Comedy – Page 2 – The Magnificent 60s

The Thrill of It All (1963) ****

Has three unusual distinctions for a Doris Day comedy. First of all, it’s feminist. Secondly, it’s prophetic. Third, and perhaps most interesting of all, is that it plays exactly into expectations – for completely different reasons – for audiences sixty years apart. Only the ending would split the audiences.

And this is a somewhat mature Doris Day. Having shucked off Rock Hudson and Cary Grant, she was no longer stuck in a relatively mindless, however charming, love story following the usual formula of girl-meets-boy girl-loses-boy girl-gets-boy. Here she’s contented housewife Beverly Boyer married to successful obstetrician Dr Gerald Boyer (James Garner) with two kids apt to cause disruption but whose main purpose, equally unusually, is to make caustic comment about grown-up behavior. There is one magnificent outlandish set-piece involving soap powder but the slapstick is toned down and there’s a gentle satire of the television industry and advertising.

There’s only one downside to the marriage, her husband is being called out at all hours to deliver babies and that’s such a worthy calling what decent wife could complain about such absences even if it means spoiled dinners and missing events.

However, everything is turned upside down when by pure chance Beverly takes on the role of becoming the onscreen spokesperson for a brand of soap called Happy Soap. This being in the days of live television – so this is set strictly in the 1950s hence the more pronounced tone of a woman’s place being in the home – she has to do the advertisement live on air and her fumbling and inexperience touch a chord with audiences who respond with such vigor that she is offered a contract that puts her in the position of earning substantially more than her husband. How dare she?

Naturally, the demands placed upon her by the advertising company turns the domestic tables. She’s the one coming home late and he’s the one seen as her adjunct. The soap powder boss is so determined to keep her he fulfills every whim – even when such wishes are not made with any seriousness. So she wakes up one morning with a swimming pool in the back yard which virtually demands that a car drive straight into it.

The battle of the sexes comes down a battle of women’s rights (yes, they are mentioned) against men’s rights, in other words freedom vs toeing the line. Rather than delighted at her extra dough, he’s infuriated that she’s infringing on his perceived role as being the sole provider for the family.

Eventually, he decides the only way to bring her to her senses is to arouse her jealousy by being seen in the company of other women. But that only works up to a point. And she only gives in when she is made to realize – by the only narrative misstep as far as the contemporary audience is concerned – that his job is much more important than hers.

While this is the first of two pairings – the other being Move Over, Darling the same year – between Doris Day and James Garner (Hour of the Gun, 1967) is lacks the purer screen chemistry she found with Cary Grant and Rock Hudson and you feel the plot has been written to accommodate this deficit. There’s little requirement for intimacy or proper wooing, much less for the misunderstandings that fueled the previous pairings.

Doris Day’s haplessness is put to a different use, as it is initially the reason why she proves so appealing to television audiences.

Whether women in the 1960s had to keep to themselves their rooting for the career women in Beverly being given a chance to shine, or whether – the beginnings of the modern feminist movement dating from the publication of The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan published in 1963 – she was seen as a poster girl for the movement I’m not qualified to judge.

These days, however, Beverly would be viewed as an early champion of women’s rights and that, regardless of how important it was that a man tasked with delivering babies had a woman at home to make his dinner and mop his brow, his demands should not take priority.

While there aren’t as many outright laffs as in previous Doris Day comedies, the feminist angle provides the picture with an unusual worthiness, not something you’d go looking for in Day’s portfolio.

Directed by Norman Jewison (The Thomas Crown Affair, 1968) and written by Carl Reiner (The Art of Love, 1965).

Passage of time has made this more important than the material might suggest. Gets extra marks for serious intent.

Doctor in Love (1960) ****

Chortled all the way through. You can see why it was the biggest film at the British box office in 1960. Dirk Bogarde had turned up his nose at repeating the character for the fourth time and went off to make more serious pictures like Victim (1961) which, it transpired, dented his box office appeal. Replacement Michael Craig (Mysterious Island, 1961), while brawnier, passes this particular screen test with flying colors though he has his work cut out to hold his own against such practised scene stealers as James Robertson Justice (Mayerling, 1968) and Leslie Phillips (The Fast Lady, 1962) and once Virginia Maskell (The Wild and the Willing, 1962) enters proceeding her coolness makes the camera her own.

