Crime/Thriller – The Magnificent 60s

Primetime (2026) **** – Seen at the Cinema

Directorial entitlement comes close to derailing this fascinating tale where it’s not just the criminals who have lost their moral compass. I should have known what I was letting myself in for in terms of cinematic style as this movie was preceded by a trailer for Lance Oppenheim’s more acclaimed You Can See Everything (2026) which was filled with giant close-ups.

Giant heads abound here but these close-ups, much larger than normal, rarely provide the viewer with any more character information that ordinary-sized ones, and instead detract from the impact by effectively concentrating more on style than substance. Added to that the director has a predilection for the kind of grainy footage that was standard in 1970s crime pictures. Other throwbacks include just plain weird experiments with film exposure.

Which is a shame because it makes this movie, which in any case given the subject matter, a difficult watch an unnecessarily more difficult one. Nobody comes out of this well, not even the supposed good guys. Vigilantes, hounding paedophiles, have decided to fund their endeavors by filming the capture not for the purposes of evidence but to satisfy audience prurience by punishing offenders by putting their faces on television, the modern equivalent, we are smugly told, of those committing misdemeanours in the olden days being put in the stocks in the village square.

But you wonder just how many of the good guys would deserve a similar fate and to some extent stuffed full of arrogance and a complete lack of self-awareness virtually everything they film exposes them as venal characters.

Chris Hansen (Robert Pattinson), real-life host of the real-life To Catch a Predator series (2004-2007), is a mean-minded, occasionally deranged, unfaithful, ruthless operator who checks out himself on Google. Obsessed with becoming a bigger player on television, he’s carved himself out a career as an accountant’s version of Sylvester Stallone or Clint Eastwood in making the villains pay. Having snookered the offenders, he walks in on them like a presenter on This Is Your Life and confronts them with their crimes while parading them on national television.

Eventually, he catches the eye of the big boss at NBC who wants to upgrade his show and put it on primetime to compete with ABC’s megahit Lost (2004-2010). That means finding bigger bad guys and adding further pressure to a program already bursting at the anxiety seams.

While Hansen and producer Andie Bender (Merritt Weaver) view themselves as the good guys they see nothing meretricious in using as “Decoy Dan” young actor Dan Plum (Skyler Gisondo) who can effectively come across as much younger than his years with this freckled childish face and high-pitched voice teenager. Dan’s job is to play the unwitting child welcoming abusers into his home.

Neither Bender nor Hansen, more interested in filming as much shock as possible, explain to the young man exactly what he’s letting himself in for. That deception, as far as the principals are concerned, is worth it to see the look on Dan’s face when confronted with an erection.

Eventually, forced to look for bigger prey to satisfy the ratings, the producers locate the “big whale”, a nationally-known politician who, rather than give in to the indignity of appearing on the show, blows his brains out.

The big problem is that all the characters come over as shallow. We never find out the reason for Hansen’s obsession with exposing predators except some loony nonsense of seeing an actual monster in India. His home life is very sketchy as is his affair. Andie just comes over as a small-screen thug, life ruled by ambition.

So while this is very even-handed in casting as harsh a light on the good guys as much as the bad guys, the stylistic mess messes around with what should have been a more straightforward and more interesting picture.

Robert Pattinson (The Odyssey, 2026) is again excellent, probably the only topline actor making a thing out of playing creepy characters. Merritt Weaver (Christy, 2025) is superb as the producer with no idea how sleazy she comes across and Skyler Gisondo (Jimmy Olsen in Superman, 2025) is heart-breaking as the innocent lad witnessing depravity.

Written by debutant Ajon Singh based on an Esquire magazine article by Luke Dittrich.

Compelling, yes, but be warned about the stylistic intrusion.

The Bride Wore Black (1968) ***

I viewed this and Francois Truffaut’s other Hitchcock homage Mississippi Mermaid (1969) the wrong way round, which is just as well, because on the evidence of his first venture into the Hitchcockian thriller I might not have been tempted into second helpings. This divided critics from the outset, receiving decided mixed reviews at the time, but now appearing to have gained more critical approval.

I can see why that might be. It’s certainly a stylish number. But it’s not much more than a more artistic version of the slasher movies, where you’re waiting to see how inventive a director can be in dispatching various victims. And you might be inclined to give this the benefit of the doubt if you see it as a female version of the John Wick revenge flick.

There are a couple of twists, but they don’t feed into the narrative particularly well. You discover why our bride Julie (Jeanne Moreau) is hell bent on her savage spree, though that’s not obvious at the start, where she switches from potential suicide to murderer.

Turns out she wasn’t a bride for more than a few minutes, just long enough to step out onto the church steps where her husband is shot dead. Quite how she divines that five men were responsible is never revealed. But she decides to take them out one by one, and in some senses, in ironic fashion as the deaths coincide with their flaws.

So here’s the Big Reveal. You expect her husband to be the victim of some conspiracy, knocked off for business or political reasons or maybe he was a gangster who stepped on too many toes or the opposite a cop getting too close to the crime hierarchy. But it’s none of these. The shooting was an accident. Five friends were playing around with a loaded gun near the church and it went off. Bit far-fetched, I know, but that’s the story.

Even when Julie learns the truth she’s not dissuaded from her intent, even though the quintet would probably have got banged up for the accident, had she gone to the police after learning the truth. But there you go, people with hidden homicidal tendencies are liable to indulge in them given the opportunity. You could say, well, why should she be punished, so racked with pain and lost love, that she thinks of taking her own life. But will she get succor from taking the lives of so many others? Apparently not.

