Brian Hannan

The Madwoman of Chaillot (1969) **

This has been lost for decades – and with good reason. Even Katharine Hepburn fresh from an Oscar-winning turn in The Lion in Winter (1968) can’t save this and to be honest I’m struggling to see why anyone wanted to make it in the first place beyond newcomer Commonwealth United intent on making a splash. That it made nothing of the kind is down to a variety of reasons.

First of all, it’s clearly intended as some kind of broad satire on financiers and the kind of get-rich-quick schemes that prey on the ill-informed. Secondly, you might as well have called it Eccentrics Assemble from the number of oddballs present. Thirdly, director Bryan Forbes (King Rat, 1965) works on the principle that he doesn’t need to explain anything – least of all provide important characters with actual names – because it would all be obvious to an intelligent audience. Lastly, and possibly most important of all, since it doesn’t fit into any obvious genre it just jumps between a bunch of them, including the Absurd.

In fact, some of the better sections are driven by absurd situation or observation. Countess Aurelia – the titular madwoman – points out that the Futures market consists of buying something that doesn’t exist and selling it when it does. A policeman tries to save a man who hasn’t drowned by applying the techniques used to save a person who has drowned. You get the gist? I didn’t.

The basic story concerns a bunch of millionaires attempting to acquire the mineral rights to the land underneath Paris because The Prospector (Donald Pleasance) has discovered oil. Did he drill for it? Did tar deposits rise to the surface? Nope, he has detected the existence of oil by sampling water that has been sourced from the ground.

He involves a bunch of Disparate Anonymites, all designated by occupation or title, thus The Chairman (Yul Brynner), The Reverend (John Gavin), The General (Paul Henreid), The Commissar (Oskar Homolka) and The Broker (Charles Boyer) who spend most of the time sitting outside a café complaining.

The Broker is something of an oddity, being both entrepreneur and revolutionary, all set to direct his nephew Roderick (Richard Chamberlain) to explode a bomb in Paris. Naturally, when this plan fails what else is there for Roderick to do but fall instantly in love with waitress Irene (Nanette Newman).

If this isn’t barmy enough for you, Aurelia is stuck in the past, rereading a newspaper from decades ago, while one of her friends Constance has an invisible dog and another Gabrielle an invisible lover. You can see where this is going. If so, you’re doing better than me.

Aurelia, who gets wind of the scheme from Roderick and The Ragpicker (Danny Kaye), decides to exterminate the financiers by luring them into her cellar. Why she didn’t prevail on Roderick to provide her with another bomb to blow them up is anybody’s guess.

Anyway, before she can do the necessary luring, she conducts a mock trial, finding the financiers guilty of everything that anybody with a scintilla of sense would be fully aware of and hardly need such a heavy-handed lecture.

Everyone comes out of this with egg on their face. The only reason it doesn’t get no stars at all is that anything has to be better than Orgy for the Dead (1965) and Anora (2023) and the only reason it isn’t given the one-star rating of that picture is because Katharine Hepburn is in the cast and even though, as I said, she can’t save it, but I wouldn’t to put her in the same category as the nudie horror.

Bryan Forbes and Oscar-winning screenwriter Edward Anhalt (Becket, 1964) expanded the original play by Jean Giraudoux.

YouTube, where this is showing, clearly believed nobody would get to the end of it because it’s absolutely riddled with adverts, literally one every couple of minutes.

Behind the Scenes: What’s On Snapshot, London, April 25, 1970.

Roadshow, which was intended to alleviate the industry’s financial woes, caused chaos to the standard release pattern. The original system had been straightforward – new film is shown first in the biggest cinemas in the biggest cities, gets a repeat showing at a second-run house (and depending on the size of the city might move over to a third theater) and then spreads out into neighborhood venues and from there to the smaller towns. Depending on the size of the country and how long it lasts in first run it could easily take a year to complete its release.

Roadshow changed all that. Since first run, given the size of the cinemas and the elevated admission prices, accounted for as much as 60-70 per cent of a movie’s revenues, it made sense to find a way of keeping pictures in the most expensive cinemas. So roadshows did just that. Movies that opened in roadshow were not permitted to go out on general release until their roadshow potential had been exhausted. And precisely because roadshow movies sought out the biggest houses in a city they took up much of the space available for any kind of release.

That created backlog of two kinds: first, movies unable to enter the release system until played out at roadshow; and second, ordinary movies delayed – or denied – first run exposure because there were too few cinemas left. Which went part of the way to explain why your local cinema was apt to be running exploitation vehicles of various kinds.

In April 1970, for example, London’s West End – Britain’s prime premiere locale – was chock-a-block with long-running movies. In the previous decades, movies that ran for more than a week would be termed “holdovers” in America and “retained by public demand” in Britain. Now, they were retained for at least a “season” (twelve weeks).

