sex – The Magnificent 60s

Flesh for Frankenstein (1973) ***

What with Jessie Buckley putting on her best Joker-style smile in Maggie Gyllenhaal’s Looney Tunes version of The Bride (2026) and Oscar Isaac going as high-tech as the 19^th century would allow in Guillermo del Toro’s excellent Frankenstein (2025), Paul Morrissey’s Flesh for Frankenstein now appears tame in comparison though at the time its sexuality and gore came in for severe criticism. I’m guessing it’s the campiness that finds it rated so highly among the contemporary critics, but, apart from some poor acting, there’s little in this piece that would bring it down in your estimation or provide it with a free pass.

In terms of the thematic, there are connections to David Cronenberg’s Crash (1996), and in terms of trivia (although the version I saw lacked this) it was originally shot in 3D (though without, as was usually the way with such items, tons of things thrown into the viewer’s eyes) and included an early example of the imagination of SFX genius Carlo Rambaldi (Alien, 1979).

While you might recoil at the good doctor’s right-wing tendencies and his determination to bring to life a superior species, the rest of it is surprisingly good. There’s a determined stateliness to the camerawork and the score by Claudio Gizzi (he only did another two) is as far removed from the over-the-top menace that infected Hammer and AIP versions as you can get.

I wasn’t a card-carrying member of the avant-garde back in the day any more than I am now so didn’t rush out to see this on its first appearance and probably wouldn’t have been tempted to watch it at all except that the presence of Dalila di Lazzaro from Three Men to Kill (1980) piqued my interest. In truth, she has a small part as the female of the species in the monster department.

Here, Baron Frankenstein (Udo Kier) is aiming for the double whammy of not just creating male and female monsters but of getting them to procreate and provide him with a new master race. He’s handy with a set of garden shears, lopping off heads to suit his experiment, and stitching, molding cadavers to suit his purpose, and he clearly takes perverse delight in plunging his hands – and shades of David Cronenberg’s Crash (1996) – and other parts of his body into the innards for sexual satisfaction.

If I’ve read this correctly, we’re also in incest territory, his children the offspring of his sister. Or it may well be that she’s employed for her non-existent maternal skills rather than having played a part in their birth. It’s hard to see why he wants any more creations in his own image since the kids are as creepy as they come, voyeurs to the core, guillotining dolls, making off with any spare body parts, and with a malignancy that sets the tone for a stunning last scene.

His sister Katrin (Monique Van Vooren) has a degree in hypocrisy, taking a moral high tone with villagers she catches having sex while recruiting lusty local stud Nicholas (Joe D’Allesandro) for her own bed. The Baron’s assistant Otto (Arno Jurging) is from the Marty Feldman (Young Frankenstein, 1975) school of eye-popping. The only flaw in Frankenstein’s plan is he hasn’t taken into account sexual preference, since Nicholas’s buddy Sacha (Srdjan Zelenovic),selected to supply a head and brain for his male monster, is more interested in men than women, so despite the best efforts of the female monster (Dalila di Lazzaro) his experiment is doomed to failure.

Most movies in this subgenre exist in a moral vacuum, beyond someone taking vengeance on the horror-meister, but here Sacha not only has no interest in sex but he’s so appalled at what he has become thanks to Frankenstein that he wants to die and is so scandalized by the baroness’s attempts to seduce him that he suffocates her.

For the most part, this is restrained, although over-acting is endemic, and the science as convincing as in the Del Toro version. The gore and sex would scarcely trouble a contemporary audience.

The climax is just superb. With corpses littering the floor, including that of the Baron and his creations, and Nicholas hanging from the ceiling, the kids each pick up a scalpel and begin to lower the captive, leaving the audience to guess the rest.

Any inherent campiness passed me by and I suspect that impact has faded with time. What we’re left with is an intriguing well-directed entry into the canon.

Not sure why Joe Dallesandro (Lonesome Cowboys, 1968) takes top billing, aside from his beefcake potential and the central role he played in the Andy Warhol Factory, given he has a small part. Like Klaus Kinski, Udo Kier (The Salzburg Connection, 1972) has a cult following, and the freedom to overact as much as he likes.

Beside lending his name to the venture for publicity purposes, Andy Warhol played no part. The direction by Paul Morrissey (Heat, 1972) has, I thought, considerable distinction especially the camera movement and the music. He wrote the screenplay.

Surprisingly good.

The Other Side of Midnight (1977) ****

I was settling in for what I thought was an evening of high-class trash when the unexpected occurred. This wasn’t a mushy World War Two romance but a tale of revenge on a par with that wreaked by the legendary Count of Monte Cristo or by the more recent The Housemaid (2026). Except for throwing a romantic spanner in the work, this has little to do with the Second World War and everything to do with how a Frenchwoman drags herself from the gutter by dint of personality and guile to reach, by way of movie stardom, the highest echelons of society and use her wealth and power to extract vengeance.

