movie review – Page 3 – The Magnificent 60s

Experiment in Terror / The Grip of Fear (1962) ****

For a modern audience any film that contains mention of “Twin Peaks” and “Tarantino” either shows amazing prescience and/or an indication of what is to come. This classy thriller does not disappoint. Part police procedural, part portrait of a killer, part clever heist and part women in peril, it has you wondering why director Blake Edwards did not stick to the genre. Set in San Francisco in an era when the F.B.I. was generally considered a good thing rather than the paranoia-inducing entity it would become a decade later.

Bank teller Kelly Sherwood (Lee Remick) is terrorized by an unknown assailant into helping him carry out a audacious $100,000 heist. F.B.I. agent Ripley (Glenn Ford), aware of the prospective theft, is drawn into the diabolical web as is Sherwood’s younger sister Toby (Stefanie Powers). The only clue to the thief is his asthmatic voice. Levels of forensic detection set a new bar with the F.B.I. employing telephone, personal and even aerial surveillance, commandeering of television cameras to scan a crowd, and analyzing a telephone conversation to identify the criminal.

Released in Britain as “The Grip of Fear,” exhibitors tried to pull a fast one on the public by using as the support “Operation Mad Ball,” a Jack Lemmon number from 1957, in a bid to convince moviegoers that this program would repeat the successful pairing of Remick and Lemmon in “Days of Wine and Roses.”

There are red herrings aplenty. Tension is racked up so adroitly that any character entering the frame automatically arouses suspicion. Edwards takes a leaf out of the Hitchcock suspense book by finding constant ways to remind Kelly – and the audience – just what is at stake, Ripley promising her a “reign of terror” and not, as you might expect, lying to her about the threat she faces.

As Ripley digs further into the robber’s past, he uncovers not only a catalogue of crime including rape and three murders, but also an unusual personality. Yes, as you might expect, a control freak, but also a guy capable of affection and of lavishing thousands of dollars on those worse off than himself. And, of course, he is exceptionally good at planning crime, outwitting the F.B.I., and picking the kind of vulnerable victim susceptible to intimidation. Every time, the F.B.I. thinks it is closing in, he remains one step ahead. Eventually, the F.B.I. has amassed so many clues, including his identity, a photograph and previous lovers, that you think it’s impossible for him to escape – until he does.

Kelly is so on edge, in following instructions, that she picks up the wrong man in a bar, the police so antsy they mistake a drunk for the assailant. Drenched in atmosphere and rich in subsidiary characters, there’s scarcely a dull moment, from a mannequin repairer (Nancy Ashton) with a roomful of dangling inert bodies, a karate class with (ironically) a woman well able to defend herself, to a small boy desperate to see a G-man’s weapon, an informant (Ned Glass) with a penchant (as did director Edwards) for silent comedies, and a bank manager who promises Kelly a promotion even if she has to steal the money.

On top of this there are some genuine creepy moments that up-end our expectations. What Ripley doesn’t tell Kelly is that she’s also bait and clearly has little concern that she might end up collateral damage – anticipating at the very least she will have a nervous breakdown when it’s over, if, in fact, she survives – in his bid to snare the criminal. A terrified kidnapped Toby strips down to underwear in front a man we know is a rapist. And the movie touches on the woman-who-loves-a-killer motif, a theme very much in the contemporary vein.

Blake Edwards (Breakfast at Tiffany’s, 1961) delivers a directorial tour de force. The criminal is hidden for most the picture, drip-fed to the audience in glimpses, his mouth here, his back there, other times in disguise. Edwards establishes the F.B.I. as such a “very efficient organization” using the most up-to-date methods and involving a vast number of staff plus police that it seems impossible to fail – until it does. And there is an absolutely brilliant six-minute sequence at the outset, milking the best of film noir lighting, when the criminal surprises Kelly in her garage and spells out in detail her vulnerability and the basics of his plan. By keeping the criminal in the shade, and what little available light there is covering her face, Edwards makes the most of Lee Remick’s eyes – every bit as iconic as Audrey Hepburn’s outfits in Breakfast at Tiffany’s – and her acting skill.

Remick (Sanctuary, 1961) is superb, trapped by emotion as much as terror, placing her trust in an F.B.I. that lets her down time and again. This is an edgier role for Glenn Ford (Fate Is the Hunter, 1964) as he steps up from the trustworthy guy-next-door to reveal a more ruthless streak. Stefanie Powers (The Warning Shot, 1967) does well in a small role and there is sterling support from Ross Martin (The Ceremony, 1963), Patricia Huston (Synanon, 1965) and Clifton James (Live and Let Die, 1973). Gordon and Mildred Gordon wrote the screenplay based on their novel Operation Terror.

“Twin Peaks” in case you are wondering is the district in which Kelly lives. There’s a sign towards the end for Tarantino’s World-Famous Cocktails.

Obsession (2026) **** – Seen at the Cinema

Didn’t realize I was sitting in on a piece of history. I was conscious of enjoying an unusual experience but for a different reason – first time I can remember in all my years of moviegoing of each of the three films I had chosen to be full up, in fact for my last film I got the last seat. But Obsession will go down in the annals for a another reason – its box office increased on the second weekend. And now (in an update) also increased on the third weekend.

Now this won’t be the first time that’s happened but in the past it was only a trick of distribution. A film would be released in a few hundred houses and then next week a few thousand and to nobody’s great surprise there was an uptick at the box office. What was more common for hit movies was a slow tail-off, successive weeks showing a small percentage drop. That happened with Titanic (1997) and more recently with The Housemaid (2026).

