Columnists
Entries from October 2007
Lois Maxwell, the Canadian-born actress who passed away on
September 29, made an indelible impression throughout the 007 film series in
her signature role as Miss Moneypenny, personal secretary to “M.†Ian Fleming
himself approved her casting, confiding to her after filming wrapped on Dr.
No: “I envisioned a tall, elegant woman with the most kissable lips in the
world. You are her!â€
Moneypenny never applied those passionate lips to James
Bond’s, yet she held his affections longer than any of his innumerable screen
conquests. Maxwell sat in Moneypenny’s chair in 14 Bond films, sparking against
the disparate charms of Sean Connery, George Lazenby and Roger Moore. She made
the most of her limited screen time, exhibiting sophisticated comic flair in
ongoing racy repartee with the world’s most libidinous secret agent.
With Connery, Maxwell enjoyed a palpable sexual rapport,
especially in the first several films. There was an intriguing sense that,
given the right circumstances, they just might give in to their mutual
attraction. In Dr. No, Bond sits on the edge of her chair and seductively
nuzzles her while holding her hand. And why not? She’s wearing a fetching
sleeveless black dress that’s just begging to be ripped off. From Russia
With Love finds them in another near-embrace, with Bond whispering, “Let me
tell you the secret of the world†and Moneypenny about to come undone when M’s
buzzer breaks their reverie. As Bond leaves for his assignment, he and
Moneypenny exchange “ciaos†with the intimacy of would-be lovers.
Continue reading ""THANK YOU, MISS MONEYPENNY": DEAN BRIERLY SALUTES LOIS MAXWELL"
WE CONTINUE OUR SERIES OF REPORTS FROM OUR CORRESPONDENT JOHN
EXSHAW'S DIARY FROM THE RECENTLY CONCLUDED VENICE INTERNATIONAL FILM
FESTIVAL.
JoaquÃn
Luis Romero Marchent was the earliest European director, prior to Sergio
Leone, to consistently explore the
Western form. After two films in the mid-1950s featuring the Zorro-esque El
Coyote and two in the early Sixties featuring the Fox of Old California himself
(Zorro the Avenger and The Shadow of Zorro), Romero Marchent made
his proper Western début in 1963 with The Magnificent Three, followed by
Gunfight at High Noon, starring Richard Harrison, Robert Hundar, Gloria
Milland, and Fernando Sancho. The latter three actors also starred in Seven
Guns from Texas (1964), shown here today, and introduced by the hulking
Hundar (real name, Claudio Undari) himself. Whether or not Romero Marchent,
still going strong at 86, was invited, I’ve been unable to discover . . .
Bob
Carey (Paul Piaget), having been released from prison after killing a man in a
(fair) fight, discovers that his former fiancée, MarÃa (Gloria Milland, real
name, Maria Fié) is now married to a successful rancher named Clifford (Jesús
Puente), and that he himself is being hunted by the dead man’s brothers, who
have vowed to avenge him. Clifford learns that MarÃa is suffering from a brain
tumour; on being told that her only chance lies in seeing a specialist in El
Paso, Clifford decides against telling MarÃa and begins making plans for the
long and hazardous journey through Indian territory. With the Redskins
currently on the warpath, the Army cannot spare men for an escort, and so
Clifford is forced to hire adventurers for the journey. These include Carey,
Ringo, a flamboyant character known as “Gambler†(Fernando Sancho), a couple of
bad hats led by Raf Baldassarre, a comic-relief Chinese cook (Gregory Wu) and
the wagon driver, played by Paco Sanz. With tensions simmering within the
party, and dangers threatening without, the group embark on their race against
time . . .
Last
year, when I was interviewing Aldo Sanbrell, I was surprised to learn that,
generally speaking, he preferred the Westerns he had made with Romero Marchent
to those made with Italian directors, Sergio Leone included. Admittedly (For
a Few Dollars More apart), Leone had never made the best use of Aldo,
employing him more as a good-luck talisman than as an featured character star,
but considering that Sanbrell had also appeared in films for Corbucci, Sollima,
and Tessari, it seemed an extraordinary endorsement of his fellow countryman.
