Donald Pleasance – The Magnificent 60s

Dr Crippen (1963) ***

I have to confess my ignorance of this infamous British murderer. I knew the name and that he had hacked up his wife and buried her under the floorboards, so I just assumed a nutcase in the vein of Jack the Ripper, a sadist with a bent for mutilation. So I was quite surprised by this biopic which tended more towards explanation – perhaps going as far as expiation – rather than exploitation.

Mostly, this is set around a court case with flashbacks to fill in the story. This is one of these pictures where the victim is completely unsympathetic. Mrs Crippen (Coral Browne) as portrayed here was just awful. An ex-music hall artiste, she not only slept around but taunted Dr Crippen (Donald Pleasence) about how much better her, invariably younger, lovers were in bed. She treated him as her servant, always on the lookout for the opportunity to humiliate him and was at her most venomous when drunk, a common occasion.

He had fallen for a much younger woman, his secretary Ethel Le Neve (Samantha Eggar), who, despite the age difference adored him. Though the notion of her apparently inept husband consorting with a woman was hilarious to Mrs Crippen, his wife wanted to use the opportunity to humiliate him further. Divorce is out of the question. In 1908 the scandal would ruin an outwardly respectable man. In innocent fashion, Ethel plants in the doctor’s head the potential solution.

Crippen poisons his wife, chops her up, buries her in the cellar and comes up with a fantastical tale to account for her disappearance, namely that she had run off to America to take up with a previous lover. The police think he’s lying – assuming she has just run off – but don’t believe this innocuous little man could be guilty of murder. The situation only becomes dicey when Crippen and lover flee the country and this creates a hue and cry, front page news across the world, and they are apprehended on board a steamship where they maintain the charade of being father and son, a cover blown by the fact her male outfit hardly conceals her figure and that he can’t resist squeezing her hand in public..

Ethel believes Crippen is innocent and although he is found guilty, there is a coda where it might appear that the crime should be manslaughter rather than murder. He intended the poison to be used as a sedative, to stop her verbally abusing him, and he only accidentally gave her an overdose.

So it’s far from drawing a lurid picture of a terrible murderer in part due to the portrayal of his philandering, drunken, abusive wife; in part due to the meekness of the doctor; in part due to being shown exactly how the overdose could have occurred in unintentional fashion; and in part because we do not see him butchering the body. It comes across as a more sympathetic portrait of one of the most demonized figures in British criminal history.

The only problem is it’s impossible to see the attraction of a vibrant young women to this fuddy-duddy older fellow. Maybe it was his intellect – a young woman dazzled by his brain.

He’s not exactly creepy, but he lacks an ounce of charisma. But that does square with him not being a murderer, and only wishing to sedate his wife – still a crime – to give him some peace.

Resulted in Donald Pleasence (Soldier Blue, 1970) being typecast as a villain which, while limiting his range, ensured career longevity. Samantha Eggar (The Collector, 1965) continued to burnish her growing reputation. Coral Browne (The Killing of Sister George, 1969) steals the show with a vigorous performance, but, oddly enough, didn’t do her career much good, another four years would pass before she was seen again on the big screen. Inveterate scene-stealer Donald Wolfit (Life at the Top, 1965) hams it up but there’s a more measured performance from the normally ebullient James Robertson Justice (The Fast Lady, 1962).

Directed by Robert Lynn (Mozambique, 1964) from a screenplay by Leigh Vance (The Frightened City, 1961).

More than competent biopic.

Suspect / The Risk (1960) ****

Marvellous long-forgotten character-driven espionage drama exploring the twin themes of guilt and duty. It would appear to be stolen by two supporting actors, Ian Bannen and Thorley Walters, but in fact both play roles that have significant bearing not only on the narrative but on our understanding of the most important characters. Not only do we have the main plot, but we also have two well-worked sub-plots, one concerning disability and the other of more sinister relevance – a 1984 Big Brother theme.

Basic tale concerns a laboratory that has discovered a bacteria that can cure plague. Hopes of a celebratory drink all-round and academic kudos on publishing his paper for top boffin Professor Sewell (Peter Cushing) are dashed when the Government in the shape of the pompous Sir George Gatling (Raymond Huntly) steps in, steals the discovery and makes the staff sign the Official Secrets Act.

*Romance No 1 – Virginia Maskell and Tony Britton in the lab*.

While the revered professor takes it on the chin, colleague Bob Marriott (Tony Britton) is outraged so vocally in public that he attracts the attention of the shady Brown (Donald Pleasance) who suggests to the dupe that there is a way of getting the information out to the wider scientific community, especially to plague-ridden countries.

