movie review – Page 37 – The Magnificent 60s

The Roman Spring of Mrs Stone (1961) **

Dreary miscalculation. Ever since Tennessee Williams hit a home run with Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958), studios, directors and stars had clamored for his works, so much so that Hollywood had greenlit seven adaptations in five years. While box office was one consideration, the playwright was catnip to the Oscar, racking up 17 nominations with a hefty number in the Best Actress category.

However you dressed it up, his work contained a substantial number of portraits of sadness and malevolence and often teetered on the murky, so making them work at all depended not just on the acting and direction, but the initial story. Rather than being based on a play, this was sourced from his first novel, a bestseller.

But the tale never shifts out of first gear and it’s difficult to summon up sympathy never mind interest in any of the characters. The middle-aged romance had proved a cumbersome fix for studios, and since May-December numbers featuring ageing male and younger female had proved popular, Cary Grant set up with an endless supply of woman nearly half his age, it seemed only fair to give middle-aged actresses the opportunity to romance younger men.

Usually, however, this followed a more straightforward path, involving genuine feelings on both sides. But Hollywood was also digging into another cesspit, the female sex worker, somewhat dressed up in Butterfield 8 (1960) and Go Naked in the World (1961), treated more straightforwardly in Never on Sunday (1960) and Girl of the Night. So it only seemed fair to introduce the gigolo.

Stage actress Karen Stone (Vivien Leigh) heads for Rome with her wealthy husband to recover from the failure of her latest play, a Shakespearian outing. When her husband dies on the plane, Karen decides to hang on in the Italian capital, which, after a year, brings her into the orbit of gigolo Paulo (Warren Beatty) and his unscrupulous mentor/manager Contessa Magda (Lotte Lenya). While Karen isn’t entirely a dupe and quickly sees through Paulo, nonetheless a year of loneliness has taken its toll.

Plus she understands the attraction of the older lover, her husband being a good two decades older and willing to subsidize her theatrical and cinematic ambitions. Despite not falling for Paulo’s more obvious con tricks, Karen finds herself enmeshed in a one-sided romance, ignoring the warnings of friend Meg (Coral Brown) on the dangers of becoming the talk of the town with her lover clearly more attracted to rising movie star Barbara (Jill St John). Paulo quickly dumps the Contessa, leaving her free to pour bile into Karen’s ear.

Inevitably, the younger lover tires of the older, but generally such pairings work well enough because initially at least there is attraction on both sides. But when it’s as lop-sided as this no amount of long drawn-out close-ups of the disenchanted provide sufficient compensation for a story that overstays its welcome.

While there are hints of the decadence of La Dolce Vita (1960) that Fellini explored, here it’s more of a surface examination until the surprising ending, where you would think Karen is doing little more than willingly opening the door to a potential serial killer.

The only redeeming element, which might reverberate more easily today, is of the woman demonstrating her independence by being the one to choose, and to some extent discard, the man. While not for most of the movie a sexual predator, she may well have turned into one at the end.

Oscar-winner Vivien Leigh, in her first movie in six years, essays her role well but is compromised by portraying a character that fails to elicit sympathy. Warren Beatty (Promise Her Anything, 1966) avoids the trap of thickening his Italian accent and going wild with the gestures which lends his character more of a thoughtful personality but there’s not much here to write home about. Lotte Lenya (From Russia with Love, 1963) steals the show and was rewarded with an Oscar nomination. Jill St John (Tender Is the Night, 1962) plays the ingénue like an ingénue.

Unless you’re a student of theater I doubt if you’ll have come across Panamian director Jose Quintero. This was his only movie and he was more famous for staging some of Williams’ plays and for resurrecting Eugene O’Neill on Broadway. His inexperience shows in lingering on faces at the expense of creating drama. Gavin Lambert (Inside Daisy Clover, 1965) adapted the novel.

Disappointment.

They Came from Beyond Space (1967) ***

If you’re familiar with the Amicus output from its portmanteau horror movies this excursion into sci fi might come as a surprise. On the other hand, should you be a fan of Dr Who you might well be acquainted with Amicus’s two excursions into this genre – Dr Who and the Daleks (1965) and Daleks’ Invasion Earth 2015 A.D. (1966). In fact, the outfit’s production at this point was evenly split between sci fi and horror and had They Came from Beyond Space and stablemate The Terrornauts (1967) done better the company might have persevered with the genre.

That these two were originally intended to go out as a double bill – they did in the U.S. but not in Britain – is somewhat surprising given they have similar themes of some kind of dying alien species using Earth for survival. And with a bigger budget, They Came from Beyond Space might have made a bigger dent into the box office, instead of heading beyond the realms of cult into oblivion.

There are some neat touches. Meteorites fall on Earth. Nothing odd in that, certainly not in the world of cinematic sci fi. What’s strange is how they land – in a perfect V-formation. What’s more their source is the Moon. You won’t be at all surprised to learn, however, that the aliens bear no resemblance to the amazonian-type women promoted in the poster.

