1960s film – Page 2 – The Magnificent 60s

Quatermass and the Pit / Five Million Miles to Earth (1967) ****

Five million dollars. That’s roughly the budgetary difference between Hammer’s Quatermass and the Pit and Twentieth Century Fox’s Fantastic Voyage. Although the protagonists in the latter face the unexpected, the movie is (as would be 2001: A Space Odyssey, 1968) an exercise in awe, in controlled exploration of wonder, whereas Quatermass, lacking the money for special effects, concentrates more on story and human impact. The government funds the experiment in Fantastic Voyage while Professor Quatermass (Andrew Keir) finds nothing but obstruction from his superiors.

Quatermass and the Pit is a masterpiece of stealthy exposition. Virtually every minute brings another development, gradually building tension, stoking fear. The principals – Dr Roney (James Donald), Barbara Judd (Barbara Shelley) and the professor – are cleverly kept apart during the early stages. A human skull discovered on a building site for a London Underground station is followed by a skeleton. Palaeontologist Roney determines it is five million years old, older than any previous find.

A metallic object is found nearby. First guess is an unexploded bomb from the Second World War. But it’s not ticking. And a magnet won’t stick to it. Col Breen (Julian Glover) is called in along with hostile rocket expert Quatermass. They have been locking horns from the outset.

There’s a whole bunch of apparent red herrings, mostly of the demonic variety. The location, historically associated with weird occurrences, is a nickname for the Devil. A pentagram is detected. Touching the object can give you frostbite. Col Breen argues it’s a leftover German propaganda machine from World War Two. A hideous dwarf and other spectral images are sighted. Telekinesis is involved. And tremendous vibrations.

Some people, such as Barbara, have a more receptive brain and can play memories millions of years old that reveal the alien truth. But this is an alien race with genocidal tendencies and able to unleash psychic energy.

The genre requires the scientists to discover an improbable solution which of course they do. Given the miserly budget, the special effects are not remotely in the Fantastic Voyage league. But that hardly matters. The movie coasts home on ideas, marrying sci-fi, the demonic, dormant and institutionalized evil, the militarization of the Moon and the ancient infiltration of Earth by Martians, no mean achievement, and a vivid narrative.

Director Roy Ward Baker (aka Roy Baker) provides many fine cinematic moments as he chisels away at the story, finding clever methods of revealing as much of the aliens as the budget will permit, focusing on very grounded characters, concentrating on conflict, and human emotions, mainlining fear rather than awe, building to an excellent climactic battle between man and monster.

Barbara Shelley (The Gorgon, 1964) is the pick of the stars, in part because she is at such a remove from her normal Hammer scream-queen persona, but more importantly because she brings such screen dynamism to the role. It’s refreshing to see her step up, as she carries a significant element of the story. Oddlyenough, although she has as good a movie portfolio as Andrew Keir and is certainly superior to James Donald, the denoted star, in that department, she is only billed third.

While Andrew Keir (The Viking Queen, 1967), warm-hearted for an intellectual, and James Donald (The Great Escape, 1963), trying to keep a cool head in the middle of inclination to panic, are good, they don’t bring anything we haven’t seen before. Julian Glover (Alfred the Great, 1969) is never anything but imperious and/or irascible, so ideal casting here.

The innovative electronic music was down to Tristram Cary and the unsettling credit sequence deserves some recognition. Nigel Kneale, who originally explored similar ideas for the character on television, came up with the screenplay.

The Naked Kiss (1964) ****

Certainly doesn’t start off as your standard entry to the criminal-trying-to-go-straight mini-genre when a bald woman beats up and robs her pimp. Kelly (Constance Towers), who knows “your body is your only passport,” nonetheless sets out to create a new life for herself as a salesperson (hawking overpriced champagne) in a small town where prostitution is outlawed.

She could easily settle for being the mistress of corrupt cop Griff (Anthony Eisley), but he’s something of a pimp, sending girls-off-the-bus across the river to the joint run by Candy (Virginia Grey). Instead, she takes up nursing, in an institute for crippled children, providing tough love to the kids. In due course, she hooks up the town’s handsome philanthropic millionaire Grant (Michael Dante), a relationship which Griff threatens to wreck.

However, she fesses up to Grant, now her fiancé in double-quick time, about her past and, remarkably, he forgives her. And you think, my goodness, she’s going to get away with it, new life, new career, a job she loves in which she is adored by the kids. You could be tootling along Sentimental Boulevard: Kelly forms the kids into a choir, she coaxes slightly mad landlady Josephine (Berry Bronson) back to reality, determines to make her own wedding dress rather than be beholden to the millionaire, and takes under her wing nurses Buff (Marie Devereux) and Dusty (Karen Conrad) who have fallen victim to life’s traps.

