Crime/Thriller – The Magnificent 60s

Nobody Runs Forever (1968) / The High Commissioner ****

Character-driven intelligent thriller ripe for re-evaluation. And not just because it stands out from the decade’s genre limitations, neither hero threatened by mysterious forces in the vein of Charade (1963) or Mirage (1965) nor, although espionage elements are involved, fitting into the ubiquitous spy category. Instead, it loads mystery upon mystery and leaves you guessing right to the end.

And a deluge of mystery would not work – even with the London high-life gloss of cocktail parties, casinos and the Royal Box at Wimbledon – were it not for the believable characters. Rough Aussie Outback cop Scobie Malone (Rod Taylor) is despatched to London at the behest of New South Wales prime minister (Leo McKern) to bring home Australian High Commissioner Sir James Quentin (Christopher Plummer) to face a charge of murder.

*Probably a better title than either “Nobody Runs Forever”*
*or “The High Commissioner.”*

Unlike most cop pictures, Malone is not sent to investigate a case, he is merely muscle. While he may have his doubts about the evidence against Quentin, suspected of murdering his first wife, he resists all attempts to re-open the case. Arriving in the middle of a peace conference hosted by the principled Quentin, he agrees to investigate security leaks from Australia House and along the way turns into an impromptu bodyguard when Quentin’s life is endangered. But Quentin’s wife Sheila (Lilli Palmer) and secretary Lisa (Camilla Sparv) are not taken in by the deception and so Malone himself forms part of the mystery.

With a preference for cold beer to expensive champagne, you might expect Malone to be a bull in a china shop. Instead, dressed for the part by the solicitous Quentin, Malone fits easily into high society, taking time out from his duties for a dalliance with the elegant Madame Chalon (Daliah Lavi). The background is not the gloss but the passion the Quentins still feel for each other, she willing to do anything (literally) to save her husband, he losing the thread of an important speech when worried about his wife.

While there is no shortage of suspects for all nefarious activities, red herrings abound and cleverly you are left to make up your own mind, rather than fingers being ostentatiously pointed. There is some delicious comedy between Malone and Quentin’s uptight butler (Clive Revill), enough punch-ups, chases and clever tricks to keep the movie more than ticking along but at its core are the relationships. Malone’s growing respect for Quentin does not overrule duty, Lisa’s evident love for Quentin cannot be taken the obvious further step, Sheila’s overwhelming need to safeguard her husband sends her into duplicitous action.

The politics are surprisingly contemporary, attempts to alleviate hunger and prevent war, and while there was much demonstration during the decade in favor of world peace, this is the only picture I can think of where a politician’s main aim is not self-aggrandisement, greed or corruption. There are some twists on audience expectation – the dinner-jacketed Malone in the casino does not strike a James Bond pose and start to play, he is seduced rather than seducer, and remains a working man throughout.

Rod Taylor (Dark of the Sun, 1968) and Christopher Plummer (Fall of the Roman Empire, 1964) are terrific sparring partners, red-blooded male versus ice-cool character, their jousts verbal rather than physical. The rugged Taylor turns on the charm when necessary, a throwback to his character in Fate Is the Hunter (1964). Thoughts of his wife soften Plummer’s instinctive icy edge. Lilli Palmer (The Counterfeit Traitor) is superb as yet another vulnerable woman, on the surface in total control, but underneath quivering with the fear of loss. Two graduates of the Matt Helm school are given meatier roles, Daliah Lavi (The Silencers, 1966), as seductress-in-chief is a far cry from her stunning roles in The Demon (1963) and The Whip and the Body (1963) – and it still feels a shame to me that she was so ill-served in the way of roles by Hollywood. Camilla Sparv (Murderers Row, 1966) has a more low-key role.

Clive Revill (The Double Man, 1967) has another scene-stealing part and look out for Calvin Lockhart (Dark of the Sun), Burt Kwouk (The Shoes of the Fisherman, 1968) and, shorn of his blond locks, an unrecognizable Derren Nesbit (The Naked Runner, 1967) and in his final role Hollywood legend Franchot Tone (Mutiny on the Bounty, 1935).

Ralph Thomas (Deadlier than the Male, 1967) directs with minimum fuss, always focused on character, although there is a sly plug for Deadlier than the Male in terms of a cinema poster. (Speaking of posters, I couldn’t help notice this interesting advert at an airport for a VC10 promoted as “10derness.”) Wilfred Greatorex (The Battle of Britain, 1969) made his screenplay debut, adapting the bestseller by Jon (The Sundowners) Cleary. This may not be quite a true four-star picture but it is a grade above three-star.

CATCH-UP: Rod Taylor films reviewed in the blog so far are Seven Seas to Calais (1962), Fate Is the Hunter (1964), The Liquidator (1965), The Glass Bottom Boat (1966), Hotel (1967) and Dark of the Sun (1968).

Three Days of the Condor (1975) *****

My belated tribute to the recently-deceased Robert Redford. He’s made a bunch of worthier films and his pair with Paul Newman – Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) and The Sting (1973) – take some beating. But this is the one I go back to the most because it combines worthiness with thrills and two stunning performances.

Outstanding thriller in the paranoia vein with Robert Redford delivering one of his best performances. Never mind the terrific score by Dave Grusin (Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here, 1969), the soundtrack to this tale of political chicanery involving the C.I.A. is the chattering of computer printers.

Joe Turner (Robert Redford) is an amiable geek – beanie hat, unfashionable Solex moped – working in an obscure department of the C.I.A. (although one where the receptionist has a gun in her desk drawer) looking for codes in novels. He doesn’t quite conform to type, irritating his rules-conscious colleagues, late for work, illicitly using the back door instead of the front. On returning from collecting lunch, he finds the entire department massacred. His Washington boss Higgins (Cliff Robertson) promises to bring him in but instead arranges an ambush.

