Ken's Rainbow

That was a nice wave of affection for Ken Russell who died recently, at the good age of 84. BBC here in England ran WOMEN IN LOVE the other weekend, terrific to see it again after some decades - it remains his "prestige" film, they also showed the lesser known THE RAINBOW from 1989, also by D.H. Lawrence, with the same lead character Ursula Brangwen when younger.

WOMEN IN LOVE is so exhuberent - there is just so much in it, so much plot, so much happening, so many vivid characters, Ken here in his prime has great material to work with and a great cast and comes across like an English Fellini, creating great moods and images, it is so very 1969. I had forgot how marvellous Alan Bates was in his prime, and it must also be Oliver Reed's finest moment, Eleanor Bron is also terrific. Russell was a visionary who marched to the beat of his own drum and WIL remains a film that is both visually striking and rich in narrative. Perhaps the more apt comparison is to Orson Welles, a fellow auteur who started his career in the good graces of the critics and then began making more challenging films that were interested in stretching the medium.



Ken too while "hot" did some challenging films: THE MUSIC LOVERS (I have a new dvd of that to watch, so a report later) and I understand a new complete print of THE DEVILS will be unveiled (but not sure if I want to see that again....) and he kept working to diminishing returns after the success of TOMMY. I loathed VALENTINO and he seems to have lost his mass audience around then, but kept making movies even ending up making them in his garage. THE SAVAGE MESSIAH should be a re-discovery, and perhaps the amusingly awful LISZTOMANIA , and his forays into American movies ... (I recently also got BILLION DOLLAR BRAIN (1967) to complete my Francoise Dorleac movies.)

The BBC also showed a new documentary on him, great to see clips from his "Monitor" days, those black and white films on composers like Delius and Elgar. THE RAINBOW though is a curious trifle - almost D.H. Lawrence lite, or a parody of those themes. IMDB says: Ken Russell's loose adaptation of the last part of D.H. Lawrence's "The Rainbow" sees impulsive young Ursula coming of age in pastoral England around the time of the Boer War. At school, she is introduced to lovemaking by a bisexual physical education instructress. While experiencing disillusionment in her first career attempt (teaching), she has an affair with a young Army officer, who wants to marry her. Unable to accept a future of domesticity, she breaks with him, and eventually leaves home in search of her destiny.

Ken obviously inspired a lot of affection so appearing here must have been a labour of love for Ken's regulars like Glenda Jackson and Christopher Gable as Ursula's loving parents with their bohemian (for the time) marriage. David Hemmings is simply marvellous as Uncle Harry - before he got too florid - and he brings a lot of humour and grace to the role. The unusual looking Sammi Davis is Ursula, and Amanda Donohue (later the star of Ken's bonkers LAIR OF THE WHITE WORM) is the school teacher who teaches Sammi the joys of sapphic love as the girls strip and run around naked in the rain ... Amanda soon though latches on to Hemmings and marries him and has a baby, while soldier Paul McGann shows Sammi the joys of hetero sex, as he too strips and runs around naked. Add in school teaching with lecherous teachers and the scene is set for the usual Ken histrionics. So, an enjoyable romp, another of those British films of the era exploring sex in those restrictive times, like that other 1970 D.H. saga THE VIRGIN AND THE GYPSY by Christopher Miles, who also gave us the later DH bio THE PRIEST OF LOVE with more stripping off by Ian McKellen and Co in 1981 - reviews at costume drama label.


I also recorded THE BOYFRIEND - also not seen that for decades, should be fun again, as Ken's regulars like Max Adrian, Glenda, Gable, Georgina Hale, Antonia Ellis, Vladek Sheybal, Graham Armitage and the very gauche Twiggy [now starring in Marks & Spencer clothes advertisments] amuse and entertain us back in 1971.

Christmas treats ...

Starting with a box of macaroons from Paris - the box is a work of art in itself, I feel tempted to hang it on the wall, it has a lovely black cat on it - also a spice & marmalade cake, also from Pierre Herme, Paris. Then dipping in and out of all those old movies on television, catching up with some not seen since I was a kid, and a few old favourites.

