British – The Magnificent 60s

The Strip Tease Murder (1961) ***

A treat in so many ways. A killer who could be the evil twin of Q, James Bond’s gadget supremo. A denouement worthy of Hercule Poirot. A femme fatale whose villainous boyfriend thinks he’s in charge until he learns, to his cost, she’s far smarter. A hero who’s just an ordinary bloke, derided for the most part, who enjoys none of the brio of the good guy who wins out because he can’t get over his loss.

And all this packed into an exceptionally slim running time once you deduct time for half a dozen striptease routines. Given the era the title is bait-and-switch, not much to see here that the censor of the times would permit.

I confess to having employed a bit of bait-and-switch. Neither this illustration – by the world’s most famous stripper – nor the poster at the top are anything to do with this film. In my defence, I couldn’t find a poster or lobby card in color and feared the review would be ignored for that reason.

In The Flamingo Club in London’s Soho, businessman Branco (Kenneth J. Warren) is being blackmailed by former mistress Rita (Ann Lynn), a stripper. What he doesn’t know is that she’s set her sights on more than blackmail and she’s not become his mistress for the few scraps of nice clothing and fancy jewels he can bestow on her. She’s set out deliberately to seduce him so she can get the inside gen on his operation with a view to moving in.

Branco, sensing imminent threat, goes to sound engineer Perkel (Peter Elliott) for the answer. Perkel, in a manner that would delight Q, has rigged up a mic that, via a transistor and remote control, will electrocute the singer at the switch of a button. Only problem is, inadvertently, he kills the wrong girl, Diana (Jean Muir), wife of hapless M.C. Bert (John Hewer), an alcoholic former comedian down on his luck.

The cops aren’t interested in his theories of dirty dealing especially when the autopsy returns a verdict that suggests nothing untoward except bad luck for someone so young. But Bert’s found something unusual. Diana’s corpse is cold except for her ear, which is warm, which gets him to thinking. He tracks down Diana, only to be beaten up by her boyfriend Rocco (Carl Duerring), but when he calls on his inner Poirot he alights on Perkel.

Diana reveals her true plan to the astonished Branco, who is shot by Rocco, with the entrepreneurial woman taking over his drug-running operation. Then with the help of the strippers and waiters at the club, Bert brings the villainous trio to the club where he enacts a potential second killing with the cops looking on.

So some very well-drawn characters make this worth more than the meager plot suggests. Perkel is a beaut. It’s worth remembering that Q was hardly a harmless inventor, and that most of his gadgets were meant to kill the enemy, such actions deemed justified because the bad guys are Russians or intent on global domination. Perkel is of the same boastful persuasion as Q, demanding that his ingenuity be recognized, willing to carry out murder for free just for the opportunity of proving that his weapon can kill more than snakes or horses. He is easily flattered and even when being arrested believes the cops are more interested in his invention – who knows, maybe it would end up in Q’s laboratory.

Diana, too, is something of a surprise, shifting from being apparently nothing more than a gangster’s moll to becoming the kind of ambitious gangster her boyfriend could not hope to emulate and more ruthless.

And Bert, while dogged for sure, and dumping the booze after his wife’s death, never finds a moment’s solace. Solving the murder won’t bring back the victim. Unusually, in this respect, reality intrudes in the world of crime fiction.

John Hewer (Three Spare Wives) went on to become a British television fixture, ironically as an M.C., host of variety show The Pig and Whistle (1965-1977). Ann Lynn (Piccadilly Third Stop, 1960) had a more varied career in television and film with a notable turn as the wife with lesbian tendencies in Baby Love (1969). Kenneth J. Warren was the bad guy with too much imagination in The Saint: The Fiction Makers (1968). Peter Elliott (Village of Daughters, 1962) steals the show as the meek killer who thinks genius excuses murder.

This was put together by the Danzigers, American producer brothers, who were prolific creators of B-pictures designed for the supporting feature slot in the days when audiences demanded double bills. Directed by Ernest Morris (Echo of Diana, 1963) from a script by Paul Tabori (Doomsday at Eleven, 1962).

Had this been made today, with hopefully the stripper element not played for exploitation, critics would have been pointing to the unusual depth of character.

It’s short enough to be well worth a look.

The Spy with a Cold Nose (1966) ***

Surprisingly good fun for a flop. A horde of brilliant visual gags, some of considerably subtlety, keep the ball rolling on what must be the most deliriously barmy concept ever – though, you never know, it’s so ingenious someone in the espionage game might well have tried it out.

The problem for audiences back then was that nobody was going to pay good money to see supporting actor Lionel Jeffries (Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, 1968) hog the screen. It’s not as if he is merely scene-stealing. For most of the picture, it’s like the billing has been reversed. Third-billed Jeffries seems to be actually the star, the character around whom the tale revolves, with the top-billed Laurence Harvey (A Dandy in Aspic, 1968) and Daliah Lavi (Some Girls Do, 1969) relegated to the background and their expected sexual combustion a long time coming.

