Brian Hannan

Black Rabbit (2025) ***

I’ve never been a big fan of either Jude Law (Firebrand, 2023) or Jason Bateman (Game Night, 2018) so I admit I’m coming to this Netflix series with some hesitation. Despite his deuce of Oscar nominations I’ve never been convinced by Jude Law as an actor – he always seems to me one of the actors who “acts.” And sticking a beard on Jason Bateman and growing his hair long does not turn him into a badass. He’s directing himself here, at least for the two opening episodes, so I’m not sure he’s cracked that skill either.

And I can’t be the only one fed up with these movies or series that start at the end. You get some decent piece of action – here a robbery – and no sooner have you become interested than the action stops dead and up pops the legend “one month earlier” or “one week earlier” or “one day earlier” as if someone has got it into their heads that that automatically adds a hefty dose of tension.

So, basically, this looks like some sort of whodunit. Not revolving around murder as would normally be the case. But around the aforementioned robbery which has the hallmarks of an inside job. Possibly the finger won’t point at Jake Friedkin (Jude Law) who is after all the restaurant co-owner. More likely, you’d suspect his hustler brother Vince (Jason Bateman) who you learn in short order has stolen his father’s collection of rare coins, taken out loans against the family property, killed a guy and owes $140,000 to loan sharks.

But that last large debt brings Jake solidly into the frame. He’s had to, according to one of those unwritten laws that get trotted out at convenient times in gangster pictures, assume his brother’s debt. Worse, he’s not able to pay his own bills, a born hustler, has his eye on a bigger prize and just has to raise the presumably insignificant sum of $5 million to set up another more upmarket operation in a building built by Mies van der Rohe (famous architect in case you don’t know).

He’s planning to take his head chef Roxie (Amaka Okafur) with him so you’d think she wouldn’t bear a grudge. But, in fact, she’s pretty pissed off at her boss because he’s taken no action to prevent the sexual predatory activities of his partner Wes (Sope Dirisu), a successful recording artist who drinks the place dry (of high-priced champagne I should add). Wes has raped bartender Anna (Abbey Lee) and she’s been sacked and already taking revenge on TikTok.

*Hey guys, I’d just like to point out that two guys running ain’t exactly poster material.*

Jake has hired Wes’s interior designer girlfriend Estelle (Cleopatra Coleman) to give the new place a decent lick of paint, but Wes, who’s not in on the deal, has discovered his partner is soon going to be his ex-partner.

So from there on, every possible attempt to jack up the stakes occurs. Vince wins enough ($150,000) at the gambling tables to pay off his debt, but that wouldn’t make much of a story nor be true to his character, and he loses it all. And when the sale of the family property falls through he’s back to square one and the digital accounting begins – as in digit accounting as a hot-headed gangster saws off his little finger. Oh, and promises that next on the hit list would be Vince’s estranged daughter Gen (Odessa Young) a tattoo artist.

There’s a big chunk of back story to be fitted in. Jake was originally Wes’s manager, Vince was responsible for coming up with the idea of turning a derelict dump into a trendy bar and restaurant. So emotional debt is owed all round never mind the $140,000 outstanding plus whatever else Jake has clocked up.

So part The Bear, part sub-Scorsese with psychopathic hoods, and part the double-dealing that comes with running any business and soon enough I guess there will be a proper murder to deal with because glancing down the cast list I see a detective so that will be more suspects.

I’m not entirely sure there’s enough here to keep me pinned down in my seat for another six episodes. And part of the problem, I guess, is the all-action beginning which had me believing this wouldn’t just degenerate into a slow, draggy family saga (more family based than usual given the restaurant we are told is one big family). Created by Zach Beylin (Creed III, 2023).

I’m not optimistic.

The Sleeping Car Murder (1965) ****

Absolutely brilliant thriller. Even after a half a century, still a knock out. A maniac on the loose, baffled cops, glimpses into the tattered lives of witnesses, victims and relatives, told at break-neck speed by Greek director Costa-Gavras (Z, 1969) on his debut and concluding with an astonishing car chase through the streets of Paris. Not just an all-star French cast – Yves Montand (Grand Prix, 1966), Oscar-winner Simone Signoret (Is Paris Burning?, 1966), Jean-Louis Trintignant (Les Biches, 1968) and Michel Piccoli (Topaz, 1969) – but directed with a Georges Simenon (creator of Maigret) sensibility to the frailties of humanity.

As well as the twists and turns of the narrative, what distinguishes this thriller are the parallel perspectives. Where most whodunits present an array of suspects, inviting the audience to work out the identity of the killer, here virtually all the characters are presented both objectively and subjectively. Some are delusional, others highly self-critical, occasionally both, and we are given glimpses into their lives through the characters’ internalized voice-over and dialog.

Tiny details open up worlds – the wife of a dead man bewailing that he would not be able to wear the fleecy shoes she had just bought him to keep out the cold during his night-time job, a policeman revealing he wanted to be a dancer, a vet who wants to create a new breed of animals, a witness whose parents committed suicide. But just as many, the flotsam and jetsam of the police life, irritate the hell out of the cops: Bob Valsky (Charles Denner) constantly berates their efforts, relatives bore the pants off their interviewer, not to mention self-important police chief Tarquin (Pierre Mondy) who has an answer for everything.

