Guy Hamilton – The Magnificent 60s

The Party’s Over (1963/1965) ****

Tricky little number that pivots on a tricky plot point and is almost sunk by the kind of moralizing voice-over that was attached to Riot on Sunset Strip (1967) but actually bears serious reassessment. Quite a brilliant two-minute opening sequence with a tracking camera. I’m a big fan of directorial technical skill so bear with me.

We open with a man dangling from a balcony whose cries for help go unheard at the party inside. We shift inside and with no dialogue the camera begins tracking to the right. A man moves down to kiss a girl and from behind the one being kissed a hand relieves him of his wine glass and the camera slides inches further over to a dark-haired girl in the act of removing a bowler hat from a man and placing it on her head and as she leans back into the sofa that allows a blonde to come to the fore whose cigarette is removed from her mouth to light the cigarillo of an unshaven character who grabs a bottle of wine and in glugging it down moves over to the window and observing the dangling man and pours the rest of the bottle on his head.

“Help him up,” calls out another woman. This request is ignored, but the unshaven character shouts for someone else to help. The man is rescued. With a cynical stare, the unshaven man asks of the woman who has intervened, “Anything else?” She retorts, “Drop dead.” He climbs onto the balcony, falls over, and when the partygoers rush over in horror we cut to the street below where he is swinging from a lamppost.

*Easy enough to get away on the poster with what otherwise contractual credit billing forbids. Guy Hamilton could take his name off the credits but that wasn’t so easily enforced abroad.*

Over the following credits comes the moralizing. “This film is the story of young people who become, for want of a better word, beatniks. It’s not an attack on beatniks…but shows the loneliness and unhappiness and eventually the tragedy that comes from a life lived without love for anyone or anything.” In other words – an attack on beatniks.

Actually, it’s far more about depression, though that’s scarcely acknowledged, not so much people trying to find themselves as not knowing where to look and in consequence spending a lifetime running away. You might only figure that out in retrospect but it gives the picture some punch. And they’re not overtly rebelling against society or authority as in The Damned (1962) or Riot on Sunset Strip (1967) beyond daubing a drunken face with a CND symbol.

These are less beatniks than, from their classy outfits, society debs slumming it. Yes, they don’t seem to do much else but party, although a number have artistic pretensions, sculpting and painting, for example, but mostly they seem able to lounge around without a care in the world, not like the motley secretaries living in bedsitters in The Pleasure Girls (1964).

The party characters quickly evolve into Moise (Oliver Reed), the unshaven character, who lusts in vain after sultry soul-eyed American Melina (Louise Sorel), the girl who gave him a ticking off, even though he has an adoring singer girlfriend, the blonde Libby (Ann Lynn), who he can, as he demonstrates rather misogynistically, summon with with a snap of his fingers. Bowler-hat is mysterious painter wannabe Nina (Katherine Woodville). The rescuer is sculptor and drummer Geronimo (Mike Platt).

*Similarly*, *Guy Hamilton* *couldn’t prevent the marketing team sticking a sly reference to him – director of “Goldfinger” – elsewhere on the marketing material.*

Melina has a wimp of a fiance, Phil (Jonathan Burn), and the story kicks into gear with the arrival of her American fiance Carson (Clifford David), a high-flying businessman, though owing rapid promotion to the fact she is the boss’s daughter. Since marriage is immiment, he is perturbed at being unable to contact his fiance.

But when he does try to find her, he is given the run-around. Nina tells him Melina is recovering from a terrible operation, someone else sends an easily-duped Yank to Buck House (Buckingham Palace), he finds her suitases packed in her room, that element backed up by the notion that she has given away clothes and jewellery (Nina wears her bracelet) and she has either skipped off to Paris or might be lying on a building site half-naked after being dumped there, dead drunk, as a prank by the gang.

So far, so black comedy. And you could believe all of it because Melina is “afraid of everything,” dreads having a daughter who might grow up to be “pawed by a thick hand” and otherwise seems to drift like a melancholy ghost. Phil, having failed his medical exams, commits suicide and like An American Dream/See You in Hell, Darling (1966) Carson is cast in the role of the person who could have saved him from diving from a roof.