Also peculiar, for the time, is that the scientists sent to investigate are led by a woman, Lee (Jennifer Jayne), her boss and lover Dr Temple (Robert Hutton) left behind because he has a silver plate in his head as the result of an automobile accident. The meteorites exert a strange power and soon Lee and her confederates are organizing some massive scientific project to send a mission to the Moon, funding procured from a million-pound loan from a hypnotized bank manager and the local community falling victim to a strange plague which renders them obedient.

Eventually, alarm raised by Lee commandeering so much expensive equipment, Dr Temple does go to investigate and is baffled by the construction of a military compound complete with armed guards and electrified fence housing a vast underground laboratory and a rocket ready for launch.

He manages to kidnap Lee, possessed by an alien force, and with buddy Farge (Zia Mohyeddin) comes up with a variation on the kind of common-cold weapon employed to defeat aliens – in this case the use of silver to block the alien rays, you always knew that silver plate in his head would have narrative purpose. Realizing her situation, Lee now pretends to be an alien and the trio sneak aboard a rocket and after a fantastically speedy journey land on the Moon where they are confronted by the Master of the Moon (Michael Gough).

Quite why female sacrifice was a common theme between this and The Terrornauts is anyone’s guess but soon enough the aliens have Lee staked out. And that silver plate has to be surgically removed from Dr Temple’s head so the aliens can get a good look at his brain.

Like The Terrornauts, there are no physical aliens, just some kind of energy source. And like E.T. some decades later they just want to go home. Farge leads the enslaved in revolt and normally that would trigger some violent finale but here, instead, there’s a curious – and welcoming – climax.

A kind of “why didn’t you say so, old chap” ending where the Earthlings agree to help the aliens return to their planet, no collateral damage necessary. This is probably the most unexpected thinking person’s twist that you could ever conceive – a variation on the idea of foes finding common cause. It certainly didn’t fit into the genre and my guess is most audiences were baffled at the outbreak of peace. It just didn’t go with the territory.

None of the acting is anything to write home about, but the picture is generally well done, the special effects more than passable given the budget, and enough in the narrative tank to keep you going.

Robert Hutton (The Vulture, 1966) was coming to the end of a B-picture career. Jennifer Jayne’s (The Liquidator, 1965) hardly really took off. Zia Mohyeddin (Deadlier Than the Male, 1967) had a decent run in supporting roles. Everyone is no more than adequate in roles that demand no depth.

Freddie Francis (The Skull, 1965) does his best with a script by producer Milton Subotsky (The Skull) adapting the novel by Joseph Millard.

Undemanding but holds the interest.

In the Line of Fire (1993) *****

Outside of the top-billed trio of Julia Roberts, Sandra Bullock and Meg Ryan, Rene Russo stole the limelight as the decade’s leading lady, bolstering the credentials of such supposedly superior marquee names as Dustin Hoffman (Outbreak, 1995), Mel Gibson ( Lethal Weapon 3, Ransom and Lethal Weapon 4, 1992, 1996 and 1998), John Travolta (Get Shorty, 1995), Kevin Costner (Tin Cup, 1996) and Pierce Brosnan (The Thomas Crown Affair, 1999) – an almost unprecedented, for a female star of the period, roster of hits.

Not only that, but she had also come to the game late, 35 at the time of her debut in Major League (1989) and therefore well into the most dangerous age for a female star in Hollywood, her 40s, by the time she came to work with some of the industry’s biggest names. By comparison Julia Roberts was 23 at the time Pretty Woman (1990) was released, Meg Ryan 28 when she captured hearts in When Harry Met Sally (1989) and Sandra Bullock 32 when she snazzed Sylvester Stallone in Demolition Man (1993).

It’s worth remembering that Eastwood, the previous decade washed away with insipid box office, was entering a late career halcyon period, his critical and commercial esteem boosted by the Oscar-winning Unforgiven (1992). Previous male superstars close to retirement age weren’t called upon to put in a sprint or two. Sure, John Wayne and James Stewart could land a good punch, but that was generally in a confined space and nobody was calling on their athletic skills. But, here, Eastwood set the tone for later pictures like Taken – and he was a decade older than Liam Neeson in that one.

Russo, an MTA, oozed class and maturity, never looked as if she was out of her depth or if she would come off second best to any of the macho males she was generally surrounded with. This isn’t her greatest role – her duel with Brosnan takes that accolade – but comes pretty close.

As Lilly Raine, she nurses ageing Secret Service agent Frank Horrigan (Clint Eastwood) over the line. Frank isn’t just perennially out of puff, but catches bad colds and makes such a basic error that he’s chucked out of the presidential protection elite, though kept on by boss Sam (John Mahoney) in a bid to track down assassin Mitch Leary (John Malkovich).

This is nuts-and-bolts action, a lot of time spent in basic detection, following up insignificant leads, but it’s also a classic hunter vs. hunted duel, with for the most part the assassin getting the upper hand, running rings round the entire Secret Service with his disguises and ability to remain more than one step ahead. Instead of a car chase, there’s a rooftop chase.

Horrigan is the kind of imperturbable cop who doesn’t mind partner Al (Dylan McDermott) being suffocated half to death if it gives him an edge on a villain. He’s got a chequered past, maligned by the Warren Commission in the Kennedy assassination report, feeling his age, but when life gets too tough tinkers away at the piano.

