Last night I watched The Rebel, part of the DVD Tony Hancock Collection and paired with The Punch and Judy Man. A slim volume, although Hancock only ever appeared in five feature films, and of the remaining three he was only cast in supporting roles. In his excellent biography of the comedy actor John Fisher examines radio and television, the worlds that Hancock conquered and made his own. Fisher even considers his achievements as a stage comedian in a new light. But sadly Hancock’s impression on the cinema is all too brief. It’s thankful then that The Rebel is one of the best British comedy film of the 1960s.
The Rebel essentially took the Hancock persona from television, casting him as a bored office worker who dreams of becoming a successful artist. The sad reality is that he is awful at art, producing childlike compositions of derision, known in the film as the infantile school. Travelling to Paris to find his fortune he is forced into the position of passing off the work of another artist as his own. He becomes hugely successful, but facing the pressure of having to produce more original work tracks down the other artist, only to discover that he has changed his style completely in a bid to to embrace the infantile school. These paintings also become a success.
Released in 1961, The Rebel is a rare example of Hancock in colour, contrasting sharply with the middling technical quality of his television work. It also exists as a fascinating period piece. Bowler-hatted commuters, offices with early adding machines, beatnik cafes all fall comfortably into place. It isn’t going to far to say that The Rebel epitomises the lost world of innocence that the era that produced it suggests. Age has matured its charm like a vintage port. Despairing at a fellow commuter, oblivious to his dull fate, he exclaims “if this train is still running in 1980, he’ll still be on it!”
There’s also the supporting cast. Throughout his radio and television careers Hancock regularly worked with the same repetory company of actors. Many of the surviving tv episodes from the late 50s are a joy to watch simply because of the strength of the support. The Rebel features Hugh Lloyd as a fellow commuter, John Le Mesurier as the stiff office manager and Liz Fraser and Mario Fabrizi as workers in a cafe (“froth? I want a cup of coffee – I don’t want to wash me clothes in it!”) and they are all fabulous. Unfortunately there is no Sid James but we can’t have it all.
Irene Handl is a welcome addition as landlady Mrs Crevatte (the role was played on television by Patricia Hayes). Handl is fantastic, rushing around her house with her bra straps hanging down over her shoulders. It’s here that we first witness Hancock’s “art”. “What’s that horrible thing?” demands Mrs Crevatte. “A self portrait” Hancock answers proudly only to meet the reply “who of?” “Laurel and Hardy!” he snaps in despair. The early scenes of the film are priceless comedy.
Paul Massie plays an essentially straight role as Hancock’s artist friend and George Sanders – a big star at the time – appears as an art dealer. Apparently he received a larger fee than Hancock. Dennis Price turns up as an avant garde artist called Jim Smith. Also look out for Nanette Newman and Oliver Reed in early roles. Interestingly, and unusually for a comedy film, Hancock changes gear to play the straighter scenes with Massie and does so admirably – revealing a depth to his acting that was never fully exploited. In this sense, together with its international flavour, the Rebel anticipates many of the later caper films of the 60s, where comic and straight actors played together in expensive looking European locations, for example The Pink Panther.
The DVD features commentary by writers Ray Galton and Alan Simpson together with Hancock enthusiast Paul Merton. In many ways the commentary makes the film funnier, with the trio often falling into fits of laughter, especially in the scenes between Hancock and Handl. It’s like watching with a gang of obsessive friends, and there are many fascinating anecdotes I’d never heard before, such as the time Hancock embarked on a two day bender whilst garbed in the paint splatterd pyjames he wore after filming the “Jackson Pollock” scene.
A highly enjoyable experience. Incidentally, Galton and Simpson also confess to writing far too much material for this film; even after they edited it down it is still a trifle overlong, but I’ll forgive them for that. Who wouldn’t?
Frankenstein Must be Destroyed
Released in 1967, Hammer’s Frankenstein Created Woman is arguably the best of the films starring Peter Cushing as the deranged baron. Two years later there followed Frankenstein Must be Destroyed, the next in the series that was a dark and disjointed piece that may qualify as one of Hammer’s strangest horrors.
