Plenty of filling… The Sandwich Man (1966), Network Blu-ray out now

 

This is something of a city symphony from the fourth Goon and full of gentle charm to match the multiple locations across the capital, some of which have hardly changed, with others long since gone leaving no trace of “Swinging” London left. As a story the narrative is very thin and essentially just an excuse to see those sights as well as to allow dozens of guest stars to performing skits of varying levels of humour. The commentary from Producer/Cinematographer Peter Newbrook confirms that the entire picture was shot on location and that whilst they hit all their main targets, subterfuge was required to film certain scenes in the West End, given the unhelpful attitude of the authorities. This is a great advert for the vibrancy of the dirty old town and is a quirky near-classic!

Written by Michael Bentine together with Robert Hartford-Davis who also directs, great credit should also go to Newbrook’s cinematography and Peter Taylor’s editing. If it were nothing else, The Sandwich Man would stand as eloquent testimony to the time and place but it’s the guest stars that make it and only someone with Bentine’s address book could have pulled this off: Norman Wisdom, Diana Dors, Harry H. Corbett, Dora Bryan, Bernard Cribbins and Terry-Thomas… even Brian Cant pops up in a cameo. Delays also pushed them into the late summer/early autumn and the weather then became an issue. So, light comedy it may be, but we shouldn’t doubt the determination to get it made and it’s hard to keep sunny smiling when the cool wind come off the Thames…

It begins and ends with a street and some pigeons as the camera swoops down from the foggy East End sun to a row of colourful Victorian cottages. Out of the first comes Da Sikhars, two Indian jazz musicians played by Leon Thau (Ram) and Hugh Futcher (Gogi) in now-jarring brown-face – what was it about the Goons and playing Indians? Thau worked with Bentine in It’s a Square World before producing and directing Michael Bentine's Potty Time complete with legendary ant circus!

Dora and Michael

Next door along sees Roger Delgado emerge as Abdul, the carpet seller, followed by Burt Kwouk who defies racial stereotyping by jumping into an Italian ice cream van… just as cringeworthy today but in the context of 1966 all of a piece with a warm comment on the emerging diversity.

Next door to Burt is Horace Quilby (Bentine) pigeon fancier and sandwich man employed, for those of you from the 21^st Century, to walk the streets of central London advertising services on cardboard signs slung over his shoulders, in this case Finklebaum & O’Casey Gents Bespoke Overcoats & West End Suits. His neighbour is played by the legendary Dora O’Brien, who takes a break from beating her carpet to inquire about his racing pigeon, Esmerelda, who is involved in a major race from Bordeaux to London. There’s a frisson between the two… the promise of more just as Horace’s feathered friend might bring him greater success in the sporting world of Columba livia domestica. 

Horace is a man of small pleasures, always looking on the bright side and enjoying people watching during his endless days of mobile advertising. He greats his neighbours and talks to a stunning young woman, Sue (Suzy Kendall, one of the faces of the era, star of Up the Junction and, in the seventies, many a Giallo film) who is having a falling out with her luxury car salesman boyfriend, Steven (David Buck). Steven arrives in one of many lovely period cars and there’s a great reaction shot from the bus queue as they look from side to side as the couple argue.

Super Suzy Kendall

Sue and Steven form the main thread with a running argument throughout the film exacerbated by the former’s job as a model being photographed by Bernard Cribbins who is, as always, a joy with more than a few improvised lines as he, literally, falls dahn an ‘ole in the grahnd being dug by David Lodge and his men. Da Sikhars also spend most of the film, erm, seeking to get to an Indian jazz festival and, Horace sees it all.

But the biggest hits come from the incredible list of stars. At the time they didn’t come much bigger than Norman Wisdom who plays a boxing vicar at a boys’ club near St Pauls. He has an “oirish” accent and does all his own stunts some of which are quite remarkable for a 51-year old. He’s positively Chaplinesque as indeed is Charlie’s son from his marriage to Oona, Michael J Chaplin, who plays a pavement artist during the Cribbins-Kendall-working men sequence. As with all of Chaplin’s kids, the most famous face in the world gives them a familiarity. Striking that we’re further away from this film than it was from The Great Dictator, Modern Times and even his classic period with Keystone, Mutual and Essanay.

