British – Page 5 – The Magnificent 60s

The Wild and the Willing (1962) ***

The problem with showcasing new talent is that it’s a pretty difficult sell given that all audiences have to go on is a studio’s faith in these newcomers. You can’t actually justify which of these will succeed until long after their initial forays.

In fact, this was a pretty good indicator one way or another of the talent the Brits had at their disposal, although some only became major players via television and others like Ian McShane, making his debut, as durable as he was as occasional leading and staunch support and television work (Lovejoy, 1986-1994), really only achieved substantial fame around four decades later via Deadwood (2004-2006) and the John Wick series.

For others, this proved an ideal calling card, Samantha Eggar, another debutante, was the biggest immediate beneficiary, female lead in big-budgeters The Collector (1965) and Walk, Don’t Run (1966). But virtually everyone in the cast had a whiff of stardom at one time or another. John Hurt’s stint as Sinful Davey (1969) didn’t do him much good but his career revived through the likes of television movie The Naked Civil Servant (1975), Midnight Express (1978) and Alien (1979).

This is stuffed with names you might remember one way or another. Jeremy Brett became a television Sherlock Holmes, Johnny Briggs enjoyed one of the longest-running roles in British soap Coronation St. Paul Rogers made headway in Stolen Hours (1963) and was a solid supporting actor. Johnny Sekka made a splash in Woman of Straw (1964) and The Southern Star (1969). Some careers were short-lived, the slightly more established Virginia Maskell’s last picture was Interlude (1968).

The story itself – I’m sure you couldn’t wait till I come to that – is slight, but with sufficient complication for a narrative to flourish. Activity takes place on a university campus. Harry (Ian McShane) and Josie (Samantha Eggar) are an item, at least until his eye wanders to Virginia (Virginia Maskell), the unhappy wife of Professor Chown (Paul Rogers).

Harry’s nerdy pal Phil (John Hurt) has been knocked back by Virginia’s classy pal Sarah (Katherine Woodville) and in trying to become as popular as Harry embarks in a daft adventure that ends in disaster.

As far removed from the kitchen sink drama popular at the time, this is a well-observed piece about the young and ambitious without ever descending into the intensity that other pictures wallowed in. You can forget about the suggestiveness of the title, by today’s standards this is very tame and skirts issues of sexuality that were becoming more predominant.

Ralph Thomas (Deadlier than the Male, 1967) directs from a script by Mordecai Richler and Nicholas Phipps adapting a play The Tinker by Laurence Doble and Robert Sloman, effortlessly seguing away from the stage origins and deftly putting every aspect of the narrative jigsaw in its place.

So, part of the fun here is seeing how well actors established a screen persona, or how they moved on. Ian McShane certainly had the cocky walk, but was still too much of the ingénue, even while playing a bad boy. Samantha Eggar was more instantly recognizable for the charisma she threw off. You would see John Hurt’s nerd again and again.

Interesting for more than archival purposes.

Tamahine (1963) ****

Columbia sold this as if Nancy Kwan was a Bond girl with massive images of the star in a bikini (see above) – the advert in the trade magazine comprised a drop-down A2 pull-out i.e. three times the size of a normal page. But anyone expecting a salacious time would have been in for surprise. For although Kwan swam underwater during the credits (not Helen Mirren style as in The Age of Consent, 1969) and did reveal a naked posterior, you could not have imagined a more innocent, joyous, movie.

Tahitian teenager Tamahine (Nancy Kwan) wreaks havoc on the British stiff upper lip when after the death of her father she is sent to the all-male English public school run by his cousin Poole (Dennis Price), a widower. But it’s not a sex comedy with all the misunderstandings and double entendres that genre normally entails. Instead, it’s a clash of cultures, free love and expression versus prudery and repression. Poole has trouble enough on the female front, his daughter Diana (Justine Lord) inclined to enjoy a gin-soaked afternoon and in the middle of an affair with art master Clove (Derek Nimmo).

*The advertising department, however, could not resist the temptation*
*to stick a double entendre in the poster.*

Without mischievous intent, Tamahine causes chaos, assuming an artist’s model would be naked she scandalizes the petrified Clove and egged on by a gaggle of schoolboys whose hormones are off the scale she jams a chamber pot on the school weather vane. The plot, if there is one, is mostly Tamahine fending off suitors, Clove and Poole’s son Richard (John Fraser), and attempting to persuade Poole to take a paternal interest in her well-being.

But mostly it’s about how a sweet-hearted woman struggles to survive in a world where attitudes to sex remain Victorian and in which the avowed aim of education is to build character through manly pursuits such as beating the living daylights out of each other rather than teaching them to express emotion. And certainly the movie takes a more benevolent view of public schools than the later, brutal, If…(1968).

