The younger ones… Two Left Feet (1963)

 

London's teenage jungle blazing vividly to life...

There’s a brightness and energy to this film that goes beyond my reaction to the youthful zest of the stars to be on screen, its mildly-annoyed young man/coming of age storyline is very much of its time – a good thing! - but the performances ultimately bring through the flavour of the characters and convince. The film is based on David Stuart Leslie's novel, originally entitled In My Solitude (1960), which was praised by the Daily Express for describing 'Fings as they are. . . Fresh observation, no self pity, no phony sociology, rough and squalid, yet redeemed often by sardonic Cockney humour. A story as convincing as it is readable'.

There’s little about Stuart Leslie on the internet but he seems to have written some interesting books about London life, notably Two Gentlemen Sharing (1963), a multi-racial flat share story which was also made as a film in 1969, along with thrillers and adventure novels right up to popsploitation fare with titles like Snap, Crackle and Pop and Bad Medicine. His writing style for what became Two Left Feet, is very much in the vernacular, with lines like:

“Me and my two left feet!” I said wiping down inside my shirt almost to my belly button. I saw her eyes following my hand and I said to myself, ‘Watch it girl!’

Julia Foster and Michael Crawford

 

Now you have to imagine an impossibly young Julia Foster as the “girl” in question, Beth a shop worker, and an equally youthful Michael Crawford as Alan Crabbe, labourer by day and improving dancer by night. Foster was 19 and Crawford was 21 just five years on from playing a lad in Soapbox Derby (1958) and half a century before being named as a national treasure, as indeed is Ben Fogle’s mum, Julia!

Directed by stalwart Ray Ward Baker, Two Left Feet kicks off where it means to carry on with some fantastic location shots of our hero emerging from the tube at Piccadilly Circus and giving superb location shots of old Soho as young Alan’s eye is caught by all manner of sexually interesting sites. The credits roll as he gawks at the magazines in a shop window – Click, Honey, Cherie, Revels… walks along Moor Street to Old Compton Street and ending up at the Bijou Cinema where they are screening the “Fabulous Pamela Green” in Naked as Nature Intended – reviewed in all seriousness earlier on this blog!

Alan window shopping

Alan is 19 and inexperienced as a dancer and a lover which is the source of constant ribbing from his workmates who include the lovely David Lodge as Bill and Cyril Chamberlain as Miles, older married men who have seen it all before. The work mates’ luncheon is enlivened by the new girl at the corner café, Eileen played by Nyree Dawn Porter, 27 at the time but still the youngest I’ve seen her pre-Protectors and Forsyte Saga. Eileen gives as good as she gets as the lads banter and takes a shine to Alan, gently pushing his buttons to get his interest.

Gradually Alan builds up the courage to ask Eileen out and he takes her up West to the subterranean The Florida Club which is – checks Reel Streets – under the Bridgewater Road tunnel. They ask another youngster Brian (David Hemmings, also 21 and not quite as eye-catchingly cool as he would be in Blow Up) if he can sign them in with his membership and they start to cut a rug to Bob Wallis and his Storyville Jazzmen and other cool cuts. Albert’s limited moves don’t impress Eileen quite so much as Brian’s young pal Ronnie (Michael Craze, just 20 and a very talented actor who would do far more in a varied career that included that spell in the Tardis) dancing with the simply stunning Dilys Watling (also 20) as Mavis.

Michael Crawfor and Nyree Dawn Porter

 

The youngsters chat between dances and there’s that awkwardness you’d expect and so many passions running deep and slightly out of control. Eileen dances with Ronnie, Mavis looks longingly at Brian and Alan’s attention is caught by a pretty young blonde, Beth (Julia Foster). At times it feels as if some of the dialogue could have been improvised as it’s jarring but that could just be the excellence of the cast in building the fragile bridges of attraction and male connection.

Eileen and Alan keep on going but he doesn’t really know how to proceed and after one fumbled coupling only increases the tension between them. Beth is a different proposition, easier company for Alan who is more relaxed around her, showing his moral balance by accepting the awkward truths of her father’s suicide which she is both shamed by and resolved. Alan’s father is a policeman, played by Bernard Lee, and it’s only later when we see them together that we understand the son’s debt to his upbringing.

Dilys Watlting, Michael Craze and David Hemmings

Meanwhile, there’s nearly murder on the dancefloor as Eileen starts dating Ronnie, Alan goes with Beth and Mavis gets engaged to Brian, the first steps towards the “grown-ups”. There’s a great blow out at the wedding with Mavis’ Uncle Reg (Michael Ripper who always delivers) arranging party games at the reception. This is when matters come to a head with Eileen but also with Ronnie… the group consider him too young at 17 and Alan had previously made some comment about him needing to decide “which way he’s going…” all of which oblique coding is given stark context when, in a kissing game in which the boys are blindfolded, Brian replaces Eileen and Ronnie ends up kissing him.

Tensions rise further between Alan and Eileen as well as Beth and Ronnie… and the final couplings are in doubt until the very end.

Ever since Mr Axelford's Angel, I've held a place in my heart for Julia...

