If movies have taught me anything at all about life it is this - a lot of young women dream about becoming professional dancers. Some want to be celebrated ballet dancers or Broadway stars. Others dream about becoming high-kicking Rockettes, well-paid strippers or trophy-winning ballroom dancers. In Ted V. Mikels B-movie bonanza Girl in Gold Boots (1968), Michele (Leslie McRae) wants to be a go-go dancer.

Michele is tall, dark and gorgeous. She could be Jennifer Jones’ long lost cousin if she wasn’t so uncomfortable in her own skin. You’d expect to find Michele working behind a makeup counter at Macy’s or modeling swimsuits somewhere but when we’re introduced to her she’s working at a greasy diner with her alcoholic father. When she’s not serving food and pouring cups of black coffee for her customers, Michele is dancing to music on the diner’s jukebox. One sunny day a violent gun-toting thug called Buzz (Tom Pace) walks into the diner and spots our heroine practicing her dance moves. He promises Michele that he’ll be able to make her a star if she travels to L.A. with him. Michele’s a little weary of Buzz but after a fight with her father she leaves the dirty food joint behind and heads west with Buzz in his old white convertible.

On the way to L.A. Michele and Buzz pick up a peacenik biker named ‘Critter’ (Jody Daniels) who likes to write songs on his acoustic guitar. When sparks start to fly between Michele and Critter, Buzz gets angry and tells Michele that she has to make a choice between her budding romance with Critter or going to L.A. with him to become a go-go star. Michele can’t give up on her dancing dreams so she puts her personal feelings for Critter aside and the three misfits continue on to L.A. When they finally reach the big city Buzz’s first stop is at The Haunted House club on Hollywood Boulevard, which is decorated with horror movie props and looks more like some fabulous amusement park ride than an actual dance club. Buzz’ sister Joanie (Bara Byrnes) is the main attraction at The Haunted House club where she and her team of go-go girls dance the night away wearing gold and silver boots while entertaining a mixed crowd of young and middle-aged hipsters as well as sleazy old men.

When Michele sees the girls shaking their stuff in skimpy costumes while the audience cheers them on, she knows that this is the life for her! Later Buzz introduces Michele to his sister and the two girls hit it off right away. Joanie promises Michele that she’ll get her a job at The Haunted House club and proceeds to show her some moves while the management looks on. Even though Michele seems to dance to her own rhythm and appears more than a little awkward at times, everyone in the film is impressed by her dancing skills. Or maybe they just like looking at her curvy body in the skimpy costumes? For whatever the reason, she’s hired right on the spot.

Buzz and Critter also find work at The Haunted House club. Critter takes a janitorial job so he can stay close to Michele and keep an eye on her, while criminal-minded Buzz ends up working for the club owners as a drug pusher. You see, the sad fact is that the swinging Haunted House club is just a front for the management’s drug selling operation. Innocent Michele is unaware of this but she benefits from it on her way to becoming a go-go star. When her mentor Joanie starts to show signs of drug addiction the club owners offer Michele the job of “substitute lead dancer” for the Haunted House club so Joanie can take an unexpected “vacation.” Michele’s a little weary of taking the job at first but she’s also eager to become a dancing star. The sexy new dresses she’s been given as gifts, and the wild parties she’s starting to attend, have offered her a taste of the glamorous life and she clearly wants more.

Critter is smart enough to know that things aren’t what they appear to be at the Haunted House club and after making some extra money by selling some of his songs to the house band, Critter confesses to Michele that he’s a draft dodger and asks her to run away with him. At first Michele refuses to go but when Joanie finally collapses due to her drug use, Michele is forced to face the horrible fact that she’s working at a drug den instead of a legitimate dance cub. Things finally come to a head and Critter ends up in a nasty brawl with the creepy club owners. When it’s all over Michele and Critter leave the Haunted House club together and you hope that they’ll find their fortune and fame somewhere else. Unfortunately all that glitters is not gold in Girl in Gold Boots.

Unlike countless other films about would-be dancers trying to fulfill their dreams, Girl in Gold Boots ends on a low note. Michele gives up her dreams of becoming a professional go-go dancer to become Critter’s “war-bride” after he reenlists in the military. The former draft dodger and would be go-go girl finish the movie singing a downbeat song that contains the following lines:

“You can dance on the rim of a rainbow. Walk a tightrope across the sky
But you must come down, put your feet on the ground bye and bye.”

As depressing as the ending is, the young couple seems content so I guess the audience is supposed to be happy that they let go of their dreams and joined the war effort. I personally suspect that the future doesn’t hold much promise for Michele and Critter. I’ve always thought that peace loving Critter would probably get killed in Vietnam and Michele would end up back in L.A. working on Hollywood Boulevard as a go-go girl and strung out on drugs just like her mentor Joanie.