Anyways, her first victim is womanizer Bliss (Claude Rich), so she comes upon him the guise of a seductress, an easy lay, and with a simple premise manages to get him to climb out on a high balcony, making it easy for her to push him off. Next up is lonely alcoholic bachelor Robert Coral (Michel Bouquet). She poisons his alcohol.

To gain access to the house of political wannabe Clement Morane (Michel Lonsdale), she pretends to be her son’s teacher. It takes a bit of wheeze to trap Clement in a small cupboard which she seals up with the duct tape to facilitate suffocation.

If you want to get close to an artist, what easier way than to volunteer to pose in the nude as his model for a painting of the huntress god Diana complete with bow and arrow. Better still, get Delvaux (Daniel Boulanger) him to fall in love with you before killing him in the back with your newfound archery skills.

The last victim is harder to gain access to, given Fergus (Charles Denner) is in prison. But no problem if you are also a prisoner, having confessed to the other four murders, and get locked up in the same penitentiary as your victim. Get yourself on the catering team and you’ll get easy access to a kitchen knife. And then your task is complete.

Jeanne Moreau (Viva Maria!, 1966) is quite superb, not just the sullen-faced lover of previous movies, but quite engaging as the inventive killer. The men are a roll call of rising French stars.

But too much of it doesn’t make sense and it’s all on the surface in the fashion of the modern slasher picture.

Again based on a novel by Cornell Woolrich (Mississippi Mermaid, 1969), Truffaut co-wrote it with Jean-Louis Richard (Fahrenheit 451, 1966).

Approach this as side hustle by the famous director, a dip into fun, and it’s more than acceptable. Look for anything else and you’ll get lost looking.

Mississippi Mermaid (1969) ****

The problem with deifying your heroes is that you might be tempted to imitate them. Celebrated French director Francois Truffaut (Fahrenheit 451, 1966) had just published his seminal book on Alfred Hitchcock, the first full-length work to treat him as a cinematic genius (an idea, it has to be said, largely dismissed at the time in the USA). Mississippi Mermaid is a homage to Vertigo (1958) with a hero in love with something which doesn’t exist, his idealized version of a woman.

Louis (Jean-Paul Belmondo) and Julie (Catherine Deneuve) couldn’t be more different. A factory owner, he’s got dough and wants a wife. She wants dough and will do anything to get it. She’s the queen of femme fatales and he’s the king of suckers. So it’s a bit of stretch at times, no matter how glamorous and sexy Julie is, for him to stick by her no matter what scheme, at his expense (literally), she comes up with.

There’s unexpectedly another element that will chime with the contemporary audience – the quick way of finding a partner. These days it’s online apps and Tinder and the like, but back in the day people sought romance through the classified adverts of newspapers. In five lines, as Louis points out, you had to pour out all your hopes and reveal your soul.

I don’t think the ending works at all and it’s a bit long, but otherwise as a study of infatuation a la Vertigo it does pretty well. His description of her features in geographical terms is one of the most lyrical romantic scenes of all time. Unfortunately, what he sees gets in the way of what she is.

For a start, she’s not Julie. Julie Roussel was the woman who had responded to his classified advertisement and after some correspondence – the old-fashioned kind via hand-written letters – had agreed to travel to the remote island of Reunion, just off the coast of Madagascar, to become his bride. Marion, a nightclub hostess, befriended Julie on the boat, discovered the purpose of her voyage, and passed this on to her boyfriend who came up with a clever plan. He would kill Julie while Marion would impersonate the dead woman and find a way of ripping off the mark.

Louis is so entranced with Julie, even though he suspects there’s been some of bait-and-switch, that he agrees to allow his new wife access to his bank accounts. It doesn’t take long for her to rook him and make off with his fortune. He hires private detective Comolli (Michel Bouquet) to find her. By coincidence, Louis beats the sleuth to it, coming across Marion dancing as a nightclub hostess in France.

But when he confronts her, she turns out to be a dupe, too, her boyfriend having made off with all the loot and then, sucker that he is, Louis falls in love with her all over again. Given she’s a wanted woman, they go on the run in France, living off his income from the factory. But when Comolli turns out to be too incorruptible for his own good and traces the couple and refuses to be bought off, Louis kills him and buries him in the cellar.

They’re planning now to hide out in Switzerland, out of French jurisdiction, and she persuades him to sell off the factory to fund their future. That only goes half according to plan, he gets the money but the discovery of Comolli’s corpse means most of the cash is stuck in an apartment surrounded by police. Still, they set off and hide out in an abandoned cottage a few miles from the Swiss borders where she starts to poison him.

And that’s where it should have ended, she trudging into Switzerland with what remains of his dough and snagging another sucker, him left for dead in a remote cottage deep in the snow. Except, that would be too heartless, apparently, for audiences of the period, so the whole finale is dressed up in redemption. Revelation is the key. She realizes that when he accepts his fate and calls on her to administer the poison quicker that actually that’s the moment when she falls in love with him. Crikey, what rubbish.

Luckily, the rest of this works because of the depth of Louis’ fixation on Marion. It’s a twist on Vertigo. Instead of the woman not living up to the man’s fantasy, here he refuses to see through the charade. At times, sure, he castigates her for leading him a merry dance and eating her way through his money, but mostly he acts as if in a romantic trance, as if whatever spell she’s cast on him can never be broken.

To protect her, he lowers himself to her level, believing murder is a fine way to get what you want. You can see what he sees in her. But also you can see through her wiles in a way that’s impossible for him.

