Claudine Auger – The Magnificent 60s

Kali-Yug Part II: The Mystery of the Indian Temple (1963) ***

Earnest students of the Senta Berger Syllabus may be somewhat disappointed, I’m afraid. This turns out to be an epic movie – in two parts – but even with a three-hour running time there’s hardly any space for the second-billed Ms Berger. Instead it’s the second female lead Claudine Auger who leads the way.

And as if it’s forerunner of the contemporary serial there’s a (longish) recap of part one, though this time recounted as if it’s nightmare into which our hero Englishman Dr Simon Palmer (Paul Guers) has unwittingly tumbled. He’s not, as I had imagined from the end of episode one, free. He’s still imprisoned by the Maharajah (Roldano Lupi) along with servant Gopal (I.S. Johar) although he has begun to deduce that all is not what it seems and that an insurrection may be on the cards under the guise of a revival of the cult devoted to the Goddess Kali.

And when exotic dancer (in the old sense, not the contemporary) Amrita (Claudine Auger) fails to convince the Maharajah of Palmer’s innocence she organizes his escape via the old snake in the basket trick. But this is not altogether from altruism. The good doctor is whisked away to treat three children who have caught diphtheria, unaware one of them is the Maharajah’s grandson, kidnapped (in Part One) by the Kali cult of which she is a key participant. However, she is beginning to thaw in her attitude to the Englishman and wonder why the goddess Kali, to whom she is bound by oath, is so determined to kill such a good man.

They end up in the caravanserai of cult leader Siddhu (Klaus Kinski), but Amrita, who’s undergoing a crisis of faith, organizes their escape, along with the boy. She has betrayed her calling – her father was a priest of Kali – in order to save Palmer. They manage to evade the pursuing pack of thugs. When the road back to Hasnabad is blocked, they decide to make for the enemy lair, an abandoned fort in the desert turned into the rebel stronghold, on the basis of hiding in plain sight, nobody expecting them to head in that direction.

Meanwhile, on his way to the fort, the Prince (Sergio Fantoni), now showing his true colors, has kidnapped Catherine Talbot (Senta Berger), planning to trade her for the Maharajah’s grandson who is “absolutely essential” to his plans. Theoretically, there’s nothing her husband can do to save her. According to the Treaty of Delhi, British forces cannot cross state lines. However, Talbot (Ian Hunter) reckons that, as he’s technically a civilian, that rule doesn’t apply to him and Major Ford (Lex Barker) comes up with a similar ploy, explaining that he’s given his soldiers ten days’ leave leave and to his “great surprise” they all decided to spend it in the fort.

Meanwhile, to complicate matters, Amrita decides Palmer is so far from being a bad guy that he’s worth kissing. But that romance is nipped in the bud when Palmer spots Catherine being dragged along in the Prince’s caravanserai and decides to rescue her. Furious at discovering that Catherine takes precedence in Talbot’s romantic scheme, and correctly assuming she’s going to be dumped, she knocks him out and turns him and the boy over to the Prince. While the child is acclaimed as the “sacred prince” and figurehead of the revolution, Palmer is to be sacrificed to the goddess. While waiting for that, he’s chained up next to Catherine.

So now you know we’re going to be perming two from four. This doesn’t feel like it’s heading in the bold direction of everyone coming out of it bitterly disappointed on the romance front.

And so it transpires. Talbot the Resident, more courageous than you might expect, dies in the attack on the fort while Amrita is killed trying to protect Palmer. Although for a time it’s a close run thing, what with the attackers outnumbered and running out of ammunition, luckily they are saved by the arrival of the Maharajah’s army. And with Amrita and the Resident out of the way, the path is clear for the old flames to renew their romance though that’s implied rather than shown.

No tigers or elephants this time round, wildlife limited to a dancing bear and a performing monkey.

Hardly a story that requires such an epic scale and I’m wondering if it was so long they had to edit it into two parts or whether it was filmed in the fashion of The Three Musketeers (1973)/The Four Musketeers (1974) with both sections shot at the same time. I’m not sure how audiences reacted. From what I can gather moviegoers in some parts of the world only saw part one while others were limited to part two, that recap helping make the narrative comprehensible.

