Reviews

"The Shakedown" on the face of it appears an unremarkable effort from the days of low budget crime movies, churned out by the dozen from British film studios, yet Canadian director John Lemont handles the routine plotline with considerable style, with a breathless pace that never holds up, a decent script that only occasionally falters, and a good cast with all kinds of familiar faces popping up every few minutes: Bill Owen, Donald Pleasence, Harry H Corbett, Robert Beatty, Larry Taylor and even Leila Williams, who began presenting the long-running children's TV programme Blue Peter around this time.

The story revolves around a hardened con (Terence Morgan) about to be set free from prison, finding it hard to set up another racket when he is released, but eventually managing to do so when he steals a fellow con's ill gotten gains (Corbett) by setting up a model school, merely a cover for blackmailing well-off professional men ensnared in taking seedy pics of said young female models. A senior policeman (Beatty) is however staking out Morgan and assigns an undercover policewoman (Hazel Court) to find evidence of his new criminal activity, putting her in obvious danger.

All this is fairly hackneyed material, yet Lemont engenders it all at a taut, ferociously quick pace from the very start, with some mordantly hard-boiled dialogue, and mostly decent performances from the cast.

Terence Morgan didn't always get full backing from the critics, but his oily, superficial charm and ruthless desire for making money in the seediest way possible succeeds in conveying such an ugly, exploitative character as this oddly compelling if not even sometimes pitiable. Donald Pleasence is one of the gullible characters Morgan exploits for financial gain, who gives a fine performance as an alcoholic photographer, though he curiously disappears from the action without proper explanation. But despite occasional plot holes like this and some variable support performances from such as a pre-Steptoe Harry H Corbett as a rival gangster, director and co-scriptwriter Lemont keeps it all going at a non-stop lick, also with inevitably cheap-looking sets that work effectively and convincingly in the kind of milieu depicted.

Ignored and dismissed in previous years as just another lowbrow B crime effort, "The Shakedown" has become something of a cultish item in recent years, with an improved reputation, one of the better of its usually unremarkable kind, and now deservedly so which is most definitely worth a look and of more attention.

Rating: 7 out of 10.

The Cold War Spy thriller was all the rage during the swinging 60's, and virtually every major studio if not star of the era produced a glossy, high-budget contribution to this particular genre. THE DOUBLE MAN as its title suggests adapts the hackneyed lookalike plot within its framework, a device more often employed for humour (as Bob Hope did for example in the Secret Agent comedy MY FAVORITE SPY, in 1951), but here is treated as serious drama.

And there were few actors as serious as the resonant-voiced, cold-eyed Yul Brynner, cast as a solemn, emotionless CIA man Dan Slater, who visits the Austrian Alps to investigate the death of his young son in an apparent skiing accident, meeting a friend and former colleague Wheatley (Clive Revill) who now runs the school Slater's son attended before his passing. Slater begins to suspect his son was not the victim of an accident but murder, designed to lure him from the US into an espionage plot by Soviet agents, which indeed happens when it is revealed they intend swapping Slater with an agent who is an identical double, send him back to the States to infiltrate his CIA department while killing and disposing of Slater surreptitiously. Can Slater escape from the enemy agents and inform Wheatley and a locally-based CIA man of said double before he flies back to Washington?

The story itself is a slightly more interesting variation on usual Cold War shenanigans, but not especially convincing or exciting, with Brynner's taciturn visage making for a mostly unlikeable, unsympathetic hero. But it is well enough made in attractive alpine locations, nicely photographed by cameraman Denys Coop, with the film's best performance coming from Clive Revill as a slightly scarred but more congenial character who assists Brynner loyally in his investigations; Britt Ekland has a somewhat superfluous if decorative role as a young woman who witnessed the boy's last moments, with Anton Diffring smoothly villainous as the main Soviet agent.

Franklin J. Schaffner was a talented if rather overlooked filmmaker that had more prestigious productions ahead of him, such as the following PLANET OF THE APES and PATTON. Schaffner's handling sustains interest throughout despite some far-fetched complications, and the first time we see the alps bears a certain similarity to some of the opening scenes from the superior PLANET OF THE APES released the following year, albeit there in desert, rather than snowy locations.

So THE DOUBLE MAN is a small notch above the usual routine spy stories of the period thanks to some fine talents in front and behind the camera, very watchable if not especially memorable.

Rating- 6 and a Half out of 10.

