Drama – Page 2 – The Magnificent 60s

Term of Trial (1962) ***

Notable for the debuts of Sarah Miles (Ryan’s Daughter, 1970) and Terence Stamp (The Collector, 1963) and an ending that even in those misogynistic times was wince-inducing. The halcyon era of dull English schoolteachers being celebrated (Goodbye, Mr Chips, 1939) or finding redemption or even just managing to overcome pupil hostility (The Browning Version, 1951) were long gone, replaced by a more realistic view of the casual warfare endemic in education establishments, not quite in The Blackboard Jungle (1956) vein but running it close, with bullying, sexual abuse and ridicule running riot.

Self-pitying Graham Weir (Laurence Olivier) has failed to achieve his ambitions in part due to alcoholism, in part to antipathy to his conscientious objection during World War Two. And although he has a sexy French wife Anna (Simone Signoret) in the days when any Frenchwoman was deemed a goddess, she is embittered that the future he promised has not materialized. Like To Sir, with Love (1967) his classroom is filled with no-hopers so that he responds to the meek and innocent wishing for educational betterment.

Weir’s only defence against endless indignity is a stiff upper lip and slugs of whisky. His lack of character contrasts with a young lad who takes revenge against constantly being chucked out of his house by his mother’s lover (Derren Nesbitt) by blowing up the man’s sports car.

Spanning the twin cultures of religion and the razor, one falling out of favor, the other holding violent sway, opportunity to rise above kitchen-sink England lies with the self-confident such as thug Mitchell (Terence Stamp) who smokes in class, gives the teachers lip, takes photographs of girls in their underwear in the toilets, physically threatens classmates and when his target is bigger gets older men to give him a good thumping.

A somewhat unlikely development is an end-of-term trip to Paris where the infatuated Shirley (Sarah Miles), who the good-hearted Weir has been giving free private tuition, ends up in the teacher’s bedroom and later accuses him of abuse. The impending court case and threat of imprisonment scupper Weir’s chances of promotion, make him consider suicide, and Anna to leave him.

The court scenes allow a number of famous character actors a moment of acting glory. Laurence Olivier (Bunny Lake Is Missing, 1965) must in part have been attracted to the role by a terrific court monologue. The movie is very downbeat in a country universally known never to enjoy an ounce of sunshine justifying the black-and-white movie rendition. If there is liveliness in the streets, cinemas, shops, it never translates into any of the main adult characters, all determined to uphold ancient values and endure constricted lives.

Exploiting audience expectation for verbal fireworks, the tension in Laurence Olivier’s finely judged performance comes from his untypical, unshowy delivery. You can almost hear him grinding his teeth. Simone Signoret (The Sleeping Car Murder, 1965) also acts against the grain, battening down her inherent sexuality, and her very presence speaks of lost hope, the fact that she was once attracted to Weir indicating he was once a very different prospect.

Sarah Miles excels as the wannabe seducer, that hesitant voice that would become her hallmark, struggling here to turn innocence into lure, expressing her adoration in heart-breaking simplicity, and yet aware that to catch Weir would require more than just the submission a guy like Mitchell requires. While hers is a stunning debut, I’m at a loss to see what marked out Terence Stamp’s typical surly teenager for speedier stardom.

Oscar-winner Hugh Griffiths (The Counterfeit Traitor, 1962) is the pick of the supporting roles. A remarkable scene-stealer, a shift of his head, a flicker of his eyelashes is all he needs while sitting in the background to attract the camera from another character in the foreground. Look out for Barbara Ferris (Interlude, 1968), Derren Nesbit (Where Eagles Dare, 1968), Allan Cuthbertson (The 7^th Dawn, 1964), Roland Culver (Thunderball, 1965) and Thora Hird (television’s Last of the Summer Wine, 1986-2003).

Surprisingly un-stagey direction from Peter Glenville (Becket, 1964) who was far better known as a theater director in London and Broadway. Probably in those days if you were setting a movie outside sophisticated London you had to present a gloomy version of Britain so you can’t really blame him for that and Olivier was hardly a major box office attraction so a budget trimmed of color would be a requisite. Although the older characters display grim determination, the younger ones have not had the spirit knocked out of them in the Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960) manner and the location shots reveal a buzzy atmosphere.

Glenville also wrote the screenplay based on the bestseller by James Barlow.

The Bramble Bush (1960) ***

The secrecy business was working overtime in small-town America according to the Peyton Place template. And that wouldn’t be so bad here except returning big city doctor Guy (Richard Burton) has a few of his own in the locker but more importantly the unfolding of so many secrets detracts from the time available for the main dramatic premise which is an absolute corker.

We might as well account straight-off with the secret Guy drags around behind him like a two-ton weight thus explaining his general surliness, tight-lipped demeanor and occasional flashes of temper. As a twelve-year-old he told his father he had caught his mother in bed lover with Stew (James Dunn) which prompted his dad to chuck himself off a cliff.

The other big secret, dealt with fairly promptly, is that local nurse Fran (Angie Dickinson), who held a torch for Guy, now makes do with district attorney Bert (Jack Carson), that clandestine affair coming to light not so much in flagrante but in full beam when the illicit couple require treatment following a fire in a hotel bedroom.