But, watching Seven Guns from Texas, I began to see why Aldo felt that way.
A very traditional Western, with a solid plot and clearly defined characters in
even the smaller roles, it is just the sort of well-crafted movie that would
appeal to an actor brought up on the Westerns of Randolph Scott and Joel
McCrea, and who consequently preferred the American approach – “Americans, in
Westerns, give you much more reality. . . . Romero Marchent, he makes something
like the American films – so simple . . . But it was real. He doesn’t go into
the fantasy, let’s say, of Leone . . . â€
In
addition to being told with a skill and conviction which should satisfy most
traditionalists, Seven Guns from Texas looks impressive – the fort has a
built-to-last quality that would put many higher-budget Hollywood Westerns to
shame, and the costumes and photography are of a comparably high standard.
Piaget is rather stiff and colourless as Carey, but then traditional Western
heroes often are. Hundar, who would become a distinctive presence in the
Italian Western, is fine as Ringo, and Baldassarre is suitably snaky as the
villain who holds the party to ransom over a water hole near the film’s end..
Puente gives a sympathetic performance in what is a fairly thankless role, and
Sanz, who seems to be turning up in everything in the last few days, demonstrates
his versatility behind a bushy beard which would have been the envy of George
‘Gabby’ Hayes. While Romero Marchent includes a number of obvious allusions to
‘Stagecoach’ in his film, they are in no way intrusive; indeed, the basic story
of a race against time in the face of terminal illness was apparently an
extrapolation of the director’s family’s own, ultimately futile, efforts to
find a cure for his mother’s lung cancer. The Spanish print reportedly closes
with the death of MarÃa, but the ending in the Italian version was “softenedâ€
to allow the possibility that she may survive.
***********
One
of the great canards thrown at the Italian film industry during its
international heyday was that it provided a haven for washed-up stars whose
“real†careers back in Hollywood had gone south of the border. As with so much
written in those times (such as the notion that Anglo pseudonyms were adopted
to fool English-speaking audiences into thinking they were watching a “realâ€
Hollywood film), this was arrant nonsense. Not only did the Italian film
industry create new stars of global significance (Steve Reeves, Clint Eastwood,
Franco Nero, Tomás Milian, to name only the most obvious), but it also gave older
“name†actors opportunities they would never have had at home.
Rather
than sneering about “has-been stars making cheap B-movies in Italyâ€, film
historians need to ask themselves what those actors might have done had they
stayed in Hollywood. Take Guy Madison, for example: he went to Italy in 1960,
two years after the cancellation of his long-running TV series, The
Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok, and spent a decade starring in every
popular genre of the day: pepla, swashbucklers, Westerns, spy films, superhero
yarns, and war movies. He was able to play both heroes and villains, from Wyatt
Earp to turbaned Oriental exotics, in films which, if they were cheap, were
only so in comparison with bigger-budgeted Hollywood movies (and which, thanks
to the behind-the-camera skill and inventiveness of such as Mario Bava,
frequently looked much better than their similarly-budgeted American
counterparts). Now, ask what Madison might have done had he stayed in
Hollywood: a few more guest spots in Wagon Train and other TV series?
Cameos in the occasional movie? Or straight down the ladder to grade-Z horror
flicks for the drive-in market? Nor is Madison an isolated case: what did the
future in Hollywood hold for a middle-aged ex-Tarzan like Lex Barker? Certainly
not the chance to work with Fellini and become a massive star in Continental
Westerns. And then there’s Gordon Scott, and . . . well, you get the idea.