Obsession has broken the mold. It knocked up $17.1 million in its first weekend in 2615 cinemas and $23.9 million in 2655 houses for week two, a spectacular result in anyone’s language, and unprecedented. And then in week three it went up another 10 per cent to $26.4 million. So with Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu, as ill-conceived project as I’ve ever come across (keep the hero’s face hidden, have the puppet speak a la Minions and turn the action into a computer game), huffing and puffing at the box office, Obsession’s going to run off with the first honors of the summer.

So the question is: what makes it so special. Well, it’s not particularly unique – you might not get what you wish for – it is exceptionally well done. It sticks to the gory knitting and doesn’t let up until it has torn the audience up in a tension-ridden ride.

Turns the usual romantic set-up on its head, the nerdy fellow out of his league with a classier dame who soon comes to reverse her initial impression of the dunderhead. We’ve had women in the past turned into sexual objects by men in power – from The Stepford Wives to The Handmaid’s Tale – so we’re accustomed to the various ways females can appear to adore males. The old “wish upon a star” routine hasn’t been used, and certainly not for this purpose, in quite a while. It’s odd that Bear (Michael Johnson) has to stoop to magic to hook Nikke (Inde Navarette) because it he’d just paid attention and read the room he would not have missed the various invitations from her to make his move.

Instead, he finds a rackety “One Wish Willow” that makes his wish come true. Except he hasn’t counted on Nikke either revealing her true paranoid jealous self or being turned into something else because of the power of his wish. Either way, it’s not going to turn out well.

There’s no cure either, no antidote, no way of reversing the wish – and no way to escape. Once the movie is stuck on this single track, it doesn’t go anywhere, and why should it, this is a crazy enough concept as it is.

Whether it’s going to appeal as much to women is a good question. This basically posits the idea that behind every nice girl next door there’s an evil monster waiting to get her teeth into any nice passing male. Alternatively, it might well appeal for exactly that reason. Why should any upper-league lass have to put up with the dredges of the lower leagues just because he’s shy? Faint hearts, as everyone knows, are losers in love.

Budget restrictions – it cost just $1 million – will have played a part in their being no Act Three, but writer-director Curry Barker (Milk & Serial, 2024) in his sophomore outing delivers plenty bang for his miserly buck.

Inde Navarette, in her movie debut, is the scariest female this side of The Housemaid but I was less convinced by Michael Johnson (Endangered Species, 2021).

All hail Curry Barker and let’s hope this is the beginning a distinguished career.

The Other Side of Midnight (1977) ****

I was settling in for what I thought was an evening of high-class trash when the unexpected occurred. This wasn’t a mushy World War Two romance but a tale of revenge on a par with that wreaked by the legendary Count of Monte Cristo or by the more recent The Housemaid (2026). Except for throwing a romantic spanner in the work, this has little to do with the Second World War and everything to do with how a Frenchwoman drags herself from the gutter by dint of personality and guile to reach, by way of movie stardom, the highest echelons of society and use her wealth and power to extract vengeance.

The two women, Noelle (Marie-France Pisier) and Catherine (Susan Sarandon) who end up competing for the affections of charming pilot Larry (John Beck) may well begin with innocence on their side but pretty soon they toughen up. Noelle is given a brutal lesson in reality, effectively trafficked by her father to a dressmaker, sex part of her apprenticeship. Fleeing to Paris, her suitcase stolen by a taxi driver, she is rescued by the self-deprecating Larry, an American pilot stationed in France with the Royal Canadian Air Force on the eve of World War Two. He’s got a nice line in repartee. After he is recalled to Britain, he promises to return, telling her to have a wedding dress ready. But he doesn’t appear, and she aborts his baby. After a stint as a fashion model, having honed her seductive skills, she shifts into the movies.

Meanwhile, resourceful Catherine had made herself indispensable in the business sense to her PR boss Bill (Clu Gulager), who (in a move that should be appreciated in view of contemporary power politics) gently rebuffs her advances. Her meet-cute with Larry is well-managed but as the romance shifts towards seduction we realize that he’s using the same lines on her as he did with Noelle.

As I mentioned, the actual war doesn’t enter the equation and by its end Noelle is a huge star, but keeping tabs on Larry and delighted to discover that he hasn’t managed to translate being a war hero into a decent income, his wife Catherine the major breadwinner. Once Noelle has stepped up in society by hooking Greek millionaire Constantine Demeris (Raf Vallone) she sets her sights on humiliating Larry, using her lover’s cash to ensure he loses every job he has, even though he manages that well enough on his own account, given to abrasiveness towards any employer.

Slowly, Noelle brings Larry, literally, to heel, arranging for him to be employed as the pilot on her personal plane, humiliating him at every turn – he has to carry her luggage, not speak unless spoken to, and is hauled before Constantine. What with her transformation from almost a street urchin to one of the wealthiest most glamorous women in the world it takes him a while to make the connection.

Of course, they fall for each other all over again. Wife Catherine being now an obstacle, he plans to get rid of her deep in ancient Greek caves. When that doesn’t work, she drowns trying to escape the pair in a storm.

However, suspicions lurk and the pair are brought to trial in a Greek court. Initially, it looks like they’ll get off scot-free but Noelle isn’t the only one obsessed with vengeance and they end up facing the firing squad. There can’t hardly have been a more downbeat ending to an epic picture (it clocks in at 165 minutes).