Girl in Gold Boots is obviously not your typical dance movie but that’s why I enjoy it so much. It’s elevated by a terrific jazz influenced score by composer Nicolas Carras who created music for many of Mikels’ best films. The movie also features music by Chris Howard and The Third World and the renowned bongo player Preston Epps, who all make a brief appearance in the movie. The wild dance scenes were shot inside a real Hollywood night spot and they’re creatively edited and full of energy even though the go-go girls seem to have rather amateurish moves. This trashy low-budget dance movie is an entertaining way to spend 90 minutes if you’re looking for something fun to watch that doesn’t require very much from its viewers. Over at IMDb.com audiences have called Girl in Gold Boots “The bane of dancing films everywhere” and “worse than any other bad bad BAD movie you’ve ever seen” but don’t let the negative press discourage you from watching it. Believe me when I tell you that there are far worse movies you could spend 90 minutes with besides Girl in Gold Boots. Ted V. Mikels is one of my favorite American B-movie makers and if you haven’t had the opportunity to experience a Ted V. Mikels film yet do yourself a favor and see Girl in Gold Boots or one of the films Mikels made with Tura Satana such as The Doll Squad (1973) or The Astro-Zombies (1968).

The director is almost 80 years old but he’s still making movies. If you’re interested in buying yourself a copy of Girl in Gold Boots or want to know more about Mikels I highly recommend visiting Ted V. Mikels Official Site. The director currently sells autographed copies of the film on DVD for only $10.95.

If you’d like to see more images from the movie please see my Girl in Gold Boots Flickr Gallery

My look at Girl in Gold Boots was inspired by Ferdy On Films‘ Invitation to the Dance Movie Blogathon, which ends today. Be sure to stop by the blog and check out all the other dance inspired submissions.

Top: Annie Nightingale in 1964

The very groovy Richard Harland Smith over at Turner Movie Classics much admired Movie Morlocks Blog invited me to participate in a sort of “meme” with the following rules attached to it:

) Pick up the nearest book.
2) Open to page 123.
3) Locate the fifth sentence.
4) Post the next three sentences on your blog and in so doing…
5) Tag five people, and acknowledge who tagged you.

I tend to dislike these sorts of things but the meme was easy enough and didn’t require much thinking on my part so I took Richard up and his offer and in the end I was happy to be invited to participate.

At the time that I got Richard’s email the nearest book laying next to me was an autographed hardback copy of Annie Nightingale’s biography Wicked Speed that I bought at a Tower Records store when I was in London in 2000. Annie Nightingale was Britain’s first female DJ and she’s a fascinating woman who has mixed and mingled with many of Britain’s best bands. After writing my recent post about The Mod Musicals of Lance Comfort I’ve had the early days of British pop music and radio on my mind so I had recently been revisiting Nightingale’s book. From the book description:

“Britain’s first female DJ. A suburban schoolgirl whisked into the world of music, whose passion led her to the world of the Beatles, the Yarbirds, the Rolling Stones and the Who. As a young journalist she put herself on the line for young bands - and she’s still at it with Shaun Ryder, Primal Scream and Daft Punk, just to name a few.

Annie Nightingale became one of the hardcore “birds” of London’s growing Sixties pop-art scene. She got married, was a Cosmopolitan columnist, and had kids. She also had parties. But more than anything, she wanted to become a DJ on Radio 1 - hard in the days when the BBC was a male-dominated environment. Yet she won out in the end - and for years was alone in her field.”

Three sentences from page 123 of Wicked Speed:
“I’d be interviewing the Minister of Nuclear Procurement, say, and I’d address him by his first name, which would throw him completely, and ask him if he believed in God. Both Margret Thatcher’s children appeared on the show as guests; Carol was preferable of the two. French and Saunders, who were just starting out at the time, were also guests on Mailbag, in their newest guise as Duranies.”

When I bought Wicked Speed eight years ago I had no idea who Annie Nightingale was but I needed a quick read for the plane trip home and the book description sounded fascinating. I’ve been a fan of sixties era British rock and pop since I was just a kid (the first concert I ever attended was a Rolling Stones’ show when I was only 13 years old). I also briefly worked as a DJ myself in the late ’80s spinning dance music and popular club hits at a local nightspot so I was curious to learn more about “Britain’s first female DJ.”

Annie Nightingale is not a great storyteller and if you’re bothered by run-on sentences you should probably avoid it. The book also lacks an index, which is especially annoying if you’re someone like me who wants easy access to her entertaining stories about interviewing a bored Sean Connery after he had just completed the first James Bond film or driving Scott Walker’s Mini Cooper. But if you enjoy all the name dropping Nightingale does and are interested in what life was like for the first female DJ in Britain, Annie Nightingale’s Wicked Speed is an entertaining and quick read.

I hate the idea of “tagging” anyone but if the following people would like to participate please feel free to!

Tagged:
Jeremy Richey at Moon in the Gutter
Jonathan Lapper at Cinema Styles
Peter Nellhaus at Coffee, coffee and more coffee
Tenebrous Kate at Love Train for the Tenebrous Empire
Robert Monell at I’m in a Jess Franco State of Mind

Now on to Cinebeats’ irregular scheduled programming . . .

Over at Ferdy on Film the Invitation to the Dance Movie Blogathon is in full swing and lots of people are sharing their thoughts about their favorite dance moments captured on film and debating the merits of individual dancers. I’m currently writing a longer piece about one of my favorite dance movies that I hope to finish up soon. But in the meantime I thought I’d share one of my favorite dance scenes.

