Sixties rarirty: The Pleasure Of His Company, 1961

A clutch of '60s rarities we have re-visited, before moving on to some current releases like NOCTURNAL ANIMALS and DR STRANGE. 

THE PLEASURE OF HIS COMPANY. This 1961 release is perfectly Paramount, another of those smooth Perlberg-Seaton plush comedies, with a leading role for Fred Astaire as the wayward playboy Pogo who returns to San Francisco for his daughter's wedding. He has not seen her since she was a child but his visit causes all kinds of repercussions for his ex-wife, Lilli Palmer, as elegant as ever, and her current husband Garry Merrill (a decade after his Bill Sampson in ALL ABOUT EVE). The young folk are Debbie Reynolds and Tab Hunter, Add in Charlie Ruggles as grandfather and the stage is set - another mansion overlooking San Francisco bay, rather like the location for the rather similar GUESS WHO'S COMING TO DINNER?. 

San Francisco debutante, Jessica Poole, is marrying Napa Valley cattle rancher, Roger Henderson, and hopes her peripatetic father, "Pogo" Poole, whom she hasn't seen for years, comes to the wedding. He arrives, disrupting the household of his ex-wife, Katharine, and her long-suffering husband, and befriending their cook, Toy. At first it seems that Pogo is set on breaking up the engagement, making up for years of neglect by wining and dining Jessica, showing up Roger as a hick, and enticing her to come to Europe with him. Then it seems his real goal is to win back Katharine's heart: why else would he have two tickets to Paris booked on a plane leaving right after the reception?

We are also in THE MAN WHO CAME TO DINNER territory as Pogo is a monster - with no regard for anyone, he takes over the house, ejecting Merrill from his study, and is determined to sabotage the wedding as he now wants his daughter for himself and to take her travelling with him as he circles the globe. Will Debbie fall for it? Will Tab erupt? Will Lilli see through his plans, and who is Pogo taking with him on the plane at the end?  It is fitfully amusing but rather predictable, I last saw it when I was a kid, good though to see Astaire again and the ever radiant Lilli - one of our favourites here - after her good roles then in BUT NOT FOR ME in 1959 and CONSPIRACY OF HEARTS in 1960, we also saw her in another Perlberg-Seaton THE COUNTERFEIT TRAITOR in 1962, where she gets shot by the Nazis, and in the German ADORABLE JULIA, then her other supporting roles in THE ADVENTURES OF MOLL FLANDERS and that very determined secret agent in OPERATION CROSSBOW. 

Postcards from the edge

Another visit to La La Land with a return to 1990's POSTCARDS FROM THE EDGE, Mike Nichol's satisfying comedy drama from Carrie Fisher's book, all the more poignant now after her recent passing and that of her mother Debbie Reynolds. Shirley McLaine - never a favourite of ours - does maybe her best work here, outside of THE APARTMENT, as Suzanne Vale's movie star mother, who drinks a lot and can't help upstaging her daughter.

Substance-addicted Hollywood actress Suzanne Vale is on the skids. After a spell at a detox centre her film company insists as a condition of continuing to employ her that she live with her mother Doris Mann, herself once a star and now a champion drinker. Such a set-up is bad news for Suzanne who has struggled for years to get out of her mother's shadow, and who finds her mother still treats her like a child. Despite these problems - and further ones to do with the men in in her life - Suzanne can begin to see the funny side of her situation, and it also starts to occur to her that not only do daughters have mothers, mothers do too.

Meryl Streep has one of her best early roles here as the drug-addled actress Suzanne tries to get her life back on track, and Mike Nichols fills the film with a great cast: not only Dennis Quaid, but Simon Callow, Richard Dreyfuss, Gene Hackman, Annette Bening and even the great Mary Wickes (from 40s and 50s classics like NOW VOYAGER and WHITE CHRISTMAS, she also went on to SISTER ACT). 

But the film boils down to those encounters between Meryl and Shirley, and both shine, Shirley in her hospital scene getting ready to face her public - the gays love her - and belting out a version of Sondheim's "I'm Still Here". Meryl too sings up a storm in that final country music scene. 

It all certainly works now and is a film to savour for many fine moments.
Maybe its time for another look at Carrie's THESE OLD BROADS telemovie with not only Debbie and Shirley but Dames Elizabeth Taylor and Joan Collins - which we covered before. see Debbie label.

