Charlotte Rampling – The Magnificent 60s

The Damned / Gotterdammerung / Twilight of the Gods (1969) **

Ponderous, gratuitous, offensive. Let’s start with the pedophile, spoiled grandson Martin (Helmut Berger) of industrialist patriarch Joachim (Albrecht Schonhals). We already guess he has this kind of predilection for young girls as that’s suggested during a game of hide-and-seek at the family mansion and by a scream in the night that is ignored. He keeps a mistress Olga (Florinda Balkan) and is drawn to the young girl in the apartment next door, bringing her the kind of expensive present that her impoverished mother believes she must have stolen. So we know what he’s all about. It’s discreetly enough stated without the inclusion of a scene which I doubt would pass the censor these days and should the young actress be still alive in these MeToo times might be considering legal action for being taken advantage of.

Although the storyline is similar to the director’s earlier The Leopard (1963) of the powerful – there a wealthy landowner, here an arms manufacturer – trying to hold onto their status in times of change (then the invasion of Sicily by forces wanting to unite Italy, now the rise to eminence of Hitler), there’s little of the cinematic flair of the latter. Long scenes are played out at dinner tables or in bedrooms. And most of that is machination, someone or other wanting to take over the family firm or be the power behind the throne.

You need some knowledge of German history to understand the significance of some events. Hitler, then the German Chancellor, burned down the Reichstag (the German Parliament) in 1933 in a ruthless bid for power. Hitler employed two factions, the predominantly working class brownshirts (the SA) and the mainly middle class blackshirts (the SS), the former a paramilitary organization committed to actions against Jews and backing his early bid for power. In 1934, in the Night of the Long Knives, the SS obliterated the SA.

The first section of the picture straddles these two events with a Succession-style drama. In reaction to the burning of the Reichstag, Joachim replaces Herbert (Umberto Orsini), his top executive and outspoken anti-Nazi, with boorish nephew Konstantin (Reinhard Koldehoff) who is a high-ranking member of the SA.

This doesn’t sit well with Friedrich (Dirk Bogarde), who expected preference. Urged on by lover Sophie (Ingrid Thulin), Joachim’s widowed daughter-in-law, and Aschenbach (Helmut Griem), Joachim’s nephew and an ambitious high-ranking SS official, Friedrich kills Joachim but pins the blame on Herbert who has to flee.

Konstantin is thwarted because although technically in charge it’s now Martin who owns the business and nudged by Sophie gives Friedrich the top management role. So Konstantin resorts to blackmail, having uncovered the pedophile. In steps Sophie who uses Aschenbach to thwart him again. Though there’s not much need because Konstantin is eliminated as one of the SA members executed in 1934 at some kind of gathering where the attendees all appear to have homosexual tendencies.

Aschenbach and Martin nurse grievances. Aschenbach feels Friedrich isn’t ostentatious enough in support of Hitler and Martin is furious that Sophie manipulated his difficulties with Konstantin to Friedrich’s benefit. So the SS man and the dissolute conspire. In the way of this kind of heightened melodrama it’s revealed that Friedrich killed Joachim. That doesn’t send Friedrich to trial, instead wins him a get-out-of-jail-free card by turning into a radical Nazi.

Martin, meanwhile, is also a member of the SS. He rapes Sophie, Friedrich loses his way and in one of those moments Francis Ford Coppola would appreciate Martin kills them on their marriage day.

There are a couple of oddities. It’s hard to believe a young girl – we’re talking a 7-8-year-old – would actually manage the mechanics of hanging herself. And when Friedrich is drawn into joining the slaughter of the SA members, there is over-emphasis on his perceived sensitivity when previously he had cold-bloodedly despatched Joachim.

So glorified soap opera with too much virtue signalling for its own good. Excepting Herbert and wife Elizabeth (Charlotte Rampling) and another grandson, who play minor roles, there’s not a single character to care for.

Despite the unusual backdrop, there’s nothing particularly unusual about the succession/inheritance scenario. The tough self-made millionaire or latest head of a wealthy family seeks to maintain power and guard against diminishing its status and lineage by ensuring the correct successor is groomed and that capital is not dissipated through unsuitable marriage or indulging weaker offspring. Thomas Mann, who fled the Nazis in the 1930s, covered this ground more successfully in his debut novel Buddenbrooks, although admittedly with less decadence.

