VICTIM

"Are you sure you weren't feeling too fond of him?"

VICTIM (1961). Director: Basil Dearden.

"I'm not a life bell for you to cling to." -- Laura.

A young man named Jack (Peter McEnery of Tales That Witness Madness) is wanted by the police for embezzlement, but won't tell them what he needed the money for. Jack refuses to admit that he is being blackmailed for being homosexual -- which was still a criminal offense in those days. Although he has tried to get in touch with a friend, the well-known lawyer Melville Farr (Dirk Bogarde), Farr -- who is married to Laura (Sylvia Sims) -- refuses to talk to him. Laura learns of Jack's suicide and confronts her husband about him. Apparently she knew about a gay fling he had in the past and had hoped that he could change. Melville admits that he had sexual feelings for Jack but rejected him before anything could happen. He knows this may destroy his career and even his life, but decides to go after the blackmailers who, in essence, murdered Jack and are destroying others ... Victim was ahead of its time, and it remains a powerful and completely absorbing movie, with excellent performances from the entire cast. It is by no means a perfect movie, however, and one could not expect it to have nothing but 21st century attitudes when the film was made over fifty years ago. Still it's surprising how much sophisticated stuff managed to get into the picture. When Sgt. Bridie (John Cairney) suggests that Farr can't be homosexual because he has a wife, his superior, the more sympathetic Inspector Harris (John Barrie), immediately says "Famous last words." The notion is put forth more than once that homosexuals can't be converted, as well as the idea that there is nothing wrong in homosexuality and the laws against it are unfair and antiquated.

However, I do have a problem with the ending. The implication is that Melville and Laura may ultimately stay together, which seems unrealistic, although others have seen the ending more as an acknowledgment of deep friendship -- and Melville will certainly need friends when the blackmail trial is over, along with his career and future. More problematic is the way Melville burns the photograph of himself and Jack in the fireplace. This was used as blackmail evidence, but it can't be used to harm either himself or Jack anymore, and it seems cold that Melville would burn what is probably the only photo of a man who loved him enough to sacrifice himself to save him. True, one can't expect Melville to walk off into the sunset arm and arm with another man (which Dirk Bogarde did in real life) -- this was 1961 after all and it's lucky the film was even made -- but some more self-acceptance on Melville's part would have been welcome. The ending was possibly meant to suggest that Melville would go on suppressing his "unfortunate urges" and retain a semblance of a marriage, supposedly "triumphing" over his homosexuality like one of those delusional "ex-gays" -- a notion that undercuts the more positive statements of the picture.

Dirk Bogarde

In fact, one might wonder why this "self-hating homo" would destroy his career and marriage when he doesn't exactly have an activist's bent. Why not just forget it, breath a sigh of relief and move on? It makes his burning of the photo even more senseless. Victim may be trying to show how a glib, dishonest man can summon up inner strength and resolve -- indeed that's surely what the film is suggesting -- but the ending needed to be much stronger. It is also unfortunate that it is the married closet case who takes on the blackmailers, when all the other gay men -- who seem far more accepting of themselves -- all just want to pay them off. (This is completely unfair to the many activists who existed on both sides of the Atlantic even during the sixties.) I also wish more had been made of the confrontation between Melville and the bookseller Harold Doe (Norman Bird), who was previously involved with Jack and blames Melville for his death. Melville's reaction is rather cold, but one could argue that there's a coldness, or at least a coolness, not only to Melville but to the whole movie.

Bogarde was an understandably closeted gay man in real life, and it was brave of him to take on this role, which could have destroyed his own career. As he later noted, it did serve to get him away from the superficial "pretty boy" roles and led to much meatier parts, for which he was grateful. As for his performance in Victim, it's good, but not as great as in other films, perhaps because he was confused as exactly how to play the part, and because of the improbability of his character doing what he does in the first place. Sylvia Sims is first-rate as his loving but disillusioned and heartbroken wife, and there are notable turns from McEnery as Jack; Charles Lloyd Pack [The 3 Worlds of Gulliver] as the tragic barber, Henry; Dennis Price [Dear Murderer] as the actor Calloway; Donald Churchill as Jack's friend, Eddy Stone; Margaret Diamond as the hateful Miss Benham; and others previously mentioned or not. An interesting aspect of the picture is that Victim unfolds as a thriller or suspense film, with much information -- such as the reasons for the blackmail -- being withheld from the audience for quite some time.

