Nice and sleazy does it... Jungle Street (1960)

This falls into that intriguing sub-genre of Soho strip-joint based dramas along with Beat Girl (released 28^th October 1960) and Expresso Bongo (released 1^st December 1959) and was probably the last to be released. It may lack the authenticity of the former – which used professional strippers – and the wit of the latter – which used Cliff Richard – but it’s noteworthy all the same.

There are some lukewarm reviews on IMDB for the film but it’s a convincing kitchen-sink crime drama with a memorable if occasionally jarring lead performance from David McCallum as the troubled petty crook Terry Collins. As Collins, McCallum never lets the intensity drop as a rebel with no cause but his own and no loyalty to family or friends. The exception to this is dancer Sue, played by McCallum’s then wife, Jill Ireland who I have to say provides the most stunning of catwalks for her moment in the club; she’s got star power to spare, as with her husband, and near infinite legs!

David McCallum

As with the excellent but underused Kenneth Cope, they bring out what there is of the drama and make this low budget Las Vegas a low-impact but compelling watch for a bank holiday afternoon; the showgirls may be faking it but the feeling of supressed violence and desperation is tangible.

All begins with an old man’s late-night bus journey from Notting Hill set to a swinging Harold Geller score. He arrives at his destination and gets fatally knocked out by a blackjack wielded by petty Terry who takes his money and throws his wallet down the drain.

We’ve had the violence so now it’s time for “sex” as we enter the Adam and Eve club presumably down a dark Soho Alley to find smiley Marian Collins introducing a variety of acts starting with “Dimples” (Vanda Hudson) in tight-fitting silver slacks and, initially at least, matching top, as she strips and sings “I’m Only a Girl” to row after row of pale, stale males sucking harder on their cigarettes with every gyration and discarded item of clothing; it’s definitely the singer and not the song.

Jill Ireland and her near infinte legs...

Terry arrives at the club just as a black dancer (Faye Craig) gives the film’s most overtly sexual performance – just as with Pascaline in Beat Girl… the differing moral standards of the age towards “native” dance and expression? He settles down to a short and salty exchange with Joe Lucas (Brian Weske) a lower league but established criminal who none-the-less has more street smarts.

Backstage, star attraction Sue, who is fending off the advances of club owner and gutter entrepreneur, Jacko Fielding (John Chandos) before taking to the stage. Sue’s dance is perhaps more graceful and composed than you’d expect in such a dive but Jill Ireland simply acts her way through it with a range of expressions that conveys much beyond the choreographed physical routine. With the occasional cut-away to an increasingly distracted Terry, she’s defiant, alluring and ultimately in control of the room. You get the feeling there could have been a much deeper story here.

But. Not today… what we get is not enough character development and a story that, whilst competently directed by Charles Saunders, falls between the twin stools of titillation, crime and socially aware drama.

Grumpy breakfast with mum and his ol' dad.

Terry’s tense breakfast with his belligerent Dad (Thomas Gallagher) and long-suffering mother (Edna Doré) starts with a close-up of a fry-up and abrasive exchanges that almost lead to violence; they’re a family on the brink and Terry’s either going to put up or shut up. The headline in The Daily Express tells him there is no going back as it’s revealed that his mugging has turned into a murder.

But no one seems to take Terry seriously and as the girls in the club, Dimples, Margo (Anne Scott) and another (Gillian Watt) laugh at him he slaps out and is floored by a fierce straight right from Dealer (Fred Griffiths). Terry just hasn’t got what it takes and just doesn’t know it and as Sue takes pity on him, getting him laid out in her dressing room her quickly turns from grateful of hateful as he forces himself on her.

Things are about to get worse for Terry though as his former partner in crime, Johnny Calvert (Kenneth Cope), gets early release from Wormwood Scrubs and comes looking for his share of the proceeds from the job that landed him in clink as well as his old love, Sue. Terry’s spent the money though, of course, but has a plan to rob the club and pay his mate back in spades.