On the run, unable to return to his own apartment, his girlfriend Janice (Tina Chen) among those murdered, he kidnaps photographer Kathy (Faye Dunawaye) at first content to find somewhere to hole up but then using her to help him resolve the issues. It’s soon apparent that Turner, in his desk job, has stumbled upon a secret organisation deep within the C.I.A. In a touch of the Hitchcocks, director Sydney Pollack (The Scalphunters, 1968) lets the audience know what Turner does not, that Higgins and his bosses Wabash (John Houseman) and Atwood (Addison Powell) are out for his blood, assassin Joubert (Max von Sydow) the triggerman.

But as Joubert points out, Turner is an amateur and that makes him unpredictable. The killers believe Turner will easily be dealt with. But he’s not as stupid or unresourceful as they might expect. The opening section reveals just how handy he is: fixing a computer, knowledgeable about plants and for some reason the weather, working out an insoluble murder in a book, and most important of all has learned to trust nobody especially his bosses. It turns out he’s got a few of his own tricks up his sleeve, not least how to work a telephone exchange to his advantage and how to flush out his adversaries.

There’s a terrific game of cat-and-mouse and in possibly the only picture in the early cycle of conspiracy pictures the first character capable of harnessing technology.

You often read about character-driven movies but that’s only usually in the sense of dramatic flaws or preferring exploring personality to action. This is character-driven in an entirely different way. Turner’s life depends on him being able to read character, to notice what’s wrong or false in a given situation, to assess the qualities of those around him. For much of the dialogue, Turner is observing as much as listening, watching for behavioural clues.

*Original title of “Six Days of the Condor” “wasn’t snappy enough for Hollywood.*

Even without the presence of Kathy, this would have been a highly satisfactory thriller. But the tentative romance takes it to another level. Unusually, she is a loner, whose photographic metier is loneliness. That they bond at all is surprising, that they do so with such touching emotion brings unexpected intimacy.

There’s a very contemporary feel to the politics, not just American authorities doing what they want but the idea that liberal values will vanish the moment there is genuine threat to loss of the high living standards citizens enjoy or, worse, oil or gas rationing or famine. “Do we have plans to invade the Middle East?” Turner demands of Higgins. You can’t get more contemporary than that! And at one point Turner uses unsuspecting people as a human shield.

For such a fast-moving picture, time is taken out to understand the characters involved, Higgins not quite as far up the espionage tree as he should be, Joubert’s hobby the meticulous painting of model soldiers. A peck on the cheek is all the information we are given that Tina, a work colleague, is Turner’s girlfriend.

As Kathy moves from indignant captive to welcome participant, you can see that she represents the desire of many liberals to give the authorities a bloody nose. There is one brilliant moment at the end where Turner’s fears overcome his feelings and the devastation of what she perceives as emotional betrayal is seen on her face.

But this is Robert Redford’s picture. He was on an almighty box office roll – Jeremiah Johnson (1972), The Sting (1973), The Way We Were (1973), The Great Gatsby (1974), The Great Waldo Pepper (1975) and on the horizon All the President’s Men (1976). Every minute of the movie his face or body are working hard, eyes constantly involved in the character observation I mentioned. He goes from being light-hearted and handsome at the start to serious and deadly at the end. And there are some superb bits of business. When the rain stops, for example, he checks his watch to see it has ended when he predicted. When he returns after lunch, he peers down over the steps to see that his moped that earlier some kids had tried to steal was still there.

This is probably the quietest you’ll ever see Faye Dunaway (A Place for Lovers, 1968). She is an enigma, the puzzle only uncovered in her photographs. But as a photographer, she is also an observer, and she soon likes what she sees in Turner. The strong supporting cast includes Cliff Robertson (Masquerade, 1965), Max von Sydow (The Quiller Memorandum, 1966), John Houseman (Seven Days in May, 1964), Tina Chen (Alice’s Restaurant, 1969) and Addison Powell (The Thomas Crown Affair, 1968).

Sydney Pollack does an exceptional job, cutting between the pursuers and the pursued. The opening sequence itself is quite superb as the director sets up the massacre which is carried out in silence, machine guns fitted with suppressors, while providing insight into Turner. Based on the bestseller Six Days of the Condor by James Grady, the intelligent screenplay by Lorenzo Semple Jr.(Fathom, 1967, and The Parallax View, 1974) and David Rayfiel (Castle Keep, 1969) keeps everyone on their toes.

More straightforwardly enjoyable than Coppola’s self-conscious The Conversation (1974) and Pakula’s occasionally opaque The Parallax View (1974) with computer surveillance, giving this another contemporary edge, a key factor in the way the tale that switches between pursued and pursuer

Bunny Lake Is Missing (1965) ****

Otto Preminger (Hurry Sundown, 1967) returns to his film noir roots (Laura, 1944; Whirlpool, 1950) for this crisply-told tale, mixing police procedural with psycho-drama, of a missing child who may the figment of her mother’s imagination. It’s beautifully filmed and for anyone brought up on modern cinema of short takes and the camera bouncing from one close-up to the next, it will be a revelation, as Preminger favors classic Hollywood style, long takes, in a single shot the camera often following a person in and out of several rooms, and equally classical composition, scenes containing three or four characters where everyone acts within the frame.

Single-mother Ann (Carol Lynley) turns up to collect her four-year-old daughter Bunny from her first day at a London nursery only to discover not just the child gone but nobody has any recollection of the child being there in the first place. That is, apart from the school cook (Lucie Mannheim), who promised to look out for the child but who has subsequently disappeared. Ann is anxious anyway because she is moving house and in her new apartment has an encounter with her creepy landlord Horacio (Noel Coward), a master of the innuendo and the casual stroke of the arm.

