Movie review - "Reflections in a Golden Eye" (1967) ***1/2

 When I grew up Ray Stark was this figure of terror, especially in accounts of the David Begelman case and David Puttnam at Columbia, but he had classy taste. This was not obviously commercial material - although I guess it had sexy Southerners and included Elizabeth Taylor stripping off. Maybe that and horny Marlon Brando would've meant more a decade earlier.

Anyway the story - Brando is married to Elizabeth Taylor who is sleeping with Brian Keith who is married to Julie Harris, and Brando is hot for nude horse riding Robert Forster who is obsessed with Taylor. Zorro David is one of cinema's first gay besties - Harris' camp Filipino houseboy.

Brando's performance is interesting - he has a weird Southern accent and does a lot of emoting. I didn't buy it. 

The ending is directed in a slightly silly way IMHO but it seems to have influenced American Beauty - closeted military man kills object of desire.

Movie review - "This Property is Condemned" (1966) **1/2 (warning: spoilers)

 A tour de force for Natalie Wood who is gorgeous and very good as a wildcat living in a small town panted over by a lot of men, including Charles Bronson (a rail worker) and some old dude John Harding. Then Robert Redford comes into town and he pants over her too.

Redford is handsome and gives what David Shipman once described as his "usual hesitant, nice performance". Director Sydney Pollack once said they never cracked the love story - I think the issue is more Redford struggles to portray lust for Wood. He's always been better as a lust object  - Wood's keen for him but you don't get the sense that she's keen for her. Also the reason he dumps her is so stupid - because his mother says she's a liar. He just believes the mother, walks out on Natalie Wood, who is naked in the shower. I'm sorry he doesn't care about her - why should we care about them?

The film feels vey studio bound although there was some New Orleans filming. Some weird decisions - Wood runs off after Redford discovers she's married and stole money off Bronson (so?).. she dies off screen... we don't know what happened to Redford.

Why not have Bronson appear and kill Redford? Or why not make Redford a complete cad? Why cheat Wood of a death scene? It's so stupid. Wood's excellent performance deserved better. Bronson is good too. The mother is fine. Redford isn't up to it.

Mary Badham is Wood's younger sister. Mary Reid is a stock monstrous Williams mother, and Robert Blake is in it too.

Movie review - "Night of the Iguana" (1964) ****

 Tennessee Williams' last hit on Broadway was also his last hit in the cinemas. He's helped by gorgeous casting: Richard Burton as a defrocked priest (apparently the original choice was James Garner who wouldn't have been anywhere near as perfect), Ava Gardner as a lusty woman running a hotel in Mexco, Deborah Kerr as the seemingly prim woman with fire underneath.

I love its naughtiness - Sue Lyons is so keen to bonk Burton who's fighting her off, and Burton is this boozy loser who is still charismatic, and Gardner has these beach boys with maracas. A big role goes to Grayson Hall who is the antagonist, crucial to the story. John Huston clearly adores his characters and he's obviously loving working in Mexico.

This is a funny, fun joyous film. The constrant references to Burton sleeping with young girls is maybe a little dubious if you think about it too much. And like a lot of these William adaptations it's half an hour too long. But one of the best adaptations of the work - if you get the cating right there's a lot of fun to be had.

Movie review - "Last of the Mobile Hot Shots" (1970) **

 Having missed with an earlier Tennessee Williams film, Lumet strikes out again. An even more imperfect source - The Seven Descents of Myrtle - an even more distinguished screenwriter (Gore Vidal), an impressive cast (James Coburn, Lynn Redgrave, Robert Hooks), James Wong How as cinematographer, Quincy Jones did the score.

I know it's Tennessee Williams but this is a lot of hammy yapping in rooms mostly. Coburn marries Redgrave on a game show then they go to an old house and meet Coburn's brother, Hooks. None of the casting feels right. Coburn starts off bad, I got used to him, he grew into the role more, but he feels wrong. I liked Redgrave at first but then she got on my nerves more and more and was eventually too hard. I wanted to like Hooks, it was great to see a black man in a Williams production but he doesn't feel right. Too lightweight or something.

I didn't get it. I'm not sure Lumet did. On a basic level, the themes of sexual attraction and the menace of the incoming flood are not felt at all.

This film and Boom! killed Williams' appeal as someone whose work Hollywood wanted to adapt (though he came back on TV in the 1980s).

