Showing posts with label George Coulouris. Show all posts
Showing posts with label George Coulouris. Show all posts
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| Cushing and Lee at cross-purposes |
THE SKULL (1965). Director: Freddie Francis.
Dr. Christopher Maitland (Peter Cushing) is a collector of macabre esoterica who is brought a certain skull by Marco (Patrick Wymark); Marco insists it is the skull of the Marquis De Sade. Exposure to the skull brings doom and death to certain parties, and begins to control the mind of Dr. Maitland. Another collector, Sir Matthew Phillips (Christopher Lee), from whom the skull was stolen, warns Maitland about the skull, to no avail. Amicus studios tried to go Hammer one better by hiring away their stars and directors, and using similarly handsome settings, but producer (and Amicus bigwig) Milton Subotsky's script for this pretty much does it in. Just about everything that happens is completely predictable, and at one point the skull even goes flying through the air like a bat in a silly bit of business. Based on a story by Robert Bloch, it presents a foolish stereotype of De Sade as well. Cushing is marvelous, as usual, with fine support from Lee and Jill Bennett (For Your Eyes Only) as his wife. George Coulouris is an early victim of the skull and Michael Gough is an auctioneer. The whole thing becomes surprisingly boring pretty quickly. Asylum was a much better Amicus picture.
Verdict: More of a numbskull than a skull. **.
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| Bardot and Bogarde |
Dr. Simon Sparrow (Dirk Bogarde) becomes a ship's doctor chiefly to get away from an encumbrance with the plain daughter of his medical partner. Instead of a grumpy chief surgeon played by James Robertson Justice, he gets a grumpy Captain Hogg, also played by James Robertson Justice, and who's not much different from the surgeon. Hogg hates the idea of women on board ship, but he gets two female passengers, French chanteuse Helene Colbert (Brigitte Bardot), and Muriel Mallet (Brenda de Banzie), who is fascinated by the captain's beard and happens to be the daughter of the head of the line. There's some funny stuff in here, but more often the picture strains for hardy laughs. The cast is quite good, however, with an always-solid Bogarde, although a more demure, brunette Bardot, while attractive and capable, doesn't resemble the blonde sex bomb she was most frequently seen as. Justice played Sir Lancelot Spratt in one previous Doctor film, and in three later ones, including Doctor in Love, in which Michael Craig briefly took over from Dirk Bogarde in the lead, although not in the same role. Brenda de Banzie also had an important role in Hitchcock's 1956 The Man Who Knew Too Much, and is somewhat wasted in this piffle. George Coulouris plays a drunken sailor and plays it well.
Verdict: Fans of Bardot and/or Bogarde will enjoy this more than others. **.
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| Mediocre duo: Nigel Davenport and Jean Wallace |
Extreme pollution and a grain-destroying virus have combined to cause hunger and even cannibalism in parts of the world, and citizens of the UK are afraid it isn't long before the same thing happens to them. John Custance (Nigel Davenport), his wife, Ann (Jean Wallace), their children, and friend Roger (John Hamill) take off for a farm in the countryside but have a hell of a time getting there. Along the way they hook up with Pirrie (Anthony May), a casual murderer, but they descend into savagery just as much as everyone else. Eventually Custance is pitted against his own brother ... No Blade of Grass is well-directed by Cornel Wilde [The Naked Prey] -- who does not appear in the film but offers some narration -- but can't overcome its weak script and the miscasting of its two mediocre leads, Davenport [A Man for All Seasons] and Wallace [Jigsaw], although there are good performances from members of the supporting cast. There are some arresting sequences, such as the harrowing business when the family tries to get out of a mob-ruled city by car, and a tense stand-off between Custance and Pirrie over the daughter, Mary (Lynne Frederick). George Coulouris [Citizen Kane] has a small role as a gun shop owner. Despite all of the very grim goings-on, No Blade of Grass manages to become quite tedious after awhile. There is hardly a sympathetic character in sight.
Verdict: Unremittingly depressing, and not good enough to compensate for it. **.