The two women, Noelle (Marie-France Pisier) and Catherine (Susan Sarandon) who end up competing for the affections of charming pilot Larry (John Beck) may well begin with innocence on their side but pretty soon they toughen up. Noelle is given a brutal lesson in reality, effectively trafficked by her father to a dressmaker, sex part of her apprenticeship. Fleeing to Paris, her suitcase stolen by a taxi driver, she is rescued by the self-deprecating Larry, an American pilot stationed in France with the Royal Canadian Air Force on the eve of World War Two. He’s got a nice line in repartee. After he is recalled to Britain, he promises to return, telling her to have a wedding dress ready. But he doesn’t appear, and she aborts his baby. After a stint as a fashion model, having honed her seductive skills, she shifts into the movies.

Meanwhile, resourceful Catherine had made herself indispensable in the business sense to her PR boss Bill (Clu Gulager), who (in a move that should be appreciated in view of contemporary power politics) gently rebuffs her advances. Her meet-cute with Larry is well-managed but as the romance shifts towards seduction we realize that he’s using the same lines on her as he did with Noelle.

As I mentioned, the actual war doesn’t enter the equation and by its end Noelle is a huge star, but keeping tabs on Larry and delighted to discover that he hasn’t managed to translate being a war hero into a decent income, his wife Catherine the major breadwinner. Once Noelle has stepped up in society by hooking Greek millionaire Constantine Demeris (Raf Vallone) she sets her sights on humiliating Larry, using her lover’s cash to ensure he loses every job he has, even though he manages that well enough on his own account, given to abrasiveness towards any employer.

Slowly, Noelle brings Larry, literally, to heel, arranging for him to be employed as the pilot on her personal plane, humiliating him at every turn – he has to carry her luggage, not speak unless spoken to, and is hauled before Constantine. What with her transformation from almost a street urchin to one of the wealthiest most glamorous women in the world it takes him a while to make the connection.

Of course, they fall for each other all over again. Wife Catherine being now an obstacle, he plans to get rid of her deep in ancient Greek caves. When that doesn’t work, she drowns trying to escape the pair in a storm.

However, suspicions lurk and the pair are brought to trial in a Greek court. Initially, it looks like they’ll get off scot-free but Noelle isn’t the only one obsessed with vengeance and they end up facing the firing squad. There can’t hardly have been a more downbeat ending to an epic picture (it clocks in at 165 minutes).

Male humiliation appears to be the theme. Larry’s meet-cute with Catherine spins on his humiliation and Noelle has no qualms about humiliating her rich husband in public. It’s not money that provides the leverage, it’s sex.

I’m assuming the title is a perverse twist on the Cinderella story. While Larry starts out Prince Charming, later on he’s revealed as an entitled brat.

You’ll maybe be wondering why I’ve selected this. Well, it was seeing John Beck in Blue (1968). I remembered that he’d become something of a leading man in the mid-1970s and could never work out why. He always seemed to be too stolid. But, in fact, he does great work here, humble, reticent, witty, and with a gentle touch in the seduction department.

In acting terms, of course Marie-France Pisier steals the show. A new name to American audiences she had a decent French track record, stretching from Trans-Europ Express (1966) to Cousin Cousine (1975). Not given to over-acting, except when making men feel good, it’s her quiet obsession that determines the movie.

Susan Saradon (The Rocky Horror Picture Show, 1975) makes good on her earlier promise, with a fine performance as a woman who grows in confidence but is still rattled by emotion. Clu Galager (McQ, 1974) and Raf Vallone (The Italian Job, 1969) provide interesting support.

While there’s lushness aplenty, it’s also lean in narrative terms, action speaking louder than words, almost as if silence and secrecy are a prerequisite of vengeance.

Directed with in parts considerable style by Charles Jarrott (Anne of the Thousand Days, 1969) from a script by Herman Raucher (Can Heironymus Merkin etc, 1969) and Daniel Taradash (Hawaii, 1966) based on the Sidney Sheldon bestseller.

This is the kind of movie on which critics and the public are sharply divided and it tends to be the former that gains the greater sway. Only eight critics saw fit to comment on Rotten Tomatoes and they ranked it an outright dud, with a rating of 25%. The public, on the other hand, have responded in droves, over 500 of them so far, and they take the opposite view in terms of rating – a more than healthy 73%. Go figure.

I’m in the general moviegoer camp and think it well worth a viewing.

Zee & Co / X Y & Zee (1972) ****

I’ve seen Elizabeth Tayor glide along the floor, I’ve seen her stomp and stamp, I’ve seen her bellow and hiss, but, except at the outset of her career, I’ve never seen her indulge in anything vaguely athletic. So it’s a bold opening here to witness the actress playing table tennis with some venom, virtually dancing from one foot to the other, bouncing in triumph when she wins. Who the heck is this reincarnation?

The movie’s acquired a different dimension since original release, a pathos that emphasizes the actress’s vulnerability. In the 1960s she was considered the most beautiful woman in the world yet she married a man who had a wandering eye. She would accompany him to film sets so she could keep an eye on him and keep other women at a distance. Can you imagine the impact on her psychological make-up to know that she was not enough for handsome charismatic husband Richard Burton?

That’s much the same situation the childless Zee (Elizabeth Taylor) finds herself in, married to handsome wealthy architect Robert (Michael Caine) who acquires other women art the drop of a hat. He’s got three on the go here. When she arouses him, he still enjoys passionate sex with his wife, he has a thing going with his secretary and he home in on widowed mother-of-to Stella (Susannah York). He encourages the idea of an open marriage. Though it’s unclear how much she actually indulges, she’s capable of stimulating his jealousy through her imaginative tales of seduction.

