Laughter in the Dark, 1969

Or: The Burton film that wasn't .... Tony Richardson's LAUGHTER IN THE DARK seems a very rare movie now, there are only 3 comments on it on IMDB - It had a short London run back in 1969, but I caught it on its one screening on BBC2 here, and it then vanished until I got a copy from my pal Jerry - a rare movie hound, always tracking down esoteric items.

This Tony Richardson film caused some publicity at the time, as it was began with Richard Burton who did a few scenes before being sacked for being drunk and causing problems. His replacement was the equally erratic Nicol Williamson, and its an ideal role for him, (he had just done HAMLET at The Roundhouse in 1968, also filmed by Richardson).

Nicol Williamson, Anna Karina and Jean-Claude Drouot star in Tony Richardson's bold adaptation of the Nabokov novel. Updated to 1969 London from pre-Hitler Germany of the early '30s, it's the story of a successful art dealer (Williamson) who becomes so enamored with a degenerate usherette/grifter (Karina) that he literally destroys his life. He loses his wife, his daughter, his job and his eyesight, and finally his life.

Williamson, in a role meant for and started by Richard Burton, gives a great performance, playing an even more obsessive Humbert Humbert. Drouot (from Agnes Varda's LE BONHEUR)  is excellent as the malevolent artist/gigolo who is Karina's real love. The casting of Karina is a bit odd and her French accent is never accounted for. Nevertheless she successfully conveys pure evil. It is one of the international roles she was doing at the time (as in JUSTINE, Visconti's THE STRANGER, MICHAEL KOHLHAAS etc). Siân Phillips (before she became a grande dame) is Williamson's no-nonsense wife. Cast also includes Peter Bowles, and it captures that late Sixties London high life perfectly. Like the films of Nabokov's LOLITA and KING, QUEEN, KNAVE (John-Moulder Brown label) it is another mordantly funny heartless tale, and maybe one of Richardson's most effective films.
A nice in-joke here is that the cinema where Karina works is the old NFT (National Film Theatre, now the BFI Southbank in London, where I idled away a lot of the Seventies) - as the cinema did not sell refreshments in the audiorium. (It was also used as the cinema in Winner's I'LL NEVER FORGET WHATS'ISNAME). 
As recorded previously, Richardson had a problematic '60s after the enormous Oscar-winning success of TOM JONES in 1963, bankrolling his and Woodfall's following films, as he indulged himself with Jeanne Moreau in MADEMOISELLE and THE SAILOR FROM GIBRALTAR, and the expensive  THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE in 1968, all of which under-performed, putting it mildly, so big things may have been expected of LAUGHTER IN THE DARK, but as Losey found out, the Burtons were losing their box office cachet by then ...

Bad Movies We Love: Justine

The little-seen JUSTINE from 1969 is one of those 'literary' 20th Century Fox movies - from the Laurence Durrell book, set in Alexandria during the 1930s - that somehow ended up a Trash masterpiece, practically ignored or laughed at back in 1969 when Fox eventually released it. George Cukor somehow created a movie of great moments - well I like it anyway - theres Anouk Aimee in one of her key post-UN HOMME ET UNE FEMME movies, looking sensational as always, and her little girl voice is part of her allure here. Dirk Bogarde is in his element as Pursewarden, young Michael York and Anna Karina too. It is all very lush and colourful using some of the location footage - Cukor keeps everything swirling, like he did with India in BHOWANI JUNCTION. Bogarde and Anouk were old friends from way back (she also appeared - wildly miscast - in the TV film of his novel VOICES IN THE GARDEN), and York had been in ACCIDENT with Dirk in '67. Here's what I wrote about it previously:

JUSTINE gets a couple of rare screenings as part of the Dirk Bogarde retrospective (only his post-1960 career) at the London National Film Theatre - I shall have to amble along and savour it on the widescreen again. It has been unseen for decades but it was a treat to get a copy recently, an enjoyable 20th Century Fox version of the Durrell books set in Alexandria and rather a botched movie. It was began in Tunisia in '68 with director Philip Strick (who did ULYSSES), but the project was then recalled to the Fox lot in California, with George Cukor taking over. Cukor and Aimee had one of THE famous feuds, as they did not get on AT ALL. The fascinating international cast though has Dirk Bogarde giving another terrific performance as Pursewarden, young Michael York as Darnley the narrator who falls in love with the mysterious Justine, also Anna Karina, John Vernon, Robert Forster, Philippe Noiret and Cliff Gorman as one of those dancing girls.

I see that

I just like the look of the film, those mysterious locations and Aimee being very enigmatic, looking alluring with that little girl voice, she seems incommunicative though, as though she does not want to be there – it was silly though to use the nude body double seen in long shot for the beach scene with the horses. Leon Shamroy makes it all look terrific and there is a nice score by Jerry Goldsmith. It really has the look and texture almost of a Von Sternberg picture, and remains one of the great good bad movies. I used to have a photo of Anouk as Justine on my wall back in 1969...by the late '60s everything Moroccan and Tunisian were suddenly part of the new hippie chic, as movies like DUFFY, MAROC 7 and PERFORMANCE showed.

It just looks terrific with those Tunisian locations, Vernon and Forster are the warring brothers Nessim and Narouz, and there are masked balls, belly dancers and lots of intrigue among the expats in Alexandria where everyone seems to be hiding guilty secrets. Bogarde is ideal as Pursewarden - by this time Anouk had become a very big star indeed, having been in movies since the late 40s, those Fellinis and UN HOMME ET UNE FEMME had added to her allure, but by the time JUSTINE she just wanted to be away with her new love Albert Finney, so it seems she had no real interest in the film and didn't film again until 1976 by which time her marriage to Finney was over.

York is the young narrator describing in the voiceover how Justine seemed to move in a golden glow..."blood-sister to a thousand tyrant queens". Everyone is in thrall to the fascinating Justine, the seemingly amoral wife of a wealthy Egyptian, biding her time in 1930s Alexandria with a slew of lovers, who spends her time looking for a lost child in the brothels of Alexandria, Anna Karina is the less fortunate prostitute who innocently lets slip Justine's real political interests to Pursewarden, after her romance with York has finished.


It is a condensed version of Lawrence Durrell's brilliant literary classic "Alexandria Quartet", about the sophisticated game of international intrigue and espionage in Alexandria between the first and second world wars with subtle character portraits from a range of British and European actors at the top of their game; it is just a perfect film of its time and place, late 60s, Europe and Hollywood combining. I can't wait to see it again .....

'60s David Warner double bill

Of all the new actors to emerge in England in the '60s, the most unusual must surely have been David Warner, tall and gangly and with that odd face, he was as individual as posh boy James Fox, among those working class new boys Albert Finney, Alan Bates, Tom Courtenay, Terence Stamp, David Hemmings, Michael York or the very individual Peter O'Toole. Warner was a sensational HAMLET in the early '60s (wish I had seen him, he would have been a choice addition to those other Hamlets I have seen: Peter McEnery, Michael York, Alan Bates, Jonathan Pryce, Stephen Dillane, David Tennant's understudy).

David was soon in films with his amusing creep Blifil in TOM JONES in '63 and then came his star-making role in MORGAN in 1966, which also launched Vanessa Redgrave, the same year as her mystery woman in BLOW-UP (below). They were also together in Lumet's film of Chekhov's THE SEA GULL in 1968 - as per recent review below.

MORGAN is a black comedy by Karel Reisz, it and GEORGY GIRL were the two must-see British films that summer. Morgan Delt is a failed and irresponsible left-wing artist whose Communist parents own a fish and chips shop in downmarket London. He is also an aggressive and self-admitted dreamer, a fantasist who uses his flights of fancy as refuge from external reality, where his unconventional behavior lands him in a divorce from his wife, Leonie, trouble with the police and, ultimately, incarceration in a lunatic asylum. Morgan also is obsessed about animals, gorillas in particular, even dressing up in a gorilla suit to wreck his wife's new marriage reception, a wildly funny sequence, and we also gets extracts from Tarzan films and the original KING KONG. Written by David Mercer and with a John Dankworth score, it presses all the right buttons. 

Vanessa is radiant again as Leonie, that posh girl with that fabulour house (she was nominated as Best Actress at the Oscars, as was her sister Lynn for GEORGIE GIRL, a first since the DeHavilland/Fontaine sisters). Robert Stephens is her oily boyfriend (as uctious as he was in A TASTE OF HONEY), and Irene Handl is of course perfection as Morgan's defiantly working-class mother. Morgan and his zany antics could get rather trying, but the film mixed all the elements perfectly, as we leave Morgan tending his flower patch at the hospital, with its hammer and sickle flower pattern, as a very pregnant Leonie laughs. Somehow it captures that perfect mid-60s moment perfectly, like the scene with Leonie and new boyfriend in the car - careful with that scarf, Vanessa - this isn't ISADORA ! 

Warner went on to lots more films and in fact, despite a hiatus in the '70s, has hardly stopped working and is still going now. IMDB lists over 200 credits as he has been in everything from TITANIC (two Titanics actually, also a tv movie) to episodes of MURDER SHE WROTE and TWIN PEAKS. Sam Peckinpah used him several times, in CABLE HOGUE, STRAW DOGS, CROSS OF IRON. Other films of the time included THE BOFORS GUN, WORK IS A FOUR LETTER WORD, THE FIXER. I saw him on stage in a production of I CLAUDIUS as the stammering lead, in the '70s. Then there was THE OMEN, Resnais's PROVIDENCE in '77, an AIRPORT movie - the CONCORDE one, Losey's A DOLL'S HOUSE, and his Edward II meeting that grisly end on stage in THE DEADLY AFFAIR ... We particularly liked his chilling Jack The Ripper in another '70s favourite, TIME AFTER TIME, where he and Malcolm McDowell are perfectly pitched together, this is due for a re-look and review sometime soon now. David is certainly one of the "People We Like".

Another oddity of his, never seen now, is the 1968 German film MICHAEL KOHLHAAS by Volker Schlondorff (we reviewed his SWANN IN LOVE from 1984 a while back), which is oddly fascinating.

It's medieval times. Michael Kohlhaas is a horse dealer. When going to the local fair to sell his horses, he is forced by a nobleman to leave him part of the merchandise as payment for traveling through his land, promising to give the horses back when the fair is over. When he returns, the horses are almost dead, and the man refuse to respond, so Kohlhass begins to fight unsuccesfuly against the injustice. He becomes a folk hero but cannot defeat the system. It ends with him broken on a wheel, even though he has won,and dying in agony as he sees his horses running free in the distance. 

Life in 16th century Europe was short and brutal and brutalising it seems, and here is more proof. Schlondorff though piles on the agony and the brutality, as even our hero's wife - Anna Karina - is trampled to death. Others are trapped in burning buildings and meet all kinds of nasty ends, as Kohlhaas wages war on tax collectors and judges. The unrelenting detail gets rather too much. It all looks perfectly in period though as it shows how a man can be consumed by revenge - is Michael Kohlhaas a tragic hero or simply a fool who cannot adopt and survive?   

Mads Mikkelsen has also played Kohlhaas in a recent 2013 production. 
Next: Terry and Julie - but not together ...

French classics - 1

2 by Max Ophuls; 2 by Roger Vadim ...

LA RONDE, 1950. Anton Walbrook is the enigmatic, omnipotent master of ceremonies (also a head waiter) guiding us through a series of amorous encounters in the Vienna of 1900. Cue Ophuls' circular, serpentine camera movements through those lush sets ... One fleeting encounter leads to the next, partners change and the dance goes on, turning like the waltz and the carousel until the final vignette brings the story full circle. Featuring some of the great names of French cinema, Max Ophuls' wonderful adaptation of Schnitzler's play won Oscar and BAFTA nominations, and seen now is a timeless classic of French cinema. Max Ophuls of course is widely regarded as one of the greatest and most revered directors in the history of cinema; his trademark array of lavish, fluid camera movements have influenced many film-makers.  Using the image of the carousel, the narrator takes us through a series of love/lust stories which by 1950 standards are at times very explicit. An interesting notion is that it is about the spread of veneral disease from partner to partner, affecting all of society, from streetwalkers and soldiers up to the gentry, but in this Ophuls vision it is pleasure not pain which is passed on.

LA RONDE starts with the wonderfully world-weary Anton Walbrook and his carousel as street-walker Signoret offers a freebie to soldier in a hurry Serge Regianni who then dallies with pert Simone Simon who then is the maid leading on young Daniel Gelin who then romances married woman Danielle Darrieux, whose husband Ferdnand Gravey covets Odette Joyeux who falls for Jean-Louis Barrault, who then dallies with sophisticated actress Isa Miranda, who knows all the ways of love, particuarly when count Gerard Philipe calls .... he then meets the prostitute (Signoret) we met at the start. As in the teasing episode between young son of the house Gelin and parlour maid Simone Simon there is no sex on view, but the teasing anticipation and suggestion of it. 

MADAME DE ..., 1953.  In the Paris of the late 19th century, Louise, wife of a general, sells the earrings her husband gave her as a wedding gift: she needs money to cover her debts. The general secretly buys the earrings again and gives them to his mistress, Lola, leaving to go to Constantinople where an Italian diplomat, Baron Donati, buys them. Back to Paris, Donati meets Louise and presents her with the earrings, which she had claimed she lost. How can she keep them and fool her husband who of course knows she had sold them
.... It is a slight tale but Ophuls invests it with a world of emotion as the foolish wife learns to her cost. Charles Boyer as the husband, and Vittorio De Sica as the Baron are perfect in their roles as is Darrieux as the flightly Madame De  ... The earrings go back and forth until the husband declines to buy them a fourth time. We then progress to a duel ... The gliding camera-work pays loving attention to the period sets while our three leads act out their roles in this sublime film.

Ophuls (1902-1957) made the 1948 classic LETTER TO AN UNKNOWN WOMAN, and that classic pair in America, CAUGHT and THE RECKLESS MOMENT, both in 1949 with James Mason. LA RONDE followed in 1950, MADAME DE... in 1953, and his 1955 LOLA MONTES is his last final masterpiece. LE PLAISIR from 1952 is another of his to seek out. 

LA RONDE, 1964. Roger Vadim created a LA RONDE for the 1960s with his colour version, featuring a round-up of European players of the time, including Maurice Ronet, Jean-Claude Brialy, Jean Sorel, Catherine Spaak, Anna Karina and  Marie Dubois, plus Mrs Vadim, Jane Fonda, and scripted by Jean Anouilh, and photographed by the great Henri Decae. Maurice Binder does a neat title sequence, the equal of his Bond titles. Updated to Art Nouveau 1914, just before World War One, it is light and undemanding and the cast look good, if rather too Sixities. 

LES LIAISIONS DANGEREUSES. Vadim's 1959, introduced by himself, looks terrific with those gleaming black and white images, with Jeanne Moreau and Gerard Philipe, plus Jean-Louis Trintignant and the latest Vadim girl Annette Stroyberg (rather a blank actually). Add in that score by Thelonius Monk.
Juliette Merteuil and Valmont are a sophisticated couple, always looking for fun and excitement. Both have sexual affairs with others and share their experiences with one another. But there is one rule: never fall in love. But this time Valmont falls madly in love with a girl he meets at a ski resort, Marianne.
 
Moreau is sensational here as the evil woman with designs on others and wanting her revenge (which of course backfires on her) for a perceived slight. This was considered sensational time, from the De Laclos novel, updated to the 1950s with that smart Parisian set and was heady stuff for the arthouse crowd in 1959 with those decadent parties, and all that jazz .... there is that last great line about Juliette: after her face being burnt, that she is now wearing her soul on her face!

Gerard Philipe died that year, more on him at label, as Moreau was coming into her great era, as was Trintignant. It is as fascinating as the later Glenn Close-John Malkovich version by Stephen Frears in 1987.  

The Stranger - Luchino Visconti, 1967

THE STRANGER (LO STRANIERO). A very missing movie, this 1967 film of Albert Camus’s “The Stranger” was directed by Luchino Visconti – quite a departure for him from his usual operatic, decorative works, and co-scripted by Visconti's usual writer Suso Cecchi D'Amico. The book was one of those novels one simply had to read back then, and probably still is. It is the bare story of a man who commits a senseless murder, is caught, tried and executed, in Algeria. One of those existentialist works then, as our “hero” Meursault finds life meaningless, he does not care what happens to him or what he does to others, and at his trial much is made of his lack of emotion at his mother’s funeral. Is he a psychopath? We hear his interior monologue.



Marcello Mastroianni gives one of his major performances and is compelling throughout, Anna Karina has the thankless role of the girlfriend. It certainly conjures up the atmosphere of hot, airless rooms and that life lived outside in those hot opressive climates. What I saw was a dubbed copy but that did not detract from the powerful images and mood the film creates. This was made after Visconti's 1965 SANDRA or VAGHE STELLE D'ORSA, that other rare Visconti I re-discovered recently, and is a firm favourite of mine. Visconti was back in operatic mode with his next one, THE DAMNED in ’69.

Guilty Pleasures: Justine

I see that JUSTINE gets a couple of rare screenings as part of the Dirk Bogarde retrospective (only his post-1960 career) at the London National Film Theatre - I shall have to amble along and savour it on the widescreen again. It has been unseen for decades but it was a treat to get a copy recently, an enjoyable 20th Century Fox version of the Durrell books set in Alexandria and rather a botched movie. It was began in Tunisia in '68 with director Philip Strick, but the project was then recalled to the Fox lot in California, with George Cukor taking over. Cukor and Aimee had one of THE famous feuds, as they did not get on AT ALL. The fascinating international cast though has Dirk Bogarde giving another terrific performance as Pursewarden, young Michael York as Darnley the narrator who falls in love with the mysterious Justine, also Anna Karina, John Vernon, Robert Forster, Philippe Noiret and Cliff Gorman as one of those dancing girls.

I just like the look of the film, those mysterious locations and Aimee being very enigmatic, looking alluring with that little girl voice, she seems incommunicative though, as though she does not want to be there – it was silly though to use the nude body double seen in long shot for the beach scene with the horses. Leon Shamroy makes it all look terrific and there is a nice score by Jerry Goldsmith. It really has the look and texture almost of a Von Sternberg picture, and remains one of the great good bad movies. I used to have a photo of Anouk as Justine on my wall back in 1969...by the late '60s everything Moroccan and Tunisian were suddenly part of the new hippie chic, as movies like DUFFY, MAROC 7 and PERFORMANCE showed.

It just looks terrific with those Tunisian locations, Vernon and Forster are the warring brothers Nessim and Narouz, and there are masked balls, belly dancers and lots of intrigue among the expats in Alexandria where everyone seems to be hiding guilty secrets. Bogarde is ideal as Pursewarden - by this time Anouk had become a very big star indeed, having been in movies since the late 40s, those Fellinis and UN HOMME ET UNE FEMME had added to her allure, but by the time JUSTINE she just wanted to be away with her new love Albert Finney, so it seems she had no real interest in the film and didn't film again until 1976 by which time her marriage to Finney was over.

York is the young narrator describing in the voiceover how Justine seemed to move in a golden glow..."blood-sister to a thousand tyrant queens". Everyone is in thrall to the fascinating Justine, the seemingly amoral wife of a wealthy Egyptian, biding her time in 1930s Alexandria with a slew of lovers, who spends her time looking for a lost child in the brothels of Alexandria, Anna Karina is the less fortunate prostitute who innocently lets slip Justine's real political interests to Pursewarden, after her romance with York has finished.



It is a condensed version of Lawrence Durrell's brilliant literary classic "Alexandria Quartet", about the sophisticated game of international intrigue and espionage in Alexandria between the first and second world wars with subtle character portraits from a range of British and European actors at the top of their game; it is just a perfect film of its time and place, late 60s, Europe and Hollywood combining. I can't wait to see it again .....