Joanna Pettet – The Magnificent 60s

Blue (1968) *****

Easily the most underrated western of all time. Few people saw it on release and precious few since. If remembered at all, it’s for reasons of movie trivia. Robert Redford got into a legal fight with Paramount when he pulled out of the starring role. And it was what was being shot in the background of the Burt Reynolds movie Fade In (1968).

Decades before cultural appropriation was a major no-no, Americans didn’t take too kindly to Brits taking on top-billed roles in westerns. Audiences sniggered at Dirk Bogarde as a Mexican bandit in The Singer Not the Song (1960), John Mills proved an obstacle to audience acceptance of Chuka (1967) and Shalako (1969) starring Sean Connery, the world’s biggest box office draw at the time, would become a huge flop Stateside.

Yet there are some extraordinary moments here. Some, frankly, I’m astonished never rated a mention at the time nor since. The director’s use of natural sound is ground-breaking. For a start, there’s very little music, none of the triumphal brass that generally accompanies hordes of cowboys racing across plains. Often, here, all we get is hoofbeats. In terms of the aural Hitchcock would have applauded one scene, where a man is hunted through tall grass. All we hear is the crackling sound of the pursuers as they stalk him through the dried-out terrain.

Most times when in other films we see a bunch of cowboys charging along, it’s filmed from the front or the side. Reason being, shoot it from the back and you’ve got to deal with all the dust churned up by the hooves. Not so, here, bring on the dust. Let’s have something new.

There’s even a nod to The Searchers (1956), the famous doorway scenes, but here the main character is neither coming nor coming but cannot make up his mind whether to do either and so slouches against the doorframe.

The opening sequence is The Wild Bunch (1969) in reverse. It’s the good guys in the town, and the bandits who create the ambush and, minus Peckinpah’s obsession with bloodletting, treat their captives ever bit as brutally. Even here, there are two notable scenes. In the first, our hero Blue (Terence Stamp) has been sitting napping under his hat when a troop of Mexican soldiers arrive. Once they hunker down inside the saloon he throws a huge red scarf in the hair, signal to the watching bandits. Then, after the soldiers have been routed, and their leader is still trying to make a stand, Blue races up behind and whips away first his upraised gun, then his hat, then the man himself.

And these are not ordinary bandits. You might think they are given our post-action introduction to them shows them whoring, gambling and fighting. But actually they are revolutionaries and leader Ortega (Ricardo Montalban) has a strategic brain and realizes that they have to take the fight across the river to the Americans – on their most important day of the year, July 4^th, Independence Day – and get them so riled up they do something about the inequities in Mexico.

And he has his work cut out to rein in his rebellious son and the concerns raised by his number two that the life, hiding out in the hills and sleeping in caves, is losing its appeal to his followers. So, intelligent bandits.

The Americans might not be particularly bothered by their neighbors, but still they’ve got a stuffed mannikin hanging from a noose with the word “Greasers” written upon its chest. The bandits break up the party, rob the Yanks, but for some reason leave the enemy with all their weapons, allowing the farmers to form an immediate posse and set off in pursuit.

Blue is shot but makes his way to a farmhouse where, luckily for him, he is tended by farmer’s daughter Joanne (Joanna Pettet) whom he previously saved from rape. It’s a bit of a tip-off that the fugitive goes by the name Azul (the Spanish word for “blue”) to the Mexicans given, I’m assuming, all Mexicans are brown-eyed. So he must be an outlander. And so he is, brought up by the Mexican bandits.

At first he appears to be of the Clint Eastwood persuasion, monosyllabic to the point of dumbness, but, eventually, in a quite brilliant scene, forced to utter a word before Joanna cuts his throat with a razor, an idea that found its way, as I recall, into Alan Parker’s Mississippi Burning (1988).

And if ever action carries more meaning than words, it’s in the scene where Joanne discovers Blue has apparently fled only to spy him ploughing the fields. As you might expect, whether an American male or female is brought up by Native Americans (Hombre, 1967) or as here Mexicans, they find it hard to be accepted. The issue is forced upon his new countrymen when the bandits return, and Blue has to choose a side.

Blue was an orphan thanks to racism against his American parents when they settled in Mexico. And he suffers, unfairly you would say given he was born in the U.S., from racism again when he crosses the border.

