Revisiting old favourites ...

I have written about these here several times, so no need to rehash them again, but its been a lot of fun revisiting QUENTIN DURWARD, JUSTINE and SANDRA ..... see labels for previous comments.

QUENTIN DURWARD from 1955 is maybe my favourite costume drama from the 50s (along with Fritz Lang's MOONFLEET, also 1955 - I enjoyed seeing them as a kid at Sunday afternoon matinees). DURWARD captures the Walter Scott world perfectly, with perfect roles for Kay Kendall and Robert Taylor and Robert Morley as the very devious King of France. 

JUSTINE is a genuine Trash Classic, started in Tunisia and then moved to Hollywood, it in 1969, it has that plush 20th Century Fox look, a great score by Jerry Goldsmith and Anouk Aimee looking stunning in those Irene Sharaff creations, plus Michael York and Dirk Bogarde as well as Anna Karina. George Cukor took over the direction, lensed by veteran Leon Shamroy, so it romps along, capturing some of Durrell's exotic Aleandria. I just like it a lot.

SANDRA in 1965 is maybe a lesser Visconti, but is still a powerful operatic melodrama with Claudia Cardinale and Jean Sorel at their peaks of stunning beauty as the incestuous brother and sister. Again, one to savour. 

Summer re-views: Payroll - 1961

PAYROLL. A tough, tense thriller which I had enjoyed as a young teen in 1961, PAYROLL is a real treat now. Sidney Hayers film shows the exciting robbery and its aftermath as thieves fall out.

Ever since THE ASPHALT JUNGLE and RIFIFI this is the standard gangster robbery drama and it works again here. Nicely set around Newcastle, Johnny Mellor’s band of ruthless criminals plot and carry out a payroll robbery, with the help of crooked company employee Pearson (William Lucas) whose dissatisfied French wife Francoise Prevost soon realises what he is up to. She and Mellor (Michael Craig) are soon plotting to escape together, but had not reckoned on the grieving wife (Billie Whitelaw, excellent as ever) of the van driver who got killed in the robbery. She begins to track them down herself …. 

With Tom Bell and Kenneth Griffith as other gang members who soon fall out over the money and come to sticky ends. As the police close in, the gang begins to fall apart, with each desperately seeking a way out, and in their panic no one realises there is one adversary they have all overlooked. Pearson’s wife thinks she has the money, but is in for a surprise …. Mellor escapes to his boat but nemesis in the shape of Whitelaw waits for him.

Like 1960's THE LEAGUE OF GENTLEMEN where Jack Hawkins' gang of gentlemen thieves also fall foul of a robbery gone wrong, PAYROLL is now a delicious time capsule of that long vanished British crime caper. Craig and Whitelaw are favourites of ours here and both excel in different roles for them.

4 British classics ....

As mentioned we moved house back in May, downsizing to an apartment 10 floors up, with great views. So we have been re-sorting and getting settled ok. A box of dvds though seems to have gone astray, maybe thrown out by mistake ..... I have had to re-buy several I had to have, but at least they are very cheap now. 

There were 4 essential British classics I had to have back:

THE BLUE LAMP - the 1949 thriller with a young Dirk Bogarde in his break-out role as the spiv with a gun in grim postwar London - its still terrific now, with great location filming. This is the one where PC Dixon of Dock Green (Jack Warner) gets shot by Dirk, but was later resurrected for that long-running TV series, which I remember seeing when new in London in the '60s.

POOL OF LONDON - a museum piece from 1951 showing the busy docks of London around London Bridge and surrounding bombsites after the war - its all different now of course with the new City Hall by London Bridge, ships can't moor there any more. A sterling British cast of the time headed by Bonar Colleano and Earl Cameron  as sailors on leave getting involved with crime and robbery, and there's that early inter-racial romance ....