I've got to say though - it's oddness has an appeal.

Movie review - "Is Paris Burning" (1966) **1/2

 I think Paramount were hoping for their own version of The Longest Day, with this all star account of the liberation of Paris. Thing is, most of the stars were French, so the film was a hit in France but not America. Also, don't mean to be rude, but the battle wasn't that important militarility, more politically (hugely so) - and the film doesn't really go into that, the fact that France might've wound up in civil war. To be fair the film does allude to some of this  - there's no colonial troops though. Or British.

Still there are powerful scenes - the last train of prisoners being sent off to the camps, the massacre of young resistance workers, Orson Welles as the Swedish diplomat persuading Gert Forbe not to blow up the city. And many of the cast lived through the events so it has an authenticity that you just can't get now.

Kirk Douglas is Patton, Glenn Ford is Bradley, Anthony Perkins and George Chakiris are soldiers, Robert Stack is a general - but most of the stars are French: Leslie Caron, Jean Paul Belmondo, Simone Signoret, Bruno Cremer (a large role), Alain Delon, Charles Boyer, Michael Piccolo, etc.

Gore Vidal and Francis Coppola worked on the script. Vidal whined about it a lot.

Movie review - "By Love Possessed" (1961) **

One of those adaptations of sexy best sellers you had in the 50s and 60s. The ingredients are there for some pulpy fun - there's adultery, prostitutes, fraud, suicide, a rape allegation - but the film doesn't click.

Some people feel perfectly cast - Lana Turner (though her character doesn't have much to do, which is probably why she asked for so many changes) and George Hamilton (horny spoilt brat).  Susan Kohner is fine. These feel like they belong in this movie.

But this isn't John Sturges' sort of material. Nor is it Walter Mirisch's - it needed a Ross Hunter. Or Delmer Daves in his Troy Donahue mode.

It isn't sufficiently glamorous - not enough attention has been paid to clothes. The central character is actually Effrem Zimbalist Jnr who is bland - torn men can be interesting as shown by Gregory Peck but Zimbalist doesn't have It. Jason Robarts feels under utilised. Ditto Barbara Bel Geddes.

It's like they tried to make a decent film out of this, couldn't do it, but didn't compensate by going full melodrama. There's no vision behind it, even just a simple Ross Hunter "rich beautiful people suffering" vision.

Movie review - "The World of Suzie Wong" (1960) **1/2

 Big hit for William Holden - and actually I think it was his last one until The Wild Bunch. He scored with interracial romance in Love is a Many Splendored Thing only here the race is a genuine non white actor, Nancy Kwan, stepping in for Frances Nyen.

It's glossy, in colour, widescreen, location filming in Hong Kong. The sexiness was, at the time for a Hollywood film, cutting edge although apparently reduced from the play. It helped that it was set in Hong Kong - not too confronting, what goes on tour etc. 

The piece struck a chord as a novel, play and film. There's a fantasy I think of running off to the Orient, painting and having a hot Asian hooker fall in love with you. And the girl is such a child like idiot maybe she's  not too threatening to white female audiences. That's just a theory - but I know some women who enjoy this film. Feels mean to kill her baby at the end. It gives the piece some emotional kick I suppose but strewth.

There's some racist Poms for Holden to be superior to - and some nice Poms so the British market doesn't get too upset. Michael Wilding is quite funny as a businessman who visits the brothels (Ron Randell played this role on Broadway). Sylvia Syms copes well in a thankless part as Woman in love with Holden. She just kind of hangs around and is encouraging. 

Nancy Kwan does have charisma. Holden was starting to look old but he's got X factor too. Weird to imagine a young William Shatner played that role on Broadway - a young person would've given it a totally different dimension.

It drags in places but there's enough nice photography and colour. I have nostalgic affection for these pieces they remind me of Saturday night movies from Bill Collins.

Book review - "Tell me how you love the picture : a Hollywood life" by Edward Feldman

 Entertaining memoir from Feldman, who had a strong Hollywood career, including Peter Weir's Witness. We hear of triumphs like that as well as humour detours making Hot Dog the Movie.

Some great stories: Michael Ritchie being lazy on The Golden Child, Alex Segal being fired from a TV movie for abusing the mothers of child actors, dealing with the ego of Joe Levine (who he had to publicise as much as Embassy's films), Mervyn Le Roy did uncredited directing on The Green Berets,

Feldman talks a lot about Aussies Peter Weir and Mel Gibson, though not so much about others he worked with - Louis Nowra on K19 for instance. There's a chapter on Ray Stark and one on Levine.

