sex – Page 10 – The Magnificent 60s

A Guide for the Married Man (1967) **

Little has dated as badly as this male supremacy sexist hogwash. While Billy Wilder can manage to inject some sophistication and even elegance into the thorny subject of adultery and male philandering (The Apartment, 1960), director Gene Kelly has little to offer but crudity.

Walter Matthau (The Fortune Cookie, 1966), top-billed for the first time, does little more than act as listener to neighbour Ed (Robert Morse), supposed expert on wifely deception and link man to a series of lame unconnected sketches featuring a battalion of cameo stars.

It’s more likely to be remembered for being the final film Jayne Mansfield (Playgirl after Dark/Too Hot to Handle, 1960) made before her premature death. Her episode might well sum up the depths of hilarity this opus stoops to – the compelling issue of what to do when your illicit companion loses her bra in your bedroom.

Perhaps the only amusing note is the notion that this has come from the pen of the Oscar-winning Frank Tarloff (Father Goose, 1964), responsible also for the source novel, drawing on the experiences of a bunch of “swingers” reputedly enjoying to the full the sexual excesses of the decade, a decidedly middle-aged gang intent on not leaving all the fun to the hippies and the liberated young

The women here are straight out of The Stepford Wives template of female docility, existing only to please their men, any passing woman automatically in the stunner bracket intent on demonstrating every wiggle possible. Worse, one is so weak that she can be easily manipulated into believing that she did not, in fact, catch her husband in bed with another woman once the wily man falls back on that old political adage of plausible deniability.

What makes the antics of Paul (Matthau) and Ed so reprehensible is that their wives are trusting knock-outs in the first place. Ruth (Inger Stevens), Paul’s other half, not just a keep-fit fanatic but a fabulous cook, able to present a superb meal on a miniscule budget.

So we are meant, I suppose, to sympathize with Paul’s flawed efforts at beginning an extra-marital affair. Or at the very least laugh at his failures, rather than mock his inadequacies as a husband. Paul’s main target is divorcee Irma (Sue Anne Langdon) but it’s no surprise Ed beats him to the punch. There’s an old-fashioned morality lesson at the end but I was hoping, instead, for a twist whereby smug Paul discovered his wife was playing away from home. Although, admittedly, that would be out of character for Ruth.

You might get through this if cameos are your thing and you want to spent a whole movie waiting for an appearance by It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963) alumni Sid Caesar, Jack Benny, Phil Silvers and Terry-Thomas plus the likes of Lucille Ball (Yours, Mine and Ours, 1968), Polly Bergen (Kisses for My President, 1964), Art Carney (Harry and Tonto, 1974), Carl Reiner (The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming, 1966), Linda Harrison (Planet of the Apes, 1968) and Jeffrey Hunter (Custer of the West, 1967).

Walter Matthau just about keeps this afloat and lucky for his career he had The Odd Couple (1968) up next. Inger Stevens (Firecreek, 1968) is wasted.

This was a box office riot on initial release, but times have changed. Gene Kelly (Hello, Dolly!, 1969) directs with a leaden hand.

Guide to a Slimeball might be a better title.

The Adventurers (1970) ***

Class A Trash. Adaptation of Harold Robbins (Nevada Smith, 1966) bestseller goes straight to the top of the heap in the So-Bad- It’s-Good category. Only Alan Badel (Arabesque, 1966) as a double-dealing revolutionary comes out of this with any honors.

The likes of Candice Bergen (Soldier Blue, 1970), Rossano Brazzi (Rome Adventure/Lovers Must Learn, 1962), double Oscar-winner Olivia de Havilland (Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte, 1964), Leigh Taylor-Young (The Big Bounce, 1969) and Ernest Borgnine (The Wild Bunch, 1969) must have wondered how they were talked into this.

And director Lewis Gilbert (Loss of Innocence/The Greengage Summer, 1961) must have wondered how he talked himself into recruiting unknown Yugoslavian Bekim Fehmiu (The Deserter/The Devil’s Backbone, 1970), nobody’s idea of a suave lothario, for the lead.

One of the taglines was “Nothing has been left out” and that’s to the movie’s detriment because it’s overloaded with sex, violence, more sex, more violence, in among a narrative that races from South American revolution (in the fictional country of Corteguay) through the European jet set, fashion, polo, fast cars, orgies, and back again with revenge always high on the agenda. At close on three hours, it piles melodrama on top of melodrama with characters who infuriatingly fail to come to life.

Sensitivity is hardly going to be in order for Dax (Bekin Fehmiu) who, as a child after watching his family slaughtered and mother raped, makes his bones as a one-man firing squad, machine-gunning down the murderers. From there it’s a hop-skip-and-jump to life as the son of ambassador Jaime (Fernando Rey) in Rome where he belongs to an indulgent aristocracy who play polo, race cars along hairpin bends, swap girlfriends and, given the opportunity, make love at midnight beside the swimming pool.

His fortunes take a turn for the worse when his father backs the wrong horse, the rebel El Condor (Jorge Martinez de Hoyos) in Corteguay, and is killed by the dictator Rojo (Alan Badel). In between an affair with childhood sweetheart Amparo (Leigh Taylor Young), life as a gigolo and cynical marriage to millionairess Sue Ann (Candice Bergen), Dax takes up the rebel cause, initially foolish enough to fall for Rojo’s promises which results in the death of El Condor, and then to join the rebels.

