movie review – Page 49 – The Magnificent 60s

Jason and the Argonauts (1963) *****

An absolute delight, great storytelling married to groundbreaking special effects produces an adventure picture of the highest order. Though mostly known for its Ray Harryhausen stop-motion animation, its success also relied heavily on the direction of Don Chaffey (The Viking Queen, 1967) and a great script. It’s one of the few films to benefit from not being viewed in its original size, the small screen minimizing the flaws of the special effects. In essence it’s a combination of three genres – the Italian peplum, the men-on-a-mission picture and the classic detective story.

Plus there are interesting stabs at philosophy – if man refuses to believe in the gods, do they cease to exist? And if the golden fleece brings peace and prosperity to a nation what will happen to that country when it is stolen? And if various people call on their own gods for help will that not create conflict in heaven as much as on earth? And the ultimately question – what can man achieve without celestial interference?

While the episodic structure derives from the clues meted out piecemeal to hero Jason (Todd Armstrong) during his long voyage to find the golden fleece these often come minus vital pieces of information ensuring that surprise remains a key element.

Without doubt special effects are the triumph, although some work better than others. The highlights for me were the towering bronze statue of Talos and the skeleton warriors. I can’t be the only one who thinks that some of the visuals in Game of Thrones were inspired by the sight of Talos astride two land masses separated by the sea. Talos is not so much a man-mountain as an actual mountain, first viewed coming round the corner of a cliff top, his head topping it. But where, except for cunning Jason, the crewmen are viewed primarily in miniature in relation to the giant Talos, the skeletons are the same size as the adventurers and the fight scene all the more impressive as the ensuing battle appears completely real.

Scale allows Harryhausen to wriggle out of the problems of contact. If the creatures are out of reach anyway, there’s little need to attempt to bring them into close proximity. The way the Harpies are utilized, close enough to strip clothes from a blind man but otherwise hovering just out of reach, is a classic example of clever direction. The multi-headed Hydra, on the other hand, is the least convincing monster simply because it is impossible for Jason to get close to the beast. Scale is also one of the film’s best weapons. The scenes where a miniaturized Jason is transported to Mount Olympus to face the gods are well done as are the occasions when the gods peer down on tiny man.

Outside of the special effects and the varying degrees of excitement aroused, in the background there is constant intrigue. Jason is the son of the King of Thessaly slain by the usurper Pelias (Douglas Wilmer) and his crew includes Acastus (Gary Raymond), son of Pelias, whose task is to cause trouble and if Jason succeeds in his endeavor to kill him. On top of that, there is a heavenly battle over Jason’s fate. Jason, having defied Zeus (Niall MacGinnis) by first of all refusing to believe he exists and that his life is determined by fate, becomes enmeshed in a battle between the king of the gods and his wife Hera (Honor Blackman) who grants Jason a get-out-jail-free card, the ability to call on her help, but only five times.

Jason determines to recruit his own team and in the manner of The Guns of Navarone (1961) and The Professionals (1966) they are all experts in their fields but unlike that film and The Dirty Dozen (1967) are willing conscripts. The team also includes Hercules (Nigel Green) and Hylas (John Cairney) and in the first of the film’s many surprises and reversals, the weedy latter is able to beat the muscular former in a contest of strength.

There is enough incident to keep the story ticking along but Don Chaffey fills in the blanks with montage, the various essentials of a ship – sails, oarsmen, sides, stern, figurehead, pace set by drumbeat – and a full color palette from the bright blue sky, to dawn and dusk and sunset and night, a wonderful image of rowers at sunset on the sea the pick. He also makes great use of the sea – pounding surf, storms, the sea turned tempest by the clashing rocks, a shipwreck. And we have dancing girls, colorful costumes, ancient backdrops and the sense that the budget has been well spent

Some scenes call for immense skills in coupling special effects with real characters. For the clashing rocks sequence five elements are simultaneously in play: the crew in danger, a tempest, rocks crashing into the water, the ship itself and Neptune.

And the romance is well handled dramatically: if Jason rescues Medea (Nancy Kovack) then she too rescues him. Love produces conflict. To love Jason, Medea must betray her country. There is hardly a moment when Jason, confronted either by monsters or kings, does not face death.

In addition, there is a stunning score by Bernard Herrmann (Psycho, 1960).

Any top-notch acting would have been over-shadowed by the special effects. Which is just as well because the entire cast is drawn from the lower strata of the stardom ladder. Todd Armstrong, from the Manhunt tv series (1961), needs only not to mess up, which he manages adequately. Nancy Kovack (Diary of a Madman, 1963) does well to make an impact given she does not appear until the final third. This did not turn out to be much of a star-making vehicle for either. Honor Blackman drops the slinky persona with which she had made her name in The Avengers tv series (1962-1964) and instead plays a confident goddess willing to out-maneuver husband Zeus.

The rest of the cast comprises a regiment of future movie supporting actors – Nigel Green (Tobruk, 1967), Niall MacGinnis (The Viking Queen, 1967) and Douglas Wilmer (The Brides of Fu Manchu, 1966). Future television stars range from Patrick Troughton (the second Dr Who) and Scottish actor John Cairney (This Man Craig, 1966-1967) to Laurence Naismith (The Persuaders, 1971), Gary Raymond (The Rat Patrol, 1966-1968), Mike Gwynn (Poison Island, 1965) and Andrew Faulds (The Protectors, 1964).

The screenplay was written by Jan Read (First Men on the Moon, 1964) and Beverley Cross (The Long Ships, 1964), husband of Maggie Smith. Cross returned to ancient worlds again for producer Charles H. Schneer for Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger (1977) and Clash of the Titans (1981)

Although the ending appeared to leave the door open for a sequel, none was made. A huge box office hit in Britain, it did not repeat its success elsewhere.

