nudity – The Magnificent 60s

The Penthouse (1967) ****

Visceral home invasion thriller that ignited the genre and triggered later more controversial offerings like The Straw Dogs (1971) and A Clockwork Orange (1971). Made virtually on one set for the indescribably minute sum of £100,000, it is charged with Pinteresque dialog and aberrant philosophy. The genre splits into those pictures where the occupants have more than a good chance of avoiding their fate, the focus on the invaded pitting their wits against the invaders – classic examples being The Straw Dogs or more recently Panic Room (2002) – and those where the victims are mercilessly tormented, such as, in grueling detail, here.

As one of the perks of his job cocky married real estate agent Bruce (Terence Morgan) takes advantage of an expensive unoccupied apartment on his company’s books – “in the happy position to take advantage of my clients’ generosity in their absence” as he puts it – to enjoy an illicit tryst with mistress Barbara (Suzy Kendall). But when she answers to the door to two men coming to read the gas meter, their lives are turned upside down.

Tom (Tony Beckley) and Dick (Norman Rodway) are, of course, bogus and armed with a knife quickly take control, trying up Bruce and pouring alcohol down Barbara’s throat. As part of the overall creepiness, there is a sense that this is no casual visit, but that it has been planned, as if someone somewhere is familiar with the set-up, and there a debt, if only a moralistic one, to pay as a deterrent to the era’s permissiveness. Minus the knife, they would have passed as harmless. But never was their such difference between word and action, except for what they are capable of you could easily be persuaded that are in fact camp and bitchy.

The bound Bruce’s is spun round in a chair and can only watch as the men begin to strip Barbara. His only defence is verbal, trying to set the two men against each other, suggesting that Tom treats Dick as his assistant. But the relationship between the two criminals constantly shifts as if they were in passive-aggressive relationship. You don’t learn much about them until the end, so basically you have to rely on what they say about themselves, which is very little. They are prone to philosophic observation or interrogate Bruce about his possessions or extract from Barbara an unexpected ambition to be a painter.

One of the oddest pieces of promotional material ever produced. Studios were keen on this kind of jokey cartoon in the hope that it would be picked up by newspaper editors who might be less inclined to run a still from the picture. But it is completely out of touch with the tone of the movie.

The men take it in turns to torment Bruce while the other is in the bedroom with Barbara. Where Bruce resists verbally, Barbara gives in almost right away, but there is never the sense that this is in any way consensual, just that she is too drunk to defend herself – the first drink is a full glass of whisky forced down her throat – and the men have a knife. The invaders make constant reference to a character called Harry. That person’s eventual appearance provides a whole new range of twists.

It’s a film full of menace. Sexual tension, mind games, claustrophobia and the threat of physical violence never dissipate. Because it is rationed out, the brutality is all the more shocking. But it is brilliantly directed. In his debut British director Peter Collinson (The Italian Job, 1969) uses the camera to suggest we are in anything but an enclosed space. In one long sequence the camera does not move, in another scene it turns 360 degrees – Antonioni’s use of this device in The Passenger (1975) was credited as innovative – and at other times it twists and turns as if turning the characters inside out, suggesting some of the dizziness, the dramatic speed of change of feelings, that the stunned victims are enduring. At times it feels like an arthouse movie. At other times like a deranged B-picture.

The cast are all excellent. Tony Beckley (The Lost Continent, 1968) makes the best of a role of a lifetime, Norman Rodway (Four in the Morning, 1965) the more quietly psychotic sidekick. Terence Morgan (The Sea Pirate, 1966) has less to do but Suzy Kendall (Fraulein Doktor, 1969) is superb as the enigmatic girlfriend. Look out for Martine Beswick (Prehistoric Women, 1967) in a small part. Collinson wrote the screenplay based on a play The Meter Men by Scott Forbes.

Cultural note: “Tom, Dick and Harry” are considered such quintessentially British names that anyone familiar with this would understand immediately that they were a) pseudonyms and b) intended as a twisted kind of joke.

No sign of this being available on Amazon. Ebay is probably your best bet. There’s a copy on YouTube but it ain’t a good print.

