinema, or all the way through on television - though I have the DVD for all those extras, including those interviews with Lean and Christie. I have though seen bits of it lots of times from various screenings 
The film has now been restored by the BFI (British Film Institute) and is the centrepiece of their latest big season, on Love. So perhaps its time to finally see it as Lean intended ...

Image de jour: Antoine et la mer ...

A vivid memory from 1959 (I was 13) was seeing Truffaut's THE 400 BLOWS at my local cinema in Ireland. That ending was astonishing as Antoine Doinel, that neglected child (about my own age) drifting into petty crime, runs away from his remand home and keeps running until he reaches the sea, as the image freeze frames ....

Jean-Pierre Leaud made his name as Truffaut's alter-ego, and returned to the role of Doinel several times as we followed the misadventures and romances of the adult Antoine, in those agreeable Truffaut films like STOLEN KISSES (BAISERS VOLES) and LOVE ON THE RUN (L'AMOUR EN FUITE). 
A year after THE 400 BLOWS he played the 15 year old living on his own in a room in Pigalle, overlooking Paris, is Duvivier's enjoyable BOULEVARD. He was also of course the spoiled movie brat star of Truffaut's DAY FOR NIGHT in 1973.  Other movies included LAST TANGO IN PARIS, and Truffaut's ANNE AND MURIEL  - he is still working now. 

1959 was a pretty good year for French movies: there were also Chabrol's LES COUSINS, Mocky's LES DRAGUEURS, Franju's EYES WITHOUT A FACE, while Rene Clement was shooting PLEIN SOLEIL, and Godard was shooting BREATHLESS ... to join that new cinema world of  Hitchcock and Antonioni in 1960.

Ingrid, Gary, Flora - still of the day

Its SARATOGA TRUNK of course, filmed in 1943 but not released until 1945 when Ingrid Bergman was at the height of her 1940s popularity. She and Gary Cooper reteamed here have a lot of fun with this one, and Dame Flora Robson plays her Creole maid in blackface. Its still a delirious treat now. 

Coming up: some treats from Jerry, and a new consignment of rare dvds from raredvdsforsale:

Pola Negri and Basil Rathbone in the 1932 A WOMAN COMMANDS; Evelyn Brent as THE PAGAN LADY, 1931; Vadim's 1960 lesbian vampires BLOOD AND ROSES  - not seen that since I was a kid and remember how impressed I was; The Montands and Mylene Demongeot in the 1957 WITCHES OF SALEM; the 1949 FABIOLA - the peplum of peplums in a perfect print, with Henri Vidal; and that holy grail of lost movies: a marvellous looking Jean Seberg in BIRDS IN PERU in 1968, Tashlin's 1961 comedy BACHELOR FLAT: Terry-Thomas coping with American college, and a two part documentary on and by Dirk Bogarde. Oh , and Faye Dunaway as THE COUNTRY GIRL - yes, that Country Girl, sometime in the 80s. Plus Pier Angeli in PORT AFRIQUE, Ava Gardner's 1970 oddity TAM-LIN, and another copy of one of our favourites here: Rene Clement's THE SEA WALL (THIS ANGRY AGE) from 1957 -  the French TV version introduced by Alain Delon; plus that recent French wartime drama SUITE FRANCAISE, and the Hardy Boy and Cherlize in that new MAD MAX. Lots to talk about then ....

Cate at the BFI

Cate Blanchett receives her BFI Fellowship from LOTR co-star Ian McKellen, marking the climax of the LFF London Film Festival junketing. Not too long now then before CAROL finally graces our screens as the next Awards Season hots up - we trust La Blanchett has some more splendid fashion creations lined up for those red carpets ...

Strictly 2015, a progress report ...

Its that time of the year again here in the UK - as the BBC flagship programme STRICTLY COME DANCING gets into its stride as this year's intake up their game and the duds are voted off one by one, there will be some fabulous dances between now and Christmas....

We all love this number from PULP FICTION and there have been several hommages to it - but nothing tops last week's with Jay McGuinness and Aliona Villani, which got the first perfect 10 vote and in week 3! Aliona won in 2011 with Harry Judd, (see previous posts - Dance label) so we expect her and Jay to be in the final at least. 

Also shaping up nicely are Anita and show-off Gleb (here he is ripping his shirt off), 

And Georgia and Giovanni, and Anton with Katie, and Helen and Aljaz - all terrific last night and likely finalists. 
Co-presenter Claudia runs away with the show and had a hilarious moment with Aljaz .. she and judge Darcey Bussell must be the two most stylish, slinky women on television, and Natalie looked a dream in that pink ballgown, and we love weather-woman Carol and Pasha ... 12 finalists left so lots of dancing coming up ! 

