June 2023 – Page 2 – The Magnificent 60s

The High Bright Sun / Maguire, Go Home (1964) ****

Surprisingly good thriller about loyalties in war time. Elevated above the norm by a series of stunning scenes often turning on the psychological. And taking a helluva bold risk as far as the billing is concerned. In dramatic and structural terms top-billed British star Dirk Bogarde (Justine, 1969) and rising American star George Chakiris (Diamond Head, 1962) take second place to the third-billed Susan Strasberg (The Sisters, 1969), although Bogarde’s stiff upper lip is tested in just about the most despicable fashion.

Also derives an interesting agency from differing audience perspectives. The British audience will view Major Maguire (Dirk Bogarde) as a hero trying to keep the peace in terrorist-racked Mediterranean island Cyprus. But virtually everyone else will side with Haghios (George Chakiris) and his bunch of freedom fighters in what was effectively a war of independence. Stuck in the middle, and expecting to be given a free pass, is Juno (Susan Strasberg), a young geologist staying with family friends named Andros but who, as an American, would be viewed as a neutral.

However, she has witnessed the arrival at the Andros home of terrorists, not just Haghios but General Skyros (Gregoire Aslan), leader of the Resistance. Not wanting to get her friends in trouble, and assuming they are not involved in terrorism, she resists the attempts of Maguire to get her to name names. But it’s only the cooler head of the general and the youngest member of the Andros clan, son Emile (Colin Campbell), that prevents her being shot dead on the spot.

Bluff and double bluff are the order of the day. She’s a prisoner – and a shocked one at that having witnessed British soldiers murdered by terrorists – but if she is seen to be prevented from leaving the house it will give the game away. So Maguire comes up with an acceptable ploy to get her out so that, in a calmer situation, he can gently interrogate her.

Unfortunately taking her out to dinner backfires, as they are spotted by Haghios who, assuming they are romantically involved, realises she can’t be trusted and signs her death warrant.

But she’s far from the plucky female and no good at playing the game of being hunted. In a brilliant sequence she takes all the wrong actions and it’s only happenstance and sacrifice that prevent her capture. And this is followed by an even edgier scene when she hitches a ride late at night with a lascivious local. But that’s nothing to her treatment by Maguire who, furious at her refusal to talk, parades her in the streets “like a sitting duck.”

There’s a whole strata of soldiers in open rebellion of a different kind. Maguire mocks his commanding officer, the inept Col Park (Nigel Stock), and he in turn is mocked by his junior, Lt Baker (Denholm Elliott) who taunts him about the affair he had with Maguire’s wife. And there are any number of stings in the tail. Believing she has finally escaped, Juno is confronted by Haghios and no Maguire in sight to come to her aid.

But the central tale is given over to Juno, the innocent caught up in bloody warfare, forced to witness barbarity at first hand, and unless she hankers after personal sacrifice inevitably induced to take sides.

Susan Strasberg is simply superb. At no time is she the feminine hero springing into reluctant action in some espionage or wartime drama. Instead, she is the innocent bystander who at any moment will turn into collateral damage. And she’s too confused even to summon up outrage at betrayal by both sides.

Dirk Bogarde looks as if he is playing your standard British officer of high breeding who can trade barbs and bullets with the enemy but mostly tries to extract information by gentler means. But he turns out to be just as savage in his ideals as the opposition. And his armour is pierced not only by having an adulterous wife but having to take abuse from her lover.

It was a typical Hollywood ploy to stick an innocent American in a war zone in order to expose a situation or attract audience sympathy either for the underdog or the oppressors – think Jack Lemmon in Chile in Missing (1982) or Sally Field in Iran in Not Without My Daughter (1991) – but I doubt if director Ralph Thomas was as naïve or politically-inclined to attempt that here and instead he treads a finer line of personal decision as he would later do in The High Commissioner/Nobody Runs Forever (1968). Sticking to the storyline and relying on actors who never resort to emotional extremes pretty much does the trick.

George Chakiris is wasted and I can only assume this was a sign of his career going downhill.

Not just far better than I expected, but bordering on the excellent.

Behind the Scenes: “The Comancheros” (1961)

The making of this could have been a movie in itself. The novel, published in 1952, suffered from a long gestation involving four directors with seven actors at various points either signed up or mooted for the two top main roles.

Journalist-turned-author Paul Wellman specialized in westerns and historical non-fiction with a western bent. The Comancheros was the last of the half-dozen of his near-30 novels to reach the screen, following Cheyenne (1947) with Jane Wyman, The Walls of Jericho (1948) with Cornel Wilde and Linda Darnell, Alan Ladd as Jim Bowie in The Iron Mistress (1952), Burt Lancaster as Apache (1954) and Glenn Ford as Jubal (1956).

Originally earmarked by George Stevens as a follow-up to his Oscar-nominated Shane (1953), it was scheduled to roll before the cameras on completion of Giant (1956) in a Warner Bros production that contemplated re-teaming Vera Cruz (1954) pair Gary Cooker and Burt Lancaster. When that failed to gel, next up were Gary Cooper and James Garner. That was kind of a tricky proposition given that Garner had taken on the might of Warner Brothers in a lawsuit in a bid to extricate himself from his contract.

