Don’t go down to the woods today… Assault (1971), Network Blu-ray

 

Now, here’s a thing, I had no idea that the composer Eric Rogers was no relation to Peter Rogers despite their working together dozens of times mostly on Carry on films, all but two had Eric’s scoring. Born in Halifax, Eric’s real name was Eric Gaukroger although he later hyphenated his surname to Gauk-Roger. As with Peter though, Eric diversified and this thriller was one of a number of a number of more “adult” crime thrillers they worked on including Vengeance (1971) and the excellent All Coppers Are (1972), also available on Network Blu-ray and also directed by Sidney Hayers.

I've started off with the Rogers as I’m always slightly surprised to find them away from comedy and especially Eric as clearly, he’s more evident in the films than the Producer. His score here very effectively contributes to the brooding menace and the sense of threat that powers the narrative. In terms of visual subtlety, Hayers is more efficient than inventive but it still works as an unsettling watch albeit one reliant on the male gaze and sexualised threat to femininity. Is it exploitation, probably but it’s well acted and sincere entertainment of its time…

We start off at a posh all-girls school as an array of period cars arrives to collect the slightly mature looking young women. If you like classic British motors, then you will not be disappointed with the films deployment of Morris, Triumph and Jaguar cars; art-teacher Julie West (the divine Suzy Kendall) drives a Morris Minor estate, Det. Chief Supt. Velyan (Frank Finlay) has a Morse-type Jaguar and Freddie Jones’ nasty reporter has a sporty model I’m yet to identify, possibly and MGA Coupe? That plus all of the Morris Minor Panda cars…

Shouldn't you be studying for your A-levels Lesley-Anne?

But the real story starts with one of the girls, Tessa Hurst (a 17-year old Lesley-Anne Down in her first starring role) taking a short-cut home through the woods which leads to her being viciously assaulted under the shadow of an electric power station, it’s unsettling to watch, a bit too voyeuristic for me, but thankfully not overplayed. The result leaves Tessa catatonic with shock and unable to talk as she’s taken in to care at a mental hospital by Doctor Greg Lomax (James Laurenson) who along with specialist Mr. Bartell (Anthony Ainley, famously The Master in Doctor Who after Roger Delgado).

The police launch an investigation under the command of Chief Super Velyan and Det. Sgt. Beale (James Cosmo, evergreen as he is and still performing!) and from this point on we will be introduced to a series of characters who are all a bit suspicious to some extent, the game of cat and red herring is afoot!

Obviously, it’s not going to be the lovely Julie who is as down with the kids as anyone in this rather odd school. Headmistress Mrs. Sanford (Dilys Hamlett) is so strait-laced it’s rather unlikely that she’s married to Tony Beckley’s creepy Leslie Sanford but that’s the point. Whilst she looks after the girls’ spiritual well-being he keeps an unblinking eye on their more earthy qualities, greedily eying them up in the playground or touching them up in the library (Janet Lynn, definitely over 18 and who played Carol Thatcher – no, not that one - with Robin Askwith in Cool it Carol! the year before).

Under suspicion: Tony Beckley, James Cosmo and Frank Dinlay

Then the situation gets even worse as another girl, Susan Miller (Anabel Littledale, aged 19) ignoring instructions and common sense, takes the same short-cut and this time the crime escalates to murder, with accompanying fleshy details. Julie, driving four other girls home, spots the missing pupil and drives her Morris into the woods, only to arrive just too late as she glimpses the killer, face lit by her red break lights in a demonic glow…

She cannot escape the image she saw nor explain it to the police and is all but laughed from the inquest when she describes her vision. Luckily for her Doctor Greg is on hand to support the very beautiful young woman in her hour of need, he has ulterior motive alright but is there anything more…? Certainly, of ill-intent is reporter Freddie Jones, playing a blinder as the grubby tabloid hack pushing for an angle and any salacious detail right to the point of pestering Julie at home.

The police assign Sgt. Milton (Patrick Jordan) to protect Julie as she paints the image she remembers and, in collusion with the reporter, puts a story in the papers that she can draw the face of the killer she recalls… it’s a very high-risk strategy and one we know will bring her into danger. But who will it be, one of the good guys or one of the obviously bad ones?

James Laurenson and Suzy Kendall

Dusty Verdict: Assault is an entertaining thriller that gets the job done with the aid of some very good performances especially from Frank Findley, who’s always so nuanced he could be one of the suspects… maybe he is, and Suzy Kendall who made a career out of playing female febrility, a Derbyshire Julie Christie!

The set pieces are well executed and the villain is a genuine mystery for long enough… And, apart from the classy, classic cars, there’s some fab cameos including Mr David Essex as the leather-jacketed Man in Chemist Shop looking for help for his girlfriend’s nosebleed. It’s definitely not him…

You can order the Blu-ray direct from Network and at a great price, there’s so much on their website, you’ll probably come away with more than you budgeted for!

 

 

 

Freddie

 

 

The Headmistress' Husband is unsuitable for educational work...

David Essex!

 

The car section...
 

Classic cars...

Really Sidney? Cars and short skirts...

Morris Minor Estate with wooden trim: classic!

Jaguar

Morris Pandas

Is that an MGA Coupe?

 

Beware of miss-selling… The Smashing Bird I Used to Know (1969)

By golly, this one’s a bit odd. It’s more than a little conflicted: a film in search of the right tone with its twin titles telling you everything you need to know about the ragged line it walks between sexploitation and a lighter/darker drama: in the US it was called School for Unclaimed Girls.