The capital’s biggest house the Odeon Leicester Square (1994 seats) was in the eighth week of showing Richard Burton historical drama Anne of the Thousand Days. World War Two epic Battle of Britain had completed its 31^st week at the Dominion (1654 seats). Oscar-winning musical Oliver! had already played over a year at the Leicester Square Theatre (1407 seats) and was now into its 66^th week. The Odeon March Arch (1360 seats) was in the 17^th week of Hello, Dolly! It was also 17 weeks and counting for reissue Ben-Hur at the Casino-Cinerama (1127 seats) and Paint Your Wagon was in its 14^th stanza at the Astoria (1121 seats). Making its debut – a 70mm print and in roadshow – was The Adventurers at the 820-seat Plaza (and in continuous performance at the 972-seat Paramount). Rounding out the roadshow contingent were Women in Love, 23^rd week at the 631-seat Prince Charles, and The Lion in Winter, 68^th week at the 600-seat Odeon Haymarket.

So, nine major cinemas tied up for roadshow. Outside of those, few cinemas that could match them in size and prestige, were left for non-roadshow items. Antonioni’s Zabriskie Point was in the sixth week at the 1366-seat Empire and the equally offbeat Entertaining Mr Sloane at the 1159-seat Carlton. The 1004-seat Pavilion presented the second week of the double bill Chicago, Chicago and Popi. The 760-seat Columbia was in the sixth week of Walter Matthau comedy Cactus Flower and the Odeon St Martins Lane (735-seats) offered The Last Grenade starring Stanley Baker in its fifth and final week.

The 570-seat Rialto hosted week two of the offbeat Mumsy, Nanny, Sonny and Girly while The Ritz was in the 10^th (and final) week of reissue double bill Point Blank/The Cincinnati Kid. Arthouse the Curzon (546-seats) had been co-opted to help out, in its 6^th week of Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice. And some holdovers had found unusual homes – Midnight Cowboy in its 12^th week at the 154-seat Cinecenta 4 and Alice’s Restaurant in week ten at the 318-seat Windmill. And you might count the Classic Piccadilly in among the quasi-roadshows since Easy Rider had now clocked up 33 weeks and no end in sight.

Had it not been for the financial tsunami that engulfed Hollywood at the cusp of the 1960s/1970s the roadshow might well have continued eating up screens and causing further release chaos. Studios and those exhibitors who owned roadshow screens were delighted by roadshow, the rest of the industry not so much, except when a movie like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid came out of nowhere and cleaned up.

SOURCE: Bill Altria, “Box Office Business,” Kinematograph Weekly, April 25, 1970, p10.

The Organization (1971) ***

Just Stop Drugs would have been the title had the movie come out today. A bunch of urban guerillas, each scarred by personal or family-related experience with drugs, on the basis that the authorities are doing too little and cops in any case too open to corruption, decide to take the battle to “the man.”

Starts with an excellent heist opening, conducted for the most part in silence, and pretty inventive at that. One guy pole-vaults over the gate of a factory. The rest of the gang turn up with what these days is called an aerial work platform but is most recognizable to the rest of us as a version of a fireman’s turntable ladder. So they hoof it up the ladder to the fourth or fifth floor, bringing with them a captive who’s got the keys to a safe. When he refuses to cooperate, they dangle him out the window.

Every now and then we cut to a woman in the street. At first she looks like a witness, but when she doesn’t go racing to call the police, it’s clear she’s either a fascinated observer or a lookout. From what’s otherwise a very ordinary factory, the gang remove millions of dollars worth of heroin and blow up the gates.

When eventually Det Lt Virgil Tibbs (Sidney Poitier) appears on the scene, it’s not to investigate a robbery but a homicide. The captive is dead. It looks like suicide until they discover he’s been shot by two different guns. Tibbs is also puzzled by the timescale. There were also 20 minutes between the gates being blasted open and the cops arriving. It takes longer to run up and down the stairs.

But then Tibbs gets a break. The gang calls him in, want him to work with them to bring down “the organization.” Which puts the detective in a tricky spot. He’d be conniving with known thieves, possibly murderers.

After this excellent and intriguing start, the movie doesn’t so much go downhill but tie itself up in knots. In the first place Tibbs doesn’t do much actual detection. Pretty much all the legwork is done by the gang who put themselves out there as bait to try and snag the Mr Bigs of the drug world.

The gang are a do-gooder version of The Magnificent Seven. Tibbs ends up doing little more than following their leads. Most of the time the movie focuses on the various members of the gang, who are variously beaten up, tortured or killed. Just to keep us on edge and promote the notion that the force is riddled with corruption a police captain commits suicide.

Tibbs is more interesting when he’s being outsmarted by his son who’s on the verge of learning the facts of life. The child’s got the best line in the picture. We are introduced to him coming out of a lecture at school on sex in which he declares no interest. Dad and Mum (Barbara McNair) get into a minor tizz over who’s best suited to fill him in on the realities of life. Later, Tibbs discovers an erotic magazine in the boy’s belongings. When confronted, the boy explains he isn’t bored by sex just by a lecture on it.

