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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.

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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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As well as the essential M.R. James reading and viewing, Christmas is also a suitable time for a Hammer Horror. Hammer’s immensely successful 1957 film The Curse of Frankenstein spawned six sequels; The Revenge of Frankenstein (1959), The Evil of Frankenstein (1964), Frankenstein Created Woman (1967), Frankenstein Must be Destroyed (1969), The Horror of Frankenstein (1970) and Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell (1974). Although the law of diminishing returns usually applies with film sequels, Hammer hit gold around the halfway mark. Frankenstein Created Woman is the best in the series, a classic chiller directed by Terence Fisher and featuring one of Peter Cushing’s best performances.

Frankenstein Created Woman is textbook Hammer, inviting the viewer to snuggle in front of the television under a cosy blanket. Unthreatening and warming, a well made film with recognisable settings, costumes, music and archetypal characters – all the familiar trademarks of the studio. That’s not to say that the film doesn’t look low budget by today’s standards. Its charm aside, the sets do look like they are ready to be folded away ready for the next production, and the costumes belong to the wardrobe that clothed the entire oeuvre of the studio. Even the rosé wine featured throughout this film that wasn’t drunk or spilt was probably carefully rebottled.

Nevertheless this is a horror film that has worn well over the decades. Frankenstein Created Woman is quite methodical in setting up its plot, reminding of The Curse of the Werewolf (1960) which has a similarly long preamble to the main story. It works very well here, and those who might find the early part plodding will be rewarded when things begin to fit together rather neatly towards the end. The film begins with a raving man being led to the guillotine. A small boy revealed to be the condemned man’s son is seen watching the execution, and when events jump ahead several years we see him again as Hans (Robert Morris), a young man in love with a disfigured girl called Christina (Susan Denburg). Hans works for Baron Frankenstein, who sends him out one night for a bottle of champagne following a particularly successful experiment (he has managed to be revived after freezing himself for exactly one hour. Yes, Baron Frankenstein always was a little weird).

As usual, Peter Cushing is superb as Baron Frankenstein, portraying the usual sharp wit and driven ambition that doesn’t quite tip him over into insanity. He is joined by Thorley Walters as his bumbling associate Dr Hertz. Walters plays a very baffled Watson to Cushing’s particularly sharp Holmes, and the two complement eachother quite perfectly throughout the film. Indeed, it’s a shame Hammer chose not to continue their partnership in the later films (Walters does turn up in Frankenstein Must be Destroyed but plays a different role). However it’s Cushing’s film and without his sublime acting it’s difficult to see how Hammer would have been so enduring and successful.

The quest for the Baron’s champagne sets things moving as Christina’s father happens to run the nearby inn. Three top-hatted scoundrels call in, the sort who are generally disagreeable in how they put their feet up on the tables and light smelly cheroots. Even worse, the type who demand their wine (to be put on credit) served by the innkeeper’s daughter. Their bullying turns nasty when Hans gets into a brawl with them and later, when the drunken trio return for some after hours drinking, Christina’s father disturbs them and they beat him to death. Hans is convicted of the murder and sent to the guillotine. Christina drowns herself. All a bit grim, but perfect for the Baron, whose latest experiment just happens to involve raising the dead. Together with Dr Hertz, he repairs Christina’s crippled body and, for good measure, implants the soul of Hans into it.

Susan Denburg is excellent as Christina in, surprisingly, the last of only a handful of film roles. This film does indeed create the type of starlet Hammer later used as a selling point for their films, the buxom young ladies employed for such titles as Lust for a Vampire and Twins of Evil. Resurrected by the Baron, Christina sets out on murdering the three top-hatted scoundrels who set the horrible ball rolling in the first place and this is all executed (pardon the pun) rather satisfyingly. And look out for Yes Minister’s Derek Fowlds as one of the above mentioned top-hatted victims.

The horror critic Alan Frank rated Frankenstein Created Woman quite highly in his 1982 Horror Film Handbook:

The last Hammer film to be made at Bray reworks Bride of Frankenstein to good effect. Fisher’s direction, impressive settings and a neat performance from Cushing make it a first-rate addition to the genre.

Frank also quotes a review from The Times:

Scriptwriter John Elder and director Terence Fisher have a nice sense of the balance between horror and absurdity and the film has the courage of its own lunatic convictions.

Surprisingly, other than mentioning that the film formed part of a double X double-bill with The Mummy’s Shroud in summer 1967, Hammer’s own celebratory 1973 The House of Horror has little else to say about the film. But perhaps it is time that has set Frankenstein Created Woman apart, where in a world now saturated with so many in your face explicit horror films we can recognise real quality.

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For a short period in the early 1960s Bryan Forbes was responsible for some of the most interesting films being made. After forming Beaver Films with Richard Attenborough he wrote the screenplays for The League of Gentleman and The Angry Silence (both 1960). As a director his early films included Whistle Down the Wind (1961), possibly still one of the best films about children ever made, and The L-Shaped Room (1962), a masterclass in kitchen sink realism. In 1964 he directed Seance on a Wet Afternoon, based on the novel by Mark McShane and with Attenborough producing and starring.

Seance on a Wet Afternoon is a beautifully moody piece, although the film ultimately doesn’t live up to the sum of its sterling parts. It stars Attenborough as the downtrodden husband of an unstable medium (Kim Stanley). Together the two embark on a clumsy kidnap plot in order to collect the reward money. Stanley, in a rare film role, received an Oscar nomination for her very unsettling performance, although Attenborough too delivers the goods. Almost unrecognisable in a false nose, moustache and glasses, he plays a very oddball part. Always an oustanding character actor, this is a role in which he excels and it is probably only surpassed by his chilling performance as John Christie a few years later in 10 Rillington Place.