You could be in Movie of the Week territory, another hooker with a heart of gold, except while she’s been turning her life around, there’s the inherent tension that she must fail. But this being a Sam Fuller (Shock Corridor, 1963) picture, Kelly is one tough cookie, outsmarting for a start Griff, who sees her as another in his assembly line of sex workers, and beating up Candy for daring to seduce Buff away from nursing by the promise of big money. Kelly ain’t sentimental. She views herself as a “broken down piece of machinery” with a future beckoning of “nothing but the buck, the bed and the bottle.” This is partly a shrew observation of herself but also of the production line nature or prostitution.

So there’s a catch. And it’s just plain awful. Grant is a paedophile. He has chosen Kelly because, as a sex worker, she is a deviant who will “understand my sickness.” And she’s sickened that despite her best efforts, that’s how she’s viewed, as a woman who would condone such behavior, and that he somehow believes she is complicit, in encouraging young girls from the hospital to visit him. So she kills him.

And then reality strikes with a vengeance. She finds herself embroiled in the worst kind of small town corruption. Griff, who’s gunning for her anyway, refuses to believe her accusation against Grant, his best pal. Candy, who’s also gunning for her, says Kelly planned to blackmail Grant. There’s money missing, so she’s branded a thief as well. And nobody can find the little girl Grant had lined up.

An absolutely terrific film, constantly switching gear, twist after twist, but incredibly humane. There’s probably never been a better portrayal of the working girl, here all shown as vulnerable rather than predatory, as victims caught in a man-made web, and although dealt with in subtle fashion many clearly suffering from mental illness.

Kelly is cultured, reads Byron and Goethe, embraces the classical music education a relationship with Grant promises, but is unusually self-analytical. When she looks in a mirror she’s not seeking physical flaws but shortcomings of character. She understands all too well how men play women. Her tragedy is that when she sets aside her inbuilt cynicism, the man she trusts turns out to be as untrustworthy as they come.

Constance Towers (Shock Corridor) carries the picture, revealing several shades of personality, from hard-bitten woman to tender nurse, from avenger to pragmatic problem-solver. Michael Dante (Harlow, 1965) pulls off the difficult role of being persuasively a good guy gone bad. Veteran Virginia Grey (Jungle Jim, 1948) is all veneer.

But it is Sam Fuller’s movie. He was a triple hyphenate, writer-producer-director, so his vision was never in doubt. The dialog is terrific – the explanation of the title alone is extremely creepy – often cutting to the bone, but the best sequences lack words at all, the black-and-white photography bringing an air of film noir, and for all the striking toughness of the heroine, several moving scenes.

It’s not shocking in Fuller’s normal manner. As I can testify, it suggests to the viewer it’s going one way, and the core terrible act creeps up upon the audience. But it is brilliantly directed, even with a B-picture cast. Pulp reinvented as art. You could possibly argue in its vision and subject matter this was the birthplace of the indie.

Fantastic Voyage (1966) ****

If this had appeared a couple of years later after Stanley Kubrick had popularised the psychedelic in 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), and with his budget, it might have been a bigger hit. As it is, the ground-breaking sci-fi adventure, going in the opposite direction from Kubrick, exploring the mysteries of the body rather than the universe, is a riveting watch.

Before we even get to the science fiction, there’s a stunning opening 15 minutes or so, a thriller tour de force, the attempted assassination of scientist Dr Jan Bedes (Jean Del Val), vital to the development of embryonic new miniaturization technology, baffled C.I.A. agent Charles Grant (Stephen Boyd) transported to a futuristic building (electronic buggies, photo ID) where he is seconded to a team planning invasive surgery, entering the scientist’s bloodstream and removing a blood clot from his brain. They only have 60 minutes and there’s a saboteur on board.

Heading the mission are claustrophobic circulation specialist Dr Michaels (Donald Pleasance), brain surgeon Dr Peter Duval (Arthur Kennedy) and lovelorn assistant Cora (Raquel Welch). Backing them are up Captain Bill Owens (William Redfield) who designed the Proteus submarine.

The high concept is brilliantly delivered with ingenious improvisations, of the kind we have come to expect from the likes of Apollo 13 (1995) and The Martian (2015) that save the day. I’ve no idea how accurate the anatomical science was but it sounded very convincing to me. There’s a brilliant sequence when the scientist’s heart is slowed down and the heartbeat is reduced to a low thump but when the heart is reactivated the sub literally jumps.

The bloodstream current proves far stronger than imagined, taking them away from their planned route. After unexpectedly losing air, they need to literally suck air in from the scientist’s body. Swarms of antibodies attack. Claustrophobia and sabotage up the ante, not to mention the anxious team overseeing the operation in the control room, the minutes ticking by.

