New year re-views 4: The Chapman Report, 1962

I have written about it several times here already, but simply have to again - that favourite lost movie of ours, THE CHAPMAN REPORT from 1962 is finally on dvd – a Warner Archive no-frills issue, but I went for a Spanish edition (CONFIDENCIAS DE MUJER) which has the trailer and chapters, and a lurid painting of Claire Bloom on the cover, in full nympho mode. Cukor’s 1962 film of that sensational best-seller (I read it when I was a teenager) still looks good, with that early ‘60s look in spades, 
with different backgrounds and colours for the 4 ladies – costumes by Orry Kelly, colour co-ordinanation by Cukor regular Hoyningen-Heune, with costumes by Orry-Kelly, all very 1962, Veteran Henry Daniell was another Cukor regular, he gets a scene here, advising Efrem Zimbalist Jr on the dangers posed by his sex survey in suburbia. The credits are amusing too, styled like early computer cards for a electronic filing system. 

 
Claire Bloom steals the show here with her magnetic portrayal of the self-loathing nympho (she said in a recent interview Cukor was the best director she ever worked with), as we see her like a vampire in the shadows watching the water delivery boy (Chad Everett in tight trousers), before her encounter with those sleazy jazz musicians led by Corey Allen.

Meanwhile arty Glynis Johns gets an eyeful of Ty Hardin in those spray-on shorts at the beach and wants him to pose (and more) for her; while bored housewife Shelley Winters is having an affair with no-good theatre director Ray Danton – her boring husband Harold Stone just wants to  watch tv. young Jane Fonda is the fourth wife and makes the least impression here, as the frigid widow whom Efrem gets to comfort. Soap opera then, but a superior one, and a Trash Classic finally available again. 

Camping with Scott & Bailey + Fr Brown & the Doc

but Lady Felicia and Mrs McCarthy steal the show.

British TV is going through one of its quality periods with so much good stuff on one's recorder/Sky Box is practically working overtime!

HAPPY VALLEY and THE NIGHT MANAGER may have finished, but there is a new series (just 3 episodes) of the terrific SCOTT & BAILEY (we worked through the first four series over the winter months) - Sally Wainwright's gripping series of police investigations into murder cases set in Manchester. This new series is not written by her though, and somehow is not the same without Amelia Bullmore (centre) as the detectives' snappy DCI Gill Murray - she retired in the last series (Amelia also wrote several episodes). The new series too is more grim and downbeat, while we still enjoy the backstories of Janet Scott (Lesley Sharp) and Rachel Bailey (Suranne Jones) and their complicated lives. Both actresses are exemplary, as usual. Wainwright in the previous series also provides great roles for actors like Nicola Walker and Joe Duttine (CORRIE's amiable window cleaner) or Kevin Doyle (DOWNTON ABBEY's nice Mr Molesley),Geoge Costigan, Tracie Bennett, Rupert Graves, Danny Miller, Sally Lindsay, Lisa Riley, or Ellie Haddington  to get their teeth into, often as those damaged killers ...

Two female detectives, one motherly with family problems, the other emotionally immature with disasterous relationships, have varying levels of success applying their eccentric outlooks on life to their police cases and private lives.

Tucked away in the afternoon slot though has been 4 series of FATHER BROWN, based - very loosely - on the G.K. Chesterton stories of the priest detective. These series have apparently nothing to do with the stories, and are total fiction as the investigating cleric is based in a pretty 1950s (great period detail) Cotswold village, and he is aided and abetted by local posh Lady Felicia (Nancy Carroll) and his parish clerk/housekeeper Mrs McCarthy (Sorcha Cusack - having a lot of fun here). 

The friendly rivalry between the women keeps the series watchable and they get to wear some great '50s fashions and hats. Lady Felicia often wears gloves too and little mink stoles, and has a roving eye for any presentable man (Nancy Carroll is as fascinating as Honeysuckle Weeks in FOYLE'S WAR another discovery a while back). Mark Williams anchors it all as Father Brown often dealing with outlandish plots and annoying local chief detective Tom Chambers. The 45 minute episodes are fun and ideal afternoon viewing - must be a formula that works as there are over 40 episodes in the 4 series. 