While he’s sleek and slim, she’s showing the signs of wear, plastered in make-up and desperate to fit into dresses at least a size too small.

While this doesn’t enter the no-holds-barred marital hell of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, it’s mostly ugly. He’s a chauvinist pig, a bully, given to tantrums. While, verbally, she can give as good as him, she’s mostly kept dangling on a string, spending “his money” her only satisfaction, and although they live the good life of fancy house, parties and expensive restaurants, the only reason they are not divorced is it would be an inconvenience.

Clearly, his usual targets are “ladies of leisure” but Stella runs her own design business. Robert has the instincts of all predators, targeting the needy. However, Stella is different, appearing to offer the serenity missing from his life. Where he started looking for just another fling, he finds himself falling in love. It’s not entirely clear whether he intends to split form his wife or is merely setting up Stella in an apartment, but he buys and flat and they decorate it, though there’s no sign of her to boys living there.

Zee is accustomed to sabotaging his wanderings. She knows how to hit him where it hurts. She manages to trace him when he’s off enjoying a dirty weekend and fires him up by telling she’s crashed his beloved Rolls-Royce – whether she has or not is unclear, but it does the trick of spoiling his weekend.

And she’s got her own antenna, seeking out the weakness in the mistress whom she befriends well enough so that Stella confesses her dark secret. These days, that would take on a completely different complexion, and would be dealt with in a more sympathetic dramatic fashion. Stella was expelled for falling in love with a nun at her school, so clearly the victim of grooming. Zee exploits this, seducing the younger woman, ensuring Robert knows the secret, destroying his plans for a more idyllic future.

So on the one hand director Brian G. Hutton, moving away from his action comfort zone of Where Eagles Dare (1968) and Kelly’s Heroes (1970), has fashioned on of those crisp double-edged marital dramas where each partner strives for dominance but on the other has created a highly sympathetic portrait of men and women trying to offset their own frailties.

If you’ve only seen Michael Caine employ that steely-eyed mean street for a succession of tough good guys and villains as exemplified by The Italian Job (1969) and Get Carter (1971) you’re in for a treat. This is Caine’s fury in full force, though that is undercut by charm and vulnerability. But it’s Elizabeth Taylor (Butterfield 8, 1960) who has the more rounded character, seductive, mothering, calculating, equally vulnerable. Susannah York (The Killing of Sister George, 1969) has an equally challenging role, maintaining a calm and carefree exterior while seething underneath with desires she dare not admit.

In other hands, this could easily be handled in an exploitational manner, a love triangle, plenty sex with hints of domination, and lesbianism. But Hutton resists the temptation and it takes some time before we less in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf territory than something like The Housemaid where the downtrodden individual turns out to hold the ace.

Written by Edna O’Brien (Three into Two Won’t Go, 1969) from her own novel, the screenplay is stagey at times, but the force of the screen personalities involved makes that irrelevant.

I caught it on Talking Pictures TV and it’ll be repeated there soon.

Thoughtful, stylish, scabrous and intriguing.

Lock Up Your Daughters (1969) **

Worth seeing for all the wrong reasons, prime example being Christopher Plummer with a false nose and almost unrecognizable as an eighteenth century periwigged English dandy in a pure squalor of a coastal town. The best reason is the very realistic background, all mud, missing teeth, drunkenness, cockfighting, poverty, debtors strung up in baskets – not the usual bucolic image of Olde England. But everything gets bogged down in an indecipherable plot. Robert Altman mastered the multi-character narrative in such gems as Nashville (1975) but here debut director Peter Coe most demonstrably did not.

This started life as a modestly successful London West End stage musical and probably for budgetary reasons the songs were discarded. All that’s left is plot. And plot and plot. All to do with sex as it happens. Husbands exist only to be cuckolded. Cleavage is obligatory for women. Young women lusting after sex have been brought up in contradictory fashion to view it as dirty. And no eighteenth century tale is complete without a regimen of long-lost daughters and sons.

It starts promisingly enough in early morning with a town crier (Arthur Mullard) filling us in on the predilections and problems of various prominent citizens, most notably Lord Foppington (Christopher Plummer), the foppest of the fops, gearing up for an arranged marriage to Hoyden (Vanessa Howard). As a virgin not wanting to come to his wedding night bereft of the necessary skills, he employs strumpet Nell (Georgia Brown) to bring him up to speed.

Meanwhile, it’s “lock up your daughters” time as a ship’s crew, at sea for ten months, given two days leave, start charging through the town, fondling and kissing any woman of any age who happens to stand still for a moment. Among this randy bunch are Ramble (Ian Bannen), Shaftoe (Tom Bell) and Lusty (Jim Dale). Ramble is given the eye by married Lady Eager (Fenella Fielding), Shaftoe takes a fancy to Hilaret (Susannah York) while old flame Nell is targeted by Lusty (Jim Dale). Mrs Squeezum (Glynis Johns) seeks sex anywhere and there’s maid Cloris (Elaine Taylor) also seeking physical fulfilment.

