British – Page 11 – The Magnificent 60s

The Touchables (1968) **

Take a giant bubble, yellow Mini, an abundance of mini-skirts, Michael Caine waxwork, one pop star, four models, a masked wrestler, nuns, table football, a pinball machine, a circular bed, various sunsets, a shotgun and a lass milking a fake cow. And what do you get? Not much? A dry run for Performance (1971), given Donald Cammell’s involvement, but otherwise a largely soporific feature hoping for redemption on the cult circuit. But with the unsavory subject matter, even with a proto-feminist outlook, that might struggle might to win approval from a contemporary audience.

Unlike Privilege (1967) it’s not saved by ironic comment on the music scene or even anything in the way of decent performances and looks more like an attempt to guy up the nascent careers of a bunch of young actresses and get by with a day-glo pop art sensibility. At no point are we invited to disapprove of the model quartet who decide, having tried out their kidnapping skills on a Michael Caine waxwork, that they might as well go the whole hog and abduct pop star Christian (David Anthony) and tie him to a bed and take their turns having their wicked way with him.

This is all purportedly acceptable stuff because a) it’s a gender switch and b) the poor pop singer is only too happy to escape the drudgery of making millions and not have to even consort with groupies and c) is presented as if he is thoroughly enjoying the whole experience. That is, if you ignore him being chloroformed, shot, and whacked over the head, then of course it’s all very pleasant.

Naturally, these being cunning wenches, they hide him in plain sight. Who would think to look for him in a giant transparent bubble?

Although drawn with villainous strokes, as were all the managers in Privilege who put unnecessary pressure on the pop star they have created, it’s hard to view Anthony’s upper class manager Twynyng (James Villiers) as a bad guy for wanting his safe return.

So what happens once the ladies take charge of their victim? Beyond sex, not much, playing with the various items mentioned, not even any jealousy rearing its ugly head, just the kind of cinematography that might well pass for advertising.

It’s hard to see what the point of it all was. Screenwriter Ian La Fresnais (The Jokers, 1967) might have been brought in to add a touch of levity to what otherwise – kidnap, rape – was a dodgy subject based on an original by Donald and David Cammell. Even taking a comedy approach wasn’t going to work if it was saddled with little interaction between characters and nobody, to put it bluntly, who could act.

I would tend to think with the “talent” involved that this was made by a neophyte producer. But, in fact, this is the oddest part of the whole debacle. John Bryson was an Oscar-winner – admittedly for art direction for Great Expectations (1948) – but also an experienced producer, this being the last of the dozen he made. But they included Man with a Million (1954) and The Purple Plain (1954), both toplining Gregory Peck, The Spanish Gardener (1956) with Dirk Bogarde, The Horse’s Mouth (1958) starring Alec Guinness, Tamahine (1963) – reviewed in this Blog – and Peter Sellers in After the Fox (1966).

It didn’t do anything for anyone’s career, which was the least you could expect for the actors forced into such mindless cavorting. Judy Huxtable appeared in a similar lightweight advertising-led concoction Les Bicyclettes de Belsize (1968) and bit parts in the likes of Die Screaming, Marianne (1971) and Up the Chastity Belt (1972). Ester Anderson did somewhat better, female lead to Sidney Poitier in A Warm December (1973), her last movie. For Kathy Simmonds this was her first and last movie, but she was better known as a genuine pop star’s girlfriend, dating George Harrison, Rod Stewart and Harry Nilsson. Only movie of David Anthony. Seems it’s too easy to confuse Marilyn Rickard with German Monica Ringwald so she may or may not have a string of bit parts in sexploitationers. Arts presenter Joan Bakewell put in an appearance as did Michael Chow, later a famous restaurateur and artist, and wrestler Ricki Starr.

Director Roger Freeman made one more picture, Secret World (1969) with Jacqueline Bisset which at least had a decent premise.

File under awful.

The Criminal / The Concrete Jungle (1960) ****

You’d be hard put to imagine from this hard-nosed gangster picture that both director Joseph Losey and star Stanley Baker would be capable of a more discreet arthouse offering like Accident (1966). Except for the director’s penchant for introducing a jazz score more often than suits the material – witness a brutal beating in a prison – this is an exceptionally gruelling blast through the British underworld, as though the domestic film industry had suddenly inhaled a narcotic comprised of Cagney and Bogart at their meanest.

With hardly a redemptive character in sight, it makes terrific demands of both director and star that anyone comes out achieving audience sympathy. Hollywood usually fell back on the trope of the innocent prisoner to instigate character empathy, but there’s no question from the outset that career criminal Bannion (Stanley Baker) is as tough as they come. In the opening section he arranges for rival Kelly (Kenneth Cope) to be viciously beaten with prison guard Barrows (Patrick Magee) turning a blind eye.

