Horse discourse… Equus (1977)

As the recent revival of Peter Shaffer’s extraordinary play showed, almost forty years on it retains an uncanny power, dividing opinion between those who find it too uncomfortable and those who are willing to look it straight in the eye… Eyes feature a lot in the film, from those below Richard Burton’s tortured brow to those belonging to the Alan’s father as he watches his son’s bizarre bed-time rituals and of course those of the horses blinded by Alan for reasons the film takes almost its full length to examine.

One Guardian blogger dismissed the favourite play of her teenage years as so much “psycho-babble” (check out this thoughtful piece in the same paper by therapist Adam Phillips for balance) but most contemporary critics at least tried to contextualise their view of the play with its period: it hasn’t dated – we have. More to the point, religious, psycho-sexual abuse and repression are still very much “now”: the human brain hasn’t changed… our psychosis isn’t “dated” nor “of its time”.

Equus’ reputation has always gone before it and I must confess to being put off by the thought of too much naked man on horse action but on first viewing, 37 years after release, it’s a thoroughly-engaging, mood-altering experience held together by a mighty performance from Richard Burton who was Oscar nominated and Golden Globe winning for his efforts matched by the wide-eyed physicality of former Double Decker Peter Firth (who also “Globed”). Equus is essentially a double header between the two but there are excellent support performances from some of the best actors of their generation: a heavyweight cast.

Burton plays psychiatrist Martin Dysart a man of unconventional commitment to his work and who has possibly seen it all too many times. The film opens in close-up on his face as he begins to discuss the disturbing case that has brought him to his own crisis of faith. The camera pulls away to reveal this troubled man sat behind his desk in his consulting room: he has been struck to the core and the disquiet has invaded even his professional inner-sanctum: an area he is used to controlling totally.

The film winds back to the middle of the narrative arc, from where we’ll see the full story unfold through the “flashbacks” of patient consultation. A social worker Hesther Saloman (Eileen Atkins) has come to Dysart to discuss a boy who has committed an atrocious act – blinding six horses using a metal scythe.

The first response is that this is mindless criminality but Hesther thinks there is something special about the boy – Alan Strang (Firth) - and thinks that only someone of Dysart’s experience and sensitivities could help him recover… otherwise he will be institutionalised for life.

There’s an interesting point about criminality and punishment here: is Alan best being cured or is his crime unforgivable. Shaffer seems pretty clear that reform rather than revenge is the way forward… and there is indeed a complex cause to be uncovered no matter how horrible the effect.

Alan duly arrives communicating only by singing snippets of TV advertising jingles. Undeterred, Dysart perseveres and begins to open lines of communication by swapping one truth of his own for each of his patient’s revelations. It’s not always easy going but Alan is a most unusual case.

Dysart goes to examine his home life and finds his father Frank (Colin Blakely) uptight and not a little disgusted by his boy whilst his mother (Joan Plowright) may be free with tea and biscuits but her social nicety hides a zealous fundamentalist religious views. She shows Alan’s bedroom and the painting of a horse which has replaces a tortured image of Christ’s face during crucifixion…

Dysart gets Alan to relive the moment when his fascination with horses began and we see him on the beach deep in a large sand castle and encountering a huge black horse ridden by an imposing dark man (John Wyman). Firth plays himself as a child and the camera makes it appear as if he is overwhelmed by the man and the horse: almost as if they are one and the same. He touches the horse’s head and is whisked off for a ride along the beach…

The child, the horse and the man

Is this code for abuse or just the impact the combination of Christ-like authority figure and sensual beast had on his impressionable mind? Whatever, he never recovered from the moment and his life-long equine fascination grew into something far more obsessional and confessional…

Alan’s father reveals his confused disgust at having found his son late at night conducting a ritual in which he pulls his head back in a home-made string bridal whilst spurring himself with the beat of a ruler… This masochistic display could be a sign of repressed desire but also his belief that Man’s restraint of horses deserves punishment. The horse or rather the Horse God Equus sees all and has become his object of worship.