Jean-Paul Belmondo (Breathless, 1960) is superb in a reversal of his usual male dominance as is Catherine Deneuve (Mayerling, 1968) as the beautiful woman who twists him round her finger but reveals sadder depths than normally associated in his eyes with beauty.

Written by the director based on a Cornell Woolrich (Rear Window, 1954) novel.

It’s certainly a fine effort by Monsieur Truffaut but mostly goes to show how difficult it is to carry off a Hitchcockian thriller.

Hide and Seek (1964) ***

Too many peculiarities for a small British B-picture that just about makes it over the line after “The Big Reveal.” You can start with the fact that, ostensibly, this was director Cy Endfield’s follow-up to his blockbusting Zulu (1964). In fact, it had been made long before, but sat on a shelf for a year, and only released to cash in on Zulu. And you can see why studio British Lion didn’t know what to do with it.

Diving down a 39 Steps thriller-sized rabbit hole, baffled professor saddled with adventurous female go on the run searching for answers to, wait for it, a crime which hasn’t actually been committed. There’s action on a train, some comedy as the worlds of academia and the sophisticated fast set collide, romance on a barge, Cold War skullduggery, too much chess, a bit of welcome role reversal, a cliff-top fight, and some dry wit that might have fitted better into a straightforward romantic comedy. And it ends with a twist of such audacity that it would either come as a relief to a bewildered audience or send them home frustrated at such a denouement.

Rocket scientist David Garrett (Ian Carmichael) becomes embroiled in not even really a plot when he attempts to return a box, containing an inordinate amount of loot, to its owner, chess grandmaster Dr Melnicker (George Pravda). Luckily, a clue in the form of a chess move takes him to a posh London house in fashionable Chelsea where he encounters the slinky Maggie (Janet Munro) and after hiding in a sandpit in a children’s playground to evade pursuers he ends up on a train with her heading north to a place called Flamboro.

But, wait, his pursuers are also on the train, so naturally the couple have to jump off, fall into a river and hitch a lift on a passing barge whose owner Wilkins (Hugh Griffith) proves most obliging. Indeed, Maggie is even more obliging, taking the lead in bedding the shy professor. Things get interesting when Maggie, at a road sign, takes David in the completely opposite direction to Flamboro. That works for about ten seconds until a henchman Paul (Kieron Moore) captures them at gunpoint.

Rather than just shooting David dead he decides it would be cleaner to chuck him over a cliff. Luckily, David is a shade pluckier than you might expect. After winning this cliff-top tussle and shocked at having chucked a man over a cliff he is even more astonished to discover he is stranded, Maggie having made off in the car. Luckily, a passing policeman on a bicycle ensures David makes it safe to Flamboro, which turns out to be a huge mansion perched on a cliff.

My guess is by now you are so hooked by this story that you’ll want me to reveal The Big Reveal. Well, the whole thing turns out to be a trap. Melnicker, the pursuing thugs, Paul (who, you’ll not be too astonished to learn, ain’t dead) and even Maggie have all been plotting to bring David here so that he can be kidnapped and handed over to a submarine arriving the following day. You see, David has been so outspoken (has he?) against his masters that everyone will put his disappearance down to defection. It’s all been a cleverly worked-out chess move as chief baddie Hubert (Curd Jurgens) takes pains to point out.

But our David isn’t exceptionally brainy for nothing and finds a way to outwit the bad guys with Maggie, by now repenting of her bad ways and fallen in love, along for the ride.

So what’s gone wrong? The casting, unfortunately, for one thing. Star Ian Carmichael (School for Scoundrels, 1960), better known for comedy, doesn’t quite make the switch to more straightforward thriller. And Curd Jurgens (Psyche ’59, 1964), whom you might expect to add some gloss, doesn’t appear till the end.

Worse, the film doesn’t find the right tone, too much comedic British observation, and not enough of the hero being in genuine jeopardy. Only a clueless professor would run from the thugs. If the big twist had occurred halfway through and the audience had time to wonder whose side Maggie was on and feel David was in in genuine danger it might have hit the bullseye because, oddly enough, the romance is believable in a Hot Enough for June (1964) kind of way, where innocent male is scooped up by a more worldly female way above his league.

But the role reversal is fun. She’s the one who goes to his rescue when he falls in the river, she’s the seductress, and gets to tell him he looks better “when he’s cross” (a line more typically with slight variations falling to the male) and delivers the movie’s one cracker: “Being a man you have no respect for a mink coat.” She would be an ideal candidate for femme fatale if only the director had let us in on the story quicker, but she’s certainly an astute lure.

Because I wasn’t expecting much, I have probably been a shade less critical than if I was viewing it as a follow-up to Zulu. In the end, it’s passable enough, especially if you are willing to see how clever it’s been.

As I mentioned Ian Carmichael (Lucky Jim, 1957) is the weak link but former Disney protégé Janet Munro (Swiss Family Robinson, 1960), now blossomed in sexy fashion, steals the show and on this performance you might be surprised she did not have a more illustrious career but she had a heart condition and died prematurely at the age of 38. Curd Jurgens was at the early stages of inventing his villainous persona. The other characters are merely pawns in the plot so end up as stock villains. Cy Endfield’s genuine follow-up to Zulu was worth seeing – Sands of the Kalahari (1965).