He has spicy exchanges with Lilly, taking sexism to what was an acceptable limit back in the day (now of course he’d be in the same dinosaur category as James Bond), and in due course, in quite oblique narrative fashion, wooing Lilly. The sex scene is treated as comedy, the first items to hit the carpet in the undressing malarkey are not panties and bra, but handcuffs and pistols. Hot romance is put on the back burner, which is just as well because Horrigan has his hands full not just with Leary but with a variety of superiors what with his inability to bite his tongue.

Meanwhile, we follow Leary as he coldly disposes of two men and two women in separate instances who have inadvertently caught him out. And he’s not going to make it easy for Horrigan. This isn’t the one-plan-man of previous assassin pictures, he doesn’t just have a back-up, instead employing all sorts of strategies to mislead and misdirect. And he’s not your usual nutter either. Clearly, he’s a worthy opponent, matching the enterprise, initiative and imagination of the anonymous killer of Day of the Jackal (1973). And in those days, what with developments in technology, an assassin can assemble his own gun rather than handing the task, as in Day of the Jackal, to a denoted weapons expert.

The stunning key sequence, astonishing in character terms, is when Horrigan passes up the option of shooting the assassin stone dead in favor of saving his own life – resulting in the irony (as Leary points out) of good guy being saved by bad guy. And in avoiding such action Horrigan condemns his partner to death. There’s as good a scene where I could swear Horrigan’s chin wobbles as he wonders if he could have prevented Kennedy’s death.

Sure, this is a variation on the serial killer trope of someone tormenting a potential victim, but the connections Leary attempts to build with Horrigan aren’t as far short as the cop would like to believe.

Director Wolfgang Peterson (Outbreak) is due considerable praise especially for his pacing, fitting in a complex narrative in a shade over two hours, building tension in myriad ways, but not being afraid to take a laid-back approach with the camera, long, lingering shots establishing mood and occasionally character. The sequence where Horrigan waits, somewhat wistfully, for Lilly to look back from a considerable distance after they have enjoyed an ice-cream together on a national monument is in many ways one of the finest nods to incipient romance ever put on celluloid.

Terrific acting all round. Written by Jeff Maguire (Victory, 1981).

Superb stuff. Top notch.

Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961) ****

Reassessment sixty years on – and on the big screen, too – presents a darker picture bursting to get out of the confines of Hollywood gloss. Holly Golightly (Audrey Hepburn) is one of the most iconic characters ever to hit the screen. Her little black dress, hats, English drawl and elongated cigarette often get in the way of accepting the character within, the former hillbilly wild child who refuses to be owned or caged, her demand for independence constrained by her desire to marry into wealth for the supposed freedom that will bring, demands which clearly place a strain on her mental health.

Although only hinted at then, and more obvious now, she is willing to sell her body in a bid to save her soul. Paul Varjak (George Peppard), a gigolo, being kept, in some style I should add, with a walk-in wardrobe full of suits, by the nameless wealthy married woman Emily (Patricia Neal), is her male equivalent, a published writer whose promise does not pay the bills. The constructs both have created to hide from the realities of life are soon exposed.

There is much to adore here, not least Golightly’s ravishing outfits, her kookiness and endearing haplessness faced with an ordinary chore such as cooking, and a central section, where the couple try to buy something at Tiffanys on a budget of $10, introduce Holly to New York public library and boost items from a dime store, which fits neatly into the rom-com tradition.

Golightly’s income, which she can scarcely manage given her extravagant fashion expense, depends on a weekly $100 for delivering coded messages to gangster Sally in Sing Sing prison, and taking $50 for powder room expenses from every male who takes her out to dinner, not to mention the various sundries for which her wide range of companions will foot the bill.

Her sophisticated veneer fails to convince those whom she most needs to convince. Agent O.J. Berman (Martin Balsam) recognizes her as a phoney while potential marriage targets like Rusty Trawler (Stanley Adams) and Jose (Jose da Silva Pereira) either look elsewhere or see danger in association.

The appearance of her former husband Doc (Buddy Ebsen) casts light on a grim past, married at fourteen, expected to look after an existing family and her brother, and underscores the legend of her transformation. But the “mean reds” from which she suffers seem like ongoing depression, as life stubbornly refuses to conform to her dreams. Her inability to adopt to normality is dressed up as an early form of feminism, independence at its core, at a time when the vast bulk of women were dependent on men for financial and emotional security. Her strategy to gain such independence is of course dependent on duping independent unsuitable men into funding her lifestyle.

Of course, you could not get away with a film that concentrated on the coarser elements of her existence and few moviegoers would queue up for such a cinematic experience so it is a tribute to the skill of director Blake Edwards (Operation Petticoat, 1959), at that time primarily known for comedy, to find a way into the Truman Capote bestseller, adapted for the screen by George Axelrod (The Seven Year Itch, 1955), that does not compromise the material just to impose a Hollywood gloss. In other hands, the darker aspects of her relationships might have been completely extinguished in the pursuit of a fabulous character who wears fabulous clothes.

Audrey Hepburn (Two for the Road, 1967) is sensational in the role, truly captivating, endearing and fragile in equal measure, an extrovert suffering from self-doubt, but with manipulation a specialty, her inspired quirks lighting up the screen as much as the Givenchy little black dress. It’s her pivotal role of the decade, her characters thereafter splitting into the two sides of her Golightly persona, kooks with a bent for fashion, or conflicted women dealing with inner turmoil.

