Richard Lester, a BFI Tribute

Richard Lester is awarded a BFI (British Film Institute) Fellowship at a ceremony next month with an interview and special screening of maybe his best film ROBIN AND MARIAN - (see still at Nicol Williamson post below), not only has it Connery and Audrey Hepburn but also the likes of Robert Shaw, Nicol Williamson, Richard Harris etc. One of my essential 1976 films (along with TAXI DRIVER, OBSESSION, NETWORK, L'INNOCENTE etc).

Lester is that Canadian who moved to England, became an essential director of English movies, up there with Tony Richardson, John Schlesinger, Joe Losey, Ken Russell, Clive Donner and Michael Winner then. His HARD DAY'S NIGHT with the Beatles was very influential, as was HELP! - it was marvellous walking into the cinema half-way through (continuous performances in those days, you could stay as long as you liked, I saw it twice through) the sequence on Salisbury Plain as George Harrison did his solo number "I Need You" - it was a big thing then, at 19, to see The Beatles on screen in colour, rather than on a tiny black and white television. His Beatles films were hugely influential as the first pop promo videos really with those musical numbers cut and edited to the music.


Lester also hit it with THE KNACK [which won the Cannes Grand Prix] and offbeat films like THE BED-SITTING ROOM, HOW I WON THE WAR, he certainly worked with the best and his movies were full of delicious quirky funny moments. PETULIA with Julie Christie in San Francisco is one I really must re-view and his 70s all star spectaculars were, well, spectacular and funny: THE THREE and FOUR MUSKETEERS, ROYAL FLASH (review at Malcolm McDowell label), and I am shortly going to catch up with JUGGERNAUT a better than average bomb-on-ship thriller, with Hemmings & co.. ROBIN AND MARIAN was perfect too.

He also presented a marvellous 6-part BBC television series back in the '90s HOLLYWOOD UK, (thankfully I kept some episodes on vhs cassettes) revisiting the locations and interviewing surviving members of iconic British 60s films like BILLY LIAR, BLOW-UP, THE L-SHAPED ROOM, SATURDAY NIGHT AND SUNDAY MORNING, THE SERVANT etc with waspish comments from Bogarde, Terence Stamp (insisting that BLOWUP was all about him and Antonioni had been following him around and offerred him the role first), with Monica Vitti speaking in Italian and it was fascinating going back to BILLY LIAR's house as it is now, and the BLOW-UP park and studio.

Good to see more praise for this boldly original director with a great sense of humour!

L'oro di Roma, 1961

GOLD OF ROME: One more trip back to Italy in the early '60s for this impressive film by Carlo Lizzani - another one I did not know as it may never have been released in the UK, but again, it is on YouTube complete at 93 minutes.

It used a fictional story to recount the facts behind the final deportation of the Jews of Rome: Nazi Colonel Herbert Kappler summoned the highest representatives of the Jewish community ordering them to collect 50 kgs of gold within 36 hours. The punishment in case of failure or disobedience was the detention of 200 people. Gold was collected and brought but on nothing could save 1259 Jews from deportation: it was the beginning of the end for the Jewish community of the Ghetto of Rome.

The film stars French actor Gerard Blain as the militant Jew determind to fight back and who joins the partisans, and Jean Sorel (again, see below) as the Catholic who falls for Jewish Anna Maria Ferrero who witnesses the start of the round-up. The Roman locations are nicely used and we see a lot of the Jewish community as they try to reason with the Germans and understand what is happening to them as they are rounded up. One of many films then on the German occupation of Rome, like THE RED AND THE BLACK 1983 (Christopher Plummer plays Kappler here, to Gregory Peck's priest in the Vatican, with John Gielgud excellent as Pius XIIP) [review at War link] and MASSACRE IN ROME with Mastroianni and Burton.



