Brian Hannan

Pressure Point (1962) ****

Central to this under-rated tale of psychopathy and racism is one extraordinary scene, possibly the most exceptional bar-room sequence ever filmed. In the annals of imaginative repulsion, it ranks alongside the rape committed by Alex and his “droogs” in Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange (1971). It begins with mere intimidation as an unnamed young man (Bobby Darin) begins to etch into a bar-counter the lines and symbols of Tic-Tac-Toe (aka Knots & Crosses or Noughts and Crosses). Discovering tins of paint, the man and his gang proceed to cover the entire bar – floor, walls, ceiling, even tables – with the same symbols.

The humiliation is ratcheted up a notch when, after forcing the tavern owner (Howard Caine) to lie on the floor behind the counter, the bar hostess (Mary Munday), rigid with fear, is tormented. Using lipstick rifled from her handbag, the young man decorates her face in the same fashion before pulling down the back of her dress and doing the same there. Fortunately, the scene – although unlikely the reality – ends at this point.

Other potent scenes show how the man arrived at his crazed state, smothered with affection by a weak mother (Anne Barton) who has taken to bed by choice in order to escape his drunken, raucous father (James Anderson) who taunts his ineffective wife by flaunting to her face his casual pick-ups and making love to them in the same room. Indicative of the lonely child’s disturbed personality is that when he invents an imaginary playmate, it is to have someone to subjugate, making his fictional friend lick his boots.

Imprisoned during the Second World War for sedition, the man, suffering from blackouts and nightmares – in which he imagines himself clinging to the edge of a giant plughole before being swept away by a torrent of water from the taps – becomes a patient of a young, also unnamed, doctor (Sidney Poitier) whom he subjects to racial abuse. The doctor, physically bigger and more imposing than the patient, would like to simply give him a good thumping, but his profession necessitates that he treats this objectionable person as just another patient. And eventually they come to enough of a concord that the patient accepts treatment although the doctor suspects that his core personality has not changed.

The movie is layered with themes other than psychopathy and psychiatry. While the racist element is to the fore, including the doctor’s need to prove himself in a white man’s world, director Hubert Cornfield also explores the growth of right-wing extremism among the disaffected who see no contradiction in still espousing traditional American values, for example giving the Nazi salute while singing in all sincerity the national anthem. The African American doctor has to come to terms with lack of objectiveness when dealing with such an abhorrent person.

The movie flits between scenes between the two protagonists staged in a stagey manner and expressionistic almost dreamlike sequences representing the patient’s upbringing such as being menaced by his butcher father among the swinging carcasses of the store. The patient flashbacks are shown without dialog, explanation given in voice-over – far more potent use of this device than in Nothing but the Best (1964) – by either the patient or the doctor.

Reliance on visual dexterity, however, detracts from the tension and director Hubert Cornfield (The 3^rd Voice, 1960) is also hampered by an unnecessary framing device which results in the story being told in flashback – and a conflation of flashbacks: of Poitier’s problems as a young doctor dealing with a difficult patent and the patient’s own life story. So the pressure indicated by the title is often undercut and does not build as much as you might expect. Critical reaction in those days pivoted on the racism elements, but a contemporary audience is almost certainly going to be more influenced by sequences involving the patient, so the picture automatically becomes more involved and Cornfield’s visual mastery more appreciated.

You can detect the influence of producer Stanley Kramer. In his capacity as director he had explored psychiatric therapy and antisemitism in Home of the Brave (1949) and racism in The Defiant Ones (1958) also with Poitier. As producer he was responsible not only for selection of the original material, based on a short story The Fifty-Minute Hour by Robert M. Lindner, but also imposing the present-day framing device, which Kramer wrote, on the picture. Those scenes relate to another psychiatrist (Peter Falk) coming to a much older and experienced Poitier for advice after hitting a brick wall with a similarly repugnant patient, Poitier telling the story of his treatment of the Bobby Darin patient as a way of showing that even the worst patients are treatable.

This is quite a different Sidney Poitier than you might be used to. Wearing suit and tie, and spectacles, this is a more restrained, measured performance. Poitier’s taboo-busting Oscar nomination for The Defiant Ones had not progressed his career that much, still restricted to starring roles in low-budget pictures. But Kramer broke another taboo in Poitier’s favor with this one, casting him a role not initially written as an African American.

Bobby Darin (Come September, 1961) had parlayed his status as hit recording artist into a burgeoning movie career but does not quite display the menace necessary for a fully-fledged psycho. Peter Falk (Machine Gun McCain, 1969) has a small one-tone role. The jazz-nuanced music by Ernest Gold (Exodus, 1961) is worth a listen. And if someone can tell me who designed the striking credit sequence, I would be very pleased.

Incidentally, the title of Lindner’s short story is ironic. Patients pay for one hour of a psychiatrist’s time but in reality only receive 50 minutes in order for the professional to achieve a swift turnaround and keep his/her appointment timetable scheduled to the hour.

Tic-Tac-Toe, in case you are unfamiliar with this two-person childhood game, consists of drawing lines to create nine squares and filling those with either a zero or a cross. The object of the exercise is to create a complete line of either symbols.

Still very powerful.

