Sophia Loren in playful mood. Not every serious actress could whip up a confection as light as this. She was in the middle of a romance period embracing both comedy and drama that began with Houseboat (1958) and rattled through to The Millionairess (1960) before embarking on a half-decade of more serious stuff starting with her Oscar-winning performance in Two Women (1960).
Easy to dismiss her here as all pout and bosom, but there’s a distinct egalitarianism on show, especially given it’s set in early stuffy 20th century Vienna, where protocol reigns, making life difficult for a lass who wishes an active sex life outside the constrictions of marriage.
There’s not much to the story, in fact it’s as flimsy as heck, but the kind of picture that a top star can swan her way through and charm the audience with her.
When we meet Olympia (Sophia Loren) she’s been exiled to the countryside for one scandal too many and to ease her boredom takes potshots at anyone visiting her quaint castle. Out horse-riding, she tangles with a motor car driven by Yank businessman Charlie Foster (John Gavin) and engineers that they spend the night in a nearby hunting lodge, leading him to believe she’s an ordinary peasant girl and not a princess.
Summoned back to Vienna by her father Prince Philip (Maurice Chevalier) and mother Princess Eugenie (Isabel Jeans) because they’ve found a prospective suitor in Prince Ruprecht (Carlo Hintermann), she encounters Charlie again because he’s trying to sell her father on some business deal.
On the sidelines causing trouble is (Angela Lansbury) who threatens to dish the dirt on Olympia and Charlie and cause a great scandal. And, really, that’s all there is to it except, as had become somewhat de rigeur in his pictures, Maurice Chevalier chips in with a song.
But the settings are glorious and costume design takes the top prize. While everyone else has a whale of a time, John Gavin (Midnight Lace, 1960) looks lost, wooden and out of his depth, unable to respond to the mischievous sparkle of La Loren. This could easily have been devised to show Loren at her marquee best, the belle of the ball, but with a cunning mind, quick repartee, and surprisingly feminist in her approach.
It was one of those Hollywood-Italian co-productions that were starting to take off with little regard for national gridlines. Though set in Austria, the female lead was Italian, male lead American, Maurice Chevalier (Jessica, 1962) as French as they come, Isabel Jeans (The Magic Christian, 1969) is English and director Michael Curtiz (The Commancheros, 1961) Hungarian.
It’s hardly demanding and since Gavin doesn’t step up to the plate lacks the necessary sizzle but all that means is Loren can steal the spotlight. Walter Bernstein (The Magnificent Seven, 1960) and Ring Lardner Jr (The Cincinnati Kid, 1965) turned the Frederic Molnar play into a screenplay.
Easy to criticize if you’re wanting something more demanding, but otherwise effortlessly enjoyable.
By this point in her career Sophia Loren was adopted by Hollywood primarily as a means of rejuvenating the romantic screen careers of much older male stars. John Wayne was over two decades her senior in Legend of the Lost (1957), Frank Sinatra and Gregory Peck nearly two decades older in The Pride and the Passion (1957, and Cary Grant a full three decades in Houseboat (1959). But where Grant was sprightly enough and with superb comic timing and Loren had the charm to make Houseboat work, the May-December notion lost much of its appeal when translated to her Italian homeland and an aging Clark Gable.
While engaging enough, the tale mostly relies on a stereotypical stuffy American’s encounters with a stereotypical down-to-earth Italian although Loren adds considerable zap with her singing-and-dancing numbers. Lawyer Michael Hamilton (Clark Gable), in Italy to settle his deceased brother’s affairs, discovers the dead man has left behind an eight-year-old boy Nando (Marietto) being looked after in haphazard fashion and impoverished circumstances in Capri by his aunt Lucia (Sophia Loren), a nightclub singer. Determined to give the boy a proper American education, Hamilton engages in a tug-of-war with Lucia.
In truth, Lucia lacks maternal instincts, allowing the boy to stay up till one o’clock in the morning handing out nightclub flyers and not even knowing where the local school is. Hamilton is in turns appalled and attracted to Lucia, in some part pretending romantic interest to come to a out-of-court settlement. To complicate matters, Hamilton is due to get married back home.
At times it is more travelog than romantic comedy, with streets packed for fiestas and cafes full well into the night, a speedboat ride round the glorious bay, another expedition under the majestic caves, a cable car trip up the cliffs to view spectacular scenery, and the local population enjoying their version of la dolce vita. But the piece de resistance is Lucia’s performance in the nightclub, ravishing figure accompanied by more than passable voice as she knocks out “Tu vuo fa L’Americano” (which you might remember from the jazz club scene in The Talented Mr Ripley, 199). She has a zest that her suitor cannot match but which is of course immensely appealing.
Lucia is torn between giving the boy a better start in life, already insisting for example that he speak English, and holding on to him while street urchin Nando is intent on acting as matchmaker.
Most of the humor is somewhat heavy-handed except for a few exceptional lines – complaining that he cannot sleep for the noise outside, Hamilton asks a waiter how do these people ever sleep only to receive the immortal reply: “together.”
Gable lacks the double-take that served Cary Grant so well and instead of looking perplexed and captivated mostly looks grumpy. But this is still Gable and the camera still loves him even if he has added a few pounds. He was a bigger global star than in the Hollywood Golden Era thanks in part to regular reissues of Gone with the Wind (1939) but mostly to a wider range of roles and he was earning far more than at MGM, in the John Wayne/William Holden league of remuneration. Loren was the leading Italian female star, well ahead in Hollywood eyes of competitors Claudia Cardinale and Gina Lollobrigida, and had the ability, despite whatever age difference was foisted upon her, to make believable any unlikely romance.
Shades of last year’s Oscar-winning Zone of Interest but with more guilt, some characters dodging it, others driven mad by remembrance of what they did or didn’t do during the Holocaust of World War Two. But mostly, an object lesson in how to expland a play (written by French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre). Despite top class performances from Sophia Loren (Arabesque, 1966), Maximilian Schell (Counterpoint, 1967), Fredric March (Seven Days in May, 1964) and even, astonishingly, from Robert Wagner (Banning, 1967) it’s director Vitttorio De Sica (A Place for Lovers, 1968), with stunning images and clever camerawork, who steals the show.