Its a serious charge boys

Some more deliciously old-fashioned British movies from the late Fifties and early Sixties, time capsules to a vanished world now: SERIOUS CHARGE, 1959; THE BOYS, 1962.

SERIOUS CHARGE

The blurb says: Cliff Richard makes his sensational debut in SERIOUS CHARGE, and sings 3 songs including his first UK Number One smash hit “Living Doll”.

Directed by Terence Young, SERIOUS CHARGE sees Cliff (in a small role) playing teddyboy Curley Thompson, a young tearaway in a small English town, looking for kicks. Everyone thinks he is bad – except local vicar Revered Philips (Anthony Quayle) who sees the good in Curley and stands up for him in court. Unfortunately Curley’s older brother Larry (Andrew Ray) is an out-and-out hoodlum, with a switchblade in his hand, and nothing but contempt for his hometown of “Deadsville, England”.

When Reverend Phillips first humiliates him in the local young club and then confronts him about his pregnant girlfriend, Larry snaps and accuses of Reverend of sexual assault – a serious charge that seems to have been witnessed by respected church-worker Hester (Sarah Churchill). Suddenly the vicar finds himself on the receiving end of a bitter hate campaign ….  

Hester is the spinster daughter of the previous vicar and has designs on Reverend Quayle and sees herself as the vicar's wife. His wise pragmatic mother sees how dangerous this could be and so it proves when Hester sides with the town's bullies and bigots against the beleagured vicar. Will he prove his innocence and turn the tables on his tormentors? Terence Young makes the most of this drama - he would soon go on to those first two James Bonds, and of course directed treats like ZARAK. 

We are left with the idea that the vicar and Hester may have a future - but perhaps there is a doubt over his sexuality - but if so surely the sulky pouting Curley (Cliff) would be a better bet than the nasty Larry ... Regular familiar faces here include Wilfrid Brambell, Judith Furse, Jean Cadell and again (see below) pop singer Jess Conrad. The surprise is that the young David Hemmings is not among the gang, as he was doing so many small parts then. He is in 1962's SOME PEOPLE, which would be a good companion piece to SERIOUS CHARGE  as both deal with bored wayward teenagers and well-meaning vicars with their church halls. Cliff (or Sir Cliff as he is now is still touring at 75, after surviving some serious charges of his own) had another good role that year in that 1959 treat EXPRESSO BONGO.

THE BOYS

Canadian Sidney J Furie had an interesting career, directing dramas like this and THE LEATHER BOYS in England, and that interesting first feature DURING ONE NIGHT in 1961, before moving onto spy fare and hits like THE IPCRESS FILE and LADY SINGS THE BLUES, and films with Brando and Sinatra, and is still directing now, 

THE BOYS begins well as we see a court case unfold with the four boys in the dock, accused of murder after the robbery of a garage goes wrong. Richard Todd and Robert Morley are the opposing barristers and Felix Aylmer the judge. The boys are Dudley Sutton, pop singer natty Jess Conrad, Ronald Lacey and Tony Garnett (soon to go on to producing films like KES).

The supporting cast is an endless parade of familiar faces: Patrick Magee, Roy Kinnear, Wilfrid Brambell (a lavatory attendant), Allan Cuthbertson, David Lodge, Rita Webb, Betty Marsden, Colin Gordon, Kenneth J Warren, barmaid Mavis Villiers (she was on the other side of the bar in VICTIM) and young Carol White, and music by The Shadows to boot. Tedium sets in eventually as we see the boys' night out from each point of view, taking in their dismal homelife with parents in that grungy block of flats and their night out 'up west' without much money. Finally we arrive at the truth .... its an interesting time capsule of that early black and white Sixties era, before the arrival of The Beatles and the explosion into sixties pop culture. 

More B-movie British thrills: Anthony Quayle, one of the UK's busiest stage and screen actors (THE WRONG MAN, WOMAN IN A DRESSING GOWN, ICE COLD IN ALEX, LAWRENCE OF ARABIA, FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE, OPERATION CROSSBOW) also leads THE CHALLENGE, a nice little B-movie British thriller with Jayne Mansfield in 1960 and is sadistically evil in TARZAN'S GREATEST ADVENTURE in 1959. Peter Sellers is the nasty villain in 1960's NEVER LET GO where he terrorises car salesman Richard Todd; another pop star of the time Adam Faith pops up here, along with Carol White again. 

