movie review – Page 86 – The Magnificent 60s

Deus (2022) / Watcher (2022) – Seen at the Cinema

Luckily I had been fortified in my weekly cinema outing by the wonderful Living (2022) before entering dudsville for this double bill. Both Deus and Watcher have all the hallmarks of direct-to-DVD productions which have, to use the old parlance, “escaped” into cinema distribution.

I’m probably a bit rusty about the cost of making the kind of giant spacecraft shown in Deus, billions of dollars surely, so am assuming that big projects like this will encounter budget overruns which would account for the rationing of electricity on board, resulting in the murky lighting. And there’s not an alien in sight unless you count the robotic crew who speak in strangely monotonous tones.

Like most sci-fi films this involves a crew on a mysterious mission awaking from hibernation to investigate a distant object, in this case a sphere. The title assumes this might be about someone playing God and so it transpires, taking a leaf out of The Avengers: Infinity War (21018) playbook with a plot to wipe out three-quarters of the Earth’s population in some kind of eco good deed.

Not only has an evil genius Vance (Phil Davis), who appears only as a hologram (natch), gone to all this bother and created a heavenly apparition but in order to achieve his ends he has had to go to all the clever bother of killing off the family of Karla (Claudia Black) in a car crash so that he can have the opportunity to insert a chip in her brain to infiltrate her imagination.

Former hitman Ulph (David O’Hara) forms part of the crew and the only measure of excitement comes when, mercifully, parts of the mother ship explode. Any action or suspense is purely theoretical with writer-director Steve Stone (In Extremis, 2017) responsible for this monstrosity.

It’s a terrible thing to say I know but I was praying for the serial killer to get a move on and wipe out dull lifeless heroine Julia (Maika Monroe) in Watcher. A former actress, now unemployed, who has moved to Bucharest with advertising executive partner Francis (Karl Glusman) she spends all her time moping around crying wolf. Naturally, everyone ignores her if only for the fact that when she claims to be watched by a man from across the street she has facilitated such voyeurism by leaving her curtains wide open.

The serial killer is known as The Spider for obvious reasons – I guess he has either a hairy back, six arms, climbs up the outside of buildings, or is the type of arachnid who bites the head off his victims or all of the above or because newspaper headline writers had run out of murderer nicknames or were simply devoid of imagination.

As with Matt Damon in Stillwater (2021) her sense of isolation, what with hubby working all hours, is increased because only a tiny minority of the population have the courtesy to speak English. Location-wise you know where this is going to end up because next door neighbor Irina (Madalina Anea) keeps a gun in a drawer in case her ex gets antsy, making him of course the first red herring.

For a time it looked as if this was going to turn into something a lot more interesting, a twist on a twist, for in fact she is as much a watcher as the man (Burn Gorman) – a cleaner in a strip club who stares out of the window in a break from the relentless task of caring for his aged father – accused of this crime. In a very foolish gesture she appears to be encouraging him.

You begin to hope that, to redeem this picture, the upshot is going to be that a paranoid woman shoots an innocent man. Instead, the climax is straight of Hancock’s Half Hour, a legendary British television comedy series, where the heroine survives after losing more than a good armful of blood, probably enough to fill all arms, legs and the bulk of her body.

Maika Monroe (It Follows, 2014) has gone with the erroneous assumption that the less acting she does the more she will appear withdrawn. I felt sorry for Karl Glusman (Greyhound, 2020) in his first leading man role, given nothing to do. Oddly enough, Burn Gorman (Pacific Rim, 2013) has the best scene, demanding an apology from his accuser.

I’m not quite sure what debut director Chloe Okuna did to the original screenplay of the more experienced Zack Ford (Girls’ Night Out, 2019) to grab the main writing credit but it was far from enough.

Like The Banshees of Inisherin, too much appears to be expected of both writer-directors who might have benefitted from a stronger producer challenging their concepts and helping shape the finished material.

The London Nobody Knows (1967) ****

Poverty is hardly an attractive movie subject. But in the light of Where the Crawdads Sing being accused of Hollywoodizing poverty, this is far grittier reminder of the grim reality.

Unexpectedly, documentaries hit a rich box office seam in the 1960s. But these were not the earnest features of the Man of Aran (1934) variety that elated the arthouse crowd or even Disney’s humor-leavened True-Life animal tales. No, documentaries in this decade mainlined the exploitative vein. West End Jungle (1961), Mondo Cane (1962) and London in the Raw (1964) had a very high cost-to-profit ratio.

The London Nobody Knows does not appeal to the prurient. It is a gritty riposte to the Swinging Sixties tourist-bedazzled London of Carnaby St fashion, pop music, red buses, Buckingham Palace and Big Ben. But to lure in an audience the camera intially focuses on the kind of travelogue that purports to show the different side to a well-known locale, before it delves into the terrible poverty which sections of the population could not escape.

Fronted by an actor – unusual then but standard now – in James Mason (Age of Consent, 1969) it begins with a diatribe against the way modern soulless architecture has destroyed significant parts of traditional London, ignoring for the most part that it swept away slums. The actor, bedecked in tweed jacket, polished brown shoes, flat cap and rolled-up umbrella, is in sharp contrast to the often decayed parts of the capital he strolls round.

