Diane Cilento – The Magnificent 60s

I Thank a Fool (1962) ***

One of those bonkers pictures whose nuttiness is initially irritating but ends up being thoroughly enjoyable once you give in to the barmy plot and overheated melodrama. Murder, suicide, madness, illicit sex, blackmail – and that’s just the start of this farrago of nonsense. And set in Liverpool before The Beatles made it famous.

Christine (Susan Hayward), a doctor, is jailed when she kills her married seriously ill lover in a mercy killing. She’s not convicted of the murder but of the lesser crime of medical malpractice, but after serving an 18-month sentence finds she is unemployable, even in more lowly professions where her prison stretch counts against her.

When she is hired by the attorney Stephen (Peter Finch) who prosecuted her to look after his mentally ill wife Liane (Diane Cilento), the audience will already smell a rat given that Christine has changed her name and therefore the lawyer must have made considerable effort to track her down. His argument is that since she is no longer a qualified practitioner, she cannot advocate to have his wife committed to a mental institute, as a proper doctor would be required to, since Liane is clearly a danger to herself and other people. Your immediate suspicion is that Christine has been hired to take the rap once Liane is bumped off.

And it doesn’t take long for Christine to work out that not everything adds up. Liane is given enough rope to hang herself, access to a car to cause an accident, access to a horse which could easily bolt or fall.

Liane has been told her Irish father died in an accident where she was driving, the incident that triggered her madness. But when we discover the father, Captain Ferris (Cyril Cusack), is very much alive that’s the cue for a slew of unlikely events. When Liane finds her father, he’s not in the least a candidate for canonization, but an alcoholic. That triggers further mental trauma. And another accident, self-inflicted. After Christine administers pills, the young woman is found dead.

*Bit of a stretch to compare it to the movies*
*mentioned in this poster.*

Naturally, an inquest brings up Christine’s past and suspicion falls on her. And that would be par for the course, and it would be up to the condemned woman to find a way to prove her innocence. But that takes us into even murkier depths.

There’s bad blood between Capt Ferris and Stephen and the inference that this was only resolved by the father offering his underage daughter to the lawyer to be followed by the unscrupulous father blackmailing Stephen. Then it turns out there’s no case to answer and that Christine is innocent because, blow me down, Liane committed suicide.

But what should have been a straightforward, if unlikely, murder plot comes unstuck because it can’t make up its mind what it wants to be. Too many ingredients are thrown into the pot and the result is a mess.

Even the queen of melodrama Susan Hayward (Stolen Hours, 1963) can’t rescue this. And the pairing with Peter Finch (Accident, 1966) doesn’t produce the necessary sparks. Despite a variable Irish accent, Diane Cilento (Hombre, 1967) comes off best as the wayward deluded young woman.

Robert Stevens (In the Cool of the Day, 1963) directs from a screenplay by Oscar-nominated Karl Tunberg (The 7^th Dawn, 1964) adapting the bestseller by Audrey Erskine-Lindop.

Had every opportunity to be a star attraction in the So Bad It’s Good sub-genre but fails miserably. Still, if you enter into the swing of things, remarkably tolerable.

Hombre (1967) ****

Shock beginning, shock ending. In between, while a rift on Stagecoach (1939/1966) – disparate bunch of passengers threatened by renegades – takes a revisionist slant on the western, with a tougher look at the corruption and flaws of the American Government’s policy to Native Americans. Helps, of course, if you have an actor as sensitive as Paul Newman making all your points.

The theme of the adopted or indigenous child raised by Native Americans peaked early on with John Ford’s The Searchers (1956) but John Huston made a play for similar territory in The Unforgiven (1960) and, somewhat unexpectedly, Andrew V. McLaglen makes it an important element of The Undefeated (1969).

This begins with a close-up of a very tanned (think George Hamilton) Paul Newman complete with long hair and bedecked in Native American costume. Apache-raised John Russell (Paul Newman) returns to his roots to claim an inheritance – a boarding house – after the death of his white father. That Russell is a pretty smart dude is shown in the opening sequence where he traps a herd of wild horses after tempting them to drink at a pool. He decides to sell the boarding house to buy more wild horses.

That puts him on a stagecoach with six other passengers – Jessie (Diane Cilento), the now out-of-work manager of the boarding house, retired Indian Agent Professor Favor (Fredric March) and haughty wife Audra (Barbara Rush), unhappily married youngsters Billy Lee (Peter Lazer) and Doris (Margaret Blye), and loud-mouthed cowboy Cicero (Richard Boone). Driving the coach is Mexican Henry (Martin Balsam).

Getting wind that outlaws might be on their trail, Henry takes a different route. But the cowboys still catch up and turns out Cicero is their leader. He takes Audra hostage, though she appears quite willing having tired of her much older husband, steals the thousands of dollars that the corrupt Favor has stolen from the Native Americans, and, also taking much of the available water, leaves the stranded passengers to die in the wilderness.

