A '70s classic: Sunday Bloody Sunday

In 1971 two years after the Oscar-winning MIDNIGHT COWBOY, John Schlesinger directed this fascinating character-driven study about love and unhappiness among London’s leisured middle-classes in their Hampstead or Islington enclaves. As scripted by Penelope Gilliatt, SUNDAY BLOOD SUNDAY shows an intriguing array of relationships, involving fifty-ish Jewish doctor Daniel Hirsch (Peter Finch), thirty-something divorcee Alex Greville (Glenda Jackson), dissatisfied with her life, and the flightly bisexual artist Bob Elkin (Murray Head) still in his 20s, whom they both knowingly share, like they share that answering service. Both Daniel and Alex crave more of Bob’s time and attention and they are both such rounded characters one initially wonders what they see in the shallow younger person. As he says to them “I know you feel you are not getting enough of me, but you’re getting all there is”. 

The older lovers contemplate their needs and desires over a long weekend, including that Sunday of the title, pondering whether – at their time of life – the companionship on offer is preferable to solitude, as Alex ruefelly tells herself “There are times when nothing has to be better than anything”.  Daniel too has to content himself with the meagre scraps of comfort that Bob casually throws his way. Surely he deserves more? 

We see Glenda busy with her career, and advising that executive out of work who has had a facelift for a job interview he feels he is too old for (Tony Britton – who provides her with some comfort, as he does not want to return to his wife until his face is back to normal) and visiting her parents Peggy Ashcroft and Maurice Denham, each in their own little worlds. Daniel, meanwhile, attends a Jewish bar mitzvah with family, and joins well-meaning liberal friends (Vivian Pickles, perfect again here as she was as Harold’s mother in HAROLD AND MAUDE, also 1971 – that’s another one to revisit again soon too). The doctor also has a brief encounter with a former pick-up (that other Finch, Jon) and there is that engrossing scene where he visits the all-night Chemist in Piccadilly and gets absorbed watching the addicts waiting for their fixes).

Glenda meanwhile collects her messages, grimaces as she makes instant coffee with water from the hot water tap and grinds cigarette ash into the carpet. The doctor plays charades with his friends, while Alex and Bob take Vivian’s children out for a walk on the Heath. (I understand the young Daniel Day-Lewis was one of them). Things come to a head with Bob deciding to move to America, leaving his art sculpture for the doctor to look at, while Glenda is left with the toucan. Both Alex and Daniel meet and briefly compare notes as they are due to join Pickles and family (and their token black person) for Sunday lunch, as life on Sunday goes on.

Schlesinger directs

SUNDAY BLOODY SUNDAY still plays perfectly and is a  milestone gay interest title and one of the key works of '70s British cinema (along with Losey’s THE GO-BETWEEN and Roeg’s DON’T LOOK NOW), it dealt more frankly with homosexuality than any British film before – even Bogarde’s VICTIM. Finch and Jackson deliver powerful performances that tug the heartstrings, conveying the fear, vulnerability and sadness that enslaves their characters to a rather worthless young man. Finch has never been better – well, maybe as his OSCAR WILDE in 1960 and the later NETWORK – than in his last long scene talking direct to the camera, while Jackson has one of her most sympathetic roles. 

The Finches: Peter and Jon

It was actually started with actors Ian Bannen as Daniel, and Hiram Keller - the dark haired one from FELLINI SATYRICON -  as Bob, but this did not work out at all. With Bessie Love, and June Brown (later Dot Cotton in EASTENDERS). It captures that essential Britishness and is a great London film too showing how that priviledged section of society conduct their weekends. Certainly one of Schlesinger’s best, up there with A KIND OF LOVING, BILLY LIAR or DARLING. That gay kiss causes quite a few gasps in provincial cinemas too at the time, as I can attest, when I saw it a second time at a cinema in Dover in Kent, while waiting for friends to return from France. More comments on it at Finch/London labels.

