Telly Savalas – Page 2 – The Magnificent 60s

Mackenna’s Gold (1969) ***

The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948) set in the West – men driven mad by gold fever. Straightforward plot, however, complicated by an avalanche of characters. And for a two-hour running time it seemed perverse to waste the first six minutes on scenery, narration – explaining the Apache legend of a fabulous hidden seam of gold – and theme song.

The real film begins with a shoot-out between Marshall Mackenna (Gregory Peck and an Indian. “You will wish you never saw this map,” says the Indian before he dies, but Mackenna burns the map. That doesn’t go down well with villain Colorado (Omar Sharif), whose gang has taken Inga (Camilla Sparv) hostage. Convinced the lawman has memorized the map, Colorado adds Mackenna to his hostage quotient.

At Colorado’s hideout Hesh-Ke (Julie Newmar) has a hostile reaction to Mackenna. Like Colorado, they have history. Mackenna and Inga bond when he fends off an Indian intent on raping her. As if this isn’t a pretty straightforward set-up, old foes reunited, potential romance brewing, a treasure hunt, further complications arise in the shape of a posse led by Ben Baker (Eli Wallach), not hunting renegades but also chasing gold. As if that wasn’t already a complication too far now we have a Cavalry troop, who confuse the posse with outlaws thus mostly eliminating a complication before it gets too complicated – the pursuing Apaches finish them off.

And in a nearby pool, we get a deadly twist on the naked attraction, as Hesh-Ke, first trying to lure Mackenna then trying to drown the woman she views as her romantic rival. When the Cavalry reappear, they have turned rogue, led by Sgt Tibbs (Telly Savalas). So now we’ve got the narrative ironed out it’s three separate groups – outlaws, Cavalry and Apaches – searching for gold with various individual old scores to be settled. And, just in time, they’ve arrived at Shaking Rock, the tall pillar visualized in the poster, and a sunrise worth waiting for. It is a glorious scene.

After a close-up of the rising sun and the pillar, and the screen changing color, the shadow of the pillar creeps across the canyon floor and points to a crack in the canyon wall. The crack is a tunnel entrance and on the other side the sun is shining on a seam of bright gold. And that leaves only the various denouements to be played out. And some surprises – straightlaced Inga succumbing to gold fever, the supposedly barbarous Apaches revealed as good guys – treating pillar (and gold) with reverence – and (would you believe it) an earthquake.

The earthquake might just have been too big a temptation given this was filmed in Cinerama. But it’s the least effective use of the process. A fairly standard western trope, crossing a dodgy bridge, is heightened in Cinerama but it’s still a cliché. Much better is the river crossing, the camera’s dizzying effect echoing the rollercoaster ride in This Is Cinerama and the rapids and runaway train of How the West Was Won (1962), audiences pitched headlong into camera point-of-view, racing water, oncoming rapids, thundering waterfall. The final section is triggered by the Cinerama camera racing for two minutes down the twisting track leading to the gold. So, in Cinerama terms, the audience got its money’s worth.

And there should have been enough conflict to keep the narrative on track – Mackenna vs. Colorado, Hesh-Ke vs. Inga, Inga vs Colorado, Calvary vs. outlaws vs. Apaches, plus various fist, gun, knife and belt fights. The individual conflicts, Inga’s genuine fear over her fate, the romantic triangle and especially ruthless Colorado revealed (ditto Butch Cassidy) as a dreamer, imagining life in faraway lands (swap Butch’s Bolivia and Australia for Colorado’s Paris) were more than enough to be going on with without being drowned out by a simplistic message about greed. This is nothing more – or nothing worse – than a decent western wrapped up in the bloated shadow of a roadshow.

Gregory Peck (Arabesque, 1966) and Omar Sharif (Mayerling, 1969) are both pretty good in roles that play against type, both female roles are well-written and well played by Camilla Sparv (Downhill Racer, 1969) and Julie Newmar (The Maltese Bippy, 1969) but the film is overloaded with way too many cameos. As he had proven in The Guns of Navarone (1961) J. Lee Thompson was excellent at handling large casts especially in scenes featuring a host of characters and his visual and aural skills are superb but not so good at putting writer-producer Carl Foreman in his place.

Take away the Cinerama effects and the roadshow elements, and trim another 20 minutes off the picture, and you would have had a tight character-driven picture.

Violent City /Family (1970) ****

Of all the lazy, incompetent streamers this has to take the biscuit. Not content with branding as new films made over half a century ago, now we have films being screened which clearly nobody has bothered to watch even once. Otherwise, how to explain a picture where the language lapses into Italian at critical moments without the benefit of sub-titles.

Which is a big shame because, confusing through the movie is, it takes an unique approach to the femme fatale angle and serves up a noted screen tough guy as one whose heart is genuinely broken – suck that up, pale imitators going by the name of Stallone, Schwarzenner, Willis et al.

Post-Bullitt (1968) but pre-The French Connection (1971) we open with a dazzling car chase where the pursued race up stairs rather than down as is the current trope and batter their way through closely-packed streets in the Virgin Islands. That’s before wannabe retired assassin Jeff (Charles Bronson) is gunned down, although he’s still capable of diving under a burning car to escape immediate detection.

Jeff is on the lam with lover Vanessa (Jill Ireland). Dumped in jail with time to repent (no, strike that), mull over his circumstances, in the meantime dodging a tarantula (a real one!) crawling over his body, and coming to the conclusion that the moll has set him up and has returned to her previous lover, ace racing driver Coogan (no idea who plays him, imdb doesn’t know either). Despite having abandoned his profession, Jeff, not getting the hang of the broken-hearted moping malarkey, decides he’ll come out of retirement for the usual one last job, this time laying waste to Coogan.

