adaptation of Broadway play – The Magnificent 60s

Behind the Scenes: “Two for the Seesaw” (1962)

Had already cost a bundle before one foot of film was shot. Mini-major Mirisch Bros, flush from the commercial success of West Side Story (1961), had forked out $600,000 (plus a percentage) for the screen rights to the Broadway hit by William Gibson. (this was $250,000 more than West Side Story fetched). Between another $500,000 (plus percentage) for star Elizabeth Taylor and likely $250,000 for Gregory Peck, the producers were already well over a million bucks out of pocket.

The play had run for nearly two years on Broadway, earning a $570,000 profit, a remarkable sum in those days, and also set records for a touring production. It marked the Broadway debut of both Anne Bancroft, who won a Tony, and writer William Gibson. They re-teamed for The Miracle Worker both on Broadway and in the 1962 film.

Over-runs on Cleopatra (1963) put paid to Taylor’s involvement, Peck pulled out, temporarily replaced by Paul Newman. Producer Walter Mirisch presumably didn’t think Henry Fonda and Anne Bancroft who’d played the parts on stage had sufficient marquee heft, nor was he keen on Broadway director Arthur Penn, and instead pursued Shirley MacLaine who he’s turned into a star thanks to The Apartment (1960) with Robert Mitchum stepping in for Newman (leaving him free to make the first of his iconic pictures, The Hustler, 1961) Robert Wise, director of West Side Story and looking for a less onerous gig, signed on to direct.

Despite being filmed on a 60-day schedule, the bulk of it on a sound stage, the budget had rocketed to $3 million, around half of which went on the main players and the screen rights.

Mitchum wasn’t too keen on the role, believing himself miscast from the outset. The lighter touch of James Garner, also considered for the role, might have worked better. Mitchum had turned down the movie twice, suggesting Mirisch would be better off with William Holden or Glenn Ford, for whom repression was a given.

MacLaine was on a roll, signed to a four-picture deal with Mirisch. She was given not one but two roles previously advertised with huge fanfare to have starred Elizabeth Taylor. As well as Two for the Seesaw, Taylor had been primed for Irma La Douce. The Taylor deal came unstuck in part due to her illness but also was attributed to her insistence that a role be found for her husband Eddie Fisher.

Wise and Mitchum had worked together earlier in their careers, in western Blood on the Moon (1948). And, no, this wasn’t the director hankering after working again with the actor. Noted Wise, “It was one of the few times I went on to a picture where the cast was already set. I don’t think Mitchum was quite right for the part. He was more believable in rougher, outdoor kinds of stuff.”

When they met at rehearsal, MacLaine was already a fan. Seventeen years younger than her co-star, she’d seen all his films, and was thrilled at working with one of her screen heroes. She was amazed at his photographic memory. He never had a problem with his lines. They certainly seemed to be getting on remarkably well for. Recalled Wise, “they got to ribbing and making jokes and making us all laugh so that the biggest problem we had was getting the two of them to settle down and get into the scene.” Added the director, “I had to have a closed set for a while. It was kind of embarrassed over what they were saying to each other. It was pretty spicy kidding, pretty ribald.2

Mitchum, apt to spout poetry, was revelation as a person far removed from his tough guy screen image. He was popular on set, very down to earth, mingling with all the crew and other actors. There was no entourage just a secretary bringing in lunch – and no hard liquor – for everyone.

What was going on between Mitchum and MacLaine was not obvious to everyone. Assistant director Jerome Siegel thought their light-heartedness was just a way of keeping tensions low on the set. “They were very subtle about it. You never saw anything where you could be sure there was a romance going on. but it didn’t surprise me when I did hear about it.” Needless to say, both actors were married at the time.

When Frank Sinatra and writer Malachy McCourt popped in to the set, Mitchum embarked on a drinking session that temporarily halted production, at least for the day. Wise infuriated his stars by using a stopwatch to time a kiss, one that was maybe going on too long with a pair of enamored characters. In his defense, Wise was just wary of the existing screen censorship, during which an overlong kiss would draw censure.

Wise had opened up the play with scenes set on Brooklyn Bridge and other parts accompanied by music suggesting the character was downcast. There’s a clever use of the split screen when the pair are on the telephone to each other.

The movie did well enough in first run New York and other big cities where the play had been performed but response outside those key sites and in the babes was muted. Most critics blamed the miscasting and Wise’s heavy direction.

SOURCES: Lee Server, Robert Mitchum, Baby I Don’t Cry (Faber and Faber, 2001); J.R. Jordan, Robert Wise, The Motion Pictures (BearManor, 2020); “Two Broadway Play Buys,” Variety, July 23, 1958; “Seasaw Earned $570,000 Profit,” Variety, November 4, 1959; “Shirley MacLaine’s Creamy roles,” Variety, October 26, 1960; “Two for Seesaw Budget at $3-Mil,” Variety, February 14, 1962.

