British – Page 8 – The Magnificent 60s

The Devil Rides Out / The Devil’s Bride (1968) ****

Strong contender for Hammer’s film of the decade, a tight adaptation of Dennis Wheatley’s black magic classic with some brilliant set pieces as Nicholas de Richleau (Christopher Lee) battles to prevent his friend Simon (Patrick Mower) falling into the hands of satanist Mocata (Charles Gray).

Initially constructed like a thriller with Simon rescued, then kidnapped, then rescued again, plus a car chase, it then turns into a siege as Richleau and friends, huddled inside a pentagram, attempt to withstand the forces of evil. Sensibly, the script eschews too much mumbo-jumbo – although modern audiences accustomed to arcane exposition through MCU should find no problem accommodating ideas like the Clavicle of Solomon, Talisman of Set and Ipsissimus – in favour of confrontation.

Unlike most demonic pictures, de Richleau has an array of mystical weaponry and a fund of knowledge to defend his charges so the storyline develops along more interesting lines than the usual notion of innocents drawn into a dark world. In some senses Mocata is a template for the Marvel super-villains with powers beyond human understanding and the same contempt for his victims. And surely this is where Marvel’s creative backroom alighted when it wanted to turn back time. Though with different aims, De Richleau and Mocata are cut from the same cloth, belonging to a world where rites and incantations hold sway.

While special effects play their part from giant menacing tarantulas and the Angel of Death, the most effective scenes rely on a lot less – Simon strangled by a crucifix, Mocata hypnotizing a woman, a bound girl struggling against possession. Had the film been made a few years later, when Hammer with The Vampire Lovers (1970) and Lust for a Vampire (1971) increased the nudity quotient, and after The Exorcist (1973) had led the way in big bucks special effects, the black mass sequence would have been considerably improved.

The main flaw is the need to stick with the author’s quartet of “modern musketeers” which means the story stretches too far in the wrong directions often at the cost of minimizing the input of de Richleau. In the Wheatley original, the four men are all intrepid, but in the film only two – de Richleau and American aviator Rex van Ryn (Leon Greene) – share those characteristics. At critical points in the narrative, de Richleau just disappears, off to complete his studies into black magic. Where The Exorcist, for example, found in scholarship a cinematic correlative, this does not try.

Christopher Lee (She, 1965), pomp reined in, is outstanding as de Richleau, exuding wisdom while fearful of the consequences of dabbling in black magic, both commanding and chilling. Charles Gray (Masquerade, 1965) is in his element, the calm eloquent charming menace he brings to the role providing him with a template for future villains. The three other “musketeers” are less effective, Patrick Mower in his movie debut does not quite deliver while Leon Greene (A Challenge for Robin Hood, 1967) and Paul Eddington (BBC television’s Yes, Minister 1980-1984) are miscast. Nike Arrighi, also making her debut as love interest Tanith, is an unusual Hammer damsel-in-distress.

Hammer stalwart Terence Fisher (The Gorgon, 1964) creates a finely-nuanced production, incorporating the grand guignol and the psychological. Screenwriter Richard Matheson (The Raven, 1963) retains the Wheatley essence while keeping the plot moving. A few years later nudity was no longer be an issue and Hollywood injected big bucks in horror special effects, so with those constraints in mind the studio did a devilish good job.

BOOK INTO FILM

Dennis Wheatley was a prolific bestseller producing three or four titles a year, famous for a historical series set around Napoleonic times, another at the start of the Second World War and a third featuring the “four modern musketeers” that spanned a couple of decades. In addition, he had gained notoriety for books about black magic, which often involved series characters, as well as sundry tales like The Lost Continent. Although largely out of fashion these days, Wheatley set the tone for brisk thrillers, stories that took place over a short period of time and in which the heroes tumbled from one peril to another. In other words, he created the template for thriller writers like Alistair MacLean and Lee Child.

The Devil Rides Out, his fourth novel, published in 1934, featured the “musketeers” involved in his phenomenally successful debut The Forbidden Territory (1933), and introduced readers to his interest in the occult. Although of differing temperaments and backgrounds his quartet – the Russian-born Duke De Richleau (Christopher Lee in the film), American aviator Rex Van Ryn (Leon Greene) and wealthy Englishmen Richard Eaton (Paul Eddington) and Simon Aron (Patrick Mower) – are intrepid. And while screenwriter Richard Matheson stuck pretty much to the core of the Wheatley story, the film was hampered by the actors. The laid-back Paul Eddington hardly connects with the Wheatley characterization and Patrick Mower is too young for Aron.

As with the book, the story moves swiftly. Worried that Aron is dabbling in the black arts, De Richleau and Van Ryn go haring down to his country house where they meet black magic high priest Mocata (Charles Gray) and discover tools for satanic worship. And soon they are embroiled in a duel of wits against Mocata, climaxing in creating a pentagram as a means of warding off evil.

In order not to lose the audience by blinding them with mumbo-jumbo the script takes only the bare bones of the tale, bringing in the occult only when pivotal to the story, and that’s something of a shame. A modern audience, which has grown up on enormously complicated worlds such as those created for Game of Thrones and the MCU, would probably have welcomed a deeper insight into the occult. While out-and-out thrillers, Wheatley’s novels also contained copious historical information that he was able to dole out even when his heroes were in harm’s way. The Devil Rides Out is not a massive tome so it’s a measure of the author’s skill that he manages to include not just a condensed history of the occult but its inner workings. Every time in the film De Richleau goes off to the British Library for some vital information, his departure generally leaves a hole, since what he returns with does not always seem important enough to justify his absence.

