Films

Spare a Thought for Phil and Roger

Nevil Gibson

It Is weeks like the past ones that Wellington filmgoers come to realise how much they rely on the three independent cinemas to supplement the normal circuit theatres. Wellington is the only metropolitan centre in New Zealand which has independent second-run theatres. In the past three or four years I've been in Wellington almost every film still available has been screened. The independents also provide an outlet for first-run films which would otherwise not have made it.

Some of these films have been justifiably ignored, but as the circuits take only commercial considerations into account, many of them have had considerable credit: it is only a pity that their appeal wasn't more widespread. Good films which have seen the light of day through this method over the past few years include The Luck of Ginger Coffey, this Property is Condemned, It Happened Here, several Russian features and the odd Hammer production.

The latest of these worthy first-runs is Four in the Morning (NZFS), a small British feature which the Salient critic commended last year after it was previewed. The work of a young British director Anthony Simmons (who strangely hasn't made anything I've heard of since), it stars Judi Dench, probably one of Britain's best young actresses. Not a great beauty, but she has the kind of talent and appeal of a Maggie Smith.

Another attraction of the independents is their flexibility and the ability to tailor programmes to suit certain audiences. Students have this year got a very good deal at the Princess with specially arranged Sunday screenings (with concessions) of films not available to the Film Society. I have also been informed that the Princess now offers student concessions during the week as well (30c in the daytime and 40c at night). Lester's under-rated musical comedy A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum was billed with the incomparable Marx Bros. If couple bills of this calibre continue I predict a steady patronage for the Princess.

And coming up this weekend is a programme which departs from the usual Sunday entertainment. The Czechoslovakian film Assassination, which has had only limited release so far (I haven't seen it) is on with a documentary on Hitler, The Black Fox, which will no doubt be full of the usual atrocity stuff and original footage.

The Roxy this week revived a good Western of the old sort: A Good Day for a Hanging (Columbia) which was notable for a strong plot and its ability to twist various strands together in a disturbing way. A young outlaw (Robert Vaughan) is accused of shooting the marshal. We actually see the shooting and know he is the one, but the now marshall (Fred MacMurray) has various reasons for wanting to dispose of him in anycase (or so we think). The outlaw's plea for mercy and the lack of corroborating evidence places much sympathy in his direction.

The townspeople become suspicious of MacMurray (not long before they were already with a lynching party for the outlaw) and eventually get up a petition of clemency. The appeal is successful but before Vaughan can be informed his friends have broken into the jail and released him: he now cannot escape though his death sentence has been commuted. It remains for the marshall to shoot him, on the gallows especially built for the execution, thus exacting a crude revenge. It's a vicious circle of twisted loyalties and conflicting motives. On the surface it looks like an anticapital punishment movie with a cop-out ending, or, more nastily, an anti-anti-capital punishment movie which had all along played with liberal sentiments.

But unlike most "message" films the victim was guilty of the crime he was guilty of the crime he was accused of—the audience knew but not the cast—an interesting development which made for above routine stuff. The director was Nathan Juran, at first an art director who later turned to action films with the emphasis on historical and fantasy themes which called for lots of special effects (the best being Jason and the Argonauts where a whole army of skeletons intervene in the quest for the Fleece).

Elsewhere Dino returns in another Matt Helm vehicle. It is interesting to speculate about how these particular concoctions are fabricated. The director, Phil Karlson, has a high reputation in certain circles for his crime films and turned the first Helm film, The Silencers, into an enjoyable piece, notable for Dino's comic self-parody (as opposed to the biting one in Kiss Me Stupid), its risque dialogue and blatant Playboy-style sex. The next two Helms were far inferior, both directer by faithful Hollywood hack Henry Levin (Genghis Khan). Martin's reluctance to go on location has impaired the technical side of these films (lots of back projection and second unit stuff) though I don't blame him for not learning his lines. The Wrecking Crew (Columbia) has an atrocious script but Karlson reverts to the self-parody to save the film plus another car chase (far less exciting) lifted from The Silencers.

It would seem then, like the Bond series, that though film-makers of some ability coped with routine stuff, only a great effort can do anything with it. Most directors would feel it was sufficient to let it pass and wait for the next, more rewarding project. That is an unkind fact of Hollywood: but it doesn't dispel the fact that other commercial directors are unwilling to direct crap in the hope of better things. Unfortunately only too few have that kind of opportunity. So don't think too hard on poor old Phil: it was his misfortune also (being contracted to Columbia) that he had to take over the western The Long Ride Home (not seen here yet) when Roger Corman walked out (in his second major film—budget-wise—after he had built his enviable reputation with Z-budget stuff for American International), Corman, through his act, seems to have put himself out of work. For a man whose last film was released nearly two years ago, after he had made about 50 in the previous ten years, it is indeed a strange thing. So spare a thought for Roger too.