The unravelling of both secrets impacts on Guy’s emotional state. The fire leads to Fran admitting her feelings to Guy, happy to have him use her for sex if love is not possible, “I love you so much I have no shame,” she proclaims, to no avail, but the hotel business also makes her fall prey to blackmail by local newshound Parker (Henry Jones), a budding amateur photographer of the unsavoury kind. Recounting his personal tragedy results in a Guy having a one-night stand with the married wannabe artist Margaret McFie (Barbara Rush).

But here’s the brilliant twist. Margaret’s husband Larry (Tom Drake) wants her to end up with Guy – but after his death. Larry, Guy’s best friend from childhood, is dying, the doctor scuttling back to a town that harbours too many bad memories in order to act as his personal physician. Larry’s never going to recover, he has the incurable illness Hodgkin’s Disease. His dying wish is that Guy marry Margaret.

Margaret is revolted by the idea, “I don’t want to be beautiful for anyone but Larry,” but unable to cope with his with illness is living on a cocktail of drink and drugs. And although Guy, who distrusts any woman, is similarly ill-inclined, Margaret becomes dependent on his medical ability, treating both husband and wife. Larry turns out to have another crazy idea – he wants Guy to kill him, medically speaking of course, some extra, illegal, doses of morphine would do the trick.

This incredible bucket list provides Guy with a huge dilemma, never mind what to do with Fran throwing herself at him and having to put up with the hypocritical Bert, and Stew, now the town drunk, begging for forgiveness, and Larry’s father Sam (Carl Benton Reid), who, for reasons unspecified, hates the doctor.

There’s more twists to come, just in case you thought you had everything worked out. But you can see the problem over-complication creates. The euthanasia-please-have-sex-with-my-beautiful wife combination would have set the movie up nicely from the get-go. Guy wouldn’t need to have a deep secret to find himself in very deep waters. How he would react to either or both outcomes, how Margaret would equally react to the possibility of ending her husband’s suffering in a quick and painless manner, would be more than enough to provide the dynamic the picture required. The movie then pivots on Guy being charged with murder.

It’s certainly interesting enough but Guy is too buttoned-down to incur sympathy and his revelation, devastating though it is, doesn’t suddenly make him an instantly more attractive screen character. In fact, it’s Fran who elicits the greater sympathy, the woman bedding someone who views her only as a sex object, yet willing to become a sex object for someone she does love if that’s all she can have. Eventually, the two key issues are put in the spotlight, which certainly puts a spark in the picture. But the poster promises a passion that just doesn’t exist.

Richard Burton (The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, 1965) plays this character in a lower register than his screen persona, the sonorous voice toned down, and although the look of someone who doesn’t want to be back rings true the performance lacks variety and there are only occasional glimpses of the fiery actor. Barbara Rush (Robin and the 7 Hoods, 1964) has her own legitimate reasons for being dispassionate and the vibrant character her husband married never really gets an airing. Angie Dickinson (Jessica, 1962) comes across as a more human character with, in emotional terms, a greater flaw, and a more tragic figure, even though there is nothing life-or-death about her circumstances. Two veterans are showcased: Jack Carson (Mildred Pierce, 1945) and James Dunn (Bad Girl, 1931).

Television director Daniel Petrie (A Raisin in the Sun, 1961) was making his movie debut. The screenwriting team of Milton Sperling and Philip Yordan (Battle of the Bulge, 1965) drew on the bestselling novel by Charles Mergendahl.

Hard to find DVD so Ebay is the best source.

Last Summer (1969) ****

Given the severity of the crime involved, you leave Frank Perry’s coming-of-age-drama wondering what happened to the four principals. Did the aggressive three young demi-gods of a golden age go on to pursue similar acts of cruelty? While one of them might show remorse, or at least suffer from guilt, of the other two I have my doubts. They would find ways to blame the injured party. And what about the victim? Would she have the courage to report the crime, or suffer in shame for decades.

It’s odd how time changes entirely the shape of a movie. In its day this was seen as a bold exposition of frank adventure by teenagers seeking their first experiences of growing up and experimenting with sex and drugs (pilfered from a parental stash). Although there is little focus on dysfunctionality, both Sandy (Barbara Hershey) and Rhoda (Cathy Burns) are missing a parent, the former’s father running off with another woman, the latter’s mother drowned by stupid misadventure. Both have been abused, unable to prevent the wandering hands of males. All are vulnerable, if only by youth.

Of the boys, Dan (Bruce Davison) is the more confident, Peter (Richard Thomas), while easily swayed, the gentler of the two. Dan merely seeks his first taste of sex, Peter the more likely to need love as well. Sandy is sexually precocious, somewhat on the exhibitionist side, peeling off her bikini top with apparently at times no idea of the effect it will have on the boys, at other times clearly uncomfortable with the notion that the guys might have nothing else on their minds but staring at her breasts. But she is the one who wants to continue watching a gay couple cavorting on the beach while Dan is embarrassed. Sometimes the frank sexuality is rite-of-passage stuff, other times it is distinctly creepy. In the cinema both men grope her breasts. She claims to have been excited by the experience, but you can’t help thinking at least one of the men should have shown restraint, not treating her as if she was some kind of sex toy.

The movie begins on a clearer note. The guys come across Sandy nursing a wounded gull and perhaps entranced by her good looks help her remove a hook from the bird’s throat, provide convalescence and eventually help the bird recover the confidence to fly again. It’s a cosy trio, but edgy, too, Sandy allowing them considerable latitude. But, of course, the guys do the same to her. When she bludgeons the bird to death because it bit her (“the ungrateful bastard”), the pair, initially shocked, are not shocked enough to reject her, afflicted by unassailable male logic, the kind that drove film noir, that maintained a beautiful woman could not have a black heart.

