movie review – The Magnificent 60s

Song Sung Blue (2025) **** – Seen at the Cinema

So pitch perfect I’m almost tempted to put it up a notch to five stars. It’s hard to find anything that would detract from what was an extremely enjoyable entertainment. They don’t make feelgood movies anymore, certainly not of the innocent Home Alone (1990) variety, because once again we’re back to the William Goldman dictat of “nobody knows anything” meaning nobody knows how movies will perform. Everything these days that might fall into the feelgood category has to have such an edge it removes it from the equation.

Which is not to say this doesn’t feature the hard stuff. It does – and how. But for once it’s about the little people without some director with ideas above their station trying to make a political or artistic point. In my time, I’ve known four part-time musicians. They were the opposite of my expectations. Not because they weren’t drugged-out or drunk, but because they didn’t conform to my idea of musicians hellbent on being creative, writing their own music, failing to get record deals. Nope, these were guys only too happy to play anyone else’s stuff if it meant they could get up on stage and perform, even if that was – most commonly – at a wedding.

So that’s where we are here. I’m not sure if tribute singers and bands are a cut above the musicians who play at weddings if only because they have to perfect their imitations and spend more on costumes.

Car mechanic Mike (Hugh Jackman) has all the makings – the moves, the poses – of a rock star frontman except he’s reduced to performing for a touring tribute outfit run by Mark (Michael Imperioli). He’s got some of the musician’s baggage, a recovering alcoholic and divorced. But he’s still struggling to conform until he meets bubbly hairdresser Claire (Kate Hudson), single mom and glitzy tribute singer. Music, or more precisely their dreams, have, nonetheless, taken a toll on both previous marriages with their offspring driven to truculence.

In the course of romancing her quick-style, Mike convinces Claire to join him to join the backing band of his “Neil Diamond Experience,” with somewhat grand aspirations to “interpret” the famed singer’s music and like a rock star determined to play his faves rather than fan faves, planning to open his set with the more obscure “Soolaimon” rather than the widely popular “Sweet Caroline.”

And while this doesn’t head straight for the trashy side of the business like The Last Showgirl (2024) it’s still in the ballpark of the small-time. Mike’s manager is his dentist (Fisher Stevens), their bookings kingpin runs a dismal bus tour operation, and their first gigs are on the humiliating scale.

Even so, once the music kicks in so does the feelgood factor. And I was just humming along to the numbers, enjoying the tale of the little guy getting his big break (opening a concert for Pearl Jam) when I’m knocked for six by a catastrophe that nobody saw coming.

I half-expected the cinema to be full of football fans given the popularity of “Sweet Caroline” on the football terraces. but like The Housemaid this turned out to be a woman’s picture and once again I was the only male in the house, which, surprisingly, for the first showing on a Monday afternoon was packed.

And the rest of the movie is coping with that disaster. Which should have shifted it into another genre entirely and dipped into the mawkish. But it doesn’t. Director Craig Brewer’s (Black Snake Moan, 2006) grip of the material is so tight he keeps it all very earthbound, giving both Claire and Mike equal time when we hit the recovery home straight. And while we’re rooting for Claire through her ordeal there’s a ticking clock where Mike is concerned. He has serious heart problems.

We only realize just how bad his condition is when Mike starts showing Claire’s daughter Rachel (Ella Anderson) how to use a defibrillator just before he falls unconscious. Brewer’s concise use of his material is brilliant. We only learn that Mike was a Vietnam vet when he uses Army planning skills to teach Rachel how to plan for pregnancy.

And I can’t be only fed up to be presented with characters always tinkering with engines without demonstrating that they know a spanner from a wrench. Here, Mike explains to Claire that she’s mend the hole in her oil tank simply by pouring in oil because it contains some kind of mending material. I didn’t know that, I doubt if many in the audience did, but it was a superb way of demonstrating his mechanical knowledge.

There are two other brilliant scenes that epitomize the director’s skill. One, believe it or not, focuses on door-knocking. The other concerns a fire that isn’t a fire – but much worse. But Brewer’s main achievement is weighting this correctly. He doesn’t, as would have been the temptation, hand this on a platter to Claire since she will carry the more obvious emotional heft. Instead, screen-time-wise, it’s pretty much evens.

And although Kate Hudson (Glass Onion, 2022) is attracting all the critical attention, that’s unfair on Hugh Jackam (Deadpool and Wolverine, 2024) who not only holds the stage act together but the family.

One of the other pleasures here is seeing a bunch of supporting actors just being ordinary people, not the slimeballs or weirdos who often go with the territory. I’m talking about Michael Imperioli (The Sopranos, 1999-2007), Jim Belushi (Fight Another Day, 2024) and Fisher Stevens (Coup! 2023). Written by Brewer based on the documentary Song Sung Blue (2008) by Greg Kohs.

A great start to the year.

7 Women (1966) **

This is a very difficult review to write. John Ford has been one of my idols and to some extent when I first became interested in the movies I was force-fed the director, who was considered at the time to be a demi-god. While he has moved up and down in terms of critical acclaim, his westerns have stood the test of time, The Searchers (1956) still considered one of the best ever made and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962) fast challenging that dominance.

When he made westerns, he tended to be on safe ground. For other genres, acceptance was more fleeting. I can’t be the only one who was appalled by Gideon’s Day (1958) and found The Last Hurrah (1959) somewhat ho-hum and took Donovan’s Reef (1963) with a large pinch of salt. Even so, it’s with some regret that I have come to the conclusion that his final film, 7 Women, falls not just short of the high standards he set but is a poor picture.

