British – Page 12 – The Magnificent 60s

Salt and Pepper (1968) ***

Dry run for the director Richard Donner’s later Lethal Weapon? A cautionary tale about what might have happened to the revered Rat Pack series had it spluttered on into the vestiges of the “groovy” Sixties? An attempt to emulate the Bob Hope-Bing Crosby joker-crooner concoction? Or Morecambe and Wise, two idiots on the loose? Spy movie spoof? Stuffy Brits in the firing line?

All of the above. If you are comfortable with the sexist agenda that was almost de rigeur for the times, don’t mind the movie’s lurching tone, or the scattergun gag approach, the glib approach to violent death, and don’t cringe at the running racist jokes (making fun of racism, you understand) you might well find enough to like.

Especially as this was something or an audition. A way to check whether, in Hollywood marquee terms, stars Sammy Davis Jr. and Peter Lawford could cut it. For such a renowned celebrity, this was one of only two films where Sammy Davis Jr. was top-billed. And for Peter Lawford, an eternal supporting actor, this was the highest billing he ever achieved outside of the Italian-made The Fourth Wall (1969).

Salt (Sammy Davis Jr.) and Pepper (Peter Lawford) – that’s your first joke, right there, the names, work it out – are under investigation by the London cops for their Soho night club, which doubles as a gambling joint where the croupiers are not only, unusually, female (strike one for feminism) but topless (strike out for feminism). Both consider themselves lotharios and have a running bet on who will be the more successful (so that’s all right then).

But they’re not that bright when it comes to women (so one in the eye for those James Bond types), as neither could spot a femme fatale is she had those words branded on her forehead (the forehead the last female feature they’re interested in), and the prospect of an inert female lying on the office floor is so inviting to them that it doesn’t occur to them they’re trying to chat up a corpse.

Anyways, the dead woman Mai Ling (Jeanne Roland) is a spy and soon our boys are caught up in an espionage tale that dithers between hard-nosed Soho thugs with requisite scars (and a twitch), posh villain with piratical eye-patch, Downing St and duff British officialdom, real and fake Prime Ministers and Home Secretaries, public schools (and a gag about “fags”) and car chases in a Mini-Moke stacked with standard 007 extras like machine guns and oil-spraying devices.

So it’s one wildly imaginative situation after another, interrupted by stage turns by Sammy Davis Jr. (presumably to remind people this was a Rat Pack rip-off), with the cream of the British character acting fraternity being permitted to go way outside the stiff-upper-lip British box.

Fits neatly into the spy spoof, or the Eurospy spoof (which tended to be overloaded one way or another). Shame about the wayward direction and outlandish script because Sammy Davis Jr. and Peter Lawford do make a fine screen comedy pair, matching each other in ineptitude, and with Davis coming top of the Swinging Sixties Fashion Faux Pas Top Ten, with the kind of outfits that only attention-seeking nutjobs or villains would consider wearing.

Plenty of fun watching the supporting cast play around with their screen personas. John Le Mesurier (Midas Run, 1969), Michael Bates (Hammerhead, 1968), Robertson Hare (All Gas and Gaiters series, 1966-1971), Graham Stark (The Plank, 1967) and Ernest Clark (Arabesque, 1966) are getting paid to have fun. Ilona Rodgers (Snow Treasure, 1968) makes her movie debut.

You kind of get the idea that Michael Pertwee’s screenplay fell into the wrong hands. That it was intended as a vehicle for Morecambe and Wise (Pertwee wrote The Magnificent Two, 1967) and somehow ended up with American stars.

If your familiarity with the 1960s espionage genre runs only to James Bond, Matt Helm, Harry Palmer and that big-budget ilk and your idea of a spy spoof is limited to Casino Royale (1967), this will fill you in on the breadth of inanity tolerated.

Successful enough to generate a sequel, One More Time (1970).

The Reckoning (1969) ****

Fans of Succession will love the boardroom battles and fans of Get Carter the gritty violence. Michael Marler (Nicol Williamson) is a thug whichever way you cut it. He’s a business hard-ass, at his nicest he’s obnoxious, at this worst brutal. He drives like a demon. Even in love, he’s fueled by hate, sex with wife Rosemary (Ann Bell) infernal. And all of this made acceptable, according to the left-wing tenets that underwrite the film, because he is a working-class man battling upper-class hypocrisy, never mind that his upper-class wife was hardly foisted upon him, nor that he was forced to live in luxury.

Unexpectedly, the film also explores other themes which have contemporary significance. Computers play a pivotal role and so does honor killing. The picture’s original title – A Matter of Honor – was ironic given that in the upper-class worlds in which he moved, courtesy of his job and marriage, he is considered to have little in the way of chivalry. But in the working-class world he has escaped he must avenge his father’s death in this manner.

