movie review – Page 12 – The Magnificent 60s

A Pocketful of Miracles (1961) ***

Frank Capra was yesterday’s man – one movie in a decade – and 15 years away from the consolation of knowing that his flop It’s A Wonderful Life (1948) was on its way to becoming, arguably, along with The Wizard of Oz (1939), America’s most beloved picture thanks to annual Xmas showings on television and subsequently in the cinema.

There’s nothing new here, either, it’s a remake of his Lady for a Day (1933) and it’s more of a fable lacking punch than some of his more famous pictures. And the main interest for contemporary audiences may well be that it marks the debut of Ann-Margret (The Swinger, 1966) who gets to sing but not shake her booty in trademark fashion. And it takes forever to wind up to a pitch. We’ve got to wade through three subplots before it gets going.

First of all Prohibition gangster Dave (Glenn Ford) meets up with the daughter Queenie (Hope Lang) of a deceased club owner who’s in hock for $20,000. Dave is much taken by the earnest Queen’s determination to repay the debt at the rate of five bucks a week. For no reason at all except narrative necessity, she’s turned into a nightclub singing sensation.

When Prohibition ends, big-time Chicago gangster Steve Darcey (Sheldon Leonard) plans to muscle in on the New York rackets and it takes all Dave’s suave bluster to keep him, temporarily, at bay. The end of Prohibition comes as a relief to Queenie and with the nightclub shut down she agrees to marry Dave with the proviso that he give up the gangster life and retire to her home town in Maryland and they become an ordinary couple.

Very much on the fringes of this is Apple Annie (Bette Davis), a street panhandler who sells “lucky” apples, one her most satisfied customers being Dave. When her illegitimate daughter Louise (Ann-Margret) returns from Spain to New York with rich beau Carlos (Peter Mann) in tow, Annie’s in a pickle, because she’s been keeping up the pretence of being a wealthy woman.

Queenie insists they help Annie to maintain her charade and Dave goes along with the idea because he’s worried his luck will run out. So Annie is turned into a sophisticate, manners polished, furnished with a luxurious apartment, including a butler, and fake husband Henry (Thomas Mitchell).

None of the stars seem to know how to handle the material, and for most of the time they act as if in a pastiche, like they were throwing winks to the audience. Glenn Ford (Fate Is the Hunter, 1964), generally adept at comedy, plays this all wrong. He wanted the part so badly he helped finance the picture. Bette Davis (Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, 1962) overacts, as does Peter Falk (Murder Inc, 1961), though the Academy didn’t think so and threw him a second Oscar nomination. Hope Lang and Ann-Margret, playing it straight, get it right, though the latter, vivacious personality to the fore, wins that battle by more than a nose. Might well have worked if original choice Frank Sinatra hadn’t ankled the project.

Hal Kanter and Harry Tugend wrote the remake, based on a Damon Runyon story. It was always a tricky business to capture the stylistic essence of Runyon, Guys and Dolls (1955) the most effective transition, Lady for a Day better than this and Little Miss Marker filmed three times.

Once the Bette Davis pretence enters the equation, the tale takes on some narrative drive and the quintessential Capra shines through. But it’s too little too late.

Not the swansong Capra anticipated, but he only has himself to blame.

The Wild and the Willing (1962) ***

The problem with showcasing new talent is that it’s a pretty difficult sell given that all audiences have to go on is a studio’s faith in these newcomers. You can’t actually justify which of these will succeed until long after their initial forays.

In fact, this was a pretty good indicator one way or another of the talent the Brits had at their disposal, although some only became major players via television and others like Ian McShane, making his debut, as durable as he was as occasional leading and staunch support and television work (Lovejoy, 1986-1994), really only achieved substantial fame around four decades later via Deadwood (2004-2006) and the John Wick series.

For others, this proved an ideal calling card, Samantha Eggar, another debutante, was the biggest immediate beneficiary, female lead in big-budgeters The Collector (1965) and Walk, Don’t Run (1966). But virtually everyone in the cast had a whiff of stardom at one time or another. John Hurt’s stint as Sinful Davey (1969) didn’t do him much good but his career revived through the likes of television movie The Naked Civil Servant (1975), Midnight Express (1978) and Alien (1979).

This is stuffed with names you might remember one way or another. Jeremy Brett became a television Sherlock Holmes, Johnny Briggs enjoyed one of the longest-running roles in British soap Coronation St. Paul Rogers made headway in Stolen Hours (1963) and was a solid supporting actor. Johnny Sekka made a splash in Woman of Straw (1964) and The Southern Star (1969). Some careers were short-lived, the slightly more established Virginia Maskell’s last picture was Interlude (1968).