Looking for an opportunity to get closer to these animals Alan meets a young woman Jill (Jenny Agutter who won a BAFTA for Best Supporting Actress) who gets him an introduction to the stable owner Harry Dalton (Harry Andrews). For a while all is well and he spends an apparently uneventful year as a stable boy.

Yet, as Dysart uncovers, Alan has been sneaking in every three weeks or so and taking out a horse for a midnight ride, undressing and mounting the creature in an act of unfettered sensual liberation… This relationship between boy and beast is one of the things that makes the film difficult: bestiality is always a tough one… but this isn’t sex this is something more spiritual.

Over this time he becomes friendly with Jill and the two agree to go on a date to see a Swedish skin flick. As they sit there smiling at the soft core silliness Alan’s father enters the cinema and, spotting Alan who then spots him... hauls them both out. He has a story about having a meeting with the cinema owner… but his insistence that the incident be never spoken of again betrays the sad reality. Does Alan notice?

Leaving his father the take a troubled bus home, Alan and Jill head off to the stables to put into practice some of the things they have just seen on screen. Well, that’s certainly what Jill has in mind but as their coupling begins Alan reels away: he can’t continue, too confused by the sensuality of the horses just below the stable loft…

Spoilers… Jill leaves… and Alan’s anguished face contorts into anger as he leaps down to the tables below and begins to exact his horrific revenge on the all-seeing Equus.

We’re back in Dysart’s consultancy room: he’s achieved a breakthrough and knows now that he can “cure” his patient but he’s increasingly unsure whether this is the best thing for Alan. He may have committed an atrocity but joyful relationship with horses as an emblem of utter freedom will have to be lost for ever. For the psychiatrist, trapped in a love-less marriage, finding an expression of his own passion in researching ancient history, this seems too much: he can’t fly like Alan has and despairs of finding the right balance... we’re all as constrained by the watchful eye of secular and religious instructors… forever obstructed in our pursuit of joy.

Dusty Verdict: Sidney Lumet directs with stark economy and allows his performers maximum room for expression: rage from Harry Andrews finding his horses crippled, compassion from Jenny Agutter who sees so much in Alan, resolution and integrity from Eileen Atkins and a combination of repression and uptight frustration from Joan Plowright and Colin Blakely.

But Firth and Burton get most of the screen time and whilst the younger man gives his all it’s undoubtedly a great performance from Richard Burton who didn’t always get this quality of material in his high-flying Hollywood career. He operates superbly well in the close-quarters of the film’s set piece monologues and it is through him that our natural responses to Alan and his crime are channelled in a slightly more complex direction…

A film to watch when you’re in a receptive mood and, for once, the nudity is fully justified: the only thing more naked than a horse is a human being…

Equus is readily available on DVD from Amazon and Movie Mail.

Lovely and shallow… The Deep (1977)

I remember this being viewed as some kind of follow up to the wide-screen horror of Jaws… same writer (Peter Benchley), same sea-sensibilities and advanced sub-aquatic film techniques… the same Robert Shaw. I didn’t see it at the time – I was too young to have seen Jaws but I sneaked in anyway – and have somehow avoided it over the ensuing decades put off by its lukewarm reputation. Did I miss much?

There are some obvious highlights and I’ll get to Jacqueline Bisset’s wet t-shirt in a minute… but, viewed on a modern big screen TV the film looks superb, huge wide-angled shots of Bermuda blue sea and white sand mixed with some genuinely stunning underwater footage: 70’s cinematography of the highest order from Christopher Challis and director Peter Yates.

You feel placed into the centre of these beautiful vistas and the colours are vibrant and richly-textured creating a hyper-reality you know from your best holidays. But there’s also vulnerability from this sensorial over-loading and Yates does well in maintaining unease throughout the film. It’s not quite the fear of sudden shark attack but there are human monsters at work even if they do move in mysterious and unfathomable ways…

Bermuda as far as the eye can see...

The underwater shots offer the highest levels of this sub-acute (submerged) anxiety as the characters exist in a state of danger from the outset… weighed down by tonnes of water, impeded in their movement and reliant on a flimsy supply of oxygen. In ordinary circumstances it’s a thrill but when you know there will be danger it’s… uncomfortable.

