Brian Hannan

How Sweet It Is (1968) ***

You’d have thought by now leading men would be running shy of Debbie Reynolds, aware just how easily she would steal the picture out from under the top-billed star (witness Goodbye Charlie, 1964). But she had producers clamouring for the fizz she brought. Her comic skills, and willingness to entertain slapstick, were matched only by Doris Day. Especially helpful when she’s saddled with a convoluted plot that’s one-third generation gap comedy, one-third If It’s Tuesday It Must Be Belgium and one-third the kind of creative thinking that determines that somehow or other the female star must end up in a brothel. Throw in some flower power, split-screen, stills montage and slow-mo and you’ve covered all the bases.

In this hit-and-miss line-up, by far the most amusing element is that it’s the adults – photographer Grif (James Garner) and wife Jenny (Debbie Reynolds) – who are sex-obsessed, sneaking away at every opportunity for a bit of hanky-panky, trying to avoid the disapproving eyes of their virginal teenage son Davey (Donald Losby).

An odd example of creative license here. Poster designers had decided that red was the color no matter what. In the last section of the movie Debbie Reynolds parades in a blue – not red – bikini and the book on which it is based is called “The Girl in the Turqoise Bikini.” I’m not sure the color of the bikini is that much of a plot point unless it’s to hook readers of the original novel, but it’s mighty strange for the poster people just to change the color.

The narrative determines that Davey joins girlfriend Bootsie (Hilarie Thomson) and her lithe gal pals on a tour of Europe accompanied by Grif who has been commissioned to photograph the trip. Much to Grif’s horror, Jenny decides she’s going to follow them and hires out a swanky pad where the grown-up lovebirds can make a nest at some undetermined point.

The picture quickly loses interest in Grif and the girls, beyond an attractive tour guide making a pass at Grif and of course their bus getting stuck in the mud. Not only is the Jenny segment more intriguing – turns out she’s been conned by Gilbert Tilly (Terry-Thomas) into handing over a thousand bucks for a chalet he’s not entitled to hire out – because she gets romanced in high French style (champagne and flowers in case you’re bursting to know) by legal lothario Philippe (Maurice Ronet) and every now and then finds herself wearing little more than a bikini and sometimes nothing at all.

Takes a heck of a long time for the two stories to dovetail so that Grif can flounce off in a huff, punch the living daylights out of the Frenchman, and give the screenwriter the excuse to plonk Jenny down in a brothel (that part, I have to admit, is neatly done). There’s also some unusual class comedy at the chateau, Philippe initially being mistaken for a butler, then having to bunk down with his servant because (guess what) this mansion has only one main bedroom.

For no apparent reason there’s an odd section at the start. Instead of flying to Europe, they take the ship and for no apparent reason they’re stuck on C-deck with a lip-pursing purser (Paul Lynde) who insists males and females must sleep apart and share cabins with strangers. Slot into the miss department the opening with the old trope of the husband coming home to find his wife in bed with another man, except it’s Davey and the parental lovers are enjoying some afternoon delight, though quite how you can stretch that to Davey taking a carving knife up the stairs beats me.

James Garner is no more convincing a photographer than he was in The Pink Jungle (1968) and he hardly gives Debbie Reynolds a run for her money, as if he doesn’t know how to bring this character to life. Except for excelling at the risqué, and she a willing accomplice, he’s coming over like the straight man to her comedienne. Debbie Reynolds is superb, reactions honed to the bone, throwing herself into the part, undergoing whatever humiliation will snare a laugh.

Garner briefly resurrected his career with Support Your Local Sheriff (1969) before he hit the slide (see the previous Behind the Scenes article) and to my astonishment this signalled pretty much the end of Reynolds’ screen career, nothing for the next decades except What’s the Matter with Helen (1971) and a bit part (as herself) in The Bodyguard (1992). You can hardly blame her for screenwriters not coming up with the right material to take advantage of her supreme comedic gifts. Alexandra Hay (The Model Shop, 1969) is wasted, you might just as well have dabbed her role “the sexy blonde.”

Director Jerry Paris (Never a Dull Moment, 1968) throws everything he can at the screen without much success. Future director Garry Marshall (Pretty Woman, 1990) and producer Jerry Belson (Fun with Dick and Jane, 1977) in his movie debut formulated the screenplay from the bestseller by Muriel Resnik.

Far from the last comedy hurrah you would have wished for the actress, but all you’re going to get.

The Hill (1965) ****

Set in a British Army prison camp in North Africa during World War Two ruled by sadistic Sgt Wilson (Harry Andrews) who believes himself above the regulations he forces others to follow, The Hill is a parable about the hypocrisy of totalitarian rule. And much of what is shown would be offensive to modern sensibilities.

Although the commandant and medical officer (Michael Redgrave) are his superior officers, Wilson runs the unit by force of personality. He believes his ruthless treatment of the prisoners turns them into proper soldiers. Into his fiefdom come five new prisoners including coward Joe Roberts (Sean Connery), spiv Monty Bartlett (Roy Kinnear), African American Jacko King (Ossie Davis) – a “different colored bastard” – another Scot Jock McGrath (Jack Watson) and weakest link George Stevens (Alfred Lynch).

