movie review – Page 3 – The Magnificent 60s

Duffy (1968) ***

Star James Coburn wasn’t keen on the title. Had it been made today it would have been a contender for the sobriquet of The Nepo Heist. I’m sure many heirs would quite like a large chunk of their inheritance put in their hands long before it was handed over after the death of the father/mother. Luckily, this isn’t about blatant greed. It’s presented as more of a game, a duo of half-brothers, same father/different mother, trying to put one over their arrogant father.

Millionaire businessman J.C. Calvert (James Mason) is as keen on keeping the kids in their place, constantly deriding as incompetent Antony (John Alderton) – an accurate assessment it has to be said – and more than willing to challenge Stefane (James Fox) to any game of skill, even darts, especially if it involves money.

The sons set out to steal £1 million ($3 million) from a shipment of cash their father is transporting aboard the passenger ship Osiris to Naples. To that end they recruit hippy smuggler Duffy (James Coburn). Stefane’s girlfriend Segolene (Susannah York) might have been included as a makeweight except she takes a fancy to Duffy. Given that betrayal is a standard trope of any heist, you are kept wondering if she is, in fact, no matter how she protests her independence, a plant.

It takes quite a while for the plot to gather any steam what with dilly-dallying around Tangier and making considerable adjustments to a yacht. No time is spent either in the planning of the crime, the action just unfolds. The theft itself requires little of the unique set of skills that most thieves possess, nothing more than going on board the Osiris in disguise, both Stefane and Segolene decked out in religious garments, and putting on masks for their incursion into the room containing the safe. The only moment of real tension comes in having to extract the code to the safe.

The escape is better thought-out. The cash is chucked overboard in buoyant bags, connected to Duffy by means of a fisherman’s line which, when reaching the safety of their yacht, transformed for the time being into a fishing boat, Duffy reels in. A helicopter magically appears from the hold and they blow up the yacht before escaping, stashing the loot in 30ft of water in a cove near Tangier.

Assuming J.C. would be able to claim on his insurance then no great harm would be done to the family coffers, and the sons, as well as filling their pockets, would have the pleasure of making a fool of their old man. As you might expect, there’s double crossing still to come. And it’s a gem of a twist. Calvert has been in on the crime from the outset, thanks to the connivance of Segolene who turns out to be his girlfriend.

However, that scam is undone in another twist and it’s Duffy who comes out trumps, though far short of a millionaire.

Relies more than most crime pictures on the charm of the three main characters, with Antony there for nuisance value. However, the will-she-won’t-she games Segolene plays with Duffy and Stefane would have had more impact if Stefane had not been so nonchalant about their romance, and if she had not been so strident as regards her independence and unwillingness to become attached to any man.

That said, she turns out to be the cleverest of the lot, stringing along the two younger men while making a better play for the older one. But there’s something missing in the construction of the picture, so her triumph seems to come out of left field, almost a twist for the sake of it.

James Coburn (What Did You Do In The War, Daddy?, 1966) gives his screen persona an almighty about-turn, and although he appears useful with a pistol, he comes across more as a free-living hippy of the period, with a penchant for erotic pop art, though he has little regard for ecology, literally littering the planet, chucking wrappers and bottles everywhere.

James Fox (King Rat, 1965) has a whale of a time as an insouciant aristocrat, a character trait he clearly inherits from James Mason (Age of Consent, 1969) as his father while Susannah York (Sands of the Kalahari, 1965) swans around in cool attire all the more to make herself appear nothing more than a mild distraction rather than a criminal genius.

Leisurely directed by Robert Parrish (Journey to the Far Side of the Sun, 1969) from a screenplay by Donald Cammell (Performance, 1971) and Pierre de la Salle and Harry Joe Brown Jr.

Very slight.

What Did You Do in the War, Daddy? (1966) **

How on earth did James Coburn get mixed up in this mess? I’m assuming that having suddenly been elevated from supporting actor to top billing as a result of Our Man Flint (1966) he took the first job that came along that reflected his ideas about salary. Director Blake Edwards was, to some extent, at something of a loose end. United Artists had passed on The Great Race (1965) and another project with the director had fallen by the wayside. Apparently, this movie was the result of a question asked by his son. During World War Two, Edwards had served in the U.S. Coastguard which meant he did not see active service though did suffer a back injury. Writer William Peter Blatty (A Shot in the Dark, 1964) was too young for World War Two and though he joined the US Air Force he didn’t see active service either, being employed in the psychological warfare division.