It’s not a fantastic voyage but a fantastic planet, the visualisation of the human interior – at a time when nobody could call on CGI – is as fascinating as Kubrick’s meditations on outer space. They could have landed on a distant planet judging by what look like rock formations. It’s wondrous. Sometimes the world takes on a psychedelic tone. The special effects rarely fail, the worse that occurs is an occasional flaw in a process shot, and a couple of times the actors have to fall back on the old device of throwing themselves around to make it look like the vessel was rocking. The craft itself is impressive and all the gloop and jelly seems realistic. There’s a gripping climax, another dash of improvisation.

The only problem is the characters who seem stuck in a cliché, Grant the action man, Duval blending science with God, Michaels the claustrophobic, an occasional clash of personality. But given so much scientific exposition, there’s little time for meaningful dialogue and most of the time the actors do little more than express feelings with reaction shots. Interestingly enough, Raquel Welch (Lady in Cement, 1968) holds her own. In fact, she is often the only one to show depth. When the process begins, she is nervous, and the glances she gives at Duval reveal her feelings for him. It’s one of the few films in which she remains covered up, although possibly it was contractual that she be seen in something tight-fitting, in this case a white jump suit.

If you are going to cast a film with strong screen personalities you couldn’t do worse than the group assembled. Stephen Boyd (Assignment K, 1968), five-time Oscar nominee Arthur Kennedy (Nevada Smith, 1966) ), Donald Pleasance (The Great Escape, 1963), Edmond O’Brien (Rio Conchos, 1964) and William Redfield (Duel at Diablo, 1966) aren’t going to let you down.

But the biggest credit goes to Richard Fleischer (The Big Gamble, 1961, which starred Boyd) and his Oscar-winning special effects and art direction teams. While not indulging in wonder in the way of Kubrick, Fleischer allows audiences time to navigate through the previously unseen human body simply by sticking to the story. There are plenty of set pieces and brilliant use of sound. Harry Kleiner (Bullitt, 1968) created the screenplay based on a story by Otto Klement and contrary to myth the only part Isaac Asimov played in the picture was to write the novelization.

A joy from start to finish with none of the artistic pretension of Kubrick. This made a profit on initial release, knocking up $5.5 million in domestic U.S. rentals against a budget of $5.1 million according to Twentieth century Fox expert Aubrey Solomon and would have made probably the same again overseas plus television sale.

The Americanization of Emily (1964) ****

It’s an immoral job but someone’s got to do it. In wartime, generals need their perks – Winston Churchill with his cigars and champagne the best advocate. And those who supply the perks – Dog-Robbers in American parlance – expect their own perks in the form of a backroom job where they are never exposed to danger. Top U.S. Navy dog-robber in World War Two London on the eve of D-Day is Lt. Commander Edison (James Garner) who can spirit up whisky, steaks, nylon stockings and women, happy even to deliver shoulder massages for boss Admiral Jessop (Melvyn Douglas).

And like the recently-reviewed The Charge of the Light Brigade (1968) what’s mostly on the minds of top commanders is jostling for power, how to win the public relations battle on D-Day and prevent the politicians considering scrapping the service post-war. So Jessup comes up with a brilliant wheeze. What if the first man to die on Omaha Beach was a sailor? Allowing for the construction of a memorial to the “unknown sailor,” a feasible proposition given the Navy demolition unit is scheduled to land on French shores in advance of the invasion force. Edison is enlisted to film the anticipated death.

But Edison, whose brother died at Anzio, is a coward and does everything possible to avoid the job. He struggles to get English girlfriend Emily (Julie Andrews), whose father and brother died in the war, to share his perspective and is counting on buddy Lt. Commander Cummings (James Coburn) to get him out of it. But Cummings has his own ideas and Edison ends up the sacrificial lamb.

And it would be a brilliant black comedy except that, in the interests of a happy ending, Edison, despite being shot on the beach by Cummings, turns up alive.

In that case it becomes a fascinating exploration of the realities of war, the moral and immoral coming to grief in a moral vacuum that ensures that the higher up the food chain the less likelihood there is of dying and, ironically enough, the better opportunity to enjoy, while the masses are on strict rations, the good things of life. Emily would act as the movie’s conscience except that Edison is having none of war’s hypocrisy. He doesn’t want to die for his country and may be following to the letter General Patton’s dictat of making the “other poor bastard die for his country.” He doesn’t so much take a stand against the absurdities of war as stand up for the sanctity of life, in particular his own life, unwilling to fall for the “futile gesture of virtue.”

There’s plenty of what you should and shouldn’t do during wartime, arguments passionately argued for and against duty, though even the self-appointed conscience Emily stops short of turning her nose up at the finer things of life, no matter by what dodgy means they fall her way. that her life teeters on hypocrisy is scarcely explored.

