Send in the gowns ....

Katharine Hepburn, “Christopher Strong”, 1933 (via mothgirlwings)

There have been of course no end of iconic gowns in the movies, here are just a tiny selection - that crazy art deco insect outfit worn by the young Katharine Hepburn in CHRISTOPHER STRONG, 1933; one of Travis Banton's designs for Dietrich in SHANGHAI EXPRESS, 1932; one of Adrian's opulent costumes for the Norma Shearer MARIE ANTOINETTE in 1938; the famous Travilla gold gown for Marilyn, circa GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES; one of Edith Head's Grace Kelly outfits, REAR WINDOW 1954; Helen Rose's iconic white dress for Elizabeth Taylor in CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF, 1957; Sophia's wet dress in BOY ON A DOLPHIN, 1957 and one of her later ritzy head-dresses; Irene Sharaff's amazing designs for Elizabeth Taylor as CLEOPATRA, 1963 - Sharaff also did Sreisand on stage and screen in FUNNY GIRL and HELLO DOLLY, where she has some great hats; Kay Kendall in Balmain in THE RELUCTANT DEBUTANTE, 1958 working that feather boa; Cecil Beaton's terrific gown for GIGI, 1958, and Cecil's Regency outfits for Barbra in Brighton in ON A CLEAR DAY YOU CAN SEE FOREVER, '69; Keira Knightley in that green gown in ATONEMENT - hardly a gown but we have to add Debra Paget's "costume" in that sizzling number dancing with the snake in Fritz Lang's 1959 double THE TIGER OF ESCHNAPUR and THE INDIAN TOMB, I really must look at that Masters of Cinema new edition...

Showpeople: film festival folk

Antonioni and Fellini in 1982; below: Fellini, Jeanne Moreau and Antonioni at the Cannes festival in 1960 when L'AVVENTURA and LA DOLCE VITA caused a furore; Visconti and Losey at the 1971 Venice festival when both were competing - Losey got the main prize for THE GO-BETWEEN so they created a special prize for Luchino for DEATH IN VENICE.

Below: two shots of Sophia Loren, Alain Delon and Romy Schneider at the 1962 Cannes Festival (all that talent and glamour in the back of the car, Ponti is in front with the driver); plus Vitti, Delon and Schneider in 1960.

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.

Anna / Mangano / Loren / Gold of Naples

A Silvana Mangano double feature, with Sophia Loren too !

1949's BITTER RICE was the successful Italian film which introduced Silvana Mangano to international audiences. I have not seen it yet (but will be shortly) - producers Dino De Laurentiis and Carlo Ponti who combined to produce all those Italian films of the 50s, repeated its success, along with co-stars Raf Vallone and Vittorio Gassman, with Silvana as ANNA in 1951, a torrid melodrama reuniting its 3 young stars (who would all have great international careers). As per my other posts on Silvana she was never an ambitious actress (like Loren or Lollo) but as Mrs De Laurentiis she headlined her husband's films. Also on the fast track then was the next Italian sensation, Sophia Loren, who had Carlo Ponti to guide her career. It is amusing seeing Sophia here in the more or less silent bit part as one of the nightclub girls (with Gassman, below left); 3 years later by 1954 Sophia (barely 20) was headlining those terrific movies I love like WOMAN OF THE RIVER and TOO BAD SHE'S BAD (where is SCANDAL IN SORRENTO ?) after working her way up in films like the amusing Sordi vehicle TWO NIGHTS WITH CLEOPATRA, by which time Gina Lollobrigida was also another major Italian star, heading for international movies.



Back to ANNA - this may well be my discovery of the year. Silvana is luminous as the indispensible hospital nursing nun (but she has not taken her final vows yet....) beloved by her patients and the surgeon she assists at operations, but what is her secret?
One night we find out as wounded Raf Vallone is brought in, Sister Anna rushes to the opera to get the head surgeon who is needed to operate and we see in flasback, that she was a nightclub singer and was going to marry country boy Raf, but her jealous lover Vittorio cannot let her go .... after tragedy she finds peace as a nun. Silvana gets to sing here, two delightful numbers which were released on disk and it seems they are still available (I shall have to investigate...). This is an engrossing drama that still works now - it is in fact an ideal "woman's picture" much better than any today. The three young stars in their youthful prime command the screen, Silvana framed by that nun's habit looks sensational - that face and profile, with that long nose and expressive eyes. The drama continues as Raf comes out of surgery, Sister Anna tries to evade his attention but can the lovers get back together or will her life at the hospital, as an emergency train crash victims arrive, prove too strong? Terrific stuff then. Alberto Lattuada directs - he also helmed Silvana's THE TEMPEST which I liked a lot back in 1958, the year Silvana did Clement's THE SEA WALL (THIS ANGRY AGE) with Tony Perkins (see labels for more on these), 1960 saw Martin Ritt's downbeat FIVE BRANDED WOMEN - all Laurentiis productions as was ULYSSES in '53 with Silvana as Penelope and Circe, 1954's MAMBO where Silvana also sings and dances up a storm in another torrid melodrama by Ponti-De Laurentiis but releases by Paramount, with Gassman and wife Shelley Winters; in this one though its Silvana whom Shelley has a yen for! ANNA though is a great discovery with great Lux film production values. I loved it.

After some 60s films like BARABBAS and the amusing IL DISCO VOLANTE (see post below) Silvana mainly worked for directors like Pasolini (OEDIPE RE, TEOREMA) and Visconti (DEATH IN VENICE, LUDWIG, CONVERSATION PIECE) in the 70s, she had more or less retired from cinema as Vitti and Cardinale took centre stage; a heavy smoker she died in 1989, aged 59; one of her final appearances being in De Laurentiis's DUNE.

Finally one can see GOLD OF NAPLES (L'ORO DE NAPOLI) De Sica's 1954 portmanteau collection - which he followed in the 60s with his segment in BOCCACCIO 70 and the Loren-Mastroianni hit YESTERDAY TODAY & TOMORROW. GOLD OF NAPLES though showcases Naples in all its vibrancy and is where director De Sica spent his first years, this is a collection of Napolitean episodes : a clown (Toto) exploited by a gangster, he is even paid to say prayers at the grave of the gangster's wife, its richly comic when the worm turns; an unfaithful pizza seller (Sophia) losing her emerald ring - and the young Loren is sensational walking through those Neapolitan streets; the funeral of a child; the gambler Count Prospero (Vittorio himself) defeated by a kid; the unexpected and unusual wedding of Teresa (Silvana), a prostitute, a touching tale, Mangano has a long climactic close-up. With Eduardo De Fillipo and scripted by De Sica regular, Cesare Zavattini. Bliss to finally catch up with now. Like Rossellini's VOYAGE TO ITALY it captures that early 50s Italian scene perfectly. and now for BITTER RICE .... see Italian label for more on all these; Vittorio's return to Naples in the first segment of YESTERDAY TODAY & TOMORROW being particularly choice, (and whose locations seem the same as the Toto episode here in GOLD OF NAPLES), also his Loren segment of BOCCACCIO 7O, and those other Italian portmanteau 60s films like LE BAMBOLE and LE FATE, with Vitti and Lollobrigida..

5 BRANDED WOMEN: Mangano, Moreau, Vera Miles, Barbara Bel Geddes, Carla Gravina; TEMPEST - Agnes Moorehead ideal as Mangano's mother.

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.....