Best of the Rest

Those that have missed out will be mentioned under various handy labels for ease of identification only.

Westerns had the leanest year for some time with every big one a flop. The Good The Bad and the Ugly (United Artists) saved the day and another spaghetti The Big Gundown (Columbia) had Lee van Cleef again. 100 Rifles (20th-Fox) gets a small award for mixing revolution and action.

Adaptions of stage plays did well. The Lion in Winter (20th-Fox) was a marvellously contrived affair which provided from Katharine Hepburn, Peter O'Toole and newcomers some of the best acting. Staircase (20th Fox) was a showcase for Rex Harrison as instant queer and loving it with some of the most sordid scenes yet. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (20th-Fox) was a film third hand from the play based on the novel. The film owes much to the play's dialogue to keep it moving quickly along, but its main attribute was Maggie Smith in the leading role. Her's is a performance which ranks with the best and at last gave her something she could get her teeth into.

French novelist Marguerite Duras fared well with 10.30 p.m. Summer and Sailor From Gibraltar (both United Artists) which appeared belately in two consecutive weeks. Jules Dassin used interesting colour filters to highlight the "steaminess" of the Spanish-set melodramatic triangle. Tony Richardson concentrated on bleached monochrome and a repetitive motif to contain the mixture of passion and frustration. Duras's women were well served by Melina Mercouri and Jeanne Moreau respectively. From France itself Playtime and La Religieuse (both N.Z.F.S.) were, apart from the Bergman, the highlights of the few "pure" European films. Jacques Tati presented his own unique style and humour, though at too great a length, and La Religieuse, also on the long side, made me wonder what all the fuss was about in France where it was originally banned through action by the church. Rivette's film was a careful, deliberate one which more or less presented Anna Karina as the only religious person in nineteenth century France. For a nouvelle vague director Rivette had remarkable restraint and his classic-style treatment at least made it more intelligible than his first film, Paris Nous Appartient.

From America a bracket which delved deep into perversion without leaving too much yuck. The Legend of Lylah Clare (MGM) was an Aldrich tour de force which encompassed incest, lesbianism, necrophilia as well as the usual mixed into a Hollywood screen-star story—a sort of trial run for The Killing of Sister George. The Boston Strangler (20th-Fox) made a valiant attempt to defraud the censor by placing so many perversions into a multiple screen image, presumably in the hope that too much of a bad thing would not prove dangerous. Aside from the trimmings Boston Strangler was a compelling film of detection and pathological speculation. Coogan's Bluff (Universal) was a good, but disappointing, offering from action-master Don Seigel, who looks as though represctability may be the end of him. His explosive violence was somewhat denuded, but Clint Eastwood grittily managed to last the distance.

From Britain some original and wonderful works. Yellow Submarine (United Artists) showed the extremes of animation in utilising colour phenomena for fantastic effect, and the original screenplay by Peter Draper made I'll Never Forget What's 'isname (Universal) unforgettable as a hard-hitting though temporary piece of social insanity.

Also noted: Head (Columbia) a remarkable though too-advanced-for-local-audiences paen to the drug age by the Monkees relishing every bit of technical gimmickry, burlesque and selfparody with appearances by Victor Mature, Timothy Carey and Zappa adding to the delights. Bullitt (Warner-Seven Arts) as a superlative thriller (plus car chase and man hunt) in spite of a fascist story. The re-release of Lolita (MCM) so we could now see why it was R21—and I still cannot see why. In the margin: of the abundant high-class technical work seen the photographic award must go to Conrad Hall for his work on John (Point Blank) Boorman's Hell in the Pacific (Cinerama Releasing Corp), a brilliant but limited film in itself. The singular most funny scene was taken by Peter Sellers as Bungit Din or someone in The Party (United Artists) who originated "birdie num-nums".

The acting laurels are hard to pin-point aside from the cast of Lion in Winter. Maggie Smith (Jean Brodie), Edith Evans (The Whisperers—United Artists) and, perhaps for sheer presence, Liz Taylor (Reflections, Secret Ceremony) took the female individual honours for major roles, and Nicol Williamson (Inadmissible Evidence—Paramount) leads the male performances for his outstanding film debut.

Boobies and disappointments include the ill-fated Che (20th-Fox), not so much for what it wanted to do or what it did but merely for its existence. The Guru (20th-Fox) and Isadora (Universal) were the biggest disappointments. Art was in even-frame, intentions every where, motives clear and sympathetic but neither quite clicked. For the worst-most-enjoyable none other than the Australian production Age of Consent (Columbia) which for what it lacked in every other department had an eye-full of a talented young woman named Helen Mirren, an Aussie ex-patriate now working the Shakespearean rounds in England.

Finally, a word for the most ignored force in films, though they are responsible for what we eventually see—the film distributors. Though individual film honours are fairly well spread, for sheer consistency and encouragement to new film-makers and ideas all credit to 20th Century Fox, which, through Amalgamated Theatres, ensures that its films are seen quickly after their overseas release. Example: The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Royal command film, 1969, released Wellington April, 1969: Romeo and Juliet (Paramount through Kerridge) Royal command film, 1968, released Wellington August, 1969. But apart from not allowing films to gather dust 20th-Fox also released stuff like The Magus, Deadfall, Decline and Fall ... of a Birdwatcher and Hard Contract, as well as the others mentioned above. The only other studio rivalling such off-beat material is Universal, but unfortunately few of these ever see the light of day. Which leaves the other major companis passing off the odd stray stuff which comes their way in any way they like. The customer, need it be said, comes last. The independent foreign film distributor New Zealand Film Services has kept fairly quiet this year with some sex comedies surfacing at the Lido from time to time. Perhaps later we will see a further blossoming of European films from it.