You have to wonder if he was still on the redemption streak that fueled Cheyenne Autumn (1964) and wanted to make amends for by and large reducing women to also-rans in his movies. There are some plus-points. It takes a rawer view of the Chinese missionary movie, this one set in 1935, not just the notion that Chinese rebels would not dare attack Americans but also that such establishments major on the pious and the gentle.

But in turn the constant bitching between the virtually all-female cast turns this into a glorified soap opera. There’s a constant battle between incoming heavy drinking free thinker Dr Cartwright (Anne Bancroft) and prim mission chief Agatha Andrews (Margaret Leighton) whose management style errs on the dictatorial. Cartwright is upbraided for smoking at dinner, bringing booze to the table, not standing for Grace, and worse of all, it would appear, having had sex. While there were further penalty points for taking a married man as her lover, it’s the mere notion of anyone having sex that sets off the over-pious Andrews.

Setting a new bar in the entitlement stakes is pregnant Florrie Pether (Betty Field) who’s coming very late to motherhood – she’s 42 – and was so determined to have a baby it was conceived with two months of marriage to ineffectual second husband Charles (Eddie Albert) and takes to the extreme the idea of pregnancy stimulating odd food needs – in the middle of nowhere in the middle of China she demands melon.

Added into the mix is that standard trope of the Chinese missionary picture, an outbreak of cholera. Mrs Pether can’t come to grips with the notion that the good doctor might have to concentrate on saving patients from plague rather than come running every time the pregnant gal feels the foetus kick.

So while Andrews and Cartwright are scoring points off each other, with the doctor further accused of corrupting the innocent young Emma Clark (Sue Lyon), outside pressures, introduced during the credit sequence but then left alone for way too long, grow. Chinese bandits are on the rampage. Another mission of a rival denomination led by Miss Binns (Flora Robson) turns up seeking refuge and eventually the bandits charge into the compound and demand ransom.

Naturally, such an invasion is going to get in the way of imminent birth, and while Andrews falls to pieces at the thought of sex producing an actual “brat”, it’s left to Cartwright to negotiate with the bandits. In return for cooperation, bandit chief Tunga (Mike Mazurki) demands sex with Cartwright. While such sacrifice only triggers further contempt and denunciation from Andrews, it does provide the other women with free passage out.

Cartwright, left behind, poisons the bandit chief and commits suicide.

There’s a heck of a lot of talk, which seems rather alien to Ford, who directs as if he’s fashioning a stage play rather than a movie, characters arranged almost in a series of tableaux. And the lighting and general atmosphere would have you believe you were watching a western rather than something set thousands of miles away.

Anne Bancroft (The Slender Thread, 1965) looks as if she’s strolled in from a western or a film noir with her tough talking stance and cigarette perpetually dangling and all those slugs from a bottle. Margaret Leighton (The Best Man, 1964) overplays the nervous breakdown and Betty Field (Coogan’s Bluff, 1968) is too often in a lather, as if they are in a hysteria competition. Sue Lyon (The Night of the Iguana, 1964) isn’t given enough to do. The other women, since we’re counting, include a more self-aware Flora Robson (Young Cassidy, 1965), Mildred Dunnock (Sweet Bird of Youth, 1962) and Anna Lee (In Like Flint, 1967). Written by the team of Janet Green and John McCormick (Victim, 1961) from the Norah Lofts short story.

Given John Ford went to extremes to place the Native Americans who had so often played the bad guys in his movies in a better light in Cheyenne Autumn, it seems odd he has reverted to instinctive racism here. There’s no suggestion that the bandits might be trying to win their freedom and they are often referred to as degenerate and by that awful epithet regarding their supposed color of “yellow.”

And it’s about time that revisionism was applied to the notion that Christianity had any right to be invading a country that had its own long-established traditions of religion and worship.

Has more of the feel of a Tennessee Williams text gone badly wrong than a John Ford number. Not the swansong the director deserved.

Kisses for My President (1964) ***

The concept of a female President was so alien to Hollywood that the only conceivable approach was to make it the story of the husband taking up the chores of the First Lady.

Having perfected his double takes and pratfalls on a string of Disney comedies Fred MacMurray plays Thad McCloud, straight man to incoming President Leslie McCloud (Polly Bergen) and after the screenwriters have exploited virtually every joke in the gender switch catalog it settles down to a more serious exploration of power.

Thad nurses a wounded ego after playing second fiddle to his more powerful wife, joining the anteroom queue to see her, any romantic notions interrupted by the telephone, and not enjoying his new role as chief menu selector and supporter of charities. So he’s a prime target for another powerful woman, Doris (Arlene Dahl), the head of a perfume company, an old flame who seduces him into taking charge of their male toiletries division. Meanwhile, Leslie challenges the foreign aid expectations of South American dictator supreme Valdez (Eli Wallach) while Thad gets into trouble escorting him to a night club.

Power is exploited not just by Valdez for whom financial aid means corruption but by the President’s children, the teenage Gloria (Anna Capri) who races round Washington in fast cars driven by louche boyfriends in the knowledge that she can’t be arrested, and younger Peter (Ronnie Dapo) who attacks schoolmates knowing Secret Service agents will protect him from retaliation. The sexually frustrated Thad, excited at the prospect of developing a new masculine-oriented range of perfumes, does not realise that Doris, far from leading him into the sack, is merely leading him by the nose, having no intention of using his ideas, her sole interest being getting the presidential endorsement.