The sudden death of his father sends him back to Liverpool where he discovers the old man was killed in a pub brawl. But the local doctor and police, disinterested in complicating what must be a regular occurrence, view his death as accidental. So Marler takes it upon himself to uncover the culprits and wreak revenge, any kind of revenge on any kind of culprit, regardless of the fact that from the outset it is clear they will hardly be gangsters. While contemplating violence, he strikes up a sexual relationship with the married Joyce (Rachel Roberts).

The story jumps between the back-stabbing corporate world to a scarcely less violent working class environment. The combination of charm and brute energy holds a certain appeal for Rosemary (Ann Bell) and helps keep him in the good books of his boss. He is otherwise a bully, targeting the weak spots of anyone who stands in his way on his climb to the top, and while heading up the sales division of a company in trouble blaming everyone else for his own failings. And while scorning his wife’s upper-class friends is quite happy to enjoy the benefits of her lifestyle, the flashy car might be the result of his endeavors but not the huge posh house. Marler stitches up another associate with the assistance of another lover, secretary Hilda (Zena Walker), and his long-suffering wife finally takes umbrage at his venomous manner.

Marler hides his hypocrisy behind the façade of a left-wing class-struggle. John McGrath’s screenplay clearly intends Marler’s working-class background to provide him with a get-out-of-jail-free card as well as to launch an attack on an upper classes seen as namby-pamby except when it comes to putting the poor in their place. The anti-class polemic has somewhat eroded over time but in its place can be found an accurate portrayal of social history. For ordinary people, alcohol, the drug du jour, plays a massive part. The endless terraces, houses without a single car parked outside, the vast pub which hosts wrestling matches and is a tinder spark away from erupting in a brawl, a culture where the first graspings at sex are likely to take place up a close or in a car, are in stark contrast to the high-life Marler enjoys in London.

He has no desire to go back home, hasn’t visited in five years, escaping there deemed a sign of success, and mostly returns metaphorically to draw on memories with which to scourge the upper-class and excuse his own behaviour.

Nicol Williamson (Inadmissable Evidence, 1968) delivers a tour de force, his screen presence never so vibrant, exhibiting the same raw appeal as Caine in Get Carter. At this point in is career, with a critically-acclaimed Hamlet on stage, he was perceived as the natural successor to Laurence Olivier and Columbia held up the release of The Reckoning to allow the Tony Richardson film of the stage production, in which he starred, to pick up critical momentum. Oddly enough Rachel Roberts had not capitalized on her Oscar-nominated role in This Sporting Life (1963) and this was only her second movie in seven years. Initially coming across as brassy, she soon softens into a surprisingly wistful character. Both Ann Bell and Zena Walker bring greater dimension to their characters rather than as adoring doormats. You can catch Paul Rogers (Three Into Two Won’t Go, 1969) and Tom Kempinski in supporting roles.

Director Jack Gold, who had worked with both Williamson and McGrath on his movie debut The Bofors Gun (based on the writer’s play), does a great job of capturing a particular period of British social history as well as Williamson stomping around in his pomp. Written by john McGrath (The Bofors Gun, 1967) and, in his debut, Patrick Hall.

Terrific performance stands up well.

Danger Route (1967) ***

If the producers had not signalled Bond-style ambitions with a big credit sequence theme song by Anita Harris, moviegoers might have come at this with more fitting expectations in the Harry Palmer and John Le Carre vein. So although slipping into the late decade spy boom flourish don’t expect villains planning world domination, gadgets or a flotilla of bikinis.

Seth Holt’s bread-and-butter espionage thriller sets government agent Jonas Wild (Richard Johnson) – on his “last assignment” no less after eight licensed murders in five years – to kill off a defector in the far from exotic location of a Dorset country house not realizing that he is also being set up. That his liquidator will be a woman puts the mysterious Mari (Barbara Bouchet) in pole position.

Wild gains access to the heavily-guarded mansion by seducing housekeeper Rhoda (Diana Dors) but after completing his mission is captured and tortured by Luciana – pronounced with a “k” – (Sam Wanamaker) who explains he is a patsy and that there is a mole in M.I.5. When his boss Tony Canning (Harry Andrews) disappears and another friend is murdered, Wild goes on the run with Mrs Canning (Sylvia Syms) and eventually makes his way back to his bolt-hole in Jersey to solve the mystery.

There is a decent amount of action, including a fight with a guard dog and a battle on a fog-bound yacht. Clever maneuvers abound – a bug is planted in a bandage. Treachery is always just round the corner and there is no shortage of suspects.

