1955 musicals: Tony & Janet, Ella, Peggy Lee, Jayne + Eileen and Lola Diamond !

Two rarities from 1955: IT'S ALWAYS FAIR WEATHER may be my favourite musical from that year (as per post on it recently), I had not seen PETE KELLY'S BLUES before but its a fascinating oddity now, not a musical as such as its a gangster drama about a jazz band with musical interludes, nice that it captures Peggy Lee and Ella Fitzgerland at their '50s peak - Peggy actually is very effective as the gangster's moll who sinks into alcohol and mental illness. Janet Leigh is somewhat wasted as the rich flapper who inexplicably falls for band leader Pete - Jack Webb at his most mono-syllabic. I never saw his DRAGNET series but he plays it so impassive and deadpan here, his directing is interesting too - dialogue scenes are long takes with no cutting or editing to closeups, so the actors have long scenes to get right.

The 20s atmosphere is nicely evoked and the drama is provided by racketeer Edmond O'Brien wanting a take of the band's money and imposing his singing girlfriend on them - but boy can she sing! Pete (Webb) has a nice insult to the gangster - that he had rubber pockets so he could steal soup! Lee Marvin is also in the band and plays a nice guy for once, one is glad when he returns and Martin Milner is the young hothead whom one knows will end up in a hail of bullets in the rain! There is a terrific shootout at the end in a deserted dance hall where the glitterball plays a major role!

Interestingly, the next year 1956 saw O'Brien sending up his gangster persona as another hood with a blonde girlfriend he wants to turn into a singer, she is Jeri Jordan (Jayne Mansfield) in Tashlin's riot THE GIRL CAN'T HELP IT - Jayne also has a small part here as the (brunette) cigarette girl ... but hardly registers here. Great Warner Bros production values too.

SO THIS IS PARIS: Janet next went on to another favourite musical of that year: MY SISTER EILEEN (musicals label) so she and husband Tony Curtis were both singing and dancing that year! One hardly thinks of Curtis as a song and dance man but his brash enthusiasm is admirable in SO THIS IS PARIS - a studio bound musical from Universal and it comes across now as ON THE TOWN for simpletons as its a grotesquely simple-minded show about 3 sailors on the loose, also with touches of AN AMERICAN IN PARIS (cue cute kids...) Tony, in his bio, says it was made in 21 days!

Tony, Gene Nelson and Paul Gilbert (the Jules Munchin role here) are the three gobs who dock at Le Havre (a quaint little village here) and after wrecking a taxi end up in a studio Paris, where Tony falls for chanteuse Gloria De Haven and Gene for playgirl Corrine Calvet, while Mara Corday takes care of whatshisname. Nelson also choreographs and hoofs in the style of that other Gene ... its all simple-minded fun as Tony ascended the ladder to TRAPEZE, SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS etc. Janet of course is totally enchanting in MY SISTER EILEEN where Bob Fosse and Tommy Rall fight over her - directed too by Richard Quine, also also directs this PARIS farrago before going on to the likes of BELL BOOK AND CANDLE with his muse Kim Novak.

A question: what do the 3 sailors dancing in their underwear/shorts by the pool wear underneath to hide any suggestion of genitalia - its like everything must have been strapped down (ditto Randolph Scott in MY FAVOURITE WIFE), as a jockstrap would suggest a bulge.... and of course there is no chest hair, just like Holden had to shave his for PICNIC! (and of course navels were not allowed either - all those gals like Joan Collins, Anita Ekberg etc had to have a jewel glued on down there. That's the '50s - a decade later it would all be hanging out!

and Lola:

thanks to my pal Jerry for reminding me that Paul Gilbert (the third sailor) re-appeared as that terrifying butch drag queen Lola Diamond in the 1965 opus SYLVIA - one of Joe Levine's trash classics ....(review at Carroll Baker/Trash labels).

Italian Rarities: Vitti, Mangano, Sordi x 2 + Bette Davis !

IL DISCO VOLANTE (THE FLYING SAUCER) Sometimes one has to go back and take another look at something one had dismissed out of hand - thanks to my IMDB pal Jorge's rave review for this 1964 Italian comedy, presumably made for the domestic market - I had never heard of it despite my passion for Monica Vitti and Silvana Mangano - until I got a copy (from another IMDB pal Jerry) last year. It is a throwaway farce with Italy's great comic star Alberto Sordi in several roles. The lunatic plot features a flying saucer which lands in a peasant community in Italy and the havoc it causes. I can see that its attraction now is the cheesy special effects: the saucer, the plastic outfits of the Martians - and the great comic turns it affords Sordi; as the local priest, the lover out in the car with a comic Vitti, the local police commander, and a rather camp nobleman. Mangano is also drolly funny as the peasant woman with a flock of children .... It is a Dino De Laurentiis production, directed by Tinto Brass.