However, don’t let Sir George’s pomposity fool you. He doesn’t trust this bunch an inch and puts the Secret Service on their tail to assess “the risk” and we dip into the dark kind of web (not that kind of dark web) and the mundane business of deception and betrayal shortly to be explored by the likes of John Le Carre (The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, published in 1963) and Len Deighton (The Ipcress File, published a year earlier).

Rather than this outfit being headed by a version of the prim George Smiley, Mr Prince (Thorley Waters) has a lot more in common with the unkempt Jackson Lamb of the Slow Horses series. His incompetence is an act to make visitors to his shambles of an office under-estimate him. But he’s got that Columbo knack of asking the most important question just when an interviewee thinks the interview is over.

Also in the background, coming more increasingly into the foreground, is an unusual love triangle between colleagues Bob and Lucy Byrne (Virginia Maskell), who kiss and hold hands in the cinema, and Lucy’s flatmate, the disabled war vet Alan Andrews (Ian Bannen). The fact that Lucy and Alan live together at a time when such a relationship was frowned upon and would be career death in certain circles and that they were once engaged to be married gives it an edge. That Alan has lost an arm and a hand so needs to be cared for – fed (as in food spooned into his mouth), washed (you can guess that aspect), cigarette lit and removed between puffs, dressed – suggests significant intimacy for an adult.

Obviously, she’s the kind of lass who couldn’t abandon him to the welfare system, and he’s the kind of man who broke off their engagement so she wouldn’t feel tied to him for the rest of her life. But he also hates what he’s become, his desperate reliance on her, what he’s lost, and that’s turned him into not just a bitter individual but a particularly cunning one, who has developed the trick of torpedoing any nascent romance. “You can’t compete,” he gloats to Bob, “because you can’t make her feel good.”

*Romance No 2 – Ian Bannen and Virginia Maskell.*

But when that doesn’t work, he befriends Bob and surreptitiously eggs him on to betray his country and in so doing, hopefully, kill off the romance.

Mr Prince is a delight. Accorded the best lines, he makes great use of them. When his subordinate Slater (Sam Kydd) abrasively brings Dr Shole (Kenneth Griffith) in for questioning, he reprimands him with the rather coy, “Oh, you haven’t been rough again.” To Dr Shole (Kenneth Griffith), the most susceptible of the professor’s acolytes, he warns, “Tell him (Sewell) not to be a fool or you’ll smack him on the backside.” Though Dr Shole has a superb retort, “We’re not exactly on those terms.”

Professor Sewell appears mostly on the back foot. While quietly seething at being denied his professional day in the sun, he accepts duty. Even so, he’s smart enough to outwit Prince when the traitor is caught.

The background of the wheels-within-wheels of Government, the silent overseeing of ordinary lives, the authorized level of spying, comes as something of a shock, since despite George Orwell’s best efforts Big Brother was seen as a clever fiction that could not occur in this most democratic and upright of countries where “fair play” was the rule. Visually, this is well done, we see eavesdroppers in mirrors in pubs and, as I said, Prince seems the least effective of operatives but with the kind of personality that you could easily have built a series around.

Disability from war was a constant of post-war British pictures, most often demonstrated by a character with a limp, as with general dogsbody Arthur (Spike Milligan) here. The Oscar-winning The Best Years of Our Lives (1946) was the most effective at dealing with the physical after-effects of the Second World War. But there, the worst-affected soldier, had prosthetic hands. Here, Alan does not, so the scenes of him being tended to by Lucy are emotionally more powerful.

She tends to his emotions, too, and will embrace him and kiss him on the mouth though he’s not dumb enough to read true romantic commitment into those demonstrations of affection. Clearly, there is emotional residue from their engagement, from which you guess she will ultimately be unable to entangle herself, unless he can find a more brutal way of helping her out of the dilemma.

The lab aspect is surprisingly well done. We don’t get any real information on the scientific breakthrough. Mostly, what we view is the grunt work, the laborious checking of thousands of samples for another experiment. At one point Bob thrusts his arm into a contraption packed with buzzing flies as if he was a competitor in I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here.

Ian Bannen (The Flight of the Phoenix, 1965) is the standout but character actor Thorley Waters (Sherlock Holmes and the Deadly Necklace, 1962) runs him close. Tony Britton (better known later for television comedy) has the least interesting role, but Virginia Maskell (Interlude, 1968) has too much to do without dialog to demonstrate her dilemma. Peter Cushing (The Skull, 1965) is solid as always and Spike Milligan provides light relief.

