1960s film – Page 60 – The Magnificent 60s

The Flim Flam Man / One Born Every Minute (1967) ***

Throwback to It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963), prelude to Smokey and the Bandit (1977) and in the middle of the car chases and town wrecking a character study of a pair of grifters, one veteran, the other his pupil.

U.S. Army deserter Curley (Michael Sarrazin) teams up with veteran con man Mordecai (George C Scott) who teaches him the tricks of the trade. There’s nothing particularly innovative about the older man’s techniques – Find the Queen, The Lost Wallet, selling hooch as genuine whiskey – and the rewards are not particularly rewarding unless you are living at scavenger level in whatever run-down habitat you can find.

The dumb cops, Sheriff Slade (Harry Morgan) and Deputy Meshaw (Albert Salmi), aren’t quite so stupid otherwise they wouldn’t occasionally happen upon their quarry. And the larcenous duo offer nothing more clever by way of escape except to hijack vehicles.

So once you get past the aforementioned car chases and town wrecking it settles down into a gentle old-fashioned drama. Luckily all the good ol’ boy shenanigans are limited to the police, and neither main character is afflicted by over-emphatic accents.

Mordecai ain’t no Robin Hood nor a criminal mastermind who might have his eyes on a big- money heist. His ethos is stealing not so much from the gullible but the greedy. All his suckers think they can make an easy killing from a guy who appears a harmless old duffer.

He’s not looking for a big score because he’s got nobody to settle down with and because, although on a wanted list (as “The Flim-Flam Man” of local legend) he’s not going to exercise the authorities except cops with very little otherwise to do. He is as laid-back a drifter as they come.

Curley offers the drama. He starts to have qualms not so much about stealing from the greedy but about the repair bills for the cars they wrecked, especially one belonging to the young innocent Bonnie Lee (Sue Lyon), to whom he takes a fancy. While she reciprocates it’s only up to a point, having the good sense not to hook up with a criminal, so eventually he has to choose between giving himself up and serving time in the hope Bonnie Lee will hang around and severing his links with Mordecai, whom he treats as a father figure.

How he works that out is probably the best scene, especially given his temporary profession. Whether this is the first picture to feature so prominently incompetent cops rather than either the tough or corrupt kind I’m not sure but Slade and Meshaw take some beating.

In his first starring role, Michael Sarrazin (Eye of the Cat, 1969) is the cinematic catch. All the more so because director Irvin Kershner doesn’t take the easy route of focusing on his soulful eyes, permitting the actor to deliver a more rounded performance. He’s certainly more natural here than any future movie where he clearly relied far more on the aforementioned soulful eyes.

While I’m not sure the ageing make-up does much for him, George C. Scott (Petulia, 1968), in his first top-billed role, tones down the usual operatics and makes a convincing loner who can make one good romantic memory last a lifetime. He switches between completely relaxed to, on spotting a likely victim, sharp as a tack. The harmless old man guise falls away once he smells greed, replaced by cunning small-time ruthlessness.

Sue Lyon (Night of the Iguana, 1964) has little to do except not be the sex-pot of her usual screen incarnation and that’s to the good of the picture. By this stage of his career Harry Morgan was more likely to be found in television so it’s a treat to see him make the most of a meaty supporting part. Look out for Strother Martin (Cool Hand Luke, 1967) and Slim Pickens (Rough Night in Jericho, 1967).

Irvin Kershner (A Fine Madness, 1966) appears on firmer ground with the drama than the wild car chase/town wrecking but I suspect it takes more skills to pull off the latter than the former where the actors can help you out. Though I notice Yakima Canutt is down as second unit director so he might be due more of the credit. Screenwriter William Rose had already plundered the greed theme and, to that extent the car chase, for his seminal It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.

The outlandish elements, fun though they are, give this an uneven quality that gets in the way of a tidy little picture.

Five Golden Dragons (1967) ***

Producer Harry Alan Towers, himself something of a legend, had put together a quite superb cast – rising Eurostar Klaus Kinski (A Bullet for the General, 1967), Hollywood veterans Robert Cummings (Dial M for Murder, 1954), George Raft (Scarface, 1932), Dan Duryea (Black Bart, 1948) and Brian Donlevy (The Great McGinty, 1940) plus British horrormeister Christopher Lee and Rupert Davies (television’s Maigret). Throw in Margaret Lee (Secret Agent, Super Dragon, 1966) and Austrians Maria Perschy (Kiss, Kiss, Kill, Kill, 1966) and Maria Rohm (Venus in Furs, 1969).

And all in aid of an enjoyable thriller set in Hong Kong that dances between genuine danger and spoof. I mean, what can you make of a chase involving rickshaws? Or a race over bobbing houseboats parked in a harbor? There’s a Shakespeare-quoting cop Sanders (Rupert Davies) whose sidekick Inspector Chiao (Tom Chiao) often out-quotes him. And there’s British-born Margaret Lee, a cult figure in Italian circles, belting out the title song and just for the hell of it Japanese actress Yukari Ito in a cameo as a nightclub singer.

A newly arrived businessman is chucked off the top of a building by an associate of gangster Gert (Klaus Kinski) but not before leaving a note that falls into the hands of the police. The note says, “Five Golden Dragons” and is addressed to playboy Bob (Robert Cummings) for no particular reason. No matter. A MacGuffin is still a MacGuffin, and probably best if left unexplained.