And it does its utmost not to fall into the trap of the wartime romance genre, will-he-won’t-he survive the dangerous mission, precisely because you could never mistake Edison for a hero. And you need a hero not an ordinary joe for that particular genre to work. So what you’re left with is something else entirely, a man brave enough to be seen naked, exhibiting exactly the same lack of scruples in saving his own life as his commanders would employ to have him lose it. It’s kind of complicated that way.

Throw in another get-out clause on behalf of the Allied command, the notion that no high-up would embark on such a selfish vainglorious action, and that Jessup only does so because he is temporarily unhinged after the loss of his wife, when in fact history is littered with generals committing troops to wholesale slaughter for their own reasons.

Ediuon is such a charming character that if you wanted someone to plead the case on behalf of the cowardly you couldn’t make a better choice. The whole idea shouldn’t work at all because it’s only the bad guys, the shifty ones that turn up in every war movie, who carry the cowardice flag. The film is so cleverly structured, with examples of the impact of loss all around, that it’s virtually impossible to vote against Edison. And part of the cleverness is the casting. If such a good egg as Emily can fall in love with Edison it somehow makes him a less despicable character. He’s certainly not as shifty as Jessup who dreamed up the bizarre stunt in the first place or Cummings, intent on exploiting it.

James Garner (36 Hours, 1964) excelled at playing the morally dubious, the cowardly sheriff played for laughs in Support Your Local Sheriff (1969) his biggest box office hit, but this isn’t far short of his very best work, and an exceptionally bold role for a star. Julie Andrews was already trying to move away from her goody-two-shoes debut in Mary Poppins (1965) that would be further enhanced by The Sound of Music (1965) and while her characterisation is not, on the surface, that far away from either role, the depth she displays here, the sorrow and the soulfulness, give this a edgier riff.

Good support from James Coburn (Dead Heat on a Merry-Go-Round, 1966), Melvyn Douglas (Hotel, 1967), Keenan Wynn (Man in the Middle/The Winston Affair, 1964) and Joyce Grenfell (The Yellow Rolls Royce, 1964).

Director Arthur Hiller (Tobruk, 1967) most of the time walks a very fine line but manages to create a very thoughtful movie that humanized what other anti-war pictures failed to make personal. Oscar-winner Paddy Chayefsky (Marty, 1955) based the screenplay on the bestseller by William Bradford Huie (Wild River, 1960).

Another in the mini-genre concerning power politics in the Armed Forces. Would make a good triple bill if teamed with The Charge of the Light Brigade and Man in the Middle.

The Charge of the Light Brigade (1968) ****

It’s worth remembering that Britain, led by roughly the same type of commander lampooned here, won the Crimean War and that initially this particular engagement, despite the deaths, was celebrated for its valour by poet Lord Tennyson, in much the same way as famous defeats like Dunkirk and The Alamo somehow managed to achieve the status of some kind of victory in the public perception. It’s also worth noting that the documentary-style realisation of Dunkirk, (2017) and to that extent Coppola’s Apocalypse Now (1979) owe much to Tony Richardson’s approach, both films more interested in the bigger picture than individual acts of heroism.

And our conscience here, dashing cavalry officer Nolan (David Hemmings), is not quite saintly, engaged in an affair with the wife Clarissa (Vanessa Redgrave) of a friend. Despite the director’s rush to judgement, his approach displays a refreshing change to a genre where acts of selfless courage were the norm. Setting aside the occasional self-reverential artistic lapse, it’s an excellent depiction of class-ridden Britain at war in 1854, an era when military advancement was purchased without any consideration to the leadership skills such high-ranking officers required. I’m never sure if John Ford invented the camaraderie of his Cavalry in westerns, where at dances the officers mixed with the ordinary soldiers, but here the two classes are kept apart.

And while Richardson clearly wants to blame the class system for the military calamity, the outcome is a no-holds-barred ultra-realistic portrayal of war in in all its sordid glory. At its heart are the machinations of senior commanders jostling for position and control and, much as with Field Marshal Montgomery and General Patton in World War Two, allowing personal enmity to affect decisions.

The two biggest culprits are Lord Cardigan (Trevor Howard) and brother-in-law Lord Lucan (Harry Andrews) in charge of the ill-fated charge who openly spout bile at each other, remain deliberately obtuse, and are, nonetheless, a joy to watch. Cardigan is irascible to the point of apoplexy, incredibly brave, vainglorious, a vindictive sex-mad peacock, with an odd selection of principles (refuses to deal with spies, for example). Nothing can beat a quite marvellous spat between the pair over how to pitch tents. Both, however, are a vast improvement on the ineffectual commander-in-chief Lord Raglan (John Gielgud) whose idea of tactics is to “form the infantry nicely” and another commander who refuses to let the simple matter of being under attack ruin his breakfast.