Joint direction by the Boulting Brothers (The Family Way, 1967), Roy and John. Screenplay by Nigel Balchin (Circle of Deception, 1960) based on his own novel.

Exceptionally solid stuff. I was very much taken by the unusual approach, the themes and the acting.

Worth a look.

Will Penny (1968) ****

Tale of two westerns. On the one hand two undoubtedly fine performances contribute to an excellent realistic somewhat downbeat cowboy yarn. On the other hand a bunch of loonies jumping in every now and then as plot devices upset the wonderful tone. There had to be some other way, surely, to ensure itinerant illiterate 50-year-old cowhand Will Penny (Charlton Heston) and educated single mother Catherine (Joan Hackett) spend the winter together, other than him being bushwhacked by mad-eyed Preacher Quint (Donald Pleasance) and left to die.

This kind of sub-plot, you know where it’s going to end, even though, in this case, it goes down a few bizarre routes. Luckily, the main narrative continues to surprise in interesting fashion.

Like its modern equivalent The Misfits (1961), this mostly revolves around simple-minded cowboys who enjoy simple pleasures, drinking and fornicating, at the end of a hard trail ride. Will looks no further ahead than his next job. He’s easily the oldest of the cowboys and we’re introduced to him getting a telling off for trying to steal a few biscuits from the trail cook. He’s constantly razzed by the younger guys, though he’s able to take care of himself. At trail’s end, he hooks up with Blue (Lee Majors) and Dutchy (Anthony Zerbe) who, unexpectedly, find themselves in a shooting match with Quint’s family.

Dutchy comes off worst, a bad gunshot wound accidentally self-inflicted. The next few sequences are terrific. Dutchy, thinking he’s going to die, wants to go out drinking gutrot whisky and telling tall tales of heroism to Catherine who they encounter at a tiny trading post. There’s generally a callous disregard for the wounded. Even so, Blue and Will take the wounded, now drunk, man to the nearest town where the Dr Fraker (William Schallert) doubles as the local barber.

Will finds a job tending an outlying herd but finds the cabin that goes with it inhabited by Catherine and son Horace (Jon Gries). Out on the job, he’s attacked, robbed and left for dead by Quint and sons Rafe (Bruce Dern) and Rufus (Gene Rutherford). He manages to find his way back to the cabin and is tended by Catherine. Horseless and not fit for work, he decides to hole up in the cabin, fixing it up to withstand winter.

They’re wary of each other, but he bonds with the boy, and gradually they warm to each other, despite the two-decade age gap. She’s been let down so often by men, husband, trail escort etc, that she clearly finds something admirable in his dependability.

And we would probably be headed for a heartbreak ending. We’ve already seen how easy it is to be injured in the cowboy game, and how unemployable that renders a man, so the prospects of an ageing cowhand, who knows no other existence, settling down with an idealistic younger woman seem remote.

In any case, there’s a ways to go before that time comes since at Xmas the Quints reappear, beat Will up again and tie him up. You’d expect them to have their way with Catherine but there’s a twist in that Preacher has sized her up as a wife for one of her sons. While they are fighting over her, Will escapes.

Luckily, his old buddies come looking for him and he’s got a sack of sulphur (purpose never explained) so he smokes out the bad guys and they all get shot, leaving Will and Catherine with their heart-breaking moment.

As I said, two quite dfferent movies at odds with each other. Charlton Heston (Number One, 1969) is transformed. His trademark screen persona disappears under this quite different, diffident, awkward, character and there’s an argument to say this is his best-ever performance. The scenes where he tries to cover up his illiteracy, shies away from learning a Xmas tune, and explains his theories on the frequency of bathing are outstanding.

If you only know Joan Hackett from Support Your Local Sheriff (1969) you wouldn’t recognize her here, contained and watchful, rather than somewhat crazy in the James Garner picture.

While this pair gell, Donald Pleasance (Soldier Blue, 1970) et al stand out like a sore thumb as if they’ve decided to try and hijack the picture with some pointless over-acting. An excellent supporting cast includes Lee Majors (The Six Million Dollar Man) in his debut, Ben Johnson (The Undefeated, 1969), Slim Pickens (Rough Night in Jericho, 1967), Clifton James (Cool Hand Luke, 1967), Bruce Dern (They Shoot Horses, Don’t They, 1969) – in full chipmunk-teeth mode – and Anthony Zerbe (Cool Hand Luke).

