Politics, conspiracy, thwarted romance and historical inaccuracy take center stage in this Hammer romp that attempted to create another sex symbol to follow in the footsteps of Ursula Andress (She, 1965) and Raquel Welch (One Million Years B.C., 1966) in the shape of Finnish model Carita. Let’s put the dodgy historical elements to one side given Hollywood trampled over history all the time, but the title is a misnomer, the story owing more to folk heroine Boadicea than anyone who came from longship land.
On his deathbed British tribal king (Wilfred Lawson), against the wishes of powerful Druid chieftain Maelgan (Donald Houston), signs a peace treaty with Roman governor general Justinius (Donald Murray) against the wishes of his lieutenant Octavian (Andrew Keir). In different ways, the Druid and Octavian conspire to end the peace. Had new queen Salina (Carita), after falling in love with Justinius, been permitted to marry him that would have created a peaceful bond, but that is also prevented.
There’s a lot more sex and violence than you would have expected for the period, plenty scantily-clad slaves administering to the rich and the Romans, an extended brutal flogging sequence involving Salina, an offscreen rape, a cageful of Roman prisoners dropped into a burning pit, and when the British strap scythes onto the wheels of their chariots it’s a bloodbath. (Quite why the Romans never thought of importing their own chariots, given their popularity in the Colosseum, is never explained.) The chariots, whether in a race or battle, are the best thing about the picture, adding tremendous energy.
It takes quite a while for Salina to take up arms but when she does the film catches fire. She leads from the front, tearing through the Roman legions, and handy too with a sword. Ambushes appear the order of the day so any marching column or peaceful village soon ends up in a spot of bother.
There’s some of “what did the Romans ever do for us” with a snatch of Robin Hood thrown in – Justinius takes from the rich to give to the poor – plus religious fanaticism to stir the pot into a heady brew. But mostly it’s hokum, if rather plot-heavy. Quite how the Oscar-nominated Don Murray (Advise and Consent, 1962) was talked into this is anybody’s guess. Carita, of course, would have believed she was on a surefire route to stardom but in fact this was her last picture. The two stars don’t really have that much to do and do it well enough. In supporting roles you will spot Patrick Troughton (a BBC Dr Who), Nicola Pagett making her movie debut and Adrienne Corri (Africa – Texas Style, 1967). Director Don Caffey (One Million Years B.C., 1966) is better at action than drama.
Directed by Don Chaffey (Jason and the Argonauts, 1963) from a screenplay by Clarke Reynolds (Genghis Khan, 1965) and the movie’s producer John Temple-Smith.
Nothing to live on but dreams and, in those days, no social media to bail them out. Spare sad lives in Small Town U.S.A. told with an occasional grand guignol touch. Look elsewhere for the laconic loner of Steve McQueen legend, to, for example, The Cincinnati Kid, out the same year.
This has the feel of a vanity project, the actor’s Solar outfit taking a production credit, as if the star felt he wouldn’t properly be recognized as an actor unless he had a ton of lines to chew through. And he might be right to feel aggrieved, wildly contrasting roles from Daniel Day-Lewis in movies that opened the same day in New York two decades later had critics reaching for the superlatives.
By my reckoning, this was the last year, save for occasional outliers like In Cold Blood (1967), when studios accepted the hi-falutin’ notion that filming in black-and-white added artistic luster regardless of the damage it might do to a picture’s commercial prospects. The mono approach is taken to extremes from time to time, the contrast so sharp it might have emanated from the Ingmar Bergman school of cinematography. And given the desultory lives picked over, this might have fared better with subtitles, the kind of foreign picture that arthouse audiences fawned over.
Prison parolee Henry (Steve McQueen), entitlement hormone running amok, has got it into his head that if only he had the funds to reach Hollywood or Nashville (either would do) his singing and song-writing talent would be recognised. This puts wife Georgette (Lee Remick), newly arrived with small daughter, in the position of going out to work to keep the family, altering her domestic situation from independent single mother to wife in thrall to waster husband.
She’s supposedly no dupe either, rejecting the kindness of strangers, as if aware it usually comes with strings attached. It’s a given that any time a child enters a romantic equation you can be sure the narrative will turn on parenthood and responsibility. And that’s pretty much all the story there is.
You can guess from the outset that while Henry’s singing might set a few female hearts zinging, it’s not likely to win him a contract. So the question is, really, whether Henry can settle down and not be so swift to resort to his knife when confronted with a messy situation.
It’s marred by a couple of truly terrible scenes, a poorly-choreographed fight and a really odd sequence that has Henry declaiming with his back to a tableau of motley characters with the contrast at its sharpest. And in what looks like nothing more than an old haunted house.
