Movie review - "The Shiralee" (1957) ***1/2 (re-watching)

A film that means even more to me now because I'm the father of a young girl, and the beautiful casting of Peter Finch is even more effective. It's a mystery how director Leslie Norman stuffed up Summer of the Seventeenth Doll but made such a good fist of this. Having the perfect star of course helps - Finch was never better as the charming, irresponsible drifter who abducts his kid in a fit of pique and is stuck with her.

The Australian outback is beautifully conveyed - the camraderie on the back of trucks, the slang, the casual mateship, the horrible local bullies (Guy Doleman and Lloyd Berrell) threatening Finch at the pub, the loneliness of Nial Maguiness. Charles Tingwell gives Finch a lift in the truck - is his voice dubbed?

Superb performance from Dana Wilson the little girl. Love the moments like her tagging along, and laughing in the rain with her dad, and him carrying her on her shoulders.

Rosemary Harris is lovely as the girl Finch once impregnated. Russell Napier is her dad - he was an Aussie, I wasn't familiar with him.

There is some stuff that I really didn't like. When Elizabeth Sellers the wife turns up wanting her child back... he holds his ground, the kid picks him, then Finch tries to dump the kid with his friends. What a lousy dad. I think they should've made the mum a drunk or something and not into the kid. They do at the end, kind of, but not enough - not when she goes to visit him in the country town. That's the twist at the end but they should've bought it in earlier. She's too sympathetic! She should go with her mother. He's not a very good dad, always dumping the kid outside pubs and in cars and leaving her with people he's just met like Reg Lye and talking about packing her off to boarding school.

Also I didn't like all the fat jokes all the characters make about Tessie O'Shea. They really pour it on.

The film recovers for a decent last act though - with heartbreaking stuff of Wilson chasing after Finch going "dad, dad". And the lovely moment where Finch roots the shop girl (Barbara Archer) who dreams of going to Wagga Wagga and some decent heartbreak when the kid is run over (off screen - they miss a trick).

Oz movie fans will love seeing familiar faces bob up like Bruce Beeby (Finch's lawyer), Frank Leighton (a barman who knows Rosemary Harris), Henry Murdoch (Aboriginal actor in a car).

Movie review - "It's All Happening" (1963) **1/2

I'd heard this was a quickie whipped up for release over a few weeks and maybe it was but it looks pretty good - pleasing colour photography and some quite elaborate musical numbers. It probably helped that it was shot in the studio but is done with a great deal of professionalism and polish. I'm surprised it didn't have more of a life on TV - maybe there were rights issues, or the music was too old time-y.

It's not very rock and roll - Tommy Steele had begun his transformation as musical star by now - but it works on its own terms. Don Sharp directs with typical polish and pace.

Steele has a character to play - a talent spotter who wants to perform but is too shy. The film loses points though by having him raise money to help an orphanage - I mean, seriously? 

There's also a silly subplot where the object of his affection thinks he has a wife and kids which is a waste of time because it's a misunderstanding. There's some stuffed shirts and drunken aristocrats and lots of musical acts I didn't know but a lot of talent is on display.

Movie review - "The Tommy Steele Story" (1957) ***

Bright, unpretentious juke box musical to cash in on the fame of Tommy Steele, Britain's first rock and roller, who proved to have long staying power - though more as a general entertainer. The script is roughly based on Steele's rise to fame - he's from working class origins, learns to play the guitar while recovering from an accident, becomes a merchant seamen and starts performing, leading to him being fired (the sole conflict in the movie), and then becoming famous.

It's worth seeing as a vehicle for Steele who is very winning with a big smile and lots of energy. He has his awkward moments but is clearly a natural performer. And the film is stuffed with songs - there's a lot of them (something like 13 in a 70 minute running time), including "It's hot in the Cannibal pot tonight".

It's also fascinating for the insight into British music of the time - a little bit of rock, a lot more skiffle, calypso and reggae. Some other artists appear, some of them black.

Movie review - "The Happiest Millionaire" (1967) **

Disney jumped on the musical roadshow bandwagon using people who'd served them so well before: the Sherman brothers, Fred MacMurray, Norman Tokar. But the end result doesn't click.

By jove this was a hard slog. I mean it goes for almost three hours. Three! There's an intermission and everything. Mind you I guess Mary Poppins was 140 minutes.

People say this was an attempt to repeat Mary Poppins which would have made sense - I feel it was their go at You Can't Take It With You, the adventures of a madcap family.