NIGHT PASSAGE is a pleasant memory of a '50s Sunday afternoon matinee, this 1957 James Stewart western should have been another of his tough westerns with Anthony Mann, but Mann walked due to script problems, so it was directed by James Neilson. A look at frontier life along the railroad, with train robberies; I remember liking this scene with Stewart and young Brandon DeWilde on the train, also on board was Elaine Stewart (another of this year's departees, aged 80) married to big boss Jay C Flippen! Audie Murphy and Dan Duryea were among the baddies, and Ellen Corby another tough frontier woman.


TARZAN'S GREATEST ADVENTURE from 1959 - not seen this since then but its as effective and violent (effectively directed by John Gullermin) as I remembered - Gordon Scott the perfect Tarzan for '50s kids, Anthony Quayle a terrific villain with young Sean Connery and Niall McGuinness in his gang, along with bad girl Scilla Gabel - Sophia Loren's stand-in on BOY ON A DOLPHIN, and here starting out her own career as a sizzling eurobabe. Scilla was always good value in Steve Reeves epics and movies as diverse as SODOM AND GOMORRAH and my fave MODESTY BLAISE.





THE PRINCE AND THE PAUPER - one of those lavish (it says here...) 1977 remakes, helmed by the usually reliable Richard Fleischer (THE VIKINGS, BARBABBAS) this is an idiotic remake of the Erroll Flynn original. Lurid colours and guest stars aplenty: Charlton Heston, the older Rex Harrison, Raquel Welch is mainly silent - the interest for me is the re-teaming of Oliver Reed (rather portly here) and David Hemmings as his evil brother - their hell-raising was taking its toll on them here, since they were young in 1964's THE SYSTEM, a key movie for me then [review at David Hemmings label], showing the 60s just starting to swing. Mark Lester as both the prince and the pauper shows that most perfect child actors (OLIVER) grow up to be very uninteresting indeed, he is lanky here with frizzy hair and there is no difference at all between his two roles ... an amusing time-waster then, not in the same league as the producers' delightful star-stuffed MUSKETEERS films by Richard Lester. Right: THE SYSTEM gang in '64 including Olly and David Hemmings - 2 years later he was the star of Antonioni's BLOW-UP and the icon of the age!



THE SEARCHERS. A classic one never tires of of course, like THE QUIET MAN and VERTIGO, also afternoon or late night delights. More on Ford's classic western at Jeffrey Hunter label - he has that bath scene here with Vera Miles (Mrs TARZAN in real life as she was then married to Gordon Scott!; her pregnancy cost her that leading role in VERTIGO). I shall get around to appreciating Vera in due course. What is jarring about THE SEARCHERS now is the treatment of the squaw Hunter accidentally marries; but to counterbalance that we have those essentially 50s yet timeless scenes with those characters Martin Pawley, Laurie Jurgenson and Natalie Wood's Debbie.

MANSFIELD PARK, the 1999 film of a Jane Austen novel seems to have divided opinions, as a lot of Austen purists hate it. I read the book some time ago, it is not my favourite Austen - that is PERSUASION by a mile, one I can re-read and like all 3 adaptations (costume drama label). The priggish Fanny Price is indeed Austen's least loveable heroine as she relishes her moral superiority over the other young people putting on the play, which she does not approve of. It is a good cast here though, with Harold Pinter (left) as Sir Thomas Bertram whose business interests in Antigua turn out to be slavery, James Purefoy and Johnny Lee Miller as his sons; the marvellous Sheila Gish (right) as Mrs Norris who tries to keep Fanny as the poor relation, and Lindsay Duncan as both Fanny's downtrodden mother and opium-addicted wife of Sir Thomas. Frances O'Connor is a spirited Fanny, but hardly fair to Austen's original.

Finally, a re-view of 1958's A TALE OF TWO CITIES as well, not seen since I was a kid. French actor Paul Guers who did actually look like Bogarde, plays Charles Darnay whom Dirk replaces on the guillotine - Guers has been in some other items I saw recently like Demy's BAY OF ANGELS and THE GIRL WITH GOLDEN EYES (both at French label). This is solid Rank Organisation fare by Ralph Thomas with all those familiar featured players: Rosalie Crutchley, Freda Jackson, Athene Seyler, Christopher Lee, Donald Pleasance etc, all looking splendidly in period.

