nudity – Page 4 – The Magnificent 60s

Blackeyes (1989) *****

Absolutely mesmeric. Would be catnip for contemporary audiences with its shifting time frames, juggling perspectives, narrative sleight-of-hand, and heavily feminist-oriented outlook with its slating of misogyny. Ripe for a remake and with the adventurous directors around these days they should be vying for the opportunity. But I should warn you, steer clear of the version that showed on Amazon Prime which cut the four-part television series in half.

British screenwriter Dennis Potter was something of a national institution before this appeared, the BBC ponying up vast sums (in television terms) for his experimental programs that included the likes of Pennies from Heaven (1978) – remade as a movie three years later with Steve Martin – and The Singing Detective (1986) (remade seventeen years later with Robert Downey Jr) and his blend of pastiche and males struggling with raw emotion had made him not just a household name but accorded him worldwide acclaim.

However, just as Peeping Tom (1960) put the kibosh on the career of Michael Powell, Blackeyes proved a major critical reversal and after the mauling it received and outraged headlines in the national media Potter somewhat lost his mojo and automatic critical favor although Lipstick On Your Collar (1993) helped a certain Ewan McGregor to make his mark.

In part, Blackeyes is way ahead of its time in the use of the stylistic devices mentioned above which when incorporated into the works of, for example, David Lynch or Christopher Nolan, were hailed as groundbreaking.

So this is a three-hour-plus show setting precedents that not only break all the rules of narrative but blows them sky-high and has so many layers you can hardly keep up and that narrative spinning continues to the very end. You could almost entitle it “Whose Story Is It, Anyway?”

Elderly author Maurice (Michael Gough) has fashioned the experiences of his model niece Jessica (Carol Royle) into a bestselling literary novel. Leading character Blackeyes (Gina Bellman) is taken advantage of so often by men that she commits suicide, wading out dressed in sexy night attire into a lake. Although Maurice makes a fine specimen suited-and-booted and talking to admiring audiences at book fairs, in reality he’s a sodden old drunk living in a threadbare apartment with a teddy bear. But he’s intellectually adroit as shown with his verbal duels with a smug journalist who spouts artistic jargon.

Jessica is so annoyed that she has not been acknowledged as the source of her uncle’s novel – he claims it is a work of imagination – that she begins to write her own fictional version of her life story, calling into question some of the events in her uncle’s account. So that’s two perspectives already. Stand by for a third, that turns the entire story on its head.

It appears Blackeyes (Gina Bellman) has not committed suicide. Detective Blake (John Shrapnel) is convinced she has been murdered, especially after he finds a list of names stuck in her vagina (yes, despite Blake gamely searching for every euphemism under the sun, the actual word, to add to the shock and horror of an audience and especially critics reeling from the sex and nudity, was used on the BBC) and later finds her diary which provides another version of events.

He’s an old-school detective, and while not beating anyone up, not above handing out a good thump in the ribs to anyone giving him lip. So while following Maurice and his niece, we are also finding out more about Blackeyes via the cop’s investigations and how she was taken advantage of in the advertising profession and world of photographic modeling. She is even the one who gets the blame when someone tries to rape her.

Her life could be viewed in two ways, as a sexually independent woman or as a victim of MeToo.

To counteract what is presented as a sordid existence there comes into her life a gentler soul, advertising copywriter Jeff (Nigel Planer) and he’s writing and rewriting versions of a more old-fashioned romance where they enjoy a meet-cute (of sorts) and get talking and move onto romantic walks along the seaside. But Jeff’s too diffident a fellow to appeal to Blackeyes and he doesn’t even get to first base. But it also turns out that he’s been watching Jessica through binoculars (they live across the street from each other) and there’s a marvelous moment when he realizes that Blackeyes occupies the same apartment as Jessica and that he could at that very moment be watching himself.

All the way through there’s been a male voice-over, measured, commenting on the action, advising on twists in the story, adding a different perspective to characters, offering many polished bon mots, and it takes you quite a while to realize that this is an entirely new voice, and doesn’t belong to either Maurice or Jeff. In the ordinary run of things, this character would turn out to be the Hercule Poirot of the piece, putting the jigsaw together, explaining all.

In fact, he’s another element of the jigsaw. He’s not just the narrator. Everyone we’ve seen are characters in his fiction. But they don’t always obey the rules and at the very end Blackeyes escapes.

So just a stunning piece of television. Although Michael Gough (Batman Returns, 1992) received the bulk of what little plaudits there were, the series is carried by New Zealand actress Gina Bellman (Leverage, 2008-2012, and Leverage: Redemption, 2021-2023) who is simply superb. She rises above what could easily have been a cliché – and in some respects was written as a cliché version of the “dumb blonde” at male beck and call. Her comic timing for a start turns many scenes on their heads. But what’s often been overlooked is her transitional skill. She moves from male fantasy figure to believable human being and from there to rebel. And that takes some doing.

Gina Bellman hates talking about this series, my guess on account of the nudity and the backlash that created for a young actress, but she should be proud of her achievement. This is more than solid stuff.

Writer Dennis Potter also directed and his camera is always prowling around the edges.

The word auteur was over-used but this genuinely fits that category.

