November 2023 – Page 3 – The Magnificent 60s

Robin Hood Double Bill: Sword for Sherwood Forest * (1960) and A Challenge for Robin Hood *(1967)

The last swashbuckler to cut a genuine dash was The Crimson Pirate (1952) with an athletic Burt Lancaster romancing Virginia Mayo in a big-budget Hollywood spectacular. The chance of Hollywood ponying up for further offerings of this caliber was remote once television began to cut the swashbuckler genre down to small-screen size. Britain’s ITV network churned out series based on Sir Lancelot, William Tell and The Count of Monte Cristo and 30-minute episodes (143 in all) of The Adventures of Robin Hood. So when Hammer decided to rework the series as Sword of Sherwood Forest their first port-of-call was series star Richard Greene.

And to encourage television viewers to follow the adventures of their hero on the big screen, Hammer sensibly dumped the small screen’s black-and-white photography in favour of widescreen color and then lit up the canvas at the outset with aerial tracking shots of the glorious bucolic greenery of the English countryside. Further temptation for staid television viewers came in the form of Maid Marian (Sarah Branch) bathing naked in a lake. Robin Hood is soon hooked.

Two main plots run side-by-side. The first is obvious. The Sheriff of Nottingham (Peter Cushing) is quietly defrauding people through legal means. The second takes a while to come to fruition. Robin Hood is hired by for his archery skills by the Earl of Newark (Richard Pasco) – he shoots a pumpkin through a spinning wheel, a moving bell and a bullseye through a slit – before it becomes apparent he is being recruited as an assassin. Oliver Reed and Derren Nesbitt put in uncredited appearances and the usual suspects are played by Niall MacGinnis (as Friar Tuck) and Nigel Green (as Little John).

There is sufficient swordfighting to satisfy. Director Terence Fisher (The Gorgon, 1964), more at home with the Hammer horror portfolio, demonstrates a facility with action. Richard Greene (The Blood of Fu Manchu, 1968) makes a breezy hero and Peter Cushing (The Gorgon) resists the tmeptation to camp it up. Screenplay honors went to Alan Hackney (You Must Be Joking! 1965).

Six years on from Sword of Sherwood Forest, the challenge of reviving a moribund genre proved too much for A Challenge for Robin Hood but this second Hammer swashbuckler is a valiant and enjoyable attempt. More in the way of an origin story, this explains how a nobleman turned into an outlaw and how the merry band was formed. For in this tale Robin Hood (Barry Ingham) is a Norman nobleman framed for murder, Will Scarlet (Douglas Mitchell) and Little John (Leon Greene) are castle servants – also Normans – while Maid Marian (Gay Hamilton) is in disguise. Some liberties are taken with the traditional version – there is no fight with Little John, instead, as noted above, they are already acquainted.

There are a couple of excellent set pieces and although the swordfights are not in the athletic league of Errol Flynn they are more inventive than the previous Hammer outing and there is enough derring-do to keep the plot ticking along. Robin’s cousin Roger de Courtenay (Peter Blythe) is the prime villain this time round, the sheriff (John Arnatt), although involved up to the hilt at the end, content to offer acerbic comment from the sidelines.

When Robin and Friar Tuck escape the castle by jumping into the moat, Will Scarlet is caught and later used as bait. Meanwhile Robin’s archery prowess and leadership skills have impressed the Saxon outlaws hiding in the forest and he takes over as their head. But there are clever ruses, jousting, Robin disguised as a masked monk, torture, and a pie fight.

Director C. M. Pennington-Richards had some swashbuckling form having helmed several episodes of The Buccaneers and Ivanhoe television series but his big screen experience was limited to routine films like Ladies Who Do (1963) with Peggy Mount. This was a departure for scriptwriter Peter Bryan, more used to churning out horror films like The Brides of Dracula (1960) and The Plague of the Zombies (1966), and he has invested the picture with more wittier lines and humorous situations than you might expect.

It’s certainly an escapist holiday treat and unless compared to the likes of the Pirates of the Caribbean or the classic Errol Flynn adventure it stands up very well on its own.

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The 300 Spartans (1962) ****

Doomed for half a century to be seen as Saturday television matinee material and then purportedly put into the shade by the Zack Snyder’s stylish 300 (2006), The 300 Spartans is in sore need of re-evaluation. Lacking the big budget of an El Cid (1961) or Lawrence of Arabia (1962) and released during an era when historical drama – Barabbas (1961), The Mongols (1961), Sword of the Conqueror (1961), The Trojan Horse (1961), and The Tartars (1961) – was at a peak, this is a stripped-down version of the famous Battle of Thermopylae in 480 B.C. and none the worse for it.

Clever camerawork suggests thousands of warriors involved and there is little sign of scrimping the wardrobe department, and there is more than enough action. But this is a surprising literate picture, with great lines for cynical politicians as much as for warriors and peasants. Themistocles (Ralph Richardson) comments: “Some day, I may enter religion myself. It’s better than politics. With the gods behind you, you can be more irresponsible.”

Told that the invading Persian army has “arrows that will blot out the sun,” Spartan King Leonides (Richard Egan) retorts, “then we will fight in the shade.” And there’s sexist banter typical of the period between a peasant couple: wife – “goats have more brains than men”; husband – “who can understand the ways of the gods, they create lovely girls and then turn them into wives.”

Quite how Leonides ends up fighting the massive army on its own is down to a mixture of politics and religion. Oracles foretell doom. The various Greek states refuse to join together, although Athens lends Sparta its fleet (“Athens’ wooden wall”). Even Sparta officially refuses to participate on the grounds that battle would interrupt a major religious festival. Leonides’ “army” of 300 men is comprised of his bodyguard.