It’s well-meaning enough and for the most part McQueen dispenses with the tough-guy attitude, but he doesn’t really offer enough in its place. It’s the kind of role that could easily have been delivered as effectively by any number of actors with nothing approaching his star quality. And that’s a shame because he really is trying – though it’s the trying that gets in the way, you keep on waiting for the real Steve McQueen to turn up.
If director Robert Mulligan (Up the Down Staircase, 1967) hadn’t been so determined to paint it in downbeat arthouse tones, the actor might have felt free enough to come up with a genuinely original turn. Though I accept it’s a bit unfair to complain about McQueen attempting something different, there’s no real excuse for him creating the worst singer ever to hit the screen.
You might also note, by the way that whereas McQueen takes pole position on the poster, in the screen credits Lee Remick (Days of Wine and Roses, 1962) is top-billed. Remick is better than McQueen because she has a deeper well of emotions and wider range of characterizations to choose from. You never feel she is acting to save her career or hope that Oscar voters might nod in her direction.
The movie makes more sense once you understand it really belongs to the 1950s – the Horton Foote (To Kill a Mockingbird, 1962) Broadway play on which it is based was staged in 1954. The movie fatally switches focus from Georgette to Henry before working out which actor was likely to best convey the happiness drought on which the work depends. There’s more than enough sadness to go round but it just seems solidified from the outset. No great harm – that may well be the truth of it – but it prevents the movie taking off, stuck as it is in recycling Henry’s weary past. Don Murray (The Viking Queen, 1967) makes a good fist of a widowed sheriff.
Worth a look to see McQueen tackling something different. You decide whether he succeeds or fails.
Happily married after five years Tom Harrison (Don Murray) turns to wife Eve (Inger Stevens) and asks: “Who are you?” No, we’re not tumbling down some existential rabbit hole. Reiterating his love for her, he continues, “Don’t you want to know who I am?”
They’re living an effective lie, nice house in the suburbs, Tom catching the train every morning with neighbor Hal (Barry Nelson), joshing with Hal’s youngest son about the giraffe that took the elephant’s seat one morning, Eve a contented housewife, cocktails and sex at the ready, charity work to occupy her idle day.
Since nobody knew what money-laundering was in the 1960s and any mention of Borgia took audience minds in a historical direction it was best to play safe in the title department.
They work for The Company aka The Mob. Nothing nasty though. He’s not in the drugs/enforcement/prostitution departments. He’s a money launderer. He goes round the country opening accounts in obscure banks and helping deposit Mafia cash as a means of buying other companies. “It’s not illegitimate, but it’s legal,” he’s informed.
This isn’t the Mafia that Coppola and Scorsese would later invest with grandeur, it’s closer to the faceless corporation of Point Blank (1967) but taking the business aspect to a higher level. There’s computerisation for a start, personnel files appear as a printout, and some hefty degree of organisation required to keep tabs of the $100 million-plus that enters legitimate business each year. And you would think they were spies, everyone uses code names, “Borgia Stick” being Tom’s, telephones have particular numbers, even conversation is some kind of code.
Trouble is, what was supposed to be an arrangement with benefits has turned into true love, and Tom wants to find a way out, live a different life, have kids. Eve backs off from that kind of commitment. But eventually the decision is taken out of their hands. A guy called Prentice (Ralph Waite) comes snooping around, claiming he knew Tom as Andy Mitchell from Toledo.
“Murder Syndicate” in one country translated into “Gangster Syndicate” in another, no mention of the FBI.
Cover potentially blown, Tom’s boss Anderson (Fritz Weaver) plans to give him a new life – his employers are not “unfeeling monsters” after all – pack him off to Rio with $83,000 to get him started. But only Tom. Eve is sent back to her old life, to prove she can be trusted, the life she was trying to keep from her husband. She is put to work in a clip joint.
Of course, it doesn’t work out that way and there are about a dozen twists before we reach an unexpected climax, especially given the opening scene which I won’t disclose.
Although The Godfather is seen as the high point of humanising the Mafia, in that picture Michael’s constant concealment from his wife of his true life means it avoids the real drama of the situation. Here, that drama is the crux. A clever big boss would try to avoid a marital mismatch. The wrong kind of love match can endanger the Family – just look at Meghan and Harry – and it’s a pretty clever device to splice two souls rescued from potential prison and a more sordid life, give them life’s trappings, assured that a woman who has sold herself to so many different men might be grateful just to be assigned a single one, and that a man who otherwise might have been a dull banker could receive, almost as an “extra,” a glamorous wife.