A masterpiece.

The Gauntlet (1977) ****

Clint Eastwood the dumb schmuck. Never thought I’d be writing that. But our hero has parked his Dirty Harry persona and channelled much of his inner James Stewart or Tom Hanks, the upright fella who may be a bit of a jerk but is a decent guy underneath.

Our patsy, Phoenix, Arizona, detective Ben Shockley (Clint Eastwood), unshaven drunken bum, is dumb enough to imagine he’s been selected for a special mission because he’s the kind of cop who gets the job done, rather than because he’s the one most likely to fail. He’s sent off to Las Vegas to collect a witness for a trial. No big deal. Two-bit witness, two-bit trial. As soon becomes par for the course, people are apt to make fun of him, in this case a Las Vegas cop turning him away for asking for a guy by the name of Gus Mally. Guffaws all round till the cop takes pity on Shockley and informs him the witness is a woman (Sondra Locke), a feisty sex worker, who spends pretty much the whole of the movie making fun of him and every other sonova.

Shockley’s kinda disturbed to see that someone has made a book on Mally reaching Phoenix, the opening odds of 50-1 soon lengthening to 100-1. But he’s a trusting sort of fella (translated as dumb schmuck) so he thinks it’s a joke but everywhere he goes he gets ambushed and it takes a helluva long time – and only with Gus’s constant nudging – to realize that every time he phones back his position to his boss Commissioner Blakelock (William Prince) there’s awful consequence.

The firepower at everyone’s disposal – both Mob hoods and the cops – is so fearful that cars and houses are destroyed in a ferocious hail of bullets. The only time Shockley comes into his own, cop-style, is when he hustles some Hell’s Angels down and steals a motorbike. But guess what, the bad guys are still not just one step ahead, but in a different class altogether when it comes to pursuit, calling upon a helicopter armed with a sharpshooter.

Shockley even quails when another cop, co-opted into giving them a ride, starts making creepy sexual remarks to Gus, not realizing she can more than take care of herself as if she’s been dealing with hecklers all her life. Gus is quite a character. When she’s not screaming her head off to gain sympathy from Shockley, she’s trying to seduce him, or taking the piss out of him or just plain mocking his ineptitude and trusting personality.

She’s got better weapons at her disposal than he’ll ever have, a tongue that could strip paint, and a body she’s not frightened to use to get herself out of a sticky situation. Or in one particular instance, to save Shockley’s hide. It’s only after this that Shockley gives her any respect. And they come to more than a mutual understanding, as she begins to show genuine feelings for her escort, and we end up with the kind of relationship that’s always going to be raggedy around the edges because, as you’ve guessed, he’s one for keeping his emotions in check and makes do with a catchphrase, “Nag, nag, nag.”

Just what her purpose is in said trial you couldn’t care less about, she’s just a Maguffin to bring opposites together, soften her hard edges and toughen up his unsuspicious nature. There’s a heck of climax as they ride into town in an armor-plated bus and straight into the same kind of fusillade as they previously endured until between them they manage to nail the corrupt bad guys.

This is a hell of a ride, great concept, terrific believable characters, she’s sharp and sassy, and he’s toned down the arrogance. There’s genuine charisma between Clint Eastwood (Coogan’s Bluff, 1968) and Sondra Locke (The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter, 1968), helped by the fact they were already in an adulterous relationship, and in between falling into difficult situations it’s a blast watching them getting out of them.

Despite the virtual non-stop action, it’s a change of pace for Eastwood, a shift away from the screen persona on which his commercial attraction was built, and in some senses, even counting in the violence, it owes more to the dynamics of the screwball comedy than anything else, especially when the more practical woman is called upon to save the out-of-his-depth man. Written by Michael Butler and Dennis Shryack (they teamed up again for Pale Rider, 1985).

Ably directed by Eastwood, a belter.

The Nightcomers (1972) ****

Originally dismissed as meretricious trash, contemporary re-evaluation reveals it as uncommonly prophetic. You can start with the feral children, abandoned by their guardian, lack of parenting allowing space for pernicious ideas to foment. Or with the pornography correlative, the young, posited as unruly voyeurs, conditioned by the internet into believing that violent sex is the norm. Or with the influencer seeding notions that demolish the accepted Establishment views. Or impressionable children creating a distorted world view based on their interpretation of adult behavior.

Audiences and critics back in the day were taken in by the most cunning Maguffin of all, that this was some kind of more realistic Downton Abbey/Upstairs, Downstairs power struggle played out among the servants against the background of a sadistic/masochistic affair. Lives can be ruined on a whim. A letter to the absent landlord can destroy a career. Remember from Downton Abbey the importance in the servant hierarchy of the role of the owner’s valet. To be summarily demoted from that lofty position to gardener, forced to tug your forelock in gratitude at not being cast out, and you can see where power lies.

Instead, consider this a slow-burn, deliberately understated drama where, against the style of the usual horror picture, the score (by Jerry Fielding) offers no clues, a virtually anonymous piece to lull you into thinking this is a pastoral setting where genuine evil, as opposed to acts of mean inconsideration, can flourish.