The passengers might have lucked out given Russell is acquainted with the terrain but they’ve upset the Apache by their overt racism, insisting he ride up with the driver rather than contaminate the coach interior. And the outlaws, having snatched the loot, and Cicero his female prize, should have galloped off into the distance and left it to lawmen to chase after them.

But Russell, faster on the uptake than anyone expects, manages to separate the gangsters from the money, forcing them to come after it. Russell wants the cash to alleviate the plight of starving Native Americans as was originally intended, but he has little interest in doing the “decent thing” and shepherding the others to safety. Ruthless to the point of callous, he nonetheless takes time out from surviving to educate the entitled passengers to the plight of his adopted people.

A fair chunk of the dialog is devoted to Russell explaining why he’s not going to do the decent thing and giving chapter and verse on the indignities inflicted on his people, and that alone would have given the picture narrative heft, especially as the corrupt Favor is more interesting in retrieving the money than his wife.

But in true western fashion, Russell is also a natural tactician and manages to pick off the outlaws when they come calling, impervious to the cries of Audra staked out in the blazing sun as bait. Eventually, against his better judgement, Russell gives in to the entreaties of Jessie and attempts to rescue the stricken women only to be cut down by the gunmen. I certainly didn’t expect that.

So, it’s both action and character-led drama. Paul Newman (The Prize, 1963) is superb (though not favored by an Oscar nod), especially his clipped diction, and oozing contempt with every glance, and the whiplash of his actions which is countered by shrewd judgement of circumstances. But Diane Cilento (Negatives, 1968) is also better than I’ve seen her, playing the foil to Newman, sassy enough to deal with him on a male-female level, but with sufficient depth to challenge his philosophy. Strike one, too, for Martin Balsam (Tora! Tora! Tora!, 1970) in a lower-keyed performance than was his norm. Richard Boone (Rio Conchos, 1964) and the oily Fredric March (Inherit the Wind, 1960) are too obvious as the bad guys. Representing the more calculating side of the female are Barbara Rush (The Bramble Bush, 1960) and movie debutant Margaret Blye.

The solid acting is matched by the direction of Martin Ritt (The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, 1965). Prone to preferring to make picture that make a point, he has his hands full here. But the intelligent screenplay by Irving Ravetch and Harriet Frank Jr. (Hud, 1963), adapting the Elmore Leonard novel, make the task easier, offsetting the potentially heavy tone with some salty dialog about sex and married life.

Thought-provoking without skimping on the action.

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 Wicker Man (1973) **** – Seen at the Cinema

I first saw The Wicker Man in 1973, dismissed by critics on release, on the lower half of a double bill with Nicolas Roeg’s ecstatically-reviewed Don’t Look Now (1973), the films connected less by the horror elements than that they both made by British Lion. t’s now rubbing shoulders with the most superior kind of cult picture, the ones that the public will actually fork out hard-earned cash to see on the big screen, as was my experience this week. Some clever marketing person had the bright idea, given the picture concerns May Day activities of a dark nature, of running a special revival on May Day. What surprised me more was that the cinema was full (on a Monday night, no less), the audience was 20- and 30-year-olds and younger, and judging from overheard chatter afterwards they clearly enjoyed the experience.

What struck me most when watching this was the clarity of the pagan worship, compared to, for example, The Northman where I had no idea what they were worshipping beyond a rough notion. The procreation element was very well thought-out, the idea that such paganism should be taught in schools the way in the era when the film was made religion was on the curriculum. Most horror films do not take religion seriously, But here, even if it’s not your idea of true religion, the entire community invested in the symbolism of animals and trees and fertility rites such as jumping over a fire naked (otherwise your clothes would catch fire) in order to become pregnant. A naked woman weeps over a headstone in a graveyard. You can cure a cough by letting a toad sit in your mouth. And the entire soundtrack, often performed by folk singers in the pub, is filled with songs where the emphasis is on sex. But the detail is really quite extraordinary. Beyond The Wicker Man itself which I understand comes from the Druids, I’ve no idea if this is patchwork of other religions imbued with fictional elements, but it doesn’t matter because, no matter how fantastical it appears, it all rings true.

Policeman Sgt Howie (Edward Woodward) pilots a small seaplane to Summerisle to investigate the disappearance of a young girl, Rowan Morrison. At first the villagers deny knowing about the girl’s existence, and then provide conflicting reports, even going so far as to claim she is dead, or has transmogrified into the hare that lies in her supposed coffin. The villagers appear to either discreetly or openly mock him and certainly find much humor in his steadfast Christian beliefs. The schoolteacher Miss Rose (Diane Cilento) denies that the empty desk in her classroom belongs to Rowan. Island chieftain Lord Summerisle (Christopher Lee) debates Christianity. Landlord’s daughter Willow (Britt Ekland) and the librarian (Ingrid Pitt) are on seduction duty.

