nudity – The Magnificent 60s

The Devil’s Advocate (1997) *****

Ripe is not the word. Crank this up to 11, race on past full-tilt boogie and you’ll still need more in the tank to get anywhere near to how mad, bad (in a good way) and enormously entertaining is this trip into the murk. Not been such fun being bad on screen since Basic Instinct (1992).

You thought it was tough enough for Tom Cruise in The Firm (1993) trying to extricate himself from the job-of-a-lifetime handling business for the Mafia. That’s nothing to finding yourself hired by the Devil.

And all because – and what’s wrong with that – you can get any sleazeball off the terrible crimes they have committed. Principle be damned when it gets in the way of winning. It’s hardly enough to scorn your client afterwards when you know he’s guilty and going to keep on committing heinous crimes until a poorer defense attorney can’t keep him out of jail. As well as that skill, he’s a genius at jury selection, finding flaws others miss.

After getting a child abuser off, top lawyer Kevin Lomax (Keanu Reeves), who’s never lost a case, is headhunted by a glitzy New York company, so swimming in loot that he’s parked in an enormous upscale apartment where wife Mary Ann (Charlize Theron) can spend her time drinking cocktails, hanging out with other glam wives and dedicate herself to deciding what color to paint the walls of their dwelling.

He’s pretty glad to get away from all that Florida sunshine and doom-laden mum (Judith Ivey), a hellfire Christian who pretty much sees damnation in just taking a breath, never mind hiving off to the Babylon of New York. Naturally, you’re talking long, long hours and a wife who’s beginning to feel neglected and worried that there’s just too many sexy women hanging around Kevin’s charismatic boss John Milton (Al Pacino), especially redhaired Christabella (Connie Nielsen) who might swing both ways and to whom hubby is inching dangerously close.

Never mind the drama played out in the courtroom, Kevin’s sudden arrival out of nowhere and the notion he might be the boss’s protégé sets tensions flaring in the firm especially with managing director Eddie Barzoom (Jeffrey Jones) who gets the notion his job is on a shoogly peg.

Virtually all of this is played out as if we’re in F1, so a bucket of shouting and finger pointing and for all his smarts it’s clear Kevin is dumb enough to get seduced by all the high-living. So let’s cut to the great scenes, of which there are many.

*Yep, the universal poster has arrived. Just change the title into your own language.*

Anyone who tries to betray Milton comes to a sticky end. Making love to his wife, Kevin fantasizes that he’s having sex with Christabella. A naked baby plays with bloody intestines. Mary Ann stands up naked in a church. Milton dipping a finger into holy water in a church sets it boiling. How does Kevin discover that another client on trying for murder is lying – it’s a matter of circumcision. The walls of Milton’s apartment come alive, ensuring a harmless fresco can turn into an orgy. Kevin’s mum isn’t quite the saint she pretends. His father isn’t who he’s been brought up to believe.

Mary Ann starts losing her marbles, gets visions, sees women turn ferocious and the naked baby is actually playing with removed ovaries, because she is infertile and pretty soon bonkers enough to get committed and pretty soon so over-the-top that she’s going to go the extra damnable mile.

Somehow in all this malarkey, you’re not particularly surprised to discover that Milton is actually Kevin’s father, though he’s been spreading his seed far and wide and it’s taken quite a while before he’s found any of his offspring capable of inheriting his empire. But you might balk at the notion that Milton wants to guarantee the continuity of his line through the small matter of incest.

Three twists at the end ensure the picture ends on the same bonkers high note that it began.

Al Pacino was on a hell of a roll. He’d become something of an elder statesman, helping bring through younger rising stars – Johnny Depp in Donnie Brasco (1997), Russell Crowe in The Insider (1999) and Cameron Diaz and Jamie Foxx in Any Given Sunday (1999). He relishes this performance, sly, knowing, subtle, even sexy (though charismatic is probably a better description), a master of seduction, and giving vent in long speeches as he argues that God has abandoned Earth.

You wouldn’t think Keanu Reeves had it in him to go toe-to-toe with such an accomplished actor, but he does, and anyone who just thinks of him as the largely monosyllabic John Wick who lets violence do his talking had better think again. Charlize Theron (The Odyssey, 2026) is pretty good, too. This brought Connie Neilsen (Gladiator, 1999) to Hollywood’s attention.

Directed with zest by Taylor Hackford (An Officer and a Gentleman, 1982) from a screenplay by Tony Gilroy (the Bourne series) and Jonathan Lemkin (Shooter, 2007) from the book by Andrew Neidelmann.

Hypnotic.

You can catch it on Amazon Prime.

Carnal Knowledge (1971) ****

You could argue that this is every bit as meretricious as Three in the Attic (1968). That the misogynism is every bit as rampant, the language considerably coarser, women judged by their physical attributes rather than their brains, men boasting about every little detail of their sex lives. More locker room than intelligentsia. You could argue that Porky’s (1981) and American Pie (1999) take exactly the same approach with no suggestion they have reached some exalted critical status.

There’s similar reliance here as in Three in the Attic on technical tricks, long monologues with the camera in a fixed position, and it would appear as if the person is indeed breaking the fourth wall and talking directly to the audience except for one shot, two at most, of a listener. Or the same fixed approach focusing on, for example, a girl laughing hysterically or a female skater, and background music that appears completely irrelevant except in the most perfunctory fashion depicting a time period.