We did not discover DOC MARTIN until its last series, so it is also fun going back to early series as we follow the grumpy, often rude doctor (Martin Clunes) in that ideal Cornish village Portwenn (actually Port Isaac in Cornwall) and the amusing stories that arise with the various locals and his slow romance with school-teacher Louisa (Catherine Catz). Quality casting here with Eileen Atkins, Stephanie Cole, Selina Cadell and Claire Bloom (as his icy mother, below) all of course marvellous, as is Stewart Wright (left) as the love-lorn policeman, and there is an adorable dog, eccentric locals, and lovely scenery - another winning formula then, Created by Dominic Minghella, there have  been 54 episodes in 7 series since 2004, so a lot of catching up!

Dr. Martin Ellingham, a London-based surgeon, relocates to the picturesque seaside village of Portwenn, establishing himself as the area's general practitioner. He grew up in the area having been raised by his now widowed Aunt Joan Norton. His reasons for leaving London and the high-paid life of a consultant are not clear initially but related to a phobia about blood he has recently developed. He soon meets several of the locals and eccentricity abounds. Martin's situation is made more difficult by what can only be referred as an almost complete lack of an acceptable bedside manner. He is gruff, abrupt and intolerant, not only in issues related to medicine, but to life in general. He and the headmistress of the local school, Louisa Glasson, are clearly attracted to each other and despite their awkwardness, slowly develop a relationship. They do marry and have a baby and then separate and then .... Catz and Wright are also in a rather good new BBC comedy series, I WANT MY WIFE BACK, and there is also that great other BBC comedy BOOMERS about those retired couples with amusing roles for the likes of Alison Steadman, Stephanie Beacham and Russ Abbott. 

CAMPING is another of those quirky Sky series (STELLA, MOUNT PLEASANT, STARLINGS) offbeat comedies that draw one in and one never knows or expects what is going to happen next. CAMPING is written by Julia Davis (who also directs the first 4 episodes) who also plays Fay the new girlfriend of Tom (Rufus Jones) who has left his wife and who feels young and groovy again, to the consternation of friends Robin (Steve Pemberton) and his bossy conrol-freak cow of a wife Fi (Vicki Pepperdine - a new discovery for me). Other friends on their camping holiday are ex-alcoholic Adam (Jonathan Cake) and his downtrodden wife Kerry (marvellous Elizabeth Berrington). The creepy campsite manager is David Bamber who stumbles across Fi pleasuring herself when her bad manners and one of her migraines leaves her behind as the others go on a fishing trip. Then there is that scene at the hospital, and at the antiques shop where Tom and Fay cannot control themselves ... The scene is set for amusing confrontations as Adam hits the booze and is jealous of Tom and Fay's constantly having sex, then Tom has to return to London as his wife is in a coma after an overdose and Fay is on the loose ..... how is it all going to end? There are only 6 episodes, but we are hooked, as is my friend Martin. It is a series though one will either love or hate, It is a jet black cringe-inducing comedy which "descends into a hell of bitterness, grief, jealousy, sexual experimentation, drugs, insanity and possibly murder." Control-freak Fi too is worried her son will grow up gay, eating mozzarella and other foods gays eat, and she is incensed when well-meaning husband Robin leaves a fossil for the son to find on the beach ... then at the hospital she has further demands to make on the doctor examining her son.

Brace yourself for a holiday to remember. A group of old friends go on a camping holiday in Dorset to celebrate a birthday. However, tensions and emotions quickly start to rise.

Cleo & Alex revisited

I always enjoy settling down to watch CLEOPATRA again - particularly if recording it from widescreen HD television, so one can zip past an occasional dull bit. Ditto Robert Rossen's 1956 ALEXANDER THE GREAT - a more turgid telling of the Alexander story than Oliver Stone's 2004 dazzling magnum opus which I like a lot - check posts on ALEXANDER at Colin Farrell label.

