Book review - "Vera Miles: The Hitchcock Blonde Who Got Away" by Christopher McKittrick

 Miles was a solid, pretty actor who delivered solid performances over the years, including some classics - The Searchers, Psycho, The Wrong Man, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. I think it's fair to say she's no one's favourite part of these movies but she doesn't let anyone down. The most interesting thing about her career is Hitchcock was briefly obsessed with her and wanted to star her in Vertigo but she fell pregnant and he ended up using Kim Novak.

This is a conscientous, dogged book, like a Miles performance, not that gripping - her life and career wasn't that interesting. She had a few divorces, the Hitchcock interlude... that was about it. She seems like a nice person who married a few dodgy men. The book might've been better putting more dates and credits in an appendix than the text.

George Sidney Top Ten

 One of the best underrated glossy directors

1) The Three Musketeers (1948) - wonderful swasbuckling version

2) Scaramouche (1952) - an even better swashbucker with career high efforts from Granger and Eleanor Parker

3) Viva Las Vegas (1964) - the greatest Elvis movie

4) The Eddie Duchin Story (1956) - splendid tearjerker

5) Bathing Beauty (1944) - fun, all star silliness

6) The Harvey Girls (1946) - some Golden Era fun

7) Showboat (1951) - cripes he did this one too

8) Annie Get Your Gun (1950) - and this one!

9) Young Bess (1953) - slight change of pace, great stuff, a little whiffy script wise

10)  Jeanne Eagles (1957) - serios biopic, solidly done

Book review - "King Cohn" by Bob Thomas (re-reading)

 Listened to this bc John Landis did the reading. It was fun. Full of good anecdotes. That does mean there's less analysis and a lot of stories from people where they got one over Harry Cohn. Aw shucks, anecdote teller, you're so clever. I was constantly thinking "what was really going on?"

I know Cohn was smart and ruthless. I sensed a less pleasant, more controllins person behind the person depicted here.

But the book is an easy read. Lots of great stories. The account of his death is moving as is his friendship with Sidney Buchman.

Movie review - "Pepe" (1960) **

Cantiflas was a huge star in Mexico who had a choice support part in Around the World in 80 Days so George Sidney and Columbia gave him his own vehicle and they filled it full of stars.

Cantiflas is in Mexico with his beloved horse. The horse is sold to filmmaker Dan Dailey while Edward G. Robinson and Greer Garson as themselves look on. Ernie Kovacs is an immigration official. William Demarest is a studio guard. Zsa Zsa Gabor enters the studio. So does Bing Crosby who sings 'South of the Border' with the star.

He befriends Shirley Jones. Jay North as Dennis the Menace attacks him. There's Charles Coburn getting struck in the head with a slingshot pulled by Billie Burke. Jack Lemmon appears in his Some Like It Hot drag outfit. Cantiflas goes to a nightclug and sees Bobby Darin sing and Michael Callan dance - its' a good number, Callan, some other guy and Shirley Jones, ending with the two guys having a West Side Story-style knife fight.

Then there's this agonisingly dull subplot begins about Jones wanting to be a movie star but also being bitter and not wanting Dailey to shag her, and Dailey being a drunk over the hill producer trying to get up a film involving Pepe's horse or something. It's all simple yet confusing which is an achievement.

Cantiflas follows Dailey to Las Vegas, where he meets the Rat Pack (Joey Bishop, Peter Lawford and Richard Conte in one scene, then Sammy Davis Jnr, then Sinatra). The whole movie set in Vegas would've been a better idea. Cesar Romero is at a slot machine looking like he's trying to pick up. He banters with Jimmy Durante.

There's a way out number where Dailey hallucinates a dance number with a tiny Cantiflas and Debbie Reynolds clambering around giant pencils and a telephone and another prop to the music 'Tequila'. Then the film starts and Dailey, Jones and Cantiflas go see Maurice Chevalier in concert. There's a comic bit where Cantiflas visits Janet Leigh at home she thinks she's someone else, husband Tony Curtis becomes involved.

Then Cantiflas is in love with Jones but she falls for Dailey. She's almost twenty years younger than Dailey and looks it.  There's a weird scene where Robinson declares Dailey's love for Jones while Dailey looks on. So we don't get a confrontation between the three.

There's a lot, as in a lot, of jokes about Cantiflas calling the horse his "son". A lot of scenes of Cantiflas being lucky - he wins at the casino, Novak pays for his engagement ring.

The film is fascinating for its oddness - an all star vaudeville act style film built around a Mexican star. Why not put some effort into the story?

An odd duck. Has a fascination.

Movie review - "The Eddy Duchin Story" (1956) ****

 My grandmother loved this movie, with its combination of music, Tyrone Power, big screen gloss and melodrama. Power looks good - it's weird to think he was only three years away from dying of a heart attack. Duchin's life is dramatically strong - plucky upstart, musician who climbs to top, rich wife who died tragically, he recovers and finds love again, then dies tragically himself.

