The fourth Inner Sanctum mystery, as usual starring Lon Chaney Jr. Here, he’s a hypnotist who is interrupted during his normal act of mesmerising Evelyn Ankers (Chaney’s frequent co-star and his character’s fiancée and stage partner) by a drunk heckler who Chaney (apparently) hypnotises to death. The police aren’t able to prove anything, but Chaney is afraid of his powers and quits the stage, drops his fiancée, and goes to work in a wax museum (as you do). The owner soon falls for him, as does her young niece, and the fiancée soon finds where he is making three women unable to keep their hands off our hero … again. You can bet that there are mysterious things going on in the wax museum….
As usual the actual mystery isn’t hard to solve. By this time I’m now feeling glad these are in B&W otherwise I’d be dazzled by what look like psychedelically patterned neckties which Chaney wears throughout this series.
There are no ghosts, frozen or otherwise. I have no idea why it's called that.
STRANGE CONFESSION (1945)
A troubled Chaney arrives at the door of an old friend, now a successful lawyer. He has, indeed, a strange confession to make.
This is my favourite of the Inner Sanctum movies (so far, anyway- one more to go) and I’d rather not get too deeply involved in the plot to avoid spoilers. Chaney this time is a research chemist (yes, I know), J. Carrol Naish his scheming boss (and he’s as evil as they come), and Brenda Joyce plays Chaney’s long-suffering wife. The surprise bit of casting is a young Lloyd Bridges as his best friend (not the lawyer). All do very well and I think this is the first of these that I’d like to rewatch fairly soon.
The revival of the heist caper movie was quite a welcome revival, spurred on by Steven Soderberg’s slick update and retell of Ocean’s 11. The Italian Job isn’t so much a retell as a complete reimagination. Not one but three robberies in this narrative – one is planned at length but aborted – the problem faced by the cast is the singular lack of fun. They all seem to take this so seriously they forgot to smile. Mind you, a screenplay devoid of a decent fist of humour doesn’t help. Nor a director who draws out scenes to interminable length, as if having his actors stand around posing will pass as gravitas. The Mini Coopers are back, although they are running amok in L.A. not Turin. An initial heist takes place in a fancy-dan style underwater in Venice. Like the classic Michael Caine version, the Italian Mafia and here also the Ukrainian Mafia are out for a touch of vengeance; so too most of Charlie Croker’s gang, who are double-crossed by Edward Norton’s dull villain. Mark Wahlberg displays a startling inability to act as the hero. Charlize Theron looks nice and also looks mostly vacant, as if the vivid technicolour proceedings frighten her more than Mr Norton. Jason Statham, Seth Green and Mos Def try to add a light touch, but it comes very heavy handed, like all those gold bars. It’s alright, I suppose, and if you haven’t seen the original or see it as old hat because you are young and contrary, you’ll probably reckon it is a good enough little thriller. I spent most of my time wishing it was set in the sixties, with a Quincy Jones soundtrack and Michael Caine sparring with Noel Coward and Benny Hill, to the point I wasn’t very engaged with what was happening. The film’s too long and as everyone is a crook, there is very little to cheer when anybody helps out anyone. These updated amiable thieves lack charisma and charm, which is fatal to a format that relies on it.
A superb thriller that is a wonderful example of the slow-burn of suspense, for the entire movie is an exercise in the building blocks of tension.
It is 1963, and Edward Fox plays a mysterious assassin known only as ‘The Jackal’ who is employed to assassinate the French President, Charles de Gaulle. The authorities, by chance and then vicious interrogation, learn obliquely of the plot and request the services of the country’s best detective, who turns out to be Michael Lonsdale’s Commissioner Lebel. His investigations initially lead nowhere until a lead crops up from London and the chase, such as it is, is on: very languid in individual scenes, but piling tension on tension when all strung together, courtesy of Ralph Kemplen’s taut and effective editing, that intercuts the mundane with the significant.
The documentary style of filmmaking had been attempted before. Alfred Hitchcock failed dramatically when he used it for Topaz, but I think the Master of Suspense would have been very proud of this effort from Fred Zinneman and writer Kenneth Ross, which out does his own late sixties and seventies projects by a long stretch. Zinneman clearly understands the need to keep the audience watching, how the steady beat of the action works like a pulse, propelling the narrative forward. He worked similar cinematic magic with the [almost] real-time High Noon. Here, the story is spread over weeks, but the result is the same. By cleverly not showing entirely the murders committed by the Jackal in pursuit of his goal, Zinneman also keeps us on the protagonist’s side, even though he is a villain. Watching how the Jackal operates, with care and precision, how he evades the police, weaves his way into and out of society, we recognise a master at work [the Jackal, not the director, although we could indeed say so] and want him to succeed, even in assassination.
The film is based on Frederick Forsythe’s bestselling novel, but sharpens that procedural tome into a journeying thriller of style and pace. The terror group the OAS is a real one which still exists in small form today, an extreme right-wing militaristic faction who detested de Gaulle for his stance on Algeria. When independence was granted to the African nation in 1962, the group, mostly comprised of legionnaires and soldiers, took to carrying out anti-government terrorist atrocities. Several attempts were made on de Gaulle’s life. One very close shave and its aftermath of incarcerations and executions is represented at the film’s beginning. In real life it resulted in the virtual disbandment of the OAS; in Forsythe’s book and Ross’s script, the leaders flee France and operate an underground network, employing the Jackal for the task they failed to do.
While the editing and direction are the stand out technical achievements, one must mention Jean Tournier’s photography, the very fine performances across the board and Ross’s well-fashioned screenplay. The film has a splendid finale and a short coda with a very excellent twist in the tale. A gripping thriller of much élan and sudden vigour, quite elegant at times, squalid at others, it is very representative of the era, yet, following the failed attempt on Donald Trump’s life a month or so ago, still manages to be relevant today. Are our public figures ever truly safe? Are we, the general public? Death stalks in all disguises and in all places, Zinneman intently demonstrates.
Excellent.
Note:
The production credits quote Warwick Films, which of course was a company part-owned by one Albert R. Broccoli. This is odd, as my friend and yours, Wiki, tells us the company was defunct in 1962. Has anyone got Cubby’s bio and can clear this up? I had always read he concentrated solely on James Bond after 1963’s disastrous Call Me Bwana and the later Ian Fleming kids fantasy musical Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.
As far as I know, Warwick was co-owned by Broccoli and Irving Allen. When Allen disagreed with Broccoli over the cinematic potential of the Bond books (even insulting Fleming to his face at a meeting Cubby couldn't be at since Dana was very ill after giving birth to Barbara) their partnership broke down and Warwick was dissolved while Cubby then formed Eon with new partner Harry Saltzman.
When Allen saw the success his ex-partner was having with the Bond films, he decided to make his own version and thus the Matt Helm series came into being.
However these didn't have the Warwick name and I'm surprised to hear it used in connection with "Jackal" or indeed any films after it was dissolved.
Day Of The Jackal relates to WARWICK FILM PRODUCTIONS LIMITED, an entirely different enterprise to the then defunct WARWICK FILMS LIMITED.
