Crime and Romance - Melodies for Valentine's Day

Forgotten Books will be back next week, but I thought it would be fun to mark Valentine's Day with a few words about some of the finest romantic songs that have been written for..crime and thriller movies. This idea came to me the other day when I was watching a televised concert of James Bond music, conducted by Carl Davis. One of the singers, Mary Carewe, gave an excellent performance of what is possibly the most under-rated of all Bond themes, Moonraker.was at one time going to be sung by either Frank Sinatra or Johnny Mathis but at the last minute Shirley Bassey was brought in to record it. I felt Mary Carewe's version was actually better than Bassey's. (My plan, by the way, was to link to Youtube versions of the songs in question, but here, I'm afraid my techno-incompetence has let me down - for reasons that escape me, none of the links seem to work. Perhaps those who are wiser than me can advise what I'm doing wrong, please? Anyway, all the songs are easy to find on Youtube, and are well worth it.)

The same concert included a much more famous song, performed by Lance Ellington, the classic from On Her Majesty's Secret Service that was originally recorded by Louis Armstrong, shortly before he died. This is We Have all the Time in the World, one of the very best love songs ever written. The music for both those Bond songs was composed by the great John Barry. His many brilliant soundtracks included a notable score for Deadfall, and the striking (if little known) song sung by Shirley Bassey over the credits. This is the memorable My Love Has Two Faces, a song that has grown on me the more I've listened to it..

Returning to Bond, some of the other great songs from the series include The Spy Who Loved Me and Skyfall, but even better is the soundtrack from the spoof movie Casino Royale, and the highlight is Dusty Springfield's The Look of Love. The lyric was written by the late, great Hal David, who also wrote Moonraker and We Have All the Time in the World, and whose gift for expressing romance in a lyric was matchless.

David also collaborated briefly with Michel Legrand, but Legrand's best songs mostly had lyrics by Alan and Marilyn Bergman. The finest, perhaps, is the original version of The Windmills of Your Mind by Noel Harrison, who died not long ago. It appeared in The Thomas Crown Affair, an enjoyable film full of Sixties touches and starring Steve McQueen and Faye Dunaway. And finally, memories of a brilliant comedy thriller, The Italian Job, with a great song that opened the film,,;On Days Like These, by Quincy Jones and Don Black. The romantic words and melody contrast very cleverly with the murderous finale to that opening scene..

Ocean's Eleven

Watching the 2001 remake of Ocean's Eleven reminded me of my only visit to Las Vegas, to attend Bouchercon in 2003. I found the city as fascinating as the convention was enjoyable. I have many fond memories of those few days, including travelling to the Hoover Dam with Stuart and Doreen Pawson, a long conversation with Edward D. Hoch at a cocktail party, meeting Ali Karim for the first time at the Riviera, even though we only live a few miles apart in Cheshire, and a delightful dinner at the home in Henderson of expat British crime writer Douglas Stewart and his family.

Back to the film. I have never seen the original version, starring Frank Sinatra and other members of the Rat Pack, as well as Angie Dickinson (who makes a cameo appearance in the 2001 version.) Remakes are often unwise, but this one was enormously successful at the box office, and I can see why. There is an A-list cast (George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Julia Roberts and so on) and the film is directed with verve by Stephen Soderbergh.

Caper movies like this one follow, almost inevitably, the same pattern. The gang of robbers is put together bit by bit, generally by the smart guy who has conceived an ingenious masterplan to steal a fortune. Complications ensue, and the only question is: will they get away with it, or not? The Italian Job and The League of Gentlemen are probably my favourite films of this, and now Ocean’s Eleven joins the list.

Clooney has decided to rob the Bellagio casino (photo taken by Doreen Pawson, when we were wandering around the casinos) and spice is added to the venture because the casino is owned by a man called Benedict (played by Andy Garcia) who now lives with Clooney’s ex, Tess (Julia Roberts). Clooney wants the money, but he wants Tess even more. I enjoyed finding out whether he would succeed in his quest. I wonder if the two sequels to this movie, or indeed the Rat Pack original, are as good – any views?