But then the screenwriter was under far more pressure than a novelist. In some respects, this book like few others demonstrated the difference between writing for the screen and writing for a reader. With just 95 minutes at his disposal, Matheson had no time to spare while Wheatley had all the time in the world. Wheatley could happily leave the reader dangling with a hero in peril while dispatching De Richleau on a fact-finding mission, the action held up until his return. It’s interesting that Matheson chose to follow Wheatley’s characterization of De Richleau, who didn’t know everything but knew where to look. Matheson could easily have chosen to make De Richleau all-knowing and thus able to spout a ton of information without ever going off-screen.

But here’s where the book scores over the film. The reader would happily grant Wheatley his apparent self-indulgence because in the book what he imparted on his return, given the leeway to do so, was so fascinating. There are lengthy sections in the book which are history lessons where De Richleau gives readers the inside track on the satanic. In the opening section, once De Richleau and Van Ryn have rescued Aron, the author devotes a full seven pages to a brief introduction to the occult that leaves the reader more likely to want more of that than to find out how the story will evolve. He has hit on a magic formula that few authors ever approach. To have your background every bit as interesting as the main story is incredibly rare and it allowed Wheatley the opportunity to break off from the narrative to tell the reader more about the occult, which in turn, raised the stakes for the characters involved.

Effectively, there was too much material for a screenwriter to inflict upon an audience ignorant of the occult. Some decisions were clearly made to limit the need for lengthy exposition. But these often work against the film. For example, Mocata wants the Talisman of Set because it bestows unlimited power with which he can start a world war, but in order to accomplish that he needs to find people with the correct astrological births, namely Simon and Tanith. But this element is eliminated from the story, making Mocata’s motivation merely revenge. Matheson also removed much of the historical and political background, replaced the swastika as a religious symbol with the more acceptable Christian cross, and deleted references to Marie’s Russian background. Her daughter Fleur becomes Peggy. Matheson also treats some of the esoteric light-heartedly on the assumption that seriousness might be too off-putting.

Overall, the adaptation works, you can hardly argue with the movie’s stature as a Hammer classic, but the more you delve into the book the more you wish there had been a way for much of the material to find its way onscreen and to inform the picture in much the same way as the depth of history and character backstory added to Game of Thrones.

Otley (1969) **

Misguided attempt to play the innocent-caught-up-in-espionage card. And minus the angst on which he had built his screen persona, Tom Courtenay (A Dandy in Aspic, 1968) fails to elicit the spark that would turn himself into a leading man – excepting one other film, this was his last top-billed picture. And anyone hooked by the billing expecting to see a lot of female lead Romy Scheider (The Cardinal, 1963) would equally be in for a surprise.

And that’s a shame because Courtenay can act, not in the Oscar-bait sense, but just in his physical gestures and reactions to whatever else is going on in a scene. Scheider, too, especially in the scene where she more or less laughs in Courtenay’s face when he points a gun at her and in her knowing looks.

But Otley (Tom Courtenay) is such an unappealing character, the movie is on a sticky wicket from the off. Petty thief, largely homeless because of it, his propensity for slipping into his pocket anything that looks valuable in the homes of anyone stupid enough to give him a bed for the night, giving the movie its only sensible piece of narrative drive. Because the rest of the story is a farrago, a series of unconnected episodes dreamed up for their supposed humor, which wants to be pointed and sly but ends up heavy-handed and dreary.

And there’s one of those narrative sleights-of-hand where Otley wakes up on an airport runaway (security impervious to his presence, of course) having misplaced two days of his life. That’s just one of competing narratives – the other being that he’s wanted for the murder of the chap, Lambert (Edward Hardwicke), who was stupid enough to give him a bed for the night. Count in the espionage and there’s a trio of useless narrative hinges that get in each other’s way and largely introduce us to a succession of odd characters.

Pick of these is Johnston (Leonard Rossiter), an assassin who has more lucrative side hustles as a tour coach operator, double-crosser and blackmailer. The only other believable character is the landlady who’s had enough of Otley’s thieving, but only (unbelievable element lurching into view) after she’s bedded him.

The movie just lurches from one scene to another, a car chase that ends up on a golf course, (“Are they members?” cries one outraged lady), a houseboat, various low-life dives and chunks of tourist tat thrown in, a bustling street market, Carnaby St etc. I can’t begin to tell you what the espionage element is because that’s so far-fetched and ridiculous you won’t believe me.

This is the kind of low-budget picture that sets scenes, for no particular reason except they’re part of tourist London, in the Underground, but a completely empty Underground, not another person in sight, and not late at night either which would be a saving grace, though clearly it was filmed either late at night or early in the morning when the Underground was closed to ordinary passengers (thus saving on the budget).

Two examples of how heavy-handed the humor is: on a farm having been doused in water by Johnston, Otley remarks that he’s now deep in the proverbial only for the camera to cut to his foot sinking into a cowpat. At the airport, a couple of staff get lovey-dovey behind a counter, the male sneaking a grope, and we cut to a sign “ground handling”. Ouch and urgh!

