adaptation of bestseller – Page 10

The Green Berets (1968) ***

Apart from attempts to justify the Vietnam War and a hot streak of sentimentality, a grimly realistic tale that doesn’t go in for the grandiosity or self-consciousnesss of the likes of Apocalypse Now (1979), The Deer Hunter (1978) and Platoon (1978). It’s been so long since I’ve watched this that my DVD is one of those where you had to turn the disc over in the middle.

The central action sequence is a kind of backs-to-the-wall Alamo or Rorke’s Drift siege. There’s no sense of triumphalism in the battle where the best you can say is that a reasonable chunk of the American soldiers came out alive but only after evacuating the staging post they were holding, more like Ridley Scott’s Black Hawk Down (2001) where survival is all there is to savor. It’s all pretty brutal stuff, the Americans handicapped by having to also look after the fleeing Vietnamese villagers taking refuge in their camp.

There are plenty grim reminders of how war has become even more devastating in the aftermath of World War Two. The Vietcong take, literally, no prisoners, seen as killing civilians as easily as soldiers. The Americans, for their part, have no compunction in using more sophisticated weaponry, with the addition of targeted air strikes.

Into the mix, somewhat unnecessarily, comes left-wing journo George (David Janssen) whose main job is to change his mind about the work the soldiers are doing, though admitting that to report the truth will lose him his position. He’s slung into the middle of a defensive action headed up by Col Kirby (John Wayne) to hold a position under threat against superior (in numbers) forces. There’s a fair bit of the detail of war but virtually zero about the strategy, whether that’s the U.S. Army’s plan to defeat the enemy or this individual unit’s method of defending this position. Apart from extending the perimeter of the camp to create a more effective killing zone, it’s hard to work out what the heck is going on, no matter how often orders are barked through field telephones or walkie talkies. There are squads out in the field and units in the camp and how the whole operation is meant to mesh is beyond me.

There’s not much time to flesh out the characters, save for “scrounger” Sgt Peterson (Jim Hutton) who adopts an orphan, Vietnamese soldier Capt Nim (George Takei) and Sgt Provo (Luke Askew). The rest of the motley bunch are the usual crew of monosyllabic tough guys and friendly medics and whatnot.

Though the emotional weight falls on Lin (Irene Tsu), fearing shame and being ostracized by her family for befriending the Vietcong general who killed her father and for whom she now lays a honeytrap, Kirby expresses guilt at having to kill anybody.

Despite being sent out to reinforce the position, the Americans are forced to retreat and enjoy only a Pyrrhic victory when the cavalry, in the shape of an airplane, arrives to mow down the enemy after they have captured the position.

The fighting is suitably savage, and there is certainly the notion that the Americans are not only being out-fought but out-thought and that no amount of heavy weaponry is going to win the day.

Possibly to prevent the idea of defeat destabilizing the audience, the movie shifts into a different gear, more the gung-ho commando raid picture that the British used to do so well, where Kirby heads up an infiltration team to capture the Vietcong general who has been seduced by Lin. This sets up a completely different imperative, all stealth and secrecy, the kind of operation that in the past would have been a whole movie in itself rather than the tag-end of one.

While the prime aim of this is to have the audience leave the cinema happier than if they had just witnessed the retreat from the camp, in fact it also serves two purposes. One is worthwhile, to emphasize the sacrifices made by the Vietnamese. Lin, having agreed to prostitute herself, fears being cast out as a result. But the other outcome of this mission is to kill off Sgt Peterson thus leaving the little Vietnamese lad even more orphaned than before.

John Wayne (The Sons of Katie Elder, 1965) doesn’t attempt to gloss over the weariness of his character. Jim Hutton (Walk, Don’t Run, 1966) shifts with surprising ease from comedy to drama. Even as a cliché David Janssen (Warning Shot, 1966) is underused. Watch out for Aldo Ray (The Power, 1968), George Takei (original Star Trek series), Raymond St Jacques (Uptight, 1968), Luke Askew (Flareup, 1969) and Irene Tsu (Caprice, 1967).

Three hands were involved in the direction: John Wayne, veteran Mervyn Leroy (Moment to Moment, 1966) and Ray Kellogg (My Dog, Buddy, 1960). Written by James Lee Barrett (Bandolero!, 1968) from the book by Robin Moore. Worth pointing out the score by triple Oscar-winner Miklos Rosza (The Power, 1968) especially the low notes he hits to provide brooding tension.

