In early July of 1952, a 65-year old Boris Karloff returned
to England for a four-month long stay.He and his wife, Evelyn “Evie” Hope, had arrived from America via
transatlantic liner.The ship would dock
at the quay in Plymouth, some two-hundred and forty miles south of London.The actor, who by his own calculation had
been away from England for some sixteen years, was met at the port by a
journalist from London’s Daily Mirror.Karloff would describe his touching down again
in his native homeland, as the “Return of the Ghost.”
The Mirror writer
made immediate comment on the unusual “grey, military moustache” Karloff was
sporting.“This is for some TV pictures
I hope to make for the American market while I’m in England,” the actor
explained.“I expect to play the role of
Colonel March, special investigator.”When asked if his role was the usual “sinister” one” for which he was
accustomed, Karloff shrugged.“Oh,
no.I shall be tackling many odd
assignments in a rather light-hearted manner.In fact, the role might be a little too benign.”
American author John Dickson Carr (as “Carter Dickson”)
was the creator of the irascible, but brilliant investigating Scotland Yard detective
Colonel March.Dickson’s character first
appeared in a series of short stories published by London’s Strand magazine 1938-1940.Dickson would pen nine Colonel March
mysteries in total, seven of them collected and published as The Department of Queer Complaints (Dell
Books, New York, 1940).The book’s odd
title is a reference to department “D.3.,” a branch of Scotland Yard’s
metropolitan police for which March works.
March is, for the most part, the only investigator of
“The Department of Queer Complaints.”He’s
assigned to those quirky cases appearing unsolvable: “locked room” mysteries
that have baffled the investigations of the mainstream detectives.While many of the mysteries he’s called to
solve appear occult or supernatural in appearance, March proves these enigmatic
challenges to be nothing more than smokescreens for more routine crimes.Having now sat through the better part of
this television series, I find the guilty parties can be readily identified
easily and early.The real mystery lies
in how the cerebrally deductive Colonel March manages to puzzle his way through
the criminal fog to bring the guilty to justice.
The rights to Dickson’s The Department of Queer Complaints were optioned by Hannah
Weinstein.Weinstein, an American
publicist and former journalist for the New
York Herald Tribune, was also a long-time left-wing activist.Choosing to leave behind the chilling
political climate of encroaching McCarthyism, Weinstein fled the U.S. for Paris
in 1950.Interested in getting involved
in the film industry, Weinstein would form Panda Films.It was in partnership with England’s Fountain
Films that the original trio of pilot episodes of Colonel March of the Scotland Yard were filmed at Nettleford
Studios, Walton-on-Thames, England.But Weinstein’s
ultimate intent was to launch Colonel
March as a television property in America.
It’s of interest that prior to Colonel March of the Scotland Yard playing on U.S. television, a
feature-length film, Colonel March
Investigates, would play theatrically in second run cinemas of the United
Kingdom from June through December 1953.In May of ’53 Variety reported
that Panda had “packaged two trios of half-hour pix into features for
theatrical release” - with the caveat the films could not play in the U.S. die
to a “telepix” deal already struck with Official Films in the U.S.In any event, only the Colonel March Investigates feature was released in Great Britain through
Criterion Films.More often than not, the
film was paired in cinemas with the aged Bob Hope horror-comedy The Cat and the Canary (Paramount,
1939).Perhaps of more import was the
fact that directorship of Colonel March
Investigates was credited to another American expatriate Cyril (“Cy”) Endfield.Blacklisted from the United States film
industry due to his own dabbles with leftist politics, Endfield moved to London
in 1952 to seek employment opportunities overseas.
This feature-length version of Colonel March Investigates, described contemporaneously by a
British critic as “a hotch-potch film,” was, in fact, just that: a stringing
together of Endfield’s three pilots (“Hot Money,” “Death in the Dressing Room”
and “The New Invisible Man”) portmanteau style.Endfield’s biographer, Brian Neve, suggests in his The Many Lives of Cyril Endfield: Film Noir, the Blacklist and Zulu,
that once the series was broadcast in the U.S., many of the on-screen credits
of the Colonel March television
series were tweaked.Neve suggests that
many of the scripts - credited to “Leslie Slote” or “Leo Davis” - were likely “front”
credits.In this estimation, Neve was entirely
correct.
The earliest original scenarios of Colonel March were written primarily by American writers living in
Europe due to the McCarthyism at home: the screenwriter Harold Buchman possibly composed scripts, with the writing
team of Walter Bernstein and Abraham Polonsky most definitely contributing.The latter two would use the nom de plume of “Leo Davis” (on Colonel March Investigates) and of “Leslie
Slote” on the subsequent television series.
In Bernstein’s recollection, it was Weinstein who asked
for his assistance in helpfully filling-out Dickson’s “thin” mystery stories.This would have been in April 1952.“She wanted to use blacklisted people to work
on it,” Bernstein confided in his memoir Inside
Out, “so Polonsky and I took on Colonel
March.”Bernstein recalled his
decision to collaborate with Polonsky as an entirely practical choice, “since
writing dramatic puzzles seemed easier for two than one.”
I’ve not read any of Carter Dickson’s original mysteries,
so I can’t determine if Bernstein and Polonsky significantly changed the tone
of the original stories, nor can I judge the subsequent adaptations better or
worse.I can say that the criminals introduced in the Colonel March TV series are rarely street-level thugs.There are a few toughs sprinkled here and
there, but mostly they’re engaged as pawns in the employ of gentile
professionals, respectable people who command power and prestige.Most of the crime-scenes in the series take
place in high society settings: swanky cabarets, university libraries, art
galleries, fashion shows, solicitor offices, private clubs and manor houses.Crimes of the suite, not of the street.