But mostly it’s blood, sex, betrayal and revenge. Anyone Dax befriends is liable to face a death sentence. He only has to look at a woman and they are stripping off. It’s a heady mess. It might have worked if the audience could rustle up some sympathy for Dax, especially as he was entitled to feel vulnerable after his childhood experiences. But he just comes across as arrogant and the film-makers as even more arrogant in assuming that because women fall at his feet that must mean he had bucketloads of charm rather than that was what it said in the script. He’s fine as the thug but not convincing as a lover.

Excepting Badel, the best performances in a male-centric sexist movie come from women, those left in Dax’s wake, particularly Candice Bergen as the lovelorn wife and Olivia De Havilland as the wealthy older woman who funds his lifestyle, aware that at any moment he will leave her for a younger, richer, model. Lewis Gilbert is at his best when he lets female emotion take over, not necessarily wordy intense scenes, because Bergen and De Havilland can accomplish a great deal in a look.

The rest of it looks like someone has thrown millions at a B-picture and positioned every character so that they have nowhere else to go but the cliché.

By this point, Hollywood had played canny with Harold Robbins, toning down the writer’s worst excesses and employing name directors to turn dire material into solid entertainment. Edward Dmytryk (Mirage, 1965) had worked wonders with The Carpetbaggers (1964), whose inherent salaciousness was held in check by the censor and made believable by characters played by George Peppard (Pendulum, 1969), Alan Ladd (Shane, 1953) and Caroll Baker (Station Six Sahara, 1963). Bette Davis and Susan Hayward contrived to turn Where Love Has Gone (1964) into a decent drama. Even Stiletto (1969), in low-budget fashion, managed to toe the line between action and drama.

But here it feels as if all Harold Robbins hell has been let loose. Rather than reining in the writer, it’s as if exploitation was the only perspective. Blame Lewis Gilbert, director, and along with Michael Hastings (The Nightcomers, 1971) in his movie debut, also the screenwriter for the end result.

On the other hand, if you can leave your critical faculties at the door, you might well enjoy how utterly bad a glossy picture can be.

Goodbye, Columbus (1969) ****

Despite being made at the opposite end of the decade to Loss of Innocence/The Greengage Summer (1961) this has a number of similarities, in the main the star-making turn, this time from Ali McGraw in her debut and, though playing a slightly older and much wealthier character, she is also a woman in transition, from puppy love to true love, not entirely in control of her emotions and not willing either to accept responsibility for her actions.

Richard Benjamin, in his first starring role, plays the sometimes gauche, much poorer, more responsible, object of her affections. He’s only connected by religious upbringing to The Graduate’s Dustin Hoffman, far more relaxed with women and comfortable in his own persona. The camera loved McGraw the way it did Susannah York, but in these more permissive times, and given the age difference, there was much more the screen could show of the star’s physical attributes.

I was surprised by the quality of McGraw’s performance, expecting much less from a debutante and ex-model (and studio boss Robert Evans’ fiancée) but she is a delight.

Supremely confident Brenda (Ali McGraw) enjoys a life of privilege and engages in witty repartee with the more down-to-earth Neil (Richard Benjamin) who doesn’t know what to do with his life except not get stuck with a money-making job. He would much rather help a young kid who likes art books.

It’s not a rich girl-poor man scenario but more a lifestyle contrast and both families are exceptionally well portrayed. Brenda’s father Ben (Jack Klugman) has sucked the life out of exasperation while her uptight mother (Nan Martin) has to cope with an oddball son (Michael Meyers) and a spoiled brat of a younger sister (Lorie Shelle). It’s somewhat reassuring that money doesn’t prevent family politics getting out of hand.

But in the main it’s a lyrical love story well told. The zoom shot had just been invented so there’s a bit over-use of that but otherwise it zips along. A major plot point provides a reminder of how quickly men took advantage of female emancipation, the invention of the Pill dumping responsibility for birth control into the woman’s lap, leaving the male free to indulge without the risk of consequence.

In other words, it was still a man’s world. Of course, without the Pill, it would be a different kind of story, romance tinged with fear as both characters worried about unwanted pregnancy and stereotypical humour as the man purchased – or fumbled with – a rubber. Acting-wise Ali McGraw is pretty game until the final scene when her inexperience lets her down. I’m not sure I went for the pay-off which paints McGraw in unsympathetic terms and lets Benjamin off rather lightly.

The romantic stakes were considerably lower than in McGraw’s sophomore outing, Love Story (1970) and for both characters it was not the defining moment of their lives, more a rite-of-passage.

Director Larry Peerce (The Incident, 1967) takes time to build a believable background and uses humor to defuse what could have become an overwrought melodrama. Arnold Schulman (The Night They Raided Minsky’s / The Night They Invented Striptease, 1968) was Oscar-nominated for his screenplay based on the Philip Roth bestseller.

No one ever knows why the camera takes to an individual and given this was long after Hollywood had stopped trying to invent stars it was a wonder that Ali McGraw was turned into an marquee attraction. But there was such a lightness to her screen persona it was a surprise she didn’t become a contender for screwball comedy.

Richard Benajmin (Catch 22, 1970), also making his movie debut, does his best but can’t prevent his co-star stealing the show. It must have been galling for the young actor who must surely have believed he was the one being groomed for stardom after the success of television show He and She (1967-1968). He suffered the indignity of his face being reduced to a postage stamp – almost an afterthought – on a poster on which McGraw dominated. He might have taken top billing but in contractual terms that only permitted his name to come first and could not dictate how he was presented.