Separated from the other two, Peter displays a gentler side, teaching the shy Rhoda to swim, kissing her in far more considerate fashion than the boys treat Sandy. But, effectively, she is a pet, and it’s only a matter of time before the unsavory aspect of Sandy’s character breaks out. After setting Rhoda up on a date, the trio do everything they can to spoil it, angry at the poor girl for not getting the “joke.”

Worse is to follow. Date-rape we’d call it today. Retreating to the cool forest, Sandy taunts Rhoda by removing her bikini top. When the horrified Rhoda refuses to do the same, Sandy attacks her, holding her down along with Peter while Dan rapes her. That’s where the film ends, no consequences, no repercussion. Back in the day it was a shock ending, an act of violence to mar an otherwise relatively innocent summer. After the deed is done, the camera pulls back into an aerial shot to observe the guilty trio walking back to the beach, but without drawing conclusion or offering moral judgement. It’s hard to know what to make of the ending. These days, of course, we’d be appalled. But back then it didn’t appear to appall, certainly not drawing the outrage that accompanied similar scenes in The Straw Dogs (1971) or A Clockwork Orange (1971) perhaps because the perpetrators were so attractive and it was, after all, a coming-of-age picture, as if such things could be expected.

Roger Ebert, writing in the Chicago Sun-Times, for example, judged that the conclusion “is not really important to the greatness of the movie.” Andrew Sarris of Village Voice noted that “Perry retreats from the carnal carnage” to end with a shot that “prefers symbolic evocation to psychological exploration.” In other words adolescence is fraught with risk and Rhoda is just collateral damage.

Certainly the acting is uniformly excellent for such inexperienced actors, coping with many changes in dramatic focus, from early exhilaration through growing pains to violence. Barbara Hershey (Heaven with a Gun, 1969) would go on to become a major star. Amazing to realise that Bruce Davison (Willard, 1971) and Cathy Burns, Oscar-nominated for her role, were making their movie debuts and for Hershey and Richard Thomas (Winning, 1969) their sophomore outings.

Director Frank Perry (The Swimmer, 1968) had a special affinity with the young as he had proved with David and Lisa (1962) and at times the whole affair had an improvised free-wheeling style. Eleanor Perry (David and Lisa) wrote the screenplay based on the novel by Evan Hunter (The Birds, 1963).

This is very hard to find, it turns out, so Ebay might be your best bet.

My thanks to one of my readers, Mike, for digging up this story of the disappearance of Catherine Burns from the movie business.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-features/catherine-burns-inside-50-year-disappearance-an-oscar-nominee-1275646/

The Sweet Ride (1968) ***

Unusual drama mainlining on Californian surf, sex, bikers, a mystery of Blow-Up (1966) dimensions and the best entrance since Ursula Andress in Dr No (1962). Displays a 1960s vibe with a 1950s pay-off as the “hitchhiker” of responsibility rears its ugly head.

A woman thrown out of a car narrowly escapes being run over. The cops jack in the investigation after television actress Vickie (Jacqueline Bisset) refuses to explain why she’s been badly beaten up. And so we enter flashback mode to supposedly find out. She makes a glorious entrance, emerging from the sea, minus bikini top, into the lives of surfer Denny (Michael Sarrazin), jazz pianist Choo-Choo (Bob Denver) and ageing beach bum and tennis hustler Collie (Tony Franciosca). From the off, she’s enigmatic, gives a false address, won’t explain bruises on her arm, has something clandestine going on with television producer Caswell (Warren Stevens) and like Blow-Up we are only privy to snippets of information.

She’s half-in half-out of a relationship with Dennis, with Collie hovering on the periphery hoping to pick up the pieces to his sexual advantage. Contemporary issues clog the background, Choo-Choo tries a camp number complete with pink dog to avoid the draft, a neighbor threatens to shoot Parker for wandering around in shorts and habitually stealing his newspaper, epithets like “degenerates” are tossed around, Choo Choo’s girlfriend Thumper, while appearing in movies with titles like Suburban Lust Queen acts den mother, there’s not much actual exciting surfing, and a biker called Mr. Clean is somehow involved.

The romance plays out well, Vicky unsure, Denny convinced but without a livelihood to offer and unable to get a straight answer out of her. Choo-Choo gets the gig of his dreams in Las Vegas and there’s an rape scene, more unsettling because it’s committed by Denny with the bizarre justification of getting “just for once something on my terms.” And there’s the equally disquieting sense that the only explanation for Vickie’s behavior is to tab her a nymphomaniac, walking out of an argument with a mysterious man in a beach house to drop her clothes for a bout of sex with Mr Clean.

I must have seen a different picture from everyone else. A good few critics at the time and reviewers since appear to think Vickie was also victim of a gangbang by the bikers, but I can’t see why. When he sees Vickie coming down from the beach house, Mr. Clean shouts “everybody split” and his buddies clear the beach. However, Mr. Clean, ironically, gives the best indication of her state of mind, explaining that Vickie “kept staring back at the house and moaning about how she wanted to die” while he enjoyed the best night of his life sex-wise.