The Ceremony (1963) ***

Actors taking the hyphenated route were quite a fad in the 1960s. Mostly, primarily for tax purposes, they turned themselves into actor-producers. But some went all-out for artistic glory, saddling themselves with the task of directing the movies in which they starred, by this point in the decade John Wayne (The Alamo, 1960) and Marlon Brando (One-Eyed Jacks, 1961) the most celebrated examples. Despite lacking that pair’s box office pulling power, Laurence Harvey (Butterfield 8, 1960) threw his hat into the ring with this often compelling, atmospheric, but occasionally pretentious, offering.

Irishman Sean McKenna (Laurence Harvey) is in prison in Tangiers – “a city of money” – for one crime he did commit (bank robbery) and one he did not (shooting a guard dead during the robbery). Although facing an imminent death penalty for the murder, he refuses to name the killer. Local prosecutor Le Coq (Ross Martin) is intent on making him an example while the prison warden (John Ireland) pleads for clemency, especially as it is suspected the inmate is innocent.

Astonishing to imagine now but this went out on general release in Britain
as the lead film in a double bill with “Lilies of the Field.”

Meanwhile, McKenna’s girlfriend Catherine (Sarah Miles) and his brother Dominic (Robert Walker Jr) plan an audacious escape. The brother is not altogether altruistic. His price is half the hidden loot and Catherine, that part of the deal sealed when she submits to sex with him.

Dominic gains entry to the prison disguised as a priest, swapping clothes with his brother, so that when sirens sound to announce potential intrusion by Dominic’s sidekick Nicky (Lee Patterson), Sean can simply walk out unharmed. However, when Seans learns of the price to be paid he doesn’t thank Catherine for her noble sacrifice but turns against both. Dominic, now on the run and chased by the police, is virtually burned alive when his car explodes.

My apologies but in order to properly discuss this picture I’m going to have to take you through to the end. So SPOILER ALERT.

Dominic is so badly burnt in fact that he is unrecognizable and the police (decades before DNA would disprove such an assumption) believe he is actually his brother. Dominic is faced with “the ceremony” – an ironic tittle if ever there was one – in which he is strapped to a wooden throne and shot by firing squad. Despite his brother’s betrayal, and the fact that his death would set Sean free, Sean decides it would better to “prevent the unjust killing of an innocent man” and gives himself up, too late, as it happens, to spare Dominic, but allowing Sean, in a Pieta-style gesture, to carry the corpse into the prison courtyard and announce “my brother died for me.”

Not quite the ending you would expect, not least because religious allegory has been distinctly missing from the proceedings unless you count the somewhat dotty Father O’Brian (Jack MacGowran) who spends most of his time delivering soliloquies unless you count cars, cows and mules as potential conversationalists.

You get the impression the ending was what attracted the director to the tale, and though it is quite a stunning climax, cinematically as well as thematically, Harvey has, like so many debutants, determined to make a big point. “There’s a little bit of God in everyone,” pronounces Fr O’Brian with a saintly air, which would beg the question of when the Good Lord channelled his inner bank-robber.

For all the film’s flaws there are several pluses. The atmosphere “of chilly hell” (to steal a quote about another book) is well done, footsteps echo off stone floors and cobbles, nobody in this black-and-white feature is seen without a dose of noir lighting, resulting in long shadows and aerial shots of tiny figures swarming. While everyone else over-acts for no apparent reason except directorial inexperience, when Sarah Miles (Term of Trial, 1962) overacts, lips constantly a-quiver, words delivered in gasps, she has every right to, since her character has succumbed to the most evil kind of temptation for the best sort of reason.

The only other interesting character, beyond the stock ones populating the prison, is lonely landlord Ramades (Carlos Casaravilla) who has outlived his four lives and whose rooms abut the prison and where Catherine takes refuge while the escape is going on. He senses her tension, but mistakes the cause, assuming she is here to wait for the shots announcing her husband’s death as a means of “sharing his punishment,” quite a piece of psychological insight for an ordinary guy. And there’s also a creepiness about the whole scene, a sense that she might have to give herself to him as well in order to prevent him wandering too far from the bedroom where he might discover Dominic putting into action a crucial part of the escape plan.

Among the flaws: no real tension, especially in terms of the escape, not enough directorial understanding that much more could be gained from greater focus on Catherine’s dilemma, the obvious lack of a body in the burning car, the fact that the Irishman shows no signs of an Irish accent, the priest’s scenes which provoke hilarity more than reverence, and as much as it is a strength the ending appears out of nowhere.

Robert Walker Jr (The Happening, 1967) is too much of a lightweight for this role, but John Ireland (55 Days at Peking, 1963) and Ross Martin (Experiment in Terror, 1962) excel. Look out for Fernando Rey (The French Connection, 1970).

Valiant effort by Harvey who only directed one other time, on his last film Welcome to Arrow Beach / Yellow-Head Summer (1973), plus a stint filling in for Anthony Mann who died during the filming of A Dandy in Aspic (1968). For The Ceremony Harvey was a quadruple hyphenate – actor-producer-writer-director – for he also contributed enough dialogue to claim a screen credit along with Ben Barzman (The Blue Max, 1966) who adapted the novel by Frederic Grendel.

The Collector (1965) *****

William Wyler’s paean to Incels strike such a contemporary note it’s hard to believe it was made over 60 years ago. An insightful study of male entitlement, female submission and novice serial killer that showcased two emerging British stars, this is as much about the psychological make-up of the victim as the captor.

Following a lottery win (see Note), lonely bank clerk Freddie (Terence Stamp) kidnaps the woman of his dreams, flame-haired art student Miranda (Samantha Eggar) in the hope that once she gets to know him she will fall in love. He has found a large cellar beside the secluded mansion he bought with his winnings. But this is no dank dungeon with a prisoner chained to the walls, but a comfortable abode with lighting, heating, clothing, food, and art materials. However, it is locked.

