Some more French and Italian rarities

courtesy of YouTube:

THE EMPTY CANVAS: I wondered why this 1964 Italian drama never played in London, despite Bette Davis and Horst Buchholz, still popular then, in lead roles. Bette was big that year what with DEAD RINGER and HUSH HUSH SWEET CHARLOTTE capitalising on her BABY JANE success, and let's not forget trash classic WHERE LOVE HAS GONE! Buchholz (1933-2003) had an interesting period in Hollywood with films as diverse as Sturges' THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN, Billy Wilder's ONE TWO THREE (one of Billy's best for me) and Logan's FANNY, as well as being a major European star.
He has nothing much to play with here as a bored Italian artist with a creative block, reliant on his rich, domineering American mother (Davis), but finds escape in the arms of Catherine Spaak, a beautiful young model, who believes in indiscriminate love affairs. Spaak is as lovely as she was in I DOLCE IGNANNI (Italian label)  four years earlier in 1960. There is a car crash, Spaak gets covered in money, but it all seems to be going nowhere ...

Bette shines in quite a good role, but it is all rather turgid. Isa Miranda and Daniella Rocca are also in the cast. It is an Albert Moravia story, his books were being filmed quite a bit then after the success of his TWO WOMEN. The same year 1964 saw Maselli's TIME OF INDIFFERENCE, a much more intriguing tale, featuring Claudia Cardinale and Tomas Milian as the brother and sister, in a great 1920s setting, with Paulette Goddard as their mother, losing her estate to Rod Steiger who wants Claudia, while Shelley Winters has designs on Tomas, as the indolent siblings shrug. see Claudia label ...  Its worth watching THE EMPTY CANVAS, complete with English sub-titles, while it is available on YouTube ...

THE JOY OF LIVING: We love Rene Clement's PLEIN SOLEIL (PURPLE NOON) here at the Projector - one of the first European films we saw when young which opened our eyes to the glamour of Europe in 1960, and beautiful people like Delon and Laforet, and of course from a favourite Patricia Highsmith book.  I had though never heard of THE JOY OF LIVING (Che Gioia Vivere) till advised - thanks Daryl - that it is available on YouTube, so I spent a pleasant afternoon watching it. (YouTube also had that other Delon rarity, the 1968 FAREWELL FRIEND with Charles Bronson).This one, about fascists and bomb-makers and anarchists, is certainly a rarity, there are comic moments but Clement was better suited to thrillers like his others with Delon: PLEIN SOLEIL and LES FELINS (Delon label).

BOULEVARD: Fifteen year old Jojo has run away from home to escape his controlling stepmother who hates him. He manages to make ends meet with some odd jobs, and living a room under the roof of a block of flats in Pigalle. Selling magazines works for a while but posing as Narcissus for two gay artists proves a disaster. When things go really awry, Jojo tries to commit suicide by jumping off the roof of his house.
Jean-Pierre Leaud was an instant sensation as Antoine Doinel in Truffaut's THE 400 BLOWS in 1959 - this, Leaud's second role, sees him as another early teen, precocious and rather bratty, leaving home and taking an attic room. His rooftop hideout allows him to see everything, including the older woman he desires, Magali Noel. There is of course also a nice young girl .....

our hero gets into some scrapes, and poses for two gay artists who befriend him. We get lots more of that 'Paris by night'/early '60s vibe. It is all nicely directed by veteran Julian Duvivier - I have not seen too many Duvivier films but liked those I did like Robert Hossein and Jean Sorel in CHAIR DE POULE in '63 and Gabin in top form in the brilliant VOICI LE TEMPS DES ASSASSINS in '55 (French label). 

YouTube only has the opening minutes of BOULEVARD but it gives a nice flavour of the film. I saw this when 18 and new in London in 1964, though it has not turned up anywhere since. Leaud was soon back as Antoine Doinel continuing his adventures for Truffaut .,..

 Soon: 1970s paranoia triple bill: THE PARALLAX VIEW, THREE DAYS OF THE CONDOR and THE STEPFORD WIVES.

All those Bogarde books ...

Rare publicity shots for MODESTY BLAISE

A round-up for Dirk obsessives on the various books and fan magazines about him - not counting his own 9 books of autobiography and 6 novels!

Sylvia Syms in discussing his career in that BBC collection of interviews, as per my last post below, said "They don't make them last that any more" - how right: after starting as an actor in 1947 after his war years, he became that "Idol of the Odeons" popular leading man of the '50s,
then the respected European actor of the '60s and '70s, and took up writing successfully in the '80s and '90s. Here's a selection of the books about him, he may not have been too pleased by those '50s anonymous fan mags, with that picture story about his "unrequited love for Jean Simmons" - at Dirk comic strip label! - but the later biography by John Coldstream covers everything nicely, and he also edited that fascinating collection of letters. Sheridan Morley (Robert's son) and Robert Tanitch also did interesting surveys of his career with notes on all the films, as did the sterling work THE FILMS OF DIRK BOGARDE. He also of course featured in lots of covers of magazines like "Picture Show", "Films & Filming" and "Sight & Sound".