A young woman Georgette (Pascale Roberts) is discovered dead in the second-class sleeper compartment of a train after it has pulled into Paris. Initial suspicion falls on the other occupants including aging actress Eliane (Simone Signoret) in the thrall of her much younger lover Eric (Jean Louis Trintignant), impulsive blonde bombshell Bambi (Catherine Allegret), low-level office worker Rene (Michel Piccoli) and Madame Rivolani (Monique Chaumette). Weary Inspector Grazziani (Yves Montand), suffering from a cold and wanting to spend more time with his family, is handed the case. But before he can interview the suspects, they start getting knocked off.

So convinced are the police of their own theories that they ignore the testimony of Eliane and instantly home in on fantasist Rene, treated with contempt, a dishevelled lecherer who on the one hand misinterprets signals from women and on the other realizes that no one in their right mind would ever date him. Eliane is tormented by the prospect of being abandoned by her controlling lover.

It’s a race against time to find the passengers before the killer. In the middle of all this there is burgeoning romance between Bambi and clumsy mummy’s boy Daniel (Jacques Perrin), who may well hold the key to the murders. Their meet-cute is when he ladders her stockings.

I won’t spoil it for you by listing all the red herrings, surprises, mishaps, tense situations and explorations of psyche, but the pace never abates and it keeps you guessing to the end. And while all that keeps the viewer on tenterhooks what really makes the movie stand out is the depiction of the inner lives of the characters.

So often cast as a lover Yves Montand is outstanding as the diligent cop. Signoret captures beautifully the life of a once-beautiful woman who now enjoys the “empty gaze of men,” Trintignant essays a sleazier character than previously while Michel Piccoli who often at this stage of his career played oddballs invites sympathy for an unsympathetic character. Catherine Allegret (Last Tango in Paris, 1972) and Jacques Perrin (Blanche, 1971) charm as the young lovers. In tiny roles look out for director Claude Berri (Jean de Florette, 1986), Marcel Bozzuffi (The French Connection, 1971) and Claude Dauphin (Hard Contract, 1969),

Costa-Gavras constantly adds depth to the story and his innovative use of multiple voice-over, forensic detail, varying points-of-view, plus his masterful camerawork and a truly astonishing (for the time) car chase points to an early masterpiece. Sebastian Japrisot (Farewell, Friend / Adieu L’Ami, 1968) wrote the screenplay based on his novel.

Can’t remember where I got my DVD, perhaps second-hand, but there is an excellent print, taken from the 2016 restoration, available on YouTube.

Doctor in Love (1960) ****

Chortled all the way through. You can see why it was the biggest film at the British box office in 1960. Dirk Bogarde had turned up his nose at repeating the character for the fourth time and went off to make more serious pictures like Victim (1961) which, it transpired, dented his box office appeal. Replacement Michael Craig (Mysterious Island, 1961), while brawnier, passes this particular screen test with flying colors though he has his work cut out to hold his own against such practised scene stealers as James Robertson Justice (Mayerling, 1968) and Leslie Phillips (The Fast Lady, 1962) and once Virginia Maskell (The Wild and the Willing, 1962) enters proceeding her coolness makes the camera her own.

I was surprised how much this relied on innuendo. But this is a gentler exercise in smut than the sniggering guffawing Carry On approach. And there’s little chance of it descending into misogyny since the females hold all the aces. The plot is episodic and none the worse for that and even a diversion into a strip club, which might suggest a narrative clutching at straws, proves a surprising highpoint.

Basic story shifts Dr Hare (Michael Craig) out of hospital and into general practice which provides ample comedic opportunity via patients and colleagues. But, first of all, just to confuse matters and as if the producers were worried the series might not survive outside the boundaries of St Swithins Hospital, the tale begins with him returning to hospital with what turns out to be jaundice.

Cue the booming interventions of Sir Lancelot Spratt (James Robertson Justice) and the first of the love stories wherein Hare and Dr Hinxman (Nicholas Parsons) are rivals for flighty Nurse Sally Nightingale (Moira Redmond), who, in the first of many knocks to the male ego, while playing off one against the other goes off with another man. Before she does, Dr Hinxman takes revenge by prescribing all sorts of medications which will leave Hare so indisposed he is unable to respond to the nurse’s ardor.

Back in civvy street, as a GP, Dr Hare has to fend off predatory female patients and secretary Kitten Strudwick (Carole Lesley) and deal with standard comedic issues such as the boy who gets his head jammed in a cooking pot and the less common task of explaining the facts of life to a 40-year-old virgin. His boss Dr Cardew (Nicholas Phipps) is under the thumb of a wife who has shipped out to California only to summon her husband every now and then. The ever-amorous Dr Burke (Leslie Phillips) fills in and is the prime mover in an episode that involves strippers Dawn (Joan Sims) and Leonora (Liz Fraser). There’s a particularly good reversal in a drunken scene where the totally inebriated Wildewinde (Reginal Beckwith) completes all the police drunk tests (if that’s what they’re called) with ease.

When Dr Burke is incapacitated, his place is taken by Dr Nicola Barrington (Moira Redmond). And that should have been enough of a plot to see the picture through but the movie doubles down on complication. Dr Barrington fends off Dr Hare and when Nurse Nightingale reappears Barrington in due course quits. Dr Spratt is also on board for further scene-stealing duties including ruling the roost in a strip club and undergoing an operation.

The romantic situation is resolved, Dr Spratt is put in his place temporarily and our hero effects a return to the hospital.