While endorsing free love, Tamahine draws the line at crossing the line in the matter of Richard, whom she deems a relation, no matter how distant. Challenging all conventions, she takes part in sports day.

But the comedy is so gentle and Tamahine so charming that this is best described as a delight. I found myself chuckling throughout and I felt I had just watched a genuine feel-good movie. On paper it certainly doesn’t sound so potentially good, especially when you consider the clichéd portrayals you might expect from the supporting cast, but in reality it exerts an extraordinary appeal.

Hardly off-screen, Kwan (The World of Suzie Wong, 1960), in only her fourth film, easily carries the movie as if she scarcely felt the weight of stardom on her shoulders and is a revelation as the imparter of tender wisdom. What aids the film enormously is that Dennis Price and Derek Nimmo play more interesting parts than their movie personas suggest. Price (Tunes of Glory, 1960), in a far cry from his Ealing comedy heyday, dispenses with his wry delivery and cynical demeanor. Unusual for a character actor, his character actually has a story arc and turns what could have been a stereotypical role into a moving performance. Before his strangulated vowels got the better off him, Derek Nimmo (The Liquidator, 1965), too, delivers probably his best performance.

Justine Lord (Night after Night after Night, 1969) is good as the rebellious daughter but James Fox offers none of the intensity he brought to the screen a year later in The Servant (1964) and neither does John Fraser (El Cid, 1961) light up the screen. In small parts you can spot Michael Gough (Batman, 1985) and Coral Browne (The Killing of Sister George, 1968).

Full marks to director Philip Leacock (The War Lover, 1962), himself a former public school boy, for not taking the easy way out with loutish comedy but instead crafting a film full of sensitivity and sensibility. Denis Cannan (Why Bother to Knock, 1961) based his screenplay on the Thelma Nicklaus novel.

You might be surprised at the four-star rating and I do confess it is a shade optimistic but it is worth more than three stars. It’s worth taking a moment to examine the whole issue of ratings. You might be asking how can Tamahine be given four stars, the same as The Battle of the Villa Florita and a tad below the very few I deem five-star pictures. The answer is I compare like with like. If the best films in your opinion must concern social comment or excel technically, then there will be little place in your world for a sheer confection like Tamahine. But if you watch a wide variety of films and recognize those that contain a high enjoyment factor then you will want to draw attention to such. Hence, the rating.

It’s true that sometimes we do want movies to tackle difficult issues or take us into other worlds, but other times there is nothing to beat an old-fashioned good-hearted picture like this.

Piccadilly Third Stop (1960) ***

Well-worked full length British thriller that goes against the grain of presenting sympathetic hoods in the vein of Ocean’s Eleven or The League of Gentlemen both out the same year in which audiences largely align with the gangsters in part because they come across as charming and in part because their aims appear thoroughly reasonable.

Unlike the shorter efforts under the Renown umbrella this has time to develop several narrative strands, with deceit the main motivation, and spends a goodly time on the mechanics of robbery, the planning, the percentage split accorded each member, and the heist itself, which is an arduous one, involving digging through a brick wall.

Dominic (Terence Morgan) isn’t exactly a petty thief not when he can dress himself up to the nines, infiltrate a society wedding and make off with an expensive piece of jewellery, which he hides in an unusually clever fashion. But working on his own account is far more lucrative than being an employee in a watch-smuggling ring run by Joe Preedy (John Crawford) who has a classy wife Christine (Mai Zetterling) and life and has so much dough lying around that he’s easy pickings for Dominic who has a side hustle bring dupes to the gambling tables of the pukka Edward (Dennis Price).

Dominic happens to be bedding Christine but that still leaves him time to romance Fina (Yoko Tani), daughter of an ambassador, who casually reveals the embassy safe contains £100,000. She’s so helplessly in love she falls for his tale of them running off together and becomes an accomplice.

With the assistance of Edward, Dominic snookers Joe into supplying the readies to pay for the robbery set-up costs, the tools, gelignite etc. The plan involves digging a hole through the tunnels of the London Underground into the basement of the embassy.

Joe’s share of the spoils will hardly cover his debts so he’s intent on making off with the full amount. As it happens, Dominic has precisely the same idea. Christine is roped in, unknown to her husband, to act as getaway driver.

There’s a hefty dose of characterization unusual in these movies, more than just information dumps about characters. Dominic could easily fund the caper with the cash he would get from selling the stolen diamond, but he holds out for a larger amount from a fence. Joe should easily be able to afford the money, but he’s in dire financial straits because he lost a packet at the gambling tables and his own astuteness in ferreting away all he owns in his wife’s name. That puts his gains well beyond the long arm of the law but leaves him illiquid (I guess is the technical term) and he has to beg Christine to pawn her mink coats.