Weinstein’s employ of blacklisted writers and filmmakers would
in time, of course, prove problematic when attempting to sell the series to
U.S. distributors.When the original
three pilot episodes of Colonel March
Investigates were telecast in the U.S., Endfield’s credits are conveniently
scrubbed, replaced with the name of Donald Ginsberg: Ginsberg now attributed as
both producer and director.Of the Colonel’s twenty-six episodes,
eighteen are credited to British directors Bernard Knowles and Arthur Crabtree;
three to “Donald Ginsberg” (Endfield), three to Philip Brown (another
blacklisted American actor recently re-settled in England), one to Paul Dickson
(as “Paul Gherzo”) and even one to Terence Fisher, soon a celebrant of Hammer
Films mythology.
It’s unlikely that Karloff was unaware he was working alongside
a company of “radicals.”These were American
citizens holding distinguished resumes now tainted due to their associations
with WWII-era anti-fascist work.Karloff
was a mild political progressive in comparison.But he was also the biggest star among the original twenty-one actors who
incorporated the Screen Actors Guild in June of 1933.In the study Tender Comrades, contributing writer Glenn Lovell offered that
Karloff too, as a “very early SAG activist,” was considered suspicious for his
union-organizing work.The actor would
choose “to park blocks away from Guild meetings to avoid surveillance.” But
Karloff was simply a man of fair play and conscience.A former National Executive Secretary of the
Guild explained to Karloff biographer Cynthia Lindsay, “Boris was a
philosophical anarchist.Simply couldn’t
tolerate injustice.”
In August of 1953, Official Films of W. 45th
Street, New York City, staged a special screening of pilot episodes of the Colonel March series to prospective
regional U.S. television buyers.A
writer from Billboard attended,
perhaps puzzled of any distributor interest in the series.Detective and mystery programs were already
glutting the schedules and evening time-slots of network television.But the reporter was impressed with Colonel March, acknowledging the program
brimmed with “possibilities.” That same month, Official signed syndication deals
with some twenty eastern U.S. television markets.
The reporter mused that producers were bravely trying
something different, “striving after an off-beat quality that will set the show
apart from the many other mystery shows already on TV.”Though Billboard
thought the scripting was not up to scratch,” Karloff’s sparkling performance
as Colonel March managed to rise above the otherwise mediocre scenarios.The chief inspector of the “Department of
Queer Complaints” was, in the estimation of the trade, the “closest thing to
Sherlock Holmes to be found in a regular series.”
Seeing there was U.S. television interest in the series,
Panda farmed the production of all remaining episodes to Foundation Films.The company was tasked to hastily deliver all
remaining episodes by May of 1954.Shooting of the series was set to re-commence on October 26, 1953.The monochrome series was a low-budget affair
to be sure, but the episodes were generally well-written and performed.
By November of 1953, the producers already managed to
collect some $75,000 into their coffers for television syndication rights
privileges.Sales of Colonel March of the Scotland Yard were handily
outpacing Official’s other television package offerings as the Robert Cumming’s
comedy My Hero and a television
version of the comic-strip adventure Terry
and the Pirates.Currently in the
works for Official were the adventure series Secret Files with Robert Alda and Arthur Dreyfus and Captain Gallant of the Foreign Legion
featuring Buster Crabbe. But Colonel March had become, for a brief time
anyway, the company’s standard bearer, a “fascinating, brand new half-hour film
series of scientific crime fiction.”
The series was different
from its counterparts.Karloff would muse
he was “pleased” with “the absence of brutality in the stories.”These were thinking-man mysteries, cases
solved through erudite deduction rather than fisticuffs. The promotional
material of Official Films would highlight how March’s method of crime solving
differed from that of the average gumshoe: “This
witty gentleman is equally at home with Shakespeare and shakedowns, Heifitz and
heisting.Don’t let his charm deceive
you.Though he carries no gun, throws no
punches, and kisses no blondes – he packs a wallop with his brain!”
By early December of ’53, Variety would report some forty U.S. television markets had already
pre-purchased the full package of twenty-six episodes – the majority of which still
had not yet been produced.These
included markets in eleven western states, Hawaii, and Alaska.Variety
opined that the Colonel March
“series shapes as a good buy for beer and drug sponsors.” There was an
acknowledgment this was adult entertainment, the program’s atmospheric
mysteries – demonstrating “socko video potential” – were likely “best fitted
for a late night slot.”
At least one suds manufacturer took their advice.Two weeks following Variety’s suggestion, the entire twenty-six episode series was sold
for sponsorship by Chicago’s Atlantic Brewing Company, the series’ biggest
urban market by far.The brewer was planning
on going all-in with their investment, desiring to “shoot integrated
commercials for Atlantic with Karloff starring.”The Colonel
March series was eventually broadly syndicated in sixty U.S. markets.
Though public and market interest for Colonel March of Scotland Yard would
gradually diminish following those earliest broadcasts in January of 1954, you
could still find the series playing somewhere
in America as late as 1959.The series
would vanish almost completely from TV screens by 1960.Their disappearance was, perhaps not
accidental: Karloff’s anthology series Thriller
would make its television debut on NBC-TV in September of 1960.
This is the first time to my knowledge that the entire
twenty-six episode of Colonel March of
Scotland Yard has been made available on home video in the U.S.Alpha Video previously published a total of
eight episodes of the series in two DVD sets as early as 2014.Other labels would include an episode or two
on their various Detective or Mystery budget sets of public domain material.The series might be of some tangential
interest to collectors due to some of the on-screen cameos and roles of folks
on the cusp of achieving greater fame: Christopher Lee, Peter Asher (of the
British pop-duo “Peter and Gordon”), composer Anthony Newley, John Schlesinger,
and Zena Marshall (“Miss Taro” of the Bond film Dr. No).