A '60s classic: Night of the Iguana

Almost 1,100 posts and I have not got around to NIGHT OF THE IGUANA ! - maybe the last great film from a Tennessee Williams play, and one of the great dramas of that classic era for them: the '50s and '60s. Also, a key John Huston film from 1964, with maybe the last great roles for Ava Gardner and Deborah Kerr. The roles of Hannah Jelkes (Kerr) and Maxine (Ava) seem equally balanced, hard to decide which is the bigger role, we see more of Maxine initially but then Hannah seems to take over in that late great scene with the defrocked Reverend Shannon - for once, Burton is ideally cast here as he rants and rants. Throw in the LOLITA nymphet Sue Lyon and Grayson Hall as that schoolteacher, and of course the old poet Nonno and you have one of the great Williams plays. Its a film one can watch and enjoy on many levels, no matter how often one has seen it (and its certainly rewatchable!) - a great cast performing one of Williams' best plays with great dialogue to savour, by a great director giving full rein to the play and the players.

John Huston makes a terrific film of it all, and it certainly put Puerto Vallerta in Mexico on the map, black and white actually suits it, it might have looked too lurid in colour, and the play - I enjoyed reading it as a teenager - has been suitably modernised for the cinema, taking out those annoying Germans in the background was a good idea! It starts of course with Maxine idling with her 2 beach boys and that tied up iguana (it tastes like chicken apparantly) scrabbling to get free, as the defrocked priest turns up with his latest tour bus of old ladies, led by the fearsome Miss Fellowes (Hall) and her charge Charlotte (Lyon) who has eyes for the bus driver Skip Ward.

Then we get down on their luck sketch artist Hannah Jelkes and her ancient (94 I think) father, the poet, who also turn up. Maxine wants to get rid of them but Rev Shannon intercedes ... Charlotte causes more trouble for Shannon but the tour bus eventually leaves, after the priest saves Miss Fellowes from discovering her real interest in wilful pretty young Charlotte ....he and Hannah have that long soul-bearing conversation where she discloses her erotic encounters and how she and her father travel paying their way with their sketches and poems. Miss Jelkes is quite a hustler in her own way ...
Kerr is brilliant here and gets every nuance of her character, with her lines like "Nothing human disgusts me, Mr. Shannon, unless it's unkind or violent" and how she gained control over her demons by out-lasting them. Then there is "operating on the fantastic level and the realistic level" and of course the iguana "one of God's creatures at the end of his rope" get cut loose and escapes the cooking pot. Ava too is in her element, pushing around her cart of "complimentary rum-cocoas" ...

I liked this enormously when I was 18, back then while new in London it was a treat to travel into the West End and see a big new movie in a first run cinema on a Sunday night, and The Empire in Leicester Square was certainly the ticket, where I saw THE YELLOW ROLLS ROYCE and NIGHT OF THE IGUANA, and I also remember the first run of YESTERDAY TODAY & TOMORROW at the Plaza (now a supermarket where I later saw first runs of AMERICAN GIGOLO and BLOODLINE - well it starred Audrey Hepburn with Romy Schneider and that great cast!).

Bette in the original production

NIGHT OF THE IGUANA has proved to be endurable, and gets staged regularly, I have seen Sian Phillips as Hannah, where she was ideal too. That initial production must have been astonishing, in 1962 - Margaret Leighton a perfect Hannah and Bette Davis going over the top as Maxine, she was not happy in the role and left the production and ended up playing to her fans who came to see Bette camp it up. Ava (a much more sensual and earthy Maxine) and Deborah and Burton do some of their best work in the film, it must have been a fascinating set - Elizabeth Taylor was there as well, as well as Kerr's new husband writer Peter Viertel, an old friend of Huston's. They certainly did Tennessee proud. It was Huston's late great period too, from HEAVEN KNOWS MR ALLISON, THE UNFORGIVEN, THE MISFITS - there is a lot of fun in IGUANA by comparison, and then his late classics like FAT CITY (when I saw him being interviewed at London's BFI) and THE DEAD in '87. I have his UNDER THE VOLCANO with Finney lined upo to see soon too.
 

