Charles Dyer Movies
- 1969
- R
Homosexuality is only incidentally important in this drama of dependence and intimacy between two aging hair stylists, and nothing shocking to staid and heterosexual sensibilities takes place in this movie, a star turn for Richard Burton and Rex Harrison. Whether the original play was as patently offensive to actual homosexuals as this movie is, is open to question. What is certain is that it grossly exaggerates every unpleasant "fag" stereotype in the books, However, the lead actors skillfully make art out of these very same offensive tics, demonstrating the mysterious power of great performers to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. In the story, Charlie (Harrison) and Harry (Burton) have been roommates, business partners and intimates for many long years, and their convoluted mutual dependency is every bit as complicated as that between any aged but incompatible couple who have grown used to one another over the years. Charlie thinks he can do without Harry, but Harry knows better and patiently bears the barbs and arrows that come his way. One of the nicer aspects of the stereotypical portrayal is that both men get to demonstrate some beautifully sharp, barbed wit. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Richard Burton, Rex Harrison, (more)
Among the first of the late 60s anti-war films that reflected growing concern over the Vietnam War, How I Won the War takes a cold, dark look at the Good War, World War II. In adapting Patrick Ryan's 1963 novel, screenwriter Charles Wood and director Richard Lester offered a narrative fractured by characters making side comments to the camera, stylized cinematography, inserts of newsreel war footage, and plenty of absurdist humor and slapstick. Ernest Goodbody (Michael Crawford) is a bumbling British officer who manages to get most of his small company of musketeers killed while on a mission in North Africa to set up a cricket pitch behind enemy lines for officers of the advancing British army. The rest of the company dies in an ensuing campaign in Europe near the war's end, but all of the men continue to march along, appearing as monochromatic ghosts. (Original prints of the film intercut real battle footage tinted to match the color of the soon-to-be ghost soldier. Some prints of the film, including one shown on Turner Classic Movies, present the newsreel shots in black and white, undercutting the stylized touch.) The story is framed as a flashback, with Goodbody relating his version of events to a German officer (Karl Michael Vogler), while the real version of events, demonstrating Goodbody's ineptitude, plays out on screen. Among the supporting players are John Lennon, who had worked with Lester on A Hard Day's Night and Help; Roy Kinnear, a Lester regular, as a fat soldier who is certain his wife is cheating on him; Jack MacGowran as the troop's designated fool, and Michael Hordern as a general almost as oblivious to his suffering men as Goodbody. ~ Tom Wiener, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Michael Crawford, John Lennon, (more)
- 1965
- Add The Knack ... And How to Get It to QueueAdd The Knack ... And How to Get It to top of Queue
Colin (Michael Crawford, who much later won a Tony Award for his role in Broadway's Phantom of the Opera) is an uptight schoolteacher whose housemate, Tolen (Ray Brooks) is a consummate womanizer. Colin imagines a long line of young women in tight white sweaters on his stairwell, waiting to get into Tolen's room. Jealous of Tolen's incredible success with the ladies, Colin asks Tolen for advice on how to get a girl. When Tolen's advice doesn't seem very practical, Colin decides that his first order of business is to get a bigger bed. Colin is also trying to find a third roommate to take a spare room. Tom (Donal Donnelly), who seems compelled to paint everything in sight, happens by the house, and inserts himself in the spare room without so much as saying "hello." Nancy (Rita Tushingham of A Taste of Honey) is new in town, and wanders the streets of London in a fruitless search for the YWCA. She runs into Colin and Tom at the dump, where they are procuring a gigantic bed. They offer her a ride, and proceed to race through London on the bed. Colin seems too shy to speak much to Nancy, despite Tom's encouragement. Eventually, the trio reach Colin's house, where Tolen works his gruff magic on Nancy, and havoc ensues. Capturing late 1960s London in black-and-white, Richard Lester's The Knack. . .and How to Get It was released between the director's two successes with the Beatles, A Hard Day's Night and Help. The script, by Charles Wood (An Awfully Big Adventure) is based on a play by Ann Jellicoe. Future stars Jacqueline Bisset, Charlotte Rampling, and Jane Birkin appear briefly amid all the attractive young women in the film. ~ Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Rita Tushingham, Ray Brooks, (more)
- 1964
This is a somewhat sensitive story of a virgin 39-year-old British soccer fan who goes to a bar with a bunch of his pals and is goaded into betting that he can sleep with the sassy waitress. What he doesn't know is that she overhears the bet and decides to call better's bluff. They take off to her apartment and carry on an all-night conversation in which finally ends in less talk and more tickle. ~ All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Harry H. Corbett, Diane Cilento, (more)
