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Reviews
Tonite Let's All Make Love in London (1967)
A vital historical footnote, or not as the case maybe
I agree. This film is total and utter rubbish. But so were the times in which it was shot. Sex had only been invented in 1963 (pace P Larkin) and by 1967, London was revelling in this new discovery. However, this piece of unmitigated nonsense has one valuable asset: if any of the younger generation wonder where Mike Myers got the concept for Austin Powers then this is the lodestone. True, Myers drew inspiration from some truly dreadful TV series of the 60s but this film will give junior cineasts great help in understanding the lingo and the background to Mr Powers. Watch it once by all means for the sake of reference. And then as Monster 17 says, get help!
Return to the Desert (1956)
Catharsis?
Denis Kavanagh was nearing the end of his film-making career when Return To The Desert was made. None of his self-generated films had enjoyed much success, being B Movies at best, although Flight From Vienna (cf) went out as support to The Rose Tatoo, starring Burt Lancaster, on general release. Return To The Desert was in some ways a cathartic experience for Kavanagh, who had served as an RAF fighter pilot in the North African campaign before being shot down and invalided out.
I, Claudius (1937)
Personal connection with 'The Epic That Never Was'
My father Denis Kavanagh, who had been a stunt flyer in Hollywood in the late Twenties, working on such films as William Wellman's Wings, returned to the UK to help edit I Claudius. As everyone knows the film was never made following a car crash in which Merle Oberon was injured. That's always been the official line anyway. Much has been made of Charles Laughton's inability to get into the part and at the time Korda was having trouble with Prudential Corporation who had invested heavily in London Films following the success of Private Life of Henry VIII (1933). Luckily, I have seen some of the rushes from the film which were tacked together for a BBC documentary in 1965 entitled 'The Epic That Never Was' narrated by Dirk Bogarde. The rushes featured many tantrums on Laughton's part. Korda used to despair of Laughton's insecurities and the editors, so my father told me, had a very difficult time putting anything useable together. In many ways, my father told me, it was a good thing the movie never appeared because it was going nowhere and Merle Oberon's accident was the ideal excuse to cancel the picture. Obviously, Derek Jacobi didn't have so many problems when the BBC made a television series of the book many years later.