But someone spots him and he’s blackmailed by Mafia chief Weber (Telly Savalas) into continuing his murderous ways. But here’s a sting in the tail – a wonderful twist to end all twists: Weber is Vanessa’s husband. She’s not a femme fatale at all just a sexual butterfly who dances from one lover to the next with Weber’s tacit approval.

But, in fact, in another twist, she is, after all, the femme fatale to end all femme fatales, setting up Jeff to bump off Weber so that she and attorney lover (what, another one) Steve (Umberto Orsini), Jeff’s best buddy, can take over her husband’s organization now that it has gone legit. And in the final twist to end all twists this ends with Jeff’s broken heart turning him suicidal (beat that Schwarzenneger, Stallone, Willis et al).

This is a very down’n’dirty Italian thriller, dashing from deadbeat locale to Southern Belle balls, from rusting riverboats to swampland, from factories to fashion shoots, the confusion factor infused further by the sudden incursions into Italian, often in mid-scene, as if this was some kind of artistic coup, determined to leave the viewer baffled.

Despite going the whole nine yards in the broken-heareted department, Jeff isn’t quite the full-blown romantic, an attempted rape of Vanessa in New Orleans only interrupted by (wait for it) three thugs beating another character to death. Naturally, Jeff isn’t the kind of good bad guy who intervenes, and these characters, even more naturally, have nothing to do with the plot (except as Jeff points out it’s a violent city after all). But what the hell, it’s that kind of film.

I’ve cutting Amazon Prime a big break here with my rating, because despite the language problems, it’s a cut above your normal thriller, and Charles Bronson (Red Sun, 1971) before being typecast by Death Wish (1974) gives a very good account of himself, certainly a lot more to do than just grimace, and, heck, you even feel sorry for him twisted inside out by emotion. Telly Savalas (A Town Called Hell, 1971) is a bit more polished and emotionally aware than his usual villain.

You might be tempted to call Jill Ireland (Rider on the Rain, 1970) the stand-out. She still can’t act for toffee, but she is well suited to playing this kind of jinxed minx, whose beauty snags dupes well below her league. And (spoiler alert) she does let it all hang out, indulging in copious nudity.

Directed with some flair by Sergio Sollima (The Big Gundown, 1967) and extra marks for coaxing unusual performances from the three principals. Six screenwriters (can’t you tell) put this together including Lina Wertmuller (The Belle Starr Story, 1968). Great score by Ennio Morricone.

Given I couldn’t understand half of what was going on thanks to streamer disinterest in sub-titles, I was still very impressed. Worth a watch.

NOTE: Amazon Prime has this under the title Family but once the credits roll it switches to original title Violent City.

Youtube has the trailer.

Johnny Cool (1963) ****

The one-man-wrecking-crew activities of the likes of John Wick or your friendly neighborhood beekeeper not to mention that Point Blank (1968) has a similar downbeat ending and the flurry of interest in retro noir should have set the reassessment alarm bells ringing. Audiences and critics have been frankly dismissive, not even wondering how a mere television director managed to hook the likes of Rat Pack dudes Sammy Davis Jr. and Peter Lawford and get an exceptionally dramatic performance from eternally cute Disneyesque Bewitched star Elizabeth Montgomery.

Perhaps it’s because star Henry Silva (The Secret Invasion, 1964) never broke out of a cycle of B-films or small supporting role in bigger pictures or that director William Asher threw away any kudos he might have earned here by turning to Muscle Beach Party (1964) and How to Stuff a Wild Bikini (1965) and the like. Or perhaps that the makers of the aforementioned John Wick and The Beekeeper learned to leaven the innate violence of the character and render him more audience-friendly by giving him sentimental attachment to pet dogs and old ladies or some old guy robbed of his pension.

Johnny Cool (Henry Silva) has better reason than either to get mad with the world, given that as a child during World War Two he saved his mother from rape from one German soldier only to witness her killed by another. Orphaned, he was taken in by the local Resistance which later reverted back to its Mafia origins. He’s got the murder cojones, for sure, interrupting a wedding to kill off the groom.

Anyway, he’s hired by Mafia bigwig Johnny Colini (Marc Lawrence) to embark on a transatlantic sojourn and wipe out the main men of the U.S. Syndicate. Along the way, he dallies with non-combatant Dare (Elizabeth Montgomery) who later becomes complicit and then, as if this was a 1940s gangster picture seeking to avoid the wrath of the Production code, suffused by guilt turns him in.

Meanwhile, he’s on the slaughter trail. In part the gangsters are easy pickings, because they have all grown fat and in turning legitimate are out of reach of the law and in part because, just like Point Blank, nobody saw him coming or guessed anyone would have such audacity. He’s not in the do-not-disturb category of John Wick or The Beekeeper.

But he does cross a particular line that audience and critics back in the day were generally averse to. His violence is indiscriminate. He kills cops and would have inadvertently killed kids, too, if they had got in the way. There was no shortage of corrupt cops in Hollywood policiers in the 60s and 70s, but generally they weren’t executed.

He’s one step ahead of everyone and even without a standard weapon is a dab hand at improvisation. Colini has preyed upon his lack of parentage, suggesting that Cool will become a surrogate son once he has completed his mission. When that ploy is exposed and Cool realizes he is the worst kind of patsy, the movie takes a sharp right turn into the modern idiom by allowing him not to turn back and get revenge on the Italian godfather but to continue the killing spree to satisfy his own honor.