Two for the Seesaw (1962) ***

Whatever chemistry Robert Mitchum and Shirley MacLaine enjoyed in real life – they embarked on-set on an affair that lasted three years – does not come across on screen. Of course, we’re accustomed to the adage that opposites attract and this screen couple Jerry Ryan (Robert Mitchum), a lawyer running away from his marriage, and bohemian dancer Gittel Mosca (Shirley MacLaine) seem particularly ill-matched.

For a contemporary audience this gets off to the oddest of starts. There’s no meet-cute. If there’s something else we’re accustomed to these days it’s a clever, intriguing, smart or even dopey meet-cute. They barely acknowledge each other at first encounter, at the kind of party where intellectuals arguing obscure points of art or politics mingle with what would pass in those days for the in-crowd.

He couldn’t be more out of place, turning up at a trendy event in a trenchcoat, and he’s only there because he is friends with party host, artist Oscar. They exchange one line. It’s not as though that’s a zinger either. But, on an odd pretext, he pursues her.

Now any ditzy dame is going to run a mile from a stranger who has made virtually no impression on her and can hardly make up his mind whether he wants to see her or not and to whom she only relents when he tells her what a lonely spud he is. So it’s a big narrative hole to dig the audience out of. We establish that she’s good-hearted, but we already know he traipses around the streets of New York doing nothing and lives in a shoddy apartment.

This derived from a Broadway hit and although director Robert Wise attempts to open it up it appears acutely stage-bound, but lacking the dialog zip that marked out such numbers as Barefoot in the Park (1967).

Despite MacLaine’s appealing screen personality, and the tremendous work she did establishing herself as a marquee name via The Apartment (1960), this is more of a romantic drama than a comedy, two ships (somewhat distantly) that pass in the night only to discover not only have they little in common and with opposite personalities but that he is having second thoughts about his impending divorce.

He doesn’t quite settle in New York and she hasn’t made it there. In some respects, they are too similar, emotional losers. She lacks the zap to make this work and he’s just too aggressive and quick with the put-downers to come across as a lonely guy. Once he found work – as an attorney – he’d have a swathe of dames on his trail.

*Hard put to see the movie version qualifying as a “romantic delight”. On broadway it starred Henry Fonda and Anne Bancroft and was directed by Arthur Penn.*

He commits the mortal sin of the meet-cute romance by slapping her around. Although by this point I doubt if audiences went much for the idea of the unlikely couple getting it on. With a little financial help from him, she manages to make a success of herself, but in a business rather than an artistic sense, and you get the impression she’s going to end up as the joke in a tale he’s going to tell his buddies when he gets back home to Omaha, Nebraska.

It just seems too contrived a set-up to work. Turns out he’s going through a mid-life crisis – he spends a good deal of time just moping – and has been too indulged most of this life.

She’s more convincing, the type of free-spirited gal who, though street-smart is other ways, always falls for the wrong guy, unable to rein in her generosity of heart and waste her emotions on men who demand too much of her, including that she rein in that generosity of heart and free spiritedness.

For a May-December romance (she’s 17 years younger) it’s too weighted down by the dour. In recent years, Mitchum had appeared at his romantic best when up against a sprightly star like Deborah Kerr (Heaven Knows, Mr Allison, 1957, and The Sundowners, 1960) who could more than hold their own, rather than a relationship where, apart from his depression, he needs to have the upper hand.

Mitchum appears miscast and the flaw in the ointment. MacLaine, despite or because of the character’s flaws, is much more believable.

Robert Wise (The Sound of Music, 1965) directs from a script by Isobel Lennart (The Sundowners) based on the William Gibson play.

Hard going. Fans of MacLaine should be satisfied enough. Fans of Mitchum less so.

The Stripper (1963) ***

Can’t shake off its stage origins though Joanne Woodward is riveting as the eternally optimistic but ultimately luckless showgirl of this tawdry tale. For a while it looks like it’s going be another examination of small town morals but those who want to break free of social constriction come from such different parts of the world that the two tales – teenage rite-of-passage and older woman trying to recapture her innocent youth – don’t mesh while the background for both is routine and stale.

Magician’s assistant Lila (Joanne Woodward) returns to her home town and meets up with old neighbour Helen Baird (Claire Trevor) and her pump jockey son Kenny (Richard Beymer). He reminds Lila of Helen’s dead husband on whom Lila had a teenage crush. Abandoned by lover/manager Ricky (Robert Webber), she finds a safe berth with Helen. Kenny, annoyed at principled girlfriend Miriam (Carol Lynley), soon, as you might expect, falls for Lila. For a time she enjoys the security of small town life.

But, as you would expect, Ricky returns. He beats her up and drags her off to become a stripper. Kenny gets to witness her more degrading employment. Lila manages to quit Ricky and sets off with another suitcase full of delusions.

Despite Lila’s effervescence lacks the emotional punch to make this more than a re-tread of a standard Hollywood trope. Lila’s an eternal wannabe, not deterred by crushed dreams, but failing to understand the limitation of her talent, her most treasured possession a few strips of film from a screen test, and undone by her taste in men. She calls Ricky “daddy” and he punishes her with his belt.