Of course, the whole purpose of the narrative is to thwart true and illicit love, husbands and fathers returning at inconvenient times. And had the storyline stuck to the tried-and-tested formula devised very successfully for Tom Jones (1963) and The Amorous Adventures of Moll Flanders (1965) it might well have worked. But the instinct to make meaningful comment by way of satire takes the story in very unlikely directions, an extended court scene with a barmy judge the worst of such excesses, though a food fight comes close.

It’s meant to play as a farce, the men climbing (literally) in and out of bedrooms, the town’s apparently only ladder put to continuous use. But what would work on stage sadly falls down here, and not just because the occasional song might have come as light relief. There is an element of the female confusion over sex, natural instinct going against education, and so ill-informed that at the slightest chaste kiss they are likely to cry rape, but that’s as close as the movie gets to anything that makes sense. A movie that needed a sense of pace just becomes one scene tumbling into another.

Christopher Plummer (Nobody Runs Forever/The High Commissioner, 1968) makes by far his worst screen choice. He’s so concealed in his clothing that movement is inhibited and most of his acting relies on overworked eyeballs. Susannah York (Sands of the Kalahari, 1965) is pretty much lost in the shuffle. Ian Bannen (Penelope, 1966) is the pick, largely because he is required not to play villain, grump or idiot, and his Scottish charm and confidence works very well. Tom Bell (The Long Day’s Dying, 1967) is not cut out for comedy whereas Jim Dale (Carry On Doctor, 1967) who very much is does not get enough.

The movie wastes the talents of a terrific supporting cast headed by former British box office queen Glynis Johns (The Chapman Report, 1962) plus Roy Dotrice (A Twist of Sand, 1968), Vanessa Howard (Some Girls Do, 1969), Elaine Taylor (Casino Royale, 1967), Roy Kinnear (The Three Musketeers, 1973), Kathleen Harrison (Operation Snafu, 1961), Fenella Fielding (Arrivedeci, Baby, 1966) and singer Georgia Brown (A Study in Terror, 1965).

Keith Waterhouse and Willis Hall (Billy Liar, 1963) wrote the screenplay based on, as well as the original musical, a number of sources drawn from the works of Henry Fielding (author of Tom Jones) and John Vanbrugh. Peter Coe never directed another movie.

Hard to find – and probably deservedly so unless you’re of the So Bad It’s Good fraternity.

The Amorous Adventures of Moll Flanders (1965) ***

“The Husband-Hunting Adventures of Moll Flanders” might have been a more accurate title and if you were seeking a template for a multi-character eighteenth-century Olde English picture majoring on sexual shenanigans here would be a very good place to start. Of course, Tom Jones (1963) was the precursor but told the story from the male perspective and here it is from the more vulnerable female point-of-view. Despite the hilarity and the sexual proclivities on show, it remains abundantly clear that marriage remains a refuge, where the those without a title can gain either security or status by contrast, such a contract is viewed as a means of further enrichment for the already wealthy.

So orphan housemaid Moll Flanders (Kim Novak) has a difficult time persuading the elder brother (Daniel Massey) of her wealthy employer to marry her. Instead, he takes her as his mistress, leaving her no option but to marry the drunken fool of a younger brother (Derren Nesbitt) and instantly regretting her decision. When he drowns, you would have thought that would solve her problems. But this was the eighteenth century and a widow with no fortune (and therefore power) of her own can easily be tossed out penniless.

A widowed banker (George Sanders) might be a prospect especially as she has the wits to prevent him being entirely robbed by highwayman Jemmy (Richard Johnson). Plans to marry him thwarted, she takes a job for food and lodgings with Lady Blystone (Angela Lansbury) and her husband, an impoverished Count (Vittorio De Sica), who are constantly pursued by debt collectors. Meanwhile Jemmy has taken the decision to marry a rich woman and become a kept man.

But this set of characters becomes enmeshed, so the tale unfolds in classic fashion. Assuming Moll to be moneyed, Jemmy masquerades as the owner of three ships. Nothing, of course, works out for anybody, certainly not those pretending to be something they are not while aspiring to wealth beyond their reach, but it all concludes in propitious fashion as the actions of the various principals become embroiled.

While certainly having an inclination towards the amorous, Moll wishes for that within the context of true love, rather than selling her physical wares to the highest bidder. So for a picture sold on immorality – the “rollicking ribaldry” of the poster – there is an unsung moral standpoint. Finding safe passage into affluence proves very tricky indeed. And what appears at first glance to be merely a picaresque episodic tale turns out to be very well structured indeed. And those looking for cleavage will find it here in abundance, as if some kind of rationing had been imposed on clothing, or that it was matters of economy that dictated that the area around the bosom be left unclothed. Being the lusted-after heroine it falls to Moll Flanders to shed even more of her attire from time to time.

You are more likely to laugh out loud at the moments of offbeat humour – a flotilla of ducks heading in Moll’s direction when she cries for help in a lake, the Count while acting as a butler demanding a tip – but it is more of a gentle satire. There is some of the expected bedroom farce but, mercifully, no recourse to a food fight. It is handsomely-mounted and meets the highest expectations of the costume drama.

