Glenda in Yanks ???

Idly watching John Schlesinger's 1979 wartime romance YANKS again on television, I was suddenly caught by this one shot from that emotional climax at the railway station as the GIs pull out and all the womenfolk are crowding the station to say goodbye. The female stars of the film are Vanessa Redgrave and Lisa Eichorn and Rachel Roberts, but surely this is Glenda Jackson, among the crowded extras, she had starred in Schlesinger's SUNDAY BLOODY SUNDAY in 1971. Does anyone else think its our Glenda ?

An Olly double bill: The System / The Triple Echo

Back to 1964 and 1972 for these interesting Oliver Reed films, from that time when the British film industry was thriving ... This is my 2008 IMDB review of THE SYSTEM (now getting screenings on UK tv):

"A blast from the past for those young in the early 60s is the belated DVD release of THE SYSTEM (US Title: THE GIRL-GETTERS) made in 63 and released in 64 - when I saw it aged 18 when it would have played here in the UK for a week on release as part of a double bill and then promptly vanished without trace until I saw the DVD yesterday. It comes with a nice 8 page booklet too setting the film in context which is a model of its kind, if only more DVD re-issues followed suit! (The Best of British Collection: "films that entertained the post-war generation"). Its the kind of movie that talks to you if you are the age of the characters on screen ...

The film directed by Michael Winner with marvellous black and white photography by Nicholas Roeg (and a title song by The Searchers!) is set in one of those English seaside towns (Torbay and Brixham in Devon) following a gang of young men, led by the then very charismatic Oliver Reed, and their amorous pursuits over the summer and is actually a perfect compendium of European cinema trends of the time - there are Antonioniish moments (the tennis game here has a real ball) and it ends like LA DOLCE VITA in a Felliniesque dawn at the beach as the disillusioned characters realise the summer is over. Fellini's I VITELLONI is also a reference here. The script by Peter Draper anticipates elements of DARLING and BLOW-UP (particularly that long scene with Reed and Merrow at his apartment, and yes, her blown-up photos are pinned to the walls too - he too is a photographer becoming disillusioned with it all). 

It sports a great cast of English young players of the time (Barbara Ferris, Julia Foster, Ann Lynn, John Alderton) as well as reliables like Harry Andrews. Of the young cast David Hemmings (rather in the background here) would two years later personify the 60s when chosen by Antonioni for his lead in BLOW-UP. Jane Merrow (Hemmings' girlfriend of the time, and a replacement for Julie Christie who was doing BILLY LIAR) is perfect as Nicola the cool rich girl whom Reed falls for but she plays the game better than he does and is in complete command of any romance, as he realises she was just toying with him for the summer, so its payback time for all the 'birds' he discarded. (I got to meet her myself and had a nice long conversation with her when she was doing a play in 1966, while David was off filming BLOW-UP; she also co-starred in another favourite THE LION N WINTER in '68).

Winner of course may be a figure of fun now [he died in 2013], one forgets that in the '60s before those DEATH WISHES etc his films caught the moment as well as any by Richard Lester (THE SYSTEM could be Winner's THE KNACK), Losey, Schlesinger or the underrated Clive Donner, with titles like THE JOKERS and I'LL NEVER FORGET WHATS'ISNAME where Reed was meant to be his character from THE SYSTEM five years later.

In all its a perfect early '60s movie full of sounds and faces and the mood of that time just as the Swinging Era was taking off. For anyone interested in English cinema or remembers the era, its a real pleasure to see again 50+ years later !"

THE TRIPLE ECHO is perfectly 1972 too, though set in wartime England in the early Forties, and Glenda gets that 1940s look perfectly right with her swagger coats and perms. This is from a H E Bates story and is a perfect little British film of its era, as directed by Michael Apted. 
Brian Deacon is good too as the soldier who deserts to stay with Glenda on her remote farm, after fixing her tractor, and who disguises himself as her 'sister' and finds he likes it as he makes the mistake of leading on Olly's brute of an army officer .... as per my review, Glenda/Reed labels. Good to see it on television again too. They tried to jazz it up for America titling it SOLDIER IN SKIRTS with a lurid poster, but it is so much better than that. 

