October Trashfest

The IMDB Classic Film Board people are having their annual October challenge, seeing and reviewing the obscurer-the-better horror films for the Halloween season. I’ve rustled up my own October Trashfest, with some choice doozies:

Paul Schrader in 1982

CAT PEOPLE. The glossy 1982 remake from Paul Schrader (of DeWitt Bodeen’s story as filmed by Jacques Tourneur in 1942, a '40s classic) after his AMERICAN GIGOLO (which defined the early '80s), where he continues exploring his Calvinist background (he couldn't see any films until he was 18) and attitudes to sex and violence (as in his terrific script for TAXI DRIVER and early films HARDCORE and BLUE COLLAR, and his later LIGHT SLEEPER). Schrader certainly liked getting his attractive leads out of their clothes – as in GIGOLO and here, where leading lady Nastassja Kinski is starkers for the closing scenes …. I can’t imagine it being shown on TV uncut!

SPOILERS AHEAD:First thing, it looks terrific of course, shot by John Bailey (who lensed GIGOLO), and again Ferdinando Scarfiotti (1941-1994) is “visual consultant” (presumably like Hoyningen–Heune used to be for Cukor), the score is again by Giorgio Moroder, and David Bowie contributes that dynamic song “Putting Out Fire with Gasoline” – which leads us to the subject matter. Brother and long lost sister re-unite in suitably spooky New Orleans (OBSESSION, ANGEL HEART) – Irina (Kinski) though turns into a black panther when erotically aroused – brother Malcolm McDowell, who also transforms, wants her to sleep with him so they can protect each other, but she falls for a zoo director (John Heard). The copious amounts of nudity and the erotically charged story and the stunning visuals keep one watching, but the ending is problematic. We get a man tying a naked woman with rope to the four corners of a bed (which will be a turn-on for some people) before having sex with her – to save himself when she transforms into the panther! – and then the last scene has her as the panther in her cage at the zoo, as he looks at her wistfully and pets her and gives her treats, his pet captive. 

It seems it is her choice to be captured and sacrifice her freedom and he goes along with it, but will she turn back into human form again? There are gruesome scenes along the way, as well as Annette O’Toole’s topless swim in the pool, and some terrific special effects. Kinski (TESS), McDowell, Heard and Ruby Dee all do as their director requires and the Bowie song rounds it off nicely. Its certainly a fascinating, offbeat, cult movie that bears a rewatch. Interesting features on the dvd have interviews with Schrader (now married to Mary Beth Hurt) on set discussing Scarfiotti and the cast. Bowie of course went on to THE HUNGER with Deneuve, the next year in 1983, another stylish horror movie (as per my review Deneuve label).

THE KILLER NUN.  This is the real eurotrash treat, from 1979.

A demented nun sliding through morphine addiction into madness, whilst presiding over a regime of lesbianism, torture and death. Sister Gertrude is the head nurse/nun in a general hospital, whose increasingly psychotic behavior endangers the staff and patients around her.Or as the blurb says:

Legendary Swedish sex bomb Anita Ekberg (LA DOLCE VITA) stars as Sister Gertrude, a cruel nun who discovers depraved pleasure in a frenzy of drug addiction, sexual degradation and sadistic murder. Warhol superstar Joe Dallesandro (ANDY WARHOL’S FRANKENSTEIN), Alida Valli as the mother superior, Lou Castel, Massimo Serato co-star in this notorious “Nunsploitation’ branded as obscene around the world and banned outright in Britain, but now available in a new restored transfer …

Well, yes, it’s a lot of fun, Trash Heaven in fact. Anita still has that Ekberg magnetism here (see label for my other reviews on her classics like SCREAMING MIMI or ZARAK), hilarious moments include her stamping on false teeth and having some hot girl on girl action. Directed by one Giulio Berruti.

THE NUN OF MONZA, 1969. “The Nun of Monza” by Mario Mazzuccheli was a respected Penguin paperback in the ‘60s which I remember enjoying reading. The film, by Epirando Visconti (a nephew of Luchino), finally turns up, a 1969 romp from that era of nun exploitation cinema. The story is based on real events emphasizing on the hypocrisy and abuse of power of the Catholic Church in 17th Century Italy. 
It all looks great of course, the buildings and the costumes. Anne Heywood is the Mother Superior who against her will has to give shelter to handsome Antonio Sabato who soon has those nuns all aflutter. Hardy Kruger is the priest who wants him protected. Soon though Sabato and Anne have a passionate affair resulting in a baby. Then they have to go on the run due to various plot twists and turns. It all ends with her being walled up alive for 10 years …. A fate worse than death, probably. Not as lurid as THE DEVILS it still packs a punch and looks great. Good score too by Ennio Morricone. 

