John Huston's neglected 'dry' period : three full movies to watch FREE on YouTube + seven extras (including WISE BLOOD)

Maverick director John Huston had clocked up a fair few classics (including The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Freud and Beat the Devil, to name but three) by the time he entered what he himself admitted was a 'dry' period over the years from 1969 to 1975, before he roared back with The Man Who Would Be King.

Three of the pictures Huston made are now available to watch on YouTube; so here they are in order of release, with a brief critique.

Sinful Davy (1969)

A picaresque tale of C18 ribald roguery in the Scottish Highlands, with a young John Hurt in an early starring role as the titular character.

Very much a Tom Jones (1963) knock-off, but the movie passes the time on a wet Sunday afternoon.

A Walk with Love and Death (1969)

Huston's hippie-influenced meditation on the futility of life is based on the 1961 novel by Hans Koningsberger, set at the time of the 1358 Jacquerie uprising of the peasants in northern France.

And a jolly time was had by all. Not.

Huston's daughter Anjelica was thrown in the deep end to play her first lead (the aristocrat Claudia) with eyepatch sporting Israeli general/defence minister's son Assi Dayan co-starring as a Parisian student.

Anjelica Huston went onto bigger and better things, as did Dayan, whom you may recognise as psychologist Reuven Dagan from BeTipul, which ran for two seasons on Israeli TV (2005, 2008) and was adapted for the US market by HBO under the name In Treatment with Gabriel Byrne in Dayan's role.

Any who, A Walk With Love & Death is certainly a curiousity, if nothing else.

The Kremlin Letter (1970)

For me this Cold War spy thriller leaves a nasty taste in the mouth, with Huston's sadistic side on full display in the treatment of many of the characters.

Watchable though, with a superb cast, including Richard Boone, Orson Welles, Max von Sydow, Bibi Andersson, Dean Jagger (no relation), Patrick O'Neal, Nigel Green and George Sanders.

Boone is particularly irritating though.

Both Nigel Green (who you will remember from Zulu and The Ipcress File) and George Sanders went on to take their own lives; Sanders in April 1972 and Green (some maintain an accident, but colleagues said he was deeply depressed) a month later in May.

Sanders left a note saying:

'Dear World, I am leaving because I am bored. I feel I have lived long enough. I am leaving you with your worries in this sweet cesspool. Good luck'

Another John Huston picture free to watch on YouTube is his final film, 1987's critically acclaimed The Dead, an adaptation of the James Joyce story, starring a by now much more accomplished Anjelica.

EXTRAS:

Still up for more Huston pictures?

Well it's your lucky day then - SEVEN FREE flicks, including The African Queen (1951):