Bisset and Nolte go deep

So it proves from the long opening sea-section which shows us something like nine minutes of vacationing treasure hunters Gail Berke (Jacqueline Bisset) and David Sanders’  (Nick Nolte) exploration of the wreck of The Goliath a Second World War freighter. The setting is idyllic as the couple play with fish and octopus, relaxing in this warm blue world of near silence as they prod the ground for anything unusual. Jacqueline Bisset wears a skimpy white t-shirt and one the film’s producer credits with accounting for a large proportion of The Deep’s box office returns. It was the 70s and well this is hardly less blatant a device than say Baywatch…

With John Barry’s sumptuous lines sound-tracking the dive you are truly lulled into a false sense of relaxation in spite of the fact you know something’s going to happen…  And, shortly after uncovering a mysterious glass vial Gail reaches for another under part of the wreck with a wooden paddle and, with Jaws-like speed, is pulled by an unknown force towards the upturned hull. She struggles to escape, the paddle is on a strap wound tight on her wrist, but is slammed again and again onto the wood…

By the time she’s raised the alarm, by sending oxygen bubbles up to alert David, she breaks free and kicking his attentive arms away heads as quickly as she can for the surface to clamber exhausted onto their boat: there’s something down there but it’s soon forgotten – Gail is unnaturally resilient throughout the film – when they examine their small haul, the vial and something altogether more intriguing, an old Spanish medallion that would pre-date the ship they’d been investigating by over two hundred years.

Initial investigations back on land suggest the medallion’s possible origin whilst no one has a clue about the vial. Questioning does however bring a visit from a local crime lord, Henri Cloche (Louis Gossett, Jr.) – no one can keep a secret for long round these parts. The couple deny all knowledge but that doesn’t cut any ice with Cloche…    

There’s one man who may know about the area’s wrecks and he’s a grumpy seafarer living in a converted Lighthouse by the name of Romer Treece (Robert Shaw).  Gail and David go to visit him and he feigns interest in the medallion in order to palm the vial… he knows what it is a swell as Cloche but his motivations are not clear at this point. He offers to investigate the medallion further and fobs the couple off.

Robert Shaw

Cloche has tracked their every move and the next day forces their motor-scooters off the road and kidnaps them. He threatens them and forces Gails to strip in order to show there’s no hiding place for the vial… gratuitous and uncomfortable.

Treece and David dive to the wreckage where they uncover hundreds more of the vials as well as falling through the hull to an older wreck which contains more of the mysterious Spanish artefacts…

On their return  they encounter some of Cloche’s men whom David engages on the beach lift at the same time as Gail is being terrorised by voodoo in another gratuitous and bloody way – chicken feet and random off-cuts of poultry… Cloche is going to a lot of effort to put them off or at least to get his way.

But Gail recovers quickly from her grisly humiliation and starts to draw connections between what they have found and the real treasure down below whilst Treece has now established that the Goliath is carrying a fortune in medicinal morphine worth millions on the open drug market. Cloche was obviously there well before and wants a piece of the action.

Louis Gossett, Jr and Robert Shaw

Treece claims he has wired the wreck with explosives and strikes a deal with the gangster to allow them time to find the Spanish treasure and establish the provenance needed for David and Gail to be recognised as finders of genuine lost treasyre.

It’s a race against time especially as Treece’s weak-willed pal Adam Coffin (Eli Wallach) – a survivor of the Goliath – is still open to other offers…

Can they make the discovery before Cloche’s men lose patience and dive after them and is there anyway they can prevent the bad guys getting their hands on the drugs? The pace hots up for an explosive closing section…

Dusty verdict: The Deep has many fine qualities and is a good-looking ride or should I say dive. It feels a little lose and lacks the unexpected terrors of Jaws whilst the plot lines are a tad convoluted as can happen in adaptations of complex book plots for films.

Nick Nolte and Jacqueline Bisset are individually very good but I don’t sense much chemistry between them: she’s just too sophisticated for him and for an archaeologist he looks like he’d make a great truck driver.

Jacqueline and Nick

Robert Shaw is likeably intense and gets an “ahargh Jim lad!” award for that accent (he was Lancastrian) whilst Mr Wallach does what Eli does…

It’s now available on Blu-ray which will enhance the visual treat no end – not just the Bisset bumps* – and is available from Amazon as usual.               