One might question Film Chest’s decision to put out the
set on DVD instead of Blu ray in 2024 as a curious one.The monochrome episodes look pretty good, all
things considered, but the visual images are noticeably soft and would have certainly
benefited from a loving high-def. treatment.Having said that, the set is eminently watchable, if not perfect… well,
to my aging eyes at least. But obsessed techie-collectors will not likely greet
this release with neither fanfare nor acclaim.For those of us more forgiving, it’s nice to have the series, at long
last, complete.
Finally, a word of caution: though this set includes an
eight-page booklet-episode guide, be wary of believing all that you read within.The booklet purportedly gives episode broadcast
dates, but they are all well off the mark,
at least as far as U.S. television debuts are concerned.Episode One is given a booklet broadcast date
as October 1, 1955, but in reality the first episode of Colonel March of Scotland Yard was broadcast in the U.S. as early
as January 27, 1954 on Pittsburgh’s WDTV. (In fairness, it could be that the dates given
by Film Chest (a U.S. company based in Connecticut) have been sourced from the
series’ belated 1955 appearance on Britain’s ITV television). A minor criticism, perhaps, but it’s the sort
of erroneous information that’s assumed as gospel and repeated ad infinitum on
internet sites.
The Film Chest Media Group, founded in 2000 or
thereabouts, promises their engagement “in
the acquisition, preservation, development, and distribution of film and
television media. With an extensive archive and a state-of-the-art facility, we
offer many essential services to the media and entertainment industry,
including climate-controlled film storage, film scanning and restoration,
content management and distribution, and so much more.”The company’s film library purportedly boasts
“thousands of titles” which is said to include films in the public domain as
well as “proprietary asset” titles.
The Film Chest catalog is diverse in its offerings:mostly DVD collections so far, but with a few
Blu-ray titles mixed in as well: in the latter category you’ll find such
pictures as The Red House (1947, with
Edward G. Robinson) and Suddenly (1954,
with Frank Sinatra).A good portion of
their releases are complete series collections of mostly forgotten (or dimly
recalled) television programs circa 1957-1961:Colonel March of the Scotland Yard,
of course, but also Decoy (1957), The Invisible Man (1958-1960), Deadline (1959-1961) and One Step Beyond (1959-1961).
Releases of more recent television series from Film Chest
runs the gamut from Stacy Keach’s Mike
Hammer series (1997-1998) to The Lost
World (1999-2002) and even to ABC-TV’s Lancelot
Link, Secret Chimp (1970).Film
Chest also offers generous DVD collections of public domain issues of Hollywood
musicals, film noirs, and detective mysteries.It’s well worth a look through their catalog offerings.
It’s encouraging that, in this era of streaming, such
niche interest films and aged television series are being made available for
collectors of physical media.It must be
said that Film Chest’s releases are also very
economically priced for the amount of content offered in their multi-disc
television sets.Fans of Boris Karloff
and 1950’s television mystery and detective series now have, for the first
time, the opportunity to pick up the entire series of Colonel March of Scotland Yard in one swoop.I know I’m certainly happy to showcase my
copy of the Colonel March set alongside such other Karloff television
collections as The Veil (1958) and Thriller (1960-1962).Recommended.
In 1971, a well-connected Dutch prostitute named Xavier Hollander
published her memoirs under the title of "The Happy Hooker". The book
became an international bestseller with its lighthearted recollections
of her adventures in "the world's oldest profession". "The Happy Hooker"
delighted readers who were relishing the new-found sexual freedoms that
came about in the 1960s. Women, who would have been chastised for
reading such a book ten years earlier, could openly read it on buses and
in subway cars because everyone else was reading it. The content
was erotic enough to be titillating but humorous enough to give it
enough cachet to not be labeled pornographic. How much of it was true?
Who knows. bestselling author Robin Moore ("The Green Berets", "The
French Connection"), who actually took down Hollander's recorded
comments on her life, came up with the title and the book was likely
ghostwritten by Yvonne Dunleavy. With the success of the book, it was no
surprise that a few years later Hollywood brought Hollander's exploits
to the screen the film version of "The Happy Hooker". Released in 1975,
it starred Lynn Redgrave in the title role. Not wanting to alienate
mainstream audiences, the film was made as a saucy comedy. It was
followed two years later by "The Happy Hooker Goes to Washington" with
Joey Heatherton portraying Hollander. The third and final film in the
official trilogy (we won't count an unauthorized hardcore production)
was "The Happy Hooker Goes Hollywood", which was released in 1980 with
Martine Beswick (billed here as "Beswicke") taking over the role.
"The Happy Hooker Goes Hollywood" follows the tradition of the
previous two films in that it stresses zany comedy. However, there are
some surprisingly steamy softcore sex scenes between some very
recognizable actors that makes for a bizarre mixture of slapstick and
eroticism. It also features an eclectic cast of first-rate second
bananas who finally get some plum roles on the big screen, albeit in a
Cannon Films production. Cannon, of course, was notorious for being a
highly profitable "cheese factory", churning out many modestly-budgeted
exploitation flicks for undiscriminating audiences. The film opens with a
wheelchair-bound Phil Silvers (yes, that Phil Silvers!) as
legendary studio mogul William Warkoff, an obnoxious one-time titan of
the industry whose fortunes have been in decline. When he reads that
Xavier Hollander intends to bring her bestselling book to the big
screen, he dispatches his long-suffering right-hand men Joseph Rottman
(Richard Deacon)and his son Robby (Chris Lemmon) as well as Lionel
Lamely (Adam West), to secure the screen rights by whatever underhanded
methods are necessary. Lionel arranges a meeting with Xavier, who is
immediately attracted to him. (In fact, she finds most men irresistible
and even seduces her chauffeur en route to the meeting.) Before long,
Lionel and Xavier are engaging in steamy sex sessions. She falls for him
and agrees to allow Warkoff Studios to produce her film- that is, until
she learns that Lionel actually has a longtime girlfriend and has been
misleading her. She then announces she will make the film herself and
secure her own financing, which outrages Warkoff. In order to raise
money, Xavier employs her ever-ready squad of equally happy hookers. She
sets up an exotic bordello in which men can live out any fantasy,
including having sex with a call girl dressed like Little Bo Peep.