Frankenstein Must be Destroyed has possibly the strongest cast ever assembled by Hammer. Cushing is supported by Simon Ward, Veronica Carlson and Maxine Audley. Freddie Jones makes the best of the post-Lee monsters, whilst Thorley Walters, Geoffrey Bayldon, George Pravda, Robert Gillespie and Windsor Davies are all excellent in supporting roles. As usual it is Cushing’s film, but here he portrays Baron Frankenstein with the nastiest of edges and resorts to the most unsavoury means to get what he wants. At times it’s uncomfortable viewing, with the image of the urbane Mr Cushing repeatedly crushed as he resorts to blackmail, rape and murder. Indeed, the scene in this film where he attacks a young woman in one of Hammer’s most disturbing, and unnecessary, scenes.
In following Frankenstein Created Woman, Frankenstein Must be Destroyed has a difficult task in standing up to the preceding classic. Where the previous film depicted the Baron pulling off the feat of tranferring a soul from one body to another, this shows him returning to more familiar pastimes of cutting and pasting body parts, in this case brains. This at least gives Hammer the chance to make this instalment the more blood curdling, and although we see much of squidgy brains being plopped into jars, there are still some marvellous moments that are purely suggestive – notably the scenes where Frankenstein asks his assistant to hold things tightly as he embarks on some noisy sawing through skulls.
Frankenstein Must be Destroyed begins by introducing the Baron at his most terrifying, Cushing apprehending an unwise burgler and garbed in a skull mask; a bizarre opening scene not properly explained but nevertheless effective. Frankenstein blackmails a young man (Simon Ward) into assisting him with his latest scheme, springing his former associate Dr Brandt (Pravda) from the local asylum and repairing his damaged brain by transplanting it into Professor Richter (Freddie Jones). Along the way mysterious events are followed by the local hapless police (Thorley Walters and Geoffrey Bayldon). The film doesn’t really kick in properly until the last act, where the new creature (Jones) escapes and attempts to return to his wife (Maxine Audley).
Both Freddie Jones and Maxine Audley are excellent, the former giving one of the most sympathetic portrayals of The Monster. Thorley Walters is also good, although it’s a shame Hammer chose not to pursue the Cushing/Wallters memorable double act from Frankenstein Created Woman. In 1969 Frankenstein Must be Destroyed ended the decade with something still recognisable from their greatest success a decade earlier. However the 70s would prove difficult times for them, with Frankenstein left to skulk in the shadows as they churned out more unmemorable Dracula vehicles, and eventually turned away from the classic monsters altogether.
I Start Counting
Wednesday April 21, 2010 in 60s cinema |
With Walkabout and The Railway Children being enduring features of the television schedules, it’s odd that a far superior film starring the young Jenny Agutter is now totally forgotten. Made in 1969, I Start Counting was directed by David Greene and is a lost classic of British cinema. It’s one of the best depictions of that era I’ve seen on film; old buildings demolished for the New Town, quaint vehicles, short skirts and ugly shopping centres. It’s like a dose of late 60s Ken Loach but with the added spice of one of the more progressive Hammer films of the early 70s.
I Start Counting is taken from a novel by Audrey Erskine-Lindop, which I suspect may be now even more obscure than the film. Agutter plays Wynne, an adopted 15 year old girl who is infatuated with her much older step brother David (Bryan Marshall). Sharing a cramped flat with the rest of the family, Wynne’s predicament is partly a claustrophobic study of sexual awakening. Added to this, she begins to suspect David as having some involvement in a local murder. She even covers for him, finding his blood stained clothes and burning them. What makes I Start Counting unusual, and especially for its period, is that the thriller aspect is kept very much as a back story; the film is confident to move at a slow although very involving pace, concentrating on Wynne’s journey into adulthood with her more precocious best friend Corinne (Clare Sutcliffe). Greene is also a skilled enough director to weave some subtle red herrings into the plot. You never really know where this film is leading you.
Undoubtedly some viewers will find this film dated, although for me this works in its favour by making it a superior period piece from 60s British movies. The observations made about the new replacing the old aren’t too overblown, and there is some scepticism surrounding the so called New Towns of the time; Wynne escapes her tower block life and finds solace by revisiting the now derelict former family home. Her trips into the countryside seem brief and eagerly snatched, but the natural environment appears dangerous to all else concerned. In one scene Wynne is feared missing, her trips to the old house seen as a foreshadowing of doom. There are other curious and subtle observations throughout; Corinne, fatally disadvantaged by her brash and outgoing nature, and the unusual ending which suggests that Wynne’s wishes may have come true.