It’s a shame to say that, in making his movie debut, George Peppard probably pulled off his best performance, before he succumbed to the surliness that often appeared core to his acting. And there were some fine cameos. Buddy Ebsen revived his career and went on to become a television icon in The Beverley Hillbillies. The same held true for Patricia Neal in her first film in four years, paving the way for an Oscar-winning turn in Hud (1963). Martin Balsam (Psycho, 1960) produced another memorable character while John McGiver (Midnight Cowboy, 1969) possibly stole the supporting cast show with his turn as the Tiffany’s salesman.

On the downside, however, was the racist slant. Never mind that Mickey Rooney was a terrible choice to play a Japanese neighbor, his performance was an insult to the Japanese, the worst kind of stereotype.

The other plus of course was the theme song, “Moon River,” by Henry Mancini and Johnny mercer, which has become a classic, and in the film representing the wistful yearning elements of her character.

Negatives (1968) ***

Role play wasn’t the sub-culture it is now. Though fashion had injected more of a sense of dressing up what with Russian furs courtesy of Doctor Zhivago (1965) and snazzy berets from Bonnie and Clyde (1967), the idea of people living out their lives in costume had not taken hold. So consider this a precursor – and maybe a warning – as to what can go wrong if taken too far.

Obscurity to the point of obfuscation was an arthouse default especially prevalent in more commercial ventures like Blow-Up (1966) and In Search of Gregory (1969) so no need to bother yourself with hunting out motivation or background.

The erotic subtext – voyeurism too – here takes on a disturbing quality as it touches on the notion of male justified in using violence in response to female provocation. Drama centers on a clash of role model sensibilities with a weak male shifting from interpreting a murderous villain to imitating a heroic pilot.

Antiques dealer Theo (Peter McEnery) spices up his stale marriage to Vivien (Glenda Jackson) by dressing up as serial killer Dr Crippen. She invests in the role of his complaisant lover Ethel. Play-acting, at her behest it appears, doesn’t prevent her verbally tearing into him. Into this unconventional nest arrives German photographer Reingard (Diane Cilento) who has been spying on him for several weeks. She has her own fantasy and soon has him rigged out as World War One flying ace Baron von Richtofen, complete with ancient biplane. He responds to the militaristic characteristics of the pilot, entering more into the spirit of the game than the famed killer.

Naturally, Vivien doesn’t take kindly to this intrusion, not least because she realizes she isn’t the only one who can manipulate her malleable husband and violence and tragedy ensue. It’s not entirely clear why either female character indulges in such fantasies and does give rise to the cliche notion, and redolent of the times, of the female wishing to give in to the dominant male, even when the man shows little sign of being a dominant personality.

Apart from Theo visiting his father (Maurice Denham) who appears to be dying in hospital, the picture doesn’t shift much from its three-cornered narrative. The idea of the ongoing masquerade is emphasized by a sequence set in Madame Tussaud’s. Given the censorship of the times, the eroticism is largely of the discreet variety, rather than going down the full-blown sexual fantasy of The Girl on a Motorcycle (1969).

Glenda Jackson both plays a character right up her street and brings far more to the role than either Peter McEnery (The Moonspinners, 1964) or Diane Cilento (The Third Secret, 1964) who give the appearance of slumming it in a low-budget production in the hope it might bring career kudos.

Unwilling to dig any deeper into the characters, director Peter Medak (The Ruling Class, 1972), in his debut, merely toys with technique, elaborate shots following a character round a room or unusual compositions.

With the trendy crowd parading down King’s Road with all the latest hip gear including military uniforms and Victorian garb, this might have seemed to fit right in, except that the main characters have little in common with the “Youthquake” of the era.

On the one hand a true oddity with McEnery and Cilento well out of their comfort zones, on the other proof of what Jackson and Medak had to offer.

Might appeal to the role-playing crowd, more likely to those interested in early Glenda Jackson.

The Devil’s Brigade (1968) ***

I couldn’t get my head around the idea of the U.S. Army recruiting a bunch of undisciplined misfits, many with jail time, in order to link them up with a crack Canadian outfit. Turns out this part of the film was fictional, the Americans in reality responding to advertisements at Army posts which prioritized men previously employed as forest rangers, game wardens, lumberjacks and the like which made sense since the original mission was mountainous Norway. I should also point out the red beret the soldiers wear is also fictional and while depicted on the poster sporting a moustache commanding officer Lt. Col. Frederick (William Holden) is minus facial hair in the film.

But, basically, it follows a similar formula to The Dirty Dozen (1967), training and internal conflict followed by a dangerous mission. The conflict comes from a clash of cultures between spit-and-polish Canucks and disorderly/juvenile Yanks though, as with the Robert Aldrich epic, the leader taking some of the brunt of the discontent. Collapsible bunk beds, snakes under the sheets and a tendency to fisticuffs are the extent of the antipathy between the units, which is all resolved, as with The Dirty Dozen, when they have to take on people they jointly hate, in this case local bar-room brawlers in Utah.