Few bad guys were as cool or charming as Johnny Cool. While his face can turn rigid and his personality entombed by inner demons, he is an adept ladies man and has the kind of easy-going manner that on the surface ensures access to dangerous area. Most tough guys, who found ways of justifying their killing, or had a soft spot for some dame, couldn’t manage the pretence for long and away from a sympathetic female so completely conceal their true identities.

Henry Silva is just terrific. This is the hit man with more style than redeeming features. And director Willam Asher plays the noir game, clever use of shadows, and a surprising quotient of aerial shots. And the ending is classic. So I won’t spoil that for you, but maybe the best twist ever in a crime picture.

Given contemporary audience and critical antipathy for Elizabeth Montgomery, this should have buried her career, but, as luck would have it, she fell in love with Asher and he handed her the leading role in his next television show – I should have mentioned he was something of a TV whizz-kid – Bewitched (1964-1972). Although she might never have met Asher at all if her first prospective female leading role had come off – she was the replacement for Debbie Reynolds in the $3.5m version of Alistair MacLean’s Night without End directed by George Seaton and a Paramount release. It was scheduled for release in 1962 but was never made.

Asher did move in Rat Pack circles, hence the involvement of Peter Lawford, in a production capacity, and Joey Bishop and Sammy Davis Jr. in small roles, with the latter lending his tonsils to the title tune. Look out for Brad Dexter (The Magnificent Seven, 1960), Richard Anderson (Seconds, 1966), Telly Savalas (The Scalphunters, 1968) and Wanda Hendrix (The Prince of Foxes, 1949).

The pitiless avenger being in such contemporary vogue, this is worth a look.

A Town Called Hell / A Town Called Bastard (1970) ***

You think you’re in for something quite stylish when widow Alvira (Stell Stevens) rides into town asleep in a coffin in a hearse. Or when she turns up in a dream as an avenging angel. Or when a rebel, entrusted with funds to buy guns, squanders the cash on women and booze. Or when a Mexican general is so disgusted by informer Paco (Michael Craig) that he refuses to face him. But these are about the only highlights in a bloody, sadistic confusing affair.

And diversity rules. Not only do we have a deaf mute going by the apocalyptic name of The Spectre (Dudley Sutton), there’s also an unnamed blind man (Fernando Rey) who comes in handy because he can recognise people by fingering the contours of their faces.

We begin straightforwardly enough with the massacre in a church of the well-to-do by Mexican rebels led by two unnamed characters (Robert Shaw and Martin Landau). Turns out that’s only the prologue and we cut to a decade later to a town ruled by sadistic sun worshipper Don Carlos (Telly Savalas) who has a tendency to string people up at the drop of a hat. Keeping a low profile is another unnamed character known only as the Priest (Robert Shaw) who may always have been a cleric or who has turned to God after being involved in the massacre. Even so, religion doesn’t prevent him having a mistress.

Alvira is offering a $20,000 reward for the killers of her husband, Montes, a victim of the earlier massacre. To get the money, Don Carlos employs the typical wheeze of framing a couple of villagers, husband and wife, hanging them before their tongues run so loose they can confess it wasn’t them. In a bid to save his own skin, the husband blames his wife.

Don Carlos’s luck turns bad when his sidekick La Bomba (Al Lettieri) decides it might be fun to take over, beginning by shooting off his boss’s fingers before hanging him in the sun. But just when you might think you are getting the hang of what’s going on, the unnamed Colonel (Martin Landau) appears. He’s also looking for information, but not inclined to pay for it. He’s hunting for a rebel leader with, wait for it, an actual name, though this still sounds like a pseudonym, Aguila (Eagle, get it?). For no reason whatsoever, it takes the priest a little while to work out this is his former comrade from the church massacre.

*The Yanks were the ones who changed the title from the above. Interesting double bill, though, with Alain Delon as “Le Samourai.”* *Stella Stevens looks far more provocative*
*on the poster than she does in the film.*

It doesn’t take long for the Colonel to get a grip on the hanging malarkey and with as much relish as Don Carlos, determining to continue hanging the townspeople until they tell him where Aguila is. The two narratives don’t quite mesh, but then what do you expect, this is high on atmosphere, sweating bodies, raw emotions, blazing sun. The Colonel, equally obviously, has given up on being a rebel, presumably because as a government official, he can officially murder people any time he likes without having to round up a gang of rebels to do so.

Every now and then the movie dips into flashback or Paco appears to confuse matters further.

There’s an odd sensibility at work. Maybe this is intended to be one of those down’n’dirty westerns trying to show us how mean the actual West really was (although given it’s set in Mexico, we only need to go as far back as The Wild Bunch, in 1969, to get that point). It doesn’t fit so easily into the spaghetti western canon, either, despite the uniform malevolence.

The oblique tone reminds you more of something that could have been put together by Luis Bunuel, but that would be ranking it far higher than it deserves.

The cast are the biggest plus points, though you might be asking whether Robert Shaw (Battle of the Bulge, 1965) and Stella Stevens (The Mad Room, 1969) were sold a different film entirely. Stevens doesn’t have much to do, except look beautiful and soulful. But Shaw is about the only leading man you’ll come across who so puts his heart into a part that he doesn’t mind being seen actually drooling at the prospect of massacre. In fairness, Telly Savalas (The Assassination Bureau, 1969) and Martin Landau (Nevada Smith, 1966), while not exactly dripping spit, drool in different ways.

There’s enough brooding going on stylistically that you are almost willing it to turn into something not just better but more definable. Alas, no such luck.

