Brian Hannan

The Switch (1963) ***

Dr No (1962) was more famous for kick-starting nascent careers – step forward Sean Connery and Ursula Andress – rather than reviving careers that had looked dead and buried as was the case with Zena Marshall. I had just come across Ms Marshall in her last picture, The Terrornauts (1967), a cult sci fi from Amicus, that I had been asked to provide an audio commentary for (you’ll have to wait till next year for that) and was intrigued to discover that, while never becoming a big star, she had managed to eke out a decent living since her debut in Caesar and Cleopatra in 1945. She’d never achieved much more than rising star status, B-movies more her line. She hadn’t made a picture in five years until Dr No but thereafter managed leading lady once a year until her retirement.

Director Peter Maxwell (Serena, 1962) fell into much the same movie backwater but still had the knack of generating interesting narratives. The screenplay turns on some interesting realism, an unusual gadget (especially for this genre) as well as a couple of entertaining happenstances and in Zena Marshall one of two very self-assured females who light up a picture otherwise peppered with dour males.

*The eagle-eyed among you will have noted that I’ve used a still from “Dr No” as the main picture. Similarly, this is one of Zena Marshall’s earlier movies.*
*Extant posters of “The Switch” are non-existent, it appears.*

A joint police and customs operation has snared a smuggler in a sting. But, almost immediately after Inspector Tomlinson (Dermot Walsh) and Customs Agent Bill Craddock (Anthony Steel) latch onto their prey, their informant ends up in the River Thames and they hit a dead end trying to find the Mr Big behind the high-class watch smuggling racket.

Meanwhile model Carolyn (Zena Marshall), on holiday in France, is taken for a romantic meal by seductive Frenchman Lecraze (Arnold Diamond) while his colleagues stuff her petrol tank with watches.

Takes a while for Carolyn to become a suspect. There’s quite a lot of fun to be had from unexpectedly inept gangsters. When she returns home, she finds her flatmate’s cousin John Curry (Conrad Phillips) having a bath. With his car parked in her garage, she finds somewhere else to stay. His car is mistakenly stolen, as is the car she exchanges at the garage while the original one she brought back from France is in for repairs. The crooks repeatedly steal the wrong car.

Eventually, the cops break open her petrol tank and find the hidden watches. Although under suspicion she is freed, and, being a confident young lass, and quite accustomed to men of all ages taking her out for dinner and buying her presents, is nonetheless surprised when her latest admirer John presents her with his firm’s latest invention, a miniature radio transmitter hidden inside a cigarette case.

Which is just as well because the Frenchman reappears and kidnaps Carolyn hoping to find out from her what happened to her car. Meanwhile, the cops dig up gangster’s moll Janice (Dawn Beret) whose boyfriend is mixed up in the villainy and has herself unwittingly brought stolen goods into the country in her petrol tank after being chatted up by a smooth Frenchman. She’s a cheeky young thing, as self-assured as Carolyn, suggesting to the straight-laced inspector that if he’s not doing anything at the weekend they could get married.

Meanwhile, John has teamed up with the good guys while they manage to survive Janice’s stream of quips and attempt to track down the kidnapped Carolyn. She doesn’t manage to hold out for long, not when Mr Big removes the gloves.

All in all, it’s cleverly done, playing all the time with audience expectation, not just the cocky confidence of the two women, who are clearly accomplished at leading men astray, but the quirks of the storyline – including a failed escape up a chimney – the details of the smuggling operation, and the introduction of the James Bond-style gadget. There’s even some cheeky self-awareness, John seen sitting up in bed reading the movie tie-in edition of Dr No which features Zena Marshall on the cover.

Apart from Zena Marshall, there’s an interesting cast. Anthony Steel (The Story of O, 1975), husband of Anita Ekberg, was just back from a stint in Rome. Conrad Phillips (The Secret Partner, 1961) had played William Tell in the television series and Dermot Walsh Richard the Lionheart in similar. It marked the last screen appearance of Susan Shaw (Fire Maidens from Outer Space, 1956) and perky Dawn Beret (Victim, 1961) looked promising. In bit parts look out for Carry On regular Peter Butterworth and Rose Alba (Thunderball, 1965)

This sat on the shelf for a year before going out on the Odeon circuit as support to spy picture Hot Enough for June/Agent 8¾ (1964) starring Dirk Bogarde.

Except for horror, Britain didn’t stoop to having B-Movie Queens, but if they had Zena Marshall would wear the crown.

Bye, Bye, Birdie (1963) ***

Marketeers employ a cute trick to get round the contractual billing required on movie posters. The position and size of a star’s name in any movie – even now – is stipulated long before a single camera rolls. This is where all the “name above the title” malarkey stems from comes from, that stipulation setting the reals stars apart from the wannabes.

However, whoever was in charge of drawing up the standard boilerplate template was only concerned with names, not images. That left a loophole to be exploited. Should you have a female rising star, whose face or figure might be a darn sight more attractive than the top-billed male, well, by heck, there was nothing to stop you plugging the contractually-less-dominant person all over the poster at the expense of the top-billed star.

