Grace Kelly - Style Icon - London V&A

It is hard to believe now that Grace Kelly’s career was just 5 years, from 1951 to 1956, such is her enduring legacy and stylish image - the Kelly look - which was created in the main by Edith Head for her Paramount films and Helen Rose at MGM, its as iconic as Audrey Hepburn with Givenchy.

She made 11 films during those 5 years and of course the Hitchcock ones are still out there and endlessly analysed. Her wardrobe for REAR WINDOW being particularly marvellous – I also like her Edith Head outfits for TO CATCH A THIEF – the ice blue dress, the bathing costume, the outfit for an afternoon picnic: “leg or breast?” when offering the cold chicken to Cary Grant, and of course that spectacular gold number for the climax.

Grace, who like all the great stars had an unique voice, was along with Audrey Hepburn Hollywood’s two new golden girls of the ‘50s and thus both won the Academy Award in succeeding years – 1953 and 1954 – just as those two new ‘60s girls Julies Andrews and Christie did a decade later. Grace and Audrey were the other side of Marilyn and Elizabeth Taylor, making up that quartet of Hollywood greats circa 1954, when they all reigned supreme. That 1954 best actress award is still a bone of contention for movie buffs and just fans – did Grace deserve to win for THE COUNTRY GIRL, for just looking dowdy and wearing cardigans and spectacles, over Judy Garland’s towering performance in A STAR IS BORN? But really by then Judy was seen as a has-been making a comeback and had been regarded as difficult for years, whereas the cool and crisp Kelly was the new sensation that audiences could not get enough of. I will need to re-see THE COUNTRY GIRL myself to make up my own mind.

Grace of course had that patrician image which so fascinated Hitchcock, the cool and feisty ice maiden who melted with the right man. Grace was about 20 years younger than those older leading men but there were rumoured romances with the likes of Cooper, Gable, Milland, Crosby, Holden, and the perfect on-screen partnerships with Stewart and Grant. Fashion designer Oleg Cassini was also a boyfriend. [Of course Audrey Hepburn and Sophia Loren, when she began in international movies in 1957, were also 20 or 30 years younger than their male co-stars].

Two of Grace’s I particularly like are that routine programmer she had to do, GREEN FIRE in '54, where she looks very cool and tailored down in the South American jungle as sister of plantation owner John Ericson as prospectors Stewart Granger and Paul Douglas dig for those emeralds. Its hokum but fun and she is very understated and affecting in THE SWAN, again nicely dressed (by Helen Rose) and with a nice hairstyle as the princess falling for tutor Louis Jourdan while being wooed by prince Alec Guinness (who became a lifelong friend of hers, they played endless jokes on each other thereafter) – THE SWAN also has the full MGM period look and provided good roles for Jessie Royce Landis, Estelle Winwood and Agnes Moorehead. One can see Eva Marie Saint's Eve Kendall as a tailored Grace Kelly type in Hitch's NORTH BY NORTHWEST, even as she dangles from Mount Rushmore wearing her white gloves, and then of course there is Tippi and THE BIRDS...

It would have been interesting if Grace had been allowed to return to the screen for Hitchcock in MARNIE and who knows how her career might have developed, but we will always have those ‘50s treats. Audrey Hepburn of course remains an equal style icon...

The exhibition on Grace at London's V&A Museum runs until September with those iconic clothes and other items [like the Kelly bag], and is getting a lot of attention. I shall be going.

Anouk Aimee trio

Anouk Aimee, born in 1932 and still appearing in films in her 70s, is the enigma of French and international cinema. Others – Signoret, Moreau – may have got the awards and the acclaim but Anouk still fascinates and continues on her mysterious way. She could have been a very big star indeed by the late 60s but she wasn’t really that interested ….as by then she had married Albert Finney. She is one of those stars like Catherine Deneuve who just got into the movies without any great desire to be a great actress, but was always an alluring beauty since her teens in films like THE GOLDEN SALAMANDER and LES DRAGUEURS (reviewed a few posts back...)

Few movies were bigger at the dawn of the '60s than Fellini’s LA DOLCE VITA where she is Maddelena, the sometimes lover of Marcello. There is that long rambling sequence of them in the car where they really are one of the most effortlessly glamorous couples in the movies.Then in 1961 came the beauty that is LOLA, Jacques Demy’s valentine to the movies with Anouk at her most vibrant and animated in perhaps the most likeable film of the French new wave. Demy’s magical story shows that one person's happy ending is often another's missed possibility of happiness. Raoul Coutard's lovingly shot black and white widescreen photography of Nantes is a plus, as Lola sings and dances and waits for her lover to return, in what was a key movie for both Demy and Aimee. Right: Anouk in Demy's THE MODEL SHOP, supposedly Lola in Los Angeles in 1969, a very counterculture late '60s movie.Then in 1966, another enormous hit: UN HOMME ET UNE FEMME, Claude Lelouch’s mega-hit which earned Aimee a best actress nod from the Academy, but of course it was (deservedly this time) Elizabeth Taylor’s year. A dubbed version, A MAN AND A WOMAN, did the rounds and it was a great date movie showing these glamorous, getaway people of the new affluent '60s enjoying themselves in their cars and boats. All Anouk really had to do was look wonderful, forever pushing her hair back, around Deauville and Paris to Francis Lai’s score (it was a best-selling soundtrack album too, I played it all the time, particularly that samba sequence). It was Best Foreign Film of the year at that time when international cinema was very popular and this was certainly a romantic treat with their hands touching on the boat, the walks on the beach, that old man and his dog, the cute kids etc. Trintignant is the motor racing hero and Pierre Barouh (playing her husband) who sings the “Samba Saravah” number was Aimee’s husband at the time.

