Peter Viney's Blog

The Small World of Sammy Lee
1963

 

Directed by Ken Hughes
Written by Ken Hughes
From Ken Hughes TV play “Sammy”
Cinematography by Wolfgang Suschitzky

Music by Kenny Graham

CAST
Anthony Newley- Sammy Lee
Julia Foster – Patsy
Robert Stephens – Gerry, owner of The Peepshow
Wilfred Brambell- Harry, Sammy’s assistant / dresser
Warren Mitchell – Lou Leeman, Sammy’s brother
Miriam Karlin – Milly Leeman, Sammy’s sister-in-law
Kennyth J Warren – Fred
Clive Colin Bowler- Johnny
Toni Palmer- Joan
Harry Locke- Stage manager
Al Mulock – The Dealer
Cyril Shaps- Morris
Roy Kinnear- Lucky Dave
Derek Nimmo – ‘Rembrandt’

The 60s Retrospective Series

Release date: April 1963, UK, August 1963 USA

I met her in a club down in old Soho
Where you drink champagne
and it tastes just like
Cherry Cola
Lola – The Kinks (written by Ray Davies)

Anthony Newley

Anthony Newley had made his career leap upwards when he appeared in a 30 minute TV play, Sammy in 1958. That was a solo performance, just Newley and a phone, trying desperately to raise £300 to pay off gambling debts before the gangsters he owed the money took their revenge.

The subsequent film came after his fame as an actor, popular singer and comedian. The film The Small World of Sammy Lee stretches the plot to 107 minutes, and you have to admit that the plot would be done and dusted in any contemporary TV drama in 50 minutes at the outside. It’s not all about the plot though.

Anthony Newley had been an actor since he appeared as the Artful Dodger in Oliver Twist in 1948. He worked consistently on screen through the 1950s and went on to star in the National Service film Idol on Parade in 1958 which was about a pop singer / idol conscripted into the army. This helped launch a career as a singer, and a singer who retained his London accent. He was the inspiration for early David Bowie. This is how popular he was in 1962 when the film was made … from The Guinness Book of British Hit Singles:

The chart book took the other double meaning and spelled it “Idle on Parade.” It is “Idol”

Add to that the avant-garde six-part TV series The Strange World of Gurney Slade. Gurney Slade is an actor who walks off a TV set, wanders around, talks to himself, breaks the fourth wall and walks behind camera to address the audience. I was in my early teens and thought it the best thing I’d ever seen on TV. Newley did stuff … three years as a pop singer, a year as a comedian … then never returned to it.

The Small World of Sammy Lee was filmed in July 1962, which places it between the London run of Stop The World I Want To Get Off which Newley co-wrote and starred in, and the Broadway run starting in October 1962. So it was sandwiched between two other productions where Anthony Newley was playing a tragic clown.

Given his status as a singer when The Small World of Sammy Lee was filmed, you’d expect at least a title song. Not for Newley. It’s a straight acting performance.

The cast

It’s just pre-Swinging sixties, though the cast contained three who were subsequently in Beatles films (Wilfred Brambell, Roy Kinnear, Warren Mitchell) and co-starred Julia Foster, later to co-star in Alfie. Miriam Karlin was from the then current TV sitcom The Rag Trade (1961-1963).

Julia Foster was young and inexperienced, but unusually for a British actor of that generation decided to create the entire backstory of ‘Patsy’ in her own mind, and filled several notebooks.

Julia Foster: Ken Hughes was scary … he wasn’t user-friendly, and he frightened me slightly. I was intimidated. But years later, I said “You weren’t really very kind to me.”
“That was on purpose,” he said, “I wanted you to feel vulnerable all the time.”

It worked! She’s great on screen. She added that she was told by Hughes that she would have a body double for the strip scenes. When the body double turned up she was fat and looked so awful that Julia Foster volunteered to do the scenes herself. It turned out that had been Ken Hughes’ plan all along, hence the wildly unsuitable body double.

The era and some facts

We were fascinated by background and artefacts (especially vehicles). I didn’t know that parking meters and double yellow lines existed in 1962, but Google tells me double yellow lines appeared in 1960. Not where I lived.

