Jack Smight – The Magnificent 60s

Behind the Scenes: “Battle of Midway” (1976)

Mirisch could easily lay claim to be the top independent production outfit of the 1960s generating hits like The Magnificent Seven (1960), West Side Story (1961), The Great Escape (1963), The Pink Panther (1964) and its sequel A Shot in the Dark (1964), The Russians Are Coming, Russians Are Coming (1966), In the Heat of the Night (1967) and The Thomas Crown Affair (1968) plus a shelf load of Oscars and Oscar nominations. But dependence on a partnership with Billy Wilder in the 1970s and a more lackluster performance at the box office – with the noted exception of Fiddler on the Roof (1971) – spelled the end of its 17-year relationship with United Artists, which was reeling from financial losses and under new management.

The company found a new partner in Universal which had a series of deals with other major producers like Alfred Hitchcock, Zanuck and Brown (Jaws, 1975) and George Seaton (Airport, 1970). Mirisch was not in any financial trouble, having severed ties with UA after Mr Majestyk (1974), a major success abroad, and recovered its development costs for Wheels, based on the Arthur Hailey novel but the script rejected by UA, from Universal which turned it into a mini-series.

The Universal deal was initially not as good as that enjoyed at UA. Universal charged a twenty-five per cent overhead whereas UA had charged nothing and Universal was now doing direct deals with directors rather than relying on the likes of Mirisch to tie up the talent.

Many years before, Mirisch had commissioned a script on the Battle of Midway from Donald S. Sanford who specialized in war pictures but of the distinctly low-budget variety – Submarine X-1 (1968), The Thousand Plane Raid (1969) and Mosquito Squadron (1969), none of which had enjoyed any success.

Though all of the Mirisch war pictures had concentrated on Europe, Walter Mirisch, generally the creative driving force for the production company, in his previous incarnation with Allied Artists had some experience of the Pacific War, having produced Flat Top / Eagles of the Fleet (1952), set around an aircraft carrier during the Battle of Leyte Gulf, and was an avid reader of books about the Second World War.

John Ford and Louis de Rochmont had made documentaries about the Pacific naval battles. UA rejected the script twice, a shrewd move in the end because Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970) lost a packet for Twentieth Century Fox. The Sanford screenplay had initially taken more of a documentary approach but after gaining the interest of Charlton Heston, who had starred in Mirisch’s The Hawaiians (1970), the script was tweaked.

Programming a war picture was a risk for the studio. There hadn’t been a big-budget war picture in five years. And while Patton (1970) and Kelly’s Heroes (1970) ended up on the right sight of the ledger book, Tora!, Tora! Tora! and Too Late the Hero (1970) were stiffs.

Mirisch signed a two-picture deal with Universal, for Midway and Wild Card with a screenplay by Elmore Leonard (Mr Majestyk). Mirisch proposed to reduce costs by using footage from naval archives, converting the original 16mm film to 35mm. The producer also took footage from Japanese film Storm over the Pacific / I Bombed Pearl Harbor (1960) – the rights cost him $96,000. Footage of the Pearl Harbor attack in Tora! Tora! Tora! doubled for shots of the attack on Midway Island. A clip of the Dolittle raid on Tokyo from Thirty Seconds over Tokyo (1944) was used in the credit sequence after “subjecting it to a sepia bath.”

After the success of Earthquake (1975), Heston was back in the top ranks of box office stars and his involvement guaranteed the green light. The U.S. Navy offered its support, not surprising since Midway was considered its greatest success.

John Guillermin (The Towering Inferno, 1974) was hired to direct and Stirling Silliphant (In the Heat of the Night) signed up for a screenplay rewrite. Mirisch had determined to employ the all-star-cast device that had been an essential ingredient of many of the 1960s roadshow pictures, kicking off with Henry Fonda (The Boston Strangler, 1968), by now pretty much a spent force at the box office – he hadn’t made a picture in three years – but still a well-known name.

The amount of work involved for the other stars was minimal – mostly just one day – and, astutely, Mirisch called on stars who had worked for him in the past and who, like James Coburn (The Great Escape), Cliff Robertson (633 Squadron, 1964) and Christopher George (The Thousand Plane Raid) owed him something in terms of a career leg-up. Others included Robert Mitchum (The Sundowners, 1960), Robert Wagner (The Biggest Bundle of Them All, 1968) and Tom Selleck in an early role. Mitchum was the first of these stars to sign up, in March 1975, six weeks before the scheduled start date of April 27, followed two days later by Coburn.