The marketeers did it with Marilyn Monroe, they did it with Audrey Hepburn, and now they’re stooping to the same loophole to promote Ann-Margret as virtually the only star of any importance. Admittedly, this was before top-billed Dick Van Dyke achieved much of a reputation as a hoofer in such spectaculars as Mary Poppins (1964). But his second-billed female lead, Janet Leigh, whose features the camera had very much taken a shine to, was also elbowed out of poster prominence.

And small wonder. Excepting Monroe, no actress ever in the last decade burst onto the screen with such pizzazz. By the time Bye Bye Birdie – her third movie – opened Ann-Margret’s asking price had zoomed to $250,000 and she had struck a two-picture deal with MGM, was contracted to five for Twentieth Century Fox, three for Columbia and another three for Frank Sinatra’s movie production arm.

So a heck of a lot was in the balance. And, boy, does she deliver. Her energy is untouchable and, excepting again Monroe, there was never a sexier singer.

Shame the musical itself is so trite, at its best in homage to those innocent days of the 1950s, that were a more Technicolor version of those 1940s musicals that invariably were sugary confections. The story rips off the Elvis Presley legend. Conrad Birdie (Jesse Pearson) is a pop singer who has been drafted. Songwriter’s secretary Rosie (Janet Leigh) comes up with a publicity gimmick, Conrad singing a song, “One Last Kiss,” written by Albert (Dick Van Dyke) sung on the Ed Sullivan Show, his last gig before joining the Army, with a specially-chosen gal to be recipient of said smooch.

To fill you in, Rosie has had a tough time getting boyfriend Albert, eight years into their relationship, across the wedding finishing line. Bridie fan Kim (Ann-Margret) also has a boyfriend Hugo (Bobby Rydell) who naturally objects to his beloved kissing the pop singer on air in front of millions even it is a publicity stunt. Meanwhile, Albert’s Mama (Maureen Stapleton) is trying to drive a wedge between Rosie and her son. The out-of-sorts Rosie and Hugo conspire to sabotage the television show.

So pretty much the will-she-won’t-she is delivered in wishy-washy style with the plot (call that a plot!) interrupted every few minutes for a song. The narrative seems out of place for a section involving arrest for statutory rape and racism, but that gives the movie some much-needed muscle.

No question that Ann-Margret (The Swinger, 1966) steals the show. That would hardly be surprising given the lack of competition. But she certainly has the song-and-dance chops, and her energy is second to none. She gets a march on everyone by singing the title number over the credits, the credits themselves very much pushed into the background. The other prospective breakout musical star Dick Van Dyke only has one solo and Janet Leigh (Psycho, 1960) wasn’t going to effect a change of screen persona any time soon.

George Sidney directed from a screenplay by Irving Brecher (Oscar-nominated for Meet Me in St Louis, 1944) and Michael Stewart (Hello, Dolly!, 1969) from the original Broadway hit by Charles Strouse (music), Lee Adams (lyrics) and Stewart (book).

Refreshingly lightweight. Ann-Margret lights up the screen.

The Mephisto Waltz (1971) ****

Jacqueline Bisset’s good looks often got in the way of her acting. Or, more correctly, in the way of producer perception about what she could do. Too often she was the female lead that simply hung on the arm of the male lead. But, here, to my surprise, she is not only the narrative fulcrum, but steals the show from Alan Alda, mostly remembered these days for TV’s M*A*S*H (1972-1983) but at the start of the 1970s being heralded in Hollywood as the next big thing and top-billed.

Alda’s character here is little more than his screen persona in embryo – glib, wise-cracking, cocky. In an earlier Hollywood he would have been the smooth-talking gangster beefing up B-pictures.

Appearing between the demonic high-spots of Rosemary’s Baby (1968) and The Omen (1976), director Paul Wendkos (Cannon for Cordoba, 1970) escapes his journeyman roots to suffuse the picture with nightmarish scenes, and clever use of the fish-eye lens, treating Satanism with the most subtle of brushes, restricted to a mark daubed in a forehead and a pentagram on the floor but minus any chorus of witches or warning from priests or sundry other holy persons.

Myles (Alan Alda), piano prodigy who never made the cut, now a journalist, is encouraged by interviewee, concert pianist Duncan Ely (Curt Jurgens), to take it up again. Under the older man’s tutelage, he thrives, promising career beckons, plus an entrée into quite a heady world of parties, sex and wealth. Wife Paula (Jacqueline Bisset) is more sceptical especially once Duncan and his buddies start buying up everything in sight in her new antiques emporium. She’s especially perturbed to see Duncan sharing an intimate kiss with his married daughter Roxanne (Barbara Parkins) never mind wondering whether her husband is going to fall prey to the daughter’s seductive technique.

Just what’s going on is never entirely obvious, making the audience work rather than bombarding them with shock scenes. I’m not sure what you’d call it in demonic terms, some kind of transference, body and soul. Once Duncan dies, Myles’s life is transformed, not just thanks to an extremely generous bequest in the old man’s will, but a dramatic increase in his piano-playing prowess, plus, almost as a bonus, the increased attentions of Roxanne.