Eventually, we do learn more about the other characters. Nina, who in the absence of Melina, takes up with Carson, is a provincial girl, who had an ill-advised marriage to please her parents. Libby is desperately in love with the womanizing Moise, who does a nice line in imitation and cutting remarks. When Melina’s father (Eddie Albert) turns up, the pace quickens.

And in a quite brilliant directorial coup, we realize that, ever since Carson’s arrival, the movie has been operating in flashback. There’s a better reason Melina is missing. She’s dead. She wasn’t drunk, she had toppled from a high staircase at a party and snapped her neck. But since everyone else is totally smashed, they assume she’s just out of it. Only Moise knows the truth, since she’d been trying to get away from him too fast. And since he makes no effort to prevent the prank going ahead, there would be some serious trouble should the police get involved.

Of course, the corpse turns up. Carson, reckoning he’s dodged a bullet, isn’t too torn up and he has a nice girl from the country, Nina, to hold his hand. Moise shows some remorse, but not enough.

Yes, a kind of morality tale but hardly enough to warrant the moralizing cautionary voice-over. Instead, it’s more prescient, Melina the forerunner of the kind of heroine who would find life just too tough and either end up in an institution or go on to ruin her own and everyone else’s life. As a study of depression it’s hard to beat. The spoiled brat who has everything only to realize it’s not enough. Guilt, too, if you count in Phil’s horror at kissing his dead girlfriend.

The credit sequence, which has been ripped off countless times, shows the motley post-party crew slinking across an iconic London bridge at dawn. And there are some wonderful scenes with a viciously playful Oliver Reed. In one he gives a Pythonesque take on the misunderstood waif – “my bathwater was never the right temperature, the servants always burned the toast.”

Oliver Reed (The Assassination Bureau, 1969) should have taken all the acting plaudits but in fact the women, with more emotion to openly play with, steal it. Katherine Woodville (The Wild and the Willing, 1962) takes it by a nose from Louise Sorel, in her movie debut, and Ann Lynn (Baby Love, 1969).

Just superbly directed by Guy Hamilton (A Touch of Larceny, 1960), who mixes atmosphere, emotion and mystery, in just the right quantities, a difficult trick at the best of times. And who has the cojones to pull a fast one. It could as easily have been, upfront, a murder mystery. Instead, it’s much more. Screenplay is by Marc Behm (Charade, 1963).

It was made in 1963, when it would have been far more pertinent, but, thanks to the British censor, held back for two years. The censor was exercised by the scene where Phil kisses Melina, thinking she is dead drunk, only to realize some time later that she is actually dead, and the real reason he threw himself off the roof. In those days, nobody had come up with a solution to the knotty problem of a director who wanted their name removed from the credits. Several years later, Hollywood adopted an all-purpose pseudonym to cover that eventuality. But here, if you watch the credits, you’ll see that there is, to all intents and purposes, no director.

Best film ever to be made without a director.

A Touch of Larceny (1960) ****

Magically fits into the “lost” film category that I’ve been banging on about recently, films, for a variety of reasons, denied cinematic release. Or at least that’s according to Rotten Tomatoes which declares “there are no featured reviews…because the movie has not (been) released yet” despite the fact that it was a big hit in cinemas over six decades ago.

Happening upon this nugget of information in a casual trawl of RT I thought I’d see if this “lost” movie was as good as The Appointment (1969) perhaps or Fade In (1969) or whether it should never be seen.

Imagine my surprise to find a highly entertaining picture best described as a one-man caper that takes aim at the Establishment and the Media, wrapped in a very witty rom-com, and helped along by the kind of Whitehall characters making a meal out of doing nothing as lampooned in BBC TV series Yes, Minister.