Gillian Watt dances as Kenneth Cope and David McCallum make plans

Johnny’s hard to persuade though after making up with Sue – accepting his own part in her having to turn to this life even as Jacko is lining up a new star dancer Dolly (a brief cameo from Jacqueline Jones who was in Antonioni’s Il Grigo in 1957). Meanwhile the coppers have found the old man’s wallet and, having identified prints, are sweeping the neighbourhood trying to find the matching fingers…

Time is running out and everything will turn on the boy’s plan to rob the club – just one last job to get Johnny the money to get away with Sue and Terry’s only hope of escaping the law. What do you reckon’s going to happen?

Dusty Verdict: Jungle Street is very near the real thing and is saved by the grit of McCallum and the grace of Ireland. There’s decent support all round and you do end up caring about – most – of the characters although Terry’s a particularly un-redeeming character which, to be fair, is the point; we keep on expecting him to turn the corner but he can’t and whatever he sows, he reaps. Plenty of character actors to spot and there’s a smashing turn from Meier Tzelniker as elderly jeweller Mr. Rose. Shirley Anne Field has a bit part too although she doesn’t dance.

Attentive audience

Vanda Hudson

Marian Collins

Faye Craig

Jill Ireland

Anne Scott

Gillian Watt

John Chandos and Jacqueline Jones who had a much bigger role in Antonioni's acclaimed Il Grido (1957)

 

 

The alpha male gaze... Shamus (1973)

Ah Burt Reynolds, top-earning movie star for five years later in the decade and fresh off the back of his stunning turn in Deliverance, here displaying that unique chemistry that made men want to be him and women, no doubt, want to be with him. This is by way of balance with other films I may has assessed with reference to the characteristics of female stars, always couched in the most respectfully considered of phrases of course, but here the male gaze is very much on Burt’s physique through large chunks of the film. Director Buzz Kulik just can’t get enough of the Burt-bod and it’s displayed as often as possible along with the actor’s laconic charm.

Seymour “Buzz” Kulik worked mostly in TV and this film does have the feel of a TV movie being neither as gritty as a Clint Eastwood cinematic release nor as long on budget. We get plenty of good location work in New York along with a huge dash of class from Dyan Canon who, in the absence of a great script literally laughs her way through certain scenes. She first meets Burt’s character, a private dick called Shamus McCoy, in a bar as he pinches her bottom pretending it was an effeminate man nervously nursing a beer; Dyan knows there’s not enough here and we know but she smiles her way through all the same with enough brilliance to suggest real chemistry between the characters.

Burt

Shamus is indeed “of its time” but I chose to believe that the focus on Reynold’s sexuality is more ground-breaking than it might look, certainly in the absence of overt nudity from Cannon and the other female performers. It feels like a succession of early 70s tropes all tied together by a vaguely believable storyline laden with character quirks and action opportunities for the former parole officer, truck driver and stunt man.

"I don't care whether he can act or not, anyone who has this effect on women deserves a break…” said Lew Wasserman after Reynolds signed a seven-year deal with Universal in the late 50’s. But Burt worked hard to become a naturalistic player and enjoyed that huge career as a result of his work ethic as well as his natural charms. By 1973 it may have looked like he could walk his way through any movie and in Shamus he does exactly that… and he’s a force of nature matched only by Cannon’s elegantly restrained star power: she’s a Dyan Dazzler alright and technically very gifted. She had in fact withdrawn from the business after her toxic time on Such Good Friends (reviewed elsewhere on this blog) but was keen to work with Reynolds and they do work a screwball charm together.

Burt and Dyan showing their chemistry

Shamus starts of with the brutal murder of a couple who are burned to death in their bed and a packet of diamonds stolen. The titles roll as we cut to Shamus waking up with a hangover and a blonde in his bed atop a pool table in his “characterful” warehouse apartment somewhere in downtown Manhattan. Heck, minus the blonde-night stand (Melody Santangelo) and the pool table we’ve all had wakeups like this, albeit without Burt’s Velcro-vulnerable torso.