So this exercise wasn’t going to be based on personal experience. The mid-1960s wouldn’t exactly lend itself to poking fun at war, although Vietnam was fair game.

You might have thought Coburn, on reading the script, would have realized he’s not much in the movie for the first 20 minutes or so and then is at the mercy of a bundle of subplots.

During the invasion of Sicily in 1943, stickler for discipline Captain Cash (Dick Shawn) is handed command of a disorganized unit headed by Lt Christian (James Coburn) and instructed to take a strategic village from the Germans. Turns out the enemy is long gone and the resident Italian soldiers, commanded by Capt Oppo (Sergio Fantoni), are only too happy to surrender as long as they can continue to enjoy la dolce vita which in this case involves an annual wine festival. Most of the early part of the picture revolves around getting Cash to loosen up, and after imbibing copious amounts of liquor and being seduced by the mayor’s daughter Gina (Giovanni Ralli) he relents.

There are only two obstacles to the merry party. Oppo objects to his girlfriend Gina being used as a makeweight to make Cash see things the Italian way and Cash’s boss General Bolt (Carroll O’Connor) asks to see proof of their success. So, since not a shot has been fired and they can’t boast of a camp full of Italian POWs, they decide to invent the proof and start filming phoney footage. Bolt reckons they need support and sends up reinforcements. Which is just as well because the Germans, either realizing what they’ve been missing or being nudged back into action, decide to reappear. And given the slovenly chaotic opposition it’s not hard for them to re-take control of the town which results in Cash hiding out in drag.

Theoretically, it’s a reasonable idea. There’s been no shortage of swindlers or con-men or black marketeers in war movies – think James Garner in The Great Escape (1963) and The Americanization of Emily (1964) – and various armies have been filled with shysters ranging from Sgt Bilko to the shifty recruits in British films up to all sorts of wheezes or doing their best to stay out of the line of fire.

But once the point has been made that it’s better to make love not war and drink as much wine as possible and become friends with the enemy, the point is made over and over again. There isn’t a single joke that isn’t belaboured and not many laffs to begin with. Going over-the-top is fine for slapstick like The Great Race but it doesn’t work here.

James Coburn has too little to do and Dick Shawn (A Very Special Favor, 1965) too much. Giovanni Ralli (Deadfall, 1968) and Sergio Fantoni (Hornet’s Nest, 1970 ) are wasted. Carroll O’Connor (Warning Shot, 1966) is the pick of a supporting cast that includes Aldo Ray (The Power, 1968) and Harry Morgan (The Mountain Road, 1960) but that’s only because he has a clever reversal of a role as a general who wants to be treated as an individual.

I should point out this has something of a cult following but I won’t be joining the fan club.

Must have seemed a good idea at the time.

Cape Fear (1962) ****

Portraying legal poster boy Atticus Finch in To Kill A Mockingbird (1962) might well have been an act of redemption for Gregory Peck after his portrayal, a few months earlier, of this attorney who has little compunction in walking down the same mean streets as the criminals he wishes to see put away. And it just goes to show how thin the line is between upstanding façade and killer, no matter the excuse or provocation.

Attorney Sam Bowden (Gregory Peck) isn’t permitted as much leeway as you might expect when ex-con Max Cody (Robert Mitchum) turns up in his small town. This could as easily have played out as the virtuously good guy and family being hounded by a thug who would have spent most of his life being prosecuted for crimes except his victims usually failed to bring charges on account of their fear of retribution. Trigger the animal in him for sexual purposes and you’re lighting a fuse that leads directly to violence.

From the audience perspective, the cards should have been stacked against the villain, but that’s not the case here, not when the good guy begins to act more and more like a bad guy, persecuting him, through his police connections, with a string of arrests for crimes of which he is innocent, unable to put the finger on him for the vicious assault he does commit and generally been outwitted by a fella who knows the law a damn sight more than the lawyer.

Bowden isn’t your usual harassed victim, standing up stoutly against criminality, but a man crumbling under pressure and the frustration of being out-thought by the enemy and itching to get it over with the easiest way possible by finding an excuse to kill the perpetrator.