Of course, there’s no comparison when it comes to the actors. This boasts a stellar cast – Jack Nicholson (Easy Rider, 1969) with one Oscar nomination already under his belt casting a spell on the audience, Candice Bergen (Soldier Blue, 1970), a standout among the new generation of female stars, and Ann-Margret (Stagecoach, 1966) at one point bigger than either in the Hollywood stratosphere making a comeback that would win her an Oscar nomination. Art Garfunkel, one half of the most potent double act in the recording business, was making his movie debut.

Director Mike Nichols was on a hell of a roll, his first two pictures – Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf (1966) and The Graduate (1967) – awash with Oscar kudos and unprecedented box office gravy.

And you could make the same double-handed argument about feminism. Susan (Candice Bergen) would certainly count as a liberated women given she’s stringing along best buddies Jonathan (Jack Nicholson) and Sandy (Art Garfunkel), not just having sex with both, but leading the way with the shy latter. And once married to Sandy she keeps him up to scratch in the bedroom, teaching him to make love the way she likes it.

Given Jonathan’s obsession with the inches on the female body that are so important to him, it’s amazing her was at all interested in Susan, except for his competitive streak, delighted to steal away the girl who is apparently his pal’s girl. While Sandy appears the more insecure, in fact Jonathan more than matches him, always comparing Susan’s gentler treatment of Sandy. He might even have invented the tale of his poor childhood in order to gain her sympathy.

Certainly, once Sandy and Susan are married, Jonathan’s jealousy goes up a notch, annoyed that his pal is greeted by his wife on return from work with a martini and dinner while his voluptuous girlfriend Bobbie (Ann-Margret) struggles to warm up a television dinner and can’t keep his apartment tidy.

While Jonathan avoids commitment, Arthur isn’t as committed as he seems, having a mistress Cindy (Cynthia O’Neal) in tow, whom Jonathan thinks it’s fair game to woo and even gives Arthur carte blanche to take a chance on Bobbie.

Even given the misogyny of the period, you’d struggle to find two more obnoxious men. Any woman that attempts to be their match or gives as good as she gets is deemed a “ball-buster” or just after men for their money. You’re almost thankful that, just like Three in the Attic, there’s a touch of morality at the end, with the impotent Jonathan reduced to paying sex workers to tell him how powerful he is in order to gain an erection. Though Sandy appears to get off scot-free – now dating 18-year-olds.

But the performances all round are superb. Susan could perhaps have done with her character being filled out rather than just seen through the eyes of the men. Ann-Margret revived her career with his performance, of a woman whose body has betrayed her, all her sexiness not winning her the security she desires. It’s as bold a move for Jack Nicholson to play such a loathsome arrogant character. I was never convinced by Art Garfunkel.

Despite the tricksy presentation, Mike Nichols, as with Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, traps his characters under an intense microscope. Screenwriter Jules Feiffer, better known at the time as a cartoonist and playwright, excels in his debut.

Hard going at times given the repellant characters but still excellent.

Onibaba / The Hole (1964) ****

Female empowerment doesn’t come any sharper. Two women slaughter exhausted samurai trying to escape a civil war in feudal Japan, dump the corpses in a deep hole, and sell their weapons and armor for food. Into their midst comes a deserter and the action slips into the sexual jealousy mode of The Fox (1967) and then takes another sudden shift into horror. And it manages all three incarnations of the tale with dexterity.

I knew all about this film long before Seven Samurai (1954) was on my horizon. As one who scanned newspaper advertisements and read contemporary movie magazines, I was well aware – though forbidden by dint of age to see it – of its controversial nature. I wasn’t exactly privy to what the controversy involved except that it was initially banned by the censor and that British posters hinted at the controversy.

I would soon learn that “exotic” and “primitive” were code words for nudity. A double standard operated in the offices of the British censor. Until the late 1960s, the only movies that could get away with a glimpse of forbidden flesh were foreign pictures destined for an arthouse.

Coming to it now for the first time I was more aware of it as a horror movie so I wasn’t ready for the first two elements – the blatant murder of men by supposedly vulnerable women and the sexual jealousy.

An older woman (Nobuto Otawa) and her daughter-in-law (Jitsuko Yoshimura) share a hut in the middle of fields and make a living killing any soldiers that come their way, exchanging their loot to a dealer, Ushi (Taiji Tonoyama), for small sacks of millet. Into their lives comes deserter Hachi (Kei Sato), who brings news that the son/husband of the women is dead.

He proves useful in adding to their meager supply of food through fishing. After participating in their next killings, he also proves a more adept negotiator with Ushi and returns with a bigger bag of millet than the women ever secured plus some saki and a couple of birds.

He’s clearly got his eye on the younger woman and she responds, sneaking out for a sex. This makes the older woman furious. There’s more than jealousy at stake. If Hachi and the younger woman decide to leave together, the older woman will be unable to capture and kill any passing strangers. Perhaps hoping Hachi might be in the mood for a threesome, she attempts to seduce him but is rebuffed.