Neither
Van Heflin nor Gilbert Roland, two “name†stars finding good work hard to come
by in 1960s’ Hollywood, can have had any reason to regret their participation
in Giorgio Capitani’s The Ruthless Four (1968), a superior Western in
every respect, and one which gave Heflin, in his only Italian outing, the last
good role of his distinguished career. He plays Sam Cooper, a gold prospector
who finally strikes it rich only to find himself faced with an immediate murder
attempt by his hitherto loyal partner. After being held up and robbed on his
way back to town, Cooper, realising that he needs someone he can trust to help
extract the gold, wires money to Manolo Sánchez, a young man whom Sam had
helped raise before succumbing once more to wanderlust and gold fever. Manolo
(played by George Hilton) duly arrives, and Sam, in the course of their drunken
reunion, gradually reveals his reason for summoning him. Close on Manolo’s
heels, however, comes the sinister figure of “the Blond†(Klaus Kinski), who
soon reasserts his authority, based on their homosexual relationship, over the
affable but weak Manolo. With “the Blond†insinuating himself into the group,
Sam turns to a one-time friend, Mason (Roland), for support. Mason, who still
believes that Cooper turned him in after their escape from a prison camp
several years previously, agrees to accompany Cooper in return for a fifty-fifty
split. The quartet set off, foiling an ambush instigated by the town’s
storekeeper before beginning the long trek to Cooper’s mine . . .
Capitani,
whose only Western this was, originated the story which was then developed by
co-writer Fernando Di Leo, who had worked uncredited on the first two Dollars
films and would later become well-known for his crime movies of the 1970s. The
characters in The Ruthless Four have a psychological depth and
complexity comparable to any American counterpart of similar scope and
ambition, and indeed the film (a few stylistic flourishes apart) is largely
indistinguishable from a traditional Hollywood Western. The most memorable
stylistic flourish involves Capitani’s introduction of the Blond, who arrives
in town during a thunderstorm, wearing a battered trilby and a rubber slicker.
Going into the saloon, the Blond asks for milk and is not amused by the
barman’s smart-ass reply. As he grabs the barman’s wrist, Capitani cuts to a
Leonesque close-up of Kinski’s eyes, then, when he turns away, there is an
anachronistic jazz intro on the soundtrack, an obvious reference, along with
his costume, to Kinski’s many roles in Edgar Wallace krimis, in which
the actor often played sinister weirdos slinking around in smoke-filled jazz
clubs. Another nice touch is the depiction of Lancaster, the treacherous
storekeeper, as an obese knitting fanatic. Capitani also makes interesting use
of Carlo Simi’s El Paso set; whereas, in Sugar Colt, Franco Giraldi
obviously didn’t give a damn who recognised it, Capitani seems to go out of his
way to disguise its appearance, choosing unusual camera set-ups and avoiding
long-shots – perhaps an indication of how well-known the set had become a mere
two years after For a Few Dollars More (The Ruthless Four was
shot in 1967.)
Van
Heflin, who, with his bulging eyes and homely features, was surely one of the
more improbable Hollywood stars – a character actor propelled by his talent
into leading roles – gives a wonderfully rich and well-judged performance as
Cooper, certainly on a par with his work in Shane and 3:10 to Yuma.
Roland, a more limited actor, perhaps, but one whose unique brand of style and
steely machismo made him a welcome figure in many Fifties’ Westerns, is at his
best in The Ruthless Four, as a man twisted by suspicion (and crippled
by bouts of malaria) who regains his sense of decency at the end. In one
delightful touch (presumably improvised), Roland, to distract the storekeeper’s
bushwhackers, executes a seemingly impromptu two-step dance, which immediately
recalls the actor’s many roles as Latin lovers in his early career.
Hilton,
the Uruguayan-born star of many Spaghetti Westerns (often as fairly laid-back
types, with the occasional avenger or villain thrown in) is excellent as the
spineless Manolo, with Capitani cleverly exploiting the essential softness in
the actor’s screen persona. It seems well worth pointing out that, had Hilton
been a star of Hollywood Westerns at the time, the chances of him being
offered, or allowed to play, a role like Manolo Sánchez would have been less
than zero. (“Big Jake, starring John Wayne, with George Hilton as The
Catamite Kid� Unlikely, to say the least.) Indeed, another of the most
commendable aspects of the Italian film industry in this period was the freedom
enjoyed by actors in their choice of roles: they could make a Mario Bava horror
film one week and a Fellini the next, and if an actor decided to become
associated with a particular genre, it seems it was a matter of choice, not
box-office imperative or typecasting.
