1960s film – Page 12 – The Magnificent 60s

The Rare Breed (1966) ****

Classic themes of hope, resilience and redemption influence director Andrew V. McLaglen’s follow-up to Shenandoah (1965). Add in a battle against widespread misogyny, thieves falling out, a brilliant stampede and a forlorn hunt that has echoes in the decade-old The Searchers. But other more serious issues are explored. At the film’s core is the question of how a nation built on innovation refuses to countenance change, in other words a country where hierarchy (inevitably male) has begun to impose its preference and how those who suggest alternatives must not just buckle to that collective will but admit they are wrong, a problem that in the half century since the film was made has not gone away.

Widow Martha (Maureen O’Hara) and daughter Hilary (Juliet Mills) bring to auction her white-face Hereford bull, a British institution, the first of its kind to be imported (for breeding purposes, you understand) to America where hardy longhorn cattle are the dominant species. Despite being insulted for her temerity in challenging the existing order, Martha is astonished to receive a winning bid of $2,000, only to realize this comes with conditions attached, the buyer assuming his largesse will also win her, a sharp elbow to the ribs dissuading him of this notion.

Determined to see the bull delivered to the Texan ranch, Martha decides to accompany the animal on its journey. Wrangler Sam (James Stewart), hired to transport it instead plans to steal it and to keep the dupe sweet until the time is ripe encourages her to develop romantic ideas towards him. When another cowboy, Simons (Jack Elam), with eyes on the same four-legged prize causes confrontation the game is up, though Sam sees the trip through.

Rancher Bowen (Brian Keith) belittles the Hereford bull although viewing Martha as a better proposition, but the only way to discover whether the beast can survive in the territory is to let it loose on the open range where it was likely to encounter blizzards (not so rare in Texas as you might think). Once the bull is set free, the movie shifts onto a question of endurance, not just of the animal, but of the mindset of Martha and Sam. Her faith in her insane idea is tested to the limit and, almost in compensation, a woman needing security/protection et al, she comes to appreciate the attentions of a less wild Bowen.

Both central characters have much to lose and much to face up to. Martha, in accepting she was wrong and letting Bowen into her life, will almost certainly be surrendering her independence (she can still be feisty but that’s not the same thing). It’s a testament to her acting that you can see that faith wilting. Sam, a conniving thief whichever way you cut it (although the storyline gives him something of a free pass), has to face up to the fact that he was planning to con a woman out of the precious possession on which her precarious future was built.

The scenes between Martha and Sam are superb, especially when he is grooming what he thinks will be an easy dupe. Sam, in a purgatory of his own making, almost certainly an outcast were the truth more widely broadcast, attempts to expiate his guilt.

James Stewart and Maureen O’Hara had worked together in Mr Hobbs Takes a Vacation (1962) and there is no denying their screen chemistry. But there’s an innocence that O’Hara rarely displays, the woman in love suppressing those emotions not denying them as perhaps in The Quiet Man (1952). She’s both independent and, if the right man comes along, happy to accept his protection (from the male predators of the West), while at the same time keeping him on the right track and sorting out his world of misshapen priorities. There are some brilliant scenes where something else is going on story-wise and O’Hara is internalizing some deeper emotion entirely. It’s an acting coup for an actress like Maureen O’Hara who would never give up to convey so well a character on the verge of surrender.

This is one of James Stewart’s best roles, far removed from the principled hero of Shenandoah (1965) and returning him closer to the shifty character of Vertigo (1958) adept at self-justification. In the scene where he is found out by O’Hara he is outstanding. It’s not a given that the character will find a way to turn things round and his efforts to redeem himself make the latter part of the picture emotionally involving, especially as this is countered by O’Hara’s own internal battle.

It’s worth pointing out that although the narrative mainly concerns the two main characters, the background is filled with ruthlessness. Not only does Sam feel no compunction about stealing a bull worth $2,000, we first encounter Bowen’s son Jamie (Don Galloway) when he is making off with a herd of his father’s longhorns. The cattle barons use their wealth to “buy” a classy woman and cheat cowboys. And there is further murder along the way.

I was going to mark this picture down for the comedy which seems to amount to endless brawls but I wondered if modern audiences, reared on the never-ending fistfights and wanton destruction that usually indicated the finale of a superhero picture, would accept it quite happily, perhaps even welcome it. While Brian Keith (The Deadly Companions, 1961) stands accused not only of one of the worst Scottish accents committed to the screen – and these days of cultural appropriation – that does not take away from a character who, behind the beard, transitions from loathsome father to something more approaching humanity, in other words wild man who realizes the benefits of civilization.

In fact, the broad comedy serves to obscure a film full of brilliant, cutting, funny lines, generally delivered in scathing tones by the woman. O’Hara to Stewart: “You may bulldog a steer but you can’t bulldog me.” Stewart to O’Hara: “Can I help you with that” and her response “No, they’re clean and I’d like to keep them that way.” And that’s not forgetting the sight of the cowboys whistling British national anthem “God Save the Queen” in order to bring the bull to heel.

I forgot to mention the romantic subplot involving Hilary – in case you were wondering what role she had in all this – and Bowen’s estranged son, Jamie. Juliet Mills (Avanti!, 1970), older sister of child star Hayley, is excellent as the sassy daughter of a feisty woman, Don Galloway (Rough Night in Jericho, 1967) less of a stand-out in his debut, in part because he has to subsume his rage against his father.

Jack Elam (Once Upon a Time in the West, 1968) is good as always and you will spot in smaller parts Ben Johnson (The Undefeated, 1969), Harry Carey Jr. (The Undefeated), Barbara Werle (Krakatoa, East of Java, 1968) and David Brian (Castle of Evil, 1966). John Williams, masquerading as Johnny Williams, wrote the score.

Setting the comedy aside, this is a more intimate film from director Andrew V. McLaglen compared to the widescreen glory of The Undefeated and the intensity of Shenandoah and for that reason tends to be underrated. There are some wonderful images, not least Sam carrying the injured Jamie in the style of Michelangelo’s La Pieta – an idea stolen by Oliver Stone for Platoon (1986) – but mostly McLaglen concentrates on the actors.

