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Post by topbilled on Oct 31, 2022 14:45:44 GMT
Coming up:
Twins
January 7
A STOLEN LIFE (1946)
January 14
THE PARENT TRAP (1961)
Michael Parks
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January 21
BUS RILEY’S BACK IN TOWN (1965)
January 28
THE IDOL (1966)
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Post by topbilled on Jan 7, 2023 17:22:48 GMT
Essential: A STOLEN LIFE (1946)
TopBilled:
 If you think about it, a lot of Bette Davis’ hits at Warner Brothers were remakes. THE LETTER had been previously done as an early talkie with Jeanne Eagels in 1929. DECEPTION was another remake of an Eagels melodrama. And this film, released the same year as DECEPTION, was a remake of a British sudser starring Elisabeth Bergner. The Brits called their production STOLEN LIFE, without the ‘A.’ At this point in Miss Davis’ illustrious career, she had casting approval. This means she could veto anyone in the other main roles, if she didn’t like them or didn't feel they’d do well opposite her. Typically when a huge name had casting approval, they were coaxed to go along with the hiring of costars already under contract at the studio. But in this case, while nearly all the other supporting actors were WB contract players, she was able to get Glenn Ford borrowed from another studio across town. Ford’s career gained significant traction with his performance in GILDA back at his home studio Columbia. Though he’d been toiling at Columbia in B films for five years, he was suddenly an ‘overnight sensation’ and an A-lister. He could now obtain better roles, and I’m sure the actor jumped at the chance to work with a lady of Davis’ stature. It was a great opportunity for him. Ford and Davis would team up again later in Frank Capra’s POCKETFUL OF MIRACLES, but by that point, Davis’ movie career was in decline, and Ford was at the pinnacle of box office success. In A STOLEN LIFE, Davis is portraying twins. You know the ruse, one is sweetness and light; the other is dark and dangerous. She’d take another dual role in the 1960s, in DEAD RINGER, adhering to the same basic formula. Here the premise sees Ford as the love interest of the good twin, but he inexplicably falls for and marries the bad twin. In a great melodramatic twist, the bad one dies and so the good one, hoping to reclaim the man she lost, takes her deceased sibling’s place in the marriage.I guess the good sister figures that bad girls win, so she’s going to be ‘bad’ to get what she desires. I’ve always found love triangles in soap operas that involve twins to be a bit far-fetched, if not still interesting. This applies to triangles with twin brothers as well. How can the other lover, in this instance Mr. Ford’s character, not notice slight differences…especially in the bedroom? In a way, this story tries to defy the production code. We’re led to think the man will be able to commit adultery, or at least pursue a romantic relationship openly with the second female– not knowing that he is in fact a widower. Of course, the surviving sister does admit the truth, before it gets too far. But for a while, ignorance is bliss.***Jlewis:
A STOLEN LIFE is a 1945 (released ’46) Warner Brothers remake of a 1938 (released ’39) British Orion programmer (directed by Paul Czinner) that Leslie Halliwell’s old Movie Guides consider slightly superior to the Hollywood version. Karel Josef Benes wrote the original novel, set in England but transported to NEW England here. Curtis Bernhardt directed this second version that is oh-so-Warner Brothers-ish with studio headliners Bette Davis and Dane Clark hamming it up on screen, alongside straight-forward performances by such studio contractees and shared-with-other-studio faces as Glenn Ford, Walter Brennan, Charles Ruggles (whom we will also see in next week’s THE PARENT TRAP) and Bruce Bennett. Plus trademark Max Steiner orchestration blasting you in the face the moment the WB shield appears on screen. Bette plays scholarly artist Kate Bosworth returning home to Cape Cod, Massachusetts and wooing lighthouse engineer Bill Emerson (Ford). She uses Eben Folger (Brennan) and his passion for ships-in-bottles to get close to Bill, getting the former to pose for her portrait. The romance blossoms but Bill must go away to Boston on another job assignment, promising that he will return to her.Lo and behold, Kate has a twin named Patricia, who has recently joined as a resident at the same “Craven Cottage” owned by their cousin Freddie Linley (Ruggles). Clever editing and split screen allow us two Bette Davis-es on screen here. Pat is the more aggressive one. Kate is more demure. After meeting Bill accidentally, Pat is mistaken for Kate and she, seeing that Bill is quite the hunk, plays up to it. Clever dialogue occurs when Bill notices a change has happened to “Kate”…Bill: It’s like you were a cake.Pat posing as Kate: A cake?Bill: Yes, a cake…without any frosting. And I guess most guys, they kinda like the frosting. Know what I mean?Pat/Kate: Today you think I’m well-frosted.