SAPPHIRE - a fascinating re-view now from 1959, with the murder of that girl whose body is found on Hampstead Heath, as we follow detectives Nigel Patrick and Michael Craig as they discover that the girl, Sapphire, was passing for white - we follow the investigation through the London night clubs and to that ordindary suburban family. Yvonne Mitchell is marvellous as ever here. Those gals passing for white just can't resist those bongo drums, as detective Michael Craig realises in that seedy Notting Hill clip-joint ....

VICTIM - London in 1961 with those homosexuals being blackmailed, as we see all sections of society from titled toffs to grubby bedsits, taking in the famous Salisbury (gay then) pub, and the bookshops around Charing Cross Road, as barrister Melville Farr (Bogarde again) determines to find the blackmailers who have caused the death of the young man (Peter McEnery) he had been seeing, to the consteration of his wife Sylvia Syms, who does not understand ....

It was only after ordering them I realised all four are of course directed by Basil Dearden (killed in a car crash in 1971 aged 60) - one of the great directors of British films, but not as lauded as the Schlesingers, Loseys or Richardsons were. 

Other British classics of that post-war era, which I like a lot, and are reviewed here, at British/London  labels include IT ALWAYS RAINS ON SUNDAY, HOLIDAY CAMP (both 1947), and  DANCE HALL from 1950. The early '50s also provided those enjoyable entertainments like TURN THE KEY SOFTLY, THE WEAK AND THE WICKED, THE GOOD DIE YOUNG, IT STARTED IN PARADISE (with Kay Kendall in a small role before hits like SIMON AND LAURA). Then there's those enjoyable Rank romps like AN ALLIGATOR NAMED DAISY, THE SPANISH GARDENER, CAMPBELL'S KINGDOM, DANGEROUS EXILE, PASSPORT TO SHAME and more, keeping the likes of Dirk Bogarde, Glynis Johns, Joan Collns, Yvonne Mitchell, Stanley Baker Michael Craig, Laurence Harvey, Diana Dors, Belinda Lee busy ...
So British cinema in the 1950s was very productive too, the Forties may have been the golden era of David Lean, Michael Powell, Carol Reed, Anthony Asquith, and the Sixties to early Seventies saw the new crowd of Tony Richardson, John Schlesinger, Joseph Losey, Richard Lester, Clive Donner etc. before the Trash merchants took over. 
The Fifties also saw that British War Era as they re-fought World War II keeping Dirk in uniform, along with Richard Todd, Kenneth More, John Mills, Jack Hawkins, Peter Finch, Stanley Baker, Michael Redgrave etc: THE SEA SHALL NOT HAVE THEM, THE CRUEL SEA, SEA OF SAND, DUNKIRK, THE DAM BUSTERS, REACH FOR THE SKY, THE MALTA STORY, APPOINTMENT IN LONDON, THEY WHO DARE, ILL MET BY MOONLIGHT, BATTLE OF THE RIVER PLATE, YANGSTE INCIDENT etc. 

Claudia as Sandra, 1965

SANDRA: A return to Visconti's operatic melodrama from 1965, VAGHE STELLE D'ORSA (its from a poem) or OF A THOUSAND DELIGHTS or simply SANDRA - which I have written about here before [Visconti, Cardinale, Sorel, Craig labels]. 

It is a small film in the Visconti canon, overshadowed by those big operatic productions like THE LEOPARD, THE DAMNED, DEATH IN VENICE or LUDWIG. 
I first saw it when I was 19 in 1965 and then it became unobtainable for a long time. It was great to catch up with it again last year, and it was as powerful as I remembered. The stunning black and white photography by Armando Nannuzzi show Claudia Cardinale at her zenith, along with Jean Sorel as her brother and English actor Michael Craig as her husband.

Sandra and her husband return to the family home, one of those sprawling Italian mansions, in the Etruscan city of Volterra, where family secrets are slowly uncovered, as Sandra has to confront her brother who wants to resume their once-incestous relationship (Claudia and Sorel are both stunningly attractive and powerful here), her mentally ill monther and the crumbling estate and the secret about their father and the war ... Visconti builds it to a powerful climax,and the images still resonate.

