The Last Adventure (1967)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

 The Last Adventure (1967) – R. Enrico

Wim Wenders listed this on Letterboxd as one of his top ten movies of all time.  I had never heard of it so thought I should rectify the situation.  Pairing Lino Ventura and Alain Delon in 1967 certainly raised my hopes of a J-P Melville inspired film but instead this is a breezy (but sometimes jarringly brutal) bromance about a pilot and a mechanic/adventurer who together with a sculpture artist who works with found junk (Joanna Shimkus) seek sunken treasure in the Congo.  Although of normal length, the film seems to fall into three separate parts, each of which might be a film unto themselves.  First, we see how Shimkus becomes the third wheel to Ventura and Delon’s relationship, focused on their attempts to develop and test a fast engine for a plane or racecar.  Second, we’re off to the Congo (after a brief racist interlude not unlike the one in Antonioni’s Eclipse) where the trio meets Serge Reggiani and hunt for the treasure while being hunted by various mercenaries.  Third, we’re back to France with the denouement taking place at Fort Boyard (called “Fortress Island” here and that is exactly what it seems – incredibly scenic and well shot), for a more typical action movie ending. As directed by Robert Enrico (who filmed the wonderful An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, 1961, from Ambrose Bierce, used in the Twilight Zone), the widescreen affair almost seems like a silent film at times – many montages and I guess no words needed to follow the action.  Combined with the “road movie” plot, I guess it is no surprise what Wenders saw in this.  But despite the best efforts of all concerned, the result still feels rather languid to me.

The Shuttered Room (1967)

 ☆ ☆ ☆

The Shuttered Room (1967) – D. Greene

Based on a short story by August Derlath purportedly from notes by H. P. Lovecraft, the film seeks to conjure up a foreboding feeling of dread focused on an unknown (but horrible) creature locked behind a red door. A prelude shows us a toddler threatened by the (unseen) beast whose parents then meet their doom when trying to coax it back to the titular room. After the credits, the toddler has grown up to be 21-year-old Susannah Whatley (Carol Lynley), now travelling back to her remote island birthplace with her husband Mike (Gig Young) after growing up in New York City following the death of her parents. On the island, they meet a bunch of menacing rednecks (led by Oliver Reed, sporting an American accent despite the fact that filming was in the UK). Someone suggested that the film resembles Peckinpah’s Straw Dogs (1971) and I suppose that’s not far wrong, given the threat of rape here, although Gig Young is hardly the right actor to act as though his masculinity is threatened. The film moves inexorably toward the reveal of the creature and ends with tragedy rather than horror. Dated for sure, but creepy at times.

 

The Deadly Affair (1967)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

The Deadly Affair (1967) – S. Lumet

Based on John Le Carré’s first novel, James Mason stars as George Smiley (renamed here Charles Dobbs, for copyright reasons), the Mi6 spy who is more bureaucrat than Bond. Although Alec Guinness later embodied the character in two TV miniseries, Mason is no slouch and more than holds his own, portraying Dobbs/Smiley as at the end of his tether, as his wife, Anne (Harriet Andersson, of Bergman fame), has been cheating on him. What’s more, a man he had just interviewed (who had been dubbed a communist in an anonymous letter) has gone and committed suicide – or has he? Smiley is not so sure and when his boss urges him to close the case, he chooses to resign and pursue the truth outside the political constraints of the agency (with help from retired “just the facts” Inspector Mendel, played well by Harry Andrews, and agent Bill Appleby, played by Kenneth Haigh). Simone Signoret and Maximillian Schell round out the international cast.  Director Sidney Lumet and cinematographer Freddie Young purposefully washed out the colour stock to give the proceedings a suitably grey tone. I thought it held together pretty well (unlike so many spy stories) although I’ll admit that beyond Mason’s Smiley no one gets too much of a chance to develop their characters.

 

Night of the Generals (1967)

