Brian Hannan

The Loved One (1965) ***

If only British director Tony Richardson had seen fit to add some meat to the bones, this satirical look at the American funeral business might have emulated the dramatic impact of Elmer Gantry (1960). As it is, the director is so preoccupied with the funereal inanities that it doesn’t so much lose sight of the plot as pretty much ignore it.

So, yes, the burying of a loved is big business and just like weddings some of the trimmings would make your toe curl. But even when reality intrudes, feet swell after death so require larger shoes and the only way to fit a suit on a corpse is to slit open the back, these are treated in humorous fashion.

And that would all be fine if this was the laff-fest Richardson intended but even with a puffed-out roster of cameos – Liberace as a salesman and James Coburn (Hard Contract, 1969) as a truculent customs officer the pick – this ends up as more documentary than movie. And that’s it’s main attraction for a contemporary audience who might be less concerned about the director’s almighty fall from grace after the stunning critical and commercial success of Tom Jones (1963).

In fact, it’s a shame the story goes anywhere near internment because the initial section concentrating on Hollywood is more successful in achieving a modicum of gentle satire. Wannabe poet Dennis (Robert Morse) has won a trip to America as a prize and lands on upper crust uncle Sir Francis, a Hollywood veteran, tasked with improving the elocution of cowboy Dusty (Robert Easton) so that he can play a British spy akin to James Bond.

That section entails gorillas turning up outside telephone booths, all sorts of monsters dawdling through the studio canteen, and head honcho (Roddy McDowell) running his father’s studio by the seat of his pants until he comes unstuck, resulting in Sir Francis being fired after 31 years. There’s some interesting, almost British, issue-dodging and Sir Francis in true British style, unable to deal the embarrassment of being sacked, commits suicide, leading the nephew into the arms of Whispering Glades funeral operative Aimee (Anjanette Comer). She’s in love with the creepy Joyboy (Rod Steiger) leaving Dennis to woo her using other people’s poems.

There’s another nutcase dropping out of the woodwork every two minutes, and occasionally there’s a mild piece of slapstick or physical comedy. Of course, using rampant sex as the basis for comedy, as with Tom Jones, works far better than death. In the absence of a decent narrative or interesting characters, once the initial heavy-handed points have been made there’s nowhere else to go except be more heavy-handed.

Until Brideshead Revisited (1981) was turned into a triumphant mini-series, the works of British author Evelyn Waugh had difficulty being transferred to the screen. In part, this was due to his idiosyncratic style and in part that, even at his most serious, he was viewed as a comedy writer.

Screenwriter Terry Southern (Candy, 1968) wouldn’t have been my first choice to translate the Waugh essence for the big screen, but co-writer Christopher Isherwood (Cabaret, 1968) was no more successful.

Robert Morse (Guide for the Married Man, 1967) offers little beyond mild buffoonery. While Anjanette Comer (Guns for San Sebastian, 1968) is surprisingly good as the angelic ditzy object of his affections, she can’t carry the entire picture. Robert Morley (Genghis Khan, 1965) manages to keep a straight face while delivering his lines.

Without doubt hits the immediate target but somehow misses the bulls-eye.

Even so, there’s one element of the picture that would have contemporary Hollywood salivating. And that is a producer not frightened of taking risks, willing to go outside the envelope in a bid to deliver the different kind of movie that audiences obsessed over with Barbie and Oppenheimer.

Martin Ransohoff had an enviable track record in the 1960s. For MGM, he was the mastermind behind movies as offbeat as The Americanization of Emily (1964), The Cincinnati Kid (1965) Eye of the Devil (1966) and Castle Keep (1969) as well as big-budget offerings The Sandpiper (1965) and Ice Station Zebra (1968). His name was on such later diverse titles as The Wanderers (1979) and Jagged Edge (1985). As you can see from this random selection, his movies didn’t always come off, but at least they were different.

Behind the Scenes: Selling that Old-Time Religion – The Pressbook for “Elmer Gantry” (1960)

The one element that every movie requires – advance publicity – was denied Elmer Gantry. Shooting took place on a closed set with all visitors carefully screened. Only six actors were given access to a complete screenplay while a general synopsis was denied distributors and cinema owners.

Over 30 years after publication of the source novel by Sinclair Lewis, its contents were considered so volatile and contentious that, rather than be pre-judged by the industry on expectations of what the movie may contain, director Richard Brooks took to issuing baffling statements such as describing Elmer Gantry as “The All-American Boy.”

Even the 12-page A3 Pressbook/Campaign Book, the prime source of marketing contact between studio and theater owner, was niggardly in the extreme. Narrative detail was limited to “the story of a spellbinding evangelist” rather anything approaching a synopsis.

Stuck with how to woo an audience in advance, United Artists fell back on a teaser campaign comprising six separate ads. The sequence was as follows: “Elmer Gantry Is Coming!” / “Sinners! Elmer Gantry Is Coming!” / “Sinners! Elmer Gantry Is Coming! starring Burt Lancaster”/ “Sinners! Elmer Gantry Is Coming! Starring Jean Simmons” / “Sinners! Elmer Gantry Is Coming! starring Burt Lancaster and Jean Simmons”. The last advert was coupled with a quote from the New York Times with the final salvo the same ad repeated but with a different quote from the New York Post.

The New York campaign – in those days a movie might take a few months to spread out from initial opening locale to other cities allowing promotional ideas that worked in one area to be publicized – relied on the first two teasers. But they went out in saturation – in railroad stations, subways, buses and race tracks with additional displays on poles, stilts and drums.