Setting The Damned against the rise of the Nazis is an attempt to give it more artistic status than it merits because it’s really not much more than a standard study of ambition and ruthlessness.

Three (1969) **

More interesting for the personalities involved – Sam Waterston, Charlotte Rampling, an ex-fighter pilot, an Australian pop star and a model – than the film itself, which presents a European arthouse take on youngsters freewheeling around Europe looking for their share of the free love purportedly available everywhere.

There’s not really any story, mostly it’s scenery, and whatever tension there is rarely rises to the point of drama. However, it is refreshing to see a picture not steeped in angst that reflects the normality of life rather than superficially-imposed heightened confrontation. On a tour of Italy, American college buddies Taylor (Sam Waterston), the shy, gawky one, and Bert (Robie Porter), the better-looking confident one, take up with British girl Marty (Charlotte Rampling). The guys make a pact not to compete for the girl’s attentions, but that idea doesn’t last long. The title suggests she might end up with one – or both. In trying to sell the film, the marketeers felt obliged to make that idea more implicit.

The guys make plays for other girls they meet but seem to find little genuine action and in that sense it is more true to life than other films of the period which suggested sex was there for the asking. But none of the characters are particularly interesting and while that is also more realistic it diminishes enjoyment. The highlight is a naked Taylor attempting to save a girl from drowning in the sea, but in keeping with the film’s tone he is beaten to it by a boat.

There’s not much sign here of the intense dramatic style Oscar nominee Sam Waterston would later bring to the movies. This was his third film after small parts in The Plastic Dome of Norma Jean (1966) and Dick Van Dyke vehicle Fitzwilly (1967) and he wouldn’t hit his stride until The Great Gatsby (1974).

Perhaps the oddest movie fate befell Charlotte Rampling, also a later Oscar nominee. How else to explain that she followed up this picture with Luchino Visconti’s The Damned (1969) and preceded it with Roger Corman’s Target: Harry (1969). With a career that at this point appeared to follow no particular pattern, after making an impact in Georgy Girl (1966) as a libidinous flatmate, she took a small role in The Long Duel (1967) before reaching leading lady status opposite Franco Nero in Italian thriller Sequestro di Persona (1968). Her languid screen persona was turned on its head with The Night Porter (1974). And then she was swept up in Alistair MacLean thriller Caravan to Vaccares (1974).

Who was Robie Porter you might very well ask and why did he only make two pictures, the other being The Carey Treatment (1972)? He was an Australian pop star, specializing in instrumentals on a steel guitar, with a series of hits including two at number one. He chanced his arm in Britain, without repeating that success, then moved to the U.S. and landed parts in television series Daniel Boone and Mannix. After Three, he returned to the music business, as part-owner of record label Sparmac and producing for the band Daddy Cool.

Other names in Three, in bit parts only, none making any discernible impact in the picture, included model Edina Ronay, daughter of celebrated food critic Egon Ronay, who had appeared in A Study in Terror (1965) and Prehistoric Women (1967). Equally as celebrated, if for other reasons, was Gillian Hill, best known as one of the girls cavorting naked with photographer David Hemmings in Blow Up (1966).

Writer-director James Salter was a genuine Hollywood curiosity. He hit a peak of cinematic activity in 1969, with two screenplays filmed – Downhill Racer (1969) and The Appointment (1969). This is pretty much a companion piece to Downhill Racer (1969) which has a bunch of professional skiers on a similar scenic tour and often sitting around with not much to do although that film builds in confrontation and more standard love affair.

Generally considered a “writer’s writer” – i.e. adored by his peers more than the public – his first novel The Hunters (1958), based on his Air Force experiences, was turned into a movie starring Robert Mitchum. He dabbled in documentary film-making, whose impact can be seen in his feature films, but was better known for a short erotic novel A Sport and a Pastime set in Europe. None of his 1969 trio were hits, he ended up in Hollywood limbo, and he didn’t reappear on the movie credits list until Richard Pearce’s sci-fi Threshold (1981) starring Donald Sutherland.