Denny and Collie prove not to be the pussycats they appear, bearding the bikers in their den and beating up Mr. Clean while Denny goes on to deliver a hiding to Caswell. But what this film turns out to be is an examination of vulnerability, how easily those with a new sense of freedom are trapped. An examination of contemporary mores, perhaps, but in not resolving the mystery of Vickie ultimately fails to deliver, especially as it does not, from the outset, carry the kind of artistic credentials of Antonioni in Blow-Up.

Perhaps the mystery needs no resolution, it’s just same old-same old dressed up in the novelty of sexual freedom. There’s no idea of why Vickie was beaten up, and essentially abandoned on the road to become accident fodder, and no hint really of why she fell foul of someone so badly she needed disposed of, no notion that she was a threat to anyone. (Or, for that matter, no explanation of what happened to her bikini top and why, if she was so apparently free with her charms, she was so shy about being seen half-naked.) On the other hand, victim may well have been Vicky’s destiny from the get-go, that kind of innocence only waiting to be defiled.

In any 1960s contemporary picture there’s always the temptation to accept as truthful or reject as phony the lives shown. The idea that sexual freedom bestows actual freedom is usually the issue until consequence (i.e. old-fashioned Hollywood morality) comes into play. This is less heavy-handed than, for example, Easy Rider (1969) or Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (1969). The characters make decisions to grow up or to stay locked in a world of easy sex, dope and money. There’s no grand finale, just a more realistic drifting apart, and it’s only Vickie who comes apart, although that process had begun long before she met the drifters.

Jacqueline Bisset (The Detective, 1968), in her divinely posh British accent, comes over well as an attractive screen presence and complex character. In fact, she has a bigger part here than in Bullitt (1968) or The Detective (1968). If you wanted anyone to portray a soulful hippie you need look no further than tousle-haired Michael Sarrazin (In Search of Gregory, 1969) and normally if you required someone on the sly, despicable side, Tony Franciosca (Fathom, 1967) might well be your first port of call, but Franciosca proves the surprise here, classic wind-up merchant and predator who exhibits considerable vulnerability when he realizes he is losing the worship of the idealistic young.

Former British matinee idol Michael Wilding (A Girl Named Tamiko, 1962) and Norma Crane (Penelope, 1966) appear as Vickie’s parents. Bob Denver (Who’s Minding the Mint, 1967) and Michele Carey (The Spy with My Face, 1965) are solid support. Director Harvey Hart (Fortune and Men’s Eyes, 1970) tries to cover too much ground and could have done with narrowing the focus. Future Bond screenwriter Tom Mankiewicz (son of Joseph L.) made his screenwriting debut adapting the book by William Murray.

The DVD is a bit on the pricey side, but if you just want to check it out, YouTube has a print.

Creatures The World Forgot (1971) ***

Remove the minimal salacious elements (“Violence and Sex in Prehistoric Times” was the come-on for French audiences). Ignore the fact that there are few creatures to speak of (a bear, some warthogs and gazelles aren’t exactly going to terrify the audience). Set aside that denoted star Julie Ege (Every Home Should Have One, 1971) doesn’t appear until about halfway through.

Don’t bother, either, looking for that apparently indispensable item of female prehistoric attire – the fur bikini. Not a T Rex in sight and none of the Ray Harryhausen stop-motion animation that lit up previous forays into this world. And you’re left with a surprisingly satisfying study of the ethnology of ancient civilizations.

There’s no dialog, nor subtitles for that matter to elucidate what’s going on, communication limited to grunts or, as likely, fists. Fighting – men vs men and women vs women – appears the most common pleasure. Although there’s also some primitive dancing. You’ve got a witch doctor but no idea what makes her so powerful.

The volcanic eruption that kicks off the narrative, forcing one tribe to search for another home, leading to unwelcome incursions into another tribe’s territory, is the least successful element although the subsequent earthquake is well done.

Outside of conflict and travel, what you’re left with is an interesting (if possibly inaccurate) taste of prehistoric life. Fall down a sand dune and you’ll die because you can’t scramble back up. Take on any horned beast and it’s likely their horns will tear you apart. If you can’t kill a gazelle, you’re going to have to make do with scorpions, snakes and rats. You certainly can’t alleviate your diet by growing anything, the land too poor and the notion of farming yet to revolutionize the world. Occasionally, you can protect yourself by dropping weighted spears from trees on your enemy.

The narrative roams around as much as the tribe. We kick off with a battle for power after a leader dies. Someone gives birth to twins, one easily recognizable by a scar on his chest. So then we jump to them as warring teenagers, fighting each other as much as trying to gain their father’s attention. The dark-haired one (Robert John) has more of the sheer physicality required to survive, the blond one (Tony Bonner) has more upstairs, capable of lassoing a porcupine for the sheer pleasure of developing his skills.

Then they’re grown up, and the blond one can trap warthogs using a net while the other, with less accurate spear-throwing, can’t catch anything. Eventually, they are battling over a deaf mute, who would ordinarily be killed at birth but survives due to the timely intervention of lightning, which is taken as a sign. Seduction isn’t on the cards either, and the dark-haired one attempts to rape the deaf mute (Marcia Fox).

She escapes but needs rescued from another tribe. That leads to the major action of the picture, a big battle in caves. The blond kills the enemy chief and takes as his reward the chief’s daughter (Julie Ege). That enrages the dark one who kidnaps the girl, planning to burn her on a pyre. The ending is pretty confusing, involving a python and the dark arts.

But take away the physical distractions of a Raquel Welch bursting out of a fur bikini and various monsters causing chaos and still there’s enough, almost in docu style, to maintain the interest.

