Savage Messiah (1972)

Savage Messiah is a 1972 Ken Russell movie which gets slightly overshadowed by his more well-known (and more notorious) 1970s movies.

Ken Russell made his initial reputation in television in the 60s with a series of wonderful TV films. At this stage it was obvious that Russell was obsessed by the idea of exploring the psychology of creative individuals (mainly composers but sometimes writers and painters as well), and by the idea of doing this in an interesting, unconventional and visually inventive way. These Ken Russell TV-films bore no resemblance to the usual run of dry dreary documentaries. They were fresh, exciting and challenging.

It was a subject to which Russell would return over and over again throughout his career. In 1972, after making a couple of features on other subjects, he was ready to explore this matter once again. Savage Messiah is the story of French sculptor Henri Gaudier-Brzeska.

Russell was fascinated by genius. He made films about men like Mahler, Debussy, Liszt, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Tchaikovsky. Men who achieved immense success and are universally considered to be among the greats. Russell was also interested in the effect that success had on these people, an effect that that was perhaps not always positive.

In Savage Messiah he has chosen to make a movie about a sculptor, Henri Gaudier, who is not a great deal more than a footnote in art history. And Gaudier never had to worry about the effect that success might have on him. He never enjoyed any. While the other creative artists about whom Russell made movies lived in luxury and elegance Henri and Sophie live in squalor. It’s not just their surroundings that are squalid. Their lives are squalid.

The movie focuses a good deal on Henri’s relationship with Sophie Brzeska, a writer who achieved even less success than Henri.

Gaudier was a modernist, and I’m afraid my prejudice against modernism made me less than sympathetic to him, and to the art he created which to me seems extraordinarily ugly and uninteresting.

Since Russell was fascinated by genius we have at assume that he thought Gaudier was a genius, and to appreciate the movie you have to accept that assessment. But unlike his other similar movies this is a movie about genius unrecognised and thwarted.

The nature of the relationship between Henri Gaudier and Sophie remains obscure. It seems to have been passionate but mostly (or more probably entirely) sexless. In the movie, as in reality, Henri consoles himself with prostitutes, paid for by Sophie.

The movie opens with Henri’s meeting with Sophie. Henri is young, irrepressible, arrogant, hyper-confident and hyper-active. Sophie is twice his age, her ambitions to write have been frustrated. Sophie is drawn to Henri’s energy and enthusiasm. Sophie thinks about suicide a lot.

They move to London. Gaudier meets eccentric art dealer Angus Corky (Lindsay Kemp) and his equally strange friends who see themselves as the artistic avant-garde. They’re the counterculture of the Edwardian era (and remember this movie was made in 1972 so it’s fair to assume that the parallels with the 1960/70s counterculture are deliberate). They’re a gallery of grotesques.

Gaudier tries to make a success of his art and never doubts for one moment that he will succeed.

He then meets Gosh Boyle (yes her name is Gosh and she’s played by Helen Mirren). Gosh seems more than willing to offer him the physical side of love that Sophie has always denied.

It’s a film (like all of Russell’s movies about geniuses) about the madness of genius but in this case there is a greater madness on the horizon as war fever sweeps England. The madness of genius is a positive madness but there is nothing positive about the madness of war. But an obsession with death is common to the genius heroes of many of Russell’s movies (notably The Music Lovers and Mahler).

It’s hard to judge the acting since all the characters are mad and hyper-active and the performances reflect this. Scott Antony (whose career proved to be astonishingly brief) is weirdly compelling as Gaudier. Dorothy Tutin is even weirder as Sophie, and Helen Mirren chews the scenery with abandon as Gosh. Lindsay Kemp is bizarrely likeable as Angus Corky, Gaudier’s crazy agent. It’s fun to see wonderful actors like Peter Vaughan, Robert Lang and Michael Gough in the supporting cast.

There’s no shortage of Ken Russell excess in this production. If you hate his movies you’ll hate this one. If you love his movies you’ll love this one.

Savage Messiah is on DVD in the Warner Archive series. It’s still obtainable but not that easy to find.

Earthquake (1974)

What kept Hollywood afloat in the early 70s was not the movies of the New American Cinema that critics doted on. It was the disaster movie that got people into movie theatres. Earthquake is one of the classics of the genre.

