nudity – Page 6 – The Magnificent 60s

The Mephisto Waltz (1971) ****

Jacqueline Bisset’s good looks often got in the way of her acting. Or, more correctly, in the way of producer perception about what she could do. Too often she was the female lead that simply hung on the arm of the male lead. But, here, to my surprise, she is not only the narrative fulcrum, but steals the show from Alan Alda, mostly remembered these days for TV’s M*A*S*H (1972-1983) but at the start of the 1970s being heralded in Hollywood as the next big thing and top-billed.

Alda’s character here is little more than his screen persona in embryo – glib, wise-cracking, cocky. In an earlier Hollywood he would have been the smooth-talking gangster beefing up B-pictures.

Appearing between the demonic high-spots of Rosemary’s Baby (1968) and The Omen (1976), director Paul Wendkos (Cannon for Cordoba, 1970) escapes his journeyman roots to suffuse the picture with nightmarish scenes, and clever use of the fish-eye lens, treating Satanism with the most subtle of brushes, restricted to a mark daubed in a forehead and a pentagram on the floor but minus any chorus of witches or warning from priests or sundry other holy persons.

Myles (Alan Alda), piano prodigy who never made the cut, now a journalist, is encouraged by interviewee, concert pianist Duncan Ely (Curt Jurgens), to take it up again. Under the older man’s tutelage, he thrives, promising career beckons, plus an entrée into quite a heady world of parties, sex and wealth. Wife Paula (Jacqueline Bisset) is more sceptical especially once Duncan and his buddies start buying up everything in sight in her new antiques emporium. She’s especially perturbed to see Duncan sharing an intimate kiss with his married daughter Roxanne (Barbara Parkins) never mind wondering whether her husband is going to fall prey to the daughter’s seductive technique.

Just what’s going on is never entirely obvious, making the audience work rather than bombarding them with shock scenes. I’m not sure what you’d call it in demonic terms, some kind of transference, body and soul. Once Duncan dies, Myles’s life is transformed, not just thanks to an extremely generous bequest in the old man’s will, but a dramatic increase in his piano-playing prowess, plus, almost as a bonus, the increased attentions of Roxanne.

True scares are limited, mostly a huge drooling black mastiff who may or may not be a killer, and so the tale remains more subtle and eventually boils down to whether Paula will follow her husband on his satanic journey or lose him to the wiles of Roxanne and, perhaps more importantly, never enjoy him as the personality he once was.

We all know that, where money and career is concerned, Myles has a cynical bone in his body and has already demonstrated a capacity for the finer things in life, whether they be animate or inanimate. So his character carries little dramatic tension. And so Paula carries the dramatic burden and she bears that, too, with surprising subtlety.

There’s almost a reverse Gaslight vibe to the whole exercise, Paula convincing herself that she must take this step into what would otherwise be considered madness. It’s worth noting that nobody’s pushing her. She makes the decision herself, although takes you a while (that subtlety again) before you cotton on to consequence. And while we’re on the subject of subtlety, full marks to Wendkos for treating two scenes in particular of Bisset nudity with commendable restraint.

Quite where Satan’s apparent mission to bring classical music to the masses fits into his plans for global domination is never made clear, leanings of such an esoteric nature rarely a prerequisite of the evil mastermind.

Still, a much classier feast than I was expecting, Bisset (The Sweet Ride, 1968) the standout. Her performance served to give Hollywood notice of a classier star than merely the barely seen girlfriend of Steve McQueen in Bullitt (1968). From here on in she would catch the eye of a better grade of director, including Francois Truffaut in Day for Night (1974) though it can be arguedthat it was her looks that sent her into the stratosphere after the wet t-shirt modelling in The Deep (1977).

Alda, meanwhile, jumped straight into M*A*S*H and didn’t resurface as a creditable movie marquee name until California Suite (1978) and The Seduction of Joe Tynan (1979). Curt Jurgens (Psyche ’59) as ever is good value, Barbara Parkins (Puppet on a Chain, 1970) his rather slinky associate and Bradford Dillman (The Bridge at Remagen, 1969) also pops up.

Wendkos in top gear. Screenplay by Ben Maddow (The Way West, 1967) from the Fred Mustard Stewart bestseller. Excellent Jerry Goldsmith score.

Well worth a look.

The Detective (1968) ****

Perhaps the boldest aspect of this raw look at the seamier side of life as a New York cop is that perennial screen loverboy Frank Sinatra plays a cuckold. Prior to what is always considered the more hard-hitting cop pictures of the 1970s – Dirty Harry (1971), The French Connection (1971), Serpico (1973) – this touched upon just about every element of society’s underbelly. Despite an old-school treatment, more a police procedural than anything else, homosexuality, nymphomania, corruption, police brutality, and a system that ensured poverty remained endemic all fell into its maw. And, for the times, several of these issues were dealt with in often sympathetic fashion.

Joe Leland (Frank Sinatra), an ambitious but principled detective gunning for promotion, investigates the murder of a prominent homosexual while dealing with the disintegration of marriage to Karen (Lee Remick) and colleagues on the take. When other cops want to beat confessions out of suspects or strip them naked to humiliate them, Leland intervenes to prevent further brutality. He is not just highly moral, but takes a soft approach to criminals, not just playing the “good cop” part of a good cop/bad cop double-act but genuinely showing sympathy. Not only does Leland leap to the defense of those he feels unfairly treated, but he trades punches with those meting out unfair treatment. In addition, he clearly feels guilt over sending to the electric chair a man he believes should be treated in a mental institution.

