Psych fiction... Unearthly Stranger (1964)

In these austere times it’s good to watch a film that has made the absolute most of its limited budget and Unearthly Stranger epitomises the cut-priced have-a-go heroes of early sixties British cinema.

Director John Krish manages to generate a genuinely-oppressive atmosphere throughout the film as he uses every trick in the book to convince the viewer that aliens might well be amongst us. There are no special effects, no flying spaceships or explosions and, amazingly, there are no alien-looking aliens just one scene involving minimal make-up. Somehow – in spite of a story so full of holes you could strain boiled vegetables through it – he puts the strange and the unearthly into the mix.

The film also benefits from a super cast who put their all into animating what could have been a very dull affair; from Warren Mitchell’s exploding brain to Jean Marsh’s properly prim secretary and Patrick Newell’s boiled sweet addicted spook: if James Bond ate nothing but Fox’s Glacier Mints for forty years, that’d be him!

John Neville

The film starts as it means to go on with a terrified Dr. Mark Davidson (John Neville who later went on to play the Well-Manicured Man in The X-Files) racing over Westminster Bridge away from some unknown terror. He careers across the darkened West End somehow ending at a sleek art deco building housing the Royal Space Research Institute. There’s a great shot downwards as he runs up the circular stairway inside before pausing at the top to check for any pursuers.

Soaked in sweat and exhausted he staggers into his office and starts talking into his reel-to-reel… he doesn’t think he has long as he tries to warn his colleague of a truth they have both suspected. The highest stakes are involved and it’s all a lot worse than they ever imagined…

Warren Mitchell

Cue the flashback as we see the Institute in calmer circumstances as an unexpectedly Scottish Warren Mitchell arrives in the guise of one Professor Geoffrey D. Munro. He greets his secretary Miss Ballard (Jean Marsh) and enters his office. As he reads some papers in front of a giant image of the Moon he convulses in pain and slumps dead on his desk.

Switch to the aftermath as the institute’s head, Professor John Lancaster (Philip Stone) discusses the case with the sweet-munching secret service man, Major Clarke (Patrick Newell). There’s a marvellously English interplay between the men, respect, rank and duty defining their relationship: Lancaster would rather do without the man from the ministry but he knows he has no option.

Philip Stone and Patrick Newell

Davidson arrives back form holiday – his honeymoon as it turns out – and we find out more about this special project as he is offered Munro’s job as its lead… The Institute is experimenting with projecting thought into space. Rather than rockets, flesh and blood, its aim is to send our consciousness across space to unknown worlds: to boldly know where no man has thought before (sorry).

They’re not alone in this cerebral space race with the Americans and the Russians also experimenting. Both, like the British, have suffered similarly-harrowing deaths. Davidson senses something is up and the polite pressure of the munching Major does little to allay his fears.

John Neville, Jean Marsh and Philip Stone

Looking for answers he goes to look at Munro’s corpse only to file his coffin full of bricks… his body has been taken for secret tests? But whilst his own people are against him, Davidson may also have strange issues at home. For such an intuitive man it seems odd that he hasn’t really considered his own situation: he met and married his wife Julie (Gabriella Licudi) in a matter of weeks, running into her in Swizterland when his car temporarily lost power. Their relationship proceeded at pace and before he returned they were married.

All is perfectly in love but there’s just one thing… Julie doesn’t blink.

Gabriella Licudi, John Neville and Philip Stone

Davidson invites Lancaster to dinner and whilst Julie is perfectly charming, the Professor is alarmed to see her handling hot dishes in the oven without using gloves and then he too notices that she doesn’t blink before Julie laughs it off and starts forcing her eyelids down.

One of the best sequences in the film sees Julie enjoying a carefree walk – smiling at a baby in a pram before the poor thing cries in terror – before coming to a junior school. She stands at the fence admiring the children at play until gradually, one by one, they stop staring at her in fear and, as one, edging back step-by-step.

Julie realises that the children can see what the adults cannot...

Julie flees home in tears but as she throws herself in misery on the bed, the door rings and she’s goes down stairs to see the suspiciously avuncular Major Clarke waiting… her face has two trials cut into her face as if her tears had been of acid.

Meanwhile Clarke spots Davidson and Lancaster rooting around for Munro and warns them off. But the mystery is too great now to be ignored and it seems quite clear that they need to talk about Julie…

The Major...

No spoilers… The tension mounts as the realisation dawns that Man is not alone in thinking his way into the future. Davidson has his run and there’s a most impressive twist at the end… about which I will say nothing…

The idea of mind projection is a pretty one to take but as with a lot of science fiction, it is merely a device to reflect contemporary concerns about the collapse of society from within: a home counties version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers?

Julie relishes the streets of London

Of the performers, the lovely Gabriella Licudi deserves special mention for a) holding her eyes open for so long and b) investing her character with so much other-worldly longing.

Dusty verdict: Well worth watching for the dynamic atmospherics and the unflinching early-sixties belief in the power of science!

