Louis Jourdan Top Ten

 In honour of his birthday

1. Letter from an Unknown Woman (1948) - the perfect cad. I still think about this film.

2. Octopussy (1983) - never regarded as a top level Bond villain but I thought he was good.

3. Gigi (1958) - so dodgy. Yet a good performance.

4. The Paradine Case (1948) - Hitchcock wanted Robert Newton but I thought Jourdan was fine.

5. Dangerous Exile (1958) a very fanatical hero for a swashbuckler

6. Three Coins in the Fountain (1954) - The American public didn't like heroic Jourdan but liked him in roles like this.

7. The Best of Everything (1959) - career girl stuff, he works well as one of an ensemble.

8. Julie (1956) - a great abusive spouse

9. Fear No Evil (1969) - I've got a memory of this being good. Vague. But it's there.

10. Man in the Iron Mask (1977) - effective as D'artagnan.

Movie review - "Marie of the Isles" (1959) **

A biopic of someone called Marie Bonnard du Parquet, a wife of the governor of Martinique who I assume is more famous in France. She's played by Belinda Lee, who often played real life figures in her European movies, often notorious sex pots.

Here Marie is a serving maid who meets a handsome lout (Alain Saury) but can't marry him because she's trailer trash and he's off to run Martinique. She marries a rich baddy who doesn't consumate marriage while Suary gets involved with a chubby pirate.

I was looking forward to this as I like a pirate film but there's not enough Lee or swashbuckling. It's mostly the chubby pirate and other character actors and the budget isn't that big. It perks up towards the end. I was a little disappointed. Maybe it was more due to my expectations.

It was directed by Georges Combret.

Movie review - "Blood Feud" (1961) (aka Il Sicario) **1/2

Italian film directed by  Damiano Damiani (who later did Amityville 2) which I only watched because Belinda Lee has a support role. It's about an industrialist (Sergio Fantoni) who owes a lot of money who decides to hire Alberto Lupo to kill his creditor. Belinda Lee is his wife - quite dowdy in comparison to her normal European roles. When Lupo slaps her around she goes silent, takes her coat and the kids and leaves. Later they get back together.

Lee gets a few other chances to act here - a break down, yelling at her husband. So too Sylva Koscina who plays Fantoni's girl.

Cesare Zavattini was one of the writers.  This doesn't play out the way I thought it would. I figured Lupo would kill relatively early then there would be twists and turns. But actually it's mostly Lupo angsting.

Nice to see Lee in a film which actually tries to be good. Doesn't quite get there, but it's interesting.

Book review - "The Smallest Giant: An Actor's Life" (2005) by Michael Craig

 Gloriously entertaining look at Craig's acting adventures - his relatively quick rise to success, being at Rank in the 1950s, Europe and Hollywood in the 1960s, Australia in the 1970s. He was a good looking lad who could act - Rank had him as a back up Dirk Bogarde. He whinges a lot. This is very bitchy for someone who had so much success (i.e. consistent work). But it is very funny. It shines a light too on films that don't get a lot of attention, i.e. 1950s British movies.

Belinda Lee Top Ten

In no particular order

1. The Secret Place (1957) - possibly her best British film. Some good Cliver Donner direction.

2. Nor the Moon by Night (1958) - not a good movie, but impressive location work, Lee looks gorgeous, and this was the film that she tried to kill herself during its making.

3. Messalina (1961) - everything you want in a dumb peplum: orgies, milk baths, gladiators, over acting. Great fun.

4. Miracle in Soho (1957) - the jury is mixed on this one, to put it mildly, but it has a lot of charm and Lee teams well with John Gregson.

5. Long Night in 1943 (1961) - a rare "serious" European film for Lee, a slice of neo realism, very well done, and she's strong.

6. Way of the Wicked (1959) - sex and drama among the mussell packing industry. Entertaining. Lee is gorgeous.

7. Phantom Lovers (1962) - one of Lee's last films, this is a charming ghost comedy. Her role isn't very big but the cast is good.

8. Blackout (1954) - solid B thriller which could have been more cynical. Lee suits the world of film noir well.

9. Who Done It? (1956) - Lee is Benny Hill's leading lady. Entertaining movie.

10. The Feminine Touch (1956) - Lee is jolly nice as a jolly nice nurse; she gets a chance to drive the action which was rare. I also like Dangerous Exile, but she was more active in this film.

Movie review - "Miracle in Soho" (1957) ***

 I'm getting to be a soft marker with these 50s British movies, I think. Few people have anything positive to say about this - Michael Powell is scathing in his memoirs... but then, he and Emeric Pressburger had just broken up.

