People We Like: Lilli Palmer

Few international stars were as sophisticated, elegant and popular as Lilli Palmer in a career that stretched from the ‘30s to the ‘80s, taking in periods of stardom in English, American and European films. Romy Schneider would be a comparable case in the ‘60s and ‘70s.

Lilli in her later years found a comfortable niche in a variety of supporting roles as well as turning her hand to painting and writing novels, and a very interesting biography “Change Lobsters and Dance”. During the heyday of her marriage to Rex Harrison they were one of the main theatrical couples of the era, entertaining everybody from Churchill and the Duke and Duchess of Windsor at their home in Portofino, Italy, and she was also involved in the Carole Landis scandal, and Rex’s marriage to the ailing Kay Kendall.

She was born in 1914 in Prussia, making her theatrical debut in 1932. Being Jewish the family fled to Paris as the Nazis came to power, and Lilli then moved to England. Early film roles included Hitchcock’s SECRET AGENT in 1936, A GIRL MUST LIVE and Will Hay’s GOOD MORNING, BOYS. THUNDER ROCK in 1942 is a good anti-war film of the time, by Roy Boulting, where Lilli is one of the ghosts from a shipwreck invading the mind of Michael Redgrave as a journalist who retreats to a lighthouse – the young James Mason is also effective here. Leslie Howard’s THE GENTLE SEX in 1943 finds her as the self-reliant European girl among newcomers (including Joan Greenwood and Rosamund John) doing their bit for the war effort. It’s a perfect period piece now.

She married Rex Harrison in 1943 and they co-starred in THE RAKE’S PROGRESS in 1945. Hollywood then beckoned and the Harrisons moved to California. Lilli found interesting roles in Fritz Lang’s CLOAK AND DAGGER with Gary Cooper and in Rossen’s BODY AND SOUL in 1947 with John Garfield.

Rex, ever the philanderer, was also busy but found time to romance Carole Landis which led to one of the more notorious scandals of the time, when Landis committed suicide and Rex had found her and left the scene. A dilemma for Lilli was what to wear at the funeral of one’s husband’s mistress? She settled for navy blue instead of black. The Harrisons though were now not welcome in Hollywood and moved to New York where several successes on the stage included “The Four Poster” (also filmed) and “Bell Book and Candle”.

Their next film was, frankly, a pot-boiler: THE LONG DARK HALL in 1951 where Rex is accused of the murder of his girlfriend, of which he is innocent, with Lilli as the understanding little wife waiting at home in the suburbs! However, as she relates in her memoir, it paid for their villa in Italy, in the then quiet village of Portofino. It would be their bolt-hole away from the theatre and cinema. THE FOUR POSTER followed in 1952. Television work kept her busy, including THE LILLI PALMER SHOW, until a German film in ’54 FEUERWERK (or OH MY PAPA from its hit song) a story about circus folk with the young Romy Schneider.

In 1958 was an interesting remake of the 1930s MADCHEN IN UNIFORM, this one co-starred Romy Schneider as the lonely orphan forming a forbidden attachement to Lilli’s attractive, sympatheic new teacher at a strict Prussian Girls Academy.

By this time though, Rex had become involved with madcap English actress Kay Kendall (who was in New York with him during the stage run of “My Fair Lady”). Both Rex and Lilli relate in their memoirs how Kay’s doctor called them in to advise that Kay had incurable leukaemia and if Rex was not able to look after her, she would have to be told. So they decided to divorce so Rex could marry Kay for her final years. Lilli had confided her problems to good friend Noel Coward who was horrified at the dilemma she was in. Lilli though had met Argentine actor Carlos Thompson and they married in 1957, the year Rex married Kay (who died two years later in 1959 after completing the delightful comedies LES GIRLS, THE RELUCTANT DEBUTANTE and ONCE MORE WITH FEELING for Cukor, Minnelli and Donen).

Hollywood came calling again in the shape of the production team of Perlberg and Seaton at Paramount with 3 films for Lilli, showing her at her most poised and elegant.

BUT NOT FOR ME in ’58 has her as Clark Gable’s ex wife, amusingly watching from the sidelines (before winning him back) as he romances ambitious young actress Carroll Baker. It’s a fascinating look at Broadway at the time with Gable as the producer and Lee J Cobb as a drunken playright. Ella sings that song over the credits as Gable’s car glides through the Manhattan of the 50s.

CONSPIRACY OF HEARTS from the Rank Organisation, was onhe we liked a lot in 1960,where Lilli is the very elegant Mother Superior of a convent in Italy where the nuns save Jewish children from the Germans. Add in young Sylvia Syms, Yvonne Mitchell as the crotchety nun, David Kossoff as a rabbi and Albert Lieven and Peter Arne as dastardly Germans. It’s a superior tear-jerker.

Back in Hollywood Lilli was Fred Astaire’s ex-wife now comfortably married to Gary Merrill in THE PLEASURE OF HIS COMPANY as daughter Debbie Reynolds gets married to Tab Hunter. Enter Fred as the charming father and complications ensue in this pleasing film of the play.

She was also very effective in the 1962 Seaton film THE COUNTERFEIT TRAITOR as the love of agent William Holden. There is a harrowing execution scene by firing squad. She was also Maugham’s Julia in a French film with Charles Boyer ADORABLE JULIA which was fun to see recently, with Jean Sorel as the young man professing love to actress Julia but who has his own agenda. Lilli’s Julia is indeed adorable as she deftly handles every situation.



When I arrived in London as a teenager in the mid-60s, Lilli was on the stage (her final stage role here) in Coward's SUITE IN THREE KEYS with Coward himself and Irene Worth, but I had not yet started my theatre-going!

The mature Lilli now settled into some interesting supporting roles. OPERATION CROSSBOW in 1965 finds her as the Dutch hotelier looking after agents George Peppard and Tom Courtenay as engineers who are their way to the munitions factory which has to be destroyed. THE AMOROUS ADVENTURES OF MOLL FLANDERS was also amusing to see again recently, not quite a TOM JONES but a jolly period romp it features almost every English character actor of the period (1965). Kim Novak is Moll, but the quartet of Lilli, George Sanders, Angela Lansbury and Vittorio De Sica (as impoverished aristocrats!) make for enjoyable viewing.

More European roles followed and then in 1968: SEBASTIAN with Dirk Bogarde, a swinging 60s spy caper; another thriller NOBODY RUNS FOREVER, and as Jocasta in the arty OEDIPUS THE KING with Christopher Plummer and Orson Welles, and HARD CONTRACT in 1969, as well as DE SADE, a psychedelic period romp with Keir Dullea as De Sade and Lilli as an icy Madame de Montreuil. Cue lots of topless beauties as an endless “orgy” goes on and on …. More assorted tv roles followed until THE BOYS FROM BRAZIL in ’78, with Lilli as the sister of Laurence Oliver, an old friend.

Lilli was on the LOVE BOAT in 1984, and was Michael Caine’s mother in the dreary THE HOLCROFT COVENANT in 1985, and her final credit was the tv PETER THE GREAT in 1986. She had by now written a well-regarded novel “The Red Raven” and her autobiography. She died of cancer in 1986 aged 71. Her husband Carlos Thompson committed suicide 4 years later. When Rex Harrison died in 1990 part of his ashes were scattered on her grave at Forest Lawn.

It is always a pleasure catching up with Lilli as her charm and elegance is evident in even the most mundane role.

People We Like: Alida Valli

The enigmatic Ms Valli [1921-2006] is one of those fascinating Italian actresses, and - as these things go - I have seen quite a few of her '50s films recently and she is always just about the best thing in them.

She was of course famously "discovered" by David Selznick for Hitchcock's THE PARADINE CASE, billed as "Valli" - generally considered a misfire and one of his lesser works but I only saw it for the first time a while ago and liked it a lot - she is perfect here as she lures Gregory Peck with her cool patrician beauty, but she had really made about 30 films before that in Italy, starting in the 1930s as per her IMDb resume.

Her other '40s classic is Carol Reed's THE THIRD MAN and again its a perfect combination of actress and role. It seems she was back in Europe for the '50s and remained very prolific [as those other Italian actresses like Mangano, Lollobrigida, Loren, Vitti and Cardinale were ascending]. Visconti's SENSO is her third masterpiece and she is riveting as the Wanton Countess betraying her worthless lover Farley Granger - she should have been a contender for Best Actress in that terrific year 1954. Its certainly one of Visconti's finest, with that lush operatic background and, like THE LEOPARD covering that fascinating period of Italian history.



She is mesmerising in Vadim's HEAVEN FELL THAT NIGHT - his sensational Bardot film in '58 after AND GOD CREATED WOMAN - I enjoyed this the other day, steamy unusual Spanish locations and BB and Stephen Boyd at their peak (unlike their roles in the 68 trash western SHALAKO a decade later...) - Valli is the aunt young BB is sent to stay with and both women fall for Boyd. I liked it a lot .... as per my review.

Valli is Irma in Antonioni's IL GRIDO in '57 - but its a rather under-written role, we never get to understand why she does not want to be with Steve Cochran any more as she rejects him sending him into a downward spiral with only one ending - good to finally see it, but its certainly a bleak view of the human condition, set as it is among the rundown towns along the muddy Po river.

She has a supporting role in Rene Clement's THE SEA WALL (or THIS ANGRY AGE) in 1958, one of those long-unseen De Laurentiis international productions (but I got a copy recently); this is set in Thailand as Jo Van Fleet battles to keep her plantation from the sea as her children Silvana Mangano and Tony Perkins have their own problems. Perkins and Valli pick each other up in an electric scene in a cinema! Its a fascinating period piece now.

She is perfect too in Franju's EYES WITHOUT A FACE, his stylish creepy horror film from 1959, as the doctor's assistant who helps with his experiments in luring girls to his remote mansion, so he can work on restoring his daughter's face .... its eerie with some beautiful images, as we find out that Valli too has had her face replaced.

Valli continued in smaller roles as she got older - and there seems to have been some scandal she was involved in. She is in Pasolini's OEDIPUS REX and Bertolucci featured her in 1900, THE SPIDER'S STRATEGM (where she is very severe) and LA LUNA - though I don't remember much about that. She also had a nothing role in the star-laden THE CASSANDRA CROSSING. Then there were Italian horror films like Dario Argento's SUSPIRIA ('77). One of her last roles as in that nice romantic drama A MONTH BY THE LAKE in 1995 with Vanessa Redgrave, Edward Fox and Uma Thurman. One I would like to have seen is ASPERN in '85, a version of "The Aspern Papers" where she is the aged countess, with Jean Sorel and Bulle Ogier.

Like Magnani, Valli is always a compulsive screen presence and was a very attractive woman, and its a perfect name the way it sounds as one says it - no wonder Selznick wanted to feature her, presumably as his next Ingrid Bergman type import.

Cinema obscura - some more European rarities...

That Michelangelo Antonioni has a lot to answer for... The early '60s saw European cinema awash with "imitiation Antonioni" all trying to recreate the mood of Antonioni's masterpieces. This one, IL MARE (THE SEA) made in 1962 even played at London's premiere art house, the now defunct Academy in Oxford Street, in '64. As directed by Guiseppe Patroni Griffi its a moody piece with long pauses about 3 people, or lost souls, in out-of-season wintry Capri: The Man (Umberto Orsini), The Woman (Francoise Prevost) and The Boy (Dino Mele). It hasn't been seen here since but I saw it at the time and still remember the unintentional hilarity of them stalking each other: The Man sleeps with The Woman, but seems to want The Boy. The Boy and The Woman become friends - she is taking masochistic pleasure in selling her house to a wealthy vulgarian as part of her divorce; The Man and The Boy seem to be flirting with each other - is there going to be a threesome or not? Griffi is very "school of Antonioni", [French actress Prevost also scored about then in a tense British thriller PAYROLL with Michael Craig and Billie Whitelaw]. I will be in Capri myself next month (as part of a trip to Sorrento and Amalfi), wonder if I will recognise any locations?

(Bisexuality and threesomes also raised their head in Griffi's next, A SMALL CIRCLE OF FRIENDS in '69, which was more art house soft porn, and featured actors like Jean-Louis Trintignant and Annie Girardot as well as the smouldering Brazilian Florinda Bolkan. Griffi also directed the art house hit TIS PITY SHE'S A WHORE in 1971, with the incestous Charlotte Rampling, Fabio Testi and Olivier Tobias, which was very bloody and looked teriffic with those renaissance settings and costumes and lots of nudity ... One of his last credits was that bizarre Elizabeth Taylor film THE DRIVER'S SEAT, in 1974, which seemed an incoherent mess when I saw it last week, it was in fact so boring that I had to see most of it on fast-forward! Andy Warhol was among those involved (and a more mature Dino Mele from IL MARE) but why on earth did Taylor bother to appear in it? - even it is from a Muriel Spark book. She plays a disturbed woman [as is evident from her wardrobe] travelling around Europe looking for a man to murder her...)

Another Rene Clement treat! After re-discovering his 1954 KNAVE OF HEARTS (or MONSIEUR RIPOIS) with Gerard Philipe and Joan Greenwood recently, and his classic PLEIN SOLEIL (see separate post on here) and the '58 THE SEA WALL (or THIS ANGRY AGE), ditto posted here - here is his splendid 1964 thriller LES FELINS (THE FELINES), also called JOY HOUSE or THE LOVE CAGE (which would seem the better title). Henri Decae's crisp black and white Cinemascope images, a terrific score by Lalo Schifrin, Alain Delon's first English speaking film and Jane Fonda's first French, what's not to like? It exists in both French and English versions on the disk. Then there is that little seen superb actress Lola Albright ... she is a wealthy widow of a mobster who has a luxury mansion on the French riviera, Fonda is her cousin staying with her; Delon (not as engaging as his Tom Ripley - he is just a blank cypher here) is the guy on the run from some mobsters who is taken in by the two women, who find him in a refuge for the homeless. What are their motives? Who is the strange person behind two way mirrors who is hiding in the house? The goons sent by the mobster turn up again ... its nicely worked out and the jazzy score by Schifrin is a distinct bonus. I will now have to finally see Clement's all-star IS PARIS BURNING? which must be worth investigating, featuring as it does, in 1966, Welles, Belmondo, Delon, Caron, Perkins, Montand, Signoret, Kirk Douglas and Glenn Ford. Not quite one of the New Wave brigade, his films are certainly fascinating, I also need to see those early ones of his like FORBIDDEN GAMES and GERVAISE.
Below: Clement directing Delon and Fonda.

LA RONDE - Roger Vadim's 1964 remake of Ophuls' 1950 classic is worth a look too, seeing as it features the crop of new European players of the early 60s: Jane Fonda in her first with Vadim, Anna Karina, Catherine Spaak, Maurice Ronet, Jean Sorel, etc. They wear the period clothes but somehow just look too modern - perhaps the hairstyles and make up are too modern for the period? Its the usual round of assignations played out in the Belle Epoque period ... perhaps just an excuse to feature these players and have a bit of fun ? The cast is a who's who of the 60s French cinema, as was the Ophuls film was (with Signoret, Simone, Darrieux, et al) Francoise Dorleac is supposed to have a small part too, but I couldn't see her. Vadim's LA CUREE (THE GAME IS OVER) with Fonda and Peter McEnery seems to have vanished, but was a delirious delight at the time.



THE BEST WAY TO WALK - This 1976 film by Claude Miller was a hit on the London art house circuit at the time, I wonder if it stands the test of time? Claude Miller has made some interesting films in France since the 70s - I recall Depardieu in a Highsmith adaptation THIS SWEET SICKNESS, and GARDE DE VUE with Romy Schneider in one of her last roles. THE BEST WAY TO WALK (LA MILLEURE FACON DE MARCHER) is an intriguing tale of the conflict between two teachers at a summer camp, as one - Patrick Dewaere - is a bit of a bully and seizes on the gentler other - Patrick Bouchitey - whom he is always picking on - there is a simmering sexual undercurrent which comes to the fore when Dewaere catches Bouchitey in drag, dressed in his girlfriend's clothes, which confirms his feelings about him. Violence ensures and there is a nice coda set in Paris some years later, when Bouchitey now married to the girlfriend goes to view an apartment, and Dewaere turns out to be the agent showing it to them. Roles get reversed as Bouchitey now has the upper hand and Dewaere dependent on the sale. Its both engrossing and pleasent. Dewaere always seemed to be in the shadow of Depardieu, with whom he made several films, including the groundbreaking LES VALSEUSES in 1974 - very dated now with those flared jeans! - where they are the two tearaways on the run who will have sex with anyone - including each other, when no females are around. Jeanne Moreau and Miou Miou are also excellent here. Dewaere though committed suicide with a gun in 1982, that year that Romy Schneider, Ingrid Bergman and Grace Kelly also died.

L'Eclisse, revisited (for Martin Bradley)

L’ECLISSE in 1962, one of THE key movies of the early '60s arthouse scene, and seen as the final part of Michelangelo Antonioni's early '60s trilogy, sees Monica Vitti at her peak as Vittoria and the film is all about her and her reactions to the people and events around her. Her solitude in her apartment, her ending with one lover (Francisco Rabal), the Rome financial markets as her mother gambles on the stock exchange, how she follows a man who has lost huge amounts, her pleasure in the air flight among the clouds, and getting involved with the brash young stockbroker, Alain Delon, who has no problems at all, apart from the drunk driving his car into the river.

Individual sequences stand out like where she and neighbours play at being in Africa and that well-known final sequence as the camera turns up at the lovers’ meeting place but they do not as life goes on and we study inanimate things like street lights, are endlessly fascinating. There is a sense of dread, as this is the early 60s and the nuclear age. There is so much in these films that one can’t really gloss over them, but Monica is marvellous here and is really the epitome of early 60s chic. It’s a timeless look and the film is an enduring classic.

For a film heading for 50 years old it is a surprisingly 'modern' film. A characteristic Antonioni sequence is the flight from Rome to Verona in the aircraft - nothing happens in the conventional sense, the journey has no dramatic aim or climax, it just is, but it conveys the mercurial Vittoria's elation and also isolation. Then there is that brief affair with Piero and then, after arranging their next meeting, both characters slip out of the film, as neither turns up but the camera does. For a full seven minutes it records the world that carries on without them as the streets empty and darkens as day turns to dusk. This is an extraordinary sequence: Antonioni seems to be saying that people and events are transient, that only places last. Other lives which we know nothing about cross the screen and disappear leaving in the end just the city continuing to function automatically as street lights come on and darkness falls... its as powerful as the end of THE PASSENGER or indeed any of Antonioni's films!



As ever Antonioni’s use of space and landscape and how characters move and fit in it repays several viewings. Sound plays an important part too – the wind rattling the railings here is as evocative as the wind sighing among the leaves of the park in BLOW-UP.

The Leopard, 2010

A new digital restoration back in selected cinemas ! Nice new poster too.

Finally: The Sea Wall / This Angry Age - in Italian!

A fond childhood memory was the 1958 Rene Clement film THE SEA WALL, also known as THIS ANGRY AGE, which I saw when about 12 and it was very vivid and impressive, but it never appeared anywhere since and seemed to be a totally lost film, but a pal of mine from the IMDb site whom I meet every few months for drinks, chat and swopping rare movies, found a copy - but its in Italian!. Well all the leads speak English so maybe there is an English print out there somewhere - but its been totally fascinating to see it again now 50 odd years later !

It starts with the camera descending over the Thai locations, including temples and other exotic buildings, as the story, by Marguerite Duras, unfolds on the plantation of tough Jo Van Fleet (nice to see her looking herself for a change, and not aged as in EAST OF EDEN or WILD RIVER) who is trying to keep the ocean from encroaching on her land, but its a losing battle. Her teenage children - Silvana Mangano and Tony Perkins - have their own ideas about the future, as the mother tries every ruse to keep going, including trying to get Mangano interested in businessman Nehemiah Persoff, but then Richard Conte comes on the scene ... Perkins meanwhile moves to the city and picks up (or get picked up by) Alida Valli in a cinema! Its a terrific scene, and I like her snazzy automobile too. Back at the plantation things get worse ...


1958 was a good year for Perkins - (relaxing with Mangano, above) he went on to Sophia Loren and DESIRE UNDER THE ELMS next (and THE MATCHMAKER), and Silvana headed another De Laurentiis spectacular THE TEMPEST which I also liked a lot at the time and again it never surfaced again, but I got a copy last year and commented on it on here, and Rene Clement of course went on to make that complex classic PLEIN SOLEIL from the enduring Highsmith Ripley tale [there is a separate post on it here]. It would be nice if these De Laurentiis films were re-issued now - like Ponti with Loren he featured his wife Mangano in his international co-productions (like ULYSSES, MAMBO, TEMPEST, FIVE BRANDED WOMEN etc) which all have fascinating casts and production values, as per my comments on here.

Good though to get to see THE SEA WALL again after so long, even if its dubbed into Italian! I love the scenes with Perkins and Mangano dancing, and that cinema scene with Valli! Duras's novel (with its original self-explaining title "Barrage Contre le Pacific" was recently remade as a French film starring Isabelle Huppert, which I think I will have see now.