Anyways, the gang proves more successful in luring out the mobsters, Juan (Raul Julia) especially adept at coming up with the game plan. Naturally, the bad guys don’t play by the rules he’s set down and Annie (Lani Miyazaki), the only female member of the gang, ends up in the drink. The nightwatchman (Charles H. Gray) is the victim of a drive-by shooting.

When Tibbs does get down to working things out on his own, his investigation leads him to the alcoholic wife (Sheree North) of the nightwatchman who is independently wealthy of her husband.

When, finally, Tibbs gets his hands on two of the Mr Bigs this being the Cynical 1970s there’s no happy ending, the pair when arrested rubbed out by a sniper.

So interesting stuff, but, unfortunately, most of the interest doesn’t lie with Tibbs. He’s pretty much an onlooker. As a story, the movie would have done better to leave him out altogether and set up the narrative as the urban revolutionaries trying to take down the drug dealers.

But you’ll enjoy some talent spotting. Raul Julia (Kiss of the Spider Woman, 1985) and Ron O’Neal (Super Fly, 1972) lead the pack ahead of Daniel J. Travanti (Hill St Blues, 1981-1987) and Bernie Hamilton (Starsky and Hutch, 1975-1979).

Sidney Poitier, in his final outing as Tibbs, is fine with not much to do and Barbara McNair, (Stiletto, 1969) as usual is underused.

Directed by Don Medford (The Hunting Party, 1971) from a screenplay by James R Webb (Alfred the Great, 1969) based on the John Ball bestseller.

An oddity in the genre and more enjoyable if you ignore the central character.

They Call Me Mister Tibbs (1970) ***

United Artists had reinvented the sequel business, shifting it away from the low-burn low-budget Tarzan adventure or Gene Autry western or any inexpensive picture movie capable of maintaining a series character, to bigger-budgeted numbers like James Bond (four sequels so far), The Magnificent Seven (two), The Beatles (four) and The Pink Panther (two). Even Hawaii (1966) spawned The Hawaiians (1970). So when the company hit commercial and critical gold – five Oscars including Best Picture and Best Actor – with In the Heat of the Night (1967) it seemed too good an opportunity to miss not to try for a repeat.

You might have expected UA to continue with the pairing of Sidney Poitier and Oscar-winner Rod Steiger and locate a sequel again in the Deep South. Instead, Steiger was junked and the Poitier character Virgil Tibbs relocated from his Philadelphia hometown to the more snazzy environs of San Francisco, recently popularized by such items as Bullitt (1968).

But minus the racism element what you’re left with is pretty much a standard detective tale with domestic issues thrown in. Tibbs isn’t the kind of cop we’ve come to expect, sinking into alcoholic oblivion or having thrown away a marriage. Instead, and this would strike a contemporary chord, he’s struggling with fatherhood. His son comes off best in arguments and at one point Tibbs resorts to giving the child a few slaps. That looks initially as if emotions will quickly heal and the repentant dad quickly administers a comforting hug, but any bonding is blown apart when the resentful boy complains, as if this represents betrayal, that his father made him cry.

Tibbs is also the old-fashioned kind of male who believes the only way to teach his son not to fall into bad ways like smoking and drinking is to force him to puff on a big cigar and knock back a stiff one until the child throws up.

But Tibbs does do a diligent enough job of detection, evidence relating to the murder of a high-priced sex worker hinging upon whether the killer had long fingernails. The most obvious suspect is street preacher Rev Logan Sharpe (Martin Landau), who visited the prostitute in his capacity as spiritual adviser and who’s heading up a campaign to clean up the streets. But his alibi holds up.

Next in line is building owner Woody Garfield (Ed Asner), exposed, to the shame of wife Marge (Norma Crane) as being a client of the prostitute, and then a janitor of low intelligence called Mealie (Juano Hernandez) and pimp Weedon (Anthony Zerbe), the kind of hood who enjoys taunting cops.

While Tibbs doesn’t indulge in the blatant maverick approach to the job of the earlier Madigan (1968) or the later Dirty Harry (1971) he’s not above putting the squeeze on witnesses.

Rather foolishly, but perhaps feeling this has now become de rigeur, there’s a car chase which hardly compares to Bullitt. In fact, we’re stuck in an automobile rather too often but these only result in desultory conversations between Tibbs and his sidekick. While in some respects it’s refreshing that Tibbs isn’t subject to any racism, and the picture doesn’t head down the blaxploitation route, the result lacks edge.

Tibbs’ reactions to his child bring him down sharply from the ivory tower of sainthood from the previous picture, and the family stuff, while building up his character, doesn’t make up for what the story lacks.

Gordon Douglas, who had previously excelled in this genre via Tony Rome (1967), The Detective (1968) and Lady in Cement (1968), found out the hard way that Frank Sinatra was more appealing as an investigator and cop than Sidney Poitier and, without steaminess or wise-cracking to fall back on, the sequel quietly runs out of steam.

