A Dandy in Aspic.

Lithuanian born Lawrence Harvey is an actor you can’t really mistake for anyone one else, the suave good looks, and the slick combed back hair. He made his cinema debut in House of Darkness in 1948 and progressed to making films like The Good Die Young in 1954 under contract to Romulus before his break through role as Joe Lampton in Jack Clayton’s Award Winning movie Room at the Top in 1958. This led to one of my favourite Harvey performances when he played William Barret Travis in The Alamo (1960) other films of note followed including The Manchurian Candidate (1962) along side Frank Sinatra before his untimely death in 1973 from stomach cancer at the age of 45. His obituary in New York Times really sums up the man:

“With his clipped speech, cool smile and a cigarette dangling impudently from his lips, Laurence Harvey established himself as the screen's perfect pin-striped cad. He could project such utter boredom that willowy debutantes would shrivel in his presence. He could also exude such charm that the same young ladies would gladly lend him their hearts, which were usually returned utterly broken... The image Mr Harvey carefully fostered for himself off screen was not far removed from some of the roles he played. "I'm a flamboyant character, an extrovert who doesn't want to reveal his feelings", he once said. "To bare your soul to the world, I find unutterably boring. I think part of our profession is to have a quixotic personality”[1]

After Darling with Dirk Bogarde and Julie Christie in 1965 he made a dozen or so indifferent movies including A Dandy in Aspic (1968). This British spy drama was based on a novel of the same name by Derek Marlowe who also wrote the screenplay. Directed by Anthony Mann who died from a heart attack just before the movie was completed, it was Harvey who took over the helm and finished the film. A Cold War thriller about a British Intelligence Agent (Harvey) who is a double agent working undercover for the Russians and tasked by the British to assassinate himself.  The film also stars Tom Courtney as the rather nasty British agent Gatiss who has it in for Eberlin right from the start. American actress Mia Farrow plays Eberlin’s love interest the young kooky London based photographer Caroline who follows the double agent to West Berlin. (Where a lot of the movie was filmed) Also putting in appearances are Peter Cook, Barbara Murray, John Bird, Harry Andrews and the American actor Lionel Stander who in 1966 had the starring role in Roman Polanski’s Cul-de-sac opposite Francoise Dorleac and Donald Pleasence.

 

Harvey with Mia Farrow....

My boyhood crush Barbara Murray.

As was a feature of spy movies made at this time it is a bleak but interesting movie that did not get good reviews on its original cinematic release. With its appealing narrative and solid performances from the cast, especially Harvey and Courtney, this rather underrated movie is well worth a watch particularly for those of you that appreciate this type of film genre.   

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[1] New York Times 27^th November 1973.

Campbell’s Kingdom.

In-between the Ralph Thomas directed and Betty Box produced movies Doctor at Large (1957) and Tale of Two Cities (1958) Dirk Bogarde played Scotsman Bruce Campbell in a British adventure film Campbell’s Kingdom (1957). Campbell had been told he has only six months to live; he has an unnamed terminal disease. Following this devastating piece of news he then finds out that he has inherited a small valley in the Canadian Rocky Mountains known as Campbell’s Kingdom from his grandfather. Before the old man died in suspicious circumstances he was convinced that his land had a rich vain of oil beneath it. But when Bruce arrives from England he discovers that the land is to be flooded on completion of a nearby dam, which means he only has a short time to determine if his grandfather was correct and save the valley. The dam is being built by a corrupt construction contractor Owen Morgan (a menacing Stanley Baker) who will stop at nothing to finish the dam even if it means resorting to dirty tricks to stop Campbell proving that there is oil on his land and therefore preventing the flooding of the valley.

 

Bruce Campbell as portrayed by Dirk Bogarde.

Assisting Bogarde in his quest is Barbara Murray who plays the daughter of old man Campbell’s crooked partner, who had swindled the locals out of their savings, and Bruce’s love interest Jean Lucas. Michael Craig plays the geologist Boy Bladen. James Robertson Justice, with a dubious Scottish accent, play’s a drilling contractor whose willing to risk every thing on Bladen geology results, the ones that Owen Morgan has been suspected of tampering with!

 

Some of the supporting stars including Sid James.

Set in the Alberta, the movie was shot in the Italian Dolomites and at the Pinewood Studios in England. The movie was seen at the time as an attempt to emulate Hollywood’s western genre action films but most critics of the period did not think it succeeded. Returning to it now it turns out to be a very satisfying watch. It was based on a cracking old fashioned adventure yarn written by Hammond Innes in 1952 and adapted by Robin Estridge. With a great cast and an exciting climax its well worth 102 minutes of your time. Another significant release from Network.