This is done with taste, and skill. Power has worked his tail off to learn piano. He brings the charisma - sensitivity, handsomeness, etc. Novak looks great but isn't very good - she struggled when playing a nice person who wasn't needy and chronically insecure. James Whitmore has the thankless William Demarest role of exposition friend.

Aussies will get a kick out of Victoria Shaw as Duchin's second wife. She's meant to be British but the old Aussie accent sneaks in. She's quite good. Never had a big career, but had a decent one.

Beautiful wide screen shots of New York. Lovely tunes. Some effective scenes such as Novak on her death bed, Power playing on a piano in a bombed out area to a little kid who gives him a hug (hokey but there were such kids, whose family was probably wiped out, looking for happiness), Novak and Power in the rain in Central Park.

The finale where Power has to tell his son he's dying and they play the piano together is very powerful even if the kid isn't the best actor.

One of director George Sidney's best movies.

Movie review - "Pal Joey" (1957) ***

 I haven't seen the original,am prepared to believe it's a classic, this version seems like a solid star vehicle for three talents - anti hero womaniser who is really a hero (he's nice to a cat), sings at a club, has to deal with a sort of flat mate (Kim Novak) and an old flame (Rita Hayworth).

Both Hayworth and Novak are ideally cast - Hayworth as the Woman from the Past (eg Gilda) and Novak as a gorgeous not too bright thing whose looks mask her insecurity and has terrible taste in men (eg Picnic, Vertigo). Sinatra is perfectly cast too as the heel. He has some great tunes to sing like 'The Lady is a Tramp'. Novak works well. Hayworth had lost her zing by now. She seems flat. Still looks good.

Watching this it hit me. I don't really like Frank Sinatra. I respect his talent - he can act and sing. But I don't like to be around him. I'm sure he'll live.

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 - "Five Against the House" (1955) **1/2

Phil Karlson's Columbia thrillers have a deserved cult these days. This has the benefit of a bright idea - four over age college students (two are Korean War veterans) get an idea to rob a casino for a bit of a lark. I thought maybe this might work more if they were bored veterans in the suburbs but college students does work as one is clearly attracted by the mental challenge (Kerwin Matthews), one is a bored f-wit (Alvy Moore), another has bad PTSD (Brian Keith). I guess it's three - there's a moral fourth one (Guy Madison) in love with a singer (Kim Novak).

Guy Madison was quite good - he has a no-nonsense persona, a little lightweight but he's used well. Keith is excellent. The film would've been better with a better actor in the Matthews role, a less annoying actor in the Moore role, and if Madison's and Novak's characters had been more greedy. The film kind of gets worse as it goes on - it gets lighter. There's no threat. Keith goes mad but doesn't kill anyone. No one dies. Madison persuades him to give himself up. 

Why don't they make Novak bad? Or have her kidnapped? Or kill someone? Or have a big baddie? William Conrad looks great as a casino operative but he's not used enough. Location filming in Reno helps.

The college students are boorish - picking on a freshman, whining, not working too hard.

Movie review - "The Amorous Adventures of Moll Flanders" (1965) **

 The public that turned out in large numbers for Tom Jones didn't come to this. Maybe it was Kim Novak versus Albert Finney and definitely director Terence Young isn't known for his comedy (comedy in Bond films is very different). 

One reviewer wondered if people preferred to see men behaving badly in a sexual way to women but I'm not sure that's true - few films were more popular than Gone with the Wind or The Wicked Lady. But those two films have what this doesn't - clearly defined goals. Scarlett O'Hara wanted Ashley - it propelled her through the whole film, into three marriages, through a war, to even help Ashley's wife. Lady Skelton wanted excitement (and also true love) because she was recovering from the death of her mother.

Moll Flanders is ill defined here. What does she want? What drives her? It would've been easy to adjust what's here. She could've forever loved that dissolute rich brother at the beginning, sought vengeance on him.

Similar mistakes were made incidentally on the adaptation of Forever Amber. 

The other thing those successful films had which the unsuccessful ones doesn't is a "good" character to contrast. Moll/Novak needed a "good girl" to compare to and also there needed to be two guys who loved her truly. Richard Johnson is there for one. 

There's sped up cameras, and the cast that tries - no one is slumming and some are perfect: Leo McKern, Lili Palmer, Angela Lansbury, George Sanders, etc. There is real heat in the scenes between Novak and Johnson - they fell in love - and the film would've been much better if it had centered around their relationship.

These films are hard to do. Terence Young can't pull it off. But the biggest issue isn't even Novak's performance it's an inability to convey what Moll Flanders is or why she is the way she is or why she does what she does. She sort of goes from one set piece to another. The skinny dips which is fun but not enough.