Here is what Jorge says about it: Working with an acidic script by Rodolfo Sonego, Brass takes joyful stabs at the big triumvirate – Church, Family, State –, employs, at first, faux documentary techniques, and then goes full Commedia all’italiana, with some brilliantly funny vignettes, and with a cast to die for (Sordi in four roles, including a gay count very interested in the male aliens, and beauties Silvana Mangano, Monica Vitti and Elonora Rossi Drago in screamingly funny roles). One of film’s absolute highlights are Gianni Polidori’s designs for the saucer, and for the aliens’ costumes, including this sexy one for the female invader (with Sordi taking a peek at her attributes):

it is genuinely (and mordantly) funny. Silvana Mangano as a peasant woman with a handful of small children to take care and no husband to provide (and thinking how to have some profit with the male alien she just kidnapped!), or Monica Vitti maliciously insinuating herself into Sordi (as the police chief) whilst she crochets, are some of the many funny moments. In short: the Martians wish they had landed elsewhere because those Italians won't make their life (and their invasion) easy!

THE SCIENTIFIC CARDPLAYER (LO SCOPONE SCIENTIFICO). An Italian oddity from 1972, featuring 2 Americans and 2 Italian stars, in a so-so comedy about card-playing, directed by Luigi Comencini. Each year a rich old lady – Bette Davis, for it is she – arrives in a small Italian town with her companion Joseph Cotton (on autopilot here) to play cards with local poor couple Peppino and Antonia (Alberto Sordi and Silvana Mangano). Each year the couple dream of winning but the old lady always outwits them. This year though things are different – the poor couple are on a winning streak and keep winning, but the rich old lady will not give up and wants to keep on playing, even when supposedly at death's door, doubling up the bet each time. Peppino and Antonia will be ruined if they lose …. It is amusing and keeps the attention, as the whole village gets involved, along with their 5 children. Davis though dubbed is still very Bette – it is in Italian with English subtitles and the there is a neat play-off at the end. Interesting to see Davis and Cotton together again twenty years plus after BEYOND THE FOREST! Sordi and Mangano shine in two well-developed roles, he of course was terrific in those early Fellini's like I VITELLONI and THE WHITE SHIEK, and those comedies like TWO NIGHTS WITH CLEOPATRA with the young Loren, or NERO'S LOST WEEKEND or LA FATE (also reviewed, Italian label), among so many others.
1972 was a busy year for Bette in Europe - she also made MADAME SIN in England and did that lecture/Q&A session at London's National Film Theatre, which I attended - as per my report to Davis label.

My Week With Marilyn - a first review, by Liz Smith

American columnist Liz Smith has given her view on MY WEEK WITH MARILYN, it has not opened here in the UK yet (next week) but I can quite agree with her individual point of view, particularly on Dominic Cooper (who is also playing Uday Hussein currently) as Milton Greene, and then there is Dougray Scott as Arthur Miller - lightweight or what? (MM was staying with Milton Greene and his wife then, he took some the best photographs of her during that time).

Here is Smith's view:

"Much has been said — mostly by the film’s star, Michelle Williams — about the difficulty of portraying the many sides of Marilyn, her variety of voices and personas. Miss Williams is a wonderful actress and no doubt she means every word she utters, but the Marilyn of her creation is a dreary, depressed, dim creature. In fact, it is the Marilyn of Arthur Miller’s “The Misfits.” (Marilyn hated her role in that film, complaining endlessly of the girl’s passivity.)

This movie is based on the highly suspect memoirs of Colin Clark, a lowly go-fer on the set of “The Prince and the Showgirl,” which was filmed in London, in 1956. Colin and Monroe became “close” he averred. The characterization offers nothing of Monroe’s wit, humor, intelligence or — and this is vital — her anger. Her reactions to events were not always a depressed collapse. She was capable of intense, extraordinary rages. She had a sharp tongue. She could fight back, and she did. But “My Week With Marilyn” presents nothing but her fears. Or a perceived stupidity. Williams has to utter lines like, “Gee, I wish I could read all these books” when entering a library, or, “I met the Queen. She said my dress was pretty.”

