Brian Hannan

Behind the Scenes: “Witchfinder General” / “The Conqueror Worm” (1968)

Truth was the first casualty. Matthew Hopkins, the character played in the film by Vincent Price, was 27 when he died in 1647. He had been hunting witches for three years. Price was 57 when the movie appeared. Co-star Ian Ogilvy, aged 25, would have been a better fit, though he lacked the menace. Oliver Reed, who had the swagger and the scowl, would have been the ideal candidate, age-wise, since he was just turning 30. And the movie might well have benefitted from presenting Hopkins as a young grifter who through force of personality and cunning held a country to ransom.

Price wasn’t director Michael Reeves’ (The Sorcerers, 1967) first choice. In fact, he originally wanted buddy Ogilvy, who had played opposite Boris Karloff in The Sorcerers. When that idea failed to float with Tony Tenser – previously head of Compton Films – now boss of British horror outfit Tigon, a challenger to the Hammer crown, Reeves pivoted to Donald Pleasance who, although better known as a supporting actor in the likes of The Great Escape (1963), had headlined Roman Polanski’s chiller Cul de Sac (1966). But when Tenser did a deal with American International Pictures, the U.S. mini-studio insisted on contract player Vincent Price, the mainstay of their Edgar Allan Poe output, with 16 previous films (out of 74) for the company.

Twenty-one-year-old Hilary Dwyer (The Oblong Box, 1969), under contract to Tigon, made her movie debut. Rupert Davies (The Oblong Box) was a seasoned veteran while Nicky Henson (Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush, 1967) was a potential breakout star.

Tigon was a relatively new entrant to the horror scene, founded in 1966 by Tenser. Its second picture was The Sorcerers; this would be its fourth. Tenser has bought, pre-publication, the rights to Ronald Bassett’s novel Witchfinder General, published in 1966. Director Reeves faced something of a deadline once Tenser finalized the £83,000 budget. AIP chipped in £32,000 which included a £12,000 fee for Price. While it was Tigon’s biggest film to date, it was pin money for AIP.

The film needed to begin shooting by September 1967 at the latest to avoid the worst of the British cold weather. But the screenplay proved too unpleasant for the taste of the British censor. Reeves had already begun the screenplay with Tom Baker (The Sorcerers) with Donald Pleasance in mind portraying “a ridiculous authority figure” and had to quickly revamp it for Price. The laws of the period required a green light for the script from the British Board of Film Censors, who were repulsed by a “study in sadism” which dwelt too lovingly on “every detail of cruelty and suffering.”

That draft was submitted on August 4, 1967. The second draft, submitted on August 15, proved no more appealing. A third, substantially toned-down version, was approved. This resulted in the elimination of gruesome details of the Battle of Naseby and a change to the ending.

Production began on September 18, 1967. Star and director clashed. Reeves refused to go and meet Price on arrival at Heathrow Airport and told him, “I didn’t want you, and I still don’t want you, but I’m stuck with you.” The star was riled by the director’s inexperience. When told to fire a blank pistol while on horseback, Price was thrown from his horse after the animal reared up in shock at the sound. Price, in real-life a very cultured person, was surprised at Reeves’ attitude because in general he got on with directors.

Price turned up drunk on the last day of shooting, the filming of his character’s death scene. Reeves was planning revenge and told Ogilvy to really lay into the star. But the producer, anticipating trouble, ensured Price was well padded.

Reeves was better known for his technical rather than personal skills. Ogilvy commented: “Mike never directed the actors. He said he knew nothing about acting and preferred to leave it up to us.” That wouldn’t square with him falling out with Price over his interpretation of the character. And Hilary Dwyer saw another side of Reeves. “He was really inspiring to work with,” she said, “And because it was my first film, I didn’t know how lucky I was.” She would work with Price again on The Oblong Box and Cry of the Banshee (1970).

Tony Tenser, egged on by AIP’s head of European Productions, shot additional nude scenes in the pub sequence for the German version, A continuity error was responsible for the freeze-frame ending. There was a short strike when the production fell foul of union rules. Producer Philip Waddilove and his wife Susi were occasionally called upon to act.

Two aircraft hangars near Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk were converted for the interiors while a wide variety of locations were utilized for exteriors including Lavenham Square in Suffolk, the coast at Dunwich, also in Suffolk, Black Park in Buckinghamshire, Orford Castle in East Anglia, St John The Evangelist Church in Rushford, Norfolk, and Kentwell Hall in Long Melford on the Essex-Suffolk border. When the operation could not afford a camera crane, the crew improvised with a cherry picker.

Despite the tension on set, Price was pleased with his performance and the overall film. He praised the film in a 10-page letter. Price remarked, “I realized what he wanted was a low-key, very laid-back, menacing performance. He did get it but I was fighting him every inch of the way. Had I known what he wanted I would have cooperated.”

AIP retitled it The Conqueror Worm for U.S. release, hoping to snooker fans into thinking this fell into the Edgar Allan Poe canon, since the title referred to one of the author’s poems, part of which was recited over the credits.

The movie was generally lambasted by critics for its perceived sadistic approach, but is now considered cult. It was a big box office hit, especially considering the paltry budget, gaining a circuit release in the UK – “very good run beating par by a wide margin” – and despite being saddled with the tag of “unlikely box office prospects” by Variety did better than expected business in New York ($159,000 from 28 houses), Los Angeles (a “lusty” $97,000 from 16) and Detroit ($35,000 from one). The final U.S. rental tally was $1.5 million placing it ahead in the annual box office charts of such bigger-budgeted efforts as Villa Rides starring Yul Brynner and Robert Mitchum, Anzio with Mitchum again, James Stewart and Henry Fonda in Firecreek and Sean Connery and Brigitte Bardot in Shalako.