The Poppins element is in the form of Tommy Steele, who Disney apparently wanted to play the Dick Van Dyke role in that film. Here he's a butler who joins the family.

And Steele is fine - toothy and energetic and he suits the Disney world - but his character is a problem. You don't need him in the film, you could cut him out totally and it wouldn't make any difference.

The film  at its heart is about Jon Davidson romancing Lesley Anne Downe (both are fine, by the way, very All American and sweet) - he gets involved in her madcap family, they get engaged, his bitchy mother Genevieve Page tries to stop it. That sort of story works - it did for You Can't Take It With You. You jazz it up with antics of other family members.

But instead they pad it out with stuff involving Steele (a few numbers, he and Davidson go drink together) and ignore the rest of the family - there's some brothers at the beginning who disappear, and Greer Garson literally just kind of hangs around. If they wanted to use Steele they should have made him a son or something (surely the accent could have been explained away?)

There's some okay tunes and numbers but they've bloated what should be a simple story and it's hard to get through. I also feel Fred MacMurray isn't entirely well cast as a loveable eccentric - he's perfect as someone a bit vague and absent minded, as in The Absent Minded Professor - but this character feels as though he needed more drive. Brian Keith say, who did a lot of work for Disney, would have been a lot more fun - you can imagine him boxing and so on.

Still, it's not terrible, just hard work to watch. And it is wholesome family entertainment.

Movie review - "Half a Sixpence" (1967) **

This is one of those musicals I watched thinking "gee this was probably a lot of fun to watch on stage" - with it's bright cheerful energetic star, Tommy Steele, and lively cast high kicking away and cheerful songs.

As a film it's less impressive. The director was George Sidney who stages scenes outdoors and all that - the production values are very high, with costumes and sets and what not. The support cast lacks star power - people like Julia Foster, Cyril Ritchard (didn't realise he was Australian), Elaine Taylor, Hilton Edwards... names who are vaguely familiar but who I didn't exactly recognise. Everyone is fine, they can act and sing and that, I just would've preferred another quasi-name or two.

The whole thing left me cold to be honest - but then I'm not a massive fan of these tales of plucky men who inherit money and pursue women. I'm not the target audience.

It's a long film. Bloated. This was immediately post Sound of Music and Paramount would have dreamt of similar financial returns - new British star, Broadway and West end hit, period family film. But it's so long - 140 minutes. I was thinking it was going to end and "intermission"  came up. There is a fantastic number in the second half, "Flash Bang Wallop" - I think a few more of these and this would be a classic.

But the story is so slight and Kipps so passive. He's poor, loves Ann, inherits money, dumps Ann for Helen, realises he's shallow, then marries Ann. Really the film could and should have ended there - but he has greedy plans to build a mansion, loses money,gets back Ann, winds up with more money. So he realises "money makes you shallow" twice.

There's a lot of money - but I feel they'd have been better off cutting it down, spending the money on some name co stars for Steele - like, I don't know, Susannah York, Rita Tushingham, Lynn Redgrave, Hayley Mills or something. Or a Hollywood star doing an accent.

Movie review - "Light Up the Sky!" (1960) ** (warning: spoilers)

Not very well known war movie despite being directed by Lewis Gilbert and starring Ian Carmichael, Tommy Steele and Benny Hill, and having a novel setting - the world of the men who manned searchlights.

It's based on a play and you can tell. It's more an ensemble piece and I wondered at times if it wouldn't work better as a straight up star vehicle for Hill and Steele who play brothers and are in good form. Hill is a good actor - handling the comedy well of course but also some dramatics like when he discovers Steele has knocked up a girl. It's a real shame Hill didn't do more dramatic acting. Steele is good too. Actually I can't fault the acting. I just found it dull.

It all felt so familiar - man hears about son dying. Squabbling in the mess. Knocking up a local girl. Worried about girlfriend.

The one really good bit is the final attack and the death of one of the crew. More seriousness maybe would have worked.

Carmichael just pops in and out of the film. The book ending scenes in the present day watching a cricket match where he's got a silly moustache seem strange.

Movie review - "Tommy the Toreador" (1958) ***

For Tommy Steele's third movie, Nat Cohen and Stuart Levy stumped up for colour and some location filming in Spain. It's much better than The Duke Who Wore Jeans - a lot simpler and more grounded.