Most films about prisons emphasize imprisonment, most scenes taking place in cells or other places of confinement. Sidney Lumet (The Pawnbroker, 1964) directs this film as though it is a paeon to freedom with incredible shots of the vista within which the men are contained. He uses some of the most bravura camerawork you will ever see outside of David Lean.

The film opens with a two-minute crane shot credit sequence that pulls back from a prisoner collapsing on the titular hill to reveal the entire encampment and follows with a one-minute reverse tracking shot of Wilson striding through his domain. And while the camera controls what we see, our ears are constantly assailed by the constant drumbeat of other marching prisoners.

Climbing the hill in full pack would break any man and those who collapse are roused by buckets of water. The first to crack is Stevens who is constantly tormented by homophobic jibes. Continuous racist abuse is heaped on Jacko King “you blacks don’t have brains – you got it downstairs, we got it upstairs” until driven to the point of madness he begins to behave like a gorilla which frightens the life out of his superiors.

Obeying orders, says Joe Roberts, is “like a dog picking up a bone.” RSM Wilson is out of control, the commandant spending his nights with a prostitute, the medical officer clearly sent here as punishment for some previous misdemeanor. Of the senior staff only Harris (Ian Bannen) comes away with any dignity, constantly trying to thwart the worst bullying.

When Stevens dies suddenly, the film changes tack and becomes a battle for survival among those who could be blamed for causing his death and those who dare to point the finger. Wilson has no problem stitching up his colleagues and blackmailing the medical officer while Roberts is beaten up for his effrontery in standing up to authority.

But the astonishing presence and self-confidence and, it has to be said, courage of Wilson lords it over everyone, and there is an extraordinary scene where he forces the entire battalion of prisoners to back down when they are on the brink of open rebellion.

Connery is superb in what is his first dramatic role in a bread-and-butter dramatic production rather than the glossier Marnie (1964) and Woman of Straw (1964) and while he has his moment of defiance he gives enough glimpses of vulnerability and fear to ensure we do not mistake him for his alter ego James Bond. Ian Bannen delivers a touching, assured, performance, far removed from the nasty sarcastic personalities he portrayed in his other desert pictures, Station Six Sahara (1963) and the Flight of the Phoenix (1965).

Ossie Davies (The Scalphunters, 1968), as defiant as Connery, is brilliant as the man who works out a way to beat the enemy by confusing them; the scene in the commandant’s office where he treats the officer as his inferior is a tour de force.

Although the Army is meant to run according to established regulation, where obedience to a superior is paramount, it is equally apparent that it can also become a jungle if those who are the fittest assume control. Sgt Wilson demands unquestioned discipline even as he is breaking all the rules in the book. But he retains his authority not just by bullying, but by intelligence, exploiting weakness, coolness under pressure and by welcoming confrontation, his personality as dangerous as any serial killer.

Harrowing, superb, true.

The Iron Claw (2023) *** – Seen at the Cinema

When I was growing up there was a beloved character in British comic The Valiant called The Steel Claw. After one accident he lost a hand and after another the replacement artificial hand, made of steel, if touched by electricity, rendered him invisible, apart from the claw which floated in the air like some avenging angel. He started out a villain but in the kind of character development that rarely occurs in this world turns into a crime-busting hero.

I mention this not because I made the mistake of assuming the characters here would be super-heroes (though spandex does play a role) but because character development is in serious lack. And, to be honest, I’m getting a bit fed up – stand up The Holdovers – of repressed male characters holding it all together for the sake of a director who wants to make a point about repressed males. At least in The Holdovers the main character broke out of his emotional prison once in a while. Here, all we have is emotional blackmail. And a director who in true artistic fashion shies away from any real dramatic incident so that it can be dealt with in very clever long shot or occur offscreen or in shock follow-up sequence (one of which did work very well, I admit).

“I used to be a brother,” laments Kevin (Zac Elfron) at the end of the picture in homage no doubt to Marlon Brando’s famous line in On the Waterfront, as he sheds a tear in retaliation at having to keep up a stiff upper lip for the rest of the movie. By this point, he’s the sole survivor of five siblings, but the way the boys are ruled by the iron father, not a sniffle is allowed when anyone else passes away.

This is another of those biopics that won’t mean a thing to anyone outside America. At one point (long before WWF) wrestling was huge in the U.K., ruling Saturday afternoon telly when everyone was waiting for the football/soccer results, but it was so obviously faked nobody took it seriously. So, one of the issues here is the fraudulent aspect of the “sport.” Sure, you got to be fit to fake it, unless you’re a world champion with a tub of lard for a gut.

There’s a scene where Kevin earnestly explains – he’s nothing but earnest throughout – to future wife Pam (Lily James) that there is some skill involved in wooing the crowd and by dint of performance (aka acting) if you win enough people over you get to be world champion. And even if you end up getting thumped by the current world champion, if you shout it loudly or eloquently enough the audience will be convinced you’re actually the winner.

So the meat, such as it is, isn’t the wrestling (although that does occupy too lengthy a time) but how the four sons (one is dead when the picture starts) are corralled by father Fritz (Holt McCallany), now a wrestling promoter, into following him into the sport. Some of the boys ain’t so keen – Kerry (Jeremy Allen Wright) is a junior world discus throwing champion (as was dad), Mike (Stanley Simons) shows musical promise (as did, bizarrely, dad) – but still buckle down to the training and discipline. Even if it’s all faked, the body still takes a hammering. Some need pills to get them through.