Screenplay by Alan Trustman (The Thomas Crown Affair, 1968) and James Webb (Alfred the Great, 1969) from the bestseller by John Ball. Not a patch on the original

The Glory Guys (1965) ****

The dismissive verdict of Sam Peckinpah (he wrote the script) is the main reason this remains unfairly underrated. This came out the same year as that director’s over-rated Major Dundee and covers some of the same themes – the training of raw recruits and the woman requiring a protector.

But this is the first cavalry picture I’ve seen where training covers more than recruits falling off their horses, picking fights with each other and getting drunk and into scrapes. The main task of Capt Harrod (Tom Tryon), apart from teaching them to shoot, is to ensure they ride in formation and are ready to take part in action. There’s a brilliant scene where Harrod fakes an Indian attack where they are all in a flash knocked off their horses. And another superb scene where, having achieved an almost impossible goal in double-quick time, Harrod leads them in a ride-past in front of General McCabe (Andrew Duggan) and they ride in about ten rows six abreast, keeping time and distance. When the soldiers dismount during combat, how they arrange for the horses to get out of the way but not run off is also revealed. The scene of the whole detachment leaving the fort is also breathtaking. They are lined up in columns, five or six abreast, and you begin to see, for really the first time, how the U.S. Army operates as a trained unit.

But that’s just the cream of a very finely worked crop. Harrod and McCabe are at odds because the captain’s previous company of raw recruits was virtually wiped out in a previous engagement when the general used them as bait. McCabe is the “glory guy” of the title, everyone else is just trying to keep alive. The only certainty of going into battle, Harrod reminds his men, is that they have a fair chance of not returning home.

Widow Lou Woddard (Senta Berger) pops up to wreak romantic havoc. She owns a gunsmith business, and responsible for driving up sales, so not quite the vulnerable woman. What’s most at stake is her standing in town, her honor if you like, and she can’t be seen to be playing the field. While hardly promiscuous, she has two men on the go, Harrod, who seems disinclined to take the romance beyond a fling, and Army scout Sol Rogers (Harve Pressnell) who is off earning the chunk of money it will take for them to settle down elsewhere.

She doesn’t let on they are rivals and when they discover this it triggers an all-out slugging match – you almost wince with the power of the blows. This ain’t a brawl but a last man standing punch-up where literally they trade blows, one at a time. And she keeps dithering between the two. She reckons Sol isn’t the settling down kind while Harrod’s not keen on commitment. So any time she’s spurned by Harrod she flaunts Rogers.

If she gets her come-uppance, it’s not from either of the men. Attempting to trade barbs with McCabe’s snippy wife Rachael (Jeanne Cooper) she is publicly humiliated. And there’s a terrific scene as the calvary is set to leave the fort and the physical distance between Lou standing on the sidelines with the wives waving husbands goodbye and Harrod on horseback stretches into an emotional chasm simply from the way director Arnold Laven lines up his camera.

The action is clearly based on the Battle of the Little Big Horn. McCabe, instructed to form one half of a pincer movement, races his men ahead to beat his rival general into battle. True to form, he uses Harrod’s men as decoys, theoretically sent out to protect his flank, in reality to draw out the enemy, permitting the general to attack their unguarded rear.

The battle scene is just superb, hordes of cavalry charging towards the enemy, then turning tail when facing superior forces, dismounting to take up positions, then retreating again to the rocks, pursued but managing, mostly, to survive. The scene where Harrod comes across McCabe’s wiped-out army is like the beginning of Zulu (1964). (In fact, it’s worth bearing in mind that Little Big Horn and Isandlwana took place just three years apart and had there been instant global communication in those days the combined events would have sent shockwaves throughout the world.)

It is an excellent script regardless of how Peckinpah felt about the outcome. But it is also a very good western with sufficient changes rendered to the genre’s standard tropes. The compulsory saloon brawl is elevated by an ongoing comic element of Trooper Dugan (James Caan) being constantly defeated in his determination to smash a bottle over someone’s head.

Senta Berger completists should enjoy this far more than her performance in Major Dundee. She essays a more complete realistic character, not quite grasping, but not far short, and in chasing a dream coming close to heartbreak. Tom Tryon (The Cardinal, 1963) is better than I expected and hoofer Harve Pressnell (Paint Your Wagon, 1969) is a revelation. James Caan (El Dorado, 1967), playing a “miserable whining sugar”, is awful, a terrible Irish accent sinking all his attempts at scene stealing

Arnold Laven might have felt hard-done-by in regard to Peckinpah, given the director, in his capacity as producer, had dreamed up The Rifleman television series on which Peckinpah made his name. While this isn’t quite in the same league as Rough Night in Jericho (1967) but better than Sam Whiskey (1969) it deserves reappraisal. Had it featured bigger stars in the two male principal roles it would have attracted more attention at the outset instead of demanding it now.

Well worth a look.