Watching it entirely from the perspective of the children, ignoring the appeal of the top-billed Marlon Brando engaging in licentious and disturbing sex with the governess Miss Jessel (Stephanie Beacham) he has groomed, and a completely different movie emerges. It reveals more than any other study of children unexpectedly grown violent how vulnerable young minds are to suggestion and that in the absence of adult intervention how easy it is for them to devise a fantasy whose fabric is drawn from their misinterpretation of the real world.

My guess is that back in the day the attempts by teenage Miles (Christopher Ellis) and younger sister Flora (Verna Harvey) to copy the bondage scenes and violent sex witnessed by the voyeuristic boy would have had the audience in stitches rather than reeling in shock. There would have been very little in the audience experience beyond teenage gangs to suggest that young children could be guilty of such depravity – this is long before the murder of Jamie Bulger in England or the mass shootings by teenagers in America. So laughter would be the natural response.

But times are different now. We know that children existing outwith genuine adult supervision are prone to suggestion and acting on impulse. Miles and Flora have been taught by gardener Quint (Marlon Brando) to ignore traditional views of Heaven and Hell, to imagine that torture of small creatures is acceptable, and that love is hate, and that only in death can true lovers be united. Miles has been taught to shoot with a bow-and-arrow by Quint and there’s more than a touch of irony in how quickly the young fellow masters this skill that leads to a grisly climax.

While the adults largely ignore the children, the children are not ignoring the adults. They are in thrall to what they see and hear and make up their own minds about how to put the world to rights. Had the children been adults driven by loneliness and abandonment to such acts, they would viewed simply as evil monsters. But here they are demonstrably not evil, just misguided, and by the very people who should be guiding them. Quint takes inherent joy in corrupting the young, it’s the simplest type of revenge he can enact against his master, filling the heads of the next generation of overseers with information that runs counter to the accepted.

The British censor left largely untouched the rape scenes in The Straw Dogs and A Clockwork Orange out the same year. He was much tougher on this, excising the bondage sequences, as if such prurience would diminish the impact. Certainly, that did the trick at the box office for audiences, denied shock content, ignored it.

If all this isn’t enough to trigger reconsideration of the picture, then the grooming of the governess (Stephanie Beacham), her submission to male control, will strike a contemporary chord. Despite the respectability of her position, she is revealed as eminently vulnerable, born out of wedlock, witnessing how tough life was at home without a protective male figure, not just prone to accepting Quint’s brutality but conditioned herself to wait in a more romantic setting for the gentler lover of her imagination who never arrives. While the housekeeper (Thora Hird) comes over as any powerless functionary exerting what little power she has.

Marlon Brando (The Chase, 1966) is especially good and the scene where he blackens his teeth to amuse the children might have been a dress rehearsal for the sequence in The Godfather where, unintentionally, he frightens the child. Except for Dracula A.D. 1972 (1972) in Italian crime tale Mafia Junction (1973), rising star Stephanie Beacham’s star failed to significantly rise, and she never again enjoyed such an important, and difficult, screen role, especially in those scenes where she attempts to exert control.

Written by Michael Hastings (The Adventurers, 1970).

It might be a contradiction in terms to suggest that much-maligned British director Michael Winner (Hannibal Brooks, 1969) ever came close to producing what you might term a masterpiece, but within his own portfolio this is surely the chief contender.

You can catch in on Talking Pictures for free.

Well worth a look.

Behind the Scenes: Selling “Zulu” (1964) – The Pressbook

“Dwarfing the Mightiest! Towering over the Greatest!” wasn’t just the movie’s tagline. It could have easily been used to describe the Pressbook. This folded out into a colossal 40 inches wide by 20 inches high, one of the biggest pressbooks ever produced.

The marketing team produced an impressive list of ideas. Cinema managers were urged to get war correspondents and war heroes involved and to blow up photos of the Victoria Cross. Hanging on the name of the star was a “Baker’s Dozen” competition, inviting people to list the thirteen movies featuring Stanley Baker. Quite how they thought a promotion involving banks would go down is anybody’s guess. Especially as this was the notion: “Zulus are allowed as many wives as they want, provided they can afford to pay for them. The price ranges between six and twenty head of cattle per wife. For an interesting tie-in, get local banks to display money and other barter materials. Give them a montage of still from the picture to display.” Culturally tone-deaf doesn’t cut it.

To attract children there was a coloring-in competition and a school study guide. The movie was available in 70mm Super Technirama so there was a special advertisement linked in to that for cinema going down that route.

Other taglines included: “The supreme spectacle that had to come thundering out of the most thrilling continent!” and “These are the days and nights of fury and honor and courage and cowardice that an entire century of empire-making and film-making can never surpass!”

And in case hyperbole wasn’t enough, one of the ads spelled out the exciting details. “The Massacre of Isandlwana! The Mating Song of the Zulu Maidens! The Incredible Siege of Ishiwane! Night of the 40,000 Spears! Days That Saved a Continent! Mass Wedding of 2,000 Warriors and 2,000 Virgins! Amid the Battle’s Heat…the Flash of Passion!”

There was a seven-foot high standee and a three-foot 3D illuminated standee.