A romantic subplot involving a young couple results in catastrophe. Just how ruthless is the opposition is shown when Persian king Xerxes (David Farrar) slaughters all his soldiers’ wives to make the men more determined to get to Greece where doubtless they will enslave the female population. When his archers fire, he doesn’t care if the arrows hit his own men.

What marks out the best historical action pictures is the intelligence behind the battle. Strategy is key. The first weapon, of course, surprise, so the Spartans sneak into the Persian camp from the sea and burn their tents. During battle, to counteract the Persian cavalry, the front row of the Spartan army lies down and allows the horses to jump over them, then rising up, trap the cavalry and drive them into the sea. (A ruse later employed by Richard Widmark in The Long Ships, 1964).

Other wily measures are used deal with the Persian crack infantry regiment, The Immortals. Even at the end, the Spartans continue to confound the enemy with clever ruses.

Richard Egan (Pollyanna, 1960) is effective as Leonides, Ralph Richardson (Woman of Straw, 1964) excellent as the crafty but honorable Themistocles while Alfred Hitchcock protégé Diane Baker (Mirage, 1965) – “glaringly miscast” according to Variety – has the female lead though Anne Wakefield (The Singing Nun, 1966) as a Persian queen the more interesting role. Former British matinee idol star David Farrar (Beat Girl / Wild for Kicks, 1960) Meet Sexton Blake, 1945), in his final movie, proves a handful as the intemperate Xerxes.

Five-time Oscar-nominated cinematographer Rudolf Mate delivers the directorial goods, his handling the dramatic scenes as confidently as the action and masking the holes in his budget by making clever use of trees as the invaders march, suggesting an army far bigger than he could afford to put on the screen. Color-coding the Spartans – they were in red – made the action clearer to follow. George St George (Invasion 1700, 1962), doubling up as producer, wrote the script with his usual collaborators Ugo Liberatore (A Minute to Pray, A Second to Die, 1967) and Remigio del Grosso (Wanted, 1967).

Originally titled The Lion of Sparta, the film could not have been made without the wholesale cooperation of the Greek army which supplied over 2,000 soldiers. Those playing Spartans had to be over six foot tall. Since the Greeks had no cavalry and few knew how to ride, around 200 were given a crash course. It was a bonanza for the soldiers – their normal wage of $2 was supplemented by $5.50.

Thermopylae no longer looked like the area immortalised by the battle, so the action was shot at Loutraki, near Corinth and 80 miles from Athens.

Thoughtful drama with striking action deserves reassessment.

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Behind the Scenes: “In the French Style” (1963)

Jean Seberg had wormed her way back into the affections of American critics who had ridiculed her performances in St Joan (1957) and Bonjour Tristesse (1958) by the cleverest route imaginable – via the arthouse. Critics, hoping to foist what they deemed worthwhile foreign pictures (that they weren’t made in Hollywood was often cause enough), were apt to give overseas performers an easier ride.

Breathless (1960) had been a huge arthouse hit – though not a box office breakout as we would know it today – and, in the absence of any other offers in America and as a result of falling in love with French author Romain Gary, Seberg plied her trade in France. Thanks to her on-going contract with Columbia, she was making a fairly good living, the third highest remunerated female star in France, and working with appreciative rather than derisory directors.

The success of Breathless guaranteed audience interest in her adopted country and arthouse opening in America. In 1961 she had starred in Time Out for Love, Love Play (based on a tale by Francoise Sagan) and Five Day Lover, directed by Phillipe De Broca (King of Hearts, 1966). The following year she skipped over to Italy for Congo Vivo / Eruption.

She hadn’t been producer Irwin Shaw’s first choice. Better known as a novelist (The Young Lions, filmed in 1958) and short story writer, The Girls in Their Summer Dresser and Tip on a Dead Jockey (filmed in 1957), he had set up Susanna Productions with director Robert Parrish with whom he had worked on Fire Down Below (1957). Parrish was down on his luck, not having made a picture in four years. Shaw, who had been blacklisted in Hollywood in 1951 as a Communist sympathiser, had lived in Europe for over a decade and was a dedicated Francophile.

The writer had a troubled relationship with the movie business, as detailed in Two Weeks in Another Town (filmed in 1962), and had “removed his name or tried to from several pix.” But he “recommended that more writers turn producer.” (He didn’t follow his own advice beyond this one picture and in 1968 the documentary Survival 1967.)

Given the producers, doubling as writer and director, respectively, were content to defer their salaries, the movie was not a huge financial risk for Columbia. The budget was a miserly $557,000 – B-movies cost more. And it even came in $26,000 under budget.

Shaw’s script coupled two of his unconnected Parisian short stories – A Year to Learn the Language and In the French Style, the former a love story between wannabe American artist Louise and young Frenchman Guy, the latter focusing on a world-weary journalist Walter who is rejected by occasional model Christine in favour of a safer option. Shaw spun the story so that it turned Christine into the younger artist and took her point-of-view as she rejected Walter.

Shaw was keener on Barbara Harris, the Tony-nominated actress who had yet to make a film, for the lead. But his brother David nudged him in the direction of Seberg and Shaw was swayed after viewing Five Day Lover and that the actress was familiar with Paris, having lived there for five years.

But Seberg was nine months pregnant when Parrish visited her to discuss the role. The problem was, the father was not her husband. Aware of the calamity that befell Ingrid Bergman after her adultery with Robert Rossellini, Seberg conspired to keep her pregnancy secret, pretending to have a broken foot which necessitated keeping the limb elevated and in a cage which concealed her pregnancy. The son, Diego, was kept a secret until much later.

