There have, of course, been many writer-director teams in cinema, some - Jacques Prevert-Marcel-Carne - verging on the immortal, some Robert Riskin-Frank Capra - honorable mentions, and some - Dudley Nichols-John Ford - ho hum but among the most distinguished were Terence Rattigan and Puffin Asquith who peaked with one of the finest British films ever made, The Browning Version which Rattigan adapted from his own one-act play; their partnership was also punctuated by the superb The Way To The Stars, The Winslow Boy, and culminated with two Original Screenplays by Rattigan both, as it happened, our old friend the portmanteau movie, first spotted in the 30s (Duvivier's Un Carnet de bal) and enjoying a vogue in the 40s (Quartet, Trio, Encore, Easy Money). First up was The V.I.Ps. and then, in 1964 what was to become Puffin's swansong, The Yellow Rolls Royce. Fittingly the first of the three episodes featured Rex Harrison who enjoyed his first major success on stage in Rattigan's French Without Tears in 1936. Alas, his wife was the badly miscast Jeanne Moreau then flavour-of-the-month and she herself saddled with the wooden Edmund Purdom as her love interest. Even more bizarre casting followed in the second segment in which four distinct acting styles - Alain Delon, Art Carney, George C. Scott and Shirley MacLaine clashed resoundingly. The class was reserved for the final segment in the form of the luminescent Ingrid Bergman offset by a cameo by Joyce Grenfell. Despite these caveats there is much to enjoy here and a reminded of two of the finest filmmakers in England.
Review of The Yellow Rolls-Royce