Behind the Scenes: Charlton Heston – The Roads Not Taken

Charlton Heston started the 1960s if not as the biggest star in the world then at least the star of the biggest film in the world, Ben-Hur, released in the last month of the previous year, and ushering in the roadshow era. One of eleven Oscar winners for the picture, Heston’s career was at all-time high. While he wouldn’t ever enter the Steve McQueen/Robert Redford universe of being offered every conceivable script, he was still a huge marquee draw. And it’s interesting to see not so much just what he chose but what he rejected and why.

Often an automatic choice for epics in the vein of El Cid (1961), 55 Days at Peking (1963), The Agony and the Ecstasy (1965) and Khartoum (1966), he was versatile enough to play in westerns like Major Dundee (1965) and Will Penny (1967), ground-breaking sci fi Planet of the Apes (1968), war Counterpoint (1967), drama Number One (1969) and even leave room for some comedy The Pigeon That Took Rome (1962). When you were as big as Heston, you had choice and could vary your projects.

In 1960 while dithering over a poor screenplay for El Cid, Heston turned down By Love Possessed (1961) made by John Sturges, and From the Terrace (1960) which Mark Robson filmed with Paul Newman. Heston’s judgement was that both scripts were inferior to even what was currently being put before him for El Cid. While the Sturges flopped, the Robson did well.

The next year Samuel Bronston, producer of El Cid – and later 55 Days at Peking – attempted to tie Heston down to a picture about William the Conqueror and The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964). Nicholas Ray, who would direct Heston in 55 Days at Peking, wanted him for a picture about the Children’s Crusade. Twentieth Century Fox offered him a three-picture deal, beginning with western The Comancheros (1961). Heston “was leery” and rejected the project – and the overall deal – when the directors Fox initially suggested were too “routine” for Heston’s taste. Presumably, neither was legendary Warner director Michael Curtiz who made the picture with John Wayne.

Heston felt “a slight pang of guilt” turning down the opportunity to work with Laurence Olivier on an adaptation of Graham Greene’s The Power and the Glory because while it would receive cinematic distribution abroad it would be shown on television in the U.S. That went ahead with Olivier and Frank Conroy in the Heston role but with very limited overseas distribution.

He was very keen on Otto Preminger’s Advise and Consent (1962). It appealed “without reading the script.” However, he was offered the part of Brig Anderson, which he disliked. “I’m not put off by the homosexual angle,” he confided to his Journal, “but the part isn’t very interesting.” He pushed for Senator Cooley but Preminger was already chasing Spencer Tracy for that role and, when he passed, happy with second choice Charles Laughton.

Heston dithered over Easter Dinner because he didn’t want to work in Rome. Director Melville Shavelson suggested filming in Paris with Charles Boyer or Maurice Chevalier as co-stars. An alternative title was Americans Go Home. It became The Pigeon That Took Rome (1962) but a chunk was filmed on the Paramount lot.

Perhaps the most interesting prospect was a remake of Beau Geste (1939) with Dean Martin and Tony Curtis. Also on the table was The View from the Fortieth Floor from the bestseller by Theodore H. White.

In 1962 he became enamoured of a project he had previously rejected. The Lovers by Leslie Stevens (who would later create The Outer Limits television series) was a Broadway play starring Joanne Woodward in 1956. Heston now envisaged it as an ideal movie vehicle. He would spend the next few years trying to put it together; it became The War Lord (1965). He turned down a Renaissance film from Arthur Penn (The Chase, 1966), The Royal Hunt of the Sun (1970) and a similar Orson Welles project on Cortez (never made).

In 1963 he received three scripts in one day. A pair were presented as a two-picture deal from Twentieth Century Fox. While Heston was keen on The Agony and the Ecstasy (1965) he was less impressed by Fate Is the Hunter (1964). The other script, from the Mirisch Bros, was The Satan Bug (1965) from the Alistair MacLean thriller, which went ahead with name director John Sturges but no-name star George Maharis. He rejected Lady L (1965) opposite Sophia Loren and Morituri (1965), wryly commenting that Brando “should have passed too.” He was very tempted by a “very funny” script for The Great Race (1965) but “taking it would mean pushing back War Lord again.” Tony Curtis stepped in.

Twentieth Century Fox was pushing in 1964 for him to become involved in a film about General Custer. He declined. “It doesn’t seem like a good idea to me.” He also turned down Hawaii (1966) “with a few regrets, it has too much plot and not enough people.”

In 1965, another Alistair MacLean project came his way with Ice Station Zebra (1968). “Good script but I don’t like the part.” He was also offered a “curious comedy” Twinkle, Twinkle, Killer Kane by unknown William Peter Blatty, later author of The Exorcist (1973). This was filmed as The Ninth Configuration (1990), directed by the author. He mulled over Sam Peckinpah script Hilo (never made), an unnamed Mirisch western, The Quiller Memorandum (1966) – “modern story and a simple part” – and The Way West (1967). A second effort was made to enrol him for the Beau Geste (1966) remake with him playing the sadistic sergeant.

Vittorio De Sica came calling in 1966 for a film with Shirley MacLaine Woman Times Seven (1967). He was “flattered to be asked” to star in Heaven’s My Destination to be directed by Garson Kanin based on the bestseller by Thornton Wilder. There was short-lived attempt in 1968 to mount Eagle at Escambray to be directed by Sandy Mackendrick. He turned down Elia Kazan’s The Arrangement (1969) – “don’t care for it…loser for a protagonist” – Colossus: The Forbin Project (1970), a science fiction picture about a giant computer, and a western by Elliott Silverstein (Cat Ballou, 1965) called The Marauders.