That they might have feelings for each other may well have been calculated into the equation. What would that matter? Surely, it would only benefit the relationship. Every manager knows that an employee with a happy home life is one less problem to worry about.
As long as company loyalty remained uppermost. Eve reminds Tom he’s no less guilty in helping the company get rid of tainted money than the guys on the ground who made it in the first place. Quite why Tom has a stab of conscience and hasn’t the smarts to work out that gangsters can be happily married is never made clear. However, once he sets rolling the particular ball of quitting the Mafia, it can only end in trouble.
Director David Lowell Rich (A Lovely Way To Die, 1968) does an exemplary job, spinning emotion and angst, humanising a couple we should really despise, and every now and then throwing in a corker of a twist. Unlike the experience of Lee Marvin in Point Blank, the employers are shown to be far from rigid, with an apparent touching regard for their employees.
Rich even manages to slip in a couple of scenes that provide greater insight. One of Tom’s co-workers talks like any successful salesman about the pressure of hitting his targets. And he fears the effect of computerisation, that it could make the Mafia vulnerable to Government investigation (rather than, as would later transpire, harnessing it to massive financial effect). And there’s a little nugget about how 200 businesses who controlled the entire U.S. economy in 1932 held the country to ransom for a year by refusing to accede to the wishes of President Roosevelt.
Inger Stevens (Firecreek, 1968) is the pick here, by turn confident, vulnerable, loving, hating, and with a terrific scene as she tries to control her emotions when tossed back into bargain basement of prostitution. Don Murray (The Viking Queen, 1967) spent his entire career trying to live up to the promise shown in Bus Stop (1956), for which he was Oscar-nominated, without quite getting the roles consistently enough that he deserved. But he is pretty convincing here.
This was television regular Barry Nelson’s first movie role in a decade. Fritz Weaver (The Maltese Bippy, 1969) is good as the boss whose game face is “understanding” and you might spot John Randolph (Seconds, 1966). George Benson wrote the songs for the nightclub sequence.
If you’ve never heard of this, it’ll be because David Lowell Rich is a very under-rated director and because it started life as a made-for-television movie in the heyday of that particular notion, but, as was often the norm with such projects, was released as a movie abroad under the alternative title.
Terrific little film, well worth a look. Way ahead of its time regarding money-laundering, sexual business arrangements (Homeland, 2011-2020), the pressures of working for the Mafia (The Sopranos, 1999-2007) and quitting that organization (Stiletto, 1969). You can catch it on YouTube but be warned this was filmed on video so the quality ain’t great.
Just before setting off to film Exodus (1960), director Otto Preminger ponied up $200,000 for the rights to Allen Drury’s inflammatory novel three months after publication. He expected to place the picture with United Artists, with whom he was in partnership over Exodus, but perhaps his remuneration package was too high, for Advise and Consent ended up at Columbia.
Preminger postponed shooting of Bunny Lake Is Missing in order to start on Advise and Consent. But filming of the former was in part delayed due to pregnancy of the proposed female lead Lee Remick.
When Wendell Mayes script was submitted in July 1961 to the Production Code for approval, the main issue under discussion was the treatment of homosexuality, and as a consequence some scenes were trimmed or treated in a different manner. In fact, Preminger was more explicit than the novel about same-sex relationships. The Code approved the production with changes on the basis that a revision of the current system was imminent. Preminger was turned down by a number of well-known actors because of this aspect of Brig’s character, before eventually turning to Don Murray.
As mentioned in the review yesterday, Preminger hired actors who had long been out of the business. The blacklisted Will Geer hadn’t made a film in over a decade, Franchot Tone had not been seen on screen since 1951 when he had been involved in love triangle, for Lew Ayres it was nearly a decade, while Gene Tierney, who had been institutionalized, had last made a picture in 1955. Martin Luther King was offered the role of a Georgia senator.
Astonishingly since the book and film had taken pot shots at the American political system, beginning late September 1961, Preminger was granted permission to shoot in the Senate, taking over the Russell Senate State building, with the Senate Caucus Room used for the sub-committee rooms. To cut down on shooting time, Preminger often filmed with two cameras and finished filming after two or three takes. Preminger was racing through shooting in order to release the film in December in the hope of snagging Oscar nominations.
Filming lasted barely three months in total, beginning September 5 and ending on . the early scenes shot included the sequences in Munson’s hotel room (filmed at the Sheraton Park hotel), the White House correspondents’ dinner (the ballroom of the same hotel) and Dolly’s party (at Tregaron, a private residence once owned by joseph A. Davies, an ambassador to the Soveiet Union.