___________It does not take long before Bill realizes what is going on, as the real Kate soon arrives. Not that it stops the other for continuing her moves on Bill, even hopping onto his Boston bound train. Alas…Kate must give up her man to her sister who has more frosting. At first she seems willing. At the wedding, Pat purposely tosses the bouquet at Kate to catch but Kate moves slightly to miss it, suggesting no desire to find her own Mister Right. Instead she buries herself in her work, gets a major exhibition and meets starving but feisty artist Karnock (Clark). Starting out as a patron for him and providing financial support, a tempestuous relationship starts up. He psycho-analyzes her when Bill comes for a visit, knowing how she still yearns for her sister’s man. I guess a major point here is that Bill and Kate are too much alike and need somebody who sports more frosting than them to compensate.Bill takes a job in faraway Chile but Pat curiously decides not to go with him. Instead she revisits Kate at Cape Cod and the two attempt a reconciliation in their relationship. That is, until a sailboat trip together ends in tragedy…The title of our movie involves Kate making a second attempt at wooing Bill after being mistaken for Pat by Eben (i.e. the two sisters accidentally exchanged the wedding ring as identification). Freddie is suspicious but goes along with the deception. Karnock also is…and almost sabotages Kate’s chances. Then Kate discovers that things were not going as well as she thought between Bill and Pat, with the latter carrying on an affair with hunter trophy-man Jack Talbot (Bennett) who claims, in a reunited visit with Kate posing as Pat, that there were other lovers involved. Oh my! My! My!All of this makes for great fun. Again, the Steiner score is incredible here even if it “Mickey Mouses” its way through virtually every scene to highlight every single emotion and facial expression with great oomph. Kudos too to the clever split screen effects by credited William McGann, E. Roy Davidson, Willard Van Enger and Russell Collings.One cute little touch: Mike the Airedale notices that “Pat” is not Pat in a key scene that resembles another in our forthcoming THE PARENT TRAP: dogs notice more than humans do. Honesty is the best policy in the end. Honesty brings our happy couple together in the end after so much fog on the Massachusetts coastline has lifted.
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Post by Fading Fast on Jan 7, 2023 19:12:32 GMT
⇧ That's an outstanding write-up of an enjoyable movie.
I wrote a few paragraphs about it here "A Stolen Life" several years ago, but what I remember about the movie is the plot was kinda silly (as you noted), but the style of the movie and Davis' acting were an absolute joy (as you also noted).
Some movies are like that; they work for reasons other than what the production team probably thought would make the movie a success.
I just recently saw a documentary on Max Steiner, which is the only reason why I knew what you meant by "Mickey Mousing," but I now want to see the movie again for that reason, plus it's just an enjoyable movie.
I'm so glad you created this thread (or, I guess, continued it from the old TCM forum).
I love this ⇩ pic, Davis in particular, from the movie.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 8, 2023 20:01:20 GMT
I remember Michael Parks from his TV show. He even sang the theme song. Then again, I was raised in rural America with limited access to older movies. Before the Fox Network, KTVU in Oakland showed movies at night and the weekends. In my day, TV was just 4 networks. The other channels were independent with no network affiliation. I may not have seen Bette Davis until my subscription started with TCM. Thanks for the information TopBilled.
