1960s film – Page 51 – The Magnificent 60s

Signpost to Murder (1964) ****

Very tricky home invasion thriller. And not just from the narrative perspective and my guess is you’ll work out what’s going on long before the end, but that’s deliberate, you’re meant to, because the final twist isn’t plot but emotion, unexpected pent-up release.

Deftly directed by George Englund (The Ugly American, 1963), distinguished camerawork, long shot and overhead put to exceptional use. Biggest surprise is Stuart Whitman (Rio Conchos, 1964) taking the acting plaudits from Oscar-winner Joanne Woodward (A Fine Madness, 1966).

Slightly throws you because the interesting questions it asks about the treatment of the insane and the rehabilitation of criminals could, in retrospect, just be a contrivance to serve the plot. Basically, it’s a one-set show but thrumming continually in the background is a working water mill, the location being an English mill house belonging to American Molly (Joanne Woodward) awaiting the return of her husband from a business trip to Amsterdam. She’s got quite the hots for her lover because she’s planning to greet him at the door all decked out in a swimsuit.

But that’s in the future, takes 20 minutes of this exceptionally short picture (just 78 minutes) before we get to her. First of all, we’ve got the set-up. Confined within an asylum surrounded by high electric fences is wife killer Alex (Stuart Whitman), five years into his stretch, whom resident psychiatrist Dr Fleming (Edward Mulhare) not only believes is sane but also innocent, the convicted man having no memory of killing his wife and, as it later transpires, no motive.

The asylum officials ain’t so crazy on Fleming’s theories but by this time the good doctor has fed Alex a line, a loophole in English law dating back to the Victorian Lunacy Act, which, bizarre though it may seem, allows a man who escaped from an institution and remained free for 14 days to be permitted a re-trial.

When Fleming’s request for leniency is turned down, Alex escapes, heads for the river to elude hound dogs picking up his scent and ends up at the mill. The siren has sounded so everyone in the village is on the alert. From his cell high on a hill, Alex has previously scoped out the village, and with the help of Fleming, identified various houses, and from his own observations learned about the community, such as that the mill owner is handy with a shotgun, killing rabbits with abandon.

*The original play enjoyed a successful tour of the British provinces after a West End run*,
*though the characters skewed older in the stage version,*
*Margaret Lockwood approaching 50, Derek Farr just past 50.*

So it’s Alex who is greeted by the swimsuit. And then it’s the familiar duel of minds. Though we’ve just seen him knock out the doctor and an electrician, when Alex enters this house he’s a changed man. Sure, he has the shotgun but he’s planning to only hide out for a night, till the search expands away from the village and he can sneak through the gaps and hide out for the fortnight necessary to implement the loophole.

We know he’s not exactly a maniac, or a tough guy in the Lee Marvin mold, because we’ve seen what a sensitive and intelligent character he is through his conversations with Fleming, and he’s trusted enough by the officials to be allowed an axe to chop wood. But Molly doesn’t know that. She’s expecting a maniac and is thrown when he’s calm and gentle, not to mention tender.

He seems to shed nine lives when he enters this realm of domestication. She’s not half as confident as her sophistication might suggest. Her marriage has not brought her the comfort or the love she expected. The countryside is shrouded in fog, so her husband’s not going to be back till morning, which removes one complication, but adds another, a growing feeling that they are kindred souls, lost and vulnerable.

His story appears to make sense to her and when he espies a corpse trapped on one arm of the wheel it’s she who comforts him when he thinks its imagination run wild and then in the more obvious sense they console each other.

Comes the twist. That was a real body. Her husband.

This where you think. Uh-oh. The old story of the femme fatale and the patsy and you wonder were any of her feelings true or was she just acting the part to gull him. So, when the police and Dr Fleming arrive, the finger is most obviously pointed at a man who has no memory of killing before. Remember, this is in the days when the simple detection methods available now would have easily cleared him, so you have to go with the flow.

When Alex defends himself and declares that they slept together and sounds so utterly confused, one of the cops, for no desperate reason it has to be said in the absence of the usual clues on which we rely, thinks something foul is afoot.

And it’s her who confesses. She had expected a maniac not a gentle man who touched her soul in a way that neither husband nor lover, Dr Fleming, managed. Totally turns the picture on its head. And instead of the usual plethora of clever sleuthing, we have a resounding emotional climax.

Full marks though to George Englund, not just for the outstanding use of the camera, creating distance between characters even in intimate situations, one great shot where through separate windows Alex and Molly stare at each over the rolling watermill, and to offset the tension some excellent comedy as the Yank comes to terms with British tradition after a death. He cleverly opens up the original stage play by Monte Doyle, and there’s a strong hint of irony in the opening section which sees a car-load of kids point to two loonies on the hill. We quickly learn only one is designated as such, Alex, but the other one, the sane one, Dr Fleming, turns out to be every bit as mad.

But this is Stuart Whitman’s tour de force. He had earned an Oscar nomination for The Mark (1961) but appeared to exert more box office appeal when he went all square jaw in action pictures. I’m not the first observer to mention that one of the key points in a performance is an actor’s reaction to their surroundings. Like you or me, they should look round. I noted that with David Janssen in The Swiss Conspiracy (1976). But here is an even better example. When Alex sees the lounge and all the elements of domesticity, he’s not just having an ordinary look, he’s soaking it up and it’s taking him back to the life he lost, one he can’t understand why it was taken away from him. You look at a modern film. The camera does all the work. The director uses a habitat to guide you into the mind of the inhabitant but rarely, as in the old days, to allow reflection on the part of a visitor.

There’s a huge range of emotion for Whitman to pack in, not to mention a convincing British accent, and he does it all. Woodward nearly steals the picture away from him with that final, unexpected, scene. Molly knows that by confessing she’s about to lose the love of her life and if she doesn’t be condemned to live with a man who doesn’t come close.

In the stage play Molly was clearly the top role and always attracted the bigger star. Same here, Woodward is billed above Whitman. The last scene is a peach for any actress. But Whitman’s is the more difficult role. Should maybe be a split decision but I come out for Whitman.

Superb minor gem.

Pay or Die (1960) *****

Hollywood had outlawed the deification of villainy after the gangster gold rush of the 1930s and, before Coppola and Scorsese popped up with self-serving operatic epics, the consensus was that thugs were scum, no matter how well organised or how deep the corruption went. There had been a blast of gangster biopics in the late 1950s/early 1960s, many of them covered on these pages, but, outside of the equally thuggish Clint Eastwood cops, you would have to wait until Serpico (1973) and The Untouchables (1987) before Hollywood decided the cop was actually the hero after all.