So, yes, if you’re that way inclined, you can view it as an attack on the American justice system that allows villains with criminal intent not to be incarcerated for considering committing a crime. But that’s not the way it plays out, not when Bowden uses every sleazy trick in the legal book to head off Cody, eventually attempting bribery, and when that doesn’t work hiring a gang of thugs to beat him up and when that also fails planning how to draw him into the kind of trap that would allow legal assassination.

So, now Bowden’s every bit as devious as his pursuer and much worse because he’s willing to stake out wife and daughter as bait for a known sexual predator. He seems to have no inkling of the fate that could be in store for his family should his clever plan go wrong and little compunction or remorse about the criminal intent in his own mind.

Back in the day it would have been easier to accept this kind of narrative, that you can step outside the law to protect your family (a trope that would burn through the 1970s once the vigilante was represented by the likes of Charles Bronson and others), but a contemporary audience is more likely to take a more jaundiced view of the good guy “forced” into bad action. Instead of hiring a private detective (Telly Savalas) to keep tabs on Cody, Bowden could as easily invest – and he has more than enough money – in a security guard to watch over the house and family.

So, even as we’re fearing for wife Peggy (Polly Bergen0 and teenage daughter Nancy (Lori Martin) we’re beginning to put the blame for their plight plumb on the shoulders of the upstanding lawyer who thinks he’s smarter than the most dangerous villain this side of Hannibal Lecter.

If there’s a happy ending, you’re left with wondering just what the heck that’s going to look like. Bowden has allowed his wife to be raped and his daughter scared so witless she’ll be mentally scarred for life, and him unemployable, courtesy of being struck off for breaking the law.

And this is all filmed in classic noir style, moody lighting, shadows and darkness squeezing out what little light there is, emphasizing the danger that lurks on the dark side. And a terrific showdown on a boat. But director J Lee Thompson (The Guns of Navarone, 1961) does just as well without going down the obvious noir route. Robert Mitchum never just strolls. He walks with intent, combining panther walk and erect carriage. So, the tracking shots of him approaching the camera, and therefore some potential victim, are enough to give the audience the message.

Robert Mitchum (The Sundowners, 1960) steals the show with his quiet menace and soft drawl. This appeared before How the West Was Won (1962) where Gregory Peck played a con man and after The Guns of Navarone (1961) where he played the action hero’s hero, so this would be the first audience had seen of a switch in the actor’s screen persona. Usually, he’s the guy who can handle pressure.

Polly Bergen (Kisses for My President, 1964) is excellent as is Lori Martin (The Chase, 1966) whose default early on, for narrative purposes, is fear. Look out for Martin Balsam (The Anderson Tapes, 1971) as a complicit cop and Telly Savalas (The Assassination Bureau, 1969).

Superbly directed by J. Lee Thompson. Written by James R. Webb (How the West Was Won) from the novel by John D. MacDonald (Darker than Amber, 1970).

Gripping and asks hard questions.

Rental Family (2025) *** – Seen at the Cinema

Gaming the system takes on a new meaning in this unlikely hybrid. What sets out to be a hard satire of the rigidity of Japanese culture is compromised by the need to turn it into a feel-good dramedy courtesy of importing American sometime star Brendan Fraser. There’s an awful trade-off here and I think the film suffers as a result of the compromise. I’m no big fan of movies that arrive in my multiplex courtesy of picking up accolades at a film festival, but, as it happened, I only saw print ads for this after I had seen it at a Secret Screening” so had no idea it had actually come via film festivals.

Take the Yank, Brendan Fraser at his puppy-dog best, out of the equation and concentrate on either his boss Shinji (Takehiro Hira) or colleague Aiko (Maru Yamamoto) and you would as easily have come to the same emotionally satisfying conclusion. Sold as a hard-edged indigenous Japanese satire I think it would easily broken out of the arthouse ghetto.

Apart from anything else it’s been, out of desperation I guess, sold as a kind of Mrs Doubtfire, imposter bonding with a young child, but in fact that’s a small part of the overall story, and in trying to make it the central element, goes off-piste.

Let me tell you what a rental family is, in case you are as unfamiliar with the term as I was. Apparently – I looked this up – this phenomenon arrived in Japanese culture in the 1980s and there are about 300 companies currently employing in selling human fraud to various clients.