The following clip is from the 1980 Umberto Lenzi film Nightmare City, which was originally shot in 1979 and it features some of the worst dancing I’ve ever seen in any film. Thankfully I’m not alone in my dislike for the dancing showcased in Nightmare City. As the following clip will clearly demonstrate, zombies don’t care for bad dancing either and they proceed to dismember the female offenders and eat them alive. This clip is gory and not for the faint of heart. But if you can withstand the cheap special effects and Stelvio Cipriani’s electronic euro-disco score, you might enjoy it as much as I do!

Top: David Hemmings and Steve Marriott
Bottom: Jennifer Moss and Heinz Burt

I recently watched two entertaining and important musicals directed by British B-movie maven Lance Comfort called Live It Up! (1963) and its sequel Be My Guest (1964), which are currently available on DVD from Guillotine Films. After my failed attempts at finding any good articles about these films available online I figured I’d try and compile something for Cinebeats. I hope readers will find these films as interesting as I did and enjoy the results of my rather lengthy investigation into the mod musicals of Lance Comfort.

Director Lance Comfort is mostly known for the dark melodramas, crime pictures and low-budget thrillers he made in Britain during the ’40s and ’50s but late in his career he was hired to direct two films that shined a spotlight on some of Britain’s up and coming musical acts. These films also showcased some of the fashions, style and stars that would go on to shape and influence pop culture for decades to come.

I’ve only seen a few other Lance Comfort movies myself so my experience with the director’s work is minimal at best, but from the accounts I’ve read and the informative commentary made available on the DVDs by the film’s executive producer, it seems that Lance Comfort was mainly acting as a “director for hire” on these films even though he also helped co-produce them. Live It Up! and Be My Guest were both low-budget promotional films created by the Film Music division of the British entertainment company known as The Rank Organisation. At the time it was run by producer Harold Shampan who made these movies in an effort to sell more records. Much like the music videos found on MTV today, during the late ’50s and early ’60s numerous bands and musical acts appeared in similar films with the hope that it would give them an opportunity to be heard by a much larger audience. In 1963 BBC Radio ruled Britain’s airwaves with an iron fist and it only offered listeners minimal access to popular music. These films often provided young audiences with their first opportunity to see and hear new recording artists.

Top: The Outlaws (with Ritchie Blackmore)
Bottom: The Nashville Teens

The groundbreaking British record producer and songwriter Joe Meek was the real driving force behind Live It Up! and the film features many of Meek’s original songs as well as live performances by some of the artists he produced including The Outlaws (featuring Ritchie Blackmore), The Saints, Kim Roberts and Sounds Incorporated. The film also features Meek produced recording artists Jennifer Moss and Heinz Burt who both have lead roles in the movie. At the time Joe Meek was rather obsessed with the tall blond German born musician Heinz Burt. Burt had been a member of the Joe Meek produced band The Tornadoes but Meek thought Heinz Burt was worthy of a solo career and he was spending a lot of his time and energy focusing on launching Burt’s career at the time that Live It Up! was made. After Joe Meek’s unfortunate suicide in 1967, rumors about Meek and Burt’s romantic relationship spread but they were always denied by Burt, which probably had more to do with the social pressures placed on both men in the early ’60s than the actual truth.

Live It Up! also features memorable performances by trad jazz artist Kenny Ball, popular singer Patsy Ann Noble and American rock and roll pioneer Gene Vincent. Gene Vincent had recently moved to England after facing tax problems in the U.S. and he was enjoying a sort of career revival there among British youth who were still excited by early American rock and roll. Dave Clark (of The Dave Clark Five) also makes a brief appearance in the film but he doesn’t perform any songs.

Besides showcasing various styles of popular music, Live It Up! also features cutting-edge fashions by important designers of the period such as Mary Quant and John Stephen who had both recently opened up shops on London’s infamous Carnaby Street. Even the hairstyles in the film were provided by Vidal Sassoon whose modern recreation of the “bob cut” would become a staple of sixties fashion. The young people in Live It Up! are also seen driving scooters and motorcycles, which became popular modes of transportation associated with the mod and rocker scenes in Britain.

Live It Up! provides viewers with a brief but unforgettable glimpse of a more innocent time just moments before pirate radio, drugs, shorter skirts, Beatlemania and the merseybeat sound would transform the capital city into “Swinging London.” From pop music to beat, trad jazz and American rock-n-roll, Live It Up! is a fascinating concoction of sounds and styles aimed at Britain’s youth during a pivotal point in pop culture history. Soon after Britain’s youth culture would begin to fragment more into different groups (rockers, mods, hippies, etc.) with different haircuts, different fashion sensibilities and different social concerns and attitudes. Of course most individuals during this period combined their various interests in music and fashion and rarely fell into easily defined categories usually created by the media in order to sell newspapers and magazines.

Female Reporter: Are you a mod, or a rocker?
Ringo Starr : Um, no. I’m a mocker.
- from A Hard Day’s Night (1964)

Be My Guest is a little less interesting than its predecessor but it’s still well worth a look. The film’s musical score was compiled and co-written by the celebrated American producer Shel Talmy who’s mostly known now for his groundbreaking work with British bands like The Kinks and The Who. The film contains some worthwhile musical performances from acts that Talmy worked with including The Zephyrs, Kenny and the Wranglers, The Plebs (featuring Danny McCulloch from The Animals) and most notably The Nashville Teens and American rock-n-roll legend Jerry Lee Lewis, who just about steals the show with his performance of “No One But Me.” Like other American rock-n-roll artists such as Gene Vincent, Jerry Lee Lewis was enjoying a career revival in Britain at the time and he really kicks the film into high gear with his energetic performance. The talented composer John Barry also provides some of the songs and background music in Be My Guest, including a quirky pop song called “Gotta Getaway Now” that is sung by the singer and dancer Joyce Blair.