(Imagine "Westworld" for fetishists.) Warkoff strikes a more lucrative
deal with Xavier but intends to deceive her and cheat her out of
ownership rights to the film but she is savvy enough to turn the tables
on him.
Directed by Alan Roberts, "Hollywood" has a goofy charm primarily
because of the good-natured performances of the cast. It's nice to see
Martine Beswick in a rare leading role and she plays the part with a
deft combination of wicked wit and eroticism. (Beswick unabashedly
appears topless numerous times in the course of the film). Adam West,
who looks like he had barely aged a day since playing Batman two decades
previously, also gets a chance to showcase his comedic abilities and
admirable physique. The sex scene between Beswick and West's characters
is a bit eye-opening because it's one of the few elements of the film
that isn't played for laughs and there is some kind of pop culture
appeal to watching the Uncaped Crusader getting it on with a two-time
Bond girl. (Beswick would later recall that West felt very uncomfortable when he discovered how erotic the scene would be.)Phil Silvers overdoes the obnoxious aspect of his character
but it's still enjoyable seeing him in a feature film this late in his
career. Richard Deacon, who made a career of playing sycophantic
"yes-men", is in top form and he and West share an amusing scene in
which they are forced to dress in drag. Chris Lemmon is very appealing
as a naive young man who gets caught up in Xavier's world with
appreciable results. He exudes the same comic timing and mannerisms of
his legendary father, Jack. One of the most unintentionally amusing
aspects of the film is the virtual beatification of Xavier Hollander,
whose approval of the movie must have been a prerequisite. In any event,
she is referred to as a titan of business and a living legend, when, in
fact, by 1980 her star had diminished appreciably. The whole plot
climaxes (if you'll pardon the pun) at the "World Premiere" of the
film...which is also unintentionally amusing because it is only a grand
event by Cannon standards, though they did spring for getting a
spotlight and a few dozen extras to act like a screaming mob as the
stars arrive at a nondescript L.A. theater.
"The Happy Hooker Goes Hollywood" is symbolic of a long Hollywood
tradition of glamorizing prostitution. Xavier and her
stable of call girls are all seen as successful, independent
businesswomen who have turned their love of sex into a profit-making
operation. There's nary a hint that most women who practice the
"profession" are actually forced to do so through human trafficking,
exploitation, torture and threat of death. Instead, films like this
prefer to concentrate on the relatively small percentage of women who do
willingly and successfully work as prostitutes. In this respect, the
movie has to be viewed as a product of the era in which it was made.
Because of it's sheer unpretentious exploitation aspects, it can be
enjoyed as a guilty pleasure.
In early November of 1969 Box Office reported Robert M. Weitman, former first vice-president of
studio productions for Columbia Pictures, was striking out on his own.In a sense, anyway.Weitman was to embark on his new career as “independent”
producer, albeit one still tethered to Columbia, the company for which we worked
for some four decades.For his first indie
project, Weitman was interested in optioning novelist Lawrence Sanders’ crime-suspense
thriller The Anderson Tapes.
Interestingly, Sanders’ The Anderson Tapes, though already hyped, was not yet formally published.Putnam & Sons of New York set publication
for 27 February 1970.But with the
forthcoming thriller already in industry preview, the all-important
Book-of-the-Month-Club already selected Sander’s debut novel as an exciting, primary
read.Dell Books too were excited over
the book’s prospects, reportedly offering a figure of six-figures for paperback
rights.On the film industry front, Box Office reported there had been
“intensive bidding” for motion-picture rights to the novel, with Weitman’s
offer managing to nudge out those of “several other major producers.”
It certainly didn’t hurt that best-selling author Mario
Puzo, basking in the success of his mafia novel The Godfather, would bless Sanders’ novel with a generous
plug.Puzo mused The Anderson Tapes was, “the best
novel of its kind I’ve read since the early Graham Greene novels, a gripping
story impossible to put down.The
central character, Duke Anderson, is a classic character of tragic
dimensions.Brilliant and
unforgettable.”By April of 1970,
the rave reviews of critics and literary peers would help push The Anderson Tapes to rest comfortably
alongside The Godfather on Top Ten
book lists for Fictional Works.The timing
and stage was set for Weitman’s film version.The only question now was whom would be cast to effectively breathe life
into the central character of Duke Anderson?
Following his completion of work on You Only Live Twice in 1967, Sean Connery – in his earnest (perhaps
desperate) desire to break free of the typecast shackles of his James Bond
image – chose to seek out a number of eccentric roles in modest continental productions.He was cast as a post-Civil War cavalry
officer in the Edward Dmytryk’s western Shalako
(1968), as a doomed Norwegian polar ice cap explorer (Mikhail Kalatozov’s The Red Tent, 1969) and as a radical
coal miner in Martin Ritt’s The Molly
Maguires (1970).
These were all very good films, without doubt.But none would affirm Connery’s status as a
box-office magnet outside of his James Bond persona.Though he remained a celebrity of acclaim and
international renown, Connery was acutely aware he needed a post-Bond movie to
score big with the public-at-large.Much
of his audience still mostly thought of him as the one-and-only James Bond.It was a time of transition.Connery was also in the midst of his transformation
from actor to canny businessman.He was aware
that to make any real money in the entertainment
industry he needed to extend his business interests into producing and optioning
rights to various creative properties.