But then the older woman comes across a samurai wearing a demon mask. When he ends up down the pit, she climbs down and steals his mask, revealing the samurai’s disfigured face. She uses the mask to scare the younger woman away from Hachi, persuading her that the demon is punishment for her affair. At first it looks as if the scheme works, but the younger woman soon takes to sneaking out again at night.

But then the mask proves impossible to remove. When they finally get it off, the older woman’s face is as disfigured as the original wearer and the younger woman is convinced the older woman is actually a demon.

This is tremendously well done. In the first 10 minutes there’s no dialog as we watch the women hunt their prey. The reeds in the fields are taller than any human, and there’s a Hitchcockian element when they sway and conceal. A good chunk of the picture relies merely on facial expression. And the three changes of tone are well managed so that we move from mere murder to the sexual and then the demonic. The eeriness is hard to shift.

Hypocrisy and lust are strange bedfellows, the possessive mother-in-law loses her power, the daughter-in-law is freed by the death of her husband, bad deeds go unpunished.

Written and directed by Kaneto Shindo (The Naked Island, 1960) and based on an old Japanese legend, this is so starkly filmed, with a unique three-act structure, that you come away thinking this must be due for a remake.

Holds up very well.

Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma (2026) * – Seen at the Cinema

Pretentious rubbish. An almighty bore masquerading as a) a spoof on slash horror films and b) having something important to say while c) not coming anywhere close to achieving either. Another of the dumb propositions foisted upon us by the connivance of the film festival industry to chuck at the general public movies that hoity-toity festival progammers and audiences believe deserve wider attention.

The most annoying element of this is that the subtext is merely a variation of the Dracula hypothesis that women are sexually drawn to dangerous men who can drive them into ecstasies of fear and penetrate them with sharp weapons. Here, this is spelled out in more detail, “the heroine” only able to achieve orgasm through terror and after running terrified with her breasts bouncing around and her erect nipples visible through translucent material.

And if you can work out how anyone can walk around with a slab of metal stuck to their head, you’re better than me. Oh, and to keep the woke element happy, the killer transforms from male to female.

And while we’re at the barking mad end of the horror subgenre let’s ensure that it’s the monster who’s creating the movies from his lair deep under a lake and that everyone who appears in the movies are his creations.

This is in the Anora (2024) league for repetition. Where that was sex, sex, sex, until we got the point, and way after we had got the point, this is blood, blood, blood, gushing literally like fountains or explosions from what’s left of a body once the monster, known as Little Death (which as you’ll no doubt be aware is a sly nod to “le petit mort”, the French description of orgasm), has finished chopping off select body parts.

Too much of this film is bits of the Camp Miasma series of films, initially big hits but then fading to direct-to-video flops, and which contain little more than variations of blood, blood, blood and people being impaled or chopped up.

If there is any emotional element it’s frigid lesbian Kris (Hannah Einbinder), technically in a polyamory relationship but that’s only because she permits her female bisexual partner to regularly have sex with a male, finally managing to overcome her inhibitions, helped along by Billy (Gillian Anderson), the original star of the Camp Miasma picture who bowed out after the first episode, and now lives on an abandoned tourist attraction based on the original or the original set (I couldn’t work out which).

In between making eyes at Gillian and watching the old movies in a cinema at Camp Miasma, the full-of-herself Kris is pitching her barmy notion for a horror picture where all the characters are figments of the monster’s imagination. Actually, the movie business section is the only bit that works, although Kris fails to note the negative response from potential stars.

Given that blood is the dominant color scheme, it’s not surprising that Kris and Billy end up soaked in blood and wandering, in surreal splendour, around a service station where, with equal surreality, kids are more interested in shooting each other with water guns than any stray adults who haven’t bothered to change out of their blood-soaked Halloween costumes.

This has come at us with the glow of critical approval, but, actually beyond the very repetitive obvious and some smartass intellectual dialog, this is an over-inflated mess.

I felt sorry for Hannah Einbinder (Seekers of Infinite Love, 2026) who clearly can act but less so for X-Files star Gillian Anderson who draws too much on Sunset Boulevard (1950). Written and directed Jane Schoenbrun (I Saw The TV Glow, 2024) who should stop believing her own publicity.

Truly awful.

The Sea Wolves (1980) ***

Francis Ford Coppola and Michael Cimino between them put paid to the more traditional “high adventure” war picture. The realism of Apocalypse Now (1979) and The Deer Hunter (1978), which came out months apart and gobbled up critical appreciation and Oscar nominations, spelled a more troubled release for the likes of Alistair MacLean’s Force 10 from Navarone (1979) and The Sea Wolves, which in part followed the MacLean template.

However, The Sea Wolves has never been properly appreciated for one important element – a more realistic portrayal of age and its limitations than was common in Hollywood. We tend to take it for granted that actors when not portraying superheroes can still in the action line have a special set of skills that allows them to throw themselves about or run and chase as if they were men 30 years younger. Liam Neeson was 73 when he was still taking down bad guys in Ice Road: Vengeance (2025), Tom Cruise a decade younger in the final episode of the Mission Impossible franchise in 2025 and Keanu Reeves a year short of 60 when committed to acrobatic action in John Wick Chapter 4 (2023). Jason Statham will be 60 when the sequel to The Beekeeper arrives next year.