Movie review - "Phffttt" (1954) ***

 Famously odd title from an unproduced George Axelrod play. It's a comedy of remarriage, starting with Jack Lemmon and Judy Holliday getting divorced, going off to have adventures (he with Kim Novak, she with Jack Carson) before winding back together.

The two stars are charming even if director Mark Robson maybe isn't king of comedy. Some lovely stuff like Holliday being asked out by one of the stars of her radio soap (she's a writer) - we think it's a seduction but it's actually pitching writing out his co star who he loathes.

Novak has a gift of a role as a ditz who Carson sets up with Lemmon, a slightly crazy type - the sort of scene-stealing part that Holliday would've knocked out of the park. She can't really do it - she tries, she's got charisma, but she can't really act. It's endearing in a way, like a lot of Novak performances.

I didn't buy that the couple would get together at the end - I mean, they got divorced for a reason - but there's a lot of talent in the cast and the script has some great moments, like Lemmon realising wanting to read a book was why he got divorced and then not wanting to read the book.

Movie review - "Vertigo" (1958) ****1/2 (warning: spoilers)

 The greatest film of all time? That is pushing it. But there is certainly a lot of admire. The brilliant hypnotic score. Saul Bass' titles. The opening sequence plunges you straight into action. The stylish design and look. Funky visuals. Use of colour. It's maybe too long. Though hard to cut.

Kim Novak is used brilliantly. Hitchcock captures two aspects of her - the beautiful blonde goddess, enigmatic and alluring versus the trashy insecure shopgirl.

The film actually kicks up a notch in the last third with the reveal because Novak becomes the protagonist. It's about a woman hungry for love, who's been kicked around, and this guy pays her attention - she's willing to put up with it even though he's abusive. It's fantastic.

James Stewart maybe isn't good looking enough for her to be so devoted but I guess he is a film star. And his nervous intensity is used brilliantly - all that wartime PTSD.

Barbara Bel Geddes shines as the nice bitch in love with Stewart. This was a good addition from Sam Taylor, who downplayed the contribution of Alec Coppel.

Still ti's Novak who is the soul of the film - her longing. While Stewart is its possessive soul.

Not hard to see why it wasn't a hit. It's depressing.

Movie review - "Boys Night Out" (1962) **

 One of the last of the New York set sex comedies - though they continued a little longer on Broadway, I think, where you could be more risque. It has a decent central idea with plenty of potential - four businessmen who commute to Manhattan from Greenwich decide to pool resources and get a bachelor pad, and come into contact with Kim Novak, a sociology student who is studying them.

The movie has gloss, Michael Gordon directing, some star power, including Tony Randall who plays it the right tone. I'm not sure the stars are right - James Garner and Kim Novak channelling Rock Hudson and Doris Day, I guess. Garner, as someone noted, always makes films feel like TV. He doesn't have the affability of Hudson or Jack Lemmon. Novak is beautiful and has that "quality" but the role needed someone with more spark like Marilyn, Natalie Wood, Doris Day. 

Howard Duff and that other guy aren't really funny. I think they wanted Gig Young for Duff's part - he would've been better (so might Jim Backus who has a small role). The wives, who include Patti Paige, are colourless. I had trouble telling the married guys apart - that's a basic error. They don't play different types of roles. The annoying boomer kids made me laugh.

Billy Wilder would've gone for it, and Sidney Sheldon or Norman Krasna could've made it funny. But it never seems sure of its tone. Once you know Garner is a divorcee you know he will wind up with Novak - and the script never seems to know how sleazy to make him (he has no love life, he's boringly reluctant to go along with the plan()

You know what would've been better? Had Garner been a player - all the others were jealous of him. They want to imitate his life. He falls for her.

The ending farcical situations when all the wives collide with the husbands feels sluggish and dull because you can't tell them apart.

This would be worth remaking.

Movie review - "The Notorious Landlady" (1962) **

Odd fish. Jack Lemmon is an American diplomat in London who moves into a rental owned by landlady Kim Novak who is American. Fred Astaire is Lemmon's boss and Lionel Jeffries steals the film as a British cop. Turns out the rumour is that Novak killed her husband.

Some talented people - the script is credited to Larry Gelbart and Blake Edwards, Richard Quine directed. Lemmon acts his tail off. Novak tries as she always seemed to and is erratic in her way - charismatic, beautiful, poor then effective in the one scene and back again.  That English accent in her opening scene is pretty whiffy.

It doesn't work. I like these actors. It's a little all over the shop. Why is it in London? As a farce it's spread out. Is it funny? You could cut Astaire out of the film. Lemmon never believably falls for Novak, even if she does look good and goes topless in a bath (flashes a bare back - the times were a changin').

I mean it's got stars. It's not in colour. I don't know what to think or say. It annoyed me. Wasn't for me.

