movie review – Page 4 – The Magnificent 60s

Saltburn (2023) **

With the arrival of Emerald Fennell’s latest epic Wuthering Heights (or to give it it’s full title “Wuthering Heights” – yes, don’t ask me!) imminent I thought I’d go back to Saltburn and see if my second impression was any better than my first.

Alas, I was right first time. Another “visionary” director disappearing up their own backside, despite having a superb cast at their disposal including Oscar-nominated Jacob Elordi (Frankenstein, 2025, and now Wuthering Heights), Oscar-nominated Barry Keoghan (The Banshees of Inisherin, 2022) and Oscar-nominated Rosamund Pike (Now You See Me: Now You Don’t, 2025).

There wasn’t enough in a second viewing to convince me to spend a whole lot of my time revising my original review, so what follows is an expanded version of my first attempt.

Brideshead Revisited Meets Carry On Downton Abbey. Wouldn’t surprise me if that’s the way it was actually pitched, it’s just so uneven, veering through several different styles without ever finding a target. The shock elements are, unfortunately, just risible. Via the trailer this appeared to be a moody, atmospheric picture about entitlement, the downside, if you like, of Downton Abbey.

Instead, it’s just plain barmy, which might well have worked if its take on the bizarre had been consistent, but, really it’s a contender for the coveted So-Bad-It’s-Good Award with Rosamund Pike odds-on to nab the award for the best Maggie Smith impression. .

Oliver (Barry Keoghan) is supposedly a scholarship student at Oxford, coming from a sinkhole estate in Liverpool, parents drug dealers etc etc. Out of his depth, by chance he latches on to sex god Felix (Jacob Elordi) and is invited to spend the summer at the latter’s stately home complete with sneering butlers and demonic family, all graduates of the Over-Acting Academy.

Turns out we’ve not been watching Downton Abbey at all, but The Usual Suspects, Oliver not an innocent little bookworm after all but an extremely malevolent character who manages – in the absence (luckily) of post-mortem or any forensic examination– to bump off the entire family in order to inherit (don’t ask!) Saltburn in order to, in a bizarre nod to Risky Business, dance naked through it.

The only reason it gets any points at all is Jacob Elordi, who exhibits tremendous screen charisma, and because the barmy extremely self-centred and out-of-it Rosamund Pike does elicit a few laughs and maybe, courtesy of Richard E. Grant, has a haircut to enter some kind of Hall of Fame.

The shock elements are hilarious as though someone of school age has decided they are really going to shock mummy and daddy. So we’ve got Oliver licking up Felix’s leftover sperm in the bath, the various deaths and the stark naked (are you shocked now?) Risky Business homage.

Jacob Elordi has since come good. He was a believable Elvis in Priscilla (2023), excellent in On Swift Horses (2024) and superb as Frankenstein and possibly still in with a shout of becoming our next James Bond. Barry Keoghan hasn’t come good, at least in the commercial sense, second-billed in Bird (2024) and Bring Them Down (2024) and third-billed in Hurry Up, Tomorrow (2025). For all I know he may be content to plough the arthouse furrow but given his presence – and third-billed again – in the forthcoming big-budget Crime 101 that doesn’t seem to be the case, though it is true it sometimes takes a while for new faces to find a way to fit in.

It’s a shame really because spoofing Downton Abbey or Brideshead Revisited for that matter can be done with considerable ease as the recent Fackham Hall has proved.

Witchfinder General / The Conqueror Worm (1968) ****

For 250 years Europe and America was in the grip of a man-made plague. Ever since Pope Innocent VIII declared war on supposed witches in 1584, tens of thousands were arrested, tortured and hung or burned to death. Although Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible is considered the last word on the subject, in fact it treats very lightly the physical degradation visited upon victims and the corruption that was at the heart of the disaster. And sure, cinema has poked its nose into the area of possession, most recently with the supposed final act of the The Conjuring series, and while items like The Immaculate (2024) and The Handmaid’s Tale series focus on female subjugation, none of these exposes the full horror of witchcraft accusation.

The British censor bristled at the violence depicted in this film, and the picture was censored to a degree, while movie critics howled at the film’s “sadism.” Yet though the film is a raw depiction of the terrors inflicted on the innocent – male and female – by a corrupt male hierarchy, it scarcely touches the surface of the tsunami of wanton killing and terror.