But the producer didn’t seem to care as the day the actor won the lawsuit he received the script. “I didn’t like it, I didn’t want to do it,” recalled Garner, “but a couple of days later I heard Gary Cooper was going to do it,” resulting in a speedy change of heart. However, despite his verbal acceptance, no contract appeared and never hearing from Fox again assumed foul play from Warner studio head Jack Warner.

Meanwhile, Stevens’ interest had cooled and after settling on The Diary of Anne Frank (1959) he sold the film rights off to Twentieth Century Fox for $300,000, more than he had originally paid the author. Fox hired Clair Huffaker (Hellfighters, 1968) to write the script with Cooper’s sidekick role assigned to the up-and-coming Robert Wagner (Banning, 1967). But Cooper’s ill-health prevented that version going ahead.

*Comic specialist Dell was a bit slow on the uptake, it’s tie-in copy (Issue 1300)*
*not appearing until three months after the movie opened*.

Television director Douglas Heyes (Beau Geste, 1966) was set to make his feature film debut with the plum cast of John Wayne and Charlton Heston, fresh off global monster hit Ben-Hur (1959). Ironically, Wayne could have made this movie years before, in 1953 having been sent the novel by then-agent Charles Feldman (who had clearly also contacted Stevens).

Wayne had come back into the equation after signing a three-picture deal with Fox. But Heston, on reflection, decided it would not be in the interests of his career at this point to take second billing and dropped out.

Wayne’s involvement meant re-shaping the script. In the novel the main character was Paul Regret, the Louisiana gambler wanted for murder for killing a man in a duel. Wayne was too old to play him so to puff up his part the Huffaker script was rewritten by James Edward Grant, better known originally as a short story writer, who had begun working for Wayne on The Angel and the Badman (1947) and would continue to do so for another 11 projects ending with Circus World (1964).

Another newcomer, Tom Tryon (The Cardinal, 1963), was lined up to play Regret. Then Heyes dropped out leaving the way clear for the final teaming of Hungarian director Michael Curtiz (Casablanca, 1942), now a freelance after decades with Warners, and John Wayne.

Stuart Whitman (Murder Inc, 1960) arrived from left field. While starring as Francis of Assisi (1961) he was shown the script by that film’s director, Curtiz. Tryon was eased out after Whitman managed to secure an interview with Wayne and the pair hit it off.

That Curtiz was already suffering from cancer was obvious to Whitman. Whatever sympathy his illness might have attracted was scuppered by the director’s rudeness. He had a predilection for sunbathing in the nude and blowing his nose on tablecloths, the actions of a powerful figure letting everyone know he could get away with it. His illness meant he restricted working to the mornings. After lunch he fell asleep in his chair, the crew placing umbrellas over his head to protect him from the sun.

While the director dozed, Wayne took over the directorial reins. When Curtiz was hospitalized, the actor finished the picture. It is estimated that he filmed over half of it, including the climactic battle.

Ina Balin, a Method actor, found her acting style cut little ice with Wayne. When she demanded rehearsals and long discussions about her character, he simply shot the rehearsal. “Cut. Print. See how easy this is,” explained the actor after wrapping her first scene with him using the rehearsal take.

“Duke was a terrific director,” observed Stuart Whitman, “as long as you did what he wanted you to do. Shooting with him was very easy although Ina Balin…pissed him off. Before each shot, she’d dig down and get emotional and he was a little impatient: get the goddam words out, he’d mutter to himself.”

Jack Elam, playing one of the heavies, had won in a poker game with their handler a pair of camera-trained vultures. The daily fee for the birds to sit on a branch was $100. Elam thought he’d get cute and ramp up the price to $250. That notion didn’t sit well with Wayne and he soon reverted to the original price.

While on the set, Curtiz fired third assistant Tom Mankiewicz, later a screenwriter, but currently just a lowly nepo, owing his job to the fact he was son of director Joseph L. Mankiewicz. Tom’s downfall was arguing with Curtiz over his plans for the stampede scene for which he had rented dozens of Wayne’s prized longhorns. Asking the cattle to go over a 5ft drop and scramble up the other side was a good way of breaking their legs. Having informed Wayne of the director’s proposal, he was told by the star to turn up for work the next day, by the time the actor had finished chewing out the director that would be the least of his problems.

Despite friction with Curtiz, Wayne was surrounded by old friends and colleagues, including producer George Sherman, cinematographer William Clothier and screenwriter James Edward Grant. “Duke and George Sherman grew up together working at Republic for $75 a week and all the horses you could ride,” explained Clothier. “They were old friends. Duke didn’t understand old Mike Curtiz very well and I must say he didn’t try very hard. Mike was just plain out-numbered and I felt sorry for him.”

Although set in Texas in 1843, parts of the film were shot in Utah and the cast used weapons such as the Winchester lever-action rifles and the Colt Peacemaker which were not in production for another three decades.

Michael Curtiz, after nearly half a century directing movies, died shortly after the film’s release. The Comancheros, a box office smash, helped balance Wayne’s finances after the financial hit of The Alamo and solidified the notion that as far as is career went he was better concentrating on westerns than anything else.

For some reason, U.S. box office figures are sketchy but it was a huge hit around the world, finishing seventh for the year at the British box office for example, and re-emphasizing the Duke’s resounding global popularity.