Susan: still of the day

Susan Hayward - I WANT TO LIVE! - 1958. One of our favourite 1950s dramas ...

Delphine

With Holloween coming up before too long, and those October horror movie challenges (over at IMDB) here is one horror film to track down and savour, if one does not know it already. It is of course DAUGHTERS OF DARKNESS, Harry Kumel's stylish essay into ageless vampires, from 1971, and now a cult item. Let's see how they put it:  

Another European slice of lesbian vampirism, this time influenced by a real-life monster – Elizabeth Bathory, the Hungarian countess who allegedly slaughtered hundreds of young women and bathed in their blood to retain her youth. Belgian director Harry Kumel sets his dark tale in Ostend, transforming an off-peak holiday destination into a landscape of perpetual menace. In this modern setting, a mysterious countess, with female sexual companion in tow, becomes obsessed by a couple of newlyweds, with gruesome results.

Grande dame Delphine Seyrig (in Marlene Dietrich mode) gives a performance of great wit as the bloodthirsty aristo, pitching the role perfectly between sinister and comical. It’s an elegant and constantly surprising flirtation of a film, featuring lashings of nudity and sadism, not to mention death by salad bowl.

Then there is that aged hotel porter who remembers seeing the ageless Countess arrive there when he was young - and that strange telephone call the husband makes to "mother" back home .... stylish thrills don't get much better. See Delphine label for more on this stylish treat 

Having said that, I am soon going to re-see Roger Vadim's 1960 BLOOD AND ROSES another lesbian vampire tale which impressed me a lot at the time, let's see if it still works.

Delphine Seyrig (1932-1990) remains one of the most stylish actresses in movies, and collaborated with the likes of Bunuel, Losey, Resnais, Duras.  We will soon be re-discovering her in the late Chantal Akerman's mesmerising JEANNE DIELMAN, 23 QUAI DE COMMERCE, 1080 BRUXELLES, and I like her lilac fairy godmother in Demy's PEAU D'ANE.

O'Hara

It was nice watching a new Sky Arts documentary on Maureen O'Hara, the latest of an occasional series, reminding one of much much we like the veteran actress who often seems overlooked in the pantheon of movie greats.

Maureen, now all of 95, is still going and received an honorary Oscar last year. She will of course be forever linked to those John Ford-John Wayne films, but has a great body of work, starting with those early films with Charles Laughton: Hitch's JAMAICA INN and THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME in 1939. Born in Dublin in 1920, she was soon in America. 
I particularly liked her and Lucille Ball as showgirls in Dorothy Arzner's DANCE GIRL DANCE in 1940. Maureen then became "The Queen of Technicolor" with that flaming red hair and all those pirate and adventure movies she did in the 1940s and into the '50s: THE SPANISH MAIN, AGAINST ALL FLAGS, THE BLACK SWAN, SINBAD THE SAILOR, THE FLAME OF ARABY, TRIPOLI, LISBON where she was teamed with the likes of Tyrone Power, Errol Flynn, John Payne, Ray Milland, and Rex Harrison in THE FOXES OF HARROW, as well as playing perfect wives for James Stewart and Henry Fonda in the Sixties. She and John Wayne were first paired in Ford's RIO GRANDE in 1950, then came their classic THE QUIET MAN where her Mary Kate Danaher is the spirited centre of the film. She and Wayne were also in Ford's THE WINGS OF EAGLES in 1957, and they were both in McLINTOCK! and BIG JAKE in 1971. She and Tyrone Power headed Ford's THE LONG GREY LINE in 1955.

Two of her late 1940s classics are the imperishable THE MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET in 1947, where she has great rapport with the young Natalie Wood, and SITTING PRETTY in 1948 where she is the mother of the children being babysat by Mr Belvedere (Clifton Webb). She was in good company too in OUR MAN IN HAVANA in 1959, with Alec Guinness, and Disney's THE PARENT TRAP was an enormous hit in 1961 with Hayley Mills as those twins. 
She was teamed again with Brian Keith in that early Peckinhah western THE DEADLY COMPANIONS in 1961. It seems impossible to see her THE BATTLE OF THE VILLA FIORITA, a Delmar Daves romance from 1965, One of her last roles was as John Candy's Irish mother in ONLY THE LONELY in 1991, before a long retirement in County Kerry, Ireland. She ran an airline for 10 years as well, when her third husband, Charles Blair, a pilot, died in a plane crash in 1978, so she took over their Antilles Airboats, a commuter seaplane service in the Carribean, scene of her many swashbuckling adventures. So she was the first woman president of a scheduled airline in the United States, Her autobiography "Tis Herself" is an enjoyable read too. 