Beyond The Great Race and perhaps Hawaii, unlike some stars – come in Steve McQueen and Robert Redford – he doesn’t appear to have turned down anything that subsequently became a major commercial or critical hit.

SOURCE: Charlton Heston, The Actor’s Life, Journals 1956-1976 (Penguin, 1979).

Farewell, Friend / Adieu, L’ami (1968) ****

This heist picture made Charles Bronson a star, though, like Clint Eastwood a few years previously, he had to go to Europe, in this case France, to find an audience appreciable of his particular skill set. This was such a box office smash in France that it was the reason that Once upon a Time in the West (1968), a major flop virtually everyone else, turned into a huge hit in Paris. After a decade as a supporting actor, albeit in some quality offerings like The Magnificent Seven (1960), The Great Escape (1963) and The Dirty Dozen (1967), Bronson developed a big following, if only initially in Europe.

It could also lay fair claim to stealing the title of “first buddy movie” from the following year’s Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) because, apart from the heist that is central to the story, it is essentially about the forging of a friendship. But it wasn’t released in the U.S. for another five years, in the wake of Bronson’s Hollywood breakthrough in The Valachi Papers (1972), and then under a different title, Honor Among Thieves.

And you can see why it was such a star-making vehicle. Bronson goes toe-to-toe with France’s number one male star Alain Delon. He had the walk and the stance and the look and he was given acres of screen time to allow audiences to fully appreciate for the first time what he had to offer. Like Butch Cassidy, the duo share a lot of screen time, and after initial dislike, they slowly turn, through circumstance and a shared code of honor, into friends.

Dino Barran (Alain Delon) is the principled one, after a final stint as a doctor in the French Foreign Legion, originally turning down Bronson’s overtures to become involved in a separate major robbery. Franz Propp (Charles Bronson) is an unsavory customer, making his living as a small-time thief who uses a stripper to dupe wealthy marks. Barran agrees to rob a corporation’s safe during the three-day Xmas holiday of two million dollars as a favor to the slinky widow Isabelle (Olga Georges-Picot) of a former colleague, for whose death he retains guilt. Propp more or less barges his way into the caper.

It’s a clever heist. Isabelle gets Barran a job as a company doctor whose office is next door to the giant vault. But there’s a twist. Surveillance reveals only three of the seven numbers required to open the vault. But Barran reckons three days is sufficient to try out the 10,000 possible combinations.

Barran and Propp despise each other and pass the time playing juvenile tricks, locking each other into a room, stealing all the food from the one dispensing machine, winding each other up, while they take turns trying different combinations. But it opens after only 3,400 attempts and they face a shock. The vault is empty. They have been set up to take the fall for a previous robbery that must have been completed before the building closed for Xmas.

And there’s no way out. They are in lockdown, deep in a basement. The elevators can only be opened by a small squadron of guards upstairs. Food long gone, they are going to run out of water. If they use a lighter to see in the dark, or build a fire to get warm, the flames will eat up the oxygen they need to survive in the enclosed space. So the heist turns into a battle for survival and brute force, facing a deadline to escape before the building re-opens and they are discovered, exhausted and clearly guilty.

But that’s only the second act. There is a better one to follow, as their friendship is defined in an unusual manner. And there are any number of twists to maintain the suspense and tension. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid were close friends when that western began. Here, we see the evolution of a friendship between two forceful characters who express their feelings with their fists.

Delon was a known quantity, but Bronson really comes to the fore, more than holding his own against a top star who oozed charisma. This is Bronson in chrysalis, the emergence of the tough guy leading man screen persona that would turn him into one of the biggest stars in the world. Surprisingly, given his later penchant for the monosyllabic, here he does a lot of talking, perhaps more actual acting than he ever did later when his roles tended to fall into a stereotype.

He has the two best scenes, both character-defining, but in different ways. He has a little scam, getting people to gamble on how many coins it would take for an already full-to-the-brim glass to overflow when a certain number of coins were dropped in. While this is a cute, it’s that of a small-time con artist, but watching it play out, as it does at critical moments, is surprisingly suspenseful. The second is the strip scene which shows him, as a potential leading man, in a very poor light, and although thievery is the ultimate aim, it is not far short of pimping, with Bronson standing back while the woman (Marianna Falk) is routinely humiliated. It’s the kind of scene that would be given to a supporting actor, for whom later redemption was not on the cards. It says something for Bronson’s command of the screen and the development of his character that by the end of the picture the audience has long forgotten that he could stoop so low.

It is a film of such twists I would not want to say much more for fear of giving away too much, suffice to say that Olga Georges-Picot and her friend, mousy nurse Dominique (Brigitte Fossey), are also stand-outs, and not just in the sense of their allure.

Director Jean Herman, in his sophomore outing, takes the bold step of dispensing with music virtually throughout, which means the audience is deprived of the usual musical beats, indicating threat or suspense or change of mood, during the critical heist sequence, but which has the benefit of keeping the camera squarely on the two leading characters without favoring either. Most pictures focusing on character rely on slow-burn drama. In the bulk of heist pictures characters appear fully-formed. Here, unusually, and almost uniquely in the movie canon, character development takes place during an action film.