The story itself – I’m sure you couldn’t wait till I come to that – is slight, but with sufficient complication for a narrative to flourish. Activity takes place on a university campus. Harry (Ian McShane) and Josie (Samantha Eggar) are an item, at least until his eye wanders to Virginia (Virginia Maskell), the unhappy wife of Professor Chown (Paul Rogers).

Harry’s nerdy pal Phil (John Hurt) has been knocked back by Virginia’s classy pal Sarah (Katherine Woodville) and in trying to become as popular as Harry embarks in a daft adventure that ends in disaster.

As far removed from the kitchen sink drama popular at the time, this is a well-observed piece about the young and ambitious without ever descending into the intensity that other pictures wallowed in. You can forget about the suggestiveness of the title, by today’s standards this is very tame and skirts issues of sexuality that were becoming more predominant.

Ralph Thomas (Deadlier than the Male, 1967) directs from a script by Mordecai Richler and Nicholas Phipps adapting a play The Tinker by Laurence Doble and Robert Sloman, effortlessly seguing away from the stage origins and deftly putting every aspect of the narrative jigsaw in its place.

So, part of the fun here is seeing how well actors established a screen persona, or how they moved on. Ian McShane certainly had the cocky walk, but was still too much of the ingénue, even while playing a bad boy. Samantha Eggar was more instantly recognizable for the charisma she threw off. You would see John Hurt’s nerd again and again.

Interesting for more than archival purposes.

The Kremlin Letter (1970) ****

Audiences weaned on glossy spies surrounded by pretty girls and generally their own country taking a straight moral path turned up their noses at this more realistic portrayal of the espionage business where dirty infighting was the stock in trade. The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1965) was saintly by comparison.

Complaints about a complicated plot were led by critics who rarely had had to work their way through a tricky narrative, unless it was from the likes of Alfred Hitchcock who was apt to add twists to his stories. The fact that the bulk of the characters went by strange monikers – The Highwayman, Sweet Alice, The Warlock etc – also seemed to upset critics. (In the book by Noel Behn, the author points out that these spies were constantly adopting new identities, it made it easier for others to keep tabs on them if they were always referred to by nicknames which were constant.)

A contemporary audience, accustomed to things never being what they seem and all sorts of double-dealing, would be more at home here.

None of the characters, even the supposed good guys/gals, get off lightly. Personal unsavory sacrifice is unavoidable. Charles Rone (Patrick O’Neal) and B.A. (Barbara Parkins), who have fallen in love with each other, both have to prostitute themselves for the cause. And when the going gets too tough, suicide is the only way out. There’s hefty financial reward for those who survive the mission, but the substantial pot will be split between the survivors and not the dependents of those who don’t come home.

At the crux of the story is recovering a letter which promises that the USA and Russia will conspire against China and destroy its atomic weaponry. Espionage expert The Highwayman (Dean Jagger) recruits a team to infiltrate Moscow consisting of Rone, burglar and safe cracker B.A., drug dealer The Whore (Nigel Green), Ward (Richard Boone) and ageing homosexual The Warlock (George Sanders) who is a dab hand at knitting.

More than a few have a dodgy past, Ward an art dealer of ill repute, The Whore a pimp, even Col Kosnov (Max von Sydow), the target of the US operation, betraying his own countrymen. B.A. has to learn how to use sex to trap the enemy and, to get past the starting gate, loses her virginity to the obliging Rone.

The Whore sets up in the brothel business with Madame Sophie (Lila Kedrova), keeping the sex workers docile by filling them up with heroin, which he imports. As instructed, B.A. shares out her favors with the enemy while Rone seduces the wife, Erika (Bibi Andersson), of Col Kosnov.

You always go into a spy picture expecting double cross and this is no different. B.A., The Whore and The Warlock have their covers blown, the latter committing suicide, the girl failing to do so but paralyzed as a result. Ward kills Kosnov. But his motive seems odd – blaming the Russian for betraying his countrymen – and his action only becomes clear at the climactic double cross when Ward is revealed as a double agent in the pay of the enemy. For which, it has to be said, he doesn’t suffer. If anything, with B.A. in his hands, he has Rone over a barrel.

While this was never going to be a by-the-book espionage number, it’s elevated by exploring the emotional price that has to be paid, both in hiding some feelings and feigning others.