Dusty Verdict: Two Left Feet (1963) is as interesting for its times as well as for it’s leading actors. In the end it was given an X Certificate and not fully released until 1965 by which time the names were far better known but society and audience had moved on. This is a shame as it’s well made and more sophisticated than I expected with nuance not just from Dawn Porter but also from the prodigiously talented Foster and Crawford.

Crawford’s character as a narrative of its own which convinces as he gains the confidence of a man in tune with the dance as well as his own instincts. Michael Craze is also excellent as the cat on a hot tine roof, barely of age, carrying a flick knife and at war with himself. David Hemmings and Dilys Watling have lesser range to their roles but both deliver in terms of watchability and in Dilys’ case, dancing! I once saw her coming out of the Liverpool Playhouse in the seventies and she even walks in time!

Dilys dances!

 

The film is available from Network Distribution direct from their website and the DVD comes with production shots and looks great!

Now, time to find some of David Stuart Leslie's other works…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

Around Midnight… All Night Long (1962)

I was so distracted by the stream of famous jazz players in this film that it took me a good portion of the action to realise that it’s a jazzed version of Othello. Patrick McGoohan plays drummer Johnny Cousin who has his eyes set on stealing his friend’s wife and using her to front his own band. He sets out by playing everyone against each other by whispering in their ear, spreading rumours and lies, undermining friendships and loves, aiming to break everyone so that he may succeed.

McGoohan goes further than Iago in terms of having a commercial end game but he’s so good in this role, pushing his friends as far as he can, letting them fall into traps of their own making and always seeming to be on their side. On top of this the actor also plays his own drums and, even if the sound of those beats was from drum coach/ “ghost drummer” Allan Ganley, he looks like he can keep a rhythm and he seemingly spent long hours practicing in a garage to copy the movement.

Just as the various characters take their cue from McGoohan’s lies so does the film’s tension revolve around the actor’s intensity and his ability to convey malice and nervous duplicity with ease. It’s Iago with a beat, self-hatred and a lonely soul as a motivator.

Charlie Mingus

All seems cool enough at the start when rich benefactor Rod Hamilton (Richard Attenborough) travels down from Belgravia in his Bentley to open up his warehouse club down in Stoney Street, Southwark. As he walks in, he greets one Charles Mingus, pipe in his mouth, warming up over a double bass and it’s the kind of moment that makes this film essential viewing for every jazz lover: Mingus in the flesh!

More players arrive including Tubby Haynes, Allan Ganley, Ray Dempsey, and others with a pretty young blonde name of Carol White – uncredited here but soon to take the world by storm as the Battersea Bardot. There are so many “faces” in the crowd… including Cleo Laine if you look hard enough. It’s as if someone just put in a call to Ronnie Scott’s to send down anyone who was playing that week.

The boys in the band greet Carol White

Sure enough the great Dave Brubeck turns up and it’s a delight to watch him work ads it is with Johnny Dankworth – see that’s why Cleo’s there! Some have complained that there’s not enough jazz versus story but there’s more than enough to establish a real vibe in the stary and anymore and we’d be looking at a musical rather than a drama and Basil Dearden's direction is too cool for that.

The balance works well enough and allows the intensity of the story to build as Johnny tries everything he can to break up the anniversary party given in honour of piano player Aurelius Rex (Paul Harris) and his wife, singer Delia Lane (Marti Stevens). Harris has great presence as the powerful Aurelius – London’s King of Jazz (hence “Rex) who, whilst he loves his Desdemona/Delia true, still asked her to stop performing when they got married.

Marti Stevens and Paul Harris

Johnny aims to coax her back and away from her man – he has his own designs all mixed up in fear and jealousy… so much does Paddy convey! Johnny also aims to undermine Aurelius’s manager and sideman Cass (young Keith Michell) and skilfully encourages him to fall off the waggon and smoke some weed against his boss’s instructions. He has lifted Delia’s cigarette case and gives it to Cass with more weed, pushing his buttons so that he might rebel.

It’s striking to see Aurelius and Delia’s mix-race relationship in 1962 and with not a comment from anyone. Cass’ girlfriend Benny (María Velasco) is also black, and the only problem there is Cass’ commitment phobia.

Patrick McGoohan, shaken and a stirrer...

Johnny plays on all of these things and strings everything together for a climactic scene of betrayal and violence. His own wife Emily (Betsy Blair) has stood by him even though he married her out of obligation and reveals his own conflicted soul driving him to ruin as much of everyone else’s happiness as he can.

Does it end like Othello or is their salvation in those Southbank streets…? I’d recommend you watch it and find out for yourself.

Dusty verdict: A powerful mix of drama and jazz which stands or falls on fine the performances of the key players. The jazz takes an inevitable back seat but gives the full feeling of the cutting edge of contemporary cool. The jazz is real and so too are the emotions… jealousy, anxiety and pure insecurity driving people to risk everything even though they’d be safer staying at home. And that is jazz.

All Night Long is available on Blu-ray and DVD from Network and you can order it direct from their site right here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tangerine nightmares… The Keep (1983)

This film is the very definition of a cult classic, troubled production, rare soundtrack by Krautrock electronic innovators Tangerine Dream and an end product occasionally disowned by it’s creator Michael Mann. Based on F. Paul Wilson’s novel, the writer even went to the extent of creating his own graphic novel as he wanted a “visual presentation of The Keep, my version of the movie, what could have been ... what should have been."