Toshiro Mifune (Red Sun, 1971) headed up the Japanese cast and proved so meticulous in his preparations that he had his uniform made by Japanese tailors. The white gloves he wore had a finger shortened on the left hand because his character Admiral Yamamoto was missing a pinky. However, despite coaching in English by actress Miko Taka (Walk, Don’t Run, 1966), his dialog was revoiced by Paul Frees.

Guillermin demanded a bigger budget to accommodate more airplanes and equipment and a longer shooting period. Two months before filming was due to start, Mirisch put his foot down and told the director he couldn’t accommodate his requests as Universal had only provided funding on the basis of Mirisch’s original idea. Guillermin walked. As far as the public was concerned, the parting of the ways was due to a “conflict of schedules.” Jack Smight, who had directed Airport ’75 (1974), a box office success and also starring Heston, was his replacement.

The Navy lent aircraft carrier U.S.S. Lexington – the last remaining World War Two carrier – while it was at sea training pilots as long as the shoot didn’t interfere with those exercises. A limited number of World War Two vintage planes – in great condition having been cared for by their owners – were permitted on board. The Navy charged the crew for accommodation – Mirisch was housed in Admiral Strean’s quarters – and meals. “We had a detailed contract with the Navy,” recalled Mirisch, “in which we agreed to stay out of their way when asked.”

On board, the crew filmed scenes, some silent and others with dialog, and “made plates for rearview projection and aerial shots of our vintage planes so positioned that we could print them into flights of six or nine.” Charlton Heston, Glenn Ford (Rage, 1966) and Hal Holbrook (The Group, 1966) were aboard and the shoot went well. A scene involving Henry Fonda was shot at Pensacola. The Florida coast stood in for the Pacific. Additional exteriors were filmed in Los Angeles at Long Beach and Point Dune with interiors at Universal.

The construction of the interiors for the Japanese aircraft carriers was so authentic Mirisch was later asked to reassemble the set for the Smithsonian Institute for a presentation there. The interpolation of the old footage was crucial and it was planned in advance where such shots would appear. The old footage was precut and scenes were shot with actors with “scene missing” in those sequences into which the old footage could be dropped. Other devices were used to ensure the background in the old footage was more lively.

The final element was in cinematic presentation. Sensurround, a precursor of Imax, had been introduced with great success by Universal to Earthquake and this added greater realism to the battle scenes. While limited to those theaters which had installed the expensive equipment, and although the roadshow was long gone, it created an “event” aspect to those viewing it in that system. In his autobiography Mirisch suggested the addition of Sensurround was last minute and sparked by the success of Earthquake. But, in fact, Universal had announced a year in advance of opening that Battle of Midway would utilize Sensurround.

Some cinema owners were outraged at the stock footage, whose proposed inclusion had been kept from them when they went into the blind-bidding process at the start of the year. Mirisch countered that there was no alternative. “A great many aircraft,” he argued, “used in the battle no longer exist.” Universal’s terms were stiff – a minimum nine-week run starting at a 70/30 split for the first three weeks in the studio’s favor, a $75,000 advance guarantee from cinemas and 5% of the gross for use of Sensurround.

With the budget kept as low as a reported $4 million it was a massive hit, picking up $20.3 million in rentals (what the studio retains of the box office gross) – sixth in the annual box office league beaten only by Oscar-winner One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest, All the President’s Men with Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman, demonic The Omen, Walter Matthau baseball comedy The Bad News Bears and Mel Brooks’ Silent Movie and just ahead of such offerings as Sidney Lumet’s Dog Day Afternoon with Al Pacino, and comedy Murder by Death but nearly doubling the take of the more critically-acclaimed Taxi Driver, Clint Eastwood western The Outlaw Josey Wales and thriller Marathon Man also starring Hoffman. The final domestic figure amounted to $21.8 million.