So if, for example, you are gay but are fearful of denying your parents the opportunity to see you settled in a traditional male/female marriage, then you simply hire a husband for the day of the wedding and then once the ceremony is over you go back to your true love. Or, if, for example, you’d really like to experience your own funeral you can hire an actor to play a corpse while you listen to the nice things people say about you. Or if you want to keep your father, a retired famous actor, think he hasn’t been forgotten you hire an actor to play a reporter to provide him with the adoration you think he deserves.

Or, should you be a single mother and think that will prevent your daughter getting into the school of your choice you simply hire an actor to play the daughter’s long-lost father. That’s taking the helicopter parent to an extreme, I’d say. Still, in between playing all his other roles, which include befriending a geek who likes to visit strip clubs, the aforesaid American actor Philip (Brendan Fraser) drops into the life of the appealing daughter and does the kind of things dads do with young children, hardly much of a stretch since this child is nowhere near the kind of parent-hater she’d be when she hit her teens.

Not much thought has gone into what the idea of the extremely brief appearance of a fake dad will do to a vulnerable child, but hey-ho, that gives Philip the chance to fill the kid in on the realities of life. “Adults lie,” he states crassly and the kid is so desperate to have a dad, she’ll go for a fake one, and doesn’t hate him any more for his cruel deception.

There are some other sections I didn’t really understand. Shinji’s specialty appeared to playing a boss who reduced aberrant employees to gibbering wrecks. It wasn’t clear if this was some kind of fetish – a person who wanted to be screamed at – or a dress rehearsal for an employee who would have to grovel before his employers for embezzlement or somesuch. And it’s not entirely clear why Aiko has to don a blonde wig and sit in a bar and wait for a woman to come in and whack her across the face – a proper slap, one that leaves a bruise – for stealing away (supposedly) her husband.

And it beggars belief that Philip would become so enmeshed in his role of reporter that he would agree to accompany the old actor on a two-day cross-country journey to some shack in the middle of nowhere where the old fella grew up, clearly forgetting that the old fellow’s daughter would be going out of her mind with worry.

But take Philip out of the equation and there’s far more dramatic nuggets as the supporting cast do more than enough to satisfy emotional demand. You might wonder why – except for filling in the time and offering a contrast to Philip’s lonely existence – we are given a glimpse of Shinji’s home life, where his happy wife greets him with a beer and a lovely meal and he can set his son’s troubled mind to rest. But in easily the best scene in the film, we discover wife and son are fakes, that Shinji is living the kind of fantasy he sells.

Structurally, Philip is presented as our window on this odd world. But it jars when he’s seen as putting it right – white savior and all that – and also when you consider he has his own fantasy, paying for love by the hour.

Directed by Hikari (37 Seconds, 2019) who shared screenplay credits with debutant Stephen Blahut.

On oddity for sure, the satire works but the feel-good is limp.

This hasn’t been released yet in Japan – though it premiered some months back at the Tokyo International Film Festival – which has, confusingly, the same acronym as the Toronto International Film Festival, so don’t mix up your TIFFs – and I’d be interested to know how it was received by the public there.

Murderers’ Row (1966) ***

Chucklesome brew. It’s easy to get wrong idea about the Matt Helm series, what with the onslaught of girls in bikinis, a hero majoring in seduction and madmen wanting to take over the world. You could be hoodwinked into thinking this had something to do with espionage rather than a platform for the non-stop delivery of deadpan one-liners and wry visual gags. The star prevents anyone taking anything seriously with a rat-tat-tat quip a minute. The plot’s hooey and the female stars scarcely register. But who cares. The audience has buckled up for a fun ride.

Apart from the dialog the narrative is distinctly lazy. Assuming it’s what audiences want, the action takes time out to note parades of passing girls in bikinis and occasionally stops dead should there be the opportunity to watch youngsters dancing wildly. With humor to the fore, you could probably have gone for a dozen other storylines as good – or bad – as this one and nobody would have noticed.

Matt Helm (Dean Martin) is forced to interrupt photographing a bevy of beautiful girls in order to save the world from madman Julian Wall (Karl Malden) who plans to use the power of the sun to destroy Washington D.C. “Operation Scorch” relies on the brain of scientist Dr Solaris (Richard Eastham), who has been kidnapped to persuade him to hand over his formula.