With that intent in mind in the mid-summer of 1970
Connery and his publicist-management representative, Glenn Rose, announced the
formation of Conn-Rose Productions. Their partnership was to shepherd and
safeguard the business ends of such varied enterprises as feature film
productions, television packages and theatrical events.The company had recently entered into the music
business as well, choosing to publish several compositions by Richard Harris, Connery’s
recent co-star of The Molly Maguires.Conn-Rose were also planning Harris to direct
and assume the title role of Hamlet
in a new staging of Shakespeare’s tragic play.Connery was hinting he might assume the role of Claudius, murderer of Hamlet’s
father.But Connery’s revived interest
in theatre was not confined to time-worn classics.
One of Conn-Rose’s first acquisitions was the stage
production of Click by playwright
Stan Hart.Hart’s one-act play was first
staged in October 1968 at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles, one of several
“experimental” theatre projects offered that autumn.Connery was intrigued by the original scenario
and hoped to develop the property as a feature film.Connery explained his excitement to a
correspondent of the San Francisco Examiner,
“This story Click reads like it was
written by Neil Simon and Edward Albee in collaboration.”
“It’s about a successful man so worried about his image
he has even his friends ‘bugged’ and taped to find out what they really think
of him,” Connery continued..“He ruins
his marriage, wrecks his world.This
fellow is ridiculous and sad at the same time.I can hardly wait to get at him…”In September of 1970, Connery promised to another journalist that Click was next on his schedule.Click
was to be filmed in New York City, he offered, cameras likely to roll on the
picture in April of 1971.Sadly, that
project would not be realized.The production
of Click was derailed by a surprising
and unexpected turn-of-events that would take place in March of 1971 – one in which
we’ll get to in a moment.In the
interim, there was another film project needing Connery’s attention.
In July of 1970 the trades were reporting that Connery
had struck a deal with Columbia to appear as John “Duke” Anderson in The Anderson Tapes, Sidney Lumet already
signed on to direct.Connery had worked
with Lumet previously: he had appeared as a renegade British military officer
in the 1965 prison drama The Hill.Connery regarded The Hill as the best motion-picture of his 1960s filmography and,
as such, was happy to work with Lumet again.Shooting on The Anderson Tapes
for Columbia was scheduled to commence on August 24, 1970, one day prior to
Connery’s fortieth birthday, with production to wrap by October’s end.
That October, with The
Anderson Tapes nearing completion, Connery’s enthusiasm for working in a
theatrical setting seemed to have slackened a bit.The actor was cornered on set by journalist
Bernard Drew.Drew asked of Connery’s
ambition to re-engage in theater work.“You never like to close the door completely,” Connery answered
non-committedly, “But I have no great desire, though I do like to direct in the
theatre.What I really want is to direct
a film, and I have a four-picture contract with Columbia.I’m going to direct one, produce one, and act
in two, but nothing is set.These days,
it’s awfully hard to set anything.There’s a crisis in films.All
the companies are in trouble – except Columbia, but still…”
Only two of the prognostications Connery made to Drew that
day would be realized, and even then only in part.If he had
been extended a four-pic contract with Columbia, his second pic for the company,
Robin and Marian, would not be
released until 1976.Likewise, Connery would
not get any chance to direct, but would serve as co-executive producer – and
star - in still another Sidney Lumet helmed feature, The Offence (1973), which was released by United Artists.Regardless, The Anderson Tapes would serve as the undeniable kick-off to
Connery’s second coming as a box-office figure of standing.
Screenwriter Frank R. Pierson (Cat Ballou, Cool Hand Luke)
had been assigned to adapt and re-work Sanders’ eccentrically-composed novel as
a motion picture.This would prove to be
no easy task.Sanders’ novel was not
written in a conventional narrative form: the book details the lineage of burglar
Anderson’s prospective heist through a collection of police reports, court records,
transcriptions and recordings made, illegally, through the use of governmental electronic
surveillance methods: phone wire-taps, antennas, lip-reads, secreted 16mm film
cartridge spools, reel-to-reel and video recordings.The reader is left, essentially, a voyeur,
following the storyline through the reading of police procedurals and transcripts
of wire-taps.
In crafting his screenplay, Pierson exchanges Sanders’
unorthodox and workmanlike gathering of documentary information for a more cinematic
cops-vs-robbers scenario.His script
also incorporates an uneasy measure of light-hearted humor among other scenario
changes.One contemporary review
acknowledged the resulting film offered “a dash of pretentious social
significance” in its commentary.‘Tis
true both Sanders’ book and Lumet’s film somberly reflected a new encroaching era
of real-life, secreted policing methods: FBI, Treasury Department, and police electronic
surveillance techniques were now procedural – if technically illegal - norms.
The scenario of The
Anderson Tapes - at its most basic:the safe-cracking burglar Duke Anderson is released from prison after
serving a ten-year stretch.He’s hardly
repentant and intends almost from his day-of-release to mastermind a grand
burglary of a swanky East 91st Street apartment house in
Manhattan.What Anderson doesn’t
understand is the world has changed during his decade of incarceration.There are now hidden cameras and recording
devices monitoring his every move.Undeterred, he organizes a rag-tag team of ex-convicts, a mob boss who
owes a favor, and various other ne’er-do-wells to assist in his grandiose
scheme.
Among those co-conspirators is Martin Balsam who chews
the scenery in an amusing, over-the-top performance as “Haskins,” a mincing,
homosexual antiques dealer. (It’s a sort of pre-woke interpretation one would
think twice about attempting today).The
comedian/satirist Alan King appears in the role as “Pat Angelo,” the mobbed-up
son of a syndicate figure whom owes Anderson a debt.King had recently appeared in another film of
Lumet’s, the 1968 comedy Bye Bye
Braverman and had previously
co-starred with Connery in the pre-Bond British military comedy On the Fiddle (released in the U.S. during the Bond craze as Operation Snafu.).King is very good in these
films, though he’d later jest he was offended by a good notice received from a critic for his “Pat Angelo”
performance.The critic had mused King’s
acting in The Anderson Tapes was
“surprisingly good,” a comment the comedian couldn’t help but find at least partly insulting.“What’s surprising,” King asked, “about me
being good?”