It is on YouTube at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9Wx78z6L0A.JUSTINE, 1969, has been unseen for decades but it was a treat to get a copy recently, an enjoyable 20th Century Fox version of the Durrell books set in Alexandria and rather a botched movie. It was began in Tunisia with director Philip Strick, but the project was then recalled to the Fox lot in California, with George Cukor taking over. Cukor and Aimee had one of the famous feuds, as they did not get on AT ALL. The fascinating cast though has Dirk Bogarde giving another terrific performance as Pursewarden, young Michael York as Darnley the narrator who falls in love with the mysterious Justine, also Anna Karina, John Vernon, Philippe Noiret and Cliff Gorman as one of those dancing girls. I just like the look of the film, those mysterious locations and Aimee being very enigmatic, looking alluring with that little girl voice, she seems incommunicative though, as though she does not want to be there – it was silly though to use the nude body double seen in long shot for the beach scene with the horses. Leon Shamroy makes it all look terrific and there is a nice score by Jerry Goldsmith; it was great to see it again recently after a 40 year gap of it not being available. It really has the look and texture almost of a Von Sternberg picture, and remains one of the great good bad movies.Anouk keeps working, including mini-series like SOLOMON and NAPOLEON and Altman's misfire PRET A PORTER, but will always be the alluring star of the '50s and '60s, and is certainly one of the great French actresses. I have just got one of her '90s ones to watch: FESTIVAL AT CANNES. I did a fuller appreciation on her on IMDb at:

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000733/board/nest/145172932?d=145172932#145172932.

People we like: Genevieve Bujold

Genevieve Bujold - there's a name to conjure with. Born in Canada in 1942, she has been one of the most individual actresses/stars since she began in the '60s with De Broca's KNAVE OF HEARTS opposite Alan Bates, and in Resnais' LE GUERRE EST FINIE with Yves Montand and Ingrid Thulin. Then of course that breakthrough role as Anne Boleyn in that dull pageant of a costume movie, ANNE OF THE THOUSAND DAYS, but she was excellent in it.
She was Heston's mistress in the entertaining EARTHQUAKE, but for me her best role is in DePalma's terrific Hitchcock pastiche OBSESSION, in 1976. To me its as important as TAXI DRIVER and it also has a late great Herrmann score. She is ideal as the girl Cliff Robertson meets in Florence who is the image of his dead wife, and whom he brings back to New Orleans, only to find....... Genevieve is terrific in the two roles and really makes it work, as does John Lithgow's fascinating villain. Genevieve is also super in Crichton's COMA as the plucky doctor uncovering just why so many people go into comas at her hospital - Michael Douglas is her rather dull boyfriend and Richard Widmark runs the hospital, while Elizabeth Ashley guards the sinister facility where the bodies are kept in suspended animation. There is that very tense sequence where she evades the prowler sent to keep her quiet... There were also a pirate caper with Robert Shaw, movies with Clint Eastwood and Jack Lemmon, and of course Cronenburg's masterly DEAD RINGERS with two Jeremy Irons. She is also marvellous in those Alan Rudolph films CHOOSE ME, TROUBLE IN MIND and THE MODERNS, and there is a routine thriller FINAL ASSIGNMENT with Michael York which I have got but not seen yet.

I also liked her in that charming take on westerns by Claude Lelouch, ANOTHER MAN ANOTHER WOMAN, with James Caan in '78 - a sort of variation on his UN HOMME ET UNE FEMME success of the '60s, and of course she is also terrific in the little-seen THE TROJAN WOMEN in '71 as Cassandra with that powerhouse cast including Katharine Hepburn, Vanessa Redgrave and Irene Papas.

She seems to be somebody who did not let the industry rule or ruin her, but works on her terms [she exited a STAR TREK series after one day! after realising it was not what she wanted] and walks away from all the hoopla and red carpet nonsense, like Julie Christie, Sarah Miles and a few others. Viva Genevieve - I love her looks and quirky manner, nice to see she is keeping busy and trust she finds suitable roles as she ages.

