Beatnik kicks… The Party's Over (1965)

"… unpleasant, tasteless and rather offensive…"

 John Trevelyan, British Board of Film Censors, March 1963

It would take Guy Hamilton’s film two years to gain release after the BBFC found it just too much on first viewing and the version that made it to the big screen had several scenes recut and a voice-over introduction from Oliver Reed explaining that it was “This film is the story of some young people who chose to become - well, for want of a better word - 'beatniks'.  It's not an attack on beatniks; the film has been made to show the loneliness, and the unhappiness, and the eventual tragedy that can come from a life lived without love for anyone or anything.  Living only for kicks is not enough.” And cue the great Annie Ross singing, Time Waits for No Man music by John Barry and lyrics from Mike Pratt who is also one of the players in the film (and Floyd, Gilmour, Mason bassist, Guy Pratt’s father).

This message comes as the beatnik/hipster crowd make their way over Chelsea Bridge back north of the river after a wild party in Knightsbridge. They walk in the silence of their emerging four AM hangovers, some happy, some sad and at least two in thrall to a beautiful American woman walking at the front. There are various versions of this film and the BFI’s Flipside dual pack features both the shorter director’s cut – around 90 minutes - and the longer 94 version which cuts out some of the more shocking moments and inserts more “learnings” for the more nihilistic of the main characters.

Directed by Guy Hamilton from a script by Marc Behm (Help!, Charade etc) the film has a mostly young cast presenting us with post-jazz/pre-hippy culture with the clear influence of drugs and drink on their behaviours. These are the first of a new questioning generation and from 1963 a lot of what they say correlates with the clunky anti-authoritarianism of Peter Fonda and The Wild Angels…

The big difference here is that these cats are mostly British middle class, or even posher, especially the intelligent but annoyingly challenging Moise (Oliver Reed) a character who must have given his nanny worries from an early age and who is rebelling against all expectation because he can afford to. Yet still, there are real risks in his posturing and there’s no doubt that he not only always wants the one he can’t have but here it really is driving him mad.

The Queen Bee of their social group is an American heiress, the ethereal Melina (the stunning Louise Sorel, who I believe is still working?) who see right through him possibly because in some ways they’re alike; both rebelling against their privilege and unable to commit to anyone or anything in the endless, trust-funded waiting room of their mid-Twenties – the same age as most of the cast during filming in 1963, Louise Sorel being one of the youngest at 22.

Louise Sorel and Oliver Reed

Their partying and general noise doesn’t always ring true but the film opens really well with some painted feet leaving foot marks on the ceiling of a nice apartment in South Kensington as the camera tracks across the amin characters via drinks being passed, cigarettes being lit or, then stolen to light a slim cigar as we see the first instance of Moise attitude to his friends and, in this case, lovers robbing the steadfast Libby (Ann Lynn, who is one of the best performers in this film), only to throw her cigarette away after he’s lit the cheroot.

Amongst the others, an American artist called Geronimo played by Mike Pratt with a wayward accent, the demure Nina (Katherine Woodville), an older German called Tutzi (Maurice Browning), the tactile and inseparable, possibly affectionate, Countess (Mildred Mayne) and Fran (Annette Robertson), and the young Ada (Alison Seebohm). The there’s Philip (Jonathan Burn) who is besotted with Melina and, as with even Moise, this is unrequited.

Into this picture arrives Carson (Clifford David), the successful young American businessman who is promised to Melina, he even works for her father Ben (Eddie Albert*) and so it feels more than slightly arranged. Melina might well agree as she decides to avoid meeting him and enlists the gang to misdirect and mislead him despite the best efforts of their landlord, Hector (Roddy Maude-Roxby) to help the handsome American.

This all feels a bit cruel rather than funny but luckily Carson is up to it and he has his own reservations about his intended enough to not be that surprised by her behaviour and, indeed, to be impressed by the most sensible of her English friends Nina.

Things take a turn after another wild party at which finally Nina tries to take Carson to meet Melina but when they get there, she’s left and no one will say where. The next day, after a night consummating their relationship, Nina tries to get Carson to go with her to Stowe-on-the-Wold… she also tries to tell him something about the party and Melina.

Then Father Ben arrives and the stakes are raised as different versions of the party emerge and the fate of Melina becomes less certain…

Dusty Video Rating: The Party’s Over is coy over the key issue in the story even with the restored Director’s version on the BFI’s DVD and Blu-ray set. Without giving the secret away, the fuller version does still provide some upsetting footing all of which explains the characters motivations for what happens next – especially Philip.

Oliver Reed is outstanding in portraying the entitled aggressor, whose role in life is to be the fly in the soup of the pompous “straights” and he has the range to show a more vulnerable side to his character and one capable of learning in the final analysis. A lot of the other actors are given precious little to do but Eddie Albert delivers as does Ann Lynn and Katherine Woodville who, along with Clifford David, play two of the most sympathetic characters.