The film’s down-to-earth approach is somewhat refreshing after half a decade of spy thrillers and spoofs. Wild doesn’t employ anything more hi-tech than masquerading as a brush salesman to win over Rhoda. And although that relationship ends up in bed, there is no sex, Wild having drugged her to avoid that complication. Tony Canning is nagged by his wife. Wild’s girlfriend (Carol Lynley) is a sweet girl, sexy in a languid rather than overt fashion. And Luciana takes enormous pride in telling Wild just how stupid he has been.

But that comes with a caveat. The plot doesn’t quite hang together and the movie sometimes fails to connect.

That said, Johnson (Deadlier than the Male, 1967) is excellent, quite an accomplished actor rather than a brand name. Both Barbara Bouchet (Casino Royale) and Carole Lynley (Harlow, 1965) play against type while Sylvia Sims (East of Sudan, 1964) and Harry Andrews (The Hill, 1965) present variations to their normal screen personas. Sam Wanamaker (The Warning Shot, 1967) has a peach of a role and Gordon Jackson (The Long Ships, 1964) and Maurice Denham (The Long Duel, 1967) are afforded small but critical parts.

Seth Holt (Station Six Sahara, 1963) directs from a script by Meade Roberts (In the Cool of the Day, 1963) and Robert Banks Stewart (Never Mention Murder, 1965) based on the bestseller by Andrew York.

Competent with interesting touches.

Bitter Harvest (1963) ****

Anyone claiming to be gaslighted will have unwittingly invoked the memory of an English writer who died over 60 years ago. Alfred Hitchcock paid tribute to him in adapting his fiendish play, Rope (1948). Hangover Square (1945) starring Linda Darnell was another of his novels to hit the screen. In all there have been over 50 film and television adaptations of his works.

One of his most famous publications was a trilogy focusing on a London barman and a barmaid in love with him whom he casts aside. I had read it, as I had all of Patrick Hamilton’s novels, with enormous pleasure. The trilogy was published in 1935 under the title Twenty Thousand Streets under the Sky. So it was with some trepidation that I realized Bitter Harvest was based on the middle novel of the trilogy. The DVD had sat, unwatched, in my collection for a couple of years because I was put off by the title, the no-name cast and journeyman director, assuming some routine tale with a sad ending.

Now I’m kicking myself I ignored it for so long. It’s a little gem that packs a punch, climaxing with a stylistic twist, and held together by a virtuoso performance by Janet Munro, one-time Disney ingenue in pictures like Swiss Family Robinson (1960), as she twists the audience and her lover round her little finger. And all the way through, despite the self-imposed travails, she manages to evoke sympathy.

Virgin Jennie (Janet Munro) escapes humdrum life in Wales, running a small shop in a run-down village, looking after her ungrateful father, and about to be dumped as a full-time carer onto a pair of aunts, when she meets smooth salesman Andy (Terence Alexander). He gets her drunk on champagne, whisks her back to his flat where he rapes her. Shame prevents her going home. Friendly barman Bob (John Stride) takes pity on her when she reveals she’s pregnant and lets her sleep, untouched by him, in his bed. Naturally, the relationship progresses, though she makes no move to find a job. But she wants her “share” of the good things in life and a barman isn’t going to provide them.

Bob soon realizes she isn’t quite the docile waif delighted to be looked after. “When have I taken orders from you?” she snaps. He’s shocked when she reveals that her pregnancy was a ploy, and taken aback when she rejects his marriage proposal. Instead, she’s out on the town with actor neighbor Charles (Colin Gordon) who takes her to a showbiz bash where she wangles an introduction to impresario Karl (Alan Badel). “I’ve got something they want and they can have it and they’ll pay for it,” shows Bob which way the wind is blowing.

The movie begins with a drunken smartly dressed Jennie, long red hair cut in a more fashionable bob, returning to her upper mews apartment. She’s so sozzled she drops her handbag on the steps, only stopping to retrieve her keys before kicking the bag down the staircase. Opening the door, she tosses the key into the street. Inside, she sets about destroying the chintzy apartment, pours whisky over a photo of man later revealed as Karl, smashes bottles, upends furniture, tosses dresses out the window, scrawls something in lipstick on the mirror.

Then we’re into flashback telling the story I’ve just outlined. When she sets herself up to become Karl’s mistress, you think there’s a third act to come. But the movie cuts instead to the mews apartment and the by now dead Jennie.

What distinguishes it is the set-up. Jennie appears initially as the victim until she exerts control, using Bob, and presumably intending to work her way up. Quite how her life came to end in suicide is never revealed. But director Peter Graham Scott (Subterfuge, 1968) has the foresight to realize he doesn’t have to go into the degradation and shame, just show consequence.