 
Of his own books my favourites are SNAKES & LADDERS about his '50s star years and pals like Kay Kendall, Judy and Capucine (the making of I COULD GO ON SINGING being particularly illuminating) and A SHORT WALK FROM HARRODS covering his return to London after the French years, and A GENTLE OCCUPATION is certainly the best of his novels. The very odd VOICES IN THE GARDEN, with characters surely based on Visconti and Helmut Berger, made an ever odder telefilm starring his old friend Anouk Aimee, very unsuitable here.  His collection of book reviews FOR THE TIME BEING is also compulsive. Actor John Fraser ("The Jude Law of '50s/'60s cinema")'s 2005  autobiography CLOSE UP also has a fascinating chapter on Bogarde's home life.
www.dirkbogarde.co.uk is the perfect site on all things Bogarde.

Dirk, talking pictures ...

Unseen photo of Dirk in Paris

BBC here has been running an intriguing weekly series "Talking Pictures" featuring archive interviews with stars, which interviews have been long unseen here - like that recent one some weeks ago on old Bette Davis interviews and there was the 1972 lecture/discussion she gave at the National Film Theatre, which I had been at, in my 20s and there I was in the audience footage! - NFT label.
This last weekend they ran a Dirk Bogarde selection, fitting in extracts from 30 years of interviews with the BBC, starting in 1961. Fascinating stuff, then, as I had not seen most of these - it didn't though include his 1970 NFT appearance, which I was also at and where I met him afterwards and got that signed programme - Dirk label.

Dirk always gave good interview in print or on camera, and so it is here, starting with his lord of the manor act in 1961, above.
He makes interesting comments on his late pal Kay Kendall and praises Marilyn Monroe. Dirk always worked with the best - those '50s ladies like Muriel Pavlow, Virginia McKenna, Kay Kendall, the young Bardot, plus Jean Simmons, Leslie Caron, Olivia de Havilland, while being friends with the likes of Anouk Aimee, Judy Garland, Capucine, Ava Gardner, Ingrid Bergman, Simone Signoret, Yvonne Mitchell, Lauren Bacall (who visited him the day before he died in 1999).
In the '60s he worked with all the new talent: Christie, Courtenay, Stamp, the Yorks, Sarah Miles and James Fox, Bates and more European ladies: Vitti, Aimee, Thulin, Mangano, Lilli Palmer, and in the '70s he was good friends with co-stars Charlotte Rampling and Jane Birkin, as well as TV roles with Lee Remick, Glenda Jackson, Julie Harris, Eileen Atkins, who all spoke well of him. Pity my 2 favourites Bogarde and Vitti did not get on though ...

This series is narrated by Sylvia Syms, his co-star from VICTIM, so she had some comments on that too, including Dirk's relationship with 'Forwood' as described in his books. I fully understood Dirk's reluctance not to 'come out' in his  lifetime - that generation just did not discuss their private life in public, it would have been anathema to him, but as he said, its all there in the books. He also makes interesting comments on directors like Losey, Visconti, Fassbinder  ... Dirk has not only been a favourite of mine since I was about 10 or 11, but he also worked with so many I like. Below, Dirk at that South of France home for over 20 years, before increasing age and ill-health forced a return to London's Chelsea where he started out, in 1947.  The programme was followed by re-reruns of DOCTOR IN THE HOUSE, fun to see again, and HOT ENOUGH FOR JUNE, one of his throwaway '60s capers which I had not seen before ... There are 48 Bogarde posts here, with lots of pictures etc, as per Bogarde label, for those interested in this perenially fascinating actor.

The other interviewees in this BBC series will include Ingrid Bergman, Lauren Bacall and Charlton Heston - ones to watch then. There was another fascinating one last week - on Tony Curtis. The 1972 one showed a still cocky Curtis, seemingly high as he could not stop talking - and also ageing as the interviews progressed ...

R.I.P.

Dale and MM

Dale Robertson (1923-2013) was the first cowboy star I liked as a kid - my dad took me to SITTING BULL and THE GAMBLER FROM NATCHEZ. He was reliable too in those 20th Century Fox films of the early 50s like O. HENRY'S FULL HOUSE, there was just something attractive about him.  His biograpy is another of those fascinating lives - a young boxer, he saw action in World War II in the Pacific and Europe, before taking up acting. I did not see any of his later television roles, but he also turned up in DALLAS and DYNASTY.