At the other end of the scale are the poor recruits, drawn from the lower classes, so ill-educated they don’t know their left foot from their right (something of a necessity in obeying orders in the field), lured by the promise of glory and a job, and find themselves turned into horsemen in the most brutal fashion.

In the middle is the effete Nolan, initially introduced as the good guy, who believes horses should be treated with kindness and stands up to Cardigan. His romance with Clarissa is a masterpiece of nuance, all furtive glances, hardly a word spoken. And he has a pivotal role in sending the cavalry in the wrong direction at the Battle of Balaclava, causing the fatal charge.

It’s episodic in structure, characters bobbing in and out, some for comedic purposes, and without the battle it’s doubtful the picture would have been made for, excepting the high-level squabbling, there’s little inherently dramatic. And possibly that’s to the movie’s benefit for it clears the way to concentrate on how an army operates and goes to war, the focus, unlike most war or historical pictures, being as much on what goes wrong as goes right. So the horses dying during the voyage and callously dumped overboard and the men marching through Crimean heat and afflicted by cholera take centre stage rather than lavish sequences of soldiers on splendid parade.

On the downside, you have to accept the director’s version of the war’s causes, British imperialism don’t you know, rather than Russian aggression as a result of religious conflict in the Middle East. And there’s narrative indecision, various characters permitted interior monologue for no particular reason except artistic impulse. Mrs Duberley (Jill Bennett) wife of the paymaster (Peter Bowles) is permitted to accompany the expedition for the sole purpose it would appear of being shagged by Cardigan.

The detail of what exactly went wrong on the battlefield is obscured by the fact that Nolan, who hand-delivered the famous order to attack, itself unclear, died in battle, so it’s like one of those Netflix documentaries about unsolved murders, fascinating but ultimately annoying. If incompetence is measured in casualties, apart from this one charge the British came out better than the other participants, 40,000 dead compared to three times as many among their French allies and more than ten times as many among the Russian enemy.

The acting is of a very high quality, David Hemmings (Alfred the Great, 1968) as good as I’ve ever seen him, Vanessa Redgrave (Blow-Up, 1966), except for her deception a Stepford Wife Victorian-style, Trevor Howard (Von Ryan’s Express, 1965) brilliantly outrageous and John Gielgud (Sebastian, 1968) who turns befuddlement into a high art.

Tony Richardson (Tom Jones, 1963) makes some bold choices, not least in what is included and what is left out, the battle of the tents, fake news (from The Times!), soldiers facing the lash, the dashing charge and its terrible aftermath, the animated sequences, and his revolutionary soundtrack. Sergio Leone might have claimed the artistic high ground with the buzzing fly at the start of Once Upon a Time in the West (1969) but there’s little in film music of the time – beyond Bernard Herrmann’s Psycho score – to compare with the sound of a fly playing over the end credits or its inclusion during the march when men are literally dropping like flies. This is a very different kind of curate’s egg, absolutely brilliant in parts, and never dull.

Unfortunately, there’s a topical parallel, Crimea having been invaded several years back by Russia and now the whole region aflame.

This was the first home-grown excursion into the all-star-cast business – other British movies in that ilk, originating from these shores, previously headlined by a Hollywood star like Gregory Peck (The Guns of Navarone, 1961), Kirk Douglas (The Heroes of Telemark, 1965) or George Peppard (The Blue Max, 1966). And I can see why the new box office stars David Hemmings and Vanessa Redgrave, repeating their Blow-Up (1966) teaming, would have, in the narrative sense, occupied center stage. But given nobody knew for certain what caused the disastrous charge and that it would taken place anyway in the picture, the far more entertaining approach would be to concentrate entirely on the likes of the feuding Cardigan and Lucan, two characters who leapt off the screen. Outside of the battle itself, Nolan’s sole purpose, it would seem, was to point out that the army treated its horses badly, a point the audience would have easily picked up without Nolan’s display of alternative horsemanship. Still, all told, at the risk of repeating myself, an excellent watch.

The Nutty Professor (1963) ****

Not many, outside of France, fell in with the notion that Jerry Lewis was some kind of cinematic genius. But this was the era of the auteur and the French revered the idea of a creative being in complete control and of placing a distinct imprint on their work. Given Jerry Lewis (The Bellboy, 1960) was not only star, but director, producer and co-writer you could see how neatly he ticked this box.

There are precious few actors turning to direction show any great aptitude for that particular skill. And while Lewis isn’t waiting days for the perfect ray of sunshine or tormenting his actors by insisting on endless takes, Lewis the director does know what makes Lewis the actor work. And it shows.