I was surprised how much this relied on innuendo. But this is a gentler exercise in smut than the sniggering guffawing Carry On approach. And there’s little chance of it descending into misogyny since the females hold all the aces. The plot is episodic and none the worse for that and even a diversion into a strip club, which might suggest a narrative clutching at straws, proves a surprising highpoint.

Basic story shifts Dr Hare (Michael Craig) out of hospital and into general practice which provides ample comedic opportunity via patients and colleagues. But, first of all, just to confuse matters and as if the producers were worried the series might not survive outside the boundaries of St Swithins Hospital, the tale begins with him returning to hospital with what turns out to be jaundice.

Cue the booming interventions of Sir Lancelot Spratt (James Robertson Justice) and the first of the love stories wherein Hare and Dr Hinxman (Nicholas Parsons) are rivals for flighty Nurse Sally Nightingale (Moira Redmond), who, in the first of many knocks to the male ego, while playing off one against the other goes off with another man. Before she does, Dr Hinxman takes revenge by prescribing all sorts of medications which will leave Hare so indisposed he is unable to respond to the nurse’s ardor.

Back in civvy street, as a GP, Dr Hare has to fend off predatory female patients and secretary Kitten Strudwick (Carole Lesley) and deal with standard comedic issues such as the boy who gets his head jammed in a cooking pot and the less common task of explaining the facts of life to a 40-year-old virgin. His boss Dr Cardew (Nicholas Phipps) is under the thumb of a wife who has shipped out to California only to summon her husband every now and then. The ever-amorous Dr Burke (Leslie Phillips) fills in and is the prime mover in an episode that involves strippers Dawn (Joan Sims) and Leonora (Liz Fraser). There’s a particularly good reversal in a drunken scene where the totally inebriated Wildewinde (Reginal Beckwith) completes all the police drunk tests (if that’s what they’re called) with ease.

When Dr Burke is incapacitated, his place is taken by Dr Nicola Barrington (Moira Redmond). And that should have been enough of a plot to see the picture through but the movie doubles down on complication. Dr Barrington fends off Dr Hare and when Nurse Nightingale reappears Barrington in due course quits. Dr Spratt is also on board for further scene-stealing duties including ruling the roost in a strip club and undergoing an operation.

The romantic situation is resolved, Dr Spratt is put in his place temporarily and our hero effects a return to the hospital.

I wouldn’t say the writing (by Nicholas Phipps) is of the highest caliber but the jokes come at an assembly line pace and the cast are superb, barely a cast member incapable of stealing a scene. You hire James Robertson Justice and Leslie Phillips at your peril. Without Dirk Bogarde hogging the scenery, this flows much better than others in the series, with the supporting cast being more than just foil to a star who was a major box office attraction at the time. And it helps that the women – Moira Redmond (Nightmare, 1964), Virginia Maskell, Carole Lesley (Three on a Spree, 1961), and Carry On regulars Joan Sims and Liz Fraser – are even more adept at scene-stealing than the men and not merely foil for misogynist jokes as in the Carry On series.

Director Ralph Thomas (The Wild and the Willing) seems to have found a new lease of life without having to deal with Dirk Bogarde and brings a certain verve to proceedings, especially in tripping up male ego.

Comedy is such an odd one to judge. Many a time I have sat through with scarcely a titter movies I’ve been told are hilarious. Other times I’ve been told to give them a free ride because they are making a point. So I stick to my own rule.

Make me laugh – I don’t care how – and this had me laughing all the way through.

A Pocketful of Miracles (1961) ***

Frank Capra was yesterday’s man – one movie in a decade – and 15 years away from the consolation of knowing that his flop It’s A Wonderful Life (1948) was on its way to becoming, arguably, along with The Wizard of Oz (1939), America’s most beloved picture thanks to annual Xmas showings on television and subsequently in the cinema.

There’s nothing new here, either, it’s a remake of his Lady for a Day (1933) and it’s more of a fable lacking punch than some of his more famous pictures. And the main interest for contemporary audiences may well be that it marks the debut of Ann-Margret (The Swinger, 1966) who gets to sing but not shake her booty in trademark fashion. And it takes forever to wind up to a pitch. We’ve got to wade through three subplots before it gets going.

First of all Prohibition gangster Dave (Glenn Ford) meets up with the daughter Queenie (Hope Lang) of a deceased club owner who’s in hock for $20,000. Dave is much taken by the earnest Queen’s determination to repay the debt at the rate of five bucks a week. For no reason at all except narrative necessity, she’s turned into a nightclub singing sensation.