Out after a three-year stretch, Bannion plans a robbery of a race track with a partner, American Mike (Sam Wanamaker). But it turns out the track is owned by another gangster. After that, the double-crosses come thick and fast, nobody to be trusted, everyone out for themselves. He ends up back in prison, wanted by both sides of the law, the gangsters desperate to get their hands on the hidden loot.

Inside, he is protected by Italian mob boss Saffron (Gregoire Aslan), ruling his empire from prison, in return for a share of the loot. In due course, he instigates a riot, and double-crossing the other inmates, secures a shift to a low-security prison, and he is rescued from the transfer van. But there’s no escape. It’s a bleak ending all round. He dies on a beach, but without revealing where he has stowed the loot.

There are a couple of gals in the mix. The first, his ex-, Maggie (Jill Bennett) he treats in appalling fashion. The second, something of a present for his release, Suzanne (Margit Saad), sees the better side of him, although you have a sneaking feeling that she’s a plant.

But, really, nobody’s got a better side here. The prison scenes are grittier than had previously been the case in British movies, but the whole gangster set-up has a realistic “goodfellas” feel to it, boozing gangsters welcoming him home even as they are planning to stitch him up. And while Bannion may be unaware of ownership of the race track, clearly Mike isn’t, and Bannion is being set up to take the fall.

Joseph Losey (The Damned, 1962) takes an original approach to the material, cutting out the “big job” element entirely in favor of repercussion. He keeps up a brisk pace, which helps build tension, instead focussing on the relationships between the criminals and the prison hierarchy. Especially in the early prison scenes, more is made of vulnerability than toughness, many of Bannion’s confederates presented as weak and easily controlled rather than constantly challenging, prison guards complicit.

Stanley Baker (Where’s Jack, 1969) has such a malevolent appearance he was often as his best in the toughest arenas and perhaps Losey is making the point that even the toughest of tough guys can be duped by gangsters with more brains. There’s a terrific support cast: Sam Wanamaker (Warning Shot, 1966), Gregoire Aslan (Lost Command, 1966), Patrick Magee (Hard Contract, 1969), Jill Bennett (The Charge of the Light Brigade, 1968), Patrick Wymark (Where Eagles Dare, 1968) and Laurence Naismith (Jason and the Argonauts, 1963). German star Margit Saad (The Magnificent Two, 1967) lends an air of mystery to her character.

This was the third – of four – teamings for Losey and Baker. The British censor took a mighty mild attitude to the unexpected levels of nudity and violence. Alan Owen (A Hard Day’s Night, 1964) and Jimmy Sangster (The Devil-Ship Pirates, 1964) are credited with the script.

Takes no prisoners.

Where’s Jack (1969) ***

Prison escapees tend to conform to a certain type. Think Charles Bronson and Steve McQueen (The Great Escape, 1969), Paul Newman (Cool Hand Luke, 1967) and Clint Eastwood (Escape from Alcatraz, 1979). Admittedly, Tim Robbins (The Shawshank Redemption, 1994) doesn’t fit the bill, but he’s got brains instead of brawn. But he’s not twinkle-eyed or twinkle-toed or diminutive like British hoofer Tommy Steele (Half a Sixpence, 1967) who’s not helped here by being up against a distinctively tough screen character in the shape of Stanley Baker (Zulu, 1964).

Served up as an antidote to the tomfoolery and sexuality of Tom Jones (1963), more interested in the seamier side of Ye Olde England, it ignores the more interesting tale of criminal corruption and hypocrisy of Jonathan Wild (Stanley Baker), the Thief-Taker, in favor of young thief Jack Sheppard (Tommy Steele) who proves his nemesis.

Wild was the ultimate hypocrite, not just stewed in the corruption of the times but taking advantage of it, and not so much poacher-turned-gamekeeper but gamekeeper who had not entirely abandoned his previous profession. Wild, a notorious thief, managed to set himself up as London’s top lawman, keeping other thieves in line and handing over a certain number to the hangman. He had another sideline. He sold back stolen goods to burglarized owners. Most of this was condoned by the authorities who believed that it took a thief to catch a thief.

Wild enrages Sheppard, apprentice locksmith to trade, by reneging on a deal to free Sheppard’s criminal brother. Sheppard sets out to teach the antique godfather a lesson, breaking into his warehouse and stealing the contents.

Wild has him arrested on a variety of occasions, but each time Sheppard breaks out from prisons that had the reputation of the later Alcatraz, in one instance through a sewer, in another via a chimney, turning himself into a local hero in the process. Sheppard’s main trade is not so much burglary as highwayman and further annoying Wild by bringing such criminal solicitation to the streets of posh London, from which it had, by decree of Wild, been outlawed.

In so doing, Sheppard encounters Lady Darlington (Sue Lloyd), so taken with our scamp that had this been Tom Jones there would have been some rollicking in the hay (or the Mayfair equivalent). Instead, she bets her Scottish estate that he will escape from his latest incarceration.

