Two for sorrow… Goodbye Gemini (1970)

This film is one of those late sixties treats served up with fascinating locations and post-psychedelic style and making the most of the increasing laxity of censorship and the decriminalisation of homosexuality with The Sexual Offences Act 1967. It’s a huge variety bag of richly-flavoured chocolates that leaves you feeling a little queasy by the end and that was probably the intention; folk on IMBD have mixed feelings about it but it’s got a fabulous cast and something to say as it ticks off the boxes of incest, transvestism, queer culture and deep psychological disorder.

 

Sixties It Girl supreme Judy Geeson gives one of her best performances in my opinion playing against type as the firm-willed and more grounded of a pair of twins at the heart of the action. Many times Judy was required to play ultra-pretty and very sweet, which she excelled at, but here her job is not to be likeable but to illustrate how relationships of damaging inter-reliance and child-like intensity can persist in the real world. Not for nothing was this film retitled Twinsanity (yuck) for a rerelease, as Judy is Jacki, sibling to Julian, and together they present what looks like easy pickings for London’s swinging hipsters but, as Jacki keeps on saying, they can look after themselves.

Judy Geeson

The psychopathic Yang to Jacki’s Yin is played by Martin Potter, rolling straight off the back of his startling turn in Fellini’s Satyricon (1969) into a world only slightly stranger. The last time I saw Mr Potter he was playing in the real world as a policeman mixing with the wrong crowd in All Coppers Are… (1971) and here he shows once again how he can be an unsettling presence, a febrile performer whose eyes give everything and nothing away. Whilst Judy presents as fun-loving and ultimately sound of mind, Martin gives only nervy uncertainty. This is true of his obviously inappropriate – and illegal – feelings for his sister, but we just don’t know what he is capable of doing.

 

The twins arrive in the capital from the west country by coach, snaking along the Westway/M4 and making their way to a flat in Cheyne Walk with a fine view of the Chelsea north bank, power station still smoking. We are given an immediate indication of their wayward sense of purpose when they take out their disapproving landlady by placing their treasured toy cat, Agamemnon on the top stair so that she trips and falls as they run from the building, alibi intact. They defer to Agamemnon in all important decisions (the film is based on the novel, Ask Agamemnon by Jenni Hall), a reflection of their childish intimacies but also unhinged morality: they happily let the toy make their choices.

Judy Geeson and Martin Potter, playing an attentive brother...

Another actor whose eyes give away unsettling possibilities is Alexis Kanner, a French born Canadian actor of no fixed accent here but who displays his usual twisted energies as deployed so effectively in The Prisoner, Connecting Rooms (1970) and elsewhere. Kanner plays hipster gadabout Clive Landseer who meets the twins in a crowded bar watching a drag show at the Royal Vauxhall Tavern (plus ca change eh?) and pulls them into his sleezy world of free-flowing sexuality, non-stop partying and general debauchery. He focuses attention on Jacki and tries to hand over his friend Denise (Marion Diamond) to Julian who looks on in panic at Jacqui’s removal from his side.

 

Clive invites them to his friend’s river boat for a party, here we find all manner of louche characters, including a smartly dressed Freddie Jones as David Curry, watching the action from a hammock, as the twins arrive and cause a stir as Jacki dances with Clive and Julian stares daggers. Much to Denise’s upset he soon cuts in and the whole room looks on in shock or groovy approval as the siblings get very close.

Mike and Fred

An MP arrives, James Harrington-Smith (Michael Redgrave always a class act even struggling with the early onset of Parkinson’s) who discusses art with an impressed Jacki as, again, Julian looks on with desperation. The twins leave spurred on by Julian’s increasing anxiety and are accompanied by Clive and Denise as whiskey is drunk and arguments are had at the twins’ flat. Clive decides to tackle the main issue by getting Julian to accompany him on an adventure, plying him with more drink and phoning ahead to arrange a special entertainment at a seedy hotel. Staggering into room 104 Julian’s eyes light up as he sees two dolly birds in miniskirts… by the time he realises that they’re boys, not girls, it’s too late and the camera cuts as in his shock he is overwhelmed by the, um, circumstances.

The next morning Julian recovers his poise back in the reassuring presence of his sister but this will not be the last he hears of this night. Clive has been dodging his bookie, Rod (the ace Mike Pratt) who previously came looking for him at the boat party, promising him a beating as an incentive to pay up on his accumulating debt. Rod had visited the flat the night before finding only the two women and when Clive visits Jacki later in the day, he corners him and makes his point; a couple of body blows as a taster for the retribution to come.

Here come the girls...

