The Party's Over

The party may have been over for the beatniks who form the centerpiece of this strange but compelling film, but for the rest of London it was just beginning. Unusually for a British production of this vintage (1963) it doesn't fit easily in any genre. An American girl who has been hanging around with the 'beats' goes missing amid lurid rumours of rape and even necrophilia. The atmosphere is one of existential angst laced and a fin de siecle fatalism, all conveyed by way of some studiously framed b&w photography. Aside from some clunky dialogue and plumy accents this could easily be French, perhaps because the story is by Marc Behm an American expat based in France who wrote Eye of the Beholder, later transposed by Claude Miller into the excellent thriller Mortelle Radonnee starring Isabelle Adjani.

Oliver Reed plays the leader of the 'beats' in such manner that you feel the void each time he's off-screen, he really is terrific and makes the rest of the cast look like the b-movie stalwarts they were. Particularly dreadful is Mike Pratt who plays Geronimo, an artist/drummer. The party scenes with all the beats lounging around or trying to twist to modern jazz are great,as is the jazz itself with John Barry and Annie Ross contributing.

"The Party's Over" is nothing special. What makes it interesting is knowing that it ran afoul of the British censors for depicting things that were back then considered "inappropriate".

Oliver Reed plays the leader of a group of young beatniks in London. They're the sort of folks who live only for thrills, without a care in the world. Things get particularly unpleasant when a young woman hooks up with them.

I couldn't tell if the movie was trying to take a position on the direction that the UK's younger generation was taking. With the youth starting to move away from the stodgy social order that defined England for much of the 20th century, Swinging London was becoming the face of the country. This movie casts a more cynical face on that.

Anyway, it's an OK, not great movie. Guy Hamilton would later direct four James Bond movies. Incidentally, "Dr. No" (not a Hamilton movie) got released the same day as the Beatles' "Love Me Do", sixty years ago this month. Good times.

The opening bars of the jazz-style theme alerts us to the likely seedy nature of this gritty tale of a young woman who arrives from a wealthy upbringing in the USA in 1960s London. She falls in with a rather Bohemian band of reprobates known as the "Pack", a group of young people who live a pretty disparate existence - sex, drugs, rock and roll - you know the story - and Oliver Reed is quite effective as their leader "Moise". Tragedy ensues, though, and the group must face up to some of their excesses with varying degrees of honesty and success. It's trying to be visceral, this film - it swipes at the tribal, almost feral nature of relationships amongst the group who have a moral compass all of their own. Although Guy Hamilton spares us the worst of the physical manifestations of their behaviour, our imagination is quite capable of plugging the gaps. The censors had a whale of a time with this - and even now, it isn't hard to see why - some of the taboos it addresses would still be treated gingerly even today - 55 years later. The photography does much to enhance the earthiness of the production, close ups proving particularly effective alongside the score. Reed really steals the film, too - with the young Louise Sorel "Melina" - the aforementioned daughter; and Katherine Woodville "Nina" - maybe the only one of them with any semblance of what we might call decency - adding (gunpowder) to the mix too. It's nowhere near as potent as it was, but as an example of groundbreaking cinema it has to be worth a watch.

Somewhere around the middle of the 1950's the teenager became an autonomous commodity in the west, garnering their own, distinctive "movements". In Britain - before The Beatles - the majority of youth identities were extracted from American sub-cultures. In Guy Hamilton's The Party's Over, the youthful group, or gang, are heavily influenced by the beat generation whose poetry and writing confronted political and social change through nihilistic, non-conformist characters and ideologies. Known in popular culture and the media as Beatniks (the "niks" added later in America to codify the group with communist affiliations - the nik was taken from the Sputnik, the Russian satellite that was launched in 1957), Oliver Reed's gang leader, Moise, guides his group through the hedonistic party scene of early 1960's London, opening with a shot of the Albert bridge in the early morning as the partied-out gang mope zombie-like, with Annie Ross's dour theme tune playing on their mournful souls. But what the film seems to focus the majority of its attentions on is the damaging consequences of both group mentality and heavy, prolonged partying. It's a moral tone that both reflects British society.

Along with the iconography of youth gang, with the tribal costuming - contrary to the idea of individuality and non-conformity, it's ironic that these ideas are scuppered by the entourage to the central trend- setting leader, - the film is about the changing political and social setting of Britain. In the still war-torn London of the early 1960's, an American businessman, Carson (Cifford David), has been sent over the Atlantic in search of his fiancée, Melina (Louise Sorel), who has been enveloped by the Chelsea set gang. Carson has been sent over by her father, a rich and powerful businessman himself. The gang, co-ordinated by Moise, send Carson on a cat and mouse chase around London, in search of the girl whom seems to be either an enigma or a skillful evader. It seems to be no accident that the American character is suave, sophisticated, smart and in control of his life, whilst the gang members are rough and without moral values. Britain was losing its Empire, and America was becoming the dominant super-power. The juxtaposition of the two transatlantic male central characters shows the parallel between the optimism of the new power and the degrading attitudes of the dying empire. As Carson begins to move deeper into the gangs secrets and situations, the dark and jarring truth changes everyone around them.

The Party's Over was an incredibly controversial film at the time, and inevitably, the film was problematic for the British Board of Film Censors. At the centre of this contention was a particular scene at a party. Melina is seen laying at the edges of the dance floor. Members of the gang stand over her, mocking her, claiming that she is unable to handle her drink. The scene quickly turns to sinister and depraved areas, which become even harder to swallow once we discover that Melina was in fact dead. The gang, like vultures, dive onto her, pulling her clothes off. A young member of the gang, Phillip (Jonathan Burn), mounts Melina in this scene, kissing and fondling her - an action that he later fatefully regrets. This scene is shown from different perspectives, much like Akira Kurosawa's Rashomon (1950). Unfortunately, due to its very suggestive nature, the British censors cut around 18 minutes from the film, and was overlooked on its release. In the cut released in 1965, the power of the film is totally lost, as these scenes are central to both the films themes and narrative. These cuts also lead to director Guy Hamilton (who would later make his name on several Bond films) and producer Anthony Perry removing their names from the credits.

But it is Reed's central performance that dominates the screen. It is not a large step away from a previous role in Joseph Losey's The Damned (1963), but his brooding, antagonistic presence is illuminating. He mocks and berates at those sycophants around him, bleating at them like a sheep, laughing at their following natures. He does however, respect those who defy him, despite his later moral maturity. In one sense the film offers an insight into the decay of post-Empire Britain, and a glimpse into the moralising of the newly dominant America. But also the film highlights what many youth films tend to forget. These youth movements (particularly in the 1960's - including the later "Hippie" movement) are fundamentally entrenched in privilege. Therefore, whilst the films young characters are rough, violent, self-absorbed, these are the future Representatives of the British class system. Perhaps more the reason for the BBFC's attack on the film: it may well have been a different release if the gang members were from the other side of London, the East-end, as opposed the West.

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Due to sensitive nature of the subject matter this film was never widely seen.It concerns a young American girl who comes to London and gets involved with a bunch of no-good hooligans known as the "Pack".What happens after a very wild party that goes horribly wrong is what led to troubles with the censor as it includes necrophilia as well as other assorted horrors.Not for every taste (to put it mildly!)but interesting to see for those who can stomach it for the young rising stars involved,including a very young Louise Sorel.