nudity – Page 3 – The Magnificent 60s

The Long Good Friday (1980) *****

Got two predictions correct – that the conversion of London Docklands into upmarket housing was a potential goldmine and that London would become the beating financial heart of Europe. Though I would have thought everyone, even as arrogant a character as gangster Harold Shand (Bob Hoskins), would have known not to tangle with the IRA. Of course, he hasn’t done this deliberately, that’s just the sting in the tail, unravelling the complex mystery of who’s got it in for him.

This would be a fitting addition to the 1970s trilogy of British gangster pictures par excellence – Get Carter (1971), Villain (1971) and Sitting Target (1972) – except you could argue it’s better than the lot. Here we’re on The Godfather Part II territory, the big-time hood who’s gone legit. Harold already owns a casino, upmarket restaurant and pubs, and swans around in a luxury yacht but he’s got his eye on bigger game, investment in the Docklands, an ideal money-laundering concept, and he’s hooked a potential partner in American Mafia chief Charlie (Eddie Constantine).

Much as Harold would like to show off his svelte businessman side, his attempts to ooze class disappear at the first sign of trouble and soon he is working those teeth so hard he could be auditioning for Jaws. We’ve got an inkling of what’s going on but it takes a good while for everything to add up and even then Harold is convinced someone’s got their sums wrong since he’s ruled the London underworld for a decade and nobody with any sense would take him on.

The businessman façade falls away when his close aide and longtime buddy Colin (Paul Freeman) is murdered and his Rolls Royce and a pub are blown up. And it takes virtually the whole picture for Harold to discover just why a woman on her way to a funeral stopped the car long enough to spit in the face of one of Harold’s top henchmen, Jeff (Derek Thompson).

So mostly what we’ve got is Harold reverting to old-style violence, presumably using the methods that got him to the top in the first place, as he tortures and terrifies everyone in sight. Some of the brutality is inventive stuff as movie torture goes, one fellow having his naked backside sliced open by a machete, the rest of the top gang leaders rounded up in an abattoir as if they were sides of beef awaiting slaughter.

Meanwhile, wife Victoria (Helen Mirren), a version of what used to be known as “posh totty”, tries to keep the deal active by charming the pants off every male who comes within a sniff of her, some so driven by temptation they declare they “want to lick every inch of her.”

So, on the one hand, it’s big business and all the jiggery-pokery that goes in the legitimate world even among illegal contenders, and on the other hand it’s all the jiggery-pokery that goes on in the illegal world among all the illegal contenders.

*Incredible score by Francis Monkman. Why he wrote so few is a mystery.*

While there are many standout moments – and you’d be hard put to beat the climactic scene of Harold in the back of a taxi facing his demise – and director John MacKenzie wields his camera with considerable verve, his ace in the hole is always the expressive face of Harold. Whether he’s practising his bonhomie, or stiffening at the latest outrage, or letting loose physically and verbally it’s a fabulous acting tour de force as if James Cagney had met Al Pacino. And like Oliver Reed in Sitting Target, simmering rage is smoothed over by feminine companionship, the close bond between Harold and Victoria one of the key ingredients.

Turned Bob Hoskins (Zulu Dawn, 1979) into a star and had the British end of the industry been in better shape he had might made a smoother transition to the top echelons instead of waiting for Mona Lisa (1986) to polish his credentials.

Although we Brits like to think the acting of “national treasure” Helen Mirren was always being recognized on the domestic front, long before she achieved unquestionable credibility from pocketing an Oscar for The Queen (2006), in truth by this point her movie career was in limbo. Hardly any screen work since her breakthrough in Age of Consent (1969) and three of her last four pictures – Caligula (1979), S.O.S. Titanic (1979) and The Fiendish Plot of Fu Manchu (1980) – counting as calamities. This was a fresh take on an actress who, too often for her own good, had been seen as better naked than clothed.

It was almost a homage to cult to employ Eddie Constantine (S.O.S. Pacific, 1960) but it was surprising how many of the supporting cast came good including future James Bond Pierce Brosnan as a gay killer, Paul Freeman (Raiders of the Lost Ark, 1981), Derek Thompson (nearly 40 years on BBC series Casualty), and future director Dexter Fletcher (Rocketman, 2019).

Original screenplay by Barrie Keefe on his debut.

Still stands up as a gangster great.

Sitting Target (1972) ****

Forms a neat trilogy with British Noir New Wave gangster pictures Get Carter (1971) and Villain (1971) both with topline stars attached in the form of Michael Caine and Richard Burton. Laden with atmosphere and intrigue, this carries hefty emotional power as a very tough guy struggles to show his gentler side. The moral of the story is that brains always trump brawn. And it’s one of these movies where the truth only unravels when you hit the twist at the end and every character is shown in quite a different light.

Like Get Carter, this is a revenge picture. Discovering girlfriend Pat (Jill St John) is pregnant by another guy, imprisoned bankrobber Harry (Oliver Reed), serving a 15-year stretch for murder, is turned into a “lethal weapon” by the very thought and determines to break out and kill her. And at the same time collect the loot from his last bank robbery.