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Post by topbilled on Jan 9, 2023 1:33:08 GMT
I remember Michael Parks from his TV show. He even sang the theme song. Then again, I was raised in rural America with limited access to older movies. Before the Fox Network, KTVU in Oakland showed movies at night and the weekends. In my day, TV was just 4 networks. The other channels were independent with no network affiliation. I may not have seen Bette Davis until my subscription started with TCM. Thanks for the information TopBilled.
I am not sure if Jlewis had seen any of Michael Parks' films before. We previously reviewed WILD SEED which is actually my favorite. But THE IDOL is a close second, which we will get to later this month. |
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Post by topbilled on Jan 14, 2023 18:00:35 GMT
Essential: THE PARENT TRAP (1961)
TopBilled: When I pitched the first January theme to Jlewis a few months back, I told him that the two films we choose about identical twins should be opposites in some way. Since we were both keen to cover A STOLEN LIFE, the opposite of that would either be a film about male twins; or else another film about female twins that was not a melodrama but a comedy. So we chose to go with the second option.
Hayley Mills’ approach is quite different from the Bette Davis school of acting. For one thing, she is much younger. She’s British, and cheerfully so. Also, she depends on her supporting costars in ways that Davis does not. While the twins in THE PARENT TRAP get up to all kinds of mischief, we can still root for both siblings, since they share a goal of uniting their estranged parents (Maureen O’Hara & Brian Keith).
Maureen O’Hara was often critical of her male costars, as evidenced by comments in her autobiography. In fact, I can only think of three men she enjoyed sharing scenes with…these included John Wayne, with whom she had a special off-screen bond and made five features; John Payne, with whom she made four features and considered an utmost professional; and Brian Keith, with whom she made three features and also shared a good off-screen friendship.
When Miss O’Hara was putting together her own independently produced western, THE DEADLY COMPANIONS which came out a few weeks before THE PARENT TRAP in June 1961, she chose Mr. Keith to play the lead opposite her in that picture. It is evident in their scenes together that they enjoy a strong bond, which helps put this Disney trifle over with the audience. Even though the twins scheme at every turn to reunite the older pair, there is never any suggestion the couple lacks affection for one another or for their two daughters, who’ve been raised separately.
Walt Disney liked to borrow plots from earlier films made at Hollywood studios. He was a fan of RKO’s MOTHER CAREY’S CHICKENS (1938) which became the basis for SUMMER MAGIC (1963). And he seems to have also been an admirer of MGM’s TWICE BLESSED (1945), a comedy with a similar set-up about twins working to reconnect estranged folks, which appears to have been the basis for THE PARENT TRAP. However, when Disney produced his pseudo remakes, he never credited the originals but sometimes credited lesser European versions.
THE PARENT TRAP became a huge hit during the summer of ’61 for the Disney studio. It repeated Hayley Mills’ box office success from a year earlier in the remake of POLLYANNA. Her winning streak would continue with the company until 1965. As was often the case with Disney hits, this film was re-released in theaters, then reaped a bonanza later on home video. The studio ended up making the story again in 1998 with Lindsay Lohan.
I am going to turn things over to Jlewis, since he’s more the authority around here on Disney classics. But before I do, I want to say that if you’re a fan of Hayley Mills like we are, then you will undoubtedly relish the fact that another Hayley flick will be reviewed next month when we cover films directed by Ida Lupino. And in April there will be a whole month of Hayley’s British films from the 1960s.
***
Jlewis:
Seen both this version and the 1997/98 remake, but only bits and pieces of the trio of ’80s TV movie spin-offs. I do consider both major theatrical versions equally entertaining overall, with Lindsay Lohan being every bit as good in her twin roles as Hayley Mills.
Granted, I still have more affection for Hayley’s version, directed by David Swift, since that is the one I saw multiple times in my childhood. Both versions have their flaws despite their entertainment level, utilizing many old Hollywood tropes culled from countless other romantic comedies we have all seen before.
