Eve Arnold, from A (Anouk, Antonioni) to V (Vitti)

More on the late Magnum photographer Eve Arnold - she certainly moved in the best circles, here she is with some of my favourites, showing her great eye for composition:

One of Arnold's great mid-50s Monroe shots.
Joan Crawford in 1959 in front of that marvellous 40s portrait of her.
Dirk Bogarde and Ingrid Bergman in 1964 - Ingrid was his houseguest when she did her stage run in A MONTH IN THE COUNTRY, one of the first plays I saw, in 1965.
Sophia Loren with Chaplin on the set of THE COUNTESS FROM HONG KONG, 1966
(I really need to re-see that, I have totally forgotten it!).
Anouk Aimee on the set of JUSTINE, 1969.
Monica Vitti on the set of MODESTY BLAISE, 1966.
Joe Losey in Paris, with Eve's reflections in the mirror as she takes the picture.
Michelangelo Antonioni on the set of BLOW-UP, 1966, what a great shot.
- all from her terrific book "Film Journal"

Interestingly, Yul Brynner's photographs are now on exhibition and there should be a book, these fascinating candid photos of his colleagues at work and play have not been seen before. I particularly like that nice shot of Ingrid Bergman on the set of GOODBYE AGAIN. Yul always had a camera around his neck.

Showpeople (15): Bogarde and pals

I have done some 'Showpeople' posts on Dirk Bogarde previously, with the likes of pals Kay Kendall and Rex Harrison, meeting Rock Hudson - did the closeted British and American heart-throbs compare notes? - and with co-stars like Jean Simmons, Anouk Aimee (whom he knew since she was a teenager), Monica Vitti, Julie Christie, Lilli Palmer - did he and Lilli discuss the Rex and Kay story?, Lilli being the previous Mrs Harrison. (Left, another shot from that DARLING premiere with Christie and Vitti. Glamour!)

Below with Kay and Kenneth More in DOCTOR IN THE HOUSE, and with Muriel Pavlow, another Rank Organisation stalwart and co-star, and with Capucine. Dirk and Kay were also guests at Kenneth More's "This Is Your Life" tv show in 1959.









I suggest that Lauren Bacall and Dirk really are the people who knew everybody - and SHE visited HIM the day before he died in 1999, and I love the photo of her with Kay, Vivien Leigh and Coward back in 1959, and with Kay at the theatre that year! [Showpeople label]. He worked of course with all the English talent of the time including those newcomers Courtenay, Fox, Miles ("dainty Miles" as he referred to her at one of his NFT discussions), Christie, Stamp, York - Michael and Susannah, etc. Then of course he knew all the European ladies: the young Bardot in DOCTOR AT SEA, Thulin, Seyrig, Aimee, Vitti, Mangano, and became great friends with Charlotte Rampling and Jane Birkin, he was also pals with Simone Signoret and Yvonne Mitchell though did not work with them, and of course his later co-stars like Lee Remick and Glenda Jackson. [It is a shame that Romy Schneider did not get to play the Austrian princess in Losey's ACCIDENT in '67, as originally planned - she would have brought so much more to the role and made her a real tease, rather than Sassard's blankness]. Then of course there are the Garland, Capucine and Ava Gardner stories, as per his books ... here is a further selection then:

Awards time in 1965 with Lee Marvin, Julie C and Patricia Neal - later of course he and Glenda Jackson did THE PATRICIA NEAL STORY for television; and that silent scene with Delphine Seyrig in ACCIDENT and with Anouk in JUSTINE, and Bjorn from DEATH IN VENICE!

Guilty Pleasures: Justine

I see that JUSTINE gets a couple of rare screenings as part of the Dirk Bogarde retrospective (only his post-1960 career) at the London National Film Theatre - I shall have to amble along and savour it on the widescreen again. It has been unseen for decades but it was a treat to get a copy recently, an enjoyable 20th Century Fox version of the Durrell books set in Alexandria and rather a botched movie. It was began in Tunisia in '68 with director Philip Strick, but the project was then recalled to the Fox lot in California, with George Cukor taking over. Cukor and Aimee had one of THE famous feuds, as they did not get on AT ALL. The fascinating international cast though has Dirk Bogarde giving another terrific performance as Pursewarden, young Michael York as Darnley the narrator who falls in love with the mysterious Justine, also Anna Karina, John Vernon, Robert Forster, Philippe Noiret and Cliff Gorman as one of those dancing girls.



