Period pieces 1: Miss Marple / Mapp & Lucia

An investment for those long winter nights is a reasonably priced boxset of all 12 BBC Miss Marple stories featuring Joan Hickson as the intrepid detective of that perfect 1950s English village St Mary Mead. Hickson, usually seen in comic roles (YANKS, UPSTAIRS & DOWNSTAIRS, PLEASE TURN OVER etc) is just perfect here.

The 1960s Marple films with Margaret Ruthrford were comic trifles, and much as I like Geraldine McEwan and Julia McKenzie their later Marples were all wrong, and the films silly and stuffed with guest stars (step forward as usual David Walliams).

The main Marple stories like MURDER AT THE VICARGE, 4.50  FROM PADDINGTON, and my particular favourite AT  BERTRAM'S HOTEL are all iincuded and it will be a pleasure to see them again. See Miss Marple label for review of this,

I already have the 80s series of MAPP & LUCIA,  the blissful comic capers of those two warring ladies in Tilling in Sussex, in that perfect period between the wars, with Geraldine McEwan, Prunella Scales and Nigel Hawthorne all perfectly cast, as are all the other characters. I have reviewed this in more detail at Mapp & Lucia label. 

Start the revolution without me - 1970

Here's a forgotten, over-looked treat for a dull afternoon - I saw it in 1970 but it seems we all forgot about it. 

START THE REVOLUTION WITHOUT ME is a mostly hilarious farce sending up the French Revolution, as directed by Bud Yorkin, starring Gene Wilder and Donald Sutherland (before their 70s peaks) as the mixed up twins - one rather dim (thats Gene) and the other terribly snooty. 

A great cast of farceurs are lined up: Hugh Griffith as Louis XVI, Jack McGowran, Murray Melvin, Victor Spinetti (as Count D'Escargot), Helen Fraser, Rosalind Knight, and best of all Billie Whitelaw as Marie Antoinette! AND Orson Welles narrates. Its  all a weird mix of Monty Python, A Tale of Two Cities etc. 

An old favourite: Dance of the Vampires or ....

Roman Polanski's 1967 spoof DANCE OF THE VAMPIRES or THE FEARLESS VAMPIRE KILLERS is still an absolute delight - and should really be seen on a large screen as it's widescreen images are just marvellous - I particularly like that moment when Polanski (he plays Alfred the bumbling rather dim-witted assistant to Professor Abronsius himself) is fleeing from Count Von Krolock's son ("a sensitive youth" as his father, the leader of the vampires, says) and he - Polanski - runs all around the four sides of the castle cloisters to return to the point he started from where the vampire son [Iain Quarrier] is waiting for him .... delirious stuff.

This was Polanski still in English movie mode, after REPULSION and CUL-DE-SAC before heading to America and ROSEMARY'S BABY, so it was made with his usual collaborators, writer Gerard Brach and composer Krystof Komeda. Veteran actor Jack McGowran is the dotty professor hunting for vampires in Transylvania with his assistant Alfred. They stay at an inn where everyone is superstitious and afraid of vampires. Alfred gets to meet and fall for the inn-keeper's daughter Sarah (Sharon Tate, quite lovely here) who has also come to the attention of the mysterious Count whose eerie castle is outside the village. Sarah is addicted to taking baths and during one the Count enters and takes her away. Alfred and the Professor follow but not before the inn-keeper (who is Jewish, played by Alfie Bass) also falls victim to the vampire, as does his busty barmaid/mistress Fiona Lewis.

This is all spendidly realised with great sets for the inn and the castle. They find the resting places of the count and his son but it too late as the sun goes down ... Count Von Krolock materialises and has his own plans for the Professor and Alfred who can provide some intellectually stimulating company for them during those long winter nights as the centuries pass by. The son Herbert takes a shine to Alfred and there is that delicious scene as Alfred sitting on the bed as Herbert gets closer realises his is the only reflection in the mirror ... hence that chase around the castle. So we have a Jewish vampire and a gay vampire, both hilariously done, and Ferdy Mayne is a perfect arch vampire.

Sarah will be initiated into the vampires during the great ball held once a year and there is that great moment as ancient tombs open as the rather decrepit vampires emerge for their ball. The ball is a delight with everyone dancing but the large mirror only shows Alfred, Abronsius and Sarah .... they manage to get away as the vampires give chase in some very funny scenes and the ending is quite nice, while Komeda's score is just right.... It is all just a perfect delight from start to finish and one I can relish any time - a key Polanski movie too, before those later darker movies like his MACBETH and CHINATOWN or THE TENANT, or his recent THE GHOST (WRITER). Back in '69 or '70 when I was living around Chelsea I turned from Sloane Square into Kings Road and there was Polanski in front of me talking to someone - you could never mistake him for anyone else!