The former was filmed during the summer of 1960, the last summer of the Eisenhower Era, and very much reflects that time. For example, note how virtually all of the kids at summer camp are of the same skin shade…well, with a few minor exceptions I have noted.
Keep in mind that the civil rights movement was only just getting started and most Disney films pre-THE LOVE BUG tended to have a rather vanilla cast. Tommy Sands and Annette Funicello croon the very retro opening song (and it is a pity that Walt Disney could not get Ricky Nelson despite his importance in the script), highlighted by clever stop-motion animation by T. Hee, Bill Justice and Xavier Atencio.
It is at Camp Inch where Boston bred Sharon (Hayley) first meets more outdoorsy Susan (Hayley again) of California and the two notice their physical similarities right away. Not that they exactly bond over it.
With their fellow double buddies in tow, Susan makes a midnight mess of Sharon and her friends’ camp trailer. Sharon seeks revenge on Susan’s dress while she woos a boy at the dance. The head matrons (Ruth McDevitt and Nancy Kulp) force the twins to shack up with each other where, after their initial disgust, the two make some startling discoveries about their parents separating right around the time of their first year birthdays.
This leads to a great strategy that only 13 year olds can think up. Susan cuts Sharon’s hair so that they look identical and they trade places visiting the parent they had not met since infancy. Susan mixes in with mommy in Boston, the ravishing red-head Maggie McKendrick (Maureen O’Hara in her solo Disney film) along with Grandpa Charles (Charles Ruggles) and Grandma Louise (Cathleen Nesbitt).
Sharon poses as Susan for daddy Mitch Evans (Brian Keith) in a California ranch house with assistant Verbena (Una Merkel), ranch-hand Hecky (Crahan Denton) and Andromeda the German Shepherd who is suspicious that Susan is not really Susan. I should also add that Ruggles’ character is the first to accurately detect that Sharon is really Susan in Boston, just as Ruggles’ character in A STOLEN LIFE previously was the first to detect that Patricia was really Kate.
Daddy is planning to marry gold-digger Vicky, played with great vixenish venom by Joanna Barnes, who clearly enjoyed her bratty role here so much that she was willing to play Vicky’s mother 37 years later. Fittingly, Vicky is eager to get Susan off to boarding school once the honeymoon is over. Sharon playing Susan reports the updates of Daddy’s new love interest back to Susan playing Sharon as the two concoct a scheme to force Mommy to visit California in order to switch them around.
Daddy Mitch is rather smitten with his ex when she arrives unexpectedly and this adds dilemma galore to Vicky and her visiting mother (Linda Watkins in the original). However, the minister is most amused, this being an uncharacteristic role for Hitchcock regular Leo G. Carroll. In these situations, you just know what the outcome will be…kids stop daddy from marrying the wrong step-mommy and reuniting him with their real mommy.
Yet we must endure quite a bit before we reach that ending. First, the twins recreate their parents’ first date with an Italian restaurant setting (cue song “Let’s Get Together”) and Hecky dressed as a gypsy musician. Then the two refuse to budge from each other when Maggie attempts to take Sharon home, resulting in more delays and forcing a teenage deal with the adults. Topping it off in the final reel is an elaborate hiking trip revenge on Vicky so that her true colors, namely a dislike for the great outdoors, are revealed to Mitch.
Hayley still maintains her adorable British accent with some Yank coloration added. The remake version rectified a few flaws here, starting with one twin and her mother actually living in London instead of Boston, which not only created a further barrier between the parents but also allowed Lindsay the actress to successfully employ both Brit and Yank accents. There are a few other details about the later film that are also important improvements, although I still favor the older version a tad more.
The split screen technique, also employed in last week’s A STOLEN LIFE, is put to great effect here. The Disney studio certainly was at the top of its game making the impossible possible with so many shots of two Hayleys on screen. A few more mundane shots involving back-screen projection are jarring by comparison, but this was a common fault of many other films of this vintage as well.