I was watching him only yesterday in a re-run of that good '56 western DAKOTA INCIDENT nicely teamed with Linda Darnell. He was amusing too in that 'eastern' SON OF SINBAD with Vincent Price at his campest, as per review at Dale label.

Armando Trovajoli (1917-2013), died aged 97. Composer for so many Italian movies including those De Sica's like TWO WOMEN, MARRIAGE ITALIAN STYLE and THE PIZZA TRIANGLE, FOUR KINDS OF LOVE and hundreds more. He turns up on screen as the man who rescues Sophia when Marcello has crashed her car in the middle section of YESTERDAY TODAY AND TOMORROW, and he was also married to Pier Angeli.  

500 must-see films

We like a good movie list here at the Projector, so we are looking forward to this Saturday and Sunday editions of the UK "Daily Telegraph" and "Sunday Telegraph" as they are running a two-part supplement on 500 MUST SEE FILMS. Nice to compare lists and see what they say and include ... surely all our arthouse and commercial hits and classics will be included? They are covering action, horror, comedy, animatiion, crime, sci-fi and thriller plus their film critics' greatest films of All Time ! Essential then !

PS: having now got the supplement, this is my riposte back to "The Telegraph":   
"500 Must-see Films! what a capital idea - and an interesting comparison with that "Sight & Sound" Top 100 Films poll of last year ... but out of 500 not one Antonioni? ("L'Avventura", "L'Eclisse", "Blow-Up" and "The Passenger" would have to be in any top 100 list of mine) nor any Visconti or Losey? No mention of "The Bandwagon" for me THE best musical of all, plus not many of those great '50s dramas or '60s classics or arthouse favourites, nor Brirtish favouites like David Lean's other films or "Whiskey Galore" or "Genevieve" or "The Servant". At least Michael Powell was well represented."

I willl now be taking a break myself, after over 800 posts here (archived and indexed as per labels) during the last 3 years, as I have other projects I want to devote time to, other writing projects etc. I was going to take a sabbathical, but I still have a lot I want to cover here, so will be posting in once a week - instead of once (or more) a day !

Back next week with: Clifton Webb in SITTING PRETTY, Bette Davis in the 1964 Italian rarity THE EMPTY CANVAS, Almodovar's THE SKIN I LIVE IN, more Monty Clift in the '54 De Sica TERMINAL STATION, plus SKYFALL, RUST AND BONE, and, er, THE SWEENEY! And some more Antonioni, and in tribute to the BFI LGFF reviews of SOME OF MY BEST FRIENDS ARE and BUT I'M A CHEERLEADER ....

Super troupers

Veterans Barbra Streisand and Shirley Bassey with new girl Adele in the middle - at the recent Hollywood Oscars when all three sang as well as they ever did ... Adele with the SKYFALL theme, Bassey at 76 wowed them with a stunning "Goldfinger" while Streisand delivered a powerful "The Way We Were" in tribute to her pal Marvin Hamlisch who died last year (RIP label).

Barbra is now 70 - I was 20 when I saw her on stage in FUNNY GIRL in London in 1966, from the front row, yet! So she would have been 23 then ... my affection for her has waxed and waned over the years (her A STAR IS BORN being a low point) - but here we are, better than ever ...

Another trouper, on television here this week, is 80 year old Petula Clark, promoting a new album, which I already have, "Lost In You" with that stunning new slowed down "Downtown", as Pet said its not a happy song at all, but a wistful one about loneliness. Petula of course was a child star in the '40s, entertaining the troops, and appearing in films. She is the little girl (right) in my perennial favourite I KNOW WHERE I'M GOING (Petula label), 1945, and was also Sid Field's daughter in LONDON TOWN, Kay Kendall's debut in 1946.  

She is a nice teen in DANCE HALL in 1950 as one of the 4 girls who go dancing every week (Petula label). Then she was a '60s pop star both in the UK and in France and also very popular in America with all those hits - I vaguely remember she caused a sensation in those different times when she and Harry Belafonte touched each other in a tv special! I like her a lot in Francis Coppola's FINIAN'S RAINBOW, perhaps the oddest musical of all? where she does a marvellous "That Old Devil Moon", and she squares up nicely to Peter O'Toole in the musical remake of GOODBYE MR CHIPS in 1969. Pet has continued through the decades, we saw her live in concert 3 or 4 years ago, and - unlike Julie Andrews - she still has the voice, as good as ever it was. Wish I had seen her in THE SOUND OF MUSIC tour or in SUNSET BOULEVARD!

Another blonde British singer - Dusty Springfield, alas no longer here, but tonight is Dusty night on BBC4 - where there are documentaries, all her BBC appearances, an episode of her TV specials - with guest Scott Walker, left. (I saw one of her tv shows being recorded in 1969 at the old Golders Green Hippodrome, memorable as the first number went wrong and Dusty had to re-record it so she was stomping around the stage in a strop! They will probably be showing her Pet Shop Boys appearances too tonight, including that great one at The Brits in 1988, when she was Diva incarnate, (above, with Neil Tennant).

