movie review – The Magnificent 60s

A Matter of Innocence / Pretty Polly (1967) ***

Dramatically undernourished coming-of-age tale over-reliant on “authentic” travelogue and continuing the transformation of Hayley Mills from child to adult star, although that change had been clearly wrought by her previous outing in The Family Way (1966) which had contained her first nude scene. While there’s definitely way more sex here it’s all off-screen.

In Singapore, family black sheep Robert (Trevor Howard) tries to stifle romance blossoming between his ugly duckling niece Polly (Hayley Mill) and local king of the fixers Amaz (Shashi Kapoor), to quote from list of the clichés the screenplay happily summons up. Polly is the bespectacled, dowdy, shy travelling companion to snippy aunt (Brenda de Banzie) – Robert’s sister not wife – who resides in a magnificent suite in Raffles Hotel, consigning her niece to a hovel of a room. When said aunt drops dead in the swimming pool, Polly, wasting no time on mourning, is free to turn butterfly, channeling her inner Brigitte Bardot with bouffant hairstyle and tight red dress.

The genial Amaz is on hand as a guide, in sexual matters as well as tourist, until huffing-and-puffing plantation manager Robert threatens to intervene and smarmy American Critch (Peter Bayliss) attempts to sweep her off her feet. And that’s about it, plot-wise. The meandering story provides insights into different aspects of local culture – Whicker’s World was the only globe-trotting television series available at the time so all this would probably have entranced moviegoers rather than, as now, bored them to death.

Perhaps what’s most interesting is what’s left unsaid or never dwelt upon, of the posh English girl having sex with a native of Singapore. In previous movies – Bhowani Junction et al – miscegenation would have been the sole plot point with Brits up in arms at the suggestion of it. Here, the only objection to Amaz is that he’s a bit of a Casanova, practised seducer in the main of older women. While Amaz falls in love, Polly is considerably more objective, viewing their relationship in terms of rite-of-passage, rather an un-British approach, more in keeping with the attitudes those bold females exhibited in pictures like The Group (1966).

Polly is a pretty cool-headed kid, with a good head for booze, not staggering in gutters or throwing up after imbibing too much, alert to the intentions of Critch and more than capable of putting her uncle in his place. Despite her delight at enjoying sex Polly is more independent than you might imagine and the film’s actually a character study of a woman refusing to be defined – or trapped – by love and its obvious consequence marriage and viewing this new freedom as merely the starting point of her life.

For Hayley Mills fans, of course, her career divides sharply into Disney and post-Disney. Few child stars ever manage to take the first steps to an adult career never mind sustain one, but the actress made a good stab at throwing off her previous precocious screen persona by taking on challenging roles that perhaps upset her core followers. But the film would have benefitted from a better storyline and minus the distracting tourist elements been a lot tighter.

The career of Trevor Howard, long-time second male lead, was on a bit of an upswing after sterling roles in Von Ryan’s Express (1965) and The Long Duel (1967) and although he remained the scowler supreme he brings more vulnerability to this role. Bollywood heartthrob Shashi Kapoor had come to prominence as far as the English-speaking countries were concerned through arthouse director James Ivory’s The Householder (1963) and Shakespeare-Wallah (1966) but this was his mainstream debut. He certainly has a screen presence and enjoys the best character arc, going from the cynicism of sex to the innocence of love. I’m sure the title is intended to refer to Polly but she is innocent, in screen shorthand terms, for about two seconds. Pretty Polly, the title of the short story on which the film is based, was not usable in certain countries because the name was the trademark of a popular brand of hosiery.

This was the final film of Brenda de Banzie (The Man Who Knew Too Much, 1956) and the second for British television stalwart Patricia Routledge (Keeping Up Appearances, 1990-1995), while for Chinese star Kalen Liu (Welcome to Hard Times, 1967) it was both her second and last picture.

This was perhaps an odd choice for director Guy Green (A Patch of Blue, 1965) but he was mired in the on-again off-again saga of proposed MGM roadshow epic Forty Days of Musa Dagh and compared to those travails this may have been welcome light relief. Keith Waterhouse and Willis Hall (Lock Up Your Daughters, 1969) developed the screenplay from Noel Coward’s short story.

The Blood of Fu Manchu / Kiss & Kill (1968) **

Three stories in one, except only one tale remotely holds our interest. So what compelled producer Harry Alan Towers and director Jess Franco to sideline the titular character and devote more time to a young explorer Carl Janseon (Gotz George) and bandit Sancho Lopez (Ricardo Palacios). You could probably guess that the physical involvement of Fu Manchu (Christopher Lee) would be in any case limited once you grasped the crux of the narrative which saw ten girls sent out into the big wide world to kill his ten most hated enemies. You’ll probably be surprised to learn that he had only ten major enemies, but since one of them is his old nemesis Nayland Smith (Richard Greene), then you can be sure that that aspect is going to suck up a good deal of what time remains after the subplots concerning the explorer and the bandit.

Which is a shame because neither explorer not bandit employ the kid of evil little grey cells that would allow them to come up with a plot that any of the James Bond villains would be proud of in their bids for global domination. Fu Manchu has located an ancient poison which is transmitted by women in the form of a kiss. It originates in certain snakes and although the women are “kissed” by the snakes, they are apparently impervious to its venom, so the first gender-specific poison in history.