SOURCES: Benjamin Halligan, Michael Reeves (Manchester University Press) 2003; Lucy Chase Williams, The Complete Films of Vincent Price (Citadel Press, 1995); “Big Rental Films of 1968,” Variety, January 8, 1969, p15; Steve Biodrowski and David Del Valle, “Vincent Price, Horror’s Crown Prince,” Cinefantastique, Vol 19; Bill Kelley, “Filming Reeves Masterpiece Witchfinder General,” Cinefantastique, Vol 22; “Box Office Business,” Kine Weekly, June 1, 1968, p8; “Review,” Variety, May 15, 1968, p6. Box office figures – Variety, May-August 1968.

Witchfinder General / The Conqueror Worm (1968) ****

For 250 years Europe and America was in the grip of a man-made plague. Ever since Pope Innocent VIII declared war on supposed witches in 1584, tens of thousands were arrested, tortured and hung or burned to death. Although Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible is considered the last word on the subject, in fact it treats very lightly the physical degradation visited upon victims and the corruption that was at the heart of the disaster. And sure, cinema has poked its nose into the area of possession, most recently with the supposed final act of the The Conjuring series, and while items like The Immaculate (2024) and The Handmaid’s Tale series focus on female subjugation, none of these exposes the full horror of witchcraft accusation.

The British censor bristled at the violence depicted in this film, and the picture was censored to a degree, while movie critics howled at the film’s “sadism.” Yet though the film is a raw depiction of the terrors inflicted on the innocent – male and female – by a corrupt male hierarchy, it scarcely touches the surface of the tsunami of wanton killing and terror.

So this serves as a welcome reminder of that awful age. While romantic leads Richard (Ian Ogilvy) and Sarah (Hilary Dwyer) are insipid, Matthew Hopkins (Vincent Price), the self-appointed Witchfinder General, and his gang of thugs led by John Stearne (Robert Russell) are not, and the enormous delight they take in torturing the innocent is what drives the picture. Set in an England in 1645 riven by civil war, where the forces of law and order are in disarray, Hopkins takes delight in profiting from the lack of opposition to his reign of terror.

While Vincent Price (The Oblong Box, 1969) manages to resist the temptation to be overblown and his subdued performance carries ominous weight, it’s the unusual approach of director Matthew Reeves (The Sorcerers, 1967) that makes this a standout. He’s not making a horror picture, but a historical one. Not just are their nods to a specific time period, he bypasses the Gothic, the movie taking place mostly in daylight rather than nighttime, and his visual composition stands comparison with the best of the 1960s roadshows rather than standard Hammer or AIP offerings.

Hopkins delegates the actual torture to his underlings, retaining for himself the more subtle pleasure of blackmailing women into providing him with sex and walking off with a fat purse from local dignitaries for his troubles.

When he descends on any town or village, there will be a price to pay in human ruin. He picks on the village of Brandstone in Sussex and begins to torture local priest John Lowes (Rupert Davies), driving him to exhaustion by endlessly racing him up and down a room before his accomplices can get down to the serious business of plunging long needles into his naked body. Virtually all the weapons in the witch hunter’s armory are of the Catch 22 category. Nothing you do will present as innocent and then you are headed for the gallows or lowered alive into a bonfire.

Luckily for Lowes, his niece Sarah is sweet on Roundhead officer Richard, applauded for his courage in battle, and he attempts to come to her rescue. Unfortunately for her, he is called back to duty before he can save anybody and it’s only by sacrificing herself to Hopkins that Sarah believes she can save her uncle. That turns out to be the worst of the calumnies Hopkins visits upon the innocent, as once he has had his fun he just condemns the old man anyway, and the daughter to boot. And although audiences might wince at the torture it was only fraction of the pain inflicted on the victims who might well end up confessing to witchcraft just to get the agony over with. In my hometown of Paisley, seven witches were executed a few years after Salem on the accusations of an 11-year-old girl – The Renfrewshire Witch Trials has just been published on Amazon should you be interested – which shows the absolute contrivance of the authorities in ruthlessly hunting out victims on the slightest pretense.

It’s a shame that neither Ian Ogilvy (The Sorcerers) nor Hilary Dwyer (The Oblong Box) are equipped to show the depths of despair of their characters, but in some sense this is not their story, except as examples of victims, and the tale really belongs to the venal butchers who took advantage of a climate of fear. These days, it shows up almost as a quasi-documentary and that’s to its benefit.

Written by the director and Tom Baker (The Sorcerers) based on the bestseller by Ronald Bassett. For its U.S. release, AIP snuck in a poem by Edgar Allan Poe which explains the U.S. title The Conqueror Worm.

Interest in this movie is unfairly attributed to the cult status it acquired after the premature death of the director – this was the last of his three films – but in fact it sits easily in the well-wrought historical movies of the period, handsomely mounted and unflinching.

Return to Silent Hill (2026) *

Matt Damon’s contention than in the brand-new cinematic world dominated by Netflix you have to repeat the plot four or five times would have come in exceedingly handy here where storyline and characters are so diffuse a wisp of smoke contains more substance. I saw this on a double-bill with Mercy (2026) so now can claim to have watched the direst double-bill of my movie-watching life, a pair of movies that are so bad they have not the slightest chance of redemption via falling into the So-Bad-It’s-Good category.

I am certainly cautious by now whenever I see a director proclaimed as “visionary” especially as about the only original element of this picture is the title, which has discarded the normal sequel numbered designation (ie. Silent Hill 2 or Silent Hill II depending on your pomposity) in favor of “Return to” which hasn’t been used for decades since Return to Oz (1985) and Return to the Blue Lagoon (1991), neither of them raising expectation that using the “Return to” notion would augur well.