The Testament of Ann Lee (2025) *

Nobody told me this was a musical and a dire one at that, characters breaking into dirge-like tunes at any opportunity and throwing themselves about as if choreographed by Bob Fosse on speed. The kind of film where visual imagination is so limited that every now and then when a snake hoves into view, tongue tipping out, that we’re supposed to realize it’s an image from the Garden of Eden.

It’s such a mess that the director tries to rescue the narrative by imposing a dreadful voice-over commentary that tells us what the screen should have made abundantly clear. This device either robs sequences of any potency or avoids creating any scenes of note by relying on the voice-over to fill in the blanks.

And that’s a shame because there is a good story here to tell. A feminist one for a start, a woman by her own merit achieving a position of considerable importance in eighteenth century Britain and America. If you only knew the term “Shaker” in terms of furniture, then this is the one to disabuse of that notion. However, that term seemed to be one of contempt, an offshoot of the Quakers, who believed a woman would lead the Second Coming, which espoused a religion where they were shaking all over as an essential part of their worship of God, in part related to confessing their sins, but in part, I would guess, because singing and dancing with abandon offered pure physical – not to say sexual – release.

It was a particularly noisy religion. The stomping and yelping attracted so much attention that they were liable to be arrested for being too noisy. But there was a bright side to languishing in prison, at least for our heroine Ann Lee (Amanda Seyfried), who, on the brink of starvation, saw visions that elevated her to a position of leadership – the new Messiah – among her clique.

One of the tenets of the religion – no doubt caused by her being in a state of endless pregnancy with no progeny to show for it, all four offspring dead at birth or soon after – was celibacy. Fornication was strictly forbidden. While nobody gave mind to how that might prevent a new generation carrying on the religion, no doubt it contributed to its popularity amongst women who had to give in to their husband’s sexual demands even though continuous pregnancy wore them out.

Never mind the pregnancies, Ann had a particularly good reason for wanting to stop having sex with her husband Abraham (Christopher Abbott). He was fond of pornography (yes, the printed stuff existed then and was even illustrated so it appears), and of giving her a good whipping as a prelude to sex and he was also bisexual.

They take their singing and dancing to America. The lack of sex leaves Abraham to abandon his wife, which is just as well because she’s too busy setting up Shaker communities to be involved in any intimacy with a perverted male.

The singing and dancing aspect doesn’t go down so well in the New World, it being too close to witchcraft for some, and accusations of witchcraft being the easiest way for the male hierarchy to keep women in their place. For every believer there are a ton of angry disbelievers who don’t want anyone shaking all over.

I saw this as part of my usual Monday triple bill that had got off to a very good start with the interesting, though far from superlative, Elvis Presley in Concert, followed by a more than tolerable Scream 7 with Neve Campbell (returning now that the producers had acceded to her salary demands) introducing her daughter to the delights of being chased by Ghostface. I was looking forward to having enjoyed a very decent day out at the cinema. Alas, the final picture torpedoed that notion.

I should have known better than to avoid films that were touted as more than worthwhile on the back of critical acclamation and an Oscar nomination for the lead. If Oscar nominations were handed out for people debasing themselves or not using make up such as Demi Moore (The Substance, 2025), then Clint Eastwood should have been more in line for similar recognition given the number of times he was whipped or beaten up.

Certainly Amanda Seyfried (The Housemaid, 2025) goes through the hoops here but, frankly, the movie is such a shambles and the voice-over kills off much of the narrative structure that she’s wasted.

Another “visionary” director in the form of Mona Fastvold (The World to Come, 2020) who with husband Brady Corbett (The Brutalist, 2024) wrote the screenplay and who, having been given too much rope by indulgent financiers, proceeds to hand herself.

It might have worked minus the singing and eternal dancing and with the voice-over stripped out and the picture trimmed by a good 20 minutes. Who knows, we might get a director’s cut where the director sees the error of her ways and delivers a more sensible version.

The person sitting next to me in the multiplex gave up after a mere 20 minutes. I wish I had followed suit.

Just awful.

The Lion in Winter (1968) ****

Template for The Godfather (1972) and Succession. King Henry II (Peter O’Toole) has to choose an heir from Richard (Anthony Hopkins), Geoffrey (John Castle) and John (Nigel Terry). Helping set the Machiavellian tone are Henry’s wife Eleanor (Katharine Hepburn), his mistress Alais (Jane Merrow) and French King Philip II (Timothy Dalton). Cue plotting, confrontation, double-crossing, rage and lust.

