keith-moyes-656-481491
Joined Feb 2010
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Reviews43
keith-moyes-656-481491's rating
For decades we have been living with the cult of the director, but in Hollywood they will tell you only two things really matter on a picture: the screenplay and the casting. Get those two things right and any competent director can make a good movie. Get them wrong and a great director might make the movie watchable but he can't make it good.
After watching The Damned, who can doubt that Hollywood is right and movie critics are wrong? Joseph Losey was a very good director, but this movie scarcely rises to the level of the watchable.
The casting is desperate. McDonald Carey was 47 (and looks older) so his wooing of Shirley Anne Field was just creepy.
She in turn was a tad too old to be playing a teenager. Her acting at that time was famously a bad joke. In the Damned she doesn't actually fluff her lines, but that is about it. Her accent is all over the place.
Oliver Reed is a personal aversion of mine. In his early days, he always gave the same intense, brooding performance irrespective of the character or the tone of the picture. His acting was pure narcissism: second division Marlon Brando.
Kenneth Cope was nearing thirty but looked younger so often got saddled with teenage roles like this. As a nihilistic thug, starting to have doubts about his life, he is laughable.
Viveca Lindfors was a decent actress but has nothing to work with. What was her character doing in this picture?
The kids couldn't act.
The screenplay is a mess. It was cobbled together in two weeks when Losey rejected the script he had been given. It is no surprise that nothing hangs together and nothing connects properly.
The premise is ridiculous. Breeding kids who are naturally radio-active in order that they could survive after a nuclear war gives a whole new meaning to 'playing the long game'. That they could also be cold-blooded is scientific nonsense and an insult to any audience that could be expected to take this film seriously. If you want to say something about Cold War hysteria, you should at least try to make it faintly plausible and pertinent.
Clearly there is an attempt to draw a parallel between the casual violence of the gang and the purposive violence of the bureaucrats, but this is compromised by the 'softly softly' approach of the military to the breach of security at the research complex. The authorities seem to be behaving with commendable restraint, so the execution of the artist by Bernard is totally discordant with anything seen before.
The gang are constantly called Teddy Boys, a phenomenon of the early Fifties, although they are clearly 'Rockers' or 'Greasers'. However, this is not necessarily and error on Losey's part. It is plausible that middle-aged men would not be abreast of the fine distinctions of youth culture and would use an anachronistic term.
Other reviewers have noted some parallels with A Clockwork Orange but this must have been purely accidental. The film could not have been drawing on the book for inspiration since it had not yet been published. Similarly, I very much doubt if Anthony Burgess ever saw the movie, much less was influenced by it.
I am tempted to say that any film by Joseph Losey is of some interest, but The Damned tests that proposition almost to destruction. This must be close to Losey's low point as a film maker.
After watching The Damned, who can doubt that Hollywood is right and movie critics are wrong? Joseph Losey was a very good director, but this movie scarcely rises to the level of the watchable.
The casting is desperate. McDonald Carey was 47 (and looks older) so his wooing of Shirley Anne Field was just creepy.
She in turn was a tad too old to be playing a teenager. Her acting at that time was famously a bad joke. In the Damned she doesn't actually fluff her lines, but that is about it. Her accent is all over the place.
Oliver Reed is a personal aversion of mine. In his early days, he always gave the same intense, brooding performance irrespective of the character or the tone of the picture. His acting was pure narcissism: second division Marlon Brando.
Kenneth Cope was nearing thirty but looked younger so often got saddled with teenage roles like this. As a nihilistic thug, starting to have doubts about his life, he is laughable.
Viveca Lindfors was a decent actress but has nothing to work with. What was her character doing in this picture?
The kids couldn't act.
The screenplay is a mess. It was cobbled together in two weeks when Losey rejected the script he had been given. It is no surprise that nothing hangs together and nothing connects properly.
The premise is ridiculous. Breeding kids who are naturally radio-active in order that they could survive after a nuclear war gives a whole new meaning to 'playing the long game'. That they could also be cold-blooded is scientific nonsense and an insult to any audience that could be expected to take this film seriously. If you want to say something about Cold War hysteria, you should at least try to make it faintly plausible and pertinent.
Clearly there is an attempt to draw a parallel between the casual violence of the gang and the purposive violence of the bureaucrats, but this is compromised by the 'softly softly' approach of the military to the breach of security at the research complex. The authorities seem to be behaving with commendable restraint, so the execution of the artist by Bernard is totally discordant with anything seen before.
The gang are constantly called Teddy Boys, a phenomenon of the early Fifties, although they are clearly 'Rockers' or 'Greasers'. However, this is not necessarily and error on Losey's part. It is plausible that middle-aged men would not be abreast of the fine distinctions of youth culture and would use an anachronistic term.
Other reviewers have noted some parallels with A Clockwork Orange but this must have been purely accidental. The film could not have been drawing on the book for inspiration since it had not yet been published. Similarly, I very much doubt if Anthony Burgess ever saw the movie, much less was influenced by it.
I am tempted to say that any film by Joseph Losey is of some interest, but The Damned tests that proposition almost to destruction. This must be close to Losey's low point as a film maker.