I’m guessing Scorsese and Coppola had seen this particular picture which presented an entirely different picture of the Mafia, including its historic importance in America, but decided the bad guys were just more interesting than the good guys and that some kind of mythical Mafia presented better cinematic opportunity. Now this is just as much a low-budget number as the bulk of the gangster pictures of this particular short-lived era so don’t go looking for any late cycle film noir or the kind of classy mise-en-scene or big stars that comes with the later bigger budgets.

But this is so spot-on, with incredible depth, that it deserves a good bit more attention than the eight critical reviews on imdb and the measly 30 per cent rating on Rotten Tomatoes. In fact, you could point to several scenes where you could imagine Coppola and Scorsese took inspiration, and there are some quite astonishing scenes of brutality, not blood-drenched or lingered-over as was the style in the 1970s but incredibly powerful precisely because they are rendered in such lean fashion.

This is based on the true story of an Italian who took on the Mafia in New York. Only it wasn’t called the Mafia then. If you remember the Robert De Niro section in The Godfather Part II (1974) you’ll recall that the gangster he rubbed out belonged to The Black Hand. That’s what they were called at the turn of the twentieth century in New York and since prohibition didn’t exist they didn’t become bootleg millionaires and then dabble in drugs. Their main businesses were extortion and kidnapping.

Italians in Italy didn’t trust cops for historical reasons. When anyone wanted to keep the populace in line they used the cops as muscle. That was the root reason for the growth of the Cosa Nostra. So when Italians emigrated they were equally inclined not to call the cops when someone put pressure on their businesses or demanded a ransom for a stolen child. And one of the reasons nobody called the cops was because not a single cop in New York spoke Italian. Joe Petrosino (Ernest Borgnine) was the first Italian on the New York police force. He made lieutenant but lack of education prevented him climbing any higher.

But let’s get back to the blistering opening. You’ll be familiar with such openings from Coppola/Scorsese, the religious procession, candles, hymns, music from traditional instruments, priests, robes aplenty. But this one has a difference. They string two kids between the rooftops. Not string them up, string them along ropes attached to their backs and dress up the sweet girls as angels so that they can hover over the procession and utter words of importance as its climax. The kids don’t look terrified, they look delighted to be chosen.

But hood Lupo (Barry Russo) has a different idea of how the ceremony should end. He slices through the rope. Down crash the kids, legs, backs broken, barely surviving the fall. But they survive enough for that calamity to be all that’s required for one parent to cough up the dough demanded by The Black Hand, despite Petrosino’s entreaty to stand fast against the crooks.

Lupo’s next victim is the baker Saulino (Bruno Della Santino). And when he refuses to pay the thugs bang him up in his own pizza oven, threatening to burn him alive. Petrosino has that Sean Connery Chicago style of dealing with villains and back in the day liberals weren’t going to get in his way and he knows it’s not just a battle of wills but a power struggle. So he batters in Lupo’s door, batters him round the head, drags him down the stairs, pausing only to punch him again so the neighbors can get a good look, carry him on his back outside and dump him in a trash can.

Doesn’t entirely go to plan because a crooked Italian lawyer gets Lupo out and he takes revenge on Saulino by kidnapping his daughter Adelina (Zohra Lampert), cutting off chunks of her hair, ripping half her clothes off, and locking her in a cupboard. When Petrosino finds her she’s got the imprint of a black hand on what remains of her white dress.

Eventually, the police agree with Petrosino’s notion that the only way to beat the thugs is to set up an elite squad composed entirely of Italians, recruited from outside the city, to set out in plain clothes and mix with the local community, getting jobs as barbers and baker assistants, for example, so that they can witness the protection racket at first hand.

Meanwhile, the shy Petrosino has fallen for Adelina, though he has a younger, better educated rival, Johnny (Alan Austin), and in any case the more successful he is in his anti-gangster campaign the more at risk his life (and that of a potential wife) would be. The more successful the squad becomes the more the leaders of the Italian community agitate for it to be run by someone better educated, not a guy who has failed the Captain’s Exams seven times.

Although this is delivered in pretty much documentary style, there are some sensational set pieces. Apart from the falling angels, before thugs chuck Saulino in his own oven they dress him in pizza ingredients, raw eggs, flour, the works, the kind of humiliation a Scorsese gangster would endorse. When Adelina and Petrosino do get it together, every wedding present has to be soaked free of its wrapping first in the bath to ensure parcels don’t contain a bomb.

There’s a tremendous explosion of a car. A thug is captured in a barber’s chair by a cut-throat razor. And in the most horrific scene kids are killed (think The Untouchables) when they get in the way of bomb set to the timing of a big clock, the kind you used to see outside stores that acted as advertising devices.

Most of these sequences would have been delivered with more panache, blood, slow-motion and other gizmos had this picture been made a decade later. But, as I said, they pack a hell of a punch for being stripped of all cinematic artifice.

Within all this there’s time to explain the background of immigrants, the virulent racism they face, the institutional reasons for cling to old ways, the corruption and vote-grabbing politics, and there’s some lovely stuff in the bakery, Adelina not just carrying wood for the pizza ovens on her back but undertaking some of the more skilled baking. And the hunt for the child bomber turns into top-class detective work, down to identifying a wagon by horseshoe and then finding out which merchant was missing a wagon.

There’s some brilliant dialogue. At one point opera superstar Mario Caruso’s life is under threat, his is the car blown to pieces. But outside of his fancy car and voice he holds little attraction for the ladies. When he tries to pick up a beautiful girl by promising to sing for him, she retorts, “promise not to stop singing.” When Petrosino turns down Adelina it’s first on the grounds of danger and then age. “I’m older than you,” he argues. Her answer is to kiss him. “How old do you feel now?”

Ernest Borgnine (Go Naked in the World, 1961) hasn’t had a part this good since Marty (1955) and he’s in his element, two-fisted with criminals, his persuasive powers with his superiors far outranking his exam marks, and entirely believable as a diffident romantic. Zohra Lampert (A Fine Madness, 1966) delivers a winning turn. You might spot John Marley (The Godfather, 1972). Most of the cast appear authentic Italian.

So you get a riveting drama, fascinating backstory, a romance that could have been the main story all on its own, a bit of detection and a terrible twist at the climax.

