THE SAINT

Roger Moore

THE SAINT (1964). British television series based on the character created by Leslie Charteris.

Literary creation The Saint -- a slightly shady adventurer who generally was on the side of the angels -- first appeared in a series of films in the forties and fifties, and then became the star of this sixties British series that ran for six years and over 100 episodes. Roger Moore played Simon Templar, famously known as "the Saint," and played him well, with that certain charming insouciance that was also a hallmark in Louis Hayward's theatrical portrayal in such films as The Saint in New York. Moore himself became famous with this series, which was also a hit on American television, and it was undoubtedly for this reason that he was later chosen to play James Bond in 007's more cartoonish adventures. The Saint was first produced in black and white then switched to color episodes for the later seasons. Each episode was an hour long including commercials. Simon would address the audience right before the credits rolled. The character of Inspector Teal was perfectly friendly to Simon in the first couple of seasons, then became the more (over) familiar unpleasant adversary of the movies.

Based on the many episodes I've watched, The Saint was a good but not great series with some memorable episodes. The first episode, "The Talented Husband" about a Bluebeard, was not an auspicious debut, seeming slow and padded. The subsequent episode, "The Latin Touch," with Alexander Knox as an ambassador whose daughter is kidnapped in Rome, was more on the mark. In the clever and suspenseful "Double Take," a Greek millionaire nearly has Simon stumped when he hires a perfect double for his own strange purposes. Board members are killed off one by one in "Scales of Justice," with Jean Marsh as a frightened secretary. The harrowing "Man Who Could Not Die" has Simon attempting to stop a murder that is to take place in deep, isolated caverns. In "Starring the Saint" -- which guest stars Alexander Davion [Paranoiac] and Jackie Collins, Joan's author-sister -- a producer of a movie about Simon's exploits is murdered. Rival female race car drivers really hate each other in "The Fast Women," while an unknown enemy wants ultimate revenge on Simon in "The Time to Die." The exciting "Old Treasure Story" has Simon and a shady group searching for Blackbeard's booty on one of the Virgin Islands.

"The House on Dragon's Rock"

Occasionally a Saint adventure would be a little more far-out than usual. "The Convenient Monster" takes place at Loch Ness and concerns a creature that may or may not be real (although the real thing does show up at the very end). "The House on Dragon's Rock" concerns a mad scientist who for inexplicable reasons wants to breed a new species of giant ants, one of whom almost has Simon for lunch. While one could easily imagine that this was a rip-off of the 1954 monster movie Them, this episode was actually based on a 1937 short story (ghosted for Charteris) entitled "The Man Who Loved Ants." In any case the episode, which takes place in Wales, is suitably creepy, as is the ugly giant ant that is let out at night to, presumably, get the lay of the land. I remember watching this decades ago with my parents and my mother, who had a bit of a crush on Moore but thought he was too pretty,  groaning, "Oh, I didn't know they did stories like this." Frankly, I always thought Moore, while basically masculine, was kind of asexual.

Verdict: Some good mysteries and adventure in this series, although it's not quite on the level of a true classic. **1/2. 

CRACK IN THE WORLD

Kieron Moore and Janette Scott

CRACK IN THE WORLD (1965). Director: Andrew Marton.

Dr. Stephen Sorenson (Dana Andrews) and his team have developed a way to bring magma to the surface for a variety of energy needs, but an atomic bomb must be shot down into the core for it to work. Dr. Ted Rampion (Kieron Moore) is opposed to the idea, sure that it will cause massive earthquakes and severe structural damage to the earth. Guess who's right? A fissure is formed in the Mercedo trench which threatens to stretch at 3.5. miles an hour and could literally tear the world apart. Complicating matters is the fact that Rampion used to be the lover of Sorenson's wife, Maggie (Janette Scott), herself a scientist. Crack in the World sets up an exciting premise but has too low a budget to do it justice, relying on stock footage and only really coming alive in the final few moments. The performances are fine, however, with the under-rated Dana Andrews [Where the Sidewalk Ends] giving another good account of himself, and Moore [Satellite in the Sky] and Scott [Paranoiac] on top of things. Alexander Knox is also fine as Sir Charles Eggerston, who heads the committee that determines whether or not the rocket should be fired. Most of the film's excitement comes from the score by John Douglas. The love triangle business isn't especially convincing.

Verdict: An early disaster film that didn't start a trend. **1/2.

WOMAN OF STRAW

Sean Connery and Gina Lollobrigida

WOMAN OF STRAW (1964). Director: Basil Dearden.

"You can  be such a nice man, Mr. Richmond, why do you choose to act like a pig?"