Behind the Scenes: “Bus Riley’s Back in Town” (1965)

Small wonder that Bus Riley’s Back in Town found scant appreciation on producer’s Elliott Kastner’s dance card. He preferred to have people believe that his career began with box office smash Harper / The Moving Target (1966) rather than the two flops – Kaleidoscope (1966) and Bus Riley’s Back in Town (1965) – that preceded it. As his son Dillon Kastner pointed out: “He always preferred to forget his first film. He liked to think his first film was Harper so he never put that title (Bus Riley) on his list of credits for investors.”

After jockeying in the Hollywood trenches for three years, Kastner should have been delighted to finally get his name on a picture after so many potential movies had slipped through his grasp. But he had good reason to want to forget the experience of working on Bus Riley. It sat on the shelf for a year and, minus the involvement of the producer, was “butchered” by the studio.

By the time the movie appeared it was the latest in a long line of failed attempts by former agent Elliott Kastner to get onto the Hollywood starting grid. He had previously been involved in a pair to star Warren Beatty – Honeybear, I Love You with a screenplay by Charles Eastman and Boys and Girls Together adapted from the William Goldman bestseller with Joseph Losey (Accident, 1966) lined up as director. Also on his scorecard were 1963 William Inge play Natural Affection, Tropic of Cancer from the controversial Henry Miller novel and The Crows of Edwina Hill. At the time of the Bus Riley opening, he had acquired a further seven properties.

Bus Riley was never intended as a major picture, the budget limited to $550,000 – at a time when a decent-sized budget was well over $1 million. Shot in Spring 1964, and in post-production in July, release was delayed until Universal re-edited it and added new scenes because Ann-Margret had achieved surprising movie stardom between her recruitment and the film’s completion. Along with Raquel Welch, she became one of the most glamorous stars of the decade and in building up her own career Welch clearly followed the Ann-Margret template of taking on a bucket of roles and signing deals with competing studios.

After making just three movies – A Pocketful of Miracles (1962), State Fair (1962) and Bye, Bye Birdie (1963) – Ann-Margret shot into the fast lane, contracted for three movies with MGM at an average $200,000 per plus an average 12% of the profit, substantial sums for a neophyte. On top of that she had four far less remunerative pictures for Twentieth Century Fox, three for Columbia, Marriage on the Rocks with Frank Sinatra and a couple of others. By the time Bus Riley finally appeared, she had expanded her appeal through Viva Las Vegas (1964) opposite Elvis and top-billed roles in Kitten with a Whip (1964) and The Pleasure Seekers (1964).

Universal also had another property to protect. Michael Parks was one of small contingent of novice actors in whom the studio had invested considerable sums, using them in television roles before placing them in major movies. Others in this group – at a time when most studios had abandoned the idea of developing new talent – included Katharine Ross and Tom Simcox who both appeared in Shenandoah (1965), James Farentino (The War Lord, 1965), Don Galloway (The Rare Breed, 1965), Doug McClure (The Lively Set, 1964) and Robert Fuller and Jocelyn Lane in Incident at Phantom Hill (1965).

However, the introduction of Parks had not gone to plan. He was set to make his debut in The Wild Seed (1965) – originally titled Daffy and going through several other titles besides – but that was also delayed until after Bus Riley, riding on Ann-Margret’s coat-tails, offered greater potential. Kastner had been instrumental in the casting of Parks – whom he tabbed as “a wonderful up-and-coming actor” – in The Wild Seed.

Also making their movie debuts in Bus Riley were Kim Darby (True Grit, 1969) and Canadian director Harvey Hart (Dark Intruder, 1965), an established television name. Hart joined David Lowell Rich and Jack Smight as the next generation of television directors making the transition. Universal was on a roll, in 1964 greenlighting 25 pictures, double the number of productions in any year since 1957.

Falling just behind Tennessee Williams league in terms of marquee clout, playwright William Inge had won an Oscar for Splendor in the Grass (1961) and been responsible for a string of hits including Come Back Little Sheba (1952) – Oscar for Shirley Booth – the Oscar-nominated Picnic (1955) starring William Holden and Kim Novak and Bus Stop (1956) with Marilyn Monroe.

Kastner had persuaded him to turn his little-known 1958 one-act play All Kinds of People into a movie-length screenplay. Inge was initially keen to work on a low-budget picture, anticipating “more freedom with an abbreviated budget.” He asserted, “You don’t have the front office calling you up all the time.” Since the movie was not initially envisaged as a star vehicle for Ann-Margret (and, in fact, she plays the supporting role) he saw it as a “way of breaking up that old Hollywood method of selling pictures before they were made” on the back of a big star and hefty promotional budget.

Unfortunately for him, once Universal realized they had, after all, a star vehicle, the studio concluded that her image was more important than the “dramatic impact” of the film. “When we signed Ann-Margret she wasn’t a big star but in six months she was and Universal became very frightened of her public image. They wanted a more refined image.”

Kastner and Inge were elbowed aside as Universal ordered a rewrite and reshoots. Inge took his name off the picture. The credited screenwriter Walter Gage did not exist, he was created to get round a Writer’s Guild dictat that no movie could be shown without a writer’s name on the credits.

Despite her supposed growing power, Ann-Margret had little say in preventing the changes either. She expressed her disappointment to Gordon Gow of Films and Filming: “You should have seen the film we shot originally. William Inge’s screenplay…had been so wonderful. So brutally honest, And the woman, Laurel, as he wrote her, was mean and he made that very sad. But the studio at the time didn’t want me to have that image for the young people of America. They thought it was too brutal a portrayal. They wanted me to re-do five key scenes. And those scenes completely changed the story. There were two of these scenes that I just refused to do. The other three I did, but I was upset and angry.”

Film historian James Robert Parish refuted Ann-Margret’s recollection of events. He claimed the changes were made at her insistence because she wanted to be the focal point of the narrative rather than Bus Riley (Michael Parks).

Harvey Hart reckoned Universal got cold feet after the audience attending a sneak preview made “idiotic” comments on the questionnaire. Recalled Kastner, “I had nothing but heavy fiddling and interference from Universal.” Even so, given it was his debut production, he wasn’t likely to disown then and didn’t follow Inge in removing his name.

Despite the changes, the movie received a cool reception at the box office. It turned in opening weeks of a “modest” $7,000 in Columbus, “slow” $9,000 in Boston, “modest” $9,000 in Washington, “lightweight” $10,000 at the 1642-seat Palace in New York, “mild” $4,000 in Provident, “so-so” $4,000 in Portland, “not so good” $7,000 in Pittsburgh, “okay” $7,000 in Philadelphia, and $98,000 from 22 houses in Los Angeles with the only upticks being a “good” $7,000 in Cincinnati and a “fast” $7,000 in Minneapolis. The movie didn’t register in Variety’s Annual Box Office Chart which meant it earned less than $1 million in U.S. rentals and was listed as a flop.