He gets the call to visit the local Mr Big, or as he is properly entitled, Mister E.J. Hume (Ron Weyand) who has all the signifiers of a weirdo criminal; large mansion, check, security guards walking huge attack dogs, check and aircon in his office which he keeps near freezing… check, but possible over-elaboration. Shamus is frightened of the dogs, possibly hinting at some childhood trauma or at least good common sense given the size of them. He gets offered the job of retrieving Hume’s diamonds and finding out who had the audacity to rob him…

Mister E.J. Hume and his men

This is a hot one and almost no one is talking not even at Shamus’s favourite pool hall not even the insatiably chatty Springy (Larry Block) , who can’t stop quoting sporting facts, unloading the contents of a memory almost full of photographic memories… Springy set out to find what he can while Shamus pops upstairs to a gambling den to chat with his childhood pal is Lieutenant Promuto (Joe Santos – who also played Jim Rockford’s favourite cop!), street-wise and willing to help his friend if only to keep him out of trouble.

A lead from one of the card players leads Shamus to a junky – cue chase and threats with violence – and from there to a bar called The Health Club where he meets Springy for a de-brief and, despite taking a brief time out to sexually harass Dyan Cannon’s Alexis Montaigne, who’s brother owns the bar, he spots a dodgy looking waiter. He stakes out the joint from a bookshop across the road run by an attractive redhead (Kay Frye) and passes the time by making a pass… sometime later her leaves the shop and then sets about assaulting the waiter in exchange for a little more information to lead him on.

Dyan Cannon, Burt and Alex Wilson

He’s beginning to make connections which is exactly why he is ambushed in his apartment by three guys who beat him up and tell him to reconsider his career path. Springy finds him fully clothed in the bath soothing his bruises in his overly quirky way. But he’s not the kind of man to take a beating and knowing now that Alexis’ brother Felix (Alex Wilson) is involved he heads to their plus midtown apartment to find out exactly how much…

The film is a jumble of set pieces and set characters and naturally Felix is an Ivy League smart Alec too involved to feel the need to explain himself to a private eye. Still, it’s a chance for Shamus to charm Alexis some more and we know where this is headed… but he’ll have to work at his chance to play pool with Alexis.

The story has more twists and turns than is healthy and whilst these “McGuffins” are all necessary to move the story on, you don’t necessarily care about the central crime at the heart of the story. What you do get is plenty of action in the closing stages, allowing Burt to run some stunts and escape the bad guys after uncovering – part – of the shocking truth in a warehouse. Then he finds a military connection via Alexis and the two have to escape the same careless henchmen this time driving in a US Army truck… Smokey and the Bandit never had it so good!

Dusty Verdict: This film is fun, but the reasons for it are most certainly not to do with the story, you have two bankable, exceptionally likeable stars and some great period New York City and the vague satisfaction that these are the good guys. But the stakes are rarely raised and that’s surely something that could easily have been fixed.

All the same, worth watching for Dyan and Burt! Plus, a cracking score from legend Jerry Goldsmith!

The dangerous bicycles… And Soon the Darkness (1970)

Time Out called this film "nasty" and, having seen the premise, I was a little wary of watching it expecting gratuitous violence and sexual unpleasantness but I was pleasantly surprised both with the subtlety of the narrative and the overall restrain of Robert Fuest’s direction. I think this film got labelled as exploitation when it has more in common with an Agatha Christie whodunnit. There is tension for sure and the vulnerability of both the female protagonists is amply displayed as they cycle along in shorts but Fuest is firmly of the school where less specifics gives more in terms of dramatic tension and atmosphere.

He’s very good at introducing an array of “suspects” after the fact when the viewer has seemingly made their mind up who the guilty party might be, one by one, they keep on coming and everyone manages to act just oddly enough to persuade us that they might be the kidnapper or even killer… Christie usually starts with a group of people anyone of which may be “the one” but Fuest reverses this building momentum and suspicion as the film goes.

