As the Lord is my witness I am a wrong man. Texas cowboy Lincoln Costain (James Garner) gets ‘shanghaied’ in San Francisco, then jumps ship and washes ashore on the Hawaiian island of Kauai, right into the arms of widow Henrietta MacAvoy (Vera Miles) and her son Booten (Eric Shea) who are struggling to make a living as farmers. A lot of wild cattle often trample their crops, so Costain gets the idea to start cattle ranching instead. The Hawaiian farm hands don’t readily take to the American cowboy culture. You’re making yourself the laughing stock of the island. Costain explains to Henrietta that they need more equipment, unaware that she has to take out a credit note with banker Calvin Bryson (Robert Culp) who has eyes on her land (and her too) while Costain tries to make the locals useful but they make zero progress. He has to deal with a hothead Marrujo (Gregory Sierra) who tries to kill him and who then casts a spell on the farm’s head of staff Kimo (Manu Tupou). Then Bryson decides something has to be done to stop Henrietta making a go of the ranch … You just can’t expect to change a whole culture overnight. Written by Don Tait from a story by Tait, Richard M. Bluel & Hugh Benson, this Disney western is designed to appeal to the kiddies with the customary outstanding performance by child actor Shea, one of their occasional star roster). It also takes advantage of Garner’s amiable trickster persona, established in the back to back Support comedy westerns and which would be plundered to great effect in the longrunning TheRockford Files TV series airing for the first time one month after this was released, securing Garner’s fame and making him a household name. It’s toned down here to suit the tone of the family-oriented drama. TV star (I Spy) Culp makes for a smoothly persuasive villain while Miles is a lovely, trusting mother, just hovering on the edge of worry and hope. They call it death by sorcery. Managing the locals is one thing, Booten desperately wants a father figure and is permanently annoyed that Costain refuses to learn his name and that running gag offsets plenty of slapstick as Costain attempts to train pineapple cowboys. It’s attractively made and according to his memoir Garner for one enjoyed the surroundings of Kauai, the fourth largest of the Hawaiian islands which also served as a location for South Pacific, the 1977 remake of King Kong and Jurassic Park. Essentially a B western transferred to a tropical setting, replete with genre conventions – a stampede, a fistfight – included to build the tension towards an ingenious method of getting the cattle of the island to California, this is playfully done with a great deal of charm. And – Garner sings! Directed by Disney specialist Vincent McEveety. I wouldn’t bet against that man
Wait till you see what I’ve found! The son of American war widow Elsa Jenner (Lizabeth Scott), young Erik (Jon Whiteley) and his friends are playing in the rubble of bombed-out post-war London’s buildings at Aldersgate when they locate a handgun buried in a brick. The gun goes off and one of the boys is shot and wounded. Erik goes on the run, believing he has killed his friend. A policeman relates the events to his mother and explains the boy who was shot is alive but in hospital. Efforts to locate Erik are aided by US Army Captain Mark Andrews (Steve Cochran) drafted into the investigation by Supt. Mackenzie (Herbert Marshall) of the Yard after it is discovered that the gun which Erik found was used in a murder of an American serviceman during the war. So a dangerous criminal currently unknown is potentially pursuing the boy. Erik goes to the cafe where his mother usually works but she is not there and leaves before he can eat food her colleague is getting for him when a man sees the gun in his pocket. He runs off again just before Elsa arrives with Cpt Andrews. As he gets closer to finding Erik, Andrews encounters Vivienne Pascal (Nicole Maurey) a dance-hall hostess with a connection to the gun’s original owner. But she has all but lost her faith in all things good, declaring I am dead. As Captain Andrews interviews her she is shot through the window by Henry. Andrews pursues him but is overpowered in an empty factory. Disturbed by a policeman Henry jumps out of a window into the Thames. As Andrews continues his investigation into the gun’s whereabouts, Erik’s mother Elsa finally locates her son with the helpful assistance of relative stranger Joshua Henry. He falsely alleges that Erik had stolen a bottle of milk from him. Henry starts wooing Elsa. Meanwhile, Erik sees his photo in the newspapers and continues his way across the city, trying to get food and pick up work as the hunt continues … We abide by their institutions and their methods. Who said the fatalistic world