While this depends largely on sight gags, some quite brilliant, what really makes it tick are the twists, the kind of plot devices that so shift audience perception that they wouldn’t be out of place in a thriller. The concept certainly plays around the with audience, taking it on quite a wild ride.

White, initially, it looks like it’s going to be a weak parody of the awkward nerd, in this case Professor Kelp (Jerry Lewis), getting the sweet-natured girl, in this case student Stella (Stella Stevens), it quickly switches into a more contemporary issue, the question of identity, and deeper still, in an era these days of too much self-reflection being bad for you, of learning to like yourself.

When Kelp is humiliated by a football jock in his own class, he determines to get revenge. When the obvious course of action of body-building doesn’t work, the scientist resorts to science, devising a concoction that will change his personally. The first twist is you are left thinking he’s going to turn into a werewolf. So when he turns up, instead, as an arrogant punk-cum-pop-star with girls swooning all around him, and the kind of tough guy patter that James Cagney would envy, all bets are off.

The entrance of the new-look Kelp is brilliantly done, firstly the camera doing a POV number and registering public reaction to the new Kelp, who we are led to believe, is the said werewolf. So when he saunters into a nightclub dressed to the nines, a smoke in his hands, you can ee why he has attracted such a reaction.

Stella is the kind of sweet girl who is attracted to a tough-talking punk very much against her wishes. Kelp is born again as Buddy Love with plenty lip to exert his authority as the alpha male and a swagger that gets him out of any situation, even one where, a la Cinderella, the potion wears off and he has to abandon Stella in the middle of the night just as romance beckoned.

As if Lewis has seen too many Dr Jekyll pictures, he doesn’t take the visual approach to show the spell is wearing off. Instead, it’s verbal. Kelp’s tough-guy voice reverts to the timid professor’s original whine. Of course, you know the brew is going to wear off from the changes in his voice. And you know crisis is coming. But instead of resorting to slapstick to make the most of the situation, Love/Kelp turns philosopher, owning up to his scam, explaining that he wanted to be someone other than a weak nerd. And while confession is always in movie terms a good way to get a flawed hero out of a jam, this takes a more interesting route, expounding on the need to be true to your own personality, learning to like yourself and not get lost in a mess of self-inflicted anxiety.

There’s a lot less slapstick than I expected, much more in the way of visual gags: Kelp almost disappearing into a lounge seat, the unexpected knock coming from the floor where Kelp has been buried under a door, the squeak that still occurs when the squeaky shoes have been removed, laden down with an armful of books Kelp dumps them into a car loaded with books. It’s as though director Lewis is one step ahead of the audience.

You think Stella Stevens (The Mad Room, 1969) is just there as eye candy until she’s called upon to act with her eyes, bringing emotion to the screen.

Jerry Lewis at the top of his game. I caught this on Amazon Prime.

Assault on a Queen (1966) ***

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Phantom Planet (1961) ***

A cross between Stanley Kubrick and Ed Wood. The intelligence of the former and the special effects deficiencies of the latter. But at least a sci fi where some attempt is made to render the science logical and believable and with a bit better acting would have left an emotional lump in the throat at the end.

The science in most successful sci fi – Interstellar (2015), The Martian (2015) or Project Hail Mary (2026) – is so complex that you really have to trust the imaginations of those involved and go with the flow. So I quite appreciate it when the science is more intelligible. So let’s start there.

The Phantom Planet is actually an asteroid and can whizz around and disappear from time to time because the inhabitants have found a way to control gravity thanks to the high density of the planet. The air they breathe means the inhabitants are tiny and because the planet is barren food is chemically produced.

Despite its level of scientific advancement, the inhabitants have opted for a primitive lifestyle of toil to avoid becoming dependent on labor-saving devices. To resolve dangerous disputes, they resort to duels where the loser is disintegrated by gravity. They’ve also managed to use a high magnetic field to lock molecules so closely together it creates an invisible impenetrable wall, ideal for containing dangerous prisoners, in this case their deadly enemy, a Solarite monster (Richard Kiel).

No idea if any of this science makes sense but it worked enough for me.

Astronaut Chapman (Dean Fredericks) is stranded on the planet where he is automatically miniaturized. He’s only a prisoner in that he can’t escape the planet and comes in handy to help leader Sessom (Francis X. Bushman) deter other space travellers. He’s even being romantically set up – given the choice between Sessom’s daughter Liara (Colleen Gray) or the mute Zetha (Dolores Faith), both, as you might expect, beauties dressed in alluring gowns.

Unfortunately, he’s got a love rival in Herron (Anthony Dexter) and that leads to a duel to the death although the inhabitants screaming for blood like in a Roman amphitheater are astonished when Chapman spares Herron’s life. Although initially more attracted to Liara, Chapman finds her too cold-blooded and becomes more inclined towards the mute girl.