Initially, what he turns up is almost quiz-question material. A victim of Dr Crippen who had a connection to the abandoned Bedford music hall theatre, home to giants like Marie Lloyd and where artist Walter Sickert was an avid attendee, the backyard in Spitalfield where Jack the Ripper disposed of one of his victims. We visit Clink St, site of a famed prison, which gave its name to “the clink,” and the Roundhouse Theater, originally a turntable for railway engines. Near the Savoy a man goes through the act of lighting a street gas lamp.

There’s a now-defunct egg-breaking plant, a business that carried out that chore on an enormous scale for chefs, and various bustling markets a-brim with the range of fresh food – eels squirming in their tanks, piles of fruit and vegetables – we only see these days in European or Asian markets. And there’s a look in passing at the type of fashions on parade when people don’t have a personal dresser, strange mixtures of outfits that were all the rage.

And then we come to the grim heart of forgotten London, a land of forgotten people, the homeless or near enough. Homelessness was not the issue it is now. The BBC play Cathy Come Home (1966) made a star out of Carol White, triggering a debate on the issue, highlighted by the formation the same year of homeless charity Shelter. But Cathy Come Home hardly touched the surface and after all it was fronted by a glamorous star.

There’s nothing glamorous about the awful, defeated often toothless faces here. Loss never looked so raw. Some don’t even find a park bench to spend the night but sprawl on the grass or fall asleep standing up leaning against a wall. Nothing so temporary as even a cardboard box available.

Others eke out a living as buskers – again, not the acceptable occupation it is now – a man dressed in a pirate outfit doing a demented tap dance. Some are not quite homeless, living in a shared dormitory on bunk beds in a Salvation Army hostel for six shillings and sixpence a night (a third of one pound sterling) or if they are flush a private room for 63 shillings a week.

Mention when seeking employment that your abode is the Salvation Army Hostel and you’ll never be offered a job. It’s a stigma. The sole perk here – what with spitting and drinking and gambling outlawed – is breakfast, but comprising porridge or fried egg, tea and two slices of toast, a meager repast by Full English standards.

The alcoholics drink something blue – methylated spirits probably – but the last vestiges of hope disappeared long ago except for one forlorn aged tramp who aims “to see if I could better myself…in a better way.”

The camera lingers on lived-in faces as though this was not a motion picture but the work of a photographer recording for posterity lives long worn away.

Oddly enough, there’s none of the self-pity that would predominate today. And there’s no blaming either. Circumstances are not investigated, though it’s obvious most took a wrong possibly alcoholic turn in their lives, were once gainfully employed but through unemployment were at the mercy of a system that didn’t yet exist to sustain them through this kind of tribulation.

Irish director Norman Cox had previously worked uncredited on London in the Raw, but the success of his mainstream breakthrough, the movie adaptation of television comedy series Till Death Us Do Part (1968), probably gave him carte blanche to undertake this though nothing else in his later portfolio – Confessions of a Pop Performer (1975), Stand Up Virgin Soldiers (1977) – approached this depth. Geoffrey Fletcher wrote the screenplay based on his own book published in 1965.

Burn, Witch, Burn / Night of the Eagle (1962) ****

That rare event, a piece of cinematic alchemy. None of the principals had any particular form yet it all comes together quite splendidly.

Director Sidney Hayers was a journeyman, for every Circus of Horrors (1960) or Southern Star (1969) there was Cliff Richard vehicle Finders Keepers (1966) or Three Hats for Lisa (1965) starring pop star Joe Brown. Apart from The Innocents (1961), Peter Wyngarde did not make another movie for nearly two decades and fame eluded him until he grew one of television’s most iconic moustaches for Department S (1969).

Janet Blair was attempting to revive a moribund career that had stopped dead with The Fuller Brush Man (1948). Ditto Margaret Johnston, nothing since Touch and Go (1955).

More prominent names were attached to the script: Richard Matheson had made B-movie waves with The Fall of the House of Usher (1960) and The Pit and the Pendulum (1961) and Charles Beaumont for The Premature Burial (1962). But the script itself, an adaptation of Fritz Lieber Jr.’s novel Conjure, Wife, was not in itself extraordinary.

Instead, it’s a prime example of what a director can bring to material. It begins with credits on one side of the screen and a wide-open eye on the other. Scenes brim with suspense yet often we have no idea what’s going on and with only music to guide us are sucked into a devilish plot. Most of the time Hayers concentrates on eyes, reaction, rather than lengthy scenes of dialog.

The fact that Hollywood ignored the depth of Wyngarde’s performance seems beyond belief. And you might be interested to know it was one of the earliest feminist pictures, the wife in control, acting as protector for the husband.

Norman Taylor (Peter Wyngarde) is a handsome successful college professor in the running for promotion. While he locks horns with lazy pupil Fred (Bill Mitchell), he charms others to the point of infatuation, witness Margaret (Judith Stott). But after a bridge party at their home his wife Tansy (Janet Blair) becomes obsessed with finding something. Upstairs, by accident Norman comes across a dead spider that she claims is a good luck charm from a holiday in Jamaica.

Eventually, while he’s asleep, she finds what she’s looking for, hidden in a lampshade and burns it. Later, a suspicious Norman uncovers all sorts of strange objects. All three scenes of the characters looking are filled with suspense and masterpieces if you like of how to use a camera and hook an audience, no explanation given, just a background of increasingly ominous music.

Confronted, Tansy admits she is a witch, that decision triggered by an incident in which her husband nearly died. Her spells, she claims, have brought him not just good luck, but protected him from bad sorcery, his success not just down to his charm. He insists on burning all her material, including, to her horror, a locket with his picture. And no time is spent, a la The Devil Rides Out (1968), in explaining the intricacies of the occult.

