Baby Love.

Edinburgh born Alastair Reid’s debut feature film was described with a typical piece of 60’s speak as ‘a daringly contemporary film on the conflicts between generations conducted with the weapons of sex’[1]. Today it would, as David Kerekes remarks, be seen as a cavalier depiction of a subject matter that would be considered risqué or taboo. In the case of Baby Love (1968) the taboo nature of the subject would be underage children in the proximity to sex and even sexual danger. In this story Luci, the debut role of 15-year-old Linda Hayden who went on to make sexploitation films including Expose (1975), is not simply exposed to sex but is the actual sexual predator seducing all three members of a wealthy middle class metropolitan family, think Theorem (1968) although the predator in the Pasolini movie is certainly not under the age of consent!

 

Luci's mother played by Diana Dors.

The 15 year old Nymphet. 

Based on a novel of the same name by Tina Chad Christian, Luci comes home from school to find that her mother, played mainly in flashback by the formidable Diana Dors, has committed suicide and is lying dead in the bathhouse out back and that she is now an orphan! Robert (Keith Barron), a well to-do Doctor and ex lover of her mothers, has agreed to take the young working class Liverpudlian into his large well appointed home on the banks of the Thames in London. One suspects this is more to do with guilt about abandoning her mother than his paternal feelings. Luci is no fool’ gradually working her charms on all three members of the family, including mother Amy and son Nick, who is about the same age as Luci.    

 

The seduction of Amy begins....

....and son Nicky who is driven to distraction by the new lodger. 

Where in a film article today would you find the description of a 15 year old as ‘prepubescent and provocative’[2] and the deliberate sexualisation of a schoolgirl when a successful married man brings a young nymphet into the family home where she uses her only strength to bring about the down fall of his family, seducing the mother, playing sexual games with their son and bringing vengeance to the father who she see’s as deliberately abandoning her now deceased mother.

 

A frustrated man attempt the rape of his wife! 

When this film was made it was not illegal to take photographs of naked children or to sell them. The law changed in 1978 when The Protection of Children Act became law and as Kerekes goes on to say in his article, under this act Baby Love could not be made today given the scenes of a naked under age child having simulated sex on screen. As I have said in previous 60’s blogs this time period is interesting mainly because attitudes were completely different than they are today and Reid’s movie is a prime example. But even so there was no reason to interject soft porn music to emphasise the films more erotic moments, I think your spot them for your selves!

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[1] Baby Love. Underage Sex and Murder. David Kerekes.

[2] Films and Filming June 1973.

The Long Haul.

When Harry Miller’s discharge comes through he wants to leave Germany and return the States with his wife Connie and his young son Johnny/Butch but Connie has no intention of living in America and persuades Harry to travel with her to her home town of Liverpool in England. ‘Uncle’ George has a haulage company and is always on the look out for drivers who can deliver loads from Liverpool to Glasgow and willingly gives our ex-American soldier a job. The hours are long and the wages low, a 44 hour week for £10.00 but from the off it would appear that there is extra money to be earned that is not always above board. On his first run out he accompanies another rig, and gets into fight when he discovers two men stealing goods out of the back of lorry. The other driver Casey warns him off telling him this happens all the time, especially when someone’s dropped a few quid to turn a blind eye! Following this incident he meets opposition and gets a beating while trying to get a return load to bring back to Liverpool. He told to see Joe Easy who has his own haulage company and controls every thing that comes out of Glasgow.  Harry essentially is an honest loving family man but when he finally meets up with Easy he’s made an offer that he can’t refuse. The offer is spiced when he falls for Easy’s voluptuous girlfriend Lyn. Harry finds his loyalties are divided but accepts that one big final trip, which involves moving a load of scotch whiskey across country (see also Wages of Fear (1953)) which gets interesting when Lyn joins Harry and Joe in a cold Scottish burn when the whiskey laden truck gets stuck!

 

Lyn not pleased with Joe Easy....

The film, which explores the violent world of lorry drivers at a time when there did not seem to be any rules, stars Columbia pictures star Victor Mature as Harry Miller at a time when it was not unusual for an American actor to be seen in a British movie, an attempt to give it that authentic film noir feel. Patrick Allen plays Joe Easy, the sort of villain that when he appears on screen you feel obliged to hiss. Steeling the show is of course Diana Dors who plays the beautiful femme fatale Lyn; you really can’t take your eyes off of this woman when she is on the screen.

 

.....but gets even more closer to Harry Miller.

Director Ken Hughes began his professional career on a number of low budget second features starting with Wide Boy in 1952. Then, working at Merton Park in 1953 he embarked on a series of half hour Scotland Yard thrillers on which he won a reputation for crisp storytelling, often displaying a visual flair at odds with their limited budget.[1] Eventually going on to make some well-received feature films including 1963’s The Small World of Sammy Lee. Hughes also wrote the screenplay for The Long Haul (1957) based on a novel of the same name by Mervyn Mills. The DOP was Basil Emmott who had worked in the industry for 37 years when he made this film, and Trevor Duncan composed the music.

 

A great publicity shot of Diana Dors and Patrick Allen.

This intriguingly, exciting old-fashioned crime thriller is tough and gritty with plenty of faces you will recognise including Public Eye himself Frank Marker. Columbia Pictures released this film on a double feature with The Hard Man (1957) with the tag line: "The Long Haul will delight you! The Hard Man will excite you!" wonderful stuff.  My suggestion would to ignore the obvious script; you just know what the characters are going to say before they say it, and just sit back and enjoy this long neglected movie.   

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[1] The British B Film. Steve Chibnall and Brian McFarlane.

Passport to Shame.