The Solarites, whose planet is being sucked by gravity towards their sun, plan an invasion and while that is deflected it does free the imprisoned monster. Which is lucky in the narrative sense because first of all Zetha regains her voice through screaming in fear and secondly in tackling the monster creates a bond between Herron and Chapman, resulting in the former helping the latter to escape the planet.

Chapman’s torn between staying with Zetha and leaving and if the screenwriter had spent more time building this up and the director hired a better actor we would have had that rare event – a sci-fi tearjerker.

While the special effects look as if they’ve come out of a cereal packet or they’ve pre-empted Space Invaders, the miniaturization scene is exceptionally well done.

There’s maybe a moral in here somewhere, of how the mighty are fallen, in that Francis X. Bushman was one of the biggest stars of the silent era, having the titular role in Biblical spectacular Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1925). And there’s a sense of pre-empting the Bond Girl phenomenon with a clutch of beauties in the background, presumably hoping a bigger director or someone from the casting department of a major studio might take notice.

As far as the talent contest went, this came too late in Dean Fredericks’ (Savage Sam, 1963) career to do him much good. Coleen Gray (P.J./ A New Face in Hell, 1967) didn’t make another film for four years. Anthony Dexter (Thoroughly Modern Millie, 1967) made only three more films, Dolores Faith (Wild Harvest, 1962) another six. Almost by default, Richard Kiel (Moonraker, 1979) was in effect the pick.

The final directorial effort – out of just three movies – from William Marshall. Screenplay by William Telaak in his only movie, Fred De Gorter (Dayton’s Devils, 1968) and Fred Gebhardt (12 to the Moon, 1960).

You can see this in the original black-and-white or in a colorized version.

Easy viewing and you won’t be annoyed by screenwriting laziness.

The Shakiest Gun in the West (1968) ***

Don Knotts (The Incredible Mr Limpet, 1964) was an acquired taste, relying overmuch on permafrozen goggle eyes and physical comedy. Despite the best efforts of The Great Race (1965) and It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963) and the reissues of Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin and Laurel and Hardy classics – perhaps because of this surfeit of slapstick – it would take a very special comedian to make as big an impression.

Bob Hope had gone down the cowardly cowboy route before in The Paleface (1948) and Son of Paleface (1952) and in fact this is pretty much a remake of The Paleface, substituting newcomer Barbara Rhoades (Don’t Just Stand There, 1968) in her sophomore outing as “Bad Penny” Penelope instead of Jane Russell as the more famous Calamity Jane. So it’s not a comparison a comedian would generally welcome – to be matched up against Bob Hope.

What distinguished Hope’s coward was that he always believed he was catnip to the ladies. Don Knotts was under no such illusions.

The story just reruns The Paleface – mild-mannered dentist Jesse Heywood (Don Knotts) is teamed up with sharpshooting criminal Penelope (Barbara Rhoades) to winkle out villains smuggling guns to Native Americans. The twist is that as part of the woman’s cover she’s been married off to the hapless dentist – for the simple reason that wagons trains won’t accept single women. Needless to say, their expectations of marriage differ.

While she manages to avoid intimacy, Jesse becomes acclaimed as a hero during a Native American attack, oblivious to the fact that it’s his wife who’s been doing all the shooting. That singles out Jesse as the undercover agent but he’s again saved by Penelope.

Eventually, he learns the truth but not in time to save Penelope who’s been kidnapped by the Rev Zachary Gant (Don “Red” Barry) and his sidekick Matthew Basch (Jackie Coogan) who have been smuggling weapons inside boxes of Bibles. When Jesse goes to the rescue it’s on the assumption Penelope’s marksmanship will save the day. However, she’s whisked out of the way and Jesse is forced to do his own gunfighting.

Even so, it’s not his skills with a gun that retrieve the situation, rather his dentistry, as he fixes the teeth of the Native American chief.

This relies far more on set pieces than the Bob Hope effort. Hope was able to draw the cinema audience towards him, a skill which Knotts lacks, so the humor results from the more obvious. However, there are a few scenes that don’t rely on Knotts. In one it’s the background character of a railway porter laden down with bags who snags the laffs.

Fear is a Knotts trope. During a stagecoach robbery he literally goes stiff with fear and has to be carried stiff as a piece of wood back into the stagecoach. Absent-minded, goofy, way out of his depth and not just with women, is the comedian’s schtick. Even when he develops a swagger following his deluded belief that he’s a six-gun ace, it’s the dumbest swagger ever.