Even without Bronson, this would have been a terrific heist picture. With him, it takes on a new dimension.

Serena (1962) ***

Might have been pitched higher had it appeared after Honor Blackman Moment to Moment, 1966) began her stint as Cathy Gale in hit television show The Avengers. As it is, still a neat job. Few stylistic flourishes – a zoom shot (highly unusual), use of silhouette, camera swivel, substantial location work and some judicious use of the overhead camera. But mostly a crime picture that delivers in tidy fashion. As another plus point, it’s short.

Ideal support material, the kind of movie that was easy to get off the ground in the U.K. because of the Eady Levy (a tax break) and the quota system whereby cinemas had to show a certain percentage of home-grown movies. Films capitalizing on this were known as “quota quickies” and most deserved to disappear from view shortly after being made.

This is an exception, and damned clever it is too, and though a few of the “clues” wouldn’t register with a contemporary audience, it piles on the twists and turns so it’s one narrative beat after another.

Detective Inspector Gregory (Patrick Holt) and Sergeant Conway (Bruce Beeby) come calling on artist Howard Rogers (Emrys Jones) with news his wife has been murdered. They’re separated three years, divorce unlikely due to the wife’s Catholicism. Howard is putting the finishing touches to a painting of voluptuous brunette model Serena, who subsequently can’t be found to substantiate his alibi.

The blonde wife’s face has been blown apart by shotgun pellets so there’s a question-mark over her identity. So when said wife Ann (Honor Blackman) turns up, it’s clear someone else is dead. Ann is all set for reconciliation and the couple plan to head off for France to live off the £280,000 left in her father’s will.

Soon becomes apparent to the doughty investigation team that the murderer has killed the wrong woman. Ann, fearing she was being followed and worried about her safety, had called in old chum Cathy, an actress, also a blonde, to dress up in her clothes and pretend to be the wife. Clothes are found in the river. The finger of suspicion points at the missing Serena, in love with the artist and perhaps wanting to bump off her rival.

The clues, such as they are, are infinitesimal, though of course in those days there was little recourse to forensics. But they don’t mount up to much and their importance to the investigation – a modest piece of sleight of hand – is kept from the audience, spared the endless poring over red herrings to be found in modern detective tales, so it’s only at the end that the culprits are found.

And you can see why the director withheld crucial evidence because the climax is exceptionally well done. Ann’s lawyer is executor of the will, so, perforce, she would have had several meetings with him.

When the police arrive as the reconciled couple are packing their bags before hopping over the Channel, the ever-helpful cops offer them a lift to the train station. But, in fact, plan to take them to the police station. In the car for no apparent reason is the lawyer. But no words of greeting are exchanged between him and the wife.

Ergo, she’s not the wife.

That’s Serena in the car. Howard and Serena conspired to kill the wife. Clever use of wigs turned Serena into the brunette model and then the blonde wife. Two clues – plus the continued absence of the model – had led Insp Gregory to this conclusion. They found spirit-gum on the clothes found in the river, and that’s used to attach wigs, and in church the false Ann was seen crossing herself with her left hand rather than her right, de rigeur for that religion even if you were left-handed.

So, as I said, tidily done, mystery stoked high until the end.

Peter Maxwell (Impact, 1963) was mostly a jobbing television director only afforded a handful of movies, and all of these B-pictures, into which he injects the occasional stylistic touch, but which fitted well into the supporting picture category.

Patrick Holt reminded me of Peter Finch (The Legend of Lylah Clare, 1968), same build, haircut, stolidness and pursing of the lips, but he’s not asked to plumb any emotional depths. You might well have forecast a bright future for Honor Blackman after this movie but she was already established enough, making the transition to adult roles from child star, and since she’s not called upon to play a femme fatale, there’s not much for her to get her teeth into either. Emrys Jones (The Trials of Oscar Wilde, 1960) is good as the schemer.

Quite a few hands involved in tricking out the screenplay including the director, Edward and Valerie Abraham (Dominique, 1978) and Reginald Hearne (The Sicilians, 1964) .

One of the best examples of the “quota quickie.”

Nothing but the Best (1964) ***

Hardly surprising Denholm Elliott comes a cropper in this delicious British upper class black comedy – he steals the show from denoted star Alan Bates. Had he kept going any longer you would hardly have noticed Bates even featured, such was the clever impact of Elliott’s insiduous playing.

The toff version of Room at the Top (1958) meets Alfie (1966) as “ambitious young yob” Jimmy Brewster (Alan Bates) manipulates his way to the top. Too many people not coming up to scratch for his upwardly mobile purposes are cast aside – or strangled. Arrogance and bluff are the key to getting ahead in the upper-class world towards which he pivots. Doing absolutely nothing at all also works wonders in high society as does dismissing one’s hugely expensive education.

Jimmy is initially helped on his way, given an insider’s guide, by dissolute layabout toff Charles (Denholm Elliott) with a marked predilection for forgery, and other minor criminal schemes, but whose chief skill appears to be sponging off everyone else. Jimmy is a lowly executive in an upmarket estate agent, fighting for promotion against people with silver spoons rattling around every part of their anatomy and who have the genuine class their business appears to call for.