The central conceit sounds so lame from the outset that you think this confection is going to collapse the minute it is put into practice, but, in fact, a good few twists inflate the idea until it floats along quite merrily towards a happy conclusion. And if you only remember James Mason from dour turns in The Deadly Affair (1967) or as the smarmy villain in North by Northwest (1959), you’re in for a treat.

For this is the actor at his most winning, so charming he almost edges into the adorable class, and this while playing a rake, the seducer’s seducer, but with the quickest of quick wits to get him out of any scrape. We begin and end with a demonstration of such speedy thinking.

Surprised by the return of his latest conquest’s husband, Commander Max “Rammer” (the nickname nothing to do with sexual prowess) Easton simply dons his naval uniform, whisks up the woman’s dog, his presence explained as delivering a poor creature lost in the street. As easy as pie.

His life is one of ease. When he says he works at the Admiralty, “working” might be a stretch, although “lolling about” would hardly be in the job description, the sole purpose of his desk somewhere to lay his feet, and has an airy dismissal at hand for any Whitehall buffoon inclined to pepper their language with Civil Service gobbledegook.

Bumping into an old war chum Sir Charles Holland (George Sanders), now an ambassador, they were submarine commanders in World War Two, allows him brief acquaintance with American widow Virgina (Vera Miles). Naturally, he snaffles one of her gloves so as to have an excuse to return it. Realizing his game, she bats him back with effortless repartee, saving for the last the fact that she is engaged to be married to Sir Charles.

Given he is so practised at this game, he manages to inveigle his way into her life – Sir Charles away on urgent business – determines that her fiance’s main attraction is his dosh, and comes up with a barmy scheme to put himself in the wealthy category. His notion is to pretend to be a spy, drop a top secret document down behind a filing cabinet, vanish to a remote Scottish island, wait for his colleagues to raise the alarm, someone discover the document is missing, and the newspapers to brand him a traitor, at which point he will pop back up and sue the media for libel, and become rich enough to suit Virginia.

Yep, it seems a crazy notion, especially as Virginia, though clearly enjoying his company, has kept him at a decided arm’s length. Unfortunately, once the hue-and-cry is raised, Virginia makes the mistake of telling her husband it’s all a big con. But that puts Sir Charles in a bind, because to fess up might put his fiancé, and by extension himself, in a difficult position.

So they do nothing. Meanwhile, on his deserted tiny island off the coast of Scotland, Easton is living it up, dining off his ample supplies, occasionally catching a fish or a lobster, certainly enough booze to keep up his spirits, tuning into the radio to keep up with the news, waving half-heartedly at any passing ship, rehearsing his lines for when he is rescued. He’s even brought along a canister of petrol so he will have no trouble lighting damp driftwood and seaweed to make the bonfire he will require to attract attention.

So far, so barmy. But now the first twist. He chucks into the sea all evidence of his high living. He slips on a rock, falls into the water and the precious fuel sinks to the bottom. Now, he is a genuine castaway, soaked, starving, freezing. Second twist, the passengers on the boat that turns up to rescue him greet him by name.

So now we’re in for a devilish third act, the cops tipped the nod without getting the full story, Virginia the obvious culprit, Easton, back to the wall, requiring some fiendish ingenuity to get himself out of the mess. After a bundle of twists coming quick and fast, the romantic entanglement is disentangled, Easton still set to be rich by selling his tale (“the real true story” i.e. fictional hogwash) to the media who no doubt toss in a sweetener in gratitude for not being sued.

Not only is it delivered in effortless style by director Guy Hamilton (The Battle of Britain, 1969), and Mason at the top of his game, matched by Vera Miles (Psycho, 1960), but it is very short, clocking in at just over 90 minutes. Roger MacDougall (The Man in the White Suit, 1951), Ivan Foxwell (Tiara Tahiti, 1962) and the director concocted the screenplay from the novel by Paul Somers.

Great fun, the repartee and the final third an absolute treat while poking gentle fun at the Establishment.

Rather than belonging to the “lost” category, it sits comfortably in the “they don’t make ‘em like that anymore” section.