And that’s about it. As usual Towers has rounded up a bevy of young beauties, no doubt sold on the idea that he’s going to turn them into the next big female star, as carriers of the deadly poison. Not all are so keen on the idea, but since he’s got them chained by the neck in a Brazilian cave that passes for his stronghold and with his daughter Lin Tang (Tsai Chin) to threaten them with torture, it’s not surprising they are complicit.

In any case the female assassins are one-trick ponies. The minute they accomplish their deed, they are bumped off. Smith is the first victim (apart from a prisoner selected to demonstrate the efficacy of the poison) but he doesn’t die immediately. Instead he is struck blind, although he is aware he hasn’t got long to live unless an antidote can be found.

Naturally, that puts him on the track of Fu Manchu and, of course, into sudden danger. The Fu Manchu-Nayland Smith had proved a decent cinematic tug-of-war for three previous episodes beginning with The Face of Fu Manchu (1965), so it was somewhat surprising that tension was diminished by spending so much time playing up explorer and bandit, especially as the latter is determined to play out all the cliches, including laughing like a hyena.

There is some occasional visual humor such as when the bandits go on the rampage and the crew emerge from bandits bearing such prizes as a bishop’s mitre and when a governor, having imprisoned Jansen, suggests they while away their time with a game of chess.

It’s odd that part of the disappointment for certain viewers in this opus is the lack of trademark Jess Franco sleaze. There’s barely any nudity and although the girls are kept in prison (until released to wreak havoc) there’s none of the tawdriness of WIP epics such as his 99 Women (1969) which is replete with brutality and sex.

Despite the cultural appropriation, Christopher Lee (The Devil Rides Out, 1968) is, as ever, solid as Fu Manchu, speaking in clipped tones and towering over everyone else, though his main role appears to be to deliver exposition, explain the foul plot and its consequences and so on. It’s left up to Tsai Chin (You Only Live Twice, 1967) to carry the sadism.

Richard Greene (Sword of Sherwood Forest, 1960) does his best in a role of declining returns. You might spot among the cast Towers’ wife Maria Rohm (Five Golden Dragons, 1967) and Shirley Eaton (The Girl from Rio, 1969).

Of the women expecting a major career break, Loni von Friedl had scores of parts including Doppelganger/Journey to the Far Side of the Sun (1969). But Frances Khan only enjoyed three more roles and or Isaura de Olivera this was the beginning and end of her movie career.

Written as usual by Peter Welbeck (Five Golden Dragons) – aka Harry Alan Towers – and Franco based on the novels of Sax Rohmer.

Promising idea ruined.

The Bramble Bush (1960) ***

The secrecy business was working overtime in small-town America according to the Peyton Place template. And that wouldn’t be so bad here except returning big city doctor Guy (Richard Burton) has a few of his own in the locker but more importantly the unfolding of so many secrets detracts from the time available for the main dramatic premise which is an absolute corker.

We might as well account straight-off with the secret Guy drags around behind him like a two-ton weight thus explaining his general surliness, tight-lipped demeanor and occasional flashes of temper. As a twelve-year-old he told his father he had caught his mother in bed lover with Stew (James Dunn) which prompted his dad to chuck himself off a cliff.

The other big secret, dealt with fairly promptly, is that local nurse Fran (Angie Dickinson), who held a torch for Guy, now makes do with district attorney Bert (Jack Carson), that clandestine affair coming to light not so much in flagrante but in full beam when the illicit couple require treatment following a fire in a hotel bedroom.

The unravelling of both secrets impacts on Guy’s emotional state. The fire leads to Fran admitting her feelings to Guy, happy to have him use her for sex if love is not possible, “I love you so much I have no shame,” she proclaims, to no avail, but the hotel business also makes her fall prey to blackmail by local newshound Parker (Henry Jones), a budding amateur photographer of the unsavoury kind. Recounting his personal tragedy results in a Guy having a one-night stand with the married wannabe artist Margaret McFie (Barbara Rush).

But here’s the brilliant twist. Margaret’s husband Larry (Tom Drake) wants her to end up with Guy – but after his death. Larry, Guy’s best friend from childhood, is dying, the doctor scuttling back to a town that harbours too many bad memories in order to act as his personal physician. Larry’s never going to recover, he has the incurable illness Hodgkin’s Disease. His dying wish is that Guy marry Margaret.

Margaret is revolted by the idea, “I don’t want to be beautiful for anyone but Larry,” but unable to cope with his with illness is living on a cocktail of drink and drugs. And although Guy, who distrusts any woman, is similarly ill-inclined, Margaret becomes dependent on his medical ability, treating both husband and wife. Larry turns out to have another crazy idea – he wants Guy to kill him, medically speaking of course, some extra, illegal, doses of morphine would do the trick.

This incredible bucket list provides Guy with a huge dilemma, never mind what to do with Fran throwing herself at him and having to put up with the hypocritical Bert, and Stew, now the town drunk, begging for forgiveness, and Larry’s father Sam (Carl Benton Reid), who, for reasons unspecified, hates the doctor.

There’s more twists to come, just in case you thought you had everything worked out. But you can see the problem over-complication creates. The euthanasia-please-have-sex-with-my-beautiful wife combination would have set the movie up nicely from the get-go. Guy wouldn’t need to have a deep secret to find himself in very deep waters. How he would react to either or both outcomes, how Margaret would equally react to the possibility of ending her husband’s suffering in a quick and painless manner, would be more than enough to provide the dynamic the picture required. The movie then pivots on Guy being charged with murder.