Maureen had a good singing voice too and did some recordings and cabaret appearances. She would have been an ideal Mrs Anna in THE KING AND I, but it seems Oscar & Hammerstein would not consider "The Queen of Technicolor" ..... but we will always have Mary Kate and her QUIET MAN. I've just had to pre-order the Blu-ray out in November, as there are so many ropey prints of it out there ...

By Royal command ...

I have written about those Royal Film Performances here before, but here's a recap for those who missed them. The British Royal Film Performance was a big event each year during those key 1950s and 1960s years, when an usually important film was chosen for the Royals to see at the Odeon in Leicester Square in London, when a motley round-up of players were lined up to meet the Queen. Everyone it seems turned up ...

I was fascinated by this photo of Julie Christie, Catherine Deneuve and Ursula Andress at some mid-60s event, and sure enough it was at the 1966 Royal Film Perf. , the girls seem engrossed in their fashions and dig those long white gloves - in 1966. It seems the gloves were de rigeur. The film that year was BORN FREE and also present were Warren Beatty with consort Leslie Caron - maybe this was where Warren and Julie first met? - plus Dirk and Deborah, Rex Harrison and Rachel Roberts, and Raquel Welch and Woody Allen, James Fox and the stars of the film Virgina McKenna and Bill Travers. They also had to do rehearsals that afternoon ....  before the Royal party arrived. These events were covered by the newsreels of the time and the snippets make fascinating viewing now, a glimpse into a long gone movie world.

A decade earlier the 1956 one was the famous one when Marilyn was presented to Her Majesty - but also in the lineup was the young Brigitte Bardot and Anita Ekberg.... while the 1957 Royal film was LES GIRLS but its star Kay Kendall was detained in America, but here we have Sophia Loren and Jayne Mansfield (along with Michael Craig, Yvonne Mitchell, William Holden etc.) presumably before their famous encounter at Romanoffs in Hollywood in April that year.

The 1954 junket for the London premiere of A STAR IS BORN is fascinating too with Olivier as master of ceremonies, and Kay Kendall makes it to this one, as does Diana Dors and the Attenboroughs who like Kenny More and Jack Hawkins must have been regulars at these events, This is 14 minutes but worth watching - how movies where marketed and shown then ...

Another odd line-up is this 1970s one (FUNNY LADY?) where Barbra Streisand (with James Caan) broke with convention when being presented to the Queen asked why they had to wear the long gloves. Lee Remick and James Stewart (reunited from 1959's ANATOMY OF A MURDER are also in the lineup here). 

All hail Macbeth, that shalt be king hereafter...

Good to be back at the movies on a rainy afternoon, with just 5 of us in the auditorium, so almost a private screening of this new version of The Scottish Play - very stripped down and pared back, from Justin Kurzel - its perhaps the first of the new autumn blockbusters heading our way now that the dismal summer (here in the UK) is over and we sink into autumn and the new Awards Season. Coming up will finally be CAROL and BROOKLYN and HIGH RISE and THE LOBSTER, not to mention THE LADY IN THE VAN and my friend Martin says THE MARTIAN is next year's Best Picture Winner - hmm, it may be too soon for another Sci-fi win so soon after GRAVITY - a lot of us turned our noses up at INTERSTELLAR ...

But back to Scotland, land of mists and mountains and as depicted here (a lot of it filmed on the Isle of Skye, one of my favourite places) a cruel, pitiless place; did the Highlands ever look so bleak?.... After Welles and Kurosawa (THRONE OF BLOOD, 1957) and the 1971 Roman Polanski it is interesting to see this latest vision - great visuals and that unsettling discordant score (Jed Kurzel) but sometimes a fatal slowing down of pace so some sequences start to drag and we are not sure who is who among the mostly faceless extras, if you did not know the play you would be all at sea. Highest praise though to Michael Fassbender - again astonishing us after SHAME and 12 YEARS A SLAVE, and Marion Cotillard as his Lady Macbeth. Did I mention it all looks and sounds great?  It starts though with a scene Shakespeare did not give us: the Macbeths at the funeral pyre of their child - perhaps to humanise them more, and did Lady Macduff and her children have to be burned alive at the stake - though it makes for a great panniing shot over that desolate landscape.