The Battle of Britain (1969) *****

Fabulous aerial sequences countered by grim reality. Like The Longest Day (1962) and Battle of the Bulge (1965) even-handedly doesn’t treat the Germans as the evil enemy, but unlike those films victory is somewhat obscure, no rattling of spears as in Zulu (1964) to announce opposition departure, just clear skies indicating an absence of foe. Anyone going into this – persuaded by Dunkirk (2017) that this retreat was a triumph – and with little knowledge that after Hitler had overrun Europe invasion was imminent might be surprised to discover that this was a campaign lasting over three months rather than one conclusive battle.

That’s to the benefit of the movie, allowing it space to breathe, for characters to develop, rather than everything crammed in pell-mell. Given the situation changed from day-to-day, the one constant, which we’re scarcely allowed to forget, is that the British are heavily outnumbered in the sky. It’s a war of attrition. The Germans can lose hundreds of planes, the British nary a one.

But it’s far from gung-ho, the British coming in for criticism for their unpreparedness, surprised when the Germans bomb airfields, even more astonished when the opponent starts dropping bombs on London. Perhaps, given the relatively short running time for an epic – 46 minutes shorter than The Longest Day, 35 minutes down on Battle of the Bulge – it might have been better to avoid slipping in a section on the impact of the Blitz on Londoners, though that is counteracted by panic in Berlin when that city is also bombed.

But, by and large, it’s an engrossing tale. And bold, too, in the version I saw no subtitles for German dialog, leaving audience reliant on facial and body expressions. To slow down the action, I guess, and add some class, several scenes involve people walking down long corridors.

All the salient points are covered, pilots thrown into battle with barely a few hours experience of flying a Spitfire, the lack of pilots, in-fighting at the top, checkers moved across the board at mission control indicating German aerial advance, the inability of getting aircraft up quick enough or repaired quick enough. Above all, the reality of death is shown in astonishing detail; once the pilot was shot or the airplane destabilized, there was almost no escape, fire enveloped anyone inside, hatches failed to open, planes burst into flame or crashed into the sea. And it was the same death, regardless of nationality. And there were no scenes of callous Germans shooting down a British pilot parachuting to safety.

The aerial sequences are quite astonishing. I’ve seen this on big screen and small, but even on a small screen, the camerawork is quite extraordinary, even getting this number of workable planes in the air must have been some feat, then flying in formation and peeling off in attack. It is kind of hard from time to time to work out who is shooting at who since the planes are all the same grey color and only distinguished when the camera is close enough to identify them by RAF roundel or Nazi swastika. But the overall effect is a sense of sorrow rather than triumphalism, young lives of any nationality brought to a brutal close. There is no scene, as in Battle of the Bulge, of the over-zealous Nazi, the singing that made them appear such an implacable foe. Here, there’s no need to play up implacable. Unless they abandon the fight, the Germans, courtesy of superior numbers, will inevitably win. All the British can do is stave off defeat for as long as possible.

The all-star cast is only an all-star cast if you’re British. Without a Hollywood star in the vein of John Wayne, Robert Mitchum and Henry Fonda, and in the absence of British superstars like Sean Connery and Peter O’Toole, it’s an all-star cast by default. The biggest name, Michael Caine (Deadfall, 1968), has one of the smallest parts. But the equality of the cast works in its favor, there’s none of the rubbernecking that got in the way of The Longest Day.

Christopher Plummer (The High Commissioner/Nobody Runs Forever, 1968) has the biggest role as a squadron leader determined to force his wife out of the front line working on the airfields and into a safer position. But the best acting comes from Laurence Olivier as the dry Air Chief Marshal Sir Hugh Dowding who has no truck with interfering politicians. Accused of inflating figures of German casualties he replies that if he is wrong the Germans will be in London in a week.