Every now and then the satire still contains contemporary bite, the difference between universities still relevant, as is that most people are not swayed by actual knowledge but by the fact that you can toss out the names of various academics. But, mostly, it’s bluff that opens the doors. Jimmy misses an appointment with an important banker, a dereliction that should have scuppered his chances of negotiating a better deal for his client. But, in fact, the banker takes this as Jimmy having gone elsewhere and immediately offers a better deal.

When confronted by a colleague for ignoring another appointment, Jimmy merely vaguely waffles on about being detained by “Sir Charles,” true identity left shrouded in mystery, contentious colleague silenced by either not being on speaking terms with the person mentioned or unwilling to admit his ignorance.

Having seduced every secretary within reach – none of whom meet his lofty standards – Jimmy manages to wangle his way into catching the eye of wealthy boss Horton (Harry Andrews) and his attractive daughter Ann (Millicent Martin), whom he marries.

While this would have been sharp as a tack in satirical terms back in the day, most of that weaponry is now out-dated. Suffers because none of the upper-class characters show any sense whatsoever – they can’t all be duffers and most seem to have tumbled out of central casting’s idea of an upper class twit. Charles is the exception, but even he is something of an innocent, not quite aware of what ruthlessness he has unwittingly set afire.

The lower classes aren’t much better. Secretaries and switchboard girls fall at Jimmy’s feet, handsome beggar that he is, though his landlady Mrs March (Pauline Delaney) appears to have his measure and is not above indulging in hypocrisy.

The voice-over works to the detriment of the picture. Because that device is doing so much of the heavy lifting, filling in the audience on Jimmy’s true feelings, the actor doesn’t have to do much acting and we’re presented with a kind of wooden figure who hides behind a mask. Of course since he’s masking his feelings, you might be inclined to give Alan Bates the benefit of the doubt.

And it would work very well if there wasn’t Denholm Elliott giving a master class in duplicity. He exhibits genuine charm.

I’m guessing that the voice-over was already there in Frederic Raphael’s script and not added to compensate for Alan Bates’s one-note performance. So if it was, that certainly presented a problem for the actor since most of what made his character interesting was at one remove, not presented in dialog or confrontation as would be the norm.

Alfie solved the problem by breaking the fourth wall – all the rage these days – and having the character directly address the audience, which allowed Michael Caine to present his own case.

So, if Alan Bates felt limited in what he could show on screen, he certainly does a good job of maintaining the façade. But Denholm Elliott (Station Six Sahara, 1963) steals the show. Harry Andrews (The Charge of the Light Brigade, 1968) is permitted no nuance to his normal bluff persona, singer Millicent Martin (Alfie, 1966) sparkles, and a bunch of British character actors including James Villiers (Some Girls Do, 1969) and Nigel Stock (The Lost Continent, 1968) put in an appearance.

Directed with some glee by Clive Donner (Alfred the Great, 1969) from a script by Frederic Raphael (Darling, 1965) adapted from a short story by Stanley Ellin (House of Cards, 1968).

Not as coruscating now as originally intended.

Day of the Jackal (1973) *****

The original – and unlikely ever to be topped no matter the best intentions of Sky’s current remake. Possibly the greatest thriller of all time, certainly in the top two or three, and broke every rule going. No music, excepting the first few minutes, for a start. Could easily have been packed with the easily-recognizable all-star-cast found in roadshows, a few British acting knights thrown in for good measure, but instead has a no-name cast.

You would have had to be particularly vigilant as a moviegoer to have even heard of Edward Fox, too old (aged 36) at this point to be considered a rising star, and without the portfolio (outside of a Bafta supporting actor nomination for The Go-Between, 1971) to suggest he had ever particularly shone.

*Didn’t realize there was a 70mm version.*

Apart from their job, every character, especially the chameleon-like Jackal (Edward Fox), is anonymous, virtually nothing of home life intrudes in the sharply-drawn story. The brilliant script by Kenneth Ross (The Odessa File, 1974) jettisons every unnecessary detail, and the even better editing pares every scene down to the bone.

That there is even an iota of tension given we know the outcome is quite extraordinary, but, as with the book, it is wound up taut. Not will he-won’t he, but how, when, where? Every time the police get a lead, they discover he is one step ahead.

What director Fred Zinnemann (A Man for All Seasons, 1966) has the good sense to retain is much of the fascinating detail that author Frederick Forsyth packed into his runaway bestseller. How to create a false identity, how a nibble of cordite can make you look old, where to conceal a rifle in the chassis of your car, and my favourite, how to wind a rope round a tree to ensure your shooting arm is steady.

And, except for the gunman and the rebels he represents, not a maverick in sight. None of this Dirty Harry, Madigan, nonsense, nobody railing against authority, but still the dead weight of bureaucracy, the high-ups only too happy when the moment comes they can dismiss an underling who might steal a sniff of glory.

This shouldn’t work at all, there’s far too much of the dogged detective, cops on both sides of the Channel tearing through reams of paperwork, hundreds of hotel registration cards, lost passport forms, birth certificates, death certificates. Cops stopping every blonde male of a certain height. Most of the minions you never see again, regardless of the vital tasks they fulfil. Virtually the only way characters are permitted emotion is to take a longer drag on their cigarette.