There are certainly some amusing sequences – Thad getting lost in the White House, discovering his bedroom is more luxuriously appointed, getting stoned on pills to make him relax for a television show, and his reactions to watching the dictator spend his country’s foreign aid on fast cars, speedboats and loose women (a stripper named Nana Peel). The children are not just entitled but vicious with it. And Leslie, the most powerful person in the country nonetheless impotent in the face of a rebellious brood.

There’s a welcome element of Yes, Minister (the British television comedy ridiculing political bureaucracy) as both wife and husband face up to the over-complications of White House life. And there are some good lines. Spouts Thad: “A man needs an office especially when he has nothing to do.” Without a hint of irony, Leslie tells him, “Nobody expects you to vegetate just because you’re married to the President.”

And at least the character of Leslie is treated with respect. There’s no falling back on stereotypes. She’s not out of her depth, or given to tantrums or bouts of tears, she’s not outmanoeuvred by more clever men and she doesn’t come running to Thad for help.

That said, you can’t help thinking of the picture they could have made if Leslie had been the complete focus, her battles with the political male hierarchy, the laws she would have attempted to enact, introducing a feminine perspective to the corridors of power. Even so, as written, she is strong-willed enough to strip the self-indulgent Vasquez of foreign aid and deal with the consequent political fall-out.

Generally under-estimated as an actor, and now in his third decade as a star, the high points being Double Indemnity (1945) and The Apartment (1960), he had reinvented himself as a slapstick comedian with The Shaggy Dog (1959). His work had largely remained in that vein ever since so he was adept at underplaying this kind of character. Polly Bergen (Move Over, Darling, 1963) is spared the comedy and could have been in a different movie entirely, her scenes primarily taken seriously. Eli Wallach (The Moon-Spinners, 1964) gives the game away, over-acting to his heart’s content. Arlene Dahl (Sangaree, 1953) conjures up her Hollywood glamor heyday.

Hungarian blonde bombshell Anna Capri (Target: Harry, 1969) makes her movie debut. Variety’s Army Archerd had a cameo as did columnist Erskine Johnson. Beverly Powers (Jaws, 1975) plays the stripper.

This was the final picture in a 40-year career for German director Curtis Bernhardt (Possessed, 1947). Claude Binyon (North to Alaska, 1960) and Robert G. Kane (The Villain, 1979), in his movie debut, shared the screenplay credit.

Check out a Behind the Scenes for the Pressbook

What A Way To Go! (1964) ****

Daftest picture I’ve ever seen. Not the funniest, not by a long chalk, but highly enjoyable if you go with the flow and let wash over you the deluge of costume changes, the satire-a-go-go, a smattering of slo-mo and fast-mo, the worst fake beards and moustaches, and sanctimonious Hollywood rubbish that money isn’t everything and we should all be hankering after the Henry Thoreau approach to life. So wacky and far-out that if it had been made today J. Lee Thompson (The Guns of Navarone, 1961) would be in with a shout of being hailed as a “visionary” director.

The all-star cast snookers you in. Everyone acts – or should that be over-acts – against type, even Shirley MacLaine (Gambit, 1966), casting aside her ditzy screen persona in favor of sense and sensibility. The generally hapless Dick Van Dyke (Divorce American Style, 1967) demonstrates what happens when his manic energy is put to purpose. Add more or less top hat and tails to the commanding stride and imposing figure of Robert Mitchum (The Way West, 1965) and he could grace boardrooms with a venom the participants in Succession would envy. Dean Martin (Rough Night in Jericho, 1967) explores his villainous side. and you do wonder what would have happened to these stars’ careers had studios taken note of these side hustles, only Dean Martin would have the opportunity to tackle a similar character, though less cartoonish, again.

And it’s loaded with visual gems. J. Lee Thompson’s version of The Incredible Shrinking Man/Honey, I Shrunk the Boss is a treat. Watch out for the rows of secretaries slumped over their typewriters, Dick Van Dyke swamped by money, a drunken farmer trying to milk a bull, and contemporary sci-fi fans would dig the machines going crazy. That’s not to forget the monkey not just painting masterpieces but expecting applause on completion. There are spoofs galore – the contemporary (1960s) art scene, the musical, the wealth that opens doors and cannot ever be shut down no matter how hard you try.

Essentially a portmanteau as perennial widow Louisa (Shirley MacLaine) explains to a psychiatrist Dr Stephanson (Bob Cummings) how her four husbands met their demise. Louisa, daughter of a grasping greedy mother and ineffectual father, yearns for the simple life, far removed from the trappings and temptations of money. Ruthless businessman Leonard (Dean Martin) wants to marry her for the simple reason that she’s the only lass in town who doesn’t want to marry him.

Instead she marries financially-challenged Edgar (Dick Van Dyke) who discovers, much to his surprise and her annoyance, that he has a good business brain, enough to drive Leonard into the ground and ignore his new wife, until he drops dead due to the pressures of wealth. Next up is Parisian artist Larry (Paul Newman) whose biggest attraction is his poverty and simple lifestyle. Unfortunately, he could be Dick Van Dyke in disguise having invented a wacky machine that will do all the painting for him. Unfortunately, that makes him rich and leaves Louisa home alone once again until the machines take revenge on their creator.