Bright Lights: Debbie and Carrie

BRIGHT LIGHTS, 2016. Funny, witty, charming, sad, tragic - now even more sad and tragic after the deaths of Carrie Fisher and then her mother Debbie Reynolds a day later, it was the main news here in the lull days after Christmas – that and George Michael’s passing …

Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds star in a tender portrait of Hollywood royalty in all its eccentricity. From the red carpet to the back alleys behind it, the documentary is about the bonds of family love, which are beautifully bitter-sweet.

It is a fascinating view now, as we watch an increasingly frail Debbie (and frail Carrie too, endlessly drinking cola and smoking) at their compound with their dogs and friends, as they prepare for a show and Debbie’s Life Achievement Award.  There is also footage of a dying Eddie Fisher – which feels intrusive.  We also see Carrie at one of those movie conventions selling autographs, and Debbie’s memorabilia auctions, which at least raised millions for the family. The bond between mother and daughter and son Todd is touching to see too.

The clips are a joy – people my age grew up with Debbie in the movies and on all those magazine covers. She was one amazing trouper for whom the show always had to go on. It makes me want to go back to THE TENDER TRAP, POSTCARDS FROM THE EDGE, SHAMPOO and THESE OLD BROADS. A HBO production directed by Alexis Bloom and Fisher Stevens. 

More Debbie at label.

RIP, continued ...

2016 hasn't finished with us yet.

Debbie Reynolds (1932-2016), aged 84. A day after the passing of her daughter Carrie, it is sad indeed to hear that Debbie has died too. I shed a tear for the passing of this irrepressible Hollywood legend, who was screen-tested after being crowned Miss Burbank 1948.
She entertained us throughout our 1950s and '60s with items as choice as SINGIN' IN THE RAIN (when she was just 19), THE TENDER TRAP with Sinatra, TAMMY, IT STARTED WITH A KISS, HOW THE WEST WAS WON, THE UNSINKABLE MOLLY BROWN, the oddball GOODBYE CHARLIE, DIVORCE AMERICAN STYLE etc. and, er, THE SINGING NUN! She held her own against Bette Davis in THE CATERED AFFAIR in 1956, a nice dramatic role.  Then she found a whole new career as  a sassy grandma gay-icon, particularly as Grace's mother in WILL & GRACE and films like MOTHER and IN AND OUT., and practically unrecognisable as Liberace's mother in BEHIND THE CANDELABRA Then there was her work preserving Hollywood history and costumes, and she kept busy. She was fab too in the camp horror flick WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH HELEN?, acting up a storm with Shelley Winters,  in 71. (review at Debbie label). She was a wicked mimic too, as per her impression of Streisand at:   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXtXzmdLq0E   RIP to a game gal.

Carrie Fisher (1956-2016), aged 60.. Carrie Fisher was Hollywood royalty, her parents being Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher. Carrie was a teen in SHAMPOO in 1975 and then of course immortalised as the plucky Princess Leia with that hairstyle in the first STAR WARS films, and she returned to the latest one last year, STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS. She actually clocked up 90 acting credits, and was also that acerbic, funny writer, who wrote POSTCARDS FROM THE EDGE and that campfest THESE OLD BROADS for her mother, Taylor, McLaine and Collins. Her colorful private life included a brief marriage to Paul Simon. She was her usual witty self on television here only a few weeks ago.

Liz Smith (1921-2016), aged 95. Veteran character actress Liz was much loved and so very individual, across British television, stage (I saw her in the original ONCE A CATHOLIC) and film - particularly A PRIVATE FUNCTION (she and Maggie Smith were a perfect double act) and WE THINK THE WORLD OF YOU. She only began acting at 50, after a hard early life. She stunned in those early Mike Leigh films like HARD LABOUR and BLEAK MOMENTS. Her most loved role though was as Nana (with some priceless one-liners, as scripted by Caroline Aherne, who also left us this year, in the long-running BBC hit THE ROYLE FAMILY, RIP to a favourite of ours. She also excelled in that TV SEPARATE TABLES in 1983, and the film APARTMENT ZERO.  

Richard Adams (1920-2016), aged 96. Best-selling author of WATERSHIP DOWN which became a worldwide success and that enjoyable film.

Love is not the sweetest thing !

A trio of mesmerising star turn impersonations:  Derek Jacobi as painter Francis Bacon; Michael Douglas as Liberace; Helena Bonham-Carter almost as Elizabeth Taylor .....