Elsewhere we’re gifted with Terry Thomas as a scout leader trying to give Da Sikhars a lift before falling foul of a traffic policeman played by Ian Hendry, who shows his range as the comedically-tense copper on a bad day which culminates in his packing it all in when two cars collide (near Tolworth Tower on the A3, not central London) and the drivers are men in costume, a Kangaroo – who possibly jumped a red light – and a Polar Bear. Many of these sketches were drawn from Bentine’s It’s a Square World, they can be hit and miss but everyone contains those guest stars.

Norman nurses his bruises...

There’s a lovely sequence in Billingsgate Fish Market with Diana Dors debating the relative values of Doctor Kildare with Anna Quayle, and the camera keeps cutting to fish getting gutted, by Frank Findlay no less, as the women discuss TV operations… it’s well observed. We also get Abdul haggling with Sydney Tafler over exchanging one of his carpets for 30 pounds… of fish.

Sometimes the stars are in extended skits, Harry H. Corbett as a Stage-Door Keeper amidst a West-End chorus line rehearsal – lots of legs in that one – then Stanley Holloway as Park Gardener engaged in a running battle with Alfie Bass’ model yachtsman. Other times you blink and you miss them, and I was pleased with myself for spotting a young Georgina Hale as the motorcycle pillion rider who loses the bottom half of her leathers in Soho.

Still they keep on coming, Wilfrid Hyde-White as a rather confused Lord Uffingham, confusing pigeon owner Horace with a horse owner at the Hilton, Warren Mitchell as Gypsy Sid, reading tea leaves in a café and John Le Mesurier as the Senior Sandwich Man, Zebadiah, the almost mystical head of this peculiar group of workers.

Terry Thomas, what an absolutely spiffing idea!

There’s too many to mention and you’ll just have to make like Horace when he hits the tope of the stairs between Pall Mall and the Mall and stretches out his arms in appreciation of the Sun’s strengthening rays. I worked two summer seasons at a Butlins in North Wales and one of the comics there used to travel the whole north west coast and beyond. I asked him how he put up with so much travelling and he said just by enjoying the journey, people watching and making the most of each day.

I reckon Michael Bentine, and so many of his co-stars, knew that feeling all too well and there’s a Zen-like quality to this film. All will be well, just keep o keeping on and hope for the best… it’s the best you can hope for.

A quick tip of the hat to composer Mike Vickers whose music plays such a part in the film’s coherence and mood. The Sandwich man was well liked by those who saw it according to Peter Newbrook but it wasn’t the commercial success they hoped. Maybe the style was already slightly behind the times for the younger audience but this excellent transfer from Network brings to life again those locations and those ace faces.

The film comes with a host of special features:

·         Brand-new interviews with composer Mike Vickers, production accountant Maureen Newman, actor Hugh Futcher and draughtsman Alan Cassie

·         Archive interview with Michael Medwin

·         Archive commentary with producer/cinematographer Peter Newbrook

·         Theatrical Trailers

·         Soho Bites podcast with image gallery

·         Limited edition booklet written by Melanie Williams

It’s out now and you can order direct from Network – another hugely enjoyable winner and at a very reasonable price too!

 

 

Public interest? Passport to Shame (1958)

It’s all here! Nothing hidden… neither the sin… nor the shame!  Actually torn from the pages if the nation’s leading newspapers!

So screamed the American poster for this film and yet there’s more to it than box-ticking sexploitation. There’s an introduction from Robert Fabian, aka ‘Fabian of the Yard’, at the start, which makes it clear that it’s for public information not titillation; this is a film to show the horrors of sex work and the tragedies that fuel it and result from it. Frankly, I believed him – although this is the same public interest argument used by the News of the World – yet I’m sure that the filmmakers were sincere, especially given the quality of the cast, Brenda De Banzie, Herbert Lom and Eddie Constantine were not cheap or short of work. But there is also very little besides the high-octane sexuality of Diana Dors that you could class as salacious and, the thing is, Diana can also act, she’s a knockout and stands out among a quality cast.

The film’s story is also not to be belittled that easily – you can call it trite but the fact remains that people then and now have become trapped into prostitution and it is not the glamorous career of the sexually free but slave work operated by ruthless “business men”. The film hits as hard as it reasonably could in 1958 and is still entertaining, which is a good thing as it’s just been released on crystal clear Blu-ray.

Odile Versois and Diana Dors waiting for the men...

I like the cleverness of the opening as those newspaper headlines are blown into the gutter in a busy London street where the camera moves quickly from person to person as littel scenarios are palyed out. A man sees a sgtunning blonde and follows up her body only to realise she's a streetwalker then he walks over to anothe man who is staring at a new taxi cab he is desperate to buy... a great way to introduce people who will become key characters as the titles roll.