SOURCES: Scott Eyman, John Wayne, His Life and Legend, (Simon and Schuster paperback, 2014) p352-357; Howard Thompson, “Wagner Steps Up Work In Movies,” New York Times, January 21, 1961, p18; Lawrence Grobel, “James Garner, You Ought To Be in Pictures,” Movieline, May 1, 1994

The Comancheros (1961) ****

You can always tell a studio is piling a lot behind a rising actor when the top-billed star is absent, except for a fleeting moment during the credits, for the first 10 minutes. In this case, Twentieth Century Fox was showcasing two new talents, Stuart Whitman (Murder, Inc. 1960) and Ina Balin (From the Terrace, 1960).

I’m sticking my neck out a little on this one, not considered as top-notch as Duke’s other great westerns of the decade – The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962), El Dorado (1967) and True Grit (1969) – but it’s an unusual story, hardly following a standard narrative, has a great score by Elmer Bernstein but most importantly because it’s real old-school film-making with the emphasis on the classic long shot and the horizon line.

And it takes a surprisingly feminist approach with gypsy Pilar (Ina Balin) making the running in the seduction stakes. Indeed, should she be willing to surrender an iota of her hard-won independence for a long-term relationship sticks to the view that in love there is always a dominant one and a subservient one, with no question about which she is. Plus, although the nickname “Pilgrim” became a famed element of The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance this is where the nickname notion began when lawman Jake (John Wayne) assigns prisoner Paul Regret (Stuart Whitman) the appellation “Monsoor” because he’s of French heritage.

Meshes effortlessly three storylines – Jake taking prisoner Regret back to base, Regret turning from western tenderfoot to accomplished hand, and Jake and his captive infiltrating the Comancheros of the title, a secret society of white men who utilize Comanche power to its own ends. You could argue this is ushered in the “buddy” movie, the repartee between the two principals a delight. Plus, you would have to take note that legendary director Michael Curtiz (Casablanca, 1942), in his final picture, has done something remarkable in getting the Duke to speak proper, not hi-hat English, but without that Wayne trick of breaking up his sentences so it appears he’s thinking.

Curtiz is pretty nifty when it comes to setting up scenes, interrupting gentle moments with elements of stunning ferocity. When Jake arrives at a ranch, the camera tracks back from his arrival to reveal the corpses hanging upside down under the ranch gateway. Later, Jake is tucking into a meal at the home of another rancher when that man’s pregnant wife in the background suddenly sits up and from her point-of-view we see through a window as big as the entire screen a band of renegades in attack mode charging through a river.

Regret isn’t one to hang around either when he can escape during the ensuing melee, but no sooner has he gone than he returns with a bunch of Texas Rangers, thus redeeming himself in Jake’s eyes. And there’s a great cut between Jake being knocked unconscious in the blazing sun and waking up in the pouring rain.

And it’s chock-full of reversal, not just that Pilar dumps her pick-up Regret when their riverboat docks at Galveston, but Regret, forced to ride a mule in handcuffs to prevent his escape, gets the jump on his captor at the saddest scene in the picture, the burial of a family killed by Comanches. Later, after taking on the alias McBain, he encounters Regret at a poker table and the wanted man does not give him away.

After a bit of legal chicanery, Regret is a free man, although with the proviso he teams up with Jake to go undercover into the Comancheros camp. This doesn’t work out too well, the pair strung up by suspicious crippled leader Graile (Nehemiah Persoff) until rescued by, surprise, Pilar. Love works its mysterious way and soon Pilar is on Regret’s side, resulting in a classy finale.

Along the way we encounter Lee Marvin (Raintree County, 1957) having another scene-stealing ball as the Comancheros contact. Clever screenwriters James Edward Grant (Circus World/The Magnificent Showman, 1964) and Clair Huffaker (Hellfighters, 1968) find an entirely believable method of getting him out of the way. And in passing we learn that Jake’s wife died “two years, two months and 13 days” ago and without an ounce of revealing dialog between them that Jake would like to take up with widow Melinda (Joan O’Brien). Meanwhile, initially presented as a man of such honor that he will fight a duel to protect such notions of nobility, Regret goes from gambler, wanton lover, and prisoner to revert to his original state.

Expect chunks of western lore – don’t give a hot horse water until it has cooled down is one takeaway. And men who swear by an unwritten code. Here, it’s “words are what men live by.” What’s so refreshing is that lore and code alike arequickly punctured. The follow-up to the code annoncement to which Regret shows indiference is a pronouncement from Jake: “You must’ve had a real careless upbringing. ” that’s not forgetting characters remembering to be characters in the midst of all the uproar as with the bedridden pregnant wife instructing her husband to make sure Jake eats off the “best china.”

It’s not only a well-structured movie but it’s filled with moments that reveal character and even when Curtiz feels duty bound to include standard tropes such as the bar-room brawl or the drunk there are enough twists to have you believe the clichés have been bitten in half.

A superb ending to Curtiz’s career, terrific performances all round, great double act from Wayne and Whitman, with the latter afforded considerably more leeway acting-wise than any time in his career, and Ina Balin in a prize role.

The 10th Victim (1965) ****

Sexy, stylish, sci-fi that spawned a host of imitators. Its key issue, population growth, has only worsened since the movie appeared though killing for sport goes back to the Roman gladiators and government-sponsored killing – aka genocide – is hardly so novel. And it sets up a feminist perspective – the female killer is deadlier than the male, experience counting for everything in the assassination game.