RED RIDING HOOD, 2011. The classic fairly tale re-imagined for the TWILIGHT generation, as its director Catherine Hardwicke fashions a marvellous village and forest setting for more werewolf mischief … This time, Amanda Seyfried is Valerie (and she seems as vapid as she was in MAMMA MIA!) the girl torn between two men, the man she loves and the one her parents want her to marry. Gary Oldman on autopilot is Solomon, the werewolf hunter brought in to aid the villagers as it seems the wolf who prowls the forest is actually one of them in daylight hours … Julie Christie (right) is the grandma with her cottage in the woods who gives Valerie her scarlet cloak. I would not really bother with this, apart from Christie, who has some good moments. The ending though is rather a mystery as Riding Hood kills the werewolf (her own father!) but does not mind that the man she loves will also become one, as she takes grandma's place and waits for him. It has moments of campy fun but left a lot to be desired, some of it looks so murky one can hardly see what is going on – I was wishing I was back at Neil Jordan’s THE COMPANY OF WOLVES in 1984. 

I KILLED RASPUTIN. A rather tatty entry in the Rasputin stakes, this 1967 farrago is directed by actor Robert Hossein, who also appears. Hossein did some neat French thrillers I like a lot, but this one is not in those league. Peter McEnery is young Prince Yusupof , with Geraldine Chaplin as one of Rasputin’s devotees. Rasputin though is Gert Froebe – perfect as GOLDFINGER but all wrong here (Christopher Lee was a much more compelling Mad Monk for Hammer Films). Hossein’s father Andre did the music score. The real aged Prince Yusopov appears in person at the start, a few months before he died, which is the only fascinating thing here. We like Peter McEnery too, the first HAMLET I saw on stage about that time, in 1968, but wasted here. 

SERIAL MOM, 1994. Director John Waters puts a twist on the everyday mediocrity of suburban life in the hilarious satire SERIAL MOM. See Kathleen Turner like never before as Beverly Sutphin, the seemingly perfect homemaker who will stop at nothing to rid the neighbourhood of anyone failing to live up to her moral code. This is great fun but not quite in the same league as Waters’ HAIRSPRAY or indeed his earlier, wilder classics like FEMALE TROUBLE or PINK FLAMINGOS. Turner lets rip as people who do not recycle properly or who do not re-wind their rented video-cassettes get into a lot of trouble, as the body count piles up, even a leg of lamb can be a murder weapon! With Sam Waterston, and Waters regulars Ricki Lake, Mink Stole, Tracy Lords, Patricia Hearst and Suzanne Somers. Kitsch is the word! 

BEVERLY HILLS MADAM. I recorded this 1986 telemovie from a cable channel and foolished wiped it, I wish I had kept it now Its a kitschfest with all the requisite '80s glossy trappings and with those big hair and big shoulders, and Faye Dunaway cheerfully chomping the scenery as the Madam - hadn't she learned anything from MOMMIE DEAREST? - we are a long way from CHINATOWN here! A bordello catering to rich and wealthy clients, run by Lil Hutton (Faye) experiences a series of crises as one girl ends up pregnant, and another dead. As a subplot, a young woman, Julie Taylor, makes a trip to LA to surprise a friend, but never finds her. Julie is mugged, and seeks help from Lil. She sees how much the callgirls are making, and is tempted into the lifestyle. On her first "job" is hired by a rich father for his 18-year old virgin son as a birthday gift, and they fall in love. But the relationship comes to a quick end as soon as the son learns she is a "whore"; Julie breaks down and runs off after realizing prostitution is a cold and loveless occupation that cannot fulfill her emotional emptiness.This treat also features Louis Jourdan, Melody Anderson (those 80s names!), Donna Dixon, Terry Farrell and Robin Givens who sashay through this farrago, directed by Harvey Hart. 