Some other complications: the queen is actually a prisoner, the result of organising a failed coup against her husband, the sons participating in this attempt to overthrow their father, and with Henry willing to sacrifice his mistress in order to achieve an alliance with Philip, relations are less than cordial all round. Eldest son Richard, strong and aggressive, would be the obvious choice, and should be the only choice I would guess by law, but Henry prefers the youngest son John, who is weak, while the middle son Geoffrey is the most savvy (see if you can guess how easily these characters fit The Godfather scenario, or Succession for that matter). Geoffrey reckons that even if passed over for the top job, he will rule from behind the scenes as John’s chancellor.

This is not your normal historical picture with battles, romance and, let’s be honest, costumes, taking central stage. And there’s little in the way of rousing speeches. Virtually all the dialog is plotting. And, like Succession, there are elements of vitriol and pure comedy. In five crisp opening scenes we know everything we need to know. The King brings his family together for Xmas, the Queen freed for the occasion, to decide the succession. Richard is shown in hand-to-hand combat, the wily John leading a cavalry attack, the whiny John pouting and complaining, Alais realizing just how much a pawn she is in the game as Henry explains she is to be married off to Richard.

And if you are not the chosen one, your only chance of gaining the throne is by the back door, by having a powerful ally in your pocket, one whose armies would threaten the King, which is where Philip comes into the equation as potential kingmaker. Let the intrigue begin, especially as those who ought to be little more than bystanders – the women – have ideas of their own. “I’m the only pawn,” says Alais, “that makes me dangerous.” Despite her current status, Eleanor still owns the French province of Aquitaine and taunts her husband by revealing that she slept with his father.

The plot twists and turns as new alliances are formed between the conspiring individuals. The overbearing Henry will certainly remind you of Logan Roy, “When I bellow, bellow back.” And there is a Hitchcockian element in that we, the audience, know far more than the participants and wait for them to fall into traps. Richard is revealed as homosexual, having had an affair with Philip.

The dialogue is superb, brittle, witty, and it could have been all bombast and rage except that emotion carries the day. Henry clearly could not have wished for a better Queen than Eleanor, more than capable of standing up to him, more capable than any of his sons, and he probably wishes she was by his side rather than confined, as by law, to prison. Eleanor still retains romantic notions towards him, even as she forces him to kiss his mistress in front of her – only the audience sees the truth revealed in her eyes, not Henry who is too busy kissing. The uber-male Richard complains to Philip that he never told him he loved him.

Maternal and paternal bonds ebb and flow and throughout it all is the dereliction caused by power. A father will lose the love of the children he rejects. Or, realizing they are more powerful together than as individuals, they could turn against him. The mother faces the same fate – she risks losing the love of the ones she does not back.

Unlike Alfred the Great, the monarchs have stately castles, so the backdrops are more commanding, but once an early battle is out of the way, it is down to the nitty-gritty of plot and counter-plot. A truly satisfying intelligent historical drama.

Peter O’Toole (Lawrence of Arabia, 1962) had played Henry II before in Becket (1964) and is in terrific form. Katharine Hepburn (Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, 1967) won her second successive Oscar – and her third overall – in a tremendous performance that revealed the inner troubles of a powerful woman, Anthony Hopkins (When Eight Bells Toll, 1971) gave an insight into his talent with his first major role.

John Castle (Blow Up, 1966), Nigel Terry (Excalibur, 1981), Jane Merrow (Assignment K, 1968) and future James Bond Timothy Dalton, in his movie debut, provide sterling support, Dalton and Castle especially good as a sneaky, conniving pair.

*This was an odd choice for a roadshow – at just over two hours considerably*
*shorter than most of the genre. But the 600-seat Odeon Haymarket in London’s West End*
*was an ideal venue for building word-of-mouth and it ran for over a year.*

Modern audiences might bristle at the idea of woman as commodity, but women in those days were the makeweights in alliances of powerful men, though the fact that they bristle at the notion as well evens up proceedings, Eleanor in particular happy to jeopardize Henry’s ambitions in favor of her own, Alais warning Henry to beware of the woman scorned.