Director Don Chaffey (One Million Years B.C., 1966) appears liberated by the focus being on ordinary mortals rather than sex symbols or Harryhausen. There’s a feeling of “what would David Lean do” when confronted with stark landscape or desert and here the composition is particularly good. Putting the focus on day-to-day survival provides all the narrative drive required. Beyond fairly basic characterization, there’s little to distinguish the characters.

You get the impression that if you edited out all the commotion and rivalry you might be left with an even better picture in the vein of those documentaries Hollywood used to churn out about foreign civilizations. This isn’t darkest Africa or darkest anywhere, the sun’s too strong an influence for that.

This was the final film in Hammer’s prehistoric quartet, whose main aim appeared to be to elevate the work of Harryhausen or give a rising female star a push into becoming a sex symbol, posters of whom could alleviate the drab lives of teenagers worldwide. While Harryhausen burnished his credentials, apart from Raquel Welch, neither Martine Beswick (Prehistoric Women/Slave Girls, 1967) nor Victoria Vetri (When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth, 1970) made the grade on the marquee. Written by producer and Hammer head honcho Michael Carreras (The Lost Continent, 1968).

You might be surprised to find how engrossing a prehistoric movie can be minus the fur bikini or Harryhausen.

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

Cinema is my oasis of calm. I go once a week on the same day (Monday), on my own, usually sit two rows from the front so I’m not interrupted by heads or popcorn or whispering, and sit in darkness for three or four hours, occasionally longer. It’s usually a seamless procession from car park to cinema. For a number of reasons, I hadn’t managed my weekly visit for a couple of weeks so I had a lot of catching–up to do so much so that a quadruple bill was on the cards. What could possibly go wrong to disturb my tranquillity.

For a start, my regular car park was shut for maintenance. So instead of a 10-minute walk from car park to cinema I had a 25-minute trudge. Access to the cinema proved more difficult than usual. The escalator was out of action and for some reason the people who make escalators make them with bigger steps so it’s always an awkward climb. Things didn’t look any better when I settled down for my first screening. There was no sound. We were shunted out and into another movie. I can’t even be bothered to tell you how bad it.

So my day required immediate redemption. I wasn’t so sure about Backrooms given I didn’t have the same ecstatic reaction to Obsession as others.

What is so astonishing about Backrooms is the tone. It’s not like other horror films built on a soundtrack of screams and visually propelled by jump starts and gore. The two main characters are, in the main, solid and observant. Failed architect and full-time misogynist Clark (Chiwetel Ejiofor) runs a struggling furniture store. He’s separated and apt to blame others for his situation, inclined to brush aside his heavy drinking and anti-feminism.

Mary (Renate Reinsve) is his therapist with a cruel past, her mother demented and paranoid. She often appears distant even in company, separated from the real world.

Trying to find out why his electricity bills are so high, Clark passes through a wall in his basement and finds another, peculiar, world, occupied primarily by pieces of furniture, in places stacked to the ceiling, or sinking at an angle into the floor as if the floor was sand, or disappearing into the ceiling. There are a host of corridors and doorways, some horizontal, some vertical, some sloping.

Using his architectural skills, Clark scopes out the labyrinthine space. He takes his findings to Mary who thinks he’s gone off his rocker. Clark enrols his two assistants to help him investigate the space further. But they come to a bad end. Shadows lurk, someone strong pulls on the end of a rope.

Eventually, Mary investigates her missing client and discovers this parallel world where people appear as only part of what they are, as if the maze remembers them in a different way.

There are some nods to horror but mostly this is psychological sci fi. It’s the unexplainable. Even scientists can’t explain it, relying on the experiences of those who returned to build up their knowledge of the other world.

But because director Kane Parsons in his debut is so restrained this has more of the hypnotic air of Last Year at Marienbad (1960) than anything in contemporary horror or sci fi. In the Alain Resnais film repeated dialog and repeated visuals did most of the work, but here it’s the endlessness, the implacability of the otherworld. Even the otherworldliness is understated, inanimate objects creating the disjointed mood. It’s like Planet of the Apes (1968) where escapee Charlton Heston discovers at the climax that he hasn’t escaped at all. Or Seconds (1966) where Rock Hudson can’t even escape.

One of the problems facing any sci fi or horror picture is the necessity to maintain the logic of the situation. Too often, a director or screenwriter, chasing another thrill, just slips out of the world they have created. That doesn’t happen here. This remains implacably, ruthlessly, logical so, although we have travelled through this strange world, we are no clearer at the end as to how it came into being or its purpose or how to avoid its trap.

There are no heroes and no heroics. Depending on your personality, the back rooms might provide succor. Or they might not.

It’s rare that you’d find two Oscar-nominated actors turning up in a low-budget horror picture. The impassive Renate Reinsve (Sentimental Value, 2025) comes off better than the more emotional Chiwetel Ejiofor (12 Years a Slave, 2014) but there’s not much between them. I’m sure the film’s unexpected box office success will stir demand for a sequel, but I hope not, for as it stands it’s every bit as outstanding a venture as the best of sci fi. Written by the director and Will Soodik, also making his movie debut.

If only Steven Spielberg had shown an ounce of this originality in Disclosure Day.

All hail Kane Parsons.

The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter (1969) ***

The American equivalent of the kitchen sink drama. Awash with the dispossessed, rejected, oppressed and underprivileged. You’re not going to be more of an outsider in the U.S. of the 1930s than to be a deaf mute or, worse, a mentally challenged deaf mute who can’t see a tasty cake in a baker’s shop without indulging in a bit of smash-and-grab.