True scares are limited, mostly a huge drooling black mastiff who may or may not be a killer, and so the tale remains more subtle and eventually boils down to whether Paula will follow her husband on his satanic journey or lose him to the wiles of Roxanne and, perhaps more importantly, never enjoy him as the personality he once was.

We all know that, where money and career is concerned, Myles has a cynical bone in his body and has already demonstrated a capacity for the finer things in life, whether they be animate or inanimate. So his character carries little dramatic tension. And so Paula carries the dramatic burden and she bears that, too, with surprising subtlety.

There’s almost a reverse Gaslight vibe to the whole exercise, Paula convincing herself that she must take this step into what would otherwise be considered madness. It’s worth noting that nobody’s pushing her. She makes the decision herself, although takes you a while (that subtlety again) before you cotton on to consequence. And while we’re on the subject of subtlety, full marks to Wendkos for treating two scenes in particular of Bisset nudity with commendable restraint.

Quite where Satan’s apparent mission to bring classical music to the masses fits into his plans for global domination is never made clear, leanings of such an esoteric nature rarely a prerequisite of the evil mastermind.

Still, a much classier feast than I was expecting, Bisset (The Sweet Ride, 1968) the standout. Her performance served to give Hollywood notice of a classier star than merely the barely seen girlfriend of Steve McQueen in Bullitt (1968). From here on in she would catch the eye of a better grade of director, including Francois Truffaut in Day for Night (1974) though it can be arguedthat it was her looks that sent her into the stratosphere after the wet t-shirt modelling in The Deep (1977).

Alda, meanwhile, jumped straight into M*A*S*H and didn’t resurface as a creditable movie marquee name until California Suite (1978) and The Seduction of Joe Tynan (1979). Curt Jurgens (Psyche ’59) as ever is good value, Barbara Parkins (Puppet on a Chain, 1970) his rather slinky associate and Bradford Dillman (The Bridge at Remagen, 1969) also pops up.

Wendkos in top gear. Screenplay by Ben Maddow (The Way West, 1967) from the Fred Mustard Stewart bestseller. Excellent Jerry Goldsmith score.

Well worth a look.

Behind the Scenes: Selling the Age Gap – “The Idol” (1966) Pressbook

“At what age should a woman stop loving?” is one of the least used of the tag lines for The Idol and yet is the one that provides the strongest narrative thread. Had the movie been filmed from the perspective of Carol, the mother, the answer to the tagline – “when her hate becomes stronger than her hunger…when her pride overcomes her passion” – might have offered audiences something with greater depth than the final movie that appeared.

The movie took a heck of a time to arrive at the May-December reversal brief love affair and the Pressbook/Marketing Manual spends more time playing up the “generation gap.” It’s one of those Pressbooks where it appears the publicity masterminds were watching a different picture to the audience.

“Highlighting the lack of communication between the younger and older generations,” spouts the Pressbook, “director Petrie shows young people as lacking in values, while pointing out it is not necessarily their fault. He thinks parents today are unwilling or unable to pass along to their children a concept of truth (“recollections vary” perhaps) – because they themselves are no longer sure of what is true, what is right and wrong.”

Really? That’s not the movie I saw. The Pressbook is on surer ground when providing background to the filming. Much of the picture was shot in unusual locations like the 300-year-old Queen’s Inn in Chelsea and Brad’s Club in the West End, redecorated for the occasion with zebra skins, spears, shields and jungle foliage, the revamp so successful with existing customers the club wanted to buy the props from the production company. Star Jennifer Jones wore creations made by Italian fashion designers Galitzino and Emilio Pucci.

Michael Parks, heralded as a great new star after his role in The Bible (1966), preferred his part here. “I’d much rather be judged by my performance in The Idol – as a complicated young man with tremendous problems.” At least his characterization echoed his own impoverished life, attending 21 schools in a peripatetic childhood. At one high school his grades prevented him taking drama classes. He lived as a hobo for a time after leaving home, then worked as a door-to-door salesman.

The 14-page landscape A3 Pressbook offers relatively few marketing ideas for prospective exhibitors. There was a paperback book tie-in by Frances Rickett from Popular Library and an album of the score from composer Johnny Dankworth and an instrumental single. Oddly enough, singer John Leyton doesn’t sing.

There was an attempt to push the fashion angle, the Pressbook arguing that “many of these fashions typify the ‘mod’ look so popular with today’s clothes-conscious women.” Exhibitors in America were urged to use travel posters of England in their lobbies, even though since the movie was shot in black-and-white it hardly presents an appealing version of the country.

Parks has supposedly competition from John Leyton as the next big thing. Leyton came from English theatrical stock, mother an actress, father an owner of music halls and trained at the Actor’s Workshop in London. “Had Leyton not catapulted to fame as a singer, it would only have been a matter of time before the public would have singled him out for stardom as a fine actor.”