'Last Night In Soho' is director Edgar Wright's paean to a decade he reveres (the 1960's), yet he cautions the audience on the dangers of nostalgia while simultaneously carousing enthusiastically in an era he missed.

A young fashion student obsessed by the 60's, Ellie (Thomasin McKenzie), travels from Cornwall to London to study fashion, but having fallen out with fellow roommates at her student digs, she moves to more homely accommodation via a bedsit owned by elderly landlady Miss Collins (Diana Rigg) in surroundings that recall that decade. Afflicted by the suicide of her mother when she was a child, she is transported back to Swinging London (namely Soho) in the 60's after experiencing a vivid dream, and merges into the personality of an aspiring singer, Sandie (Anya Taylor-Joy) at a Soho nightclub. For a short while, all appears magical and inspirational to Ellie, but Jack (Matt Smith), a charming manager who Sandie starts dating, starts pimping the latter off to seedy older men, as Ellie's time travelling takes on a more sinister turn as she apparently begins to see visions of Sandie's death at Jack's hands, plus other ghostly apparitions, and is often accosted by an old man (Terence Stamp) who may or maybe not Jack. She goes to the authorities to try and explain, but is not believed. Are these events mere delusions of a troubled mind or not?

Edgar Wright utilises so many different styles of filmmaking here it isn't true; Time Travel, Psychological Horror, Slasher Horror, Supernatural Hammer-style horror, a dash of Film Noir with additions of Italian-style giallo plotting and action, with nods of approval to directors such as Polanski (Repulsion), Romero (Zombies), Hitchcock (a bit of Psycho, but perhaps rather more Rebecca), Argento (Suspiria) among others. Throwing everything into this brew, Wright could have got himself into a lot of trouble, and his script (co-written with Krysty Wilson-Cairns) could have contained sharper dialogue, more detailed characterizations and less obvious far-fetched coincidences and complications that lead to occasional confusion when wavering from past to present.

Yet technically, the film is extraordinary, with top-class production, a vivid colour-drenched mise-en-scene, (typical of Argento and his fellow Italian giallo/horror director Mario Bava, with praise going to cinematographer Chung-hoon Chung) , outstanding costume design, pin-point editing and perfectly pitched direction by Wright which really makes you believe you are back in that seminal decade , with occasional bravura, matched by fine performances all round, from the two young female leads (Taylor-Joy, McKenzie), the sleazy, hollow-eyed charmer Smith, and 60's legends Stamp and Rigg, the latter of whom gives the film's best performance, and of course, a sumptuous soundtrack of 60's classics, flawlessly woven into the narrative. Two other 60's legends also appear; Rita Tushingham as Ellie's grandmother, and Margaret Nolan, in a brief but still notable cameo as a barmaid. Sadly, both Dame Diana and Maggie Nolan passed away shortly after the movie's completion, but Wright graciously features tributes to them both at the movie's start and finish.

As for the final revelation, it will probably disappoint and surprise equal numbers, but others like me will accept it as the kind of finale you would expect when watching any generic giallo or supernatural horror movie, from a decade that Wright still obviously adores despite his admonishments of delving into to the past, and despite the acres of cinematic references, his direction is still distinctive and produces a very entertaining and greatly enjoyable tribute-cum-harsh critique of an age gone by.

Rating:8 and a half out of 10.

'A View to a Kill' was Roger Moore's final appearance as James Bond, and it sadly was one too many. There were signs of wear and tear in the previous Bond effort 'Octopussy', although that had exotic locations, a suave villain (Louis Jourdan), an enjoyably hammy Stephen Berkoff and one or two good jokes to make it an enjoyable time passer. Moore's last throw at the 007 dice is not so lucky; the plot contains elements of previous better films; a megalomaniac tycoon wanting to dominate a market (Goldfinger, but silicon chips and not gold this time), underwater sub-plots (Thunderball), a pre-title action scene in arctic surroundings (The Spy Who Loved Me), and an elaborate finale in a mysterious locale (You Only Live Twice, and in fact most other Bondian escapades).

This would have been more acceptable with a more youthful actor at the helm, but Roger Moore is now clearly too old for the role, as he later admitted. The action scenes themselves come across as more of a forced gimmick that naturally occurring within the plot, and it is very obvious they are performed by various stuntmen as director John Glen seems to have added this as a visual metaphor on Moore's advancing years. Younger stuntmen should also have been employed with Rog getting it on with no less than four young women during the film's running time, with no amount of lighting, make-up and hairstyling able to disguise he is very clearly far too long in the tooth for such girl-chasing.