She’s a smooth operator, an amateur artist, happily living off Joe’s nefarious activities while running around with Dominic and planning to run away with him at robbery end. Joe’s desperate to be seen as a major player, hence his attendance at the casino, and kicking off when he doesn’t get his way, and raging against all the toffs born with a silver spoon in their mouths.

Two of the subsidiary characters are interesting studies. Safecracker the Colonel (William Hartnell) has too much of an eye for the pretty lady and too great a capacity for alcohol, but he’s been careful with his loot, spreading it around in various investments, very secure in his old age, and confident enough in his own abilities that he’s able to negotiate a higher share of the loot. But the prize supporting character is Mouse (Ann Lynn), girlfriend of Dominic’s sidekick Toddy (Charles Kay), who is considered so dumb and harmless that the crooks discuss their plans within her earshot. Except, she’s not concentrating and doesn’t quite get the hang of things and feeds Toddy the wrong information at the wrong time which nearly puts a spoke in the works.

As if the robbery required any more tension. Just how much work is involved in digging a hole through a wall is pretty clear here, should anyone in the audience have ideas of their own. You know double-crossing is also on the cards, not just the Dominic vs Joe and Christine vs Joe but the lovelorn Fina is also due her come-uppance.

And there’s a very nice touch at the end which proves that amateurs are a distinct liability. Any notion Christine has harbored that she would, if only given the chance, prove an ideal getaway driver are misplaced.

Directed by Wolf Rilla (Village of the Damned, 1960) not just with occasional style notes but with a determination to allow his characters room to move from a screenplay by Leigh Vance (Crossplot, 1969). You can catch it on Talking Pictures TV.

All in all a very entertaining little picture strong on tension with a host of interesting characters.

On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969) ***

Holds a special place in my movie heart because it was the first James Bond film I ever saw and the first soundtrack I ever bought. Having, by parental opposition, been denied the opportunity to see any of the previous instalments and therefore having little clue as to what Sean Connery brought to the series I wasn’t interested in the fact that he had been replaced. I can’t remember what my younger self thought of the downbeat ending but on the current re-view felt that a rather cursory storyline was only saved by the stunning snow-based stuntwork, two races on skis, one on a bobsleigh, car chase on ice and the kind of helicopter framing against the sun that may well have inspired Francis Ford Coppola in Apocalypse Now (1979).

The heraldic subplot bored me as much to tears as it did the assorted dolly birds (to use a by-now-outlawed phrase from the period) and I was struggling to work out exactly what global devastation could be caused by his brainwashed “angels of death” (the aforementioned dolly birds). This is the one where Bond threatens to retire and gets married. Given the current obsession with mental health, the bride has a rather more contemporary outlook than would have been noted at the time. We are introduced to her as a wannabe suicide. Good enough reason for Bond to try and rescue her from the waves, and her mental condition not worthy of comment thereafter.

Turns out she’s the feisty spoiled-brat daughter Tracy (Diana Rigg) of crime bigwig Draco (Gabriele Ferzetti) and Bond persuades that Mr Big to help him snare the bigger Mr Big Blofeld (Telly Savalas), hence the convoluted nonsense about heraldry. There’s the usual quotient of fisticuffs and naturally James Bond doesn’t consider falling in love with Tracy as a barrier to seducing a couple of the resident dolly birds.

I takes an awful long time to click into gear but when it does the stunt work – perhaps the bar now having been raised by Where Eagles Dare (1968) – is awesome. Apart from an occasional bluescreen for a close-up of Bond, clearly all the chases were done, as Christopher Nolan likes to say, “in camera.” And there’s about 30 minutes of full-on non-stop action.

Pre-empting the future eyebrow-raising antics of Roger Moore, I felt George Lazenby was decent enough, bringing a lighter touch than Connery to the proceedings without his inherent sense of danger (which Moore also lacked). Diana Rigg, I felt was miscast, more of a prissy Miss Jean Brodie than a foil for Bond, even if this one was a substitute for the real thing. It was a shame Honor Blackman in Goldfinger (1964) had taken the slinky approach but that would have worked better to hook Bond than earnestness.

I’m not entirely sure how Blofeld planned to employ his angels of death but the prospect of a gaggle of dolly birds gathering in fields or rivers and being capable of distributing enough toxic material to destabilize the world seems rather ill-thought-out.

Theoretically, this is meant to be one of the better ones in the series but that’s mostly based on the doomed romance and the downbeat ending and I guess that Diana Rigg (The Avengers, 1965-1968) supposedly brought more acting kudos than others in the female lead category. Adopting something close to her Avengers persona would have been more interesting but I guess she was fighting against being typecast.