Both Live It Up! and it’s sequel Be My Guest star a very young David Hemmings as a guitar playing lad named Dave Martin along with a very young Steve Marriott as a drummer named Ricky. In the films they play friends and bandmates who are trying to form a beat band called The Smart Alecs and make it big in Britain’s burgeoning music scene. Both men started acting early in life and had previously appeared on stage in musicals before making Live It Up! together. David Hemmings’ first role was in Benjamin Britten’s well-received 1954 opera The Turn of the Screw, which was based on Henry James original story. Steve Marriott’s first big break came in 1960 when he got the role of the Artful Dodger in the extremely popular British musical Oliver!, which was later made into a film by director Carol Reed. The role of the Artful Dodger was played by many talented British boys who would later go onto bigger and better things including Genesis’ Phil Collins and The Monkees’ Davy Jones. But it was young Steve Marriott who was asked to provide vocals on the Artful Dodger’s songs for the original stage recording and it’s easy to understand why. Right after filming Live It Up! and Be My Guest Steve Marriott would go on to help form one of the most important and influential bands that has ever come out of Britain, The Small Faces. Phil Collins and Davy Jones are both good vocalists and by all accounts they were also impressive child actors, but neither of them could match Steve Marriott’s powerful vocal talents when he was at his peak.

David Hemmings has been one of my favorite actors for many years and I’ve seen most of the films he made after 1966, but I had only previously had the opportunity to see one of his “pre-Blowup” films (Eye of the Devil, 1966). Even as a young man Hemmings was clearly a better actor than the material he’s working with in Live It Up! and Be My Guest, where he spends a majority of his time arguing with his fictional mum and dad. Hemmings’ youthful enthusiasm is extremely appealing in both films. He projects an easygoing personality on screen, which makes him appear very modern and just plain cool in the role of young Dave Martin. The actor seems to sum up everything that was wonderful, carefree and even dangerous about British youth at the time. It’s easy to see why Michaelangelo Antonioni would cast Hemmings in his seminal film Blowup (1966) just a few years later where the actor’s good looks and natural charm made him perfect for the role of a British photographer working in swinging London. It’s hard to measure the impact that Hemmings’ character in Blowup had on a generation of British youth but it’s safe to say that he’s one of most important style icon of the ’60s. His defining roles in films like Live It Up! and Be My Guest undoubtedly helped shape public opinion about popular music and fashion during that decade. And they also helped make David Hemmings the important pop culture figure he became a few years later after starring in Blowup.

I was unfamiliar with Steve Marriott’s early film roles before watching Live It Up! and Be My Guest, but Marriott is very good in both movies and incredibly cute with his big eyes and wide smile. He seems to enjoy playing comedic scenes and acting like a clown whenever the opportunity presents itself. His natural charisma is impossible to overlook. It’s a shame that the talented singer was forced to act as if he was playing the drums in both films and wasn’t given an opportunity to show the world his amazing vocal abilities. But if you’re a Marriott fan these films are an absolute must see just to get a glimpse of young Steve before he formed The Small Faces and made music history.

The young female stars of these film are often reduced to girlfriend roles or nonspeaking parts, which is unfortunate considering some of the talented women involved with both movies. As I mentioned above, Live It Up! features the talented Australian singer and actress Patsy Ann Noble (aka Trisha Noble) as well as Jennifer Moss who later gained recognition on the popular British drama Coronation Street. Patsy Ann Noble has no dialogue in the film and Jennifer Moss isn’t given much to do as David Hemmings’ girlfriend. Moss spends most of her time moping over the fact that Hemmings’ character shows little interest in her and seems to prefer hanging out with his bandmates. The female actresses don’t fare much better in Be My Guest, which features a little-known cute and spunky American actress named Andrea Monet who doesn’t do much except kiss David Hemmings. Joyce Blair has a somewhat meatier role in the film as a bad girl called Wanda who seems to enjoy using her sexual prowess to get ahead in life but overall the women in these films are reduced to playing stereotypical roles or providing some occasional eye and ear-candy.

Patsy Ann Noble and Joyce Blair

Both films are very formulaic and director Lance Comfort didn’t make many creative directing choices while he was behind the camera. But the movies do include some nice exterior shots and the musical performances have a lot of energy considering that the artists had to pretend that they were performing live. There are also some nice set designs, which should probably be credited to the talented art director Jack Shampan who is better known for his work on films like Modesty Blaise (1966) and popular British television shows such as Danger Man (1964) and The Prisoner (1967). My fellow film buffs might also get a kick out of seeing the outside and insides of legendary Pinewood Studios in Live It Up! since the British studio is used a lot in the film. In the ’40s Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger shot many of their most celebrated films at Pinewood Studios and in the ’60s the James Bond films were shot there. Interestingly enough, the second Bond film From Russia with Love (1963) was being filmed at the studio at the same time that Lance Comfort was shooting Live it Up!