The Doomsday Flight (1966) ***

Early entry to the hijack subgenre – this one pivoting on the bomb-on-a-plane. Could almost deem it a template for what to do and not do in this particular field. Airport (1970) was the most obvious beneficiary although Speed (1994) could be reckoned to be something of a homage. And though “what if” was largely the preserve of sci fi, this posed very scary questions for audiences only beginning to enjoy the benefits of cheaper international travel. A quartet of excellent twists and three examples of men under pressure heat up the concept.

Unusually, the writer was the main selling point, Rod Serling (Seven Days in May, 1964) being more famous than most screenwriters thanks to The Twilight Zone (1959-1964) scaring the pants off viewers in ways that nobody thought television would dare to do.

Propped up by an interesting cast – Jack Lord (The Name of the Game Is Kill!, 1968), former major league movie star Van Johnson (Wives and Lovers, 1963), Edmond O’Brien (Rio Conchos, 1964), John Saxon (The Appaloosa, 1966), Ed Asner (The Satan Bug, 1965) and Michael Sarrazin (They Shoot Horses, Don’t They, 1969).

Unusual in that the two main characters lose it and the movie is probably the first to touch upon PTSD in Vietnam. While Special Agent Frank Thompson (Jack Lord), leading the task force on the ground, appears to be in complete control, in fact he’s hidden the fact that his wife is on the hijacked plane. That’s only revealed in the final climactic twist, so you have to cast your mind back over the movie and reassess Jack Lord’s apparently unflappable performance.

The anonymous hijacker (Edmond O’Brien) is a pretty cunning individual. He’s set a bomb to explode on the plane’s descent and removed the easy option of making a speedy landing by forcing the jet to remain above a certain height otherwise an altitude-sensitive trigger will blow the passengers to kingdom come. He demands a $100,000 ransom which the airline is only too willing to pay.

Meanwhile, Capt Anderson (Van Johnson), who had appeared the insouciant handsome epitome of the airline pilot of the kind you saw in advertisements, is sweating profusely under the pressure as the cabin crew begin to search for the bomb. The passengers are not quite as terrified as you’d expect, most sitting in their seats, and i’ts left to celebrity George Ducette (John Saxon) to kick up a ruckus until put in his place by an anonymous army corporal (Michael Sarrazin) who has a distinct aversion to bombs and so far has sat rigid in his seat.

The hijacker keeps everyone on their toes by constantly moving from phone to phone. There’s a hiccup when the delivery van carrying the ransom has an accident and the cash is obliterated. By this point the hijacker, in a bar, is getting drunk and his iron control is tested by the news. The plane, meanwhile, is running out of fuel and Capt Anderson has long run out of patience.

Turns out the bomber isn’t the evil genius you expect. He’s been cast aside by the American dream, his considerable talents overlooked, and he wants everyone to know that he’s worth more. Unfortunately, he doesn’t get his moment in the sun, either literally having made off with the money, or by having his face splashed over the front pages of newspapers.

When he dies of a heart attack, the plane still circling and fuel levels dangerously low and now unable to locate the bomb, that’s a heck of a fabulous twist. But what Rod Serling takes away with one hand, he gives with the other, and the pilot soon works out that if he lands at a high altitude airfield he’ll prevent the bomb exploding.

Safely on the ground, we come to the third twist. The hijacker had deposited the bomb in Capt Anderson’s flight bag, carelessly left lying around at the airport. The final twist is the revelation that Thompson’s wife was on board.

What had every opportunity of becoming a run-of-the-mill thriller, especially since we are light on passenger drama (no pregnant women about to give birth, no kids or nuns to claw at our sentiments), segues into something more interesting as it delves into the cracking up of the hijacker and intimation that soldiers returning from Vietnam do not feel like heroes.

Edmond O’Brien is the pick, but Van Johnson possibly the most courageous in filleting his screen persona. You wouldn’t have predicted Michael Sarrazin’s later success from this performance, nor that Jack Lord would hit a home run in television’s Hawaii Five-O (1968-1980).

Ably directed by William Graham (Waterhole #3, 1967) and although, technically, all he has to do is point the picture in the direction of the twists, he brings more by allowing Edmond O’Brien to humanize his character.

I saw this as the supporting feature to Carry On Doctor and as a youngster never came out of a cinema more scared. Originally it was a made-for-television number though yanked after only one screening after airlines, not surprisingly, objected, so, as with many hard-to-find pictures it entered the cult zone in the USA.

As YouTube is often the curator of cult you can find it there.

An Angel for Satan / The Devil’s Angel (1966) ***

Scream Queen Barbara Steele (The Crimson Cult / Cult of the Crimson Altar, 1968) is the big attraction in this heady brew of witchcraft, ancient curse, hypnotism and plain ordinary seduction, with an ingenious double twist. And elegantly mounted, crisply photographed as if a Hollywood picture of the 1940s.