I first saw this film as a boy and was so enthralled I wouldn’t have noticed if there was anything awry with the special effects. I have not seen it since. Coming at with some degree of skepticism I found that attitude misplaced. I was equally enthralled.

Seven Seas to Calais (1962) ***

In between hi-hat Hollywood endeavors The Time Machine (1960) and The Birds (1963) Rod Taylor made a couple of pit stops in Italy. Here, he tries his hand at a swashbuckler and does a pretty good job of it, depicting famed English naval hero Sir Francis Drake, in a story that covers about a dozen years from him circumnavigating the globe to masterminding the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588.

Not content with glorifying tales of his derring-do as he robs the Spanish of their gold, the producers also mine a rich seam of political intrigue as Spanish King Philip II (Emberto Raho) seeks to nullify the English threat first by a treaty and then by conspiracy before full-blown invasion seems the better option.

Queen Elizabeth (Irene Worth) proves a political maestro, telling the Spanish what they want to believe and condemning Drake’s activities in public while in fact privately financing his expedition and waiting for his pirate gold to underpin her navy.

After putting down a potential mutiny, most of Drake’s time is spent plundering Spanish galleons or gold mines. When not pillaging, Drake takes time out from his adventures to discover potato and tobacco and for a romantic dalliance with what appear to be Native Americans (judging from the feathers they wear) including a young woman called Potato (Rossella D’Aquino). It is left to his number two Malcolm Marsh (Keith Michell) to carry the main subplot which has French beauty Arabella (Edy Vessel) in his absence taking up with Babington (Terence Hill), a traitor with an eye to freeing the imprisoned Mary, Queen of Scots (Esmeralda Ruspoli).

There are more than enough swordfights for purists and Drake employs a certain amount of cunning and bravado in his various piratical enterprises. Clever filming renders the ships realistic enough though in long shot they do resemble toys. In making it look as though Drake has returned from his voyage in the nick of time to save Elizabeth from the Spanish aggressors, the producers neatly kaleidoscope the actual time frame. Elizabeth takes no prisoners and there are spicy exchanges between the queen and the pirate.

Rod Taylor presents a more muscular and athletic screen person than in any of his previous pictures and exudes authority but he also has a lightness of tone that would become a trademark. However, American stage actress Irene Worth – in her sole movie role of the decade – just about plays him off the screen, her regal bearing hiding an agile mind. Keith Michell (The Hellfire Club, 1961) makes a strong impression as does future spaghetti western star Terence Hill, (They Call Me Trinity, 1970) credited here as Mario Girott. Edy Vesssel (The Thief of Baghdad, 1961) only made two more films, although one was Fellini’s 8½ (1963). This was the second film outing after Antonioni’s L’Avventura (1960) for Esmeralda Ruspoli

Strangely enough, given the part Drake played in English history, he has been dealt a poor hand in the movies. A British television series Sir Francis Drake (1961-1962) starring Terence Morgan was unlikely to have instigated this picture, so it is odd to rely on Italy for the only movie, regardless of its veracity.

In the portfolio of veteran director Rudolph Mate (When Worlds Collide, 1951), this immediately followed on from The 300 Spartans (1962) but lacks that film’s rigor and vigor.. The script was dreamt up by Filippo Sanjust (also Morgan the Pirate).

Deliverance (1972) ****

Packs a considerable punch even at the remove of half a century. In fact, the reversal of the ultimate male-domination trope – rape – will reverberate even more in a contemporary society more attuned to abuse. A quartet of macho posturing guys – except for one more at home overseeing a barbecue pit – not only get their come-uppance but have to sit on a very thin fence when the morality clause comes into play.

Much of the patronising attitudes towards the poor and bereft will not have evaporated with time. The better-educated, the very ones who should know better, still make fun of the less well-off and their accents – such scoffing by the privileged recently made headlines in the UK. The hillbillies represented here are not making fashion statements with their clothing or attribute their scrawny physiques to weight-loss therapy. This is poverty in the raw – and yet our quartet treat the wilds as a playground.

Presumably expecting campfire singalongs Drew (Ronny Cox) has brought his guitar, forgetting it might not be so easily transported through the rapids, but he thinks he’s made contact with the inhabitants when he duets with a banjo player (Billy Redden). Macho Lewis (Burt Reynolds), easily identified as the toughest of the quartet by his visible chest hair and archery set, is at one with nature, assuming that the beasts he presumably intends to kill are okay with that. He believes he’s got one-up on the natives when he beats a local down to $40 for moving their cars to the finish-point, not considering for a moment that the fellow would probably have done it for half.

Ed (Jon Voigt) is the calm one, the peacemaker, keeping the volatile Lewis and the nervous Bobby (Ned Beatty), inclined to poke fun, in check. Turns out the locals don’t take kindly to this kind of invasion and two ambush Ned and Bobby, rape the former, but before they can work their way round to the latter, are interrupted by Lewis who puts an arrow through one of the mountain men. The toothless one escapes.

This is where it gets tricky. Lewis, inner Clint Eastwood to the fore, justifies his slaying. Chances are, if he’d fired a warning shot, the rapists would have scarpered. The chances, too, of Bobby reporting the crime are a big fat zero because the humiliation would be unendurable, even if the local cops accepted a crime like male rape even existed, and given the general lack of police interest in female rape no guarantee it would even be investigated.