One by one they all die off, Mike and Kerry by suicide, David (Harris Dickinson) after ignoring initial signs of internal bleeding. Still, mostly they grin and bear it, until, being the only brother left standing, Kevin takes against his father and tries to strangle him. Meanwhile, in the background, Mom (Maura Tierney) is as stoical as the others, her only rebellion refusing to wear the same funeral dress twice.

It’s mostly turgid, though, all the sons showing signs of depression, yet there’s some kind “happy ending” because all Kevin’s kids and grandkids end up living together to make up, I guess, for the loss of the siblings. There’s also good old-fashioned family values and the sons appear to truly bond instead of knifing each other in the back and leaving home at the earliest opportunity. But Dad never appears to blame himself for his hard line and Mom is unwilling to intervene.

I feel sorry for Zac Elfron (17 Again, 2009), the movie equivalent of being in a boy band, who’s muscled up and set himself up for Oscar contention. But, just as Wicked Little Letters was plagued by over-acting this is riddled with the opposite and no amount of macho posturing can make up for not having a decent character for an audience to root for.

The shock scene, in case you’re wondering, concerns Kerry. Despondent, he climbs on his motorcycle. We see the road, we see the distant lights of oncoming vehicle, but the camera just pulls back and pulls back with exceeding artiness. You think he’s dead, but, no, there he is shuffling around on crutches – minus a foot.

Written and directed by Sean Durkin (The Nest, 2020).

Please, sir, can we go back to dramas that are full of drama.

Wicked Little Letters (2023) * – Seen at the Cinema

The trailer would have won an Oscar, deftly put together, loaded with laughs, but the reality is this is set fair to be the worst picture of the year if not the decade. If it wins any marks at all it’s for showing that the Brits can match the likes of Tarantino and Scorsese in the cuss-word department and challenge The Thick of It for creative swearing. But even the Society for Ham Over-Acting would have trouble letting this mob join and you would find better detection – invisible ink, anyone? – from Enid Blyton’s Famous Five.

As it happens, I have relatives in the English south coast seaside town of Littlehampton and perhaps the entire population was so scarred by the occurrences detailed here that they never saw fit to bring up the subject or perhaps had decided it was just so preposterous it wasn’t worth mentioning.

Anyway, you can guess from the get-go that its repressed spinster Edith (Olivia Colman) who’s the culprit, sending poison pen letters to herself to get a bit of local attention. And you would be hard put even if you were dumbest of dumb cops to try and pin the blame on her next door neighbor Rose (Jessie Buckley), a war widow (it’s set after World War one) with a young daughter. Roisterous and boisterous though she is, she’d clearly rather spend what little cash she has on getting drunk than stumping up for over a hundred stamps, envelopes and writing paper.

Of course, this is a male-dominated society ruled with an iron hand by misogynists, Edith’s father Edward (Timothy Spall) top of the class in that department but closely followed by the dumb and dumber cops. Coming to Edith’s rescue in quite bizarre fashion is “woman police officer” (as is apparently her full title) Gladys (Anjana Vasen) and her coterie of amateur detectives, all members of the local whist club.

The whole thing is just too stupid for words. Roger Moore’s acting is Oscar-worthy compared to this lot who roll their eyeballs at the drop of a hat. There are attempts to ram into an already thin storyline references to feminism and racism and there may even be a rapacious priest somewhere in the mix for good measure, but the effect is of lazy moviemaing pandering to the crowd. Oh, and by the way, there’s a reminder – in case you’ve forgotten – just how much people frowned upon kids playing the guitar a century ago as if it was the kind of musical instrument devised by the Devil.

The trailer whizzes along but this moves like treacle. I’m sure actors are entitled to make a poor movie now and then, but this feels more like a director who failed to rein anyone in and as a consequence Oscar winner Oliva Colman (The Favourite, 2018), Oscar nominee Jessie Buckley (The Lost Daughter, 2021) and multiple Bafta nominee Timothy Spall (The Last Bus, 2021) are allowed to make complete fools of themselves. The only one showing restraint is Emmy award-winner Eileen Atkins (Paddington 2, 2017).

Who to blame? Director Thea Sharrock (Me Before You, 2016) for not issuing red cards to the actors, screenwriter Jonny Sweet (Greed, 2019) for dreaming up this farrago in the first place or the trailer team for providing such a misleading impression of the end result? The audience, desperate for an old-fashioned comedy along the lines of Four Weddings and a Funeral or The Full Monty?

Shambolic cartoon. Boo hiss.

Riot on Sunset Strip (1967) ***

Catholic high school girls in trouble? Call Sam Katzman. Delinquents, crazed by music or booze or sex or drugs (maybe all four), on the rampage? Call Sam Katzman. Thugs, to quote from Johnny Cash, keen to “watch a man die?” Call Sam Katzman. The new generation threatening to swamp the old? Call Sam Katzman. Require a sensuous lass in tight clothes to perform an Ann-Margret-style number? Call Sam Katzman.

Legendary five-and-dime producer Sam Katzman, with over 200 pictures in his portfolio, had put his stamp on everything from the East Side Kids and jungle flicks to horror, westerns and sci-fi. Any new genre with rip-off potential, he’d be first in the queue. Forget knives and guns and fists, music was the most dangerous weapon, over-exciting the young.