I had been putting off seeing LOVE IS THE DEVIL and BEHIND THE CANDELABRA for some time, as I felt one may be too grim, and the other too camp - but they make up an astonishing double bill with a similar story arc: naive young man gets taken up by older artist who turns out to be a monster who tosses him aside when he has tired of him ... both stories capture facets of British and American gay life in the '60s and '70s and into the '80s perfectly .

In the 1960s, British painter Francis Bacon (1909-1992) surprises a burglar and invites him to share his bed. The burglar, a working class man named George Dyer, 30 years Bacon's junior, accepts. Bacon finds Dyer's amorality and innocence attractive, introducing him to his Soho pals. In their sex life, Dyer dominates, Bacon is the masochist. Dyer's bouts with depression, his drinking and pill popping, and his satanic nightmares strain the relationship, as does his pain with Bacon's casual infidelities. Bacon paints, talks with wit, and, as Dyer spins out of control, begins to find him tiresome. Could Bacon care less?

or as I said, on IMDB the other week: 

LOVE IS THE DEVIL, 1998. More artistic temperament in spades in this study of the painter Francis Bacon, and the man in his life, George Dyer, a small time crook. Again the casting is the thing: Derek Jacobi is uncanny as Bacon – as mesmerising as he was in I CLAUDIUS, while a pre-Bond Daniel Craig seems just right as the working class man out of his depth with Bacon’s Soho drinking pals who include Tilda Swinton - young David Hockney is depicted here too. John Maybury’s film  - I see it as a filmic version of Munch's "the Scream" - though cannot depict any of Bacon’s art but the film suggests their nightmare quality. The destructive relationship between painter and muse is caught as Dyer falls into alcoholism and pill popping, before his suicide. Grim is the word, at least Frear’s film on Joe Orton, another gay maverick artist, PRICK UP YOUR EARS had a lot of humour among the increasingly grim dramatics. 

John Maybury's film astonishes on many levels, capturing the selfish artist and the untidy (putting it mildly) studio, and all that drinking at the Colony and other drinking clubs. Jacobi is astonishing, whether cleaning his teeth with Vim detergent, putting shoe polish in his hair and applying mascara and powder before he heads off for an afternoon on the razzle, as Dyer sinks deeper into misery and booze and pills - Craig, as he was in LAYER CAKE and THE MOTHER and ENDURING LOVE is as solid as he was as Bond, James Bond.

BEHIND THE CANDELABRA, 2013: Before Elvis, before Elton John, Madonna and Lady Gaga, there was Liberace, pianist and flamboyant star of stage and television. Scott Thorson, a young bisexual man raised in foster homes, is introduced to Liberace and quickly finds himself in a sexual and romantic relationship with the legendary pianist. Swaddled in wealth and excess, Scott and Liberace have a sx-year  affair, one that eventually Scott begins to find suffocating. Kept away from the outside world by the flashily effeminate yet deeply closeted Liberace, and submitting to extreme makeovers and even plastic surgery at the behest of his lover, Scott eventually rebels. When Liberace finds himself a new lover, Scott is tossed on the street. He then seeks legal redress for what he feels he has lost. But throughout, the bond between the young man and the star never completely tears ...

Another terrific HBO movie (see THE NORMAL HEART, gay interest label) this Liberace movie is played for laughs as well as dramatics as ageing predatory older man ensnares rather naive young man. Scott (as depicted by Matt Damon) does not seem quite on the make, but is soon revelling in the glitz and glamour of the Liberace lifestyle. It is a shock to see Lee without his wig, as he and Scott get more involved, with Scott too having plastic surgery to look more like Lee, who talks of adopting him. 

Both actors turn in mesmerising performances, plus I did not recognise Dan Ackroyd or Scott Bakula (who delivers the zinger line to Scott: "Right now you are Judy at the Sid Luft obsese era"), while Debbie Reynolds was initially unrecognisable as Lee's mother, and Rob Lowe is the hilarious plastic surgeon. The tackier side of American showbiz is nicely depicted too. It is everything that Soderbergh's MAGIC MIKE should have been (see Mike label) ... while Damon has maybe his best role since THE TALENTED MR RIPLEY and Douglas is truly extraordindary as the great faker and master showman. Left: Soderbergh with Douglas. Liberace's 1955 film SINCERELY YOURS is reviewed at Liberace label. Also, its hardly unfair to depict Liberace like this, after all he had the nerve to sue - and win! - that British paper for casting aspersions on his masculinity! Douglas and Reynolds knew Liberace and his mother, so I imagine their portrayals are spot on. 