Bob is soon involved anyway after falling for two beautiful sisters, Ingrid (Maria Rohm) and Margret (Maria Perschy). Turns out Margret knows more about Bob than he would like, and knows too much for her own good, namely that the titular dragons are the heads of an evil syndicate, specializing in gold trafficking, meeting for the first time in Hong Kong in order to organize the handover of their empire to the Mafia for a cool $50 million

In a nod at the spy genre, there are secret chambers opened by secret levers. There are double-crosses, chases, confrontations, not to mention a a trope of sunglasses being whipped off, voluntarily I might add. Apart from breaks here and there for a song or two, director Jeremy Summers (Ferry Across the Mersey, 1964) keeps the whole enterprise zipping along, even if he is stuck with Cummings.

In truth, Cummings (Stagecoach, 1966) is a bit of a liability, acting-wise. While the rest of the cast takes the film seriously, he acts as if he’s a Bob Hope throwback, cracking wisecracks when confronted with danger or beautiful women, or, in fact, most of the time, which would be fine if he wasn’t a couple of decades too old (he was 57) to carry off the part of a playboy and if the jokes were funny.

Towers (under the pseudonym Peter Welbeck responsible for the screenplay, loosely based on an Edgar Wallace story) was a maverick but prolific British producer who would graduate to the likes of Call of the Wild (1972) with Charlton Heston but at this point was churning out exotic thrillers (The Face of Fu Manchu, 1965) and mysteries (Ten Little Indians, 1965) and had a good eye for what made a movie tick. This one ticks along quite nicely never mind the bonus of a sinister George Raft and the likes of Margaret Lee and Maria Rohm (Towers’ wife).

Cult contender that doesn’t take itself too seriously.

The Quiller Memorandum (1966) ****

Stylish cat-and-mouse thriller that fits into the relatively small sub-genre of intelligent spy pictures. George Segal was a difficult actor to cast. He had a kind of shiftiness that lent credibility to a movie like King Rat (1965), a cockiness that found a good home in The Southern Star (1969) and an earnestness ideal for Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf (1966).

But Quiller fit his screen persona like a glove. The part called for charm to the point of smarminess and courage to the point of callousness. A lone wolf for whom relationships were a means to an end, he adopted identities – journalist, swimming coach etc– as the occasion suited. His undercover mission is to expose a neo-Nazi organisation. But just as he seeks to discover the location of this secret enterprise, so his quarry attempts to find out where his operation is based.

Michael Anderson (The Dam Busters, 1955) had just finished his first spy effort, Operation Crossbow (1966) and that film’s documentary-style approach was carried on here but with a great deal more style. There is consistent use of the tracking shot, often from the point-of-view of one of the protagonists, that gives the film added tension, since you never know where a tracking shot will end. Although the film boasts one of John Barry’s best themes, Wednesday’s Child, there was a remarkable lack of music throughout. Many chase scenes begin in silence, with just natural sounds as a background, then spill out into music, and then back into silence.

But much of the heavy lifting is done by playwright Harold Pinter (The Servant, 1963) in adapting Adam Hall’s prize-winning novel. Hall was one of the pseudonyms used by Trevor Dudley-Smith who wrote The Flight of the Phoenix (1965) under the name Elleston Trevor. The Quiller Memorandum involved wholesale change, from the title (the book was called The Berlin Memorandum) onwards. Quiller is now an American, not British, drafted in from the Middle East.

The book is set against the background of war crime trials; Quiller a British wartime rescuer of Jews now tracking down war criminals; the main female character (played in the film by Senta Berger) had, as a child, been in Hitler’s bunker; and there is a subplot concerning a bubonic plague; there was a preponderance of obscure (though interesting for a reader) tradecraft; plus the Nazi organisation was named “Phoenix.”

While retaining the harsh realities of the spy business, Pinter junks most of this in favour of a more contemporary approach. Instead of meeting his superior Pol (Alec Guinness) in a theater, this takes place in the Olympiad stadium. Guinness’s upper crust bosses, Gibbs (George Sanders) and Rushington (Robert Flemyng), are more interested in one-upmanship. Berlin still showed the after-effects of the war and Pinter exploits these locales.

One lead takes him to Inge (Senta Berger), an apparently innocent teacher in a school where a known war criminal had worked.

But the core remains the same, Quiller prodding for weaknesses in the Nazi organisation. his opposite number Oktober (Max von Sydow) allows him to come close in the hope of reeling him in and forcing him to reveal the whereabouts of his operation. Quiller plays along in order to infiltrate the Nazis.

There is a lot of tradecraft: “do you smoke this brand” (of cigarettes) is the way spies identify themselves; Quiller followed on foot turns the tables on his quarry; the American is poisoned after being prodded by a suitcase; Quiller employs word associations to avoid giving away real information.

Having flushed out his adversaries, Quiller is now dangerously exposed. But that’s his job. He’s just a pawn to both sides. He’s virtually never on top unlike the fantasy espionage worlds inhabited by James Bond, Matt Helm and Derek Flint.

The structure is brilliant. Quiller spends most of the picture in dogged bafflement. The supercilious Pol flits in and out, as if such work is beneath him.Quiller is stalked and stalks in return. There are exciting car chases but the foot chases (if they can be called that) are far more tense.

But the core is a bold thirteen-minute interrogation scene where Quiller s confronted by Oktober. As an antidote to the thuggery and danger to which he is exposed, Quiller becomes involved with Inge.