It’s certainly interesting enough but Guy is too buttoned-down to incur sympathy and his revelation, devastating though it is, doesn’t suddenly make him an instantly more attractive screen character. In fact, it’s Fran who elicits the greater sympathy, the woman bedding someone who views her only as a sex object, yet willing to become a sex object for someone she does love if that’s all she can have. Eventually, the two key issues are put in the spotlight, which certainly puts a spark in the picture. But the poster promises a passion that just doesn’t exist.

Richard Burton (The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, 1965) plays this character in a lower register than his screen persona, the sonorous voice toned down, and although the look of someone who doesn’t want to be back rings true the performance lacks variety and there are only occasional glimpses of the fiery actor. Barbara Rush (Robin and the 7 Hoods, 1964) has her own legitimate reasons for being dispassionate and the vibrant character her husband married never really gets an airing. Angie Dickinson (Jessica, 1962) comes across as a more human character with, in emotional terms, a greater flaw, and a more tragic figure, even though there is nothing life-or-death about her circumstances. Two veterans are showcased: Jack Carson (Mildred Pierce, 1945) and James Dunn (Bad Girl, 1931).

Television director Daniel Petrie (A Raisin in the Sun, 1961) was making his movie debut. The screenwriting team of Milton Sperling and Philip Yordan (Battle of the Bulge, 1965) drew on the bestselling novel by Charles Mergendahl.

Hard to find DVD so Ebay is the best source.

The Blood Beast Terror (1968) ***

As the title suggests there’s a vampiric element, and there’s not a great deal unusual in that, Hammer having successfully revived interest in bloodsuckers. What is unusual, however, and a couple of years before that studio’s The Vampire Lovers (1970) is the idea of female empowerment. Previously, the sole purpose of a damsel in a horror picture was to lay bare a convenient bosom for a passing thirsty creature, or, have their clothing disarrayed and let out a scream when a monster pounced.

The twist here is that the vampire is a woman, Clare (Wanda Ventham), and men who are the victims except on the occasions when her father Dr Mallinger (Robert Flemyng) hypnotizes young women in order to give the creature a blood transplant. The beast exists as a creature and then morphs into Clare. For a time it looks as if Clare is merely possessed, but in reality appears much more as if she is enjoying being the beast, abandoning the enforced respectability of the times, luring men into the forest to have her rapacious way with them, the men naturally thinking they are in for a romantic tryst rather than being targeted by a predator.

*Continuing the theme of misleading the audience, this poster cleverly suggests that it’s a man who is the beast and the woman who are the victims.*

There’s a wonderful scene that gives an insight into her mindset. Her friends put on a little play. Her role is the monster, a part she seizes with relish.

It’s one of those films you have to work out backward. In standard horror fashion it leaves the twist till close to the end and it would have been far more interesting if we had discovered at the outset that Clare was the beast, leading the men for the most part a merry dance, outwitting Inspector Quennell (Peter Cushing) and her adoring father Dr. Mallinger (Robert Flemyng).

The inspector, faced with a growing pile of corpses drained of blood, is baffled throughout, no Sherlock Holmes clever deductions here, and it naturally would not occur to any of the males, beyond Dr Mallinger who is in on the secret, to imagine a woman capable of not just committing such crimes but of exerting such power over a man. The story glosses over the genetics, it’s a version of Frankenstein obviously, but the background to it is missing, and I can see why. There has to be some mystery.

Hitchcock could not have done a better job of misleading the audience. For a start the story is told entirely through the male perspective. And it’s set up as a murder mystery, Quennell our lead as he dances from one corpse to the other, helped along in his information accumulation by lugubrious mortuary attendant (Roy Hudd), who is, ironically, as hungry as the beast, but for normal food rather than blood, always seen devouring something. Mallinger is not a mad professor either, but a distinguished one, celebrated in his field, giving lectures and attracting proteges like Britewell (William Wilde).

*Initial British release double bill cleverly bringing together Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee –*
*though in separate pictures*.

Although his daughter acts as laboratory assistant, Mallinger is hardly aware that his daughter is sizing up every male visitor as a potential victim.

The posters give away that the creature is a giant moth, and by and large the special effects (no CGI available of course) pull this off, the creature usually just glimpsed or seen from the distance, and the possibility that Mallinger is aware of what he is harbouring apparent when he enters a cellar wearing a leather hood and carrying a whip.

Tony Tenser’s production company Tygon has acquired cult status, in part for having the temerity to take on British horror giant Hammer at the height of its powers in the 1960s, and in part from the distinction of its output, making such films as The Sorcerers (1967) with Boris Karloff, Peter Cushing as Witchfinder General (1968) and Karloff, Christopher Lee and Barbara Steele in The Crimson Cult/ The Curse of the Crimson Altar (1968). Tenser ploughed a different furrow to Hammer at a time when that studio was also expanding into bigger-budgeted movies such as One Million Years B.C. (1966).

Capably not to say cleverly director by veteran Vernon Sewell (The Crimson Cult) it is miles ahead of its time and generally delivers the goods. Peter Cushing (The Skull, 1965) is excellent as usual, Robert Flemyng (The Deadly Affair, 1967) proves a more interesting scientist than usual, steering clear of any craziness.