Verdict: Whatever its flaws -- and that ending! -- Victim is a memorable film and a landmark in gay cinema. ***.

TEN LITTLE INDIANS (1965)

Hugh O'Brian and Shirley Eaton

TEN LITTLE INDIANS (1965). Director: George Pollock. 

Ten people, including two servants, are given invitations to work or play at an isolated estate located high atop a mountain and accessible only by cable car. They discover the strange nursery rhyme about "ten little Indians" in each of their rooms The mysterious voice (Christopher Lee) of their unseen host declares that they have each gotten away with killing someone, and now it is time to pay the piper. The first to go is singer Mike Raven (Fabian), who ran over two people and barely got a slap on the wrist -- he dies by arsenic -- and then more murders occur, somehow each corresponding to the method of death mentioned in the rhyme. Will anyone be left alive? 

Leon Genn and most of the group

George Pollock had previously directed four Agatha Christie "Miss Marple" adaptations, and he does a good job adapting her "And Then There Were None/Ten Little Indians" to the screen. While I might have preferred a little more tension, this is not quite as "cutesy" -- for lack of a better word -- as the forties film And Then There Were None. Hugh O'Brian pretty much smirks his way through the movie, as if he were above it all (which he isn't), but his performance is adequate, although the other cast members are more on target. Stanley Holloway, Shirley Eaton, Dennis Price, Leo Genn, and Mario Adorf (as the houseman) deliver adept performances, while Fabian gets an "A" for effort and Wilfrid Hyde White seems to think he's back in that forties adaptation and can best be described as annoyingly impish. Surprisingly Daliah Lavi has a very good turn as the high-maintenance actress Ilona Bergen, and comes through in her scene when she admits all about her past. As the cook and housekeeper Marianne Hoppe is, perhaps, a bit too hysterical. 

Dennis Price and Wilfrid Hyde White

This version transplants the story from an island to a mountaintop and two of the murders center on falls from great heights, one in a cable car whose cable snaps, and the other while a character attempts a climb down the mountain to get help; these are well-handled, and the film has genuine suspense. O'Brian and Eaton are given a love scene that seems a bit out of place. Malcolm Lockyer's jazzy score does little for the picture, but the lensing is sharp thanks to cinematographer Ernest Stewart. This was George Pollock's last theatrical feature. 

Verdict: Very entertaining Christie picture with some fine performances. ***, 

DEAR MURDERER

DEAR MURDERER (1947). Director: Arthur Crabtree.

Lee Warren (Eric Portman of Daybreak) discovers that his wife, Vivian (Greta Gynt of The Hooded Terror), has taken a lover, Richard (Dennis Price of She Played with Fire) while he is away for months on business. Warren concocts a clever scheme to do away with his love rival, but there are numerous complications, including the fact that apparently Vivien had already moved on from Richard to new boyfriend, Jimmy (Maxwell Reed, who also appeared with Portman in Daybreak). With one lover dead and another accused of murder, what is Vivien to do? Meanwhile Lee plays cat and mouse with police Inspector Penbury (Jack Warner). Dear Murderer is based on a play, but it is neither stage-bound nor opened up too unrealistically, and the movie has real suspense. The acting is excellent from all, although one can't help but wonder what the picture might have been like had Vivien been played by a perhaps more interesting actress such as Bette Davis or Linda Darnell. Hazel Court is cast as the murdered Richard's sister, Avis, and she is fine. There is a strange moment when Lee is about to confront his wife in the bedroom not long after he returns from his business trip, but the movie cuts away to the next scene at the crucial spot. The picture has a nice score by Ben Frankel and a very satisfying wind-up.

Verdict: Some pleasant company spent with a murderer. ***.