Worse, all the other characters in the film — Kenneth Branagh as Laurence Olivier, Judi Dench as Dame Sybil Thorndike, Julia Ormond as Vivien Leigh, Eddie Redmayne as Colin — are compelled to say how “extraordinary” Monroe is, despite her neurotic behavior. Then we see Miss Williams enacting various scenes from “The Prince and the Showgirl.” Problem? She is not Marilyn Monroe. And so, she does not seem extraordinary at all. I admire Miss Williams for her efforts and sincerity, but in the end, she has given one more imperfect impersonation of Marilyn.

HOWEVER, the worst served by “My Week With Marilyn” is the late photographer Milton Greene. This man admired and loved Marilyn, encouraged her ambitions, supported her financially during her year-long strike against 20th Century Fox. He co-produced “The Prince and the Showgirl.” Their partnership ended badly, but he never spoke ill of her, never exploited their relationship or her image. Dominic Cooper plays Milton like a foul-mouthed NYC gangster, just another user. One wonders what Amy Greene, Milton’s ex-wife, who lived through The Marilyn Years with Milton, would think of this portrayal. (I ran into Amy Greene by chance, just last year. Still razor-sharp, she spoke lovingly of both Marilyn and Milton, “That was their golden time,” she said.)

You know what? Just check out “The Prince and the Showgirl” the next time Turner Classic Movies runs it. It is a testament to the talents of Monroe and Milton Greene.

No more pretty blonde ladies playing dress up, pretending to be Marilyn. It just doesn’t work. Sorry, Michelle."

Now let's see how the English critics respond! As I have said before here, Jack Cardiff who photographed THE PRINCE AND THE SHOWGIRL caught Marilyn at her loveliest, he liked her a lot and has a very perceptive chapter on her in his essential autobiography MAGIC HOUR which renders all those other MM books redundant.

TV highlights

Some satisfying moments from this week's tv viewing: the return of REV - we loved the first series of this new BBC comedy with Tom Hollander as the inner-city priest, now we have the second series just starting and it promises to be just as good - particularly with Ralph Fiennes guesting in the first episode as the Bishop of London. Hilarious sauna scene! The series to be seen in then - and next week should be amusing when our put-upon vicar mistakenly takes ecstasy during church service!

And speaking of interesting guest stars: Jane Asher, elegant as ever [left, right] turns up in the otherwise routine school drama WATERLOO ROAD [while Liam Neeson was fun in the new Ricky Gervais series].

Below: Dan Stevens as Matthew Crawley has something to announce in DOWNTON ABBEY, which finished last week, as he has been getting a tingling in his legs and is no longer crippled or indeed impotent ! Lady Mary (Michelle Dockery) and Countess Violet (Maggie Smith) will be pleased, just as the great 'flu epidemic of 1919 strikes ... two things about DOWNTON: the amount of commercial breaks was annoying, so I ended up recording it and then starting watching half an hour later, thus zapping out the adverts - the final episode was 90 minutes of which 67 was the actual programme! Roll on the dvd. Also the timeframe: the first series begins in 1912 with the sinking of the Titanic and ends with the outbreak of World War I in 1914, then series 2 takes us through to the end of the war and to 1919 - nobody looks any older but Matthew and Lady Mary have been mooning over each other for 7 years! Let's see what the two-hour Christmas special brings ...

Over at STICTLY COME DANCING (the UK's DANCING WITH THE STARS, but so much better) the best male celebrity dancer is Harry Judd from pop group McFly, who is sensational paired with Aliona Vilani - Watch out Jason and Kristina, Harry and Aliona's Argentine Tango is the one to beat. Their samba is sensational too! Holly and Artem's take on SWAN LAKE was also a favourite, let's hope he is back soon after his back injury, and one never tires of watching the professional dancers like Flavia and Vincent; looking forward to their Tango show in January! Flavia is a stunning woman - like Sophia she hails from Naples....

Then of course there is the latest from Sir David Attenborough, still going strong in his 80s: FROZEN PLANET is as superlative and jaw-dropping as one would expect. This is what one pays one's license fee for ... more amazing footage of animals in the Artic and Antartic wastes - that footage of the polar bears, and killer whales working in teams, and all those penguins .... nature in the raw indeed - fantastic stuff !