In the action world, age never seemed to catch up with or limit the heroes. In The Sea Wolves age is by far the biggest obstacle. The three pre-eminent heroes are played by actors aged between 52 and 71. Their characters are fallible.

SOE operatives Col Lewis Pugh (Gregory Peck) and Capt Gavin Stewart (Roger Moore), going undercover in neutral Goa in World War Two, prove unable to unravel the mystery that results in German submarines destroying British destroyers. Any time they get hold of a likely suspect, they have the bad habit of killing them. And Stewart, prone to over-indulgence in the opposite sex even in the midst of a critical operation, is duped by femme fatale Mrs Cromwell (Barbara Kellerman) who proves not only to be the German spy they are hunting but capable of knifing men to death.

It’s only because the pair fail in their initial mission that Pugh is forced to call on a rag-bag bunch of ageing ex-soldiers from India led by Col Grice (David Niven) and undertake a more difficult operation to infiltrate a Goa harbor, sink German ships and silence radio communication. This bunch are never going to complete the kind of training program served up to The Dirty Dozen (1967) or The Devil’s Brigade (1968) so that aspect is mostly treated for laughs.

Vulnerabilities abound. They are violently seasick en route or they can’t get the boat’s engine to work or are likely to mistake a distant shark for a U-boat.

And there’s another unusual aspect of war that complicates proceedings. In most war films – and a feature of the current The Odyssey (2026) – the dead are left behind. Here, because the British are attacking a neutral territory, they can’t leave behind evidence of their involvement in the shape of corpses or wounded.

The actual plan is clever. Any sailors or officials in the target harbor who could possibly interfere are rendered incapable by the simple trick of getting them all drunk, a move sponsored by the British government. The battle itself is too long in coming and there are too many supporting characters involved for us to be committed to any of them and therefore the emotional impact of their deaths is minimal.

Sufficient tension is still generated but given the battle action only lasts about 20 minutes rather than the 150 minutes of Where Eagles Dare (1968), for example, it doesn’t quite qualify for the high adventure sub-genre.

Even the greatest of directors would fail to make work an action movie based on the type of people who should never be allowed near a machine gun or asked to join in fisticuffs, so that element is indeed a stretch. On the other hand, the frailties of those involved, determined not to admit to weakness, make this work.

By this point Gregory Peck’s career had received a second (or third) wind thanks to The Omen (1976) and The Boys from Brazil (1978). Roger Moore’s career had been revitalized by James Bond and he had just made Moonraker (1979), his most successful contribution to the series. David Niven was not in their marquee league but anyone who remembered him from The Guns of Navarone (1961) would go in with high expectations. Barbara Kellerman (The Quatermass Conclusion, 1979) is up to scratch as the cunning spy.

There’s a host of British supporting stars including Trevor Howard (Von Ryan’s Express, 1965), Patrick Macnee (The Avengers TV series 1961-1969), Patrick Allen (Puppet on a Chain, 1971) and Kenneth Griffith (The Lion in Winter, 1968).

Directed by Andrew V. McLaglen (Where Eagles Dare) from a script by Reginald Rose (Twelve Angry Men, 1957) based on the novel by James Leasor which recounted a true incident.

Not quite in the top drawer of the high adventure sub-genre but if you accept the approach and view this as something of an antidote to the standard war film you will find much to appreciate.

The Best House in London (1969) *

One of the worst – and certainly among the most repellent – films ever made. A hymn to misogyny under the guise of the not very difficult task of exposing Victorian hypocrisy, it labors under the bizarre thesis that all women want to be prostitutes. Screenwriter Denis Norden’s befuddled sense of history is awash with the same kind of contempt for audiences. Elizabeth Barrett (of Wimpole St fame) rubs shoulders with Lord Alfred Douglas (Oscar Wilde’s illicit lover) even though they lived half a century apart, the Chinese Opium Wars and The Indian Mutiny feature despite being separated by 15 years.

Sex workers had proved the basis for many good (and occasionally excellent) pictures in the 1960s ranging from Butterfield 8, Never on Sunday, Irma la Douce and Go Naked in the World at the start of the decade to Midnight Cowboy at its end, but these all featured well-rounded characters facing understandable dilemmas. But here the cynical and demeaning plot – more Carry On Up the Brothel than political satire – makes you wonder how this concept was perceived as either plausible or an acceptable subject for comedy

*The monocle joke*. *Dany Robin sports the manacles her idiotic girls were supposed to wear rather the monocles they did wear.*

Feminist philanthropist Josephine Pacefoot (Joanna Pettet) – a character based on the real-life campaigner Josephine Butler – has set up the Social Purity League to rescue fallen women. Walter Leybourne (David Hemmings) is hired as a publicist to bring the issues raised to a wider audience. When Josephine inherits the fortune of Uncle Francis (George Sanders) the pair come up against the nefarious Benjamin Oakes (also played by Hemmings), her cousin and his half-brother, who has purloined his uncle’s mansion in Belgravia as the premises for London’s first brothel – The Libertine Club. This venture is backed by the Home Secretary (John Bird) as a way of getting streetwalkers away from upmarket shopping streets where their presence discourages wealthy females. Josephine also has to deal with a caricatured “evil” Chinaman (Wolfe Morris) through her uncle’s investment in opium. There’s also for no particular reason apoplectic airship inventor Count Pandolfo (Warren Mitchell).

