A new discovery:
WEST 11
one of those forgotten British black and white films of the early '60s,
this one intrigued me as it has a great cast of the time, so thanks to
Jerry for unearthing it .... it is by Michael Winner, from the time he
was making interesting little British films (
THE SYSTEM,
THE JOKERS,
I'LL NEVER FORGET WHATS'IS NAME - definitely a 1967 one to revisit -
see David Hemmings, Oliver Reed labels) - like Ken Russell, Winner is a true maverick of British cinema before all those vigilante and dreadful later films ... this one is more downbeat than the lurid cover suggests!
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| Di Dors with Eric Portman |
Here
we are back in that grubby world of gloomy bedsits and gas meters, run
down boarding houses, coffee bars and jazz clubs in Notting Hill Gate,
that area of west London - hence its postcode title:
WEST 11. This area is now ironically one of the most expensive in London. This is a perfect early 60s London movie (along with
A PLACE TO GO,
THE LEATHER BOYS,
THE L-SHAPED ROOM, THE WORLD TEN TIMES OVER,
VICTIM,
DARLING, BITTER HARVEST, THE KNACK, THE PLEASURE GIRLS and the BBC series
TAKE THREE GIRLS -
all at London label - others like
A KIND OF LOVING,
BILLY LIAR or
A TASTE OF HONEY
are Northern based) with great casting: Alfred Lynch in his mac is our
rootless drifter who leaves his boring job, gets thrown out of his bedsit by landlady Freda Jackson,
Kathleen Harrison is his whining
mum, a good old working-class type; Eric Portman is the seedy toff who
involves Alfred in a murder plot to kill his rich aunt, then there is
old Finlay Currie as the lonely odd old man next door, and still looking
very glamorous Diana Dors, rather out of place among these Notting Hill
drifters, but gamely playing along - she has several scenes but is not
really essential to the plot. Then there is young punk David Hemmings
(not even listed in the credits) who is hassling dear old Finlay - 3
years later he was the star of
BLOW-UP! Young Francesca Annis also does the twist with Alfie.
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| Young Hemmings with Finlay Currie |
Lynch
(1931-2003) had a curious career: a lot of theatre and television and
some movie parts in the early 60s: starring here, and with Dirk Bogarde
in that POW drama
THE PASSWORD IS COURAGE, and with young Sean Connery in
ON THE FIDDLE, and a bit part with Ava Gardner in
55 DAYS AT PEKING and in
THE TAMING OF THE SHREW. (like Eric Portman here he was also gay, as per his IMDB resume).
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| Francesca twists with Alfred |
Winner
had wanted the young Julie Christie for his female lead but had to
settle for Kathleen Breck .... the murder plot gets underway but our
hero is unable to go through with it, but the victim dies accidentally
falling down the stairs, as Alfie is carried away by the police at the
downbeat ending, he is not really guilty but ... it shows the alienation
of big city life and those restless people in the inner city as the new
decade dawned as Britain recovered from
its post - war depression, before the '60s exploded into music and
colour - as per my next post! Extensive location shooting too, like Tom Courtenay in the same streets in the later
OTLEY in '68, James Fox in
PERFORMANCE and the later glossier Notting Hill of, er,
NOTTING HILL. I knew that area well in the mid '60s.
Jane, a young French woman, pregnant and unmarried, takes a room in a
seedy London boarding house, which is inhabited by an assortment of
misfits. She considers getting an abortion, but is unhappy with this
solution. She falls into a relationship with Toby, a struggling young
writer who lives on the first floor. Eventually she comes to like her
odd room, and makes friends with all the strange people in the house.
But she still faces two problems: what to do with her baby, and what to
do with Toby.
WEST 11 is a perfect double bill with
THE L-SHAPED ROOM
, one 1962 drama I had missed until now. This is another solid Bryan
Forbes film, about a French girl also moving into Notting
Hill/Bayswaster bedsit land. She rents the L-shaped room in a very
decrepit looking house run by Avis Bunnage, type cast again here as the
landlady (my post on the "
Hollywood UK" series
(TV label)
shows the house now, or 20 years ago). What does not quite work for me
here is that the heroine is played by Leslie Caron, after her Hollywood
era in the '50s, so she seems not only too old but rather out of place
here, by the end though she is totally convincing in a very
multi-faceted performance. Her French girl is pregnant and has a very
good scene with suave doctor Emlyn Williams. Fellow boarders in the
house include Tom Bell, one of those 'angry young men' and black and gay
Brock Peters.
CORONATION STREET's Elsie Tanner (Pat Phoenix) is
brassy blonde here as one of the working girls in the basement, and old
time star Cicely Courtneidge is Mavis, an old time music hall
entertainer, with a secret of her own ... Caron gets to know these
lonely people and involved in their dramas as she and Tom Bell embark on
a tentantive romance. The ending is quite bittersweet, as she calls to
collect her case from the new girl (Nanette Newman of course, Mrs
Forbes) in the L-shaped room.
Forbes,
like Winner and Russell, is another British maverick, an ex-actor and
writer who had some big successes directing this and films like WHISTLE DOWN THE WIND, KING RAT, SEANCE ON A WET AFTERNOON, THE WHISPERERS, MADWOMAN OF CHAILLOT
etc) - but somehow it was the Schlesingers and Loseys who seemed to get
all the artistic kudos - like Schlesinger though being an actor himself
Forbes is great with actors and draws the best from them. We
particularly like his 1974 original THE STEPFORD WIVES. (Diane Clare, the other debutante in Minnelli's THE RELUCTANT DEBUTANTE in 1958 appears near the end of L-SHAPED ROOM as a nurse to deliver 2 lines to Bell, such are the vagaries of the actor's life...).