Kim Novak (Of Human Bondage, 1964) easily passed the English-accent-test and carries the picture with ease. Richard Johnson (Deadlier than the Male, 1967) reveals a rakish side so far hidden in his more dramatic works to date. And there is a fine supporting cast including George Sanders (The Quiller Memorandum, 1966), Angela Lansbury (Harlow, 1965), Vittorio De Sica (The Shoes of the Fisherman, 1968), Lili Palmer (The Counterfeit Traitor, 1962) as Jemmy’s mistress, Leo McKern (Assignment K, 1968) as Jemmy’s sidekick going by the name of Squint, Daniel Massey (Star!, 1968) and Derren Nesbitt (Nobody Runs Forever/The High Commissioner, 1968). In bit parts look out for Cecil Parker (Guns at Batasi, 1964), Dandy Nichols later of Till Death Us Do Part television fame and Carry On regular Peter Butterworth.

All directed with some style by Terence Young (Mayerling, 1968) and adapted from the lengthy Daniel Defoe novel by Denis Cannan (A High Wind in Jamaica, 1965) and Roland Kibbee (Valdez Is Coming, 1971).

An old-fashioned romp with, if you can bothered to look, a moral center.

The Carpetbaggers (1964) ****

Likely because the gigantic bestseller by Harold Robbins (Stiletto, 1969) on which this was based made it impervious to critics, the critics determined to slaughter it. Which was a great shame because if they had been at all open-minded, not to mention fair, they would have recognized, outside of a terrific tale with a spellbinding performance by George Peppard (The Blue Max, 1966), a master class in screenwriting from double Oscar nominee John Michael Hayes (Butterfield 8, 1960).

There’s hardly a slack line in the entire ensemble and given he was adapting a monster of a book he cuts to the chase with infinite guile. Scenes demonstrate instant characterization and are littered with quotable lines and the story, even at two-and-half-hours, is told at breakneck speed.

No sooner are we introduced in the opening two scenes to the reckless, arrogant and bedhopping Jonas Cord (George Peppard) than his father has dropped dead and Cord has not only inherited the company but immediately turned from louche spoiled brat into hard-nosed businessman, not just tough but determinedly mean especially in the area of revenge. In a superb scene with his father’s widow Rina (Carroll Baker), we learn that she dumped Jonas for his richer father, and although Jonas appears to be leading her on, that’s only until he can humiliate her by exposing her innate greed.

Despite her wayward sexuality, Rina is a savvy businesswoman, enough to make sure she is set up for life, although the other men she gravitates towards are not as weak as Jonas’s father, nor as nasty as Jonas, and Nevada Smith (Alan Ladd) has the wisdom to led her down gently when he enters her seductive web. The Nevada Smith backstory, which takes up a hefty chunk of the novel, is dealt with in one clever scene, which could act as a trailer for the later film starring Steve McQueen.

And early on there’s a superb scene, akin to the madwoman in the attic, where Jonas opens a locked door containing a derelict bedroom strewn with children’s toys that belonged to his brother. The reason for the locking away is never explained but it’s the only time Jonas gives in to his vulnerable side.

Both Rina and Nevada segue into successful film careers and eventually have an affair. Cord becomes a movie mogul.

Though it certainly enters soap territory in the second half it’s so true to the characters that it plays out in hugely enjoyable fashion. Jonas remains ruthless – and unhappy – while Rina powers her way through men and booze, the latter leading to her death. Nevada doesn’t turn into a superstar, Jonas abandons wife Monica (Elizabeth Ashley) and child, begins an affair with former porn star Jennie (Martha Hyer) and destroys her.

You will be surprised to learn this has a happy ending. I can’t confess to have read the book so no idea whether or not this was tacked on to keep the studio happy. Whatever, it’s a terrific ride, full of punchy lines and sharply-wrought scenes and enough of the pell-mell structure of the book to keep an audience riveted.

This proved the career breakthrough for George Peppard – Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961) had done considerably less for his career than it had for Audrey Hepburn – and he offered Hollywood mavens a new kind of hero, not just a tough guy in the Steve McQueen mold, but a mean tough guy that would open the door for the likes of Lee Marvin.

As you will know I’ve got a soft spot for Peppard, who’s generally been under-rated as an actor. This performance, despite the depths he showed, was equally dismissed, but it’s the turn of this career.

Carroll Baker (Harlow, 1965), too, has a part with real meat and makes the most of it, not just a slinky sex god, but devious and smart, and vulnerable. Alan Ladd (Shane, 1953) in his final picture is well out of his comfort zone and might have looked forward to an extended career playing a different kind of character except for his untimely demise.

The females are uniformly good, especially as they all have underlying reasons for their attraction to the wealthy Jonas, Monica desperate to save her father’s business, Jessica desperate to hide her past.

Edward Dmytryk (Mirage, 1965) doesn’t put a foot wrong, allowing insecurities in tough characters to creep through, but the star of the show for me is John Michael Hayes who turns what could have been a routine blockbuster with a built-in audience into a cracking entertainment.

One to catch.

Night Moves (1975) **** – Seen at the Cinema

You want to know what screenplays are all about, it’s rarely dialog. It’s something registering the eyes. It’s very rare for a movie’s tone to change in a heartbeat. Or in this case in the blink of an eye. Planning to surprise his wife Ellen (Susan Clark) coming out of a movie theater, private eye Harry Moseby (Gene Hackman) sees her snuggle into the arms of another man (Harris Yulin).. The look on his face is pure shock. And from here on in, Moseby’s life turns upside down. He goes from macho man, ex-football jock with a swagger, to someone who’s duped by everyone around him.

