Last night, we found a very clever crime farce of the type the English excel at, with quirky stereotypes playing off each other to make a silly situation sillier. In "The Hornet's Nest"(1955), we're down by the Thames again. Two elderly sisters live in a flat overlooking an industrial alley near the wharf, and as the movie opens, they see a man running down the street with a package in hand. He disappears behind one of those block-long high brick walls the Brits construct for industrial areas, behind which are combined any mixture of shops, offices, garages, converted apartments, etc. It's like a rabbit warren in those alleyways, behind those brick walls, and the sisters like to look out their window every night for entertainment.
The next morning, the headlines scream of a 20,000 lb jewel robbery. The sisters are excited: "Do you think it was the man we saw?" "He looked like he was runnin' for the wharf."
Right across the street is an office for something called The Society for the Reformation of Societal Unfortunates, a scam company that pulled the jewel job, run by another Wellesian cigar chomper with perfect diction (playing the "flustered" three-piece-suit guy required in English crime farce). The job was carried out by a jolly but marginally-brained ex-boxer, who ended up getting pinched for a bar fight after he hid the jewels. Now the boss and his other toady have to wait a week, while the boxer stews in jail, to find out where the loot is.
Meanwhile, nearby in the same alley, a small businessman is trying to eke out a living. Paul Carpenter, he of the Canadian receding hairline and the Dick Sergeant personality who usually plays ladies-man reporters, is this time a hustler who procures whatever is needed by the customer. He finds deep sea diving suits for film companies, he finds apartments for renters; whatever you need, he can get it. Two pretty models have just been evicted from their apartment in town, for cooking steaks (the implication being that models aren't allowed to eat). They go looking for new digs, and Carpenter hooks them up with a barge. It needs a lot of work, but they're willing, and move in. Part of the confusion necessary in farce is supplied when two other potential tenants claim residency also, including a film company who plan to burn the barge and sink it. By now, we know that the boxer hid the stolen jewels beneath its floorboards, and when he gets out of jail, Orson Welles tells him to get them stones back, stat! But when he goes to the barge, it's now occupied by the models: one English one French, oui, oui!
The French model "chance meets" a Boy Scout troop leader (a manly man) who interests her in the particulars of Scout knots. (I told ya this is a quirky farce). But Welles and the boxer just want the jewels beneath the floorboards. Boxer poses as a health inspector: "Sorry ladies, I've gotta check all barges for dry rot." Here the Thames comes in once again as a character, with the rising of the tide - mud flats at low tide, submerged buildings at high.
The barge eventually floats out to sea, sinking at the same time because the thieves have cut holes in the hull to flood it, so the models will have to move out. Then they can recover their jewels. But the old ladies are still watching it all unfold from their window, so you never know what will result. In all, it's a ton of fun, and thus rates Two Big Thumbs Up, almost Two Huge. It's the kind of thing they would later do in Mike Leigh movies, but with more screwball. The picture is very good. ///
The night before, in "Master Spy"(1963), communist scientist "Boris Turganev" (Stephen Murray) defects at the London airport, over the protests of his chaperone. The British government agrees to grant him asylum, but only after vetting his motives. Ultimately, it's the decision of their MI5 security chief, who tells the foreign office that Turganev's research into neutron acceleration is so groundbreaking that the Brits haven't even thought of it yet. "He can help us catch up." Turganev is given work at the small but important Barfield Nuclear Lab, a defense contractor. Humble when wanting asylum, he's haughty and picky upon joining the lab, finding the facility lacking in equipment, disapproving of his female colleague. "In my country, bad as the conditions were, I did not have to work with women and listen to their constant chatter."
Important papers are disappearing at Barfield. There's been a security breach. A scientist is found drowned; he's believed to be the spy, so the MI5 chief says "case closed". But just to make sure, a new, on-site security man is assigned. Turganev, as the new hire, and a foreign defector, is told to keep all files locked up and he emphatically agrees. He knows what would happen to a spy in his country, and he's grateful to his new British hosts. He even starts coming out of his shell, attending after-hours gatherings at the laboratory's lounge. He even warms to his female assistant, who's as smart as he is. Pretty soon he's giving her fatherly advice on marrying her co-worker boyfriend, who's research is on irradiated bunnies.
Turganev tells her his life story; how his parents were killed in the war, and as a result, how he doesn't want his research used for killing. But he also attends parties at a wealthy man's estate, somewhat out of character for him, though he attributes it to a shared love of chess.
The new security chief thinks the spy problem is settled. No more papers have gone missing. "We're a small facility. Likely they only sent one spy" (meaning the commies). But then, one night when Turganev is playing chess, he and the wealthy "Mr. Skelton" (Alan Wheatley) are interrupted by the arrival of his female colleague, who tells him that her file on neutron magnetization has gone missing. Could Turganev be the culprit? And if so, why did he ask for asylum? And is there twist upon twist? An absolutely superior spy flick, told in 68 minutes. Two Huge Thumbs Up. The picture is razor sharp. ////
And that's all I've got for this evening. Coming up, we'll have more about Lillian and Gary Patterson. My blogging music tonight is "Hughes/Thrall" by Glenn Hughes and Pat Thrall. I had this album when it came out in 1982 (saw 'em at the Country Club, too) and it holds up pretty well, but boy does it ever have a "bright" 1980s production. My late night is Handel's Semele Opera. I hope your week is going well, and I send you Tons of Love, as always.
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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