LADY CHATTERLEY’S LOVER, 1981. Sylvia Kristel is the lonely young wife of a wealthy aristocrat in this tale of love, lust and forbidden fantasies as adapted from D.H. Lawrence’s famously erotic novel, featuring the tortuous conflict between duty and desire. Paralysed from the waist down due to a war injury, Sir Clifford Chatterley urges his wife Constance to take a lover to satisfy her physical needs, but when she begins an intense affair with a man of shockingly lower class – the virile and rugged gamekeeper Mellors – the unexpected stirring of passions will spell the end of their marriage ….. 
Shane Briant makes Chatterley a nasty bore, whereas Nicholas Clay is a perfect Mellors, totally at ease washing himself au natural. I suppose Kristel is adequate as Lady C, as directed by Just Jaeckin, and Ann Mitchell scores again as that devious nurse with it seems her own plans for the estate and Lord Chatterley. It’s a Golan/Globus production with better than usual production values. I wonder how it compares to the ’93 Ken Russell version? Can I be bothered to find out?

TOO HOT TO HANDLE, 1960. Sex bomb Midnight Franklin is the star at the Pink Flamingo nightclub in London’s wild Soho district. Midnight’s lover, club-owner Johnny Solo, carefully handpicks the exotic dancers from the scores of actresses, art students and young housewives that seek to join the well-paid Flamingo strippers. Johnny and the girls are not adverse to after-hours “deals” with the club’s wealthy clientele. The cash is rolling in and life is good. So good in fact that a rival club owner wants a piece of the pie and is prepared to use violence to get it. But Johnny is not one to back down from a fight, setting off a downward spiral of events that will explode in betrayal and murder! 

Delirious blurb – delirious movie. I had thought this was a cheapo effort not worth bothering with, but it proves a delicious cocktail of 1960 tropes among the Soho stripper set, tawdry but fun, like 1958's PASSPORT TO SHAME (revew at Diana Dors label) or EXPRESSO BONGO. It is directed by Terence Young (a few years before he moved on to James Bond and DR NO) and the cast all shine. Leo Genn is just right as Solo, while Jayne Mansfield is sweet and likeable as Midnight – this may have been the start of her slide from 20th Century Fox to cheapo movies, but she shines as the den mother to the strippers, and she has a nice scene with young Barbara Windsor (right, with her own assets to the fore, well they would have to be to compete with Jayne…) as 15 year old Ponytail. (Barbara is now one of our National Treasures here in the UK, so its amusing seeing her this early in her career in this context). Carl Boehm (PEEPING TOM that same year) is also to hand with nothing much to do, and Christopher Lee is actually rather sexy with that moustache as the devious club manager. Its all a lot of fun actually. 

British trio 1 ....

Some British '50s moves I had not seen before and now appreciate a lot …

THE SMALLEST SHOW ON EARTH, 1957.  I can’t believe I had not seen this before. What a marvellous entertainment it turns out to be, as nice young marrieds Virigina McKenna and Bill Travers interit a cinema at Sloughborough (a nice play on English town names!) 
and when they travel there imagine it is the Grand, a very grand edifice, but no, it is the Bijou – a rundown fleapit next to the railway line (and yes its that amusing joke again, as in A LETTER TO 3 WIVES, when the the trains rattle by…). Every town then had a fleapit, though probably not as decrepit as the Bijou (mine when new in London in 1964 was the Coliseum, Harlesden, where one happily saw re-runs of EL CID or FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE as well as new double bills including SHE or 10 LITTLE INDIANS).

This is a perfect 1950s British comedy, produced by that regular team of producer Michael Relph and director Basil Dearden, screenplay by William Rose. It now seems to be called BIG TIME OPERATORS on IMDB! It would make a terrific double bill with  HOW TO MURDER A RICH UNCLE.

The casting is the thing here, apart from the married leads, there’s the trio of the Bijou’s staff: Margaret Rutherford as cashier Mrs Fazakerley, Peter Sellers as Percy the projectionist and Bernard Miles as Old Tom the janitor. Percy is the only one who understands how the old equipment works. Leslie Philips is the suave solicitor who advises the new owners they have to get the cinema up and running again to maximise its worth, as they intend to sell the site to rival Grand owner, hissable Francis de Wolff, who is keeping an eye on their progress and tries to sabotage proceedings with a bottle of whiskey …. Our new owners  do not want a cinema but to travel to places like Samerkand …  How this is resolved is deliciously worked out, Sellers is a revelation here, he really becomes that old man. Sidney James of course is also present and correct. A delicious treat for anyone who remembers the fleapit cinemas of their youth, and another great Basil Dearden film from his very prolific period.