If you get bored during the endless heraldry nonsense, you can cast your eye over the assortment of Bond girls who include Virginia North (The Long Duel, 1967), Angela Scoular (The Adventurers, 1970), Joanna Lumley (Absolutely Fabulous, 1992-2012), Catherine Schell (Moon Zero Two, 1969), Julie Ege (Creatures the World Forgot, 1971), Anouska Hempel (Black Snake, 1973) and Jenny Hanley (Scars of Dracula, 1970), who, as graduates from this particular talent school, made a greater impact in entertainment than many of their predecessors.

Second unit director Peter Hunt made his full directorial debut but focussed more on his speciality – action – than the drama. Written by series regular Richard Maibaum (Dr No, 1962) and Simon Raven (Unman, Wittering and Zigo, 1971) and more faithful than usual to the Ian Fleming source novel.

Top marks for the action, less so for the rest.

Enter Inspector Duval (1961) ***

The first piece of sleight-of-hand is the title, setting audiences up for the opener in a crime series featuring the eponymous French character. A terrific twist at the climax shows exactly why this would not be turned into a series, though one critic who clearly didn’t watch the whole picture thought otherwise. And you can see why because it’s old-fashioned enough to provide you, Agatha Christie style, with a string of suspects, adding in and leaving out enough information that it’s hard to work out who the criminal mastermind might be.

For four years, a burglar has been terrorizing Europe, stealing diamonds almost at will. The expert on his methods is French cop Duval (Anton Diffring), a debonair confident chap with a distinct Gallic charm, who happens to be in London when the thief – known only as Mr March – strikes again. Only this time, taken by surprise, he murders socialite Alice (Angela McCann). British detectives Insp Wilson (Mark Singleton) and Sgt Hastings (Patrick Bedford) are only too happy to welcome Duval’s assistance, especially as he appears to have the keener eye.

In short order we are introduced to Alice’s maid Doreen (Susan Halliman) who discovers the body. She’s recently entered into a relationship with the disreputable Charley (Charles Roberts) and may have deliberately or inadvertently given away the secret of where Alice hid her diamonds – and it wasn’t in the safe. Alice’s friend Jackie (Diane Hart) enters the equation because her boyfriend Mark (Aiden Grennell) has been trying to tempt Alice into investing in a property deal. And may have been sufficiently annoyed with the brusque way she gave him the brush-off to have killed her. Mark has an alibi for the time of the murder, which took place in the middle of the night. But it’s an odd one. He claims he chose that time of night to pay a visit to his lawyer to discuss a business deal. And his manservant Brossier (Charles Mitchell) is an odd fish.

Jackie is revealed as grasping and only too happy to do Mark’s bidding, which includes some unusual instructions. Doreen is too trusting and somewhat dim. Charley is definitely dodgy and has been paid to provide information extracted from Doreen as to the jewels’ whereabouts.

There’s another complication. Because of the murder, the diamonds are now too hot to handle and can’t be quickly shifted by a dealer in stolen goods.

You can wallow in the nostalgia, pipe-smoking cop, nothing wireless about the telephones, a couple of scenes set in a milk bar with youngsters dancing to a record. There’s even a car chase.

The initial sequence is stylish, with a strong hint in the play of light and shadow of film noir, and though it tends to stick to police procedural there are enough twists and characters with hidden agendas to keep the plot wheels turning, with Duval turning his nose up at the ineptitude of the British copper.

With his haughty features and blond hair Anton Diffring (Counterpoint, 1967) had been typecast as the arrogant Nazi or German officer – so this was something of a career break and I guess if a series had developed he might have found a different niche. This proved to be Diane Hart’s (The Crowning Touch, 1959) only movie of the decade, and Angela McCann’s sole picture.

With an abundance of red herrings and twists, director Max Varnel (A Question of Suspense, 1961) keeps the action moving at a clip. Written by J. Henry Piperno (Breath of Life, 1963).

Worth it for the suave Anton Diffring and the twists.

Catch it on British streamer Talking Pictures TV.

Impact (1963) ***

I enjoy a demanding supremely-acted fluently-directed movie with possibly a hint of Oscar reward as much as the next person. But last thing at night, I often prefer something that makes no demands at all except paying attention to a twisty narrative. And that’s where Talking Pictures TV comes in, with its string of low-budget crime pictures made by British indie outfit Renown.

The twist here is an unusual one. Gangster Mr Big, Sebastian “The Duke” Dukelow (George Pastell), alerted by girlfriend Melanie (Anita West), a cabaret singer in his nightclub, to the work of journalist Jack (Conrad Philips), determined to expose the crook, decides to put him out of the action. But not in the normal way of fitting him with a cement boot and dropping him in the Thames. Instead he frames him or a robbery and Jack ends up doing two years in jail, losing his job, but not girlfriend Diana (Linda Marlowe), in the process.

