Brian Hannan

The Blood Beast Terror (1968) ***

As the title suggests there’s a vampiric element, and there’s not a great deal unusual in that, Hammer having successfully revived interest in bloodsuckers. What is unusual, however, and a couple of years before that studio’s The Vampire Lovers (1970) is the idea of female empowerment. Previously, the sole purpose of a damsel in a horror picture was to lay bare a convenient bosom for a passing thirsty creature, or, have their clothing disarrayed and let out a scream when a monster pounced.

The twist here is that the vampire is a woman, Clare (Wanda Ventham), and men who are the victims except on the occasions when her father Dr Mallinger (Robert Flemyng) hypnotizes young women in order to give the creature a blood transplant. The beast exists as a creature and then morphs into Clare. For a time it looks as if Clare is merely possessed, but in reality appears much more as if she is enjoying being the beast, abandoning the enforced respectability of the times, luring men into the forest to have her rapacious way with them, the men naturally thinking they are in for a romantic tryst rather than being targeted by a predator.

*Continuing the theme of misleading the audience, this poster cleverly suggests that it’s a man who is the beast and the woman who are the victims.*

There’s a wonderful scene that gives an insight into her mindset. Her friends put on a little play. Her role is the monster, a part she seizes with relish.

It’s one of those films you have to work out backward. In standard horror fashion it leaves the twist till close to the end and it would have been far more interesting if we had discovered at the outset that Clare was the beast, leading the men for the most part a merry dance, outwitting Inspector Quennell (Peter Cushing) and her adoring father Dr. Mallinger (Robert Flemyng).

The inspector, faced with a growing pile of corpses drained of blood, is baffled throughout, no Sherlock Holmes clever deductions here, and it naturally would not occur to any of the males, beyond Dr Mallinger who is in on the secret, to imagine a woman capable of not just committing such crimes but of exerting such power over a man. The story glosses over the genetics, it’s a version of Frankenstein obviously, but the background to it is missing, and I can see why. There has to be some mystery.

Hitchcock could not have done a better job of misleading the audience. For a start the story is told entirely through the male perspective. And it’s set up as a murder mystery, Quennell our lead as he dances from one corpse to the other, helped along in his information accumulation by lugubrious mortuary attendant (Roy Hudd), who is, ironically, as hungry as the beast, but for normal food rather than blood, always seen devouring something. Mallinger is not a mad professor either, but a distinguished one, celebrated in his field, giving lectures and attracting proteges like Britewell (William Wilde).

*Initial British release double bill cleverly bringing together Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee –*
*though in separate pictures*.

Although his daughter acts as laboratory assistant, Mallinger is hardly aware that his daughter is sizing up every male visitor as a potential victim.

The posters give away that the creature is a giant moth, and by and large the special effects (no CGI available of course) pull this off, the creature usually just glimpsed or seen from the distance, and the possibility that Mallinger is aware of what he is harbouring apparent when he enters a cellar wearing a leather hood and carrying a whip.

Tony Tenser’s production company Tygon has acquired cult status, in part for having the temerity to take on British horror giant Hammer at the height of its powers in the 1960s, and in part from the distinction of its output, making such films as The Sorcerers (1967) with Boris Karloff, Peter Cushing as Witchfinder General (1968) and Karloff, Christopher Lee and Barbara Steele in The Crimson Cult/ The Curse of the Crimson Altar (1968). Tenser ploughed a different furrow to Hammer at a time when that studio was also expanding into bigger-budgeted movies such as One Million Years B.C. (1966).

Capably not to say cleverly director by veteran Vernon Sewell (The Crimson Cult) it is miles ahead of its time and generally delivers the goods. Peter Cushing (The Skull, 1965) is excellent as usual, Robert Flemyng (The Deadly Affair, 1967) proves a more interesting scientist than usual, steering clear of any craziness.

Wanda Ventham in her first leading role provides a fascinating character study, but you have to work backwards as I said, to realize just how good she is, the way she has, for Victorian times, her father under her thumb, and the seductive glances she casts at men, not to mention the ease with which she assists her father in his diabolical experiments without him realizing why she is so enamored. Female monsters had evolved from creatures before – in Cat People (1942), Snake Woman (1961) and Hammer’s The Reptile (1966) – but this was a more rapacious example of the species. Vanessa Howard (Some Girls Do, 1969) has a small role and you can spot Scottish character actor Glynn Edwards (Zulu, 1963) and television comedian Roy Hudd in his movie debut.

Screenwriter Peter Bryan (The Brides of Dracula, 1960), something of an expert in the horror field, turns the whole genre on its head with the gender politics examined here.

Last Summer (1969) ****

Given the severity of the crime involved, you leave Frank Perry’s coming-of-age-drama wondering what happened to the four principals. Did the aggressive three young demi-gods of a golden age go on to pursue similar acts of cruelty? While one of them might show remorse, or at least suffer from guilt, of the other two I have my doubts. They would find ways to blame the injured party. And what about the victim? Would she have the courage to report the crime, or suffer in shame for decades.

It’s odd how time changes entirely the shape of a movie. In its day this was seen as a bold exposition of frank adventure by teenagers seeking their first experiences of growing up and experimenting with sex and drugs (pilfered from a parental stash). Although there is little focus on dysfunctionality, both Sandy (Barbara Hershey) and Rhoda (Cathy Burns) are missing a parent, the former’s father running off with another woman, the latter’s mother drowned by stupid misadventure. Both have been abused, unable to prevent the wandering hands of males. All are vulnerable, if only by youth.