Behind the Scenes: “The Long Duel” (1967)

Due some unexpected reverence after being chosen by Quentin Tarantino for his inaugural eponymous festival that kicked off at the Dobie theater in Austin, Texas, in 1996. I thought I’d throw that in since my opinion alone may not have swayed you as to this film’s merits. Ken Annakin (Battle of the Bulge, 1965) wasn’t first choice as director. It was initially on the slate of Jack Cardiff (The Girl on a Motorcycle, 1969) and should have also made waves as the first big British-Indian co-production. After his World War Two tank epic, Annakin’s career unexpectedly stalled.

He backed out of a project to make a Las Vegas version of Grand Hotel (1931), another, the $1.5 million The Fifth Coin, written by Francis Coppola and to star George Segal, got snarled up on the starting grid. He balked at Texas Across the River (1966) – when the females leads were going to be Shirley MacLaine and Catherine Deneuve – due to concerns about the schedule. He actually shot half of The Perils of Pauline (1967) with Terry-Thomas, Pat Boone and Pamela Austin, wife of super-agent Guy McIllwhaine, before being fired, for reasons that were unclear. Still, he remained in demand and was immediately off to Italy to shoot Raquel Welch heist picture The Biggest Bundle of Them All – not released until two years later as explained in my Behind the Scenes blog on that movie.

However, before jetting off to Italy, he had been sounded out by British producer Sydney Box who had a commitment from Yul Brynner and Trevor Howard to star in the $3 million The Long Duel being financed fifty-fifty by British studio Rank and fourteen Indian investors taking advantage of a tax-shelter deal. Annakin was in line for his biggest-ever fee. For Rank it was a brave new world. The British studio after years of relative inactivity was back on the production front foot, initially in co-production deals with American majors and British investment outfits like the National Film Corporation. It planned to invest $12 million in eight pictures. Initially, its stake in The Long Duel was limited to 60 per cent at a time when the movie was budgeted at $2.3 million. This was “particularly surprising because it came at a time when Britain was caught in a severe economic freeze” although the surprise success of the Bond pictures suggested the country’s movie industry was, in contrast, riding the crest of a wave.

Things turned sour on the location scouting trip to India. A “bottomless pit” of laborers was on standby to build a rope bridge across as soon as the money came through. Timber had been ordered to build a fort on a plateau with stunning views of snow-capped mountains, but nothing would arrive until money changed hands. While Rank had committed three-fifths of the finance with the rest coming from the release of blocked rupees guaranteed by a Maharajah, without any immediate cash and with the stars on pay-or-play contracts, there was no option but for Rank to pick up the entire cost and seek out alternative locations. That meant it was the single biggest British production financed domestically without a foreign partner.

Matters worsened when producer Sydney Box suffered a heart attack, triggering his departure from the business, in which he had been a mainstay for 33 years, movies ranging from The Seventh Veil (1945) to Accident (1966). In addition, Annakin was negotiating to make a permanent move to France while his wife was at home in England dealing with an adopted new-born baby. Annakin – acting also as producer for the first time – gambled on shifting the movie to Spain.

After the success of Doctor Zhivago (1965), Spain was fast being viewed as an ideal terrain, Custer of the West (1967), Camelot (1967), Fathom (1967) and The Bobo (1966) jostling for space. Having made a couple of movies there, Annakin assured the backers, the terrain was “not dissimilar” to the locations he had viewed in India. “I believe we can make Spain into India, so long as the crowds are dressed as Indians, which will cost quite a lot more because it means providing all the costumes whereas in India they already exist,” he explained. He had three weeks before the actors were due.

Yul Brynner and Trevor Howard would have seemed best buddies by now, having appeared in three films together over the past two years – Morituri (1965), The Poppy Is Also a Flower (1966) and Triple Cross (1966). Brynner’s career had revived thanks to Return of the Seven (1966). He was considered poor box office in the U.S. but made up for it with his global marquee appeal. Howard had been on an unexpected box office roll following Father Goose (1964), Operation Crossbow (1965), Von Ryan’s Express (1965) and The Liquidator (1965).