Course, you kill one of “them” and you’re setting yourself up as a target for revenge. Our quartet would skedaddle but the only way out is downriver. Drew, in complete shock, topples overboard and drowns, the canoes crash into each other, Lewis breaks his leg, leaving Ed to lead them to safety.

He climbs a cliff, armed with the archery kit, in case they are being stalked by the other hillbilly. When he spots him, he fires, killing the hillbilly. So Ed has to get the injured Lewis and the useless Bobby to safety and hope nobody finds the bodies, one buried in the ground, the other dumped into the river. The cops do come calling, but the trio brave it out.

And the audience is left with a moral quandary – an even more resonant one these days. Are the killers morally justified? In, they presume, a lawless patch, where men are as likely to rape their own gender as women, are they permitted to take the law into their own hands? Stand up for themselves? Be a man? Rather than waiting for someone else to clean up their mess.

Or are they obnoxious over-entitled tourists who can pillage their way through the countryside? They had assumed that the hillbillies would not call in the law in case the cops were hunting for illicit stills. As if the mountain men didn’t have families who would hold them dear, no matter their crimes.

Sure, they get away with it, but don’t the rich always get off scot-free, one rule for the wealthy, another for the poor? Back in the day, I’m sure Americans feared these kinds of hinterlands, where mountain men ran wild, and the idea of ecology was a whistle in the wind. Our guys aren’t campaigning against the loss of the wilderness, but enjoying one last trip before the scenery is flooded.

Some standout moments – the duelling banjos (a hit single), “squeal like a pig,” the white water canoeing, Ed ramming his fingers in the corpse’s mouth to check for give-away missing teeth, the nightmare at the end that set a trend for what today would be termed a post-credit sequence.

Director John Boorman (Point Blank, 1972) easily sits astride his own fence. If all you’re looking for is action in an unusual setting and the Western trope of pacific man roused to anger, then you can go home happy. If you’re sniffing around for something deeper, for the ease with which the morally upright defend the indefensible, then you’ll have plenty to talk about. Poet James Dickey, author of the original unexpected bestseller, turned in the screenplay.

Tough thriller that asks tough questions.

The Scorpio Letters (1967) ***

Desultory spy thriller with over-complicated story that’s worth a look mostly for the performance of Alex Cord (Stiletto, 1969). I can’t say I was a big fan of Cord and I certainly didn’t shower him with praise for his role as a disillusioned Mafia hitman in that movie. But now I’m wondering if I have been guilty of under-rating him.

Normally, critics line up to acclaim actors if they deliver widely differing performances – Daniel Day-Lewis considered the touchstone in this department after Room with a View and My Beautiful Launderette opened in New York on the same day in 1985. But usually screen persona rarely changes, a heightened or amalgamated version of the actor’s character or features. Once Charles Bronson, for example, started wearing his drooping mustache, for example, he was never seen without. Actors may grow old, but never bald.

The macho mustachioed Cord of Stiletto is nowhere in sight. In fact, in The Scorpio Letters minus moustache and resisting attempts to reveal his musculature, he is almost unrecognizable. In this picture Joe Christopher (Alex Cord) is flip, resentful, thoughtful, occasionally pedantic, more natural than many of the current crop of Hollywood new stars, and for once in a movie that has transplanted an American in London rather scornful of British traditions.

There’s a realistic flourish here, too, he is so poorly paid – and on a temporary contract – that he has to take the bus. And although he is an ex-cop fired for brutality, that level of violence ain’t on show here. Virtually the opposite of the character Cord created for Stiletto, I’m sure you’ll agree. So full marks for versatility and talent.

Unfortunately, the rest of the movie is not up to much, at the very bottom of the three-star review, almost toppling into two-star territory. Christopher is investigating the death of a British agent who was the subject of a blackmail attempt. By coincidence – or perhaps not – another part of British Intelligence is investigating the same death, and this brings Christopher into contact with Phoebe Stewart (Shirley Eaton) and eventually they work together to unravel a list of codenames and uncover the conspiracy with a bit of risk to life and limb.

But the pay-off doesn’t work despite all the exposition attempting to build it up and you’re left with a kind of drawing-room drama rather than exciting spy adventure. It’s determinedly London-centric with red buses, red postboxes, Big Ben, Horse Guards Parade all putting in an appearance. The scene shifts to Paris and Nice without much increase in tension. There’s also an irate German chef. Despite a couple of neat scenes – a chase held up behind a wedding party, an interrogation in a wine cellar – it’s much too formulaic.

Cord apart, Shirley Eaton (Goldfinger, 1964) adds some glamour, but her rounded portrait depicts a character with warmth rather than oozing sex. This is the kind of film that should be awash with character actors and up-and-comers, but I recognized few names except for Danielle De Metz (The Karate Killers, 1967), Oscar Beregi (Morituri, 1965) and Laurence Naismith (The Persuaders tv series, 1971).

One-time top MGM megger Richard Thorpe (The Truth about Spring, 1965) was coming to the end of a distinguished career which had included Ivanhoe (1952) and Knights of the Round Table (1953). This was his penultimate film. The appropriately named Adrian Spies (Dark of the Sun, 1968) wrote the screenplay based on the Victor Canning thriller. Making his movie debut was composer Dave Grusin (Divorce American Style, 1967)

Albeit with a limited budget of $900,000, MGM intended the picture for theatrical release but with a short cinema window to make it available for a speedy showing on ABC TV. It was originally scheduled for a May 1967 theatrical release but MGM decided to cut out the American release and so it made its debut in the “Sunday Night at the Movies” slot on February 19, 1967, and was shown in cinemas abroad. Nor was it shown first on U.S. television because the studio believed it a disaster. Variety (February 22, 1967, page 42) called it “very hip.”