Of the boys, Dan (Bruce Davison) is the more confident, Peter (Richard Thomas), while easily swayed, the gentler of the two. Dan merely seeks his first taste of sex, Peter the more likely to need love as well. Sandy is sexually precocious, somewhat on the exhibitionist side, peeling off her bikini top with apparently at times no idea of the effect it will have on the boys, at other times clearly uncomfortable with the notion that the guys might have nothing else on their minds but staring at her breasts. But she is the one who wants to continue watching a gay couple cavorting on the beach while Dan is embarrassed. Sometimes the frank sexuality is rite-of-passage stuff, other times it is distinctly creepy. In the cinema both men grope her breasts. She claims to have been excited by the experience, but you can’t help thinking at least one of the men should have shown restraint, not treating her as if she was some kind of sex toy.

The movie begins on a clearer note. The guys come across Sandy nursing a wounded gull and perhaps entranced by her good looks help her remove a hook from the bird’s throat, provide convalescence and eventually help the bird recover the confidence to fly again. It’s a cosy trio, but edgy, too, Sandy allowing them considerable latitude. But, of course, the guys do the same to her. When she bludgeons the bird to death because it bit her (“the ungrateful bastard”), the pair, initially shocked, are not shocked enough to reject her, afflicted by unassailable male logic, the kind that drove film noir, that maintained a beautiful woman could not have a black heart.

Separated from the other two, Peter displays a gentler side, teaching the shy Rhoda to swim, kissing her in far more considerate fashion than the boys treat Sandy. But, effectively, she is a pet, and it’s only a matter of time before the unsavory aspect of Sandy’s character breaks out. After setting Rhoda up on a date, the trio do everything they can to spoil it, angry at the poor girl for not getting the “joke.”

Worse is to follow. Date-rape we’d call it today. Retreating to the cool forest, Sandy taunts Rhoda by removing her bikini top. When the horrified Rhoda refuses to do the same, Sandy attacks her, holding her down along with Peter while Dan rapes her. That’s where the film ends, no consequences, no repercussion. Back in the day it was a shock ending, an act of violence to mar an otherwise relatively innocent summer. After the deed is done, the camera pulls back into an aerial shot to observe the guilty trio walking back to the beach, but without drawing conclusion or offering moral judgement. It’s hard to know what to make of the ending. These days, of course, we’d be appalled. But back then it didn’t appear to appall, certainly not drawing the outrage that accompanied similar scenes in The Straw Dogs (1971) or A Clockwork Orange (1971) perhaps because the perpetrators were so attractive and it was, after all, a coming-of-age picture, as if such things could be expected.

Roger Ebert, writing in the Chicago Sun-Times, for example, judged that the conclusion “is not really important to the greatness of the movie.” Andrew Sarris of Village Voice noted that “Perry retreats from the carnal carnage” to end with a shot that “prefers symbolic evocation to psychological exploration.” In other words adolescence is fraught with risk and Rhoda is just collateral damage.

Certainly the acting is uniformly excellent for such inexperienced actors, coping with many changes in dramatic focus, from early exhilaration through growing pains to violence. Barbara Hershey (Heaven with a Gun, 1969) would go on to become a major star. Amazing to realise that Bruce Davison (Willard, 1971) and Cathy Burns, Oscar-nominated for her role, were making their movie debuts and for Hershey and Richard Thomas (Winning, 1969) their sophomore outings.

Director Frank Perry (The Swimmer, 1968) had a special affinity with the young as he had proved with David and Lisa (1962) and at times the whole affair had an improvised free-wheeling style. Eleanor Perry (David and Lisa) wrote the screenplay based on the novel by Evan Hunter (The Birds, 1963).

This is very hard to find, it turns out, so Ebay might be your best bet.

My thanks to one of my readers, Mike, for digging up this story of the disappearance of Catherine Burns from the movie business.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-features/catherine-burns-inside-50-year-disappearance-an-oscar-nominee-1275646/

Mouse on the Moon (1963) ***

The gentle comedy for which the British were famous prior to the more raucous offerings from the Carry On team always contained an element of satire. Sometimes that has bite, but as often not, and almost, in a continuation of the gentleness of the format, appears like an afterthought. However, it’s not hard to skewer incompetence or hypocrisy or the foolish grandeur of nations, regardless of size.

There’s no blunderbuss required here – not with such easy targets as the space race, politics and the Cold War – just a gentle poke here and there at ambition, grandiosity and grandstanding as the tiny (barely comprising 15 square miles) country of the Duchy of Grand Fenwick somewhere in central Europe shows up global giants Russia and the United States. Sensibly, this doesn’t try to place one character at the center of the morass. Instead, stupidity is spread far and wide, as various characters cede vanity to the next.

The central conceit is one of those barmy ones that any scientist could make plausible – think of growing potatoes on Mars in The Martian or the nimble invention at play in Project Hail Mary (2026). The chemical reactions of bad wine set off the kind of explosions that could provide a substitute for rocket fuel and send a spaceship to the moon.

But that the idea is given oxygen in the first place by the superpowers wanting to be seen to be bigger than anyone else and by maintaining their rivalry when there’s little need.

Grand Fenwick is not just the type of place where nothing works – palace plumbing erratic, parades catastrophic, politicians corrupt and we are treated to a battalion of incompetents from Grand Duchess Gloriana (Margaret Rutherford), apt to nod off at state functions, Prime Minister Mountjoy (Ron Moody) who places having a hot bath about the needs of the populace and whose niece Cynthia (June Ritichie) is an agitator for reform, his untrustworthy political rival Benter (Roddy McMillan), and British spy Bender (Terry-Thomas) for whom bumbling is an art form.

Romance is in there somewhere when Mountjoy’s ineffective son Vincent (Bernard Cribbins) falls for Cynthia. But mostly it’s a concoction that relies on everything going wrong at the right time and anything that goes right nonetheless manages to cause appropriate chaos.

Having secured a million bucks in funding from America to purportedly send a rocket, a useless one donated by the Russians in a riposte to American generosity, to the moon, Mountjoy intends to pocket the cash by ensuring the rocket blows up on launch. However, it takes off, propelled by the wine with Vincent and scientist Professor Kokintz (David Kossoff) on board, triggering a genuine space race involving the two superpowers, propaganda the prize for the winner.