People we like: Michael Redgrave

Sir Michael Redgrave always seemed the least prominent or flamboyant of England's acting knights [though his film career was as good as any of theirs]. In the haphazard way one watches movies, I have been watching quite a few of his films recently, the very enjoyable KIPPS being on television yesterday afternoon. Redgrave senior was certainly a cinema natural. He is also a very attractive presence in Hitch's THE LADY VANISHES, THUNDER ROCK in '42, and in THE WAY TO THE STARS in '45, DEAD OF NIGHT in '49 and of course his Jack Worthing in the immortal THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST.

He also excelled throughout the '50s with those standout roles in THE BROWNING VERSION, and in Mankiewicz's THE QUIET AMERICAN ('57), Losey's TIME WITHOUT PITY and as the prison governor in Richardson's THE LONELINESS OF THE LONG DISTANCE RUNNER in '62. One of his best later roles was the older narrator in THE GO-BETWEEN.

I am currently reading the biography by his son Corin [who died last week] which elaborates a lot on Michael's acting and private life. It seems to be well known that he was bisexual and had various other relationships as well as founding that acting dynasty.

Those other knights: My one regret is that I never saw Olivier on stage, but did see Gielgud and Richardson several times, as well as Michael Redgrave in A MONTH IN THE COUNTRY with Ingrid Bergman, a big hit in 1965, as well as seeing Alec Guinness (mainly in drag!) in the 1968 oddity WISE CHILD, and Paul Scofield in THE TEMPEST in the 80s. Back in 1970 I was totally entraced by the double act of Gielgud and Richardson in David Storey's play HOME (where they are two decripit inmates chattering aimlessly in an old folks home, paired with Mona Washboune and Dandy Nichols) so I saw it twice, onced at the Royal Court and then when it transferred to the West End in London. Being 24 at the time I decided to get the programme signed by them - Sir Ralph exited from the stage door and imperially scrawled "Richardson" across the programme page and then, in his leather outfit, sped off on his motorcycle, while Sir John with a twinkle in his eye and wearing his cravat and sporting a glittering diamond ring (quite a contrast to his drab appearance on stage) held my hand and chatted as he signed the programme, while his limousine waited. Back in '65 the cast of the Bergman-Redgrave play also signed that programme [below].

Corin's book is an engrossing read about a complicated life, Michael not only was involved with the likes of Noel Coward and Edith Evans while married to Rachel Kempson, but also discovered Stephen Boyd who was a cinema doorman at the time. It's a fascinating life in the theatre and cinema during those great decades from the '30s onwards. As the blurb says "Michael Redgrave was a great actor in an age of great acting. Working alongside Edith Evans, Laurence Olivier, Peggy Ashcroft, John Gielgud, Alec Guinness and Ralph Richardson, he succeeded both in the classical theatre and as a popular film actor." Its a shame his theatre career was curtailed by ill-health. I would have liked to have seen his production of Henry James' THE ASPERN PAPERS, and his role in Michael Powell's film OH ROSALINDA!. Good to recently get that '60s BBC production of HEDDA GABLER with Ingrid Bergman, Michael, Ralph Richardson and Trevor Howard - a powerhouse cast! (click images to enlarge).

Top 50+ movies...

Movies I love? usually:

Blow-Up
L'Eclissse
I Know Where I'm Going
Black Narcissus
The Scarlet Empress
Bringing Up Baby
Some Like It Hot
All About Eve
A Star Is Born [1954]
2001 A Space Odyssey

The Leopard
The Passenger
The Bandwagon
Pandora and the Flying Dutchman
Notorious
Rear Window
Vertigo
North By Northwest
Psycho
The Birds
L'Avventura
Umberto D
Tokyo Story
Pather Panchali
Au Hasard Balthasar

El Cid
Johnny Guitar
The Quiet Man
The Searchers
The Innocents
The Women
Anatomy of a Murder
Sunset Boulevard
The Shanghai Gesture
Casablanca
Double Indemnity
Laura
Gilda
Mildred Pierce

Plein Soleil
The Servant
Modesty Blaise
The Red Desert
Barry Lyndon
New York New York
All That Jazz
Kiss Me Kate
Les Girls / The Reluctant Debutante
Alexander
Kinsey
All About My Mother
Bad Education

Quentin Durward
Moonfleet
The Vikings
Heaven Knows Mr Alison
All That Heaven Allows
Midnight Mary
A Letter to 3 Wives
Persona
Autumn Sonata
The Girl Can’t Help It
Dona Herlinda and Her Son
The Conformist
Ludwig

I Was Happy Here
Darling
The History of Adele H.
This Happy Breed
The Way to The Stars
The Barefoot Contessa
Senso
Holiday
Only Angels Have Wings
Letter From An Unknown Woman

More British '50s rare pleasures...

Some more eclectic British films of the ‘50s before we zoom off to the ‘60s (and lots more ‘People We Like’)!