Back to 1957 with ....

When I was 11 in 1957, a favourite movie magazine - one of the American fan ones - was maybe called "Screen Stories", featuring stories and photos from the current movies. This particular issue featured RAINTREE COUNTY, THE PRINCE AND THE SHOWGIRL, TAMMY AND THE BACHELOR, LOVING YOU, FUNNY FACE and others -- I can still visualise it. This week two of these re-surfaced, the Marilyn and the Elizabeth saga. Of the two I think Marilyn came out the winner.

Both had been working hard throughout the early Fifties, Liz having four movies out in 1954, but once GIANT catapulted her into the  major league, she slowed down to one prestige film a year .... as did Marilyn, who had formed her own production company with Milton H Greene, after moving to New York and was seeking more important projects, than the fluff 20th Century Fox saw her in. Terence Rattigan's play, THE SLEEPING PRINCE, seemed the ideal choice, with Laurence Olivier directing and co-starring, and a good British cast, filmed in England in 1956. We have covered that in detail before here, particularly when the film MY WEEK WITH MARILYN came out. Looking at it again now it is utter delight.

It is a totally different Marilyn from her Fox movies, ace cameraman Jack Cardiff photographs her lovingly, she had never looked better and proves herself a delightful comedienne, holding her own with Olivier, whose sly portrayal is a joy too. Marilyn in that skintight white dress, with the white choker necklace, and the nice period detail. 
Good to see Richard Wattis in a good role for once, and Marilyn with Jean Kent, Maxine Audley, Gladys Henson, Vera Day and with that forgotten actor Jeremy Spenser as the young prince,  (All covered at labels). Of course the production was notoriously difficult with Marilyn's delays and insecurities, but none of it shows on the screen. Its a pleasure to sink into any time. 

RAINTREE COUNTY on the other hand is now a colossal bore and did Taylor no favours. Her damaged southern belle is no Scarlett O'Hara, and the film is a plod through the usual Civil War dramatics. 
Eva Marie Saint is wasted, but we get lots of the young Lee Marvin, Rod Taylor, Nigel Patrick. Montgomery Clift seems to stumble through it, We wonder which scenes were before and after his car accident. He and Taylor though did look great in Bob Willoughby's photos from the set, and seemed to be enjoying themselves, The film was never given the full dvd release initially, as though MGM did not want to bother with it. At least Liz had those Tennessee Williams roles lined up next: CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF and SUDDENLY LAST SUMMER, while Marilyn went back to Billy Wilder and the immortal SOME LIKE IT HOT. Liz may have been the dramatic actress, but Marilyn could sing, do comedy and musicals, as well as dramatics, and seems to have endured better.

Monroe and Taylor would be in contention again five years later in 1962 when CLEOPATRA and MM's SOMETHING'S GOTTA GIVE where making the headlines .... 

The adventures of Gerard - 1970

This was one of those throwaway movies we enjoyed at the time - like De Broca's THAT MAN FROM RIO, dubbed and released as a supporting feature in 1964 and became a cult favourite over time. GERARD is maybe quite not in the same league, but is an amusing diversion to see now, a swashbuckling period piece about Napoleonic times it is at times brilliant in its comedic delivery, from quirky Polish director Jerzy Skolimowski, from stories by Conan Doyle, fleshed out by Peter McEnery as Gerard, Claudia Cardinale, Eli Wallach as a rather camp Napoleon, Jack Hawkins, Mark Burns and more. It is brash, colorful (all those red costumes), looks good in widescreen, Claudia dances up a storm (but I think only Visconti and Zurlini have really showcased her properly).

Other notable Hussars include David Hemmings as Captain Nolan in the 1968 CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE, and Malcolm McDowell in Lester's ROYAL FLASH in '75. GERARD in fact play like a Lester film, full of amusing moments and asides to the camera. We like of course Skolimowski's other films like DEEP END and KING QUEEN KNAVE, as per previous posts on them, (Jane Asher label). 
GERARD reminds me of another madcap comedy from that 1969-1970 era, which I will have seek out again: START THE REVOLUTION WITHOUT ME, Bud Yorkin's delirious costume comedy set in the French Revolution, with Gene Wilder and Donald Sutherland as twins, Hugh Griffith as Louis XIV and Billie Whitelaw as Marie Antoinette! Another fond memory ...