When Prohibition ends, big-time Chicago gangster Steve Darcey (Sheldon Leonard) plans to muscle in on the New York rackets and it takes all Dave’s suave bluster to keep him, temporarily, at bay. The end of Prohibition comes as a relief to Queenie and with the nightclub shut down she agrees to marry Dave with the proviso that he give up the gangster life and retire to her home town in Maryland and they become an ordinary couple.

Very much on the fringes of this is Apple Annie (Bette Davis), a street panhandler who sells “lucky” apples, one her most satisfied customers being Dave. When her illegitimate daughter Louise (Ann-Margret) returns from Spain to New York with rich beau Carlos (Peter Mann) in tow, Annie’s in a pickle, because she’s been keeping up the pretence of being a wealthy woman.

Queenie insists they help Annie to maintain her charade and Dave goes along with the idea because he’s worried his luck will run out. So Annie is turned into a sophisticate, manners polished, furnished with a luxurious apartment, including a butler, and fake husband Henry (Thomas Mitchell).

None of the stars seem to know how to handle the material, and for most of the time they act as if in a pastiche, like they were throwing winks to the audience. Glenn Ford (Fate Is the Hunter, 1964), generally adept at comedy, plays this all wrong. He wanted the part so badly he helped finance the picture. Bette Davis (Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, 1962) overacts, as does Peter Falk (Murder Inc, 1961), though the Academy didn’t think so and threw him a second Oscar nomination. Hope Lang and Ann-Margret, playing it straight, get it right, though the latter, vivacious personality to the fore, wins that battle by more than a nose. Might well have worked if original choice Frank Sinatra hadn’t ankled the project.

Hal Kanter and Harry Tugend wrote the remake, based on a Damon Runyon story. It was always a tricky business to capture the stylistic essence of Runyon, Guys and Dolls (1955) the most effective transition, Lady for a Day better than this and Little Miss Marker filmed three times.

Once the Bette Davis pretence enters the equation, the tale takes on some narrative drive and the quintessential Capra shines through. But it’s too little too late.

Not the swansong Capra anticipated, but he only has himself to blame.

Come September (1961) ***

The quite superb concept that underpins the traditional unsettling of Rock Hudson is sabotaged by the inclusion of an unnecessary generation gap element and because one of the youngsters is singer Bobby Darin that throws a musical spanner into the works. The basic set-up is that Lisa (Gina Lollobrigida), the Italian lover of wealthy American Robert (Rock Hudson), is fed up with the part-time nature of their relationship. Although their affair dates back six years, it only lasts for the one month (September) he vacations each year in his luxurious villa on the Ligurian coast.

She’s so annoyed at his lack of commitment that she’s about to marry posh Englishman Spencer (Ronald Howard), that imminent event only put off by the unexpected earlier-than-usual arrival of Robert. Matters are further complicated because his enterprising Italian butler Maurice (Walter Slezak) hires out the villa to paying guests for the other eleven months. To explain the owner’s sudden arrival, Maurice persuades his guests to go along with the notion that Robert is a former owner fallen on hard times deluded into thinking he still possesses the property.

The guests are a gaggle of young women, including psychology major Sandy (Sandra Dee) who proceeds to analyze Robert, and they are herded around by formidable chaperone Margaret (Brenda de Banzie) who prevents Lisa sneaking into her lover’s bedroom.

So enough plot to be getting on with. You’d assume Spencer is going to turn up, maybe with his equally formidable sisters, to cause ructions at the villa. Lisa appears to enjoy making Robert wait the way he has kept her wait, so a gentle shift in power, and there’s going to be an inevitable bust-up so we expect a quick shift into the will-she-won’t-she scenario. Plus, there’s the whole issue of Robert claiming back his villa and dealing with the over-entrepreneurial Maurice.

Instead, the second act enters a whole new realm. Unless one of the girls was going to make a play for Robert, there’s not much reason for them to be there except for the nuisance value and to allow Margaret to flex her authority. An unwelcome quartet of young men, led by Tony (Bobby Darin), embark on the equally unwelcome task of wooing of the young ladies, Tony having his eyes on Sandy. Although various romantic entanglements are enacted, that’s not what takes center stage.

Instead, the bulk of the middle section scarcely involves the Robert-Lisa quandary and instead it’s devoted to an endless battle between Tony and Robert as the younger specimen attempts to prove he is mentally and physically superior. Now the one element that had made these Rock Hudson comedies work was his helplessness. He may occasionally be smart or wealthy but the whole point of these stories was for a woman to run rings around him or at the very least drag him way out of his comfort zone.