6 lesser-known '60s dramas + a treat ...

Following on from the lesser-known '50s dramas (see below), lets turn to the '60s: 

SONS AND LOVERS. D.H. Lawrence seems back in vogue again, with that new underwhelming BBC version of LADY CHATTERLEY’S LOVER screened recently, and the BFI are screening a restored WOMEN IN LOVE at the forthcoming London Film Festival, but the only version I know of his monumental novel SONS AND LOVERS is this 1960 version directed by Jack Cardiff, with great CinemaScope black and white images of those Nottingham coal pit communities by Freddie Francis, and co-scripted by Gavin Lambert. 

Young American actor Dean Stockwell plays Paul Morel the sensitive lead trying to become a writer, but the film is dominated by two great performances from Wendy Hiller and his fiercely protective if domineering mother and Trevor Howard as her embittered husband, a coal miner. Their battles form the backbone of the film, as Paul tries to establish his independence and his relationships with with pious Miriam (Heather Sears) and the worldly older married woman Clara Dawes (Mary Ure). It may be rather forgotten now, but was a ‘prestige’ picture (one of 20^th Century Fox’s literary classics little seen now) and was nominated for seven Academy Awards including best film and best director.

ALL FALL DOWN. Another pair of embattled parents (Karl Malden and Angela Lansbury as Ralph and Annabel) feature in John Frankenheimer’s lyrical 1962 drama scripted by William Inge from a book I loved at the time; James’s Leo Herlihy’s novel about 16 year old Clint (Brandon De Wilde) who idolises his wastrel older brother Berry-Berry (Warren Beatty in one of his early eye-catching roles) . I was 16 myself and identified totally with Clint, as we see him initially in Key West in Florida tracking down his brother, who finally comes home for Christmas. This is an amusing sequence as Ralph brings home three tramps for the festive season, to spite Annabel's plans, but she soon manoeuvres them out of the house, aided by some dollar bills. 

The arrival of Echo O’Brien, the “old maid from Toledo” (Eva Marie Saint in another stunning performance) upsets the balance of the house, Clint becomes infatuated with her but she and Berry-Berry embark on a doomed romance and she gets pregnant, but he cannot handle the responsibility and reverts of his mean nature beating up women, as Clint finally sees how shallow and empty and hate-filled he is. I have written about this here before, as per the labels. It remains a pleasure from that good year for Frankenheimer – he also turned out THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE and BIRDMAN OF ALCATRAZ that year. De Wilde also had a good role in HUD the following year, but died in a traffic accident when 30 in 1972. Gay writer Herlihy went on to write "Midnight Cowboy" and did some acting too, he appears with Jean Seberg (see below) in the 1963 IN THE FRENCH STYLE, another favourite.

REACH FOR GLORY. Another book I loved back then when 16 in 1962 was “The Custard Boys” by John Rae, which was a highly-regarded novel about British teenagers in wartime. This is what I wrote back in 2011:

Hardly ever seen now, Philip Leacock's 1962 film REACH FOR GLORY is the film version of a highly praised 1960 novel "The Custard Boys" by John Rae, a headteacher at Westminster College. The blurb said: "During World War II, teenage boys in a small English town are consumed with jingoism and brutal war games, hoping dearly that the war won't end before they can fight in it. John, one of the younger members, is increasingly torn between these peer group values and his deepening homoerotic friendship with Mark, a gentle Jewish refugee whom his gang has ostracized as a sissy and a coward." It is rather suggestive of LORD OF THE FLIES, leading as it does to tragedy, and starts with the boys chasing and killing a cat. The main adults are the estimable Harry Andrews and Kay Walsh as hero John Curlew's parents, and Michael Anderson as Lewis Craig, the bullying leader of the gang, as the boys are encouraged in their war games, but love and affection are very suspect - life during wartime! 
The worst thing here is to be a coward, as John realises, coping with his blustering father (Andrews) and his deepening friendship with the Jewish boy Mark Stein. But there is a real bullet among the blanks in their training exercises …

Leacock was a very prolific director, very good with children, who in the '50s directed films like THE SPANISH GARDENER [review at Dirk Bogarde label], and later went on to a successful career in American television with the likes of THE WALTONS, DYNASTY and FALCON CREST. This though is a nice small little back and white film, and an early 'gay interest' title, which I managed to catch once as a supporting feature, but have now got a dvd copy. It's been well worth the wait.

