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.
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.
In 1963 The Servant brought together the combined talents of Harold Pinter, Joseph Losey and Dirk Bogarde. Although he would subsequently write a mountain of screenplays, Pinter was at this time still new to cinema; his only other major piece for the big screen being the adaptation of his classic play The Caretaker. So whilst it’s difficult to imagine what the film’s original reception was like, it was likely to be one of surprise.
Pinter and Losey were to embark on a fruitful partnership over the next decade which would also produce Accident and The Go Between, but The Servant was new ground for both of them. Previously, Losey had directed a diverse range of films including The Boy With Green Hair, The Criminal and the bizarre Hammer masterpeice The Damned. Coincidentally, Losey’s oddest film to date The Sleeping Tiger also starred the well known actor called Dirk Bogarde, the matinee idol desperate to shake off his lightweight shackles. After slowly edging towards greatness, The Servant would finally be the film that earned Bogarde the respect he demanded.
Everything about Dirk Bogarde’s performance in The Servant is perfect. There’s the sense that he put everything into it; he’d finally found a film that would shape his career exactly to his fancy. Sure, two years earlier his role in Victim was admirably daring, but Victim stands as a film with a clear agenda. In contrast, The Servant is darker, ambiguous, menacing and very unclear in its stance on sexuality. And although Bogarde appears to be boldly saying here I am, I’ve finally arrived he is oh so careful to get it right; subtle in his portrayal of Barrett, effortlessly creating this brooding and seething man. Every look is right; every rolled eye, every insouciant stare, every flick of the hair. Even the way he smokes is spot on.
It’s easy to summarise The Servant as a film about a master/servant relationship that appears to reverse itself over time. Seeing it again, I now think the true meaning of the film is far more complex. Tony (James Fox) and Barrett (Bogarde) first appear as a rather odd embodiment of the rich young man and his manservant, Bogarde drawing out the mismatch in their relationship. Rather than requiring a manservant for reasons of class and wealth, Fox is physically needy, weak and vulnerable (throughout the film we see Bogarde tending to him, nursing either colds or hangovers). Bogarde draws on this rather well, making Barrett the stronger of the two. If Pinter and Losey are showing you that the traditional master/servant relationship doesn’t really work in the conventional sense, they present us with the master/servant relationship according to their version of the world. And LoseyPinterworld is far more interesting; Barrett I believe is still the servant when the film ends, but in a world where the edges are peeled back to reveal corruption and insanity.
The Servant isn’t purely a vehicle for Bogarde, even though he is the best thing in it. James Fox is very well cast as Tony; I can’t think of anyone else who could have suited the role so snugly. Similarly, Wendy Craig and Sarah Miles complete the quartet of genius casting. Craig is perfect as the plain Susan, the young woman with whom Tony begins a chaste liaison. In a rare straight role before comedy stole her, Craig maintains the careful equilibrium of the film. Similarly, Miles is sensational as Vera, Hugo Barrett’s “sister”, who turns up out of the blue to give Tony his sexual awakening. In Pinter’s hands, the seduction scene is painfully stark and a voyeuristic pleasure. At least it was for me.
Losey’s direction is also worth a mention. The black and white photography, mostly in the claustrophobic interior of Tony’s house, is excellent. He makes subtle use of mirrors and cast shadows that lesser directors would only stumble over. If I have any criticism of this film then it is possibly the weird interlude where Fox and Craig visit a restaurant and we are allowed to eavesdrop on the other diners (who include Patrick Magee and Pinter himself). It’s an entertaining scene, although ultimately pointless in the scheme of the film.
The Servant is a difficult experience. It’s at times painful viewing, but it’s also an incredibly rich and powerful piece. Sometimes it’s worth being taken just the little bit further. And unlike many of its contemporaries, it hasn’t dated at all. And although Bogarde – especially in his own eyes – went on to even greater achievements, I think this is his finest role. Worth comparing with the other Pinter/Losey/Bogarde collaboration Accident and with Nicolas Roeg and Donald Cammell’s Performance, which showed another side to London depravity and just how far you could push James Fox before he went over the edge.
Danger: Diabolik is a film with 1968 splashed all over it. 1968 writ large, with swirling pop art colour, Ennio Morricone music and a European setting complete with fast cars on looping mountainside roads. John Phillip Law stars as our hero – a cartoon man in a cartoon world peppered with glamourous girls, space age hideaways, bombs and snarling baddies.
Diabolik is an unstoppable leather clad jewel thief, living in an underground lair that appears to share the same architect and technical advisers as the Batcave. It’s full of huge flashing computers, plastic domes and walkways; the 60s vision of how everyone might live in the year 2000. When not involved in crime, Diabolik and his girlfriend Eva (Marisa Mell) take showers and romp around in a bed full of money. It’s not a bad life, although our hero can’t resist that irresistible urge for danger. At one point, after Diabolik wakes after sleeping for 20 hours, Eva confesses that she slipped him a pill – otherwise his leisure time would simply make him too bored. As Law’s acting rarely goes beyond eyebrow-raising that would teach Roger Moore a thing or two, it’s unkind yet true to observe that it’s difficult to tell the difference between the sleeping and waking Diaboliks.