Male humiliation appears to be the theme. Larry’s meet-cute with Catherine spins on his humiliation and Noelle has no qualms about humiliating her rich husband in public. It’s not money that provides the leverage, it’s sex.

I’m assuming the title is a perverse twist on the Cinderella story. While Larry starts out Prince Charming, later on he’s revealed as an entitled brat.

You’ll maybe be wondering why I’ve selected this. Well, it was seeing John Beck in Blue (1968). I remembered that he’d become something of a leading man in the mid-1970s and could never work out why. He always seemed to be too stolid. But, in fact, he does great work here, humble, reticent, witty, and with a gentle touch in the seduction department.

In acting terms, of course Marie-France Pisier steals the show. A new name to American audiences she had a decent French track record, stretching from Trans-Europ Express (1966) to Cousin Cousine (1975). Not given to over-acting, except when making men feel good, it’s her quiet obsession that determines the movie.

Susan Saradon (The Rocky Horror Picture Show, 1975) makes good on her earlier promise, with a fine performance as a woman who grows in confidence but is still rattled by emotion. Clu Galager (McQ, 1974) and Raf Vallone (The Italian Job, 1969) provide interesting support.

While there’s lushness aplenty, it’s also lean in narrative terms, action speaking louder than words, almost as if silence and secrecy are a prerequisite of vengeance.

Directed with in parts considerable style by Charles Jarrott (Anne of the Thousand Days, 1969) from a script by Herman Raucher (Can Heironymus Merkin etc, 1969) and Daniel Taradash (Hawaii, 1966) based on the Sidney Sheldon bestseller.

This is the kind of movie on which critics and the public are sharply divided and it tends to be the former that gains the greater sway. Only eight critics saw fit to comment on Rotten Tomatoes and they ranked it an outright dud, with a rating of 25%. The public, on the other hand, have responded in droves, over 500 of them so far, and they take the opposite view in terms of rating – a more than healthy 73%. Go figure.

I’m in the general moviegoer camp and think it well worth a viewing.

Whispering Smith Hits London / Whispering Smith vs Scotland Yard (1952) ***

“In a change to the advertised program” is probably the best place to start, since in writing nearly 2,000 reviews I’ve only, from memory, dipped into the pre-1960 era a couple of times. So let me explain. First of all when I was diving through my trove of Pressbooks, deciding what to select for the new movie exhibition in the book shop I run – Abbey Books in Paisley, Scotland – I came across a Pressbook for this. I noted it was produced by Hammer which I had always associated with horror so I was intrigued to see what the company had been up to long before it made its name mainlining on Dracula, Frankenstein and The Mummy.

By coincidence, I spotted the title on the listings for British streamer Talking Pictures so decided to have a look.

The first point of note, I guess, is the cast. It was par for the course in the 1960s for producers to trawl many countries in the world to make films with an international, sometimes all-star, cast, as they had worked out that it was easier to sell a movie outside the U.S. if you could pin your publicity efforts on big names from France, Italy, Scandinavia, Britain and Australia.

Here, Hammer, maybe in the vanguard of that policy, took this to the extreme. Among the three top-billed names, there isn’t a single Brit. We’ve got American Richard Carlson (The Creature from the Black Lagoon, 1954), Norwegian blonde bombshell Greta Gynt (Soldiers Three, 1951) and Czech Herbert Lom (A Shot in the Dark, 1964).

All this might have been grist to the trivia mill had the movie turned out not to be so damned entertaining, well above par for a B-movie. Not only, visually, does it take on aspects of film noir, slats of lights penetrating the darkness, but there are distressing overtones relating to the insanity business, where once an inmate enters a sanatorium unscrupulous staff can do anything they want, make them worse or kill them if that’s on the agenda.

There are plenty twists and a cracker of a climax, but, as importantly, Yank sleuth Whispering Smith (Richard Carlsen) and his client Ann Carter (Rona Anderson), thanks to sparkling repartee, create genuine screen charisma.

When the celebrity cop arrives in London for a vacation he is door-stepped by publisher Ann tasked with investigating the apparent suicide of her American employer’s daughter Sylvia and the mysterious disappearance of her friend Louise. Although initially rejecting the case, he changes his mind when Ann is victim of an attempted hit-and-run.

Interviews with Sylvia’s fiancé Roger Ford (Herbert Lom), a part-time puppeteer, and her lawyer Hector Reith (Alan Wheatley) throw up impressions of the dead girl as wild, strange, jealous and a gambler. The missing Louise turns out to be rather glamorous, not easily fooled, and in the mood for a taste of seduction and with a nice line in put-downs, “I like a working man,” she tells Smith.

However, a creepy sanatorium run by goatee-bearded Dr Talen (Daniel Therry) appears to be a cover for a criminal organization and Smith soon uncovers a blackmail ring. But none of the victims is willing to talk and when they do are bumped off. Smith eludes various traps, including a showdown in a tunnel and a booby-trapped boat. When Sylvia’s corpse turns up it’s unrecognizable after spending too long in the Thames.

Ann and Smith make a great team, especially when she turns snappy. “You can keep your whispering for someone else,” is one of her better retorts. She’s a surprise in other ways, a dab hand at safe-breaking, for example. It’s not clear how far he is seduced by Louise, so the issue of romance remains inconclusive.

Three standout sequences: the chase in the tunnel: Dr Taren’s disquisition on how easy it is to trap the innocent through psychiatric gobbledygook; and a murder scene where the victim is forced to turn up the sound of a succession of wirelesses to disguise the noise of the imminent gunshot.

