Anthony steel interview

 Films and Filming

 

Movie review - "Something Money Can't Buy" (1952) **

 This starts off as a lovely surprise - a look at a young married couple, Anthony Steel and Pat Roc, starting out on marriage after the war with kids, Director Pat Jackson has clearly done work with his leads who are much better than in other films - both gorgeous, especially she who is very sweet.

 Then things go wonky as the couple go off separately - not as in separate separate but spend tome apart - working for an agency. He's a chef with a food truck and she has an agency and all the relatable stuff goes. The film loses its way.

Still one of Steel's best performances, ditto Roc.

Anthony Steel Top Ten

 Is it possible? Let's try

1. The Wooden Horse

2. Where No Vultures Fly

3. The Malta Story

4. Storm Over the Nile

5. Checkpoint

6. Emergency Call

7. The Planter's Wife

8. The Master of Ballantrae

9 The Mirror Crack'd

10. Albert RN (not a good film but he tries to act)

This is a weakest list... really he'd got a decent top five maybe: Vultures, Malta, Storm, Planters, Emergency Call...

Movie review - "The Mirror Crack'd" (1980) ***

 After two Peter Ustinov films as Hercules Poirot, EMI Films did Miss Marple as their all star Agatha Christie effort. It didn't do as well - maybe the market tapped out, maybe it lacked the exotic location factor, maybe viewers prefer Poiriot.

Angela Lansbury is a strong Marple and the cast includes some legends - Liz Taylor, Kim Novak, Rock Hudson, Tony Curtis - plus some decent secondary names: Geraldine Chaplin, Edward Fox. Anthony Steel pops up in the film within a film. Film  buffs will like this and the fact the central story was based on Gene Tierney.

Too much time is spent on Edward Fox, film buff, investigating the case. We don't care about him - we want to see Marple. I'm sympathetic to the filmmakers though - he has an excuse to ask questions, Marple doesn't. But Lansbury is hardly in it. She pops in and out then appears at the end. It's a shame they couldn't have distorted the book a bit more to have her, I don't know, go work at the mansion or something.

It is fun to see Taylor, Rock, etc... but no one is actually that good. Liz Taylor wasn't a star by this stage - she was an ex star. Ditto Novak. Hudson never seems like a director.

Oh I'm sniping. This was fine. Just not as good as the Poiots.

Movie review - "Where No Vultures Fly" (1951) ***1/2 (warning: spoilers)

 Sometimes Henry Watt really got it right - with  The Overlanders and this. I take the point this has patrionising colonial attitudes but it's trying to modernise. The baddy is a white man and gives this speech about how the continent has gone to the dogs and how the people are useless which Anthony Steel nobly refutes - mind you there's no three dimensional black character in the film.

It's probably Steel's best role and performance. Not that the part is too demanding but he's ideal as a cheery, dogged game warden - third generation African he's careful to say at the opening. Steel is believable as an outdoorsy, honest warden - Stewart Granger lite. I mean who else could play it? At least Steel looks believable chasing after lions and shooting elephants.

Beautiful location work. Enjoyable white villains. Dinah Sheridan does well enough as the wife, exasperated but lovely. Female parts at Ealing were rarely any good. Cute shenanigans with a kid.

This is a real crowd pleaser. I mean, 1951 British crowds, but still... it's in colour, has lots of animals, has female and kid characters so it's inclusive, is Imperial but post-war Imperial. The sequel is far more racist and patronising.

Movie review - "Out of the Clouds" (1955) **1/2

 Easy going Ealing film, professionally done (Basil Dearden directed). It doesn't go for big excitement - it's reminiscent of Airport but doesn't pile on the action like that film. The subplots include some gossipy old ladies, a romance between two Jewish passengers (he's going to Israel she's going to America to marry a rich man), a pilot (Anthony Steel) may be tempted into smuggling, another pilot (Robert Beatty) is grounded and wants to fly again.

The film pulls its punches - there's no crashing, Steel decides not to smuggle in the end (would've been a better film had he gone bad).

Steel is top billed but is off screen a lot of the time; Beatty has a bigger role. Later Bond girl Eunice Grayson is an air hostess - her part isn't big (there should have been more or at least bigger female roles).  There's a racist "foreign baddy" who tries to get Steel to smuggle. James Robertson Justice is a pilot.

There's a sequence where the Jewish couple go off to some colourful East End club which was kind of fun (I enjoyed the locals talking about cricket) but it pulls the action away from the airport. Didn't the filmmakers have faith in the concept?