Clive is in some spot and almost reluctantly, decides the only way is to blackmail Julian to get the money, presenting him with a collection of photographs depicting the previous night’s entertainment. The only trouble is Julian doesn’t have the money and the only trouble for Clive is, you don’t take on one of the twins without taking them both on and, as Jacki has always pointed out… they can look after themselves.

 

The stage is set for a traumatic closing segment in which both Judy and Martin perform superbly as does Redgrave in what appeared to be a bit part.

 

Dusty Verdict: Not a film you watch for pure enjoyment or nostalgia, there are some real points to make and a dedication to the uncomfortable realities behind the rapidly fading myths of sixties hedonism. As I’ve said, the actors are all on form and I really think this is one of Judy G’s most interesting portrayals.

 

The mood has been said to be uneven but director Alan Gibson is just showing the push and pull of reality versus the twin’s world, an unreality dominated not so much by the obsessive sociopathic Julian but the character they project into Agamemnon the cat.

 

 

 

 

Hard times... Percy's Progress (1974)

Penny Irving, Leigh Lawson and Judy Matheson

OK. They made a follow up to the film about a man who has a penis transplant.

The first film had Hywel Bennett as the beneficiary of the spare part and did very well at the box office reputably making £500,000 profit. I know little about it other than the fact that the Kinks wrote the theme and that’s how I first heard of it and now I really must watch it. This follow up features Leigh Lawson as Percy, an altogether more likely leading man yet perhaps less adept at handling the comedy of Sid Colin, Ian La Frenais (as unlikely as it seems) and (Harry H. Corbett, the dirty old man…).

It’s a 70’s “sex” “comedy” which focuses less on the added appendage and more on the virility it has endowed. Percy’s prowess is a blessing at first but he soon finds it a curse especially after the USA accidentally dumps a chemical agent at sea which leaves him as the only man left to stand up for the human race…

Elke Sommer and Leigh Lawson

We start the film with Percy caught in bed with Clarissa (Elke Sommer), one of any number of married women he is involved with… Jeffcot, a private dick (ha-hah!) played by James Booth, has tracked him down with enough photographers to ensure conviction. Percy duly has his day in court – with the gallery packed with conquests old and new – but escapes justice with the help of PC 217 (Adrienne Posta), who cannot resist his charms and drives him off to the coast.

Percy hides away on a yacht for long months, drinking champagne and trying to forget women even though he can’t escape his dreams and imagines a pod of dolphins as naked women… but he snaps to in time for the comely cetaceans to escape his attentions.

Perky Posta!

Meanwhile the Yanks have unleashed their reverse-Viagra on mankind and it looks like the world will end with a billion masculine whimpers and not with a bang after all. The human reproduction line has been halted by the involuntary withdrawal of all members.

Percy can stand amorous abstinence no longer and lands his yacht at a Mediterranean port where he is able to enjoyed a free ride (sorry, but you chose to read this ramble!) at the local brothel where we find a bounteous bevvy of unemployed workers including the stunning Penny Irving and the stunning Judy Matheson (nee Jarvis) who is clearly having fun with all this. Judy has spoken warmly about the film recently and it’s easy to forget that this was a) work and b) a daft comedy with actors who knew each other having a laugh and entertaining the audience too. It’s not Bergman or Antonioni but it’s Ralph Thomas alright: director of Doctor in the House, A Pair of Briefs and Deadlier than the Male to name but three.

 Anthony Andrews, Harry H Corbett and Leigh Lawson

News gets out that there’s a functioning man left and the search begins for Percy with Harry H. Corbett popping up as a British Prime Minister, not unlike Harold Wilson, complete with a Yorkshire accent and mutterings about "thirteen years of Tory misrule" – you never had it so good mate, try 2019 for size! The PM devises the plan to pimp out Percy and a competition is launched to find a line of women to, erm, work with him in furthering the species.

Meanwhile a team of doctors works hard on finding a lift for humanity’s hopes, led by a mad Dr. Anderson (Barry Humphries who also doubles – of course - as an Australian TV Lady) and Dr. Klein (Milo O'Shea) who is assisted by Dr. Fairweather (played by Judy Geeson equipped with over-eager American accent and a character surely founded on one of Dr Kildare’s more admiring assistants).

The list of talent goes on with Denholm Elliott as Percy’s transplant surgeon, Sir Emmanuel Whitbread, Vincent Price as multi-millionaire, Stavos Mammonian and T. P. McKenna as a news editor.

Madeline Smith and Alan Lake, surprisingly cast as the compere at a beauty pageant

Joining the queue for Percy are Madeline Smith as Miss UK, Jenny Hanley as Miss Teenage Lust (natch) and Minah Bird as Miss America… Julie Ege and Carol Hawkins are, to no great surprise, in there too… consenting adults all and, actually, I think the balance in this film is away from the saucy/smut and towards Carry on… there is a story and Thomas paces things well around the utter lack of seriousness.