Director Anthony Harvey (Dutchman, 1966 ) was deservedly Oscar-nominated. James Goldman (Robin and Marian, 1976) won the Oscar for his screenplay based on his Broadway play which had not been in fact a runaway Broadway hit, only lasting 92 performances, less than three months. John Barry (Zulu, 1963) was the other Oscar-winner for his superb score.

The Flesh and the Fiends / Mania / The Fiendish Ghouls (1960) ***

Hypocrisy runs rampant as an entitled medical hierarchy effectively condones vile practice. Of course it wouldn’t do to have Peter Cushing, who generally hounded demonic fiends like Dracula, to be tabbed a villain so with a little bit of jiggery-pokery he gets off scot-free and, in fact, is considered so much above other mortals that he receives a standing ovation at the end.

The self-justification, or deification if you like, of Edinburgh surgeon Dr Knox (Peter Cushing) is promoted on the back of primitive medicine, whereby, through sheer ignorance and laziness surgeons were more apt to kill than to cure.

Dr Knox is an advocate of using recently interred corpses to teach his students the real fundamentals of anatomy. However, his colleagues feel that the use of fresh corpses goes against the grain and there was no such thing in the early 19^th century of donating your body to medical science. Grave-robbing was a crime.

Enterprising duo Burke (George Rose) and Hare (Donald Pleasance) get round that problem by skipping the burial aspect, murdering assorted drunks and vagabonds and delivering fresh meat to the good doctor, who turns a blind eye to their actions, determined as he is to improve teaching standards. He’s not the only one who believes that a streetwalker, killed in this fashion, has achieved more in death than life.

The good doctor has a conscience in the shape of Dr Mitchell (Dermot Walsh) who is wooing his daughter Martha (June Laverick), but he eventually comes round Knox’s way of thinking. The hierarchy in the shape of the Medical Council would get their claws into Knox were it not for the fact that in their incompetence they inflict more damage than good.

As a sub-plot, and as a way of weaselling into the lower classes who provide the bulk of Burke and Hare’s supply chain, earnest medical student Chris Jackson (John Cairney) falls for drunken goodtime girl Mary (Billie Whitelaw) who spends as much time making fun of him as she does sharing his bed.

You would have thought the high mortality rate of the period would not have made the local populace suspicious of a few extra deaths, but when Burke and Hare kill too close to home – Mary, Jackson and Daft Jamie – townspeople like a regular Transylvanian village mob light their torches and head off in pursuit.

The question of whether Knox was in collusion with Burke and Hare becomes the crux. But given the medical profession does not want to bring itself into disrepute, he is given a free pass and declared not guilty.

The high-mindedness which Peter Cushing (The Skull, 1965) usually brings to a role works in his favor here and, until the death rate mushrooms, audiences may be inclined to go along with his thesis that fresher corpses should be made available as a matter of course to doctors. His pinpoint arrogance brooks no quarter. He’s in entitlement heaven. And that his superiors back off informs you that hierarchies were as good at closing ranks and defending themselves then as now.

This was the first venture of Donald Pleasance (Soldier Blue, 1970) into the sleazy characterizations which would become a trademark. The nervous tics were a later addition. Here’s he’s mostly sweaty.

I should profess an interest. John Cairney was a relative of our family but acknowledging his work in our household was limited to such less contentious material as Jason and the Argonauts (1963). Along with Billie Whitelaw (The Comedy Man, 1964), he was in the rising star category. Both deliver solid performances. You might also spot Melvyn Hayes of the It Ain’t Half Hot, Mum series (1974-1981).

Dodgy accents abound, Pleasance and Rose affect Irish accents and Whitelaw makes a stab at a Scottish one. I was surprised, given the date, to see a deal of nudity, but it transpires I was watching the “continental version.”

Directed by John Gilling (The Reptile, 1966) from a screenplay by himself and Leon Griffiths (The Hellfire Club, 1961).

