Still of the day: The Misfits

Sky Movies are running lots of Marilyn movies just now, but never THE MISFITS. I used to be obsessed about this 1961 John Huston film when I was younger, and saw it lots of times in that pre-video world - I had to go to any screening of it. Its one I need to see again now, before too long. Lots on it at MM labels. 

And here's Thelma .....

Early 60s 20th Century Fox double bill

THE STORY OF RUTH and FRANCIS OF ASSISI. I remember seeing these two back in 1960 and 1961 - when I would have been 14 and 15, we liked those lush 20th Century Fox cinemascope period movies then. I had never seen them since, so its been fun revisting them now.

Inspired by the tale from Hebrew scriptures and the Christian Bible, the Moabitess child Ruth is sold to the temple of Chemosh. Years pass and she serves as a priestess to the idol. While arranging a temple ritual, she encounters a Judean family of artisans: Elimelech, his wife Naomi, their sons Chilion and Mahlon, and daughter-in-law Orpah. Ruth is curious about their God, and begins to meet secretly with Mahlon. After tragedy strikes, Ruth follows Naomi and begins a new life in Bethlehem...

THE STORY OF RUTH is a perfect biblical - up there with THE PRODIGAL, SAMSON & DELILAH, and even THE TEN COMMANDMENTS, as we follow Ruth (Elana Eden) from being a child sold into being a priestess for a pagan cult (Viveca Lindfors is a very slinky high priestess) to her meeting and falling for Tom Tryon and the invisible god he believes in. As another virgin is sacrificed to that pagan idol Ruth rebels and escapes. 

Elana Eden is attractive and fascinating - its her only main credit. Israeli actresses were popular then, Haya Harareet in BEN HUR, and Daliah Lavi being others busy then. Tom Tryon and Stuart Whitman are the men in Ruth's life, and Peggy Wood is marvellous as the wise Naomi. Biblical life is nicely depicted too, Fox makes it look good and its all handled by veteran Henry Koster. A nice re-view now. Good dvd transfer too.

FRANCIS OF ASSISI. They went to Italy for this one, so it looks great at the real locations, and the costumes and sets look authentic. The cast is the problem. Fox players Bradford Dillman (a rather dull Francis) and Stuart Whitman are the leads. Dolores Hart is Clare (she is of course a real nun now), and the supporting cast features Finlay Currie and Athene Seyler. Old Timer Michael Curtiz directs, its one of his last movies. It follows the story of St Francis fairly faithfully if dully. I much preferred Zeffirelli's BROTHER SUN SISTER MOON in 1973, and of course Rossellini's 1950 film on St Francis. 

The Colossus of Rhodes

Back in the heyday of new dvds, a fun collection were the 'Cult Camp Classics': Vol 4 was Historical Epics and featured those perennial camp favourites (but also great entertainment) LAND OF THE PHAROAHS and THE PRODIGAL, plus THE COLOSSUS OF RHODES from 1961, which I remembered enjoying as a kid. It had all the required elements: colour, spectacle, earthquakes and that giant colossus straddling Rhodes harbour .... it featured a past-it ageing American star: Rory Calhoun, in a selection of mini-togas and nice shoewear and capes, a young cutie (Angel Aranda) and of course a slinky lady - Lea Massari, the girl who vanished from that island in Antonioni's L'AVVENTURA and fetched up here. 

This one is notable now as the first feature by Sergio Leone, who does give it some imaginative touches. It is though almost as satisfying as ATLANTIS THE LOST CONTINENT, also '61, and Aldrich's sadistically camp SODOM AND GOMORRAH from 1962 (before he returned to America to tackle Blanche and Baby Jane Hudson....)

Seeing it again now its rather fun, and there are some fun comments on it, over at IMDB:
Sergio Leone's directorial debut is rife with scantily clad men whose rippling muscles and abs are fully exposed while they wrestle or undergo torture and bondage. The national pastime in Rhodes must have been doing crunches and lifting weights, because even the mature men have flat tight stomachs and bulging biceps. 

Meanwhile, the women, while lovely of face, remain chastely clothed and relegated to the sidelines. The homo-erotic visuals of this tale of ancient Rhodes call into question the film's intended audience. Were there enough closeted gays in the early 1960's to make a success of mediocre movies such as this? 

American actor, Rory Calhoun, a fading western hero who was obviously hired only for his name, wanders through the proceedings like a stranger in a strange land in more ways than one. Portraying the Greek Darios as an American on holiday, Calhoun remains nonplussed in the face of death, torture, and the lures of beautiful women. Decidedly less buff than his Italian counterparts, Calhoun nevertheless overwhelms men whose physical strength obviously exceeds that of his own lean build. Perhaps his attire gave him self-confidence. The stylish mini-togas with colorful scarves thrown over one shoulder and white, laced boots to the mid-calf make Calhoun resemble Captain Marvel more than an ancient warrior. Right: Calhoun with Leone. 

In the scenes between Calhoun and Lea Massari as Diala, there is little doubt that neither performer knows what the other is saying. Calhoun recites his lines in English while Massari recites hers in Italian. It's a genuinely spectacular affair offering pretty much everything you could want from a peplum – muscle men, corrupt rulers, rebels and conspiracies, torture in the dungeons and the arena, the spectacular destruction of a city in a natural disaster and imported American star Rory Calhoun imitating Victor Mature. Steve Reeves still ruled. Delirious or what!

Goodbye Again, again

GOODBYE AGAIN is a nice entry to those early '60s sudsers like IMITATION OF LIFE, THE BEST OF EVERYTHING, A SUMMER PLACE, BACK STREET, ADA etc. this is a rather low-key one though in black and white, and again we zoom around Paris in the early 60s with rich spoilt Tony Perkins, and his rich bitch mother Jessie Royce Landis (a good role for Jessie here).

It is Ingrid Bergman's show though as 40ish Paula, a successful interior decorator, hired by Jessie and getting involved with her son Tony. Paula has been carrying on for 5 years with businessman Yves Montand who is certainly having his cake and eating it, often letting Paula down at the last minute when he picks up a new 'Maisie' (he calls them all Maisie...). Paula is used to this but longs for commitment. Tony is going to provide it in spades as he follows, woos, flatters and finally gets Paula, which of course in turn makes Montand jealous. There are nicely judged moments along the way as our stars eat, drink, dance and drive around Paris by day and night. Perkins' little boy act gets a bit tiresome actually - he has a nice drunk scene in a nightclub with singer Diahann Carroll.

Francoise Sagan's novel is nicely adapted here, though the end is amusing now - Paula sends Perkins away saying she is "too old" [Ingrid too old at 40!], when Montand decides to marry her - as his single life isn't quite so satisfying without her to return to. But once married he reverts to his old ways with a new Maisie, leaving Paula on her own again, rubbing night lotion into her face. A nice touch too is when she is driving and crying so she turns on the windscreen wipers as she thinks it is raining.

The older female does not fare too well in these Sagan stories: Kerr in BONJOUR TRISTESSE, Joan Fontaine in A CERTAIN SMILE or Bergman as Paula here. Litvak was good with actresses, viz his films with Davis, De Havilland, Kerr (THE JOURNEY) and Bergman previously in ANASTASIA. This is a nicely satisfying soap - Perkins after PSYCHO had a good run in Europe with some super ladies: Ingrid here, Mercouri (PHAEDRA), Orson's THE TRIAL with Moreau and Romy, with Loren again in FIVE MILES TO MIDNIGHT in '62 and Bardot in THE RAVISHING IDIOT.

ANOTHER Marilyn exhibition ....

A new Marilyn Monroe exhibition is opening in London at The Little Black Gallery (http://www.thelittleblackgallery.com)

and yes it is billing it as showing some rarely-seen images of MM - but of course they are not. These images (available as framed prints at rather stunning prices) have been available for a long time - and featured heavily in Norman Mailer's 1973 iconic book on Monroe. My teenage niece even has this MM image by Greene on her bedroom wall ...

The photos here are by two of the main photographers who knew and worked with her: namely Milton Greene who look some of the best portraits of her in the mid-1950s (he had become her friend and they set up her production company which made THE PRINCE AND THE SHOWGIRL in 1956), and Douglas Kirkland who did those - yes, iconic - shots of her wrapped in that silk sheet, in 1961. (Other great MM photographers were - as mentoned before - Eve Arnold and Bob Willoughby, George Barris who did those great beach photos with her in 1962, and Bert Stern whose "Last Sitting" caught a darker Monroe ...

The Greene pictures though are marvellous and certainly worth looking at. 

Another Anna Karenina ....

There have been quite a few Anna Kareninas - its almost a key female role, like Hedda Gabler or Lady Macbeth. Garbo of course led the pack with her 1937 classic, and Vivien Leigh did it a decade later but to less effect. Then Nicola Pagett did it for the BBC in the 1970s, followed by Jacqueline Bisset for American TV, and there was a European version with Sophie Mareau, and that recent one which I have not seen, with Keira Knightley.. I have now discovered another version from 1961 made by the BBC with the intriguing casting of Claire Bloom and a pre-Bond Sean Connery, a year before DR NO.   They are both of course ideal casting here. Its a great role for Claire, on a par with her Nora in Ibsen's A DOLL'S HOUSE.

Claire Bloom's is as usual exquisite, her reckless commitment to the illicit love aroused in her by Sean Connery's likely Vronsky - ideal here - after her dull marriage to the stuffy Karenin - a change of role for Albert Lieven after those evil Nazis he usually played (CONSPIRACY OF HEARTS). The treatment, in a series of longish scenes, is somewhat theatrical, but the costumes are splendid and director Rudolph Cartier sweeps the film to its shocking conclusion, though the script is simplified from the novel with some subplots missing. Bloom was also sensational the following year in THE CHAPMAN REPORT for Cukor, one of our favourites here at the Projector, and in 1963 in THE HAUNTING. She is still acting now in her 80s and crops up in various television series like DOC MARTIN.

Nuremburg lineup ...

What star wattage for 1961: Tracy, Lancaster, Widmark, Dietrich, Schell, Garland and Clift. The film  JUDGEMENT AT NUREMBURG -  I should dig the dvd out sometime - was rather a plod as I remember, very Stanley Kramer, but Garland and Clift electrified during their cameo appearances.

Dirk's Victim & those west end boys ...

Our London Live cable channel
showing old British movies

I have done quite a bit on Dirk here - check all the various posts and pictures at Dirk label - but I have not actually said much about his 1961 VICTIM, a film I know so well, having seen it several times since I was a teenager. It was interesting looking at it again the other day, its a thriller of course but is also a classic London film and like Dearden's POOL OF LONDON and SAPPHIRE, a perfect period piece now, as we take in the gay society of the early Sixties, from working class lads, to toffs and famous actors and their milieus of gentlemens' clubs and of course that then famous gay bar, The Salisbury. 

Boy Barrett, a junior accountant on a building site, flees when he sees the police arriving - he has been stealing money to pay blackmailers, as have several other homosexuals, as homosexuality was then illegal in Britain. When the police catch up with him he is trying to destroy evidence that links him to prominent barrister Melville Farr, soon to be  QC. When Farr realises Barrett has killed himself to protect him, he determines to track down the blackmailers no matter what cost to his reputation or his marriage. Will the other blackmail victims help and just who, among all the red herrings, is the real blackmailer? 

I know all these haunts, from the bedsits and flats of Boy Barrett and his crowd, to the West End we see in aspic here. Its fascinating for a London guy to see these locations now. Henry's barber shop is just off Cambridge Circus and Charing Cross Road/Seven Dials, just over from the big Palace Theatre where FLOWER DRUM SONG is playing - and later we see Dirk as barrister Melville Farr with the police outside that other theatre near the Salisbury where OLIVER is playing, with Ron Moody and Georgia Brown on nameboards above their heads. Norman Bird's bookshop must be one of those in Cecil Court, just off St Martin's Lane. (I had that paperback of the film then, when a teenager...).

The Salisbury is fascinating too, seeing those gilt interiors once again. This was a gay haunt during my working in the area in the 80s, where I would meet pals every Friday lunchime, and sometimes in the evening too, when out on the razz. As I mentioned elsewhere, Susannah York was standing next to me there once, as she drank with a friend. It was a famous theatrical bar, near the theatres, where actors appearing in the west end would hang out. A friend said he saw Alec Guinness there ... It has since been de-gayed and is now a tourist trap ...

Its a lovely cast here - not only Dirk as Melville Farr, but young Peter McEnery is an ideal Boy Barrett - he went on to Disney films (see label), a Vadim with Jane Fonda and lots of theatre: he was the first HAMLET I saw in 1967, and also in SHADOW OF A GUNMAN and a LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC) and of course he was the ENTERTAINING MR SLOANE. He should be doing more now in his 70s. 
Dennis Price also scores as the blackmailed actor, with society friends Anthony Nicholls and Peter Copley, while barfly Madge (Mavis Villiers) chats to the gay-hating barman at The Salisbury, and Hilton Edwards has a charity scam; Charles Lloyd-Pack is poor Henry, while Derren Nesbitt is suitably butch as the blackmailing leather boy. It works as an efficient thriller and the police nicely discuss the pros and cons of homosexuality being illegal causing lots of blackmail cases. We have to laugh at Boy's friend and his blonde cutie in her baby doll nightie, feeling sorry for Boy as he does not have what they have ...

Dirk famously lost his "Idol of the Odeons" image for playing gay here and looking a bit older than he did in those Rank opuses like CAMPBELL'S KINGDOM or THE WIND CANNOT READ, and Sylvia Syms is perfect as the puzzled wife. Dirk apparantly wrote much of the confrontation scene with her, with his "because I wanted him" speech. His performance was all the more courageous for the sensitivity and depth he afforded the role; of course the film is now “hopelessly outdated” in its attitude to homosexuality (Philip Kemp, Sight and Sound, 2005), despite being an 'X' certificate film - but it was an incredibly significant landmark of queer representation in British cinema. Dearden, as ever, delivers it all with panache. Its a quaint but still richly rewarding British Noir thriller, as well as a significant one, and well worth seeing any time. 

More groovy Fifties/Sixties London coming up: SERIOUS CHARGE / THE CHALLENGE / THE BOYS / IDOL ON PARADE / THE PARTY'S OVER / THAT KIND OF GIRL / TAM LIN ...

Return to Tiffanys ....

It is always a mistake to tune in to a screening of BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S. as - no matter how many times one has seen it, one will sit there waiting for favourite moments. I have written about it quite a bit here, as per Audrey label - about the cat, her apartment, the fashion and glamour moments, Blake Edwards, Peppard, that "stylish girl" Patricia Neal waving her chequebook, and of course its a great New York movie and a 60s perennial. Now though, I just want to comment on the start and the finish ....

We love that opening scene behind the credits as the taxi pulls up at Tiffanys at dawn, and our huckleberry friend sips her coffee and eats her danish, looking at Tiffany's window, and then wanders back to her brownhouse apartment. It says everything about living in a big city at the dawn of the 1960s ... 

That ending too - pure scmaltz as it is, gets one every time. She throws the cat out of the taxi, then relents and searches for it, in the train. They look at each other - did any couple look better in the rain? - and then she hears cat. Cue the heavenly choir singing "Moon River" as the camera rises and pulls back, as they become just another couple in the rain, with the wet cat squeezed between them. Perfect. Of course it is not Capote's ending at all, where he sees the cat in somebody else's window, after Holly did go to South America .... but this ending is what we want here. Time and time again. 

Return to Tiffanys with Pal Joey

Apartments we love - hey, thats an idea for a post: BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S

Lazy afternoon on sofa, nursing a cold, with a divine double bill on television - well, it saves digging out the dvds. I can watch BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S any time and PAL JOEY was fairly new to me, not having seen it in years. Here's what I did on TIFFANY'S a year or two back ....

I can never resist another look at BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S whenever it screens, and so it was again yesterday. One can look at it for so many reasons: Audrey, the wit, romance, Capote, Blake Edwards' sure direction, its a great New York Movie etc. This time I focused on the cat -
who gets quite a bit to do in it. I wonder what this cat who lived 50 years ago made of it? He (or she) is put out in the rain, thrown around, and sits and observes. It is a great feline performance.
Who can resist that climax when Cat miows and Holly picks him up and Cat is crushed between them as they kiss in the rain and the heavenly choir soars - did two people ever look better in the rain? - they must have used glycerine or suchlike. .... 
TIFFANY'S remains one of the imperishable hits of 1961 along with THE MISFITS, TWO WOMEN, ONE EYED JACKS, COME SEPTEMBER ... That ending though: in Capote's novella Holly does go off to South America, and the gay (we understand) narrator keeps looking for the cat, and finds him one afternoon, sitting happily in the window of someone else's apartment. That is perfect too but the movie went for the softer option. Its still an iconic early '60s classic ... then there is Patricia Neal's "stylish girl" waving her chequebook and coming on like a vampiric dragon lady ... Audrey oddly reminds me a lot of Kay Kendall in her early zany scenes, waking up, getting ready to go out etc. Kendall had died 2 years previously in 1959, and she and her sister were showgirls in revues in early '50s London, as was Audrey, and I understand they all knew each other.

1957's PAL JOEY is also a sanitised version of the John O'Hara original - it was a terrific stage musical in London in the 80s with Sian Phillips dynamic in the Hayworth role and those Rodgers & Hart songs. This is 1957 though but at least Sinatra looks at his peak here as the heel with that hat and the coat slung over his shoulder. Rita Hayworth is delicious as Mrs Simpson the ex-showgirl/rich bitch who bankrolls Joey's nightclub but on her terms, while Kim Novak, nearing her zenith (as she would do next year 1958 with VERTIGO and BELL BOOK AND CANDLE) gives her showgirl a sad quality that is just right,

 and then there is that adorable pooch. San Francisco is the back-drop, Barbara Nicols is a brassy showgirl and the numbers include Kim miming "My Funny Valentine", Rita also mimes the zingy "Zip" and "Bewitched /Bothered and Bewildered" while showering - dig that ritzy shower ! Then Frank sings "The Lady Is A Tramp" and we are watching another iconic moment. Musicals veteran Charles Walters keeps it moving nicely. 1957 was a great year for musicals: THE PAJAMA GAME, LES GIRLS, SILK STOCKINGS and this .... we like them a lot.  Lots of ritzy clothes too - Kim looks edible in that lavender dress, and those gloves ! ..... while Rita sizzles in some Jean Louis creations.

Hilariously awful movies: The Devil At 4 O'Clock

THE DEVIL AT 4 O'CLOCK, 1961. Here is a movie to laugh at ... One would expect something good from a film with both Spencer Tracy and Frank Sinatra in 1961, helmed by veteran Mervyn Le Roy (who directed GOLD-DIGGERS OF 1933, see below) - a drama about religion and faith set in the South Seas as a volcano erupts. But what we get is a tedious, laughable plod though all the cliches - yes there is the lovely blind native girl (Barbara Luna) whom convict Sinatra deveops feelings for, there is the idealistic young priest (Kerwin Matthews, wasted here) who arrives to replace the tired old priest who has lost (and then regains)  his faith - thats Tracy.

Three convicts enroute to Tahiti are put to work at a children's leper hospital when their plane makes an unexpected stop on another island. There, Father Perreau is to get off and replace Father Doonan, who's been relieved of his duties by the cardinal. Once on the island, things get out of control when the volcano decides to erupt, and the Governor orders an evacuation. The convicts, priests and leper children are all on top of the island and have no sure way to get down and off to safety. All must work together if any are to survive.

The ending is a hoot as Spence and One Take Frank are left on the island and Frank crosses himself and is redeemed, due to Spencer, as the island explodes and they go to the bottom of the pacific. Kerwin and the others escape. Then there is the convict who falls into the quicksand ... and several other assorted treats. Perhaps Tracy felt like a change from those prestige movies like THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA or JUDGEMENT AT NUREMBURG, whereas Frank signed up for anything then. Le Roy made another doozy that year, difficult to see now, A MAJORITY OF ONE a tedious comedy with the stunt casting of Alec Guinness as a Japanese, wooing Jewish widow Rosalind Russell. I saw it as a kid. Le Roy scored though with GYPSY in 1962 and that Jean Seberg romantic thriller MOMENT TO MOMENT in 1965, which I like a lot and must return to. When I saw Le Roy being interviewed at the London National Film Theatre in the early '70s it began with the "You Gotta Have a Gimmick" number by the three strippers from GYSPY. Fab. 

Summer blasts: Pompeii & Atlantis

POMPEII, 2014. We like a good Pompeii film and there have been a few, I rather liked the Steve Reeves one from 1959 again recently, and an odd French one SINS OF POMPEII from 1951 (see Peplums label for reviews), and there was a rather good tv series circa 2010, though nothing could beat Robert Harris's novel "Pompeii" published in 2009. 

I don’t usually go for CGI spectacles, but this has everything a Peplum fan wants: its a vivid comic strip featuring gladiators and brutal action in the arena, romance, intrigue and villainy, plus the volcano finally going up in flames about the half-way point. Great tsunami too and the harbour looks good. Paul W.S. Anderson orchestrates it all, with Kit Harington leading the cast, Kiefer Sutherland is main villain. The plot of course is the usual mix of gladiators, slaves, noblewomen, and twisted, evil Romans. I have already seen it twice in as many days! QUO VADIS was also on again yesterday afternoon - how they spoil us.

Great fun too is the 1961 JOURNEY BENEATH THE DESERT or L'ATLANTIDE or ANTINEA, set in the mythical city of Atlantis, which it seems did not sink into the sea, but is actually under the sands of the Sahara! 
This dotty farrago by Edgar C Ulmer (replacing an ill Frank Borzage) concerts a helicopter crew of mining engneers whose machine crashes in a desert sandstorm and the crew wind up in the underground city of Atlantis, which is presided over by Queen Antinea. They get involved in a slave revolt as an atomic bomb will be tested nearby, destroying her kingdom, unless they can escape within 24 hours. 
The Queen though falls for one of our gallant crew, but she has a habit of killing her former lovers and encasing them in gold - she has a whole gallery full of them. Haya Harareet - so right in BEN-HUR - plays her like a burlesque queen, and is dressed accordingly, and of course she has a pet leopard on a chain. 

Jean-Louis Trintignant though confrms how remarkably handsome he was when he was young.
This is a ropey version of an earlier classic by G.W. Pabst, and the story also has echoes of Rider Haggard's SHE. There ws also a tacky '40s version SIREN OF ATLANTIS with Maria Montez, which I must look at sometime .... It is all quite amusing, a Trash Classic providing camp fun for rainy matinees ....