And it’s framed with excellent performances. Bob, determined to improve himself, buys a book a month. Barmaid Ella (Anne Cunningham), in love with him, has to endure a scene where he tells her all about Jenny. Bob’s landlady isn’t going to get on a moral high horse about him having a woman in his room when she can rook him for increased rent. You can tell, even if Jenny ignores the obvious, what kind of life she will have as Karl’s mistress when in their first moment of intimacy he slaps her face and rips her expensive dress to make a bandage.

There’s another scene just as shocking and if it was not edited out by the censor at the time it still came as a surprise to see fleeting glimpse of a naked breast, a good year before the U.S. Production permitted similar in The Pawnbroker.

As I said, the transition of Janet Munro (Hide and Seek, 1964) from victim to predator is exceptionally well-done, her iron fist cleverly concealed for most of the film. And it’s admirable, too, that John Stride, whose career was mostly in television, doesn’t come across as a hapless suitor, though obviously he is gullible. Alan Badel (Arabesque, 1966) only has a couple of scenes but makes a huge impact. Barbara Ferris (Interlude, 1968) has a small part.

Highlight of Peter Graham Scott’s directorial career, well-paced, measured, drawing out good performances all round, especially in the boldness of the closure. Ted Willis (Flame in the Streets, 1961) does an excellent job of updating the novel, though one flaw is that while the early section is set in Wales there’s no sign of a Welsh accent.

Recommended.

The Crimson Cult / The Crimson Altar/ Curse of the Crimson Altar (1968) ***

Horror is a small world and at any moment you are likely to bump into stars of the caliber of Christopher Lee, Boris Karloff and Barbara Steele – or in this picture all three. Investigating his missing brother Peter sends antiques dealer Robert Manning (Mark Eden) to a remote country mansion where he encounters owner Morley (Christopher Lee), his seductive niece Eve (Virginia Weatherall), the wheelchair-bound authority on witchcraft Professor Marsh (Boris Karloff), deaf mute Elder (Michael Gough) and a centuries-old mystery.

Morley can legitimately deny that Peter has ever set foot on the premises since it was common for the brother to adopt an alias when seeking out significant antiques. By the time Robert amasses sufficient clues to challenge Morley on this particular issue, it appears that further ideas of more sinister goings-on may be illusory. On his first night Robert observes an annual celebration of the Black Witch but although an effigy is burned this festival appears to have more to do with the innocent consumption of alcohol and heady bouts of sex than satanism.

And after a while, Robert indulges in carnal delight with Eve. However, he is plagued by a nightmare that involves a grotesque trial by a jury wearing animal heads. Gradually, he learns Morley, meanwhile, is such a congenial host, and his niece delightful and sybaritic company, that the finger of suspicion points at Elder, who does take a pot shot at Robert, and the professor who has a collection of instruments of torture.

Were it not for veteran director Vernon Sewell (Urge to Kill, 1960) beginning proceedings with some kind of black mass complete with floggings and female sacrificial victim, the audience might have been kept in greater suspense. As it is, the non-violent annual celebration throws us off the scent as does the seduction of Eve and the prospect that Robert’s nightmare is little more than psychedelic hallucination. The denouement is something of a surprise. The ritualistic aspects of the picture are well done and given this is a Tigon film rather than Hammer you can expect harsher treatment of the S&M element, especially for the period.

The eerie atmosphere and well-staged witchcraft scenes are a plus, but, despite the involvement of a handful of horror gods, the movie’s reliance on lesser players to drive the narrative is a minus. Lee, Karloff and Steele (though in a more minor role) are all excellent as is the demented Michael Gough but Mark Eden (Attack on the Iron Coast, 1968) is too lightweight to carry the picture although Virginia Wetherall in her first big part suggests more promise. More of Lee, Karloff and Steele would have definitely added to the picture but since this type of film often requires the young and the innocent to take center stage that was not to be.

Directed by Vernon Sewell (The Blood Beast Terror, 1968) from a script by Dr Who writers Mervyn Haisman and Henry Lincoln and Jerry Sohl (Die, Monster, Die, 1965).

Worth a watch.

The Viking Queen (1967) ***

Politics, conspiracy, thwarted romance and historical inaccuracy take center stage in this Hammer romp that attempted to create another sex symbol to follow in the footsteps of Ursula Andress (She, 1965) and Raquel Welch (One Million Years B.C., 1966) in the shape of Finnish model Carita. Let’s put the dodgy historical elements to one side given Hollywood trampled over history all the time, but the title is a misnomer, the story owing more to folk heroine Boadicea than anyone who came from longship land.

On his deathbed British tribal king (Wilfred Lawson), against the wishes of powerful Druid chieftain Maelgan (Donald Houston), signs a peace treaty with Roman governor general Justinius (Donald Murray) against the wishes of his lieutenant Octavian (Andrew Keir). In different ways, the Druid and Octavian conspire to end the peace. Had new queen Salina (Carita), after falling in love with Justinius, been permitted to marry him that would have created a peaceful bond, but that is also prevented.