Scottish screenwriter Alan Sharp was, for half a decade, an anomaly – though in the best possible way. Few screenwriters have achieved general fame – maybe Robert Towne (Chinatown, 1974), William Goldman (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, 1969) or John Milius (Magnum Force, 1973) – recognized for their writing style and creating identifiable characters. This was the final film in a short-lived golden era for Sharp, an award-winning novelist, who hooked Hollywood with his fresh takes on two of Hollywood most important genres, crime and the western. Beginning with The Last Run (1971) starring George C. Scott, he followed up with elegiac western The Hired Hand (1971), directed and starring Peter Fonda, Robert Aldrich’s tough Ulzana’s Raid (1972) with Burt Lancaster and Billy Two Hats (1974) topbilling Gregory Peck.

In a decade majoring on disillusion, Night Moves set a new template. Previously, the private eye, no matter how cynical, remained a hero, walking the mean streets, always coming out on top. Even Jack Nicholson in Chinatown won the day, exposing corruption, and Elliott Gould was as cool as the cats he preferred in The Long Goodbye (1973).

Moseby isn’t that good at his job. Little detection is required to track down missing Delly Grastner (Melanie Griffith), whose alcoholic mother Arlene (Janet Ward) requires her returned so she can claim an alimony check. This takes Moseby to old buddy, stunt coordinator man Joey (Edward Binns), making a film in which Delly is an extra and her sometime boyfriend Quentin (James Woods) a mechanic. And then onto the Floridsa Keys where the girl is hiding out with her stepfather Tom (John Crawford) and his younger sensuous ex-stripper girlfriend Paula (Jennifer Warren).

As the body count climbs – none of it Moseby’s doing, he’s not in the pistol-packing Dirty Harry league – and a boat wreck is found by Delly while snorkelling, the mystery deepens. But unlike most movies in the genre where the private dick is single or divorced, Moseby is (or was) a happily married man. And where in most movies in the genre, the personal life is left behind once the sleuth is on a case, here Moseby’s head remains filled with betrayal. His wife hasn’t even swapped him for a romantic hunk, instead his rival is smaller and walks with a limp.

Instead of Ellen taking the blame for the situation, Moseby is forced to confront his shortcomings which, of course, include not being able to talk about his early life or his feelings. Which means he’s primed to fall for Paula. Being the macho man, he thinks he’s making the running but in fact she’s using him as a patsy. And soon, just as he’s not spotted signs that this wife was being unfaithful, so, too, his misreads everything about the set-up at the Florida Keys and only discovers, when it’s too late, that he’s been played for a fool.

Usually, the protagonist in these pictures gets away with a quip or is disinclined to take commitment seriously, bed-hopping like James Bond. But Moseby is uxorious and finds it impossible to come to terms with his wife’s deceit. Once in a while he’s able to verbally let go, but mostly Hackman hardly needs dialog to convey his inner feelings to the audience. It’s an acting master class.

And it’s a very bold downbeat ending, the metaphor of a boat going round in circles is easily indicative of Moseby. You’re not going to get a more complicated character in the entire genre than Moseby and this is Gene Hackman (The Gypsy Moths, 1969) at his very best even though his peers didn’t notice, no Oscar acclamation forthcoming. The female roles are distinctive, Melanie Griffith (Working Girl, 1988) theoretically the most auspicious but all the women deceive, Jennifer Warren (Sam’s Song, 1969) slinky about it, while Susan Clark (Coogan’s Bluff, 1968) turns the situation back on her husband.

Arthur Penn’s (The Chase, 1966) career was already on the slide after the critical and commercial success of Bonnie and Clyde (1967) and revisionist western Little Big Man (1970). Warner Brothers didn’t like the finished result and neither did critics nor moviegoers, so in general it’s fallen away in public esteem.

Demands re-evaluation.

Mad Doctor of Blood Island (1969) ***

Not a direct sequel to Brides of Blood (1968) but in today’s vernacular this would be taking place in a “Bloodverse”. Swap human sacrifice for erotic ritual, eliminate the man-eating trees and giant insects, throw in buckets of green blood and women who can’t pass a waterfall without diving in naked, a voyeur, add a touch of estrangement, remove any mention of radiation, and while there’s clearly a monster on the loose a strange doctor appears as much of a liability. To keep the exploitation audience onside, there’s more nudity, plus sex. To keep the arthouse fans happy there’s innovative camera use, a kind of shuddering disorienting effect as the camera jumps back and forward.

This time round our visiting scientist, pathologist Dr Bill Foster (John Ashley), is investigating a strange disease that’s broken out on the island. Accompanying him are non-scientists Sheila Willard (Angelique Pettyjohn) looking for her father (Tony Edmunds) and Carlos (Ronaldo Valdez) who’s planning to persuade his widowed mother (Tita Munoz) to leave. Dr Lorca, the local authority, welcomes the visitors.