His escape, masterminded by the gentlemanly MacNeil (Freddie Jones) and accompanied by long-time buddy Birdy (Ian MacShane), is a tense, exciting sequence. First stop outside is to strongarm another gangster into supplying a Mauser that can be turned, a la Day of the Jackal, into a long-range rifle.

And while the movie brings into play the standard trope of villains seeking their share of the loot, it also hangs on another standard wheeze of the 1960s B-picture of the woman as bait. Anticipating that Harry will make a beeline for his loved one, but unaware of his nefarious intent, Inspector Milton (Edward Woodward) has her under police guard. But the likes of Harry always finds a way to sneak in, which triggers police pursuit, in the course of which Harry commits the unpardonable crime of shooting a cop – the villain world only too aware of the severe repercussions.

There’s a stop-off at the apartment of the moll (Jill Townsend) of Mr Big, Marty (Frank Finlay). That doesn’t go as planned, but still they manage to uncover a hidden sack of cash leaving Harry to knock off, sharpshooter style, the unfaithful girlfriend.

And then the pair make a getaway….Not quite. Birdy turns out to be greedy and wants all the robbery cash for himself and attempts to shoot Harry. That would be enough of a twist to be getting on with but there are a few stingers to come. Pat’s not dead – Harry (too far away to identify her face) just shot a policewoman on protection duty standing in her window. Pat’s not pregnant either, just stuffed a cushion down her jumper to complete the pretense. And she and Birdy are an item. And it’s clear that Birdy simply purloined Harry’s rage to get him to do the dirty work involved in the escape and dealing with the other gangsters.

Except in the case of being willing to knock off his longtime business partner, Birdy, you see has always been averse to violence, cowardly not to put too fine a point on it, though quite capable of pouring a bowl of urine down a captured guard’s throat, or rape.

Villains are as conflicted as anyone else, otherwise how to explain that Harry climbs into the burning car containing his dead girlfriend, gives Pat a gentle kiss and waits for the car to explode and take him to a fiery grave. We’ve seen the softer side of Harry in flashes. He turns down the chance to bed a sex worker in the getaway lorry, doesn’t take advantage of the moll, and buries his face in the moll’s fur coat. The furthest he gets to expressing his feelings is to explain to Birdy that he was very happy with Pat. He’s almost – perish the thought – got a feminist side. And presumably it takes a lot for a tough gangster like him to open up to a woman, which explains why he takes her betrayal so badly.

The fact that he still kills her is somehow beside the point. As I said, gangsters are complex, witness the gay Richard Burton in Villain.

This is Ian MacShane (The Wild and the Willing, 1962) still in matinee idol mode, minus the gravitas and husky tones of John Wick (2014). Once the twists kick in, you look back and realize he’s stolen the film, a weaselly charmer, able to bend Harry (not that hard, mind you) to his will, which was to help him escape, lead him to the money and send him off to live happily ever after with Pat. Where Harry clearly believes in true love, Birdy has no moral scruples. Even with a beauty like Pat waiting for him, he’s happy to indulge in sex with the sex worker and help himself to the helpless moll. (MacShane was equally dubious in Villain).

Oliver Reed’s Thug we’ve seen countless times before, Oliver Reed’s Softie less so. Jill St John (Tony Rome, 1967) manages a British accent and proves herself capable of a better role than usual. Actors often say they build up a character from their walk. Watch Edward Woodward (The Wicker Man, 1973) for a classic example of it.

Douglas Hickox had essayed delicate romance via his debut Les Bicyclettes des Belsize (1968) and it’s to his credit that he touches on Harry’s sensitivity in such subtle fashion. Otherwise, some terrific standout sequences – Harry’s fist battering through the glass into the prisoner’s visiting room, the escape, the duel with motorcycle cops through a fog of washing strung out on lines, the final car chase.

Written by Alexander Jacobs (Point Blank, 1967) from the bestseller by Lawrence Henderson. Superb score by Stanley Myers.

Not quite in the league of Get Carter or Villain but not far short.

Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (1969) ****

The one with the wife-swapping. Like Easy Rider released earlier the same year, a hymn to freedom, only this time of the sexual kind. Responsible thirtysomethings, well-to-do, married with children, jealous of the younger generation’s counter culture, seek guilt-free irresponsibility. They feel they’ve missed out, despite knocking back cocktails in their heyday, probably remained virgins until marriage. Like the recently-reviewed The Battle of the Villa Fiorita (1965), the problems incurred in marriage appear eternal, and decades later this holds up superbly, not just for taking a measure of its times, but for a screenplay setting up a bold series of reversals, character reaction you would never expect, that will have you in stitches even as it dissects universal truths.

Documentary film-maker Bob (Robert Culp) and housewife Carol (Natalie Wood) “find” themselves at a weekend retreat espousing naked yoga, primal screams, group therapy and emotional intimacy. Carol admits she finds her husband controlling. They return in evangelistic mode, desperate to pass on their new-found knowledge to their stuffier friends, Ted (Elliott Gould) and Alice (Dyan Cannon).

*The advertising campaign focused on the tease of wife-swapping.*

The film unfolds in a series of long sequences, each sparked by external incident. Bob confesses to his wife that while away on business he had an affair. To his astonishment she forgives him. Expecting this to be a prelude to some new way of tormenting an unfaithful husband, Bob remains skeptical until Carol convinces him that her world-view has changed following the retreat.