The Red One (2024) ***

Santa Claus meets Die Hard might have worked well enough if it hadn’t been padded out with all sorts of other festive characters from the dark side of Xmas and a sludge of sentiment about an absent father reconnecting with his son. Can’t quite decide if it’s family-friendly or aiming for a queasier relationship with a Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice audience. And I suspect if Amazon had the courage of its theatrical convictions, it would made this a Xmas cinema release rather than chucking it into picture houses now and lining it up for a small-screen Xmas special.

Attempts to merge James Bond-style big budget thriller with underworld shenanigans conjuring up the kind of misfits who’d have been slung out of a Star Wars cantina while at the same time as making up the rules as it goes along. There’s a mix-and-match feel to the characters – we get Gryla, a mythical Icelandic monster, Krampus, a hairy devil of Germanic extraction who has his fun the night before Xmas, but is repurposed here as a Santa’s big bad brother, as well as a bunch of gargoyles who are way too easily distracted by a hen who they, mysteriously, can’t manage to catch, and then like a throwback to Transformers we get tiny Lego style figures who turn gigantic when let loose. You can stop snowmen in their tracks by whipping off their carrot noses.

Face-slapping is reinvented, shapeshifting is the game, and as if nobody had watched how badly Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire failed we’re back to a villain with icy superpowers. The giant polar bear featured – cousin to the armored bear in The Golden Compass (2007) – in the poster is underused. Not to mention that Xmas staple, the kids threatened with losing out on presents if they are naughty. None of this should work at all, but it does fairly well.

On the eve of said Mr Claus’s big night, he gets kidnapped. Bodyguard Callum (Dwayne Johnson), who turns out to be more than 500 years old, is on the trail and tracks down hacker Jack (Chris Evans) who’s sold Santa’s secret location to villain Gryla (Kieman Shipka), the ex- of Krampus’s (Kristofer Hivju), who wants to trap every night child in the world inside the kind of glass snow globe that was a traditional Xmas present. She’s manufactured these in the gazillions.

Callum and Jack team up though the latter’s not much use, his contribution to the double act consisting mainly of double takes and it’s only when he doesn’t take the opportunity to escape Krampus’s lair that he becomes one of the team. Mostly, it’s one bizarre situation after another and although at just over two hours it’s already outstaying its welcome it could have done with spending some more time on outlining the background and developing the fiendish characters. It’s a world that seems surprisingly undercooked given the mega budget. On the plus side – or perhaps the minus depending on your perspective – there’s a cuteness bypass. There’s a little too much time spent on – unsuccessfully – showing how Santa manages to get himself down every single chimney in the world in the space of a night including time to gobble down some treats. Would have done better to stick to the Santa hijack than include a technologically-improved Xmas.

*Xmas spirit missing in this previous red one.*

This didn’t need the presence of Dwayne Johnson (Black Adam, 2022) and certainly Chris Evans (The Gray Man, 2022) is wasted but with the MCU world closing its doors on both actors, perhaps this is an attempt to set up a new series. As Mr Claus, J.K. Simmons (Juror #2, 2024) isn’t in it long enough. Jake Kasdan (Jumanji, The Next Level, 2019) directed from a script by Chris Morgan (Shazam! Fury of the Gods, 2023) and Hiram Garcia (Jumaji, The Next Level).

Not as bad as I expected.

Anora (2024) *

This poses two questions. Am I so out of touch with modern film-making that I consider this a terrible film? Or are the jurors at the Cannes Film Festival and a whole raft of critics so out of touch with modern film-making that they think it’s a great film.

One of the problems for proper critics – that is the people who see every single film that comes out as part of their job and are hired to offer their opinions in eminent media as opposed to the self-styled critics who have podcasts and blogs but pick and choose what they watch – is the sheer volume of product.

From speaking over the years (over the decades) I know that one of the perennial problems facing the critic is boredom. They see so much dreck and are equally turned off by earnest movies or by seeing the same old same old that they tend to get extremely excited when they come upon something that’s new, refreshing, different. Added to that they want to champion new invigorating film-makers rather than poke holes in the latest Hollywood disaster.

So there’s a tendency to over-champion and to patronise, pumping up films which critics feel audiences should see. And over the years there’s been no shortage of forgettable movies that enjoyed a moment in the sun, picked out by a critic as the next best thing in a very dull week, and over-praised, or by a critic who simply wanted to get behind home-grown product or a particular favored director or star.

There’s a sense that critics feel they are needed more than ever in order to steer audiences in the right direction, forgetting that moviegoers are perfectly capable of making up their own minds. The Cannes Film Festival hasn’t usually had an iffy reputation. Sure, for every game changer like Easy Rider (1969), Sex, Lies and Videotape (1989) or Pulp Fiction (1994) and solid successes like The Piano (1993) or The White Ribbon (2009) or Blue Is the Warmest Colour (2013) there are king-sized stumbles. Let’s not hear it for the likes of Elephant (2003) or Tree of Life (2011) – efforts to buff up fading reputations – and Triangle of Sadness (2022) which took a long time going nowhere. But poor choices are a relatively minor phenomenon.

This is worse than any of them. The worst of the worst. It’s not even redeemable like yesterday’s Doctors Wives (1971) which is one of the best so-bad-it’s-good pictures you’ll come across. Some clever dick tagged this as a contemporary Pretty Woman (1990) but it bears as much resemblance to that picture as Donald Trump to Joe Biden.

If you’re aiming for a Cinderella story involving a sex worker you’re going to need the oodles of narrative charm and screen charisma that proved Pretty Woman’s major selling point or you disguise the commercial instincts of the female lead beneath a sheen of “presents” as in Butterfield 8 (1960) and Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961).

