Blind Date.

As I have said before Joseph Losey, along with Ben Barzman, was listed by the House of Un-American Activities as communist sympathisers and both took up residence in Britain. Losey settled in London in January1953 and thereafter made some of the best British films of the 1950’s and 60’s some of which can be accessed on my blog by clicking on this Joseph Losey link.

 

The suspect being questioned by the future head of C15. 

In any other directors hands Blind Date (1959) would have been a conventional British crime drama but as Robert Murphy[1] so rightly points out Losey, with the help of Barzman’s co-written screenplay adapted from Leigh Howards novel Chance Meeting, transforms it into a ‘critique of a repressive class ridden society’ He goes on to explain that in The Servant, King and Country, Accident and The Go-Betweens his [Losey] treatment of the English class system is always that of an outsider, fascinated and slightly appalled, in Blind Date despite its French femme fatale and its Dutch leading character is bolder and more polemical. Its remarkable in the fact that it is the only one of Losey’s films to validate his left wing credentials.

 

The 'victim' and the suspect.

The directors handling of the two working class characters were exceptional. Inspector Morgan (the wonderful  Stanley Baker) is the son of a chauffeur and appears to have worked his way through the ranks of the police force the ‘hard way’ and has an uneasy relationship with his middle class colleagues and his superiors. He is told in no uncertain terms that to get any further in his career he must develop a deeper understanding of public service, in other words cowl down to his so called betters and perhaps join the ‘Lodge” which Morgan does not appear to be able, or want, to do! The second working class character is our suspected murderer Jan Van Rooyen (Hardy Kruger) the son of a coal miner and a penniless artist who develops a weakness for our murdered femme fatale, one Jacqueline Cousteau (Paris born Micheline Presle). 

 

Inspector Morgan doing his job. 

We first meet our Dutch artist on his way to a date at the Clive Mews flat of Ms Cousteau, when he arrives the front door is open, he enters closely followed by the police who discover the dead body of the French woman lying covered up on her bed. The hard-bitten Welsh detective Inspector Morgan begins his interrogation of his number one suspect. We are transported back in time to explain the relationship between the rather dislikable Jan and the victim, how they met, her visits to his rented studio, and how Jan fell in love and became enchanted with this beautifully alluring older woman.

 

Joseph Losey with Hardy Kruger and Micheline Presle.

I may admittedly be a little biased due to my high regard for the director but urge you to see this more than acceptable crime drama, which as I have said previously not only emphasises exquisitely the British class structure it gives a credible portrait of a love affair of ‘convenience’ between rich and poor, and also underlining how in the British movie industry at that period the portrayal of the police was becoming ever more realistic and far less flattering than the cosy world portrayed in earlier ‘Dixon of Dock Green’ type features.

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[1] Sixties British Cinema Robert Murphy.

Modesty Blaise.

Based on a popular newspaper comic strip by Peter O'Donnell, one which debuted in the London Evening Standard in May 1963, Modesty Blaise is part of a sub genre called a 'spy spoof'' These were made because of the popularity of the early James Bond films but rather than be made as serious spy adventures like the Bond or the Harry Palmer films they were made as a parody, but few of them actually succeeded as a comedy thriller, i.e. they weren’t especially funny and they certainly weren’t thrilling, although I think that Losey’s film could be the exception that proves that rule.

 

The psychopath Mrs Fothergill!

The plot, for what's its worth, has to do with a female agent and her cockney side kick Willie Garvin who get involved with the British secret service, a conspiracy involving diamonds, a bunch of Arabs, some oil, an arch villain called Gabriel and a psychopath called Mrs. Fothergill.

 

The decedent villain Gabriel.

It's a film you can't really judge by ordinary standards.  Directed by the great Joseph Losey in 1966, it has since become a cult camp classic. Technically accomplished, with some great colourful production design from Richard MacDonald, its completely insane but it certainly captures the spirit of the times and features some great acting talent who between them brilliantly demonstrate the art of 1960's camp. Italian actress Monica Vitti (Red Desert 1964) plays the female James Bond transcending any problems with the English language with her beauty. Terence Stamp, who slotted this movie between The Collector (1965) and Poor Cow (1967), plays the bed hopping Willie whose cockney accent does him any favours. A grey wigged Dirk Bogarde, who seems to relish the part, plays the decedent villain Gabriel. But the best part goes to another Italian actress Rossella Falk who plays Gabriel's right hand woman Mrs. Fothergill who alleviates her boredom by torturing and killing people.

 

The Female Agent and her cockney side kick.