It’s also a particularly British concoction, belonging to the bureaucratic form-filling world of The Ipcress File (1965) rather than the free-wheeling James Bond series. Middle-aged spy Stanley Farquhar (Lionel Jeffries), with little to show for his decades in the Secret Service and no sign of, as he laments, a naked girl in his bedroom, come up with the clever idea of sticking a tiny microphone up the nose of the British bulldog being presented as a gift by the British prime minister to the Russian supremo (Colin Blakely).

Takes a while for Stanley’s snooty bosses to go along with the idea because, don’t you know, it’s just not cricket. The Russian premier is so taken with the dog it accompanies him everywhere and the Brits are soon smashing Russian spy rings. Eventually, the Russians sent their top spy Princess Natasha Romanova (Daliah Lavi), who has half the Russian hierarchy in her seductive pocket, to find out who’s behind this state of affairs.

She alights first on Stanley and naturally seduction turns into male embarrassment as he’s caught with his trousers down for the whole world to see. Eventually, and more than an hour into the picture, she sets her sights on dog whisperer and dog groomer par excellence Francis Trevelyan (Laurence Harvey) who, of course, is nothing to do with the Secret Service but has been blackmailed into fitting the mic into the canine spy.

The tale is so slight and nutty that you’d be heading for the exist doors within 15 minutes except that the movie is propelled along, very nicely thank you, with a string of visual gags. Stanley, being the type of high-ranking official whose briefcase is handcuffed to his wrist, is so distracted by the torments of his kids, that when we first meet him he affixes said briefcase to said hand before he’s put his arm through his jacket, thus being forced to conceal it under a bulky overcoat all the way to the office.

That means driving one-handed and making his colleagues think he has lost an arm. He’s also arrived at work minus his car roof which he’s managed to burn off after mistakenly using the cigarette lighter which has been turned into a flamethrower by the boffins. When he’s handed his instructions at work, he can’t read them. Don’t we have any ordinary pens around here, snaps his boss, realizing at the same time as the audience does, that he’s used a pen with invisible ink. There’s a lovely gag involving the Queen’s corgis. Another of the gadgets, an umbrella that flowers into a parachute, is brought into play at the wrong time.

And his awful children are straight out of the Just William playbook, stealing his breakfast from under his nose and dropping worms into his open mouth when he dozes off in the garden. Aftet the much-publicized episode of his encounter with the Princess, Stanley is landed with a suspicious wife (June Whitfield) accompanying him on his missions.

As you might expect, there’s some slapstick, but except in the case of Wrigley (Eric Sykes), Stanley’s associate, who overdoes it, it’s generally underdone to great effect, the Princess requiring one of her lovers to push out of the door another of her lovers who refuses to accept his time is up. However, the titular dog, thankfully, makes no attempt to steal scenes and remains a very minor figure in the proceedings.

But the idea of the likes of Stanley either getting the better of the Princess or even understanding the notion of being seduced means that, no matter how hilarious the scene, audiences feel hoodwinked at the lack of top-billed male-female action. When Trevelyan eventually gets to make a major contribution it’s too little too late.

But if you go along with it, and are not frustrated by the lack of screen time afforded Harvey and Lavi, it’s a got a good deal to recommend it. Lionel Jeffries’s acting was acknowledged by the Golden Globes, as was the film itself.

Laurence Harvey shows a keen eye for the comic and Daliah Lavi, as ever, steals every scene she’s in. Denholm Elliott (Maroc 7, 1967) and Colin Blakely (The Vengeance of She, 1968) are the pick of the supporting actors.

Directed by Daniel Petrie (Stolen Hours, 1963) from a screenplay by Galton & Simpson (The Wrong Arm of the Law, 1963).

Great fun and worth a look.

Nobody Runs Forever (1968) / The High Commissioner ****

Character-driven intelligent thriller ripe for re-evaluation. And not just because it stands out from the decade’s genre limitations, neither hero threatened by mysterious forces in the vein of Charade (1963) or Mirage (1965) nor, although espionage elements are involved, fitting into the ubiquitous spy category. Instead, it loads mystery upon mystery and leaves you guessing right to the end.

And a deluge of mystery would not work – even with the London high-life gloss of cocktail parties, casinos and the Royal Box at Wimbledon – were it not for the believable characters. Rough Aussie Outback cop Scobie Malone (Rod Taylor) is despatched to London at the behest of New South Wales prime minister (Leo McKern) to bring home Australian High Commissioner Sir James Quentin (Christopher Plummer) to face a charge of murder.

*Probably a better title than either “Nobody Runs Forever”*
*or “The High Commissioner.”*

Unlike most cop pictures, Malone is not sent to investigate a case, he is merely muscle. While he may have his doubts about the evidence against Quentin, suspected of murdering his first wife, he resists all attempts to re-open the case. Arriving in the middle of a peace conference hosted by the principled Quentin, he agrees to investigate security leaks from Australia House and along the way turns into an impromptu bodyguard when Quentin’s life is endangered. But Quentin’s wife Sheila (Lilli Palmer) and secretary Lisa (Camilla Sparv) are not taken in by the deception and so Malone himself forms part of the mystery.