I think I’m the only person who thinks Jackal is not in the least bit tense and exciting. Admittedly, I can appreciate the skill that’s gone into the production, but if you know that de Gaulle lived until 1970, how can it possibly create any tension whatsoever?
Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.
I thought Saltzman owned the rights and Broccoli became partners with Saltzman because he wanted to make the movies. Why would Broccoli and Allen be meeting with Fleming if someone else owned the rights?
Thank you @CoolHandBond that clears things up for me.
I understand your point about the film, but I disagree over your reasoning. Many films based on real events can be tense - A Bridge Too Far, for instance, or 127 Hours - depends on the skills of the film makers and for me, Zinneman nails it.
I'm guilty of oversimplifying the story, in an attempt at brevity. Cubby had wanted to buy the rights much earlier but Allen disagreed. This led to a breakdown in their partnership, which coupled with Cubby's wife Nedra, not Dana, being ill after having a child (and again I correct myself, this wasn't Barbara but Tina) and later dying understandably took Cubby's attention and by the time he had his life sorted out (marrying Dana, Barbara being born) Harry had taken an option on the rights.
The last of the Inner Sanctum films. Lon Chaney Jr stars as a lawyer accused of murdering his wife. The fact he’s having an affair with his secretary makes him the prime suspect. So far, so familiar to anyone who’s been watching these. There’s an old spooky house with secret passages, a medium, a séance, ghostly voices (or are they?), and what for this series qualifies as a shock ending so I’ll say no more. Brenda Joyce from the previous movie returns, as do Chaney’s frantic ties. Not the best of this series, and there would be no more.
You call out Ed Norton in here as being dull. That's because he did the film under duress. He was facing being sued for various reasons related to being a complete tool on other films, so the studio forced him to be in this film and a few others to add his 'star power'. The best you can say about his performance here in some scenes is 'he's ok'. In many scenes, he's flat out terrible, especially in the climax. Way to be a professional, Ed.
I mean, Roy Scheider famously did not want to do JAWS 2. He did everything he could to get out of it but was unsuccessful. So, he did the film and was a pro about, delivering the goods at pretty much the same level as he did in the first film.
I wasn’t aware of the 127Hours story when I watched it, so for me the tension was good, if I’d have known beforehand what happened then it puts a completely different slant on the film.
Looking forward to the next Carry On review.
Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.
@Barbel Those Inner Sanctum movies sound exceptionally "B" statsu, but often tehse B-Movies have a cult following. I have never heard of these films, so it si quite interesting to read your reviews and check what Wiki has to say about them [not a lot].
Brenda Joyce is my favourite Jane in the Tarzan movies. She starred in Johnny Weismuller's final four efforts and Lex Barker's first. By then, the Tarzan franchise was only just about better than B-movies. There is no particular reason for me liking her, I just think she was a very pretty actress.
Like their previous effort – the less than successful Carry On Jack – this ninth film in the series was not originally conceived as a Carry On movie, but a spy spoof tentatively entitled Come Spy With Me. The original drafts had been written by Norman Hudis, but Peter Rogers and Gerald Thomas were unimpressed with the direction he was embarking on and returned to Talbot Rothwell and established radio pens-man Sid Colin. However, as the film wasn’t envisaged as a Carry On, most of the already established cast were absent. Only Kenneth Williams and Charles Hawtrey appear from the original black and white run, while Bernard Cribbins had featured in Jack. His poor relationship with Williams led to him not returning to the fold until the revival Colombus in 1992. Williams preferred working with Jim Dale, who makes an impression here as a sensible British spy being mistreated by the four hapless new recruits, led by Williams’s Desmond Simpkins. Barabra Windsor makes her debut as the flirtatious Daphne Honeybutt, a woman gifted with a photographic memory. Cribbins and Hawtrey make up the quartet. Villains are played by Judith Furse [as Dr Crow], Eric Pohlmann [the Fat Man] and Victor Madden [Milschman]. Two others who had worked with the crew before were Eric Barker and the lovely Dilys Laye. She plays a triple agent who makes everyone else look incompetent.
The film doesn’t only spoof James Bond, although that is the obvious target. Yes, there are very noticeable Bondian images and locations being impersonated, things like terrible acronyms BOSH – the British Operational Security Headquarters; STENCH – Society for the Total Extinction of Non-Conforming Humans; SNOG – Society for the Neutralising of Germs; garotte wrist watches; underground lairs; villains photographed from behind in chairs; the Orient Express; a couple of cocktail songs. But there are plenty of slappy homages to other spy films, notably The Third Man, and old romantic thrillers like Sirocco and Casablanca. The film even manages to feature a harem cross-dressing sequence like something from an Ali Baba pantomime. There is a mind warping interrogation inspired no doubt by The Manchurian Candidate, but also familiar from the novel of The Ipcress File. The women guards are dressed in catsuits a la Modesty Blaise, a comic strip that had become popular in the Evening Standard newspaper. They also bear a startling similarity to the costumes worn by Pussy Galore’s Flying Circus pilots. In fact, Spying and Goldfinger were both filming at Pinewood during the same six weeks in February-March 1964. The film was released three months before Goldfinger. Overall, the celluloid evidence suggests Carry On Spying really was attempting to mock all spy films, not just James Bond.
The plot, for what it is worth, involves the four useless agents being dispatched to Vienna to retrieve a stolen secret formula. They rendezvous at Café Mozart along with all the villains and a cat-and-mouse game of much silliness ensues, sending the agents to Algiers, on the Orient Express and finally to an underground lair back in Blighty.
The film is pleasantly funny without being as outrageous a rib tickler as the more racy products that followed. Kenneth Willaims uses his catch phrase ‘Stop Messin’ About’ and even says ‘Frying Tonight’ two years before Carry On Screaming. He carries the bulk of the action and one might say the bulk of the blame, for his over eager performance doesn’t gel as well with Windsor’s or Hawtrey’s less flamboyant turns. Cribbins seems to want to out-over-act him and is simply awful. The non-regular cast members play things remarkably straight, which helps the film retain its ‘spoof’ credentials instead of simply ‘mocking’ the genre.
The tiny budget shows, but went a long way and black and white photography keeps it looking polished. It was the last Carry On to not be in colour. The film is a decent effort, quite funny in parts and one of the better spy spoofs of the era. However, given its original intention, Spying doesn’t feel much like a proper Carry On, seeming to miss the expected slap-and-tickle jokes, which for this kind of genre were probably better left to Sean Connery et al and their more risqué black humour.
"B" they most definitely are, but as you know that doesn't equate to bad. Well, not necessarily anyway. I enjoyed them in the main but it helps that I love the old Universal horror movies and since this is the same studio the same cast & crew turn up frequently. They're not horror movies, although there is a touch of the supernatural to some of them, being more (easily solved) mysteries. It also helps if you like Lon Chaney Jr (I do) since he stars in them all. If you can swallow that he's a lawyer/doctor/professor etc (remember that this is the man who made his name playing Lennie in "Of Mice And Men", and playing it superbly too) and that most of the female cast are hot for him, then just sit back and enjoy. Shame about those ties, though.