The major print advertising onslaught was led by two bold large-sized adverts intended to run facing each other on the same page. “Bless Him! Tens of thousands of believers shouted his praises!” was accompanied by the iconic illustration, Bible in hand, of Burt Lancaster. “Damn Him! Three women damned his soul” showed Lancaster grappling with Jean Simmons with Shirley Jones and Patti Paige in the background in more revealing clothing. But these two elements could also be fitted into the one ad, as shown above.

There were nearly a dozen full-size advertisements with a range of taglines. In all Lancaster is shown in the same pose with the Bible while Simmons is presented clutching a Bible and gazing heavenward. Shirley Jones appears in even skimpier outfits.

As was standard at the time, taglines could stand on their own or mix and match. Snippets for other ads were edited from this main ad: “Nobel Prize Winner Sinclair Lewis’ Bold Novel Of Passion And Damnation Bursts Full-Life Across The Screen! If there was a dollar to be made – Gantry would make it…If there was a soul to save -Gantry would save it…”

“Sinner! Elmer Gantry Wants You!” ran another ad backed up by “Are you ready, sinner? He wants you to know all about heaven…but not about his whiskey and his women!” Other adverts were fashioned from taglines like: “You’re all sinners…you’ll all burn in Hell! Tell ‘em Gantry…save ‘em from sin…lead ‘em to salvation…tell ‘em about everything…but not about your whiskey and your women!” Or included: “From the book that shook a nation with its sledgehammer theme…from a Nobel Prize-winning author…comes the raging story of a man who used the Holy Bible and broke every rule in it!”

Rarely have so many exclamation marks been employed in so short a space, but equally, rarely has a marketing team encapsulated so vividly a movie with a difficult subject matter, all tease and no substance.

Out-with the usual marketing routes, the marketing team were able to take advantage of various ancillary promotional opportunities. Dell organized a massive paperback book tie-in in thousands of bookstores and newsstands, Burt Lancaster dominating the front cover with Simmons and Jones pictured on the back. Music retailers also played their part, United Artists Records launching the Andre Previn soundtrack album while Mercury released an album of revival tuness sung by Patti Paige, who made her movie debut in the film. With record sales exceeding 35 million, Paige’s host of fan clubs were a natural target for contact and if there was none in the local vicinity cinema managers were encouraged to start one by the simple device of setting up “a giant postcard in the lobby” and inviting fans to attach their signatures.

Department stores were called upon to run 1920s Fashion Shows.

Anniversaries, so important today, helped out. It was 30 years since Sinclair Lewis was awarded the Nobel Prize, the first American author so recognized, and 1960 was the 75^th anniversary of his birth. But the promoters also played upon the book’s initial controversy, hoping to re-ignite the debate as a promotional tool.

With the bulk of the Pressbook given over to advertising and promotional ideas, barely little more than a single page was devoted to the stars, but even then there was little of the usual soft-focus puff pieces. The kind of journalistic nuggets that might help an editor fill a vacant space were limited. All we learned of Burt Lancaster, who had worked with Richard Brooks before on Brute Force (1947), was that – as if this was a mark of respect – he agreed to read the screenplay twice. Of Jean Simmons it was pointed out she had played an evangelist in Guys and Dolls (1955) but the Pressbook erroneously states that she played a nun in Black Narcissus (1947); in fact, she was a beggar girl. Arthur Kennedy is mentioned in relation to his Oscar nominations.

Shirley Jones was the most likely to attract column inches as a result of explaining how she made the transition from more demure roles in Oklahoma (1955) and April Love (1957). “It feels just fine – now,” she told the Pressbook interviewer. “At first, well, I really don’t wear much except what you see. A slip, these shoes with the green frills, and slinky black silk wrap-around that’s transparent.

“Usually, I walk into a movie set wearing my bustle and petticoats and some of the boys turn round as I go by and say, ‘Hiya, Shirl.’ But when I walked in dressed like this the fellows all just turned round and didn’t say anything. They never turned round like that before. Well, not really. It did take some getting used to after provoking the big brother reactions for so long.

“But I guess every girl dreams of being a conversation stopper some day. This is my chance. Of course, I am embarrassed sometimes…or maybe it’s inhibited.”

Brooks rewrote the script eight times before “he felt he had captured the essence” of Gantry. Most of the scenes were filmed on sound stages or adapted from an assortment of 1920s vintage streets from the backlots of other studios. The tabernacle was constructed out of an ice skating rink on a beach pier in Santa Monica.

Art director Edward Carerre spent $6,500 erecting and furnishing a genuine evangelist tent rented from Canvas Specialty. It was slightly trimmed to fit onto two combined sound stages on the Columbia lot. A total of 400 benches each measuring eight- or ten-feet were constructed by studio carpenters to provide seating for 1,000 – the tent accommodated another 2,000 standing. The stage required 500lb of imported sawdust and banners 30ft long were specially made to incorporate Biblical quotations. Where most movies required a maximum of 15-20 sets, Elmer Gantry boasted 62.

The climactic scene, conflagration in a tent, took five days to film. Soaking the set in kerosene would not supply the instant flash of flame the director demanded. So, instead, he turned to old film footage, including some frames from It Happened One Night (1934). “We’re burning film to make film,” quipped Brooks.

