Peter Graham Scott – The Magnificent 60s

Subterfuge (1968) ***

Worth seeing alone for super-slinky leather-clad uber-sadistic Donetta (Suzanna Leigh) who delights in torturing the daylights out of any secret agent who crosses her path, in this case Michael Donovan (Gene Barry). She’s got a neat line in handbags, too, the poisonous kind. Two stories cross over in this London-set spy drama. American Donovan (Gene Barry) is under surveillance from both foreign powers and British intelligence. When his contact comes into unfortunate contact with a handbag, he finds himself on the sticky end of the attention of Shevik (Marius Goring) while at the same time employed by the British spy chief Goldsmith (Michael Rennie) to find the mole in their camp.

The three potential suspects are top-ranking intelligence officers: Col. Redmayne (Richard Todd), British spy Peter Langley (Tom Adams) and backroom underling Kitteridge (Colin Gordon). On top of this Langley’s wife Anne (Joan Collins) adds conscience to the proceedings, growing more and more concerned that the affairs of the secret state are taking too much precedence over her marriage.

The hunt-the-mole aspect is pretty well-staged. Kitteridge always looks shifty, keenly watching his boss twisting the dials on a huge office safe containing top secret secrets. Langley is introduced as a villain, turning up at Shevik’s with the drugs that are going to send Donovan to sleep for eight hours for transport abroad in a trunk. But he turns out to be just pretending and aids Donovan’s innovative escape. Charming but ruthless Redmayne is also under suspicion if only because he belongs to the upper-class strata (Burgess, Philby and Maclean etc) that already betrayed their country.

In investigating Langley, Donovan fixes on the wife, now, coincidentally, a potential romantic target since her husband is suing for divorce. She is particularly attracted to Donovan after he saves her son from a difficult situation on the water, although that appears manufactured for the very purpose of making her feel indebted. However, the couple are clearly attracted, although the top of a London bus would not generally be the chosen location, in such glamorous spy pictures, for said romance to develop.

As you will be aware, romance is a weak spot for any hard-bitten spy and Shevik’s gang take easy advantage, putting Anne, her son and Donovan in peril at the same time as the American follows all sorts of clues to pin down the traitor.

This is the final chapter in Gene Barry’s unofficial 1960s movie trilogy – following Maroc 7 (1967) and Istanbul Express (1968) – and London is a more dour and more apt climate for this more down-to-earth drama. Forget bikinis and gadgets, the best you can ask for is Joan Collins dolled up in trendy min-skirt and furs. Gene Barry, only too aware that London has nothing on Morocco or Istanbul in the weather department, dresses as if expecting thunderstorms, so he’s not quite the suave character of the previous two pictures, but that does not seem to dampen his ardor and the gentle romantic banter is well done.

Joan Collins, in a career trough after her Twentieth Century Fox contract ended with Esther and the King (1960), has the principled role, determining that the price paid by families for those in active secret service is too high. No slouch in the spy department himself, essaying Charles Vine in three movies including Where the Bullets Fly (1966), Tom Adams plays with audience expectations in this role.

It’s a marvelous cast, one of those iconic congregations of talent, with former British superstar Richard Todd (The Dam Busters, 1955) and Michael Rennie, television’s The Third Man (1959-1965), Marius Goring (The Girl on a Motorcycle, 1968) and Suzanna Leigh (The Lost Continent, 1968) trading her usual damsel-in-distress persona for a turn as terrific damsel-causing-distress.

Shorn of sunny location to augment his backgrounds, director Peter Graham Scott (Bitter Harvest, 1963) turns his camera on scenic London to take in Trafalgar Square, the zoo, Royal Festival Hall, the Underground, Regent’s Park with the usual flotilla of pigeons and ducks.

Get slinky.

Bitter Harvest (1963) ****

Anyone claiming to be gaslighted will have unwittingly invoked the memory of an English writer who died over 60 years ago. Alfred Hitchcock paid tribute to him in adapting his fiendish play, Rope (1948). Hangover Square (1945) starring Linda Darnell was another of his novels to hit the screen. In all there have been over 50 film and television adaptations of his works.

One of his most famous publications was a trilogy focusing on a London barman and a barmaid in love with him whom he casts aside. I had read it, as I had all of Patrick Hamilton’s novels, with enormous pleasure. The trilogy was published in 1935 under the title Twenty Thousand Streets under the Sky. So it was with some trepidation that I realized Bitter Harvest was based on the middle novel of the trilogy. The DVD had sat, unwatched, in my collection for a couple of years because I was put off by the title, the no-name cast and journeyman director, assuming some routine tale with a sad ending.

Now I’m kicking myself I ignored it for so long. It’s a little gem that packs a punch, climaxing with a stylistic twist, and held together by a virtuoso performance by Janet Munro, one-time Disney ingenue in pictures like Swiss Family Robinson (1960), as she twists the audience and her lover round her little finger. And all the way through, despite the self-imposed travails, she manages to evoke sympathy.

Virgin Jennie (Janet Munro) escapes humdrum life in Wales, running a small shop in a run-down village, looking after her ungrateful father, and about to be dumped as a full-time carer onto a pair of aunts, when she meets smooth salesman Andy (Terence Alexander). He gets her drunk on champagne, whisks her back to his flat where he rapes her. Shame prevents her going home. Friendly barman Bob (John Stride) takes pity on her when she reveals she’s pregnant and lets her sleep, untouched by him, in his bed. Naturally, the relationship progresses, though she makes no move to find a job. But she wants her “share” of the good things in life and a barman isn’t going to provide them.