Robert Parrish (In the French Style, 1963) does his best with a screenplay by Robert Aubrey (The One-Eyed Soldiers, 1967) and Benjamin Fisz, in his only writing gig, he was better known as a producer. My guess is they were more script doctors than anything else, the original damage having been done by the uncredited Philip Yordan (Battle of the Bulge).

Could a been something.

https://amzn.to/46Jpk2D

Love Is A Ball (1963) ***

Three main characters playing against type and a feisty, independent, woman are the main pleasures of this conspiratorial rom-com that takes a while to get going. The main obstacle is the subplot involving the education of a klutz, impoverished French Duke Gaspard (Ricardo Montalban), who needs brought up to speed on the niceties of fine dining, horse-riding and dancing in order to represent a decent catch for American heiress Millie (Hope Lange).

So that keeps ex-racing driver John (Glenn Ford), fallen on such hard times he’ll accept a job as chauffeur, confined to the background for the first third of the movie. That is, until he works out that his employer Etienne (Charles Boyer) is a professional matchmaker who makes a living marrying off poverty-stricken aristocrats to wealthy women. However, he poses as a charmer who happens through his connections to put women in contact with eligible men without letting on that he takes a hefty commission or that his clientele is financially illiterate.

But the cunning Etienne realizes that in order to get close to Millie he has to exploit the weakness of her over-protective uncle Dr Gump (Telly Savalas) for gourmet food. All these complications create delay in getting on with the will-they-won’t-they romance of Millie and John.

Millie, channeling the adventurous spirit of the likes of Amelia Earhart, is car mechanic, wannabe racing driver and neophyte ballet dancer, so not quite the hapless rom-com female. And she’s pretty good at putting John in his place when he lacks the necessary subservience, giving him a tight deadline to wash her family’s huge fleet of cars, and forcing him to wear a despised chauffeur’s cap.

Meanwhile, Gaspard is causing problems of his own, not just by his complete ineptitude, but by falling for Etienne’s secretary Janine (Ulla Jacobson). So it’s hitches all round especially as Millie and John spend all their time upsetting each other, so much so that, determined to get married to please her grandmother, she’s on the brink of marrying the next clod in Etienne’s line-up.

To be honest, the script is a bit of a mess and in sticking to it director David Swift (The Interns, 1962) hasn’t quite been able to play to the movie’s strengths – and making more of them – rather than trying for what amounts to not much more than an ensemble piece. What lifts the movie is watching the usually steadfast and take-charge Glenn Ford (Rage, 1966) being put through the wringer by the heiress and forced to swallow humble pie any time he has had more than enough.

Next up is Telly Savalas (The Scalphunters, 1968) who totally switches his mean if not downright villainous screen persona to portray a character who dithers over epicurean delights and turns into a happy individual as long as his appetite is sated. A Jolly Telly is indeed a sight to be savoured.

Lastly, we have Ricardo Montalban (Sol Madrid, 1968), again an actor who errs on the tough-guy side, another of the take-charge fraternity, who always appears completely in command. It’s a bold career move for him to chuck that persona into the mixer and let it spin round a hundred times a minute till he comes out looking frazzled.

Hope Lange (A Pocketful of Miracles, 1961), who had a sporadic career as a female lead, and was at the time involved in an affair with Ford, is excellent as the adventurous headstrong spirit clad in overalls but less convincing as the glamorous heiress especially when simpering.

The screenplay, based on the novel The Grand Duke and Mr Pimm, looks as if it wanted to head in too many heads directions at once, was by Swift and Frank Waldman (Inspector Clouseau, 1968). Farce, at which Waldmann later excelled (he wrote the trio of 1970s Pink Panther films), seems is not a good fit for rom-com.

Worth seeing for Glenn Ford, Telly Savalas and Ricardo Montalban all thumbing a nose at their screen personas.

Battle of the Bulge (1965) ***** – Seen at the Cinema in Cinerama and 70mm

Cinerama was the IMAX of the day and far superior in my view in many aspects not least the width of the screen. IMAX goes for height but I’m not convinced that compensates for lack of the widest screen you could imagine. So the chance of seeing this in the original Cinerama print, 70mm and six-track stereo, at the annual Bradford Widescreen Festival yesterday was too good to miss. And so it proved. A thundering experience. Much as I enjoyed it on DVD, this was elevated way beyond expectation.

Superb even-handed depiction of war, far better than I remembered. Most war films of this era and even beyond showed the action primarily from the view of the Americans/British – even the acclaimed The Deer Hunter (1978) and Apocalypse Now (1979) show nothing of the skills of the Vietnam forces that would prove victorious. And while The Longest Day (1962) shows reaction to the invasion, the Germans are revealed as caught on the hop. Given the basis for this picture is the unexpected German offensive in the Ardennes, France, in December-January 1944-1945, you might expect the Germans to be accorded some attention. But hardly, given as much of the picture as this, so that in the early stages the Germans are portrayed as powerful, clever and patriotic while the Americans are slovenly and complacent, their greatest efforts expended on preparing for Xmas.

With tanks the main military focus, Cinerama is deployed brilliantly, the ultra-wide screen especially useful as the unstoppable vehicles rampage through forests and land and allowing true audience involvement when opposing armies meet head-to-head. Of course, it being Cinerama, there are a couple of scenes that play to the strength of this particular screen, a car careening round bends and a train racing along twisting tracks, the kind of scenes that previously would have had the audiences out of their seats with excitement, but here mainly used to raise the tension in the battle.

It’s to the film’s benefit that the all-star cast doesn’t feature a single actor who is truly a star in the John Wayne/Gregory Peck/Steve McQueen mould so that prevents the audience rubbernecking to spot-a-star that afflicted The Longest Day. The biggest name, technically, is Henry Fonda, and although he received top billing in many pictures, you would have to go back to The Wrong Man (1956) to find an actual box office hit. The only previous top billing for Robert Shaw (From Russia with Love, 1963) had been in The Luck of Ginger Coffey (1964), a flop few had seen. And the top-billing days of Robert Ryan (Horizons West, 1952) and Dana Andrews (Laura, 1944). In fact, the actor with the biggest string of hits was Disney protégé James MacArthur (Swiss Family Robinson, 1960). Anybody who had seen The Magnificent Seven (1960) and The Great Escape (1963) would recognise Charles Bronson in a supporting role. So fair is the movie that it’s the blond-haired Shaw who steals the show with a dynamic performance.

So it helped the almost documentary-style of the film that it was filled with familiar faces rather than dominant stars and the director was not bound to give a star more screen time or provide them with one brilliant scene after another, or establish a redundant love story in order to provide them with more emotional heft. In fact, the only romance goes to a sly black marketeer who views his relationship more as a business asset.

Initially, the role of Lt. Col. Kiley (Henry Fonda), a former cop, seems only to be to rile his superiors General Grey (Robert Ryan) and Colonel Pritchard (Dana Andrews), his pessimistic view contrasting with the accepted notion that the Germans are well and truly defeated and the war would be over soon. On airplane reconnaissance he takes a photograph of an officer later identified as Panzer tank genius Colonel Hessler (Robert Shaw). While Grey and Pritchard over-ride his conclusions, the movie concentrates on the German build-up, their discipline, efficiency, leadership and determination juxtaposed to the American inefficiency and sloppiness.

Where the Americans just want to get home, Hessler – more charismatic than any of the dull Yanks – is in his element, wanting the war to never end, convinced at least that a tank-driven assault would drive a wedge between the Allied forces, and reaching the target Antwerp in Belgium in the north would extend the war by another year by which time Germany’s V2 rockets would give them greater firepower. The Germans also have a clever idea, the type that the British were always coming up with and would make a film of its own, of parachuting American-born Germans behind enemy lines, dressed in American uniforms to carry out vital sabotage and hold crucial bridges across the River Meuse.

In one of the best scenes in the film, his tank commanders spurt spontaneously into a patriotic song with much stamping of boots. And while Hessler’s immediate superior (Werner Peters) , ensconced in a superior bunker, can enjoy a comfortable lifestyle, no more illustrated by the fact that he has courtesans to hand, one of whom, offered to Hessler, is furiously dismissed. And the clock is ticking, the Germans have limited supplies of fuel and must reach the enemy’s supply dumps before they run out of gas.

The maverick Kiley manages to be everywhere – the River Meuse bridge, in the air in the fog determinedly hunting for the panzers he believes are hidden, is the one who realises how critical the fuel situation is for the enemy, and at the fuel depot for the movie climax. Otherwise, the picture uses its cast of supporting characters to cover other incidents, the massacre of prisoners of war at Malmedy, the chaos as the Germans over-run American-held towns.

Best of all is the human element. It would be easy on a picture of this scope to lose emotional connection, as you would say was the prime flaw of The Longest Day. Not only is Kiley the outsider trying to beat the system, but we have the cowardly Lt Weaver (James MacArthur) who would rather give up without a fight than lose his life, the weaselly Sgt. Guffy (Telly Savalas) representing the worst instincts of the grunts, the confused General Grey can’t make up his mind how to respond to the sudden attack, and Hessler’s driver Conrad (Hans Christian Blech) who is fed up with paying the price of war.

The action scenes are outstanding. If you’ve never been up against a tank in full flight, you will soon get the idea how fearsome these metal battering rams are, as the rear up, crash over trees, race across open fields, and either with machine gun or shells wreak havoc. As with the best war films, you are given very precise insights into the battles, the tactics involved, the ultimate cost. Wolenski (Charles Bronson) is in the thick of the fighting.

While Robert Shaw is easily the biggest screen personality, Henry Fonda is solid, and holds the various strands of the picture together, while Charles Bronson enjoys a further scene-stealing role. But the pick of the acting, mostly thanks to bits of improvisation, is Telly Savalas (The Slender Thread, 1965) as the thieving Guffy. In one memorable scene he kicks out in resentment at his collection of hens and in another shakes his body at the tanks. No one else, beyond Shaw, comes close to his infusing his character with elements of individual personality.

Pier Angeli (Sodom and Gomorrah, 1962) as Guffy’s mistress and Barbara Werle (Krakatoa, East of Java, 1968) as the courtesan are inexplicably billed above Charles Bronson, Telly Savalas and James MacArthur perhaps in a ploy to deceive audiences into thinking there was more female involvement.

Full marks to British director Ken Annakin (The Biggest Bundle of Them All, 1968) for visual acumen and for simplifying a complicated story and peppering it with human detail. His battles scenes are among the best ever filmed. Credit for whittling down the story into a manageable chunk goes to Philip Yordan (The Fall of the Roman Empire, 1964), Milton Sperling (The Bramble Bush, 1960) and John Melson (Four Nights of the Full Moon, 1963).

A genuine classic, with greater depth than I ever remembered.

Genghis Khan (1965) ****

Hollywood was never reined in by the strictures of history, much preferring fiction to fact for dramatic effect, and that’s largely the case here, although the titular hero’s real life remains shrouded in myth.

If you do catch this surprisingly good feature, make sure it’s not one of the many pan-and-scan atrocities on the market. I watched this in the proper Panavision ratio which meant it occupied only one-third of my television screen, but in that format it’s terrific. It’s a bit of an anomaly for a decade that churned out high-class historical epics like El Cid (1961) because this clocks in about a hour short of other films in the genre and there’s no star actor or director to speak of and no Yakima Canutt to handle the second unit action scenes.

Omar Sharif’s marquee value at this point was so low that if you check out any of the original posters you’ll note that his name hardly rates a mention and he also comes at the very end of the opening screen credits. Although this is post-Lawrence of Arabia (1962), it’s pre-Doctor Zhivago (1965), suggesting nobody had a clue how to market his talents.

Director Henry Levin was a journeyman, fifty films under his belt, best known for not a great deal except for, following this, the second and third in the Matt Helm spy series. Given this film was critically ignored on release and since, and a flop to boot, it definitely falls into the “Worth a Look” category. Although there are few stand-out scenes of the artistic variety such as pepper Lawrence of Arabia or El Cid, this is still well put together and Levin shows an aptness for the widescreen.

The narrative breaks down into three parts – the first section describing enslavement of Genghis Khan (Omar Sharif) by nemesis Jamuga (Stephen Boyd – the picture’s star according to poster and screen credits) – before banding together rival tribes in revolt; the second part a long trek to China; and the third encompassing a final battle and hand-to-hand combat with Jamuga. For a two-hour picture it has tremendous sweep, not just the scenery and the battle scenes, but political intrigue, romance, a rape scene and even clever comedy. Genghis Khan believes his glory is predestined, but he has very modern ideas about the role of women.

The best section, oddly enough, is set in China where Genghis engages in a duel of wits with the distinctively contradictory Emperor (Robert Morley), but that’s not to detract from the film’s other qualities, the action brilliantly handled, especially the chaos of battle, the romance touching, and the dialog intelligent and often epigrammatic.

Unlike James Mason (Age of Consent, 1969) who makes a calamitous attempt at a Chinese accent, Robert Morley (Some Girls Do, 1969), costume apart and looking as if he has just walked out of an English country house, but his plummy tones belie a very believable character. Stephen Boyd (Assignment K, 1968) shines as the villain of the piece. Telly Savalas (Battle of the Bulge, 1965) and Woody Strode (The Professionals, 1966) have decent parts as Khan’s s sidekicks, the former unexpectedly bearing the brunt of the film’s comedy. French actress Francoise Dorleac (Billion Dollar Brain, 1967) is effective as Sharif’s wife.

Hitchcock stole one of his most famous ideas from Genghis Khan. About the only scene in Torn Curtain (1966) to receive universal praise was a killing carried out to a soundtrack of nothing more than the grunts of assailant and victim. But, here, where the score by Yugoslavian composer Dusan Radic was extensively employed, the rape scene is silent and just as stunning. If the only prints widely available are of the pan-and-scan variety I’m not surprised the film has been for so long overlooked, but if you can get hold of one in the preferred format you will be in for a surprise.

The Karate Killers (1967) ****

What a hoot! A sheer blast! The most brilliant yet of the madman dominating the world schemes, autogyros to out-Bond Bond, a fabulous cast and of course the most incompetent spies this side of Get Smart.

You can’t get better than a scientist inventing a way of turning water into gold. Takes chutzpah to even think of that as a plot. No having to batter your way into Fort Knox as poor Bond did in Goldfinger (1964), you just turn on the tap. But, wait, the formula is lost and our intrepid heroes have to – heaven forbid! – track down five gorgeous women to find it. Was there ever a more onerous proposal?

I never saw any of these films when they came out. At the time I guess they would have been viewed as small screen rivals to James Bond. But although 007 in every picture would eventually be trapped in the madman’s lair, he spent most of the film beating the sh*t out of the bad guys. In sharp contrast, The Men from U.N.C.L.E. seem always to be on the wrong side of a beating, number one hero Napoleon Solo (Robert Vaughn) more hapless than number two Ilya Kuryakin (David McCallum).

With hindsight, it looks like this was never meant to be taken seriously and without going into over-spoof plays exceptionally well as a light-hearted romp. Solo seems to be constantly outwitted with Kuryakin invariably coming to the rescue, the former too often duped by beauty, the latter a bit more discerning. There’s a lovely moment here in their reactions to the instruction by boss Mr Waverley (Leo G. Carroll) to hunt down a dead scientist’s quintet of daughters/step-daughters; Solo gives a knowing smirk, Kuryakin shows disdain.

Must be the best cast yet assembled: legendary Joan Crawford, suddenly hot again after Whatever Happened to Baby Jane (1962) and Strait-Jacket (1965), Curd Jurgens (Psyche ’59, 1964), Herbert Lom (Villa Rides, 1968), Telly Savalas (The Dirty Dozen, 1967), Kim Darby (True Grit, 1969), Terry-Thomas (How To Murder Your Wife, 1965) and Jill Ireland (Mrs Charles Bronson) as you’ve never seen her before.

The U.N.C.L.E. duo are in a race against T.H.R.U.S.H. operative Randolph (Herbert Lom) to track down the missing formula. Randolph has a head start. He has been having an affair with the scientist’s wife Amanda (Joan Crawford) who is shocked to discover his charming exterior conceals a ruthless interior.

Solo and Kuryakin track down the scientist’s daughter Sandy (Kim Darby), a good bit brighter than your average eye-candy spy girl, who points the way to the step-daughters and to the possibility that each has one part of the missing formula. Was there ever an easier justification for introducing such a random set of characters?

First up is stark naked Countess (Diane McBain) locked away by jealous impoverished husband (Telly Savalas) in a castle in Rome. Then we’re onto Imogen (Jill Ireland), a flamboyant lass shaking her booty at any opportunity, arrested by a constable (Terry-Thomas) for indecent exposure, and involved in a punch-up in a London night-club where Solo is nearly drowned (yup!) and Randolph instructs the band to keep playing since the ruckus is nothing to do with them.

Then we’re off to Switzerland and Yvonne (Danielle De Metz) and a machine-gun ski chase down a mountainside (beat that, Mr Bond). And so on until all the clues, contained in photographs of the dead father, have been found and, wait for it, the puzzle remains incomplete. Eventually it’s unravelled and the final showdown is on.

But what a way to go. Never mind the ski chase, the picture opens with the duo being attacked by a fleet of autogyros (one-man mini helicopters, the “Little Nellie” of the later You Only Live Twice, 1967 ), and as usual someone, this time Kuryakin, is trapped on a low-tech machine, this time on a ice-block travelator where blocks of ice are smashed to bits by nasty spikes.

Randolph is the most droll villain alive. “Don’t be so melodramatic, my dear,” he informs Amanda when she uncovers his villainy and is about to be murdered. The whole jigsaw is exceptionally appealing, the global whizzing about, Japan also included not to mention one of the poles where T.H.R.U.S.H. has established its HQ.

The action is a good bit more thrilling, the aerial and ski sequences very well done on a budget a fraction of the Bonds, and there’s more than enough going on to keep interest levels high, not just where to go next, and who to encounter, but the gathering of the clues, and working out of the final mystery, which offers a nice emotional touch.

Kim Darby is more of a typical ingenue here, sparkier than you might expect but not offering the originality of character expressed in True Grit, while Jill Ireland is a good bit more sassy than she ever appeared thereafter. Barry Shear (Wild in the Streets, 1968) directed.

This is the best so far that I have seen on the series. My interest had begun to flag but, thus fortified, I will continue with my endeavors to watch them all. on your behalf, of course.

The Slender Thread (1965) ****

Hollywood paranoia in the 1970s ensured that any type of electronic surveillance was treated with suspicion. Cops, too, were almost certain to be corrupt. Although he would subscribe to such paranoia and implicit corruption in Three Days of the Condor (1973), in his movie debut director Sydney Pollack turns these concepts on their head.

Crisis center volunteer Alan (Sidney Poitier) faces a battle against time to save potential suicide Inga (Anne Bancroft), using his own powers of empathy and persuasion, but helped more than a little by dedicated policemen and the system of tracking calls. On the one hand the ticking clock ensures tension remains high, on the other Alan own’s battle with his nascent abilities brings a high level of anxiety to the proceedings especially as we learn of the particular circumstances driving Inge.

Alan is studying to be a doctor and he carries within him the arrogance of his profession, namely the power to cure. But that is within the realms of the physical. When it comes to dealing with the mental side of a patient he discovers he is ill-equipped. The intimacy he strikes up with Inga ensures he cannot seek relieve by handing over the problem to anyone else, the fear being that the minute he introduces another voice the spell will be broken. His medical training means only that he knows far better than a layman the effect of the pills the woman has taken and can accurately surmise how long she has to live. In the process he experiences a wide range of emotions from caring and sympathetic to angry and frustrated.

By sheer accident Inga’s otherwise loving husband, Mark (Steven Hill), skipper of a fishing vessel, has discovered that their son is not his. On being rejected, she has nothing to live for.

The simple plotline is incredibly effective. The pair never meet but we discover something of Inga’s life through flashbacks as her life gradually unravels and elements of insanity creep in. Alan, meanwhile, is shut in a room, relying on feedback from colleagues such as psychiatrist Dr Coburn (Telly Savalas) and others monitoring the police investigation attempting to discover where she is.

Initially, the movie treats Seattle as an interesting location with aerial shots over the credits and other scenes on the shore or seafront, but gradually the picture withdraws into itself, the city masked in darkness and the principals locked in their respective rooms.

Sidney Poitier is superb, having to contain his emotions as she tried to deal with a confused woman, at various times thinking he was over the worst only to discover that he was making little headway and if the movie had gone on for another fifteen minute she might have reflected how impotent he had actually been. Anne Bancroft matches him in excellence, in a role that charts disintegration. The fact that their characters never met and that their conversations were conducted entirely by telephone says a lot about their skills as actors in conveying emotion without being in the same room as the person with whom they are trying to communicate.

Telly Savalas (The Dirty Dozen, 1967) delivers a quieter performance than you might expect were you accustomed to his screen tics and flourishes. Ed Asner (The Venetian Affair, 1966) and Steven Hill, in his last film for 15 years, are effective. This was only the second screenplay of the decade by prolific television writer Stirling Silliphant (In the Heat of the Night, 1967).

The bold decision to film in black-and-white pays off, ensuring there is no color to divert the eye, and that dialogue, rather than costumes or scenery dominates. Pollack allows two consummate actors to do their stuff while toning down all other performances, so that background does not detract from foreground. As the High Noon of the psychological thriller this ore than delivers. Gripping stuff. And it’s worth considering the courage required to undertake such subject matter for your first movie.

Winning the Oscar for Lilies of the Field (1963) had not turned Sidney Poitier into a leading man and in fact he took second billing, each time to Richard Widmark, in his next two pictures. Anne Bancroft was in similar situation after being named Best Actress for The Miracle Worker (1962) and although she took top billing in The Pumpkin Eater (1964) it was her first film after her triumph and, besides, had been made in Britain. And for both 1967 would be when they were both elevated to proper box office stardom.

CATCH-UP: Sidney Poitier performances reviewed on the Blog are Pressure Point (1962), The Long Ships (1964), The Bedford Incident (1965) and Duel at Diablo (1966); regarding Anne Bancroft only The Pumpkin Eater (1964) features here.

The Interns (1962) ***

Patients are a nuisance to be tolerated on the route to wealth in this superior soap opera that sees young doctors wrestling with ambition and ethics. Although also concluding that impending lofty status will snare them an attractive bride, they find women less biddable than expected, romance proving the trickiest of all procedures.

The main cast of four men and one women are played by a roster of hotly-tipped newcomers, including future Oscars winners and nominees and the elusive Haya Harareet (The Secret Partner, 1961). Director David Swift, accustomed to handling multiple characters in the likes of Pollyanna (1961), keeps the pot boiling and although some storylines lead to obvious conclusions the screenwriters bring sufficient imagination to the various strands.

The story unfolds over the one year the doctors spend in a general hospital, where the patients are liable to be drunk and obstreperous, before taking up residencies elsewhere. As you might expect, the main characters divide into the good and the arrogant. Heading the latter are Alec Considine (Michael Callan) who cheats on girlfriend Mildred (Anne Helm) with older nurse Vicky (Katharine Baird) in order to gain through her connections a residency at a highly prestigious hospital. Matching him in the cocky stakes is John Paul Otis (Cliff Robertson), charming to old ladies but willing to risk his career to bed movie actress Lisa (Suzy Parker). The good guys are Lew Worship (James MacArthur) who is seduced into the supposed backwaters of obstetrics and Sid Lackland (Nick Adams), an all-round good egg who falls for patient Loara (Ellen Davalos).

The most interesting of the young doctors, however, is single mother Madolyn Bruckner (Haya Harareet) who takes on surgeon Dominic Riccio (Telly Savalas) at every turn. Riccio spends his time berating his charges and in particular has a downer on female doctors. At every encounter, despite his vicious tongue, she refuses to back down.

But it is the patients, in particular Arnold Auer (Peter Brocco) and Loara, who blow a hole in the myth of hospitals. In the best scene in the film, Auer, suffering from a degenerative illness that will turn him into a vegetable, takes over from the doctor in giving his own awful diagnosis. His pleas for clemency from his ordeal, in essence assisted suicide, create an ethical dilemma for the young doctors who did not realize that modern medicine would prolong rather than curtail patient suffering. Auer’s anguished wife Emma (Angela Clarke) flits in and out of the picture as she buttonholes any doctor willing to listen to a new cure she has discovered. While the more hard-hearted doctors can inure themselves to his agony, a savage turn of events finds them all caught up in a situation that could jeopardize their future careers.

*Racy image of Olga (Carroll Harrison) adorns the cover of the soundtrack album with music by triple-Oscar-nominee Leith Stevens (“The Five Pennies,” 1959).*

Although Loara has an incurable disease and has more or less given up, Lackland’s effervescent good humor and determination that surgery can resolve all health issues brings her hope. If you were in her condition possibly the last thing you would want would be a cheerleading doctor on your side, but in this instance it brings succor and in the doctor’s case forces him to rethink his priorities.

Probably the last thing the doctors – and the audience – expected was to come up against such stubborn free-thinking women. While Bruckner appears to fly the flag for female independence, she has solid support from Lisa who spends most of the picture rejecting Otis’s advances on the grounds that even when he becomes rich he will be too poor for her liking. Eventually, Vicky forces Considine to choose. Shy nurse Gloria (Stefanie Powers) shocks Worship by putting global travel ahead of marriage. But she’s not as shocking as the bespectacled inhibited Olga (Carroll Harrison) who makes a spectacle of herself by losing her inhibitions in flamboyant style at a wild New Year’s Eve party, her disheveled state a key element of promotional artwork.

Although, theoretically, a film about young doctors having a romp, in reality it is a thoughtful and thought-provoking picture, tackling issues that would have been taboo at the time and removing the submissive tag that daunted most movie female characters in the movies.

Those who succeeded in later winning Oscar favor were Cliff Robertson, Best Actor for Charly (1968), and Nick Adams and Telly Savalas, both nominated for Best Supporting Actor, the former in Twilight of Honor (1963) and the latter in The Birdman of Alcatraz (1962). Robertson was the pick of the bunch, a star in his own right graduating from 633 Squadron (1964) and Masquerade (1965) to J.W. Coop (1971) which he also directed. But largely, the stars did not fulfil initial promise. The peak of Michael Callan’s movie career was reprising his role in The New Interns (1964), star in British director Michael Winner’s You Must Be Joking! (1965) and second male lead in Cat Ballou (1965). James MacArthur had a steady movie career before an epic run in television series Hawaii Five-O (1968-1979). Nick Adams switched between film and television before his premature death in 1968. Haya Harareet made only one more film, The Last Charge (1962).

Although primarily in television, the less-heralded stars enjoyed greater ongoing success. Mainly a strong supporting actor, Telly Savalas had only one stab at a starring role (Land Raiders, 1970) before achieving worldwide fame as Kojak (1973-1978). Stefanie Powers was television’s The Girl from U.N.C.L.E. (1966-1967) and later Hart to Hart (1979-1984). Buddy Ebsen (who plays the older Dr Sidney Wohl) went straight into a nine-year run of The Beverley Hillbillies.