Certainly a mixed bag, the central superb action sequence weighted down by the need to find something to shout about.

Walk on the Wild Side (1962) ***

As much as the censor would permit – would be the subtitle. While not as harsh as the Nelson Algren source novel, it’s still, wrapped up in a bitter romance, a more brutal than heretofore expose of the sex worker, far removed from the gloss of Butterfield 8 (1960) or the romantic comedy of Never on Sunday (1960) and Irma La Douce (1963).

The initial thwarted romance lacks the tragic element. It falls apart due to the mundane. After a four-month affair Dove (Laurence Harvey) can’t commit to artist Hallie (Capucine) because his father is too ill to leave. So she ups sticks and heads for New York, hooks up with buyer Jo (Barbara Stanwyck) who turns out to invest in more than art, and ends up in a New Orleans brothel where as well as servicing the clients she can continue making sculptures.

After his father dies three years later, Dove heads to New Orleans to find her, but with no idea where to look. He falls in with vagabond-cum-thief Kitty (Jane Fonda) and eventually having dumped her due to her thieving ways takes refuge in a café whose owner Teresina (Anne Baxter), a victim of Kitty, offers him employment. She suggests he puts an advert in a New Orleans newspaper and just when he’s giving up hope and Teresina is getting up her hopes that she can win him over romantically he gets a phone call.

He’s clearly unaware that Hallie is a sex worker and after romancing her sets them up in an apartment. Hallie abandons the reunion after a night or possibly just an idyllic afternoon. Hallie’s reluctance is twofold. She’s become accustomed to the relative laziness of her life, she’s a high-class lady and is not worked too hard, plus she’s got accommodation and a studio to work in and she knows her boss Jo is sweet on her. On the other hand, it would be difficult to quit, the brothel employs tough guy Oliver to keep the girls in line and nobody’s going to want her to be giving it away for free.

Kitty, now working in the establishment, annoyed that he previously rejected her advances, gives Dove a full run-down on his lover. And there’s a legal catch that Jo is quick to take advantage of. Since Kitty is now a sex worker and it was Dove who took her with him to New Orleans he could be prosecuted for sex trafficking of a minor. When that doesn’t work, Dove receives a beating.

Kitty now decides Dove isn’t so bad after all, feels remorse at her role in his downfall, and helps him get back to café where Teresina cares for him and gets her hopes up once again. Then she helps Hallie escape and then fesses up to Oliver where she is. It doesn’t end well – although the censor would be pleased since after the climactic fracas the brothel is closed down and Jo and Co jailed.

It’s got a Tennessee Williams feel, though everything set in the South appeared to come into his bailiwick, but most of the realism is understated, as it would have to be in those times. Jo’s a groomer of the vulnerable, and for all Hallie’s artistic ambition she’s every bit as easy pickings as Kitty who is grateful to be freed from prison where she was arrested as a vagrant and reckons being given money for fancy clothes and having a roof over her head is good enough reward for selling body and soul. Her role in the denouement is a mite too convenient from the narrative perspective but it will do as a means of tacking on a tragic ending.

It helps enormously that most of the performances are understated. Laurence Harvey (A Dandy in Aspic, 1967), more commonly a scene-stealer, is good value and Barbara Stanwyck (The Night Walker, 1964) only requires a stare to make her feelings known. Though Capucine (Song without End, 1960) was criticized at the time I felt her performance was measured. Jane Fonda (Barbarella, 1968) was more of a wild card and it didn’t seem believable that such a flighty piece was going to become principled.

You can thank director Edward Dymytryk (Shalako, 1968) for keeping the actors in line and maintaining an even tone without spilling over into the melodramatic. John Fante (My Six Loves, 1963) and Edmund Morris (The Savage Guns, 1961) adapted the book. Special nod of appreciation to Saul Bass for the credits.

Surprise Package (1960) **

Poses two questions. Is this every bit as bad as Once More with Feeling, Stanley Donen’s previous picture? Yep, sorry, it’s every bit as wretched. The second question is: how on earth did Donen go from this mess to sublime romantic thriller Charade three years later? Well, the answer might simply be in the casting. Yul Brynner is no Cary Grant. And in this movie he’s not even Yul Brynner.

My guess is he’s meant to be a humorous twist on the Brynner screen persona. But playing a gangster with a thick Noo Yoik accent was always the preserve of the dumb supporting actor not the star. And since Yul Brynner isn’t any more convincing in this than in Once More with Feeling the project is in trouble from the start.