Bob soon realizes she isn’t quite the docile waif delighted to be looked after. “When have I taken orders from you?” she snaps. He’s shocked when she reveals that her pregnancy was a ploy, and taken aback when she rejects his marriage proposal. Instead, she’s out on the town with actor neighbor Charles (Colin Gordon) who takes her to a showbiz bash where she wangles an introduction to impresario Karl (Alan Badel). “I’ve got something they want and they can have it and they’ll pay for it,” shows Bob which way the wind is blowing.

The movie begins with a drunken smartly dressed Jennie, long red hair cut in a more fashionable bob, returning to her upper mews apartment. She’s so sozzled she drops her handbag on the steps, only stopping to retrieve her keys before kicking the bag down the staircase. Opening the door, she tosses the key into the street. Inside, she sets about destroying the chintzy apartment, pours whisky over a photo of man later revealed as Karl, smashes bottles, upends furniture, tosses dresses out the window, scrawls something in lipstick on the mirror.

Then we’re into flashback telling the story I’ve just outlined. When she sets herself up to become Karl’s mistress, you think there’s a third act to come. But the movie cuts instead to the mews apartment and the by now dead Jennie.

What distinguishes it is the set-up. Jennie appears initially as the victim until she exerts control, using Bob, and presumably intending to work her way up. Quite how her life came to end in suicide is never revealed. But director Peter Graham Scott (Subterfuge, 1968) has the foresight to realize he doesn’t have to go into the degradation and shame, just show consequence.

And it’s framed with excellent performances. Bob, determined to improve himself, buys a book a month. Barmaid Ella (Anne Cunningham), in love with him, has to endure a scene where he tells her all about Jenny. Bob’s landlady isn’t going to get on a moral high horse about him having a woman in his room when she can rook him for increased rent. You can tell, even if Jenny ignores the obvious, what kind of life she will have as Karl’s mistress when in their first moment of intimacy he slaps her face and rips her expensive dress to make a bandage.

There’s another scene just as shocking and if it was not edited out by the censor at the time it still came as a surprise to see fleeting glimpse of a naked breast, a good year before the U.S. Production permitted similar in The Pawnbroker.

As I said, the transition of Janet Munro (Hide and Seek, 1964) from victim to predator is exceptionally well-done, her iron fist cleverly concealed for most of the film. And it’s admirable, too, that John Stride, whose career was mostly in television, doesn’t come across as a hapless suitor, though obviously he is gullible. Alan Badel (Arabesque, 1966) only has a couple of scenes but makes a huge impact. Barbara Ferris (Interlude, 1968) has a small part.

Highlight of Peter Graham Scott’s directorial career, well-paced, measured, drawing out good performances all round, especially in the boldness of the closure. Ted Willis (Flame in the Streets, 1961) does an excellent job of updating the novel, though one flaw is that while the early section is set in Wales there’s no sign of a Welsh accent.

Recommended.

Subterfuge (1968) ***

Worth seeing just for super-slinky leather-clad uber-sadistic Donetta (Suzanna Leigh) who delights in torturing the daylights out of any secret agent who crosses her path, in this case Michael Donovan (Gene Barry). She’s got a neat line in handbags, too, the poisonous kind. Two stories cross over in this London-set spy drama. American Donovan is under surveillance from both foreign powers and British intelligence. When his contact comes into unfortunate contact with a handbag, he finds himself on the sticky end of the attention of Shevik (Marius Goring) while at the same time employed by the British spy chief Goldsmith (Michael Rennie) to find the mole in their camp.

The three potential British suspects are top-ranking intelligence officer Col. Redmayne (Richard Todd), British spy Peter Langley (Tom Adams) and backroom underling Kitteridge (Colin Gordon). On top of this Langley’s wife Anne (Joan Collins) adds conscience to the proceedings, growing more and more concerned that the affairs of the secret state are taking too much precedence over her marriage.

The hunt-the-mole aspect is pretty well-staged. Kitteridge always looks shifty, keenly watching his boss twisting the dials on a huge office safe containing top secret secrets. Langley is introduced as a villain, turning up at Shevik’s with the drugs that are going to send the Donovan to sleep for eight hours before being transported abroad in a trunk. But he turns out to be just pretending and aids Donovan’s innovative escape. Charming but ruthless Redmayne is also under suspicion if only because he belongs to the upper-class strata of spies (Burgess, Philby and Maclean) who had already betrayed their country.

This is the final chapter in Gene Barry’s unofficial 1960s movie trilogy – following Maroc 7 (1967) and Istanbul Express (1968) – and London is a more dour and more apt climate for this more down-to-earth drama. Forget bikinis and gadgets, the best you can ask for is Joan Collins dolled up in trendy mini-skirt and furs. Barry, only too aware that London has nothing on Morocco or Istanbul in the weather department, dresses as if expecting thunderstorms, so he’s not quite the suave character of the previous two pictures. In this grittier role, he does not always come out on top. But that does not seem to dampen his ardor and the gentle romantic banter is well done.

Joan Collins, in career trough after her Twentieth Century Fox contract ended with Esther and the King (1960), has the principled role, determining that the price paid by families for those in active secret service is too high. No slouch in the spy department himself, essaying Charles Vine in three movies including Where the Bullets Fly (1966), Tom Adams plays with audience expectations in this role. It’s a marvelous cast, one of those iconic congregations of talent, with former British superstar Richard Todd (The Dam Busters, 1955), Michael Rennie, television’s The Third Man (1959-1965), Marius Goring (The Girl on a Motorcycle, 1968) and Suzanna Leigh (The Lost Continent, 1968) trading her usual damsel-in-distress persona for a turn as terrific damsel-causing-distress.

Catch-Up: Previously reviewed in the Blog are Gene Barry in Maroc 7 (1967) and Istanbul Express (1968), Joan Collins in Esther and the King (1960) and Suzanna Leigh in The Lost Continent (1968).

This is hard to find so your best bet is ebay although it is available on Youtube for free but the print quality is not great.