If you manage to keep going the only reward is to see a handful of familiar names popping up: Alan Badel (Arabesque, 1966), James Villiers (Some Girls Do, 1969), Fiona Lewis (Where’s Jack?, 1969) and British sitcom legends James Bolam (The Likely Lads and sequel) and Leonard Rossiter (The Fall and Rise of Reginal Perrin, 1976-1979).

And where’s Romy Scheider in all this? Looking decidedly classy, but clearly wondering how the hell she got mixed up in it.

Screenwriter Dick Clement (Hannibal Brooks, 1969) made his movie debut on this clunker. He co-wrote the picture with regular writing chum Ian La Fresnais from the novel by Martin Waddell.

What happens when a genre cycle – in this case the espionage boom – gets out of control.

Deadlier than the Male (1967) ****

For a movie intended to set up a series character in the vein of James Bond, it was ironic that it was the women who stole the show, not just from their tendency to turn up in bikinis but for their outrageous villainy. Irma (Elke Sommer) and Penelope (Sylva Koscina) are the seductive assassins in the hire of Carl Petersen (Nigel Green) who has designs on an Arab oil empire. On her own Irma dispatches mogul Henry Keller (Dervis Ward) then the pair – emerging from the sea like a pair of latter-day Ursula Andresses – harpoon his colleague Wyngarde (John Stone).

Soon Hugh Drummond (Richard Johnson), investigating the death of Stone, becomes a target and that sets him off, with nephew Robert (Steve Carlson) in tow, to the Mediterranean and the yacht of oil-rich King Fedra (Zia Mohyeddin) where, of course, the girls lie in wait.

Dispensing with the gadgets – except for one item employed by the villainesses – and gimmicks of Bond, but retaining the quips, this is a fun ride with a more down-to-earth leading man – like the early Bonds – smarter girls, a more old-fashioned mystery, hefty thug Chang (Milton Reid) in the Oddjob mold, a castle doubling as the villain’s lair, a suave master criminal, some detective work, and a super scene involving giant robotic chess men.

The bickering between Irma and Penelope, not just a tad sadistic but a kleptomaniac especially as far as her partner is concerned, coupled with their overweening confidence, makes them much more human than any Bond Girl and the character traits explored have a pay-off at the climax. Equally interesting are the mind games, Drummond vs. Peterson but also Drummond vs. Irma. And that the female baddies see it as points on their scoreboard to seduce Drummond rather than the other way round.

Drummond is every bit as capable a seducer as Bond and equally ruthless, stripping one suspect naked. Petersen is also a clever character, faking his own death and running a very smooth operation, and certainly his recruitment techniques are second to none.

Some ideas were certainly ahead of their time, the chess men are the equivalent of a modern computer game while the human bomb has, unfortunately, entered the modern lexicon and there are enough female serial killers around to prevent anyone believing they are always (to use a sexist phrase) the gentle sex. However, in the middle 1960s, the concept that women would be partial to murder and torture not to mention repeatedly seducing males went so much against the grain of the male authority figures that the British censor slapped an X-certificate on the movie.

Shakespearian actor Richard Johnson was at one time an MGM contract player, but his only previous top-billed outing was the Italian-made The Witch (1966) but he certainly made a splash with this character, investing it with a great deal more gravitas than Derek Flint or Matt Helm. The Teutonic Elke Sommer (The Venetian Affair, 1966) is brilliant as one half of the assassin tag-team with a batch of one-liners for every occasion. Sylva Koscina (A Lovely Way To Die, 1968), nose always put out of joint, almost steals the show. Nigel Green (Tobruk, 1967), while his usual sardonic self, has the playfulness of the rich and powerful.

Steve Carlsen, in his movie debut, doesn’t make much of an impact in a largely lame role. Zia Mohyeddin has a more interesting role as the oil kingpin wanting to help his people. As you can expect in a spy picture there are a host of beautiful women – Suzanna Leigh (The Lost Continent, 1968) a defector, Virginia North, also making her debut, Justine Lord (Night after Night after Night, 1969), and Didi Sydow in her only screen appearance.

The light comedy experience of director Ralph Thomas (Doctor in Distress, 1963) comes in very handy, as his sense of comic timing is excellent, but, perhaps learning from his previous brush with espionage in Hot Enough for June / Agent 8¾ (1964) brings a bigger punch to the action scenes. And it’s a bold ploy to start with an action sequence revolving around Irma and Penelope rather than our star man.

The screenplay was a team effort – Jimmy Sangster (The Devil-Ship Pirates, 1964), taking a break from Hammer duties, David D. Osborn (Maroc 7, 1967) and Liz Charles-Williams, making her screen debut – all involved. This was familiar territory for composer Malcolm Lockyer (Five Golden Men, 1967). British pop act The Walker Brothers had a hit with the theme tune.

This is more fun than camp, not a send-up of the genre like Derek Flint and Matt Helm, but a spy picture with a believable leading men and excellent villains. But the plot is more centered on filthy lucre rather than global control and there is a genuine understanding of how businesses work – takeovers, mergers, dirty dealings – though small wonder Petersen would like to be shot of pedantic boardroom nuisances like Bridgenorth (Leonard Rossiter) – wouldn’t we all?