You won’t forget in a hurry the outstretched hand of a prisoner in a blizzard condemned to die, nor the skeletal jaw seen through an x-ray machine. The backward crab crawl will remind you of a later movie. De Sica moves the camera every whichway. Aerial and overhead shots are mixed in with the camera swivelling from character to character or suddenly pulling back from a scene and then suddenly he stops you his restraint. But that doesn’t prevent him getting to the heart of the narrative matter and adding in some frisson of accuser attracted to accused.
Set at the end of the 1950s, we begin on a Succession note, but without the contemporary angst and back-stapping. German shipping entrepreneur Albrecht (Fredrich March), a war profiteer turned post-war profiteer having taken advantage of demand in the Germany industrial boom, and now with only months to live, wants to pass on his business to son Werner (Robert Wagner). But Werner shies away, disgusted by his father’s unspoken collaboration with the Nazis during the war, ignoring the argument that the businessman was simply dealing with whatever party was in power. And this would be the narrative, father explaining actions, hoping for expiation, planning for the business to pass down the family line rather than be sold off.
Except that Werner’s left-winger actress wife Johanna (Sophia Loren) discovers there is another contender, the supposedly dead older son Franz (Maximilian Schell) who, instead of being sentenced to death for war crimes and fleeing to Argentina, where he purportedly died, as was the story given out, is actually hiding in the family mansion. He’s pretty much been driven mad, the walls of his substantial hidey-hole daubed with disconcerting images. Windows blocked-up and no knowledge of the outside, wearing his Nazi uniform he envisages a Germany languishing in decay, poverty and hunger. He lives on champagne, oysters and chocolate (so not quite the tough prison regime), and, as discreetly portrayed as was possible at the time, has an incestuous relationship with doting sister Leni (Francoise Prevost), the only human being with whom he is in contact. The inmate, knocking back handfuls of Benzedrine, occupies his time by recording messages to be delivered, he hopes, to Germans many centuries ahead.
Johanna wonders how this mentally-ill man came to be obsessed with guilt and we discover that when he was growing up his father rented out spare land around the mansion to the Nazis for a concentration camp where 30,000 people died. But Franz hid a Jew in the house, was reported to the S.S. by his father, and witnessed the man’s execution, then was punished by being forced to join the Army where he was known as a torturer. Finally, he emerges from isolation and sees a different Germany and confronts his father in a shock ending.
Both Loren and Schell had just won Oscars, for Two Women (1960) – incidentally directed by De Sica – and Judgement at Nuremberg (1961), respectively, so their confrontation, where his initial male dominance (the poster image reflects this scene) settles into a more equal power dynamic. Frederic March is good as the father convinced he has done no wrong and I had to check that this was the same Robert Wagner who had often been indifferent in pictures. De Sica draws great performances from all and layers the whole movie in a doom-laden atmosphere. Written by Abby Mann (Judgement at Nuremberg) and Cesare Zavattini (Woman Times Seven, 1967)
Two trends came together to create the ideal climate for the movie. The first was a fashion for filming comic books. By the mid-60s, Italy was at the forefront of this development thanks to the fumetti craze.
Mandrake, created in 1934 and first filmed in 1939, was being prepped by Duccio Tessari (My Son, the Hero, 1962). Though that stalled on the starting grid Dino De Laurentiis had bought the rights to Jean-Claude Forest’s Barbarella. He was also prepping Diabolik – at that point to be directed by Brit Seth Holt (Station Six Sahara, 1963) and fronted by Catherine Deneuve (Belle de Jour, 1967). Monica Vitti was being lined up to play Modesty Blaise (1966). For Barbarella De Laurentiis initially favored Franco Indovina (The Oldest Profession, 1967) in the director’s chair and Brigitte Bardot as the star.
The other element driving forth the venture was the involvement of Hollywood major Paramount in European production. Paramount had turned to Europe to “replenish its dwindled film vaults.” Formerly almost exclusively committed to U.S. production, by 1967 the studio was in the middle of a $60 million European spending spree, the cash spread over 30 movies made in the U.K. or mainland Europe where Italy took the lion’s share. Paramount struck a deal with De Laurentiis for Barbarella and Danger:Diabolik (1968) – eventually helmed by Mario Bava with John Philip Law and Marisa Mell – plus Arabella (1967) and Anzio (1968).
Paramount’s involvement should have excluded Vadim. He was persona non grata with the studio, having reneged on a previous three-picture deal, which he was paying off in $20,000 instalments. The budget of $3 million should have put the picture out his league. The Game Is Over had cost only $900,000 and none of his previous work suggested he might have the necessary skill to handle the special effects. And he was well known for declaring his opposition to studio interference.
But in terms of delivering sexy fare Vadim was in a class of his own. And God Created Women (1956) was the top-earning foreign picture in the U.S. He had made stars of Brigitte Bardot and Annette Stroyberg (Dangerous Liaisons, 1959) and he was in the process of turning the earnest Jane Fonda (In the Cool of the Day, 1963) into a sex symbol after plastering her nude body over billboards promoting La Ronde/Circle of Love (1964) and stills from La Curee/The Game Is Over in Playboy.
Still, she was far from first choice. Following Bardot’s refusal, De Laurentiis approached Sophia Loren, but she was pregnant, and he did a screen test of Ira von Furstenberg (Matchless, 1967). Fonda was not as nailed-down a star as you might expect. Her affair with Vadim kept her out of the country, making the kind of picture that was generally perceived as salacious arthouse material and not likely to raise her marquee value in the U.S. Cat Ballou (1965), which should have propelled her to the very top, instead performed that trick for Lee Marvin after he won an Oscar for the dual role. After meaty roles in The Chase (1966) and Hurry Sundown (1967) and top-billed in comedy hit Barefoot in the Park (1967), she should have been able to write her own ticket. But she did demonstrate independence in choosing to align with Vadim for Barbarella and though it didn’t win her any acting accolades it smoothed the path towards They Shoot Horses, Don’t They (1969) and Klute (1971), for which she won the Oscar.
Vadim was smarting from damage done to his reputation by censors and the authorities. “I have become a black sheep for censors and I’m paying the penalty in everything I make. Anything I direct is automatically suspect. I believe I’m the only director who must get censor clearance before I can begin filming.” He wasn’t – technically, this applied to every director working Hollywood since all scripts had to be cleared in advance of filming by the Production Board. But in Italy even when films like The Circle of Love (1964) and The Game Is Over (1966) cleared censorship obstacles, the films were seized by the police and threats laid of obscenity charges.