Seeing Robert best Tony – endlessly – takes the shine off the picture and it’s not until Robert is revealed as a sanctimonious hypocrite, living by a double standard, that the movie catches fire again as Lisa storms off in a huff and we can settle down to some good old-fashioned will-she-won’t-she.

This proves a very successful change of pace for Gina Lollobrigida, and she reveals herself to be such a splendid comedienne that it became part of her repertoire – reunited with Hudson for Strange Bedfellows (1965) and leading a pack of men a merry dance in Buona Sera Mrs Campbell (1968).

There’s nothing particularly wrong with Rock Hudson. He’s good comedy value, but the second act ruins it. Bobby Darin (Pressure Point, 1962) and Sandra Dee (A Man Could Get Killed, 1966) act as if they’re in a completely different movie, of the frothy beach variety. Walter Slezak (The Caper of the Golden Bulls, 1967) is an adept scene-stealer. Look out for Joel Grey (Cabaret, 1972) in an early role and Brenda de Banzie (I Thank a Fool, 1962).

Directed by Robert Mulligan (The Stalking Moon, 1969) with a screenplay by Oscar-winning Stanley Shapiro (Bedtime Story, 1964) and Maurice Richlin (All in a Night’s Work, 1961).

A hybrid that rocks the wrong boat.

Surprise Package (1960) **

Poses two questions. Is this every bit as bad as Once More with Feeling, Stanley Donen’s previous picture? Yep, sorry, it’s every bit as wretched. The second question is: how on earth did Donen go from this mess to sublime romantic thriller Charade three years later? Well, the answer might simply be in the casting. Yul Brynner is no Cary Grant. And in this movie he’s not even Yul Brynner.

My guess is he’s meant to be a humorous twist on the Brynner screen persona. But playing a gangster with a thick Noo Yoik accent was always the preserve of the dumb supporting actor not the star. And since Yul Brynner isn’t any more convincing in this than in Once More with Feeling the project is in trouble from the start.

We’re given too much of this faux gangster drivel at the start when mob kingpin Nico (Yul Brynner) is collecting tributes from his underlings. Then, for no particular reason, he is deported, sent back into exile to his homeland of Greece. There he encounters the only smart guy in the picture, the corrupt chief of police Stefan (Eric Pohlmann) who’s so astute in the bribery department that all Nico receives in return for his thousand dollar bribe is to be told he won’t be arrested for bribery.

Stefan sets up Nico to meet another exile, deposed King Pavel II (Noel Coward), whose accent makes no sense either unless he was exclusively raised in high class British society, schooled at Eton, a member of upper class clubs etc etc, otherwise how to explain the plummy tones unless this is also meant to be as over-the-top gag as Nico’s Noo Yoik accent. Nico plans to buy the king’s crown for a million bucks. But the boys back home stiff him and instead of the cash send him instead his girlfriend – the surprise package of the title – mob moll Gabby (Mitzi Gaynor), and the ongoing gag here is that, what with Nico trying to elevate himself in society, Gabby’s table manners and speech let him down.

So with no cash forthcoming, what’s a gangster to do to pad out his exile? So Nico decides to steal the crown. And if there had been either a hint of the classic heist a la Grand Slam (1960) or Topkapi (1964) or its alternative, the totally inept thief, then we might have been onto something. But instead we’ve got much what we might expect from such a poor piece – not much. And in any case, the laffs are meant to come from another party, representing the king’s citizens, and led by Dr Panzer (George Coulouris) who wants the crown restored to its proper home. Two crooks chasing the same prize? What a crazy idea. But this works as well as the rest of the picture.

Thanks to Gabby’s principles, the crown goes in neither’s pockets. To make a buck, Nico and the king transform the latter’s villa into a casino with Gabby, now Mrs Nico, employed as the hat check girl.

Stanely Donen made three pictures in 1960 and then not another man for three years, which suggested he was a) working on too many projects at once and b) that break sure refreshed his cinematic skills. Just like Once More with Feeling he gets wrong virtually most of the directorial decisions, beginning with the accents and ending up with the storyline and characters you don’t care a button for, which wouldn’t have mattered if they could generate a laugh.