  

The Dark Man.

British born Jeffrey Dell was better known as a writer than a film director, although he did direct four feature films between 1943 and 1950 and one co-direct with Roy Boulting in 1959. The Dark Man (1951), which was also known as Man Detained, was made at Merton Park and on the Kent coast in England. Sharp eyes will spot Maidstone written on the front of a single decker bus, and its exciting climax was filmed on the British Army ranges at Dungeness in 1950 just six years after the end of WW2.

 

The lovelorn Policeman.

The Ruthless Killer.

This Jeffery Dell penned story starts when a ruthless killer, known only as the Dark Man (Maxwell Reed), robs and kills a petty criminal at an isolated farmhouse. Driven to the scene of the crime by a local taxi driver who is deemed to be the only witness has to be disposed of. When our killer is dealing with the driver a young woman on her bicycle hears the shots and pauses to investigate and accidently see’s the face of the murderer. Molly Lester (Natasha Perry) quickly leaves the scene but to late - the Dark Man has seen her and sets out to eliminate her and protect his identity, but not before she is given police protection in the form of Detective Inspector Jack Viner (Edward Underdown), who unprofessionally admits to Molly (22 years his junior) that he has developed romantic feelings for her? It wouldn’t happen today I hear you shout! In the meantime our villain is still stalking his intended victim and outwitting our London based lovelorn policeman.

 

The intended victim. 

The Best Friend.

Also on the cast list are Barbara Murray as Molly’s friend Carol Barns and William Hartnell as Jack Viner’s grumpy boss. As with many of these 1950’s British movies it includes some well-known faces including Harry Fowler, Sam Kidd, Digby Wolfe and Robert Brown. Not a particular unusual story but one made more interesting by Dell’s direction, the menace of Maxwell Reed as the shadowy villain and the location shooting in what seemed like, certainly compared to today, an empty Kent coast! Well worth a look at something that comes across as a rather superior B-movie.

Doctor at Large.

It was in 1939 that Ralph Thomas joined the Rank Organisation and it was here that he met Betty Box who was to become his producer in a partnership that lasted for twenty-five years. He began directing in 1940 but his commercial breakthrough did not come about until 1954 when he helmed the first of seven movies that become known as the ‘Doctor film series’. The films were developed from a series of comic novels written by a British physician Richard Gordon. They were basically about a group of young inexperienced doctors and it was one of these books that Box picked up at the beginning of a long rail journey. On her return she convinced Rank’s executives that people would be interested in seeing a film about doctors - and she was proved right.

Dirk Bogarde.

The first three and the fifth Doctor film starred Dirk Bogarde as Dr Simon Sparrow. It was this role that made him one of the biggest British movie stars of the 1950’s proving that he had matinee idol appeal and was more than capable of playing light comedy roles.

Recently Film4 have been showing the third film in the series Doctor at Large (1957) and I took the opportunity to reacquaint myself it. This story opens at St Swithin’s Hospital where Dr Sparrow hopes to practice surgery. His chances diminish when he fall’s foul of the hospital’s chief consultant (James Robertson Justice). To earn a crust and gain experience he begins looking for ‘positions’. The film indulges it audience in a series of episodic episodes with Sparrow working for various and varied medical practices.

The quality of these stories varies but two in particular are worth noting. The first when he takes a general practice job in an English industrial town ‘up north’ working for the skinflint Dr Hatchet (Lionel Jeffries) where he gets most of the work to do including night calls from both the patients and Hatchets young randy wife Jasmine (Dilys Laye). The second is when he takes a temporary job at the Harley Street practice of Dr Potter-Shine (Derek Farr) where all the patients are rich and most are dotty aristocrats or neurotic society women, one of whom played by Barbara Murray falls for our young Doctor.

 

Shirley Eaton with Bogarde. 

The potency of these films is in the characters it portrays, all played by well known British acting stock including Shirley Eaton, Muriel Pavlow, Michael Medwin, Edward Chapman, Mervin Johns, Dandy Nichols and many many more familiar faces. Yes, it is a little dated and its attitude to women at times leaves a bad taste but it’s an enjoyable enough film made at the heyday of the NHS.

 

Donald Sinden as Doctor Benskin.

When our present authoritarian coalition government finally gets rid of free heath care in England we will be able to look back at the Doctor series with found memories of a cherished institution.