From then on his life turns sour. He is nearly run over by a van. Fred makes a complaint against him and then comes after him with a gun, Margaret claims he raped her. Gradually, Norman, an atheist where the Devil is concerned, believing that neurosis causes the wrong kind of faith, comes to realise he is a victim.

They are both up against someone more powerful. Some of the events have a supernatural tinge – doors that swing open in a storm, Tansy praying to “let me die in his place” – but others appear severe accentuations of the normal, a loudspeaker blaring out his voice from a tape recording over the college grounds, an eagle that hunts him down, big enough (in one astonishing scene) to break through a door, and with a 9ft wing span appearing enormous in a corridor.

The curse plays out to a fabulous end, a tremendous finale, full of human drama, emotions ripped apart, confrontation, Norman’s failed schemes to save his wife.

To say I was mesmerised was an under-statement. Just a brilliantly-done little picture with cracking direction and excellent acting all round.

Not only is the picture ripe for reassessment you would have thought it was well worth a remake.

The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm (1963) *** – Seen at the Cinerama

With Hollywood already snagging the best characters of the Grimm inventory – Snow White, Cinderella, The Sleeping Beauty and Tom Thumb – and others like Rumpelstiltskin not deemed cute enough, George Pal (The Time Machine, 1960) had a battle on his hands to come up with a decent enough second string. Spurning for no obvious reason contenders like Hansel and Gretel and The Frog Prince, he plumped for a strange hybrid.

He incorporated three fairy stories – The Dancing Princess, The Elves and the Shoemaker and The Singing Bone – in a drama about the authors. Both sides of this tale had a common background, 19^th century Germany with its rich vein of fairy castles and cobbled streets where kings ruled. The Grimms are posited as wannabe writers but with warring personalities.

Unmarried Jacob (Karl Boehm) wants to stick to the knitting and complete the work, a biography of the Duke (Oscar Homolka), they are being paid for while married Wilhelm (Laurence Harvey) prefers to use that time instead to write down the stories he has collected from a variety of sources.

The stories Pal chooses to bring to life pop into the narrative by the simple devices of telling kids a bedtime story or overhearing the tale. Jacob is actually more interested in academic writing; books on law and grammar are what capture his imagination. The narrative switches between the brothers falling out, enduring poverty and Jacob falling in love with Greta (Barbara Eden) but lacking the romantic touch mostly making heavy weather of it.

The first tale in the triptych – The Dancing Princess – is simple enough. A King (Jim Backus) promises the hand of his daughter (Yvette Mimieux) in marriage to whoever can find out what she does at night which a humble woodsman (Russ Tamblyn) manages with the help of a cloak that makes him disappear. In the second story elves come to life to save the skin of a shoemaker more interested in helping orphans than his rich clients.

The third, demanding the biggest special effects, less successfully translates to the screen since it involves the creation of a dragon to be slaughtered. However, it is saved by humor, since the knight (Terry-Thomas) is too cowardly to do the job and relies on servant Hans (Buddy Hackett) for the actual slaying, and by the most gruesome of endings.

Plus, since it is in Cinerama, something speeding is required seen from the audience point-of-view or a hero who could fall into a canyon. And in the best fairy tale tradition the heroes are unsung and under pressure.

Laurence Harvey (A Dandy in Aspic, 1968), Karl Boehm (The Venetian Affair, 1966) , Claire Bloom (Two Into Three Won’t Go, 1969) and Barbara Eden (I Dream of Jeannie television series, 1965-1970) are just about buoyant enough to keep the main story ticking along and carve out a piece of Disney territory without so much as a decent song to help proceedings. Three unexpected twists – four if you count a miraculous recovery from serious illness – nudge this in unexpected directions.

The first is the solidity of brotherly love, with one having to choose wife over his close bond with his sibling – the kind of emotional hit that would be more common in an adult picture, though kids obviously couldn’t care less. The second is the appearance of virtually all the famous Grimm characters in what amounts to a cameo. Last is a proper fairy tale ending where it’s the kids who elevate the brothers to literary success.

Laurence Harvey hides his snide side and does his best Dirk Bogarde impression as the errant brother whose imagination brings his family to near-ruin. Despite being offered love on a plate, Karl Boehm remains steadfastly dour, while Claire Bloom as Wilhelm’s wife has little to do. Scene stealing honors go to Oscar Homolka (The Happening, 1967) while Terry-Thomas (How to Murder Your Wife, 1965) just about shades it in the comedic duel with Buddy Hackett (The Love Bug, 1968).

George Pal concentrated on the fantasy elements with Henry Levin (Genghis Khan, 1965) directing the drama so it’s a mixture of very grounded and very flighty. It’s not really long enough for a true Cinerama roadshow movie but with an overture and intermission it stretches enough.

It was filmed with the traditional three Cinerama lenses and would have been projected with three projectors but at the Bradford Widescreen Weekend I saw a new restoration that does away with the vertical lines. For contemporary audiences who only view fairy stories through the microcosm of animation and for whom live-action means Ray Harryhausen, the special effects here will come as something of a disappointment. But on the other hand it is still George Pal, so enjoy.

William Roberts (The Magnificent Seven, 1960), Charles Beaumont (Mister Moses, 1965) and David P. Harmon (Dark Purpose, 1964) cobbled up the screenplay.