Although at first glance this appears a homophobic picture, it is anything but, Leland showing tremendous sympathy towards homosexual suspect Felix (Tony Musante) – whom his colleagues clearly despise – to the extent of holding his hand and gently cajoling him through an interview. Later, rather than condemn a bisexual the film shows empathy for his torment. Certainly, some of the attitudes will appear dated, especially the idea of sexual expression as a brand of deviancy, but the film takes a genuinely even-handed approach. Through the medium of Leland’s perspective, it is clearly demonstrated that it is other police officers who have the warped notions.

Having solved the first murder, Leland takes up the case of an apparent suicide at the behest of widow Norma McIver (Jacqueline Bisset), only for this to lead not only to civic corruption on a large scale but back to the original investigation. Leland also has a wider social perspective than most cops and there is a terrific scene where he berates civic authorities for creating a system that perpetuates poverty. The ending, too, casts new light on Leland’s character.

By this point, most screen cops were defined by their alcoholism and ruined domestic lives, but this is altogether a more tender portrait of an honest cop. Leland’s relationship with Karen is exceptionally well done. Normally, of course, it is the man who strays. This reversal in the infidelity stakes adds a new element. Karen has more in common with an independent woman like the Faye Dunaway character in The Arrangement (1969).

While playing the good cop would come relatively easy to an actor like Sinatra, carrying off the role of the hurt husband is a much tougher ask. Coupled with his sensitive approach to criminals, this is acting of some distinction. This is the last great Hollywood role by Lee Remick (No Way to Treat a Lady, 1968) and she brilliantly portrays a woman trapped by her self-destructive desires.

Jacqueline Bisset leads an excellent supporting cast that includes Jack Klugman (The Split, 1968), Ralph Meeker (The Dirty Dozen, 1967), Robert Duvall (The Godfather, 1972), Lloyd Bochner (Point Blank, 1967) and Al Freeman Jr. (Dutchman, 1966).

While Gordon Douglas (Claudelle Inglish, 1961) was viewed very much as a journeyman director, he brings an inventive approach and some surprising subtleties to the picture. He opens with a very audacious shot. It looks like you are seeing skyscrapers upside down, as if a Christopher Nolan sensibility had entered a time warp, until you realize it is the city reflected off a car roof. There are some bold compositions, often with Sinatra appearing below Remick’s sightline, rather than the normal notion that the star must be taller or at least the same height as everyone else.

Oscar-winning Abby Mann (The Judgement at Nuremberg, 1961) adapted the bestseller by Roderick Thorp who achieved greater fame much later for writing the source novel for Die Hard (1988). Nothing Lasts Forever was a sequel to The Detective. For the Bruce Willis film Joe Leland became John McClane. Sinatra, although 73 at the time, was offered that role first as part of his original contract for The Detective.

Sinatra’s wife Mia Farrow was initially contracted to play the part of Norma McIver but pulled out when Rosemary’s Baby (1968) overshot its schedule. Partly in revenge, Sinatra sued her for divorce.

We Live in Time (2024) ****

Approached this with some trepidation as I’m not a huge fan of either star and since, frankly, I was only there because I go to the pictures every Monday and this was all that was on. In fact, I adored the acting. An intelligent adult movie to sit nicely alongside this year’s Conclave, Juror #2 and It Ends with Us without the artsy-fartsy frills that have put me off so many similar. Kept me absorbed even as I noted in passing the several flaws that should have brought me up short. And you should know it’s narrative as mosaic, not an admittedly complicated one, but a series of vignettes over a few timeframes and backstory chucked in at various points.

But there’s no grandstanding, no auteur forcing an annoying style down your throat, no desperately cute scenes, and none of that will-they-won’t-they that’s virtually impossible to achieve these days outside of Anyone But You (2023). The main characters are ordinary people, stranded loveless in their mid-30s, driven chef Almut (Florence Pugh) out of choice, Tobias (Andrew Garfield) dumped by a more ambitious wife and now living out of cardboard boxes with his widowed father.

There’s major illness brewing but it doesn’t go down the sickly route, nor, despite the couple agreeing to make the most of life, is it a whirl of bucket list activities. In fact, the main source of friction is that that she ignores family duties in favor of entering an upmarket Strictly Come Cooking competition.

But, as I said, the pleasures are all in the acting. The twists are in the dialog. She doesn’t respond to his sudden declaration of love, as she would, gushing like billy-o, in any other picture. He doesn’t have a marriage proposal off pat but has to refer to notes. He’s pretty damn staid, she’s, as you’d expect in an imaginative chef, more free-wheeling. And I did learn the correct three-bowl method to crack eggs, the rest of the cookery malarkey thankfully not entering the angst-ridden territory of The Bear or The Boiling Point or the she-made-it cock-strutting of so many movies about a woman battling her way to the top.

There are a heck of a number of grace notes of infinite shades. Tobias is absolutely delighted, not resentful, that his father (Douglas Hodge) cuts his hair. An asleep cancer patient has her wig adjusted by a nurse to cover her bald patch. A woman giving Tobias the thumbs-up signs constantly through a job interview is never seen again – wife/lover perhaps? A guy at a dinner party looks sour but we never learn why. Almut keeps from Tobias and everyone else that she was a world-class amateur ice skater in her earlier life, giving it up when her father died, unable to continue in the absence of his presence. We could almost have dispensed with how Tobias won Almut back after initial rejection because we know he must have done somehow otherwise we wouldn’t be where we are in the story.