Neither title is accurate with the first referring to a phrase used by the unfortunate father of the lead character, his daughter who, inadvertently, causes him to be crushed on a merry-go-round when just a child. She grows up fatherless and always blaming herself for her “smashing” Dad’s death whilst her mother – seemingly oblivious to her torment – seeks out a replacement.

Renée Asherson

The mother is played by Renée Asherson an actress who enjoyed a long and fascinating career, from Powell and Pressburger’s genius The Small Back Room to The Day the Earth Caught Fire and onto TV like Tenko and beyond. An excellent actor throughout and one I had never previously joined all of the dots with!

The father was played by David Lodge, a mainstay of sixties cinema with many comedy roles, here he makes a prototypical father with his likability making us question how we feel about his accidental killer. His grown-up daughter Nicki is played by a little-known actress – at least now – called Madeleine Hinde who looks like she stopped performing to start a family in the late seventies. Here she gets to have Dennis Waterman for a boyfriend and Maureen Lipman as a would-be girlfriend (yes, I know…).

Funfairs before health and safety...

 Directed by Robert Hartford-Davis, School for Unclaimed Smashing Birds (as it could be called…) also features a host of go-go bad girls including a fifteen-year old Lesley-Anne Down in her first screen role.

After a psychedelic nightmare flashing back to the death of her father,  we join Nicki (Hind) as a rather mature-looking schoolgirl (she was 20 at the time) caught in the middle of that desperate relationship between her mother Anna (Asherson) and the viewable-from-space nastiness of Harry Spenton (Mower in second gear… you won’t cut much grass like that mate). Harry wants to use Nicki’s trust fund to invest in a beautiful laundrette and Anna agrees little realising that the Seventies’ revolution in white goods will soon turn their dreams to powder – Daz or Omo probably.

Nicki waits for her mother and step-git

Nicki’s only escape from her repressed life is going for drives with her almost-boyfriend Peter (a youthful Dennis Waterman), he picks her up from school and they imagine a life free of parental compromise and bad memories…

Sadly, Harry is more than a one-dimensional bad guy and he also has designs on Nicki’s lovely slim figure, makes his move in their kitchen with all the subtlety of a period disc-jockey. In spite of her emotionally vulnerable state Nicki is no pushover and slaps her assailant before being forced to knife him in clear self-defence.

Kitchen sink drama

Cut away from the incident – no resolution is shown - and Nicki is to be found at a reform school for… not so much unclaimed girls but badly-judged ones. Whilst Nicki is in for presumably attempted murder, Susan (Janina Faye) is merely pregnant whilst others have stories of the mildly sordid to impart.

Naturally enough given we have women in prison there are a couple of lovers, Jane (Michele Cook) and the joint’s alpha female Sarah (Maureen Lipman, also the film’s alpha actress as it turns out). Sarah is maybe getting a little bored of her pretty friend and casts longing looks at the new arrival.

Michele Cook and Maureen Lipman

Nicki is shown in consultation with Dr Sands (Faith Brook) who is just determined to get to the bottom of her neurosis even though Mother Anna is still clueless as to the impact her husband’s death had on their daughter.

But at least Nicki begins to open up to Sarah although not to the extent the latter would like. Still it’s enough to drive her now-ex into a rage and she attacks Nicki provoking a massed pillow fight that may or may not be a reference to Jean Vigo’s Zero de Conduite… It’s more like a scene from a Leslie Nielsen comedy as suddenly a topless woman appears amidst the mayhem as if to show how "adult" the film is.

Fight, fight, fight!

Sarah exacts revenge on her girlfriend in the showers by getting the gang to beat on her whilst her eyes are no doubt clouded by steam. Nicki tries to help but is angrily rejected by the weeping girl. Gosh, it’s tough inside.

Anyways, Nicki doesn’t blame Sarah and soon they’re cosying up and telling each other’s life stories. They agree to escape because… well because.

The escape committee

In the confusion of their prison break Sarah gets nabbed but Nicki gets away. She makes her way to Peter who is working at an antiques shop run by his uptight pal Geoffrey (Basil Brush’s sidekick Derek Fowlds).  Briefly hope flickers as it’s agreed she can help out in the shop and gets dressed up in fab gear by their friend Amanda (Valerie Van Ost). This is too much for Geoff who, enraged by miss-judged passion makes a play for Nicki only to be fought off by Peter… it’s her fault for turning him on apparently… how times have changed.

So, literally too sexy for the antiques store, Nicki must move one… she drives off with Peter in his cool Triumph and they talk about her making a clean breast of it all and starting afresh; the future beckons… No spoilers.

Young Dennis at the wheel

Dusty verdict: Never less than interesting if occasionally frustrating, this film has some smashing performances, notably from Maureen Lipman, Renée Asherson and Faith Brook. Ultimately though it’s neither here nor there as either serious social commentary or sexploitation – the publicity promises “a perfumed zoo for teenage she-cats” - even though it’s far closer to the former.

Typically, just before Geoffrey’s sexual assault, he’s discussing antiques with a young couple one of whom is played by the boundlessly-quirky Sheila Steafel. She’s great but it all contributes to that uneven tone.

It's about freedom... probably

Smashing Bird is still well worth watching though and now available on DVD from Network: you can purchase either direct or from Amazon.

Lesley-Anne Down on the right...