With a preference for cold beer to expensive champagne, you might expect Malone to be a bull in a china shop. Instead, dressed for the part by the solicitous Quentin, Malone fits easily into high society, taking time out from his duties for a dalliance with the elegant Madame Chalon (Daliah Lavi). The background is not the gloss but the passion the Quentins still feel for each other, she willing to do anything (literally) to save her husband, he losing the thread of an important speech when worried about his wife.

While there is no shortage of suspects for all nefarious activities, red herrings abound and cleverly you are left to make up your own mind, rather than fingers being ostentatiously pointed. There is some delicious comedy between Malone and Quentin’s uptight butler (Clive Revill), enough punch-ups, chases and clever tricks to keep the movie more than ticking along but at its core are the relationships. Malone’s growing respect for Quentin does not overrule duty, Lisa’s evident love for Quentin cannot be taken the obvious further step, Sheila’s overwhelming need to safeguard her husband sends her into duplicitous action.

The politics are surprisingly contemporary, attempts to alleviate hunger and prevent war, and while there was much demonstration during the decade in favor of world peace, this is the only picture I can think of where a politician’s main aim is not self-aggrandisement, greed or corruption. There are some twists on audience expectation – the dinner-jacketed Malone in the casino does not strike a James Bond pose and start to play, he is seduced rather than seducer, and remains a working man throughout.

Rod Taylor (Dark of the Sun, 1968) and Christopher Plummer (Fall of the Roman Empire, 1964) are terrific sparring partners, red-blooded male versus ice-cool character, their jousts verbal rather than physical. The rugged Taylor turns on the charm when necessary, a throwback to his character in Fate Is the Hunter (1964). Thoughts of his wife soften Plummer’s instinctive icy edge. Lilli Palmer (The Counterfeit Traitor) is superb as yet another vulnerable woman, on the surface in total control, but underneath quivering with the fear of loss. Two graduates of the Matt Helm school are given meatier roles, Daliah Lavi (The Silencers, 1966), as seductress-in-chief is a far cry from her stunning roles in The Demon (1963) and The Whip and the Body (1963) – and it still feels a shame to me that she was so ill-served in the way of roles by Hollywood. Camilla Sparv (Murderers Row, 1966) has a more low-key role.

Clive Revill (The Double Man, 1967) has another scene-stealing part and look out for Calvin Lockhart (Dark of the Sun), Burt Kwouk (The Shoes of the Fisherman, 1968) and, shorn of his blond locks, an unrecognizable Derren Nesbit (The Naked Runner, 1967) and in his final role Hollywood legend Franchot Tone (Mutiny on the Bounty, 1935).

Ralph Thomas (Deadlier than the Male, 1967) directs with minimum fuss, always focused on character, although there is a sly plug for Deadlier than the Male in terms of a cinema poster. (Speaking of posters, I couldn’t help notice this interesting advert at an airport for a VC10 promoted as “10derness.”) Wilfred Greatorex (The Battle of Britain, 1969) made his screenplay debut, adapting the bestseller by Jon (The Sundowners) Cleary. This may not be quite a true four-star picture but it is a grade above three-star.

CATCH-UP: Rod Taylor films reviewed in the blog so far are Seven Seas to Calais (1962), Fate Is the Hunter (1964), The Liquidator (1965), The Glass Bottom Boat (1966), Hotel (1967) and Dark of the Sun (1968).

The Wrong Arm of the Law (1963) ***

Effortless stuff from Peter Sellers – funny accents and all – that put into sharp perspective his later strained performances in vehicles like What’s New Pussycat (1965) coupled with one of those delicious tales replete with countless twists that sets bad guy against bad guy. An on-from Sellers dominates any picture and here he’s at the top of his game and all you can do is sit back and wallow in the pleasure of watching him.

Theoretically, he’s playing two roles – poncy French fashion house owner Jules and London crime mastermind Pearly Gates. But the Frenchman is a role he’s adopted. In that capacity he garners information from a gullible clientele only too happy to boast about where they’ve stashed their jewels or where someone else is putting on an ostentatious display of wealth. This is relayed back to the gang who go and steal it.

The first twist is that the gang itself is being duped. Another mob, Australians, posing as cops (known as the I.P.O. mob – Impersonating Police Officers) arrest the thieves and make off with the loot. Gates is furious and is convinced it must be an inside job, he’s got a grass on his team. He is correct. But, twist number two, he’s the blabbermouth, unwittingly passing on details of his next criminal coup to girlfriend Valerie (Nanette Newman), adept at playing on his arrogance to winkle out the information.