Foreign figures were astonishing, especially in Japan, where its gross exceeded $4 million. The benefits of the promotional tour undertaken by Heston in the Far East were soon obvious – in Manila it beat both Jaws and Earthquake. In the annual box office league there and Hong Kong, it ranked third. In Italy it proved a “big surprise”, coming in fourth behind King Kong, Taxi Driver and a local offering.

While a successful movie could expect to benefit from television viewings – this was before the video revolution – the movie had an unusual afterlife. NBC, which had bought the rights, wanted the film to be longer, so it could be shown over two nights, thus increasing advertising and setting it up as a more prestigious event. Largely by adding plotlines to the Heston character, the running time increased by nearly an hour, which proved a bonus for the future home screening revolution.

“Of all the films that I have made,” noted Mirisch, “it produced the greatest amount of profit.”

SOURCES: Walter Mirisch, I Thought We Were Making Movies Not History (University of Wisconsin Press, 2008) pp324-339; “Readying Midway,” Variety, February 5, 1975, p6; “Universal in New Shake,” Variety, July 23, 1975, p3; “Admiral Mitchum,” Variety, March 12, 1975, p18; ”Jap Feature Footage Inserted into Midway,” Variety, June 6, 1976, p7; “Midway Big in Manila,” Variety, August 11, 1976, p24; “Big Rental Films of 1976,” Variety, January 5, 1977, p14; “Jaws Led Bangkok,” Variety, February 9, 1977, p39; “International,” Variety, June 29, 1977, p35.

Battle of Midway (1976) ****

Even-handed documentary-style tale recounting of the most famous U.S. naval battle of all time, a turning point in the struggle for control of the Pacific in 1942. Both sides make mistakes, luck and judgement play an equal part.

I’d always assumed Midway was some abstract geographical position without any idea of its strategic importance – did the name mean it was halfway between the U.S. (or Hawaii) and Japan? But here I learned it was an actual island that the Japs planned to invade and the Americans intended to stop them. In some senses, it was bait, a way to draw the U.S. Navy out of Pearl Harbor. But the bait ran both ways. If the Yanks could coax the enemy out into the Pacific, they had a chance of gaining an advantage, even though the Americans were inferior in shipping tonnage.

The Japs have been stung into action by the audacious American bombing of Tokyo. Admiral Yamamoto (Toshiro Mifune) uses the perceived threat of further attacks to gain official approval for his plan to invade Midway.

This is strictly a male show. However, in a bid to lower the testosterone levels a romantic subplot is inserted. The aviator son, Lt Thomas Garth (Eddie Albert), of top aide and former pilot Captain Matthew Garth (Charlton Heston) has an American-born lover Haruko (Christina Kobuko) of Japanese descent who’s being investigated for espionage and subsequently interned. On intervening, the father digs up a hodgepodge of racism – from both sides, Haruko’s parents against her forming a relationship with a non-Japanese. But the plan backfires causing a breakdown between father and son.

But that’s very much on the fringes and although it raises interesting cultural aspects, the movie concentrates mostly on the nuts-and-bolts of heading into a major engagement.

American intelligence, headed by Commander Joe Rochefort (Hal Holbrook), gets wind of the planned attack. But the clues are scant – the old trope of increased radio traffic not enough to convince – and while the audience knows the Japs are on the move with a mighty naval force including four top-class airplane carriers, the Americans remain ignorant almost until it’s too late.

Luckily, Admiral Nimitz (Henry Fonda), heading up the American naval contingent, is keen to inflict a blow on the enemy, even though he’s limited to two carriers and another just out of the repair yard. Each side relies on spotter planes to detect the enemy. But the Japanese, by imposing radio silence, shoot themselves in the foot, unable to switch tactics until too late. The hunch plays an important part.

There’s rarely much opportunity for individual heroics on a ship under fire, beyond rescuing someone. The fighter pilots are a better bet, especially since some of their forays are nearly suicidal given the firepower they attract. Matt Garth, who for most of the picture is an upscale backroom boy, is called into action with unexpected results.

Most battle films tend to concentrate on the heroics often at the expense of understanding in any detail what’s going on. Thankfully, this is different. We are kept informed of every change in the conflict. And whereas you might think that dull, in fact I wouldargue that it adds substantially to the tension, and the fact that the only one of the commanders who looks as if he could throw a punch (Robert Mitchum) in the manner of John Wayne is confined to his bed thus forcing the movie to concentrate as much on brain as brawn.