You cannot judge a 70s disaster movie as if it’s Citizen Kane or an Ingmar Bergman film. The disaster movie genre had its own conventions. Whether it’s a good disaster movie or a bad one depends on how well it conforms to those conventions.

A disaster movie has to have a big cast, with as many real stars as the studio could afford. Stars who were just a little past their use-by date but who were still familiar to audiences were always useful in filling out the cast.

The first 40 minutes or so of Earthquake focuses on introducing those characters. They don’t have to be complex or subtle characters but we have to get to know them well enough to care about their fates. The Poseidon Adventure in 1972 had established another convention of the genre - not all the stars will survive the movie (and not all the stars survive Earthquake). Which makes it even more important that we care about them. 70s disaster movies differed from earlier similar movies (such as the aviation disaster movies in which tragedy was usually averted at the last moment) in that the disaster is going to happen no matter how hard the characters try to avert it, and 70s disaster movies faced the fact that when disaster strikes then real people, people whom we like, get killed.

The biggest star in this movie is Charlton Heston and his character, engineer Stewart Graff, has at least some complexity. He is married to Remy (Ava Gardner) and the marriage has not been a success. Remy’s dad Sam Royce (Lorne Greene) owns the company for which Stewart works. Stewart has been drifting into an affair with pretty young widow and aspiring actress Denise Marshall (Geneviève Bujold).

The other major character is cop Lou Slade (George Kennedy), a decent man but hot-headed and now under suspension for slugging another cop.

There’s also daredevil motorcycle stunt rider Miles Quade (Richard Roundtree), his manager and his manager’s sister Rosa (Victoria Principal). Rosa is supposed to be Quade’s pretty female assistant but she’s being rebellious. There’s a crazy gung-ho National Guardsmen, a dedicated doctor played by Lloyd Nolan, assorted scientists at the Seismological Institute and a bunch of dam inspectors worried that a dam could collapse.

While we’re getting to know these people we get a slow build-up of suspense as scientists start to worry that a major quake might be impending. This is also one of the conventions of the genre - the disaster starts to loom in the background.

The quake itself is a triumph of 1970s special effects. Thankfully this was long before the dark days of CGI so it’s all done with miniatures, matte paintings and other traditional techniques, all of which look better than CGI. It’s a movie that aims to wow us with spectacle and it succeeds.

The second half of the movie focuses on the desperate rescue efforts.

This is a rather merciless movie. Just as it seems that the danger is over the aftershock hits and it’s just as devastating. So just as we’re feeling relieved that our favourite characters survived the main quake we have to start worrying about them all over again.

This is a movie that is not interested in assigning blame for the disaster but there’s quite a bit of 70s cynicism. Some people turn out to be heroes and some turn out to be cowards. Even the brave rescue crews are not always brave.

The one group of people who really come out of this movie badly are the military. The National Guard guys do nothing apart from hampering the rescue efforts and shooting people without any real justification. Some of them turn out to be dangerous murderous killers in uniform. The military was not popular in 1974.

Mark Robson does a pretty solid job as director. Its a two-hour movie but it’s paced well and he builds some real tension during the rescue sequences with some clever race-against-time elements.

The acting is appropriate for this type of movie. The cast members understood what was expected of them. There’s plenty of enjoyable overacting.

Earthquake is pure entertainment and doesn’t pretend to be anything else. And that’s what audiences wanted - it was a huge hit.

Earthquake is easy to find on home video and it’s had a Blu-Ray release. My copy comes from Universal’s Ultimate Disaster Pack DVD set which also includes The Hindenburg (which I watched a week ago), Airport (a movie I have always loved) and Rollercoaster (which I’ve never seen and which I’m looking forward to). The DVD transfer is 16:9 enhanced and looks fine. It’s a great budget DVD set.

I loved Earthquake when I first saw it aeons ago and I still love it. It has everything you want in a disaster movie. Highly recommended.

The Man with the Glass Eye (1969)

The Man with the Glass Eye (Der Mann mit dem Glasauge) is a late entry in the West German Edgar Wallace krimi cycle made by Rialto Film. The krimis had been in tune with the zeitgeist of the early 60s and had enjoyed immense success. By 1969 they were struggling to hold on to their audience and in this film you can see desperate attempts to get in touch with the late 60s zeitgeist.

It has in its favour the fact that it was directed by Alfred Vohrer, probably the best of the krimi directors.