By this point the Deep South had fallen out of favour. Adaptations of Tennessee Williams plays were now bombing at the box office – even the Burton-Taylor combo couldn’t rescue Boom! (1968) and a previous adaptation of the work of acclaimed novelist Carson McCullers (who wrote this), John Huston’s Reflections in a Golden Eye (1967), with Taylor again and Marlon Brando, had proved a commercial disappointment. Otto Preminger’s Hurry Sundown (1967) with Michael Caine and Jane Fonda did only marginally better.

While on paper it’s unremittingly bleak, in reality it’s loaded down with the mawkish and the sentimental, as the characters struggle to fit in, fail to establish lasting relationships or are abandoned. Given he is playing a character, John, who can’t talk, star Alan Arkin is forced to abandon those irritating vocal tics.

John, an engraver, has befriended Spiros (Chuck McCann), the deaf mute with the sweet tooth. When Spiros is institutionalized, John moves town to be near him, taking up residence in the Kelly household. As the result of a recent injury, Mr Kelly (Biff McGuire) is forced to take in a boarder, his teenage daughter Mick (Sandra Locke) giving up her bedroom to accommodate the stranger.

There’s not much of story, John acting as a narrative conduit around whom various situations and characters revolve. John mostly fails to win over the resentful Mick but befriends alcoholic drifter Jake (Stacy Keach) and African American cancer ridden Dr Copeland (Percy Rodriguez).

Copeland’s daughter’s husband has his leg amputated after being wrongly imprisoned. Mr Kelly ends up disabled, meaning Mick has to take a job to support the family rather than go to college. When she loses her virginity, you expect she’s going to end up pregnant, but, luckily she’s the only one whom fate favors. Unable to cope with the institute, Spiros rebuffs John’s friendship and, thoroughly depressed, gives up the ghost and dies. John commits suicide. We only later discover that Mick had fallen in love with his gentle nature.

So not what you’d call a feel-good picture. Nobody’s going to escape their situation. If anything, that’s only going to get worse. We’re talking two deaths here and another on the way, one fellow permanently disabled and a girl stuck in a cycle of poverty.

While I didn’t find it unrealistic or forced, I wasn’t as taken with it as I expected. It felt like a Charles Bukowski picture, minus the degradation, where the actors and director were given a free pass because they were putting the spotlight on an area of existence normally ignored by Hollywood. But it just felt too worthy. Beyond their indignities, none of the characters really took flight.

But don’t take my word for it. The Academy didn’t. Both Alan Arkin (The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming, 1966) and Sondra Locke, in her debut, were Oscar-nominated.

Prior to this, only a handful of pictures dealt with deafness. James Stewart, deaf in one ear in It’s A Wonderful Life (1946), Jane Wyman, winning an Oscar for Johnny Belinda (1948), and The Miracle Worker (1962), Anne Bancroft picking up an Oscar here, were the best known.

Robert Ellis Miller (Bachelor Girl Apartment/Any Wednesday, 1966) could have done better to steer clear of the obvious sentimentality. Written by Thomas C. Ryan (Hurry Sundown, 1967).

Two for the Seesaw (1962) ***

Whatever chemistry Robert Mitchum and Shirley MacLaine enjoyed in real life – they embarked on-set on an affair that lasted three years – does not come across on screen. Of course, we’re accustomed to the adage that opposites attract and this screen couple Jerry Ryan (Robert Mitchum), a lawyer running away from his marriage, and bohemian dancer Gittel Mosca (Shirley MacLaine) seem particularly ill-matched.

For a contemporary audience this gets off to the oddest of starts. There’s no meet-cute. If there’s something else we’re accustomed to these days it’s a clever, intriguing, smart or even dopey meet-cute. They barely acknowledge each other at first encounter, at the kind of party where intellectuals arguing obscure points of art or politics mingle with what would pass in those days for the in-crowd.

He couldn’t be more out of place, turning up at a trendy event in a trenchcoat, and he’s only there because he is friends with party host, artist Oscar. They exchange one line. It’s not as though that’s a zinger either. But, on an odd pretext, he pursues her.

Now any ditzy dame is going to run a mile from a stranger who has made virtually no impression on her and can hardly make up his mind whether he wants to see her or not and to whom she only relents when he tells her what a lonely spud he is. So it’s a big narrative hole to dig the audience out of. We establish that she’s good-hearted, but we already know he traipses around the streets of New York doing nothing and lives in a shoddy apartment.

This derived from a Broadway hit and although director Robert Wise attempts to open it up it appears acutely stage-bound, but lacking the dialog zip that marked out such numbers as Barefoot in the Park (1967).

Despite MacLaine’s appealing screen personality, and the tremendous work she did establishing herself as a marquee name via The Apartment (1960), this is more of a romantic drama than a comedy, two ships (somewhat distantly) that pass in the night only to discover not only have they little in common and with opposite personalities but that he is having second thoughts about his impending divorce.

He doesn’t quite settle in New York and she hasn’t made it there. In some respects, they are too similar, emotional losers. She lacks the zap to make this work and he’s just too aggressive and quick with the put-downers to come across as a lonely guy. Once he found work – as an attorney – he’d have a swathe of dames on his trail.