As I said I saw this in the magnificence of the big screen and in widescreen Cinerama to boot so I am bound to be a shade benevolent but this still holds up, the drama dramatic enough, as a biopic interesting, and kids who might be taken with the fairy stories are way too young to complain about the effects.

Circus World / The Magnificent Showman (1963) **** – Seen at the Cinema

Bookended by disaster – a ship turning turtle, fire raging in the big tent – and kept aloft by giddy circus turns this long-ignored movie in the John Wayne canon is ripe for reassessment. In more down-to-earth mold, with no villains to rein in, no gun-toting required, this calls upon something more basic from the actor, the dramatic skill required to make the audience fix on a strong character within a spectacular screen event.

Presented in stunning Super Technirama, the swansong of maverick producer Samuel Bronston (El Cid, 1961), and mistakenly viewed as little more than a travelog or a compendium of circus acts, this dwells instead on transition and loss as Matt Masters (John Wayne) struggles to allow adopted daughter Toni (Claudia Cardinale) to grow up and to come to terms with the part he played in the romantic calamity – father a high-wire suicide, acrobatic mother Lili (Rita Hayworth) fleeing to Europe – that left her parentless.

It’s no coincidence that sending his three-ring circus cum Wild West Show on a lucrative tour of Europe in the early part of the 20^th century provides an opportunity to hunt for Lili, the love of his life. But the circus ship capsizes in Barcelona, leaving Masters penniless, forced to work for a rival European promoter until he can scrape together enough dough to start again. Masters uses the opportunity of traveling through European capitals to scout new acts, including clown Aldo (Richard Conte), a lion-tamer turned tiger-tamer Emile (Hans Dante), and ballerina Katharyna (Giovana) who performs on the high wire while Toni wants to chance her arm against Matt’s objections as an acrobat and flex her romantic muscles in romantic dalliance with Matt’s new partner Steve (John Smith).

The subplots add dramatic heft, the lion-tamer is frightened of tigers, Aldo has vengeance in mind, so in between the scintillating circus acts the storyline is compressed around the drink- and guilt-sodden Lili and conflict on several fronts with Toni while old retainer Cap (Lloyd Nolan) is on hand to pep up or challenge Matt.

You wouldn’t be allowed to make this kind of film these days so it’s worth glorying in the glory days of the circus – dancing horses, lions, tigers, elephants, acrobats and genuinely hilarious clown sequences. It being a three-ring circus there’s always something going on, plus the Wild West element which comprises a stagecoach being attacked.

John Wayne is as befuddled as ever in romance, restricting his trademark double take to astonishment at Tony’s transition to womanhood. There’s an occasional reversal but mostly it’s a battle against the odds, potential triumph leavened by gritty loss.

A modern producer would have switched the disasters – it didn’t really matter how Matt got into a fix. But the capsizing, appearing so early the effect is stunning, is brilliantly handled, not just the rescue of people and animals but Matt in lion-taming mode and ending with a clever coda. In every photograph Lili’s face has been scratched out but in among the saturated notes of Matt’s vital cash box is a picture of her.

Some critics have suggested John Wayne (In Harm’s Way, 1965), recovering from his own financial debacle caused by over-investment in The Alamo (1960), took the role for financial expediency. But I can see the attraction, as I’m sure the actor did. This is a far more rounded character than anything since The Searchers (1956) and he can’t even find redemption from a six-shooter. He’s more protective than aggressive, paternal instinct triggering character reaction, and it’s more of a James Stewart type of role, coming back from adversity, and nothing straightforward about a man whose love affair caused marital disaster.

Critics have also taken pot-shots at Claudia Cardinale (The Pink Panther, 1963) as if she was not already an accomplished actress (a favorite of Visconti, for example) in a compelling role and competing on even terms with a star of John Wayne’s charisma without being able to fall back on the old saw of the romantic interest. Although playing a character nearly a decade younger, Cardinale brings an earthy feistiness to a character with a bucket of decisions to make, turning on its head her relationship with Matt and going through the dramatic hoops with Lili.

Rita Hayworth (The Happy Thieves, 1961) has shucked off the glamor, a worn-down relic of her former self, turning to drink and religion in equal measure in vain hope of finding peace. Veteran Lloyd Nolan (The Double Man, 1967) and Richard Conte (Assault on a Queen, 1966) hold their own, but John Smith (Waco, 1966) does not. Look out for former British star Kay Walsh (A Study in Terror, 1965).

Henry Hathaway (5 Card Stud, 1968) does a terrific job marshalling all the elements, containing the core family drama within the wider action-oriented structure. While there’s never a dull moment, in among all the spectacular scenes are some exhibiting a particularly sensitive directorial touch such as when Matt discovers Lili’s hotel room and reflects on his own misdemeanors.

There were almost as many writers as circus performers – James Edward Grant (The Commancheros, 1961), Ben Hecht (Spellbound, 1945), Julian Zimet (A Place for Lovers, 1968), Bernard Gordon (55 Days at Peking, 1963), Nicholas Ray (The Savage Innocents, 1960) and Philip Yordan (El Cid).

Come at it from the fun perspective and you won’t go wrong. John Wayne completists will adore it.

I was lucky enough to see this is full glorious widescreen at the cinema where it was the Closing Film at this year’s Widescreen Weekend in Bradford. What a way to end a show!