By this stage the connection between the krimis and the works of Edgar Wallace was becoming very tenuous indeed. The krimi cycle would eventually end in 1972 with a couple of Italian-German co-productions, the Massimo Dallanano-directed What Have You Done to Solange? and the Umberto Lenzi-directed Seven Blood-Stained Orchids. What Have You Done to Solange? is a superb movie and Seven Blood-Stained Orchids is quite good but they are clearly gialli rather than krimis.

Which is not entirely inappropriate given that the giallo was a kind of offspring of the krimi. At the very least the krimi was a major influence on the giallo.

The movie opens with a man named Jefferson checking into a London hotel with cute blonde showgirl Leila. While they’re making love a man bursts into the room and knifes Jefferson to death.

Leila is one of the Las Vegas Girls who performs at a night club. That club seems to have been one of Jefferson’s many business interests. The police discover that Jefferson was a very shady character, suspected of white slavery.

Shortly afterwards Leila becomes the second victim.

The police have a few clues - a glass eye and billiard cues.

Other Las Vegas Girls are kidnapped and we get hints that whoever is behind the white slavery racket dabbles in drug smuggling as well.

Showgirl Yvonne Duvall (played by Karin Hübner who is essentially the female lead in this film) has run into an old flame, young Lord Bruce Sheringham (Fritz Wepper). Bruce had wanted to marry Yvonne three years earlier but she disappeared out of his life. He still wants to marry her. This romance subplot will later connect to the main plot, and Yvonne’s disappearance will become significant.

We know the identity of the main players in the white slavery racket but we don’t know if the guy who seems to be in charge really is the kingpin. And we don’t know the identity of the murderer - it may be a member of the gang or it may be somebody else entirely. The killer seems to want to kill the bad guys.

Many of the iconic krimi stars had departed by this time. Rialto tried to find suitable replacements but it isn’t easy to replace a Klaus Kinski. One of their biggest problems was finding a substitute for Eddi Arent. Arent had provided the comic relief in most of the krimis up to 1966. If you’ve only ever seen English-dubbed versions of krimis you might conclude that Arent’s deprture wold be no great less but when you watch the movies in German with English subtitles you realise that Arent was a fine comic actor and a major asset to the series.

The Man with the Glass Eye offers the audience two comic relief characters. There’s Stefan Behrens as Sergeant Pepper and there’s Scotland Yard chief Sir Arthur’s secretary (and mistress) Miss Finley. They both try too hard but Miss Finley is at times amusing.

Hubert von Meyerinck is not especially likeable as Sir Arthur. On the other hand this movie’s main detective, Inspector Perkins, is played by Horst Tappert and he’s quite good. Karin Hübner is good as well.

The murders, especially the second one, are quite imaginative. Not as bloody as movie murders would become in the 70s but there’s a bit more blood than you’d see in the early krimis.

Maybe the plot is a bit incoherent but I don’t mind that in a krimi (or a giallo) as long it’s fairly outrageous.

Vohrer keeps the action moving along briskly and he treats us to a rather epic fight scene in a billiard club.

There are plenty of nice visual touches. I liked the little mobile glass compartment which delivers the kidnapped girls to the home of Mr Donovan, whose intentions may not be honourable.

There are odd slightly surreal touches, such as the weird ventriloquist’s doll.

The Man with the Glass Eye might not be the equal of the classic early krimis but it’s rather enjoyable.

The German Tobis Blu-Ray release looks terrific and offers both the English dub and the German soundtrack with English subtitles.

Claude Chabrol’s Blue Panther (1965)

Claude Chabrol’s Blue Panther (the original French title is Marie-Chantal contre Dr Kha) is a lighthearted 1965 eurospy romp, or at least that’s what you might assume you're going to get. That assumption would be entirely incorrect.

What you're actually going to get is a French New Wave deconstruction of the spy movie. And it gets very meta and very postmodern. If that sort of thing appeals to you then you'll enjoy this movie. If you were hoping for a fun eurospy move you'll be very disappointed.

My full review can be found at Classic Movie Ramblings.

Zeta One (1969)

Zeta One (released in the US as The Love Factor) is a 1969 science fiction/spy spoof/sex comedy from Tigon British Film Productions. This was around the time when there were finally signs that the draconian British film censorship might start loosening up a little. That was indeed about to happen but Zeta One came maybe a year too early and it was cut pieces by the puritanical British censors.