Yul Brynner followed this up with his iconic performance in The Magnificent Seven (1960) so perhaps he can be excused. This pretty much killed off the career of Mitzi Gaynor (South Pacific, 1958) – it was another three years till she appeared on screen again, and that was her final picture. It took Noel Coward (Bunny Lake Is Missing, 1965) four years to get another screen role.

Written by Harry Kurnitz (Once More with Feeling) from the Art Buchwald novel so I am assuming this was greenlit before the results of the previous Donen-Brynner teaming were known.

At least Charade revived Donen’s career.

A New Kind of Love (1963) ***

Just about scrapes by, small thanks to Paul Newman’s atrocious Texan accent, Joanne Woodward’s frightful blonde wig – more Lady Penelope than classy Parisian – and Maurice Chevalier serenading a horde of drunken women. Maurice Chevalier? Well, of course this is Paris and Chevalier always sings regardless of being peripheral to the story.

Suffers, too, from being a smart-ass picture, in the vain hope of hitting the satirical bullseye taking swipes at everything in sight, from women barging into a sale to haute couture, airline stewardesses, journalism and even Paris. And there’s a string of fantasy sequences that might (or might not) have worked at the time but fail to gell now. Takes forever for the principals to even be brought close enough together to envisage romance and it doesn’t help that that supposedly most eagle-eyed of creatures, the reporter, can’t see through a simple disguise.

Tomboy Sam Blake (Joanne Woodward) is a pirate. Not the swashbuckling kind, leaping through the rigging, which would be worth seeing I’m sure, but the industrial kind, stealing the designs of better designers for a New York department store.

Steve Sherman (Paul Newman) is piratical, stealing other people’s wives. When his latest conquest turns out to be married to his boss, he is shifted off to Paris as – punishment? Yep, you can see the awry thinking behind this one.

Meanwhile, Sam and a gang from her store, boss Joe (George Tobias) and colleague Lena (Thelma Ritter), are off to Paris on a spying expedition to the annual fashion shows. Lena has her eyes on romance with the boss but is beaten to that prize by the glamorous Felicienne (Eva Gabor). Sam isn’t interested in romance. She’s a career woman, or in the parlance of the day, a “semi-virgin” (though I suspect that description was a screenwriter’s invention). Neither is Steve, for that matter, at least not of the long-lasting kind, he’s happily tearing around with a woman on each arm, enjoying the more nefarious sights of the French capital while Sam is knee deep in work.

After Sam gets a makeover, complete with long cigarette-holder Lady Penelope style, resulting in the bouffant hair style and is sitting in a café, she is approached by Steve who, assuming she is a high-class courtesan, attempts to interview her for the article he hopes will save his job. They’ve bumped into each other, she disdaining his obvious approaches, a couple of times but then she was rigged out in a short haircut and dark glasses. And this is such a complete transformation he doesn’t recognize her. And, in order to make this movie work, the audience has to play along.

As does Sam, keeping up the pretense of being a high-class hooker in order to get her revenge on the man she despises. The fictions she dishes up, of dalliances with powerful men, are published in his column and their success ensures he’s not fired. Felicienne is edged out of the way, revealed as previously a sex worker, so Lena can make her play for Joe.

Before that ploy can work, Steve sets up Sam with Joe who sees through the disguise. There’s a whole bundle of other unlikely shenanigans before we reach the compulsory happy ending.

Hollywood was fairly enamored with the sex worker or goodtime girl – Never on Sunday (1960), Butterfield 8 (1960), Irma La Douce (1963), for example, with the Oscars chipping in to show their support – and another (yes, this had been done before) comedic twist seemed to offer potential especially with two big stars going all risqué.

Paul Newman (The Prize, 1963) never quite worked out how to manage comedy until Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) where he maintained his usual persona and just delivered the lines rather than trying to wring laughs out of them. He also has a bad habit of trying to demonstrate character by fidgeting, so his face, eyes and hands are all over the place.

Joanne Woodward (A Big Hand for the Little Lady/ Big Deal in Dodge City, 1966) is better value initially but when she takes on the disguise there’s too much of the knowing wink. Six-time Oscar nominee Thelma Ritter (Boeing, Boeing, 1965) has a better idea of how to play comedy by just sticking to the knitting.

Writer-director Melville Shavelson (The Pigeon That Took Rome, 1962) just about makes it work and when it doesn’t throws in sufficient distraction.

Not the Newman-Woodward team’s finest hour.

