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.

Priest of Love

PRIEST OF LOVE. Only 1 review of this 1981 film on IMDb? Ian McKellen’s first starring role in 1980 as D.H. Lawrence, didn’t attract too much attention at the time; I passed over it myself as I did films like RETURN OF THE SOLIDER, perhaps there was a glut of costume dramas at the time, all those Alan Bates, Glenda Jackson films. This was directed by Christopher Miles (brother of actress Sarah) who also directed the Lawrence tale THE VIRGIN AND THE GYPSY in 1970 and is another look at that Lawrence era of the 1920s lovingly recreated. Here D.H. and his German wife Frieda (a rather too strident Janet Suzman) have to leave England in 1914 due to the outbreak of World War I and they travel to the United States pitching up in Taos, Santa Fe as guests of wealthy patron Mabel Dodge Luhan (Ava Gardner, enjoying herself hugely) and Lady Dorothy Brett (Penelope Keith, ideal as their deaf companion and fellow artist). Later we move to Italy as Lawrence’s health deteriorates after the banning of “Lady Chatterley’s Lover” and the burning of “The Rainbow” and the raid on the art gallery showing his explicit paintings. John Gielgud is very diligent in his pursuit of the filth in Lawrence’s books, having to re-read them to extract full value.



The casting here is the thing, even to the smallest role. It intriguingly begins suggesting D.H.’s bisexuality showing him leaving his Cornish farmhouse and sleeping wife for an early morning naked swim where he is joined by a strapping Cornish farmer – Graham Faulkner, required to strip again but showing a more robust physique than he did as St Francis in Zeffirelli’s BROTHER SUN SISTER MOON. In Italy too the manager of their estate, Italian pop singer/actor Massimo Ranieri is pleased to disrobe to pose for D.H.’s paintings. Other names in the extensive cast include Julian Fellowes (now writing DOWNTON ABBEY) and Gareth Forwood (the actor son of Glynis Johns and Anthony Forwood, later Dirk Bogarde’s partner). Scripted by Alan Plater and filmed at the places the Lawrences stayed at it looks handsome and perfectly in period. Miles directs with a sure touch (his sister Sarah appears in one of the deleted scenes) and the new dvd has extensive interviews (including a new one with McKellen) and additional material. One wonders how that other Lawrence expert maestro Ken Russell would have souped it up?



For Miles's THE VIRGIN AND THE GYPSY review, see Franco Nero label.

Fassbinder & Fox and his friends, 1974

This powerful and harrowing melodrama from 1974 is one of Rainer Werner Fassbinder's most accessible movies, and is a must-see for all those interested in intelligent film making.

The tragic story of Fox is masterfully and poignantly handled by Fassbinder, while never slipping into sloppy sentimentality, but unfolds with grim inevitability. Fassbinder was inexhaustible. In his 15 year career he made 40 feature-length films, 3 shorts, directed 24 stage plays, wrote 33 screenplays collaborating on 13 more, developed 2 series for television and took on 36 acting roles in not only his, but the films of his contemporaries as well. He remains a key figure as the Enfant Terrible in the New German Cinema of the 70s, along with Wim Wenders and Herzog. It was his ability to work quickly on a shoestring budget that allowed him to take advantage of government grants that enabled him to continue working at breakneck pace, often taking on the roles of producer, editor, composer, production designer and cinematographer in order to ensure the quality of his work.
FEAR EATS THE SOUL and THE BITTER TEARS OF PETRA VON KANT were big hits one had to have an opinion on at the time, and then came FOX AND HIS FRIENDS....like Polanski playing the lead in DANCE OF THE VAMPIRES it is odd seeing Fassbinder himself playing the lead as the lumpy fairground worker who is convinced he is going to win the lottery [the woman who sells him the ticket is Brigetta Mira, the heroine of FEAR EATS THE SOUL - and other Fassbinder regulars pop up too]. Add in Carl Boehm (from the SISSI films and PEEPING TOM etc) as the wealthy gay Fox initially hooks up with, and Peter Chatel as the object of his affections and we get a rapacious gay milieu which Fassbinder presents before us.