The film was shown in New York a few years ago on Remberance Day, with director Lizzani present. Having recently enjoyed De Sica's L'ORO DI NAPOLI (Mangano, Loren, De Sica, Italian labels) and other early 60s Italian movies like GHOSTS OF ROME, THE LONG NIGHT OF '43, and the '51 ANNA - as reviews below - this is an interesting addition. Now for BITTER RICE (RISO AMARO) before moving on to some modern titles ...

Another great Italian war film of this era is the 1962 well-regarded FOUR DAYS OF NAPLES by Nanni Loy, with Jean Sorel again as a sailor who gets shot by the invading forces; one to track down then!

Back to: 1963

I love 1963. 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. 1962 is one of my key movie years (its 50 years ago!) – I could do a top 20 favourite movies from that year which are still influential and favourites now, and 1964 was not too bad either! Here though is a dozen from 1963, almost 50 years ago too! – a key year in that transition from old Hollywood to new, and that developing British and European cinema. [Right: 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, 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.





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).
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 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. I was playing records on my portable record player in my room in November 1963 when my mother rushed up stairs to tell me about events in Dallas...
Actors of the year: Dirk Bogarde, Maurice Ronet. Actress: Jeanne Moreau /
Directors: Joseph Losey, Luchino Visconti, Louis Malle, Jacques Demy.
See labels for more on all of these mentioned and those key films ..

Young Cassidy - a John Ford film directed by Jack Cardiff

YOUNG CASSIDY Or: SEAN O'CASEY IN LOVE ? One of 1965's under-rated gems is this biopic of Irish writer Sean O'Casey, a perfect example of American film-making in England in the '60s. It was a project dear to John Ford, but he only spent a few weeks on the film due to illness, so esteemed photographer Jack Cardiff took over, having directed the successful D.H. Lawrence adaptation SONS AND LOVERS himself in 1960.



Ford may only have directed a couple of scenes - the pub fight and meeting Daisy Battles (the radiant young Julie Christie) and the death of Sean's mother, the noble Flora Robson. The cast here is the thing: Rod Taylor is an agreeable presence, ideal in THE BIRDS etc, and certainly makes for a brawling playright! Maggie Smith is Nora, the bookshop girl he loves, but she cannot deal with his growing success and the world he wants to live in. Julie (just before DARLING and DR ZHIVAGO that year) is the happy prostitute he meets a few times, Dame Flora is perfect as the ailing mother, Sian Phillips his poverty-stricken sister - and then theres Edith Evans as Lady Gregory who runs the Abbey Theatre, and Michael Redgrave as W.B.Yeats - heavyweights indeed. Add in Pauline Delaney as the randy landlady, Donal Donnelly, Joe Lynch, Jack McGowran and other assorted Irish characters.


Ford and Cardiff on set, above right.

The Easter Rebellion of 1916 plays out in the background as O'Casey steals books from Maggie's shop and gets his first play written and staged, but he cannot cash his first cheque to pay for his mother's funeral! Finally, he leaves for England and the successes waiting for him. The Dublin backgrounds are nicely staged along with the poverty of the time and its all a breezy romp touching certainly on events in the early O'Casey's life. O'Casey's plays are still being revived, I am off to a National Theatre revivial of JUNO AND THE PAYCOCK in the new year.

Ken Russell, R.I.P.

It has just been announced that veteran English director Ken Russell ("the wild man of British cinema" as lazy journalists called him) has died, aged 84. More or less forgotten for the last couple of decades, though he kept working, he of course came into his own in the 60s with the films he made for the BBC (his film on Dante Gabriel Rossetti, DANTE'S INFERNO in 1967, with Oliver Reed exhuming his wife's coffin to retrieve some poems was unforgettable, in stunning black and white images) and his other television films on Delius, Elgar etc were innovative at the time and led to his career in cinema; there was also a highly regarded one on ISADORA DUNCAN, THE BIGGEST DANCER IN THE WORLD, with Vivien Pickles.