'70s British cinema & the curious case of Barry Evans

Today we look back at Seventies British cinema - which brings to mind that famous quote from THE GO-BETWEEN: "The past is a foreign country, they do things differently there". 70s British cinema began quite well with those well-regarded films like SUNDAY BLOODY SUNDAY, THE GO-BETWEEN (an award winner at Cannes) and DON'T LOOK NOW, as directors like Schlesinger, Losey and Roeg were at their peaks; and there were cult hits like THE WICKER MAN (originally sent out on release as supporting feature to DON'T LOOK NOW)..  British television was also good then in the early '70s, with series like COUNTRY MATTERS, WESSEX TALES, the BBC's TAKE THREE GIRLS and the hit ITV series UPSTAIRS, DOWNSTAIRS (the DOWNTON ABBEY of the era). 
The UK still only had three television channels (BBC1, ITV and BBC2, Channel 4 did not start until late 1982), video had yet to arrive - I got my first recorder in December 1979, so one either saw things at the time or missed them. BBC had a great series of sitcoms, we loved HI-DE-HI, ARE YOU BEING SERVED? and DAD'S ARMY. ITV sitcoms were generally weaker, and seen as a bit dim or low rent. I have to admit I did not bother with series like those spin-offs like DOCTOR IN THE HOUSE, DOCTOR AT LARGE or the later MIND YOUR LANGUAGE which ran from 1977 to 1986, all featuring Barry Evans (1943-1997), today's subject, or those series with Richard O'Sullivan, a spin-off from GEORGE AND MILDRED, though that may be my loss.

HERE WE GO ROUND THE MULBERRY BUSH 

As the Seventies wore on British cinema still turned out some interesting films, usually featuring Glenda Jackson (probably England's busiest actress then)  with either Oliver Reed, Alan Bates, Michael Caine or Peter Finch - titles like TRIPLE ECHO, STEVIE, RETURN OF THE SOLDIER - she is terrific leading that cast in NASTY HABITS, and there's the dreadful THE INCREDIBLE SARAH - Glenda kept churning them out; I saw her on stage too in THE MAIDS with Susannah, which was also filmed (and in THREE SISTERS at the Royal Court in 1968 - Glenda label).
People still went to the cinema a lot, the 70s was a great decade for European cinema and that new American cinema of Altman, Scorsese, Coppola, De Palma etc The CARRY ONs and Hammer Films were still going too even if getting tattier by the day, soft porn was invading them too ..... which brings me to a double bill I recorded the other day, which was on sometime during the night on one of those cable channels: ADVENTURES OF A TAXI DRIVER and ADVENTURES OF A PRIVATE EYE, dating from 1976 and 1977, when the tat really hit the fan.

Now lets go back to 1968, when the two Swinging London films we loved (being in our early 20s at the time) were SMASHING TIME (Rita Tush and Lynn Redgrave come down from the North to wreck havoc in George Melly's delightful script as directed by Desmond Davis - see label) and Clive Donner's HERE WE GO ROUND THE MULBERRY BUSH set in Stevenage New Town with a great cast of new faces (Barry Evans, Judy Geeson, Adrienne Posta, Angela Scoular) and that Traffic score - it caught the scene perfectly, my pal Stan and I loved it. The brief nudity in it was fresh and engaging too - not cheap and tatty as in those later films.

Smut though was coming to the fore by the early 70s - kinky as in DORIAN GRAY or GOODBYE GEMINI (see Trash, 70s, British labels for more on these) but generally cheap and unfunny as in those CONFESSIONS OF A WINDOW CLEANER and others featuring the charmless chump Robin Askwith (still going now, as in the BENIDORM series which seems to have lost the plot completely). Then there was PERCY in 1971 and those Hywel Bennett films, like the mess they made of Joe Orton's LOOT .... Then there was that spate of '70s British gangster movies (covered here already, British label), like ALL COPPERS ARE, THE SQUEEZE, VILLAIN, SITTING TARGET, HENESSEY etc. and John Wayne (with toupee) taking on the '70s London underworld in the very enjoyable BRANNIGAN.

After MULBERRY BUSH Barry Evans had a small part in Donner's next, the interesting ALFRED THE GREAT in 1969 (David Hemmings and Michael York leading), and he was busy in television including those series mentioned. However in 1976 he starred in a CONFESSIONS OF ... rip-off titled ADVENTURES OF A TAXI DRIVER, which was an interesting view to flick through quickly (one would hardly want to see them in real time) with its follow-up ADVENTURES OF A PRIVATE EYE - Barry bailed out of that one, the lead was a charmless nonentity called Christopher Neil. There was even a CONFESSIONS OF A PLUMBER'S MATE, but we were spared that - all directed by one Stanley Long - dare one mention him.