Jennifer Jones, on the other hand, required no puffery to be accepted as an actress. Her breakthrough came in Song of Bernadette (1943), one of six actresses tested but the only one who could convincingly look as if she had seen “a vision.” She had married legendary producer David O. Selznick and despite her box office marquee and Oscar recognition had largely been off-screen to fulfil the same role as she does in the picture – of a mother.

The Idol (1966) ***

By this point in the 1960s the use of black-and-white photography was a statement of artistic intent. So no bright red London buses or other colorful tourist features here. Instead, there’s an overall drabness, lack of bite and energy and a curious tale headlined by a purportedly rising star and a faded Hollywood marquee name. We’re back in rebel territory without much to distinguish it, a poor American studying art on a scholarship who gets in with a wealthier crowd, an under-explored Oedipal theme. On the other hand, the gender-reversed May-December episode is treated with more realism. There’s one superb scene of spite.

The impoverished Marco (Michael Parks), friendly with medical student Timothy (John Leyton), quickly appropriates his girlfriend Sarah (Jennifer Hilary), the cuckolded one too spineless to object, too needy of the arrogant buddy’s attention. They move into an apartment together. Timothy’s over-protective widowed mother Carol (Jennifer Jones), seeing the dangerous influence Marco wields, tries to separate them. She’s worried about how her son will react to her plan to marry confident businessman Martin (Guy Doleman).

Marco is theoretically at least the kind of pushy character who’s had to pull himself up by the bootstrings and despises his friends who merely inherited their good luck. He’s less of an Alfie (1965) than a self-destructive version of the rough-hewn Albert Finney character in Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960) but minus any genuine redemptive working class credentials. We never learn much about him.

When he makes an ill-advised play for Carol she dismisses his “schoolboy attempts at flirtation” and humiliates him. When she catches him in a bedroom in her house with Sarah. she wipes the lipstick from his mouth with a linen handkerchief and tosses said item out of the window. This scene taking place in front of a bunch of partygoers being given a tour of her grand house. He is thrown out.

Later, he wins back her favor after saving Timothy from being beaten up in a fight. What begins as a demonstration of maternal instinct soon leads to bed. But in the morning, in a reversal of the scene at the party, his draws lipstick on her lips, then wipes it off with a linen handkerchief and tosses the item out of the window. He was just using her. One of the best revenge scenes you’re likely to come across and carrying contemporary reverberation, not so much of the older woman falling for the younger man (an ongoing trope these days) but of the foolish woman trusting a man who has little interest in being faithful and treats her either as a sex object or an extension of his domination over the opposite sex.

It doesn’t end well, once Tomothy gets wind of his act, but the climax, especially the minor twist, feels tacked on. Marco’s the kind of character who romances them and leaves them, no love involved (except for himself), relatively little consequence, only tripped up by happenstance, and without engendering any empathy or sympathy from the audience.

In part this is because Michael Parks was an inexperienced movie actor, a rising talent after landing the male lead in Bus Riley’s Back in Town (1965) opposite Ann-Margret, which had a much better script, was in color (natch) and any time the plot slackened the camera could turn to the actress to save the day.

And in part it fails because Jennifer Jones was attempting one comeback too many, her first picture in four years, and only in her second in a decade, the marquee appeal that won her an Oscar for Song of Bernadette (1943) and a quartet of nominations besides long gone. Like contemporary Olivia de Havilland in Light in the Piazza (1962) she’s on relatively solid ground as a mother, but it’s quite a stretch for her to fall, even in a moment of weakness – unlike de Havilland who resists blandishments – for the churlish Marco.

It’s not helped by the weakness of the rest of the acting. John Leyton (The Great Escape, 1963) never managed the leap from pop star to movie star and Jennifer Hilary (The Heroes of Telemark, 1965) was merely another ingenue.

Daniel Petrie (Stolen Hours, 1963) is out of his depth with material that doesn’t quite fit together and doesn’t get a tune out of his male lead. Script by Millard Lampell (Escape from East Berlin, 1962).

The lipstick-wiping scenes stand out, and Jones is always watchable, but this is hardly memorable.

The Annual (Shameless) Xmas Plug For My Books

It’s coming! My latest book – King of the Action Thrillers – is on the films of Alistair MacLean. Regular readers will know movies based on the thrillers of the Scottish bestselling author are very close to my heart. As it would appear to be to yours. For, as you will be aware, readers of the Blog have responded massively to my behind-the-scenes tales of the making of a few of the MacLean movies.

The new book is based on exclusive access to many rare archives so I am able to tell – for the first time – the real story behind MacLean’s rise to movie prominence. In addition, I’ve tracked down a hitherto unknown screenplay. His books were turned into both big-budget blockbusters like The Guns of Navarone (1961), Where Eagles Dare (1968) and Ice Station Zebra (1968) as well as the more modestly budgeted Puppet on a Chain (1970) and Fear Is the Key (1972) which set new standards for all kinds of chase sequences.