VIOLENT PLAYGROUND, 1958.  Also by Basil Dearden, and scripted by James Kennaway, and is a tough thriller/topical drama of the time about juvenile delinquency, with Stanley Baker as the cop/Juvenile Liaison officer in Liverpool. David McCallum (before his MAN FROM UNCLE era) is the dangerous pyromaniac on the loose and he seems to be apeing Marlon Brando’s WILD ONE as a rock’n’roll hoodlum. Anne Heywood is his older sister (who might get romantically involved with Baker) and the family also includes those two naughty twins Baker is looking after - the school kids all look so typically Fifites. There’s also Peter Cushing as the local well-meaning priest, John Slater, Tsai Chin and other regulars like Melvyn Hayes, as we see how these huge inner-city estates are breeding grounds for juvenile delinquency, as in NO TREES IN THE STREET, below. It builds to a shattering climax where school-children are held hostage by the now demented McCallum, which has echoes of real-life tragedies. I don’t imagine this will be shown on television ever again due to this protracted school siege …  

NO TREES IN THE STREET, 1959. A solid drama from the pen of Ted Willis (WOMAN IN A DRESSING GOWN), and directed at full tilt y J. Lee Thompson, another drama of poverty breeding delinquents, this is a roller-coaster ride, starting in the 1950s present as teenager David Hemmings is caught and warned by Ronald Howard about the dangers of getting into trouble with the police. What follows is a long flashback about Tommy (Melvyn Hayes again) who wants the good life he sees local racketeer Herbert Lom enjoys with his flashy suits and flashy dames like Carole Lesley (right, with Lom). 

Tommy though is stuck in a tenement block with heavy drinkers like parents Stanley Holloway, Joan Miller, Liam Redmond, and his good sister Sylvia Syms who tries to steer him in the right direction. Lom though wants Sylvia and finally wears down her resistance until she comes to her senses. 
But Tommy goes to work for Lom, and ends up with a gun and killing a shop-keeper. The snivelling killer returns to the family as the police (Ronald Howard again) close in.  
We are back in the present for the coda, when young Hemmings (left, and right, with Syms)  promises to be good, as Howard and wife Sylvia see him go. 

Next British trio by Anthony Asquith & Anatole de Grunwald: Dirk in THE DOCTOR'S DILEMMA, 1958, and LIBEL,1959, and Sophia as THE MILLIONAIRESS, 1960. Book your tickets now ... 

1957 Royal Film Perf.

Another Royal Film Performance - this time the 1957 one. We covered the 1966 one recently (Showpeople label). This is another of those Pathe Newsreels now on YouTube ..... lots of happy browsing there!

This time the film is that 1957 favourite of mine, Cukor's LES GIRLS, but none of the stars are featured in the newsreel or in the Royal line-up. Surely Kay Kendall was there with maybe Mitzi and Taina and surely Gene Kelly would be there? Kay was delayed in America doing some TV shows ...

But we do have Sophia Loren and Jayne Mansfield (very demure here - unlike, also that year when Sophia arrived in Hollywood and there was reception for her at Romanoffs when Jayne who was not invited gatecrashed and bent over Sophia showing her very low cut dress .... which caused a sensation at the time, but did not do Jayne much good, as her studio (whom Sophia was doing BOY ON A DOLPHIN for) took a dim view of her antics and it really spelled the end of Mansfield's era in American films, as the rest of her films were made in Europe ...).

Also on hand here, are favourites like Michael Craig and Yvonne Mitchell, our recent re-discovery Anne Heywood, and Royal show regulars Kenneth More and Jack Hawkins, plus William Holden and Cecil B De Mille.

There are plenty other Royal Performances available on YouTube.