Billionaire Rod (Robert Mitchum) is so taken with Louisa that he determines to get rid of his fortune only to discover that even when left unattended money just grows. Eventually, he sells up and becomes a happy, if inebriated farmer, but, unfortunately, can’t tell a cow from a bull and ends up dead.

Last up is another impoverished character clown Pinky (Gene Kelly) whose nightclub act is a stinker until he discovers his dancing feet. Once he passes, it’s full circle as Louisa again encounters Leonard, now impoverished and repentant, and marries him and they settle down. There’s a fine twist at the end when wealth once again beckons.

Shirley Maclaine doesn’t have to do a great deal except hold it together and wear a hundred costumes. Robert Mitchum is the pick but Paul Newman (The Hustler, 1961) is to be applauded for sending up so riotously his screen persona. And it could easily have degenerated into a lazy spoof, the actors giving nothing at all. Instead, once it gets going it’s just huge fun.

J. Lee Thompson displays an inventiveness not seen before. This works because it is so indulgent. Written by the team of Betty Comden and Adolph Green (Bells Are Ringing, 1960) from the bestseller by Gwen Davis.

Critics slammed it but audiences lapped it out. I was in both camps. Started out hating it, ended up adoring it.

Entrapment (1999) ****

Hugely enjoyable caper driven by the sleekest and leanest of screenplays from Hollywood screenwriting royalty Ron Bass (Rain Man, 1989) and William Broyles (Apollo 13, 1995). We learn virtually nothing, not even surnames, about principals Mac (Sean Connery) and Gin (Catherine Zeta-Jones) beyond that they are top-notch thieves. So the narrative isn’t weighted down or driven into the barren wastes of left field by alcoholism or any other addiction, and nobody’s lamenting loss, and career girl Gin has little difficulty knocking back the clumsy romantic attempts of nerdy boss Cruz (Will Patton).

There’s a host of tight twists, not least of which is a reversal of The Thomas Crown Affair (1968) in that Gin, while purportedly hunting down the virtually anonymous Mac for a string of high-tech robberies on behalf of an insurance company, is in fact trying to pin the blame on him for thefts she undertook herself. The climax involves three clever twists in quick succession.

*Connery’s face was so well-known that the poster designers could afford to leave half of it out*.

In keeping with the overall leanness, the narrative concentrates on a succession of clever and increasingly more audacious robberies, culminating in a heist on the eve of the Millenium of a cool eight billion bucks from all the banks in the world. As they join forces, Mac becomes the mentor, although Gin has moments of exerting control in the working relationship. Capable of causing trouble in the background are the agitated Cruz, threatening to work out any moment exactly how he is being duped, a dubious fence Conrad (Maury Chaykin), and a muscle man Thibadeaux (Ving Rhames) who may be playing both sides against each other.

After more than three decades, Sean Connery maintained a position in the top echelons of the box office marquee, in part because of the size of his global audience, but mostly because he continuously delivered. Every three years in the 1990s he knocked out a big one. The Hunt for Red October (1990), Rising Sun (1993) and The Rock (1996) easily offset any movies that produced less.

Catherine Zeta-Jones had announced her candidacy for stardom through a scintillating turn as the foil for Antonio Banderas in The Mask of Zorro (1998) and had she taken a more blatant approach to stardom could easily have been a letter-day femme fatale in the style of Lana Turner or Ava Gardner, but her screen persona encompassed considerably greater guile and discretion.

John Wayne, to compensate for any age difference between himself and the target of potential romance, always came over as all shy and diffident in making an approach, ensuring that it was the woman who did all the running so he wasn’t presented as some kind of creepy predator. Here Sean Connery avoids the complications of seduction and a May-December situation by playing the paternal card, covering up Gin’s half-naked sleeping body, tucking her hair behind her ear.

So where the entire middle act of The Thomas Crown Affair revolved around romance and the final act depended on a will she/won’t she scenario, this steers largely clear of such confusion, concentrating instead on the heists, with the background figures creating such distraction as was necessary to heighten the tension. From the opening sequence of a cat burglar abseiling down a skyscraper and removing an entire window to gain access to the final time-dependent heist, it’s a thrilling ride.

As you’ll be aware I’m a huge fan of Sean Connery and of his minimalist style of action. There were two standouts here for me, both blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moments. You’ve seen plenty actors doing extended stretches or walking around or some such physical mugging to show that they’ve been awake for too long worrying over a problem. Connery’s concession to that is merely a clever trick with his eyes. Then there’s a scene where Gin is trying to put the squeeze on him and one look from him shows that she’s going to fail.

Sean Connery and Catherine Zeta-Jones have a screen chemistry that, unfortunately, was never repeated. British director Jon Amiel (Copycat, 1995) sticks to the screenplay, allowing the romance to seep out around the edges.

Top-notch stuff. Not quite in the Topkapi (1964) category but not far off.

Marty Supreme (2025) *** – Seen at the Cinema

I’m sorry to be bursting the bubble of yet another Oscar juggernaut. Once more an outstanding performance just about saves this shaggy dog story, a narrative so rambling if you had dropped King Kong into the plot I wouldn’t have been surprised. It’s a mesh of two narratives that just don’t fit. In the first place we’ve got a Paul Newman (The Hustler, 1961) type of hustler in the shape of the titular Marty (Timothee Chalamet) in yet another “sport” (like American pool in The Hustler, not to be confused with the more widely-accepted snooker or billiards) that’s not been recognized by the powers- that-be as a proper sport.