The most effective sequence is the one with leering men reaching forward with lighted cigarettes to burst the balloons that cover her modesty while she strips. That tells a different story to the one we’ve sat through, the degrading endgame, the price paid for falling in with the wrong man or for believing you can live on illusion.

There would have been no shortage of better role models when she grew up, but dreams of stardom derailed that. In some respects, Ricky is rebelling against the same upbringing, requiring excitement (and sex) rather than the life he has been brought up to respect. He’s over-mothered for sure, but lacks ambition and probably needs marriage to give him some direction.

But there’s too many cliché characters, beginning with mother and girlfriend and rough lover. There’s nothing new about Ricky and no depth and while Lila is happily shallow that doesn’t help the story.

As I said, Joanne Woodward (Big Hand for the Little Lady, 1966) more than holds the film together but that’s not really enough. Richard Beymer (West Side Story, 1961) doesn’t rise above juvenile lead. Clare Trevor (The Cape Town Affair, 1967) has little to do but Carol Lynley (Bunny Lake Is Missing, 1965) acts against type.

Solid directorial debut I guess you would call it from Franklin J. Schaffner (Planet of the Apes, 1968). Screenplay by Meade Roberts (Danger Route, 1967) from a play by William Inge (Bus Riley’s Back in Town, 1965).

Worth it for Woodward but not much else.

Cactus Flower (1969) ****

Television hadn’t produced the goods in terms of furnishing Hollywood with an abundance of new talent. We were still only talking about Steve McQueen (Bullitt, 1968) and James Garner (Buddwing/Mister Buddwing, 1966) in the 1960s as having made a successful transition from small-screen to big-screen stardom with occasional brief flurries from the likes of Clint Walker (The Dirty Dozen, 1967). Though Hollywood kept trying – Universal had tossed thirty-two of its contracted players into Airport (1970) in the hope one would catch audience attention.

But it turned out Hollywood had been looking in the wrong direction. Expecting to unearth actors who could carry dramas or thrillers or westerns, Hollywood had, in general, not considered comedy as a source of new talent. Dick Van Dyke (Chitty, Chitty, Bang, Bang, 1968) was considered an anomaly because he could morph into a song-and-dance man and his comedy was based on the physical.

So the industry was astonished when Goldie Hawn emerged from what was essentially a comedy skit show, The Rowan and Martin Laugh-In, to become a genuine screen box office comedienne and over the next decades there would be an excellent harvest from television comedy including Robin Williams, Chevy Chase and a whole troupe of others.

But it’s a shame that Goldie Hawn got all the glory – she won an Oscar – because this was the picture that established Walter Matthau as a genuine star as opposed to part of a double act with Jack Lemmon (The Fortune Cookie, 1966, and The Odd Couple, 1968). John Wayne once made the point that most acting is actually reacting to what someone else has said and in that regard there’s a masterclass from Ingrid Bergman (The Visit, 1964), playing determinedly against type.

Deceit drives the narrative. Just like Dean Martin in Airport (1970), upscale dentist Dr Julian Winston (Walter Matthau) has cottoned onto the fact that he can keep marital interest from mistress Toni (Goldie Hawn) at bay by the fact that he’s married. Except he isn’t and has to rustle up a fake wife to keep Toni on the hook. So he turns to spinster nurse Stephanie (Ingrid Bergman), a Swede cut from the repressed Bergmanesque cloth rather than the free loving spirit of popular (male) imagination, who has been carrying a torch for him for years, so, despite the notion that it’s not real, she goes full-tilt-boogie into the pretense. She’s even got a couple of nephews in tow who can masquerade, unknowingly, as Winston’s own kids.

Meanwhile, Winston rethinks his position, realizes he doesn’t want to lose Toni and reckons the only way he can get himself out of the sticky situation of his own creation is to pretend that his imaginary wife is also having an affair, so he has to set Stephanie up on dates with some of his customers so Toni can get a peek at them.

Assuming from its stage origins – France before being adapted for Broadway – this had more farce in the original production, that aspect has been trimmed back to concentrate on the various degrees of deceit. Instead of trying to force laffs from opening and closing doors and men being caught with their trousers down, this follows the simpler plotline of maintaining the deceits while inserting a potential twist when Toni develops an interest in her neighbor, author Igor (Rick Lenz).

The three principals are excellent, all bringing something fresh to the table, Walter Matthau as a lothario rather than a crafty conniver a distinct change of pace, Goldie Hawn a refreshing new face who was soon able to carry pictures on her own, and, especially, to my mind Ingrid Bergman. She has two absolutely marvelous reactions to information received – in the first her elbow literally falls from a table, in the second she is overwhelmed at the thought of receiving a gift, and she has the best scene of all, cutting loose on the dance floor.

As you might expect, the romantic entanglements are resolved.

