the leading man is my tpye

Truly Dreadful Film

Blistering performances.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

For decades we have been living with the cult of the director, but in Hollywood they will tell you only two things really matter on a picture: the screenplay and the casting. Get those two things right and any competent director can make a good movie. Get them wrong and a great director might make the movie watchable but he can't make it good.After watching The Damned, who can doubt that Hollywood is right and movie critics are wrong? Joseph Losey was a very good director, but this movie scarcely rises to the level of the watchable.The casting is desperate. McDonald Carey was 47 (and looks older) so his wooing of Shirley Anne Field was just creepy.She in turn was a tad too old to be playing a teenager. Her acting at that time was famously a bad joke. In the Damned she doesn't actually fluff her lines, but that is about it. Her accent is all over the place.Oliver Reed is a personal aversion of mine. In his early days, he always gave the same intense, brooding performance irrespective of the character or the tone of the picture. His acting was pure narcissism: second division Marlon Brando.Kenneth Cope was nearing thirty but looked younger so often got saddled with teenage roles like this. As a nihilistic thug, starting to have doubts about his life, he is laughable.Viveca Lindfors was a decent actress but has nothing to work with. What was her character doing in this picture?The kids couldn't act.The screenplay is a mess. It was cobbled together in two weeks when Losey rejected the script he had been given. It is no surprise that nothing hangs together and nothing connects properly.The premise is ridiculous. Breeding kids who are naturally radio-active in order that they could survive after a nuclear war gives a whole new meaning to 'playing the long game'. That they could also be cold-blooded is scientific nonsense and an insult to any audience that could be expected to take this film seriously. If you want to say something about Cold War hysteria, you should at least try to make it faintly plausible and pertinent.Clearly there is an attempt to draw a parallel between the casual violence of the gang and the purposive violence of the bureaucrats, but this is compromised by the 'softly softly' approach of the military to the breach of security at the research complex. The authorities seem to be behaving with commendable restraint, so the execution of the artist by Bernard is totally discordant with anything seen before.The gang are constantly called Teddy Boys, a phenomenon of the early Fifties, although they are clearly 'Rockers' or 'Greasers'. However, this is not necessarily and error on Losey's part. It is plausible that middle-aged men would not be abreast of the fine distinctions of youth culture and would use an anachronistic term.Other reviewers have noted some parallels with A Clockwork Orange but this must have been purely accidental. The film could not have been drawing on the book for inspiration since it had not yet been published. Similarly, I very much doubt if Anthony Burgess ever saw the movie, much less was influenced by it.I am tempted to say that any film by Joseph Losey is of some interest, but The Damned tests that proposition almost to destruction. This must be close to Losey's low point as a film maker.

Losey or no Losey, I immediately thought I was in trouble when the credits rolled and the hypnotic and ominous theme song lit up the room: "Black leather, black leather, crash, crash crash.,.." I was almost sure of it when evil, violent, Oliver Reed showed up with his glowering and sneering and his ominous hissing whisper of a voice. I could hear the book slamming closed when he coshed poor old MacDonald Carey over the head and then stomped him for daring to flirt with Shirley Anne Field, his virginal sister. It looked like a Black Leather story of Teddy Boys run amok, full of social relevance, a chronicle of the times.But no. Carey manages to whisk Field off on his boat and Reed swears to kill Carey as the boat disappears into the distance. The relevance issue remains but its entire character changes. We're soon rid of the Teddy Boys and it's just Reed tracking down Carey and Field to a hidden government laboratory nestled among some hills overlooking the cliffs near Weymouth. The laboratory, run by Alexander Knox with a fake Scots accent, remains background while Carey and Field have some elliptical conversations of the sort Losey was so fond of. Nobody looks anybody in the eye. They answer a question with a question or a non sequitur. Once the now loving couple are ashore and have mussed up the bed of a nearby cottage belonging to a sculptor, Viveca Lindfors, the banter disappears too and a new and disturbing track appears in the narrative. I don't think I'll reveal more of the plot except to say that the government turns out to be involved in some dicey stuff of questionable value. It's probably no more than a curious coincidence that Losey himself was kicked out of Hollywood and settled in England in 1953, after being investigated by the FBI, the House Unamerican Activities Committee, and Howard Hughes, for being a communist sympathizer and wearing white after Labor Day. If you've seen "Children of the Damned" or "Village of the Damned", you'll know the source of this semi-science-fiction plot. A dozen kids are raised from birth in complete isolation from the rest of the world. They are, in a sense, "home schooled" by the government. We never find out what they're being taught about anthropogenic global warming, evolution, international terrorism, or the Beatles but, locked away in secret solitude as they are, they do get a very apt dose of Lord Byron's "Prisoner of Chillon.""My hair is grey, but not with years, Nor grew it white In a single night, As men's have grown from sudden fears: My limbs are bowed, though not with toil, But rusted with a vile repose, For they have been a dungeon's spoil, And mine has been the fate of those To whom the goodly earth and air Are banned, and barred -— forbidden fare."Oddly, the little kids aren't particularly cuddly. I didn't feel any rush of joy when they got a peek at the outside world. But I got a rush every time Viveca Lindfors as the sensitive and intelligent sculptress appeared on the screen. She's delightful. Shirley Anne Field, an ex model, is so beautiful that she gets a pass on her inability to utter a single believable line of dialog. But Lindfors more than makes up for it. She has strong and attractive features, even here in middle age, and is radiant with femininity. And her voice has exotic ups and downs that the American and Brit actors wouldn't dream of. Losey gives her a close up while she's considering something she's just been told and every one of her tiny facial muscles -- her narrowing eyes, her slightly pursed lips -- form a kind of visual chamber music whose power is irresistible. Her character is a kind of series of grace notes within the film itself. Alexander Knox, by contrast, seems unable to change his expression at all, like some stroke victims.