The soundtrack was composed by Johnny Dankworth with a time warp of a theme song called Modesty by the British pop duo of Roger Greenaway and Roger Cook who went by the name of David and Jonathan. (Just another little quirk of the 1960's).  Filmed on location in Amsterdam, London and at the Shepparton Studios its certainly worth another look and the DVD I have has a superbly crisp and bright feel which denies the films age. 

Modesty Blaise.

Eva.

No one could smoke a cigarette like Jeanne Moreau!

During his self imposed professional exile in Britain Joseph Losey made some truly great films and was one of the few ‘foreign’ directors to receive serious critical attention. One of the not so quite so well known films made during the 1960’s, his most fruitful period, was the European art film Eva (1962)[1] which consisted of a very cosmopolitan cast and crew. It was made in Italy, based on a novel of the same name by English writer James Hadley Chase, directed by an American with French producers and starred French, British and Italian actors. 

A Welsh novelist Tyvian Jones, played by a very intense Stanley Baker, has a best selling novel which has been adapted into a well received movie, a house in Venice and a flat in Rome and a beautiful Italian fiancée Francesca Ferrara, the award winning actress Virna Lisa best known for her award winning part in La Reine Margot (1994). But all is not well, his film director is also in love with Francesca and is having the Welshman investigated hoping to find something that will discredit him in the eyes of wife-to-be. In the mean time Tyvian is tasked with writing another story hopefully to be adapted into a further hit movie. To this end he goes to his secluded house on an island near Venice. Arriving there late at night he finds that two people have broken in and have made themselves at home. The man is ejected but when he finds the second person, a woman, naked in his bath he allows her to stay. Attempting to seduce her she knocks him out with an ashtray and it’s this bump on the head that begins his dangerous fixation with Eva Oliver.

Moreau with Stanley Baker.

French actress Jeanne Moreau (Lift to the Scaffold (1958) Querelle (1982)) plays the femme fatale Eva an emotionless seductress ‘who never gives herself, only sells herself,’[2] simply interested in what she can get out of the men she seduces, a sort of high class call girl without the obligatory pimp.  The affair between the novelist and the money grabbing Eva starts as an infatuation but turns into an obsession which completely turns Tyvian’s world upside down humiliating him in front of friends and colleagues and leading to a terrible tragedy. 

Made in black and white on location in Italy in the winter months with no visible sign of tourists anywhere. It’s typical 1960’s art house film noir with long flowing camera shots from cinematographer Gianni Di Venanzo and its requisite monochrome atmospherics with unlikable characters that barely break a smile. Baker gives his normal fraught performance, but to be fair no one can smoke a cigarette or say a line like ‘bloody Welshman’ quite like Ms Moreau and it’s soundtrack does include Billie Holiday!   

The beautiful Virna Lisi.

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[1] Originally, this subject was offered by the Hakim brothers, who produced it, to Jean-Luc Godard to direct. Godard was anxious to sign Richard Burton for the leading role, but failed and then dropped out of the project. The Hakims instead obtained the services of another Welsh actor, Stanley Baker, who insisted on them hiring his friend Joseph Losey to direct. (IMDb Trivia)

[2] Quote from the Film’s Trailer. 

The Damned

British poster.

H L Lawrence’s novel The Children of Light told of a secret government experiment to cultivate a group of cold-blooded radioactive children to inhabit a contaminated earth in the aftermath of a nuclear war. With the encouragement of Hammers Michael Carreras, who wanted the production company to diversify from it’s reliance on gothic horror, Joseph Losey was persuaded to make a film based on Lawrence’s novel. Added to the novel’s basic British science fiction premise was “teenage rebellion” including a teddy boy/rocker gang lead by King (Oliver Reed) whose sister Joan (the lovely Shirley Anne Field Arthur Seaton’s love interest in 1960’s Saturday Night-Sunday Morning) uses her obvious sexual charms to lure American tourist Simon Wells (Macdonald Carey) into a mugging where he is beaten and robbed by her evil brother and his gang. This attack leads to Joan and Simon having an affair which narratively speaking leads to the discovery of the secret experiments and the children who, like their counterparts in the recent Never Let Go (2010), are innocent victims of a self serving ruthless ruling class. Stanley Kubrick used the same premise in 1971’s A Clockwork Orange in as much as questionable activities by both an extreme youth movement and the even more dangerous “authorities”.

American poster.