Movie review - "Strangers When We Meet" (1960) **1/2

 "Ah I'm successful at work but creatively dissastifised and my wife is a nagging bitch and I want to root my hot neighbour". There were a few films like these in the late 50s and 1960s based on best selling novels.

Kirk Douglas is the writer surrogate, a frustrated architect whose wife Barbara Rush has the gall to want him to do well in his career. He sees Kim Novak and pretty much puts the hard word on her straight away, asking her out to building sites. A less intense more "everyman" actor may have been more effective - someone like say Jack Lemmon or James Stewart or even old dying Gary Cooper.

It's got 1960 Hollywood gloss - widescreen, colour, stars, art deco, all that stuff. Richard Quine films from this period often offered such pleasures.

The Douglas character is a bit of a lech. I was pleasantly surprised how much sympathy the film showed the female characters. Novak says she's in love with Douglas, but it's clear she's lonely because her (gay? asexual?) husband doesn't want to touch her sexually. Novak's performance is variable as her performances tend to be. She's got that allure, body, insecurity, as well as the awkward line readings. There really was no star like her - charismatically awkward.

The real surprise is Barbara Rush who actually has the best part. I thought she'd be a nagging wife but she's not. She wants to do what's best for her husband's career and family, and she stresses their marriage is going wrong, Walter Matthau (who steals the film) sleazes all over her, she figures out what's going with Novak.

It's really hard to care about Douglas, with his hot wife, hot lover, famous client who agrees to his design, boss who offers him a dream job in Hawaii. I don't get the sense he and Novak love each other but it works dramatically because I think he wanted a root, and she was lonely.

Ernie Kovacs is Douglas' client. There's some odd subplots that don't quite work - Novak's mother had an affair and when Novak starts doing it she goes "it happened to you". The plot about a truckie who sort of date rapped Novak but not really (I think) and becomes obsessed with her feels underserviced.

Other things work better like the device of Douglas building Kovacs' house through the story.

So an interesting movie. Flawed. But there's stuff in it.

Movie review - "Bell Book and Candle" (1958) **1/2

 Kim Novak makes a very good witch for most of this - all sultry eyes and ethereal nature. She sets her cap at James Stewart and puts him under a spell and shenanigans ensue involving his fiancee (Janice Rule), her brother (Jack Lemmon), a wacky writer (Ernie Kovacs), and a housekeeper who is also a witch (Elsa Lanchester). 

Novak struggles a bit in the third act when she's required to actually fall in love with Stewart, but is she a film star as is he. It's got a glossy look, reminds me of the sort of thing my grandma used to love, old style sophistication. There's a comic cat.

Movie review - "Pushover" (1954) **1/2

 I thought this film was about cuddly Fred MacMurray being taken in by slinky dame Kim Novak but actually it's about stud muffin cop MacMurray seducing gangster moll Novak to try and find if her boyfriend robbed a bank. That's a strong idea as is the fact Novak may be playing him. She became a star with this and while her lack of ability is clear she also has charisma and is well protected by director Robert Quine.

There's a dull subplot about MacMurray's fellow cop Phil Carey romancing Dorothy Malone - one of these should've been shonky. I like the subplot about the drunken cop who has morals and EG Marshall is superb as the head cop.

Surprisingly little of Novak on screen - she's a lot at the beginning not so much later on. Lovely black and white photography.

The film is decent. Lacks another plot. Like Double Indemnity had the daughter and her boyfriend - something like that. The gangster boyfriend maybe vanishes too early - they could've used him more. Or made Dorothy Malone bad, like I suggested.

Movie review - "Kiss Me Stupid" (1964) ***1/2

The turning point in Billy Wilder's career. Up til then he was on a hot streak - after this he could barely put a foot right. Would it have made a difference had Peter Sellers stayed on? Or if Jack Lemmon had stepped in?

Dean Martin is marvellous playing a version of himself. The film is wonderfully structured. It's very clever. Gorgeously shot. Naughty. I mean Ray Walston has sex with Kim Novak and Felicia Farr has very, very willing sex with Dean Martin... that's adult. Very French. Too much for Americans though. obviously.

It doesn't quite work. I wanted to like Kim Novak and she tries but she felt wrong. Right look, silly deep voice - imagine Marilyn Monroe or Shirley Maclaine in that part. Walston acts his butt off, is full of energy - still, I would've preferred to see Sellers or Lemmon (who wanted to do it if Wilder could delay)... they are stars, Walston isn't, and I would've bought them more easily scoring Felicia Farr, who is gorgeous and fun. I watch it and think "you've got no right to be jealous mate she's that much more hotter than you, you should be grateful for what you've got." Still, I think Novak is more of a debit.

Overview of Ken Hughes

Ken Hughes was one of those directors I used to dismiss on the basis of a traumatic childhood experience. One day in high school, a history teacher locked us inside the assembly hall and forced us to watch the 1970 epic Cromwell, a sluggardly dull trudge through the English Civil War. Hughes’ name was plastered all over it, as writer and director, and it scarred me from visiting his filmography for many years.