*Hard put to see the movie version qualifying as a “romantic delight”. On broadway it starred Henry Fonda and Anne Bancroft and was directed by Arthur Penn.*

He commits the mortal sin of the meet-cute romance by slapping her around. Although by this point I doubt if audiences went much for the idea of the unlikely couple getting it on. With a little financial help from him, she manages to make a success of herself, but in a business rather than an artistic sense, and you get the impression she’s going to end up as the joke in a tale he’s going to tell his buddies when he gets back home to Omaha, Nebraska.

It just seems too contrived a set-up to work. Turns out he’s going through a mid-life crisis – he spends a good deal of time just moping – and has been too indulged most of this life.

She’s more convincing, the type of free-spirited gal who, though street-smart is other ways, always falls for the wrong guy, unable to rein in her generosity of heart and waste her emotions on men who demand too much of her, including that she rein in that generosity of heart and free spiritedness.

For a May-December romance (she’s 17 years younger) it’s too weighted down by the dour. In recent years, Mitchum had appeared at his romantic best when up against a sprightly star like Deborah Kerr (Heaven Knows, Mr Allison, 1957, and The Sundowners, 1960) who could more than hold their own, rather than a relationship where, apart from his depression, he needs to have the upper hand.

Mitchum appears miscast and the flaw in the ointment. MacLaine, despite or because of the character’s flaws, is much more believable.

Robert Wise (The Sound of Music, 1965) directs from a script by Isobel Lennart (The Sundowners) based on the William Gibson play.

Hard going. Fans of MacLaine should be satisfied enough. Fans of Mitchum less so.

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

The only problem with going to the movies as much as I do is that you see all the trailers. And if you see all the trailers you know by now that trailers often spill the beans. So I knew before I came to this that the titular piano tuner had two particular sets of skills. Firstly, he had perfect pitch which meant he could unscramble, at first hearing, a tune note by note (apparently Elton John has the same gift so it might not be so rare). The second is that by some bizarre byproduct of his rare condition he can crack safes.

So given he is a safecracking piano tuner who, we guess from the trailer, is embarking on a romance, the question is: how long will it take before both worlds collide and what damage will it do to his relationship? Or, more interestingly, is he a natural-born crook who’s found his way into the safer haven of piano tuning but will jump out of that at any opportunity?

Is he a good guy driven by circumstance into occasionally playing the bad guy, or is he a congenital bad guy who’s managed to keep that part of his personality hidden?

Takes a heck of a long time to come to any conclusion as it wends its way through a smorgasbord of themes – child prodigy, wannabe composer, the Holocaust, romance, old guy losing his grip, crime, and a condition so rare it not only prohibits a person from hearing virtually any sound but confers on him the magical power of being able to obtains safes, courtesy of being able to identify the clicks as the tumblers go round.

Perhaps the rarest element of this – and what sets it aside – is the tone. It’s set in a very low register. The two principals never raise their voices. Angst and all the insecurity that goes with that is virtually absent. Whatever afflicts apprentice tuner Niki (Leo Woodall) isn’t going to kill him so we’re not in the deadly disease meets romance territory. And wannabe composer Ruthie (Havana Rose Liu) finds sufficient emotional outlet in her music not to waste too much on the guy. She’s so restrained you’d have to torture her to conjure up a tear.

The old fella is charming if voluble. The movie skips a few beats that might have helped and I’m not convinced that if a rich guy suddenly found a valuable watch missing from his impregnable safe he’d point the finger at the housekeeper. And it’d take some doing for a prodigy who’s not played the piano in twenty years to play a complicated composition without missing a beat, but then maybe that’s what defines a prodigy.

Apprentice tuner Niki rundles around New York with the older Frank (Dustin Hoffman) fixing pianos and listening to old man’s prattling on. Forgetful Frank can’t remember the code for his safe. The young man takes it home and after watching a YouTube tutorial cracks it open, at the same time as realizing this is an unusual gift. Later, while tuning a piano in the evening he comes across thieves making a racket. Due to his condition, he can’t concentrate with people making a racket so to stop them making a racket he turns to his newfound skill and helps them out. Later, still Frank is seriously ill and can’t pay his bills so Joe undertakes some part-time safecracking to help him out.

Meantime, helped along by matchmaker Frank, before he ended up in hospital, Joe hooks up with Ruthie, a pianist hoping to make it big as a composer.

You know Frank is going to die, hence the need for ready cash should disappear and equally that the crooks ain’t going to let their prize catch disappear. Equally, you reckon that at some point Ruthie is going to find out about his sideline. But these are low key tensions in the main and the chief element of tension is the various safecracking jobs, though, to be honest, one safe is very much like another, the stakes only raised by an occasional unusual locale or when something happens to prevent Niki being able to hear the tumblers tumbling, such as when he gets an airhorn blown in his ear.

At one point, it looks as if Niki might be able to cut and run, given he’s found a way to access a million bucks. But it takes the mother of all coincidences to trigger the good guy-bad guy climax. Joe has given Ruthie a watch he purloined from a safe. Turns out it belonged to the famous composer for whom Ruthie is auditioning for a job. I’m not going to go into the rudiments of how problem is solved but it does lead to the kind of finale that will leave audiences departing the cinema in wonder.

But my feeling is that big reveal came too late, as did Niki spelling out exactly what obstacles he had to overcome to live anything approaching a normal life.