CLEOPATRA got a bad press at the time and was considered a turkey for a long time, but its a fascinating movie -- the first half at any rate as Rex Harrison is a dynamic Caesar and there are impressive set pieces - that great panning shot over Alexandra as Caesar arrives (Stone must have hommaged this in his ALEXANDER as he also shows us Alexandra where the aged Ptolomy is dictating his memoirs), and all those early scenes with Taylor and Harrison and of course that entry into Rome! 20th Century Fox certainly lavished care and attention and money on the sets and costumes and crowd scenes - all those people were really there. Taylor is impressive with that make-up and all those costume changes (a great wardrobe by Irene Sharaff, like that contrasting blue and red she wears when seeing Caesar's assassination in the flames, with high priestess Pamela Brown) and I love the score by Alex North - my best friend had the soundtrack album so we used to play it a lot. Leon Shamroy's cinematography captures the opulence of the sets.
I like that closing scene to the first half too as Cleo sails away and the music swells up. Her barge entering Tarsus in the second half is a wow too .... but here Burton rants and Taylor gets shrill ("I asked it of Julius Caesar, I DEMAND it of you"..), then the final scenes in the tomb are marvellous. I first saw this on its general release, maybe in '64 or '65, and those close-ups of Taylor on the big screen as the asp bites are someone one remembers .... Legend has it that Mankiewiz was writing the script by night and shooting during the day, after the film relocated to Italy and the famous scandal erupted. The dvd and blu-ray packages are good too, packed with all those features and documentaries including footage of Peter Finch and Stephen Boyd, initially cast, and Joan Collins' screen test as Cleo ...... it would not have been the same. 
CLEOPATRA remains impressive and a lot of fun, without the cachet of  Kubrick's SPARTACUS or Mann's EL CID or FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE, or those other great epics of the time like Lean's LAWRENCE OF ARABIA or Visconti's THE LEOPARD. 

ALEXANDER THE GREAT, 1956, is another movie I remember fondly, first seeing it as a kid at a Sunday matinee, some great images linger: Danielle Darrieux as Alexander's mother Olympias on the battlements as the troops depart, and that great moment with the dying Darius (Harry Andrews) abandoned after the battle. A blond Burton does his best, and again there is a good cast including Claire Bloom, Peter Cushing, Andrews and Stanley Baker. Here are a cache of lobby cards:  

From that era, we also like Robert Wise's HELEN OF TROY, Fleischer's THE VIKINGS , Cecil's THE TEN COMMANDMENTS, LeRoy's QUO VADIS and of course Wyler's BEN HUR, and I will add in SOLOMON AND SHEBA too ! Then there' those Steve Reeves movies ..... 

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.

Great performances: Olivier's Richard III

Great performances come in various shapes, few as stunning at the spider-like, stunted king who dominates Laurence Olivier's 1955/56 film of RICHARD III, which he produced and directed, as well as starring as the much-maligned monarch. Now that Richard's remains have been found (under a car park in Leicester!) and authenticated there is revived interest in the fate of this king - was he really as dastardly as Shakespeare painted him? 

Yes, this is the work of a ham in full overdrive mode - all rubber nose and moptop wig and a cushion up the back of his shirt, but nobody before or since has told the tale with greater clarity. By making Richard so comical and witty and clever and running rings around everybody else as he exacts revenge for his deformed body by killing his way to the Throne of England, Olivier's performance still resonates now. The stellar cast Olivier surrounded himself with - Gielgud, Richardson, the silent Pamela Brown as the old king's knowing mistress, Stanley Baker, Laurence Naismith, Cedric Hardwicke and particularly Claire Bloom as Lady Anne - none of them steals Larry's thespian thunder. 