There’s a lot more sex and violence than you would have expected for the period, plenty scantily-clad slaves administering to the rich and the Romans, an extended brutal flogging sequence involving Salina, an offscreen rape, a cageful of Roman prisoners dropped into a burning pit, and when the British strap scythes onto the wheels of their chariots it’s a bloodbath. (Quite why the Romans never thought of importing their own chariots, given their popularity in the Colosseum, is never explained.) The chariots, whether in a race or battle, are the best thing about the picture, adding tremendous energy.

It takes quite a while for Salina to take up arms but when she does the film catches fire. She leads from the front, tearing through the Roman legions, and handy too with a sword. Ambushes appear the order of the day so any marching column or peaceful village soon ends up in a spot of bother.

There’s some of “what did the Romans ever do for us” with a snatch of Robin Hood thrown in – Justinius takes from the rich to give to the poor – plus religious fanaticism to stir the pot into a heady brew. But mostly it’s hokum, if rather plot-heavy. Quite how the Oscar-nominated Don Murray (Advise and Consent, 1962) was talked into this is anybody’s guess. Carita, of course, would have believed she was on a surefire route to stardom but in fact this was her last picture. The two stars don’t really have that much to do and do it well enough. In supporting roles you will spot Patrick Troughton (a BBC Dr Who), Nicola Pagett making her movie debut and Adrienne Corri (Africa – Texas Style, 1967). Director Don Caffey (One Million Years B.C., 1966) is better at action than drama.

Directed by Don Chaffey (Jason and the Argonauts, 1963) from a screenplay by Clarke Reynolds (Genghis Khan, 1965) and the movie’s producer John Temple-Smith.

More Olinka Berova than Ursula Andress.

Billy Budd (1962) ***

Unfairly muscled out by lavish roadshow Mutiny on the Bounty (1962) but covering similar territory minus sailors going off-piste on a South Pacific island. Peter Ustinov outranked fellow triple hyphenates Billy Wilder (writer, producer, director) and John Wayne (actor, producer, director) in that he could add acting to his other skills (writer, producer, director) and in some respects he was actually better remembered as a noted raconteur on late night television shows. I was surprised to discover he was actually well versed in the directing malarkey by the time he came to helm Billy Budd, four previous excursions dating from the late 1940s and most recently Romanoff and Juliet (1961). He was better known at this point as an Oscar-winner for Spartacus (1960). He would win another for Topkapi (1964) and go on to direct another three pictures.

Billy Budd is a claustrophic affair that you’ll need a bit of a history lesson to understand. The British Navy had two methods of recruiting sailors. The first was the more honest, awaiting a supply of volunteers. The second, the most dodgy legal proces ever invented, involved grabbing any likely candidate and forcing – “pressing”- them into service. Normally, this caper took place on land and gangs of recruitment officers did the business, hence the term “press gang.”

However, I was unaware that in times of war – this is set during the Napoleonic War – the British Navy could board any passing merchant vessel and commandeer any of its crew. In this case, Captain (actually Post Captain if you’re being technical about it) Vere (Peter Ustinov) hijacks only one sailor, Billy Budd (Terence Stamp).

Quite why it’s only this singleton is never explained. There are a couple of other irregularities that run against making this a tight ship in terms of narrative construction. The first is, that in the first of two critical incidents, our otherwise charming and chatty Budd is suddenly struck dumb with a stammer, the first time such an affliction has put in an appearance. The second is that, in consequence, Budd strikes an officer, the bullying Master-at-Arms Claggart (Robert Ryan) who hits his head while falling and dies.

Now even I know, and I’m hardly a naval scholar, that striking an officer is punishable by death. The fact that Claggart has a Capt Bligh disposition, inclined to find any opportunity to bring out the lash, makes no difference to the outcome. So while it seems that court martial provides dramatic scope, here the outcome is never in doubt. This isn’t Queeg on The Caine Mutiny, which is a more complicated affair, where the captain’s sanity is questioned.

So where the narrative should have built up in intensity, it largely flounders and depends (successfully as it happens) on audience appreciation of Budd as an innocent abroad.

That said, like Mutiny on the Bounty, it reveals the remarkable lack of recourse to any higher authority on ship should the highest authority either carry out or endorse cruelty. The minute he’s on the ship Budd is exposed to the sadistic will of Claggart who has condemned a sailor to a pitiless flogging for reasons that cannot be explained. Budd soon learns that Claggart has accomplices who will sabotage a crew member’s gear so that he will be put on a report, accumulation of sufficient black marks resulting in automatic flogging without interference from the captain.