This takes Helm, masquerading as a Chicago mobster, to Monte Carlo where he almost immediately faces a charge of murder. Tracking down Wall and his squeeze Coco (Camilla Sprav) proves easy. In rather desultory fashion Helm hooks up with local beauty Suzie (Ann-Margret) and until we discover that her father is Solaris her presence is mostly redundant as, for once, neither love nor lust is in the air.

Like any self-respecting madman Wall hangs out on an island where he is putting the final details to his plan and torturing Solaris. With Suzie in his wake, Helm easily infiltrates the rather desultory hideout, is captured, Solaris surrenders the secret formula once his daughter is threatened, and Suzie comes into her own by disabling the infernal machine by the simple device of a hairpin. This leads to a rather desultory happy ending.

I’m not entirely sure why Ann-Margret chose this vehicle, since she is called upon to do very little except shake her trademark booty. If she had gone up in critical estimation after her turns in Once a Thief (1965) and Stagecoach (1966) she plummeted back to earth here. You could say the same for Camilla Sparv – all the hard work in gaining reasonable notices for The Trouble with Angels (1966) and especially heist thriller Dead Heat on a Merry-Go-Round (1966) undone. She has even less to do than Ann-Margret. Eye candy is too good a word for them and they are unfairly underused.

Karl Malden (Nevada Smith, 1966), who usually attempts to humanize his characters, avoids that idea and goes straight for cartoon villain.

So it’s left to Dean Martin to keep the enterprise afloat which he does with tremendous chutzpah. As well as the verbal drollery there are some excellent visual gags, including the use of a giant magnet to render defenseless menacing thug Ironhead (Tom Reese), so called because has a large metal plate on his skull. Virtually every line produces a rejoinder from Dean Martin, and that lightness of delivery matches the souffle nature of the picture, a sequel to The Silencers (1966), both big box office hits.

Director Henry Levin (Genghis Khan, 1965) gives himself no airs or graces, sensible enough to stick the camera on Dean Martin and let him do the rest. Written by Herbert Baker (Hammerhead, 1968) from the bestseller by Donald Hamilton.

Highly entertaining for a piece of pure fluff.

Take Me Naked (1966) no stars & Hot Nights on the Campus (1965) no stars

British outfit Talking Pictures has embarked on an educational program. Back in the day this would have been termed a “retrospective”, a coveted description indicating that a director or actor’s portfolio was worth reassessment. However, Talking Pictures has taken something of an outlier approach on this one. What it seems intent on educating us about is the U.S. “skinflick”.

You might not be aware of the difference between movies made in the U.S. and anywhere else that appealed to the lowest common denominator in the 1960s. Movies that featured nudist camps were generally acceptable to the British censor. And although major filmakers continually challenged the censor everywhere during the decade, that generally came under the auspices of artistic merit.

When permissiveness got the upper hand, the British seemed somewhat suspicious of abundant nudity and tended to overload it with comedy – Confessions of a Window Cleaner (1974) and Adventures of a Taxi Driver (1976) – and titles majoring on the double entendre like Keep It Up Downstairs (1976). There was a censor to keep everything in check.

In the U.S. it was different. You could avoid censorship simply by refusing to submit your film to the Production Code. And there were plenty cinemas only to0 keen to show the worst anyone could come up with in terms of sex and nudity.

The pair I’m reviewing here are not just the worst films I have ever seen but the worst films to be shown on a highly reputable channel, British outfit Talking Pictures TV. As you may be aware this channel has often been a first port of call in finding rare British pictures, often of the crime variety, especially the output from Renown. So pretty much I’m a sucker for anything they turn up dating from the 1960s even if it’s a new movie to me since I admit my knowledge of that era still has gaps. I’m the kind of sucker that never does any research on unknown titles, just trusts that TPTV is taking me down an interesting route

So if I’m unfamiliar with the picture, I generally give it the benefit of the doubt as I assume the people who run Talking Pictures will have done the hard yards. But now I’m not so sure.

Admittedly, there’s a fine line between cult and trash. A great deal of what passes for cult these days was dismissed as trash back in the day, so often it depends on your point of view. But it’s hard to make any justification for screening either of these movies.

At the time of their release neither would have been shown without extensive cuts in the UK and would have been shown in US cinemas minus a Production Code seal of approval.