Even better, you just learn how to tell a story. And that doesn’t mean repeating the same scene with minor variations for nearly half an hour. Stripper Ani (Mikey Madison) is hired for a week of sex by juvenile Russian playboy Vanya (Mark Eidelstein). When they’re not having sex in every possible position and she’s subtly trying to make him last longer, he’s off his head with drink and drugs and playing computer games. That’s basically it for a full hour. Initial lap dances, off to his amazing mansion, then sex, drugs, computer game, sex, drugs, computer game, sex, drugs, computer game. Am I boring you yet?

Yes, there is some mild backstage bickering at the strip club and partying with his friends but that’s just minor interruption to sex, drugs, computer games, sex, drugs, computer games, sex, drugs, computer games. Vanya is so out of it he asks Ani to marry him, which she does, in Vegas, possibly with the ulterior motive of him getting a green card. But he doesn’t seem to have a single thought in his head beyond sex, drugs, computer games, and that kind of conniving would require a more competent brain.

Anyway, of course, mom and pop back in Russia get wind of their son marrying a sex worker and send Toros, a Russian Orthodox priest, to sort out the mess. Best scene in the film is Toros, carrying out a baptism in a crowded church, taking a text message in the middle of the ceremony and dumping the unbaptized baby in the arms of the astonished parents and rushing off. If the rest of the film were up to the originality of that scene, we might be onto something.

Maybe there were great scenes to come. I couldn’t tell you. And maybe I shouldn’t be reviewing this at all because I walked out just after the baptism.

Nobody comes out of this well, least of writer-director Sean Baker whose last effort Red Rocket (2021) was similarly concerned with sexual low-lifes. Mikey Madison (Scream, 2022) and Mark Eidelstein get their kits off to no avail.

A mess.

Conclave (2024) ****

No great surprise that the political thriller has made a return – all subgenres resurface after a while. The surprise here is the context. The Catholic Church hardly seems a fitting setting, given it’s been wracked for decades by accusations of child molestation, Oscar-winning Spotlight (2015) taking it down over historic malfeasance in Boston, though that was more in the line of another subgenre, the fearless journalistic expose.

Nor would you expect the drama of the election by all the Cardinals of a new Pope to turn into a riveting thriller, with a stunner of a twist at the end which carries considerable contemporary heft. The last time the goings-on in the Catholic Church attracted the attention of Hollywood was in Otto Preminger’s The Cardinal (1963) and The Shoes of the Fisherman (1968), which were cut from a more traditional cloth. Except for some interesting procedural background and some argument about the future direction of the Church, the bulk of this picture concerns the horse-trading and corruption that threatens to envelop the election.

Our guide through the shenanigans is Lawrence (Ralph Fiennes), the dead Pope’s righthand man, who, although filled with his own doubts, is in charge of managing the actual election. He’s so self-effacing that it comes as something of a shock to him to discover that he’s one of the candidates. It’s a blind-voting system and continues until one person has secured 72 votes. As you might expect there’s wheeling-and-dealing with the liberal elements set against the more entrenched right-wing groups.

The main contenders are: Bellini (Stanley Tucci), favored by Lawrence, Tremblay (John Lithgow), Adeyemi (Lucian Msamati), a black African who would be a popular winner except for his stringent views on homosexuality, Tedesco (Sergio Castellito) who wants to cancel all the liberal developments of the Church in the last half century, and surprise packet Benitez (Carlos Diehz) from Afghanistan who represents the downtrodden that the rest of the high-living Cardinals appear to have forgotten.

You’re going to remember the twists more than any moral message. But it does allow time for debate of the major moral questions, mostly handled with subtlety. The Cardinals are all sequestered away from the outside world for the duration of the election. Turns out the deceased Pope was trying to rig the election to suit his own ends, conspiring against those Cardinals he felt were too ambitious, self-obsessed or had unsightly, but secret, stains on their characters.

For a holy fellow the dead Pope set some remarkable traps which leave Lawrence reeling. And as the election proceeds, Lawrence is revealed, on the one hand, to be quite a tough egg, like a good journalist determined to uncover the truth, but on the other hand given to bouts of crying as the weight of duty and expectation and, I guess, shock at the findings get to him.

This is quite an adult movie. Not in the sense that we’re dealing with a particularly controversial subject matter, but it’s a kind of courtroom drama in all but name, and except for the sprinkling of revelations, and the inherent tension of an election, apt to be slow moving, allowing characters time to breathe and to put various points across. The structure makes no concessions to the MCU generation. Nor to the traditional Hollywood approach which would have allocated a certain amount of time to tourist Rome. A couple of cheats – hidden documents, access to a computer when access to anything was denied – don’t get in the way.

I’m always worried when trailers concentrate on the number of Oscar winners or nominees involved because generally that suggests to me a weak narrative. But, in fact, two-time nominees Ralph Fiennes (No Time to Die, 2021) and John Lithgow (Interstellar, 2014), and one-time nominee Stanley Tucci (The Hunger Games, 2012) deliver terrific, largely understated performances, while director, also a nominee, Gerard Berger (All Quiet on the Western Front (2022) brings it together with a stately majesty.

He’s allowed himself a certain amount of self-indulgence. The overhead shot of the lines of Cardinals moving through the rain and carrying white umbrellas bears no narrative weight but is visually splendid. As if escaping from a more offbeat movie, turtles appear from time to time. The rigmarole of ritual is compelling.