Wanda Ventham in her first leading role provides a fascinating character study, but you have to work backwards as I said, to realize just how good she is, the way she has, for Victorian times, her father under her thumb, and the seductive glances she casts at men, not to mention the ease with which she assists her father in his diabolical experiments without him realizing why she is so enamored. Female monsters had evolved from creatures before – in Cat People (1942), Snake Woman (1961) and Hammer’s The Reptile (1966) – but this was a more rapacious example of the species. Vanessa Howard (Some Girls Do, 1969) has a small role and you can spot Scottish character actor Glynn Edwards (Zulu, 1963) and television comedian Roy Hudd in his movie debut.

Screenwriter Peter Bryan (The Brides of Dracula, 1960), something of an expert in the horror field, turns the whole genre on its head with the gender politics examined here.

Last Summer (1969) ****

Given the severity of the crime involved, you leave Frank Perry’s coming-of-age-drama wondering what happened to the four principals. Did the aggressive three young demi-gods of a golden age go on to pursue similar acts of cruelty? While one of them might show remorse, or at least suffer from guilt, of the other two I have my doubts. They would find ways to blame the injured party. And what about the victim? Would she have the courage to report the crime, or suffer in shame for decades.

It’s odd how time changes entirely the shape of a movie. In its day this was seen as a bold exposition of frank adventure by teenagers seeking their first experiences of growing up and experimenting with sex and drugs (pilfered from a parental stash). Although there is little focus on dysfunctionality, both Sandy (Barbara Hershey) and Rhoda (Cathy Burns) are missing a parent, the former’s father running off with another woman, the latter’s mother drowned by stupid misadventure. Both have been abused, unable to prevent the wandering hands of males. All are vulnerable, if only by youth.

Of the boys, Dan (Bruce Davison) is the more confident, Peter (Richard Thomas), while easily swayed, the gentler of the two. Dan merely seeks his first taste of sex, Peter the more likely to need love as well. Sandy is sexually precocious, somewhat on the exhibitionist side, peeling off her bikini top with apparently at times no idea of the effect it will have on the boys, at other times clearly uncomfortable with the notion that the guys might have nothing else on their minds but staring at her breasts. But she is the one who wants to continue watching a gay couple cavorting on the beach while Dan is embarrassed. Sometimes the frank sexuality is rite-of-passage stuff, other times it is distinctly creepy. In the cinema both men grope her breasts. She claims to have been excited by the experience, but you can’t help thinking at least one of the men should have shown restraint, not treating her as if she was some kind of sex toy.

The movie begins on a clearer note. The guys come across Sandy nursing a wounded gull and perhaps entranced by her good looks help her remove a hook from the bird’s throat, provide convalescence and eventually help the bird recover the confidence to fly again. It’s a cosy trio, but edgy, too, Sandy allowing them considerable latitude. But, of course, the guys do the same to her. When she bludgeons the bird to death because it bit her (“the ungrateful bastard”), the pair, initially shocked, are not shocked enough to reject her, afflicted by unassailable male logic, the kind that drove film noir, that maintained a beautiful woman could not have a black heart.

Separated from the other two, Peter displays a gentler side, teaching the shy Rhoda to swim, kissing her in far more considerate fashion than the boys treat Sandy. But, effectively, she is a pet, and it’s only a matter of time before the unsavory aspect of Sandy’s character breaks out. After setting Rhoda up on a date, the trio do everything they can to spoil it, angry at the poor girl for not getting the “joke.”

Worse is to follow. Date-rape we’d call it today. Retreating to the cool forest, Sandy taunts Rhoda by removing her bikini top. When the horrified Rhoda refuses to do the same, Sandy attacks her, holding her down along with Peter while Dan rapes her. That’s where the film ends, no consequences, no repercussion. Back in the day it was a shock ending, an act of violence to mar an otherwise relatively innocent summer. After the deed is done, the camera pulls back into an aerial shot to observe the guilty trio walking back to the beach, but without drawing conclusion or offering moral judgement. It’s hard to know what to make of the ending. These days, of course, we’d be appalled. But back then it didn’t appear to appall, certainly not drawing the outrage that accompanied similar scenes in The Straw Dogs (1971) or A Clockwork Orange (1971) perhaps because the perpetrators were so attractive and it was, after all, a coming-of-age picture, as if such things could be expected.

Roger Ebert, writing in the Chicago Sun-Times, for example, judged that the conclusion “is not really important to the greatness of the movie.” Andrew Sarris of Village Voice noted that “Perry retreats from the carnal carnage” to end with a shot that “prefers symbolic evocation to psychological exploration.” In other words adolescence is fraught with risk and Rhoda is just collateral damage.

Certainly the acting is uniformly excellent for such inexperienced actors, coping with many changes in dramatic focus, from early exhilaration through growing pains to violence. Barbara Hershey (Heaven with a Gun, 1969) would go on to become a major star. Amazing to realise that Bruce Davison (Willard, 1971) and Cathy Burns, Oscar-nominated for her role, were making their movie debuts and for Hershey and Richard Thomas (Winning, 1969) their sophomore outings.

Director Frank Perry (The Swimmer, 1968) had a special affinity with the young as he had proved with David and Lisa (1962) and at times the whole affair had an improvised free-wheeling style. Eleanor Perry (David and Lisa) wrote the screenplay based on the novel by Evan Hunter (The Birds, 1963).

This is very hard to find, it turns out, so Ebay might be your best bet.