Sadly, Dylan Cannon, a good actress, isn’t really given
much of a character role to play off as “Ingrid,” a sexy but extortion-prone kept
mistress and an ex-paramour of Connery’s.The Anderson Tapes is also
noteworthy as the first feature film of importance to introduce a tousled-
haired twenty-seven year-old actor named Christopher Walken (“The Kid”) to the
big screen.Walken isn’t given many
lines of dialogue, but is quietly omnipresent throughout.(During the next fifteen-years, of course, Walken
would not only win an Oscar as Best Supporting Actor for his role in The Deer Hunter, but also served as the
last super-villain to be vanquished by Roger Moore’s James Bond in A View to a Kill (1985).One needn’t look too close to notice there
are plenty of familiar faces mixed throughout the cast:Margaret Hamilton, pre-Saturday Night Live Garrett Morris, Conrad Bain and Ralph Meeker
among them.
There’s little doubt that some of the surprisingly brisk,
earliest box office earnings of The
Anderson Tapes had been buoyed by the tsunami of press attention given to a
tangential event.In early March 1971,
it was announced that Connery, following a one film absence, agreed to return
as James Bond in the seventh 007 thriller Diamonds
are Forever.Shortly following the
breaking of that big news, the gossips reported producer Weitman was soon to
test-preview a rough cut of The Anderson
Tapes at a cinema near Kings Point, not far from the Valley Stream, Long
Island home of Alan King.King would later
chuckle that Lumet took advantage of his kindness - and residential proximity
to New York City.“They were so happy to
have me in it,” he explained of his casting. “No wonder.I lent them my house, my car, my pool.”
Lumet, as was his style, took full advantage of the New
York City locations, incorporating some twenty-three location shoots into his
film.These would include the city’s
Port Authority Bus Terminal, the prison on Riker’s Island, the Convent of the
Sacred Heart on the Lower East Side, the 19th Police Precinct
Station House, Alan King’s home, the Supreme Macaroni Factory restaurant on
Ninth Ave. and 38th Street, at the Korvettes Department Store and even
the steam room of Luxor Health Club on West 46th. In December of 1970, Weitman
brought on Grammy-winning producer Quincy Jones to score the film.His soundtrack, which accentuates the film’s urban,
hip-modern setting, features a lot of jazzy, electronic keyboard figures and
twangy, stand-up bass slides.
The timing and success of The Anderson Tapes was fortuitous for Sean Connery.The general popcorn-chewing cinema audiences
– to one degree or another – had largely ignored Connery’s three most recent film
projects 1968-1970.It escaped no one’s notice
that this odd trio of feature films were decidedly retro/historical in vision
and scope:Shalako was set in the year 1880, The Red Tent in 1928 and The
Molly Maguires in 1876.The Anderson Tapes, on the other hand,
was a more accessible film for moviegoers to engage.The film was a very latter-day
suspense-thriller, staged in modern times.
The result is that The
Anderson Tapes, release in June of 1971, allowed fickle movie audiences the
opportunity to preview what a circa 1971 Sean Connery James Bond might look
like.The relationship between the actor
and his audience was largely estranged following his four-year absence as
Bond.To be sure, The Anderson Tapes made plain that Connery’s hair was thinner and
graying.It was also obvious he was
carrying a few more pounds on his frame.Regardless, most would agree Connery appears a bit more athletic and
lean in The Anderson Tapes than he
would even six-months later when Diamonds
are Forever went into wide release.
For all of its intermittent charms, The Anderson Tapes is not
director Lumet’s best film by any measure.The film is a slow burn and even the film’s climatic “action” scene offers
little more than a weak pay-off in the waiting.On one hand Connery’s “Duke Anderson” captures the spirited zeitgeist of the early 1970s anti-hero.His racially intergraded criminal cabal of
ex-convicts is a pre-Rainbow Coalition of sorts: an African-American driver who
lives above a local Black Panther Party chapter (Dick Anthony), an elderly, institutionalized
ex-con more-than-happy to return to prison (Stan Gottlieb), a young
whipper-snapper (Walken), a psychotic mobster (Val Avery), and an alt-lifestyle
burglar (Balsam): all working under the command of Connery who chatters
throughout in an out-of-character Scots brogue.
To their credit, this unusual band of criminals collude
to rip-off the jewelry, artwork treasures and pricey, swanky accoutrements of
the snobbishly wealthy.Their victims
would be the very folks that many resent: moneyed elites who inhabit the poshest
apartment house on Manhattan’s Upper East Side.So while Connery’s endgame is hardly Robin Hood in design, you’re sort
of rooting for this motley band of bad guys to get away with their crazy caper,
no matter how impractical and far-fetched the plan seems.
On the other hand, this is a suspense film sans any real suspense.Just as the film, at long last, begins to
build a modicum of tension as the burglars take command of the apartment house,
Lumet seemingly disrupts any sense of rising suspense with intercuts of what Village Voice critic Andrew Sarris
lamented as “pointless flashforwards.”Sarris
has a point.Perhaps the intent of such scenes
were Lumet’s homages to the jigsaw-like time-jump constructions of Sanders’ original
novel: but as such these interjected moments – almost all played lightly - don’t
work and only diminish any sense of suspenseful tension.
