Under-rated directors: Clive Donner
Like Desmond Davis (below) Clive Donner (1926-2010) also seems under-rated but directed a clutch of interesting films and tv movies during the 1960s, starting with THE SECRET PLACE, a 1957 Belinda Lee drama I have just got a copy of, and he also helmed Pinter's THE CARETAKER in 1962 with the powerhouse trio of Robert Shaw, Alan Bates and Donald Pleasance. He also did SOME PEOPLE that year, that pleasing film about pre-Beatles teenagers making music in Bristol, with the young David Hemmings.
Two seminal Sixties movies followed: NOTHING BUT THE BEST in 1964 capturing that new London on the rise, and the delirious WHAT'S NEW PUSSYCAT in 1965 which the 19-year old me and my friends loved and saw several times, with that terrific line up of O'Toole, Sellers, Schneider, Capucine, Paula Prentiss, Ursula Andress and more in a madcap Paris, with a Burt Bacharach score (I had to have the soundtrack album) and script by Woody Allen, who also appears - his first film.
We also loved his 1967 Swinging London (though set in Stevenage) comedy HERE WE GO ROUND THE MULBERRY BUSH with its cast of engaging youngsters led by Barry Evans, and that great Traffic score, and his 19689 historical mini-epic ALFRED THE GREAT, filmed in Ireland and very much of its time as hippie king Alfred (David Hemmings) fights the Danes led by Michael York, and it also features a young Ian McKellen, Colin Blakely and Vivien Merchant. Its one to see again too. Quality television work included Peter O'Toole in ROGUE MALE, and good versions of THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL and A CHRISTMAS CAROL. Donner, below, with Hemmings & Blakely.
Quite a few of these I would like to see again- see Donner label for reviews.
Two seminal Sixties movies followed: NOTHING BUT THE BEST in 1964 capturing that new London on the rise, and the delirious WHAT'S NEW PUSSYCAT in 1965 which the 19-year old me and my friends loved and saw several times, with that terrific line up of O'Toole, Sellers, Schneider, Capucine, Paula Prentiss, Ursula Andress and more in a madcap Paris, with a Burt Bacharach score (I had to have the soundtrack album) and script by Woody Allen, who also appears - his first film.
We also loved his 1967 Swinging London (though set in Stevenage) comedy HERE WE GO ROUND THE MULBERRY BUSH with its cast of engaging youngsters led by Barry Evans, and that great Traffic score, and his 19689 historical mini-epic ALFRED THE GREAT, filmed in Ireland and very much of its time as hippie king Alfred (David Hemmings) fights the Danes led by Michael York, and it also features a young Ian McKellen, Colin Blakely and Vivien Merchant. Its one to see again too. Quality television work included Peter O'Toole in ROGUE MALE, and good versions of THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL and A CHRISTMAS CAROL. Donner, below, with Hemmings & Blakely.
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