*“Girls in Hot Leather” is the bait-and-switch Italian title*.

So no surprise then to find the man behind Rock Around the Clock (1955) and Calypso Heat Wave (1957) also responsible for Teenage Crime Wave (1955), New Orleans Uncensored (1955) and Hot Rods to Hell (1967). Or that he’s an exponent of the old bait-and-switch here – no riot here that I could spot.

And probably over-emphasis on earnestness for a potential exploitationer, from the occasional intrusions of a pseudo-documentary voice-over to the grown-ups debating the causes of the latest outbreak of teenage rebellion, long hair, marijuana, popping pills and energetic dancing. That said, it’s even-handed, adults blamed for the divorce plague that leaves youngsters alone and vulnerable, cops too prone to violence, greedy businessmen and characters with right-wing tendencies causing the problem or making matters worse. “They’re just kids,” spouts earnest top cop Lorrimer (Aldo Ray), “they could be your sons and daughters,” not realizing one of them is.

Away from the grown-up talk-fest, the kids sit either numb listening to loud rock bands in far from sleazy clubs or on the dance floor pounding away to the beat, in either case not having much to say to each other, and inevitably ending up out the back door smoking a quiet joint or gathering in some pretty fancy home for a tripping party

Andrea (Mimsy Farmer), a youngster from a broken home living with her drunken mother, falls in with a bunch of teenagers who hang out in these hard-wired locales. Initially, she resists joining in, and perfectly innocent when caught up in a scuffle. But when supposed cool dude Herbie (Schuyler Hayden) spikes her drink with some acid at a party she turns all Ann-Margret, and is allocated a near six-minute slot to shake her stoned booty, leading the aforesaid Herbie to take her upstairs and take advantage. Doesn’t end well for Herbie as she’s under-age.

Turns out, too, Andrea is not so much the long-lost as abandoned daughter of Lorrimer and when he goes into rescue mode she gives him both barrels. “You left me alone for four years, let’s keep it that way,” she snaps. Apprised of her situation, he sets about the youngsters with his fists.

That supposedly leads to the riot. But it’s no more than the mildest of protests as he has to endure a Walk of Shame a la Game of Thrones (though with clothes on) and, bizarrely, becomes the poster boy for both police brutality and for anti-police-brutality. Natch, there’s a tacked-on happy ending but not before the voice-over can intone in apocalyptic manner: “Half the world’s population is under 25. Where will they go? What will they do?”

I had come at this because I was intrigued to discover Mimsy Farmer as the junior minx in Spencer’s Mountain (1963) and as she was overshadowed by Ann-Margret in Bus Riley’s Back in Town (1965) wondered how her career had progressed. Presumably come to a standstill, otherwise she wouldn’t have ended up in a B-picture cul de sac. She puts in a good performance, however, miles away from the lively youngster of the Henry Fonda picture, withdrawn, anxious, not fitting in.

A good chunk of the picture is wasted, from today’s perspective, on no-name bands and not much happening, but the talk-fest aspects prove that little has changed in the way the grown-ups misunderstand the young and much the same arguments for reining in the supposedly out-of-control teenagers are still being trotted out today. But it does point a prescient finger at marriage break-up (the fault of the grown-ups doing much of the blaming) as a root cause of teenage misbehavior and contemporary audiences will only be too familiar with predatory males spiking drinks.

Aldo Ray (Welcome to Hard Times, 1967) would be the marquee name, but you try and compete with a lithe teenager who says more in her six minutes of pent-up emotion and the resultant dancing than all the time spent on earnest debate. Laurie Mock (Hot Rods to Hell, 1967) is the wildest of the females.

Director Arthur Dreifuss was a Katzman regular but was also responsible for the movie version of Brendan Behan’s The Quare Fellow (1962). Screenwriter Orville H. Hampton had a surprising pedigree with Cage of Evil (1960) and Jack the Giant Killer (1962) and Oscar-nominated for One Potato, Two Potato (1964).

More absorbing than I expected and Mimsy Farmer’s trip a lot more interesting than Peter Fonda’s.

An American Dream / See You in Hell, Darling (1966) ****

The Stuart Whitman Appreciation Society kicks into high gear with this under-rated drama. A huge flop and critically savaged at the time, its bitterly sardonic existentialist center will appeal more to contemporary audiences.

Norman Mailer, author of the source novel, was a hugely controversial public figure. A magnet for alimony, writer of sledgehammer prose, his filmed bestsellers (The Naked and the Dead, 1958) hit the box office with a heavy thud, climaxing in the disastrous Tough Guys Don’t Dance (1987). Politician, avant-garde film-maker (Maidstone, 1970) and leading exponent of the “new journalism” (The Armies of the Night, 1968), his works were exceptionally tricky to translate onto the screen.

This one picks its way through a flotilla of heavyweight themes – corruption, entitlement, the Mafia – by focusing on a trio of flawed characters dogged by ideals amd let down by reality. War hero crusading journalist and television’s version of a “shock jock”, Stephen Rojack (Stuart Whitman) is weary of beating his head against a legal brick wall in his bid to bring to justice Mafia lynchpin Ganucci (Joe de Santis). But he’s also extremely done in coping with adulterous alcoholic heiress wife Deborah (Eleanor Parker).

When he asks for a divorce she retaliates with violence and scathing verbal abuse. In the scuffle that follows she teeters off the ledge of their penthouse apartment. In his defence Stephen might well have claimed self-defence given she tried to crown him with a huge rock, or at the very least relief (although admittedly that has little legal standing), but instead opts for suicide. In revenge for Stephen’s ongoing slating of the police and because the deceased is daughter to exceptionally important entrepreneur Kelly (Lloyd Nolan), the eighth richest man in America, the cops try to pin on him a murder rap. The charge is really a moral one, and equally as ruinous to a fast-rising career, that while he may not have pushed her he didn’t act to save her.

As it happens, and apparently coincidentally, Ganucci happens to be passing the penthouse at the time the woman hits the deck. Equally, coincidentally, riding with him is his moll Cherry (Janet Leigh) a wannabe singer whose only gigs are in Mob-owned night clubs.

But Ganucci’s presence turns out not to be coincidental after all. He was on his way to straighten Stephen out, possibly intending to use blackmail since Cherry is a stain on Stephen’s supposedly unblemished past. The cops are ferocious in their grilling, and adopt an unusual amount of forensic evidence for the time. Stephen would probably have come apart quicker had it not been for rekindling romance with Cherry, which, unexpectedly, provides the hoods with a lure to reel him in.

The satire is mostly reined in – cops unable to catch the real murderous Mafia pick on the guy who’s picking on them, Stephen’s business partners latch on to his sudden publicity/ notoriety to negotiate a multi-million-dollar pay rise with, natch, a rider in the contract negating it should he be found guilty. The drama is characters racing headlong towards fleeting happiness, the tiny morsels of hope that might filter down from the unacheivable American dream.

The performances carry it. What was it in Stuart Whitman (Shock Treatment, 1964) that drew him towards characters given a hard time? Whatever it was, he rode it in spades and here he presents his most complex character to date, oozing suspicion, suffocated by guilt, believing that all will come right in the end if he has a good woman by his side, not realizing that Kelly knows only too well which side her bread is buttered on. Janet Leigh (Grand Slam, 1967) plays very much against type as the hard-eyed chanteuse but Eleanor Parker (Warning Shot, 1966) essays one of the best – and most vicious – drunks (and lost souls drowning in a sea of wealth) you will ever see.

Not to be outdone, director Robert Gist (Della, 1965), pulls off some neat scenes, opening with a shot of a naked Eleanor Parker clad only in dark sunglasses watching television, using camera movement to put claustophobic heat on Whitman during interrogation scenes (Christopher Nolan’s interrogator in Oppenheimer apes his trick of pushing his chair close to his victim), portraying the flimsy sexiness of Parker in flimsy negligee, all the time not letting Whitman escape from his internal demons.

Perhaps, more boldly, rather than, as would be the contemporary temptation, treating Deborah’s death as a mystery, the details only unfolding bit-by-bit and leading to a hairy climax, Gist shows her death and lets the audience make up its mind what part Stephen played in it. The downbeat ending, too, would sit more easily with the contemporary audience. Mann Rubin (The Warning Shot, 1967) knocked out the screenplay.

This finished off Whitman’s career – he didn’t make another movie for four years and then ended up in B-picture limbo, directors more interested in his square jaw than the inner confusion he was so deft at portraying.

Well worth a look.

Spencer’s Mountain (1963) ****

Lot feistier than the heart-warming genre might suggest with the usually restrained Henry Fonda (Advise and Consent, 1961) coming over like he’s had a gagging order lifted, letting rip not just with a plague of cuss words but damning to Hell every hypocrite under the sun. A perfect example of the haves and have-nots where to become elevated to the former you need to know your Latin.

Despite loathing religion, quarry miner Clay (Henry Fonda) has got quite the Biblical spirit, no intention of girding his loins when he can sire nine kids, a heck of a crew to support from meager wages. He enjoys the kind of pleasures – add alcohol and gambling to his lust – that his God-fearing neighbors find objectionable, though they put those aside when he’s neighbourly enough to carry out repairs on their property for no charge.

When wife Olivia wants him to break open the piggy bank to fund a graduation ring for their oldest, Clayboy – what was wrong with just calling your kid Junior, I wonder – (James MacArthur), her dream clashes with his. He’s already spent the money on the power saw he needs to cut down to size the logs with which he is building his dream house, a bigger building, and brand-new, so his offspring don’t need to sleep five or six to a room or on the floor.

Clayboy is astonished to discover he’s the top dog at school but winning the class medal opens doors poverty prevents him getting through. Even when the local pastor Clyde (Wally Goodman) finds a last-minute loophole, Clay’s excellent grades don’t meet qualification criteria for college, he’s lacking in Latin.

But if there’s one thing Clay has learned to overcome, it’s adversity and soon a scheme is hatched. But even that has a drawback. A scholarship won’t cover all the costs. While Olivia accepts the principle that God intended them to be poor, Clay rejects that notion, the kind that keeps the downtrodden in their place, denying them the opportunity for betterment that comes with education.

This ain’t no sermon but it’s not The Grapes of Wrath either. Poverty hasn’t kicked the living daylights out of everyone but nobody seems able to catch a break even when one is floating tantalisingly close. Ain’t a family saga either, covering too short a period of time, and little but a series of loosely-connected episodes that eventually come together.

Clay gets the preacher in the mire for filling him full of booze, telling him it’s a cure for mosquito bites, while the pair are fishing. Public revulsion at the drunk pastor loses the preacher his congregation. Clay sorts it out by berating the churchgoers as hypocrites and threatening to withdraw his free labor when it comes to repairs. Come the Latin crisis, turns out the preacher was an ace scholar in the subject and can do the teaching, on the condition that the anti-religious Clay attends church.

In the meantime, there’s another kind of education required of Clayboy. Claris (Mimsy Farmer), whose training extends to reproduction and pores over the unexpurgated dictionary, gleefully hovering over the dirty words, has to teach the young man that a young woman wants more than whispers in the ear and bunches of flowers. Unfortunately, Clayboy has another suitor Cora (Kathy Bennett) who doesn’t take kindly to him rejecting her advances and when the opportunity arises to sabotage his plans does so with pleasure.

This is a film about working people. Not labor as such, and not about labor unrest or agitation either. In the way of Witness (1985), there’s a great scene (minus the soaring music of course) of constructing a wooden building, there’s men drilling and hammering at the quarry, and a pivotal scene in chopping down a tree. People seeing the benefit of hard work are less convinced by the ephemeral attraction of education, especially when that seems either beyond their reach, out of their league or as likely to find as the end of a rainbow.

So without overly saying anything much about the class divide in the U.S. (which is unspoken anyway and assumed, what with equality and all, not to exist) this says a great deal.

Henry Fonda fills his boots. It’s a plum role and he goes for it. Certainly, it’s the opposite of all those buttoned-up parts he seemed to land. Maureen O’Hara (The Battle of the Villa Florita, 1965) has a smaller part and it’s a mercy after nine kids she managed to keep her figure. James MacArthur (Battle of the Bulge, 1965) has every scene stolen from him by the charming minx Mimsy Farmer (Bus Riley’s Back in Town, 1965). You might spot Donald Crisp (Pollyanna, 1960) in his final role.

If you equate director Delmer Daves with hard-hitting westerns like Broken Arrow (1950) and 3:10 to Yuma (1957), it’s worth remembering he had a strong romantic streak as exhibited in Rome Adventure/Lovers Must Learn (1962). But he deliberately avoids the comedy pratfall of the later Yours, Mine, Ours (1968), also starring Fonda. He wrote the screenplay based on the book by Earl Hamner Jr.

Because this reputedly led to The Waltons TV series, you could be mistaken for thinking it’s as schmaltzy. It’s anything but. Take away the lush background and the idyllic scenery and while it finally gets to a heart-warming climax it’s tougher going and with a sexuality way ahead of its time.

Great watch.

Deathstalker II (1987) *** – Seen at the Cinema

Boldest sequel I’ve seen in a long time. Sure, the genre was biting the dust what with Legend (1986) and Highlander (1986) joining the flop parade, but still you’d think Part II would not so obviously poke fun at the original. Not in an all-out Mel Brooks or Naked Gun way, but just seriously determined not to take this particular world seriously.

By this point, while a cinematic release seemed doubtful – over one-third of independent productions in 1987 were denied theatrical distribution – there was a booming market for VHS, the U.S. enjoying spectacular growth, Germany video income of $550 million outgrossing cinema, and British sales topping $800 million, so the market was big enough to accommodate any genre falling by the big screen wayside.

*Yep, as with “Deathstalker I” not much in the way of supplementary posters. And, as you might expect, misleading. Monique, you’ll be astonished to learn, lacks sword skills* *and Tarlevsky ain’t so ripped.*

Our hero (John Terlesky) is still disinclined to perform any heroic acts and gets duped by runaway princess masquerading as seer Reena (Monique Gabrielle) – her lack of smarts no pretence, “Deathstalker, is that your first name or your last name?” one of her priceless gems – into tackling evil sorcerer Jarek (John Lazar) who has gone all doppelganger and created a murderess princess clone (Monique Gabrielle again). Of course, there are potions and spells and quite a few of the ogres and hog-faced guards of the previous outing turn up looking as though they’ve just been sliced out of the original. And he’s got a sidekick Sultana (Toni Naples) who goes in for the old head-on-a-platter routine.

But before they reach the castle there’s a zombie (rejects of the rejects from the Star Wars cantina) encounter as Deathstalker takes a notion to enter a mausoleum which has been rigged out with Indiana Jones traps while the living dead erupt from the cemetery to poke around with Reena. And there’s a bunch of inglorious bastards who are so bad they have been outlawed by the likes of Genghis Khan or Attila the Hun but who really have not been handed the correct weaponry for the job.

Finally, there’s Trial by Amazon – while decked out in the old One Million Years B.C. bikini oddly enough none manage to lose their scanty clothing. Deathstalker trounced in the ring as punishment for his “treatment of womankind” by a giant female wrestler (Queen Kong) and having, somewhat against the run of play, managed to win that bout, is ready to get merry with an adoring queen (Maria Socas) when commitment phobia intervenes, so then it’s on to the castle.