As the gangsters are operating under a city-wide syndicate with gangs allocated territories and not treading on each other’s shoes, Gates’s first suspicions fall on rival gang leader “Nervous” O’Toole (Bernard Cribbins). But when that proves a bust, the syndicate teams up with the real cops led by Inspector “Nosey” Parker (Lionel Jeffries) with the approval of his boss (John le Mesurier) and establish a 24-hour no-robbing arrangement while trying to flush out the IPO outfit.

Together, they set in motion a major crime, assuming the information will be passed on to the IPO team, and the cops can catch them in the act. Twist number three, Gates doesn’t see why he should go to all that trouble without adequate reward and plans to make off with the stolen money.

The terrific cast doesn’t let Sellers have it all his own way. Lionel Jeffries (Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, 1968), Bernard Cribbins (She, 1965) and John Le Mesurier (Dad’s Army television series, 1968-1977) can scene-steal with the best of them. Nanette Newman (The Wrong Box, 1966) is a revelation and the supporting cast is bumped up with the likes of Graham Stark (The Magic Christian, 1969) and Bill Kerr (Doctor in Clover, 1966) and if you’re quick you’ll spot a pre-fame Michael Caine (Zulu, 1964).

Not all the jokes are good but they come so thick and fast that you don’t care. And in the midst of this we have a rather enlightened and vulnerable Gates. He is a considerate employer, looking after his team in bad times, paying them well and generally acting as a paternal figure, while away from the gang he can unwind with Valerie and let his true feelings and the pressures he’s under be known.

Director Cliff Owen (The Vengeance of She, 1968) hardly stops to take breath. Screenplay by the due of Ray Galton and Alan Simpson (The Spy with a Cold Nose, 1966) working in conjunction with John Antrobus (The Big Job, 1965).

Avoid the snigger territory of the Carry On pictures, this is probably the last British comedy that could get away with such innocence and was rewarded with huge box office numbers in Britain.

Sheer enjoyment.

The Magic Christian (1969) ***

Substitute contemporary artwork/installation/performance art for practical joke and this will come up trumps. Taken in the artistic sense, where artists are pillorying society, there are gems – a stage Hamlet performing a striptease, feeding scraps of money to the ducks, ship passengers experiencing an apparent voyage when the vessel hasn’t left land, cutting up a famous work of art. Although I have to point out this will inevitably be remembered by some for a bikini-ed Raquel Welch cracking the whip over a galley of topless oarswomen.

Effectively a series of comedy skits loosely tied together under the theme of money, mostly in the form of bribery. Billionaire Sir Guy Grand (Peter Sellers) sets out to teach adopted son Youngman (Ringo Starr) just what money can buy. Could you pay one of the teams sufficient dough in the annual Boat Race for them to ram the other? Would a parking warden (Spike Milligan) eat the parking ticket he has just issued? In the spirit of fair play is it okay to down a pheasant with an anti-aircraft gun?

When the going slows down, surrealism enters the equation: ship’s captain kidnapped by a gorilla, vampire waitperson, black head on white body, urine-soaked banknotes given away to a crowd, the occasional nun or Nazi, newspapers where apologies are written in Polish.

Plot-wise, there’s not much to it and the satire is merely repetitive as Sir Guy embarks on educating Youngman on the perverse uses of money. It has the feeling not of following a storyline but of “what can we get up to next” and attempting to layer shock upon shock in the manner, it has to be said, of some contemporary directors.

But there’s neither sufficient bite to the satire nor punch to the shock so it remains an elaborate series of disconnected sequences. Luckily, nobody’s having to pretend to put in an acting shift which is just as well because Ringo Starr proves he can’t act.

And it’s not much helped by a host of cameos – Laurence Harvey (A Dandy in Aspic, 1968), Richard Attenborough (Guns at Batasi, 1964), Christopher Lee (Dracula, Prince of Darkness, 1965), Raquel Welch (Bandolero!, 1968), director Roman Polanski (Rosemary’s Baby, 1968), Wilfred Hyde-White (P.J. / New Face in Hell, 1967), comic Spike Milligan and various members of the future Monty Python team including John Cleese (A Fish Called Wanda, 1988) and Graham Chapman. Harvey and Welch make the biggest splash.

Excepting Dr Strangelove, Hollywood had failed to capture the essence of offbeat novelist Terry Southern (Candy, 1968) and despite input from Chapman, Cleese and Sellers, this never really gets off the ground.

Peter Sellers (The Pink Panther, 1963) was in something of a career rut where very little struck home at the box office and he would continue a dismal losing streak until resuscitating The Pink Panther franchise in 1975.

Director Joseph McGrath’s (The Bliss of Mrs Blossom, 1967) record was spotty. Best known for music videos for The Beatles, he was only well served when his cast was filled with strong actors.

No more than an occasionally humorous trifle with an equally occasional target hitting the bullseye.

The Lion in Winter (1968) ****

Template for The Godfather (1972) and Succession. King Henry II (Peter O’Toole) has to choose an heir from Richard (Anthony Hopkins), Geoffrey (John Castle) and John (Nigel Terry). Helping set the Machiavellian tone are Henry’s wife Eleanor (Katharine Hepburn), his mistress Alais (Jane Merrow) and French King Philip II (Timothy Dalton). Cue plotting, confrontation, double-crossing, rage and lust.