☆ ☆ ☆

Night of the Generals (1967) – A. Litvak

Not quite as spectacular as it aims to be, especially with all these stars (O’Toole, Sharif, Pleasance, Courtenay), but this tale of the murder of a prostitute by a high-ranking Nazi general held my attention all the way through.  Director Anatole Litvak (a refugee from earlier golden days) wants to counterpoint the murder of masses that generals oversee with the individual pathology that leads to brutal personal murders (and which might self-justify both) but it doesn’t entirely hold together.  O’Toole is chilly and rather bizarre as one of the suspected generals, Sharif has too little to do but is charismatic doing it, Pleasance brings his character actor skills, but Courtenay more than holds his own with a naturalness that seems a little jarring amidst all this star power.  Philippe Noiret is solid in a bit part as an Interpol investigator who attempts to solve the murder decades later after Sharif has failed to do it (he plays a major in the “internal affairs” branch). Perhaps meant to compete or echo the David Lean epics of the era, Night of the Generals falls a bit short, feeling flatter despite its sweep across settings (Warsaw, Paris, Hamburg) and time. Perhaps it is a nagging sense of unreality, that the war and its grave consequences are being ignored (despite the focus on comparing large and small atrocities), that keeps this from hitting home?  Or perhaps it is all too pat, with a “twist” at the end returning to tie up all of the loose ends that was much too easily spotted? At any rate, it is what it is – a not unpleasant time-waster that wants to be more.

Branded to Kill (1967)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Branded to Kill (1967) – S. Suzuki

Not sure if Seijun Suzuki was on acid or insane when he made this film.  Branded to Kill is less a coherent narrative and more an opportunity for weird and audacious stylistic choices.  Sure, it’s about a hit-man and a bungled job but there is barely enough plot to hold onto here (don’t even try!).  Instead, it’s best to let the cinemascope images wash over you – or arrest you.  There isn’t really a consistent style – pop art is what the critics say – but instead a variety of different choices:  POV shots, shots from above, truly odd angles, experiments with light and darkness, odd patterns laid over the shot, large close ups, distant wide-shots, basically the whole gamut with an emphasis on weird.  Obtuse sex and violence figure prominently.  The problem with all this, even though it can be exhilarating, is that it is just all piled on with no attention to plot or characterization.  It feels…abstract and distancing.  So, in that respect, the film simply falls apart.  Suzuki lost his job because of this one.

La Collectionneuse (1967)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

La Collectionneuse (1967) – E. Rohmer

There is something refreshing about a Rohmer picture, at least the ones I have seen. This is the third of his “Moral Tales” from the late ‘60s/early’70s that I’ve watched, along with My Night at Maud’s and Claire’s Knee.  As others have written, this earlier film shows Rohmer finding his way.  The characters engage in leisurely action and somewhat unproductive self-reflection.  They also ponder about sex and relationships and about why or why not they are having them.  In this case, our idle protagonist in his late 20s, Adrien (Patrick Bauchau), offers occasional narration about why he becomes absorbed with Haydée, a younger girl sharing an absent friend’s ocean-side villa with him (and another more nihilistic nonconformist, Daniel). They dub her the Collectionneuse, since she seems to be sleeping with different boys each night – but she says she is just searching.  Adrien himself seems rather lost, since he has a girlfriend away in London, so he shouldn’t really be playing (mental) games with Haydée – and perhaps he is wrong about her anyway.  So, the film is refreshing if you are surprised to see the talk talk talk (and corresponding sexual tension) of aimless young people in a beautifully shot European locale.

Privilege (1967)

☆ ☆ ☆

Privilege (1967) – P. Watkins

Peter Watkins melds his faux documentary style (featured in The War Game, 1965, which shows Britain after a nuclear attack) with a more traditional narrative approach in this “near future” look at manipulation of the masses. Presciently, it is a pop star who is used, first, to encourage youth to release their violent impulses through music appreciation rather than protest, and secondly, to get them to embrace nationalism and religion – that is, a group of business leaders see the pop star as a way to set up a fascist government (coalition of tory and labor parties, as a matter of fact).  Only artist Jean Shrimpton sees through everything and convinces the wan Paul Jones (from Manfred Mann) to rebel against his minders.  A lot of good provocative ideas here but things drag a bit. I wondered too whether such centralized manipulation is even possible in this new age of social media and a thousand independent voices (but, yeah, they could just shut down the internet and be done with it, I guess).

Billion Dollar Brain (1967)

☆ ☆ ½

Billion Dollar Brain (1967) – K Russell

Michael Caine’s third go-round as British spy Harry Palmer, directed by Ken Russell no less, is pretty much a dud and ended the series.  Caine has turned Palmer into almost a non-entity – the cogs turn inside his head but there is no outward sign of this.  He gets the job done.  This time he is in Finland trying to figure out what Karl Malden is up to (assisted by or thwarted by Francoise Dorleac).  It turns out that Malden is working for crazy Ed Begley, a fervent Texan anti-communist, painted in broad strokes, who wants to destroy the USSR by provoking a Latvian uprising.  Possibly Ken Russell’s hand is seen in some of the over-the-top montages but otherwise he is relatively restrained.  I struggled to pay attention.