cult film freak: September 2020

Written by James M. Tate / 9/29/2020 / No comments / ann lynn , beatnik , british , british new wave , clifford david , counter-culture , crime , eddie albert , jazz score , katherine woodville , louise sorel , maurice browning , mystery , oliver reed , romance , sixties

KATHERINE WOODVILLE & CLIFFORD DAVID IN 'THE PARTY'S OVER'

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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><u> Katherine Woodville in THE PARTY'S OVER Year: 1965</u></td></tr>
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Executive Producer Peter O'Toole and Jack Hawkins along with director Guy Hamilton took their names off this controversial British Beatnik flick where an American girl, missing from her New York tycoon father and businessman fiance, is supposedly raped/screwed after death: so for them it wasn't controversial enough...<br>
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Yet no actual necrophilia occurs (unless you count a quick posthumous kiss), even in the restored cut when — a day before THE PARTY'S OVER — Oliver Reed and his wayward cohorts play cat-and-mouse with Clifford David as the rich chick's arranged fiance, Carson...<br>

ann lynn, beatnik, british, british new wave, clifford david, counter-culture, crime, eddie albert, jazz score, katherine woodville, louise sorel, maurice browning, mystery, oliver reed, romance, sixties

KATHERINE WOODVILLE & CLIFFORD DAVID IN 'THE PARTY'S OVER'

Katherine Woodville in THE PARTY'S OVER Year: 1965 Executive Producer Peter O'Toole and Jack Hawkins along with director Guy Ha...

PETER VAUGHAN IN 'SMOKESCREEN' WITH YVONNE ROMAIN

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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><u>Peter Vaughan & Yvonne Romain in SMOKESCREEN Year: 1964</u></td></tr>
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The biggest shame about Jim O'Connelly's quirky low-budget British post-noir SMOKESCREEN is that it was a film instead of a television series since Peter Vaughan's perpetually cautious and stingy insurance adjuster Roper had so many more adventures in him....<br>
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His particular case involves what the audience and a young couple witness from the very beginning: a burning car driving off a cliff, and we never see a driver, which is what Roper searches for throughout the hour-long programmer, going from one person to the next in the usual investigative fashion... <br>

british neo noir, british new wave, david gregory, glynn edwards, jill curzon, jim o'connolly, john carson, peter vaughan, sixties, yvonne romain

PETER VAUGHAN IN 'SMOKESCREEN' WITH YVONNE ROMAIN

Peter Vaughan & Yvonne Romain in SMOKESCREEN Year: 1964 The biggest shame about Jim O'Connelly's quirky low-budget British p...

CHRISTINA GREGG STALKED IN 'DON'T TALK TO STRANGE MEN'

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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><u>Christina Gregg in DON'T TALK TO STRANGERS Year: 1962</u></td></tr>
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With shows like CATFISH it may seem somewhat new: grown men soliciting and seducing young naïve  girls into their clutches, online, but in the 1961 British New Wave Thriller, it happened pretty much the same way, via payphone...<br>
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And while a title like DON'T TALK TO STRANGE MEN sounds like a public service announcement, it's ironic that the stranger on the phone is the one advising this to his target, the maybe too pretty and perhaps slightly too old for the pathetically desperate, lonely, needy role as gorgeous girl-next-door Christina Gregg, a bybrid of two babyface starlets, Diane Baker (before) and Jennifer Jason Leigh (after): she's part of what's more a teenage crush movie than a serial killer suspense, and it's not a one way street despite her doing all the acting facially...<br>

british new wave, christina gregg, crime, janina faye, serial killer, suspense, thriller

CHRISTINA GREGG STALKED IN 'DON'T TALK TO STRANGE MEN'

Christina Gregg in DON'T TALK TO STRANGERS Year: 1962 With shows like CATFISH it may seem somewhat new: grown men soliciting and sed...

LANCE COMFORT DIRECTS WILLIAM SYLVESTER IN 'BLIND CORNER'

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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><u>Barbara Shelley (the cheater) and William Sylvester (the cheated) in BLIND CORNER Year: 1964</u></td></tr>
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Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY is known for its outer space special effects, prehistoric monkeys and a nefarious computer. As for humans there are two British actors (Keir Dullea and Gary Lockwood) and one American as that pair of astronauts' chief. But William Sylvester, though born in Oakland, California, is as much a British actor as they are, trained in RADA and a fixture of England's cinema since after World War II...<br>
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Though known mostly for the Godzilla/King Kong homage GORGA (that is, before 2001), Sylvester's best performance is the main character from MAN IN THE DARK, actually titled BLIND CORNER, which sounds more like the Noir that it is, one of many low budget 1960's crime flicks from the British New Wave. <br>

british neo noir, british new wave, lance comfort, mark eden, perfect murder, sixties, thriller, william sylvester