While possibly it made sense to present the stars in alphabetical order, suggesting nobody took precedence in the billing, most have the opportunity to play against type. Barbara Parkins (Valley of the Dolls, 1967) is excellent as the girl embarking on a career for which she has, emotionally, little aptitude. Bibi Andersson (Duel at Diablo, 1966), usually cast in repressed roles, has a ball as woman giving in to impulse. Tough guy Patrick O’Neal (Stiletto, 1969) must knowingly betray his true love. Richard Boone (The Night of the Following Day, 1969) is already playing a secret role and effortlessly dupes his colleagues.

There’s not much of the John Huston (Sinful Davey, 1969) visual magic but he makes up for that by allowing the actors to delve deeper into their characters. But he doesn’t attempt to spin a happy ending and the downbeat climax suggests that the USA lost this battle. The one memorable image is a ball of red wool rolling across the ground, indicating that The Warlock is dead. Written by Huston and Gladys Hill (The Man Who Would Be King, 1975) from the bestseller by Noel Behn (The Brink’s Job, 1978).

While the themes didn’t appeal then, they resound now.

Has aged very well.

Honey, Don’t! (2025) ** – Seen at the Cinema

Had I still been in the magazine business I would have welcomed this with open arms because it would have provided an ideal headline – “Honey, Don’t Go.”

I’m not sure what Ethan Coen (True Grit, 2010) thought he was making and even if it was a shaggy dog story as often were the tales he concocted with his brother this has turned out more like a dog’s breakfast. Which is a shame because it’s about time Margaret Qualley (The Substance, 2024) was elevated from indie product to mainstream. She’s certainly got a screen presence and if someone could only fit a movie around what she has to offer she’d be on her way.

Excepting some salty dialog, this comes up short on every front. The narrative is so thin it’s disappeared down every convenient rabbit hole, the characters are equally lacking (though my guess is they’re meant to be slices of cliché, that’s the game) and there’s a deliberate emphasis on keeping emotion to the bare minimum.

The two main characters, private eye Honey Donohue (Margaret Qualley) and cop M G Falcone (Aubrey Plaza), congratulate themselves on being so completely self-centered that all dalliances are strictly confined to one-nighters, such restrictions imposed before the other person gets all weepy and emotional. Honey and MG, both being lesbians, are able to get away with such notions. Imagine a male attempting to classify all females as just too emotional.

I say Honey is a private eye but it’s kind of hard for her to keep clients because they keep on being bumped off before she can take any action. And when she does, she doesn’t prove much cop. In fact, she’s actually that old film noir fallback – the dupe. And she only realizes she’s been played for a patsy when she sees – another old fallback – two cups on a table (it’s an old-fashioned house hence the teacups).

It’s a strange construct. The audience knows what’s going on but poor Honey is kept in the dark and at the climax it looks very much like she’s setting herself up to be the dupe again.

So what the audience knows that Honey doesn’t is that a woman who died in a car accident has had a distinctive ring stolen by a woman on a moped, Chere (Lera Abova), who in another old-time fallback can’t pass a pool without skinny dipping. The ring has a logo that ties in with that of the religious scam being run by uber hunk preacher Rev Drew Devlin (Chris Evans).who uses the church as a cover for some drug-running for Chere and to provide him a harem of submissive females.

A sub-plot that then becomes a main plot sees Honey putting in some time helping out her aunt’s wayward daughter Corinne (Talia Ryder) though you suspect she’s there just to let Honey beat the bejasus out of her niece’s abusive boyfriend.

There’s also an old creepy homeless fella hanging around that starts out as a red herring, looks as though it could dovetail into an emotional scene, but then shies well clear of that because, well heck, Honey doesn’t do emotion.

I’ve got a sneaky feeling that the director wasn’t trying to make a Coen Bros movie so much as a Tarantino one. There’s a helluva lot riding on the word “Macaroni” for example. And the application of lipstick. And there’s a helluva lot of nudges towards the hardcore – in the way of sex not music – a dishwashing scene and a bar sequence come to mind.

Sure, Honey snaps off a few one-liners but mostly you’re going to remember her sashaying along in a tight skirt and clackety high heels – which may well have the director’s intention for all I know.

This feels like a clumsier retread of Drive-Away Dolls (2024), a similar dive into lesbian-led crime, also starring Qualley, directed by Coen and co-written by Tricia Cooke, who performs the same service here.

More a collection of mismatched sequences with a myriad of oddball characters none distinctive enough to make you sit up than anything in the way of a coherent plot.