Bulldog Drummond was an international crime-buster invented by “Sapper,” the pen-name of H.C. McNeile. Bulldog Drummond had been a Hollywood mainstay for over four decades, the twenty-plus pictures attracting stars like Ronald Colman (Bulldog Drummond, 1929, and Bulldog Drummond Strikes Back, 1934), Ray Milland (Bulldog Drummond Escapes, 1937), Walter Pidgeon (Calling Bulldog Drummond, 1951) and a young Ralph Richardson (The Return of Bulldog Drummond, 1934). But the notion, in the Swinging Sixties, of tagging any leading man by the moniker of ‘Bulldog’ did not seem like a good idea, so the character underwent wholesale reinvention, and his nickname is never mentioned.

The title comes from a line in a poem by Rudyard Kipling, The Female of the Species. That was the original title of the film and also of a Sapper book.

The Roman Spring of Mrs Stone (1961) **

Dreary miscalculation. Ever since Tennessee Williams hit a home run with Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958), studios, directors and stars had clamored for his works, so much so that Hollywood had greenlit seven adaptations in five years. While box office was one consideration, the playwright was catnip to the Oscar, racking up 17 nominations with a hefty number in the Best Actress category.

However you dressed it up, his work contained a substantial number of portraits of sadness and malevolence and often teetered on the murky, so making them work at all depended not just on the acting and direction, but the initial story. Rather than being based on a play, this was sourced from his first novel, a bestseller.

But the tale never shifts out of first gear and it’s difficult to summon up sympathy never mind interest in any of the characters. The middle-aged romance had proved a cumbersome fix for studios, and since May-December numbers featuring ageing male and younger female had proved popular, Cary Grant set up with an endless supply of woman nearly half his age, it seemed only fair to give middle-aged actresses the opportunity to romance younger men.

Usually, however, this followed a more straightforward path, involving genuine feelings on both sides. But Hollywood was also digging into another cesspit, the female sex worker, somewhat dressed up in Butterfield 8 (1960) and Go Naked in the World (1961), treated more straightforwardly in Never on Sunday (1960) and Girl of the Night. So it only seemed fair to introduce the gigolo.

Stage actress Karen Stone (Vivien Leigh) heads for Rome with her wealthy husband to recover from the failure of her latest play, a Shakespearian outing. When her husband dies on the plane, Karen decides to hang on in the Italian capital, which, after a year, brings her into the orbit of gigolo Paulo (Warren Beatty) and his unscrupulous mentor/manager Contessa Magda (Lotte Lenya). While Karen isn’t entirely a dupe and quickly sees through Paulo, nonetheless a year of loneliness has taken its toll.

Plus she understands the attraction of the older lover, her husband being a good two decades older and willing to subsidize her theatrical and cinematic ambitions. Despite not falling for Paulo’s more obvious con tricks, Karen finds herself enmeshed in a one-sided romance, ignoring the warnings of friend Meg (Coral Brown) on the dangers of becoming the talk of the town with her lover clearly more attracted to rising movie star Barbara (Jill St John). Paulo quickly dumps the Contessa, leaving her free to pour bile into Karen’s ear.

Inevitably, the younger lover tires of the older, but generally such pairings work well enough because initially at least there is attraction on both sides. But when it’s as lop-sided as this no amount of long drawn-out close-ups of the disenchanted provide sufficient compensation for a story that overstays its welcome.

While there are hints of the decadence of La Dolce Vita (1960) that Fellini explored, here it’s more of a surface examination until the surprising ending, where you would think Karen is doing little more than willingly opening the door to a potential serial killer.

The only redeeming element, which might reverberate more easily today, is of the woman demonstrating her independence by being the one to choose, and to some extent discard, the man. While not for most of the movie a sexual predator, she may well have turned into one at the end.

Oscar-winner Vivien Leigh, in her first movie in six years, essays her role well but is compromised by portraying a character that fails to elicit sympathy. Warren Beatty (Promise Her Anything, 1966) avoids the trap of thickening his Italian accent and going wild with the gestures which lends his character more of a thoughtful personality but there’s not much here to write home about. Lotte Lenya (From Russia with Love, 1963) steals the show and was rewarded with an Oscar nomination. Jill St John (Tender Is the Night, 1962) plays the ingénue like an ingénue.

Unless you’re a student of theater I doubt if you’ll have come across Panamian director Jose Quintero. This was his only movie and he was more famous for staging some of Williams’ plays and for resurrecting Eugene O’Neill on Broadway. His inexperience shows in lingering on faces at the expense of creating drama. Gavin Lambert (Inside Daisy Clover, 1965) adapted the novel.

Disappointment.

They Came from Beyond Space (1967) ***

If you’re familiar with the Amicus output from its portmanteau horror movies this excursion into sci fi might come as a surprise. On the other hand, should you be a fan of Dr Who you might well be acquainted with Amicus’s two excursions into this genre – Dr Who and the Daleks (1965) and Daleks’ Invasion Earth 2015 A.D. (1966). In fact, the outfit’s production at this point was evenly split between sci fi and horror and had They Came from Beyond Space and stablemate The Terrornauts (1967) done better the company might have persevered with the genre.

That these two were originally intended to go out as a double bill – they did in the U.S. but not in Britain – is somewhat surprising given they have similar themes of some kind of dying alien species using Earth for survival. And with a bigger budget, They Came from Beyond Space might have made a bigger dent into the box office, instead of heading beyond the realms of cult into oblivion.