Happily the cuts have since been restored for both the US Jezebel Blu-Ray release and the British Blu-Ray release (as part of the Saucy 70s boxed set) by 88 Films.

We’re introduced to British spy James Word (Robin Hawdon). He doesn’t seem to be the most competent of spies. HIs false moustache keeps falling off. He has arrived home to find Ann Olsen (Yutte Stensgaard) in his flat. She is W’s secretary, W being the head of the intelligence service for which James works. Ann persuades James to tell her about his latest case. What James doesn’t know is that Ann is an Angvian agent.

James would prefer to do other things. Ann suggests a game of strip poker, with the winner having the right to choose what the two of them will do next. The strip poker game is just an excuse to have Yutte Stensgaard take her clothes off, but since this is Yutte Stensgaard (best known for Hammer’s infamous 1971 Lust for a Vampire) we’re talking about I don’t think any viewers are likely to complain.

It all started with suspicions that Major Bourdon (James Robertson Justice) and his assistant Swyne (Charles Hawtrey) might be up to something. They are indeed, but it’s not just plain ordinary espionage. It has to do with the women of Angvia. James isn’t sure where Angvia is. It might be in space, it might be on a distant planet, it might be on Earth but in another dimension. The women of Angvia don’t have any men.

Major Bourdon seems to have some plan to take over Angvia. His plans are not all that clear but what is clear is that he’s a diabolical criminal mastermind of some sort. James Word’s mission is to thwart Bourdon’s plans and also to find out what those Angvian women are planning.

What is known is that the Angvians are kidnapping young beautiful women from Earth. Their latest target is stripper Edwina 'Ted' Strain (Wendy Lingham).

Edwina ends up in the hands of Major Bourdon. The major is not averse to using torture to persuade young ladies to coöperate. He wants her help in order to infiltrate the Angvians.

There’s plenty of action as various Angvian women are captured and attempt to escape. It culminates with a surreal comic-book style battle scene between Bourdon’s men and the women warriors of Angvia. And then there’s a postscript. James Word now knows far too much about Angvia. He cannot be allowed to reveal this information to anyone. The Angvians have no intention of killing him. They have other plans for him.

The violence is all very much comic-book style stuff. Even the torture scenes have that feel and as a result they’re not the least bit horrifying, nor are they meant to be. This movie is a good-natured romp.

The BBFC apparently cut most of the nudity and that would have been quite a problem. If you cut all the nude scenes from this movie you’re going to end up with a very short movie that is not going to make a lick of sense.

Perhaps Tigon were being a bit ambitious for 1969. There is a great deal of nudity and there’s even some frontal nudity. Perhaps they should have realised that they just weren’t going to get away with that in 1969.

The main problem with this movie is that when director Michael Cort finished it it had a running time of just over 60 minutes, mainly because the script really only provides enough of a story for an hour-long movie. Tigon therefore hired Vernon Sewell to shoot additional footage, which results in a movie with definite pacing problems. Although it would have been unreleasable at 60 minutes that original shorter version was probably a better film. The original material shot by Michael Cort is much more interesting.

What’s interesting is that while it might seem like a kind of sex comedy this movie bears no resemblance whatsoever to 1970s British sex comedies such as the Adventures of movies and the Confessions movies. In fact it doesn’t really feel particularly British. It has much more of a European vibe. It seems more influenced by European comics for adults and European movies based on those comics. Imagine a cross between Barbarella and Mario Bava’s Danger: Diabolik but with a lot more nudity and you’re getting closer to describing the feel of this movie. It also has a bit of a John Willie fetish vibe. Some of the costumes would not have been out place in Just Jaeckin’s Gwendoline, based on Willie’s comic.

It’s silly and goofy but it’s also surreal and crazy. There are also moments which are clearly influenced by the psychedelic freak-out movies that were in vogue in the 60s. Visually it’s pleasingly oddball. Zeta One has some major flaws but the fact that it’s so totally unlike other British movies of its era, and that it has such an odd feel to it, make it worth watching. It’s possibly the most successful British attempt to achieve a comic-book feel. The plot incoherence adds to its charm. Highly recommended.