The very ordinariness grounds this. The couple eat Jaffa Cakes in the bath – from a giant-sized packet – and miniature chocolate bars from one of those selections you used to just get at Xmas. And then compare what they selected – he goes for Twix, she Bounty.

Some bits don’t work so well. The meet-cute has been robbed of originality by Australian television comedy Colin from Accounts. I’m not sure if we were meant to laugh at the birth scene. But the sequence you saw in the trailer when Tobias whacks two parked cars in order to get out of a tight parking spot actually has deeper meaning. Tobias, remember, is the kind of guy who takes notes, who examines himself in front of a mirror not out of vanity but to make sure there’s nothing wrong with his attire, a guy, in other words, roughly in command of his emotions, and this is one of the few scenes where that characteristic slips.

Nor are we in for a wheen of sibling rivalry or parental displeasure, so it’s not tumbled-full of repressed anger, but there’s still time for snippets of Tobias standing like an idiot in a roomful of her more excitable friends at a party, something holding him back from even trying to join in.

There was a great ending that was ignored: Almut waving in the distance to husband-and-daughter. The ending chosen luckily worked as well, proving that Tobias, in his lifelong note-taking fashion was a good learner, and was determined to fulfil a promise.

This could have fallen down on some narrative choices, the illness trope or the cooking, but generally these are incorporated into the story in a character-led way. But mostly it works because it is not highwire sturm und drang nor a will-they-won’t-they approach, and especially because their bucket list appears to extend only so far as a trip to a carnival ride. Everyone holds back. No over-playing at all.

I had recently praised Nicholas Hoult in Juror #2 for using his eyes rather than his entire face to express his feeling and Andrew Garfield (Spiderman to you) here works along the same lines. Florence Pugh (Oppenheimer, 2023) is every bit as good, a quiet inner grit, forthright when required without biting your head off. Douglas Hodge (Joker, 2019) and Adam Jones (Wicked, 2024) have nice turns.

I have to confess I wasn’t too keen on director John Crowley’s previous outings – Brooklyn (2015) and The Goldfinch (2019) – but here he has the sense to stand back and let the actors act. Written by Nick Payne (The Last Letter From Your Lover, 2021).

Worth a punt. A good piece of counter-programming.

Three (1969) **

More interesting for the personalities involved – Sam Waterston, Charlotte Rampling, an ex-fighter pilot, an Australian pop star and a model – than the film itself, which presents a European arthouse take on youngsters freewheeling around Europe looking for their share of the free love purportedly available everywhere.

There’s not really any story, mostly it’s scenery, and whatever tension there is rarely rises to the point of drama. However, it is refreshing to see a picture not steeped in angst that reflects the normality of life rather than superficially-imposed heightened confrontation. On a tour of Italy, American college buddies Taylor (Sam Waterston), the shy, gawky one, and Bert (Robie Porter), the better-looking confident one, take up with British girl Marty (Charlotte Rampling). The guys make a pact not to compete for the girl’s attentions, but that idea doesn’t last long. The title suggests she might end up with one – or both. In trying to sell the film, the marketeers felt obliged to make that idea more implicit.

The guys make plays for other girls they meet but seem to find little genuine action and in that sense it is more true to life than other films of the period which suggested sex was there for the asking. But none of the characters are particularly interesting and while that is also more realistic it diminishes enjoyment. The highlight is a naked Taylor attempting to save a girl from drowning in the sea, but in keeping with the film’s tone he is beaten to it by a boat.

There’s not much sign here of the intense dramatic style Oscar nominee Sam Waterston would later bring to the movies. This was his third film after small parts in The Plastic Dome of Norma Jean (1966) and Dick Van Dyke vehicle Fitzwilly (1967) and he wouldn’t hit his stride until The Great Gatsby (1974).

Perhaps the oddest movie fate befell Charlotte Rampling, also a later Oscar nominee. How else to explain that she followed up this picture with Luchino Visconti’s The Damned (1969) and preceded it with Roger Corman’s Target: Harry (1969). With a career that at this point appeared to follow no particular pattern, after making an impact in Georgy Girl (1966) as a libidinous flatmate, she took a small role in The Long Duel (1967) before reaching leading lady status opposite Franco Nero in Italian thriller Sequestro di Persona (1968). Her languid screen persona was turned on its head with The Night Porter (1974). And then she was swept up in Alistair MacLean thriller Caravan to Vaccares (1974).

Who was Robie Porter you might very well ask and why did he only make two pictures, the other being The Carey Treatment (1972)? He was an Australian pop star, specializing in instrumentals on a steel guitar, with a series of hits including two at number one. He chanced his arm in Britain, without repeating that success, then moved to the U.S. and landed parts in television series Daniel Boone and Mannix. After Three, he returned to the music business, as part-owner of record label Sparmac and producing for the band Daddy Cool.

Other names in Three, in bit parts only, none making any discernible impact in the picture, included model Edina Ronay, daughter of celebrated food critic Egon Ronay, who had appeared in A Study in Terror (1965) and Prehistoric Women (1967). Equally as celebrated, if for other reasons, was Gillian Hill, best known as one of the girls cavorting naked with photographer David Hemmings in Blow Up (1966).

