After recently watching Bedazzled on late night tv I decided to seek out the spy thriller A Dandy in Aspic, which features Peter Cook in a cameo role. This 1968 film is set in London and Berlin and stars Laurence Harvey, Mia Farrow and Tom Courtenay. It’s filmed beautifully; London is damp and autumnal whilst Berlin is by contrast sunny and light, but while the cinematography is excellent the direction does owe a debt to The Ipcress File which came a few years before. There’s even a John Barry-eque haunting theme tune (actually by Quincy Jones), so while A Dandy in Aspic is a worthy addition to the cold war film canon, it does little more than tag along to the already set templates of the genre.
Harvey, one of the oddest leading men in film history, is quite wooden in this film. Farrow doesn’t shine particularly either, so it’s really up to the supporting cast to jolly things along. Whilst Courtenay seems misplaced in this movie, there’s excellent turns from Harry Andrews, Geoffrey Bayldon, John Bird (from tv’s Bremner, Bird and Fortune) and Mike Pratt (Randall in Randall and Hopkirk, Deceased). Also worth mentioning is Norman Bird, the supporting actor who appeared in countless British films in the sixties. Any casual student of this period in cinema will probably say oh, him again, whilst the posher critic might even say ah, the ubiquitous Norman Bird. But I always feel in safe hands when I spot Norman Bird. Then of course there’s Peter Cook, and although he only really has a tiny role he’s very good in it and it’s odd to see him in a rare serious acting role.
The cold war spy plot of A Dandy in Aspic is as complex and convoluted as the similarly themed Funeral in Berlin or The Spy Who Came in From the Cold. It’s been unjustly forgotten though, and it’s genuinely thrilling, although a touch deliberately confusing. Harvey plays a Russian double agent, coerced into travelling from London to East Berlin in order to carry out an assassination. There’s bluffs and double bluffs, and any attempt to further flesh out the storyline becomes bogged down with too many or is he? s and but did he? s. There’s also an interesting parallel with The Prisoner, where the but is he? s and an and does he? s also come into play.
The film’s director Anthony Mann died in Berlin in 1967 before filming was completed. Harvey picked up the pieces and finished A Dandy in Aspic, and while you can’t really see the joins this serious hiccup to production is obviously why this is an often erratic and bewildering film. For a decent spy thriller, your time is better spent with Michael Caine as Harry Palmer, and if it’s a mysterious, cerebral and absorbing sixties film then try The Quiller Memorandum. Now there’s a really good John Barry soundtrack. But A Dandy in Apsic is worth seeking out, especially for Peter Cook and Norman Bird completists like me.
In 1967, Peter Cook and Dudley Moore were the BBC’s shining comedy stars. It’s difficult to judge now just how popular they were thanks to the Beeb’s crazy decision to wipe the tapes of most of their Not Only, But Also series. As a team, Cook and Moore’s achievements are now best marked by the few sketches that do remain from the black and white shows and from the cult Derek and Clive recording that came much later. Peter Cook is now probably best remembered for, well, simply being Peter Cook – amusing and often tipsy on numerous chat shows. But 1967 was also the year of their finest achievement. The brilliant comedy film Bedazzled.
Typically for a 60s upgrade from television to film, Bedazzled is colourful, expensive and made to last. Perhaps Cook and Moore were aware that their television exploits were soon to be binned (rumour has it that Peter Cook wrote begging letters to BBC chiefs in the early 70s to save his old shows from the skips lined along Wood Lane), and wanted some cash thrown at their talent. But unlike many comedy films adapted from tv in the 60s, and especially 70s, Bedazzled is far above average. This is possibly because, different to the situation comedy, Cook and Moore’s humour was sketch based. But unlike Monty Python’s lazy And Now For Something Completely Different, which simply refilmed a series of television sketches for the big screen, Bedazzled creates an interesting and inventive frame for the sometimes unrestrained humour.
Moore plays Stanley Moon, a hapless cook in a Wimpy bar, besotted by a waitress (played by Eleanor Bron). He meets a George Spiggott (aka The Devil – Peter Cook), who grants him a series of wishes in order to allow Stanley to win his girl. This is the framing device, and Cook (who wrote the screenplay) creates a way to easily weave together what is essentially a series of short sketches. Some of them don’t work so well, although the ones that do are hilarious (Moore as a raspberry blowing trampolining nun is the funniest thing they ever did together). It’s all far from the satire often associated with Cook’s humour, although when he does attempt it – such as the spoof of 60s bands – it’s brilliantly spot on.
Bedazzled sometimes comes across as a film that’s been engineered to look like it belongs in the swinging 60s. There are the glimpses of routemaster buses and red post boxes, and what always fascinates me about films made in London in this period is the locations. Bedazzled depicts London as half building site half modern office block (the Post Office Tower features heavily in one scene). And oddly, like most of the location shooting from tv’s The Avengers, the streets are empty and devoid of extras and traffic. London is depicted as eerily empty and hassle free. In one scene Cook and Moore pretend to be traffic wardens, although the pre-congestion charge London of 1967 looks like a city where parking is never a problem.