Naturally, nothing goes the way you expect and the little guys outwit the big guys.

This was an early directorial venture from Richard Lester (Petulia, 1968) so that accounts for some of the bite. Given this is populated in the main by character actors, Lester allows them do their thing while ensuring that the comedy is as much reliant on satire as buffoonery. No need here for double entendres or slapstick, the original set-up works out just fine.

Margaret Rutherford (Murder Ahoy, 1964) could have run away with this picture but her natural instinct to dominate is kept in check. Ron Moody (Oliver!, 1968) heads a cast of movie also-rans, some of whom made a successful transition to television like John Le Mesurier (Dad’s Army), Hugh Lloyd (Hugh and I) and Roddy McMillan (The Vital Spark). Terry-Thomas (Our Man in Marrakesh/Bang! Bang! You’re Dead, 1966) would have stolen the picture if given more scenes. Bernard Cribbins (Carry On Spying, 1964) offers another of his hapless characters while June Ritchie (The World Ten Times Over, 1963) adds a note of glamor.

This was a sequel to The Mouse That Roared (1959) and had to make do without original star, Peter Sellers, who had played three roles. Two of those roles were allocated to other players, with the third character axed. And where that film benefited from Sellers’ presence, this one definitely benefits from his absence.

Written by Michael Pertwee (Strange Bedfellows, 1965) from the bestseller by Leonard Wibberley.

Engaging.

Behind the Scenes: Gangster As Hero, Selling “Dillinger (1973) – Pressbook

AIP made no bones about how it was pitching this one. It was selling notorious 1930s gangster as a hero, a folk hero perhaps, a narcissistic character perhaps, but still someone audiences could root for, just as the American public had back in the day when the only way to beat the system was via crime.

“The Gangster’s Gangster” sang the taglines, as if Dillinger was held in extraordinary high esteem by his fellow robbers, to be mentioned in the same august tones as Al Capone. Where Bonnie and Clyde (1967) used romance to leaven the killing, Dillinger preferred charm. Dillinger felt the people he robbed should be honoured to be robbed by such a status symbol as himself.

“His sole ambition was to be the best bank robber in the world,” rang out another of the taglines. He was “the last of the outlaws.” His robbing spree was only curbed after being “betrayed” and hunted by a “friendless” lawman. If the marketeers’ idea was to squeeze every ounce of pity from the audience for the ruthless gangster, they certainly did their best.

The Pressbook/Campaign Manual from AIP ran a handsome 28-pages in A3.

It helped that star Warren Oates bore a remarkable resemblance to Dillinger. He played the role without any make-up or prosthetics. Oates wasn’t as yet a big enough star for the writers of the Pressbook to focus the entire marketing efforts on him. He was recognized primarily as a character actor despite being touted as the “new Humphrey Bogart.”

Rancher’s son Ben Johnson was a better bet, having just picked up the Oscar for The Last Picture Show (1971) and it was another Oscar-winner Cloris Leachman who played the woman who double-crossed the gangster that led to his execution.

In fact, writer-director John Milius was reckoned to be a more attractive publicity vehicle than either Oates or Johnson. Certainly, the article about him too precedence. But then he did have a winning turn of phrase. “I consider John Dillinger to be a folk hero,” claimed Milius, “just as Pecos Bill, Paul Bunyan and Buffalo Bill were immortalized. Dillinger…won a tremendous following because people who were scrounging for the bare necessities of life had no love for the strongholds of finance.”

*One of these is an actor, the other a gangster. Which is which?*

Oddly enough, Dillinger wasn’t born in poverty. He was the son of a prosperous grocer and known as “the cutest kid on the block.” Like he was in a swashbuckler, he would vault over the bank rail. He never wore a mask. He was determined to make his name as a bank robber and anonymity would not suit.

The advertising was limited to three spreads – the bold “gangster’s gangster” with a machine-gun-toting Dillinger and a “nobody did it like Dillinger” tagline; a second one with provided him with a biography and set him up as a good guy; and the final one which including details of his cohorts.

There was plenty meat for cinema managers to feed journalists, plenty of the detail about the filming to arouse local interest. Eight stunt men, many specialists in particular fields like car crashes or falls, were involved and nine antique cars wrecked in car chases or riddled with bullets from Thompson sub-machine guns or Browning automatic rifles. All were pre-1934 models and included three Fords, a Franklin, an Erskine and a Studebaker costing $1,200.

And another 15 vehicles came from the Horseless Carriage Club of Enid, Oklahoma, where the movie was filmed. Real-life modern gangsters though local cops would be so preoccupied with the filmmakers that they could get away with a couple of robberies.

When it came to smashing up the windscreens the director was heavily involved, hammer in hand. Since the window screens lacked safety glass this was a straightforward, enjoyable, chore. Seven gallons of Jerry Cash’s Special Formula Blood, ten times as much as was usual for an actioner, was purchased. The gangsters got through over 150 pieces of weaponry including 88 Springfield Model ’03 rifles, 40 handguns, 25 shotguns and rifles, eight sub machine guns, four automatic rifles, three Lewis machine guns plus a howitzer. They fired off 50,000 rounds of blanks.

And the Pressbook came with two pages of ideas with which cinema managers could attract attention. Antique car clubs were an obvious target for marketing tie-ins as were gun shops. Cinema managers were urged to mount lobby displays using borrowed weaponry. Dressing up usherettes as gun molls and encouraging customers to attend in 1930s costumes would have been cheap promotional devices as well as suggesting clothing stores feature 1930s fashions – which had proved a winner for Bonnie and Clyde. .

“Wanted” posters might be borrowed from police stations. Many banks cooperated with the filming so these were viewed for further cooperation. Cinemas might dress up a “Lady in Red” and have her walking the sidewalks and then loitering in front of the cinema, in imitation of the role played in the picture by the real Lady in Red. A Dillinger tie-in paperback was available in drugstores and retail outlets.