In turn angry, puzzled and submissive, Miranda tries to work out what she needs to do to achieve her liberty without realising that no matter what she does she will never fulfil his dreams. Despite his shyness, it wouldn’t be hard in other circumstances to fall for a guy as good-looking as this, if only for an affair. She is sexually experienced, but has just been rejected by an older man (Kenneth More), and love on the rebound is hardly uncommon.

Unfortunately, Freddie lives such a soulless, empty, existence, no interests beyond an obsession with butterflies, of which he has amassed a collection large enough to supply a complete museum, that the chances of finding common ground are remote and the circumstances of their meeting pretty much douse the potential for any spark.

At first, once she has expended her anger at her incarceration, she is grateful not to be murdered or raped – even pleads that if he is going to take her by force sexually not to drug her – and soon her mind turns to ways of escape, especially once he invites her into the big house, allows her to bathe, cooks her a meal and shows the world she could enjoy as his willing partner.

With every step, Freddie dares to dream more, that his insane idea will come to fruition, that a beautiful princess will love the lowly commoner. And as much as this focuses on male domination, it is also an examination of female independence, Miranda being in the foreground of that generation to espouse personal freedom, not viewing marriage as an ultimate destination, but seeking a fulfilling career with love almost a perk on the side.

Even without going to extent of kidnapping a woman, males of the period still expected a female to cater to their every whim, wife-beating hardly considered a crime, and, ironically, it would be a rare woman who would not enjoy the worship a more ordinary Freddie planned to bestow on his beloved.

It being set in the England of a particular period, Freddie blames the gulf between them on “class,” that where or to whom you are born creating an unattainable barrier between young men and young women, despite considerable evidence to the contrary. But, of course, to the thwarted, there is always someone to blame.

You will be very familiar with the cinematic tale of the imprisoned female attempting to escape by wiles and ingenuity, but even so, this will take you by surprise, in part because the idea of being forcibly detained was a rare event back then, so Miranda does not spend her time trying to chisel through loose cement using a stolen fork or other ideas along the same lines. That she has even managed to negotiate the length of her prison term makes her initial custody tolerable, especially as, in terms of material things, she wants for nothing.

Unfortunately, although Freddie is immune to normal feelings, he is alert to the slightest nuance, and would feel it an insult to his intelligence should she just play along and pretend to fall in love with as a means of engineering her escape. That the audience is probably more aware of this than Miranda makes the tension virtually unbearable.

This is a duel of the highest caliber between captor and detainee. At several moments it looks as if the tide will turn. A terrific scene with overflowing bath water fails to make a nosy neighbor suspicious. She even at one point manages to whack her assailant over the head with a shovel and attempt a genuine escape. You are left to wonder if making a sexual sacrifice, even taking the initiative with a virgin, will make the necessary difference. But one look into those implacable eyes would have told you exactly where you stood without having to wait until you were dragged by the hair across the lawn in a rainstorm.

Audiences more familiar with the director through late-career roadshows like Ben-Hur (1959) and Funny Girl (1967) or the earlier rom-com Roman Holiday (1953) would be forgiven for forgetting how adept Wyler was at racking up the tension from his early thrillers or dealing with unattainable love (Wuthering Heights, 1939) or entitlement (Jezebel, 1938). He evokes such a claustrophobic atmosphere, ingrained with pure Englishness, and plays with ironies of character beauty – Freddie’s eyes and cheekbones, that should have attracted women by the score, instead lending him devilish menace while Miranda’s sensational looks that would have most men begging for just a minute of her company prove insufficient to enslave this particular creature.

That there is genuine sexual tension, not just whether he will end up raping her, but whether she might see his more attractive version of himself and come to give him what he wants without being repulsed, brings a surprising sexual tension. You wouldn’t say there was chemistry between the characters in the normal sense, but the situation is electrifying.

This was a career high for Terence Stamp (Term of Trial, 1962), minus many of the acting foibles and vocal tics that peppered his later work, and the same went for Samantha Eggar (Walk, Don’t Run, 1966). But the performances are of such a high quality, especially when you think she has breached his defences sufficiently, that at times it is an unbearable watch. John Kohn (Caprice, 1967) and Stanley Mann (The Naked Runner, 1967) based their screenplay on the bestselling – and highly praised – novel by John Fowles, author of later cult work The Magus.

This would have stood the test of time anyway as a pure thriller but since it digs into what has now become a counter-culture it carries even greater significance today.

NOTE: He didn’t win the lottery. That didn’t exist then. Instead he won on the “Football Pools,” but that concept – it began in 1923 – is so hard to explain to non-British people that I took the easy way out. However, the “pools” was a gambling phenomenon of the times, the entry fee so low, at its peak played by 14 million people in the UK every week in the hope of winning a jackpot akin to lottery cash. In essence, you had to guess out of all the soccer games being played on a Saturday (all games in those days kicked off at 3pm on a Saturday) how many would end in draws.

Deadfall (1968) **

“The Big Reveal” comes too late to save this heist-cum-melodrama. It can’t make up its mind whether it wants to join the canon of superlative 1960s caper pictures – in which case it needed to make a greater effort on the cat burglary front – or whether it’s an odd addition to the menage a trois category, in which case it needed characters you could actually believe. Worst of all, it contains one of the great artistic follies, a robbery carried out in time with an orchestra playing one of the great John Barry compositions, “Romance for a Guitar and Orchestra.”