That Tennessee box set was an essential purchase some years ago in the great days of dvd, with that restored STREETCAR, CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF,  SWEET BIRD OF YOUTH, IGUANA and THE ROMAN SPRING OF MRS STONE. Add in SUDDENLY LAST SUMMER, SUMMER AND SMOKE, BABY DOLL, THE ROSE TATTOO, THIS PROPERTY IS CONDEMNED, THE GLASS MENAGERIE, THE FUGITIVE KIND, Losey's very odd BOOM! ... which may only leave his comedy PERIOD OF ADJUSTMENT I have not seen. I also saw his plays like SMALL CRAFT WARNINGS, and of course I love his short stories like "Two On A Party" and "The Malediction". The plays are great to read, and those collected short stories. Claire Bloom was a terrific Blanche too in that 1974 STREETCAR  production, but of course most ladies want to play Blanche - I bet Faye Dunway was a mesmerising one.

An outback nightmare ....

WAKE IN FRIGHT – I remember this as OUTBACK, a stunning film from 1971, which had been lost for decades, but once seen is not easy to forget. It is now back, restored, and titled WAKE IN FRIGHT, a compelling tale set in Australia – which seems like a circle of hell here, compared to usual Aussie-set films like THE SUNDOWNERS. 

Ted Kotcheff directs as we follow nice guy teacher Gary Bond who arrives in a rough outback mining town planning to stay overnight before catching the plane to Sydney. But his one night stretches to five as he plunges headlong toward his own destruction.
 When the alcohol-induced mist lifts, the educated teacher is no more. Instead there is a self-loathing man in a desolate wasteland, dirty, red-eyed, sitting against a tree and looking at a rifle with one bullet left. Gruesome events include kangaroo hunts – it is easier shooting them at night as they get blinded by car headlights. 

Excessive drinking in those all male bars, and gambling take their toll too. There seems to be nothing else to do in this godforsaken place. Then there is Donald Pleasance – has he ever been more malevolent? – well yes, as one of the bodysnatchers in THE FLESH AND THE FIENDS in 1960, here his rough and tumble seems to lead into a sexual assault on our drunken out-of-it teacher. Regular Australians like Chips Rafferty, Jack Thompson, John Meillon also feature, and Sylvia Kay shines as the lone girl in this wilderness.

It’s a movie that’s impossible to catergorise, but its view of the bleak outback can hardly be equalled. Good to see it back on dvd with lots of extras. 
A testament too to Gary Bond, an interesting actor  whose best role this is (he died aged 55 in 1995, he was in ZULU, ANNE OF A THOUSAND DAYS etc). One can feel the sticky heat as he wakes up naked and drunk in that sweltering room …. Maybe the prolific Kotcheff’s best film, not for the squeamish though.

Paris in 1957 ... magic time.

Rome in the early '60s - the LA DOLCE VITA era; London in the mid-'60s - it swung; New York in the '70s - tough and gritty .... the zeitgeist always moves on and comes full circle again ..... it was Paris in the 1890s, that Fin de Siecle era, and in that jazz age the 1920s with Hemingway and Fitzgerland and the 'Lost Generation', but in the late '50s Paris was also, it seems, the place to be. Hollywood studios must have been falling over each other there (like they were in Rome in 1962).

Fred and Audrey were doing FUNNY FACE .... with Donen creating a magical Paris, not least with Audrey being photographed Avedon-style, in all those locations ...

Fred and Cyd heading up SILK STOCKINGS .... I wonder how much of this was actually filmed in Gay Paree ?

Gene Kelly, often in Paris - got in the act with his dance troupe LES GIRLS - but this was actually filmed at MGM - Kay Kendall's only film actually made in Hollywood, but George Cukor and Heuningen Heune gave it the required French look, and with Orry Kelly's clothes, the girls were perfect. I simply love their French apartment, which seems to be on several levels ... 

Otto too had Jean Seberg driving around Paris in those moody black and white scenes in his seminal BONJOUR TRISTESSE - more Sagan - or dancing while - who else? - Juliette Greco intoned that theme song ...before Godard teamed her with Belmondo in some other French classic ...