If you’re familiar with Franc Roddam’s film Quadrophenia (1979) you might be as surprised as I was to discover how much Live It Up! and By My Guest may have influenced that film. Quadrophenia was based on the 1973 rock opera written by Pete Townshend and The Who. It chronicled a few days in the life of a mod youth during the infamous mods vs. rockers fight known as the “Second Battle of Hastings” that took place in 1964. Live It Up! and Quadrophenia both feature young men working as mail carriers or company “runners” who want something more out of life and it seems impossible that anyone could watch lanky Heinz Burt playing Ron in Live It Up! and not be reminded of Sting’s character Ace Face in Quadrophenia. The bleached blond hair and leather coats obviously link the two memorable characters together but I seem to be in the minority since I haven’t been able to find any other critical information about these films that connects them to Qaudrophenia. It’s also worth noting that Be My Guest was made in Brighton in 1964 where the real “Second Battle of Hastings” happened. I don’t know if the film’s crew or cast was aware of the events but they must have taken place around the same time that Lance Comfort started shooting Be My Guest. As I mentioned earlier, The Who’s one time producer Shel Talmy helped write and compose music for Be My Guest so I’m sure members of the band must have been familiar with both of these Lance Comfort films before they wrote and recorded Quadrophenia.

Live it Up! and its sequel Be My Guest make for a fun and entertaining double feature if you happen to enjoy music, fashion and pop culture from the early ’60s as much as I do. Both films were released on DVD in late 2005 from Guillotine Films with interesting commentary tracks from the film’s executive producer but they’re currently out of print. You can still find used copies of both films selling at Amazon for about $10 (or $5 a piece) and the movies are also available for rent from Netflix.

Some Recommended Links:
- My Live It Up! Flickr Gallery
- The Joe Meek Appreciation Society
- Steve Marriott’s Official Site
- David Hemmings, Brit Boy of the 60’s
- Tribute to Heinz
- The Mods and Rockers
- Lance Comfort Profile at BFI Screenonline
- The Patsy Ann Noble Fan Site
- The Nashville Teens Official Site

The very nice Christine Makepeace recently contacted me to let me know about a quarterly magazine she writes for called Paracinema so I decided to give it a look. When the winter issue of Paracinema arrived in my mailbox last week I didn’t know what to expect but I was pleasantly surprised by the wide array of subjects the magazine covers. Within the pages of Paracinema you’ll find articles on directors Dario Argento and Pier Paolo Pasolini, as well as an insightful piece on David Cronenberg’s Scanners (1981) and a look at H.P. Lovecraft film adaptations. Comic book author Robert Kirkman also provides the magazine with a list of his “Top 5 Cult Films” and The Food Network’s Duff Goldman offers up a list of ten of his “Favorite Films” as well.

One of my favorite articles in the winter issue of Paracinema was Christine’s “10 Totally Biased Reasons The Never Ending Story Is The Best Fantasy Film Ever.” I don’t personally think that The Never Ending Story (1984) is the best fantasy film ever made, but it is a good movie that’s often overlooked and I really enjoyed Christine’s enthusiastic take on Wolfgang Petersen’s underappreciated film.

With outlets like Tower Records gone and the prices of printing increasing every day, more and more small press magazines are disappearing. It’s not easy to keep a print magazine running so I applaud Paracinema’s efforts.

If you’d like to purchase issues of Paracinema please visit the Paracinema Magazine Website. You can also visit the Paracinema Blog that Christine Makepeace regularly contributes to.

I’ve been enjoying August Ragone’s writing on Japanese cinema for many many years. I first discovered his work thanks to a terrific zine he first produced in the 80s’ called Markalite: The Magazine of Japanese Fantasy and since then I’ve read numerous articles he’s written for magazines such as G-Fan and Asian Cult Cinema over the years. Most recently he wrote the wonderful book Eiji Tsuburaya: Master of Monsters, which was published in association with Chronicle Books.

August Ragone has also just started his own blog called The Good, the Bad, and Godzilla and if you’re a fan of Japanese fantasy and science fiction films I highly recommend giving his new blog a look. You’ll finds news and information about his upcoming book signings and various events there as well as interesting bits and pieces about Japanese cinema.

Evil nannies who are determined to harm the innocent children they care for have become a popular recurring menace in many horror films over the years and last week one of the best nasty nanny movies was finally released on DVD for the first time.

I originally saw Seth Holt’s terrific British thriller The Nanny (1965) when I was just a kid and it terrified me. I haven’t seen the film in its entirety in many years so I was afraid it wouldn’t live up to my fond memories of first watching it, but The Nanny managed to exceed my expectations. The great thrillers Hammer produced during the sixties and seventies are often overlooked by critics since they don’t contain vampires, werewolves or any mad doctors, but in my opinion many of them are just as good as the monster movies the studio made. Great Hammer thrillers such as Freddie Francis’ wonderful Paranoiac (1963) and Peter Collinson’s Straight on Till Morning (1972) are some of my favorite Hammer films and The Nanny is another one of the studio’s best and most unusual efforts.

The film stars the late great actress Bette Davis whose 100th birthday was recently celebrated by 20th Century Fox with a wonderful DVD set called the Bette Davis Centenary Celebration Collection which includes The Nanny as well as four other Davis films. Bette Davis isn’t a name that most film fans associate with Hammer Studios but the actress made two films for Hammer during the sixties. The first one was The Nanny, which she starred in after filming two successful gothic thrillers in Hollywood (What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? and Hush… Hush, Sweet Charlotte) and afterward she appeared in Hammer’s black comedy The Anniversary (1968), which was directed by the the talented Roy Ward Baker.