Annakin turned to the Sierra Nevadas to double as the Himalyas, located the rope bridge in a ravine near Ronda, the villages transplanted to the dusty Andalusian plains, and found sufficient horse-riding extras among the gypsies of Dacoit country. The Alhambra was called in to action for part of the Indian palace. A steam train of sufficient vintage was found.

Brynner supplied his own motor home, one of the most luxurious on the market, but required considerable assistance to move it around, especially on narrow country roads linking locations. Over 300 horses were required, with complications when the animals had to be moved in the dark. The major scenes required extensive lighting and nobody had taken into account the fierce winds which nearly blew everything away. The dancing bear was supplied by Chipperfield Zoo near Windsor, England. In the scene where Brynner returns to find his tribe massacred, the bear is also a victim. But, when the bear was knocked out by an injection, it didn’t wake up again. Cast and crew were so shocked that filming was abandoned for the day.

Howard’s alcoholism was another issue, liable to leave the actor so disoriented during the shooting of dangerous scenes that his close-ups were often shot at a later date, though, eventually informed of this accommodation, the veteran sobered up. If you felt when watching the movie that the female stars were out of place, you wouldn’t be far wrong. In the original tale there was no significant female role. But acceding to the demands of studio and distributor required various love interests. Suzanna Leigh (Subterfuge, 1968) turned down the lead, providing Charlotte Rampling (Three, 1969) with a worthy role.

Convinced it was onto a winner, Rank took out adverts in the trades claiming “all signs point to it being…among the greats” and it took the bold step of launching it in roadshow at the Odeon Marble Arch simultaneous with continuous performance at the Odeon Leicester Square in London’s West End.

SOURCES: Ken Annakin, So You Wanna Be a Director (Tomahawk Press, 2001) p186-189, 197-206; “Sydney Box $10-Mil Prod Program,” Variety, January 26, 1966, p14; “Rank Now Measuring Up,” Variety, July 27, 1966, p25; Advert, Variety, August 24, 1966, p27; “$3-Mil Rank Duel May Be Costliest British Film Ever,” Variety, October 26, 1966, p5; Advert, Variety, November 9, 1966, p27; “Sydney Box Quits Film Posts,” Variety, August 7, 1967, p2.

The Long Duel (1967) ****

Surprisingly thoughtful action-packed “eastern western” with obvious parallels to the plight of the Native American. Here, the British attempt to shift nomadic tribesmen from their traditional hunting grounds in north-west India to “resettlements.” Set in post World War One India, the duel in question between tribal chief Sultan (Yul Brynner) and police chief Young (Trevor Howard) brims over with mutual respect.

Unusually intelligent approach for what could otherwise have been a more straight forward action picture, more critical of the British, whose idea of civilization is to turn everything into “a bad replica of Surrey,” than you would have expected for the period. Ruthless pursuit in large part because the British “can’t afford local heroes.”

After his tribe is taken captive with a view to forced repatriation by boorish police superintendent Stafford (Harry Andrews), Sultan organises a breakout, taking with him heavily pregnant wife Tara (Imogen Hassall) who dies while on the run. The Governor (Maurice Denham) of the province brings in Young – who knows the territory and is more familiar, through a previous career as an anthropologist, with the nomadic lifestyle, and largely sympathetic to their cause – to head up an elite force and bring to justice Sultan, whose men are now murderers.

Young seems lacking in the stiff upper lip department, condemned for “misplaced chivatry,” unwilling to just do his job, and certainly not to blindly obey the more ruthless ignorant Stafford. Aware he is unable to stop what the British would like to call progress, hopes he can ease the transition, avoid driving the tribesmen into the ground and prevent a noble leader like Sultan ending up a despised bandit, the kind who were forever presented as the bad guys in films like North West Frontier / Flame over India (1959).

Young has the sense not to be dragged all over the country searching for his quarry, and sets up his team in more sensible fashion, but still, is largely outwitted by Sultan, especially as Stafford, who later gets in on the act, is too dumb to fall for obvious lures. Adding complication is the arrival of Stafford’s equally intelligent daughter Jane (Charlotte Rampling), a Cambridge University graduate, who falls for Young.

