Jean Seberg in Moment to Moment (1965) wearing a Yves Saint Laurent Design.
Just a brief round-up of some news & info that I thought I’d share . . .
- Fashion and costume designer Yves Saint Laurent died today at the age of 71. In the world of film, costume designers rarely get the acclaim that they should but Yves Saint Laurent’s wonderful work appeared in some great movies throughout the years and he helped define women’s fashion in the sixties. To read more about Laurent’s impressive contribution to the art of cinema please see my brief tribute to Yves Saint Laurent’s work called The Fine Art of Fashion: Yves Saint Laurent.
Actresses and models’ Ira von Fürstenberg and Capucine
modeling Yves Saint Laurent designs in 1965/66.
On a lighter note . . .
- Film director Paul Schrader has a terrific website now where he has published a lot of his film writing and lately I’ve been enjoying going through the archives. Schrader’s early film writing was heavily influenced by the legendary critic Pauline Kael and I don’t agree with a lot of his youthful opinions but his writing is still fascinating to read and naturally improves over time. Some highlights you can find on his site include Yakuza-Eiga: A Primer, which he wrote for Film Comment in 1974 and his 2001 essay in Film Comment on his break from Pauline Kael called Pauline Kael 1919 – 2001: My Family Drama. It’s interesting to read about how the director broke away from Kael’s influence and started thinking more for himself, which is somewhat highlighted in one of the richest pieces available on his site titled The Film Canon from a 2006 issue of Film Comment. A direct link to Paul Schrader’s writing archives can be found here.
- Peppino De Luca’s terrific score for Dorian Gray (Il Dio Chaimato Dorian, 1970) has long been one of my favorite film soundtracks and it was recently released on CD for the first time by Italy’s Digitmovies. Previously some tacks from the film were only available on a a compilation CD called Barry 7’s Connectors Volume 2 but now fans of the film can finally enjoy De Luca’s soundtrack in its entirety.
Front: Andis (my man in the Star Wars t-shirt!) and his father Ivars Lindbergs (1978)
Back: His brother Ingmars and mother Ingrida
Men do well to mourn for the dead: it proves that we love something beside ourselves.
- Percy B. Shelley (”An Address to the People on The Death of the Princess Charlotte,” 1817)
Many thanks for all the recent blog comments and emails. I’m afraid that my inbox is overflowing at the moment and it’s going to take some time for me to respond to everyone. There’s been a death in my family and naturally the grieving process and various responsibilities are taking precedence over everything else at the moment.
Lately I seem to be posting brief tributes to lots of dead actors. It comes with the territory I suppose since I write about older films here at Cinebeats. Today I’d like to write about a member of my family who was an actor as well as a poet. It’s extremely doubtful that anyone reading my blog will know the name Ivars Lindbergs but he was my father in-law and last Friday he passed away after a long battle with cancer. It was an ugly fight, which ended with him being bedridden for the past six months and having to rely on his family to care for him. This wasn’t easy for a 75 year-old man who was well over 6 ft. tall with a booming voice. Ivars loved hearing himself talk and enjoyed drinking, smoking and eating whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted it. When the cancer reached his brain he had trouble speaking and naturally he couldn’t enjoy the simple things that gave him pleasure anymore. In the end I suspect that he was probably more than ready to shuffle off this mortal coil but he fought his battle with cancer to the very end. He will be missed but I can honestly say that he lived one of the richest and most fascinating lives of anyone I’ve had the pleasure to know.
Ivars was born and raised in Riga, Latvia and lived there until the brutal Soviet occupation forced his family to flee the country. At the end of WWII, young Ivars and his family found themselves living in a Displaced Person’s camp in Germany before immigrating to Australia where he worked doing hard labor including shoveling concrete to help support his family while he attended school. After he met and married a beautiful Latvian girl (my mother in-law) they moved to the U.S. and eventually settled in the California Bay Area in 1965 where they started a family. Ivars began working for the Bechtel Corporation as a designer and in the ’70s they offered him a job he couldn’t refuse in Saudi Arabia. So he packed up his family and moved them to the Middle East for many years. By all accounts the cultural shock caused by the move seemed to be a little tough for some members of the family. But living in the Middle East for so many years provided them with the opportunity to travel to various places in the world they would have otherwise never seen. And it definitely enriched my husband’s understanding of different cultures and people, which he has gratefully shared with me.
Even though my father in-law was a working man, his true love and passion was writing poetry and acting with the Latvian Little Theater of San Francisco, which he helped form. His celebrated artistic pursuits and his untiring support of Latvian culture and arts earned him the Latvian Medal of Honor, which was given to him by the President of Latvia in 2005.
My father in-law and I were not as close as I wished we could have been. But despite the distance between us, I had great respect for the man; especially since he was the father of the wonderful guy I married. Ivars was also the last living parental figure between my husband and myself and his death has been hard to bear. Naturally his passing has stirred up a lot of memories of losing my own parents as well as my mother in-law. They say “time heals all wounds” but I know from experience that the death of loved ones is never eased by the passing of time. We just learn to live with the losses.
I’m taking the three-day weekend to sort myself out and try and catch up on emails, etc. and I hope to be back posting regularly at Cinebeats soon.