Tom Gries (100 Rifles, 1969), as writer and director, makes an excellent impression.

The cowboy and homestead sections work incredibly well, what passes for action and plot drag it down. Still, on balance, well worth seeing.

The Big Day (1960) ****

Marvellous little drama. Succession the old-fashioned way when promotion was determined by interview, the process not clogged up by internecine family warfare. Doesn’t, either, go for the easy target of the English class system, instead exploring the universality of office politics, the quite different attitudes taken by individuals to superiors and inferiors, the determination to find someone who is not your equal, and the ways of dodging responsibility or simply indulging in dodgy behaviour.

It’s lit up by four superb performances, Donald Pleasance (Soldier Blue, 1970) as the dull accountant, Colin Gordon (Subterfuge, 1968) – usually a comedy foil – as the Machiavellian boss, Harry H. Corbett (pre-Steptoe and Son) as a weaselling manager and Andree Melly (The Brides of Dracula, 1960) as a secretary skirting scandal. The narrative is simple. Prior to the interview we dip into the lives of the three candidates – Victor (Donald Pleasance), high-flying sales manager Selkirk (William Franklyn) and transport manager Harry (Harry H. Corbett) who happens to be the brother-in-law of George (Colin Gordon) the boss.

*Donald Pleasance and Andree Melly let fly when the jig is up.*

Each has a deficiency, Selkirk inclined to show too much initiative, Harry running his department by the seat of his pants, Victor with no initiative whatsoever, a plodder. Each is caught out in an error of judgement, Selkirk striking a deal with a dodgy customer, Harry operating a driver logbook scam, Victor having an affair with his secretary Nina (Andree Melly). And a most unlikely relationship that is, the young self-possessed girl madly in love with a middle-aged man riddled with self-doubt.

When she first appears, in frankly one of the most erotic scenes capable of passing the British censor at the time, I had assumed this was a financial arrangement. That Victor would be reaching into his pocket. It’s only later we discover she’s his secretary and nourishes no ambitions for him to climb the corporate ladder, just believing that at a suitable juncture he will jettison wife and children. Mostly, what they all have to lose is pride. Hen-pecked Harry terrified of reporting failure to his domineering wife, Selkirk already planning how to spend the expected salary increase, Victor desperate to justify his existence by having his name on the letterhead.

Everyone has ideas above their station; everyone gets put in their place. Even the backroom staff jockey for position, Selkirk’s secretary Madge (Marianne Stone) tearing into Nina for her loose morals, in return being hit by bitchy comments about her spinsterhood. Both make a point of wishing the other’s boss “good luck” on the day of the interview in case they win. Madge often refuses to carry out work she considers too menial and seems always on the point of resigning over a minor issue. There is envy over the size of one’s office.

*The two secretaries previously at war bond over male inhumanity. Madge (left) comments that two people should bear the consequences of an affair not one.*

The best elements of the script are how plans go awry, how conversations turn as new information enters the equation and especially how the boss uses any opportunity to destabilize his staff, pitting them against each other, turning triumph into disaster, deftly fending off any threat to his position. George employs a wonderful phrase, “I’ve called you in to tell you why you’ve NOT got the job,” softening the blow by a small salary increase.

And it’s indicative of failings in his personality that he hands the job to the person least likely to challenge his authority – Victor – and that the promotion comes with the rider that the accountant get rid of Nina. And, suddenly, Victor comes into his own, the mouse roaring like a lion, although triumph is temporary. The last scene one of the saddest committed to celluloid, Victor alone, huge pile of work to get through and no solace anywhere.

It’s short, too, would have been intended as a “quota quickie,” release guaranteed by the Eady system, and should really have been lost in the slush pile. Instead, without any of the brutality of Succession, dissects the office mind-set. Donald Pleasance is the standout, but Colin Gordon and Andree Melly run him close. Support from Susan Shaw (Carry On Nurse, 1960) and Roddy McMillan (The View from Daniel Pike series, 1971-1973).

Director Peter Graham Scott (Father Came Too!, 1964) keeps his foot on the narrative pedal, focus never wavering, brooking no diversions. Bill MacIlwraith (The Anniversary, 1968) delivers a tight script bristling with terrific lines. given it only cost £22,300 (about $70,000) it’s quite astonishing.

NOTE: In the absence of a poster, the main photo is by Allan Warren.