Audiences at the time welcomed all the talking and this was a substantial hit. Snippets of old war footage were carefully sewn into the lining of the action, bringing the kind of authenticity that moviemakers reckoned moviegoers craved. For me, there was more than enough going on already.

Nimitz’s decision to go for broke rather than dive for cover results in victory but he’s no gung-ho commander, rather presented as a thoughtful but determined individual. The lack of backstage effort especially in the communications department was partly to blame for the humiliation of Pearl Harbor but here these guys share the glory.

Boasting the kind of all-star cast that used to be the hallmark of the 1960s roadshow, this has a bunch of top-notch actors, albeit most just flit in and out of the picture. Charlton Heston (Planet of the Apes, 1968) effortlessly shoulders the main burden with Henry Fonda (Once Upon a Time in the West, 1969) the fulcrum of all decision-making. Robert Mitchum (The Way West, 1967) , James Coburn (Our Man Flint, 1966), Glenn Ford (Rage, 1966), Cliff Robertson (The Devil’s Brigade, 1968) and Toshiro Mifune (Red Sun, 1971) all feature.

Jack Smight (Harper / The Moving Target, 1966) directs from a script by Donald S Sanford (Mosquito Squadron, 1969).

Thoroughly engrossing.

I’m doing a Behind the Scenes tomorrow.

Kaleidoscope (1966) ***

Amazing the tension that emanates from the turn of a card. Or, more correctly, waiting for one. Only problem is we’re two-third through the movie before high-stakes poker begins – the pot nudging £250,00 (close on a cool £5 million now). Mostly, the earlier tension derives from not knowing what the hell is going on in this enjoyable thriller made at the height of the Swinging Sixties as playboy gambler Barney (Warren Beatty), a walking Carnaby St model driving an Aston Martin DB5, tilts the odds dramatically in his favor.

Barney is a gambler but the problem with gambling is the odds. They can be against you too much. So Barney decides to turn himself into a burglar, the kind that can clamber over rooftops, abseil between buildings, and break into – a printing business called Kaleidoscope. This just happens to print the playing cards supplied to all the major European casinos. So Barney does a little doctoring of the master printing plates. Bingo, the odds are a bit more even now that he knows what cards are coming out of the shoe – he plays chemin de fer (as it is known in posh casinos, pontoon or 21 to you and me).

While cleaning up he bumps again into fashion designer Angel (Susannah York) – their original meet-cute taking place in a traffic jam – who he dated once in London. Unbeknownst to him, she is on a scouting mission, looking to snare the kind of high-rolling gambler who can take on and completely fleece the drugs kingpin Harry (Eric Porter) being pursued by cop Manny (Clive Revill), her father who, rather than waste so much time collecting the required evidence to put the villain behind bars, decides it would easier done by making him broke. Unable to pay his debts, some other villain would put him out of business in the traditional cemented-boot fashion.

It takes a while for the movie to line up all its ducks in a row, mainly by holding on to the information the audience requires. But the audience is privy to details of the way Manny works that Barney is not. Even for ruthless villains, Manny has a peculiar calling card, one that would make any gambler think twice about entering his lair. Of course, it doesn’t take long for Manny to rumble Barney’s game so the stakes are much higher than the charming gambler imagines.

Throw in as much fashion as London was capable of generating at this time, the burgeoning romance, some exotic European locations, a castle with a moat, and the usual tourist guide stuff of red buses, Big Ben, Piccadilly Circus, pubs and Tower Bridge and you have all the ingredients of an easy on the eye thriller.

It’s a movie that relies on star power but Beatty and York deliver. That is, if you don’t need Beatty to do much more than be Beatty, all teeth and charm. At this point in his career Beatty looked as if his career was fast approaching its end. The box office success of Splendor in the Grass (1961) had been followed by a string of flops, romantic dramas and comedies that should have had audiences queuing up plus an occasional wild card like Arthur Penn’s Mickey One (1965), the biggest flop of all. He does make an engaging crook, and he never loses his screen charisma here, but there ain’t quite the right number of twists that moviegoers weaned on the likes of Topkapi (1964) had come to expect.