(I think some can be viewed on YouTube but the picture and sound quality aren't very good. I bought a box of remastered/restored Blu-Rays and the quality is excellent.)
@chrisno1 I have no evidence for this, but I suggest that the part played by Judith Furse was intended for Hattie Jacques, who couldn't do it for some reason.
I had never seen this film before. @Napoleon Plural reviewed this a few months back. I can't rememebr what he wrote, but it spurred me on to track Hombre down. Unfortunately, I didn’t like it.
Sporadically interesting, but ultimately rather stagey with a lot of standing around and a fair swaddle of talking. Not from Paul Newman, whose dialogue is minimal at best. He plays a white man raised by the Apaches, but whose father refused to disinherit him. He also seems not to have lost his very modern Eaststateside accent. Returning to the world of the American settler to collect his legacy, he ends up on a rickety stagecoach bound for the big city. The stage is robbed by Richard Boone’s outlaw gang and the protection of the passengers falls to John Russell, the ‘hombre’ of the title.
Newman is a much better actor than this. He works well with words; this guy has played works byvTennessee Williams, Thornton Wilder and William Inge for goodness sake. Given almost nothing to say, he becomes little more than a statue, and as his vocal chords have been taken away, so does the power of his own performance. He also looked terrible wearing a long haired wig before sensibly the script has him shave it off. The role is the kind of thing an actor like Charles Bronson or Lee Van Cleef could pull off, Steve McQueen too no doubt. Eastwood, maybe, although I can’t picture him as an American Indian. ‘Hombre’ just doesn’t suit Newman. He is an unsympathetic hero, the new breed the western genre was featuring at the time, and he cuts short debates on the moral ethics of the time with cold, calculated assertions. I guess that’s in character, but I am not hitched the Newman horse on this one.
There is occasional action, but mostly Hombre is men pointing guns and talking and Newman's 'Hombre' staring into an uncertain future. I was bored half way and the film didn’t improve. Martin Ritt directs.
If you're a fan of the original 'Alien' and 'Aliens', definitely go see this latest entry in the franchise, directed by Fede Álvarez. Much as I enjoyed Ridley Scott's own later, more cerebral 'Alien'-related films, Álvarez's new movie really is a fan pleaser, unashamedly hitting all the right beats while succeeding on its own terms. It delivers on the style and aesthetic of the originals, with retro appeal, and picks up on the pace of 'Aliens' to satisfy the expectations of modern audiences. Any initial misgivings about the younger than average ages (for 'Alien') of the lead characters are quickly dispelled, as the performances are at least good, with David Jonsson excelling in particular. The casting of younger actors and the '15' certification clearly indicate a strategy to chase a wide demographic. The original two classics remain unsurpassed, but with recent attempts to resurrect iconic horror franchises having been of variable quality, this one is easily among the most effective revivals.
Critics and material I don't need. I haven't changed my act in 53 years.
I liked ROMULUS as well overall, but I do take issue with some of the third act elements. Without spoiling anything, the third act is...in many ways...the same third act of another ALIEN film. It's done better here but it still covers a lot of the same ground.
But there are some really fantastic set pieces here. The facehuggers, in particular, are very well used in several scenes. The overall production quality is extremely high with some incredible looking practical sets. The cinematography is excellent as well...the film just looks great.
Recommended for the big screen. I'd probably put it as the third 'best' of the Alien franchise.
I enjoyed watching the second-bounce showing of Dial M For Murder, as per usual with such repeats on BBC4 on Thursday evening.
This is lesser Hitchcock but still Hitchcock - it still feels English but maybe he's chaffing at the bit here a bit, having been to America - the England here seems more antiquated than necessary and it's based on a stage play. Attempts were made to jazz this up with it being filmed in 3D but audiences weren't keen ('3D was a 9-day wonder and I came in on the 9th day' Hitch later said) and its popularity picked up when it went out in 2D instead.
It stars Ray Milland as a former tennis player who plots to kill his wife Grace Kelly so he can inherit her fortune - he hires our own Anthony Dawson, eight years before his Professor Dent turn in Dr No, to do the deed, the two of them being old acquaintances - as in, going back a long way, not recently associated. I suppose there is similar stuff to the superior Strangers on a Train, here.
Well, it doesn't go to plan and Milland has to - in the manner of Zorin in A View to a Kill - improvise.
Milland really does sound like Cary Grant in this, but Grant I guess wouldn't have done a villainous role nor have played against an actor supposedly younger and the better suitor than him (Robert Cummings plays the man Kelly has some kind of relationship with, he's a former boyfriend though this all seems glossed over as per the Hayes Code or something, the 'blackmail' charge seems very lame and nothing to be concerned about.)
I suppose Rex Harrison could have played the Milland role, and Kelly is okay - she would go on to play with Grant in To Catch A Thief - another lesser Hitch except it does boast some lovely South of France locations so who cares; the inspector in this film is the insurance investigator in that, of course. Patrick Allen of 'the air attack warning sounds like, this is the sound' that opens Frankie Goes to Hollywood's 1984 hit 'Two Tribes' has a small role as a police officer. The back projection of Maida Vale where the film is set is awful and makes one wonder if the whole thing wasn't filmed in America, with those scenes added on.
The fast-track legal system would be worthy of Sir Keir, things move very fast in this film! You go along with it, it's fun. Not much tension between Milland and his love rival, it's like sex doesn't really exist back then.
I saw this as part of a Hitchcock run in a now long gone cinema on Tottenham Court Road in the mid 80s with Mum, they showed the 3D version.
Thunderball was on ITV1 after this, despite what we say it's sort of a unique Bond film and has a new attitude compared to the likes of Dial M for Murder.
I now see that 'coincidentally' both films share Guy Doleman, who plays an inspector in Dial M acc to imdb, though I didn't notice him.
A prequel which gives us the origin and background of the breakout character Furiosa from Mad Max: Fury Road. Kidnapped from her home by nomads as a child, Furiosa faces many trials as she grows up to ultimately become Immortan Joe’s main Praetorian while seeking revenge against the unhinged warlord Dementus, with whom she has quite the history.
The cast is uniformly good. Anya Taylor Joy brings a quiet intensity to Furiosa; watching the character grow up from a child (played by Alyla Browne) to an adult was really seamless. Chris Hemsworth is almost unrecognizable as Dementus; with his fake nose, long hair and beard he’s clearly having the time of his life as he chews the scenery. Lachey Hulme steps into the late Hugh Keyes Byrne’s role as Immortan Joe quite seamlessly and Tom Burke does a good job with his role as Praetorean Jack, helping Furiosa learn how to survive in such a hostile world.
The movie is beautifully photographed with the cinematographer making good use of the desert vistas. It also has some really wild chases and action setpieces. Unlike the earlier movies, this one makes more use of CG to enhance and extend certain sequences but they were never so obvious to me as to take me out of the moment. Overall it really makes good use of the 4K UHD BluRay format, which is how I watched it.