What was so depressing about these apart from they being desperately unfunny was seeing Barry and the MULBERRY BUSH girls (Geeson, Scoular, Posta) re-united a decade later but now given nothing to do apart from situations where their clothes fall off, and seeing the likes of Diana Dors (cheerfully playing the blowsy, harridan mother in both epics), Suzy Kendall, Liz Fraser, Harry H Corbett, Fred Emney, Irene Handl, Ian Lavender, Julian Orchard, Jon Pertwee, Anna Quayle, William Rushton etc roped in and given nothing to do. It may have been the only work going, but they would hardly have earned much for doing a day or two on poverty row productions like these. It must have been a lean time for comedians and young actors when the British cinema - so prolific in the '50s and '60s - was now on its knees and just producing smutty rubbish. At least the guys had to strip off too, as Barry or Chris had to run naked from various ladies' bedrooms as the husband returned ... presumably that had them rolling in the aisles. 

Barry's MIND YOUR LANGUAGE series ran until 1986 and his last credit was in 1993. By then he was a taxi driver in real life, in Melton Mowbray, where he was found dead in 1997, aged 53, in rather mysterious circumstances. 

The circumstances of his early death remain a mystery; He was found dead in his bungalow in Leicestershire, England with bottles of whiskey and aspirins nearby. A youth was charged with his murder, but acquitted on lack of evidence. A local coroner later recorded an open verdict.

There was also some story about him being involved with a rentboy, and having had a blow to his head - maybe by the youth mentioned above. A sorry end to when he was 18 and won a scholarship to train for the stage at the Central School of Speech and Drama. 

Sad how some actors' careers and lives pan out .... some die too young (Stanley Baker), some careers are over before the actor dies (Stephen Boyd, Laurence Harvey), some simply vanish - like the interesting case of Jeremy Spenser (see label), a 1950s actor who was the young prince in THE PRINCE AND THE SHOWGIRL, and in SUMMERTIME, THE ROMAN SPRING OF MRS STONE, FERRY TO HONG KONG etc, which shows that acting with Monroe, Olivier, Katharine Hepburn, Vivien Leigh, Orson Welles is no guarantee of a long career. As I have said before, most personable actors though if they are fortunate get ten good years and can usually parlay that into smaller roles as they get older: Michael York, Terence Stamp etc. 

Next: a look at those pals Oliver Reed and David Hemmings and how their careers intertwined and changed over the years, as they did ...  

Sexplosion !

"Sexplosion: From Andy Warhol to A Clockwork Orange - how a generation of pop rebels broke all the taboos" - this fascinating tome by Robert Hofler is an easy read, particularly for those of us who lived through those heady years. Let's see: "Rich, funny, and comprehensive SEXPLOSION takes you inside the tumultous, energizing years of 1968 to 1973, when artists, film-makers, and writers defied authority and challenged every taboo to create a sexual revolution that reverbates to this day. This is a superb evocation of an era" Patricia Bosworth says. or "Hofler pays tribute to the trailblazing artists who paved the way for the freedom on screen that we take for granted today", according to Jeffrey Schwarz.

It is a different world now looking back to those late 60s when censorship was still in full force - how much society can change over 40 years! Gay liberation and Women's Lib were still in their infancy - equality seemed a long way off then; unlike now, the newspapers were virulently anti-gay - in England the tabloids hounded closeted gay celebrities like Kenny Everett and Russell Harty to their deathbeds, and then the Aids crisis began .... Back in the '60s in America homosexuals were routinely called 'fags' or 'faggots' (it was 'poofs' here in England) even by the likes of liberals like Billy Wilder or John Huston (and in films like VALLEY OF THE DOLLS, THE LOVE MACHINE) - lots of straight men hated women whom they saw as castrating, dominating tyrants. 
Philip Roth certainly felt so - he refused to complete his manuscript for PORTNOY'S COMPLAINT as his hated ex-wife was getting half of what he earned, after tricking him into marriage with a fake pregnancy, as she had bought the urine sample from a pregnant woman, so he was not going to hand her another fortune - then, conveniently for him, not so for her, she was killed in a car crash, so heigh ho, and off to the printers !!! and that very funny book became one of the defining texts of the era, along with John Updike's COUPLES and Gore Vidal's MYRA BRECKINRIDGE, which we loved with a passion. Even the trash-but-fun movie did not dent our affection for it. How we howled at Mae West's line as she arrived at her office crowded with studs: "one of those guys will have to go..!"and poor Rusty gets it in the end, we had seen nothing like it !