Taken on its own terms and given the budget limitations director Richard Wilson (the equally under-rated Invitation to a Gunfighter, 1964) presents a multi-layered masterpiece. Richard Collins (Maya, 1967) and veteran Bertram Millhauser (Tokyo Joe, 1949), in his final movie, collaborated on the screenplay.

Minor gem crying out for reassessment.

The Mark (1961) ****

Despite an exceptional and Oscar-nominated performance by Stuart Whitman (Rio Conchos, 1964) , I suspect modern audiences will take less kindly to this tale of convicted child molester trying to come to terms with his feelings. At least it’s considerably more honest than the creepier May December (2023) where the criminal steadfastly contended her innocence.

And I suspect, too, that Whitman’s square jaw and muscular physique got in the way of his attracting the parts for which the depths of vulnerability he was able to exhibit were most suited. He came to this straight after an action role, as the charming bad-good-guy of The Commancheros (1961) where, as far as audiences were concerned, what he did with his fists was more important that what he expressed through his eyes.

There’s a bit of a grey area that lends the convicted Jim Fuller (Stuart Whitman) the benefit of the doubt. He was found guilty of intent not of actual molestation and a goodly part of the picture is spend on examining why he went down that route, either in a group exercise in prison or one-on-one with a psychiatrist, chain-smoking Irishman Dr McNally (Rod Steiger) in both instances.

I’m not sure how the psychiatric evidence adds up, but basically, with a dominant mother who bullied his father, he grew up frightened of women, despite being attracted and attractive to them, and sought out someone with whom he felt more comfortable, less challenging, leading him to spend too much time watching children at play and eventually buying a young girl an ice cream and going out on walks with her.

It would have been too much for audiences of the time – as it even was with May December – to go into the technicalities of what he intended to do so we are left to trust his own word that he never intended to instigate anything sexual, though why kidnap a child in the first place. The second element that would fill modern audiences with alarm is that though he manages to begin a sexual relationship with a woman of his own age, secretary Ruth Leighton (Maria Schell), she is a widow with a young daughter. Most people would instantly come to the conclusion he was using mother to groom daughter.

However, the film takes the tack that he’s using the daughter to explore a normal relationship with a child, the joy of having a daughter, and the delight and happiness that a young person can bring into a dour repressed life. Dr McNally keeps on banging on that Fuller is “cured” but it’s a very uneasy watch trying to work out if he is or not.

In the event, the first time he’s alone with the girl he is photographed by a local journalist who sticks the photo on the front page, destroying the life Fuller has carefully rebuilt. He has found employment as an accountant with a sympathetic business owner Andrew Clive (Donald Wolfit), fitting in so well he is promoted, though at odds with another senior employee Roy Milne (Paul Rogers). He is chucked out of his accommodation, loses his job and although Ruth initially stands by him the minute she sees Fuller with her daughter her instincts are hostile.

There would be no point in an actor trying to gain sympathy for such an unsympathetic character by playing to the gallery with bouts of temper or floods of self-pitying tears, but even so, the vulnerable husk Whitman presents, his struggles with his self-contempt, his understanding of the feelings he must invoke, his determination to live as quietly as possible, almost in that determined English manner of never being heard nor seen, is what makes this film. Interestingly, he replaced Richard Burton, who pulled out at the last minute (as did Jean Simmons) and you could easily imagine with those trademark quick intakes of breath and deep growls how that actor would have played the part.

Whitman doesn’t go near any grandstanding. It’s just a heartfelt performance of a man who’s lost his way and knows he might never find his way back, haunted by his past, unable to trust himself, unable to believe that he is, in fact, cured. Probably, the biggest issue is that the movie comes down on his side, especially when he becomes one of the usual suspects in another crime involving children, though he did not commit that, and tries to suggest that a child molester will find salvation through living with a mother and child in the normal fashion. As I said, this is not my subject of expertise, thankfully, and that may be well what’s advocated rather than staying away from children altogether.

While the approach might be considered a shade naïve at the same time it does examine issues surrounding reintegration and avoids the obvious trap of attempting some kind of character redemption.

Apart from Whitman, there are good performances all round. Maria Schell, whose career within a decade would go from roadshow blockbuster Cimarron (1960) to WIP epic 99 Women (1969), subsumes her normal more glamorous persona to play a believable working mother. With his chain-smoking, Rod Steiger (The Pawnbroker, 1964) is allowed to fidget to his heart’s content but even such obvious scene-stealing only places more emphasis on the quieter Whitman. Donald Wolfit (Life at the Top, 1965), too, reins in his usual bluster.

Guy Green (The Magus, 1968) directed from a screenplay by Sidney Buchman (The Group, 1966) and Stanley Mann (The Collector, 1965) from the bestseller by Charles E. Israel.

In this instance, given the Oscar nom, Stuart Whitman could hardly be considered under-rated but over the years seems to have disappeared from sight.

Worth a look to see what he could do with the right material.

Marco the Magnificent (1965) **

Small wonder this flopped even with the requisite all-star cast of Omar Sharif (Doctor Zhivago, 1965), Anthony Quinn (Zorba the Greek, 1964), Orson Welles (Austerlitz, 1960), Horst Buchholz (Nine Hours to Rama, 1963) and Elsa Martinelli (Hatari! 1962). Oddly enough, Quinn comes close to saving it. Although initially laughable, presented as a cross between Yul Brynner’s long-lost brother and Ming the Merciless, he tones down the trademark rasp and growl to deliver a powerful performance.

Of course, we also have to take the word of Marco Polos (Horst Buchholz) that he had all these adventures and that he did encounter The Old Man of the Mountains (Akim Tamiroff) and The Lady with the Whip (Elsa Martinelli). The former wore a mask of gold and if you ever saw his face that meant you were in for the chop. And he had a nice line in sonic torture. The latter chooses love above betrayal.

*The name of Marco Polo either meant so little to German audiences or the title change was due to the producers hoping to capitalize on the success of “Genghis Khan.”*

Love – or sex I guess – is a consistent theme. Marco is chosen for this adventure – whose main aim is to get a message to Mongol overlord Kublai Khan, now the ruler of China, that Italy, the dominant western power at the time, wants peace – in part because he is so handsome. He has no other pedigree that I can see. At the age of 20, he’s best described as an idler. But his father Nicolo (Massimo Girotto) is a renowned trader and has ventured along the Silk road to Samarkand.