Director Gene Saks (A Thousand Clowns, 1965) sticks to the knitting, extracting weighted performances from the cast without resorting to insipid extras. I.A.L. Diamond (The Fortune Cookie) adapted the Broadway play by Abe Burrows (Can-Can, 1960) who in turn had borrowed the French play by Pierre Barillet and Jean-Pierre Gredy.

Most 1960s comedies have lost their verve but this still plays exquisitely.

A Man for All Seasons (1966) ****

Columbia offset the gamble of turning an award-winning play with a stage star with no movie marquee luster, a co-star who had just about the same pulling power for audiences, and a host of actors nobody had ever heard of by cutting the budget to the bone – the $ 2million spent would barely be enough for a mid-level Hollywood production – even though director Fred Zinnemann belonged in the upper reaches of the Oscar hierarchy with one win and six nominations to his name.

You could even argue that the best-known person in the cast was female lead Susannah York (Sands of the Kalahari, 1965, The 7^th Dawn, 1964) or the legendary Orson Welles or even screenwriter Robert Bolt, acclaimed for his work on Lawrence of Arabia (1962) and Doctor Zhivago (1965).

Movie audiences of the period would be hard put to even recognize male lead Paul Scofield, in only his second major screen role after The Train (1964), while Robert Shaw had little more popularity unless you were familiar with From Russia with Love (1963) in which he played a bad guy and Battle of the Bulge (1965). There was a fair chance that Scofield could hit the mark among the upscale stage audiences in London and New York, where he had won a Tony. The play, by Robert Bolt, had proved substantially more popular in terms of length of run and critical esteem in New York than London.

But Zinnemann hadn’t made a picture in six years, not since The Sundowners (1960), having become embroiled in two projects The Day Custer Died (never made) and Hawaii (made but without him) without anything to show for it.

This was a virtue-signaling picture long before the term became over-used. England’s Lord Chancellor Sir Thomas More (Paul Scofield) makes a principled stand against King Henry VIII (Robert Shaw). From today’s perspective, the principled stand is more complex. The idea that the ruler of a country would have to bend the knee to the leader of a religion would not sit well today. You might be unlikely to blame Henry VIII for wanting to break the rules, given he was in dire need of a male heir that his current wife could not supply, especially as without said heir the country would most likely fall into civil war.

You could make a case for Henry VIII being the heroic one, standing up to the Pope, who, for political reasons, as much as anything else, refused to annul the king’s existing marriage. When the Pope didn’t see it the king’s way, Henry VIII decided the only alternative was to break away from the Catholic Church and set himself up as the secular head of the church in England.

And although Thomas More has a fair following today for his philosophy – he wrote Utopia – Robert Bolt was guilty of leaving out aspects of his character which were more unsavory. He was a prime mover in the persecution of Protestants, condemned as “heretics,” but that’s been excised from the story told here in order to present Thomas More as a man of conscience.

Apart from the verbal duel between More and Henry VIII, there’s a rich backdrop of political machination bringing in such names as Thomas Cromwell (Leo McKern) – of Wolf Hall fame – Cardinal Wolsey (Orson Welles), the Duke of Norfolk (Nigel Davenport), William Roper (Corin Redgrave) and Richard Rich (John Hurt). There’s corruption, bribery and betrayal and at times it appears that More is the only one to place any significance on the law.

But More’s no innocent, he’s well used to playing the political game and arguing his case. He only becomes undone by his stand against a king who will brook no opposition.

Paul Scofield has a fine time of it with a well-developed character, gently spoken, appealing to sense and sensibility, and generally well loved by the populace. Although in retrospect I think other Oscar nominees Richard Burton for Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf and Michael Caine for Alfie might have been more deserving of the Oscar gong.

Robert Shaw makes a fine opponent, tempering the monarch’s known bluster with a sense of humor. While Paul Scofield tended to steer clear of Hollywood except for films like Scorpio (1973), Robert Shaw went immediately into the male lead in Custer of the West (1967) and eventually became a genuine draw.

The uncredited Vanessa Redgrave (Blow-Up, 1966) was otherwise the star-picker’s pick. Future years would invest greater luster in the supporting cast. John Hurt (Sinful Davey, 1969) the first to be given a tilt at marquee splendor. Leo McKern (Assignment K, 1968) achieved small-screen deification through Rumpole of the Bailey (TV series, 1978-1992). Colin Blakely (The Vengeance of She, 1968) played Dr Watson in Billy Wilder’s The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970).

Robert Bolt deserved his Oscar for the considerable work he put in to converting his stage version for the screen. The staging looks quite stagey to me, but Zinnemann did an excellent job of adding the necessary richness and ensuring the tale was rounded-out.

Not sure I’d place it in the Top Fifty Best-Ever British Films, but it’s still enjoyable even though you might take issue with the issues presented.

Sweet Bird of Youth (1962) ***

Tennessee Williams wrote better parts for women than he did for men. You can start with Vivien Leigh, Oscar-winner for A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) – Marlon Brando only nominated – and Anna Magnani Oscar-winner for The Rose Tattoo (1955) with Maria Pavan nominated and star Burt Lancaster left out of gong consideration. Carroll Baker and Mildred Dunnock were nominated for Baby Doll (1956) with star Karl Malden ignored. Paul Newman did receive an Oscar nomination for Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958) as did Elizabeth Taylor.