Elmer Gantry (1960) *****

Burt Lancaster gives the performance of his life as the eponymous burnt-out salesman finding financial redemption in the salvation business in Richard Brooks’ riveting examination of the revivalist boom. While replete with hypocrisy, old-style religion brought succour to the rural poor, but the director takes such an even-handed approach to the subject matter, carefully nurturing a marvellous parade of characters, that you are totally sucked in.

Brooks made his name adapting famous novels but only here and In Cold Blood (1967) does he exhibit complete mastery of the material. In fact, he pulls out a cinematic plum in having the audience, who might initially have mocked the obvious manipulation of the poor, suddenly taking the side of the itinerant preachers when they come up against the more sophisticated religious operators in the big towns.

Elmer Gantry (Burt Lancaster) has some previous in the preaching business, but only for as long as it took for him to be chucked out of divinity school for seducing the principal’s daughter, so when by accident he comes upon a touring revivalist meeting he discovers his metier as a fast-talking brazen preacher. He doesn’t quite usurp the star of the show, Sister Sharon (Jean Simmons), and in fact their styles complement one another, he preaching hell and damnation, she the love of God.

Beneath the demure guise, Sharon is anything but a push-over. Not only does she see through him right away and consistently knock him back but she is quite the businessperson, though her methods of keeping civic officials in line often rely on blackmail. But then who are the hypocritical, allowing speakeasies and prostitution to run rampant, to attempt to rein in revivalists who need account to no one for how they spend their revenue?

Eventually, of course, Elmer’s ardent wooing wins over the virgin Sharon who easily forgives his dalliance with her doe-eyed follower Sister Rachel (Patti Paige). Burgeoning romance is scuppered by a chance encounter with prostitute Lulu (Shirley Jones), the principal’s daughter. That’s just the spark needed for anti-religious fervor to take over and the enterprise ends in disaster.

But what’s so good about a film that could as easily just relied on taking pot-shots at religion is that Brooks gives equal space to the good and bad in each character. Sure, Elmer’s confession of his sins might be construed as a seduction device, but that’s tempered by a genuine ruefulness and remorse over his previous actions. And while his grand-standing in front of an audience could be interpreted as merely an actor revelling in a role, you can see that religion has as easily taken over him and provided him with an identity that he finds rewarding. He might still be a salesman but he’s selling the hell out of the product.

Sharon’s uncanny hold over a congregation may be a true skill, and she’s definitely a believer, but that is borne out of fiction. She has reinvented herself, given herself a new name and identity, that furnished her with business opportunity in a male-dominated world, but love of God has come at the expense of love of man.

Perhaps what’s best about the picture’s construction is the array of supporting characters. Journalist Jim (Arthur Kennedy) might appear the pick, ingratiating himself with the touring company only to write a searing expose, but drawing the line, and incurring the wrath of his editor, at writing the kind of tawdry tale he believes is a fabrication. While still holding a torch for Elmer, Lulu has none of the cliché prostitute’s heart of gold. Initially rejected by Elmer, she goes along with a scheme to bring him down, only to change her mind and change it again, left only with remorse.

And Brooks manages to weave in a ton of detail, sometimes in dramatic fashion, such as the church elders in big city Zenith debating the value of backing the revivalists (the touring operation usually signs up hundreds of people to local parishes), and sometimes just as background, such as when Jim dictates his front-page lead in the newspaper office, whipping it off a page at a time to throw in front of the editor.

There’s also a little-commented-upon affinity between Shirley and Elmer. She, too, is coming to the end of the line. She is approaching burn-out. The endless travel, the responsibility for her payroll, financing accommodation, dealing with officials, seeing all the people she has returned to the fold being handed over to local churches, is taking its toll. And she wants the stability of her own church, where she can soothe her congregation on a weekly basis and live a more temperate life.

If ever a movie suited Burt Lancaster’s physicality, this is it. Allowed to channel his inner dominance, every gesture overpowers and by the same token makes him more potent when at his most abject. Lancaster (The Swimmer, 1968) was in a rich vein of form that would see him deliver a series of majestic performances throughout the decade. He deservedly won the Oscar.

Jean Simmons (Rough Night in Jericho, 1967) is, effectively, both a villain, duping everyone by her creation of Sister Sharon, and the epitome of the American Dream, a girl from shantytown who makes her way bigtime. Shirley Jones (Two Rode Together, 1961) is afforded more dramatic beats and hers is a sure-footed performance, leading you to believe she will react one way and then go another. Oddly, Arthur Kennedy (Joy in the Morning, 1965) missed out on adding to his five Oscar nominations for supporting actor.

Nothing in this movie has aged. If anything, this was way ahead of its time in daring to pick holes in organized religion (The Cardinal and The Shoes of the Fisherman were a good few years away and in The Night of the Hunter a few years before Robert Mitchum only posed as a preacher).

Extraordinary movie by Richard Brooks at the top of his form.

Mercy Falls (2023)

The long tradition of Scottish-made or Scottish-set movies – from Whisky Galore (1949), Brigadoon (1954), The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969) and The Wicker Man (1973) to Local Hero (1983), Highlander (1986), Braveheart (1995) and Trainspotting (1996) – has fallen fallow in recent years. And while Outlander has done its best to fill the gap, the most we can hope is Glasgow or Edinburgh being called upon as brief locales or as substitute locations in blockbusters such as F9 (2021) or Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023).

So, as a native Scot, I approached Mercy Falls out of a sense of duty. Anything more meant setting aside the odd notion that a movie set in the wilderness will carry the same dread in a horror scenario as the more usual claustrophobic setting. Or that short of a drug-fuelled bear, speedy surprise will be in short supply. And there’s a struggle in coming to terms with the MacGuffin, that a young lass and her four companions will set off to find a cabin whose whereabouts are largely a mystery and with nobody who can read a map.