The movie picks up once they are sent to Italy. Initially employed on reconnaissance, Frederick challenges Major-General Hunter (Carroll O’Connor), who prefers to do things by the book, and in a maverick move sets out to take an Italian position by trekking two miles up a riverbed, creeping into town by stealth and capturing the location without firing a shot.

Next up is the impregnable Monte la Difensa. Taking a leaf out of the Lawrence of Arabia playbook, in a brilliant tactical move, the Americans attack the mountainous stronghold from the rear by way of a mile-high cliff. But that’s the easy part. The rest is trench-by-trench, pillbox-by-pillbox, brutal hand-to-hand fighting.

The battle scenes are excellent and the training section would be perfectly acceptable except for the example of The Dirty Dozen which set a high bar. That said, there is enough going on with the various shenanigans to keep up the interest, but we don’t get to know the characters as intimately as in The Dirty Dozen and there is certainly nobody to match the likes of Telly Savalas, Charles Bronson, Jim Brown and John Cassavetes. That also said, the men do bond sufficiently for some emotional moments during the final battle

At this point William Holden’s career was in disarray, just one leading role (Alvarez Kelly, 1966) and a cameo (Casino Royale, 1967) in four years, and although his screen persona was more charming maverick than disciplined leader he carries off the role well, especially solid when confronting superiors, exhibiting the world-weariness that would a year later in The Wild Bunch put him back on top. Ironically, Cliff Robertson was coming to a peak and would follow his role as the strict disciplinarian Major Crown, the Canadian chief, with an Oscar-winning turn as Charly (1968). Vince Edwards (Hammerhead, 1968) as cigar-chomping hustler Major Bricker makes an ill-advised attempt to steal scenes.

This was the kind of film where the supporting cast were jockeying for a breakout role that would rocket them up the Hollywood food chain – as it did with The Dirty Dozen. Jack Watson (Tobruk, 1967) is the pick among the supporting cast, but he has plenty of competition from Richard Jaeckel (The Dirty Dozen), Claude Akins (Waterhole 3, 1967), Jeremy Slate (The Born Losers, 1967), Andrew Prine (Texas Across the River, 1966), Tom Stern (Angels from Hell, 1968) and Luke Askew (Cool Hand Luke, 1967). Veterans in tow include Dana Andrews (The Satan Bug, 1965) and Michael Rennie (Hotel, 1966).

William Roberts (The Magnificent Seven, 1960) adapted the bestselling book by Robert H. Ableman and George Walton. Director Andrew V. McLaglen (Shenandoah, 1965) was more at home with the western and although there are some fine sequences and the battle scenes are well done this lacks the instinctive touch of some of his other films.

Dirty Dozen-lite.

Tender Is the Night (1962) ***

Hollywood hadn’t had much luck with F. Scott Fitzgerald, now considered one of the three American literary geniuses of the 20^th century along with Nobel prize-winners Ernest Hemingway and William Faulkner. His novel The Great Gatsby has easily proven the century’s best-read literary novel. He was an alcoholic wastrel when in the employ of studios, in the latter stages of his life. Although The Great Gatsby had been filmed twice, in 1926 with Warner Baxter and 1949 with Alan Ladd, both versions had flopped.

His biggest seller, debut novel The Beautiful and the Damned (1922) didn’t hit the box office mark either. The Last Time I Saw Paris (1954), based on one of his short stories and starring Elizabeth Taylor, and a modest success, didn’t inspire Hollywood and it took Beloved Infidel, the memoir of his lover, gossip columnist Sheilah Graham, to kickstart further interest. But the film of that book, even with top marquee name Gregory peck, died at the box office in 1959.

So, whatever way you cut it, Twentieth Century Fox was taking a serious gamble – the budget was $3.9 million – trying to mount Tender Is the Night especially with such questionable stars. It was a comeback for Jennifer Jones, at one time a solid performer at the box office and an Oscar-winner besides. But she had been out of the business for five years, a lifetime in Hollywood terms. Male lead Jason Robards was virtually a movie unknown. This was his sophomore outing and his debut By Love Possessed (1961) had flopped. How much his Broadway prowess would attract audiences outside the Big Apple was anyone’s guess.

But Oscar-nominated director Henry King (Beloved Infidel) who had helmed Jones’s breakthrough picture Song of Bernadette (1944) clearly thought he was on to a winner because this had the slow and stately feel – running time close on two-and-a-half-hours – of a movie that’s never going to run out of breath never mind pick up a head of steam.

Truth is, it’s slow to the point of being ponderous. Takes an age to set up the story. Psychiatrist Dr Dick Diver (Jason Robards) living with ex-patient wife Nicole (Jennifer Jones) – an arrangement that would be professionally frowned upon these days – in the French Riviera in the 1920s host a party where the husband takes a shine to Rosemary (Jill St John) and the wife shows she has not shaken off her mental malady. Despite there not being a great deal of actual period detail, we spend a long time at the party as various permutations take shape.

Then we dip into a long flashback to find out how we got here, mostly consisting of Dick falling in love with his patient, abandoning his career to enjoy a hedonistic lifestyle funded by Nicole’s wealthy sister Baby Warren (Joan Fontaine). There’s a stack of gloss. We swap the South of France for Paris and Switzerland and we’re hopping in and out of posh restaurants and hotels and the kind of railway trains that for the rich never meant a draughty carriage and hard seats.

