Jack Davies – The Magnificent 60s

The gentlest of British comedies – a fading subgenre after the infiltration of the genre by the unsubtle Carry On pictures – that on the face of it appears a sequel to the very successful The Fast Lady (1962), featuring the same cast with the exception of Julie Christie. And with both Stanley Baxter (on television) and Leslie Phillips subsequently outpointing James Robertson Justice in the stardom stakes, contemporary audiences tend to come at this from a mistaken perspective.

James Robertson Justice was at the time very much a British institution and if not the star you cast him at your peril as he was likely to steal the picture from better-remembered actors such as Dirk Bogarde in the Doctor series, Margaret Rutherford in Murder, She Said (1961), David Niven in Guns of Darkness (1962) and Omar Sharif in Mayerling (1969). He was a big burly man with a bushy beard and a loud hectoring style, more Brian Blessed (Flash Gordon, 1960) than Robert Morley (Oscar Wilde, 1960).

*Misleadingly, the posters suggest another motor-centered tale.*

He wasn’t the star of The Fast Lady and if it hadn’t been for the presence of Julie Christie (In Search of Gregory, 1969) he would have stolen that movie too. But when he was the denoted star, as here, the picture is built around him, so it’s not, actually, the tale of a young couple buying a money pit of a house, but of the male version of the interfering mother-in-law who makes their life merry hell.

Just married Dexter (Stanley Baxter) and Juliet (Sally Smith) purchase what appears an idyllic cottage in the countryside only to discover it requires a great deal of work. Renowned actor Sir Beverly Grant (James Robertson Justice) resents losing his daughter to a man he distrusts and to her moving out of his very grand home (named Elsinore, though I wonder how many viewers got that connection).

His attempts to take over the re-building programme are rebuffed by his son-in-law who hires the kind of builders, led by Josh (Ronnie Corbett), who give builders a bad name, tearing more tiles off the roof than they replace, creating more work for themselves or proving incompetent wherever they go. There’s a subplot involving real estate agent Roddy (Leslie Phillips), a budding thespian, desperate for the actor’s seal of approval.

But mostly, it’s everything going wrong and the father getting in the way and making things worse. But the tale doesn’t revolve around the hapless hero but around the domineering father and audiences back in the day would have recognized this, revelling in the father’s performance rather than trying to get on the side of the son-in-law.

Mostly, too, the comedic trick is slapstick, foot in paint pots, falling through floors, ceilings and roofs, an invasion of cows (one with the inevitable bonnet), being drenched by as much water as you could get on a set, and Dexter wringing his hands as the calamities – and the budget – mount.

Usually, the young couple taking on the world scenario just results in them encountering trouble from neighbors or various representations of authority and generally the focus from the outset is on them. But, here, it’s the opposite, audiences of the time waiting, not so much to see what new disaster will befall the couple, but to enjoy the carnage the father visits upon them. And viewed from that perspective it becomes far more enjoyable.

He’s far removed from the interfering mother-in-law cliché because that element of any comedy was usually a subplot played by a character actor who rarely evoked any audience sympathy. But audiences came to a James Robertson Justice picture to enjoy the mayhem he caused. He had screen charisma in spades, and especially when the screenplay was tilted in his favor, was apt to totally dominate a movie. And this is him at his best.

Stanley Baxter was somewhat miscast as a whiny incompetent husband – or, rather, he was not given a part which best utilized his uncanny skill for impersonation as later shown in his eponymous hugely successful television show. Leslie Phillips plays against type, more of an ingratiating Uriah Heep type than the uber-confident lady killer. Sally Smith (Naked You Die, 1968) hasn’t a hope of emulating Julie Christie. A slew of television comics – apart from Barker you can spot Terry Scott, Hugh Lloyd, Fred Emney and Kenneth Cope – put in an appearance.

Director Peter Graham Scott (Subterfuge, 1968) lacks prequel director Ken Annakin’s madcap zest but keeps it going none the less. Jack Davies (North Sea Hijack, 1980) and Henry Blyth (The Fast Lady) are as inventive as the idea permits.

Good old-fashioned fun but requires to be viewed from the correct character perspective.

Shouldn’t work at all not with star Roger Moore gussied up like a maiden aunt, fussing over needlepoint and cats, dolled up in tweeds and sporting an unkempt beard and a ginger wig. Our only clue in the early stages that he’s anything approaching a tough guy is that he knocks back whisky like soda pop.