I Start Counting has a very good, although mostly low profile, cast. Apart from Agutter, probably the most recognisable face is Simon Ward, who is impressive in the small yet pivotal role as a seedy bus conductor. Also look out for Michael Feast, contemporary of Bruce Robinson, playing a character with a very close resemblance to Danny in Withnail and I. Apart from this eccentricity, the performances are very naturalistic and convincing. Marshall and Sutcliffe are both excellent but Agutter is simply a revelation here. Nowhere else will you see her so wide eyed and impressionable. Cinema has committed a crime by not doing more with her.
The Whisperers
Saturday March 13, 2010 in 60s cinema |
In 1967 Edith Evans was Oscar nominated for her role in the Bryan Forbes film The Whisperers. Although she lost out to Katherine Hepburn, Evans’ performance as Mrs Ross, the tired old lady lost in a world driven by the evils of money, is easily her best performance on film.
Although The Whisperers boasts an excellent John Barry soundtrack, it sits far away from the usual Barry fare of stylish spy thrillers typical of the decade. Barry’s long partnership with Forbes (which included the similarly moody Seance on a Wet Afternoon) allowed him to compose for a different view of the 60s, one shot in stark black and white where the poor struggled on a meagre existence. Forbes depicts this in the early scenes of The Whisperers; a cold and miserable winter, the library full of the old as they huddle against the warm pipes, the needy shuffling along a line at the social services.
Evans (who was nearing eighty at the time) is superb as Mrs Ross, slipping into dementia and believing both that she is watched by unseen guests in her room, the whisperers concealed within a dripping tap or behind the wall, and that she will soon receive the estate of her long dead father. Reality swirls around her, the young couple living above (who include Nanette Newman as the girl upstairs), an officious but kindly civil servant (Gerald Sim) and her wayward son Charlie (Ronald Fraser). Charlie sets the events of The Whisperers into motion, arriving unannounced and hiding a mysterious parcel in her flat. Although he only makes a fleeting appearance, Fraser gives his usual excellent performance, here instantly seedy, untrustworthy, trouble. Mrs Ross later receives a visit from a nosey social worker (Kenneth Griffith, another brief but excellent performance), which leads her to finding Charlie’s parcel – stolen money which she believes to be her inheritance.
The Whisperers has dated in how far a pound will go (at one point Mrs Ross loses a pound note and it is reported to the police), but is nevertheless still effective in showing how far the desperate might go to get their hands on the smallest of fortunes. Mrs Ross is plied with drinks by an unscrupulous woman and left unconscious by the side of the road by her husband (the fine character actor Michael Robbins from On the Buses). All for ten pounds. Miraculously, she survives the ordeal and another social worker (Leonard Rossiter – the brilliant cameos come thick and fast) tracks down her estranged (and, for the purposes of the plot, ten years younger) husband Archie. Archie Ross is more dream casting in the great Eric Portman, who portrays him with just the right mixture of resigned failure and last ditch ambition. Archie’s dream for the quick quid lead him, just like many of the others in The Whisperers, straight into oblivion.
Bryan Forbes has crafted an outstanding film that contrasts a dreamy mood piece personified by the hazy world of Mrs Ross with one that depicts a very sleazy picture of the 1960s. It’s a familiar one; dreary betting shops, petty gangsters in flashy cars and a craze of unrestrained and ruthless demolition serving as a backdrop (one of my favourite scenes is of Archie, working as a part time driver for a criminal gang, waiting by a demolished wasteland where only a small, single public house remains). The Whisperers was filmed at Pinewood Studios and on location in Oldham, Greater Manchester. Like Seance on a Wet Afternoon it makes excellent use of location resulting in, whether intended or not, a curious and fascinating period piece.
Unfortunately The Whisperers is not currently available on DVD, although it does feature in tv schedules from time to time and is well worth investigating for its cast of fantastic actors, of course for Edith Evans but especially for Eric Portman. And also to see the side of the sixties not often portrayed so desperately on film at the time; one that didn’t swing and didn’t revolve around a chosen London few.
GOLDBERG: Your wife makes a very nice cup of tea, Mr Boles, you know that?
PETEY: Yes, she does sometimes. Sometimes she forgets.
MEG: Is he coming down?
GOLDBERG: Down? Of course he’s coming down. On a lovely sunny day like this he shouldn’t come down? He’ll be up and about in next to no time. And what a breakfast he’s going to get.
By the end of the 1960s Harold Pinter was building an impressive record of film screenplays, including his collaborations with Joseph Losey (The Servant in 1963 and Accident in 1967), the Pumpkin Eater (1964) and The Quiller Memorandum (1966). Now already ten years old, his first full length play The Birthday Party was finally made for the cinema in 1968. It starred Robert Shaw as Stanley Webber. Shaw also appeared previously in The Caretaker (1963) making him perhaps the definitive interpreter of Pinter on film.
The Birthday Party has an interesting pedigree. It is directed by William Friedkin, who was later responsible for The French Connection and The Exorcist. Both of these energetic films are a stark contrast to what is essentially a faithful record of a claustrophobic stage experience. The film’s producers Milton Subotsky and Max Rosenburg were responsible for the run of first class horror films made by Amicus films in the sixties and seventies. The roles of Friedkin, Subotsky and Rosenburg are quite fitting; The Birthday Party is essentially a horror story.
The cast also includes Dandy Nicholls (from Till Death Us Do Part) as Meg Bowes, landlady of the sorriest of seaside boarding houses. She is superb, as are Sydney Tafler and Patrick Magee as Goldberg and McCann, the most menacing of house guests. Moultree Kelsall as Petey and Helen Fraser (Bad Girls) as Lulu complete the line up, and for anyone familiar with the play this is a very faithful version. There is a timeless quality about The Birthday Party, and whilst Friedkin’s direction (though mostly restrained) reveals some 60s indulgences (most notably in the opening sequence with the camera moving in on the wing mirror of Goldberg and McCann’s car and the backing soundtrack of ripping paper) Pinter’s dialogue does not date.
The Birthday Party offers various snapshots of haunting pasts, most disturbingly Stanley Webber and his vague portrayal of a former life. Although essentially a filmed play and little more (only Petey’s life as a deckchair attendant is seen fleetingly, chairs neatly and uniformly arranged), the performances are strong enough to hold the attention by merely suggesting what has happened in the past; here Stanley offering fragmentary snapshots culled from his mysterious history: his musical talent, its positive reception, the champagne that followed, his absent father:
STANLEY: I had a unique touch. Absolutely unique. They came up to me. They came up to me and said they were grateful. Champagne we had that night, the lot. My father nearly came down to hear me…. But I don’t think he could make it. No, I-I lost the address, that was it. Yes. Lower Edmonton.
Robert Shaw, an actor probably now best remembered for Jaws and his stint as a Bond villain, portrays this introspection perfectly.
Pinter’s themes of alienation, persecution and torture are vividly sketched out in The Birthday Party. Apart from Shaw, the other standout actor in the film is Sydney Tafler, who plays Stanley’s eventual nemesis Goldberg, a man who relishes his memories in the form of the anecdote. The refuge of the anecdote is the basis for Goldberg’s entire routine, this charming, smooth and potentially dangerous gentleman:
GOLDBERG: When I was an apprentice …my uncle Barney used to take me to the seaside, regular as clockwork. Brighton, Canvey Island, Rottingdean…we’d have a little paddle, we’d watch the tide coming in, going out, the sun coming down – golden days, believe me.
A stable past is personified by the kindly Uncle Barney, who Goldberg proceeds to describe as a well respected “impeccable dresser. One of the old school.” A pattern is very clear: the importance of place names that connect with memories, a figure from the past worthy of respect and admiration, usually the suggestion of a rose-tinted past, the faded “golden days”. If insecurity of the present needs such constant reinforcement, then the uncertain atmosphere prevalent in The Birthday Party unquestionably highlights this. Even Goldberg and McCann, Stanley’s interrogators, virtual torturers and eventual abductors, have their moments of uncertainty. Of all British cinema of the sixties, this film is the least assured of the supposedly bright decade.
Leslie Halliwell gave The Birthday Party only 1 out of a possible 4 stars and described it:
Overlong but otherwise satisfactory film record of an entertaining if infuriating play, first of the black absurdities which proliferated in the sixties to general disadvantage, presenting structure without plot and intelligence without meaning.
By 1968 Halliwell’s perceived golden age of cinema had already ended. Oddly, like the characters in The Birthday Party, he was stuck in the past.
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