I don't bother much with cop shows, but its interesting catching up with LAW AND ORDER SPECIAL VICTIM UNIT from America, both the latest series and repeats of earlier - this is not mainstream viewing here so Meloni and Mariska [sometimes she looks so like her mother Jayne Mansfield] are not well known here; we have our own version, LAW AND ORDER: UK - the U.S. SVU also has some fascinating guest stars: Franco Nero recently as the diplomat accused of rape, a hilariously over the top Ann-Margret etc.

Bottom: a reminder of Tom Hollander in that hilarious scene from BEDROOMS AND HALLWAYS (1998) where he is blindfolded and tied to the bed as the owners of the house return ....

A brace of '60s war movies

SINK THE BISMARCK! A very satisfying English war movie from 1960 showing how the Admiralty chased and sank the German battleship “Bismarck” in the battle of the North Atlantic. Directed by Lewis Gilbert it features just about every British character actor from those war films. Kenneth More stars as the strict captain of operations, ably assisted by Dana Wynter (who died this year) who looks terrific in those navy outfits. Also on board are Michael Hordern, Laurence Naismith, Geoffrey Keen, Maurice Denham, Michael Goodliffe and John Stride as More’s son who is missing in action. On the Bismarck “good German” Carl Mohner is over-ruled by the increasingly unhinged captain Karl Stepanek. Clever use is made of stock footage and models in the studio tank but we are mainly at Admiralty headquarters and the growing relationship between More and Wynter is nicely under-stated. Based on true events it all seems very real and keeps the interest.



OPERATION CROSSBOW. Another war movie, perhaps the last of the genre (until those big hitters like WHERE EAGLES DARE and THE BATTLE OF BRITAIN), ably put together by producer Carlo Ponti and helmed by Michael Anderson, well used to handling large international casts. This is an expensive MGM production from 1965 and was a popular movie at the time - I remember being 19 and new to London and travelling on the underground to the big ABC cinema at Bishops Bridge Road near Paddington to see it on a Bank Holiday Monday - and it still gets screened a lot.
The first half shows how the Germans (led by Paul Henreid and German air ace Hanna Reisch) built their flying bombs and V2 rockets to rain destruction on London, as again, all the English war movie actors sit and deliberate: Trevor Howard, John Mills, Richard Johnson, Richard Todd, Sylvia Syms, John Fraser, Richard Wattis etc. as agents are recruited to parachute into occupied Holland and pose as engineers for what would seem to be suicide missions to penetrate the underground bomb-making factories where the Germans are mass-producing bombs. We then get the central segment where the producer’s wife Sophia Loren walks in demonstrating 60s star quality (with no concession to 40s hair or clothes styles) as the estranged wife of one of the engineers, who is now being impersonated by George Peppard. Hotelier and agent Lilli Palmer is very determined the mission should not be put in jeopardy as Loren is kept prisoner at the hotel, as other agent Tom Courtenay is arrested for murder. Anthony Quayle is the double agent who knows Courtenay is an agent impersonating a dead man as he tries in vain to crack Courtenay and gain the truth. The very determined Lilli makes sure Loren does not spoil the mission as the story moves to the underground bomb factory and boys-own heroics take over, as Peppard and Jeremy Kemp sabotage the factory as the bombers approach to blitz it. Stirring stuff then, ably put together (the Germans all speak German) and a war movie perennial. An enjoyable (!) brace of '60s war movies then! My mother was in London during the blitz and we used to enjoy hearing all those stories of life during wartime.....

Showpeople: Stars at shows

When in London in 1956 for THE PRINCE AND THE SHOWGIRL Monroe and Miller attended the opening of his play A VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE at the Comedy Theatre, causing a commotion. They also attended that historic first production of John Osbourne's LOOK BACK IN ANGER at the Royal Court - I saw the photo in some Marilyn book, or maybe an Arthur Miller book? but I can't find it now.










Also at the Royal Court, in 1959, were Kay Kendall and Lauren Bacall - I wonder what they were seeing? They don't seem to be enjoying it ...

I did see Arthur Miller in his later years when he was signing a new book of his at Hatchards bookshop in 1995. There was of course a huge crowd and we were instructed not to speak to him or ask him any questions, but I got a signed copy of "Plain Girl"!

Leonardo in London

Leonardo Da Vinci is too well known to discuss briefly here, suffice to say that this new exhibition of some of his paintings will be the hot ticket here in London. Luckily there is a live tour tonight, on television and at selected cinemas, giving us a royal tour without all the crowds. If it is anything like the Tutankhamum exhibition back in the '70s prepare for delays ! I was in Milan back in 1974, with Franco, and stayed at a little village Vaprio D'Adda, outside Milan, which had Leonardo connections, and then on to Bergamo ...