The only feeling permitted is the reaction of the would-be femme fatale Denise (Olga Georges-Picot) when her superior burns the love letters and photographs of her French soldier boyfriend killed in action. The late twist to that element of the story, when one of the politicians is discovered to have fallen into her honey-trap, comes when the cabal of politicians realises that French detective Lebel (Michael Lonsdale) has tapped all their phones.

There’s a constant sense of peak and trough, every breakthrough a dead end, yet endless accumulation of tiny detail allows for maneuver at the end, when we discover that the Jackal is not, as we have been led to believe, an Englishman going by the name of Charles Calthorp.

Given the intensity, there’s still space for nuance. The other murders the Jackal commits are visually discreet. None of the extended hand-to-hand combat of Jason Bourne and John Wick. A karate chop for one victim, another ushered out of view, the hand of a compromised lover grows limp. The torture scene is visually classic. The tortured man, seen from behind, tries to duck away from the glaring light and when he succeeds that light glares in the face of the audience leaving backroom staff to glean his tape-recorded words in between his screams

The money Zinnemann saved on star turns probably went on achieving French cooperation which minimized outlay on building on a set to show the parades and all the military razzamatazz that went with a realistic depiction of Liberation Day, a major French event. The assassin’s target, French President De Gaulle, was dead by the time the movie was made, so could not object, and since the assassination failed in part due to the brilliance of the French police perhaps it was felt this was one movie worthy of such collaboration.

Edward Fox is superb at the chilling bisexual assassin but the support cast is excellent – Cyril Cusack (Fahrenheit 451, 1966) as a gunsmith, Michael Lonsdale (Caravan to Vaccares,1974), a young Derek Jacobi (Gladiator, 1999), Barrie Ingham (A Challenge for Robin Hood, 1967), Alan Badel (Arabesque, 1966) as a snooty minister, Olga-Georges Picot (Farewell, Friend / Adieu L’Ami, 1968) and Delphine Seyrig (Accident, 1967).

Based on his Oscar-heavy record – two wins, four nominations – you wouldn’t have picked Fred Zinnemann for such populist fare. Unless you recalled that he followed From Here to Eternity (1953) with musical Oklahoma! (1956). He had never made a thriller before, but he instinctively knows how to make the material sing.

Hollywood went down the remake route once before with indifferent results despite a top-class cast of Bruce Willis, Richard Gere and Sidney Poitier in The Jackal (1997). The current television series is getting a good vibe but it will have to go some, even with around eight hours to play with, to match this.

Masterpiece.

A Breath of Scandal / Olympia (1960) ***

Sophia Loren in playful mood. Not every serious actress could whip up a confection as light as this. She was in the middle of a romance period embracing both comedy and drama that began with Houseboat (1958) and rattled through to The Millionairess (1960) before embarking on a half-decade of more serious stuff starting with her Oscar-winning performance in Two Women (1960).

Easy to dismiss her here as all pout and bosom, but there’s a distinct egalitarianism on show, especially given it’s set in early stuffy 20^th century Vienna, where protocol reigns, making life difficult for a lass who wishes an active sex life outside the constrictions of marriage.

There’s not much to the story, in fact it’s as flimsy as heck, but the kind of picture that a top star can swan her way through and charm the audience with her.

When we meet Olympia (Sophia Loren) she’s been exiled to the countryside for one scandal too many and to ease her boredom takes potshots at anyone visiting her quaint castle. Out horse-riding, she tangles with a motor car driven by Yank businessman Charlie Foster (John Gavin) and engineers that they spend the night in a nearby hunting lodge, leading him to believe she’s an ordinary peasant girl and not a princess.

Summoned back to Vienna by her father Prince Philip (Maurice Chevalier) and mother Princess Eugenie (Isabel Jeans) because they’ve found a prospective suitor in Prince Ruprecht (Carlo Hintermann), she encounters Charlie again because he’s trying to sell her father on some business deal.

On the sidelines causing trouble is (Angela Lansbury) who threatens to dish the dirt on Olympia and Charlie and cause a great scandal. And, really, that’s all there is to it except, as had become somewhat de rigeur in his pictures, Maurice Chevalier chips in with a song.

But the settings are glorious and costume design takes the top prize. While everyone else has a whale of a time, John Gavin (Midnight Lace, 1960) looks lost, wooden and out of his depth, unable to respond to the mischievous sparkle of La Loren. This could easily have been devised to show Loren at her marquee best, the belle of the ball, but with a cunning mind, quick repartee, and surprisingly feminist in her approach.

It was one of those Hollywood-Italian co-productions that were starting to take off with little regard for national gridlines. Though set in Austria, the female lead was Italian, male lead American, Maurice Chevalier (Jessica, 1962) as French as they come, Isabel Jeans (The Magic Christian, 1969) is English and director Michael Curtiz (The Commancheros, 1961) Hungarian.

It’s hardly demanding and since Gavin doesn’t step up to the plate lacks the necessary sizzle but all that means is Loren can steal the spotlight. Walter Bernstein (The Magnificent Seven, 1960) and Ring Lardner Jr (The Cincinnati Kid, 1965) turned the Frederic Molnar play into a screenplay.