To help sell the picture to local journalists, little articles were planted that could hook an editor’s interest. For example, when director Cy Endfield glimpsed some soldiers firing their rifles left-handed, he stopped filming, because British soldiers were required to shoot right-handed. The film was shot in the shadows of the Darkensberg Mountains. The river which flowed past Rorke’s Drift was slower than it had been at the time of the battle so the course was altered and dammed to increase the flow. Out of sight of the cameras but essential to filming were the modern villages constructed to house cast and crew, stores, catering and compounds for horses and oxen.

The cast were on set at 6.30am for make-up. The Zulus spent more time in make-up than the British soldiers, as the costume department ensured every aspect of their outfits was historically correct. A total of 100lb of small colored beads was crafted by made by local women for the maidens to wear. A primitive method of making necklaces, strung together with animal sinew and rolled by hand, was employed incorporating a further 100lb of wild syringa seeds which were dyed.

The warrior loincloths of softened animal skins were made the traditional way using stones aqnd animal fat. Shields were also made from animal skin. The teeth of tigers and baboons formed their necklaces. They kept snuff in a small gourd worn round the waist. The purpose of a porcupine quill tucked into their hair was to extract thorns after a long march.

Three cameras were utilized to shoot the blaze that burned down the hospital. “Undress rehearsal” was the name given to the marriage ritual scenes of bare-breasted women.

Though Michael Caine was being touted for stardom, as far as the Pressbook was concerned he was relegated to section below Jack Hawkins, James Booth and Ulla Jacobsen who had smaller parts. The movie was a notable change for Jack Hawkins, who saw action in World War Two. Instead of playing his usual hero, he was a weakling and drunk. It was the second English-language film for Swede Jacobsen after Love Is a Ball / All This and Money Too (1963).

Zulu (1964) *****

The technical excellence is substantially under-rated. Not just the aural qualities – the approaching enemy sounding like a train – and the reverse camera and uplifted faces registering awe that later became synonymous with Steven Spielberg, but the greatest use of the tracking camera in the history of the cinema. So what could otherwise be a rather static movie given it revolves around a siege is provided with almost continuous fluidity.

It’s perhaps worth pointing out, in relation to accusations of jingoism, that the British had relatively few battles to celebrate – Agincourt in the Middle Ages, Waterloo in 1815, El Alamein in 1942. But the Crimean War, in which Britain was on the winning side, was remembered for the disastrous Charge of the Light Brigade. Dunkirk in 1940 was a defeat and in cinematic terms D-Day was seen as heavily favoring of the Americans. Although there had been a corps of British World War Two pictures, these generally focused on individual missions (The Dam Busters, 1955) or characters (Reach for the Sky, 1956). And in fact the defense of Rorke’s Drift was preceded by a resounding defeat at the hands of the Zulus at Isandlwana.

Tactically, too, the Zulus are smarter. Their leader is only too happy to sacrifice dozens of his troops in order to gauge the British firepower, their snipers probe for weaknesses in the British defences, their troops feint to attract fire and waste bullets. The Zulus are too clever to attack where the British want.

This is not even your normal British army. Rorke’s Drift is a supply station and hospital. Its upper class commander Lt Bromhead (Michael Chard) idles his time away going big game hunting. The more down-to-earth Lt Chard (Stanley Baker) is there in his capacity as an engineer, erecting a pontoon bridge over the river. Neither has been in battle.

It’s surprisingly realistic in its depiction of the common soldier as having other interests beyond fighting. Private Owen (Ivor Emmanuel) is more concerned about the company choir, Byrne (Kerry Jordan) more focused on his cooking than bearing arms, and farmer Private Thomas (Neil McCarthy) spends his time cuddling a calf. Hook (James Booth) is a troublemaker and slacker and surgeon Reynolds (Patrick Magee) inclined to mouth off to his superior officers. The Rev Witt (Jack Hawkins) turns out to be a drunken hypocrite. His pious daughter (Ulla Jacobsen) is shocked when the men try to steal a kiss

Beyond a fleeting glimpse of victorious forces at Isandlwana, the Zulus are introduced in a sequence of harmony, a tribal ritual preceding a marriage ceremony, lusty singing and dancing scarcely setting up what is to come. It’s more like the by-now traditional section where the main characters in a movie set in an exotic land are introduced to aspects of local culture. Various characters attest to their military exploits.

But after that, tension cleverly builds. Witt raises the alarm, a bunch of cavalry irregulars refuse to stay and fight, the sound of the pounding “train” of the approaching army (an idea imitated for the oncoming unseen German tanks in Battle of the Bulge, 1965) and then the awesome shot of the thousands of Zulus adorning a hilltop make it unlikely the garrison can survive, especially given the inexperience of Chard and Bromhead, the latter of the civil “old boy” old school, and their inherent rivalry. Nor are the commanders typical. Chard may be gruff but he’s not arrogant and the soft-spoken Bromhead is the antithesis of every British officer you’ve ever seen on screen.