Klaus
Kinski, it need hardly be said, is extremely effective as the Blond – less
flamboyant than in many of his Western roles, which were often little more than
glorified cameos, but none the less impressive for that. And he gets to stick
around for a lot longer than usual, a good thing in itself.
Giorgio
Capitani and George Hilton were both present for the screening, which attracted
a full house in one of the smaller cinemas allocated to the retrospective.
Capitani went on to become a highly-respected director of sophisticated
comedies, most of which received little distribution outside Italy, but The
Ruthless Four is considered by many to be his best film, and is well worth
tracking down.
Continue reading "VENICE FILM FESTIVAL: JOHN EXSHAW'S REPORT #13"
WE CONTINUE OUR SERIES OF REPORTS FROM OUR CORRESPONDENT JOHN
EXSHAW'S DIARY FROM THE RECENTLY CONCLUDED VENICE INTERNATIONAL FILM
FESTIVAL.
Having crawled into bed at 5:30 a.m., the prospect of being
back on the Lido for the 8:30 a.m. screening of Takashi Miike’s ‘Sukiyaki
Western Django’ rather lacked appeal, to put it mildly, so I resigned myself to
the usual routine of four litres of espresso and a stint in the press room
prior to collapsing into a seat for the 4:30 p.m. showing of Franco Giraldi’s
‘Sugar Colt’ (1966). It came as a surprise to find Giraldi himself in
attendance, having heard earlier in the week that he “wasn’t well†– a rather
ominous phrase when applied to a man in his mid-seventies (and one that was
also used to describe Sergio Sollima’s condition when he was unable to attend ‘The Big
Gundown’). But there he was, sporting a crutch and a slight hobble, but
otherwise in fine fettle.
The film’s star, Hunt Powers (real name, Jack Betts – any
relation to Tom Betts of ‘Westerns… all’italiana!’ magazine, one idly wonders?)
had already told how he landed the part of Sugar Colt at the second Spaghetti
Western Round Table, but that didn’t stop him telling it again. Here’s how it
goes: “I was on my home, in California, when I decided to call my agent. He
told me he’d gotten a call from Franco Giraldi about the leading role in a film
called ‘Sugar Colt’ Do you ride a horse? he asked. For years, I told him. I’m a
superb equestrian. Do you shoot? Indeed I do, and have in fact won many
sharpshooting contests. Can you be in Rome in two weeks? You bet your ass I
can! I then called John Wayne and told him I needed to learn how to ride and
shoot in two weeks. Duke told me to come out to his ranch, and his head
wrangler taught me everything he could. I’ve never told Franco that story till
now, so I guess I did all right.â€
‘Sugar Colt’, whose screenwriters included Sandro Continenza
and Fernando Di Leo, proves to be a rather uneven film, part revenge Western
and part comedy, with a dash of spy film thrown in for good measure. Tom
Cooper, a former undercover agent codenamed Sugar Colt, is approached by one Pinkerton
(presumably old Allan himself) and asked to assist in solving a case in which
some 150 Union sharpshooters had disappeared in mysterious circumstances at the
end of the Civil War. Cooper, now the dandifyied owner of a ladies’ shooting
academy, refuses, but changes his mind almost immediately when Pinkerton is
gunned down in the street. Disguising himself as a doctor, Sugar Colt travels
to Snake Valley to crack the case . . .
If the script of ‘Sugar Colt’ proves to be a bit wobbly, the
same cannot be said of Franco Giraldi’s direction, which is remarkably assured,
with good, clean composition and impressive use of landscape throughout. Powers
plays his part well enough, though his uncanny and extremely unfortunate
resemblance to pop star Robbie Williams, right down to the same smarmy
expressions and narcissistic posing, is highly distracting. Not his fault,
perhaps, but is smarminess really a quality one wants in a Western hero?