WOMEN IN LOVE, THE MUSIC LOVERS, THE DEVILS were all notorious in their time as Ken pushed the boundaries... later films on Liszt and Mahler certainly went over the top, and then there was TOMMY !, as well as THE BOYFRIEND, the long unseen SAVAGE MESSIAH and that interesting addition to the Harry Palmer films, BILLION DOLLAR BRAIN in '67 also with some stunning imagery (and Francoise Dorleac in her last film). THE BOYFRIEND is still a pleasure now, as a cast of Ken regulars [Christopher Gable, Max Adrian, Georgina Hale, Antonia Ellis, Murray Melvin, Vladek Sheybal] headed by the gauche Twiggy, Tommy Tune, and Glenda in a hilarious cameo, re-enact the 20s musical in a provincial theatre (in Portsmouth). That and THE DEVILS both in 1971 made it quite a year!

I recently got a new issue of THE MUSIC LOVERS, so it will be interesting to revisit it ... His later films like ALTERED STATES, CRIMES OF PASSION and THE LAIR OF THE WHITE WORM have their devotees too.

I loathed his VALENTINO in 1977 though, which trashed both Rudolfs - Valentino himself and Nureyev - and the rest of the cast. One would have thought Ken would have relished the excesses of '20s Hollywood but its mean-spirited view of Valentino, his wife Natacha, Nazimova (Leslie Caron) left a nasty taste, for me anyway - and Pauline Kael also loathed it! Perhaps we had enough of Ken's excesses by then .... I have been meaning to catch his first cinema feature FRENCH DRESSING in 1964 about a small town putting on a film festival which could be interesting now.

Ken was certainly a colorful character - I saw that famous interview on television when he hit critic Alexander Walker over the head with a rolled-up copy of the newspaper "The Evening Standard" containing Walker's dismissive review of his latest opus.
His early BBC work though is certainly worth investigating if one missed them first time round - like that imagery of the young Elgar riding his pony over the Malvern hills as the music blares out ...

Like Schlesinger, Losey, Lester and Roeg his best works are a testament to that innovative late '60s/early '70s era; I dare say the obits will now be referring to him as the grand old man of British Cinema. TOMMY was full of invention too, like Eric Clapton's Church of Saint Marilyn, not to mention Ann-Margret and those baked beans!. Oliver Reed, Glenda Jackson, Alan Bates, Vanessa Redgrave and her daughters all became part of his cast of players.
His first wife Shirley (who died in 2002) was a well regarded costume designer who did the costumes for Ken's major films as well as other prestige period movies like YANKS, REDS, HOPE AND GLORY etc.

Hockney - another biography

The latest biography on David Hockney (Part 1: 1937-1975) paints a totally contrasting picture to being gay in the 60s and 70s than in those grim war years and in the 1950s as suffered by Alan Turing - here we have the full story on David as art student in his gold jacket and becoming the media darling of the 60s art crowd, and then of course his move to California where he becomes the painter of L.A. with all those boys in pools. What impresses about Hockney is that he never stopped working, everywhere he went he was painting. I particularly like his early 70s period in Paris. I still have a framed poster from his 1974 Paris exhibition. I also liked the Hockney look of that era: the glasses, the pastel colour clothes, he was just so individual - he was his own creation, as well as doing those opera designs and so many different types of drawings and sketches; the paper pools, his dogs, all those friends etc. Jack Hazan's 1974 film A BIGGER SPLASH captures it all perfectly.

Peter getting out of Nick's pool; Contre Jour in the French Style.


Part two should be fascinating too, as Hockney returns to England and settles in Bridlington, where his parents lived, and showcasing all his later developments with photocpiers, polaroids, photo montages and now digital art on his iPad and iPhone, and his new large paintings of the landscapes in the North of England, as he becomes the grand old man of British art, as detailed in all those books on his changing art. He is still a ferocious smoker too! We had a big exhibition of his prime works a couple of years ago, and a new one will be unveiled here in January running through to April 2012.