It was unfair, I know, but these things happen. Later on I heard he made one masterpiece, The Trials of Oscar Wilde (1960), which I did see - and was brilliant. So I had a second look at Cromwell, was bored again, and ran away once more.

What prompted a more serious dive into the Hughes oeuvre was my interest in Diana Dors. (https://www.filmink.com.au/a-tale-of-two-blondes-diana-dors-and-belinda-lee/) Hughes directed Ms Dors in The Long Haul (1957), a great little unpretentious B-movie about truckers co-starring Victor Mature. I was surprised to see the name of the auteur of Cromwell on it, and decided to revisit his filmography, only properly this time.  I was surprised to find a filmmaker whose output was consistently interesting and entertaining, and deserved more critical attention than it has received.

Hughes was born in Liverpool in 1922. He began working at the BBC as a technician when he was only sixteen, then during the war moved into making documentaries, short features, and training films for the Ministry of Defence. After the war he directed documentaries for the BBC.

The British film industry had a thriving “B” picture scene in the 1950s, helped by quota protections which incentified thrifty producers to make short features that played the lower half of double bills. A new organisation that specialised in this field was Anglo-Amalgamated, run by the team of Stuart Levy and Nat Cohen. Cohen is one of those moguls who should be better known - a shrewd gambler who would later control EMI Films and help finance debut features from directors as varied as John Schlesinger, Ken Loach, John Boorman and Alan Parker... and Ken Hughes. Anglo-Amalgamated wanted to make a crime drama called Wide Boy (1952), based on a radio and TV play by Australian Rex Rienits about a low-class chiseller who gets in over his head when he attempts blackmail. Hughes was given the job of directing and did it excellently - it’s stripped back, atmospheric entertainment, without an ounce of fat on it. Check out this opening sequence: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1k8ESUCgmjE

Anglo-Amalgamated put Hughes to work writing and directing 30 minute films for release in cinema, such as The Missing Man (1953), The Candlelight Murder (1953), The Drayton Case (1953), The Dark Stairway (1954), The Blazing Caravan (1954), The Murder Anonymous (1955), Passenger to Tokyo (1954), The Strange Case of Blondie (1954), Night Plane to Amsterdam (1955). These essentially feel like self-contained episodes of an anthology TV series; I’ve only seen a few but they hold up well - Australia’s own Vincent Ball pops up in some, like The Drayton Case here
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2goxdb

Hughes’ second feature was Black 13 (1954) which he wrote and directed for low budget producer Roger Proudlock. The star was Peter Reynolds, a highly entertaining actor who specialised in cads, and who later emigrated to Australia where he died in a fire.

Hughes then wrote and directed The House Across the Lake (1954) based on Hughes’ own novel. This was made for Hammer Films, before that studio specialised in horror, and featured many aspects of British B movies from the 1950s: a short running time, film noir-ish plot, and imported B-list American stars, in this case Alex Nicol and Hilary Brook. It’s quite a fun movie, reminiscent of The Postman Always Rings Twice; one is inclined to wonder if Nicol’s character, a writer under the pump and distracted by lust, was a Hughes self-portrait.

Here’s a trailer - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmhJJn0LIPA

Anglo-Amalgamated hired Hughes to make The Brain Machine (1955) with Elizabeth Allen and Maxwell Reed, a decent little thriller that feels like it wants to be sci fi but isn’t. Like most of his early features, it’s an easy watch if you’re in the right mood.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9o2kJ8Vdmdc

Hughes wrote and directed two more features for Anglo, both with B-list stars from Hollywood, both worth watching: The Little Red Monkey (1955) with Richard Conte, based on a TV serial, and Confession (1955) with Sydney son-of-Charlie Chaplin. He also helped write The Flying Eye (1955) for the Children’s Film Foundation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tb9BBVS4hOw

Hughes’ thrift and versatility impressed Tony Owen, aka Mr Donna Reed, who had set up a filmmaking operation in England, Todon. Todon had a lot of success making genre pieces aimed at the international market; indeed, Owen’s impact on the British scene is under-rated because he rarely took screen credit - it was easier to get British subsidies with a local producer’s name on it. Owen hired Hughes to write Portrait of Alison (1955), a lively Laura (1944)-style murder mystery starring Howard Hughes favourite Terry Moore and Canadian-living-in Britain Robert Beatty; Guy Green did the actual directing.  Also for Owen, Hughes wrote and directed Timeslip (1955), a slightly sci-fi tale based on a TV serial, starring two Americans, Gene Nelson and another Howard Hughes fave, Faith Domergue. Both were distributed by Anglo-Amalgamated.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUKLDiI_zak

The first really stand-out movie of Hughes’ career was Joe MacBeth (1955) a modernised re-telling of Macbeth set among American gangsters of the 1930s, shot in England. It was produced by American Mike Frankovich from a script by another American, Philip Yordan (with a little help from Shakespeare). “It was one of the few scripts I picked up in my life that didn't require a great deal of work,” said Hughes. The movie is gloriously fun. Everyone is in strong form: Paul Douglas, Ruth Roman, Sid James, Bonar Colleano (an American who worked extensively in British films prior to his death in a car crash). It was distributed by Columbia; Frankovich became head of that company’s British operations, and they would finance Hughes’ next few films.