AN ALLIGATOR NAMED DAISY, a delicious 1955 Rank comedy starring Donald Sinden and Jeannie Carson, and Stephen Boyd [the essence of '50s beefcake here] teamed with Diana Dors – both of them going places. Sinden has to look after the alligator and chaos ensues. [This was a childhood favourite of mine and I bought the Donald Sinden box set purely for this still enjoyable comedy..]. James Robertson Justice, Richard Wattis, and - wonderfully - Margaret Rutherford (in one scene as a pet shop owner who can talk to the alligator) are all blissfully funny. Another by J Lee Thompson!

HOW TO MURDER A RICH UNCLE - a long-forgotten 1957 comedy, rather like a new Ealing production, featuring a ramshackle rich family now down on its luck, trying to bump off the rich uncle of the title, but killing each other insead. Its quirky and funny, directed by and starring Nigel Patrick, with Wendy Hiller and dear Katie Johnson of THE LADYKILLERS. Charles Coburn is the wealthy uncle whose relatives are dropping like flies around him...

WOMAN IN A DRESSING GOWN – one of several here featuring Yvonne Mitchell, this 1957 melodrama by Ted Willis and directed by the astonishingly versatile J Lee Thompson was a hit at the time. Mitchell is the slovenly wife, forever in that dressing gown, whose middle management husband Anthony Quayle is being lured away by bright young thing Sylvia Syms. It captures the mood of the late ‘50s with those modern new offices and the rising middle class. Carole Lesley, a starlet of the time, also features. Yvonne as usual makes it very compelling.

SAPPHIRE. Hardly ever seen now, this is a vivid childhood memory. Basil Dearden’s 1959 thriller is very colourful as it depicts late ‘50s Britain and the racial tensions of the time, with the arrival of those immigrants from Jamaica and Trinidad who were encouraged to move to England and better themselves, but were usually working on buses and trains. Sapphire is the girl found murdered on Hampstead Heath as detectives Nigel Patrick (dependable as ever) and Michael Craig look for clues. Yvonne Mitchell scores as the sister of Sapphire’s boyfriend, as it is revealed that the murdered girl was a half-caste who was passing as white. As in Dearden’s following VICTIM, attitudes are revealed among the suspects and its intriguingly worked out. A vivid scene set in a nightclub shows Craig’s reaction while watching a blond girl absorbed in the music as the owner tells the police that the girls passing for white always give themselves away when they hear that funky beat…. FLAME IN THE STREETS in 1961 is another set in this era as John Mills’ daughter (Sylvia Syms again) wants to marry an ordinary black man (not a Sidney Poitier superhero, as in Kramer's 1967 film) thus testing his liberal attitudes, while his wife, splendid Brenda de Banzie, is violently opposed to the union. This is also by Ted Willis.

THE TRIALS OF OSCAR WILDE is a fascinating and intelligent working of the Wilde story and for a movie made in 1960 about as frank as it could be. Peter Finch was a magnificent Wilde capturing the facets of the writer knowingly facing his destiny, and winning a BAFTA award. Yvonne Mitchell was the perfect Constance, and John Fraser as petulant a Bosie as Jude Law in the 90s Stephen Fry film. There was another version of the Wilde story made at the same time in 1960 by Gregory Ratoff with Robert Morley (playing Wilde as Robert Morley), but the Finch version directed by Ken Hughes won hands down, with handsome period detail and in scope and colour. James Mason and Nigel Patrick shone as opposing barristers and Lionel Jeffries was a malevolent if not insane Marquis of Queensbury. The film still holds up perfectly today. The Stephen Fry version may have been franker in 1997 but this one is just as good if not better and more nuanced.
Marketing Oscar in 1960: Click image to enlarge

The other version had the tagline: "Theirs was a relationship that the world could not, would not tolerate"!

CONSPIRACY OF HEARTS in 1960 from the Rank Organisation remains a superior tearjerker, where Lilli Palmer is the very elegant Mother Superior of a convent in Italy where the nuns save Jewish children from the Germans. Add in young Sylvia Syms, Yvonne Mitchell as the crotchety nun, David Kossoff as a rabbi and Albert Lieven and Peter Arne as dastardly Germans, plus Roland Lewis as a partisan. Experty put together by Ralph Thomas. Lilli is perfect as head nun squaring up to those Nazis.

NORTH WEST FRONTIER is a terrific adventure movie in scope and colour by J Lee Thompson in 1959 and it remains a television staple to this day as its screened at least once a year here in the UK. Thompson also made TIGER BAY that year as well as other ‘50s sterling titles like NO TREES IN THE STREET, YIELD TO THE NIGHT, THE WEAK AND WICKED, ICE COLD IN ALEX before going on to the likes of THE GUNS OF NAVARONE and CAPE FEAR. Here we are in India during the Victorian Raj era, Kenneth More has to guide a train through bandit country while protecting the young Prince whom a lot of people, including someone on the train, want to see dead. Lauren Bacall is the governess, Herbert Lom a shady character and Wilfrid Hyde White one of these decent English chaps. Its great fun to watch anytime.