Hofler goes into the genesis of all these, and in the theatre the problems with getting Mart Crowley's BOYS IN THE BAND, Tynan's OH! CALCUTTA! and Rado & Ragni's HAIR on stage with their nudity and depiction of gay life and those new freedoms. It seems critic Kenneth Tynan was more an unmitigated shit than one had realised. We knew about his S&M fetishes and caning women, but he was also rabidly anti-fag, and wanted nothing gay in his revue, and even wanted to hire only heterosexual actors! 

Also in the cinema, John Schlesinger was pushing boundaries with MIDNIGHT COWBOY, which featured some of the Warhol crowd, like Viva, also busy in Warhol products like LONESOME COWBOYS. Warhol's own films, as created by Paul Morrisey - FLESH, HEAT, TRASH - also raked in the money, though they would not pay for Holly Woodlawn to get bail from prison to attend her film opening!  Ken Russell meanwhile was getting the British film censor John Trevelyan (who was a regular on tv and in discussions on censorship I attended at the BFI), to pass his WOMEN IN LOVE (Olly and Alan had their own problems with that nude wrestling scene...) and the even more notorious THE DEVILS, while Visconti ran into problems with Warner Bros over his Nazi orgy in THE DAMNED and DEATH IN VENICE .....  which to the Warner Bros executives was about a middle-aged man chasing but never quite getting his hands on a knowing thirteen year old boy who seems to be leading him on. No wonder they wanted Tadzio changed to a girl called Tadzia !

Hofler though does not mention Fellini's SATYRICON or Antonioni's ZABRISKIE POINT, two other hits of the counterculture era, as we zoon on to BOB & CAROL & TED & ALICE (which earned Natalie Wood more than any other film she made, as she had a percentage deal) and CARNAL KNOWLEDGE, DEEP THROAT and A CLOCKWORK ORANGE (right). Amusing story about that - arch-manipulator Kubrick stayed at home in England but persuased Malcolm McDowell and Anthony Burgess, the book's author, to go to America and handle the interviews for ORANGE. Then Burgess realised he was not making anything from the film's success as he had earlier sold the rights for a few hundred dollars ....

Schlesinger ran into more trouble with his next one, SUNDAY BLOODY SUNDAY, but was now an Oscar-winning director, so got his way, having to replace his initial choices Ian Bannen and Hiram Keller which was not working out, with the more laid back Peter Finch and Murray Head. Princess Margaret though hated the film with its depiction of "men in bed kissing" - surely she knew enough gays! The kinky sex and violence of PERFORMANCE (left) also frazzled Warner Brothers who did not know what to do with it. STRAW DOGS with its brutal rape was also causing lots of problems. Then there was the notorious making of LAST TANGO IN PARIS ....

A fascinating era in all, as the new freedoms slowly became commonplace- as covered by "Films & Filming" and other magazines.  Another discussion I attended in 1970, when 24, at the BFI was on the topic of 'Actors & Nudity' - a hot topic then with more and more actresses and actors too, having to get their kit off. 
I remember Billie Whitelaw being vocal at this, and Zeffirelli's naked Romeo, Leonard Whiting, in a crushed velvet blue suit. He was standing next to me afterwards at the gents urinal  ... not a suitable moment to chat though.
Censorship still raged in Ireland then, a look at WOMEN IN LOVE at the local cinema I grew up in, in 1970 or so reduced us to helpless laughter - the wrestling scene had been reduced to a few shots of them panting on the carpet, making it even more suggestive. They were running MIDNIGHT COWBOY the following week - I wondered how much of that was left ...
How times change: Finland is now issuing quite explicit Tom of Finland stamps! 

A '70s classic: Sunday Bloody Sunday

In 1971 two years after the Oscar-winning MIDNIGHT COWBOY, John Schlesinger directed this fascinating character-driven study about love and unhappiness among London’s leisured middle-classes in their Hampstead or Islington enclaves. As scripted by Penelope Gilliatt, SUNDAY BLOOD SUNDAY shows an intriguing array of relationships, involving fifty-ish Jewish doctor Daniel Hirsch (Peter Finch), thirty-something divorcee Alex Greville (Glenda Jackson), dissatisfied with her life, and the flightly bisexual artist Bob Elkin (Murray Head) still in his 20s, whom they both knowingly share, like they share that answering service. Both Daniel and Alex crave more of Bob’s time and attention and they are both such rounded characters one initially wonders what they see in the shallow younger person. As he says to them “I know you feel you are not getting enough of me, but you’re getting all there is”. 