THIS HAPPY BREED. Another perennial favourite, as I have written about before (Kay Walsh label). Kay excels as Queenie the dissatisfied daughter of Robert Newton and Celia Johnson; and there is that endless bickering between Amy Vaness's mother-in-law and Alison Legatt's spinster sister, all part of the Higgins family in Clapham between the wars. The period detail is just perfect and the emotions are fully engaged, particuarly that scene when the parents in the garden are told of the deaths of their son and his wife, as the camera stays in the sitting room where afternoon tea is about to be served ...

And one discovery: THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: THE LION THE WITCH & THE WARDROBE from 2005: "When the Pevensie family are evacuated out to the country, they are unaware of the adventure they will encounter. During a game of hide and seek, the youngest daughter, Lucy discovers a wardrobe which transports her to the land of Narnia. Covered in snow, Narnia is full of weird and wonderful creatures, but is watched over by the evil White Witch. When all four Pevensie children end up through the wardrobe, they discover that it was meant to be, as two daughters of Eve and two sons of Adam must join with the mighty lion, Aslan (voiced by Liam Neeson) to defeat the evil White Witch". Tilda Swinton is perfect as the Ice Queen/White Witch and James McAvoy (whom I had not though much of) is an adorable faun and the children are just perfect. For a CGI movie I liked it a lot, and Andrew Adamson's direction is also perfect! I shall have to watch the others now ...



The new DOWNTON ABBEY special is indeed a treat, and ticks all the right boxes, and the new GREAT EXPECTATIONS is an odd re-telling, rather different from Lean's version, with Ray Winstone a perfect Magwitch, and Gillian Anderson as a wraith-like younger Miss Havisham. Unusual though to see a plain-jane Estella (who is meant to be a glacial beauty out of the rather ordindary Pip's league), but here Pip with his sculptured cheekbones and pouting lips, is much prettier than her! Pip is Douglas Booth who was one of Isherwood's boys in CHRISTOPHER AND HIS KIND (gay interest label). Now for that BEN HUR re-boot, with Winstone again (as Jack Hawkins). It cannot be a patch on Wyler's classic but may have some cheap laughs!
BEN HUR (2010) actually turned out to be quite interesting, shot in Morocco it looks more like THE LIFE OF BRIAN than a Hollywood blockbuster, and wisely does not try to be - the chariot race for instance is much smaller scale (no circus maximus here) and the ships at war are courtesy of CGI effects and there are interesting script variations from the Wyler film. Winstone is a mumbling Arrius, Hugh Bonneville good as a nasty Pilate, Alex Kingston right as Mrs Hur (the leprosy is also played down), but in all a radical re-working of the original material. Joseph Morgan is a totally underwhelming uncharismatic Ben, but Stephen Campbell Moore (from THE HISTORY BOYS) a rather good Messala.
We will though be still watching the Lean and Wyler originals when these lightweight remakes are soon forgotten - I tuned in to Lean's EXPECTATIONS again yesterday and was bowled over again by how perfect it all was, with that great double act of Martita Hunt and Jean Simmons as the perfect Havisham and Estella, and that marvellous black and white photography, so right for Dickens.

Vanessa

How good to see Vanessa Redgrave continuing to work into her '70s both in cinema and currently on the stage. Two fascinating new projects awaiting release are her Elizabeth I in ANONYMOUS about Shakespeare and his works, and CORIOLANUS by Ralph Fiennes, and that she continues to be as admired as Dames Maggie and Judi et al.