None of the villainous females in the decade’s myriad spy films, not even the vicious pairs that gave Bulldog Drummond such a headache, could match the lethal striptease performed by authorized huntress Caroline (Ursula Andress) which culminates in a volley of bullets from her bra. Caroline is hoping to strike gold with her tenth killing, which not only brings a hefty financial bonus (and retirement) in itself, but could bring a massive bounty if captured on television and to that end she has negotiated a sponsorship deal with the Ming Tea Company, and adopts the façade of TV reporter.

Her potential victim is Marcello (Marcello Mastroianni) who would be rich enough from his six killings except his earnings have been squandered by ex-wife Lidia (Luce Bonifassy) and mistress Olga (Elsa Martinelli), not to mention the upkeep of his parents who he, illegally, has kept alive. To maintain his lifestyle he is the face of a cult worshipping the setting of the sun, but that gig is threatened by a rival cult of moon worshippers.

Set in 2079 in the aftermath of World War Three “The Big Hunt” is viewed as a legitimate method of curbing the instincts of those with violent tendencies, just the type to thirst for a fourth global conflagration. Participants must switch between being killer and potential victim, five times in each role. Naturally, victim can also take down assassin.

While attracted to Caroline, Marcello is nonetheless suspicious of the sexy reporter who in the course of claiming to be doing a story on the sexual habits of Italian men attempts to entice him to the ancient Temple of Venus in Rome where, naturally enough, sexy dancers in sexy costumes will be part of the show.

Assassination pictures are always complicated – check out The Manchurian Candidate (1962) or The Mechanic (1972) a decade later – and here the unexpected factor is love. But in the old love vs. money dynamic there’s a considerable twist, both protagonists seemingly more intent on worldly gain than enriching their souls. So it’s a twisty picture as killer and victim seek to outwit the other by any means, romance considered an acceptable weapon.

Stylistically, it’s a visual delight as director Elio Petri (A Quiet Place in the Country, 1968) meshes the burgeoning Pop Art movement with the classical architecture of ancient Rome, and the Colosseum, dismissed in the film as a unsuitable locale, though a reminder of the origins of single combat. Clever without being pretentious, sexy without veering on the side of voluptuousness, the approach is mostly ironic and can easily be viewed as a social and political commentary. Every serious element is undercut, even post-killing some bureaucrat rushes in with an official judgement on the murder. And how could you possibly take seriously the blond barnet of Marcello Mastroianni (A Place for Lovers, 1968)? That’s almost an ironic play in itself.

Austin Powers (1997) in comedic fashion took this as its stylistic cue, while other movies as wide-ranging as Death Race 2000 (1975), The Running Man (1987), Battle Royale (2000) and The Hunger Games (2012) emphasized the violence and/or political undertones.

But none of these boasted such a stunning cast. Mastroianni performs these disaffected roles so well, while as a more than worthy adversary the generally-underrated Ursula Andress is in the form that made The Southern Star (1969) such a pleasure. Throw in Elsa Martinelli (Maroc 7, 1967) and what else could you ask for. Based on the short story The Seventh Victim – later novelized – by Robert Sheckley.

A fun ride that still makes you think.

Operation Crossbow (1965) ****

A clever mixture of detail and derring-do, World War Two picture Operation Crossbow (1965) – based on the true story of Allied infiltration of a German rocket factory – was a surprising hit at the British box office. The picture took a risk in keeping star George Peppard hidden from view for the first 28 minutes (top-billed Sophia Loren took nearly another 20 minutes to show up). Prior to their appearances the opening sequences were loaded up with a roll-call of British stars familiar with the genre in the vein of John Mills (Ice Cold in Alex, 1958), Trevor Howard (Cockleshell Heroes, 1955) and Richard Todd (The Dam Busters, 1955). Anthony Quayle, who puts in a later appearance, was also a war movie veteran after turns in Battle of the River Plate (1956), Ice Cold in Alex and The Guns of Navarone (1961).

Most war films relating to destroying a vital enemy base involved bombing (The Dam Busters, 633 Squadron, 1964), sinking (Sink the Bismarck!, 1962) or blowing things up (The Guns of Navarone, 1961). Operation Crossbow falls into the last-named category. The story breaks down into four sections: the discovery towards the end of the war by the British that the Germans are forging ahead with building V1 and V2 rockets; the recruitment and training of spies to parachute into Occupied France; a tense sequence abroad where complications arise; and, finally, attempts to obliterate the rocket plant.

Director Michael Anderson (The Dam Busters) switches through the genres from docu-drama to spy film to action adventure, further authenticity added by bold use (for a mainstream picture) of subtitles, all characters speaking in their native tongues. Various real-life characters are portrayed, among them photo reconnaissance expert Constance Babington Smith (Sylvia Sims), German aviatrix Hannah Reitsch (Barbara Rutting) and Duncan Sandys (Richard Johnson) who was on the British War Cabinet Committee.

Trevor Howard, at his irascible best, is the scientist pouring scorn on the idea of rockets – until they start raining down on London. Volunteers – Peppard, Tom Courtenay (Billy Liar, 1963) and Jeremy Kemp (who appeared with Peppard the same year in The Blue Max) – trained to spike the new weapon are recruited primarily on their language skills. Character is sketchy, Peppard designated a womaniser because he arrives in a taxi with two women.