So this serves as a welcome reminder of that awful age. While romantic leads Richard (Ian Ogilvy) and Sarah (Hilary Dwyer) are insipid, Matthew Hopkins (Vincent Price), the self-appointed Witchfinder General, and his gang of thugs led by John Stearne (Robert Russell) are not, and the enormous delight they take in torturing the innocent is what drives the picture. Set in an England in 1645 riven by civil war, where the forces of law and order are in disarray, Hopkins takes delight in profiting from the lack of opposition to his reign of terror.

While Vincent Price (The Oblong Box, 1969) manages to resist the temptation to be overblown and his subdued performance carries ominous weight, it’s the unusual approach of director Matthew Reeves (The Sorcerers, 1967) that makes this a standout. He’s not making a horror picture, but a historical one. Not just are their nods to a specific time period, he bypasses the Gothic, the movie taking place mostly in daylight rather than nighttime, and his visual composition stands comparison with the best of the 1960s roadshows rather than standard Hammer or AIP offerings.

Hopkins delegates the actual torture to his underlings, retaining for himself the more subtle pleasure of blackmailing women into providing him with sex and walking off with a fat purse from local dignitaries for his troubles.

When he descends on any town or village, there will be a price to pay in human ruin. He picks on the village of Brandstone in Sussex and begins to torture local priest John Lowes (Rupert Davies), driving him to exhaustion by endlessly racing him up and down a room before his accomplices can get down to the serious business of plunging long needles into his naked body. Virtually all the weapons in the witch hunter’s armory are of the Catch 22 category. Nothing you do will present as innocent and then you are headed for the gallows or lowered alive into a bonfire.

Luckily for Lowes, his niece Sarah is sweet on Roundhead officer Richard, applauded for his courage in battle, and he attempts to come to her rescue. Unfortunately for her, he is called back to duty before he can save anybody and it’s only by sacrificing herself to Hopkins that Sarah believes she can save her uncle. That turns out to be the worst of the calumnies Hopkins visits upon the innocent, as once he has had his fun he just condemns the old man anyway, and the daughter to boot. And although audiences might wince at the torture it was only fraction of the pain inflicted on the victims who might well end up confessing to witchcraft just to get the agony over with. In my hometown of Paisley, seven witches were executed a few years after Salem on the accusations of an 11-year-old girl – The Renfrewshire Witch Trials has just been published on Amazon should you be interested – which shows the absolute contrivance of the authorities in ruthlessly hunting out victims on the slightest pretense.

It’s a shame that neither Ian Ogilvy (The Sorcerers) nor Hilary Dwyer (The Oblong Box) are equipped to show the depths of despair of their characters, but in some sense this is not their story, except as examples of victims, and the tale really belongs to the venal butchers who took advantage of a climate of fear. These days, it shows up almost as a quasi-documentary and that’s to its benefit.

Written by the director and Tom Baker (The Sorcerers) based on the bestseller by Ronald Bassett. For its U.S. release, AIP snuck in a poem by Edgar Allan Poe which explains the U.S. title The Conqueror Worm.

Interest in this movie is unfairly attributed to the cult status it acquired after the premature death of the director – this was the last of his three films – but in fact it sits easily in the well-wrought historical movies of the period, handsomely mounted and unflinching.

Matchless / Mission Top Secret / The Invisible Spy (1967) ***

Alberto Lattuada is the big attraction for me here, being the director of World War One spy drama Fraulein Doktor (1968) starring Suzy Kendall and which has become a standout, in terms of views, on the Blog. Conversely, you might be swayed by the undoubted physical attributes of Ira von Furstenberg (The Vatican Affair), a real-life princess to boot, or perhaps by the under-rated Patrick O’Neal (Stiletto, 1969) enjoying a rare foray as the top-billed star.

While the U.S. title is a tad opaque – our journalist hero Perry Liston (Patrick O’Neal) uses that by-line – the foreign title gives the game away. While imprisoned in China, Perry is handed a ring with magical powers by a Chinese prisoner in gratitude for helping him out. The ring permits a brief snatch of invisibility every ten hours, resulting in the screenwriters having to ration its appearance. As with any such charm, it provides opportunity for tension, humor and sexual frisson.

Another inmate Hank (Henry Silva) wants the ring for himself so spends a lot of the movie chasing, catching and losing Perry. The U.S. Government reckons a touch of invisibilkity will come in handy when dealing with arch-villain Georges Andreanu (Donald Pleasance) who has the usual arch-villain’s penchant for world domination. If it’s not enough that people are hunting him for the magic ring, Perry has others on his trail once he steals Andreanu’s secret serum. (Sensibly, the screenwriters shy away from what actually the serum does in the way of helping the arch-villain along in his quest for world domination – all that detail never did much to enhance the Bond/Flint/Helm stories.)