Sheppard has the hots for barmaid Bess (Fiona Lewis) but this not being Tom Jones we don’t go much beyond cleavage. The sub-plot involving Lady Darlington, which I’m guessing forms part of the Jack Sheppard legend (since he was a real-life character), takes up valuable time which could have been spent either developing the romance or on the escapes, which don’t generate the necessary tension, or filling out the crook’s character.

Narrative-wise there’s more at stake for Wild, not just being led a merry dance by Sheppard and losing respect (the crime of crimes against a criminal mastermind) but also by potentially damaging his cosy relationship with the authorities, led by snippy Lord Chancellor (Alan Badel) who is on the other side of the Lady Darlington wager.

Fair amount of rubbish being tossed out of windows, unruly tavern occupants, poverty and homelessness abounding, and general but unspecified bawdiness, in fact a truer perspective of the times, doesn’t compensate for the lack of compelling narrative.

On paper, this should have amounted to a lot more. Mostly, it goes askew from miscasting. Tommy Steele is outshone without much difficulty by Stanley Baker and it’s asking a lot of an audience to accept that a cheeky chappie can outwit the exceptionally clever tough guy. It’s Baker who makes the most of his scenes, either lording it over his gangs, using cruelty to keep them in line, or fearing that he might be toppled from his lofty position and end up either back in the gutter or at the end of a noose.

There’s a bit of complicated jiggery-pokery relating to the effect your weight has on how long you can dangle on the end of a rope. Hangmen in those days did not follow scientific principles and provide some kind of weighting handicap as occurred later to prevent unnecessary suffering and make death as swift as possible.

Anyway, our Jack, being a skinny little runt (and this plot-point key to the climax ensuring the part required a skinny little runt rather than someone hewn from the normal tough guy runt) doesn’t die from the hanging, escaping the fury of Wild and (so legend has it) managing to escape to the colonies.

Put a Michael Caine (The Ipcress File, 1965) in the leading role or Richard Harris (Major Dundee, 1965) or even a Nicol Williamson (The Reckoning, 1970) and you would have quite a different movie, a more believable protagonist. Even Peter O’Toole (Night of the Generals, 1966), while devoid of muscle, would suggest the brains to outwit his opponent.

In the face of the mop-haired pop singers and raucous rock stars, Tommy Steele had reinvented himself from 1950s teen idol into Broadway musical star with Half a Sixpence and then viewed as a squeaky-clean alternative to the more louche movie star turned up in harmless offerings like Disney’s The Happiest Millionaire (1967) and Francis Ford Coppola’s non-grandiose Finian’s Rainbow (1968).

Oddly enough, it was to escape such typecasting that he took on what was perceived as a much tougher role only to discover he lacked the acting cojones to pull it off. Baker, Badel (Bitter Harvest, 1963) and Lloyd (Corruption, 1968) beat him hands down.

Director James Clavell was riding high after To Sir, with Love (1967) as was producer-star Stanley Baker after Robbery (1967) and screenwriters David and Rafe Newhouse following Point Blank (1967). This brought them down to earth.

More Artful Dodger than Get Carter.

Subterfuge (1968) ***

Worth seeing alone for super-slinky leather-clad uber-sadistic Donetta (Suzanna Leigh) who delights in torturing the daylights out of any secret agent who crosses her path, in this case Michael Donovan (Gene Barry). She’s got a neat line in handbags, too, the poisonous kind. Two stories cross over in this London-set spy drama. American Donovan (Gene Barry) is under surveillance from both foreign powers and British intelligence. When his contact comes into unfortunate contact with a handbag, he finds himself on the sticky end of the attention of Shevik (Marius Goring) while at the same time employed by the British spy chief Goldsmith (Michael Rennie) to find the mole in their camp.

The three potential suspects are top-ranking intelligence officers: Col. Redmayne (Richard Todd), British spy Peter Langley (Tom Adams) and backroom underling Kitteridge (Colin Gordon). On top of this Langley’s wife Anne (Joan Collins) adds conscience to the proceedings, growing more and more concerned that the affairs of the secret state are taking too much precedence over her marriage.

The hunt-the-mole aspect is pretty well-staged. Kitteridge always looks shifty, keenly watching his boss twisting the dials on a huge office safe containing top secret secrets. Langley is introduced as a villain, turning up at Shevik’s with the drugs that are going to send Donovan to sleep for eight hours for transport abroad in a trunk. But he turns out to be just pretending and aids Donovan’s innovative escape. Charming but ruthless Redmayne is also under suspicion if only because he belongs to the upper-class strata (Burgess, Philby and Maclean etc) that already betrayed their country.

In investigating Langley, Donovan fixes on the wife, now, coincidentally, a potential romantic target since her husband is suing for divorce. She is particularly attracted to Donovan after he saves her son from a difficult situation on the water, although that appears manufactured for the very purpose of making her feel indebted. However, the couple are clearly attracted, although the top of a London bus would not generally be the chosen location, in such glamorous spy pictures, for said romance to develop.