Furiosa tanked at the box office so badly that it probably spelled the end of the Mad Max franchise. Frankly, I think it deserved a better fate. While it is a bit odd to see a Mad Max movie without Mad Max in it (well, he’s not quite completely absent) Furiosa’s story held my attention and I was never bored despite the nearly two and a half hour run time.
Sir MilesThe Wrong Side Of The WardrobePosts: 27,920Chief of Staff
A mediocre comedy directed by Ralph Nelson and starring Cary Grant and Leslie Caron as a mismatched pair who meet in exceptional circumstances during the Pacific War. Grant is a drunken bum who is persuaded by Trevor Howard’s bristling British officer to become a Coast Watcher for the Allies. He rescues Caron’s French consular attaché and a gaggle of schoolgirls who all cause him no end of trouble before the real trouble of the Japanese appears on the ocean horizon. Everything turns out alright.
It is a pleasant enough movie and Grant is watchable in a role somewhat against type. Caron reminds me too much of Audrey Hepburn. The whole film has vague echoes of Heaven Knows, Mister Allison, except with kids instead of nuns. The film struggles a bit because a vast number of conversations take place over the shore-to-shore radio. It must have been ever so cheap to make, Trevor Howard barely gets out of the office and Grant barely out of his leisure cruiser and Caron and the girls barely out of the clapperboard hut. It does cheer up once the mischievous children arrive, but the whole thing is too long and is only just about saved by the two leads.
The screenplay surprisingly won an Oscar and Peter Stone, one of three authors, said on receiving the statuette: “Thank you to Cary Grant who keeps winning these things for other people.”
Yes. A very undervalued performer in his day. His movies and performances seem much better with age when you compare his easy, yet concentrated, style to the heavy weather of modern actors or the over-expressiveness of many of his contemporaries.
A warm-hearted comedy from the Carry On stable that reworks the basic premise of Carry On Sergeant but has raw police recruits as substitutes for soldiers on National Service. Sid James makes his first appearance on the team as the Station Sergeant charged with bringing four incompetent constables up to scratch. He’s aided by Hattie Jacques sympathetic female sergeant and hindered by Eric Barker’s unsympathetic Inspector.
Kenneth Williams, Leslie Phillips, Charles Hawtrey and Kenneth Conner are the fresh faced plods. Conner’s superstitious nerve racked Constable Charlie Constable is repetitively annoying from the off; so too William’s forensic obsessed know-it-all – or know-nothing, which is what he is. The acting honours go to hands down to Sid James as the curmudgeonly but understanding Sergeant, playing the role with an ear to the subtle drama playing behind the laughs. He is certainly not the cheeky-chappie of later incarnations, and much the better for it. Leslie Phillips’s posh boy with a counsellor’s heart and a lothario’s libido also succeeds. Hawtrey is irritating and amusing in equal measure. The laughs take quiet a while to come; most scenes don’t feature many jokes, just minor quips culminating in a punchline. The film resembles a series of ‘stories’ within the major narrative of internal politics and burgeoning colleague relationships. Some surprising nudity from the lads as they run from a freezing shower and a brief glimpse from behind of Shirley Eaton in a bath tub. These scenes come five years after Bridgit Bardot was filmed nude taking a shower in Doctor at Sea, a scene where you could barely see a thing. I’m not sure why I am raising this as a point of interest, I was just surprised, I suppose; perhaps the fact the film was a comedy allowed the censors to pass it unscathed.
Good fun for the most part and very representative of the era. Norman Hudis’s script is okay, but dawdles a little. The music’s good. It was the third most popular film at the UK box office in 1960.
Interesting that while Film 4 showed the subtle and good natured Carry On Constable, ITV3 was transmitting Carry On Girls, a film the British Film Institute’s retrospective ranked as one of the worst in the comedy series. It is easy to see why.
It’s not that Carry On Girls isn’t funny. It is. Quite often, in fact. The problem is that after twenty-four films, the subtlety has gone missing in the twenty-fifth and the fond seaside double-entendre has turned into a singular smutty punch line. You can see the joke seconds or minutes before it finally arrives. They are laid as bare as a naked flame. By example, how are these for character names: Sid Fiddler, Hope Springs, Dawn Breaks, Augusta Prodworthy, Miss Bangor. Every one with an obvious joke riding on its behind. As if to further the seaside analogy a whole scene revolves around a donkey pooing in a hotel lobby and a couple of girls getting into a bikini clad fight. This sort of loud slapstick and tickle mayhem continues throughout, people running about endlessly, cross-dressing, undressing, getting wet, losing trousers or bras, infantile behaviour from male authority figures, condescending attitudes towards women – oh, the list goes on.
Two Dad’s Army regulars crop up in Bill Pertwee and Arnold Ridley. I bet they wished they’d stayed in Walmington-on-Sea. June Whitfield is very good in a bad film as the woman’s rights campaigner who plans to disrupt sneaky, cheeky, circumspect Sid James’s pier front beauty contest. He’s running off with Babs Windsor, who despite her charms would never win a beauty contest. Busty ladies are the order of the cast list. Wendy Richard, Angela Grant, Margaret Nolan, et al strut their stuff, as it were. Valerie Leon is in it and I never recognised her as the starchy bespectacled Paula Perkins until she put on her own bikini. Maybe it was because she was inexplicably dubbed by June Whitfield [two performances for the price of one from June?] I wonder if Valerie Leon is in Carry On movies because she is the only woman not to be dwarfed by Bernard Bresslaw?
And exactly who is Jack Douglas? I did some research on him because I couldn’t understand why in this movie and the previous Abroad, his characters had peculiar exaggerated physical ‘tics’. Apparently it was a stage persona he developed called Alf Ippitimus. Douglas died in 2008 aged 81. I don’t wish to speak ill of the dead, but he is truly appalling. If this ‘Alf’ character was the best British comedy could come up with in 1973 the entertainment industry, like every other industry in the country, was really in a bad state.
Back to Carry On Girls. I don’t know. It’s ham-fisted more than bad. Inspired by the infamous Bob Hope hosted 1970 Miss World Contest which was disrupted by the Women’s Liberation movement, the plot line is so obvious we can see it as soon as Patricia Franklin’s lesbian rolls up. As if to weigh up the scales, there is also a horrendous gay television producer. It’s that kind of movie. Curiously one of the more pleasant turns is Joan Hickson repeating her role as a dotty eccentric from Carry On Constable and being handled with care by Joan Sims, not as a WPC but as a put upon hotelier.
At the same time this movie was being made, American Mel Brooks was producing, directing and starring in Blazing Saddles. The world of comedy would soon be progressing in leaps and bounds and, like Sid Fiddler’s dodgy-dealing career, the Carry On series was beginning to run on empty.
Comments
This film is one of the rare Carry On… movies that fails….filmed in the car park at Pinewood Studios too 👀
THE FROZEN GHOST (1945)
The fourth Inner Sanctum mystery, as usual starring Lon Chaney Jr. Here, he’s a hypnotist who is interrupted during his normal act of mesmerising Evelyn Ankers (Chaney’s frequent co-star and his character’s fiancée and stage partner) by a drunk heckler who Chaney (apparently) hypnotises to death. The police aren’t able to prove anything, but Chaney is afraid of his powers and quits the stage, drops his fiancée, and goes to work in a wax museum (as you do). The owner soon falls for him, as does her young niece, and the fiancée soon finds where he is making three women unable to keep their hands off our hero … again. You can bet that there are mysterious things going on in the wax museum….