She has been a fixed presence in my moviegoing since the mid-60s: MORGAN, BLOW-UP, THE SAILOR FROM GIBRALTAR, ISADORA, CAMELOT, THE DEVILS, THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE, JULIA, THE TROJAN WOMEN and through to cameos in HOWARD'S END, THE WHITE COUNTESS, ATONEMENT etc, not to mention her delirious A QUIET PLACE IN THE COUNTRY in '69 with Franco Nero (now her husband). I have only caught a few of her stage performances but she was astounding in a delicious '70s DESIGN FOR LIVING (photo at Vanessa Redgrave label) and A MADHOUSE IN GOA sometime in the 80s. She is very lucid too on the making of BLOW-UP in a BBC documentary showing how Antonioni showed her how he wanted her to sit and move and stand. Her autobiography is a revealing read too covering not only her theatrical heritage, the Tony Richardson years and later. Her late sister Lynn was also a particular favourite of mine, as per Lynn Redgrave label.

Update 26 October: a busy week for Vanessa, she has been on morning television twice, on different days, promoting ANONYMOUS as well as CORIOLANUS and DRIVING MISS DAISY - must be tiring doing a play at night and then up early for morning tv! Good to see Joely with her, as Vanessa is as busy as ever - ANONYMOUS looks like a must-see with mother and daughter both playing Elizabeth I. Franco Nero also popped up in LAW & ORDER, SVU as the (Italian here) diplomat accused of rape by a hotel maid, in a topical take on that recent headline grabber!



Coming up: return visits to MORGAN and ISADORA.

Actors 2

A lovely still from Antonioni's L'ECLISSE, 1962, with Alain Delon. The link below, if you copy to your browser, features a terrific page of animated stills of this and other movies like TAXI DRIVER, BLADE RUNNER, 2001, LOLITA etc with brilliant animation of the stills. Enjoy!

http://blogs.suntimes.com/scanners/2011/09/cinematographs_living_breathin.html

10 great male performances: (or my favourites at any rate)

Robert De Niro - TAXI DRIVER & RAGING BULL (and his sax player in NEW YORK NEW YORK!)
Dirk Bogarde - THE SERVANT / MODESTY BLAISE / DEATH IN VENICE
James Mason - A STAR IS BORN
Maurice Ronet - LE FEU FOLLET
Peter Finch - SUNDAY BLOODY SUNDAY / THE TRIALS OF OSCAR WILDE
Anton Walbrook - THE RED SHOES
Ralph Richardson - THE HEIRESS
Montgomery Clift - WILD RIVER
David Hemmings - BLOW-UP
Cary Grant - NOTORIOUS
Gary Cooper - FRIENDLY PERSUASION
James Dean - EAST OF EDEN
and sneaking in Jack Lemmon as Daphne in SOME LIKE IT HOT - Tony ain't bad either!

White jeans and a new BLOW-UP book !

A terrific image from that favourite movie of mine BLOW-UP with David Hemmings in those white jeans. I wore white jeans too then - we all did, when worn well and kept clean they were just cool and such a change to blue jeans.

From a new book I have just ordered, yet another BLOW-UP book - I already have about half a dozen (as per Antonioni label), this one is ANTONIONI'S BLOW-UP by Philippe Garner and David Alan Mellor. I can't wait ... good that there are still things to say about Antonioni's masterwork. I for one can't get enough of Hemmings in the park and those studio scenes and the London I knew then - I lived near the restaurant in Chelsea too. That was me on the screen when I was 21, its how we looked and dressed. Key '60s stuff then.

I have a new clutch of '60s movies to (re)watch too: KING RAT, MORGAN, ISADORA, THE MAGIC CHRISTIAN, BEDAZZLED, THE MUSIC LOVERS ... more on those in due course.

Perfectly '60s (2): The System: Oliver, David, Jane

Looking at THE LEAGUE OF GENTLEMEN from 1960 again the other day, it was amusing to see Oliver Reed prance in for a minute, acting very swish and camp, into the room where Jack Hawkins and Nigel Patrick etc are planning their robbery. Just one of Olly's many small roles before all those Ken Russell and Michael Winner films.

A key one for me (being 18 and new in London) was Winner's THE SYSTEM from 1964 about a gang of youngs in an English seaside town - Torquay I think [Weymouth was the seaside town where Reed and his gang hung out in, in Losey's THE DAMNED, 1961]. David Hemmings here is quite nondescript as one of the boys - but 2 years later he would be starring one of the key roles of the '60s: the photographer in Antonioni's BLOW-UP - talk about catching the zeitgeist!