UPSTAIRS AND DOWNSTAIRS – a very typical Rank Organisation comedy from 1960, with fascinating décor to see now, at the dawn of the new ’60s era. Michael Craig and Anne Heywood are the young marrieds who simply must have a domestic help to do their chores and look after their house. Their trials and tribulations make up the plot as they cope with bank robbers, a drunk Joan Hickson, Welsh girl Blodwyn (a hilarious young Joan Sims) who has never left Wales – Craig has a hilarious scene on a train with her – and Claudia Cardinale as a continental sexpot with men calling to the house at all times [5 years later Craig would be supporting Cardinale in Visconti’s SANDRA, of which more later]. French Mylene Demongeot plays the Swedish girl and its all jolly good fun and so typical of the era, also by Ralph Thomas.

The English '40s and into the '50s

Following on from commenting on Hollywood's '40s, English films of the '40s have always been high on my list of favourites. First, Powell and Pressburger with that wonderful quartet [I am afraid I have not seen A CANTERBURY TALE or OH ROSALINDA, which I must rectify...] of A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH, I KNOW WHERE I'M GOING, BLACK NARCISSUS and THE RED SHOES. I could write deliriously on each of these, but they are so well known there is no need [my aim here is to discuss the lesser known or lost films]. Suffice to say that I KNOW WHERE I'M GOING and BLACK NARCISSUS are numbers three and four in my top 30 list! Our London listings magazine "Time Out" used to say about NARCISSUS that one could show it out of focus and backwards and it would still be marvellous. Its one of the first movies I taped to video-cassette back in the '80s, now its great having the dvd and those extras on Jack Cardiff etc. Sister Clodagh [Deborah was only 26 at the time] and Sister Ruth and all the others are riveting as ever whenever I see it - Kathleen Byron, David Farrar, Flora Robson as ever, Jean Simmons and Sabu as the exotics. Then those great sets and colours particuarly towards the end - that jump cut and then the rain falling on those giant leaves as the nuns depart and the convent is swallowed up by the clouds as Sister Clodagh has one last request for Mr Dean... and it was all filmed in England and lensed by the incomparable Jack Cardiff! The mystical Hebrides are equally well served in I KNOW WHERE I'M GOING where Wendy Hiller, Roger Livesey and Pamela Brown (right) have never been more perfect, with Nancy Price as Mrs Crozier and that great Ardnacroish dance sequence and that castle! A film to treasure. Powell's PEEPING TOM is also as essential as PSYCHO and L'AVVENTURA in that key year 1960.

On to David Lean: I now love IN WHICH WE SERVE as much as THIS HAPPY BREED, and then there is BRIEF ENCOUNTER and BLITHE SPIRIT, all perfect of their kind, plus the two Dickens films GREAT EXPECTATIONS and OLIVER TWIST. The Ann Todd films were recent discoveries, I particularly like THE PASSIONATE FRIENDS with the great triangle of Todd, Howard and Claude Rains and that lovely '40s ambience. (More on it in my post on Valentine Day films). Kay Walsh, Celia Johnson, Ann Todd, John Mills, Trevor Howard et al are all ideal Lean actors.

Carol Reed is equally important with THE FALLEN IDOL, ODD MAN OUT and THE THIRD MAN. Add in those delirious Gainsborough melodramas like MADONNA OF THE SEVEN MOONS, CARAVAN and the MAN IN GREY [thank goodness for that Stewart Granger box set of 12 of these!], Flora Robson in POISON PEN, the sumptuous SARABAND FOR DEAD LOVERS (where Granger, Greenwood, Flora Robson and Francoise Rosay are all sublime) and then those Ealing comedies like the timeless KIND HEARTS AND CORONETS and WHISKEY GALORE, and those other 40s dramas like IT ALWAYS RAINS ON SUNDAY, 2,000 WOMEN, GREEN FOR DANGER, THE OCTOBER MAN, THE WAY TO THE STARS (also reviewed further along here), the Anna Neagle-Michael Wilding films and popular late '40s films capturing the moment like HOLIDAY CAMP and DANCE HALL in 1950, important social documents now, as is Basil Dearden's POOL OF LONDON from 1951 when the London docks were in full swing, with those evocative names like Bonar Colleano, Earl Cameron, Renee Asherson and Moira Lister.

Apart from Anna Neagle, Wendy Hiller, Celia Johnson and Joan Greenwood other English '40s leading ladies include Margaret Lockwood, Phyllis Calvert, Patricia Roc, Greta Gynt and Kay Walsh, plus Kerr and Simmons before they went Hollywood. James Mason, Michael Wilding, Stewart Granger, Dennis Price, Jack Hawkins and Trevor Howard were ideal leading men [with Dirk Bogarde, Richard Todd, Kenneth More, Peter Finch etc waiting in the wings], and directors like Ronald Neame, Lewis Gilbert, J Lee Thompson, Basil Dearden, Ralph Thomas were all starting out and would dominate English films in the '50s.