Just saying...

 *Yes I know…  but the film uses her assets as a considerable selling point so you have to make comment especially as such fore-fronting is hardly a technique left back in the saucy seventies is it? At least Jacqueline Bisset can act unlike so many others who have followed: Pam, Kelly et al…

 

Russ Meyer slays the sixties… Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970)

We all think we know Russ Meyer or at least his legendary fascination with actresses of a certain stature. He delivered some undeniable cult classics such as Faster Pussycat, Kill, Kill along with comedy erotica at the acceptable end of soft porn such as Vixen and Up!

Here, with the surprising assistance of leading film critic, Roger Ebert he delivered a smart satire on the late-60’s teen dream taking swipes at young and old in a land where the moral compass got lost somewhere between Haight-Ashbury and Saigon. The dream was almost over and this film gives it a kicking that seems to mature with age.

Casey, Pet and Kelly: The Carrie Nations!

Originally intended as a follow-up to the much derided pot-boiler – or dexy’s-fry-up – The Valley of the Dolls, the film was written by one of that film’s deriders-in-chief, Mr Ebert who had described it as a two-star “dirty soap opera” that tried “to raise itself to the level of sophisticated pornography but fails…” Did Mr Ebert succeed in bettering that score?

On the surface there are many traditional Meyer elements which would suggest that pornography was on the agenda: two of the leads where Playmates of the Month: Dolly Read (in 1966) and Cynthia Myers (1968) and it’s pretty clear why… There’s an excess of sexual and pharmaceutical activity in the orgy of self-indulgence forming the upper limits of most characters’ ambitions.

Duncan McLeod and Cynthia Myers

Bad things happen to almost all of those involved and there’s a moralising agenda that’s made bearable by the comic swagger of the direction as well as the performances. Amongst its many faults Valley of the Dolls took itself way too seriously and there’s no danger of that ever happening in this film which just about clings onto the mainstream.

The film follows the progress of an all-girl rock band as they progress from high school dances to the major leagues with the inevitable consequences…

Dolly Read

The band are Kelly Mac Namara (Dolly Read) on vocals and guitar, Casey Anderson (Cynthia Myers) on bass and Petronella “Pet” Danforth (Marcia McBroom) on drums and, initially, they are called The Kelly Affair and managed by Kelly’s upstanding boyfriend Harris Allsworth (David Gurian).

Marcia McBroom

They travel to Los Angeles aiming to stay with Kelly’s aunt Susan Lake (Phyllis Davis) who, rather generously, offers her niece a slice of her inheritance much to the annoyance of her seedy financial advisor Porter Hall (Duncan McLeod): Susan’s so nice you wonder what she’s doing using Mr Hall for advice on anything…

Aunt Susan who's only vice is being "too good"...

Susan’s a designer and “in” on the pop scene so she facilitates an introduction with its leading light, a Spector/Svengali figure by the name of Ronnie “Z-Man” Barzell (John LaZar) at one of his swinging parties. In the background play The Strawberry Alarm Clock three years after their psychedelia-by-numbers smash hit Incense and Peppermints and two years after the rapidly evolving progressive music scene passed them by. They’re the perfect band for the scene though – a band who cashed in on the style without the substance of hippiedom… they weren’t exactly Love or The Doors.

The girls join The Strawberry Alarm Clock on stage

Z-Man gets the girls to join them on stage and after an impressive set he re-christens them The Carrie Nations after the nineteenth century temperance activist...oh…how…ironic…

Meanwhile Pet meets a smart young waiter/legal trainee Emerson Thorne (Harrison Page)… whilst quiet Casey – daughter of a Senator – meets Roxanne (Erica Gavin) who can barely disguise her delight as her eyes dart approvingly over the younger woman: “I’d like to design for you”, she says thinking more of the contents than the clothes…

The gang survey Z-Man's awesome party scene

Kelly is given the grand tour by Z-Man who introduces the various characters with pseudo-Shakespearian couplets from the gigolo Lance Rocke (Michael Blodgett) to the insatiable porn star Ashley St. Ives (Edy Williams). The party’s a bit like the disco sections of Laugh In when various characters stop to tell brief jokes: just substitute Godie Hawn, Rowan and Martin et al for some altogether more freakish characters all drawn from Meyer’s over-developed sense of carnival irony.