Hollywood had been doing its best to position Susannah York as a top box office attraction and she had snagged the female lead in The 7^th Dawn (1964) opposite William Holden and Stanley Baker in Sands of the Kalahari (1965) but she was recovering from the colossal flop of Scruggs (1965) by ‘poet of the cinema’ David Hart. Kaleidoscope offered the kind of role York could do with her eyes closed. So while the screen pair were not exactly sleep-walking it was not the kind of story that was going to create sparks.

Character actor Clive Revill (Fathom, 1967) and Eric Portman (The Pumpkin Eater, 1964) take more leeway with their roles, the latter almost chewing he scenery, the former content with just chewing his lips. Look out for Jane Birkin (Blow-Up, 1966) and British television stalwarts Yootha Joyce, George Sewell and John Junkin.

The title would have been more enigmatic, original meaning of images twisted out of shape, had it not also applied, straightforwardly, to the card-making company. Giving Harry the surname of Dominion seems overkill.

Director Jack Smight (No Way to Treat a Lady, 1969) came to this after twisty private eye picture Harper/The Moving Target (1966), a big hit starring Paul Newman. This is too lightweight a feature to command such interest, but he does keep the story rolling along and it’s an effortless watch and it has a certain offbeat quality. The screenplay was fashioned by Robert Harrington and Jane-Howard Harrington, making their movie debut, who also co-wrote Wait until Dark (1967). It was also the debut for Winkast Productions, the Jerry Gershwin-Elliott Kastner production team who went on to make Where Eagles Dare (1968).

Harper / The Moving Target (1966) ****

Inventive screenplay by William Goldman (Masquerade, 1965), the ideal combination of witty lines and others that strike to the heart, and Paul Newman’s most naturalistic performance, and a family at each other’s throats, create a genuine addition to the private eye genre. Punch-ups are limited, generally the sleuth comes out worse, his skull an easy target apparently for any villain wanting to give him a good biff.

Most people remember the celebrated credit sequence. But, in fact, most people do not. They remember that this is a guy who will reuse old coffee grinds, which is as good a character definition as you’re going to get. But the opening sequence says much more – he sleeps in a pull-out couch, he falls asleep with the television on, dunking his face in ice suggests a hangover, and – the killer – he sleeps in his office. You won’t forget the ending either, the freeze frame, as fed-up Harper (Paul Newman) just gives up on the stupidity of mankind. And just before that there’s a delicious moment when crippled mother Elaine Sampson (Lauren Bacall) trills to the daughter she loathes Miranda (Pamela Tiffin) in a voice that would denote happiness but is anything but, “I’ve got some news for you,” as she looks forward to informing the child that the father she adores and that Elaine equally loathes is dead.

Not surprisingly, Harper’s on the verge of divorce from wife Susan (Janet Leigh), but he still hankers after being a knight in shining armor, those few days every year when he puts the world to rights rather than chasing down errant husbands in seedy hotel rooms.

The tale is a tad convoluted, involving initially tracking down Elaine’s estranged missing millionaire husband that turns into kidnapping and then murder with a side order of a fake cult headed by Claude (Strother Martin) that’s a front for an illegal immigrant operation, and going through the gears, character-wise, with malicious wife, an extremely flirtatious Miranda who gets her come-uppance when she tangles with Harper, faded alcoholic star Fay Estabrook (Shelley Winters) and junkie Betty (Julie Harris) sometime lover of lothario pilot Allan Taggert (Robert Wagner).

Two distinctive thugs Dwight Troy (Robert Webber) – Fay’s husband – and Puddler (Roy Jenson) offset the dumbest of dumb cops led by Sheriff Spanner (Harold Gould) and lovesick attorney Albert Graves (Arthur Hill), Harper’s longtime buddy, who pines for Miranda.

Torture comes in two guises – the junkie gets the treatment from Dwight and Harper is put through the wringer listening to the endless whining of Fay as he tries to pump her for information. Harper avoids beatings and takes beatings and various characters bounce through doors with a gun – both Taggert and Graves save Harper from being shot.

Harper’s got a slick way about him, but mostly his charm is used to weasel information. He hasn’t got enough of it left to work on his wife.