Understandably nervous after such a long time away from filming, and probably doubly nervous to be working with a director known for his titanic rages, Gene Tierney, “though just frightened to death” received nothing but gentlemanly treatment. Franchot Tone, on the other hand, was reduced to tears. Don Murray only once felt the sharp end of the Preminger tongue, but other found that he could manage the director as long as he did not show a weakness. However, Preminger did disparage cinematographer Sam Leavitt and actor Larry Tucker, apparently to demonstrate his fiery side for visiting journalists, fired three crewmen. Arguments with unions set the production back $150,000-$200,000.
Away from the set, Peter Lawford’s involvement in the picture apparently drew the ire of President John F. Kennedy. The Press had a field day after “word leaked out.” There was also concern about Gene Tierney’s role as a society hostess.
Possibly aware of the changing mood in the critical world, Preminger had invited Jean Domarchi of Cahiers du Cinema to observe the shooting.
By the time the film was being prepped for released, Allen Drury’s novel had spent over 100 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list and the author had won the Pulitzer Prize. Drury hated what Preminger had done to this novel, got his revenge by delaying the film’s release. A stage version of the book was not going to complete its run until June 1962 and Drury applied for – and won – an injunction to prevent the film opening before then. Preminger had been aware of the problem and had attempted, while the movie was in the first month of filming, to exploit a legal loophole to allow the movie to be shown in December. (Hitchcock’s Dial M for Murder in 1954 had suffered the same fate). This also put the blocks on RCA Victor’s plans to release a soundtrack album – “for minutes of music…no vocals.”
Sources: Chris Fujiwara, The World and its Double: The Life and Work of Otto Preminger, Faber and Faber 2008, p280-289; Mark Shives, “Otto Preminger on Advise and Consent,” Movie 4, p26-27; Jean Domarchi, “Voyage a Washington,” Cahiers du Cinema 22, p28-30; “Code Seal to Advise and Consent,” Box Office, December 18, 1961, p8; “Preminger Postpones One; To Start on Advise,” Box Office; January 12, 1961, p23; “Otto Preminger’s Advise Transferred to Columbia,” Box Office, August 14, 1961, p10; “Bunny Lake Is Delayed; Prem Moves Up Casting of Advise and Consent,” Variety, June 7, 1961, p18; “Consent Pic Delay Stalls Victor album,” Variety, December 27, 1961, p39; “Lew Ayres into Consent, He and Tierney on Comeback Trail,” Variety, August 16, 1961, p20; “Is JFK Miffed About Lawford Role Or Is It More Pic Ballyhoo?,” Variety, August 30, 1961, p2; “Report Preminger Seeks Early Release of Advise,” Variety, October 11, 1961, p69.
Excoriating engrossing political drama in which the unscrupulous take the moral high ground and the principled are destroyed. In other words, the reality of power – gaining it and keeping it and all the skullduggery in between. And it has resonance in today’s cancel culture for it is minor indiscretions from the past that bring down the most upstanding of the species.
Theoretically, director Otto Preminger (Hurry Sundown, 1967) broke one major taboo in touching on the subject of same-sex relationships. But in reality he took an even bolder step from the Hollywood perspective of giving center stage in the main to older players. Many had first come to the fore in the 1930s or earlier – Walter Pidgeon (Turn Back the Hours, 1928), Lew Ayres (All Quiet on the Western Front, 1930), Charles Laughton (Oscar winner for The Private Life of Henry VIII, 1933), Franchot Tone (Oscar nominated for Mutiny on the Bounty, 1935), Henry Fonda (You Only Live Once, 1937). This was the kind of all-star cast you used to get in 1960s big-budget pictures filling out supporting roles. But in this ensemble drama, they all, at various times, hold the floor. And this approach lent the movie greater authenticity. Even if few viewers today fail to recognize many, that, too, works in the movie’s favor, giving it an almost documentary feel.
Movies about politics are never heavy on plot, so if you’re looking for a thriller in the way of All the President’s Men (1973) go elsewhere. It has more in common with The Trial of the Chicago Seven (2020) with multiple viewpoints and opposing perspectives. What the best movies about politics have in abundance is repartee. Virtually every exchange is a verbal duel, the cut and thrust, the slashing attack, the parry, sometimes a knockout blow delivered through humor. Given politicians spend most of their lives making speeches, even the shortest of sentences, even the bon mots, have a polished ring. And that, frankly, is the joy of this picture, brilliantly written by Wendell Mayes (Anatomy of a Murder, 1959) from the Allen Drury bestseller. In some respects the plot is almost a MacGuffin, a way into this labyrinthine world, where characters duck and dive like a more elevated breed of gangster
A lesser director would have given in to the temptation of filming these duels in close-up. Instead, Preminger’s direction is almost stately, keeping characters at bay.