As the camera continues its insistent prowl, many sequences stand out – the battle of the battle hymns (“Men of Harlech” from the Brits); the bandage unravelling from the leg of wounded Swiss; the blackened wisps of canvas on the burning wagons at Isandlwana; the trembling voice of Color Sgt Bourne (Nigel Green) in the post-battle roll call; “he’s a dead paperhanger now”; the frantic bayonets digging holes in the walls of the hospital to escape; the final “salute” by the defeated Zulus; the torrential firepower the defenders inflict when three units fire in turn.

There’s a scene you’ll remember from The Godfather (1972) when Michael Corleone and the baker’s son stand guard outside the hospital and the baker’s hand shakes when he tries to light a cigarette whereas Michael notes that his own is perfectly steady. That has its precedent here. Chard’s hand shakes loading bullets into his pistol but later, battle-hardened, it does not.

There’s no glory in war as the surgeon constantly reminds the leaders and Bromhead, expecting to exult in triumph, instead feels “sick and ashamed.”

Terrific performances all round, mighty score by John Barry, written by director Cy Endfield (Sands of the Kalahari, 1965) and Scottish historian John Prebble (Culloden, 1964). The high point of Endfield’s career. Despite his character’s prominence Michael Caine was low down the billing, and despite the movie’s success stardom did not immediately beckon and he had to wait until The Ipcress File (1965) and Alfie (1966) for that.

I hadn’t see this in a long while and expected to come at it in more picky fashion. Instead, I thought it was just terrific.

The Hunger (1983) ****

With this weekend’s Sinners claiming to reinvent the vampire picture, I thought it time to look back at a movie that genuinely did reimagine the vampire genre, though hardly acclaimed at the time.

Elegant, atmospheric, subtle. Never thought I’d be stringing those words together to describe an offering from uber-director Tony Scott (Top Gun, 1986). Add in “slow” and this is a director reinvented. Did I mention “short?” This clocks in just over the hour-and-a-half mark. So what might have driven an audience to distraction if stretched out over a languorous two hours twenty minutes, say, or longer, as would be par for the course in these more self-indulgent times, is not an issue.

If this has become a cult, it’ll be for all the wrong reasons. A vampire picture that doesn’t play by the rules, a lesbian vampire movie that steers clear of Hammer sexploitation, a lesbian movie featuring two top marquee names, or just any picture that features David Bowie.

There’s an inherent sadness to the whole exercise, an elegiac feel comparable to the likes of The Wild Bunch (1969). Miriam Blaylock (Catherine Deneuve) and husband John (David Bowie) are so stylish and have no truck with growing those oh-so-out-dated fangs that you are willing them to succeed especially as there’s no sign of a crucifix-wielding vampire hunter.

You might wonder why the cops haven’t been alerted to a spate of killings, throats cut in serial killer modus operandi fashion, but really there’s so much else going on – emotional, not action, you understand – that its absence isn’t worth commenting upon.

So first up is betrayal – and from a serial betrayer at that – as John realizes that while he has been promised eternal life by Miriam, who’s somewhere in the region of two millennia old, she can’t guarantee eternal beauty. So when he starts to suffer from ageing, cracks begin to show in their relationship. And whether he’s aware of this or not, she’s already lining up a replacement, the classical music student Alice (Beth Ehlers) they both tutor. And when John knocks her out of the equation, his pursuit of eternal youth or at least a reversal of the ageing process leads Miriam to a spare, scientist Sarah (Susan Sarandon).

The connection between the two women is initially so subtle that Sarah picks up the telephone imagining Miriam on the other end when the phone hasn’t even rung. Sarah is perturbed/excited to discover she has gay tendencies, especially when she’s already in a strong heterosexual relationship. And she’s not that keen, either, on discovering that she has been co-opted into the vampire fraternity.

Most of this has moved along in almost dreamy style so, that come the end, a sudden burst of twists takes you by surprise. You’ll find echoes to the priestess in Game of Thrones when the aged John seeks to kiss his lover. And John’s discovery at the end that’s he’s part of an undead harem carries over to the climax of Christopher Nolan’s The Prestige (2006).

Anyone looking for cheap kicks from the lesbian sex scene is going be disappointed, this is sex arthouse-style with wafting curtains getting in the way, and pleasure delivered in subtle rather than orgiastic fashion.

Tinged with a sense of loss, and pervaded by sadness, this is a complete outlier in the Tony Scott portfolio, especially the pace which is completely at odds with the fast-editing style for which he is best known. At the same time, tension remains high, in part because you don’t really know what Miriam is up to, and because these are new ground rules by which the vampires play, not least in their enjoyment of style and fashion, the kind of garb favored by the likes of Christopher Lee only employed as pretense and not by one of the main players.

Catherine Deneuve (Mayerling, 1968) was a Hollywood irregular, not seen there in six years since March or Die (1977), and it’s surprising, never mind her choice of couture, what sophistication a French accent brings to a vampire movie. Susan Sarandon was an ideal fit for the European feel of the picture, having cut her teeth with Louis Malle on Pretty Baby (1978) and Atlantic City (1981). David Bowie spends most of the movie under a sheet of make-up so you need to get in quick for your Bowie fix, and for that short period he is quintessential Bowie.

Written by debutant James Costigan and Michael Thomas (Ladyhawke, 1985) from the Whitley Streiber bestseller.