SOURCES: Elliott Kastner Memoir, courtesy of Dillon Kastner; “Elliott Kastner’s Partner on Honeybear Is Warren Beatty,” Variety, January 23, 1963, p4; “Elliott Kastner Will Helm Crows for U,” Variety, May 1, 1963, p21; “Escalating Actress,” Variety, May 22, 1963, page 4; “Raid Canadian Director,” Variety, March 4, 1964, p24; “Inge Thinks Writer Contentment May Lie in Creative Scope of Cheaper Pix,” Variety, May 6, 1964, p2; “Ann-Margret Into the Cash Splash,” Variety, July 22, 1964, p5; “Universal Puts 9 Novices Into Pix,” Variety, March 3, 1965, p25; “ A Collective Byline,” Variety, March 17, 1965, p2; “U Stable of Promising Thespians,” Variety, March 17, 9965, p2; “Fear Ann-Margret Going Wrongo in Her Screen Image,” Variety, March 24, 1965, p5; “Radical Kastner-Gershwin Policy: Get Scripts in Shape Way Ahead,” Variety, May 19, 1965, p19; “Warren Beatty Partner and Star of Goldman Tale Via Elliott Kastner,” March 31, 1965, p7; “Picture Grosses,” Variety – March-May 1965.

Bus Riley’s Back in Town (1965) ***

Given Ann-Margret receives top billing I had automatically assumed she was the Bus Riley in question. Although decidedly the female lead, her role is secondary to that of a sailor returning to his small town. The backstory is that Bus – no explanation ever provided for this nickname – Riley (Michael Parks) had been too young to marry the gorgeous Laurel (Ann-Margret) before he joined the U.S. Navy and in his absence she married an older wealthy man.

Bus dithers over his future, re-engages with his mother and two sisters and finds he has not lost his attraction to Laurel. Although a handy mechanic, he has his eye on a white collar career. An initial foray into becoming a mortician founders after sexual advances by his employer (Crahan Denton). Instead he is employed as a vacuum salesman by slick Slocum (Brad Dexter).

While his sister’s friend Judy (Janet Margolin) does catch his eye, she is hardly as forward or inviting as the sexy Laurel who crashes her car into his to attract his attention. But the easy sex available with Laurel and the easy money from exploiting lonely housewives trigger a crisis of conscience.

Perhaps the most prominent aspect is the absence of good male role models. Bus is fatherless, his mother (Jocelyn Brando) taking in boarders to meet her financial burden – including the neurotic Carlotta (Brett Somers) – and while younger sister Gussie (Kim Darby) adores Bus the other sister Paula (Mimsy Farmer) is jealous of his freedom. Judy’s father is also missing and her mother (Nan Martin) a desperate alcoholic. The biggest male players are the ruthless Slocum and Laurel’s husband who clearly views her as a plaything he has bought. The biggest female player, Laurel, is equally ruthless, boredom sending her in search of male company, slithering and simpering to get what she wants.

Scandal is often a flickering curtain away in small towns so it’s no surprise that Bus can enjoy a reckless affair with Laurel or that a meek mortician can get away with making his desires so quickly apparent, or that behind closed doors houses reek of alcohol or repression. A couple of years later and Hollywood would have encouraged youngsters like Bus and Laurel to scorn respectability in favor of free love. But this has a 1950s sensibility when finding a fulfilling job and the right partner was preferred to the illicit.

In that context – and it makes an interesting comparison to the more recent Licorice Pizza that despite being set in the 1970s finds youngsters still struggling with the difference between sex and love – it’s an excellent depiction of small-town life.

While Michael Parks (The Happening, 1967) anchors the picture, it’s the women who create the sparks. Not least, of course, is Ann-Margret (Once a Thief, 1965), at her most provocative but also revealing an inner helpless core. And you can trace her screen development from her earlier fluffier roles into the more mature parts she played in The Cincinnati Kid (1965) and more especially Once a Thief (1965).

In her movie debut Kim Darby (True Grit, 1969) is terrific as the bouncy Gussie and Janet Margolin (David and Lisa, 1962) invests her predominantly demure role with some bite. Jocelyn Brando (The Ugly American, 1963) reveals vulnerability while essaying the strong mother. Mimsy Farmer (Four Flies on Grey Velvet, 1971) also makes her debut and it’s only the second picture for David Carradine (Boxcar Bertha, 1972). Brad Dexter (The Magnificent Seven, 1960) is very convincing as the arrogant salesman.

It’s also the first film for Canadian director Harvey Hart (The Sweet Ride, 1968) and he has some nice visual flourishes, making particular use of aerial shots. The scenes of Bus trudging through town at night are particularly well done as are those of Laurel strutting her stuff.

It was also the only credit for screenwriter Walter Gage. That was because Gage didn’t exist. Like the Allen Smithee later adopted as the all-purpose pseudonym for pictures a director had disowned, this was the name adopted when playwright William Inge (Oscar-winner for Splendor in the Grass, 1961) refused to have anything to do with the finished film.

A Very Special Favor (1965) ****

Surprisingly funny for a movie that’s long been out of favor. Starring a Rock Hudson (Seconds, 1966) who was just beginning to lose his grip on the marquee after an incredible run of box office success and Leslie Caron (Guns of Darkness, 1962) who had always seemed to just miss out on the top echelons of audience approval.

You can see why this had rapidly lost whatever appeal it originally possessed and that a contemporary crowd would turn its nose up at a man that has such success with the ladies that he has a whole stream of women carrying out his most basic chores. Except that the tale is really about him getting his come-uppance and everyone enjoys that kind of narrative.

Paul (Rock Hudson) only has to look at a woman and she melts. His job, such as it is, though he is wealthy, is to use his charm to commercial advantage. We open with him in a French court winning a case it transpires because he has seduced the female judge. The opposing lawyer Charles (Charles Boyer) encounters Paul on the way home, observing the American batting back stewardesses with ease, and the Frenchman enlists him to seduce his daughter Lauren (Leslie Caron), so much of a career woman, a high-flying psychologist, that her father fears she will turn into an old maid.