From his first approach to the camera as he draws us into his confidence with those lines: "Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this son of York" - to that final "A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse" on the battlefield before he is hacked to death - this is a performance for the ages. I saw it as a child when most of the verse would have been over my head, but that scene where the murderers (Michael Gough and Michael Ripper - both very appropriately scary) drown Clarence (Gielgud) in the vat of wine is one moment that stayed with me, they also get the princes in the tower. It all looks great too, with fascinating costumes, music score by Sir William Walton, production design by Roger Furse, 

There was though another King that year: Yul Brynner, also mesmerising, in THE KING AND I and it was he who won the Best Actor Oscar (the others nominated were Kirk Douglas for LUST FOR LIFE and both Dean and Hudson for GIANT. It must be tough for an actor to have maybe one's greatest role the same year as a standout turn - but this was Brynner's breakout year (he also had his imposing Rameses in THE TEN COMMANDMENTS and ANASTASIA out there), like 1954 was Brando's. 

This though was Olivier's greatest decade - he went on to direct and star in THE PRINCE AND THE SHOWGIRL with Marilyn, his icy Crassus in SPARTACTUS, his great THE ENTERTAINER, TERM OF TRIAL and running the new National Theatre and that other towering Shakespeare role in OTHELLO and blacking up again for KHARTOUM (see Olivier label); his energy must have been prodigious. 

Ian McKellan's modern-dress 1995 version which I did not see seems unobtainable now (unless for very silly money). 

A lot more Shakespeare to investigate over the coming months: 6 cinematic HAMLETs: Olivier again with his Oscar-winning 1948 version, the Russian 1964 one by Grigori Kozintsev with the brooding Innokenty Smoktunevsky as the Dane (that impressed me once at the BFI and I have now got the dvd); then there's Tony Richardson's 1969 one with Nicol Williamson, Derek Jacobi for the BBC in the 80s, Zeffirelli's with Mel Gibson (it also features Bates and Scofield) in 1990 and the 1996 Kennth Branagh all-star one (Julie Christie as Gertrude!) - then there's 6 Hamlets I saw on the stage: Peter McEnery (1968), Michael York (1970), Alan Bates (in '72 with Celia Johnson as Gertrude), Jonathan Pryce (Jill Bennett was his Gertrude in 1980), Stephen Dillane in the '90s and David Tennant's understudy, a few years ago. Couple of MACBETHs too: Orson Welles in '48, Nicol Williamson for the BBC, Polanski's in 1972 and another television one with Ian McKellen and Judi Dench. and of course Welles' 1966 CHIMES AT MIDNIGHT is stunningly marvellous, as is his OTHELLO, both made on very shoestring budgets ..... Its going to be a winter of drama then .... I imagine Zeffirelli's HAMLET should look as good as his TAMING OF THE SHREW and ROMEO AND JULIET.

Separate Tables, 1958

Terence Rattigan's 1954 play SEPARATE TABLES is a Fifties time capsule now, capturing as it does that genteel Bournemouth hotel with its residents at their separate tables ... the play is in two acts, with the main two leads playing different characters in each act, the other residents stay the same. In the original production it was Eric Porter and Margaret Leighton. But the Hecht-Hill-Lancaster production team when they made the popular 1958 film in Hollywood, combined them both into one continuous narrative, thus 4 stars were required for the main 4 characters, who are now Burt and Rita Hayworth, and David Niven and Deborah Kerr. This required a lot of dexterous pruning of the original script, which Rattigan himself did with John Gay and an uncredited John Michael Hayes. 

In the theatre when played as two acts, the acts are 18 months apart time-wise, but in the film we are in the continuous timeframe of the first act. This means a lot of the young couple (Rod Taylor and Audrey Dalton, below right) has been removed, and new material inserted, like scenes between Sybil and Mrs Shankland (Kerr and Hayworth) (who do not meet in the two separate act orginal).

The young couple stay as we see them in the first act - but in the second act of the play (18 months later) they are now married with a baby, which takes up all the mother's time - she sides with dragon-lady Mrs Railton-Bell to get the bogus Major, who has been exposed as a fake and a pesterer of women at the cinema, expelled from the hotel. Her husband does not agree and sides with the other residents. It makes for more interesting drama, but all that has to go for the film. 