I should perhaps point out that this sequel claims not to be an actual sequel but a “Hillverse” option, taking place in the world of the original Silent Hill (2006) and its sequel Silent Hill: Revelation (2012). And the new movie owes a great deal to the video games developed by Konami, which turns out not be a person but a company. Bear in mind that the game was described as a “survival scenario” wherein the hero has to survive all sorts of monsters without, I would guess, being armed with the kind of weaponry that makes survival a tad easier for video game characters.

So, onto the mess. I’ll try and unravel it for you but mostly the plot is incomprehensible. Alcoholic mentally-ill artist James Sunderland (Jeremy Irvine) is separated from his wife Mary whom he met in a town called Silent Hill. Years later after receiving a letter from Mary he returns to the town to discover it’s covered in fog and ash. (The ash, I did note, was about the only decent visual in the picture).

The town is empty, inhabited only by strange skeletal armless creatures and moths of all shapes and sizes including gigantic. These moths, I should add, are pretty dumb. Shut the door on them and they stay out, apparently incapable of crawling through the myriad tiny spaces in any building which are invisible to the human eye but which (as we all know) seem to pose to no barrier to insects.

*I returned to Silent Hill and all I got was annoyed.*

James turns detective and discovers his wife was part of a cult and recalls that the couple split after she was forced by her father to take part in a ritual. Then it turns out his wife is actually dead and it’s all in his mind that she’s still alive.

This is all just a nightmare, and not just for James, I should add, but for the audience. Flinging all sorts of monsters and strange visuals at an audience isn’t going to keep them entranced. Anybody who can remotely be able to run down a long burning passage indicates to an audience that this can’t possibly be real, especially as the flames are not accompanied by smoke.

So our mentally ill hero has not just revived his wife but made up the various other female characters that appear including a giant moth version of Mary. Luckily, the nightmare triggers further memory and James remembers that, in fact, he killed his wife in some kind of mercy killing because she was so ill after being drugged by the cult. Luckily, too, moth Mary appears so James can apologize for killing her. So it all ends well. He’s not a murderer or mercy killer after all.

There’s a Sliding Doors twist at the end which is as barmy as the rest of the movie.

Director Christophe Gans (Beauty and the Beast, 2014) is mostly to blame.

I know we’ve a long way to go into the 2026 cinematic year, but, goodness, what an awful way to start it off, two prime duds, one of which has been given the full marketing treatment, though admittedly Return to Silent Hill kind of sneaked out.

Just plain awful.

Mercy (2025) *

I’m trying to think of any actor who could carry off the central premise of this picture which is to chunter on for the best part of 90 minutes while remaining seated and staring straight at the camera. I saw this on the fourth day of its opening weekend at my local multiplex and the public had already spoken – it had already been relegated to a 30-seater screen. I can’t believe how it managed to top the U.S. box office charts. Least of all how anybody considered this a candidate for Imax or 3D.

Let me say it again. An actor sits in a chair for the best part of 90 minutes and talks straight to the camera. You what? Is this some new arthouse sensation? Some reimagining of Fred Zinnemann’s western classic High Noon (1952) what with the clock ticking away on screen?

Nope, it’s just the dumbest of dumb ideas. Usually, this kind of picture is buried in the first week of December and doesn’t try to come out all-marketing-guns-blazing in mid-January when audiences might be hoping for a breakout sleeper akin to The Housemaid (2025).

Set aside the nonsensical right-wing satire of the Robocop (1987) variety – “guilty until proved innocent” – and the drone-style helicopters and the mobile-phone style footage of chases and whatnot with a 30-ton truck barreling through Los Angeles and you’re still left with some guy stuck in a chair droning on for 90 minutes straight to camera.

Chris Raven (Chris Pratt) is strapped to a chair facing AI Judge Maddox (Rebecca Ferguson) with 90 minutes to explain why he should not be executed for killing his wife Nicole (Annabelle Raven). Chris is an alcoholic cop and his main claim to fame is that he was the first guy to put away a criminal, David Robb, under a new Minority Report-type system of law enforcement where sentencing for violent crime is immediate and without all the boring bits involving a jury. The judge isn’t quite judge, jury and executioner, but comes closes because once the clock stops ticking the suspect is immediately killed via a sonic blast, whatever that is.

So, basically, without being able to move more than an eyebrow, the cop has to scour all sorts of electronic media to put together the jigsaw surrounding his wife’s murder. He discovers she’s been having an affair and there’s something dodgy going on at her work involving stolen chemicals, the kind that could be used to manufacture a bomb. Chris calls in partner Jaq (Kali Reis) to help with the detection.

Would you believe it, turns out Chris’s AA sponsor Rob Nelson (Chris Sullivan) has built a bomb and now hijacks the truck, kidnapping Chris’s daughter Britt (Kylie Rogers) for good measure, determined to blow up the court building (which bear in mind primarily holds AI characters) and get revenge on Chris for putting away Rob’s brother (yeah, the different surnames had you fooled, didn’t they?).

Naturally, it’s all going to be down to police corruption. So that’s the end of the new-look sci-fi legal system. And it’s a dead end for a picture that had nothing going for it.

So, what could have been a relatively acceptable low-level action picture without an ounce of originality – the cop would have fled justice and tried to prove his innocence while on the run (easy!) – is turned into a monstrous mess. It just makes no sense to have the main character stuck on his backside talking to the camera for what seems like forever, with that dumb clock ticking in the corner of the screen, while all the action is shown on postage-stamp images as if viewed through a mobile phone.

Chris Pratt (Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3, 2023) isn’t the most animated of actors, anyway, though I doubt if even Tom Hanks could have carried this off, and Rebecca Ferguson (Dune: Part Two, 2024) often appears too robotic for her own good anyway.

Timur Bekmambetov (Ben-Hur, 2016) directs from a screenplay by Marco van Belle (Arthur and Merlin, 2015).