Writer-director James Salter was a genuine Hollywood curiosity. He hit a peak of cinematic activity in 1969, with two screenplays filmed – Downhill Racer (1969) and The Appointment (1969). This is pretty much a companion piece to Downhill Racer (1969) which has a bunch of professional skiers on a similar scenic tour and often sitting around with not much to do although that film builds in confrontation and more standard love affair.

Generally considered a “writer’s writer” – i.e. adored by his peers more than the public – his first novel The Hunters (1958), based on his Air Force experiences, was turned into a movie starring Robert Mitchum. He dabbled in documentary film-making, whose impact can be seen in his feature films, but was better known for a short erotic novel A Sport and a Pastime set in Europe. None of his 1969 trio were hits, he ended up in Hollywood limbo, and he didn’t reappear on the movie credits list until Richard Pearce’s sci-fi Threshold (1981) starring Donald Sutherland.

Doctors Wives (1971) ***

Five-star so-bad-it’s-good. Every now and then, especially approaching the annual touting of earnest films for Oscar consideration, we need reminded of just how good Hollywood is at producing hugely enjoyable baloney. Excepting the proliferation of recent MCU disasters, cinematic train wrecks don’t come along nearly often enough. Such botched jobs are always better if they are stuffed full of the worthy – Oscar recipients or nominees. Gene Hackman, Dyan Cannon, Rachel Roberts, Ralph Bellamy and screenwriter Daniel Taradash fulfil that requirement here.

A cross between Sex and the City and ER, with a third act that takes off like a rabbit desperately seizing on any convenient narrative hole. And a first act that pulls the old Psycho number of killing off the star before the picture really gets going. That old murder MacGuffin works every time.

“I’m horny” is about the third line in the movie, announced by sex-mad Lorrie (Dyan Cannon) to a tableful of over-refreshed doctors wives playing sedate poker in a country club at one table while at another table where you would expect the doctor husbands to be telling dirty jokes and whispering inuendoes they are boring each other with shop talk.

Unable to get the others to engage in revealing snippets about their sex lives, Lorrie rounds off the evening by informing the ladies that she plans to have sex with all their husbands to tell them where they are all going wrong, meanwhile gaily proclaiming she’s halfway there already. Which, of course, sets off a round of suspicion and accusations from wives to husbands.

Just to keep you straight on the who’s who: Lorrie is married to Dr Mort Dellman (John Colicos), Dr Peter Brennan (Richard Crenna) to Amy (Janice Rule), Dr Dave Randolph (Gene Hackman) to Della (Rachel Roberts), and Dr Paul McGill (George Gaymes) to Elaine (Marian McCargo) while Dr Joe Gray (Carroll O’Connor) and his ex- Maggie (Cara Williams) still hang around with the group.

As you might expect, every marriage is already in trouble, except, apparently, Lorrie’s because her husband, equally sex-mad Mort, appears to indulge his wife’s whims. Except, he’s not so easy-going, given he puts a bullet in her back when he discovers her making love to one of his colleagues.

Exactly which one remains a mystery for just long enough for the wives to rack up the suspicion level, and all the audience has to go on is the naked arm waving limply trapped under the naked dead weight of the corpse.

You might think, what with Dyan Cannon’s name being top-billed and she quite the rising star after an Oscar nomination for Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (1969), that we’re going to flip into a series of flashbacks to accord her more screen time. But, no, all we get is that opening risqué scene and her naked corpse.

Before ER’s creator Michael Crichton came calling a couple of decades later, the surgical profession was mostly represented in formulaic soap opera of the Dr Kildare small screen or The Interns (1962) big screen variety. But author Frank G. Slaughter, himself a practising physician, had made his name with a series of bestsellers that went into the intricacies of surgery and involved genuine medical jargon. So, before the identity of the illicit lover can be revealed, his life has got to be saved – after all he’s got a bullet in his heart. Cue even bloodier surgical shenanigans than kept fans of Mash (1970) hooked.

By the time we discover the victim was Dr McGill any chance of his wife stomping around in a huff at his infidelity is already off the menu because she’s been dallying with an intern.

I won’t go into all the all-round marital strife – triggered by alcoholism, drug addiction, infertility, ambition – that allows Oscar winners and nominees to try and act their way out of trouble because this picture has another absolute zinger to throw at you.

The murderer blackmails all four doctor pals for having a fling with his wife. To that cool $100,000 he adds quarter of a million from Lorrie’s wealthy dad Jake (Ralph Bellamy) for agreeing to make no claim on his wife’s estate. You kind of wonder what the heck use is all this dosh going to be in the slammer or Death Row. But that’s before you consider the zinger.

Mort’s a specialist and there happens to be a young patient desperate for his surgical skills. Young lad is son to head operating nurse Helen (Diana Sands) who is having an affair with Dr Brennan. So, a deal is done – you can’t wait for this humdinger, can you – wherein the D.A. is agreeable to release Mort from custody so he can perform this emergency operation while Dr Brennan and Jake – wait for it – agree to help him escape abroad.

As everyone knows you can’t tell one masked surgeon from another, so the first part of the plans works and while the cops keep a close eye on the fake Mort as he emerges from the operating theater the real Mort escapes in a parked car with the keys in the ignition. Except Jake isn’t quite a dumb or gullible as Dr Brennan and removes the keys so the killer can’t escape. Which was a shame because this picture could have gone on for another bonkers 20 minutes or so watching Mort outwit the cops.