The Swinger (1966) ***

As chosen by my readers, this is the most popular movie on the Blog, so I thought I’d check back and see how it stood up. Having seen it before, of course, I knew what to expect. And despite the star’s acting abilities being better showcased in items like Once a Thief (1965) and Stagecoach (1966) I still found this effortlessly put together to deliver a movie that presented what studio and possibly the star felt was the best version (in terms of instant audience appeal) of herself. Think fun, fun, fun, if lightweight, lightweight, lightweight.

Pure confection. There was a sub-genre of romantic comedy pictures that spun on a simple plot device to throw together actors with terrific screen charisma. Doris Day, Rock Hudson and Cary Grant did little more than meet a potential new partner, fall out with them and then resolve their differences. The importance of actors of this caliber was the difference between a high class piece of froth and mere entertainment. This falls into the latter category, neither Ann-Margret nor Anthony Franciosa reaching the high standards of the likes of That Touch of Mink or Pillow Talk.

That said, this was clearly custom-made for Ann-Margret and her growing fan-base. Despite displaying unexpectedly serious acting chops in Once a Thief (1965) this plays more obviously to her strengths. She gets to sing, dance and generally throw herself around. The face, hair, smile and body combine in a sensational package.

Kelly Olsson (Ann-Margret) plays a budding writer so naïve that she tries to sell her stories to Girl-Lure, a Playboy-type magazine, owned by high-class Brit Sir Hubert Charles (Robert Coote) and run by Ric Colby (Anthony Franciosa). When her work is rejected, Olsson writes an imitation sex-novel, The Swinger, purportedly based on her own life. Sir Hubert buys the idea and Ric sets up a series of accompanying photo-shoots using Kelly as the model until he discovers her book is pure fiction.

The setting is an excuse to show an avalanche of young women in bikinis. The slight story is justification enough for Ann-Margret to strut her stuff as a singer and dancer. Since her stage show depended more on energy than singing, this effectively showcases her act.

So two-dimensional are the principals, you are not going to mistake any of these characters for actual characters. The film lacks such depth you would not be surprised if the likes of Elvis Presley or Cliff Richard popped up. The comedy is very lite, an initial attempt at satire soon dropped, the few bursts of slapstick seeming to catch the stars unawares.

But that’s not to say it’s not enjoyable, Ann-Margret is a gloriously old-fashioned sex symbol and certainly knows how to shake her booty. The standout (for lack of a better word) scene revolves around body painting. She even gets the chance to ride a motorcycle, one of her trademarks. Anthony Franciosa (Go Naked in the World, 1961) has little to do except smile. Yvonne Romain (The Frightened City, 1961) has a thankless role as Ric’s girlfriend.

Director George Sidney teams up with Ann-Margret for the third time after Bye Bye Birdie (1963) and Viva Las Vegas (1964). This was his penultimate outing in a 20-year Hollywood career whose highlights included Anchors Aweigh (1945), The Three Musketeers (1948), Annie Get Your Gun (1950), Showboat (1951) and Pal Joey (1957). So he certainly had the musical pedigree to ensure the songs had some pizzazz but clearly less impact on the script which was reputedly scrambled together at short notice by Lawrence Roman (McQ, 1974) to fulfil a studio commitment to the star.

Alice’s Restaurant (1969) **

It might have been better if I’d come to this in a hazy glow of nostalgia. But I’d skipped this back in the day and although I’m a big fan of Arthur Penn I was never sparked to seek this out on VHS/DVD. So I’m coming to it for the first time. And I’m sorry to say it just feels like an indulgent mess.

It’s hard enough getting novelists to hack about their sacred texts sufficiently to turn them into workable screenplays, never mind putting the author center stage and not only have him narrate his tale but act it out. And when you discover that he’s not much of an actor, you’re not left with much but almost a documentary with drama coming from outside, from the forces of authority trying to shape the rebellious young to fit the pre-existing mold.

I have to confess I was never a big fan of folk music, excepting Bob Dylan I guess and you can argue he was only a folkie at the outset of his career. I was only vaguely aware of Woody Guthrie and don’t remember in the late 1960s his son ever touching the public consciousness overseas. So this might simply be one of those American movies that didn’t travel, like comedy or most musicals which had trouble matching up with foreign appreciation of those genres which tended to be nationalistic.

The narrative drive is Arlo Guthrie (Arlo Guthrie) dodging the draft. This was a right-of-passage especially for all young creatives, who would tend to be the most openly rebellious, but equally for a whole generation of young men who didn’t want to get themselves killed in a war they saw as senseless and who had gone off the idea of war altogether.