But this is Tony Scott’s (Enemy of the State, 1998) triumph, work that you’ve never seen before and never seen since, making you wonder why he never continued in this vein.

The Damned / Gotterdammerung / Twilight of the Gods (1969) **

Ponderous, gratuitous, offensive. Let’s start with the pedophile, spoiled grandson Martin (Helmut Berger) of industrialist patriarch Joachim (Albrecht Schonhals). We already guess he has this kind of predilection for young girls as that’s suggested during a game of hide-and-seek at the family mansion and by a scream in the night that is ignored. He keeps a mistress Olga (Florinda Balkan) and is drawn to the young girl in the apartment next door, bringing her the kind of expensive present that her impoverished mother believes she must have stolen. So we know what he’s all about. It’s discreetly enough stated without the inclusion of a scene which I doubt would pass the censor these days and should the young actress be still alive in these MeToo times might be considering legal action for being taken advantage of.

Although the storyline is similar to the director’s earlier The Leopard (1963) of the powerful – there a wealthy landowner, here an arms manufacturer – trying to hold onto their status in times of change (then the invasion of Sicily by forces wanting to unite Italy, now the rise to eminence of Hitler), there’s little of the cinematic flair of the latter. Long scenes are played out at dinner tables or in bedrooms. And most of that is machination, someone or other wanting to take over the family firm or be the power behind the throne.

You need some knowledge of German history to understand the significance of some events. Hitler, then the German Chancellor, burned down the Reichstag (the German Parliament) in 1933 in a ruthless bid for power. Hitler employed two factions, the predominantly working class brownshirts (the SA) and the mainly middle class blackshirts (the SS), the former a paramilitary organization committed to actions against Jews and backing his early bid for power. In 1934, in the Night of the Long Knives, the SS obliterated the SA.

The first section of the picture straddles these two events with a Succession-style drama. In reaction to the burning of the Reichstag, Joachim replaces Herbert (Umberto Orsini), his top executive and outspoken anti-Nazi, with boorish nephew Konstantin (Reinhard Koldehoff) who is a high-ranking member of the SA.

This doesn’t sit well with Friedrich (Dirk Bogarde), who expected preference. Urged on by lover Sophie (Ingrid Thulin), Joachim’s widowed daughter-in-law, and Aschenbach (Helmut Griem), Joachim’s nephew and an ambitious high-ranking SS official, Friedrich kills Joachim but pins the blame on Herbert who has to flee.

Konstantin is thwarted because although technically in charge it’s now Martin who owns the business and nudged by Sophie gives Friedrich the top management role. So Konstantin resorts to blackmail, having uncovered the pedophile. In steps Sophie who uses Aschenbach to thwart him again. Though there’s not much need because Konstantin is eliminated as one of the SA members executed in 1934 at some kind of gathering where the attendees all appear to have homosexual tendencies.

Aschenbach and Martin nurse grievances. Aschenbach feels Friedrich isn’t ostentatious enough in support of Hitler and Martin is furious that Sophie manipulated his difficulties with Konstantin to Friedrich’s benefit. So the SS man and the dissolute conspire. In the way of this kind of heightened melodrama it’s revealed that Friedrich killed Joachim. That doesn’t send Friedrich to trial, instead wins him a get-out-of-jail-free card by turning into a radical Nazi.

Martin, meanwhile, is also a member of the SS. He rapes Sophie, Friedrich loses his way and in one of those moments Francis Ford Coppola would appreciate Martin kills them on their marriage day.

There are a couple of oddities. It’s hard to believe a young girl – we’re talking a 7-8-year-old – would actually manage the mechanics of hanging herself. And when Friedrich is drawn into joining the slaughter of the SA members, there is over-emphasis on his perceived sensitivity when previously he had cold-bloodedly despatched Joachim.

So glorified soap opera with too much virtue signalling for its own good. Excepting Herbert and wife Elizabeth (Charlotte Rampling) and another grandson, who play minor roles, there’s not a single character to care for.

Despite the unusual backdrop, there’s nothing particularly unusual about the succession/inheritance scenario. The tough self-made millionaire or latest head of a wealthy family seeks to maintain power and guard against diminishing its status and lineage by ensuring the correct successor is groomed and that capital is not dissipated through unsuitable marriage or indulging weaker offspring. Thomas Mann, who fled the Nazis in the 1930s, covered this ground more successfully in his debut novel Buddenbrooks, although admittedly with less decadence.

Setting The Damned against the rise of the Nazis is an attempt to give it more artistic status than it merits because it’s really not much more than a standard study of ambition and ruthlessness.

Night after Night after Night (1969) ***

British giallo sets tough London cop Bill Rowan (Gilbert Wynne) hunting a Jack-the-Ripper type serial killer who has slaughtered his wife (Linda Marlowe). Chief suspect is leering cocky jack-the-lad Pete (Donald Sumpter) of the wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am school of seduction. In an era when pornography and “perversion” were beginning to shake off the shackles – and strippers, prostitutes, voyeurs and transvestites condemned as evils to be stamped out – this skirts the boundaries between sexploitation and heavy moralizing.