of noir couldn’t have children? This is one of the rare genre entries to break that rule. Children represent hope, an emotion that has no place in the rain slicked streets and smoky clubs with their tough gangsters, private eyes, molls and femmes fatales. And here the same kind of story told in The Yellow Balloon is dramatised with verve and energy. From Blackfriars Bridge to Covent Garden, all around St Paul’s Cathedral and Lambeth, the city is shot schematically and expressively, tracking different characters as the quest story unfolds. Hard man Cochran gets a good role – both detective and romancer, even if at the conclusion he’s late to the party. To be a detective you must by silent and secret. You can’t give anything away. Cole is a true villain, a deceitful crim with murder on his mind, a step away from the hilarity of the jolly spiv he usually essays with the St Trinians girls. The kids here have met a properly evil man who tries to have his way with Elsa to get to Erik. Maurey has a nice sequence in which she gets to utter the truly grim sentiments of the genre, the polar opposite to the mothering instincts of Scott in one of a couple of British films she took at the time. Whiteley is impressive in another of the exceptional child characters he played in his brief career. There’s a tremendously compelling sensibility at work here: the nasty depths of human behaviour represented across the geography of London when it was still murky and foggy, wet and damp, replete with double decker buses, curious onlookers, in the process of rebuilding itself after the War and not quite at one with modernity, filled with the detritus of war for kids to get killed. Incredibly exciting, vividly staged and shot, this is an unusual and excellent film noir, shot around London’s East End and at Nettlefold Studios by Reginald H. Wyer with production design by John Stoll. Thanks to the ever excellent Talking Pictures for screening it. Directed by Val Guest with uncredited work by producer Hal E. Chester who co-wrote with Fred Freiberger. Why don’t you stop working so hard at being tough?
Now is the winter of our discontent, made glorious summer by this sun of York. King Edward IV (Cedric Hardwicke) has been placed on the throne with the help of his brother Richard, Duke of Gloucester (Laurence Olivier) having wrested power militarily from Henry VI of the House of Lancaster. After Edward’s coronation in the Great Hall, with his brothers George, Duke of Clarence (John Gielgud) and Richard watching, he leaves with his wife Queen Elizabeth (Mary Kerridge) and sons. Richard contemplates the throne, before advancing towards the audience and then addressing them, delivering a monologue outlining his physical deformities which include a hunched back and withered arm. He describes his jealousy over his brother’s rise to power in contrast to his own more lowly position. He dedicates himself to task and plans to frame his brother, George for conspiring to kill the King, and to have George sent to the Tower of London, by claiming George will murder Edward’s heirs. He then tells his brother he will help him get out. Having confused and deceived the King, Richard proceeds with his plans after getting a warrant and enlists two ruffians Dighton (Michael Gough) and Forest (Michael Ripper) to do the dreadful deed. George is murdered, drowned in a butt of wine. Though Edward had sent a pardon to Richard, Richard stopped it passing. Richard goes on to woo and seduce The Lady Anne (Claire Bloom). While she hates him for killing her husband and father she cannot resist and marries him. Richard then orchestrates disorder in the court, fuelling rivalries and setting the court against the Queen consort, Elizabeth (Mary Kerridge). The King, weakened and exhausted, appoints Richard as Lord Protector and dies after hearing of the death of George. Edward’s son the Prince of Wales (Paul Huson), soon to become Edward V, is met by Richard while en route to London. Richard has the Lord Chamberlain, Lord Hastings (Alec Clunes) arrested and executed and forces the young King, along with his younger brother the Duke of York (Andy Shine), to have an extended stay at the Tower of London. All obstacles now removed from his path to the throne, Richard enlists the help of his cousin the corrupt Duke of Buckingham (Ralph Richardson) to change his public image in order to become popular with the people. Richard then becomes the people’s first choice to become the new King. Buckingham helps Richard on terms of being given the title of Earl of Hereford with its income, but baulks at the prospect of murdering the two princes. Richard asks a minor knight Sir James Tyrrel (Patrick Troughton), whom he knows to be ambitious, to have young Edward and the Duke of York killed in the