Logan’s Run (1976) ****

Shortly after this appeared the movie sci fi world imploded/exploded with the release of Star Wars (1977), followed by Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) and Alien (1979), which probably accounts for why this is such a throwback joy to watch and now very much a cult item. Takes in ageism, obsession with youth, death cult, the pleasure principle written in capital letters, some kind of primitive Tinder (where women place themselves on “the circuit”), Terminators, runaways, dystopia, escapees, eco-friendly food, mobile phones, computers in charge, lasers, plastic surgery, cannibalism, robots, an icy tomb, nuclear holocaust and the Lincoln Memorial.

There’s some shooting with futuristic weaponry but these handguns are virtually useless given how poor their accuracy – though that may be down to the incompetence of their users – and a couple of fist fights. And while the remainder of Earth’s population enjoys an idyllic life in a series of sealed domes, there is, as the posters point out, a catch. When you reach the age of 30 you are killed, although this occurs in the guise of rebirth in a ritual known as the Carrousel.

There’s no individual responsibility. Children are separated at birth from their parents and brought up in communal fashion. They eat, drink and have sex – there’s even a section set aside for sexual pleasure, full of naked writhing bodies. But generally, sex is on tap, any woman signing up to be on “the circuit” literally delivered to your door.

In this fashion Logan 5 (Michael York) encounters Jessica 6 (Jenny Agutter). He’s a terminator, chasing after runaways, she’s a virgin and much to his annoyance proves not an easy conquest, in fact sex doesn’t take place at all. However, she wears an ankh. And he’s just picked up an ankh from a runaway he just totaled. So he asks the computer for advice about the emblem. Turns out it’s worn by a rebel group – there are over 1,000 of them living in a “sanctuary” in the city – and Logan is delegated to pretend to be a runaway and with Jessica’s help infiltrate the radical organization. Unfortunately, his buddy Francis 7 (Richard Jordan) is suspicious and follows him.

After many adventures and escaping from Francis and the robot Box (voiced by Roscoe Lee Brown) who wants to freeze them, they emerge into a land that while it shows signs of devastation is not uninhabitable. They meet an old man (Peter Ustinov) and realize that it’s possible to live beyond the age of 30 and that somehow their apparent utopia is actually a dystopia. Furthermore, once outside the tomb, the internal clocks that dictate the date of their death automatically switch themselves off.

The prisoners of the dome are freed shortly afterwards.

There’s a kind of innocence about the sci fi world portrayed. Everyone dresses in primary colors, both sexes wear flimsy outfits all the easier to remove when pleasure appears imminent. Taking place three centuries on from the date of the movie’s release, the world is the kind that would be dreamed by illustrators imagining the future for an Exposition with everything streamlined.

There’s no time and really no effort to make a serious point about any of the issues raised and it’s more a smorgasbord of ideas – quite a few of which have come to fruition. The two main characters are likeable rather than charismatic and the onset of sudden romance appears narrative contrivance rather than “across a crowded room.” Logan’s dilemma, that he is switched from having four years to live to being at death’s door, gives him incentive to escape, not to complete his mission. And at times the dialog is cumbersome but equally often just flies – that cats have three names, for example.

I never saw this on initial release and didn’t hire it on VHS or DVD but gradually it acquired cult status and I was keen to see why.

It works, is the real reason for that. It exists outside the Star Wars/Close Encounters/Alien dynamic. I liked the jigsaw nature of the ideas and that they are thrown together and at you like you were on a rollercoaster, and you can pick and mix. The conversations with the computer sound very contemporary.

Michael York (Justine, 1969) and Jenny Agutter (East of Sudan, 1964) are pleasant company to spend time with. While Richard Jordan (Valdez Is Coming, 1971) is not much short of an eye-rolling villain, Peter Ustinov is remarkably good value in a role that could easily have been cliché. You might spot Farrah Fawcett-Major (newly-inducted as one of Charlie’s Angels, 1976-1980).

Directed by Michael Anderson (The Shoes of the Fisherman, 1968) and written by David Zelag Goodman (Straw Dogs, 1971) from the novel by William F. Nolan and George Clayton Johnson.

Any notion that it was intended to be groundbreaking was knocked on is head by Star Wars et al, and it’s for that very fact that it’s so watchable, as in, the direction sci fi could have gone had lightsabers and Death Stars, creatures phoning home and monsters erupting from stomachs, not entered the Hollywood universe.

Surprised how much I enjoyed it.

