Hitchcock blondes driving to ......

Here's Janet and Tippi driving towards their respective fates ..... the sense of doom created by Herrmann's great score builds as Marion Crane approaches the Bates Motel; and poised socialite Melanie Daniels blithely driving towards Bodega Bay with those lovebirds ...

I am now away for a week in Ireland, but will return with those NOCTURNAL ANIMALS
and DR STRANGE, and a Seventies camp classic; Diana Ross in MAHOGANY, as well as More Bad Movies We Love, and a selection of lesser-known European Classics. and some more "Interesting Careers".

Stills of the day

Irene Dunne and Cary in THE AWFUL TRUTH, 1937 - I just love them, they also did MY FAVOURTE WIFE and PENNY SERENADE, as per Cary & Irene labels. 

Thanks to Colin for this shot of Antonioni and Vitti during THE RED DESERT in 1964. We love Monica as a blonde but she looks great here too ..... Richard Harris at his most monotonous disliked working with them and walked off the picture. No loss. Lots more at Antonioni, Vitti labels ....

We always like another look at THE BIRDS here, I like this particular scene, where socialite Melanie Daniels meets Mitch's mother for the first time in the cafe, after that gull swoops down to peck her ... See Hitch, Rod & Tippi labels for lots more.

The previous year, 1962, Jessica Tandy had played another controlling mother in HEMINGWAY'S ADVENTURES OF A YOUNG MAN, driving son Richard Beymer away and her husband, Arthur Kennedy, to suicide - to get away from her. We will be re-viewing that again soon. 

In the mood for summer repeats

Rapture! - In the mood for IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE again ... (as per review last year, 2000s label). 

Our heatwave seems to be finally over, as rain and cooler weather arrive,with that autumn nip in the air already! I won't have to be drinking too many cool Italian lagers or Belgian ciders then .... but we often get a good warm late summer here in the British Isles, and over on the West coast of Ireland, where I spend time too, right on the edge of Europe ...

Meanwhile, those summer repeats keep on coming. I have a stack on recent releases to watch: THE WOLF OF WALL STREET, DALLAS BUYERS CLUB, INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS, THE GREAT BUDAPEST HOTEL, CAPTAIN PHILLIPS, SAVING MR BANKS, THE GREAT BEAUTY etc. as well as been entranced by Visconti's THE LEOPARD now even more stunning on Blu-ray (see post below), as is Lean's LAWRENCE OF ARABIA, but instead its more repeats of favourites on tv: ROBIN AND MARIAN, Channing's THE EAGLE and boxsets like LOVE/HATE, HOUSE OF CARDS, WHITE COLLAR etc, as well as vintage boxsets on Lee Remick as JENNIE (Churchill) and Francesca Annis as LILLIE (Lily Langtry, which also has Peter Egan as an exquisite Oscar Wilde).. See labels here for more on all these:

ISLAND IN THE SUN was on again, from 1957. Nice to look at, thats a perfect Caribbean island, from that best-selling novel and Fox gave it the plush treatment. I love Joan Fontaine's outfit for meeting her sort of lover Harry Belafonte (Joan received hate mail for appearing in scenes with the handsome Harry, meanwhile it was the other Joan - Collins - who was getting intimate with Belafonte..) but her white gloves and pink pencil halter top dress ensures she looks great; the above is a posed shot - they never touch in the film, apart from where he helps down from the bus ! 

meanwhile starlets Joan Collins and Stephen Boyd romance in the surf and Dorothy Dandridge is marvellous with John Justin (whom I have seen quite a bit lately, in 1943's THE GENTLE SEX and those '70s Ken Russell farragos, as reported below). James Mason is also here, married to Patrica Owens, and he kills Michael Rennie in a fit of jealousy as  policeman John Williams puts two and two together ... delirious stuff, I loved that theme song as a kid.

I can never resist another look at RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, now, like BODY HEAT (also scripted by Lawrence Kasdan) one of the key movies of the '80s. It all works perfectly here, from that perfect opening sequence with Alfred Molina to the high-jinks in Nepal before going on to Egypt .... This and Harrison's AIR FORCE ONE may well be my favourite popcorn movies. Amusing touches here too, like the (male) pupil with an apple for teacher .... with Denholm Elliot and Paul Freeman sterling support and Karen Allen as that very spunky heroine.

Two years ago we had a Hitchcock summer here, as the BFI showed all his films, and canonised VERTIGO as the best film of all time, in their "Sight & Sound" magazine (see details at Hitchcock label) - now our Film4 channel starts a 'frightmare' season with PSYCHO and THE BIRDS. I never tire of THE BIRDS and that marvellous interplay between the characters, its a very witty screenplay, Rod Taylor and Tippi Hedren are ideal - particularly as she dials the telephone with her pencil - and Suzanne Pleshette is ace too.