But Lauren already has a fiancé, Arnold (Dick Shawn) who, like Paul’s harem, is at her beck and call, carrying out the most basic tasks for her. Paul pretends to be a patient, his fake problem being his irresistibility which has caused a girlfriend to commit suicide. Lauren shows very little sign of falling for Paul’s charm. In order to prove that they are making progress, they go to a restaurant. To Paul’s astonishment, Lauren passes out from drinking too much champagne. He takes her back to her apartment and in the morning pretends that she has succumbed to his charms.

So now the twists come. Lauren is upset to discover that she has been seduced by a man she was determined to keep her distance. But when she finds out the truth, the tables are turned. She invents a Spanish lover which knocks Paul’s ego to hell. Plus she accuses him of impotence. Then he turns the tables again, and using one of his many fans – and a ploy that would prove somewhat ironic given Hudson was a closet gay – switchboard operator Mickey (Nita Talbot), makes Lauren so jealous that eventually he contrives to win her back and the two determined singletons, against all odds, get married.

There’s some marvellous stuff here, some slapstick at which Caron is surprisingly adept, but mostly it’s a tale of flustered feathers and vengeance for perceived humiliation, beginning with Boullard who is so annoyed that any of daughter of his is a stuck-up prude. Paul can’t believe Lauren isn’t falling at his feet and equally she is infuriated that Paul isn’t another male slave like her fiancée.

There’s a great turn from Dick Shawn as the slave and his mother (Norma Varden) who keeps on encountering Paul at his least winning. It’s a relief to see Rock Hudson not playing the stuffed shirt of previous comedies and for Leslie Caron not to be a hapless heroine. So it plays as a more effective modern comedy.

Not everyone was so keen on Caron, complaining about the lack of chemistry between the leads and that Paul would never get hooked by such a cold fish. But I disagree. Sure, it called for a lot more from the audience that the leading lady wasn’t the usual ultra-feminine model, but that made the initial romance more believable. Initially, Paul doesn’t fall for her and is seducing her as a “very special favour” to her father but once he sees the other side of her personality he changes his tune.

But I would hazard a guess that, mostly, people were annoyed with Caron because she wasn’t Doris Day and that, while this follows one formula, it steers clear of the Hudson-Day formula in making Caron a high-flying career woman. Dick Shawn (Penelope, 1966) leads an able supporting cast.

Directed by Michael Gordon (Texas Across the River, 1966) from a script by Stanley Shapiro (Bedtime Story, 1964) and Nate Monaster (That Touch of Mink, 1962).

Worth a look.

Behind the Scenes: United Artists Goes to War on a Low Budget – “Submarine X-1” (1968) and Five Others

With the contraction of Hollywood production in the 1960s, cinemas worldwide were always crying for pictures – any pictures – that could take up a weekly slot or pad out a double bill. (The single-bill programming that is standard these days was not welcome in most cinemas, except a prestigious few, and audiences expected to see two movies for the price of their ticket). Indie unit Mirisch had scored such a big hit with aerial war number 633 Squadron (1964) – it recouped its entire cost from British distribution so was in profit for the rest of its global run – that Walter Mirisch persuaded distribution partner United Artists to attempt to capitalize on the idea and thus set in progress a series of war pictures to be made in Britain.

There would be cost savings through the Eady Plan. Each film would have a “recognizable American personality in the lead” and have American directors. Budgets would be held under $1 million. Half a dozen movies were planned, the first appearing in 1967, the last in 1970.

Quite whether James Caan (Red Line 7000, 1965) passed muster as a well-known enough star to qualify as a “personality” at the time he headlined Submarine X-1 (1968) is debatable, as was the presence of James Franciscus (The Valley of Gwangi, 1969) in Hell Boats (1970) and Christopher George (Massacre Harbor, 1968) in The Thousand Plane Raid (1969) though Stuart Whitman (Rio Conchos, 1964) exerted a higher marquee appeal for The Last Escape (1970). Veteran Lloyd Bridges (Around the World under the Sea, 1966) who headlined Attack on the Iron Coast (1968) was probably the best known, but these days that was mostly through television. And David McCallum owed whatever fame he had to television as part of The Man from U.N.C.L.E. double act and the idea that would still be enough to attract an audience for Mosquito Squadron (1969) seemed dubious.

Beyond setting up the project, Walter Mirisch had little to do with the actual production, putting that in the hands of Oakmont Production, which beefed up the action with judicious use of footage from other pictures. Invariably, reasons had to be given to explain why actors with American accents were members of the British fighting forces – most commonly they were represented as Canadian volunteers or might have British nationality by dint of having a British mother.

Storylines followed a similar template. At its heart was a dangerous mission. Leaders were invariably hated for some previous misdemeanor or because they were ruthless and drove the men too hard. If there was romance – not a given – it would border on the illicit. And someone required redemption.

And while none of the stars chose – or were chosen to – repeat the experience, Oakmont established something of a repertory company behind the scenes, writers, directors and producers involved in more than one movie.

*Italian poster (photobusta) for “Hell Boats”. I found Japanese and Australian posters*
*for most of the films in the series*.

Boris Sagal (Made in Paris, 1966) directed both The Thousand Plane Raid and Mosquito Squadron and then made his name with The Omega Man (1971). Paul Wendkos (Angel Baby, 1961) helmed Attack on the Iron Coast and Hell Boats. Walter Grauman who had kicked off the whole shebang with 633 Squadron returned for The Last Escape. William Graham (Waterhole #3, 1967) as the only outlier with just Submarine X-1 to his name.

Veteran producer Lewis Rachmil (A Rage to Live, 1965) oversaw three in the series – Hell Boats, Mosquito Squadron and The Thousand Plane Raid. Another veteran John C. Champion, younger brother of celebrated Broadway choreographer Gower Champion, was involved in a variety of categories. Champion is almost an asterisk these days, best known these days for producing the film Zero Hour! (1957) that inspired disaster parody Airplane! (1980). He was only 25 when he produced his first picture, low-budget western Panhandle (1948). He was behind another four low-budget westerns pictures before Zero Hour!, which had a decent cast in Dana Andrews and Linda Darnell. But that was his last movie for nine years as he switched to television and Laramie (1959-1963), barely reviving his movie career with The Texican (1966) starring Audie Murphy.

