Under-rated directors: Desmond Davis

Now in his 90s (born in 1926) Desmond Davis is surely one of Britain's most neglected film directors, who had a good run in the 1960s, and directed that original star-heavy (led by Olivier, Maggie Smith) CLASH OF THE TITANS in 1981 (I couldn't even watch the CGI-heavy remake). 

He began as camera operator on TOM JONES in 1963, and also on Huston's FREUD, plus those new wavers A TASTE OF HONEY and THE LONELINESS OF THE LONG DISTANCE RUNNER. His 30 directing credits include those two particular favourites of mine, from Edna O'Brien stories: THE GIRL WITH GREEN EYES in 1964 and I WAS HAPPY HERE in 1966, with those great County Clare locations Lahinch and Liscannor, as they were then, and Sarah's bedsit in London overlooking the new Post Office Tower.  

I have written about these a lot here  - see Ireland, O'Brien, Miles, Tushingham labels), and he also directed the 1984 television remake of O'Brien's THE COUNTRY GIRLS (the original of GIRL WITH GREEN EYES). Other 60s films include our other favourite SMASHING TIME, re-uniting Rita and Lynn in that slapstick Swinging London riot. There was also a rather good Agatha Christie: ORDEAL BY INNOCENCE. 

Other British-based directors of the time may have got all the kudos and awards (Tony Richardson, Schlesinger, Losey, Lester, Boorman) but Davis's work endures and is still endlessly watchable, particularly his Irish-based dramas,which should have a lot of resonance with anyone Irish. He also did a lovely little film THE UNCLE in 1967 which barely got seen, though I got a ticket to the premiere from "Films and Filming" magazine. 

Next: equally neglected Clive Donner & WHATS NEW PUSSYCAT, ALFRED THE GREAT etc.

Vote for Britain

A crucial week here in the UK, with our election on Thursday and terror attacks escalating - lets return to the glory years of the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s and all those British movies we love, part of our current Lists season, and no, I may not be able to stick to 20 each - but then, my blog - my rules. Reviews of lots of these at British label.

1940s:

• Lets start with 7 David Lean, all essential: IN WHICH WE SERVE / THIS HAPPY BREED / BLITHE SPIRIT / BRIEF ENCOUNTER / GREAT EXPECTATIONS / OLIVER TWIST / THE PASSIONATE FRIENDS
  
• 4 Michael Powell, even more essential: A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH / I KNOW WHERE I’M GOING / BLACK NARCISSUS / THE RED SHOES
• 2 Carol Reed: THE FALLEN IDOL / ODD MAN OUT
• 2 Basil Dearden: SARABAND FOR DEAD LOVERS / THE BLUE LAMP
• Asquith; THE WAY TO THE STARS
• Annakin - HOLIDAY CAMP - the post war boom starts with those new holiday camps, 1947.
• Hamer – IT ALWAYS RAINS ON SUNDAY - the grim side of postwar London / KIND HEARTS & CORONETS
• Crichton – WHISKEY GALORE.

Let's throw in some Gainsborough melodramas which brightened up the war years: THE WICKED LADY, MADONNA OF THE SEVEN MOONS, CARAVAN, BLANCHE FURY, and some Anna Neagle epics: I LIVE IN PARK LANE, MAYTIME IN MAYFAIR. 

1950s:

Often seen as a bland decade for English movies, but lots of pleasure for those of us growing up then:

• Dearden – POOL OF LONDON / THE GENTLE GUNMAN  / VIOLENT PLAYGROUND
• Crichton – DANCE HALL (by Godfrey Winn - the leisure time of factory girls, as much a social document as SATURDAY NIGHT AND SUNDAY MORNING would be at the end of the decade)
• Hurst – DANGEROUS EXILE (ditto Belinda Lee in this 1957 costumer about the son of Marie Antoinette..)
• Box – CAMPBELL’S KINGDOM (Dirk and very tough guy Stanley Baker in the Canadian Rockies (actually the Dolomites in Italy), we loved it in 1957.
• Fregonese - SEVEN THUNDERS (Boyd leads a terrific cast in 1957 wartime thriller set in occupied Marseilles - one I enjoyed as a kid)
• J Lee Thompson - NO TREES IN THE STREET / TIGER BAY / NORTH WEST FRONTIER (all 1959)
• NO TIME FOR TEARS - 3 Anna Neagle classics:
• MY TEENAGE DAUGHTER 
• THE LADY IS A SQUARE
• THOSE DANGEROUS YEARS
• WONDERFUL THINGS
• SIMON AND LAURA 
• AN ALLIGATOR NAMED DAISY
• NOR THE MOON BY NIGHT
• OUT OF THE CLOUDS
• JET STORM - Stanley Baker pilots the plane, Richard Attenborough has the bomb, all star cast in 1959. Love it 
• HELL DRIVERS
• ALIVE AND KICKING
• THE WEAK AND THE WICKED. Glynis Johns is sent to prison and shares a cell with Diana Dors, in this delicious 1954 meller, from J Lee Thompson.
• TURN THE KEY SOFTLY. More ex-jailbirds with Yvonne Mitchell and young Joan Collins in 1953
• PASSPORT TO SHAME 
  
• EXPRESSO BONGO
• SERIOUS CHARGE
• ROOM AT THE TOP.