Admittedly, too, I am making this damning judgement – deeming them worse than the awful Orgy for the Dead (1965) which was redeemed if only just by its campness – without having watched much of either picture. A 20-minute sample of each was as much as I could take.

It’s not just that they are devoid of any cinematic or even technical merit – there’s no dialog for a start, just a monotonous voice-over – but basically that they are an excuse for an endless parade of nudes. Skin flicks in the American vernacular, movies for the dirty raincoat brigade the British equivalent.

Take Me Naked purports to be the more artistic of the pair given it’s set in a derelict area of New York filled with alcoholics and bums. But really, it’s an excuse for a rancid low life to spy on a naked woman (Roberta Findlay) and imagine what’s he’s going to do to her. That’s pretty much it, apart from an unsavory violent aspect.

Hot Nights on the Campus has less nudity. But that’s it’s only saving grace. Again, there’s no dialog, just voice-over. Sally (Gigi Darlene) is a farm girl who is led astray at college and her education mostly comprises orgies, lesbianism and seduction. There’s at least an attempt at narrative since Sally’s adventures incur pregnancy and abortion, but like the rest of the picture their purpose is purely exploitational.

Take Me Naked was directed by Michael and Roberta Findlay, the latter making a name for herself helming exploitation, sexploitation and hardcore porn. Hot Nights on the Campus was written and directed by Tony Orlando who made three others in the same vein.

Avoid like the plague.

A Prize of Arms (1962) ****

Will easily hook a contemporary audience. Especially stylish in its narrative choices and visually carries a punch. Slips cleverly between the two standard tropes of the heist picture – the theft where we know in advance what the target is, e.g. Topkapi (1964) and the one where we’re kept in the dark about what exactly is going on for some time e.g Dead Heat on a Merry-Go-Round (1966). Here, director Cliff Owen teases audiences from the start. The sizzling opening sequence involving two explosions and a flame-thrower aren’t rehearsals for the heist but a dry run for the escape.

All we know for about half the picture is that Turpin (Stanley Baker), a former Captain bearing a grudge against the Army, wartime Polish buddy Swavek (Helmut Schmid) and young gun Fenner (Tom Bell) who’s too fond of the booze, are, courtesy of the opening sequence, up to no good. Once they don Army uniforms, but without any relevant papers, on the eve of the British invasion of Suez in 1956, it’s clear that for some reason an Army barracks is their target.

Bureaucracy both works in their favor and against them. A guard at the gate is easily duped into thinking that office error accounts for the lack of paperwork as they drive an Army truck into the establishment. But then bureaucracy hampers their efforts. For standing around too idly, Fenner is forced into a spot of pot-washing. When Turpin fakes an illness, he’s commandeered by a male nurse who refuses to let him leave until he’s been examined. Attempts to steal a stretcher, essential it transpires to their plan, are thwarted.

Turpin is forced to constantly revise his plans in the face of unexpected adversity and the realization that Fenner is something of a liability. Integrating themselves into the Army base is not as easy as it might appear because everyone has designated duties and people without purpose stand out.

Turns out, pretending to be Military Police, they’re planning to make off with a £100,000 payroll (£2.1 million in today’s money). Their plan, once it kicks in, is exceptionally clever and works well.

The stretcher element, however, causes a problem and soon both Army personnel and cops are on their tail. But they’re one step ahead. Even when they appear to be cornered, don’t forget they’ve got that flame-thrower tucked away for emergencies.

The heist itself, while a clever enough ruse and crackling with suspense, is only the bridge between the tension-filled sections before and after, the build-up and the chase. Part of the fun is that what can go wrong comes from the most unexpected sources.

Although Stanley Baker had headlined a few movies this was a breakthrough in screen persona, the tough guy cool under pressure with a meticulous understand of detail that would be shown to better effect in the likes of Zulu (1964). He’d return to the scene of crime in Robbery (1967) and Perfect Friday (1970). Tom Bell (Lock up Your Daughters, 1969) impresses as the nervy unreliable sidekick, and while German actor Helmud Schid (The Salzburg Connection, 1972) has less to do.