The movie, filmed on location in Weymouth and nearby Portland Bill, was originally made in 1961 but due to political considerations was not released until 1963 in the UK and 1965 in the USA where it went under the title of These Are The Damned. When viewing this film today it must be remembered that in the early 60’s many considered a nuclear war inevitable at a time when the Cuban missile crisis was at its height. Even the sculptures made by Freya Nielsen (Swedish actress Viveca Lindfors) were made to represent bodies of people and animals killed by a nuclear blast. (They were actually made by British sculptor Elisabeth Frink) Losey’s film, fascinating and menacing, captures the edgy nature of living with the threat of nuclear oblivion and is now can be regarded as one of the best of Hammers Films.

For more Joseph Losey follow link:

http://brianmatthews60.blogspot.com/search/label/Joseph Losey

More Joseph Losey.

The Sleeping Tiger.

Victor Hansbury was the pseudonym Joseph Losey used to direct his first feature film in Britain following his blacklisting in America. Some members of the cast were worried that they would no longer be able to work in Hollywood if it was discovered they where working with Losey in Britain, hence the assumed name. The Sleeping Tiger (1954) also marks the beginning of one of British cinema’s most important actor/director collaboration, Losey’s productive partnership with the great British actor Dirk Bogarde (The Servant (1963), King and Country (1964), Modesty Blaise (1966) and Accident (1967)).

A psychiatrist Clive Esmond (Alexander Knox) catches a young criminal Frank Clemens (Bogarde) while attempting a robbery at gunpoint. Rather than send him to prison he invites him to stay at his home as a social guinea pig to help further his theory that he can kerb a mans criminal tendencies. Tensions arise when the shrink’s wife (Alexis Smith) shows just a little too much interest in the social misfit.

This British film noir was said to be a dry run for The Servant due to the style of camera work and the ‘pithy insights into class hypocrisy and the base human emotions’ a fine start to Losey’s directorial film career in this country.


The Criminal. (Concrete Jungle)

By 1960 Joseph Losey was well established in the UK and following Blind Date (1959) he began to look for something more adventurous and settled on a script by Alun Owen. The Criminal (1960) is the story of an underworld kingpin called Johnny Bannion who when released from prison masterminds a daring racetrack robbery. The robbery is not a success and he is sent back to prison but not before he’s buried the spoils. Johnny must now survive an ordeal at the hands of fellow prisoners who are in cahoots with his previous accomplices who want to get their hands on the missing £40000.

The film depicts a harsh and very violent portrayal of prison life with Losey attempting, in his own words, "to show life in prison as it really was: where the guards were bribed and where there were ruling gangs in opposition to each other... where there was a kind of violence of unbelievable brutality but mixed with humour and a certain kind of compassion." This led to the film being banned in various parts of the world. Stanley Baker is said to have based his performance as Johnny Bannion on his friend, real-life Soho criminal Albert Dimes. The film also stars various well-known British character actors of the period along with American actor Sam Wanamaker and German actress Margit Saad. The compelling score also marked the beginning of a long collaboration between John Dankworth and the director. Dankworths wife Cleo Laine sang the film’s haunting theme.

Joseph Losey and Harold Pinter.

Losey with James Fox and Harold Pinter

Joseph Losey’s Hollywood career ended in 1951with the notorious McCarthy era investigation into his supposed connections with the Communist Party after which he was blacklisted by Hollywood and as a result came to work in Britain. Hollywood’s loss was our gain with his new and important work influencing the formation of British Art Cinema of the 1960’s. There’s no doubt that Losey did his best work in the 60’s when his movies dealt with some very British subjects. It has been said that The Servant was more ambitious than the social realism of the British New Wave films; I can agree that Losey's movie had a stronger European feel but certainly dispute whether it’s more ambitious. He continued to work in England until his death in 1984

Harold Pinter who achieved widespread recognition as Britain’s leading dramatist and screenwriter of the 1960’s was born in London in 1930. His fame as a screenwriter began with The Servant (1963), which he adapted from a 1949 novella, which was the first of three screenplays directed by Joseph Losey, the other two being Accident (1967) and The Go Between (1971). He also adapted his own stage plays for the screen including 1964’s The Caretaker. Other notable 1960’s screenplays were The Pumpkin Eater (1964) and The Quiller Memorandum (1966)

The Servant. (1963)

The screenplay for The Servant is classic Pinter; it’s a direct comment on the British class structure and catches an entire society in moral decay recording the collapse in a dark visual style. This intriguing story, set in the world of ‘men’ with women portrayed as only pawns, has the theatrical discipline of a stage play.