My thanks to one of my readers, Mike, for digging up this story of the disappearance of Catherine Burns from the movie business.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-features/catherine-burns-inside-50-year-disappearance-an-oscar-nominee-1275646/

Mouse on the Moon (1963) ***

The gentle comedy for which the British were famous prior to the more raucous offerings from the Carry On team always contained an element of satire. Sometimes that has bite, but as often not, and almost, in a continuation of the gentleness of the format, appears like an afterthought. However, it’s not hard to skewer incompetence or hypocrisy or the foolish grandeur of nations, regardless of size.

There’s no blunderbuss required here – not with such easy targets as the space race, politics and the Cold War – just a gentle poke here and there at ambition, grandiosity and grandstanding as the tiny (barely comprising 15 square miles) country of the Duchy of Grand Fenwick somewhere in central Europe shows up global giants Russia and the United States. Sensibly, this doesn’t try to place one character at the center of the morass. Instead, stupidity is spread far and wide, as various characters cede vanity to the next.

The central conceit is one of those barmy ones that any scientist could make plausible – think of growing potatoes on Mars in The Martian or the nimble invention at play in Project Hail Mary (2026). The chemical reactions of bad wine set off the kind of explosions that could provide a substitute for rocket fuel and send a spaceship to the moon.

But that the idea is given oxygen in the first place by the superpowers wanting to be seen to be bigger than anyone else and by maintaining their rivalry when there’s little need.

Grand Fenwick is not just the type of place where nothing works – palace plumbing erratic, parades catastrophic, politicians corrupt and we are treated to a battalion of incompetents from Grand Duchess Gloriana (Margaret Rutherford), apt to nod off at state functions, Prime Minister Mountjoy (Ron Moody) who places having a hot bath about the needs of the populace and whose niece Cynthia (June Ritichie) is an agitator for reform, his untrustworthy political rival Benter (Roddy McMillan), and British spy Bender (Terry-Thomas) for whom bumbling is an art form.

Romance is in there somewhere when Mountjoy’s ineffective son Vincent (Bernard Cribbins) falls for Cynthia. But mostly it’s a concoction that relies on everything going wrong at the right time and anything that goes right nonetheless manages to cause appropriate chaos.

Having secured a million bucks in funding from America to purportedly send a rocket, a useless one donated by the Russians in a riposte to American generosity, to the moon, Mountjoy intends to pocket the cash by ensuring the rocket blows up on launch. However, it takes off, propelled by the wine with Vincent and scientist Professor Kokintz (David Kossoff) on board, triggering a genuine space race involving the two superpowers, propaganda the prize for the winner.

Naturally, nothing goes the way you expect and the little guys outwit the big guys.

This was an early directorial venture from Richard Lester (Petulia, 1968) so that accounts for some of the bite. Given this is populated in the main by character actors, Lester allows them do their thing while ensuring that the comedy is as much reliant on satire as buffoonery. No need here for double entendres or slapstick, the original set-up works out just fine.

Margaret Rutherford (Murder Ahoy, 1964) could have run away with this picture but her natural instinct to dominate is kept in check. Ron Moody (Oliver!, 1968) heads a cast of movie also-rans, some of whom made a successful transition to television like John Le Mesurier (Dad’s Army), Hugh Lloyd (Hugh and I) and Roddy McMillan (The Vital Spark). Terry-Thomas (Our Man in Marrakesh/Bang! Bang! You’re Dead, 1966) would have stolen the picture if given more scenes. Bernard Cribbins (Carry On Spying, 1964) offers another of his hapless characters while June Ritchie (The World Ten Times Over, 1963) adds a note of glamor.

This was a sequel to The Mouse That Roared (1959) and had to make do without original star, Peter Sellers, who had played three roles. Two of those roles were allocated to other players, with the third character axed. And where that film benefited from Sellers’ presence, this one definitely benefits from his absence.

Written by Michael Pertwee (Strange Bedfellows, 1965) from the bestseller by Leonard Wibberley.

Engaging.

The Martian (2015) ***** – Seen at the Cinema (again!)

My guess is that the combination of the success of Project Hail Mary (2026), whose author Andy Weir also wrote this, and the imminent The Odyssey from Christopher Nolan which stars Matt Damon were the triggers for this big-screen reissue. These days, most reissues only play for one day, but this proved so popular it ran in two screens.

Although I reviewed it not so long ago that was on the back of a television screening and seeing it on the big screen reminded of just how brilliant it was – and it more than saved my Monday cinema outing after the abject The Invite. ao forgive me if I give this another plug.

You might recall how annoyed I was several weeks ago by being asked to tolerate Chris Pratt stuck in a chair in Mercy (2026) talking to the camera for what seemed like a solid hour. It struck me then how few actors could manage a whole film one-handed – Tom Hanks in Cast Away (2000) the most obvious example. But, in the wake of Project Hail Mary (2026) I realized there was another contender, Matt Damon as the stranded astronaut in Ridley Scott’s The Martian.

And sure, he eventually gets some help in maintaining audience interest once he communicates with Earth and the spaceship. But here’s the kicker. Mostly what he’s doing is exposition. That’s the one thing a star avoids like the plague. It’s usually left to the supporting actors to set the scene, explain the ins-and-outs of a situation.

But here it’s all down to Damon. He spends his time talking to camera, identifying a problem, usually so scientific you’d need academic books beside you, and then solving it. So, yes, like Cast Away, he’s a bloke on a version of a desert island who’s got to find his way to safety through how own devices.