All in all I was surprised how much I enjoyed it.

The Belle Starr Story (1968) ***

Only spaghetti western directed by a woman. Brings a distinctly feminist feel to that most sexist of the subgenres. You tend to forget that the sexy female Europeans imported to Hollywood as co-stars or to add spice further down the credits were actually top-billed stars in their natïve countries and demonstrated a greater range than the American industry allowed.

Not only do we have Elsa Martinelli (Maroc 7, 1967) as the leather-clad cigar-smoking titular gunslinger, whose watchword is female independence, but it was helmed by arthouse icon Lina Wertmuller (Swept Away, 1974). There’s a thematic consistency lacking in most Italian-made westerns, for example predating Once Upon a Time in the West (1969) in its water imagery. But any potential for lyricism is undercut by the risk attached to being a lone woman. And there’s a Tracy-Hepburn tone to the endless bickering and battle for superiority in her niggling romance with outlaw Blackie (George Eastman).

And, unusually in that decade, a woman who throws caution to the wind and will even bet her body when the money runs out at the poker table, as twisty a meet-cute as a screenwriter could devise. But thereafter it’s a struggle for dominance between the pair. She won’t take orders from a man. He won’t accept female equality even when she shoots the wooden fence he’s sitting on from under him, making him fall to the ground, and for good measure putting a bullet in his heels.

The first act builds up Belle Starr, cool at the poker table, even cooler in the bedroom, and demonstrating the gunplay that attracted her notoriety. The second act take an odd route, a lengthy flashback that digs deep into feminism, the orphaned Belle Starr running away after being sold into marriage by her uncle to an ugly old rich powerful man, traded, effectively, for political favor.

She returns to save a servant condemned to death for the crime of attacking the uncle when he tried to rape her. Sexual humiliation is a theme. Another outlaw Harvey (Robert Woods), who she regards as a platonic friend, steals her clothes as she swims in a lake, and then, having saved her from a posse, forcibly tries to take his reward.

The third act, like the duel between The Man With No Name and The Man in Black, is a case of double- and triple-cross. She refuses to join Blackie’s gang when he plans a million-dollar jewel heist, but hijacks the concept, recruiting her own gang to beat him to the robbery, and teach him a lesson.

But it backfires. Blackie is waiting. She has inadvertently hired his men. In the subsequence shoot-out he is captured. She rides to his rescue. But with their opposing ideas of a woman’s place in the world part on good terms.

The flashback was more subtly observed in Once Upon a Time in the West, and while she shared with Charles Bronson gunslinging skills he was not at any time viewed as a commodity or a piece of property or a candidate for rape. The flashback here fleshes out for the audience the powerlessness of women. But also the kind of camaraderie that is generally also usually only conferred on male characters.

We are pretty conversant with the notion that the gun rules the West. But less conscious of what happens when you are gun-less. Depriving someone of their fundamental weaponry makes them instantly impotent, as humiliating as denying someone water in a desert.

There are some nice directorial touches, blood dripping from a ceiling onto a dinner table, a saloon door opening to cast sudden light onto a corpse, waterfalls suggest sanctuary whereas open water attracts predatory males, and the finale, as they part, of Blackie, desperate to demonstrate his superiority, shooting off her hat from some distance.

Elsa Martinelli is a revelation as a star working to her own beat rather than playing second fiddle to some Hollywood marquee name. This wasn’t Lina Wertmuller’s first film and she had already made an impact with the Rita the Mosquito series, featuring another rebellious woman. Don’t be fooled by the co-directing credit, she replaced debut director Piero Cristofani after a few days.

It’s somewhat ironic that in a contemporary Hollywood attempt to create a female outlaw leader in Cat Ballou (1965), Jane Fonda was upstaged by Lee Marvin, and that in Bonnie and Clyde (1967), despite taking precedence in the title, Faye Dunaway was not the dominant one in the relationship.

By no means a great western but worth a look to see what Elsa Martinelli can achieve when not slotted in to the Hollywood co-star cliche and to get a preview of what Lina Wertmuller could offer.

Decent print on YouTube.

The Fixer (1968) ***

Stunning opening section thrown away by shifting tone and despite excellent performances by the Oscar-nominated Alan Bates and Dirk Bogarde drifts into Kafkaesque virtue-signalling.

But let’s get the title out of the way first. I had assumed a “fixer” was a manipulator, an underworld type of character who could, for a price or future favor, sort out problems or find someone a job or act as an intermediary between politicians or businessmen. Not so. Yakov (Alan Bates) is nothing more than a handyman, who can fix broken windows or railings and turn his hand to anything such as wall-papering or basic accountancy.

In the credit sequence he demonstrates his skills by fashioning with wood, a couple of screws and some steel, a razor, with which to remove the hair and beard that would identify him as a Hassidic Jew. He is, as soon becomes apparent, afflicted by dogs. As he departs his remote cottage in a cart, a vicious dog so disturbs his horse that it bolts, resulting in the loss of a wheel. He continues his travels on horseback, arriving in a small town in time to witness a parade and Cossacks rampaging through the streets.

As it’s set in Czarist Russia, his journey is accompanied by melancholy violin with, for some reason, a disturbing undercurrent of military drum. As the credits end, we cut to the Russian flag and a marching band. He hides in terror as the horsemen drag people along by the ear, slash with sabers, hang others. It’s a pogrom, the type of attack commonly experienced by Jews living in ghettoes.