We’re given too much of this faux gangster drivel at the start when mob kingpin Nico (Yul Brynner) is collecting tributes from his underlings. Then, for no particular reason, he is deported, sent back into exile to his homeland of Greece. There he encounters the only smart guy in the picture, the corrupt chief of police Stefan (Eric Pohlmann) who’s so astute in the bribery department that all Nico receives in return for his thousand dollar bribe is to be told he won’t be arrested for bribery.

Stefan sets up Nico to meet another exile, deposed King Pavel II (Noel Coward), whose accent makes no sense either unless he was exclusively raised in high class British society, schooled at Eton, a member of upper class clubs etc etc, otherwise how to explain the plummy tones unless this is also meant to be as over-the-top gag as Nico’s Noo Yoik accent. Nico plans to buy the king’s crown for a million bucks. But the boys back home stiff him and instead of the cash send him instead his girlfriend – the surprise package of the title – mob moll Gabby (Mitzi Gaynor), and the ongoing gag here is that, what with Nico trying to elevate himself in society, Gabby’s table manners and speech let him down.

So with no cash forthcoming, what’s a gangster to do to pad out his exile? So Nico decides to steal the crown. And if there had been either a hint of the classic heist a la Grand Slam (1960) or Topkapi (1964) or its alternative, the totally inept thief, then we might have been onto something. But instead we’ve got much what we might expect from such a poor piece – not much. And in any case, the laffs are meant to come from another party, representing the king’s citizens, and led by Dr Panzer (George Coulouris) who wants the crown restored to its proper home. Two crooks chasing the same prize? What a crazy idea. But this works as well as the rest of the picture.

Thanks to Gabby’s principles, the crown goes in neither’s pockets. To make a buck, Nico and the king transform the latter’s villa into a casino with Gabby, now Mrs Nico, employed as the hat check girl.

Stanely Donen made three pictures in 1960 and then not another man for three years, which suggested he was a) working on too many projects at once and b) that break sure refreshed his cinematic skills. Just like Once More with Feeling he gets wrong virtually most of the directorial decisions, beginning with the accents and ending up with the storyline and characters you don’t care a button for, which wouldn’t have mattered if they could generate a laugh.

Yul Brynner followed this up with his iconic performance in The Magnificent Seven (1960) so perhaps he can be excused. This pretty much killed off the career of Mitzi Gaynor (South Pacific, 1958) – it was another three years till she appeared on screen again, and that was her final picture. It took Noel Coward (Bunny Lake Is Missing, 1965) four years to get another screen role.

Written by Harry Kurnitz (Once More with Feeling) from the Art Buchwald novel so I am assuming this was greenlit before the results of the previous Donen-Brynner teaming were known.

At least Charade revived Donen’s career.

Born Free (1966) ***

Unusual mix of the sentimental and the unsentimental, mixing soft-centered animal features like That Darn Cat (1966) where cute beasts cause mayhem with the kind of realism espoused by Sir David Attenborough (Planet Earth, 2006) where nature is red in tooth and claw, though skipping the irony of game warden-cum-conservationist George Adamson (Bill Travers) bringing up the cubs of the leonine parents he has shot dead.

With wife Joy (Virginia McKenna) they decide to rear the baby animals. Joy is most attracted to the runt of the litter, Elsa. Cue much hilarity as the animals destroy their house, knocking over anything standing, pulling down curtains, breaking plates, and like any youngsters resisting bedtime. Joy is so distraught at having to get rid of the grown-up cubs, despatched to zoos, that her husband holds onto Elsa.

If Joy can’t face shipping the cub overseas, she’s unwilling to face up to the fact that the only other alternative is to groom her for a life in the wild. A tame animal let loose would hardly survive a minute. So they’ve got to train Elsa to hunt. This doesn’t work out, Elsa finding herself at the wrong end of the hunting business – attacked by a warthog – or too inexperienced to know not to go near a herd of wild elephants. When she crawls home nursing her wounds, George is on the verge of giving up, but Joy wishes to persevere, resulting in scenes of the cute Elsa now suddenly red in tooth and claw and savoring her kill.

Now, all that’s left is finding her a willing mate. When that’s achieved, it’s job done, though when Elsa returns for a visit she’s accompanied by her own cubs.