When Harper’s not racing his sports car along twisting mountain roads, the action shifts to a cult temple, the docks and an abandoned oil tanker. Even when Harper works out who’s in on the kidnapping, it turns out he’s now got a murder to solve since someone’s bumped off the kidnappee.

Despite the endless complications, this whizzes along, helped enormously by Paul Newman’s (Cool Hand Luke, 1967) winning characterization. He’s brought a new trick to his acting arsenal, mastering a method of not listening to a conversation by tilting his head away from the speaker, and there’s a number of novel gestures. The scene where he rejects Miranda is a cracker. Tough guy running short of a soft center, he makes a very believable human being. And he’s got his work cut out because Lauren Bacall (Shock Treatment, 1964) is on scene-stealing duties. As is Pamela Tiffin (The Pleasure Seekers, 1964) though she can hardly match the older woman for arch delivery.

It’s a top-notch cast all the way down. Fans of Strother Martin (Cool Hand Luke) will enjoy his fake healer, Arthur Hill (Moment to Moment, 1966) is engaging, Robert Wagner (Banning, 1967) adds another notch to his rising star bow while Robert Webber (Don’t Make Waves, 1967) emanates menace with his “old stick” routine. Shelley Winters (The Scalphunters, 1968) is a great lush, Julie Harris (The Split, 1968) a junkie trying to pretend she’s not and Janet Leigh (Psycho, 1960), having kicked her husband out, still hoping he might come back in more acceptable form.

Jack Smight (The Third Day, 1965) directs with some zap. This should have had everyone singing the praises of crime writer Ross MacDonald, who in inventing the character (Lew Archer in the original) had inherited the Raymond Chandler mantle, but instead they came away whistling Dixie for screenwriter William Goldman.

Class act.

No Way to Treat a Lady (1968) ****

Sly, cunning highly original drama hugely enjoyable for a number of reasons, top among which would be Rod Steiger’s serial killer. As the wealthy and cultured Christopher Gill, the actor employs disguise to enter the homes of the unsuspecting. These range from Irish priest, German maintenance man, camp wig salesman, a woman and even a policeman knocking on doors to advise people not to admit strangers.

Clearly Steiger has a ball with these cameos, but, more importantly, his character pre-empts the celebrity status accorded the modern-day mass murderer. This is a killer who wants everyone to know just how good he is at his self-appointed task, who desperately wants to be on the front pages, who revels in a cat-and-mouse taunting of the police. To be sure, an element of this is played as comedy, but from our perspective, half a century on, it is a terrific characterization of the narcissistic personality, and far more interesting than the psychological impulse that causes him to kill in the first place.

The hapless detective (George Segal) on the receiving end of Gill’s brilliance is named Morris Brummel which means that he is met with laughter anytime he introduces himself since he that is invariably shortened to Mo Brummel, too close to Beau Brummel, the famous dandy, from whom the cop could not be further removed. And Brummel is not your standard cop, stewed in alcohol with marital problems, feuding with his bosses and close to burn-out. Brummel would love marital problems if only to get out from under his nagging mother (Eileen Eckhart) , with whom he lives.

He is dogged, but respects authority and takes his demotion like a man. Not coincidentally, killer and cop are linked by mother issues. Although Gill is angry when ignored he does not taunt Brummel the way his mother does. She is ashamed he is a cop and not wealthy like his brother.

Even less standard is the meet-cute. Kate Palmer (Lee Remick) is a useless witness. She can’t remember anything about the priest she passed on the stairs. When the cop arrives, she is hungover and just wants to get back to sleep, and without being aware that Brummel is in fact Jewish praises his nose. Gill is a bit ham-fisted in the seduction department and it is Palmer who makes the running. But although appearing glamorous when first we see her, in reality she is a mundane tour guide. Their romance is conducted on buses and a police river launch, hardly the classic love story.

Although the trio of principals boasted one Oscar and two nominations between them, their careers were at a tricky stage. Winning the Oscar for In the Heat of the Night (1967) did not trigger huge demand for Steiger’s services and he had to skip over to Italy for his next big role. Both Remick and Segal, in freefall after a series of flops, had been working in television. Whether this picture quite rejuvenated their careers is a moot point for the picture was reviled in certain quarters for bringing levity to a serious subject and it was certainly overshadowed in critical terms by The Boston Strangler (1968) a few months later. But all three give excellent performances, especially Steiger and Segal who subjugated screen mannerisms to create more human characters.