And then we’ve got a standard 1950s slice-of-life drama where everyone is just mean to each other. Marty knocks up his neighbor’s wife Rachel (Odessa A’zion) and refuses to take responsibility in case it gets in the way of his dreams. Out of spite, his uncle Murray (Larry Sloman) arranges for him to be arrested. For a spot of revenge, millionaire benefactor Milton Rockwell (Kevin O’Leary) forces Marty to bend over a chair and be beaten on the bare backside by a table tennis paddle. Rachel fakes being beaten up by her husband so that Marty will beat him up in return

And that’s before we get into a smorgasboard of bits and pieces that are either rejects from other screenplays or might well have made a small indie picture of their own such as the the bizarre attempt to extract $2,000 ($25,000 in today’s money) from small-time hood Ezra (Abel Ferrara) for his lost dog, this being a gangster who lives in a fleapit hotel, whom Marty first makes acquaintance with when his bath falls through the ceiling on top of Ezra and dog. This particular episode ends, would you believe, in a shootout of the Quentin Tarantino/Tony Scott intensity.

And that’s before we get into exactly how a posh hotel like the Ritz would fall for a cheap New Yorker in a cheap suit and let him run up a bill not far short of $20,000 in today’s money while he seduces former movie star Kay (Gwyneth Paltrow), wife of Milton. And before Marty sets fire to a bunch of table tennis players he has successfully hustled.

Of course, everyone’s against our darling Marty, the powers-that-be don’t allocate him decent accommodation and ban him from a tournament because he failed to get his notification of attendance in on time, the Japanese guy Endo (Koto Kawaguchi) who beats him must be cheating , and he’s forced to earn a crust by competing against a seal. Given he’s so busy biting the hand that feeds him – stealing a necklace from Kay, trying to shaft Milton, refusing to rush to his mother’s hospital bed – it’s a surprise he’s got any time left for actual table tennis.

The sporting action, what little we see of it, works well. Though the director doesn’t see fit to fill us in on the rules – no idea how many points are needed to win or how many games are in a match though to keep us onside someone occasionally calls out “match point”. However, it is athletic stuff, both players racing around the table.

There’s a mawkish ending which I didn’t for a minute believe.

So what we’re left with as with most of the other major Oscar contenders is a picture’s that’s run away with itself (150 minutes, anyone?) redeemed by a fabulous performance. This is truly one of the all-time greatest performances. In any other world Marty would be a low-life who never got anywhere or perhaps given his line in salesmanship ended up a conman, but here he finds redemption in table tennis.

It’s a testament to Timothee Chalamet (A Complete Unknown, 2024) that we invest so much in this thoroughly unlikeable character and go with the actor all the way. Gwyneth Paltrow (Avengers: Endgame, 2019) is the best of the rest who mostly seem as if they are stock characters from an early Scorsese picture.

But it’s a testament to the lack of studio management that is bankrupting Hollywood that nobody is able to rein in the narrative excesses of director Josh Safdie (Uncut Gems, 2019). Written by the director and producer Ronald Bronstein (Uncut Gems) – never a good idea to leave control of a screenplay in the hands of the screenwriter.

Another great performance in a mess of a narrative.

The Housemaid (2025) **** – Seen at the Cinema (Three Times)

An absolute cracker, two blistering performances, tons of twists, and set to become the word of mouth hit of the year. Clever piece of counter-programming though nobody was foolish enough as I was to market it as an “AvataMaid” double bill and just as well because it would blow the overlong and rather tepid James Cameron epic out of the water.

This didn’t come trailing a whole bunch of accolades from a film festival and print critics have generally been snooty about it because they don’t know what the public really wants. Nobody thought to sell it as a woman’s picture either, but I saw this (three times now) in a packed theater on a Monday night and the crowd, mostly women, just lapped it up. Not because it was a hot romance or said something pious about motherhood or women’s issues but because, without giving away too much of the plot, it featured two tough cookies, almost a modern Thelma and Louise, who weren’t going to take it anymore.

Nobody is what they seem. And the plot slithers from under you. I had no idea what this was about apart from the fact that the book was a bestseller. So I came in expecting the usual kind of story – new housemaid Millie (Sydney Sweeney) infiltrates millionaire’s household, dupes the loving mother Nina (Amanda Seyfried), seduces husband Andrew (Brandon Sklenar) and between them the lovers find a way of offing the wife and getting away with it.

I couldn’t have been more wrong. Nina, who seems initially a great employer (giving Millie $20 at the job interview to cover her time), turns out to be anything but. The house is a complete mess, she blames Millie for anything that goes wrong, seems on the edge of a constant nervous breakdown, and eventually sets her up to be arrested. And there’s no bonding with her daughter Cece (Indiana Elle), the most stuck-up obnoxious brat.

On the other hand not only is Andrew goddam handsome with a fabulous smile, he’s a saint to put up with his wife. Turns out she spent nine months in a psych ward after trying to drown her daughter in the bath. And that means should they split up, she’ll likely lose custody, and thanks to the ruthless prenup, will be penniless, and mad though she is who’d want to give up a millionaire lifestyle.