You certainly won’t miss Patrick Magee (Zulu) as a terrifying sergeant-major but you’ll need to be quick to spot the debuts of Rodney Bewes (The Likely Lads TV series, 1964-1966) and character actor Glynn Edwards (Zulu). And you might think it worth mentioning that future director Nicolas Roeg (Don’t Look Now, 1973) had a hand in the screenplay credited to Paul Ryder (A Matter of Choice, 1963)

This is a no-frills exercise, with romance and sex excised so no sub-plot to get in the way. Cliff Owen (The Vengeance of She, 1968) sticks to the knitting.

Crisply told.

Remember the Titans (2000) ****

Denzel Washington’s breakout movie. An odd statement given he had already appeared in such box office hits as The Pelican Brief (1993), Philadelphia (1993), and Crimson Tide (1995). But in the first two he was second banana to, respectively, Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts. And only the first topped the magical $100 million mark – though only just – the other two reaping $77 million and $91 million, respectively. But all three had considerable juice – Julia Roberts well into her stride as a box office phenomenon, the AIDs drama courting Oscars, uber-director Tony Scott helming the nuke sub drama – and backed with big marketing dollars

Apart from Washington, Remember the Titans had nothing going for it. Nobody else with any box office marquee. And covering a sport that had little traction in the U.S. and zilch in the global market. North Dallas Forty (1979) with Nick Nolte had hauled in just $26 million, The Program (1993) pairing James Caan and Halle Berry just $23 million, biopic Rudy (1994) $22 million and even the heavyweight Any Given Sunday (1999) helmed by Oscar-winning Oliver Stone and featuring Oscar-winning Al Pacino and a roster of top names could only climb to $75 million.

Remember the Titans hit $115 million, the biggest movie of Washington’s career, the biggest sports movie of all time. And here’s the kicker. None of the characters were instantly likeable. You had a ruthless hardass coach who refuses to listen to advice, the jocks are all spoiled and entitled, even the kids are likely to turn you off. But where recent pictures like Roofman (2025), Marty Supreme (2025) and After the Hunt (2025) leave you with no liking for the characters at the end, here the opposite is true.

Each character has a rival. Incoming college coach Herman Boone (Denzel Washington) has little time for the man he replaced, Bill Yoast (Will Patton). Incoming Sunshine Bass (Kip Pardue) nettles team captain Gerry Bertier (Ryan Hurst) who in turn clashes with newcomer Julius Campbell (Wood Harris). Even Yoast’s daughter refuses to play nice with Boone’s daughter.

All this plays out against a background of racism. In 1971 T.C. Williams High School in Alexandria, Virginia, has been integrated, a notion largely opposed by the existing white authorities and residents, including Bertier’s mother and girlfriend (Emma) Kate Bosworth who refuses to shake a black hand. Like his daughter, Boone isn’t about to play nice and he proves to be the worst kind of driven coach, pushing his players to more demanding physical levels and punishing them when they don’t grasp his plays.

But he does understand how a team works, that it won’t function as a collection of individuals, no matter how brilliant – and the better the players like Bertier, the only All-American on the field, expect to be treated differently. Bonding, in this instance, forces black and white players to learn about each other’s lives.

And you could say the same about victory. Nothing brings a team together like winning. A successful team crosses all racial boundaries.

So we get the usual last-minute touchdowns, the individuals finding redemption on the field, the cheating and off-field maneuvers, and the “coming together” that was such a big part of Al Pacino’s team in Any Given Sunday.

Music plays a big part, as white players begin to enjoy what they initially view as black music, and as the team take music as their very own bonding exercise, dreaming up a theme song and entering the field of play with an original song-and-dance number.

Denzel Washington is the driving force and the fact that he’s not a do-gooder and is just trying do his job rather than undertaking any wider virtue-signalling remit is what propels the picture. Will Patton (Entrapment, 1999) is solid. Wood Harris (The Wire, 2002-2008) and Donald Faison (Scrubs, 2001-2010) catch the eye. Kip Pardue (Driven, 2001) was the breakout youngster and current box office behemoth Ryan Gosling has a small part.

Under the direction of Boaz Yakin (Safe, 2012), it fairly rolls along as the rivalries develop or are resolved. Written by Gregory Allan Howard (Ali, 2001).

Not a critical hit at the time and still pretty much written off by the media, but picked up a strong head of steam among audiences at the time and since.

Thoroughly enjoyable.

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.