Senta Berger (Cast a Giant Shadow, 1966) completists will come away disappointed given how restricted her role is. But she does bring the necessary emotions of remorse and humiliation to the part. Claudine Auger (Thunderball, 1965) has the better role, femme fatale, conspirator, lovestruck, spurned, and at various points leaping into action. Lex Barker (24 Hours to Kill, 1965) looks as though he’s signed up for a role requiring a hero only to be not called upon to act as one. Fans of Klaus Kinski (Five Golden Dragons, 1967) will be similarly disappointed.

Paul Guers (The Magnificent Cuckold, 1964) looks thoroughly puzzled throughout although he gives plenty lectures on general fairness while Sergio Fantoni (Esther and the King, 1960) concentrates on how unfair the British – considered the exponents of fair play – actually are.

Given it was made outside the British studio system, the producers are free to be quite critical of the British in India and there are pointed remarks about “dirty little Hindus” and about how the British treat even the Indian elite with obvious contempt. In order to retain autonomy, the Maharajah has been forced into becoming a merchant to save his people from starvation thanks to the amount he is taxed. And the story pivots on the lack of medication supplied by the British to natives. The Resident hasn’t even bothered to reply to Palmer’s letters begging for medicine.

The picture is even-handed in its depiction of British rule. Film makers were always in a dichotomy about rebels. Sometimes they were the good guys rising up against despicable authority, sometimes they were the bad guys disrupting a just system. Here, since the rebels belong to a vicious cult that would kill regardless of cause, they come off as the villains of the piece.

Mario Camerini (Ulysses, 1954) directs without the budget to make the most of the story, the battles or the location. Along with writing partners Leonardo Benvenuti and Piero De Bernardi (Marriage Italian Style, 1964) and Guy Elmes (Submarine X-1, 1968), he had a hand in the script adapted from the Robert Westerby novel.

Not complex enough to be an epic, and not enough of Senta Berger to satisfy your reviewer, still interesting enough if you are thinking of seeking it out. Good prints of both parts are on YouTube.

Kali-Yug Goddess of Vengeance (1963) ***

You can’t aspire to being Emeritus Professor of Senta Berger Studies unless you are willing to track down this early effort. Your curiosity can now be sated without much effort since it’s currently playing on YouTube. You’ll notice a preponderance of brownface (Klaus Kinski, Sergio Fantoni, Claudine Auger and eventually, though in legitimate disguise, Paul Guers) among a multicultural cast comprising actors from Germany, Poland, Switzerland, France, Italy, Austria, South Africa, the USA and Britain.

To avoid confusion, the title of this German-made Indian adventure requires some explanation and once again I have undertaken the necessary research. As long as you make the distinction between “Kali-Yug” and “Kali Yuga” you will be on safe ground. The former refers to a cult while the latter refers to Hindu cosmology and the final age of the yuga cycle – the one predominant at the time – defined as an age of darkness, of moral and spiritual decline.

Even with that out of the way it takes quite a while to get your bearings here. This is India in the 1880s, four years after Queen Victoria has been declared Empress of India, at the height of British rule.

We begin in rather traditional style with the kind of tale that would provide an Englishman with good reason to be in an impoverished Indian village. Dr Simon Palmer (Paul Guers) is fighting an epidemic of smallpox. Running out of medicine, he despatches a servant with a small convoy to the capital of Madanpur to secure further supplies to combat the disease. On its return this group is ambushed, so Palmer takes it upon himself to personally plead with local Governor (known here as The Resident) Talbot (Ian Hunter) of Madanpur..

It’s worth pointing out that, as this is relevant to the later narrative, a Resident has been appointed in those states such as Madanpur which the British took by force. Other states, which gave in to the British without a fight, such as the neighboring state of Hasnabad continue to enjoy autonomous rule by a Maharajah or Prince, but only in return for paying massive tributes to their conquerors.

After a satisfactory meeting with the Resident, Palmer encounters drunken British officer Capt Walsh (Michael Medwin) and retaliates when insulted. He also meets old flame Catherine Talbot (Senta Berger) who married the Resident. She’s not a gold-digger in the standard sense. Palmer had met her in Calcutta but when he went off to London to complete his medical studies her father died, leaving her impoverished, so in his continued absence she married the older man for security.