Turns out there’s a reason why Millie is so sweet and never stands up to her employer. She’s on parole and her parole conditions mean she needs a job and an address. To lighten her load, Andrew takes her side against the worst his wife can throw at Millie. Unwittingly, Nina is the architect of her own downfall, and it’s no wonder Andrew and Millie end up in bed and in love.

That’s not a twist, that’s what the audience was led to believe was going to happen. Twist Number One is Nina’s reveal is that Millie is serving a 15-year stretch for murder, still a third to go while out on parole. Twist Number Two isn’t that Nina also knows about the affair or even that as a result of another exceedingly malicious act by his wife that Andrew throws Nina out.

Twist Number Two is the best twist since The Sixth Sense (1999). Initially, it looks as if Nina is distraught with grief at losing her cushy number. But that quickly turns to being hysterical with relief at being freed of Andrew’s grip.

Why she would want to be free and what kind of trap Millie is walking into forms the second half of the picture and that’s a helluva ride, twist piling on twist, a combination of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and Jane Eyre (madwoman in the attic).

If we’ve had too much torture porn over the last couple of decades courtesy of Saw and its imitators, this raises the art to a new level. This is torture of the most subtle kind, at least initially, with one woman having to pull two hundred strands of hair (complete with follicles) out of her head.

But the best twist in this smorgasboard of twists is that it’s not Millie who’s walking into a trap, but Andrew. Millie was hired because she beat a man to death and Nina reckons she’ll be more than a match for her husband. I’m tempted to reveal more just for the pleasure on the clever tale, but I’ll let it go at that. And, as you have come to expect with this type of thriller, there’s a stinger in the tale. Here, there are two.

Sydney Sweeney (Eden, 2024) and Amanda Seyfried (Seven Veils, 2023) are both superb, and you have to take your hat off to Brandon Sklenar (It Ends With Us, 2024) for his transformation from saint to devil.

Neatly directed by Paul Feig (Another Simple Favour, 2025) and he does well to control the balance although obviously following the template laid down by screenwriter Rebecca Sonnenshine (Archive 81 TV series, 2022) adapting the Freida McFadden novel.

A welcome return to what Hollywood does best, beginning with a stellar story and then adding actors who can bring something to it, rather than the other way round, which usually results in a rambling tale only elevated by performance which is distinctly unsatisfying.

It says something for the quality of a thriller than even knowing all the plot points I was delighted to go back for a second look – and a third – and came away even more impressed at the way the pieces locked together.

Box Office Update: The Housemaid which cost only $30 million is already into hefty profit with $122 million worldwide compared to critical fave Marty Supreme (costing $90 million) which has attracted only $66 million worldwide so far. In Britain going head-to-heead with Marty Supreme, The Housemaid has double the gross of the Chalamet number.

Plus it’s been so successful there are plans for a sequel.

Ship of Fools (1965) ****

Too easily dismissed as soap opera masquerading as a movie making a serious point, this is redeemed and, in some respects, elevated by the performances. If anything, the two political aspects are underdone. The heavy air that hangs over proceedings given the German passengers are heading back to Nazi Germany at the start of Hitler’s reign in 1933 with no idea of the outcome is only there in the audience’s mind. That the racism is underplayed is in part due to the fact that those victimized, a Jew and a disabled man, refuse to act as victims and indeed bond.

The other political aspect, of Spaniards being deported from Cuba for economic reasons, would have more resonance today. But they, too, are heading for consequence and the Spanish Civil War which would break out a few years later. Director Stanley Kramer was noted, indeed often ridiculed, for tackling weighty subjects in movies like The Defiant Ones (1958), On the Beach (1959), Judgement at Nuremberg (1961) and Inherit the Wind (1961). That was tempered somewhat when he went off-piste for It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963) and although that’s generally remembered for its hilarity what’s often overlooked is the director’s dexterity in handling a busload of characters and narratives, his pacing and his understanding of character.

Deduct the comedy and you have a similar approach here, the meshing of various narrative arcs while allowing character to flourish so the general smorgasbord of, if I’m allowed such an obvious notion, ships passing in the night is what gives this more heft. And the fact that the audiences knows more than the characters about what the future holds permits the director just to concentrate of character interaction.

Unusually, for a historical movie of the period, it’s the females who dominate and have the best storylines. The ship is so full that upscale single passengers who might otherwise have the choice of dining alone are thrown together thus divorcee Mary Treadwell (Vivien Leigh) shares a table with former baseball player Bill Tenny (Lee Marvin).

Their paths unexpectedly cross in unusual fashion. Both are seeking love, though in reality Tenny is happy to settle – and pay for – sex. Mary finds Captain Thiele (Charles Korvin) ignoring her subtle advances while in turn she dismisses the lieutenant. When a drunken Tenny without warning bursts into her cabin, she responds with ardor until she realizes he thinks she’s a prostitute.

La Condesa (Simone Signoret) is a civil rights activist who finds a fellow traveler in Dr Schumann (Oskar Werner). Although, initially, she mines him to feed her opiate addiction, it’s soon apparent they are falling in love, although that doesn’t end well. Not much ends well in the romance department, Jenny (Elizabeth Ashley), while initially supportive of artist David (George Segal), soon realizes that his art will take dominance in their relationship.

The older Rieber (Jose Ferrer), with the most pronounced Nazi sympathies, has taken up with younger blonde Lizzi (Christiane Schmidtmer), among whose physical attractions is that she’s a great table tennis player, until she discovers he’s married.