Parrish tapped the French theater world for Philippe Forquet (Take Her, She’s Mine, 1963). Almost in imitation of one of the short stories, the actor had to learn a language, this time English, which he managed as shooting progressed.

British actor Stanley Baker (Accident, 1966) was already looking beyond home shores to expand his career and had worked on Joseph Losey’s French-Italian co-production Eva (1962) and Robert Aldrich’s Italian-funded Biblical epic Sodom and Gomorrah (1962). In the French Style seemed an odd choice because although second-billed he was long delayed in making his entrance.

After the success of The Criminal (1961), which had opened on the ABC circuit in Britain to “exceptionally high” business, Baker was also itching to get into production. He owned the rights to two films being prepped by Magna Film Productions – of which he was a director – Marianne and Rape of the Fair Country, the former scheduled for autumn 1962 and the latter for spring 1963, and was already in negotiations with Joseph E. Levine to co-produce and star in Zulu (1964). Possibly cancellation of Marianne freed him up for In the French Style. Baker was in any case a last-minute addition to the cast, not signed until mid-September.

Filming began on August 27, 1962, and lasted eight weeks, shooting in Paris, the Riviera and Studios de Billancourt. It was essentially an American-style movie not made in Hollywood. And, for once, Seberg basked in the admiration of an American director. Instead of enduring the tantrums and temper of Otto Preminger, Seberg found her talent praised. “She’s the most professional, technically proficient actress I think I’ve ever directed,” Parrish pronounced, adding “her knowledge of what the camera kind of wants is staggering.”

There were daily rewrites and at times Shaw questioned his own material, in particular the scene in which Christine (Seberg’s character) is visited by her father. In an example of life imitating art, when her parents came over, Gary took them to a topless restaurant whereas in the film Christine’s father attended an equally dubious avant-garde party.

Shaw, in his capacity as producer, argued with a hairdresser over how Seberg’s “hair was to be combed.” But, generally, the movie was a happy experience, almost falling into the exhilarating category considering Seberg’s previous experience of Hollywood manners.

At the post-shoot party, Seberg confessed about the broken foot. Parrish doubted that she needed to go to such lengths. But she was so determined to get the part that she had refused to divulge her secret in case Columbia, a big Hollywood studio, rejected her in the way Bergman had been sent into exile.

In the French Style was a hit with U.S. critics – “should make Seberg a popular name” opined Box Office. But The Daily Iowan, published in her home state, put the boot in, calling her “front runner for the world’s worst actress.”

Breathless had been reissued in Britain the previous year, an unusual accolade for an artie. Columbia renewed her contract, one picture a year for five years, proof of its revived faith in her talent. The first movie was Lilith (1964). And she was in line for the leading role in Francois Truffaut’s Fahrenheit 451, at that time titled Phoenix.

“I don’t want to sound pompous,” commented Seberg on her rehabilitation after suffering Hollywood’s cold shoulder for so long, “but I find it gratifying.”

But she was used sparingly by Hollywood – three movies between 1964 and 1968 – until Paramount and then Universal came to her rescue with, respectively, Paint Your Wagon (1969) and Airport (1970).

Fourquet won a contract with Twentieth Century Fox, promoted as the next generation of French stars, and became engaged to another rising star Sharon Tate. When career pressure finished off that romance, he returned to Paris. Two films later Stanley Baker was a huge star, in British terms at least, following the release of Zulu (1964).

The poorly-received box office flop Three (1969) had been adapted without his involvement from another of Shaw’s short stories, but he became more famous via the small screen after his novel Rich Man, Poor Man was turned into a mini-series in 1976 and made a star out of Nick Knolte.

SOURCES: Garry McGee, Jean Seberg: Her True Story (2018) p93-97; “The Criminal Opens to Big Business,” Kine Weekly, January 19, 1961, p6; “Stanley Baker Signed,” Hollywood Reporter, September 14, 1962, p2; “Irwin Shaw – Writer to Producer,” Variety, October 10, 1962, p13; “New Jean Seberg Deal,” Box Office, February 11, 1963, pME2; “Seberg for Phoenix,” Variety, August 21, 1963, p5; “Review,” Box Office, September 23, 1963, pA9.

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In the French Style (1963) ***

Short stories can be an excellent starting point for movies because usually they are lean and narrative driven, a screenwriter needing basically to fill out the characters and add a subplot. But short stories have one weakness. They require a pay-off, a twist, something the reader doesn’t see coming. And short of a twist of the caliber of Jagged Edge (1985) or The Sixth Sense (1999), these don’t usually come off, the audience feeling duped.

This one falls down due to a twist. Two actually, because it comprises a pair of initially unconnected short stories, A Year to Learn the Language and In the French Style. Which is a shame because the movie itself with its Parisian setting is in general charming and conveys the development of young American Christine (Jean Seberg) as she moves from innocent wannabe artist to promiscuous model while worrying she is throwing her life away on transient pleasures.

Writer Irwin Shaw (Two Weeks in Another Town, 1962), who doubles as producer, has used Christine as the link between two of this best-known short stories. So it’s – to dip into soccer parlance – a film of two halves and I’ll let you know right away co-star Stanley Baker (Sands of the Kalahari, 1965) is consigned to the second part, when he meets an older and perhaps more rueful Christine.

So, young, not exactly starving (an allowance from her father funds her lifestyle), artist meets a young Frenchman Guy (Phillipe Forquet) determined to be the antithesis of the standard Frenchman. He doesn’t drink because alcohol is ruining his country. He won’t kiss her in public because not all Frenchman are insanely romantic. He’s severely lacking it has to be said in the romantic gene. Seduction is abrupt. He’s got the key to a friend’s apartment. Let’s go. Is as much subtlety as he can summon up.