Up to now, it’s just outstanding. Then it tips into the picaresque. Yakov helps an old drunk Lebedev (Hugh Griffiths) who’s fallen down in the snow in the street. As reward he is offered work wall-papering a room. He has a prick of conscience when he realises that Lebedev is an anti-Semite. Lebedev’s daughter Zinaida (Elizabeth Hartman) seduces him. But, on spotting some blood on a cloth, he refuses to go through with the act.

Luckily, my reading of crime novelist Faye Kellerman has alerted me to the fact that it is an act of faith for Jews not to make love when a woman is menstruating. Luckly, Zinaida isn’t so up on her Bible (Leiticus 15: 19-23 in case you were interested) that she catches on to this revealing fact, for, as has been pointed out earlier, minus the distinctive curl, Yakov doesn’t have the physical characteristics associated in those times with a Jew. In fact, you would say Lebedev would more easily pass for one.

Anyway, Lebedev gives him another job, of counting the loads leaving his brickworks because he suspects he is being swindled. But the foreman, who has been rumbled, and suspects Yakov of being a Jew, calls in the Secret Police, it being a crime for Jews to leave the ghetto.

Now we tip into Kafka. The initial charge against Yakov is that he harbored another Jew during Passover. But then things spiral out of control. He is accused of passing himself off as a Gentile (non-jew), attempted rape of Zinaida and then of ritual murder, killing a small child.

Investigating magistrate Bibikov (Dirk Bogarde) is sympathetic and manages to avoid the rape charge much to the fury of prosecutor Grubeshov (Ian Holm) but once the other charges mount, he is nailed, everyone determined to prove an innocent man guilty.

This is based on a true case and clearly was a case of persecution and Yakov’s transition from worker happy to hide his ethnicity to gain work to a man who rediscovers his religion is a piece of great acting from Alan Bates. But the points are hammered home endlessly and where director John Frankenheimer (The Train, 1964) so deftly dispensed with dialogue in the superb opening sequence, now he more than makes up for it with leaden speeches, and a film that would worked better for being considerably shorter.

It feels like Hollywood is hard at work. After some moments of mild happiness Yakov’s cinematic chore is to invoke sympathy for an entire nation rather than taking on the Holocaust directly. Dalton Trumbo’s (Lonely Are the Brave, 1962) screenplay is filled with brooding lines. But providing Yakov with an interior monologue when he dithers over having sex doesn’t work at all, certainly not next to the more effective use of that technique in John and Mary (1969).

At the outset, Frankenheimer treats violence with discretion. We don’t see the dog being impaled on a saber, just its corpse thrown at Yakov. We witness a rope being wound round a man’s neck, as innocent of any crime as Yakov, but not the actual hanging. So what begins as highly-nuanced turned into a battering ram of a picture and characters forced into lines like “the law will protect you unless you are guilty” and “I am man who although not much is still more than nothing.”

Alan Bates (The Running Man, 1963) certainly deserves his Oscar nomination and Dirk Bogarde (Modesty Blaise, 1966) might feel aggrieved he missed out on a Supporting Actor nomination. But too many of the rest of the cast over-act. It’s an all-star cast only if you’re British. But check it out if you’re a fan of Hugh Griffith (The Counterfeit Traitor, 1962), Elizabeth Hartman (The Group, 1966), David Warner (Perfect Friday, 1970), Ian Holm (in his sophomore movie outing), Carol White (Daddy’s Gone A-Hunting, 1969) and Georgia Brown (Lock Up Your Daughters!, 1969).

Frankenheimer at his best when he lets the action play without the overload and there’s one almost Biblical scene, lit only by candlelight, that demonstrates his cinematic virtuosity. But otherwise it’s drowned in the verbal rather than the visual. Trumbo based his screenplay on the Pulitzer Prize winner and bestseller by Bernard Malamud.

Some effective moments, but too long drawn-out to make the impact expected.

John and Mary (1969) ****

Woefully underrated. Remove the weight of expectation and you’re left with a bittersweet romance. This just wasn’t what critics anticipated from stars Dustin Hoffman, coming off the back of Midnight Cowboy (1969), and Mia Farrow, previous film the coruscating Rosemary’s Baby (1968), and certainly it seemed there was resentment at the audacity of British director Peter Yates attempting to switch from his action roots, best shown in Bullitt (1968). Worse, that Yates was trying to introduce a New Wave vibe.

In the end-up it’s sweet, but getting there is a prickly affair and it’s precisely this unique approach that creates its appeal. Where the standard set-up comprises meet-cute, break-up, back together, for the most part this looks as if actual romance, as opposed to sex, will never get off the ground, the pair smothered by doubt expressed in internal monologue.

Whereas, in The Fixer (1969), for example, hearing a character speak of their feelings outside of dialogue almost torpedoes the picture, here it works a treat, because it’s dealt with as if it was dialogue of the unspoken variety. Past experience that forces both characters to make suppositions about the other’s intent creates a very amusing and essentially true barrier to progress.

Back in the day, at the dawn of the singles generation, the idea of two young people hooking up for one-night stands filled the moral majority with shock, not just that widespread use of the Pill in avoiding pregnancy invoked promiscuity, but that random encounters immediately ended up in the bedroom rather than the becoming the start of a wooing (and discovery) process. These days, of course, Tinder and other such social media inventions, create umpteen opportunities for attraction to translate into instant sex.

But it doesn’t reduce the type of anxieties that are so well addressed here.