Now though we can enjoy those spellbinding works with associated drawings; those mysterious faces, hands, the paintwork (that translucent glass globe in Salvator Mundi, right !) .... He was such a genius in other areas that he only painted about 20 pictures, 15 of which survive, so this opportunity to see 9 of them, from his Milan period (hence no Mona Lisa) is going to be hugely popular. At a time when a new movie tries to debunk Shakespeare, here is a celebration of another great Renaissance creator!

The show has now opened and all the tickets have sold, apart from 500 on sale each morning - people are getting up in the middle of the night arriving at 6.30 a.m. to queue, and such is the crowd that some are turned away. I will be joining them myself in a few weeks - we really have until the end of January to see it - as one happy viewer said: "it was like standing next to genius"!

Happy Birthday Joni !

Happy Birthday to Joni Mitchell - a gentleman doesn't reveal a lady's age but I will just say she is 2 years older than me (mine is on Dec 7) and she looks great in those recent photos. Here is the cover art for her second album CLOUDS - I used to have this on my hall wall when I shared a rambling apartment with two friends back in '69-'70. As per the Joni label, I met her purely by chance in 1972 and we walked along Kings Road, Chelsea, London, having a pleasant conversation. I might dig out COURT & SPARK or WILD THINGS RUN FAST or THE HISSING OF SUMMER LAWNS later ....


Here are also some other great albums from that '68-'69 time that I liked a lot, being in my early 20s. BLOOD SWEAT & TEARS album was terrific with songs I liked such as "Sometimes In Winter", "And When I Die", "Spinnging Wheel" etc / The Band's MUSIC FROM BIG PINK was played all the time when I was sharing with some hippie pals who were taking lots of acid, we went to the Doors concert and others, I saw the Band in concert in 1970 and loved their other albums too and songs like "Whispering Pines", "Long Black Veil", "Lonesome Suzie", etc. Then there was The Doors - WAITING FOR THE SUN was not their best album, but with songs like "Hello I Love You" "Love Street" etc it was pretty good. Strange Days indeed .... Tom Rush's first album THE CIRCLE GAME - marvellous to get it again recently - was spellbinding with those early songs of Joni Mitchell ("Tin Angel", "The Circle Game", the wonderful "Urge For Going") and James Taylor, among others. The sound of 1968, as well as Cream, Doors, Jefferson Airplane, Laura Nyro and "Stoned Soul Picnic", Sly's "There's A Riot Going On" etc. Then came those first Elton John albums - TUMBLEWEED CONNECTION, MADMAN ACROSS THE WATER ("Tiny Dancer" etc); that era of gatefold albums, Joni's cover art always being essential, like THE HISSING OF SUMMER LAWNS, HEJIRA, DON JUAN'S RECKLESS DAUGHTER etc.

I got to know Elton then too, after I moved to Chelsea in 1972 when he would be in the local record store every Saturday afternoon, and at Harrods as well. Stars just must have been more approachable in those days, without the entourages they all have now. That was the '70s - as Joni and James Taylor and Carole King and others reached their zenith - I discovered Tim Buckley's fantastic, elastic voice, particularly the GREETINGS FROM L.A. album, right (and then later his son Jeff) then in the '80s we embraced clubland and disco (The Pet Shop Boys, Joan Armatrading, Annie Lennox and Eurythmics, electro, soul grooves, et al) but also still going back to my roots... that late 60s was also the time of The Loving Sponful - those delicious songs by John Sebastian like "Warm Baby", "Did you ever have to make up your mind?" etc, and that California sound of The Mamas and the Papas and the the whole Byrds, Eagles and LA sound... Paul Simon's "I Am A Rock" is a particular memory from 1966 when I was sharing an apartment in Bayswater (along with early Dylan and Joan Baez), and The Supremes "You Can't Hurry Love" as I moved to Clapham, sharing with my best pal Stan and we discovered Tampla Motown and Aretha Franklin and Atlantic and went to that Otis Redding Show, Nancy Wilson and others.

I kept faith with Joni too, I practically wore out her 2000 album of standards (including two of her own) BOTH SIDES NOW - and she's still smoking! Then there have been those fascinating covers of her lyrics by the likes of George Michael ("Edith and the Kingpin"), Brian Kennedy ("A Case Of You"), Ian Shaw (a whole album of them), Ronan Keating's "River" etc. as well as the Herbie Hancock album and her own recent "Shine".