The film would've been far better employed at making allusions to Moore's age, but with all the expensive stunts, close shaves and running about, it comes across as embarrassing and unintentionally amusing, and not a self deprecating parody as it could have been with Moore who could have handled as such with some style; when the film tries for humour, the quips are weak, and the jokes are facetious, if not bathetic, particularly at the beginning when "California Girls" is employed on the soundtrack during the snow-based chase.

The main villain, Max Zorin (Christopher Walken), is bland, and the prominent Bond girl, Stacey Sutton, is dully and feebly played by Tanya Roberts, although Grace Jones is actually not as bad as you think as Zorin's main henchwoman and mistress May Day, with a fairly effective change of heart towards the film's end as she becomes a ally of Bond, and Patrick Macnee is very endearing as a partner of Bond before he leaves the scene far too early. Macnee and Moore of course were major TV icons of the 60's as John Steed and Simon Templar, and their easy-going chemistry provide the film with its best moments, despite the uninspired script and plot that surrounds them.

One would have hoped Roger Moore could have departed the James Bond franchise with respect and dignity with 'A View to a Kill', as it is, the film works only sporadically, lacking wit and self deprecation that Moore could have easily brought on board for an apt farewell, the expensive but generic action and non-exotic locations, plus an overage star, making this a regrettable misfire and not a triumphant coda to his stint as 007.

Rating: 5 out of 10.

"Carry On Emmannuelle" was the 30th and final instalment of the celebrated Carry On franchise, consisting of various satires, parodies and farces with a soupcon of Anglo-Saxon innuendo and vulgarity. Subtlety was not its first name, but the familiar parade of venerable, reliable and practised comic performers involved were always capable of raising a laugh, and indeed many more when production, script and casting worked in smooth unison, with the best examples being 'Nurse', 'Cleo', 'Doctor', 'Screaming', 'Camping', 'Abroad', 'Henry', 'At Your Convenience' and most of all 'Up The Khyber'. Sid James, Hattie Jacques, Kenneth Williams, Charles Hawtrey, Joan Sims, Kenneth Connor were there from early on, with Barbara Windsor, Bernard Bresslaw, Jim Dale, Jack Douglas and Peter Butterworth joining the gang a bit later on, with this combination of comedic talents proving a surprisingly effective if not irresistible blend, particularly in the mid-late 60's when the series was at its peak.

Sadly, inspiration began to flag in the more permissive 70's, when the double entendres and sauciness was looking increasingly stale when the Confessions series and numerous imitators emerged in the middle of the decade. The Carry On's from this point on began to call a spade a spade and show rather more flesh than before (mostly of the young female kind, though not exclusively) to keep up with changing times, as the suggestive, cheerful vulgarity gradually turned into full-blown smut. About this time, the main crux of the team like Sid, Hattie, Charlie and Joan were becoming less prominent if not absent, due to illness, sackings, or in Sid James' case, an untimely death while performing on stage in 1976, which really meant the writing was on the wall after a rather dismal and poorly received TV version the previous year.

'Girls', 'Dick' and 'Behind' were acceptably bawdy, but 'England' had very few of the regulars involved, who themselves were looking both tired and listless, with newer replacements simply not up to the job. It failed financially, and 'Emmannuelle' was a last desperate throw of the dice as the decade was coming to an end, an obvious reference to the French erotic drama of four years earlier but also an attempt to keep in step with the number of crude and tawdry British sex comedies that became so prominent in this era (The Confessions series ended the previous year).

Alas, it was doomed from the outset, plagued as it was by poor production values (the scenes with back projection are especially awful), a dismal script, leaden comic timing and unhappy performances, Kenneth Williams in particular struggling with his cod French accent, in a film he appeared in only reluctantly, with his lack of enthusiasm shared by the sparse other regulars on board such as Sims, Connor, Douglas and Butterworth, who actually just about manage to raise a few weak laughs regarding flashback sequences describing their most erotic experiences to the nominal lead, Suzanne Danielle, who carries most of the film's plot and action (if it can be described as thus) in seducing every man she meets due to her husband Williams' inability to perform.

With both the story and leading character very seedy, any pretence that this is a Carry On film is barely noticeable save the few disinterested familiar names that try and give such an impression. The film failed to find an audience at the box office, and the series ended on this low and dispiriting note. The Politically Correct New Wave/Alternative Comedy style was just around the corner, rendering the Carry On's an outdated relic. Even if 'Emmannuuelle' had been an artistic and financial success, it is doubtful it could have survived in the 80's anyway, as other regulars passed away or were semi-retired.