Montgomery Clift was frozen out of Oscar consideration for Suddenly, Last Summer (1959) while both Elizabeth Taylor and Katharine Hepburn scored nominations. Marlon Brando received no Oscar recognition for The Fugitive Kind (1960). Ditto Laurence Harvey for Summer and Smoke (1961) though Geraldine Page and Una Merkel received nominations. Lotte Lenya was recognised with a nomination for The Roman Spring of Mrs Stone (1961).

So the omens were not particularly good for Paul Newman when he repeated the role he had essayed on Broadway of Chance Wayne in Sweet Bird of Youth. In the stage version, while he received respectable notices, it was Geraldine Page who picked up the glory, winning the New York Drama Critics Award and nominated for a Tony.

So it was going to be a long shot that Newman could outshine her in the film version, even though he received considerably more screen time – Page and Shirley Knight were nominated, Newman was not.

The flaws in the tale are more obvious in the screen version. On stage, sheer force of personality can win over an audience, on screen that’s more difficult. And in truth Chance was another of Williams’ male losers. The main difference between Williams’ male and female characters is that not only are the women more reflective and aware of their shortcomings while the men simply bulldoze ahead but they are more able to express their feelings without dialog.

Chance is a failed actor turned gigolo taking advantage of alcoholic over-the-hill movie actress Alexandra Del Lago (Geraldine Page), running away from what she believes will be her final and calamitous movie, who half the time doesn’t know where she is or who he is. Chance has dreams of using her to hustle his way into the movie business, blackmailing Del Lago over her drugs abuse to front a new picture, and begins knocking on doors, but long-distance, since he’s returned to his home town in the hope of winning back his childhood sweetheart Heavenly Finley (Shirley Knight), planning to set her up as a movie star.

Expectations that there might be a welcome for a young man made good are dashed when everybody continues to treat him as the waitperson he once was or wants to run him out of town. To protect his daughter from such an unworthy suitor, the town’s most prominent citizen and political heavyweight Tom Finley (Ed Begley) had previously managed to pay Chance to leave town. His son Tom Jr (Rip Torn) shares his father’s aspirations.

Despite the odds Chance determines to woo Heavenly but his Hollywood dream is scuppered when Del Lago realizes that her last picture looks like becoming an unexpected success and she can once again write her own ticket rather than rely on a con man like Chance.

It doesn’t end well though, for reasons best known to him, writer-director Richard Brooks tacked on a happy ending – the play had an unhappy ending – that doesn’t ring true.

There’s nothing wrong with Paul Newman’s acting even if it didn’t attract the attention of the Oscar voters, but there’s not enough meat on the character. On the other hand, Geraldine Page and Shirley Knight (The Group, 1966) in part excel because their characters are better written. Rip Torn (Beach Red, 1967) develops his screen menace. Ed Begley’s (Warning Shot, 1966) over-the-top performance snagged him an Oscar.

The story’s just too thin and the hard edges of the play have been trimmed back so it was less appealing to an audience.

Lacks the usual Tennessee Williams bite but the female performances are well worth a watch.

I’m doing a Behind the Scenes article tomorrow so look out for that.

Wait Until Dark (1967) ****

You wouldn’t have figured Audrey Hepburn – she of the model looks (Breakfast at Tiffany’s, 1961) and upmarket twang and belonging to the highest echelons of the movie business – for a Scream Queen. But there were precedents – Doris Day had at times been screaming fit to burst in Midnight Lace (1960) and Lee Remick, though not in either’s marquee league, had been terrified to bits in Experiment in Terror / The Grip of Fear (1962). By this point in pictures, the screen was awash with Scream Queens, courtesy of lower-budgeted efforts from Hammer, AIP and Amicus, so asking a top star to exercise her lungs in similar fashion might have been career suicide.

As it was, which would have come as a surprise to her legion of fans, this turned out to be pretty much the star’s swansong. She wouldn’t make another movie in nearly a decade and only another three after that. But here she certainly hits a dramatic peak.

The story’s a bit muddled and initially requires unraveling. Drug mule Lisa (Samantha Jones) passes a doll packed with heroin to fellow passenger Sam (Efrem Zimbalist Jr.) on a plane. She had been planning to steal the dope and set up on her own with Mike (Richard Crenna) and former cop Carlino (Jack Weston). There’s a bit missing from the tale but you have to assume that somehow Lisa got talking to Sam and he gave her his address and that she has turned up at his apartment looking for the doll, which wasn’t there.

Mike and Carlino turn up and have no luck searching the apartment. They don’t look hard enough because if they’d looked in the closet they’d have found the corpse of Lisa, killed by her employer Roat (Alan Arkin) who arrives to confront the pair and then hire them to help him find the heroin and dispose of the body.

