Wives and killers… The Comeback (1978)

 

For wives should always be lovers too 

Run to his arms the moment he comes home to you

I'm warning you…

Jack Jones eternally sexist hit Wives and Lovers – delicious tune from Burt Bacharach, dodgy words from Hal David – takes on a whole new level of meaning in this atmospheric thriller. Jones, though famously one of Frank Sinatra’s favourite singers – my Mother’s too – can act almost as well as he can sing as you’d expect from the son of Allan Jones and Irene Hervey. Neither of his folks ever faced a Peter Walker film though and there’s a certain fish out of water feel to one of the director’s most mainstream efforts.

The Comeback still has Walker’s trademark unease to which Jones’ confident presence adds a lot, his laid-back charm counter pointing the bloody killings in his smart ultra-modern dockside warehouse flat along with a contrapuntal love story featuring the excellent Pamela Stephenson – maybe this was one of the experiences that put her in mind of an eventual second career as a psychologist? As with so much of Walker’s work, there’s a subtext in the film which is perhaps a meditation on the nature of fame and obsession, two things that are inextricably linked and yet which affect the subject and their devotees in different ways.

Jack Jones back to the day job

 

Jones plays Nick Cooper a formerly successful singer songwriter who retired from the industry after marrying Gail (Holly Palance – daughter of Jack), a wife who perhaps took the advice of Hal David’s above lyrics too seriously by insisting her give it all up for her. Six years later they’re going their separate ways and as Nick gathers himself to return to the studio, Gail is popping back to their flat to collect a few of her favourite things. Gail’s passage to the flat is through dingy disused warehouses and shady spaces, that are in stark contrast to the polished modernism of the apartment and it’s a journey a number of characters make throughout the course of the film, almost like the darkest of choruses…

Having collected what she wants, we notice that someone is watching Gail and, as she descends the stairs she is hacked to death by a masked assailant with a scythe… a shocking act made all the more brutal, as blood splashes on the polished surfaces of the seemingly safe controlled living space. It’s unreal… and Walker works to make us doubt it even happened as the rest of the story begins.

Holly Palance goes back to the old house

We find Nick meeting with his manager, Webster Jones (David Doyle of Bosley fame) who is every inch the cynical impresario, pushing for product and yet who’s feelings for his client may run deeper than just his bankability. His assistant Linda Everett (Stephenson) has an altogether more considered approach and she soon takes a more affectionate view of the singer as he makes his tentative steps back to making music.

Webster has rented a big country house to help Nick focus on his return, the owners are out of the country but their retainers remain to look after him, Mr and Mrs B played by Bill Owen, a world away from Compo, and Walker ’ regular, the marvellous Sheila Keith. The Two Bs are very particular people and very peculiar too but that’s the British serving classes for you.

So, the scene is set and, strange dreams start to visit Nick and even as he wakes he finds it hard to shift the disturbance, especially when he sees horrific visions of Gail… is this a reflection of his internal conflict over composing again or is there some deeper connection at work?

Practically perfect Pamela

Things revert to normal during the days and yet the unease continues… Nick’s old fixer Harry Cunningham (Peter Turner) turns up offering to help clear his flat and ends up taking Gail along, the journey to the flat is repeated through the dock rooms, and a different kind of tension is added as Harry makes inappropriate and creepy comments to Gail. Walker  is laying a trail of suspects as well as disturbing viewer ease.

Even Gail is tainted by the revelation that she’d had a brief fling with Webster… is she just playing Nick to get him in the right state of mind to record. Meanwhile, Webster has his own secret life that might link him to darker deeds… and Nick’s dreams get more and more intense; no one has found Gail’s body and yet he sees it real enough in the manor house in a waking nightmare.

Total class from Sheila Keith and Bill Owen

Dusty Verdict: The Comeback is a fun watch and it’s always interesting seeing Walker play with atmosphere and expectation. You may not jump out of your seat but you will edge towards it at certain points and it’s not a comfortable film.

The performances are all good especially Jones and the old pros Owen and Keith deliver! There’s also a cameo from Penny Irving (who was well featured in Walker’s altogether darker House of Whipcord) as a wannabe pop singer and Jack drives a Lotus Elan so there's two of my favourite things from the Seventies! "Diddy" David Hamilton also makes an appearance on the wireless... there's no shortage of "period" in this film.

The Comeback is available on Blu-ray in The Pete Walker Collection which come with Whipcord, Die Screaming Marianne and Schizo, all required viewing from this skilful and still under-rated film maker.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Battersea Blue Line…. All Coppers Are... (1972)

 

A picture paints a thousand words, or does it? The truly awful cover on this Network DVD lengthens Julia Foster’s hair but also digitally inserted a new face for her and Nicky Henson based on a comparison with an earlier draft which looks far truer to the film. This, and the general consensus on IMDB and elsewhere, seems to indicate an issue with All Coppers Are’s “authenticity”; even the original images need airbrushing/photo-shopping to make up for the lack of Get Carter grit.

They should perhaps left well enough alone as a) there is nothing, at all, wrong with Ms Foster’s face – quite the contrary in fact - whilst the World doesn’t need a wax-work Nicky Henson. All Coppers Are is a decent enough film that perhaps left too much of a challenge for its cast to meet in terms of a “soft” script that is too much in collusion with the audience expectation of a gangster flick. But what buoys it aloft above the dangerous terrain of un-gritty is indeed the beautiful and expressive face of Julia Foster; she is the class act here and acts with a subtlety and nuanced grace that gives Coppers an emotional anchor it would otherwise lack.