Segal is a revelation, grown vastly more mature as an actor after Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf (1966) for which he was Oscar-nominated, confident enough to abandon the showy carapace of previous pictures. This is a picture where he sheds layers, from the opening brashness to the sense of defeat in surviving the interrogation ordeal, knowing the only reason he is still alive is to lead the enemy to his own headquarters, buoyed only by inner grit. He hangs on to his identity by his fingertips.

And it’s a revelation, too, or perhaps a backward step for Max von Sydow, who presented a less clichéd character in The Reward (1965). While dangerous enough, it looks like he is already slipping into the category of foreign villain.

Senta Berger (The Secret Ways, 1961) is hugely under-rated as an actress. She was in the second tier of the European sex bombs who came to prominence in the 1950s and 1960s, the top league dominated by Brigitte Bardot, Sophia Loren and Gina Lollobrigida. On screen she is not as lively as those three, but the quiet intensity of her luminous beauty draws the camera in.

Here, she is utterly believable as the innocent women who, in falling for Segal, is dragged into his dangerous world. She was criminally under-used by Hollywood, often in over-glamourous roles such as The Ambushers (1967) or as the kind of leading lady whose role is often superfluous.

Discussion of Alec Guinness as a spy inevitably turns to his role as George Smiley in the BBC series Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (19790 and its sequel three years later, but this is a less dour portrayal, almost whimsical in a way.

A must-see for collectors of the spy genre.

Don’t Make Waves (1967) ****

Unfairly maligned on release. Part throwback screwball comedy, part farce, part satire and in low-key fashion the first disaster movie. Oddly enough, that wild combination hits the mark. Tony Curtis makes amends for Boeing Boeing (1965). Claudia Cardinale on top form as a ditzy brunette. Last hurrah for Ealing Comedy grey eminence Alexander Mackendrick (A High Wind in Jamaica, 1965). Plus Sharon Tate as a sky-diver. What’s not to like?

Hardly surprising though at the time it got the thumbs-down from critics and the cold shoulder from audiences. A very late arrival to the short-lived beach movie cycle and unlikely to compete with the harder-edged satires like The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming (1966) and Divorce American Style (1967) or the latest off the Neil Simon conveyor belt Barefoot in the Park (1967).

Marvelous opening with sight gags galore sees vacationer Carlo (Tony Curtis) wrestling with a runaway car then seeing hapless wannabe artist Laura (Claudia Cardinale) accidentally setting fire to the vehicle. To make amends for destroying all his belongings, she invites him to stay the night. Unfortunately, her married lover Rod (Robert Webber) turns up, cueing a whole layer of farce, traditional bedroom-style here but later even better in the office, properly done this time compared to Boeing Boeing.

The next day Carlo is rescued from drowning by Malibu (Sharon Tate) with whom he promptly falls in love and attempts to separate her from her hulk of a boyfriend Harry (David Draper), all muscle but little brain and prone to easily-exploited bouts of depression.

Carlo is the smarter younger brother of the character in Boeing Boeing, managing to muscle in on Rod’s swimming pool business and demonstrating his sharp salesmanship skills. Except that Laura is so shrill and a kept woman, you’d expect him to be more interested in her than Malibu, but then where would be we be without a love triangle. In an odd sub-plot involving an astrologer (Ed Bergen), Carlo manages to win over Malibu. Meanwhile, Rod’s smarter wife Diane (Joanna Barnes) infiltrates her husband’s cosy love nest.

Although Carlo is effectively set up as somewhat shifty hero he undergoes a series of humiliations, brought down to earth by being repeatedly picked up and carried like a doll by Harry, and being drowned in mud. Other times he lives high on the hog, realizing he could make a killing here.

There’s no great plot, just the usual misunderstandings, but, unusually, characters are given moments of self-reflection and self-deprecation, and the satire focuses on the self-involvement of the beautiful people. There’s a fair bit of ogling but the camera is gender-equal, the toned bodies of the muscle men given as much attention as any passing female in a bikini.

I found myself chuckling all over the place, mostly at the antics of Carlo. This is a pretty good performance by Tony Curtis, mugging kept well under control but adept at physical comedy. And Claudia Cardinale (Once Upon a Time in the West, 1968) is equally game, drenched for a good chunk of time, and hit by sudden self-awareness as the tale unfolds. You might balk at her high-tempo performance but otherwise the set-up wouldn’t work. If she wasn’t so annoying why would Carlo look elsewhere for romance?

The disaster element involves a runaway clifftop house, a situation created by the unlucky Laura, and it doesn’t take much to see what elements The Poseidon Adventure filched, playing it for drama rather than comedy.

While not in the same category Mackendrick classics The Man in the White Suit (1951), The Ladykillers (1955) or even The Sweet Smell of Success (1957) – co-starring Curtis – this is not to so far off. Mackendrick excels at building the comedy, confidently marshals the farce, but, more importantly, doesn’t lose sight of the characters in the ensuing chaos.

Producer Marty Ransohoff tries to pull a fast one by slapping an “introducing” credit on Sharon Tate, conveniently ignoring her performance in the previous year’s Eye of the Devil (1966). She’s less iconic here – unless you imagine that with her bronzed face she’s a distant cousin of George Hamilton – but she’s far from the dizzy blonde, much more pragmatic, the one who switches electricity back on after the blackout, and with her own oddball ways. Trivia note: they modelled “Malibu Barbie” on Tate.

Worth a look.

The Money Trap (1965) ****

Film noir morality play. Highly under-rated, especially unfair since all four principals put in excellent performances, plus a nifty screenplay, and generally erratic director Burt Kennedy on very solid cinematic ground, even if he has a predilection for showing legs, and not just of the female variety.