After a drought lowers the water level, a 200-year-old statue of the beautiful Countess Melena is recovered from the seabed. The locals fear it carries a curse. Artist Roberto (Anthony Steffen), hired to restore the artwork, arrives only days before the young countess Harriet (Barbara Steele) returns to claim her inheritance. With some clever sleight-of-hand, veteran Italian director Camillo Mastrocinque (Crypt of the Vampire, 1964) misleads the audience into thinking this is all about secret love affairs, Harriet’s uncle the Count (Claudio Gora) in an illicit relationship with housekeeper Ilda (Marina Berti), maid Rita (Ursula Davis) tempting timid schoolteacher Dario (Vassilli Karis), nascent love between Harriet and Roberto hitting a stumbling block and various shades of unshackled lust from woodcutter Vittorio (Aldo Berti) and village strong man Carlo (Mario Brega).

But pretty quickly, the picture takes a different turn. Turns out it’s not Melena who’s the problem – but her jealous ugly cousin Belinda who threw the statue into the water in the first place. Whatever the cause, there’s an outbreak of malevolence, mostly emanating from Harriet.

She strips naked for Carlo then savagely beats him for daring to stare at the nude body. She seduces Dario, looks like she’s making a play for Rita, goads Roberto and tells him she likes violence and has Carlo in her thrall.

In short order a female villager is raped and murdered, another barely escaping a similar fate, the schoolteacher commits suicide, several villagers are axed to death, the strong man sets fire to his cottage, killing wife and seven children, and the woodcutter is speared by pitchforks.

You can tell this is a classier number because the violence is minus any gore and there’s little attempt at deliberate shock, more of a slow burn as Harriet torments those around her. Roberto is permitted small touches of investigation, and there’s a clever special effect of a painting appearing to talk.

The traditional horror elements – lightning, slamming windows, storms – are primarily employed to nudge Harriet and Roberto together; it just so happens that she is scared of lightning and he’s the person most conveniently placed to comfort her. There’s a hint of the narcissism found in Hammer’s later lesbian horror pictures, and only the censor or the director’s discretion prevents more full-blown nudity as a prelude to seduction of both male and female. Harriet’s a dab hand at inveigling males to be in the wrong place at the wrong time invariably with her clothes in disarray to lend substance to her claims of being attacked.

While, as regular readers will know, I’m generally in favour of the climactic twist – the more the merrier – here I’m not so sure this was the road to go down. As Roberto already knows that the curse applies to wicked cousin Belinda rather than Melena, it would have been enough for him to declare this and find a way of removing it, most likely adopting the simple solution of chucking the statue back in the sea, which is what the villagers have been demanding all along.

It’s quite clear that much of the rape and killing is down to hypnotism by Harriet, but once we discover she’s being hypnotized by the Count, in one fell swoop what had been an intriguing horror story transforms into a more run-of-the-mill crime tale since if Harriett is committed to an asylum then he can continue to rule the roost.

But he’s in the thrall of Ilda who turns out to be the ancestor of Belinda. So not quite the satisfactory ending unless the criminal element had been introduced earlier on.

I doubt if Barbara Steele fans will care as the actress is very much in her element and, although in the end a victim, for the bulk of the picture she is in total – and seductive – command. Nobody’s going to compete with her and sensibly nobody tries. Anthony Steffen didn’t need any help with his career because had had already headed down the spaghetti western route.

Classically directed – excellent composition and camera movement – from a script by Mastrocinque and Giuseppe Mangione (Anzio / Battle for Anzio, 1968) from a novel by Antonio Fogazarro.

Superior stuff in which Barbara Steele shines.

The Ambushers (1967) ***

Don’t get too hung up on the supposed rampant sexism in this third iteration the Matt Helm series. These women – bikini-clad or not – are weaponized to the hilt rather than our hero Matt Helm (Dean Martin) who has to make do with a gun disguised as a camera. In fact, he makes pretty good use of the gadget created for the females – the one that melts metal, designed to get rid of the clasp on men’s belts, forcing their trousers to fall down, which, as any student of farce knows, is the easiest way to disable the male.

There’s also a weapon triggered from a bra and a sedative concealed inside lipstick so that males seduced into intimacy will soon be snookered. And it’s also a woman, secret agent Sheila (Janice Rule), who’s impervious to the electromagnetic waves which kill off the opposite gender. Of course, to be fair, it’s not Matt Helm we see sinuously dancing around a playboy mansion in Acapulco the way the women do, although for Francesca (Senta Berger) that appears a clever method of entering the enemy’s lair. Who’s going to question another sexy dancing queen? And the bad guy has one of those devices that make the zips on female attire unzip. (James Bond purloined that one.) But it’s Matt who has the ideal rescue weapon, the levitation gun.

If you’re looking for a more male-oriented theme, how about beer? At various points Matt Helm is literally swimming in the stuff. I wouldn’t have been at all surprised had the plot concerned beer manufacturer Ortega (Albert Salmi) planning world domination through poisoning the global supply of beer or arming his beer gals with bullet-spraying bras. Even though this is largely a spoof, more so than the first in the series, it’s not that much of a spoof and Ortega has more serious intent. Using lasers, he’s hijacked the U.S. Government’s secret flying saucer and plans to sell it to the highest bidder.