The film is enhanced by the John Barry soundtrack, and Forbes wisely chose to work with Barry again on his other masterpiece of mood The Whisperers (1967). Made in the winter of 1963, the British cold and damp really soaks through this movie; the locations are excellent – the West End, suburbia and mist filled woods. For location buffs, the house where much of the films action is set is in Wimbledon, South West London, and the derelict Staines Speedway is also featured.

Forbes films are always recognisable by the presence of Nanette Newman, the director’s wife who always appears in his cast. Here she plays the mother of the kidnapped girl, married to Mark Eden (now forever known as the beastly Alan Bradley in Coronation Street). But apart from an appearance by the great Patrick Magee, Seance on a Wet Afternoon doesn’t have a memorable supporting cast and for me the interest lies in Attenborough, Barry and the location shooting. Sadly, apart from The Whisperers, Bryan Forbes stopped making interesting films after this. King Rat (1965) isn’t that memorable, nor is the Michael Caine vehicle Deadfall (1968). And by the 70s things started to become dire with International Velvet (1978). But for a very, very short period he knew how to make great movies.

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With a title like The Day the Earth Caught Fire you’d be forgiven for thinking that this 1961 movie was pure Hollywood, following other such titles as When Worlds Collide, The Day the Earth Stood Still and George Pal’s H.G. Wells adaptations War of the Worlds and The Time Machine. The kind of film that Hollywood enjoys remaking with the likes of Tom Cruise and Keanu Reeves. The Day the Earth Caught Fire is actually British through and through, shot in London by Val Guest and starring Leo McKern, Janet Munro and Edward Judd.

Despite this being an at times laughably low budget film, The Day the Earth Caught Fire deals with a subject that’s still a topic today. Global warming, drought, heatwaves and especially flooding. More than thirty years before The Environment Agency! But being 1961 the biggest issue here is the nuclear rather than the environmental one, and the film deals with the aftermath of secret nuclear tests that result in the tilt in the Earth’s axis being altered slightly. Slight, but enough to cause heatwave, cyclones and flooding. Especially in London.

Most of the film centres around Fleet Street, with McKern and Judd playing two seasoned journalists who try to make sense of it all as the heat cranks up. They open windows, put on fans and loosen their ties. They head for the local pub but it has run out of ice cold lager (although by all accounts warm beer was the usual thing in those days anyway). Along comes Janet Munro as a sort of Judd love interest, the girl from the ministry who reveals what’s been going on behind closed nuclear bunkers. It’s a scoop that sends the world reeling again.

The supporting actors include Bernard Braden, Peter Butterworth, Reginal Beckwith (from Night of the Demon) and John Barron (best known as CJ in The Fall and Rise Reginald Perrin). There’s also a walk on from a pre-fame Michael Caine, who plays a helpful policeman. The most bizarre casting in the film, an experiment that almost pays off, is Arthur Christiansen. Here the real life editor of the Daily Express plays the onscreen editor of the Daily Express. It’s a brave move for authenticity, and Christiansen tries his best, although he just doesn’t hack it as an actor. All he can do is memorise his lines accurately, which he manages admirably. But when he’s up against Leo McKern (whose axis is tilted in the direction of ham acting), he doesn’t stand a chance.

Although Leo McKern and Janet Munro are given top billing, the real star of The Day the Earth Caught Fire is Edward Judd. For a short period in the 60s Judd was the great hope of British science fiction cinema. He also appeared with Lionel Jeffries in H.G. Wells’ First Men in the Moon (1964) and the now rarely seen film from Merton Park Studios Invasion (1965). Sadly, his career quickly petered out, although his other key films from the sixties are Island of Terror (1966) with Peter Cushing and one of the She franchise, The Vengeance of She (1968). After that he was relegated to supporting roles in the likes of The Sweeney and The Professionals and is possibly best known for the Think Bike! public information films from the mid 70s. Sadder still, Judd died in February of this year, and there were several internet rumours (although unfounded) that he’d ended up living homeless in South London.

Although usually always given corny scripts, Judd was a very decent actor – especially so here. He plays the disillusioned and semi-alcoholic journalist extremely well, and I think he effortlessly outshines McKern, who is over mannered in this film. I’m not sure about Janet Munro either; she isn’t given much in the way of inspired dialogue, but is featured in one or two semi-clothed scenes that the 1961 critics probably thought “steamy”, although the bed sheets are always strategically arranged.

As stated, much of the film is low budget, with the “disaster” footage suspiciously looking like it’s culled from newsreels, although the more memorable and effective scenes are the simplest. The newspaper men crowded around the sweaty office, the distant loudspeaker broadcasts from the sober Prime Minister (sounding very much like Harold Macmillan), and Judd pushing through jazzy end-of-the-world street parties to get back to Munro’s flat. Best of all though is the opening and closing scenes of the film that are filmed in sepia, where Judd claws back his credibility as a journalist in the now deserted capital.

Another key scene of The Day the Earth Caught Fire comes at the very end, where the Daily Express printroom boys are poised with two alternate front pages of the next edition. One reads World Saved, the other World Doomed. A further set of risky nuclear detonations are scheduled in a bid to set the Earth back on its course, but the film ends vaguely and we’re left without an answer. In the days when the nuclear threat was a very real one, it looks like the audience were deliberately left with an air of uncertainty.

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