And if you’re occasionally bored by the cutesy elements and wish the movie would get a move on, you can always savor, as I did, the Oscar-winning music by John Barry. It’s what these days would be deemed a feel-good movie but that’s only if you wriggle out of the irony.

The problem for the big cats in Kenya was that they were prey to illicit big-game hunters and if that had been the reason for the cubs being orphaned it would be a better fit for the general theme. But, basically, what lions don’t seem to realize is that they can’t treat humans like any other prey. There’s some weird supposition that they can prefer the taste of human flesh, rather than the more obvious reason why humans are attractive being that, unless armed, they can neither run away nor defend themselves like all the other jungle occupants.

There’s an unspoken rule – to which the lions are obviously not privy – that if you get a reputation as a man-eater then that friendly game warden who’s otherwise on your side is going to come after you and shoot you dead. It would only be luck that your offspring might end up with a couple of friendly humans rather than as dinner for other predators.

So being “born free” comes with the proviso of not getting in the way of humans.

Real life couple Bill Travers (The Bridal Path, 1959) and Virginia McKenna (Carve Her Name with Pride, 1958) were considered well past their sell-by date, neither having made a picture in five years. But they seem to embody the characters well, McKenna’s acting recognized by the Golden Globes.

James Hill (A Study in Terror, 1965) directs from a screenplay by Lester Cole (Operation Eichmann, 1961), blacklisted as one of the Hollywood Ten, and Joy Adamson, author of the eponymous bestseller.

While you’re probably not as nit-picky as me, you might well figure this is well past its sell-by date or, equally, you might hail it as the precursor of an animal rights campaign.

Tarzan and the Great River (1967) ***

Tarzan (Mike Henry) has been repurposed as an international adventurer dropped into trouble spots an ocean away from his African roots. He’s the male equivalent of the bikini-clad females peppering the espionage genre, kitted out in only a loincloth, torso kept bare for the titillation of the ladies. And just like the James Bond series, there’s an evil personage, and while not in the business of taking over the world still wanting to dominate a good chunk of it in South America. Barcuna (Rafer Johnson), espouses the Jaguar death cult, terrorizing villages and enslaving their inhabitants for the purpose of searching for diamonds.

To fill out the narrative, a good chunk of the picture is spent with riverboat Captain Sam Bishop (Jan Murray) and the native orphan Pepe (Manuel Padilla Jr.) he has unofficially adopted and their comic shtick mostly involving the older man cheating at cards is all we’ve got to keep the drama going until the female in distress, Dr Ann Philips (Diana Millay), turns up. But, as you know, Tarzan is no lothario, unlike his colleagues in the espionage department, so we don’t have to wonder if romance is going to raise its ugly head.

*Wrong continent. No tigers were used in this film.*

In the meantime the producer has scoured the vaults for stock footage and clearly is of the opinion that if you can transplant Tarzan from his natural African habitat you can do the same with hippos. Tarzan wrestles a lion and a crocodile and despatches Barcuna’s henchmen on land and in the river, swimming underwater and tipping over canoes to do his part in keeping the local crocodiles well-fed.

Barcuna, meanwhile, roasts alive anyone caught trying to escape, though he allows the good doctor to escape either because he’s not partial to blondes or he reckons she won’t be much good at hunting for diamonds or, as suggested once he burns her village, because he wants her to let everyone know that he’s the big cheese around here.

There’s the usual plague subplot. Dr Millay is waiting on the arrival of a vaccine to fight a new plague – Bishop is delivering the stuff – but she has a job getting the natives to accept inoculation and it’s only when Pepe offers himself as a guinea pig that the others queue up.

Devoid of the gadgets, speedboats and fast cars of the espionage genre, Tarzan relies on the speed of his legs as if he was auditioning for the Tom Cruise role in Mission Impossible or that of Liam Neeson in the Taken series. There’s a spectacular fight between Tarzan and Barcuna for the climax.

Harmless stuff, as innocuous as the others in the trilogy featuring former football player Mike Henry (The Green Berets, 1968). They were filmed back-to-back in 1965 and released at the rate of one a year from 1966. This was the third time producer Sy Wintraub’s had reinvented Tarzan. He had previously shepherded home a pair – starting with Tarzan’s Great Adventure (1959) – starring Gordon Scott. Jock Mahoney inherited the mantle with Tarzan Goes to India (1962) and lasted for one more adventure.