THE GIRL WITH GREEN EYES & I WAS HAPPY HERE:

Two perfect mid-60s British black and white romantic dramas set in Ireland - both from Edna O'Brien stories, and both directed by Desmond Davis are 1964's THE GIRL WITH GREEN EYES and I WAS HAPPY HERE in 1966, starring Sarah Miles (a world away from her other overblown Irish romance for David Lean). I have written about these here before (Sarah, Rita, Edna O'Brien, Ireland labels). They do though make a perfect double bill. O'Brien's theme in both is the passage of love as her Irish country girls love and lose and set up new lives in London.

This was very relevant for me being Irish and new in London too then, as Miles' Cass goes back to her Irish village [Liscanor and Lahinch in Co Clare, where Cyril Cusack runs the hotel she used to work at, and which is closed for the winter, and Marie Kean presides over the local pub] while Rita and Lynn (wonderful as the feckless Baba) have their adventures in '60s Dublin as Tush is romanced by wordly older man Peter Finch (sterling, as ever); Marie Kean is his housekeeper, handy with a rifle. It ends with the girls on the night ferry from Dun Laoghaire to England - a trip I did myself many times - and shows us Rita's new life in London - she works at the WH Smith shop in Notting Hill Gate just across from the Classic Cinema (above) - an old haunt of mine! whereas Sarah also ends up wiser as her boorish husband comes to reclaim her, and her fisherman lover has found a new love .... both are perfect small films that pays re-viewing. I particularly liked Sarah's london bedsit with its great view of that '60s icon The Post Office Tower. Sarah went on to Antonioni's BLOW-UP (which according to her memoirs was not a happy experience for her) and then back to Ireland - Kerry this time - for the protracted shoot on RYAN'S DAUGHTER, released in 1970. Rita had the smash hit of Lester's THE KNACK among others, and she and Lynn teamed again to great comic effect in Desmond Davis's SMASHING TIME, great fun in 1968,as per reviews at labels. See Sarah and Rita labels for more on these treats. 

SANDRA or OF A THOUSAND DELIGHTS. Visconti's operatic melodrama from 1965, VAGHE STELLE D'ORSA (its from a poem) or OF A THOUSAND DELIGHTS or simply SANDRA - which I have written about here before [Visconti, Cardinale, Sorel, Craig labels]. 

It is a small film in the Visconti canon, overshadowed by those big operatic productions like ROCCO, THE LEOPARD, THE DAMNED, DEATH IN VENICE or LUDWIG. I first saw it when I was 19 in 1965 and then it became unobtainable for a long time. It was great to catch up with it again last year, and it was as powerful as I remembered. The stunning black and white photography by Armando Nannuzzi show Claudia Cardinale at her zenith, along with Jean Sorel as her brother and English actor Michael Craig as her husband.

Sandra and her husband return to the family home, one of those sprawling Italian mansions, in the Etruscan city of Volterra, where family secrets are slowly uncovered, as Sandra has to confront her brother who wants to resume their once-incestous relationship, her mentally ill mother and the crumbling estate and the secret about their father and the war ... Visconti builds it to a powerful climax,and the images still resonate. Good to see this back in circulation again, it is certainly one to seek out and keep.

And now, after all these moody black and white dramas, a burst of sunshine and colour and romance as we head off to the South of France, for a delicious mid-60s romantic drama/thriller, of the old school.

MOMENT TO MOMENT in 1966 is a glossy romantic thriller by old hand Mervyn Le Roy (his last film) set in the South of France and is a fabulous treat to see now at this remove. It was part of a double-bill on release initially.