The older lovers contemplate their needs and desires over a long weekend, including that Sunday of the title, pondering whether – at their time of life – the companionship on offer is preferable to solitude, as Alex ruefelly tells herself “There are times when nothing has to be better than anything”.  Daniel too has to content himself with the meagre scraps of comfort that Bob casually throws his way. Surely he deserves more? 

We see Glenda busy with her career, and advising that executive out of work who has had a facelift for a job interview he feels he is too old for (Tony Britton – who provides her with some comfort, as he does not want to return to his wife until his face is back to normal) and visiting her parents Peggy Ashcroft and Maurice Denham, each in their own little worlds. Daniel, meanwhile, attends a Jewish bar mitzvah with family, and joins well-meaning liberal friends (Vivian Pickles, perfect again here as she was as Harold’s mother in HAROLD AND MAUDE, also 1971 – that’s another one to revisit again soon too). The doctor also has a brief encounter with a former pick-up (that other Finch, Jon) and there is that engrossing scene where he visits the all-night Chemist in Piccadilly and gets absorbed watching the addicts waiting for their fixes).

Glenda meanwhile collects her messages, grimaces as she makes instant coffee with water from the hot water tap and grinds cigarette ash into the carpet. The doctor plays charades with his friends, while Alex and Bob take Vivian’s children out for a walk on the Heath. (I understand the young Daniel Day-Lewis was one of them). Things come to a head with Bob deciding to move to America, leaving his art sculpture for the doctor to look at, while Glenda is left with the toucan. Both Alex and Daniel meet and briefly compare notes as they are due to join Pickles and family (and their token black person) for Sunday lunch, as life on Sunday goes on.

Schlesinger directs

SUNDAY BLOODY SUNDAY still plays perfectly and is a  milestone gay interest title and one of the key works of '70s British cinema (along with Losey’s THE GO-BETWEEN and Roeg’s DON’T LOOK NOW), it dealt more frankly with homosexuality than any British film before – even Bogarde’s VICTIM. Finch and Jackson deliver powerful performances that tug the heartstrings, conveying the fear, vulnerability and sadness that enslaves their characters to a rather worthless young man. Finch has never been better – well, maybe as his OSCAR WILDE in 1960 and the later NETWORK – than in his last long scene talking direct to the camera, while Jackson has one of her most sympathetic roles. 

The Finches: Peter and Jon

It was actually started with actors Ian Bannen as Daniel, and Hiram Keller - the dark haired one from FELLINI SATYRICON -  as Bob, but this did not work out at all. With Bessie Love, and June Brown (later Dot Cotton in EASTENDERS). It captures that essential Britishness and is a great London film too showing how that priviledged section of society conduct their weekends. Certainly one of Schlesinger’s best, up there with A KIND OF LOVING, BILLY LIAR or DARLING. That gay kiss causes quite a few gasps in provincial cinemas too at the time, as I can attest, when I saw it a second time at a cinema in Dover in Kent, while waiting for friends to return from France. More comments on it at Finch/London labels.

The triple echo at studio 54

Two curious 'gay interest' items .... one in a wartime setting and then that infamous New York disco.

THE TRIPLE ECHO. A real pleasure seeing this under-rated wartime drama again. From that early ‘70s period when English cinema was running down, but this and gems like SUNDAY BLOODY SUNDAY, THE GO-BETWEEN and DON’T LOOK NOW as well as the Ken Russell opuses kept us going to see British films at the local ABC or Odeon. This 1972 Michael Apted film has that wartime look in spades, as in Schlesinger’s YANKS it is one of the few that bothers to get the right period flavour, which is all in the detail. 