Madigan (1968) ****

Reignited the careers of director Don Siegel (no Hollywood traction since Hell Is For Heroes in 1962), Richard Widmark (reduced to supporting roles) and Henry Fonda (no longer first name on the team sheet for the biggest pictures) and reinvented the cop thriller as a gritty urban affair. The plot – chasing down a suspect – is a MacGuffin to explore tough police methods, corruption, and the harm the job does to the domestic lives of the police.

Detective Dan Madigan (Richard Widmark) and partner Rocco Bonero (Harry Guardino) come woefully and embarrassingly unstuck when hood Benesch (Steve Ihnat) evades capture and steals their guns. They have 72 hours to bring him back or be suspended. So, basically, they spend most of the time following a bunch of leads, intimidating anyone who gets in their way, including a helpless secretary. And while Bonero is happily domesticated, Madigan’s lonely wife Julia (Inger Stevens) is fed up with late nights and broken promises to the extent of considering a one-night stand when hubby stands her up once too often.

Commissioner Russell (Henry Fonda) has his hands full dealing with the errant detectives without the ramifications of corruption involving his best friend, long-time cop Chief Inspector Kane (James Whitmore). The widowed Russell would be a poster-boy for the principled cop except he’s having an affair with married woman Tricia (Susan Clark).

While Madigan is kicking and snarling his way through the underworld, Russell is trying to work out how to save his friendship and his affair. And while they might appear opposites, the classy top officer and the street cop, the uptight Russell envies Madigan’s way with people. Madigan is comped drinks and even a suite at the Sherry-Netherland hotel not merely because he’s a cop but because his charm goes a long way.

And while Russell dithers over helping out a friend, Madigan has no qualms about being taking for a ride by an old pal down on his luck and in need of an excuse to be bought a drink. When it comes down to it, Madigan is the better advert for humanity.

The soap opera elements don’t intrude too much on the thriller. Madigan and Bonero go in with fists blazing and work their way through a menagerie of skunks including Castiglione (Michael Dunn) and stool pigeon Hughie (Don Stroud). Benesch is a piece of work, not just clever enough to use his lover’s nudity to distract the attention of cops, but sufficiently hard-boiled to shoot a cop dead in the street and have little hesitation in opening fire on anyone who comes too close.

There’s some fascinating internal cop politics as Kane locks horns with Chief of Detectives Lynch (Bert Freed) over the latter’s insistence on suspending Madigan. And Russell has to finagle his way through the problems a well-heeled son is causing a rich doctor (Raymond Jacques).

Every time the pace slackens, the movie falls back on the old Chandler routine, have someone come through the door with a gun (a fist would suffice). Madigan is a driven cop, struggling to hold onto his marriage, Julia too often the sacrificial lamb. And for all his outward bravado, there’s a superb scene when unexpectedly encountering Russell he turns into a stammering ball of nerves, like a schoolkid anticipating a roasting from a headmaster.

Richard Widmark (The Bedford Incident, 1964) has a hell of a part, tough guy, check, but with a side helping of kindness, and pretty assured on the loving front, investing what could have been a fairly cliched character with a good deal of complexity. Henry Fonda (Firecreek, 1968) does a lot of pacing as his self-esteem implodes; how can he be a good guy if he’s running around with another man’s wife and how can he stick to his principles if he’s going to let a pal away with corruption?

Inger Stevens (Firecreek, 1968) is impressive as the disappointed wife trying to keep disappointment at bay. Harry Guardino (Hell Is For Heroes) always makes a good sidekick, but James Whitmore (The Split, 1968) digs into a sack of guilt as he attempts to avoid the oncoming storm. Don Stroud was almost auditioning for Don Siegel – he would turn up again in Coogan’s Bluff (1968) and Joe Kidd (1973); Susan Clark, too, Eastwood’s squeeze in Coogan’s Bluff. In smaller parts are Sheree North (Lawman, 1971) and Raymond St Jacques (Uptight, 1968).

But the show belongs to Don Seigel. There can be few directors so out-of-favor that they are able on their return to kick start a new cop cycle that culminated in Dirty Harry (1971). While this pulls no punches on the action front, it’s the quieter behind-the-scenes domesticity that almost as much catches the eye, the way he gives the characters time to breathe, opens them up to reveal more intricate inner workings.

It also spelled rebirth for blacklisted screenwriter Abraham Polonsky (Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here, 1969) in his first credit under his own name for 17 years. He didn’t do it all himself, though, Howard Rodman (Coogan’s Bluff) sharing the chores, the pair working from the novel The Commissioner by Richard Dougherty.

Doctor in Distress (1963) ***

Bait-and-switch as the romantic complications of the grumpy Dr Spratt (James Robertson Justice) take precedence over the by-now pretty competent Dr Sparrow (Dirk Bogarde). Just about getting by on Bogarde’s charm in his fourth and final outing in a role that had made him a British box office star and possibly more notable as his final film as an out-and-out matinee idol before he shifted into the arthouse arena.

Dr Sparrow has come a hell of a long way since being a shy junior doctor, mercilessly bullied by Spratt and a love life that was filled with tangle. Here, he not only stands up to Spratt, but is something of a lothario, happily ditching new love Delia (Samantha Eggar), a model, albeit temporarily, in favor of French masseuse Sonia (Mylene Demongeot).