Coming up here: a Euro-feast, with about 10 Romy Schneider titles (LA CALIFFA, A SIMPLE STORY, VIEUX FUSIL, FANTASMA D'AMORE from 1981 with Marcello Mastroianni (finally a sub-titled print), and MONPTI from 1957 with Horst Buchholz, along with MADO, A WOMAN AT HER WINDOW, THE LADY BANKER, LOVE IN THE RAIN and more, 
plus a few Catherine Deneuve: APRES LUI, LE VOLEURS, MY FAVOURITE SEASON, HOTEL AMERICA. Then there's Jayne Mansfield's TOO HOT TO HANDLE ! 
plus more Jean Sorel, Belinda Lee, and finally a sub-titled print of Delon & Belmondo's BORSALINO from 1970, and Gabin and Signoret in LE CHAT ! Then there's 2 Tati's: PLAYTIME and TRAFFIC, and all those HAMLETs of stage and screen. How I spoil you.

Snapshots of Britain

Kay and Bonar at the DANCE HALL

HOLIDAY CAMP - 1947
DANCE HALL - 1950
PLAY IT COOL - 1962
SOME PEOPLE - 1962

Ken Annakin's HOLIDAY CAMP in 1947 is post-war England in aspic, with working-class families going on holiday to the new holiday camps as the new age of leisure dawned after the war, its almost a historical document of that era. Flora Robson has a great role here as the lonely spinster yearning for her love lost in the war, only to discover he is the holiday camp announcer but is now blind, and happily married and does not remember her. Esma Cannon (later in the CARRY ONs) as her twittery friend fares less well, as she falls prey to Dennis Price's murdering conman. The Huggett family (from the radio) are enjoying themselves, led by father Jack Warner and mum Kathleen Harrison, with daughter Hazel Court, Jimmy Hanley and Diana Dors as well as Patricia Roc also pop up. Below: Mr and Mrs Huggett get used to being on holiday, Dennis Price with murder in mind, and Dame Flora - noble as ever. 

Its an enjoyable time capsule now, as is:

DANCE HALL - Charles Crichton's 1950 portrait of 4 working class girls who work in the local factory and let off steam at the Saturday night dance (the Chiswick Palais). This is a roll-call of ‘50s British showbiz with a very varied cast here: the girls are young Petula Clark, Natasha Perry, Jane Hylton and the rising Diana Dors. Its a fairly grim look at working class life, but lots of fun too. Donald Houston and Bonar Colleano are among the men they attract, Kay Kendall pops in for a minute, as do Eunice Gayson and Dandy Nichols, Sydney Tafler is the dance hall manager and dear old Gladys Henson is Petula's mum who gives her an awfully old-fashioned dress to wear at the dance contest! Dors is great fun as the good-natured blonde with an eye for a hunky fella! Parry is torn between stolid Houston and wide boy Colleano, while Hylton remains a spinster. 
10 years later SATURDAY NIGHT AND SUNDAY MORNING would be a new male-dominated update on working class life, as the '60s dawned, but this 1950 version is just as pleasing and relevant now. This and HOLIDAY CAMP are as essentially '40s and early '50s British as IT ALWAYS RAINS ON SUNDAY, POOL OF LONDON, THE BLUE LAMP, HUNTED etc. - those movies where the likes of Jack Warner and Jimmy Hanley were bobbies on the beat or dependable guys next door, and Canadian Bonar Colleano (of the circus family, he died in a car crash in 1958, aged 34) was the not to be trusted wide boy or American G.I. in England, and young Bogarde was a spiv with a gun before graduating to war hero roles.

Factory girls

Diana lets rip on the dance floor

PLAY IT COOL. A hopelessly square 1962 British musical showing the pop scene at the time, showcasing pop idol of the time Billy Fury in his movie debut. We liked Billy then, an authentic rocker with a great look and voice (“Halfway to Paradise”) who died too young, aged 43 in 1983. 
He and his jolly gang (Michael Anderson Jr, Keith Hamshere, Jeremy Bulloch, and a very young David Hemmings) are en route to Gatwick Airport when they decide to help out a runaway heiress (don’t laugh, this isn’t the 1930s) – Dennis Price plays her oily father and others roped in include Mr Showbiz: Lionel Blair and his dancers. 

Statue of Billy in Liverpool

There is a twist number, the twist was big at the time – and American Bobby Vee gets to sing, as does Helen Shapiro, the school girl singer of the time (I was an early teen then, and loved her songs). Michael Winner directs and keeps it all moving. This pop scene though, along with the Cliff Richard films (THE YOUNG ONES, SUMMER HOLIDAY) and those earlier Tommy Steele, Frankie Vaughan, Adam Faith ones,  was swept away the next year, when The Beatles exploded in 1963, and 1964’s A HARD DAY’S NIGHT showed how to make a pop movie which also captured the moment perfectly.