Movie review - "48 Hours to Live" (1959) * (warning: spoilers)

 Gets points for novelty - Anthony Steel in decline in a Swedish movie made in English in Sweden. Story acceptible B movie stuff though even by 1959 it was more likely to be found on TV, even the third act twist (his random friend is with the baddies).

I think Steel was meant to play a stock swashbuckling reporter like the one Rod Taylor did in Hong Kong. It's beyond Steel's abilities but he is handsome and has that nice voice and his polite performance at least as some professionalism. The support cast are more variable.

It's badly directed. Actors consistently play scenes in two shots against bland backgrounds. It was shot on location in Sweden but only a few scenes show off that. This could have been filmed anywhere. The Swedish accents give it novelty.

Occasionally when the scientist walks across a desolate beach you get an image of what this could have been.

Book review - "Patricia Roc" by Michael Hodgson

 Entertaining, affectionate biography of the star, an endearing heroine of the 1940s. Roc was lucky in many ways - pretty girl, well off background - who wanted to be in pictures. She had a pleasant on screen presence that ensured work in "girl" parts. She was fortunate to come up in the 40s when for a brief moment British cinema actually cared about promoting female stars. Roc had a "girl next door" quality that was spot on and became a name in Gainsborough movies such as Millions Like Us.

What makes the book interesting is the oddness of Roc's career - genuinely popular for a brief time. she kept in public attention due to support of people like J Arthur Rank, but when the tide went out it went out quickly. It also helps that Roc had a colourful personal life - she loved sex, always had affairs (Anthony Steel fathered her child), was nicknamed "bed rock". Married for money eventually, seemed to regret it... she was arrested for shoplifting. I think she missed acting but maybe was more into the lifestyle than the craft. I could be wrong.

Affectionate, easy to read book.

Movie review - "Another Man's Poison" (1951) **1/2

 Much disparaged and not entirely successful but there is a good movie in here struggling to get out. The plot needed to be simplified. Also I think every guy in the movie should have wanted to shag Bette Davis. Gary Merrill clearly does, which is great (he and Davis are an excellent on screen couple you can imagine them having drinks, slapping each other around and having make up sex every night); Anthony Steel is meant to be sleeping with Davis but while he's handsome he can't convey lust; Emlyn Williams as a smug neighbourly vet should love David too but he's asexual.

Davis was an excellent actor but the film was unsure how to pitch her - she should have gone full throttle, been a complete villainness. The film has good twists - the final poison drinking, the reveal she's rooting Steel, Merrill pretending to be her husband - but feels inconsistent.

I think maybe it was a mistake to make her a writer and not something more obviously sexy like an actor. Or maybe that would have worked. She could have been costumed more flatteringly.

The movie should have been about passion: everyone hot for Davis, her hot for Steel, furious when rejected etc. There's not enough sex in it. Maybe that wasn't within directing Irving Rapper's skill set. 

Still not as bad as some have dismissed it. It suffers next to All About Eve but on its own level is fine.

Movie review - "Storm Over the Nile" (1955) *** (re-viewing)

 Decent remake of The Four Feathers (1939) where the cast is actually better but they don't get a chance to do anything more since it's basically a shot for shot remake.

Anthony Steel is fine in John Clements' part. It's only when you see two actors play this part did it sink in - this isn't much of a role. Hardly any time is spent exploring the cowardice option - he's a coward for about two scenes. Then when he's heroic he is mostly in blackface.

Mary Ure, a beautiful and talented actor, is wasted in a nothing part. Laurence Harvey isn't as good as Ralph Richardson - Harvey was really only good as swines, and the character here is too noble, too stuffy; you can see him trying to act, holding it in. James Robertson Justice isn't as good as C Aubrey Smith but it's fun to see him. Geoffrey Keen is fine as are Ronald Lewis and Ian Carmichael but only Keen has much to do. (They should have killed off Lewis or Carmichael).

It's fun to see Christopher Lee pop up as an Arab. The photography and location work remains impressive. It's a satisfying story. Cheeky of Korda to try a second bite of the apple but it worked - this was a hit.

Movie review - "Harry Black and the Tiger" (1958) ** (re-viewing)

 This doesn't work. It should - the basic story is solid. There's location filming in Africa. Maybe Stewart Granger isn't up to the role - it's a meaty part: a hunter who lost part of a leg trying to track down a tiger that is tormenting a village.

Maybe he's too put upon - attacked by a tiger, crippled, he has a whimpy mate, he doesn't get the girl. He doesn't get a chance to kick ass. That Indian nurse seems a little into him - they should have developed that.

It's not that exciting. There's no real personal stakes in the tiger hunt until the end when a brat kid runs away and that's only a short time. The tiger should have killed Barbara Rush - to give Granger a reason to go for it.  The tiger kills a kid but the Indian characters are given such little screen time it doesn't have much impact.

Steel has a different ish role - a coward, bit of an incompetent but not all that bad. He's not up to it. Can't convey emotion. Barbara Rush is too polite at the girl. Needed to be someone more obviously hungry for love.

They dub the voice of the kid. Bad move. I remember bad dubbing in Northwest Frontier as well. Something about poor dubbing of kids in late 50s movies shot in India. The stuff about protecting the kid's image of the cowardly father reminded me of Shane.  But in Shane Van Heflin was a brave man who deserved respect he just wasn't a professional gunfighter; here Steel is this mediocrity in someone else's country whose incompetence causes Granger to be injured twice.

It is weird to see all these white characters acting as if its pre 1947 in India when it is set after World War Two. They should have just set it before the war and had another reason for the injury.

Nice location work. But dull. You can see why it wasn't a hit.

Movie review - "Tiger of the Seven Seas" (1962) **

 A surprisingly feminist pirate movie, at least by the standards of English speaking cinema - the hero is a woman, Gianna Maria Canale, who takes over her dad's pirate operation: she is an excellent fighter and even beats her own boyfriend (Anthony Steel) in a duel. And her antagonist is another woman, a smart rich one, Maria Grazia Spina.

Steel looks old and tired here - the drinking was kicking in. He's still in shape and has all his hair, he just looks old. He seems emasculated. Not that interested. Steel played a number of emasculated characters, eg the infertile sook in A Question of Adulteryy.

John Kitzmiller, a black American (he was in Dr No) is Canale's mute sidekick, Turpentine, if I'm not mistaken. At least POC have presence (even if he dies saving his mistress).

There's decent production value but it's poorly directed and choreographed. There's no life to it - despite the story. It's one of those set ups that should have worked - imagine Maureen O'Hara or Yvonne de Carlo in it. But it's sluggish. The bad dubbing doesn't help. Steel had a deep speaking voice better than his dubber.

Movie review - "A Question of Adultery" (1958) **1/2 (warning: spoilers)

 This gets points for novelty for being a 1958 film about artificial insemination though I don't think they get the story right - it's a divorce hearing, and Anthony Steel is trying to dump wife Julie London for having a baby via artificial insemination.

Steel is a jealous, impetuous racing car driver influenced by his wealthy father (Basil Sydney), who punches out people who make eyes at London. London seems to be a femme fetale but actually loves Steel. They get back together at the end and you go "oh no" because it' an all too believable example of an abusive relationship.

London is quite a good actor, sexy and of course can sing - she sings a song in the middle of the movie rather randomly. Steel is mostly wooden - is he dubbed in the scene where he cries out at London on the beach - but actually well cast as a possessive, jealous member of the aristocracy.

The movie is full of nutty moments - Steel taking London on the beach, London singing, flamenco, Anton Diffring as a man who spends a night in a chalet with London. Frank Thring and Donald Houston are both excellent as opposing counsel.

It's not a complete success but is consistently interesting.

Movie review - "Emergency Call" (1952) ***

 Nice, tight little British B film which deservedly gave a filip to the career of Lewis Gilbert who directed and co wrote it. There's a really solid central idea - a 5 year old girl is going to die, and she has a rare blood type. Doctor Anthony Steel and cop Jack Warden follow up leads: a boxer who is meant to throw a game, a black man who is reluctant to give blood to whites, a criminal.

The film stumbles at time - there should be more prominent women (Steel should have been a female, the mother of the girl just hangs around) and worked on its relationships (Steel and the mother, Steel and Warden). Also the movie makers weren't up to the black character subplot - Earl Cameron doesn't want to give blood because a German rejected it during the war... which seems cheating (why not have a British person reject it?)

But it moves fast, there's an in-built ticking clock, and the film is populated with delightful character actors: Earl Cameron, Sidney Talfer, Sid James.

I liked this movie. Warner goes through the motions but he's fine. Steel is limited but he is ideally cast as a doctor. There are enough lively actors around them.

Movie review - "West of Zanzibar" (1954) **1/2

 Ostensibly a sequel to Where Vultures Fly this doesn't feel like one, despite the same star, director, continent, and producer. It feels different in tone - the first time was a family story about saving animals in a park, this one is about looking after black Africans who are being lured into ivory trafficking.

Anthony Steel is back but it's less pleasant to see him worrying about humans than animals especially when he expresses concern like they're animals - he doesn't like them being tempted by big city ways.

Ealing were full of lefties, Harry Watt was a socialist - so there are monologues from a black African how blacks get blamed for things and the whites made it hard, and also a monologue from an Indian lawyer about how he's treated like a piece of shit. These are effective and good on a British movie for including them in the script but... they're kind of undercut by the fact that the Indian is shown to be the head baddy, and he does tempt the black people and the blacks rise up to liberate themselves from the Arabs, and the black does what Steel says. 

They just should've cut the wisdom out of it, it only makes the film seem more racist because the filmmakers are conscious of it. And when Steel goes "I'm a proud East African" it seems silly. I mean maybe if there had been a good Indian and a bad white, just to even it out...

It doesn't help that Steel's wife, here played by Sheila Sims, is such a racist whiner - she loathes the Indian, and whinges the blacks don't appreciate what they do.

It feels strange that park ranger Steel is going on this mission to bust ivory traffickers. Really they should have made this a prequel and dropped the wife and kid - they serve no function in the story (why not have them threatened?). It could've been how he met his wife, before he was a park ranger or something. 

On the sunnyside there is some spectacular colour photography of Africa - the hippos, and coastlines and boats. Steel's bland doggedness suits this sort of role. Sims isn't very good but the other support cast is strong.

Movie review - "The Master of Ballantrae" (1953) **1/2 (re-viewing)

Plenty of good stuff on display here - the colour, a decent budget, lots of action, Stevenson's source material, Errol Flynn being perfectly cast as the dissolute brother who goes to fight for Bonnie Prince Charlie while good brother Anthony Steel stays behind, Flynn's by play with Roger Livesey.

They've made Flynn heroic, which isn't consistent with the text, but I understand why they did it - that brother simply had more interesting adventures, going off and being a pirate and what not. If you want tot make the other brother the hero you'd need to spend time with him - and the piece would be less of a swashbuckler and more of a gothic noir.

But having said that they make the other brother (Steel) a goodie. Flynn thinks Steel has betrayed him, but he's wrong which is fake drama and dull. And makes Steel's presence in the whole movie pointless. If you make Flynn good, make Steel bad - wouldn't be hard: he covets Flynn's popularity, and love interest. Steel being good is kind of pointless. Maybe it could've worked if there had been another villain - but it turns out Flynn was betrayed by a girl who loved him.

The second flaw is the romance between Flynn and Beatrice Campbell is so flat. It doesn't work on the page - he's clearly a lousy boyfriend, the romance will last five seconds once the film is over - and the playing between the two doesn't help.

So those are two big flaws. It's a shame because they could have been easily fixed.

Flynn was clearly aging and getting on but it actually suits the part. It is one of his better 50s films.

Movie review - "The Black Tent" (1956) **1/2

Few people seem to say kind things about John Davis and the Rank Film Organisation but his basic ideas about what projects to green light weren't bad - try to give people what they couldn't get on TV, which for him meant colour and location filming (the thing he could never bring himself to do - which in hindsight was a big mistake - was to make films that pushed the boundaries censor-wise).

The big appeal of this movie is location filming in Libya, which is really stunning - gorgeous deserts, and ancient Roman ruins, palm trees, black tents, oasis etc. It's one of the best looking British films from this period I've seen.

The story is soapie but works on some level: wealthy Donald Sinden gets a letter alluding to the fate of his brother Anthony Steel, who went MIA in the North African desert during World War Two. He goes there and finds the truth relatively quickly: Steel was wounded, takes refuge with some Bedouin, falls for the Sheikh's daughter, decides to have a crack at the Germans.

Anthony Steel was a handsome, but inexpressive actor. I think they could have gotten around this say people had said a lot of different things about him which made him sound interesting, like in Laura ("he was angry", "he could be kind", "he was traumatised"). Or if he'd been teamed with a more interesting female co star than Anna Maria Sandri who is bland as dishwater (to be fair, it's a terrible character -  the stock, doe eyed adoring Arab girl who never has her own opinion - but her acting is poor). Or if he'd been given Sinden's role, which basically consists of just poking around and asking questions - and Sinden, a better actor, been given Steel's part. But then I guess Sinden isn't as good looking as Steel. Maybe Michael Craig, who was good looking and who can act - and who plays a support part. But Steel was more of a name at the time. Anyway, Steel looks odd with his hair dyed blonde.

There are script troubles too. Sinden badly lacks his own storyline. Yes, sure he pokes around looking for Sinden but he needed something else to do in the present day - a romance say with the widow, or some other girl; a threat (why not have an Arab or German try to kill him); unresolved business with his brother that could have been wrapped up. He sort of plods along.

Also more needed to be made of the German threat during the flashback scenes. What impact did they have on the Arabs? Were the Arabs divided over how to treat Steel? There could've been a civil war - Andre Morrell (good as the Sheikh) torn over what to do. There was more potential in the storyline.

But I did like it. Looks great, there is a story, Sinden and Morrell can act, it at least acknowledges there were people in the desert during this time other than Germans and Allies.

Novel review - "The Four Feathers" by A.E.W. Mason

Pukka adventure novel which has one of the great high concepts of all time - an officer, loved by his girl, admired by his mates - chickens out of active service at the time of the Sudan uprising. He's sent four white feathers of cowardice and sets out to redeem himself.

Despite this set up there is a surprisingly little amount of action - far too much time is spent on the incredibly dull heroin Ethne, who is stoic and suffering, and Durrance, the one who goes blind - who is a little more interesting, but still spends most of his time being blind and stoic. Harry Faversham's adventures in the Sudan are dealt mostly via reportage (we don't even get to be there for the death of Castleton, one of the men who gave him the feathers) except at the end when we go with him to Omdurman prison when he tries to bust out Lt Trench. Trench is given more of a character than dull lt Willoughby and there is good suspense as Faversham goes a little mad in the heat, an attempt fails and then succeeds. You read it and go "this would make a good movie... after some changes".

Movie review - "The Monster Club" (1980) *1/2

Not an Amicus film but very much in their spirit and produced by Milton Subotsky who was one of the two creative powerhouses at Amicus. It's an anthology piece, only three items this time, plus a linking story - and padded out with some ridiculous rock/pop numbers. Seriously they have whole numbers there.

Any idea I had that Roy Ward Baker was a good director went out the window with this movie - he makes a complete hash of three excellent stories from Chetwynd-Hayes, who was understandably upset at the final result. There's no atmosphere, or scares - just lots of dumb jokes and bad make up. All the stories had potential to be scary, thrilling, surprising, all that - they were all ruined.

An excellent cast is wasted: Vincent Price as a vampire, John Carradine as Chetwynd Hayes, James Laurenson as a Shamrock (awful, laughable make up), Simon Ward as a conman trying to get Barbara Kellerman to swindle Laurenson,  Stuart Whitman as a film director looking for a location who runs into ghouls, Richard Johnson as a vampire married to Britt Ekland, Donald Pleasance as a vampire hunter, Anthony Steel (looking as handsome and stiff as every) as a film producer.

A real darn shame - they should film more of Chetwynd Hayes' stuff. Just not ruin it.

Movie review - "The Malta Story" (1953) *** (warning: spoilers)

The story of the siege of Malta is one of the great epics of World War Two - the plucky little item that was bombed near constantly, crucial to the victories in North Africa, which came so close on several occasions to being invaded. The Rank organisation pulled their finger out with this tribute, ponying up for some location shooting and not one, not two but three of their biggest box office stars: Alec Guinness, Jack Hawkins and Anthony Steel.

Guinness I guess is the lead - he has the biggest part, and a romance. To be honest, I found him a little creepy - he's a sort of TE Lawrence type, an airy-fairy archeologist turned pilot who is trapped in Malta and gets in trouble with Hawkins because he likes to do his own thing on missions. He falls in love with a local girl, Muriel Pavlow... but because this is the early 1950s you know that means one of them will have to die.

Pavlow's "Maltese" family (mum is Flora Robson, brother is Nigel Stock) provides some more human drama when her brother is captured as a spy - he talks about Malta being his country not Britain's, so at least this film plays lip service to colonialism. Hawkins doesn't get the chance to do much apart from glower and worry about it all, which he does very well it must be admitted.

Steel has the smallest role of the three, getting to do some light romancing of Renee Asherson (both white people, so they can both live), but mostly walking around looking handsome and letting other actors carry the drama - that's how British audiences seemed to enjoy him most.

This gets off to a tremendous start with Guinness becoming stranded, and the island under constant attack, and documentary footage well integrated. It works less well in the second half as the movie tries to take on too much - being about the Allied fightback, which is too large to convey and has to be done via reportage - instead of concentrating on human drama. However Guinness' death, done in long shot, is very well done, and it's one of the better British war films from this period.