Brian Hannan

Behind the Scenes: “Toys in the Attic” (1963)

Producer Harold Mirisch purchased the rights to the 1960 Broadway hit play by Lilliam Hellman as a way of hooking William Wyler. He had originally signed up the director in the mid-1950s when his Paramount contract came to an end. This was before the Mirisch Brothers was an independent production entity and later responsible for films like The Apartment (1960), The Magnificent Seven (1960), West Side Story (1961) and The Great Escape (1963). At that point Mirisch worked for Allied, the upmarket offshoot of B-picture outfit Monogram. Allied backed Wyler’s Oscar-nominated western Friendly Persuasion (1956).

In 1960 Wyler was the most celebrated Hollywood director of the era, not just with three Oscars and ten nominations, but riding as high as anyone ever had after the monumental critical and commercial success of Ben-Hur (1959). He had his pick of the projects and had shown “great eagerness” to do Toys in the Attic. He was friends with the playwright Lillian Hellman and had filmed These Three (1936) from her stage play The Children’s Hour and The Little Foxes (1941) from her original screenplay.

But Wyler decided instead to opt for a remake of The Children’s Hour (1961), assuming that changes in public perceptions would permit him to bring to the fore the lesbian elements kept hidden in his previous adaptation, but, critically, it was a Mirisch production.

In his absence, the Mirisch Bros decided to stick with Toys in the Attic, possibly to bolster their attempt to be seen as a purveyor of serious pictures and hence a contender for Oscars, which would solidify their reputation, as would soon be the case. After consultations with distribution and funding partner, United Artists, “it was decided that…since we had considerable investment in (Toys in the Attic)… we should try and put together a film,” explained Walter Mirisch.

Next in line for directorial consideration was Richard Brooks who had acquired a reputation for adapting literary properties after The Brothers Karamazov (1958), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958) and Elmer Gantry (1960). Initially, Brooks “had been so insistent and enthusiastic” about becoming involved. However, he, too, rejected the opportunity. He, too, after Oscar and commercial success, was riding high. “It was not because he did not wish to work with the Mirisches because he would be delighted to make a picture for them…but he felt it would be wrong for his career to do a film so similar in mood and background as the one he was working on, Sweet Bird of Youth (1962).”

In fact, it was probably more to do with his financial demands. He wanted $400,000 a picture, which was extremely high at the time, plus “a drawing account of $2,000 a week” (i.e. payment in advance of an actual production). While Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and Elmer Gantry had been box office hits, they were nothing like Ben-Hur. And Brooks already had other pictures in mind. He had purchased a book called Goodbye My Son – never filmed – and was already revving up for Lord Jim (1965) funded by Columbia.

Walter Mirisch eventually settled on television director George Roy Hill (Thoroughly Modern Millie, 1967). This would have been his debut except preparations for the movie dragged on and in between Hill helmed Period of Adjustment (1962), an adaptation of another play, this time by Tennessee Williams. He would later direct Hawaii (1966) for Mirisch.

The play had been a significant hit, running for just over a year on Broadway at the Hudson Theater, and making $129,000 profit on a $125,000 investment, though it incurred a loss of $48,000 on a subsequent tour. Hellman did pretty well out of it too. She received ten per cent of the gross and twenty per cent of the profit – a total of around $36,000 – exceptionally good going for a playwright, especially when other monies would be forthcoming from movie rights and foreign and amateur runs. Director Arthur Penn’s share of gross and profit came to over $10,000 in addition to a $5,000 fee.

Turning a play or musical into a movie came with one inbuilt problem. It was inevitably subject to delay. No movie could go into production until the play had exhausted its theatrical (as in stage-play) possibilities. In this case, that meant 58 weeks in the original run and then another 20 weeks once it hit the road. Any contract with a significant movie player would have to include the possibility that in the meantime star or director would have lined up other projects while awaiting the green light on this one, and that in itself could cause further hold-ups.

Hill was in greater demand than Mirisch anticipated, juggling four separate projects – Period of Adjustment, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich for MGM (never made), and the $2.5 million A Bullet for Charlemagne starring Sidney Poitier (not made) as well as Toys in the Attic.

Jason Robards, star of the play, was the obvious contender for the movie role. But he lacked box office cachet, so he was bypassed in favor of Dean Martin, “an attractive motion-picture figure.” However, in the time it took the movie version of the play to reach the public, Robards was potentially a screen star. He had bought himself out his stage contract after 37 weeks – paying $3,950 for the privilege – having been offered second billing on By Love Possessed (1961) opposite Lana Turner, and in Twentieth Century Fox’s ambitious mounting of Tender Is the Night (1962) opposite Jennifer Jones. While Robards would never become as big a star as Dean Martin, he was the superior actor, later adding two Oscars and one nomination to his name.

In addition to being much better known to cinema audiences than Robards, “we felt he (Martin) would bring humor to it” – Martin having originally made a splash as part of the Martin-Lewis comedy team of the 1950s – “as well as an audience that might expand the normal constituency of that type of film.” Trade magazine Box Office agreed with the decision, viewing Martin as a “good choice for the haunted show-off.”

The play’s other stars – Oscar nominee (and later winner) Maureen Stapleton (The Fugitive Kind, 1960) – and Irene Worth (Seven Seas to Calais, 1962) – were ignored in favor of Geraldine Page, who incidentally scored an Oscar nomination in Summer and Smoke, and Wendy Hiller (Sons and Lovers, 1960), who already had an Oscar. Shooting began on September 16, 1962. Hill tried to “inject more suspense, more action, more melodrama into the movie version,” without cheapening the material. He was convinced the hiring of Martin was inspired, and would prove a personal turning point, as he gives “the best dramatic job of his career.”

Titles didn’t matter so much on Broadway, plays sold on the name of the writer or the star. Mirisch feared Toys in the Attic would either mean nothing to a general audience ignorant of the picture’s origins or be considered so obscure as to serve to confuse them. So, they planned to rename it Fever Street or “some sensational substitute.” Hill was furious, pointing out the “violence of his feelings” to this title. He complained that “others will assume that it is an exploitation title…a cheap gimmick to get people into the theater (cinema) … automatically puts the picture in a low budget quickie picture category that might be appropriate for 42^nd St all-night houses or a second feature at Loews 86 St.”

Hill felt changing the title would demonstrate that Mirisch was “ashamed to have bought the play Toys in the Attic, have no faith in the picture, are resorting to panic tactics to get some money out.” And that Fever Street would have the opposite effect, and “keep people away in droves.” His impassioned plea worked, and the original title remained.