There are some neat touches. Meteorites fall on Earth. Nothing odd in that, certainly not in the world of cinematic sci fi. What’s strange is how they land – in a perfect V-formation. What’s more their source is the Moon. You won’t be at all surprised to learn, however, that the aliens bear no resemblance to the amazonian-type women promoted in the poster.

Also peculiar, for the time, is that the scientists sent to investigate are led by a woman, Lee (Jennifer Jayne), her boss and lover Dr Temple (Robert Hutton) left behind because he has a silver plate in his head as the result of an automobile accident. The meteorites exert a strange power and soon Lee and her confederates are organizing some massive scientific project to send a mission to the Moon, funding procured from a million-pound loan from a hypnotized bank manager and the local community falling victim to a strange plague which renders them obedient.

Eventually, alarm raised by Lee commandeering so much expensive equipment, Dr Temple does go to investigate and is baffled by the construction of a military compound complete with armed guards and electrified fence housing a vast underground laboratory and a rocket ready for launch.

He manages to kidnap Lee, possessed by an alien force, and with buddy Farge (Zia Mohyeddin) comes up with a variation on the kind of common-cold weapon employed to defeat aliens – in this case the use of silver to block the alien rays, you always knew that silver plate in his head would have narrative purpose. Realizing her situation, Lee now pretends to be an alien and the trio sneak aboard a rocket and after a fantastically speedy journey land on the Moon where they are confronted by the Master of the Moon (Michael Gough).

Quite why female sacrifice was a common theme between this and The Terrornauts is anyone’s guess but soon enough the aliens have Lee staked out. And that silver plate has to be surgically removed from Dr Temple’s head so the aliens can get a good look at his brain.

Like The Terrornauts, there are no physical aliens, just some kind of energy source. And like E.T. some decades later they just want to go home. Farge leads the enslaved in revolt and normally that would trigger some violent finale but here, instead, there’s a curious – and welcoming – climax.

A kind of “why didn’t you say so, old chap” ending where the Earthlings agree to help the aliens return to their planet, no collateral damage necessary. This is probably the most unexpected thinking person’s twist that you could ever conceive – a variation on the idea of foes finding common cause. It certainly didn’t fit into the genre and my guess is most audiences were baffled at the outbreak of peace. It just didn’t go with the territory.

None of the acting is anything to write home about, but the picture is generally well done, the special effects more than passable given the budget, and enough in the narrative tank to keep you going.

Robert Hutton (The Vulture, 1966) was coming to the end of a B-picture career. Jennifer Jayne’s (The Liquidator, 1965) hardly really took off. Zia Mohyeddin (Deadlier Than the Male, 1967) had a decent run in supporting roles. Everyone is no more than adequate in roles that demand no depth.

Freddie Francis (The Skull, 1965) does his best with a script by producer Milton Subotsky (The Skull) adapting the novel by Joseph Millard.

Undemanding but holds the interest.

Negatives (1968) ***

Role play wasn’t the sub-culture it is now. Though fashion had injected more of a sense of dressing up what with Russian furs courtesy of Doctor Zhivago (1965) and snazzy berets from Bonnie and Clyde (1967), the idea of people living out their lives in costume had not taken hold. So consider this a precursor – and maybe a warning – as to what can go wrong if taken too far.

Obscurity to the point of obfuscation was an arthouse default especially prevalent in more commercial ventures like Blow-Up (1966) and In Search of Gregory (1969) so no need to bother yourself with hunting out motivation or background.

The erotic subtext – voyeurism too – here takes on a disturbing quality as it touches on the notion of male justified in using violence in response to female provocation. Drama centers on a clash of role model sensibilities with a weak male shifting from interpreting a murderous villain to imitating a heroic pilot.

Antiques dealer Theo (Peter McEnery) spices up his stale marriage to Vivien (Glenda Jackson) by dressing up as serial killer Dr Crippen. She invests in the role of his complaisant lover Ethel. Play-acting, at her behest it appears, doesn’t prevent her verbally tearing into him. Into this unconventional nest arrives German photographer Reingard (Diane Cilento) who has been spying on him for several weeks. She has her own fantasy and soon has him rigged out as World War One flying ace Baron von Richtofen, complete with ancient biplane. He responds to the militaristic characteristics of the pilot, entering more into the spirit of the game than the famed killer.

Naturally, Vivien doesn’t take kindly to this intrusion, not least because she realizes she isn’t the only one who can manipulate her malleable husband and violence and tragedy ensue. It’s not entirely clear why either female character indulges in such fantasies and does give rise to the cliche notion, and redolent of the times, of the female wishing to give in to the dominant male, even when the man shows little sign of being a dominant personality.

Apart from Theo visiting his father (Maurice Denham) who appears to be dying in hospital, the picture doesn’t shift much from its three-cornered narrative. The idea of the ongoing masquerade is emphasized by a sequence set in Madame Tussaud’s. Given the censorship of the times, the eroticism is largely of the discreet variety, rather than going down the full-blown sexual fantasy of The Girl on a Motorcycle (1969).

Glenda Jackson both plays a character right up her street and brings far more to the role than either Peter McEnery (The Moonspinners, 1964) or Diane Cilento (The Third Secret, 1964) who give the appearance of slumming it in a low-budget production in the hope it might bring career kudos.