The only problem, there’s no dramatic reason for this. Since the concert is miles away from the robbery, it’s not as if the music drowns out the shenanigans. Director Bryan Forbes (King Rat, 1965) shoots himself in the foot. It’s too clever a device by half, even if the music is intended as a counterpoint to the robbery’s more dramatic themes or the silence which had become a trope.

Cat burglar Henry (Michael Caine) forms a business partnership with elderly safecracker Moreau (Eric Portman) and falls for his wife Fe (Giovanna Ralli). The husband-wife relationship is off to begin with, he preferring males, and the wife admitting she doesn’t always find men attractive, though quite what she is hinting at is never made clear. The target is millionaire Salinas (David Buck), whom Henry is investigating to the point of pretending to be an alcoholic so he can get to know Salinas in a sanatorium.

Any other movie would get straight to the point – draw up plans and get on with it. But here, for no real reason except delay, Moreau wants them to do a trial run, a safecracking job on the mansion of the kind of couple who drive off in a posh car to attend a concert. The effort put into the planning isn’t really up to scratch, not when compared to the likes of Topkapi (1964) – to which every heist film of the era was measured – or Gambit (1966) or even the less well-known The Happy Thieves (1960) or Seven Thieves (1960).

Apart from some cat burglary skills the whole episode is perfunctory, guard dogs knocked out by drugs. The background music, the aforementioned John Barry opus, just about kills off any prospect of tension. It only sparks into life when Moreau admits the safe is beyond him and Henry has to prise it out of the wall and cart it to the waiting car.

The second heist would have been far more interesting had we known from the start that Salinas welcomes burglary attempts, seeing it as some kind of duel of wits with malfeasants.

In between the two robberies there is time enough – too much time in fact – for Henry and Fe to get it together, for Fe to run off and then return only to learn in The Big Reveal the kind of despicable man her husband is. The movie can’t even deal with the incestuous sub-plot and just lets it hang there. But by that stage you couldn’t care less. Fe isn’t the type of femme fatale to bother crossing the road for, the romance seems too prescribed and the downbeat ending makes no sense.

I’m only giving this any points at all really because it stars Michael Caine (Hurry Sundown, 1967) and features a lengthy slice of John Barry music. Caine has been in enough duds for sure, but this doesn’t have the ring of one of his doing-it-for-the-money numbers or a stab at the Hollywood big-budget scene. Caine is good enough and Eric Portman (The Bedford Incident, 1965) is an interesting study. But it just doesn’t gel, not just let down by Giovanna Ralli (The Caper of the Golden Bulls, 1967) but by the pretentious direction and dramatic miscalculation of Bryan Forbes.

Forbes’ wife Nanette Newman (The Wrong Box, 1966) makes a puzzling appearance in a small role with no dramatic credibility. Leonard Rossiter (Deadlier than the Male, 1967) provides another cameo. For many the high spot will be to see John Barry in the flesh, conducting the orchestra playing his composition.

Seven Thieves (1960) ****

You wouldn’t figure director Henry Hathaway for a caper movie. He seemed more at home with action, whether that be war (The Desert Fox, 1951), adventure (Legend of the Lost, 1957) or western (Nevada Smith, 1966) although he was a dab hand at film noir (Kiss of Death, 1947). And before the big-budget all-star Oceans 11 entered the equation in the same year as Seven Thieves – and stole much of its thunder – the heist movie ran mostly on B-movie steam such as Rififi (1955), The Killing (1956) and Big Deal on Madonna Street (1958).

And probably judged against other glossy efforts of the 1960s like Topkapi (1964) and Gambit (1967) Seven Thieves would appear on the surface to come up a bit short. No doubt accounting for it being so under-rated. But while this is in itself a neat little thriller the kick comes in the emotional entanglements and a succession of twists at the end that sends it in my book into a higher category.

And it’s so outrageously clever that the mystery of why French-based criminal mastermind Theo Wilkins (Edward G. Robinson) would reach out across the Atlantic Ocean to recruit former jailbird Paul Mason (Rod Steiger) to spearhead the heist of a cool four million dollars from a Monte Carlo casino is not resolved until the end, and in spectacular fashion.

Technically, there are actually only six thieves, the other is an inside man, Raymond (Alexander Scourby), who has fallen for the seductive charms of nightclub dancer Melanie (Joan Collins). Making up the rest of the septet are safe cracker Louis (Michael Dante) and muscle-cum-driver Hugo (Berry Kroeger) with Poncho (Eli Wallach) playing the key role of the pretend crippled, arrogant, irascible millionaire – and contrary to the claims of one poster he is the decoy not Melanie.

Distrust of his team makes Theo bring in Paul, who ruthlessly knocks them into shape, putting into seamless action the plan devised by Theo. Simply put, Poncho is going to act as a distraction by having a heart attack at the gambling table while Paul and Louis climb out a window along a ledge to the casino director’s flat which provides, by means of an elevator, direct access to the underground vaults. Once they’ve stolen the cash, they clamber back along the ledge and hide in the flat where, by this time, Theo, playing the role of Poncho’s personal physician, has taken him. The money will be hidden in Poncho’s wheelchair and removed to a waiting ambulance.

But Paul is a rather suspicious character and wants to know what he’s letting himself in for so in turn works out the weaknesses of his team. Melanie hides behind a façade of high birth, Pancho is too reckless, “measuring danger only in terms of profit,” Hugo prone to unnecessary violence, while Louis has omitted to mention he is terrified of heights, the ledge on which the operation depends standing on a 100ft high cliff.