Sheila, the pilot, also hijacked, has gone off piste after her experience, and is thrown together with Matt Helm as husband-and-wife, a role they previously played on another mission, to hunt down the villain and recover the missing spaceship. Francesca is also after same, and happy to seduce, trick or sedate Matt in order to achieve that end. Despite believing (from the previous encounter) that she is still Matt’s wife, Stella, despite an instant blow-up tent being laid on, takes a while to understand her duties include getting hot’n’heavy even if she’s less comfortable in the bikini department. Eventually, Matt and Sheila team up with Francesca. Turns out she works for supervillain Big O but is first to find the flying saucer.

More than the earlier entries in the series, this one relies on a series of unlikely events. The switcheroos when the lights in the train go out. But the firing squad sequence is hilarious. The in-jokes about Dean Martin’s recording rivals continue, but the bevy of bikini girls disappear from view pretty much after the opening section.

Janice Rule (Alvarez Kelly, 1966) is generally seen as a class above the previous female leads in the series but that would only be if you ignored Ann-Margret’s performance in Once a Thief (1965), the Stella Stevens of Rage (1966), the Senta Berger of The Quiller Memorandum (1966) and especially the stunning playing of Daliah Lavi in The Demon (1964). Dean Martin was on the cusp of much finer work in Rough Night in Jericho (1967) and Firecreek (1968) so this might just have been a warm-up.

Directed by Henry Levin (Genghis Khan) from a screenplay by Herbert Baker based on the Donald Hamilton novel.

Doesn’t take it itself seriously, which is just as well.

Hand of Death (1962) ***

Unless you go by the name of Dr Jekyll, you don’t want to become a guinea pig for your own scientific experiments. Niftily done, memorable opening and finale, minimum expenditure on special effects ensures the shock value is limited until it counts as our hero/villain goes on accidental rampage.

In an echo of Village of the Damned (1960), a mailman, drawing up in front of some gates, falls to the ground. The camera pulls back revealing some senseless sheep. Two guys in Hazchem suits rush out of a building which turns out to be a laboratory. It’s not even a top secret lab although it’s buried in the desert. Dr Alex Marsh (John Agar) is supposed to be engaged on harmless experiments on cacti. Instead, he’s stumbled upon a nerve gas with military potential.

Our mailman and the sheep aren’t dead only unconscious so, through happenstance, Marsh has successfully conducted both animal and human tests, such results an improvement on what went before when the subjects died.

Marsh can’t wait to tell boss Dr Ramsay (Roy Gordon) and his girlfriend Carol (Paula Raymond) the good news. All scientists are mad scientists given the right circumstances. So Marsh has gone from anodyne to dangerous. In Army hands, the nerve gas can not only immobilize the enemy but when they wake up they are under hypnotic influence and will do what the victors tell them thus nullifying the risk of rebellion.

James Bond villains would be queuing at his door. Leaving Ramsay to drum up financial support from legitimate sources, Marsh returns to the lab to further develop the prototype, except too much leaks out and he’s not as immune to its effects as he originally believed. And beyond being cursed by a nightmare, it doesn’t look, initially, as if Marsh is in danger. Just everyone else. Touch him and you’re fried.

While he doesn’t mean to kill anyone, nonetheless heading for the morgue are a colleague and a gas pump attendant. He hides out in Ramsay’s house where serums are concocted to cure him. They fail. Marsh moves from not wanting to hurt anybody to threatening violence. And it’s soon clear he’s not at all immune. Contemporary audiences might enjoy the transformation as he turns into a cross between Hulk and The Thing from The Fantastic Four, with the addition of the kind of raincoat for which Columbo later expressed a preference and Frank Sinatra’s hat.

And you might be giggling at the look except that strange things begin to happen. You pity him. He’s not some monster lurching around terrorizing the populace. He’s lurching all right but in the kind of bent-over fashion where you think he’s going to topple over any minute. He turns up at Carol’s beach house but so do the cops. He heads towards the water but when he turns back at Carol’s call the police interpret that as threat and shoot him dead.

There are some other nice touches, reaction shots from the supporting cast, some sparkling bit parts, a small child who is within seconds of touching him out of curiosity, and an incentive for his other colleague Tom (Stephen Dunne) to win over Carol should he fail to come up with the serum.

John Agar (The St Valentine’s Day Massacre, 1967) was never going to get within a mile of an Oscar but his playing of the monster triggers pity. Paula Raymond (The Flight That Disappeared, 1961) adds some depth to a thankless role.

Directed by Gene Nelson (Kissin’ Cousins, 1964) from a screenplay by producer Eugene Ling in his final work.

I came at this with one big advantage. I hadn’t seen the poster so I had no idea what the monster looked like. Which is just as well because otherwise I might have not bothered.