In Britain national conscription had ended in the late 1950s but there were no tales of people trying to dodge the draft. Elvis Presley had done his duty in America but Cassius Clay (later Muhammed Ali) did not – and was stripped of his World Championship. But away from all these high-profile cases, youngsters could avoid the draft by enrolling in colleges or universities, or pretending to have homosexual tendences, or shooting themselves (literally) in the foot, or claiming, as Guthrie did, that he had inherited a genetic illness – his father was dying of Hodgkins Disease – and when that doesn’t work acting mad, which doesn’t either.

What does get Arlo off national service is his involvement in a bizarre incident which made headlines at the time when he was arrested for littering and fined. When he reiterates his lack of objection to littering to the draft board, he is deemed unfit and is let off, as satirical a comment on the war between youth and authority as much as on the Vietnam conflict.

*There was a real Alice and there was a real restaurant and there was an unusual tie-in.*

There’s a story in here somewhere but it’s so ramshackle that, at the remove of over half a century, it doesn’t even appeal to those who worship the alternative lifestyle. After being chucked out of college, he heads off to join friends Alice (Pat Quinn) and Ray Brock (James Broderick) who have taken over a deconsecrated church in Massachusetts with Alice planning to set up nearby her eponymous restaurant, and not entirely for philanthropic reasons, Arlo composing a jingle to pull in customers.

Alice, disgruntled with lack of attention from Ray, begins an affair with Shelly (Michael McClanathan), an artist and ex-heroin addict, and every now and then Arlo returns to New York to visit his father Woody in hospital (Arlo is nowhere to be seen in A Complete Unknown). There’s a motocross race, and Shelly later dies in a motorbike crash. Woody dies too and Alice and Ray get married in a hippie-style wedding.

But most of this seems viewed even then through a time capsule as if Penn is assiduously recording a counter culture. The commercial success of this film and Easy Rider the same year triggered a cycle of youth-oriented movies that put Hollywood into an even deeper financial hole

Sorry, folks, this just didn’t click. Maybe I was expecting too much. But the desultory narrative and the lack of any real acting made me switch off. While it has some of the offbeat vibe of Arthur Penn’s Mickey One (1965), it lacked that film’s compelling drive. Written by the director and Venable Herndon in his debut based on the Arlo Guthrie book.

Major disappointment

Buona Sera Mrs Campbell (1968) ****

Works a treat. And works like clockwork, the set-up so meticulous, it doesn’t put a comedic foot wrong and even allows space, at exactly the right time, for the ticking timebomb to be sorted out. Gags galore. Sight gags, sound gags and observational gags, but most, unusually, are snippy, the kind of sharp remarks that people make under tension. And, heaven help us, there’s farce, and that works, too. It rarely does in American movies because it’s usually an adaptation of a Broadway play and the movie director feels hidebound by stage conventions. Here, this is an original screenplay, so writer-director Melvin Frank (Strange Bedfellows, 1963) works to his own beat.

You’ll remember the “who’s the father” narrative ploy from Mamma Mia (2008) – though this preceded the Abba bash by four decades. Twenty years after the Yanks liberated an Italian village in World War Two they are back to commemorate the event. Amongst the soldiers, three men desperate to meet the daughter, Gia (Janet Margolin), they each think they sired with Carla (Gina Lollobrigida) and have been supporting with monthly cheques ever since. They don’t know about each other’s involvement but between them have provided an excellent upbringing for Gia who speaks perfect English, having attended American School in Geneva, with enough left over for Carla to live in a fancy house with a maid.

The guys are a disparate bunch. Justin (Peter Lawford) is a philanderer whose wife Lauren (Marian McCargo) dare not let him out of her sight. Phil (Phil Silvers) has a brood and hardly escapes emotional Shirley (Shelley Winters) without one – or all – being attached. The loudmouth exuberant Walter (Telly Savalas) has to bite his tongue when wife Fritzie (Lee Grant) constantly reminds him she hasn’t provided her with a child, when, secretly, he believes she’s the infertile one and Gia the proof.

Initially, this goes the way you expect – and then it doesn’t, confounding all audience expectations. Carla, who had planned to skip town until the celebrations are over, is forced by other circumstances to remain. She’s involved in two subplots – Gia is planning to run off with an older married man to Brazil, and Gina can’t resist the opportunity to get one over on the sniffy local Contessa (Giovanna Galletti). Actually, there’s three subplots if you include Gina trying to keep hold of handsome lover Vittorio (Phillipe Leroy), who initially fears one of the returning soldiers will sweep Carla off her feet and whisk her off to the States, but then becomes very dismissive of her taste in men.