Film noir is at its best when the plot is simple, usually good guy inveigled into taking a wrong turn through avarice, revenge or a femme fatale. This takes an unusual route. Idealistic cop Joe (Glenn Ford) worries beautiful wealthy spendthrift wife Lisa (Elke Sommer) will abandon him for a richer guy since her allowance has dried up.

Assuming she is already making her play, Joe has a one-night stand with old flame Rosalie (Rita Hayworth), a lush married to a murdered burglar. His partner Pete (Ricardo Montalban), envious of his buddy’s wealth, blackmails him into robbing the safe of Mafia doctor Van Tilden (Joseph Cotten) who, in self-defence, killed the burglar. Meanwhile, as contrast, the pair are investigating the murder of a sex worker trying to earn extra money to shore up her husband’s miserable income.

While it’s got all the requisite of film noir, atmospheric use of light given it’s shot in black-and-white, that unusual footage of legs, and feet, especially when Rosalie is followed by Tilden’s thug Matthews (Tom Reese), cunning villain, the unexpected twist, neither of the femmes it transpires is much of a fatale, greater backbone than you might expect.

But mostly, it focuses on decision and consequence. Will Joe accept he could lose his wife, will Lisa make the jump into a lower standard of living in order to hold onto her husband, or will Joe distrust that his wife can change and find a way to bring the loot he thinks will keep her satisfied? Lack of trust all round proves their undoing.

There’s the usual, silent, heist, though quite where Joe and Pete acquired their safecracking skills is never discussed. It is the perfect robbery, a dodgy doctor unlikely to call in the cops, especially as they might get suspicious as to just why he is such a common burglary target. Except it’s not. For what’s in the safe is too hot for any cop and Van Tilden, more streetwise than the police, is always one step ahead. Instead of it being the greedy Lisa who could ruin their otherwise stable and loving marriage, it’s Joe.

There are a handful of clever twists, not least that Joe’s dalliance with Rosalie signs her death warrant, but I won’t give those away. It’s too tightly told to spoil it. That’s part of the beauty here, it’s a neat 90 minutes, short and to the point, temptation and consequence.

If ever there was an actor under-rated during this decade it’s Glenn Ford (Rage, 1966). He was hardly ever cast in a big-budget picture except as part of an “all-star cast”, and mostly, given the extravagances elsewhere, in A-pictures whose budgets in reality turned them into B-pictures, and he ended the decade in a rut of westerns, all as under-rated as him. But he brought a tremendous intensity to every role, equally believable as romantic hero and potential heel, and in action, as here, he moves with lethal speed. He had a unusual gift as an actor – you always knew he was thinking. And was very likely to be saying one thing and thinking or meaning another.

Here he acts his socks off. You wonder just what has he got to live in such a fancy house with a rich gorgeous damsel and it doesn’t take long to find out his attraction to him, that right stuff that would rarely come an heiress’s way, more likely to trundle her way through endless marriages and affairs seeking a stability that wealth does not bring.

Elke Sommer (They Came To Rob Las Vegas, 1968) is a revelation, mostly because the script builds her a proper character, loving wife temporarily distracted by potential loss of wealth, but knowing enough about her husband to recognise she’s be better off with him than without him.

Rita Hayworth (The Happy Thieves, 1961) makes the most of her last meaningful role, not lit to shimmering glory by a black-and-white camera, but while shown at her blowsy physical worst redeemed by mental strength. Ricardo Montalban (Cheyenne Autumn, 1964) , usually relegated to a supporting role, provides not only the narrative impetus, but his character twists and turns throughout. Joseph Cotten (Petulia, 1968) has cold blood running through his veins.

This is early-promise Burt Kennedy (Dirty Dingus Magee, 1970) and with a tight script by Walter Bernstein (Fail Safe, 1964) delivers a surprisingly effective very late period film noir.

Terrific acting, by twisty plot held in check by realistic consequence.

Grand Slam (1967) *****

Stone cold classic. An absolutely riveting watch from start to twist-ridden finish. The best heist picture I have ever seen. Although throwing an occasional nod to acclaimed predecessors Rififi (1955) and Topkapi (1964), in my opinion this majestic opus tops both. And for one simple reason. There is no grandstanding, neither from director nor actors.

Although director Giuliano Montaldo (Machine Gun McCain, 1969) tosses in a few Hitchockian moments, these are never long-drawn-out in the manner of the master, because there’s never any let-up in the suspense and therefore to do otherwise would be to indulge himself. If there is boldness it’s in the muted tone. The marquee names – Edward G. Robinson (The Biggest Bundle of Them All, 1968), Janet Leigh (The Manchurian Candidate, 1962) and Adolfo Celi (Danger: Diabolik, 1968) – are all low-key, non-intrusive.

*The title “Carnival of Thieves” had already been used for another heist movie*
*-” The Caper of the Golden Bulls.”*

The bulk of the Rio-set action is carried out against the background of the annual carnival by what appear to be a bunch of unknown supporting stars who seem honor-bound to make no attempt, except as befits character, to steal the limelight, so we are not faced with a Reservoir Dogs (1992) or The Usual Suspects (1995) where everyone is jockeying for position, expecting stardom to beckon.

Fabulous plot is matched by terrific telling, information cleverly withheld until the last moment so that it is a constant railroad of surprise. For example, a church tower plays a critical part in abseiling into the robbery locale, but what we don’t know until it suddenly rings is that there’s a massive bell that, if otherwise there had not been a carnival going on below, might have caused a few to glance up at an inopportune moment. Nor are we shown its clock until the moment when we realize the thieves are running behind schedule.