Of course there's also the score from John Barry which always lifts any film and which here allows him to replicate the modern jazz of the cellar clubs and the torch song that starts the film and features at another climactic scene. He also borrows the bass line - slightly altered - from 007!

As cautionary tales go it’s harder hitting/more uncomfortable than most and gives some great location shots of London in the raw, or at least Chelsea and Kensington in the early 60s!

 

*As Fate would have it, Katherine Woodville ended up marrying Eddie Albert’s son Edward in 1979 and the two were together until his death in 2006.

Queasy Riders... The Wild Angels (1966)

 

We wanna be free to do what we wanna do. We wanna be free to ride! We wanna be free to ride our machines without being hassled by The Man. And we wanna get loaded.

Oh man, I’m not really sure where these guys are coming from? This was the late Roger Corman’s inspiration for the biker films of the 60’s counter culture, The Wild One(s) for the Age of Aquarius, outlaw bikers for the hippies and the genesis of Easy Rider and Peter Fonda’s enduring association with Harley-Davidsons that I saw spoofed in The Cannonball Run by the man himself.

Corman always had an eye for trends and the kind of entertainment that would reach emerging audiences even if his budgets we rarely large enough for him to take full advantage. Here in a story written by Charles B. Griffith and an uncredited Peter Bogdanovich – how many careers did the great man encourage? – we see the seeds of Altamont and the demise of the counter-cultural dream as the consequences of the bikers’ rebellion leave them with nowhere to go but down as Fonda’s oft-sampled quote above reveals.

The film ended up being one of the most successful low-budget indie films in history and yet it seems pretty hollow and, if anything, disapproving of a culture that is based on such halting and insubstantial dogma as being “free” and getting “loaded” especially when the ensuing party occurs at a funeral of one of their gang members and with sexual harassment/abuse on the agenda as well as extreme disrespect for their dead pal and his funeral rite, so nihilistic as to only really play teasingly with the subject matter of alienation.

These guys wear swastikas as a deliberate provocation to the straight world and yet that’s all it is a wind up signifying pretty much nothing in terms of an alternative vision. A decade later the Sex Pistols, Siouxsie Sioux and Joy Division would appropriate Nazi imagery and, as we now know, not all of them really meant it, “maaaan”! You say you want a revolution well you know… we all want to change the World…

No one could expect Mr Corman to really mean anything to be fair and the mere act of rebellion seems to be enough here as elsewhere for people who felt out of step with American society as capitalism followed its own nihilistic exploitation of some and exclusion of others.

Corman took his research seriously though and not only interacted with Californian Angels he also featured members of the Hells Angels from Venice, California and the Coffin Cheaters motorcycle club… irony overloaded in their nomenclature there. There is indeed some fine bike riding in the film which moves at a pace and as with its abovementioned forbear, rebels against whatever it is you’ve got invested in society as it was and is.

There are two visceral stand-out performances from the husband and wife team of Bruce Dern as "the Loser" and Diane Ladd as his on-screen wife, Gaysh. Both give their all to add an extra edge and smuggle more meaning than even Corman may have intended as the real victims of this rebellion but also, of course, The Man and his evil ways. They’re both so full of force the blow the rest off screen and, during their downtime, even managed to conceive daughter Laura Dern which perhaps explains, as Sailor said, how the way her mind works is God’s own mystery…

Fonda, of course is no slouch as gang leader "Heavenly Blues" (or "Blues"), whilst Nancy Sinatra is also excellent as his girlfriend "Mike". Dad Frank was apparently so concerned about her cavorting with the Angels that Corman had to reassure him that Nancy would be protected although as it turned out she was more concerned about Fonda’s offer of LSD than the gentlemen on bikes.

The film follows the gang falling foul of the cops after riding in search of Loser’s bike which has been stolen by a Mexican biker gang from Mecca, California. The Angels find and battle their rivals but the police arrive forcing them to take flight leaving Loser behind, he steals a police bike but gets shot in the back and hospitalized. Fearing for their friend’s incarceration the Angels break him out and take him to a bar run by one Momma Monahan (Joan Shawlee) but there’s no doctor for the injured man and he passes away.

The Angels want to see their friend off in their own way and fake a death certificate before arranging a funeral which degenerates into a drunken orgy of violence and sexual assault – they get loaded but rape for Loser’s girl Gaysh is hardly the freedom Blues bangs on about… There’s more to come but ultimately this whole biker “scene” is based on emptiness and anger which, in the context, shows the filmmaker’s view far more than the bikers’? The Man is the ultimate cause of Loser’s demise and yet the Angels taking the law into their own hands started off the mayhem. Also, Nazi regalia and Hitler’s flag on the coffin… it’s so enduringly offensive it’s hard to contextualise.

Dusty Verdict: The Wild Angels captured a moment even in what presents as a judgemental way, although Corman was happy to show the “loaded” generation in full swing. There are those excellent, humane performances from the Derns as well as Fonda’s intensity and Sinatra’s winsome charisma, to leave you engaged and enriched amongst the motorcycle roar. The real Angels also add the edge and the connection with this genuine counter culture.