So with all that out of the way we come to the meat of the story. And it follows the same premise as Man in the Dark / Blind Corner (1964) – though, luckily, so few people saw that it wouldn’t be at the forefront of the audience mind at the time – of not so much a blind person being terrorized in their home but being largely played for a fool. The audience knows more than the blind person does and much of the story is not their vulnerability but just how long it will take for them to twig what’s going on.

In the case of Susy (Audrey Hepburn), as with the composer in Man in the Dark, her ears are her radar. She is on the alert after hearing the same pair of squeaky shoes on different people and wondering why people are opening and closing her blinds so often. Mike and Carlino masquerade as good guys, cops investigating the murder of Lisa for which her husband Sam is a suspect. She helps them tear apart the apartment looking for the doll.

She trusts Mike implicitly, less so Carlino, and when she starts to put two and two together she has an ally, teenager Gloria (Julie Herrod) who lives upstairs – they communicate like jailbirds by banging on the pipes. Although her eyes are denied sight, they still express her emotions – trust, relief, gratitude, fear.

But there’s not just one game of cat-and-mouse. There’s three. You know damn well that Mike and Carlino plan to squeeze Roat out of the equation just as you know damn well that he is planning to play them for patsies, apt to take revenge when double-crossed.

Gradually, her suspicions ramp up. She’s pretty smart working out the various clues. And then we hit two dramatic peaks. Firstly, when she discovers Mike is a bad guy. Secondly, when Roat kills Mike and turns on her, splashing petrol about the place, exploiting her terror of fire. She’s still got a couple of moves to turn the tables, at least temporarily but when absolute darkness does descend – she’s smashed all the lights out – and theoretically they are both in the same boat, and advantage her because of her keener hearing, it doesn’t quite work out the way she’s expected because he knows how to exploit sound.

I won’t tell you where the doll is hidden because that’s a very clever twist in itself, but apart from the few plotholes at the outset (how did Lisa manage to break into Susy’s apartment for a start and leave no trace, for example) once the narrative takes hold it exerts a very strong bite.

Audrey Hepburn is on top form. Alan Arkin (The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming, 1966) and Jack Weston (Mirage, 1965) are a bit too obvious for me, but the smoother Richard Crenna (Marooned, 1969) is excellent.

Directed with both an eye to character and tension by Terence Young (Dr No, 1962) and adapted by Robert and Jane-Howard Carrington (Kaleidoscope, 1966) from the Broadway play by Frederick Knott (Dial M for Murder, 1954).

Top notch.

Anne of the Thousand Days (1969) ****

You can keep your Succession dramas with families squabbling over a mere business empire. And even the more woke Snow White (2025) doesn’t remotely tackle the realities of marriage in medieval times when the role of a woman, in an era when more children died in childbirth or soon after than actually survived, was to produce an heir. And not just random in gender. But male.

So, on the one hand, you can sympathize with the dilemma of English King Henry VIII whose Spanish wife Katherine, while eminently fertile – several babies died in childbirth – had managed only one male offspring, who died shortly after birth, and one female, Mary. All the queen had given him, rails Henry (Richard Burton), are “dead sons.” So with the future of one of the biggest kingdoms in the world at stake, Henry isn’t keen to leave it in the hands of a woman. Even if he can arrange a suitable marriage, it would inevitably mean letting the kingdom fall into the hands of someone he doesn’t trust.

But in the twisted world of inheritance, here’s the rub. Henry shouldn’t be king. His elder brother Arthur should have, except he died before he could succeed to the throne. And Katherine, married to Arthur, should have been Queen. But Spain at that point was as powerful, if not more so, than England, so Henry decided to marry his sister-in-law, on the basis that the marriage was never consummated, and the Pope, the authority in such matters, gave the go-ahead, glossing over the technicality of what was considered in those days incest.

So, Henry comes up with a cunning plan. He will go trophy-hunting and marry a younger wife. This isn’t just because he’s fallen in love with Anne Boleyn (Genevieve Bujold). He doesn’t have to marry her to have sex with her. He’s already having sex with her mother (Valerie Gearon) with the tacit approval of her father (Michael Hordern) who receives benefits in kind.

To add complication, Anne is promised in marriage already, and deeply in love. Siring a bastard son would inevitably cause an inheritance battle. So legitimizing the relationship seems the only way forward. This time the Pope isn’t keen, mostly because the Spanish have invaded the Vatican and if he wants to survive he can hardly annoy his captors.

But when the Pope refuses, Henry takes the nuclear option, and splits from the Catholic Church, not just taking advantage of the old church vs state argument, but also made aware by Thomas Cromwell of the sudden increase in wealth acquiring the items of the Catholic Church would bring.

Sorry to bore you with a history lesson but this intriguing backdrop – as well as the dazzling performances – is what twists this away from lush costume confection into riveting drama. This was the peak of a trend in historical movies that shifted the emphasis from heroic action to the down’n’dirty. Camelot (1967) to some extent had begun the trend but only dealt with infidelity and was given something of a free pass because it focused on the iconic Knights of the Round Table and a legendary love affair. The Lion in Winter (1968) primarily concentrated on inheritance.