But even so. What kind of screen persona do you need not just to keep us interested but enthralled? When he sees the first shoots of potato appear, it carries a massive emotional kick. The role of the people on Earth is wonderment and cynicism – no way he can do that sort of thing. Which rachets up the tension and then our hero does the impossible.

There’s always a moment in these space movies where someone comes up with something that’s never been done before – slingshots using gravity, Apollo 13 (1995) littered with improvisation. These scientists are I guess exceptionally brainy to qualify as lunar astronauts but even so.

As I said, I was coming to this again after Project Hail Mary so I was attuned to the science, or the expectation of science and the need to keep the audience informed. But Mark Watney (Matt Damon) comes up with unbelievably-inspired elements of improvisation, some of course pure science but others pure common sense, like pointing the camera at letters to spell out words.

It’s a heck of a ride, especially as with being under Ridley Scott’s command, there’s not a darn alien in sight, no stomach-bursting squeamishness to maintain audience attention, no rampaging monster scuttling along a spaceship. This is Mars as arid as you have been led to believe. Yes, an occasional mountain range or dustbowl to evoke the West of John Ford, and storms coming out of nowhere, but generally speaking as placid and dull a domain as you could wish for.

So in visual terms not much to help out the star. Every movement he makes is fraught with danger. He can choose to freeze through a long night or switch on the heating and thus lose vital battery power.

Every now and then, to speed things up, Ridley Scott literally does just that, characters whizzing around like they’ve just emerged from a silent movie. But mostly it’s slow painstaking going.

Of course we need a big finale and Scott obliges. And every now and then he flicks an emotional switch back on Earth and Nasa boss Teddy Sanders (Jeff Daniels) has to explain how the astronaut they held a memorial for is actually still alive, and the spaceship team have to come to terms with the fact that they abandoned not a corpse but a guy very much alive. There’s no room for humor, but occasionally some is squeezed in – Sanders having to apologize to the President for Watney’s profanity being globally broadcast.

Ridley Scott (Gladiator II, 2024) reins in the bombast and picks his way through a tricky scenario keeping the audience very much onside. Matt Damon (Oppenheimer, 2023) , who has surely inherited the Tom Hanks “everyman” mantle, demonstrates the power of a screen persona, in making an audience hang on his every word, even though most of what he says is scientific mumbo-jumbo. Jessica Chastain (Mothers’ Instinct, 2024) is the pick of the supporting cast.

Written by Drew Goddard who is as sure-footed here as on Project Hail Mary, again adapting a bestseller by Andy Weir.

Well worth another look.

The Invite (2026) ** – Seen at the Cinema

Not so much a gabfest as an outbreak of verbal diarrhea. This exceedingly slim offering is what passes these days for the kind of movie that might be appreciated by an intelligent audience or served up as counter-programming to the onslaught of the summer blockbuster.

But it’s as if the idea of marriages in trouble is novel, never been properly examined until the current new wave came along – for some reason Alan Parker’s Shoot the Moon (1982) with Albert Finney and Diane Keaton as the warring couple came to mind as an example of how easily this subject had been dealt with in the past without the necessity for coming at it all coy.

Everyone rabbits on at forty words to the dozen, talking over each other, repeating themselves as if the notion of editing had never occurred to anyone so that it ends up as a stagey four-hander, not far I would imagine from the stage play on which it is based.

And it has one of the most infuriating scores I have ever come across. I’m sure it’s intended as post-ironic or some such. Instead of allowing the words to speak for themselves the dialog is heavily overlaid with ominous music whose intensity is heightened as emotions rise.

Worse, this is primarily a shaggy dog story and a good bit of bait-and-switch, allowing the characters (Shock! Horror!) to utter such words as “double penetration” and “pegging” (Google them) – all of which sexual preferences are laboriously explained to married apparent innocents Joe (Seth Rogan) and Angela (Olivia Wilde) by more worldly pair Pina (Penelope Cruz) and Hawk (Edward Norton).

The invite in question is to join in a sex party, to turn the stuffed shirts into swingers. Olivia is jealous of the orgasms she can hear from Pina who lives upstairs in a weird apartment block where despite each couple living above or below the other they can still, by quirk of narrative or architecture, see each other through the window (go figure) which comes in handy if one of the couples is a secret exhibitionist and the other a voyeur.

Our foursome represent little more than standard cliches – stoner Joe and his neurotic wife who has to tidy up the kitchen before embarking on sex, the supposed charmer Hawk and the more obviously sexy Pina who is not averse to bursting out of her cleavage. There are jokes about exhibitionism and about Hawk not being musclebound enough to be a firefighter.

There are about ten worthwhile minutes in the entire picture when the characters properly open up, though Joe revealing himself as a failure, Angela as a self-centered stay-at-home mum with artistic ambitions she cannot be bothered to properly explore, and Hawk as not as tough as he seems, is not enough to prop up the rest of the picture.

For a comedy, even a purportedly sophisticated one what with all this talk about sex, it’s remarkably light of the laff front and in any case any opportunity for the audience to even snigger is seriously jeopardized by having a director (Olivia Wilde) with no sense of comic timing, barely leaving a millisecond between lines that could elicit a laugh, guaranteeing that nothing has the opportunity to strike home.

I’m no big fan of Seth Rogen (Good Fortune, 2025) since as far as I can tell he always plays the same character but at least he’s not as mealy-mouthed as the others. But when you rely on tantrums to inject some life into a picture you’re on a hiding to nothing.