All the women rescued from the oldest profession by Josephine are soon recruited by Oakes and a good chunk of the middle section of the movie involves various excuses to give the viewers intimate glimpses of what goes on in the brothel, involving an abundance of nudity. Oakes also aims to seduce Josephine while the shy Walter struggles to entice her into romance.

Excepting Josephine and Oakes’ mistress Babette (Dany Robin), the women are uniformly stupid. The story begins with Oakes’ duping a woman in a hot air balloon into removing her clothes on the grounds that it was the only way to reduce height enough to land. And it does not get any better. Women supposedly forced onto the streets after bad experiences with men turn out to be the seducers. Walter has the devil’s own job getting any of the girls to agree they had been raped. Walter, hoping to sell a story to The Times, is no less crass: “I can get five columns for a good rape.” Flora (Carol Friday), rescued much to her displeasure, is “gagging” for it. And there’s just an awful scene where a young girl sings about her “pussy” which even in the 1960s surely raised adverse comment.

The humor is largely of the sniggering variety. The brothel girls wear monocles instead of manacles, the only game on display in the Card Room is strip poker, and naturally there is a peeping tom, lawyer Sylvester (Willie Rushton).

As if to display his erudition, but without raising the laughter quotient, Norden chucks in literary cameos by the score – Charles Dickens (Arnold Diamond), Alfred Lord Tennyson (Hugh Burden), the aforementioned Elizabeth Barrett (Suzanne Hunt) and Lord Alfred Douglas (George Reynolds), Sherlock Holmes (Peter Jeffrey) and Dr Watson (Thorley Walters), plus explorer David Livingstone (Neil Arden) and department store entrepreneurs Fortnum (Arthur Howard) and Mason (Clement Freud).

That the movie actually gets one star is thanks to a number of excellent visual jokes: one scene of Uncle Francis defying the mutineers by raising the Union Jack cuts to the blood-splattered flag decorating his coffin; Sylvester frustrated at the keyhole but still hearing the moans of seducer-in-chief Oakes is followed by the sight of the wannabe lover struggling to get out of his bonds, having been attacked by Chinamen.

There’s not much difference, beyond hair color, between the characters essayed by David Hemmings (Alfred the Great, 1969). Both are one-dimensional, the pop-eyed virgin astonished by the goings-on at the brothel, the suave villain who might as well be twirling his moustache for all the depth he brings to the role. Thankfully, Joanna Pettet (Blue, 1968) is at least believable though even she could not act her way out of scenes where she was suspended by the Chinaman above a vat of boiling acid.

George Sanders (Sumuru, Queen of Femina aka The Girl from Rio, 1969) has a ball as the hypocrite-in-chief who knows how to monetize vice while Dany Robin (Topaz, 1969) brings some finesse to an otherwise one-dimensional part. But everyone else is a cipher which is a shame given the talent on show – John Bird (A Dandy in Aspic, 1968), John Cleese (A Fish Called Wanda, 1988), Warren Mitchell (The Assassination Bureau, 1969), Bill Fraser (Masquerade, 1965) and Maurice Denham (Some Girls Do, 1969). Among the girls, you might spot Veronica Carlsen (Dracula Has Risen from the Grave, 1968) , Margaret Nolan (Goldfinger, 1964) and Rose Alba (Thunderball, 1965).

Director Philip Saville (Oedipus the King, 1968) should have known better and certainly made amends later in his career with among other projects BBC series Boys from the Blackstuff (1982). But Denis Norden (Buona Sera, Mrs Campbell, 1968) never wrote a more misguided piece in all his life.

For sure, a film like this is not going to do down well in these times but I was surprised how vilified it was on release, critics like Roger Ebert insulted by its endless attacks on women, the public no less hostile and it died a death at the box office.

Supernova (2000) ***

Under-rated for sure but still light years ahead of such sci fi nonsense as The End of Oak St (2026). Doesn’t hang around either, story told in 82 minutes flat. And instead of wasting time and stretching credibility just comes straight out and says the crew on this space ship and the audience for that matter aren’t smart enough to understand even in pure mathematical terms what is going on in the ninth dimension, which is where the narrative threat comes from.

Plays around with the Alien series conceit of alien aboard a space ship but doesn’t require a toothy monster and doesn’t fall for that old canard of dropping what you’re doing and responding to a distress signal from outer space. For the simple reason that this is medivac operation, its purpose to rescue people in distress.

There’s some interesting stuff about evolution and quite a nice line about the human race being effectively composed of stardust gathered from the previous millions of years. And it’s gone truly hyper in terms of the threat – I mean Project Hail Mary (2026) level of threat. We’re not talking about invading Earth or blowing it up, what’s at stake from this item from the ninth dimension is our solar system as a blue giant (sun) or supernova intends to wipe out anything it perceives as a rival.