You can start with the basic morning-after notion of “how do I get rid of her?” all the way through to assuming such easy attitudes to sex on either side would destroy an ongoing relationship, and along the way dipping into such minefields as how to get to know another person, does he/she even like me or would they fall into bed with the first person to ask them, are they even as attractive in the cold light of day than when perceptions are muddied by alcohol and excitement, and, of course, the ultimate, was performance up to scratch.

The Carlton was one of the smaller London West End cinemas and often used for prestigious openings to create the hold-overs that would build audience awareness and, such as here with box office increasing week-on-week, encourage cinema bookings.

This takes the unusual route of being peppered with flashback while the pair engage in spikier dialogue than you would find in the standard Hepburn-Tracy Hudson-Day romcom. And often what they say is the opposite of what they feel. Setting off in several directions at once – back a year or so, taking in the activity of the previous night and ploughing through the current day – could be off-putting but I found it worked a treat.

Anal retentive domesticated furniture designer John (Dustin Hoffman) hooks up in a singles bar with untidy politically-motivated sometime-actress Mary (Mia Farrow). His first reaction on waking up is to explore the apartment (rather large for New York), wonder when his wife will return, and think of all the deceptions he could pull. His first reaction borders on pure fear: she’s already planning to move in.

That neither has a genuine idea of the other person’s feeling provides the movie’s dynamic and the entire movie consists of them adjusting their expectations against a very contemporary backdrop of protests, politics, cinema verite and sex. Though primarily non-sexist and quite gender-equal, she isn’t looking to become a kept woman, for example, it does touch upon the notion that an easily-available woman is not far short of a whore, whereas, naturally, a promiscuous male is entitled to a free pass.

Her last relationship was with a married man (Michael Tolan), but she dropped him once he started talking about divorcing his wife. For John, girlfriend Ruth (Sunny Griffin) dramatically upped the stakes, arriving at his apartment with luggage, items of furniture and a rampant dog, enforcing on John responsibilities he did not want. Unusually, for the era, he is not politically involved and can cook, both of which attributes/skills we discover are the result of a mother so committed to politics that she neglected her children, never stocked her fridge and left her children to fend for themselves.

Each could press the nuclear button at any time. They’re attractive singles so more sex is just round the corner, going their separate ways the easier option, building a relationship far more difficult.

Dustin Hoffman shakes off a lot of the tics that were already showing and would inhibit later performances in a character far removed in sexual confidence from The Graduate (1967), but in some ways still touchingly naïve, and delivers a very believable performance. That it doesn’t fall into the usual Tracy-Hepburn battle of the sexes with witty put-downs owes much to the highly-nuanced performance of Mia Farrow who isn’t, as you might expect, in the least fragile and expresses her independence and challenges his views in a non-aggressive fashion.

Completely ignored by the Oscars, technically it won plaudits from Bafta, bracketed with Midnight Cowboy for Dustin Hoffman picking up the Best Actor Award, and with Rosemary’s Baby and Secret Ceremony for Mia Farrow in being nominated for Best Actress – such arcane rules later changed.

In small parts look out for Cleavon Little (Blazing Saddles, 1974), Tyne Daly (Cagney and Lacey TV series 1981-1988), Don Siegel’s son Kristoffer Tabori (Journey through Rosebud, 1972) and Olympia Dukakis (Moonstruck, 1987). John Mortimer (Bunny Lake Is Missing, 1965) wrote the screenplay from the Mervyn Jones bestseller.

Cinematically and narratively refreshing, manages to be entertaining and thoughtful at the same time.

Modesty Blaise (1966) ***

You might well enjoy this if a) you are in a very good mood, b) you love psychedelia, Pop Art and the Swinging Sixties, c) you fancy a spy film spoof or more likely d) you are a big fan of one or all concerned. Otherwise, you might be well advised to steer clear because it either takes the mickey out of a number of genres, not just espionage, or plays merry hell with narrative and character and is only loosely based on the source material by Peter O’Donnell.

Bear in mind it originated in a comic strip – later turned into a series of novels – that had more in common with the likes of Danger: Diabolik than the more straightlaced adventures emanating from DC Comics or Marvel. In particular, Modesty had a neat habit of distracting the villains by appearing topless in moments of crisis – a trick adopted in movies like 100 Rifles (1969) and El Condor (1970).

Fans of the comic strip/book may have been left indignant by the audacity of the filmmakers to introduce romance between Modesty and her sidekick Willie Gavin since in the book their relationship was strictly platonic. There was no place, in either comic strip or book, for the musical numbers that pepper the movie. And – check out The Swinger (1966) – for the notion of a character acting out a fictionalized version of herself.

You should be aware that Modesty is a very rich version of the gentleman sleuth, an idea that belonged to the old school, of a person, such as The Saint, bored with wealth, who takes on dangerous assignments in the eternal battle between good and evil.

Anyways, on with the story.

Modesty Blaise (Monica Vitti) is hired by the British government in the shape of MI5 chief Sir Gerald Tarrant (Harry Andrews), in return for immunity for her previous crimes, to deliver a secret shipment of diamonds, part-payment for oil imports, to Sheik Abu Tahir (Clive Revill). Modesty happens to be the sheik’s adopted daughter. Meanwhile, criminal mastermind Gabriel (Dirk Bogarde), believed to be dead, has his eyes on the consignment.