SOME PEOPLE – more pop from 1962. I remember this one vividly, being 16 at the time. This is a lively look at teenagers in a suburban city – Bristol – with a lead role for Kenneth More as the well-meaning choirmaster with that church hall where the kids can play their instruments. It features the then up and coming Ray Brooks (THE KNACK) and a gormless David Hemmings (4 years before Antonioni made him an icon of the 60s in BLOW-UP), Anneke Wills who wears her jeans in the bath to shrink them, Angela Douglas (who married More). 

David Hemmings, centre

The bored teenagers are only interested in motorbikes and music and are convinced society has no use for them, but are hardly rebels without a cause. Kenny More soon gets them playing – this was all part of the Duke of Edinburgh Awards Scheme, which features here. The music is catchy though and it all looks nice in colour. Clive Donner – another under-rated 60s director – helms it, he also directed the Hemmings starrer ALFRED THE GREAT in 1969, after his like WHAT’S NEW PUSSYCAT? and THE CARETAKER, and that other look at teenagers in a suburban city HERE WE GO ROUND THE MULBERRY BUSH in swinging '67. What is interesting here is the contrast between the options for teenagers in 1962 (in pre-Beatles England) and 5 years later, at the start of the hippie and psychedelic era in 1967 in HERE WE GO ROUND THE MULBERRY BUSH ... it was a different world for them then!

More early '60s British movies:

TWICE ROUND THE DAFFODILS. This 1962 comedy, adapted from a play, is a CARRY ON in all but name, produced by the regular team Peter Rogers and Gerald Thomas. Of interest now mainly for that supporting cast of familiar faces. We join 4 patients who arrive at a hospital for tuberculosis patients (they are still allowed to smoke though!) – RAF type Donald Sinden with an eye for the ladies, funny man Lance Percival, boorish Wesh Donald Houston who is in denial and refuses to accept he is ill – one wants to reach for the mute button every time he starts ranting, and young Andrew Ray. Already on the ward are Ronald Lewis and snobby Kenneth Williams whose only visitor is his dowdy sister Joan Sims. Head nurse is Juliet Mills, and others include nurse Jill Ireland, Sheila Hancock as a loyal girlfriend,. Nanette Newman as the glamorous one who has found someone else with a sports car. The patients are getting better when they can walk twice around the daffodil patch … a slight amusement, matinee fodder perhaps, which shows that the 1960s had yet to begin at Pinewood. 

THE VERY EDGE. This long forgotten 1963 thriller has suddenly been re-discovered – the BFI are screening it in April, but thanks to a fellow correspondent here I have got a ‘screener’. It’s a taut thriller (filmed in Ireland), a Raymond Stross production starring his wife Anne Heywood again as the happy housewife, looking after her husband Richard Todd and her ideal early ‘60s home, who is stalked by a deranged stranger – young Jeremy Brett, terrific here. He follows her around the supermarket and attacks her in her home causing her to miscarry her child. Worried policeman Jack Hedley notes the stranger will be back. Our worried couple move home, but its no use. 

Brett soon has her in his power again as she tries to fight back. We end up on the roof as our brave heroine has to outwit him before help arrives. Add in Nicole Maurey as Todd’s super-efficient secretary with a yen for him, as his and his wife’s marriage falls apart and tension is maintained to the very end. A routine thriller perhaps, but certainly watchable now. With Pauline Delaney, Gwen Watford, Maurice Denham, Barbara Mullen and Patrick Magee, and ably directed by journeyman Cyril Frankel.We liked Heywood recently in that revived I WANT WHAT I WANT from 1972 - Heywood label - where she is a transexual ...

Peplum guys and gals, and costume dramas ...

Pompeii erupts again, Sophia and Robert and Napoleon, Belinda and that DANGEROUS EXILE ...

We like a good volcanic eruption here at the Projector, and the 1951 French film (thanks, Mel) SINS OF POMPEII has a rather good one, even if in black and white.

The muddled story features an Egyptian sect (bet you didn't know the Ancient Egyptians had also settled in Pompeii ....), a lady Helene - Micheline Presle - and a slave - Georges Marchal - amid a tangle of plots as the volanco finally blows the big one. 
Cue the usual mayhem with people trying to escape, fortunately our leading couple manage to get away in a boat, though its very unlikely anybody did back in 79 AD ! 