Some scenes are conducted in Latin, with subtitles of course. Thank goodness, I know now what “in secula seculorum” now means. But you didn;t need to know back in the day. That was the point. It was like joining a secret society. The Catholic Church once had an unique ID that it threw away – the fact that all Masses were spoken in Latin, and therefore universally appreciated, and you could go to a Church in any country and understand what was going on, whereas now you’d need Google translate.

Screenwriter Peter Straughan (Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, 2011) is on something of a roll at the moment, his teleplay for Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light just out. Robert Harris, who’s not had much luck at the box office with the various movie interpretations of his bestsellers Enigma (2001), The Ghost Writer (2010), and An Officer and a Spy (2019) – banned pretty much everywhere because of Roman Polanski’s involvement – gets his just reward here for laying down such a superb template. The music by Volker Bertelmann was particularly striking. Oddly enough his Oscar win for All Quiet on the Western Front didn’t warrant a mention in the trailer.

Thoroughly absorbing.

Doctors Wives (1971) ***

Five-star so-bad-it’s-good. Every now and then, especially approaching the annual touting of earnest films for Oscar consideration, we need reminded of just how good Hollywood is at producing hugely enjoyable baloney. Excepting the proliferation of recent MCU disasters, cinematic train wrecks don’t come along nearly often enough. Such botched jobs are always better if they are stuffed full of the worthy – Oscar recipients or nominees. Gene Hackman, Dyan Cannon, Rachel Roberts, Ralph Bellamy and screenwriter Daniel Taradash fulfil that requirement here.

A cross between Sex and the City and ER, with a third act that takes off like a rabbit desperately seizing on any convenient narrative hole. And a first act that pulls the old Psycho number of killing off the star before the picture really gets going. That old murder MacGuffin works every time.

“I’m horny” is about the third line in the movie, announced by sex-mad Lorrie (Dyan Cannon) to a tableful of over-refreshed doctors wives playing sedate poker in a country club at one table while at another table where you would expect the doctor husbands to be telling dirty jokes and whispering inuendoes they are boring each other with shop talk.

Unable to get the others to engage in revealing snippets about their sex lives, Lorrie rounds off the evening by informing the ladies that she plans to have sex with all their husbands to tell them where they are all going wrong, meanwhile gaily proclaiming she’s halfway there already. Which, of course, sets off a round of suspicion and accusations from wives to husbands.

Just to keep you straight on the who’s who: Lorrie is married to Dr Mort Dellman (John Colicos), Dr Peter Brennan (Richard Crenna) to Amy (Janice Rule), Dr Dave Randolph (Gene Hackman) to Della (Rachel Roberts), and Dr Paul McGill (George Gaymes) to Elaine (Marian McCargo) while Dr Joe Gray (Carroll O’Connor) and his ex- Maggie (Cara Williams) still hang around with the group.

As you might expect, every marriage is already in trouble, except, apparently, Lorrie’s because her husband, equally sex-mad Mort, appears to indulge his wife’s whims. Except, he’s not so easy-going, given he puts a bullet in her back when he discovers her making love to one of his colleagues.

Exactly which one remains a mystery for just long enough for the wives to rack up the suspicion level, and all the audience has to go on is the naked arm waving limply trapped under the naked dead weight of the corpse.

You might think, what with Dyan Cannon’s name being top-billed and she quite the rising star after an Oscar nomination for Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (1969), that we’re going to flip into a series of flashbacks to accord her more screen time. But, no, all we get is that opening risqué scene and her naked corpse.

Before ER’s creator Michael Crichton came calling a couple of decades later, the surgical profession was mostly represented in formulaic soap opera of the Dr Kildare small screen or The Interns (1962) big screen variety. But author Frank G. Slaughter, himself a practising physician, had made his name with a series of bestsellers that went into the intricacies of surgery and involved genuine medical jargon. So, before the identity of the illicit lover can be revealed, his life has got to be saved – after all he’s got a bullet in his heart. Cue even bloodier surgical shenanigans than kept fans of Mash (1970) hooked.

By the time we discover the victim was Dr McGill any chance of his wife stomping around in a huff at his infidelity is already off the menu because she’s been dallying with an intern.

I won’t go into all the all-round marital strife – triggered by alcoholism, drug addiction, infertility, ambition – that allows Oscar winners and nominees to try and act their way out of trouble because this picture has another absolute zinger to throw at you.

The murderer blackmails all four doctor pals for having a fling with his wife. To that cool $100,000 he adds quarter of a million from Lorrie’s wealthy dad Jake (Ralph Bellamy) for agreeing to make no claim on his wife’s estate. You kind of wonder what the heck use is all this dosh going to be in the slammer or Death Row. But that’s before you consider the zinger.

Mort’s a specialist and there happens to be a young patient desperate for his surgical skills. Young lad is son to head operating nurse Helen (Diana Sands) who is having an affair with Dr Brennan. So, a deal is done – you can’t wait for this humdinger, can you – wherein the D.A. is agreeable to release Mort from custody so he can perform this emergency operation while Dr Brennan and Jake – wait for it – agree to help him escape abroad.

As everyone knows you can’t tell one masked surgeon from another, so the first part of the plans works and while the cops keep a close eye on the fake Mort as he emerges from the operating theater the real Mort escapes in a parked car with the keys in the ignition. Except Jake isn’t quite a dumb or gullible as Dr Brennan and removes the keys so the killer can’t escape. Which was a shame because this picture could have gone on for another bonkers 20 minutes or so watching Mort outwit the cops.

As it is, there’s more than enough to fill in the time. Amy, something of a clothes horse with an extraordinary array of clothes and especially hats, goes all slinky in what looks like day-glo leggings to perform a bizarre seduction on her husband. Which elicits the movie’s best line, Nurse Helen complaining, “I don’t appreciate you sleeping with your wife.”