I just like the look of the film, those mysterious locations and Aimee being very enigmatic, looking alluring with that little girl voice, she seems incommunicative though, as though she does not want to be there – it was silly though to use the nude body double seen in long shot for the beach scene with the horses. Leon Shamroy makes it all look terrific and there is a nice score by Jerry Goldsmith. It really has the look and texture almost of a Von Sternberg picture, and remains one of the great good bad movies. I used to have a photo of Anouk as Justine on my wall back in 1969...by the late '60s everything Moroccan and Tunisian were suddenly part of the new hippie chic, as movies like DUFFY, MAROC 7 and PERFORMANCE showed.



It just looks terrific with those Tunisian locations, Vernon and Forster are the warring brothers Nessim and Narouz, and there are masked balls, belly dancers and lots of intrigue among the expats in Alexandria where everyone seems to be hiding guilty secrets. Bogarde is ideal as Pursewarden - by this time Anouk had become a very big star indeed, having been in movies since the late 40s, those Fellinis and UN HOMME ET UNE FEMME had added to her allure, but by the time JUSTINE she just wanted to be away with her new love Albert Finney, so it seems she had no real interest in the film and didn't film again until 1976 by which time her marriage to Finney was over.



York is the young narrator describing in the voiceover how Justine seemed to move in a golden glow..."blood-sister to a thousand tyrant queens". Everyone is in thrall to the fascinating Justine, the seemingly amoral wife of a wealthy Egyptian, biding her time in 1930s Alexandria with a slew of lovers, who spends her time looking for a lost child in the brothels of Alexandria, Anna Karina is the less fortunate prostitute who innocently lets slip Justine's real political interests to Pursewarden, after her romance with York has finished.







It is a condensed version of Lawrence Durrell's brilliant literary classic "Alexandria Quartet", about the sophisticated game of international intrigue and espionage in Alexandria between the first and second world wars with subtle character portraits from a range of British and European actors at the top of their game; it is just a perfect film of its time and place, late 60s, Europe and Hollywood combining. I can't wait to see it again .....

People We Like: Gerard Philipe, the Knave of Hearts

KNAVE OF HEARTS (or MONSIEUR RIPOIS). Back to the cinema for a rare screening of Rene Clement’s 1954 film about a romantic Frenchman on the loose in London and his conquests, including young Joan Greenwood at her loveliest – their scenes in the rain are very lyrical. Other women who fall under his spell include the prostitute (Germaine Montero) who takes him in when he is suddenly homeless and destitute, Valerie Hobson, Margaret Johnston and Natasha Parry. It is cleverly done with Clement shooting on the streets of London (with mostly hidden cameras) 5 years before the New Wave were doing the same in Paris.



Gerard Philipe is mesermising with those soulful eyes magnified on the large screen – what a loss he was, dying at age 36 in 1959 – just as Delon, Belmondo and the others got going. Now for his other roles like FANFAN LA TULIPE (with the luscious Gina Lollobrigida) and he is one of the LA RONDE merry-go-round, and I have been promised a copy of Vadim's 1959 LES LAISIONS DANGEROUSES with Jeanne Moreau, his last film. I have already reviewed here his 1958 MONTPARNASSE 19 as the painter Modigliani, a standard biopic, but with Anouk Aimee and Lilli Palmer.

Showpeople (13): Friends, rivals - and the glamorous life

Anouk Aimee looks in on pal Dirk Bogarde with Jean Simmons on the set of SO LONG AT THE FAIR, 1950. Dirk at the 1965 premiere of DARLING with co-star Julie Christie and Monica Vitti (they were filming MODESTY BLAISE at the time).
Below: Joe Losey and Visconti at the Cannes festival in 1971, both promoting their wares: when Visconti heard that Losey got the Palme D'Or for THE GO-BETWEEN he set off for the airport, but was called back when the Jury invented a special 25th anniversary prize for him, for DEATH IN VENICE!
Coming attractions: lots more French flicks - Francois Ozon, 3 Claude Sautet avec Romy Schneider, Andre Techine avec Catherine Deneuve, and back to Chabrol and Melville with those Belmondos and Delons, that Techine boxset (including WILD REEDS), Chabrol's LE CEREMONIE, Assayas' SUMMER HOURS, Deneuve in A CHRISTMAS TALE and others.