You know the most frightening thing to me about These Are The Damned is had this film been done by some private mad scientist it might have qualified as one of those old PRC or Lippert films. But as the experiments were done apparently with the sanction of the British government and their best scientists you can gasp at the sheer inhumanity involved. MacDonald Carey is an American tourist who gets picked up by Shirley Anne Field, but she's a shill for her brother Oliver Reed's leather clad Teddy boy gang who mug Carey. But when her brother who shows the most obsessive incestuous interest since Paul Muni had for Karen Morley in Scarface she flees with Carey on his boat to a mysterious island which is in reality a government facility where Dr. Alexander Knox is conducting some frightening experiments with children. Children by the way who think they're on a spaceship. He's injecting them with radiation and looking for ways they can survive with radioactive bodies in a post atomic war world. Interesting also that only white kids are chosen. An interesting commentary in that while kids are experimented no one seems to care if other races survive.I agree with one other reviewer in that MacDonald Carey is too old for the part. Still he gives it his best shot as he and Field and Reed all trapped on the island.These Are The Damned is one far out, freaky, frightening film.

Following his divorce, retired American insurance executive MacDonald Carey (as Simon Wells) goes on a holiday boating trip along the rocky coast of Weymouth, England. On the promenade, he sees sexually arousing Shirley Anne Field (as Joan) saunter by with come hither hips. They quickly decide to copulate, but she turns out to be part of a plot to beat-up and rob the middle-aged Mr. Carey. Having second thoughts, Ms. Field decides to leave the black leather motorcycle gang led by darkly handsome brother Oliver Reed (as King) and hops on Carey's boat. They run away from Mr. Reed and hide in a cliff-side bungalow. Passionately possessive of his wayward sister, Reed follows the couple in hot pursuit. The trio finally meet-up in a hidden cave which houses nine 11-year-old children. Their guardian is dictator-like Alexander Knox (as Bernard), who is seeing attractive sculptress Viveca Lindfors (as Freya Neilson)...The young children have a horrifying secret...There appear to be two disconnected story lines, here. The first resembles a 1950s juvenile delinquent film, which might be described as age versus rebellious youth. This is layered with, and eventually replaced by, an apocalyptic science fiction film. Both have subplots. Directed with some flair by Joseph Losey, "The Damned" would have been better if more connections were made. The vague ones are intriguing. The children wonder how nine of them are going to copulate; they are an uneven number. The main adult players also form an uneven number, with incest playing a part. The girl Rachel Clay (as Victoria) assumes a leadership role among the young children. The boy Kit Williams (as Henry) obviously parallels the delinquent Reed. With stronger threading, the whole picture could have been weaved into something much more worthwhile. James Bernard's music, especially the "Black Leather Rock" theme, is very catchy.****** The Damned (5/19/63) Joseph Losey ~ MacDonald Carey, Shirley Anne Field, Oliver Reed, Alexander Knox