Unbeknownst to her, Lorrie has a female disciple who seduces every male in sight for research purposes, tape-recording every moment of the activity, so her victims are pretty much always in the coitus interruptus position.

And I can’t let you go without mentioning that Lorrie was also bisexual and counted among her conquests Della.

Except for the unlikely success of The French Connection later in the year which offered a different route in top-billing, Gene Hackman, had he continued taking on roles like this, might have ended up a perennial third potato. Bear in mind he already had two best supporting actor nominations in the bank when, third-billed, he took this on. Maybe he never read the whole script. Maybe this was the best offer going.

He’s not even the best thing in it. Too earnest for a start. Husband-and-wife murderer-victim tag team John Colicos (Anne of the Thousand Days, 1969) and Dyan Cannon take the honors. Directed by George Schaefer (Pendulum, 1969) and scripted by Daniel Taradash (Castle Keep, 1969). .

An absolute hoot.

Juror # 2 (2024) ****

Last hurrahs are rarely as sweet. But I’m beginning to wonder if the Warner Brothers very restricted U.S. domestic release isn’t a clever publicity ploy. You know the kind, attract the ire of critics who like nothing better than painting studios in a bad light and hope for a tsunami of social media outpourings. It’s now beginning to look more like a standard platform release, the kind employed to win Oscar favor.

Directors are often declared geniuses because they have a particular facility with visuals, can use the sweep of the camera or a particularly vivid composition, tackle controversial subjects, or build up a distinctive oeuver by returning again and again to a theme or genre. This is well outside Clint Eastwood’s comfort zone. For a start he’s not acting in it, it’s not a western and it doesn’t concern on-screen violence of any kind. His most common screen persona was of the man with a past trying to live a quiet life who is roused into anger and violence.

*WB has been sparing on the poster front but you may notice a certain visual*
*similarity between this old poster and the new one.*

There’s none of that here. In fact, this all seems deliberately damped down. The tale is not told in faux documentary style and there’s no grandstanding. And yet this is one of the best directed movies I’ve ever seen. With no scene-stealing, it flies, and when it lands it’s with a thoughtful air. Just when you think it’s going to head off in he direction of one of two cliches – the high-risk pregnant wife giving birth at a dramatic juncture in the trial, or some zealous cop undertaking an equally dramatic last-minute investigation that tips the trial ass over tip – it damps down on those two.

The set up is ingenious. Recovering alcoholic Justin (Nicholas Hoult) discovers in the course of the murder trial on which he is a juror that he not only knows more about the incident in which the girlfriend of accused is killed, he may even be the accidental cause of her death. On the night in question he was nursing a drink in a bar and noticed the couple having an argument. Driving home on a wild and stormy night, he has a recollection of hitting something, knows it’s not, as he told he told partner Allison (Zooey Dutch), a deer.

Because, after several years of sobriety, he should never have been in a bar in the first place, and because there’s no evidence to the contrary – a field sobriety test should he have reported the incident – it’s automatically assumed that he would have consumed the whisky he bought in the bar. The hint of DUI would condemn him to 30 years in prison and not the new life as a father he has fought hard for.

*Hello darkness would be the design theme*.

So, in a ironic twist on Twelve Angry Men (1957), he’s the only person who stands up for the accused, but out of guilt rather than as with Henry Fonda an uplifted sense of morality. Guilt has certainly struck deep. For it’s insane for him to fight for the man’s innocence, to even raise questions of doubt, when everyone else is convinced he’s the killer. If the man is convicted, Justin will be let off. A hung jury might be a better outcome. A second trial would likely still end in conviction, as the circumstantial evidence and the accused’s drug-running background count against him, but at least Justin will not blame himself for sending an innocent man to prison.

The thing is, we don’t want Justin to be guilty. It’s an accident. Could have happened to anyone. At worst, had he fessed up at the time he would be cleared of any accusation of DUI, given the benefit of the doubt, what with the driving conditions and the fact that the victim was inebriated. He’s turned his life around. He adores his wife and looks forward to fatherhood.

He’s not the only one conflicted. Some of the jurors just want the trial over as fast as possible to get back to more pressing domestic issues. One character is dead set against anyone with anything to do with drugs. Overworked prosecutor Faith Killibrew (Toni Collette) is more concerned with a political future, running for district attorney. Ex-detective Harold (JK Simmons) commits the grievous sin – for a juror – of doing a bit of investigation on his own and is chucked off the jury.

What little information he does collect ends up with Faith. As a prosecutor she wants people put away, not let off. And she’s amassed sufficient evidence against the accused to get him sent down. So she’s not inspired with a desire for justice, the kind of firebrand character that would turn up in any other courtroom drama, digging away for an eternity, refusing to accept guilt as presented. She’s not a beacon for doing the right thing. Rather, the kind of person who doesn’t like the idea of nagging doubt upsetting her well-ordered life.

Given how many Clint Eastwood pictures end in violent showdown, perhaps his biggest directorial coup here is finishing the picture without that episode, it’s more reminiscent of the scene in American Gangster (2007) where Denzel Washington emerges from church to be confronted by a battalion of cops.

Couple of flaws – forensics so derelict there’s no suggestion that the blunt instrument that killed the victim could be a car is explained away by overworked scientists. That Faith doesn’t notice the photos of Justin sprayed around the house of Allison during her investigation reveals just how cursory a box-ticking exercise the detection is in her eyes.