So you’d be inclined to point the finger at them, but, in reality, you’d be asking who the heck at Amazon/MGM greenlit this shambles.

Mercy!

Behind the Scenes: Book into Film – “The Housemaid” (2025)

Now that Hollywood is waking up to the surprise hit of the season – worldwide gross now pushing $300 million – it’s equally surprising to discover just how much work went into converting a bestseller with a very enticing hook into a runaway success. The pitch is a stunner – abused wife grooms housemaid to take her place and, potentially, put her abusive husband in his place.

Screenwriter Rebecca Sonnenshine (The Keeping Hours, 2017) does a quite superb job of tailoring the bestseller by Freida McFadden. It would have seemed, on the face of it, with such a killer premise, you wouldn’t have to do much tampering. But you’d be wrong. What Sonnenshine removes and adds and touches up are a template for the art of screenwriting.

Major changes: the climax is completely changed and the role of handyman Enzo (Michele Morrone) considerably reduced, especially the icky section where our valiant housemaid Millie (Sydney Sweeney) looking for a no-strings-attached one-night-stand comes on to Enzo only to be rejected; and the screenwriter takes the “privilege” line that doesn’t appear until well into the book and brings it in much earlier, to add gentle menace.

Minor changes: just about everything.

The filling out begins at the start. In the book, there’s very little detail regarding the job interview and the grandeur of the house except that it’s grand. Here’s what Sonnenshine adds – the “W” on the gate, the display of enticing food that employer Nina (Amanda Seyfried) lays on for a prospective employee, the emphasis on the obnoxious child Cece (Indiana Elle) as a potential ballerina, the cops rousting Millie when she’s asleep in her car. Here’s what Sonnenshine immediately removes: the attic is smaller in the book, tiny, compressed, more ominous; an immediate warning from Enzo; and we don’t learn right away that Millie is a killer.

If you want to know the difference between taut narrative and drama, follow Sonnenshine. In the book, Millie meets husband Andrew (Brandon Sklenar) and child at the interview. In the film, it’s on her first day on the job when Cece introduces herself as the most obnoxious child, taking the new employee to task right away.

Other simple changes: in the book Millie starts work the next day, in the film she starts immediately following the job offer. In the book, Millie arrives overloaded with baggage that Nina doesn’t offer to help carry, in the film she brings very little and Nina does offer to help.

Major change: the heirloom plates. That’s pure Sonnenshine invention. They don’t appear in the book, and husband Andrew’s mother (Elizabeth Perkins) is scarcely in sight.

Sonnenshine also dumps Millie’s apparent first big mistake. In the book Millie makes Cece a peanut butter sandwich only for Nina to go ballistic because the child is apparently allergic. That’s too obvious a schematic and Sonnenshine opts for something better.

Right away, over the “dirty glass” issue, Sonnenshine brings in the first use of the “privilege” weapon long before as I said I was used in the book and never by the child. But she takes out the point about Millie’s glasses / contact lens. In the book this is a contentious issue – Nina accuses Millie of lying over wearing contact lens and glasses.

Also Nina gives her old clothes to Millie very early on whereas Sonnenshine dramatizes this so that it’s seen as an apology.

It’s Sonnenshine who adds drama to Millie’s visit to her probation officer and gives the probation officer the icky line asking Millie about her sex life. Nor, in the book, is Andrew mad keen on Stanley Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon (1975). That’s another Sonnenshine touch, to fill out Andrew’s character. “Hot saint” is another of Sonnenshine’s lines. In the book it’s Andrew who suggests going to the Broadway show, not Nina, so that’s a nice gesture rather than with Nina, another apology. I should also point out that in the book Nina is about 50lb heavier than in the film. The ballet isn’t so dominant, either, Cece in the book attending a range of classes.

In the book, Andrew and Millie don’t get separate rooms at the hotel. They are all over each other in the cab to the hotel. It’s Sonnenshine who adds the dramatic urgency and ratchets up the tension in that in the film Millie tries to avoid intimacy and it’s only when she thinks she’s been fired by mobile phone that she falls into Andrew’s arms.

The film’s killer twisty line of “did you learn to cook in prison?” is better than the book’s “what’s prison food like?” Sonnenshine’s other big switch is that in the book Millie’ in juvenile detention not a scholarship kid as a private school when she commits murder. In the book Nina’s discovery of the Playbill program for the Broadway play is more discreetly done. But Sonnenshine turns it more dramatic with Nina coming down the stairs holding the magazine.

Nina’s immediate revenge in the book is to have Millie suspected of shoplifting after an anonymous phone call to a supermarket. Again, in the film it’s ratcheted up, Millie arrest for stealing her boss’s car and handcuffed and more roundly humiliated that provides the grounds for Andrew to chuck his wife out. The book cuts Millie out of the confrontation between husband-and-wife which results in Nina leaving.

And the book has no equivalent to Nina howling in her car apparently in despair at being chucked out, nor, in a marvelous twist, once we discover what hell awaits Millie, to cutting back to that scene and Nina turn that wail into a whoop of delight at being free.

Nina having to compensate for not getting her roots done by pulling a hundred strands of her hair out twice is in the book. But since the book didn’t include anything to do with priceless heirloom crockery, Millie’s first punishment is, frankly, a lot less interesting. Millie has to balance a stack of heavy books on her stomach for hours at a time. Honestly, that’s nothing, and visually zero, compared to having to rip your stomach open with the sharp end of a broken piece of crockery, which must be one of the most horrific scenes committed to celluloid.

And it’s not a cake knife left in the attic deliberately by Nina that allows Millie to escape, it’s the remains of a pepper spray that had formed part of one of Nina’s punishments. Stabbing someone in the neck with a knife versus blinding them with a pepper spray – what’s the more visual? You don’t need me to tell you.