And bear in mind this was a couple of years before the Brits could blithely call in the SAS (Who Dares Wins, 1982) for a ticklish rescue op and more than a decade before it became the norm to rely on a handily-available one-man band of the Die Hard persuasion and even longer before you had to worry about upsetting the pet or elderly neighbor of your local retired assassin.

*When the movie flopped in the U.K. it was re-branded as some kind of James Bond number with scantily-clad women*.

That it does work is very much down to Moore as the opposite of the standard Hollywood hero, avoiding rather than provoking trouble for strategic reasons, and realizing that, even with the deadliest of deadlines, time could be on his side and be used to un-nerve his opponent. After the film flopped spectacularly, Moore claimed he was miscast, but, in fact, despite the box office failure, the opposite is true. Without him brilliantly treading a very fine line this would have easily teetered into spoof.

A bunch of gangsters – not terrorists, plain cash the motive not some obscure cause – led by Kramer (Anthony Perkins) take over an oil platform supply ship, force Capt Olafson (Jack Watson) and crew, including, unusually for the time a female chef Sanna (Lea Brodie), to park under the oil platform while a couple of the gang plant explosives – to be set off as a warning – under the smaller drilling rig located some distance away, threatening to blow the whole operation sky-high if the British government doesn’t meet a ransom demand of $25 million.

As it happens the mysterious section of government that sometimes even Prime Ministers don’t know exists (as with beekeeping within the C.I.A.) has already recognized such a potential issue and hired ffolkes (Roger Moore) and his self-styled team of “fusiliers” to come up with a solution. Once the female Prime Minister (Faith Brook) – Margaret Thatcher was already in power at this point – is apprised of the cost in loss of revenue and human lives, she gives the go-ahead.

Ffolkes is despatched by helicopter with Admiral Brinsden (James Mason) and a high-ranking lackey. The supply ship crew, meantime, led by Sanna, have attempted to poison the invaders but that’s thwarted by the ruthless Kramer who by now has been chucking any dissenters over the side.

Kramer’s a clever guy. His ploy is smart. Theoretically, the drilling rig is financially worth a lot more than the platform, but that loss would account for a fraction of the lives of those on board the platform, and measured in public relations terms by any government deemed the smaller catastrophe. The platform will only be destroyed if the government is foolish enough not to meet his second deadline – if they fail to hit the first it’s just the rig that ends up in Davy Jones’ Locker.

But ffolkes is as cunning and plans a fake destruction of the rig to remove that ace in Kramer’s pack. The resulting explosion is so convincing, especially since it takes place at night, that the stakes are raised in ffolkes favor. But that’s only until Kramer smells a rat and refuses to allow ffolkes on the supply boat, ensuring the cat-lover has to resort to the more dangerous and potentially deadline-breaching Plan B. Nor, despite early action pointing to ffolkes’ efficiency, is he invulnerable in the tough-guy department, needing rescued twice, once by Sanna, hiding in a lifeboat after her failed poisoning mission.

And it does rely on the occasionally dense Admiral learning a simple trick with a cigarette packet.

This probably flopped because audiences expected some version of James Bond (it appeared within Moore’s stint as 007 in the two-year gap between Moonraker and For Your Eyes Only) or at least the cigar-chomping mercenary in The Wild Geese (1978). If Moore had carried out the required action in tweeds or naval uniform it might have been more easily accepted than dressed in a bright red frogman’s outfit (choice of that color a flaw in an op intended as subterfuge).

The irrepressible sexist character he represented might be more of a challenge to a contemporary audience but it’s delivered without malice and, theoretically at least, his aversion to women (and no overt hint of homosexuality I might add, though you could make your own mind up on that score) is explained. And Sarah (Jennifer (Hilary) , the oil platform skipper’s secretary, is his match, though that’s mostly with dry asides and rolling eyes.

There’s a bit of a sexist joke – although somewhat of a cliché – when our man discovers one of the crew is a woman and not a man. But that’s far better than the out-and-out misogyny of one of the gangsters whose reaction to cornering Sanna is attempted rape.

So, not the all-action yarn you – and audiences back in the day – might have expected, but, still pretty good fun. Director Andrew v. McLaglen melds elements of his The Wild Geese, and Shenandoah (1965), Moore’s performance reminiscent of the slow-burn of the James Stewart character. Screenplay by Jack Davies (Gambit, 1966) based on his bestseller.

Scarcely a lifted eyebrow in sight. Great fun – you couldn’t get more retro – and certainly had me chuckling – and free on YouTube.

Tag: Jack Davies

Father Came Too! (1964) ***

North Sea Hijack / ffolkes (1980) ****