There is a lot more of Miss Cooper, the hotel manageress, too in the play, but Wendy Hiller managed to scoop Best Supporting Actress for her role in the film. Niven of course won the Best Actor, but it seems a blustering fake performance, but then he is playing a blustering fake. Kerr is marvellous as the downtrodden Sybil, who finally stands up to her bully of a mother - Gladys Cooper being very malevolent here, as she was to Bette Davis in NOW VOYAGER. Hayworth and Lancaster add the Hollywood gloss and are perfectly adequate. The film is one of 1958's big enduring ones, up there with I WANT TO LIVE!, THE DEFIANT ONES, THE BIG COUNTRY, THE VIKINGS, SOUTH PACIFIC, AUNTIE MAME etc. 

I have seen a few other productions - John Schlesinger directed that 1983 television film, long unavailable, which goes back to the two act structure, with Julie Christie and Alan Bates (ther fourth teaming) playing both sets of leads, with Claire Bloom perfect as Miss Cooper, and Irene Worth, a monstrous suburban bully, as Mrs Railton Bell. Liz Smith shines too as the racing-mad spinster and Brian Deacon (from THE TRIPLE ECHO) as the young husband. - as per my fuller review, at Rattigan/Bates/Christie labels, which also goes into another version of Rattigan's work ...

I have now seen a BBC 'Play of the Month'  production of the play from 1970 with Porter and Geraldine McEwan in the lead roles. It is perfectly satisfying but a bit low-key. It is part of the BBC Terence Rattigan boxset (a nice companion to the Noel Coward boxset, again with interesting productions which I must return to), which also includes part of another version I saw on stage in the 70s, with John Mills and Jill Bennett. (As we mentioned previously, Rattigan's original text had the major pestering men in the cinema, but that would never have played back in the Fifties... and certainly not in the film, which suggests there is a future for the Major and Sybil).  

I also saw Rattigan himself at the BFI giving an entertaining talk also in the early 70s. The 1958 film though, directed by Delbert Mann, is the version most people know and like, even though it does not do full justice to the play and Rattigan's plea for tolerance for those who are 'different'. 

Summer views: A Streetcar Named Desire, 1984

I have just watched the 1984 versison of A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE with Ann-Margret and Treat Williams, which I imagined would be Tennessee-lite, but was very involving and emotional, with great art-direction and that late 1940s look. Is it a quality production of the play, is Ann a creditable Blanche?

I have liked Ann in several items lately (like THE TWO MRS GRENVILLES and her 1966 THE PLEASURE SEEKERS, as per label here) and she seems to be ticking all the boxes here, even if too shrill at the start but by the second half she is terrific. No one could ever be as good as Vivien Leigh but Ann has a creditable stab, with all those lines we know: about the Tarntula Arms, and "I don't want realism, I want magic", "deliberate cruelty is unforgiveable" and of course "I have always depended on the kindness of strangers" for that great climax. Beverely D'Angelo is good too as Stella.

Stanley though is Treat Williams who seems to have bulked up and looks sexy enough. He plays him as an infantile brute. Treat was fun in THE RITZ and in HAIR and great in PRINCE OF THE CITY (and still looks good now), (Treat label), but Brando he ain't. 

Looking at it again it seems a very cruel work, as Blanche is stripped of everything and Kowalski gets away with raping her, as she is carried off to the looneybin.

It is also well directed by John Erman (who has done a lot of 'gay interest' items: AN EARLY FROST, Anne again in OUR SONS and THE TWO MRS GRENVILLES, Lee Remick's THE LETTER, THIS YEAR'S BLONDE, THE LAST BEST YEAR, Midler's STELLA etc), with Travilla dressing Ann, Sydney Guilaroff doing her hair, and Marvin Hamlish doing that rather good score.

I'd love to have seen Faye Dunaway and Jon Voight, or Jessica Lange and Alec Baldwin. Any other famous Blanches? The only one I saw on the stage was Claire Bloom's in London in 1974. (Claire Bloom label). Gillian Anderson is just about to open in a new production here in London. One has to feel a bit sorry for Jessica Tandy - the original Blanche with Brando in Kazan's first 1947 production, but the part became so associated with Vivien Leigh after the movie and her playing it in London.