Basically, it’s the tale of a disintegrating marriage – one that would have been better avoided in the first place as most of the audience would have pointed out – and falls into one of those cases of repetitive emotional injury. Clearly, living on his wife’s sister’s money renders Dick impotent, compounded by the loss of peer regard.

Jennifer Jones (The Idol, 1966) is pretty good, essaying a wide variety of moods, flighty, whimsical, and stubborn, exhibiting the kind of nervous energy that was implicit in her illness and which he managed to tamp down but not fully control. Jason Robards is basically on the receiving end of a character he knows only too well, and he is simply worn down by the force of her personality. So, he can’t come across as anything but pathetic, especially when he wishes to succumb to the temptations of the likes of Rosemary.

For all the strength of his usual screen persona, Robards is miscast. He doesn’t command as he needs to in order for the film to work and for the audience to sympathize with his downfall. At this stage of her career, Jennifer Jones was so far more accomplished it doesn’t take much, even when she’s not letting fly, for her to hog the screen at the expense of a balanced drama. There’s a twist in the tale but by the time that comes we couldn’t care less.

In a less showy role than was her norm, Jill St John (Banning, 1967) is effective.

Ivan Moffat (The Heroes of Telemark, 1965) wrote the screenplay. A box office disaster, it only hauled in $1.25 million in U.S. rentals. Henry King didn’t direct another picture.

Trimmed by 30 minutes, this would have been more effective.

The Limbo Line (1968) ***

Should have been a classic. The bleakest espionage tale of the decade ends up, unfortunately, in the wrong hands. Betrayal – personal and professional – underlines a sturdy enough narrative of defection, kidnap and rescue, infected with a spread of interesting characters far from the genre cliché.

We open with blonde Russian femme fatale Ludmilla (Moira Redmond), as sleek as they come, killing off her lover once she discovers his true intent. She works for the “Limbo Line,” an organization headed by Oleg (Vladek Sheybal) which whisks Russian defectors back to their home country. In romantic fashion, she inveigles herself into the lives of those who may be, for personal gain, about to take a wrong turn in the service of their country.

Richard Manston (Craig Stevens), meanwhile, is an operative of an undetermined secret unit, getting cosy with Russian ballerina Irina (Kate O’Mara), a defector, in the hope that she will become the next target for Oleg and thus lead him to his quarry. Responding to his amorous advances, she has no concept of this ulterior motives.

But he’s not the only one in the two-timing racket. Oleg lives high on the hog, a lifestyle financed by holding back remuneration due his operatives, who not only want better paid for the risks they are taking, but draw the line at murder. Ludmilla, meanwhile, uses intimacy with Oleg as a way of keeping tabs on him for her superiors.

Everyone, however, is operating under a new code of restraint. Arms limitation talks between the Superpowers currently taking place mean that neither side wants to be publicly seen to be working in the shadows. Hence, the no-holds-barred methods of both Manston and Oleg are frowned upon. Manston and Ludmilla have more in common than one would normally find in the spy movies of the period, the end justifying the means taking precedence over any personal interest in a lover.

The dangerous romantic elements would have been better dealt with in the hands of a more accomplished director. As it is, Samuel Gallu (Theatre of Death, 1967) has his hands full keeping track of a fast-moving tale as Irina is whisked by boat, bus and petrol tanker to Germany, hidden in such confined spaces the more cautious operatives fear she will die.

Nor, despite his fists, is Manston as good as you would expect from a heroic spy, battered to bits by his opposite number, himself imprisoned in the tanker, becoming a pawn to be sold to the highest bidder.

It’s in the tanker that Irina realizes her lover is deceitful, only using her as bait. Similarly, Oleg doesn’t realize he is every bit as dispensable to the ruthless Ludmilla who wishes to avoid public exposure and is only interesting in taking Irina back to Russia where she will be “re-educated.” Chivers (Norman Bird) looks like the nicer sidekick for Manston, the type to demonstrate fair play, except when he has to drown a suspect in a bath. He has the best line in the film, an ironic one at the climax.

The action, while overly complicated, is well done, none of the over-orchestrated fistfights taking place in odd locations. Chivers has a knack of turning up in the nick of time, but he’s the cleverer of the two.

An actress of greater skill than Kate O’Mara (Corruption, 1968) would have brought greater depth to the betrayed lover, but she does well enough to stay alert during the helter-skelter action. Craig Stevens (Gunn, 1967) was never going to be the right fit for a character required to show considerable remorse at his own actions.

The hard core of political reality, the constant betrayal of both innocent and guilty, the shifting sands of romance sit only on the surface and a better director would have brought them more into the foreground, eliciting better performances for deception incurred in the line of duty at the expense of the personal life.

It’s never a good sign when the bad guys are the more interesting characters and while you might expect Vladek Sheybal (Puppet on a Chain, 1970) to steal the show, he is usurped by Moira Redmond (Nightmare, 1964). A bigger budget would have also offered better reward, but even so Gallu comes up with more interesting camera angles than you might expect. Based on the bestseller by Victor Canning (Masquerade, 1965), he was helped in the screenwriting department by television writer Donald James.