As it is, there’s more than enough to fill in the time. Amy, something of a clothes horse with an extraordinary array of clothes and especially hats, goes all slinky in what looks like day-glo leggings to perform a bizarre seduction on her husband. Which elicits the movie’s best line, Nurse Helen complaining, “I don’t appreciate you sleeping with your wife.”

Unbeknownst to her, Lorrie has a female disciple who seduces every male in sight for research purposes, tape-recording every moment of the activity, so her victims are pretty much always in the coitus interruptus position.

And I can’t let you go without mentioning that Lorrie was also bisexual and counted among her conquests Della.

Except for the unlikely success of The French Connection later in the year which offered a different route in top-billing, Gene Hackman, had he continued taking on roles like this, might have ended up a perennial third potato. Bear in mind he already had two best supporting actor nominations in the bank when, third-billed, he took this on. Maybe he never read the whole script. Maybe this was the best offer going.

He’s not even the best thing in it. Too earnest for a start. Husband-and-wife murderer-victim tag team John Colicos (Anne of the Thousand Days, 1969) and Dyan Cannon take the honors. Directed by George Schaefer (Pendulum, 1969) and scripted by Daniel Taradash (Castle Keep, 1969). .

An absolute hoot.

Day of the Jackal (1973) *****

The original – and unlikely ever to be topped no matter the best intentions of Sky’s current remake. Possibly the greatest thriller of all time, certainly in the top two or three, and broke every rule going. No music, excepting the first few minutes, for a start. Could easily have been packed with the easily-recognizable all-star-cast found in roadshows, a few British acting knights thrown in for good measure, but instead has a no-name cast.

You would have had to be particularly vigilant as a moviegoer to have even heard of Edward Fox, too old (aged 36) at this point to be considered a rising star, and without the portfolio (outside of a Bafta supporting actor nomination for The Go-Between, 1971) to suggest he had ever particularly shone.

*Didn’t realize there was a 70mm version.*

Apart from their job, every character, especially the chameleon-like Jackal (Edward Fox), is anonymous, virtually nothing of home life intrudes in the sharply-drawn story. The brilliant script by Kenneth Ross (The Odessa File, 1974) jettisons every unnecessary detail, and the even better editing pares every scene down to the bone.

That there is even an iota of tension given we know the outcome is quite extraordinary, but, as with the book, it is wound up taut. Not will he-won’t he, but how, when, where? Every time the police get a lead, they discover he is one step ahead.

What director Fred Zinnemann (A Man for All Seasons, 1966) has the good sense to retain is much of the fascinating detail that author Frederick Forsyth packed into his runaway bestseller. How to create a false identity, how a nibble of cordite can make you look old, where to conceal a rifle in the chassis of your car, and my favourite, how to wind a rope round a tree to ensure your shooting arm is steady.

And, except for the gunman and the rebels he represents, not a maverick in sight. None of this Dirty Harry, Madigan, nonsense, nobody railing against authority, but still the dead weight of bureaucracy, the high-ups only too happy when the moment comes they can dismiss an underling who might steal a sniff of glory.

This shouldn’t work at all, there’s far too much of the dogged detective, cops on both sides of the Channel tearing through reams of paperwork, hundreds of hotel registration cards, lost passport forms, birth certificates, death certificates. Cops stopping every blonde male of a certain height. Most of the minions you never see again, regardless of the vital tasks they fulfil. Virtually the only way characters are permitted emotion is to take a longer drag on their cigarette.

The only feeling permitted is the reaction of the would-be femme fatale Denise (Olga Georges-Picot) when her superior burns the love letters and photographs of her French soldier boyfriend killed in action. The late twist to that element of the story, when one of the politicians is discovered to have fallen into her honey-trap, comes when the cabal of politicians realises that French detective Lebel (Michael Lonsdale) has tapped all their phones.

There’s a constant sense of peak and trough, every breakthrough a dead end, yet endless accumulation of tiny detail allows for maneuver at the end, when we discover that the Jackal is not, as we have been led to believe, an Englishman going by the name of Charles Calthorp.

Given the intensity, there’s still space for nuance. The other murders the Jackal commits are visually discreet. None of the extended hand-to-hand combat of Jason Bourne and John Wick. A karate chop for one victim, another ushered out of view, the hand of a compromised lover grows limp. The torture scene is visually classic. The tortured man, seen from behind, tries to duck away from the glaring light and when he succeeds that light glares in the face of the audience leaving backroom staff to glean his tape-recorded words in between his screams

The money Zinnemann saved on star turns probably went on achieving French cooperation which minimized outlay on building on a set to show the parades and all the military razzamatazz that went with a realistic depiction of Liberation Day, a major French event. The assassin’s target, French President De Gaulle, was dead by the time the movie was made, so could not object, and since the assassination failed in part due to the brilliance of the French police perhaps it was felt this was one movie worthy of such collaboration.

Edward Fox is superb at the chilling bisexual assassin but the support cast is excellent – Cyril Cusack (Fahrenheit 451, 1966) as a gunsmith, Michael Lonsdale (Caravan to Vaccares,1974), a young Derek Jacobi (Gladiator, 1999), Barrie Ingham (A Challenge for Robin Hood, 1967), Alan Badel (Arabesque, 1966) as a snooty minister, Olga-Georges Picot (Farewell, Friend / Adieu L’Ami, 1968) and Delphine Seyrig (Accident, 1967).