PSYCHO continues to amaze me, one notices new things - the opening titles tell us its December 12th, but the only sign of christmas is one shot showing street decorations as Janet drives out of town, and of course its the first time a toilet was flushed in a mainstream American film! Janet Leigh is simply astounding here, and should surely have been nominated for an Award.....

Our Sky Arts channel has discovered Ingmar Bergman's THE SEVENTH SEAL which they are showing frequently, maybe most people's introduction to those foreign arthouse movies. It has of course been parodied many times, but it still has the power to mesmerise us as Death plays chess with the Knight, and the family of simple folk make their escape - the unforgiving medieval world is essayed here as the young witch is burned and people flagellate themselves to hopefully avoid the Black Death ..... its still a stunning film full of indelible images, even simple shots of the sea and the waves and the rocks have a stark power of their own. On his return from the Crusades, a Swedish knight, Antonius Block (Max Von Sydow in his signature role), is accosted by Death but staves off his demise by challenging him to a game of chess. Ingmar Bergman's best known early film is not all existential gloom. Well, all right, it is, but is alleviated by the film's inventiveness and audaciousness, and Death is hilariously sardonic. Pity the doomed souls being led away at the end, dancing on the skyline .... 

THE ELEPHANT MAN, 1980.  Nothing new to say about this apart from that I was stunned and mesmerised all over again. It has to to be one of the most powerful films ever made and David Lynch’s keeper. All the elements are there: that Victorian industrial background, the stunning black and white photography capturing it all, and the superlative cast – did John Hurt and Anthony Hopkins do anything better?, with sterling support from John Gielgud and Wendy Hiller, not to mention Freddie Jones, and that perfect ending as we clear away our sobs. Its still a key 80s movie.

SUDDENLY LAST SUMMER remains deliriously over the top too, as Katharine Hepburn's Mrs Violet Venable descends in her elevator to persuade doctor Montgomery Clift to lobotomise her niece Elizabeth Taylor to remove what she saw happen to Sebastian last summer .... poor Monty seems to be sleepwalking through this as Taylor (in that white swimsuit which was "a scandal to the jaybirds") and Hepburn go head to head ...

And then a large helping of cheese: GUESS WHO'S COMING TO DINNER .....  I tried to avoid it but looked in before the end. It seemed even worse than I remembered, but how we loved it back in 1967. I remember friends and I going to a late night show at 11pm – not so common in London then! Watching it now one can see all the glaring faults – its shot like a tv sitcom, that house full of art and the view over San Francisco are laughably opulent and fake now, and that ghastly score.

Thankfully I missed that excruciating scene at the drive-in ice cream parlour where Tracy comes across as just old and doddery and annoying. The daughter of course is an airhead, and Dr Prentice (Poitier) seems a living saint and they just have to rush to Geneva as he has to work for the World Health Organisation so both sets of parents have to give their approval right away for their union. The black servant ("part of the family") still has to serve dinner though – and don’t get me started on this wealthy liberal family who are not Catholics, with their pet priest (dear twinkly Cecil Kellaway) who is Irish and likes that whiskey !  But of course one has to see it in the context of its time:  race relations were still very problematic then and this sugar-coated pill (along with Poitier's other hits that year IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT (which I loved) and TO SIR WITH LOVE) may have helped things along. At least it revitalised Katharine Hepburn’s career (while her contemporaries were mired in cheap guignol flicks, and Kate was even bigger the next year when THE LION IN WINTER was such a hit, winning her another Oscar) – there she was on the cover of LIFE magazine and standing on her head, as a whole new generation fell in love with her - she had really been off the screen since 1959's SUDDENLY LAST SUMMER, Lumet's LONG DAYS JOURNEY INTO NIGHT in 1962 was not widely seen at the time despite winning awards at Cannes, in fact I didn't see it until the dvd became available). I love her costumes and little hats in this film which she breezes through, particularly the great scene where she fires the art gallery assistant. Like all Kramer’s films of the time, it seems hopelessly overdone now.   below: Visconti's sumptuous 1963 THE LEOPARD, once again.

1963 - it was 50 years ago today ...

1963 is surely a pivotal year of the 1960s in terms of popular culture, politics and the shift in attitudes that would define the decade. It was also a key year in world events: the assassination of President Kennedy – I was 17 and playing my new Beatles records on my record player in the bedroom in Ireland, when my mother burst in to announce the news on the radio.