Tony Richmond (Sean Connery) is the nephew of the fabulously wealthy Charles Richmond (Ralph Richardson), who adores Beethoven and has estates in Majorca and England. Tony brings in a nurse, Maria (Gina Lollobrigida), to care for Charles, but she finds him difficult, obnoxious, and cruel, especially to the two young black men he abuses and calls "boys." Nevertheless, Tony importunes Maria to stay on as nurse, hoping his uncle will become so smitten he'll marry her and she'll gain a fortune -- which, of course, she'll share with Tony. But will Tony's plan unfold as easily as he expects? Woman of Straw is a very entertaining suspense film with interesting twists and turns and a great ending. The characters, especially Maria and Charles, are more dimensional than in similar films, and the acting is fine, with an on-the-money Connery, and even better performances from Lollobrigida [Strange Bedfellows] and the outstanding Richardson [The Heiress]. Alexander Knox is also good as a police official, and Laurence Hardy and Johnny Sekka [Young and Willing] are effective as the black servants. Andre Morrell plays a judge as he did in The Great Train Robbery, also starring Connery.

Verdict: Smooth, intriguing, and well-played. ***.

THESE ARE THE DAMNED

THESE ARE THE DAMNED (aka The Damned/1963). Director: Joseph Losey.

"Nothing that's warm can live with you."

It's amusing to contemplate how people who went to see this film because of the poster to the left -- which makes it seem like another Village of the Damned -- must have felt when they had to sit through this tedious non-horror film which was nothing like the advertisement suggested -- too bad! Losey combines a story of children held at a military base because they were born radioactive -- due to their mothers' accidental irradiation -- with a romantic triangle consisting of vacationing American Simon Wells (Macdonald Carey), a much, much younger gal named Joan (Shirley Anne Field), and her gang-member brother, King (Oliver Reed), who seems to have incestuous feelings for her among other problems. Other characters include sculptress Freya Neilson (Viveca Lindfords), who lives near the military base and is friends with Bernard (Alexander Knox), who is in charge of the children. Had Losey stuck to scenes in the base, focusing on the plight of the children, this might have amounted to an interesting picture, but the poor kids show up late in the game, after the audience has had to endure tedious scenes of Carey's unconvincing romance with Field, and Reed's smoldering and childish antics. The movie presents a completely contrived scenario in which the triangle characters and the ice cold children wind up together in a natural cave below the base. What can you say about a movie that begins with British teddy boys marching down the street whistling their own theme song [West Side Story anyone?] and gets progressively worse? The final scenes with the children are somewhat moving, but it's far too late to save the movie. Oliver Reed [The Triple Echo] gives another one of his patented intense "I'm Mean and I'm Weird" performances, and is as tiresome as the movie itself, whereas Lindfors [The Exorcist III] acquits herself nicely in an underwritten role. Some of the children are talented as well and Knox is fine as the unpleasant Bernard. This was obviously meant to be seen as something profound and deeply affecting, but it just doesn't work. Arthur Grant's cinematography is superb, however. The film was severely cut (which couldn't have hurt it that much) upon release, but the DVD I saw has the complete version. Losey also directed Knox in The Sleeping Tiger.

Verdict: Interesting premise -- too bad it's a movie you'll probably want to sleep through. **.

PAULA

Teaching Davey to speak: Rettig, Knox and Young

PAULA (1952). Director: Rudolph Mate.

After a miscarriage Paula Rogers (Loretta Young) is told by her doctor that she can't have any more children, and it is in this distracted mental state that she accidentally hits a young boy, David (Tommy Rettig), while driving home. Although she immediately gets out of her car and rushes to the child, an old man, Bascom (Will Wright)  -- who actually contributed to the accident -- decides unfairly that she is drunk and forbids her to accompany them to the hospital. As Paula's husband, John (Kent Smith) may lose a coveted position if there's any hint of scandal, Paula hides the truth and decides to help the boy behind the scenes. She becomes a kind of nurse's aid, befriends the boy -- who has lost his ability to speak due to the trauma, and is an orphan -- and eventually takes him into her home. But what happens when and if he recognizes her from that night? And there's still that horrible old man who claimed she was inebriated ...  Young gives a good performance and Rettig (Elopement), with his little, expressive face, is just marvelous. Alexander Knox (Son of Dr. Jekyll) plays a doctor who tries to get Davey to speak, and Kathryn Card (I Love Lucy) is cast as a nurse. While this is more of a light drama than a suspense film, it definitely has a lump-in-your-throat finale. Mate also directed the classic D.O.A.

Verdict: Minor but effective enough on its own terms. **1/2.

THE CHOSEN aka RAIN OF FIRE

THE CHOSEN (aka Holocaust 2000 aka Rain of Fire/1977). Director/co-writer: Alberto De Martino.