Behind the Scenes: Cinemas Unshackled, The Long Run Beckons

In the 1960s the only way a movie could be guaranteed a long run at a city center cinema anywhere across the globe was if it fell into the roadshow category. Then the long run world was your oyster, runs of three months were standard, six months common, a year or more easily attainable. Outside of a handful of major cities of the size or prestige of New York and London, the same did not hold true of the general release. Most opened and closed in a city center theater within the week. A holdover extending a run to two weeks was rare and unless you were James Bond don’t think of a month.

That all changed in the 1970s, in part due to the gradual dearth of roadshows, in part due to the arrival of the duplex or triplex, in part due to the rise of the blockbuster and determination of studios to keep movies in the biggest and most expensive cinemas for longer to milk potential box office, and in part due to a sea change on the part of distributors. For my own entertainment I had, some time back, tracked on a weekly business all the cinemas in Glasgow so I can comment with some authority, using the many examples I had found, on the altered situation in the 1970s in that city, still, per capita, the biggest cinema-going city in Britain and, most likely, Europe.

The differences were not so obvious in the first two years of the new decade. Only seven movies in 1970 achieved runs of three weeks or more and the longest run – eight weeks – was for the roadshow Cromwell, the opening picture at the new Odeon 1. Next came a distinct outlier. Arthouse the Cosmo saw opportunity in the reissue double bill of The Graduate/The Thomas Crown Affair and held it over for seven weeks. Blockbuster Airport flew to six weeks at the Odeon 2. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid ran for four weeks at, respectively, the ABC 1 and the La Scala. True Grit at the ABC1, Mash at the Odeon 2 and A Man Called Horse at the ABC1 held out for three weeks. (You’ll maybe note that the westerns were a bit late arriving in Glasgow given that in the U.S. they had been summer pictures in 1969. But distribution lags were still common in those days, little sign of global day-and-date.)

The next year saw a distinct improvement. Of the 12 movies I’ve noted, all ran for four weeks or more (rather than the three-week topline of 1969). One little film took the city by storm. Today, Love Story, without any notable stars, would be considered a sleeper hit. Such was its success Stateside that Paramount drove a hard bargain in Britain, demanding a bigger share of the spoils. So instead of landing at the ABC1 or ABC2, the normal home for the studio’s pictures, it went into the La Scala where it ran for an unprecedented 26 weeks.

One of the interesting aspects of concentrating on a particular city is that it reveals the individuality of its audience. Trends that are invariably deemed national tend in the U.K. to have a southern bias – Scotland, for example, accounts for less than 10 per cent of the British population. So, comparing the performance of pictures in Glasgow to the rest of the country throws up anomalies.

Glasgow’s next longest-runner – knocking up 10 weeks at the Odeon 2 plus three weeks at the smaller Odeon 3 – was bloody revisionist western Soldier Blue. Next came Barbra Streisand comedy The Owl and the Pussycat with seven weeks at Odeon 1. But that’s only if you’re sticking to the mainstream. Glasgow had also shown a predilection for the tawdry, not to say the exploitational. The Nun of Monza starring Anne Heywood and sex documentary Naughty also both managed seven weeks, the former at the Gaumont, the latter at the Odeon 3.

Sean Connery heist picture The Anderson Tapes snared five weeks at the Odeon 1. The La Scala held onto Woodstock for four weeks as did the ABC1 with Michael Caine thriller Get Carter, Dustin Hoffman as Little Big Man, another revisionist western, and Alistair MacLean’s Puppet on a Chain while at the Cosmo it was Tales of Beatrix Potter and The Anatomy of Love.

But it was the next year that brought the real explosion. You’ll remember it as the Year of The Godfather. But it didn’t have it all its own way in Glasgow. Though it ran for 14 weeks switching between the ABC1 and ABC2, that tally was matched by Clint Eastwood as Dirty Harry at the ABC1. Sean Connery’s return as James Bond in Diamonds Are Forever resulted in 11 weeks at the Odeon 1. The French Connection II logged six weeks at Odeon 2 while another sexploitation number I Am a Nymphomaniac did the same as Odeon 3. Barbra Streisand-Ryan O’Neal madcap comedy What’s Up, Doc? was good for five weeks at ABC1. Hitting the four week mark were Yul Brynner in western Catlow (in a double bill with The Jerusalem File) at Odeon 2 and Stanley Baker thriller Innocent Bystanders at Odeon 1. Glasgow audiences were less keen on Shaft and Straw Dogs, both just worth three weeks at the ABC1 and Odeon 2, respectively.

But by now the long run die had been well and truly cast. By 1973, movies were allowed to reach their full potential in Glasgow city center. There was a last hurrah for the roadshow when Norman Jewison’s musical Jesus Christ Superstar – without a marquee name in the cast -knocked up 17 weeks at the ABC2. But that only shaded Roger Moore’s first outing as James Bond in Live and Let Die with 16 weeks at Odeon 2. Another musical roadshow, The Great Waltz, headlined by unknowns, raced to 12 weeks at the ABC2.

There was a sense that the Odeon complex was playing it clever by booking the controversial Last Tango in Paris, headlining none other than Marlon Brando, huge again after The Godfather, in its smallest screen, the Odeon 3. The move paid off as the picture lasted 12 weeks.

Unsurprisingly, the first of the decade’s disaster pictures The Poseidon Adventure sailed along at the Odeon 2 for nine weeks. But few expected thriller Day of the Jackal, star Edward Fox hardly a marquee name, to run for equally as long at the ABC2.

Yet another roadshow, musical Lost Horizon, a remake of the non-musical original – with an all-star cast of Peter Finch, Liv Ullman, Michael York, George Kennedy and Olivia Hussey – held onto seven weeks at the Odeon 1. Stanley Kubrick’s controversial A Clockwork Orange (more than a year after its London launch) notched up six weeks at the ABC1 as did Clint Eastwood western High Plains Drifter. Sarah Miles as Lady Caroline Lamb went for six weeks at ABC2. Showing for four weeks were Lady Sings the Blues at the Coliseum, and reissues Cabaret and Mary Poppins at the Odeon 3 and Odeon 2, respectively.