But Ted and Alice find it harder to accept. In a brilliant scene that exposes basic gender differences, he sees the problem as his revelation, she as the act of infidelity itself. High after meeting the other couple, Ted wants sex, but Alice, shocked by what she has heard, cannot contemplate it. He exerts so much pressure that she, deeply insecure, is almost on the verge of giving in. The dialogue not just marvelously encapsulates their marriage but sets out opposing views that, I am sorry to say, would probably be as prevalent today.

But the best scene, a superb reversal, occurs when Bob, spurning another night of illicit passion, returns home from a trip early to find his wife in bed with the tennis coach. Gender equality et al. The sequence turns completely on its head when, according to the couple’s new philosophy, Bob should not only accept and forgive, but help the tennis coach out of his predicament, calming his fears of facing an angry husband, in effect consoling his bedroom rival.

What appears to have been just a Ted fantasy, hooking up with a woman he met on an airplane, turns out to be true, creating a crisis in that marriage and when Alice is pacified, acknowledging a new truth, it is she who calls for an orgy. Now this is a revolution for Alice is by far the most repressed, although attractive almost matronly, and still using a childish word to describe her private parts. Her confessions to a psychiatrist reveal a tormented individual.

It’s a stunning debut from Paul Mazursky (An Unmarried Woman, 1978) who also had a hand in the screenplay with Larry Tucker (I Love You, Alice B. Toklas, 1968). He takes a story of endorsed immorality and stamps it as a morality tale. A movie that depended so much on dialogue concludes with a fabulous series of shots where the look on the faces of the characters tells you all you need to know.

Elliott Gould (The Night They Raided Minsky’s, 1968) and Dyan Cannon (The Murder Game, 1965) are the pick of the actors, both stepping up to the plate after less than stand-out performances previously. Both were Oscar-nominated but more importantly here created screen personas that would define their futures. Natalie Wood (This Property Is Condemned, 1966), in her first picture in three years, revitalized her career after a string of flops. Robert Culp, in a step-up from the I Spy television series (1965-1968), initially takes center stage but cedes ground to the superior acting of the others.

Where a whole bundle of films by new directors flopped that year and the next by targeting the younger generation, this was a success by painting a wry picture of a slightly older generation, not yet tipping into middle age, but terrified they might be missing out on something.

On Swift Horses (2025) *** – Seen at the Cinema

Authentic story stymied by unlikely plot. Set in a post-Korean War American when the United States is still a land of opportunity even for blue collar workers but sexuality and other forms of self-expression are stifled and the homosexual world is only accessible through secret codes. Married Muriel (Daisy Edgar-Jones) hankers after something of the wilder life apparently enjoyed by the brother Julius (Jacob Elordi) of her staid husband Lee (Will Poulter). Truth be told she hankers after an illicit relationship with Julius.

Muriel harbors two other secrets. Firstly, she wants to gamble, a notion that would never gain approval from her husband, who accounts for every penny in his bid to own his own home and thus move up in society. Secondly, she has lesbian tendencies and gradually, encouraged by the self-confidence generated through successful betting at the racetrack, she assumes a different persona, surprisingly capable of making the first move.

Lee is aware of his brother’s proclivities, though these, too, are measured in guarded tones. Julius lives “in another world”, not just the low-down hustling and gambling and earning a living as a gigolo and card cheat. His homosexuality is repressed but his barriers are broken down by Mexican hustler Henry (Diego Calva). But while Julius is willing to settle for a life of energetic sex with Henry, his lover has greater ambition and plans to move up in society via the scam route.

Muriel’s affection for Julius is not hampered by the fact that he constantly steals from her, pocketing the cash she sends him for a bus fare home, burglarizing their house while they sleep. And while she is happy to indulge in a casual affair with gay neighbor Sandra (Sasha Calle) she’s not whole-heartedly committed to that lifestyle. And it’s hard to see just how committed she is to Lee – the horde of cash she wins at the racecourse she keeps hidden from her husband even though it would miraculously ease their upwardly mobility.

While Muriel negotiates the hidden world with some care – gay people of both sexes meet at a certain hotel or come together under the guise of a book club – Julius is less wary and is beaten up and robbed a couple of times.

This isn’t quite the lush America of 1950s Hollywood with women bedecked in colorful dresses and enjoying cocktails, but there’s still satisfaction to be had in hauling yourself up and owning a tract of land and your own house. And it’s still down’n’dirty. Casinos spy on customers through two-mirror mirrors set in the ceiling and beat the life out of anyone caught cheating.

What wins your heart is the yearning. Muriel is caught in a half-world, even when she finds a willing lesbian partner she still aches for a heterosexual whirl with Julius. And Julius who believes he has found a safe sexual haven with Henry discovers that the latter’s naked ambition will destroy their tryst.

What doesn’t work are the fairy tale aspects. Julius isn’t a particularly good card cheat, a hidden ace or a partner at another table providing him with illicit advantage at the poker table. You’d expect he’d be rumbled quite easily. But the plot says no.

Similarly, Muriel enjoys an unbelievable good run on the horses, able to turn tips overheard from customers in the diner where she works into winning bets. Pretty quickly, and without a stumble, she has amassed a stash of $20,000. As if.