Meanwhile (again), Modesty upsets current lover Hagen (Michael Craig), Tarrant’s aide, by hooking up with old flame Willie Garvin (Terence Stamp). Meanwhile (again again), Garvin hooks up with another of his old flames, magician’s assistant Nicole (Tina Marquand), who has information on Gabriel.

Various assassins employing a variety of methods are sent to kill Modesty so a good chunk of the picture is her avoiding her demise. Gabriel is a pretty touchy employer, so upset by failure that he assigns his Amazonian bodyguard Mrs Fothergill (Rosella Falk) to eliminate all such assassins. Gabriel, however, is something of a contradiction, very sensitive to violence. And just in case you are not keeping up with the plot, conveniently, the bulk of the conversations between Tarrant and his superior (Alexander Knox) will fill you in.

Through a whole bunch of clever maneuvers on Gabriel’s part, Modesty and Willie are forced to steal the diamonds themselves. And, meanwhile, Hagen is on their tail, infuriated at being jilted.

In between the umpteen shifts in plot, which basically lurches like a ship in a storm, the screen is ablaze with color. Nobody complained much when Raquel Welch found it necessary to change her bikini ever few seconds, or that a musical required continuous costume changes, and Modesty here seems to have fallen into the same pattern, the changes in outfit often so swift you imagine she has a disorder.

And be warned, this is a poster film for Pop Art, so if it’s not clothes that are being swapped, it’s décor. You might put Terence Stamp’s blond barnet in the discordant category. You can’t really complain about the plot because espionage storylines are usually something of a conjuring trick with the impossible little more than a standard mission. There’s much to enjoy if you’re of a mind and subscribe to one of the four ideas outlined in the opening paragraph and like the idea of the otherwise critical darling Joseph Losey (Accident, 1967) giving way to stylistic overkill.

Monica Vitti (Girl with a Pistol, 1968) inhabits the role with the necessary verve though Terence Stamp (The Collector, 1963) looks as if he has walked into a spoof and Dirk Bogarde (H.M.S. Defiant / Damn the Defiant!) appears still in experimental mode, having dumped the British matinee idol, unsure of what his screen persona should be. Evan Jones (Funeral in Berlin, 1966) is generally to be blamed/praised for the screenplay.

A movie for which the word confection was invented.

The Oscar (1966) ****

Don’t you just love a really good bad movie? Where redemptive character is outlawed. When over-acting is the key. In which everyone gets the chance to spout off about someone else, generally to their face, and then is permitted, in the cause of balance, a quiet moment of bitter self-reflection. And even the most minor character gets a zinger of a line. Welcome to Hollywood.

Tale of an actor’s rise and not exactly fall because we leave Frank Fane (Stephen Boyd) at a pinnacle of his career, though, don’t you know, he’s empty inside and deserted by all his faithful companions. Lucky Frank has some kind of charisma or that he just fastens onto losers who see in him what they need because from the outset he is one mean hombre, living off stripper girlfriend Laurel (Jill St John), so dumb she switched to him from his so dependable best pal Hymie (Tony Bennett – yes, that Tony Bennett, the singer).

He hooks up with Kay (Elke Sommer), a designer who happens as a sideline to make costumes for off-Broadway productions. When King of Lowlife Punks Frank shows a pusillanimous stage actor what you do in a knife fight he strikes a chord with theater producer Sophie (Eleanor Parker), who happens to have a sideline as a talent scout for the movies.

She fixes him up with an agent Kappy (Milton Berle – yes that Milton Berle, the loudmouth comedian) and together they sell him to studio boss Regan (Joseph Cotten). The only good deed Frank does in the entire movie is to stand witness – not for marriage, but for divorce – for an ordinary couple, private detective Barney (Ernest Borgnine) and Trina (Edie Adams), he meets at a bullfight, huge fans, and thank goodness that action comes back to bite him.

The picture goes haywire in the third act. Fane’s career is crumbling in the face of audience indifference, exhibitor displeasure and, don’t you know it, a chance for revenge for Regan, who was stiffed in a previous contract. But instead of taking the traditional tumble into the forgotten category, his career is revived by an Oscar nomination.

*From top to bottom – a fully-clothed Stephen Boyd, then in various states of undress, Elke Sommer, Jill St John and Eleanor Parker. That’s how to sell a picture apparently*.

But that’s not enough for the ruthless Fane. Earlier in his life a corrupt sheriff had stuck him with charges of pimping. Using Barney, who seems to have the ear of the media, he plants a story about himself, hoping that Hollywood being the cesspool it is, everyone will assume one of his rivals did the dirty. “I can’t rig the votes,” rationalizes our poor hero,” but I can rig the emotions of the voters.”

What a scam. I was chortling all the way through this section and almost laughing out loud when it transpires Frank had misjudged how deep the cesspool is, because Barney then blackmails him. This gives everyone he has treated heinously over the years the chance to stick it to him. Nobody will lend him the dough to get this grinning monkey off his back. Salvation comes in the oldest of Hollywood maneuvers. Trina, who has always wanted to get into pictures, and is the kind of person who embodies A Grievance Too Far, supplies the information that will sink her ex-husband, in exchange for Frank using his influence to get her a small role.

There’s a brilliant climax. I should have said spoilers abound but I can’t resist telling you the ending it’s such a cracker. So there is Frank at the Oscars with Bob Hope (yes, that Bob Hope) as master of ceremonies and the audience studded with real stars like Frank Sinatra (yes, that…). Like an evil chorus – you can almost hear them hissing under their breath and they all fix him with baleful looks – are all those he treated badly.