But the operation has been assembled in such haste that not enough attention has been paid to the identities assumed by the agents. Courtenay’s character turns out to be wanted for murder. Peppard is accosted by his character’s divorced wife (Loren). So the mission faces immediate exposure. Although Loren’s role in terms of screen time amounts to little more than a cameo, she delivers a powerful emotional performance to a picture that could as easily have got by on tension alone. The harsh realities of war are shown in abundance. Twists come thick and fast in the second half, not least that Peppard’s face has become known, before the movie reaches a thrilling denouement.

Gambit (1966) ****

The heist movie – as epitomised by The Asphalt Jungle (1950), The Killing (1958) and Jules Dassin’s Rififi (1955) and Topkapi (1954) – had tended to be a relatively low-budget affair. Top-ranking stars steered clear because complicated plot often got in the way of character development In the highly polished and entertaining Gambit British director Ronald Neame’s riff on the genre involved a narrative shift worthy of Christopher Nolan, Quentin Tarantino and, of course, Akira Kurosawa who had with Rashomon (1950) single-handedly invented the complex point-of-view.

Neame brought another couple of other aces out of the deck. First of all, there was the fun of watching over-confident thief Michael Caine’s apparently foolproof plans come unstuck. Secondly, in a romantic dynamic in the vein of It Happened One Night (1934) the less accomplished female (Shirley MacLaine) proves more accomplished than the male.

Gambit was also a clear demonstration of the power of the female star not just in the plot complications but from the fact that Caine owed his big Hollywood break to MacLaine, the actress having the power of veto over the male lead and, equally, the contractual right to choose her co-star.

The movie had gone through an interesting development phase. The original script by director Bryan Forbes (King Rat, 1965) had Cary Grant in the central (i.e MacLaine) role. Rewritten by Jack Davies (Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines, 1965) and in his movie debut Alvin Sargent (The Stalking Moon, 1968) the main character underwent a gender shift.

After Psycho (1960) audiences had become used to being messed around. Stars could be killed off halfway through or not appear (Operation Crossbow a classic example) until well into the movie. Neame was not quite so bold but what audiences made of the usually garrulous MacLaine being rendered mute during the early part of the picture was anybody’s guess, perhaps the dumb show was a joke in itself.

But lack of dialogue did not prevent MacLaine from stealing the show and proving what an adept comedienne she was, a barrage of submissive looks enough to send an audience into hysterics.

In essence, Caine plays two characters. In the opening segment he is the brash, cocky English gentleman-thief at the top of his game, bossing MacLaine around, gulling his mark (Herbert Lom) with an audacious plan to steal an expensive sculpture. In his version of events his plan goes off without a hitch. But when we switch to the MacLaine perspective, in which nothing goes according to plan, his cool demeanour is sorely tested and he turns into a frustrated idiot.

Watching the movie now, you can almost imagine that the MacLaine character, with a host of useless facts at her fingertips, was making fun of Caine’s well-known love of trivia, but that predated the actor’s acknowledgement of this aspect of his real-life character.

What makes the movie so much fun is that both parts of the film work and for the same reasons: believable characters; exciting heists and plenty of twists. The initial premise is that Caine recruits Hong Kong dancer MacLaine due to her startling resemblance to the late wife of Arab billionaire Herbert Lom as part of a ploy to relieve him of a priceless artefact.

While Lom is falling for MacLaine, Caine moves in for the kill with an ingenious heist. Mission accomplished he pays her off. But in the real version of the story, as seen through her eyes, Lom does not fall for the ridiculous scam, Caine’s plan fails to work until MacLaine comes to the rescue. Meanwhile, MacLaine has fallen for Caine, but does not want to be in love with a criminal. Although Caine initially resists his own emotions, he, too, takes the romantic plunge except that to win her he may have to lose what he prizes more.

As I mentioned it is awash with twists and the heists themselves are exceptionally well done but the screen chemistry between the two leads is terrific. Caine, who had otherwise been in control in his previous starring roles as the upper-class officer in Zulu (1963), spy Harry Palmer in The Ipcress File (1965) and the womanising Alfie (1966) – The Wrong Box (1966) was an ensemble item – was taking a chance in playing a character who would effectively play second fiddle to the star and in terms of the thief often appears out-of-control. MacLaine was more obviously in her safety zone. Hollywood spent a lot of time investing in screen partnerships, mostly failing, but this pairing certainly succeeded.

The Fortune Cookie / Meet Whiplash Willie (1966) ***

It’s the miracle of cinema. A supporting actor whom you might have glimpsed in a variety of roles over the preceding years suddenly appears as if by magic in a new screen persona and is hailed as a new star. One such was Walter Matthau. From the lecherous neighbor in Strangers When We Meet (1960), good guy in Lonely Are the Brave (1962), bad guy in Charade (1963) and Mirage (1965) and tetchy arrogant analyst in Fail Safe (1964), as if undergoing metamorphosis he creates the slimy, grouchy, crouchy, greedy lawyer duping his brother-in-law in Billy Wilder’s too-obvious satire The Fortune Cookie, beating the top-billed Jack Lemmon (How To Murder Your Wife, 1965) into a cocked hat.