Eye of the Devil / 13 (1966) ***

Shades of The Innocents (1961), The Wicker Man (1973) and The Omen (1976), but lacking the suspense of any, leading roles woefully miscast, supporting roles, conversely, brimming with inspired casting including the debut of Sharon Tate (Valley of the Dolls, 1967) and a mesmerising role for David Hemmings (Blow-Up, 1967) Any attempts at subtlety were dumped when the original more intriguing title of 13, which turns out to have more than one meaning, was dumped (except in some foreign markets) in favor of the giveaway designation of Eye of the Devil. Despite embracing a web of sinister legend, it lurches too quickly into full-on demonic horror.

French count Phillippe (David Niven) is called away unexpectedly from the Parisian high life to deal with a crisis in his vineyard. When his son Jacques (Robert Duncan) starts sleepwalking in his absence, his wife Catherine (Deborah Kerr) decamps with daughter Antoinette (Suky Appleby) to the family pile, a huge millennium-old castle. The count’s sister Estell (Flora Robson) fears her arrival. Villagers fear Phillippe, doffing caps when he passes.

Meanwhile, Catherine encounters or witnesses strange goings-on. Archer Christian (David Hemmings) shoots dead a dove which is later offered to unknown gods by his sister Odile (Sharon Tate) in a chamber filled with men in black robes. Later, Odile changes a toad into a dove and hypnotises Catherine into almost falling off a parapet. A quietly spoken priest (Donald Pleasance) offers no succor. The number thirteen could refer to the day of an annual local festival or a ceremony involving thirteen men, twelve of whom dance around the other. In a forest Catherine is trapped by men in black robes, then drugged and imprisoned.

Meanwhile, her husband remains grimly fatalistic, gripped by torpor, except when roused to whip Odile. Generation after generation, going back over a thousand years, the head of the household has come to a sticky end and without explanation it appears Phillipe expects a similar outcome. .

It doesn’t take you long to realise devilry is afoot. It’s a pagan castle, it transpires, a “fortress of heresy.” After three years of poor grape harvest, the earth demands a sacrifice. Where the victim in The Wicker Man is an innocent outsider lured to a remote island, the count accepts his destiny even as his wife struggles to prevent his death. Dramatically, the later film has the edge, the victim struggling against fate rather than a mere observer. That Catherine is powerless somehow doesn’t bring the dramatic fireworks you might expect.

What the posters conceal is that the film was made in black-and-white – the last MGM picture not to be in color – and this is a photo of Sharon Tate as she appeared in magisterial and beguiling form.

There’s a curiosity about the casting of Deborah Kerr (The Gypsy Moths, 1969). This most repressed of actors, as if a veil has been lifted, empowered to scream and batter against doors and race around, seems to drain the movie of energy. She just seems laughably bonkers rather than intense and empathetic. For someone whose performance is generally minimal, who exists in the margins, it seems almost perverse to force her to go so over-the-top.

Perhaps such unusual verbal and physical activity was deemed essential to counter the inactivity, the virtual sleepwalking, of the rest of the cast. While looking pained, David Niven (The Extraordinary Seaman (1969) can’t quite capture the intensity, the personal devastation, the role requires. David Hemmings as the silent archer and especially Sharon Tate as the trance-inducing magician, steal the show, investing their characters with little emotion, and yet, visually, as if mere costumed performers, present the most vivid incarnations.

From an audience perspective, it’s hard to root for Catherine since it’s obvious she is in no mortal danger. Like The Wicker Man, the audience is there in an observatory capacity, but unlike the Scottish policeman the victim attracts little sympathy. There’s not real

It’s a surprising backward step for director J. Lee Thompson after the superb Return of the Ashes (1965) which was chock-full of suspense and interesting characters. After an atmospheric opening, it turns uneven as he falls into the trap of following the wrong character. Screenwriters Dennis Murphy (The Sergeant, 1968) and Robin Estridge (Escape from Zahrain, 1962) adapted the latter’s acclaimed novel Day of the Arrow, written under the pseudonym Philip Loraine. So perhaps he can be blamed for shifting the investigative focus from Catherine’s ex-lover to Catherine herself.

I was surprised to see Deborah Kerr take on such a role and that is a story in itself which I’ll address tomorrow.

Night of the Generals (1967) ****

Impressive vastly underrated whodunit that breaks all the rules. Take the length for a start – just stopping short of two-and-a-half hours. The investigation covers multiple time periods – 1942, 1944 and 1965. The killer outwits the detective. Most important of all, the murder is clearly a MacGuffin to examine politics among the German officer class.