*In some posters, this was promoted as Al Capone (Steiger)*
*vs Little Caesar (Robinson).*

The plan relies on Poncho actually appearing to be dead, so dead that the casino director (Sebastian Cabot) will not hesitate, at Theo’s insistence, to shift him out of sight of the rest of the gamblers into his flat. But Complication No 1 is that Poncho doesn’t want to be dead, even if it is a ruse, skeptical of Theo’s plan to convincingly knock him out by means of a carefully measured dose of cyanide. Complication No 2 is that a night club client recognizes Melanie and casts doubt on her credentials as a lady of quality. Complication No 3 is that English physician Dr Halsey (Alan Caillou) questions whether Poncho is as dead as he seems.

But such complications are nothing compared an extraordinary range of twists that raise tension sky-high at the movie’s denouement. I challenge you to guess what these three superbly-conceived twists would be, all of them one by one turning the project on its head, and it rapidly shifts from one direction to another, ending with an unbelievable – and yet so in keeping with the premise – climax.

Attention to character detail lifts this out of the rut, whether it be Theo’s penchant for collecting seashells, Paul resplendent in a white suit, Melanie resisting the blandishments of becoming a kept woman, Raymond trying to climb out the murky depths into which the lure of Melanie has taken him, and a series of subtle relationships, some developing through the robbery, others which began long before the heist working themselves out.

The heist itself is well done, tension kept constant mostly through the failings of the crew and the suspicions of the dupes. All in all an excellent picture.

This was a critical film in the careers of most of the cast. Edward G. Robinson (The Cincinnati Kid, 1965) was handed his first top-billed role in four years. It was a deliberate change of pace for Rod Steiger (The Pawnbroker, 1964). For Eli Wallach, best known at the time for stage work, it was the first of three films that year that would launch him into the higher ranks of top supporting stars; it was followed by The Magnificent Seven and The Misfits. After being leading lady to the likes of Gregory Peck and Richard Burton, this spelled the end of Twentieth Century Fox’s belief in Joan Collins’ star qualities while for Michael Dante (The Naked Kiss, 1964) it was a step up.

Wallach and Dante could be accused of over-acting but Robinson, Steiger and Collins all act against type with considerable effect. Hathaway does a superb job working from a script by Sydney Boehm (Rough Night in Jericho, 1967) based on the Max Catto bestseller.

Verity (2026) **** – Seen at the Cinema

The Housemaid set a very high bar for the glossy, slick, twisty, female-led thriller. With the same background of wealth and privilege – and the underdog staring through the shop window – this terrific three-hander more than meets the bill. (I saw this on the same day as Digger and there was scarcely a seat left).

Given the twistiness of the genre now, the audience is aware nothing is what it seems and like me from the outset starts to wonder what the reality really is behind the glitzy façade. When you begin to out-think yourself, you know the movie has done its job.

I had a different scenario in mind, one where impoverished ghost writer Lowen (Dakota Johnson) has set it all up, inveigled herself into the household of bestselling crippled author Verity Crawford (Anne Hathaway) and conspired to write a tale, purportedly an autobiography, that would make husband Jeremy (Josh Hartnett) want to kill her. I was wrong, as it turned out, but the screenwriter’s line was just as twisty. In the end the pun on the author’s name, Verity, ensures that we can never know the entire truth.

Given Verity has made fortune imagining villainous heroines, it’s not long before the apparently innocent Lowen begins to fall under some kind of villainous spell, or the self-justification that amounts to the same thing.

The stunning meet-cute sets the tone. When Jeremy comes across Lowen her face is dripping with blood, the result of being too close to a city center car crash. He’s the ultimate gentleman, gives her his shirt in place of her despoiled top, and just as well because she’s going in to interview for the job of a lifetime. Verity needs someone to write three books, based on her voluminous notes, and learn to write in her distinctive style.

I should point the meet-cute between Verity and Jeremy is equally accomplished, Jeremy commandeering someone else’s limousine to make out with Verity.

Lowen is little more than a literary wannabe, published but without commercial success. She’s emotionally raw, too, having just buried her mother and inclined to self-medicate on a combination of her mother’s medication and alcohol. .

Naturally, with the wife out of action and confined to bed, paralyzed, unable to communicate, a romantic vacuum has opened up, a romantic job opportunity if you like, a sort of bonus to the writing gig, and maybe even an opening for a new wife. Kicking off the it’s-not-what-it-seems business, Lowen by accident discovers a memory stick containing, ironically, too much memory, the retelling of Verity’s life minus the fairy tale aspects that appears to cast Verity as a calculating mother resentful of her two children, fearing they are coming between herself and her husband. There’s a tragic accident in which one of the children dies. But is it an accident or convenient murder?

Meanwhile, either Lowen is going barmy with guilt, what with playing around with the husband, or going mad, because she begins to see the paralyzed woman watching her. There’s a terrific scene where Lowen sticks a pin in Verity’s hand, drawing blood, hoping to force the wife out of her stupor and admit her supposed paralysis is all part of some kind of sadistic plan, the aim of which is unclear, unless, like her villainous heroines, this is just the kind of fun Verity enjoys.

Thanks to the autobiography, Verity very much comes alive in flashback. But whose version of her life are we seeing? By the time Lowen and Jeremy had made their own judgements, they have already devised a construct which permits villainous action under the guise of self-justification.