Given that our brains, as noted, are too small to conceive of such a concept, the main narrative concentrates on dealing with a refugee from a mining planet and his “treasure” worth billions, plus an “11-minute window” at the end of the tale for the crew to escape. The Nightingale space ship has performed what’s termed a “dimension-jump” which permits it in pure lightspeed style to cover 3,000 light years in a flash.

However, the ship’s captain dies during the jump and recovering drug addict Nick (James Spader) takes command. On board we’ve got Dr Kaela (Angela Bassett), lovers Danika (Robin Tunney) and Yerzy (Lou Diamond Phillips), and Benji (Wilson Cruz) who plays chess with computer control Sweetie. First hint of impending trouble is that Karl (Peter Facinelli), the fellow being rescued, was the abusive partner of Kaela. Then it turns out he’s Karl’s son. Then it turns out he’s actually Karl, grown younger and somewhat superhuman, a charmer, who manages to seduce Danika, though her lover doesn’t seem to mind, too entranced by the “treasure”, a spherical artefact containing the aforesaid ninth dimensional matter.

Nick wants to dump the treasure out the window. The ship’s got enough problems, having lost most of its fuel during the jump and liable to be incinerated in 17 hours by the blue giant which is sucking it into its high-gravity atmosphere.

Nick returns to the mining planet to find extra fuel supplies, not realizing this is a trap of Karl’s devising, allowing the invader to weaponize all manner of equipment against Nick. Meanwhile, Karl gets rid of Danika and Yerzy by the simple measure of ejecting them into space. He gets the better of Kaela and Benji. The best scene is Benji pleading with the computer to override its controls to deal with Karl, on the grounds that she’s done this once before to wake him up to play chess.

Naturally, Nick has a few tricks up his sleeve or the ending would be pre-ordained. Although you probably wouldn’t expect to see Nick and Kaela stuck in the same pod, buck naked, for the journey home. Whether they then exchange bodily fluids is unclear, but they do swap eye color.

There’s also an interesting kicker. If the artifact reacts with the blue giant, it will create a supernova which will reach Earth in 51 years and either destroy it or lead it into a new form of evolution.

This doesn’t have a good rep, mostly on account of the shenanigans relating to its shooting – more about that tomorrow – but I found it to be pretty serviceable. James Spader (Secretary, 2002) was always better when he could exude menace of sexual creepiness so playing the hero just doesn’t seem right. Peter Facinelli (Viper, 2026) exudes a Spader kind of menace – with a smile. Oscar-nominated Angela Basset (What’s Love Got To Do With It, 1993) ensured there was at least one class act aboard. Robin Tunney (End of Days, 1999) is landed with the overly-emotional scenes. Lou Diamond Philips (La Bamba, 1987) and Wilson Cruz, better known for television, are effective.

There was a whole hoohah surrounding the direction so I’m dealing with that tomorrow in a Behind the Scenes.

Much better than I expected.

The Vampire Lovers (1970) ***

Should have a lot more going for it. Female empowerment for a start. This would also, in today’s terms, be called a reboot of the Dracula legend, though it does originate from a different source than Bram Stoker. Or you could look at the bold exploration of lesbianism, none of the angst of The Killing of Sister George (1968) or the lyricism of The Fox (1967). Or you could fall back on that old chestnut – a camp reinterpretation of the vampire world, where female breasts rather than necks are the prime target. At the very least, it should have set up Ingrid Pitt (Where Eagles Dare, 1968) for stardom.

And while all these hold true, it lacks the key ingredient of the horror picture, any kind of tension or imminent threat. Nor does it carry the emotional weight of Countess Dracula (1971) – also starring Pitt – a twist on Dorian Gray, of a woman trying to hold age at bay with infusions of virgin blood.

So, in the end, it comes off as little more than a commercial decision to revive a fading genre with lashings of nudity, sex and lesbianism. Director Roy Ward Baker (Moon Zero Two, 1969) brings significant style to the proceedings even though the backdrops look as if they’ve been picked from a cast-off bin.

The tale is based on a story Carmilla by Sheridan Le Fanu, that predated Bram Stoker. On the production side, Hammer and its American rival AIP teamed up, with the latter blamed for insisting on the sexual overdose. Although on that score you could as easily point the finger at the British censor known for his liberal approach to such shenanigans.

While it’s true that Dracula, especially as interpreted by Christopher Lee in Hammer offerings, carried a sexual frisson, there was never anything more than that, allowing the audience to determine whether the vampire was ever interested in a woman except for the purpose of sucking blood from her neck. Previously, diaphanous gowns and cleavage had been the extent of the sexual element. To switch the target from the neck to the breasts is a determined commercial move.

So, basically, with a gender twist, we’re following the old story – vampire stalks victims, finds acolytes, and falls victim to a vampire hunter. In the 19^th century, the beautiful Carmilla (Ingrid Pitt), traveling with her mother, a countess (Dawn Adams), is adept at inveigling herself into high-class households where she seduces the daughters and staff of the rich. Her first victim Laura is niece to General Spielsdorf (Peter Cushing) who subsequently enlists the help of vampire hunter Baron Hartog (David Wilmer), who mistakenly believes he had rid the world of the female vampire clan.