Other troupers: I see Jack Jones is on his farewell tour. Back in the late '60s I liked his light throwaway style, the Michael Buble of his day? - particularly that album with "A Day in the life of a fool" and other hits like "Wives and Lovers".

 

Justin Hayward of The Moody Blues also has a new solo album out - how we liked that sound in the '60s and '70s, as iconic now as the Pink Floyd or Fleetwood Mac. I have ordered Justin's new one ... a documentary too on tonight on British blues guy Stevie Winwood, another of my favourite rock voices ... 
 
Another returning veteran is of course David Bowie, breaking a long silence and causing major headlines. There is an exhibition at the V&A Museum, London, opening on March 23, and that new album THE NEXT DAY is out on March 11. I shall pre-book it next, and must look out for that new video with Tilda Swinton .... As the "Daily Telegraph" said: "He has timed the release of singles and an album to regenerate the reputation of David Bowie, so that this would not be merely an exhibition romanticising a star in decline ...". 
I have just got a re-issue (with 3 extra tracks) of his 1974 YOUNG AMERICANS, which I used to have on cassette - its a terrific soul record with David in powerful voice (plus Luther Vandross on backup vocals)  and an interesting contrast to the Berlin records. Meanwhile the hyperbole over the new album is going into overdrive, with lengthy reviews in the quality papers. Bowie's long silence ensured he became a mythical figure, almost as if he were dead. He is now widely recognised as England's greatest solo rock star, with an oeuvre second only to The Beatles! It seems the new album is "richly satisfying, and by the standards of today's charts, it is genius" - so says Tim DeLisle in The Mail. I will find out for myself next Monday when the new album will be delivered.

Audrey goes to work - selling chocolate

She is advertising Galaxy chocolate in this commercial aired here in the UK over the weekend ...

Its actually very clever, if spooky (digital Audrey is not quite the real thing, but rather like an INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS stick insect version of her), capturing her circa ROMAN HOLIDAY early '50s in a very stylised Italy, but it raises a lot of questions - who will we see advertising items next? (Fred Astaire and others have been used already . ..)

According to a newspaper article her sons, who control her estate, authorised the use of her image in return for a fee .... it does not bode well for still-living stars if their own children are willing to sell their image for money.

I did not mind that perfume advert with Charlize Theron and its digital versions of Grace Kelly, Dietrich and Marilyn, as it seemed to be affectionately done and they were only glimpsed briefly - but this new one seems like its putting a beloved dead star back to work with a vengance. I wonder how much they got paid ? The odd thing is the soundtrack to this is Audrey herself singing "Moon River" from BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S!  It was disconcerting seeing it a day after watching the real Audrey at her loveliest in SABRINA !

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=SFw8NjZF-Qk

Divine !

A new documentary I AM DIVINE opens the new London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival (on 14 March), directed by Jeffrey Schwarz it celebrates the life and career of Divine, that entertainer extraordinaire (1945-1988), and his journey from being Harris Glenn Milstead in Baltimore to wowing the movies and record business as the outrageous, shocking, challenging and unique Divine. The films speak for themselves: FEMALE TROUBLE as Dawn Davenport - thanks Jerry for that the other week. I love every minute of course of the original HAIRSPRAY and every quotable line of it (particuarly the one about her (Edna Turnblad) diet pill wearing off...). John Waters of course crafted these masterworks (we also dig his later ones like CRY BABY and SERIAL MOM, and of course he gives great interview).

Divine also of course had pop hits during that Hi-Energy era of the early 80s, and I had my own evening with him in either 1986 or early '87 when he appeared at the (straight) club Coasters, then part of the Kingswest Odeon complex on Brighton seafront, in Sussex here in the UK. I was down there every weekend then with their disk jockey Rory. The night Divine was booked Rory's dressing room was given over to Divine and we watched the quiet Glenn in his kaftan settle in, with the buffet arranged for him. He emerged as Divine at midnight - the place was full, with kids hanging from the rafters, and he brought down the house.

Divine by Hockney

I can still see him in the leopardskin outfit, with sweat pouring off him as he belted out those hits like "Jungle Jezebel" - he also caused a sensation of course on the weekly tv show "Top of the Pops", where I had managed to videotape his appearance.  In Brighton, I was on the stage with Rory at the back as Divine prowled the stage, he chatted afterwards and gave us these signed cards (above).   He also of course starred with Tab Hunter (see below) in POLYESTER as Francine Fishpaw, and LUST IN THE DUST, great fun both. Like that other disco icon of the era, Sylvester, Divine left us far too early, but this documentary should spark off a revival? I must look out for him in Alan Rudolph's TROUBLE IN MIND in 1985.