While Vere is hardly in the Capt Bligh category and most of the time comes across as relatively amiable, our introduction to him is firing a shot across the bows of a merchant ship that doesn’t want to stop in case its crew is press ganged. He is quite ready to invoke the rules to get what he wants and is enough of a disciplinarian that the crew kowtow to him. He might feel a touch of remorse that Budd is the sacrificial lamb to the Royal Navy’s rule of law, but he’s hardly going to go against procedure.

So mostly what we’ve got is the acting. Terence Stamp (The Collector, 1965), in his debut, was Oscar-nominated and you can see why and in some senses this is the career-defining role before acting affectations and mannerisms took over. Robert Ryan (The Wild Bunch, 1969) is very effective as the sinister Claggart. And there are a host of other British names to look out for – David McCallum (Sol Madrid/The Heroin Gang 1968), Ray McAnally (Fear Is the Key, 1972), Paul Rogers (Three into Two Won’t Go, 1969) and Niall McGinnis (The Viking Queen, 1967) among the foremost.

Ably directed by Ustinov who wrote the screenplay with Dewitt Bodeen (Cat People, 1942) based on the original Herman Melville novel and a stage adaptation by Louis O. Coxe and Robert H. Chapman.

Worth seeing for Stamp’s performance.

The L-Shaped Room (1962) ***

Has contemporary bite, given half the picture is about abortion, banned in Britain at that time and the Pill yet to come on-stream. Being a single mother was an equally unwelcome tag unless you were a widow, in which case you were shrouded with respectability.

Pregnant French lass Jane (Leslie Caron) has decided to hang on in Britain rather than face the shameful ordeal of returning home. She knows who the father is, Terry (Mark Eden), to whom she lost her virginity in a week-long affair in Cornwall, but she’s not planning to hustle him into a shotgun wedding and you get the idea that, at 27, her virginity was weighing heavily on her.

Ending up in a bedsit in London – the titular room a landlord’s clever way of turning one decent-sized room into two smaller ones, each with a share of the window – she is clearly au fait with a British legal loophole that permits termination should pregnancy damage her mental health. And there were enough Harley St doctors to mentor her through such a loophole, for a fee of course.

It’s the briskness of Dr Weaver (Emlyn Williams) that puts her off. She has another go, later on, this time with black market pills from one of her neighbors, but they don’t work. Meanwhile, she has fallen in love with aspiring writer Toby (Tom Bell) and divines, correctly, that he won’t want to bring up another man’s child. In the end, she has the baby and scarpers back to France to face the music.

On the face of it an ideal candidate for the “kitchen sink” mini-genre that was pervasive at the time, but actually much more rewarding than many of the genre with dealt with male anger. This is much more about acceptance, without being craven or abject about it.

And there’s much to enjoy in director Bryan Forbes’ understated style. Half the time you could imagine you were in noir from the use he makes of the commonplace manner in which lights in staircases generally went off after a minute or so (not so much an energy-saving device as a money-saving one for the landlord) and he makes clever play of these sudden changes. There are also, unusual for the time, disembodied voices – the camera on Jane as she mounts the stairs, the voice her out-of-sight landlady Doris (Avis Bunnage). And every now and then the camera glides from her room into that of her neighbor, jazz trumpeter Johnny (Brock Peters) who can hear everything through the paper-thin walls, her morning retching and her night-time love-making with Toby.

How Johnny does find out about her baby is beautifully done, the best sequence in the movie. She works in a café where Johnny eats each night and she’s set a little table for him with a flower in a bottle. But he doesn’t turn up. She suspects, for no real reason except the worst, that he’s in the basement making out with one of the sex workers, but it’s Johnny (who had always been a good friend) who tells her that, from a sense of his disgust, he has let her boyfriend know the truth.

Like Darling (1965), this is a fascinating portrait of a woman making the wrong decisions. But Jane lacks Diana’s power. She’s not helpless exactly, and certainly has a good line in getting rid of unwanted attention. Her motives are not entirely clear. She wasn’t in love with Terry and for a long time she fends off Toby. She deludes herself into believing that Toby’s love for her will overcome his distaste that she is carrying another man’s child. That’s when she takes the pills.

You could kind of get the impression, however, that the real reason for Jane’s predicament is so that the actress can follow in the footsteps of Greta Garbo, Katharine Hepburn et al to wallow in grief. But it’s more subtle than that. She hasn’t been thrown aside by a callous male. She had made a decision to lose her virginity without considering the consequences and now that there is consequence changes her mind in impulsive fashion on how to deal with it.