He produced Attack on the Iron Coast and Submarine X-1 and was credited with the story for both plus The Last Escape. Irving Temaner produced The Last Escape and received an executive producer credit on Attack on the Iron Coast and Submarine X-1. Donald Sanford (Battle of Midway, 1976) was the most prolific of the writers, gaining screenplay credits for Submarine X-1, The Thousand Plane Raid and Mosquito Squadron. Herman Hoffman (Guns of the Magnificent Seven) wrote Attack on the Iron Coast and The Last Escape.

Cinema managers were not, it transpired, queuing up for the product. Most commonly, when reviewed in the British trade press, their release date was stated as “not fixed” which generally meant that United Artists was hoping the review would do the trick and alert cinema owners.

In the United States, they rarely featured in the weekly box office reports, though Portland in Oregon appeared partial to the product, Attack on the Iron Coast appearing there as support to Hang ‘Em High (1968), Mosquito Squadron supported The Christine Jorgensen Story (1970), Hell Boats supported Lee Van Cleef western Barquero (1970) while The Last Escape supported Mick Jagger as Ned Kelly (1970). To everyone’s astonishment a double bill of Hell Boats / The Last Escape reported a “big” $10,000 in San Francisco, but that proved an anomaly.

In Britain, the movies fulfilled their purpose as programmers, not good enough to qualify as a proper double bill, but accepted as supporting feature for a circuit release on the Odeon chain. Since UA supplied Odeon with its main features, it proved relatively easy to persuade the circuit to take the war films to fill out a program. This kind of second feature would be sold for a fixed price not sharing in the box office gross. However, they were given the kind of all-action poster they hardly deserved.

So in 1968 Attack on the Iron Coast went out with The Beatles Yellow Submarine. In 1969, Submarine X-1 supported slick heist picture The Thomas Crown Affair, which with Steve McQueen and Faye Dunaway in top form scarcely needed any help securing an audience. Hell Boats was supporting feature in 1970 to Master of the Islands (as The Hawaiians starring Charlton Heston was known). As well as accompanying it on the circuit Mosquito Squadron in 1970 made a very brief foray into London’s West End with thriller I Start Counting and then reappeared a few months later as an alternative choice of support for Billy Wilder flop The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes. If you went to see Burt Lancaster western Lawman in 1971 you might have caught The Last Escape – equally it could have been If It’s Tuesday, It Must Be Belgium (cinema managers could choose either).

United Artists, under the financial cost in the early 1970s, pulled the plug on “programmers” such as these. Walter Mirisch in his biography, disingenuously suggested that the six movies had done relatively well. But that wasn’t supported by the studio’s own figures.

Collectively, they made a loss of $1.7 million. Only Attack on the Iron Coast made it into the black and then by only $59,000. Hell Boats lost $700,000. None of the movies earned more than $200,000 in rentals in the United States.

Although Mirisch managed to keep budgets down to around the million-dollar mark, they would have had to be much smaller to see a profit. Ironically, it was the cheapest, Attack on the Iron Coast costing $901,000, that made the most. Submarine X-1 lost $150,000 on a $1 million budget, Mosquito Squadron lost $253,000 on a $1.1 million budget while The Thousand Plane Raid lost $50,000 more on the same budget. The longer the series went on, the worse the losses – The Last Escape lost $449,000 on a $995,000 budget while for Hell Boats the budget was $1.36 million.

SOURCES: United Artists Archives, University of Wisconsin; Walter Mirisch, I Thought We Were Making Movies, Not History (University of Wisconsin Press, 2008) p204; Reviews, Kine Weekly – Feb 9 1968, Aug 31 1969, January 1970, April 18 1970; “Flops Loss-Cutting,” Variety, August 26, 1970, p6; “Picture Grosses,” Variety – March 13 1968, May 8 1968, April 24 1968, October 2 1968, June 10 1970, July 1 1970, July 8, 1970, August 12 1970, August 26 1970.

Submarine X-1 (1968) ***

One of the tropes of the World War Two mission picture was that it afforded plenty scope to boost the careers of supporting players – The Dirty Dozen (1967) being the best example given it boasted Charles Bronson, Ernest Borgnine, Donald Sutherland (the denoted breakout star), Jim Brown (another breakout) and Telly Savalas. Never mind that here you could hardly find an interesting face, never mind well-written character in this one, you were struggling to find the James Caan as defined by The Godfather (1972).

Even with production shrinking and the industry throwing more and more money at the actors who supposedly guaranteed box office, Hollywood was still trying to blood new talent. But most failed to connect – Burt Reynolds was another who took a helluva long time, by movie standards, to find a fanbase.

Though Caan had been chosen by Howard Hawks to headline Red Line 7000 (1965) that had sunk without trace and a supporting role in the director’s El Dorado (1967), while exposing him to a larger audience, had not, as yet, pushed him that far up the Hollywood tree, top billing in neither Robert Altman’s Countdown (1967) nor Games (1967) doing much to bolster his marquee credentials.

His career could go either way – fizz and pop in a part that provided the opportunity to create a defined screen persona or fizzle and die after using up too many Hollywood lives. We all know which way it went so this could be considered a testing ground. And he reins in his screen persona so much he could almost qualify for a Stiff Upper Lip Award.

As ever, Yanks in many World War Two pictures set in Britain had to come in disguise. Commander Bolton (James Caan) is acceptable in the Royal Navy if he’s Canadian and a volunteer rather than American, though you’d be hard put to distinguish the nationalities by Caan’s accent.

It was also a given of this type of war picture that the recruits hated their leader with a vengeance – Lee Marvin in The Dirty Dozen leading the field, though you could equally point to Frank Sinatra in Von Ryan’s Express (1965) – “why did 600 Allied prisoners hate the man they called Von Ryan more than they hated Hitler” ran the tagline – and William Holden in The Devil’s Brigade (1968). .

Here, Bolton is in hot water for obvious reasons. He was a poor leader, causing the deaths of the majority of his crew on the 50-man submarine Gauntlet after an ill-chosen attack on the German battleship Lindendorf. The movie starts with him and the remainder of the crew staggering out of the water onto dry land. Even when he’s cleared at a tribunal, the stench of incompetence sticks. So it’s any wonder that he’s put in charge of a secret operation with many of the survivors, unless of course it’s the kind of suicide mission that offers redemption.