In The Nanny Bette Davis gives one of her most remarkable and nuanced performances as a dutiful servant of an upper class British family who has spent her entire life caring for the children of wealthy individuals and neglecting herself. As the film opens we discover that the family Davis’ character currently works for has lost their little girl in a horrible accident. They blame their precocious 10-year old son Joey (William Dix) for her accidental drowning and they’re struggling to deal with his eminent return home after the boy has spent two years away at a juvenile psychiatric facility and school for disturbed children. When Joey’s father (James Villiers) and the nanny arrive at the school to take Joey home, the audience is introduced to the boy in a beautifully shot but rather disturbing scene that’s reminiscent of Bud Cort’s mock suicide in the unforgettable opening of Harold and Maude made six years later. Joey’s dark sense of humor is clearly troubling to the adults around him and it might seem strange that a 10 year old would be preoccupied with death, but when a child comes face to face with mortality at an early age it’s not unusual for them to feel the urge to act out in various ways. Before the boy leaves the school a doctor tells Joey’s father that he has developed a strange aversion to middle-aged females and on the ride home Joey makes it clear that he doesn’t like or trust his middle-aged nanny. Since the nanny is played by Bette Davis it’s not hard to understand why she might make the boy uncomfortable.

Davis was an incredibly unsettling presence in horror films in the sixties and she easily generates a kind of dread and unease when she’s on screen. With a simple raise of her thick arched eyebrow she can send chills down your spine. Young Joey is so frightened by her that he immediately moves into a room with a window near a fire escape so he can quickly get in an out of his family’s luxurious apartment if needed. He also refuses to eat the food that the nanny prepares for him and he won’t take a bath until his mother (Wendy Craig) makes the nanny promise to stay out of the bathroom. His gruff father and emotionally unstable mother become increasingly frustrated by their son’s behavior and wonder if they should have left him at the school. The nanny seems to come to the boy’s defense at first, but as the film unfolds she also turns on Joey and the audience is left to wonder who is to blame for the boy’s seemingly erratic behavior. Is the boy’s paranoia justified? Or should the family have kept little Joey locked up for forever?

After Joey’s father is forced to leave home on business, the boy is left alone with his mother and nanny who have clearly developed an odd sort of codependent relationship throughout the years. The nanny has been with the family for a very long time and also took care of Joey’s mother when she was a young girl. Joey’s mother is played wonderfully by the British actress Wendy Craig and it’s hard not to sympathize with her since she’s clearly suffering a deep depression following the unexpected death of her young daughter. As the perfect upper class family life she has long imagined for herself begins to unravel all around her, she regresses to a child-like state herself and the nanny is forced to brush her hair and even feed her. When she suddenly falls ill due to food poisoning and must be taken to the hospital, all fingers point to Joey as being the culprit but Joey blames the nanny. He later confesses to his cute teenage neighbor (Pamela Franklin) that he believes the nanny also killed his sister and is now trying to kill him as well. Joey’s accusations are hard to ignore and it’s not much of a surprise when the audience discovers that the nanny is the real source of horror in the film even if a few minor red herrings attempt to focus the audiences attention on the troubled young boy.

What is surprising is the incredibly creative way director Seth Holt chose to shot the film and his wonderful use of flashbacks to show the events as they originally happened. The director also creates some truly chilling moments in the movie such as when Joey’s aunt (Jill Bennett) who suffers from a terrible heart condition spots Davis standing next to the boy’s bedroom door with a pillow in her hand. Dear old nanny intends to suffocate the child in his sleep, but she sweetly tells Joey’s aunt that she is only trying to make the boy more comfortable by bringing him another pillow.

Bette Davis is really remarkable in The Nanny and her understated performance in the film often stands out in stark contrast to her other popular roles in horror films from the same period. Even though the relationship between director Seth Holt and Bette Davis was problematic on the set by all accounts, Davis did manage to follow the director’s recommendation to play the role extremely low-key and internalize aspects of her character that could easily have boiled over the top and found their way onto the screen. The young actor William Dix is also extremely good as Joey. I’m personally very critical of child actors and I often find them too mannered and unbelievable in their roles, but young Dix brings a realism to his role in The Nanny that is really remarkable at times and he seems to understand his character in ways that would completely escape a lot of experienced adult actors.

The film’s script was written by Hammer luminary Jimmy Sangster and based on a book by author Marryam Modell (using the pseudonym Evelyn Piper) who also wrote Bunny Lake Is Missing, which was adapted into another terrific film by Otto Preminger the same year. The Nanny and Bunny Lake is Missing share somewhat similar themes. Both stories feature children in peril and in order to save them someone must try and convince disbelieving authority figures that a child is in danger or being harmed. I don’t know if Marryam Modell had any experience with child abuse herself but there is an underlying attitude in both of her stories, which suggests that she might have.