His punishment in the book is rather long-winded especially bearing in mind that there’s no heirloom plates and assorted crockery to up the ante. So first of all in the book, Millie tortures Andrew by making him bear the weight of the books for hours at a time. It’s only days later, in fact, that in the book Millie instructs Andrew to pull out a tooth. Bear in mind, too, there’s been no lead-up to this, not in the book, which is why the screenwriter places such emphasis on his teeth and smile.

Sonnenshine tosses away the book’s ending. And you can see why. It’s not remotely cinematic. Sure, Nina returns to help. But in the book little help is needed. By the time Nina returns several days later, Andrew has already starved to death, or dead by dehydration, technically. That would be more easily explained to the cops given the problems with the door and Andrew in the house alone except in the book Millie has had her fun and made him pull out four teeth.

So, Sonnenshine opts for another course of action. He’s not dead when Nina returns. She makes the mistake of thinking it’s Millie locked in the attic and inadvertently frees her husband and then after some coming and going Millie pushes him over the banister and down about 50ft to his death.

Sonnenshine adds a happier postscript, Nina giving Millie $100,000.

I read the book after I saw the film so I was amazed at the quality of the script, the changes, the omissions, the additions and especially the nuances, the rounding out of every character. I doubt if anyone voting for the Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar ever reads the source material and that will probably count against Rebecca Sonnenshine come next year’s awards when virtue-signaling will probably win the day once again.

Other additions by the screenwriter: the toy troll, and therefore Cece stealing it from Nina’s bedroom, the creepy dolls house, and therefore Cece playing with it.

Much as I enjoyed the plot-heavy book, I enjoyed far more what the screenwriter made of it and I think Sonnenshine has played an enormous role in making the film such an appealing attraction.

The movie’s still going to be playing for weeks now, so if you get the chance check it out.

Matchless / Mission Top Secret / The Invisible Spy (1967) ***

Alberto Lattuada is the big attraction for me here, being the director of World War One spy drama Fraulein Doktor (1968) starring Suzy Kendall and which has become a standout, in terms of views, on the Blog. Conversely, you might be swayed by the undoubted physical attributes of Ira von Furstenberg (The Vatican Affair), a real-life princess to boot, or perhaps by the under-rated Patrick O’Neal (Stiletto, 1969) enjoying a rare foray as the top-billed star.

While the U.S. title is a tad opaque – our journalist hero Perry Liston (Patrick O’Neal) uses that by-line – the foreign title gives the game away. While imprisoned in China, Perry is handed a ring with magical powers by a Chinese prisoner in gratitude for helping him out. The ring permits a brief snatch of invisibility every ten hours, resulting in the screenwriters having to ration its appearance. As with any such charm, it provides opportunity for tension, humor and sexual frisson.

Another inmate Hank (Henry Silva) wants the ring for himself so spends a lot of the movie chasing, catching and losing Perry. The U.S. Government reckons a touch of invisibilkity will come in handy when dealing with arch-villain Georges Andreanu (Donald Pleasance) who has the usual arch-villain’s penchant for world domination. If it’s not enough that people are hunting him for the magic ring, Perry has others on his trail once he steals Andreanu’s secret serum. (Sensibly, the screenwriters shy away from what actually the serum does in the way of helping the arch-villain along in his quest for world domination – all that detail never did much to enhance the Bond/Flint/Helm stories.)

And like any decent spy of the era, Perry has women throwing themselves at him, some just for the hell of it but others who use sex to their advantage. O’Lan (Elisabeth Wu) falls into the first category, Tipsy (Nicolatta Machiavelli), a henchwoman of Andreanu, into the second, while artist Arabella (Ira von Furstenburg) has him guessing, Instead of a girl in every port, Perry has a girl in every country, China, Britain and Germany.

Perry isn’t a superhuman spy in the James Bond mold, and he’s not forced to keep it going with spoofery of the Derek Flint/Matt Helm variety, and he’s often at a disadvantage, caught naked, for example, when the invisibility spell wears off, and allowing Arabella to generally outwit him.

The central conceit works well in the context of the movie, helping and hindering Perry in equal measure. But there are also plenty other original touches: a car chase where the vehicles end up on top of a train, Hank watching a Man from Auntie series on television, tension racked up when villains come inadvertently close to the ring, hypnotism to fix boxing matches, torture by spinning, facial transformation, an amphibious car, a set-piece in a bank.

There’s more serious intent than you might expect, a satirical view of good guys and bad guys. Americans and Chinese apply the same kind of torture to Perry and employ the same plastic surgery method to send spies in undercover. While Perry is at his most powerful – i.e when invisible – he is also at his weakest by being naked.

Patrick O’Neal and Donald Pleasance (who appeared as Blofeld the same year in You Only Live Twice) have a ball though Ira von Furstenberg steals every scene she’s in. Henry Silva has the opportunity to try out his comedy acting chops.

Not in the same vein as Fraulein Doktor but generally consistently holding the interest.

Behind the Scenes: The Overseas Box Office Breakout

For the first four decades of the Hollywood business, success in markets other than domestic was random. Many countries restricted the number of U.S. films that could be shown, others like Britain prevented American studios for a long time taking out of the country money earned at the box office. There was always the chance it could be less profitable if a dominant foreign cinema chain or distributor demanded a larger slice of the box office. In addition, some genres that worked in America stiffed abroad – musicals and comedies found it hard to translate.

Except in extremely sporadic fashion, foreign box office was not reported in the trade media until the 1990s. So there was no such thing as worldwide grosses available on any real scale. These days for many films overseas receipts bring in more than domestic – Zootropolis a current example with around 70 per cent of takings coming from abroad – but that was virtually never the case until the arrival of the James Bond pictures, which acquired a genuine global brand, in the 1960s.