1958 saw Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh in Paris in their comedy THE PERFECT FURLOUGH, an early Blake Edwards film. Later in 1961 Tony Perkins and Ingrid Bergman (right) were driving around Paris in Sagan's GOODBYE AGAIN - review at Bergman label - while Tony teamed again in Paris with Sophia for 1962's FIVE MILES TO MIDNIGHT. Hollywood was also in town for Ritt's PARIS BLUES with jazz musicians Newman and Poitier. By then the Nouvelle Vague was in full swing after Malle's LIFT TO THE SCAFFOLD in 1958, and Truffaut's 400 BLOWS, Chabrol's LES COUSINS, Mocky's LES DRAGUEURS, another Paris-by-night opus, all 1959 ...

1962 saw Truffaut's JULES ET JIM in Paris, where Agnes Varda's CLEO FROM 5 TO 7, wandered around, waiting for her medical test results ... Audrey Hepburn of course practically lived in Paris with so many of hers set there ... 1957 also saw LOVERS OF MONTPARNASSE (left) about the painter Modigliani practically starving in a garret, with those quintessential Parisians Gerard Philipe and  Anouk Aimee,

Brigitte charmed us too as UNE PARISIENNE in 1957, with Henri Vidal, who was also (his last film) in her COME DANCE WITH ME (VOULEZ VOUS DANSER AVEC MOI?) in 1959 ...  more on all these at French label.

Next location: Australia and the Outback !!!

The Six Nations

and Ireland won! That's the annual Six Nations Rugby Tournament we have here, with England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland, France and Italy competing. Yesterday's final between Ireland and France at the Stade de France in Paris was thrilling stuff, but Ireland came through, it was France 20 - Ireland 22, ideal as it was captain Brian O'Driscoll's final match, allowing him to bow out in style.  

Two tries and two conversions from Jonathan Sexton helped the Irish to their second Six Nations win, before being stretchered off after an awkward landing.

The match too was ideal for a Saturday afternoon, with some pleasing colour schemes - those French blues and reds, and the Irish green colours on that vivid green pitch. Sheer perfection. Football just does not have the same effect as seeing a lot of beefy rugby boys giving it their all ... The Italian team looked good too in that blue colour of theirs. 

Sadness too: Spurs (Tottenham Hotspur) did not trash Arsenal in today's match ....

HAPPY ST PATRICK'S DAY ! 

Open Water - its terrifying ....

Despite having the dvd for years, I finally sat down and watched OPEN WATER, that 2003 indie film "based on true events" .... and it certainly lived up to my expectations of being absolutely terrifying.

A couple on a holiday in the Caribbean decide to spend the day on a scuba diving trip. But was it the wrong decision? When a mis-count happens on the boat, Susan and Daniel are left behind in the middle of the ocean, the boat long gone. With all their hopes set on the boat coming back to rescue them, they try to keep themselves safe, especially when sharks start to appear.

We start with our two busy yuppies who are constantly on the phone and playing with their gadgets, as they head off for a relaxing break including some scuba diving. This is a brilliant little film, written, directed and edited by Chris Kentis, filming at weekends, and with believeable performances by Blanchard Ryan and Daniel Travis. We see how it is all too easy to get left behind by the boat ..... 
later, after hours in the water, as they rage, bicker, tell each other they love each other, night begins to fall and creatures appear around and underneath them .... this of course ticks all the boxes regarding our fears of the deep and the unknown, and the idea of becoming shark food. It shows that our position at the top of the food chain is provisional. But what is most scary is the detached indifference with which our lives are regarded by the rest of the universe, as we see the two tiny people bobbing up and down in the sea and frantically trying to attract passing ships. 