In prison he bonds with cellmate Charlie (John Rees), who holds a grievance against The Duke. When he hatches his own revenge plan, it appears Charlie is all in.

Or is he? Out of jail, Charlie has gone straight with a job in a refrigeration depot. Jack, meanwhile, has no job and festers away. Any chance Jack has of getting the best in a one-to-one confrontation with The Duke is knocked on the head when he realizes how closely guarded the crook is. So Jack makes do, in the meantime, with making The Duke jealous by dancing with Melanie.

And who’s side is Charlie on? Charlie approaches The Duke with a deal. In return for some cash, he will reveal Jack’s revenge plan.

So now the twist is in. Jack is lured by Charlie into the refrigeration plant where The Duke proceeds to lock him inside one of the units where he will conveniently freeze to death.

But will he? Not when Charlie, secretly pressing an array of control buttons, sets him free and they turn the tables on The Duke, sticking him inside the freezing compartments until he signs a confession releasing Jack of any involvement in the robbery. Meanwhile, as it happens, Jack and Charlie find a way to stitch up The Duke and his gang, ensuring they will be arrested for diamond smuggling, a crime of which they are entirely innocent.

Pretty much all narrative, but with well-drawn characters. You wouldn’t expect a well-heeled highly moral reporter like Jack, even if wrongfully convicted, to turn to crime himself. Nor, now unemployable, to make a living by placing stories sympathetic to The Duke in the newspapers.

And The Duke proves exceptionally savvy. To muddy the waters, he donates £1,000 to cover Jack’s legal fees and has all manner of highly sophisticated surveillance and protection devices to keep tabs on his empire.

The women, too, are well drawn. Melanie constantly pokes fun at her scary lover, and is not above making him jealous by coming close to smooching with Jack. And Hilda (Jean Trend), the editor’s ineffectual secretary, working her romantic way through the ranks of the reporters, knows that her legs ensure she will never be out of work. On the other hand Diana has relatively little to do dramatically.

Conrad Phillips (The Switch, 1963) and George Pastell (The Long Duel, 1967) enjoy an interesting duel. Anita West (Shadow of Treason, 1964) steals the acting honors ahead of Linda Marlow (The Big Zapper, 1973).

Directed by Peter Maxwell (Serena, 1962) from a screenplay concocted by himself and the star.

An easy late-night watch.

Live Now, Pay Later (1962) ***

Easy credit led to a boom in the standard of living but also created global recession after the sub-prime mortgage scandal. Back in the day you couldn’t borrow money except from a bank and they only lent to people with money. To get a mortgage you needed to prove you could save, you required at least a 10 per cent deposit before any bank would loan you money for a mortgage, and you needed to go through a stiff criteria test. Even then, you were at the mercy of inflation. If you were absolutely desperately you could go to money-lenders and pay back inflated sums, the notorious “vig” of the Mafia.

But then someone invented the notion of buying on credit from largely unlicensed brokers. You could live the dream – television, white goods, carpets, furnishings, a car – even if you couldn’t afford it and you didn’t have to go through any kind of procedure to qualify. Of course, you ended up paying two or three times the original price but the payments were spread over years so, theoretically at least, affordable. These days, credit cards lure people into the ease of purchasing and giving no thought to repayment. You don’t have to repay at all – or only a very small fraction – if you don’t mind your debt accruing exponentially.

In Britain it was called “hire purchase” or more colloquially the “never-never.” Nobody was called to account for selling goods to people who were inherently unable to afford it, were clearly incapable of managing money or, just as likely, were apt to get carried away.

While on the one hand this is one of the saddest movies you’ll ever see, lives crushed by debt, the tone is so mixed the reality gets lost in the characterization of the kind of chancer who would later be epitomized by the likes of Alfie (1965). But whereas the Michael Caine character has oodles of charm and eventually comes good, here equally charming ace salesman Albert (Ian Hendry) never sees the error of his ways.

One of the dichotomies of the tale is that despite his earnings and his financial wheezes on the side Albert never has enough money to fund his lifestyle – snazzy sports car, great clothes – and lives in a squalid flat while ostensibly living the dream, string of women on the side. Like Werner Von Braun (I Aim at the Stars, 1960), he can’t face up to consequence much less take responsibility for his actions. But he’s not the only one using easy credit as a means of moving up in society, his boss Callendar (John Gregson) has taken up golf with a view to rubbing shoulders with estate agent Corby (Geoffrey Keen), whom he views as rising middle class without being aware that Corby also has unsustainable delusions of grandeur, hosting dinner parties for local politicians, ensuring his house is filled with desirable items.