Putting aside such misgivings, it’s a refreshing change from the torture porn / mad robots / occult offerings of the more recent Hollywood horror cycle. And since it’s mercifully not funded by government agency Creative Scotland no slavish need to turn backdrops into tourist promotional material. Not a whiff of tartan in sight, much less majestic peaks, and the grass, far from being a sweeping green, is burned an unattractive summer brown, though mists do appear to appear as if by magic and you will wonder how such an accomplished wee folk band just happened to be playing in a remote Scottish pub.

Our cast of potential corpses includes uptight heiress Rhona (Lauren Lyle) and her theoretical boyfriend Donnie (Joe Rising), sex-mad Heather (Layla Kirk) and her definite current Steady-Eddie boyfriend Scott (James Watterson) and opportunistic one-night-stand Andy (Eoin Sweeney). They are joined by bad-ass hitchhiker Carla (Nicolette McKeown). Tension in the early part is mostly sexual in nature, although you have to wonder if they will ever reach their destination.

As with Shallow Grave (1994) and television series Guilt (2109-2023) accidental death turns the trip into a nightmare. Tell the truth and five people go to jail as culprits or accessories, tell a lie and dump the body under a remote waterfall and everyone gets off scot free. Or that would be the case except ex-soldier Carla has escaped from a mental institution.

Some sequences appear to have escaped from other movies – climbing a cliff-face and crossing a ravine Indiana-Jones-style across a rickety log – but once the gore count rises it’s game on and the meek Rhona channels her interior super-bitch to take on Carla in a winner-takes-all finale.

The men are uniformly useless, the females the sexual or physical predators. And it’s realistic, too. While Carla has honed her killing techniques on the battlefields of Iraq, Rhona has to rely on more basic materials, an axe, knives, and petrol found in the cabin. Rhona, it turns out, is also handy with that Glaswegian thug’s weapon of choice, the bottle, but when she lays out her opponent with it, rather than break open the bottle and slash her opponent’s throat, she scarpers to a convenient cave where she has laid a “trap,” clearly forgetting that with the enemy at your mercy it’s darned foolish to run and give her another chance.

Still, this isn’t the kind of movie where slick characters think straight, otherwise why would the remaining fella, determined to demonstrate his dexterity, just think you could switch on an old-fashioned heavy-duty radio and yell “Mayday! Mayday!” into it and expect to be picked up. Nobody’s going to win an Oscar and the acting is generally at entry-level, eyes steadfastly revealing little of character, but by and large, it’s an acceptable low-budgeter.

Blame or praise Ryan Hendrick (Lost at Christmas, 2020), also co-writer with Melia Grasska in her debut. Nicolette McKeown (Lost at Christmas) is the pick but that’s mostly because she doesn’t have to emote much beyond lust and hatred while Lauren Lyle (Outlander, 2017-2022) is so emotionally drenched she has to occasionally shed a tear.

This will probably quickly end up on a streamer near you so worth a watch for taking a different tack to horror and as a pointer to future Scottish talent.

The Frightened City (1961) ***

Sean Connery in an early role as a gangster is not the only reason for watching this brisk British thriller about a London protection racket. Primarily told from the point-of-view of the bad guys, this explores how a ruthless Mr Big builds up a criminal empire. Waldo (Herbert Lom), a bent accountant, brings together the six major gangs involved in extorting money from pubs and stores into a democratically-run syndicate. He then moves on to demanding bigger sums from bigger enterprises such as construction businesses. However, when the gangsters fall out they go to war.

This film is way ahead of the game in presenting gangsters as displaying any intelligence. Generally, they were depicted as brutes who ruled by force. But criminality at the top level demanded as much organization as in a legitimate business. Personalities had to be harnessed to work together rather than shoot each other on sight. Such skills had to exist in order for gangsters to operate on any scale. This picture examines how this was done.

The cops led by Det Insp Sayers (John Gregson) are almost a sub-plot and the story would have adequately run its course without their involvement. Sayers sails close to the wind in hoping to “tilt the scale of justice in our direction for a change.” Paddy (Sean Connery) doesn’t appear until about 20 minutes as a karate-expert cat-burglar turned enforcer. Paddy’s involvement with the syndicate ends when his code of honor is breached and he turns on his employers. His code is not so sacrosanct that it prevents him cheating on girlfriend Sadie (Olive McFarland). But he does display the virility to fill James Bond’s shoes.

There’s far more violence that would be expected in a British crime picture of the era. Night clubs, shops and pubs are wrecked and there’s plenty of fisticuffs and when the gangsters go head-to-head they upgrade to grenades. There’s a bit more plot than the running time can deal with so director (and producer and co-writer, along with Leigh Vance of Crossplot, 1969, fame) John Lemont occasionally resorts to cliché devices like newspaper headlines. Canadian Lemont – most famous for writing the first serial on ITV, Sixpenny Corner – was an auteur of the old-fashioned (and unheralded) kind, and previously writer-director of The Shakedown (1960).

Top billing was a step up for Herbert Lom (Gambit, 1966) and he made the most of it, delivering a suave villain among the thugs. John Gregson (Night of the Generals, 1967) Table, 1959) was a solid British star and ideal cop material (he was later British television’s Gideon). Yvonne Romaine, as Connery’s new squeeze, a nightclub singer exploited by Lom more for her looks than her voice, was known to audiences after Curse of the Werewolf (1961). This was a sophomore outing for Scottish television actress Olive McFarland (So Evil So Young, 1961). Unusually, for a British picture at this time, the theme tune written by Norrie Paramour was covered by The Shadows and turned into a hit.

