Thursday, 13 June 2024

Perfect Friday (1970 Peter Hall)

Opens with one of the wobbliest crane shots down a corridor I think I've seen. Double-crossing crime caper, written by Anthony Greville-Bell and Scott Forbes, from the latter's story. In cross-cutty, early 1970s style, bank manager Stanley Baker enlists the help of aimless swinging couple Ursula Andress and David Warner to rob his bank. Considering Hall's a theatre director it's very lively cinematically.



With Patience Collier, T.P. McKenna, David Waller, Joan Benham and Johnny Briggs (as a taxi driver).

The rather dingy looking flat in Grosvenor Crescent would now be worth a fortune, as that's one of London's most expensive roads.

Music: John Dankworth. Camera: Alan Hume. Editing: Rex Pyke (asst. on Our Mother's House), also edited Hall's Akenfield (1974). Hall also made Three Into Two Won't Go (1969; finally available again), Pinter's The Homecoming (1973), Poliakoff's She's Been Away (1989) and the mini TV series The Camomile Lawn (1992). I didn't realise - did I? - that Rebecca Hall is his daughter.

It's quite enjoyable.

Andress was Swiss - I always thought she was Swedish, for some reason. Her nude scenes seem very natural, rather than titillating.

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