Other reissues clocked up notable runs for oldies – three weeks apiece for Doctor Zhivago at the La Scala, The Ten Commandments at the Coliseum and the double bill of Soldier Blue/Carnal Knowledge at Odeon 3.

The Martian (2015) ***** – Seen at the Cinema (again!)

My guess is that the combination of the success of Project Hail Mary (2026), whose author Andy Weir also wrote this, and the imminent The Odyssey from Christopher Nolan which stars Matt Damon were the triggers for this big-screen reissue. These days, most reissues only play for one day, but this proved so popular it ran in two screens.

Although I reviewed it not so long ago that was on the back of a television screening and seeing it on the big screen reminded of just how brilliant it was – and it more than saved my Monday cinema outing after the abject The Invite. ao forgive me if I give this another plug.

You might recall how annoyed I was several weeks ago by being asked to tolerate Chris Pratt stuck in a chair in Mercy (2026) talking to the camera for what seemed like a solid hour. It struck me then how few actors could manage a whole film one-handed – Tom Hanks in Cast Away (2000) the most obvious example. But, in the wake of Project Hail Mary (2026) I realized there was another contender, Matt Damon as the stranded astronaut in Ridley Scott’s The Martian.

And sure, he eventually gets some help in maintaining audience interest once he communicates with Earth and the spaceship. But here’s the kicker. Mostly what he’s doing is exposition. That’s the one thing a star avoids like the plague. It’s usually left to the supporting actors to set the scene, explain the ins-and-outs of a situation.

But here it’s all down to Damon. He spends his time talking to camera, identifying a problem, usually so scientific you’d need academic books beside you, and then solving it. So, yes, like Cast Away, he’s a bloke on a version of a desert island who’s got to find his way to safety through how own devices.

But even so. What kind of screen persona do you need not just to keep us interested but enthralled? When he sees the first shoots of potato appear, it carries a massive emotional kick. The role of the people on Earth is wonderment and cynicism – no way he can do that sort of thing. Which rachets up the tension and then our hero does the impossible.

There’s always a moment in these space movies where someone comes up with something that’s never been done before – slingshots using gravity, Apollo 13 (1995) littered with improvisation. These scientists are I guess exceptionally brainy to qualify as lunar astronauts but even so.

As I said, I was coming to this again after Project Hail Mary so I was attuned to the science, or the expectation of science and the need to keep the audience informed. But Mark Watney (Matt Damon) comes up with unbelievably-inspired elements of improvisation, some of course pure science but others pure common sense, like pointing the camera at letters to spell out words.

It’s a heck of a ride, especially as with being under Ridley Scott’s command, there’s not a darn alien in sight, no stomach-bursting squeamishness to maintain audience attention, no rampaging monster scuttling along a spaceship. This is Mars as arid as you have been led to believe. Yes, an occasional mountain range or dustbowl to evoke the West of John Ford, and storms coming out of nowhere, but generally speaking as placid and dull a domain as you could wish for.

So in visual terms not much to help out the star. Every movement he makes is fraught with danger. He can choose to freeze through a long night or switch on the heating and thus lose vital battery power.

Every now and then, to speed things up, Ridley Scott literally does just that, characters whizzing around like they’ve just emerged from a silent movie. But mostly it’s slow painstaking going.

Of course we need a big finale and Scott obliges. And every now and then he flicks an emotional switch back on Earth and Nasa boss Teddy Sanders (Jeff Daniels) has to explain how the astronaut they held a memorial for is actually still alive, and the spaceship team have to come to terms with the fact that they abandoned not a corpse but a guy very much alive. There’s no room for humor, but occasionally some is squeezed in – Sanders having to apologize to the President for Watney’s profanity being globally broadcast.

Ridley Scott (Gladiator II, 2024) reins in the bombast and picks his way through a tricky scenario keeping the audience very much onside. Matt Damon (Oppenheimer, 2023) , who has surely inherited the Tom Hanks “everyman” mantle, demonstrates the power of a screen persona, in making an audience hang on his every word, even though most of what he says is scientific mumbo-jumbo. Jessica Chastain (Mothers’ Instinct, 2024) is the pick of the supporting cast.

Written by Drew Goddard who is as sure-footed here as on Project Hail Mary, again adapting a bestseller by Andy Weir.

Well worth another look.

The Invite (2026) ** – Seen at the Cinema

Not so much a gabfest as an outbreak of verbal diarrhea. This exceedingly slim offering is what passes these days for the kind of movie that might be appreciated by an intelligent audience or served up as counter-programming to the onslaught of the summer blockbuster.

But it’s as if the idea of marriages in trouble is novel, never been properly examined until the current new wave came along – for some reason Alan Parker’s Shoot the Moon (1982) with Albert Finney and Diane Keaton as the warring couple came to mind as an example of how easily this subject had been dealt with in the past without the necessity for coming at it all coy.

Everyone rabbits on at forty words to the dozen, talking over each other, repeating themselves as if the notion of editing had never occurred to anyone so that it ends up as a stagey four-hander, not far I would imagine from the stage play on which it is based.

And it has one of the most infuriating scores I have ever come across. I’m sure it’s intended as post-ironic or some such. Instead of allowing the words to speak for themselves the dialog is heavily overlaid with ominous music whose intensity is heightened as emotions rise.

Worse, this is primarily a shaggy dog story and a good bit of bait-and-switch, allowing the characters (Shock! Horror!) to utter such words as “double penetration” and “pegging” (Google them) – all of which sexual preferences are laboriously explained to married apparent innocents Joe (Seth Rogan) and Angela (Olivia Wilde) by more worldly pair Pina (Penelope Cruz) and Hawk (Edward Norton).