As you will be aware, romance is a weak spot for any hard-bitten spy and Shevik’s gang take easy advantage, putting Anne, her son and Donovan in peril at the same time as the American follows all sorts of clues to pin down the traitor.

This is the final chapter in Gene Barry’s unofficial 1960s movie trilogy – following Maroc 7 (1967) and Istanbul Express (1968) – and London is a more dour and more apt climate for this more down-to-earth drama. Forget bikinis and gadgets, the best you can ask for is Joan Collins dolled up in trendy min-skirt and furs. Gene Barry, only too aware that London has nothing on Morocco or Istanbul in the weather department, dresses as if expecting thunderstorms, so he’s not quite the suave character of the previous two pictures, but that does not seem to dampen his ardor and the gentle romantic banter is well done.

Joan Collins, in a career trough after her Twentieth Century Fox contract ended with Esther and the King (1960), has the principled role, determining that the price paid by families for those in active secret service is too high. No slouch in the spy department himself, essaying Charles Vine in three movies including Where the Bullets Fly (1966), Tom Adams plays with audience expectations in this role.

It’s a marvelous cast, one of those iconic congregations of talent, with former British superstar Richard Todd (The Dam Busters, 1955) and Michael Rennie, television’s The Third Man (1959-1965), Marius Goring (The Girl on a Motorcycle, 1968) and Suzanna Leigh (The Lost Continent, 1968) trading her usual damsel-in-distress persona for a turn as terrific damsel-causing-distress.

Shorn of sunny location to augment his backgrounds, director Peter Graham Scott (Bitter Harvest, 1963) turns his camera on scenic London to take in Trafalgar Square, the zoo, Royal Festival Hall, the Underground, Regent’s Park with the usual flotilla of pigeons and ducks.

Get slinky.

The Vengeance of She (1968) ***

Sequels boomed in the 1960s mainly thanks to multiple spy spin-offs in the James Bond/Matt Helm/Derek Flint vein but for every From Russia with Love (1963) and In Like Flint (1967) there was a more tepid entry like Return of the Seven (1966). One of the prerequisites of the series business was that the original star reappeared. But Ursula Andress who played the title character in Hammer’s She (1966) declined to reprise the role.

John Richardson did return from the first picture but in a different role, as the immortal Killikrates within the lost city of Zuma. So Hammer brought in Andress lookalike statuesque Czech blonde Olinka Berova (The 25^th Hour, 1967), even emulating the Swiss star’s famous entrance in Dr No (1962), although instead of coming out of the sea Berova is going in and substituting the bikini with bra and panties, but the effect is much the same.

Story, set in the 1960s, has supposed Scandinavian Carol (Berova) mysteriously drawn south against her will and driven by voices in her head conjuring up the name Ayesha. We first encounter her walking down a mountain road in high heels only to be chased through the woods by a truck driver. It transpires she had unusual powers, or someone protecting her has, for the lorry brake slips and the truck crushes the driver. Next means of transport is a yacht owned by dodgy drunken businessman George (Colin Blakely) and before you know it she is in Algeria, assisted by Kassim (Andre Morell) who attempts to forestall those trying to control her mind, but to no avail.

Philip (Edward Judd), whose character is effectively “handsome guy from the yacht,” follows as she continues south and eventually the pair reach Kuma, where she is acclaimed as Ayesha aka She. Kallikrates’ immortality depends on her with some urgency crossing through the cold flames of the sacred fire. There’s a sub-plot involving high priest Men-hari (Derek Godfrey) promised immortality for returning Ayesha to Kuma and further intrigue that comes a little too late to help proceedings. You can probably guess the rest.

There’s no “vengeance” that I can see and certainly no whip-cracking as suggested in the poster. Berova, while attractive enough, lacks the screen magnetism of Andress and the mystery of who Carol is and where she’s headed is no substitute for either pace or tension and Berova isn’t a good enough actress to convey the fear she must be experiencing. The script could have done without weighting down the Kuma high priests with lengthy exposition explaining the whys and wherefores. Neither a patch on the original nor the expected star-making turn for Berova, this is strictly Saturday afternoon matinee fare and the slinky actress, despite her best sex-kitten efforts, cannot compensate.

Director Cliff Owen (A Man Could Get Killed, 1966) assembles a strong supporting cast, headed by Edward Judd (First Men in the Moon,1964) and Colin Blakely (a future Dr Watson in Billy Wilder’s The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, 1970). You can also spot Andre Morell (Dark of the Sun, 1968), George Sewell (who later enjoyed a long-running role in British television series Special Branch, 1969-1974) and television regular Jill Melford.

Curious change of pace for writer Peter O’Donnell, best known at this point for creating another sultry heroine, Modesty Blaise (1966).