The talented director Seth Holt began his career co-directing and editing films for Britain’s Ealing Studios, including the wonderful 1945 horror anthology Dead of Night. Holt is mostly known for the entertaining thrillers he made with Hammer Studios and his name rarely comes up when critics are talking about the British New Wave and various kitchen sink dramas but it should. Holt’s first film is a remarkable crime drama called Nowhere to Go that was co-written by Kenneth Tynan who helped usher in the era of “angry young men” as an important theater critic. Nowhere to Go is a stylish modern crime film with a great jazz score by Dizzy Reece and a bleak ending that’s somewhat reminiscent of Godard’s Breathless (1960). It’s an important film in the evolution of British cinema that is often overlooked and deserves a wider audience. Seth Holt was also responsible for the impressive editing work in Karel Reisz’s seminal British film Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960).

While watching The Nanny I was extremely impressed with the way Holt managed to subtly weave important themes found within the best films of the British New Wave such as the effects of poverty, class divides and youth rebellion into a Hammer horror film. Even though The Nanny could be viewed as a simple thriller about a tormented and troubled child being pursued by a psychotic nanny, underlying that is the complicated background of the nanny herself who is forced into a life of servitude do to her class and background. Her position in life has dire consequences for her own family as well as those she works for. During the film the audience is given the opportunity to sympathize with Davis’ character who is obviously deeply disturbed and a potential murderess. This is an incredibly adult and modern approach to take in any horror film about a potential child killer even by today’s standards.

In an unforgettable scene that takes place in a poor British neighborhood clearly suffering from economic and social conditions that plague the lower classes, Bette Davis is forced to confront her past and the death of her own daughter due to a horribly botched back-alley abortion and she quietly falls apart. Unlike the wealthy mother of Joey who’s lost her own daughter and now relies on the nanny to groom her and feed her, Davis’ character has no one but herself to rely on. In her pain she turns inward and clearly doesn’t like what she finds there. In her psychotic state she ends up cruelly lashing out at the most vulnerable thing she can, an innocent, wealthy, sheltered and pampered child that she has been forced to care for who will never know the kind of economic disparity that Davis’ character has been struggling with her entire life.

Davis’ last Oscar nomination was for her role in What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? and it’s often considered her greatest role of the sixties, but in my opinion her greatest achievement as an actress during that decade just might be found in The Nanny.

As I mentioned above, The Nanny is available on DVD as part of the 20th Century Fox Bette Davis Centenary Celebration Collection, which is now selling at Amazon for $36.99 or you can purchase The Nanny individually at Amazon for only $14.99. The film has been beautifully restored by 20th Century Fox and it really looks terrific. The DVD also comes with some nice extras such as poster, stills and lobby card galleries, TV spots, the original trailer and restoration comparisons.

The Nanny should also be available for rent online at Greencine and Netflix. If you’d like to see more images from the film please see my Flickr Gallery for The Nanny.

Tetsuya Watari and Joe Shishido

Last week the Nikkatsu Action Film Series made its way to San Francisco and the nice guys over at the Outcast Cinema site who manage the event were kind enough to remind me with a friendly email. Unfortunately due to my current work schedule, ongoing apartment maintenance and various family obligations, which are leaving me with very little free time lately, I wasn’t able to see any of the films scheduled to play. I rarely make it into the city for film events anymore due to the high cost of gas, bridge fares, parking fees and ticket prices. A night out at the movies with my guy in the Bay Area can easily cost us $50, but I had really hoped to see two of the Toshio Masuda films that were scheduled to show at the Nikkatsu Action series (Gangster V.I.P. and Red Handkerchief) since they were two films I’d never seen before and I’ve become fascinated with the director’s work over the last couple of years.

Last year I picked up a copy of a wonderful Japanese book called Toshio Masuda - Films - Complete Guide which contains over 500 pages covering the director’s long career and accomplishments. It’s an amazing looking book obviously packed with many details about the director’s 80+ films and it also includes lots of lovely still shots from various productions. Naturally it’s written in Japanese and since I can barely read a word of Japanese myself and often have to rely on family and friends for minimal translations, I haven’t been able to fully appreciate the book. I highly doubt that there will ever be an English translation of the entire text made available, but the book has still managed to widen my understanding of Toshio Masuda ’s amazing directorial career and I’ve been making an attempt to try and see as many of his films as possible lately, which is why I was so disappointed that I missed the Toshio Masuda films shown during the Nikkatsu Action series. I’m currently researching some interesting aspects of Toshio Masuda carreer and I hope to see a few more of his early films soon on DVD. You can expect to see more posts from me about the director in the future.

Here’s a brief blurb about Toshio Masuda from the only English text featured on the cover of Toshio Masuda - Films - Complete Guide. It’s written in broken English so don’t be surprised if you find it a little hard to follow:

“Action, Romance, Comedy, Animation, The War. A Giant in the field of Japanese program pictures. Toshio Masuda was born in Kobe City, October 5th 1927. There was a year his 16 films have reached the TOP 10 in the yearly charts. It is the second highest record in the history of Japanese movies. He also has been in the chart from the 1950’s through until 1990’s, for about 5 decades. This is a miracle and a marvelous thing. His films themes are not only about action but comedy, romance, animation and the war. And every theme relates to the bloom of youth.”

It’s really astonishing and extremely sad that the work of such an important Japanese director like Toshio Masuda is almost completely unavailable to western audiences and has often been totally overlooked by western critics and film scholars. Thankfully due to the hard work of some people such as the fine folks at Outcast Cinema that is slowly changing and I’m extremely grateful for all their efforts.