First of these was Wicked as They Come (1956), which Hughes wrote and directed for producers Frankovich and Setton. It starred Arlene Dahl as a woman who claws her way from poverty to the top; it’s revealed at the end she was motivated by having been sexually assault when younger (there was a feminist-ish strand through some of Hughes’ work: for instance in The Brain Machine a person refers to Elizabeth Allen’s character as “ma’am” and she asks to be called “doctor”.) Dahl later sued Columbia over the movie claiming its poster art was misleadingly sexy.  The film would have been better off following the lead of the poster art rather than the script: at heart this should have been a campy Joan Crawford vehicle but it’s far too reticent and dull. I watched this after Joe MacBeth put me on a high over Hughes’ abilities - Wicked as They Come sent me back down to earth. I’m sure the film has its fans. Dahl lost her case, incidentally.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b7E9WNUWJLU

Hughes worked on two more Max Setton films for Columbia. He wrote the excellent script for Town on Trial (1957), directed by John Guillermin, where detective John Mills investigates the murder of a sexy piece of tail in a small town (men driven by lust was a recurring theme of Hughes movies). He also wrote and directed The Long Haul (1957) which I mentioned at the top of this piece, a movie that has been overshadowed in the cinema of British truck driving stories by Hell Drivers (1957) but which is enormously entertaining, with Diana Dors and Victor Mature giving excellent performances.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1-1SZN3yVg

Maxwell Setton left Columbia to help establish Bryanston Films with Michael Balcon, leaving Hughes needing a new patron. For British TV he wrote episodes of Solo for Canary (1958) and had a huge personal success with a one-man TV play he wrote and directed, Sammy (1958); this was a 40-minute story about a low-level Soho operator (played Anthony Newley) who can’t pay his gambling debts. Reviews were excellent and Hughes’ script was adapted countless times in other countries for TV, notably in the US as Eddie (1959) starring Mickey Rooney.

Hughes’ work had impressed producers Irwin Allen and Albert Broccoli, owners of Warwick Films,  which, like Todon, was an operation aimed at making international-orientated genre pieces in England “for a price”. Hughes worked on the script for Warwick’s High Flight (1957) a Top Gun-esque tale, complete with cocky pilots and homoeroticism starring Ray Milland, that was directed by John Gilling.

Warwick liked it enough to hire Hughes to direct two films for the company. Oddly, these were different to the bulk of their usual output, being non-action films, and not featuring a Hollywood star. Instead, both featured Anthony Newley: Jazz Boat (1960) (based on another story by Rex Rienits) and In the Nick (1960).  Jazz Boat starts out as a crime drama then weirdly turns into a musical (complete with dance numbers) then back into a crime drama again. In the Nick is a comedy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iV0basjmZns

Neither film is particularly remembered today but Warwick also financed Hughes’ one undeniable classic. This was The Trials of Oscar Wilde (1960) with Australia’s own Peter Finch in the title role. It’s a stunningly good account of the legendary playwright, with beautiful art direction from Ken Adams and a superb line-up of actors doing sterling work. Finch was rarely better; the entire subject is treated with taste and discretion.

The film was highly acclaimed by critics but not popular at the box office, in part because of the appearance at the same time as a rival project on the same topic, Oscar Wilde (1960) starring Robert Morley. The movie’s financial failure contributed to the dissolution of Warwick; Broccoli and Allen split up, Broccoli went on to make the James Bond films, while Allen spent the rest of his career trying to catch up to his former partner (and came close, incidentally, with a series of hit movies based on the Matt Helm stories).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQWf3VyLu9Y&list=PL0gml3Zg1wRlNV2NvOUtIq2sS01wBoh9y&index=39&t=0s

Hughes had wanted to follow Oscar Wilde with a biopic about Oliver Cromwell but was unable to raise the finance. Instead he wrote and directed The Small World of Sammy Lee (1963),  a feature-length adaptation of his TV play Sammy, with Anthony Newley reprising his small screen performance. The film was a co-production between Bryanston Films and Seven Arts, an American company headed by Ray Stark which had set up operations in England. The film contains much to admire, including superb photography and acting (Aussies Ken Wayne and Kenneth Warren have support roles), and a glimpse of Soho of the time. It is repetitive (Sammy tries to get money, almost gets it, doesn’t) and how much you like it will very much depend on your opinion of Anthony Newley. The movie has become something of a cult item in recent years but was a commercial failure on release and contributed to the collapse of Bryanston Films.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmJ7LrgcKpk