McEnery is ideal here. He seems to have stopped working in 2008 (according to IMDB) Born in 1940, he had a small part in the 1960 TUNES OF GLORY and was then Boy Barrett setting the plot of VICTIM in motion in 1961. He did two Walt Disneys: giving Hayley Mills her first screen kiss in  the very entertaining THE MOONSPINNERS (where he also tussled with Eli Wallach's panto villain, in 1964) and that FIGHTING PRINCE OF DONEGAL in 1966, long unseen now. Jane Fonda gets him in Vadim's oddball LA CUREE (THE GAME IS OVER) in 1966, and he is with Glenda and Diane Cilento in NEGATIVES, one I did not see, in 1967. Then he was the very entertaining MR SLOANE in the 1970 film of Orton's hit play. 

A lot of television followed, and I saw him on the stage three times: he was the first HAMLET I saw in Leicester, in maybe 1969, followed by SHADOW OF A GUNMAN by O'Casey at the Old Vic in the early 70s, and a rather good LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC in 1989, with Dorothy Tutin, Susan Hampshire and Lila Kedrova. 

Like John Stride and those other British actors of his era, one would like to see more of him, 

If its Tuesday this must be Belgium - 1969

A friend who works in travel wanted to re-see this, so I got a copy for him - its passably amusing, dealing with a coach tour of Europe in the Sixties, taking in nine countries in eighteen days. The usual predictable comedy situations take place, ticking off each nation's stereotypes. The American tourists are mainly schlubs married to nagging wives, or rampant lechers .... at least Mildred Natwick, Murray Hamilton, Norman Fell try to create characters, while the leads are tour guide Ian McShane who of course has a girl in every country, and Suzanne Pleshette, looking and sounding marvellous here, as the romantic interest on the trip. The movie is Suzanne's all the way. 

Directed by Mel Stewart, the only point of interest here is the endless walk-ons by assorted European stars who turn up for a minute or less each. There's Anita Ekberg, Elsa Martinelli, Virna Lisi, Senta Berger, Catherine Spaak, Joan Collins (whom I did not even spot so tiny is her appearance), at least Vittorio De Sica gets a few minutes as a wily shoemaker. and Donovan sings the drippy theme song, and Patricia Routledge is the bossy London guide. 

There is one shot at the start of Ben Gazzara and John Cassavetes playing cards - why? it is like they are in a different film, Its hippies and mini skirts all the way, made palatable for the great family audience, 

It catches that late Sixties look and would actually be a good double bill with BUONA SERA, MRS CAMPBELL, that other late 60s look at American tourists in Europe ..... but its hardly essential cinema.

Male Hunt, 1964

Here's a rarity indeed - I had not even heard of it until pal Jerry found it - AND it features a lot of those European favourites early in their careers back at the dawn of the 1960s. LA CHASSE A L'HOMME (MALE HUNT) features Belmondo, Brialy, Claude Rich, Catherine Denueve and her sister Francoise Dorleac (their only other teaming apart from LES DEMOISELLES DE ROCHEFORT in 1967), as well as marvellous Marie Laforet, plus Bernadette Lafont and Micheline Presle, Michel Serrault.

Shot mainly in Paris, it includes locations at Rhodes and the ruins at Lindos - a favourite place of mine. It comes across now as an unpretentious comedy, directed by Edouard Molinaro, with a lot of attractive young players, no doubt made for the home market - which is probably why we never heard of it in London then. Belmondo has a nice bit as his usual young rascal. 

This captivating comedy has a number of amusing twists and turns. It stars Jean-Claude Brialy who is determined to get married despite efforts of some people to dissuade him including Claude Rich and Jean-Paul Belmondo. Catherine Denueve, Marie Laforet and Francoise Dorleac are some of the girls. Dorleac is extremely good here, she has never been better, and Laforet is as eye-catching as she was in PLEIN SOLEIL. 

Molinaro (who later directed LA CAGE AUX FOLLES) had a very good eye for comedy. IMDB lists it as a 1964 film but it looks earlier to me - most of the cast were firmly established by then.

Still of the day ...