Frustrated, and threatening to return with more officers, Howie intends to leave but his airplane engine has broken down and soon he is convinced Rowan has been kept alive for ritual sacrifice on May Day as a way of providing rebirth for the island’s failing crops and fruit. In disguise as Punch, he joins the villagers in their parade only to discover that is the hunter who is hunted and that he has been tricked into coming onto the island. The climax is horrifying, in part because the lack of CGI or a bigger budget, in part down to the delight of the observers, has meant that most of what occurs is left to the imagination.

What at one point appeared an idyllic spot populated by relatively harmless if somewhat wayward people with a highly-developed sense of community and none of the infighting that might common in such a remote location. In another reversal to audience expectation there was none of the bloodlust surrounding the burning of a witch or monster. The smile on the face of a killer indeed!

The audience is brilliantly enmeshed. The investigation appears to drive the narrative, the various obstacles in the way of the policeman just par for the course in this kind of mystery. Just as we are beginning to become more enchanted by this community’s open attitude to sex especially when compared to Howie’s repressed Christianity, the story takes a sudden switch as the deeper level of meaning is revealed, that fertility actually means rebirth and that the ancient ways of achieving that are not for the faint-hearted.

Edward Woodward (File of the Golden Goose, 1969), making a debut as the star after hitting the television ratings heights as Callan (1967-1972), is excellent as the stern God-fearing policeman who gradually loses his power in a community where there is no tolerance for his kind of law. Christopher Lee (The Devil Rides Out, 1968) breaks out of his typecasting, especially with the wigs, with a very affable performance as a benevolent landlord. It’s hard to view him as an outright villain his actions are for perceived betterment. Britt Ekland (The Night They Raided Minsky’s, 1968) is convincing as the free-as-a-bird aphrodisiac-on-legs damsel with vulnerability to the fore. Diane Cilento (Negatives, 1968) and Ingrid Pitt (Where Eagles Dare, 1968) have little to do but keep the plot ticking.

Robin Hardy, on his debut, does a remarkable job of setting the seductive atmosphere although the film’s box office failure meant he only made two further films. Anthony Shaffer (Sleuth, 1972) adapted the novel Ritual by David Pinner.

The movie celebrates its 50th anniversary next year so look out for more showings especially if it becomes inextricably linked to the May Day festival the way Casablanca had been adopted by St Valentine’s Day marketeers.

You can catch this on Amazon Prime.

The Third Secret (1964) ***

Non-exploitative films about the psychologically vulnerable were thin on the ground during the 1960s and although The Third Secret is a bit talky nonetheless it does explore issues normally dealt with in heavy-handed fashion. Catherine Whitset (Pamela Franklin) the young daughter of a famous psychiatrist convinces television journalist Alex Stedman (Stephen Boyd) to investigate her father’s supposed suicide. Whitset needs the murder verdict because otherwise she will lose her home (no insurance payout on suicide). Stedman, Whitset’s patient, wants a similar outcome because his world would be turned upside down if the psychiatrist had committed a deed which he appeared steadfastly opposed.

The main suspects are all patients of the dead doctor – judge (Jack Hawkins), gallery owner (Richard Attenborough) and secretary (Diane Cilento). Although all outwardly successful socially-functioning upstanding members of society each is mired in mental agony – anger management, sexual inadequacy, depression, low self-esteem among problems addressed – defenses against which are perilously thin. Under sustained pressure each of the individuals will crack to reveal the cowering creature underneath.

But are they the killer or just condemned to torment? With the one man who could keep them sane removed from their lives, who knows what carnage they can self-inflict. All, even Stedman – given to bouts of terrible rage and drunkenness – seem capable of murder and there is every likelihood (as any viewer will guess) that his investigation could lead back to himself.

Director Charles Crichton (The Lavender Hill Mob, 1951) might have been suffering from low self-esteem himself having been unceremoniously dumped from The Birdman of Alcatraz (1962) and certainly the atmosphere is one of severity, not just characters teetering on the brink, but the black-and-white photography rendering London a wasteland, the tide on the Thames always out so the shore is just mud. However, his compositions do have style. The title’s explanation by the way is that the first secret is what you keep from the public, the second is what you hide from yourself, but the third is the truth.

Boyd (Ben-Hur, 1959) and Franklin (The Innocents, 1961) appear often on the point of hysteria, the girl’s high-pitched voice set against his growling outbursts. Attenborough (fresh from the heroics of The Great Escape, 1963) plays against type as a hand-wringing wannabe artist stuck in a role he despises. Hawkins, too, more used to heroic roles, is convincing as a man trying to escape his past. The neurotic Cilento has the best scenes, touching in her efforts to cling to normality. Judi Dench makes her debut in a bit part. The investigation takes the form of character analysis rather than “where were you on the night of…” which gives the picture an unique flavor, but best to know that going in rather than complain about the slow pace. If the psychological does not keep you hooked, there are sufficient twists to keep you watching.