I can see why this has received generally good reviews. It’s the critics’ job to push in front of audiences a discerning movie or two, but, as often as not, they are so determined to prod the audience that they nudge them towards movies that barely deserve the praise.

Edward Norton (A Complete Unknown, 2024) has been confined to small parts of late so it’s good to see him last out a full film. Penelope Cruz (Ferrari, 2023) offers more emotion, sass and psychology than the others. Olivia Wilde (Babylon, 2022) overacts like crazy.

In her capacity as director, count this as another misfire for Olivia Wilde (Don’t Worry, Darling, 2022). Will McCormack (Toy Story 4, 2019) and Rashida Jones (On the Rocks, 2020) adapted the play by Cesca Gay.

This had an old-fashioned platform release in the U.S., which meant it could rack up decent averages by only being shown in a handful of cinemas, allowing marketeers to dupe the media into thinking it was a hit.

Steer clear.

Blood and Black Lace (1964) ****

Director Mario Bava channels his inner Douglas Sirk in a rich color palette for this early version of giallo. About as surprisingly rich is the camerawork, which, for a low-budget picture is exceptionally accomplished, tracking, drifting, bobbing between characters. This early in the 1960s, nudity was not so prevalent but setting a movie in a fashion house – ensuring the beauty quotient is remarkably high – provided sufficient opportunity for ladies to be seen (within a work context naturally) in a certain amount of undress and you can be sure the killer leaves them half-naked. And it’s not the usual giallo sex maniac at work either but, despite the volume of murders, a killer driven by a desire to conceal shame.

Blackmail, theft, abortion, cocaine addiction, pregnancy, impotence and illicit affairs are among the secrets the protagonists wish to keep hidden, all risking exposure by a diary kept by the first victim Isabella (Francesco Ungaro). So rather than a whodunit, it’s a whydunit. The killer is particularly creepy, face concealed behind white gauze like an Egyptian mummy. As the Italian title explains, six women are intended for the chop, so that kind of rules out a great deal of tension as you spend your time counting. Are we nearly there yet? And as we run out of obvious potential victims, who the heck is there left to kill? Of course, by that time, we are into twist territory and that element is certainly neatly done.

The main candidates for the murderer are: Franco (Dante DiPaolo), Riccardo (Franco Ressel), Cesare (Luciano Piggozi). Massimo (Cameron Mitchell) and Marco (Massimo Righi). These are the official ones, rounded up by Inspector Silvestri (Thomas Reiner). But that still leaves housekeeper Clarice (Harriet Medin) in her black leather coat. And a fashion house being a festering wound of jealousy, sex, status and privilege you wouldn’t discount any of the models either nor an owner Cristiana (Eva Bartok) who is such a slave-driver she denies her seamstresses time to mourn.

Emotions would be running high in this establishment never mind with a killer on the loose. Relationships are so fraught that even when this is the worst possible time to be alone in a house, certain of the models refuse to offer sanctuary to others and one, Tao-Li (Claude Dantes), just plans to head for the hills (Paris, in other words) and abandon the others. Add to that a high degree of stupidity. When Greta (Lea Lander) discovers the disfigured corpse of Nicole (Arianna Gorini) in the trunk of her car, rather than calling the police, she drags the body into the house and hides it under the stairs while her butler is about to serve tea. Except it’s not out of folly, it’s because Greta, like all the women here, wishes to protect a male, passion reigning supreme to the extent that the thought of losing a lover even if he is a murderer is too much to bear.

The inspector’s task would be made easy if the killer had a distinctive modus operandi. Death occurs through strangulation, suffocation, drowning (though with cut wrists to make it look like suicide), falling from a great height and Nicole’s face thrust into a stove. If victims take a long time to die, it’s not from the killer’s sadism but his/her incompetence. Virtually none are speedily dispatched, murder not as easy as you might imagine, an idea that Hitchcock purloined in Torn Curtain (1966)

For most of the time the way the camera moves you would wouldn’t think you were watching a film about a serial killer (in those days as rare in reality as in fiction) but a dense emotional tale as spun by the likes of Luchino Visconti (The Leopard, 1963) amidst a backdrop of wealth and beauty. Setting aside the murders, there is a feast of intrigue, and a rich seam of characters, though the central theme seems to be (not surprising for the era) that money and beauty are not as fulfilling as love, something that women will commit various crimes (though stopping short of murder) to achieve.

I would imagine it was just such intricate camerawork that put audiences off the picture on initial release, a big flop in Italy and, if screened anywhere else (as in Britain) the lower part of a double bill. Not quite as intense as Bava’s previous The Whip and the Body (1963) nor so stylistically driven as Danger : Diabolik (1968) and some way short of horror masterpieces like Black Sabbath (1963), this is still an interesting watch, something of a template for future giallo and from a pure directorial perspective glorious to watch.

The number of characters featured and the time spent on the various deaths limit the opportunities for any one star to dominate but Hungarian Eva Bartok (Operation Amsterdam, 1960) leads the line on the female side while American transplant Cameron Mitchell (Minnesota Clay, 1964) and Dante DiPaulo (Sweet Charity, 1969) vie for male acting honors. The screenplay was a joint effort by Marcello Fondato, Giuseppe Barilla and Bava.

YouTube has this for free though be warned it comes with ads and for the sumptuous photography alone you may want in any case to splash out.