While backing down on the title, Mirisch veered towards the exploitative in the main poster which showed Dean Martin slugging Yvette Mimieux.

However, United Artists remained in two minds about the release policy. Despite the prestige of being chosen for the San Sebastian Festival, United Artists opted to open it in New York as part of a “showcase” run. That was a relativelynew distribution notion, a version of regional wide release. It would eventually be refined to allow several weeks in prestigious first run venues first, but inclusion in this release pattern meant first run was simultaneous with an opening in – in this case – another 20 New York neighbourhood cinemas. Had UA had more faith in the project, it might have benefitted from an opening just in first run. The $55,000 first week from two first run houses on Broadway was judged a “wow” result by Variety. First run in other major cities suggested a prestige title – “very stout” $15,000 in Boston, a “sock” $14,000 in Washington D.C., “neat” $14,000 in Buffalo, while it was “bright” in Kansas City ($8,000), Los Angeles ($10,000) and Chicago ($18,000).

Hill’s concerns about United Artists’ ability to sell the picture were mirrored in the result. “It did not turn out well,” concluded Walter Mirich, “It’s a grim story. It was not well reviewed and was not financially successful.” Part of the reason for its failure, he argued, was that it “probably appeared at the end of a cycle” of American Broadway adaptations of heavy Tennessee Williams dramas.

While the movie came in $70,000 below the $2.1 million budget, the savings were put down to the fact that it was filmed in black-and-white rather than color, as had been originally envisioned. The box office followed a common, but disturbing, trajectory, a big hit in the big cities, mostly ignored elsewhere. But it was not as bad as all that. Mirisch tallied the domestic box office as $1.7 million with another $900,000 from the overseas box office. By its estimation, once marketing costs were considered, it was facing a loss of $183,000. But that was before television revenue entered the equation and that should have at the very least, made up the difference. There were various pickings later on, too, picked up by CPI under the “Best of Broadway” label in 1981.

SOURCES: Walter Mirisch, I Thought we Were Making Movies, Not History (University of Wisconsin press, 2008) p157-159. Leon Goldberg, “Office Rushgram: Final Cost on Toys in the Attic, May 13, 1964, United Artists Files, Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research; “Mirisch Pictures Box Office Figures,” UA Files; Letter,” George Roy Hill to Walter Mirisch, March 15, 1963, UA Files; “Lillian Hellman Could Mop Up if Toys Clicks,” Variety, February 4, 1960, p103; “Toys Exit,” Variety, January 18, 1961, p72; “George Roy Hill To Direct Toys for Mirisch Co,” Box Office, January 22, 1962, pE8; “Hollywood Report,” Box Office, February 22, 1962, p16; “George Roy Hill Announces First Film on UA Deal,” Box Office, March 19, 1962, p16; “Bloomgarden Had Varied Fortune,” Variety, August 29, 1962, p49; “Toys in Attic Chosen for San Sebastian Festival,” Box Office, June 10, 1963, pE8; “Premiere Showcase,” Variety, July 31, 1963, p22. Box office figures from Variety issues dated August 7, August 14, August 21, September 4, September 11 and October 23.

Toys in the Attic (1963) ***

Dean Martin is at his best when he’s not playing the character you expect. Coming over as big and brash came to define his screen persona, and that just wasn’t, unless a comedy job where he was being set up to be taken down a peg or two, as interesting as his quieter, slow-burn performances in Rough Night in Jericho (1967) or Five Card Stud (1967). To some extent Geraldine Page was known for over-the-top performances, generally quivering on the edge of some emotional disaster. Even in Dear Heart (1964), which I adored, despite her lively exterior, that was her character.

So you match that pair with relatively raw director George Roy Hill (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, 1969) and you can see the problems he has reining them in, especially as the movie is based on a topline Broadway drama written by the highly-venerated Lillian Hellman (The Chase, 1966). Screenwriter James Poe (Riot, 1969) accommodates some scenes outside the smothering atmosphere of the home of sisters Carrie (Geraldine Page) and Anna (Wendy Hiller).

Given it’s set in sweaty muggy New Orleans, the shadow of Tennessee Williams hangs heavily over the picture, though the Deep South twangs are not fully in evidence. Throw in that their brother Julian (Dean Martin) has brought home a child bride Lily (Yvette Mimieux), suspicious not just of her newfound environment but of her possibly already-straying husband, plus that he returns a wealthy man, when normally his entrepreneurship has usually dealt a losing hand, and you have the making of a rather predictable tale of home truths, overheated emotions and a hint of incestuous longing.

This is the kind of tale, reverberating with unhappiness and frustration, that requires an unlikely trigger to get going. It’s not as dumb as the murderer in the recently-reviewed “five-star” so-bad-it’s-good Doctors Wives (1971) who funds an escape from police custody by blackmailing his wife’s extensive band of lovers and getting a colleague to momentarily pretend to take on his identity.

This time it’s an overheard phone call and the conniving Carrie who suggests to the new bride that Julian has taken up with old lover Charlotte (Nan Martin), the source of his newfound wealth by helping him buy up cheaply land that her husband Cyrus (Larry Gates) needs for his business. This not only puts the marriage in danger but, when Cyrus realizes he has been duped by his wife, Julian’s life is threatened.

This is one of those films where the plot threatens to run away with the story which is essentially that the two sisters have come to expect that their wastrel brother is dependent on them and cannot accept it when he is not. Whereas dealing with a depressed loser maintains the family status quo, coming to terms with a winner takes some doing and jeopardizes existing relationships.

The sisters are equally jealous of each other, so there’s constant niggling. Escape is in the offing for too many of the characters. Julian, from his down-at-heel existence, the sisters from their poverty, Charlotte from her clearly over-dominant husband and Lily from what seems like an ill-chosen husband. That, in several instances, escape pivots on revenge makes the situation sweeter.

The sisters have the best scenes, but that’s a limitation. While audiences watching a stage play might remain in rapt awe at actresses dealing with their frustrations, within the confines of a movie, it weighs the picture down, two old maids quarrelling is hardly a concept that would have movie fans signing up.

Stage plays often suffered from translation to screen, if the characters were not sufficiently louder than life. It’s significant that none of the works of Arthur Miller, not even his masterpiece Death of a Salesman, managed this. Tennessee Williams was more successful because of leading characters with explosive temperaments. The Glass Menagerie (1950), A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), The Rose Tattoo (1955), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958) and Suddenly, Last Summer (1959) were showered with Oscar wins and nominations and generally hit the box office mother lode.