We follow solitary wife Glenda Jackson on her remote farm, shooting rabbits and rats, and collecting eggs for the local shop. Her husband is a prisoner of war, held by the Japanese. Another lonely figure enters her horizon, young soldier Brian Deacon. They converse and get on, he is soon doing odd jobs around the farm, like getting that tractor to work …. He wants to desert and she helps him, by the odd idea of his dressing up as her sister. This odd couple make it work. Then bullying officer Oliver Reed comes sniffing around and invites the bored “sister” to the dance at the local military base …. It is madness to accept but he/she does …. This is a fascinating drama, Jackson is brilliant here conveying every facet of her character, Reed is one-note but exactly right, and Brian Deacon may have the more difficult role but carries it off perfectly. This was when British tv did a lot of period drama set in the 30s and 40s, all those H.E. Bates and A.E Coppard stories. THE TRIPLE ECHO is more of the same and a very satisfying view now. It is also an amazing study of sexual identity and ironical loss of freedom as Deacon finds himself sardonically more confined than ever by what he endures as a deserter forced to hide.

 
It is not only a perfect period piece from that interesting time in the early '70s, but also an intriguing study of identity as we ponder how serious he is about posing as Glenda's sister - she seems more masculine than him, and how trapped he becomes on the farm, as he imagines he can handle Olly's persistent opportunism .... Its a very tricky role to pull off and Deacon, who should have been better known, succeeds admirably. Young actors seem freer now in their choices than they were 40 years ago, with the likes of Whishaw and Cumberbatch et al, but Deacon is still working and - according to his IMDB profile - like Denis Waterman, he too was married to Rula Lenska! He also plays the young husband in that 1983 Schlesinger SEPARATE TABLES (at Glenda Jackson label) and is in Greenaway's A ZED AND TWO NOUGHTS with his brother Eric - maybe one of those "painfully arty" movies we did not catch at the time, 1986 ...

54. Who knew decadence could be so boring? 1998's 54 certainly gives it a bad name as we follow the rise and fall of Jersey boy Shane O’Shea (Ryan Phillippe) who becomes dazzled by the bright lights of New York and the legendary club Studio 54. He though turns out to be a minor league Tony Manero (of SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER) but inexplicably catches the eye of club owner Steve Rubell who lets the young kid inside – once he takes his shirt off. Soon our ambitious Shane is a busboy and before long a bar-tender which means he is photographed for “After Dark” magazine and having all the sex and drugs and fame that goes with his glamorous existence.
 
It seems the only gay person at Studio 54 though is owner Steve Rubell – a terrific turn by Mike Myers. Salma Hayek and Brekin Meyer are married and Shane’s friends and Salma has one good line regarding his lack of success at the club. She and Shane also become attracted, and he also falls for Jersey girl made good Neve Campbell. The tax people are also investigating the club’s affairs and it all climaxes at New Year’s Eve as Shane has to look after Princess Grace who is visiting, but Salma has her big number ruined when the club's oldest member, who is in her 80s, overdoses on the dance floor, which  - in the movies anyway - means the end! It is the usual morality tale dressed with with a disco soundtrack by the time Miramax and the Weinsteins had finished with the material, and certainly an amusing journey now. The legendary Manhattan disco was surely more fun than shown here, though we do get glimpses of Andy, Bianca and the other celebrities (Michael York and Lauren Hutton also appear as well as disco divas Ultra Nate and Thelma Houston). It seems director-writer Mark Christopher had a falling out with Miramax over the final cut of the film. Shane isn't a very nice guy, and he's not too bright, so is hardly a hero to root for. The other characters are equally vacuous and selfish, apart from Rubell himself. I knew the London clubs (and some of their owners) in the '80s and '90s and they were certainly more fun than this! 

It now seems that fearing a bomb, the studio, Disney/Miramax, insisted on quick reshoots and reedits (Shane was meant to be bisexual initially). In the end, 45 minutes were cut from the film, new scenes were shot and 25 minutes of new footage were added, along with additional voice-over to streamline the narrative. The movie bombed anyway, with both audiences and critics. It was yet another in a long line of Hollywood "de-gayings," where gay content is removed from a movie’s source material or edited out of a film before its theatrical release, and it’s still one of the most notorious examples. 

It's odd: the two films about the disco era, 54 and THE LAST DAYS OF DISCO, are both such "straight" films - as the Studios rewrite history and insist these discos were heterosexual places, to cater for their mass audience - the kind of studios I suppose who would not back the new Liberace film as it "was too gay", so its a hit on HBO and released in cinemas here in Europe ! (SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER works perfectly as it is, being the story of those working class kids getting their relief on the dancefloor, and not purporting to be about the disco itself...).