It’s worth seeing Bedazzled for a record of Cook and Moore at their peak, before the respective boozing and lure of Hollywood got in the way. Raquel Welsh also makes a cameo appearance, as does Barry Humphries, and Moore wrote the theme music. Possibly it’s tongue-in-cheek music, but it’s as good as anything from similar films of the period. Just watch out for the migraine-inducing effects that accompany the opening titles. Incidentally, it’s directed by Stanley Donen who’s probably best known for Singin’ in the Rain.
Peter Cook and Dudley Moore went on to appear together in the films Monte Carlo or Bust and The Bed Sitting Room, both made in 1969, although these were more ensemble pieces. The first a caper movie, the second more of a Spike Milligan vehicle. In 1978 they got back together for the coarser-humoured Hound of the Baskervilles. As a solo performer, Cook appeared in several films including the spy thriller A Dandy in Aspic (1968) and The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer (1970) which he co-scripted with John Cleese. But he was never much of a varied actor, and Moore was left to pursue a much more successful, if ultimately irritating, film career. Bedazzled is by far the best thing both of them were involved in on the big screen. The script is very well written and it’s a witty and, most of all, a very charming film. And a reminder that they were a very charming and likeable double act.
Trois Histoires Extraordinaires d'Edgar Poe
Also known variously as Histoires Extraordinaires, Spirits of the Dead, Tales of Mystery, Tales of Mystery and Imagination and – sigh – Tre passi nel delirio, this extraordinary film is the result of what happened when they asked three leading European directors to collaborate on the short stories of Edgar Allan Poe. Roger Vadim, Louis Malle and Federico Fellini each contributed a tale to this 1968 gem. It’s difficult to decide which of the three segments is the most confusing, infuriating and visually stunning. They are all in turn weird and complex, and feature a top notch cast including Jane and Peter Fonda, Alain Delon, Brigitte Bardot and Terence Stamp.
Thinking of Poe adaptations, Roger Corman’s series of films from the early 1960s featuring Vincent Price always springs to mind. This film is nothing like that, and the adaptations – especially the Fellini one – are painted with very broad brushstrokes. It’s also very much a film of its time, and its cast – especially Fonda and Stamp – icons of that era. Roger Vadim and Jane Fonda appear to be gently warming up for Barbarella and their section Metzengerstein, that opens proceedings, doesn’t really amount to much. It’s visually very impressive, with an medieval and semi-erotic theme to it (what more do you need?) but the story is too vague and open-ended. Jane Fonda plays a woman who appears rude and cruel to all who she encounters, until her cousin saves her from an animal trap in the forest. He’s later killed saving a horse from a fire, and following this both a strange tapestry and a beautiful black horse appears. There’s a jolt of a scene when we finally get to see the completed tapestry, although other than that it lets down somewhat.
Things pick up with the second section, William Wilson, which stars Alain Delon as a man haunted by his namesake, the other William Wilson who trails him throughout his life. It begins with a fantastic scene of Delon running towards a church, desperate to confess his sins. We learn of his childhood and life as a medical student, and there is an extraordinary and terrifying scene involving an attempted live dissection. Ouch! Unfortunately it then sags in the middle. Brigitte Bardot appears wearing an absurb black wig and the two become involved in a long and convoluted card game, Delon’s wooden acting not helping very much. William Wilson ends rather predictably, but Louis Malle’s direction keeps it interesting and he injects equal proportions of charm and menace.
The third section, Toby Dammit, is the best and this is where things really do take a weird turn. In Fellini’s piece, Terence Stamp plays a boozy and bored looking British actor who is lured to Italy on the promise of a Ferrari to make a Western. This is very much a perfect role for Stamp, with his unruly hair dyed blond I freely have to admit that he was a very handsome young man indeed, despite the fact that he also looks completely washed out and wasted in this movie. He also plays on a childlike charm he used very effectively in Billy Budd and again much later in The Hit. Here, dubbed into Italian, he resorts to odd movements and mannerisms. Perhaps he was unfamiliar with the language, although this would be sometimes incomprehensible in any tongue. At times he’s almost clown like, at others robotic, and if the boredom and indifference he conveys is any comment on his own – sometimes charmed – life at the time then it certainly had an affect on his future. Like his contemporary James Fox (who took his role in Performance a little too far), Stamp also baled out of acting for a few years at the end of the 60s. And seeing Toby Dammit makes me think making this film might have contributed to causing his lost years.
Toby Dammit is odd like you’d expect Fellini to be. Odder in fact, although it does get bogged down with its hero driving his Ferrari like a madman and screaming. Only when, like the preceding tales, it moves into proper Poe territory does it really grip and Stamp’s eventual nemesis in the shape of a small and seemingly innocent child really sent a chiver down my spine. But what it’s all really about – well, you really need to see this for yourself. It didn’t help that I watched the whole of this in fifteen chunks on YouTube and it’s possible I may have got a couple of the Stamp segments the wrong way round, although I’d imagine Fellini would be amused by this. All three of the tales are linked, albeit casually, and explore three not particularly likeable individuals and how they bring about their own ends. Weird, yet certainly mysterious. And definitely extraordinary.