The ending doesn’t work either, Julius galloping on a horse (yep!) from San Diego to Las Vegas – a distance of some 350 miles (that’s some horse!) – after he realizes that, in fact, his heart belongs to Muriel, whose marriage has at last broken up, and she’s decided to follow her heart and become a gambler.

It leaves you wondering what kind of relationship they would have, a lavender marriage, where both are free to indulge in other aspects of their sexuality, no doubt living high on the hog from her racetrack winnings and his cheating at cards.

It looks to me like the director has bottled out of the third act, the one where supposedly they are the person of each other’s dreams and manage to make a life together as happy gamblers, until one or other decides that a person of their own sex is more fulfilling ultimately than a person of the opposite sex.

You didn’t need the barmy plot for this to work. And in fact it’s the barmy plot that gets in the way of it working. Both Julius and Muriel are entirely believable in looking for a love that dare not speak its name but can yet be easily located if you can follow the codes or if your gaydar is sufficiently developed.

Oddly enough, the most heart-breaking scene is the one before the barmy galloping. On the message board inside a gay meeting place are notes revealing the heartbreak caused not just by the dashing of love’s hopes but the destruction of marriages by men unable to conceal their secret desires.

The acting is uniformly good, though Jacob Elordi (Saltburn, 2023) thanks to his vulnerability, wins by a nose from Daisy Edgar-Jones (Twisters, 2024). But Will Poulter (Warfare, 2025) and Diego Calva (Babylon, 2022) also score points. Movie directing debut from Daniel Minahan from a script by Bryce Kass (Lizzie, 2018) based on the novel by Shannon Pufahl.

While you have to admire the actors for taking a gamble on this project – Elordi and Edgar-Jones are down as executive producers so they might also have taken pay cuts. But it has been an unmitigated financial bomb. Even the leanest movies these days appear to cost upwards of $10 million and this has barely touched the $1 million mark in global box offices. I attended the only daily screening at my local multiplex and there was only one other person in the audience. It probably deserves better and might have an afterlife on a streamer.

Enjoy the performances and ignore the plot.

Tamahine (1963) ****

Columbia sold this as if Nancy Kwan was a Bond girl with massive images of the star in a bikini (see above) – the advert in the trade magazine comprised a drop-down A2 pull-out i.e. three times the size of a normal page. But anyone expecting a salacious time would have been in for surprise. For although Kwan swam underwater during the credits (not Helen Mirren style as in The Age of Consent, 1969) and did reveal a naked posterior, you could not have imagined a more innocent, joyous, movie.

Tahitian teenager Tamahine (Nancy Kwan) wreaks havoc on the British stiff upper lip when after the death of her father she is sent to the all-male English public school run by his cousin Poole (Dennis Price), a widower. But it’s not a sex comedy with all the misunderstandings and double entendres that genre normally entails. Instead, it’s a clash of cultures, free love and expression versus prudery and repression. Poole has trouble enough on the female front, his daughter Diana (Justine Lord) inclined to enjoy a gin-soaked afternoon and in the middle of an affair with art master Clove (Derek Nimmo).

*The advertising department, however, could not resist the temptation*
*to stick a double entendre in the poster.*

Without mischievous intent, Tamahine causes chaos, assuming an artist’s model would be naked she scandalizes the petrified Clove and egged on by a gaggle of schoolboys whose hormones are off the scale she jams a chamber pot on the school weather vane. The plot, if there is one, is mostly Tamahine fending off suitors, Clove and Poole’s son Richard (John Fraser), and attempting to persuade Poole to take a paternal interest in her well-being.

But mostly it’s about how a sweet-hearted woman struggles to survive in a world where attitudes to sex remain Victorian and in which the avowed aim of education is to build character through manly pursuits such as beating the living daylights out of each other rather than teaching them to express emotion. And certainly the movie takes a more benevolent view of public schools than the later, brutal, If…(1968).

While endorsing free love, Tamahine draws the line at crossing the line in the matter of Richard, whom she deems a relation, no matter how distant. Challenging all conventions, she takes part in sports day.

But the comedy is so gentle and Tamahine so charming that this is best described as a delight. I found myself chuckling throughout and I felt I had just watched a genuine feel-good movie. On paper it certainly doesn’t sound so potentially good, especially when you consider the clichéd portrayals you might expect from the supporting cast, but in reality it exerts an extraordinary appeal.

Hardly off-screen, Kwan (The World of Suzie Wong, 1960), in only her fourth film, easily carries the movie as if she scarcely felt the weight of stardom on her shoulders and is a revelation as the imparter of tender wisdom. What aids the film enormously is that Dennis Price and Derek Nimmo play more interesting parts than their movie personas suggest. Price (Tunes of Glory, 1960), in a far cry from his Ealing comedy heyday, dispenses with his wry delivery and cynical demeanor. Unusual for a character actor, his character actually has a story arc and turns what could have been a stereotypical role into a moving performance. Before his strangulated vowels got the better off him, Derek Nimmo (The Liquidator, 1965), too, delivers probably his best performance.

Justine Lord (Night after Night after Night, 1969) is good as the rebellious daughter but James Fox offers none of the intensity he brought to the screen a year later in The Servant (1964) and neither does John Fraser (El Cid, 1961) light up the screen. In small parts you can spot Michael Gough (Batman, 1985) and Coral Browne (The Killing of Sister George, 1968).