Movie review - "You're a Big Boy Now" (1966) **1/2

 Francis Ford Coppola got a lot of breaks early on in his carer... he was young when he signed a deal with Seven Arts who let him right and direct this swinging sixties comedy with Peter Kastner, an actor who I recognise from nothing, starring as a young man who moves to New York City. Dad is Rip Torn and mum is Geraldine Page. Kastner has a crush on Elizabeth Hartman not noticing Karen Black. Julie Harris is a landlady.

To be honest a lot of this was annoying - quirk like black men playing bagpipers, visits to Times Square, witty banter, wacky support characters (albino hypnotherapist), manic pixie dream girl (Hartman), a dwarf, chapter headings.

There's clips from Dementia 13 and The Pit and the Pendulum which is cute. Like The Rain People this felt like an Australian movie at times - Kastner can't get it up for Hartman. But it's also American with its possessive mother (Page) and dad.

It was hard to care. Kastner had people who loved him, dad who supported him, mum who was possessive yes but he had his own pace, he could've scored Hartman if he could've satisfied her, Karen Black there was to pick up the pieces. 

I can see why people like this. And there were things I enjoyed like Hartman. But not for me.

Movie review - "The Rain People" (1969) *** (warning: spoilers)

 Coppola indie film, which sort of ambles along but is full of intelligence, warmth, skill... Shirley Knight is a housewife who flips out and takes off.

The role is a gift for Knight who come to think of it got a lot of good parts in the sixties. A really top actor might've made this sing - Diane Keaton? Knight is absolutely fine - she just doesn't exceed what's on paper if you know what I mean. Coppola wrote the film for her apparently... I think he was a little love struck (the blonde shiska goddess factor, no doubt... blondes pop up all the time in early Coppola films.)

James Caan does in his part. A mentally challenged footballer is normally the cue for "retard acting" but Caan does is subtly, just playing someone a bit slow. It's superb work.  Also good is Robert Duvall as the cop.

The plot has Knight pick up Caan, then they drive for a bit, visit an ex of Caan's. Then Knight gets him a job at a chicken farm. She's pulled over by cop Duvall. Knight is hot for Duvall. They go to bed but he's stalker-y, creepy and she says no and he says yes and Caan tries to stop it and Duvall's little daughter shoots Caan dead. This felt like an Australian film. A good one though.

Movie review - "Adam's Woman" (1969) **

 A number of movies were made here in 1969-70 several with American money - Ned Kelly, Color Me Dead, etc - but none hit. This is a convict era melodrama with Beau Bridges, in the grand tradition of Alan Ladd in Botany Bay, as a convict determined to escape.

He flees with James Booth but is captured in bed with Tracy Reed (Booth manages to stay free). Bridges negotiates his freedom with Governor John mills who wants convicts to marry female convicts. Even though Bridges has time left on his sentence and wants to escape Mills lets him marry a wife - this ssection is very unconvincing. He picks Jane Merrow who gives the best performance in the film. They go and live on a property and this film turns into a two hander with them going through the tropes - he spots her swimming naked, there's shenanigans with a horse,they try to farm, she's feisty.

Bridges feels contemporary but you get used to him after a while. The main problem is that there's no sexual tension between him and Morrow - he's lechy and she's clearly traumatised from sexual assault.

"If you want me to keep my hnds off you, you stop looking so damn much like a woman," says Bridges in what I think was meant to be romantic.

Later on Bridges tells Harold Hopkins who is having marriage trouble with Helen Morse - they're another convict couple and she keeps charging him money for sex - "that a woman is like a good dog you've got to treat her right."

The other problem is the story lacks narrative drive. Bridges wants to escape but when he and Merrow settle there's farming montage stuff. James Booth turns up being bush rangy but then he disappears. Then all these other convict couples turn up and it's like "what's the story here". Then Booth turns up and knocks out Bridges and tries to manhandle Merrow and Bridges and Merrow get together... and there's still more than half an hour to go.

Then the film becomes about John Mills trying to prove the success of his plan against forces of businessmen like Peter O'Saughnessy. And they hold a dance/celebration and Booth has to appear again and there's a big violent shoot out which doesn't seem real. A lot of it doesn't.