Tower of London. Buckingham, having requested his earldom at Richard’s coronation, fears for his life when Richard (angry at Buckingham for not killing the princes) shouts I am not in the giving vein today! Buckingham joins up with the opposition against Richard’s rule. Now fearful of dwindling popularity, Richard raises an army to defend his throne and the House of York against the House of Lancaster led by Henry Tudor (Stanley Baker), the Earl of Richmond and later Henry VII of England at Bosworth Field. However before the battle Buckingham is captured and executed. On the eve of the battle, Richard is haunted by the ghosts of all those he has killed in his bloody ascent to the throne. He wakes up screaming … You should bear me on your shoulder! On 11th March 1956 this became the most watched film broadcast on TV in the US (simultaneously released in cinemas) and 11 years later when it was re-released in theatres it made records again – it’s probably the most popular historical Shakespeare screen adaptation and contributes to the (mis)understandings about its caricatured protagonist which have lately been corrected by the quietly powerful recent English film The Lost King. It was Laurence Olivier’s third time to direct and star in a Shakespeare production and if not as initially outwardly acclaimed as its predecessors latterly it is viewed as his best film, a stark and lucid narrative whose Technicolor visual influence could even be seen in Disney’s feature animation Sleeping Beauty, among others. Olivier of course makes for a classic, charismatic even campy villain and the contours of his rise and fall make for an utterly compelling watch. Sometimes criticised for a staid staging, this is a vividly played drama led by an incredible ensemble of British acting talent provided by producer Alexander Korda’s London Films contracted players, with its occasional flourishes all the more surprising when Otto Heller’s camera (shooting in VistaVision) underscores an incident, moving or tracking to heighten the impact. Murder her brothers, and then marry her. This study of power and undiluted, wicked ambition is quite thrilling with the occasional emotional note struck by Bloom as the seduced widow Lady Anne or those unfortunate children, guilt tripping the audience who cannot wait to see what Richard will do next. Conscience is a word that cowards use. Those soliloquies delivered to camera insinuate themselves into the viewer’s brain and sympathies. A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse! Olivier had been working on this since he first portrayed Richard at the Old Vic in 1944 and after the successes of Henry V and Hamlet on the big screen this commemorated what might be his greatest performance as actor and director. Why, thus it is when men are ruled by women. Ably assisted by Gerry O’Hara, who took charge when Olivier was in front of the camera, this is literally masterpiece theatre, skillfully adapted (and heavily cut) by an uncredited Olivier from the 18th century stage presentations by Colley Gibber and David Garrick with a thrilling score from William Walton. I, that am not shaped for sportive tricks nor made to court an amorous looking glass, I that am rudely stamped and want love’s majesty to strut before a wanton ambling nymph, I that am curtailed of fair proportion, cheated of feature by dissembling nature deformed, unfinished, sent before my time into breathing world scarce half made up and so lamely and unfashionable that dogs do bark at me as I halt by them
Aka Her Heart Was In Her Throat. You’re my enemy! I hate you! An old homeless woman is murdered after seeing a light through the basement window of abandoned 11 Crescent Drive. Young Barney Fielding (Richard Lyon) witnesses the incident from his window next door at number 10. Elizabeth Howard (Gail Russell) arrives at the house to be governess to Barney and his impressionable sister Ellen (Nona Griffith) but is met with aggression from the boy who is unusually attached to their former governess, Maxine. Round here we call it the commodore’s folly. Elizabeth’s room overlooks the garden of the eerie house next door, and she finds a watch that belonged to the murdered old woman in her dressing table. Over the next few weeks, Marian Tygarth (Isobel Elsom), a widow who owns shuttered-up 11 Crescent Drive, returns to put the house up for sale. Elizabeth suspects someone is gaining access to the cellars and confides in David Fielding (Joel McCrea), the children’s widowed and secretive father but he dismisses her concerns. She turns to Dr. Charles Evans (Herbert Marshall) a neighbour and family friend who advises her not to call the police as David shouldn’t like it: Ellen doesn’t know it yet but David was once suspected of murdering his wife. The last