Full marks to director Philip Leacock (The War Lover, 1962), himself a former public school boy, for not taking the easy way out with loutish comedy but instead crafting a film full of sensitivity and sensibility. Denis Cannan (Why Bother to Knock, 1961) based his screenplay on the Thelma Nicklaus novel.

You might be surprised at the four-star rating and I do confess it is a shade optimistic but it is worth more than three stars. It’s worth taking a moment to examine the whole issue of ratings. You might be asking how can Tamahine be given four stars, the same as The Battle of the Villa Florita and a tad below the very few I deem five-star pictures. The answer is I compare like with like. If the best films in your opinion must concern social comment or excel technically, then there will be little place in your world for a sheer confection like Tamahine. But if you watch a wide variety of films and recognize those that contain a high enjoyment factor then you will want to draw attention to such. Hence, the rating.

It’s true that sometimes we do want movies to tackle difficult issues or take us into other worlds, but other times there is nothing to beat an old-fashioned good-hearted picture like this.

Honey, Don’t! (2025) ** – Seen at the Cinema

Had I still been in the magazine business I would have welcomed this with open arms because it would have provided an ideal headline – “Honey, Don’t Go.”

I’m not sure what Ethan Coen (True Grit, 2010) thought he was making and even if it was a shaggy dog story as often were the tales he concocted with his brother this has turned out more like a dog’s breakfast. Which is a shame because it’s about time Margaret Qualley (The Substance, 2024) was elevated from indie product to mainstream. She’s certainly got a screen presence and if someone could only fit a movie around what she has to offer she’d be on her way.

Excepting some salty dialog, this comes up short on every front. The narrative is so thin it’s disappeared down every convenient rabbit hole, the characters are equally lacking (though my guess is they’re meant to be slices of cliché, that’s the game) and there’s a deliberate emphasis on keeping emotion to the bare minimum.

The two main characters, private eye Honey Donohue (Margaret Qualley) and cop M G Falcone (Aubrey Plaza), congratulate themselves on being so completely self-centered that all dalliances are strictly confined to one-nighters, such restrictions imposed before the other person gets all weepy and emotional. Honey and MG, both being lesbians, are able to get away with such notions. Imagine a male attempting to classify all females as just too emotional.

I say Honey is a private eye but it’s kind of hard for her to keep clients because they keep on being bumped off before she can take any action. And when she does, she doesn’t prove much cop. In fact, she’s actually that old film noir fallback – the dupe. And she only realizes she’s been played for a patsy when she sees – another old fallback – two cups on a table (it’s an old-fashioned house hence the teacups).

It’s a strange construct. The audience knows what’s going on but poor Honey is kept in the dark and at the climax it looks very much like she’s setting herself up to be the dupe again.

So what the audience knows that Honey doesn’t is that a woman who died in a car accident has had a distinctive ring stolen by a woman on a moped, Chere (Lera Abova), who in another old-time fallback can’t pass a pool without skinny dipping. The ring has a logo that ties in with that of the religious scam being run by uber hunk preacher Rev Drew Devlin (Chris Evans).who uses the church as a cover for some drug-running for Chere and to provide him a harem of submissive females.

A sub-plot that then becomes a main plot sees Honey putting in some time helping out her aunt’s wayward daughter Corinne (Talia Ryder) though you suspect she’s there just to let Honey beat the bejasus out of her niece’s abusive boyfriend.

There’s also an old creepy homeless fella hanging around that starts out as a red herring, looks as though it could dovetail into an emotional scene, but then shies well clear of that because, well heck, Honey doesn’t do emotion.

I’ve got a sneaky feeling that the director wasn’t trying to make a Coen Bros movie so much as a Tarantino one. There’s a helluva lot riding on the word “Macaroni” for example. And the application of lipstick. And there’s a helluva lot of nudges towards the hardcore – in the way of sex not music – a dishwashing scene and a bar sequence come to mind.

Sure, Honey snaps off a few one-liners but mostly you’re going to remember her sashaying along in a tight skirt and clackety high heels – which may well have the director’s intention for all I know.

This feels like a clumsier retread of Drive-Away Dolls (2024), a similar dive into lesbian-led crime, also starring Qualley, directed by Coen and co-written by Tricia Cooke, who performs the same service here.

More a collection of mismatched sequences with a myriad of oddball characters none distinctive enough to make you sit up than anything in the way of a coherent plot.

Logan’s Run (1976) ****

Shortly after this appeared the movie sci fi world imploded/exploded with the release of Star Wars (1977), followed by Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) and Alien (1979), which probably accounts for why this is such a throwback joy to watch and now very much a cult item. Takes in ageism, obsession with youth, death cult, the pleasure principle written in capital letters, some kind of primitive Tinder (where women place themselves on “the circuit”), Terminators, runaways, dystopia, escapees, eco-friendly food, mobile phones, computers in charge, lasers, plastic surgery, cannibalism, robots, an icy tomb, nuclear holocaust and the Lincoln Memorial.