Based on his Oscar-heavy record – two wins, four nominations – you wouldn’t have picked Fred Zinnemann for such populist fare. Unless you recalled that he followed From Here to Eternity (1953) with musical Oklahoma! (1956). He had never made a thriller before, but he instinctively knows how to make the material sing.

Hollywood went down the remake route once before with indifferent results despite a top-class cast of Bruce Willis, Richard Gere and Sidney Poitier in The Jackal (1997). The current television series is getting a good vibe but it will have to go some, even with around eight hours to play with, to match this.

Masterpiece.

The Criminal / The Concrete Jungle (1960) ****

You’d be hard put to imagine from this hard-nosed gangster picture that both director Joseph Losey and star Stanley Baker would be capable of a more discreet arthouse offering like Accident (1966). Except for the director’s penchant for introducing a jazz score more often than suits the material – witness a brutal beating in a prison – this is an exceptionally gruelling blast through the British underworld, as though the domestic film industry had suddenly inhaled a narcotic comprised of Cagney and Bogart at their meanest.

With hardly a redemptive character in sight, it makes terrific demands of both director and star that anyone comes out achieving audience sympathy. Hollywood usually fell back on the trope of the innocent prisoner to instigate character empathy, but there’s no question from the outset that career criminal Bannion (Stanley Baker) is as tough as they come. In the opening section he arranges for rival Kelly (Kenneth Cope) to be viciously beaten with prison guard Barrows (Patrick Magee) turning a blind eye.

Out after a three-year stretch, Bannion plans a robbery of a race track with a partner, American Mike (Sam Wanamaker). But it turns out the track is owned by another gangster. After that, the double-crosses come thick and fast, nobody to be trusted, everyone out for themselves. He ends up back in prison, wanted by both sides of the law, the gangsters desperate to get their hands on the hidden loot.

Inside, he is protected by Italian mob boss Saffron (Gregoire Aslan), ruling his empire from prison, in return for a share of the loot. In due course, he instigates a riot, and double-crossing the other inmates, secures a shift to a low-security prison, and he is rescued from the transfer van. But there’s no escape. It’s a bleak ending all round. He dies on a beach, but without revealing where he has stowed the loot.

There are a couple of gals in the mix. The first, his ex-, Maggie (Jill Bennett) he treats in appalling fashion. The second, something of a present for his release, Suzanne (Margit Saad), sees the better side of him, although you have a sneaking feeling that she’s a plant.

But, really, nobody’s got a better side here. The prison scenes are grittier than had previously been the case in British movies, but the whole gangster set-up has a realistic “goodfellas” feel to it, boozing gangsters welcoming him home even as they are planning to stitch him up. And while Bannion may be unaware of ownership of the race track, clearly Mike isn’t, and Bannion is being set up to take the fall.

Joseph Losey (The Damned, 1962) takes an original approach to the material, cutting out the “big job” element entirely in favor of repercussion. He keeps up a brisk pace, which helps build tension, instead focussing on the relationships between the criminals and the prison hierarchy. Especially in the early prison scenes, more is made of vulnerability than toughness, many of Bannion’s confederates presented as weak and easily controlled rather than constantly challenging, prison guards complicit.

Stanley Baker (Where’s Jack, 1969) has such a malevolent appearance he was often as his best in the toughest arenas and perhaps Losey is making the point that even the toughest of tough guys can be duped by gangsters with more brains. There’s a terrific support cast: Sam Wanamaker (Warning Shot, 1966), Gregoire Aslan (Lost Command, 1966), Patrick Magee (Hard Contract, 1969), Jill Bennett (The Charge of the Light Brigade, 1968), Patrick Wymark (Where Eagles Dare, 1968) and Laurence Naismith (Jason and the Argonauts, 1963). German star Margit Saad (The Magnificent Two, 1967) lends an air of mystery to her character.

This was the third – of four – teamings for Losey and Baker. The British censor took a mighty mild attitude to the unexpected levels of nudity and violence. Alan Owen (A Hard Day’s Night, 1964) and Jimmy Sangster (The Devil-Ship Pirates, 1964) are credited with the script.

Takes no prisoners.

The Substance (2024) **** – Seen at the Cinema

Like Tar (2022) suffers from stylistic overkill and outstays its welcome by a good 30 minutes, but otherwise a perfect antidote to Barbie (2023). While not entirely original, owing much to the likes of The Picture of Dorian Gray and The Stepford Wives and the doppelganger and split personality nrrative nonetheless a refreshing take on the ageing beauty syndrome. Shower fetish might be a homage to Brian DePalma and except that the movie is directed by Frenchwoman Coralie Fergeat (Revenge, 2017) we might be lambasting its rampant nudity for misogynistic reasons.

On the plus side, everything else about it feels new. The whole story plays out like a demonic fable, the participants only caught out because, in their greed, they refuse to play by the rules. But like all the best horror films this occupies its own world. Whoever offers this free drug and the chance to relive your life through the best possible you is a monosyllabic voice at the end of a telephone. Not only is there gruesome rebirth but a stitching-up process. The black market drug at the center of the tale can only be accessed in a deadbeat part of Los Angeles by crawling under a door, but then, suddenly we’re in a pristine room and the various constituent parts of the substance are laid out on the Ikea model with easy-to-follow instructions.