It doesn’t help Lemmon that this most physical of actors is physically constrained for the bulk of the picture, trussed up within an inch of his life as the key ingredient in a million-dollar insurance scam. And Matthau makes the most of the opportunity, dominating the screen not just with his octopus-like arms, but with his facial expressions, his snarling and growling and snapping, as if this was in fact a one-man movie. He’s so dominant that you almost forget Lemmon, an unavoidable force in most of his movies, is there.

And it’s true that television cameraman Harry Hinkle (Jack Lemmon) is a patsy, duped by his adulterous wife Sandy (Judi West), conned by ambulance-chasing lawyer Willie Gringrich (Walter Matthau) into believing that exaggerating the injury he suffered from colliding with pro football player Boom Boom (Ron Rich) will bring her scurrying back. Never mind that while on the phone apparently going with her ex-husband’s fantasies, we can see her current boyfriend in the background lying abed or taking a shower.

But then Willie has everyone figured out. He can play highball or lowball, he knows every trick in the book and if you try to challenge him he can quote chapter and verse on every personal injury claim over the last century that would favor the victim. And he expects his opposite numbers to play dirty too, and uses to his own advantage the microphones and cameras they have planted in the apartment where Harry is purportedly recuperating.

There’s not much more to the picture than to enjoy Willie hoodwinking everybody in sight. But he’s such a performer to watch that you will be rooting for him rather than his sad sack brother-in-law who you know has paid-up membership of the Suckers Union.

*Not for the first time, foreign distributors felt they were saddled with an unworkable title so in*
*the UK it became Meet Whiplash Willie even though the idea of the con of the whiplash*
*injuries in supposed car accidents was more prevalent in the US than Britain.*

There’s some neat observations of the way law firms work, and the way medical experts refuse to commit in case they are later sued for a wrong diagnosis, and there’s some cute stuff about nuns with the gambling habit and seeing Boom Boom fall apart with guilt. But given the movie’s running time and the talent involved – script by Billy Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond (Some Like it Hot, 1959) and directed by the said Wilder – it’s not as funny as it could be and sometimes it feels like they’re scraping the barrel to squeeze out an unfunny joke.

But it hardly matters. This could be Fail Safe and with this Walter Matthau persona on the loose you wouldn’t care tuppence if the Russians bombed the hell out of everyone as long as Matthau was in the middle of the action, working out how to chisel a bigger piece for himself, and playing everyone for the dumb schmucks they are.

After this Walter Matthau – as unlikely a mainline star as Lee Marvin or Charles Bronson – never looked back. Unlike other major stars he never had to be completely trustworthy and was almost virtually responsible for bringing a severe dose of cynicism to the forefront of American acting. He could charm you if he set out to do so, but you better keep your wits about you because the chances are he would be robbing you blind.

If The Odd Couple (1967) set the seal on one of Hollywood’s greatest comedy partnerships, The Fortune Cookie was where it all began. Lemmon isn’t bad, just out-acted, and we’ve seen his whiny/forlorn/dumb act many times before. Judi West (A Man Called Gannon, 1968) has the other plum role as the blonde who is anything but dumb and would have proved an ideal partner for Gringrich except he would have seen through her too easily. Ron Rich (Chubasco, 1968) plays the only other character who isn’t spun out of a cliché.

Below par Wilder redeemed by heavenly performance by Matthau.

Book Into Film – “The Big Bounce” (1969)

A seminal example of the art of screenwriting, setting aside for the moment that in the future disgruntled novelist Elmore Leonard deemed it “an awful movie.” Which it isn’t, by the way. Not great, but far from awful.

Screenwriter Robert Dozier (The Cardinal, 1963) had his work cut out trying to make something cinematic out of the author’s debut crime novel. At that point Leonard had not been acclaimed as inheriting the mantle of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett. In fact, as far as critical acceptance went, he was pretty much an unknown. Six novels in nigh on two decades was not guaranteed to attact attention. If he had any reputation at all it rested on providing the source material for the Paul Newman hit Hombre (1967).

One of the reasons he remained so much under the critical radar was that he hadn’t written a novel in eight years, and all his previous output fell into the western category, a genre staunchly ignored by critics, and heavily reliant, commercially, on the pulp paperback. The Big Bounce wasn’t heralded on arrival, no hard cover printing, just a paperback movie tie-in that didn’t even go to the trouble of using a scene from the film or pictures of the stars.

*Once again, the foreign distributor produces a better title than the original.*

It was up to Robert Dozier to make the source material acceptable to the moviegoer. The book, as written, would never fly. Leonard’s novel lacked a Vietnam veteran, sex in the graveyard, and a nude statue. They were all Dozier’s inventions to bring a character to life who for the most part existed in the novelist’s backstory.

When the novel opens Nancy (Leigh Taylor Young) is due in court to answer the charge of dangerous driving. So rather than leaving that in her backstory, to be dealt with by dialog, Dozier makes that a key element of the film, the episode where Jack (Ryan O’Neal) wonders if he is in over his head as Nancy, annoyed by some pranksters, proceeds to drive a car off the road.

Nor in the book does Jack enjoy a brief dalliance with Joanne (Lee Grant), the single mother renting one of cabanas at the hotel where Jack works as a handyman. In fact, once he knows she has a child in tow, he pointedly avoids making any moves on the mother. His target, as far as the female holidaymakers go, is a single woman Virginia whose look of terror as he seduces her he mistakes for wild passion. The act isn’t consummated as she is struggling too much and it’s only on reflection that Jack, misreading the signals, realizes he had been on the point of raping her.