The Great Train Robbery / The First Great Train Robbery (1978) ****

Back in the day your IP was the star. And here Sean Connery (The Hill, 1965) is the essence of that belief. The camera homes in on him. He steals every scene with an effortlessness that takes your breath away even as co-star Donald Sutherland (Don’t Look Now, 1973), complete with bizarre sideburns and winks to the audience, is huffing and puffing to compete.

Come at it as the standard heist movie and you will struggle to enjoy it because it is made up of too many different components. But approach it from a different perspective, that of The Sting (1973) as one critic suggests, and it takes on a different complexion and the getting there becomes a whole lot of fun. The background, Victorian England of the 1850s, doesn’t help so much as the sets look like they’ve been plundered from Oliver! (1968) and dirtied up a bit.

It’s worth remembering that in an era when the Mission Impossible series has been constantly sold on Tom Cruise undertaking his own stunts that Sean Connery did something much more dangerous than anything attempted by Cruise which was to race along the top of a train travelling at 55 miles an hour.

And if you need some contemporary analogy, look no further than the rich get richer and mostly through plundering. The ending presents the notion of a Robin Hood outwitting the forces of law and order to the acclaim of the public. But that would be to overlook the fact that chief thief Pierce (Sean Connery) is already so wealthy from previous nefarious dealings that he hobnobs with the rich, so accepted in their world of male clubs and high society that, like a financial trader, he is able to pick their pockets of vital information.

Though it’s not quite that easy. The target is a trainload of gold bullion heading for the Crimean War. And the two safes containing the dosh require four keys, each under the control of a different high-up official, requiring several separate audacious thefts. This involves some play-acting from the principals, dressing up in the main from female accomplice Miriam (Lesley Anne Down), clever duping by Pierce and old-fashioned burglary from pickpocket Agar (Donald Sutherland) who waves his fingers around like a demented Fagin, and whose main job is make wax impressions of stolen keys.

So Pierce pretends to be the ardent wooer of the daughter of one of the key holders, and Miriam essays a prostitute to relieve a key holder of the precious possession he wears around his neck. But the other two keys require a more professional approach which involves first of all the springing from prison of cat burglar Clean Willy (Wayne Sleep) to break into the guarded railway premises in a time-dependent operation.

But the cops get wind of the plan and increase security on the train, including adding a new padlock to the outer door. “Find me a dead cat!”, while not quite in the league of “The name’s Bond, James Bond” might well count as one of the best lines ever uttered by Sean Connery.

Said deceased animal is brought in to supply the necessary stink for a corpse should the cops consider opening the casket containing Agar which is to travel on the train, providing the team with the necessary inside man. But Agar and Miriam as the weeping widow of the supposed dead man have very little to do compared to Pierce who has to climb on top of the train, racing along the speeding top, drop down the side in an improvised harness and pick the padlock, then do the whole thing in reverse.

I may be wrong, and I’m sure someone will correct me if I am, but if this wasn’t the first time running along the top of a moving train was employed in a movie it certainly set a new standard, especially in the willingness of the actor to carry out his own stunts.

Pretty much all that remains after that is the twists that see Pierce captured and then escape. You could pick a few holes in it if you wish. The fact that after Pierce swapping coats (the one that had lain beside a dead cat for hours and provided sufficient stink to convince the lawmen) with Agar, nobody noticed the smell seems unlikely. The same would apply to bank manager Fowler (Malcolm Terris) who fails to spot that the widow he shares a compartment with for the entire journey is the prostitute who duped him, though that prospect does increase the tension.

If you’re expecting a standard heist movie then this takes way too long to come to the boil, but if you go along with the conceit and enjoy the playing especially of Sean Connery and ignore the mugging of Donald Sutherland it is in the forefront of the best robbery pictures.

And it’s worth noting the little gems in Connery’s acting. There’s a scene where Lesley Anne Down is berating him for making her become a prostitute (implicit is her fear she might actually need to have sex with the client). He’s eating an orange. Ignoring her complaints as just part of the job, he offers her some of his fruit as if his main worry is being seen to be rude hogging the fruit to himself.

Connery proves exactly why you hire a star. He carries the picture. There’s a lightness to his overall performance, notwithstanding the few times he needs to take a tougher line, that makes the film a joy. Whereas Donald Sutherland is either too heavy-handed or overacting. This proved a breakthrough role for Lesley Anne Down (British television’s Upstairs, Downstairs, 1973-1975).