one was pretty too. Ellen tells Elizabeth that Barney is the one who lets the lurking man into the house at night, on Maxine’s orders. The next day, the employment agency tells Elizabeth they cannot send anyone over that day. However, a new maid arrives at the house and Elizabeth eventually realises she is Maxine (Phyllis Brooks). David tries to throw Maxine out of the house and shortly afterwards she is found murdered outside the empty house. David is nowhere to be found so the police to consider him the prime suspect … It had been barred, locked and shuttered for twelve years. Devised as a way to capitalise on tragic Russell’s success in The Uninvited, this has a great pedigree. Produced by John Houseman for Paramount and directed by that film’s Lewis Allen (it was his feature debut) and photographed in luminous monochromes by the legendary John F. Seitz, it was adapted by Hagar Wilde and Ken Englund from Ethel Lina White’s novel Midnight House aka Her Heart in her Throat, with the final screenplay by Wilde and the one and only Chandler (who had a rather indifferent screenwriting history as various tomes attest). Narrated by an uncredited Ray Collins, this is a terrifically atmospheric murder mystery. I did hope you’d be a little more motherly. With a debt to both Jane Eyre and The Turn of the Screw, it’s an example of the era’s popular trope of the child witness. It’s suspenseful and filled with character detail, situated in a wonderfully overstuffed house redolent of the Gothic cycle. The nascent romance between Russell and McCrea plays with diffidence then humour: I like your smile. I like the way your hair falls out of place. I even like the way you carve. Russell has a lot of colours to play and does them sympathetically. It’s fun to see Brooks in a nice role as Maxine. It’s her final screen credit. She started out as a model and then did a number of B movies and at one time was engaged to marry Cary Grant. Instead she married JFK’s Harvard roommate Torbert Macdonald and lived out her days on the East coast where Macdonald served as a Congressman for Massachusetts and she was a renowned society hostess. Interestingly, the children here play with Disney comics and a Dumbo toy and see a Popeye cartoon at the cinema, reflective of what was popular then – and now. Longtime Welles and then Hitchcock associate Norman Lloyd has an amusing role as Jasper Goodwin. Sadly the gifted crime writer White (who had written The Wheel Spins, the basis for The Lady Vanishes) didn’t live to see this adaptation of her novel. Nor would she see Forties classic, The Spiral Staircase (1946), based on Some Must Watch. She died aged 68 in 1944. You’re nothing like twenty-five
The door must remain locked. The seals must remain unbroken. When Madeleine Peters (Frances Day) the star of a new musical revue written by Keith Gilbert (John Bentley) walks out of the show in a plot hatched by her lover Philip Defoe (Olaf Olsen) he thinks the company will have to agree to being forced into keeping her as part of their contract despite her unsuitability. He doesn’t reckon on their finding another location – the Regency, a derelict theatre which has allegedly been haunted since their ‘Hamlet’ leading man died on the premises 40 years earlier. The eccentric widow Isobel Mayne (Nora Nicholson) of the dead actor is only persuaded to hire it out when her son Alexander (Michael Ward) agrees and the company accedes to her request that her late husband’s dressing room remain locked with nobody permitted to enter. With chorus girl Tangye Ward (Patricia Dainton) replacing Madeleine, rehearsals commence at the new home but then a body is found – it’s Alexander Mayne. Tangye is scared off and Gilbert comforts her but when Madeleine is found dead there too the police are called in and Inspector Hinton (Ronald Leigh-Hunt) discovers a link with missing emeralds from a jewel theft carried out years earlier with a suspect recently released from prison. As the secret is close to being exposed everyone’s life is in danger but the show must go on … Murder has been shut up there for forty years. Don’t let it out! The lovely actress Patricia Dainton might have expected a bigger career considering the showcase she has in her debut with five terrific song and dance routines in a very well plotted pacy backstage suspenser. Adapted by Gerald Verner from his novel The Show Must Go On with additional dialogue credits attributed to Donald Ginsberg & Vivian Cox, this was originally a radio serial before it was novelised. In a case of life imitating art, young usurper Dainton did indeed overtake Day in a sense, given that she was now definitely a film actress with a decade of good roles ahead of her, albeit in second features, while Day, a multi-talented star of previous decades, faded