The Singer Not the Song ( 1960 )
This film has the unbelievable casting of Dirk Bogarde as a Mexican bandit and John Bentley as the local police chief. It's a stereotypical story of good versus evil when a new priest, played by John mills, is sent to a small Mexican town under the control of the bandit's gang.
The issue is complicated by the local lollipop ( Mylene Demongeot) who falls for the priest, and the bandit's barely disguised homosexual attraction to him as well. It's possibly the most camp of Mexican dramas with the actors speaking in well modulated English with no concession to whom they are supposed to be portraying. Dirk Bogarde dressed in tight black leather trousers has to be seen to be believed.
British director Roy Ward Baker makes the best of a film that he initially had doubts about; suggesting, ironically, that it should have been given to Luis Buñuel but he does manage to create some acceptable visuals among the general banality.
4/10
Farewell, My Lovely (1975)
Once again Robert Mitchum takes on the part of Philip Marlowe in another filmed adaptation of a Raymond Chandler novel.
Set in Los Angeles it involves Mitchum in the search for a recently released prisoner's girlfriend whom he hasn't seen since being sent down for seven years following a robbery. There are the usual shenanigans involving thuggery and double dealing, with a surprise ending that's impossible to guess although it does explain all of the confusing elements of the story.
Mitchum is good in this type of role where his world weary cynical private eye act helps to carry the improbability of the plot. Sylvester Stallone ( dare I say Sly?) has a bit part as a thug, and the femme fatale is Charlotte Rampling who, given her propensity for disporting her minuscule superstructure in numerous supposedly glamorous roles, would be more appropriately named Charlotte Dumplings.
7/10