Lee (2024) *** – Seen at the Cinema

Would have worked better as a documentary. Bit puzzled too by the deceit of the structural device, flashing back from her war years to being interviewed by an apparent journalist in old age at her country cottage. Seems an interesting conceit that he turns out to be her son Antony (Josh O’Connor) and she’s able to turn the tables and ask what she was like as a mother (not good, apparently, Antony grew up feeling he was an imposition). But also a standard biopic trope as he uses her famed photos to stimulate memories. But then, presumably in the interests of honesty (or who knows what) the credits blow these sequences to pieces by pointing out that her son didn’t have a scoobie about her war activities until after the death a forage in the attic turned up boxes of her photos. What the heck, artistic license and all that.

My other quibble, since I’m in that sort of mood, is that the ageing process seems to have passed our star Kate Winslet by. Sure, she’s dabbed on a bit of oldie make-up for her later years but the crow’s nest of lines around her eyes are noticeably prominent for a woman just turned thirty in the immediate pre-war year.

Still, on with the show, in which her pre-war fame as a surrealist is also ignored, as is her liaison with Man Ray, or that before she took up with another surrealist Roland Penrose (Alexander Skarsgard) she had been married to – and not divorced from – an Egyptian businessmen. The thrust of the movie is her war years as Vogue correspondent. There’s a bit of falling back on characters skitting around in the background (Cecil Beaton, for example) and keeping us up-to-scratch on timescale, invasion imminent etc.

Misogyny is fairly rampant, the British squeamish about sending women unnecessarily to the front line, the Yanks less so. Though Lee Miller is treated, for dramatic purposes, as the only female war correspondent, breaking through the usual class ceiling, in fact the Yanks had squads of them including Martha Gellhorn and Mary Welsh, third and fourth wives of Ernest Hemingway, respectively, Kathleen Harriman, Dixie Tighe and Helen Kirkpatrick, and Tania Long, none of whom would be unknown to Miller since she posed for a photo with the gang in 1943.

There was nothing subtle about Lee Miller, she said it like it was, a hard-drinking what used to be known as a free spirit, an euphemism for embracing a love-‘em-and-leave-‘em mentality. But there’s some subtlety here, a scene of her peeling potatoes revealing more about male expectation than any verbal punch-up with any officious male, being covered with supposedly invisible paint by Roland more effective in catching sexual attraction than the rest of her let-it-all-hang-out persona.

The only problem is that the concentration camp scenario has been dealt with by any number of far superior films and her staggering back with shock at the sight of the piled-up corpses not compensation enough. I don’t know enough about war photographers to compare what she captures through the lens with the dozens of others doing the same job. By the time her photos of the Holocaust were printed in American Vogue, Richard Dimbleby and Edward Murrow had delivered radio devastating reports and anonymous military photographers supplied tons of evidence against the Nazis.

I’m not sure it actually helps her case that she took a bath, naked, in Hitler’s bath.

Kate Winslet (Ammonite, 2020) almost single-handedly keeps the movie on course, but it lacks impact as a war picture, and the idea that nobody other than Lee was taking note of the suffering of the British during the Blitz seems a bit of a stretch. Pick of the support is most definitely Andrea Riseborough as the doughty British Vogue editor, every bit as tough if not as outspoken as Miller. Josh O’Connor (Challengers, 2024) spends all his time looking soulful for no reason I can divine. Marion Cottillard (La Vie en Rose, 2007) is wasted.

Ellen Kuras directed from a script by Liz Hannah (All the Bright Places, 2020), Marion Hume (movie debut) and John Collee (Monkey Man, 2024).

Movie not as hard-nosed as Winslet.

The Critic (2024) ** – Seen at the Cinema

Can we get over all this “national treasure” (a favorite of Britain) baloney, please? If we’re going to drag our esteemed acting knights of the realm out of their armchairs (you notice I didn’t say retirement because actors almost never officially retire, Kathy Bates and Gene Hackman to the contrary) could we please give them something more than an opportunity to overact and turn themselves into ripe old hams at the age of (in this case) eighty-five. Sir Ian McKellen (Gandalf and Magneto to you and me) deserves better.

Because there’s nothing at all in this beyond Falstaffian monster Jimmy (Ian McKellen), the eponymous theater critic, relishing his power and taking revenge when’s on the verge of losing it. Frankly, if this was called The Tie-Pin Killer, the serial murderer in the book on which this is based, and Jimmy, as in that book, was relegated to a bit part, albeit a juicy one, it might have been a lot more interesting.

While it touches upon 1930s London Fascists and the plight of the homosexual (a criminal offence to participate) these are kind of tossed into the scenario as if to placate an audience who might complain this is very thin gruel indeed. Presumably, we are somehow meant sympathize with this cruel, odious, character because from time to time he finds himself confronted by blackshirts, who take a dislike to his black companion Tom (Alfred Enoch), who acts as his secretary and presumably not anything else because Jimmy prefers “rough trade.”