Two of our favourite blondes: Faye and Michael - Dunaway and York that is, in Richard Lester's all-star extravaganza THE FOUR MUSKETEERS, the more sombre follow-up to his jolly THREE MUSKETEERS, both filmed in 1973. Faye is a deliciously wicked Milady with the York boy as the hapless D'Artagnan .... Charlton Heston scores too as the devious Richelieu, as does Olly Reed as Athos and Christopher Lee in a different role for him. Lots of enjoyment here .... it all looks great too,

Decline and Fall - 1968

A new BBC three-part version of Evelyn Waugh's satirical novel DECLINE AND FALL unveils tonight, here in the UK. One hopes it will be as amusing as the rather forgotten film they made of it in 1968. It was the 24 year old Waugh's first novel, first published in 1928, and I am saving it to read on a holiday next week.Comedian Jack Whitehall should be an ideal lead (The new series builds nicely, with Douglas Hodge, as ever, being the highlight here). Here is what I said about the film a few years ago:

DECLINE AND FALL, 1968.  Amusing film version of Evelyn Waugh’s satire which I enjoyed back then and is finally back in circulation (on a no-frills Fox Cinema Archives dvd). It is quite a lavish production from that era when Americans were financing the British film industry, this one is  directed by John Krish, the interest now is the great cast of English players, some of whom keep re-appearing as their characters’ fortunes wax and wane. I presume they titled it DECLINE AND FALL OF A BIRDWATCHER to make it sound a bit more racy … we only see our lead character Paul Pennyfeather watching birds (the feathered kind) once, before he is slung out of Oxford University as he is blamed for the pranks of others. 

Everything happens to hapless Paul, a passive victim of circumstance. He winds up teaching at Llanabba school in darkest, wettest Wales, a grim place run by Dr Fagan (Donald Wolfit, enjoying himself hugely) and his daughter Flossie (Patience Collier). Other teachers include Grimes (Leo McKern) a bigamist with a wonky leg, Prendergast (Robert Harris) with that ill-fitting wig, and Maybrick (Colin Blakely) the handyman turned thief. It rains of course on sports day but the heavens part to allow the sun to shine on Margot Beste-Chetwynd (Genevieve Page), socialite mother of one of the pupils, and soon Paul is in her thrall, as he is invited to her luxurious pad, Margot it seems has plans for him …. As she gets him to assist her with her Latin American Entertainments company, which is a front for white slavery, an amusing scene has her interviewing prospective dancers.  Paul of course takes the rap and is sent to a very grim prison, where McKern, Harris and Blakely turn up again. Margot marries the Home Secretary and gets a pardon for Paul, who is whisked away to a dubious nursing home, run by Dr Fagan . Poor Prendegast has been murdered by a lunatic and his body substituted for Paul at his funeral, leaving our hero free for further adventures. 

So, it is a comic, episodic ramble through English society, as our innocent hero finds duplicity and greed on all sides. Robin Phillips (who went into threatre direction) plays Paul, slinky vamps don’t come any slinkier than Genevieve Page, and Felix Aylmer as an aged judge, Kenneth Griffith, Patrick Magee, Donald Sinden, Paul Rogers, Roland Curram, Marne Maitland and Victor Maddern are among the host of supporting players. Like Tony Richardson’s Waugh film THE LOVED ONE it crams everybody in!  
Robin Phillips (1942-2015)  was also DAVID COPPERFIELD in that all-star 1969 version which I liked (with Olivier, Edith Evans etc), and in a very odd one TWO GENTLEMEN SHARING (right) which we finally caught up with a while back - review at British-1 label.

Sixties rarities: bawdy fun with Kim, Susannah etc.

It’s a return to that bawdy, lusty 18th century with LOCK UP YOUR DAUGHTERS, Peter Coe’s 1969 film of a stage show with songs, though the songs are gone here, as this vainly follows THE ADVENTURES OF MOLL FLANDERS in trying to capture the success of TOM JONES. It ramps up the squalor of the era and plays like a CARRY ON on speed – all it has going for it really is that cast. It basically follows the misadventures of three sailors on shore leave: Lusty (Jim Dale), Shaftoe (Tom Bell) and Ramble (Ian Bannen) who are all looking for some action – willing to provide it are Susannah York (Hilaret) who is rather underused here, Vanessa Howard (Hoyden) and Glynis Johns (Mrs Squeezum). Fabulous Fenella Fielding has the Joan Greenwood role as Lady Eager, allowing herself to be seduced at the theatre and ensuring her seducer has the correct window to call on later – Kathleen Harrison and Roy Kinnear are also funny as Lord and Lady Clumsey, and Roy Dotrice is the Gossip. Other familiar faces include Arthur Mullard, Peter Bull, Fred Emney and its good to see Georgia Brown (the original Nancy in the original OLIVER) as the local strumpet. Top billed though is another extraordinary performance by Christopher Plummer as Lord Fopington with a grotesque wig and what looks like a false nose and who can barely walk he is so effete - he is as stunning as his Inca king Atahualpa in the film of THE ROYAL HUNT OF THE SUN, also that year.. Shot in Kilkenny, Ireland it is an amusing trifle to see at this remove.