Director Michael Crichton (Westworld, 1973) cuts himself too much slack in the first half of the picture which could have been considerably tightened up but comes into his own with the tension and twists of the heist and he has the good sense to rely on Connery’s interpretation of Pierce. He also wrote the script based on his own novel, a fictionalization of the actual original robbery attempt.

There already had been an incredibly famous Great Train Robbery in Britain in 1963, hence the need to differentiate this from that by inserting the prefix “First” to the advertising in Britain.

Great fun and worth a watch.

The Fighting Prince of Donegal (1966) ***

I’m amazed I sat through this without complaint as a kid. This was a rare outing for me, given I grew up in a town without a cinema and the only time I went was for a roadshow musical at Xmas or if we were away on holiday for the summer in towns that were bursting with picture houses. No doubt my parents, of Irish descent, were seduced by the last word of the title while assuming that the second word would be enough to keep us kids happy.

Unfortunately, the title is something of a misnomer. The titular character Hugh O’Donnell (Peter McEnery) spends more time sitting on his backside in a prison than he does engaging in any form of fighting. And in another annoying dupe, swords are scarcely in evidence, the weapon of choice being a wooden club of sorts, so it hardly qualifies as the swashbuckler the poster suggests.

Where Walt Disney was happy to play fast and loose with other aspects of history in other movies, here he cleaves close to the truth – though Hugh didn’t marry a McSweeney and his father didn’t die – so what we get is some kind of rebellion story, as the Irish attempt to rise up against the occupying English in the 1580s. If you are aware of your history, you will know that Oliver Cromwell is to blame for the English re-conquest of Ireland. Various rebellions followed, of which this is one.

It starts off promisingly enough with a nice bit of myth, that when Hugh becomes chief of the Clan O’Donnell he triggers a prophecy that insists the Irish will become free. That’s easier said than done due to the lack of a cohesive rebellion force thanks to infighting and historical distrust between the clans. And when Hugh does attempt to stand up against the British he’s promptly imprisoned – again and again.

A better title would be The Escapologist of Donegal because that’s mostly, except for the beginning and final sections, what this is about. He escapes, is betrayed and recaptured, or escapes, racing through the streets of Dublin, and remains free and then manages to gather the clans under his banner and take on the English.

And, actually, Hugh is not that keen on the use of force to win freedom. He prefers negotiation. So you can imagine how exciting that is for the kids in the audience. He wants to unite all the clans and hope the English will see sense. Luckily, for the frustrated kids in the audience, the English are not inclined to sit around a negotiating table. So, at last, we get a battle.

To save it from just being a history lesson, a romance is sneaked in between Hugh and Kathleen McSweeney (Susan Hampshire), daughter of another clan chief, and who already has an ardent admirer. A wedding is the easiest way to create unity between clans, but, luckily, this isn’t just the political matchmaking that occurred in England and Europe.

But that nascent romance is put on the back burner for most of the picture while Hugh sits in jail or runs around the country in escape mode.

So, a few fights with cudgels and fisticuffs, some bonding with other prisoners, some wooing of the clans until at last at last there is the semblance of a battle.

Nearly 60 years on from first viewing I am not won over. The politics and maneuvering is certainly more interesting to an adult, but I am still miffed at the absence of much actual swordplay – and you know how fond I am of a swashbuckler. It’s just too earnest in setting up a rebellion tale and the escapes have none of the ingenuity we have come to expect from such.

Peter McEnery (The Moon-Spinners, 1964) looks distinctly uncomfortable as a matinee idol of the kind groomed by Disney, especially when you see what he was capable of a few years later in the more scandalous Negatives (1968). Susan Hampshire (The Trygon Factor, 1966) only tops and tails the picture and her entire Disney experience was clearly so miserable she excised it from her biography.

Directed by Michael O’Herlihy (Smith!, 1969) from a screenplay by debutant Robert T. Reilley based on the Robert Westerby novel.

The Comic (1969) ***

It’s a Hollywood trope that successful screen comedians invariably want to test their mettle in more dramatic circumstances. Studios tend to cave in to such self-indulgence, usually with the proviso that the star makes another couple of laff fests with them, but audiences tend to give such enterprises the thumbs down. Dick Van Dyke (Divorce American Style, 1967), on a commercial roll for most of the decade, took the, theoretically at least, easier option of limiting the drama on this one.

Silent films were also on a commercial roll, the oldies having made a comeback via compilation reissues and through slapstick homages such as It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963) and The Great Race (1965) so setting the picture in that era in Hollywood’s history seemed a sure thing.