Ann is certainly the most voluptuous Blanche - she knows her effect on men, maybe that is all she has left, as she is - as she says - all played out. The reason she makes the journey to New Orleans is because she has burned all her bridges after losing the family home and her reputation with her erratic behavior and poor judgment.  "They told me to take a streetcar named Desire, and then transfer to one called Cemeteries and ride six blocks and get off at -- Elysian Fields!" Desire and Cemeteries were actual streetcar lines in New Orleans and Elysian Fields is a street in the French Quarter (where Stella and Stanley live), but Williams used them as a metaphor. 

She strives to start anew but she can't escape her past nor her illness. Still, she refuses to see herself as she is but instead creates the illusion of what ought to be, and like an actress playing a role, shes very theatrical and selects her wardrobe with tremendous care. But it's a front. People with mental illness who try to pass themselves off as "normal" eventually begin to crack under the pressure. That's what happens to Blanche. She starts out seemingly normal, but eventually the facade wears off. She is now at a dead end (Elysian Fields). Elysian Fields in mythology is the land of the dead, ruled by Hades.
Ann still looks marvellous now in her 70s, in new series of RAY DONOVAN (right).

Next: more hot summer night movies: SUMMERTIME, 1995, and THE GREENGAGE SUMMER, 1961, and my favourite scene from A LETTER TO THREE WIVES ....

A '60s classic: Night of the Iguana

Almost 1,100 posts and I have not got around to NIGHT OF THE IGUANA ! - maybe the last great film from a Tennessee Williams play, and one of the great dramas of that classic era for them: the '50s and '60s. Also, a key John Huston film from 1964, with maybe the last great roles for Ava Gardner and Deborah Kerr. The roles of Hannah Jelkes (Kerr) and Maxine (Ava) seem equally balanced, hard to decide which is the bigger role, we see more of Maxine initially but then Hannah seems to take over in that late great scene with the defrocked Reverend Shannon - for once, Burton is ideally cast here as he rants and rants. Throw in the LOLITA nymphet Sue Lyon and Grayson Hall as that schoolteacher, and of course the old poet Nonno and you have one of the great Williams plays. Its a film one can watch and enjoy on many levels, no matter how often one has seen it (and its certainly rewatchable!) - a great cast performing one of Williams' best plays with great dialogue to savour, by a great director giving full rein to the play and the players.

John Huston makes a terrific film of it all, and it certainly put Puerto Vallerta in Mexico on the map, black and white actually suits it, it might have looked too lurid in colour, and the play - I enjoyed reading it as a teenager - has been suitably modernised for the cinema, taking out those annoying Germans in the background was a good idea! It starts of course with Maxine idling with her 2 beach boys and that tied up iguana (it tastes like chicken apparantly) scrabbling to get free, as the defrocked priest turns up with his latest tour bus of old ladies, led by the fearsome Miss Fellowes (Hall) and her charge Charlotte (Lyon) who has eyes for the bus driver Skip Ward.

Then we get down on their luck sketch artist Hannah Jelkes and her ancient (94 I think) father, the poet, who also turn up. Maxine wants to get rid of them but Rev Shannon intercedes ... Charlotte causes more trouble for Shannon but the tour bus eventually leaves, after the priest saves Miss Fellowes from discovering her real interest in wilful pretty young Charlotte ....he and Hannah have that long soul-bearing conversation where she discloses her erotic encounters and how she and her father travel paying their way with their sketches and poems. Miss Jelkes is quite a hustler in her own way ...
Kerr is brilliant here and gets every nuance of her character, with her lines like "Nothing human disgusts me, Mr. Shannon, unless it's unkind or violent" and how she gained control over her demons by out-lasting them. Then there is "operating on the fantastic level and the realistic level" and of course the iguana "one of God's creatures at the end of his rope" get cut loose and escapes the cooking pot. Ava too is in her element, pushing around her cart of "complimentary rum-cocoas" ...