Too much plot, not enough anything else. But the two principal characters are refreshing. Joe clearly has found his condition a drawback to forming relationships while Ruthie is suspicious of anything that might detract from her ambitions. Nothing new there, you might contend, but generally both those aspects are portrayed in a shout-from-the-rooftops manner, an overdose of angst or emotion, rather than moved along in a distinctly low key.

Leo Woodall (One Day TV series, 2024) is in the rising star category and this will enehnace his status as an actor who wants to act the part rather than fall back on a pre-determined screen persona. Havana Rose Liu (Lurker, 2025) is another contender for the big time and brings requisite tension to her part. Veteran Dustin Hoffman (Megalopolis, 2024) has the kind of role that looks like it’s making a bid for another Oscar nomination. But in the scene-stealing department he’d have to fend off Lior Raz (Gladiator II, 2024) as the chief burglar.

Directed by Daniel Roher (Blink, 2024) and written by him and Robert Ramsay (Soul Men, 2008).

I’d have enjoyed it much more if I’d not seen the trailer. But I did enjoy it.

The Unfinished Task / I’ll Give My Life (1960) ***

For completists only. Fans of Anglie Dickinson have responded to reviews of Jessica (1962) and several others. This should round off your Angie Dickinson collection with the bonus that it’s a long-lost number. Almost unrecognizable as a brunette, Dickinson carries much of the emotional weight of this tale about an outsider rejecting a chosen career.

Hollywood pictures about creative outsiders such as artists and writers relied on charismatic actors – Kirk Douglas in Lust for Life (1956), Charlton Heston in The Agony and the Ecstasy (1965) – to bring the project to life. Similarly, you might think, in movies about another type of outsider, of the religious variety, having the likes of Gregory Peck (The Keys of the Kingdom, 1944) or Bing Crosby in Going My Way (1944) goes a long way to giving such ventures audience-appeal.

*This poster does not do the film justice. It’s nothing like as “heavenly” as that. Howco was an exhibition company that entered distribution in order to provide enough product for its cinemas.*

Here, Jim (John Bryant), the son of a successful construction tycoon, having completed a degree goes against the wishes of father John (Ray Collins) by becoming a minister instead. In due course he is sent overseas to a mission in New Guinea, and like Father Stu (2022) contracts a deadly disease. Jim is far from charismatic, just a plodding ordinary guy who has found “something more important than building skyscrapers.”

The story is instead told through the eyes of John, resentful of his son’s decision, and his girlfriend/fiancée/wife Alice (Angie Dickinson) who, expecting marriage to a wealthy engineer, instead has to set aside her own ambitions and go along with her husband’s wishes, this being post-WWII America, and independence hardly a prerequisite in a wife, never mind a woman.

But if this is a story of a conversion – as was the case in Father Stu – it’s about the conversion of the father and Alice and the bulk of the story hinges upon their reactions to the path taken by Jim rather than him taking center stage. So it’s cleverly done, and whether this is due to budgetary pressure, or creative decision, it proves the right choice. John is the kind of self-made man who would dominate any stage, forever making plans, spinning the world as he would like it to be. In Alice’s eyes we see nothing but her weighing up Jim’s choices, sometimes accompanied by shock, occasionally elation, but mostly resignation and infrequent resentment as she, too, is parted from family to follow her husband into an unknown in which she had considerably less faith.

Unlike Father Stu, conversion does not come easily. Jim is long dead, two-thirds of the way through the picture as it happens, before John comes to realize that his son’s demise should not be in vain and that he left behind “an unfinished task” for his father to complete, namely raising awareness of the power of missionaries to improve the lot of the miserable and poor in foreign parts. Bear in mind the era in which this was made, so there are some attitudes that will make you wince, but generally it is well done, not weighted down with platitudes and, in concentrating on the doubter, brings alive a difficult subject.

And although this was before questions were asked about the sexual corruption of priests and ministers, men who followed religion were still not as easily accommodated in the general community, seen as overly pious and, to the businessman, existing in a vacuum. The idea that the Church, of various kinds, had not done enough to ease global suffering, is continually raised and nobody here is giving themselves a pat on the back.

Alice is actually given more screen time than Jim, his father using her as a sounding board, and, while Jim is off in New Guinea, enjoying herself with the firm’s resident beau, Bob (Jon Sheppod), and finally taking on motherhood and coping with the premature death of her husband and still fighting to open the father’s eyes to the good being done.

Angie Dickinson (Jessica, 1962) gives a very good account of herself, especially as the narrative restricts her to the kind of wifely 1950s role rather than the frisky sexuality she exhibited in the 1960s. Her acting skill saved her from being lumbered with portentous dialogue since she could portray her feelings more easily with her eyes.

Ray Collins (famed for a running role in the Perry Mason series) is excellent as the father confused by his son’s decision, fighting him every inch of the way. John Bryant (The Bat, 1959), it has to be said, does not light up the screen, lacking the magnetism of a Peck or a Crosby but in some regard this kind of straight playing suits the film, since the character is not meant to be out of the ordinary.

William F. Claxton (Desire in the Dust, 1960) directed from a script by Herbert Moulton, better known as a producer of shorts. Although this film was released in 1960, it appears to have been made before that, some suggest as early as 1955. Given it was funded by the Lutheran Church, the script does not make heavy weather of the religious elements and John’s resistance to his son’s vocation reflected that of any father to a son embarking on as shaky a career as painting or writing.

You can catch this on YouTube, though it’s not a great print. And, yes, that is Angie Dickinson sitting demurely at a desk.