While Jack Smight had directed Paul Newman in private eye yarn Harper (1966) the bulk of his movies, regardless of genre, were tinged with comedy. While he allows Steiger full vent for his impersonations, he keeps the actor buttoned-down for most of the time, allowing a more nuanced performance. Violence, too, is almost non-existent, no threshing of limbs of terrified victims. John Gay wrote the screenplay from a novel by William Goldman (who had written the screenplay for Harper) so short it almost constituted a movie treatment.

In reality, the comedy is slight and if you overlook a sequence poking fun at the vertically-challenged, what remains is an examination of propulsion towards fulfilment through notoriety and the irony that the murders elevate the mundane life of the investigating officer.

Kaleidoscope (1966) ***

Amazing the tension that can emanate from one turn of a card. Or, more correctly, waiting for one. Only problem is we’re two-thirds through the movie before high-stakes poker begins – the pot nudging £250,00 (close on a cool £5 million now). Mostly, the earlier tension derives from not knowing what the hell is going on in this enjoyable thriller made at the height of the Swinging Sixties as playboy gambler Barney (Warren Beatty), a walking Carnaby St model driving an Aston Martin DB5, tilts the odds dramatically in his favor.

While cleaning up he bumps again into fashion designer Angel – their original meet-cute taking place in a traffic jam – who he dated once in London. Unbeknownst to him, she is on a scouting mission, looking to snare the kind of high-rolling gambler who can take on and completely fleece drugs kingpin Harry (Eric Porter) being pursued by her father Manny (Clive Revill), a cop who, rather than waste so much time collecting the required evidence to put the villain behind bars, decides it would easier done by making him broke. Unable to pay his debts, some other villain would put him out of business in the traditional cemented-boot fashion.

It takes a while for the movie to line up all its ducks in a row, mainly by holding back the vital information the audience requires. But the audience is privy to details of the way Manny works that Barney is not. Even for ruthless villains, Manny has a peculiar calling card, one that would make any gambler think twice about entering his lair. Of course, it doesn’t take long for Manny to rumble Barney’s game so the stakes are much higher than the charmer imagines.

A bit over-reliant on star power. That is, if you don’t need Beatty to do much more than be Beatty, all teeth and charm. At this point Beatty’s career looked as if it was fast approaching its end. The box office success of Splendor in the Grass (1961) had been followed by a string of flops, romantic dramas and comedies that should have had audiences queuing up plus an occasional wild card like Arthur Penn’s Mickey One (1965), the biggest flop of all. He does make an engaging crook, and he never loses his screen charisma here, but there ain’t quite the right number of twists that moviegoers weaned on the likes of Topkapi (1964) had come to expect.

Hollywood had been doing its best to position Susannah York as a top box office attraction and she had snagged leading female roles in The 7^th Dawn (1964) opposite William Holden and Stanley Baker in Sands of the Kalahari (1965) but she was recovering from the colossal flop of Scruggs (1965) by ‘poet of the cinema’ David Hart. Kaleidoscope offered the kind of role York could do with her eyes closed. So while the screen pair were not exactly sleep-walking it was not the kind of story that was going to create sparks.

Character actor Clive Revill (Fathom, 1967) and Eric Portman (The Pumpkin Eater, 1964) take more leeway with their roles, the latter almost chewing he scenery, the former content with just chewing his lips. Look out for Jane Birkin (Blow-Up, 1966) and British television stalwarts Yootha Joyce, George Sewell and John Junkin.

Director Jack Smight (No Way to Treat a Lady, 1969) came to this after twisty private eye picture Harper/The Moving Target (1966), a big hit starring Paul Newman, but this is too lightweight a feature to command such interest, but he does keep the story rolling along and it’s an effortless watch and it has a certain offbeat quality. The screenplay was fashioned by Robert Harrington and Jane-Howard Hammerstein, making their movie debut, who also co-wrote Wait until Dark (1967). It was also the debut for Winkast Productions, the Jerry Gershwin-Elliott Kastner production team who went on to make Where Eagles Dare (1968).