Aside from the visuals, there are a few aspects to the storyline and the set-ups of important gags that have not aged all that well. The impact of fifties situation comedy television is evident here, particularly in the second half of the film. For example, Susan’s attack on Sharon at camp early on with elaborate strings and honey on her legs while sleeping is repeated as a revenge gag by both girls on Vicky in the hiking trip, but with the added novelty of baby bears licking her feet. It is way too elaborate of a set-up, even for 13 year olds working together, and you have to believe these characters are VERY sound sleepers not to detect anything unusual happening until morning.
Likewise, Mitch not being aware that Maggie has dropped in and is using his own bathroom is equally far-fetched, even in an era before home security systems were commonly used. Again, director Nancy Meyers and the key writers involved in the remake worked harder to fix some of these flaws by altering settings (the hotel lobbies being better than the private home for Maggie getting Mitch’s attention) and being more cinematic and less set-bound in the hike scenes. (Reportedly the original’s director David Swift contributed to the newer version’s screenplay as well.)
What does work well is the chemistry of the stars, Maureen O’Hara working with Brian Keith and both as parents to Hayley. I think this was the key to its enormous box-office appeal back in the day, being among the top five moneymakers of 1961. Combined with its 1968 reissue and overseas markets, the overall gross was an impressive $25 million.
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Post by topbilled on Jan 21, 2023 18:07:15 GMT
Essential: BUS RILEY'S BACK IN TOWN (1965)
TopBilled:
 Though Michael Parks made his mark on the big screen about a decade after James Dean, he is sometimes compared to him. Both actors had initially garnered attention doing roles on television while in the process of transitioning to more important work in feature films. Both were method actors sporting wholesome boy-next-door looks.  Yet both had a subversive quality in how they presented themselves with the characters they played. The subversiveness helps when Parks is portraying an insider-outsider like the title character in this mid-1960s offering from Universal.Plenty of pictures had sought to capture the awkward readjustment period experienced by returning veterans. Harold Russell struggles to reacquaint himself with his previous domestic life after WWII in THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES. We also see the adjustments that Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra face after the war in SOME CAME RUNNING. These pictures are a bit more melodramatic and daresay glamorous than what we see with BUS RILEY. Bus is coming home after what was probably the Korean War…though things seem strangely updated to the Lyndon Johnson era. Originally William Inge’s screenplay, based on an early play of his, was much more brutal in its depiction of the readjustment phase. Parks’ character has changed while he was away, and so has his high school sweetheart (Ann-Margret). The studio did extensive retakes before releasing the movie, to soften the harder aspects of the story, which angered Mr. Inge and annoyed Miss Margret. The actress was miffed because this was a chance to show off her acting chops alongside Parks, not to revisit the saccharine treatment she had endured in BYE BYE BIRDIE. Despite the revisions, I think we still get a sense of dysfunctional American life. It helps that much of it is shot on the Universal backlot— meaning one of the houses in town is the same structure used for the Cleaver home in Leave It to Beaver. There is a pervading sense of honest-to-goodness nuclear family values, upset by unalterable changes that our two main characters have experienced. Margret’s character did not wait for Parks to get back and she married a much wealthier man. While Parks projects a clean-cut image, there is a sense that underneath the nice looking appearance lurks the soul of a scruffier guy. One gets the feeling he is somewhat uneven, wanting to let go of all the societal norms that surround him…that he’d like to escape any enforced morality and any prescribed outcome for his life.In the 1980s, Parks returned to television in a regular role on the Aaron Spelling primetime soap The Colbys. In that series Parks plays a man who comes back from the dead, after supposedly being killed in Vietnam. He learns his sweetheart (Katharine Ross) has moved on and is set to marry a very powerful man (Charlton Heston). Episodes see Parks trying to reclaim what’s his. ***Jlewis:
Directed by Harvey Hart from a script by William Inge (but he was not happy with it, altering his billing credit), this is one of Universal’s little pictures. Its biggest box-office draw at the time was leading sex kitten Ann-Margret. (Cue scene of her playing with a cat. Purring too!) Michael Parks was a rising method actor who got much needed promotion here as the title character, also as an equally sexy male counterpart. Within a year, he would get more exposure…as we would say…exposing his bare behind as Adam in the Garden of Eden in THE BIBLE: IN THE BEGINNING. Amusingly, we are introduced to him half-naked, exhausted as a returning sailor, with his underpants thrown on a knickknack statue.One of several teen gals of the family house, Gussie (Kim Darby of the later TRUE-GRIT), ogles him…which is rather interesting since she is technically his sister. Mom (Jocelyn Brando) is in charge, renting the house to other women on occasion, namely Carlotta (Brett Somers) who is depressed in her lack-of-man restlessness. Paula (Mimsy Farmer) is the blonde sibling of sorts but is less close to our lead than Gussie’s teen gal friend Judy (Janet Margolin) whose mother dies dramatically on screen when she sets their house on fire.Not that we should think anything questionable is happening in this household. Bus’ focal point initially is Laurel, (Ann-Margret), the sweetheart that got away. She is married to a rich businessman who is frequently out of town and they meet up while he is nowhere in sight. Uh-oh, something is ignited again. As she explains, she was forced to marry because Daddy did not approve of her with Bus. Obviously there are parallels to TV’s Peyton Place here and the same market audience is targeted. However, this story has a rather confusing setting. I am guessing that the original script had it set just after the Korean War, roughly 11 years before the filming period, but Universal wasn’t certain what kind of movie they were making. The cars are more recent and the outfits are quite mid-sixties-ish Mod.I guess it was half-heartedly decided to bring it up to the early Vietnam War years as an after-thought. We get a bit of THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES situation here as Bus tries to get a new job in a struggling local community as a vacuum cleaner salesman, reminding me of an old Joe McDoakes Warner Brothers comedy short SO YOU WANT TO BE A SALESMAN with a similar plot set-up in regards to ex-soldiers. Seems better than being a funeral home mortician. An instrumental version of the Petula Clark hit “Downtown” plays on a drab bar jukebox that contrasts to Bus’ more exciting adventures in the Far East.One showcase scene involves Bus and his old flame in a swimming pool that may be unbearably tame by today’s standards but remember that 1964-65 had even tamer stuff on the home small screens and anything slightly provocative like this at least got folks away from their living room couches. “We make love over and over again and we never get anywhere” were lines that were certainly hotsy-totsy at the time. Alice Pierce has a hilarious bit role here (being featured on TV’s Bewitched at the time) as a prospective customer of Bus and his boss Spencer’s (Crahan Denton) vacuums. She gets all flirtatious with the older gent to keep in line with the impish goings on we see in this picture.Likewise, other lonely housewives (like Lisabeth Hush’s Joy) flirts with Bus as well as he tries to make a sale. Slocum (Brad Dexter) is a wealthy womanizer about town who represents the naughty side of Bus that needs taming but, in true fashion relating to America’s nuclear family ideal, he is so unhappy not settled down in domestic bliss.Judy starts out as the teen friend, only seventeen, but she ends up as the Nice Girl (still a virgin, of course, even if Bus is anything but) to contrast to Laurel. Nice girls win in the end. Our happy ending has our lead become an auto mechanic. There are some good lines in the script that kept me engaged here, but I kept expecting this movie to take on a more dramatic turn of interest. It sort of…meanders. As a character study, it is still interesting in spots. Parks gives an overall decent lead performance but I must confess to favoring Ann-Margret more. Maybe because she had a juicier role as the unsatisfied Mrs. Robinson in the making a.k.a. THE GRADUATE?