So no sex this time and she decides she’ll be the one doing the asking, which upsets his notion of the biddable girlfriend. Anyway, they end up touring Paris on his scooter looking for a suitable no-questions-asked hotel. Surprisingly, the city, according to Guy, isn’t full of them.

And end up in a freezing hotel room. He can’t open the champagne bottle. He insists she undress last, as apparently that’s the done thing. And then he springs his surprise. He’s not only a virgin, he’s not the 21-year-old he told her he was, but still at school and just 16.

If this had been done The Graduate-style, with his awkwardness to the fore, or if she had just been as clumsy, it would probably have worked. There would have been nothing illegal in their coupling, or cringe-worthy (she’s 19 after all), but it just makes her out to be an idiot, fooled because she effectively fell for the first handsome Frenchman to come her way. It just drops a bomb of the wrong kind halfway through the movie.

Cut to four years later and she’s much more the lady-about-town, independent or of questionable morals depending on your point of view, self-sufficient or relying on male companionship to see her through depending on your point of view. Having been dumped by Bill (Jack Hedley), she hooks up with itinerant flamboyant journalist Walter (Stanley Baker) but while he’s off on some important story she’s made hay with more sober American Dr John Haislip (James Leo Herlihy, yes that one, author of Midnight Cowboy) and chooses security over culture and fun.

The problem with this section is that the short story was originally written from Walter’s point of view, as he comes to realize that long-term commitment is not compatible with globe-trotting.

All told, a pretty odd concoction. That it works at all is largely due to Jean Seberg (Breathless, 1960). I’m not totally convinced by her transition. You get the impression that had she met a more worldly Frenchman in the first half she would have quickly shaken him off for another lover. As it is, her rootlessness is meant to be the result of being disappointed by a schoolboy lover. Hmmm!

Although there’s over-reliance on Paris atmosphere – jazz club, Arc de Triomphe, restaurants where waiters transport flambe dishes halfway across a room, a “happening” where the art crowd lets it all hang out – and we rely on other characters telling us about Christine’s personal situation, it remains an interesting view of the French capital from the point-of-view of an American ex-pat, who, less successfully than Hemingway perhaps, offers a different perspective on the city. Robert Parrish (Duffy, 1968) directed.

Worth it, though, to see Seberg transformed.

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Behind the Scenes: “Kitten with a Whip” (1964)

Ann-Margret was a late arrival on the scene. The voluptuous Mamie van Doren (3 Nuts in Search of a Bolt, 1964) had bought the rights to the novel by Wade Miller in September 1959 before selling them on the Universal a couple of months later, possibly in exchange for the starring role.

Wade Miller was the pseudonym of writing team Robert Wade and H. Bill Miller, who had teamed up at the age of 12, and wrote screenplays under another pseudonym, Whit Masterson. Together they had turned out 30 novels, and hundreds of short stories and their work had been the basis for, most famously, A Touch of Evil (1958). The later Yellow Canary (1963) and Warning Shot (1966) were based on their novels. The moment Hollywood came calling Fawcett publishing, through its Gold Medal paperback division. rushed out a movie tie-in edition, adding another when the film was due for release.

Laszlo Gorog (Too Soon to Love, 1960) was initially allocated the screenplay, but was quickly replaced by Alfred Benner (Key Witness, 1960). Nancy Kwan (Tamahine, 1963) and Steve Forrest (Yellow Canary) entered the frame when Richard Rush (Too Soon To Love) was being tipped to direct. Brigitte Bardot turned it down. And it languished in limbo for a couple of years before being handed to television director Douglas Heyes – a journeyman known for episodes of Laramie, Cheyenne, The Twilight Zone, The Virginian, et al.

It wasn’t meant to be his debut feature. That was intended to be If One Is To Die from his own original screenplay, announced in 1961. But that was for Twentieth Century Fox. When that failed to materialize, and after a short spell back in television, he did double duty – writer and director, a role he had carried out countless times for television – for Kitten with a Whip

It was the last of the 11 movies scheduled by Universal for production in 1963, shooting beginning on December 27. The studio, at the forefront of developing new talent, put new recruit Patrica Barry (Send Me No Flowers, 1964) in the secondary female role.

That this got into the mix for Ann-Margret must have taken some determined wheeling and dealing for by 1963 the actress was in phenomenal demand, especially for someone with so little experience. She had contracts for over a dozen pictures. In part, she was the most exciting addition to a growing pool of new talent that included Michael Callan (The Interns, 1962), Alex Cord (Stagecoach, 1966), George Segal (The Quiller Mmorandum, 1966) and Peter Fonda (Lilith, 1964), but the fact that she could sing and perform made her doubly attractive since Hollywood had now worked out that hit singles and live performances were “the fastest route to the showbiz area…and the springboard to…film fields.”

Film adaptations of hit musicals, benefitting from the “broader pull of Hollywood productions” and “wider audience exposure,” boosted sales not just of the original soundtrack but also the original Broadway cast recording. Columbia’s Bye, Bye Birdie (1963) sold two million copies of the movie soundtrack and album and 1.5 million of the Broadway version.

There was a three-picture deal with Frank Sinatra’s Essex Productions that should have included Marriage on the Rocks (at that time known as Community Property, its original Broadway title) delayed until 1965 when the original director pulled out. Columbia was owed three movies, Twentieth Century Fox five. Every time she signed a new contract her price went up. She was the object of a bidding war. MGM appeared to be in the lead when it raised her going rate, ponying up $275,000 plus a percentage for two movies – Viva Las Vegas (1964) and Say it with Music (shelved). But Universal trumped that, $250,000 per picture for six movies, the first being Kitten with a Whip.