Yet, there was to be one more attempt in the less PC 90's with 'Columbus', but this was misconceived and misguided; very few of the regular gang appeared and ironically, many of the cast members were made up of the Alternative Comedy brigade, supposedly against sexist and suggestive humour as innuendo was replaced with smut for the sake of it and expletives. This clash of styles didn't work as it was perhaps more poorly received even than 'Emmannuelle' had been, with director Gerald Thomas sadly dying the year after it was released.

Despite rumours of another revival since, none have come to fruition, and it is probably best that they don't, as the series standards of saucy but not rude seaside postcard humour appears both innocent and charming decades after its peak, its main cast much loved and remembered, with a handful of titles worthy now of being called genuine comedy classics. Let us draw a veil over 'Emmannuelle' and recall the memorable scenes from 'Cleo', 'Screaming', 'Camping' and 'Up The Khyber' instead.

Michael Parkinson started his career in local newspaper journalism based in his native Yorkshire, progressing to regional TV reporting for Granada TV in the 60's, before being offered a chat show by the BBC in the early 70's. The first series was apparently a trial run, but it went so well that it continued for the next decade and became an integral part of British TV broadcasting in the 1970's.

Parkinson was perhaps fortunate that he had a wealth of talent to choose from in this period, most notably film stars from 1930's/1940's Classical Hollywood who were still very much alive and active in films, from Bette Davis to James Stewart, Henry Fonda to John Wayne, Bob Hope to Bing Crosby among scores of others, but also British acting and comic talent, from distinguished classical actors to the most popular of comedians, from Dame Edith Evans to Peter O'Toole to Morecambe and Wise to Peter Sellers.

At his peak, Parkinson was a remarkably astute and respectful interviewer, allowing such personalities to merely do their thing, interjecting occasionally with questions or soundbites that were mostly perfectly judged and kept interest going. It was also vital that the guests themselves were interesting, amusing or even intellectual to take the show into another dimension, most notably with scientist Jacob Bronowski, who had the gift of communicating ideas to the most humble and making them universally understandable despite his extraordinary depth of knowledge. There were occasions when things did not go as planned; one interview with the legendary boxer Muhammad Ali got out of hand when "The Greatest" objected to Parky's quibbles over content in one of his books, and his praise of Helen Mirren veered into virtual harassment, yet most of the time, interviews with such diverse and peerless talents as Orson Welles, James Cagney, Alistair Cooke, Spike Milligan and Billy Connolly were occasions to be savoured.

It was possibly the right time to call it a day in 1982 when Parkinson was offered a presenting role on ITV's new Breakfast TV station (TV AM), but this turned out to be ill-fated and he soon went back to the chat show format a little later on the same channel with less success than before, alternating between fairly routine stints as a TV and radio presenter (with the notable exception of Ghostwatch on the BBC), before being persuaded to return to his old chat show on the BBC in the late 90's, transferring to ITV a few years later, but by now most of the great film stars of old had passed away, as it was with the best of British acting and comic talent. One or two veterans made welcome appearances, but quality of guests now available was thinner on the ground, with the main man himself looking increasingly disinterested and bored with the celebrities now on offer. It doesn't take a great deal of talent if any to become famous in the 21st Century desert, and Parkinson was now perhaps realising there was little point in carrying on much longer, as the later series became a regrettable coda following the great years of the 70's, and his retirement from such deteriorating standards should have happened much earlier, but nevertheless, Parkinson represented the TV chat show at its zenith in the classic years, and leaves a legacy that will be remembered for the most positive of reasons.

RATING:8 and a half out of 10.

One of two low budget horror-fantasy type movies made in the UK in the mid-60's by American professor turned filmmaker Herbert J. Leder, "The Frozen Dead" has a silly and idiotic storyline involving a mad Nazi scientist (Dana Andrews) keeping a number of fellow fanatics frozen in a secret laboratory deep in the English countryside in the hope of thawing them out to begin a new attempt at reviving The Third Reich two decades after their defeat, with further plot complications involving Andrews' niece (Anna Palk). Her friend (Kathleen Breck), whose decapitated head is used for his dastardly plans, two fellow Nazis (Basil Henson and Karel Stepanek) and an American doctor (Philip Gilbert).