It was also the year of the Profumo scandal in England, which also filled the newspapers, and the start of Beatlemania with their first number one and that first album which we played all the time. It was also that year of Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech, the opening of England’s National Theatre, and the debut of DOCTOR WHO ! as well as the hit TV series THAT WAS THE WEEK THAT WAS ensuring that satire was firmly on the map. 
And the movies – yes, there were some ground-breaking movies too, that we are still seeing and experiencing 50 years later – like Losey’s THE SERVANT, which I saw back on the big screen this year, with co-stars James Fox, Sarah Miles and Wendy Craig present to discuss it, after a gap of 50 years – how often does that happen? Hitch’s THE BIRDS continues to fascinate too, and is aired all the time – and the rare THE VICTORS had a tv outing last week ….

It was a transition year for me from my teenage years in Ireland to arriving in London in April 1964 when I was 18 and began catching up with all those movies (like LA DOLCE VITA which I could not see in Ireland). In 1963 though I was still, at 17, a “small town boy” – like Billy Liar I suppose.  Here is a dozen from 1963, all 50 years old now! – a key year in that transition from old Hollywood to new, and that developing British and European cinema. [Below: Tippi's Mattel Barbie BIRDS doll, complete with the green suit and pecking birds!]

1963's key movies now include Hitch and Tippi and the ever-fascinating THE BIRDS, Visconti’s sumptuous THE LEOPARD, above, Losey’s breakthrough with THE SERVANT – Bogarde’s best role to then too; the film of BILLY LIAR (it was a also a book I loved, and a play) introducing us to Tom Courtenay and Julie Christie – the swinging 60s arrived with her walking around those Northern streets! And I love its affectionate portrait of suburban life.  THE LEOPARD, THE SERVANT and BILLY LIAR now have a new lease of life as are out on Blu-Ray, as per previous posts on them - see Christie, Bogarde, Losey, Visconti labels.



Glossy enduring entertainment too with Audrey dressed by Givenchy in CHARADE and Capucine by Balmain in THE PINK PANTHER delirious fashion treats as well as fabulous movies, art cinema favourites LE FEU FOLLET and BAY OF ANGELS showing Malle and Demy at their best; THE VICTORS that grim anti-war tract with its raft of rising European actresses (Schneider, Moreau, Mercouri etc), and Neame’s I COULD GO ON SINGING – Judy almost playing herself, with Bogarde again – I had the soundtrack album, as I did for CLEOPATRA and that stunning entry into Rome. (I actually did not see that until its general release in 1964 and it certainly was worth the wait). LAWRENCE OF ARABIA was also packing them in during its initial run. In that pre-video world one had to see it on the biggest screen possible.

Back to THE BIRDS and that lovely interplay between Mitch Brenner and Melanie Daniels, as the tension slowly builds; and she looking so soigne in the birdshop, dialling the telephone with her pencil. Hitch makes sure here that she has all the right accessories: the suit, the hair, the gloves, the handbag, the lovebirds... and then there is Annie Hayworth (Pleshette) at Bodega Bay, and that very complicated mother Lydia (Tandy), and then that first gull attacks ....


Other 1963 classics that live on: THE GREAT ESCAPE, FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE, Julie Harris and Claire Bloom excelled in THE HAUNTING, LORD OF THE FLIES, HUD, TOM JONES (film of the year), Rattigan ran up a little treat for the Burtons and Co in THE V.I.P.s, another Bronston spectacular 55 DAYS AT PEKING, and that amusing Doris comedy THE THRILL OF IT ALL!. Another one I did not catch until London in ’64 was Bergman’s controversial THE SILENCE… and BYE BYE BIRDIE, a recent discovery as per recent post on that!

A vintage year then for a movie-mad teenager with those "Films & Filming" magazines (where I would work for a year in the '70s) and as related before - see label, I had my own personal ad ["boy 17 seeks penfriends male or female under 21...!"] in its May 63 issue [this was before the internet and Facebook] and had replies from all over the world, and I am still in touch with one of them, who is now in San Francisco !
Then there were my first records: that first Beatles album, Francoise Hardy, Peggy Lee, soundtracks of WEST SIDE STORY, SOUTH PACIFIC and the Broadway cast MY FAIR LADY.
Actors of the year: Dirk Bogarde / Maurice Ronet. Actress: Jeanne Moreau / Julie Christie.
Directors: Joseph Losey, Luchino Visconti, Louis Malle, Jacques Demy.
See labels for more on all of these mentioned and those key films ..