Separate tables for return of the soldier

SEPARATE TABLES. The only version available of the 1983 tv production of Rattigan's SEPARATE TABLES was a video-cassette edition on Amazon, so I had to have it - this meant finally connecting up my old vhs-dvd recorder (not used since 2006) to the new flat wide HD tv & Blu-ray combo, but it works, so I can now play cassette tapes again. Like many others I ditched most of them when I went over to dvd (charity shops don't want them now...) but kept some rarities I shall be gettting back to (like Lee Remick hosting a Marilyn Monroe tribute, Bette Davis's AFI Lifetime Achievement award, Joni Mitchell's video collection "Come In From The Cold", a Pet Shop Boys concert, and others), but here finally is that SEPARATE TABLES, which was only shown once here.

Its a terrific cast and looks great in colour and seems to be the full version of the Rattigan play, set at that quaint retirement hotel in Bournemouth, with those lonely souls at their separate tables, including the horse-racing mad spinster, and the retired headteacher (obviously secretly gay) whose star pupil keeps not turning up). The well-loved 1958 film by Delbert Mann of course dovetailed the two separate acts into one narrative with 4 main leads (Niven and Kerr as the bogus major and repressed spinster; its producer Burt Lancaster and Rita Hayworth as the journalist and his ex-wife who turns up).
The actual play is two separate acts with one pair of leads playing all four main parts in the two stories, with the other characters turning up as usual. Here we have Alan Bates and Julie Christie - in their fourth outing together - and how ideal they are. Julie aims for that Margaret Leighton brittleness as Mrs Shankland (Leighton originated the part), and its hard to make her look dowdy as downtrodden Sybil, with that fearsome mother Mrs Railton Bell. Irene Worth here plays her as a suburban monster of a bully, in her tweeds and twinsets, a different take on Gladys Cooper's glittering malice in the '58 film. But the climax is just as satisfying as Sybil finally defies her mother ....

Interestingly, there is a lot more of Miss Cooper, the hotel manager, as satisfyingly played by Claire Bloom - Wendy Hiller's role was much smaller in the film (though it won her Best Supporting Actress Oscar). Claire excels here, but we expect nothing less from her. Liz Smith is ideal too as Miss Meacham, and Brian Deacon (from THE TRIPLE ECHO) is the young husband, there is more of him too defying Mrs Railton Bell, which I do not remember from the film (as played by Rod Taylor).  Schlesinger is the ideal director for this, and Rattigan's play is a nice plea for tolerance for those who are "different" - it is now understood that his original text had the major pestering men in the cinema, not women - which would seem more logial, but of course that was a no-no back in the '50s. I saw Rattigan doing an interesting Q&A lecture at the BFI, back in the early '70s, a very dapper man - and I passed his house on the seafront at Brighton in Sussex, only last week, when on a return visit there .... it has a blue plaque on it commemorating his living there.So pleased to get a definitive record of this great play, which does not get revived too much these days.

 

 The 1958 film ...

RETURN OF THE SOLDIER. Bates and Christie's third outing, this 1982 drama  is a surprisingly enjoyable very satisfying film too from that great era of the 70s and 80s when costume dramas with great casts were a regular on film and tv - maybe thats why this one passed me by at the time (perhaps I said "oh another Alan Bates, Julie Christie, Glenda Jackson film...") at the time of THE FORSYTH SAGA, WOMEN IN LOVE, THE VIRGIN & THE GYPSY, THE GO-BETWEEN, tv's COUNTRY MATTERS series etc - this is from a novel by Rebecca West and scripted by Hugh Whitemore, ideally directed by Alan Bridges (who also did the similar period THE HIRELING - see review below, Sarah Miles, Costume Dramas labels) and the very highly regarded THE SHOOTING PARTY, with Mason and Gielgud, which I will be returning to. 

Bates is the shell-shocked army man who loses about 20 years of his memory and has no recollection of being married to Christie, a petulant spoiled beauty here and lady of the manor. Glenda Jackson turns up with news of the injured Major and she turns out to be his great love from his past and he wants to get back with her. She though is lower class and now married to Frank Finlay and I loved their ideal little house. Ann-Margret is surprisingly effective and fits in nicely as the cousin who also resides at the big house, and the cast includes Jeremy Kemp and Ian Holm. 

The First World War milieu is perfectly realised. I liked it a lot, Christie shines in a different role for her as the demanding, haughty bitch; Glenda is perfect as usual as the simple housewife and underplays nicely here. Like Ken Russell's THE RAINBOW or Miles' THE PRIEST OF LOVE (reviews at costume drama label), it is a nice discovery now, and keeps one guessing until the end. The great house looks familiar too, perhaps I visited it once, or was that Polesden Lacey another similar grand National Trust property.