As usual the actual mystery isn’t hard to solve. By this time I’m now feeling glad these are in B&W otherwise I’d be dazzled by what look like psychedelically patterned neckties which Chaney wears throughout this series.
There are no ghosts, frozen or otherwise. I have no idea why it's called that.
STRANGE CONFESSION (1945)
A troubled Chaney arrives at the door of an old friend, now a successful lawyer. He has, indeed, a strange confession to make.
This is my favourite of the Inner Sanctum movies (so far, anyway- one more to go) and I’d rather not get too deeply involved in the plot to avoid spoilers. Chaney this time is a research chemist (yes, I know), J. Carrol Naish his scheming boss (and he’s as evil as they come), and Brenda Joyce plays Chaney’s long-suffering wife. The surprise bit of casting is a young Lloyd Bridges as his best friend (not the lawyer). All do very well and I think this is the first of these that I’d like to rewatch fairly soon.
THE ITALIAN JOB (2003)
The revival of the heist caper movie was quite a welcome revival, spurred on by Steven Soderberg’s slick update and retell of Ocean’s 11. The Italian Job isn’t so much a retell as a complete reimagination. Not one but three robberies in this narrative – one is planned at length but aborted – the problem faced by the cast is the singular lack of fun. They all seem to take this so seriously they forgot to smile. Mind you, a screenplay devoid of a decent fist of humour doesn’t help. Nor a director who draws out scenes to interminable length, as if having his actors stand around posing will pass as gravitas. The Mini Coopers are back, although they are running amok in L.A. not Turin. An initial heist takes place in a fancy-dan style underwater in Venice. Like the classic Michael Caine version, the Italian Mafia and here also the Ukrainian Mafia are out for a touch of vengeance; so too most of Charlie Croker’s gang, who are double-crossed by Edward Norton’s dull villain. Mark Wahlberg displays a startling inability to act as the hero. Charlize Theron looks nice and also looks mostly vacant, as if the vivid technicolour proceedings frighten her more than Mr Norton. Jason Statham, Seth Green and Mos Def try to add a light touch, but it comes very heavy handed, like all those gold bars. It’s alright, I suppose, and if you haven’t seen the original or see it as old hat because you are young and contrary, you’ll probably reckon it is a good enough little thriller. I spent most of my time wishing it was set in the sixties, with a Quincy Jones soundtrack and Michael Caine sparring with Noel Coward and Benny Hill, to the point I wasn’t very engaged with what was happening. The film’s too long and as everyone is a crook, there is very little to cheer when anybody helps out anyone. These updated amiable thieves lack charisma and charm, which is fatal to a format that relies on it.
THE DAY OF THE JACKAL (1973)
A superb thriller that is a wonderful example of the slow-burn of suspense, for the entire movie is an exercise in the building blocks of tension.
It is 1963, and Edward Fox plays a mysterious assassin known only as ‘The Jackal’ who is employed to assassinate the French President, Charles de Gaulle. The authorities, by chance and then vicious interrogation, learn obliquely of the plot and request the services of the country’s best detective, who turns out to be Michael Lonsdale’s Commissioner Lebel. His investigations initially lead nowhere until a lead crops up from London and the chase, such as it is, is on: very languid in individual scenes, but piling tension on tension when all strung together, courtesy of Ralph Kemplen’s taut and effective editing, that intercuts the mundane with the significant.
The documentary style of filmmaking had been attempted before. Alfred Hitchcock failed dramatically when he used it for Topaz, but I think the Master of Suspense would have been very proud of this effort from Fred Zinneman and writer Kenneth Ross, which out does his own late sixties and seventies projects by a long stretch. Zinneman clearly understands the need to keep the audience watching, how the steady beat of the action works like a pulse, propelling the narrative forward. He worked similar cinematic magic with the [almost] real-time High Noon. Here, the story is spread over weeks, but the result is the same. By cleverly not showing entirely the murders committed by the Jackal in pursuit of his goal, Zinneman also keeps us on the protagonist’s side, even though he is a villain. Watching how the Jackal operates, with care and precision, how he evades the police, weaves his way into and out of society, we recognise a master at work [the Jackal, not the director, although we could indeed say so] and want him to succeed, even in assassination.
The film is based on Frederick Forsythe’s bestselling novel, but sharpens that procedural tome into a journeying thriller of style and pace. The terror group the OAS is a real one which still exists in small form today, an extreme right-wing militaristic faction who detested de Gaulle for his stance on Algeria. When independence was granted to the African nation in 1962, the group, mostly comprised of legionnaires and soldiers, took to carrying out anti-government terrorist atrocities. Several attempts were made on de Gaulle’s life. One very close shave and its aftermath of incarcerations and executions is represented at the film’s beginning. In real life it resulted in the virtual disbandment of the OAS; in Forsythe’s book and Ross’s script, the leaders flee France and operate an underground network, employing the Jackal for the task they failed to do.
While the editing and direction are the stand out technical achievements, one must mention Jean Tournier’s photography, the very fine performances across the board and Ross’s well-fashioned screenplay. The film has a splendid finale and a short coda with a very excellent twist in the tale. A gripping thriller of much élan and sudden vigour, quite elegant at times, squalid at others, it is very representative of the era, yet, following the failed attempt on Donald Trump’s life a month or so ago, still manages to be relevant today. Are our public figures ever truly safe? Are we, the general public? Death stalks in all disguises and in all places, Zinneman intently demonstrates.
Excellent.
Note:
The production credits quote Warwick Films, which of course was a company part-owned by one Albert R. Broccoli. This is odd, as my friend and yours, Wiki, tells us the company was defunct in 1962. Has anyone got Cubby’s bio and can clear this up? I had always read he concentrated solely on James Bond after 1963’s disastrous Call Me Bwana and the later Ian Fleming kids fantasy musical Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.
As far as I know, Warwick was co-owned by Broccoli and Irving Allen. When Allen disagreed with Broccoli over the cinematic potential of the Bond books (even insulting Fleming to his face at a meeting Cubby couldn't be at since Dana was very ill after giving birth to Barbara) their partnership broke down and Warwick was dissolved while Cubby then formed Eon with new partner Harry Saltzman.
When Allen saw the success his ex-partner was having with the Bond films, he decided to make his own version and thus the Matt Helm series came into being.
However these didn't have the Warwick name and I'm surprised to hear it used in connection with "Jackal" or indeed any films after it was dissolved.
Day Of The Jackal relates to WARWICK FILM PRODUCTIONS LIMITED, an entirely different enterprise to the then defunct WARWICK FILMS LIMITED.
I think I’m the only person who thinks Jackal is not in the least bit tense and exciting. Admittedly, I can appreciate the skill that’s gone into the production, but if you know that de Gaulle lived until 1970, how can it possibly create any tension whatsoever?