Tight, short, occasionally clever, surprisingly moving.

Twilight (1997) **

Thirty years later Paul Newman returns to the private eye genre – and finds the well dry. It’s a Hollywood trope that big stars after decades of employing every artifice in the business decide for artistic reasons to fess up and play their age. But the “tired old man” syndrome here is as much a bust as the story and the characters. Susan Sarandon couldn’t have “femme fatale” written on her face in any bigger letters and only the dumbest viewer would not guess from the outset that she had something to do with the mysterious disappearance of her first husband. It’s no surprise that this is so devoid of anything memorable that it is remembered mostly these days for Oscar-winning Reese Witherspoon getting her kit off.

Worse, despite being second-billed, Gene Hackman hardly appears, no more than topping and tailing the picture. We also have a voice-over that’s not replete with wit but is used to fill us in on bits of the narrative that are either opaque or not obvious enough. And it falls back on the Raymond Chandler gimmick of a man bursting into a room with a gun when the narrative starts to slacken. Except the story here is so slack it’s almost immobile. And there’s just a terrible ongoing joke that everyone thinks (apparently) that Paul Newman has had his pecker shot off, which would explain his general curmudgeonly attitude.

Ex-cop private eye Harry Ross (Paul Newman) is down in Mexico to find the missing daughter Mel Ames (Reese Witherspoon) of old buddy Jack on an illegal sexscapade (she’s a minor) with Jeff (Liev Schreiber). In the process of apprehending her he drops his gun (yep, that’s how good he is at this job) and she picks it up and shoots him. Flash forward a couple of years and Harry’s retired and living in a grace-and-favor apartment supplied by a grateful Jack who is dying of cancer. Harry agrees to come out of retirement to deliver a package for Jack, which obviously contains cash for a blackmail pay-out. Come delivery time, Harry stumbles upon the corpse of another ex-cop, Lester (M. Emmet Walsh), who has continued the search for the missing husband of Jack’s current wife Catherine (Susan Sarandon), a former actress not averse to taking her clothes off onscreen.

Into the equation comes cynical cop Capt Egan (John Spencer) and Verna (Stockard Channing), another old buddy and possibly one-time girlfriend (it’s not clear). Meanwhile, Harry falls for the charms of Catherine since only the dumbest of dumb cops can’t recognize a femme fatale when she falls into his lap. Unfortunately, Jack chooses that moment to have a heart attack and quickly works out from the giveaway of Catherine racing to the rescue wearing Harry’s shirt that he’s been cuckolded.

The trail doesn’t exactly lead to another old buddy, Raymond (James Garner), but he gets involved and another red alert flashes on the screen when we learn that Jack owns a million-dollar house (multi-million dollar equivalent these days) that even in his financially-straitened condition he refuses to sell for the obvious reason – as it takes forever for the audience to discover – that the corpse of the missing husband is buried in the grounds.

Jeff, who’s done a four-year stretch for his sojourn in Mexico with Mel, has worked this out and in conjunction with parole officer Gloria (Margo Martindale) is putting the squeeze on Jack. But he’s pretty miffed with Harry and knocks him out. But he’s also as dumb as the rest of the gang and is hiding out in the unsold million-dollar house. So he’s not hard to track down. And not just by Harry but also by the aforementioned character who bursts through a door with a gun when the narrative goes slack.

So, shucks, eventually we learn what we knew from the outset, that Catherine had her first husband bumped off so she could marry Jack and he was complicit. You might not have worked out that Raymond was somehow involved but what the heck there needs to be some twist in the turgid tale.

Naturally, Harry, being a retired cop and private eye now resigned to the vagaries of life, isn’t particularly concerned with putting away Catherine and in any case, as luck would have it, turns out Verna is still sweet on him so they can walk away into the sunset.

Crikey! And this from triple Oscar-winning writer-director Robert Benton (Bonnie and Clyde, 1967 and Kramer vs Kramer 1979). If it’s intended as a parody of the genre, there ain’t much in the way of laffs and if it’s not then, sorry, that’s the way it’s turned out.

Sure it’s world-weary and all that, and Harry is a sad divorced ex-alcoholic who’s very down on his luck, and while there is some brittle dialog it’s not enough to make up for the sludge of the narrative trek.

Yep, Paul Newman (Harper, 1966) comes across as old and Gene Hackman (The Gypsy Moths, 1969) comes across as old and James Garner (Buddwing, 1966) comes across as old but is that it? Honestly? Worse, Oscar-winning Susan Sarandon comes up short in the femme fatale department. You wouldn’t figure Reese Witherspoon either as a superstar in the making. In fact, the droll Margo Martindale steals the show.

This pretty much put the tin lid on the career of Paul Newman as a top-billed star – and it’s worth pointing out that both Sean Connery and Clint Eastwood in that marquee regard went on longer – as it did on the directing career of Robert Benton.

Must’ve seemed a good idea at the time.