After surviving a horrific automobile accident, onetime movie star Elizabeth (Demi Moore), reduced to breakfast television exercise guru, is passed a mysterious note by an incredibly good-looking young man that takes her down this particular rabbit hole. Like Eve’s forbidden fruit or Cinderella’s toxic midnight, there’s a catch to reliving her beautiful youth. She must switch back “without exception” to her original persona every seven days.

Of course, that’s too much to ask, and as the double named Sue (Margaret Qualley) steals minutes then hours and days the effect is seen on Elizabeth, a monstrous aged finger appearing in her otherwise acceptable hands first sign that these rules cannot be broken. Warning that there are two sides to this singular personality goes ignored. Instead of acting in concert each prt of the split personality conspires againt each other until entitlement spills over into abhorrent violence.

Apart from the initial rebirth squence, and the toothless section, the best scenes are more toned down, in one Elizabeth is faced with an alternative future, the other when she re-does her make-up four times for a date, unable to decide on which face she wishes to present.

Demi Moore (Disclosure, 1994) is being touted as a shoo-in for an Oscar nomination, but that’s mostly on account of her willingness to appear without makeup and for long sections without clothing. I’m not convinced that there’s enough heartfelt acting beyond the bitterness that was often her trademark. Margaret Qualley (Poor Things, 2023) isn’t given much personality to deal with except for exuding shining beauty and horror when it starts to go wrong.

All the males are muppets, it has to be said, wheeler-dealer Harvey (Dennis Quaid) the worst kind of obnoxious male. But this doesn’t feel much like a feminist rant but a more considered examination of refusal to accept oncoming age. Everyone has the kind of vacuous personality that’s endemic in presenting the best face (and body) to the viewing (television, big screen) public.

The movie plays at such a high pitch that most of the time you can ignore the deficiencies, but the 140-minute running time is at odds with hooking a contemporary horror audience and the gore at odds with hooking the substantial arthouse crowd required to generate the returns needed to pay back acquisition rights. None of the characters has any depth, little backstory, virtually nothing in the way of the usual confrontation with others in their lives, but then Elizabeth already lives a life of isolation, clearly lamenting her longlost fame and the attention it brings.

This won at Cannes for the script and not the direction and that feels about right. Great idea in ultimately the wrong hands, too much of the repetition that was so annoying in Tar and the determination to make every single shot different, a movie beaten into style every inch of its running time.

Coralie Fergeat has a triumph of some kind on her hands, but one that might struggle, due to excessive length, to find an audience. Not sure, either, why tis is being sold as comedy-horror, a peculiar sub-genre in the first place to make work, but I don’t remember laughing once.

However, like Saltburn (2023) this has a good chance of attracting the young crowd via word-of-mouth, the kind who are just waiting to find their own cult material.

Both facinating and repellant.

The Notorious Landlady (1962) **

Botched job. Not an all-out stinker. Something that should easily have worked – and didn’t. Thanks to the principals involved. Biggest finger of blame points at Jack Lemmon (How To Murder Your Wife, 1965), who jitters and jabbers, arms waving, eyeballs swivelling, classic example of over-mugging the pudding.

But Kim Novak (Strangers When We Meet, 1960) is as bad for the opposite reason. She’s completely insipid. Sure, she’s meant to be playing someone frightened out of her wits but she could as easily be worrying about how to lay the table for all the energy we get.

Director Richard Quine (Strangers When We Meet) hardly gets off scot-free for allowing this to happen as well as quite bizarre shifts in tone from a fog-wreathed London straight out of Sherlock Holmes, to a denouement with Novak naked in the bath – Lemmon averts his eyes but the camera and hence the audience doesn’t – and a climax straight out of the Keystone Cops. I know Quine had a fling with Novak but it looks like he’s trying to share her physical charms with all and sundry, scarcely a scene goes by where’s she’s not in her underwear, night-time apparel, soaking wet one way or another or wearing revealing outfits. The “Notorious Cleavage” might have been a better title.

As I say, this should have worked. The story is straightforward enough, a mystery, red herrings aplenty, mysterious lurking figures, enough twists to give it edge.

Diplomat William Gridley (Jack Lemmon), newly arrived from the States, comes to view an apartment to rent in Mayfair only to find landlady Mrs Hardwicke (Kim Novak) most unwelcoming. Unfortunately for her, it’s love at first sight for him, so she can do no wrong. Which is unfortunate for him, for she is suspected of murdering her husband. That doesn’t sit well with Gridley’s boss Ambruster (Fred Astaire) who feels staff should be completely above board and not risk the good name of the U.S. by consorting with film noir style damsels.

Ambruster is already in cahoots with Inspector Oliphant (Lionel Jeffries) and it’s not long before Gridley is enrolled to act in an undercover capacity, sneaking into her bedroom, finding a gun in a drawer and overhearing suspicious phone calls all the while continuing to romance her. Meanwhile, he’s woken up in the middle of the night with her playing an organ. He’s such a clumsy clot he manages to set fire to a garage, which attracts front page headlines and puts his career in jeopardy.

Anyway, various red herrings later and Ambruster somewhat mollified after falling for Hardwicke’s charms himself, we discover that her husband isn’t missing after all, but when he turns up, she shoots him dead and so ends up in court charged with his murder. His death, while convenient, is treated as accidental.