This was the last of a quartet of outings with Tarzan for director Robert Day (She, 1965). Written by Bob Barbash (The Plunderers, 1960).

Perfect Saturday matinee material.

Tarzan Goes to India (1962) ***

Helluva fillip for reissue and credibility purposes to be able to point to the picture being helmed by the director – John Guillermin – of The Towering Inferno (1974), not to mention King Kong (1976) and The Blue Max (1966) – which suggested top-notch skills if not the budget to match. Guillermin, who also had a share in the screenplay, does a pretty good job of tailoring the picture to highlight issues that in others of the series are treated in more comedic fashion and making tremendous use of the location, far more than subsequent directors do with South American scenery. Elephants go mano a mano, Tarzan has a tussle with a leopard, but for sheer realism there’s little to beat a tiny mongoose putting a cobra in its place.

But what could be more timely for today’s audiences than presenting Tarzan (Jock Mahoney) as an eco-warrior. He is brought in to rescue a herd of 300 wild elephants being drowned when a much-needed hydroelectric dam is opened. Dam engineers Bryce (Leo Gordon) and O’Hara (Mark Dana), who show no compunction about the high death rate among the native laborers, are even less concerned about the fate of the elephants especially as have very tight deadline – the onset of the monsoon season – to meet. Princess Kamara (Simi Garewal), daughter of an old friend from Tarzan’s Africa days, is trying to get villagers out of the way as well. She’s not helped by Bryce’s top engineer Raj (Jagdish Raj) who sides with Bryce.

The main problem is that elephants can’t climb hills and are led by Bala, a rogue of the species, whom Tarzan determines he’ll have to eliminate. He’s helped by a small boy Jai who rides his own elephant Gajendra. Jai’s not there for comedic purpose and Tarzan helps him grow up, their bond facilitated by Tarzan saving the ivory-tusked beast from Bryce in white hunter mode.

Baits abound. Tarzan is chained to a tree by Bryce to entice a leopard. The boy is used, again by Bryce, as lure to draw Tarzan out into the open at the climax. Raj changes sides on seeing how cheaply Bryce treats life, but there’s no time for him to get lovey-dovey with the princess. Which is just as well because Tarzan’s got a lot on his plate. His plan to put an arrow through Bala’s brain goes awry, triggering the Gajandra-Bala duel, which is very well done.

Although set in India, this feels more like the real thing than the sojourns in South America. We never see Tarzan in a suit but I don’t think anyone thought to compare his entrance, emerging from a river clad only in loin-cloth, with the other more famous screen entrance of the year, that of Ursula Andress in Dr No. Tarzan does plenty of swimming, even employing the breathing through a reed trick, and swings through the trees, and runs a lot barefoot, and gets to ride on the back of an elephant. The absence of his usual animal sidekicks is no hindrance. His scenes with the young boy are touching rather than sentimental or clumsily jokey. The kid’s pretty smart, which helps.

Kamara’s there merely to help along the subplot rather than for romantic purposes. Given the lean running time (86 minutes) that kind of palaver would only get in the way. This was shot entirely on location, and it shows, no awkward switches to studio set-ups, glorious scenery all the way.

Best of all John Guillermin, who also helmed Tarzan’s Greatest Adventure (1959), knows how to construct a scene, and how to get the best out of actors whose acting skills would not be considered their main attributes. So it looks good whichever way you cut it.

Former stunt man and athlete Jock Mahoney makes the switch from Tarzan nemesis (Tarzan the Magnificent, 1960) to Tarzan with ease. Less muscle-bound than his predecessors, he brings a more mature tone to proceedings, exuding thoughtfulness more than being gung-ho.

One of the better Tarzans of the decade.

Children of the Damned (1964) ***

I wasn’t aware that celebrated sci fi author John Wyndham had written a sequel to his iconic novel The Midwich Cuckoos, filmed as Village of the Damned (1960). And it turned out he didn’t (he did make an attempt but abandoned it after a few chapters). So he had nothing to do with the sequel. But the original had proved such a hit MGM couldn’t resist going for second helpings.

And there was nothing the writer could do about it, it being standard procedure that when you sold your novel to Hollywood the studio retained all the rights and could commission a remake, sequel, turn it into a television series, without consulting you.

The only drawback for a potential sequel was that main adult character Professor Zellaby (George Sander) and all the kids had died in the original, though the final image of eyes flying out of the burning house might have suggested the children had actually survived. And, as we know these days, just when your main character dies it doesn’t prevent him miraculously returning to life should box office dictate.