It’s a very English school with stiff-upper-lip not to mention snippy teachers. “We mustn’t get emotional,” school administrator Miss Smollett (Anna Massey) warns the distraught mother. Ann’s brother Steven (Keir Dullea), a journalist, kicks up more of a stink, arguing with staff, and with a very threatening manner. Things get creepier still. Upstairs, they hear voices but it’s just the school’s founder Ada (Martita Hunt) who records children talking about nightmares. Steven seems over-protective towards his sister, which is understandable, and somewhat over-affectionate, which is not.

Detective Superintendent Newhouse (Laurence Olivier) and sidekick Sgt Andrews (Clive Revill) investigate. He is an unusual cop. A university graduate but not of the excitable Inspector Morse persuasion for one thing, and reasonable to an irritating degree in that he keeps all his options open. But the cops are thorough, descriptions of the missing child issued, search of the premises and surrounding area undertaken. But it turns out there is no record of Bunny in the school ledger, no sign of her existence in the flat, and it transpires that as a child herself Ann had an imaginary companion called Bunny.

As Steven becomes more obstreperous and the intense Ann verges on the hysterical, not helped by the unwanted attentions of the landlord, a BBC performer with a melodious voice he believes irresistible to women and more than a passing interest in sadism, the case appears to be heading in the direction of a quick visit to a psychiatry ward. The usual anchor in these situations, the policeman, is not as definite as normal, Newhouse not pushing the investigation in a direction the audience will find acceptable, but largely standing back, as if yet to make up his mind, which adds to the sense of mystery.

*Carol Lynley with the potential landlord from hell Noel Coward.*

Preminger isn’t in the business of piling twist upon twist, but as these arrive in due course, the options they offer are even more psychologically damaging. And from setting off at a steady pace with everything apparently settled down by the steady superintendent, the minute he departs the scene, the story takes on a different dimension and there are three superb chilling scenes, one in hospital, another in a doll’s hospital and the last in a garden as the question of just who is unhinged becomes more apparent. There is certainly madness in the movie but it comes when you least expect it and from a direction you may not have considered. On another level, the world of children is entirely alien to the adult and the reconciliation between the two worlds impossible to bridge.

Preminger extracts a performance from Laurence Olivier (Khartoum, 1966) that cuts the character to the bone, eliminating many of the actor’s tropes and tics, but at the same time making him perfectly human, unable to resist, for example, a traditional school pudding, and finding ways to curb Steven’s excesses while comforting Ann. By controlling the actor who always exerts screen presence, Preminger makes him come across with even greater authority. It’s an achievement in itself to ensure that Olivier never raises his voice.

Carol Lynley (The Pleasure Seekers, 1964) is excellent as the distraught mother, one step away from losing her mind and Keir Dullea (The Fox, 1967) constantly raises the stakes. Noel Coward (The Italian Job, 1969) possibly does the best job of the lot, his normal high levels of sophistication eschewed in favour of the downright creepy. In supporting roles look out for Clive Revill (Kaleidoscope, 1966), Finlay Currie (Vendetta for the Saint, 1969), Anna Massey (De Sade, 1969) and Adrienne Corri (The Viking Queen, 1967). Pop group The Zombies featuring Rod Argent and Colin Blunstone put in an appearance.

Husband-and-wife team John Mortimer (John and Mary, 1969) and Penelope Mortimer (The Pumpkin Eater, 1964) wrote the screenplay from the besteller by Evelyn Piper. But it is most assuredly an Otto Preminger production. He has a surprisingly good grasp of British custom and character, shot all the movie on location, but in black-and-white so it is not dominated by the tourist London of red buses or red pillar boxes, and his probing camera and long takes are a marvel for any cinematic scholar.

Night Moves (1975) **** – Seen at the Cinema

You want to know what screenplays are all about, it’s rarely dialog. It’s something registering the eyes. It’s very rare for a movie’s tone to change in a heartbeat. Or in this case in the blink of an eye. Planning to surprise his wife Ellen (Susan Clark) coming out of a movie theater, private eye Harry Moseby (Gene Hackman) sees her snuggle into the arms of another man (Harris Yulin).. The look on his face is pure shock. And from here on in, Moseby’s life turns upside down. He goes from macho man, ex-football jock with a swagger, to someone who’s duped by everyone around him.

Scottish screenwriter Alan Sharp was, for half a decade, an anomaly – though in the best possible way. Few screenwriters have achieved general fame – maybe Robert Towne (Chinatown, 1974), William Goldman (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, 1969) or John Milius (Magnum Force, 1973) – recognized for their writing style and creating identifiable characters. This was the final film in a short-lived golden era for Sharp, an award-winning novelist, who hooked Hollywood with his fresh takes on two of Hollywood most important genres, crime and the western. Beginning with The Last Run (1971) starring George C. Scott, he followed up with elegiac western The Hired Hand (1971), directed and starring Peter Fonda, Robert Aldrich’s tough Ulzana’s Raid (1972) with Burt Lancaster and Billy Two Hats (1974) topbilling Gregory Peck.

In a decade majoring on disillusion, Night Moves set a new template. Previously, the private eye, no matter how cynical, remained a hero, walking the mean streets, always coming out on top. Even Jack Nicholson in Chinatown won the day, exposing corruption, and Elliott Gould was as cool as the cats he preferred in The Long Goodbye (1973).