Joseph Losey and The Damned
The director Joseph Losey is probably best known for his collaboration with Harold Pinter on the films The Servant (1963), Accident (1967) and The Go Between (1970). He also let his hair down for the curate’s egg that’s Modesty Blaise (1966). The Servant is possibly Losey’s best film, a brilliant monochrome study of the master and servant relationship turned very inside out and starring Dirk Bogarde and James Fox.
Although filmed two years earlier, Losey’s The Damned was also released in 1963. Made by Hammer, it was one of their psychological horrors of that decade. I watched it for the first time last week, one of the few Losey films I hitherto hadn’t had the pleasure of seeing, when it was shown by the BBC as part of their British Film Forever season. Throughout the summer, the Beeb have shown some obscure British films linked to their weekly genres of romance, costume drama, social realism, thriller, comedy, war and horror. Obscure choices possibly because they don’t currently have the rights to the films they’ve been covering in the accompanying documentaries (for example The Servant, as well as other obvious British favourites such as Get Carter, If… and A Clockwork Orange), but the unusual selection is welcome because I’ve had a chance to see a lot of criminally underexposed gems. Films such as Sidney J. Furie’s The Leather Boys (1964), Michael Reeves’ The Sorcerers (1967) and Losey’s The Damned…
Filmed in black and white, The Damned has an Anglo-American cast, the most recognisable actor being the young Oliver Reed. Reed is a favourite of mine, although I heartily concede that he has a very unusual acting style. He’s good in films like this, that require little or no elements of a naturalistic performance. He’s best on broody, which he does magnificently here. Think of a warm up for his Bill Sykes in Oliver!.
Reed plays an edgy leader of a seaside motorcycle gang, who take exception to his sister (Shirley Anne Field) becoming involved with an older man (Macdonald Carey). What’s looking decidedly run of the mill suddenly takes a weirder turn when our three leads stumble across a sinister military base where a group of children are apparently held captive. What follows is an eerie science fiction film with dashes of horror.
For audiences in the early 60s, the makers of The Damned play on the apparent inevitibility that Mankind is going to be destroyed by a nuclear bomb. It’s sooner rather than later in everybody’s expectation, or when the time comes as the children menacingly predict. Cue a plot development where the group of youngsters turn out to be a bunch of radioactive pre-teens kept to survive the bomb and inherit the Earth. Cue great early 60s sci-fi. Cue lots of effective eye-rolling from Reed.
The Damned is quite dated now, but the script is above average for this type of film and Losey’s direction shines as usual. The children reminded me of the youngsters in Village of the Damned, a film based on a John Wyndham story, and although more use should have been made of them (perhaps a little too much preliminary eye-rolling gets in the way) the film develops quite darkly and manages to ask awkward questions about incest, impotency and death. There’s also an infuriatingly catchy theme tune. Not bad for a Hammer B-movie.
If you’re looking for a review of an obscure British film of the early sixties then look no further. The IMDb classifies Scream of Fear under the plot keywords swimming pool, little girl, father and corpse. It also provides the cheesy tagline:
For maximum thrill . . . we earnestly urge you to see this motion picture from the start!
And they’re absolutely right. You just need to enter the spirit of that tagline to enjoy this entertaining film. And remember – at the time people would often wander into cinemas halfway through a screening. If they liked a film they would stick around until the feature started all over again so that they could watch the beginning. This was allowed for years – I can remember watching Star Wars in this back to front fashion. In fact, Alfred Hitchcock banned or attempted to ban people from doing this when Psycho was released, so disturbed that the film’s impact would be ruined.
Scream of Fear (aka Taste of Fear) was directed for Hammer in 1961 by Seth Holt. It stars Susan Strasberg as a wheelchair bound girl menaced in a house on the French Riviera, thinking she is going crazy when she keeps seeing the corpse of her father. It’s in black and white – not out of the ordinary for 1961 but unusual in our memory of Hammer films; full colour blood and Christopher Lee is what normally springs to mind.
Hammer produced a series of monochrome and more psychological horrors in the early 60s (I’m still waiting to see the repeat of the brilliant Paranoiac featuring Oliver Reed, who served his acting apprenticeship under Hammer). These films have all but disappeared. Pleasingly for me, Scream of Fear was shown in a late night slot on the BBC recently and was introduced as the best Hammer Horror. It’s only a B-movie really, but yes, it’s one of the best. I can imagine it in a double feature as a warm up to one of Hammer’s more colourful exploits of the period, such as Curse of the Werewolf. I can also imagine couples sitting in their Odeons – when Multiplexes weren’t even yet a dream – and sipping their Kia-Ora. The more seasoned leaning over to the other and whispering “don’t worry darling, the real horror is yet to come!”
For the seasoned horror fan of 2007, Scream of Fear will appear terribly dated. It’s a very talky film, with the Strasberg character going over and over the strange things that are happening to her, and it’s really more thriller than horror, more twists than scares. Some of the acting, especially Strasberg’s, is quite wooden, but I have a special fondness for this film. I first saw it years and years ago and found it suitably creepy. Look out for those swimming pool scenes – they’re still very effective. Worth checking out.
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