Dark Eyes Retrovision #1 - Miss Leslie's Dolls (USA 1973 - Dir Joseph G. Prieto)

We're gonna go back...right back etc etc for a new strand on my blog.

Once upon a time if you wanted to see movies broadly classified as 'lost grindhouse classics' you'd be looking to US labels like 'Something Weird Video' for your visual fix. Well those times have definitely changed, and now here's the respectable but always reliable UK company, Network, bringing us a shiny new Blu Ray of the oft talked about, rarely seen Miss Leslie's Dolls, a copy of which finally resurfaced at the end of the previous decade.

Miami dwelling Cuban born Prieto's directing history between 1951 and 1973 brought us just five films, although he may also have been known as Joseph Mawra, the guy that gave the world the infamous Olga movies of the 1960s (in a recent interview he claimed to have had nothing to do with Miss Leslie's Dolls, so the jury seems to still be out as to whether they're one and the same person). I confess that apart from this one I have only seen Prieto's second movie, 1967's Shanty Tramp, curated by Nicolas Winding Refn for the MUBI channel a while back. Shanty Tramp, for all its Meyeresque touches, is an essentially moral and rather bleak tale of one woman's impact on a small town, and something of that bleakness survives in MLD, sadly Prieto's last film as director.

Alma Frost, teacher at a Boston University, is far from home in a car with three of her students (actually the movie was shot in Florida, so they're a long way from home). When the car breaks down in the middle of a storm, they find shelter in a house, which turns out to be the home of Miss Leslie. Now from the outset it's clear that 'Miss' Leslie is probably a Mister with a wig and dress - having 'her' voice dubbed by a woman just makes things more confusing. Turns out that Miss Leslie has a basement full of dolls that have been created from live people - an old plot device borrowed from 1933's Mystery of the Wax Museum and even Carry on Screaming (1966). The householder's wild look recalls that most famous cinematic cross dresser, Norman Bates, and indeed Miss Leslie has the preserved skull of her mother to talk to, conversations which reveal that her real aim in ensnaring the young people is to kill and be reborn through one of them, discarding her old body and choosing a considerably newer version. But Miss Leslie is a bit of a rubbish necromancer, and before you know it there are bodies everywhere, and our psychopath sets her sights on Miss Frost, the formerly buttoned up teacher whose sapphic urges have been released after her coffee is spiked.

Depending on your appetite for grindhouse schlock, this is either a really tiresome picture or a big curio. I am of course in the latter camp, and MLD is a blast, despite its initially rather torpid pace. Lighter on softcore content than I was expecting, it gets by on its sheer chicken orientalness. Central to this is the Cuban writer and actor Salvador Ugarte as Miss Leslie, as demented a performance as you are ever likely to see. Ugarte's only screen role, I'm guessing he was borderline unemployable after this one. With his strange monologues and totally committed performance you can't take your eyes off him. None of the rest of the 'actors' command anything like this level of interest - there's a lot of standing around - but with Ugarte in nearly every scene, who cares?

Network's release is based on original film elements and is probably better than it ever looked on the big screen. Disc extras are scant (a photo gallery) but there's an accompanying booklet on the film by Dr Laura Mayne. It'll be released, to the delight of degenerate grindhouse fans everywhere, on Blu Ray/DVD from 3 September 2018, and digitally from 1 October 2018.

Made (UK 1972: Dir John Mackenzie)

What's this doing here then? Surely DEoL only reviews modern films, you enquire? Well look at the strapline people: "...plus anything else that fits the bill." And John (The Long Good Friday) Mackenzie's urban nightmare Made certainly does that.

Filmed entirely on location in a very grimy south London (Woolwich and Charlton) and Brighton (only marginally more cheerful), Made started off life as a play by Howard Barker, called None Were Saved. As such it's a lesser known later addition to the genre of 'kitchen sink' UK drama films, which often comprised cinematic adaptations of social realist plays, beginning with John Osborne's Look Back in Anger - filmed in 1959 by Tony Richardson. By the end of the next decade the genre had largely fizzled out, notable exceptions being Barney-Platts-Mills' original work, 1969's Bronco Bullfrog, Peter Hammond's 1970 adaptation of Bill Naughton's 1959 play Spring and Port Wine, and Gerry O'Hara's All the Right Noises (1971).

Made's cast includes the then popular UK folk singer Roy Harper, a casting decision which also puts Mackenzie's 1972 film into that small sub-genre of movies starring popular musicians of the day, often cast in downbeat parts that suited their more 'natural' (i.e. untrained) acting style: films like 1970's Ned Kelly, with Mick Jagger as the eponymous outlaw, and also Nic Roeg's Performance - same year, same actor; Jamaican singer Jimmy Cliff in Perry Henzell's The Harder They Come (1972); David Essex in 1973's That'll Be the Day and the even more downbeat Stardust a year later: and the entire band Slade in Richard Loncraine's underrated and decidedly grim Flame (1975).

Valerie (Carol White) at home  

Made stars Carol White, an actor who had made her name in 1966 appearing in Ken Loach's harrowing BBC drama about homelessness, Cathy Come Home (which pricked the UK's social consciousness and pretty much started this country's housing association movement) and Poor Cow a year later by the same director.

White is an obvious choice then for Valerie Marshall, a single mother stuck in a dead-end switchboard operator job, who as well as looking after a young baby also cares for her mother, bedridden with Multiple Sclerosis; her only friend seems to be happy-go-lucky fellow worker June. Valerie's love life is split between three people: telephony company boss Mahdav Gupta, a lonely soul who she feels sorry for but never close to; Father Dyson, a friendly man of the cloth whose attentiveness to Valerie comes with its own stifling moral agenda; and singer Mike Preston (Harper), who she meets while on a day out in Brighton with Father Dyson and a group of children from his youth club.

Valerie and Mike Preston (Roy Harper)

In Preston Valerie sees someone that espouses the things she aspires to - freedom and an escape from being labelled a 'single parent.' Preston's hatred of religion (which predictably ends up in a face off between him and Dyson) and non-committal air provides a short term respite from Valerie's cares, but his 'hello, I must be going' approach to life is found wanting when her son is tragically killed after being trampled in a football crowd, while out with June. Troubles increase when her mother dies while Valerie's attention is diverted to her relationship with the singer, which disappoints Father Dyson, compounding her guilt.  Meanwhile Preston moves on for a US tour, and Valerie's misery is complete when she hears his new song on the radio, 'Valerie's Song,' whose subject matter depicts her predicament in some detail - he's made money from her social situation and poor luck.  

Mackenzie, who died in 2011, has gone on record saying that Made was "a bit of a mess" but I think he was being too hard on himself. Sure, its Loachisms are apparent, and the relentless south London dullness also recalls Mike Leigh's 1971 film Bleak Moments - but despite some unevenness in the performances it remains a fascinating period piece. The choice of Harper to play Preston is interesting, blending the character with the real life singer in a way that one is never sure which is which (and made even more confusing by the casting of Harper's real life manager Pete Jenner as his MD in the film). Harper rarely raises his spoken voice above a mumble, but when he sings he achieves a clarity that captivates Valerie with a beauty rarely experienced in her life. Valerie is also a complex character, both her own worst enemy and someone with whom the audience can identify as she tries to escape being seen as 'property' by the men in her life. Her final scene with Gupta, faking pleasure as they couple in his squalid bachelor rooms, dirty plates in the sink and underwear on the radiator, is made worse by seeing her eyes taking in the surroundings. She may simply want love, but the following scene where she spits the words 'black bastard' at him as he tries to convince her that he loves her, hints at the self loathing within.

When the film was originally released in 1972, Made's X certificate was quite justified, with its scenes of sex out of wedlock, the death of the very young and very old, and the celebration of an amoral hedonistic culture. Although subsequently reduced to a 15 rating for video release the film has not lost its power to shock. A recommended watch then, if not a happy one.

Made is released by Network Distributing Ltd in both DVD and Blu Ray formats on Monday 22 August.