THE AMOROUS ADVENTURES OF MOLL FLANDERS in 1965 was obviously following in TOM JONES' footsteps with Kim Novak in the lead as amorous Moll, but is good-humoured fun as Terence Young directs a good cast and practically every British comedian and character actor of the era. There is that terrific star quartet of Angela Lansbury and Vittorio De Sica having fun as impoverished aristocrats, Lilli Palmer as leader of the criminal underworld, and George Sanders as Moll's first husband. Kim was so iconic in the '50s [PICNIC, EDDIE DUCHIN STORY, VERTIGO, BELL BOOK AND CANDLE, STRANGERS WHEN WE MEET etc] but - rather like Carroll Baker - she seems diminished in the '60s as items like BOYS NIGHT OUT, OF HUMAN BONDAGE etc did her no favours. She plays along gamely here ... its still a laugh.

Sixties rarirty: The Pleasure Of His Company, 1961

A clutch of '60s rarities we have re-visited, before moving on to some current releases like NOCTURNAL ANIMALS and DR STRANGE. 

THE PLEASURE OF HIS COMPANY. This 1961 release is perfectly Paramount, another of those smooth Perlberg-Seaton plush comedies, with a leading role for Fred Astaire as the wayward playboy Pogo who returns to San Francisco for his daughter's wedding. He has not seen her since she was a child but his visit causes all kinds of repercussions for his ex-wife, Lilli Palmer, as elegant as ever, and her current husband Garry Merrill (a decade after his Bill Sampson in ALL ABOUT EVE). The young folk are Debbie Reynolds and Tab Hunter, Add in Charlie Ruggles as grandfather and the stage is set - another mansion overlooking San Francisco bay, rather like the location for the rather similar GUESS WHO'S COMING TO DINNER?. 

San Francisco debutante, Jessica Poole, is marrying Napa Valley cattle rancher, Roger Henderson, and hopes her peripatetic father, "Pogo" Poole, whom she hasn't seen for years, comes to the wedding. He arrives, disrupting the household of his ex-wife, Katharine, and her long-suffering husband, and befriending their cook, Toy. At first it seems that Pogo is set on breaking up the engagement, making up for years of neglect by wining and dining Jessica, showing up Roger as a hick, and enticing her to come to Europe with him. Then it seems his real goal is to win back Katharine's heart: why else would he have two tickets to Paris booked on a plane leaving right after the reception?

We are also in THE MAN WHO CAME TO DINNER territory as Pogo is a monster - with no regard for anyone, he takes over the house, ejecting Merrill from his study, and is determined to sabotage the wedding as he now wants his daughter for himself and to take her travelling with him as he circles the globe. Will Debbie fall for it? Will Tab erupt? Will Lilli see through his plans, and who is Pogo taking with him on the plane at the end?  It is fitfully amusing but rather predictable, I last saw it when I was a kid, good though to see Astaire again and the ever radiant Lilli - one of our favourites here - after her good roles then in BUT NOT FOR ME in 1959 and CONSPIRACY OF HEARTS in 1960, we also saw her in another Perlberg-Seaton THE COUNTERFEIT TRAITOR in 1962, where she gets shot by the Nazis, and in the German ADORABLE JULIA, then her other supporting roles in THE ADVENTURES OF MOLL FLANDERS and that very determined secret agent in OPERATION CROSSBOW. 