More Dead than Alive (1969) ****

You wonder why some actors never make it big. Clint Walker, with a hefty television career behind him, was one of the many graduates from The Dirty Dozen (1967). But whereas such disparate characters as Donald Sutherland (Mash, 1970), Charles Bronson (Farewell Friend, 1968), Jim Brown (100 Rifles, 1969) and even Telly Savalas (though mostly on the small screen) went on to become substantial marquee names, soft-spoken square-jawed gentle giant Clint Walker was left by the wayside. He still earned some top-billed credits, but these were all in low-budget programmers.

The odd thing is that had he come onto the scene a decade later when muscle-bound hunks like Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenneger were all the rage he might have easily jumped to the top. Ironically, another muscleman Mike Henry (Tarzan and the Great River, 1967) pops up here, as if to prove to the newcomer that muscle no longer cuts it in Hollywood when slimmer stars like Paul Newman and Steve McQueen are all the rage and even denoted tough guys like Lee Marvin lack the heavyweight build.

Like the climax to The Wild Bunch (1969), the opening section is a paeon to the glories of the Gatling Gun as it mows down a posse of prisoners trying to escape. Cain (Clint Walker) is one of the few jailbirds who simply hunkers down and refuses to consider running. Whether it’s this determination not to cause the guards any trouble or some unexpected softer approach on the part of the authorities, he is later set free after serving 18 years.

It’s only then we realize he’s actually “Killer Cain” with twelve notches (presumably one for every death) on his revolver. But he’s determine to go straight and refuses the opportunity offer by travelling showman Dan Ruffallo (Vincent Price) to even play the part of the bad guy. But his record goes against him when trying to find employment. So he takes on the job of delivery guy only to end up in the arms of some thugs from prison led by Luke Santee (Mike Henry) who has a score to settle. Having beaten him up, they decide not to finish him off, so they can enjoy the pleasure of beating him up over and over. Given Clint Eastwood has set the tone for the hero being badly beaten up and/or left for dead, the thumping Cain takes tends towards the excessive.

So if you’re trying to get a killer to disavow his plan to avoid violence, that’s not the best plan. When Cain escapes, you expect this to turn into a revenge western. Except it doesn’t. It’s an avoidance western, Cain trying to stay out of the way of any kind of shooting.

There are some interesting directorial aspects. It looks very much as if Robert Sparr, a television director making his movie debut, has absorbed the influences of the French New Wave. There are jump cuts all over the place. We cut from Cain looking forlorn at night to him standing in a queue in daylight looking for a job. We go from an outdoor encounter with Ruffalo to suddenly the pair of them sitting down inside.

And as with like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and The Wild Bunch, both out the same year, the message is that the Old West is dying. Not only do we have primitive mechanized transport in the shape of a bicycle there’s also a rudimentary telephone while gunmen are more likely to prosper showing off their skills in a tent than being a gun for hire for ambitious ranchers and the like.

This is determinedly offbeat, not falling into the standard narrative traps for the genre. Cain, while trying to shed the murderous aspects of his previous life, eventually goes to work in the circus. That sets him down in the moral mire, taking advantage of his infamous reputation while at the same time not lifting a gun in anger and wooing artist Monica (Anne Francis).

However, no surprise this is under-rated. In part that’s because it doesn’t deliver on the early violent promise, the title very much a misnomer, so those expecting a spaghetti western leave disappointed while anyone looking for much else wouldn’t be attracted by the violence and the title. In fact, it’s a very thoughtful piece. Not entirely original because criminal-going-straight is standard stuff, usually quickly snookering the good guy-bad guy into mostly bad guy activity, regardless of his justification for doing so. But here, the killer manages to avoid further bloodshed despite continuous provocation.

Apart from the moral aspect, it treads an interesting path between demystifying the Old West and mystifying it. Monica has come west to capture the Old West before it dies away. There’s a ghost town but the only gunslinging on show is staged. Cain is a major attraction because peace-loving law-abiding folks like nothing better than seeing a genuine killer up close.

The notches on his gun weren’t acquired in typical Hollywood hero style with a shootout in the main street and the good guy never drawing first. In fact, most of Cain’s killings fall into the dubious category.

Most westerns take place over a short period of time, just as long as it takes to set up the good guys and the bad guys with a bit of romance on the side. This takes place over a year and romance is very slow-burn so that artist Monica nips in and out of the narrative.

Having a record blunts Cain’s attempts to get a decent job, the only long-term work as a bouncer in a saloon until his pseudonym is blown. He joins the Wild West Show only to twice quit it, either when he is riled by intemperate gunman wannabe Billy (Billy Valence) or when he comes face to face with old lawman Carson. At the end he returns to earn enough cash to buy some livestock for a farm.

There are three significant deaths, two sudden, and all offer something unusual in that department. The ending is as unexpected as it is shocking.

Both Clint Walker (The Great Bank Robbery, 1969) and Vincent Price (Witchfinder General/The Conqueror Worm, 1968) deliver excellent subdued performances, the latter far removed from his usual horror line and the lugubrious tones kept in check. Anne Francis (The Satan Bug, 1965) has a rare big screen outing. Written by George Schenck (Barquero, 1970).

You would not call this – outside of the jump cuts – particularly stylistic, equally it avoids the visual traps of endless sunsets or panoramas and we’re not subjected to minutes wasted just watching cowboys ride somewhere. But it definitely is a cut above in terms of thematic complexity, in the ability to tell a story over a period of time, and to take the hero in an unexpected direction.