And like any decent spy of the era, Perry has women throwing themselves at him, some just for the hell of it but others who use sex to their advantage. O’Lan (Elisabeth Wu) falls into the first category, Tipsy (Nicolatta Machiavelli), a henchwoman of Andreanu, into the second, while artist Arabella (Ira von Furstenburg) has him guessing, Instead of a girl in every port, Perry has a girl in every country, China, Britain and Germany.

Perry isn’t a superhuman spy in the James Bond mold, and he’s not forced to keep it going with spoofery of the Derek Flint/Matt Helm variety, and he’s often at a disadvantage, caught naked, for example, when the invisibility spell wears off, and allowing Arabella to generally outwit him.

The central conceit works well in the context of the movie, helping and hindering Perry in equal measure. But there are also plenty other original touches: a car chase where the vehicles end up on top of a train, Hank watching a Man from Auntie series on television, tension racked up when villains come inadvertently close to the ring, hypnotism to fix boxing matches, torture by spinning, facial transformation, an amphibious car, a set-piece in a bank.

There’s more serious intent than you might expect, a satirical view of good guys and bad guys. Americans and Chinese apply the same kind of torture to Perry and employ the same plastic surgery method to send spies in undercover. While Perry is at his most powerful – i.e when invisible – he is also at his weakest by being naked.

Patrick O’Neal and Donald Pleasance (who appeared as Blofeld the same year in You Only Live Twice) have a ball though Ira von Furstenberg steals every scene she’s in. Henry Silva has the opportunity to try out his comedy acting chops.

Not in the same vein as Fraulein Doktor but generally consistently holding the interest.

Dingaka (1964) ****

Whether you appreciate this will depend on whether you were attracted by the prospect of an early offering by South African writer-director Jamie Uys (The Gods Must Be Crazy, 1980) or by the star wattage of Stanley Baker (Sands of the Kalahari, 1965) or perhaps by the promise of the salacious. Hopefully, it was the first, because you would be disappointed on the other two counts, Baker not making an entrance until halfway through the picture and not much of an impact thereafter.

Surprisingly relevant due to its depiction of people in the thrall of a higher power – whether you take that in a religious or political context makes little difference – and in the cultural conflict between an indigenous tribe and the “civilized” white man. But there’s also a noir tone here, the fatalism that often prevents the “good criminal” in a noir picture from escaping the judicial consequence of an action that could be seen as moral.

And if you think you know your African music through interpretations by the likes of Neil Diamond and Paul Simon, then here’s a far better introduction. Song is a constant whether for ceremonial purpose, worship, entertainment and work or for making more bearable time spent in jail or hard labor.

And though it’s not spelled out there’s a Biblical element, the old “eye for an eye,” done away with in modern civilization through courtrooms, juries and due process whereby the act of killing is carried out remotely by the state rather than the victim’ relatives.

An African tribesman Masaba (Paul Makgopa), furious at being dethroned after a six-year reign as the local fighting champion, seeks a cure for the loss of prowess from a witch doctor (John Sithebe). He is told to eat the heart of a small child. Soon after the daughter of Nkutu (Ken Gampu) is found dead. The distraught father beats the witch doctor until he points to Masaba. In revenge for Nkutu assaulting the witch doctor, revered as a local god, Nkutu is cursed, resulting in the almost immediate death of his wife.

Nkutu pursues Masaba to the city and strangles him to death. He is taken aback to be arrested since, according to tribal law, he is well within his rights. Of course, that’s at odds with civilized law. When the judge learns of the murder of Nkutu’s daughter and advises that the state would take care of any killing in the way of punishment that had to be done, Nkutu is puzzled. “You must not hang him. He did not kill your child. I must kill him. It is the law.”

It turns out Masaba has survived, giving Nkutu, on meeting him in court, a second chance to kill him, which fails.

“Big hard cynical lawyer” Tom (Stanley Baker), grudgingly doing pro bono work, has his work cut out since Nkutu refuses to give him instruction, is defiantly unremorseful, and can’t provide any proof that Masaba murdered his daughter beyond that “his eyes told me that he killed her.”

But since Nkutu only attempted murder then he gets off with a relatively light sentence, though it still involves back-breaking work. But at least it’s outside, providing the opportunity to escape and go home and kill Masaba properly. Meanwhile, Tom has chanted his tune and tries to help Nkutu by confronting the witch doctor.