THEATER OF BLOOD

Diana Rigg and Vincent Price

THEATER OF BLOOD (1973). Director: Douglas Hickox.

"A mumbling, incoherent boy who can barely grunt his way through a speech" -- Edward Lionheart.

"It's Lionheart all right. Only he wold have the temerity to rewrite Shakespeare." -- Devlin.

Actor Edward Lionheart (Vincent Price) supposedly committed suicide after losing the coveted Critics' Circle Award, but it turns out that he is still alive and killing off those same critics -- with the help of his daughter, Edwina (Diana Rigg) -- in ways related to Shakespeare's plays. Theater of Blood followed Price's Abominable Dr. Phibes and Dr. Phibes Rises Again and is similarly gruesome and playful -- not to mention revenge-motivated --  although perhaps not as much fun as the other pictures. Price is terrific as Lionheart, ably supported by Diana Rigg as his daughter. even if she isn't given much of a character to play. There are more than its share of over-the-top moments in this: a grotesque beheading sequence (from Cymberline) is an example of the blackest of black comedy; and the death of flamboyantly gay Meredith Merridew (Robert Morley), forced to devour his own "babies" (actually, beloved poodles) until he chokes on dog meat, as in Titus Andronicus, is unbelievably sadistic (not to mention rather homophobic). Speaking of gay stereotypes, the closeted Price has fun playing a campy hairdresser named "Butch" who fatally spit- curls critic Chloe Moon, played by Price's then-wife Coral Browne [The Legend of Lylah Clare], in a salon. Ian Hendry, Jack Hawkins [Land of the Pharaohs], Arthur Lowe, Michael Hordern, Robert Coote and Dennis Price [Your Past Is Showing] are all notable as assorted victims, as is Milo O'Shea as the baffled police inspector on the case, and Joan Hickson as the wife who wakes up with a headless corpse in her bed. One has to wonder: was Lionheart really as mediocre an actor as everyone says, or were the critics out to get him for one reason or another?

Verdict: One of the most diabolical and gruesome of revenge thrillers with many darkly amusing moments. *** out of 4.

WATCH IT, SAILOR!

WATCH IT, SAILOR! (1961). Director: Wolf Rilla.

A sailor named Albert (John Meillon) is late for his own wedding, but a bigger problem occurs when he gets a message from the Navy saying he can't marry for certain legal reasons. Everyone jumps to conclusions and thinks there's another woman out there with a claim of some kind. Although Dennis Price is top-billed -- he plays the Lt. Commander who follows up the message with a visit -- the real star is Marjorie Rhodes, who plays Emma Hornet (and well-named she is), the take charge and take no prisoners mother of the bride-to-be. Cyril Smith and Irene Handl are also excellent as Emma's husband and sweet if vague sister-in-law, Edie. Liz Fraser and Graham Stark are fine as a neighbor and Albert's Navy buddy. Watch It, Sailor is an amusing, good-natured romp with wonderful comic actors bringing it all to vivid life.

Verdict: Watch It Indeed! ***.

SHE PLAYED WITH FIRE aka FORTUNE IS A WOMAN

SHE PLAYED WITH FIRE (1957). Aka Fortune is a Woman. Director: Sidney Gilliat. 

Oliver Branwell (Jack Hawkins) is an insurance investigator called out to look into a fire at the estate of Tracey Moreton (Dennis Price). Moreton's wife, Sarah (Arlene Dahl) turns out to be a woman with whom Branwell once had a very close relationship. It wouldn't be fair to reveal the twists of this suspenseful crime thriller, but it's safe to say that Branwell is soon up to his neck in arson, suspicion, and murder. Is Sarah the innocent, loving woman that she seems, or is she something else? Bolstered by good performances from the leads and supporting cast, as well as good pacing and an evocative score by William Alwyn, She Played with Fire is a solid mystery that pulls you in right from the arresting opening. Christopher Lee has a small role in the film as an actor, and Ian Hunter has a larger role as one of Branwell's colleagues. 

Verdict: Worth a look. ***.