Some other complications: the queen is actually a prisoner, the result of organising a failed coup against her husband, the sons participating in this attempt to overthrow their father, and with Henry willing to sacrifice his mistress in order to achieve an alliance with Philip, relations are less than cordial all round. Eldest son Richard, strong and aggressive, would be the obvious choice, and should be the only choice I would guess by law, but Henry prefers the youngest son John, who is weak, while the middle son Geoffrey is the most savvy (see if you can guess how easily these characters fit The Godfather scenario, or Succession for that matter). Geoffrey reckons that even if passed over for the top job, he will rule from behind the scenes as John’s chancellor.

This is not your normal historical picture with battles, romance and, let’s be honest, costumes, taking central stage. And there’s little in the way of rousing speeches. Virtually all the dialog is plotting. And, like Succession, there are elements of vitriol and pure comedy. In five crisp opening scenes we know everything we need to know. The King brings his family together for Xmas, the Queen freed for the occasion, to decide the succession. Richard is shown in hand-to-hand combat, the wily John leading a cavalry attack, the whiny John pouting and complaining, Alais realizing just how much a pawn she is in the game as Henry explains she is to be married off to Richard.

And if you are not the chosen one, your only chance of gaining the throne is by the back door, by having a powerful ally in your pocket, one whose armies would threaten the King, which is where Philip comes into the equation as potential kingmaker. Let the intrigue begin, especially as those who ought to be little more than bystanders – the women – have ideas of their own. “I’m the only pawn,” says Alais, “that makes me dangerous.” Despite her current status, Eleanor still owns the French province of Aquitaine and taunts her husband by revealing that she slept with his father.

The plot twists and turns as new alliances are formed between the conspiring individuals. The overbearing Henry will certainly remind you of Logan Roy, “When I bellow, bellow back.” And there is a Hitchcockian element in that we, the audience, know far more than the participants and wait for them to fall into traps. Richard is revealed as homosexual, having had an affair with Philip.

The dialogue is superb, brittle, witty, and it could have been all bombast and rage except that emotion carries the day. Henry clearly could not have wished for a better Queen than Eleanor, more than capable of standing up to him, more capable than any of his sons, and he probably wishes she was by his side rather than confined, as by law, to prison. Eleanor still retains romantic notions towards him, even as she forces him to kiss his mistress in front of her – only the audience sees the truth revealed in her eyes, not Henry who is too busy kissing. The uber-male Richard complains to Philip that he never told him he loved him.

Maternal and paternal bonds ebb and flow and throughout it all is the dereliction caused by power. A father will lose the love of the children he rejects. Or, realizing they are more powerful together than as individuals, they could turn against him. The mother faces the same fate – she risks losing the love of the ones she does not back.

Unlike Alfred the Great, the monarchs have stately castles, so the backdrops are more commanding, but once an early battle is out of the way, it is down to the nitty-gritty of plot and counter-plot. A truly satisfying intelligent historical drama.

Peter O’Toole (Lawrence of Arabia, 1962) had played Henry II before in Becket (1964) and is in terrific form. Katharine Hepburn (Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, 1967) won her second successive Oscar – and her third overall – in a tremendous performance that revealed the inner troubles of a powerful woman, Anthony Hopkins (When Eight Bells Toll, 1971) gave an insight into his talent with his first major role.

John Castle (Blow Up, 1966), Nigel Terry (Excalibur, 1981), Jane Merrow (Assignment K, 1968) and future James Bond Timothy Dalton, in his movie debut, provide sterling support, Dalton and Castle especially good as a sneaky, conniving pair.

*This was an odd choice for a roadshow – at just over two hours considerably*
*shorter than most of the genre. But the 600-seat Odeon Haymarket in London’s West End*
*was an ideal venue for building word-of-mouth and it ran for over a year.*

Modern audiences might bristle at the idea of woman as commodity, but women in those days were the makeweights in alliances of powerful men, though the fact that they bristle at the notion as well evens up proceedings, Eleanor in particular happy to jeopardize Henry’s ambitions in favor of her own, Alais warning Henry to beware of the woman scorned.

Director Anthony Harvey (Dutchman, 1966 ) was deservedly Oscar-nominated. James Goldman (Robin and Marian, 1976) won the Oscar for his screenplay based on his Broadway play which had not been in fact a runaway Broadway hit, only lasting 92 performances, less than three months. John Barry (Zulu, 1963) was the other Oscar-winner for his superb score.

The Flesh and the Fiends / Mania / The Fiendish Ghouls (1960) ***

Hypocrisy runs rampant as an entitled medical hierarchy effectively condones vile practice. Of course it wouldn’t do to have Peter Cushing, who generally hounded demonic fiends like Dracula, to be tabbed a villain so with a little bit of jiggery-pokery he gets off scot-free and, in fact, is considered so much above other mortals that he receives a standing ovation at the end.