More camp showbiz excess is provided by BURTON AND TAYLOR, the BBC's 2013 biopic on the 1983 final teaming of the Great Lovers, who were selling themselves to the public, on stage in a doomed revival of Coward's PRIVATE LIVES. It was a last throw of the dice for Taylor to get Burton back into her orbit, even though he was poised to marry again. Helena (aided by great make-up, wigs, and those purple and lilac outfits) captures the capricious great star, forever late for rehearsals and seemingly not taking it seriously, to the annoyance of Burton and their director, but she delivers when she has to. She is also never far from the drinks trolley .... 

as Burton tries to avoid the booze and do the work. Bonham-Carter is fine as Taylor, but Dominic West suggests nothing of Burton's looks or voice to me, but does radiate a powerful presence, as he becomes horrified at the circus their play has become as the public come to see The Burtons ...

I saw The Burtons up close in 1970 at that Cinema City exhibition in London, as I have detailed previously - Taylor label - where they were with director Joseph Losey and critic Dilys Powell (left) as they were annoyed their SECRET CEREMONY film was a flop and being re-edited and sold to television. Eliizabeth looked marvellous in a gypsy type dress as she flashed that diamond, while Burton was in ranting mood in a safari suit!  The BBC film direted by Richard Laxton, captures a lot of their charisma and is jolly good fun. 

Grand Guignol quartet ...

Let us now turn our attention to some prime ham examples of those grand guignol bloody comedy thrillers dished up by Hollywood in the 1960s and '70s, featuring those older actresses who were determined to go on working. It all started of course with Robert Aldrich and WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE? followed by HUSH HUSH SWEET CHARLOTTE and Bette's British efforts THE NANNY and THE ANNIVERSARY, while Joan went on to STRAITJACKET and BERSERK! while Tallulah went with DIE DIE MY DARLING!. Olivia may have been the best with LADY IN A CAGE in 1964, still very effective and shocking, in the best way. The late '60s though gave us campy thrills with WHATEVER HAPPENED TO AUNT ALICE? followed by WHATS THE MATTER WITH HELEN? and WHOEVER SLEW AUNTIE ROO? with juicy roles for Geraldine Page, Ruth Gordon, Debbie Reynolds, Shelley Winters, Agnes Moorehead et al. Then in 1973 a French film went even further - TRIO INFERNAL, another Romy Schneider-Michel Piccoli starrer .... roll them:

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO AUNT ALICE? is delicioius fun now, with Geraldine Page and Ruth Gordon going head to head, produced by Aldrich and directed by Lee H Katzin.

As Aunt Alice, Ruth Gordon applies for the job of housekeeper in the Tucson, Arizona home of widow Claire Marrable in order to find out what happened to a missing widowed friend, Edna Tilsney. The crazed Page, left only a stamp album by her husband, takes money from her housekeepers, kills them, and buries the bodies in her garden. 

We discovered Geraldine Page's great screen roles here last year: her Alexandra Del Lago in SWEET BIRD OF YOUTH and Alma Winehouse in SUMMER AND SMOKE, both by Tennessee Williams. Gordon has long been a favourite from HAROLD AND MAUDE, LORD LOVE A DUCK, ROSEMARY'S BABY, and The Dealer, Natalie Wood's mother, in INSIDE DAISY CLOVER .... Both ladies are in their element here, along with Mildred Dunnock as the previous housekeeper that Gordon comes searching for as she is hired as the new housekeeper. It starts like a black comedy with widow Page finding out she is penniless after her husband's will is read. Page plays crazy perfectly, with her airs and graces, as her madness takes over. Rosemary Forsyth and Robert Fuller are the attractive couple next door ... and there is that dog sniffing at the contents of Mrs Marrable's garden ...  I loved every minute of it.

Even better is Curtis Harrington's 1971  WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH HELEN? with its perfect 1930s period feel. 

Two middle-aged women move to Hollywood, California after their sons are convicted of a notorious murder and open a dance school for children eager to tap their way to stardom.

Debbie Reynolds is dynamite as Adelle, the glamorous one who soon lands nice rich guy Dennis Weaver - its one of her best roles and she gives it her all. Shelley Winters is Helen, the frumpy one who too is going demented. Irish actor Micheal MacLiammoir has a juicy role as Hamilton Starr - though we do not find out what happens to him after he follows Helen upstairs .... 

