cult film freak: September 2020

Written by James M. Tate / 9/28/2020 / No comments / british neo noir , british new wave , david gregory , derek francis , glynn edwards , jill curzon , jim o'connolly , john carson , penny morrell , peter vaughan , sixties , yvonne romain

PETER VAUGHAN LEADS 'SMOKESCREEN' WITH YVONNE ROMAIN

<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhq6oWF6zc8Xxfoe1SMN_lTrL4_4y0dgYErFggNcBlHmRsaeox-gjlGJJid89P1VJ9qqpsh5GMbE-CkxhWWmp5LYp46obW4FhtsGYlL0sIukav9qz7RfgVj8HVfeYoOlfrxYkvtfAP2stLmKTTjjorYKRcNVuqspghmWvQSrTvP_whow5LAJSFVh7fyTA/s1600/0+2.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="942" data-original-width="1600" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhq6oWF6zc8Xxfoe1SMN_lTrL4_4y0dgYErFggNcBlHmRsaeox-gjlGJJid89P1VJ9qqpsh5GMbE-CkxhWWmp5LYp46obW4FhtsGYlL0sIukav9qz7RfgVj8HVfeYoOlfrxYkvtfAP2stLmKTTjjorYKRcNVuqspghmWvQSrTvP_whow5LAJSFVh7fyTA/s16000/0+2.jpeg"></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Peter Vaughan & Yvonne Romain in SMOKESCREEN Year: 1964 Rates: **** </td></tr></tbody></table>The biggest shame about Jim O'Connolly'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.... 
 
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 "gumshoey" investigative fashion...

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

PETER VAUGHAN LEADS 'SMOKESCREEN' WITH YVONNE ROMAIN

Peter Vaughan & Yvonne Romain in SMOKESCREEN Year: 1964 Rates: **** The biggest shame about Jim O'Connolly's quirky low-budget B...

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

<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiG6-0oRCa_g14wUc65oCABXn4vzDVMoTxJltli9cuXYibel9t0F0sSr5DYPw_rBZG6MDnfsOwfTALH8LKxImqJ871DBzYtULX5p-QfgQQ5zTwoJwpnB6QX86nwnXX5yM-epEBCTM9_8EZQH3mJ0ft8_PGtFn346XEzAO6Uc3bj35C2Ku_CnIBHmt21wg/s1600/1.jpeg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1170" data-original-width="1600" height="293" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiG6-0oRCa_g14wUc65oCABXn4vzDVMoTxJltli9cuXYibel9t0F0sSr5DYPw_rBZG6MDnfsOwfTALH8LKxImqJ871DBzYtULX5p-QfgQQ5zTwoJwpnB6QX86nwnXX5yM-epEBCTM9_8EZQH3mJ0ft8_PGtFn346XEzAO6Uc3bj35C2Ku_CnIBHmt21wg/w400-h293/1.jpeg" width="400"></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Christina Gregg DON'T TALK TO STRANGERS Year: 1962</td></tr></tbody></table>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... 
 
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 hybrid 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...

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

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

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

LANCE COMFORT DIRECTS WILLIAM SYLVESTER IN 'BLIND CORNER'

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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Barbara Shelley (the cheater) and William Sylvester (the cheated) in BLIND CORNER Year: 1964</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... 
 
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.

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

LANCE COMFORT DIRECTS WILLIAM SYLVESTER IN 'BLIND CORNER'

Barbara Shelley (the cheater) and William Sylvester (the cheated) in BLIND CORNER Year: 1964 Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY...

ELLIOTT GOULD IN ROBERT ALTMAN'S NEO NOIR 'THE LONG GOODBYE'

<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfzlN60-CDD26JhjHwXuECcvqSnOjPKRnpp1l3UwDDe-kctzoVLCCP5i4JX18KxfVASSK-7gVFdyxPTnVP2f6Untb-UW861LId_xNFHiuyd0kc7pgU7iIbZm4HdCLzYrE5FLJZ7nz5cSe3RZ7HTA7LmPoUdmafk7gxXlPI0Ig-mNGCEf2MtkeuJnlhXw/s1686/Screen%20Shot%202023-04-09%20at%204.16.37%20PM.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="759" data-original-width="1686" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfzlN60-CDD26JhjHwXuECcvqSnOjPKRnpp1l3UwDDe-kctzoVLCCP5i4JX18KxfVASSK-7gVFdyxPTnVP2f6Untb-UW861LId_xNFHiuyd0kc7pgU7iIbZm4HdCLzYrE5FLJZ7nz5cSe3RZ7HTA7LmPoUdmafk7gxXlPI0Ig-mNGCEf2MtkeuJnlhXw/s16000/Screen%20Shot%202023-04-09%20at%204.16.37%20PM.jpeg"></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Title: THE LONG GOODBYE Director: Robert Altman Year: 1973 Rating: *****</td></tr></tbody></table>Former Noir legend Sterling Hayden is technically the most important character in Robert Altman's Neo Noir THE LONG GOODBYE, based on a Raymond Chandler novel where the tough-handsome gumshoe Philip Marlowe is turned into a lazy, hippie-friendly slob in Elliott Gould, perfectly cast against type and at his very best... Particularly a scene where he and Hayden's Roger Wade... hired by Wade's mesmerizing trophy wife guarded by a grouchy doberman within a Malibu, California colony home... share an afternoon drink at the couple's Malibu beach-backyard, and it's here Wade learns that Marlowe's not such a "ding-a-ling" after all...