The memorable stand-alone moments are reserved for the opening. The first shot is of a cherubic choir singing farewell to their retiring schoolmaster Professor Anders (Edward G. Robinson). The next short sequence has him in New York examining in a shop window a display of expensive cigarette lighters (those, it takes us time to realize, also play a crucial role). Then he arrives at a stunning mansion where he passes through what appears to be an upmarket crowd, dinner jackets and cocktail gowns, watching a classical musical concert. You imagine the woman on stage is an opera singer. As Anders is being shown into another room she starts peeling off her clothes to the classical music.

Anders has come to meet childhood buddy Milford (Adolfo Celi), now a big-time gangster, to ask for help in recruiting a team of four experts to carry out the audacious theft of $10 million in diamonds. You might gaze in astonishment as I did at Milford’s superb filing system, a huge alphabetical bank covering every known area of criminal expertise.

Once the crew are selected Anders bows out and we don’t see him again till the end. You keep on expecting a star of Edward G. Robinson’s caliber to turn up again, but that’s part of the clever ongoing bait-and-switch. The team, recruited from European capitals, comprises English safecracker Gregg (George Rigaud), German muscle Erich (Klaus Kinski), meek Italian electronics whizz Agostino (Riccardo Cucciolla) and French playboy Jean-Paul (Robert Hoffman).

Playboy? What the? Who on earth hires a playboy for a multi-million-dollar heist? Well, his area of expertise is seduction. And the plan requires the secretary, Mary Ann (Janet Leigh), to the vault’s general manager to fall into his arms because she possesses a vital key. As per the norm, there’s a bunch of stuff that doesn’t go according to plan, most notably a newly-installed sound detection device in the vault that requires ingenious invention to beat. But what also doesn’t go according to plan is the seduction.

This is one of the cleverest devices I’ve witnessed for ratcheting up suspense, especially since time is so critical. This should be a slam-dunk for the impossibly handsome Jean-Paul, who has beauties hanging off his arm. Especially as Mary Ann is something of a plain Jane, eyes concealed behind thick spectacles, wearing unflattering clothes, a cold fish with a snippy demeanor, rebuffing his every approach. When finally Jean-Paul succeeds and manages to access her purse wherein lies the key, he finds two key-rings. Having successfully managed to filch the key, three times he is foiled getting it safely to his confederate.

Twist upon twist, oh you haven’t seen the half of it. The usual falling out among thieves is restricted to tough guy Erich instinctively taking against the lightweight playboy and there’s an unexpectedly tender scene of the mild Agostino attracting the attention of a young Brazilian Setuaka (Jussara), so poor she is reduced to squatting on an empty yacht, lack of mutual language scarcely hindering prospective romance.

A couple of times the audience reacts to unspoken tension, at one point the crew think Mary Ann has spotted them from her office window, another time you think she has made the connection between the lighters. And there’s just a stunning scene at the end when Jean-Paul leaves Mary Ann and alone in her apartment she switches off the lights. And the subsequent shock on her face as she realizes she is the patsy. And one scene where the rolling of eyes conveys enormity of reaction.

Silly me, I’ve spent so much time going on about the incidentals I’ve given almost nothing away about the heist. Just as well, I guess. The robbery is timed to take 30 minutes and that’s the screen time allocated, so you follow the team minute-by-minute inch-by-inch as their elaborately complex scheme unfolds.

The confidence of the director in dispensing with dialog and during the heist with music speaks volumes about the quality of the production.

But could you imagine either of the Oceans pictures minus stars Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr, George Clooney and Brad Pitt. That’s effectively what Montaldo has set out to do here. The major stars don’t dominate. It’s left up to the workers to carry the movie and in sticking to their characters rather than showboating it all turns out splendidly.

Edward G. Robinson is at his quiet best, completely lacking in the intensity you might anticipate, the calmest criminal mastermind if all time. Janet Leigh is just superb – and I can see where her daughter Jamie Lee Curtis – gets that austere prim look from. Theoretically, Klaus Kinski (Five Golden Dragons, 1967) is the pick of the supporting cast, mainly because eventually he gets to be the Klaus Kinski we all expect, but my money is on Riccardo Cucciolla (Sacco and Vanzetti, 1971) as the unobtrusive lovelorn genius and Argentinian George Rigaud (Guns of the Magnificent Seven, 1969) for his spot-on depiction of a cool upper-class Englishman. It took eight writers to put together the screenplay and you can see why, every detail, every nuance of character, finely wrought.

In all the time I’ve been writing this Blog I have never enjoyed such an unexpectedly enjoyable experience.

This is one film you just can’t afford to miss.

Baby, The Rain Must Fall (1965) ***

Nothing to live on but dreams and, in those days, no social media to bail them out. Spare sad lives in Small Town U.S.A. told with an occasional grand guignol touch. Look elsewhere for the laconic loner of Steve McQueen legend, to, for example, The Cincinnati Kid, out the same year.

This has the feel of a vanity project, the actor’s Solar outfit taking a production credit, as if the star felt he wouldn’t properly be recognized as an actor unless he had a ton of lines to chew through. And he might be right to feel aggrieved, wildly contrasting roles from Daniel Day-Lewis in movies that opened the same day in New York two decades later had critics reaching for the superlatives.