Depending where your sympathies lay this was either corruption writ large or a battle to free the ordinary man from the yoke of religion.

Primarily, it works because it revolves around the human drive, the king refusing to bow the knee to anyone, Anne Boleyn seduced not just by gifts but by this older man who is much more virile and passionate than her younger somewhat effete fiancé (and who couldn’t be dazzled by a man risking his kingdom for her love?) – and the courtiers looking after number one, always seeking a way of winning the king’s favor, and as importantly, not losing it, for that could lead to banishment or execution.

No one dares stand in Henry’s way – except Sir Thomas More (William Squire) and here he’s merely a small subplot (not center stage as in A Man for All Seasons, 1966) – not even the religious hierarchy, especially Cardinal Wolseley (Anthony Quayle), head of the Catholic Church in England, who keeps a mistress.

The tragedy is that the cunning plan unravels. While Anne is fertile enough, she gives birth to a girl, Elizabeth (the later Virgin Queen). Convinced she’s not going to present him with the male heir he so desperately desires, he hatches a conspiracy that sees her executed for adultery and treachery, leaving him free to marry again and continue his mad obsession.

So we’ve got all the back-biting and bitching we expect from court, plus regal revelry, costumes, castles, and in the middle of it all a driven king and a feisty woman, not by any means a pushover, and not either going unwillingly into his bed. This would be a match made in heaven except that’s probably the last place, the way things stand, the king would be welcome. He’s very aware of excommunication and it shows the power of the Catholic Church that its teachings are so embedded in his brain that he fears that consequence.

This is rich in performance – Richard Burton (The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, 1965), Canadian Genevieve Bujold (The Thief of Paris, 1967) and Anthony Quayle (East of Sudan, 1964) were Oscar-nominated. The only significant figure in the production not to receive one of the movie’s ten nominations – including for Best Picture – was director Charles Jarrott who pulled the whole thing together. Maybe it was thought he was rusty, not having helmed a picture since Time to Remember seven years previously.

The acting is particularly well-judged by the two principals, Burton could easily have lurched into cliché, and Bujold into passivity. Others worth noting are Irene Papas (The Guns of Navarone, 1961), Michael Hordern (Khartoum, 1966), Valerie Gearon (Invasion, 1966) and Peter Jeffrey (The Fixer, 1968).

Based on the play by Maxwell Anderson (The Bad Seed, 1963), screenwriters John Hale in his movie debut and Bridget Boland (Gaslight, 1940) manage to balance what could be dry subject matter with fragility and tragedy.

There couldn’t be a better demonstration of women used as pawns and collateral damage in male power struggles.

Totally absorbing.

Once More With Feeling (1960) **

At the very least I had thought, given the involvement of classy director Stanley Donen (Charade, 1963) that this might go down as a glorious failure rather than just a straightforward glossy dud thanks to the woeful miscasting of Yul Brynner (The Double Man, 1967) and a bizarre plot. Am sure it must have appeared a welcome change of pace from a string of heavyweight dramas for the actor.

Adapted from the Broadway success by playwright Harry Kurnitz (Goodbye Charlie, 1964) this never escapes its stage origins, too many dramatic entrances, faked dramatic faintings, unwelcome guests ushered out. That would all have been manageable had Yul Brynner shown the slightest instinct for comedy. Bluster doesn’t compensate. Playing a tyrannical orchestra conductor would hardly take any acting for a performer who radiated intensity.

Victor Fabian (Yul Brynner), as egomaniacal and temperamental as you’d expect from a top conductor, is caught in flagrante by harpist wife Dolly (Kay Kendall) with young musician Angela (Shirley Anne Field). After she storms out, he loses his mojo. Worse, his orchestra loses its most efficient fundraiser, since Dolly is the one who keeps donors sweet.

Dolly has wasted no time acquiring a new admirer, esteemed physicist Richard (Geoffrey Toone), and wants a divorce in order to marry him. But wait, there’s a catch. Not the obvious one that Victor turns over a new leaf and determines to win her back, abandoning arrogance in favor of humble ardent wooing.

No, she can’t leave him because, wait for it, they never married. Well that’s not so jaw-dropping as the consequence. He insists that she can’t get a divorce unless she marries him and during an agreed short period together presumably that will give him time to flex his romantic muscles and win her back.

I can only assume that in the sophisitcated circles in which they run, the idea that they have been living in sin might cause her considerable embarrassment. But I’m perplexed at the notion, even for the less permissive times, that this would provoke sufficient scandal – more scandal than getting divorced in the first place? Or that they would expect nobody to notice the sudden marriage and wonder how they have managed to so openly live together? This seems nothing more than a jumbled-up head-over-heels barmy plot strand.

Anyway, she agrees, and he does his best to win her back even to the extent of playing a piece of music, beloved of a sponsor, that he detests.