Capt Walsh is murdered and after their previous altercation blame falls on Palmer. He should get off scot-free. He has an alibi. At the time of the murder he was dallying with Mrs Talbot. But that wouldn’t go down well in British society. There would be a scandal. A good deal would be read into a moonlit assignation with a man other than her husband. And Palmer, in traditional stiff upper lip fashion, wouldn’t like to get her into trouble.

So Palmer contacts elite dancer Amrita (Claudine Auger) because he thinks she knows who killed Walsh. Although promising to help, Amrita, it turns out, apart from charming the pants off (possibly quite literally) everyone in sight, is secretly in league with the characters, led by Siddhu (Klaus Kinski), responsible for the robbery and murder. So while Palmer is ambushed yet again, she is sent to Hasnabad where she will undertake her “next mission.”

Which appears to be to dance for the Maharajah (Roldano Lupi) as entertainment for visiting merchants. Helped by servant Gopal (I.S. Johar), Palmer goes on the run and manages to fake his own death. In this regard, an entire corpse is not required as proof, just a torn limb, stolen from the local vultures, and a torn jacket. (Thus far the highlight of the show with white hunters and Mrs Talbot swaying in baskets atop elephants). To keep him safe, Gopal provides Palmer with brownface disguise. They witness a Kali ritual and follow Siddhu’s gang as they break into the palace to prevent the kidnap of his Maharajah’s grandson.

But Palmer is blamed for that too and condemned to death. That involves being buried up to your neck in the sand while an elephant stomps on your head. But he is released because the Maharajah doesn’t want trouble with the English. Meanwhile Catherine has fessed up to her husband which, as expected, does not go down at all well.

The End.

So you can imagine my puzzlement. YouTube promotes Klaus Kinski (Grand Slam, 1967) as the reason to watch this, but so far, he’s only appeared briefly, though clearly wielding significant power as chief thug. But we’ve seen as little of third-billed Lex Barker (Old Shatterhand, 1964) as Major Ford. His contribution is to prevent Capt Walsh get even drunker and, as a member of the shooting party, pick up Mrs Talbot when she faints at the thought of Palmer being dead. Sightings of fourth-billed Sergio Fantoni (Hornets’ Nest, 1970) have been as fleeting, his main role as Prince Ram Chand to try and score points off The Resident by arguing about the unfairness of British rule and to partner Catherine briefly on the dance floor.

So this is beginning to look as though it’s a small-scale version of those big-budget pictures featuring an “all-star cast” which consists either of marquee names long past their best or various foreign stars recruited to cover all the bases for the international release rollout.

The ending is so sudden and with so much unresolved, I also began to think it was one of those elaborate foreign jobs with stars who meant so little to British and American moviegoers that it was drastically edited to fit domestic distribution patterns.

On further research (the bane of any Emeritus Professor’s life) I got to the bottom of the problem.

This was only Part One. It wasn’t the end after all.

Luckily, I’ve found Part Two and will review that (as no doubt you’re delighted to hear) tomorrow.

Behind the Scenes: Thumbs Up or Thumbs Down, United Artists 1966 – Part One

Most observers don’t have a clue why some films are made in preference to others, or even of which movies have sat in turnaround hell for years. When I was researching my book The Making of The Magnificent Seven I came across some priceless material that gave some clues regarding the process. An “Inter-Office Memorandum” dated February 3, 1966, provided an insight into how independent producers Mirisch, then allied to studio United Artists, set about giving the thumbs up or thumbs down.

The memo referred to a meeting held at the Beverley Hills Hotel on January 29-30, 1966, attended by the three Mirisch Brothers – Harold, Marvin and the recently-deceased Walter – as well as UA head honcho Arthur Krim, Herb Jaffe and David Picker. On the agenda: Inspector Clouseau, Sherlock Holmes, The Mutiny of Madame Yes, The Egyptologists, Garden of Cucumbers, Wind on Fire, High Citadel, Saddle and Ride, The Narrow Sea, The Great Japanese Train Robbery, Lydia, In the Heat of the Night, The Cruel Eagle, How To Succeed in Business, and Death, Where Is Thy Sting-a-Ling.

Separately, the group examined commitments to various talents including John Sturges, Norman Jewison, Bryan Forbes and Billy Wilder.

