Movie review - "Shalako" (1968) **1/2

 The press got hysterical about this movie - Sean Connery in a Western. Connery appearing opposite Brigitte Bardot. 

It's a strong story, and looks great (vistas etc). But it's an ensemble piece - sort of like Stagecoach, about Europeans on a hunting trip encountering Apaches. There's various subplots like Jack Hawkins' wife Honor Blackman having it off with Stephen Boyd. Connery is a former cavalry officer who advises them to get out and they odn't.

There's too many characters to service so the strong cast don't have anything to do. Connery and Bardot don't have anything to play. They should have written him as taciturn and explosive but unused to women - or something. He's just a guy. She's just Bardot, and not attractively costumer. Honor Blackman is better because she's got something to play. Connery isn't even that tough - he doesn't do much through the film.

There's also Peter Van Eyck, Eric Sykes, Alexander Knox, Woody Strode. 

Also never makes sense why posh types are hunting in New Mexico which is really rocky and desert-y. The plains would have made more sense. 

Movie review - "Clockwise" (1986) ***

 John Cleese argued this wasn't a success in the states because it was too indigenous. Maybe - also the film is very stressful with Cleese failing upon failing. And he doesn't really deserves it. Basil Fawlty deserves to suffer. Maybe if his character had a romance with Penelope Wilton, was unhappily married, fell for his ex. I liked the subversion of the teen girl who was having an affair with another student.  Maybe it needed a baddy as well - someone even worse.

Its deftly written and some very funny moments. But it kind of hits the same beat - "the poor bastard".

Great Unmade British films - a random selection

* Alex Korda - I Claudius (started filmin), War and Peace (with Orson Welles!)

* Hammer - I am Legend (yes, more but that's the main one)

*Kubrick - Napoleon, The Aryan Papers

* Hitchcock - No Bail for the Judge, Greenmantle 

* Alistair Maclean - HMS Ulysses

*Mistress of the Seas

*Mary Queen of Scots from Alexander Mackendrick 

*Tom Paine by Richard Attenborough

*The Knight by Ridley Scott

*Barnado Boys, Feathers of Death and The Long Loud Silence from Bryan Forbes at EMI

*Nat Cohen - the Nat King Cole Story yes, remake of Kind Hearts and Coronets with Dick Emery no

 *Lawrence of Arabia from Terence Rattigan

*the Lewis Collins Falklands film 

Nat Cohen articles

 

Nat Cohen article 1986

 

Movie review - "Malpas Mystery" (1960) **

 Not bad mystery from Sidney Hayers and Anglo Amalgamated with Maureen Swanson out of prison and drawn into a series of weird episodes. Malpas is a creepy figure with a mask. Geoffrey Keen is Swanson's long lost father. Ronald Howard is a weedy detective not hot enough for Swanson. Sandra Dorne pretends to be Swanson.

I wish there had been more Malpas type weird stuf but this is tight and fun.

Movie review - "Three Hats for Lisa" (1965) ***

 British musical which I don't think made much of a splash but is quite elaborate with large production values and elaborate dance numbers. Leslie Bricusse did the score which is fine - nothing memorable but pleasant enogh.

The star is Joe Brown who I'm not that familiar with. He's got a boy next door face and spiky blonde hair.

The plot has him as a fan of a French actoress (Sophie Hardy) who is in town looking for a hat. Like that's the story. It's got a dash of Roman Holiday and Hardy is far too attractive for Brown. Stubbs is the girl who loves Brown, I think. But more of a conneciton between lead boy and girl would've worked wonders.

Still Sid James offers from dependable support and the film's determination to be fun is endearing. They threw a lot at it. Sidney Hayers directs his little backside off.

Movie review - "Circus of Fear" (1966) **1/2

 Stars off as a heisty movie then becomes about a serial killer at the circus. One of many films round this time based on an Edgar Wallace story.

The last is heaps of fun - Klaus Kinski, Victor Maddern as crooks, Leo Genn as a cop, Suzy Kendall and Christopher Lee as circus folk.  Never quite as much fun as I want it to be. Attractive women and circus stuff great like the mean little person just not enough of it. I got bored.