Moseby isn’t that good at his job. Little detection is required to track down missing Delly Grastner (Melanie Griffith), whose alcoholic mother Arlene (Janet Ward) requires her returned so she can claim an alimony check. This takes Moseby to old buddy, stunt coordinator man Joey (Edward Binns), making a film in which Delly is an extra and her sometime boyfriend Quentin (James Woods) a mechanic. And then onto the Floridsa Keys where the girl is hiding out with her stepfather Tom (John Crawford) and his younger sensuous ex-stripper girlfriend Paula (Jennifer Warren).

As the body count climbs – none of it Moseby’s doing, he’s not in the pistol-packing Dirty Harry league – and a boat wreck is found by Delly while snorkelling, the mystery deepens. But unlike most movies in the genre where the private dick is single or divorced, Moseby is (or was) a happily married man. And where in most movies in the genre, the personal life is left behind once the sleuth is on a case, here Moseby’s head remains filled with betrayal. His wife hasn’t even swapped him for a romantic hunk, instead his rival is smaller and walks with a limp.

Instead of Ellen taking the blame for the situation, Moseby is forced to confront his shortcomings which, of course, include not being able to talk about his early life or his feelings. Which means he’s primed to fall for Paula. Being the macho man, he thinks he’s making the running but in fact she’s using him as a patsy. And soon, just as he’s not spotted signs that this wife was being unfaithful, so, too, his misreads everything about the set-up at the Florida Keys and only discovers, when it’s too late, that he’s been played for a fool.

Usually, the protagonist in these pictures gets away with a quip or is disinclined to take commitment seriously, bed-hopping like James Bond. But Moseby is uxorious and finds it impossible to come to terms with his wife’s deceit. Once in a while he’s able to verbally let go, but mostly Hackman hardly needs dialog to convey his inner feelings to the audience. It’s an acting master class.

And it’s a very bold downbeat ending, the metaphor of a boat going round in circles is easily indicative of Moseby. You’re not going to get a more complicated character in the entire genre than Moseby and this is Gene Hackman (The Gypsy Moths, 1969) at his very best even though his peers didn’t notice, no Oscar acclamation forthcoming. The female roles are distinctive, Melanie Griffith (Working Girl, 1988) theoretically the most auspicious but all the women deceive, Jennifer Warren (Sam’s Song, 1969) slinky about it, while Susan Clark (Coogan’s Bluff, 1968) turns the situation back on her husband.

Arthur Penn’s (The Chase, 1966) career was already on the slide after the critical and commercial success of Bonnie and Clyde (1967) and revisionist western Little Big Man (1970). Warner Brothers didn’t like the finished result and neither did critics nor moviegoers, so in general it’s fallen away in public esteem.

Demands re-evaluation.

The Penthouse (1967) ****

Visceral home invasion thriller that ignited the genre and triggered later more controversial offerings like The Straw Dogs (1971) and A Clockwork Orange (1971). Made virtually on one set for the indescribably minute sum of £100,000, it is charged with Pinteresque dialog and aberrant philosophy. The genre splits into those pictures where the occupants have more than a good chance of avoiding their fate, the focus on the invaded pitting their wits against the invaders – classic examples being The Straw Dogs or more recently Panic Room (2002) – and those where the victims are mercilessly tormented, such as, in grueling detail, here.

As one of the perks of his job cocky married real estate agent Bruce (Terence Morgan) takes advantage of an expensive unoccupied apartment on his company’s books – “in the happy position to take advantage of my clients’ generosity in their absence” as he puts it – to enjoy an illicit tryst with mistress Barbara (Suzy Kendall). But when she answers to the door to two men coming to read the gas meter, their lives are turned upside down.

Tom (Tony Beckley) and Dick (Norman Rodway) are, of course, bogus and armed with a knife quickly take control, trying up Bruce and pouring alcohol down Barbara’s throat. As part of the overall creepiness, there is a sense that this is no casual visit, but that it has been planned, as if someone somewhere is familiar with the set-up, and there a debt, if only a moralistic one, to pay as a deterrent to the era’s permissiveness. Minus the knife, they would have passed as harmless. But never was their such difference between word and action, except for what they are capable of you could easily be persuaded that are in fact camp and bitchy.

The bound Bruce’s is spun round in a chair and can only watch as the men begin to strip Barbara. His only defence is verbal, trying to set the two men against each other, suggesting that Tom treats Dick as his assistant. But the relationship between the two criminals constantly shifts as if they were in passive-aggressive relationship. You don’t learn much about them until the end, so basically you have to rely on what they say about themselves, which is very little. They are prone to philosophic observation or interrogate Bruce about his possessions or extract from Barbara an unexpected ambition to be a painter.

One of the oddest pieces of promotional material ever produced. Studios were keen on this kind of jokey cartoon in the hope that it would be picked up by newspaper editors who might be less inclined to run a still from the picture. But it is completely out of touch with the tone of the movie.

The men take it in turns to torment Bruce while the other is in the bedroom with Barbara. Where Bruce resists verbally, Barbara gives in almost right away, but there is never the sense that this is in any way consensual, just that she is too drunk to defend herself – the first drink is a full glass of whisky forced down her throat – and the men have a knife. The invaders make constant reference to a character called Harry. That person’s eventual appearance provides a whole new range of twists.

It’s a film full of menace. Sexual tension, mind games, claustrophobia and the threat of physical violence never dissipate. Because it is rationed out, the brutality is all the more shocking. But it is brilliantly directed. In his debut British director Peter Collinson (The Italian Job, 1969) uses the camera to suggest we are in anything but an enclosed space. In one long sequence the camera does not move, in another scene it turns 360 degrees – Antonioni’s use of this device in The Passenger (1975) was credited as innovative – and at other times it twists and turns as if turning the characters inside out, suggesting some of the dizziness, the dramatic speed of change of feelings, that the stunned victims are enduring. At times it feels like an arthouse movie. At other times like a deranged B-picture.