I wouldn’t say the writing (by Nicholas Phipps) is of the highest caliber but the jokes come at an assembly line pace and the cast are superb, barely a cast member incapable of stealing a scene. You hire James Robertson Justice and Leslie Phillips at your peril. Without Dirk Bogarde hogging the scenery, this flows much better than others in the series, with the supporting cast being more than just foil to a star who was a major box office attraction at the time. And it helps that the women – Moira Redmond (Nightmare, 1964), Virginia Maskell, Carole Lesley (Three on a Spree, 1961), and Carry On regulars Joan Sims and Liz Fraser – are even more adept at scene-stealing than the men and not merely foil for misogynist jokes as in the Carry On series.

Director Ralph Thomas (The Wild and the Willing) seems to have found a new lease of life without having to deal with Dirk Bogarde and brings a certain verve to proceedings, especially in tripping up male ego.

Comedy is such an odd one to judge. Many a time I have sat through with scarcely a titter movies I’ve been told are hilarious. Other times I’ve been told to give them a free ride because they are making a point. So I stick to my own rule.

Make me laugh – I don’t care how – and this had me laughing all the way through.

They Shoot Horses, Don’t They (1969) *****

Fans of reality television shows will be only too aware how participants volunteer for ritual humiliation, but swallowing a few locusts and being stuck with a couple of snakes has nothing on the realities facing individuals during the Great Depression who would literally dance non-stop for days on end with a ten-minute break every two hours. It’s impossible to imagine that anybody could think of dreaming up such a degrading circus to take advantage of the desperate. But then this is America, land of opportunity and the MC Rocky (Gig Young) continues to spout aphorisms and continues to promote the American Dream even as it disintegrates in front of him.

When the partner of Gloria (Jane Fonda), out-of-work actress and one of the more physical and cynical of the candidates hoping to scoop the $1,500 first prize (no prizes for coming second, of course), is ruled out through bronchitis – in case he passes it on to others rather than more any humane consideration – she pairs up with dreamer Robert who initially wanders in as spectator rather than participant. Glamorous platinum blonde aspiring actress Alice (Susannah York) is already coming apart. Sailor (Red Buttons) is a former war hero and James (Bruce Dern) drags his heavily pregnant wife (Bonnie Bedelia) around the dance floor.

There is not a great deal of story except to watch everyone grow mentally and physically incapacitated. There is betrayal and lust and survival instinct leads characters into sexual situations. When Alice seduces Robert, in retaliation Gloria dumps him and then has sex with Rocky, while attempting to retain control of that situation, but clearly needing at the very least consolation and confirmation of her attractiveness and at best some sign of favoritism.

As well as non-stop dancing, Rocky throws in stunts to keep the audience, who can sponsor a pair, interested. So there are 10-minute races, the last three to be eliminated. So determined are some of the competitors they will even lug their dead partner over the finishing line. Another of Rocky’s wheezes is to have Gloria and Robert marry, worth $200 in terms of the gifts they will receive from a sentimental audience, in the middle of the dance floor.

They are literally dancing for hours, over 1,000 in over 40 days so gradually the dance floor becomes less crowded as dancers collapse from exhaustion or cannot take it anymore. The spectators, we are reminded, are only there because “they want to see someone worse than them.” Just when you think nothing can shock you any more, it is revealed that the first prize is minus the cost of feeding, sheltering and looking after the winner.

Those who think they are tough find that the demands of mental and physical endurance are beyond them. This is a shocking film and there’s no doubt it will stay with you for a long time. I saw it first when it came out but not again until now and thank goodness for forgetfulness otherwise I doubt if I would have chosen to sit through it again.

It’s doubtful if any actress had achieved such a speedy transition from glamorous leading lady to serious actress as Jane Fonda. From stripping in space in Barbarella (1968) to stripping away the last vestiges of her humanity here. Suddenly, she appears in a brand-new screen persona with the grating voice, the chip on the shoulder, the feistiness and worthy inheritor of father Henry’s acting genes. It’s also a bold role for Susannah York, in an extension of the weak character she essayed in Sands of the Kalahari (1965) but far more delusional, believing in a rainbow that will never appear. Michael Sarrazin (In Search of Gregory, 1969) initially appears out of his league but his character calls for a gentle innocence that is well within his scope.

Gig Young steals the picture, offered the opportunity to bring alive a multi-faceted character, as big a spiel-merchant who ever crossed the screen, but engaging in a marathon of optimism, and at some points, such as when coaxing a demented Alice out of the shower, earning our sympathy. Red Buttons (Stagecoach, 1966), Bruce Dern (Castle Keep, 1969) and Bonnie Bedelia (Die Hard, 1988) also put in sterling work.

The movie received nine Oscar nominations but was ignored in the Best Picture category. Only Gig Young won for Best Supporting Actor. Jane Fonda and Susannah York both received their first Oscar nominations, for Fonda the first of many, for York the one and only. It was also a debut nomination for Pollack, a future winner.

Sydney Pollack directs with simplicity, concentrating on the indignities of the event and focusing mostly on the personalities draining away, and even the drama is undercut, most of those scenes directed in straightforward style. However, Pollack plays around with the innovative fast forward – flashes into scenes that have not yet taken place. James Poe (Lilies of the Field, 1963), at one time down to direct, and Robert E. Thompson, a television writer making his first venture on the big screen, wrote the screenplay from the Horace McCoy novel.

Check out the Behind the Scenes article on this one.