However, he believed this time round he would be immune from threat since the film would contain “no reference whatsoever to moral concepts as we know them. We’re dealing with life in the year 40,000. It would be difficult in the realm of science fantasy for any censor to discover objectionable scenes.” Clearly, he assumed mere nudity would not raise eyebrows.
Vadim admitted, “When I made Barbarella, I found the most difficult thing was the detail.”
Attracted by the “wild humor and impossible exaggeration” of the original material, he “wanted to make something beautiful out of eroticism” and intended to film it as if “a reporter doing newsreel…as though I had just arrived on a strange planet.” And had a camera on his shoulder. He viewed the character as a “lovely average girl” though not so average in that she possessed “a lovely body.”
Fonda was determined to keep her character “innocent,” rejecting the idea of playing her as a vamp, “her sexuality was not measured by the rules of our society,” and neither “promiscuous” or “sexually liberated.” Vadim interpreted her role somewhat differently, viewing it through the prism of a “shameless exploitation of her sexuality.”
With multiple writers on the project, the question of who wrote what has been open to argument. Impressed by their work on Danger: Diabolik – which employed a total of eight screenwriters – De Laurentiis parachuted in British pair Tudor Gates and Brian Degas. Original writer Terry Southern (Candy, 1968) claimed responsibility for the opening striptease and the doll robots. Uncredited screenwriter Charles B. Griffiths (The Wild Angels, 1966) came up with the notion of the millennia of peace, Barbarella’s clumsiness and the suicide room. Even co-star David Hemmings got in on the act, claiming he inspired the nonsense Fonda spouted during their sex scene.
Southern suggested Anita Pallenberg for the role of the Black Queen after encountering her while working with The Rolling Stones – her voice was dubbed by plummy English actress Joan Greenwood. Jane Fonda brought John Philip Law into the equation after working with him on Hurry Sundown (1967).
The director employed some sleight-of-hand. Just like the later Ridley Scott on Alien, he didn’t inform his actors in advance what was about to happen in some critical scene, such as those involving the Excessive Pleasure Machine. Vadim wanted a natural response from Fonda and Milo O’Shea so omitted to tell them “what a big explosion there would be. When the machine blew up, flames and smoke were everywhere, and sparks were running up and down the wires.” Fonda was “frightened to death” and O’Shea was convinced he “was being electrocuted.
And Vadim summoned his inner Hitchcock for the scene when Fonda was attacked by the hummingbirds (actually, substitute wrens and lovebirds). Not getting the effect he wanted, Vadim used a powerful fan to blow the flock onto the actress whose outfit was peppered with birdseed. There was an unexpected two-week hiatus between filming the bird attack and the striptease. Fonda contracted a fever, forcing the movie to shut down halfway through its 12-week schedule. On her return, Vadim filmed the striptease to be shown over the credits which was intended to “camouflage censorable flesh.” The set for the strip was upside down, Fonda performing on a pane of glass facing a camera in the ceiling.
The sensational aspects of the movie had attracted exceptional media interest. Over 200 journalists visited the set including representatives from Vogue,Playboy, Time, Life, McCall’s, Seventeen, Paris Match and UPI and AP. Paramount kept the pot boiling with some advertisements that were exceptionally full-on for the times: “It’s the year 40,000 A.D. A scantily-clad space adventuress battles 2,000 hummingbirds who rip off her clothes, two dozen shark-toothed dolls who rip off her clothes, 100 purple rabbits who don’t rip off her clothes and an army of leather giants who attempt to whip her to death. In between she makes love a lot.”
By the time the movie appeared, Paramount had invested in another development. It was the first studio to set up a marketing department, not just a catch-all under which promotional and advertising efforts were undertaken, but a unit that took a systematic, research-based, approach to release strategy. As a result Barbarella was one of the first movies to achieve a global simultaneous release, the bulk of movies taking a step-by-step approach, U.S. first and then major countries overseas, following a pattern that could take up to 18 months to complete.
According to research undertaken by the marketing department it was “judged as a picture which would have a sensational first few weeks everywhere it played because of the impact of the subject matter, star (Jane Fonda) and promotional pizzazz. But research indicated word-of-mouth might be poor. The decision was made to open the picture everywhere at once – and that meant worldwide since there was fear that any ‘bad word’ on such a highly-touted pic could spread from country to country. Here, too, the prognosis proved letter-perfect. As any exhibitor will confirm, Barbarella was the film this fall which started out great then dropped off. In view of this Paramount is thought to have maximized its gross via the global saturation playoff pursued.”
In the U.S. Paramount ordered a record number of trailers and space age fashion shows, like one at Alexanders Department Store in New York, were the order of the day. In Britain, there was a phenomenal ad spend (the second-highest ever), Mary Quant boots, tie-ins with shoe stores, and both a hardback and paperback book.
But Barbarella proved to be a slow-burn at the box office. Initially, it was deemed to have ranked a lowly 46th in the annual U.S. rentals chart with just $2.5 million in the kitty, falling far short of Paramount’s box office smashes that year – The Odd Couple (ranked fifth) with $18.5 million in rentals and Rosemary’s Baby (ranked seventh) on $12.3 million. But, in fact, it more than doubled its rentals the following year and ended up with a highly-respectable $5.5 million at the U.S. box office. (And I hereby apologize to anyone whom I challenged on these figures).
The global release paid off. It ranked eighth in France, seventh in Switzerland, third in Britain, 14th in Hong Kong and a big hit in Italy. However, the content denied it a sale to U.S. television. The movie was reissued in 1977 in the wake of Star Wars, and took a “handsome” $175,000 gross from 65 houses in New York. It was revived again after Flash Gordon (1980) and the following year when Paramount entered the laserdisk business among the first 30 oldies released it was the only one from the 1960s.
A sequel’s been on the cards since the film opened. Possibly rather tongue-in-cheek and with an element of the risqué sauce of the times, Paramount’s Robert Evans planned to trigger a second episode called Barbarella Goes Down, the title apparently relating to underwater adventures. Terry Southern was asked to write a sequel in 1990 while in the aftermath of Sin City (2005) director Robert Rodriguez came close to an $80 million version and Nicolas Winding Refn toyed with a television series. As of now, Sydney Sweeney (Anyone But You, 2023) appears most likely to hit the sequel button.