Eventually, Nkutu learns the witch doctor was the murderer and despite fear of being eternally cursed challenges the witch doctor’s authority and kills him. And given this takes place away from civilization it’s unlikely that anyone’s going to come asking questions.

Outside of the drama and the culture clash, the director keeps this perpetually interesting by adding in authentic aspects of local life. There’s a milk tree, a man cures hides by spinning them on a rock that dangles from a tree on a rope, access to the otherwise inaccessible witch doctor’s lair on a mountaintop is via a series of vertigo-inducing ladders, prison guards have spears not guns. The use of music adds atmosphere.

And the acting is good, and as a consequence of this Ken Gampu enjoyed a Hollywood career in such films as The Wild Geese (1974) and ended up with over 80 film credits. Stanley Baker’s character is well drawn, exchanging barbs with his wife (Juliet Prowse) his cynicism in part due to the couple’s fertility problems.

Now warned about the limitation of Baker’s involvement, if you are happy to examine the tale as presented – one of struggle against both malicious and just authority – you will be rewarded.

YouTube has a decent print and not one marred with advertisements.

Guns at Batasi (1964) ****

In the same year as the Brits were turning whopping defeat into marginal victory in Zulu (1964) a more complex version of imperialism reflecting modern times (i.e. the 1960s) was being spelled out here and magnified by the performance of Richard Attenborough’s career. The British, as has been their wont, while no longer in complete control of this anonymous African country, have left behind a military operation in theory to support whoever is in power but in reality to safeguard their own commercial interests.

Every side of the coin is shown, from the old school soldiers to raw recruits scarcely able to work a rifle, to the pragmatic politicians and Africans with loyalties split between the mother country and the new regime. There’s a feisty British MP Miss Barker-Wise (Flora Robson) on the side of equality who is given a rude awakening on realpolitik and the well-spoken African, educated in Britain, exalting in throwing off decades of being patronized.

Just as the Africans are in revolt against the existing corrupt regime, so, in his own way, is Regimental Sergeant-Major Lauderdale (Richard Attenborough) who, secretly, refuses to obey the orders of his superior, Lt Boniface (John Errol). Most of the confrontation is distinctly old school, depending on the power of personality, in the best scene in the movie Lauderdale forcing his superior to accept the inferior’s authority. In another scene, the ambushed Col Deal (Jack Hawkins), with considerable British sang-froid, talks his way out of trouble.

The British are caught out by the sudden insurgency and almost certainly would not have become actively involved on the losing side had it not been for trying to save the life of wounded African Capt. Abraham (Earl Cameron) condemned by Boniface as a traitor. It should have been a Mexican stand-off until rebel ire was tamped down and a new kind of status quo – either the Brits tossed out or kept on supporting the new regime – was constituted. No need for violence or action, just keeping your nerve, a quality which Lauderdale has in spades.

Except that the sergeant-major has lied to the African commander, pretending Abraham is dead and not merely being hidden. When the Africans literally bring up the big guns, prepared to blast out the Brits, Lauderdale determines to spike the guns.

Except for the spit-and-polish, in military terms this is a very rusty British unit. You expect that Lauderdale will turn out to be all bluster. But he switches into commander instantly, holds (verbally) the enemy at bay, rallies the troops, leads by example and carries out a clever attack. But it’s a hollow victory. Politics works against him and he is humiliated at the end.

A good chunk of time is spent putting the British in their place.

Although the narrative appears to take time out to indulge the visiting MP and to tee up a piece of romance between raw recruit Pvt Wilkes (John Leyton) and stranded tourist Karen (Mia Farrow), both tales are soon subsumed into the action, the soldier forced into action, the politician forced to confront how little her principles count and how ineffective her authority in a war zone. There is some decent humor, the snarkiness between the soldiers, and Wilkes romantic clumsiness.

Richard Attenborough (Only When I Larf, 1968) is easily the pick as he presents various elements of a complicated character, the dedicated career soldier at the mercy of an inexperienced superior, questioning just what he has devoted his life to, straining to hold up his stiff upper lip, the butt of jokes, boring all with tales of long vanished glory, eventually revealing that he is much more than bluster, taking effective command, but then paying the price as the political scapegoat. Jack Hawkins (Zulu, 1964) has a smaller role than you’d expect from the billing and Flora Robson (7 Women, 1965) weighs in with another battleaxe. In her debut Mia Farrow (Secret Ceremony, 1968) demonstrates ample promise and Errol John (Man in the Middle, 1964) has a peach of a role.