The sex scene is brilliantly handled, relying both on sight and sound. It’s Joanna who has to instigate it, instinctively knowing that he won’t make any move in case it is wrongly interpreted. The father, noting her bedroom is empty, begins to walk along the corridor to Blue’s room. Hearing his footsteps, Joanna turns out the light. Seeing the light go out, the father retreats – on tiptoe.

There’s also the best demonstration of pistol shooting this side of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid the following year. And without taking anything away from the Robert Redford scene, it’s remarkably similar.

And Blue proves himself to be a brilliant tactician. He sets up a stunning ambush and the bandits are slaughtered from both sides of the river when they attempt to cross. His leadership, unusually, sets up emotional issues. When Joanne reacts against this new tough side of him, it’s her father that calms her. But that isn’t the peach. Blue confesses that he enjoys killing, it “pleasures” him.

I’m afraid to say the ending of Butch Cassidy also has remarkable similarities to this. There it’s the freeze frame that encapsulates the death of the heroes. Here, the camera draws back and back into the sky as Joanne holds her dead lover in the river.

Terence Stamp (The Collector, 1965) doesn’t quite have enough going on behind the eyes to become a top-class actor so sensibly director Silvio Narrazino (Georgy Girl, 1966) avoids going in too close on the baby blues and allows the actor freedom of movement to reveal his feelings, the slouching in the doorway one example, another being Blue’s slow realization that much of what he sees in the farmer’s house is familiar. Stamp acquits himself well in the action scenes.

But Joanna Pettet (The Best House in London, 1969) is the revelation. We’re quite used to spunky or feisty females in westerns. But I don’t think I’ve ever seen one who takes control with subtlety. Her father Doc Morton (Karl Malden) can’t get a word out of Blue no matter the threats uttered and violence threatened. But when Joanna takes up a cut-throat razor for the first time in her life and begins to trim his stubble, deliberately making a hash of it, that’s as novel a meet-cute as you’re going to find as well as one of the best definitions of female character that you’ll see in a western.

Written by Meade Roberts (The Stripper, 1963) and Ronald M. Cohen (The Good Guys and the Bad Guys, 1969).

One of the most stylish and innovative westerns you’ll ever see and you need to watch it with your ears attuned to sound.

A true find.

The Group (1966) ***

The ensemble picture provided a showcase for new talent. But consider the gender imbalance at work. Only Candice Bergen proved a breakout star of any longevity compared to a flop like The Magnificent Seven (1960) from which six relative newcomers – Steve McQueen, James Coburn, Charles Bronson, Robert Vaughn, Eli Wallach (only his fourth movie) and Horst Buchholz – became top-billed material.

Part of the problem was Hollywood itself, not enough good roles for actresses who weren’t destined for spy movies or to become a decorative supporting player, and who could not headline a western, war picture or (with the exception of Bonnie and Clyde) a hardnosed crime movie. But part of the problem was the structure of The Group. Yes, there’s a 150-minute running time, but there are eight main characters to contend with.

And the story doesn’t have a central focus like The Magnificent Seven where characters are built in asides to the main action but has to meander in eight different directions. Luckily, it still remains a powerful confection, tackling, as if setting out to shock audiences, contentious issues like mental illness, leftwing politics, birth control and lesbianism. What could easily have descended into a chick flick or a glorified soap opera instead pushes in the direction of feminism.

A bunch of wealthy privileged university female graduate friends sets out in the 1930s to change the world only discover, to their amazement, that the male-dominated dominion chews them up and spits them out.

Only Lakey (Candice Bergen), who prefers the company of women, appears to find fulfilment but that’s mostly from running off to the more liberated Paris at the earliest opportunity to study art history though the Second World War puts an end to that.

Kay (Joanna Pettet) seems to have made the best marriage, with a wannabe alcoholic writer (Larry Hagman), but she ends up in a mental asylum. Dottie (Joan Hackett) also views life in the art world, marrying a painter, as the best option only to later prefer a more mundane husband. Priss (Elizabeth Hartmann), the strongest-minded of the octet, lands a man of a stronger, controlling, character.