With such a premise as this, one thinks the film could be enjoyed as high camp, but virtually all the performances are as dreary and wooden as the verbose script, not helped by Leder's tedious, lethargic direction, who on this evidence should have stuck to teaching film theory at an American university, as other titles in his sparse filmography were just as, if not more, undistinguished as this one. Some fun is to be had by deciding who employs the worst German accent; a clearly bored and disinterested Andrews is in there pitching, as is Alan Tilvern and Basil Henson, but my nomination is Ann Tirard, known initially as Mrs Smith, but later revealed to be Mrs Schmidt, who pronounces her V's and Z's with extra zeal to emphasize her Teutonic credentials.

So anyone looking for hammy acting and rampantly over the top dialogue will be disappointed, though under the circumstances, Kathleen Breck actually gives a decent performance despite the inherent stupidity of her role as a disembodied head in a box, using facial expression and pathos, making her plight quite pitiable, but she is about the only performer in the film who can hold her head up high (sorry for the pun) as all other cast members look embarrassed at taking part in such shenanigans, though the film livens up just a little in the last ten minutes or so for fans of unintended campy humour, with the dismal sets and poor special effects achieving some hysterically funny moments, particularly when Andrews (what a comedown from 'Laura', 'The Best Years of Our Lives', and the like during Classical Hollywood's best years) and Stepanek get their comeuppance via a wall of arms (with a bespectacled technician lurking in the background for some reason) and Edward Fox, in his first credited film role (which is doubtful he talked about at dinner parties) as one of the mute, thawed-out Nazis, who turns out to be Andrews' brother and Ms Palk's father, attempting to strangle the latter.

So "The Frozen Dead" is not recommended as a riotous laugh fest despite the sheer idiocy of the plot, as it is too tediously paced and over-earnest to be so, but as stated, you may get a few decent chuckles towards its conclusion, if you are awake by that time, that is.

RATING:3 and a half out of 10.

It could be argued that the long running series of 'Carry On' movies was showing signs of wear and tear by the time 'Girls' came along in 1973, relying too much on old gags and situations, the regular performers themselves becoming increasingly weary, and the productions themselves looking shabbier and cheaper.

'Girls' was probably the bawdiest and smuttiest example of the series to that point, although in truth the first half of the film isn't too bad, beginning in agreeably ironical fashion in a rundown seaside town inevitably afflicted by poor weather, with the council questionably voting in favour of staging a beauty contest to attract more tourists.

The preliminaries are quite amusing, with funny cameos from such veterans as Joan Hickson and Arnold Ridley, and regulars such as Sid James, Joan Sims, Bernard Bresslaw and Kenneth Connor doing their familiar comic business, with glamour provided by Margaret Nolan, Wendy Richard, Angela Grant and (eventually) Valerie Leon, with prim June Whitfield leading the feminist opposition to such an oglefest.

The film is an quintessential example of 70's non-political correctness at its absolute height, with scantily clad young women being leered at and sexually harassed by dirty old men, innuendo-leaden dialogue every other line, any attempts at satire on militant feminism in reaction to such blatant sexism soon fading in a welter of frantic puns and obvious excess.

The highlight is a brief but surprisingly ferocious catfight between Margaret Nolan and Barbara Windsor over the ownership of a particular bikini if it really matters, where La Nolan very nearly but not quite does the full monty, an allusion perhaps to the even smuttier and cruder 'Confessions' series of comedies that began the following year, with Robin Askwith as its lead. Askwith himself actually appears in this film, given little to do as a publicity photographer, though it is hard to accept the diminutive and overaged Babs Windsor as a beauty contestant in comparison to other younger, prettier participants like Maggie Nolan and the others, virtually all of whom are wordless, characterless ciphers merely to be leered at by seedy older males.

The film really cranks up the smut levels about half way, with fewer laughs but more vulgarity, and the finale where dowdy feminists sabotage the beauty contest degenerates into crude, messy, unfunny slapstick, with an overly abrupt ending as Sid and Babs too conveniently escape the chaos.

With said emergence of the 'Confessions' series a year later, the Carry On franchise was beginning to look outdated even then, plodding along rather desperately for another five years when much of its ensemble cast had left for various reasons, Sid James sadly dying in 1976, perhaps its most valuable asset. It's arguable 'Girls' was the first real indication that the series was on its road to decline, and although by no means as bad as later titles like 'England' and 'Emmanuelle', it now appears positively anachronistic and ancient nearly five decades later as a document of the times, so can be enjoyed with a slight whiff (or breaking of wind) of nostalgia of a comedy style that has long since passed, but is still not forgotten.

Rating; 5 and a half out of 10.