Trouble under the big top... Circus of Fear (1966)

Suzy Kendall

This film opens with an audacious six-minute sequence showing an armed robbery on a van trying to ferry money across Tower Bridge in the early hours. It’s fast-moving, almost completely dialogue free and gives some great views of the working docksides on both sides of the Thames in the sixties… twenty years later they’d all be either turned into flats or knocked down but here, between the City and Bermondsey the capital was still taking a lot of sea-bound freight.

Director John Llewellyn Moxey clearly had a plan for this dynamic opening and in this new Blu-ray edition Ernest Steward’s cinematography is crystal clear and the background depth of field is almost more interesting than the action in focus. The robbery itself involves a group of well-drilled mobsters who close off the Bridge early in the morning as one of their number, Manfred (Klaus Kinski  - always out of place in these British B movies), takes out the controller so that he can raise the bridge preventing escape for a van taking money across the river.

Dirty old town...

The gang force the security officers to open the van and, as they steal the contents one of the drivers makes a break for it only to be gunned down by his co-driver Mason (Victor Maddern – who, as usual, has cracked under pressure). The men look grim knowing that this increases the severity of their crime and, as they make their escape via rope down to a waiting boat, things look very short-term for Mason…

There are recriminations back at the gang’s lair but the mysterious mastermind seems to offer Mason a second chance as he asks him to bring his share of the money to a remote village… well, what do you thinks going to happen? Just as he waits to meet the mastermind, Mason gets a knife in the back… no ordinary weapon but a circus knife thrower’s blade

Victor Maddern cracking under pressure

Cue a shift of scene to a big top… Pursuing his original criminals, Chief Inspector Elliott of Scotland Yard (Leo Genn) goes looking for the kind of place you’d find such a knife and arrives at Barberini’s Circus (they used Billy Smart's Circus). Here the film changes pace completely and a whodunnit evolves among a cast of intriguing if a tad cliched characters. Let’s see, we have Mr Barberini (Anthony Newlands) who, despite his opulent cigars, is struggling to make the business work. Then there’s a barely married couple, hot-blooded *knife*-thrower Mario (Maurice Kaufmann) and his curvaceous wife Gina (Margaret Lee, who is the epitome of mid-sixties Brit-bombshell), who row continually over her fidelity… what can she have expected marrying an Italian who throws sharp objects for a living?!

No suspicious characters here, oh my, no.

There’s a dwarf called Mr. Big (Skip Martin) who seems to know everyone’s business and is ever open to being paid to keep their secrets and ring master, Carl (Heinz Drache) who watches all very intently. As for the lion tamer Gregor (Christopher Lee), he keeps a mask on to supposedly hide scarring from a lion too far, surely, he’s got much to hide and the nervousness of his daughter Natasha (sixties icon Suzy Kendall) confirms as much.

As the characters snipe at each other Gina is almost killed after being trapped amongst the lions, Gregor comes to her rescue but is that only for appearances? It’s only a temporary reprieve though as Gina is despatched by the same kind of knife as Mason, a sad departure from a film she does much to enliven! It’s got to be her jealous husband but not, it’s far too early for that resolution surely?

Besides, what about Gregor and his mask? What is Carl really there for and surely it can’t be Mr Big given the angle of the knives in peoples’ backs?

Daggers drawn: Maurice Kaufmann and Margaret Lee

Dusty Verdict: The story is based on an Edgar Wallace detective novel and it shows, not in a bad way but it’s a classic police procedural that is full of detailed red herrings and actually quite light on action. There’s also little in the way of “fear” and so this is not the Christopher Lee horror circus you may have been looking for. The Anglo-German cast do well though and it is an enjoyable if not especially gripping, tale even though it fails to follow up on the excellent opening action sequence.

The performers try their best and Skip Martin is excellent, Klaus Kinski is magnetic, as is Margaret Lee who gives it her all as the blonde bombshell trapped at the sharp end of her knife thrower’s jealousy. It’s always a pleasure to watch Suzy Kendall and Christopher Lee even if the latter does much of his work underneath a cloth mask…

But London, the dirty old port, is the star of those opening moments.