Without doubt Albert is a superb salesman, adept at not only overcoming initial customer reluctance but persuading them to invest in far more than they ever dreamed. He is so good that his boss is more than willing to overlook his various pieces of chicanery.

But too often the comedy gets in the way. The idea that Albert can weasel his way out of any difficult situation – twice he dupes the man coming to repossess a car on which he has evaded payments for years – take advantage in unscrupulous fashion of any opportunity (he takes over an empty flat, steals the orders of rivals) and even offers advice on how to outwit, legally, bailiffs, sets him up as the kind of character (the little guy) who can defeat authority. But cheap laughs come at the expense of more serious purpose.

He leaves a trail of destroyed lives in his wake. He abandons his illegitimate daughter, fruit of a supposed long-term fling with Treasure (June Ritchie). One of his many married lovers, Joyce (Liz Fraser), wife of Corby, commits suicide – and he then proceeds to blackmail the husband. Albert’s boss is on the verge of losing out to a bigger rival.

For women, he is at his most dangerous when being kicked out, at his most persuasive and charming when trying to weasel his way in. He always finds some new woman and generally has a few on the go at the one time. The only time he appears to have any standards is when he walks away from one lover on discovering that her husband is a scoutmaster and therefore the seduction has required little skill.

But all Albert’s charm can’t disguise the brutality of debt. The arrival of the bailiffs strikes terror in hearts. A dream can turn to dust in an instant. Consequent shame unbearable. And there are no shortage of characters pointing out to Albert how heinous his actions are.

Ian Hendry (The Hill, 1965) captures the smooth-talking salesman. June Ritchie (The World Ten Times Over, 1963) has a meaty role as does Liz Fraser (The Family Way, 1966). John Gregson (The Frightened City, 1961) is unrecognizable while Geoffrey Keen (Born Free, 1966) essays the kind of grasping businessman that would become his forte. Nyree Dawn Porter (The Forsyte Saga, 1967) has a small part.

Directed somewhat unevenly by Jay Lewis (A Home of Your Own, 1964) from a script by Jack Trevor Story based on the bestseller by Jack Lindsay.

Prophetic.

Dr Crippen (1963) ***

I have to confess my ignorance of this infamous British murderer. I knew the name and that he had hacked up his wife and buried her under the floorboards, so I just assumed a nutcase in the vein of Jack the Ripper, a sadist with a bent for mutilation. So I was quite surprised by this biopic which tended more towards explanation – perhaps going as far as expiation – rather than exploitation.

Mostly, this is set around a court case with flashbacks to fill in the story. This is one of these pictures where the victim is completely unsympathetic. Mrs Crippen (Coral Browne) as portrayed here was just awful. An ex-music hall artiste, she not only slept around but taunted Dr Crippen (Donald Pleasence) about how much better her, invariably younger, lovers were in bed. She treated him as her servant, always on the lookout for the opportunity to humiliate him and was at her most venomous when drunk, a common occasion.

He had fallen for a much younger woman, his secretary Ethel Le Neve (Samantha Eggar), who, despite the age difference adored him. Though the notion of her apparently inept husband consorting with a woman was hilarious to Mrs Crippen, his wife wanted to use the opportunity to humiliate him further. Divorce is out of the question. In 1908 the scandal would ruin an outwardly respectable man. In innocent fashion, Ethel plants in the doctor’s head the potential solution.

Crippen poisons his wife, chops her up, buries her in the cellar and comes up with a fantastical tale to account for her disappearance, namely that she had run off to America to take up with a previous lover. The police think he’s lying – assuming she has just run off – but don’t believe this innocuous little man could be guilty of murder. The situation only becomes dicey when Crippen and lover flee the country and this creates a hue and cry, front page news across the world, and they are apprehended on board a steamship where they maintain the charade of being father and son, a cover blown by the fact her male outfit hardly conceals her figure and that he can’t resist squeezing her hand in public..

Ethel believes Crippen is innocent and although he is found guilty, there is a coda where it might appear that the crime should be manslaughter rather than murder. He intended the poison to be used as a sedative, to stop her verbally abusing him, and he only accidentally gave her an overdose.

So it’s far from drawing a lurid picture of a terrible murderer in part due to the portrayal of his philandering, drunken, abusive wife; in part due to the meekness of the doctor; in part due to being shown exactly how the overdose could have occurred in unintentional fashion; and in part because we do not see him butchering the body. It comes across as a more sympathetic portrait of one of the most demonized figures in British criminal history.

The only problem is it’s impossible to see the attraction of a vibrant young women to this fuddy-duddy older fellow. Maybe it was his intellect – a young woman dazzled by his brain.