So screenwriter John Briley (Oscar-winner for Gandhi, 1982) was handed the sequel. And what we get is a lot of atmosphere, a chunk of running around in empty London streets (the result not of mass evacuation but filming in early morning when roads are clear), a very slinky turn from Alan Badel (Bitter Harvest, 1963) showing what he can do when hero not villain, and a twist on the previous problem – how to vanquish the kids – which is whether to weaponize them. Mostly, we are reminded of how better telekinesis was dealt with in the original picture and how poorly this compares to the likes of Brian De Palma’s later Carrie (1976) and even his The Fury (1978).

Apart from the title, there’s barely a nod to the previous incarnation, except that discerning the children’s paternity proves impossible. An United Nations project has tracked down six kids with incredible intellects. Like Professor Zellaby, British psychologist Dr Tom Llewellyn (Ian Hendry) and geneticist Dr David Neville (Alan Badel) want to study the kids while the more shadowy figure of Colin Webster (Alfred Burke) appears to have more sinister purpose in mind.

In any case none of the three achieve their goals because the kids escape and take refuge in an abandoned church, defending themselves against the authorities and the military by their brain controlling abilities and by the devising of a sonic weapon. Immediately under their thumb is the aunt, Susan (Barbara Ferris), of the young boy Paul (Clive Powell) who initially excited the interest of the British scientists.

Opinion varies as to whether the children are a genetic freak of nature, aliens or an advanced human race. The authorities can’t decide whether they are a threat or a wonder and decide to eliminate them, then change their mind, while the children decide to fight back then change their minds. The ending is quite a surprise.

Although the kids still have the fearful eyes, they are generally a lot less effective a scare than when the small gang of them stood side by side in the previous picture and stared at adults until they did the childrens’ bidding or killed themselves. There’s way too much discussion among adults. In the previous picture, those kinds of conversations had more emotional impact, since it was the villagers who were left distraught. Here, you couldn’t care less about the adults.

Interestingly enough, the standout isn’t any of the kids at all, but Alan Badel, who comes over as the libidinous sort, but very charming, and views any woman as fair game, but it’s fascinating to see how his usual screen persona here makes him a hero whereas in most other films exhibiting much the same characteristics he comes across as shifty, mean or downright villainous.

Ian Hendry (The Hill, 1965) was a rising British star but isn’t given much to get his teeth into. Barbara Ferris (Interlude, 1968) has a vital role.

Directed by television veteran Anton M. Leader (The Cockeyed Cowboys of Calico County, 1970) who makes his screen debut.

Not a patch on the original.

Village of the Damned (1960) ****

Superb chiller that, unusually, takes time to develop several strands over a longer time frame than is normal for a genre where the immediate takes preference. Opens a new dimension of terror, too, with the brain control sub-genre that would spill over into brainwashing. You could also, if you were of a mind, point to the genuine growing social power of the young as emphasized later in the decade with movies about hippies. It might not be too much of a stretch to point to the “Youthquake” at the end of the 1960s when pandering to a youthful audience nearly destroyed Hollywood.

Terrific opening sequence of everyone in the small village of Midwich dropping to the ground, the immobilized driver of a bus crashing off the road, the driver of a tractor hitting a tree, taps left running, telephone calls cut off, all manner of accidents ensue. You think everyone’s dead, as do the military, called in to investigate. They cordon off the area, employ canaries and then humans to discover how far the danger spreads. But when a soldier who is dragged out unconscious from the forbidden zone wakes up, they soon realize the population is merely unconscious.

Childless couple Professor Gordon Zellaby (George Sanders) and younger wife Anthea (Barbara Shelley) are among those affected, apparently suffering no side effects for having been knocked out for around four hours. A couple of months later Anthea is delighted to report she’s pregnant. She’s not alone. But for many of the villagers what would be a cause for celebration causes untold grief. One husband returns home after a year away to find his wife is pregnant. In the days when pre-marital sex was frowned-upon, virgins, similarly affected, are shamed.

The pregnancies don’t run to the normal period either, and fully-grown children are born within a few months. What’s more, they all look as if they have inherited the same genes. Their blonde hair and striking eyes suggest they share the same father. Soon it transpires they can not only read minds but control them, causing at least two people to commit suicide.