SOURCES: Patrick McGilligan, Backstory 3: Interviews with Screenwriters of the 60s, (University of California Press, 1997); Lisa Parks, “Bringing Barbarella Down to Earth”. In Radner, Hilary; Luckett, Moya (eds.). Swinging Single: Representing Sexuality in the 1960s, (University of Minnesota Press, 1999); Gail Gerber,and Gail Lisanti, Gail (2014). Trippin’ with Terry Southern: What I Think I Remember. McFarland, 2014); Roberto Curti, Diabolika: Supercriminals, Superheroes and the Comic Book Universe in Italian Cinema (Midnight Marquee Press, 2016); .Brian Hannan, Coming Back to a Theater Near You, A History of Hollywood Reissues 1914-2014 (McFarland 2016) p252; “Comic Strip Character Film Trend,” Variety, June 9, 1965, p23; “Vadim’s Autonomous Views,” Variety, August 24, 1966, p2; Gerald Jonas, “Here’s What Happened to Baby Jane,” New York Times, January 22, 1967; “Paramount Getting 6 Pix from Italy in Bid to Build Prod,” Variety, February 1, 1967, p16; “Par O’Seas Hatch By Dozen,” Variety, April 26, 1967, p5; “Italo Film Boom,” Variety, June 7, 1967, p20; “Barbarella Laid Low By Jane Fonda Virus,” Variety, August 16, 1967, p2; “I’ve Been A Black Sheep To Censor,” Variety, July 19, 1967, p22; Marika Aba, “What Kind of Supergirl Will Jane Fonda Be as Barbarella?” Los Angeles Times, September 10, 1967; Roger Ebert, “Interview with Jane Fonda,” October 15, 1967; “Paramount Stressing Sex and Visual Fantasy,” Variety, October 18, 1967, p26; “Space Age Fashion Show,” Box Office, September 2, 1968, pA2; “Record Teaser Trailer,” Box Office, September 9, 1968, p13; “Eyebrows Up – Here’s Barbarella,” Kine Weekly, October 19, 1968, p23; “Big Box Office Winners of 1968,” Kine Weekly, December 14, 1968, p6; “What Makes a Director?”, Variety, January 8, 1969, p26; “Big Rental Films of 1968,” Variety, January 8, 1969, p15; “Swiss B.O. Race,” Variety, January 15, 1969, p41; “Shaws Dominate HK,” Variety, January 15, 1969, p41 “Par Puts the Science into Sell,” Variety, February 5, 1969, p33; “Int’l Filmgoing Tastes Tres Complex,” Variety, February 5, 1969, p35; “CBS Bid for Baby Doll,” Variety, October 29, 1970, p78; “All-Time Film Rentals,” Variety, January 7, 1970, p27; “New York Showcases,” Variety, November 2, 1977, p8; “Paramount’s Home Video to Market Viddisks,” Variety, April 29, 1981, p54.
By this point in the 1960s, Gregory Peck’s career was pretty much at a standstill. Prestige had not saved Behold a Pale Horse (1964) from commercial disaster, thriller Mirage (1965) went the same way, other projects – The Martian Chronicles, Ice Station Zebra – failed to get off the ground or like The Bells of Hell Go Ting-a-Ling-a-Ling were abandoned once filming began. So, he was the main beneficiary of Cary Grant’s decision to retire.
Stanley Donen had Grant, with whom he had made the highly successful thriller Charade (1963), in mind for the role of the hieroglyphics professor caught in in a web of intrigue in Arabesque. In some ways Peck was an adequate replacement but lacked the older actor’s gift for comedy and failed to master the art of the double-take. Arabesque was almost a counterpoint to Charade. In the earlier movie Audrey Hepburn is continually suspicious of Cary Grant. The new movie sees a gender reversal, Peck constantly puzzled as to where Sophia Loren’s loyalties lie.
The story itself is quite simple. A code has been put inside a hieroglyphic and a variety of people are trying to get hold of it either to decipher the secret within or to stop someone else finding out what it contains. When the scientist who has the code is killed, the man who ordered the killing, the sinister Beshraavi (Alan Badel), approaches Prof Pollock (Gregory Peck) to unravel the code, but is turned down. The professor is then kidnapped by Arab prime minster Hassan Jena (Carl Duering), whom he admires, to ask him to take up the job. Beshraavi’s provocatively-dressed wife Yazmin (Sophia Loren), flirting outrageously with Pollock, is also after the code.
There follows more twists and double-crosses than you could shake a stick at, leaving the amenable Pollock mightily confused. “What is it about you,” he asks Yazmin at one point, “that makes you so hard to believe?” It looks like director Donen is playing a variation of the famous Raymond Chandler maxim, that when a plot begins to flag, “have a man come through the door with a gun in his hand.” Sometimes, there is actually a gun or similar weapon, but mostly it’s just another twist. If Pollock doesn’t know what the hell is going on, then the audience is in the same boat.
But it is stylish, set in appealing parts of Britain (antique university, Ascot), Yazmin decked out in glamorous Dior outfits and even Pollock gets to wear a morning suit. Drop in a couple of action sequences, Hitchcock-style chases in a zoo and pursuit by a combine harvester, Pollock nearly run over by horses in a race, and the pair of them having strayed into a builder’s yard facing demolition by the British equivalent of a wrecking ball. But the standout scene is when Yazmin hides the professor in her shower (curtain drawn) while being interrogated by her suspicious husband and then steps in naked and then they play footsie with dropped soap. And she proceeds to expound, “If I was standing stark naked in front of Mr Pollock, he’d probably yawn.”
Beshraavi’s jealousy over his wife’s flirtation with Pollock adds another element of tension. Beshraavi is a very sinuous, sensuous bad guy, who can turn a harmless massage into a matter of life and death. He also has a pet falcon with a habit of ripping people’s cheeks. But even in the face of obvious threats, Pollock holds his own. In one scene as Beshraaavi attempts to retrieve what he believes is the code from Pollock’s dinner plate, where it has fallen from the hiding place in the professor’s clothing, Pollock taps the man’s invading fingers with the sharp tines of his fork.
And there is some accomplished dialogue. When Pollock offers the falcon a date and is brusquely told the bird of prey only eats meat, he responds, “I thought he looked at it rather wistfully.” Beshraavi retorts, sharply, “It must have been your fingers.”