Lillian Hellman was largely in the Arthur Miller category when translating her stage plays to the screen. While The Dark Angel (1935) and These Three (1936) had enjoyed some success, The Children’s Hour (1961) had stumbled at the box office.

Fans of Dean Martin didn’t enjoy him going all hi-hat and in truth he comes up short compared to Wendy Hiller (Sons and Lovers, 1960) and Geraldine Page, both nominated for Golden Globes. Yvette Mimieux (Diamond Head, 1962) continues to show promise and Gene Tierney (The Pleasure Seekers, 1964) puts in an appearance.

For fans of Broadway adaptations.

Behind the Scenes: “The Psychopath” (1966)

Amicus was part of an unholy triumvirate – the others being Hammer and American International – serving up horror during the 1960s to a global audience. Less prolific than the others, Amicus, headed up by expatriate New Yorkers Milton Subotsky and Max Rosenberg, had an American distribution deal with Paramount.

However, the pair had been more successful, at least in Britain, on the sci fi front, Dr Who and the Daleks (1965), an adaptation of the highly successful BBC television series, had been a huge hit on the domestic front, with the sequel Daleks Invasion Earth 2150AD (1966) not too far behind. But both had landed like a damp squid in the U.S.

Nor had their previous incursion into the horror fields done much better. Dr Terror’s House of Horrors (1965) had only managed a release as a supporting feature in Britain. The same fate was accorded The Skull (1965), but only after sitting on the shelf for a year. So a great deal was riding on their third horror picture. The whopping success of Dr Who and the Daleks, at least in Britain, guaranteed them a stay of execution.

“I like making horror films,” said Subotsky, “or perhaps I should say films of imagination rather than reality. The second thing is I like silent pictures. I think you should be able to tell a story visually and not by talking. And in horror films you can have long stretches of action.”

The Psychopath – initially going before the cameras as Schizo – looked a promising venture. The biggest name attached was quite a catch, even if not one who would feature in the picture. Robert Bloch, courtesy of Pyscho (1960), filmed to enormous critical and commercial acclaim by Alfred Hitchcock, was the most famous name in horror. He had penned the story that became The Skull. In addition to buying the rights to his story, this time Amicus lined him up for screenwriting duties.

In front of the camera, Amicus gambled on Patrick Wymark, a big British television star courtesy of The Plane Makers (1963-1965) who was elevated to top billing after playing the second lead in The Skull. Direction was once again by Freddie Francis, who had won the Oscar for cinematography for Sons and Lovers (1960). Francis specialized in horror – helming The Brain (1962), Paranoiac (1963), Nightmare (1964) and The Evil of Frankenstein (1965) before becoming Amicus’s in-house director with Dr Terror’s House of Horrors (1965) – the first of the portmanteau features with which Amicus would later be associated – and The Skull.

He was credited with a distinct individual visual style – attracting the attention of Cahiers du Cinema and French critics – and was considered a safe pair of hands. However, that last element was tested here. Halfway through shooting it was obvious the movie was going to come up short in terms of running time. It was already intended to be a tight little feature, at a projected 80 minutes. It was apparent that without substantial changes the movie would come in ten minutes shy of the planned time. Even at 80 minutes, it would struggle to qualify for main feature status. At 70 minutes, it would have no chance.

The producers did not always see eye-to-eye. Although Milton Subotsky had been responsible for setting up the project, Rosenberg soon took over. Complained Subotsky, “I found Max could really be a bully when he wanted and he had nasty temper. I’ll admit I was never good at standing up for myself and he just walked all over me.”

However, when the movie hit the running time stumbling block, Rosenberg had to turn to his colleague for help. Subotsky had written Dr Terror’s House of Horrors, Dr Who and the Daleks and The Skull. Taking a utilitarian approach, Subotsky availed himself of whoever was on set or available.

The burden fell on Robert Crewdon who played the sculptor Victor. Subotsky added his murder scene which was shot in a scrapyard created on the back lot at Shepperton with a batch of old cars purchased for £300. Subotsky apparently also directed the scene since Freddie Francis was busy elsewhere.

However, the running time wasn’t the only problem. Once the picture was complete, it was fairly obvious who the killer was. So Subotsky took over the task of re-editing the movie as well. “Apart from wanting to be a writer, (Milton) wanted to be an editor,” explained Freddie Francis.

Subotsky rearranged the picture so that “every time Patrick Wymark opens his mouth, we cut away from him, and overlaid his dialog, and every time someone replied we overlaid their dialog. And we changed the whole last scene with post-synched dialog and that way we changed the murderer.”

Though reviews were generally positive – “atmospheric thriller” (Box Office), “top grade shocker” (Variety), the backers were not happy with the result, even the extended version. The extra 13 minutes of footage wasn’t sufficient to win a main release of the British ABC circuit – it went out as support and later was reissued with The Skull. In the U.S. it had a varied, though hardly wide, release. In some cities, Paramount sent it out as support to The Naked Prey. In first run in St Louis, Cincinnati, Boston and Portland, it was the main feature with supports including reissues of Nevada Smith (1966) and Lady in a Cage (1964) Box office was generally “tepid,” “mild” or “dull”. It supported A Study in Terror (1965) in Kansas City and Chamber of Horrors (1966) in Toronto. It didn’t make much money in either country, but did very well in Italy.

Robert Bloch wasn’t pleased either. “The idea is better than the film,” he complained. “It would have made a better one-hour teleplay than a feature.”

This was the third in Amicus’s four-picture deal with Paramount and after The Deadly Bees (1967), the Hollywood studio severed contact.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this company best known for its horror output is that for a considerable period it tried to shuck off that tag. To some extent, it became a horror specialist by default because other projects failed to get off the ground – for example in 1964 it was scheduled to make How I Won the War with Richard Lester for United Artists and Adventure Island based on an Arthur C Clarke tale for Universal – or because a switch into other genres failed to hit the box office mark.

After the dual flop of The Deadly Bees (1967) and Torture Garden (1967), the duo lined up spy thriller Danger Route (1969) and literary drama A Touch of Love/Thank You Very Much (1969) with Oscar winner Sandy Dennis. They should have been followed by adaptations of Ancient Pond by Courtney Brown – described as “a novel of passion and revenge in a war-ravaged city” – and sci fi satire The Richest Corpse in Showbusiness by Dan Morgan, both novels purchased in 1967. But neither was greenlit and eventually Amicus returned to what it did best – horror.