SPOILER AHEAD: The ending here is speculation - we do not know what actually happened to the real couple who were left behind, but they never came back - their bank accounts and properties were never used. Here as both are weakened and battered and maybe hallucinating, he gets attacked first and is bleeding. He presumably loses consciousness due to blood loss and she lets him go as the denizens of the deep move in for their meal. 
Then, in that act of pure nihilism, she removes her body vest and goes under the water, as though offering herself up the ocean. Presumably she drowns herself before the sharks move on to her .... too late we see that they are missed and boats and planes start looking for them .... and the end credits reveal a dead shark being cut open and their camera discovered inside it.  

OPEN WATER is one of the most successful small budget films, financed by director Kentis and his wife, producer Laura Lau, both avid scuba divers. The movie cost $130,000 to make and was later bought by Lion's Gate for $2.5 million after its screening at Sundance.

The girl with a suitcase - 1961

A taster of Valerio Zurlini's 1961 Italian classic: LA RAGAZZA CON LA VALIGIA or THE GIRL WITH A SUITCASE. 
She is Claudia Cardinale (before Visconti immortalised her as Angelica in THE LEOPARD in 1962 or as SANDRA in 1965) and he is Jacques Perrin, that young French actor who built his reputation here, and in Zurlini's FAMILY DIARY with Mastroianni, and Bolognini's LA CORRUZIONE - reviewed here at Italian label, and of course he was the blond sailor in Demy's YOUNG GIRLS OF ROCHEFORT, and he was in Costa-Gavras's THE SLEEPING CAR MURDERS in 1965 and Z in 1970, and the mature Perrin appeared in the Euro hit CINEMA PARADISO, and he is still working now, as indeed is Claudia - see label for other posts on her. 

THE GIRL WITH A SUITCASE is a haunting tale of unrequired romance as we observe Lorenzo, who's 16 and born to a wealthy family in Parma, tries to make things right toward a girl, Aida, whom his older brother has mistreated. In extending kindness and standing up for her, he comes of age. But, is there anything he can do that will alter Aida's situation or her prospects? 

This central scene where Lorenzo watches Aida dancing with that older man has that close-up of him  that lasts for at least one minute. He looks at them dancing, looks away, takes a sip from his drink, fidgets, with all these different expressions on his face, from jealousy to despair. The whole film is like that, and has that early '60s Italian look in spades.

Let's celebrate: Eve Arden !

Eve Arden (1908-1990) was a tall, cool, supporting player from the golden age, who spent a lifetime as the archetypal wisecracking best friend of the heroine: the girlfriend's girlfriend. Her stock in trade was as a chic career girl whose elegant bitchery and caustic comments disguised a big soft heart. The phrase "..... steals the picture" could have been coined for her.

We know her best of course from MILDRED PIERCE which is probably the ultimate Arden role as the cool, sharp, sassy career woman, who helps Joan's Mildred rise from poverty to have-it-all riches and provides a shoulder pad for comfort as Mildred's life falls apart at the hands of her no-good daughter Veda and a cad of a husband. Eve comments: "Alligators have the right idea, they eat their young" and at being treated as one of the boys: "I'm getting awfully tired of men talking to me man-to-man".  Other Arden delights include COVER GIRL, THE DOUGHGIRLS, ONE TOUCH OF VENUS, and TEA FOR TWO where Doris Day tells her to come to bed and Eve snaps "Why is it always the gal who says that to me?"

She had two good later roles, as the annoying sister in THE DARK AT THE TOP OF THE STAIRS in 1960, and as the faithful secretary to James Stewart in Preminger's 1959 classic ANATOMY OF A MURDER, which we like a lot here .... Eve went successfully into television with that series of hers THE EVE ARDEN SHOW, plus OUR MISS BROOKS and THE MOTHERS IN LAW with Kaye Ballard, among others. She was also the school headteacher in GREASE in 1978 and kept working until 1987. 

Soon: Themla Ritter, Agnes Moorehead, Joan Sims.   

1964 again: Sex and the single girl ...

Another 1964 sex comedy ? After GOODBYE CHARLIE (below), I thought SEX AND THE SINGLE GIRL would be amusing again now - I know I saw it back then, when 18, but its never popped up since. In fact I hated it so much I can hardly bring myself to speak of it. Shall we just ignore it and it will go away again ...... well, lets say a few words. 