There is very little of the traditional rom-com-love-on-the-rocks in Bogarde’s relationship with Delia, who arrives as a patient with a sprained ankle at the hospital and is whisked home by Sparrow for a spot of practised seduction. Spratt, on the other hand, has fallen for physiotherapist Iris (Barbara Murray) and in trying to win her hand undergoes weight loss treatment at a health clinic, endures the indignity of wearing a corset, hires a private detective to get the lowdown on her, and finally, donning a disguise of dark glasses and hiding his bulky frame behind an umbrella, proceeds to attempt to discover who is his rival for her affections.

Sparrow is left to occasionally swat out of the way the interfering Spratt and alternatively offer him advice or a shoulder to cry on while trying to prevent Delia pursuing a movie career. So it’s just a series of situations, none of which are particularly funny, apart from the idea of Spratt getting his come-uppance.

It’s worth noting that for a British sex comedy, the females are in charge. Iris knocks back her various suitors, Delia refuses to let romance interfere with her career, jetting off to Rome over Sparrow’s objections, and the diminutive and muscular Sonia is more than a match for any man and just as predatory.

What’s most surprising is that a genial comedy like this can get away with so much permissiveness. This was opposite of the in-your-face snigger-snigger Carry On series so for Sparrow to be successfully spreading his wild oats seemed somewhat out of character. But you can see most of the jokes a mile off though probably in a packed cinema these would provoke more laughter than watching it at home on the small screen.

It’s probably worth it to see Leo McKern (Hot Enough for June, 1964) as a movie producer who envisages Sparrow as his new star and Frank Finlay as a corset salesman, a completely different role to his part in Robbery (1967). Fenella Fielding (Lock Up Your Daughters, 1969) has a cameo as a neurotic passenger on a train and Dennis Price (Tunes of Glory, 1960) as a sadistic health clinic manager while Donald Houston (A Study in Terror, 1965) has a larger part as another of Iris’s suitors.

Dirk Bogarde (Justine, 1969) can essay this kind of character in his sleep but there is no doubting his screen charisma or charm. But I doubt if James Robertson Justice (Mayerling, 1968) varied his character much from picture to picture, perhaps louder and more bumptious here but unlikely to attract audience sympathy. Samantha Eggar (The Collector, 1965) doesn’t get enough to do and has her thunder stolen by the late arrival of Mylene Demongeot (Fantomas, 1964).

Director Ralph Thomas had made more than a half-a-dozen films with Bogarde including more dramatic ventures like Campbell’s Kingdom (1957) and The Wind Cannot Read (1958) and makes the most of this undemanding feature. You would have thought this was the end of the line for the series but with Leslie Phillips (Maroc 7, 1967) as Bogarde’s replacement it soldiered on for another couple of episodes.

Proof that a true star can always help a film rise above its material.

Robbery (1967) ****

The explosive gut-wrenching high octane car chase that kicked off this thriller – and provided British director Peter Yates (Bullitt, 1968) with a Hollywood calling card – is somewhat out of place in this intriguing documentary-style fictionalised account of the British heist of the century, the Great Train Robbery of 1963. Setting aside that the chase would have been better employed as the climax, it does provide the cops with enough leads to keep tabs on some of the criminals, ensuring the authorities become aware of the gigantic theft planned.

But Yates’ unusual approach takes us away from the usual crime picture. You can say goodbye to the cliched villain for a start. Mastermind Paul Clifton (Stanley Baker) dresses like a suave businessman. Wife Kate (Joanna Pettet) rails against him for betrayal, not sexual infidelity, but for pretending he had given up the life of crime. And there is any amount of nuance. We don’t discover that Clifton lives in a huge mansion with a massive drive until the very end, we don’t know who else the police are tailing until they are picked up, we are not let in on the secret of Clifton’s escape until suddenly he is taking off in a light airplane. And there is the unexpected. A suspect is identified in a line-up by a witness slapping his face, a message sent to Kate from Paul via a dog.

*Cop James Booth questions gangster’s moll Joanna Pettet.*

Nor, beyond the basics, are we let in on the details of the plan, more time spent on recruitment, and not the usual suspects either, Robinson (Frank Finlay) – broken out of prison for this specific job – brought unwillingly on board because, as a former bank employee, he can check the stolen notes. I should point out, which may not be obvious to a contemporary audience, that banks shifted money over the weekend via the London-Glasgow night train that carried the mail. Given the £3 million being transported, the train is staffed not by a regiment of security guards but by postal workers sorting letters.

There’s nothing desperately clever about the plan anyway beyond its audacity. Signals are changed to make the train stop at the allotted point, the robbery takes place in military fashion, timed to the minute, some sacks left behind when time is up.

What’s cleverest is the hideout, an abandoned airfield, with underground passages. The gang doesn’t intend to run while the heat is at its hottest but some time later, the cash divvied up, Clifton’s share sent as cargo overseas. Clifton knows the consequences will involve road blocks, house searches, cars impounded, arrests but “without the money they can’t prove anything.” A junkyard owner is paid – too handsomely as it transpires – to clean the vehicles used of fingerprints and other potential giveaways (not much else in the days before DNA). And no matter Clifton ruling with a rod of iron, there is always the idiot who doesn’t quite stick to the plan.

Most of the picture is detail, not just the meticulous planning but the equally meticulous hounding by the cops, interrogating getaway driver Jack (Clinton Greyn), identity parades, telephones tapped (or a crude version of it), with only the occasional hunch to keep the police, led by the dogged Inspector Langdon (James Booth), on the right track. A few years before cops in movies were uniformly identified as either corrupt or useless, sometimes both, this bunch are shown to be relatively efficient, though still prone to underhand means.