None of the new arrivals have much luck. Sheila’s father is a hopeless alcoholic and doesn’t view with any interest reuniting with his daughter while Carlos’s mother refuses point blank to leave. Worse, his father, it transpires died in mysterious circumstances several years before. Dr Lorca is generally obstructive.

It takes a good few sightings of the monster, not a giant as such beings often are, but the size of a normal human with skin a funny color and extremely mottled, to keep things going. Generally speaking, said monster, as in the previous film, has a predilection for naked women, though their nudity doesn’t always seem linked to skinny-dipping under a waterfall.

Finally, the monster becomes more inquisitive and invades the house where the guests are staying. Sheila, who makes the mistake of wandering out into the jungle alone, is attacked by the monster but escapes.

*Blood sells – double the feature, double the blood*. *Check out my review of “Blood Demon.”*

Carlos discovers his father’s coffin is empty. Sheila and Bill hit it off, sufficiently enamored of each other that they make love in a cave. About the only contribution Bill makes, apart from being one-half of the love interest, is to track the monster to a cave where people are being kept prisoner.

The warder is Dr Lorca who has been carrying out experiments on the natives, one of his earliest victims being Carlos’ father Don Ramon who is the current monster. For no apparent reason, except he’s a monster, Don Ramon kills his wife and then because he’s not completely a monster but still has human feelings lets his son go free, instead turning his vengeance onto Dr Lorca and in the carnage that follows apparently killing himself.

But not so fast. As had already been demonstrated in the 1960s, success could breed instant further success, franchises now abounding, not just James Bond, Matt Helm, Harry Palmer and Derek Flint but The Magnificent Seven and The Pink Panther, so nobody was going to pass up the opportunity to make a few more bucks. The door is opened for a sequel when the final shot picks out the hand of the monster hiding in a lifeboat on the ship ferrying away the survivors.

This is more of a cliché than Brides of Blood and some scenes such as the erotic ritual and dalliance at waterfalls and in caves seemed intent on hooking an audience other than horror. Once again, it’s the female lead who steals the picture – though it’s not much of a fight. Angelique Pettyjohn (Heaven with a Gun, 1969) has not just the heaving bosom of her predecessor and her sassiness but a more solid emotional journey.

You’re not going to expect much genuine emotion in a horror picture of the period but in that respect Pettyjohn and, surprisingly, the monster come off best.

Again directed by Eddie Romero and Gerardo De Leon from a script this time round by Reuben Canoy (The Passionate Strangers, 1966).

Passable.

The Testament of Ann Lee (2025) *

Nobody told me this was a musical and a dire one at that, characters breaking into dirge-like tunes at any opportunity and throwing themselves about as if choreographed by Bob Fosse on speed. The kind of film where visual imagination is so limited that every now and then when a snake hoves into view, tongue tipping out, that we’re supposed to realize it’s an image from the Garden of Eden.

It’s such a mess that the director tries to rescue the narrative by imposing a dreadful voice-over commentary that tells us what the screen should have made abundantly clear. This device either robs sequences of any potency or avoids creating any scenes of note by relying on the voice-over to fill in the blanks.

And that’s a shame because there is a good story here to tell. A feminist one for a start, a woman by her own merit achieving a position of considerable importance in eighteenth century Britain and America. If you only knew the term “Shaker” in terms of furniture, then this is the one to disabuse of that notion. However, that term seemed to be one of contempt, an offshoot of the Quakers, who believed a woman would lead the Second Coming, which espoused a religion where they were shaking all over as an essential part of their worship of God, in part related to confessing their sins, but in part, I would guess, because singing and dancing with abandon offered pure physical – not to say sexual – release.

It was a particularly noisy religion. The stomping and yelping attracted so much attention that they were liable to be arrested for being too noisy. But there was a bright side to languishing in prison, at least for our heroine Ann Lee (Amanda Seyfried), who, on the brink of starvation, saw visions that elevated her to a position of leadership – the new Messiah – among her clique.

One of the tenets of the religion – no doubt caused by her being in a state of endless pregnancy with no progeny to show for it, all four offspring dead at birth or soon after – was celibacy. Fornication was strictly forbidden. While nobody gave mind to how that might prevent a new generation carrying on the religion, no doubt it contributed to its popularity amongst women who had to give in to their husband’s sexual demands even though continuous pregnancy wore them out.

Never mind the pregnancies, Ann had a particularly good reason for wanting to stop having sex with her husband Abraham (Christopher Abbott). He was fond of pornography (yes, the printed stuff existed then and was even illustrated so it appears), and of giving her a good whipping as a prelude to sex and he was also bisexual.

They take their singing and dancing to America. The lack of sex leaves Abraham to abandon his wife, which is just as well because she’s too busy setting up Shaker communities to be involved in any intimacy with a perverted male.

The singing and dancing aspect doesn’t go down so well in the New World, it being too close to witchcraft for some, and accusations of witchcraft being the easiest way for the male hierarchy to keep women in their place. For every believer there are a ton of angry disbelievers who don’t want anyone shaking all over.

I saw this as part of my usual Monday triple bill that had got off to a very good start with the interesting, though far from superlative, Elvis Presley in Concert, followed by a more than tolerable Scream 7 with Neve Campbell (returning now that the producers had acceded to her salary demands) introducing her daughter to the delights of being chased by Ghostface. I was looking forward to having enjoyed a very decent day out at the cinema. Alas, the final picture torpedoed that notion.