Whether it’s the introduction of the slick American or the Scandinavian beauty, or the general pacing and twists ladled out, this is a notch above the usual British B-movie.

I should point out the alternative title is misleading, suggesting Smith is some kind of maverick cop besting Scotland Yard when in fact they work in tandem. And, for the record, he doesn’t whisper either. You might catch a glimpse of Stanley Baker (Zulu, 1964) as a reporter.

Veteran director Francis Searle (The Marked One, 1963) makes the most of the cast, the narrative and the ambience. Written by John Gilling (The Pirates of Blood River, 1962) and Steve Fisher (Rogue’s Gallery, 1968) from the bestseller by Frank H. Spearman.

Worth a watch.

The Birds (1963) *****

Years ago I was asked to write a book on the six best Hitchcock films and from those choose the one I considered his very best. My choice was The Birds (1963). And it is for these reasons.

Firstly, unusually in the master’s work, there is a proper meet-cute. In most of his films, the couple are either already together (Rear Window, 1954; Torn Curtain, 1966) or when they get together it is for a hidden reason, one is on the run, or being pursued by the other, and the getting together is a convenient way of reaching an ulterior goal. When Melanie (Tippi Hedren) and Mitch (Rod Taylor) meet in the pet shop it is a certainly a precursor for the future and ensures that Mitch gets in a stickier jam he would otherwise likely have avoided but in the true sense it is the traditional Hollywood boy-meets-girl.

Secondly, and now cutting more to the chase, this is where the modern action film was invented. You might think that honour rested with Dr No (1962) or any other of the Bond pictures or even as late as Bullitt (1968) with its epochal car chase. But although the Bonds are filled with derring-do and escape, there is nothing to match the scene when the birds attack the town, wave after wave, as if they were World War Two bombers. There is even the point-of-view from the air which Hitchcock also invented and has been repeated in airplane war films ever since, most famously Pearl Harbor (2001).

But the way in which full-scale disaster, with everyone rendered helpless, unfolds is a true first. People in the café can see the river of petrol and the match about to be discarded and can only observe as the river of flame reaches the petrol tanker and in a perfectly ordinary town setting – rather than a military base – there is an almighty explosion. It is terror for the sake of it. And there is no escape, no one racing to the rescue, just pure devastation,

Lastly is the ending. It is apocalyptic. In every other Hitchcock when the hero/heroine escapes from dire peril, that is the end of the matter, there is no final twist as with a film like Carrie (1976). But although the birds are now silent and the couple can pick their way through their lines, you know full well this is not the end and that the birds will soon be as inexplicably massing somewhere else.

That’s three reasons but there are many more. For a start, in other films where the hero/heroine is in danger, the peril is not relentless. And often it is the threat of danger or of being captured that provides the narrative spring. And if there is physical threat in that era it was not unrelenting. And it is with another character whom you can fight or at least attempt to outwit. Not just, later in this instance rather than sooner, realize that there is no way to defeat these marauding creatures, no way at all. So, compared to his other films, when attacks of one kind or another punctuate a film, here it is like a battery of machine-guns and not episodic but virtually non-stop for over 30 minutes.

The storyline since it is after all a meet-cute is excessively simple. Melanie and Mitch meet, trade remarks, she leaves him what would easily be interpreted as a love token, and they link up after she is attacked by a gull. Wherever they go now, there will be no escape. Gulls attack children playing outside. The same day sparrows invade Melanie’s home. There is another attack on children. In town the gulls swarm in wholesale, wreaking the devastation mentioned above. All his is just a prelude to the final overwhelming siege. Except in modern horror pictures where a body is dispatched every ten minutes or so, there is nothing to match the unremitting attacks. It is as though Mitch and Melanie are in the front line of battle, under siege, Zulu (1964) with birds perhaps, but with no hope of salvation. Unlike Zulu, there is no sign that in raising the siege, the birds are hailing their bravery.

Unusually, too, for a Hitchcock film, there is considerable back story that informs current action. Mitch has an overbearing mother who seems to hover over his life attempting to scare off any woman who comes near. Annie has been left behind precisely because he needed to escape his mother. For her part, Melanie’s mother ran off with another man and she is a spoiled socialite with a habit of getting into trouble, possibly attention-seeking behaviour as a result of abandonment issues. Full to the brim with sophistication. Melanie is the least likely candidate for motherhood, yet her maternal feelings rush to the fore when she has to care for a terrified child.

Tippi Hedren’s career when south when she parted company with Hitchcock so we only have this and Marnie (1964) to consider her worth as a star. This is easily her best performance, shifting from icy cold to playful to romantic to maternal and of course no one has quite emoted such shock and terror. This is Rod Taylor (Dark of the Sun, 1968) coming into his stride as a leading man. He always had the charm and certainly the brawn, but rarely displayed both in the one picture. You would not have picked the Rod Taylor of Seven Seas to Calais to lead a squad of mercenaries in Dark of the Sun but he might well be first pick after this performance.