Unwilling to dig any deeper into the characters, director Peter Medak (The Ruling Class, 1972), in his debut, merely toys with technique, elaborate shots following a character round a room or unusual compositions.

With the trendy crowd parading down King’s Road with all the latest hip gear including military uniforms and Victorian garb, this might have seemed to fit right in, except that the main characters have little in common with the “Youthquake” of the era.

On the one hand a true oddity with McEnery and Cilento well out of their comfort zones, on the other proof of what Jackson and Medak had to offer.

Might appeal to the role-playing crowd, more likely to those interested in early Glenda Jackson.

The Limbo Line (1968) ***

Should have been a classic. The bleakest espionage tale of the decade ends up, unfortunately, in the wrong hands. Betrayal – personal and professional – underlines a sturdy enough narrative of defection, kidnap and rescue, infected with a spread of interesting characters far from the genre cliché.

We open with blonde Russian femme fatale Ludmilla (Moira Redmond), as sleek as they come, killing off her lover once she discovers his true intent. She works for the “Limbo Line,” an organization headed by Oleg (Vladek Sheybal) which whisks Russian defectors back to their home country. In romantic fashion, she inveigles herself into the lives of those who may be, for personal gain, about to take a wrong turn in the service of their country.

Richard Manston (Craig Stevens), meanwhile, is an operative of an undetermined secret unit, getting cosy with Russian ballerina Irina (Kate O’Mara), a defector, in the hope that she will become the next target for Oleg and thus lead him to his quarry. Responding to his amorous advances, she has no concept of this ulterior motives.

But he’s not the only one in the two-timing racket. Oleg lives high on the hog, a lifestyle financed by holding back remuneration due his operatives, who not only want better paid for the risks they are taking, but draw the line at murder. Ludmilla, meanwhile, uses intimacy with Oleg as a way of keeping tabs on him for her superiors.

Everyone, however, is operating under a new code of restraint. Arms limitation talks between the Superpowers currently taking place mean that neither side wants to be publicly seen to be working in the shadows. Hence, the no-holds-barred methods of both Manston and Oleg are frowned upon. Manston and Ludmilla have more in common than one would normally find in the spy movies of the period, the end justifying the means taking precedence over any personal interest in a lover.

The dangerous romantic elements would have been better dealt with in the hands of a more accomplished director. As it is, Samuel Gallu (Theatre of Death, 1967) has his hands full keeping track of a fast-moving tale as Irina is whisked by boat, bus and petrol tanker to Germany, hidden in such confined spaces the more cautious operatives fear she will die.

Nor, despite his fists, is Manston as good as you would expect from a heroic spy, battered to bits by his opposite number, himself imprisoned in the tanker, becoming a pawn to be sold to the highest bidder.

It’s in the tanker that Irina realizes her lover is deceitful, only using her as bait. Similarly, Oleg doesn’t realize he is every bit as dispensable to the ruthless Ludmilla who wishes to avoid public exposure and is only interesting in taking Irina back to Russia where she will be “re-educated.” Chivers (Norman Bird) looks like the nicer sidekick for Manston, the type to demonstrate fair play, except when he has to drown a suspect in a bath. He has the best line in the film, an ironic one at the climax.

The action, while overly complicated, is well done, none of the over-orchestrated fistfights taking place in odd locations. Chivers has a knack of turning up in the nick of time, but he’s the cleverer of the two.

An actress of greater skill than Kate O’Mara (Corruption, 1968) would have brought greater depth to the betrayed lover, but she does well enough to stay alert during the helter-skelter action. Craig Stevens (Gunn, 1967) was never going to be the right fit for a character required to show considerable remorse at his own actions.

The hard core of political reality, the constant betrayal of both innocent and guilty, the shifting sands of romance sit only on the surface and a better director would have brought them more into the foreground, eliciting better performances for deception incurred in the line of duty at the expense of the personal life.

It’s never a good sign when the bad guys are the more interesting characters and while you might expect Vladek Sheybal (Puppet on a Chain, 1970) to steal the show, he is usurped by Moira Redmond (Nightmare, 1964). A bigger budget would have also offered better reward, but even so Gallu comes up with more interesting camera angles than you might expect. Based on the bestseller by Victor Canning (Masquerade, 1965), he was helped in the screenwriting department by television writer Donald James.

You watch this thinking what might have been.

Pussycat Alley / The World Ten Times Over (1963) ***

Sold as sexploitation fare, this is more of a chamber piece as flatmates Billa (Sylvia Syms) and Ginnie (June Ritchie) face up to crises in their lives. For two-thirds of the picture we steer clear of their place of occupation, a Soho nighclub, and only go there for a scene of unsurpassed male humiliation. Unusually, since the expectation would be that the two girls, supplementing their official income with some part-time sex working (implicit rather than explicit), would be treated as victims of wealthy males, in reality they serve up several plates of juicy revenge, but in accordance with their characters rather than as noir femme fatales.