However, the United Artists archives held by the University of Wisconsin provide some fascinating insights into the growing power of the foreign box office in the 1950s. Movies released into the foreign market would make a percentage of their domestic take. But that varied enormously. Even the star-studded Around the World in 80 Days (1956), the second-biggest blockbuster of the year Stateside, with a colossal $16 million in domestic rentals took in less than a quarter of that abroad, just $3.9 million.

For some films, the percentage was better. Controversial William Holden drama The Moon Is Blue (1953) notched up $1.3 million abroad compared to $3.5 million at home. War picture Beachhead (1954) starring Tony Curtis bundled up $1 million overseas as against $1.4 million in domestic. The Barefoot Contessa (1954), boasting Humphrey Bogart and Ava Gardner, added $2.2 million in foreign coin to its domestic tally of $3.25 million.

Richard Burton as Alexander the Great proved the breakthrough, domestic’s $2.5 million matched by the exact same amount abroad. Robert Mitchum in Foreign Intrigue (1956) went one further, reversing the usual situation, foreign of $1.14 million ahead of domestic’s $1 million.

But the UA star with the biggest consistent pull overseas was Burt Lancaster. Robert Aldrich’s Apache (1954) knocked up $1.75 million abroad compared to $3.25 million at home. Vera Cruz, (1954) also directed by Aldrich and coupling Lancaster with Gary Cooper, hit a home run – the $3.94 million abroad being just short of the $4.5 million at home. The actor’s first venture into directing The Kentuckian (1955) kept up the pace with $1.97 million overseas versus $2.6 million at home.

While these were all action pictures, it was acrobatic drama Trapeze (1956), with Lancaster and Tony Curtis fighting over Italian sex symbol Gina Lollobrigida, that made Hollywood wake up. In the U.S, it came third on the annual box office charts with $7.5 million in rentals. If that took the industry by surprise that was nothing compared to foreign where the movie racked up $7.4 million.

Lancaster remained potent. Submarine war picture Run Silent, Run Deep (1958), co-starring Clark Gable, did virtually as well abroad as at home – $2.42 million overseas compared to $2.5 million at home.

Perhaps learning from the experience of Trapeze, UA went for broke with historical actioner The Vikings (1958) starring Kirk Douglas and Tony Curtis. Domestic of $7 million, enough for fifth place in the annual box office league, was beaten by an overseas count of $7.34 million.

For the first time it appeared that Hollywood could count on overseas to swell the box office in sizeable fashion, thus allowing studios to invest more, especially in historical movies with an action angle, thus opening the door for the spate of 1960s roadshows. Such results also cemented star salaries. If a Burt Lancaster picture could make the same again abroad as at home that put him in a new category of dependable stars and allowed studios to gamble on increasing his salary.

That Charlie Chaplin proved a better draw overseas than in the U.S. was largely by default. The actor-producer-director had fallen foul of American politics with the result that his latest release Limelight (1952) flopped. Abroad it was a different story and Limelight hit a tremendous $5.1 million. With the U.S. reissue market also showing resistance to Chaplin oldies, it was left to overseas audiences to show what cinemas were missing as Modern Times (1936) racked up $2.1 million and The Gold Rush (1925) $1.25 million. For comparison the reissue of Red River (1948) pulled in just $19,000 overseas.

Other notable leaders in the overseas market included: Frank Sinatra, Cary Grant and Sophia Loren in The Pride and the Passion (1957) with $3.17 million ($5.9 million domestic); Billy Wilder’s Agatha Christie adaptation Witness for the Prosecution starring Tyrone Power and Marlene Dietrich on $2.81 million ($3.75 million domestic); and Love in the Afternoon (1957) with $2.7 million ($2 million domestic) starring Gary Cooper and Audrey Hepburn.

Also making a noise overseas were: Stanley Kramer medical drama Not As a Stranger (1955) toplining Olivia De Havilland, Frank Sinatra and Robert Mitchum on a $2 million haul ($7.1 million domestic): Sinatra again in Otto Preminger’s study of addiction The Man with the Golden Arm (1953) on $1.87 million ($4.35 million domestic); Sinatra in war picture Kings Go Forth (1958) on $1.83 million ($2.8 million domestic) and Kirk Douglas as The Indian Fighter (1955) with $1.84 million ($2.45 million domestic).

Bob Hope went against the grain when his overseas tally for Paris Holiday (1958) at $1.8 million bested the $1.5 million of domestic while John Wayne and Sophia Loren’s foreign engagements for Legend of the Lot (1957) counted as a disappointment with just $1.66 million compared to $2.2million domestic.

Low-budget Oscar-winner Marty (1955), produced by Burt Lancaster’s company, was as big a surprise abroad as at home, sprinting to $1.43 million ($2 million domestic). Others worth noting included: Bandido! starring Robert Mitchum on $1.42 million overseas ($1.65 million domestic); David Lean’s romantic drama Summertime (1955) with Katharine Hepburn on $1.3 million ($2 million domestic); Anthony Mann’s Korean War venture Men in War (1957) on $1.26 million ($1.5 million domestic); and Clark Gable in The King and Four Queens (1956) hauling in $1.24 million ($2.5 million domestic).

Olivia De Havilland as The Ambassador’s Daughter (1956) tabbed $1.1 million overseas ($1.5 million domestic) and Gary Cooper in Mark Robson’s Return to Paradise (1953) tallied $1.1 million ($1.8 million domestic). Slow burners numbered Dale Robertson in Sitting Bull (1954) with $1.1 million ($1.5 million domestic) and Stanley Kubrick’s anti-war picture Paths of Glory (1957) with Kirk Douglas shooting up $1 million ($1.2 million domestic).

SOURCE: “Foreign Distribution Gross Estimates,” United Artists Archives, Box 1, Folder 8, University of Wisconsin. Note that in this case “gross” means “gross rentals” not “box office gross.”