A wealthy minor aristocrat returns from Africa to stay in London until his business interests in Brazil come to fruition after which he will return abroad. On acquiring a smart well-appointed Town House, Tony (James Fox) advertises for a personal manservant. After interviewing various candidates Hugo Barrett (Dirk Bogarde) is appointed. All goes well for a while until we realise that Tony’s sinister manservant is slowly and deliberately attempting to control his upper class master. Barrett’s psychological mind games include undermining Tony’s snooty girlfriend Susan (Wendy Craig) and passing off the sexy young housemaid Vera (Sarah Miles) as his sister. Barrett’s task is made easier when his master becomes dependant on alcohol and drugs. Losey’s clever build up of sexual tension between Vera and Tony includes the imaginative use of a dripping tap! A turning point in the narrative is when Susan and Vera are forced to leave the house and Losey, not for the first time, lets us perceive not only an exchange of power but also an unspoken sexual relationship between the two men.

With the role of Barrett, Bogarde finally traded in his matinee idol image some thing he began with his brave portrayal of a homosexual barrister in Victim (1961) he went on to make a further three movies with Losey, King and Country (1964) Modesty Blaise (1966) and the brilliant Accident (1967). The Servant launched the cinema careers of both James Fox and Sarah Miles.

Douglas Slocombe intense black and white cinematography makes wonderful use of tone and shadow. John Dankworths Jazzy soundtrack along with Cleo Laines song All Gone gave the film its haunting atmosphere.

Accident. (1967)

In 1967 Losey made what is widely regarded in some quarters as his best film Accident. This beautifully paced character driven movie involves Anna (Jacqueline Sassard) a young Austrian student who willingly becomes the focus of a sexual power struggle between two married Oxford dons and a student. Stephen (nobody does repressed sexuality like Dirk Bogarde) is her handsome tutor; William (Michael York in his film debut) is a wellborn fellow student; Charley (Stanley Baker) is Stephens’s athletic friend and rival. The film starts with Stephan alone in his large country house at night, his wife Rosalind (played by Vivien Merchant who was Harold Pinter's wife at the time) is at the maternity unit waiting to go into labour. He hears the roar of an engine and then a crash; going out side he finds a car on its side with two people in it. William is clearly dead, but Anna seems uninjured. Stephen pulls Anna out of the wreck, the police are called but the girl has mysteriously disappeared, the story is then told in retrospect. Nicolas Mosley’s novel is the source for Harold Pinter’s brilliant screenplay. Losey's fine direction allows time for the story to unfold and the viewer to saviour each scene, which can be likened to an artists painting.

A wee point of interest, the actress that plays Bogarde five year old daughter Clarissa is Carole Caplin who went on to be the style advisor to Cherie Blair and was involved in the scandal referred to as Cheriegate because of her involvement with a convicted conman who assisted the then Prime Ministers wife with the purchase of two flats in Bristol!!

The Go-Between. (1970)

The beautifal teenage sister (Julie Christie)

The third collaboration between director Joseph Losey and screenwriter Harold Pinter is the 1970 film The Go-Between considered by many critics to be the best of the three winning the Palme d’or at the 1971 Cannes Film Festival. Based on the autobiographical novel by L P Hartley which linked the present with the past taking an ageing bachelor back to a long hot English summer when he was twelve-years-old and lost his boyish heart to a beautiful headstrong young women who exploited his adoration to suit her own purposes.

In this costume drama, set in 1900, two young boys, Marcus and Leo, arrive at Branham Hall in Norfolk for the duration of the summer holidays. The grand house belongs to Marcus’s family and the first thing that catches Leo’s attention is Marian, his hosts beautiful teenage sister with whom he quickly becomes besotted. After a family dinner it’s agreed that Leo, because of the unbearable hot weather, should have a lighter suit to wear. Marion volunteers to accompany the eager young lad into Norwich and while there Leo see’s her talking, quite passionately, to Ted Burgess the estates tenant farmer! When the naïve young lad first visits Burgesses farm he is asked to take a letter to Marian but is not allowed to mention its existence to anyone. There begins Leo’s complicity in the clandestine love affair.

Alan Bates and Julie Christie

This very entertaining forerunner of the modern costume drama excels on detail with grand colours and superb country landscapes. Losey’s take on the English upper classes with its simmering passions and social repressiveness stars Julie Christie as Marion and Alan Bates as Burgess with Edward Fox as Hugh Trimingham a war hero and the man Marian is expected to marry. Dominic Guard who went on to appear in Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975) and Gandhi (1982) portrays the adolescent Leo Colston.