As it takes forever to reveal, the British have built mini-subs, manned by three men, for a second go at the Lindendorf safely stowed out of the way in the Norwegian fjords. So apart from simmering resentment and mutterings everywhere, the first section is the standard training where, as is par for the course, Bolton is a hard-ass, forcing men dying of exhaustion back into the freezing water to complete the designated exercise.

Except for incipient rebellion, there’s not much else in the way of plot before we head for the fjords, not even a romance which might make an audience more sympathetic to Bolton. The Germans, somehow, have got wind of this secret mission taking place in a remote part of Scotland (Loch Ness, actually) and send in a parachute team.

On land it’s as dull as ditchwater, but once we head to sea, it’s a more than competent action picture.

If James Caan has learned anything from his first four pictures, it’s not obvious, as mostly what he does is grimace. The supporting stars look as if they knew from the outset that this wasn’t going to do anything for their careers – and with the exception of David Sumner (Out of the Fog, 1962), they made barely a scratch on the movie business.

It didn’t help that the naval operation had been filmed before as Above Us the Waves (1955) starring John Mills (S.O.S. Pacific, 1960) and directed by Ralph Thomas (Deadlier than the Male, 1967).

Directed by William Graham (The Doomsday Flight, 1966) who had just scored a surprising hit with Waterhole #3 (1967). Written by Donald Sanford (The 1,000 Plane Raid, 1969) and Guy Elmes (Kali-Yug, Goddess of Vengeance, 1963).

Torpedoed by the acting, only partially rescued by the action.

Behind the Scenes: “The Sundowners” (1960)

Whereas Deborah Kerr had always been first choice from the moment in 1957 Fred Zinnemann – he had directed her in From Here to Eternity (1953) – announced plans to film the Jon Cleary bestseller about itinerants in the Australian Outback, Robert Mitchum was third choice. Despite having been successfully paired with Kerr for John Huston’s box office hit Heaven Knows Mr. Allison (1957), he was passed over in favor of, initially, William Holden with whom she had starred in the equally successful The Proud and the Profane (1956). When Holden dropped out, he was immediately replaced by Gary Cooper who had scored a big success with William Wyler’s Oscar-nominated Friendly Persuasion (1956)

And rather than Peter Ustinov (Topkapi, 1964) and Glynis Johns (The Cabinet of Caligari, 1962) in the major supporting roles, Zinnemann had hoped to secure the services of Claudette Colbert and Errol Flynn, both of whom had once been substantial box office attractions, though Colbert had been offscreen since Texas Lady (1955) and Flynn’s marquee appeal was spotty to say the least, though he had just signed up John Huston’s Roots of Heaven (1958). That decision was taken out of Zinnemann’s hands by Flynn’s premature death in 1959.

At this point Peter Ustinov was an all-purpose supporting actor and had not appeared in a major Hollywood production in six years but was just about to make a name for himself in Spartacus (1960) while Glynis Johns, at one time a major British star, had lost much of her marquee allure. Kerr and Johns had worked previously on Perfect Strangers (1945) and remained friends.

Nor was Zinnemann first to pounce on the tale. After the novel – based on the lives of the author’s parents – was published in 1952, rights were acquired by producer Joseph Kaufman who commissioned a screenplay from Kay Keavney. But when he failed to secure funding, Zinnemann scooped the rights after being persuaded by Tasmanian-born Dorothy Hammerstein, wife of the lyricist, that Australia would be a great location.

Screenplay duties then fell to Aaron Spelling (Guns of the Timberland, 1960), best known later as an uber-producer in television. After his draft was deemed “unsatisfactory,” he was replaced by Isobel Lennart (Please Don’t Eat the Daisies, 1960), though Zinnemann later claimed that her dialog was “not Australian enough” and author Jon Cleary (uncredited) was called in to solve “these problems.” .

Studio boss Jack Warner wanted Arizona to stand in for Australia but gave in to Zinnemann’s insistence on reality in part because the director had shot the successful The Nun’s Story (1959) in Africa, even though it added $500,000 to the budget. In fact, Warner gave in relatively easily. He understood that “were we to shoot in Arizona,” Zinnemann explained, “it would emerge as a half-assed Western with bars instead of pubs, cowboys instead of sheep-drovers – they move differently, walk and react differently.” It was the first major Hollywood film to be shot there.

In the second half of 1959 the director spent 12 weeks in advance of the stars arriving filming scenery and most of the scenes involving the sheep – 2,000 of them transported 800 miles to the location. Rather than hiring them, Warner Brothers bought them wholesale and afterwards sold them for a profit. Despite their reputation for docility, sheep proved difficult to wrangle. A whole day was lost when the leader of the sheep just decided he would move no further and the entire flock did the same.

The crew was initially based in Cooma, a small town in New South Wales. Second unit camera operator Nicolas Roeg would return to Australia a decade later to director Walkabout (1971). The movie was hit by unseasonal bad weather – heavy rain and hailstones – which added several weeks to the schedule.

“There’s a good deal of Ida in me,” said Kerr, “I can settle anywhere and call it home.” Her second husband, screenwriter Peter Viertel (The Old Man and the Sea, 1958), made life more palatable by venturing out into the backs streets and finding German and Italian makers of foodstuffs and thereafter the stars took turns to cook for each other. “Bob Mitchum had a way with steaks,” noted Kerr, “but we all decided Peter was the best and most imaginative cook.”

It’s worth killing off the canard that Kerr only gained top-billing in this picture thanks to the generosity of Robert Mitchum. In fact, Kerr was by far the bigger star. She had been top-billed in Heaven Knows Mr. Allison ahead of Mitchum, The King and I (1956) ahead of Yul Brynner, Count Your Blessings (1959) ahead of Rosanna Brazzi, The Journey (1959) ahead of Brynner again, Bonjour Tristesse (1958) ahead of David Niven, Tea and Sympathy (1956) and The End of the Affair (1955) ahead of Van Johnson. She only ceded top billing to the likes of William Holden and Cary Grant (An Affair to Remember, 1957). Although many commentators these days assume that Elizabeth Taylor was the top British star of the decade, Kerr was easily her equal and outranked her – five versus two – in terms of Oscar nominations.

In fact, in terms of marquee appeal, Robert Mitchum could not compete with Kerr. Heaven Knows Mr. Allison was his biggest hit since River of No Return (1954) with Marilyn Monroe. The work with which he is most commonly associated, Night of the Hunter (1955), was a flop, and he was in the main reduced to a diet of westerns and war films.