In the 1950’s the British Board of Film Censors reluctantly allowed producers to tackle prostitution as long as the film masqueraded as what they called ‘awful warnings’. One such film was Passport to Shame (1958) also known as Room 43, which was introduced by Robert Fabian, former Detective Superintendent of Scotland Yard, with the following ‘warning’: ‘The film your about to see deals with a steamy frightening subject, prostitution. The crooks that organise this racket are highly ruthless, I know because I served for nearly 28 years with the police force of London and most of it in the West End. This city today (late 1950’s) probably has the worse prostitute problem in the world. Your see for yourselves the terrible methods used to turn innocent girls into prostitutes. The film deals with the problem frankly, dramatically and accurately and by exposing this as it does I feel it would make us all realise what is going on and maybe do something to wipe out this awful social evil’ What a quaint attitude, mind you it’s same today the way people look down on working girls, the simple answer is to legalise the trade which can then be regulated and the gangsters that run the girls would be put out of business overnight. But I don’t think the hypocritical British authorities will ever agree to that?  Anyway back to the film.

 

The Villain.

A very pretty waitress Malou Beaucaire (the beautiful French actress Odile Versois) working in a Paris bar is tricked into coming to London on the pretext of working as a companion to a rich lady (Brenda de Banzie) in a large well furnished apartment in a well to do Street in Central London.  Little does this sweet delicate young girl know! Her rich employer is a madam in the employ of the cruel and evil sadistic Nick Biaggi (Herbert Lom) and the large house that she is expected to live in has an adjoining link to next door which is a high class brothel with girls working from ever room! But Biaggi has to get his ‘new girl’ a work permit and the quickest way to achieve that is to get her married and then have it annulled. To this end he offers a hard up cab driver £200 to marry the girl. But Johnny McVey (Eddie Constantine an American born actor that found fame in both France and Germany where he worked with the great filmmaker Rainer Werner Fassbinder) falls head over heals in love with the girl and decides that he will save her from a life of selling her body to strangers.  But of course Nick Biaggi has other ideas! Also involved in this noirish crime drama is the wonderful Diana Dors as the friendly platinum blond whore Vicki whom she plays with a veiled eroticism that threated to boil over at any minute. Vicki owes Biaggi for disfiguring her sister with acid when she refused to become part of his vice ring. B-movie regular Elwyn Brook-Jones plays the villains corrupt solicitor.  Also interestingly we have some upcoming stars in uncredited role including a very young looking Michael Caine as the man waiting to get married and Joan Sims as the phone operator in the Taxi office.

 

The friendly whore.

Directed by Canadian born Alvin Rakoff a man best known for his work in television, for which he directed over 100 plays, rather than for feature films. He spent most of his career performing his trade in England. The DOP was Jack Asher who started his working life in films in 1930 at Gainsborough’s Islington Studio’s, and when on to work with Terence Fisher at Hammer in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s. He also worked on Cast a Dark Shadow (1955). The screenplay was by British novelist Patrick Alexander and the music was composed, arranged and directed by Ken Jones who also did the musical score for Tom Thumb (1958) that starred Jessie Matthews. As I said at the beginning, the movie sets it self up as a cautionary tale showing the seamy side of life and it certainly has a sleazy energy for a British film of its time and also includes a surreal oneiric sequence when Malou is drugged!

The Madam.

Dancing with Crime.

My main interest in this well paced British crime drama was that it was Dirk Bogarde first real feature film. The only time he had been on screen previously was in a 1937 George Formby comedy caper called Come on George in which he played an extra. Mind you although he had a very small speaking part as a police radio operative towards the end of the 1947 film, you don’t get a full facial shot, but with the voice and profile there’s no mistaking him.  

 

Jill and Ted report their suspicions to the police.

Although a fairly predictable crime drama and yes the fisticuffs could have been a little more realistic, it’s quite a enjoyable wee movie which stars real life husband and wife, Richard Attenborough and the fresh faced Sheila Sim (they married in 1945) who portray a young engaged couple trying to survive in the East End of London amongst black marketeers and rationing. Attenborough is Ted Peters trying to scape an honest living driving his cab. But Teds wartime mate Dave Robinson, credited as Bill Rowbotham but now better known as Bill Owen, is not quite so bothered where his money comes from and does odd jobs for a local gangster who along with his associate work out of an office above the local Palais de Danse. One evening Ted drops wide boy Dave off at the dance hall and then pops in the pub for a pint and sandwich but when he goes back to pick up his cab finds Dave dead in the back of the vehicle with a couple of bullet holes in him!  As normal with this type of movie the police are clueless. So Ted sets out to investigate the two dangerous villains, Gregory (Barry Jones) and Baker (Barry K. Barnes), who use the Palais as cover for their black marketeering. Fiancée Joy Goodhall gets a job as a hostess helped by another of the dancing girls Annette, played by an uncredited Diana Dors in only her second screen role, and are able to keep a close eye on the pair. As you would expect things soon hot up for Jill and Ted.

 

Annette earns her living at the Palais de Danse....

Made at a time when Fish and Chips were known as a fish supper even in London and not just in Scotland! The film did not receive many complimentary reviews when it was released on the 25^th June 1947 but time has been kind to it and now it can be viewed as a film made at the end of WW2 when budgets would have been non-existent and rationing and black marketeering for real.  The strength of this wee movie is in the enthusiasm of its two main stars, Attenborough and his young wife, who put you in mind of the Enid Blyton’s The Famous Five, as a sort of crime fighting two.

 

.... so is in a good position to help our fearless two. 

The director was John Paddy Carstairs who was best known for steering funny man Norman Wisdom to massive box office success through half a dozen undemanding comedies. The original story was by Peter Fraser with a screenplay by our old friend Brock Williams and the DOP was Reginald Wyer whose career spanned over thirty years including such fair as The Man in the Back Seat (1961) and Violent Playground (1958). Made at Cromwell Studios in Southall West London.