More Brando: the Countess & Reflections ...

Two more Brando films from his great era in the '60s. After Penn's marvellous THE CHASE in 1966 (see below), its a return visit to A COUNTESS FROM HONG KONG - Charlie Chaplin's last film which opened in January 1967 (I was in the crowd at the London premiere and saw Brando and the Chaplin family arrive, but no Loren ....). Being 20 at the time I did not like this one at all, it seeming hopelessly old-fashioned. Looking at it again now I have mixed feelings, it does not really work as a comedy or a romance, as there is so little chemistry between the two leads ....

Natascha, a White Russian countess, stows away on a luxury liner at Hong Kong, determined to seek a new life in America. Natascha hides in the cabin of Ogden Mears, a millionaire diplomat, thereby causing an endless stream of misunderstandings and complications; particularly when his wife, Martha, joins the trip at Honolulu, necessitating a 'marriage' to Ogden's valet, Hudson, a saronged-dive overboard and more subterfuge on the part of Ogdon and his associate, Harvey.

Loren & Chaplin by Eve Arnold

Brando and Loren did not get on at all, the early scenes are fitfully amusing as we are entranced by the old-fashioned feel of it all. We are obviously on a studio set for the ship's suite with all those doors and endless dashing in and out of rooms. Loren carries it all by herself and certainly worked hard, she apparantly had good rapport with Chaplin and was pleased to work with him. Brando though is the wrong leading man here, he had done comedy before but seems bored and ill at ease here, and looks fed up with it all by the end, but it seems he had to replicate exactly what Charlie wanted as Chaplin used to act out the scenes for them .... so it probably didnt give him any room to improvise. Someone like James Garner would surely have been more ideal

though the whole selling point is that this is Brando in a romantic comedy with Loren, written and directed by Chaplin, who did the music too, including that nice tune "This Is My Song". His script though may have been fine in the '30s and '40s (where there were lots of movie stowaways and runaway heiresses) but in the middle of the Swinging '60s seemed hopelessly old-fashioned. Margaret Rutherford has a delicious scene, English farceur Patrick Cargill has his moments, and our THE BIRDS favourite Tippi Hedren pops in to play Brando's icy wife. Questions remain unanswered: how does our  countess who has no money get the changes of clothes including the Hawaiian outfit to dive overboard in, and the scenes in Hawaii and on the beach are obviously studio too and rather clumsy.
That other older English director Alfred Hitchcock also did a film at that year TORN CURTAIN with another top two '60s stars (Newman and Andrews)  similarly ill at ease.  A COUNTESS FROM HONG KONG then is fitfully amusing, but does not really work. Various Chaplin children pop up, including Geraldine, and the venerable Chaplin himself too.Its a pity Loren's mid-'60s two with Brando and Newman (Ustinov's LADY L, also fitfully amusing and good to look at) were not better films or better received. She didn't fare much better with Burton and O'Toole in the early '70s (1972's MAN OF LA MANCHA is certainly worth discovering now, as per review, Loren/O'Toole labels.)

REFLECTIONS IN A GOLDEN EYE - Southern Fried Gothic!

In 1967 Marlon headed John Huston's drama, replacing Montgomery Clift (who died in 1966) initially cast in what would have been his 4th outing with Taylor .... we are back in that Deep South Gothic universe as created by Tennessee Williams or Carson McCullers or William Inge.  This is a McCullers tale and a very twisted bizarre one it is ...

On a U.S. Army post circa 1948, a major who is an impotent, latent homosexual is married to an infantile wife who never misses an opportunity to ridicule his masculine failings. He displaces his hostility by brutally flogging her horse and she retaliates by humiliating him before a houseful of guests, repeatedly slashing him across the face with her riding crop. She is also committing adultery with the officer next door, who's wife cut off her nipples with garden shears after the death of her baby, and has sought solace in the ministrations of her effeminate houseboy. The sixth character, coveted by the major, is a darkly handsome soldier, a voyeur and lingerie-fondler, given to nightly appearances as a peeping tom in the wife's bedroom and daily sessions of horseback riding in the middle of the woods stark naked.....