And it starts off bang on the money. A eulogy delivered at a funeral is interrupted by a pie in the face and (as seen above) that device can be utilized at any point.

I’d be telling you to give this complete misfire a miss if it wasn’t for an exceptional final third. The first two-thirds is made up of far too many silent film sequences starring Billy Bright (Dick Van Bright) who goes from vaudeville clown to major star complete with, at the height of his fame, being accorded the honor of a having a clockwork toy made of him.

When it’s not diverted into yet another silent movie sequence, which only serves to show that a modern comedian lacks whatever smarts the silent movie comedians had, the drama takes roughly the same approach, with scenes that could have come from a silent movie if not quite to the utmost.

Thanks to a multitude of affairs Billy burns his way through marriage to Mary (Michele Lee) and thanks to an overfondness for the bottle nearly kills off his career before the arrival of the talkies does that for him.

Eventually, and suddenly, we switch to an entirely different picture, a proper drama, very bold indeed for the time for its portrayal of old age and loneliness – a representation that would chime very much with today’s audiences. You don’t quite warm to this old fella because he wasn’t particularly sympathetic to begin with, but still, in its rawness, this section exerts a very emotional pull.

And, indeed, for Dick Van Dyke it was an incredible piece of acting. He morphs from young, tall, and fit with a head full of hair to an old bloke, bent over, shuffling and with the kind of comb-over that would put Bobby Charlton to shame. He’s been abandoned by everyone except sidekick Martin (Mickey Rooney) whose career has also gone south. They tell lies to each other to keep up their spirits.

The highlight of Billy’s life is getting a set of false teeth and setting the alarm for 4.30am so he can get up and watch reruns of his old movies on television. He lives on boiled eggs and milk.

And he’s still dumb enough to be rooked by a gold-digger. He’s placed an ad in Variety, drawing attention to the fact that he’s still alive, which wins him a spot on a TV chat show which turns into a gig for a commercial which leads a much younger woman to think he must be loaded. He ends up marrying her while in an oxygen tent, but she vanishes when she discovers his newfound fame has led to nothing.

In theory, this is about the side effects of fame, the temptations which few can avoid, and the sudden collapse in income and public awareness when the well runs dry. But, in reality, setting aside the Hollywood overtones, the last third could have been about any lonely old man.

A film of three thirds for the star, in the first two there’s nothing much to hold onto, in the last one he excels. Nobody else has much to do. Directed by Carl Reiner (The Jerk, 1979) and written by him and Aaron Ruben. Reiner had been the writer of The Dick Van Dyke Show so presumably that played a part in him getting the gig.

Died an absolute death at the box office. Not released outside America for decades and then only on DVD.

If it hadn’t been for the final third this would have been rated a one-star effort, it’s such an ill-conceived concept, and disastrous in its execution, but that final third makes it very worthwhile indeed if you can stick with it.

The Road to Corinth / Criminal Story / Who’s Got the Black Box? (1967) **

Top-class cast and occasional stylish direction get in the way of a thriller that can’t make up its mind whether it is in reality just a spoof. On the one hand we have a killer in a white suit complete with straw boater and a secret service boss who sells Turkish Delight, on the other hand a story not so much from James Bond but from Bond imitators.

Agent Robert Ford (Christian Marquand) is on the trail of black boxes that prevent missiles launching. When wife Shanny (Jean Seberg) is framed for his murder she determines to uncover the real killer, aided by Dex (Maurice Ronet), and find the maker of the boxes.

But that’s an over-simplification of an over-complicated plot so it’s best to concentrate on the highlights. For example, when customs officials stop a magician they find white rabbits and doves in his vehicle and, despite severe interrogation, he can, magically, release himself from his bonds enough to swallow a concealed cyanide pill. Instead of the usual cute children that proliferate in these kind of films, there’s a really annoying one. Shanny, imprisoned, has to make dolls. Greek Orthodox priests play a significant role.

Throw in kinky secret service boss Sharps (Michel Bouquet) who relishes being slapped for his inappropriate overtures to Shanny, a porn film starring Madame Phiphi, the heroine dangled from a crane and later lashed down to a dumper, and a villain willing to throw up is villainy for the love of a good woman.

But mostly it’s a picture in a rush. There are chases galore and nods to Hitchcock and lush Greek scenery.