At this point in his career, Connery had already had two bites of the cherry without much success – romancing Lana Turner in Another Time, Another Place (1958) and Disney’s Darby O’Gill and the Little People (1959). He would make another three films before his breakthrough with Dr No (1962) but the Pressbook showed signs that he was headed for the heights. Co-star Yvonne Romaine (and her distinctive body measurements) were accorded three separate stories in the Pressbook, compared to one each for Lom and Alfred Marks, at that point better known as a comedian. While no articles about Connery were featured, when it came to the advertising campaign Connery (and Romaine) outshone their co-stars.

Producers were contractually bound in relation to the size of credits that appeared on any advertising. But there were no such regulations regarding the visuals of an advert. Although top-billed, Lom is not shown on any of the adverts. Given greatest prominence was Yvonne Romaine. There were thirteen different ads and she appeared in them all. Although Connery was third-billed and she was two rungs below in the credit stakes, he was the junior partner when it came to the artwork. While, Connery appeared in eleven in only one did he overshadow Romaine and in another they were visually-speaking accorded roughly the same status. But otherwise, she hogged the adverts.

The Pressbook was small by American standards, consisting of six A3 pages, the bulk of which was given over to adverts. But what it lacked in pages it made up for in taglines – of which there were six main types.

The picture was not seen much in the United States, sent out in first run as the lower half of a double bill in only a handful of big cities, so there’s a fair chance it’s completely unknown except to Connery completists. It later appeared on the reissue circuit when Connery was a bigger name.

Worth a look as an example of the British crime movie trying to break out of the confines of the genre, and even more so as an early example of the Connery screen charisma.

Secret World (1969) ****

Jacqueline Bisset is the big draw here. After breaking into the Hollywood bigtime with female leads in The Detective (1968) and Bullitt (1968) she put her newfound marquee weight behind a low-budget French arthouse picture. But ignore the marketeers best efforts to present this as malevolent in the style of The Innocents (1961) or the illicit template of The Nightcomers (1971) or Malena (2000).

No children were corrupted in the making of this picture. Instead, it’s a slow-burn thoughtful exposition of a child coming to terms with loss and a young woman discovering she is more than a mere sexual plaything. Any explosive drama comes from father-son rivalry but mostly it’s a reflective, absorbing movie that follows twin narratives, the attraction of the orphaned introspective 11-year-old Francois (Jean-Francois Vireick) to the English mistress of his uncle Philippe (Pierre Zimmer) and the damage her arrival causes to a fractured household.

*The leather glove oveprlays its hand in the poster, suggesting a great deal more sexuality*
*than is actually the case, but nonetheless – and take this as subtle – creates*
*an element of ambiquity about the demure Wendy.*

Astonishingly, given its arthouse credentials – long takes, glorious cinematography, brooding close-ups – this was the final film for both directors (no idea why there were two) Paul Feyder (in his debut) and a sophomore effort from Robert Freeman (The Touchables, 1968). Given a screenplay by regular Polanski collaborator Gerard Brach (Wonderwall, 1968) and an intrusive heavy-handed score, you get the impression of two separate movies struggling to fit a single canvas.

On the one hand, you’ve got a perfectly acceptable romantic intrigue, Philippe and son Olivier (Marc Porel) fighting, sometimes metaphorically (games of chess etc), sometimes physically (a punch-up), over the woman, passed off as the daughter of a wartime colleague, and a wife Monique (Chantal Goya) refusing to stand on the sidelines, switching hairstyle to blonde and employing various wiles to prevent the affair. While the male rivalry is overt, the wife’s manipulations are more subtle.

On the other hand, you’ve got the lonely boy, who indulges his imagination, spinning tales of monsters in a lake and spies in the vicinity, mostly ignored by his relatives, hiding out with a pet rabbit in a treehouse, occasionally filching small items, creating a crown out of a stolen brooch and pieces of tree bark. There’s a lot that’s presented without explanation. For example, a couple of months after his parents died in a car crash that he alone survived, he mopes around in a jumper full of holes, either a sign how little his adoptive parents care for him, or perhaps the item of clothing he was wearing the day his mother died.

You can view his behavior – creeping into Wendy’s room at night when she’s asleep – as creepy or just the hankering of a small boy after a substitute mother. But mostly, he lives a life of wistfulness, longing for what he once had, unable to fit into a household split by various emotions. When he snips a lock of Wendy’s hair, or snaffles a bottle of her perfume, it’s to add to his little box of mementoes rather than from any underlying sexual motive. And it’s hard to view his growing feelings for Wendy as early stirrings of sexual attraction. When at one point he falls asleep on her bosom, you couldn’t interpret that as anything more than maternal instinct.

That’s not to say there isn’t tension. But that’s almost entirely played out in the context of father, son and wife. Francois is a welcome gooseberry defusing the unwelcome attentions of Olivier, whose overtures Wendy constantly thwarts. Olivier, well aware of the role Wendy plays in her father’s life, mocks his mother’s attempts to hold onto her errant husband. Wendy, meanwhile, abhors the role she is forced to play, the trophy mistress, and reacts in maternal fashion to the lonely child.

Excepting the intensity of the father-son relationship, the screenplay underplays while still developing character more fully than you might expect.. The child is as manipulative as his aunt in finding ways to spend time with the object of his affection.