But, would you believe it, following that old western genre trope where there’s always someone wanting to sabotage relations between Native Americans and soldiers, the idea of peace doesn’t sit well with everyone. Spies report on Marco’s every move and attempt to stop him completing his mission and when he reaches China discovers that another Mongol warlord Prince Nayam (Robert Hossein) prefers the traditional method of conquest, with the raping and pillaging that goes with it, rather than growing the economy through peaceful means.

Just as well Marco is so good-looking because whenever he is in a tight spot he is rescued by a beautiful woman, including the aforementioned Lady with the Whip, and, would you believe it, Princess Gogatine (Lynne Sue Moon), who has been chosen as a potential wife for Kublai Khan (Anthony Quinn). Multiple romance is the name of the game here – Arab chieftain Emir Alaou (Omar Sharif) has twenty-six wives, one of whom has the temerity to complain at his expanding harem.

Mostly, it’s a travelog – with a bucket of travel cliches thrown in such as Russian dancing – punctuated by occasional peril. But beyond looking handsome and putting his seductive powers to the test, there’s not much else for Marco to do.

The screenplay is so limited and haphazard you get the impression it must have been heavily truncated, that there was a three-hour roadshow covering the ground in a more sensible manner, but that appears not to have been the case. Producer Raoul Levy (who wrote and produced And God Created Woman, 1956, and wrote, produced and directed The Defector, 1966) ) spent so much assembling the cast he scrimped on a workable screenplay and was so intent on ramming it with oddly-named characters (Old Man of the Mountains and Lady with the Whip) that he took his eye off the narrative ball.

The final section with Kublai Khan trying to integrate through his own marriage the conquering Mongols and the conquered Chinese and dispensing with war in favor of peace makes more sense but by then you are so exhausted by the multiplicity of star names contributing nothing and the meandering plot that you have just about given up.

And it wasn’t as if Levy didn’t have time to get a screenplay in place. He’d been working on this since 1962 when an earlier version starring Alain Delon (Once a Thief, 1965) was abandoned when finance ran out. One of the most expensive French movies ever made, and extensively funded by Levy, it proved such a flop, it wiped him out financially and contributed to his suicide.

The inconsistency may have been caused by having three directors – Levy, Denys de la Patellier (Caroline Cherie, 1968) and Noel Howard (D’Ou Viens-Tu, Johnny, 1963).

All-star cast wasted, promise unfulfilled.

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Dear Brigitte (1965) ***

In the same year as his momentous turn in Shenandoah, James Stewart at his exasperating best has the time of his life in this throwback comedy that takes its time getting all its ducks in a row while taking a tilt at nuclear energy, computers and the eternal battle between the arts and science with a fair chunk of whimsy thrown in.

Surprisingly contemporary nod to this whole business of actors speaking directly to the camera, with the ramblings by the Captain (Ed Wynn) in this capacity constantly being interrupted by passersby in the vein of “you talking to me?” or “stop talking to yourself.” Professor Leaf (James Stewart), a distinguished poet constantly at odds with Dean Sawyer (Howard Freeman) at the local college where he teaches – on the few times when he’s not handing in his resignation – and which has a nuclear power station next door, tries to espouse the arts at every opportunity, including a family four-piece outfit playing classical music, only to discover son Erasmus (Bill Mummy) doesn’t have an artistic bone in his body.

Surprisingy, in the UK down-graded to supporting feature in this kid-centric double bill. The marketing men pulled another fast one in the poster, leading audiences to believe that was BB in the bikini when it was only the usually-nude model of an artist neighbour attempting to be decent.

What Erasmus has, for some reason only now coming to the fore although he must be about ten or so, is that he’s a mathematical prodigy, able to work out complicated sums faster than a computer and pointing out errors in the calculations of the local bank. Leaf’s wife Vina (Glynis johns) doesn’t have a great deal to do except rein in the professor but she has a wonderful scene where she brings the local bank manager to book.

Anyway, eventually, Erasmus gets hooked into helping the boyfriend Kenneth (pop singer Fabian) of Leaf’s daughter Pandora (Cindy Carol) guess the winners of horse races as a way of assisting the couple in raising enough money to get married. By this time, Leaf has finally resigned and worked out he won’t pick up easy cash from the Government – another terrific scene – and is hoodwinked by con artist Peregrine Upjohn (John Williams) into setting up a charity to help disadvantaged students by employing his son’s skills.

Anyone familiar with horse racing will be aware how preposterous the conceit that anyone, no matter how scientifically skilled at working out the odds, can consistently pick winners. But this all flies by since it’s that kind of movie, one that not only defies belief, but basically sucks you into believing the whole thing, the way the untalented youngsters always managed in Hollywood times gone by to muster a great stage show or turned any kind of loser into a winner.

Still, all this goes on before we get close to the nub of the title. Erasmus has fallen in love with Brigitte Bardot and because he’s basically the family’s sole breadwinner eventually dad takes son to France to meet the real-life superstar who is far more charming than you would expect, the sexpot on hold for the occasion.

So, mostly, as I said, it’s an old-fashioned confection, the kind you could still get away with in the mid-1960s before the changing times demanded that comedies take on a harder edge. And with James Stewart in top form and husky-voiced English star Glynis Johns (who had her own television series in the U.S.) jumping in now and then to prevent him from making things worse it works a treat. Stewart exaggerates all those mannerism you might have thought mildly irritating before – he’s all limbs and sentences cut off in their prime and telling people to leave their own houses. But if he had toned any of that down, the air would have quickly escaped the balloon, for really he’s the only thing keeping it afloat.

But that’s stardom for you. A vehicle comes along that in total isn’t really worthy of the involvement of a marquee attraction like Stewart, who could be lending his talents to more solid fare like Shenandoah and The Flight of the Phoenix (also released the same year). While he’s crucial to both those other pictures, giving one of his best performances in the former, perhaps surprisingly, U.S. audiences, voting with their dollars, felt his performance here trumped that of the Aldrich picture.

Ir’s usually believable roles that attract the greatest critical plaudits for stars, but actually their most notable contribution is in making fly movies that should never work on paper but somehow with their magical injection not necessarily makes the screen sizzle but turns doughy material into something lighter and more easily digestible.

Henry Koster (Mr Hobbs Takes a Vacation, 1962) directs with occasional flair from a screenplay by Hal Kanter (Move Over, Darling , 1963) and Nunnally Johnson (The Dirty Dozen, 1967) based on the bestseller by John Haase.

As under-rated as The Trouble with Angels (1966) as lightweight comedies of the decade generally were, this is worth a look for Stewart alone.