The invite in question is to join in a sex party, to turn the stuffed shirts into swingers. Olivia is jealous of the orgasms she can hear from Pina who lives upstairs in a weird apartment block where despite each couple living above or below the other they can still, by quirk of narrative or architecture, see each other through the window (go figure) which comes in handy if one of the couples is a secret exhibitionist and the other a voyeur.

Our foursome represent little more than standard cliches – stoner Joe and his neurotic wife who has to tidy up the kitchen before embarking on sex, the supposed charmer Hawk and the more obviously sexy Pina who is not averse to bursting out of her cleavage. There are jokes about exhibitionism and about Hawk not being musclebound enough to be a firefighter.

There are about ten worthwhile minutes in the entire picture when the characters properly open up, though Joe revealing himself as a failure, Angela as a self-centered stay-at-home mum with artistic ambitions she cannot be bothered to properly explore, and Hawk as not as tough as he seems, is not enough to prop up the rest of the picture.

For a comedy, even a purportedly sophisticated one what with all this talk about sex, it’s remarkably light of the laff front and in any case any opportunity for the audience to even snigger is seriously jeopardized by having a director (Olivia Wilde) with no sense of comic timing, barely leaving a millisecond between lines that could elicit a laugh, guaranteeing that nothing has the opportunity to strike home.

I’m no big fan of Seth Rogen (Good Fortune, 2025) since as far as I can tell he always plays the same character but at least he’s not as mealy-mouthed as the others. But when you rely on tantrums to inject some life into a picture you’re on a hiding to nothing.

I can see why this has received generally good reviews. It’s the critics’ job to push in front of audiences a discerning movie or two, but, as often as not, they are so determined to prod the audience that they nudge them towards movies that barely deserve the praise.

Edward Norton (A Complete Unknown, 2024) has been confined to small parts of late so it’s good to see him last out a full film. Penelope Cruz (Ferrari, 2023) offers more emotion, sass and psychology than the others. Olivia Wilde (Babylon, 2022) overacts like crazy.

In her capacity as director, count this as another misfire for Olivia Wilde (Don’t Worry, Darling, 2022). Will McCormack (Toy Story 4, 2019) and Rashida Jones (On the Rocks, 2020) adapted the play by Cesca Gay.

This had an old-fashioned platform release in the U.S., which meant it could rack up decent averages by only being shown in a handful of cinemas, allowing marketeers to dupe the media into thinking it was a hit.

Steer clear.

Blood and Black Lace (1964) ****

Director Mario Bava channels his inner Douglas Sirk in a rich color palette for this early version of giallo. About as surprisingly rich is the camerawork, which, for a low-budget picture is exceptionally accomplished, tracking, drifting, bobbing between characters. This early in the 1960s, nudity was not so prevalent but setting a movie in a fashion house – ensuring the beauty quotient is remarkably high – provided sufficient opportunity for ladies to be seen (within a work context naturally) in a certain amount of undress and you can be sure the killer leaves them half-naked. And it’s not the usual giallo sex maniac at work either but, despite the volume of murders, a killer driven by a desire to conceal shame.

Blackmail, theft, abortion, cocaine addiction, pregnancy, impotence and illicit affairs are among the secrets the protagonists wish to keep hidden, all risking exposure by a diary kept by the first victim Isabella (Francesco Ungaro). So rather than a whodunit, it’s a whydunit. The killer is particularly creepy, face concealed behind white gauze like an Egyptian mummy. As the Italian title explains, six women are intended for the chop, so that kind of rules out a great deal of tension as you spend your time counting. Are we nearly there yet? And as we run out of obvious potential victims, who the heck is there left to kill? Of course, by that time, we are into twist territory and that element is certainly neatly done.

The main candidates for the murderer are: Franco (Dante DiPaolo), Riccardo (Franco Ressel), Cesare (Luciano Piggozi). Massimo (Cameron Mitchell) and Marco (Massimo Righi). These are the official ones, rounded up by Inspector Silvestri (Thomas Reiner). But that still leaves housekeeper Clarice (Harriet Medin) in her black leather coat. And a fashion house being a festering wound of jealousy, sex, status and privilege you wouldn’t discount any of the models either nor an owner Cristiana (Eva Bartok) who is such a slave-driver she denies her seamstresses time to mourn.

Emotions would be running high in this establishment never mind with a killer on the loose. Relationships are so fraught that even when this is the worst possible time to be alone in a house, certain of the models refuse to offer sanctuary to others and one, Tao-Li (Claude Dantes), just plans to head for the hills (Paris, in other words) and abandon the others. Add to that a high degree of stupidity. When Greta (Lea Lander) discovers the disfigured corpse of Nicole (Arianna Gorini) in the trunk of her car, rather than calling the police, she drags the body into the house and hides it under the stairs while her butler is about to serve tea. Except it’s not out of folly, it’s because Greta, like all the women here, wishes to protect a male, passion reigning supreme to the extent that the thought of losing a lover even if he is a murderer is too much to bear.

The inspector’s task would be made easy if the killer had a distinctive modus operandi. Death occurs through strangulation, suffocation, drowning (though with cut wrists to make it look like suicide), falling from a great height and Nicole’s face thrust into a stove. If victims take a long time to die, it’s not from the killer’s sadism but his/her incompetence. Virtually none are speedily dispatched, murder not as easy as you might imagine, an idea that Hitchcock purloined in Torn Curtain (1966)

For most of the time the way the camera moves you would wouldn’t think you were watching a film about a serial killer (in those days as rare in reality as in fiction) but a dense emotional tale as spun by the likes of Luchino Visconti (The Leopard, 1963) amidst a backdrop of wealth and beauty. Setting aside the murders, there is a feast of intrigue, and a rich seam of characters, though the central theme seems to be (not surprising for the era) that money and beauty are not as fulfilling as love, something that women will commit various crimes (though stopping short of murder) to achieve.