Mostly, this has been dismissed as a poor example of the French arthouse picture or as a Bisset vanity number or for illicit elements than never catch fire. But, in reality, it’s a superb character study set in an unromanticised French countryside – rats need shooting, for example, massive tray of cheese served up for dessert rather than the grand wine cellar you might imagine a chateau to contain, or clothes or other ostentatious examples of wealth.

There is so much that is incisively ordinary. Philippe insists on measuring the boy’s height. Monique drops her chilly façade to help the newcomer get rid of a wasp. The arrogant Olivier loses all credibility when he runs away from a gang. The children play out childish rituals. Francois douses the rabbit in Wendy’s perfume so he can keep the smell of her close.

The secret world here is four-fold, the one Philippe foolishly and brazenly attempts to maintain, the one Olivier hopes to possess, the one Francois enjoys and the idyll from which Wendy is shaken out of.

The direction is very confident, none more so, oddly enough, than in the only sex scene, which takes place primarily off-screen, although with the lascivious involvement of a leather-gloved hand.

Rich in detail, supremely atmospheric, well worth a look.

The Impossible Years (1968) ***

Generation gap comedy driven by unmentionables and the prospect of perplexed father getting more pop-eyed by the minute. By default, probably the last bastion of morality before censorship walls – the U.S. Production Code eliminated the following year – came tumbling down and Hollywood was engulfed in an anything goes mentality. Denial enters its final phase, quite astonishing the mileage achieved by not letting the audience in on what’s actually going on.

Psychiatrist lecturer Jonathan (David Niven) finds his chances of promotion potentially scuppered after lissom teenage daughter Linda (Christine Ferrare) is arrested at a demonstration carrying a banner bearing an unmentionable word. That brings to the boil the notion that Linda may not be quite so sweet as she appears, Jonathan previously willing to overlook minor misdemeanors like smoking and speeding. But it turns out Linda may also have lost her virginity, that word also verboten, and may even be, worse, illegally married.

So the question, beyond just how manic her parents can be driven, is which male is her lover: the main candidates being a trumpet-blowing teenage neighbor and let) or laid-back artist hippie who has painted her in the nude.

Innuendo used to be the copyright of the Brits, in the endlessly smutty Carry On, series, but here the number of words or phrases that can be substituted for “sex” or “virgin” must be approaching a world record, but delivered with gentle obfuscation far removed from the leering approach of the Brits.

It’s a shame this movie appeared in the wake of bolder The Graduate (1967) because it was certainly set in a gentler period and its tone has more in common with Father of the Bride (1950). Setting aside that most of the adults, for fear of offending each other, can’t ever say what they mean, the actual business of a young woman growing up and demanding freedom without ostracising her parents is well done, Linda stuck in the quandary of either being too young or too old to move on in her life.

The scenes where that issue is confronted provide more dramatic and comedic meat than those where everyone is grasping, or gasping like fish, for words that mean the same as the other words they refuse to utter.

Parental issues are complicated in that Jonathan has set himself up as an expert on dealing with the problems growing children present. He views himself as hip when, as you can imagine, to younger eyes, he’s actually square. And he’s also worried his younger daughter Abbey (Darlene Carr) will start to emulate her sibling.

Compared to today, of course, it’s all very innocent and I’m sure contemporary older viewers might pine for those more carefree times. It doesn’t work as social commentary either, given the rebellion that was in the air although it probably does accurately reflect how adults felt at confronted by children growing up too fast in a more liberal age.

David Niven (Prudence and the Pill, 1968) brings a high degree of polish to a movie that would otherwise splutter. He’s playing the equivalent of the stuffy Rock Hudson/Cary Grant role in the Doris Day comedies who always get their comeuppance from the flighty, feisty female. That fact that it’s father-and-daughter rather than mismatched lovers only adds to the fun. And there were few top-ranked Hollywood actors, outside perhaps of Spencer Tracy (Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, 1967) who audiences would be interested in seeing play a father.

The unmentionable conceit wears thin at times but Niven and Cristina Ferrare (later better known as the wife of John DeLorean) do nudge it towards a truthful relationship. Former movie hellion Lola Albright (A Cold Wind in August, 1961) is considerably more demure as the Jonathan’s wife. Chad Everett (Claudelle Inglish, 1961) breezes in and out.

Although at times giving off a “beach party” vibe, it manages to examine the mores of the time.

Director Michael Gordon has moved from outwitted controlling mother (For Love or Money, 1963) to undone controlling father without dropping the ball. It’s based on the Broadway play of the same name by Robert Fisher and Arthur Marx.

Lightweight for sure but worth it for David Niven and the sultry Ferrare.

For Love or Money (1963) ***

Kirk Douglas (The Brotherhood, 1968) had been so intent on establishing his dramatic credentials as a Hollywood high flier that he hadn’t appeared in a comedy in six years when he was second-billed to Susan Hayward in Top Secret Affair (1957).

So after all the sturm und drang of heavyweight numbers like Strangers When We Meet (1960), Spartacus (1961), and Lonely Are the Brave (1962) it was always going to be interesting to see if he could drop the commanding persona long enough to hit the laugh button. He’s helped by a screenplay that while suggesting he is in control shows him run ragged by a quartet of females.

Millionaire widowed mother Chloe (Thelma Ritter) hires singleton lawyer Deke (Kirk Douglas) for $100,000 – enough to pay off his debts – as some kind of matchmaker, not given the task of finding suitable husbands for her daughters, but to make sure that trio of spoiled women get hitched to men chosen by her.