Luckily, nobody’s trying to steal the scenes. The rest of the cast is drawn from more serious timber. You might be more pleased to see veteran Jackie Coogan (A Fine Madness, 1966), one-time child star, and B-western icon Don “Red” Barry (Alvarez Kelly, 1966) in more than their usual bit parts and to catch Pat Morita (The Karate Kid, 1984) in his sophomore venture.

Unfortunately, neither Knotts not Barbara Rhoades can come close to their predecessors.

Directed by Alan Rafkin – who had directed Knotts in The Ghost and Mr Chicken (1965) – from a screenplay by the team of Jim Fritzell and Everett Greenbaum (The Ghost and Mr Chicken) based on The Paleface written by Frank Tashlin (Caprice, 1967) and Edward Hartmann (The Sword of Ali Baba, 1965).

I’d been very much aware of Don Knotts as I moseyed around 1960s cinema but, fearing disappointment, had steered clear. This will suffice, I think.

Easy on the eye as long as you keep your comparisons to yourself.

The Pursuers (1961) ***

I tell you now there’s nothing particularly great or particularly awful about this tidy British programmer, made to take advantage of the Eady Levy and suitable only for the bottom half of a double bill, and yet it still has quite a bit to offer. It’s a chase picture, a hunt, but the emphasis, despite the title, is not on the hunters but on the hunted.

Who in this case turns out to be one of those evil people hiding out under the guise of the normal. Before emigrating to Britain, Luther (Cyril Shaps) was a Nazi commandment of a concentration camp. David (Francis Mathews), member of secret group operating out of Paris (cue an establishing shot of the Eiffel Tower), has been despatched not to out him but to kill him.

Luther runs a respectable business in London, and what makes this so interesting is that all the people he turns to for help are all in respectable businesses, yet all have war crimes to hide and appear to have done so successfully. So if you are a famous film director, the British movie industry will welcome you with open arms and scarcely a trace of suspicion about your past.

Since British food was generally in the 1960s regarded as the worst in the western world, then any German who can add a bit of culinary class to a restaurant is also more than welcome. And so it goes on. It’s like these people have managed to disappear into a witness protection program. Although the Mossad hunted down war criminals and had recently located Eichmann in South America and brought him back for a show trial in Israel, it’s clear there was no coordinated worldwide hunt for Nazi war criminals.

When his old buddies don’t want to disturb their carefully constructed facades by helping him out, Luther turns to the underworld. At first, it looks like he’ll get away. He plans to take the next flight out. He’s got plenty dough stashed away.

But what has prompted his fear of discovery is that his apartment’s been burgled and the burglar has daubed a swastika on a mirror. But nothing else has been taken and the police refuse to post a guard outside his house. Except something has been taken – the most important page in his passport has been cut out so that escape route is, temporarily, blocked.

Nightclub owner and gangster Rico (Sheldon Lawrence) fingers him for being someone who can easily and subtly be relieved of his cash, so he sends over sex worker Jenny (Susan Denny) to chat him up.

Ostensibly taking pity on him, Jenny, who escaped the concentration camps, agrees to hide him away in her apartment, presumably able to show sympathy while at the same time finding a way to rob him. She believes his tale of being a good German, a soldier forced to fight.

Unfortunately, this is too loosely constructed for the movie to take advantage of this situation. Though, technically, he is forced to confront one of his victims, in reality her tale washes over him and there’s no sign of remorse. You might not expect that, of course, mass murderers, especially ones who believe what they are doing is right, are unlikely to examine their consciences. But, still, the fact that he shows no reaction at all, makes this just appear a narrative contrivance, since after all, we already know what the Nazis did in the concentration camps.

This came out after Judgement at Nuremberg (1961) which was more specific about the Nazi atrocities, so we wouldn’t have needed any further exposition. That it does work is down to Jenny, sufficiently taken in by this imposter to open up her soul.

Anyways our Luther is a clever clogs and working out that, since his pursuers know both that he lacks a passport and that he’s already been turned away at the airport, he reckons the last thing they’ll expect him to do is try to use that escape route again.

There’s more shootout than you’d expect from what appeared initially as a straightforward drama. But it poses more interesting questions rather than being a rewarding thriller.

As far as I can make out this proved the only top-billed role in the career of Cyril Shaps (Return of a Stranger, 1961) but he enjoyed a very healthy run as a supporting actor. Susan Denny (Too Hot to Handle, 1960) only made one more film. Francis Mathews (Crossplot, 1969) made more of an impact on television as Paul Temple (1969-1971) and as the voice of Captain Scarlet in Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons (1967-1968).

Directed by Geoffrey Grayson (The Lamp in Assassin Mews, 1962) from a script by Brian Clemens (The Corrupt Ones / The Peking Medallion) and David Nicholl in his debut.

For such an undemanding piece, asks interesting questions.