The Psychopath (1966) ****

As evidenced by its popularity in Italy often considered a forerunner of the giallo subgenre. While the involvement of Robert Bloch brings hints – mother-fixation, knife-wielding killer – of his masterpiece Psycho (1960), here some of those themes as reversed. And the stolid detective and younger buddy suggests the kind of pairing that would populate British television from The Sweeney (1975-1978) onwards. Surprising, then, with all these competing tones that it comes out as completely as the vision of director Freddie Francis (The Skull, 1965), especially his use of a rich color palette that would be the envy of Luchino Visconti (The Leopard, 1963).

Theoretically mixing two genres, crime and horror, the resonance figures mostly towards the latter. Considering the crime element just for a moment, this features a serial killer, in the opposite of what we know as normal multiple murder convention, who leaves a memento at the scene of the crime rather than taking one away such as a lock of hair or something more intimate. Also, the list of suspects rapidly diminishes as they all turn into victims, still leaving, cleverly enough, a couple of contenders.

What’s most striking is the direction. Francis finds other ways rather than gore to disturb the viewer. The first death, a hit-and-run, focuses on the violin case, dropped by the victim, being crushed again and again under the wheels of the car. There’s a marvelous scene where a potential victim tumbles down a series of lifeboats.

The camera concentrates more on the villain’s armory than their impact: noose, knife, oxy-acetylene torch, jar of poison, the lifeboats, the aforementioned car. There are intriguing jump-cuts. We go from the smashed violin to a very active one, part of a string quartet. From toy dolls in rocking chair to skeletal sculpture. From a string of metal loops choking a victim to a man forking up spaghetti.

We go from the very conventional to the jarring, serene string quartet and loving daughter to wheelchair bound widow talking to the dolls, so real to her she shuts some naughty ones away in a cupboard. We move from one cripple to another, from real toys to human toys, to a human who talks like a wind-up toy.

It soon occurs to our jaded jaundiced cop Inspector Holloway (Patrick Wymark) that the victims are connected, all members of the string quartet who were on a war crimes commission during the Second World War. At each murder the memento left, a doll with the face of the victim, leads the detective to investigate doll makers and then a doll collector, Mrs von Sturm (Margaret Johnson), widow of a man the commission condemned. Could it be the simplest motive of all – revenge? But why now?

The string quartet are an odd bunch, and on their own, you wouldn’t be surprised to find all of them capable of murder – sleazy sculptor Ledoux (Robert Crewdson) with naked women in his studio, the wealthy Dr Glyn (Colin Gordon) so weary of his patients he wished he’d become a plumber instead, the selfish over-protective father Saville (Alexander Knox) whose neediness prevents his daughter Louise (Judy Huxtable) marrying. Her American fiancé, Loftis (Don Borisenko), a trainee doctor, is also in the frame.

Mrs von Sturm could be the killer, her wheelchair a front – apparently housebound she manages a visit to Saville, though still in her chair. Her nervy son Mark (John Standing) also appears an odd fish.

As I mentioned, Holloway scarcely has to disturb his grey cells, the deaths of virtually all the suspects eventually make his job pretty darned easy. But Francis’s compositions let no one escape. Long shot is prime. Staircases fulfil visual purpose. The creepiness of the doll scenes wouldn’t be matched until Blade Runner (1982). Stunning twists at the end, and the last shot takes some beating.

Margaret Johnson (Night of the Eagle, 1962) is easily the standout, but she underplays to great effect. Patrick Wymark (The Skull, 1965) steps up to top-billing to act as the movie’s baffled center, with more of the cop’s general disaffection than was common at the time. Alexander Knox (Fraulein Doktor, 1969) knows his character is sufficiently malignant to equally underplay. The false notes are struck by Judy Huxtable (The Touchables, 1969) and Don Borisenko (Genghis Khan, 1964), both resolutely wooden.

Freddie Francis is on top form. Not quite in the league of The Skull. Commendably short, scarcely topping the 80-minute mark.

Well worth a look.

The Whip and the Flesh / The Whip and the Body (1963) ****

Has there ever been actress so skilled at displaying fear as Daliah Lavi? Where the female stars of horror movies too quickly succumbed to the scream and goggle eyes, Lavi could run a whole gamut of terror without uttering a sound and continue doing so for virtually an entire picture. Top-billed ahead of the reigning king of British horror Christopher Lee, this is another acting tour de force, not quite sustaining the intensity of The Demon (1963) but at times not far off it.

Italian director Mario Bava (Black Sabbath, 1963), here masquerading as John M. Old, has stitched together a mixture of horror, and an early form of giallo, the picture taking place in the classic old dark house, in this case a castle perched on a rock above the sea, the deaths grisly, and almost fits into the “locked room” subgenre of the detective story, where the murders appear impossible to carry out.

The disgraced Kurt Menliff (Christopher Lee) returns to his ancestral home, begging forgiveness from his father Count Vladimir (Gustavo De Nardo) and hoping to reclaim his inheritance and his betrothed Nevenka (Daliah Lavi). While his father exonerates him, Kurt is denied the rest, Nevenka already committed to marriage to his brother Christian (Tony Kendall). Other tensions are soon evident: the housekeeper Giorgia wants revenge on Kurt for the death of her daughter and Christian is in love with another, Katia (Evelyn Stewart).

Nevenka who outwardly protests how much she hates Kurt quickly reveals masochistic tendencies as she gives in to a whipping. But Kurt’s sudden inexplicable murder instigates an investigation, suspicion falling firstly on the father, then Christian and finally Giorgia.

But Nevenka is convinced Kurt is not dead, although his body has been entombed in the castle crypt. Torment creeps into her face at his funeral and we can almost see her grow gaunt in front of our eyes. In a brilliant scene where she tracks what she imagines to be the sound of a whip it turns out to be a branch lashing a window in a storm. Some of her supposed visions are easily explained, muddy footsteps leading from Kurt’s tomb actually belonging to the limping manservant Losat (Luciano Pigozzi). But how do you account for the hand, in an almost 3D shape, reaching out to her in the darkness? Or her ecstasy in still being whipped, her nightdress stripped from her back?

Although sometimes relying too heavily on atmospherics – windows swinging open at night, storm outside – Bava brilliantly marshals the real and the imagined, until the investigation into murder involves all the characters. Once the film begins, the drawbridge in a sense comes down, and nobody else enters the castle, and so we move from one character to another, each with their own motive for possibly committing dire deed. And with each passing moment we return to the demented Nevenka, who wishes Kurt dead but cannot live without him, and, craving the whip, cannot escape his sadistic power. Her faith in Kurt’s resurrection is so intense that the others are soon seeking signs that the dead man is still alive.