Unearthly Stranger is available at budget price direct from Network as either a Blu-ray or DVD.

The school kids retreat

Playing the fool… The Jokers (1967)

A young Michael Winner made a number of interesting films in the sixties… before success took him. Here he pokes fun at the establishment through the anarchic activities of two brothers fed up with the silver spoons in their mouths…

Written by Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais – the writers of Catch Me a Spy and so many British comedy drama classics – the film has a little more edge than some of the swinging comedies of the time.

Edward Fox looks on as cheats almost prosper...

The brothers are played by Oliver Reed (a Winner regular at this time) and Michael Crawford who carries more unpredictable spite than his heavyweight sibling. Interestingly Crawford looked a lot like Reed’s actual brother… they were not so unlikely a pairing as it seemed.

The film starts with Crawford’s Michael in the army, trying to use his brother David, to help cheat his way to victory in war games… well, not cheat exactly, but bending the rules as far as they can. Sadly his commanding officer doesn’t believe in bend-able rules and Michael and the army part company.

Crawford, Reed and Lotte Tarp

It turns out to be not the first occasion when Michael's thinking has been too challenging for the powers that be as he has also been kicked out of Cambridge University and blown every single chance he’s had to take advantage of his rank and position. But is it a failing of character or a deeper need to think originally? Or maybe it’s just meant to be funny.

David is also an under-achiever, passing his time as an architect come interior designer having also been booted out of the army. His regular girlfriend, Eve, is played by the excellent Gabriella Licudi who was so committed in Herostratrus, Don Levy’s altogether more serious examination of sixties culture – there’s a good piece on it here.

Gabriella Licudi

After a few stultifying days at home with the parents and their deb of a sister, the boys begin to hatch a plan to really shock their oppressive establishment to the core. After a visit with David’s spare girlfriend Inge (Lotte Tarp) to the Tower of London, they resolve to “appropriate” the Crown Jewels.

Providing there is no provable intent to keep the royal treasures they figure they’ll be able to escape punishment whilst at the same time having a lark and proving how clever they are… They write letters to be left with their banks which will prove their benign intent after the deal is done and start a strategy of wrong-footing the forces of the state.

Swinging London 1966

David uses his army training to build small-scale explosive devices whilst Michael poses as an Irish terrorist, phoning instructions to the police. The first device is at the Albert Memorial and the boys observe the response of the police, led by Inspector Marryatt (a superb Harry Andrews) and the over confident leader of the bomb disposal unit Col. Simms (James Donald) – a man who’s arrogance deserves some kind of redress.

Brian Wilde and Harry Andrews

But, as the bombs get bigger there’s a bit of unease in watching these terrorist techniques being used as the basis of the comedy… But that’s the gap between then and now. Terror methods haven’t changed but perhaps we take things less flippantly now?

Winner unfolds the story well though and it’s only on the night of the “appropriation” that we understand how all of the pieces will fit together.

Oliver Reed and James Donald (left)

Michael and David disguise themselves as the soldiers called in to deal with a bomb at the Tower and, after swiftly disabling the useless Col. Simms, proceed to swap toys for the real jewels before faking serious injury as the bomb supposedly goes off.

Covered in fake blood, they are whisked away in an ambulance… they over-power the crew and are free to run home and hide the jewels in David’s flat.

So far so good and the two enjoy a few days gloating as the press whips the country into a paranoid frenzy over the theft. But, when the time comes to return the jewels David finds them gone. Michael claims no knowledge and it is only when the police arrive and Michael denies all knowledge that David realises that his brother may have betrayed him.

Gabriella Licudi and Oliver Reed

The film shifts a little in tone and Michael begins to look every inch the villain. David is locked up and Eve plays a more prominent role in trying to get to the truth, using her journalistic contacts to try and tempt Michael into making a mistake.

She is helped by their friend Riggs (Daniel Massey) who photographed Michael’s ostensible alibi at his sister’s coming out party.

Has Michael really betrayed his brother and is there a way out for both of the boys?

Michael denies all...

It’s a well-made film with a few twists and turns remaining in the plot till the end. Crawford acts believably as the runty younger brother with a point to prove although he doesn’t do posh-thug as well as Mr Reed! The script from Clement and La Frenais is amusing rather than outright funny but does keep you guessing.

There’s good support from the aforementioned Ms Licudi as well as Harry Anderson and a guest appearance from Michael Horden as the government minister with the wind up him! Hmm, maybe we haven’t changed that much… making the establishment sweat is all we have left in the post-democratic sterility of coalition-austerity Britain…

Gabriella Licudi and Michael Crawford

And is the brother’s will to win not pointedly anti-establishment but just the suppressed spirit of adventure that in times of trouble have brought out the best of Britain? Even by the late sixties the belief in eth characteristics that won this country wars was still strong in spite of all the pop cultural ennui around it…

Hang on... I've got an idea...

Dusty verdict: well worth keeping the VHS for some mostly light-hearted crime capering…it’s not on DVD anyway! Michael Winner made good films and this is certainly one of them.

Ollie keeps watch...