Surrounding this central tale are some snapshots of life in a tawdry rooming-house. Two of the occupants are gay, Johnny and faded actress Mavis (Cicely Courtneidge), the landlady has a succession of gentlemen friends, while in the basement Sonia (Patricia Phoenix) works as a prostitute.

Leslie Caron (Guns of Darkness, 1962) was nominated for an Oscar and won a Bafta and a Golden Globe. The film was nominated for a Bafta and a Golden Globe. Tom Bell (Lock Up Your Daughters!, 1969) is good as the struggling writer. And Brock Peters (The Pawnbroker, 1964) has a peach of a part.

Director Bryan Forbes (Deadfall, 1968) wrote the script from the Lynne Reid Banks bestseller.

Darling (1965) ****

Amorality tale. Compulsive opening but contradictory ending. Nobody comes out of this well as male and female alike use each other with little compunction shown. British film making that at one point appeared to be disappearing down the kitchen sink explodes into life with an exploration of just how far the Swinging Sixties can swing. Julie Christie picked up the Oscar for her portrayal of the impulsive, wilful, yet vulnerable model sleeping her way to the top, an unpopular theme in today’s climate.

The credits open with a striking image. A poster for global hunger relief being pasted over by one advertising model Diana (Julie Christie), the face of the decade. There are various other potshots at the hypocritical rich, fawned over for deigning to distribute some of their wealth to the poor, but it doesn’t quite complete the circle, because it’s exactly this kind of virtue-signalling philanthropic society to which Diana, with no sense of judgement, aspires.

It would be more convenient to view Diana as exploited, but, in fact, once she loses her puppy innocence, she is as good at the exploitation game as anyone else. First port of call is dull BBC arts journalist Robert (Dirk Bogarde) who provides her with an opening into the fashionable London set. Both, I should mention, are married, but ditch partners (and children in Robert’s case) and set up home together, she in demand as a hostess at charity events.

Trading sexual favors with advertising executive Miles (Laurence Harvey), she wins a role in a B-picture and his backing to make her the face of a campaign advertising chocolates, that commercial filmed in a palazzo in Italy owned by uber-wealthy but older Cesare (Jose Luis de Vilallonga), a prince, from whom she eventually accepts a marriage proposal, only to find she’s just as bored in Italy as elsewhere. There’s a speedy return to London and Robert’s bed, but he dumps her. Theoretically, she’s so powerless and vulnerable, poor lamb, that she submits to his plan to send her back to Italy, rather than, by now considerably more powerful, starting all over again with someone else.

Possibly the morality of the time or in keeping with some movie dictat required an unhappy ending (of sorts). But this seems to contradict her personality. Bear in mind she had already shown how readily she traded men, and you could already see her running off with a wealthy playboy in Italy and dumping the prince.

At the remove of over half a century, the wild goings-on would be viewed as tame by contemporary standards, and the flashiness of the style, which attracted criticism, would be ignored in favor of the stunning performance by Julie Christie and her empowered female. Sure, she’s emotionally immature, shallow and all the rest of it, and as likely to become a member of the hypocritically rich, but she’s managed to finesse a life as a model into a high-flying princess with the world at her feet and sure as heck she would soon learn how to manipulate that world as easily as Swinging London.

The only dated aspect is the sexuality, much of which was sneaked in under the censor’s nose (though I would imagine would be considerably cut for U.S. audiences) but that acts as a time capsule for a period when homosexuality was still in Britain punishable by law. Nonetheless, there are fleeting references to cross dressing, an orgy, a threesome and oral sex. (Although a cynic might observe how effective courting controversy was for publicity purposes). In some senses, the obsession of director John Schlesinger with thumbing his nose at the censor gets in the way of the central section which is meant to show how far, in terms of decadence, Diana has fallen when in reality she seems to enjoy exploring the wilder and more sensual parts of her personality.

There’s a clever role-reversal. Usually, it’s the man who plays away from home but expects to still be accepted back by a resigned partner. Here it’s Diana. If the men in her life are to be blamed at all it’s for being dumb, not recognizing her ambition and demanding nature. A lover who continues to tap away at his typewriter while Diana exhibits signs of restlessness is as dumb as they come. Miles and Cesare are more her type, the sexually voracious former switching partners at the drop of a hat, while the older man probably already has a mistress stashed away and expects his trophy wife to pick up a discreet lover in the way of aristocracy the world over.

So, at the remove of several decades, a different Diana emerges, one very much in control of her own destiny, picking up men as it suits her purpose, yes still some emotional growing-up to do, but you could easily see her turning into one of the dowager duchesses who run these fundraising balls with young bucks like Miles lionising her and leaving a few other husbands and/or lovers in her wake, possibly still unhappy, but the rich rather than the poor version.

Not sure if she’d qualify as a feminist icon, but she certainly navigated the world of the male gaze and used it to her advantage.