The Scalphunters (1968) ****

If ever a film deserves reassessment, this is it. This western, marketed as a vehicle for Burt Lancaster in the wake of hugely successful The Professionals (1966), sees the star playing cussed trapper Joe Bass trying to retrieve furs stolen first by Native Americans and then by outlaws. That the serious race issues tackled here were dressed up in very broad comedy and typical western action ensured it missed out on the kind of recognition that critics would assign a straightforward drama and lost its rightful place as a pivotal picture of the decade.

In theory, a somewhat unusual Burt Lancaster western. In reality something else entirely. For large chunks of the movie Lancaster is absent as the story follows the fortunes of Black slave Joseph Lee (Ossie Davis) as he achieves not just freedom but genuine equality. Joseph is introduced as a slave of the Kiowa, left behind when the Indians steal Joe Bass’s furs. In compensation for his loss, Bass plans to sell Lee in the slave market in St Louis and in the meantime enrols him to help recover his furs.

However, a band of outlaws, specializing in collecting Native American scalps (hence the title) and selling them at $25 a time, get to the furs first as a by-product of a raid on the Kiowas. In pursuit with Bass, Lee falls into a river at the outlaw encampment and becomes the slave of Jim Howie (Telly Savalas) who also aims to sell him. Lee plans to escape until discovering Howie’s large troop is headed for Mexico where the slave would automatically become free. With clever talk, beauty-treatment skills and knowledge of astrology and ecology, Lee insinuates himself into the wagon of Howie’s paramour Kate (Shelley Winters).

With Bass still in pursuit, there are several excellent action scenes as the outnumbered trapper seeks to outwit Howie who turns out to be just as devious. But the main question is not whether Bass will recover his stolen property but which side will Lee pick. Will he act as spy to help Bass get back his furs or will he disown Bass and remain with the murderous genocidal gang who could provide a prospct of freedom? Either in the company of Bass or Howie, he is constantly reminded of his status, taking a beating from one of Howie’s thugs, Bass refusing to share his whisky because he views him not just as a slave who “picked his master” but as a coward refusing to fight back when attacked and beaten up.

The film comes to a very surprising ending but by that time through his own actions Lee is accepted as an equal by Bass and the issue of slavery dissolved. In effect, it is a tale of self-determination. Lee effects liberty by taking advantage of situations and standing up for his own cause.

Lee is one of the most interesting characters to appear on the western scene for a long time. Exactly where he acquired his education is unclear and equally hazy are how – and from where – he escaped and how he ended up as slave of the Commanches before they traded him to the Kiowa. However he came to be in the thick of the story, his tale is by far the most original. But he’s not the only original. The fearless Bass was an early ecological warrior with an intimate understanding of living off the wild, not in normal genre fashion of killing anything that moves, but in knowing how to find sustenance from plants. That in itself would endear him to modern lovers of alternative lifestyles.

Normally the derogatory term “scalphunters” would be reference to Native Americans, but here it is American Americans who exploit this market. Despite being the leader of a vicious bunch, Howie turns out to be a bit of a romantic and Kate a bit more interested in the world than your average female sidekick.

Director Sydney Pollack (The Slender Thread, 1965) does a marvelous job not just in fulfilling action expectations and taking widescreen advantage of the locations but in allowing Lee to take center stage when, technically, according to the credits, Ossie Davis was only the fourth most important member of the cast. Burt Lancaster was approaching an acting peak, following this with The Swimmer (1968) and Castle Keep (1969), happy to take risks on all three pictures, especially here where for most of the movie he is outwitted and ends up in a mud bath.

Both Telly Savalas (Sol Madrid, 1968) and Shelley Winters (A House Is Not a Home, 1964) rein in their normal more exuberant personas. Savalas, in particular, cleaves closer to his straightforward work in The Slender Thread than the over-the-top performance of The Dirty Dozen (1967). Winters, usually feisty, is here more winsome and vulnerable, apt to be taken in by sweet-talking men.

But Ossie Davis (The Hill, 1965) is the standout, his repartee spot-on. It is a hugely rounded performance, one minute wheedling, the next sly, boldness and cowardice blood brothers, and while his brainpower gives him the advantage over all the others he is only too aware that such superiority counts for nothing while he remains a slave.

It’s dialog rich and it’s a shame it wasn’t a big hit for that would have surely triggered a sequel – especially in the wake of the following year’s buddy-movie Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid – because the banter between Lee and Bass is priceless. For the dialog thank the original screenplay by future convicted gun-runner William W. Norton (Brannigan, 1975), father of director Bill Norton (Cisco Pike, 1971).

Go see.

Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man (1991) *****

I always approach cult with some unease. You never know why a film has fallen into the category. It could simply be awful and resurrected with glee because someone has cleverly constructed a sub-genre called So Bad It’s Good – check out Orgy of the Dead (1965) or Can Hieronymus Merkin Ever Forget Mercy Humpe and Find True Happiness? (1969). Or it’s been a surprising flop first time round and discovered an audience through VHS and DVD – The Shawshank Redemption (1994) the forerunner in that field. But the plusses – well-made, great characters, some standout scenes – in the Stephen King adaptation were so obvious and the studio put a lot of dough behind re-marketing it to the at-home audience that it was not so surprising that it found a better response second time around.

But Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man did not, as with The Shawshank Redemption, come garlanded with seven Oscar nominations, and the stars had considerably less marquee appeal and peer acceptance than Tim Robbins (The Player, 1992) and Morgan Freeman (Driving Miss Daisy, 1990). Mickey Rourke (9½ Weeks, 1986) and Don Johnson (The Hot Spot, 1990) had not only mostly blown their status in the Hollywood hierarchy but only seemed one newspaper headline away from further notoriety.

That it works – and so well- relies on mix of several ingredients. In the first place it’s a throwback to the buddy movie, the easy camaraderie between Harley Davidson (Mickey Rourke) and the Marlboro Man (Don Johnson) has obvious precedents from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) and clearly is some kind of homage to the Paul Newman-Robert Redford picture since it pinches three of the elements that made the western such a box office smash.

Secondly, our fellas do bad for a good – if somewhat lopsided – reason so aren’t true criminals and, in any case, earn a get-out-of-jail-free card because it turns out they’ve robbed from proper bad guys. Thirdly, there’s a terrific robbery and street shoot-out. Fourthly, it draws on the spaghetti western in the costume department, repurposing the top-to-toe dusters into black leather, an idea that would be snatched up by the likes of The Matrix and quintet of bad guys toting machine guns and dressed in black picked up not only by The Matrix but also by Men in Black (1997).

You could argue that a better director than Simon Wincer (Harlequin, 1980) would have done more visually with the leather-clad gangsters emerging from a vehicle and producing a solid wall of lead – perhaps through slo-mo or taking more time to concentrate on their sudden appearance – and made it a scene that might stand up to the ambulatory episodes in The Wild Bunch (1969) or Reservoir Dogs (1992). Even so, quite simply, it is a stunningly arresting piece of cinema.

But the real reason this works is that the two main characters are so human. Harley is given to philosophizing and wondering (in the manner, it might be said, of Butch Cassidy) and Marlboro loses out in love. While they fall into the category of endless drifters, an aversion to commitment, living easy, and more in love with their bikes than anything else, they are almost winsome in their innocence, as if everyone else will just fall into line with their world view.

*Signed photo of Mickey Rourke in this piacture will set you back three hundred bucks.*
*That’s cult for you.*

Anyways, we are duped into thinking this is going to be a John Wick-Die Hard wild ride from the opening scenes where both dudes prove mighty handy with their fists, Harley preventing a gas-station robbery, Marlboro taking on poolroom cheats in a bar. The plot only kicks in when they discover that the bank is planning to foreclose on their favorite bar. Needing to get their hands on a quick $2.5 million, the boys decide to do a bit of foreclosing themselves, taking the required sum from the bank in question, organizing a neat heist only to discover they’ve not stolen money but drugs.

Being smarter than your average hood, they swap the drugs for the dough but don’t take into account that the villains are smarter than the average thug and aren’t in the business of donating to good causes. The gangsters hunt them down. Harley and Marlboro could just disappear, especially once they dispose of the hidden tracking device, because they are A-grade students in the art of hiding away. Instead, honor is at stake so they set up an ambush in an airplane graveyard.

Since you’re asking, the Butch Cassidy the Sundance Kid grace notes are: Marlboro is the equal of The Sundance Kid is the shooting stakes and, in fact, like his predecessor, Marlboro manages the same trick of shooting off a character’s gunbelt; in the gunfighting stakes, Harley is the equivalent of Butch, never killed a man, absolutely useless with a pistol; and, the piece de resistance, when trapped they jump off an exceptionally high ledge into water.

Mickey Rourke and Don Johnson take the opportunity to shift well away from their existing screen personas and are thoroughly engaging. Simon Wincer keeps to a tidy pace. Written by Don Michael Paul (Half Past Dead, 2002) in his debut.

The action is top-notch, all the characters are well-drawn, the women not just bed fodder, usually brighter than the men. Terrific roster of supporting cast including Chelsea Field (The Last Boy Scout, 1991), Tom Sizemore (Saving Private Ryan, 1998), Robert Ginty (The Exterminator, 1980), Daniel Baldwin (Mulholland Falls, 1996), pop star Vanessa Williams (Eraser, 1996), Giancarlo Esposito (Megalopolis, 2024), Tia Carrere (Rising Sun, 1993) and Kelly Hu (X-Men 2, 2003).

The kind of movie where you wish they would do it all over again. Had the movie been a success a sequel would have been a shoo-in. As it is, we’ve only got this, so enjoy it while you can.

Catch it (for the moment) on Amazon Prime.

Duet for Cannibals (1969) ****

Terrific twist-a-minute thriller. Forget its arthouse origins. The gap of half a century since its initial appearance has worked in its favor and you can now view it as exceptionally gripping entertainment. The Swedish setting doesn’t mean it’s drenched in angst and repression, and instead pivots on that other Swedish contribution to cinema of that decade of sex and nudity. Though power games these days tend to belong to the horror vernacular where innocents stray into the wrong location – Barbarian (2022), Heretic (2024) – outwith such business-set items as Working Girl (1988) and The Devil Wears Prada (2006), this belongs to an earlier version of the cycle which relies on sexual undertones.

This will most likely be touted as worth a look because it was one of the very few – less than a dozen – movies directed by women in the 1960s. While Swedish actress Mai Zetterling was the jointly the most prolific with four films beginning with Loving Couples (1964) and Frenchwoman Agnes Varda, also with four, the most acclaimed following Cleo from 5 to 7 (1962), American Susan Sontag’s debut – she also wrote the piece – was the most highly awaited. Through her writings she was something of an outspoken icon and an intellectual powerhouse.