Chief among those embarking on a moral crusade is hypocritical puritan Judge Lomax (Jack May) who spurns his attractive wife (Justine Lord) while indulging in cross-dressing. Needless to say, his clerk, ostensibly another upholder of the moral fabric, is a porn addict. As the body count grows, Pete manages to needle Rowan sufficiently for the cop to consider any nefarious means to put him behind bars.

Knives flash in the dark, the killer wears black leather, victims writhe on the ground as they are slashed to pieces, and coupled with the unusually high nudity quotient it is surprising that this picture passed the British censor. The movie never drags and there is enough incidental sleaze to keep the viewer interested. As a historical document, it details the point at which the country hovered between reined-in respectability and full-on sexual freedom.

Operating here under the pseudonym Lewis J. Force, Canadian director Lindsay Shonteff (The Million Eyes of Sumuru, 1967) conjures up a darker vision of a London so often presented in glorious tourist tones with nastiness seeping into every corner of society. Veteran Jack May (A Twist of Sand, 1968) captures well the double life of a decent man undone by what is perceived to be indecency and his later scenes are quite moving. Donald Sumpter (The Black Panther, 1977) is excellent as the taunting petty criminal while Gilbert Wynne makes a decent debut as a leading man. In small roles are Justine Lord (Deadlier than the Male, 1967) and Linda Marlowe (Big Zapper,1973 – directed by Shonteff). Written by Dail Ambler (Beat Girl/Wild for Kicks, 1960).

Jack the Ripper was such an ingrained element of British culture that any movie featuring a similar villain gave audiences the creeps. British television cops were beginning to move out of the shadow of Dixon of Dock Green and into the new age of The Sweeney and while giallo did not catch on among home-grown filmmakers there was considerably more focus on hardened criminals such as Get Carter (1971) and Villain (1971).

Rising Sun (1993) ****

Will instantly connect with the contemporary audiences for two unusual reasons. First off, it’s the initial depiction of deepfake. Secondly, a major plot point concerns an aspect of the roughest kind of sex, erotic asphyxiation. These days you’ll find many women complaining that a partner’s addiction to porn has forced them into such dangerous experiment. Here, lending fire to the idea that it’s nothing but fun, is the notion that it’s the woman who’s desperate for such.

There used to be a standard Hollywood ploy of sticking a younger rising star alongside an established bigger name. After Top Gun (1986) Tom Cruise proved the best exponent of this, working with Paul Newman in The Color of Money (1986) and Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man (1988). The idea is that the younger fella will learn from the older (Newman and Hoffman proved top-class tutors, both winning Oscars).

And in fact the narrative here actually takes up such an idea. Semi-retired cop Capt. John Connor (Sean Connery) plays mentor to Lt. Webster Smith (Wesley Snipes) when both are called out to act as liaison between investigator Tom Graham (Harvey Keitel) and the top brass of Japanese corporation Nakamoto where a murder has been committed. The death was initially dismissed as a sex game that went too far and as scarcely worth anyone’s time given the victim was a sex worker, Cheryl (Tatjana Patitz), sometime girlfriend of Japanese playboy and fixer Eddie Sakamura (Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa).

Matters are complicated because Nakamoto is bidding to take over a key American computer manufacturer and because Senator John Morton (Ray Wise), who initially opposed the deal, is now in favor of a merger. Connor begins to suspect the Japanese have manipulated video recordings of the murder. Single father Smith, objecting to Connor’s involvement, is compromised by a secret past, exposure of which could potentially stop the investigation in its tracks. Slippery American fixer Bob Richmond (Kevin Anderson) is desperate to get a deal over the line.

While the intricate investigation is engrossing in itself, what really makes this fly, beyond another excellent performance by Connery, are the business machinations and the insights into Japanese culture. On the face of it, you might think this is an attack on the Japanese business machine, rampant at the time, but, in reality, my guess is the Japanese would love it for the way it shows American companies in their thrall.

In Japan “business is war” and companies gird themselves for battle by forming alliances that would be outlawed in America. An adept screenplay manages to seed a rich background, featuring elements of Japanese society that are both positive (criminals are generally caught plus caring for employees and “fixing the problem, not the blame”) and negative (racism is widespread). Connor, steeped in Japanese culture, able to move in the highest business circles, calling in favors, is our guide, but that’s never to the detriment of the overall picture, and instead adds welcome depth.

There’s a certain subtlety at work, too, the introduction of the single dad (treated seriously rather than for comic effect) a bit of a thematic coup for the times and Connor’s relationship with Jingo (Tia Carrere) is more fluid than you might expect, the older man leaving the “cage door open” should his younger lover find someone of her own age.

Three decades on from the cultural appropriation of A Majority of One (1961) when Hollywood elected Alec Guinness to play a Japanese man, there’s no shortage of players of Japanese descent to supply the movie with more authenticity. Mako had been Oscar-nominated for The Sand Pebbles (1966) while Stan Egi (Come See the Paradise, 1990), Clyde Kusatsu (In the Line of Fire, 1993) and Nelson Mashita (Darkman, 1990) flesh out the ranks.