The self-justification, or deification if you like, of Edinburgh surgeon Dr Knox (Peter Cushing) is promoted on the back of primitive medicine, whereby, through sheer ignorance and laziness surgeons were more apt to kill than to cure.

Dr Knox is an advocate of using recently interred corpses to teach his students the real fundamentals of anatomy. However, his colleagues feel that the use of fresh corpses goes against the grain and there was no such thing in the early 19^th century of donating your body to medical science. Grave-robbing was a crime.

Enterprising duo Burke (George Rose) and Hare (Donald Pleasance) get round that problem by skipping the burial aspect, murdering assorted drunks and vagabonds and delivering fresh meat to the good doctor, who turns a blind eye to their actions, determined as he is to improve teaching standards. He’s not the only one who believes that a streetwalker, killed in this fashion, has achieved more in death than life.

The good doctor has a conscience in the shape of Dr Mitchell (Dermot Walsh) who is wooing his daughter Martha (June Laverick), but he eventually comes round Knox’s way of thinking. The hierarchy in the shape of the Medical Council would get their claws into Knox were it not for the fact that in their incompetence they inflict more damage than good.

As a sub-plot, and as a way of weaselling into the lower classes who provide the bulk of Burke and Hare’s supply chain, earnest medical student Chris Jackson (John Cairney) falls for drunken goodtime girl Mary (Billie Whitelaw) who spends as much time making fun of him as she does sharing his bed.

You would have thought the high mortality rate of the period would not have made the local populace suspicious of a few extra deaths, but when Burke and Hare kill too close to home – Mary, Jackson and Daft Jamie – townspeople like a regular Transylvanian village mob light their torches and head off in pursuit.

The question of whether Knox was in collusion with Burke and Hare becomes the crux. But given the medical profession does not want to bring itself into disrepute, he is given a free pass and declared not guilty.

The high-mindedness which Peter Cushing (The Skull, 1965) usually brings to a role works in his favor here and, until the death rate mushrooms, audiences may be inclined to go along with his thesis that fresher corpses should be made available as a matter of course to doctors. His pinpoint arrogance brooks no quarter. He’s in entitlement heaven. And that his superiors back off informs you that hierarchies were as good at closing ranks and defending themselves then as now.

This was the first venture of Donald Pleasance (Soldier Blue, 1970) into the sleazy characterizations which would become a trademark. The nervous tics were a later addition. Here’s he’s mostly sweaty.

I should profess an interest. John Cairney was a relative of our family but acknowledging his work in our household was limited to such less contentious material as Jason and the Argonauts (1963). Along with Billie Whitelaw (The Comedy Man, 1964), he was in the rising star category. Both deliver solid performances. You might also spot Melvyn Hayes of the It Ain’t Half Hot, Mum series (1974-1981).

Dodgy accents abound, Pleasance and Rose affect Irish accents and Whitelaw makes a stab at a Scottish one. I was surprised, given the date, to see a deal of nudity, but it transpires I was watching the “continental version.”

Directed by John Gilling (The Reptile, 1966) from a screenplay by himself and Leon Griffiths (The Hellfire Club, 1961).

You catch this on YouTube

The Saint: The Fiction-Makers (1968) ****

Hugely enjoyable. Takes high concept to the Moon and back. Deliriously wild idea that, as with the best of movies that riff on the imagination, sticks to its own internal logic. The notion sounds so barmy it shouldn’t work – but it does. I enjoyed it even more than Vendetta for the Saint (1969), which it preceded, because it’s a lot more fun.

A criminal mastermind has taken the work of mysterious bestselling thriller author Amos Klein and not only adopted the characteristics of the author’s characters but follows the plot of the books and utilizes many of the clever ideas. For example, the author has invented a second ignition starter button for cars. And also invented a way to stop cars by fitting them with a technological device. People are so taken with being characters in these books that they want to know what happens to them next. I know, shouldn’t have worked, but it does, and it’s not even really set up as fitting into the sci-fi genre any more than James Bond with all its out-of-this-world machines and gadgets is.

Simon Templar (Roger Moore), aka The Saint, is hired to protect Amos Klein whose publisher believes the author is in danger. It doesn’t help that Klein lives in such anonymity that nobody knows the real name, not even the publisher. Turns out she’s a woman (Sylvia Syms), presumably adopting a male name because she writes such male-oriented books, filled with ingenious ideas.

She nearly shoots Templar because he arrives in the middle of her testing out scenarios for her new book – everything she writes has to work and she’s the one that tries them out. Anyway, Templar proves to be little defense against Warlock (Kenneth J. Warren), who has adopted the main villain of her book who runs a criminal organization called S.W.O.R.D. Warlock assumes Templar is Amos Klein and that she is his secretary.

The members of Sword, excepting Warlock, are an indifferent bunch apart from femme fatale Galaxy Rose (Justine Lord) who not only, following the premise of the books, intends to seduce Templar but believes that he, as the author, can alter her future, by making it a plot point in an as-yet-unwritten book that they fall in love that she will then marry him and live happily ever after.