The first half is lushly romantic as Jean Seberg drives around Nice in her snazzy red sports car, sporting a Yves St Laurent wardrobe that would still be the height of chic today - she is a bored wife whose (dull) husband Arthur Hill is away on business, and she gets romantically involved [as one does] with a naval officer on the loose - Sean Garrison, a bit wooden but does what is required of him, ie - he fills out his uniform nicely. Jean resists at first but ... add in Honor Blackman [just after her stint as Pussy Galore with James Bond] as the mantrap next door and the stage is set for some fireworks.

Then it turns into a Chabrol-like thriller with a missing body, police on the prowl, the return of the husband and the missing body (very much alive).  It is though all nicely worked out, a lot of it studio bound, but nice locations too. Jean is perfect here and its a perfect mid'60s treat. Great Henry Mancini score too .... it deserves to be much better known and would be a much better chick flick now than some of the current examples. There is a lovely moment at the well-known Colombe D'Or restaurant (still going strong at St-Paul-de-Vence - I read a recommendtion on it last week) with the doves flying into the sun .... perfectly romantic then with a few Hitchcockian twists and Seberg is in her lovely prime here. What's not to like? My pal Jerry loves it as well and thanks to him for sourcing a copy. 

British double bill

THE ANGRY SILENCE. One 1960 British film I had not seen before from that 'kitchen-sink' era, but I remember it well as it attracted a lot of publicity at the time, when I was 14. About a wildcat strike at a midlands factory and the motives of the various people involved, it plays like a serious version of I’M ALL RIGHT JACK and it’s a riveting view now, capturing as it does that lost world of busy factories, workers arriving on the bicycles, the furnished rooms and apartments they live in. Richard Attenborough is a dependable guy, married to Italian Pier Angeli, and Michael Craig lodges with them. (I remember having that "Picture Show" magazine, above).
Then unrest at the factory begins, as we see that stranger (Alfred Burke) arrive in town, is he perhaps there to stir up trouble?, we also see his leaving at the end, job done. Bernard Lee is the pushy union man looking for any opportunity to strike, Geoffrey Keen and Laurence Naismith the worried but decent factory bosses. Young Oliver Reed and Brian Bedford are among the young layabouts wanting to cause trouble.
 Attenborough gets sent to Coventry by his former workmates and friends as he refuses to join their strike, so no one will talk to him. This leads to tragedy, his son too is bullied at school, as his wife Anne gets more and more frantic. 

Pier Angeli (above) is a stand-out here, in maybe her best role. (She and Attenborough were in the 1959 programmer SOS PACIFIC (review at Pier Angeli label), which maybe led to her casting her). Craig is reliable as usual, the film is scripted by Bryan Forbes (who also appears) from an idea by Craig and his brother Richard Gregson (who went on to marry Natalie Wood). It remains a riveting slice of life from that era. Directed by Guy Green (that ace cinematographer on Lean's GREAT EXPECTATIONS, who became a director).

KING & COUNTRY. The one Joseph Losey film which never made any money, I had not seen it since its release in 1964 and it never cropped up since (outside of Losey retrospectives at the BFI),  but there it was on late night television, along with BILLY LIAR and THE ANGRY SILENCE, on a minor cable channel.

During World War I, an army private is accused of desertion during battle. The officer assigned to defend him at his court-martial finds out there is more to the case than meets the eye.