from view both as a film and theatre performer (she was a lead in Shaw’s final play Buoyant Billions, 1948) with this among her final screen roles. Her last would be for director Charles Crichton in 1957’s There’s Always a Thursday. Her costumes here were provided by Hardy Amies (who also dressed the Queen). Day’s storied private life with affairs throughout British society (male and female alike, from princes to heiresses) is the stuff of rumour and scandal. She was a panellist on the TV show What’s My Line? when feature offers dried up. This was Dainton’s first time to be paired with Bentley – in fact their next film together, and her second film, Paul Temple Returns, was released one month after this, in December 1952. Her ‘discovery’ on stage therefore coincides with her discovery in the film in a classic theatrical story (mimicking her own background as a dancer) and the romance and mystery produce several twists. John Laurie plays Angus McDonald, the theatrical agent with Olivia Winter his assistant played by Betty Baskcomb, the daughter of famed comic A.W. Baskcomb and who made her screen debut in Hitchcock’s The Man Who Knew Too Much. Aside from the crazy camp dancing by Colin Croft, staged by Alfred Rodriguez, perhaps the oddest thing of all in this production is the similarity between the title song (in a few different iterations here) and the 1980s pop hit, Move Closer. Watch out for legendary choreographer Kenneth MacMillan as a dancer in the troupe. Filmed at London’s Granville Theatre, Waltham Green, long since demolished, as well as Marylebone Studios, this is directed by the very accomplished former documentarian David MacDonald, who earned his movie stripes assisting Cecil B. DeMille and who made some terrific melodramas in the 1940s (The Brothers, The Bad Lord Byron) but was relegated to Bs and could have made much better use of the fascinating locations here. And just think what Stanley Donen could have done with those musical numbers by Ivor Slaney! Brush away the dust – you’ll find an older star
Socialists can have glamour. Joan Stanley (Judi Dench) is a widow living out a quiet retirement in the suburbs when, shockingly, the British Secret Service places her under arrest. The charge: providing classified scientific information – including details on the building of the atomic bomb – to the Soviet government for decades. As the interrogation gets underway, Joan relives the dramatic events that shaped her life and her beliefs. As a physics student at Cambridge in the Thirties, young Joan (Sophie Cookson) is befriended by beautiful Sonya (Tereza Srbova) and her cousin Leo Galich (Tom Hughes) who grew up together after Sonya was orphaned and their relationship is more like that of a brother and a sister than cousins. Joan falls in love with the intense intellectual Leo. He goes to Russia in 1939 and is stuck there when war breaks out. Joan takes a job as assistant to married scientist Prof. Max Davis (Stephen Campbell Moore) at the wartime Tube Alloys project planning an atomic bomb for Britain. Leo returns from the Soviet Union and asks her to pass information but she refuses. She starts sleeping with Max on a trip to Canada where an encounter with Leo (now based in Montreal) sees her refusing once again to be a spy. Back in England she watches horrified the newsreel footage of the bombing of Hiroshima and finds herself sympathetic to the Soviet cause. But she accuses Leo of using her and then finds him dead, an apparent suicide. She tries to make contact with Sonya again … We’re not on the same side any more. Adapted from Jennie Rooney’s titular novel (based on the life of Melita Norwood) by Lindsay Shapero, this spy drama is meticulously made and attractively played by a talented cast. (If Tom Hughes isn’t the next James Bond I’ll eat one of the extravagant hats on display here). However some crucial plot points and revelations are played down in a badly mismanaged script which effectively diffuses any suspense into two near-identical scenes of the police staging a search of the Alloys department to find evidence about the supply of information to the Soviets. The flashback structure doesn’t always come off, the passage of time isn’t demarcated well and the relationship between Dench and her barrister son Nick (Ben Miles) doesn’t hit the dramatic point required: in fact his father’s identity isn’t clear in a parallel plot with Sonya’s pregnancy in the 1930s. The real culprit recruiting people to the Russian side is far too obvious, the tension is flat and it’s paced poorly. Not what you expect from a director of the calibre of Trevor Nunn but the story is intriguing nonetheless and Cookson does well with the role. Beautifully shot by Zac Nicholson. Is anything you ever told me actually true?