Flamenco dancer Elsa (Gila Golan) is pimped out by her father Pepe (Jose Greco). Social exclusion leads Jew Lowenthal to bond with Glocken who suffers from dwarfism and when German World War One hero Freytag is forced to join them that permits most of the discussion about the state of Germany.

Otherwise, the fact that a mastiff is permitted to sit at table is more to do with aristocratic entitlement than any other social condition.

For once, Kramer is more interested in character than scoring points. So what might have been heavy going turns into an acting class. To accommodate its portfolio of ageing superstars Hollywood had returned to the subgenre of movies about ageing beauties. Double Oscar-winner Vivien Leigh’s previous outing The Roman Spring of Mr Stone (1961) belonged in that category but this latest reincarnation was a class above, a truly tender examination of loss. However, it was Simone Signoret (The Deadly Affair, 1967) who was Oscar nominated.

Michael Dunn (Justine, 1969) and Oskar Werner (Interlude, 1968) were nominated and while Lee Marvin (Point Blank, 1967) and George Segal (The Bridge at Remagen, 1968) were overlooked the latter two clearly scored points judging by their future acceptance in the Hollywood hierarchy, Marvin in particular alerting the industry to untapped talent, a point made more emphatically in his next picture Cat Ballou for which he won Best Actor. Ship of Fools missed out to The Sound of Music for Best Film. Nominated for eight awards it picked up two, ernest Laszlo for Cinematogrpahy and Robert clatworthy and Joseph Kish foir Art Direction

You might also spot Alf Kjellin (Ice Station Zebra, 1968), Barbara Luna (Firecreek, 1968) and Gila Golan (The Valley of Gwangi, 1969).

Even without the political overhang, this holds together as Grand Hotel on the high seas with Stanley Kramer in his element employing compelling characters to flesh out an interesting narrative. Written by Abby Mann (Judgement at Nuremberg) from the Katherine Anne Porter bestseller.

While the politics add a contemporary veneer, watch it for the acting.

Alfred the Great (1969) ****

The Prince Who Wanted To Be A Priest. The King Who Didn’t Want To Fight. The Husband Who Raped His Wife.

Not exactly taglines in the grand tradition of Gladiator (1999), but a succinct analysis of a Film That Wanted To Be A Roadshow. This is almost an anti-epic, a down-n-dirty historical movie far removed from El Cid (1961), Lawrence of Arabia (1962) and The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964). And one element that has to be taken into consideration when making a historical picture set in Britain in AD 871, if you are aiming for realism, is the rain. The battles in the three movies mentioned, as with virtually every historical movie of the decade, took place in bright sunshine on hard ground, not in the rain on mud-soaked fields. Director Clive Donner lacks the genius of an Akira Kurosawa who turned rain into a glorious image in Seven Samurai (1954) or even Ridley Scott whose first battle in Gladiator took place in a snowstorm. But he does make a battleground reflect the grim reality.

Alfred (David Hemmings) was fifth in line to the throne – and just to a small region of England called Wessex – and as was common practice all set, quite happily, for a career in the priesthood. So it was not surprising, envisioning religion as a mark of civilization, and the priesthood guaranteeing an education, that he was loathe to become a warrior just because his brother King Ethelred (Alan Dobie) was a useless leader. The price of taking on the warrior’s mantle and, after his brother’s death, of ascending to the throne is that Alfred must not only cast away his priestly ambition but his chastity in order to get married to unify rival kingdoms and produce an heir. So there’s a good deal of the religious quandary of El Cid and the sexual ambivalence of Lawrence of Arabia.

So repelled by what he is forced to do, that on his wedding night Alfred rapes new wife Aelhswith (Prunella Ransome) and when the marauding Vikings win a decisive battle and the price of peace is the wife taken in hostage Alfred offers no great protestation. So Alfred is hardly an appealing character. His wife hates him so much that she conceals her pregnancy from him. If you were an Englishman you might well prefer the straightforward lustful Viking leader Guthrun (Michael York) whose men are not restrained by Christianity – “it’s a strange religion,” he mulls, “ that wars with everything your flesh and your blood cries out for” – who makes a better fist of wooing Aelswith, whom he could as easily rape, than Alfred.

Eventually, of course, Alfred gets it together, rallies a bunch of outlaws and steals back wife and son (now four years old). However, there is no romantic reunion. Instead, he plans to imprison her for life, “the whore shall rot in silence.” Nonetheless, Alfred has acquired some tactical skills, adopting the old Roman infantry tactic of forming his troops up in a phalanx behind a wall of shields. His battlefield address is to promise ordinary people a set of laws that will give them equality with the wealthy and powerful.

Given there are no castles and this is indeed the Dark Ages as far as costume and interior design is concerned and that therefore the camera cannot, for respite, be turned onto some glorious image, Clive Donner (Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush, 1968) concentrates on character rather than scenery. There are a couple of inspired touches. For a start, in permitting various characters to offer prayers to God, he introduces a number of soliloquies which take us to the heart of troubled souls, and then he does a clever split-screen number to effect a transition. You can’t blame him for British weather and the battles are well-staged. He does show the courage of his convictions in making the film concentrate on conflicted character rather than going along the easier heroic route of underdog rallying people to a cause.