Below: FEAR EATS THE SOUL / The lush THE BITTER TEARS OF PETRA VON KANT


Fassbinder’s fatalistic outlook was reflected in the extreme brutality and sorrow that permeate his films. That quality, combined with his gritty, naked in your face drama often left film critics and viewers speechless, while utilising melodrama like Douglas Sirk, a big influence on him. His first film LOVE IS COLDER THAN DEATH in 1969 was poorly received and died a slow painful death. THE BITTER TEARS OF PETRA VON KANT was an art-house success in 1972 and concerns the idea that power is the ultimate goal in all human relationships. MARTHA in 1974, explores cruelty of traditional marriage; FEAR EATS THE SOUL brilliantly re-works Sirk's ALL THAT HEAVEN ALLOWS in a working class milieu as the cleaning woman's marriage to the Moroccan immigrant outrages her family and friends, until they get used to the idea and need her for work and baby-sitting duties, and FOX AND HIS FRIENDS the same year showcases the cruel side of homosexuality. This story centers around a good-natured young adult who wins half a million in a lottery, then naively hooks up with a lecherous man who, aided by his family, drains him of all his money and love, leaving him to die alone on the floor of a train station. These movies (plus a period drama EFFI BRIEST) were staples of London's indie revival houses (like the "Screen on the Green" where I used to hang out all the time), and the BFI also did a major retrospective.

He capped his career with a trilogy of films, the highly regarded THE MARRIAGE OF MARIA BRAUN in 1978, LOLA in 1981 and VERONIKA VOSS in 1982 all centered around women (usually Hanna Schygulla) in post-fascist Germany; and DESPAIR with Dirk Bogarde, which according to Dirk, the by then drug-addled Fassbinder ruined in the editing just before its screening at the Cannes film festival.



Fassbinder lived hard and partied hard. One of his relationships with men included El Hedi ben Salem, the male lead in FEAR EATS THE SOUL and Fassbinder’s longtime lover, who hanged himself while in jail. Fassbinder did not live to see his last film QUERELLE in 1982, a lurid success about a good-looking sailor, a thief and hustler (featuring Franco Nero, Brad Davis and Jeanne Moreau), because he died from a lethal combination of sleeping pills and cocaine, a few days after his 37th birthday. His short remarkable career influenced some of today’s most imaginative directors like Pedro Almoldovar, Richard Linklater, John Waters, Todd Haynes and Gus Van Sant.

The ending though to FOX is a tragedy beyond description - Love is colder than Death indeed ... fascinating though the look of that early '70s: the clothes, the interiors, and the characters fascinate: Boehm as the wealthy gay who observes, the alcoholic sister wanting her money back, Chatel as the venal boyfriend with his own boyfriend poised to return once Fox has been cleaned out, the purchasing of the antiques and the trip to Morocco, and the money invested in the parents' failing company, and that ending at the railway station ... what a bleak universe. Interesting now to compare with the newly restored TAXI ZUM KLO, Frank Ripploh's vivid diary of his gay life in Berlin circa 1980. FOX though can be exasperating: does he not realise what is going on, is he complicit in his own destruction, if he is looking for love does he not realise he will not find it here? Is he so unloved?


A personal memory here: I worked for a London university bookshop in the late 70s, imagine my surprise one day when a guy came into my office and sat on my desk, waiting for my colleague, Monica a German friend, to return. It was Peter Chatel - who died in 1986. Fassbinder's main films though will endure and continue to fascinate.

Next: Mexico's joyous DONA HERLINDA AND HER SON by Jaime Hermosillo.

Romcoms (2)

LETTERS TO JULIET - Leftover from last Christmas, this 2010 romcom finally gets taken out of its case. I am not one for chick-flicks per se, though I liked THE PROPOSAL (which I saw initially on a flight) and IT'S COMPLICATED wasn't too unbearable. This one though had the attraction of Vanessa Redgrave reunited on-screen with [her husband] Franco Nero and all that Italian countryside. As such, it delivers. The plot is probably a bit too saccharine, as we follow Sophie (Amanda Seyfried, MAMMA MIA) from the "New Yorker" to Verona where she discovers Juliet's balcony and the letters left which are replied to, and guess what - she finds a letter from 1957 when a brick falls out of the wall, so of course she replies to it. Gael Garcia Bernal is rather wasted as her workaholic boyfriend - then Christopher Egan turns up with his grand-mother Claire (Redgrave) in tow and they decide to track down the lover fate had separated her from 50 years ago. There are though 74 Lorenzo Bartolini's in the area .... it is a pleasant moment though when Nero rides up on his white horse - and it continues exactly as one would expect and wish. Directed by Gary Winick. Nice to see a good late role for Redgrave [like Julie Christie with AWAY FROM HER,] looking well and natural in her early 70s. (The 1969 Redgrave-Nero arthouse eurotrash A QUIET PLACE IN THE COUNTRY is reviewed at Redgrave label).

IT’S COMPLICATED – I was not enamoured with Nancy Meyers’ SOMETHING’S GOTTA GIVE and I just did not want to see THE HOLIDAY, so presumably here is more of the same in IT’S COMPLICATED, which has Meryl Streep and Alec Baldwin who have been divorced meeting again at their son’s college graduation and rekindling their relationship as he determines to win her back. He though has remarried with young children but it is not working out, and she also starts to get involved with architect Steve Martin, so yes, it’s complicated. If one likes seeing rich people (she is the wealthy owner of a bakery chain) fool around, and smoke pot, then I suppose this is the kind of thing you would like. Meryl seems to be enjoying herself and laughs a lot, at least Martin is low-key here, and Baldwin is the best thing as he has turned into a droll comedian with no vanity at all. I suppose it is a superior romcom with one laugh out loud scene with the webcams (above).

'60s ...(2) Trash classics

Pauline Kael wrote of “the higher trash and the lower trash”. Some films which are quite enjoyable but are classics of all that is shoddy and second-rate and cliche-ridden and monumentally banal. But enough high-faluting snobbery, sometimes one needs a good dose of lower trash fun, here are a few choice ones …

LOVE HAS MANY FACES – a deliriously exotic artefact from 1965 and currently my favourite Lana Turner epic. The best thing about it actually is the theme song sung by Nancy Wilson. Lana, looking glazed throughout, is dressed by Edith Head (though that’s no recommendation anymore after the other period films like A HOUSE IS NOT A HOME she dressed in atrocious early 60s styles) and plays a wealthy playgirl in Acapulco married to ex-beach boy gigolo Cliff Robertson. They drink a lot as the police find the body of another beach boy who it seems Lana knew. Hugh O’Brian in skimpy speedos lingers while waiting to get off with Lana, as he trains his room-mate, another bottle blonde beach boy, in how to be a gigolo. Enter Ruth Roman [right, with O'Brian], a dame who knows the score and is willing to pay for her pleasures, with her pal Virginia Grey. Stephanie Powers is the young innocent trying to find what happened to the dead beachboy, and she and Cliff are drawn together. They all go off to a bullfight and ….. but no, I cannot describe how this delirious farrago ends. Its certainly one to cherish though, as directed by Alexander Singer who also did A COLD WIND IN AUGUST and PSYCHE 59. Ruth is terrific, I must see more of her ...

SYLVIA – One of those Joe E Levine [the Mogul of the Mediocre] mid’60s melodramas which the studios were turning out in a desperate attempt to get with it as the Swinging 60s took off, but ended up looking more dated than ever. Thank heavens the like of BONNIE AND CLYDE were just around the corner. Here, old hand Gordon Douglas directs Carroll Baker (in her Harlow phase) as the poetess Sylvia West who is engaged to Peter Lawford (playing a sleazeball as usual) who hires private eye George Maharis to track down the background of the mysterious Sylvia. This is quite enjoyable actually as cue cameos from Edmund O’Brien, Joanne Dru as an ex-hooker who married well, Ann Sothern hilariously overblown, Aldo Ray as Sylvia’s abusive father, Viveca Lindfors as a possibly lesbian librarian, Nancy Kovack as a brassy showgirl and Lola Diamond, a very scary drag queen. Baker is quite nice here as the rose-growing poet untouched by her sordid past, and there is a perfect theme song by Paul Anka. Ok, its trash but in a good way. Its in black and white with that nice mid-60s feel.

HARLOW – The movie I love to hate - only THE OSCAR is worse, and why, pray, is it called HARLOW? We learn nothing about the real Harlow – her first and later marriages are not mentioned, and neither are Gable, Powell, Hughes or any of her films. Carroll Baker is nothing like Harlow, there is no attempt, apart from a few old cars, to re-create the 1930s and Baker looks like a 60s vamp and seems to be doing the twist at one stage, to Neal Hefti’s muzak score. The hair is all wrong too. The men are all over the hill: Mr Sleaze Peter Lawford is the husband who kills himself, Red Buttons the agent who promotes her, and one trusts Angela Lansbury and Raf Vallone got handsome paychecks and enjoyed themselves for appearing as her parents. Poor Jean, frustrated in love, picks up a guy and full of disgust falls drunk into the surf at Malibu, catching pneumonia as the waves wash over her …. And then she dies prettily in hospital. Was that really what happened to Harlow ? Another 1965 release, directed – or should I say assembled – by hack Gordon Douglas, and bizarrely scripted by John Michael Hayes. At least VALLEY OF THE DOLLS is presented as a trash classic, but was this really meant to be taken seriously?

HARLOW – the OTHER HARLOW film from 1965, a cheapo effect in black and white, but its actually a whole lot better. Carol Lynley is made up more in the 1930s style and looks more like Jean than Baker. Its competently directed by Alex Segal, Ginger Rogers is a barn-storming Momma Jean with Barry Sullivan as her husband, with Hurd Hatfield, Efrem Zimbalist and it does try to recreate the ‘30s with Hermione Baddeley as Marie Dressler and look-alikes for Laurel and Hardy and others. It’s a whole lot of fun actually. Both HARLOWs are essential if you want to run a trash classics all-nighter for your friends’ amusement ….

WHY MUST I DIE? – I wouldn’t bother with rubbish like this normally, but given it as a swop recently (by my IMDB buddy Timshelboy), I had to have a look. It’s a real curiosity now, this 1960 knock-off of I WANT TO LIVE two years earlier, was directed by Roy Del Ruth and produced by and stars Terry Moore in another grim downbeat look at capital punishment. Its hilariously awful in every respect as Terry apes Susan Hayward’s suffering in Robert Wise’s far superior classic. Terry is a good girl gone wrong but decides to leave her sleazy hood of a boyfriend and moves away and becomes a classy chanteuse in an upmarket supper club – but her past catches up with her when Eddy and his new moll – Debra Paget – track her down and force her into helping them rob the joint. Things go wrong when Debra shoots the owner, Terry’s current beau, and Terry gets framed for the murder and sent down. Unrepentant bad girl Debra (who snarls her way through her scenes and wears Capri pants and stilettos) then shoots a helpless blind man while raiding a grocery store and she too end up in the slammer but won’t confess to the murder which Terry, who is now on death row, is condemned for. Will the other inmates break mean Debra down in time before Terry fries in the electric chair? It sets out the rituals of execution, as in the Wise film, and the ending is a surprise. Tawdry cheap noir doesn’t get much cheaper.

SOS PACIFIC – Guy Green’s 1959 thriller is a neat British entry (rather like a superior B-movie) in the “doomed flight” type of movies that were popular back then (Warner’s THE CROWDED SKY though remains the best, but BACK FROM ETERNITY also delivers, I must try and re-see JET STORM, also 1959 where Richard Attenborough has the bomb on the plane, piloted by Stanley Baker, with a great cast of the time). This one features a rackety sea-plane piloted by dependable John Gregson with Pier Angeli as the stewardess, tough guy Eddie Constantine is the anti-hero and Richard Attenborough in one of the sleazy roles he played back then is the con man on the run. Add in Eva Bartok as a playgirl down on her luck and Jean Anderson as the prim older lady. Our motley crew crash land near a deserted Pacific atoll (in shark-infested waters….) and discover its going to be the target for an atomic bomb test in a few hours. Can they disable the signal in time ….. Its nicely worked out – I enjoyed it when I saw it as a kid, fun to see again now.

A GIRL NAMED TAMIKO - In between churning out those action hits like THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN and THE GREAT ESCAPE John Sturges also helmed some surprising choices like the Lana Turner sudser BY LOVE POSSESSED and this choice item from 1962: A GIRL NAMED TAMIKO. I can only presume Sturges and the cast signed on for the trip to Japan [probably a rarity back then], as a lot of it does look like it was shot there and not by the second unit.
1962 was one of Laurence Harvey’s busier years what with this, THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE and WALK ON THE WILD SIDE and that unseen Cinerama Grim(m) film. Here he is, if you please, as a half-Russian and half-Chinese but is still the same Laurence Harvey we know and love, going through the film with a pained expression (maybe to signify the Chinese or Russian part of his character?) as the photographer willing to go to any lengths for that visa to America. Its set in Tokyo among the expat colony, but Miyoski Umeki would seem to be only real Japanese involved. France Nuyen as Tamiko, whom Larry falls for, is actually half-French, half-Vietnamese (and she looked a lot prettier as Liat back in SOUTH PACIFIC). Martha Hyer though sizzles as the girl from the Embassy (a variation on her country club girl roles) with the hots for Larry. Good to see Michael Wilding and Gary Merrill gainfully employed in supporting roles. An interesting curiosity then, courtesy of Hal Wallis. It isn't really that racy even if the poster screams: "He was half oriental, but he used the women of two continents without shame or guilt!"

WALK ON THE WILD SIDE – Harvey again in another lulu from 1962 and one of the best trash classics ever, as directed by Edward Dmytryk with that pounding Elmer Bernstein score and that great credit sequence with the prowling cat. (Jazzman Jimmy Smith also had a hit with this theme). Laurence Harvey, as expressionless as ever, hunts for his lost love Capucine in the bordellos of New Orleans in the 1930s, from the well-known novel by Nelson Algren. The movie is quite tame though but the cast are fascinating: young Jane Fonda as Kitty Twist, on the road with Harvey and later in the cat house owned by Barbara Stanwyck who wants haughty sculptress Capucine for herself. There is something fascinating about Capucine, I just like watching her. Anne Baxter has a supporting role here as Teresina, the Italian café owner, who would like Harvey to stay on with her. It all comes to a steaming climax at Stanwyck’s cathouse … one to savour then.

THE CARPETBAGGERS – I really enjoyed this when re-saw it recently. It’s a trash classic made by experts: again directed by Dmytryk in ‘64, script by John Michael Hayes, dressed by Edith Head and another Bernstein score (which sounds rather like a rehash of Walk On the Wild Side). Its enormous fun as Jason Cord (the man you love to hate, as portrayed by George Peppard) discovers why he is such a heel and tries to destroy everyone. Its of course a variation on the Howard Hughes story as novelised by Harold Robbins, and is much more fun than Scorsese’s attempt on the Hughes story in THE AVIATOR. Alan Ladd turns in his final role as the cowboy Nevada Smith (who Steve McQueen also portrayed), Carroll Baker is rather wasted as the Jean Harlow type star, Martin Balsam and Robert Cummings deliver great characters and Martha Hyer comes in late and is sensational, then there is Elizabeth Ashley as Peppard’s real love interest. It plays like a cartoon strip and is terrific fun, even now.

THE SINGING NUN – this 1966 monstrosity has been kept hidden for the last 40 or so years here in the UK, until TCM UK decided to haul it out of mothballs for our enjoyment. Is there a more enjoyably awful bad movie? Its tragic in a way, considering what happened to the real Singing Nun, whose “Dominique” was one of the first records I bought as an early teen. Here we have Debbie Reynolds in her worst performance as the simpering sister playing her guitar in Belgium. Add in Greer Garson as the condescending Mother Superior, Agnes Moorehead as the crotchety nun and IMITATION OF LIFE’s Juanita Moore is lost as the happy black nun, Chad Everett is Debbie’s ex-beau, and Ricardo Montalban is an unsufferably cheerful priest. Katharine Ross puts in an early appearance. The ending is downright laughable as Sister Debbie gives up her music as it was taking her away from her vocation, and there she is like a Madonna (or Madonna) holding up a naked black baby in Africa as the natives adore her. Old hand Henry Koster makes this one a religious movie to laugh at. The laugh is on MGM if they thought their happy nun film would equal the success of 20th's SOUND OF MUSIC!

THE LOVE MACHINE – Perhaps the trashiest of trash classics? This 1971 potboiler by Jack Haley Jr from Jacqueline Suzann’s novel was an absolute treat to finally see this year! Like THE OSCAR it is just appalling on every level, as impassive Robin Stone (John Philip Law, left with Cannon and Hemmings) schemes to become the head of a televisison station, using everyone in his way, but meet his match in Dyan Cannon as the ruthless wife of tycoon Robert Ryan (who lends dignity to his role). Dyan demands a key to Law’s apartment so she can call in whenever she wants but naturally she is not pleased to drop by and find him having a threesome in the shower with two young nubile lovelies, so of course she douses the bed in petrol and sets the room ablaze. Then there is David Hemmings enjoying himself hugely as the very gay and camp photographer (a twist on his BLOW-UP persona perhaps?) who also has the hots for John – the film comes to a hilarious climax as he, his pink-clad boyfriend, Dyan and Law fight for an incriminating bracelet that will prove Law is a “fag” (the word must have been in common usage then, as Dyan tosses it around all the time) which means Dyan can get him sacked from his tv post! The girl playing Amanda the model is also terrible and comedian Shecky Greene is unbearable [like Tony Bennett in THE OSCAR]. A hooker is brutally beaten up by our ‘hero’ and as for the homophobia … there is though a nice Dionne Warwick theme song!
Perhaps I should also endeavour to catch up with DOCTORS’ WIVES, THE OTHER SIDE OF MIDNIGHT and ONCE IS NOT ENOUGH ? Though too much trash can make one very queasy …

A QUIET PLACE IN THE COUNTRY – an “arty” choice to finish with. This Elio Petri (he also directed INVESTIGATION OF A CITIZEN ABOVE SUSPICION) 1969 film reunites lovers Vanessa Redgrave and Franco Nero from CAMELOT and is a riot of late 60s symbolism – any film that begins with Franco Nero in his underpants tied to a chair with rope, as Vanessa enters casually removing her panties and then proceeds to bite his nipples has to be worth a look. Is it a dream or one of the mad artist’s delusions? It makes one wonder if respected elderly thespians (Franco and Vanessa are married now) look back in amazement at what they were paid to do as the Swinging 60s drew to a close and the counterculture collapsed. If so, they will have a ball watching this one. Vanessa went on to perform that deformed nun in Ken Russell's THE DEVILS while Franco went Romany in THE VIRGIN AND THE GYPSY. Redgrave and Nero are presumably more staid now as they are reunited in this new rom-com LETTERS TO JULIET...

Here's a link to Franco in a jockstrap from one of those euro movies that never showed up here in London: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-lOPgxDDQc

Next: back to art house: Antonioni's IL GRIDO, Visconti's SANDRA, Bergman's THE MAGICIAN, Truffaut's LE PEAU DEUCE.

Recent tv choices...

Apart from the great new series MAD MEN and GLEE, some choice old movies have re-appeared, thanks to TCM UK.

BUNNY O'HARE - this Bette Davis film from 1971 was just a memory of catching it once and disbelieving how bad it was, now here it is again, and it seems even worse seeing Bette and Ernest Borgnine (a long way from their THE CATERED AFFAIR back in '56) as the elderly bank robbers dressed as hippies robbing banks throughout the American southwest. It just looks very cheap and tatty, and Jack Cassidy is quite unpleasant as the sleazy police chief. Bette and Borg rob banks in retaliation for the banks' foreclosing on her, and provide funds for her grasping children. Unfortunately her final expletive is here downgraded to a less offensive one. Not as bad though as LESBIAN VAMPIRE KILLERS, but then what is? Bette's worst film. (I saw her in person at London's National Film Theatre the next year (in '72) when she got a great reception and brought the house down, at least she was back in good company by the time of DEATH ON THE NILE IN '78!).