I liked this enormously when I was 18, back then while new in London it was a treat to travel into the West End and see a big new movie in a first run cinema on a Sunday night, and The Empire in Leicester Square was certainly the ticket, where I saw THE YELLOW ROLLS ROYCE and NIGHT OF THE IGUANA, and I also remember the first run of YESTERDAY TODAY & TOMORROW at the Plaza (now a supermarket where I later saw first runs of AMERICAN GIGOLO and BLOODLINE - well it starred Audrey Hepburn with Romy Schneider and that great cast!).

Bette in the original production

NIGHT OF THE IGUANA has proved to be endurable, and gets staged regularly, I have seen Sian Phillips as Hannah, where she was ideal too. That initial production must have been astonishing, in 1962 - Margaret Leighton a perfect Hannah and Bette Davis going over the top as Maxine, she was not happy in the role and left the production and ended up playing to her fans who came to see Bette camp it up. Ava (a much more sensual and earthy Maxine) and Deborah and Burton do some of their best work in the film, it must have been a fascinating set - Elizabeth Taylor was there as well, as well as Kerr's new husband writer Peter Viertel, an old friend of Huston's. They certainly did Tennessee proud. It was Huston's late great period too, from HEAVEN KNOWS MR ALLISON, THE UNFORGIVEN, THE MISFITS - there is a lot of fun in IGUANA by comparison, and then his late classics like FAT CITY (when I saw him being interviewed at London's BFI) and THE DEAD in '87. I have his UNDER THE VOLCANO with Finney lined upo to see soon too.
 

That Tennessee box set was an essential purchase some years ago in the great days of dvd, with that restored STREETCAR, CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF,  SWEET BIRD OF YOUTH, IGUANA and THE ROMAN SPRING OF MRS STONE. Add in SUDDENLY LAST SUMMER, SUMMER AND SMOKE, BABY DOLL, THE ROSE TATTOO, THIS PROPERTY IS CONDEMNED, THE GLASS MENAGERIE, THE FUGITIVE KIND, Losey's very odd BOOM! ... which may only leave his comedy PERIOD OF ADJUSTMENT I have not seen. I also saw his plays like SMALL CRAFT WARNINGS, and of course I love his short stories like "Two On A Party" and "The Malediction". The plays are great to read, and those collected short stories. Claire Bloom was a terrific Blanche too in that 1974 STREETCAR  production, but of course most ladies want to play Blanche - I bet Faye Dunway was a mesmerising one.

Finally on DVD: The Chapman Report, 1962

I have written about it several times here already, but simply have to again - that favourite lost movie of ours, THE CHAPMAN REPORT from 1962 is finally on dvd – a Warner Archive no-frills issue, but I went for a Spanish edition (CONFIDENCIAS DE MUJER) which has the trailer and chapters, and a lurid painting of Claire Bloom on the cover, in full nympho mode. Cukor’s 1962 film of that sensational best-seller (I read it when I was a teenager) still looks good, with that early ‘60s look in spades, 
with different backgrounds and colours for the 4 ladies – costumes by Orry Kelly, colour co-ordinanation by Hoyningen-Heune, Cukor regulars, as was Henry Daniell, who also gets a scene here, advising Efrem Zimbalist Jr on the dangers posed by his sex survey in suburbia. The credits are amusing too, styled like early computer cards for a electronic filing system. 

 
Claire Bloom steals the show here with her magnetic portrayal (she said in a recent interview Cukor was the best director she ever worked with), as we see her like a vampire in the shadows watching the water delivery boy (Chad Everett in tight trousers), before her encounter with those sleazy jazz musicians led by Corey Allen; 

meanwhile arty Glynis Johns gets an eyeful of Ty Hardin in those spray-on shorts at the beach and wants him to pose (and more) for her; while bored housewife Shelley Winters is having an affair with no-good theatre director Ray Danton – her husband Harold Stone just wants to watch tv. Jane Fonda is the fourth wife and makes the least impression here, as the frigid widow whom Efrem gets to comfort. Soap opera then, but a superior one, and a Trash Classic finally available again.