The plan is for the Kate (Mitzi Gaynor), the most organized, to marry rich playboy Sonny (Gig Young), health nut Bonnie (Julie Newmar) to take up with child love Harvey (Richard Sargent) and hippie art lover Jan (Leslie Parrish) to be landed with dull taxman Sam (William Windom). Sonny is Deke’s best friend, they share a yacht.

Nothing tuns out the way it should in part because Deke is more attractive than any of the other males on offer and in part because the heiresses are disinclined to do what anyone tells them. Deke spends all his time getting into hot water, dashing into another room to take phone calls that inevitably create further confusion, while manfully trying to ensure that the male suitors present their most attractive sides to their potential brides.

There’s not a great deal to it. It’s not exactly farce, but given the daughters live on top of each other, quite easy for Deke to race from one apartment to another, and say the wrong thing at the wrong time. The juggling act is never going to work out, especially as Kate is love struck by Deke, though if she could see how easily he flirts with her siblings she might be less keen. There’s finale on a boat or, should I say, in falling off a boat.

I wouldn’t say it’s a hoot but it’s an excellent lightweight concoction that comes to life by inspired casting. None of the women is your typical Hollywood fluff, all present interesting characters, leaders in their own ways, and with a lifetime of standing up to their domineering mother unlikely to fall over at the sight of any decent male.

Thelma Ritter (Boeing, Boeing, 1965) is easily the pick. The six-time Oscar nominee, generally seen in dowdy parts as a maid or similar, is dressed to the heavens, all glammed up as the millionairess without losing any of her trademark snippiness or drollery. Mitzi Gaynor (South Pacific, 1958), in her final screen role, has a well-written part as an efficient businesswoman and proves more than a match for Deke.

Julie Newmar (The Maltese Bippy, 1969) is a delight as the health nut whose physical demeanor is proof of her regime while Leslie Parrish (The Manchurian Candidate, 1962) bounces along with a coterie of artists. Gig Young (Strange Bedfellows, 1965) can do this kind of role in his sleep but he’s no less effective for having acquired that skill of the guy who never gets the girl. And there’s a rare sighting of Hollywood tough guy William Bendix (The Blue Dahlia, 1946) in a comedy.

But none of this would work without Kirk Douglas. And it works because he plays it straight. He doesn’t give in to the temptation of mugging to the camera, eye-rolling and pratfalls. You could easily get the idea the actor thought he was in a drama, especially as he’s the one in the kind of quandary that we’ve seen him ignore before, when ambition trumps morality or romance, as with Ace in the Hole (1951) or Strangers When We Meet. In some senses, the casting relies on audiences being aware of that sneaky side of his screen persona, the one where he doesn’t always do the right thing. And here, you could easily see him opting for the loot over the girl.

Director Michael Gordon (Texas Across the River, 1966) is adept at winkling out the comedic moments in stories that are played straight. The team of Larry Markes and Michael Morris (Wild and Wonderful, 1964) wrote the screenplay with the emphasis on situation comedy rather than farce.

Good, clean fun and great performances.

A Fine Madness (1966) **

Let’s start with the Hollywood happy ending. Poet Samson (Sean Connery) slugs pregnant second wife (Joanne Woodward). He’d have punched her lights out before if only she hadn’t been so good at diving out of the way. As it is he manages to throw her down the stairs. The film kicks off with him ill-temperedly whacking her over the head with a pillow.

This is the kind of film where violence against women is treated as a running gag.

*Let’s try to sell it as a wacky comedy*.

Lydia (Jean Seberg), wife of psychiatrist Dr West (Patrick O’Neal) treating Samson for writer’s block, doesn’t have the courage to make it plain to his creepy colleague Dr Vorbeck (Werner Peters) that she doesn’t fancy him when he endlessly paws her and slaps her rear so he takes this as the green light to attempt to rape her. That’s another running gag.

Surly loud-mouthed bully Samson gets a free pass because he’s an artist, a poet with one poor-selling volume of poetry, and unable to find the time or space to complete his masterpiece. He would have more time if he didn’t spend so much of it chasing women.

At my count, he gets through at least four – Lydia, office secretary Miss Walnicki (Sue Ann Lngdon), a client (he cleans carpets for a living) Evelyn (Zohra Lampert), and Dr Kropotkin (Collen Dewhurst), another colleague of Dr West, not to mention the current wife he drives demented and the previous wife for whom he is being aggressively pursued for alimony.

You can see how director Irvin Kershner was a shoo-in for The Flim-Flam Man/One Born Every Minute (1967) because at every opportunity he tries to turn simple dramatic confrontation that enhance the story into needless chases that divert it and extract slapstick from material that in no way suggests it’s ripe for such an approach.

*Trivia lovers note: The John “Redcap” Thaw in the supporting feature “Dead Man’s Chest” is the same John Thaw from “The Sweeney” and “Morse*“.

There’s a story in here somewhere and a pretty barmy one at that if you set aside the poor poet’s endless battle against a world that fails to understand his genius and his dodging of the alimony. Rightfully diagnosed as some kind of sociopath by yet another of Dr West’s colleagues, the needle-happy Dr Menken (Clive Revill), he is admitted to a psychiatric hospital initially as a way of dodging his creditors and providing him with space and time to write.