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All-Time Top 40

Not my pick of the flicks, but yours, the films viewed most often since the Blog began in June 2020. Given that the number of hits for the blog has tripled over the last year, you might expect to see an entirely new Top 40. But that’s not been the case. Worth noting that the top five pictures star women. And some films have shown remarkable staying power with some stars – big round of applause for Ann-Margret, Angie Dickinson, Alex Cord, George Peppard, Gene Barry, Jean Seberg, Roger Moore, Alain Delon, Frank Sinatra, Kirk Douglas et al – featuring more than once.

The figures in brackets represent the previous year’s position.

(4) The Swinger (1966). All hail Ann-Margret. Bouncy sex comedy that manages a sprinkling of innocence.
(40) Stagecoach (1966). No prizes for guessing that it’s the presence of Ann-Margret (again) rather than Alex Cord that has hit a chord in this decent remake of John Ford’s famous western.
(1) Jessica (1962). Angie Dickinson as a young widow incurring the wrath of wives in a small Italian town.
(5) Fraulein Doktor (1969). Under-rated World War One espionage tale with Suzy Kendall out-foxing Kenneth More, grisly realistic battle scenes and a superb score from Ennio Morricone.
(New Entry) The Sins of Rachel Cade. Angie Dickinson as African missionary falling foul of the natives and commissioner Peter Finch. Roger Moore in an early role.
(3) Once Upon a Time in the West (1969). Sergio Leone masterpiece featuring the stunning cast of Claudia Cardinale, Henry Fonda and Charles Bronson and that fabulous Morricone score.
(New Entry) Fireball XL5. The famous British television series from Gerry and Sylvia Anderson, now colorized. “My heart will be a fireball…”
(3) The Secret Ways (1961). The first of the Alistair MacLean adaptations to hit the big screen features Richard Widmark trapped in Hungary during the Cold War.
(10) Moment to Moment (1966). Nod to Hitchcock in twisty Jean Seberg thriller set in the South of France. Also starring Honor Blackman.
(New Entry) Vendetta for the Saint . Who cares if it’s two television episodes combined? Roger Moore tackles the Mafia.
(32) Baby Love (1969). Controversy was the initial selling point but now it’s morphed into a morality tale as orphaned Linda Hayden tries to fit into an upper-class London household.
(15) The Sisters (1969). Nathalie Delon and Susan Strasberg in complicated love triangle of love and betrayal.
(7) Pharoah (1966). Polish epic set in Egypt sees the country’s ruler at odds with the religious hierarchy.
(9) Can Heironymus Merkin Ever Forget Mercy Humpe and Find True Happiness? Self-indulgence reaches new heights as singer Anthony Newley invokes his inner Fellini that somehow involves bedding lots of women. Then-current wife Joan Collins co-stars.
(New Entry) The Best House in London (1969). That’s a euphemism for a brothel, let’s get that right from the outset. David Hemmings tries to do right by the sex workers.
(New Entry) Pendulum (1968). The George Peppard (or perhaps Jean Seberg) reappraisal continues. Here he is the cop accused of murdering unfaithful wife Seberg.
(6) Oceans 11. Frank Sinatra heads the Rat Pack line-up, inspiring a couple of remakes and with Tarantino ripping off one scene.
(36) Lady in Cement (1969). Sinatra again as private eye Tony Rome who takes on Raquel Welch (and that’s a stretch?) as a client.
(8) The Golden Claws of the Cat Girl (1968). French cult film with Daniele Gaubert as a sexy cat burglar.
(New Entry) Go Naked in the World (1961). Gina Lollobrigida finds that her profession (the oldest) and true love (with rich Anthony Franciosa) don’t mix. Great turn from Ernest Borgnine as a doting father.
(17) Pressure Point (1962). No escape for racist patient Bobby Darin when psychiatrist Sidney Poitier is around.
(New Entry) A Dandy in Aspic (1968). Cold War thriller with Laurence Harvey as a double agent who wants out. Mia Farrow co-stars.
(22) Deadlier than the Male (1967). Espionage with a sting in the tale as venomous female villains including Elke Sommer and Sylva Koscina target Bulldog Drummond.
(New Entry) Once a Thief (1965). Change of pace for Ann-Margret as working mother whose ex-jailbird thief Alain Delon is forced into another job.
(12) Subterfuge (1968). Gene Barry-Joan Collins spy thriller set primarily in a dreary London.
(14) Fade In (1968). Not at all as bad as rising star Burt Reynolds believed – he disowned it. Romance set on a movie location.
(New Entry) The Girl on a Motorcycle / Naked under Leather (1968). Heavily-censored in the U.S., erotic drama with singer Marianne Faithfull as the titular fantasizing heroine. Alain Delon co-stars.
(New Entry) Some Girls Do (1969). Bulldog Drummond returns and a bevy of villainous women including Daliah Lavi and Beba Loncar await.
(New Entry) She Died with Her Boots On / Whirlpool (1969). Sleazy British film from cult Spanish director Jose Ramon Larraz sees kinky photographer Karl Lanchbury seduce real-life MTA Vivien Neves.
(New Entry) The Misfits (1960). Last hurrah for Clark Gable, fabulous turns from Montgomery Clift and Marilyn Monroe in John Huston tale of losers.
(New Entry) Rage (1966). Glenn Ford and Stella Stevens combat pandemic in Mexican town.
(23) A House Is Not a Home (1964). Not when it’s a brothel. Shelley Winters is the madam. Raquel Welch has an uncredited role.
(New Entry) In Harm’s Way (1965). John Wayne and Kirk Douglas in Otto Preminger WW2 epic set in Pearl Harbor and after.
(New Entry) Istanbul Express (1968). Gene Barry faces Senta Berger in espionage thriller. Shown on television in the U.S., but gained a cinematic release elsewhere.
(24) P.J. / New Face in Hell (1967). George Peppard’s private eye finds client Raymond Burr too tough to handle. Gayle Hunnicutt is the femme fatale.
(New Entry) Beat Girl / Wild for Kicks (1960). Another sleazy British drama. Gillian Hills is the youngster tempted into the striptease game. Christopher Lee puts in an appearance.
(27) The Brotherhood (1968). Brothers at war Mafia-style with Kirk Douglas and Alex Cord.
(New Entry) The Invitation (2022). Gothic conspiracy starring Nathalie Emmanuel from Game of Thrones.
(New Entry) The First Deadly Sin (1980). Frank Sinatra’s last starring role as cop tracking serial killer. Faye Dunaway plays his dying wife.
(New Entry) The Family Way (1966). Hayley Mills sheds the child-star image with a vengeance, shedding his clothes in British family drama. Co-starring father John Mills and Hywel Bennett.