Dominating proceedings is the moustached figure of Stanley Baker (Sands of the Kalahari, 1965) whose brusque no-nonsense manner sets the tone. He’s a cut above the normal criminal not just in ambition but ingenuity and while he rules the roost in the gang he’s less at home at home where Kate gives him a hard time. James Booth (Fraulein Doktor, 1969) is impressive as the pursuer, well-versed in gangland lore, inclined to look beyond the obvious. With only a few scenes Joanna Pettet (The Best House in London, 1969) makes a mark.

In supporting parts you will spot Barry Foster (The Family Way, 1966), who seems to have the knack of catching the camera’s attention with a look or the turn of his head, and Frank Finlay (A Study in Terror, 1965), and a host of British character actors like George Sewell (The Vengeance of She, 1968) and Glynn Edwards (The Blood Beast Terror, 1968).

But the honors go to Peter Yates (Summer Holiday, 1963), not just for the stunning car chase which Hollywood would forever emulate, but the constant tension, the cutting back and forth between cops and robbers, and between the overtly dramatic and the subtle. He also had a hand in the screenplay along with George Markstein (The Odessa File, 1974) and in his only movie Edward Boyd (The View from Daniel Pike, 1971-1973).

Sweet Charity (1969) **** – Seen at the Cinema

Never mind Bob Fosse’s debut, this was unusual for a number of reasons: a hilarious meet-cute, a raft of one-liners and being based on Fellini’s Nights of Cabiria (1957). So it could easily have been remembered mostly as a quiz question. But with Fosse at the helm it was a lot more than the sum of those particular parts and introduced a new-style director whose verve, choreography, stylistic flourishes and adult subject matter had wowed Broadway audiences.

Star Shirley MacLaine (Gambit, 1966) adds another layer to her trademark portfolio of losers in love. Hope Valentine Charity (MacLaine) is overly optimistic given her circumstances, robbed of her savings by her fiancé, nearly drowning in the process, the prospects of her switching from a career as a dance hall hostess severely limited by her lack of formal education and basic office skills.

So it’s just as well that she lands millionaire Vittorio (Ricardo Montalban) and might have enjoyed an indulgent romantic interlude had their evening not been interrupted by his wife Ursula (Barbara Bouchet), Charity condemned to spend a humiliating night hiding in the closet.

A chance meeting with the claustrophobic Oscar (John McMartin), doom-laden and intensely shy, appears to lead to unlikely redemption. Her presence cures him of a bunch of neuroses and marriage is on the cards until reality raises its ugly head, and the movie ends on a surprisingly negative note for a musical.

A dance hall hostess – taxi dancer in the parlance because she is hired by the half hour – is equivalent to the modern laptop dancer except that there is no nudity involved. On the other hand, there is none of the hands-off policy exercised in such contemporary operations, and men buying her time believe that she should accommodate their straying hands. So it’s somewhat unexpected that her colleagues remain so good-tempered and backstage is presented as a bitching-free zone, some accepting their reality, others, like Charity, inclined to the fantasy that a Prince Charming will rescue them.

In terms of song quality it’s not in The Sound of Music (1965) league, boasting only two numbers – “Hey Big Spender” and “If My Friends Could See Me Now” – that you were likely leave the cinema humming. And it certainly suffers by MacLaine not having the voice of a Julie Andrews or Barbra Streisand, or the dance skills of Gwen Verdon who originated the part on Broadway, but otherwise she invests the character with enough believability and exudes charm by the bucketload. She has to be applauded for taking on such a gritty role in the first place.

Of course, the movie belongs to the director, the embryonic Fosse, who brings a new look to the movie musical, from the bored dancers draped in unexpected physical shapes during “Hey Big Spender” to the finger-snapping, angled choreography and the celebration of the seedy, the opposite of the glossier Rodgers & Hammerstein, Lerner & Loew vehicles. A few years later, further acceptance of permissiveness would allow him to explore such worlds in more realistic depth, check out Cabaret (1972) and All That Jazz (1979).

There’s a great turn from Sammy Davis Jr (Ocean’s Eleven, 1960) as a snake-hipped hippie preacher, his appearance somewhat out of place though offering contemporary comment, Oscar taking Charity to this literally underground service because he belongs to a Church-of-the-Month Club.

There’s a goodly number of laughs courtesy of the original Neil Simon book for the musical and the meet-cute of the couple trapped in an elevator is very funny.

John McMartin, in a rare movie leading role, is good as the hapless romantic, Ricardo Montalban (Sol Madrid, 1968) as his opposite, and there’s sterling support from Stubby Kaye (Cat Ballou, 1965), Barbara Bouchet (In Harm’s Way, 1965) and Chita Rivera in her debut.

It was probably too much to ask that this hit the ground running, what with Hollywood in financial meltdown in part as a result of budgetary excesses like this (it cost $10 million), a movie that never quite extended a grip on the roadshow audiences necessary to turn it into a hit, a star lacking an exceptional voice, and a storyline that appeared to alienate musical lovers. Most people who viewed it on initial general release saw a heavily truncated version.

It stands up much better today, mostly thanks to Fosse’s direction, but also due to the sleazy background, and it has to be said, setting aside any vocal deficiencies, this is one of Shirley MacLaine’s best performances.

Of course, I saw it at its best, on the big screen at the Widescreen Weekend in Bradford, so I might be slightly biased, but it does have genuine vigor and a refreshing originality.