Her arrival in showbiz had triggered whirlwind of promotion. She snaffled her first headline in December 1960, at the age of 19, when Jack Benny added her to his nightclub act in las Vegas. Four months later her face adorned a full-page ad in Hollywood Reporter that announced her television debut on the Jack Benny Show on CBS April 2, 1961. By then Twentieth Century Fox was sniffing around and she landed a $1,000 a week contract. The studio set her as female lead in State Fair (1962) but she was abruptly dropped and when reinstated it was as second female lead.

At this stage, publicity focusing around her voice. Signed to RCA Victor, she quickly became a top-selling artist. In return for delivering 12-24 singles and a number of albums over three years, the label committed to spending $50,000 a year in promotion. Columbia assigned George Sidney, director of Bye, Bye Birdie, to make an eight-minute promotional film.

After well-received turns in A Pocketful of Miracles (1962), Bye, Bye Birdie and female lead to Elvis Presley in Viva Las Vegas, Kitten with a Whip represented departure, her first dramatic role. Although some observers later criticized her management team, in retrospect it’s clear that a sensible strategy was in operation, alternating lighter fare where she could sing and dance with more serious works (Once a Thief and The Cincinnati Kid, 1965, and Stagecoach the following year) where she did neither.

Exhibitors were so convinced she was the real deal that she was the youngest-ever winner of their Star of the Year Award, previous holders of the trophy including the more established likes of John Wayne, Gregory Peck, William Holden, Deborah Kerr and Doris Day, but only after they had been in the business for several years with umpteen box office hits to prove their worth.

Male lead John Forsythe, after years on television in Bachelor Father (1957-1962), was making a movie comeback. But he had signed an unusual contract with Universal, suggesting nobody was confident he was as genuine a prospect. The studio offered him a deal for two pictures a year, but one that also included television work for its television arm Revue.

Reviews were better than the actress might have expected. Eugene Archer, the second-string critic on the New York Times said “she demonstrated enough untrained talent to suggest interesting dramatic possibilities in better films.” Box Office opined that Ann-Margret delivered “a realistic and surprisingly effective characterization” but pleaded for studios to “let her return to lighter fare.” Variety was dismissive: “display of over-acting.”

Exhibitors took a negative view. “Does this popular star a great deal of harm,” was typical of the response. Others were more forthright, describing the movie as a “glaring example of the type of show that shouldn’t be made.” Overall, it was not what anybody – critics, audiences, cinema managers – expected and not in a good way. The St Paul Evening Dispatch took the MPAA’s Production Code to task for passing a picture of “sheer sadism, depravity without redeeming reason.”

In some first run situations, it was the solo feature. Other cinemas paired with Lolita (1962), a somewhat obvious choice, or Lilith (1964) or British film Young and Willing (1962), Faces in the Dark (1960) with Mai Zetterling and Audie Murphy western Bullet for a Badman (1964). In some cities, it bypassed first run and went straight into the drive-ins. In smaller locales it went out on the lower half of a double bill.

Only in Pittsburgh did it score at the box office, “lofty” the assessment. It was deemed “sluggish” Washington, “slow” in Chicago and Los Angeles, and “slim” in Columbus, Ohio. Of 21 movies released in the Winter Quarter, it was ranked lowest where it mattered most, at the ticket wickets, according to Box Office. It didn’t rake in $1 million in rentals, the amount required to earn a place on Variety’s annual box office chart.

Kitten with a Whip didn’t appear to harm the star’s career. Critics praised her work on Once A Thief and The Cincinnati Kid. But as her career first prospered and later crashed and burned it was considered something better not mentioned. John Forsythe fared less well. Outside of television, he only made five movies in five years.

Heyes’ movie career stuttered. He had been due to write and direct The 12^th of Never, based on his own novel, to star Sandra Dee, one of Universal’s top marquee names, in June 1964, but when that was cancelled returned to television until called back to direct Beau Geste (1966).

There might have been reassessment of the value of the original film when Gus Van Sant announced he planned a remake in 2007. On the other hand, that it was Lindsay Lohan’s favorite picture didn’t do it much good.

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Kitten with a Whip (1964) ****

I’ll let you down gently. Ain’t no whip. What you have instead is one of the most under-rated, unseen and maligned mini-masterpieces you will ever come across marching to the film noir beat. Bewildering femme fatale and the kind of disenchanted anti-authority teenagers who would drive the “youthquake” that almost destroyed the industry half a decade later. And within this, one of the great tragedies of Hollywood, the performance of her career from Ann-Margret, buried because it wasn’t what the public, the critics or the industry expected from the young star.

Edgy score with soulful sax underwrites a picture brimfull of surprises and plays constantly with your expectations, the picture shifting gear so often you’d think you were in a tumble dryer. The doorbell plays like a loaded gun, every interruption racking up tension.

Stylish credits that hint of Hitchcock precede a brilliant opening as in full noir fashion a band of light catches the eyes in the darkness of a blonde (Ann-Margret) dressed in a nightgown cresting a hill.

She tries to jump on a moving goods wagon, eventually makes her way to a deserted house, untouched wrapped newspapers littering the lawn, clambering into a bed, clutching a teddy bear for comfort. You want mystery? This is just the start. In one of the best neat cuts, we jump from the eyes of a teddy bear to headlights. Owner returning home is budding politician David (John Forsythe), wife away due to marital issues.