Russian around… Not Now, Comrade (1976)

OK, I watched this because Carol Hawkins is in it; is that so wrong? There are many British films from the seventies that fall under the “guilty pleasure” category as “sex comedies” a term that is usually a contra-indication in terms of both elements and content. Not Now, Comrade, to my surprise, proved to be a well-constructed farce, with a strong cast camping it up in style and plenty of humour. Granted Carol does give us plenty of “show” but it’s for comic effect and not (just) titillation if that’s an acceptable defence in 2019?

Written by Ray Cooney – who directed with Harold Snoad - it’s perhaps one of the more successful translations of his classic farces onto film and, largely based on one set, it does have the feel of a stage performance especially with the camera following the actors as they move from one understanding to the next. Cooney was hugely successful in the West End at the time and had 17 plays performed there including Run for Your Wife which ran for nine years. He made a number of film versions but not all were critically well-regarded…

Not Now, Comrade is not great art but it’s fun and allows so many character actors to indulge their comic chops even if their only wearing briefs and nipple tassels in Carol’s case.

Now, if you’re sitting comfortably, let’s sort out the plot… We start off at the Royal Albert Hall where a Russian ballet troop is meeting the press. Rudi Petrovyan (Lewis Fiander) is the star dancer and looks nervously at two KGB agents making sure he behaves. An attractive blonde burlesque dancer, Barbara Wilcox (Carol Hawkins) leaves her club and climbs into an open-top Triumph sportscar stripping off down to her work clothes as she speeds off to Kensington.

Beautiful Babs – that’s her name too! – parks up in Kensington Gore and runs over to perform a startling distraction in front of the ballet troop thereby allowing Rudi to make a break for it. He is supposed to climb into the boot of her car but, in the confusion, he gets into the boot of a Rolls Royce driven by a naval Commander Rimmington (Leslie Phillips, yay!!). Off sails Rimmington with Barbara in hot pursuit followed by the two Russian agents as the scene is set in Cooney style.

"Oh, I say... ding, dong." etc

The Commander parks up outside his country house and, as Barbra looks on, goes in to meet his daughter, Nancy played by the excellent Michele Dotrice. Watching Dotrice and Philips work you appreciate the skill involved in this particularly British genre; the trick is to keep a straight face but to be as earnest as possible, it’s real life just switched up a tad… and with fewer clothes, albeit not as few as you’d expect.

There follows many enjoyable near misses as Barbra tries to hide Rudi from Rimmington who is sent fishing only to return early by which time Nancy is in on the game and has enlisted her finance Gerry Buss (Ian Lavender). Among all these doings is the world-worn-down gardener Hoskins (Roy Kinnear) who’s confused already without the unnecessary complications of his “betters”.

Carol Hawkins and Lewis Fiander

Cooney plays Mr. Laver, a man from the ministry sent with a message for the Commander only to find Bob impersonating the father-in-law to be (who hasn’t met him). In all the commotion a Constable arrives played by Windsor Davies who, somewhat inevitably, ends up meeting with a cheeky guest, Bobby, played by his TV partner Don Estelle.

The top-quality cast is rounded off by the ageless June Whitfield as Janet Rimmington. Together they make the most out of a situation that in lesser hands could spin humourlessly out of control. But they know exactly how to play Conney’s lines and situations and Not Now Comrade surprises with genuinely funny moments and oodles of charm. It’s classy not rude.

Michelle Dotrice and Ian Lavender

Dusty Verdict: Funny and not sleazy, apart from that one chilly tasselled dance from the lovely Carol, this is well worth whiling away a rainy afternoon watching. See some of the cream of British stage actors working on film and be grateful.

The film is available on DVD and is also shown from time to time on Talking Pictures TV.

Ray Cooney, Ian Lavender and Carol Hawkins