The winner is announced. “Frank…” Assuming victory, Fane gets to his feet. “Sinatra.” The only way he can rescue his embarrassment is to make it look as he is giving the winner a standing ovation. But when the rest of the audience follows suit, he slumps to his chair, and in the only true cinematic moment in all the sturm and drang the camera pulls back from him sitting bitter, twisted and defeated in his seat.

Stephen Boyd (Shalako, 1969) is terrific because even when he was top-billed he tended to over-act and when he became a co-star or supporting player he was an inveterate scene-stealer, of the sharp intake of breath / vicious tongued variety. Here he shows both his charming and venomous side. If he was playing a gangster he couldn’t be more menacing – or charismatic. It’s a peach of a role – he can dish it out, dump women at will, and still embrace victimhood as “170lb of meat.”

Luckily, most of the rest of the cast take the subtle route. Although all disporting in various negligible outfits at one time or another, Jill St John (The Liquidator, 1965), Elke Sommer (The Prize, 1963) and Eleanor Parker (Eye of the Cat, 1969) and giving Frank his comeuppance wherever possible – St John slings him out – the performances are generally nuanced, Parker in particular evoking sympathy.

Tony Bennett is miscast, especially as he has to do double duty as an unwelcome voice-over, filling in bits of the narrative that, thankfully, has been skipped. But Milton Berle is pretty good as a quiet-spoken agent.

In the over-the-top stakes, Boyd has his work cut out to hold his own in scenes with Ernest Borgnine (The Wild Bunch, 1969) who revels in his scam, and Edie Adams (The Honey Pot, 1967) who is anything but a dumb blonde and delivers the most stinging of zingers.

Doesn’t tell us anything we didn’t know about Hollywood except in one delicious scene where, early in his career, Frank has to squire around a female star who relishes putting him in his place.

It’s not badly made just pell-mell and over-the-top. Russell Rouse (The Caper of the Golden Bulls, 1967) directs from a screenplay by himself and Harlan Ellison (yes that Harlan Ellison, the sci fi author) from the bestseller by Robert Sale.

An absolute hoot.

The Group (1966) ***

The ensemble picture provided a showcase for new talent. But consider the gender imbalance at work. Only Candice Bergen proved a breakout star of any longevity compared to a flop like The Magnificent Seven (1960) from which six relative newcomers – Steve McQueen, James Coburn, Charles Bronson, Robert Vaughn, Eli Wallach (only his fourth movie) and Horst Buchholz – became top-billed material.

Part of the problem was Hollywood itself, not enough good roles for actresses who weren’t destined for spy movies or to become a decorative supporting player, and who could not headline a western, war picture or (with the exception of Bonnie and Clyde) a hardnosed crime movie. But part of the problem was the structure of The Group. Yes, there’s a 150-minute running time, but there are eight main characters to contend with.

And the story doesn’t have a central focus like The Magnificent Seven where characters are built in asides to the main action but has to meander in eight different directions. Luckily, it still remains a powerful confection, tackling, as if setting out to shock audiences, contentious issues like mental illness, leftwing politics, birth control and lesbianism. What could easily have descended into a chick flick or a glorified soap opera instead pushes in the direction of feminism.

A bunch of wealthy privileged university female graduate friends sets out in the 1930s to change the world only discover, to their amazement, that the male-dominated dominion chews them up and spits them out.

Only Lakey (Candice Bergen), who prefers the company of women, appears to find fulfilment but that’s mostly from running off to the more liberated Paris at the earliest opportunity to study art history though the Second World War puts an end to that.

Kay (Joanna Pettet) seems to have made the best marriage, with a wannabe alcoholic writer (Larry Hagman), but she ends up in a mental asylum. Dottie (Joan Hackett) also views life in the art world, marrying a painter, as the best option only to later prefer a more mundane husband. Priss (Elizabeth Hartmann), the strongest-minded of the octet, lands a man of a stronger, controlling, character.

Polly (Shirley Knight) is the most sexually adventurous. Ostensibly, Helena (Kathleen Widdoes), a renowned traveller, and Libby (Jessica Walter), a successful novelist, appear to achieve the greatest independence and success but come up short in that most important of endeavors, romance. The men, you should be warned, are all one-dimensional scumbags.

The movie focuses mainly on Kay, Polly and Libby. Lakey shows up at the beginning and the end.

At its best, it’s an insight into the world of women, on a grander scale than any of the tear-jerkers of previous decades. But it suffers from too many characters and too little time. It might have been better as a mini-series, though that, obviously, was not an option at the time. The Sidney Buchman (Cleopatra, 1963) screenplay fails to match the intensity of the critically-acclaimed source novel by Mary McCarthy, a huge bestseller.

It’s a surprising choice for Sidney Lumet (The Pawnbroker, 1964), more mainstream than his general output, but while he clearly presents the characters in sympathetic fashion, his hallmark tension is missing.

Mostly, it works as a time-capsule of a time-capsule, a movie about the 1960s optimism of 1930s optimism, and the obstacles faced by both.

Only Candice Bergen (Soldier Blue, 1970) approached the level of success achieved by The Magnificent Seven motley crew, achieving top-billed status in a number of films and her screen persona, possibly as a result of this movie, was often independence. Leading lady in Will Penny (1968) and Support Your Local Sheriff (1969) was the height of success for Joan Hackett.

Already twice Oscar-nominated as a Supporting Actress, Shirley Knight was the best-known of The Group, but was only thereafter top-billed once, in the low-budget Dutchman (1966) although she won critical plaudits for The Rain People (1969).