This is a horror superior to Hammer. Using the same leading man, the British studio generally expected Lee to be over-the-top, his innate malevolence generally very obvious from the start. Here, he is at his most handsome and although definitely sadistic, the emphasis is less on his pleasure than that of his victim. And while Bava resorts to a similar kind of set, this castle is remote, has no relationship with villagers, and exudes regal dominance rather than just the normal fear of a Dracula picture. Bava employs a more subtle color palette and the piano theme tune by Carlo Rusticelli has a romantic tone.

But for all Bava’s proven skill, this would not be the same without Lavi. I doubt if there is a single actress in the horror domain throughout the 1960s who could match the actress for portraying fright, as she marches up the scale from mere anxiety to full-blown terror. And although women in Dracula movies succumbed to vampire teeth with more than a frisson of sexuality, there is a different deeper sensuality at work here, in what must rank as one of the greatest-ever portrayals of masochism embedded in love.

As noted previously, Lavi, in stepping onto the bigger Hollywood canvas of Lord Jim (1965) and The Silencers (1966), lost the intensity she displayed here and never came close to matching this performance or that of The Demon. Christopher Lee, although claiming to dislike his experience, continued to rule the horror world until he was afforded a wider audience through James Bond, Star Wars, J.R.R. Tolkien and Tim Burton.

Tony Kendall, making his debut, soon graduated to the Kommissar X series, spaghetti westerns (he played Django twice), horror (Return of the Evil Dead, 1973), and thrillers such as Machine Gun McCain (1969). Evelyn Stewart went down much the same route, her long career sprinkled with gems like Django Shoots First (1966), The Sweet Body of Deborah (1968) and The Psychic (1977).

Mario Bava continued to exploit the horror vein including Blood and Black Lace (1964), Planet of the Vampires (1965) and Lisa and the Devil (1973) with Telly Savalas and Elke Sommer.

Jason and the Argonauts (1963) *****

An absolute delight, great storytelling married to groundbreaking special effects produces an adventure picture of the highest order. Though mostly known for its Ray Harryhausen stop-motion animation, its success also relied heavily on the direction of Don Chaffey (The Viking Queen, 1967) and a great script. It’s one of the few films to benefit from not being viewed in its original size, the small screen minimizing the flaws of the special effects. In essence it’s a combination of three genres – the Italian peplum, the men-on-a-mission picture and the classic detective story.

Plus there are interesting stabs at philosophy – if man refuses to believe in the gods, do they cease to exist? And if the golden fleece brings peace and prosperity to a nation what will happen to that country when it is stolen? And if various people call on their own gods for help will that not create conflict in heaven as much as on earth? And the ultimately question – what can man achieve without celestial interference?

While the episodic structure derives from the clues meted out piecemeal to hero Jason (Todd Armstrong) during his long voyage to find the golden fleece these often come minus vital pieces of information ensuring that surprise remains a key element.

Without doubt special effects are the triumph, although some work better than others. The highlights for me were the towering bronze statue of Talos and the skeleton warriors. I can’t be the only one who thinks that some of the visuals in Game of Thrones were inspired by the sight of Talos astride two land masses separated by the sea. Talos is not so much a man-mountain as an actual mountain, first viewed coming round the corner of a cliff top, his head topping it. But where, except for cunning Jason, the crewmen are viewed primarily in miniature in relation to the giant Talos, the skeletons are the same size as the adventurers and the fight scene all the more impressive as the ensuing battle appears completely real.

Scale allows Harryhausen to wriggle out of the problems of contact. If the creatures are out of reach anyway, there’s little need to attempt to bring them into close proximity. The way the Harpies are utilized, close enough to strip clothes from a blind man but otherwise hovering just out of reach, is a classic example of clever direction. The multi-headed Hydra, on the other hand, is the least convincing monster simply because it is impossible for Jason to get close to the beast. Scale is also one of the film’s best weapons. The scenes where a miniaturized Jason is transported to Mount Olympus to face the gods are well done as are the occasions when the gods peer down on tiny man.

Outside of the special effects and the varying degrees of excitement aroused, in the background there is constant intrigue. Jason is the son of the King of Thessaly slain by the usurper Pelias (Douglas Wilmer) and his crew includes Acastus (Gary Raymond), son of Pelias, whose task is to cause trouble and if Jason succeeds in his endeavor to kill him. On top of that, there is a heavenly battle over Jason’s fate. Jason, having defied Zeus (Niall MacGinnis) by first of all refusing to believe he exists and that his life is determined by fate, becomes enmeshed in a battle between the king of the gods and his wife Hera (Honor Blackman) who grants Jason a get-out-jail-free card, the ability to call on her help, but only five times.

Jason determines to recruit his own team and in the manner of The Guns of Navarone (1961) and The Professionals (1966) they are all experts in their fields but unlike that film and The Dirty Dozen (1967) are willing conscripts. The team also includes Hercules (Nigel Green) and Hylas (John Cairney) and in the first of the film’s many surprises and reversals, the weedy latter is able to beat the muscular former in a contest of strength.

There is enough incident to keep the story ticking along but Don Chaffey fills in the blanks with montage, the various essentials of a ship – sails, oarsmen, sides, stern, figurehead, pace set by drumbeat – and a full color palette from the bright blue sky, to dawn and dusk and sunset and night, a wonderful image of rowers at sunset on the sea the pick. He also makes great use of the sea – pounding surf, storms, the sea turned tempest by the clashing rocks, a shipwreck. And we have dancing girls, colorful costumes, ancient backdrops and the sense that the budget has been well spent

Some scenes call for immense skills in coupling special effects with real characters. For the clashing rocks sequence five elements are simultaneously in play: the crew in danger, a tempest, rocks crashing into the water, the ship itself and Neptune.

And the romance is well handled dramatically: if Jason rescues Medea (Nancy Kovack) then she too rescues him. Love produces conflict. To love Jason, Medea must betray her country. There is hardly a moment when Jason, confronted either by monsters or kings, does not face death.

In addition, there is a stunning score by Bernard Herrmann (Psycho, 1960).

Any top-notch acting would have been over-shadowed by the special effects. Which is just as well because the entire cast is drawn from the lower strata of the stardom ladder. Todd Armstrong, from the Manhunt tv series (1961), needs only not to mess up, which he manages adequately. Nancy Kovack (Diary of a Madman, 1963) does well to make an impact given she does not appear until the final third. This did not turn out to be much of a star-making vehicle for either. Honor Blackman drops the slinky persona with which she had made her name in The Avengers tv series (1962-1964) and instead plays a confident goddess willing to out-maneuver husband Zeus.