By my reckoning, this was the last year, save for occasional outliers like In Cold Blood (1967), when studios accepted the hi-falutin’ notion that filming in black-and-white added artistic luster regardless of the damage it might do to a picture’s commercial prospects. The mono approach is taken to extremes from time to time, the contrast so sharp it might have emanated from the Ingmar Bergman school of cinematography. And given the desultory lives picked over, this might have fared better with subtitles, the kind of foreign picture that arthouse audiences fawned over.

Prison parolee Henry (Steve McQueen), entitlement hormone running amok, has got it into his head that if only he had the funds to reach Hollywood or Nashville (either would do) his singing and song-writing talent would be recognised. This puts wife Georgette (Lee Remick), newly arrived with small daughter, in the position of going out to work to keep the family, altering her domestic situation from independent single mother to wife in thrall to waster husband.

She’s supposedly no dupe either, rejecting the kindness of strangers, as if aware it usually comes with strings attached. It’s a given that any time a child enters a romantic equation you can be sure the narrative will turn on parenthood and responsibility. And that’s pretty much all the story there is.

You can guess from the outset that while Henry’s singing might set a few female hearts zinging, it’s not likely to win him a contract. So the question is, really, whether Henry can settle down and not be so swift to resort to his knife when confronted with a messy situation.

It’s marred by a couple of truly terrible scenes, a poorly-choreographed fight and a really odd sequence that has Henry declaiming with his back to a tableau of motley characters with the contrast at its sharpest. And in what looks like nothing more than an old haunted house.

It’s well-meaning enough and for the most part McQueen dispenses with the tough-guy attitude, but he doesn’t really offer enough in its place. It’s the kind of role that could easily have been delivered as effectively by any number of actors with nothing approaching his star quality. And that’s a shame because he really is trying – though it’s the trying that gets in the way, you keep on waiting for the real Steve McQueen to turn up.

If director Robert Mulligan (Up the Down Staircase, 1967) hadn’t been so determined to paint it in downbeat arthouse tones, the actor might have felt free enough to come up with a genuinely original turn. Though I accept it’s a bit unfair to complain about McQueen attempting something different, there’s no real excuse for him creating the worst singer ever to hit the screen.

You might also note, by the way that whereas McQueen takes pole position on the poster, in the screen credits Lee Remick (Days of Wine and Roses, 1962) is top-billed. Remick is better than McQueen because she has a deeper well of emotions and wider range of characterizations to choose from. You never feel she is acting to save her career or hope that Oscar voters might nod in her direction.

The movie makes more sense once you understand it really belongs to the 1950s – the Horton Foote (To Kill a Mockingbird, 1962) Broadway play on which it is based was staged in 1954. The movie fatally switches focus from Georgette to Henry before working out which actor was likely to best convey the happiness drought on which the work depends. There’s more than enough sadness to go round but it just seems solidified from the outset. No great harm – that may well be the truth of it – but it prevents the movie taking off, stuck as it is in recycling Henry’s weary past. Don Murray (The Viking Queen, 1967) makes a good fist of a widowed sheriff.

Worth a look to see McQueen tackling something different. You decide whether he succeeds or fails.

Thank You All Very Much / A Touch of Love (1969) ***

The combination of Amicus and pregnancy might lead audiences to expect a monster baby of It’s Alive (1974) dimensions. Nor would you associate the studio, which made its name in horror pictures where women were either victims or sex objects, with feminism. But producer Milton Subotsky plays it straight, the only concession to the Margaret Drabble source novel is to change the title, from the obvious The Millstone to the more ironic Thank You All Very Much (in the U.S.) and A Touch of Love (in the U.K.).

It doesn’t go down the single mum kitchen sink route either, abandoned female struggling in poverty and desperate for a man. In fact, except in one instance, dependable men are in short supply. Though, it has to be said, female support isn’t much better.

*Now there’s counter-programming. A “woman’s picture” supported*
*by low-budget actioner aimed at men.*

Pregnant after a one-night stand with television personality George (Ian McKellen), post graduate student Rosamund (Sandy Dennis), after toying with home-made efforts at abortion, decides to have her baby. Luckily, she can afford it, living in a splendid apartment in what looks like South Kensington rather than a bedsit in a more squalid area of London. Her parents are more remote, tending towards the upper rather than the middle classes, the type who park their offspring in boarding school to minimize a child’s impact on their busy social lives.

Sandy Dennis (Up the Down Staircase, 1967) has quite a trick in her screen persona. She is generally initially presented as weak, whiny, vulnerable, trademark quavering voice helping this along, a potential victim until her inner steel exerts itself and you realize she is not the person you think she is. Almost an actorly version of the Christopher Nolan trope of letting you believe a character is one type of person until he/she turns out to be another.

There isn’t too much of the mother being tormented out of her skull by a baby screaming its head off – or as in Nolan’s latest opus Oppenheimer, a mother unable to cope handing the child over to someone else to look after – but she is very much alone, unable to reveal to the father his part in the pregnancy, despite having another one-night stand with him. So mostly it’s her coping with the system, suffering in silence in the traditional British manner endless bureaucracy, sitting in a long queue in a waiting room, and being beset by the very people you might expect to be more sympathetic.

*Supporting feature given more prominence here.*

But the nurses seem very much cut from the same pragmatic cloth as her parents. Prior to birth, one nurse informs her that it’s selfish not to give the child up for adoption. When the baby is convalescing in hospital after a heart operation, matron (Rachel Kempson), a graduate from the Nurse Ratchet school of health care, consistently refuses to let the mother see the baby as it’s apparently against hospital rules until in the best scene in the movie, and the one that achieves the Dennis trick, she literally screams the place down.