Festival in Cannes

FESTIVAL IN CANNES. This Henry Jaglom film from 2001 seemed rather appropriate at the moment, so I pulled it out of the “to see sometime” pile. It is like Altman-lite as we dip in and out of various people at Cannes - the story is silly, there seems to be no script as they seem to improvise a lot, are the characters real or fake? Anouk Aimee is Millie Marquand a mature French actress looking for a good role. Greta Scacchi is another actress who has written a script which she wants to direct with a good role for Millie, while Ron Silver is the hot-shot producer (who is financially overstretched) who also needs Millie to cement the deal for a big movie he is putting together where Tom Hanks will only commit if Millie plays the small role of his mother. So which will Millie choose? Advising her is her ex-husband Maximilian Schell, who wants to direct the film. Then there is Kaz (Zack Norman) who comes across as a major creep but says he is a producer with a $3 million to spend – but is he really? Both the men hit on various women (that is what producers do, right?) as everyone tries to hustle a deal. Anouk and Max Schell seem bemused by it all and play along gamely – nice to see her on screen again, as alluring as ever. Scacchi also seems to be improvising a lot and seems very amused by it all (though the very idea of Anouk Aimee as Tom Hanks's mother...!).

Shot at the 1999 Festival others who pop up include Peter Bogdanovich, and Faye Dunaway with her son Liam, all it seems keen to be on camera. An amusing trifle then, with a very nice poster and some Charles Trenet and Piaf on the soundtrack. Altman fans should like it – the end credits include an apology to Tom Hanks! [Scacchi is currently playing Bette Davis on stage in London in "Bette and Joan", to good reviews – I am seeing it before it closes in June].

Two French Flicks: Back to Paris 1959 and Moreau as Mata-Hari

What a year! 1959 was one of those key years not only for American and British but also European cinema. The French and Italian new waves were in full flow ... In Paris Truffaut was shooting THE 400 BLOWS and Godard was preparing BREATHLESS while Chabrol after LE BEAU SERGE in '58 was filming LES COUSINS. Malle had also done LIFT TO THE SCAFFOLD in '58 - but another lesser known film was also shooting on the nighttime streets of Paris: Jean-Pierre Mocky's LES DRAGUEURS (THE YOUNG HAVE NO MORALS) which is a pleasure to catch 50 years later, it comes across as fresh and spontaneous as it is not as well known as the others of its era.

We are back in the Paris nightlife of the late '50s as two young men - Jacques Charrier (whose main claim to fame would be as Brigitte Bardot's second husband) and Charles Aznavour - drive around trying to pick up girls, so we have lots of episodes of them meeting various girls and it all seems very free-wheeling ... the girls include Dany Robin, a starlet of the era; Anouk Aimee in just one scene and later at a decadent party there is English starlet Belinda Lee who gets a lot of screen time and is as usual fascinating. (She died in a car accident in 1961 when she was a star of the Italian sword and sandal peplum movies). So, in all, a fascinating movie ...



Also, just re-seen is MATA HARI - not Greta Garbo's 1931 classic but a 1963 French version, scripted by Francois Truffaut, directed by Jean-Louis Richard and starring his ex-wife Jeanne Moreau. This and LES DRAGUEURS were earlier posts of mine at the start of this blog over a year ago, but I only saw them in French versions - now, with sub-titles they are just as fascinatng. Moreau is in her element here, whether giving messages in code while doing her exotic dance, or luring men to reveal military secrets as she tries to evade her nemesis until it is too late. This was Moreau's great era of the early '60s when she was THE actress everyone wanted for their films.

The full title is MATA HARI SECRET AGENT H21. Truffaut injects a lot of romance into the spying tale and the period detail of World War I is interesting, a few Hitchcockian touches as well - like when Mata is stealing documents - is she going to get caught? The ending too while brutal is perfectly romantic as Mata and her love Jean-Louis Trintigant are together at last.... the film though is very little known, I don't think it even played in London back then.