Jack has been fired from his job as pickle laborer, but he has no Army record. So all the talk about what it’s like to be at war is the screenwriter’s invention. Jack is a failed baseball player (a movie cliché – so that’s left out) and when he loses his job on the pickle farm and prior to hotel handyman turns to a spot of burglary.

He does get a job with hotel owner Sam (Van Heflin) who is also the Justice of the Peace. But Sam’s surname is not Mirakian. It’s – wait for it – Mr Majestyk. Hold on, was there not another movie featuring a guy with that name, starring Charles Bronson? Yep, that appeared in 1974, with Bronson as a melon farmer taking on The Mob. Maybe Robert Dozier thought it was too odd a name for a supporting character, maybe Leonard thought it too good a name to let go. Whatever, Mr Majestyk was left to fight another day.

Where Dozier has been exceptionally clever – rather than just sexing up the movie – is to take sections of the book (as with the car crash scene) and replant them to greater effect. In the book Nancy isn’t pimped out to a Senator by her wealthy lover Ray, but the line that it would take him “oh, a week” to find a replacement mistress comes from the book. In the book Nancy doesn’t swim naked in front of lustful married man Bob (Robert Webber). But she does swim naked in front of a character in the novel who is trying to blackmail her and he envisages holding out a towel to her naked body as she wraps her arms, to pay off her blackmailing debt, around him, rather than that being further teasing of the hapless Bob as in the film.

Dozier has rightly worked out the blackmailing angle would be a sub-plot too many. But it’s the blackmailer she shoots instead of Jack rather than the Comacho (Victor Paul) that Jack has hospitalized at the start of the movie and comes, rather late in the day in the movie, looking for revenge.

Quite a lot of dialog – because Leonard was hot on dialog, and it’s where much of his reputation derives – was taken intact from the book. But there was no way without lots of tedious dialog telling us what we already knew from her teasing Bob and running naked through a graveyard and driving cars off the road that Nancy was a piece of work who took enormous pleasure out of using her sexuality to get the better of men.

The novel explains that as a teenage babysitter she used to come on to the fathers driving her home and if they responded in any way she would blackmail them. One other time when there weren’t enough kicks in letting the neighbors’ kids see her naked, she took fifty bucks apiece from them to have sex with her. And she was always on the look-out for the “big bounce,” the action that would both be exciting and risky and also make her rich.

The Jack in the book is good bit less dumb than in the movie. He is aware that she is using him. He balks at the idea of carrying a gun because that would turn a simple burglary or heist into armed robbery for which, if caught, the sentence was much stiffer.

So, going back to Elmore Leonard’s critique of the movie, I’d be inclined to revise that to an “awful difficult book” to turn into a movie.

The Big Bounce (1969) ***

Femme fatale Nancy (Leigh Taylor-Young) makes a fair bid for the coveted Bunny Boiler of the Year Award. Had she chanced upon the right wrong guy who could channel her inherent viciousness she could have turned into Bonnie Parker. The only thing that holds her back from being a feminist icon, taking revenge for male betrayal, is her lack of independence.

Mistress to rich farmer Ray (James Daly), she teases the hell out of his head honcho Bob (Robert Webber), makes love in a graveyard, and fuels her amorality by going from breaking windows, attempted burglary and big-time heist to driving cars off the road and murder.

Dupe is Vietnam vet Jack (Ryan O’Neal) who works as a hotel handyman and happily two-times her with single mother Joanne (Lee Grant).

Although easy with her charms, it’s sex that comes back to bite her when Ray explains that all this heady living comes at a price, pimping her out to a Senator he wants to impress. Whether that turns her against all men, including the dupe who she suspects of making out with Joanne, or whether she is plotting simple revenge against Ray isn’t made clear, but like the best femme fatales she has her eye on the loot that could bring her freedom and doesn’t much care what it costs to get it.

Nobody much cared for this picture, either, but I can’t see why. Sure, too much time is spent on Jack – he gets slung out of a job picking pickles for getting into a fight, and he lands on his feet with a friendly hotel owner Sam (Van Heflin) who buys him beers and even makes his breakfast, and pretty much could have the pick of any girl who walks into a bar. But that’s the usual narrative for film noir, pointing out, usually over and over, what an easy mark he is for a determined woman.

*Unusual for the foreign title to be better than the original but this certainly captures the character better.*

Nancy could have been less obvious, but she uses her perceived availability as a potent weapon – the scene where she holds her naked body just enough away from the panting Bob while probing him about his wife and children, is a classic – and she doesn’t make it easy for Jack either, although his reward is a drawn-out striptease. She’s the typical bored young woman looking for kicks, and like Pretty Poison (1968) you have to suspect that there’s considerable calculation behind what appear like spur-of-the-moment decisions, trying to work out just how far the dupe will go to retain her favors.

So while she races through the gears, Jack seems stuck on the starting grid, as his apparent good luck turns into confusion. And although he’s got the looks to attract women, he hasn’t the brains to understand them. He’s so dumb you just want Nancy to get away with it. If there’s a weak spot in the movie it’s that he just isn’t interesting enough to spend any screen time with. He boasts of having committed misdemeanours and he’s got a temper when roused but actually he’s your typical lost Sixties character looking for more stability in his life.