David Hemmings (Blow-Up, 1966) is both the film’s strength and weakness. He is excellent at capturing the torment, the soul divided, and the inherent arrogance as well as the preference for peace instead of war. But in terms of his leadership skills he is on a par with Orlando Bloom in Kingdom of Heaven (2005). That part was originally intended for Russell Crowe and Peter O’Toole was first choice for Alfred and you can’t help thinking both would have been a substantial improvement. On the other hand, Alfred was just 22 when he became king and for someone intent on the priesthood there would be no need for him to develop his physique or political skills. So this is a far cry from your typical Hollywood hero and in that regard the casting makes perfect sense and Hemmings a bold actor to take on such an unlikeable character.

Prunella Ransome (Man in the Wilderness, 1971) does well in her first leading role, suggesting both vulnerability and independence and while virtually imprisoned by both Alfred and Guthrun remaining principled. Michael York (Justine, 1969) was a definite rising star at this point and plays the Viking with considerably more gusto than his tendency towards passive characters would suggest.

There’s virtually a legion of excellent supporting players in Colin Blakely (The Vengeance of She, 1968), Alan Dobie (The Comedy Man, 1964), Ian McKellen (Lords of the Rings and X-Men), Peter Vaughan (A Twist of Sand, 1968), Vivien Merchant (Accident, 1967), Barry Evans (Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush, 1968), Sinead Cusack (Hoffman, 1970), Christopher Timothy (All Creatures Great and Small, 1978-1990) and Robin Askwith (Confessions of a Window Cleaner, 1974).

Oscar-winner James R. Webb (How the West Was Won, 1963) was an improbable name to be attached to a British screenplay. But this was a pet project he had been trying to get made since 1964. Ken Taylor (Web of Evidence, 1959) was brought in to lend a hand.

Not being a student of English history but familiar with the ways of the movie business, I am sure the picture has many historical inaccuracies, but it does present one of the most complex individuals ever to feature in a historical film of the period, when audiences preferred their heroes more black-and-white. So it is a significant achievement in the canon.

The Reptile (1966) ***

If there is such a thing, qualifies as the thinking person’s Hammer horror picture. More atmospheric than usual, creepy rather than shocking, and with greater emphasis on psychology and loss than you’d expect to find in a Hammer film. No recognizable stars either so something of a risk for the studio. The low-budget probably accounts for the fact it was made to play the supporting feature of a horror bill.

That’s what makes it so interesting. It’s crammed full of character actors getting to play interesting people and it puts the main good guy on the bench as we approach the climax appointing the female lead as substitute in the most perilous segment of the investigation into strange goings-on in the old (but not dark) house.

CGI would have made this instantly more potent and while the special effects are acceptable for the time period, the characterization and the dilemmas posed relieve the picture of having to rely on shocks for impact.

Even these days studios would find it hard to greenlight a movie where the focus is on a parent shielding a serial killer. But that’s effectively what’s happening here.

Dr Franklyn (Noel Willman), the big house resident, is trying to keep safe his cursed daughter Anna (Jacqueline Pearce) who has been knocking off villagers at a heck of a rate. Anyone she attacks foams at the mouth and turns a nasty colour so the villagers are more likely to blame a disease or some kind of ghostly apparition, though obvious suspects like werewolves or vampires don’t come into consideration and a lurking Malay servant (Marne Maitland) doesn’t set alarm bells ringing.

Newly-weds Harry Spalding (Ray Barrett) and wife Valerie (Jennifer Daniel) have inherited the cottage next door to the big house from his brother, the latest victim of the phantom killer. As was standard for Victorian villages, strangers are treated with suspicion, and it’s left to local landlord (Michael Ripper) and local lunatic Peter (John Laurie) to scare the wits out of the new arrivals with tales of multiple deaths.

Franklyn appears a congenial enough gent though he’s apt to be sharp with his daughter, taking serious offence at her playing the sitar. Harry takes on the burden of sniffing around until he’s put out of action by the phantom. Since he’s not dead and therefore not instantly buried, there’s time to check out his body and that’s when marks are discovered in his neck. Normally, that would point to the presence of a vampire, but I guess since vampires weren’t popularized until much later in the century, there’s no reason to go down that route of investigation.

Instead of sitting around like a homebody as Victorian wives were meant to do, Valerie takes over the investigation and it’s she who discovers that the doctor’s cursed daughter periodically turns into a snake. Not only is Franklyn averse to handing his daughter over to the authorities, he’s made her a cosy nest in the warm cellar. Still, he’s wracked by guilt. Audiences these days would be more aware that his snippiness to his daughter covers up the burden of his love. Proof more that he’s coming apart.

The billing gives it away. While the narrative ostensibly revolves around Harry and his wife caught in a web, it’s actually a bold decision to put the emotional onus on Franklyn. It’s a great study, especially for a horror film, of parental anguish. Anna, clearly aware of the discrepancies in her character, also shows unexpected depths.

Australian Ray Barrett was a television stalwart, taking time out from The Troubleshooters (1965-1971) and as the voice of the leading puppet in Stingray (1964-1965). Jennifer Daniel had been terrorized by Noel Willman in Kiss of the Vampire (1963). Jacqueline Pearce (The Plague of the Zombies, 1966) adds good touches.

Director John Gilling (Plague of the Zombies) doesn’t fall into the shocker trap which posits the picture, written by John Elder (Dracula, Prince of Darkness, 1966), as one of the more interesting in the Hammer portfolio.

Worth a look.