{"id":25944,"date":"2025-01-15T12:12:53","date_gmt":"2025-01-15T12:12:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/?p=25944"},"modified":"2025-01-15T23:52:16","modified_gmt":"2025-01-15T23:52:16","slug":"media-movies-st-ives-1976","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/?p=25944","title":{"rendered":"MEDiA\/MOViES: St Ives, 1976"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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What a great fun movie! A fabulous Lalo Schifrin score. Charles Bronson, being Charles Bronson. Jacqueline Bisset being sexy, alluring and evil. A great cast. Great settings. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

From the wah-wah guitar and flute, to Chuck\u2019s fab suit (dig those lapels!), the gritty urban settings, juxtaposed with the luxury of dirty money, and the complex McGuffin of a plot, this film really delivers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This is a very weird photo!*<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s layer upon layer of intrigue in the story, which works well to drive what is otherwise essentially a genre\/mood piece. I don\u2019t know if this was true at the time, but in retrospect, this film partakes of a zeitgeist I\u2019m particularly<\/em> fond of. At least in celluloid form.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Jacqueline Bisset, as Janet Whistler.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Bronson lives in relative luxury, retired from being a crime journalist, and trying to write a novel. He lives in the interesting Lido Hotel, a place that\u2019s slightly sleazy, but also rather grand. Impeccably dishevelled, perhaps, like Bronson himself? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are a lot of good actors here, even in the lesser parts (Burr deBenning**, as the unfortunate beat cop, for example; a very young Jeff Goldblum, as a hoodlum***). And the stars all deliver. John Houseman, as Procane (whose ledgers, the confessional journals of a master criminal, it transpires, are the McGuffin), reminds me a bit of Ray Milland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Max Schell, as Doc\u2019 Constable.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Maximilian Schell – dig the whiskers! – is great fun, as Procane\u2019s private doc\/shrink, who eventually turns on his super-rich possibly hypochondriac employer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m having a bit of a Bronson-fest at the moment. And I have yet to be disappointed. It turns out I\u2019m not in bad company, in my admiration for this unusual actor\u2019s complex and slightly baffling charm:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Pity! That\u2019d\u2019ve been an amazing combo\u2019.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Like lots of films of this type, about sleazy crime and vast sums of filthy lucre, etc, it prob won\u2019t stand up to much scrutiny. But that\u2019s hardly the point. It\u2019s entertainment. And damned good entertainment at that. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This particular film seems to me unusually rich, in ideas, settings, scenarios, and suchlike. Which make it that bit more fun than some films that might ostensibly be deemed similar. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Lalo Schifrin<\/a>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s definitely worth checking out Lalo Schifrin\u2019s very groovy title theme<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are lots of interesting little nuggets in this movie. Why, for example, are Procane\u2019s cronies named after famous modern painters; Whistler and Constable? Surely that\u2019s not accidental? Not that it necessarily signifies anything\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*Look carefully, and you\u2019ll see this is clearly a doctored photo. It illustrates a great little incidental scene – and this film is enriched by many such baubles – in a rather unusual specialist car body shop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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**I recognised DeBenning from the Columbo episode By Dawn\u2019s Early Light<\/em>. I added DeBenning to the Wikipedia page (see above screenshot) on the film, as he wasn\u2019t credited!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

***Goldblum has, of course, an even more prominent hoodlum role in Deathwish<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What a great fun movie! A fabulous Lalo Schifrin score. Charles Bronson, being Charles Bronson. Jacqueline Bisset being sexy, alluring and evil. A great cast. Great settings. From the wah-wah guitar and flute, to Chuck\u2019s fab suit (dig those lapels!), the gritty urban settings, juxtaposed with the luxury of dirty money, and the complex McGuffin … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “MEDiA\/MOViES: St Ives, 1976”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paGwUa-6Ks","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25944"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25944"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25944\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25972,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25944\/revisions\/25972"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25944"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25944"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}