That nurses on a maternity ward full of little more than I would imagine at times screaming children are so disturbed by the prospect of an adult rebelling against the stiff upper lip conventions of British society says a great deal about the kind of uniformity and subservience expected of the public by those in charge of any large organization. None of the Angry Young Men of earlier in the decade would dream of such a simple solution to a problem.

Eventually, being allowed to sit by her child’s bedside until late into the night permits Rosamund to complete her thesis and win her PhD. She’s not quite as hard-nosed about George as she likes to imagine but since he’s not sufficiently taken with her child to allow it to disrupt a projected trip abroad, she realizes what had been plainly obvious to the audience that she is better off without men – or at least this particular, ineffective, individual – for the time being.

So most of the film is about Rosamund learning to enjoy her independence, able to achieve her goals without male assistance, and that’s generally done by action rather than dialogue or monologue, some heated debate or major crisis. Excepting the incident with Nurse Ratchet, it’s just about coping, and awareness that maternity need not cramp ambition.

Her arty friends (and parents for that matter) are all too keen on having a good time – the males mostly trying to bed her – to lend much support. Some like Lydia (Eleanor Bron) have a warped view of life.

In his movie debut Waris Hussein (The Possession of Joel Delaney, 1972) takes the striking narrative route of not allowing the picture to become tangled up with romantic complication, keeping it squarely focused on feminism, succeeding on your own terms, not reliant on men, embracing both motherhood and career. Margaret Drabble wrote the screenplay.

Sandy Dennis (Up the Down Staircase, 1967) delivers another telling performance, one of the few actresses permitted to be center stage in a non-romantic narrative, because this is the kind of role she can easily pull off. She manages a convincing British accent without falling prey to too much Britishness.

Minus the tell-tale diction that marked his later career, Ian McKellen (Alfred the Great, 1969) has an effective debut as the charming though selfish lover. Eleanor Bron (Two for the Road, 1967) is the pick of the supporting cast as the soft-hearted best friend who is too pragmatic by half. Others popping up include John Standing (Walk, Don’t Run, 1966), Margaret Tyzack (2001: A Space Odyssey, 1968), Maurice Denham (Midas Run, 1969) with Rachel Kempson (The Charge of the Light Brigade, 1968).

Unfussy direction matched with another brilliant turn by Sandy Dennis makes this a must-watch.

Boeing Boeing (1965) ***

Farce is particularly difficult to pull off on screen. What is so effective on stage where the audience has full view of doors opening and characters appearing/disappearing and can often view, like a pantomime, circumstance changing ahead of the characters, grinds to a halt when the camera has to cut between various characters.

A speeded-up Tony Curtis (The Boston Strangler, 1968) doesn’t help though lack of his usual zaniness provides Jerry Lewis (The Nutty Professor, 1963) with the opportunity to present a more grounded character. To some extent, there’s little director John Rich (Wives and Lovers, 1963) needs to do than to keep the ample supply of balls rolling.

*The movie displays its sexist credentials – listing the measurements of the female stars – not just in posters such as the one above but also in the film’s credit.*

Though it sticks to the normal formula of girls falling out of the woodwork at inappropriate times, the Parisian set-up is a beaut. Journalist Bernard (Tony Curtis) has three girls on the go, all airline stewardesses, all believing themselves to be his fiancée, and by dint of assiduous study of flight schedules ensures that their paths never cross. His acidic housekeeper Bertha (Thelma Ritter) keeps the love machine well-oiled by switched around framed photos are changed and relocating underwear to suit the next imminent arrival.

Things go awry when American airline Boeing introduces a faster model, meaning that his lovers return sooner than anticipated. Stakes are raised when reporter rival Robert (Jerry Lewis) queers his pitch. So mostly it’s Bernard trying vainly to keep all his balls in the air without being rumbled while Robert attempts to sabotage the operation.

There’s not much more to it than that, the girls’ consternation at finding another woman in the apartment, Bernard gamely finding excuses for their presence.

Nor is it as risqué sex-wise as you might expect. The period didn’t allow for the hostess trio to actually be engaging in hanky-panky with Bernard. They are all allocated separate bedrooms so it will seem to a modern audience that all his frantic energy is wasted, though the initial stage audiences would accept the bedroom shenanigans as long as conventions were respected. Amorality goes only as far as keeping three girls on a string rather than actually taking them all to bed.

Of course it builds up into a riotous outcome but the farce remains forced.

Tony Curtis mugs his way through the entire thing, face twisted a million ways, eyeballs rolling so much you think they are going to bounce clear of the sockets, and delivering dialog so fast he can hardly get to the end of one thought before another has interjected. Jerry Lewis is better value as the straight man, not relying on the physical comedy of previous roles, nor any obvious mugging, and creating a sly believable character intent on getting revenge.

Suzanna Leigh (The Pleasure Girls, 1965) is the pick of the hostesses but that’s not saying much since each has tumbled straight out of the cliché barrel. Dany Saval (Moon Pilot, 1962) flies the French flag while Christine Schmidtmer (Ship of Fools, 1965) is the dominating German.

The biggest joke is on producer Hal Wallis (The Sons of Katie Elder, 1965). A past expert at choosing properties, he purchased the rights to the successful stage play by Marc Camoletti when it was enjoying a hugely successful run in London’s West End. But when the production transferred to Broadway it was a resounding flop, leaving the movie with none of the usual hit play hype to build upon.