Hughes moved back to television, directing episodes of the TV series Espionage (1964) and writing episodes of An Enemy of the State (1965). He returned to features when Henry Hathaway walked off the set of Of Human Bondage (1964) which the latter was directing in Ireland with Laurence Harvey and Kim Novak. The film was made by Seven Arts and Ray Stark offered Hughes the job of taking over; Hughes also rewrote Bryan Forbes’ script, based on the novel by W. Somerset Maugham. The resulting film is interesting, and contains one of Harvey’s best performances, but isn’t that good. Novak’s performance doesn’t help and, more seriously, Hughes doesn’t get - or didn’t have time to capture - the essential DNA of the story. It is interesting to compare it with other versions of the novel.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmthl1hAdFA

Seven Arts still liked Hughes and helped finance a comedy he wanted to write and direct, Drop Dead Darling (1965), starring Tony Curtis as a Bluebeard type who kills women he marries. It’s a frantic farce that does cartwheels for a laugh with beautiful locations and contains some excellent support performances, including Zsa Zsa Gabor. Curtis claimed in his memoirs he did the film because he liked Hughes’ “excellent script” but felt the final movie did not add up to the sum of his parts.  He was spot on.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=um5J9x-R89c

The movie was presumably why producer Charles Feldman hired Hughes to direct a section of the James Bond spoof Casino Royale (1967) - reportedly the Berlin stuff with Joanna Pettet. Other directors credited included John Huston, Val Guest, Robert Parrish and Joseph McGrath. I’m not sure comedy was Hughes’ strength.

I think this is Hughes’ stuff here, but don’t quote me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_8o4BbDqkg

Hughes’ next movie also had a Bond connection, or rather, several: Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968), was based on a novel by Ian Fleming, produced by Albert Broccoli, written by Roald Dahl (who had scripted You Only Live Twice), designed by Ken Adam, and featured a number of Bond actors (Desmond Llewellyn, Gert Frobe). Hughes directed and rewrote Roald Dahl’s script. It’s a gorgeous looking movie with divine sets, a fabulous cast and cheerful songs; it’s also, like so many late 60s musicals, far too long and would have been better at a tight 90 minutes.

Chitty Chitty cost so much it actually lost a lot of money on first release - it helped convince Broccoli not to make anything other than Bond movies - but it was popular and has become a family viewing perennial.

“The film made a lot of money, but that doesn’t really make me feel any better about it,” said Hughes later. “On the other hand, I’ve made pictures that got awards at Berlin and places, and didn’t make any money, and that doesn’t make me feel any better either”.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTTzcXSLjhI

The film was well regarded enough to enable Hughes to raise finance for his dream project, an epic biopic of Oliver Cromwell called Cromwell (1970). It was produced by Albert Broccoli’s old partner, Irwin Allen.

I’ve been mean about this film and will be again, but it does have some good things about it: Alec Guinness is superb as Charles I, and the production design is amazing. But it’s dull. So dull. Every time Richard Harris walks on screen he looks as though he’s about to give a speech and he does. Admittedly I don’t enjoy English Civil War tales unless they involve witch burnings or focus around Charles II in exile. But if you are a history teacher who couldn’t be bothered talking to class for two hours, Cromwell could solve your issues that day.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7QHFm2AeMo

Up until making this film, Hughes was riding high. He earned £44,177 in 1968 and £47,960 in 1969, the year he sold his company, Ken Hughes Productions, to Constellation Investments for  £300,000. It was one of those tricky financial arrangements filmmakers sometimes enter into to help with their tax situation; Hughes was to regret it.

Cromwell was popular at the British box office failed to recoup its huge cost. Around this time the American majors pulled out of filmmaking in Britain, and Hughes, after steady work for almost two decades, found himself floundering a little, earning no money in 1970.

In hindsight, he probably should have fled to Hollywood, like so many of his contemporaries (John Gilling, Michael Winner) or gone into horror, sex comedies or big screen adaptations of TV shows (the most profitable genres in 70s British cinema). Instead he stayed in London where he wrote for television (Menace, Colditz, Fall of Eagles, Dial M for Murder, Oil Strike North). He eventually got two feature gigs as writer-director: The Internecine Project (1974), a thriller for British Lion starring James Coburn and Lee Grant, and Alfie Darling (1975), a sequel to the comedy-drama Alfie (1966), financed by his old patron Nat Cohen (now head of EMI). Internecine has a decent central idea - James Coburn is up for a job so decides to kill off four people who know about his shady past - but feels in badly need of some extra twists/complications. And Alfie Darling suffers very, very, very badly in comparison to the original, which turned Michael Caine into a star (you may feel differently if you like Alan Price, who steps into Caine’s shoes).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vhl7orjm20

Both films flopped. In 1975 Hughes declared bankruptcy, claiming his personal inability to curb expenses, two divorces, taxes and the collapse of the film industry.