Agnes Moorehead, an old friend of Debbie's,  also has a great scene as Sister Alma - a Aimee Semple McPherson type evangalist. Then there are the tots with their Shirley Temple and Mae West routines. Its a shame the poster gives away the climax, but its a marvellous roller-coaster ride along the way. Scripted by Henry Farrell who created the genre with the BABY JANE script back in 1962. Harrington also directed the odd 1967 thriller GAMES with Simone Signoret and James Caan and Katharine Ross (see 1967 label for review) and also the 1972 follow-up WHOEVER SLEW AUNT ROO?. Shame about the bunny rabbits though ...

This was filmed in England with some good thespians having fun here: Sir Ralph Richardson,  Liionel Jeffries,  Hugh Griffith, Rosalie Crutchley, Pat Heywood, Michael Gothard, and young Mark Lester, after his hit in OLIVER!. 

This is a retelling of the old tale of Hansel and Gretel, but set in England in the 1920s. To the children and staff at the orphanage, Auntie Roo is a kindly American widow who gives them a lavish Christmas party each year in her mansion, Forrest Grange. In reality, she is a severely disturbed woman, who keeps the mummified remains of her little daughter in a nursery in the attic. One Christmas, her eye falls upon a little girl who reminds her of her daughter and she imprisons her in her attic. Nobody believes her brother, Christopher, when he tells them what has happened, so he goes to rescue her ... 

Its an American-International replete with a creepy old mansion, and lots of spooky thrills. A Trash Classic then, like the others here. Shelley of course is over the top as usual, though not as much as in the Italian grand guignol by Bolognini: GRAN BOLLITO (review at Winters label).  Now over to France:

LE TRIO INFERNAL, 1974. Like the equally grim THE HONEYMOON KILLERS this is based on an actual story, Georges "Sarret" Sarrejani, a lawyer in Marseilles, and his two lovers, German sisters Philomene and Catherine Schmidt, started their "work" in the 20's. They used to sign life insurances for dying people and keep the money. Sarret shot M.Chambon, another swindler, and Chambon's lover, Noémie, to steal their money... 
But, in order to get rid of the bodies, he placed them in a bathtub and cover with sulfuric acid - when the corpses were just a black kind of glue, Sarret and sisters Schmidt put the glue on buckets and pour the content on the garden. After another murder all three of them were arrested in 1930 and in 1934, April 10th, Sarret was guillotined, the sisters were released after the War. 

This gruesome tale - no camp histrionics here - makes for a gruesome film as directed by Francis Girod ... Romy once again shows how compelling she was, and is another great teaming with Piccoli.  A bit sick though for popular tastes.

'60s comedies: the witty and the witless ...

Two long-unseen '60s comedies were interesting viewings now. GOODBYE CHARLIE from 1964 I did not remember at all, though I did see it at the time, but being 18 or so then, it seems to have made no impression on me. However, it turned out to be a pleasant surprise, as I will return to.

PRUDENCE AND THE PILL, on the other hand, from 1968, I remembered well, and pals and I saw it on its general release. I dare say a comedy about the (then new) contraceptive pill seemed a daring idea at the time, but couldn't it have been funnier?

Prudence is on the pill; so is her sister-in-law, but someone has been swapping aspirin for their pills. Is it the teen-age niece, the maid, the chauffeur, a lover, Prudence's husband, or all of the above?

Available for the first time for home viewing, Prudence and the Pill serves up a comic slice of sixties permissiveness from the days when the oral contraceptive was an exotic and legendary device that few people had any experience of using. Made in Britain by 20th Century Fox, and starring the debonair David Niven and the luminous Deborah Kerr, with vivacious support from 'It' girl Judy Geeson, this film takes us back to 1967's "summer of love", when established morality and codes of sexual behaviour where being turned upside down by new ideas and technology. So grab a gonk (a gonk was a 60s cuddly toy), straighten your mini-skirt and prepare yourself for a bumpy ride courtesy of the imprudent Prudence. 
(so went the hopeful dvd cover blurb, trying to make this feeble comedy into something important...)

This is so dated now, created by middle aged squares who imagined they were being hip and daring, but in fact creating a worthless, unfunny, snobby look at how Americans perceived the English back in that swinging decade. It is a film about posh people - David Niven and Deborah Kerr are frightfully posh and in fact just frightful. 