Glenda as Sarah !

Another slice of deliriously awful '70s trash: the truly dreadful costume film: THE INCREDIBLE SARAH with Glenda Jackson as French actress Sarah Bernhardt.  The first thing we see though is the Readers Digest logo, as this is a Readers Digest film .... Then there is this message: "Sarah Bernhardt was one of the greatest actresses who ever lived. ... This motion picture is a free portrayal of events in her tempestuous early career." So, we know what to expect ...

I don't think too many people saw THE INCREDIBLE SARAH back in 1976 - I had no interest in it and there are only 2 comments on it at IMDB. I remember Pauline Kael being annoyed in her review, that she would  now have a mental image of Glenda Jackson whenever Bernhardt was mentioned! 

As the reviewer at IMDB says: Bernhardt was French. She performed in French. When she was on tour in Britain, in America, in Russia - no matter where she was, she performed in French. Her tumultuous emotion was so intense, it bypassed any language barrier. Here though everything is in English, so we get no idea of what other nationalities made of her performances.

This was the era when biopics were not held in high regard and so it is here (Vanessa as ISADORA was the exception) as sets are garishly overlit (in this era of gas lights) and the costumes all look as though they have never been worn before. A considerable cast is wasted: the great Yvonne Mitchell has nothing to do as Sarah's maid, (it was Mitchell's last film),. Daniel Massey plays Sardou just like his Noel Coward in STAR! and is also the heroine's friend and confidant as various men come and go: John Castle, Simon Williams, Douglas Wilmer and others. Every cliche is lovingly burnished as young Sarah goes to her first audition, demands to be the greatest actress of all, stomps all over everyone and is an absolute pain in the neck, what with her resting in her coffin and other annoying habits. Glenda - so excellent when reined in as in Schlesinger's SUNDAY BLOODY SUNDAY, is given free rein here to indulge in all her mannerisms and soon begins to grate.

SARAH can be dismissed and laughed at as hopeless trash - it omits a lot of The Divine Sarah's life and does not end, it just mercifully stops after her Joan of Arc performance as we are back to those Art Nouveau Alphonse Mucha posters of Bernhardt. We see none of the later Sarah after her legs were amputated, no mention of Oscar Wilde or others she knew. A particularly amusing moment has her arriving by train at a station titled 'London' - surely even The Readers Digest knows that there is no 'London' station in London - London stations have names like Victoria or Waterloo, but hey lets keep it simple. Richard Fleischer directed this farrago - after his great run in the '50s with films like THE VIKINGS, COMPULSION, BARABBAS, his later 70s ones were undistinguished items like this and that dreadful PRINCE AND THE PAUPER, ASHANTI, MANDINGO, THE JAZZ SINGER ...

Its been a bit of a Glenda festival though. as I also enjoyed re-runs of NASTY HABITS, TRIPLE ECHO, and RETURN OF THE SOLDIER, which I may review some other time.  The '70s was Jackson's great era with those movies for Ken Russell, Losey and others. She also did a lot of stuff that also bypassed me as I had no interest in her comedies with George Segal or Walter Matthau, or routine fare like TURTLE DIARY. How she won a second Oscar for a routine comedy I had no interest in seeing, was surprising at the time. She played Patricia Neal for tv in THE PATRICIA NEAL STORY with Dirk Bogarde. I particularly liked her very touching STEVIE as the poet Stevie Smith, another one to re-see, as is her great television series ELIZABETH R whom she also played in MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS. A very varied career then. She ran for parliament and became an MP in 1992, retiring from acting.
That recent set of interviews BRITISH LEGENDS OF STAGE AND SCREEN has a new interview with her, commenting on her career. I have not seen her section yet, I wonder if she mentions THE INCREDIBLE SARAH !

I saw her on stage twice, in 1967 in THE THREE SISTERS, right,  at the Royal Court, as mentioned before, Theatre label, where Marianne Faithfull was a luminous Irina, and in THE MAIDS in the '70s with Susannah York, which was also filmed.  
 
She was blissfully funny in her often-repeated appearances on the BBC Morcambe & Wise shows, particularly that one where she was Cleopatra, which apparantly led to her comedy roles. All together now: "All men are fools and what makes them so is having beauty like what I have got".!.and she was very funny in that cameo in Ken's THE BOYFRIEND.