Peter Viney's Blog

Take A Girl Like You
1970

Directed by Jonathan Miller
Produced by Hal E. Chester
Screenplay by George Melly
Based on the novel by Kingsley Amis
Music by Stanley Myers

CAST

Hayley Mills – Jenny Bunn
Oliver Reed – Patrick Standish
Noel Harrison – Julian Ormerod
John Bird – Dick Thompson
Sheila Hancock – Martha Thompson
Aimi MacDonald – Wendy
Geraldine Sherman – Anna
Ronald Lacey- Graham
John Fortune – Sir Gerald Culthorpe Jones
Imogen Hassall- Samantha
Penelope Keith -Tory lady
Nerys Hughes – teacher

The 60s Retrospective series

Liberal arts establishment gurus 1970? Jonathan Miller, George Melly, John Bird … so what will they come up with?

Kingsley Amis was 38 when he wrote the book in 1960. He was 48 when the film was produced. George Melly was 44 in 1970. Jonathan Miller, as director, was a stripling of 36. So what we have is middle-aged men’s hopeful (and prurient) view of what the young things were getting up to in the Swingin’ Sixties … yes, this is a Swingin’ Sixties novel, one of the last of them. Patrick Standish was Amis’s hero in the book, and Amis was famous for falling asleep on a beach in Yugoslvia and being photographed with ‘One Fat Englishman – I fuck anything’ written on his back by his wife, Hilary. By the late 60s Amis’s views were turning rapidly right wing. The characters in this book are all Labour voters.

After his sublime Alice in Wonderland plus Whistle And I’ll Come To You with Michael Hordern, it’s hard to see why Jonathan Miller would be involved in this film. Slumming? Money? Old pals? It’s the only feature film he did.

Jonathan Miller: My motives were slightly at fault in accepting the project to begin with. I was thinking that… well, Mike Nichols can make a lot of money, why shouldn’t I? I accepted the project probably too eagerly. I think it was probably one of Amis’ best novels but there were a lot of things to be said against filming it.

I read the novel on a train going to an interview. Possibly East Anglia, to be interviewed by Jonathan Raban. I was asked what the last book I’d read was, and I already knew that Kingsley Amis had ceased to be cool, which had been confirmed by reading the book (Hull to Norwich is a long way) and I lied and talked about Ken Kesey instead.

The trouble is it’s a book about Bill Sikes (Oliver Reed from Oliver!) trying to screw Pollyanna (Hayley Mills) with an effete and sophisticated Noel Harrison trying to creep in first. Hayley Mills cannot escape from Pollyanna so was perfect casting as the virginal Jenny, but do we want the sleazy Reed to get away with it?

Jenny Bunn is a young Northern girl arriving in a Southern town with her suitcase … how many times have I typed that in these 60s retrospectives? I’ve never had to type ‘young Southern girl arriving in grimy Northern city.’ She is to be a primary school teacher (with Liver Birds Nerys Hughes), so is doubly sweet.

Her landlord is a continually drunk Labour councillor, called Dick. (Ho ho). Played by John Bird. His wife is played by Sheila Hancock, who warns Jenny that Dick is a groper.

Patrick (Oliver Reed) pops in, being a friend of the other lodger Anna (Geraldine Sherman). He asks Jenny for a date and invites her back to his flat. She is happy to kiss and cuddle, but will not let his hand move above her knee. She is a virgin. Patrick tries to talk her out of it … this is basically the plot of the whole film.

When she gets to his flat, he puts an LP with an Atlantic label on the turntable. Ah, classic soul? Led Zeppelin? Then easy listening music comes out of the speakers. I think classic soul might have worked better.

I’m going into these things too far, but I spotted it immediately. Why on Earth is Oliver Reed holding an AMERICAN LP of Meet The Beatles? It was never released in the UK. It was already years out of date.

They get to meet rich Labour supporter, Julian (Noel Harrison) who drives a Firebird in contrast to Patrick’s Morris Minor. They’re invited back to his mansion, which is threatened with demolition to build a new airport. He is sponsoring Councillor Dick as a Labour council member to support his argument against.

The sexy and freely available (the pipe-dream of the production team) is Wendy (Aimi MacDonald) who sets her sights on Patrick for a quickie.

Julian’s Georgian house is full of modern sculpture – a pay day there for the production team’s artist pals.

The best scene for me is Jenny acting as a Labour teller outside a polling station. Penelope Keith is the Conservative teller and they co-operate. This rang bells. I acted as a Social Democrat teller for a friend, and after several hours standing in the cold and rain, we three wet and weary tellers … Conservative, Social Democrat and Labour, were sharing coffee and doughnuts.

Dick is on TV to speak against the plans for demolishing Julian’s home, but is an inept disaster.

Jenny sets off home to Up North for the weekend, perhaps to replenish supplies of black pudding, tripe and chips fried in lard.