1960s:

The new boys and girls and directors hit town:

• VICTIM
• A TASTE OF HONEY
  
• A KIND OF LOVING (above right)
• THE L-SHAPED ROOM (Leslie Caron joins the seedy Notting Hill bedsit set, 1962)
• WEST 11 (Di Dors also in Notting Hill bedsit land with gay Alfred Lynch, in early Winner 1963)
• TWO LEFT FEET (Young Hemmings and Michael Crawford shine)
• SOME PEOPLE, 1962 charmer about Bristol teenagers, with Hemmings again.
• THE BOYS - fascinating 1962 time capsule
• THE LEATHER BOYS - another early gay British saga, 1964, below)
  
• BILLY LIAR
• THE SERVANT
• DARLING (above right) - Julie and gay pal eye up the waiter .... both get him.
• THE GIRL WITH GREEN EYES
• I WAS HAPPY HERE
• THE KNACK
• THE SYSTEM - perfectly 1964 as England began to swing ...
• THE WORLD TEN TIMES OVER - 1963 Soho saga
  
• A HARD DAY'S NIGHT
• HELP!
• THE PLEASURE GIRLS - 1965 Kensington girls, gays too!
• SATURDAY NIGHT OUT
• NOTHING BUT THE BEST
• REPULSION
• ACCIDENT.

SWINGING 60s:

• TOM JONES
• WHATS NEW PUSSYCAT?
• MODESTY BLAISE
• BLOW-UP
• SMASHING TIME
• HERE WE GO ROUND THE MULBERRY BUSH
• DEEP END
• PERFORMANCE.

All covered in detail at British/London labels. 

That Blow-Up bluray ...

Its better than I imagined, after only having the bog standard dvd for years. As in the recent 4-disk LUDWIG pack, there is another chunky 64 page booklet, 1960s interviews with Antonioni, two interviews with David Hemmings from 1968 and 1977, that long 2016 interview with Vanessa Redgrave, a Jane Birkin interview, a marvellous documentary featuring people involved with the making of the film, including model Jill Kennington, and more. It puts it all in proper context, and yes the park and the studio and London then in 1966 - which I knew as I was 20 there then - are all just perfect. Even the street I lived in, Draycott Place, SW3 in 1972-73, crops up, as its next to that restaurant. We return to the park and studio as they are now too. Lots more at labels ... one funny thing: the characters are never named, but Hemmings is Thomas, Vanessa is Jane, Sarah is Patricia, Castle is Bill, Bowles is Ron.
The booklet points out something I and most other viewers miss, no matter how often we have seen it. As Thomas is driving through London, after leaving the park, just as the girl puts the protest placard in his car, the car following has the Jane from the park and her accomplice (we see her in her check shirt) who are following him, which is how she is able to turn up at his studio just as he arrives back - I never got that before. They were also trying to get into his car while he is in the restaurant, but that sequence was cut short by producer Ponti. 

There were two video-cassettes of BLOW-UP, then the dvd - I always loved the soundtrack album, on vinyl and cd, and now finally the bluray - its Region 1 though, 

A new BLOW-UP

Finally, its on Blu-ray and dvd in a new Criterion edition released on 28 March. For far too long there has only been a standard dvd, with a terrible commentary track by a professor presumably discussing the film with a class of American teenagers who knew nothing about the Swinging Sixties or cast members like Vanessa Redgrave .... it is hilarious for all the wrong reasons.

I have written about Antonioni's BLOW-UP so many times already, so this is just a summary of the new edition. I was going to watch the dvd as part of my new year re-views, but we will be waiting till March now. Here is the Criterion blurb and contents:

In 1966, Michelangelo Antonioni transplanted his existentialist ennui to the streets of swinging London for this international sensation, the Italian filmmaker’s first English-language feature. A countercultural masterpiece about the act of seeing and the art of image making, Blow-Up takes the form of a psychological mystery, starring David Hemmings as a fashion photographer who unknowingly captures a death on film after following two lovers in a park. Antonioni’s meticulous aesthetic control and intoxicating color palette breathe life into every frame, and the jazzy sounds of Herbie Hancock, a beautifully evasive performance by Vanessa Redgrave, and a cameo by the Yardbirds make the film a transporting time capsule from a bygone era. Blow-Up is a seductive immersion into creative passion, and a brilliant film by one of cinema’s greatest artists.

