Operation Screenshot (Films of the 2000s): Ridley Scott's Gladiator (2000)

With just a couple of exceptions this series so far has mostly just consisted of smaller American and foreign films. I wouldn't even think about compiling a list like this though without including some major Hollywood films. This particular post allows me to salute a terrific film, that just happens to be a big budget Hollywood blockbuster, made my one of my favorite directors (Ridley Scott) and starring one of my favorite actors (Russell Crowe). I'd like to dedicate it to Oliver Reed, who made his final film appearance here, and the film's biggest fan, my mom.

Take a Girl Like You (1970)

A real oddity from 1970, Take a Girl Like You would have probably have all but been lost in time right now were it not for its two lead actors, the surprisingly potent combination of Oliver Reed and Haley Mills.
Directed by former member of the Britain’s legendary Beyond The Fringe comedy team, Jonathan Miller, from a script by musician George Melly, Take a Girl Like You never finds a proper balance between cheap romantic comedy and broad satire throughout its running time but it’s never boring. Focusing on an aging swinger's obsessive yearnings to take away the virginity of a much younger girl who has recently moved into an apartment near his, Take a Girl Like You's plot could easily have been filmed several years before as a swinging and yet innocent teen movie, or a few years later as a hard sexploitation flick. Miller never successfully gets across what exactly it is that he is attempting though, and for the most part Take a Girl Like You is an extremely limp romp only brought to life by Reed and Mills, who are frankly much better than the material they are offered here.
Take a Girl Like You was adapted from a novel by Kingsley Amis and filmed in the early part of 1970 in and around Slough, Berkshire, England. Financed by Albion Films and eventually released by Columbia to a deservedly muted response, Take a Girl Like You manages to feel awkward throughout and would have no doubt worked better a few years before or several years after.
Miller’s film (one of just a handful of theatrical credits for him as director) is certainly not lacking in the talent department. Featuring a cast of familiar British faces (everyone from Noel Harrison to Imogen Hassall is on hand) and a bevy of talented behind the scenes artists (including composer Stanley Myers and BAFTA nominated cinematographer Dick Bush), Take a Girl Like Me is a surprisingly tired production considering the talent involved. Nowhere is this talent more evident than the two leads, both of whom are so captivating that they almost make the film worth seeking out.



The much missed Oliver Reed was at his peak in 1970 and Take a Girl Like You finds itself sandwiched between the astonishing Ken Russell productions Reed starred in, Women in Love (1969) and The Devils (1971). Placed against two such towering pictures makes Take a Girl Like You look even more minuscule, but Reed is quite extraordinary in the film and manages to make what should be a thoroughly unlikable character quite charming.



Even better is pretty 24-year-old Haley Mills, who manages a performance that is both subtle and in, its own way, very moving. Several years past the Disney productions that had made her a household name, Mills is so good here that it is a shame that the script lets her down at nearly every turn. Had she been given a script more worthy of her talents at this point, the career of Haley Mills as an adult might have been a much different story than it turned out to be.
The film hints at substance occasionally, specifically with a minor sub plot involving the Labor Party that is eventually all but dropped, but more than anything else it is a lightweight production made by some heavyweight talent. The film is finally only recommended to Reed and Mills completists, although Myer's lovely score would be worth searching out for any film-music lover. My copy comes from an old telecast, but I have been told that a British DVD is in the works or already available for those interested.

The Great Video Store in the Sky: A David Cronenberg Double Feature

Overlooked Classics: The Shuttered Room (1967)

Director David Greene was already in his mid forties when he delivered his debut theatrical feature, THE SHUTTERED ROOM, in 1967. However, he was no stranger to the horror genre as he had been working on some of the most notable genre TV productions since the early fifties, and he had started out as an actor with one of his first roles being in 1949's DAUGHTER OF DARKNESS. Greene would come of age throughout the fifties and sixties working on several legendary genre series including THE TWILIGHT ZONE, THE SAINT and THE DEFENDERS. In fact, the relatively forgotten THE SHUTTERED ROOM was made my an incredibly diverse and notable group of people as I hope my look at it will make clear.
THE SHUTTERED ROOM began life as a short story credited to famed author H.P. Lovecraft and an August Derleth. I am not a student of Lovecraft but it is my understanding that it was in fact Derleth who wrote the story, by basing it on pieces of Lovecraft's works. A good article detailing this can be found here. Whomever the true author, the book THE SHUTTERED ROOM appeared in 1959 in a collection called THE SHUTTERED ROOM AND OTHER PIECES and the rights to the film were bought shortly after and finally ended up at Seven Arts Productions in the mid sixties.
The basic plot of THE SHUTTERED ROOM, the film, is relatively simple. Troubled Susanna Kelton returns to her childhood home with her new husband Mike in an attempt to find some answers to problems plaguing her adult life. Once there she discovers that a mythical town monster the locals are terrified of is actually her unknown twin sister, who has spent her life locked in an attic room in their childhood home.
Director Greene had just finished up several seasons of work on the legal drama THE DEFENDERS when the opportunity arose to make his theatrical feature debut. THE SHUTTERED ROOM seemed customed made for him, and his POV heavy and oddly nuanced but effective style didn't disappoint.