Early last month Nick Dawson kindly asked me to take part in an interview for the terrific FilmInFocus.com site. The interview is now available online as their current Behind the Blog feature. In the rather lengthy interview I talk about why I enjoy writing about movies and how I got interested in blogging. I was extremely surprised that Nick asked me to take part in an interview and I’m grateful that he finds my blog worth reading.
Some observant readers may notice that the interview took place before there was so much navel-gazing going on among my fellow film bloggers. I mention some blogs that have since gone on hiatus in the interview and I don’t address the fact that due to staff cuts I’m no longer writing for Cinedelica.com, which published the only film writing work I was ever paid for.
My blog has been suffering a bit lately due to the fact that I’ve got a lot of personal things I’m dealing with at the moment, including hunting for freelance writing and graphic/web design work, which is extremely hard to come by. The economy is in deep trouble and like many fine folks working in all kinds of professions, I’m having a hard time trying to pay my bills. Hopefully I’ll have more free time for film writing soon but I wanted to mention that last month Cinebeats celebrated its second anniversary. I’m extremely grateful that 1000+ visitors take the time to stop by Cinebeats every day. This is not a vanity project and I don’t expect to get rich writing about movies. I write about movies I like simply because I love talking about the films I enjoy.
Some people play golf to relax and others like to garden or collect stamps. When I’m not taking photos and making art, I like to watch movies and write about them. It brings me a lot of joy when I get an email from someone telling me they’ve watched a film I’ve written about and they appreciate my recommendations. 20 years ago it would have been impossible for me to freely self-publish my thoughts about films and share them with other film enthusiasts all over the world so easily and I’m thankful for the opportunities that blogging has given me. I’ve been writing on and off for 25 years and blogging has been the most rewarding writing experience I’ve had.
I’m also thankful that my fellow film bloggers have been so gracious and encouraging. I’m especially thankful to Dennis Cozzalio who runs the terrific and always entertaining Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule, Brian Darr and his resourceful and informative Hell on Frisco Bay blog and Girish Shambu whose blog has probably given me more delicious food for thought in the past couple of years than any other film blog that I can think of. Dennis, Brian and Girish were some of the first people who took the time to comment on my blog and exchange links back in 2006. Their generosity of spirit and good nature have really helped motivate me to keep blogging and I can’t thank them enough for their support. Here’s to you boys and to another fun and fascinating year of film blogging!
John Phillip Law as the sexy silent super thief, Diabolik.
One of my favorite actors and one of the most beautiful men to ever appear in movies has passed away at the age of 70. It’s mind-boggling to consider how many terrific and entertaining films that John Philip Law appeared in. He may not be a household name and if imdb.com is to be believed, I don’t think he ever won any acting awards but he was always fun to watch and I never get tired of looking at him. He’s really one of cinema’s great male beauties and an important counterculture figure. I will miss him but I’m thankful that I got to enjoy the man in so many wonderful movies.
My Top 10 favorite John Phillip Law films
(numerical order subject to change at anytime!):
1. Diabolik (1968) (Diabolik made my list of 10 Favorite Eurotrash films that I compiled last year.)
2. Barbarella (1968)
John Phillip Law as the blind angel Pygar in Roger Vadim’s surreal and sexy sci-fi fantasy Barbarella (1968)
3. Death Rides a Horse (1967) (This film made my list of Top 10 Spaghetti Westerns)
4. The Love Machine (1971)
5. The Sergeant (1968)
6. Whisper in the Dark (1976)
Dyan Cannon and John Phillip Law having some fun
in the sex-charged Jack Haley Jr. film The Love Machine (1971)
7. The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming (1966) (I wrote about this film in-depth last year after revisiting it)
8. Skidoo (1968)
9. The Last Movie (1971)
10. The Golden Voyage of Sinbad (1974)
John Phillip Law must deal with Rod Steiger’s unwanted advances in The Sergeant (1968). A fascinating film about a gay military man struggling with his emotions.
Honorable Mention:
The unforgettable ’80s horror fantasy Night Train to Terror (1985)
It’s really a shame that The Love Machine, The Sergeant and Skidoo are not available on DVD yet. Some studios will probably try to cash in on the actor’s death so we may see these films finally find there way onto DVD soon. Skidoo seems to be getting a lot of attention lately so I suspect that it will be released in the near future.
Finally… a must see video clip for The Swinging Lust World of John Phillip Law. This wonderful psychedelic video tribute to John Phillip Law contains brief action clips from many of his best films accompanied by the title song from Ennio Morricone’s brilliant soundtrack for Diabolik. It appears to be a trailer for a longer upcoming film:
UPDATE: The very nice Chris Casey was kind enough to leave a comment on my Myspace Blog letting me know that John Phillip Law had been suffering the effects of terminal cancer, which led to his sudden death. You can find Chris’ comments here.
“It’s all here! The happy fun times. And the crazy turned-on dangerous times.”
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 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 dancer 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.
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.
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!
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.
Closing music clip from Live It Up! (1963).
Featuring David Hemmings, Steve Marriott, Heinz Burt and John Pike.
(Note: The music was actually performed by Heinz Burt and his band The Tornadoes).
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 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 that suggests 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 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 t
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. 
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 
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 
and the movies are also available for rent from 
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. 
which includes 
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.