You catch this on YouTube

What’s Good for The Goose / Girl Trouble (1969) ***

One of those comedies that works best in a time capsule and far more interesting for the coincidences and anomalies of those involved. What are the chances, you might ask, of sisters playing roughly the same role in two entirely different movies, one a comedy the other a drama, in the same year. We’ve got Sally Geeson here, in her debut, playing a free loving hitchhiker picking up an older married man and we’ve got her slightly more experienced sister Judy Geeson (Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush) as a free loving hitchhiker picking up older married man Rod Steiger in Peter Hall’s Three into Two Won’t Go (1969).

This proved the final starring role for Norman Wisdom (A Stitch in Time, 1963), at one time a huge British box office star, who had been infected by that disease that seems to always hit comedians, of wanting to play it straight. While there is some comedy, it’s sorely lacking in the kind of physical comedy, the pratfalls and such, with which Wisdom made his name.

And there’s another name to conjure with – Menahem Golan. More famous, eventually, for foisting on the general public a string of stinkers under the Cannon umbrella and taking over the British cinema chain ABC before going spectacularly bust. What’s his role in all this? He’s the creative force, would you believe, wearing his writer-director shingle, in his first movie outside Israel. And if that’s not enough, the producer is Tony Tenser, also trying to change direction, switching from the horror portfolio which with his outfit Tigon had made its name and into a different genre.

And if you want another name slipped in, what about Karl Lanchbury, playing a nice guy in contrast to the creepy characters he tended to essay in the likes of Whirlpool / She Died with Her Boots On (1969).

Time capsule firmly in place we’re in a Swinging Britain world where young girls listen to loud rock music (though don’t take drugs) and go where the mood takes them, free travel easily available through the simple device of hitchhiking.

Timothy Bartlett (Norman Wisdom) is a bored under-manager drowning in a sea of bureaucracy and turned off by wife Margaret (Sally Bazely) who goes to bed wearing a face mask and with her hair in curlers. On the way to a business conference he picks up two hitchhikers, Nikki (Sally Geeson) and Meg (Sarah Atkinson), becoming smitten with the former, making hay at a night club where his “dad dancing” is the hit of the evening. He slips into the counterculture, wearing hippie clothes, generally unwinding, doing his thing, and sharing his bed with Nikki.

You can tell he’s going to get a nasty shock and just to put that section off we dip into a completely different, almost “Carry On” scenario, where his efforts to sneak Nikki in his bedroom are almost foiled by an officious receptionist. Eventually, she invites all her hippie pals to make hay in his hotel room while she makes out with Pete (Karl Lanchbury),a man her own age, and Timothy is told in no uncertain terms the essence of free love is that she doesn’t hang around with a man for long, in this case their affair only lasted two days.

It’s the twist in the tail that generally makes this work. Rather than moan his head off or believe he is now catnip to young ladies, Timothy, unshackled from convention, uses his newfound freedom to woo his wife.

So, mostly a gentle comedy, and good to see Norman Wisdom not constantly having to over-act and twist his face every which way but loose, even though this effectively ended his career. The teenagers enjoy their freedom without consequence (nobody’s pregnant or addicted to drugs) and there’s a fairly good stab at digging into the effortless joys of the period. Sally Geeson (Cry of the Banshee, 1970) didn’t prove as big a find as her sister and her career fizzled out within a few years.

As an antidote to the Carry On epidemic, this works very well.

A gentle comedy.

You can catch this on YouTube courtesy of Flick Attack.

Brides of Blood (1968) ***

More than passable low-budget horror effort taking in atomic bomb mutation, human sacrifice, killer trees, giant moths and cockroaches and a fairly decent monster. Given the budget, the special effects are fine. The fact that it was shot in the Philippines gives the jungle scenes more validity. And while the main characters are submerged in exposition that still leaves room for a sassy flirtatious wife to snare all the best lines and for the guy whom we expect to be the villain of the piece to turn out to be the tragic one.

Scientist Dr Paul Henderson (Kent Taylor), wife Carla (Beverley Hills) and do-gooder Jim (John Ashley) arrive at the “wrong time” on a remote Pacific island which has reverted to primitivism. This is kind of place where sunset arrives too early and land crabs assume bizarre shape. Dr Henderson is here to assess the potential effect of radiation from A-bomb tests nearby. Jim is here to help build health centers, schoolhouses and to explain the benefits of irrigation. Carla is here to make fun of her older husband, flirt with any fit male and give in to advances.