Beard aficionados will welcome Connery’s stylish cut which, once again, serves as a shortcut to character – this is a confident, fashionable man. Sean Connery (The Man Who Would Be King, 1975) drives the movie, he’s always one step ahead even when the bad guys think they have him beat. Another top-notch performance from Sean Connery. Wesley Snipes (Passenger 57, 1992) wasn’t paying much attention to the free acting lessons handed out by Connery, not learning to rein it in, and, presumably to maintain his action cojones, is permitted some unlikely karate kicking. That last wasn’t in the book. There were only two other major changes from the book – adding a couple of early scenes with the victim and giving Connors a relationship with Jingo. Some of the book is heavily truncated for obvious reasons – you’ll wonder just what the heck is the purpose of Willy the Weasel (Steve Buscemi).

The screenplay by author Michael Crichton (Jurassic Park, 1993), director Philip Kaufman and Michael Backes in his debut, manages to fully convey the novel at the same time as squeezing in as many bon mots as possible without losing sight of the drama.

Philip Kaufman (Fearless Frank, 1967) makes the most of the rich material.

Connery scores once again.

Sol Madrid / The Heroin Gang (1968) ***

Was it David MacCallum’s floppy-haired blondness that prevented him making the jump to movie action hero because, with the ruthlessness of a Dirty Harry, he certainly makes a good stab at it in this slightly convoluted drugs thriller? Never mind being saddled with an odd moniker, the name devised surely only in the hope it would linger in the memory, Sol Madrid (David MacCallum) is an undercover cop on the trail of the equally blonde, though somewhat more statuesque, Stacey Woodward (Stella Stevens) and Harry Mitchell (Pat Hingle) who have scarpered with a half a million Mafia dollars. Mitchell is the Mafia “human computer” who knows everything about the Cosa Nostra’s dealings, Woodward the girlfriend of Mafia don Villanova (Rip Torn).

Sol tracks down Woodward easy enough and embarks on the audacious plan of using her share of the loot, a cool quarter of a million, to fund a heroin deal in Mexico with the intention of bringing down both Mexican kingpin Emil Dietrich (Telly Savalas) and, using the on-the-run pair as bait, Villanova. A couple of neat sequences light this up. When Sol and Woodward are set upon by two knife-wielding hoods in a car park, he employs a car aerial as a weapon while she taking refuge in a car watches in terror as an assailant batters down the window. Sol has hit on a neat method of transferring the heroin from Tijuana to San Diego and that is filled with genuine tension as is the hand-over where Sol with an unexpected whipcrack slap puts his opposite number in his place.

Meanwhile, Villanova has sent a hitman to Mexico and when that fails turns up himself, kidnapping Woodward and planning a degrading revenge. Most of the movie is Sol duelling with Dietrich, suspicion of the other’s motives getting in the way of the trust required to seal a deal, with Mitchell, who has taken refuge in Dietrich’s fortified lair, soon being deemed surplus to requirements. Various complications heighten the tension in their flimsy relationship.

Sol Madrid is Dirty Harry in embryo, determined to bring down the gangsters by whatever means even if that involves going outside the law he is supposed to uphold, incipient romance with Woodward merely a means to an end.

David MacCallum (The Great Escape, 1963) certainly holds his own in the tough guy stakes, whether trading punches or coolly gunning down or ruthlessly drowning enemies he is meant to just capture, and trading steely-eyed looks with his nemesis.

It’s a decent enough effort from director Brian G. Hutton (Where Eagles Dare, 1968), but is let down by the film’s structure, the expected confrontation with Villanova taking far too long, too much time spent on his revenge with Woodward, for whom audience sympathy is slight. Just at the time when Hollywood was exploring the fun side of drug taking – Easy Rider just a year away – this was a more realistic portrayal of the evil of narcotics.

It is also quite prescient, foreshadowing both The Godfather Part II (1974) in the way Villanova has modernised the organisation, achieving respectability through money laundering, and the all-out police battles with the Narcos. And there is a bullet-through-the-glasses moment that will be very familiar to fans of The Godfather (1972), and you will also notice a similarity between the feared Luca Brasi and the Mafia hitman Scarpi (Michael Conrad) here.

The action sequences are excellent and fresh. Think Madeleine cowering in terror as the car window is battered in No Time to Die (2021) and you get an idea of the power Hutton brings to the scene of a terrified Woodward hiding in the car. Incidentally, you might think MacCallum was more of a secret agent than a cop with the cold-blooded ruthlessness with which he dispatches his enemies.

Stella Stevens (Rage, 1966) is the weak link, too shrill and not willing to sully her make-up or hair when her role requires degradation. Her role is better written (“I never met a man who didn’t want to use me”) than Stevens can deliver and she gets a clincher of final one. Telly Savalas (The Dirty Dozen, 1967) surprises by delivering a playful villain, though the trademark laugh is in occasional evidence whereas Rip Torn is all villain. Ricardo Montalban (Madame X, 1966) is Sol’s Mexican sidekick and Paul Lukas, a star of the Hollywood “golden age”, puts in a fleeting appearance. Written by David Karp (Che!, 1969) and Robert Wilder (The Big Country, 1958).

Proved a winner for Brian G. Hutton – next gig Where Eagles Dare. Less so for David MacCallum – next outing The Mosquito Squadron (1969).

Has its moments.