Yesterday I was visiting my friend Ono at his new apartment, hence I'm a day late with the blog, but let's begin. Our first movie is "Date with Disaster"(1957), a near-perfect little heist flick, marred only by one glaring implausibility which we'll get to later. American "Miles Harrington" (Tom Drake, who played Judy Garland's boyfriend in "Meet Me in St. Louis"), runs a used car dealership in the London suburbs. His partner "Don Redman" (Maurice Kaufmann) isn't as scrupulous a businessman. Don's okay with selling shoddy cars, Miles isn't, and gives a customer his money back as the movie opens. Don, a younger, more impetuous man, lets Miles know he's not happy. "That's my money you're refundin'. Don't forget I'm the cash behind this operation." Their chief salesman "Ken Prescott" (Richard Shaw), and blonde secretary "Sue Miller" (Shirley Eaton) round out the company. Don likes secretary Sue and she him, but she really likes Miles, the more manly owner. He's all business, though, and won't mix romance and the office.
Ten minutes in to this 60 minute picture, we observe a backroom meeting to which Don is summoned by Ken, a hard-faced man, to meet a guy named "Tracey" (William Hartnell), an older, insistent gent. We see right away that a heist is being planned. Tracey, a safecracking vet, is the boss. He's done this before (and he's also done a five year stretch), and he doesn't quite trust Don, the new guy. Tracey thinks he's too flighty, immature and arrogant. Hard guy Ken assures Tracey that Don will handle his part of the job, and Tracey relents, but his immediate dislike of Don lets you know there will be a problem down the line.
The middle of the movie is the heist, and boy is it a good one. It takes place in your usual British High Walled Industrial Sector. The Brits sure like to wall things off, with Big Doors and Gates. Tracey, as the safecracker, tries drilling out the lock, but that method doesn't work and his drill bit breaks in half, so he blows it open with DY-no-MITE! The trio escape with 6000 lbs, but not before being chased down by a beat cop.
When a heist goes down, the first thing CID does is check the "regulars", ex-cons of a similar persuasion, all of whom have legit alibis except for Tracey, who says, "I was at home asleep." He's nonchalant when visited by "Inspector Matthews" (Michael Golden), having been through this routine before, and he knows the cops can't prove he did it. But he's not so sure about the trustworthiness of cohort Don Redman, who gets drunk and shoots his mouth off to Sue the secretary. Don is also jealous of her attraction to Miles, her American boss. Tracey knows that emotion is a detriment to a criminal gang in which everyone must hold tight to their secrets and alibis. Now he wants Ken to "get rid of" Don.
The plot enters the usual "gang falls apart after turning against one another" routine. The stolen money is hot and can't be immediately spent, which sends Don into another tizzy: "Well what'd we steal it for, then?" Don can't stop thinking about Miles and secretary Sue, but really it's Ken he needs to worry about. Inspector Matthews becomes suspicious of the dealership when the officer who chased down the getaway car traces it back to Miles Harrington, who ironically had nothing to do with the robbery. Ken has already set up an alibi for the car by creating a fictitious buyer: "Must've been 'im who done it." But it doesn't fool the Inspector, who knows from the get-go that these guys are the culprits. All he has to do is prove it.
That's where the implausibility comes in, and it's pretty ridiculous given the meticulous preparation of the character to which it pertains. Still, this is a close-to-perfect caper flick. You'll recognize balding, slight-but-tough William Hartnell from many a British crime picture, usually playing a bad guy. Director Charles Saunders keeps the tension tightly coiled. Used car dealerships are good in crime films, see "Hot Cars"(1956), reviewed a couple years ago. Shirley Eaton, who plays Sue, was apparently famous from her appearance in "Goldfinger", but I didn't know her even though I've seen that movie (eons ago) because I just can't deal with Sean Connery. Something about him just doesn't work for me. Anyhow, Two Big Thumbs Up for "Date with Disaster" and a high recommendation. The picture is very good. ////
Two nights ago, we had another British comedy, "I Only Arsked"(1958). I'm usually not that big on comedies, but we've been running low on crime films, and the few comedies we've found have been generally pretty funny, in a British low key way, and that may be why I'm liking them. The Brits don't try too hard to make you laugh. Instead they amuse you (cue Joe Pesci), and speaking of Joe Pesci, he was one of those actors I thought should be in prison for being the same as their characters, but Pesci proved me wrong when I saw him years ago, on Leno or Letterman or Conan. He couldn't have been a more humble, thoughtful, well spoken guy, the opposite of what I'd thought.
Anyhow, in "I Only Arsked", a troop of five nitwit British soldiers are tricked by their Sergeant Major (David Lodge) into volunteering for last-resort duty in the Middle East, in some godforsaken desert kingdom, where English engineers suspect a huge oil deposit. The soldiers are sent there, supposedly, to protect the oil site for the king, but these guys are so stoopid they couldn't guard their asses from an invasion of flannel underpants. The five numbskulls come in all sizes, from short and stubby, to knobby-kneed, scrawny and flaming, but the one that stands out is "Popeye Popplewell" (Bernard Bresslaw), all 6'7" of him. He's obviously undergone a trepanning or was born anencephalic. Retardation would be a step up for this goon, played to the hilt by actor Bresslaw, a RADA scholar according to his IMDB bio. Besides the Sergeant Major, a huffy, disciplinarian sort, the men are captained by "Major Upshott-Bagley" (Geoffrey Sumner), a "tut-tut" man with a brush mustache, "Jolly Good, then", who has a habit of drinking others cocktails. His schtick is particularly funny, but once we shift to Shawarma, or whatever this kingdom is called, once the men find out the king has a harem, all they can think about is locating it. They set about tunneling through the floor of their dormitory, where they sleep with mosquito-net coverings. Later, they discover an underground staircase leading to a passageway to the harem, dug out by a previous regiment in Victorian times.
Meanwhile, the king's renegade brother is planning to overthrow him once the oil is discovered, but that effort isn't going well. The British chief engineer offers to give it one last try, "then we're leaving." But now, the knuckleheads, who were fooled into signing up for this jaunt, don't want to leave because they've discovered the harem and are being treated like, well, like kings.
But when the brother invades, somebody's got to stop him and his army, so the dimwits dress up Private Popplewell as a harem princess, and it goes about how you'd expect. It's good stuff, all told, and gets Two Big Thumbs Up. The picture is razor sharp. ////
That's all I know for this first Friday in June. I'll be back tomorrow to get us back on schedule. My blogging music was "The Rotter's Club" by Hatfield and the North, my late night is Handel's Siroy, King of Persia Opera. I wish you a nice weekend and I send you Tons of Love, as always.
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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