If I’d been a man I’d like to have been a professional soldier. Young English war-widow and mother to Tania, a toddler daughter, Violette Szabo (Virginia McKenna) is recruited to become a secret agent in occupied France during World War II following the death in North Africa of her French soldier husband Etienne Szabo (Alain Saury). Teamed with Captain Tony Fraser (Paul Scofield) whom she has encountered socially, she is sent on her first mission to Rouen and does so well she even has time to go shopping in Paris. The second mission to Limoges is much more dangerous and she gets caught when her dodgy ankle gives up but not before she kills a dozen Nazis, allowing French Resistance fighter Jacques (Maurice Ronet) to escape and warn the rest of the cell. Exposed to torture at Avenue Foch by the Gestapo and the degradation of Ravensbruck concentration camp in the company of fellow trainees Denise (Nicole Stephane) and Lilian (Anne Leon) Violette finds herself facing a continual struggle for survival… I think you have certain qualifications that might be of great use. This adaptation by Vernon Harris and director Lewis Gilbert of R. J. Minney’s biography is a British war classic: the true story of a brave young Englishwoman who was selected to serve her country by dint of her ability to speak French, her athleticism and recent widowhood. It’s lightly told in monochrome against the backdrop of grey wartime London, with funny montages illustrating the progression of the relationship with Etienne – Violette is always accompanied by best friend Winnie (Billie Whitelaw) tagging along on their dates; while the antics at training camp are amusingly done and the action scenes are solid. The ending and coda are all the more tragic for their understatement. A story of greatness, very well told and McKenna was rightly recognised for her achievement in the complex role. Lewis Gilbert’s brother-in-law Sydney Tafler plays Potter, the ‘Ministry of Pensions’ official who hired Szabo. Look quickly for Michael Caine as one of the thirsty prisoners on the train. Real-life heroine ‘Odette’ was one of the film’s technical advisers and the poem that’s the source of Violette’s code was written by real-life SOE coder Leo Marks who would later become a playwright and screenwriter, perhaps best known for the film that killed Michael Powell’s brilliant British career (at least in the eyes of the so-called critics), Peeping Tom. They are not going to catch me
You can’t live without getting involved. Danny Haley (Charlton Heston) was a war hero but now he fleeces dupes in a rigged poker game. He likes going to a local bar where Fran Garland (Lizabeth Scott) sings and he romances her from time to time. He and his pals see Air Force vet Arthur Winant (Don DeFore) as an easy mark, but they’ve reckoned without Winant’s homicidal brother Sidney (Mike Mazurki), a psychotic former soldier, who wants revenge after Arthur apparently kills himself. Despite paying for police protection Police Chief Garvey (Dean Jagger) has Danny’s number but no proof that he caused his death, in fact suspecting that it’s Winant’s own brother who’s responsible. Danny tracks down Arthur’s widow Victoria (Viveca Lindfors) and attempts to find Sidney before he finds him and his card shark friends but finds himself falling for her before he skips town for Vegas with the blessing of the cops when Sidney is getting too close … Guys like you don’t get arrested. You get killed first. A taut B about post-war psychosis among returning soldiers gives Heston his movie debut and a leading role at that. It’s a sharp piece of genre work with a cat and mouse structure giving it pace. Benefitting from complex characterisation, ripe dialogue and a nice song performed by Scott (actually dubbed by Trudy Stevens) to punctuate the action every 12 minutes or so, this is a story with its roots in a real social problem about criminal behaviour among returning GIs. As such it sits nicely in those crime noirs of the period. It moves well and has a pair of good roles for the female characters, nicely essayed by Scott and Lindfors. It’s also of interest because sidekick characters Augie (Jack Webb) and Soldier (Harry Morgan) went on to star in TV’s Dragnet. There are some great LA location shots by DoP Victor Milner of the Griffith Observatory, Union Station, North Hollywood, an amusement pier in Ocean Park, the Wilshire Plaza Hotel and the Valley Vista Motel on Ventura Blvd. in the San Fernando Valley. And there are some terrific backdrops shot in Las Vegas and Chicago. Written by John Meredyth Lucas and adapted by Ketti Frings from Larry Marcus’ story No Escape. Briskly directed by William Dieterle. You’ve got no excuse for being here
He is alive. Greece, the 1960s. Doctor Gregorios Lambrakis (Yves Montand) leader of the opposition is injured during an anti-military/nuclear demonstration in an incident that causes his death. The government and army are trying to suppress the truth – their involvement with a right-wing organisation in a covert assassination. But they don’t control the hospital where Lambrakis is brought and the autopsy reveals the cause of death. Then tenacious Examining Magistrate (Jean-Louis Trintignant) is determined to not to let them get away with it despite every witness getting beaten up en route to his office … Always blame the Americans. Even if you’re wrong. Adapted from Vassilis Vassilikos’ 1966 novel by Greek-born director Costa-Gavras and Jorge Semprun (with uncredited work by blacklisted Ben Barzman), this political thriller gained its frisson and urgency from its lightly fictionalised portrayal of recent events in Greece which this more or less accurately depicts. Nowadays its style is commonplace but its skill in evoking the dangers of the official version and the suppression of free speech is more important than ever. Inspired by real-life events, including the ‘disappearing’ of opposition Moroccan politician Mehdi Ben Barka in Paris in 1965, with a surgical reference to JFK, the beauty of the construction is in having Montand’s experiences including with wife Helene (Irene Papas) dominating the first half, while the second is about the steady work of investigation carried out by Trintignant, who winds up unmasking a conspiracy at the highest level. Beautifully shot by Raoul Coutard and scored by Mikis Theodorakis. Tough, taut, suspenseful filmmaking that is exciting and dreadful simultaneously, speaking truth to power about corruption, passionate engagement and the casual use of street thugs to commit murder for the state. There is even room for humour as Trintignant insists on treating the officers like anyone else when they are indicted and each one of them believes him to be a Communist when in fact his right wing credentials are impeccable. In real life the military junta came to power and banned the venerable Papas, who was a member of the Communist Party: she wasn’t the only one of course but she survived to celebrate her 94th birthday on 3rd September last. Essential cinema. Why do the ideas we stand for incite such violence?