The plot belongs to the golden age of the screwball comedy but the picture doesn’t play it that way. There’s more to being frenetic in pursuit of laffs than just being frenetic and this never takes off.

While Brynner is strictly one-note and never manages to bring a suggestion of genuine romance into the proceedings, the director is equally at a loss to inject any oomph or style and it looks as if he’s done little more than film a stage show with all its cinematic limitations.

Kay Kendall (Les Girls, 1957) in her final role – she died of leukemia – is equally constricted by a character who huffs and flounces and never embraces the comedy side of screwball.

This was the first of two straight comedies pairing Donen and Brynner and I’m dreading its successor Surprise Package (1960). Kurnitz adapted his own play which had been a decent success on Broadway, so the movie failure can’t all be blamed on him.

The Rat Race (1960) ****

Surprisingly hard-edged tale with Debbie Reynolds giving the performance of her career and with a steely contemporary relevance. Snookers the audience into thinking it’s a standard romance, mismatched characters thrown together by circumstance, various rows and incidents to keep them apart before the expected happy ending. If screenwriter Garson Kanin had held his nerve, there wouldn’t be the get-out of a happy ending. As it is though, a formidable drama that doesn’t pull its punches.

From the title I expected a movie set in the world of big business, but instead we’re looking down on the lowest tiers of the entertainment business and, effectively, it’s a piece about the price paid for dreams. There are laffs, some good one-liners, but even these have a sourness to them.

Pete (Tony Curtis) leaves Milwaukee for New York seeking fame and fortune as a saxophonist, not realizing he’s more likely to join the thousands of out-of-work musicians already resident, dreams dashed but determined to avoid the ignominy of going home with their tails between their legs, not just to face the mundane life that awaits but seared through with the guilt of failure. Through circumstance he ends up sharing an apartment with model-cum-dancer Peggy (Debbie Reynolds), who’s already given up on her dream once, but couldn’t stand more than a few minutes of the home she’d clearly been desperate to leave.

Peggy is clean out of modelling assignments and hasn’t made it to Broadway, either, not even to a chorus line. Instead, she earns not much of a living as a taxi dancer, more innocent than it would be now in the era of the lap-dancer but still seedy enough with roving male hands. She’s paid to dance with complete strangers, the kind of deadbeats unlikely to ever get on the dance floor with a beautiful woman in the normal course of events.

She’s about to lose her phone, but not above leading on the creepy repairman (Norman Fell) to believe he’s onto a promise should he give her a break. Only pride prevents her solving her financial problems – as well as not making her rent she owes cash to her sleazebag boss Nellie (Don Rickles) – by going down the sex worker route.

Pete thinks he’s got the smarts but in fact he’s afflicted with dumbness and gets ripped off for a mink coat made of cat fur and then loses a complete set of brand-new musical instruments to another scam. When he’s thrown the lifeline of a gig on a cruise ship, Peggy stumps up to buy him a new sax and the requisite tux. She’s paying for this with a promise to Nellie to enter the prostitution game, not quite spelled out as that but as close to the knuckle as you’re going to get in this era, the kind of soft-soap approach that worked for Butterfield 8 (1960).

When Peggy fails to deliver, Nellie humiliates her in the worst possible way. Beginning with her jewellery he strips her down to undergarments to show how much he owns her and just how good he is at playing hardball. It’s a gut-clenching scene. Sure, you know there’s not going to be any nudity, not in this period before the Production Code got flattened, but even so, it works extraordinarily well, especially as clearly Peggy doesn’t know just how far he will go and that he might not, in his quiet fury, be above turning her out into his club starkers.

Meanwhile, to ensure we get to the ending that audiences expected, Pete, on board the ship, has been ignoring any other romantic opportunities, and sending her a heartfelt letter a day, which she appears determined to ignore, knowing that the “rat race” isn’t the kind of world that accommodates long-term romance.

Suffice to say, when Pete manages to bail her out, that changes her mind, though the genuine Peggy would still have balked, knowing that, with their levels of talent, they were only going to become more wasted by lack of fulfilment.

So, yeah, happy ending, but you feel that’s been grafted on to allow audiences to take the rest of the tougher storyline. The MeToo campaign has exposed the pitfalls of the entertainment business, so what happens to Peggy wouldn’t come as a surprise to a contemporary audience.

By this point Debbie Reynolds (Goodbye Charlie, 1964) wasn’t known for drama, more for a spunky or sparky screen persona in a series of lightweight comedies or romances, this showed Hollywood what it was missing. Tony Curtis (Goodbye Charlie) had proven he could do comedy or drama and here he mostly plays it straight.

Director Robert Mulligan (The Stalking Moon, 1968) is probably responsible for maintaining the harder edge. This was originally a Broadway number, so I doubt if the sharpness would have worked so well in that medium. Garson Kanin (Where It’s At, 1969) and an uncredited John Michael Hayes (Nevada Smith, 1966) knocked out the screenplay based on the former’s play.

Worth it for Reynolds alone.