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Post by topbilled on Jan 28, 2023 14:33:55 GMT
Essential: THE IDOL (1966)
TopBilled:
Universal’s attempt to turn Michael Parks into the next popular matinee idol with WILD SEED and BUS RILEY’S BACK IN TOWN did not exactly pan out as planned. Probably too much tinkering with BUS RILEY during post-production undermined its effectiveness and wrecked chances at the box office. Parks did not become a full-fledged star but would find more work on television and go abroad to make this 1966 offering. In England there was a tendency to use Hollywood names to boost ticket sales. Including newer names like Parks that had not become megawatt successes, as well as older names like Jennifer Jones, a previous Oscar winner, who was a bit past her prime. Miss Jones’ previous motion picture had been 1962’s TENDER IS THE NIGHT, which was the last project overseen by her producer husband David Selznick. Mr. Selznick died in 1965, leaving Jennifer Jones a widow at age 46. Not quite ready to retire from the movie business, she was looking for a script where she could still be seen in a titillating fashion. THE IDOL doesn’t enjoy a large budget, but it does benefit from the guidance of a talented director (Daniel Petrie) and other skilled folks behind the camera. Their propensity is towards cinema as art, and this picture has quite a few artistic touches. THE IDOL contains some kitchen sink realism, having been made at the end of the cycle of such films. So while the plot is highly contrived, it still contains a great deal of stark emotionalism.Parks portrays a young man who is a hanger-on and an influencer. He has a rich male pal (John Leyton) who lacks direction in life, and there is a girl (Jennifer Hilary) that likes both of them. Parks steals Hilary from Leyton, but struggles to fully commit to her. She spends a considerable amount of time with him in his flat, which Leyton is paying for…despite his mother’s protestations.While Parks gets cozy with Hilary, we know that if something more alluring were to come along, he’d be off like a shot. The something more alluring is in fact Jones, who plays Leyton’s mother. At first she despises Parks and the hold he has over her son. But secretly she is obsessed with him. She fights her feelings of lust for Parks, while at the same time carrying on an Oedipal relationship with son Leyton. Yes, this is a complex study of desire and forbidden fruits.Eventually Jones succumbs to passion with Parks, on a night that Leyton’s been beaten up in a bar brawl. Parks has brought her son home to her, and she’s grateful to him. Gratitude leads to more, or else we wouldn’t have a movie. The fallout of their affair will signal their collective downfall. A rift occurs between Parks and Leyton, and there is a standoff on a boat, which leads to Parks being knocked overboard and drowning.What I find fascinating about the film is how Parks’ character is an anti-hero pseudo-rogue, yet ironically he’s a victim of this wealthy family. He doesn’t treat Jones as an older conquest as much as he treats her like a real object of desire and tool for revenge, since he never got over her earlier opposition to him. The big sex scene between them is not as trashy as one might expect. Sometimes I felt Jones was a bit unsure of herself on screen. But she does eventually latch on to the character midway and ultimately she turns in a fine performance. I guess I can excuse her uncertainty in the beginning scenes as a woman not quite at peace with where she is in life, and what she really needs. Once the character figures that out, it’s as if Jones herself has also figured out how to proceed with her role.Both stars are very attractive. But they are not always filmed in the most flattering ways, which adds to an undercurrent of grittiness. The look and feel of what we see on screen generates realism, and despite the over-the-top soap opera outcome, the story hits us hard and makes us think.***Jlewis:
Off to swinging London for another dose of Michael Parks, this time billed as one “no woman can resist.” A successful character actor on both big and small screens up until his passing in 2017, Parks succeeded rather well despite never quite becoming a household name.His early roles suggest that his agents saw him as a possible successor to Marlon Brando, James Dean, Steve McQueen and Paul Newman, often sporting the leather jacket (and sunglasses too in the early scenes of this one). Yet the sixties were a transitional period with Brando going through his pre-Godfather box-office poison phase, while Newman and McQueen were branching beyond their rebel roles. One could say that Parks’ timing might have been off due to no fault of his own, being the nature of a changing market. Here he is the bohemian artist, a U.S. citizen enjoying a