This, from a play “Hamp” scripted by Evan Jones, and it seems star Dirk Bogarde (back with Losey after THE SERVANT) also had a hand in it. It is the downbeat story of a private in the First World War, tried for desertion and executed, as he simply walked away from the guns and carnage, obviously shell-shocked. Confined to one set, we are in the muddy trenches with the common soldiers (Jeremy Spencer and gang) as officers Dirk Bogarde, Leo McKern, James Villiers prepare their case against Private Hamp – 
Tom Courtenay in another sterling performance as the innocent who does not realise the enormity of what he did and what will happen to him, in this brutal system. 
This was an ‘X Certificate’ film at the time, I cannot see why now. It is strong stuff though, bleak and unrelenting, particularly that climax when Bogarde puts the injured soldier out of his misery. Made in 18 days and for not very much money, it is certainly one rare item it is good to see again, and how it fits into the Losey canon between THE SERVANT and MODESTY BLAISE and ACCIDENT. 
KING & COUNTRY is now available on dvd, and, for UK viewers, is being screened again by Film4 this time, next Tuesday afternoon, 15th, and will be repeated the following week. 

1957 Royal Film Perf.

Another Royal Film Performance - this time the 1957 one. We covered the 1966 one recently (Showpeople label). This is another of those Pathe Newsreels now on YouTube ..... lots of happy browsing there!

This time the film is that 1957 favourite of mine, Cukor's LES GIRLS, but none of the stars are featured in the newsreel or in the Royal line-up. Surely Kay Kendall was there with maybe Mitzi and Taina and surely Gene Kelly would be there? Kay was delayed in America doing some TV shows ...

But we do have Sophia Loren and Jayne Mansfield (very demure here - unlike, also that year when Sophia arrived in Hollywood and there was reception for her at Romanoffs when Jayne who was not invited gatecrashed and bent over Sophia showing her very low cut dress .... which caused a sensation at the time, but did not do Jayne much good, as her studio (whom Sophia was doing BOY ON A DOLPHIN for) took a dim view of her antics and it really spelled the end of Mansfield's era in American films, as the rest of her films were made in Europe ...).

Also on hand here, are favourites like Michael Craig and Yvonne Mitchell, our recent re-discovery Anne Heywood, and Royal show regulars Kenneth More and Jack Hawkins, plus William Holden and Cecil B De Mille.

There are plenty other Royal Performances available on YouTube.

Coming up here: a Euro-feast, with about 10 Romy Schneider titles (LA CALIFFA, A SIMPLE STORY, VIEUX FUSIL, FANTASMA D'AMORE from 1981 with Marcello Mastroianni (finally a sub-titled print), and MONPTI from 1957 with Horst Buchholz, along with MADO, A WOMAN AT HER WINDOW, THE LADY BANKER, LOVE IN THE RAIN and more, 
plus a few Catherine Deneuve: APRES LUI, LE VOLEURS, MY FAVOURITE SEASON, HOTEL AMERICA. Then there's Jayne Mansfield's TOO HOT TO HANDLE ! 
plus more Jean Sorel, Belinda Lee, and finally a sub-titled print of Delon & Belmondo's BORSALINO from 1970, and Gabin and Signoret in LE CHAT ! Then there's 2 Tati's: PLAYTIME and TRAFFIC, and all those HAMLETs of stage and screen. How I spoil you.

Cops and robbers - English style, from the '40s onward

SLEEPING CAR TO TRIESTE, 1948. This is a delicious treat now, a 1940s train movie stuffed with players of the era, one to rank with THE LADY VANISHES or NIGHT TRAIN TO MUNICH. Here we have spies Albert Lieven (hissably evil as usual) and Jean Kent and a notebook that could change the face of the war, which they must get their hands on, but which is now hidden on that Orient Express to Trieste. Add in Finlay Currie as a pompous windbag, Bonar Colleano as another annoying Yank, Gregoire Aslan as a chef, plus Rona Anderson, David Tomlinson as a crashing bore, among that supporting cast. The plot twists and turns until we happily reach our destination.