Polly (Shirley Knight) is the most sexually adventurous. Ostensibly, Helena (Kathleen Widdoes), a renowned traveller, and Libby (Jessica Walter), a successful novelist, appear to achieve the greatest independence and success but come up short in that most important of endeavors, romance. The men, you should be warned, are all one-dimensional scumbags.

The movie focuses mainly on Kay, Polly and Libby. Lakey shows up at the beginning and the end.

At its best, it’s an insight into the world of women, on a grander scale than any of the tear-jerkers of previous decades. But it suffers from too many characters and too little time. It might have been better as a mini-series, though that, obviously, was not an option at the time. The Sidney Buchman (Cleopatra, 1963) screenplay fails to match the intensity of the critically-acclaimed source novel by Mary McCarthy, a huge bestseller.

It’s a surprising choice for Sidney Lumet (The Pawnbroker, 1964), more mainstream than his general output, but while he clearly presents the characters in sympathetic fashion, his hallmark tension is missing.

Mostly, it works as a time-capsule of a time-capsule, a movie about the 1960s optimism of 1930s optimism, and the obstacles faced by both.

Only Candice Bergen (Soldier Blue, 1970) approached the level of success achieved by The Magnificent Seven motley crew, achieving top-billed status in a number of films and her screen persona, possibly as a result of this movie, was often independence. Leading lady in Will Penny (1968) and Support Your Local Sheriff (1969) was the height of success for Joan Hackett.

Already twice Oscar-nominated as a Supporting Actress, Shirley Knight was the best-known of The Group, but was only thereafter top-billed once, in the low-budget Dutchman (1966) although she won critical plaudits for The Rain People (1969).

An Oscar nominee for her debut A Patch of Blue (1965), Elizabeth Hartmann was top-billed in You’re A Big Boy Now (1967) and then fell into the supporting player bracket. Never top-billed, Joanna Pettet was a strong co-star for the rest of the decade but that was marked by flops like Blue (1968) and The Best House in London (1968) and she drifted into television.

Best known for Number One (1969) and Play Misty for Me (1971) Jessica Walter failed to achieve top-billing. Though, as a result of this review, it has been pointed out to me (thanks Mr Film-Authority) that I glossed over her brilliant performance in television show Arrested Development (2003-2019); in fact, if your search for her on imdb that TV series is the one that pops up first.

Most of the actresses did have long careers, sustained by leading roles in television or bit parts in movies but when you consider the success visited upon the group known as The Magnificent Seven you can’t help thinking this was a whole generation of talent going to waste because they could not be accommodated by the Hollywood machine and did not fit the industry prototype.

For another example of gender disparity you could compare the consequent comparative success of the stars of Valley of the Dolls and The Dirty Dozen, both out the following year.

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.

Robbery (1967) ****

The explosive gut-wrenching high octane car chase that kicked off this thriller – and provided British director Peter Yates (Bullitt, 1968) with a Hollywood calling card – is somewhat out of place in this intriguing documentary-style fictionalised account of the British heist of the century, the Great Train Robbery of 1963. Setting aside that the chase would have been better employed as the climax, it does provide the cops with enough leads to keep tabs on some of the criminals, ensuring the authorities become aware of the gigantic theft planned.

But Yates’ unusual approach takes us away from the usual crime picture. You can say goodbye to the cliched villain for a start. Mastermind Paul Clifton (Stanley Baker) dresses like a suave businessman. Wife Kate (Joanna Pettet) rails against him for betrayal, not sexual infidelity, but for pretending he had given up the life of crime. And there is any amount of nuance. We don’t discover that Clifton lives in a huge mansion with a massive drive until the very end, we don’t know who else the police are tailing until they are picked up, we are not let in on the secret of Clifton’s escape until suddenly he is taking off in a light airplane. And there is the unexpected. A suspect is identified in a line-up by a witness slapping his face, a message sent to Kate from Paul via a dog.

*Cop James Booth questions gangster’s moll Joanna Pettet.*

Nor, beyond the basics, are we let in on the details of the plan, more time spent on recruitment, and not the usual suspects either, Robinson (Frank Finlay) – broken out of prison for this specific job – brought unwillingly on board because, as a former bank employee, he can check the stolen notes. I should point out, which may not be obvious to a contemporary audience, that banks shifted money over the weekend via the London-Glasgow night train that carried the mail. Given the £3 million being transported, the train is staffed not by a regiment of security guards but by postal workers sorting letters.