Hitchcock got so many of his effects by laying on the tension, a man or woman on the run, an innocent framed, a man displaying dubious morality (Rear Window, 1954, and Vertigo, 1958) nonetheless being presented as hero, the question in every instance being whether they will escape their fate. Here, the barrage of devilry is so intense it is almost inconceivable that anyone could get out alive. That they sneak out by the skin of their teeth, watched by their silent conquerors, for me was only the prelude to The Birds Part Two.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Birds-Tippi-Hedren/dp/B00I953TVA/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1M01BG775O41C&keywords=the+birds&qid=1657318569&sprefix=the+birds%2Caps%2C71&sr=8-1

Sumuru, Queen of Femina / The Girl from Rio / Mothers of America (1969) ***

Cult fans assemble. Sci fi crime thriller with for the time a fair sprinkling of nudity, and channelling psychedelic turns like Barbarella (1968) and Danger: Diabolik (1968) and one step up from the ultra-confident gals of Deadlier than the Male (1967) and Some Girls Do (1969). It would have helped if there was a decent plot, and not just a barrage of double-crossing halfway in, but you can’t have everything and director Jess Franco seems to believe that the presence of a tribe of women decked out in red capes, white knee-length boots and not necessarily much in between, goes some way to compensate.

Crook Jeff Sutton (Richard Stapley) holes up in Rio with $10 million in stolen cash, unaware that his presence has already been noted by gang boss Masius (George Sanders) and local ultra-feminist Sununda (Shirley Eaton). After hooking up with manicurist Lesley (Maria Rohm), Sutton is set upon by Masius’ henchmen but escapes in a plane to Femina, “the capital city of the world of women,” a female fortress along the lines of the Bulldog Drummond pictures.

Turns out Sununda is partial to men with piles of cash, kidnapping and torturing them until they hand it over. So she can’t believe her luck when millionaire Jeff walks into her lair. Except Jeff is a bit of a fibber, having made up the story about the ten million, and instead landing at Femina in order to rescue Ulla (Marta Reves).

The plot only really kicks in when he escapes. Masius agrees to help Jeff in return for the pretend-thief helping him hijack Sununda’s vault of gold. In reality, Masius is using Jeff as bait, to tempt Sununda down from the clouds, and then turn him over in exchange for just half her gold. And so it’s back to Femina for all concerned.

There’s no real pretence at the kind of sci-fi that enthralled Barbarella audiences and none of the slick campness of Danger:Diabolik, and most of the ideas seem still-born and occasionally contradictory – in order to enslave men women must first be taught how to be irresistible to them – torture is accomplished either by whispering or kissing, and the ray-guns employed looked like cast-offs from the 1950s, but the regiment of women, with spies infiltrating everywhere, led by the ruthless Sununda, have the makings of a warrior nation.

The movie has far better luck with Masius, a splendidly-drawn character who doodles on restaurant tablecloths, enjoys reading Popeye comic books, and – a bit of drawback for a man in his profession – can’t stand the sight of blood. While his sidekicks are mostly incompetent, they do drive around in hearses that resemble pagodas or dress in unnecessary masks and while his girlfriends appear docile they are in fact spies. And there’s a spot of waterboarding in case you ever wondered where the American secret services got the idea.

The source material was from Sax Rohmer but Sununda lacks the inherent obvious evil of the author’s more successful Fu Manchu series, Shirley Eaton no match for Christopher Lee, the most recent Fu Manchu, nor Richard Shapley on a par with Fu Manchu nemesis Nayland Smith, regardless of whether played by Nigel Green (The Face of Fu Manchu, 1965), Douglas Wilmer (The Brides of Fu Manchu, 1966) or Richard Greene (The Blood of Fu Manchu, 1968, and The Castle of Fu Manchu, 1969).

And anyone attracted to the picture by director Jess (Jesus) Franco is going to be disappointed by the lack of sleaziness he exhibited in pictures like Succubus (1968), 99 Women (1969) and Marquis De Sade’s Justine (1969) and there’s not enough style, though abundant campness, to make up. It’s hard to say quite why it did not have a harder edge, perhaps producer Harry Alan Towers, responsible for 99 Women, felt it should err in the softer direction of Fu Manchu than the overt sex-and-violence of the nascent women-in-prison genre.

Franco and Towers (24 Hours to Kill, 1965, and Bang! Bang! You’re Dead!, 1966) had collaborated on The Blood of Fu Manchu and The Castle of Fu Manchu as well as Venus in Furs (1969) and Marquis De Sade’s Justine so presumably knew how far they could go and decided that here it was better to rein in Franco’s tendencies. Whether a tougher-edged approach would have made much of a difference given the indifferent playing – neither Shirley Eaton (The Scorpio Letters, 1967) nor Richard Stapley (Two Guns and a Coward, 1968) bring much to the leading roles and George Sanders (Warning Shot, 1967) is not in it enough to save it. Maria Rohm, Franco’s wife, appeared in many of his films.

Towers appeared on surer ground in the likes of 24 Hours to Kill (1965), Bang! Bang! You’re Dead! (1966) and Five Golden Dragons (1967) when he could draw on a more interesting cast, better stories and more colourful locations. This was a sequel to The Million Eyes of Sumuru (1967) again with Shirley Eaton and plum role for Klaus kinski.

Despite the film’s potential, the director and George Sanders it does not fit into the so-bad-it’s-good category nor has enough going for it to be labelled a true cult film. But I could be wrong in both those assumptions.

Three Men To Kill! (1980) ****

Every now and then British streamer Talking Pictures TV comes up with an absolute cracker. I’d never heard of this film and don’t think it gained either a British or American release at the time and there doesn’t appear to have been anything in the way of VHS/DVD activity except a belated 2021 DVD.