Soho was then notorious for drinking clubs, strip shows and prostitution. The club where Sammy works is probably a ‘clip joint’ where indeed ‘you drink champagne and it tastes like cherry-cola’. Ray Davies wrote Coca-Cola, but brand names were banned on BBC TV and radio, so he had to change it. These were strip clubs, where as well as an admission charge, scantily clad waitresses persuaded patrons to buy them “champagne” (which would be cheap fizzy wine) at wildly extortionate prices. I’m mildly surprised that in the film, the club can afford a four or five piece backing band for the strippers, but then most musicians say they found themselves backing strippers at one time or another in the 1960s.

In the late 60s, Soho was great for music in the clubs. It was not so great on Saturdays because football fans in London for a match used to gravitate straight to Soho for a bit of shouting, brawling, staring at the human merchandise and vomiting. We often walk through the same streets today, and while you still see some over-made up ladies standing around on corners which have no sign of a bus stop, it has become rapidly far more salubrious. The Chinatown area has had a tourism makeover with pagoda topped phone boxes. There are some ludicrously over-priced second hand record shops, a vintage magazine shop, and particularly lots of good restaurants.

The key sum, £300 which Sammy has to raise in five hours would be £6,500 in 2020 money, at least according to Google.

The posters claim that the girl, Patsy, was “one thousand miles from home.” I suspect many of us would know that Bradford to London is about 200 miles (I wrote that then checked, 203 miles. Not a bad guess!)

Plot

Completely full of plot-spoilers … as befits a classic.

Sammy Lee (Anthony Newley) is the compere / comedian at the Soho striptease club, Peepshow. Right at the start, we see his poster on the wall, with dustbin men (or in 2020 refuse disposal operatives) collecting the rubbish from around the door. Symbolic, no doubt. The link to John Osborne’s 1957 play The Entertainer and the 1960 film, starring Laurence Olivier, is obvious, but this comedian is even further down the ladder than Olivier’s Billy Rice.

Patsy (Julia Foster) arrives in Soho. Poster of Sammy Lee.

I’m trying to limit sarcasm, but then we see Patsy (Julia Foster) who has arrived from “Up North” in the big city bearing a small suitcase with all her belongings. This is an obligatory first appearance by a female in British 60s films. She stares at Sammy’s poster, as well she might. They have previous from his days on tour as a comic.

Sammy is embroiled in a poker game and loses, and we hear that he’s already £150 in the hole to some gangsters. One might be suspicious about the honesty of the deal here. The thing about gambling is … that Sammy then gets given a tip for a horse at 25-1, and places the bet with a tenner. This will get him out of the hole, IF it wins.

Vertically-challenged newspaper seller – the ambience of 1962 Soho, rich in character

He nips back to his flat, where his neighbouring tart-with-a-heart-of-gold is admitting her latest customer.

Neighbours … everybody needs good neighbours

Back at the club, the dancers (aka strippers) are finishing a run through. Patsy comes in looking for a job. The interview with the owner, Gerry (Robert Stephens) involves stripping down, not that Gerry shows any more than academic interest.

The job interview. Gerry (Robert Stephens) may well have seen it all before.

She gets offered a job, at £20 a week … not dancing but initially waiting on tables scantily clad. Sammy arrives and is shocked to see her. He did not know she’d travelled to London. He doesn’t like the idea of her working here.

Harry goes to get ready for the show and confides to Harry (Wilfred Brambell), his dresser, that he owes £300 to Joe Connor.

Harry: Come on, what’s worrying you?
Sammy: If you owed £300 to Joe Connor, you’d be worried.
Harry: Connor? How’d you come to do that then?
Sammy:  Oh, a couple of poker games, a few three-legged horses. It was easy, really.

(It seems odd that Sammy Lee, who we later learn is paid £15 by the strip club as compere, can afford the services of a dresser, Harry. Especially so, as Patsy is offered £20 a week to wait on tables.)

Sammy’s act is predictable.

Sammy: Well, thank you for that thunderous ovation. Good afternoon, gentlemen, and welcome to the Peepshow Club. And you’re welcome to it. We’ve got a wonderful show here for you today so I want you to forget about the wife and make yourselves comfortable; not too comfortable there, Sir, thank you. We were raided last week. Sit back, relax, enjoy yourselves. We’ve got some really beautiful girls here, some really beautiful girls … Keep your seat belt fastened Sir, all in good time. Now first of all, there’s Jacky. Now Jacky she’s a really lovely girl. She started off as a fan dancer, saved up enough money to feather her nest… forget it. Right the Peepshow Club is proud to present for your entertainment and delight the Peepshow Lovelies in a hysterical, er, historical tableau, entitled ‘The Garden of Allah’.