*Stylish cover for the Vinegar Syndrome DVD.*

MacLean was an absolute phenomenon in Hollywood terms. Between 1961 and 1979 a total of 13 of his books were turned into movies, an unprecedented hit rate. Another four began in television, and there was one final movie in 1989. Given he only wrote 28 works of fiction that is some achievement.

This book isn’t published until November next year but is currently available for pre-order on Amazon so there’s no reason why it wouldn’t make a great Xmas present this year.

I’ve diversified somewhat in my activities. Vinegar Syndrome, one of the top DVD re-packagers, has called twice on my services for an audio commentary. So if you want to know what I sound like or you just find the Scottish accent soothing, check out my work on Henry Hathaway western Five Card Stud (1968). Although it starred the fairly macho likes of Robert Mitchum and Dean Martin, I also detected considerable feminist aspects which, it appears, others have overlooked. That’s already out. You can get it direct from Vinegar Syndrome.

Coming soon is my audio commentary on British cult sci fi The Terrornauts (1967), an Amicus production starring Simon Oates, Zena Marshall, Charles Hawtrey and Patricia Hayes and based on a bestseller by Murray Leinster, considered second only to H.G. Wells for his speculative imagination.

I’ve been paid a rather unique compliment by the highly esteemed Cinema Retro magazine. They are putting out a “Special Edition” – in magazine format with dozens of stills and posters – of my Making of The Magnificent Seven book, which covers the original series.

But that’s not out till January. The full version of the book is also available from Amazon at a very reduced price. If you’re a fan of the “making-of” books – as, judging by the views of my behind-the-scenes articles, many of you are – then you may well be interested in The Making of The Guns of Navarone (Revised Edition) and The Making of Lawrence of Arabia. For that matter, there is ample “behind the scenes” material in two other books. The Magnificent 60s examines in detail the top 100 movies of the decade and could easily be retitled “how the decade was born.” The Gunslingers of ’69 examines the western in a pivotal year that saw the release of The Wild Bunch, True Grit, Once Upon a Time in the West and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid among others.

My research into The Magnificent Seven spawned two other books. I came to write Coming Back to a Theater Near You, A History of Hollywood Reissues 1914-2014 as a direct result of discovering that the western had flopped on initial U.S. release and only became profitable there after several revivals. Equally, the movie enjoyed an unusual release pattern, going out in a what you’d call these days a rudimentary form of wide release and that led me to In Theaters Everywhere: A History of the Hollywood Wide release 1913-2017.

Since I’ve now written over a dozen books on the movies I’m not going to bore you with them all. You can check me out on Amazon.

I would beg you, however, to pass on to anyone you can think of the information regarding the Alistair MacLean book. It would be great if thanks to pre-orders it could open at No 1 in the Amazon movie chart.

Dr No (1962) *****

Minus the gadgets and the more outlandish plots, the James Bond formula in embryo. With two of the greatest entrances in movie history – and a third if you count the creepy presence of Dr No himself at the beds of his captives – all the main supporting characters in place except Q, plenty of sex and action, plus the credit sequence and the theme tune, this is the spy genre reinvented.

Most previous espionage pictures usually involved a character quickly out of their depth or an innocent caught up in nefarious shenanigans, not a man close to a semi-thug, totally in command, automatically suspicious, and happy to knock off anyone who gets in his way, in fact given government clearance to commit murder should the occasion arise. That this killer comes complete with charm and charisma and oozes sexuality changes all the rules and ups the stakes in the spy thriller.

Three men disguised as beggars break into the house of British secret service agent Strangeways (Tim Moxon) and kill him and his secretary and steal the file on Dr No (Joseph Wiseman). A glamorous woman in a red dress Sylvia Trench (Eunice Gayson) catches the eye of our handsome devil “Bond, James Bond” (Sean Connery) at a casino before he is interrupted by an urgent message, potential assignation thwarted.

We are briefly introduced to Miss Moneypenny (Lois Maxwell) before Bond is briefed by M (Bernard Lee) and posted out immediately – or “almost immediately” as it transpires – to Jamaica, but not before his beloved Beretta is changed to his signature Walther PPK and mention made that he is recovering from a previous mission. But in what would also become a series signature, liberated women indulging in sexual freedom, and often making the first move, Ms Trench is lying in wait at his flat.

Another change to the espionage trope, this man does not walk into the unknown. Suspicion is his watchword. In other words, he is the consummate professional. On arrival at Jamaica airport he checks out the waiting chauffeur and later the journalist who takes his picture. The first action sequence also sets a new tone. Bond is not easily duped. Three times he outwits the chauffeur. Finally, at the stand-off, Bond employs karate before the man takes cyanide, undercutting the danger with the mordant quip, on delivering the corpse to Government house, “see that he doesn’t get away.”

Initially, it’s more a detective story as Bond follows up on various clues that lead him to Quarrel (John Kitzmiller), initially appearing as an adversary, and C.I.A. agent Felix Leiter (Jack Lord) before the finger of suspicion points to the mysterious Dr No and the question of why rocks from his island should be radioactive. Certainly, Dr No pulls out all the stops, sending hoods, a tarantula, sexy secretary Miss Taro (Zena Marshall) and the traitor Professor Dent (Anthony Dawson) to waylay or kill Bond.