Tommy plays a merchant seaman (Steele's background in real life) who accidentally gets stranded in Spain and becomes mixed up with a matador. The colour is pleasing as is the Spanish location work; Steele is in excellent form, bright and silly and energetic, and is helped by his fellow players. Janet Munro is charming as the love interest, a British show girl he meets; Sid James and Bernard Cribbins play Spaniards who try to cash in on Tommy's "fame"; Kenneth Williams is a vice consul;  Virgilio Teixeira is a real matador.

John Paddy Carstairs directed - he knows his stuff.  Maybe three stars is overly generous but this was very endearing.

Movie review - "The Duke Wore Jeans" (1958) **

The Tommy Steele Story was a big hit so Nat Cohen and Stuart Levy rushed out a second Steele film, casting him in a dual role as lookalikes - one an artistocrat who gets his look a like to impersonate him on a visit to a royal country.

There are worse ideas for a silly film - I mean, it's the basis of The Prisoner of Zenda and The Prince and the Pauper. But it meshes uneasily with the teen musical aspects of Steele. That exists in its own uneasy reality - that of a British pop/rock musical. To cross it with Prisoner of Zenda feels like a bridge too far.

There are some basic construction flaws - like there's not much difference between the two characters Steele plays, the aristocrat and the layabout. Really the aristocrat should be posh - they kind of make him this hard worker only interested in cows but also he's secretly married (we never meet the secret wife). But he's got no real personality.

And I didn't buy the basic set up - 1958 feels far far too late to have plots about arranged marriages.

There's a bewildering lack of culture clash comedy - it's basically just Tommy being bouncy and charming. And to be fair he is charming - with a big smile, full of energy, singing and dancing away. He's got the right stuff - more West End than pop star (and the tunes back this up) but he's talented. He has a sweet romance with the princess and really the film needed to give him more relationships on screen - there was no progression in his relationship with a manservant, for instance.

They throw in a plot about a possibility military coup but never do it. Never reunite the two Tommys. Don't expose the deception in a big way. So it's a lousy book.

But it has a solid support cast, some tunes and the star really giving it his all.

Book review - "Roadshow! The Fall of Film Musicals in the 1960s" by Matthew Kennedy (2014)

Very good look at the explosions in big budget musicals that followed the success of Sound of Music. The big ones get their own chapter - there were genuine successes like Thoroughly Modern Millie, Oliver! Funny Girl, Fiddler on the Roof, Jesus Christ Superstar and Cabaret; half successes like Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and On a Clear Day You Can See Forever; films that were okay but lost huge amounts of money: Half a Sixpence,  Camelot, Dr Doolittle, Hello Dolly; films few people remember, like Song of Norway, The Happiest Millionaire, The Great Waltz or Goodbye Mr Chips; surprise flops like Sweet Charity; legendary money losers like Paint Your Wagon, Star!, Man of La Mancha and Darling Lili; surprisingly profitable enterprises like Finian's Rainbow and Son of Norway.

My take out from reading this book:

*Musicals have never stopped being popular. They've never stopped being popular on Broadway and came back in a big way in the animated world. Many of the notorious flops in the book were among the years biggest films eg Camelot. But...

*Musicals need to be made for a price. It's astonishing how needlessly expensive many of these films were. Camelot is basically three people in a castle. Darling Lili is two people, one of whom performs occasionally in a music hall. Goodbye Mr Chips is about a man who teaches at school. But they cost too much money to ever have a real chance of being profitable. Sometimes the film's over production made it less enjoyable eg Hello Dolly, Paint Your Wagon. Part of this is because musicians and technicians used to be under contract and now they aren't... but I think also these filmmakers got panicky and threw money at problems, hoping spectacle would save them.

*Musicals need to be cast well. I don't want to be wise after the event - but the leads of musicals should be able to sing, and suit the parts. Audiences don't mind if they're not film stars - look at the acceptance of Ted Neely, Topol, Mark Lester. Absolutely it won't always work - the public didn't go to see Robert Morse reprise his role in How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying, for instance. But if you can't get a movie star who suits the part, then cast the Broadway star. There were so many better suited Hollys than Barbra Streisand; the leads in Paint Your Wagon were ridiculous, ditto Redgrave and Franco Nero in Camelot and Man of La Mancha.

*What was really killed in the late 60s was the teen musical - the unpretentious programmer, like the Donald O'Connor musicals of the 40s for Universal, or Elvis' musicals, or the Beach Party films. These seemed to dry up despite the glorious music of the time - even in the early 1960s Hollywood studios would sign up teen idols but this seemed to stop. In particular I can't believe there weren't more blaxploitation musicals.