In revenge for being fired, he sets up actress Nina (Gemma Atterton) to seduce his employer David Brooke (Mark Strong). Blackmail’s the tool of reinstatement. Apart from general actor insecurity, it’s not entirely clear why Nina should be so determined to keep in Jimmy’s good books. There’s some unbelievable stuff about becoming attracted to acting through reading his articles, which seems quite bizarre since his nasty reviews would put people off going, as he proudly explains is one his aims.

So Nina prostitutes herself for a good review. Yep, must happen all the time. And despite her supposed success – these are, after all, West End plays she is starring in – she lives in a bedsit where hot water is rationed. But she is, romantically, in a bind. She’s just dumped her married lover Stephen (Ben Barnes) whose wife Cora (Romola Garai) just happens to be the daughter of Brooke.

And although Brooke’s wife is “bonkers” (though that’s very much on the periphery) he’s that old-fashioned upper class English gent who only feels shame at adultery when he’s caught out and then of course does the right thing which is to blow his brains out. Which leaves Nina racked with guilt which drives her, as it would, back into the arms of Stephen only for him (another adulterer with principles) to reject her on the grounds that she slept with his father-in-law. When Nina begins to talk about confessing to her role in conspiracy, what’s an upstanding chap to do but drown her in the bathtub?

*In the original book Jimmy was a minor character.*

Crikey, and we complain about the plotting in the multiverse. This is just bonkersverse. Presumably, Oscar-nominated screenwriter Patrick Marber (Notes on a Scandal, 2007) happened upon Anthony J. Quinn thriller Curtain Call in which Jimmy exists on the periphery of the actual narrative though as a larger-than-life character and decided to forget the whole tie-pin killer thing and rearrange the tale so it revolved around McKellen in the hope nobody would notice, in the midst of McKellen roistering and boistering to his heart’s content, the lack of any sensible tale.

You could certainly have more easily hooked it on Nina, who falls into the Patrick Hamilton category of easily-led character on the edge with impulse inclined to cut her adrift.

If you want ham, McKellen’s your man, none of the subtlety which has impelled other performances. Gemma Atterton (The King’s Man, 2021) has a few moments tormented by conscience but the part is woefully underwritten. This is the reined-in Mark Strong (Tar, 2022) rather the one with the veins standing out on his neck. Lesley Manville (Mrs Harris Goes to Paris, 2022), potentially another future national treasure, has a brief role as does Romola Garai (Atonement, 2007).

Maybe wanting to burnish his artistic credentials, director Anand Tucker (Leap Year, 2010) is predisposed to the extreme close-up and for viewing a scene in extreme long shot through a corridor, window or door.

Jimmy would give have slated this.

Crooks and Coronets / Sophie’s Place (1969) **

The concept of “national treasure” – perhaps in itself a purely British conceit – wasn’t invented back in the day but if it had Dame Edith Evans would fall into the same coveted category as Maggie Smith and Judi Dench do today. She was certainly among the most honored of British thespians in the 1960s – Oscar nominations for Tom Jones (1963), The Chalk Garden (1964) and The Whisperers (1967) – so what she’s doing in this unfunny mess is anybody’s guess. She was 80 at the time and while easily the best thing in it, the switch between battiness and cleverness is hardly new.

Everyone is oh so British, including the gangsters led by Frank (Harry H. Corbett), and it should be the old trope of Yanks not coming to grips with English life and customs, which sometimes can strike a note, but instead the set-up is so dire and the acting so uninspiring. Warren Oates (The Thief Who Came to Dinner, 1973) is at his worst – when I tell you his best scene is his discomfort at having to hold a plate and cup-and-saucer at the same time, you’ll guess why. Telly Savalas attempts to be charming but it just comes off as an overheated version of his usual thug.

Story is lame. Herbie (Telly Savalas), just out of the slammer, finds he is in hock to mob boss Nick (Cesar Romero), so with buddy Marty (Warren Oates) sets off for England to fleece Lady Sophie Fitzmore (Edith Evans) only to discover that her stately pile is also in hock (you want to discover about British death duties, this is the one for you). British mob boss Frank doesn’t like the idea of the Yanks infringing on his territory, so is keeping a close watch and in the end decides to raid Sophie’s joint himself, by which time the Yank villains have become so enamored of Sophie that they’re on her side and set up the kind of defense that would have been axed from cockanamie comedies like The Great Race (1964) for not being funny enough. Sure, Edith Evans in goggles and racing in on a biplane looks good on paper but not when the thugs scatter like the Keystone Cops.

Edith Evans was exceedingly wary of the movies. She only made 14 – and just six pre-1960 and two of those in the silent era – in all those decades when she was otherwise devoting her time to the theater and best remembered by movie audiences for The Importance of Being Earnest (1952). According to Sir Laurence Olivier she only gave the movies another bash when her memory started failing her and the notion of only having to remember a few lines at a time exerted its attraction.