A Polish woman who turns out to be a German agent is viciously stabbed to death in Warsaw in 1942 during a period of staunch resistance by the inhabitants. General Tanz (Peter O’Toole), sent in to quell a potential uprising, is one of three generals on the suspect list compiled by Major Grau (Omar Sharif), the others being the alcoholic General Khalenberge (Donald Pleasance) and the philandering General von Seidlitz-Gabler (Charles Gray).

But Grau is no ordinary detective or, put another way, this not an ordinary investigation.

Grau lacks any of the powers we associate with an investigator. Yes, we expect obstruction, perhaps collusion, as the murderer tries to avoid detection. But Grau might well have been a sergeant for the disdainful treatment and lack of cooperation he receives. And there’s a fair chance he’s going to be shot at as he prowls the streets, and resistance fighters in tenement exchange fire with the invaders. None of the generals can account for their whereabouts on the night in question.

While Tanz is benign to children, ordering a hungry bunch fed from his own supplies, he is ruthless with adults, willing to employ flamethrowers (Phase Two of his plan) to drive snipers out of buildings and if that fails move onto Phase Three which simply uses tanks to obliterate everything. Like some knight of old, Tanz stands upright in his jeep directing operations in full view of the enemy, almost taunting them to kill him.

The most powerful image in the film – the one used in the posters – has Tanz standing (on the right of the screen) upright in his jeep with the world on fire behind him. What’s edited out of the poster is that Grau occupies the left side of the screen, standing like a servant awaiting his master’s orders.

That Grau makes no progress at all is down to the power of his superiors. Since he commits the cardinal sin of getting in the way, he is just shuttled out of Warsaw, promoted to Colonel and given other duties in Paris. So the scene shifts to the Parisian capital in 1944 after D-Day. The same three generals are on duty in the French capital, not supervising, as you might expect, the defence of the city against the encroaching Allies, but planning an attempt on the Fuhrer’s life (Operation Valkyrie). This time it’s Tanz, returning from the Russian front where his regiment has been decimated, who is shuttled to one side, ordered to take two days leave so he doesn’t get in the way of the saboteurs.

At this point, the movie boldly switches perspective, in part to encompass the assassination subplot, in part to focus more closely on Army politics, in part to follow Tanz, not just an alcoholic but a poster boy for OCD, as he tries to enjoy some downtime. He is accompanied on his tourist trip through the city and jaunts to visit museums by his chauffer/butler Corporal Hartmann (Tom Courtenay) whose other duties include spying on the general on behalf of the plotters. Grau, meanwhile, recruits French Inspector Morand (Phillippe Noiret) to assist in his investigation, which is otherwise being obstructed on all sides.

I won’t reveal the shocking ending which shows just how clever the murderer is because that’s not actually the ending and the story shifts to 1965 when the generals have been rehabilitated after the war, the case still open because a third woman has been killed in the same fashion.

I may have seen this back in the day and certainly remember it vaguely from a pan-and-scan version edited for television, but I had generally avoided it because of the poor reviews. I wonder how many critics just found it in poor taste, to be spending big Hollywood bucks on a story that treated German generals as pretty well ordinary human beings, the war itself so much in the background you would think it non-existent. Plenty critics sniped at the performance of the principles, perhaps because Peter O’Toole (Becket, 1964) and Omar Sharif (Genghis Khan, 1965) played so much against type. The image I mentioned of O’Toole with the world ablaze is an ironic one, not charged with the glory of David Lean’s vision of the actor in Lawrence of Arabia (1962). Similarly, not once does director Anatole Litvak (Five Miles to Midnight, 1962) rely on Omar Sharif’s soulful brown eyes the way Lean did in Doctor Zhivago (1965), in fact there is no such shot here at all. Sharif looks weary and jaded, kept going in the face of obstruction by his own convictions about justice. O’Toole is so wound up he likes like he’s about to explode and at times certainly teeters off-balance.

Critics seemed so intent on dishing out barbs that they missed two excellent performances, Sharif , in particular, unable to call on his romantic side, delivering very fine work. Donald Pleasance (Soldier Blue, 1970), devoid of his usual physical tics, is also memorable. And there is so much to enjoy from the direction. Litvak, in particular, makes superb use of the tracking shot. Often a scene begins with a close-up, tracks back to reveals others, allows them to deliver their lines, then tracks back into the original character, usually the one with most to lose at this moment. He allows time to develop the other characters. Without ever appearing drunk in the way of Tanz, Khalenberg is always pouring or drinking a shot of alcohol. Seidlitz-Graber is inhibited by family politics as his wife (Coral Browne) attempts to ease their daughter Ulrike (Joanna Pettet) into high society.