There’s nothing desperately clever about the plan anyway beyond its audacity. Signals are changed to make the train stop at the allotted point, the robbery takes place in military fashion, timed to the minute, some sacks left behind when time is up.

What’s cleverest is the hideout, an abandoned airfield, with underground passages. The gang doesn’t intend to run while the heat is at its hottest but some time later, the cash divvied up, Clifton’s share sent as cargo overseas. Clifton knows the consequences will involve road blocks, house searches, cars impounded, arrests but “without the money they can’t prove anything.” A junkyard owner is paid – too handsomely as it transpires – to clean the vehicles used of fingerprints and other potential giveaways (not much else in the days before DNA). And no matter Clifton ruling with a rod of iron, there is always the idiot who doesn’t quite stick to the plan.

Most of the picture is detail, not just the meticulous planning but the equally meticulous hounding by the cops, interrogating getaway driver Jack (Clinton Greyn), identity parades, telephones tapped (or a crude version of it), with only the occasional hunch to keep the police, led by the dogged Inspector Langdon (James Booth), on the right track. A few years before cops in movies were uniformly identified as either corrupt or useless, sometimes both, this bunch are shown to be relatively efficient, though still prone to underhand means.

Dominating proceedings is the moustached figure of Stanley Baker (Sands of the Kalahari, 1965) whose brusque no-nonsense manner sets the tone. He’s a cut above the normal criminal not just in ambition but ingenuity and while he rules the roost in the gang he’s less at home at home where Kate gives him a hard time. James Booth (Fraulein Doktor, 1969) is impressive as the pursuer, well-versed in gangland lore, inclined to look beyond the obvious. With only a few scenes Joanna Pettet (The Best House in London, 1969) makes a mark.

In supporting parts you will spot Barry Foster (The Family Way, 1966), who seems to have the knack of catching the camera’s attention with a look or the turn of his head, and Frank Finlay (A Study in Terror, 1965), and a host of British character actors like George Sewell (The Vengeance of She, 1968) and Glynn Edwards (The Blood Beast Terror, 1968).

But the honors go to Peter Yates (Summer Holiday, 1963), not just for the stunning car chase which Hollywood would forever emulate, but the constant tension, the cutting back and forth between cops and robbers, and between the overtly dramatic and the subtle. He also had a hand in the screenplay along with George Markstein (The Odessa File, 1974) and in his only movie Edward Boyd (The View from Daniel Pike, 1971-1973).

The Best House in London (1969) *

One of the worst – and certainly among the most repellent – films ever made. A hymn to misogyny under the guise of the not very difficult task of exposing Victorian hypocrisy, it labors under the bizarre thesis that all women want to be prostitutes. Screenwriter Denis Norden’s befuddled sense of history is awash with the same kind of contempt for audiences. Elizabeth Barrett (of Wimpole St fame) rubs shoulders with Lord Alfred Douglas (Oscar Wilde’s illicit lover) even though they lived half a century apart, the Chinese Opium Wars and The Indian Mutiny feature despite being separated by 15 years.

Sex workers had proved the basis for many good (and occasionally excellent) pictures in the 1960s ranging from Butterfield 8, Never on Sunday, Irma la Douce and Go Naked in the World at the start of the decade to Midnight Cowboy at its end, but these all featured well-rounded characters facing understandable dilemmas. But here the cynical and demeaning plot – more Carry On Up the Brothel than political satire – makes you wonder how this concept was perceived as either plausible or an acceptable subject for comedy

*The monocle joke*. *Dany Robin sports the manacles her idiotic girls were supposed to wear rather the monocles they did wear.*

Feminist philanthropist Josephine Pacefoot (Joanna Pettet) – a character based on the real-life campaigner Josephine Butler – has set up the Social Purity League to rescue fallen women. Walter Leybourne (David Hemmings) is hired as a publicist to bring the issues raised to a wider audience. When Josephine inherits the fortune of Uncle Francis (George Sanders) the pair come up against the nefarious Benjamin Oakes (also played by Hemmings), her cousin and his half-brother, who has purloined his uncle’s mansion in Belgravia as the premises for London’s first brothel – The Libertine Club. This venture is backed by the Home Secretary (John Bird) as a way of getting streetwalkers away from upmarket shopping streets where their presence discourages wealthy females. Josephine also has to deal with a caricatured “evil” Chinaman (Wolfe Morris) through her uncle’s investment in opium. There’s also for no particular reason apoplectic airship inventor Count Pandolfo (Warren Mitchell).