Donen had not made a film in the three years since Charade, so there was some critical feeling that he was a bit rusty and used experimentation – big close-ups, odd camera angles – to cover this up. He was living in London by this point and had been for nearly a decade. But there was very little that fazed him in any genre, and he had switched from musicals like Singing in’ the Rain (1952) to romantic drama (Indiscreet, 1958) and comedy (The Grass Is Greener, 1960). And though there is no question the film would have been better with Cary Grant, Peck proves a reasonable substitute.
The movie’s main drawback is the lack of romance since falling in love with someone you believe is either a traitor or a compulsive liar is a hard trick to pull off. But if you like the idea of pitting your wits against the screenwriters – Peter Stone (Charade), Julian Mitchell (Another Country, 1984) and Stanley Price (Gold, 1974), the latter pair in their movie debuts – then this is one for you.
Taken on its own merits, George Cukor’s western is a highly enjoyable romp. Hardly your first choice for the genre, Cukor ignores the tenets laid down by John Ford and Howard Hawks and the film is all the better for it. Although there are stagecoach chases, gunfighters and Native Americans, don’t expect upstanding citizens rescuing good folk. Instead of stunning vistas Cukor chooses to spend his budget on lavish costumes and sets.
You can see he knows how to use a colour palette, and there is red or a tinge of it in every scene (to the extent of rather a lot of red-haired folk), and although this might not be your bag – and you may not even notice it – it is what makes a Cukor production so lush. The film might start with comedic overtones but by the end you realise it is serious after all.
Angela (Sophia Loren) is the coquettish leading lady and Tom (Anthony Quinn) the actor-manager of a theatrical company managing to stay one step ahead of its creditors, in the main thanks her propensity for spending money she doesn’t have. Of course, once gunfighter Clint (Steve Forrest) wins Loren in a poker game, things go askew.
Anthony Quinn (Guns for San Sebastian, 1968) had never convinced me as a romantic lead, but here there is genuine charisma between the two stars. Sophia Loren (Five Miles to Midnight, 1962) is at her most alluring, in dazzling outfits and occasionally in costumes as skin-tight as censors would allow in those days, but with a tendency to use beauty as a means to an end, with the conviction that a smile (or occasionally more) will see her out of any scrape. There is no doubt she is totally beguiling. But that is not enough for Quinn, as she is inclined to include him in her list of dupes.
While primarily a love story and a tale of theatrical woes set against the backdrop of a western, when it comes to dealing with the tropes of the genre Cukor blows it out of the water. We open with a stagecoach chase but our heroes are only racing away from debt until they reach the safety of a state line. We have a gunfighter, but instead of a shoot-out being built up, minutes ticking by as tension rises, Cukor’s gunman just shoots people in sudden matter-of-fact fashion.
Best of all, George Cukor (Justine, 1969) extracts tremendous comedy from the overbearing actors, each convinced of their own genius, and the petty jealousies and intrigue that are endemic in such a troupe. An everyday story of show-folk contains as much incipient drama as the more angst-ridden A Star Is Born (1954), his previous venture into this arena.
From the guy who gave us The Philadelphia Story (1940) with all its sophisticated comedy, it’s quite astonishing that Cukor extracts so much from a picture where the laughs, mostly from throwaway lines, are derived from less substantial material. Quinn (his third film in a row with Cukor) has never been better, no Oscar-bait this time round, just a genuine guy, pride always to the forefront, king of his domain inside his tiny theatrical kingdom, out of his depth in the big wide world, and unable to contain the “heller.”
I won’t spoil it for you but there are two wonderful character-driven twists that set the world to rights.
There is a tremendous supporting cast with former silent film star Ramon Novarro (Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ, 1925) as a duplicitous businessman, former child star Margaret O’Brien, another star from a previous era in Edmund Lowe (Cukor’s Dinner at Eight, 1933), and Eileen Eckhart. Dudley Nichols (Stagecoach, 1939) and Walter Bernstein, who wrote a previous Loren romance That Kind of Women (1959) and had a hand in The MagnificentSeven (1960), do an excellent job of adapting the Louis L’Amour source novel Heller with a Gun, especially considering that contained an entirely different story.
Without a doubt it’s Cukor’s picture but Loren and Quinn combine to make it such a believable delight.
This is why you hire Sophia Loren. In the middle of a complicated story she provides the emotional anchor.. And she can do it without words. A few close-ups are all you need to guess at her inner turmoil in a world where, as with Play Dirty (1968), the individual is disposable. The good guys here, Israelis fighting for survival at the rebirth of their country, are every bit as ruthless as the commanding officers in the World War Two picture.
And it’s just as well because the tale is both straightforward and overly complex. Like Cast a Giant Shadow, out the same year, or the earlier Exodus (1961), it’s about the early migrants staving off Arab attempts to destroy the tenuous foothold Jewish immigrants on the land with the British, stuck in the role of maintaining law and order, cracking down on illegal landings of refugees and arms smuggling. But where the earlier movies take the war to the enemy, this is all about defence, holding on to hard-won positions.
Israeli leader Aaron (Peter Finch) discovers General Schiller (Hans Verner), a former German WW2 commander wanted for war crimes, currently in charge of the Arab tank regiment, is planning imminent assault. After locating Schiller’s wife Judith (Sophia Loren), he smuggles her into Israel with the intention of using her as bait to kidnap the general.
This would be no romantic reunion. The general had abandoned his wife, a Jew, and she spent the war in Dachau where she survived as a sex worker. She wants nothing more than revenge. But it takes a fair while for the cloak-and-dagger elements to warm up. First of all she has to seduce British Major Lawton (Sophia Loren) into revealing details of her husband’s whereabouts.
Turns out Lawton is the only principled official on show, out of general decency and a British sense of fair play (unlike the soldiers, for example, in Play Dirty) turning down the offer of her body in return for his aid. But it also transpires that Judith also lacks any notion of fair play and stabs her husband at the first opportunity, making it virtually impossible for his captors to discover the specifics of the planned attack. You wouldn’t need much of a sense of irony to share the Israeli anger when uner interrogation the captured general tosses back at them the Geneva Convention.
Judith’s involvement in the hunt for the general had the potential to be a very fine film noir on its own, especially had the wife been required to show willing to the husband in order to lure him out into the open.
Unfortunately, that’s not the tack the movie takes. Instead, we follow a series of forgettable characters either espionage agents, or at the kibbutz or effectively just there in passing, on the edge of the action, even when they might be in the heart of the real action either being unloaded into the surf or under attack from Arabs. There’s a sense of trying to cram too much historical incident into what would have worked best as a straightforward thriller. How far would Judith go to extract revenge? And, can Aaron stop her ruining his delicately-balanced plans?