I thought Saltzman owned the rights and Broccoli became partners with Saltzman because he wanted to make the movies. Why would Broccoli and Allen be meeting with Fleming if someone else owned the rights?
Thank you @CoolHandBond that clears things up for me.
I understand your point about the film, but I disagree over your reasoning. Many films based on real events can be tense - A Bridge Too Far, for instance, or 127 Hours - depends on the skills of the film makers and for me, Zinneman nails it.
I will be back with more Carry On... tomorrow
I'm guilty of oversimplifying the story, in an attempt at brevity. Cubby had wanted to buy the rights much earlier but Allen disagreed. This led to a breakdown in their partnership, which coupled with Cubby's wife Nedra, not Dana, being ill after having a child (and again I correct myself, this wasn't Barbara but Tina) and later dying understandably took Cubby's attention and by the time he had his life sorted out (marrying Dana, Barbara being born) Harry had taken an option on the rights.
PILLOW OF DEATH (1945)
The last of the Inner Sanctum films. Lon Chaney Jr stars as a lawyer accused of murdering his wife. The fact he’s having an affair with his secretary makes him the prime suspect. So far, so familiar to anyone who’s been watching these. There’s an old spooky house with secret passages, a medium, a séance, ghostly voices (or are they?), and what for this series qualifies as a shock ending so I’ll say no more. Brenda Joyce from the previous movie returns, as do Chaney’s frantic ties. Not the best of this series, and there would be no more.
You call out Ed Norton in here as being dull. That's because he did the film under duress. He was facing being sued for various reasons related to being a complete tool on other films, so the studio forced him to be in this film and a few others to add his 'star power'. The best you can say about his performance here in some scenes is 'he's ok'. In many scenes, he's flat out terrible, especially in the climax. Way to be a professional, Ed.
I mean, Roy Scheider famously did not want to do JAWS 2. He did everything he could to get out of it but was unsuccessful. So, he did the film and was a pro about, delivering the goods at pretty much the same level as he did in the first film.
I wasn’t aware of the 127 Hours story when I watched it, so for me the tension was good, if I’d have known beforehand what happened then it puts a completely different slant on the film.
Looking forward to the next Carry On review.
@Barbel Those Inner Sanctum movies sound exceptionally "B" statsu, but often tehse B-Movies have a cult following. I have never heard of these films, so it si quite interesting to read your reviews and check what Wiki has to say about them [not a lot].
Brenda Joyce is my favourite Jane in the Tarzan movies. She starred in Johnny Weismuller's final four efforts and Lex Barker's first. By then, the Tarzan franchise was only just about better than B-movies. There is no particular reason for me liking her, I just think she was a very pretty actress.
CARRY ON SPYING (1964)
Like their previous effort – the less than successful Carry On Jack – this ninth film in the series was not originally conceived as a Carry On movie, but a spy spoof tentatively entitled Come Spy With Me. The original drafts had been written by Norman Hudis, but Peter Rogers and Gerald Thomas were unimpressed with the direction he was embarking on and returned to Talbot Rothwell and established radio pens-man Sid Colin. However, as the film wasn’t envisaged as a Carry On, most of the already established cast were absent. Only Kenneth Williams and Charles Hawtrey appear from the original black and white run, while Bernard Cribbins had featured in Jack. His poor relationship with Williams led to him not returning to the fold until the revival Colombus in 1992. Williams preferred working with Jim Dale, who makes an impression here as a sensible British spy being mistreated by the four hapless new recruits, led by Williams’s Desmond Simpkins. Barabra Windsor makes her debut as the flirtatious Daphne Honeybutt, a woman gifted with a photographic memory. Cribbins and Hawtrey make up the quartet. Villains are played by Judith Furse [as Dr Crow], Eric Pohlmann [the Fat Man] and Victor Madden [Milschman]. Two others who had worked with the crew before were Eric Barker and the lovely Dilys Laye. She plays a triple agent who makes everyone else look incompetent.
The film doesn’t only spoof James Bond, although that is the obvious target. Yes, there are very noticeable Bondian images and locations being impersonated, things like terrible acronyms BOSH – the British Operational Security Headquarters; STENCH – Society for the Total Extinction of Non-Conforming Humans; SNOG – Society for the Neutralising of Germs; garotte wrist watches; underground lairs; villains photographed from behind in chairs; the Orient Express; a couple of cocktail songs. But there are plenty of slappy homages to other spy films, notably The Third Man, and old romantic thrillers like Sirocco and Casablanca. The film even manages to feature a harem cross-dressing sequence like something from an Ali Baba pantomime. There is a mind warping interrogation inspired no doubt by The Manchurian Candidate, but also familiar from the novel of The Ipcress File. The women guards are dressed in catsuits a la Modesty Blaise, a comic strip that had become popular in the Evening Standard newspaper. They also bear a startling similarity to the costumes worn by Pussy Galore’s Flying Circus pilots. In fact, Spying and Goldfinger were both filming at Pinewood during the same six weeks in February-March 1964. The film was released three months before Goldfinger. Overall, the celluloid evidence suggests Carry On Spying really was attempting to mock all spy films, not just James Bond.
The plot, for what it is worth, involves the four useless agents being dispatched to Vienna to retrieve a stolen secret formula. They rendezvous at Café Mozart along with all the villains and a cat-and-mouse game of much silliness ensues, sending the agents to Algiers, on the Orient Express and finally to an underground lair back in Blighty.
The film is pleasantly funny without being as outrageous a rib tickler as the more racy products that followed. Kenneth Willaims uses his catch phrase ‘Stop Messin’ About’ and even says ‘Frying Tonight’ two years before Carry On Screaming. He carries the bulk of the action and one might say the bulk of the blame, for his over eager performance doesn’t gel as well with Windsor’s or Hawtrey’s less flamboyant turns. Cribbins seems to want to out-over-act him and is simply awful. The non-regular cast members play things remarkably straight, which helps the film retain its ‘spoof’ credentials instead of simply ‘mocking’ the genre.
The tiny budget shows, but went a long way and black and white photography keeps it looking polished. It was the last Carry On to not be in colour. The film is a decent effort, quite funny in parts and one of the better spy spoofs of the era. However, given its original intention, Spying doesn’t feel much like a proper Carry On, seeming to miss the expected slap-and-tickle jokes, which for this kind of genre were probably better left to Sean Connery et al and their more risqué black humour.
"B" they most definitely are, but as you know that doesn't equate to bad. Well, not necessarily anyway. I enjoyed them in the main but it helps that I love the old Universal horror movies and since this is the same studio the same cast & crew turn up frequently. They're not horror movies, although there is a touch of the supernatural to some of them, being more (easily solved) mysteries. It also helps if you like Lon Chaney Jr (I do) since he stars in them all. If you can swallow that he's a lawyer/doctor/professor etc (remember that this is the man who made his name playing Lennie in "Of Mice And Men", and playing it superbly too) and that most of the female cast are hot for him, then just sit back and enjoy. Shame about those ties, though.