Ken Annakin's HOLIDAY CAMP in 1947 is post-war England in aspic, going on holiday to the new holiday camps. 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 .... 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. 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. 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! 10 years later SATURDAY NIGHT AND SUNDAY MORNING would be a new male-dominated update on working class life, as the '60s dawned.

THE GOLDEN SALAMANDER was a treat to see last year, a 1950 thriller by Ronald Neame set in Tunisia where Trevor Howard is sent to unearth a gang smuggling antiquities out of the country. With his battered hat and pipe Howard is quite the dependable leading man here and is teamed with the teenage Anouk Aimee, as fascinating as ever here in one of her first films. Jacques Sernas is her brother, Herbert Lom leads the heavies as local bigwig Walter Rilla leads the gang. Its a pity its not in colour to capitalise on the locations but its exciting and tense as it seems the whole town is against our couple at the climax.

THE CLOUDED YELLOW. Another 1950 thriller starring Trevor Howard, this time with the young Jean Simmons in another tense tale, this time directed by Ralph Thomas. Howard here is a secret service agent suffering from burn-out, who takes a quiet job in the country cataloguing a butterfly collection (hence the title) at the home of Barry Jones and his wife Sonia Dresdel. Its an original little thriller, I like Howard's jaunty sports car, and the climax is a tense one at Liverpool docks as the villain chases Jean Simmons over the rooftops. Kenneth More is the detective in pursuit, and its one of Simmons' better films of the period, like her charming one with Dirk Bogarde of about the same time, SO LONG AT THE FAIR.

WOMEN OF TWILIGHT - a 1952 meller by Gordon Parry only of note now as its one of Laurence Harvey's early movies, before his breakthrough year 1954. He has 2 scenes here in this humdrum thriller set in a boarding house for unmarried women, ruled by a malevolent Freda Jackson (was she ever anything else?). Dora Bryan is fun as usual, and Lois Maxwell is also on board.

CAST A DARK SHADOW. I thought I was au fait with Dirk Bogarde's movies but only really began seeing them in 1957, when 11, so missed a few early ones like this and Losey's THE SLEEPING TIGER in '54. This '55 meller by Lewis Gilbert is a delicious treat now with Dirk in spivvy mode (looking at his Physique Pictorial magazines..) but somehow middle-aged women go for him in a big way. He begins married to older Mona Washbourne but you can tell he has plans for her...but retains her devoted servant Kathleen Harrison. Margaret Lockwood then enters as a delightfully vulgar woman with money who unaccountably has to marry Dirk but he soon realises she is no fool. Then splendid Kay Walsh comes on the scene and drama soon ensues. It twists and turns nicely, with Robert Flemying a good support. Poor Mona also became infatuated with unstable (and how) Albert Finney in 1963's NIGHT MUST FALL. Dirk's later films for the Rank Organisation were much more colourful like CAMPBELL'S KINGDOM, THE WIND CANNOT READ or the excellent version of A TALE OF TWO CITIES.

I have since caught up with Dirk's earlier roles in BOYS IN BROWN, THE BLUE LAMP, HUNTED, THE GENTLE GUNMAN etc from his 'spiv with a gun' era, and then his War Hero period with APPOINTMENT IN LONDON, THE SEA SHALL NOT HAVE THEM, THEY WHO DARE, ILL MET BY MOONLIGHT etc- as covered at Dirk label, along with his later British movies like THE SPANISH GARDENER, THE WIND CANNOT READ, THE DOCTOR'S DILEMMA, LIBEL etc. when he was Rank's "Idol of the Odeons". 

Right: Jean Simmons and teenage Anouk Aimee cooling down at one of Dirk Bogarde's Sunday afternoon parties, circa 1950.

Coming soon: those English actresses of the 50s [Muriel Pavlow, Virginia McKenna, Yvonne Mitchell, Barbara Murray, Dinah Sheridan, Shirley Eaton, Belinda Lee, Diana Dors, Sylvia Syms, Brenda De Banzie etc], to be followed by those Swinging '60s girls.

People We Like: Janet Leigh on Psycho

What a terrific photograph of Janet Leigh [photographer: Nocoletta Zalaffi] for a "Sight and Sound" interview with Janet back in 1969. Janet here expounds on her career in a very insightful interview, giving praise as she always did to those directors who really shaped her career: Von Sternberg, Welles, and of course Alfred Hitchcock. Also she discusses the making of MY SISTER EILEEN, that delightful Richard Quine musical from '55 with Bob Fosse (who remained a friend), and her work with Anthony Mann and John Frankenheimer.

Janet also wrote her autobiography "There Really Was A Hollywood" and two novels, and she had a happy lasting marriage (until her death aged 77 in 2004) after the Tony Curtis years (when they were always in the movie magazines). Of the Curtis films I particularly like THE VIKINGS and always have to tune in whenever its screened, though I have the dvd!. Janet was very prolific throughout the 50s in films good and bad (they don't get much worse than PRINCE VALIANT or THE BLACK SHIELD OF FALWORTH) but items like SAFARI or THE PERFECT FURLOUGH (STRICTLY FOR PLEASURE here in the UK, Furlough is not a word we use here...) were staples of one's childhood filmgoing in the '50s.