The Secret War of Harry Frigg (1968) ***

Except for an ingenious escape attempt and Paul Newman spoofing his Cool Hand Luke persona, this World War Two POW number falls into the “sounded like a good idea at the time” category. Harry Frigg (Newman), the American army’s most notorious escapee (though from British military prisons), is promoted from buck private to two-star general and parachuted into northern Italy to organize a breakout of five one-star generals.

The premise that the war effort is hampered by embarrassment at the generals being captured seems far-fetched as is the notion that the quintet are hopelessly incompetent when it comes to doing anything that sounds like proper army stuff. Adding another offbeat element is that they are being held in effectively a deluxe POW camp, an ancient castle run by Colonel Ferrucci (Vito Scotti), a former Ritz hotel manager with a lapdog attitude to the rich and powerful.

Almost immediately Frigg discovers an escape route through a secret door but is disinclined to go any further since it leads into the boudoir of the countess (Sylva Koscina). New Jersey inhabitant Frigg feels out of the place with the high-falutin’ generals and proceeds to get himself a cultural education. Meanwhile, the countess, obtaining her position through marriage rather than birth, trying to bolster his confidence naturally triggers his romantic impulses.

The humor is of the gentlest kind – Frigg taking advantage of his superiority, Italians speaking tortured English – and not much in the way of bellylaffs either. Director Jack Smight, who collaborated so well with Newman in Harper (1966) and manages to achieve a tricky balance in No Way to Treat a Lady (1968), loses his way here, not least structurally, as the movie pingpongs between the generals, the commandant and Frigg and, thematically, issues of power. Crucially, he fails to rein in Newman.

The generals, squabbling among themselves for power, would be caricatures except that their characters are rounded out by the players, the pick being Charles Gray (The Devil Rides Out, 1968) as Cox-Roberts and Tom Bosley (Divorce American Style, 1967) as Pennypacker. The other generals are played by Andrew Duggan (Seven Days in May, 1964), John Williams (Harlow, 1965) and Jacques Roux (The List of Adrian Messenger, 1963). Representing the American top brass in England are James Gregory ( a repeat role in the Matt Helm series) and Norman Fell (The Graduate, 1967).

After her excellent turn as a mischievous and vengeful villain in Deadlier than the Male (1967), Yugoslavian Sylva Koscina comes down to earth with a less rewarding role as charming leading lady with a sly sense of humor rather than the femme fatale of A Lovely Way to Die (1968). Werner Peters (The Corrupt Ones, 1968) makes a late appearance as a Nazi and you might spot screenwriter Buck Henry (The Graduate) in a bit part.

The screenplay by Peter Stone (Arabesque, 1966) and Oscar-winner Frank Tarloff (Father Goose, 1968) is an odd mixture of occasional sharp dialogue and labored story. The set-up takes too long and you keep on wondering when it is going to get to the pay-off.

No doubt looking for some light relief after a quartet of heavier dramatic roles – Harper (1966), Torn Curtain (1966), Hombre (1967) and Harper (1967) – Newman acts like he has escaped the straitjacket of a considered performance and instead indulges in mugging and hamming it up, his body freeing up a barrage of mannerisms previously held in check.

No Way To Treat a Lady (1968) ****

Sly cunning highly original drama hugely enjoyable for a number of reasons, top among which would be Rod Steiger’s serial killer. As the wealthy and cultured Christopher Gill, the actor employs disguise to enter the homes of the unsuspecting. Disguises range from Irish priest, German maintenance man, wig salesman, a woman and even a policeman knocking on doors to advise people not to admit strangers.

The hapless detective (George Segal) on the receiving end of Gill’s brilliance is named Morris Brummel which means that he is met with laughter anytime he introduces himself since he that is invariably shortened to Mo Brummel, close to Beau Brummel, the famous historical dandy, from whom the cop could not be further removed. And Brummel is not your standard cop, the kind we have seen often who is stewed in alcohol with marital problems, feuding with his bosses and close to burn-out. Brummel would love marital problems if only to get out from under his nagging mother (Eileen Eckhart) , with whom he lives.

Catch-Up: George Segal films previously reviewed in the Blog are Invitation to a Gunfighter (1964), Lost Command (1966), The Quiller Memorandum (1966) and The Southern Star (1969). I also covered Rod Steiger in The Pawnbroker (1964).