On the plus side: Natalie Wood never looked better than here, it is her great period, and she wears some nifty outfits too (Edith Head). Neal Hefti did the score, and Count Basie also appears. Its another Richard Quine comedy - Quine had a good run in the 50s: his films with Kim Novak, like BELL BOOK AND CANDLE which we like a lot (see Novak label), that musical I was praising recently: MY SISTER EILEEN, melodrama like STRANGERS WHEN WE MEET, and that nice one with Doris and Jack: IT HAPPENED TO JANE in 1959. The Sixties though were different: the limp NOTORIOUS LANDLADY, I never saw PARIS WHEN IT SIZZLES but seems it fizzles. HOW TO MURDER YOUR WIFE was a hit though.

A womanizing reporter for a sleazy tabloid magazine impersonates his hen-pecked neighbor in order to get an expose on renowned psychologist Helen Gurley Brown.

Using the title of the best-seller a script was fashioned by Joseph (CATCH 22) Heller, but it is all so unfunny and dated in the worst way. I liked GOODBYE CHARLIE recently but at least that was from a George Axelrod play, but this one is just laboured and dull as publisher Curtis, on autopilot here, tries to compromise author Dr Brown. Natalie certainly throws herself into it, with lots of long scenes and endless speeches. Left on the sidelines are Henry Fonda and Lauren Bacall as the warring neighbours whose problems Curtis uses to woo Wood. It must have been a difficult time for Bacall - still a working actress but not yet a Broadway legend and a long way from HOW TO MARRY A MILLIONAIRE or DESIGNING WOMAN. In fact Curtis, gallant as ever, accused her of being an older star trying to hang out with the younger ones, when in fact she was just one year older than him, but had been in movies earlier. She seems exasperated here while Fonda just looks embarrassed. Theres also Fran Jeffries who gets to sing a bit (as she did in THE PINK PANTHER in '63), Leslie Parrish, Mel Ferrrer, Edward Everett  Horton. Larry Storch, Stubby Kaye - all wasted.

As an IMDb reviewer put it: Here is a movie that could have been a 60s classic lampooning tabloid journalism, skin-deep psychology, proto-feminism, marital problems, hypocrisy, and sexual freedom. Instead, it is a cartoonish pastiche of amateurish slapstick, poorly-time jokes, silly contrived situations, and one of the most idiotic and long car chases in the history of cinema. The idea of a sleazy editor doing a hatchet job on a 23-year-old virgin psychologist who has written a bestseller affirming the sexual lives of single women should certainly have hilarious possibilities - specially if he is a liar, she cannot handle her own feelings, and they are sexually attracted to each other. However, the script is ludicrous and inconsistent often degenerating into total silliness.

It must have been a difficult time for sex comedies as the swinging decade had yet to get underway ... the Rock and Doris comedies were sheer class, COME SEPTEMBER, THE THRILL OF IT ALL, THE PINK PANTHER, WHATS NEW PUSSYCAT? are perennial favourites and even 1964's GOOD NEIGHBOUR SAM had its moments, but SEX AND THE SINGLE GIRL is just painfully unfunny and dated now. That scene where they (Tony and Natalie) fall into the water and try to stay afload is not funny at all now. Then they all go zooming off to the airport (cue lots of back projection) in a silly ending. Its certainly one I do not want to re-visit or even think about ever again, and I thought PRUDENCE AND THE PILL was bad ! Super Trash then.

Soon: Tony and Janet in the long-unseen 1958 comedy THE PERFECT FURLOUGH (or STRICTLY FOR PLEASURE), I loved that as a kid, will I still like it now ? 