The act at the club is based on an Arabian Nights routine. The idea of the exotic Arabian Dance of the (very wispy) Seven Veils gripped the British consciousness at the time. I was told it was based on the army in World War Two Egypt, either that or Hollywood sheiks in the Rudolph Valentino era, but it was a long way from reality and burqas.

The regular strippers don’t take a shine to Patsy, who is shocked at the proposals made by the dirty-mac brigade who are patrons of the club.

Sammy and Patsy

Sammy does his act between strips – his job is to push them to the bar for over-priced drinks. Sammy is awful. Newley has also carefully studied the pose of comedians of the ilk, one hand in DJ pocket, the other on his stomach. Strip clubs had bizarre regulations, they could dance, but once naked it was a static tableaux, and they were only permitted a second or two before lights went out – all this is shown in the film.

Joe Connor’s thugs give Sammy a talking to in his dressing room. The older one is doing his job with studied and threatening politeness:

Do you have the money, Mr Lee?

The younger one is sadistic and up for any nastiness. Sammy now has to consult his notebook and find a way of getting the money in five hours.

Let me take you through the streets of London …

His first resort is his brother, Lou Leeman (Warren Mitchell), who runs a kosher delicatessen. The strengths of the film come out in the background detail of Sammy going through the streets. This is somewhere over towards Petticoat Lane. It has a documentary feel … they look like real people on the streets.

Lou (Warren Mitchell) and Sammy

Lou just doesn’t have that kind of money. The till contains £25. His wife Milly (Miriam Karlin) loathes Sammy, who she sees as a waster and chancer. He can’t understand in turn what Lou sees in her. On the other hand, Milly’s assessment is fair. They’re shutting up shop to go for lunch … as nearly all shops did in 1962.I’d forgotten.

Milly: I wouldn’t help you if you was lying bleeding in the gutter.

Sammy is back on the phone. This is one of several sequences involving his cat Oscar (said to be a Newley in-joke … he’s got an “Oscar.”). He’s on the phone trying to do a deal for some dodgy watches, but all the guy on the phone wants is a chair Sammy owns. It was his mother’s favourite …and he won’t sell as the bidding goes up (and later up again).

Sammy: Well, you see, my mother died in that chair. Yeah. God rest her soul. Five years she sat in it. Day in. Day out. Never got out of it.

This must be an intact section of the original play. The prostitute from next door comes in and offers to help him out with money. How much does he need?

Sammy: A bloody sight more than you’ve got in that bag, I can tell you!

He declines as he feels that will make him a pimp. His next scam is to buy and sell some bottles of American whiskey. He recruits poor Harry, who doesn’t seem too bright, to help him out, running around, arranging stuff. Wilfred Brambell was just about to start Steptoe and Son and had already perfected his act of looking much older and feebler than his real age.

Harry (Wilfred Brambell) finds it hard to remember instructions …

Sammy now has a great deal of racing about. Next he tries to unload a couple of thousand watches on Morrie, who already has a boxes of watches, but still agrees to buy 125.  The panic has Sammy running from pillar to post.

Someone else needs more glasses, another quick bit of buying and selling. Then it’s off to the billiard hall to speak to Eddie, who says he’d heard Sammy was in hospital. A pointed comment. Or was soon to be in hospital. He asks Sammy to get him some ‘reefer’ or ‘gear.’ This is somewhat beyond Sammy’s normal dodgy dealings.

Pianist: You come running to me asking for pot? And I don’t have no weed. I don’t even smoke, man.

He has no idea where to get it, so nips into a club where some black musicians are rehearsing. They are deeply offended at his assumption, pointing out that they don’t smoke anything. However they point out a club where he might find some, and we see Sammy mixing grass with rolling tobacco on a table in quantity.

Patsy does the strip routine

Back at the club, Sammy gets another shock. One of the dancers has been sacked, and Patsy has taken her place for the full strip … with silver fig leaf.

Gerry (Robert Stephens) and Sammy

Sammy: I suppose this as all your bloody clever idea.
Gerry: She wanted to do it …
Sammy: Oh, sure. You mean you talked her into it.
Gerry: Oh, grow up, will you? For God’s sake … You’re acting like she’s a twelve year old schoolgirl or something.
Sammy: They’re all dirty here. All dirty.
Gerry: Look, Sam, Any girl who takes her clothes off for a living is an whore! And I don’t know if she’s your girlfriend, or what she is, but if that’s what she does, she’s a blasted whore.