Next for the bloody breast treatment is a Mademoiselle Perrodot (Kate O’Mara), governess to Emma (Madeleine Smith). Perrodot becomes her lover and accomplice. Carmilla is an inclusive kind of vampire and if need be will seduce any male obstacle such as Morton’s suspicious butler Renton (Harvey Hall) while sucking the blood out of any passing male of more modest means.

Carmilla has the same get-out-of-jail-free as any male of the species and can take refuge in her grave until the heat passes. However, this time she’s intent on taking Emma with her. By now Baron Hartog has filled the general in on the threat, explaining that the Karnstein clan go back to the sixteenth century, and that he has dispatched many of the breed in traditional fashion, decapitation or stake through the heart, but he had been unable to find the night-time resting place of Carmilla.

So when Carmilla heads off to Karnstein Castle with Emma, she’s not expecting vampire hunters lying in wait. This time it’s the general who does the killing, making doubly sure by both cutting off her head and driving a stake through her heart. Emma recovers.

Given that any version of Dracula was essentially a franchise, Hammer/AIP managed to keep the Karnsteins going for another two episodes, Lust for a Vampire (1971) – which gave Yutte Stensgaard a shot a stardom – and Twins of Evil (1972) starring Playboy Playmates the Collinson twins.

While The Vampire Lovers was a launching pad for Ingrid Pitt as a new top-billed femme fatale, her marquee attraction didn’t last beyond the superior Countess Dracula. However, Pitt certainly brings gusto to the part and there’s an argument that the contemporary world deserved more explicit expression of that previously restrained sexual frisson. The counter-argument is that it’s blatant sexploitation.

Kate O’Mara (The Horror of Frankenstein, 1970), a future Scream Queen, would have been an obvious contender for the main role rather than a supporting one except that she refused to take off her clothes. Madeleine Smith (Taste the Blood of Dracula, 1970) became another future Scream Queen.

With Ingrid Pitt’s physical allure to the fore that limited the involvement of Peter Cushing (Frankenstein Created Woman, 1967). The more prominent of the wannabes was Jon Finch (Macbeth, 1971).

Written by Tudor Gates (Danger: Diabolik, 1968).

Still the argument continues – groundbreaking approach to the genre or mere sexploitation.

You decide – Amazon Prime currently has this.

Two Gentlemen Sharing (1969) ***

Shelved was a polite term for what happened to this picture. It was funded by Paramount but they didn’t like the look of the finished article. It could have gone straight into the bin, but it was reprieved, sold onto AIP which was looking to shift away from horror and biker movies into mainstream productions. But though it was made in Britain and therefore would qualify for both the Levy tax credit and the quota system, AIP couldn’t find a British distributor to take it on, not even after being selected as the official UK entry to the Venice Film Festival and impressing New York critics. It wasn’t shown on a British screen until 2017.

So what the heck was wrong with it? I had wrongly assumed that the title was a hint that the two gentlemen were gay, but that isn’t the case.

We open with a fellow with a plummy voice called Andrew Mackenzie (Hal Frederick) calling round London landlords looking for digs. He’s a solicitor, wears a bowler hat, was educated at Oxford University, even famously scored a century in a cricket match – and you can’t fit in any more than being a top-class cricketer. But doors which would open for anyone else with such a pedigree are closed to him.

Problem is – he’s Black. He’s of Jamaican descent. He’s not homeless, he’s got digs in Brixton, a noted Black community. Eventually, he finds accommodation in very posh Knightsbridge with ad man Roddy (Robin Philips).

Racism had been tackled in the movie world primarily through the aegis of Sidney Poitier. His three 1967 films – To Sir, With Love, In the Heat of the Night and Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, had all concluded on the upbeat. The Black man was accorded acceptance and respect.

That doesn’t happen here. The N-word is in common use. Andrew ends up being tossed out of the apartment by his landlady for essentially conforming to the cliché of being a “sexual degenerate,” i.e. for making too much noise while having sex. Eventually, he decides he’ll never fit in in Britain and returns to Jamaica.

But while the film deals bluntly with issues of endemic racism in British culture, it also tackles the problems facing the more socially aware, who tie themselves in knots trying to prove they are not racists. Although on the face of it accepting his flatmate’s color, Roddy has problems with his own beliefs. He’s certainly jealous of Andrew’s supposed sexual prowess, to the point of clearly believing he will enjoy more sexual freedom should he hitch up with a Black woman, and at various points exhibits inappropriate behavior towards them.

He also can’t come to terms with the fact that his girlfriend Jane (Judy Geeson) is not only very popular with Black men but has been brought up by a Black man after her own White father died when she was very young. To prove his liberal credentials once and for all, Andrew hosts a massive party in the apartment, inviting a crowd of Blacks, but when his drunken overtures to Black women are rejected, the party ends in disaster.

The characters are well drawn. Andrew is no saint. He’s misogynistic for a start, determining that his girlfriend Caroline (Esther Anderson) should do all the cooking and household chores. He’s arrogant and selfish, often grumpy. In other words, as human as the next guy.

Roddy is insecure. His job has none of the glamor we associate with advertising. His biggest decisions concern how many chips to have on a plate being photographed for an advertisement. Although coming from a wealthy background, his parents are now so impoverished they live in the squalid basement of a stately home. He has no understanding of women, tending to make too many of the wrong assumptions. So, just another young fella having problems growing up.