You watch this thinking what might have been.

Amazons of Rome / Virgins of Rome (1961) ****

Starting with the cast and the intelligence of the narrative a pretty unusual addition to the peplum subgenre. While there was no shortage of foreign stars hoping to find marquee redemption in Italy, I was frankly astonished to find leads of the caliber of Frenchman Louis Jourdan, fresh from Twentieth Century Fox big budget musical Can Can (1960), and rising English star Sylvia Syms coming off her biggest Hollywood role to date albeit as second female lead in The World of Suzie Wong (1960).

At the time of release, Jourdan did not seem a good fit for a genre that relied more on musclemen than the kind of suave charmer that he essays here. Syms equally seemed an odd choice, better known for prim Englishwomen than action. In fact, you’d have been hard put to find any American or British actress who would sign up for such a role. Although Sophia Loren in El Cid and Jean Simmons in Spartacus had significant roles in historical mocvies, they weren’t called upon to buckle a sword.

Given they start out as sworn enemies, Drusco (Louis Jourdan), a barbarian laying siege to Rome, Cloelia (Sylvia Syms) a besieged inhabitant, it was going to take some considerable narrative sleight of hand to contrive a happy ending. How it’s done is entirely believable, pivoting on ideals of honor that are initially foreign to this vicious war full of scores to be settled, unbridled ambition, deviousness and ruthlessness.

The civilized Etruscans backed by a barbarian horde headed up by Drusco have dealt a killer blow to the Roman armies led by one-eyed Horatio (Ettore Mani). Never mind the lack of obvious muscle Drusco isn’t anyone’s idea of a warrior leader. We are introduced to him munching on a watermelon and then chomping down on an apple on the edge of the battlefield. While other Etruscans, namely Stavros (Renaud Mary), want to raze Rome to the ground Etruscan leader Porcena (Jean Chevrier) wants peace. But it comes at a price – tons of gold in tribute and a thousand hostages. But since Rome is short of able-bodied men to fulfill that part of the deal, the Etruscans make up the numbers with a battalion of untested female warriors led by Cloellia.

Adding spice to the mix is Lucilla (Nicole Courcel), now an aristocratic Roman married to a noble, but originally an Etruscan captive, married to Porcena, who wants revenge on the Romans for her original harsh treatment at their hands. She finds a willing ally in the devious Stavros.

initially merely amused by Cloelia and her warriors, impounded in a stockade outside the Etruscan camp, Drusco responds to their smarts. Devoid of weapons, the women find clever ways of stealing swords from their captors and secreting them in the stockade. However, when the scam is discovered, Cloelia volunteers to take whatever punishment is meted out. Porcena cedes choice of punishment to Lucilla who wants Cloelia to endure the same humiliation as was once handed out to her – to be whipped and then stripped naked in public.

But she hasn’t counted on Drusco’s cleverness. The minute one lash is administered, Drusco steps in, and pretty much on a technicality, announces that a “whipping” – number of strokes not specified – is complete. When Lucilla starts to strip Cloelia, he musters his soldiers to conceal this from the slavering Etruscans.

Cue some flirting but of course they are still on opposite sides. And in any case Lucilla puts paid to nascent romance, ensuring Drusco is chucked out of the camp for defying her. Infuriated, she sides with Stavros who has decided that mass rape will put the captives in their place.

His scheme is thwarted by Cloelia who sets fire to the compound, escaping with her army after bullocks stampede. Pursued by Etruscan cavalry, they are saved by the intercession of Drusco. Embarassed by their escape, Porcena is now persuaded to restart the war. Back in Rome, Cloelia disobeys orders not to get involved and leads her army out through the sewers to attack the Etruscan rearguard. Porcena, realizing he has been used, calls for a truce. Lucilla is reunited with her Roman husband and Drusco, made a freeman of Rome, is able to marry the enemy.

Porcena comes over as an enlightened ruler. An early advocate of the zero sum game, his guiding rule for peace is “no victor, no vanquished” and he draws the line at the kind of ruthlessness espoused by his cohorts and although still attracted to Lucilla finds her attitudes distasteful and arranges for her to bury the hatchet with her Roman husband rather than continuing to foment her anger. There’s a lot more interesting dialog than you’d expect in a picture like this.

But Louis Jourdan is what makes it special. His light comedic touches not only make his character much more human and attractive than the normal musclebound jerk, but also serve to underline his humanity. And since he’s so good anyway on the seductive side, the romantic elements catch fire rather than just limping along as was more normal in the genre. The only downside is he challenges George Hamilton in the over-tanned department.

Sylvia Syms, too, makes it all work. There’s no slacking in the action department and clearly no stand-in for the horse-riding, crossing of a river and a sewer on horseback. And without resorting to the athleticism of a Wonder Woman, the most recent example of the Amazon variety, and perhaps precisely because there’s no kowtowing to that, she is a believable heroine. No feminine wiles are required, either, just genuineness.

Lucilla’s deviousness reminded me of Ian Bannen in Suspect, that spirit trapped by humiliation, revenge the only release. And though Nicole Carcel isn’t in Bannen’s league, she manages to essay the dark side of her nature with ease.