He was more associated with the wrong sort of headlines than box office. His previous film The Night Fighters / A Terrible Beauty (1960) attracted more attention from journalists for his fight in a bar than from audiences. But Zinnemann was a fan and had tried to hire him for From Here to Eternity.

Mitchum’s notoriety went ahead of him and at the airport he was deluged by reporters, most determined to know, for such a renowned hard drinker, what he thought of Aussie beer. He crossed swords with journalists a few days later, complaining that he was misunderstood and nothing like his screen personality. “I’m no tough guy,” he argued, “all the public knows is some silver, chromium-plated jerk. How could they know what I’m really like?” When he pointed out that his marijuana bust had been expunged from the record, one frustrated newspaperman recorded, “He isn’t a jailbird, he isn’t a drunk, he isn’t a brawler.”

Mitchum had no trouble with cast and director. Zinnemann was astounded by the actor’s mastery of the accent, pronouncing it “perfect” and adding “he had the uncanny knack of making any accent sound as though he had been born with it.” Mitchum and Kerr renewed their non-sexual love affair. “It was an honor to feed her lines,” said Mitchum. Zinnemann summed him up, “He has a problem with people who take themselves too seriously.”

But Mitchum was hounded by fans and autograph hunters. An audience gathered to watch him eat in local restaurants, his mood not helped by the solitary confinement imposed when rain prevented filming. One journalist, having inveigled his way into Mitchum’s rented home, was astonished to discover the actor could cook. Jon Cleary sprung to his defense. “Robert Mitchum is anything but a droopy-eyed slob once you get to know him. He is extremely well read and writes beautiful poetry.

When it came to horses, Ustinov was the bigger problem. “He was scared of them and they of him,” said Zinnemann, “and the moment he got in the saddle he would forget all his lines.”

Shooting a bush fire was relatively straightforward since they were a “frequent and devastating occurrence”, so the second unit simply flew near to the area in question, hired a taxi and started shooting. But these fires, fueled by the eucalyptus trees they were burning, moved at terrific speed, jumping along the tops of trees “and scattering their burning fragments fast and wide like projectiles.” But if the fire suddenly switched direction – and it moved at 30 miles per hour – there was a danger, as once occurred, that the crew could be cut off.

When the unit headed for Port Augusta in the south, it was a 45-minute commute to the sheep station at Iron Knob where many scenes were shot. Mitchum had had enough of being an object of curiosity and chartered a luxury cruiser, although he was still fending off young ladies who took to swimming out to the boat.

There was little scenic in the journey to the location. “The dust flew along the whole road,” said co-star Dina Merrill, and Mitchum was taken aback by the size of the sheep and found daunting the task of shearing a 400lb Merino sheep in one go. One mistake and you could cut into a vein and the animal would bleed to death. Mitchum relied on Dutch courage. Interiors were filmed in the more hospitable atmosphere of a London studio. There was an unwelcome sting in the tail for Mitchum – he was sent a tax demand from the Australian authorities which he refused to pay.

Although Jack Warner had given his assent to the overseas shoot, he was incapable of directing the advertising department to produce a poster that didn’t focus on the notion that this was the frisky Deborah Kerr of From Here to Eternity, “a highly-sexed lady who could harldy wait for the sun to go down so she could lay her hands on Bob.” Audiences were naturally disappointed when the projected love affair failed to materialize.

While the critics were generally in favor of the movie and audiences in the U.S. big cities responded well, its attraction faded as it set out across the U.S. However, it did better abroad and not surprisingly was a massive hit in Australia. Mitchum and Kerr re-teamed for Stanley Donen comedy The Grass Is Greener (1960) – with Kerr again billed before Mitchum.

SOURCES: Eric Braun, Deborah Kerr (WH Allen, 1977) pp173-177; Lee Server, Robert Mitchum, Baby I Don’t Care (Faber & Faber, 2001) pp422-429; Fred Zinnemann, An Autobiography (Bloomsbury, 1992) pp173-183.

The Sundowners (1960) ****

I kept waiting for Deborah Kerr to turn up and it was a good 20 minutes before I realized that the actress had so immersed herself in the dowdy Ida Carmody that she was turning in what would be recognized as an Oscar-nominated performance. I was less convinced by Robert Mitchum’s Oirish accent but after a time, he, too, buried his normal screen persona under a feckless wanderer. And I was expecting some meaningful point-making stuff from director Fred Zinnemann given he had nursed home such purposeful features as High Noon (1952), From Here to Eternity (1953), A Hatful of Rain (1957) and The Nun’s Story (1959) and would soon be heading back in that virtue-signalling direction with Behold a Pale Horse (1964) and A Man for All Seasons (1966). However, like Day of the Jackal (1973), though for other reasons, this is very much an outlier in the Zinnemann portfolio.

It’s groundbreaking work from the stars. In the first place, Deborah Kerr does the unthinkable for a star of her magnitude – five Oscar nominations so far and a string of hits including From Here to Eternity, The Proud and the Profane (1955) opposite William Holden, The King and I (1956) top-billed ahead of Yul Brynner, An Affair to Remember (1957) opposite Cary Grant and Heaven Knows, Mr Allison (1958) leading Robert Mitchum a merry dance. Here, she is shorn of make-up. Her freckles are everywhere and her cheekbones look as if they are there from hunger not for reasons of fashion. These days, that down-to-the-wire approach would suggest an actress desperately trying to revive her career – Demi Moore in The Substance (2024) or Pamela Anderson in The Last Showgirl (2024) – rather than a star at the top of her game.

Robert Mitchum, too, dumps his screen persona, and provides his most relaxed and naturalistic performance.

The story is pretty straightforward. Ida wants to settle down, husband Paddy (Robert Mitchum), a born drifter, does not. Paddy enjoys drinking and gambling and wandering through the Australian Outback and ekes out enough as a drover to keep them solvent. The plot, therefore, is episodic. But what could have been a series of loosely-linked sequences is held together by a concentration of the reality of an existence revolving around sheep – droving, shearing, rearing – and trundling along in a horse-drawn caravan, putting up a tent at night, cooking over an open fire, other aspects bordering on the primitive. You can be sure that every minor triumph will be torpedoed.

You could be forgiven for thinking that Wyler had set out to make a western what with the preponderance of sweeping location. Make it sheep instead of cattle and you have Red River (1948) in a minor key with the usual shenanigans once the drover makes his destination.