It would be easy to assume that in eye-catching outfits Jean Seberg (Moment to Moment, 1966) is mostly there to provide eye candy but she does manage to outwit her pursuers from time to time although she seems equally to have a knack for being caught. Maurice Ronet (Lost Command, 1966), Christian Marquand (The Corrupt Ones, 1967) and especially Michel Bouquet (La Femme Infidele, 1969) bring an air of quality to the proceedings.

Apart from the occasional stunning image, this is not the Claude Chabrol (Les Biches, 1968) that lovers of his thrillers would expect.

The Anderson Tapes (1971) ****

Director Sidney Lumet has made more critically acclaimed crime pictures – Serpico (1973) and Dog Day Afternoon (1975) earned eight Oscar nominations between them – but none have been as thrillingly entertaining as this mash-up of the heist and surveillance subgenres. Francis Ford Coppola’s The Conversation (1974) has unfairly dominated the conversation regarding surveillance pictures, in large part down to Gene Hackman’s repressed performance, and because it made the ever-popular suggestion that Big Brother ruled the roost and there was nothing anyone could do about it.

These days The Anderson Tapes would hardly get out of the starting gate before everyone was whimpering about civil liberties and the fact that surveillance did the very job the public wanted it to do, which was to prevent crime and catch wrongdoers, would have been largely overlooked in the welter of lawsuits. A very clever device here prevents anyone getting trapped in that moral maze, so that what we’re left with is the inside gen on a superbly-organized and audacious robbery.

There’s a Thomas Crown Affair (1968) feel to this but where Norman Jewison employed split screen to get his various interlinked narratives across, here Lumet relies on speedy flash forwards intercutting the ongoing story.

The incipient danger of star Sean Connery was kept under wraps in the 007 outings, but here audiences get a blast of the full macho man, the take-charge kind of guy, and no bureaucratic buffoons getting in the way, and with no gadgets to rely upon it comes down to the sheer physicality of a magnetic screen personality.

Duke Anderson (Sean Connery) is no sooner out of prison after serving a ten-year stretch than he’s planning an audacious robbery, cleaning out an entire upmarket apartment block in the Manhattan Upper East Side, in which former girlfriend Ingrid (Dyan Cannon) lives in considerable luxury, over the Labor Day Holiday Weekend. After winning initial funding from the Mafia, he enrols, among others, camp antiques dealer Tommy (Martin Balsam), getaway driver Edward (Dick Williams), and “The Kid” (Christopher Walken), a young expert in alarms and electronics. As part of the deal he agrees to bump off another recruit, Rocco (Val Avery), who has fallen foul of the Mafia.

Everything that occurs is being recorded one way or another. Setting aside the building’s closed circuit television, Ingrid’s sugar daddy Werner (Richard B. Shull) has bugged her apartment and the cops have wiretaps on the Mafia and various others. This being a heist picture headed up by the world’s most popular star, as much as you want the criminals caught you want them to get away with it, Sean Connery having a self-justification scene at the outset to set liberal minds at rest.

So this is part docu-drama and part a whole bunch of cameos from the victims of the robbery as their, often heinous, personalities come into sharp perspective: siblings who rat each other out, the husband willing to allow his wife to be abused rather than give up a single dollar of his vast fortune. Even wealthy Werner couldn’t care less about a robbery as long as Ingrid knows her place, she’s his “property,” and has to choose him rather than Duke Anderson because, as feisty as she is, she relies on his dough for the good things in life.

But it’s driven by the hardnosed Anderson who’s not going to let the fact he’s never killed a man before get in the way of doing so now as the alternative would be the loss of the gig. Despite his macho demeanor and being able to run his gang efficiently, he’s aware he’s a small cog in the organized crime wheel.

When the cops get wind of the robbery, that triggers some superb stunt work as cops abseil across buildings.

After the disappointing box office of Shalako (1968), The Red Tent (1969) and The Molly Maguires (1970), Sean Connery roared back to form here, as the likeable hood while adding more edge to his screen persona. Martin Balsam (Hombre, 1967) is otherwise the pick of the supporting cast, though Christopher Walken, on his debut, makes his mark and you can’t ignore Dyan Cannon (Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, 1969).

But this is just terrific stuff from Lumet, who was apt in his more critically-acclaimed pieces to drift into the overly serious, and while he makes a point – at a very early stage, please note – of the ubiquitous power of surveillance, he lets that speak for itself while he concentrates on the more thrilling and more human aspects of the story. Screenplay by Frank Pierson (Cool Hand Luke, 1967) from the best seller by Lawrence Sanders (The First Deadly Sin, 1980). As a bonus, a first class score from Quincy Jones (Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice).