RIP Les Reed

Les Reed, the songwriter behind Tom Jones' classic hits Delilah and It's Not Unusual, has died at the age of 83.

Les Reed, pictured with unlikely Adidas poster boy Tom Jones

Reed had been the pianist with The John Barry Seven and the conductor of his own orchestra but it's his incredible catalogue of 60+ hit songs that he'll perhaps be best remembered for. Here's just a few examples of those chart toppers;

Reed's songs were recorded by artistes ranging from big American stars like Elvis, The Carpenters and Bing Crosby to homegrown talents like Kathy Kirby, Lulu and Des O'Connor. He wrote the scores for the films Girl on a Motorcycle, The Bushbaby, One More Time, George and Mildred, Creepshow 2 and Parting Shots and he was also responsible for co-writing the 1967 novelty song Who's Doctor Who by then Doctor Who actor Frazer Hines and the B-Side to Leeds United's 1972 Cup Final single, Leeds! Leeds! Leeds! Better known as Marching Together, it's a song still sung by supporters of the club on the terraces both home and away to this day.

RIP

The Party's Over (1965)

A story of beatniks, of sex, drugs, jazz, necrophilia and suicide, The Party's Over has a very acrimonious and difficult history. Its makers fought a two-year long battle with the censors before the Rank Organisation hacked it to ribbons and sold it on to an exploitation company. Thankfully, those lovely people at the BFI restored its original 1965 version and made it available to the masses as part of their Flipside series of offbeat British movies from the '60s and '70s.

Does it live up to the hype?

Well no, not really. Not to me anyway.

Written by American expatriate Marc Behm (co-author of Charade and Help!) and directed by Guy Hamilton (later famous for several Bond films) The Party's Over is set in Chelsea and centring on the search if an American heiress by her fiancé, and his discovery that she has fallen in with a group of  nihilistic beatniks led by a charismatic Oliver Reed.

It's interesting to note that Hamilton was actually offered Dr. No in 1962 but he turned down the first outing of 007 to make this landmark swinging London movie instead. It's an intriguing initial first step away from the kitchen sink dramas of the first half of the decade but, as you can tell from the plot outline and the controversies that surrounded it, it's a much darker and more pessimistic swinging 60s picture than the surrealist kaleidoscope of colours that played out the decade. 

It's a striking and subversive anti-establishment film which unsurprisingly ruffled the feathers of the BBFC and Rank, leading to Hamilton removing his name from the butchery that was eventually released. Oliver Reed, still then a relative unknown, stars as Moise, the clique's 'leader'. What's most striking about Moise - and indeed the rest of his comrades - is that he's clearly very well educated; these aren't illiterate ruffians posing a threat to England's moral values, they're the urbane, intelligent enemy within whose hedonism and search for kicks seems unstoppable even, at times, for Moise's tastes.

"The 'message' was that they should by all means opt out but society would have to be replaced by something." Hamilton said. "It wasn't my function to tell them what that should be, but just opting out is insufficient." That message is loud and clear from the opening shot, a beautiful, near iconic, look of the partied-out group drifting aimlessly homewards across the Albert Bridge at dawn. It's a shot that looks so bleak and melancholic - at stark odds with so much of the 'let's do the party right here' type of movies that were The Party's Over's peers - that it easily sums up the insufficieny Hamilton is referring to.

Unfortunately, the film cannot achieve the promise of the controversy that surrounds it and it's too often a rather po-faced morality tale that isn't helped by some strange choices - most notably Mike Pratt's ludicrous American accent. Nevertheless, it scores high for nostalgia and John Barry's score - which pre-empts much of his later work on the Bond films to the extent that some of the interludes are exact carbon copies of the brassy blast lead-in to the infamous Bond theme - really helps set the very evocative mood of time and place, alongside the crisp black and white cinematography of Larry Pizer.

Beat Girl (1960)

When architect Paul Linden (David Farrar) takes the much younger French woman, Nichole (Noëlle Adam) for his second wife they're set for domestic disharmony thanks to Paul's wild, teenage beatnik daughter Jennifer - the Beat Girl of the title - played by the wonderful Gillian Hills. Jennifer really doesn't want a stepmother and, when she finds out a secret from Nichole's past, she sees an opportunity upset the applecart even further.

 

Yes, whilst hanging out in the coffee bars of Soho with the likes of Shirley Anne Field and Adam Faith, the sullen pouty Jennifer spies the exotic Nichole chatting to a woman she knows is a stripper in the club across the road run by Christopher Lee. Sensing her new stepmother is a woman with a somewhat exhibitionist past, and knowing her 'square' old daddy will react with much embarrassment when he finds out, Jennifer gleefully and petulantly exposes the secret leading to an uncomfortable relationship between the three main characters. 

Beat Girl is your run of the mill generation gap film that salivates at the notion of teenage delinquency and crazy music from the scourge of British society at the time, Teddy Boys. In a particularly heavy handed metaphor, architect Paul's attention is constantly fixed on City 2000, a new town he has designed which seems to deliberately cut off is residents from the outside world, offering little in the way of interaction - much like his own inability to interact and understand today's younger generation as represented by his wayward daughter.

But Beat Girl is actually quite an awkward film in that it occasionally seems uncertain of its audience. It wants to pull in the kids and speak to them sympathetically and hires hitmaker of the Adam Faith to star as an aspiring musician, performing songs with The John Barry Seven written by "no no no no no" none other than "yes!" Trevor Peacock of The Vicar of Dibley fame. Yet it also offers quite a bit for the older audience, specifically the lonely middle aged raincoat wearing older man, going off the strip scenes set in Lee's club! It's desire to get an X rating is strange given its obvious appeal to teenage kids.  

Like many films that attempted to take the pulse of the nation at the time, Beat Girl has probably become more enjoyable with age now that that scene is no longer current, because I certainly can't imagine the cut glass accents from the mouths of the would be rowdy tearaways being all that convincing at the time to the real McCoy in the cinema seats. The dialogue is hilarious too, I don't know if anyone ever really spoke like that in real life "Straight from the fridge Daddy-O" and "I'm over and out"  but its really dated and terribly funny.

The cast is notable one; Hills looks every inch the star in the making and, whilst some acclaim came to her in the decade, she is perhaps best known now for showing her pubic hair in Antonioni's Blow Up. Adam Faith, perhaps the only convincing beat kid in the film lends both kudos to the proceedings as well as the only non posh accent on display, but his acting is not up to the standards it would later be in '70s films like Stardust or McVicar and in his most famous TV role as the loveable Soho rogue Budgie. There's also Peter McEnery, Shirley Anne Field (who provides my favourite moment and song in the film, It's Legal, which I'll share at the end of this post) a young Oliver Reed, Margot Bryant who would shortly become famous in households up and down the land for her role as Minnie Caldwell in Coronation Street and, at the strip club, a monkey suited Nigel Green and Christopher Lee.

I couldn't go without mentioning Lee of course, who as I reported in my earlier post sadly passed away today aged 93. This is probably not a film he held in much esteem or gave much  consideration too in the grand scheme of things but he produces a suitably urbane hissable villain with ice in his veins which is essentially the kind of character who would go on to memorably play in one form or another in greater roles. RIP.

Another cult fave from Talking Pictures TV.

Never Let Go (1960)

It could all have been so different.

Originally, Never Let Go had cast Peter Sellers to play Cummings, the keen salesman whose life falls apart when his car is stolen, and Richard Todd signed on to play Meadows, the brutal head of car theft operation. Either role would have been diversion for both men; Todd, the veteran of the D Day landings who had portrayed several military heroes in war films such as The Dam Busters, was in no way known for his villainous roles and likewise, Peter Sellers the Goon Show and comic film star was not known for straight drama. But there was something about the Never Let Go script, some desire to break away from his established persona, that made Sellers determined to play Meadows and he set about persuading Todd to  switch roles with him. That he did succeed in this exchange makes Never Let Go, a minor British Noir, worth watching for - as the poster below proclaims - the ''new Peter Sellers - tough and ruthless!''

There's little special about Never Let Go. Alun Falconer's plot is so distinctly small fry it appears to wish to emulate and update Vittorio De Sica's The Bicycle Thieves in its suggestion that to rob a man of his means of transport is to rob him of his ability to earn his livelihood. The direction by John Guillerman is efficient enough and Christopher Challis' cinematography makes good use of the shadows and contrasts as befits the Noir/gangster genre, but there are better British Noir films out there - such as Hell is a City and Night and the City.

No, what makes Never Let Go is that tough and ruthless Sellers.

As the menacing Meadows Sellers, as he did with all his alter egos, created something well rounded and very distinctive. His hair is thick and wavy, he sports a trim moustache above a stiff, clenched grimace masquerading as a smile. His accent hails from Lancashire or Cheshire - round my necks of the woods certainly - and is nasal, almost as if he begrudges wasting breath on the people he has to threaten or taunt. He patrols his empire with a puffed up, barrel chested gait, arms simian loose at either side. Physically, his rigid manner is one of coiled barely controlled anger which, when unleashed is abrupt, startling and explosive to behold. Just as he was known to do with his comic personas, so too did Sellers take Meadows home with him, a disastrous and abusive side effect for his then wife Ann Howe. Bearing this in mind, one wonders whether it wasn't just the stated fact that Never Let Go flopped at the cinemas that saw Sellers refuse to take such obviously villainous straight dramatic roles in future.

Interestingly, the role of Cummings isn't without its edge either. Driven to desperation over the theft of his car, Todd depicts this seemingly mild mannered salesman as someone who slowly becomes unhinged as his determination to retrieve his car and bring Meadows to justice blinds him to reason and leads him to violence that matches that of his nemesis in a superbly shot final action scene. 

Without Sellers, Never Let Go would be a small noirish B movie of some minor interest for a rainy day matinee, allowing the viewer of a game of 'spot the actor' featuring as it does the likes of David Lodge (Sellers' long time friend from WWII) John Le Mesurier, Nigel Stock, a young Carol White as Sellers' teenage runaway kept woman and pop star turned actor Adam Faith as one of his crooks whose heart belongs to White - both these young stars of the 60s deliver good performances by the way but, as the decade progressed, they would hone their craft to deliver far better for future projects - and a toe tapping, suitably brassy score from future Bond composer and the songwriting partner of Faith's, John Barry. 

With Sellers, Never Let Go becomes that little bit more special and, when he's off the screen, the film becomes a whole lot duller.

Out On Blue Six : John Barry

I bloody love John Barry's music

 John Barry with his then wife and very own 'Beat Girl' Jane Birkin

End Transmission

Theme Time : John Barry - The Persuaders

Another one of my favourite TV series, The Persuaders! which boasted the delightfully charismatic combination of Tony Curtis and Roger Moore investigating crimes concerning the jet set in exotic locations in the most lighthearted of manners

The great John Barry scored another hit with his amazing score for this. Also up there as best title sequence too surely?

So successful was Barry's theme that it entered the pop charts, gaining the accolade of being represented through 'the medium of dance' by Pan's People on Top Of The Pops

Speaking of Tony Curtis, this gives me an opportunity to share this photo I came across of him, dating from 1959,  at home with his wife Janet Leigh

Look how into it he is? He seems positively triumphant that he's bested his wife, who has clearly given up and/or not taking it as seriously as he has in the first place! And what is he wearing?! They look like suit trousers but are shorts?!

Still, in the interests of fairness it's worth pointing out Tony Curtis wasn't the proponent of any fashion faux pas in The Persuaders (unless you count habitually wearing leather driving gloves, even indoors as a fashion error?) No, that accolade must go to his co-star Roger Moore, who was responsible for his outfits in that he designed them himself

Yes, Moore actually designed and chose to wear that slashed to the navel shirt!

The 70s, so misunderstood.

Jane et ses deux filles

Jane Birkin, Charlotte Gainsbourg and Kate Barry, 1977 (photographs by Giancarlo Botti)

More Pan's People

The blog's had quite a Pan's People vibe over the past day or so, but to be honest, why not? After all, what's not to like? ;)

^Cherry and Babs. Two of the very loveliest IMO

^Babs solo and schoolgirlie *sighs* Hehe

Out On Blue Six : John Barry

It's time to share the daddy of all film composers on Out On Blue Six, the late great John Barry. Here's just a selection of the outstanding soundtrack work he gave us, from the 1960s, starting with the apt 'Space March' from the Bond film You Only Live Twice, followed by his theme for The Knack and lastly, be bewitched by the stunning marriage of action sequence and beautiful music-'Romance For Guitars and Orchestra' ; 15 pivotal minutes from the  Michael Caine movie Deadfall. Can you imagine a heist movie having such class now?

I don't think!

End Transmission.