Come morning, he discovers his guest, Jody. She recites a sad tale of fleeing sex abuse. But soon he realizes she’s got a story to fit every occasion and can turn the emotions on like a tap. Manipulation is in her DNA. But she’s a tough little number. “Hands off, buster,” she snaps at one point as she tries to physically hustle her out.

It’s unspoken that the idea of being caught, regardless of whether he’s entirely innocent, in illicit dalliance would mean the end of his political ambitions, but she’s happy to spell it out. If the cops work her over, who knows what would spill out.

He buys her clothes, gives her money. Sayonara, baby! Except it’s not. He discovers she’s on the run from juvie, where she torched the home and stabbed the matron. Worse, she’s not left after all, but returned, the house filled with the noise of television cartoons, floor littered with teenager mess.

It’s unclear what exactly she wants. But she knows if she screams rape that’s curtains for him. And if Freud (1962) used a length of rope to show how a psychiatrist can’t escape his client, Jody’s version is a length of telephone cable, dragging her quarry to the floor when he’s talking to his wife.

And before you know it, it turns into home invasion. She’s called up some pals, younger versions of the creeps in The Penthouse (1967) but with a similar set of philosophic ramblings (“the meanings of the meaningless”) from thug Ron (Peter Brown), not averse to sharing buddy’s docile girlfriend Vera (Patricia Barry). And now it’s blackmail. And violence, a cutthroat razor the weapon of choice, though thug Buck (Skip Ward) is handy with his fists, too.

The kids, drug peddlers, want driven over the border. So now we’re racing off in the dark. David is savvy enough to leave Buck entangled in barbed wire, manages to drop the wounded Ron off at a doctor’s surgery and now desperately tries to escape Jody, though, as you might expect she has other plans.

So the movie spins all the time on the twin axis of discovery that could end David’s career and the demonic damsel. While it steers clear of any sexual attraction by David for the young glamor girl, his interest is initially more paternal, and consequence-aware. Quite what she does want is unclear, beyond some kind of freedom, power even, “I call the shots, not you,” the upper hand over the males, marking him with her nails in the way she has been scarred.

But it races along, it’s impossible not to be dragged into the quandary, half the time you hoping that somehow she will escape her demons, while fully aware that she’s on the fast track to Hell and will take people with her.

This is Ann-Margret (The Swinger, 1966) as you’ve never seen her. It’s not that the sexiness is hidden, it’s a heck more subtle than that, and when she parades in some flimsy item it’s clearly more for approval than arousal. At one point she dances in a jokingly sensuous manner, but otherwise there’s no trademark singing and dancing. She’s a junior version of the more fully-fledged femme fatales of noir who’ve hooked some sap into crime. This gal hasn’t got that kind of criminal brain – or maybe not yet – she’s a victim of circumstance and, let’s face it, the powerful male.

There’s a terrific moment when Vera accepts that she means little more to her boyfriend than that she has a car, exhibiting the kind of impotence that came with the territory for young women of the era lacking confidence or a decent role model. Jody’s the opposite. She’s confident enough, but no idea what to do with it, beyond ensuring no man gets the better of her.

You’ve heard enough of Jody’s sob stories not to believe a word she says but still the power of Ann-Margret’s performance is that you feel the deeper, hidden, pain.

Writer-director Douglas Heyes (Beau Geste, 1966) directs with tremendous verve, keeping his foot down on the tension pedal. That the movie was generally seen as a low-point in the career of Heyes and Ann-Margret is one of those Hollywood anomalies, or ironies if you will, probably dumped on because it was perceived as flying too close to the Lolita (1962)/Baby Doll (1958) template, although in reality the character avoids going down the simpering child route except as a means of extracting sympathy.

John Forsythe (Topaz, 1969) begins on the rack and never gets free.

Nothing like would you expect – and certainly not from the title – and deserves full reassessment and all the critical accolades going especially from those who appreciate the noir canon.

Massive disservice to Ann-Margret, whose performance here should have opened up a career of more serious movies.

B-movie noir masterpiece.

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The Running Man (1963) ****

Twisty Carol Reed thriller pivoting on emotional entanglement that keeps you guessing right up to the end. In revenge for losing his business after an insurance company failed to cough up for his crashed plane, entrepreneur Rex (Laurence Harvey) fakes his own death and flees to Malaga in Spain.

But when girlfriend Stella (Lee Remick) joins him she discovers he has assumed the identity of an Australian millionaire whose passport he has purloined and completed the transformation by changing his black hair to blond. Rex has a mind to repeat the experiment by killing off himself (under the new identity) and claiming the insurance. Stella, complicit in the original scam, not only balks at this idea but finds disconcerting his change of personality and clear attraction to the opposite sex.

Tensions mount when mild-mannered insurance investigator Stephen (Alan Bates) appears on the scene. Anyone watching the film now has to accept that in the days before social media every face was not instantly tracked and accept that Stephen is unaware of what Rex looks like.

The couple cannot run because they are awaiting a bank draft. Stephen immediately sets the tone for suspicion when he pronounces that their vehicle “looks like a getaway car.” Forced to follow “The Godfather” dictum of keeping your enemies closer, the pair befriend Stephen with the intention of finding out what he knows and what are his intentions. Rex and Stella have to pretend they have only just met, separate bedrooms et al, leaving the door open for Stephen to gently woo Stella, an action endorsed by Harvey. They are caught out in small lies. Rex’s Australian accent falters. Stephen keeps on making notations in a notebook. Rex foils his pursuer’s attempts to photograph him.