Mysterious Island (1961) ****

It’s the Ray Harryhausen Show. You’re not here for the story, surely, or the characters. You’re just waiting patiently for the monsters to appear. The only element that’s ever wrong with this kind of picture is that in-built delay. The need to set up the story and establish the oddities of the world before the behemoths trundle into view.

Doesn’t matter whether the creatures already live in an accommodating global ecosystem like Jason and the Argonauts (1963) or One Million Years B.C. (1966). Or whether you are going to come across them by the simple device, most famously, of dropping through a rabbit hole (Alice in Wonderland) or via a cupboard door (The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe) or a rockface cracking open (Prehistoric Women / Slave Girls, 1967) or a time warp (Wonder Woman, 2017).

Here, it’s a bunch U.S. Civil War soldiers who need to break out of their prison and commandeer a handy hot-air balloon that can fly thousands of miles to the uninhabited volcanic island occupied by giant beasts. So we’ve got a monstrous crab, giant bees, chicken, gigantic octopus. And the success or failure of the picture relies not so much on whether our heroes can overcome these than that they look realistic.

And, boy, they are just brilliant. This is fairly early on the Harryhausen catalogue but if his stop-motion animation was still going through an experimental stage it’s hardly noticeable. Enhanced claws and beaks are just dandy for trapping humans, having them wriggling madly to avoid being split open with one snap. And the bee is pretty cunning, filling in the hole the invading humans have created in the massive honeycomb.

And should, perchance, your mind be wandering director Cy Endfield (Zulu, 1964) has a bout of sequel-itis, throwing in Captain Nemo from author Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues under the Sea (1954), and prequel-itis – the pirates from his In Search of the Castaways (1962) – plus, to add the romantic touch, a couple of shipwrecked damsels and, for the climax, volcanic eruption.

No doubt you’re dying to know about the characters you couldn’t really care less about who are encountering this legion of beings. So, we’ve got the grizzled Capt. Harding (Michael Craig), young Herbert (Michael Callan) who will express his romantic side, Sgt. Pencroft (Percy Herbert), Corporal Nugent (Dan Jackson) and Gideon (Gary Merrill). There are joined by posh English lady Mary Fairchild (Joan Greenwood), who happily buckles to and is handy with a rifle, and her niece Elena (Beth Rogan) who decides laziness is the better option when she’s not canoodling with Herbert.

Their job is to squabble, beat off the monsters, adapt a local geyser for cooking purposes, set to building a boat to escape, and await the next monster/person who’s going to upset their plans.

Captain Nemo certainly makes an impression, his ship, the Nautilus, stranded under the volcano and the man himself taking a break from the world since he doesn’t believe he is such a good fit. Turning up out of the waves in an improvised aqualung isn’t quite an entrance on a par with Ursula Andress in Dr No (1962), but it runs it close, though bikini tops rubber-suit all the time.

The pirates are just a menace and I wouldn’t be surprised if you came away with the notion that they are rammed into the tale just so their sunken ship, scuttled by Nemo, can miraculously rise from the waves thanks to the sailor’s ingenuity.

Time has been kind to Harryhausen. What was once viewed as appealing only to children and the childish wondrous aspects of adults has now become cult viewing. And no wonder. In the age of CGI, it’s quite astonishing what he has managed to achieve with what appears the most rudimentary of techniques.

Of the actors, British star Michael Craig (Doctor in Love, 1960) has his hands full to stop the picture being stolen by rising American actor Michael Callan (The Interns, 1962), a grumpy Gary Merrill (A Girl Named Tamiko, 1962), an almost avuncular Herbert Lom (The Frightened City, 1961) and a delightful turn by plummy-voiced Joan Greenwood (The Moon-Spinners, 1964).

You wouldn’t think this was the ideal movie to set you up for Zulu, but Cy Endfield does a good job of keeping the story moving and keeping out of the way during the Harryhausen sections. Screenplay by John Prebble (Zulu), Daniel B. Ullman (the television writer’s only movie of the decade) and veteran Crane Wilbur (The George Raft Story, 1962).

Huge fun. All hail King Ray.

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Faces in the Dark (1960) ***

Had his been tagged “From the Makers of Vertigo”, it might have immediately attracted a greater immediate audience and been treated these days with more critical reverence. But Vertigo wasn’t the cult film it is now, so the names of the authors of the source book, Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac, would have no promotional value.

Throw in a stunning score by Mikis Theodarakis (Zorba the Greek, 1964) and a top-line cast including Swedish bombshell Mai Zetterling (Only Two Can Play, 1962), cult character actor John Ireland (The Ceremony, 1963) and an early role for Nanette Newman (The Wrong Box, 1966) plus a gender switch on the traditional gaslighting plot and you have makings of a classy little number.

When an experiment goes wrong, ambitious arrogant businessman Richard Hammond (John Gregson) is blinded. To help him recuperate wife Christiane (Mai Zetterling) flies him off to their luxurious Cornwall retreat where, to ensure is mind isn’t overloaded with business concerns, she switches off the phone. Along for the ride are his sponging brother Max (John Ireland), business partner David (Michael Denison), housemaid Janet (Nanette Newman) and chauffeur Clem (Tony Wright).

When things are not what they seem – the cat has suddenly lost its tail, a peach plant has disappeared from the garden, he smells pine, hears church bells – he believes he is going insane. Doesn’t take long before he realizes this is not a haven, but a trap. Sounds providing the greatest clues, he hears a giveaway clicking, indicating the presence of David, in his wife’s bedroom when the partner is meant to be a hundred miles away.

His brother has also disappeared, believed dead, and when his wife gives the help the night off and he is left in the house with the lovers is convinced they are trying to poison him and refuses to eat any food. Given sounds are so important, there’s one brilliant scene, where, having escaped, he discovers none of the locals can understand what he’s saying, and not because he’s gabbling either. But that’s such a clever plot point, I wouldn’t be a spoiler.

So you’ve got tension fairly climbing the walls .

The only downside is that Richard is such an unlikeable character – not a poor soul like Audrey Hepburn in Wait until Dark (1967) – that it’s hard to summon up the sympathy an audience requires for such a story to properly work. Theoretically, he’s just a driven man, whose genius is being blocked by the cynical bankers, but from the outset he’s full of bluster and nasty put-downs, and has everyone in the factory he owns on edge.