But it’s only when our hero lands on the island and the bikini-clad Honey Rider (Ursula Andress) emerges from the sea as the epitome of the stunning “Bond Girl” that the series formula truly kicks in: formidable sadistic opponent, shady organization Spectre, amazing sets, space age plot, a race against time.

It’s hard not to overstate how novel this entire picture was. For a start, it toyed with the universal perception of the British as the ultimate arbiters of fair play. Yet, here was an anointed killer. Equally, the previous incarnation of the British spy had been the bumbling Alec Guinness in Our Man in Havana (1959). That the British should endorse wanton killing and blatant immorality – remember this was some years before the Swinging Sixties got underway – went against the grain.

Although critics have maligned the sexism of the series, they have generally overlooked the female reaction to a male hunk, or the freedom with which women appeared to enjoy sexual trysts with no fear of moral complication. Bond is not just macho, he is playful with the opposite sex, flirting with Miss Moneypenny, and with a fine line in throwaway quips.

Director Terence Young is rarely more than a few minutes away from a spot of action or sex, exposition is kept to a minimum, so the story zings along, although there is time to flesh out the characters, Bond’s vulnerability after his previous mission mentioned, his attention to detail, and Honey Rider’s backstory, her father disappearing on the island and her own ruthlessness. The insistently repetitive theme tunes – from Monty Norman and John Barry – was an innovation. The special effects mostly worked, testament to the genius of production designer Ken Adam rather than the miserable budget.

Most impressive of all was the director’s command of mood and pace. For all the fast action, he certainly knew how to frame a scene, Bond initially shown from the back, Dr No introduced from the waist downwards, Honey Rider in contrast revealed in all her glory from the outset. The brutal brief interrogation of photographer Annabel Chung (Marguerite LeWars), the unexpected seduction of the enemy Miss Taro and the opulence of the interior of Dr No’s stronghold would have come as surprises. Young was responsible for creating the prototype Bond picture, the lightness of touch in constant contrast to flurries of violence, amorality while blatant delivered with cinematic elan, not least the treatment of willing not to say predatory females, the shot through the bare legs of Ms Trench as Bond returns to his apartment, soon to become par for the course.

Future episodes of course would lavish greater funds on the project, but with what was a B-film budget at best by Hollywood standards, the producers worked wonders. Sean Connery (The Frightened City, 1961) strides into a role that was almost made-to-measure, another unknown Ursula Andress (The Southern Star, 1969) speeded up every male pulse on the planet, Joseph Wiseman (The Happy Thieves, 1961) provided an ideal template for a future string of maniacs and Bernard Lee (The Secret Partner, 1961) grounded the entire operation with a distinctly British headmaster of a boss.

Masterpiece of popular cinema.

Behind the Scenes: Selling The Million-Dollar Marlon Brando – “The Fugitive Kind” (1960) Pressbook

Should have been a darned-easy sell. After all, Marlon Brando had made global headlines after becoming the first actor to be paid a million bucks for a movie, his fee for The Fugitive Kind outstripping by $250,000 the previous record jointly held by John Wayne and William Holden (see Note below) for The Horse Soldiers (1959). And there was no suggestion – as indeed there is not even now – that audiences held against the stars the wealth their talents accrued.

“The Most Explosive Star Combination of the Year” was how this was generally sold, on the back of the Oscars held by each of the principals, Brando, Italian Anna Magnani and Joanne Woodward and the Pulitzer Prize awarded to playwright Tennessee Williams, himself also a two-time Oscar nominee as well as his work providing Oscar wins and nominations by the bucket load for actors and directors.

“Something about the way he looked at a woman, something about the way he handled a guitar” were other notable taglines and marketeers tried to convince the public “the screen is struck by lightning.” And if that was not enough – “their fire…their fever…their desire” was expected to do the trick.

Publicists encouraged exhibitors to make full use of Brando’s accoutrements from the movie, namely his snakeskin jacket, Rolex and Kay Guitar, which in one scene he actually played. Suggestions included auctioning a guitar for charity and running a talent contest. Brando was a reasonably accomplished player, specializing in perennials like “Shenandoah” and “Streets of Laredo.”

How to make a snakeskin jacket was another angle. The Rolex watch his character wore presented opportunities for marketing tie-ups with jewellery stores. No marketing stone was left unturned to the extent of the Necchi sewing machine, seen in the movie, being offered as a prize in a national competition. Novo Greetings Cards were also seen in passing in Lady Torrance’s store and this company was backing the movie.

Unusually, Signet was using the movie tie-in approach to sell a play, the paperback comprising the source material Orpheus Descending, which included an eight-page spread of stills from the picture. Williams’ position as the most popular playwright of his generation – his only rival Arthur Miller had less success in Hollywood – brought potential access to libraries, book clubs and schools. Military bases around the world were targeted through marketing material emphasizing Joanne Woodward.