Alain Delon was that rare beast, flitting between the commercial world and the arthouse with commendable ease. Luchino Visconti had hired him twice for Rocco and His Brothers (1960) and The Leopard (1963) and with his amoral screen persona he was a shoo-in for the best of French noir – Purple Noon (1960), Le Samourai (1967), The Swimming Pool (1967) and The Sicilian Clan (1969). He dipped in and out of Hollywood – Once a Thief (1965), Red Sun (1971), Scorpio (1973) and even top-billed in The Concorde…Airport ’79 (1979).

Unusually, he was in charge of his career, picking up the producer credit on 40 of his pictures, including this one, a late fit into the paranoia/conspiracy cycle as epitomized by Three Days of the Condor (1975), The Conversation (1974) and The Parallax View (1975). Though those films drew the line at car chases, bullets into the eye delivered through a keyhole and drowning people in the sea.

Unlike that trio Michel Gerfault (Alain Delon) is not involved in the espionage, surveillance or investigative business, though, if you have poor opinion of professional gamblers given such activity always seems to take place in smoke-filled rooms, you might consider his profession somewhat on the shady side, especially when he later appears conversant with guns.

Outwardly, there’s nothing amoral here. Michel is taking model girlfriend Bea (Dalila Di Lazzaro), a bouncy character putting you in mind of Goldie Hawn, to see his mother in the seaside town of Trouville, a significant move in those days if marriage was on the horizon.

Unfortunately, Michel has turned Good Samaritan, transporting a car crash victim to hospital, unaware the man, who soon dies, is one of three characters, potential whistle-blowers, on the hit list of arms dealer Emmerich (Pierre Dux). On the assumption that Michel might have been told something incriminating, killers are put on his tail.

The thugs don’t care how they kill him, happy to drown him in full view of holidaymakers splashing around in the sea. When they fail to lure him into a trap, he turns the tables, and it’s full-on pedal-to-the-metal car chases through the streets of Paris and wreckage in abandon.

After a slow start to throw you off the scent, director Jacques Deray (The Swimming Pool) doesn’t waste much time catching up and isn’t going to lose available minutes from a lean running time by sticking in such clichés as kidnapping the girlfriend.

Just how well versed Michel is in the ways of the underworld is shown in how he tracks down Mr Big who tries to pay him off and offer him a job. If Emmerich knew what we knew about Michel he wouldn’t have bothered doing anything, just called off his dogs. All Michel wants is the quiet life of a successful poker player and is not the kind of fellow to go around alerting the authorities to high-level skulduggery.

It’s a surprise ending. Except it turns out not to be the ending and this film has more in common with the conspiracy sub-genre than we imagined. Michel is out strolling in the streets soon after when he is assassinated. Sorry to be such a spoiler but these films depend for their impact on a downbeat ending.

Delon was often compared to Steve McQueen for the rare mixture of toughness and genuine charm and that’s very much to the fore here. It makes a change for him to be neither amoral nor a criminal, but his previous outings in this genre lend the supposition that he might be either. I was unfamiliar with Dallila Di Larrazza but that only meant I hadn’t been paying much attention to Flesh for Frankenstein (1973) where she played the female of the monster species. Here’s, she’s refreshing, neither femme fatale nor weighted down by trauma.

Terrific.

Lady in Cement (1969) ****

Frank Sinatra in cruise control reprises his Tony Rome (1967) private eye in a hugely enjoyable and vastly under-rated murder mystery with man mountain Dan Blocker of Bonanza fame and femme fatale Raquel Welch of pin-up fame. One of the actor’s greatest characterizations, albeit with little in it for the Oscar mob, this is one of the coolest gumshoes to hit the screen. Exhibiting none of the self-consciousness of latter-day Philip Marlowes or Sam Spades, Sinatra embellishes the character with more “business” than ever before, larding his dialogue with quips while he talks his way out of sticky situations and, as a big star, happy to be picked up by Blocker and dumped on a work surface. Can’t see Newman, Redford, McQueen, and Eastwood et al putting up with that kind of treatment.

Tony Rome is almost as much of a bum as he is a detective, betting on anything possible, wasting his time on fruitless quests for sunken treasure, lazing around in his yacht until in one of his deep sea forays comes across the naked titular damsel. Reporting the murder sees Rome co-opted by cop Lt. Santini (Richard Conte) to ID the woman. Sent to the apartment shared by Sandra Lomax and Maria Bareto in search for a potential client, Rome encounters Waldo (Dan Blocker) who hires him to find Lomax.

*The British release paired an action picture with a sex comedy, the idea being to catch different types of audiences rather than putting two action films or two comedies together which would*
later become the prevailing exhibition wisdom. *Although the two films had in common a star in bikini*.
*Note that the double bill went on general release at the same time as the two pictures*
*were, separately, playing at London’s West End.*

That takes Rome to Jilly’s go-go club where his conversation with dancer Maria (Lainie Kazan) is rudely interrupted by owner Danny Yale (Frank Raiter). Next stop is a swimming pool and who should emerge in a wet bikini than millionairess Kit Forrest (Raquel Welch) whose party Sandra attended. But a) she’s an alcoholic with memory issues and b) objects to snoopers so calls in neighbor and former hood Al Mungar (Martin Gabel) who sends Rome packing. When Maria is bumped off, Waldo is the prime suspect.