In a very drab London, shorn of tourist hallmarks and red buses and royal insignia, Ginnie sets the tone, furious at lover Bob (Edward Judd), pampered son of a wealthy industrialist, for bringing mention of “love” into what she views as either (or both) an expression of pure pleasure or financial transaction. Bob is the old cliche, the client fallen in love with the girl. Attracted as she is by the pampering and the fact that she can twist him round her little finger, she values her independence too much to commit to such a weak man. In addition, she is so used to getting her way and so wilful that she delights in running rings around him, humiliating him in front of his entire office.

A contemporary picture like Anora (2024) would find space to excuse or explain her choice of employment, but here, beyond the fact that she left school aged 15 and has no qualifications, we are given nothing to work on, except that her predilection for doing exactly what she wants to do most of the time means she she might find steady employment a drain on her spritely personality.

Billa’s problem is she’s pregnant with no idea who the father might be and becomes infuriated by her widowed teacher father (William Hartnell) who can’t let go of his childlike notions of his beloved daughter. Thankfully, no notions of abuse, but just a dad not coming to terms with a grown-up daughter, shocked that she can knock back the whisky, and whose idea of a treat is taking her to one of the most difficult of the Shakespeare plays. Eventually, suspicions aroused, he tracks her down to the nightclub where she takes great delight in behaving disgracefully, refusing to leave at his presence, parental authority cut stone dead, the staff treating the father like any other punter, even setting him up with a girl (though on the house and he doesn’t take them up on the offer).

Meanwhile, the over-entitled Bob, failing to get his father to offer Ginnie a job except as an escort for the company’s clients, decides to leave his wife, books plane tickets for an exotic holiday only to be spurned. Ginnie recognizes more easily than him what a disaster marriage would be. She enjoys the fancy restaurants and fast cars but draws the line at commitment. She’s at her best when prancing around, indulging her whims, and yet there is a price to pay for her lifestyle as we discover in more sober fashion at the end.

Billa is sober pretty much all the way through, thoughtful, withdrawn, unable to connect with her father, her biggest emotional support being Ginnie. Despite her failure to go along with her father’s vision of her as an innocent child, her apartment is bedecked with childish paraphernalia, teddy bears, dolls etc.

Not quite a harder-nosed version of Of Human Bondage, and not far off as far as the males are concerned, but more of a character study of the two women.

Although she has the less showy part, Sylvia Syms is the peach here, and if you consider her portfolio from The World of Suzie Wong (1960) through to East of Sudan (1964) this shows the actress at the peak of her ability. June Ritchie (A Kind of Loving, 1962) is excellent as the flighty piece and Edward Judd (The Day the Earth Caught Fire, 1961) steps away from his normal more heroic screen persona. This was William Hartnell’s last movie before embarking on his time travels for Doctor Who and it’s a moving portrait of an old man whose illusions are shattered.

Directed by Wolf Rilla (Village of the Damned, 1960) from his own screenplay.

Low-life never looked so glam and so shoddy at the same time.

Crooks Anonymous (1962) ***

Charm was in short supply in the 1960s. sure, for a period you still had Cary Grant but David Niven was as often to be found in an action picture (The Guns of Navarone, 1961) or a drama, and others of the ilk, like Tony Curtis, veered more towards outright comedy. Britain had something of what would today be called a “national treasure,” admittedly a term more likely to be accorded females of the standing of Maggie Smith or Judi Dench; maybe a space might be found for the idiosyncratic Ralph Richardson. Dare I put Leslie Phillips into contention for such an honor?

Once into his mellifluous stride and with his trademark appreciation of female beauty, “Ding dong!” a more welcome remark than the more common “Cor!” or “Strewth” or sheer inuendo, Leslie Phillips, not so well known perhaps in the USA and foreign parts, would fit that definition. He had charm in spades.

Unfortunately, you could split his career into those roles where “ding dong” entered the equation and those it did not. This is one of those, and I have to confess I’m both disappointed and delighted. Dissatisfied because the charm appeared part of his screen persona, but pleased whenever I found out he wasn’t tied down to it and could essay other characters just as well.

Here, here’s shifty criminal Dandy, whose only redeeming feature is that somehow he has acquired a beautiful girlfriend, stripper Babette (Julie Christie), who, despite her profession

appears to have steered cleared of seediness and insists he goes straight before she consents to marriage. And that would be fine, except what can Dandy do when faced with such obvious temptation and jewels left idly on a counter in a jewellery?

When she catches him out, he is sent to the criminal version of Alcoholics Anonymous where he is at the mercy of a particularly sadistic “guardian angel” Widdowes (Stanley Baxter – in a variety of disguises). He is locked in a cell full of safes. Food, cigarettes etc are hidden inside the safes, so to eat and satisfy his smoking habit, he must open them. The logic, presumably, is that he will grow sick and tired of opening so many safes for so little reward.

Maybe it’s the hidden punishments – a touch of electrocution and various other booby traps – that do the trick. Or, it could be the glee of Widdowes. When Dandy finds cigarettes, they come without any means of lighting them. He pleads with Widdowes to point him in the direction of a safe containing means of ignition.Replies the “angel”, “I’m glad you asked that because I’m not going to tell you.”

There’s a whole raft of comedy skits revolving around temptation, mostly involving Widdowes in one guise or another. And when the movie stays with Widdowes and a bunch of other reformed criminals, it fairly zips along. But once Dandy is released and plot rears its ugly head it falls back on more cliché elements.