I must also mention the brilliant score and the pithy lines that shoot out from cynical mouths. “Making up one’s mind is one thing,” observes Seidlitz-Graber acidly, “speaking it is another.” On hearing of the assassination plot, Grau points out, “when things were going well, the generals enjoyed the war as much as Hitler.” Music came courtesy of Maurice Jarre (Doctor Zhivago) and the screenplay was a joint effort between Joseph Kessel (Army of Shadows, 1969) and Paul Dehn (The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, 1965) who hacked away at the H.H. Kirst novel, retaining only the opening.

Well worth watching.

Soldier Blue (1970) ****

Except for the visceral violence and the gender reversal almost plays like a traditional western, mismatched pair, army private Honus (Peter Strauss) and white squaw Cresta (Candice Bergen), trekking through Indian Country until finally ending up where they started, he at the cavalry fort, she back with her Native American husband Spotted Wolf (Jorge Rivero). Initially viewed as an allegory of Vietnam, specifically the My Lai massacre of 1968, no less powerful for that element not resonating so much.

From the outset this U.S. cavalry troop has little in common with the polished units of the John Ford era, the alcoholic commander, sex-obsessed soldiers, while the Cheyenne are considerably smarter, knocking off the unit not to rescue Cresta but to steal the money being ferried to the fort in order to buy rifles. The soldiers are so raw they don’t even post “flankers” to warn of imminent danger, are taken by surprise and decimated within minutes.

Cresta, who has a better grasp of the terrain, is first to find safety, later joined by Honus. Usually, it’s the male who is dominant, the female weak, needing rescued, tended and escorted home across perilous territory. There’s nothing innocent about Cresta who shocks Honus with her cursing and the way she strips off underwear that will hold her back over their long journey. While he makes his bones, defeating a Kiowa chief in a knife fight and demonstrating his marksmanship by shooting a rabbit, largely it’s down to Cresta to plot their course, tutor the young man in the ways of the wild, and get them out of scrapes.

There’s not much to the plot except them growing closer, eventually huddling together for warmth, while she fills him in on the genocidal tendencies of the U.S. government and how life on a reservation will ruin the indigenous people. But the preachy stuff takes second place to their relationship, the virginal Honus surprised by his own feelings, made more difficult by the fact that his more worldly companion has a fiancé back in camp.

There’s an interlude of sorts when they are captured by the itinerant Cumber (Donald Pleasance), uncovering and destroying his cache of rifles intended for the Native Americans, and pursued as a result.

Although theoretically, the action takes place after Little Big Horn in 1876, the references are to the Sand Creek Massacre of 1864. We’re given no backstory as to how Cresta came to be welcomed in the Native American camp and was accepted as the wife of Spotted Wolf, and she is regarded almost as a traitor for succumbing. The narrative drives the audience towards Honus as the shocked observer on one side of the battle and Cresta as part of the Native American camp outnumbered by the massed Cavalry and massacred.

The film is more remembered for the violence than the performances which is a shame because Candice Bergen (The Magus, 1968) is particularly good as the far-from-typical Western woman, not just in her defence of the Native Americans, but in her gutsiness and know-how, and in a superb gender reversal becoming the protector of the male rather than the other way round. Peter Strauss (Hail, Hero, 1969) makes the transition from youth to maturity, from staunch defender of American policy to outraged witness of its barbarity.

While you would need to track back in history to get the Vietnamese references, you will need little reminder of the atrocities armies can visit on the defenceless. The movie appeared at the same time as Dee Brown’s non-fiction book Bury My Heat at Wounded Knee, the first major work to take a different perspective on the Indian Wars. I’ve just finished reading The Earth Is Weeping by John Cozzens, published in 2016, who had greater access to historical data and presented the story in less black-and-white terms and which would have challenged a narrative that placed Cresta as a loved and loving wife in a Native American camp.

Whichever version you read, the outcome is still the same – unforgivable genocide.

The U.S. commander here, Col Iverson (John Anderson) is a pitiless creature. Once the main Native American force has been wiped out, he does nothing to prevent the subsequent raping and killing, some of the scenes filmed too strong for audiences weaned on the violence of the spaghetti westerns and The Wild Bunch (1969).