Anger at his condition and fear that insanity or failure lies ahead puts him in a constant rage and, heavily sweating for no particular medical reason, he’s not the most charismatic of screen characters. Even though his reaction would fit with a successful businessman failing to come to terms with the calamity, those elements, which might have evoked greater sympathy, are somewhat adrift when they get tangled up with the plot.

Director David Eady (The Verdict, 1964) does his best to compensate. The music, as mentioned, helps, throbbing piano rather than screaming violins. And there a couple of neat visuals, the swirling smoke of the credit sequence reappearing to devastating effect in one sequence. But, mostly, he lines up reasons for Richard to begin to question his sanity and believe he is being duped – he can’t read documents he must sign and as the only part of his handwriting that stands up is his signature suspects his impoverished brother will write a larger sum on a cheque he signs.

And since most of this unfolds through the mind of Richard, the director plays fair with the audience. There are no nods and winks about the nature of the relationship between wife and partner. Even though she confides in David that she’s planning to leave Richard, there’s no indication that it’s for the partner.

So this is more like a detective story and, as with Vertigo, featuring an obsessive character driven mad by obsession, both led on by the devious, and having to piece together a strange amalgam of clues.

John Gregson (The Frightened City, 1961), normally essaying more stoical characters, overacts, but the others do the opposite. Mai Zetterling is convincing and former British matinee idol Michael Denison plays against type (he wouldn’t make another movie for 30 years). Nanette Newman shows promise while John Ireland reins in the surliness. Ephraim Kogan (in his sole movie credit) and John Tully (who didn’t get another movie credit for the decade) wrote the screenplay.

Effective thriller ripe for a remake.

Catch it on Amazon Prime or DVD.

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Riot (1969) ***

Stand-Off might be a more apt title but that’s not going to sell many tickets. After taking over the wing of a prison, not a great deal happens except for character development. As it turns out the threat of a riot is intended merely as a ruse to cover an attempted break-out.

Inmate Cully (Jim Brown) is the first to point out to escape mastermind Red (Gene Hackman) the deficiencies of his plan. For a start, they are in the middle of the desert and without transportation and food, neither of which is handy or arranged, they are likely to find the wilderness a worse prison. Secondly, there’s a hell of a lot of digging to do, a tunnel long enough to allow them to emerge on the other side of the walls.

And thirdly, and most presciently, most of the prisoners don’t give a fig about organizing a break-out. They are simpler souls, wanting to enjoy a brief moment, even if still incarcerated, of freedom, happy to glug down gallons of home-made brew, watch drag acts for entertainment and slit the throats of the guards taken hostage.

It’s ironic that Cully and Red begin acting like prison warders, defending the hostages against the most vicious of the inmates, guarding them as they take a walk of shame to a hideout, and chucking into solitary the most depraved of the prisoners. The prison break, when it finally comes, is exceptionally well done by director Buzz Kulik (Villa Rides, 1968) .

A small hole in the sun-parched earth becomes bigger until a furry head like a groundhog appears and the outside of the prison walls is viewed from the perspective of a potential escapee.

*The ultimate sex’n’violence double bill.*

But, mostly, it’s a long haul of tension. Red holds the officials at bay with not just the hostages but a set of demands for better treatment, triggering a bout of negotiation and talking to the media. As in female-starved male-dominated pictures like The Flight of the Phoenix (1965) and The Dirty Dozen (1967), women are shunted in by devious means, in the former via a mirage, in the latter through the sex workers smuggled in prior to the mission. Here, Cully dreams of landing by helicopter beside a pool of beautiful bikini-clad women who rush to worship him.

Although Cully and Red don’t exactly see eye-to-eye and for the picture to work of course must bury their differences and work together, the pair don’t rack up the confrontation required for this movie to zing. Cully is somewhat laid-back and Red uses his fingers rather than his fists or loud voice to make points. You kind of wished there was more sign of imminent explosion.

Sure, there are setbacks, and having to change plan and improvise on the spot. The stakes are only really raised when the vacationing prison governor returns and dumps the softly-softly approach of his stand-in, telling the prisoners in no uncertain terms that he will happily murder ten prisoners for each hostage killed, storm the wing and gas them all. The end shows exactly what level of brutality he is capable of.

But, meanwhile, we are left dancing around a bunch of fairly cliché characters, the prisoners in for short terms who don’t want to participate, the lifers wanting brief respite, the killers denied the opportunity to kill, the men who hide their sexual desires under the more acceptable cross-dressing.

Rioting is actually thin on the ground. In fact, Red has to do the opposite. Prevent everyone getting out of line because that will precipitate assault by the prison guards. Keeping everyone happily penned up for the time it takes to complete the tunnel is more Red’s plan than letting the prisoners loose to run riot.

That said, both Jim Brown (100 Rifles, 1969) and Gene Hackman (The Gypsy Moths. 1969) are impressive. Brown reins in the tough-guy act, holding sway in soft-spoken manner, while Hackman brings out more elements of the screen persona that would win him an Oscar a couple of years later for The French Connection. Naturally, Hackman, in retrospect, attracts the kudos but in reality I think this is a step-up for Brown and he is not acted off the screen. (The pair had appeared together in The Split, 1968).

One of the flaws, I would hazard, is that this kind of picture should have been the break-out vehicle for rising stars – as with The Magnificent Seven (1960), The Great Escape (1963), and The Dirty Dozen – but in that department it’s sorely lacking and I think the picture overall suffers as a result.

Given he knows more than the audience where the story is headed Buzz Kulik (The Warning Shot, 1967) does well to concentrate on the friction between Brown and Hackman. James Poe (The Bedford Incident, 1965) wrote the screenplay from the Frank Elli book.

Men under pressure are not under enough pressure to make it zing.

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Behind the Scenes: Raquel Welch, Unknown Actress, 1964-September 1966, Gets The “Big Build-Up”

As demonstrated in Madison Avenue (1961), the “big build-up” was code for inflicting on an unsuspecting public an unlikely candidate for acclaim. Of course, for decades, Hollywood hacks had been bombarding fan magazines, weeklies, glossy monthlies and dailies with beefcake and cheesecake photos of promising new talent. But the hook was that these actors were shortly appearing, albeit in a bit part, in a few months’ time in a forthcoming movie.