It's not that well directed. The studio setting is very studio-y. The nationalities of the characters vary wildly, even within the same family. Belinda Lee's family is meant to be Italian but it is kind of a UN.

It's an interesting companion piece with A Kid for Two Farthings which was also about a specific place (in that case the East End) and had a hot blonde (Lee) but was an ensemble piece.

I like Pressburger's writing and this had a feel of community. I enjoyed Lee and John Gregson in the leads. I acknowledge that their love story is dodgy - he's a womaniser, she falls in love like a tonne of bricks, is a doormat. But I went with it in part because Gregson always comes across so affably and sensibly, the womanising irresponsible aspect of his personality seems like an act (I'm aware this is rationalising). I also went with it because Lee's characters's arc has fascinating parallels to Lee's own life... she's with a guy who is fine but a bit dull then falls head over heels for this more passionate person. Lee would do that only a year later.

It's toy town but it's sweet and I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. Could make an ideal musical.

Movie review - "No Smoking" (1955) **

 I think in the 1950s it was funnier to have comedies about pills that made you give up smoking before everyone realised how deadly cigareets were. So this hasn't aged well.

It does get points for boldness - it's a social satire, so though why it's low budget and stars off in a small town, they bring in the tobacco industry, the government and a trade war. Chemist Reg Dixon has invented a pill that stops smoking - but although Dixon was a comedy star and the film is kind of a vehicle for him more screen time goes to this American Peter Maryn. 

Lionel Jeffries with hair is the tobacconist who is Dixon's antagonist. The playing of these leads is all polished. Belinda Lee is an industrial espionage spy sent to interrogate Dixon by the tobacco lobby; she's pretty and it's nice to see her but actually it's not a huge role, and she plays it as a Marilyn Monroe imitatoin which was amateurish.

This was made by Tempean, a B picture outfit better known for their horrors. Based on a play co written by Aussie Rex Rienits. Location filming helps. It's not really funny but it is interesting.

Movie review - "She Walks by Night" (1959) ** (aka Love Now Pay Later) (re watching)

 Dubbed version of a German film starring Belinda Lee as a real life prostitute who was murdered. This doesn't show whodunnit - that's a POV killing from someone she knows. Lee looks like a drag queen.

This is fairly hard going. Jazz on the soundtrack. Dubbing. Black and white photography. Trashy milieu but because it was 1959 you don't even see that much.

Most memorable bits are the murder, and also where what seems to be a butch lesbian gives Lee a masseuse and seems into her. They don't go through with it - ten years too early.

Not a very good movie. Unpleasant - she has to be punished. Unmemorable men paw at her - bald old fat ones, a young guy she seems to love. No real insight.

Movie review - "The Gentle Touch" (1956) *** aka The Feminine Touch

 Ealing weren't great with female stories, but they did try with this one - its about four nursing students going through the motions.

It took me a while to get into this. The colour photography wasn't great and felt ill at ease with that Ealing documentary style. The movie but this stage felt a few years too old. It doesn't really take into account the new frankness in the way it could. There is a bit where a suicide attempt lady talks about having an affair - what was effective. More of that would have worked.

The lead actors tend to be hard to tell apart - the lead is Belinda Lee, as a good girl; the others are Delphi Lawrence, as someone just there to get a husband, Adrienne Corri as an Irish woman with a broad accent, and Henryetta Edwards as a public school girl. 

Those are four decent types but the playing is indistinguishable. The movie badly needs someone like Diana Dors, with a bit of pep and individuality (she would have suited Lawrence's role; Lawrence seems bored, the character is fun on the page but Lawrence doesn't seem to be having any). Edwards I forgot was in the film when she just quit. Corri doesn't have anything to do except speak in Irish. Surely there were other options around this time? But in fairness to the actors only Lawrence and Lee have much to do.

Every now and then you get a sense of what the movie could be - the girls worried when a colleague go missing, and when one wants to quit. But there's not enough of it. It doesn't compare well to say the 40s war films where there was more camaraderie.

I liked Lee. Her eloquent speaking voice is annoying and she is jolly sensible and no-nonsense, very pretty. George Baker is the doctor with whom Lee falls in love and they make a pleasant couple. Baker didn't have star factor but he was an ideal romantic foil.

The melodramatic bits of this work best - a little girl thinking she's going to die, a life that is saved. There needed to be more of this. Like, kill off a nurse. But the film feels more comfortable in documentary mode - a matron giving a speech, Baker diagnosing an illness. There is some low key feminism in nurses complaining they get the boot if they get married.