Hughes decided to move to the US. He got the gig making one of the most bizarre movies of all time, something even weirder than Casino Royale: Sextette (1978), starring Mae West. Irving Rapper had originally meant to direct before Hughes stepped in just before shooting began. The resulting film is absurd but almost compulsive in its randomness, whether it’s Timothy Dalton singing “Love will Keep Us Together” to Mae West, or George Hamilton playing a gangster, or Ringo Starr putting on a weird European accent to play a director, or Tony Curtis as a Russian, or Dom De Luise as a manager flunky, or West talking to George Raft in an elevator, or Keith Moon and Van McCoy and Alice Cooper AND Walter Pidgeon or... Oh, anyway, see it if you want.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=as6Iv5R1G0M

Hughes’ last film as director was a slasher flick, Night School (1981), the movie debut of Rachel Ward. It’s quite a stylish piece of entertainment, made with professionalism and skill rather than ludicrous excess, which means it isn’t as fun as others in this genre. Ward has X factor from the get-go and takes part in a Psycho (1960) shower scene homage; it has a feminist moments and there’s also not one but two sexually predatory academics.  For me, it was Hughes’ most enjoyable film since Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fuMpdXBVZA

And then the credits stopped. I don’t know what happened. Night School was well done. The producer of that film speaks well of Hughes in interviews. He was heading towards sixty years of age so there was ageism, but he could write as well as direct and was used to low budgets... Maybe there were other issues (if anyone knows, please feel free to tell me). He died of complications from Alzheimer’s Disease in 2001.

So how good a filmmaker was Ken Hughes? For me - and this is purely, utterly subjective - he was very “ups and downs” kind of guy with a solid over-all average: the maker of a genuine classic (Trials of Oscar Wilde), a handful of terrific movies (Long Haul, Joe MacBeth, Wide Boy) and some films that have splendid things in them (Small World of Sammy Lee, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and yes Casino Royale). He also made movies that were dull (Cromwell), dire (Alfie Darling), disappointing (Timeslip) and in one case beyond belief (Sextette). He clearly worked best when attached to a feisty little production company with strong Hollywood links (Anglo Amalgamated, Tony Owen, Warwick, Seven Arts).

I also wonder if maybe Ken Hughes rated his own writing too highly. He clearly had abilities as a writer - some of his scripts were fabulous. But it is hard to keep a high level of quality if you write and direct all the time and Hughes was also prone to rewrite, even on screenplays by skilled colleagues (Roald Dahl on Chitty Chitty, Bryan Forbes on Of Human Bondage). In hindsight maybe Hughes would have been better off working more with a trusted collaborator than being a one man band. I completely admit It’s hard to make these sort of judgements without reading/comparing original drafts and the rewrites, but it’s just a sense I get.

Still he should be better known. I wonder why he isn’t. Check out Joe MacBeth if you haven’t.

Movie review - "Of Human Bondage" (1964) **

Relaxed censorship was reason enough to have a pass at this - a kitchen sink realism type tale was fine. And some of this was effective - the Dublin locations, stylish photography, Laurence Harvey gives one of his best performances (he holds himself in check).

But I think they picked the wrong original director, Henry Hathaway, and the wrong replacement, Ken Hughes. Neither had much luck with women stars and/or tales of romantic obsession. I guess Hathaway had Niagara but that had a murder. Hughes had Oscar Wilde but that had a trial.

And they had Kim Novak, who is clearly trying but isn't up to it. She's too old and just feels wrong for the role.

The DNA of this piece is the relationship between her and Harvey - he gets obsessed, she doesn't feel the same way but she's honest about it.

Strong support cast, including Roger Livesey (looking old but the voice is unmistakeable), a sweet Nanette Newman (whose husband Bryan Forbes wrote the script and was meant to have played a role but I can't see him in it), Robert Morley.

Not a disaster, not a terrible movie, just one that doesn't get the core of the story. As a result it ambles and drags without heart.

Movie review - "The White Buffalo" (1977) **1/2

Charles Bronson and J. Lee Thompson were criticised for selling out in their later career but this movie is an example that they tried - it's a Moby Dick out west though they probably got in greenlit by hinting it as being close to Jaws.

Bronson is Wild Bill Hickok looking positively steam punk in his glasses and being affected by the trauma of this white buffalo -  why not have a personal connection? Chief Dan George is Crazy Horse who does have a personal reason to go after the buffalo. Jack Warden goes along.

It was filmed too much on a soundstage, the buffalo isn't always convincing, and too often looks like a crappy 70s TV show (Ed Lauter appeared in far too many movies of which you could say that). 

But there's a lush John Barry score, a strong cast, some impressive location work and its oddness was endearing.