Their posh house is full of rooms in bilious colours (one longs for Minnelli and those decors and that sure comedy touch in THE RELUCTANT DEBUTANTE) and Kerr is unflatteringly photographed and costumed (she was getting rather matronly as the '60s progressed and her film career was winding down). She is Prudence and Niven is the husband, both are fed up with each other and having affairs - she with her doctor Keith Michell, and he has his professional mistress, played (amusingly) by professional mistress Irina Demick (Darryl F Zanuck's latest at the time, he put her in several Fox films of the era). The lower classes are represented by their maid Vickery Turner and the chauffeur, they are an item too. Then there is Niven's brother, silly ass Robert Coote, (being very silly ass here) and his wife, Joyce Redman (a rare movie role for her after that scene with Albert Finney in TOM JONES), and their mini-skirted daughter Judy Geeson, who is having it off with boyfriend David Dundas when mum and dad go to the cinema every week, however they return early this time and catch the two of them, in scenes which are painfully unfully and over the top. 

It turns out daughter (god, this is tedious to unfold) was swopping her mother's contraceptive pills with aspirins, and it soon turns out that everyone is swopping pills (which are conveniently sold in bottles and not individually bubble wrapped as now). Niven wants Prudence to get pregnant by her lover, so he swops her pills, the maid though swops Prudence's with the vitamin tablets her boyfriend gives her, and so on.

Dame Edith Evans then makes a few pointless appearances as a dotty aunt - thankfully she is not on the pills or forced to wear a mini-skirt. This farrago was directed by one Fielder Cook and must have appeared dated even before it was shown, back in the groovy decade, its a very square view of London too, where people meet for dinner at The Ritz. The mystery is did either Niven or Kerr, in what, their fifth teaming, really think this material was funny or worthy of them? Deborah did this kind of thing so much better in items like 1960's THE GRASS IS GREENER before the Sixties began to swing. Poor PRUDENCE isn't even campy enough to quality as a Trash Classic.

I did not think GOODBYE CHARLIE would be up to much, a forgotten 1964 comedy, but we are in the hands of experts here. Its from a George Axelrod comedy (which Lauren Bacall played on the stage - though that is no guartantee of quality - I saw, endured APPLAUSE, Bacall label), and directed by Vincente Minnelli - so it looks good. The music is by Andre Previn, and his then wife Dory co-wrote the title tune, its a zinger. I did not think Tony Curtis or Debbie Reynolds could surprise us, but they are nicely on form here - a decent role for Curtis and Debbie is a revelation, and not as grating as her UNSINKABLE MOLLY BROWN. 

Shot by a jealous husband, Charley falls out a porthole and is lost at sea only to find himself returned as an attractive blond woman. His best friend is staying at his house as he puts Charlie's affairs in order and after being convinced, finds himself an unwilling helper in Charlie's new plan to marry into money.

This is all quite amusing as womaniser Charlie is reincarnated as an attractive blonde, who soon gets a handle on his new situation and how to milk it to his advantage. Pat Boone is just right as the nice rich guy who falls for Charlie. Will Charlie for once do the right thing? Walter Mattheau is deliciously funny as the movie tycoon who shot Charlie, as nicely different here as he was in CHARADE. Joanna Barnes and Ellen Burstyn amuse as two of the wives Charlie dallied with, and now blackmails. It is all worked out quite nicely, as Charlie is reincarnated once again .... So, GOODBYE CHARLIE is a nice feelgood movie, with Tony and Debbie on top form - who knew? It fits nicely into Minnelli's '60s output too. It captures that early 60s grooviness and the showbiz shallowness before the swinging era got underway. The only jarring note is Tony's distaste at the idea of marrying his old pal Charlie, even if he is now a glamorous woman - which seemed unfunny compared to the brilliant "Why would a guy want to marry a guy?" similar scene in the classic SOME LIKE IT HOT.

Soon: another 1964 sex "comedy" - SEX AND THE SINGLE GIRL, I saw it but I don't remember it, was it that forgettable? Curtis again, and Natalie surely looking her best, and Dame Bacall ....  

A final (?) dollop of Trash ...