A seriously ill President (Franchot Tone), distrusting his feeble Vice-President Harley Hudson (Lew Ayres), decides to fill the vacancy for Secretary of State with highly-principled Senator Robert Leffingwell (Henry Fonda). This not being the beginning of the President’s term, he can’t just do what he wants, his nomination must go before a committee and then face a vote in the Senate. The Senate Majority Leader Bob Munson (Walter Pidgeon) isn’t too happy with the idea, seeing Leffingwell as a dove, likely to appease the growing Soviet threat. Others on the committee, namely Senator Brigham Anderson (Don Murray) side with Munson and the committee hearing turns into a hostile interrogation. The fine upstanding Leffingwell parries well until Senator Seabright Cooley (Charles Laughton) introduces a witness Herbert Gelman (Burgess Meredith) who says Leffingwell belonged to a Communist cell, an accusation Leffingwell denies.
Twist number one: Leffingwell has lied on oath. He confesses this to a friend Hardiman Fletcher (Paul McGrath) who then stitches up the witness. The committee apologises to Leffingwell, which means he is a sure thing for the post, but Cooley smells a rat and starts his own investigation. Leffingwell tries to get out of the job, admitting his perjury, but – twist number two – the President refuses. Munson and Anderson are let in on the secret, the former willing to accommodate the President but the latter outraged and planning to thwart the nomination when it reaches the voting stage at the Senate. Anderson comes under pressure, phone calls to his wife about something from his past that occurred in Hawaii.
And so the stage is set. The pressure builds on Anderson. The President becomes more unwell, making the appointment of Leffingwell more crucial. Aware of Anderson’s intentions, Munson starts whipping up votes, with Cooley doing the same for the opposition. Machinations take over. And for a movie that was initially light on plot, it ends with three stunning twists, and proving once and for all there is nothing quite so standard as the self-serving politician.
This was the first movie for several years for Henry Fonda (Broadway and television his refuge) and for Gene Tierney (Laura, 1945) – playing a society hostess – who was recovering from mental health problems and the last screen appearance of Charles Laughton. The acting is uniformly excellent and the direction confident and accomplished.
A slow-burner for sure, but a fascinating insight into the less savory aspects of politics and the human collateral damage.
Politics, conspiracy, thwarted romance and historical inaccuracy take center stage in this Hammer romp that attempted to create another sex symbol to follow in the footsteps of Ursula Andress (She, 1965) and Raquel Welch (One Million Years B.C., 1966) in the shape of Finnish model Carita. Let’s put the dodgy historical elements to one side given Hollywood trampled over history all the time, but the title is a misnomer, the story owing more to British folk heroine Boadicea than anyone who came from longship land.
On his deathbed British tribal king (Wilfred Lawson), against the wishes of powerful Druid chieftain Maelgan (Donald Houston), signs a peace treaty with Roman governor general Justinius (Don Murray) against the wishes of his lieutenant Octavian (Andrew Keir). In different ways, the Druid and Octavian conspire to end the peace. Had new queen Salina (Carita), after falling in love with Justinius, been permitted to marry him that would have created a peaceful bond, but that is also prevented.
There’s a lot more sex and violence than you would have expected for the period, plenty scantily-clad slaves administering to the rich and the Romans, an extended brutal flogging sequence involving Salina, an offscreen rape, a cageful of Roman prisoners dropped into a burning pit, and when the British strap scythes onto the wheels of their chariots it’s a bloodbath. (Quite why the Romans never thought of importing their own chariots, given their popularity in the Colosseum, is never explained.) The chariots, whether in a race or battle, are the best thing about the picture, adding tremendous energy.
It takes quite a while for Salina to take up arms but when she does the film catches fire. She leads from the front, tearing through the Roman legions, and handy too with a sword. Ambushes appear the order of the day so any marching column or peaceful village soon ends up in a spot of bother.
There’s some of “what did the Romans ever do for us” with a snatch of Robin Hood thrown in – Justinius takes from the rich to give to the poor – plus religious fanaticism to stir the pot into a heady brew. But mostly it’s hokum, if rather plot-heavy. Quite how the Oscar-nominated Don Murray (Advise and Consent, 1962) was talked into this is anybody’s guess. Carita, of course, would have believed she was on a surefire route to stardom but in fact this was her last picture. They two stars don’t really have that much to do and do it well enough. In supporting roles you will spot Patrick Troughton (a BBC Dr Who), Nicola Pagett making her movie debut and Adrienne Corri (Africa – Texas Style, 1967). Director Don Caffey (One Million Years B.C., 1966) is better at action than drama.
The Magnificent 60s 