There’s some shooting with futuristic weaponry but these handguns are virtually useless given how poor their accuracy – though that may be down to the incompetence of their users – and a couple of fist fights. And while the remainder of Earth’s population enjoys an idyllic life in a series of sealed domes, there is, as the posters point out, a catch. When you reach the age of 30 you are killed, although this occurs in the guise of rebirth in a ritual known as the Carrousel.

There’s no individual responsibility. Children are separated at birth from their parents and brought up in communal fashion. They eat, drink and have sex – there’s even a section set aside for sexual pleasure, full of naked writhing bodies. But generally, sex is on tap, any woman signing up to be on “the circuit” literally delivered to your door.

In this fashion Logan 5 (Michael York) encounters Jessica 6 (Jenny Agutter). He’s a terminator, chasing after runaways, she’s a virgin and much to his annoyance proves not an easy conquest, in fact sex doesn’t take place at all. However, she wears an ankh. And he’s just picked up an ankh from a runaway he just totaled. So he asks the computer for advice about the emblem. Turns out it’s worn by a rebel group – there are over 1,000 of them living in a “sanctuary” in the city – and Logan is delegated to pretend to be a runaway and with Jessica’s help infiltrate the radical organization. Unfortunately, his buddy Francis 7 (Richard Jordan) is suspicious and follows him.

After many adventures and escaping from Francis and the robot Box (voiced by Roscoe Lee Brown) who wants to freeze them, they emerge into a land that while it shows signs of devastation is not uninhabitable. They meet an old man (Peter Ustinov) and realize that it’s possible to live beyond the age of 30 and that somehow their apparent utopia is actually a dystopia. Furthermore, once outside the tomb, the internal clocks that dictate the date of their death automatically switch themselves off.

The prisoners of the dome are freed shortly afterwards.

There’s a kind of innocence about the sci fi world portrayed. Everyone dresses in primary colors, both sexes wear flimsy outfits all the easier to remove when pleasure appears imminent. Taking place three centuries on from the date of the movie’s release, the world is the kind that would be dreamed by illustrators imagining the future for an Exposition with everything streamlined.

There’s no time and really no effort to make a serious point about any of the issues raised and it’s more a smorgasbord of ideas – quite a few of which have come to fruition. The two main characters are likeable rather than charismatic and the onset of sudden romance appears narrative contrivance rather than “across a crowded room.” Logan’s dilemma, that he is switched from having four years to live to being at death’s door, gives him incentive to escape, not to complete his mission. And at times the dialog is cumbersome but equally often just flies – that cats have three names, for example.

I never saw this on initial release and didn’t hire it on VHS or DVD but gradually it acquired cult status and I was keen to see why.

It works, is the real reason for that. It exists outside the Star Wars/Close Encounters/Alien dynamic. I liked the jigsaw nature of the ideas and that they are thrown together and at you like you were on a rollercoaster, and you can pick and mix. The conversations with the computer sound very contemporary.

Michael York (Justine, 1969) and Jenny Agutter (East of Sudan, 1964) are pleasant company to spend time with. While Richard Jordan (Valdez Is Coming, 1971) is not much short of an eye-rolling villain, Peter Ustinov is remarkably good value in a role that could easily have been cliché. You might spot Farrah Fawcett-Major (newly-inducted as one of Charlie’s Angels, 1976-1980).

Directed by Michael Anderson (The Shoes of the Fisherman, 1968) and written by David Zelag Goodman (Straw Dogs, 1971) from the novel by William F. Nolan and George Clayton Johnson.

Any notion that it was intended to be groundbreaking was knocked on is head by Star Wars et al, and it’s for that very fact that it’s so watchable, as in, the direction sci fi could have gone had lightsabers and Death Stars, creatures phoning home and monsters erupting from stomachs, not entered the Hollywood universe.

Surprised how much I enjoyed it.

Hot Spur (1968) *

Blame the algorithm. Once I had to my great surprise found The Hunting Party (1971) on Amazon Prime the streamer decided that my next port of call should be another rape-filled western. There are only two things to recommend this – firstly, it makes The Hunting Party look like a masterpiece, and secondly it was filmed at the Spahn Ranch made famous by Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019) and as the place where the Charles Manson gang hung out before going on a murder spree.

One element of this picture will chime with the contemporary audience. Here, rape is used as a weapon, an unfortunate development in the last half century during a variety of vicious wars. As ever, woman is the innocent victim while man has convinced himself this is not only necessary but justified.

There’s maybe another echo if you want to be generous – of the sequence in Once Upon a Time in the West (1969) where Harmonica (Charles Bronson) is forced to witness the death of his older brother. Here Mexican stable hand Carlo (James Arena) witnesses the multiple rape and beating of his older sister who subsequently commits suicide. So he’s on a mission to track down the perpetrators.

Which leads him to the O’Hara ranch, where he is treated with racist and physical abuse. Ranch owner Jason (Joseph Mascolo) handles wife Susan (Virginia Gordon) badly, blaming her for not providing him with a son and heir. Their love-making is on the rough side and she seeks comfort among the cowhands, who prefer keeping their jobs to a roll in the hay with the boss’s wife.

Carlo kidnaps her. And at first you think she’s going to be used as bait to attract Jason, the last of the rapists of his sister, to a remote mountain shack. But, in fact, Carlo plans to eliminate pretty much the entire complement of ranch hands, hiding weapons at various ambush points on the trail and planting a bear trap in the ground.