So we are enveloped in an interesting plot that soon involves blackmail and robbery and a suspect list that extends to Mungar and son Paul (Steve Peck) who has the hots for Kit, Yale and muscular boyfriend Seymour, and of course Waldo (whose reason for finding Sandra is revenge) and Kit. Despite the seeming light touch, inheritance is a theme, and the tale is character-driven, relationships complex, locales somewhat off-beat, a crap game in a mortuary, a nude painter’s studio, strip clubs, massage parlors and go-go dancing establishments abound, but with none of the moralizing that came with the territory. A racetrack is almost prosaic by comparison.

For most of the picture Santini and Rome have an antagonistic relationship until we find out, in a lovely scene, that Rome was the cop’s ex-partner, that the grumpy cop has a loving home life and that Rome is greeted with delight as “Uncle Tony” by Santini’s son. Rome is also very well acquainted with film noir and knows that a woman who appears too good to be true is in fact too good to be true so he’s sensible enough to steer clear of seduction (the bane of any film noir character’s life) unless he’s just pretending in order to glean information.

*Raquel Welch is more sedate in this poster.*

It’s a classic detective story, one lead following another, naturally a few contretemps along the way, some deception, and the laid-back Rome proves not as relaxed as you might expect, possessing a handy right hook and a neat uppercut. Interesting subsidiary characters include Al’s neglected wife, a bumptious beach attendant and a whining nude model.

Director Gordon Douglas – who handled Sinatra in Robin and the Seven Hoods (1964), Tony Rome and The Detective (1968) – brings out the best in the actor, keeps the action zipping along despite multiple complications and prefers a quip to a momentous speech.

Sinatra is just so at ease he oozes screen charisma. His shamus is no slick unraveller of truth, but a steady digger, accumulating information. You might think any tentative relationship with Kit stretches the age angle a tad but bear in mind at this stage Sinatra was married to Mia Farrow, 30 years his junior. Raquel Welch (The Biggest Bundle of Them All, 1968) is surprisingly good as a vulnerable mixed-up wealthy alcoholic and, except in her opening scene, manages to steer clear of a bikini for most of the picture.

Richard Conte (Hotel, 1966) is as dependable as ever but Martin Gabel (Divorce American Style, 1967) steals the supporting show as an apoplectic racketeer trying to go straight. You might like to know Lainie Kazan (Dayton’s Devils, 1968) is still working, The Amityville Murders (2018) and Tango Shalom (2021) among her recent output. It’s a shame Dan Blocker did not live long enough (he died in 1972) to build on his idiosyncratic performance.

The lively screenplay was written by Marvin H. Albert (A Twist of Sand, 1968) and Jack Guss (Daniel Boone: Frontier Trail Rider, 1966) based on Albert’s novel. Mention, too, for the jaunty theme tune by Hugo Montenegro (The Undefeated, 1969). You’ll find yourself humming it for days on end, it pops up often enough.

Into the catchphrase hall of fame must go Blocker’s exhortation “Stay loose” just before he unleashes mayhem. And while we’re about it, what is it about the quality of actor or status of a star that permits hoodlum Al’s peeved “I tried to go clean and you dragged me down” to be ignored while a couple of decades later a similar line from The Godfather Part III (1990) uttered by Al Pacino is hailed as a classic. You know the one I mean: “Just when I thought I was out, they pulled me back in.” Steven Spielberg is another who should have watched this picture for tips on how to deal with marauding sharks – Rome’s solution: kick them on the snout. By the way did Blocker fall out with imdb? Despite third billing, he’s not listed at all in the main credits and when you scroll down to the extended credits, he’s at the very bottom. Jeez!

Normal (2026) ** or (depending) – Seen at the Cinema

Say hello to the Algorithm Apocalypse. Or as we used to call it – a trainwreck of a movie. This would be a prime candidate for the Inaugural Thrash Memorial Award. Marketed as a “Sky Original” that’s somewhat misleading since it is closer to a Sky Cliché, although admittedly that doesn’t have quite the same ring.

A veritable off-piste cocktail of John Wick, True Romance, Assault on Precinct 13, and a crime version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, trade the Yakuza for the Mafia and all those films where the good cop has a nose for skulduggery.

Somewhat alleviated by a substantial side of quirkiness. We’ve got a moose on the loose, kindly bank robbers, a sheriff’s badge lifted from a corpse, an informal moustache appreciation society, problems telling pink from mauve, price gouging, and a diatribe against banks and billionaires ruining small business and small town main streets.

Cut to the violence, and there’s machine guns, pistols, shotguns and worse – flares and sticks of dynamite – and people are killed by nails, knitting needles and falling signs, and that’s before snowplows get in on the act.

Substitute sheriff Ulysses (Bob Odenkirk) takes on a temporary stint in Normal. Separated from his wife, he’s “dark inside” courtesy of shooting in cold blood a sex abuser. Not sure I quite fall in with his suspicions about the death of the man he replaced, who had the kind of extremely florid complexion you would associate with a heart attack.

Anyways, this is very much a humdrum small town with no crime to speak of and therefore a police force that verges on the acceptably incompetent until bank robbers Lori (Reena Jolley) and Keith (Brendan Fletcher), not realizing the bank doesn’t deal in much actual cash these days, demand to see the vault. Its opening alone is enough for the bank manager to kill himself, which is just as well because most likely he’d have been mown down in a hail of bullets delivered by…wait for it…the cops.

Yep, the town has a terrible secret. It’s the bagman for the Yakuza, gazillions in gold and cash stashed in the bank vault, and the whole town in on the deal, including the old lady who runs the knitting emporium and the middle-aged female barperson being set up for likely romance with the sheriff. But both are gun-toting evil wenches.