Patrick tries to get it on with Wendy on Julian’s boat, but finds he can’t get it up. This means he is in love with Jenny. Aimi MacDonald later described the sex scene on the boat:

We had to look as if we were naked in bed, but I insisted on a towel between us. Ollie had a drink problem. At 7am, he’d already had a few. The plot had Ollie’s character fancying a nice country girl, not the town tart played by me… Jonathan Miller came over to Ollie and said, ‘You must remember you don’t fancy Aimi, so can we have less panting please!’ We did 12 takes while trying to get Ollie to stop panting.
Wikipedia, Aimi MacDonald, from Mail on Sunday, 15 May 2016

Patrick, now aware he is smitten, meets Jenny at the railway station and after discussion in the car, she agrees that they will DO THE DEED on Saturday at 2 p.m. She gets home and drunken Dick makes a pass at her. Sheila Hancock explains that had she responded Dick would have run a mile.

The Saturday is the day of Julian’s party to mark the loss of his home. Jenny is due to met Patrick for the SHAG. Instead she chickens out and joins the others at Julian’s party, leaving Patrick preparing for the big occasion … shaving meticulously, setting the table.

Julian takes his chance and seduces her. After all, Patrick had told him all about the arranged loss of virginity, which she knows and why she’s angry.

Patrick turns up, then she runs off and he chases her down the drive. The end.

Overall.

This might just have worked in 1962 in black and white. In 1970 it was from another era already, disastrously (or ludicrously) so. A previous generation looking at my generation. The setting is tedious too – all the locations were around Shepperton Studios, in Staines and Slough. As ever.

Miller says the story was “old fashioned” and that he and writer Melly “were forced into making” the story “even more old fashioned by making it more sentimental. Gradually I found myself boxed in to a very conventional, almost 1950s studio situation and the final cut was beyond my control.“
Sight and Sound. Vol. 40 no. 2.

CRITICS

Old fashioned novelette with sex trimmings and neither zest nor humour.
Helliwell’s Film Guide

A sexually inexperienced Northern girl moves to the South to work as a teacher, and becomes the target of small-town womanisers. A dated little tale of very minor appeal. Written by George Melly.
Elliot’s Guide To Films on Video

Basically, it is not a bad little English kitchen-sink drama with some strong but low-key performances, but a lack of sense of humor, generally wearisome development, and a downbeat ending. At the core of George Melly’s script, based on Kingsley Amis’ novel, is the whole dreary ritual of a boy and girl in conflict about sex.
Variety, 1969

SOUNDTRACK

No soundtrack album as far as I can establish. Songs include:

Take A Girl Like You: The Foundations
It Takes A Lot of Loving: Harmony Grass
Somebody’s Somebody: Ram John Holder
Something Inside: Ram John Holder

THE 60s REVISITED REVIEWS …

The Six Five Special (1958)
A Taste of Honey (1961)
The Young Ones (1962
Some People (1962)
Play It Cool (1962)
Summer Holiday (1963)
Sparrows Can’t Sing (1963)
The Small World of Sammy Lee (1963)
Tom Jones (1963)
The Fast Lady (1963)
What A Crazy World (1963)
Live It Up! (1963)
Just For You (1964)
The Chalk Garden (1964)
The Carpetbaggers (1964)
Wonderful Life (1964)
A Hard Day’s Night (1964)
The Yellow Rolls-Royce (1965)
Gonks Go Beat (1965)
The Party’s Over (1965)
Cat Ballou (1965)
The Ipcress File (1965)
Darling (1965)
The Knack (1965)
Catch Us If You Can (1965)
Help! (1965)
Doctor Zhivago (1965)
Morgan – A Suitable Case For Treatment (1966)
Alfie (1966)
Harper (aka The Moving Target) 1966
The Chase (1966)
The Trap (1966)
Georgy Girl (1966)
Fahrenheit 451 (1966)
Nevada Smith (1966)
Modesty Blaise (1966)
The Family Way (1967)
Privilege (1967)
Blow-up (1967)
Accident (1967)
Bonnie and Clyde (1967)
I’ll Never Forget What’s ‘Is Name (1967)
How I Won The War (1967)
Far From The Madding Crowd (1967)
Poor Cow (1967)
Custer of The West (1967)
Here We Go Round The Mulberry Bush (1968)
The Magus (1968)
If …. (1968)
Girl On A Motorcycle (1968)
The Bofors Gun (1968)
The Devil Rides Out (aka The Devil’s Bride) (1968)
Work Is A Four Letter Word (1968)
The Party (1968)
Petulia (1968)
Barbarella (1968)The Thomas Crown Affair (1968)
Bullitt (1968)Deadfall (1968)
The Swimmer (1968)
Theorem (Teorema) (1968)
Medium Cool (1969)
The Magic Christian (1969)
The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer (1970)
Little Fauss and Big Halsy (1970)
Take A Girl Like You (1970)
Performance (1970)
Oh, Lucky Man! (1973)