There’s also some good support from an under-used Michael J. Pollard and Gayle Hunnicutt who was surely far too demure to be a biker chick?

In the end, Fonda was far from finished with his Harley and he would go on to continue his counter-cultural search with Easy Rider and other films. Perhaps, in terms of the meaning of this film that’s the biggest take-away, the enemy was clear but the philosophy and the constructive response was inspired by Corman’s work and the search for a solution to state controls and possible freedoms continues to this day.

Rest in peace Mr Corman and Mr Fonda.

 

All we want from you are the kicks you've given us
All we want from you are the kicks you've given us
Under neon loneliness
Motorcycle emptiness

James Dean Bradfield / Sean Anthony Moore / Nicholas Allen Jones (1992)

 

Victor Spinetti's tears... This, That and the Other (1969)

Victor and Vanessa

So, another British sex comedy and a film directed by Derek Ford who went onto a string of productions in this lucrative sub-genre; Groupie Girl (1970), The Wife Swappers (1970), Suburban Wives (1971), Commuter Husbands (1972), Keep It Up, Jack (1974) and Sex Express (1975) and more. The mind boggles at the idea of 70’s British Rail allowing an express service of any description let alone one involving these additional benefits.

 So far, so salacious, but exactly how sexy is This, That and the Other – aka A Promise of Bed in the USA – and how funny is it? Well, it’s a mixed bag… and, as usual, the laughs are often at the film’s expense. There are three stories of varying tone and only loosely linked by theme and events but, overall, it’s a fun ride if taken in context.

Dennis is menaced

 First up we find Vanda Hudson as Susan Stress who is so desperate for a role in producer Gordon Sterne’s film that she decides to seduce his innocent photographer son, played by Dennis Waterman no less. Whilst it’s hard to think of our Dennis as in anyway this innocent after all the moments we’ve shared over the years, he does his best as he nervously tries to photograph Vanda who goes to ever more outlandish lengths to shock him in a succession of increasingly provocative costumes. Full marks to Vanda here as she has to improvise madly for most of this story before ending up in the bath and then in bed with the future TV detective and Minder…

All her efforts are not wasted on the young man but there’s a delicious twist in the tale that wouldn’t work quite as well without her commitment to the role.

The second story has the most substance and an especially impressive performance from the highly versatile Victor Spinetti as George, a young man preparing for suicide until he’s interrupted by a lovely young woman called Barbara played well by Vanessa Howard who thinks his is the location of a party. Spinetti does so well to play George’s depression in ways that win our sympathy but not distress; suicide’s no laughing matter, especially in this context, and what we’re left with is a poignant tale that rises above the sauce and still makes us hope for the best outcome.

Victor hangs on

Barbara rationalises his masking tape, continental quilt and open gas fire as the theme for a party which is to be based on suicidal people and when the other guests arrive they take on the personas of various forms of suicide with Valery Leon deciding to dive in the bath – director Derek Ford not wasting his assets here. We also get the sublime Alexandra Bastedo as bored socialite Angie whose arranging her next event almost as soon as she arrives along with Michel Durant as a so-drenched-in-ennui-you-don’t-know-he’s-completely-pissed aristocrat.

All of these characters send flickers across George’s eyes merely highlighting his isolate desolation but perhaps there’s hope for him after the party’s over if only Barbara has truly noticed him…

The film can’t possibly linger on such thoughts as we enter the mostly surreal final segment in which a sex-starved taxi driver, the excellent John Bird, leaves a cinema after watching an X-rated film just like this one, only to be caught up in a psychedelic party that blows our minds. His post film reverie, and boiled egg dinner break, are interrupted by a call to take a glamorous blonde, the sublime Yutte Stensgaard, from a London night club to an ultra-mod house in the countryside. She falls asleep drunk in the back of his cab but he can’t stop looking at her and fantasising… I like the way this section pokes fun at its own audience!

Hallucinations of a Taxi Driver...

The dopey driver is hit by a sports car driven by the posh drunk from the previous episode and the former falls into a dream, as his blonde makes her way to the country house and he follows to witness the most outrageous of events. Women frolic naked in an indoor pool and appear and disappear as the swooning psych sounds of Christos Demetriou and John Kongos score illuminate events. Cleo Goldstein dances as a girl wearing only polythene hands, and our taxi driver has clearly travelled way too far south of the river…

It's a Stanley Long production with a budget of some £8,500 so well played all round for coming up with something that is more substantial than many a Brit sex-com. As The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote, it may have been "… short on comedy but rather better performed than these things usually are.” Although I don’t quite agree that “… the one barely memorable moment is provided by Miss Hudson being pursued round an apartment to the strains of the Light Cavalry Overture."

It's available on Amazon Prime and an increasingly collectable DVD!

 

 

Yutte is covered in fruit... much like the cover of the prog blues LP, Juicy Lucy (Vertigo, 1969)