It would be one man against the mob except for Ulysses recruiting the bank robbers and the dead sheriff’s suicidal daughter Alex (Jess McLeod). So once we’re done with mystery it’s Anora all over again except with violence replacing sex. Once the Yakuza top brass fly in from Tokyo, it looks like Algorith Apocalypse is going to go nuclear except Ulysses has come up with a clever plan to settle the situation. Except it doesn’t.

I always wondered with the death of VHS and DVD and no television programs picking up the slack, how we’re ever going to find cult items. This will disappear in a year from Sky. Then where will it go? Nowhere. It’ll just vanish. You’ll never see it again. And even people who think this has cult written all over it will never be able to find enough showings of it in the future to stir the pot.

Some interesting pedigrees here – Bob Odenkirk (Nobody, 2021) proves a reliable stand-in for Liam Neeson or Jason Statham without the persona, Henry Winkler (Night Shift, 1982) shines in a supporting role and if you wondered what happened to Lena Headey after Game of Thrones (2011-2019) here’s your answer. John Wick creator Derek Kolstad doubles as writer and producer so I’m reckoning, excepting the rising gore count, there wasn’t much room left for director Ben Wheatley (Meg 2: The Trench, 2023) to put his own particular stamp on proceedings.

This comes over as a collision of two styles – a gentle quirky tale in the Fargo line that probably would have made a better mini-series and an action picture desperate for any narrative port in the storm where it could put in and without much elbow grease find a reason to embark on an orgy of violence.

Best described as the shoot-‘em-up’s shoot-‘em-up with an even higher corpse quotient than Thrash.

Somewhere between awful and highly entertaining.

10 Rillington Place (1971) ****

We tend to view Anthony Hopkins as the bold game-changer when he switched from respectable upmarket leading man to Hannibal the Erudite Cannibal in The Silence of the Lambs, paving the way for a plethora of other stars to throw off the shackles of their screen personas. But, in fact, it was another Englishman, Richard Attenborough, equally well-known for exuding principle (and raffish charm when playing a con man in Only When I Larf, 1968), who broke that particular mold.

At the time, the impetus for the picture was the miscarriage of justice which saw innocent Timothy Evans hanged for the crimes of serial killer John Christie, a name that belongs in the British murderer premier league along with the likes of Dr Crippen and Jack the Ripper. The Ludovic Kennedy book on which the film was based was by now a decade old, but it had taken that long for the British censor to clear the subject for filming and to find a star who was not already a well-known screen villain and prevent the film tipping over into sensationalism.

So although Timothy Evans (John Hurt) is the unwitting dupe, the focus is more on the cunning of the killer Christie (Richard Attenborough) who manipulates the class system. Nobody would contemplate the notion of a well-spoken upright middle-class war hero being capable of the lurid killings. And the idea of repeat victims in a Britain still rejoicing in its notions of “fair play” was equally abhorrent.

So while we don’t quite get to the nub of why Christie was so obsessed with murder, he remains a fascinating character rather than a demonic villain. And this is grubby, not tourist, post-War London where poverty is endemic and workshy ill-educated rogues are apt to be taken advantage of and easily caught.

That Christie evaded suspicion, never mind capture, for so long – his crime spree began during the London Blitz of the Second World War – was a credit to his presentation of himself as much as police disinterest or ineptitude and public disbelief at the scale of the killings. That Christie remained free for so long was because Evans was such an idiot, caught out in countless lies and eventually confessing to the crimes. You can see the connection between Christie and Hannibal Lecter (in his control of fellow prisoners) in the hold they have over the less well-educated and easily-led.

Christie, literally, got away with murder simply because, to police eyes, Evans was a more obvious villain. The narrative obscures the worst part of his tendencies, implied necrophilia and sex with unconscious women. In another life he might well have been presented as the down-on- his-luck old codger who only required a break to right himself.

The wonder of Attenborough’s performance is that he doesn’t exude menace. Even as he’s trapping victims he comes over as trustworthy. His creepiness only grows on the audience once they are invited to see the part of him that his victims do not.

It’s a testament to Attenborough’s conviction in the part that you never notice how much he loathes the character. He only took on the role as part of a campaign to prevent the return of capital punishment. Critics clearly disapproved and their plaudits were reserved for John Hurt (Sinful Davey, 1969) in the more showy role. These days, thanks to Hannibal Lecter, audiences are more inclined to be more considerate towards actors playing irredeemable characters.

Director Richard Fleischer had been here twice before with Compulsion (1959) and The Boston Strangler (1968) and to his credit that he approached it in a low-key fashion eschewing the verbal gymnastics of Orson Welles of the former and the false nose of Tony Curtis and split screen of the latter. John Hurt is excellent and Judy Geeson (Three into Two Won’t Go, 1969) has a small part.

Most films about serial killers at this point in sub-genre’s history tended to follow an investigation or a courtroom drama – Psycho (1960) while initially focusing on victim and thence the killer quickly turned into an investigation. But this is primarily concerned with the actions of the murderer, who unravels as the movie proceeds, and is brought to justice when the general finger of suspicion, rather than the result of a detailed investigation, points to him.

Richard Attenborough created the template for the outwardly-respectable killer. Interestingly, Attenborough had previously played the more typical killer, the immediately loathsome gang-leader Pinkie in Brighton Rock (1948). Written by Clive Exton (Isadora, 1968).

Well worth it to soak up the creepiness that gently begins to subsume the character.