The ensuing game of cat-and-mouse is complicated by Stephen’s romantic inclinations towards Stella. Is this as genuine as it appears? Or is he trying to get her on her own to admit complicity? Both Rex and Stella are, effectively, forced to adopt the new identities they have forged to dupe Stephen, with unforeseen results. There are red herrings aplenty, a race along mountainous roads, and some marvelous twists as the couple find the tale they have woven is turning too tight for comfort until murder appears the only solution.

As with his international breakthrough The Third Man (1949), Carol Reed grounds the whole Hitchcockian enterprise in local culture – this being unspoiled Malaga prior to the tourist deluge – Spanish churches, a wedding, fiesta, the running of the bulls, with an occasional ironic twist – “gypsy” musicians watching ballroom dancing on television. Reed resists taking the material down a darker route – Hitchcock would undoubtedly have twisted the scenario in another direction until Stella came under threat from Rex – but instead allows it to play out as a menage a trois underwritten by menace.

The acting is sublime. Laurence Harvey (A Dandy in Aspic, 1968) wallows in his part, Remick (Days of Wine and Roses, 1962) quietly anxious scarcely coming to belief that she had played a part in the original crime, Alan Bates (The Fixer, 1969), his deceptively pleasant inquisitive demeanor the ideal foil to Harvey. Unusually, they all undergo change, Harvey uncovers a more ruthless side to his character, Remick responds to the gentler nature of Bates, while Bates shrugs off his schoolmasterly aspects to become an attractive companion.

A couple of footnotes – special mention to Maurice Binder for the opening credits and this was the final score of British composer William Alwyn (The Fallen Idol, 1948). John Mortimer (Bunny Lake Is Missing, 1965) wrote the screenplay based on the Shelley Smith novel.

Full throttle film noir.

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Downhill Racer (1969) ***

Robert Redford rarely took the easy option. Even his big romantic number, The Way We Were (1973), with Barbra Streisand had a serious center, Jeremiah Johnson (1972) focused on ecology and he used his star power to get studio backing for All the President’s Men (1976). Even starting out, and before Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) anointed him a star, when he could, or should according to some observers, have been capitalizing on his good looks he did not shrink from playing unlikeable characters.

Idealizing heroes is endemic. Most films which portray sport stars with feet of clay generally begin with an attractive personality who presses the self-destruct button through alcohol, sex or drugs (or all three) such as Number One (1969) with Charlton Heston. The general consensus is that this approach to the sports movie was not rescinded until the brutal boxer exposed in Scorsese’s Raging Bull (1980).

But it turns out Scorsese was not the first. In this ski drama Chappellet (Robert Redford) is a loner who cares for no-one but himself. Alienated from his father (Walter Stroud), his girlfriend at home little more than a sex object, the obsessed skier proves a constant source of friction for his national team manager Claire (Gene Hackman) and not above the kind of dirty tricks as typified in Slap Shot (1977). He sees nothing wrong with making no bones about the fact that he is in the game for fame.

Totally lacking in self-delusion, he’s a farm boy and few steps up from being illiterate. The world of the professional skier was hardly the obvious subject for a sports drama. There’s certainly an excitement in the action that couldn’t be captured on television, but the essential competitive element, the race against the clock, is not so riveting as the last-minute touchdown or winning home run.

Pretty much Chapellet’s only attractive feature is that he is played by Robert Redford, and the film plays upon the conceit that as handsome a man as this will at some point turn into a good guy. There’s an interesting debate – and one that would last decades – about whether Redford’s looks got in the way of the characters he portrayed. Imagine Robert Duvall in the part, for instance, and relentless determination would not be called into question.

This leaves the film with only pity as a way to provide the character any sympathy, the sense that if he turns into a loser the audience will warm more to him than if he is a champion, but that arrives outside the competitive circle, and perhaps is even more touching, when his hopes of genuine romance with top-notch blonde Carole (Camilla Sparv) are dashed.

Michael Ritchie (The Candidate, 1972), making his directing debut, opts for a documentary-style approach, so minimalist it’s almost perfunctory. This is a decent option given there’s very little going on beyond lonely hotel rooms, and an endless round of competitions and an occasional outburst from the manager. The skiing scenes, sensational at the time, are boosted by Blu Ray. Although it gained good reviews, audiences failed to respond although Redford was on a career high after Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969).

While it was a brave choice for the actor, the script by James Salter (Three, 1969), based on the Oakley Hall bestseller, doesn’t bring enough insight, though you could argue it was intended to keep the character at arm’s length. A novel can be engaging enough just by opening up an unusual world, but a movie needs to do more. This is pre-chuckle Gene Hackman (The Gypsy Moths, 1969) and at this point you would probably have bet on him remaining a supporting player.

Redford, the thinking man’s actor, in embryo.

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Sons of the Desert (1933) *** – Seen at the Cinema

One of the joys of the current spate of one-day anniversary revivals is that it turns up a 90-year-old gem like this. I haven’t seen Laurel and Hardy on the big screen since I was a child, and that wasn’t even in the cinema, but at our local school in Cumbernauld, Scotland, where the local padre Fr Jaconelli (part of the famed ice-cream clan) ran an impromptu cinema show on Saturday mornings with a shaky 16mm projector.

Actually, I could catch the comedic duo once a week at a pub down the road where the local chapter of the “Sons of the Desert” fan club hosts a showing. “Sons of the Desert,” in case you didn’t know, is an international fan club with hundreds of affiliated clubs (or “tents” as they are known) and this film is the reason.

But the question, as ever, with comedians, is does their schtick stand the test of time. They are perhaps fortunate in that they don’t rely on witty one-liners. On the other hand, the set-ups are so straightforward they are almost prehistoric. And comedy double acts have more or less disappeared.