He’s not exactly creepy, but he lacks an ounce of charisma. But that does square with him not being a murderer, and only wishing to sedate his wife – still a crime – to give him some peace.

Resulted in Donald Pleasence (Soldier Blue, 1970) being typecast as a villain which, while limiting his range, ensured career longevity. Samantha Eggar (The Collector, 1965) continued to burnish her growing reputation. Coral Browne (The Killing of Sister George, 1969) steals the show with a vigorous performance, but, oddly enough, didn’t do her career much good, another four years would pass before she was seen again on the big screen. Inveterate scene-stealer Donald Wolfit (Life at the Top, 1965) hams it up but there’s a more measured performance from the normally ebullient James Robertson Justice (The Fast Lady, 1962).

Directed by Robert Lynn (Mozambique, 1964) from a screenplay by Leigh Vance (The Frightened City, 1961).

More than competent biopic.

Mosquito Squadron (1969) ****

Surprisingly somber, unusually reflective and exceptionally well-constructed. Except for taking the easy way out at the end, could easily have found itself in the classic finale stakes in the same league as Casablanca (1942) or The Third Man (1949) where true love is thwarted. More than enough aerial action for aficionados and an excellent battle sequence.

In addition we have that very contemporary trope of the human shield and the argument by British officers of obeying orders that would take on a different significance from the enemy perspective at the end of World War Two. Throw in an unexpected slug of guilt, a number of understated scenes, and a very clever wheeze from the Germans and you have a movie that rises well above the standard programmer.

Quint Munroe (David McCallum) is an orphan, taken in at a young age by the family of Squadron Leader “Scottie” Scott (David Buck) whom he regards as a brother. Also a pilot, Quint watches Scottie’s plane explode in a bombing raid over France. Next in line for promotion, Quint, with the usual survivor’s guilt, takes over.

In the first of the sequences that are notably out of place in a standard gung-ho World War Two picture, Quint is sent to tell the bad news to Scottie’s wife Beth (Suzanne Neve). He doesn’t have to say a word. She recognizes the look on his face. Quint had barely escaped from his own burning cockpit, a fact that’s gone unreported to Beth, but when she comes to her husband’s quarters at the air base, she gasps at the burn marks on the back of his jacket. There are four or five instances, again understated, in this scene when Beth is brutally reminded of her husband’s death. And Quint’s colleague Douglas (David Dundas) rejoices in the fact that he’s lost an arm because that’s saved his life, it’s his “ticket” to remain earthbound, and he can safely get married in the knowledge his wife won’t be receiving a knock on the door anytime soon.

This is a mission picture in case you haven’t noticed from my concentration on the other more interesting aspects of the movie. The RAF needs to bomb an experimental station developing the next range of German rockets that’s buried underneath a chateau in France. Flattening the area in the normal fashion won’t do it, the bombers need to be able to hit a very small target indeed, the entrance of the secret hideaway. So they turn to a version of Barnes Wallis bouncing bomb (see The Dam Busters, 1955) and have to practise like billy-oh against a very tight deadline to hit such a target.

Meanwhile…meanwhie…meanwhile. There are three dramatic meanwhiles. Quint begins an understated romance with Beth, he filled with remorse at stealing his dead pal’s wife, she less concerned because there was a hint of earlier romance between them. The Germans protect the chateau behind a human shield of captured RAF pilots. In carrying out the attack, the pilots are condemning colleagues to death, a worry knocked on its head by the gung-ho likes of Air Commodore Hufford (Charles Gray), but other more sensitive high-ranking officers resort to the “obeying orders” routine. Final twist: among the prisoners is Scottie.

Nobody outside the base is permitted to know about the prisoners in case taking such an action damages public morale, so now Quint is in a bind. There’s a final twist to the twists – Scottie has lost his memory so badly that even if he could return to Britain it’s doubtful if he would know who Beth was, though, of course, they would still be married, so that would scupper Quint’s chances unless the story went onto a fourth act in the vein of Random Harvest (1942).

The French Resistance are called in to launch a daring raid to free the prisoners and assuage guilt all-round. Quint is shot down and joins the brutal battle action in which, as predicted by Hufford, the escapees are mown down by superior German firepower. He finds Scottie, who doesn’t recognize him at all. Scottie is also of the gung-ho brigade and dies stopping a German tank.

Meanwhile, Douglas has got into trouble for telling too many people about the prisoners. He’s very good friends with Beth.

You can see the cinematic opportunity. Quint returns knowing he is free to marry Beth only to find Beth turns away from him because he went on an expedition that could kill her husband. But the producers bottle it and go for the happy ending instead.

David McCallum (Sol Madrid/The Heroin Gang, 1968) remains in low gear throughout, and though Suzanne Neve (Naked Evil, 1966) more than makes up for him, you would wonder at the wife of a dead pilot taking up with another flier who could end up the same way.

