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Like it’s more-tit-centric buddy Beyond the Valley of the Dolls there’s a
wonderful quality of not-giving-a-shit to these sixties ‘romps’. Remember the Casino of ’06, all free-running and gruff
stares and fucking and then look at this, with its bubbles and midgets and men
called ‘Tremble’. It’s not that funny, but like going on the dodgems with
Christopher Lee and a roll of crack it is odd and exhilarating, leaving you
with a funny taste in your nostrils. There’s no excitement to modern action
movies because there’s nothing surprising about them anymore; audiences are so
up with the beats that they know where the car-chase will come, where he’ll
kiss the girl, where he’ll fist the villain. They don’t know where Mata Haris’
daughter will be perved over by Ronnie Corbett, or when David Niven’s house
will explode, or how Orson Welles will steal the whole film by chucking some
cards around and performing a magic trick. Advantage sixties.
Experimentation
is surprising, it’s tangential and frequently nonsensical – but it’s usually
captivating, even when terrible. Roger Moore said it best when he murmured
about Craig Daniel in that rumbling silk voice of his: ‘I killed them with
love. He just kills them with his fists.’ The sixties version has style. It’s
got a demented variation of class. Not everything that the six directors chucks
at the screen works, not all of it’s compelling and it never even attempts to
form a cohesive whole – but hot damn, if it isn’t fun and new and original. And
forty years old. God only knows how much money was lost on this grand folly,
but it was worth it just to see something a little bit different. And we won’t
be seeing any of its kind anytime soon, unless Sam Mendes has a mental
breakdown when the sky falls on his head.
It’s also the only film to star the unholy
triumvate of Woody Allen, John Huston and Wilf from Doctor Who, so give it two shots to the forehead.
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