Also in THE SYSTEM is Jane Merrow, as the girl who breaks Reed's heart - she was actually Hemmings' girl at the time, and he writes nicely about her in his autobiography which he luckily finished before he died in 2003. I had a nice conversation with Jane myself in 1966 when she was doing a play in London - she went on to co-star in THE LION IN WINTER, another key 60s movie, before doing television in the States. THE SYSTEM though is well worth seeking out ...

Perfectly '60s (1): Blow-Up + Performance

One of the few remaining London revival houses ran a double bill the other day of BLOW-UP and PERFORMANCE – surely the double bill that encapsulates the swinging 60s.

I have written about Antonioni’s BLOW-UP here several times, as per labels, for me it remains a key movie and is still endlessly fascinating with those set-pieces of the park, the studio, blowing up the photos, and that picture of London emerging in the mid-60s which for those of us who were there (and I arrived in 1964 when I was 18) is so realistic with the new buildings and how the city looked. (I later lived near that restaurant they lunch at, in Chelsea). David Hemmings here is like how we used to look and dress then… the soundtrack by Herbie Hancock is also part of the film’s fabric and appeal, I have been playing it for decades, on vinyl, cd and now ipod. It was just THE movie to see and be part of when I was 21 in '67.




PERFORMANCE remains the more problematic title – filmed in 1968 by Donald Cammell and Nicholas Roeg it was shelved by Warner Bros until 1970 as they did not know what to do with it's decadence. It is still a disturbing film with layers one could peel off and still not get to its mysterious core. In a way it symbolises the end of the hippie dream as the drugs and violence escalate out of control. It begins with razor sharp editing as hard nut gangster James Fox who enjoys the violent life and casual sex and the perks it brings going too far and killing the man (in an incredibly powerful scene, like the murder in the woods in Bertolucci's THE CONFORMIST) who has violated him and having to go on the run from the head honcho Johnny Flowers. Chas (Fox) takes refuge, with his blond hair painted red, in the run-down mansion of reclusive rock star Mick Jagger who has lost his mojo and lives in dreamlike seclusion with two women (Anita Pallenberg and newcomer Michelle Breton) who minister to his needs in an exclusive part of Notting Hill. Chas of course gets drawn into their games and begins to lose his sense of reality as he too takes those hallucogenics.



Cammell’s previous script (as directed by Robert Parrish) the psychedelic crime caper DUFFY (also with Fox, and reviewed here, at Fox/York labels) is an amusing jaunt among the rich hippes in North Africa, which is also referenced here with those mysterious tribes out in the desert, as well as that fashionable Argentine writer Borges (whose image appears tellingly at the climax). Chas and the rock star seem to be changing identities so when the gangsters arrive at the end which one is being taken away? That’s it in a nutshell but it is a lot more elliptical and mysterious than a resume can begin to do justice to. It is still one to see and re-see … Cammell (1934-1996) went on to direct DEMON SEED (the one about the computer wanting to impregnate Julie Christie) which is his other best known credit. Roeg of course went on to be one of the key British directors of his era with those classics like WALKABOUT, DON’T LOOK NOW, THE MAN WHO FELL TO EARTH, BAD TIMING etc after photographing the likes of THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH and FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD.

James Fox was of course one of the golden new stars of the '60s [like David Hemmings, Terence Stamp, Tom Courtenay etc] and has had a fascinating career. A child actor, he was perfect for the master of that Chelsea house in Losey's THE SERVANT, and followed it with films like THOSE MAGNIFICENT MEN IN THEIR FLYING MACHINES, KING RAT, THOROUGHLY MODERN MILLIE, an Italian one I have not seen ARABELLA, ISADORA, DUFFY and then PERFORMANCE - the filming of which was it seems so traumatic for him he left acting for over a decade, but returned married with a family and continued in lots of different roles, becoming one of England's most respected elder actors - his son Lawrence now carries on the tradition (in series like LEWIS).

A double bill to savour then. By the time PERFORMANCE made it into the cinemas that late 60s era of pushing the boundaries regarding sex and violence was in full swing (with MIDNIGHT COWBOY winning best film), as per the magazine covers below: