A brace of '60s war movies

SINK THE BISMARCK! A very satisfying English war movie from 1960 showing how the Admiralty chased and sank the German battleship “Bismarck” in the battle of the North Atlantic. Directed by Lewis Gilbert it features just about every British character actor from those war films. Kenneth More stars as the strict captain of operations, ably assisted by Dana Wynter (who died this year) who looks terrific in those navy outfits. Also on board are Michael Hordern, Laurence Naismith, Geoffrey Keen, Maurice Denham, Michael Goodliffe and John Stride as More’s son who is missing in action. On the Bismarck “good German” Carl Mohner is over-ruled by the increasingly unhinged captain Karl Stepanek. Clever use is made of stock footage and models in the studio tank but we are mainly at Admiralty headquarters and the growing relationship between More and Wynter is nicely under-stated. Based on true events it all seems very real and keeps the interest.



OPERATION CROSSBOW. Another war movie, perhaps the last of the genre (until those big hitters like WHERE EAGLES DARE and THE BATTLE OF BRITAIN), ably put together by producer Carlo Ponti and helmed by Michael Anderson, well used to handling large international casts. This is an expensive MGM production from 1965 and was a popular movie at the time - I remember being 19 and new to London and travelling on the underground to the big ABC cinema at Bishops Bridge Road near Paddington to see it on a Bank Holiday Monday - and it still gets screened a lot.
The first half shows how the Germans (led by Paul Henreid and German air ace Hanna Reisch) built their flying bombs and V2 rockets to rain destruction on London, as again, all the English war movie actors sit and deliberate: Trevor Howard, John Mills, Richard Johnson, Richard Todd, Sylvia Syms, John Fraser, Richard Wattis etc. as agents are recruited to parachute into occupied Holland and pose as engineers for what would seem to be suicide missions to penetrate the underground bomb-making factories where the Germans are mass-producing bombs. We then get the central segment where the producer’s wife Sophia Loren walks in demonstrating 60s star quality (with no concession to 40s hair or clothes styles) as the estranged wife of one of the engineers, who is now being impersonated by George Peppard. Hotelier and agent Lilli Palmer is very determined the mission should not be put in jeopardy as Loren is kept prisoner at the hotel, as other agent Tom Courtenay is arrested for murder. Anthony Quayle is the double agent who knows Courtenay is an agent impersonating a dead man as he tries in vain to crack Courtenay and gain the truth. The very determined Lilli makes sure Loren does not spoil the mission as the story moves to the underground bomb factory and boys-own heroics take over, as Peppard and Jeremy Kemp sabotage the factory as the bombers approach to blitz it. Stirring stuff then, ably put together (the Germans all speak German) and a war movie perennial. An enjoyable (!) brace of '60s war movies then! My mother was in London during the blitz and we used to enjoy hearing all those stories of life during wartime.....

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.

Fantastic French flick

CHAIR DE POULE was directed by legendary French director Julien Duvivier in 1963 and what a treat it is - a blacker than black noir, which seagues off into THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE territory and then goes a whole lot further ... it's English title HIGHWAY PICKUP sounds kind of porny but also captures it's essence.

My friend Melvelvit-1 over at IMDB puts its so succintly in his review:

Locksmith Daniel Boisett (Robert Hossein) and his co-worker Paul Genest (Jean Sorel), friends since childhood, supplement their income with the occasional burglary until life spins wildly out of control one rainy night after Paul kills a man who catches them robbing his apartment. Paul manages to escape but Daniel's wounded by police and, taking the fall alone, is later sentenced to 20 years in prison but, enroute to the big house, he escapes and hitches a ride with the middle-aged Thomas (Georges Wilson) who offers him a job at his roadside restaurant. Daniel quickly accepts but soon finds out that Thomas' sexy young wife, Maria (Catherine Rouvel), has had her eye on the nest egg in her husband's safe for a long time and could use a man like him...

Julien Duvivier's classic French noir, based on a ripe piece of pulp fiction by James Hadley Chase ("Come Easy -Go Easy"), careens into THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE territory at this point but the story takes so many breathless twists and turns, any comparisons are ultimately unfair. All kinds of complications ensue when Maria's husband ends up dead and Paul pops up again but "no good deed goes unpunished" in this perverse universe where greed, lust, and self-preservation trump decent human emotions like love and friendship every time. Daniel's the quintessential noir anti-hero, caught in a vortex of nightmarish cause and effect, and the femme fatale's a feral sex kitten who double-crosses anyone who crosses her path. Like MGM's version of THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE, much of HIGHWAY PICKUP takes place in broad daylight, giving the film an "evil under the sun" aura and even though a stylistic shadow world, hallmark of the American Film Noir, is absent here, thematically the film's as bleak and as black as they come. The bitterly ironic ending, reminiscent of both Robert Siomak's CRISS CROSS and Stanley Kubrick's THE KILLING, is a memorable one.



It is one of life's pleasures to see a movie that rivets one and leaves you exhilerated - and CHAIR DE POULE does this in spades. Duvivier of course is one of France's great directors, ever since PEPE LE MOKO in 1937. As good as De Broca's '64 Belmondo caper L'HOMME DE RIO then! And now for those Jean-Pierre Melville, Chabrol, Malle and Ozon titles I have been meaning to catch up with ...

Another Sorel flick I saw recently was a dreadful Spanish giallo DEATH SURROUNDS MONICA from 1976 which was for me dire on every level. I am not an expert on those Italian giallo thrillers popular in the 60s and 70s - I liked the Sorel ones like SHORT NIGHT OF THE GLASS DOLLS (with Ingrid Thulin), A QUIET PLACE FOR A KILL (one of his with Carroll Baker) and LIZARD IN A WOMAN'S SKIN (with Florinda Bolkan) (as per reviews) but this one was just a skinflick with laughable pretentions...

Here is Sorel with Sidney Lumet on A VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE back in 1962, and with Lilli Palmer in ADORABLE JULIA (also 1962) which, as per my review at Sorel label, is a fascinating German-French co-production set in London's theatreland from the Maugham play, where Palmer, Boyer and Sorel all excel.

More French flicks ....

L’HOMME DE RIO – Back when I was 19 in 1965 I saw THAT MAN FROM RIO as a supporting feature. I have no idea now what the main movie was but I never forgot the deliciously zany French film dubbed into English, where Jean-Paul Belmondo was That Man (a soldier on leave) on the trail of his kidnapped girlfriend Francoise Dorleac and of course some stolen treasure, as the action heads from Paris to the Amazon jungles, it is surely an Indiana Jones before its time. This Philippe De Broca confection was a real movie – fun, exciting, romantic, brash, it is simply one of the best adventure capers ever made (and a perfect 60s movie), so I cannot understand how I have had to wait until now see it again (as it never shows here in the UK) and the version I now have is in French with sub-titles! There is also a great soundtrack with lots of Brazilian sounds – the bossa nova was really taking off in the mid-60s. This was filmed at just the right time just as all things South American were taking off.

The Tom Cruises and Gerard Butlers of the current filmworld should study this and see what a real caper movie is like and without those phoney-looking CGI stunts as the charismatic Belmondo goes on that rollercoaster ride from Rio to the jungles and the bright empty spaces of the new Brasilia! Belmondo is at his peak here, as is Dorleac as the capricious girlfriend who has a lovely sequence dancing on the beach - she's a carioca! There is also of course the obligatory cute streetwise kid (with an idyllic beach shack) who helps our hero evade the goons with guns, and some terrific airplane stunts ... and Adolfo Celi is splendidly over-ripe as usual. So from now on whenever I am depressed I shall play this and be flying down to Rio! No wonder there are raves on its comments page on IMDB. L'HOMME DE RIO is now officially 'A Movie I Love' and Belmondo is my new hero!


My friend Daryl has commented: How strange release patterns are: in the US, THAT MAN FROM RIO was a big deal indeed, winning the New York Film Critics Circle award for Best Foreign Film and running in the first-run art houses for almost a year!

LES AMANTS DE MONTPARNASSE – 1958 movie about the artist Modigliani, directed by Jacques Becker and dedicated to Max Ophuls. It follows the last year of Modigliani (or Modi as everyone refers to him) and is the usual story of the artist starving in a garret, set here in 1919 [in the Montparnasse area of Paris]. One does not have much patience with him though as Modi is hellbent on drinking himself to death and treats everyone – not least the women in his life – badly. Lilli Palmer is the rich Beatrice who does not mind too much, in fact she quite likes being slapped around, while young Anouk Aimee is Jeanne, the well to do girl who gives up everything for Modi, her father even locks her in her room to keep her away from him. Modi is Gerard Philipe, that pre-Delon/Belmondo heartthrob who died young in 1959.



I have only come lately to the cult of Philipe, having sought out his 1954 KNAVE OF HEARTS (MONSEIUR RIPOIS) for Joan Greenwood’s performance, and then getting Ophuls’ LA RONDE and the terrific FANFAN LA TULIPE. This builds to a chilling climax though as the ailing artist is reduced to selling his sketches to indifferent café diners, while being observed by Morel (Lino Ventura) a collector who knows that the works of a dead Modigliani will be worth more than those of a living artist. We watch fascinated as Modi finally collapses, stalked by Morel, who after the artist has died at the hospital rushes to the garret and begins buying the paintings from the unsuspecting Jeanne. We see glimpses of the paintings and that distinctive Modigliani style, it reminded me I used to have some reproductions pinned to my wall when I was a teenager. An interesting curiosity then - it is all very French, and just before that New Wave took off....



THE SLEEPING CAR MURDER - Costa-Gavras's 1965 French flick, a routine thriller, but expertly done, COMPARTIMENT TUEURS (it's original title) follows the police investigation of a murder in the sleeping car of the train. Then the other occupants are killed off one by one as weary police chief Yves Montand (with a head cold) essays all those cops who followed in tv series and movies as he tracks down the suspects. It is pretty much a family affair for the Montands as Simone Signoret has a showy role and her daughter Catherine Allegret is also on board. She gets involved with Jacques Perrin and others include Charles Denner, Michel Piccoli and Jean-Louis Trintignant. A very French affair then, but just as effective dubbed, in gleaming black and white. I have now also got Costa-Gavras's 'Z' to have another look at, I have not seen it since its release back in 1970, it was one of those prime thrillers of its era, 40 years ago, and no doubt still is very effective.

Also to be seen now, goodness knows when, are two Claude Chabrol box sets, 14 films in all!, along with his LA CEREMONIE. We saw a lot of Chabrols back in the late '60s and into the '70s, when he was doing that brilliant series of thrillers with his then wife, the marvellous Stephane Audran, particularly LE BOUCHER and LA FEMME INFIDELE and the brilliant THE BEAST MUST DIE etc. I liked that comic thriller in bright Greek sunlight LE ROUTE DE CORINTH (with Seberg and Ronet), Romy Schneider and Steiger in INNOCENTS WITH DIRTY HANDS (a valentine to Romy really), and that good Canadian one with Donald Sutherland BLOOD RELATIVES, so I really must find time to go back and see all those ones I missed like those with Isabelle Huppert (VIOLETTE NOZIERE, MADAME BOVARY). Chabrol was nothing if not prolific, good though to see how highly regarded he is now. The same applies to Louis Malle and Jacques Demy.

Next: I need to go back and re-visit those Malles like LIFT TO THE SCAFFOLD, ZAZIE DANS LE METRO, VIVA MARIA and my favourite back then, LE FEU FOLLET where the very under-rated Maurice Ronet gives that staggering performance. The later Demy films did not make it to London, so one shall have to seek them out, but I have covered those early ones I like so much on here, Demy label. There are also some late Truffauts to see: THE LAST METRO and VIVEMENT DIMANCHE (FINALLY SUNDAY) with the adorable Fanny Ardant, and that amusing Hitchock pastiche THE BRIDE WORE BLACK with Moreau (my favourite Truffaut though has to be THE HISTORY OF ADELE H, with Isabelle Adjani, a movie that overwhelmed me at the time, 1976).
I also want to see (and re-see) those Francois Ozon's I missed: the camp extravaganza 8 WOMEN, the grim TIME TO LEAVE, Charlotte Rampling in UNDER THE SAND, etc. And I have just discovered a Jean-Pierre Melville set of 6 (more on that later). Back though to Chabrol....



It is an absolute pleasure seeing LA FEMME INFIDELE again, that perfect late '60s setting, as the loving jealous husband Michel Bouquet begins to suspect the wife he loves so much is having an affair during her frequent trips to Paris. He soon discovers the truth and calls on the lover, Maurice Ronet (once again). It is a brilliant scene as the men talk, the lover feeling awkward and guilty, the husband not know what to do - but a casual remark of the lover suddenly leads to blind anger ... he thinks he has covered his tracks, and the ideal domestic life with their son resumes - but of course, being Chabrol, those police and detectives keep calling and finding out more details. It is all impeccably done with those lovely circular camera movements as we circle the husband and wife as they both realise the trap they are in. She finds the evidence and cooly destroys it as she is now back in love with her husband. Stephane Audran is of course so divinely cool and poised and attractive here. Classic French cinema then. And there are those Delon and Varda boxsets to explore...her CLEO FROM 5 TO 7 was one of my discoveries of last year.

2010 - best and worst .....

We are a little behind here at the Movie Projector - I only saw UNCLE BOONMEE at the cinema yesterday, and the dvd of BEACHES OF AGNES has been sitting unwatched on a shelf for the last 9 or so months, but they are both my films of the year in that they are totally unlike anything else and left one dazed and exhilerated. Cinema then in a nutshell....

One knows one is leaving usual cinema terrain as the Thai UNCLE BOONMEE WHO CAN RECALL HIS PAST LIVES unspools: a water buffalo tethered to a tree at night breaks free and trots away and then stops for a while as we examine this strange animal as it takes in the night scene being at one with nature, then its owner enters, picks up its rope and takes it back. What is the beast thinking? Is it willing to go back? Then we join Boonmee's placid sister and his nephew as they travel to his bee farm to look after him in his final days as he is dying of a kidney disease. The pace seems very slow at first with shots held for longer than usual but then one falls into it. Nobody seems surprised when Boonmee's late wife Huay who has been dead for 19 years materialises at the dinner table and they talk to her. Boonmee, who is philosophical about his impending demise as he has lived before several times, asks her how he will find her in heaven: Huay replies: "Heaven is over-rated, there's nothing there. And anyway ghosts don't associate with places, they associate with people. We'll find each other."

Boomnee it seems has the ability to range over his past lives as he comes to the end of his current one, aided by the spirits of the forest who also include his son Boonsong who has changed into a weird creature with red eyes [from having mated with monkey spirits]. Then we come to the mesermising sequence with the Princess and the catfish, set against a stunning waterfall which one could sit and watch for hours - as the Princess disrobes and enters the water where the catfish is waiting for her... perhaps the water buffalo or the princess or the catfish are also past (or future) lives of Boonmee? - as apparantly his other lives can be male or female, human or animal.... (the connectedness of things?)



People who are not prepared for it will be left confounded but others will leave the cinema stunned at the experience of it all. It is therefore an experience rather than a conventional movie. Apichatpong Weerasethakul tells a story that doesn't ask or need to be understood. As he awaits his death, Boonmee, Huay, Jen, and Tong visit a cave with white sand floors where Boonmee reveals that this was the place he was first born. He then dies there. For me maybe the movie should have stopped here - there is a coda showing their life afterwards as they sit around a hotel room and the monk Tong takes a shower, but this really, after what went before, is rather like watching paint dry and seems superfluous. Apart from that its depiction of the enduring relationship between Boonmee and Huay, and the in images of a dying man comforted by family and friends, the film offers an experience of the permanence of love.

The permanence of love is also really what THE BEACHES OF AGNES is all about, as Fench director Agnes Varda now in her 80s makes the most unusual documentary ever about looking back over one's life and work. Her fascination with beaches comes to the fore as she and her friends (like Jane Birkin) arrange mirrors on the beaches as she recollects her parents and childhood and early career and her marriage to Jacques Demy and the films they made and the actors and friends they knew. At the end she is surrounded by her children and grand-children and she and they are the most delightful company. This is the most perfect way to get old and still remain fascinating and interested in everything. We experience the loss of Demy [who like Boonmee was nursed by loved ones], the courtyard where he and Agnes worked on their projects, clips from their movies, that New Wave era, their time at the centre of the counterculture in California in the late '60s (where they discovered Harrison Ford, but couldn't use him in Jacques' MODEL SHOP as he was not considered actor material by the studio!; Agnes was making LIONS LOVE with Viva and the HAIR creators).

As IMDB puts it: "Agnès Varda explores her memory - growing up in Belgium, living in Sète, Paris, and Noirmoutier, discovering photography, making a film, being part of the New Wave, raising children with Jacques Demy, losing him, and growing old. She explores her memory using photographs, film clips, home movies, contemporary interviews, and set pieces she designs to capture a feeling, a time, or a frame. Shining through each scene are her impish charm, inventiveness, and natural empathy. How do people grow old, how does loss stay with them, can they remain creative, and what do they remember?" (I have already written extensively here, as per French label, on Demy and Varda).