They encounter a piano-playing rich American Powers (Mario Montenegro) who employs an overseer given to savagery. But despite his name, Powers isn’t the power in these parts. The local witch doctor is, and the island is already knee-deep in human sacrifice. Local girls have to do the equivalent of pick their names out of a hat to see who will be sacrificed next.

The new arrivals try to intervene but fail and their nerve is tested when trees with serpentine branches try to strangle them to death. Jim has enough time to fall for an islander, Alma (Eva Darren), which is just as well because, eventually, she needs an outsider to rescue her from the sacrificial cross. Carla has enough time to slip into Powers’ bedroom not realizing he’s in the process of mutation – his wife died in horrible circumstances after their yacht strayed too close to the atomic test grounds – and when she ventures outside runs into the monster making up for lack of sacrifice being laid out on a plate (I mean, a cross).

While Henderson and Farrel verge on cliché, and 1950s cliché at that, Henderson with his pencil-thin action-man Clark Gable moustache, and Farrell with ingenue written all over him, Carla is a different kettle of fish, blonde hair mounted in a beehive, bosom heaving at every opportunity, and she’s sassy enough to put her husband in his place and introduce inuendo at every opportunity, and inclined to indicate passion by stroking the bedpost, and looking as if she’s auditioning for a femme fatale role in film noir.

For exploitation purposes, it’s lucky that the monster prefers his victims naked.

All in all entertaining hokum. And it must have done well at the box office because it spawned another three. John Ashley (Young Dillinger, 1965) went on to have a bigger career as a producer. Kent Taylor (Law of the Lawless, 1964) was at the tail end rather than the beginning of his career. Miss Beverley Hills (she won a beauty competition of that name) changed her name to Powers without any more significant effect on her career.

Philippine ambassador’s son Eddie Romero (Black Mama White Mama, 1973) directed along with compatriot Gerardo de Leon (Women in Cages, 1971) from a script by Cesar Amigo (The Hunted, 1970).

Better than I expected. Quite fun, really. YouTube has a decent print.

Countess Dracula (1971) ****

You wouldn’t go looking to British studio Hammer for a subtle treatise on the perils of ageing. Nor might you expect a predator to be so cruelly, and consistently, punished. Nor, for that matter, for a mirror to provide revelation given that in the traditional vampire movie one of the signs you have a bloodsucker in your midst is that a mirror does not show their reflection.

The title is something of a misnomer: while there’s bloodletting aplenty there’s zero actual bloodsucking. Hammer had taken a sideways shift into female empowerment and more obvious sexuality and gender twist with the introduction of the female vampire – beginning with The Vampire Lovers (1970), sequel Lust for a Vampire (1971) and, completing the trilogy, Twins of Evil (1972). For that matter it also pre-empted, in perverse fashion, the body swap genre of Freaky Friday (1976 etc.).

These days this would be termed the expansion of a “horrorverse” or a “Hammerverse” as the studio developed its IP since it had not abandoned the traditional Christopher Lee version, doubling down in 1970 with Taste the Blood of Dracula and The Scars of Dracula and following up with Dracula A.D. 1972 (1972).

While Countess Dracula doesn’t fall into the vampiric category, neither does it so obviously exploit the sexuality and rampant nudity of the female vampire trinity. But there are other shocks in store. Be prepared for emotional punch, not something normally associated with Hammer.

The ageing beauty had been a 1960s trope as Hollywood had come to terms with finding starring roles for 1940s/1950s stars past their box office best but names – Lana Turner and Vivien Leigh among others- with still some marquee lure. And this follows a similar trajectory, older woman falling in love with younger man.

Set in Hungary in the seventeenth century, widowed Countess Elisabeth Bathory (Ingrid Pitt) discovers by accident that a touch of virgin blood rejuvenates her skin and tempts her into stealing the suitor Toth (Sandor Eles) of her 19-year-old daughter Ilona (Lesley-Anne Down). But that means kidnapping Ilona and keeping her imprisoned so Bathory can impersonate her, finding a ready supply of virgins to murder and exsanguinate, enlisting in her scheme lover Capt Dobi (Nigel Green) and maid Julie (Patience Collier).