Released in theaters in 1977, this Italian film has had its name changed more than once, and resurfaced on DVD as Rain of Fire (not to be confused with Reign of Fire, which was about dragons decimating the world of the future). It would seem for all the world like a direct imitation of Damian: Omen 2 -- there's an anti-Christ, sinister deaths and "accidents," and even a doctor cut in half -- were it not for the fact that it came out one year earlier. In any case, The Chosen was clearly influenced by The Omen (1976) and is in some ways a very loose "sequel" to that film. Robert Caine (Kirk Douglas) wants to build a thermonuclear power plant in the mid-east but there's a great deal of opposition to it, including objections from his own wife (Virginia McKenna), who is an early victim of an assassin's blade supposedly meant for Caine. In short order others who oppose the plant are killed off, even as Caine is told that the unborn child he is having with journalist Sara Golan (Agostina Belli) may be the anti-Christ. Then there's Caine's pleasant son, Angel (Simon Ward), who may be anything but. An interesting aspect of the picture is the notion that this plant may be a modern-day embodiment of a seven-headed demon with ten crowns that "will rise from the sea and destroy the world." Adolfo Celi of Thunderball, Alexander Knox [The Sleeping Tiger], and Anthony Quayle [A Study in Terror] are also in the cast. The movie is dull, poorly made and indifferently directed, although the actors, including Douglas (who appears buck naked in a dream sequence to show off what good shape he was in at 61), do the best they can with mediocre and mostly unoriginal material. A gruesome scene involves a politician and the spinning blades of a helicopter, and an unintentionally comical one has a Catholic priest attempting to mastermind an unwilling abortion! The music tries to imitate the score of The Omen without being one tenth as effective.

Verdict: Watch Damian: Omen 2 instead. *1/2.

THE SLEEPING TIGER

Dirk Bogarde and Alexis Smith

THE SLEEPING TIGER (1954) Producer/Director: Victor Hanbury [Joseph Losey].

"A cheap hoodlum -- flipping me away like a cigarette!"

Dr. Clive Esmond (Alexander Knox) is held up at gunpoint by a thug, Frank (Dirk Bogarde), whom he later invites into his home for treatment instead of sending to jail. Knox is an incredible bleeding heart -- he blames all of Bogarde's actions [which might seem tame by today's standards] on his childhood, and can't see what's happening under his nose: an attraction between Frank and Esmond's beautiful wife, Glenda (Alexis Smith), which eventually blossoms into an affair -- and leads to a lot of melodramatic complications. Bogarde is, as usual, quite good, but he seems a little too old and intelligent to be this dysfunctional youth, although if he had played it like a complete lowlife it would have been hard to see Glenda as having romantic feelings for him as well as sexual ones. Knox is fine as the clueless cold fish who can't see this sexy younger guy as a threat to his marriage [there doesn't seem to be any real indication that he himself is attracted to Frank -- aside from his covering up and excusing his criminal actions -- although a modern-day remake might explore this a bit more]. Smith is sexy and not bad as Glenda, although she isn't quite up to the demands of the more challenging sections of the script, although one could argue that this film is not exactly a serious drama and melodramatic emoting was the order of the day. Whatever its flaws -- including an especially pretentious ending and dubious character reversals --  The Sleeping Tiger holds the attention and is entertaining.

Verdict: A good picture that could have been a great one. ***.

THE SIGN OF THE RAM

THE SIGN OF THE RAM (1948). Director: John Sturges.

In Cornwall Leah St. Aubyn (Susan Peters, pictured) became wheelchair-bound after a swimming accident in which she saved her stepchildren but was bashed against some rocks. Now she has a pathological fear of being abandoned, and those feelings are exacerbated by the arrival of a pretty secretary, Sherida (Phyllis Thaxter), whom she's afraid might stimulate the interest of her husband, Mallory (an unlikely Alexander Knox). Eventually Leah resorts to blatant and cruel falsehoods to manipulate the relationships of those around her (though it's a touch disingenuous that she gets blamed for one disturbed character's poisoning of another). Susan Peters, who was actually in a wheelchair after a freak hunting accident -- this was both her come back and her final film -- does her best and has her moments, but her performance is a little too obvious and director Sturges gives her no help at all. Ron Randell (the handsome doctor), Dame May Whitty (a busybody neighbor) and Peggy Ann Garner (one of the stepchildren) are also in the cast. Despite some interesting aspects, and partly because of its dimestore psychology, this is an unconvincing potboiler from start to finish. The tragic story of Peters' real life [dead at thirty-one!] would have made a more engrossing drama to be sure. The title refers to Leah's astrological sign.

Verdict: Watch Queen Bee with Joan Crawford instead. *1/2.