Echo O'Brien - "the old maid from Toledo"

ALL FALL DOWN was a novel I discovered when I was 16 back in that great year 1962. (I still have a copy, inscribed by my Australian penfriend, Garry Kendall, which he gave me in 1969, as I had lost mine).  It's central character is Clint, a teenger who was just like myself, living with his parents  - he was in Cleveland, Ohio, I was in County Kerry, Ireland, but apart from that we seemed very similar. Clint hero-worshipped his older brother Berry Berry, and noted all the pecularities and conversations between his parents, Annabel and Ralph. It starts with Clint in Key West, Florida hoping to find drifter Berry Berry, then its back to Cleveland where  Annabel's friend, Echo O'Brien comes to visit from Toledo, in her lovingly restored old car. Clint falls for Echo who loves him like her kid brother, Berry Berry turns up and he and Echo fall in love, but he turns out to be a worthless heel, she knows it can't last, and she is pregnant .... there is an automobile crash. Clint confronts his brother (who has a history of beating up and abusing women) whom he is finally able to walk away from.

Its a nicely told story, by James Leo Herlihy (who also wrote MIDNIGHT COWBOY, another good novel before it was a film, and also some short stories, he was gay and also a part time actor (he plays the man Jean Seberg is settling down with at the end of IN THE FRENCH STYLE, in 1963. Herlihy who was also a teacher, committed suicide in 1993, aged 66. 

ALL FALL DOWN, as per my other posts on it, at 1962 label, made a terrific film, tender and lyrical, one of the great black and white early '60s films, and scripted by William Inge - it was certainly in keeping with his territory and themes - and one of 3 John Frankenheimer turned out that year (THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE and BIRDMAN OF ALCATRAZ were quite significant too!), it was Frankenheimer's great period (SEVEN DAYS IN MAY, THE TRAIN, and others followed) and he assembled a great cast: Angela Lansbury and Karl Malden as the parents, Warren Beatty in his youthful prime as Berry Berry (after SPLENDOUR IN THE GRASS and THE ROMAN SPRING OF MRS STONE), young Brandon de Wilde as Clint (he had already appeared in the fim of Herhihy's play BLUE JEANS in 1959) and went on to HUD and others, before his untimely death in 1972 aged 30, see De Wilde label) - and Eva Marie Saint luminous as Echo.

Saint, 90 this year and still working, is one of those fascinating actresses who began in the '50s, along with Lee Remick and Joanne Woodward and the maturing Natalie Wood - there was Shirley McLaine too. Saint was already 30 by the time of her debut in ON THE WATERFRONT in 1954 (others, like Jean Simmons and Sophia Loren who began as teenagers had already clocked up a decade of stardom by that age...). She is in RAINTREE COUNTY and possibly the slinkiest Hitchcock blonde of all, as duplicitious Eve Kendall in NORTH BY NORTHWEST (above) in 1959, ideally paired with Cary Grant. She got on with Hitch very well, as she recounts in the documentary on its making which she hosted. Later roles included EXODUS, and back with Frankenheimer for GRAND PRIX in 1966, and 36 HOURS and LOVING in 1970. 

She is just perfect as Echo, a glamorous spinster finding love for the first, and last, time ... her scenes with Beatty and De Wilde are marvellous, Lansbury and Malden are note perfect too as the warring parents - particularly that Christmas when Ralph brings the 3 tramps home and Annabel craftily manoeuvres them out ... Annabel is the typical Inge over-bearing mother and led to Lansbury's monster mother in MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE, despite being just 3 years older than 'son' Laurence Harvey! 

ALL FALL DOWN may be seen from Client's point of view, but it is Eva Marie who is the still centre of the film with her perfect portrayal of Echo, the woman finding and losing love. It is another great 1962 female performance, in that great year for them (when Lee Remick lost for DAYS OF WINE AND ROSES in competition against Bancroft, Davis, Geraldine Page and Katharine Hepburn - Jeanne Moreau was not nominated either for her JULES ET JIM ... Looking at ALL FALL DOWN now it is still engrossing and fits in with those dramas of the '50s and '60s, and captures that era perfectly (like those other 1962 favourites THE CHAPMAN REPORT and ADVISE AND CONSENT, and it remains one of Eva Marie Saint's best roles. Beatty too is mesmerising here, like he was in LILITH and MICKEY ONE, before BONNIE AND CLYDE came calling ...