Dingaka (1964) ****

Whether you appreciate this will depend on whether you were attracted by the prospect of an early offering by South African writer-director Jamie Uys (The Gods Must Be Crazy, 1980) or by the star wattage of Stanley Baker (Sands of the Kalahari, 1965) or perhaps by the promise of the salacious. Hopefully, it was the first, because you would be disappointed on the other two counts, Baker not making an entrance until halfway through the picture and not much of an impact thereafter.

Surprisingly relevant due to its depiction of people in the thrall of a higher power – whether you take that in a religious or political context makes little difference – and in the cultural conflict between an indigenous tribe and the “civilized” white man. But there’s also a noir tone here, the fatalism that often prevents the “good criminal” in a noir picture from escaping the judicial consequence of an action that could be seen as moral.

And if you think you know your African music through interpretations by the likes of Neil Diamond and Paul Simon, then here’s a far better introduction. Song is a constant whether for ceremonial purpose, worship, entertainment and work or for making more bearable time spent in jail or hard labor.

And though it’s not spelled out there’s a Biblical element, the old “eye for an eye,” done away with in modern civilization through courtrooms, juries and due process whereby the act of killing is carried out remotely by the state rather than the victim’ relatives.

An African tribesman Masaba (Paul Makgopa), furious at being dethroned after a six-year reign as the local fighting champion, seeks a cure for the loss of prowess from a witch doctor (John Sithebe). He is told to eat the heart of a small child. Soon after the daughter of Nkutu (Ken Gampu) is found dead. The distraught father beats the witch doctor until he points to Masaba. In revenge for Nkutu assaulting the witch doctor, revered as a local god, Nkutu is cursed, resulting in the almost immediate death of his wife.

Nkutu pursues Masaba to the city and strangles him to death. He is taken aback to be arrested since, according to tribal law, he is well within his rights. Of course, that’s at odds with civilized law. When the judge learns of the murder of Nkutu’s daughter and advises that the state would take care of any killing in the way of punishment that had to be done, Nkutu is puzzled. “You must not hang him. He did not kill your child. I must kill him. It is the law.”

It turns out Masaba has survived, giving Nkutu, on meeting him in court, a second chance to kill him, which fails.

“Big hard cynical lawyer” Tom (Stanley Baker), grudgingly doing pro bono work, has his work cut out since Nkutu refuses to give him instruction, is defiantly unremorseful, and can’t provide any proof that Masaba murdered his daughter beyond that “his eyes told me that he killed her.”

But since Nkutu only attempted murder then he gets off with a relatively light sentence, though it still involves back-breaking work. But at least it’s outside, providing the opportunity to escape and go home and kill Masaba properly. Meanwhile, Tom has chanted his tune and tries to help Nkutu by confronting the witch doctor.

Eventually, Nkutu learns the witch doctor was the murderer and despite fear of being eternally cursed challenges the witch doctor’s authority and kills him. And given this takes place away from civilization it’s unlikely that anyone’s going to come asking questions.

Outside of the drama and the culture clash, the director keeps this perpetually interesting by adding in authentic aspects of local life. There’s a milk tree, a man cures hides by spinning them on a rock that dangles from a tree on a rope, access to the otherwise inaccessible witch doctor’s lair on a mountaintop is via a series of vertigo-inducing ladders, prison guards have spears not guns. The use of music adds atmosphere.

And the acting is good, and as a consequence of this Ken Gampu enjoyed a Hollywood career in such films as The Wild Geese (1974) and ended up with over 80 film credits. Stanley Baker’s character is well drawn, exchanging barbs with his wife (Juliet Prowse) his cynicism in part due to the couple’s fertility problems.

Now warned about the limitation of Baker’s involvement, if you are happy to examine the tale as presented – one of struggle against both malicious and just authority – you will be rewarded.

YouTube has a decent print and not one marred with advertisements.

Guns at Batasi (1964) ****

In the same year as the Brits were turning whopping defeat into marginal victory in Zulu (1964) a more complex version of imperialism reflecting modern times (i.e. the 1960s) was being spelled out here and magnified by the performance of Richard Attenborough’s career. The British, as has been their wont, while no longer in complete control of this anonymous African country, have left behind a military operation in theory to support whoever is in power but in reality to safeguard their own commercial interests.

Every side of the coin is shown, from the old school soldiers to raw recruits scarcely able to work a rifle, to the pragmatic politicians and Africans with loyalties split between the mother country and the new regime. There’s a feisty British MP Miss Barker-Wise (Flora Robson) on the side of equality who is given a rude awakening on realpolitik and the well-spoken African, educated in Britain, exalting in throwing off decades of being patronized.

Just as the Africans are in revolt against the existing corrupt regime, so, in his own way, is Regimental Sergeant-Major Lauderdale (Richard Attenborough) who, secretly, refuses to obey the orders of his superior, Lt Boniface (John Errol). Most of the confrontation is distinctly old school, depending on the power of personality, in the best scene in the movie Lauderdale forcing his superior to accept the inferior’s authority. In another scene, the ambushed Col Deal (Jack Hawkins), with considerable British sang-froid, talks his way out of trouble.

The British are caught out by the sudden insurgency and almost certainly would not have become actively involved on the losing side had it not been for trying to save the life of wounded African Capt. Abraham (Earl Cameron) condemned by Boniface as a traitor. It should have been a Mexican stand-off until rebel ire was tamped down and a new kind of status quo – either the Brits tossed out or kept on supporting the new regime – was constituted. No need for violence or action, just keeping your nerve, a quality which Lauderdale has in spades.

Except that the sergeant-major has lied to the African commander, pretending Abraham is dead and not merely being hidden. When the Africans literally bring up the big guns, prepared to blast out the Brits, Lauderdale determines to spike the guns.