*You can tell it’s arthouse because the poster is only altered minimally.*
*Instead of holding four figures in her hand the woman now holds on.*

Made in Sweden with a Swedish cast and while originally seen as Bergmanesque or perhaps Pinteresque, a contemporary audience is more likely to ignore the other influences and settle for the innocents walking willingly into a trap. Tomas (Gosta Ekman) goes to work for enigmatic political exile Dr Bauer (Lars Ekborg). His duties mostly involve curating the revolutionary’s life’s work, transcribing diaries and such, but occasionally he is called upon to do what appear to be simple acts of espionage, nothing dangerous just delivering a mysterious parcel.

Dr Bauer is pumped up with his own importance and expects employees at his beck and call – Tomas has to sleep there, in a made-up bed in the library – and enjoys the power surge of bawling people out when minor mishaps occur. But he also enjoys – if that’s the word – a peculiar marriage to younger Italian wife Francesca (Adrianna Asti) who while doe-eyed is far from docile. On her first encounter with Tomas, Francesca breaks a window and it’s not long until she exerts a sexual lure.

Tomas dreams of making love to her and would watch her making love to her husband in a car in the garage except Francesca obscures the windscreen with shaving foam. That scene in itself is one of the most intriguing. She has thrown an almighty sulk, locked herself in the car, ignoring her husband until she starts the engine and nearly mows him down at which point the tempo dramatically changes triggering for a bout of heavy sex.

*Nothing so common as a noveliization for Sontag. She gets the full screenplay treatment.*
*This appeared in 1970.*

Theoretically, Dr Bauer is dying from a mysterious illness. You get the sense he’s auditioning Tomas as someone to look after his wife when he’s gone, but all of that could just be part of the game.

There’s a marvelous scene where Tomas is encouraged to continue eating at the dinner table to the soundtrack of Dr Bauer throwing up in the toilet. When the doctor returns, he heaps food on his plate and continues eating.

Dr Bauer isn’t just paranoid – the cook’s poisoning him, his phone’s tapped, Tomas is a spy, his wife’s planning to kill him – but he’s also a narcissist, studying his face in the mirror, improving his appearance with wigs and a painted-on aesthetic beard. He encourages potential intimacy by having Tomas read poetry to his wife.

She’s the dominant one in her fantasy, rescuing Tomas from an enchanted castle, standing above him on a stool, bandaging his face so that as a mummy he can terrorize her in sexual fashion. She puts her husband’s perennial sunglasses on his eyes. Sometimes her husband’s head is bandaged.

Braun plans to kill his wife because “there’s no point keeping her alive.” Equally, she, apparently is intent on returning the compliment though she wants Tomas to do the dirty deed. Or it could be a murder-suicide pact.

She locks her husband in her bedroom closet so she can make love to Tomas while he listens but he also has key to the door and could let himself out at any time. When Tomas’s girlfriend Ingrid (Agneta Ekmanner) enters the equation Tomas is forced to watch her making love to Dr Bauer. And it’s not long before Tomas is chucked out and Ingrid sucked in. In one of the most erotic scenes you’ll ever witness husband and wife feverishly feed Ingrid with their hands and before you know it she’s sharing their bed.

Even within the confines and the mathematical possibilities of the power play, you still never know which way this is going to turn. You might quibble at the voice-over which attempts to play much of the goings-on through Tomas’s POV and the flirtations with left wing politics, but those are easy to ignore as you are carried along on the twists and turns. It keeps twisting till the very end when the stings in the tail come fast.

These days it would be played at a higher tempo, the melodramatic elements ramped up, but actually the lack of emotional heft works to its advantage. Terrific debut from Susan Sontag. The slinky Adriana Asti (Love Circle, 1969) steals the show.

Rare find.

Catch it on Netflix (great print) or YouTube.

Should you be interested YouTube has an interview with both Sontag and Varda.

Hot Enough for June / Agent 8 3/4 (1964) ***

Thanks to his language skills unemployed wannabe writer Nicholas (Dirk Bogarde) is recruited as a trainee executive on a too-good-to-be-true job visiting a Czech glass factory only to discover that while engaged on what appears a harmless piece of industrial espionage is in fact considerably more serious. Complications arise when he falls in love with his chauffeur Vlasta (Sylva Koscina) whose father, Simenova (Leo McKern), is head of the Czech secret police.

Eventually, it dawns on Nicholas that he is in the employ of the British secret service headed by Colonel Cunliffe (Robert Morley). Soon he is on the run. Adopting a variety of disguises including waiter, Bavarian villager and milkman, he evades capture and makes a pact with Vlasta that neither of them will participate in espionage activities.

A chunk of the comedy arises from misunderstandings, Iron Curtain paranoia, the destruction of indestructible glass, password complications, Nicholas’s contact turning out to be a washroom attendant, and from the essentially indolent Nicholas being forced into uncharacteristic action. Soon he is adopting the kind of ruses a secret agent would invent to outwit the opposition, including burning the hand of a man with his cigarette and stealing a milk cart.

The romance is believable enough and Vlasta has the cunning to shake off the secret agent shadowing her, although the ending is unbelievable and might have been stolen from a completely different soppy picture. Although Nicholas is clearly in harm’s way several times that is somewhat undercut by the espionage at a higher level being presented as a gentleman’s game.