Though flawed, The
Anderson Tapes actually did very well in early release, opening as a
limited showcase in only two New York City cinemas.The initial rush of mostly favorable reviews
and impressive box office receipts caused Columbia Pictures to take out a
celebratory full-page advertisement in the trades.The ad crowed that Lumet’s film had already taken
in some $87, 476, the “Biggest 4-Day Gross for 2-Theatre Opening in Columbia
History!”The film would gradually soften
and lose some of its initial box-office momentum, but would nonetheless generate
a healthful $5,000,000 in rentals through the end of 1975. I personally own copies of The Anderson Tapes in three different
home video formats, including the beautifully packaged Laserdisc version of
1996 (featuring a mind-boggling forty-one chapter stops!).So, yeah, I guess I’m a fan.
This Kino Lorber Studio Classics Blu-ray edition of The Anderson Tapes is presented in 1920
x 1080p, with a ratio of 1.85:1, dts sound and removable English
sub-titles.Bonus features on the set
include the film’s original theatrical trailer and a single TV spot.There are also an additional eight trailers
offered in bonus, two of Connery’s (The
Great Train Robbery and Cuba)
along with six other crime-dramas offered by Kino.The Blu-ray comes with a slip case and the disc packaging has reversible sleeve artwork. There’s also an audio
commentary courtesy of film critic and journalist Glenn Kenny.Kenny’s commentary is interesting and revealing
in spots, often taking pains to explain the era of encroaching surveillance era
in which the film is set.But I imagine Kenny
is reading from notes rather than a proper script as his spoken-word commentary
suffers a bit from an endless stream of inter-sentence pauses riddled with hesitant
bridging “ums” and “ahs.” It gets to be a bit much at times, but Kenny’s
commentary is still a worthwhile listen for those wishing to learn a bit about
the film’s backstory.
Mario Bava’s The
Whip and the Body would enjoy a very brief run – under a new title - on
U.S. theatre screens in late summer of 1965.By spring of ‘66 the film was
already popping up as a late-night programmer on U.S. television.I was belatedly introduced to the film
via a Chiller Theatre telecast on New
York’s WPIX-TV, circa 1971/72.I can no
longer recall if I was impressed by this atmospheric, mostly monster-less mystery
on that first viewing.I was only ten or
eleven years of age.My hazy memories
are further obscured by it having been broadcast under its U.S. theatrical re-title
as What.
The name of now-legendary director Mario Bava wouldn’t have
meant very much to me either at young age.Even if I had been familiar with Bava’s oeuvre – which I most certainly wasn’t at age ten – the directorial
credit of What had been anglicized, ascribed
to one “John M. Old.”The directorial
fake wouldn’t have mattered much to me, really.All I knew was Christopher Lee was one of the film’s star players, and I
was already a big fan of the actor’s horror pictures.
Regardless of the film title in which you accustomed - The Whip and the Body/ Night is the
Phantom/What/The Whip and the Flesh/La frusta e il Corpo etc. etc. - this
was the second of two Bava films to feature Christopher Lee.The first was Ercole al centro della terra
(1961, aka Hercules in the
Haunted World), an Italian peplum.That film pitted the heroic Hercules (Reg Park) against Lee’s villainous
Lichas (or Lyco or Lico, depending on the release).Lichas is variously described as “Lord of the
Hades Underworld” or “King of the Dead.”
The actor’s typecasting made
sense, all things considered.Lee had once
enjoyed playing a diverse number of character roles since his 1947 entry into
the film business.But following the
runaway success of Hammer’s Horror of Dracula (1958), the actor somewhat
frustratingly found himself mostly employed as a heavy in an on-going string of
horror films, fog-shrouded mysteries, and psychological-thrillers.
Lee would later generously deem
Bava as “one of Italy’s greatest cameramen” and, true to form, both Hercules
in the Haunted World and The Whip and the Body, are awash in the eerily
brilliant and fluorescent colors for which the director is acclaimed.Technically, the cinematographer for the
latter film is Ubaldo Terzano, but much of the photography is accepted as Bava’s
own, albeit uncredited.Bava’s greatness
partly lies in his painter’s eye for style: he combines color, shadows and
shadings to create atmosphere and great imagery.
As director, Bava also employs
innovative lighting and lots of blue-tinting to create his striking,
imaginative visuals.On his wonderful
commentary track, author Tim Lucas describes such eerie colorization as Bava’s moonlit
“Blue of Night.”Throughout The Whip
and the Body, Bava’s visual stylings perfectly reflect the film’s moody and
atmospheric aura.His use of purposeful
slow tracking shots and pan photography – abetted by composer Carlo
Rustichelli’s evocative, mysterious score – masterfully evokes a sense of tangible,
shadowy foreboding: who (or what?) lurks behind that candle-lit curtain or
door?
The Whip and the Body concerns the unwelcome return of Kurt Menliff
(Lee) to his ancestral home, a castle nestled on lonesome cliff side overlooking
the sea.His own father, Count Vladimir
(Jacques Herlin) is not pleased to see him nor is Giorgia (Harriet White), the
Count’s servant.Years earlier, we learn,
Kurt had seduced Giorgia’s daughter.His
subsequent cruel rejection of the girl is believed to be the cause of her
suicide.Although Kurt’s bother
Christian (Tony Kendall) is welcoming of his brother’s return, he too will come
to regret such forgiveness.His own wife
Nevenka (Israeli actress Daliah Lavi) falls prey to Kurt’s Svengali-like
attraction – who, true to form, abuses and degrades her with a fetishistic,
sadomasochistic whipping.I can’t say
much more than that plot-wise without risking spoilers.So I’ll just say that following Kurt’s attack
on Nevenka, the film moves from straight-on melodrama to a mostly satisfying scenario
combining elements of ghost story and mystery whodunit.