 I think that about covers it. Naturally it all climaxes in an outpouring of violence as repressed feelings come to the surface. The cast is the thing here ... Brando acquits himself well as the oddly gay major (Steiger was also playing repressed gay that year in THE SERGEANT, also set on a military base - in France - in contrast to his more flamboyant gay in '68's NO WAY TO TREAT A LADY, Steiger label); Elizabeth Taylor is over-ripe and note perfect in another of her Southern roles as the rather dim, rather coarse insensitive wife (her hilarious party food monologue is a career highlight), and the great Julie Harris is back in McCullers territory (as in THE MEMBER OF THE WEDDING) as the other wife, with her houseboy. Seeing Taylor and Harris together inevitably reminds one of Abra in EAST OF EDEN and Leslie Benedict in GIANT and how they both liked James Dean .... Brando shows what a fascinating actor he is when engaged in a role, he has some great moments here, the scene with Firebird the horse and his breakdown, his monologue on the enlisted men's lives and comeraderie "without clutter", and Taylor whipping him in her Alexandre of Paris hair creation! Brian Keith is solid as Harris's baffled husband, and Robert Forster is the naked solider. One can see too Huston's fascinating with the horses ....

Huston's film was originally meant to be shown in washed-out, desaturated golden tones, which certainly did not happen with the prints on general release, but the dvd now has the correct look. Good now to savour this again - it has long been unseen here, and this is in fact a Korean dvd issue I got. Key moments include Brando talking to himself and rubbing cosmetics into his face, and a supposedly naked Taylor (body double obviously) and all Julie Harris's scenes ... its all a weird mix of camp and drama, Southern Fried Gothic! - certainly one of Huston's most intriguing and under-rated, from his great '50s-'60s period (which included HEAVEN KNOWS MR ALLISON, THE UNFORGIVEN, THE MISFITS (see label), NIGHT OF THE IGUANA).  Must dig out his equally odd 1969 THE KRELIN LETTER again soon too.

Marnie

I have finally gone back to MARNIE which I had not re-seen since its release in 1964, when it was rather under-appreciated to say the least. I was 18 then and remember not being too impressed myself then. Now of course Hitchcock has never been more in vogue what with VERTIGO made number one in the "Sight & Sound" poll last year, and re-views (reviews here at Hitchcock label) of the Hitch classics like PSYCHO, THE BIRDS and less-successful but interesting TOPAZ. The BFI also had that Hitchcock summer showing all the 52 features. The Hitch classics are always on view here .... THE BIRDS gets a primetime showing again this weekend, followed by PSYCHO and NORTH BY NORTHWEST is a regular visitor. Now of course we have those 2 films about Hitch - the disappointing THE GIRL on the Tippi Hedren films, and HITCHCOCK which is about the making of PSYCHO and opens here next week .... so, who is the better Hitch? Anthony Hopkins or Toby Jones - neither as far as I can see capture the essence of Hitch at all.  But anyway, MARNIE ...

Marnie Edgar is a habitual liar and a thief who gets jobs as a secretary and after a few months robs the firms in question, usually of several thousand dollars. When she gets a job at Rutland's, she also catches the eye of the handsome owner, Mark Rutland. He prevents her from stealing and running off, as is her usual pattern, but also forces her to marry him. Their honeymoon is a disaster and she cannot stand to have a man touch her and on their return home, Mark has a private detective look into her past. When he has the details of what happened in her childhood to make her what she is, he arranges a confrontation with her mother realizing that reliving the terrible events that occurred in her childhood and bringing out those repressed memories is the only way to save her ....

MARNIE initially seems very clunky in parts and the obvious back projections (the horse-riding, the street in Baltimore where Marnie's mother lives) jar, but IT WORKS - it does get very emotional at the climax as Marnie's mother finally comes clean about what really happened when young Bruce Dern as the sailor turns up that night when Marnie was five years old, and why Marnie cannot bear the colour red ... Connery as Mark Rutland is fascinatingly complex too, and Diane Baker as ever registers strongly - like Suzanne Pleshette in a similar role in THE BIRDS. Martin Gabel as Strutt, one of Marnie's earlier victims, is just right too, describing her to the police after that initial robbery. Not a major Hitchcock then, there is little suspense (apart from that safe robbery) or thrills.

It is though Tippi Hendren's film, she turns in an astounding performance, despite - if reports are true - being harrassed by Hitch at the time. MARNIE has a nice old fashioned look, that early-'60s studiobound look before the New Hollywood took over.  Bernard Hermann's score is again essential; Edith Head dresses Tippi, and script is by Jay Presson Allen from a Winston Graham novel - this was meant to be Grace Kelly's return to cinema, I wonder how Grace would have handled it? MARNIE will always divide critics (there are 166 reviews of it at IMDB), but I definitely want to see it again before another 49 years passes between viewings!  Maybe now I can finally watch Hitch's next one TORN CURTAIN which I never had any desire to see, and also go back to that problematic FRENZY ... meanwhile its TOPAZ and THE BIRDS again, which really does seem to have a life of its own.