With only A Girl Named Tamiko (1963) in his portfolio as evidence of his familiarity with comedy (and that gentle in nature), Edward Anhalt (The Sins of Rachel Cade, 1961) was an odd choice for the screenplay except that he had recently adapted for Wallis hit Broadway play Becket (1964). (As a footnote, you might be interested to know that Mark Rylance won a Tony for playing Robert in a Broadway revival.)

Lightweight matinee material, but worth it for Jerry Lewis playing against type.

Angel Baby (1961) ***

Stunning cast – George Hamilton, Burt Reynolds, Mercedes McCambridge, Joan Blondell – in low-rent version of that ode to evangelism Elmer Gantry (1960) but here focusing on misplaced zeal and corruptible innocence. Strikes a contemporary note with “MeToo” reversal – elder woman grooming a choir boy – and fake news, how else to describe public gullibility for the so-called miracles that were the stock-in-trade of the revivalist business.

Would have been an interesting addition to the portfolio of the erratic director Hubert Cornfield (Pressure Point, 1962 a high, but Night of the Following Day, 1969, a low) except he took ill and passed the reins to Paul Wendkos (Guns of The Magnificent Seven, 1969).

Takes an interesting narrative slant, the three original principals bowing out after a strong start, leaving the way free for the titular character to come unstuck in the sleazy world of religious make-believe before they all turn up again for a rip-roaring finale.

Young charismatic preacher Paul (George Hamilton) is at odds with his dominating older wife Sarah (Mercedes McCambridge). She is all hellfire-and-brimstone while he wants to preach about love. They are in an “unholy marriage,” he plucked from the choir as a teenager and molded by her, her invocations to prayer always accompanied by sex, and once Jenny Angel (Salome Jens), a mute he heals and with an unwelcome boyfriend Hoke (Burt Reynolds), appears on the scene he begins to question his sexual and religious grooming.

Recognizing a love rival, Sarah bribes ambitious couple, resident alcoholics Mollie (Joan Blondell) and Ben (Henry Jones), to take her on and they, in turn, trade her to Sam (Roger Clark) who turns her unfulfilled potential as a preacher into box office dynamite by capitalizing first on her beauty, low-cut gowns emphasizing her physical attributes, and then by fake healings, not realizing, in his greed, that a preacher who can make reputedly make the blind see is asking for trouble.

Having seen the error of his way, Paul chases after Angel, Sarah chases after Paul and Hoke just happens to be in vicinity to ensure it all ends in colossal disaster, though with an unusual twist ending.

But it’s surprisingly good in an old-fashioned way. The depiction of the corrupt evangelists and, more importantly, the spiritual and actual poverty of the congregations, desperately looking for salvation, occasionally blaming God for their woes, and hoping sheer blind faith will see them through, is well done, even if Paul’s preaching sails close to the unsavory, with rather lewd accompaniments.

Jenny’s conviction in the face of initial failure that she can bring solace to the people is also believable. All innocence, no idea she is being duped, she simply perseveres, undaunted at the scale of her task, faced with dozens of critically-ill expecting cure.

Sam’s real scam is selling some kind of miracle potion that Jenny has apparently endorsed, the phone ringing off the hook with customers wishing to buy it once the preacher’s fame spreads. He, too, despite apparently God-fearing ways, is partial to liquor.

Given Jenny never doubts her vocation, you’d expect an innocence-sized hole at the center of the drama, but that’s filled up by the growing conflict between Paul and Sarah and a very humorous section dealing with the idiotic Mollie and Ben, especially in an inspired drunken scene.

It could easily have been a more cynical take on the dumb audience, so easily taken in, but instead, they are presented as individuals at the end of their tether with nowhere else to go but the Almighty in the hope that the burden of living terrible lives will be eased. How easily they are manipulated is no surprise.

George Hamilton (A Time for Killing, 1967) is unrecognizable, not just in the acting which at times has the charming creepiness of Anthony Perkins, but because, since this is made in black-and-white, he is devoid of his usual inches-thick tan. I was reminded a lot of Carrie (1976) in that Piper Laurie’s portrayal of the obsessed mother appeared modelled on that of Mercedes McCambridge (99 Women, 1969) as the scary wife and in Sissy Spacek’s imperturbability as she strides through the chaos she has caused that was a throwback to the gait of Salome Jens (Seconds, 1966) as she walks unharmed away from the wreck of her work.

Except for her physical presence, Jens isn’t given sufficient contemplation to make her stand out, and to some extent is just an object of other people’s satisfaction, but is at her best when clearly puzzled that, believing herself touched by God, her initial ministry fails to take off.

Burt Reynolds (Fade In, 1968) makes the kind of debut that would have gone unnoticed had he not a decade later transmogrified into a superstar. Hollywood Golden Age star Joan Blondell (Model Wife, 1941) has a sparkling turn as the blowsy alcoholic who invents Jenny’s stage name of Angel Baby.

Paul Wendkos makes the whole thing work by concentrating on two-character scenes, limited movement creating intensity, that works equally well for conflict and humor, while deftly managing the crowd scenes and pulling off the unexpected ending. Took considerable effort to knock Elsie Oakes Barber’s novel into shape, three screenwriters, neophytes in the main, involved – Orin Borstein in his debut and only screenplay, Paul Mason, no other screenplay credit until The Ladies Club (1986) and Samuel Roeca (Fluffy, 1965).

An interesting watch, not just for the cast, but as a reminder that it’s never too difficult to dupe a willing audience.