Top of the agenda was Inspector Clouseau, a sequel to the successful Pink Panther series, from which Peter Sellers had withdrawn. The budget was set at $3 million including $466,000 for director and star. Alan Arkin was not yet a lock, UA reserving its opinion on Arkin’s marquee’s credentials until it saw how The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming (1966), in which he was the star, performed at the box office. Should it bomb, second choice was Zero Mostel. Jonathan Winters, viewed as a “questionable choice,” was also in the running. Clive Donner was the preferred director. If he passed, next up was Guy Hamilton. (In the end both rejected the offer and it was released in 1968 with Bud Yorkin at the helm.)

Two projects on the table were mooted as vehicles for Steve McQueen. The first, Wind of Fire, was intended as “immediately following Sturges’ racing picture.”(This was Day of the Champion but a legal battle with MGM would derail this and McQueen was five years away from releasing Le Mans). Wind of Fire, to be directed by Norman Jewison, suffered from an incomplete script which restricted discussion. John Wayne had shown an interest but UA “was not really interested in Wayne,” possibly as a result of the fall-out from The Alamo (1960). The second McQueen project was the thriller Lydia based on the book by E.V Cunningham (the pseudonym of Howard Fast of Spartacus fame). Here, the script was complete and in the actor’s hands. Doris Day had been touted for female lead but Mirisch had nixed her involvement. When dealing with any major star, greenlighting a picture depended on schedules not clashing. (In the end neither project saw the light of day.)

Mirisch was also juggling two properties to star Dick Van Dyke. The Great Japanese Train Robbery was due to commence filming in June 1966, although that meant cooperation from Columbia and Disney who had first call at that point on the actor; Disney had excused him, Columbia had not. Virna Lisi, the intended female lead, was dunped for demanding too much money, $300,000 her current asking price. In her place were suggested Claudine Auger, Catherine Deneuve, Stefania Sandrelli or Luciana Paluzzi. Although the budget was approved at around £3.3 million, the movie never went ahead.

Garden of Cucumbers with Van Dyke, though minus a female lead, was already scheduled to start shooting in August-September 1966. Proposed director, in order of preference, was Norman Jewison, Arthur Hiller or Elliott Silverstein. This project did make it over the line though the title, changed to Fitzwilly, was helmed by Delbert Mann and co-starred Barbara Feldon in her biggest role to date.

A budget of $1.89 million had been set for High Citadel, based on the Desmond Bagley thriller. UA was locked into a pay-or-play deal, which meant star James Garner would receive his salary whether or not the picture was made. However, there was a get-out clause. The studio could use Garner for another picture as long as it slotted into the same timeframe. The other options were Saddle and Ride and The Narrow Sea. Of these Mirisch preferred the former, UA the latter. But there was a directorial issue with The Narrow Sea. Mirisch had a moral commitment though not a legal contract with producer Robert Relyea to make this his directorial debut and UA didn’t want him. (In the event neither film was made.)

There were budget issues on How To Succeed in Business. UA had given the go-ahead on the basis that it would cost no more than $3.25 million but the budget had since soared by over half a million. To meet the May 1 start date, the budget had to be trimmed back to the original amout. (This was presumably done, since the movie appeared the following year). In the Heat of the Night was in the early stages of development, the production company still to see the Stirling Silliphant script, but at this stage no objections were raised. Fred Zinnemann was being considered as the director of The Cruel Eagle by Frederick E. Smith, author of 633 Squadron. (It was never greenlit).

Making movies in Britain – in order to take advantage of the tax advantages of the Eady Plan – was central to the Mirisch strategy. While Inspector Clouseau, Death, Where Is Thy Sting-a-Ling, and The Mutiny of Madame Yes– budgets totalling around the $10 million mark – were already committed to the Eady Scheme, Mirisch was also seeking backing to set up a low-budget unit in Britain to maximize the government’s largesse. Budgets per picture would be limited to $1 million or less. In the memo they were described as “disciplined” or “service” pictures to be “produced in color.” In essence that meant basic programmers that could be sold to drive-ins and cinemas with a high movie turnover, on a rental basis if they topped the bill, for a flat fee if they were supports. This would have the added benefit, for those houses whose customers demanded a double bill, of being able to offer a program where all the revenue would end up in the Mirisch pocket.