Easy to criticize if you’re wanting something more demanding, but otherwise effortlessly enjoyable.

Perfect Saturday afternoon matinee material.

Return to Sender (1963) ***

The B-film’s B-film. Where American B-pictures invariably focused on sleaze, sci-fi- horror or violence, their British counterparts often exuded class with solid acting, clever plots, excellent though simple sets and good composition. Edgar Wallace, the world’s most prolific writer, had regained sudden popularity thirty years after his death, and movies made from his works made ideal subjects for B-pictures fed into the British double-bill system. His thrillers are all story, racing along with twist after twist.

On the verge of being arrested for fraud, high-class businessman Dino Steffano (Nigel Davenport) hits on blackmail as a means of forcing investigator Robert Lindley (Geoffrey Keen) to drop the case. He sets up associate Mike Cochrane (William Russell) to fake photographs involving sexy Lisa (Yvonne Romain) and Lindley in compromising positions. So Lisa, pretending to hold vital evidence, lures him to her flat where this can be staged.

Meanwhile Lindley’s daughter Beth (Jennifer Daniel) chats up Cochrane after overhearing him asking questions about her father’s cottage. Cochrane has history with Lindley, having been sent for an 18-month prison sentence as a result of a previous encounter. He also resents Steffano over previous double-dealing and is planning to take his own revenge while carrying out the master plan.

I doubt if you will be able to see the twists coming. Suffice to say, nothing is what it seems. The closer Lindley gets to uncovering the mystery, the darker it becomes and the more danger he appears to be in. Even when characters reveal their plans, you can be sure they will have a different one up their sleeve. Steffano’s exceptional charm masks his ruthlessness. While Lindley is dogged, he is no match for the slinky Lisa who can play the vulnerable female with ease. Artist Beth treasures her independence so much that it takes her down some devious alleys, especially when trying to pump Cochrane for information. And it all leads to a terrific climax, involving further twists and double-dealing.

Most of this is played out in classy apartments with log fires burning and Steffano drinking brandy and smoking cigars, or on a yacht, or Lindley’s equally splendid chambers.

The stars are either up-and-coming movie stars or destined for small-screen fame. Many of these Edgar Wallace thrillers would prove stepping stones for new talent.

Nigel Davenport (The Third Secret, 1964) is the pick and would become an accomplished supporting actor in films like Play Dirty (1969). Yvonne Romaine had already made a splash in The Frightened City (1961) and would go on to play the female lead in Devil Doll (1964) and The Brigand of Kandahar (1965). Geoffrey Keen (Dr Syn, Alias The Scarecrow, 1963) would make a bigger impact on television in Mogul (1965-1972). As would William Russell (The Great Escape, 1963) who went on to become a long-running sidekick of Dr Who (1963-1965). Jennifer Daniel became a horror favorite with female lead in The Kiss of the Vampire (1963) and The Reptile (1966).

Making his movie debut director John Hales clearly benefits from a couple of decades as an editor in films like The Seventh Veil (1945) and Village of the Damned (1960) and he nips quickly from one scene to another to keep the plot ticking along while showing some gift for framing characters within a scene.

I should point out you will easily find flaws. Strictly speaking, if you know your police procedural, Lindley would not be an investigator, and it would not be too hard to find strains of implausibility showing. But that should not detract from this enjoyable movie.

British studio Anglo Amalgamated churned out these Edgar Wallace thrillers as double-bill fodder and, even though compromised in the budget department, they were generally well-made. Wallace was a brand-name, a best-selling author on account of his 200-plus novels, most still in print long after his death, and a byword for a good read. American television edited the features down to fit into a television series. So if you are hunting these down make sure you get the original features rather than the edited versions.

Nautilus (2024) ***

I thought Game of Thrones had got rid of the Lost narrative style wherein characters had mysterious pasts which unfolded episode by episode. In Game of Thrones characters were defined upfront – ambitious, mean, savage, stupid, honourable – and the surprise generally came in the form of idiots being even more idiotic or the brutal indulging in excessive savagery. That nice wee blonde lass, for example, with the wee pet dragons ended up destroying a town – but her vengeful nature was signposted all the way through.

However, Lost-style storytelling has resurfaced in Nautilus. So we discover that Captain Nemo (Shazad Latif) in this version is closer to the original Jules Verne prototype than the sleek James Mason of the Disney feature 20,000 Leagues under the Sea (1954). He’s of Indian heritage, seeking revenge on the East India Company – the nineteenth-century equivalent of a global industrial power that’s bigger than nations – which has killed his family. Anyway, he hijacks the aforesaid company’s latest invention, the submarine Nautilus, complete with razor sharp upper deck for ripping open the hull of ships.

The company, not inclined to take kindly to such theft, sends the iron-clad Dreadnought, the latest in the warship line, complete with depth charges, after them. There’s a surprising amount of invention – ice-cube-making machines also appear – and engineers on hand to make things work or, conversely, know how to sabotage machines.

On board the Nautilus the motley bunch of characters with a job lot of mysterious pasts comprises primarily prison escapees, though Frenchman Gustave (Thierry Fremon) has engineering credentials. Posh Humility (Georgia Flood) and Loti (Celine Manville) are refugees from a shipwreck and there’s also, as you might expect, a dog, and stowaway Cuff (Edward Hardie).

