Ken Hughes was an interesting character. The closest thing I have to a personal anecdote came from an old friend who was an assistant director: "Ken Hughes was the dirtiest man I ever met." I don't really know what he meant by that, and it may be unfair. But you can see little hints in his work.Hughes is best-remembered today for Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968), and he did some of the better work in the astonishing sixties farrago Casino Royale (1967), but none of that really typifies him. His best film may be The Small World of Sammy Lee (1963), which he wrote as well as directed, and which brought to a kind of climax his early thriller period.Hughes' first film, in 1952, was Wide Boy, about a lowlife blackmailer, not a distinguished work but an unusual one for its frankness about the anti-hero's Jewishness. Sammy Lee is a much more...
- 5/28/2019
- MUBI
Set in the grimy streets of early-60s Soho, The Small World of Sammy Lee is a lost gem of British cinema. Starring Anthony Newley as a strip-club compere who owes a large amount of money to a local villain, it was written and directed by Ken Hughes (best known for Chitty Chitty Bang Bang) and was photographed by the renowned Wolfgang Suschitzky. It also features a host of recognisable faces in smaller roles, including Steptoe’s Wilfrid Brambell, The Rag Trade’s Miriam Karlin, and Till Death Us Do Part’s Warren Mitchell.
•The Small World of Sammy Lee is released on Blu-ray on 14 November
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•The Small World of Sammy Lee is released on Blu-ray on 14 November
Continue reading...
- 11/4/2016
- by Guardian Staff
- The Guardian - Film News
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