While she’s good fun here, she’s saddled with mutton for co-stars. Telly Savalas (The Assasination Bureau, 1969) theoretically wins his first leading role, but in fact that went to Edith Evans and better actors than him had faded away in Dame Edith’s slipstream. Quite what Warren Oates thought he could do with the part is anybody’s guess because he does nothing.

Written and directed by Jim O’Connelly (The Valley of Gwangi, 1969).

Maroc 7 (1967) ***

With a string of Swinging Sixties fashion models providing the requisite bevy of beauties, a gang of thieves, a Moroccan heist, superb locations, great cast and a touch of archaeology with secret chambers and a long-lost relic thrown, this splendid espionage frolic proves a welcome return to big screen top billing for Gene Barry after nearly a decade in television in Bat Masterson (1958-1961) and Burke’s Law (1963-1966).

Something of a cat burglar himself, Simon Grant (Barry) infiltrates a gang which uses fashion as a cover and whose ingenious specialty is to steal famous heirlooms and replace them with fake ones in the assumption that on their departure from a foreign country the customs officers will not be able to tell the difference. Louise Henderson (Cyd Charisse) and Raymond Lowe (Leslie Phillips) head up the gang while Claudia (Else Martinelli) may or may not be in on the act.

Her dalliance with Simon suggests an inclination towards the right side of the law justice but the fact that she has been involved with the pair for so long sets up the intriguing notion that she is stringing the American agent along. Initially, she rejects Simon’s advances until told by Louise to comply and pump him for information leading to one of the movie’s best lines (and innuendo that a British audience in particular would adore). Says Simon: “We haven’t done much about pumping but maybe that will come later.” Doubts also surround the intentions of Michelle Craig (Alexandra Stewart). On their trail is Inspector Barrada (Denholm Elliott).

There is mystery aplenty and a fair quotient of punch-ups, romance, shoot-outs and murder while the unearthing of the hidden treasure is more less heist than Indiana Jones. The fashion is the icing on the cake. The Moroccan fashion shoots are more than merely decorative, an excuse to bare the charms of the gorgeous models. Instead, the shoots would not disgrace Vogue or any of the other glossy magazine temples to haute couture, with that Sixties focus on fabulous clothes, genuine location and outlandish hairstyles.

On top of that, several of the stars are either playing against type or out of their comfort zones. Legendary Hollywood dancer Cyd Charisse famed for such classic musicals as The Bandwagon (1953) and Silk Stockings (1957) sets such fluff aside to essay a criminal mastermind, whose cunning often gets the better of Simon. Leslie Phillips (Crooks Anonymous, 1962), better known as a charming Englishman with an eye for the ladies, is as ruthless a photographer as he is a criminal. Director Gerry O’Hara (The Pleasure Girls, 1965) – from a script by David D. Osborn (Some Girls Do, 1969) has managed to get both Phillips and Denholm Elliott to drop their standard methods of delivery, usually embracing a drawl, making their characterizations a good bit fresher than normal. Phillips was clearly intending to make some kind of career change since he was the producer.

Gene Barry makes a perfect entrance as an adventurer-spy, as confident in his seduction techniques without women falling at his feet like James Bond, with a nice line in self-deprecation and more than able to look after himself. Before being side-tracked by television, Barry had shown movie star potential in Thunder Road (1958) and Hong Kong Potential, and now he delivers on that earlier promise. Elsa Martinelli (Hatari!, 1962) is the femme fatale who may or may not wish to play that role, keeping the audience completely on edge as to which side of the law she is likely to come down. Added bonuses are Alexandra Stewart (Only When I Larf, 1968), Angela Douglas (Carry On Screaming!, 1966), Tracy Reed (Hammerhead, 1968), dancer Lionel Blair (A Hard Day’s Night, 1964) and Maggie London.

Good fun with plenty diversion.

The Trygon Factor (1967) ****

Sublime climax but you need persistence to get through the fog of red herrings. Genre mash-up that flits precariously between whodunit and horror as we slip from a convent of nefarious nuns living in a vast stately home, where half-naked girls pose for photo sessions, and secret messages are smuggled out, to a pre-giallo masked killer with a drowning obsession liable to jump out. Luckily, there’s an equally impressive grand hotel nearby, thankfully minus nuns, but where killers still roam.

I had mistakenly assumed horror because “Trygon” is close to “Tygon,” the British horror outfit taking a more outré approach to the genre than staid old Hammer, and because of the random killings, and a man, Luke (James Culliford), son of the mansion owner Livia Emberday (Cathleen Nesbitt), in the habit of dressing up in weird garb and chopping the heads off flowers with a sword and inclined, in a fit of pique, to smash precious china heirlooms. And because there’s a fair bit of business with a coffin, this being the kind of movie where mourners lean into the casket and kiss the corpse.