If only they had splashed out on colour and a more streamlined story. At least the statues in this peplum have the requisite nude look, unlike those tastefully covered ones in a Hollywood peplum like 1956's ALEXANDER THE GREAT ! Now for the Steeve Reeves version of POMPEII ... not to mention that new Paul W A Anderson 2014 feature. Best of all for me though is Robert Harris's novel, yes, titled "Pompeii" which Roman Polanski had been associated with a film of, pity that never came to pass ...

Unseen since 1961 is the French comedy MADAME SANS-GENE, a Christian Jacque romp (he also gave us Gerard Philipe's FANFAN LE TULIPE among others), with Sophia Loren at the height of her early 60s popularity (after TWO WOMEN, EL CID) as the French washerwoman following Napoleon's army, and washing the great man's shirts. 
She falls for Robert Hossein, one of his generals and the amusing story follows their ups and downs as they go in the world as the Duke and Duchess of Zanzig, with Sophia clowning as she learns to how conduct herself at court. Hossein also went on to have a neat line in tough thrillers which he often directed, as per Hossein/ French labels. MADAME is an amusing trifle now, which Loren turned out between more important engagements.

DANGEROUS EXILE - good to see this costume drama from 1957 available again on a proper dvd. Britian's Rank Organisation knew how to make movies like this, I enjoyed it as a kid, and still do now, featuring as it does that British siren Belinda Lee, unfortunately killed in a car crash in 1961, she could have gone on to have had a long career, in both European cinema (she is in the French New Wave LES DRAGUEURS in 1959, Italy's THE LONG NIGHT OF '43 (where her ordinary Italian woman is the equal of a Loren or Mangano), and various peplums like MESSALINA and APHRODITE, as well as sensational fare like SHE WALKS BY NIGHT - as per Belinda label. 

This is what I said about it a while back here:

DANGEROUS EXILE. One of those rather good Rank Organisation period adventures this 1957 drama features the son of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette who is smuggeled out of the Basteille and escapes by hot air balloon but lands on a small island near Wales. The little prince (young Richard O'Sullivan) is found and protected by local beauty Belinda Lee and her aunt dowager Martita Hunt - there are however treacherous servants (Anne Heywood, Finlay Currie), the French in pursuit (Keith Michell) and French aristocrat Louis Jourdan also wants the boy, whom he replaces with his own son. Its stirring stuff well handled by veteran Brian Desmond Hurst and I liked it a lot as a kid, so good to see it again. One of Belinda's best for Rank. There is a poignant moment when her character says that when she is an old woman she can tell her grand-children the King of France wanted to marry her - Belinda though did not make old age, she was killed in a car accident when only 26. She had though become one of the sword and sandal stars on the continent. This is an engrossing period story about what may have happened to the young French prince Louis VXII. Lots of swashes are buckled. 

Peplum guys:

Vidal and Loren in ATTILA

Vidal & Belmondo

French actor Henri Vidal, married to Michele Morgan - posted about here before, as per label - in Rene Clement's LES MAUDITS, FABIOLA, with young Loren in the '54 peplum ATTILA where Anthony Quinn rampages across the ancient world. We liked Henri in some Hossein thrillers (like WHAT PRICE MURDER or THE WICKED GO TO HELL), and with Bardot in their two films, and with Romy Schneider in a 1959 comedy, ANGEL ON EARTH, (the year he died aged 40), which also featured up and coming Jean Paul Belmondo - right. Ironic it was Vidal's last film as Belmondo's career was taking off ...

Peplum guys: Ed Fury, a 50s American muscle guy, went the peplum route to Europe in the early Sixties with those URSUS films, after bit parts in lots of USA items: he is one of the boys Jane Russell serenades in GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES (thanks to the enterprising Peplum site for identifying him), he is also one of the sailors in SOUTH PACIFIC (below, at right), and seemingly uncredited in Marilyn's BUS STOP, and is the guy introduced to Joan Crawford in FEMALE ON THE BEACH .... thats one we will have to return to. Here's Ed with Susan Hayward star of DEMETRIUS AND THE GLADIATORS in 1954, where presumably he was a gladiator, and with Richard Widmark in another Fox movie, HELL AND HIGH WATER ...