*Dame* Julia Foster (or at least she should be!)

Now, full disclosure, I have had a crush on Ben Fogle’s Mum since I saw her in Mr. Axelford's Angel in 1974 when I was but a wee lad. She has an emotional openness as well as a perfectly proportioned face which made me, fall in love with her during the course of that play and every time I’ve seen her since, from Alfie, Half a Sixpence, The Small World of Sammy Lee, to the recent Dad’s Army film and Dr Who, she has never failed to impress. At this point she was 29, more than ten years into her career, and she gives the assurance you expect as Sue, a woman who has already known too much disappointment and is cautiously looking at all those around her not to fail her.

Chief among life’s disappointments has been her Mother (Sandra Dorne) who has shacked up with another freeloading boyfriend, Jock (Glynn Edwards) who, to say the least, is a little grabby when it comes to his “daughter in law”. But it’s her own relationships that cause Sue the most grief and more than once bitten she is very shy of new mistakes.

Julia Foster is in this film... and boy she can act!

The film opens with police constable Joe on patrol in his native Battersea – the films good location for Battersea and Clapham, still recognisable for any of us commuters who’ve had the daily pleasure of watching the old power station be turned into a modernistic mess by soulless developers. Back in the early 70s it was still working and, a few years before Floyd’s Pink Pig flew overhead, the area was charcoal grey, smothered in coal dust and exhaust fumes. Joe spots a young Robin Asquith attempting to steal a car and gives chase over to the slag heaps at the power station.

Martin Potter has a detachment which suits Joe’s vagueness and self-doubt and whilst these are characteristics well used by Federico Fellini, who cast him as Encolpius in his striking Satyricon, we’re in Battersea now and Potter seems a little lost even as he convinces with presence and skill. Joe is unformed and just about the only thing he is convinced about is his job, he has a young child with pretty wife Peg (Wendy Allnutt, once described by Dennis Potter as “paralyzingly beautiful”) who he married in haste after the unexpected result of their short relationship forced their hand. Yes, even in 1972.

Nicky Henson and Dame Julia

The third of our leads, small time hustler Barry (Nicky Henson along way from Charterhouse in this neck of the woods…) who is keeping a watch on a warehouse where he’s planning a robbery. He has a room in a house run by Mrs. Briggs (Carmel McSharry) who’s son, Ronnie is played by one David Essex whose next film would be That’ll be the Day. They invite Barry to a wedding reception where he meets and fancies Sue who meets and fancies Joe. After a few drinks they head off to the embankment for some larks and champagne, quickly bonding as friends as the triangle of affection solidifies.

Now, Joe, if you remember, because he’s forgetting… is married but he’s smitten with Sue and the two end up together for the night only for Joe’s conscience to finally kick in as he tries to brush her off. She turns her attention to Barry but the two run into Joe again in a pub run by the Malloys, Eddie Byrne and Queenie Watts - now there’s a surprise. Joe gets the cold shoulder as a copper but its only after administering first aid to a stricken pensioner that Sue and Barry discover his day job…

Martin Potter and the “paralyzingly beautiful” Wendy Allnut

That’s it for Barry, obviously, but Sue, so disappointed to discover his marital state, is more sympathetic… In the absence of anything better though she has ended up living with Barry and, against the odds believes he is a) honest and b) has work to take them away from SW11. This stretches credibility given her earlier reticence, especially after Sue joins Barry at the Odeon for ten pin bowling and a meet with some underworld contacts.

Time for Ian Hendry as sinister Sonny Wade, who brings the Get Carter grit with knowing menace enhanced by his friend Fancy Boy (David Baxter). Hendry’s radiates febrile threat with every quiver, a man of criminal passion who’s flawed ruthlessness presents Barry with a situation only a desperate man would accept, he has little to gain if he delivers the stolen goods to Sonny and everything to lose.

Cue, the finale and some unexpectedly dramatic twists and turns.

And pigs might fly...

Dusty verdict: Directed efficiently by Sidney Hayers and produced by Carry on’s Peter Rogers (there’s even a music score from Gerald Thomas!), the film certainly wanted to hit hard and even includes a well-realised sequence where Joe and his colleagues have to confront a protest march. It’s brutal stuff with truncheons flying before police horses arrive to kettle the ring leaders. Was this a comment on the political upset of the time – the nature of the protest is ill-defined, something about “fascists” and “student grants”, or just a means of showing how the Coppers, “bastards” though they may be, have a tough job to do. It could just be gratuitous of course, a tick of the “counterculture” box.

The script is uneven and the characters are a struggle for the performers to keep coherent. Julia Foster achieves this with ease – we believe in Sue, and her flawed judgement - but, despite a decent performance, I’m not entirely convinced by old-Carthusian Henson’s Battersea boy Barry. As for Joe, Martin Potter is sometimes absent without leave and at times magnetic given his conflicted existence. You care about these characters in the end even whilst feeling that there should have been more to care about…

If you buy the DVD for one thing only... it's Julia!

The film is available on Network DVD and you can buy direct or from Amazon etc. It’s well worth a watch especially for all those of us who love Julia Foster!