Movies at Home: The Pink Panther Strikes Again, The Lady Vanishes and Accident

 

Wreaking havoc as usual, Inspector Clousea (Peter Sellers) is promoted to Chief Inspector when his old boss C I Charles Drefuss (Herbert Lom) is in a psychiatric hospital following the trauma of the last film. In The Pink Panther Strikes Again, Dreyfuss escapes and turns villain in hunting down his old adversary. Chaos ensues. I liked the introduction of Leonard Rossiter as Superintendent Quinlan, Lesley-Ann Down as Olga and Richard Vernon as Professor Hugo Fassbender. The last of these acted in a huge number of films and shows in the sixties, twelve in three years 1963-5. From A Hard Days Night to Goldfinger.

A black and white film from 1938, The Lady Vanishes starts with lots of arrivals at the reception of a hotel in France. It's bedlam. It actually introduces the main characters who then board the train where the rest of the movie is set. It's Margaret Lockwood who is the star, having passed out after a plant pot fell on her head at the station. On waking she talks to the elderly Miss Fry (Mary Whitty) who then promptly disappears. Michael Redgrave is the handsome hero who is the only one who believes her. There are searches, arguments, fights and chaos. This is Alfred Hitchcock's last film before he headed for the American dollar. (See my post of 30th September 2024) and his last for producer Michael Balcombe.

Accident is a typical Harold Pinter drama directed by Joseph Losey. Lots of pauses, considerable tension, little action. It stars Dirk Bogarde as Stephen, a tutor to two Oxford students, Michael York as William and Jaqueline Sassard as the beautiful Anna. These two are in a car crash at the beginning and then the story describes the events that lead up to it. A summer weekend at Bogarde's house includes Stanley Baker as a colleague. And then there is Stephen's pregnant wife Rosalind played by the exceptional Vivienne Merchant (Pinter's wife).  But not much happens, they play tennis, they stay for supper. It seems to get slower and slower. There are romantic entanglements. 

In Dirk Bogarde's book Snakes and Ladders, he talks about Losey and Pinter and this film which he says is "far more complicated" than their others. Pinter's words are "offered so sparingly". (You can say that again). Then "in 1966, the most exhausting, exciting and valuable work we ever did together. A perfectly handcrafted piece of work from the first shot to the last and quite the most exciting work I had ever had to do on screen". The part "had never been intended for me". "When we finished after three months I was dead. I could not return to myself (from Stephen). My body and mind were in a vacuum, it took me many weeks to get back to my body". 

Now I enjoyed all of Bogarde's six autobiographies but not all have an index but fortunately Snakes and Ladders does. As for this film, I think it might have worked better in the cinema as at home it felt tired and too slow. It gained poor reviews when it opened and there would only be a limited audience to see it. I was really looking forward to watching it as I am a Pinter fan. Maybe I should revisit it in time.