It would certainly have helped if the movie had been able to set a new fashion trend for the wearing of snakeskin jackets. Or revive a trend that had last occurred in the 1930s, “quite a craze” for shoes, bags, hats and belts. “It wouldn’t surprise me,” said United Artists costume designer Frank Thompson, “if Brando wearing this jacket starts the whole thing again.”

Thompson had quite a task making two identical jackets – in case one was damaged during filming. First of all, he had to locate skins that were found in Mississippi. The choice came down to rattler or python. Opting for python, Thompson went through 200 skins before he found three that matched. “Looking for two snakeskins that match identically is like looking for two fingerprints that are exactly the same.”

The film was based on Battle of Angels, written by Williams in 1939, his first full-length work professionally staged (in Boston). He “never quit working on this one…it never went into the trunk, it always stayed on the work bench.” Rewriting about 75% of the play, it was reprised as Orpheus Descending on Broadway in 1957. Although Williams had Brando and Magnani (star of the film version of The Rose Tattoo, 1955) in mind for the stage play, it went ahead instead with Cliff Robertson and Maureen Stapleton. Williams had written The Rose Tattoo for Magnani but again it was Maureen Stapleton who won the role on stage.

Williams had outstanding success in writing roles that were in tune with Oscar sensibilities. A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) won Oscars for Vivien Leigh, Kim Stanley and Karl Malden with Brando nominated. Anna Magnani won for The Rose Tattoo and Marisa Pavan was nominated. Other nominations included Carroll Baker and Mildred Dunnock for Baby Doll (1956), Elizabeth Taylor and Paul Newman for Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958), and Katharine Hepburn and Taylor for Suddenly, Last Summer (1959).

Despite its Mississippi location and except for external establishing shots, The Fugitive Kind was shot in the Bronx. Director Sidney Lumet was a notably New York kinda guy, having filmed his first three movies – Twelve Angry Men (1957), Stage Struck (1958) and That Kind of Woman (1959) – in the city.

He argued, “Hollywood’s great attractions have been the technicians and the shooting facilities, With care, men of comparable talent can be found in New York. As for facilities, a sound stage is a sound stage wherever it is. I concede that in California they’re larger and more elaborate, but the same results can be produced elsewhere. And the fabulous back-lots, which counted so heavily in the past, seem to be outmoded today by the sophisticated eye of the audience. You can’t shoot on studio streets and pretend any more. It has to be real.”

NOTE – William Holden pocketed around $3 million in the end as his percentage share of the gross –not the more contentious net – of Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) so he was the decade’s biggest winner until Richard Burton made more on a similar deal from Where Eagles Dare (1968).

The Fugitive Kind (1960) ***

Audiences were promised sparks that never appeared. Marlon Brando (The Chase, 1960) remained electric but his charismatic screen presence wasn’t matched by miscast co-stars Anna Magnani (The Secret of Santa Vittoria, 1969) and Joanne Woodward (Paris Blues, 1961). That was three Oscars right there. Throw in a Pulitzer Prize for playwright Tennessee Williams and the project should have been home and dry.

Instead, it struggles to get going as the screenplay flounders under a flotilla of old maids, alcoholics, drug fiends, racists and deadbeats while the central conceit of a May-December romance fails to catch fire. That last element is something of a contemporary trope, and one that even now is exceptionally hard to pull off and it was no easier back in the day.

Itinerant guitarist and sometime criminal Valentine (Marlon Brando), desperate to go straight, ends up in a small Mississippi town when his car breaks down on a stormy night and he finds shelter in the home of Vee Talbot (Maureeen Stapleton), wife of the sheriff. Given his good looks, it’s likely that Valentine would be viewed as a catch, but in this small town he appears to have stumbled upon a nest of sexually frustrated and/or voracious women, way too many dependent on the kindness of a stranger.

First to throw her hat, and virtually everything else, into the ring is the young vivacious unfettered alcoholic Carol (Joanne Woodward), outcast of a wealthy family, barred from shops and bars alike for her uninhibited behavior. But Valentine’s seen too much of her kind. Next up is middle-aged dry goods shop owner Lady Torrance (Anna Magnani) who gives him a job as a counter hand. Bitter and frustrated, she has to run after morphine-addicted husband Jabe (Victor Jory). Vee hovers around trying to pick up the pieces.

Small town, jealousy rife, word bound to get back to duped husbands, tragedy the outcome. By this point the Deep South on screen was pretty much played out as are the various basket cases who inhabit it and there’s not much fresh ground to be ploughed here. Valentine is called upon to do “double duty” as employee and lover, and finally responds to her sense of desperation.

He can’t quite cut his ties to the illicit, stealing from the cash register to fund a gambling stake, and when caught is subtly blackmailed.

The backstory mostly concerns Lady. Her father’s wine plantation was destroyed by vigilantes in revenge for him selling liquor to African Americans. She wants to establish her independence by setting up a confectionary stall. Turns out of course it’s her husband that led the vigilantes. Valentine totes around a guitar that he never plays, as if it’s a reminder of a previous life. He’s running away from a past in New Orleans without any idea of the future to which he aspires. He doesn’t know what he wants but won’t make a move in case it’s the wrong one. He may desire a mother more than a lover.