The photography is beautiful and it was shot in Australia. I liked John Mills and Andrew Keir (a soldier who has a man crush on Bridges) and it was fun to see Aussies in support roles like Helen Morse (horny convict), Harold Hopkins, Tom Oliver, Clarissa Kaye, and Roger Ward as a flogger.

Fascinating that it exists. Also that Americans who normally keep the story cracking got bogged down. This goes over too long a period of time. Too much of it doesn't make sense. Like Mills really bends over backwards for Bridges. I wish they'd brought back Tracy Reed's character. But they have too many characters.

A mess. Ineptly made. But it has its pleasures.

Movie review - "The Misfits" (1961) ***1/2

Legendary assembling of, well, legends - John Huston, Arthur Miller, Clark Gable, Marilyn Monroe, Montgomery Clift... even Eli Wallach and Thelma Ritter in their own more sensible way. Imagine the talk around that commissary.

Miller writes it like a play - there's entrances and exits - but it is carried off well, long dialogue scenes, much talk about people we don't see. It still works, because Huston has cast such superb actors.

Marilyn is heartbreakingly good - a superb part, she's smart, beaten down by life, warm.  Gable is terrific too as the uncomplicated but melancholic cowboy who has done a lot of living. Clift rounds out the trifecta. Of course Wallach and Ritter are fine.

I didn't realise that Wallach's part was so big - he's a love rival for Monroe. Maybe his part could've been blended with Clift's.

It's moving seeing these people who are about to die soon pal around. It's a hang out movie - like The Sun Also Rises should have been. 

I will admit I felt it went too long. It needed maybe a half hour cut out or something.

Movie review - "The Defector" (1966) **

 Uninspired spy story about a physicist ordered over the Iron Curtain to retrieve a Thing. Scenes are awkwardly staged (Raoul Levy was a good producer but I don't think much of a director). Dialogue is clunky. The cinematography, normally a highlight of 60s spy films, is washed out and poor.

The main point of distinction is Montgomery Clift. This was his last film. He looks unwell but that adds to the film - his once handsome face all scarred, the hair seems phony, the nose hooked, the lips have cracked.

The supporting cast is of interest and includes Roddy McDowall (as a CIA man!), and Hardy Kruger (as a commie agent).

It's so unexciting and dull. It really needed some decent action helmer, as Variety would say.

Movie review - "Promise Her Anything" (1966) **

 After making a series of arty movies Warren Beatty decided to do something popular. He had developed What's New Pussycat? then turned it down at the eleventh hour - so picked something similar: a frantic comedy set in Greenwich Village about a man surrounded by beautiful dames. There's even a Bacharach-David theme song sung by Tom Jones.

The central idea though is more Doris Day/Shirley MacLaine/Norman Krasna: Leslie Caron plays a single mother who arrives in the big city to nab a husband for her son. She chases after Robert Cummings, doing a fun riff on Dr Spock as a child rearing expert who hates kids, and is loved by her neighbout Beatty, who makes nudie films.

The film doesn't lean into its concept. It needed Norman Krasna to do a pass. William Peter Blatty wrote it - after his other dud John Goldfarb Go Home. This was called The Babysitter and was shot in London because Caron couldn't take her kids out of the country (her affair with Beatty led to divorce from Peter Hall).

For a while this was pleasantly enjoyable. Beatty was animated and clearly trying in a Jim Hutton style part. Caron was cute, her kid was a lot of fun, I laughed at the baby stumbling into nudie cutie shots. Donald Sutherland is in it briefly (as mentioned, this was shot in London).

Robert Cummings, an actor I like, was looking too gaunt by this stage to play a threat to Beatty. The plotting is frantic as is the direction (Arthur Hiller). It started to grate half way and only got worse as it went on.

Movie review - "The Roman Spring of Mrs Stone" (1961) **

 Aging beauties and their male prostitutes - it was the theme of many a Tennessee Williams tale. This was based on his 1950 novel which took a decade to be made - the success of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and Suddenly Last Summer showed there was still a low of box office hunger for melodramas about horny women.

This has Viven Leigh as an actor who decides to quit a play then her husband dies. She goes to Rome, where the availability of male prostitutes is emphasised in the opening sequences. This presumably upset the Italian government who temporary withdrew permission to make the movie there.

Warren Beatty actively went after the role of the male gigolo. He puts on the spray tan and the accent and does alright. Sometimes he's effective. Other times he's embarassing and overacts.