There’s still plenty blood-and-thunder – actually way more effort has gone into the swordplay – but (spoiler alert) the rampant nudity has been toned down. Celestial choir is gone, too, and little reference to the power of the sword. Deathstalker this time has acquired a sense of humor so instead of eyebrows denoting emotion it’s a grin or smile. And the clone princess is a piece of work, the villain’s cruella du jour, mounting the faces of victims above her bedpost, and, with nothing better to do, snaps out sarcasm. Jarek has the time of his life as a villain, though there’s a feeling he’s got his genres mixed up because the worst he can do to Reena is dangle her over a pot of boiling water as if he’s in a jungle picture.

Still, it all comes good in the end. It’s funny in a wink-to-the-audience kind of way, plenty intentional gags, this Deathstalker would struggled to bulge a muscle, and has more in common with the common-or-garden charming con man. Monique Gabrielle (Emmanuelle 5, 1987) gets two chances to prove she can act and if going from dumb to nasty is proof of acting then she’s got it down to a fine art. Gabrielle and Terlesky – real-life lovers – have a natural screen chemistry that’s rarely achieved in this genre and her dumb lass is believable. John Lazar (Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, 1970) manages to keep campness at tolerable arm’s length. Directed by Jim Wynorski (100 credits, who am I to choose one?)

Even without the blooper reel tacked on at the end, a hoot.

Deathstalker (1983) *** – Seen at the Cinema

Back in ye olde times before streaming killed off the ancillary market, you could make a decent buck from Z-list pictures that made no attempt to target the entire world but were quite content to feed the maw of a limited genre. Sword-n-sorcery never required anyone who could actually act, just topless beefcake and cheesecake, skin glistening as much as possible, special effects limited to an occasional explosion, monsters little more than rejects from the Star Wars cantina.

Chuck them out to an exhibition industry not so much starved of product as waiting an age to get their hands on a big-budget number, which like roadshow a couple of decades before remained in the biggest cinemas for months, and you would turn an easy profit. This one set the makers back a mere half a million bucks and picked up $1.2 million (in rentals) on U.S. release alone and, more importantly, another $2 million from video rental and the same again likely from sell-through and the same again when DVD appeared and again when cable started to run out of A-list and B-list features and scrabbled about for anything that could fill a slot. And that’s before you started talking about the overseas market, this kind of adventure, with heads, arms, eyes and fingers lopped off (and occasionally fed to pet monsters) more acceptable worldwide than comedies or musicals

*Yep, you’re right, this is exactly the same advert with the title color changed*.

Heck, you didn’t even need much of a plot – any Lord of the Rings rip-off would do, a series of inanimate objects that combined to invest the owner with immeasurable power – and you didn’t even require to hide nudity under the guise of “sexposition” a la Game of Thrones, any passing gal liable to have her clothes ripped off or belong to some half-naked harem or be happy to step up for a bout of mud-wrrestling.

Must be World Deathstalker Day because a pair from this series turned up at my local multiplex courtesy of the people at DMP, who otherwise specialize in sci-fi and horror all-nighters or mini-festivals. Or it could be that Lana Clarkson attracted a cult following after being murdered by Phil Spector. Deathstalker, filmed in Argentina since you ask, originally came out when my cinemagoing habit took a back seat to parenting so would have passed me by and I don’t remember getting a VHS/DVD fix, so I thought I’d toddle along and see why this deserved the reissue treatment along with this week’s other revival fave, Interstellar, which could at least claim tenth anniversary status.

Plot – since you insist – has our eponymous hero (Rick Hill) – no, hero’s too strong a word because he’s reluctant to put himself out for anybody unless it involves womanizing and financial reward – setting out, having been handed a powerful sword by a passing witch, to relieve the sorcerer Munkar (Bernard Erhard) of his power. Along the way he encounters a similar heroic hunk Oghris (Richard Brooker) and female warrior Kaira (Lana Clarkson) and gets sidetracked into attempting the rescue of kidnapped Princess Codile (Barbi Benton) and then taking part in a gladiatorial tournament and of course can’t help but get distracted by the half-naked women.

Munkar is a Machiavellian villain. He uses the tournament to get rid of any challengers to his throne, since they’ll kill each other in combat and he can murder the winner. Only Deathstalker is an obstacle, since his sword renders him invulnerable, and Oghris is easily tempted to turn traitor to solve that little problem. Contemporary audiences might run shy of this type of picture because, essentially, it’s Misogyny Central and there are three attempted rapes in the first five minutes and there’s hardly a minute goes by without some female losing their clothes.

Still, presumably, it does what it says on the tin, plenty action, ogres, imps, hog-faced warriors and naked women in abundance, and the usual narrative malarkey that you won’t need a degree to keep up with (unlike Interstellar, for example). And if you’re a fan of the celestial choir this one’s for you as any time Deathstalker raises the sword to the sky that comes on to indicate he’s not getting electrocuted by the sudden bolts of light saber stuff. You can come to scoff or enjoy for the genre romp it is, laugh at intentional and unintentional jokes, and sit back in wonder at the ten minutes of animated Intermission adverts that arrive at the rate of one a minute that were served up back in the day to entice Drive-In patrons to the delights of the Refreshment Counter.