Livening up proceedings are equally responsibility-resistant itinerant Rupert Venneker (Peter Ustinov), whose more basic skills including pugilism belie his posh accent, and innkeeper Mrs Firth (Glynis Johns) who makes a good stab at trying to hold onto him.

The bulk of the emotion plays through the eyes of Ida, desperately trying to save up enough money to buy a house. A bushfire that temporarily separates the couple unexpectedly acts to strengthen their relationship. While Ida is helping deliver a baby, Frank is getting roaring drunk. The tension between the pair is also a metaphor for growing civilization out of a wilderness, the men who tamed the land becoming redundant, a new educated class taking over. Ida wants to be settled to provide her ambitious son Sean (Michael Anderson Jr) with an education as much as she doesn’t want to be a traveller in her old age.

Offers much about a civilization in the making still relying on the old-timers to put in the hard yards while the guys doing all the work don’t have the sense to seek greater or more stable reward. What’s life if it doesn’t go wrong once in a while? Freedom is its own reward. As Paddy points out, he has no restrictions, the entirety of Australia is his bailiwick.

Wyler makes much of what he’s got, the tensions between the couple undercutting the strength of their affection for each other, and just when it looks as if Ida has got her way Paddy manages to cut loose and destroy her dreams.

There’s drama a-plenty, not just the terrifying bushfire, but a pretty engrossing horse race or two. Paddy’s idea of heaven is to hold court in a saloon singing old Irish songs. Sometimes Ida has little but heartbreak to nurse her along.

And while the various episodes make it a tidy drama, really it’s what one critic described as “a no-story movie – an observation of life” and in that regard more concerned with fallibility and vulnerability. Had it been made by a European director, it would remain one of the most talked-about movies of the decade.

Wyler keeps up a tidy pace. Deborah Kerr (The Arrangement, 1969) steals the show and her peers agreed, putting her up for an Oscar, but it was a close-run thing because Glynis Johns (The Cabinet of Caligari, 1962) was also nominated. Peter Ustinov (Topkapi, 1964) was equally impressive, as was Robert Mitchum (El Dorado, 1967). Wyler was also nominated as was screenwriter Isobel Lennart (Fitzwilly / Fitzwilly Strikes Back, 1967) adapting the Jon Cleary bestseller.

I caught this on Amazon Prime.

Thoroughly involving.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Sleeping Car Murder (1965) ****

Absolutely brilliant thriller. Even after a half a century, still a knock out. A maniac on the loose, baffled cops, glimpses into the tattered lives of witnesses, victims and relatives, told at break-neck speed by Greek director Costa-Gavras (Z, 1969) on his debut and concluding with an astonishing car chase through the streets of Paris. Not just an all-star French cast – Yves Montand (Grand Prix, 1966), Oscar-winner Simone Signoret (Is Paris Burning?, 1966), Jean-Louis Trintignant (Les Biches, 1968) and Michel Piccoli (Topaz, 1969) – but directed with a Georges Simenon (creator of Maigret) sensibility to the frailties of humanity.

As well as the twists and turns of the narrative, what distinguishes this thriller are the parallel perspectives. Where most whodunits present an array of suspects, inviting the audience to work out the identity of the killer, here virtually all the characters are presented both objectively and subjectively. Some are delusional, others highly self-critical, occasionally both, and we are given glimpses into their lives through the characters’ internalized voice-over and dialog.

Tiny details open up worlds – the wife of a dead man bewailing that he would not be able to wear the fleecy shoes she had just bought him to keep out the cold during his night-time job, a policeman revealing he wanted to be a dancer, a vet who wants to create a new breed of animals, a witness whose parents committed suicide. But just as many, the flotsam and jetsam of the police life, irritate the hell out of the cops: Bob Valsky (Charles Denner) constantly berates their efforts, relatives bore the pants off their interviewer, not to mention self-important police chief Tarquin (Pierre Mondy) who has an answer for everything.

A young woman Georgette (Pascale Roberts) is discovered dead in the second-class sleeper compartment of a train after it has pulled into Paris. Initial suspicion falls on the other occupants including aging actress Eliane (Simone Signoret) in the thrall of her much younger lover Eric (Jean Louis Trintignant), impulsive blonde bombshell Bambi (Catherine Allegret), low-level office worker Rene (Michel Piccoli) and Madame Rivolani (Monique Chaumette). Weary Inspector Grazziani (Yves Montand), suffering from a cold and wanting to spend more time with his family, is handed the case. But before he can interview the suspects, they start getting knocked off.

So convinced are the police of their own theories that they ignore the testimony of Eliane and instantly home in on fantasist Rene, treated with contempt, a dishevelled lecherer who on the one hand misinterprets signals from women and on the other realizes that no one in their right mind would ever date him. Eliane is tormented by the prospect of being abandoned by her controlling lover.

It’s a race against time to find the passengers before the killer. In the middle of all this there is burgeoning romance between Bambi and clumsy mummy’s boy Daniel (Jacques Perrin), who may well hold the key to the murders. Their meet-cute is when he ladders her stockings.

I won’t spoil it for you by listing all the red herrings, surprises, mishaps, tense situations and explorations of psyche, but the pace never abates and it keeps you guessing to the end. And while all that keeps the viewer on tenterhooks what really makes the movie stand out is the depiction of the inner lives of the characters.

So often cast as a lover Yves Montand is outstanding as the diligent cop. Signoret captures beautifully the life of a once-beautiful woman who now enjoys the “empty gaze of men,” Trintignant essays a sleazier character than previously while Michel Piccoli who often at this stage of his career played oddballs invites sympathy for an unsympathetic character. Catherine Allegret (Last Tango in Paris, 1972) and Jacques Perrin (Blanche, 1971) charm as the young lovers. In tiny roles look out for director Claude Berri (Jean de Florette, 1986), Marcel Bozzuffi (The French Connection, 1971) and Claude Dauphin (Hard Contract, 1969),

Costa-Gavras constantly adds depth to the story and his innovative use of multiple voice-over, forensic detail, varying points-of-view, plus his masterful camerawork and a truly astonishing (for the time) car chase points to an early masterpiece. Sebastian Japrisot (Farewell, Friend / Adieu L’Ami, 1968) wrote the screenplay based on his novel.

Can’t remember where I got my DVD, perhaps second-hand, but there is an excellent print, taken from the 2016 restoration, available on YouTube.