Using Klein’s imaginative brain, Warlock wants the author’s help to plot a major heist from Hermetico, a giant secret vault which is to diamonds what Fort Knox is for gold. Hermetico is thief-proof, packed with amazing security devices including infra-red beams.

Although watched via CCTV cameras, Templar and Klein make a decent attempt at escape from Warlock’s mansion, tunneling upwards if you like, through the ceiling and the roof, clambering down a drainpipe and escaping in the car containing the second starter button, but also the one, it transpires, with the tech device that can stop it.

When they turn up at a remote cottage covered in mud and seeking help, the inhabitants think they are lunatics and delay them long enough till Warlock and his gang arrive to sedate them. Klein is kept prisoner, threatened with laser extinction, so Templar is coerced in assisting in the heist. In fact, Klein has come up with an ingenious method of ensuring they can find their way through the maze of infra-red beams.

This sequence is really well done, especially the method of getting all the gang through once Templar has negotiated it. Using an oxy-acetylene torch, they cut the top off an extractor vent and enter the vault, overcome the guards, and using another clever device one person manages to do something that usually requires two people.

Naturally, Templar is intent on spoiling the operation, which he does, but then has to get back to the mansion before the alarm is raised and Klein is incinerated. There’s a fisticuffs climax and a very fitting payoff for the villain.

I never thought this would work. It seemed such an improbable idea. But then Hollywood’s full of those. The fact that the S.W.O.R.D. gang are entirely believable as physical incarnations of Klein’s imagination is what makes it work. Plus Klein herself. Instead of being the standard moll or helpless heroine of so many spy pictures, she’s central to the story, and halfway between slinky and sensible.

Roger Moore (Vendetta for the Saint) – and his raised eyebrows – is, as usual, excellent in a role that very much suits his screen persona, and Sylvia Syms (Run Wild, Run Free, 1969) has a ball. Kenneth J. Warren (A High Wind in Jamaica, 1965) is given a more varied character than the normal villain while Justine Lord (Night after Night after Night, 1969) exerts a winsome appeal outside her overt sexiness.

Directed by Roy Ward Baker (Moon Zero Two, 1969) from a script by John Kruse (Vendetta for the Saint) and Harry W. Junkin (Vendetta for the Saint) adapting a novel by Leslie Charteris.

This was originally conceived as a two-parter for television that was then released as a movie instead of someone just editing together two random episodes as was usually the case with The Man from U.N.C.L.E.

Talking Pictures has this so check it out.

What’s Good for The Goose / Girl Trouble (1969) ***

One of those comedies that works best in a time capsule and far more interesting for the coincidences and anomalies of those involved. What are the chances, you might ask, of sisters playing roughly the same role in two entirely different movies, one a comedy the other a drama, in the same year. We’ve got Sally Geeson here, in her debut, playing a free loving hitchhiker picking up an older married man and we’ve got her slightly more experienced sister Judy Geeson (Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush) as a free loving hitchhiker picking up older married man Rod Steiger in Peter Hall’s Three into Two Won’t Go (1969).

This proved the final starring role for Norman Wisdom (A Stitch in Time, 1963), at one time a huge British box office star, who had been infected by that disease that seems to always hit comedians, of wanting to play it straight. While there is some comedy, it’s sorely lacking in the kind of physical comedy, the pratfalls and such, with which Wisdom made his name.

And there’s another name to conjure with – Menahem Golan. More famous, eventually, for foisting on the general public a string of stinkers under the Cannon umbrella and taking over the British cinema chain ABC before going spectacularly bust. What’s his role in all this? He’s the creative force, would you believe, wearing his writer-director shingle, in his first movie outside Israel. And if that’s not enough, the producer is Tony Tenser, also trying to change direction, switching from the horror portfolio which with his outfit Tigon had made its name and into a different genre.

And if you want another name slipped in, what about Karl Lanchbury, playing a nice guy in contrast to the creepy characters he tended to essay in the likes of Whirlpool / She Died with Her Boots On (1969).

Time capsule firmly in place we’re in a Swinging Britain world where young girls listen to loud rock music (though don’t take drugs) and go where the mood takes them, free travel easily available through the simple device of hitchhiking.

Timothy Bartlett (Norman Wisdom) is a bored under-manager drowning in a sea of bureaucracy and turned off by wife Margaret (Sally Bazely) who goes to bed wearing a face mask and with her hair in curlers. On the way to a business conference he picks up two hitchhikers, Nikki (Sally Geeson) and Meg (Sarah Atkinson), becoming smitten with the former, making hay at a night club where his “dad dancing” is the hit of the evening. He slips into the counterculture, wearing hippie clothes, generally unwinding, doing his thing, and sharing his bed with Nikki.