Director John Watson (Under the Gun, 1987) stuck to the admittedly limited knitting, throwing in close-ups whenever the action stalled, allowing his star to demonstrate his array of knitted eyebrows and drawn lips. Howard B. Cohen (Barbarian Queen, 1985) dreamt this one up.

Can’t say I complained too much once I knew what I was letting myself in for and a joy to see, in some eyes, a less-than-worthy vehicle being restored to the big screen.

Behind the Scenes: When Bestsellers Ruled Hollywood

Originality was rarely the key to open the box office door in the 1960s. Though considerably more expensive than original screenplays, books and Broadway musicals were viewed as a better bet, in part because they came with a perceived built-in audience of readers and theatergoers. And the figures prove that, for once, Hollywood got it right.

All except one, the top ten movies for the decade at the box office derived from bestsellers or stage hits. The exception was Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (1967), an original screenplay by William Rose who received a then-record sum for his efforts. The decade’s out-and-out winner, The Sound of Music (1965) was based on both a book, The Story of the The Trapp Family Singers and a West German film The Trapp Family (1956), as well as the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical.

*The biggest bestseller since “Gone with the Wind.”*

Though substantially altered for the screen, runner-up The Graduate (1967) was based on the bestseller by Charles Webb. Doctor Zhivago (1965), Gone with the Wind (1939)* and Ben-Hur (1959) ** were based on bestsellers by, respectively, Boris Pasternak, Margaret Mitchell and Lew Wallace. Mary Poppins (1964) which placed sixth for the decade, despite the musical additions of the Sherman Brothers, was based on a series of much-loved children’s books by P.L. Travers, who didn’t much care for the Disneyfication.

Multiple Oscar-winner My Fair Lady (1964) followed The Sound of Music template, based on a 1913 play Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw, and a subsequent film of the same name a quarter of a century later, before falling into the hands of Broadway team Lerner and Loewe. The biggest box office surprise was that it didn’t beat The Sound of Music at the movie box office because it had trounced it on Broadway, racking up nearly double the performances. The Sound of Music wasn’t even the best performing of the Rodgers and Hammerstein Broadway portfolio, lagging in third place, a long way behind South Pacific and Oklahoma!.

British author Ian Fleming was the single-best argument for buying novels over screenplays. Books could be purchased for relatively small sums, if the well was tapped early on, and thanks for the development of the sequel business, Thunderball (1965) snapped up ninth spot. You might imagine Cleopatra (1963), especially with its emphasis on the racy Elizabeth Taylor-Richard Burton romance, was an original work, but that, too, was based on previous publications of the non-fiction variety.

William Rose’s original screenplay was as instrumental in Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner reaching tenth place as he was in It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963) becoming one of only two original screenplays to feature in the next ten movies on the box office chart, that madcap comedy targeting eighteenth. Robert Benton and David Newman’s original screenplay (with a little help from Robert Towne) helped Bonnie and Clyde (1967) after a faltering start to cling on to 13^th spot.

You might also imagine James R. Webb delivered an original screenplay for the Cinerama roadshow How the West Was Won (1962) – which finished 12^th in the rankings – but while not based on a bestseller it was adapted from an extensive series of non-fiction books on The Old West published by Time-Life.

Of the other films registering in the top 20, five originated as novels, and two were first seen on the stage. The fiction quintet featured another deuce from the pen of Ian Fleming – Goldfinger (1964) and You Only Live Twice (1960). Jacqueline Susann was responsible for the bestseller Valley of the Dolls (1967), E. M. Nathanson for The Dirty Dozen (1967) and E.R. Braithwaite for To Sir, With Love (1967). West Side Story (1961) was another adaptation of a Broadway musical while The Odd Couple (1968) was from prolific playwright Neil Simon.

*It probably escaped your notice but this iconic image is taken from the scene where they die.*

There was similar reliance on proven hits in the next 20 movies. Only two pictures – Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines (1965) by Ken Annakin and Jack Davies and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) – were original screenplays, though Twentieth Century Fox shelled out a record $400,000 to secure the rights to the latter from writer William Goldman.

Even movies like The Love Bug (1968) and Bullitt (1968) were originally novels. The bulk of these next twenty came from publishing, though Funny Girl (1968), Romeo and Juliet (1968), Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf (1966) and Thoroughly Modern Millie began on stage, the latter not from Broadway but the British West End.

Of course, not much has changed. Half this year’s Best Picture Oscar candidates are based on published works. Poor Things was based on the book by Scottish novelist Alasdair Gray, Zone of Interest from the novel by Martin Amis, Killers of the Flower Moon by the non-fiction work by David Grann, Oppenheimer on the biography American Prometheus by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin, American Fiction from Percival Everett’s novel Erasure.

*Gone with the Wind was reissued in 1967 as a 70mm roadshow and, coupled with a 35mm wider release the following year, cleaned up at the box office, making more money than it any of its previous four revivals put together.

**Ben-Hur (1959) ran in Nov-Dec 1959 in only a select number of cinemas, collecting, by my calculations no more than $1 million in rentals. Therefore, I deduced that in reality the vast bulk of its box office was taken in the 1960s and therefore in any accounting of that decade’s movie rentals was more fairly to be included then than in the previous decade.

SOURCE: The Magnificent 60s, The 100 Most Popular Films of a Revolutionary Decade by Brian Hannan (McFarland, 2019).