All the women rescued from the oldest profession by Josephine are soon recruited by Oakes and a good chunk of the middle section of the movie involves various excuses to give the viewers intimate glimpses of what goes on in the brothel, involving an abundance of nudity. Oakes also aims to seduce Josephine while the shy Walter struggles to entice her into romance.

Excepting Josephine and Oakes’ mistress Babette (Dany Robin), the women are uniformly stupid. The story begins with Oakes’ duping a woman in a hot air balloon into removing her clothes on the grounds that it was the only way to reduce height enough to land. And it does not get any better. Women supposedly forced onto the streets after bad experiences with men turn out to be the seducers. Walter has the devil’s own job getting any of the girls to agree they had been raped. Walter, hoping to sell a story to The Times, is no less crass: “I can get five columns for a good rape.” Flora (Carol Friday), rescued much to her displeasure, is “gagging” for it. And there’s just an awful scene where a young girl sings about her “pussy” which even in the 1960s surely raised adverse comment.

The humor is largely of the sniggering variety. The brothel girls wear monocles instead of manacles, the only game on display in the Card Room is strip poker, and naturally there is a peeping tom, lawyer Sylvester (Willie Rushton).

As if to display his erudition, but without raising the laughter quotient, Norden chucks in literary cameos by the score – Charles Dickens (Arnold Diamond), Alfred Lord Tennyson (Hugh Burden), the aforementioned Elizabeth Barrett (Suzanne Hunt) and Lord Alfred Douglas (George Reynolds), Sherlock Holmes (Peter Jeffrey) and Dr Watson (Thorley Walters), plus explorer David Livingstone (Neil Arden) and department store entrepreneurs Fortnum (Arthur Howard) and Mason (Clement Freud).

That the movie actually gets one star is thanks to a number of excellent visual jokes: one scene of Uncle Francis defying the mutineers by raising the Union Jack cuts to the blood-splattered flag decorating his coffin; Sylvester frustrated at the keyhole but still hearing the moans of seducer-in-chief Oakes is followed by the sight of the wannabe lover struggling to get out of his bonds, having been attacked by Chinamen.

There’s not much difference, beyond hair color, between the characters essayed by David Hemmings (Alfred the Great, 1969). Both are one-dimensional, the pop-eyed virgin astonished by the goings-on at the brothel, the suave villain who might as well be twirling his moustache for all the depth he brings to the role. Thankfully, Joanna Pettet (Blue, 1968) is at least believable though even she could not act her way out of scenes where she was suspended by the Chinaman above a vat of boiling acid.

George Sanders (Sumuru, Queen of Femina aka The Girl from Rio, 1969) has a ball as the hypocrite-in-chief who knows how to monetize vice while Dany Robin (Topaz, 1969) brings some finesse to an otherwise one-dimensional part. But everyone else is a cipher which is a shame given the talent on show – John Bird (A Dandy in Aspic, 1968), John Cleese (A Fish Called Wanda, 1988), Warren Mitchell (The Assassination Bureau, 1969), Bill Fraser (Masquerade, 1965) and Maurice Denham (Some Girls Do, 1969). Among the girls, you might spot Veronica Carlsen (Dracula Has Risen from the Grave, 1968) , Margaret Nolan (Goldfinger, 1964) and Rose Alba (Thunderball, 1965).

Director Philip Saville (Oedipus the King, 1968) should have known better and certainly made amends later in his career with among other projects BBC series Boys from the Blackstuff (1982). But Denis Norden (Buona Sera, Mrs Campbell, 1968) never wrote a more misguided piece in all his life.

For sure, a film like this is not going to do down well in these times but I was surprised how vilified it was on release, critics like Roger Ebert insulted by its endless attacks on women, the public no less hostile and it died a death at the box office.