Since I’m on the topic of Nikkatsu Action cinema, I also wanted to mention that I recently finished reading Mark Schilling’s latest book No Borders, No Limits: Nikkatsu Action Cinema, which is a quick read and well worth picking up if you’re interested in Japanese cinema. I’ve enjoyed many of Mark Schilling’s books over the years such as The Encyclopedia of Japanese Pop Culture and The Yakuza Movie Book so I was looking forward to reading his latest effort and I think it’s probably his best book yet because it limits its focus to one topic and provides readers with some interesting tidbits about the genre. No Borders, No Limits: Nikkatsu Action Cinema is somewhat light on content but it easily makes up for that with lots of fascinating interviews with important directors and stars, as well as beautiful still shots and incredible poster art reproductions. I don’t always agree with Schilling’s interpretations of Nikkatsu Action cinema that he puts forward in the book or his opinions regarding particular films and directors. And occasionally while reading the interviews he conducted with directors I desperately wished I could have jumped in with my own questions, but I’m very grateful that Schilling is making a much needed effort to research the work and careers of talented filmmakers like Toshio Masuda who is featured in his book along with Seijun Suzuki, Yasuharu Hasebe and Koreyoshi Kurahara. Since so little English language information is available about Nikkatsu’s Action cinema Mark Schilling’s book is a very welcome addition to the slowly growing body of Japanese film criticism and history that’s trying to forge ahead and follow uncharted paths that were often neglected by other well-known Japanese film critics and scholars in the past.

Here’s a few brief paragraphs from Mark Schilling’s Forward to No Borders, No Limits: Nikkatsu Action Cinema:

“The label said it all: Nikkatsu Akushon. Nikkatsu was a studio that had been around since the silent days and Akushon was “Action,” written in the katakana syllabary for foreign words. During their peak, from the late 1950s to the early 1960s, Nikkatsu Action films evoked a cinematic world neither foreign nor Japanese, but a mix of the two, where Japanese tough guys had the swagger, moves and long legs of Hollywood movie heroes. Where Tokyo streets, Yokohama docks and Hokkaido plains took on an exciting, exotic aura, as though they were stand-ins for Manhattan, Marseilles or the American West.

. . .

“Foreign critics long ignored Nikkatsu Action. Donald Richie and Joseph Anderson’s seminal 1959 history The Japanese Film: Art and Industry passed over the entire genre in silence, as did its 1982 revised edition. Joan Mellen’s 1976 study The Waves at Genji’s Door: Japan Through Its Cinema does not mention Nikkatsu or its films and stars even once. The rise of Seijun Suzuki to cult fame in the West in the 1980s brought the genre more attention abroad, but often in a negative way, with critics hailing Suzuki as an overlooked and discarded master, while dismissing the films of his colleagues as studio hack work (despite having seen few of them.)”

Mark Schilling’s book No Borders, No Limits: Nikkatsu Action Cinema retails for $15.95 and it’s currently available at Amazon for only $10.85. The Japanese book Toshio Masuda - Films - Complete Guide was published last year by Hotwax in association with Shinko Music Entertainment Co. LTD and it should be available at better Japanese book stores such as Kinokuniya. You can also purchase the book online at places such as YesAsia.com, but it costs a lot more there. The original retail price is about $37 and YesAsia is selling it for $50 plus shipping and handling costs so potential buyers should be aware of the considerable price hikes by some retailers.

The Nikkatsu Action film series is still going strong and many films will be shown across the country in various U.S. locations throughout April and May. For more information about the event please visit the Outcast Cinema Blog for locations and showtimes.

A smokin hot Alain Delon in La Piscine (1970)

This week Lion’s Gate is releasing their Alain Delon - Five Film Collection, which features the incredibly handsome and talented French actor starring in Diaboliquement vôtre (aka Diabolically Yours, 1967), La Piscine (aka The Swimming Pool, 1970), La Veuve Couderc (aka The Widow Couderc, 1974), Le Gitan (aka The Gypsy, 1975) and Notre Histoire (aka Separate Rooms, 1984). I haven’t had the chance to pick up the collection myself so I can’t personally comment on the quality of the new Lion’s Gate set, but according to other sources this 3 Disc DVD collection presents all 5 films in widescreen with English subtitles.

I’ve only previously had the opportunity to see Julien Duvivier’s Diaboliquement vôtre, which I reviewed last year and Jacques Deray’s La Piscine, which features Delon along with the lovely actress Romy Schinder who he had a longtime relationship with off screen, as well as the British actress and pop icon Jane Birkin and the talented actor Maurice Ronet who had previously starred with Alain Delon in René Clément’s brilliant 1960 thriller Purple Noon. Both Diaboliquement vôtre and La Piscine are highly recommended if you enjoy suspenseful French thrillers.

From the films that I haven’t seen, I’m most looking forward to watching La Veuve Couderc, which was directed by Pierre Granier-Deferre and costars the wonderful French actress Simone Signoret. Once I get the opportunity to see the film I hope to share my thoughts about it here.

The Alain Delon - Five Film Collection can currently be purchased at Amazon for $29.99 and that’s only about $6 per movies. You can also find the films available for rent at Greencine and Netflix.