I saw Varda's LE BONHEUR when I was 19 in '65 and it was one of those films that made a very strong impression, so its been good to finally see it again now that there are Varda box-sets, and to finally discover her CLEO FROM 5 TO 7, with its delightful picture of Paris in the early 60s. That is one of my discoveries of the year, as below:

The 2000s label covers my other films of 2010 as per reviews of A SINGLE MAN, THE GHOST, I LOVE YOU PHILIP MORRIS, THE HURT LOCKER, INGLORIOUS BASTERDS etc. I shall be turning to I AM LOVE and TOY STORY 3 shortly, 44 INCH CHEST remains a terrific comedy ensemble piece of Winstone, Hurt, McShane, Wilkinson; IT'S COMPLICATED and LETTERS TO JULIET are the best of the romcoms; disappointment of the year has to be NINE and disaster of the year SEX AND THE CITY 2 (which is not worth mentioning). Polanski's GHOST is thriller of the year but surely the East Coast of America is not as bleak as depicted here (shot as it was in Europe) while McGregor (for his brilliance in the Carrey movie) and Colin Firth are actors of the year; actress = Tilda Swinton. Firth is no longer a lightweight actor and after also finally seeing McGregor in Greenaway's THE PILLOW BOOK one has to be amazed at his daring and taking of risks.

Of the late 2010 releases as we go into 2011 I shall be looking forward to catching THE KING'S SPEECH (with that great cast including Claire Bloom), Mike Leigh's return with ANOTHER YEAR, 127 HOURS, THE KIDS ARE ALRIGHT etc.

Television (here in the UK at any rate) served up some treats: classy drama (or 'heritage tv') is back with Maggie Smith leading the ensemble in DOWNTON ABBEY, the revived UPSTAIRS DOWNSTAIRS with a splendid Eileen Atkins taking charge, classy thrillers like SPOOKS and SHERLOCK and the splendid film of Nigel Slater's food memoir TOAST, while Tom Hollander scored with his comedy series REV and Rufus Sewell as the Italian detective ZEN.



My discoveries of the year are: Visconti's 1965 SANDRA (or OF A THOUSAND DELIGHTS), Clements 1957 THE SEA WALL (THIS ANGRY AGE) (I shall be seeing the recent version shortly), BLONDE IN BLACK LEATHER (a throwaway 1975 Italian comedy for the domestic market with Vitti and Cardinale having fun) - see Italian label, Ozon's UNDER THE SAND with Charlotte Rampling (to be reviewed), Varda's CLEO FROM 5 TO 7 and a brace of early Dirk Bogarde's: APPOINTMENT IN LONDON and CAST A DARK SHADOW where he is delightfully spivvy bumping off older wife Mona Washboure and having designs on wicked lady Margaret Lockwood and splendid Kay Walsh!

2011's revivals will include that early Fellini boxset and all those Chabrols to revisit (2 boxsets!), and Gerard Philipe (as Modigliani) in LES AMANTS DE MONTPARNASSE with Anouk Aimee and Lilli Palmer, as well as some other yet-unseen Romy Schneider films.

(Previous years' discoveries here at the Projector included Cukor's THE CHAPMAN REPORT, Jean Seberg in MOMENT TO MOMENT, Lana's LOVE HAS MANY FACES, Sarah Miles in I WAS HAPPY HERE, Lilli Palmer and Jean Sorel in ADORABLE JULIA, Demy's LES DEMOISELLES DE ROCHEFORT (on dvd and on the big screen), THE OPPOSITE SEX, ALL FALL DOWN, early Loren in TOO BAD SHE'S BAD and WOMAN OF THE RIVER, ABDULLA THE GREAT (Kay Kendall's missing 1955 film), Mangano in MAMBO and THE TEMPEST, Minnelli treats DESIGNING WOMAN and THE RELUCTANT DEBUTANTE, Linda Darnell in THIS IS MY LOVE (1954) and the 1954 KNAVE OF HEARTS as per reviews.
Right: I WAS HAPPY HERE, 1966 / below: ADORABLE JULIA: Jean Sorel and Lilli Palmer in Trafalgar Square, 1962