Soledad Miranda, Jess Franco’s ill-fated muse, shines in her role as Josefa,
and is ably supported by Gina Rovere as her Aunt Bess. In one amusing sequence,
after Josefa has been overcome by some gas released by Sugar Colt (don’t ask),
Rovere, instead of delivering the expected slap to help her regain her senses,
cold-cocks her with a beautifully-delivered straight right to the face. Also in
the cast, glimpsed briefly as one of Cooper’s clients in the shooting academy,
is Mara Krup, well-remembered as the hotel owner’s wife who drools over No Name
in ‘For a Few Dollars More’. The remarkably annoying theme tune by Luis
EnrÃquez Bacalov, which usually has me reaching for the skip button on my CD
player, is thankfully underemployed. It’s also interesting to note that the
name ‘Sugar Colt’, which sounds pretty odd to English-speaking viewers, sounds
even odder when uttered by Italian-speaking actors.
Afterwards, I managed to get Giraldi’s attention for all of
two minutes. Not knowing he was going to be there, I had no sensible questions
prepared, and found myself saying something inane about his use in ‘Sugar Colt’
of Carlo Simi’s El Paso set from ‘For a Few Dollars More’. “Ah,†he said, “Very
good. You have a very sharp eye.†Which was nice of him, of course, though in
truth you’d have to be Tony Anthony’s title character in ‘Blindman’ not to spot
it. I then complimented him on his direction of ‘Sugar Colt’. “It’s not
perfect, not all,†he replied. “It is, I think, very naïve. But there are
things I like. . . . I have not seen it for years.†He agreed that Miranda was
good, adding “but she died very young.†And that was the end of another
sensational, in-depth interview.
Continue reading "VENICE FILM FESTIVAL: JOHN EXSHAW'S REPORT #12"
WE CONTINUE OUR SERIES OF REPORTS FROM OUR CORRESPONDENT JOHN
EXSHAW'S DIARY FROM THE RECENTLY CONCLUDED VENICE INTERNATIONAL FILM
FESTIVAL. “Quentin Tarantino is under sedatives,†the spokesman
announced, before starting to shuffle furiously through a sheaf of papers.
Well, of course he is, I thought. In a flash, the whole story unfolded before
my eyes: Tarantino had arrived in Venice
and discovered that the organisers of the international event to which he’d
lent his name were showing crappy digital prints of some of his favorite
movies. Naturally enough, he’d completely flipped out and strangled them both
with a length of 35mm film he keeps for just such a purpose. He’d eventually
been restrained and was now “under sedatives†in the newly-named Sergio Leone
Suite of the Excelsior Hotel, as his lawyers prepared an unanswerable defense
of justifiable homicide . . .
It was all so clear. And Cinema Retro was going to
get the cinematic scoop of the century! Hot damn in a handcart! I could already
see myself signing off my reports with Danny De Vito’s lines from ‘L.A.
Confidential’: “Remember, dear readers, you heard it here first – off the
record, on the QT, and very hush-hush.†And then, why not? the book deal,
serialisation rights, movie options . . . Larry King, here I come! Clear the
sofa, Oprah! But what to call it? ‘Death in Venice’? No, no, no . . . ‘Death by
Celluloid’? Hmm, yeah, maybe . . . “. .
. blahdy- blah . . . sends his regrets . . . blah blah blah . . .†What the hell is that man talking about?
Can’t he see I’m creating here? And why’s he waving that piece of paper?
“. . . letter . . . full text . . .†Reluctantly, I hauled myself off Oprah’s
couch and returned to Planet Earth. And this is what I heard:
“To Marco Müller and all my friends,
I will not be able to join you at this festival as I injured
my back.
I am heartbroken not to be able to watch and enjoy all the
different Spaghetti Westerns we’ve programmed for the festival. Great movies
like The Bounty Killer, El Desperado, Navajo Joe, Tepepa.
It is my wish that when this festival is over the director Sergio Corbucci will
take the place he deserves beside Leone and with John Ford, Howard Hawks and
Anthony Mann as one of the greatest Western directors of all time.
So everyone drink good wine, eat good food, ride the waters
and enjoy the magic of cinema.
Love,
Quentin Tarantinoâ€
Continue reading "VENICE FILM FESTIVAL: JOHN EXSHAW'S REPORT #11"
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