Dusty Verdict: You’ll still enjoy this if you’re in the mood and even if it’s only for spotting the talent. The idea of a man so irresistible to women he has to hide away is accentuated by the device of his being the only choice available and it’s maybe making a point about something. For the life of me I can’t quite work out what it is… but, never look a gift dolphin in the mouth.

A dolphin, yesterday

 

 

Jenny Hanley, Leigh Lawson and Carol Hawkins

Doctor, what…? Doomwatch (1972)

Pollution, industrial waste, the ecology, even global warming… none of these things are new and there were plenty of programmes in the 1970s that dealt with what were then emerging concerns. There was an episode of Jon Pertwee’s Dr Who series, The Green Slime (“the one with the maggots”) in which the impact of waste was shown to have potentially lethal implications for the environment in general and Man in particular so much so that his assistant Jo (the eternally ace Katy Manning) leaves in the end to go on an environmental mission with her new fella to the Amazon.

Kit Pedler and Gerry Davis had both worked on Doctor Who having co-created the Cybermen and other science-horrors (they were both scientists too) and were to become the writers on the TV series of Doomwatch which ran for 24 episodes in the early 70’s.  This film was aimed at transferring that success on-screen and was based on elements of the series.

Directed by Peter Sasdy and with Clive Exton re-working the TV scripts, it featured familiar themes of pending environmental disaster and the shame of it was and is, that their sci-fi is fast becoming our reality…

Science

Doomwatch is a British ecological watchdog group whose mission statement kind of speaks for itself: the big hand is ticking towards midnight and scientists need to provide as much early warning to a wilfully deaf establishment.

Doctor Del Shaw (the always-excellent Ian Bannen) is an investigator sent to the remote island of Balfe to investigate the effects of a recent oil tanker spill. There’s something sinister on the island, people are more than usually untrusting of strangers and are positively grumpy about questions and helping with enquiries, from PC Hartwell (Percy Herbert) to the priest (Joseph O'Conor) all give Doctor Del the bird and with desperate menace too.

Ian Bannen

The one bright spark is the attractive blonde improbably teaching at the village school, Victoria Brown (Judy Geeson) who is also staying at the only guest-house in the community. Naturally, as the only two outsiders, she and Del are drawn together without ever actually… you know… but they could. But like the others, Victoria is guarded even though she can see that Del is only a scientist trying to help.

But Balfe, stands alone and want to keep its secrets mostly because it feels it is being punished… Del starts his investigations, overlooked as he takes sample on the beach and in the midst of a fight in the pub over still unspoken tensions.

Del reports back to HQ, TV series regulars Dr Spencer Quist (John Paul) and Dr Fay Chantry (Jean Trend) are there along with Simon Oates as Dr John Ridge, clearly the man for action sequences later in the film.

Judy Geeson

As it becomes clear that the waters surrounding an island have been contaminated by chemical dumping, so too is the impact on the people who eat fish caught in those waters. It has not only changed behaviours but also physiology and, seeing this as God’s punishment, the community try to protect their own and to drive strangers away.

As strange split evolves in the action, with Del’s remarkably quick trips back to base mixed in with often tense encounters with the desperate folk on the supposedly remote island. You can’t really have both – he could escape/call for help anytime… but it doesn’t really matter as the plot is moved along.

The team dive and find illegally dumped barrels of waste in a Royal Naval zone and following the trail from the disbelieving Admiralty establish a private company has been in charge of this… See, even in 1972, public sector responsibility, handed over to private business undermines the whole process…

Dusty verdict: Doomwatch was a good series that – actually – wasn’t even ahead of its time: it was spot on then and sadly part of a movement that failed to gather enough momentum over the next half century.  Changes have been made and two-generations later, we are far more concerned with pollution and whether or not it is just too late…

The film has good performances from a strong cast – notably Geeson and Bannen. The Villagers are great too with everyone from Shelagh Fraser as Mrs. Betty Straker, Norman Bird as Brewer, the conflicted copper and even a young James Cosmo (Game of Thrones and so many more!) as Bob a local fisherman.

You also get George Sanders as an Admiral and Geoffrey Keen as irresponsible industrialist Sir Henry Leyton… as well as great location work at Polkerris, Cornwall and even Battersea Heliport in London.

It starts off like a hammer horror but there’s no mass slaughter just a tragic secret which, optimistically, the Doomwatch team tries to solve and help. Let’s hope that attitude hasn’t been lost.

Doomwatch can be purchased from Amazon and other retailers and most of the TV series is also available. The Truth is out there…