I would imagine it was just such intricate camerawork that put audiences off the picture on initial release, a big flop in Italy and, if screened anywhere else (as in Britain) the lower part of a double bill. Not quite as intense as Bava’s previous The Whip and the Body (1963) nor so stylistically driven as Danger : Diabolik (1968) and some way short of horror masterpieces like Black Sabbath (1963), this is still an interesting watch, something of a template for future giallo and from a pure directorial perspective glorious to watch.

The number of characters featured and the time spent on the various deaths limit the opportunities for any one star to dominate but Hungarian Eva Bartok (Operation Amsterdam, 1960) leads the line on the female side while American transplant Cameron Mitchell (Minnesota Clay, 1964) and Dante DiPaulo (Sweet Charity, 1969) vie for male acting honors. The screenplay was a joint effort by Marcello Fondato, Giuseppe Barilla and Bava.

YouTube has this for free though be warned it comes with ads and for the sumptuous photography alone you may want in any case to splash out.

More Dead than Alive (1969) ****

You wonder why some actors never make it big. Clint Walker, with a hefty television career behind him, was one of the many graduates from The Dirty Dozen (1967). But whereas such disparate characters as Donald Sutherland (Mash, 1970), Charles Bronson (Farewell Friend, 1968), Jim Brown (100 Rifles, 1969) and even Telly Savalas (though mostly on the small screen) went on to become substantial marquee names, soft-spoken square-jawed gentle giant Clint Walker was left by the wayside. He still earned some top-billed credits, but these were all in low-budget programmers.

The odd thing is that had he come onto the scene a decade later when muscle-bound hunks like Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenneger were all the rage he might have easily jumped to the top. Ironically, another muscleman Mike Henry (Tarzan and the Great River, 1967) pops up here, as if to prove to the newcomer that muscle no longer cuts it in Hollywood when slimmer stars like Paul Newman and Steve McQueen are all the rage and even denoted tough guys like Lee Marvin lack the heavyweight build.

Like the climax to The Wild Bunch (1969), the opening section is a paeon to the glories of the Gatling Gun as it mows down a posse of prisoners trying to escape. Cain (Clint Walker) is one of the few jailbirds who simply hunkers down and refuses to consider running. Whether it’s this determination not to cause the guards any trouble or some unexpected softer approach on the part of the authorities, he is later set free after serving 18 years.

It’s only then we realize he’s actually “Killer Cain” with twelve notches (presumably one for every death) on his revolver. But he’s determine to go straight and refuses the opportunity offer by travelling showman Dan Ruffallo (Vincent Price) to even play the part of the bad guy. But his record goes against him when trying to find employment. So he takes on the job of delivery guy only to end up in the arms of some thugs from prison led by Luke Santee (Mike Henry) who has a score to settle. Having beaten him up, they decide not to finish him off, so they can enjoy the pleasure of beating him up over and over. Given Clint Eastwood has set the tone for the hero being badly beaten up and/or left for dead, the thumping Cain takes tends towards the excessive.

So if you’re trying to get a killer to disavow his plan to avoid violence, that’s not the best plan. When Cain escapes, you expect this to turn into a revenge western. Except it doesn’t. It’s an avoidance western, Cain trying to stay out of the way of any kind of shooting.

There are some interesting directorial aspects. It looks very much as if Robert Sparr, a television director making his movie debut, has absorbed the influences of the French New Wave. There are jump cuts all over the place. We cut from Cain looking forlorn at night to him standing in a queue in daylight looking for a job. We go from an outdoor encounter with Ruffalo to suddenly the pair of them sitting down inside.

And as with like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and The Wild Bunch, both out the same year, the message is that the Old West is dying. Not only do we have primitive mechanized transport in the shape of a bicycle there’s also a rudimentary telephone while gunmen are more likely to prosper showing off their skills in a tent than being a gun for hire for ambitious ranchers and the like.

This is determinedly offbeat, not falling into the standard narrative traps for the genre. Cain, while trying to shed the murderous aspects of his previous life, eventually goes to work in the circus. That sets him down in the moral mire, taking advantage of his infamous reputation while at the same time not lifting a gun in anger and wooing artist Monica (Anne Francis).

However, no surprise this is under-rated. In part that’s because it doesn’t deliver on the early violent promise, the title very much a misnomer, so those expecting a spaghetti western leave disappointed while anyone looking for much else wouldn’t be attracted by the violence and the title. In fact, it’s a very thoughtful piece. Not entirely original because criminal-going-straight is standard stuff, usually quickly snookering the good guy-bad guy into mostly bad guy activity, regardless of his justification for doing so. But here, the killer manages to avoid further bloodshed despite continuous provocation.

Apart from the moral aspect, it treads an interesting path between demystifying the Old West and mystifying it. Monica has come west to capture the Old West before it dies away. There’s a ghost town but the only gunslinging on show is staged. Cain is a major attraction because peace-loving law-abiding folks like nothing better than seeing a genuine killer up close.

The notches on his gun weren’t acquired in typical Hollywood hero style with a shootout in the main street and the good guy never drawing first. In fact, most of Cain’s killings fall into the dubious category.

Most westerns take place over a short period of time, just as long as it takes to set up the good guys and the bad guys with a bit of romance on the side. This takes place over a year and romance is very slow-burn so that artist Monica nips in and out of the narrative.

Having a record blunts Cain’s attempts to get a decent job, the only long-term work as a bouncer in a saloon until his pseudonym is blown. He joins the Wild West Show only to twice quit it, either when he is riled by intemperate gunman wannabe Billy (Billy Valence) or when he comes face to face with old lawman Carson. At the end he returns to earn enough cash to buy some livestock for a farm.

There are three significant deaths, two sudden, and all offer something unusual in that department. The ending is as unexpected as it is shocking.