more liberating atmosphere across the big pond, who befriends a stuffy med student named Timothy (John Leyton) and his girlfriend Sarah (Jennifer Hilary). The former has a mother complex, involving the mother of all mothers a.k.a. “I make my own decisions” versus “No you don’t, my baby.”; the wealthy and snooty, but dazzlingly beautiful, Carol is played by a veteran superstar of the previous two decades, Jennifer Jones. The bro-buddies are initially close with the latter helping bankroll the former’s apartment studio pad, but Marco’s intoxicating charms on the women of Timothy’s life create the expected rift between them. Sarah is first to fall under the Marco spell…and one could suggest that relationship was starting even before our opening credits roll since they are fellow artists, but she takes it to the next level by moving in with him at the pad. Then Carol, who is planning to remarry (Guy Doleman plays a very droll and poker faced Martin, suggesting an uneventful honeymoon to come) and is feeling undersexed, initially expresses a guarded tone tinged with disgust regarding Marco (“Spare me your schoolboy attempts at flirtation”) that inevitably develops into something more. As in our previous film, we get the obligatory shot of Parks shirtless in the autumn sunshine to woo the only slightly older (since her son is just 19 supposedly) matron.This all leads to Marco’s doom (Sarah reads his palm and notices he does not have a long life line) and the ultimate test between mum and son. Parks plays Marco as smug and condescending, reminding me a lot of Mickey Rourke in many of his eighties roles (9 ½ WEEKS and ANGEL HEART, for example). A little of that smug appeal (Sarah comments “you don’t love anyone”) goes a long, long way and Timothy decides what to do with it all on one fateful New Years 1966 party…in an act that hardly reunites him with Mother. All accidental, of course, but the authorities hold Timothy responsible for what happens.Daniel Petrie directed this Embassy Pictures production (released in the U.S. by Paramount) headed by Joseph E. Levine. Despite the star power of Jennifer Jones who did this right after the passing of her husband David O. Selznick, its morbid storyline and modest production values (being filmed in black and white) made it a rather obscure art-house piece for the American market. It rarely got shown on TV. Both Parks and fellow male lead John Leyton intriguingly had very similar careers as both actors and on-again, off-again singers; the latter’s “Johnny Remember Me” was a Brit hit comparable to Parks’ “Long Lonesome Highway.” Leyton got more plum roles in big budget hits such as THE GREAT ESCAPE and VON RYAN’S EXPRESS but both were more successful in character parts than as leading men throughout much of their careers. Parks kept going until his death while Leyton, who is still around, mostly retired after a final appearance in TELSTAR (2007).The set-ups and artistic positioning of the performers gets rather curious at times. One highlight is a panning shot of a Charlie Chaplin poster overlooking Sarah and Marco making love. Does Marco consider his affairs comic? There is also a wonderful Gothic shot of an angry Marco confronted by Sarah as he pulls the leaves of a tree over his face that would have impressed silent era director F.W. Murnau.  Since Timothy and Sarah are hardly affectionate and Sarah therefore seeks Marco’s attention, one could suggest some gay vibe with Timothy. At one point, Timothy gets beaten by thugs that could even suggest local homophobia. However it is all presented as rather nebulous with nothing spelled out. Basically Timothy is controlled by mother in a Norman Bates sort of way but, despite the actor playing him being 29, is barely out of his teens to express his full adulthood. It is up to the viewers to decide for themselves.None of these people are happy in their lives. Carol looks at herself in a mirror (and, again, some of these shots are worthy of an old-time silent epic of the twenties post German Expression) and you can detect her disgust in herself falling for a younger man who represents a self confident, more liberated version of her own son. She struggles separating her roles as mother and wife/lover, admitting to Marco that her relationship with her son might have prompted the divorce with his father. Oh..and, like Sarah, she ends up naked under the sheets with Marco as well! This is too much for even Marco to handle.It is hard to understand the intentions of this film’s makers but the visuals strive to create a unique atmosphere. In addition, John Dankworth provides the jazzy music, quite gorgeous in its orchestration and raising the emotional angst. This all results in a fascinating little art-house piece, flawed but still fascinating.
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