Movie review - "I've Gotta Horse" (1965) ***

 A surprise - obscue British musical from the mid sixties, with Bill Fury who I don't know much about. This had a decent amount of coin pumped into it, presumably after the success of A Hard Days' Night. It's packed with rock numbers - but also musical ones too.

I couldn't follow the story, not really, but there's a love for animals that's very endearing. (Fury owned horses IRL). Fury doesn't have the charm of Cliff Richard or the compulsive presence of Tommy Steele but he's amiable. Amanda Barrie is really sweet as the love interst.

Production values are high. Colour is gorgeous. Maybe three stars is too much but I liked it.

Movie review - Carry On#10 - "Carry On Cleo" (1964) ***1/2

 Super fun Carry On, one of the best in the series. The Roman setting acts as a massive energy boost, it looks splendid in colour, the sets and costumes impress, the cast have fun. Amanda Barrie is the title role, not given as much screen time as I'd thought. Kenneth Williams is a hilariously camp Caesar and Sid James a raucous Antony with Charles Hawtree as Seneca.

Movie review - "Far from the Madding Crowd" (1967) ***

 Darling made so much money that MGM pulled out the cheque book for Joseph Janni, John Schlesinger, Fred Raphael and Julie Christie and went "take our money". So they did Thomas Hardy, presumably to give Christie a big fat lead role.

The film looks gorgeous - Nic Roeg shot it and it's full of his wonderful colour. It's made with taste and skill. Everyone can act. Peter Finch is superb.

But it's almost three hours, a Roadshow, and I didn't care about anyone. Julie Christie is beautiful and a fine actress but I just didn't care. Terence Stamp livens things up as a love rat but this could've been told in 90 minutes. Peter FInch is a drip for hanging around and so is Alan Bates. Schlesinger didn't connect with the material.

Honestly I would've prepared a sexed up Gainsborough melodrama version of this with Stewart Granger and James Mason.

Prunella Ransome has a showy role as Fanny.

Movie review - "Poor Cow" (1967) ****

 Ken Loach was unhappy with this film even though it was a hit. I really like it. I like the compromises. It's in colour, has a new star (Carol White), a more established star (Terence Stamp), a pop soundtrack (Donovan), it's in colour, has lots of sex. White has a healthy sex drive, a lot of charm.

White was bland in her later films but here she's relaxed and vulnerable and very winning. Stamp is excellent, charismatic and relaxed. Other actors very good. 

I loved the little touches like White talking to camera and the chapter headings.

Movie review - "Gonks Go Beat" (1965) **

 Much mocked but also much to admire - gorgeous colour, energetic direction from Robert Hartford Davies, plenty of talented acts. It's a  juke box musical featuring an array of talent including Lulu.

The main issue is the story. It's a sci fi one, set in space about two warring nations united via love. But everyone sings Earth music. The story lacks any sort of reality. It just needed to be set on Earth in the real world. Add aliens if you want but it needs to have some solid basis.

Movie review - "It Shouldn't Happen to a Vet" (1976) **1/2

 John Alderton is someone who should've been a movie star - he was going to play Flashman in Richard Lester's film of that novel but it was postponed, and when the project was reactivated in 1974 (a different novel Royal Flash ) Malcolm McDowell got the gig.

Alderton had a warm boy next door persona, amiable but not sleazy. I'm watching a bunch of EMI Films and the male casting never seems right - it was Alderton who should've been in Percy's Progress, All Creatures Great and Small, Journey's End.

He got his chance when Simon Ward didn't return for this. He's better than Ward but the film isn't as good because there's no real reason to make it. The first had this strong emotional core with Ward arriving in Yorkshire and trying to establish himself and falling in love with Lisa Harrow. That's all done and dusted here.

Anthony Hopkins isn't back and while Colin Blakely is a perfectly fine substitute it  doesn't help the sense of continuity. Neither does the fact there's no Tristram.

I think this just should've focused on the war and done war nostalgia - having a baby, dealing with war stuff. That would've been a point of difference.

Don't get me wrong: the film is done with taste, skill and all that - it's just this feels like an episode of a TV show whereas the first movie, because it had Herriot's arrival and the romance, felt more like a film.