An Oscar nominee for her debut A Patch of Blue (1965), Elizabeth Hartmann was top-billed in You’re A Big Boy Now (1967) and then fell into the supporting player bracket. Never top-billed, Joanna Pettet was a strong co-star for the rest of the decade but that was marked by flops like Blue (1968) and The Best House in London (1968) and she drifted into television.

Best known for Number One (1969) and Play Misty for Me (1971) Jessica Walter failed to achieve top-billing. Though, as a result of this review, it has been pointed out to me (thanks Mr Film-Authority) that I glossed over her brilliant performance in television show Arrested Development (2003-2019); in fact, if your search for her on imdb that TV series is the one that pops up first.

Most of the actresses did have long careers, sustained by leading roles in television or bit parts in movies but when you consider the success visited upon the group known as The Magnificent Seven you can’t help thinking this was a whole generation of talent going to waste because they could not be accommodated by the Hollywood machine and did not fit the industry prototype.

For another example of gender disparity you could compare the consequent comparative success of the stars of Valley of the Dolls and The Dirty Dozen, both out the following year.

Inside Daisy Clover (1965) ***

Exploitation Hollywood. Cautionary tale of young singer in the 1930s seduced by the movies only to discover she is regarded as a plaything and a profit center rather than a human being. Not highly regarded at the time despite being directed by Oscar-nominated Robert Mulligan (To Kill A Mockingbird, 1962), gained greater traction since #Me Too!

At the time the central performance by Natalie Wood (Cash McCall, 1960) seemed too much one-note, but on reflection, despite the endless popping and swivelling of her eyes (you can always see the whites, often to her detriment in acting terms), it appears a much truer reflection of a teenager caught in the headlights of the fame- and money-making machine. Christopher Plummer (Lock Up Your Daughters, 1969) delivers a devilishly restrained performance and there’s the bonus of an over-the-top turn by Robert Redford (The Chase, 1966), named Most Promising Newcomer in some parts.

The odds are stacked against Daisy Clover (Natalie Wood) from the start, living in a shack on a beachfront with an insane mother (Ruth Gordon), earning a living forging signatures on movie star portraits, but with a secret yen to become a singer. After sending a demo disk, cut in a fairground booth, to Swan Studios she finds doors opening. Raymond Swan (Christopher Plummer) turns her into a star. Having committed her mother to an institution, and for public consumption announced her dead, greedy Aunt Gloria (Betty Harford), now her legal guardian, signs her niece’s life away.

It’s almost docu-style in the telling, very few close-ups, most long shots, even in groupings the camera seems awfully far away, and the Hollywood we are shown is mostly the giant empty barns of shooting stages and the never-seen elements, like post-synching in a booth. Daisy never seems to be enjoying herself, except when, although underage, is seduced by movie idol Wade Lewis (Robert Redford) who abandons her the morning after their wedding and can’t resist a “charming boy.”

Mostly, she is the puppet, dressed in glamorous outfits, her life re-invented for the fan magazines, freedom curtailed, living in a suite in the grand mansion of Swan and wife Melora (Katharine Baird), who, it transpires, is an alcoholic and at one point cut her wrists. Most of the time Daisy just seems frozen, locked into a character she doesn’t recognize, kept at one remove from her mother, turned into a money-making machine.

She’s too young to be a Marilyn Monroe and too old to be a Shirley Temple. The most likely template in Deanna Durbin (Mad About Music, 1938), who after being rejected by MGM, struck gold with Paramount as a 15-year-old, but, ironically, in terms of this picture, proved as hard as nails, not only negotiating contracts that turned her into the highest-earning star in Hollywood but quitting the business before it ate her up.

*Except she doesn’t put anyone down. She’s nobody’s idea of a winner despite this clever piece of publicity.*

Daisy shifts from being able to fend off unwelcome attention from an erstwhile boyfriend while poor to being seduced, while rich and theoretically more powerful, by anyone who shows her the slightest kindness, including her boss after she’s dumped by Wade. Swan bears a close resemblance to Cash McCall, making no bones about his money-making intentions and viewing every employee in terms of profit, but using charm to mask his ruthlessness. When the façade breaks, it’s one of the best scenes.

The odds are also stacked against anyone looking good. This is a parade of the venal, everyone destroyer or destroyed. The fact that actors with no other talent earned vast fortunes from a business that was willing to underwrite their flops (Natalie Wood, herself, a classic example) and must have enjoyed some aspect of their wealth, if not in just being rescued from abject poverty, doesn’t enter the equation.

Although there is no doubt there is a Hollywood publicity machine, a lot less attention is paid to the power of the Actors PR which has managed to convince the public that no matter how much the stars earn ($20 million a picture for some) they are still poor wee souls at the mercy of terrible studios willing to gamble enormous sums ($295 million on the latest Harrison Ford, more for Fast X) on their box office potential.

But let’s not digress.

While the picture-making style is unusual, it’s worth appreciating the deliberate effort Robert Mulligan has put in to de-glamorize the star system. Brit Gavin Lambert (Sons and Lovers, 1960) wrote the screenplay from his own, more brutal, bestseller.

This cold-hearted expose is just what Hollywood deserves. That Daisy is a minor when taken advantage by Wade is mentioned just in passing, and from the actor’s perspective (it could damage his career). That vulnerable women are kept in that position was no more heinous then than it is now.