Budgeted at approx. $66, 500, The
Whip and the Body began production in July of 1960.The film was slated for a seven-week schedule.Principal photography wrapped in six-weeks,
the seventh to begin post-production work.The film was an Italian/French collaboration, a production of Cosmopolis
Films and Les Films Marbeuf.Both
companies had been involved in the exploitation of the then very-much-in-vogue
“sword and sandal” pictures: strongman adventures loosely tethered to tales sourced
from Greek and Roman mythologies.On his
commentary track, Lucas describes the scenario of The Whip and the Body
as essentially akin to “a Greek Tragedy” in its construction.
The film’s screenplay is
credited to Ernesto Gastaldi, Ugo Guerra and Luciano Martino, with the film
produced (without credit) to Federico Magnaghi.Upon the film’s release in English-speaking markets the writing credits
for the original Italian trio were anglicized as “Julian Berry, Robert Hugo and
Martin Hardy.”Bava too did not escape
such name-change ignominy, his directorial credit ascribed to “John M. Old,” a
pseudonym used on several of his films.The time-period and country in which this Gothic mystery is set is
indeterminate.This was, according to
scenarist Gastaldi, entirely intentional.Though the seaside locations were filmed in Italy near Anzio, the main
characters are given Eastern European-sounding names and the set dressing peculiarly
mixes period styles and time-dates.
A prolific screenwriter of
horror, pirate and peplum films, Ernesto Gastaldi had already written scripts
for such Italian melodramas as The Vampire and the Ballerina (1960), Werewolf
in a Girls’ Dormitory (1961), and The Horrible Dr. Hichcock (1962). Following production on The Whip and the Body, producer Magnaghi would team with writers Guerra
and Martino (in addition to writer-director Brunello Rondi) to bring Daliah
Lavi back in the obscure but sultry exorcism flick II Demonio (1963).
(Photo: Cinema Retro Archive)
The Whip and the Body was not a huge success.Lucas describes the film as Bava’s “biggest
box-office flop,” the picture’s final tally generating back only half of its investment.Upon the film’s release, critics gave any
number of reasons why the film’s box-office was disappointing.Variety was mildly impressed,
describing the film as genuinely suspenseful if best suited for “sophisticated
audiences.” But the trade also thought the film flawed in execution: “The
Gothic-novel atmosphere and trappings of secret passages, muddy footprints from
the crypt and ghost lover, probably will draw more laughs than gasps.”
London’s Monthly Film
Bulletin was far more withering in its assessment of Night is the
Phantom (the film’s British re-title).Their critic described it as “Another of Italy’s prankish simulations of
a British horror movie, the film is slow, repetitive, verging on parody.Censor or distributor cuts have rendered much
of the plot incomprehensible, though one doubts if it ever made sense
entirely.”In fairness, the same critic conceded
the film’s “weird and doom-laden claustrophobia” was, in retrospect,
“unfailingly compulsive, mainly because of the redolent Freudian
associations.”
The more uncomfortable Freudian
moments of Menliff’s fetishistic abuse of Nevenka were cut from the film’s continental
version.Christopher Lee only reminisced
that he and Lavi shared “some very torrid love scenes” in the making of the
film, but left it at that.Most of those
scenes would not be made privy to either continental or western cinemagoers.Upon the film’s initial release in Italy, that
country’s censors would come down hard on it, deeming several sequences obscene
due to “degenerations and anomalies of sexual life.” There were demands that these
moments be cut from the film.Though the
filmmakers complied in making such trims, producer Magnaghi still found himself
standing before a Rome court.He was
subsequently acquitted of obscenity charges in January of 1964.
Though Lucas does bring up the
censorship issues surrounding The Whip and the Body, he does not make
the issue a centerpiece of his commentary.He does points out in his very informative analysis that the film was
very much influenced by the earliest of Roger Corman’s Edgar Allan Poe
productions for American-International.Which, in turn, had been very much styled after such continental
productions as Bava’s Black Sunday (1960).
Though A.I.P. had distributed earlier
works of Bava’s in the U.S., they balked on The Whip and the Body –
likely due to the film’s sadomasochistic salaciousness.Though mild by today’s standards, the film was
thought unsuitable for young and impressionable theatergoers.The film was eventually picked up for U.S.
distribution in 1965 by Richard G. Yates’ Futuramic Releasing.The film, now curiously re-titled as What,
was doomed to play the U.S. drive-in circuit in the summer of 1965.Accompanied by a rather gray and cheapish exploitation
campaign, What was top-bill to a second Futuramic import from the
continent, Isidore M. Ferry’s Face of Terror (Spain, 1964) (original
title La cara del terror).
One needn’t be a particularly
avid fan of Christopher Lee (or any of the others on screen) to notice that all
dialogue is dubbed throughout.As with
many of Bava’s films, his work was intended for wide international release.To that end, many of his films were shot sans
sync-sound, with foreign-language market dubbing scheduled long after the original
cast had moved on.Upon viewing The
Whip and the Body, Lee was left aghast by his character’s misplaced
American-affected voice-over dub.He would
insist afterward that all of his foreign-language film contracts included the
proviso he handle any necessary dubbing himself.
This Kino Lorber Studio
Classics Blu-ray issue of The Whip and the Body is the company’s second
issue of this title, the first being released in 2013.The set features a 2023 4K scan and a 2K
restoration by 88 Films from an HD master from an original 35mm print.The set includes both the original Italian
and English dubs as audio options as well as optional English subtitles and the
film’s theatrical trailer as well as trailers from other Bava films.As referenced above, Tim Lucas of Video
Watchdog fame and author of the exhaustive one-thousand plus page tome Mario
Bava: All the Colors of the Dark delivers a masterful commentary – though
one familiar as it has been ported over from Kino’s 2013 Blu-ray release via
VCI’s DVD issue of 2007.The new release
is also fitted with the now inevitable cardboard sleeve protector, which
apparently are prized by some collectors..Without question, essential viewing for fans of Bava and Christopher
Lee.