But he’s got worse in mind. And apologetic though he is towards Susan, his plan is to make her suffer like his sister, which means tying her up, raping her and striping her back with a whip. The only good bit, if you can call it that, in this picture is that at the end Susan knifes to death her husband and escapes.

There’s one other bit that initially looks good and then tumbles into incomprehension. Jason has sent an advance scout up the mountain and told him to fire one shot if his wife is up there and two if she’s not. The cowboy doesn’t get the chance, Carlo killing him with two shots. So, registering this, Jason believes they’re on the wrong trail but then for no apparent reason continues up the same route.

From the amount of sexuality and nudity on show I guess, given the times when Hollywood was still only nibbling away at the edges of what was permissible, this was made for an entirely different audience than the standard fan of westerns. All women are present just to be used and abused.

Directed by one Lee Frost, whom imdb rates as “one of the most talented and versatile filmmakers in the annals of exploitation cinema.” Cowritten with producer Bob Cresse.

As it happens, those Amazon Prime algorithms did send me to a whole horde of westerns, some of which like Hombre (1967) and Support Your Local Sheriff (1969), I’ve already reviewed here. I’ll plunder this stack some more but take a more judicious view of what I watch.

Ugharama.

The Hunting Party (1971) **

Colossal flop and deservedly so. One of the most repellant pictures of a down’n’dirty decade.

It’s not just that rape takes center stage – two completed both supposedly by men in love with her and two attempts by more obvious scum – but that cattle baron’s wife Melissa (Candice Bergen) has to choose between murdering rapist husband Brandt (Gene Hackman) and murdering rapist outlaw Frank (Oliver Reed).

There was an unwelcome trend for consensualizing rape – Straw Dogs (1971) took the same approach – that a woman in a state of some terror would nevertheless warm to her molester. This is the worst kind of male fantasy fulfilment and that taking a women by force will nonetheless make her fall in love with you.

Just how keen Melissa is on her rapist is shown by her various attempts to knife him and escape. Which, of course, Frank dismisses in a version of that old trope, “you’re beautiful when you’re angry” in that he likes a spirited woman.

The otherwise cold-blooded Lee Marvin character in Prime Cut (1972) proved likeable because he had an honor code and didn’t take advantage of a vulnerable woman. It’s impossible to feel any sympathy for Frank especially as Melissa, a teacher, has been kidnapped not for ransom but for the sole purpose of teaching Frank to read. Presumably, being an outlaw who robs banks, he can already count. Maybe he needs help writing ransom notes.

Frank should have been taught to read in childhood, we discover in a twist at the end, because his father could read, which suggests he had a different upbringing to the rest of his gang, but, on account of being determined to annoy his old man, he refused to learn. So although he has a yearning to educate himself he’s not educated enough to work out that learning and kidnapping and rape don’t exactly go hand-in-hand.

The only way any attempt at romance is going to work, even theoretically, is if what awaits Melissa when rescued is worse. Husband Brandt is a venal individual. The movie opens with him raping his wife. Compared to his treatment of sex workers, she gets off lightly. And he balks at paying any supposed ransom on the grounds that his wife will most likely have been raped and return with an unwanted bastard son and he’s not going to pay $50,000 for that privilege. Ever since A Fistful of Dollars western heroes have been every amoral shade of grey but Brandt must be the darkest shade ever.

Plus he’s just taken delivery of rifles with telescopic sights that have a firing range of about half a mile so he’s up for a little sport, and with four other rich buddies sets out to hunt humans. The rifle is the equivalent to the Gatling Gun in The Wild Bunch (1969), a weapon of awesome power, and every time it hits home the camera focuses on the gory outcome. The 26 men in the outlaw bunch are soon whittled down.

This might have worked if the narrative had followed a different arc. Had Frank turned out to be Melissa’s protector rather than the most successful of her molesters. If the whole gang had show signs of seeking something maternal rather than just sexual in a woman or were all queuing up for a bit of education. And Frank’s treatment of her from the outset had been protective and she had shared with him her fear of her husband.

The best you can say about Frank is he’s a gentler kind of rapist. But he’s still a rapist and taking advantage when Melissa is at her most terrified, soaking wet from falling into a river while trying to escape. If he had continued just trying to soothe her and comfort her that might have taken the tale in a more acceptable direction, but, no, he decides a bit of rape is in order.

Frank’s too dumb to see that his men are going to turn against him if he doesn’t share out his captive and once he’s aware exactly who she is he should at least, in the eyes of the men, either demand a ransom or hand her back.

Although the long-range rifles tilt the odds heavily in favor of the pursuers, one of them is killed, and two, once they have decimated the outlaws, decide the hunt has gone far enough. Another, later on, takes the same view. But Brandt, determined on revenge, pursues the “lovebirds” into the desert where he kills both.

This was intended to launch British actor Oliver Reed (Hannibal Brooks, 1969) into the Hollywood mainstream but he’s miscast. Candice Bergen (Soldier Blue, 1970) can do little with a role that makes no coherent sense – unlike Michele Carey in The Animals (1971) she shows no sign of accepting an unwelcome protector just to survive. Had it not been for The French Connection (1971) and, taken in conjunction with Prime Cut (1972), Gene Hackman’s career might have spun off into playing a succession of villains.