Both Clint Walker (The Great Bank Robbery, 1969) and Vincent Price (Witchfinder General/The Conqueror Worm, 1968) deliver excellent subdued performances, the latter far removed from his usual horror line and the lugubrious tones kept in check. Anne Francis (The Satan Bug, 1965) has a rare big screen outing. Written by George Schenck (Barquero, 1970).

You would not call this – outside of the jump cuts – particularly stylistic, equally it avoids the visual traps of endless sunsets or panoramas and we’re not subjected to minutes wasted just watching cowboys ride somewhere. But it definitely is a cut above in terms of thematic complexity, in the ability to tell a story over a period of time, and to take the hero in an unexpected direction.

The Sweet Ride (1968) ***

Unusual drama mainlining on Californian surf, sex, bikers, a mystery of Blow-Up (1966) dimensions and the best entrance since Ursula Andress in Dr No (1962). Displays a 1960s vibe with a 1950s pay-off as the “hitchhiker” of responsibility rears its ugly head.

A woman thrown out of a car narrowly escapes being run over. The cops jack in the investigation after television actress Vickie (Jacqueline Bisset) refuses to explain why she’s been badly beaten up. And so we enter flashback mode to supposedly find out. She makes a glorious entrance, emerging from the sea, minus bikini top, into the lives of surfer Denny (Michael Sarrazin), jazz pianist Choo-Choo (Bob Denver) and ageing beach bum and tennis hustler Collie (Tony Franciosca). From the off, she’s enigmatic, gives a false address, won’t explain bruises on her arm, has something clandestine going on with television producer Caswell (Warren Stevens) and like Blow-Up we are only privy to snippets of information.

She’s half-in half-out of a relationship with Dennis, with Collie hovering on the periphery hoping to pick up the pieces to his sexual advantage. Contemporary issues clog the background, Choo-Choo tries a camp number complete with pink dog to avoid the draft, a neighbor threatens to shoot Parker for wandering around in shorts and habitually stealing his newspaper, epithets like “degenerates” are tossed around, Choo Choo’s girlfriend Thumper, while appearing in movies with titles like Suburban Lust Queen acts den mother, there’s not much actual exciting surfing, and a biker called Mr. Clean is somehow involved.

The romance plays out well, Vicky unsure, Denny convinced but without a livelihood to offer and unable to get a straight answer out of her. Choo-Choo gets the gig of his dreams in Las Vegas and there’s an rape scene, more unsettling because it’s committed by Denny with the bizarre justification of getting “just for once something on my terms.” And there’s the equally disquieting sense that the only explanation for Vickie’s behavior is to tab her a nymphomaniac, walking out of an argument with a mysterious man in a beach house to drop her clothes for a bout of sex with Mr Clean.

I must have seen a different picture from everyone else. A good few critics at the time and reviewers since appear to think Vickie was also victim of a gangbang by the bikers, but I can’t see why. When he sees Vickie coming down from the beach house, Mr. Clean shouts “everybody split” and his buddies clear the beach. However, Mr. Clean, ironically, gives the best indication of her state of mind, explaining that Vickie “kept staring back at the house and moaning about how she wanted to die” while he enjoyed the best night of his life sex-wise.

Denny and Collie prove not to be the pussycats they appear, bearding the bikers in their den and beating up Mr. Clean while Denny goes on to deliver a hiding to Caswell. But what this film turns out to be is an examination of vulnerability, how easily those with a new sense of freedom are trapped. An examination of contemporary mores, perhaps, but in not resolving the mystery of Vickie ultimately fails to deliver, especially as it does not, from the outset, carry the kind of artistic credentials of Antonioni in Blow-Up.

Perhaps the mystery needs no resolution, it’s just same old-same old dressed up in the novelty of sexual freedom. There’s no idea of why Vickie was beaten up, and essentially abandoned on the road to become accident fodder, and no hint really of why she fell foul of someone so badly she needed disposed of, no notion that she was a threat to anyone. (Or, for that matter, no explanation of what happened to her bikini top and why, if she was so apparently free with her charms, she was so shy about being seen half-naked.) On the other hand, victim may well have been Vicky’s destiny from the get-go, that kind of innocence only waiting to be defiled.

In any 1960s contemporary picture there’s always the temptation to accept as truthful or reject as phony the lives shown. The idea that sexual freedom bestows actual freedom is usually the issue until consequence (i.e. old-fashioned Hollywood morality) comes into play. This is less heavy-handed than, for example, Easy Rider (1969) or Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (1969). The characters make decisions to grow up or to stay locked in a world of easy sex, dope and money. There’s no grand finale, just a more realistic drifting apart, and it’s only Vickie who comes apart, although that process had begun long before she met the drifters.

Jacqueline Bisset (The Detective, 1968), in her divinely posh British accent, comes over well as an attractive screen presence and complex character. In fact, she has a bigger part here than in Bullitt (1968) or The Detective (1968). If you wanted anyone to portray a soulful hippie you need look no further than tousle-haired Michael Sarrazin (In Search of Gregory, 1969) and normally if you required someone on the sly, despicable side, Tony Franciosca (Fathom, 1967) might well be your first port of call, but Franciosca proves the surprise here, classic wind-up merchant and predator who exhibits considerable vulnerability when he realizes he is losing the worship of the idealistic young.

Former British matinee idol Michael Wilding (A Girl Named Tamiko, 1962) and Norma Crane (Penelope, 1966) appear as Vickie’s parents. Bob Denver (Who’s Minding the Mint, 1967) and Michele Carey (The Spy with My Face, 1965) are solid support. Director Harvey Hart (Fortune and Men’s Eyes, 1970) tries to cover too much ground and could have done with narrowing the focus. Future Bond screenwriter Tom Mankiewicz (son of Joseph L.) made his screenwriting debut adapting the book by William Murray.

The DVD is a bit on the pricey side, but if you just want to check it out, YouTube has a print.