Most of this plays out in the tortured eyes of Justin and in the unseen mind of Faith. With Justin, conflict is upfront, with Faith buried deep, laboriously roused from slumber.

Apart from Toni Collette and Nicholas Hoult, reunited after over two decades from their mother-and-son turn in About a Boy (2002), there is some distinctive playing – though under-playing would be more appropriate – from JK Simmons (Whiplash, 2014) and Kiefer Sutherland (The Lost Boys, 1987).

The boldness of the narrative – debut from screenwriter Jonathan Abrams – takes your breath away, avoiding the obvious route of concentrating on the innocent man, or on devious counsellors (all is played straight here) and the usual courtroom theatrics.

Absolutely superb performance from Hoult, who virtually has to do everything through his eyes. Had he been more over-the-top, Oscar would certainly have come calling, but deprived of that it’s an even more convincing performance. The low-ball direction swings this into a different class of courtroom picture, putting the audience in the situation of wanting the “bad guy” to get off.

Go see. Let Clint make you day (for likely) one last time.

The Cincinnati Kid (1965) *****

Steve McQueen had little trouble identifying with this role. He was the Hollywood contender, trying to knock current kingpin Paul Newman off his perch, and in Norman Jewison’s tense, often heart-stopping, drama he has the ideal vehicle. For the most part this is a winner-take-all face-off, as much a showdown as any western shootout, in darkened rooms under the harsh light of a New Orleans poker table between a rising star always referred to as The Kid (Steve McQueen) and the unofficial world champion, the urbane cigar-smoking Lancey Howard (Edward G. Robinson).

Broadened out in the initial stages to include scenic diversions – the Mississippi at dawn, a cockfight, some jazz – plus romance and intrigue, this is essentially pure sport, a game of stares, where bluff holds the ace and women exist on the perimeter only to fill in the time before the next hyped-up encounter. There’s no trophy to be won, not even glory, just the right to call yourself “the man.” The Kid feels the pressure of punching above his weight, Lancey of getting old.

Farmer’s daughter and arty-wannabe Christian (Tuesday Weld) is the Kid’s main squeeze until she gets between him and his game. When she takes off, he makes do with Melba (Ann-Margret), girlfriend of dealer Shooter (Karl Malden) somewhat preoccupied with giving the Kid more than a helping hand to satisfy the vengeful Slade (Rip Torn), a rich businessman.

Although it finally comes down to a confrontation between the Kid and Lancey, subordinate characters like sweating poker player Pig (Jack Weston) and stand-in dealer Ladyfingers (Joan Blondell) help dissipate the tension. But in fact anything that occurs only seems to increase the tension as it comes down to the one big final hand.

This is McQueen (The Magnificent Seven, 1960) in transition, from the loner in The Great Escape (1963) to an actor exuding charisma and on top of his acting game. While on the face of it little more than a sporting lug, the Kid is an appealing character, engaging with a little shoeshine boy, winning over Christian’s truculent parents with what appears a card trick but is actually a demonstration of the phenomenal memory necessary to excel in his chosen field. There’s a winsome child in there among the macho persona. The poker face that McQueen developed would become one of his acting traits over the years.

Edward G. Robinson (Seven Thieves, 1960) gives a rounded performance as the reigning poker champ accepting emotional loss as the price for all his financial gains. Tuesday Weld is an appealing waif. Karl Malden (Pollyanna, 1960) essays another tormented soul and Rip Torn (Sol Madrid, 1968) a sleazy one. Also look out for a host of great character actors including Jack Weston (Mirage, 1965), Oscar nominee Joan Blondell (Advance to the Rear, 1964) and Jeff Corey (Once a Thief, 1965) plus composer and bandleader Cab Calloway.

Ann-Margret (The Swinger, 1966), all eye-shadow and cleavage, is in her best man-eater form. But, thankfully, there is more to her character than that. It is unclear whether she simply latches on to a potential winner or is pimped out by Shooter, but just hooking up with him makes her interesting, since looks are far from his attraction. Her ruthlessness is spelled out in simple fashion. She is determined to win, even at solitaire and she slams the wrong pieces into a jigsaw just for the satisfaction of making it look complete. You can sense depth in this character which the film does not have time to fully explore.

Although often compared to The Hustler (1962), and in many eyes considered both its inferior and a crude rip-off, this is in some respects a greater achievement. At least in The Hustler, there actually was action, players moving around a pool table, clacking balls racing across the surface. Poker is all about stillness. Any gesture could give away your thoughts. Unlike any other sport, poker requires silence. There is no roaring crowd, just people slotted round the room, some with vested interest if only through a wager, some wanting to say they were there when a champion was toppled.

So the ability to maintain audience interest with two guys just staring at each other, interspersed with minimal dialog, takes some skill. Building that to a crescendo of sheer tension is incredible.

The first four pictures of Canadian director Norman Jewison (Send Me No Flowers, 1964) did not hint at the dramatic chops, confidence, composure and understanding of pacing, especially as he was a last-minute replacement for Sam Peckinpah, to pull this off. That he does so with style demonstrated a keen and versatile talent that would come to the boil in his next three films: The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming (1966), In the Heat of the Night (1967) and The Thomas Crown Affair (1968).

The former blacklisted Ring Lardner Jr. (Tracy-Hepburn comedy Woman of the Year, 1942) was credited with his first screenplay since The Forbidden Street in 1949 and he shared the chore with another iconic figure, Terry Southern (Dr Strangelove, 1964), basing their work on the original novel by Richard Jessup. Mention should be made of a terrific score by Lao Schifrin.

Gripping.

Check out the Blog for both a Behind the Scenes article on this film and a Book into Film article.