BOYS IN BROWN, 1949. Juvenile delinquents, British style. How did I miss this one? Well I was too young then for a start. This is an even more delirious look at late-40s England (one that is never revived now) as we join those borstal boys in their short trousers in that institution presided over by well-meaning Jack Warner. Our two main ‘boys’ are Richard Attenborough and the rather more mature Jack Hanley. Chief inmate is scheming Dirk Bogarde, playing here with a camp, Welsh accent – Dirk would have been 29 at the time, so these are rather mature teenagers.
 Attenborough and Hanley are both decent chaps who have had misfortune and gone off the rails, but surely with Warner’s help they can be turned into decent citizens? Michael Medwin, Alfie Bass, Graham Payn, John Blyth, Patrick Holt are among the other ‘boys’ with Thora Hird as mother and Barbara Murry as love interest. Directed by Montgomery Tully, it must have paved the way for THE BLUE LAMP in 1950.
[A postscript: in 1970 when we were waiting to enter the auditorium for Dirk Bogarde’s discussion at the BFI (see Bogarde label for more on that), I got talking to the Attenboroughs who were next to me, Dickie was like an old friend and insisted on signing my programme. What a dear chap.].

THE BLUE LAMP. Despite being a great Dirk Bogarde admirer, I had not seen many of his early films – they simply never appear here, but are now on reasonable mid-price dvds by the enterprising StudioCanal. THE BLUE LAMP was a key British film of the time, 1950, and is an authentic postwar British classic, directed by the ever-watchable Basil Dearden. We focus on several policemen at a London station, Paddington Green. Jack Warner is Dixon, a veteran bobby on the beat, Jimmy Hanley is the new recruit who looks on Dixon as a father figure (he lodges with Dixon and his wife, Gladys Henson). Dirk Bogarde and Patrick Doonan are the two cheap hoods, who plan a robbery during a cinema visit and Dirk shoots Dixon when he gets in the way.
The cheap hood is finally cornered at the crowded White City Stadium, where police and the underworld come together to catch him - great location shooting. Bogarde is simply electrifying here, one could see he was going places. It is a marvellous look at the London of the time, with the post-war bombsites and the different way of life then, people looking up to and trusting the policemen on the street, keeping an eye on everybody. Shot in an influential semi-documentary style, it paved the way for the later tv cop shows like Z-CARS and Dixon himself was resurrected by the BBC for the long-running series DIXON OF DOCK GREEN. Dirk's spiv period was followed by his war heroes in the early 50s (see reviews of THE SEA SHALL NOT HAVE THEM, APPOINTMENT IN LONDON, ILL MET BY MOONLIGHT etc, and then his popular DOCTOR films which made him the 'Idol of the Odeons' before his later more serious films, like those Loseys and others ...

HUNTED, 1952. Another Bogarde spiv role, this is a fascinating Charles Crichton film which never lets up, as it teams a man on the run with a lonely young boy Robbie (little John Whiteley, about 7 here) who, afraid of his stepfather, flees home after setting  the kitchen curtains on fire. He runs into Chris Lloyd (Dirk Bogarde), who's just murdered a man. Chris abducts Robbie and the two go on the run as Lloyd cannot shake the boy off. 
They journey around the country, and a touching and sensitive bond forms between the two fugitives. They end up in Scotland as Lloyd realises he cannot continue with the ill child, so gives himself up. Crichton nicely catches working class life in postwar England, and it’s a gritty but pleasing drama. With Kay Walsh, Elizabeth Sellars, Geoffrey Keen. 
Bogarde and Whiteley were teamed again in the popular THE SPANISH GARDENER in 1956 (Bogarde label). Whiteley is a perfect little boy here in '52, and also starred in that costume favourite, MOONFLEET in 1955. HUNTED could almost be the template for the later TIGER BAY in 1959. 
Right: THE SPANISH GARDENER, 1956.