But it’s a close-run thing between him and Susannah York (They Shoot Horses, Don’t They, 1969) as the aforesaid wife with a growing streak of independence and Ian McShane (The Pleasure Girls, 1965) as a lowly pilot called upon to express grief more than most. There’s certainly a sense of solidarity among the cast, no show-boating from the usual scene-stealing culprits like Trevor Howard (Von Ryan’s Express, 1965) and Robert Shaw (Battle of the Bulge) whose normal determination to bristle at the slightest opportunity is dropped for the good of the cause.

The great and the good appeared to be happy with the slightest role just to take part. The roll-call includes Ralph Richardson (Khartoum, 1966), Michael Redgrave (The Hill, 1965), Kenneth More (Dark of the Sun/The Mercenaries, 1968) and a hatful more.

Guy Hamilton (Goldfinger, 1964) directs with some distinction, his biggest achievement to concentrate on fact rather than flag-waving, no better demonstrated than by my realization that the stirring theme tune that I remembered so well by Ron Goodwin (Where Eagles Dare, 1968) does not make an appearance until the very end. The screenplay by James Kennaway (Tunes of Glory, 1960), Wilfred Greatorex (The High Commissioner) and, in his only movie work, Derek Dempster, displays more finesse than you might expect.

Almost documentary in tone, a classic.

Behind the Scenes – “Man in the Middle”/”The Winston Affair” (1964)

You were asking for trouble to pair heavy drinkers Robert Mitchum and Trevor Howard. But Man in the Middle was a fraught production long before the actors came on board. The picture was intended to kick off Twentieth Century Fox’s revamped 20-picture slate that signaled a studio back from the dead after near-bankruptcy. The success of The Longest Day (1962) triggered a cycle of World War Two pictures, Man in the Middle launching this cluster, which accounted for more than third of the studio’s projected output.

But before fox arrived on the scene, Man in the Middle was intended as a key element in the launchpad or an indie powerhouse, the grandly-named Entertainment Corporation of America (ECA), set up by Max Youngstein, one of the founders of the post-war version of United Artists. Youngstein had an 11-picture tab budgeted at $3 million including Honeybear, I Think I Love You starring Warren Beatty (Bonnie and Clyde, 1967), Cold War thriller Fail Safe, The Winston Affair (as Man in the Middle was originally tabbed) and The Third Secret.

But concerns about legal action against Fail Safe torpedoed the venture within a few months of opening for business in November 1962 after theatre chain Ace Films pulled the plug on its $1.3 million investment and distributor Allied Artists followed suit. Columbia took over Fail Safe (1964) and Twentieth Century Fox The Winston Affair in a co-production with Marlon Brando’s Pennebaker shingle and Talbot which was Robert Mitchum’s outfit.

With Fox’s recent financial vicissitudes keeping the studio in the media spotlight, budget control was essential. The movie’s $1.35 million budget was trimmed by clever scheduling, no actor, outside of the star, on set for more than three weeks, ensuring that overtime vanished. The title, however, appeared forever in flux. Original title The Winston Affair, the name of the Howard Fast book on which the film was based, changed to The Man in the Middle, then back to The Winston Affair, reverting again to The Man in the Middle before ending up with a contracted version of that – Man in the Middle. The confusion played havoc with a movie called Light of Day that snapped up Man in the Middle when the Fox title became vacant but was released as Topkapi (1964) when Fox took the title back.

Producer Walter Seltzer (Number One, 1969) pushed for more African American representation on the picture. Three roles, not written as African Americans in the novel or in the Waterhouse and Hall screenplay, were given to African Americans, the “best men for the job,” according to the producer. The trio were: Errol John, the N.C.O of the prison cell where the murder suspect is held, Frank Killibrew who doubled as the jeep driver and confidante to attorney Adams (Robert Mitchum) and Oscar James as a court reporter.

Mitchum didn’t just have drink problems. He was in the middle of an affair with Two for the Seesaw (1962) co-star Shirley MacLaine which result in public rows with long-suffering wife Dorothy. Mitchum had enjoyed a long business relationship with Max Youngstein and when the producer came upon The Winston Affair the actor agreed to star in it, only to find the rights had already been snapped up by Pennebaker. However, Pennebaker was in no position to fund a movie and without a commitment from Brando as star unlikely to get it off the ground. Since the production company nonetheless required, for tax purposes, to show a movie on its books Brando had agreed to throw in his lot with Youngstein’s ECA. And when Fox took over, Brando and Talbot retained their production credits.