Directed with some distinction by John Guillermin (The Bridge at Remagen, 1968), demonstrating a gift for both action and emotion, from a screenplay by Robert Holles based on his novel.

Although ignored by the Oscars, Attenborough won the Bafta Best Actor Award.

Thoroughly involving.

The Best of Enemies (1961) ***

When we talk about realistic war movies, we generally mean ones chock-full of brutality and violence. But there was another reality rarely touched upon, and that was guys to trying to get through the whole shooting match without getting killed. Not cowards, necessarily, but people unwilling to take stupid action in the guise of blind obedience.

This ends up being a highly unusual and hence highly original take on the war picture. Where, in another film, enemies might duel fiercely to the death, attempting to outwit each other at every turn, this delivers on a more emotional, thoughtful, and human, level.

You wouldn’t have thought, either, that the combination of two wildly different humor codes, the more overt Italian and the laid-back British, would work. So in subject matter and style, this takes a helluva risk. Much of the effect rides on exposing as misleading the standard tropes regarding the different countries – that the Italians are weak and that Brits, feelings numbed by stiff upper lip and upbringing, never complain.

Major Richardson (David Niven), reconnaissance plane shot down in Italian-held Abyssinia (Ethiopia) in 1941 in World War Two, is captured in the desert by a unit led by Captain Blasio (Alberto Sordi). Blasio doesn’t want the responsibility of prisoners and encourages Richardson to escape, hoping that the Brit, taking note of how weak the Italian unit was, would leave them alone.

The opposite is true. The Brits would like nothing better than to capture a weak section of the Italian Army. So Richardson, leading a stronger unit with tanks and stuff, confronts the Italian who is furious that the man he let go has somehow reneged on an unwritten code of honor and come back. Using a simple ruse, the Italians escape.

The Brits nearly catch up with them several times but incompetence gets in the way. Then Blasio gets annoyed with some of his natives and cuts them loose and in revenge they start a fire that drives both Brits and Italians together. Blasio is happy to surrender since that means the Brits, devoid of transport after the fire, have to holster Italian rifles and carry on a stretcher any Italian, such as Blasio himself, who falls ill.

The enemies unite to escape an interfering native tribe but then Blasio gets the hump at Richardson once again, returning the Italians to prisoner status once they are free. Hiding out in an abandoned village, the Italians are put to work building latrines – and according to the British class system different ones for officers and soldiers. A bid by Blasio to put Richardson in his place misfires. The two units bond again over a game of football and when the tribesmen return Richardson breaks the rules by handing back the Italians their rifles. Only thanks to British incompetence there’s no Italian ammo.

So then, weapon-less, and nobody apt to take sides, they stagger over the desert, directed by Richardson to safety. Richardson and Blasio bond over wives and family. But when they reach a proper road, Richardson reverts to the status quo and insists the prisoners form up at the rear. Except, he’s got it all wrong and they have ended up in the Italian-controlled zone. Blasio can’t contain his delight, mocking the Brits, but not taking them prisoner. Except he’s got it wrong, too, as the desert campaign is over and the Brits are victorious.

It doesn’t end well for either officer. Richardson is threatened with being put in the catering corps, Blasio a bedraggled prisoner. But it finishes on an uplifting moment, Richardson instructs his men to present arms to the prisoners, indicating their mutual respect.

So, as I said, nothing like your usual war movie. Both commanders are incompetent. Richardson despises Blasio for not “putting any effort” into his job. Blasio can’t understand why Richardson takes the job so seriously. Even if it marked him down as a coward, Blasio’s wife just wants him home safe. Incompetence rules, mistakes are legion, and pettiness guides the action of the officers. Movie makers of the period tended to concentrate on the heroism of war, but there must have been a ton of expeditions like this that went awry.

The script allows both David Niven (Bedtime Story, 1964) and Alberto Sordi (Anzio, 1968) considerable latitude, the Englishman afforded a wider range than usual, the Italian encouraged to tone down the over-acting, so each turns in a more measured performance. Sordi was nominated for a Golden Globe and the movie was nominated for two other Globes including Best Foreign Film.

The supporting cast includes Michael Wilding (The Sweet Ride, 1968), Harry Andrews (The Hill, 1965) and David Opatoshu (Guns of Darkness, 1962).

Directed by Guy Hamilton (Battle of Britain, 1969) from a screenplay by Jack Pulman (The Executioner, 1970).

More rewarding and emotionally satisfying than I expected.

Duffy (1968) ***

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Very slight.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Must have seemed a good idea at the time.

Cape Fear (1962) ****

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Gripping and asks hard questions.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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