There are plenty narrative plot holes – how do the women emerging soaking from the river manage to burn the Etrucan battering ram being the pick – but the spirit of the picture more than compensates.

The elements that made it stand out for all the wrong reasons back in the day are the very elements that make it so appealing to a contemporary audience.

Highly enjoyable.

Castle Keep (1969) ****

A bit more directorial bombast and this could have matched Apocalypse Now (1979) in the surrealist war stakes. Never mind the odd incidents surrounding a small unit of G.I.s taking over a magnificent Belgian castle towards the end of World War II prior to what turned out to be the Battle of the Bulge, this has on occasion such a dreamlike quality you wonder if it is all a figment of the imagination of one of the characters, wannabe writer Private Benjamin (Al Freeman Jr.). Throw in a stunning image, for the beleaguered soldiers at the start, of a horsewoman charging by in a yellow cloak, so out of place that it carries as much visual impact as the unicorn in Blade Runner (1982), and we are in definite cult territory.

One of the unusual elements is that, in this unexpected respite from battle, the soldiers are defined by character traits rather than dialogue or bravery as would be the norm. This ranges from baker Sergeant Rossi (Peter Falk) taking over the boulangerie and bedding the baker’s wife (Olga Bisera), mechanic Corporal Clearboy (Scott Wilson) diving into a lake to rescue a Volkswagen and the troops receiving a lecture on art history from Captain Beckman (Patrick O’Neal).

Commander Major Falconer (Burt Lancaster) is not only brilliant in the art of war, but calmly mentors Beckman through a firefight with an enemy airplane, teaches local sex workers how to make Molotov cocktails and, evoking ancient aristocratic tradition, enjoys conjugal relations with the conquered countess (Astrid Heeren), whose impotent husband (Jean-Pierre Aumont) encourages the relationship since the castle needs an heir.

There is wistful revelation, Beckman clearly hankering after his turn with the countess, a minister who wishes he had the courage to join the boys in the brothel, the young soldiers there being treated as children rather than customers. And there are juvenile pranks – moustaches are painted on statues, wine bottles used for ten-pin bowling practice.

But the surreal moments keep mounting up. The Volkwagen, though riddled with bullets, refuses to sink in the lake, a hidden German reveals himself by playing the same tune on a flute as one of the soldiers. The countess often appears as an ethereal vision.

Through it all is rank realism. Falconer knows a German previously shared the countess’s bed. The count will do anything to safeguard his castle and maintain the family line, even to the extent of incest, since his wife is actually his niece. But above all, while his troops believe the war is at an end and enjoy the pleasures at hand, Major Falconer prepares for rearguard action by the Germans, filling the moat with gasoline, planning to pull up the drawbridge and control the high ground.

The battle, when it comes, is vivid and brutal, the initial skirmish a hand-to-hand battle in the village before the Germans begin their siege of the castle.

Burt Lancaster (The Swimmer, 1968) is superb, far removed from his normal aggressive or athletic persona, slipping with pragmatic ease from the countess’s bed to battle stations. War films in the 1960s were full of great individual conflicts often won on a twist of ingenious strategy but seldom have we encountered a soldier like Falconer who knows every detail of war, from where and how the enemy will approach, to the details of the range of weaponry, and knows that shooting dead four soldiers from a German scouting mission still leaves one man unaccounted for.

Patrick O’Neal (Alvarez Kelly, 1966) also leaves behind his usual steely-eyed screen persona, here essaying a somewhat timid and thoughtful character. Peter Falk’s (Machine Gun McCain, 1969) baker is a beauty, a man who abandons war, if only temporarily, for a second “home,” baking bread, adopting a wife and child. In a rare major Hollywood outing French actor Jean-Pierre Aumont (Five Miles to Midnight, 1962) carries off a difficult role as a count willing to accept the humiliation of being cuckolded if it improves his chances of an heir. In one of only four screen appearances German actress Astrid Heeren (The Thomas Crown Affair, 1968) makes the transition from a woman going to bed with whoever offers the greatest chance of saving the beloved castle to one gently falling in love.

There is an excellent supporting cast. Bruce Dern (Support Your Local Sheriff, 1969) makes the most of a standout role as a conscientious objector. You will also find Scott Wilson (In Cold Blood, 1967), Al Freeman Jr. (The Detective, 1968), future director Tony Bill (Ice Station Zebra, 1968) and Michael Conrad (Sol Madrid / The Heroin Gang, 1968).

Two top-name writers converted William Eastlake’s novel into a screenplay – Oscar-winning Daniel Taradash (Hawaii, 1966) and newcomer David Rayfiel who would work with Lancaster again on Valdez Is Coming (1971) and with Pollack on Three Days of the Condor (1973) and Havana (1990)

Sydney Pollack (This Property Is Condemned, 1966), who had teamed up with Lancaster on western The Scalphunters, 1968), does a terrific job of marshalling the material, casting an hypnotic spell in pulling this tantalising picture together, giving characters space and producing some wonderful images, but more especially for having the courage to leave it all hanging between fantasy and reality.

Expressions like “we have been here before,” “once upon a time,” “the supernatural” and “a thousand years old” take solid root as the narrative develops and will likely keep spinning in your mind as you try to work out what it’s all about.