Its certainly a blistering, blood-stained adaptation with its ingenious staging of familiar scenes and paring down the text which makes whats left of the 400 year old verse feel fresh. The three witches on the blasted heath are interestingly done here too. I have liked its wild dialogue ever since the Classics Illustrated version I first read as a kid. Unlike all those HAMLETs though I have never seen it staged - though I do have two other versions to watch, but maybe not right away: Ian McKellan and Judi Dench as the Glamis it-couple in 1980, and a BBC version with Nicol Williamson and Jane Lapotaire who should both be ideal too. . 

Ingrid and Tab: 2 new documentaries ....

INGRID BERGMAN IN HER OWN WORDS and TAB HUNTER CONFIDENTIAL - whats not to love, if they don't get much exposure in cinemas, they should be on dvd before too long ... The Tab doc was shown at the BFI earlier this year as part of their gay FLARE festival (Tab label) .... hopefully there will be more screenings.

RIP, continued

Denis Healey (1917-2015), aged 98. Lord Healey may now seem the forgotten man of British politics, but thats what happens if you live to be almost 100 and have outlived your contemporaries. Healey though may well have been the best Labour leader/Prime Minister England never had. A titan of his time (that Harold Wilson Labour era of the 60s and 70s) Healey had a fascinating life, starting with a double first from Balliol college, and had so many other interests that politics was only the half of it. As "The Guardian" put it: "By 1945, Healey had already packed in a lifetime of experiences denied to future generations. A beach master in charge of logistics (US actor Lee Marvin was another) at the bloody Anglo-American Anzio landings in Italy (1944), Maj Healey would turn down a lieutenant colonelcy as well as an Oxford fellowship to study the philosophy of art in favour of politics. A reforming defence secretary (1964-70) who abandoned over-stretched Britain’s anachronistic role in the retreat-from-empire 1960s, he went on to became Labour’s indestructible chancellor of the exchequer (1974-79) during the worst peacetime crisis since the Great Depression.

He called his memoirs, "The Time of My Life" and used them to parade a range of interests – hinterland, he called it – that few at the top of high-pressure 20th-century politics could match. Despite a gruelling workload, even as chancellor Healey clung to his youthful enthusiasms for music, literature (from poetry to thrillers), painting and theatre. In pre-digital times he always carried a camera, usually managing to slip away from a dull conference abroad to visit a gallery, or sleep beneath the desert stars on a palace roof in Yemen".

Healey was also a bruiser, and a clown (appearing with aplomb with Morecame & Wise on television) with his bushy eyebrows and always gave good interview, both in print or on screen. He had a long happy marriage with his wife Edna, a literary biographer. He may never have achieved the highest offices, but he certainly enjoyed life to the full. In old age he wrote successful books and earned large fees in his long retirement. Perhaps the last of that generation of war heroes who went into politics for a career in public service rather than what they could get out of it. 

Brian Friel (1929-2015), aged 86. Often called "The Irish Chekhov" Friel was one of the finest playwrights of his time, his early plays like "Philadelphia Here I Come" and "Dancing at Lughnasa" were enormous hits, he also translated Chekhov and other plays included "Faith Healer" and "Translations". Friel was a private person who lived in Donegal and grew up in Londonderry. His view of life in rural Ireland (and that fictional village Ballybeg) is as intense as that of William Trevor Edna O'Brien or Colm Toibin. Young actors like Liam Neeson and Stephen Rea had their early successes in his works, while Meryl Streep led the cast of DANCING AT LUGHNASA in 1998 - its on TV again here next week.

John Guillermin (1925-2015), aged 89. One only has to think of THE TOWERING INFERNO or DEATH ON THE NILE to conjure up Guillermin's hits in the 1970s - though there was also that dud KING KONG in 1976! 
He was one of those proficient British directors like Basil Dearden, Lewis Gilbert, Ronald Neame or J Lee Thompson who could tackle most genres. Among his odder movies was that arthouse attempt RAPTURE in 1964 (odd viewing on Blu-ray last year), and war movies like THE BLUE MAX, THE BRIDGE AT REMAGEN. GUNS AT BATASI and the thriller SKYJACKED. I particularly like his 1959 TARZAN'S GREATEST ADVENTURE, a sweaty, sadistic take on Tarzan with Anthony Quayle, a young Sean Connery and Eurobabe Scilla Gabel - they all come to sticky ends. TOWN ON TRIAL was a good thriller too in 1957, and Peter Sellers in nasty mode in NEVER LET GO in 1960, and there was young Peter O'Toole in THE DAY THE ROBBED THE BANK OF ENGLAND also 1960.