The Singer Not The Song

Apparently Brando or Monty Clift were the prefered choices to play the priest, John Mills got the part and he and Bogarde did not get on and the lack of chemistry shows on screen. However this film is worth watching for the sheer bizarre spectacle of Bogardes over the top homoerotic performance, its all a little bit surreal and rather compelling all the same. The great pity of this DVD is that it is not full widescreen but a panned and scanned version. The location photography(Spain doubling as Mexico) is quite stunning but but not fully appreciated in this cropped version, Im not sure why a panned and scanned movie can still be released in this day and age, I mean how many people are buying old square screened TV sets? I would give it five stars if it was widescreen, just a shame its not.

This is possibly the weirdest film ever to emerge from the Rank Organisation inasmuch as it seems oblivious to the full import of its own implications like some exotic bloom steadfastly cultivated in an English nursery. On the one hand it's a brightly-coloured Spanish Western with bandits and gunfights, on the other a darkly rippling tale of unrequited and impossible love, some of it openly declared and some of it not. Catholic priest Father Keogh arrives by bus in a little Mexican town to take over the flock from an older colleague who's being forced out by anti-clerical tearaways led by Anacleto. The local police would like to put him away but lack evidence or witnesses against him and seem content to let him 'reign' provided he doesn't rock the boat too much. Anacleto and the good Father see a challenge in one another, the priest to reclaim the sinner, the bandit to find out what his opponent's really made of. After an attempt on Keogh's life fails the bandit pursues a more insidious tack. He discovers that a local girl, Locha, has fallen in love with the priest and uses this knowledge to trap the other man into an emotional involvement which the priest acknowledges. Keogh agrees to capitulate to Anacleto's power in the town but afterwards breaks his word and denounces him from the pulpit. Taken into custody Anacleto is rescued by his gang and a gun-battle ensues in the main square. As bullets fly the bandit is fatally injured and the priest is shot by one of the gang as he administers the last rites. Both men die together in a strange 'reconciliation', Anacleto pretending to respond to the ritual in order to comfort the priest. Names like Brando and Burton were in the frame at one time apparently but the film was eventually cast from contract-artistes. Dirk Bogarde insisted on following an agenda of his own as the bandit, black-leather duds and a homo-erotic attraction to the priest, which certainly lifts the film into another dimension. He doesn't use an accent and neither does any other Mexican character, apart from the girl. It all seems to be taking place in some transplanted English community during a heatwave where everyone wears fancy-dress and talks posh. It was something of a tradition at the time that British actresses couldn't - or shouldn't - do 'provocative' roles and the usual recourse was to send across the Channel for someone (Simone Signoret in ROOM AT THE TOP for instance). Mylene Demongeot was cast as Locha, a palely-loitering wispy blonde with a Bardot-pout, touches of humour and a hint of steel. (She's given a blonde American mother to explain her colouring.) And the focus of all this simmering passion was good old reliable Sir Johnny Mills as the priest. Unfortunately reliability was not enough on this occasion, he's chronically miscast - too old, too stolid, too resolutely uncomplicated. When he tells the girl he loves her and kisses her at her request he's just playing the script like a co-operative pro with absolutely no feeling that he's crossing a forbidden threshold. It all looks so innocuous it might not even have bothered the Pope. And this was 1960 when sex-scandals in the Church didn't get the publicity they do today. As for his Oirish accent, he doesn't quite say 'begorrah' but comes close. Director Roy Baker, adept at the matter-of-fact, lacks the ability to probe beneath the surface. The film is most interesting for what it doesn't say but that's simply an omission here not an artistic approach. Bogarde's subtle intelligence, like that of Brando, takes the piece over and makes it his own, part of his inner mystery. With more suitable support and in the hands of a master this could have been a knockout. As it is it's a fascinating curio where the left hand doesn't know what the right is up to. It has its niche and is worth preserving. The dvd from Granada Ventures restores the full-length version unlike some other editions but still applies the pan-and-scan format except for the credit-sequences. The colour-print is excellent.

This film gets my vote as the most weird western ever made. It has gained a cult following due to Dirk Bogarde's camp over the top performance as a homosexual gunfighter dressed up in very tight fitting black leather pants, with the very fetching name of Anacleto. Bogarde must have been delighted at the prospect of donning such daring attire and strutting his stuff. Rank would have liked Marlon Brando or Montgomery Clift for the role but settled on Bogarde. Filmed in Spain the film was a precursor to the 'loony tunes' excesses of the Spaghetti westerns also filmed in Spain. Billed as "A new and powerfully different kind of motion picture story", it is certainly different all right!

John Mills is the priest with an Oirishy/Oxbridgey sort of accent who gets dropped off in a lawless small Mexican town which is terrorised by Bogarde and his gang of thugs. His gang are the most unconvincing bunch of villains you are ever likely to come across. The Milky Bar Kid was a hell of a lot scarier! Bogarde and Mills inevitably clash, with the priest trying to show the errant Anacleto the error of his ways. But Anacleto is having none of it, and conspires to bring the priest down. Matters as always are complicated in the form of a very beautiful young girl who falls for our hard pressed priest. We head to one of the more melodramatic over the top cinematic endings you will ever see.

The film is a contemporary western, so we get to see a few cars trundling about. The idea for the film may have been inspired by the writings of Graham Greene who wrote a travel book about Mexico in the thirties called "The Lawless Roads" which highlighted the persecution of the Catholic Church in Mexico. It was this journey that inspired him to write his famous book "The Power and the Glory" about a persecuted priest in Mexico. The film has a mostly English cast who do little to disguise their accents. Laurence Naismith is bizarrely cast as 'old Uncle' a sort of bandit mentor to Bogarde. The stunningly beautiful French actress Mylene Demongeot was cast as the love interest, in what was to be a rare foray into cinema outside of her home country. But it is broody Bogarde who steals the show of course. A very organised bandit he murders in alphabetiical order, so it is best to have a name like Zebedee. The film was directed by Roy Ward Baker, the director of "A Night to Remember", and the screenplay was by Wiltshire's finest Nigel Balchin who wrote the military classic "The Small Back Room". Lets just say this film will not be everyones cup of tea, but it is well worth watching out of curiosity. It is unique in that nothing else quite like it has ever been made before or since. There were no quality issues with regard to this DVD release. Three stars for the high oddbox tariff.