*These roadshows I feel definitely scared off big screen adaptations that should have happened by now. I get why no one's tried to film Oh Calcutta! But it's a shame there hasn't been films of Wicked, 42nd Street (the newer version), The Book of Mormon, Avenue Q, La Cage Aux Folles, Spamalot, Matilda, Promises Promises, They're Playing Our Song, Into the Heights.

An entertaining book, full of fun anecdotes and interesting analysis.

Movie review - "Finian's Rainbow" (1969) ***

No one ever seems to have much good to say about this musical, not even fans of musicals and/or its director Francis Ford Coppola, who seem to usually regard it as an aberration in the career line, to paraphrase Walter Hill - but I didn't mind it.

It doesn't quite work but I feel that's not Coppola's fault - the material is such that adapting it for cinema would be tricky. Maybe it needed to have been shot soon after it's debut on Broadway, shot on the never never land of some studio backdrop - and the older the film was the easier it might have been to take, say, Keenan Wynn in blackface, and the mute dancing girl, and all the tobacco picking. Louis B Mayer had the film rights in the 1950s and probably that's as late as it should have been made. Or not - who knows?

But looking at it now - I really enjoyed the songs, they are quite captivating and lovely. Petula Clark is bright and pretty as the main girl, and it's always fun to see Fred Astaire, even if he never really gets to dance. Tommy Steele can be irritating, and I'd heard he was particularly so in this film - but admit I didn't find that to be the case; yes he's got those massive teeth and all that "bounce" but his part actually isn't very big (at least not here) and he has energy.

I was surprised by the importance of the role played by Don Francks, who romances Clarke's character and is the leader of the locals. (In strict story terms his character should be black, and they combine his character with that of Howard/Al Freeman Jnr... I do recognise that would have been very, very tricky). I'd never heard of Francks and didn't know he was in the film - he sings well, and has a decent presence, though it would have been better with more of a star.

Barbara Hancock is the dancing mute girl, Wynn is always reliable, and the climax does attempt to tackle race, so this has an undercurrent. Maybe I'm over praising this, but the movie has unfairly copped it, I feel.

Movie review - "The Shiralee" (1957) ***1/2

Half a classic, with two superb lead performances by Peter Finch as the swagman and Dana Wilson as her daughter. Finch claimed this role was one of his favourites and from what I know of the man it's not surprising - a drifter, nomad, womaniser, hating responsibility, distrustful of women, comfortable among male company, a hard worker, easy to make friends, easier to leave them, capable of great charm, proud. Wilson is adorable - whether determinedly running to catch up with her father and refusing to let him go, laughing delightedly in a rain storm, or telling Finch she wants to stay with him. These two have wonderful chemistry.

The film is pretty good too for the most part - it starts off very well, with Finch interrupting his wife and her lover, him smacking the lover around and taking his kid out of spite. While Elizabeth Sellars plays the wife as a shrew, and it's clear she doesn't care that much for Buster (well she does but more for her lover), her arguments all seem valid - Finch's character is a lousy selfish husband. He does come in for a lot of criticism and is shown to be a real bastard - bailing on his old lover, trying to leave his kid several times, unable to hold down a job, etc. He sort of learns responsibly and the film tries to give a happy ending with the hint of reconciliation with an old flame... but how long does anyone think that will last?

It's surprising how sexually frank this is: Finch's wife is having a long term affair, Finch took the virginity of Rosemary Harris and she had a baby who died, Finch has casual sex with a shop girl (who dreams of escaping her small town life to go to Wagga Wagga). For me the film started to slow down when Finch went to stay with Tessie O'Shea and Sid James - too much forced charm with these two, especially O'Shea (lots of "loveable" jokes about her weight); Sellars comes back for the kid and Finch insists on keeping her... then abandons her; Finch gets beaten up in Sydney with flashing neon lights; we don't see Dana Wilson get run over.

Still, it's very worth seeing and the good outweighs the bad. Some sad moments too such as Niall MacGuiniss mourning his wife and wasting his life, and Finch walking through a country town and rock music can be heard- he's becoming a man out of time already. Some of the support performances are good, including several Aussies living in London - Charles Tingwell (who gives Finch a lift), Lloyd Berrell (who fights him), Ed Devereaux (who gives him another lift) and Frank Leighton (old friend of Harris').