Candleshoe (1977)

Director: Norman Tokar
Writers: David Swift and Rosemary Anne Sisson, based on the book Christmas at Candleshoe by Michael Innes
Stars: David Niven, Helen Hayes, Jodie Foster, Leo McKern and Vivian Pickles

Index: The First Thirty.

The halfway point film in Jodie Foster’s First Thirty is important for a few reasons, none of which are apparent within the movie itself.

It was her final picture for Disney as a child actor. In fact, it was her final picture as a child actor, full stop, because she took a three year break after eight features in merely two years, returning to the big screen at eighteen. It was also the reason why she turned down a rather notable role, to hindsight at least, that being a certain Princess Leia in Star Wars.

It’s a good, if unspectacular, film and she’s a highlight within it as the character with easily the best character arc. However, for once she’s upstaged by another actor, as David Niven has a peach of a role, not only playing a traditional English butler, of the sort he could play in his sleep, but also every other member of the staff at an English country estate.

Dark Intruder (1965)

Director: Harvey Hart
Writer: Barré Lyndon
Stars: Leslie Nielsen, Mark Richman, Judi Meredith, Gilbert Green, Charles Bolender and Werner Klemperer

Index: Centennials.

This is surely not the best film I’ve seen this year but I had more fun with it than with any film in decades. It’s so far up my alley, it seems like it should be illegal. I wanted to climb into the sets and play with the props and live in its world, without the threat of being eviscerated by an ancient Sumerian demon, naturally.

Yet it’s almost forgotten today, only trawled out on odd occasions like right now for Leslie Nielsen’s centennial. It was originally made by Shamley Productions as the proposed pilot for a new TV show. They had already had success with Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Suspicion and the feature Psycho. The Alfred Hitchcock Hour was on its final season, so they tried The Black Cloak.

The Shakedown (1960)

Director: John Lemont
Writers: Leigh Vance and John Lemont
Stars: Terence Morgan, Hazel Court, Donald Pleasence, Bill Owen and Robert Beatty

Index: Centennials.

The Shakedown hasn’t been remembered too fondly by critics, Leslie Halliwell describing it as “of no interest or entertainment value”, but it has both as a capable British B movie, even if its likely most viewers will be watching for its historical value or a particular cast member.

Right now, I’m watching for its lead actress, Hazel Court, on her centennial, but on another day I might have been watching for a couple of future comedy stars, a future author or, most likely, for Donald Pleasence, who easily gives the best acting performance.

The poster gives away the basic idea but it’s centered on a crook called Augie Cortona. He’s a pimp when we begin, pacing his cell because he’s about to finish his sentence and find some overdue revenge out on his replacement. It’s his story throughout, for better or worse, and Terence Morgan does a capable job, even if he flips between scheming and vicious, with just enough sleazy charm to make it work.

Beach House (1977)

Director: Sergio Citti
Writers: Vincenzo Cerami and Sergio Citti, based on a short story by Vincenzo Cerami
Stars: Jodie Foster, Mariangela Melato, Michele Placido, Luigi Proietti, Paolo Stoppa, Ugo Tognazzi, Franco Citti and Catherine Deneuve

Index: The First Thirty.

After Moi, fleur bleue, a picture in which Jodie Foster acted in French, came Casotto, a picture in which she acts in Italian. However, I believe she was dubbed because French Foster sounds like English Foster speaking French, but Italian Foster sounds like someone else. Also, she took the role “almost on a dare”, so says Wikipedia Italy, rather than because she was living there.

I’d love to know a lot more about the movie, but it’s not an easy one to search for, not least because two of the top twenty results for it are my review of Moi, fleur bleue posted this week. Its Italian Wikipedia page is the best I can find, but it doesn’t explain the cultural humour that is most crucial to understanding the film.

At least it explains the title. Most obviously, Casotto means Beach House, which is a changing room that’s communal in nature. People take turns to get changed for the beach outside and leave their stuff on hooks inside. However, it’s also apparently slang for both a brothel and a tangled comic situation, which makes sense. It grows in comedy as it goes, characters starting their own plot strands that slowly intertwine, those plot strands often sexual in nature.

Stop Calling Me Baby! (1977)

Director: Éric Le Hung
Writer: Éric Le Hung, from a screenplay by Philippe Bougoin
Stars: Jodie Foster, Jean Yanne and Sydne Rome

Index: The First Thirty.

After five films in 1976, the year that firmly established Jodie Foster as an actress to watch, she promptly took on a different challenge: to make foreign films in foreign languages. There are a lot of things that can be said about Moi, fleur bleue and Casotto, many of them negative, but one positive is that they were completely unlike any of her previous movies.

Moi, fleur bleue is a French film but it appears in two versions, one English and one français. Rather than shooting in French and dubbing it into English later, it appears that they shot the film twice, once in each language, but with the exact same cast. Both Jean Yanne and Bernard Giraudeau were French but seem to be capable in English. Jodie Foster and Sydne Rome were American but fluent in French.

Freaky Friday (1976)

Director: Gary Nelson
Writer: Mary Rodgers, from her book
Stars: Barbara Harris, Jodie Foster and John Astin

Index: The First Thirty.

For something so iconic that’s remembered so fondly, this is a pretty terrible movie by any standards. What holds up half a century on is its timeless core idea and the performances of the two leads, Barbara Harris and Jodie Foster.

Of course, the idea unfolded in a novel, first published in 1972, but it was adapted by Mary Rodgers, its author, who took the opportunity to dig a little deeper. The book appears to be focused on only one half of the swap, told by Annabel Andrews after she finds herself in her mother’s body. This expands so that it covers both sides of the swap. I should find the book.

The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane (1976)

Director: Nicholas Gessner
Writer: Laird Koenig, based on his novel
Stars: Jodie Foster, Martin Sheen, Alexis Smith, Mort Shuman and Scott Jacoby

Index: The First Thirty.

As of Smile Jenny, You’re Dead, it increasingly became clear that if Hollywood ever needed a precocious child actor in a non-children’s film, Jodie Foster was who they should hire. Echoes of a Summer was a statement of intent and Taxi Driver (and its Oscar nod) was a guarantee. She lives up to all that promise here by leading a psychological thriller over actors as worthy as Alexis Smith and Martin Sheen.

“Happy birthday,” she tells her reflection in the mirror. She’s turning thirteen and she’s on her own, dressed in a robe that looks ritual but which we later learn is Moroccan. She’s hardly a typical new teen. She listens to Chopin, reads Emily Dickinson and is studying Hebrew on LP records. She doesn’t go to school, but she has a joint account at the bank to cover her costs.

Bugsy Malone (1976)

Director: Alan Parker
Writer: Alan Parker
Stars: Scott Baio, Florrie Dugger, Jodie Foster and John Cassisi

Index: The First Thirty.

If we’re being brutally honest, Bugsy Malone is a curiosity, a Prohibition era gangster spoof performed by an all-child cast and staged as a musical with songs by and mostly sung by Paul Williams. It should sit alongside films like The Terror of Tiny Town, an all midget western shot on regular sized sets, or The Crippled Masters, a kung fu movie starring a pair of actors with no arms and no legs respectively.

Certainly it can’t escape its gimmick, even if it looks bigger and more sophisticated than its sub-million pound budget might warrant. Alan Parker, at this point known only as a director of TV commercials, somehow survived this to make such notable dramatic films as Midnight Express, Birdy and Mississippi Burning, as well as musicals cast for adults like Fame, Pink Floyd’s The Wall and The Commitments. This therefore stands the test of time as his curiosity rather than merely a curiosity.

And, if we can sit back and suspend disbelief one time, it does offer rather a lot of fun. That shouldn’t surprise. What surprised me is that a majority of that fun sprang from sources that I wasn’t expecting far more than the ones I was. Only a few details held up to expectations, like Parker’s direction being much better than his script. He’s fondly remembered as a director; I doubt anyone remembers him as a writer.

Taxi Driver (1976)

Director: Martin Scorsese
Writer: Paul Schrader
Stars: Robert De Niro, Jodie Foster, Albert Brooks, Harvey Keitel, Leonard Harris, Peter Boyle and Cybill Shepherd

Index: The First Thirty.

I’ve seen Taxi Driver a number of times over the years and I’ve always struggled with it. It’s clearly an impressive film, technically, but I’ve never been affected by it until now. Last time I saw it, back in 2010, I unwisely wrapped up my review with “I think I’m getting it.” I wasn’t.

I think what unlocked the door for me was a cultural change and not a positive one. Back in 1976, we didn’t have a name for Travis Bickle’s situation, so we had to build boxes of our own to label him. Now we do and it really helps.

He’s an incel and one of the scariest aspects of the picture is that he’s an incel who’s been radicalised without the internet, with its great ability to connect people. If Bickle is believable to us in 1976, then the logical extrapolation to make is that online radicalisation is making an awful lot more Bickles every day, all across the country. The problem is worsening.

Echoes of a Summer (1976)

Director: Don Taylor
Writer: Robert L. Joseph
Stars: Richard Harris, Lois Nettleton, Geraldine Fitzgerald, William Windom, Brad Savage and Jodie Foster

Index: The First Thirty.

There are reasons why Echoes of a Summer is largely forgotten today. It feels just like a play, the staginess of much of the acting, especially that of Richard Harris, outweighing a handful of gems of dialogue in the script. It seems that it was indeed a play, Isle of Children, which was adapted by its author, Robert L. Joseph, even if the opening credits suggest that he wrote this for the screen.

Conversely, there aren’t a lot of reasons for Echoes of a Summer to be remembered, perhaps only one, but that reason is Jodie Foster. She’s young here again, I believe twelve during the shoot, thirteen by the time it was released in a limited Canadian run, but her character needs someone able to look roughly her age but act a lot older and she does it with aplomb.

She’d already done that in Smile Jenny, You’re Dead and Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, both her 1974 films, but she only played a relatively small supporting part in each. Here, she’s the point. In fact, she isn’t far from being the only point, because this is all about Deirdre Striden, closing in on her twelfth birthday, but without much hope that she’ll see her thirteenth.