Joining Greene behind the scenes was a really effective roster of American and British talent. Brian Smedley-Aston, who was just a few years away from his landmark work with the likes of Nicolas Roeg and Jose Larraz, lent his sharp eye to the editing of the film and it does very much foreshadow his incredible work on Larraz's own SYMPTOMS (1974). THE SHUTTERED ROOM'S bright but creepy photography was provided by talented Ken Hodges who had done such memorable work the year before on Michael Winner's THE JOKERS. He would later lense several other genre pieces such as the extreme Suzy Kendall vehicle ASSAULT in 1971.

THE SHUTTERED ROOM'S all important interior design was assigned to art director Brian Eatwell. He would later prove most important, specifically with his work on Anderson's IF (1968), and then as a Production Designer on some of Nicolas Roeg's finest films, including WALKABOUT (1971) and THE MAN WHO FELL TO EARTH (1976).
Key among the film's biggest assets though is the striking and strange score credited to Basil Kirchin. Instead of the usual orchestrated string heavy soundtrack that occupied many horror films of this period, Kirchin's work sounds more like an adventurous free jazz piece in the vein of Don Cherry or even famed Polish composer Krzysztof Komeda. Kirchin, a noted Jazz drummer and composer, was befriended by director Greene in the sixties and it was Greene himself who would pen the liner notes for two of Kirchin's best albums. An excellent look at this collaboration can be found here. In 2003 Perseverance Records attempted to release the score to THE SHUTTERED ROOM on a cd with Kirchin's work on the DR. PHIBES films. This was eventually stopped due to legal reasons, so to my knowledge the inventive and audacious score to THE SHUTTERED ROOM has never been released...pity, as it is one of the great scores from the sixties.
The talent in front of the cameras were no less notable than the behind the scenes artists. The great Oliver Reed pops up in a bristling, electric performance that caught the great man just before one of his career defining performances in Michael Winner's peerless I'LL NEVER FORGET WHAT'S'ISNAME (also 1967). Joining Reed in supporting turns are a creepy Flora Robson (who had just filmed another one of Seven Arts most underrated productions, EYE OF THE DEVIL), the distinguished Bernard Kay and William Devlin in his last screen performance. The film's one weak point does indeed turn out to be in the casting though, as the tragic-but oh so talented-Gig Young is pretty woefully miscast here, and he seems to realize it as he gives one of his most uninspired performances.
The biggest coup of the film though is the magical lead performance by underrated sixties icon Carol Lynley. Lynley, one of the most heartbreakingly beautiful women of the period, is extraordinary in the demanding duel role of the passive and lonely Susannah and her crazed twin sister Sarah. Lynley, too long one of the most unrecognized inventive actors of the period, had just wrapped up Otto Preminger's haunting and troubling BUNNY LAKE IS MISSING (1965) when she signed on for THE SHUTTERED ROOM. She had been in the process of trying to shed her image as a teen star and her work on Preminger's film, THE PLEASURE SEEKERS (1964), and HARLOW (1965), not to mention one of the best Playboy pictorials in the magazines history, had all done that. Unfortunately almost every project she was involved in failed financially and critically.

Unlike other sixties icons like Tuesday Weld and Ann-Margret who exuded an animated electricity, the sullen and quiet Carol Lynley had a real endearing icy calm about her. This was never more apparent than in THE SHUTTERED ROOM where Greene's camera almost seems fixated on her lovely face, as if he is waiting for her cool features to suddenly transform into something completely different, but no less captivating. Lynley, despite a busy and solid career, never achieved the stardom or roles she deserved. THE SHUTTERED ROOM remains one of the great reminders of her charisma, beauty and talent.