When Seltzer flew to London to meet Mitchum who was finishing off his cameo for The List of Adrian Messenger (1963) the star lived up to his hell-raising billing, walking drunk from his room along the hallway and down the elevator at the plush Savoy Hotel. He was buck naked.

The bulk of the filming took place in Elstree Studios in London with just a couple of weeks set aside for location work in India. The ongoing romance with MacLaine meant production could grind to a halt in the middle of a scene while Mitchum took a call from the actress in New York although conversation was inhibited with Selzer at his elbow looking at his watch.

“He was a professional in every respect,” recalled Selzer. “He was on time, knew his lines and didn’t make any trouble…very good with France Nuyen (A Girl Called Tamiko, 1962), who was a little unsure of herself, and he did a lot to help her performance and boost her confidence.”

Trevor Howard was a different kettle of fish. Mitchum and Howard had become friends in the 1950s while working in Mexico, and Mitchum was a great admirer of the Englishman’s talent. However, Howard had “been all but blackballed of late due to his drinking.” Oscar-nominated for Sons and Lovers (1960), Howard had only made two films since. And even the role here was more of an extended cameo than a main supporting role. To win the part, Howard invited director and producer to visit him at his home where he put on a very good act of restraint, limiting himself to tea while the others consumed alcohol.

Restraint proved an illusion. While Mitchum could drink and still turn up for work, Howard would go to pieces with a few drinks in his system. On his second day of shooting, Howard turned up on set wearing mismatched socks and threw a drunken fit when asked to change.

Director Guy Hamilton had worked with big Hollywood personalities Kirk Douglas and Burt Lancaster on The Devil’s Disciple (1959) but compared to them Mitchum was a pussycat.

“He understood the importance of listening,” said Hamilton, “which is very, very rare for American stars…If all else failed in a scene, you knew you could always fall back on Mitchum’s reaction shots, which could say more than the dialogue.”

Mitchum was blessed with a photographic memory. Even when confronted with pages of new script he would have no trouble remembering his lines. In fact, if anyone fluffed their lines they could rely on Mitchum helping them out. When the movie decanted to India, he had an encounter with a maharajah’s daughter, which ended up in the bedroom. Once the movie was finished, Mitchum resorted to type, getting stoned on raw marijuana on the 16-hour flight home from India, a zip bag full of the stuff, and sailing through the Nothing To Declare section at Customs at the airport.

Most reports have this down as a big flop. But I’m not so sure. It cost comparatively little and earned $1 million in rentals in the U.S. Mitchum was a big enough star for it to be released around the world and I’d be surprised if it didn’t manage the extra $300,000 required to break even.

SOURCES: Lee Server, Robert Mitchum, Baby, I Don’t Care (Faber and Faber, 2001) p457, 462-467; “Marlon Brando To Film Winston Affair,” Box Office, April 9, 1962, p16, “Youngstein As Exec Producer,” Variety, January 16, 1963, p4; “Entertainment Corp Sets Mitchum Film Overseas,” Variety, January 16, 1963, p4; “Four Months To The Day For Man,” Variety, January 26, 1963, p5; “From Surefire to Fail Safe,” Variety, April 10, 1963, p3; “Winston Affair Set To Start 20^th-Fox British Production Program,” Variety, April 24, 1963, p22; “Fascination With Own Era,” Variety, May 22, 1963, p3.“Use Negro Skills in Seltzer’s Film,” Variety, October 2, 1963, p4; “No Principal On Role Longer Than 3 Weeks, Key Budget Control,” Variety, November 27, 1963, p3.