New, restored 4K digital transfer, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray

New pieces about director Michelangelo Antonioni’s artistic approach, featuring photography curators Walter Moser and Philippe Garner and art historian David Alan Mellor

Blow Up of “Blow Up,” a 2016 documentary on the making of the film

Conversation from 2016 between Garner and actor Vanessa Redgrave

Archival interviews with Antonioni and actors David Hemmings and Jane Birkin

Trailers

PLUS: A book featuring an essay by film scholar David Forgacs, an updated 1966 account of the film’s shooting by Stig Björkman, the questionnaires the director distributed to photographers and painters while developing the film, and the 1959 Julio Cortázar short story on which the film is loosely based.

Of course the plot does not bear too much examining. How for instance, in that pre-internet world,  does the mystery woman Vanessa Redgrave turn up at the photographer's studio just as he arrives back, when she does not seem to know who he is in the park, let alone where he lives or works. They must have followed him from the park, via that detour to the Chelsea restaurant (which I used to know, as I lived near it in '72/'73). 
There was supposed to be more about someone rifling through his car there, but producer Ponti nixed the rest of that sequence. The whole murder in the park and leaving the body undiscovered there seems all a bit far-fetched, but one is swept up in the mystery of it all, and that perfect London 1966 ambience. 
I was 20 and part of it all then. It was of course the film to see and have an opinion on when it opened in London early in 1967 before going to the Cannes Festival. Terence Stamp too is on record about it, as he had been promised the part, and is still annoyed about it .... David Hemmings though delivers a major performance as the typical disillusioned Antonioni male - he had been fairly nondescript up till then,  but was soon the icon of the era. 
We just love the images and the spaces - that park, that studio, London changing as it was then, and that perfect Herbie Hancock soundtrack, which has stayed with me, on vinyl, CD, and ipod. Now for the Blu-ray ...

If you’ve never seen Blowup before, prepare yourself for one of the cinema’s most unique experiences. If you have seen it before, prepare as well for rediscovering—much like the film’s hero—something you only thought you knew.

Cover Girl - an occasional series

I had this TOWN magazine when I was 16, in 1962, showing young starlet and girl about town Sarah Miles, then making a name for herself, with the release of TERM OF TRIAL, which she would follow up with THE SERVANT, she has been creating headlines for a long time. Great to see her a few years ago, as per Sarah label. More TOWN girls coming up. 
It was that large stylish men's magazine covering the London high life, and copies fetch a good price now. (I got this and the Vitti and Monroe cover issues reasonably cheap a while ago ...). The photo is by Terence Donovan, as is this 1966 shoot with Joanna Lumley ....

Unnecessary remakes: Great Expectations, 1974

I have just read Kenneth Branagh is directing (and playing Poirot) in a new MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS - who needs another one? The 1974 Lumet film is so well known even after 40 years and still gets shown a lot, a television staple in fact. There was also a recent BBC version too with their regular Poirot David Suchet. I am not a Poirot fan as such - the all-star Peter Ustinov ones were rather fun though. 

Now though I have finally got my hands on that rather forgotten 1974 version of GREAT EXPECTATIONS - we did not get to see it at the time, despite several of my favourites here. One would imagine Margaret Leighton would be as perfect a Miss Havisham as Martita Hunt, and Sarah Miles just right as Estella, add in James Mason as Magwich, and Michael York is the earnest Pip - all as one would imagine, and with sterling support from Robert Morley, Joss Ackland, Rachel Roberts, Dudley Sutton, Peter Bull and more - yet it all seems deadly dull and just does not soar; the cast seem to be on autopilot, just doing what is expected of them. We know the story so well of course, this apparantly was going to be a musical version, but seems they changed their minds, so its just another dull telly costumer, ploddingly  directed by Joseph Hardy. 
(York of course is one of the stars of the '74 Lumet ORIENT EXPRESS - made the same year as this EXPECTATIONS). 

David Lean's version is still the one to beat here. Its involving and engrossing every time one sees it, one could even see it ignoring the story and just relishing that fantastic black and white photography by future director Guy Green. That version remains a classic film, this '74 one is just a tepid re-working that rightly sank without trace. It is one of Lord Lew Grade's all-star productions, music by Maurice Jarre, and lensed by Freddie Young. They needn't have bothered. 

Theatre stills: an occasional series

Shots from great theatre productions I have seen. We start with favourites Sarah Miles and Eileen Atkins as those rival queens in Robert Bolt's VIVAT REGINA, a stunning night at the theatre in 1971. Coming Up: Glenda, Susannah, Alan Bates, Bergman, Bacall, Jill Bennett, Ian McKellen,  Lee Remick, Angela Lansbury and Peggy Ashcroft, and more. 

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.