You’ll find a few plot holes if you look hard enough, but I doubt if anyone will be anything but swept along in the dazzling tale with convincing characters. This wouldn’t be a twisty thriller if it didn’t come with a couple of dynamite twists at the end.

This is the fourth adaptation of novels by Colleen Hoover (It Ends With Us, 2024) and I’ve enjoyed every one, and each quite different from the other. Nick Antosca (Cape Fear mini series, 2026) wrote the screenplay while Michael Showalter (The Idea of You, 2024 – also with Hathaway) directed but I reckon they followed Hoover’s guidelines.

This is turning out to be the Year of Anne Hathaway, with two big hits – The Devil Wears Prada 2 and The Odyssey – in the bag. All three actors are superb. I’ve not been that impressed with Dakota Johnson (Madame Web, 2024) before – although admittedly I skipped the Shades movie series – but this works for me, and Josh Hartnett’s delicious turn in Trap (2024) turned my preconceptions of him on their head.

Thoroughly enjoyable.

Assault on a Queen (1966) ***

I always wondered why this was a flop. I’m still baffled. Not only is it a perfectly serviceable caper picture, but it’s also high-concept before the term was invented, a World War Two submarine involved in holding up high-end ocean liner Queen Mary (yep, the real thing, thanks to cooperation from owners Cunard).

The dialogue’s crisp, the robbery well-planned, a good number of twists, plenty underwater thrills, hostility between crew members, and sexual tension kept high by the presence on board of the Italian Miss Big. Diver Mark Brittain (Frank Sinatra) is sucked into a treasure hunt in part because he needs the money and in part through the sexual magnetism of Rosa (Virna Lisi), the expedition backer, who already has suave Vic (Anthony Franciosa) on a string.

The plan evolves into piracy when Brittain discovers a World War Two German submarine on the seabed. As it happens, skippering the salvage vessel is former German U-boat captain Eric (Alf Kjellin). After Mark successfully raises the sub, it’s game on, Vic’s qualms wilting under Rosa’s seductive gaze. The other team members are engineer Tony (Richard Conte) and wireless operator Linc (Errol John). The prize is a cool million in cash and gold bullion.

Catch No 1: the sub can’t stay submerged for more than an hour. Catch No 2: it’s not that seaworthy and could spring a leak at any time (“don’t just look for water, listen for it,” advises Eric). Catch No 3: in order to successfully board the Queen Mary looking for vital equipment, one of these very American Yanks has to pass himself off as a British sub captain on a secret mission.

Potential Catch No 4 has already been dealt with – if the Queen Mary officers rumble the ruse and call the thieves’ bluff the hijackers plan to put a dummy torpedo up the spout and fire it into the ship’s hull. Catch No 5: there’s so much pent-up hostility among the team the whole endeavor could be sunk. Mark and Vic are vying for Rosa’s favors and clever bombshell that she is she intends to keep it that way, stringing both along.

Racist Vic takes against Eric and also resents splitting the loot with late arrival Tony. Alf not only resents Mark, also a former sub officer, for ending up on the war’s winning side, but exhibits psychopathic tendencies and might just for the hell of it blow a passing tanker out of the water. Like any gang, each member brings something specific to the party. And without giving too much away, the endgame turns into a battle of wits, especially when the unexpected occurs.

I’m a big fan of Sinatra’s acting style. He is so natural, his gestures don’t look like they’ve been rehearsed for hours in a mirror, you’ll never accuse him of Method acting, or picking parts with Oscars in mind, but somehow he still manages to inhabit his characters.

This is a fascinating role for Virna Lisi (How to Murder Your Wife, 1965), reminiscent of film noir in the way she handles men, but also years ahead of her time not just in combining sexual and financial independence but of being the boss funding the heist and recruiting the team, and soon has the reluctant Mark playing ball with no sense that’s ultimately she’s going to fall at his feet.

Anthony Franciosca (Rio Conchos, 1964) is mostly a distraction, engaged in a private feud with James Coburn as to who has the brightest and biggest screen teeth. Richard Conte (Lady in Cement, 1969) and Alf Kjellin (Midas Run, 1969) are the physical and mental muscle, respectively, and Trinidadian Errol John (Man in the Middle, 1965) essays an interesting role. Jack Donohue (Marriage on the Rocks, 1965) keeps it all ticking along.

Rod Serling (Planet of the Apes, 1968) devised the screenplay from the novel by Jack Finney (Good Neighbor Sam, 1964). So why did critics and the public have such a downer on the picture? Critical attitudes to the star were easier to understand. Sinatra’s films were generally disliked, and knowledge of his one-take preference allowed critics to thumb their collective noses at his acting, assuming he put no effort into it.

Rumors of his underworld connections were beginning to emerge, he had just married Mia Farrow, less than half his age, and the Beatles and the British invasion had usurped his position in the pop rankings. The general feeling was he was on the way out so why not boot him while he was down. This was despite him receiving some of the best notices of his career for Von Ryan’s Express (1965).

Audiences might have been expecting another Rat Pack lark in the vein of Ocean’s 11 (1960) or felt the supporting cast lacked lustre, Lisi a little known commodity, this only her second Hollywood picture, Franciosca still the second banana, and Hardy Kruger would certainly have invested the German with more malevolence. Otherwise, it’s hard to see what there is to complain about. As I mentioned the dialogue was good, characters simmering, and the story satisfying enough.

Sure, a better director might have extracted more tension from the set pieces, lifted the pace, and added a booming score as with Ice Station Zebra (1968).

It might not be the best heist picture ever made, but it’s too good to be dismissed.