Wilson does concede that the film is “visually intriguing” and the aesthetic is certainly very string throughout, on a set built into an abandoned Welsh mine near Llanberis. Some interior scenes were filmed in the endlessly bleak Llechwedd Slate Caverns, near Blaenau Ffestiniog, whilst the remainder used sets in Shepperton Studios. Mann succeeds in making the keep oppressive and strange but what we have is less than a two-hour film cut from a much longer version and so some aspects of the narrative make more sense than others… then again, it’s a concept that leaves the audience to make up its own interpretation and it made sense to me.

  

The score has long been a holy grail for fans of Tangerine Dream and, after a limited release, it has been the subject of quite a few bootlegs over the last forty years and has only now just had its first fuller release as part of the Pilots of Purple Twilight (The Virgin Recordings 1980-1983) boxset. The score was the group’s second with Mann after Thief and is an integral part of the atmosphere as well as the narrative of the film. There are moments where the sounds of Froese, Franke and Schmoelling are diegetic, indicating actual movements within the Keep, the demon Molasar building force and dread descending. It’s fascinating hearing their scoring at this stage and music that is more experimental than their more mainstream albums of the time… all a long way from their early efforts for Ohr in Germany and Virgin from Phaedra up to Stratosfear and probably Cyclone.

 

As with other scores such as Sorcerer and Thief, the music works broadly across the narrative occasionally dipping straight into the action and always full of a surfeit of ideas. They’re inspired by the visuals and their range of tonality and themes is more compelling than rather blander affairs such as White Eagle of Hyperborea. At least in my opinion. It could also be that their music makes more sense with visuals attached and The Keep is the perfect “video” to accompany them with its shadowy disconnection and sense of dread. It’s hard to separate the two and by the end when the suspense has dwindled following the appearance of the previously invisible threat, the music helps to maintain the atmosphere through to the end.

The film is set in the Second World War as a unit of the Wehrmacht under the command of Capt. Klaus Woermann (Jürgen Prochnow) sets up camp in an uninhabited citadel in Romania as part of an effort to control the Dinu Mountain Pass. There’s a strange atmosphere in the village and as the troops take up positions in the huge, cavernous entry of the Keep, they are warned by the locals of unnamed secrets within but of course, take no notice.

 

Jürgen Prochnow looks for meaning

Two soldiers try to prise the odd t-shaped silver moulds from the walls and are stripped of their flesh by a terrific force. Over the following days more soldiers die until a detachment of Einsatzkommandos under the command of the sadistic SD Sturmbannführer Eric Kaempffer (a very youthful Gabriel Byrne) arrives and starts shooting the locals automatically assuming that they are to blame despite Woermann’s protests.

Clearly a more nuanced approach is needed to prevent further deaths and after seeking the help of the local priest Father Fonescu (Robert Prosky) the Germans send for a Jewish historian, Professor Theodore Cuza – played by Ian McKellan – who arrives in a frail condition with his daughter Eva (Alberta Watson) from a concentration camp… There is so much malevolence and clearly the Nazi’s have more than met their match; watching them attempt to control this new enemy as they have most of Europe is clearly wish fulfilment.

Ian McKellan and Akberta Watson

They carry on calling the shots, or rather Kaempffer does, as the darkness persists and the being, Molasar, establishes contact with Cuza, restoring his health after destroying two Germans attempting to assault Eva, and starting to work a bargain in exchange.

Meanwhile, miles away wanderer with a purpose, Glaeken Trismegestus (Scott Glenn), senses the revival of this ancient evil and begins to make his way over to the village. This is a man on a mission and clearly, he knows what’s happening even if no one else does. He takes the only room in the village hostelry which just happens to be occupied by Eva who has been sent to safety by her father, one thing leads to another and Eva and Glaeken exchange more than just pleasantries… all of which adds to the sense of purposeful connection.

Alberta Watson and Scott Glen

Tensions rise as Moasar’s evil affects the villagers and the soldiers alike leading to a confrontation between Kaempffer and Woermann as Der Professor must decide between his conscience and revenge on the country that has brutalised his race… it’s a breathless finale and not only not what you might expect but also not quite what Mann originally intended.

Budget and other constraints led to at least two endings being ditched and so what we have is one of several possibilities even though it works well enough in dramatic and emotional terms.

Dusty Verdict: The Keep successfully bears the weight of most of its failures and missed opportunities and is fascinating to watch. It’s rather low ranking on IMDB and elsewhere is perhaps more down to debate on its release because, watching for the first time almost forty years, on it’s intriguing and unsettling in equal measure and, with the aid of Tangerine Dream, very atmospheric and tense.

 

It’s also got Ian McKellan in it for Pete’s sake along with other strong performers in Jürgen Prochnow and Alberta Watson especially.

Well worth seeking out and who knows, one day maybe there’ll be a version closer to Mann’s original four-hour vision… but don’t hold your breath. Maybe someone will do another graphic novel…