But I went with this. I like Lee - this was one of her better parts at Rank.

Diana Wynyard offers strong support as a matron.

Movie review - "I Magliari" (1959) **1/2

 I watched this because Belinda Lee was in it but her part is relatively small (she doesn't come in until the film is half over). It's about Italian workers in Germany, and much of their behaviour is boorish and not that interesting. But after a while this grew on me - I got into the rhythms of the story.

Belinda Lee is good as another man eater though she has this drag queen make up on that she seemed to use whenever she worked in Germany. But in her quiet moments she's effective. She's the wife of the boss of one of the workers who has an affair with said worker (played by Renalto Salvatori, who you might recognise. Alberto Sordi has another lead.)

There's decent developments - lots of local prejudice - and fascinating cultural details: the coffee shops, the dancing, the Teddy Boys, the rock and roll. Location filming helps.

Movie review - "Ghosts of Rome" (1961) **

 Fantasy comedy about a bunch of ghosts in a castle which is going to be sold. Not a bad concept and the actors have a good time including Marcello Mastroianni and Vittorio Gassman, so I recognised some. There's also Belinda Lee as the girlfriend of the new owner (also played by Mastroianni) - she's  a stripper, naturally.

This went for a bit long and I had auto translate subtitles so didn't pick up on the jokes, but was charming. Well acted, fun, sweet. Moving in that some of the dead are suicides and one is a little boy.

Movie review - "Eyewitness" (1956) **1/2

 Decent thriller which is written and directed by women and also two of the three leads are women.  One wishes it were better. It is well directed but the story isn't enough to sustain a feature. It should have been. There are plenty of characters who could have been developed more.

The story is far too simple. Muriel Pavlov and Michael Craig argue. She witnesses a murder. Gets hit by a bus. The killers go to hospital to try and silence her. That's a fantastic set up. But the film has all these characters they don't use - the husband just sort of hangs around. Use him - make him a baddy, or help the baddy, or die. This nurse in the hospital, Belinda Lee, looks as though she's going to be important - but she never figures out what is going on. She has this American serviceman boyfriend - you think he's going to be killed, or be bad, but... no. 

The heroic stuff is done by some patients - a little girl and a little old lady (good on Box for doing this) and the fellow murderer. But it's all so linear.

I think the film should've been played from Lee's POV - this mystery patient comes in and Lee figures out what's going on, gradually, along with the audience. We meet Donald Sinden but don't know if he's good or bad. Ditto Michael Craig (both could claim to be Pavlov's husband for example). Play out the romance with Knight instead of having it all be resolved ("let's get married" "okay"... why not have some conflict? Some attraction?) I think the killer should've had a closer relationship with the eyewitness.

Look the film is fine. I just think the story needed a rejig. It's stylishly shot.

Movie review - "Footsteps in the Fog" (1955) (re-watching) ***

 This holds up well. It probably should have been in intimate black and white instead of colour - the colour on the print I watched wasn't very good. The fact it was shot in England helps. I'm not a Jean Simmons fan but I liked her here - a maid who knows boss Stewart Granger murdered his wife, but loves him... even after Granger then tries to kill her (he knocks off someone else, a mother with two kids, which is full on. The film doesn't really explore this darkness).

Granger is good as a villain. I quite liked Bill Travers and Belinda Lee too - Lee loves Granger, and Travers loves Lee but has to defend Granger. This is a decent subplot. 

Lee doesn't have much to do other than look rich and beautiful which she does. Travers is solid, strong speaking voice.

 Granger does take a risk poisoning himself to get Simmons then tripping up - risk strategy. Maybe all the twists don't work but the underlying drama of a crazy eyes maid in love with her murderous boss is effective and holds it together.

Movie review - "Life with the Lyons" (1954) **

 Hammer studios specialised in adaptations of stories that were hit in other media first - Dick Barton, this Dracula, On the Buses. This was based on a TV sitcom and radio show - American entertainers Bob Lyon and wife Bebe Daniels and their two kids played themselves in a meta conccept.

I wasn't familiar with the show - this left me cold. Val Guest keeps the pace fast but these characters meant nothing to me. There was a lot of running around, everyone tries to entertain.

The plot concerns the Lyons moving in to a house - the daughter gets engaged.

Belinda Lee has quite a large part as the daughter of an author  (Hugh Morton)- she mugs it up, really goes broad. It's actually fun to see her even if it she is muppet acting.

It's frantic, and tiring.