Turns out this is a global problem, several other communities afflicted with the same condition, the Russians so concerned at the prospect that they bomb one village to oblivion, other cultures simply murdering the children. Here, being English, where fair play still rules regardless of potential threat, the children are taken under the wing of Professor Zellaby, though the military, having sealed off the area, wait in the wings, itching to wipe out the troublemakers.

Quickly, it becomes a duel for power, the children will do anything to protect their species, Professor Zellaby at first wanting just to study the kids and understand them but soon recognizing the threat.

In between bouts of action, most of which is discreetly handled, none of the deliberately shocking scenes that might have emanated from an exploitationer, the authorities have plenty of time to ponder their existence. A leap in genetic mutation, or extraterrestrial origins, are among the options considered.

Eventually the villagers react like terrified Transylvanians confronting Dracula and attempt to set fire to the building where the children are housed but reckon without the brain control that can be exerted. In the end Professor Zellaby comes up with a self-destructive solution.

This is formidable stuff, all the more so, because in the days when most monsters grew fangs or claws or developed huge bodies and were otherwise physically frightening, the worst these kids get up to is to have a striking glow in their eyes, a startling contrast to their blonde hair, calm demeanor and neat uniform clothing.

Tremendously well done and it helps to have cast mainstream actors like George Sanders (Warning Shot, 1967) and Barbara Shelley (only later did she become a Scream Queen) and others who don’t carry the tinge of the horror genre.

Very well paced by German director Wolf Rilla (The World Ten Times Over, 1963) who resists the temptation to overplay his hand, achieving much more by leaving it to your imagination. Stirling Silliphant (The Slender Thread, 1965), George Barclay (Devil Doll, 1964) and the director adapted the groundbreaking novel The Midwich Cuckoos by John Wyndham. Horror maestro John Carpenter remade this in 1995, which only wnent to show how more successful the restraint of the original was.

Top notch.

Borsalino (1970) ****

You wonder how much the unexpected success of this French gangster picture encouraged Paramount to invest in The Godfather (1972). The studio had gone down the Mafia route with The Brotherhood (1968) but to a significantly muted response. But where that film was heavy on family and drama, Borsalino went wild with charismatic performances and, as important, machine-gun-driven violence. And you couldn’t ignore the success the previous year of the French The Sicilian Clan (1969).

While Borsalino doesn’t go into the weighty issues and family sensibility that elevated The Godfather in the eyes of critics, its starting point owed more to Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) with two likeable hoods, even, initially at least, sparring over the same girl. The family element here concentrates on fraternity, brothers in crime, rather than the father-son dynamic that drove The Godfather. And it’s just so much goddam fun.

Francois (Jean-Paul Belmondo) and Roch (Alain Delon) are petty crooks in Marseilles in the early 1930s working their way up to the top, initially just with scams like presenting a longshoreman who can’t speak a word of German as a German regional boxing champion, hijacking the favorite in a horse race, setting up a slot-machine business, disrupting the city’s fish market, until graduating to more serious crime and challenging Marello (Arnoldo Foa) and Poli (Andre Bollet), kingpins of the area’s organized crime. They set fire to an abattoir, establish their own fiefdoms, running legitimate businesses like casinos. But the higher they climb the closer they come to a devastating irony which cannot be ignored. Once they’ve eliminated everyone else, their only competition is with each other, and both realize that, inevitably, one will begin to want to become the undisputed top gangster.

Roch is the more thoughtful of the pair, the one looking ahead, sensing opportunity, the strategist, Francois more likely to indulge his playboy instincts, but both enjoy the high life, mixing with celebrities, politicians and archbishops. There’s plenty collateral damage. Try to steal a bigwig’s girlfriend away and you are virtually condemning her to death.

Unexpectedly, for the genre, it’s huge fun, in part helped along by the genial earworm of a score by Claude Bolling, as evocative of the period as Scott Joplin’s rags were to The Sting (1973). We don’t have to suffer any sanctimonious prig on the sidelines offering commentary or the gangsters making out that they’re better than they are because they don’t indulge in certain types of crime. But the biggest contributory factor is the teaming of Alain Delon (Once a Thief, 1965) and Jean-Paul Belmondo (Is Paris Burning?, 1966), the two biggest French male stars of the decade, the former enjoying substantially more success overseas than the latter.

Remember that Robert Redford was a not star when he made Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid so the pairing of two huge marquee names was not a regular feature anywhere in the world. It was Alain Delon, in his capacity as producer, who snared his rival, ceding top billing to achieve it.

This was the second of nine movies that Delon made with director Jacques Deray and could not have been more different from their previous outing La Piscine/The Swimming Pool (1969), a claustrophobic psychological thriller. Deray had history with Belmondo, too, Crime on a Summer Morning (1965). The characters were a great fit for their screen personas. And the photography, with some sepia tint, is distinctive.

Written by Jean-Claude Carriere (Viva Maria!, 1965), Claude Sautet (Nelly and Monsieur Arnaud, 1995), Jean Cau (Jeff, 1969) and the director, based on the book Bandits a Marseille by Eugene Saccomano.

Buddy movie breakout. Highly enjoyable.

The Innocents (1961) ***

One description of this film’s prequel The Nightcomers (1972) was that, even with the overt sex and violence, it was an arthouse picture masquerading as a horror movie. And obviously absent the sex and violence that’s how I feel about this one. I’m of the old-fashioned school when it comes to horror – once in a while I expect to jump. The biggest problem here is that fear is telegraphed in the face of governess Miss Giddens (Deborah Kerr). Instead of the audience being allowed to register terror, all the tension is sapped away by one look of her terrified face.

Atmospheric? Yes! Scary? No.

Certainly, the set-up is likely to spark the darkest imaginations. Orphans Miles (Martin Stephens) and Flora (Pamela Franklin) are abandoned by their uncle (Michael Redgrave) who wants to spent his time enjoying himself in faraway London without having to bother about the care of the minors. The governesses he installs are given carte blanche to deal with any situation that arises – as long as they don’t concern him with it. And he’s so disinterested in the children’s welfare that he hires a completely inexperienced governess in Miss Giddens despite the fact that the previous occupant of the post, Miss Jessel, had died in mysterious circumstances and a little digging would have revealed that she lived a hellish life under the thumb of valet Quint.

The kids appear somewhat telepathetic or telekinetic – Flora knows Miles is coming home before Miss Giddens does, Miles knows when the governess is standing outside his door. They’re maybe a too bit self-indulgent – Flora enjoys watching a spider munch on a butterfly and isn’t above finding out if her pet tortoise can swim, while Miles has Miss Giddens in a neck stranglehold.

But it’s unlikely the children are summoning ghosts – Quint appears to Miss Giddens at the top of a tower and again peering in through a window, Miss Jessel turns up, too, and I lost count of the number of disembodied voices. The ghosts it turns out have taken possession of the children in order to continue their relationship.

And while this is all very clever it does not chill you to the bone. The children are not as cute as they need to be to make this work. You get the impression, given half the chance, they would happily turn into little savages and experiment with all manner of cruelty. And that would occur whether there was the likes of Quint around to lead them astray because the adults in their lives are so selfish and set the wrong kinds of standards. But with the focus perennially on the trembling Miss Giddens, there’s little chance of getting inside the heads of the children.

Since jump scares are not in director Jack Clayton’s cinematic vocabulary, the best scenes are not visual, but verbal, housekeeper Mrs Grose (Meg Jenkins) filling the governess in on the unequal relationship between Quint and Miss Jessel, Flora imagining rooms getting bigger in the darkness (effectively more dark), Miles seeing a hand at the bottom of the lake.

There’s certainly an elegiac tone and the camera clearly sets out to destabilise the audience but that’s just so obvious it seems more an arthouse ploy than a horror schematic.

This was start of Deborah Kerr (Prudence and the Pill,1968) playing psychologically distorted characters. Over the previous decade she had revelled in a screen persona that saw her playing the female lead (sometimes the top-billed star) opposite the biggest male marquee names of the era – Burt Lancaster (twice), Cary Grant (twice), Yul Brynner (twice), Gregory Peck, William Holden, Robert Mitchum (three times), David Niven (twice), Gary Cooper. Now she turned fragile and that screen persona, introduced here, would see her through the next decade.

So she’s both very good and very bad here. Her character facially registers her inner thoughts but those too often get in the way of the audience. I found the kids more limited in their roles, not through acting inexperience, but through narrative restriction.

Jack Clayton (Dark of the Sun, 1968) directs from a screenplay by Truman Capote (In Cold Blood, 1967) and William Archibald (I Confess, 1953) from the celebrated Henry James story.

A bit too artificial for my taste. Probably heresy to admit it but I preferred the prequel.