Plenty of room for maneuver too on the sticky point of country vs individual. Where Aaron is happy to sacrifice or exploit Judith to satisfy his agenda, albeit to the greater glory of his country, so, too, is Judith unwilling to surrender her individuality for that more beneficial cause.
So what we get is a riveting mess. When Sophia Loren (Operation Crossbow, 1965) is onscreen you can’t take your eyes off her. When the action switches to the sub-plots, you keep on wondering where she’s got to and when will she next turn up. Judith is a fascinating character, batting away contempt about the way she survived the concentration camp, arriving in an old-fashioned cargo container with the corpse of a companion who failed to last the journey, and before long sashaying through the kibbutz delighted to attract male attention.
Yet, despite the hard inner core, and keeping one step ahead of both Aaron and Schiller, as if she had long ago stopped trusting men, she is emotionally vulnerable and proves easily manipulated when either pierces the carapace.
That director Daniel Mann feels duty bound to attempt to tell the bigger story of the Israeli struggle is somewhat surprising since he was best known as a woman’s director. Under his watch both Shirley Booth and Terry Moore were Oscar-nominated for Come Back, Little Sheba (1953), both Susan Hayward and Anna Magnani Oscars winners for I’ll Cry Tomorrow and The Rose Tattoo, respectively.
John Michael Hayes (Nevada Smith, 1966) cooperated with Lawrence Durrell (Justine, 1969) on the screenplay.
A clever mixture of detail and derring-do, World War Two picture Operation Crossbow (1965) – based on the true story of Allied infiltration of a German rocket factory – was a surprising hit at the British box office. The picture took a risk in keeping star George Peppard hidden from view for the first 28 minutes (top-billed Sophia Loren took nearly another 20 minutes to show up). Prior to their appearances the opening sequences were loaded up with a roll-call of British stars familiar with the genre in the vein of John Mills (Ice Cold in Alex, 1958), Trevor Howard (Cockleshell Heroes, 1955) and Richard Todd (The Dam Busters, 1955). Anthony Quayle, who puts in a later appearance, was also a war movie veteran after turns in Battle of the River Plate (1956), Ice Cold in Alex and The Guns of Navarone (1961).
Most war films relating to destroying a vital enemy base involved bombing (The Dam Busters, 633 Squadron, 1964), sinking (Sink the Bismarck!, 1962) or blowing things up (The Guns of Navarone, 1961). Operation Crossbow falls into the last-named category. The story breaks down into four sections: the discovery towards the end of the war by the British that the Germans are forging ahead with building V1 and V2 rockets; the recruitment and training of spies to parachute into Occupied France; a tense sequence abroad where complications arise; and, finally, attempts to obliterate the rocket plant.
Director Michael Anderson (The Dam Busters) switches through the genres from docu-drama to spy film to action adventure, further authenticity added by bold use (for a mainstream picture) of subtitles, all characters speaking in their native tongues. Various real-life characters are portrayed, among them photo reconnaissance expert Constance Babington Smith (Sylvia Sims), German aviatrix Hannah Reitsch (Barbara Rutting) and Duncan Sandys (Richard Johnson) who was on the British War Cabinet Committee.
Trevor Howard, at his irascible best, is the scientist pouring scorn on the idea of rockets – until they start raining down on London. Volunteers – Peppard, Tom Courtenay (Billy Liar, 1963) and Jeremy Kemp (who appeared with Peppard the same year in The Blue Max) – trained to spike the new weapon are recruited primarily on their language skills. Character is sketchy, Peppard designated a womaniser because he arrives in a taxi with two women.
But the operation has been assembled in such haste that not enough attention has been paid to the identities assumed by the agents. Courtenay’s character turns out to be wanted for murder. Peppard is accosted by his character’s divorced wife (Loren). So the mission faces immediate exposure. Although Loren’s role in terms of screen time amounts to little more than a cameo, she delivers a powerful emotional performance to a picture that could as easily have got by on tension alone. The harsh realities of war are shown in abundance. Twists come thick and fast in the second half, not least that Peppard’s face has become known, before the movie reaches a thrilling denouement.
Superb performance by Sophia Loren (Arabesque, 1966) lifts taut Parisian-set thriller into outstanding class. Forced, of narrative necessity, to keep a lid on her emotions, Loren’s eyes betray her feelings. Director Anatole Litvak’s (Lady in the Car with Glasses and a Gun, 1970) camera is relentless, trapping her with almost claustrophobic compulsion, allowing little release, preventing her escaping the eye of truth.
Husband Robert (Anthony Perkins) and wife Lisa (Sophia Loren) embark on major insurance fraud. He’s the instigator, she reluctantly goes along with the plan as she imagines that, with their unlikely marriage already teetering, it will buy her freedom. Robert, sole survivor of a plane crash, rather than announcing he is alive, uses his death to scam the insurance company out of $120,000 (equivalent to $1.2 million today).
Given he is deceased, she has to carry out the formalities of making the claim, dealing with the various authorities, including police and the American consulate. Meanwhile, hiding out, every knock on the door or ring of the telephone creates panic. At various points Robert has to hide in every room in the apartment – remembering to remove any sign of his existence – and on the stairwell and when that proves too dangerous on the roof.
Little things that could give him away. The extra plate or glass could trigger suspicion from the cleaner. Lisa, a non-smoker, has to purchase cigarettes for Robert, the remains of an ashtray a possible reveal. She returns to work much faster than you would expect of a grieving widow.
She attracts an initially unwelcome suitor, David (Gig Young), a doctor, a friend of a friend. Workmates turn up at inopportune moments. A boy in an apartment opposite spots the recluse, at one point, shining a mirror into Robert’s eyes, dazzling him as he hides, precariously, on the roof. A cat, too, threatens to reveal the voluntarily imprisoned man.
You might wonder how why she married the financially dissolute Robert in the first place, more baby than man, a “charming octopus” whose needs would strangle the life out of a wife. He was her meal ticket from post-war Naples. She was so desperate to escape poverty that she would, as Robert acidly (and truthfully) puts it, that she would have gone off with any fellow with “a couple of bucks in his pocket.”
In Britain it was released on the lower part of a double bill to “Taras Bulba.”