THE SHUTTERED ROOM was filmed in the lovely U.K. location of Hardingham, Norfolk. This substitutes nicely for what is supposed to be the Northeastern portion of the United States. A great site detailing the location that includes behind the scenes shots of the film can be looked at here.
Greene's film opened up in 1967 and was mostly ignored by critics and the public. Few saw the directors' inventive and eerie POV shots, although I am willing to bet that both Bob Clark and John Carpenter were among the privileged few who might have caught this film in its brief initial run. A tie-in novel was also published by a Julia Withers which is well worth searching out. It played on TV throughout the seventies and eighties and it was briefly available on VHS in a terribly retitled edited version called BLOOD ISLAND.
I have often wondered if I am alone in my admiration for this film, as I have read many more negative than positive reactions about it over the years. I can't compare it to the original story so perhaps for the film that is a blessing for me, as most Lovecraft scholars tend to dismiss it. For me though, THE SHUTTERED ROOM is a seminal film that really ingrained itself in the dreams of my youth. Every time I revisit it, I realize that more and more I feel like Lynley's character in the film...someone obsessively mining out pieces of their youth in an attempt to unravel the complexity of their adult life. Looking at the film now is a bit like searching through an old childhood trunk filled with reminders of a time that might be gone, but still maintains a supreme resonance.
THE SHUTTERED ROOM is currently unavailable on any home video format, and it rarely plays on the late night tv that I am willing to bet many people discovered it on. Un-official copies are relatively easy to find though, and right now those are the only way to locate this rather remarkable and nearly lost little jewel of a film.

M.I.A. on Region 1 DVD Tribute Month (Film 16) Images From My All Time Favorite Films: Ken Russell's The Devils (1971)

31 Performances Ripe for Rediscovery (4) Oliver Reed in I'LL NEVER FORGET WHAT'S'IS NAME (1967)

"This man is a success. 

He has a wife, two mistresses an alfa romeo and one day he decided to get rid of them all."

For many younger film fans the name Oliver Reed will probably call to mind the roaring aging boozer who would show up sloshed on television talk shows, virtually creating the 'viral' video long before the internet.  While he is perhaps among the most 'famous' people on my list I feel like the late Reed is one of the major actors in need of rediscovery, due to the public persona that took over the artist by the end of his life, and for the fact that so many of his greatest films are unavailable on disc.  It's especially tragic that his work in the sixties with director Michael Winner are so relatively unknown here in the states, as it was such an important and fruitful collaboration.  Folks who only know of the older Oliver Reed might be shocked by just how beautiful, how commanding, how touching and just how talented he was in his prime.  Take for example his monumental work as advertising Andrew Quint in Winner's extraordinary 1967 feature I'll Never Forget What's'isname, one of the best films of the sound-era and one of the most prophetic works of art ever created.

I feel unbelievably close to the frustrated Andrew Quint, a man so hungry to escape life's modern dance but who's ultimately trapped by the pleasures he is so accustomed to.  As Quint, Oliver Reed is simply magnificent.  His performance is one of the most moving and resonate I have ever seen.  It's one of those rare performances, like Gene Hackman  in Night Moves or Mickey Rourke in The Pope of Greenwich Village, that haunts me on a near daily basis.  When one of life's many walls gets put up I always flash on the opening image of Reed carrying an Ax through the busy London Streets to destroy the office desk he has been held prisoner by and I think 'if only'...

I'll Never Forget What's'isname is also a brutal reminder to just how amazing a leading man Oliver Reed was and his scenes with the tragic Carol White (who will appear on my next 'Ripe for Rediscovery' list I do) are exquisitely touching and seductive.  Reed was one of cinema's great poets and I think his work as Andrew Quint is his finest screen performance, even better than his savage turn in Ken Russell's The Devils a few years later.

We lost a true champion in 1999 when we lost Oliver Reed and we lost one of our truly great actors.  He was bigger than the Oscar he was never even nominated for throughout his dazzling career.  Unlike some of his greatest films, I'll Never Forget What's'isname isn't impossible to see in this country as copies of the out of print Anchor Bay DVD (which features an extraordinary Winner commentary) can still be found.  Seek it out anyway you can find it...it really is one of the very best films I have ever seen and Reed's performance should be legendary.

 

-Jeremy Richey, 2013-