Fenella

A moment to celebrate the beyond marvellous Fenella Fielding, 90 this year. The fabulous Fenella is still working, in London theatre, and is not a relic of those CARRY ON films, She only did two in fact, the priceless CARRY ON SCREAMING and CARRY ON REGARDLESS. She, like Barbara Windsor and Shirley Eaton, Dilys Laye and the equally individual Rosalind Knight seem to be the only survivors of the CARRY ON gang, along with Jim Dale of course and Sheila Hancock and Amanda Barrie both from CARRY ON CLEO. She was a scream of course as the vampire in 1966's CARRY ON SCREAMING, 

Fenella's deep husky voice and languid, beyond-camp manner ensures that she will be long remembered and not only by CARRY ON fans. She also popped up in DOCTOR IN LOVE in 1960 and as another vamp with Dirk in DOCTOR IN DISTRESS in 1963, and was an amusing Gwendolen, teasing out Oscar Wilde's lines in a 1964 television THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST (see Fenella label) and also did a Tony Curtis comedy and other television roles, and was the Loudspeaker Announcer in THE PRISONER series. She was a delightful Lady Eager in LOCK UP YOUR DAUGHTERS in 1969. Its good to see Fenella is still around, with her voice as individual as Joan Greenwood's or Glynis Johns' or Babs Windsor. Long may she last. 

Postcards from the edge

Another visit to La La Land with a return to 1990's POSTCARDS FROM THE EDGE, Mike Nichol's satisfying comedy drama from Carrie Fisher's book, all the more poignant now after her recent passing and that of her mother Debbie Reynolds. Shirley McLaine - never a favourite of ours - does maybe her best work here, outside of THE APARTMENT, as Suzanne Vale's movie star mother, who drinks a lot and can't help upstaging her daughter.

Substance-addicted Hollywood actress Suzanne Vale is on the skids. After a spell at a detox centre her film company insists as a condition of continuing to employ her that she live with her mother Doris Mann, herself once a star and now a champion drinker. Such a set-up is bad news for Suzanne who has struggled for years to get out of her mother's shadow, and who finds her mother still treats her like a child. Despite these problems - and further ones to do with the men in in her life - Suzanne can begin to see the funny side of her situation, and it also starts to occur to her that not only do daughters have mothers, mothers do too.

Meryl Streep has one of her best early roles here as the drug-addled actress Suzanne tries to get her life back on track, and Mike Nichols fills the film with a great cast: not only Dennis Quaid, but Simon Callow, Richard Dreyfuss, Gene Hackman, Annette Bening and even the great Mary Wickes (from 40s and 50s classics like NOW VOYAGER and WHITE CHRISTMAS, she also went on to SISTER ACT). 

But the film boils down to those encounters between Meryl and Shirley, and both shine, Shirley in her hospital scene getting ready to face her public - the gays love her - and belting out a version of Sondheim's "I'm Still Here". Meryl too sings up a storm in that final country music scene. 

It all certainly works now and is a film to savour for many fine moments.
Maybe its time for another look at Carrie's THESE OLD BROADS telemovie with not only Debbie and Shirley but Dames Elizabeth Taylor and Joan Collins - which we covered before. see Debbie label.

Some '70s gals ...

Some of our favourite 1970s actresses who provided lots of amusing goofy moments - so no Jane, Faye, Julie, Diane or Jill, instead its Madeline, Terri, Barbara, Karen and Sandy !

The late great Madeline Kahn: Eunice in WHATS UP DOC?, Trixie Delight in PAPER MOON, Lili Von Shtupp in BLAZING SADDLES, Kitty O'Kelly in Bogdanovich's bomb AT LONG LAST LOVE, the monster's bride in YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN.

Terri Garr: TOOTSIE, CLOSE ENCOUNTERS ...,  her great line in YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN: "He vould have an enormous schwanzstucker" ... (There's also of course Cloris Leachman's immortal Frau Blucher ...).

Barbara Harris, so deliously amusing in PLAZA SUITE, touching in NASHVILLE, perfect in Hitch's last FAMILY PLOT.

Karen Black, if only for her air hostess flying the plane in AIRPORT '75, her country queen in NASHVILLE, also in FAMILY PLOT, and another Altman: 1982's COME BACK TO THE FIVE AND DIME, JIMMY DEAN, JIMMY DEAN, which also featured:

Sandy Dennis (1937-1992) who of course started in the Sixties with WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF?, UP THE DOWN STAIRCASE, A TOUCH OF LOVE, THE FOX etc and delighted us in the Seventies with THE OUT OF TOWNERS and her ditzy turn in NASTY HABITS. 

Plus we have to mention Melinda Dillon, so wonderful in CLOSE ENCOUNTERS... and Eileen Brennan, particularly in THE CHEAP DETECTIVE,

Soon, maybe, the '70s guys: Caan, Dern, Devane, Burt Reynolds, Segal, Gould, Sutherland, and the big hitters Nicholson, Redford, Newman, Hackman, De Niro, Pacino and more  ... or maybe not,