He suspects she has a lover. And from random clues in the apartment, David also suspects she has a lover. But mostly it’s nail-biting waiting. And when her nerves are so shredded she is inclined to confess all to the police, and be rid of her husband, she realises she would be jailed as his accomplice. And though going along with the notion that the money will buy both their (separate) freedom, the devious Robert has no intention of letting her go, intending to blackmail her into remaining with him.
As the stakes rise we enter a frankly magnificent endgame, with one twist after another, Lisa barely coherent from overwhelming pressure even as freedom beckons.
It’s splendidly done, chock full of surprises, from the opening credits to the last intense close-up of Lisa. The credit sequence, a long tracking shot following a pair of legs from a bus to a nigh club, jaunty jazz in the background, Lisa exuberantly dancing the Twist, ends in an explosive slap. Where are obstructive insurance agents, the kind that automatically challenge every claim, hoping to whittle down the amount, when you need them? This one couldn’t be more helpful, even easing the path, when she had counted on the opposite in order to scupper the outrageous plan, to getting a death certificate out of the American consulate. It turns out you can easily dupe the police by simply denying that a coat found near the location of the crash does not belong to Robert.
The focus is kept almost evenly on the culprits. Awful husband that he is, Robert’s little-boy-lost persona still extracts audience sympathy – she is a deceiver after all, conning him into marriage, lover on the side – especially as you know that, even though this never occurs to Lisa, that capturing Robert will result in her imprisonment. But Robert already lives on the emotional edge and there’s one terrifying scene where he is clearly tempted to throw the small boy off the roof.
Even when Lisa believes she has found sanctuary in David, his suspicions threaten that. I won’t spoil the endgame for you because it is exceptional, very well worked in terms of action and emotion.
This didn’t get much attention when it appeared despite Loren’s stunning performance, perhaps because insurance fraud suggests little of the inherent tension of a heist. Anthony Perkins, desperately trying to avoid the typecasting triggered by Psycho (1960), successfully develops a more attractive screen persona that would climax in Pretty Poison (1968). Given the set-up, you imagine that the eternally charming Gig Young (They Shoot Horses, Don’t They, 1969) will turn out to be an undercover insurance agent. Even when that is obviously not the case, he is too inquisitive for Lisa’s good.
In contrast to the claustrophobic tension, the movie plays out against the backdrop of fun-filled parties, dancing, nightclubs, cocktails, the high life.
At this point Anatole Litvak was rarely mentioned in dispatches, critics considering his best films (The Snake Pit, 1948, for example) way behind him and that he was more likely to helm lumbering well-meaning vehicles like The Journey (1959). But, opening credits and a couple of scenes making using of perilous shadow apart, he is primarily an actor’s director. And when he gives a star of the skill of Sophia Loren such leeway, the script not permitting her self-justification, he is truly rewarded.
Superb performance by Sophia Loren (Arabesque, 1966) lifts taut Parisian-set thriller into outstanding class. Forced, of narrative necessity, to keep a lid on her emotions, Loren’s eyes betray her feelings. Director Anatole Litvak’s (Lady in the Car with Glasses and a Gun, 1970) camera is relentless, trapping her with almost claustrophobic compulsion, allowing little release, preventing her escaping the eye of truth.
Husband Robert (Anthony Perkins) and wife Lisa (Sophia Loren) embark on major insurance fraud. He’s the instigator, she reluctantly goes along with the plan as she imagines that, with their unlikely marriage already teetering, it will buy her freedom. Robert, sole survivor of a plane crash, rather than announcing he is alive, uses his death to scam the insurance company out of $120,000 (equivalent to $1.2 million today).
Given he is deceased, she has to carry out the formalities of making the claim, dealing with the various authorities, including police and the American consulate. Meanwhile, hiding out, every knock on the door or ring of the telephone creates panic. At various points Robert has to hide in every room in the apartment – remembering to remove any sign of his existence – and on the stairwell and when that proves too dangerous on the roof.
Little things that could give him away. The extra plate or glass could trigger suspicion from the cleaner. Lisa, a non-smoker, has to purchase cigarettes for Robert, the remains of an ashtray a possible reveal. She returns to work much faster than you would expect of a grieving widow.
She attracts an initially unwelcome suitor, David (Gig Young), a doctor, a friend of a friend. Workmates turn up at inopportune moments. A boy in an apartment opposite spots the recluse, at one point, shining a mirror into Robert’s eyes, dazzling him as he hides, precariously, on the roof. A cat, too, threatens to reveal the voluntarily imprisoned man.
You might wonder how why she married the financially dissolute Robert in the first place, more baby than man, a “charming octopus” whose needs would strangle the life out of a wife. He was her meal ticket from post-war Naples. She was so desperate to escape poverty that she would, as Robert acidly (and truthfully) puts it, that she would have gone off with any fellow with “a couple of bucks in his pocket.”
He suspects she has a lover. And from random clues in the apartment, David also suspects she has a lover. But mostly it’s nail-biting waiting. And when her nerves are so shredded she is inclined to confess all to the police, and be rid of her husband, she realises she would be jailed as his accomplice. And though going along with the notion that the money will buy both their (separate) freedom, the devious Robert has no intention of letting her go, intending to blackmail her into remaining with him.
As the stakes rise we enter a frankly magnificent endgame, with one twist after another, Lisa barely coherent from overwhelming pressure even as freedom beckons.
It’s splendidly done, chock full of surprises, from the opening credits to the last intense close-up of Lisa. The credit sequence, a long tracking shot following a pair of legs from a bus to a nigh club, jaunty jazz in the background, Lisa exuberantly dancing the Twist, ends in an explosive slap. Where are obstructive insurance agents, the kind that automatically challenge every claim, hoping to whittle down the amount, when you need them? This one couldn’t be more helpful, even easing the path, when she had counted on the opposite in order to scupper the outrageous plan, to getting a death certificate out of the American consulate. It turns out you can easily dupe the police by simply denying that a coat found near the location of the crash does not belong to Robert.
The focus is kept almost evenly on the culprits. Awful husband that he is, Robert’s little-boy-lost persona still extracts audience sympathy – she is a deceiver after all, conning him into marriage, lover on the side – especially as you know that, even though this never occurs to Lisa, that capturing Robert will result in her imprisonment. But Robert already lives on the emotional edge and there’s one terrifying scene where he is clearly tempted to throw the small boy off the roof.