Except for the spit-and-polish, in military terms this is a very rusty British unit. You expect that Lauderdale will turn out to be all bluster. But he switches into commander instantly, holds (verbally) the enemy at bay, rallies the troops, leads by example and carries out a clever attack. But it’s a hollow victory. Politics works against him and he is humiliated at the end.

A good chunk of time is spent putting the British in their place.

Although the narrative appears to take time out to indulge the visiting MP and to tee up a piece of romance between raw recruit Pvt Wilkes (John Leyton) and stranded tourist Karen (Mia Farrow), both tales are soon subsumed into the action, the soldier forced into action, the politician forced to confront how little her principles count and how ineffective her authority in a war zone. There is some decent humor, the snarkiness between the soldiers, and Wilkes romantic clumsiness.

Richard Attenborough (Only When I Larf, 1968) is easily the pick as he presents various elements of a complicated character, the dedicated career soldier at the mercy of an inexperienced superior, questioning just what he has devoted his life to, straining to hold up his stiff upper lip, the butt of jokes, boring all with tales of long vanished glory, eventually revealing that he is much more than bluster, taking effective command, but then paying the price as the political scapegoat. Jack Hawkins (Zulu, 1964) has a smaller role than you’d expect from the billing and Flora Robson (7 Women, 1965) weighs in with another battleaxe. In her debut Mia Farrow (Secret Ceremony, 1968) demonstrates ample promise and Errol John (Man in the Middle, 1964) has a peach of a role.

Directed with some distinction by John Guillermin (The Bridge at Remagen, 1968), demonstrating a gift for both action and emotion, from a screenplay by Robert Holles based on his novel.

Although ignored by the Oscars, Attenborough won the Bafta Best Actor Award.

Thoroughly involving.

The Best of Enemies (1961) ***

When we talk about realistic war movies, we generally mean ones chock-full of brutality and violence. But there was another reality rarely touched upon, and that was guys to trying to get through the whole shooting match without getting killed. Not cowards, necessarily, but people unwilling to take stupid action in the guise of blind obedience.

This ends up being a highly unusual and hence highly original take on the war picture. Where, in another film, enemies might duel fiercely to the death, attempting to outwit each other at every turn, this delivers on a more emotional, thoughtful, and human, level.

You wouldn’t have thought, either, that the combination of two wildly different humor codes, the more overt Italian and the laid-back British, would work. So in subject matter and style, this takes a helluva risk. Much of the effect rides on exposing as misleading the standard tropes regarding the different countries – that the Italians are weak and that Brits, feelings numbed by stiff upper lip and upbringing, never complain.

Major Richardson (David Niven), reconnaissance plane shot down in Italian-held Abyssinia (Ethiopia) in 1941 in World War Two, is captured in the desert by a unit led by Captain Blasio (Alberto Sordi). Blasio doesn’t want the responsibility of prisoners and encourages Richardson to escape, hoping that the Brit, taking note of how weak the Italian unit was, would leave them alone.

The opposite is true. The Brits would like nothing better than to capture a weak section of the Italian Army. So Richardson, leading a stronger unit with tanks and stuff, confronts the Italian who is furious that the man he let go has somehow reneged on an unwritten code of honor and come back. Using a simple ruse, the Italians escape.

The Brits nearly catch up with them several times but incompetence gets in the way. Then Blasio gets annoyed with some of his natives and cuts them loose and in revenge they start a fire that drives both Brits and Italians together. Blasio is happy to surrender since that means the Brits, devoid of transport after the fire, have to holster Italian rifles and carry on a stretcher any Italian, such as Blasio himself, who falls ill.

The enemies unite to escape an interfering native tribe but then Blasio gets the hump at Richardson once again, returning the Italians to prisoner status once they are free. Hiding out in an abandoned village, the Italians are put to work building latrines – and according to the British class system different ones for officers and soldiers. A bid by Blasio to put Richardson in his place misfires. The two units bond again over a game of football and when the tribesmen return Richardson breaks the rules by handing back the Italians their rifles. Only thanks to British incompetence there’s no Italian ammo.

So then, weapon-less, and nobody apt to take sides, they stagger over the desert, directed by Richardson to safety. Richardson and Blasio bond over wives and family. But when they reach a proper road, Richardson reverts to the status quo and insists the prisoners form up at the rear. Except, he’s got it all wrong and they have ended up in the Italian-controlled zone. Blasio can’t contain his delight, mocking the Brits, but not taking them prisoner. Except he’s got it wrong, too, as the desert campaign is over and the Brits are victorious.

It doesn’t end well for either officer. Richardson is threatened with being put in the catering corps, Blasio a bedraggled prisoner. But it finishes on an uplifting moment, Richardson instructs his men to present arms to the prisoners, indicating their mutual respect.

So, as I said, nothing like your usual war movie. Both commanders are incompetent. Richardson despises Blasio for not “putting any effort” into his job. Blasio can’t understand why Richardson takes the job so seriously. Even if it marked him down as a coward, Blasio’s wife just wants him home safe. Incompetence rules, mistakes are legion, and pettiness guides the action of the officers. Movie makers of the period tended to concentrate on the heroism of war, but there must have been a ton of expeditions like this that went awry.

The script allows both David Niven (Bedtime Story, 1964) and Alberto Sordi (Anzio, 1968) considerable latitude, the Englishman afforded a wider range than usual, the Italian encouraged to tone down the over-acting, so each turns in a more measured performance. Sordi was nominated for a Golden Globe and the movie was nominated for two other Globes including Best Foreign Film.

The supporting cast includes Michael Wilding (The Sweet Ride, 1968), Harry Andrews (The Hill, 1965) and David Opatoshu (Guns of Darkness, 1962).

Directed by Guy Hamilton (Battle of Britain, 1969) from a screenplay by Jack Pulman (The Executioner, 1970).

More rewarding and emotionally satisfying than I expected.