You can tell he’s going to get a nasty shock and just to put that section off we dip into a completely different, almost “Carry On” scenario, where his efforts to sneak Nikki in his bedroom are almost foiled by an officious receptionist. Eventually, she invites all her hippie pals to make hay in his hotel room while she makes out with Pete (Karl Lanchbury),a man her own age, and Timothy is told in no uncertain terms the essence of free love is that she doesn’t hang around with a man for long, in this case their affair only lasted two days.

It’s the twist in the tail that generally makes this work. Rather than moan his head off or believe he is now catnip to young ladies, Timothy, unshackled from convention, uses his newfound freedom to woo his wife.

So, mostly a gentle comedy, and good to see Norman Wisdom not constantly having to over-act and twist his face every which way but loose, even though this effectively ended his career. The teenagers enjoy their freedom without consequence (nobody’s pregnant or addicted to drugs) and there’s a fairly good stab at digging into the effortless joys of the period. Sally Geeson (Cry of the Banshee, 1970) didn’t prove as big a find as her sister and her career fizzled out within a few years.

As an antidote to the Carry On epidemic, this works very well.

A gentle comedy.

You can catch this on YouTube courtesy of Flick Attack.

80,000 Suspects (1963) ***

Eschews the X-cert terror of some of the end-of-the-world efforts of the period such as The Day the Earth Caught Fire (1961) and Day of the Triffids (1963) in favor of a more solid documentary-style approach and focusing on the tangled love lives of the main characters. There’s a distinctly British tone. People form long, orderly queues to receive an injection to combat a sudden epidemic of smallpox and police and any kind of hard-line enforcement plays a minor role. And the medical boffins in charge act more like detectives, tracking down potential infected individuals, engaging in door-to-door street-by-street hunts for those carrying the virus, maps are drawn, areas blocked off. There are deadlines and countdowns. Doctors are disinfected, clothes are incinerated and corpses cremated. So there’s enough tension to keep everyone on their toes.

But most of the emotional muscle is not by asking an audience to empathize or sympathize with those in danger or whose lives are suddenly cut short. But by concentrating on the impact of adultery on two couples. Dr Steven Monks (Richard Johnson), who identified the presence of smallpox in the large town of Bath with 80,000 people potentially at risk, is suspected by retired nurse wife Julie (Claire Bloom) of having an affair with glamorous Ruth (Yolande Donlan), wife to Monks’ stuffy colleague and friend Dr Clifford Preston (Michael Goodliffe).

The Monks are on the verge of going abroad on holiday when the smallpox disrupts their plans, although it’s Julie who appears the more principled and dutiful of the two, her husband being all set to head off and leave someone else to sort out the mess.

To make sure emotions are not sidelined by the scale of the epidemic, Dr Monks and wife are kept in the thick of it, the stakes rising dramatically when Ruth catches the disease. That triggers the most interesting – and original – sequence of the drama. When Steven thinks his wife is in danger of dying his feelings for her surge, but when she recovers, his ardor dampens down. He receives another kick in the teeth when he discovers that his lover Ruth has another fancy man.

So quite a lot of this is couples trying to work out their feelings, and it doesn’t follow the usual cliché, even though Julie is somewhat short-changed by the script in not being allowed to rage against her husband but passively accept his adultery. Dr Preston is more insightful, able to accept that his best friend has betrayed him, but sympathizing rather than condemning his wife because he knows that none of her adultery has brought her any happiness. It helps both of the Monks to have a wise padre (Cyril Cusack) available to listen to their troubles.

Though the epidemic is well drawn with plenty location work capturing the times, really the story is more about a pair of adventurous lovers, Steven and Ruth, landed with a pair of dullards in Ruth and Clifford, and making the necessary adjustments.

This was the first top-billed role of the career of British actress Claire Bloom (Three into Two Won’t Go, 1969) despite arriving on the scene in a blaze of leading lady glory. The Buccaneer (1958) opposite Yul Brynner and Look Back in Anger (1959) opposite Richard Burton should have been enough of a calling card, but she drifted to Germany and then television before another leading lady stint in The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm (1962) before tumbling down the credits for The Chapman Report (1962).

And except that she had outranked Richard Johnson in The Haunting (1963), you might wonder why she achieved top-billing here when Richard Johnson (Deadlier than the Male, 1967) has the bigger role. In theory, Bloom has the better role, she’s a victim of disease and has to cope with an unfaithful husband, but its Johnson who faces the bigger predicament in coming to terms with a love for Bloom that is at its peak only when he risks losing her.

High-spirited Yolande Donlan (Jigsaw, 1962) steals the early scenes. Decent support in Cyril Cusack (Day of the Jackal, 1973), Mervyn Johns (Day of the Triffids), Ray Barrett (The Reptile, 1966) and former big marquee attraction Kay Walsh (Oliver Twist, 1948).

Val Guest (The Day the Earth Caught Fire) has to duck and weave with this one to ensure the human drama isn’t buried by the impending disaster – and vice-versa. Written by Guest based on the novel by Elleston Trevor (The Flight of the Phoenix, 1965).

An interesting watch.