It’s all set for a violent melodramatic ending, though the climax doesn’t ring true. Mostly, it’s about loneliness, both within and outside marriage. Relationships fester rather than last. The males are brutal or impotent.

While Joanne Woodward is determinedly over-the-top with her good-time-bad-girl routine, way out of control, and using over-acting as a crutch, Brando’s performance is more subtle and Magnani’s heart-wrenching.

But it just doesn’t add up. There’s too much emphasis on seedy background and forced drama. Williams has an alternative of the Raymond Chandler edict of when in doubt have a man come through a door with a gun; with him it’s unwanted pregnancy.

Director Sidney Lumet (The Appointment, 1969), who would later be more sure-footed, seems unsure here, the faux noir adding little, and inclined to indulge over-acting from the bulk of the supporting cast. Meade Roberts (Danger Route, 1967) adapted the Williams’ play.

An excellent Brando can make up for the rest.

Light in the Piazza (1962) ****

Will resonate more strongly today. Never intended as a light-hearted confection, despite the obvious premise of young love catching fire in Italy, this was a bold picture in its day and a more subtle examination of the wider impact of mental illness than those later movies set in institutions such as Lilith (1962) or Shock Treatment (1964). Bold, too, of Olivia de Havilland to take on a role that is so transparently maternal. Instead of her middle-aged character succumbing to romantic opportunity as the billing might suggest, to a holiday affair with a rich handsome Italian, she is first and foremost a mother.

Initially, standard romance meet-cute as young Italian Fabrizio (an unlikely George Hamilton) catches the runaway hat of young blonde Clara (Yvette Mimieux) in a piazza in Florence. His ardent pursuit is thwarted at every turn by Clara’s mother Meg (Olivia de Havilland). At first this appears to be for the most obvious of reasons. Who wants their naïve daughter to be swept away by a passionate Italian with heartbreak and possibly worse consequence (what mother does not immediately conjure up pregnancy?) to come.

Sure, Clara seems flighty and a tad over-exuberant and perhaps prone to tantrums but then back in the day this was possibly just an expression of entitlement by rich indulged young women. Turns out there’s a more worrying cause of her sometimes-infantile behavior. She was kicked in the head by a pony and has the mental age of a child of ten. If she is not protected, she might end up as prey to any charming young man.

Clara needs tucked up in bed with a stuffed toy, and her mother to check the room for ghosts and read her a bedtime story before she can go to sleep. Even when Fabrizio’s credentials check out – his father Signor Naccarelli (Rossano Brazzi) vouches for his good intentions, but, in the way of the passionate Italians, would not want to stand in the path of true love.

Clara’s father Noel (Barry Sullivan) is the one who spells out the reality. That pony didn’t just kick his daughter in the head it “kicked the life out of” his marriage. His wife lives in a dreamland, hoping for a miracle, and if that is not forthcoming quite happy to live with a daughter who never grows up. He wants to send her to “a school,” convincing himself it’s “more like a country club.”

Meg fights her own feelings that she knows better than her daughter and that love will not provide the cure, at the same time as batting away the affections of the elder Naccarelli. When she finally gives in to her daughter’s desire, wedding plans fall apart at the last minute when Naccarelli Snr discovers that his 20-year-old son is marrying not, as he imagined, a woman of roughly the same age or slightly younger, but actually someone six years older. Eventually, the wedding goes ahead. Meg convinces herself she did the right thing in permitting the marriage to go ahead.

But this is one of those happy ever afters that don’t quite wash and you might find yourself wondering exactly how it played out when the husband discovered exactly what kind of wife she had. Her instability isn’t genetic so no danger of a subsequent child encountering the same issue. And having to care for someone other than herself might well bring out the same level of maternity as her mother shows, but equally clearly Fabrizio is unaware of exactly what he’s taking on. How will he feel when asked to read her a bedtime story or scour the cupboards for imaginary monsters.

The movie didn’t do well enough to warrant a sequel – audiences expecting romantic confection were disappointed – and just hope Clara didn’t turn into the kind of inmate seen in Lilith and Shock Treatment.

Still, takes a very realistic approach to the problems of someone with such problems maturing into adulthood.

The Oscar-garlanded Olivia de Havilland (two times winner, three times nominee), in her first picture in three years, clearly didn’t want to see out her maturity in those May-December roles that others of her age fell prey to. She is excellent here, no attempt to dress herself up as a sex bomb, and refreshing to see her approach. Yvette Mimieux (Diamond Head, 1962) is excellent as the confused youngster. George Hamilton (The Power, 1968) lets the side down with his speaka-da-Italian Italian but Rossano Brazzi (The Battle of the Villa Fiorita, 1965), who is Italian, has no trouble with the lingo or with being a smooth seducer.

Director Guy Green (Diamond Head, 1962) adds in some unusual Florentine tourist color, but doesn’t shirk the difficult storyline. Julius J. Epstein (Casablanca, 1942) wrote the script.

Worth a look