Director Boris Sagal (Made in Paris, 1966) is to be commended for spending so much time on the themes of guilt and loss and keeping reality to the forefront. Some of the sequences have been stolen from other movies or are stock footage. Written by Donald S. Sanford (The Thousand Plane Raid, 1969) and actress Joyce Perry in her big screen debut.

Raises far more issues than the normal war movie, certainly blown away at the box office by the bigger-budgeted all-star-cast Battle of Britain the same year, but more than holds its own, and if it had been an American low-budgeter with some better-known lesser stars would have probably been re-evaluated long before now.

Impressive.

The Third Alibi (1961) ***

Sometimes there’s nothing more satisfying than a well-plotted narrative that doesn’t overstay its welcome and comes with a sting – or two – in the tail. And in the B-picture world we can accommodate all sorts of venal characters and even hope – or at least wonder if – they will get away with their nefarious plans.

We might have sympathy for stage composer Norman (Laurence Payne) stuck in a soulless marriage with Helen (Patricia Dainton). Small wonder he seeks spice through an affair with divorced sister-in-law Peggy (Jane Griffiths). After all, being a creative is hard work and we want him to enjoy showbiz success.

But that’s until driving home at night he knocks down an old man and races off without stopping. Luckily, the old fella’s not dead, otherwise it would have been in the papers. But then he’s bounced into asking his wife for a divorce since Peggy has announced she’s pregnant. But Helen isn’t agreeable, not least because of her dislike for her sister. And Helen’s very ill, a heart condition, but for reasons best known to herself, won’t confide this to her husband.

So Norman is left with no alternative but to bump her off. He comes up with a very clever plan that will allow him to pretend not be at home when he kills his wife there and also dreams up one of these clever alibis for Peggy, who’s integral to his plan, by getting her to make a nuisance of herself at the cinema, so everyone recalls her both arriving and departing, allowing her to slip out of the theater for the period of time she needs to assist Norman.

But Helen overhears the conspiracy. And when Norman goes home to shoot his wife, using an unlicensed therefore untraceable pistol provided by Peggy (war heirloom) instead of his own licensed traceable gun, he discovers the house is empty.

*Jazz singer Cleo Laine makes a cameo appearance, as, too, does Dudley Moore*.

When he returns to his lover, he finds her dead, shot through the head. As he rushes out, the police arrive. He’s only a suspect for a short time as his various alibis hold up. Helen appears to be standing by him. But then the police find his gun in the bushes outside the dead woman’s house.

When Helen confesses to the police that her husband has demanded a divorce, that puts her in the firing line. Except she’s got a perfect alibi. She stole the idea from the conspirators, making her visit to the cinema easily remembered by the staff both at the start of the movie and the end. It’s pretty much an unbreakable alibi unless any other witness can finger her.

Norman protests his innocence of course. And the irony is we know he’s innocent, but our sympathies are now with the killer, Helen, which twists around our preconceptions.

After all, not only is she the injured party in the romantic stakes, but she’s very ill, so needs all the audience sympathy she can get. So the audience, against its better judgement, is batting for her.

But, suddenly, twist number one, they don’t have to. Because the strain is all too much, and she has a heart attack and drops dead. And, surely, it won’t be long before Norman can find a way out of his predicament. And he believes he has the very thing.

There’s a nosy old neighbor who takes too close an interest in visitors to the house. So he must have seen Norman arrive there at the very time his lover was shot. The neighbor is brought in.

He’s a poor old soul. And blind. The result of being knocked over by a car a few weeks before.

What a cracking ending to a cracking tale. I always wonder why these kind of stories don’t get resurrected for some sort of portmanteau series, in the manner of Tales of the Unexpected. Although there’s little fat on them, a bit of judicious trimming would make them ideal for a one-hour television slot and this one, in particular, is little more than a three-hander, so wouldn’t cost much.

Each of the main characters is well drawn, each allowed a moment to stretch their emotional muscles. Solid, if not spectacular, acting from Laurence Payne (Crosstrap, 1962), Patricia Dainton (The House in Marsh Road, 1960), and Jane Griffiths (The Double, 1963), and impressive turn from John Arnatt (A Challenge for Robin Hood, 1967) as a doughty cop.

Written by Maurice J. Wilson (The House in Marsh Road) and director Montgomery Tully (The House in Marsh Road) from a play by Pip and Jane Baker. Tully is in fine form at the helm, wasting no time in driving this towards ironic conclusion.

I’ve been clocking up a few from the Tully portfolio in the last month or so. Astonished to find he directed another seven pictures this decade, so I might, in due course, complete the collection.

Enjoyable.