The rest of the cast comprises a regiment of future movie supporting actors – Nigel Green (Tobruk, 1967), Niall MacGinnis (The Viking Queen, 1967) and Douglas Wilmer (The Brides of Fu Manchu, 1966). Future television stars range from Patrick Troughton (the second Dr Who) and Scottish actor John Cairney (This Man Craig, 1966-1967) to Laurence Naismith (The Persuaders, 1971), Gary Raymond (The Rat Patrol, 1966-1968), Mike Gwynn (Poison Island, 1965) and Andrew Faulds (The Protectors, 1964).

The screenplay was written by Jan Read (First Men on the Moon, 1964) and Beverley Cross (The Long Ships, 1964), husband of Maggie Smith. Cross returned to ancient worlds again for producer Charles H. Schneer for Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger (1977) and Clash of the Titans (1981)

Although the ending appeared to leave the door open for a sequel, none was made. A huge box office hit in Britain, it did not repeat its success elsewhere.

I first saw this film as a boy and was so enthralled I wouldn’t have noticed if there was anything awry with the special effects. I have not seen it since. Coming at with some degree of skepticism I found that attitude misplaced. I was equally enthralled.

Behind the Scenes: Best-Ever Ridley Scott Interview

Interviews are always over-hyped. These days, with thousands of media mouths to feed, interviews are surface-friendly, a big splash to hook the reader and then very little content. Stars and directors do not grant, as they did in the past to the likes of Rolling Stone or Vanity Fair, in-depth interviews where the journalist has been granted several days holed up with the subject.

More likely, a reporter is stitching something together after being in a room with a hundred other media skunks being told the same rehashed story.

So it came as an enormous surprise to find an interview as refreshing as this. In part it succeeds because the interviewer isn’t a journalist at all, but an actor, Paul Mescal, star of Scott’s latest opus, Gladiator II, and in part because it reads like a conversation between mates, one where the dialog follows no set path as it would had a journalist been in charge and dives into the director’s artistic development in great detail. Part of the joy of the feature is that Mescal ignored four pages of “suggested questions” set by The Guardian newspaper’s features team in favor of going his own way. So what we get is Scott responding to Mescal’s urgent curiosity rather than to an old hack asking the same old questions.

Scott explains his obsession with cinema from an early age resulted in him getting a free pass to his local Odeon by agreeing to paint huge posters for their forthcoming features. At night he watched television endlessly – “image, image, image,” he recalls.

He had little intention of pursuing a cinematic career when studying at art college in 1962 but came across a 16mm Bolex cine camera and decided to make a short film, Boy and Bicycle (1965), funded to the tune of £65 by the college, and helped along by brother Tony, mother doing the voiceover, which he later edited at the BBC, sneaking in at night when everyone had gone home. He didn’t learn to edit – he just did it. At the BBC where he originally worked as a set designer he was considered “the oik from up north” compared to the Oxbridge set in power. Paid £75 a week, he was delighted to be offered commercials which paid £100 a time. So he quit the BBC and set up his own advertising business, making 100 commercials a year. “I learned that the best and fastest solution – because I paint with pictures – was to be a camera operator….I could do anything with a camera.” And did that job on Alien, Thelma and Louise and others.

On Blade Runner, he was “inventing the wheel…a new language but I wasn’t a kid. I was 44 and already had my second Rolls Royce.”

The most important lesson he learned was casting. “I try to form a partnership with the actor. And so I’m listening to you as much as you’re listening to me. That is essential. A casting director can be as valuable as a good cameraman…I didn’t come to that (casting) with any formal training….You just cast the actor. Once they’ve said yes, they’re gonna work it out in the kitchen by themselves…On the set I say, “show me.” We’ll rehearse it on camera, and I go “wow” or “where did that come from” or “no.” I’ve already seen all the colours in their paintbox. I watched eight hours of Normal People (before I cast you i.e Mescal). Within that you cover a lot of emotional layer and ground.”

He considers shooting Boy and Bicycle as the defining moment of his career. He recalls being in the trunk of his father’s car – father driving it – with the Bolex and “my brother’s to the side on a bicycle. We drive underneath the bridge.” When he edited it he though it was “good.” He chased John Barry to get permission to use a piece of his music. The composer’s going rate was £1500, but after six weeks of persuasion gave in.

Next on the agenda. Possibly a sequel to Gladiator II and various other projects. But Scott has a hankering to do a musical and/or a western, set around 1829, “pre-trains with cattle catchers and pre-batwing saloon doors. Where the force of nature is the biggest enemy you’ve got.”

I reckon I’ve sampled enough of this much lengthier interview.

You can find the full, much more extensive interview here:

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2024/nov/15/paul-mescal-ridley-scott-gladiator-ii-interview

You can catch Boy and Bicycle on YouTube

Seven Seas to Calais (1962) ***

In between hi-hat Hollywood endeavors The Time Machine (1960) and The Birds (1963) Rod Taylor made a couple of pit stops in Italy. Here, he tries his hand at a swashbuckler and does a pretty good job of it, depicting famed English naval hero Sir Francis Drake, in a story that covers about a dozen years from him circumnavigating the globe to masterminding the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588.

Not content with glorifying tales of his derring-do as he robs the Spanish of their gold, the producers also mine a rich seam of political intrigue as Spanish King Philip II (Emberto Raho) seeks to nullify the English threat first by a treaty and then by conspiracy before full-blown invasion seems the better option.

Queen Elizabeth (Irene Worth) proves a political maestro, telling the Spanish what they want to believe and condemning Drake’s activities in public while in fact privately financing his expedition and waiting for his pirate gold to underpin her navy.

After putting down a potential mutiny, most of Drake’s time is spent plundering Spanish galleons or gold mines. When not pillaging, Drake takes time out from his adventures to discover potato and tobacco and for a romantic dalliance with what appear to be Native Americans (judging from the feathers they wear) including a young woman called Potato (Rossella D’Aquino). It is left to his number two Malcolm Marsh (Keith Michell) to carry the main subplot which has French beauty Arabella (Edy Vessel) in his absence taking up with Babington (Terence Hill), a traitor with an eye to freeing the imprisoned Mary, Queen of Scots (Esmeralda Ruspoli).

There are more than enough swordfights for purists and Drake employs a certain amount of cunning and bravado in his various piratical enterprises. Clever filming renders the ships realistic enough though in long shot they do resemble toys. In making it look as though Drake has returned from his voyage in the nick of time to save Elizabeth from the Spanish aggressors, the producers neatly kaleidoscope the actual time frame. Elizabeth takes no prisoners and there are spicy exchanges between the queen and the pirate.