There’s no sign, of course, of a whale hunter like Ned Land (Kirk Douglas in the Disney version). No, this is ecologically-sound, and instead Nemo has harpoon-removing skills and the whales – repaying such kindness apparently – come in handy to save the submarine from a giant squid.

Thank goodness for the squid and the later giant spiders and other fantasy-type creatures that originated in the original’s sequel Mysterious Island. Because this is a genuine oddity, and not necessarily in a good way. The writing is mostly sharp, some characters, especially the women, introduced in great style, and there’s some vivid comedy, and the action very well rendered indeed. The depth charges are used to usual effect but the torpedo launched by the Nautilus fulfils a different, surprising, purpose. Occasionally, it relies on flashback to explain elements better left unsaid – Nemo can hold his breath for a long time underwater, great, a modest super power, but, in fact, the result of being bullied at school.

There are some clever reversals. Humility, trying to save the cabin boy being punished for stealing biscuits, intervenes to say she told him to fetch them. Disbelieving faces all round as she’s handed one. It’s loaded with weevils. At the start we are led to believe that Humility is an ace with cards until we discover it’s actually Loti.

And you can’t really complain about the direction. But the acting is woeful. Whether blame lies with the casting director or the actors themselves and the lack of character depth who knows. Humility is feisty and clever, and can use a hairpin to a variety of ends, pick a lock, sabotage a submarine, and every time she promises not to escape you can be sure she’ll do the opposite. But Georgia Flood (Blacklight, 2022) does little more than speak her lines, nothing much going on behind the eyes. I suppose Shazad Latif (Rogue Agent, 2022) could blame his beard for getting in the way of facial expression.

That’s until they come up against Richard E. Grant as a sly white rajah and he shows just what you can do with a role. Admittedly, he’s not up against much competition but he easily steals the show.

You won’t be surprised to find it weighted down with virtue signalling – female empowerment, rebellion, saving rather than killing whales – and the one area where typically such adventure films from The African Queen (1952) to Romancing the Stone (1984) excel – the male-female verbal duelling – is all one-sided.

Lower your expectations and accept some stiff-upper-lip Saturday matinee fun and you won’t go wrong. I did, and now at episode four, I’ll probably keep going.

It Started in Naples (1960) ***

By this point in her career Sophia Loren was adopted by Hollywood primarily as a means of rejuvenating the romantic screen careers of much older male stars. John Wayne was over two decades her senior in Legend of the Lost (1957), Frank Sinatra and Gregory Peck nearly two decades older in The Pride and the Passion (1957, and Cary Grant a full three decades in Houseboat (1959). But where Grant was sprightly enough and with superb comic timing and Loren had the charm to make Houseboat work, the May-December notion lost much of its appeal when translated to her Italian homeland and an aging Clark Gable.

While engaging enough, the tale mostly relies on a stereotypical stuffy American’s encounters with a stereotypical down-to-earth Italian although Loren adds considerable zap with her singing-and-dancing numbers. Lawyer Michael Hamilton (Clark Gable), in Italy to settle his deceased brother’s affairs, discovers the dead man has left behind an eight-year-old boy Nando (Marietto) being looked after in haphazard fashion and impoverished circumstances in Capri by his aunt Lucia (Sophia Loren), a nightclub singer. Determined to give the boy a proper American education, Hamilton engages in a tug-of-war with Lucia.

In truth, Lucia lacks maternal instincts, allowing the boy to stay up till one o’clock in the morning handing out nightclub flyers and not even knowing where the local school is. Hamilton is in turns appalled and attracted to Lucia, in some part pretending romantic interest to come to a out-of-court settlement. To complicate matters, Hamilton is due to get married back home.

At times it is more travelog than romantic comedy, with streets packed for fiestas and cafes full well into the night, a speedboat ride round the glorious bay, another expedition under the majestic caves, a cable car trip up the cliffs to view spectacular scenery, and the local population enjoying their version of la dolce vita. But the piece de resistance is Lucia’s performance in the nightclub, ravishing figure accompanied by more than passable voice as she knocks out “Tu vuo fa L’Americano” (which you might remember from the jazz club scene in The Talented Mr Ripley, 199). She has a zest that her suitor cannot match but which is of course immensely appealing.

Lucia is torn between giving the boy a better start in life, already insisting for example that he speak English, and holding on to him while street urchin Nando is intent on acting as matchmaker.

Most of the humor is somewhat heavy-handed except for a few exceptional lines – complaining that he cannot sleep for the noise outside, Hamilton asks a waiter how do these people ever sleep only to receive the immortal reply: “together.”

Gable lacks the double-take that served Cary Grant so well and instead of looking perplexed and captivated mostly looks grumpy. But this is still Gable and the camera still loves him even if he has added a few pounds. He was a bigger global star than in the Hollywood Golden Era thanks in part to regular reissues of Gone with the Wind (1939) but mostly to a wider range of roles and he was earning far more than at MGM, in the John Wayne/William Holden league of remuneration. Loren was the leading Italian female star, well ahead in Hollywood eyes of competitors Claudia Cardinale and Gina Lollobrigida, and had the ability, despite whatever age difference was foisted upon her, to make believable any unlikely romance.