Director Ralph Nelson (Duel at Diablo, 1966) almost employs the bait-and-switch approach, lulling us with minimal violence in a tale of the couple’s journey across the wilderness, before revealing the appalling unstoppable climax. John Gay (No Way to Treat a Lady, 1968) wrote the script based on the Theodore V. Olsen novel Arrow in the Sun.

Still retains its power half a century on.

Fantastic Voyage (1966) ****

If this had appeared a couple of years later after Stanley Kubrick had popularised the psychedelic in 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), and with his budget, it might have been a bigger hit. As it is, the ground-breaking sci-fi adventure, going in the opposite direction from Kubrick, exploring the mysteries of the body rather than the universe, is a riveting watch.

Before we even get to the science fiction, there’s a stunning opening 15 minutes or so, a thriller tour de force, the attempted assassination of scientist Dr Jan Bedes (Jean Del Val), vital to the development of embryonic new miniaturization technology, baffled C.I.A. agent Charles Grant (Stephen Boyd) transported to a futuristic building (electronic buggies, photo ID) where he is seconded to a team planning invasive surgery, entering the scientist’s bloodstream and removing a blood clot from his brain. They only have 60 minutes and there’s a saboteur on board.

Heading the mission are claustrophobic circulation specialist Dr Michaels (Donald Pleasance), brain surgeon Dr Peter Duval (Arthur Kennedy) and lovelorn assistant Cora (Raquel Welch). Backing them are up Captain Bill Owens (William Redfield) who designed the Proteus submarine.

The high concept is brilliantly delivered with ingenious improvisations, of the kind we have come to expect from the likes of Apollo 13 (1995) and The Martian (2015) that save the day. I’ve no idea how accurate the anatomical science was but it sounded very convincing to me. There’s a brilliant sequence when the scientist’s heart is slowed down and the heartbeat is reduced to a low thump but when the heart is reactivated the sub literally jumps.

The bloodstream current proves far stronger than imagined, taking them away from their planned route. After unexpectedly losing air, they need to literally suck air in from the scientist’s body. Swarms of antibodies attack. Claustrophobia and sabotage up the ante, not to mention the anxious team overseeing the operation in the control room, the minutes ticking by.

It’s not a fantastic voyage but a fantastic planet, the visualisation of the human interior – at a time when nobody could call on CGI – is as fascinating as Kubrick’s meditations on outer space. They could have landed on a distant planet judging by what look like rock formations. It’s wondrous. Sometimes the world takes on a psychedelic tone. The special effects rarely fail, the worse that occurs is an occasional flaw in a process shot, and a couple of times the actors have to fall back on the old device of throwing themselves around to make it look like the vessel was rocking. The craft itself is impressive and all the gloop and jelly seems realistic. There’s a gripping climax, another dash of improvisation.

The only problem is the characters who seem stuck in a cliché, Grant the action man, Duval blending science with God, Michaels the claustrophobic, an occasional clash of personality. But given so much scientific exposition, there’s little time for meaningful dialogue and most of the time the actors do little more than express feelings with reaction shots. Interestingly enough, Raquel Welch (Lady in Cement, 1968) holds her own. In fact, she is often the only one to show depth. When the process begins, she is nervous, and the glances she gives at Duval reveal her feelings for him. It’s one of the few films in which she remains covered up, although possibly it was contractual that she be seen in something tight-fitting, in this case a white jump suit.

If you are going to cast a film with strong screen personalities you couldn’t do worse than the group assembled. Stephen Boyd (Assignment K, 1968), five-time Oscar nominee Arthur Kennedy (Nevada Smith, 1966) ), Donald Pleasance (The Great Escape, 1963), Edmond O’Brien (Rio Conchos, 1964) and William Redfield (Duel at Diablo, 1966) aren’t going to let you down.

But the biggest credit goes to Richard Fleischer (The Big Gamble, 1961, which starred Boyd) and his Oscar-winning special effects and art direction teams. While not indulging in wonder in the way of Kubrick, Fleischer allows audiences time to navigate through the previously unseen human body simply by sticking to the story. There are plenty of set pieces and brilliant use of sound. Harry Kleiner (Bullitt, 1968) created the screenplay based on a story by Otto Klement and contrary to myth the only part Isaac Asimov played in the picture was to write the novelization.

A joy from start to finish with none of the artistic pretension of Kubrick. This made a profit on initial release, knocking up $5.5 million in domestic U.S. rentals against a budget of $5.1 million according to Twentieth century Fox expert Aubrey Solomon and would have made probably the same again overseas plus television sale.