There are unnecessary nods to 007 and the kind of gadgets essential to Bond films, although none come Nicholas’s way. But these attempts to modernise what is otherwise an old-fashioned comedy largely fail. Taking a middle ground in comedy rarely works. You have to go for laughs rather than plod around hoping they will miraculously appear. And in fact the comedy is redundant in a plot – innocent caught up in nefarious world – that has sufficient story and interesting enough characters to work.

That the movie is in any way a success owes everything to the casting. Dirk Bogarde, though well into his 40s, still can carry off a character more than a decade younger. He can turn on the diffidence with the flicker of an eyelash. And yet can call on inner strength if required. He is the ideal foil for light comedy, having made his bones in Doctor in the House (1954), reprising the character for Doctor in Distress (1963) and dipped in and out of serious drama such as Victim (1961) and the acclaimed The Servant (1964), released just before this.

In some respects it seems as if two different pictures are passing each other in the night. The Bogarde section, excepting some comedy of misfortune, is played for real while in the background is a bit of a spoof on the espionage drama.

Sylva Koscina (The Secret War of Harry Frigg, 1968) is excellent as the beauty who betrays her country for love. Robert Morley (Topkapi, 1964) and Leo McKern (Assignment K, 1968), although in on the joke, are nonetheless convincing as the secret service bosses. Look out for a host of lesser names in bit parts including Roger Delgado (The Running Man, 1963), Noel Harrison (The Girl from U.N.C.L.E. 1966-1967), Richard Pasco (The Gorgon, 1964) and stars of long-running British television comedies John Le Mesurier, Derek Fowlds and Derek Nimmo.

This was the eighth partnership between director Ralph Thomas and Dirk Bogarde, four in the Doctor series but also three serious dramas in Campbell’s Kingdom (1957), A Tale of Two Cities (1958) and The Wind Cannot Read (1958). In themselves the comedies and the dramas were successful, but mixing the two, as here, less so. Written by Lukas Heller (Flight of the Phoenix, 1965) from the bestseller by Lionel Davidson.

American distributors were less keen on this picture and it was heavily cut for U.S. release and retitled Agent 8¾ presumably in an effort to cash in on the James Bond phenomenon. I’ve no idea what was lost – or perhaps what was gained – by the editing.

The end result of the original version is a pleasant enough diversion but not enough of the one and not enough of the other to really stick in the mind.

Should you be interested in how the book was translated into the film, there’s another article here covering that. Link below.

https://themagnificent60s.wordpress.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=6300&action=edit

It Takes a Thief / The Challenge (1960) ****

Extremely dark-edged thriller at least a decade ahead of its time. Absolute corker of a sting in the tail. Instead of being the gangster’s moll, Jayne Mansfield – following on from another British-made thriller Playgirl After Dark / Too Hot to Handle (1960) – turns the genre on its head by playing the smart leader of a gang of bank robbers constantly evading detection by the police. Anthony Quayle (East of Sudan, 1964) drops his good guy stiff upper lip screen persona in favor of a villain.

Most heist movies either fall into the category of mostly heist (Topkapi, 1964) and half-heist and half-aftermath. Here the heist is dealt with pretty quickly and then we’re into a complicated aftermath with double cross the order of the day. Even the supposed good guys – a cop and a union leader – have a distinctly mean streak. And on top of that we have a whole load of car chases. Just one would be unusual at the time for this budget category, but here we have three, complete with crashes and cars totaled off the road. And on top of that there’s an exceptionally creepy attempt at getting an inconvenient young child to commit suicide by playing chicken on a railway line.

Widowed lorry driver Jim (Anthony Quayle), who has dreams of owning a farm, is seduced into acting as the driver for the latest bank heist organized by Billy (Jayne Mansfield). While his van loaded with the loot tootles off unimpeded, she acts as bait in another car to snooker the cops into pursuing the rest of the gang. As proof of her love for him, she entrusts him with burying the loot in a place of his choosing.

He doesn’t get the chance to dig it up again because someone’s snitched on him, most likely Billy’s ex Kristy (Carl Mohner). And since he can’t snitch on the gang to save his own skin he ends up doing a five-year stretch. When he comes out, he finds the cops shadowing his every move, and Kristy taking his place in Billy’s bed. Det Sgt Gittens (Edward Judd) decides to play dirty by suggesting that Jim is intent on double-crossing her.

The gang, determined on recovering the loot as soon as possible, have their own arsenal of dirty tricks, beating up Jim’s mother and kidnapping his son. You’d think that with his mum black and blue and his son in the hands of the crooks that Jim would give up the loot. But, as I said, he’s not a good guy and is willing to risk all he supposedly holds dearly to get his hands on the dosh.

There’s a twist that Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (1974) later down the line exploit. Instead of someone building a school over the hiding place as with the Clint Eastwood picture, here it is hidden under dozens of barrels of high explosive encased in barbed wire. With the deadline approaching for killing his son, Jim attempts to enlist a bunch of local laborers only to be stopped in his tracks by the bureaucracy of a union shop steward.

Meanwhile, the couple, and despite all the motherliness of the childless wife (Barbara Mullen), forced to hide the child aren’t making the slightest attempt to help him escape. Instead, we watch with incredulity as one of the hoods, stumbling upon an easy way to get rid of a body, tempts the child into playing the aforementioned game of chicken.