Seven Blood-Stained Orchids (1972)

Seven Blood-Stained Orchids is a 1972 crime thriller directed by Umberto Lenzi. It’s usually considered to be a giallo but it’s a bit more complicated than that. This was a West German-Italian co-production and the German company involved was Rialto Film. Rialto of course were responsible for the wonderful Edgar Wallace krimi cycle of the 60s and early 70s. That krimi cycle was a definite influence on the evolution of the giallo.

The two genres have a number of things in common, the most important being that both emphasised style over content. The plots tended to be fairly outrageous and plot coherence was not a major consideration in either genre. Seven Blood-Stained Orchids belongs to an intriguing group of early 70s movies that were in fact marketed in Germany as krimis, or krimi-giallo hybrids. It is however a genuine giallo.

The main source material for this movie was Cornell Woolrich’s novel Rendezvous in Black. For the German release the claim was made that it was also based partly on an Edgar Wallace story, but this was simply an attempt to boost the movie’s chances at the German box office. The closing opening sequence used in the Rialto krimis was also added to give the impression that this really was a krimi. Lenzi wasn’t pleased by this but it worked and the movie did very well in Germany.

A psycho killer is stalking women (a black-gloved killer naturally) . A half-moon amulet is left by the body of each victim so the psycho becomes known as the Half Moon Maniac. One of his victims, Giulia Torresi (Uschi Glas), has a lucky escape. She is married to fashion designer Mario Gerosa (Antonio Sabato).

There seems to be no obvious connection between the victims until it is discovered that a couple of years earlier they all stayed at the same hotel, the hotel owned at that time by Giulia’s family.

Inspector Vismara (Pier Paolo Capponi) has assigned plain-clothes officers to protect the other likely victims but the police just don’t seem to be able to get their act together and women get killed under their very noses.

Mario (fairly reasonably) comes to the conclusion that he can’t rely on the police so he decides to play private detective. As the killer accumulates more victims both Mario and the police always seem to be one step behind. Mario does go tantalisingly close to saving one victim, a woman confined in a mental hospital.

There is one promising clue, an American who used to eat regularly at the Torresi family’s hotel. And Mario comes across another clue - seven orchids all stained blood-red. But that clue seems to lead nowhere.

In desperation a trap is set for the killer, with slightly unexpected results.

There’s a very high body count and the murders are done in typical baroque giallo style (and several of them are quite impressive visual set-pieces).

There are false leads and plenty of deception. In two cases where the victim survives the police lead the murderer to think that those victims are dead. It was hardly an original idea to have the lead character decide to play private detective but in this film it makes sense. The police really do make a mess of things.

Lenzi considered this movie to be fairly clued and to some extent he was right. There are certainly clues that should awaken an alert viewer’s suspicions.

Antonio Sabato is not the most colourful or endearing of heroes. Marisa Mell has a small part which doesn’t give her any real opportunities. The supporting players are generally extremely good. The standout performance however is given by Uschi Glas. She has real screen presence and she makes Giulia a lively, likeable intelligent heroine.

The plot stretches credibility but if you’re watching a giallo and looking for plot coherence then you’ve picked the wrong genre. A giallo plot is not required to make sense or hang together and the more outrageous the plot the better.

Lenzi used to be better known for some of his notorious later movies (such as his cannibal movies) but his earlier giallos have since grown in reputation and it’s those giallos on which Lenzi should be judged as a director. And he was a fine giallo director. He made better giallos than this one (the wonderfully offbeat Spasmo is his masterpiece) but Seven Blood-Stained Orchids is still a very solid very entertaining effort. Highly recommended.

The 88 Films Blu-Ray release offers a lovely transfer, and offers both the Italian and English dubbed version. All Italian movies of this era post-dubbed so whether you watch the Italian or English version really doesn’t matter. There’s an audio commentary plus a couple of interview, the interview with Lenzi being a very worthwhile extra.

Sirens (1994)

Sirens is a 1994 Anglo-Australian production written and directed by John Duigan dealing with Australian artist and writer Norman Lindsay. I personally consider Lindsay to be the only great painter Australia has ever produced, and also the greatest erotic painter of the 20th century. So any movie about him is going to pique my interest. I did in fact see this movie some years ago but I’m now getting the chance to see it on Blu-Ray.

While it deals with a real person the story is entirely fiction.