WHITE MISCHIEF. Michael Radford's 1988 drama passed me by but was an engrossing experience to see now, with that great cast and the unsolved murder mystery of what really happened back in the '30s among that dissolute community of rich folk out in Kenya among the colonial expatriates. Its handsomely mounted showing the casual racism and promiscuity as newcomers Joss Ackland and his pretty new wife Greta Sacchi set temperatures rising. Local rake Charles Dance and Greta fall in love to the chagrin of Ackland (great to see him in a leading role here), and Sarah Miles who had considered Dance her own. Geraldine Chaplin, Susan Fleetwood, John Hurt, Murray Head and a young Hugh Grant are also involved, as well as Trevor Howard in one of his last roles. Sarah Miles has a great scene at the morgue as she leaves her very special imprint on the corpse, and I loved her greeting at the dawn of another beautiful day! Greta impresses as the very '40s vamp, as carnal and lovely as a young Lana Turner.

THE LOUDEST WHISPER or THE CHILDREN'S HOUR. This 1961 Wyler film has been long unseen here, but now that TCM UK has acquired some United Artists titles its been shown a few times. Its of course the famous Lillian Hellman play (first done by Wyler in the '30s) about the 2 school teachers accused by a spiteful deceitful child of being lesbians. This of course means the closure of their school and they are regarded as outsiders. Its hokum now but well mounted by Wyler with Audrey Hepburn and Shirley McLaine as the leads, James Garner as Hepburn's bewildered beau, Miriam Hopkins back as McLaine's silly aunt and best of all, Fay Bainter (who was in Wyler's JEZEBEL) who is monumental as the child's aunt and who causes the downfall of the school, and then when she finds out the real truth has to come to apologise... the lynchpin of the story is that Martha (McLaine) realises she really does love Audrey Hepburn that way, so there is only one solution for her. [Shirely later did recant about this in the documentary THE CELLULOID CLOSET, but it must have seemed par for the course back then].

Good though to see some United Artists titles being dusted down, like a batch of Woody Allens [ANOTHER WOMAN, ALICE, SEPTEMBER], Billy Wilders [I won't though be watching IRMA LA DEUCE], and do I really want to see YENTL or THE WHALES OF AUGUST again (painful enough seeing the decline into old age of Lindsay Anderson, Bette Davis, Lillian Gish, Vincent Prince, Ann Sothern just the once...).

MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS - Charles Jarrot's 1971 film looks well mounted, but is really the kind of historical film I do not care for, being one of those dull, reverential, ploddingly directed costume dramas with no cinematic flair whatsoever as lots of thespians stand around mouthing reams of dialogue, more a pageant than a film. They may use real settings but it just looks wrong: very overlit, and the costumes look brand new, as though they arrived that morning. Scenes are like tableaus with no dramatic progression. The cast do what they can - Glenda Jackson had a huge hit in the BBC series ELIZABETH I over six hours, but her Virgin Queen is a caricature here, Vanessa Redgrave as Mary is tremelous and lovely as she deals with Patrick McGoohan, Timothy Dalton, Nigel Davenport, Ian Holm. Trevor Howard is Cecil, Elizabeth's advisor. Interesting to see again but just dull dull dull.

THE VIRGIN AND THE GYPSY. 1970 - a pleasant reminder of when England had a film industry - this, a kind of follow-up to WOMEN IN LOVE, was the kind of movie that played at local cinemas, usually as part of a double feature. Interesting to see how well made it was with great period detail of the 20s as lackluste Joanna Shimkus [sort of a lesser Jacqueline Bisset] returns to her family's vicarage somewhere in the North of England - this is D H Lawrence country. Father is stuffy vicar Maurice Denham and Kay Walsh is as ever splendid as the spinster sister Cissy, forever at odds with the young people, and Fay Compton is the spiteful old granny. Bored Yvette (Joanna) spots the virile gypsy - Franco Nero, attractive as ever here (with his bare chest and waistcoat), who with his woman (Imogen Hassall) and baby have their caravan nearby. Local youths express interest in Yvette but she has no time for them. Honor Blackman and Mark Burns are the scandalous unmarried couple who befriend her, and nature soon take care of things as a flash flood sweeps through the countryside sweeping decorum away as Yvette and gypsy finally get together. As directed by Christopher Miles [Sarah's brother] its all very enjoyable and engrossing, rather like those other films of the era like THE TRIPLE ECHO or those Ken Russell or John Schlesinger films.