The cast are all excellent. Tony Beckley (The Lost Continent, 1968) makes the best of a role of a lifetime, Norman Rodway (Four in the Morning, 1965) the more quietly psychotic sidekick. Terence Morgan (The Sea Pirate, 1966) has less to do but Suzy Kendall (Fraulein Doktor, 1969) is superb as the enigmatic girlfriend. Look out for Martine Beswick (Prehistoric Women, 1967) in a small part. Collinson wrote the screenplay based on a play The Meter Men by Scott Forbes.

Cultural note: “Tom, Dick and Harry” are considered such quintessentially British names that anyone familiar with this would understand immediately that they were a) pseudonyms and b) intended as a twisted kind of joke.

No sign of this being available on Amazon. Ebay is probably your best bet. There’s a copy on YouTube but it ain’t a good print.

The Flesh and the Fiends / Mania / The Fiendish Ghouls (1960) ***

Hypocrisy runs rampant as an entitled medical hierarchy effectively condones vile practice. Of course it wouldn’t do to have Peter Cushing, who generally hounded demonic fiends like Dracula, to be tabbed a villain so with a little bit of jiggery-pokery he gets off scot-free and, in fact, is considered so much above other mortals that he receives a standing ovation at the end.

The self-justification, or deification if you like, of Edinburgh surgeon Dr Knox (Peter Cushing) is promoted on the back of primitive medicine, whereby, through sheer ignorance and laziness surgeons were more apt to kill than to cure.

Dr Knox is an advocate of using recently interred corpses to teach his students the real fundamentals of anatomy. However, his colleagues feel that the use of fresh corpses goes against the grain and there was no such thing in the early 19^th century of donating your body to medical science. Grave-robbing was a crime.

Enterprising duo Burke (George Rose) and Hare (Donald Pleasance) get round that problem by skipping the burial aspect, murdering assorted drunks and vagabonds and delivering fresh meat to the good doctor, who turns a blind eye to their actions, determined as he is to improve teaching standards. He’s not the only one who believes that a streetwalker, killed in this fashion, has achieved more in death than life.

The good doctor has a conscience in the shape of Dr Mitchell (Dermot Walsh) who is wooing his daughter Martha (June Laverick), but he eventually comes round Knox’s way of thinking. The hierarchy in the shape of the Medical Council would get their claws into Knox were it not for the fact that in their incompetence they inflict more damage than good.

As a sub-plot, and as a way of weaselling into the lower classes who provide the bulk of Burke and Hare’s supply chain, earnest medical student Chris Jackson (John Cairney) falls for drunken goodtime girl Mary (Billie Whitelaw) who spends as much time making fun of him as she does sharing his bed.

You would have thought the high mortality rate of the period would not have made the local populace suspicious of a few extra deaths, but when Burke and Hare kill too close to home – Mary, Jackson and Daft Jamie – townspeople like a regular Transylvanian village mob light their torches and head off in pursuit.

The question of whether Knox was in collusion with Burke and Hare becomes the crux. But given the medical profession does not want to bring itself into disrepute, he is given a free pass and declared not guilty.

The high-mindedness which Peter Cushing (The Skull, 1965) usually brings to a role works in his favor here and, until the death rate mushrooms, audiences may be inclined to go along with his thesis that fresher corpses should be made available as a matter of course to doctors. His pinpoint arrogance brooks no quarter. He’s in entitlement heaven. And that his superiors back off informs you that hierarchies were as good at closing ranks and defending themselves then as now.

This was the first venture of Donald Pleasance (Soldier Blue, 1970) into the sleazy characterizations which would become a trademark. The nervous tics were a later addition. Here’s he’s mostly sweaty.

I should profess an interest. John Cairney was a relative of our family but acknowledging his work in our household was limited to such less contentious material as Jason and the Argonauts (1963). Along with Billie Whitelaw (The Comedy Man, 1964), he was in the rising star category. Both deliver solid performances. You might also spot Melvyn Hayes of the It Ain’t Half Hot, Mum series (1974-1981).

Dodgy accents abound, Pleasance and Rose affect Irish accents and Whitelaw makes a stab at a Scottish one. I was surprised, given the date, to see a deal of nudity, but it transpires I was watching the “continental version.”

Directed by John Gilling (The Reptile, 1966) from a screenplay by himself and Leon Griffiths (The Hellfire Club, 1961).

You catch this on YouTube

The Saint: The Fiction-Makers (1968) ****

Hugely enjoyable. Takes high concept to the Moon and back. Deliriously wild idea that, as with the best of movies that riff on the imagination, sticks to its own internal logic. The notion sounds so barmy it shouldn’t work – but it does. I enjoyed it even more than Vendetta for the Saint (1969), which it preceded, because it’s a lot more fun.

A criminal mastermind has taken the work of mysterious bestselling thriller author Amos Klein and not only adopted the characteristics of the author’s characters but follows the plot of the books and utilizes many of the clever ideas. For example, the author has invented a second ignition starter button for cars. And also invented a way to stop cars by fitting them with a technological device. People are so taken with being characters in these books that they want to know what happens to them next. I know, shouldn’t have worked, but it does, and it’s not even really set up as fitting into the sci-fi genre any more than James Bond with all its out-of-this-world machines and gadgets is.

Simon Templar (Roger Moore), aka The Saint, is hired to protect Amos Klein whose publisher believes the author is in danger. It doesn’t help that Klein lives in such anonymity that nobody knows the real name, not even the publisher. Turns out she’s a woman (Sylvia Syms), presumably adopting a male name because she writes such male-oriented books, filled with ingenious ideas.

She nearly shoots Templar because he arrives in the middle of her testing out scenarios for her new book – everything she writes has to work and she’s the one that tries them out. Anyway, Templar proves to be little defense against Warlock (Kenneth J. Warren), who has adopted the main villain of her book who runs a criminal organization called S.W.O.R.D. Warlock assumes Templar is Amos Klein and that she is his secretary.

The members of Sword, excepting Warlock, are an indifferent bunch apart from femme fatale Galaxy Rose (Justine Lord) who not only, following the premise of the books, intends to seduce Templar but believes that he, as the author, can alter her future, by making it a plot point in an as-yet-unwritten book that they fall in love that she will then marry him and live happily ever after.

Using Klein’s imaginative brain, Warlock wants the author’s help to plot a major heist from Hermetico, a giant secret vault which is to diamonds what Fort Knox is for gold. Hermetico is thief-proof, packed with amazing security devices including infra-red beams.

Although watched via CCTV cameras, Templar and Klein make a decent attempt at escape from Warlock’s mansion, tunneling upwards if you like, through the ceiling and the roof, clambering down a drainpipe and escaping in the car containing the second starter button, but also the one, it transpires, with the tech device that can stop it.

When they turn up at a remote cottage covered in mud and seeking help, the inhabitants think they are lunatics and delay them long enough till Warlock and his gang arrive to sedate them. Klein is kept prisoner, threatened with laser extinction, so Templar is coerced in assisting in the heist. In fact, Klein has come up with an ingenious method of ensuring they can find their way through the maze of infra-red beams.

This sequence is really well done, especially the method of getting all the gang through once Templar has negotiated it. Using an oxy-acetylene torch, they cut the top off an extractor vent and enter the vault, overcome the guards, and using another clever device one person manages to do something that usually requires two people.

Naturally, Templar is intent on spoiling the operation, which he does, but then has to get back to the mansion before the alarm is raised and Klein is incinerated. There’s a fisticuffs climax and a very fitting payoff for the villain.

I never thought this would work. It seemed such an improbable idea. But then Hollywood’s full of those. The fact that the S.W.O.R.D. gang are entirely believable as physical incarnations of Klein’s imagination is what makes it work. Plus Klein herself. Instead of being the standard moll or helpless heroine of so many spy pictures, she’s central to the story, and halfway between slinky and sensible.

Roger Moore (Vendetta for the Saint) – and his raised eyebrows – is, as usual, excellent in a role that very much suits his screen persona, and Sylvia Syms (Run Wild, Run Free, 1969) has a ball. Kenneth J. Warren (A High Wind in Jamaica, 1965) is given a more varied character than the normal villain while Justine Lord (Night after Night after Night, 1969) exerts a winsome appeal outside her overt sexiness.

Directed by Roy Ward Baker (Moon Zero Two, 1969) from a script by John Kruse (Vendetta for the Saint) and Harry W. Junkin (Vendetta for the Saint) adapting a novel by Leslie Charteris.

This was originally conceived as a two-parter for television that was then released as a movie instead of someone just editing together two random episodes as was usually the case with The Man from U.N.C.L.E.

Talking Pictures has this so check it out.

Crime 101 (2026) **** – Seen at the Cinema

Bloated films have become a modern curse with “visionary” filmmakers indulged because studio executives can’t rein them in. But in the best films length plays a significant role. It provides an opportunity for depth and complexity, and to tell a tale from more than one angle. Nobody balked at The Housemaid (2025), ostensibly a tad overlong for a thriller at 131 minutes, but the time was exceptionally well used and the movie cleaned up, $350 million worldwide and counting, the hit of the year so far in terms of budget vs gross.

Crime 101 isn’t going to get anywhere near those figures but deserves to because despite its length (140 minutes) it’s remarkably lean. It reminds me of the spare pictures Walter Hill (The Driver, 1978) used to make where narrative rather than emotion was the key. Here, there are three flawed characters who you are desperate to learn more about but writer-director Bart Layton (American Animals, 2018) keeps such audience desire at bay while seducing us with a complex tale. Action, too, is limited, so be warned.

Jewel thief Davis (Chris Hemsworth) is too clever to get tangled up in action, clearly aware that shoot-outs can get messy and lead to unnecessary entanglement. He tends to commit his robberies off-site, while diamonds are being couriered to customers. He has no commitments, buys sex, lives in apartments that would be almost avant-garde in their simplicity, no proof that anyone lived in them at all.

And he’s very human. For a criminal he’s mightily spooked when a job nearly goes awry and he receives a very slight gunshot wound, not the kind to need treatment. Maybe his guard is down because when he meets up with publicist Maya (Monica Barbaro) he strikes up an awkward relationship, refusing to reveal a single thing about his life, and not having the smarts to invent one.

You might term that complication number one because she’s too contemporary a woman to be hooked by a mysterious stranger and the more she wants to know about him, the more defensive he becomes. This isn’t a major plot point because you get the impression he’s been there before and walked away long before complication set in. But I’m just telling you because that’s the tone of the film, no big emotional blow-ups or confessions, just the heart kept very much under control. Stoicism, if you like, the guiding principal.

When Davis passes on committing another robbery so soon, his fence Money (Nick Nolte) hands the job to the unpredictable bike-riding Ormon (Barry Keoghan). So Davis has to look elsewhere for a score and alights upon disgruntled insurance broker Sharon (Halle Berry), a singleton for career purposes you guess, who relies on self-help tapes to get her going in the morning, passed over for promotion once too often. Despite initially knocking him back, her fury at her smug employers brings her to the table.

And this would shape up as a twist on The Thomas Crown Affair (1968) except that Davis already has someone on his tail, cuckolded cop Lou (Mark Ruffalo), in the process of splitting with his wife, but getting heat from his boss because he’s convinced a string of jewel heists are the work of one man, when the department has already collared people for some of them. Eventually, for not playing the game over a crooked cop, Lou is stood down, but that leaves him free to take on the thief in his own way.

In between keeping tabs on Ormon and realizing that he has a cop on his tail, and that his newfound girlfriend is about to dump him, Davis continues trying to fleece $11 million from billionaire Steven Monroe (Tate Donovan), half in the cash necessary to pay for the illegally imported jewels.

But by now, beaten senseless by Ormon, Sharon also discovers that, like Davis, her courage is not up to the task, and spills the beans to the cop who puts into place a clever plan that would probably work except Ormon is ready to break up the party.

Although rewarding in its own way, the ending jarred somewhat, the incorruptible cop giving in to temptation, and letting the other suspects get off scot free. But in an era of tough and bloody twists it was an unexpected way to finish.

The three principals are excellent – Chris Hemsworth (Thor: Love and Thunder, 2022) proving he has the stillness and acting chops that makes the big stars great, a rumpled Mark Ruffalo (Now You See Me, Now You Don’t, 2025) making the most of a terrific part and Halle Berry (The Union, 2024) putting in a shift as a flawed woman – but Barry Keoghan (Saltburn, 2023) overacts so just as well the director mitigated his presence by sticking him under a biker helmet for most of the picture.

A well-measured hugely enjoyable show from Layton. A thriller for thinking adults.

The Born Losers (1967) ***

The indie movement wasn’t embraced back in the day the way it is now. Occasionally an indie auteur would find favor – John Cassavetes (Shadows, 1958), for example – although it was another decade before he made another movie that carried his particular stamp. With such an abundance of movies arriving from Sweden, Italy and France, critics didn’t have to go far to find material from outside the limited Hollywood prism that they could pump up and make themselves feel important.

So indie writer-producer-director-actor Tom Laughlin failed to gain notice. There had been no upsurge of critical support for his first two features, The Young Sinner (1961) and The Proper Time (1962), both of whose subject matters should have generated some coverage. In fact, they’re still ignored, not a single reviews for either on Imdb unless you count TV Guide. So when he came to his third picture, The Born Losers, he hid behind anonymity, the movie helmed by “T.C. Frank” and produced by “Don Henderson” with “James Lloyd” (in reality female lead Elizabeth James) allocated the screenwriting credit.

And it was, ostensibly, a biker pic, so no self-respecting critic was going to give it the time of day even though The Wild Angels – 83 critical reviews on Imdb – the previous year had attracted attention though largely through its nepo cast, Peter Fonda and Nancy Sinatra the children of Hollywood legends, in which the bikers were cast as innocent victims of authority.

So critics failed to note that The Born Losers was pretty much the first movie with an ecological theme and that it was probably only the second to deal with racism against Native Americans – Abraham Polonsky, on the other hand, got massive critical mileage for covering the same theme in Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here (1969).

And there’s nothing redemptive about these bikers, not given a free pass as in Wild Angels or deified as in Easy Rider (1969). But the picture certainly emphasizes their attraction, especially to teenage females entranced by what they view as an exciting alternative to Dullsville, USA. Girls are seduced by the image of bikers being akin to old-style cowboys, pioneers of the west enjoying a freedom few others dared even pursue. In the Californian sun girls jiggle around in bikinis, excited at the revving bikes.

Nor is Billy Jack (Tom Laughlin) the kind of two-fisted vigilante protector of the underdog as exemplified by Clint Eastwood and Charles Bronson. In fact, where Eastwood and Bronson generally dodge judgement of their maverick style, Billy Jack gets into more trouble with the law for preventing a young man being beaten to death than the bikers attempting to beat the victim to death.

But unlike the Eastwood and Bronson vehicles, the actor Laughlin isn’t center stage all the time. And that’s primarily what makes the picture work. The director in Laughlin is very even-handed, covering the various aspects that produce a more than tolerable narrative and one that also reflected what would be a later Hollywood trope, the victims too frightened to come forward for fear of further retaliation.

There’s an unusually idyllic opening for a biker picture that telegraphs to the audience this going to be different, Billy Jack surviving with ease in the mountains and bathing under a waterfall. Likewise, Laughlin allows time to build up the two other main characters. Equally, unusually, they both have daddy issues. Wealthy Vicky (Elizabeth James) is devastated when her globe-trotting father fails to turn up for a long-promised rendezvous and biker leader Danny (Jeremy Slate) defies his bullying cop father, who spits in his son’s face. Whatever judgement you pass on the rest of Danny’s actions, he passes muster as a father, affectionately ruffling his son’s hair, and as a brother, standing up for his younger sibling.

You might also be surprised at the fashion statements. Vicky is decked out like Audrey Hepburn with those trademark sunglasses and is apt to take to the road on her two-wheeler wearing a white bikini. Danny wears an ironic version of the Hepburn shades. Whether Vicky’s ensemble is a deliberate attempt to draw comparison with Nancy Sinatra is anybody’s guess but the white boots the college girl wears are remarkably similar to the footwear in Sinatra’s most famous hit.

Once Billy Jack heads for the town, seeking work as a horse wrangler, he hits trouble in part due to overt racism, in part because he refuses to be a bystander when the authorities and citizens fail to act.

There’s an audacious jump-cut that would be the hallmark of more critically-acclaimed directors such as Tarantino, and a scene of bikers arriving over the hill that’s reminiscent of John Ford westerns. And there’s a hint of homosexuality.

Five rapes take place offstage, but their harrowing consequence is not passed over. Mental health is damaged beyond repair, LuAnn (Julie Cohn) afraid to show her face in public, while Vicky is treated as a freak. With the town boasting its “weakest sheriff” and the girls capitulating to intimidation, it’s left to Linda Prang (Susan Foster) to agree to go to court. Luann, though under police protection, is kidnapped, and the bikers capture Vicky and Billy Jack, both girls facing further rape.

There are three stunning twists. Vicky, rather than Billy Jack, saves the day, sacrificing herself to save the Native American. Linda confesses she wasn’t raped, but had gone of her own free will with the bikers before and after the rape charge, in order to spite her mother because the bikers were “everything you hate.” And once justice is done Billy Jack is mistakenly shot by the cops.

While Billy Jack occasionally intervenes, mostly he’s outnumbered and beaten up, so he doesn’t fit the same template as Eastwood and Bronson. And that’s also to the picture’s benefit. This isn’t about the male hero, but male shortcomings and female suffering.

While there’s no great acting, the story is decently-plotted and the emotional jigsaw knits together.

Worth a look, but not if you’re expecting a typical biker picture.

Shelter (2026) **

Even though it’s easily one of the worst in the Jason Statham canon, I feel duty bound to review this because a) it’s set in a remote Scottish location, the Outer Hebrides, famed for the likes of Whisky Galore (1949) and its sequel and b) because I’ve been a paid-up member (possibly one of the few) of The Stath Fan Club. So I was half-expecting to see the imprimatur of Creative Scotland on the credits, but when I checked it out, realized I’d been sold a dummy and that for “tax reasons” it had been filmed in Ireland with an occasional sign slotted in to suggest it was set in Stornoway.

But I’m afraid our Jason has fallen victim to the Dwayne Johnson affliction, whereby the successful action hero believes he has to show he can “act.” In this case, Jason is saddled with a young girl which means, by virtue of Sergei Eisenstein’s dictat, every time he glowers the hostility is softened because the camera cuts to the girl.

The reasons this falls down is not so much that very little makes sense in the first place (even though that’s a very low bar anyway) but that the director loses faith in the original idea and having set up the notion of former Government gun for hire recluse Mason (Jason Statham) battling through the wilderness of the land and seas around the Sottish Western Isles to safeguard his unwelcome charge, the orphan Jesse (Bodhi Rae Breathnach), that’s suddenly abandoned and we are relocated to London for a shoot-out in a nightclub.

The screenplay draws extensively on the Bourne films. Mason has been hiding out in a lighthouse on a remote island, quietly drinking himself to death, because principles got the better of him a decade past and he refused to kill an innocent man so when he is discovered alive when the records have been rigged to show he is dead, MI5 (or MI6) chief Manafort (Bill Nighy) wants him exterminated so, as in the Bourne series, some other assassin’s phone lights up and the hunt is on.

Logic is in complete absence. Mason’s been off the grid for a decade. Give him a few more years and he’d be dead from alcohol poisoning. And if you wanted to eliminate him, all you’d have to do is cut off his weekly supply of food and booze and wait for him to starve to death or sit in ambush till he leaves the island in his tiny boat.

Instead, some unknown person for no apparent reason has fitted (technology-wise) Mason up as a terrorist so MI5 (or MI6) go in all guns blazing only to discover he has an effective web of Rambo-style defences. He’s got a tech buddy (Daniel Mays) on Stornoway who can fix the tech problem but he’s dying of cancer so in no fit state to look after a, no matter how meek, teenager. So after more bloodshed, they’re off to London apparently secure in the knowledge that in the small matter of getting on and off the ferry required to take them to the mainland they can move unseen and that’s despite the fact that he’s been tracked using the tiniest available access points on all sorts of mobile phones and cameras on Stornoway.

Naturally, the only person who can get Jesse to safety in London is a drug trafficker and her freedom is complicated by the arrival of the same shady MI5 (or MI6) guys and genuine MI5 (or MI6) guys who couldn’t spot them traveling on any of the 400-odd miles it took to get them to the capital.

It’s not just Jason Statham going all gooey Dwayne Johnson that doesn’t make it work but the girl is a refugee from The Pony Club or National Velvet, a posh lassie who looks as though she’s had every inch of teenage-ness surgically removed and as if she’s never heard of Home Alone and hardly aware that you’ve got to show some spunk not mooch around complaining you’re going to be left alone while wanting (apparently) to be liked the murdering varmint accompanying you.

So with that relationship in screen terms dead in the water, the movie has to fall back on some garbled secret system called T.H.E.A. and an incredibly young incoming head of MI5 (or MI6) Roberta (Naomi Ackie) who looks young enough to be Jesse’s big sister (Ackie is only 35) whose job is to sort out the resultant mess.

I mentioned in a previous article how some careers were sustained by the overseas market rather than their box office returns in the U.S. and that’s been largely the case with Statham. Shelter stiffed on opening weekend in the U.S. taking just $5.5 million though it’s knocked up another $7.7 million worldwide.

Although Statham has had an unlikely hand up the Hollywood tree by being parachuted into the Fast and Furious franchise and being the leading man (or last man standing) for The Meg duo, his fortunes otherwise at the box office have been variable. The Beekeeper (2024) hit an unexpected $162 million worldwide ($66 million Stateside) and A Working Man (2025) delivered a tolerable $89 million worldwide ($37 million domestic) and even Wrath of Man, despite a poor $27 million in the U.S. crossed the $100 million mark when all other markets were taken into account.

Even so, I doubt if worldwide will redeem this one. I had thought after such a run of duds in January (and you can add Primate to the list) I could depend on Statham to redeem a poor month. Alas, no.

Directed by Ric Roman Waugh (Angel Has Fallen, 2019) from a screenplay by Ward Parry (The Shattering, 2015).