The ruse appears to work well – at first. Believing Bathory is actually her daughter, Toth is easily seduced. But there’s a downside which is quickly apparent. What spell blood casts, it doesn’t last long. And there’s a sting in the tail. Having acted as a rejuvenating agent, when the virgin blood has run its course transformation goes the other way and turns her into an old crone.

So now, Bathory and her team enter serial killer territory, the disappearances and deaths arousing suspicion among the locals and historian Fabio (Maurice Denham), and her daughter threatening at any minute to escape her captor and turn up at the castle. And Bathory cannot give up the fantasy, not least because when the blood runs out, she’ll be unrecognizable as an old crone.

You can see where this is headed, so that’s not much of a surprise. What is astonishing is how well director Peter Sasdy (Taste the Blood of Dracula) handles the emotion. You might think the special effects do all the work that’s required, but that’s not the case. It’s Bathory’s eyes not her crumpled skin that make these scenes so powerful and in between, apart from the initial transformation, Bathory shifts uneasily between exultation that she is living the fantasy and terror that it will come to a sudden end.

Ingrid Pitt (The Vampire Lovers, 1970) has the role of her career, superbly playing a woman bewitched by her fantasy and the prospect of literally turning back the years. None of the ageing actresses that I previously mentioned manage to so well to portray that specific female agony of a beauty losing her looks. Sandor Eles (The Kremlin Letter, 1970) looks the part and Nigel Green (Fraulein Doktor, 1968), while shiftier than usual, also has to scale more emotional heights than normal, in not just having to countenance his lover going off with another man but helping her to do so. Lesley-Anne Down (The First Great Train Robbery, 1978) makes a splash.

More than ably directed by Sasdy, from a screenplay by Jeremy Paul in his debut based on the book by Valentine Penrose.

I’m not sure how well this went down with vampire aficionados and suspect there was audience disappointment, but there is more than enough depth to make up.

Saltburn (2023) **

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Behind the Scenes: “Witchfinder General” / “The Conqueror Worm” (1968)

Truth was the first casualty. Matthew Hopkins, the character played in the film by Vincent Price, was 27 when he died in 1647. He had been hunting witches for three years. Price was 57 when the movie appeared. Co-star Ian Ogilvy, aged 25, would have been a better fit, though he lacked the menace. Oliver Reed, who had the swagger and the scowl, would have been the ideal candidate, age-wise, since he was just turning 30. And the movie might well have benefitted from presenting Hopkins as a young grifter who through force of personality and cunning held a country to ransom.

Price wasn’t director Michael Reeves’ (The Sorcerers, 1967) first choice. In fact, he originally wanted buddy Ogilvy, who had played opposite Boris Karloff in The Sorcerers. When that idea failed to float with Tony Tenser – previously head of Compton Films – now boss of British horror outfit Tigon, a challenger to the Hammer crown, Reeves pivoted to Donald Pleasance who, although better known as a supporting actor in the likes of The Great Escape (1963), had headlined Roman Polanski’s chiller Cul de Sac (1966). But when Tenser did a deal with American International Pictures, the U.S. mini-studio insisted on contract player Vincent Price, the mainstay of their Edgar Allan Poe output, with 16 previous films (out of 74) for the company.

Twenty-one-year-old Hilary Dwyer (The Oblong Box, 1969), under contract to Tigon, made her movie debut. Rupert Davies (The Oblong Box) was a seasoned veteran while Nicky Henson (Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush, 1967) was a potential breakout star.

Tigon was a relatively new entrant to the horror scene, founded in 1966 by Tenser. Its second picture was The Sorcerers; this would be its fourth. Tenser has bought, pre-publication, the rights to Ronald Bassett’s novel Witchfinder General, published in 1966. Director Reeves faced something of a deadline once Tenser finalized the £83,000 budget. AIP chipped in £32,000 which included a £12,000 fee for Price. While it was Tigon’s biggest film to date, it was pin money for AIP.

The film needed to begin shooting by September 1967 at the latest to avoid the worst of the British cold weather. But the screenplay proved too unpleasant for the taste of the British censor. Reeves had already begun the screenplay with Tom Baker (The Sorcerers) with Donald Pleasance in mind portraying “a ridiculous authority figure” and had to quickly revamp it for Price. The laws of the period required a green light for the script from the British Board of Film Censors, who were repulsed by a “study in sadism” which dwelt too lovingly on “every detail of cruelty and suffering.”