Dandy manages to go straight, employed as a Santa Clause in a department store, while Babette decides to give up her job so both can start afresh. Unfortunately, temptation raises its ugly head to the tune of a quarter of a million pounds and all those goody-two-shoes reformed criminals line up to take a crack at it. The twist, which you’ll already have guessed, is that they have to break into the vault again to return the money they have stolen.

Scottish comedian Stanley Baxter was going through a phase of attempting to become a movie star and was given a fair old crack at it – The Fast Lady (1962) and Father Came Too (1964) followed, the former with both Philips and Christie, the latter with just him.

But what was obvious from Crooks Anonymous was that Baxter was better in disguise – and the more the merrier – than served up straight. He steals the show here where in the other movies his character is more of an irritant.

A well-meaning Leslie Phillips somehow snuffs out the charm and there’s not enough going on between him and Babette when he’s full-on straightlaced. Heretical though it might be, there’s not enough going on with Julie Christie either to suggest she might be Oscar bait. Here’s she’s just another ingenue.

Wilfrid Hyde-White (P.J. / New Face in Hell, 1967), another who generally traded on his charm (in a supporting category of course), is also in the disguise business, so he steals a few scenes, too. James Robertson Justice (Father Came Too) would have stolen the picture from under the noses of Baxter and Phillips had he been given more scenes.

Directed by Ken Annakin (Battle of the Bulge, 1965) from a screenplay by Jack Davies and Henry Blyth (Father Came Too).

I might have preferred Phillips in “ding dong” persona, but this works out okay, especially in the scenes set in the criminal reform school.

Ding dong-ish.

Missing You (2025) ***

A well-off good-looking couple trying to adopt a puppy are challenged by po-faced bureaucrat over the name they have chosen for said animal. Their purported good deed ends in disaster when he shows them a photo of the woman caught in a clinch with another man. We never see the couple again. But the prissy fella, Titus (Steve Pemberton) turns up. He’s some kind of farmer. But he runs a strange kind of operation. In his barn we catch a glimpse of a lot of guys in orange prison-style outfits kept in stalls and handcuffed to the ceiling.

And that would be wow and double wow except the algorithms have gone crazy and none of this gripping stuff occurs until episode two by which time you are bored to death by the insane amount of time devoted to Detective Kat Donovan’s (Rosalind Eleazar) woeful love life and her decade-old grieving for murdered cop father Clint (Lenny Henry).

We know more about Clint than anyone else for about every give minutes she gets all doe-eyed and we cut to flashbacks of the wonderful old dad all huggy and fun. And if that’s not enough every two minutes a colleague or relative or friend interrupts her doe-eyed contemplation to tell her to give up trying to find out why her father was murdered.

As to her love life, I can give you chapter and verse. After Josh (Ashley Walters) skipped out on her eons ago, she’s given up on commitment. She uses men for sex, pretending to be an air hostess in case the idea of dating a cop puts them off. She’s pulled up for the lack of commitment by buddy Jessica (Stacey Embalo) and various others, the same ones giving her grief about her extended grieving. But when Josh comes back into her life, albeit on a dating app, she goes all doe-eyed again – wouldn’t it be such fun to hook up again with that two-timing rat?

Luckily, Jessica is a private detective specializing in the honeytrap to expose errant husbands and even more fortunately one of her grateful clients is a prison guard who can sneak Kat into the prison where her father’s killer, doing life for two other murders, is dying. Although the killer was caught, Kat has driven herself crazy wanting to know why her father was fingered. And, luckily, there’s a prison nurse to hand who will dope up the killer with scopolamine – the old truth drug you might remember from The Guns of Navarone – so he will cough up about the murder, although we have already guessed, as our intrepid cop has not, that he didn’t kill her father just took the rap because he was already facing life for the other two killings.

In the old days, the chief cop either had no love life worth mentioning or had a different blonde/blond on his/her arm in every episode or was going through some hellish break-up, and audiences didn’t have to suffer having to empathize with the poor detective’s awry sex life. But in the old days all love life would have been shoved onto the back burner only popping up at a critical moment as some sort of narrative relief to the question in hand which was solving some horrendous case. Here, it’s the other way round, said case only pops up as a brief intermission to Kat’s awry love life and grief.

This is a Harlan Coban Netflix number but it seems very Coban-lite, a far cry from Tell No One (2006). I was a big fan of the books which seemed set in very realistic worlds with authentic plots and double-edged characters you could root for despite their failings. And mystery was the watchword. But proper mystery, a character caught up in some malfeasance, or the past coming back to haunt them, and rarely were his novels police procedurals.

The quality tailed off after a while but even then Coban knew how to hook the reader and generally the plots, though increasingly far-fetched, had sufficient spice to grip.

You are probably wondering when am I going to get to the juicy part – the case Kat is working on. Well, you see, I was wondering the same. When the heck are we going to get past all the personal angst and devote some time to the case of the missing bloke? He’s the guy who fell off a horse while riding in the lush countryside and after stumbling over said lush countryside is rescued by a fella in a tractor who stabs him with a taser.

As I said, it’s not until episode two that bad guy Titus turns up with his home-made prison and extortion racket but even then it’s hard to drag Kat away from her love life and her grieving.

Golly gosh, I just can’t wait to find out what happened with Josh and whether she will give him another chance. But is that what is meant to keep me going for the next three episodes?

Algorithms go home.