Nothing worse than a moralising mysogynist pimp. So, Sammy is furious, and wants her right out of there. He has more frantic calls to Harry … time is passing. He still declines to sell mum’s chair (it does not look valuable to me, more a bit of grotty fifties G-Plan).

Sammy & Patsy

Sammy & Patsy go back to his rooms and make love. We fill in some back story … he was her first lover back in Bradford, and there has been no one else. After a fling, he’d promised to help her if ever she came to London.  He phones the coach station … there is a bus back to Bradford at eight, and he wants her to go home and get right out of Soho.

At last he hears from Harry. Harry has got the money for the whiskey … and it’s a cheque. These guys don’t do cheques. If they did, Sammy would have passed one to them right at the start.

This is to be Sammy’s last stage show.

Sammy: Gentlemen, this is probably my last public appearance on any stage for some time. Right. Shall I tell you something? This is for nothing. These birds back here … they hate you, right? They hate you, believe me, they hate you. You make them sick … The Peep Show Club is proud to present, on this very stage, what is probably the most second-rate, nasty, small-minded dirty little show in the West End, right?

The gangster’s Mark IX Jaguar is outside the club. Sammy is hurrying to Victoria Coach station. He catches up with Patsy who is about to board the coach. He’s coming with her. As they board the coach, he asks if he can pay on board, but no, he must go back and get a ticket … there’s a queue.

Meanwhile … the familiar Jaguar is arriving at the coach station. Sammy sees them, and decides not to run … it would be pointless. He watches Patsy’s bus pull away, so she will be safe.

Sammy calmly gets in the car, and they drive him to some wasteland. He knows he will be beaten up. The older one insists on doing it … while lying on the ground, Sammy sees an iron bar and retaliates which means a worse beating. They depart … he struggles to his feet.

(In any modern film they would have killed him. We British look back in pride to a time where torture and broken limbs sufficed for the criminal element).

blu-ray

The first impression is the clarity and sharpness of the Studiocanal blu-ray restoration, bringing 1962 Soho to life. These 60s black and white films scrub up so well, much better than colour ones from the same era. The cinematography is superb throughout. (Well, they did screw up on night shots of the Jaguar – I reckon they put Vaseline on the doors to stop reflections … as such reflections tend to reveal the camera. It makes it look very streaky.) A lot was filmed in the actual streets, but the main set where we see the Peepshow Club next door to Cecil Gee was a Shepperton Studios set.

The World of Sammy Lee: Note Cecil Gee 

The Young Ones, a year earlier at Shepperton Studios: Different shop front, so Cecil Gee was probably a product placement deal!

The Soundtrack

Smooth, cool Mod-jazz from Kenny Graham … the style which was used in Newley’s World of Gurney Slade series. I’d never seen a copy of the soundtrack listed, but it was released on CD (2013) and vinyl (2014) at the time the film was heavily restored.

The review on Discogs:
Johnny Trunk (of Trunk Records) located this ‘lost’ soundtrack through Kenny Graham’s daughter, who had it stored away in her attic. Trunk found a box that said “Sammy, ” and five years later, he has this release on his label. “Soho at Dawn,” the opening cut for this album, and I presume the film, is a beauty. It smells like Soho at that time of the day, and I get a sense of a chill as if I was walking a Soho street. The rest of the album is just as cinematic with evident jazz touches. Still, it’s very focused on its theme of urgency, yet sadness at the same time — a moody work.

The original recording was early 1963, and Kenny Graham was known to have used Joe Meek’s engineering skills, but no one knows if Meek was involved.

Overall

I thoroughly enjoyed watching it again. It is long for its plot. Ironically the bits you could cut are the long phone conversations, which would be the original play. However, as Ken Hughes wrote the original AND the screenplay AND directed it, all the visual additions are his.

THE 60s REVISITED REVIEWS …

A Taste of Honey (1961)
Sparrows Can’t Sing (1963)
The Small World of Sammy Lee (1963)
Tom Jones (1963)
The Fast Lady (1963)
What A Crazy World (1963)
A Hard Day’s Night (1964)
Gonks Go Beat (1965)
Cat Ballou (1965)
The Ipcress File (1965)
Darling (1965)
The Knack (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)
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)
Performance (1970)