(I think some can be viewed on YouTube but the picture and sound quality aren't very good. I bought a box of remastered/restored Blu-Rays and the quality is excellent.)
@chrisno1 I have no evidence for this, but I suggest that the part played by Judith Furse was intended for Hattie Jacques, who couldn't do it for some reason.
I thought so too, but unable to find any evidence I didn't mention it.
TLD copied, or at least took inspiration, from the milkman scene.
Yes, and they also pull a self-destruct switch that blows up the STENCH underground lair [YOLT]
HOMBRE (1967)
I had never seen this film before. @Napoleon Plural reviewed this a few months back. I can't rememebr what he wrote, but it spurred me on to track Hombre down. Unfortunately, I didn’t like it.
Sporadically interesting, but ultimately rather stagey with a lot of standing around and a fair swaddle of talking. Not from Paul Newman, whose dialogue is minimal at best. He plays a white man raised by the Apaches, but whose father refused to disinherit him. He also seems not to have lost his very modern Eaststateside accent. Returning to the world of the American settler to collect his legacy, he ends up on a rickety stagecoach bound for the big city. The stage is robbed by Richard Boone’s outlaw gang and the protection of the passengers falls to John Russell, the ‘hombre’ of the title.
Newman is a much better actor than this. He works well with words; this guy has played works byvTennessee Williams, Thornton Wilder and William Inge for goodness sake. Given almost nothing to say, he becomes little more than a statue, and as his vocal chords have been taken away, so does the power of his own performance. He also looked terrible wearing a long haired wig before sensibly the script has him shave it off. The role is the kind of thing an actor like Charles Bronson or Lee Van Cleef could pull off, Steve McQueen too no doubt. Eastwood, maybe, although I can’t picture him as an American Indian. ‘Hombre’ just doesn’t suit Newman. He is an unsympathetic hero, the new breed the western genre was featuring at the time, and he cuts short debates on the moral ethics of the time with cold, calculated assertions. I guess that’s in character, but I am not hitched the Newman horse on this one.
There is occasional action, but mostly Hombre is men pointing guns and talking and Newman's 'Hombre' staring into an uncertain future. I was bored half way and the film didn’t improve. Martin Ritt directs.
Alien: Romulus (2024)
No Spoilers
If you're a fan of the original 'Alien' and 'Aliens', definitely go see this latest entry in the franchise, directed by Fede Álvarez. Much as I enjoyed Ridley Scott's own later, more cerebral 'Alien'-related films, Álvarez's new movie really is a fan pleaser, unashamedly hitting all the right beats while succeeding on its own terms. It delivers on the style and aesthetic of the originals, with retro appeal, and picks up on the pace of 'Aliens' to satisfy the expectations of modern audiences. Any initial misgivings about the younger than average ages (for 'Alien') of the lead characters are quickly dispelled, as the performances are at least good, with David Jonsson excelling in particular. The casting of younger actors and the '15' certification clearly indicate a strategy to chase a wide demographic. The original two classics remain unsurpassed, but with recent attempts to resurrect iconic horror franchises having been of variable quality, this one is easily among the most effective revivals.
I liked ROMULUS as well overall, but I do take issue with some of the third act elements. Without spoiling anything, the third act is...in many ways...the same third act of another ALIEN film. It's done better here but it still covers a lot of the same ground.
But there are some really fantastic set pieces here. The facehuggers, in particular, are very well used in several scenes. The overall production quality is extremely high with some incredible looking practical sets. The cinematography is excellent as well...the film just looks great.
Recommended for the big screen. I'd probably put it as the third 'best' of the Alien franchise.
I enjoyed watching the second-bounce showing of Dial M For Murder, as per usual with such repeats on BBC4 on Thursday evening.
This is lesser Hitchcock but still Hitchcock - it still feels English but maybe he's chaffing at the bit here a bit, having been to America - the England here seems more antiquated than necessary and it's based on a stage play. Attempts were made to jazz this up with it being filmed in 3D but audiences weren't keen ('3D was a 9-day wonder and I came in on the 9th day' Hitch later said) and its popularity picked up when it went out in 2D instead.
It stars Ray Milland as a former tennis player who plots to kill his wife Grace Kelly so he can inherit her fortune - he hires our own Anthony Dawson, eight years before his Professor Dent turn in Dr No, to do the deed, the two of them being old acquaintances - as in, going back a long way, not recently associated. I suppose there is similar stuff to the superior Strangers on a Train, here.
Well, it doesn't go to plan and Milland has to - in the manner of Zorin in A View to a Kill - improvise.
Milland really does sound like Cary Grant in this, but Grant I guess wouldn't have done a villainous role nor have played against an actor supposedly younger and the better suitor than him (Robert Cummings plays the man Kelly has some kind of relationship with, he's a former boyfriend though this all seems glossed over as per the Hayes Code or something, the 'blackmail' charge seems very lame and nothing to be concerned about.)
I suppose Rex Harrison could have played the Milland role, and Kelly is okay - she would go on to play with Grant in To Catch A Thief - another lesser Hitch except it does boast some lovely South of France locations so who cares; the inspector in this film is the insurance investigator in that, of course. Patrick Allen of 'the air attack warning sounds like, this is the sound' that opens Frankie Goes to Hollywood's 1984 hit 'Two Tribes' has a small role as a police officer. The back projection of Maida Vale where the film is set is awful and makes one wonder if the whole thing wasn't filmed in America, with those scenes added on.
The fast-track legal system would be worthy of Sir Keir, things move very fast in this film! You go along with it, it's fun. Not much tension between Milland and his love rival, it's like sex doesn't really exist back then.
I saw this as part of a Hitchcock run in a now long gone cinema on Tottenham Court Road in the mid 80s with Mum, they showed the 3D version.
Thunderball was on ITV1 after this, despite what we say it's sort of a unique Bond film and has a new attitude compared to the likes of Dial M for Murder.
I now see that 'coincidentally' both films share Guy Doleman, who plays an inspector in Dial M acc to imdb, though I didn't notice him.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Furiosa
A prequel which gives us the origin and background of the breakout character Furiosa from Mad Max: Fury Road. Kidnapped from her home by nomads as a child, Furiosa faces many trials as she grows up to ultimately become Immortan Joe’s main Praetorian while seeking revenge against the unhinged warlord Dementus, with whom she has quite the history.
The cast is uniformly good. Anya Taylor Joy brings a quiet intensity to Furiosa; watching the character grow up from a child (played by Alyla Browne) to an adult was really seamless. Chris Hemsworth is almost unrecognizable as Dementus; with his fake nose, long hair and beard he’s clearly having the time of his life as he chews the scenery. Lachey Hulme steps into the late Hugh Keyes Byrne’s role as Immortan Joe quite seamlessly and Tom Burke does a good job with his role as Praetorean Jack, helping Furiosa learn how to survive in such a hostile world.
The movie is beautifully photographed with the cinematographer making good use of the desert vistas. It also has some really wild chases and action setpieces. Unlike the earlier movies, this one makes more use of CG to enhance and extend certain sequences but they were never so obvious to me as to take me out of the moment. Overall it really makes good use of the 4K UHD BluRay format, which is how I watched it.
Furiosa tanked at the box office so badly that it probably spelled the end of the Mad Max franchise. Frankly, I think it deserved a better fate. While it is a bit odd to see a Mad Max movie without Mad Max in it (well, he’s not quite completely absent) Furiosa’s story held my attention and I was never bored despite the nearly two and a half hour run time.
I watched this last week…thought it was utter tripe and was uniformly bored throughout…
FATHER GOOSE (1964)
A mediocre comedy directed by Ralph Nelson and starring Cary Grant and Leslie Caron as a mismatched pair who meet in exceptional circumstances during the Pacific War. Grant is a drunken bum who is persuaded by Trevor Howard’s bristling British officer to become a Coast Watcher for the Allies. He rescues Caron’s French consular attaché and a gaggle of schoolgirls who all cause him no end of trouble before the real trouble of the Japanese appears on the ocean horizon. Everything turns out alright.
It is a pleasant enough movie and Grant is watchable in a role somewhat against type. Caron reminds me too much of Audrey Hepburn. The whole film has vague echoes of Heaven Knows, Mister Allison, except with kids instead of nuns. The film struggles a bit because a vast number of conversations take place over the shore-to-shore radio. It must have been ever so cheap to make, Trevor Howard barely gets out of the office and Grant barely out of his leisure cruiser and Caron and the girls barely out of the clapperboard hut. It does cheer up once the mischievous children arrive, but the whole thing is too long and is only just about saved by the two leads.
The screenplay surprisingly won an Oscar and Peter Stone, one of three authors, said on receiving the statuette: “Thank you to Cary Grant who keeps winning these things for other people.”
Yes. A very undervalued performer in his day. His movies and performances seem much better with age when you compare his easy, yet concentrated, style to the heavy weather of modern actors or the over-expressiveness of many of his contemporaries.
CARRY ON CONSTABLE (1960)
A warm-hearted comedy from the Carry On stable that reworks the basic premise of Carry On Sergeant but has raw police recruits as substitutes for soldiers on National Service. Sid James makes his first appearance on the team as the Station Sergeant charged with bringing four incompetent constables up to scratch. He’s aided by Hattie Jacques sympathetic female sergeant and hindered by Eric Barker’s unsympathetic Inspector.
Kenneth Williams, Leslie Phillips, Charles Hawtrey and Kenneth Conner are the fresh faced plods. Conner’s superstitious nerve racked Constable Charlie Constable is repetitively annoying from the off; so too William’s forensic obsessed know-it-all – or know-nothing, which is what he is. The acting honours go to hands down to Sid James as the curmudgeonly but understanding Sergeant, playing the role with an ear to the subtle drama playing behind the laughs. He is certainly not the cheeky-chappie of later incarnations, and much the better for it. Leslie Phillips’s posh boy with a counsellor’s heart and a lothario’s libido also succeeds. Hawtrey is irritating and amusing in equal measure. The laughs take quiet a while to come; most scenes don’t feature many jokes, just minor quips culminating in a punchline. The film resembles a series of ‘stories’ within the major narrative of internal politics and burgeoning colleague relationships. Some surprising nudity from the lads as they run from a freezing shower and a brief glimpse from behind of Shirley Eaton in a bath tub. These scenes come five years after Bridgit Bardot was filmed nude taking a shower in Doctor at Sea, a scene where you could barely see a thing. I’m not sure why I am raising this as a point of interest, I was just surprised, I suppose; perhaps the fact the film was a comedy allowed the censors to pass it unscathed.
Good fun for the most part and very representative of the era. Norman Hudis’s script is okay, but dawdles a little. The music’s good. It was the third most popular film at the UK box office in 1960.
and as if by magic....
CARRY ON GIRLS (1973)
Interesting that while Film 4 showed the subtle and good natured Carry On Constable, ITV3 was transmitting Carry On Girls, a film the British Film Institute’s retrospective ranked as one of the worst in the comedy series. It is easy to see why.
It’s not that Carry On Girls isn’t funny. It is. Quite often, in fact. The problem is that after twenty-four films, the subtlety has gone missing in the twenty-fifth and the fond seaside double-entendre has turned into a singular smutty punch line. You can see the joke seconds or minutes before it finally arrives. They are laid as bare as a naked flame. By example, how are these for character names: Sid Fiddler, Hope Springs, Dawn Breaks, Augusta Prodworthy, Miss Bangor. Every one with an obvious joke riding on its behind. As if to further the seaside analogy a whole scene revolves around a donkey pooing in a hotel lobby and a couple of girls getting into a bikini clad fight. This sort of loud slapstick and tickle mayhem continues throughout, people running about endlessly, cross-dressing, undressing, getting wet, losing trousers or bras, infantile behaviour from male authority figures, condescending attitudes towards women – oh, the list goes on.
Two Dad’s Army regulars crop up in Bill Pertwee and Arnold Ridley. I bet they wished they’d stayed in Walmington-on-Sea. June Whitfield is very good in a bad film as the woman’s rights campaigner who plans to disrupt sneaky, cheeky, circumspect Sid James’s pier front beauty contest. He’s running off with Babs Windsor, who despite her charms would never win a beauty contest. Busty ladies are the order of the cast list. Wendy Richard, Angela Grant, Margaret Nolan, et al strut their stuff, as it were. Valerie Leon is in it and I never recognised her as the starchy bespectacled Paula Perkins until she put on her own bikini. Maybe it was because she was inexplicably dubbed by June Whitfield [two performances for the price of one from June?] I wonder if Valerie Leon is in Carry On movies because she is the only woman not to be dwarfed by Bernard Bresslaw?
And exactly who is Jack Douglas? I did some research on him because I couldn’t understand why in this movie and the previous Abroad, his characters had peculiar exaggerated physical ‘tics’. Apparently it was a stage persona he developed called Alf Ippitimus. Douglas died in 2008 aged 81. I don’t wish to speak ill of the dead, but he is truly appalling. If this ‘Alf’ character was the best British comedy could come up with in 1973 the entertainment industry, like every other industry in the country, was really in a bad state.
Back to Carry On Girls. I don’t know. It’s ham-fisted more than bad. Inspired by the infamous Bob Hope hosted 1970 Miss World Contest which was disrupted by the Women’s Liberation movement, the plot line is so obvious we can see it as soon as Patricia Franklin’s lesbian rolls up. As if to weigh up the scales, there is also a horrendous gay television producer. It’s that kind of movie. Curiously one of the more pleasant turns is Joan Hickson repeating her role as a dotty eccentric from Carry On Constable and being handled with care by Joan Sims, not as a WPC but as a put upon hotelier.
At the same time this movie was being made, American Mel Brooks was producing, directing and starring in Blazing Saddles. The world of comedy would soon be progressing in leaps and bounds and, like Sid Fiddler’s dodgy-dealing career, the Carry On series was beginning to run on empty.
I haven't been counting (sorry) so I don't know how many more of these enjoyable Carry On reviews are still to come.