The movie follows the traditional Laurel and Hardy template, some barmy scheme dreamed up by Ollie, tripping over ever prop in sight, a variety of items to destroy, the pair bedraggled. In this case, Ollie’s wife Lottie (Mae Busch) opposed the idea of them attending the annual convention of the aforesaid desert gang in Chicago so he convinces her that he’s so ill the only way he’ll recover is by taking a trip to Honolulu. Naturally, the liner sinks and they are caught out in the lie.

Meanwhile, all mayhem breaks loose, drenched on the roof, battered at the convention, the target of practical jokes by conventioneer Charley (Charley Chase) who turns out to be Lottie’s long-lost brother. The plot’s pretty much irrelevant where this pair are concerned, just the starting point for a series of gags, whether it’s Stan eating wax fruit, landing Ollie in whatever water is handy, and both doing the wrong thing when the correct would have been simpler.

Sure, Ollie twiddles with his tie and harrumphs and marches his fingers across the table, Stan scratches his hair and looks about to burst into tears, but the combination remains irresistible. Few comic duos have come as close and then for not as long.

The program also included the short Dirty Work from the same year which sees them as chimneysweeps attending the household of a mad scientist who has discovering the secrets of rejuvenation. I’m not such a big fan that I could tell you where Sons of the Desert ranks in their pantheon, except that it was the inspiration for the fan club (which prefers, incidentally, to be known as a collection of “film buffs”) but it was fantastic just to see them on the big screen and imagine the laughter they have generated down the generations.

There was a big revival in the 1960s, when silent comedy was being rediscovered, and there was a cartoon series, and they made so many films you can probably see one anywhere anytime. These kind of gagsters never went out of fashion, Jim Carrey channeled much of their mirth, but few have matched their sense of timing.

I saw this as part of my self-appointed cinema triple bill on Monday. I’ve reviewed the films in reverse order of seeing them. It’s one of the beauties of my method of going to the cinema that I can compile a program from completely different genres – comedy, crime, horror – and go in with little expectation (I doubted even Laurel and Hardy would stand the test of time on the big screen) and come out thinking I had one of the best cinema outings in a long time.

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Retribution (2023) **** – Seen at the Cinema

Take a renowned screen tough guy and turn him into a nervous wreck. Stick a bomb under his car seat. Hobble him further by saddling him with his kids in the back. Ensure he is so frazzled by constant explosions that he lacks the time to do the clever things that heroes in his position, no matter how dicey the situation, generally manage. And the usual running and gunplay is out of the question. Screw that lid down tight.

And play around with Liam Neeson’s Taken (2008) screen persona, show him demolishing a punch bag at the very start to convince us he still has the cojones, with a special set of skills to take down the bad guys. But that image is quickly shredded.

Once he is blamed for a series of devastating car explosions and can’t escape the electronic voice in his ear and the bad guy five steps ahead of everyone, this just ramps up the stakes and in the Neeson portfolio nestles a shade below Unknown (2011) where the actor was equally disorientated, though that time by amnesia.

Matt (Liam Neeson) is a financier having a tough time. It’s just his bad luck he needs to take the kids, rebellious Zach (Jack Champion) and precocious Emily (Lilly Aspinall), to school because, unknown to him, wife Heather (Embeth Davidz) needs time out to consult a divorce lawyer. Now he’s being held hostage in his own car by a tech whiz kidnapper.

Sure, there are shades of Speed (1994) but thank goodness fewer echoes of the likes of Phone Booth (2002) and a few plot holes and a fair bit of misdirection – wife Heather (Embeth Davidz) perhaps having a lesbian affair, financial shenanigans catching up with him, mysterious motorcyclist on his tail – but precisely because Matt has no leeway and the running time is lean (under 90 minutes once you remove the credits) it works like a dream. Just no let-up.

There’s a surprise reveal at the end and a neat get-out-of-jail that Bryan Mills in his element might have dreamed up but mostly it’s pedal-to-the-metal.

After a few direct-to-streaming losers like Marlowe (2022), this is Neeson back at his best, relying far more on his acting talent than his action chops. Even the title is against type. Mention the word retribution and you expect it will be the actor doing the seeking, not being its object.

With the exception of Schindler’s List (1993) – and that’s three decades away – most people can’t remember when Liam Neeson was being touted as a genuine Oscar contender. Producers didn’t seem to know what to do with him. Every star turn in a compelling drama was accompanied by a supporting role in some big-budget extravaganza (not least his Star Wars episodes). And, miraculously, just as it appeared his career was winding down, he reinvented himself as Bryan Mills and was forever typecast in thrillers, but the law of diminishing returns meant that he was as synonymous with Nicolas Cage in making pictures that couldn’t get a cinema release break.

Here’s a movie that depends entirely on facial expression. And no escape from that. Which means relying on whatever he can tick in the acting box. Which, luckily, Neeson still has in spades.

This is kind of movie Sky used to make, a low-budget effort with a big name down on his luck, killed off by poor production values and low-end direction. But if this is the way Sky is heading, upping its game in the face of Netflix and Apple’s clever manipulation of cinematic release, then this movie deserves a wider showing.

Remake of a 2015 Spanish picture, directed by Dani de la Tore and scripted by Alberto Marini, the new version sticks to the knitting, no complicated sub-plots involving the kids, just them sitting in the back waiting to become collateral damage.

Nimrod Antal (Predators, 2010) does an excellent job teasing out the tale, throwing in a car chase through the streets of Berlin, but keeping the camera squarely on the trapped trio. With an inferior star, this could easily have failed to grip, but Neeson pulls it off with ease.

If you can’t catch it in the cinema, where my guess it will only last a week, put it on your must-watch list elsewhere.

Destined to become a DVD “sleeper.”

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