One other notable turns up on the credits. This is produced by Lou Morheim who originally owned the remake rights to Seven Samurai (1954) and failed to finesse that into a significant credit on The Magnificent Seven (1960).

Discounting To Trap a Spy (1964), a movie combining two episodes of The Man from U.N.C.L.E series, this marked the debut of director Don Medford. Lou Morheim (The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, 1953), Gilbert Ralston (Willard, 1971) and Bill Norton (The Scalphunters, 1968). contributed to the screenplay.

The bizarre premise set a low bar. Every shade of ugh.

Prime Cut (1972) ****

Unusually nuanced thriller. Unusually lean, too, barely passing the 90-minute mark. There’s a Hitchcockian appreciation of the danger lurking in wide open spaces. And the background is the Middle America of annual fairs, marching bands, pie-eating competitions, rural pride in farming and marksmanship.

But there’s an undercurrent that will strike a contemporary audience. The contempt of big business for its customers. The sex trafficking, too, will sound an all-too-common note especially as the young women come from an orphanage set in the heart of homespun America in what appears to be a streamlined service.

*In the actual screen credits, Hackman was not above the title.*

We shouldn’t at all take to hitman Nick (Lee Marvin) except that he’s got a code of honor and sparing with words. He’s been sent from Chicago to Kansas to sort out with what would later be termed “extreme prejudice” Mafia boss and meat-packer Mary Ann (Gene Hackman) who’s been skimming off the top. As back-up Nick is handed a trio of young gunslingers anxious to prove themselves while his faithful chauffeur owes Nick his life.

Mary Ann doesn’t just have a factory, he has a fort, a posse of shotgun-wielding henchman standing guard. So Nick has to plunge right in and confront the miscreant. As well as dealing with animal flesh, Mary Ann has a side hustle in sex trafficking, displaying naked women in the same straw-covered pens as his beef.

Responding to a whispered “help me” by Poppy (Sissy Spacek) Nick buys her freedom, but Mary Ann isn’t for knuckling down to the high-ups in Chicago and since he’s already despatched a handful of other hoods sent on a similar mission as Nick he’s intent on turning the tables.

The action, when it comes, is remarkably low-key and all the more effective for it. Swap a crop duster for a combine harvester and the head-high prairie corn for the usual city back streets and you realize someone has dreamed up a quite original twist on the standard thriller. No need for a car chase here to elevate tension, it’s already a quite efficient slow burn.

*By the time this came out Hackman had won an Oscar for “The French Connection” (1971), Marvin already in that exalted league thanks to “Cat Ballou” (1965)*

This could be an ode to machinery. The entire credit sequence is devoted to the way machines chew up cow flesh and turn it into strings of sausages and the like. The combine harvester chews up and spits out an entire automobile, grinding the metal through its maw. And then there’s the machinery of business, the ability, at whatever cost, to give the public what it wants, in whatever kind of flesh takes its fancy.

You’ll remember the combine harvester sequence and the shootout in the cornfields, but you will come away with much more than that. Remember I mentioned nuance. Sure Mary Ann is an arrogant gangster and you’d think with hardly an ounce of humanity, but that’s until you witness his relationship with his simple-minded brother Weenie (Gregory Walcott). That could as easily have fallen into the trap of cliché sentimentality. Instead, there’s roughhouse play between the pair and it’s all the more touching for being realistic.

There’s a tiny scene where one of the young hoods asks Nick to meet his mother, in the way of a young employee wanting to show off that he was working for a top man. And Nick also goes out of his way to praise what’s on offer at the fair from a couple of women anxious for praise.

One of the tests of a good actor is what they do when they enter an unfamiliar room. Your instinct and mine, like ordinary people, would be to look around not just lock eyes on the person you’ve come to meet. So when Poppy wakes up in a luxurious hotel room she doesn’t go into all that eye-rubbing nonsense, but instead marvels at her surroundings. And although she hangs on his every word – and his arm – Nick isn’t in the seduction business, instead spoiling the young woman with expensive clothes.

There are several other scenes elevated just by touches. The credit sequence ends with a shoe appearing among the meat being processed – Mary Ann’s victims don’t sleep with the fishes but with the sausages. Poppy recalls a childhood spent in a rural wonderland, squirrels, rabbits, the splendors of nature, and reveals a lesbian relationship with another orphan Violet that is the most innocent description of love and sexual exploration you’ll ever hear.

Violet is the victim of multiple rapists. Weenie has passed her onto a bunch of down-and-outs for the price of a nickel. When Nick unclenches her clenched fist you’ll be horrified to see how many nickels tumble out.

Lee Marvin (Point Blank, 1967) is at his laconic best and Sissy Spacek (Carrie, 1976) makes a notable debut but Gene Hackman (Downhill Racer, 1969) overplays his hand.

Director Michael Ritchie (Downhill Racer) was on a roll, following this with The Candidate (1972), Smile (1975), The Bad News Bears (1976) and Semi-Tough (1977) before the execrable The Island (1980) badly damaged his career.

Written by Robert Dillon (The French Connection II, 1975).

Well worth a look.