Thankfully, there’s no need for the British hero to transition from brute into someone more appreciative of the way of life he is forced to destroy – a trope in the American western – and equally there’s no corrupt businessman selling the tribesman weaponry and there’s no savage attack either on innocent women and children, and removal of these narrative cliches allows the movie more freedom to debate the central questions of freedom. The tribesmen acquire rifles and the occasional Gatling gun simply by stealing them from the more inept British soldiers.

Anyone expecting a shoot-out or more likely a swordfght between Sultan and Young will be disappointed, the title, as with the entire picture, is more subtle than that, especially as each, in turn, have the opportunity to save each other’s lives. Eventually, Young’s sympathetic approach is deemed ineffective and Stafford is put in charge, leading to a superb climax.

While Sultan’s nomadic lifestyle is eased by dancing girl Champa (Virginia North), whose loyalty to her lover is soon put to the test, and who is not, surprisingly, necessarily looking for love, his emotions center more around his younger son, whom he doesn’t want to grow up wearting the tag of bandit’s son. The solution to that problem seems a tad simplistic, but still seems to work.

With the feeling of western with splendid use of superb mountainous locales, and excellent widescreen, an astute script opts as much for intelligence as adventure.

One of Yul Brynner’s (The Double Man, 1967) last great roles before he turned into a parody of himself and certainly more than matched by Trevor Howard (Von Ryan’s Express, 1967), given a role with considerable depth and scope. Charlotte Rampling (Three, 1969) also impresses while Virginia North (Deadlier than the Male, 1967) and Imogen Hassall (El Condor, 1970) provide support. Harry Andrews (The Night They Raided Minsky’s / The Night They Invented Striptease, 1968) has played this role before. You can catch Edward Fox (Day of the Jackal, 1973) in a tiny role.

Superbly directed by Ken Annakin (Battle of the Bulge, 1965) from a script by Peter Yeldham (Age of Consent, 1969), Ernest Borneman (Game of Danger, 1954) and Ranveer Singh in his debut.

Well worth a look.

Three (1969) **

More interesting for the stars involved – in particular Sam Waterston and Charlotte Rampling as well as an ex-fighter pilot, an Australian pop star and a model – than the film itself, which presents a European arthouse take on youngsters freewheeling around Europe looking for their share of the free love purportedly available everywhere.

There’s not really any story, mostly it’s scenery, and whatever tension there is rarely rises to the point of drama. However, it is refreshing to see a picture not steeped in angst that reflects the normality of life rather than superficially-imposed heightened confrontation. On a tour of Italy, American college buddies Taylor (Sam Waterston), the shy gawky one, and Bert (Robie Porter), the better-looking confident one, take up with British girl Marty (Charlotte Rampling). The guys make a pact not to compete for the girl’s attentions, but that idea doesn’t last long. The title suggests she might end up with one – or both. In trying to sell the film, the marketeers felt obliged to make that idea more implicit.

Who was Robie Porter you might very well ask? And why did he only make two pictures, the other being The Carey Treatment (1972)? He was an Australian pop star, specializing in instrumentals on a steel guitar, with a series of hits including two at number one. He chanced his arm in Britain, without repeating that success, then moved to the U.S. and landed parts in television series Daniel Boone and Mannix. After Three, he returned to the music business, as part-owner of record label Sparmac and producing for the band Daddy Cool.

Other names in Three, in bit parts only, none making any discernible impact in the picture, included model Edina Ronay (daughter of celebrated food critic Egon Ronay) who had appeared in A Study in Terror (1965) and Prehistoric Women (1967). Equally as celebrated, if for other reasons, was Gillian Hills, best known as one of the girls cavorting naked with photographer David Hemmings in Blow Up (1966) and as the titular Beat Girl (1960)

Writer-director James Salter was a genuine Hollywood curiosity. He hit a peak of cinematic activity in 1969, with two other screenplays filmed – Downhill Racer (1969) and The Appointment (1969). This is pretty much a companion piece to Downhill Racer (1969) which has a bunch of professional skiers on a similar scenic tour and often sitting around with not much to do although that film builds in confrontation and a more standard love affair.

It’s not a stinker, but it’s not much of anything else either.