Tension remains at a peak all the way through, in part because audiences are expecting Anthony Quayle to rouse himself from the depths of criminality and do the right thing, but mostly, in the template that Christopher Nolan would follow, three sets of narrative constantly come together.

There are two stings in the tail. Firstly, the burial site is obliterated when the barrels of high explosive shoot sky high. Secondly, with decided relish, Sgt Gittens informs Billy that the cops recovered the loot years before, so he’d risked mother and son for nothing. You can’t get blacker irony than that.

Jayne Mansfield was a much bigger attraction than Anthony Quayle and she puts in a superb performance as the mastermind and the practical woman, not willing to put career or love life on hold while Jim does his time. And while she’s slinky enough and occasionally brazen, she’s also decidedly human, but no more inclined than Jim to allow anybody to get in the way of the rewards of crime.

Like the crime pictures Britain showed a distinct aptitude for in the 1970s – Get Carter (1971), Villain (1971) and Sitting Target (1972) – this stays resolutely on the wrong side of the fence with not a single redeemable character.

Written and directed by John Gilling before he shifted into horror (The Reptile, 1966), this is a more than able piece, pulling no punches and resisting the temptation to sneak in any sentimentality.

Minor gem.

Catch it on Talking Pictures TV.

The Long Good Friday (1980) *****

Got two predictions correct – that the conversion of London Docklands into upmarket housing was a potential goldmine and that London would become the beating financial heart of Europe. Though I would have thought everyone, even as arrogant a character as gangster Harold Shand (Bob Hoskins), would have known not to tangle with the IRA. Of course, he hasn’t done this deliberately, that’s just the sting in the tail, unravelling the complex mystery of who’s got it in for him.

This would be a fitting addition to the 1970s trilogy of British gangster pictures par excellence – Get Carter (1971), Villain (1971) and Sitting Target (1972) – except you could argue it’s better than the lot. Here we’re on The Godfather Part II territory, the big-time hood who’s gone legit. Harold already owns a casino, upmarket restaurant and pubs, and swans around in a luxury yacht but he’s got his eye on bigger game, investment in the Docklands, an ideal money-laundering concept, and he’s hooked a potential partner in American Mafia chief Charlie (Eddie Constantine).

Much as Harold would like to show off his svelte businessman side, his attempts to ooze class disappear at the first sign of trouble and soon he is working those teeth so hard he could be auditioning for Jaws. We’ve got an inkling of what’s going on but it takes a good while for everything to add up and even then Harold is convinced someone’s got their sums wrong since he’s ruled the London underworld for a decade and nobody with any sense would take him on.

The businessman façade falls away when his close aide and longtime buddy Colin (Paul Freeman) is murdered and his Rolls Royce and a pub are blown up. And it takes virtually the whole picture for Harold to discover just why a woman on her way to a funeral stopped the car long enough to spit in the face of one of Harold’s top henchmen, Jeff (Derek Thompson).

So mostly what we’ve got is Harold reverting to old-style violence, presumably using the methods that got him to the top in the first place, as he tortures and terrifies everyone in sight. Some of the brutality is inventive stuff as movie torture goes, one fellow having his naked backside sliced open by a machete, the rest of the top gang leaders rounded up in an abattoir as if they were sides of beef awaiting slaughter.

Meanwhile, wife Victoria (Helen Mirren), a version of what used to be known as “posh totty”, tries to keep the deal active by charming the pants off every male who comes within a sniff of her, some so driven by temptation they declare they “want to lick every inch of her.”

So, on the one hand, it’s big business and all the jiggery-pokery that goes in the legitimate world even among illegal contenders, and on the other hand it’s all the jiggery-pokery that goes on in the illegal world among all the illegal contenders.

*Incredible score by Francis Monkman. Why he wrote so few is a mystery.*

While there are many standout moments – and you’d be hard put to beat the climactic scene of Harold in the back of a taxi facing his demise – and director John MacKenzie wields his camera with considerable verve, his ace in the hole is always the expressive face of Harold. Whether he’s practising his bonhomie, or stiffening at the latest outrage, or letting loose physically and verbally it’s a fabulous acting tour de force as if James Cagney had met Al Pacino. And like Oliver Reed in Sitting Target, simmering rage is smoothed over by feminine companionship, the close bond between Harold and Victoria one of the key ingredients.

Turned Bob Hoskins (Zulu Dawn, 1979) into a star and had the British end of the industry been in better shape he had might made a smoother transition to the top echelons instead of waiting for Mona Lisa (1986) to polish his credentials.

Although we Brits like to think the acting of “national treasure” Helen Mirren was always being recognized on the domestic front, long before she achieved unquestionable credibility from pocketing an Oscar for The Queen (2006), in truth by this point her movie career was in limbo. Hardly any screen work since her breakthrough in Age of Consent (1969) and three of her last four pictures – Caligula (1979), S.O.S. Titanic (1979) and The Fiendish Plot of Fu Manchu (1980) – counting as calamities. This was a fresh take on an actress who, too often for her own good, had been seen as better naked than clothed.

It was almost a homage to cult to employ Eddie Constantine (S.O.S. Pacific, 1960) but it was surprising how many of the supporting cast came good including future James Bond Pierce Brosnan as a gay killer, Paul Freeman (Raiders of the Lost Ark, 1981), Derek Thompson (nearly 40 years on BBC series Casualty), and future director Dexter Fletcher (Rocketman, 2019).

Original screenplay by Barrie Keefe on his debut.

Still stands up as a gangster great.