Fear No More (1961) ****

Had Alain Resnais taken the paranoia/gaslighting B-movie route for the esoteric Last Year in Marienbad he might well have ended up with a twisty concoction like this. Whereas Marienbad struggles to get anywhere near a third act, Bernard Wiesen’s unheralded under-rated debut thriller has a stonker of one. It’s the last 15 minutes when the unravelling from an unexpected source takes place that makes this well worth watching. So, I’m sorry to say, spoiler alert, as I take you through why this is so good.

It’s a twist to top all the previous twists, of which there have been many. Movies like this generally rely on story much more than character, but here we see the two main characters substantially alter, almost, psychologiclly-speaking, changing places.

Secretary Sharon (Mala Powers) on an overnight business trip by train discovers a male killer and a female corpse in her cabin. Knocked out, she regains consciousness to find herself accused of murder by cop Joe Brady (Robert Karnes). Managing to escape, she is almost run down by handsome divorced Frenchman Paul (Jacques Bergerac), delivering his son back to wife Denise (Anna Lee Carroll), who gives her a lift to Los Angeles.

Paul, an erstwhile alcoholic it later transpires, pursues her with romantic notions in mind, but she gives him the brush-off. Back in her apartment she finds sozzled ex-lover Keith (John Baer). Paul, not the kind to be so easily brushed off, persuades her to go for a coffee but when she returns to her apartment Keith is dead. Chased by the killer, she is rescued by Paul.

Gradually, she reveals that she once had a nervous breakdown and was committed to a mental institution. But when she goes to see her employer Milo (John Seymour) to explain she has lost the package with which she was entrusted, quite a different scenario awaits.

Brady is there and denies all knowledge of ever having met her. Milo denies sending her on a trip. Worse, Keith is not dead and the package she was carrying contains $3,000 stolen from Milo’s safe, to which she has access.

No wonder the most likely reason for all this confusion is that she is losing grip of her mental faculties. But, if nothing else, Sharon is quick-witted and concludes that too many pieces of this jigsaw are missing and in the absence of Milo’s wife and chauffeur Steve (Peter Brocco) that he has murdered his wealthy partner and is setting up her up to take the rap. That idea only lasts as long as it takes for wife (Helena Nash) and chauffeur to turn up.

Worse, Sharon was committed for killing the woman in her care. She pleaded self-defence and got away with it but her mind crumbled with guilt.

So just when we’re going along with the notion that this is one crazy woman and that “recollections may vary” not as much as she would like and that she is not inhabiting a parallel universe, the Frenchman does a bit of investigating on his own and finds Keith’s corpse.

*In more prosperous times in her career, Powers was the female lead here.*

Now here’s when it turns very tricky indeed. Although by this point Sharon should be dead in the water, mentally at least, she sparks into life, continues along the line of Milo killing his wife (the body on the train), and begins to point to all the flaws in his plan, beginning with his bungling associates. Milo, who had initially appeared in complete control, now begins to lose his temper and snap at his employees.

Milo and his associates take her to a cabin in the woods. The stronger she grows, the weaker Milo becomes, as she continues her barrage of accusation, picking more holes in his grand plan, until he realises that the police are not going to do his job for him, in condemning Sharon for his wife’s murder. The supposed wife turns out to be Milo’s sister and she, too, begins to crumble with the fear of being found out and her beloved brother going down.

So it’s heading for a complete turn-around, the supposed maniac having been gaslighted, the supposed upright employer turning shadier by the minute and unable to deal with the consequences of an action that has gone so badly wrong. Milo ends up the gibbering idiot with Sharon regaining the faculties she thought she had lost.

The Frenchman comes to the physical rescue and even though at one point the doting sister has the drop on him, she falls to pieces at the thought of what she would have to do to safeguard her deluded brother.

Quite a third act.

But there are a couple of other interesting sequences. When Paul rams on the brakes to prevent his car running over Sharon, that sends his son sitting in the front seat, in the days before seat belts, straight into the dashboard, a rather overly realistic event as regards kids in those days. Picking up Sharon and pacifying his son means Paul is late bringing the boy home to his mother and she lets rip, refusing him any future access. But, unexpectedly, later she turns up in his apartment, asking forgiveness, realising her son was so excited spending time with his father that it would not be right to deny him that.

And with all great B-films this is short and snappy, barely 80-minutes long, and hardly one of those minutes going by without a twist. Sharon is a very interesting character from a psychiatric perspective. Although cleared of killing the woman in her charge, she clearly feels enormous guilt that she allowed it to happen, and once you start falling into a mental trap of your own making it’s pretty hard to get out.

You can always pick holes in movies like this, but the two main characters, Sharon and Milo, seem to me very believable, lost in their own fantasies, especially Milo, who saw his perfect plan falling to pieces.

Unfairly, this was pretty much a dead end for all concerned. Mala Powers (Daddy’s Gone A-Hunting, 1969), the object of Cyrano de Bergerac’s affection in Cyrano (1950) and star of Rose of Cimarron (1952), had lost her way in Hollywood and not been in a movie for three years since The Colossus of New York (1958). Despite giving an excellent performance, Fear No More didn’t prove the answer to her Hollywood prayers and she only had three further movie roles in the 1960s.

Jacques Bergerac – better known for marriage to Ginger Rogers – made his final picture in 1966 but didn’t rise much above the likes of Taffy and the Jungle Hunter (1965). Prior to this director Bernard Wiesen was a producer-director on television and after it that’s what he went back to.

Catch it on YouTube.