As the film opens (presumably some time in the 1930s) church leaders are in a panic about a new exhibition of Australian painting. Given that is the country’s most celebrated painter Norman Lindsay (played in the film by Sam Neill) could hardly be excluded but the paintings the artist has chosen to represent his work are giving churchmen and society’s moral watchdogs heart failure. The paintings are highly erotic and possibly even blasphemous. Somehow Lindsay has to be persuaded to substitute more respectable paintings for these shocking canvases. Which may be a challenge, since Lindsay doesn’t paint respectable paintings.

The Bishop of Sydney feels that it would be futile for any local churchman to try to persuade Lindsay. But possibly the Reverend Anthony Campion (Hugh Grant) might be able to do it. Tony Campion is a young English churchman with a reputation as a progressive, and as luck would have it he will be passing very close to Lindsay’s home in the Blue Mountains on his way to a new parish.

The artist offers to put Tony and his wife Estella (Tara Fitzgerald) up for the night. Lindsay is highly amused by the whole business.

Their stay in Lindsay’s eccentric household turns out to be rather longer than expected. Tony makes very little progress. Lindsay has dealt with puritans before. They don’t impress him.

The Lindsay household consists of Lindsay, his wife Rose (Pamela Rabe), their two children and three models - Sheela (Elle Macpherson), Pru (Kate Fischer) and Giddy (Portia de Rossi) although Giddy is not actually a professional artist’s model. There is also odd-job man Devlin (Mark Gerber) but he doesn’t live in the house. Devlin is almost blind.

Estella Campion feels very uncomfortable in this household. She’s rather straitlaced and respectable and she is deeply shocked by Sheela, Pru and Giddy. She thinks that Sheela and Pru are not respectable young women at all. And the erotically charged atmosphere in the household disturbs her a great deal. It awakens things in her the existence of which she had never suspected. Wicked erotic longings. Especially when she catches sight of Devin naked in the woods.

Tony is a little unsettled as well. Everywhere he goes there seem to be naked women.

Not everyone likes this movie. The mixed reaction to it may have something to do with he fact that it came out in 1994. At that time the Sexual Revolution seemed to have been won and the puritans appeared to have been routed. Society seemed to be becoming steadily more civilised, more sophisticated, more open-minded and more grown-up about sex. A movie that indulged in puritan-baiting seemed a bit gratuitous and unnecessary. A bit like putting the boot into an enemy who was already down and out. Today of course we know that the puritans were far from defeated and they’re on the offensive again, so the movie now has a bit more bite to it than it had in 1994.

And Duigan wisely did not fall for the temptation to make the clergyman a stereotypical fire-and-brimstone preacher obsessed with sin and guilt. Tony Campion is just a little bit of a prude but he tries very hard not to be, he really is fairly open-minded and he’s an easy-going very likeable young chap. Hugh Grant was rather inspired choice to play the young churchman and he does an excellent job.

In fact the two antagonists are both equally sympathetic. Sam Neill plays Lindsay as a strong-willed man who will not compromise on his beliefs but also as a loveable rogue and an eccentric with a certain rough charm.

These are two men who violently disagree, but neither would ever stoop to vindictiveness. There’s little doubt that the movie is on Lindsay’s side but it doesn’t try to bludgeon us into agreement.

Tara Fitzgerald is very good as Estella, a troubled woman trying to cope with newly awakened passions. The actresses playing the three models all do quite well. Elle Macpherson is fun as the uncouth free-spirited Sheela.

There is of course a fair bit of nudity. You could hardly make a movie about Norman Lindsay without naked women. That would be a betrayal of the artistic freedom in which he believed. And seeing Elle Macpherson nude isn’t exactly an ordeal.

While Sirens deals with some serious themes about artistic freedom, and deals with some serious emotional and sexual dramas, the overall tone is very lighthearted and there’s a great deal of comedy. Which is actually quite appropriate. If you read Norman Lindsay’s wonderful 1938 novel Age of Consent you’ll find a very similar mixture. It’s a story of an artist grappling with his art, desperately trying to find his artistic voice. There’s emotional and sexual drama. There’s a great deal of comedy, and a generally lighthearted tone. So Sirens does in many ways capture the spirit of Lindsay’s fiction.

The Australian Blu-Ray release from Umbrella provides an excellent transfer, there’s an audio commentary by the movie’s writer-director and the movie’s producer and a number of other extras.

Sirens is executed with a light and skilful touch and it works. Highly recommended.