If it is, indeed, a corpse. Zombies, anyone? I wouldn’t have been surprised. This is jam-packed with sumptuous misleading incident. Especially, as, for most of the proceedings, it seems like we’re stuck in a detective tale with an inspector who’s clearly never lived a minute in Britain judging from his glowing tan. He’s investigating a missing colleague (Allan Cuthbertson) seen in the opening sequence snooping around the mansion before being passed furtive notes through the gates by a young nun, later rigorously stripped of her habit.

The tan’s probably the giveaway since the immaculately turned-out Supt Cooper-Smith (Stewart Granger) fancies himself as a ladies’ man, first with French receptionist Sophie (Sophie Hardy) who expects a bit of coaxing seduction, and then with Livia’s daughter Trudy (Susan Hampshire), the photographer, who doesn’t, keener on a speedier route into a man’s affections.

By the time the dust begins to settle, and the top cop harbors suspicions about a dockside warehouse owned by swivel-eyed Hubert (Robert Morley) – although Cooper-Smith’s investigation technique revolves around plying young women with brandy – we’re drifting between the notion of some mad cult operating in the convent and Luke as the most likely serial killer given his determination to “play” with young women.

But, in fact, just as we’re being lulled into a sense of false security and the idea that we’ve seen this all before, director Cyril Frankel (On the Fiddle, 1961) springs the first of several audacious twists. The idea that the stately home is a front for a gang of thieves might, on the face of it, appear ludicrous except for the skill with which they carry out the heist and that the criminal mastermind is Livia, assisted by equally cunning daughter.

They have imported – in a coffin – a top French safecracker whose tool of choice is the kind of weapon that Thunderbolt and Lightfoot would have envied, if not a villain of James Bond proportions, and although the armament doesn’t spew out laser beams, it has sufficient firepower to render vulnerable the toughest safe. Naturally, Livia organises the break-in to coincide with nearby building works where the thunder of pneumatic drills will drown out any gun fire.

The thieves turn up outside the appointed bank in what appears an official security van, but from the boxes they carry into the target they produce gas masks and proceed to immobilize anyone inside. They’re after gold bullion because, under the guise of manufacturing large candlestick holders for sale to tourists at the stately home, Livia has set up a gold-smelting operation, pouring liquified gold into the base of the candlestick, trademark Trygon. Having re-disguised the French safecracker as a corpse and placed him in a coffin ready for the surreptitious trip home, ruthless Livia instead dumps him into the Thames to drown.

It’s pure luck that our police lothario happens upon the truth and discovers the smelting basement whereupon – twist number two – the delectable Trudy reveals herself to be the serial killer. She kills for “fun” and relishes the prospect of knocking off an “arrogant” male and one too susceptible to her charms to recognize her femme fatale sensibilities

The giallo-esque killings are highlights, one victim drowned in a baptismal font, another in a bathtub. That female’s kicking and screaming isn’t enough, what with the radio turned up loud, to attract the attention of the nubile Sophie next door luxuriating in a bubble bath. But death by piping hot liquid gold takes some beating. And that’s not the sole reason for the X-certificate since the movie taunts the censor in Blow-Up (1966) – minus the attendant hullabaloo – fashion with a brief glimpse of naked female breast.

The prospective audience might have expected a supernatural outcome given director Frankel’s previous outing The Witches (1966) and had they been alerted to the fact that the source material (uncredited) was written Edgar Wallace might have come prepared for some of the twists.

This is the kind of movie that needs to be viewed backwards because it’s only at the end that you work out what it’s all about and how skilfully the audience has been duped. An object lesson and one that, for example, Zoe Kravitz (Blink Twice, 2024) should have watched to learn how to suck an audience in.

When you consider the movie in reverse, you realize this is really about an exceptionally clever heist and two women who are more than a match for any man. The males here are definitely disposable.

If you wondered why I gave this is a four-star rating rather than the more obvious three stars, it’s because of what’s mostly unsaid, the iceberg of psychology floating beneath the surface, the one that says that British audiences would not tolerate a top-class female criminal gang capable of pulling off a fantastic heist and without compunction killing off any man, including co-workers, who gets in their way. Had it begun from the POV of Lydia and Trudy planning the robbery, and dealt with Cooper-Smith et al as simply hazards of the profession, it might have made a terrific heist picture but then all the fun of the twists and the pulling the wool over audience eyes would be missed.

Susan Hampshire (The Three Lives of Thomasina, 1963) belies her Disney persona with a chilling portrait of an exceptionally smart femme fatale. Stewart Granger (The Last Safari, 1967) looks as if he views the whole boring process of detection as nothing more than the opportunity to try out some chat-up lines.

Cyril Frankel makes no pretence at being a great stylist, but he more than makes up for it by the teasing structure, some of the costumes, the atmosphere and the twists. Derry Quinn (Operation Crossbow, 1965) and Stanley Munro, in his movie debut, devised the screenplay based on a book by Edgar Wallace

Watch – and marvel.