Michele Dotrice

And Soon the Darkness is a film with a tremendous sense of place and space as two young nurses, Cathy (Michele Dotrice) and Jane (Pamela Franklin) cycle along the endless flat roads of rural France on holiday. Events take place on a single stretch of road between small villages either side of a small wood and as events travel up and down that road we see the same signs, buildings as well as policemen, farm workers, and other passers by who may or may not be involved.

Cathy is the more outgoing of the two and is starting to get bored of the travelling as they follow a route laid out by Jane which never seems to get to the point. Cathy makes eyes at a handsome Frenchman at a café, Paul (Sandor Elès) who from then on appears to be following the girls on his scooter. A few miles down the road he passes them and then they pass him standing outside a cemetery… he goes inside and looks at the grave of a young woman, Jan Hele who died two years earlier.

Pamela Franklin

Further on, girls start to bicker and Cathy persuades Jane to let them take a rest for some sunbathing at the edge of the wood. After while she refuses to push on leaving Jane to make her own way towards their next stop. Jane cycles on leaving Cathy sleeping under the sun listening to her radio and, frankly, looking a little vulnerable. Jane begins to feel anxious as she gets further away even as she cycles past a group of policemen outside a station. She reaches a village to find the rather rude café owner, Madame Lassal (Hana Maria Pravda) speaking only French and telling her to go away with a strange concern in her eyes. Her husband Lassal (Claude Bertrand) is even more brusque…

Meanwhile, back at the sunbathing spot, Jane is getting spooked and as one misplaced item leads to an unexplained snap of twig, she finds the spokes of her bike smashed and as the camera hovers over her back you know what’s coming… but Fuest cleverly shows us nothing.

Sandor Elès

Jane, unnerved, decides cycles back and finds Jane and her bike gone although her camera is lying discarded on the floor. She hears a motor and looks hopefully for a policeman but finds only the mysterious man on the scooter… he gives her a lift back to the previous village, Landron, and whilst Paul goes back to the woods in search of Cathy, Jane meets an English woman (Clare Kelly) who teaches at a local school, who fills her in on the source of local concern, the murder of the young woman in 1968… The teacher takes a remarkable interest in the younger woman and looks on with concern or, more likely longing, as she drops her off at the police station. Another suspect added to the list… along with the strange farm hand (Jean Carmet -Renier) we keep on seeing in the fields not far from the woods, it’s beginning to seem like it could be anyone.

Finding the Police station closed, Jane cycles back to the woods, where Paul says he has found something, he takes her into the dense undergrowth on his bike and she gets increasingly suspicious of his claims to be an inspector on leave from Paris…  especially when he unspools a roll of film from Cathy’s camera that may incriminate him. Jane runs and gets a break when Paul’s scooter won’t start, she heads straight to the Police Station where she finds another strange old man, the Gendarme’s father (John Franklyn) who spooks her out before his son (John Nettleton) arrives back.

Now, depending on your deductive reasoning your guess is as good as anyone’s as to who, precisely, Jane can trust!

Dusty Verdict: And Soon the Darkness is strange and compelling but doesn’t step over the mark as it could do. Written by Brian Clemens and Terry Nation, both of whom worked with Fuest on The Avengers, not to mention inventing the Daleks in Nation’s case and then the pandemic-precient Survivors. There’s also an atmospheric score from Avengers theme composer Laurie Johnson.

The leads perform well, Michele Dotrice is an actor with solid grounding in theatre and as her recent work shows, she can do pretty much anything whether it’s a good time girl on a bike or Frank Spencer’s wife. Here she nails the mood perfectly and is a great foil for the more serious Franklin to act against. As always, the latter actress is superb at nuanced, conflicted emotional signalling!

And for all those potential suspects, Sandor Elès leads the way in giving just enough away to make him, possibly or just maybe the killer… you’ll have to watch it to find out.

The film has recently been getting play on the magnificent Talking Pictures and is also available on Blu-ray and DVD, well worth catching.