Movie review - "The Chasers" aka "Les Drageurs" (1959) ***

 An accomplished directorial debut from Jean-Pierre Mocky, helped by pleasant photography, location work in Paris, a simple story and a strong cast.

Jacques Charrier (who was Mr Brigitte Bardot for a while) and Charles Aznavour are two young lads on the make one night. Charrier has a lot of luck - I get he's handsome but he's not very charming and at times I felt the film pushed the believably factor (had it been Delon or Belmondo, maybe). Aznavour's strike rate felt more realistic.

The women they meet include a wife, a crippled girl, a teenager, a man eater, a tragic figure. Anouk Aimee is effective as the crippled girl; Estella Blain is a sad sack, albeit hot; Dany Robin is the wife; Dany Carrel cracks jokes; Belinda Lee is fun as a man eater (the type who tongue kisses strangers at a masked ball party then slaps them); Nicole Berger, who later died in a car crash, is a nice girl.

I felt it was a strong movie - not as profound as it thinks it is and over reliant on Charrier's charm but it gives its cast roles to act and was compelling.

Movie review - "Nor the Moon by Night" (1958) ** (re-watching)

I watched this again to focus more on Belinda Lee. She actually gives one of her better English language performances - suicide attempts agree with her! She seems focused, intense, conveys meaning with her face. 

The other actors are strong - Patrick McGoohan and Michael Craig especially. But it's such a dopey story. It's not a love triangle because Lee never met McGoohan, and he's got this other girl waiting. She's in trouble about her mother dying then it's resolved off screen. Her "rival" for McGoohan gets him just by hanging around. The villains just snarl a bit but don't do anything.

 The story is a series of encounters with wildlife and danger but in an episodic way -  a lion runs loose twice, a bush fire, a snake, etc. It's a lazily written movie. It's worth seeing for the actors and location work in South Africa.

Movie review - "Vacations in Majorca" (1959) **

 I saw this without subtitles so had no idea what was going on - it was set at a resort town with the men being pervy on the women, and Alberto Sordi chasing after diva Belinda Lee. There was another woman and a man hanging around.

It was beautifully shot - splendid locations. Belinda Lee looks gorgeous - she was never more attractive than in her Italian films. It's got a gropey vibe but a lot of Italian comedies do.

Movie review - "The Belles of St Trinians" (1954) ***

 Playfully anarchic comedy about a girls boarding school where the staff and students are out of control. Everyone smokes, bets. The girls torture each other to get information. Belinda Lee is sent to seduce a jockey. But it's not pervy because it was 1954.

There's something about the film that doesn't quite work for me. It's always in second gear. Maybe because the girls aren't the focus, they're background. It needed to be Marx brothers. But it's too... I don't know, polite. Maybe it's too much on the men - Alistair Sim in drag, George Cole - and not enough on the female teachers.

I'm not an Alistair Sim fan, I'm discovering. Something about him is just irritating. He seems to slow down the action. That could be it, for me - Sim fans would feel otherwise.

Some of it is very funny and I love the anarchy and lack of scruple. Maybe it's the direction. I don't know, just being honest.

Movie review - "Satan Tempts with Love" (1960) **

Belinda Lee mostly worked in Italy during her European years but made the odd movie in France and Germany - this is one of the latter, a melodrama where she's the singer girlfriend of an escapee who uses her to con a rich man.

Lee wears a similar high mascara that she did in her other German movie - was that a German style? She's fine. The film is a bit silly. It starts promisingly with a baddy on the run and has some good moments, like Lee singing in a nightclub. 

There's interesting touches like a man in yellowface playing a Chinese, and the protagonist wanting to go to Australia. The ending didn't feel real. A lot of it didn't.

Movie review - "Man of the Moment" (1955) **

 For around a decade Norman Wisdom was one of the biggest stars in British cinema - a huge draw at home and in communist countries.

He's little Chaplin-esque - a big kid, playing for pity, engaging in slapstick. He sings a few numbers here. 

He wasn't my cup of tea but this wasn't the strongest vehicle. He's a clerk who winds up a diplomat in Geneva and gets involved in the affairs of a small Pacific Island - the locals are played by actors with New Zealand accents, notably Inia Te Wiata, who popped up in a few British films.

Lana Morris is fun as Wisdom's co star as is Belinda Lee as a film star ordered to seduce Wisdom.

The movie really comes alive in a chase through a TV studio and Wisdom goes from show to show - it's funny, anarchic and imaginative, and gives an insight into what the film could and should have been. 

But if you like Wisdom...