It was the only feature from famed theatre director Jose Quintero. I don't think he did a very good job.

Nice photography. But I didn't care. She's worried about aging. Falls for a hooker even though she knows he's a hooker. He's a hooker who wants money. Is there meant to be a deeper connection? Would this work if Mrs Stone was male? At least then the "unlocking the hidden passion" stuff would have extra cultural dimension. (There was some camp with Vivien Leigh looking all smug and relaxed after she'd slept with Beatty - "I've just been rammed by Warren Beatty"). But she's an actor... wouldn't she have had a chance to have had hot sex with young things on the road before?

There's no real story. I couldn't see the point. There is the psycho who trails Leigh around, which would have been a more interesting movie. But is he going to kill her? He seems devoted? The film implies she's got a terminal illness. (Everyone smokes btw). Being upfront about that may have made a difference.

Jill St John is fun as a starlet in Rome. So too is Lotte Lenya as a pimp.

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 - "Arrivederci Baby!" (1966) aka Drop Dead Darling **

 Frantic comedy gives the impression it would do anything for a laugh. The actors ham it up, there's a fast past, the music is wacky.

It's a black comedy with Tony Curtis as a man who kills his wives but they're annoying so it doesn't matter.

It doesn't quite come off but I didnt mind it. I like Curtis, even in dodgy comedies, and it has pleasing locations. It's fun to see Zsa Zsa Gabor (diamond drenched ditz) and Finella Fieling (horny aristocrat) and nancy Kwan (his true love I think). 

Rosanna Schiaffino isn't quite up to her role and the film outstays its welcome but it does have some good things about it.

Movie review - "The Small World of Sammy Lee" (1963) **1/2

 Easy to see how this would have worked as a one hander on TV. Easy to see how it flopped as a movie.

Many good things about it, don't get me wrong - excellent photography, Soho locations, glimpse of a world, a very strong cast.

If you like Anthony Newley you'll really get into this. There's a lot of him.

But it's repetitive. Newly (Sammy) tries to get money... almost gets some... loses it. It goes on a steady trail. He won't take money from the neighbour hot for him or the girl (Julia Foster) hot for him. He's in debt because he gambles. So it's hard to be too sympathetic.

He's also bad at his job - an MC at a strip club. When he has some bad luck he insults the customers. Lousy boyfriend. An idiot.

It's a frustrating movie to watch.

Warren Mitchell shines as his brother. Also good work from Robert Stephens and a lot of Aussies: Ken Wayne as a bartender, Kenneth Warren as a principled hired thug with a cocky younger partner (this subplot was for me the best thing about the movie). Roy Kinnear and Derek Nimmo pop up in the cast.

There's a lot of strippers, which is maybe why American company Seven Arts invested, but not a lot of sex. More would have helped.

Movie review - 'The Valley of Gwangi" (1969) **

Lesser known Ray Harryhausen in part because a lot of it was just plain annoying - to me, at any rate - it's got this irritating opening sequence in turn of the century Mexico (presumably to accommodate filming in Spain), which sets up all this storyline about a rodeo rider (James Franciscus, uncharming here) visiting a rodeo, renewing a relationship with a fellow rider (Gina Golan) and some boring old idiot.

They discover a secret valley where there are dinosaurs running. The film improves with some typically strong Ray Harryhausen creatures but it never hits the top rank for me. In part this is because the humans are so dull - they're not really on a mission to find dinosaurs,Laurence Naismith is a dull professor digging in the area but not on an expedition, and there's all this rodeo storyline, with Franciscus wanting to buy a ranch and not wanting to settle down with Golan then wanting to settle down, and then the cowboys thinking of exploiting the aliens and... urgh.

In King Kong the dramatic lines were clear and the characters vivid - Robert Armstrong wanted to make a movie, Fay Wray wanted to act, Kong fell in love with Wray, Armstrong wanted to exploit him. Here it's all fuzzy. Also Kong was kind of mean, beating up humans on Skull Island and terrifying creatures... here the poor old Gwangi is minding his own business when lassoed, and he doesn't deserve to be captured, he doesn't fall in love with anyone and is killed after understandably going on a rampage.

For some reason the scenes of horses travelling with loud clip-clop dubbed sounds really got on my nerves. It was as if "oh we've got to get these horse sounds right" and they ignored the script.

I'm not sure cowboys plus dinosaurs work but this definitely doesn't.