But the fun’s only just beginning. What could have been a shade close to film noir or the kind of romantic thriller Hitchcock turned out in his sleep, now takes a quite bizarre turn. It transpires that her husband, a thief, has hidden stolen jewels in a candelabra which, because she’s short of cash, she has sold to a pawnshop. This emerges in the aforementioned bathtub contretemps. But Hardwicke is being blackmailed by the witness whose evidence cleared her. Said witness has made off with the jewels and now plans to kill off the real witness. So they all end up at a retirement village in, where else, Penzance. Gridley has to save the real witness from being run off the edge of a cliff in a wheelchair while Hardwicke and the fake witness would have had a real old catfight if either of them could have managed to land a punch, instead of hitting the ground or falling backwards into bushes, so the entire climax suddenly takes a distinct comedic turn.

There’s not even a decent performance from Fred Astaire (The Midas Run, 1969) or Lionel Jeffries (First Men in the Moon, 1964) to lift proceedings. In fact, the best performance comes from villain Miles Hardwicke (Maxwell Reed) who rejoices in lines like, “ I like you better when you’re frightened.”

Written by Larry Gelbart (The Wrong Box, 1966) and Blake Edwards (The Great Race, 1965), which would make you think comedy, and that this was a spoof in the wrong directorial hands, except that Edwards was responsible for Experiment in Terror / Grip of Fear (1962) so knew how to extract thrills.

Coulda been, shoulda been – wasn’t.

The Critic (2024) ** – Seen at the Cinema

Can we get over all this “national treasure” (a favorite of Britain) baloney, please? If we’re going to drag our esteemed acting knights of the realm out of their armchairs (you notice I didn’t say retirement because actors almost never officially retire, Kathy Bates and Gene Hackman to the contrary) could we please give them something more than an opportunity to overact and turn themselves into ripe old hams at the age of (in this case) eighty-five. Sir Ian McKellen (Gandalf and Magneto to you and me) deserves better.

Because there’s nothing at all in this beyond Falstaffian monster Jimmy (Ian McKellen), the eponymous theater critic, relishing his power and taking revenge when’s on the verge of losing it. Frankly, if this was called The Tie-Pin Killer, the serial murderer in the book on which this is based, and Jimmy, as in that book, was relegated to a bit part, albeit a juicy one, it might have been a lot more interesting.

While it touches upon 1930s London Fascists and the plight of the homosexual (a criminal offence to participate) these are kind of tossed into the scenario as if to placate an audience who might complain this is very thin gruel indeed. Presumably, we are somehow meant sympathize with this cruel, odious, character because from time to time he finds himself confronted by blackshirts, who take a dislike to his black companion Tom (Alfred Enoch), who acts as his secretary and presumably not anything else because Jimmy prefers “rough trade.”

In revenge for being fired, he sets up actress Nina (Gemma Atterton) to seduce his employer David Brooke (Mark Strong). Blackmail’s the tool of reinstatement. Apart from general actor insecurity, it’s not entirely clear why Nina should be so determined to keep in Jimmy’s good books. There’s some unbelievable stuff about becoming attracted to acting through reading his articles, which seems quite bizarre since his nasty reviews would put people off going, as he proudly explains is one his aims.

So Nina prostitutes herself for a good review. Yep, must happen all the time. And despite her supposed success – these are, after all, West End plays she is starring in – she lives in a bedsit where hot water is rationed. But she is, romantically, in a bind. She’s just dumped her married lover Stephen (Ben Barnes) whose wife Cora (Romola Garai) just happens to be the daughter of Brooke.

And although Brooke’s wife is “bonkers” (though that’s very much on the periphery) he’s that old-fashioned upper class English gent who only feels shame at adultery when he’s caught out and then of course does the right thing which is to blow his brains out. Which leaves Nina racked with guilt which drives her, as it would, back into the arms of Stephen only for him (another adulterer with principles) to reject her on the grounds that she slept with his father-in-law. When Nina begins to talk about confessing to her role in conspiracy, what’s an upstanding chap to do but drown her in the bathtub?

*In the original book Jimmy was a minor character.*

Crikey, and we complain about the plotting in the multiverse. This is just bonkersverse. Presumably, Oscar-nominated screenwriter Patrick Marber (Notes on a Scandal, 2007) happened upon Anthony J. Quinn thriller Curtain Call in which Jimmy exists on the periphery of the actual narrative though as a larger-than-life character and decided to forget the whole tie-pin killer thing and rearrange the tale so it revolved around McKellen in the hope nobody would notice, in the midst of McKellen roistering and boistering to his heart’s content, the lack of any sensible tale.

You could certainly have more easily hooked it on Nina, who falls into the Patrick Hamilton category of easily-led character on the edge with impulse inclined to cut her adrift.

If you want ham, McKellen’s your man, none of the subtlety which has impelled other performances. Gemma Atterton (The King’s Man, 2021) has a few moments tormented by conscience but the part is woefully underwritten. This is the reined-in Mark Strong (Tar, 2022) rather the one with the veins standing out on his neck. Lesley Manville (Mrs Harris Goes to Paris, 2022), potentially another future national treasure, has a brief role as does Romola Garai (Atonement, 2007).

Maybe wanting to burnish his artistic credentials, director Anand Tucker (Leap Year, 2010) is predisposed to the extreme close-up and for viewing a scene in extreme long shot through a corridor, window or door.

Jimmy would give have slated this.