Edy Williams cuts a rug...

From here on in, the girls upward trajectory distances them from their roots and common sense…

Z-Man easily outmanoeuvres Harris to take control of the band and nudges Kelly in the direction of Lance in order to break her link with the hapless ex-manager... Despairing, Harris succumbs to Miss St. Ives’s charms falling into a life of self-prescribed numb submission; helpless to stop Kelly’ s drift into success.

Playmate of the Month, May 1966...

Kelly becomes more self-centred, pushing her aunt for a bigger share of the inheritance (even though, presumably, her own stash of bread is growing exponentially…) in the face of self-serving opposition from Porter Hall.

Pet romances the studious Emerson yet falls for a one-night stand with heavyweight boxing champion Randy Black (James Iglehart) who almost runs the young lawyer over and beats him up for good measure.

Edy on the beach

Harris is humiliated by Ashley as he fails to rise to the occasion on the beach outside another of Z-Man’s parties and is then beaten by Lance as he tries to reconnect with Kelly… In drug-addled despair he takes advantage of Casey who throws him out. Nowhere left to turn he tries to kill himself by jumping from high above the stage as The Carrie Nations perform on live national TV…
He survives, just about – will this be a turning point for him and even for Kelly?

Superwoman and a disapproving Jungle Boy

Just as you think happy endings might start to accumulate, Meyer and Ebert throw in the shocking dénouement that partially starts the film… clearly influenced by the Manson Family murders, the segment starts with Z-Man inviting Lance, Casey and Roxanne for a Crowley-esque evening of drug-fuelled magic which he hopes will see his alter ego, Superwoman, consummate a dominant relationship with Lance’s Jungle Boy. Naturally Casey is cast as the Boy Wonder and Roxanne the Caped Crusader…

But, whilst the Dynamic Duo enjoy a night of passion – tastefully documented by Meyer, lingering longer than over any other coupling – Jungle Boy is not quite so interested in playing his role… Superwoman becomes displeased and… let’s just say; heads will roll...

Torn between two managers

Dusty Verdict: Beyond the Valley of the Dolls is rightly regarded as an imperfect jewel of period playfulness with some really colourful performances and a soundtrack packed with pop-psychedelia.

The girls in the band are all hyper pretty and the ex-playmate who delivers in the acting stakes is Cynthia Myers who manages to inject the right amount of uncertain vulnerability into a character who is lost even before the nightmares of success begin... she eventually finds herself more convincingly than the others who follow more prosaic paths to self-realisation...

Cynthia Myers

The supporting characters play it mostly for laughs and are so often extreme it works against any deeper drama: you feel safe in the knowledge that Meyer will always go for the comedy and the sex first... well almost.

The ending strikes now as opportunist and unnecessarily cruel and the coda showing Kelly and Harris driving a Chevrolet Corvette Stingray into a summer-sunny valley doesn't wipe away the bad taste. Was there a serious point here or cheap-shot moralising: the film apologising for reveling in its own exploitation?

Kelly's classic Chevrolet Corvette Stingray

A sonorous voice wraps up the film by briefly summarising the characters' faults, failures and fates... as with all that proceeded it it's hard to decide whether it is serious or a joke: Ebert and Meyer hedging their bets one out of habit and the other out of necessity? As the voice-over says, you, the audience, must decide for yourselves...

Writing later, Ebert, who's critical faculties made him one of the greatest of film reviewers, said:  "It's an anthology of stock situations, characters, dialogue, clichés and stereotypes, set to music and manipulated to work as exposition and satire at the same time; it's cause and effect, a wind-up machine to generate emotions, pure movie without message..."

Those causes still have effect and if you haven't seen it I'd recommend Beyond the Valley of the Dolls. It's available at very reasonable prices from Amazon... as is the groovy soundtrack.

Ashley St. Ives readies herself in the Rolls...