Although a joint French-Italian production (and produced by Dino de Laurentiis), Diabolik appears to be set in the generic “Europe” of 60s films. It’s exotic, sexy and exciting, most probably Italy but never actually named. It doesn’t matter who’s who and from where, as the best parts of the film are where nobody speaks at all. Law, an American, has so few lines he makes Clint Eastwood look overworked. Terry-Thomas turns up, the archetypal Brit official, for a welcome turn although the film is almost ruined by the terrible dubbing into English of all the other actors. The plot is hardly worth going into at all. It’s simple comic stuff, in the days before this sort of thing began to take itself either too seriously or became bogged down with in jokes. This is a film without pretence or irony.
Despite the silliness, the director Mario Bava does claw back some credibility with the action scenes. The sight of Diabolik climbing up the sheer stone face of a tower is very well done, as is his subsequent escape from said tower. The car chases and gadgetry is also fun, as is the film’s totally absurd ending, where an unfortunate accident leaves Law encased in gold. I wouldn’t worry, though, as it doesn’t appear to faze him, and he appears perfectly happy reduced to mere eye acting. I would have probably advised against some of the other stunts in the film, such as a leap from an aircraft and a train wreck, simply because the budget doesn’t stretch to it.
At times Diabolik comes across as a weaker version of Joseph Losey’s 1966 Modesty Blaise. This is almost like the B-side of Modesty Blaise, cheaper and dafter. And where Terence Stamp and Monica Vitti, the leads in Losey’s film, can at least act a bit, there’s not much evidence of it here with Law and Mell. But Diabolik does always feature in must see film lists of obscure movies that are bandied around. It certainly is very obscure, and it’s likely that the dubbing issue has caused tv schedulers to keep it at arm’s length. Worth seeing though, for the very good soundtrack, and it’s kind of sad to see Law and Mell together, now both no longer with us. And as Mell eventually descended into obscure porn films, this is probably the only film of hers even remotely available.
Fairground settings can be deliciously creepy. Whether you find them in fiction (one of the best examples of using the fairground for macabre purpose is Rad Bradbury) or in cinema (try 1967’s Torture Garden from the horror studio Amicus). Even the most cursory of searches will result in other films using fairgrounds, the circus or bizarre museums for their settings. House of Wax (1953) with Vincent Price, Circus of Horrors (1960) or perhaps Circus of Fear (1966). However, there are no truly memorable films using the abandoned carnival as a setting, a place where you really really wouldn’t want to go. Especially alone on a dark night. At least I thought that. This was until I saw Carnival of Souls.
As cult films go, Carnival of Souls is very hard to find, so I was surprised when I discovered that I owned a copy on DVD. Made in 1962 by Herk Harvey, it is an early addition to the American low budget horror genre, a more successful film in the same ilk being Night of the Living Dead. However it’s possibly incorrect to label it as a horror film at all; this is just an incredibly creepy film. It’s scary yet there’s little horror in it. It’s memorable because it is so odd.
The film has a basic premise. The unusually named Candice Hilligoss (Mary Henry) survives what looks like a pretty fatal car crash. Although visibly unscathed, there’s something a little strange about her. The frightened and distant look in her eye, perhaps, the magnetic pull an abandoned funfair appears to be having on her… it’s inevitible what’s going to happen in Carnival of Souls but that’s the fun of the ride. The jumps come in the predicted places, although you may find yourself jumping a little more than you expected.
Candice works as a church organist, allowing Harvey to use the organ for one of the most effective soundtracks you’ll hear. The music isn’t particularly pleasant, but it’s highly original, and the director gets the best effect when the music actually stops. The eerie silences in this film cleverly raise the tension, and it is a very tense film indeed. Candice takes a room in a boarding house and it pursued by a fellow lodger called John. He’s a bit of a creep, descending upon her in the morning with half empty bottles of whiskey, but continues with his painstaking advances even though this woman can only offer a vacant stare or two. (At one point he exclaims That’s just what I need! Get mixed up with some girl who’s off her rocker!)
The scenes with John provide some comic relief for what is essentially, as he predicts, scenes of Candice going off her rocker. Spectacularly. She begins to see the same pale faced man wherever she goes, driving in her car, in her room and memorably in one scene in a Doctor’s consultancy. The first appearances are very fleeting, and the image above is the last of several attempts I made to catch an appropriate still of the film.
Eventually Candice is drawn to the abandoned carnival, where the film wraps up effectively. There’s a final twist that, although not particularly surprising, is still suitably shocking. And the creepy faces blend so well with the organ music that it gives further weight to the argument that low budget films are often the best.
By way of a taster, here’s the original trailer:
As the good man says, you can’t afford to miss it…