Man in the Middle / The Winston Affair (1964) ***

Scratch a war picture and you often find something more interesting underneath. This creditable courtroom drama makes a pitch for justice for all in the Compulsion (1959) vein while exploring the fragile and occasionally fractious relationship between the Allies during World War Two. In front of several witnesses American officer Lt. Winston (Keenan Wynn) kills in cold blood an ordinary British soldier in a remote depot in India.

It’s an open-and-shut case requiring a defence attorney of no great distinction. In fact so little legal ability is required that it’s assigned to Lt. Col Adams (Robert Mitchum), recovering from a war wound, who hasn’t practised law in 14 years. It doesn’t help that Winston is a racist and psychopath, convinced left-wing conspirators are planning to take over the world. While dutiful, Adams displays no great enthusiasm for the task, taking time out to embark on romance with nurse Kate (France Nuyen), who is a good deal more fired-up about injustice than him. Adam’s superior officers just want Winston found guilty and hanged in double-quick-time to placate the British.

As if the odds aren’t already stacked against Adams, his boss General Kempton (Barry Sullivan) has brought in top prosecutor Major Smith (Paul Maxwell) while saddling Adams with two useless assistants. However, when Adams finally gets going, he discovers that Winston was assessed as mentally ill by psychiatrist Dr Kaufman (Sam Wanamaker) who has, unfortunately, been transferred and his report has vanished. Col Burton (Alexander Knox), who has taken over the case, refuses to accept Kaufman’s diagnosis. And Adams gets around to thinking there’s something fishy going on, the bottom line being that if the Winston is declared insane, then he won’t be hanged, the case neither open nor shut, fears rising of repercussions at a time when Allied unity is under threat.

So then we’re into classic courtroom territory. Kate has a carbon copy of the Kaufman report but as any lawman knows that in itself is inadmissible. They can call back Kaufman to testify but there’s no allowing for the state of the roads and a driver in a hurry is liable not to make it. Major Kensington (Trevor Howard) might prove a trump card – or he may not. It’s a given that any defence lawyer’s life is filled with obstacles and this is no different. The out-of-practice Adams is in a hell of a pickle, and that’s how it should be.

On top of that, or underlying it, is the fight for justice for all. It’s easy to fight for the innocent but harder to battle for the sick and the mentally ill, however repellent their prejudices. You might despise the Winstons of this world, as Kate puts it, but you wouldn’t want to be his executioner.

And in the background are wartime considerations. What is one man’s life when judged against the uproar that would ensue and disrupt war planning should the self-proclaimed murderer be set free. Also, normally the mentally ill at this stage of Hollywood history are generally appealing characters, not hateful, but it’s only when Adams digs away at the experience of Winston that he realises the reasons for the murder, the hell that the insecure undergo when cleverer minds decide on torment.

Robert Mitchum (Secret Ceremony, 1968) is on excellent form as the attorney initially just going through the motions who determines to fight his superiors rather than toe the party line, even at the cost of losing his much-delayed promotion. France Nuyen (A Girl Named Tamiko, 1962) is somewhat spunkier than Hollywood nurses of this period and refuses to let romance get in the way of truth. Keenan Wynn (Warning Shot, 1967), a stubborn nutcase, is the worst kind of client, constantly shooting himself in the foot.

Trevor Howard (The Charge of the Light Brigade, 1968) has toned down the normal irascible persona and makes a respectable showing. Barry Sullivan (Light in the Piazza, 1962) is as ruthless as he is charming. The solid supporting cast includes Sam Wanamaker (Danger Route, 1967), Alexander Knox (In the Cool of the Day, 1963) and Errol John (The Sins of Rachel Cade, 1961).

This was director Guy Hamilton’s last film before he shot to international fame on the back of Goldfinger (1964). The screenplay by British pair Keith Waterhouse and Willis Hall (A Matter of Innocence/Pretty Polly, 1967) was adapted from the novel by Howard Fast (Mirage, 1965).

Courtroom with depth, giving a glimpse of the politics prevalent among High Command in wartime, almost a companion piece of The Charge of the Light Brigade.

Cinema Archives has a much pricier edition but I reckon this cheaper version will do the job.