Movie review - "All Creatures Great and Small" (1975) ***1/2

 Completely charming dramatisation of the books which ha been overlooked by the success of the TV show. The stories suit television better, really, but it has been done with taste and affection - and it has a "spine" in the romance between Simon Ward and Lisa Harrow (even though there's some weird editing... we don't see them kiss, they date, then he proposes to her father then they get married then we see them kiss over the credits).

Anthony Hopkins is wonderful as Siegfried. Simon Ward isn't much as Herriot - you can see why he didn't become a star, in this and Ace's High. Lisa Harrow is charming.

Production design a delight. Some sure fire scenes like Ward telling a crusty old farmer he needs to put his dog down, and some shifty Yorkshire farmers. Ward's character is very keen to recommend euthenasia!

Movie review - "Baxter!" (1973) **

 Lionel Jeffries second feature wasn't released until after this third, I think because EMI weren't that into it, and to be honest I don't blame them. Maybe I saw this in a bad mood but I didn't care about the kid, his speech impediment didn't seem so bad, the mother felt like a caricatured bitch that it was easy to dump everything on, it was odd this American was in England, this random couple befriends them (Jean Pierre Cassel and Britt Ekland) and sing show tunes, dad pops in to be an arsehole, kid seems to have a breakdown.

Maybe it needs another viewing.

Movie review - "Take Me High" (1973) **

 Cliff Richard's last proper movie, it came and went fairly quickly, but it could have worked. I think it was just too cheap.

He plays a merchant banker dude who wants to go to New York but is sent to Birmingham to close some deal. He fals in love with a local girl and a local restaurant.

It's a musical - Richard sings some songs on screen - but also at times it isn't, the songs play on the soundtrack. There's a weird number where he and Anthony Andrews are in a car and a duet between them plays on the soundtrack and they are clearly thinking the song but not singing it. That happens a few times. Lik when Deborah Watling visits him on the boat and he thinks the song, doesn't sing it - why not have him sing it? Was this an artistic decision or to save money?

Deborah Watling is fine I guess. George Cole is terrific as is Hugh Griffith.

I don't mean to be rude but Birmingham isn't that visually pretty. This really needed to be set in say Scotland or Ireland or Brighton or somewhere there were prettier pictures.

I did really like Cliff staying in a funky boat on the canal, that was cool. And the street march.

Not well directed. Works as an ad for a hamburger. Needlessly confusing plot.

Movie review - "Made" (1972) **1/2

 Kind of like imitation Ken Loach - producer Joseph Janni and star Carol White had previously made Poor Cow with Loach, which made money for Nat Cohen so he backed this. The director John Mackenzie had worked on Loach TV plays and the script is down beat - working class heroine who has a rough life, mum with MS who dies, a kid who is killed when knocked over by soccer hooligans, men let her down. There's an immigrant who love bombs her, a priest who seems a little keen on her, and a rocks star who uses her and exploits her trauma as a song.

The casting isn't quite right. Carol White seems disinterested - bored, not engaged. Roy Harper was a rock star (if not a famous one) so at least is believable as that. Castle doens't feel quite right as a the priest.

It's interesting - Howard Barker wrote it from a play based on John Lennon ripping off Eleanor Rigby. There are different views as to what makes life worth living - religion versus pop music. 

The film doesn't get there but I love its ambition. White's character is very passive. (Like, why not have her there when the baby dies? Early 1970s films had a lot of dead baby's - Portnoy's Complaint, Cinderella Liberty).

Movie review - "Some Will Some Won't" (1970) ** (warning spoilers)

 I'm confused why they did this. Was Laughter in Paradise such a big hit? Or did Nat Cohen just have the rights and want to make a cheap Peter Rogers style comedy?

Cast includes names like Ronnie Corbett, Leslie Phillips, Michael Hordern.

Talented actors. It was as if they went "well we'll 'cast' our way out of this."

Not terrible. Just feels pointless. Especially the end where ha ha there's no money ha ha.

Opening shot as a crazy white haired man climbing a clock tower in a storm and seems like it's from Back to the Future. That's novel.

Oh and nice for Corbett to get a lead role. I think he could've been a movie star in the right vehicle.

Movie review - "The Body" (1970) ***1/2

 Hypnotic. Beautiful music. Trippy but also social realism. Some social commentary. Two people actually having sex. There's a birth in there too.

No narrative. Tony Garnett produced. Roy Battersby directed. The lack of narrative does tell after a while.