Turned director John Schlesinger (Midnight Cowboy, 1969) into a brand name. Nominated for five Oscars including Best Picture and winning for three, Julie Christie as Best Actress, Frederic Raphael (Two for the Road, 1967) for the script and Julie Harris for costume design. Bogarde, as well as Christie, reigned supreme at the Baftas. Commercially, one of the most successful British films ever, on a budget of around $1 million earning over $4 million in U.S. rentals alone.

Ending doesn’t ring true, but the rest does.

Twisted Nerve (1968) ***

Another rich kid with mental health issues though without Orson Welles to offer expiation. The cause of this character’s illness is undetermined but it’s easy enough to spot the trigger to violence. The lad’s father is dead and his mother’s new husband, a wealthy banker, wants him out of the way, or at least out of the house, or at least, given he’s twenty-one, out working rather than mooning about the house all day.

And this was certainly the year for the movies exploring split personality – if such shallow treatment could be deemed investigation – what with Tony Curtis and Rod Steiger in serial murderous form in, respectively, The Boston Strangler (1968) and No Way to Treat a Lady (1968). And for movie fans it was an unexpecteldy speedy reteaming for Hayley Mills and Hywel Bennett after the humungous success of The Family Way (1967) in which the actress shed her child-star persona in no uncertain manner and the British film industry was, apparently, suddenly blessed with a duo with marquee appeal.

*A poster that gives the game away.* *And an apostrophe issue.*

This takes the Rod Steiger route of charming killer rather than a Tony Curtis puzzled and horrified by the demands of his ulterior personality. Given the emphasis on mental illness these days, Twisted Nerve is the hardest of the trio to take, since it’s effectively a play on an old gimmmick, deviousness concealed inside appeal.

Martin (Hywel Bennett) faced with expulsion from his house by overbearing substitute father Henry (Frank Finlay) pretends to scoot off to France but instead inveigles himself into the boarding house run by Joan (Billie Whitelaw) after tricking her librarian daughter Susan (Hayley Mills) into extending a sympathetic hand to his alter ego, the childish Georgie, whose behavior falls only a little way short of sucking his thumb and clutching a teddy bear.

Joan’s initial cynicism gives way to maternal feelings when he clambers into her bed in the middle of the night after a supposed nightmare. (And not with sexual intent.)

Occasionally, Martin cannot control his true feelings, despite Susan rebuffing his romantic overtures. Father is the first victim, substitute mother Joan the second and it’s only a matter of time before Susan becomes a target either for his stifled sexuality or his inner venom.

This would probably work just as well minus the schizophrenic element. In fact, there’s too much of tipping the nod to the audience. Eventually, Susan’s suspicions are aroused but director Roy Boulting (The Family Way) is no Alfred Hitchcock able to manipulate an audience. So, mainly, what we are left with is Hywel Bennett’s ability to pull off a double role rather than his victims’ susceptibility to his charms.

Hayley Mills’ character could do with fattening up, otherwise she’s just the dupe, bright, bubbly, self-confident and attractive though she is, although her mother, in passing, is given more depth, a lonely attractive widow prone to sleeping with her attractive guest Gerry (Barry Foster) and, unnerved to some extent by her daughter’s growing independence, wanting a son to mother.

It’s only un-formulaic in the sense that the director is playing with an audience who were not expecting anything like this as a story fit for their two newest adult stars so hats off especially to Bennett for considering a role that could as easily have typecast him for the rest of his career. As I said, setting aside the mental illness elements, Bennett is good fun, as he toys with both aspects of his character, adeptly dealing with those who would patronise him, and like Leopold and Lowe convinced he can get away with the perfect crime, whose planning and attention to detail is noteworthy.

As with the Chicago killers it’s only accident that gives him away, although the policeman here (Timothy West) is less dominant than his American counterpart.

Clearly filmmakers of the 1960s were beginning to grapple with mental illness but either lurching too far towards romance as a way of instigating tragedy as with Lilith (1964) or to the most violent aspects of the condition as with virtually anything else beginning with Psycho (1960).

Worth a look for Hywel Bennett’s chilling performance – template for Edward Norton’s turn in Primal Fear (1996) – and Hayley Mills fans won’t want to miss it. Strong performances by Billie Whitelaw (The Comedy Man, 1964), Barry Foster (Robbery, 1967) and Frank Finlay (The Shoes of the Fisherman, 1968) help enormously. There was quite an input into the screenplay. Along with Boulting, Leo Marks (Sebastian, 1968) doing the heavy lifting adapting work by Roger Marshall (Theatre of Death, 1967) and, in his only movie credit, Jeremy Scott. Great score by Bernard Herrmann.

Well done with misgivings.