Unusually for a movie that’s drawn so much criticism, the supporting characters are quite appealing. Sam is also a very worldly Justice of the Peace. Ray, far from being an easy conquest, is a hardass, the scene where he deadpans a line that it would take him, oh, a week to replace her if she fails to sleep with the Senator is priceless. There’s also some decent stuff about war, how Jack never even saw the enemy he was killing. And Joanne is a great study, another woman endlessly drawn to the wrong men, who can keep her dangling while never committing.

And beyond the scene where Nancy poses as a naked statue in a graveyard that is obviously unforgettable, there’s a marvellous scene where Jack wakes up in a strange house to the sound of tapping. When, finally, he opens his eyes, he sees a small girl tapping her cup at the breakfast table; Joanne has a daughter she omitted to mention.

This was the first of Elmore Leonard’s crime novels to be adapted for the movies. But he wasn’t a Hollywood unknown. He supplied the source material for 3.10 to Yuma (1957) and Hombre (1967). And at this point he was keen on setting his stories in poorer areas, as well as pickle farming here, the Kentucky backwoods are the setting for The Moonshine War (1970) and melon farming for Mr Majestyk (1974). There’s not a million miles between Mr Majestyk reaching for his gun when threatened and Nancy for one when betrayed, but somehow he’s in the right and she’s in the wrong.

And while you’re at it you might as well reflect on the complexities of Hollywood. Leigh Taylor-Young (I Love You, Alice B. Toklas, 1968) carries this picture and despite what the posters show was top-billed. But she didn’t get one more starring role. Two flops in a row – this and The Games (1970) – and Ryan O’Neal gets Love Story (1971) and he’s king of the hill.

Definitely worth a look.

Fail-Safe (1964) *****

Given unexpected heft by current concerns over AI. Human error, it appears, is more simple to correct than computer malfunction. Once a course of action commences, machines have no way of checking it. And paranoia is the first casualty of truth. Bear in mind this was shockingly contemporary at the time it was made, the world in constant fear of nuclear war, the Cold War, that seemingly endless stalemate doing little to pacify terror.

Those whose job it ease the best outcome in the event of nuclear war were always inclined to rationalize staggering death tolls. So we begin with a late night discussion in which political analyst Dr Groeteschele (Walter Matthau) makes the argument that in the event of war, the country with the fewest casualties is the winner and in a nod to the ironic suggests the most likely survivors would be the worst type of convict, imprisoned underground, and office workers protected from the blast by being surrounded by filing cabinets crammed full of paper.

Just before the real drama begins there’s a neat scene where a women, turned on by a powerful man, makes a move on the doctor only to be slapped into place, sternly told by the prim analyst that he’s not of “her kind.” That’s not the only human element in the tale. the highest levels of secrecy may force top-level Army and Government executives to sacrifice families.

For no accountable reason, jets with nuclear warheads shift into an attacking position on the Russian border, the target if not stopped Moscow. The planes are unstoppable once they commence attack, unable to turn away from a strict sequence of pre-determined action. Not even the personal intervention by the President (Henry Fonda) of the United States can affect the outcome, the pilots already trained to ignore such an action on the grounds that the enemy could be imitating the President’s voice.

When the planes fail to turn back, the only option is for the Americans to blow their own planes out of the sky, an action that appears not just inconceivable to the Army personnel but treasonable. High-rankings officers ruthless trained for battle and to observe the protocol of obeying orders find this unconscionable.

Three dramas take place at once. On the ground the Army chiefs try to explore every option to avoid the unthinkable while battling with their own consciences at what appears to be the only way out. The President on the hotline to the Russian premier has to circumvent natural suspicion that this is a cunning ploy by the Yanks and then come to some agreement with the Russians on the assumption that Moscow may yet come under attack. We, the audience, are playing out the third element in our minds, a series of terrifying what if scenarios with indescribable consequence.

I’m not going to reveal the shock ending because it came as a hell of a shock to me, given I’d not seen the picture in decades.

It’s brilliantly-made with almost futuristic sets and noir lighting and the President effectively physically imprisoned, and not just by his conscience, stuck in a featureless cell presumably in the pits of the White House arguing the toss with the Russian chief, his only companion the translator (Larry Hagman) whose face seems to get greyer and greyer as he transmits worse and worse news.

Dr Groeteschele makes matters worse, at least to a pacifist left-wing viewer (though an opposite view would be taken by the hawks), by urging the President to take advantage of computer error and “first strike” and blow Russia to pieces, assuming that indulging in the attack option will result in fewer casualties in America, and thus, following his earlier projections, not just win the war but rid the word of the fear of nuclear war.

While the style is documentary, it’s a riveting watch. The tension is unbearable. Some like Col Cascio (Fritz Weaver) succumb to the pressure while the commanding General Black (Dan O’Herlihy) retains a stolid soldierly presence.

Sidney Lumet (The Pawnbroker, 1964) doesn’t put a foot wrong. Taking the line – rather than in The Bedford Incident (1965) of the wrong man with his finger on the button – of the right man trying to make the best of a botched job, he delivers a just superb picture. Walter Bernstein (The Magnificent Seven, 1960) does a terrific job in delivering a taut screenplay from a more meandering novel by Eugene Burdick and Harvey Wheeler.

There probably couldn’t be a more prescient movie for today.