Modelling was another device to attract the attention necessary to generate a screen career. Sometimes, these (predominantly female) models would be making their first throw of the dice, hoping that some producer in an idle moment might catch a glimpse. Or, they could be women who made a living from selling such snaps to such media.

But, usually, it was one thing or the other: gratis photos handed out by grateful studio marketing teams or photos that an editor paid for in the hope they would increase circulation (in the days when there was no such thing as a giveaway magazine). La Welch appears to have fallen into the latter category.

But it was a heck of a long-term build-up given that with the exception of the virtually unseen Swingin’ Summer (1965), in which she has a bit part, Raquel Welch did not appear in a movie until September 1966. By that point, modelling a skintight number in Fantastic Voyage – it was December before that iconic fur bikini in One Million Years B.C. set male hearts pumping – it seems that magazine editors the world over were prone to giving her space in the years prior covering 1964-1966 when she was effectively an unknown.

Which would go some way to explaining why by the time her first movies hit the screen she was already a familiar face (and body, it has to be said) to many (and not exclusively male) in the audience. The promotional push was supplied by Twentieth Century Fox which had signed her to a five-picture contract, making her, perhaps in their own words, one of the most sought-after actresses in Hollywood.

But deals with studios for new talent were ten a penny, no guarantee the studio would keep its side of the bargain, nor that the contract would run to term, nor that the actress would be handed anything but bit parts. Still, it probably cost relatively little to start pumping out promotional photos with “new rising talent” as the lure. Magazines seemed happy to accept on face value that she was a rising star even though there was no proof that she had the talent to match.

Life magazine proved something of a stepping stone. She was featured in a bikini in its Oct 2, 1964, issue. But you could just as easily have caught her in a leopard-skin dress draped across a cocktail stool, one of several cheesecake pictures taken to promote the starlet. Parade magazine, in Britain, something of a lower-grade male magazine, far removed from the likes of the glossier Playboy, was among the first to take the bait, in December 1964 (see above) handing the young potential star its front cover. (Her surname was misspelled as Welsh – and her Christian name was misspelled as Rachel when she featured again in March 13, 1965.)

Five of the 10 chosen Deb Stars of Tomorrow. See if you can spot our gal.

But the real boost came at the end of December 1964. That month she was one of ten potential female stars featured in the Dec 27 issue of New York Journal-American under the title “TV’s Magic Wand Taps Girls As Stars of Tomorrow.” She had been chosen to appear on ABC TV’s “Debs Stars of 1965” programme. This show claimed an 85 per cent success rate in picking potential stars, with Kim Novak, Tuesday Weld and Yvette Mimieux among previous winners.*

In April 1965, the distinctly more upmarket – and not male-appealing – McCalls in the U.S. came calling, but that front cover dispensed with the sexy look, presenting her wearing spectacles. By September 1965, the Fox marketeers had been hard at work and won for her – a full year before Fantastic Voyage opened – the front cover and an inside spread in the British edition of movie fan magazine Photoplay. The next month brought another iconic photograph, the “nude” spread in U.S. upmarket monthly Esquire, accompanied by a full-page interview that treated her as the next big thing, again on the word of Fox, nobody having as yet seen so much as an inch of the footage of the sci-fi picture.

The same month in trademark bikini she was on the front cover of U.S. Camera and Travel magazine (surname again misspelled), photographed by Don Ornitz and described as “a rising young actress with many screen and TV credits to her name” without specifying that in fact these were mostly uncredited or in bit parts. Also during 1965 she featured in Turkish magazine SES and Portuguese magazine Plateia.

But there was also the grind. She advertised Wate-On slimming in Screen Stories in 1965, was the cover model for True Love in September 1965 while for Midnight magazine – and surely this was a story dreamed up by a publicity hound – her front cover picture was accompanied by the heading “Adultery Can Save Your Marriage” and inside she was quoted as saying “A Wife Should Let Her Husband Cheat.”

The big build-up went into overdrive in 1966. She modelled bikinis in two more front covers in Parade (all name errors corrected) in January and July. Australians preferred a more demure – or at least non-bikini – look. In Australian Post (June front cover) she was photographed wearing a “dress of ten thousand beads” from her unnamed next picture (neither Fantastic Voyage nor One Million Years B.C. obviously). There was a slinky pink number for the Australian edition of Photoplay (August, front cover and full-page photo inside) and a quote “I think its important for a girl to exploit her physical attractions – but with restraint.”

She also graced Hungarian magazine Filmvilag and Showtime, both in August. Perhaps the most prescient feature ran in Woman’s Mirror in April 1966. For once she was not granted the cover, but featured on a two-page spread inside under the heading “A Star Nobody Has Seen But Everybody Is Looking For.”

Most of her figure was hidden on the front cover of Pageant (July). SES had something of a scoop in its April edition with some behind-the-scenes photos of Welch in her fur bikini for One Million Years B.C. and she made the cover of German magazine Bunte (June).

Exactly how busy and successful Welch – and her promoters – had been could be gauged from the photo that appeared in the Aug 26, 1966, issue of Life, in which she was pictured in front of a wall of over 40 of front covers she had adorned in the previous two years. Pictorial proof that she was in demand and that magazine editors, long before the public had the chance to witness her screen performance, could recognize a certain kind of charisma. (She was featured in Life again in Dec 1966, in a bikini, but seen sideways, bent over and with her hair in pigtails – and on the cover of its Spanish edition on Nov 21.)

And there was another kind of accolade coming her way in Britain. She was chosen as the first cover model for the first issue of men’s magazine Mayfair in August 1966, the same month as she was positioned in the same prominent spot on Adam, another men’s magazine, and in the more sedate British magazine Weekend, in which she was promoting Fantastic Voyage.

But she would soon be forever associated with the fur bikini, posters of which were soon plastered over the walls of teenage boys. The fur bikini more than anything else broke the mold in the presentation of a new star, and luckily for Welch, the ground work had been done courtesy of the long-range big build-up.

*The other nine Deb Stars of Tomorrow were Barbara Parkins (Valley of the Dolls, 1967), Mary Ann Mobley (Istanbul Express, 1968), Margaret Mason (no movies but some television), Wendy Stuart (couple of bit parts), Beverley Washburn (Pit Stop, 1969), Tracy McHale (nothing), Laurie Sibbald ( a few television episodes), Janet Landgard (The Swimmer, 1968) and Donna Loren (a few television episodes). No prizes for guessing who won that particular Deb Star competition.