When the secret is revealed, rather than turning on their deceitful husbands, the women are full of praise for them. But that’s only because it’s not the whole secret. They think they discover that out of the goodness of their hearts the men have been sending cash to Carla in memory of their (fictitious) colleague Eddie Campbell who died in the war. The guys, meanwhile, turn against Carla when they become aware of each other’s existence and the fact that not so much just that they have been rooked, collectively, out of $200,000 but that they have individually been helping to bring up what could be another man’s child. Gia, too, on learning of the deceit, is furious and runs away, leaving Carla distraught.

When the true secret emerges, naturally there’s one almighty bust up, with wives and husband and daughter all railing against Carla until Vittorio steps in and explains just what a wonderful mother she has been. This neatly steps over the timebomb, just what possessed Carla to have sex with three men in ten days beyond that they pumped up her ego and brought her food and treats.

There are some brilliant scenes – the streetwalker, the hospital, the car horn that doesn’t work, the missing laundry, the mean Contessa finding a clever way to put down Carla – but mostly it’s held together with the stiffest of glues by an inspired performance by Gina Lollobrigida. Telly Savalas (The Assassination Bureau, 1969) is the pick of the others, playing against type.

Class act from Melvin Frank.

Once More With Feeling (1960) **

At the very least I had thought, given the involvement of classy director Stanley Donen (Charade, 1963) that this might go down as a glorious failure rather than just a straightforward glossy dud thanks to the woeful miscasting of Yul Brynner (The Double Man, 1967) and a bizarre plot. Am sure it must have appeared a welcome change of pace from a string of heavyweight dramas for the actor.

Adapted from the Broadway success by playwright Harry Kurnitz (Goodbye Charlie, 1964) this never escapes its stage origins, too many dramatic entrances, faked dramatic faintings, unwelcome guests ushered out. That would all have been manageable had Yul Brynner shown the slightest instinct for comedy. Bluster doesn’t compensate. Playing a tyrannical orchestra conductor would hardly take any acting for a performer who radiated intensity.

Victor Fabian (Yul Brynner), as egomaniacal and temperamental as you’d expect from a top conductor, is caught in flagrante by harpist wife Dolly (Kay Kendall) with young musician Angela (Shirley Anne Field). After she storms out, he loses his mojo. Worse, his orchestra loses its most efficient fundraiser, since Dolly is the one who keeps donors sweet.

Dolly has wasted no time acquiring a new admirer, esteemed physicist Richard (Geoffrey Toone), and wants a divorce in order to marry him. But wait, there’s a catch. Not the obvious one that Victor turns over a new leaf and determines to win her back, abandoning arrogance in favor of humble ardent wooing.

No, she can’t leave him because, wait for it, they never married. Well that’s not so jaw-dropping as the consequence. He insists that she can’t get a divorce unless she marries him and during an agreed short period together presumably that will give him time to flex his romantic muscles and win her back.

I can only assume that in the sophisitcated circles in which they run, the idea that they have been living in sin might cause her considerable embarrassment. But I’m perplexed at the notion, even for the less permissive times, that this would provoke sufficient scandal – more scandal than getting divorced in the first place? Or that they would expect nobody to notice the sudden marriage and wonder how they have managed to so openly live together? This seems nothing more than a jumbled-up head-over-heels barmy plot strand.

Anyway, she agrees, and he does his best to win her back even to the extent of playing a piece of music, beloved of a sponsor, that he detests.

The plot belongs to the golden age of the screwball comedy but the picture doesn’t play it that way. There’s more to being frenetic in pursuit of laffs than just being frenetic and this never takes off.

While Brynner is strictly one-note and never manages to bring a suggestion of genuine romance into the proceedings, the director is equally at a loss to inject any oomph or style and it looks as if he’s done little more than film a stage show with all its cinematic limitations.

Kay Kendall (Les Girls, 1957) in her final role – she died of leukemia – is equally constricted by a character who huffs and flounces and never embraces the comedy side of screwball.

This was the first of two straight comedies pairing Donen and Brynner and I’m dreading its successor Surprise Package (1960). Kurnitz adapted his own play which had been a decent success on Broadway, so the movie failure can’t all be blamed on him.