Directed by Alvin Rakoff – his first film after working mostly on TV – the film is centred on the “business” operation of low-life crook with big ideas, Nick Biaggi (Herbert Lom, who always delivers, whatever the script). Biaggi’s little empire is based on extortion and pushing people into having to pay him back in kind for debts he creates. In Paris where a young waitress, Marie Louise 'Malou' Beaucaire (Odile Versois) is entraped by Nick's his right-hand woman, Aggie (the excellent Brenda De Banzie).

Malou (Odile Versois) looks on in horror as Aggie (Brenda De Banzie) "saves" her

She has the café owner take money from the till and accuse Malouf of stealing it as Aggie slips the same amount into her apron. She’s facing prosecution and so readily accepts Aggie’s seemingly generous assistance and the chance to come and stay with her in London.

Meanwhile, Johnny McVey (Eddie Constantine), a former Canadian soldier working as a cabby in London takes a loan from Nick’s company in order to buy himself a black cab, he’s stretched to the limit but he’s determined to make a success of the trade. On his first day with the new motor, just as he’s being congratulated by the tight-nit group of fellow black cab drivers, Nick arranges for his lads to drive a truck into the new cab, crushing the front and Johnny’s plans.

A friend in need? Lom and Constantine.

Nick is on hand though to play the nice guy and to offer to cover the cost of repair knowing that Johnny now owes him more than money, and that’s a big favour. That favour will be to marry Malou so she can get her citizenship. She’s been moved into Aggie’s apartment which, according to Reel Streets is Courtfield Gardens between Earl's Court and Gloucester Road in southwest London. Aggie’s rooms adjoin the neighbouring house, which is a brothel full of working women, one of whom is played by Jackie Collins, Joan’s sister.

Also to be found is Vicki (Diana Dors), Nick’s top earner and a woman resolute in the face of her situation and Nick’s violent treatment of her sister. Dors is striking in all the right ways and conveys the defiance of someone who knows what it’s like to be objectified and also manipulated. Her character’s sister has been the lever Nick has used to keep her working and she has been disfigured, forcing Vicki to carry on working for the man she so despises, to cover medical bills. For all the almost light-heartedness of the “girls” in the cat house, Dors’ intensity does more than anything else to ground this in a – dramatized – reality.

Diana Dors

Elsewhere you sense a fairy tale in the making as Malou and Jeff meet and go through the motions of marriage to settle their debt – or at least the first instalment of Nick’s unforgiving contract. Also present at the registry office is one Michael Caine who has just got married to one Anne Reid – uncredited bit parts for two actors who have never stopped working since.

Returning to our Johnny and Malou, the marriage may be fake but not perhaps their nascent relationship. But there’s a torture path to follow before anything can come from this as Malou finally realises what is intended for her and Nick pressures her to start paying him in kind on the streets of West London and to set herself up in Room 43 – the alternate title in the UK for this film. He has high hopes and sees her breaking him into the next level of high-class escorting but she wants none of it and refuses even though it increasingly means that she is not only surplus to requirements, she’s an problem in need of a drastic solution.

A marriage of convenience?

Robert Brown does well as Mike, Johnny’s friend who initially looks down on his relationship with what he sees as a common prostitute but, as the audience is intended to, he gradually comes round, especially as he befriends Vicki and realises there’s some heart underneath the figure hugging, peroxide display.

But there is to be no easy way out for these characters and the film escalates in tension as escapes fail, threats ae made and the ultimate penalty is going to have to be paid for some…

Dusty verdict: I gave this film the benefit of the doubt and it repaid me with some excellent dramatics from a decent cast. The locations are also worth it, parts of London where the only change in 60-odd years has been the frequency of external decoration and the tax-bracket of the inhabitants.

There’s also a heart-warming cameo from Joan Sims as Miriam, Phone operator in the taxi office and one Nicolas Roeg was the camera operator; he later went on to direct Don’t Look Now and many other modern classics. Passport to Shame is not on that level but, now, as a social document of the way this subject was viewed in my parents’ era, it is worth your time.

You can buy the Blu-ray at Amazon and all good on and offline retailers.

 

Fabian of the Yard

Mike bumps into Vicki during the film's credits and only comes to know her proper worth later

 

Johnny and Malou's dreams are revealed during the credits...

Nick is the one to use their hopes against them.

Still, he at least drives and Aston Martin

Lovely couple: Michael Caine and Anne Reid