Again, his most creative use of his time is to make out with Lydia and Krokoptin. But since he is spotted in a hydro-bath/ripple bath with naked Lydia, the vengeful husband gives the go-ahead to perform some kind of lobotomy on the poet, on the assumption it will dull his violent tendencies. (It doesn’t work.) The opportunity to satirise the psychiatric profession takes second place to another opportunity for a chase.

Anomalies abound. Samson’s character is clearly drawn on Welsh poet Dylan Thomas who exploited his fame and made his money on recital tours. Performing is against the broke Samson’s principles and he turns viciously on his audience of appreciative women. Despite demanding center stage, when offered it he turns it down. He lambasts middle-aged women but has little against those younger members of the species more susceptible to his charms. He only has to tell Miss Walnicki she has “pouty lips” and she falls into his arms.

All this has going for it are the performances. Sean Connery (Marnie, 1964), it has to be said, certainly exhibits screen charisma though this is not as far removed as he would like from the macho James Bond. Joanne Woodward (From the Terrace, 1960) – switching from her normal brunette to blonde – is excellent as the downtrodden waitress wife, but on the occasions when she is spiky enough to put him in his place soon regrets her temerity.

Jean Seberg (Pendulum, 1969) – switching from blonde to brunette and paid more ($125,000 to Woodward’s $100,000) – is good as the sexually frustrated rich housewife. And Patrick O’Neal (Stiletto, 1969) looks as if he is desperate to throw a punch. Elliott Baker (Luv, 1967) wrote the screenplay based on his own novel.

You do sometimes wonder at the knuckle-headedness of stars. Was this all that was offered to Connery at his James Bond peak? Or was it a pet project? I doubt if it would have been made with another big star – you couldn’t see even the macho Steve McQueen entering this territory and the likes of Paul Newman wouldn’t go near it.

Theoretically, studio head honcho Jack Warner gets the blame for this. He didn’t like Kershner’s cut and ordered it re-edited but I’d be hard put to see how his hand could be any less heavy than that of the director.

That’s two stinkers in a week. If you want proof of just how rampant sexism was in Hollywood check out a double bill of this and A Guide to a Married Man (1967).

An insult.

Heller in Pink Tights (1960) ****

Taken on its own merits, George Cukor’s western is a highly enjoyable romp. Hardly your first choice for the genre, Cukor ignores the tenets laid down by John Ford and Howard Hawks and the film is all the better for it. Although there are stagecoach chases, gunfighters and Native Americans, don’t expect upstanding citizens rescuing good folk. Instead of stunning vistas Cukor chooses to spend his budget on lavish costumes and sets.

You can see he knows how to use a colour palette, and there is red or a tinge of it in every scene (to the extent of rather a lot of red-haired folk), and although this might not be your bag – and you may not even notice it – it is what makes a Cukor production so lush. The film might start with comedic overtones but by the end you realise it is serious after all.

Angela (Sophia Loren) is the coquettish leading lady and Tom (Anthony Quinn) the actor-manager of a theatrical company managing to stay one step ahead of its creditors, in the main thanks her propensity for spending money she doesn’t have. Of course, once gunfighter Clint (Steve Forrest) wins Loren in a poker game, things go askew.

Anthony Quinn (Guns for San Sebastian, 1968) had never convinced me as a romantic lead, but here there is genuine charisma between the two stars. Sophia Loren (Five Miles to Midnight, 1962) is at her most alluring, in dazzling outfits and occasionally in costumes as skin-tight as censors would allow in those days, but with a tendency to use beauty as a means to an end, with the conviction that a smile (or occasionally more) will see her out of any scrape. There is no doubt she is totally beguiling. But that is not enough for Quinn, as she is inclined to include him in her list of dupes.

While primarily a love story and a tale of theatrical woes set against the backdrop of a western, when it comes to dealing with the tropes of the genre Cukor blows it out of the water. We open with a stagecoach chase but our heroes are only racing away from debt until they reach the safety of a state line. We have a gunfighter, but instead of a shoot-out being built up, minutes ticking by as tension rises, Cukor’s gunman just shoots people in sudden matter-of-fact fashion.

Best of all, George Cukor (Justine, 1969) extracts tremendous comedy from the overbearing actors, each convinced of their own genius, and the petty jealousies and intrigue that are endemic in such a troupe. An everyday story of show-folk contains as much incipient drama as the more angst-ridden A Star Is Born (1954), his previous venture into this arena.

From the guy who gave us The Philadelphia Story (1940) with all its sophisticated comedy, it’s quite astonishing that Cukor extracts so much from a picture where the laughs, mostly from throwaway lines, are derived from less substantial material. Quinn (his third film in a row with Cukor) has never been better, no Oscar-bait this time round, just a genuine guy, pride always to the forefront, king of his domain inside his tiny theatrical kingdom, out of his depth in the big wide world, and unable to contain the “heller.”

I won’t spoil it for you but there are two wonderful character-driven twists that set the world to rights.

There is a tremendous supporting cast with former silent film star Ramon Novarro (Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ, 1925) as a duplicitous businessman, former child star Margaret O’Brien, another star from a previous era in Edmund Lowe (Cukor’s Dinner at Eight, 1933), and Eileen Eckhart. Dudley Nichols (Stagecoach, 1939) and Walter Bernstein, who wrote a previous Loren romance That Kind of Women (1959) and had a hand in The Magnificent Seven (1960), do an excellent job of adapting the Louis L’Amour source novel Heller with a Gun, especially considering that contained an entirely different story.

Without a doubt it’s Cukor’s picture but Loren and Quinn combine to make it such a believable delight.