I should have known better than to avoid films that were touted as more than worthwhile on the back of critical acclamation and an Oscar nomination for the lead. If Oscar nominations were handed out for people debasing themselves or not using make up such as Demi Moore (The Substance, 2025), then Clint Eastwood should have been more in line for similar recognition given the number of times he was whipped or beaten up.

Certainly Amanda Seyfried (The Housemaid, 2025) goes through the hoops here but, frankly, the movie is such a shambles and the voice-over kills off much of the narrative structure that she’s wasted.

Another “visionary” director in the form of Mona Fastvold (The World to Come, 2020) who with husband Brady Corbett (The Brutalist, 2024) wrote the screenplay and who, having been given too much rope by indulgent financiers, proceeds to hand herself.

It might have worked minus the singing and eternal dancing and with the voice-over stripped out and the picture trimmed by a good 20 minutes. Who knows, we might get a director’s cut where the director sees the error of her ways and delivers a more sensible version.

The person sitting next to me in the multiplex gave up after a mere 20 minutes. I wish I had followed suit.

Just awful.

Countess Dracula (1971) ****

You wouldn’t go looking to British studio Hammer for a subtle treatise on the perils of ageing. Nor might you expect a predator to be so cruelly, and consistently, punished. Nor, for that matter, for a mirror to provide revelation given that in the traditional vampire movie one of the signs you have a bloodsucker in your midst is that a mirror does not show their reflection.

The title is something of a misnomer: while there’s bloodletting aplenty there’s zero actual bloodsucking. Hammer had taken a sideways shift into female empowerment and more obvious sexuality and gender twist with the introduction of the female vampire – beginning with The Vampire Lovers (1970), sequel Lust for a Vampire (1971) and, completing the trilogy, Twins of Evil (1972). For that matter it also pre-empted, in perverse fashion, the body swap genre of Freaky Friday (1976 etc.).

These days this would be termed the expansion of a “horrorverse” or a “Hammerverse” as the studio developed its IP since it had not abandoned the traditional Christopher Lee version, doubling down in 1970 with Taste the Blood of Dracula and The Scars of Dracula and following up with Dracula A.D. 1972 (1972).

While Countess Dracula doesn’t fall into the vampiric category, neither does it so obviously exploit the sexuality and rampant nudity of the female vampire trinity. But there are other shocks in store. Be prepared for emotional punch, not something normally associated with Hammer.

The ageing beauty had been a 1960s trope as Hollywood had come to terms with finding starring roles for 1940s/1950s stars past their box office best but names – Lana Turner and Vivien Leigh among others- with still some marquee lure. And this follows a similar trajectory, older woman falling in love with younger man.

Set in Hungary in the seventeenth century, widowed Countess Elisabeth Bathory (Ingrid Pitt) discovers by accident that a touch of virgin blood rejuvenates her skin and tempts her into stealing the suitor Toth (Sandor Eles) of her 19-year-old daughter Ilona (Lesley-Anne Down). But that means kidnapping Ilona and keeping her imprisoned so Bathory can impersonate her, finding a ready supply of virgins to murder and exsanguinate, enlisting in her scheme lover Capt Dobi (Nigel Green) and maid Julie (Patience Collier).

The ruse appears to work well – at first. Believing Bathory is actually her daughter, Toth is easily seduced. But there’s a downside which is quickly apparent. What spell blood casts, it doesn’t last long. And there’s a sting in the tail. Having acted as a rejuvenating agent, when the virgin blood has run its course transformation goes the other way and turns her into an old crone.

So now, Bathory and her team enter serial killer territory, the disappearances and deaths arousing suspicion among the locals and historian Fabio (Maurice Denham), and her daughter threatening at any minute to escape her captor and turn up at the castle. And Bathory cannot give up the fantasy, not least because when the blood runs out, she’ll be unrecognizable as an old crone.

You can see where this is headed, so that’s not much of a surprise. What is astonishing is how well director Peter Sasdy (Taste the Blood of Dracula) handles the emotion. You might think the special effects do all the work that’s required, but that’s not the case. It’s Bathory’s eyes not her crumpled skin that make these scenes so powerful and in between, apart from the initial transformation, Bathory shifts uneasily between exultation that she is living the fantasy and terror that it will come to a sudden end.

Ingrid Pitt (The Vampire Lovers, 1970) has the role of her career, superbly playing a woman bewitched by her fantasy and the prospect of literally turning back the years. None of the ageing actresses that I previously mentioned manage to so well to portray that specific female agony of a beauty losing her looks. Sandor Eles (The Kremlin Letter, 1970) looks the part and Nigel Green (Fraulein Doktor, 1968), while shiftier than usual, also has to scale more emotional heights than normal, in not just having to countenance his lover going off with another man but helping her to do so. Lesley-Anne Down (The First Great Train Robbery, 1978) makes a splash.

More than ably directed by Sasdy, from a screenplay by Jeremy Paul in his debut based on the book by Valentine Penrose.

I’m not sure how well this went down with vampire aficionados and suspect there was audience disappointment, but there is more than enough depth to make up.