Layer Cake

I like good gangster movies, but mediocre ones can be very tedious – and the really good ones are rather thin on the ground. So I approached the film of J.J. Connolly’s book Layer Cake with some trepidation, drawn as much by the fact that it starred the excellent Daniel Craig as by optimism that I’d enjoy the story.

But enjoy it I did – very much. In fact, Layer Cake now lines up alongside Get Carter, The Long Good Friday and The Italian Job as one of my absolute favourite British gangster films. Craig is predictably cool and classy in the lead role, but he is assisted by a first rate cast which includes, as senior Bad Guys, those fine actors Kenneth Cranham and Michael Gambon, both of whom perform with gusto.

The plot is complex – multi-layered like some cakes, in fact. Briefly, Craig is planning to retire young to enjoy his ill-gotten gains, but a hapless henchman called Duke lands him in the mire by stealing a vast quantity of drugs from some seriously menacing Serbian villains, while Craig finds it impossible to keep both Cranham and Gambon off his back. There are some very violent moments, which are not for the faint-hearted – Cranford this is not! - but also some very funny lines and scenes.

Craig moves smoothly from one messy situation to another, pausing only (though this is entirely understandable, I think) to pick up Sienna Miller, who dumps Duke’s unstable nephew, with consequences that in the end prove very unfortunate. I liked the pace and twists of the story-line, and as long as you don’t mind violence and bad language, this is a film that can definitely be recommended.

The League of Gentlemen

For the first time in many years, I’ve watched The League of Gentlemen, the classic 1960 film from which the comedy show took its name. It’s a black and white movie, broadly in the tradition of the Ealing Comedies, and a thoroughly good period piece, as well as excellent light entertainment that has retained its charm and grip.

The film was based on a book published a couple of years earlier by John Boland. The story involves a redundant and embittered senior army officer, at odds with post-war British society, who hatches a plan to rob a bank. He decides to rope in a number of former military men who have fallen on hard times in the years since the war, and who have indulged in a variety of crimes or shady dealings, but who bring a range of skills to his heist team.

The ensemble cast is led by Jack Hawkins, at his imperious best, and is full of names who dominated British cinema and television for many years. They include Bryan Forbes, who directed (his wife Nanette Newman also has a small role), Richard – later Lord – Attenborough, Terence Alexander (best remembered as Charlie Hungerford in the long-running Jersey cop series Bergerac) and a host of other fine performers. Even Oliver Reed has a walk-on part.

It’s a movie quite different in style from The Italian Job, made only nine years later, but very much a product of the Swinging Sixties, while The League of Gentlemen harks bark to an earlier time. As for John Boland, he was a prolific thriller writer, but I am not familiar with his other work – though the success of his most famous book did prompt him to bring back the Gentlemen for subsequent adventures.

Robbery

One of the best gangster films I’ve ever seen is Robbery (1967.) A recent re-watching reminded me of its quality and I’m amazed that the movie isn’t regularly ranked along with other classics of the 60s like Get Carter and The Italian Job.

The film was directed by Peter Yates, and the story goes that it so impressed Steve McQueen that it prompted him to get together with Yates the following year in Bullitt. The story of Robbery was clearly inspired by the Great Train Robbery four years earlier, but the details and characters are heavily fictionalised. The scriptwriters included George Markstein, best known for his work on ‘The Prisoner’, and Edward Boyd, who wrote the tv show ‘The View from Daniel Pike’, later turned into book form by Bill Knox.

The cast reads like a Who’s Who of sixties British acting talent. Stanley Baker plays Paul Clifton, the criminal mastermind. Baker was a superb actor, knighted by Harold Wilson shortly before his untimely death at the age of 48. His co-conspirators include Barry (‘Van Der Valk’) Foster, George (‘Special Branch’) Foster, Frank (‘Casanova’) Finlay, and Ken (‘Coronation Street’) Farrington. In an uncredited bit part one can spot the young Robert Powell. The cop on Clifton’s trail is James Booth, someone who seemed at the time to be destined for stardom; it seems that booze and bad career decisions prevented this charismatic actor from fulfilling his potential. Booth turned down the role of Alfie, just as Baker had earlier snubbed the chance to play James Bond….

The style of the film is akin to that of a documentary. The pace is brisk, and the mood unsentimental, and there is no lack of tension as the plot unfolds. There have been very few better heist movies in the history of British cinema.