She also co-authored a book on the making of PSYCHO and she often told about how she and Hitch got on, and his sense of humour on the set. They had several meetings before starting PSYCHO and he told her he was not going to tell her how to act, as if he did not think she could act then he would not have her in his picture. He told her the qualities he needed and let her create the role - as long as her concept did not interfere with what he needed at certain points then she was free to do whatever she wanted! Its certainly one way of giving the actor freedom to contribute to the creative process! She went out and bought the kind of clothes Marion would have afforded on her salary and did her hair herself etc. She certainly delivers in PSYCHO as she outlines the curve of Marion's journey from stealing the money (only $40,000!) to her decision to go back and return it after her conversation with that strange young man at the motel. THE NAKED SPUR, TOUCH OF EVIL [more odd goings-on at a deserted motel... and she had her arm in a cast during the shoot!] and THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE are also highlights of Janet's hollywood years. She is also terrific in the 1963 comedy WIVES AND LOVERS.

It was always a pleasure to see Janet. My full appreciation on her is on IMDb at:

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001463/board/nest/136933738?d=136933738#136933738

Julie Christie on Zhivago

The dvd extras (and there are lots) on disks of DOCTOR ZHIVAGO include a fascinating newsreel interview with Julie Christie which goes on for about 10 minutes with her in closeup deftly fielding interviews with 3 members of the American press at the publicity junket for DR ZHIVAGO in New York. She smokes cigarettes, drinks coffee and takes it all in her stride totally unselfconscious in front of the cameras. Here she is in her mid 20s looking radiant and is one of the most glamorous creatures ever put in front of a camera. What a year it was for her, not only ZHIVAGO but also DARLING and that small role (filmed before the other two) as Daisy Battles in YOUNG CASSIDY, began by John Ford and completed by Jack Cardiff. I understand Ford filmed her two scenes with Rod Taylor.

Another fascinating item on the ZHIVAGO disks is an interview with screenwriter Robert Bolt with his portable typewriter in front of him. It makes one realise what an undertaking (especially on a picture this size) scriptwriting was back then - before computers and hard (or floppy) disks: the rewrites, the copies, keeping a master copy safe, all before one could update or change by just turning on a laptop!

Vitti on L'avventura

It being 50 years since the release of PSYCHO and L'AVVENTURA - those two landmark movies of 1960 both of which have never really gone away - and are being played on screens now as I type, as PSYCHO has been re-released and it and Antonioni's masterwork are both playing this afternoon on the London National Film Theatre's biggest screen - I have seen them both there in the past and contented myself today with looking at the special features on the dvds.

PSYCHO of course changed how people made, watched and thought about movies and its brilliance remains undimmed, set as it is in a recognisably contemporary America - even if 50 years ago! - of small towns, motels and freeways. Looking at it again now Janet Leigh is so startlingly brilliant as she delinates the curve of Marion's journey, with that great score, as she sleeps in her car and is disturbed by the policeman as she continues on her journey that leads her to Bates Motel and those scenes with the equally brilliant Perkins.

The Criterion L'AVVENTURA has an extra disk of material I had not got around to seeing before and it includes a wonderful long interview with Monica Vitti, in close up for about 5 minutes, discussing its making and reception at Cannes in 1960. With that striped dress and the wind blowing her hair and that husky voice she looks truly stunning and glamorous here. Its quite fascining to see at this remove and adds to one's appreciation of the film, also a real eclipse he shot in 1962 during L'ECLISSE. Fascinating stuff.

The '40s

A quick look at some choice '40s items .... left is the programme for a season of '40s films by the London National Film Theatre in 1971 - this would have been 21 years after the '40s finished, I was 25 then so of course wouldn't have remembered the '40s (my cinema-going began in 1954 when I was 8), but for older people in 1971 looking back at the '40s must be like us recalling the films of the '80s now ... [this NFT season is itself almost 40 years old now! - how quickly decades fly by...]

Looking at the programme it aims to capture the "flavour" of the '40s - what people went to see on a regular basis, as opposed to the classics which are all we see of the '40s today - so it has ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET THE KILLER and SUN VALLEY SERENADE along with THE PHILADELPHIA STORY and CASABLANCA, LASSIE COME HOME as well as THE MALTESE FALCON, it celebrates Sonja Henie, Ester Williams and Carmen Miranda as well as GILDA (no LAURA or MILDRED PIERCE though...) Bette is represented by NOW VOYAGER, Joan by HUMORESQUE, Stanwyck by BALL OF FIRE, there's LADY IN THE DARK, THE ROAD TO MOROCCO, SULLIVAN'S TRAVELS, THE UNSUSPECTED, MRS MINIVER, MR BLANDINGS, ZIEGFIELD FOLLIES, THE YEARLING, GOING MY WAY, THE LOST WEEKEND, SINCE YOU WENT AWAY, FAREWELL MY LOVELY, WALTER MITTY, THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES, DUEL IN THE SUN, THE GANG'S ALL HERE and A LETTER TO THREE WIVES among the 40 chosen, so I suppose its quite representative - no DOLLY SISTERS though! Here though are a few recent choice under-rated '40s items which were quite fun to see now:

ESCAPE. This 1940 melodrama seems quite unknown now - directed by Mervyn LeRoy it is one of Norma Shearer's last films and she is not really the lead here and in fact does not feature in the strong central section where Robert Taylor is trying to rescue his mother, a famous actress (played by the famous Nazimova) from a concentration camp where she is due to be executed. It must be one of the first hollywood anti-Nazi films to feature concentration camps. It gets very melodramatic as the mother has to be given a drug to make her seem dead and then the coffin has to be opened by the guards .... the Nazis are shown as a bit dim and the locals are all too terrified to help Taylor who arrives in Bavaria to look for his mother who has disappeared. Norma as the Countess initially offers to help but she too must protect herself, particuarly as her lover is German general Conrad Veidt (practically the same role he plays in CASABLANCA 2 years later) who soon suspects something is wrong. The ending seems rather rushed but its certainly engrossing now - who though is Ethel Vance whose novel it is based on is shown at the start as though it is a major work?

Other early '40s films showing the Nazi menace would include McCarey's oddity ONCE UPON A HONEYMOON in 1942 with Cary Grant having to rescue Ginger Rogers as the American married to general Walter Slezak; Lubitsch of course makes fun of the Nazis in the immortal TO BE OR NOT TO BE, MRS MINIVER shows the plucky Hollywood British, and my favourite: Borzage's THE MORTAL STORM with James Stewart and Margaret Sullavan resisting the Nazi menace in Austria in 1940. This is a real charmer and totally engrossing.

Then there is GOLDEN EARRINGS made after the war in '47 - is it a comedy, a romance or a thriller? perhaps a bit of each then as Ray Milland is on the run in Germany presumably before or during the war and has to depend on gypsy Marlene Dietrich to help him get around the country. Its actually quite amusing as directed by Mitchell Leisen and Marlene is droll in her gypsy makeup and not playing a heartless vamp for once. Bland Milland is dull - the stars did not get on - I read that Marlene sucked the eye out of a fish-head from her her stewpot during his first closeup to disconcert him. Again we get lots of comic Nazis and they do not seem to mind the gypsies roaming around or telling their fortunes - or maybe the gypsies were not being rounded up just then ! You have to laugh at the end: he comes back after the war and there is Marlene with her gypsy caravan as though he had left just a few minutes before...

One '40s routine actioner which I loved when I saw it as a Sunday matinee as a kid is the 1942 adventure yarn SON OF FURY - John Cromwell's terrific tale with Tyrone Power in 18th century England falling foul of scoundrel George Sanders and escaping to the South Seas, cue Gene Tierney at her most alluring but Ty has to return with his riches, Frances Farmer as Sanders' daughter is more interested in his pearls, Elsa Lanchester has a touching role, and there is a terrific final duel [Ty had his fatal heart attack duelling again with Sanders in 1958...]. Its all sheer delight and one of Power's best, up there with Flynn's THE SEA HAWK or pirate romps like THE BLACK SWAN or THE SPANISH MAIN.

FALLEN ANGEL - Otto Preminger's 1945 little noir was a treat recently, perfectly capturing that mid-40s Californian small town underworld of diners and rooming houses, as drifter Dana Andrews arrives at that seafront diner where young voluptuous Linda Darnell holds sway over the customers, who include a jealous Charles Bickford. Then there is Alice Faye - odd to see her in a downbeat non-musical black and white role which rather diminishes her - and her severe sister Ann Revere. Mix it all up, include a murder, sit back and enjoy.

ROADHOUSE. I was pleased to see this finally on dvd, its one noir I really liked when saw it as a revival when I was young. Jean Negulesco's 1948 drama is engrossing, tense and exciting and is one of Ida Lupino's best. She is the very hard-boiled chanteuse who arrives at the roadhouse managed by Cornel Wilde whose best pal and boss Jefty (Richard Widmark at his baddest) has hired Ida to sing. Cornel doesn't play ball - Jefty has a habit of hiring dames and Cornel has to get rid of them, but Ida is sensational. A romance follows while Jefty is away, observed by cashier Celeste Holm who of course pines for Cornel. It all gets very tense as Jefty returns and goes predictably over the top and ends with them on the run from berserk Widmark. Its a pleasing late '40s Fox film which really delivers.

The '40s though for me also includes British films - the decade would be unthinkable without those Michael Powell, David Lean or Carol Reed classics, as well as those Gainsboroughs and Ealing comedies. More on those later .... plus De Sica and the Neo-Realists.