... as we count down to 1,000 posts. (15 to go before I sign off for a while). We like a good or so-bad-its-good Trash classic here at the Projector, there's of course 'the higher trash' and 'the lower trash' as Pauline Kael once wrote. Here are some more delirious farragos to enjoy. See Trash label for lots on those Lana Tuner sudsers we like, and some truly awfully enjoyable bad movies, with Susan ! Bette ! Carroll Baker ! and more.

THESE OLD BROADS. Finally, a look at this 2001 telemovie about the problems of staging a reunion of 3 ageing stars: Debbie Reynolds, Joan Collins and Shirley McLaine, and Elizabeth Taylor plays a few scenes as their ballsy agent! How about that for star wattage? This could have been fabulous and is scripted by Carrie Fisher – but somehow it all goes horrendously wrong. It is just a bad cheap-looking telemovie; the scene with the 3 divas wowing the boys in the gay bar with their version of “Get Happy” is hilariously gruesome and other scenes just go on pointlessly. Debbie is fun as usual, Collins in horrendously over the top and McLaine is just her regular sourpuss. Her son, played by Jonathan Silverman, is amusing though as he tries to placate them all to get the show made.

Elizabeth seems to be having a whale of a time as the raucous agent, but her solo scene with Debbie is very odd - It is shot in continuous two-shots with the camera looking over the shoulder of whichever one is listening to the other speak – but they are never completely in the same frame together, so maybe that was filmed with each star and a stand in? Maybe director Matthew Diamond knows?

Reynolds and Taylor were reputedly friends again by then, but maybe both were not available at the same time that day ... though all four pose together in the group shots.

MARTIN AND LEWIS, another telemovie, from 2002, purporting to be all about Martin & Lewis, that oddball duo who were so big in the '50s before their solo careers. Again, its the casting what makes it ... you would not immediately think of Jeremy Northam as Dean Martin, but he gets that Dino laid-back vibe just right, and WILL & GRACE's Sean Hayes nails that manic Jerry Lewis schtick which used to drive me nuts. 
Together they are ideal, as they play out that rise to fame in those '40s nightclubs and then the movies in the '50s, pitting the suave lounge act of Martin against the buffoon version of Jerry's stand-up comedy. It captures Eisenhower America nicely, but again, how much of it is factual, as Dino and Jerry finally can't bear to be together, Dean wants his own career and Jerry can't see how much he is suffocating him. Directed by John Gray. 

MARRIAGE GO ROUND. Now you know how I like Susan Hayward, and how much I appreciate James Mason - just see labels. Put them together and what do you get? A tedious unfunny comedy based on a Broadway play, which also featured the stunning Julie Newmar as the visiting Swedish bombshell who wants professor Mason to father her ideal child, to the amusement and consternation of his wife, Susan, another college professor. It has that 1960 look in spades and I love that spacious house (by Frank Lloyd Wright I think - like the house in A SUMMER PLACE or that specially built one for NORTH BY NORTHWEST, capturing that mid-century look - love those sofas and cushions...). James and Susan though are in Rock & Doris territory and have nothing much to work with. 

Watching it I felt they would have been ideal casting in 1966 for the roles of George and Martha in WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF? The Burtons, excellent as they are, are really stunt casting here. By 1966 Mason and Hayward would have been about the right ages and could certainly go to town on those roles - even if no longer considered top box-office. You can imagine Susan spitting out "What a dump" and "You married me for it", while LOLITA and GEORGY GIRL showed how Mason could have approached downtrodden George - I think Albee wrote it with him in mind.
Walter Lang directs and it has that nice 20th Century Fox Cinemascope look.  I like the scene where Julie wows the guys in the pool, including Trax Colton, a Fox discovery who went on to star with Jayne Mansfield in IT HAPPENED IN ATHENS, (that is now available again and on its way to me, so more on that later).  

COME DANCE WITH ME. Not strictly Trash per se, this remains a delicious 1959 French comedy with BB in her prime - dig that gingham skrit look with the tousled hair that girls in their millions copied, as Brigitte dances in this amusing scene - as mentioned before at BB label.  
In this one she goes undercover as a dance teacher to track down the murderer of the dance teacher (sizzling Dawn Addams) who was blackmailing BB's dentist husband Henri Vidal - who died that year aged 40 - Vidal label. BB dances up a storm and its nicely amusing, taking in as it does gay Paris by night, as the killer turns out to be a drag queen ! Its the best of that BB boxset of 5 titles, though I liked TWO WEEKS IN SEPTEMBER too, a long missing Swinging London item from 1967.