Even when Lisa believes she has found sanctuary in David, his suspicions threaten that. I won’t spoil the endgame for you because it is exceptional, very well worked in terms of action and emotion.
This didn’t get much attention when it appeared despite Loren’s stunning performance, perhaps because insurance fraud suggests little of the inherent tension of a heist. Anthony Perkins, desperately trying to avoid the typecasting triggered by Psycho (1960), successfully develops a more attractive screen persona that would climax in Pretty Poison (1968). Given the set-up, you imagine that the eternally charming Gig Young (They Shoot Horses, Don’t They, 1969) will turn out to be an undercover insurance agent. Even when that is obviously not the case, he is too inquisitive for Lisa’s good.
In contrast to the claustrophobic tension, the movie plays out against the backdrop of fun-filled parties, dancing, nightclubs, cocktails, the high life.
At this point Anatole Litvak was rarely mentioned in dispatches, critics considering his best films (The Snake Pit, 1948, for example) way behind him and that he was more likely to helm lumbering well-meaning vehicles like The Journey (1959). But, opening credits and a couple of scenes making using of perilous shadow apart, he is primarily an actor’s director. And when he gives a star of the skill of Sophia Loren such leeway, the script not permitting her self-justification, he is truly rewarded.
The screenplay, for once not drawn an another source like a novel or Broadway play, is an original drawn out of the combined minds of Peter Viertel (The Old Man and the Sea, 1958), Hugh Wheeler (Kaleidoscope, 1967) and Andre Versini (Mission to Venice, 1964).
Loren is the true star. In a peach of a performance, her eyes constantly reveal inner turmoil.
The movies lost a brilliant comedienne when Sophia Loren was lured (by a million-dollar fee no less) into historical drama. Having previously demonstrated her flair for comedy in Houseboat (1958), turning Cary Grant’s life upside down, she repeated the formula here. Cultural appropriation by Peter Sellers is the main issue getting in the way of full appreciation, not just the actor essaying an Indian, but the fact that this is a very cliched attempt.
The narrative runs along two parallel twists and coming from the politically-aware mind of George Bernard Shaw contains a streak of social commentary. Beautiful millionairess Epifania (Sophia Loren) can only marry a man able to demonstrate business acumen. Dr Kabir (Peter Sellers), who caters to an impoverished clientele, must marry a woman capable of existing in poverty, eking out an existence for 90 days on the daily equivalent of less than a couple of pounds sterling.
At the foot of the poster note the advance warning of the initial stab at “Cleopatra” that was to star Feter Finch and Stephen Boyd rather than Richard Burton and Rex Harrison.
Epifania, presented in that generation as somewhat imperious but to today’s generation would be viewed as the epitome of the independent woman resisting the notion that she choose a mate based on someone else’s criteria, is not above a bit of jiggery-pokery to win the man of her dreams. Technically, all said lover has to do is turn £500 into £15,000 and since no detailed information needed accompany those transactions, Epifania feels justified in simply handing over the dosh to her lover to fulfil the requirements.
She falls into Dr Kabir’s orbit after attempting suicide by drowning following the discovery of her feckless lover Alistair’s (Gary Raymond) affair with Polly (Virginia Vernon). Kabir, mind on other more important matters, fails to rescue her. But when she ends up in the water again, this times as rescuer, he is more responsive especially when she manages a physical connection.
However, he is not going to be bribed into love, not even when she modernises his dilapidated surgery. Naturally, she is viewed as headstrong and controlling rather than a philanthropist and so they enter into the double bargain.
This splits the narrative, as Epifania returns to Italy to work in a sweatshop. And although she reveals not just newfound humanity, defending her exploited fellow workers, and demonstrates the business skills to reverse the factory’s declining productivity, this still isn’t enough for Kabir who, with no head for money and no inclination to go through any rigmarole to please Epifania, manages to insult her, thus triggering the normal romantic comedy breakup.
In the meantime, wily attorney Julius Sagamore (Alistair Sim) and opportunistic psychiatrist Dr Adrian Bland (Dennis Price) muddy the waters.
Mostly, the film gets by on old-fashioned charm – and while, as noted, Sellers’ performance is outmoded in his impersonation of an Indian he is quite believable as an honorable man unlikely to fall for the first beautiful woman to come his way.
Sophia Loren (Arabesque, 1966) carries the picture with her exquisite comedy timing and even when the posters emphasized her various states of undress there is much more to her ability, as audiences were already aware, than taking off her clothes. She is an absolute delight, both as the demanding haughty heiress and the spurned lover and in any other movie her romantic enterprise would be applauded and just as with Houseboat she drives the narrative, the object of her affection not quite putty in her hands, and with the bonus of a song, a duet this time (“Goodness Gracious Me”) rather than the two solos of the previous picture.
Peter Sellers (The Pink Panther, 1963) was still in search of his screen persona and to some extent is blown off the screen by Loren who seems much more comfortable with the material, extracting humor without needing to rely on funny voices. Sellers changed the character of the doctor in the original play from an Egyptian to an Indian for no particular reason and in fact the nationality of the doctor would have made little difference to the story, it was a character, disinterested in woman and contemptuous of wealth, that provided the narrative impetus. Oddly enough, although at the time the deceased George Bernard Shaw was considered one of the world’s greatest playwrights the 1936 play on which this is based had never been a big success, reception so lukewarm on its out-of-town opening that it did not reach the West End, Broadway run delayed till 1949 and then only lasting 13 performances (i.e less than two weeks).
Director Anthony Asquith had made a huge success out of the author’s Pygmalion (1938) (the source material for musical My Fair Lady) and specialised in bringing stage plays to the cinema – The Browning Version (1951) and The Importance of Being Earnest (1952) – so was acquainted with handling big stars and opening up plays for cinema audiences. He shows a sure grip on the action and allows Loren to build up a beguiling character so that audience sympathy for her dilemma never runs dry. Wolf Mankowitz (The Two Faces of Dr Jekyll, 1960) and the debuting Riccardo Arragno wrote the screenplay.
The material would have more suited the colder, sharper tongue of a Katharine Hepburn (who did at one time play the character on stage) but Loren’s portrayal avoids the temptation of adopting a more spinsterish approach.
Watch it for Loren and the clever Alistair Sim and try not to cringe at Peter Sellers.
The Magnificent 60s 