That draft was submitted on August 4, 1967. The second draft, submitted on August 15, proved no more appealing. A third, substantially toned-down version, was approved. This resulted in the elimination of gruesome details of the Battle of Naseby and a change to the ending.

Production began on September 18, 1967. Star and director clashed. Reeves refused to go and meet Price on arrival at Heathrow Airport and told him, “I didn’t want you, and I still don’t want you, but I’m stuck with you.” The star was riled by the director’s inexperience. When told to fire a blank pistol while on horseback, Price was thrown from his horse after the animal reared up in shock at the sound. Price, in real-life a very cultured person, was surprised at Reeves’ attitude because in general he got on with directors.

Price turned up drunk on the last day of shooting, the filming of his character’s death scene. Reeves was planning revenge and told Ogilvy to really lay into the star. But the producer, anticipating trouble, ensured Price was well padded.

Reeves was better known for his technical rather than personal skills. Ogilvy commented: “Mike never directed the actors. He said he knew nothing about acting and preferred to leave it up to us.” That wouldn’t square with him falling out with Price over his interpretation of the character. And Hilary Dwyer saw another side of Reeves. “He was really inspiring to work with,” she said, “And because it was my first film, I didn’t know how lucky I was.” She would work with Price again on The Oblong Box and Cry of the Banshee (1970).

Tony Tenser, egged on by AIP’s head of European Productions, shot additional nude scenes in the pub sequence for the German version, A continuity error was responsible for the freeze-frame ending. There was a short strike when the production fell foul of union rules. Producer Philip Waddilove and his wife Susi were occasionally called upon to act.

Two aircraft hangars near Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk were converted for the interiors while a wide variety of locations were utilized for exteriors including Lavenham Square in Suffolk, the coast at Dunwich, also in Suffolk, Black Park in Buckinghamshire, Orford Castle in East Anglia, St John The Evangelist Church in Rushford, Norfolk, and Kentwell Hall in Long Melford on the Essex-Suffolk border. When the operation could not afford a camera crane, the crew improvised with a cherry picker.

Despite the tension on set, Price was pleased with his performance and the overall film. He praised the film in a 10-page letter. Price remarked, “I realized what he wanted was a low-key, very laid-back, menacing performance. He did get it but I was fighting him every inch of the way. Had I known what he wanted I would have cooperated.”

AIP retitled it The Conqueror Worm for U.S. release, hoping to snooker fans into thinking this fell into the Edgar Allan Poe canon, since the title referred to one of the author’s poems, part of which was recited over the credits.

The movie was generally lambasted by critics for its perceived sadistic approach, but is now considered cult. It was a big box office hit, especially considering the paltry budget, gaining a circuit release in the UK – “very good run beating par by a wide margin” – and despite being saddled with the tag of “unlikely box office prospects” by Variety did better than expected business in New York ($159,000 from 28 houses), Los Angeles (a “lusty” $97,000 from 16) and Detroit ($35,000 from one). The final U.S. rental tally was $1.5 million placing it ahead in the annual box office charts of such bigger-budgeted efforts as Villa Rides starring Yul Brynner and Robert Mitchum, Anzio with Mitchum again, James Stewart and Henry Fonda in Firecreek and Sean Connery and Brigitte Bardot in Shalako.

SOURCES: Benjamin Halligan, Michael Reeves (Manchester University Press) 2003; Lucy Chase Williams, The Complete Films of Vincent Price (Citadel Press, 1995); “Big Rental Films of 1968,” Variety, January 8, 1969, p15; Steve Biodrowski and David Del Valle, “Vincent Price, Horror’s Crown Prince,” Cinefantastique, Vol 19; Bill Kelley, “Filming Reeves Masterpiece Witchfinder General,” Cinefantastique, Vol 22; “Box Office Business,” Kine Weekly, June 1, 1968, p8; “Review,” Variety, May 15, 1968, p6. Box office figures – Variety, May-August 1968.

Dingaka (1964) ****

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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