You’d think – and Roddy certainly thinks – that in the ad world he’d have a bevy of young women at his beck and call as does his colleague Phil (Norman Rossington) who, despite clearly taking advantage of his position in terms of seduction opportunities, is more enlightened – he has a Black girlfriend.

The movie’s very fair in determining when characters feel out of place. While Andrew struggles in the White world, Roddy and to a certain extent Phil struggle in the Black social world, bounding about awkwardly at a “jump-up”, the name given to a dance featuring Black music.

Given the actors are all primarily newcomers, showing promise is the extent of the acting. Reportedly Hal Frederick’s (Sandokan, 1964) plummy British accent was dubbed, but it is adequate for the task in hand which is to explore the minefield of the often unexplored aspects of British racism at a time when large-scale immigration was limited to certain cities and when the country still believed in “fair play” or convinced itself it did.

Robin Phillips (Decline and Fall…of a Birdwatcher, 1968) has a more complex part, needy, weak, his unformed unappealing character turning up at the edges. Judy Geeson (Three into Two Won’t Go, 1969) is better and Norman Rossington (Tobruk, 1967) throws himself into a peach of a part. Esther Anderson (The Touchables, 1968) is appreciated.

Canadian director Ted Kotcheff (Life at the Top, 1965) pulls no punches and certainly there is no sign of sentimentality or that, somehow, everything will all come good in the end. Screenplay by debutant David Stuart Leslie from the bestseller by Evan Jones.

Worth seeing if only to ask why we were kept from seeing it for so long. You can catch it on Amazon Prime at the moment.

The Wicked Die Slow (1968) *

Companion piece to Hot Spur. Not excused fitting into same one-star sleaze western category as Hot Spur (1969) even with some elements that appear at odds with the tale, such as playing around with the time signatures. The best bit is the credits, or as they’re dubbed here the “visual effects,” a series of paintings that send a message of a woman clawing her face. Quite why the movie involves so many extreme close-ups and a heck of lot of birds tweeting in the background.

There’s an outrageously clever sequence involving a young woman brushing down her horse and an approaching rider. The way the man sneaks around hidden by trees and foliage makes you think he’s up to no good. The woman certainly thinks so, she whips out a shotgun. Then the fellow produces an apple. So you change your mind. He’s a good guy. He’s going to feed the horse. Except he tosses the apple into bushes some distance away and she shoots at it. He does the same with another apple. She gets off a shot at that, too.

Then he steps out of the trees as most certainly a bad guy. She’s not reloaded her shotgun. She’s out of bullets. As he points out her predicament. While he’s a man with a pistol. Except he means her no harm. Which is just as well because she’s extremely vulnerable – she’s already been raped by her father.

It’s only now we actually get down to some narrative – the visitor, name of Steve (Bart Lenoir) is hunting for his brother Luke aka “The Kid” (Gary Allen) with whom this girl temporarily hooked up with.

Then we’ve got a preacher man, addicted to snuff, who saunters into a town and starts giving it hellfire and brimstone on the back of a wagon. He’s actually a bounty hunter and when he catches up with his prey teaches them – as in repeat after me – how to pray before he puts a bullet through their head.

But after this unusual start it’s quickly down to the lowest common denominator – rapes, nudity, violence, torture – the same elements as dominated Hot Spur. Sexploitation, or as it was known back in the day, apparently, a “roughie.”

*This image comes from the credit sequence.*

So now we’re also ducking around with time. Four Native Americans have raped gunfighter The Kid’s girlfriend (Susannah Campbell) and he wants revenge. He’s not so vengeful that he doesn’t have time to stop off for a bit of consensual sex with a complaint women, cue naked breasts, while he has to avoid, for reasons unknown, some kind of lynch party. Naturally, when he’s not naked, he’s given to wearing a poncho.

This isn’t some torture yarn, as you might expect from the title (that’s a reference to the Biblical Hell) nor, as I expected, a spaghetti western, since Amazon Prime directed me to this as a reward for watching Django (1966). Nobody’s planning on giving the bad guys a lingering death. Just death.

And, given the opening section, that might well have provided sufficient ingredients for a decent revenge western and we’ve had plenty of those where extraneous sexuality has not been called for. But that’s not the case here. The story is just an excuse for rampant nudity and brutality directed at women.

In due course, The Kid teams up with Mexican bandit Armadillo (Jeff Kanew).

Then it really gets nasty in the Hot Spur vein.

There’s another curiosity here. The film is attributed to Cannon, the production outfit most association with Israeli double act Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus, but this was made long before the pair got into the Death Wish franchise business or ponying up $15 million to Sylvester Stallone for Over the Top (1987). And in fact, Golan-Globus had nothing to do with The Wicked Die Slow. They didn’t buy Cannon until much later. This was made by Cannon when it was owned by Christopher Dewey and Dennis Friedland while they were in the exploitation business.

Directed by William K. Henniger (See How They Come, 1968) and it’s generally assumed someone else did the first 30 minutes or so. Written by stars Gary Allen and Jeff Kanew.

Nobody comes out of this with any kudos except for Swede artist Maria Nordenson who created the credit sequence and whoever directed the first section.

Hot Spur fans should head for Amazon Prime.