Aka Un homme et une femme. If I had to go through this again what would I do? Widowed script girl Anne Gauthier (Anouk Aimee) travels from her home in Paris to Deauville to visit her little girl Francoise (Souad Amidou) at boarding school in Deauville. She accepts a lift back with racing driver Jean-Louis Duroc who is a widower visiting his little boy Antoine (Antoine Sire). A friendship blossoms into romance but she can’t tell him her husband Pierre (Pierre Barouh) is dead and speaks of Pierre in the present tense, confusing their perceptions of each other. His wife Valerie (Valerie Lagrange) committed suicide when she saw him in a near-fatal accident and believed he died. But he survived. Now when he races in icy conditions on the Riviera in the Monte Carlo rally Anne watches the coverage on the radio (voiced by presenter Gerard Sire, father of Antoine) and sends him a telegram saying she loves him and he drives back north in his Mustang to see her … Why? Just your everyday story of a widowed script girl meeting cute with a widowed racing driver. From this slim premise evolved a glorious melodrama. Two of the most beautiful people to ever grace the earth in a romantic movie about movie-making and romance: this is how the Nouvelle Vague was repackaged and commercialised by writer/director Claude Lelouch and it was a cultural phenomenon in its day, a Palme d’Or winner at Cannes, an Academy Award winner for Best Foreign Film and Original Screenplay as well as a huge box office success on both sides of the Atlantic. Shot quickly with just seven crew on a low budget, the flashy techniques were born of necessity. Different black and white film stocks were used until an American distributor contributed more money upfront enabling Lelouch to buy colour film. The old cameras used had to be covered in blankets to protect them from wintry damp – there was a lot of rain on those supposedly exotic resort locations: the antithesis of glamour. Yet did any actors ever wear sheepskin coats so well?! Trintignant was on board first and it was he who suggested Aimee as his co-star when Lelouch asked him who would be his ideal woman. They were old friends. When she closes her eyes during their scenes of radiant intimacy she paradoxically creates an even more empathetic heroine, this woman who can’t come to terms with her husband’s death. This is always about how the mind works to permit people to fall in love in the aftermath of unspeakable tragedy. Danger underlines everything – these men who love Anne dally with it in their daily occupations. Hope is a little beyond her, the future unthinkable. Isn’t death the ultimate subject of all art? The film’s conclusion was kept secret from Aimee: that’s real surprise registering on her gravely luminous face. The score by Francis Lai is simply unforgettable. It was written before the production commenced and Lelouch used playback during the scenes to inspire the performers who where encouraged to improvise their dialogue. Lelouch said of working with Trintignant: I think Jean-Louis is the actor who taught me how to direct actors. We really brought each other a lot. He changed his method of acting while working with me, and I began to truly understand what directing actors was all about, working with him. I think the relationship between a director and actor is the same relationship as in a love story between two people. One cannot direct an actor if you do not love him or her. And he cannot be good if he or she does not love you in turn. How astonishing has Trintignant been in the evolution of contemporary romantic dramas? Starting with And God Created Woman, A Man and A Woman, through Amour, he is the cornerstone of how we perceive the male psyche from the 1950s onwards. He will celebrate his 90th birthday December 2020. Co-written with Pierre Uytterhoeven. Not just a film, this is a landmark in cinema. If you ever find yourself in Deauville you can book into the suite named for the film at the Hotel Barriere Le Normandy. Some Sundays start well and end badly
mondomovies 