PAYROLL. A tough, tense thriller which I had not seen since its release in 1961, PAYROLL is a real treat now. Sidney Hayers film shows the exciting robbery and its aftermath as thieves fall out. Ever since THE ASPHALT JUNGLE and RIFFIFI this is the standard gangster robbery drama and it works again here. Nicely set around Newcastle, Johnny Mellor’s band of ruthless criminals plot and carry out a payroll robbery, with the help of crooked company employee Pearson (William Lucas) whose dissatisfied French wife Francoise Prevost soon realises what he is up to. She and Mellor (Michael Craig) are soon plotting to escape together, but had not reckoned on the grieving wife (Billie Whitelaw, excellent as ever) of the van driver who got killed in the robbery. She begins to track them down herself …. With Tom Bell and Kenneth Griffith as other gang members who soon fall out over the money and come to sticky ends. As the police close in, the gang begins to fall apart, with each desperately seeking a way out, and in their panic no one realises there is one adversary they have all overlooked. Pearson’s wife thinks she has the money, but is in for a surprise …. Mellor escapes to his boat but nemesis in the shape of Whitelaw waits for him.

ROBBERY. Peter Yates’ 1967 film is another perfect gangster bank robbery movie, only its not a bank this time, but the mail train our ambitious band of criminals want to rob. Yes, it is a fictional re-creation of the 1963 Great Train Robbery. This is an uncomprising portrayal of Swinging London’s criminal underworld. In an almost documentary style ROBBERY mixes meticulously constructed, high octane action sequences (including one of the best car chases seen on film – before Yates’s next, BULLITT) with taut suspense and gritty realism, making it the template for future thrillers. Stanley Baker is the lead, coolly plotting the robbery, Frank Finlay has to be sprung from prison to oversee the money, then there is Barry Foster, William Marlowe, James Booth as the detective; Joanna Pettet is rather wasted as Baker’s wife but good to see this 60s actress again. 
The robbery is carried out and our gang start counting out the money in their underground hideaway under that deserted airfield. But soon that helicopeter is hovering overhead …. As Finlay made the mistake of calling his wife from a nearby phonebox, alarting the police to activity nearby. It was ever so …. Baker though escapes, as we see in that closing coda in New York.

The Trash item (see Labels) here is ALL COPPERS ARE. Were the '70s really this tacky? A 1970s twist on British cops and robbers, this is now a deliciously sleazy addition to those grubby early ‘70s movies that the British film industry was reduced to. It pits a young policeman Martin Potter against a small-time crook Nicky Henson, as both fall for the same girl, Julia Foster. The cop though is already married … 
Shot around Battersea and Victoria it is a fascinating look at the city then, and the fashions and interior decors of the era are all here too, to laugh at now. Potter – so right in FELLINI SATYRICON is quite ordinary (and a long way from Fellini) here. 
Supporting cast includes young David Essex, Robin Askwith, Sandra Dorne, Queenie Watts and more, and lets not forget Ian Hendry as that gay gangster with his camp boyfriend in tow .... It is an amusing timewaster now, one pities people who paid to see it at the time. Produced by Peter Rogers it has the cheap look of his '70s CARRY ONs; directed by the prolific Sidney Heyers, who did better with PAYROLL (above), CIRCUS OF HORRORS, THE TRAP etc.  

Henson was quite the lad then - those tight trousers are so '70s - as per his randy guest at FAWLTY TOWERS; uncrecognisbably older he was in the last series of DOWNTON ABBEY. He was once married to Una Stubbs, and is the grandson of veteran Gladys Henson, a favourite here. 
Martin Potter is married to Susie Blake, comedienne from the Victoria Wood shows, she was Bev in CORONATION STREET and recently the bitch mother-in-law in MRS BROWN'S BOYS - one of the more surprising show-business unions. 
Julia Foster of course married vet Bruce Fogle and is the mother of Ben Fogle.

These are also interesting London films, as per London label, fitting in with the likes of POOL OF LONDON, IT ALWAYS RAINS ON SUNDAY, DANCE HALL, SAPPHIRE, VICTIM, WEST 11 and the like ...

Soon: more early Bogarde in PENNY PRINCESS and SO LONG AT THE FAIR, plus late '50s: LIBEL and THE DOCTOR'S DILEMMA / 4 more Bakers: SEA FURY, VIOLENT PLAYGROUND, HELL IS A CITY, THE CRIMINAL and another look at Losey/'s BLIND DATE, 1959.