Rod Taylor presents a more muscular and athletic screen person than in any of his previous pictures and exudes authority but he also has a lightness of tone that would become a trademark. However, American stage actress Irene Worth – in her sole movie role of the decade – just about plays him off the screen, her regal bearing hiding an agile mind. Keith Michell (The Hellfire Club, 1961) makes a strong impression as does future spaghetti western star Terence Hill, (They Call Me Trinity, 1970) credited here as Mario Girott. Edy Vesssel (The Thief of Baghdad, 1961) only made two more films, although one was Fellini’s 8½ (1963). This was the second film outing after Antonioni’s L’Avventura (1960) for Esmeralda Ruspoli

Strangely enough, given the part Drake played in English history, he has been dealt a poor hand in the movies. A British television series Sir Francis Drake (1961-1962) starring Terence Morgan was unlikely to have instigated this picture, so it is odd to rely on Italy for the only movie, regardless of its veracity.

In the portfolio of veteran director Rudolph Mate (When Worlds Collide, 1951), this immediately followed on from The 300 Spartans (1962) but lacks that film’s rigor and vigor.. The script was dreamt up by Filippo Sanjust (also Morgan the Pirate).

Behind the Scenes: “Deliverance” (1972)

You couldn’t make it like that now, so the ill-informed tale goes. Actors doing their own paddling in canoes, climbing a cliff. But anyone who has watched Leonard DiCaprio and Kate Winslet half-drowning in Titanic (1997) is well aware that it’s just not always possible to use a stand-in for key sequences. Or, for that matter, William Holden breaking in a horse in Wild Rovers (1971).

For a start, there actually were four stunt men on Deliverance, one who was star Jon Voigt’s stunt double. None were credited in the picture, not so unusual in those days, and anyone who knows anything about filming climbing scenes, not least the one where actors are actually crawling across a floor, or where there are, out of sight of cameras, safety facilities underneath, will know that the actors here, though it might get a tad tough, were not risking life and limb. Greater injuries were endured by the stars during the storm scenes of The Guns of Navarone (1961). That said, the movie does benefit from sufficient shots of the actors braving the waters and Ned Beatty nearly drowned and Burt Reynolds cracked his tailbone.

But, of course, danger in moviemaking is relative. There’s scarcely any equivalent to the numbers of deaths that occur in other professions, mining, for example, or industry, and I’m always suprised how easily the Hollywood PR machine is so easily accepted by the public when the peril mentioned is rarely actually perilous at all.

For the scene where the canoe broke, director John Boorman had found a more serene location on a river which was dammed, so he was able to close the sluice gates and lay a rail on the river bed. However, in the event, the sluice gates were opened too soon and the actors engulfed in an avalanche of water.

Should any of the actors show temerity, Boorman would leap into a canoe himself, and paddle downriver over and around various obstacles to show how easy it was.

Deliverance was an unexpected bestseller in 1970, the author an unlikely candidate to hit the commercial jackpot or even to pen such a tale. Ex-adman James Dickey was known for his poetry. Warner Bros bought the book pre-publication about “four decent fellows killing to survive” for $200,000 and more for Dickey to pen the screenplay without working out how it could be filmed. The studio was going through a major transition. In 1970 only three releases had cleared $1 million in rentals; in 1971 the number tripled and the studio was high on a release slate that included Death in Venice, A Clockwork Orange, Summer of ’42, Klute, The Devils, Dirty Harry and Billy Jack.

The studio alighted on John Boorman because he had made Hell in the Pacific (1968) starring Lee Marvin and Toshiro Mifune, that, while a certified flop, was made under arduous physical conditions in the western Pacific.

After the surprise success of Point Blank, British director Boorman had helmed two flops, Leo the Last (1970) being the other, so he was in the market for the kind of hard-nosed project with which he had made his name. Warner “felt I was the man to take it on,” explained Boorman.

At one point, Warner Brothers planned to team up Jack Nicholson (hot after Easy Rider, 1969, and Carnal Knowledge, 1971) and Marlon Brando, still largely in the pre-The Godfather wilderness. The studio tried to tempt Charlton Heston, who turned it down (“I probably won’t have time to do it”) but consoled himself that WB considered him “employable.” Donald Sutherland also gave it a pass. Dickey agitated for Sam Peckinpah to direct and Gene Hackman to star while Boorman was keen to work a third time with Lee Marvin. Theoretically, Robert Redford, Henry Fonda, George C. Scott and Warren Beatty were considered, but such big names would hardly be compatible with the lean budget.

The final budget was a mere $2 million, not sufficient to attract big name – or even to pay for a score. WB had reservations about a picture without any women in lead roles. Jon Voigt was not a proven marquee name, despite the success of Midnight Cowboy (1969). He only had a bit part in Catch 22 (1970) and his other films, Out of It (1969) and The Revolutionary (1970) had performed dismally while The All-American Boy was sitting on the WB shelf, only winning a release to cash in on Deliverance.

Despite a less than buoyant career, Voigt was reluctant to commit. He resisted making the movie till the last minute. Even after trying to convince himself about the film’s worth by reading out the entire screenplay to his girlfriend Marcheline Bertrand (Angelina Jolie’s mother), it took a telephone call from the director and Boorman demanding a decision before he counted to ten before Voigt signed up. Voigt viewed the film as about how men “lose part of their manhood by hiding, coddling themselves into thinking we’re safe.”

Burt Reynolds was treading water in action B-films like Skullduggery (1970), as the second male lead in bigger films like 100 Rifles (1969) and in television (Dan August, 1970-1971). In his favor, he had the lead in offbeat cop picture Fuzz (1972). But it looks like Voigt and Reynolds took casting to the wire. Both were announced for the film a few weeks before it began shooting on May 17, 1971.

Whether it boosted his career is open to question, but Burt Reynolds’ name achieve notoriety in April 1972, a few months before Deliverance opened, by becoming the first male centerspread in Cosmopolitan. Billy Redden, as the banjo player, was hired for his physical appearance, clever use of the camera disguising the fact that there was a genuine banjo player concealed behind him doing all the playing. Boorman used snatches of the banjo music instead of coughing up for a proper score. While the credits claimed the “Dueling Banjos” number had been devised by Eric Weissberg and Steve Mandel, Arthur Smith, writer of “Feudin’ Banjos” in 1955, took the studio to court and won a landmark copyright ruling. The tune had received a gold record for sales.

Setting aside any inherent danger in the water, the shore could just be as perilous. A script altercation between Dickey and Boorman ended with the director losing four teeth. Cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond got into a spat with his union and was slapped on the wrists for operating the camera too often. Filming of the rape scene was uncomfortable for all concerned, even observers. When Reynolds complained the director let the sequence last too long, Boorman countered that he let it run till he reckoned Reynolds, in his character, would intervene.

Despite WB including it in a promotion to its international partners in May 1971 Deliverance, filmed between May 17 – a week later than originally envisaged – and August 1971, sat on the shelf for nearly a year before being premiered at the Atlanta Film Festival in July 1972 with Playboy picking up the tab for flying Reynolds to the event.

These days it would be called a platform release. Deliverance opened in one small house in New York – the 558-seat Loews Tower East – at the end of July and except for Los Angeles didn’t go any wider until early October. Reviews were good, four faves out of five in New York. But it was the box office that caught the eye. An opening day record and an eye-popping $45,000 for the first week took the industry by surprise. It remained at Loews until December. Chicago led the applause in October with a “brawny” $49,000. Everywhere it was hot – “lusty” $26,000 in Washington DC, “socko” $21,000 in Philadelphia were typical examples of the public response.

In what these days would be called counter-programming it went into the New York showcases at Xmas – making off with a huge $589,000 from 46 the first week and $500,000 the second. WB had predicted it might hit $15 million in rentals. The studio was wrong. It scrambled up $21 million. The 1973 tally made it the second best at the box office that year.

SOURCES: Phil Hoad, “How We Made Deliverance,” The Guardian, May 29, 2017; Oliver Lyttleton, “5 Things You Might Not Know about Deliverance, Released 40 Years Ago,” IndieWire, July 30, 2012; Charlton Heston, The Actor’s Life (Penguin, 1980); “Bow and Arrow Party,” Variety, May 20, 1970, p30; “Dickey Ga-Bound,” Variety, January 21, 1971, p4; “Reps of 45 Flags,” Variety, April 14, 1971, p5; “Voigt in Deliverance,” Variety, May 12, 1971, p14; “Runaway Robert Altman,” Variety, December 15, 1971, p4; Advert, Variety, August 9, 1972, p23; “Big Rental Films of 1972,” Variety, Janaury 3, 1973, p7; “Big Rental Films of 1973,” Variety, January 9, 1974, p19. Box office figures from Variety October 11, 1972.

Deliverance (1972) ****

Packs a considerable punch even at the remove of half a century. In fact, the reversal of the ultimate male-domination trope – rape – will reverberate even more in a contemporary society more attuned to abuse. A quartet of macho posturing guys – except for one more at home overseeing a barbecue pit – not only get their come-uppance but have to sit on a very thin fence when the morality clause comes into play.

Much of the patronising attitudes towards the poor and bereft will not have evaporated with time. The better-educated, the very ones who should know better, still make fun of the less well-off and their accents – such scoffing by the privileged recently made headlines in the UK. The hillbillies represented here are not making fashion statements with their clothing or attribute their scrawny physiques to weight-loss therapy. This is poverty in the raw – and yet our quartet treat the wilds as a playground.

Presumably expecting campfire singalongs Drew (Ronny Cox) has brought his guitar, forgetting it might not be so easily transported through the rapids, but he thinks he’s made contact with the inhabitants when he duets with a banjo player (Billy Redden). Macho Lewis (Burt Reynolds), easily identified as the toughest of the quartet by his visible chest hair and archery set, is at one with nature, assuming that the beasts he presumably intends to kill are okay with that. He believes he’s got one-up on the natives when he beats a local down to $40 for moving their cars to the finish-point, not considering for a moment that the fellow would probably have done it for half.

Ed (Jon Voigt) is the calm one, the peacemaker, keeping the volatile Lewis and the nervous Bobby (Ned Beatty), inclined to poke fun, in check. Turns out the locals don’t take kindly to this kind of invasion and two ambush Ned and Bobby, rape the former, but before they can work their way round to the latter, are interrupted by Lewis who puts an arrow through one of the mountain men. The toothless one escapes.

This is where it gets tricky. Lewis, inner Clint Eastwood to the fore, justifies his slaying. Chances are, if he’d fired a warning shot, the rapists would have scarpered. The chances, too, of Bobby reporting the crime are a big fat zero because the humiliation would be unendurable, even if the local cops accepted a crime like male rape even existed, and given the general lack of police interest in female rape no guarantee it would even be investigated.

Course, you kill one of “them” and you’re setting yourself up as a target for revenge. Our quartet would skedaddle but the only way out is downriver. Drew, in complete shock, topples overboard and drowns, the canoes crash into each other, Lewis breaks his leg, leaving Ed to lead them to safety.

He climbs a cliff, armed with the archery kit, in case they are being stalked by the other hillbilly. When he spots him, he fires, killing the hillbilly. So Ed has to get the injured Lewis and the useless Bobby to safety and hope nobody finds the bodies, one buried in the ground, the other dumped into the river. The cops do come calling, but the trio brave it out.

And the audience is left with a moral quandary – an even more resonant one these days. Are the killers morally justified? In, they presume, a lawless patch, where men are as likely to rape their own gender as women, are they permitted to take the law into their own hands? Stand up for themselves? Be a man? Rather than waiting for someone else to clean up their mess.

Or are they obnoxious over-entitled tourists who can pillage their way through the countryside? They had assumed that the hillbillies would not call in the law in case the cops were hunting for illicit stills. As if the mountain men didn’t have families who would hold them dear, no matter their crimes.

Sure, they get away with it, but don’t the rich always get off scot-free, one rule for the wealthy, another for the poor? Back in the day, I’m sure Americans feared these kinds of hinterlands, where mountain men ran wild, and the idea of ecology was a whistle in the wind. Our guys aren’t campaigning against the loss of the wilderness, but enjoying one last trip before the scenery is flooded.

Some standout moments – the duelling banjos (a hit single), “squeal like a pig,” the white water canoeing, Ed ramming his fingers in the corpse’s mouth to check for give-away missing teeth, the nightmare at the end that set a trend for what today would be termed a post-credit sequence.

Director John Boorman (Point Blank, 1972) easily sits astride his own fence. If all you’re looking for is action in an unusual setting and the Western trope of pacific man roused to anger, then you can go home happy. If you’re sniffing around for something deeper, for the ease with which the morally upright defend the indefensible, then you’ll have plenty to talk about. Poet James Dickey, author of the original unexpected bestseller, turned in the screenplay.

Tough thriller that asks tough questions.