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Adults made the atom bombs and then wondered why the kids were poisonous and deranged. 1963's These are the Damned starts off feeling like a kitchen sink drama about disaffected youth in the mould of The Leather Boys but it's a Hammer film so government scientists and mutants are involved. The two sides of the film coalesce in fascinating ways and it's an effective science fiction parable on post-war cultural change.

Directed by black-listed American director Joseph Losey the film also stars an American actor, MacDonald Carey, as an American named Simon. But the film was shot entirely in England with the kitchen sink quality coming off in location shots in the streets of Weymouth.



Simon's not there long before he picks up a pretty, much younger girl named Joan (Shirley Anne Field) who leads him to an ambush by teddy boy muggers led by her brother, King (Oliver Reed).



King's name is significant, reflecting the impunity with which he and his gang assume equal or higher ground to traditional figures of authority, as when another member of the gang, later in the film, constantly replies to interrogations by a military officer with questions of his own--"I don't sit up nights questioning your people about their private affairs now, do I?"



They're insolent and destructive, beating Simon to unconsciousness and vandalising art. But to some extent it's hard to blame them for their assertion of liberty when Simon, the film's hero, casually asserts his right to pick up Joan on the grounds that she looks like "a tart."



This is still nothing compared to Bernard (Alexander Knox), a government man who's apparently keeping a group of children in isolation underground and experimenting on them. He and his men struggle to understand why the children don't trust implicitly that what they're doing is in their best interest and in a later explanation Bernard actually does have some pretty good reasons relating to the survival of the human race. His reason is still not enough to impress Freya, an artist living nearby, played by Viveca Lindfors in a brilliant performance that seems like it must have involved careful study.



When someone says all of her sculptures look "unfinished" she answers that one could say that about everything--that everything is always unfinished. It's no wonder she'd be suspicious of any human assertion of authority over another. Yet it's hard to decide who exactly is to blame when children are born radioactive.

Twitter Sonnet #1042

Impending drafts of ornaments delay.
Incisive spots in combing closed the hair.
Recumbent strands upheld a fixed relay.
The mustered helms could rest on just the stair.
In soot arose the foot of burning snow.
In ash the army closed in ranks of horse.
For infantry i'faith would fain to know.
And forward treads the host the sleeping course.
Insistent bands produced of trees'll call.
As time reveals in puddy clapped to ink.
In faded eyes the dollar passed recall.
The even goes in beaming gold and pink.
In cloudy purple nails it reached a thought.
Across a cooking port the fish's caught.

If there's another film that better showcases Peter Cushing than 1962's Captain Clegg I've yet to see it. He's surrounded by a good cast with Patrick Allen, Oliver Reed, Michael Ripper, and Jack MacGowran, but in addition to the acting talent on display this movie has one of the most satisfying scripts of any Hammer film. Creating a real sense of a world with complex characters who have layers of motivations, Cushing's character in particular shows the perfect confluence of elements that make this a wonderfully engaging mystery.

The film weaves together threads of different genres including mystery, western, and pirate film to make something really fine. Most of my favourite pirate stories, like Treasure Island, have an element of mystery to them. I love the film version with Robert Newton who gets a lot of mileage by seeming perfectly honest and open with Jim even as he's certainly absolutely duplicitous. Cushing's character takes this kind of mystery to another level.



Introduced as the fussy, gentle hearted parson in a small town in the late 18th century, we soon learn he's involved in smuggling liquor, not unlike the smugglers in Fury at Smugglers' Bay. But is that his only secret?



Cushing's character is the sort that holds the viewer's attention because there are so many questions about him, his motives and identity, and Cushing runs with the opportunity in ways many actors wouldn't have the talent for. His routine as the parson has all the assurance of an actor whose played that role many times before, and then you catch a devilish smile on his face and sense there's so much more underneath.



The film has a pretty commonplace romantic subplot about young lovers, played by Oliver Reed and Yvonne Romain. Romain plays a barmaid named Imogene with whom Reed's character, Harry, son of the magistrate, is in love. Of course, Reed's delivery adds a lot of dimension to his fairly average lines about his love and devotion to her. He adds depths with his restrained and relaxed energy that nonetheless burns through his eyes. Romain is decent enough, her breasts maybe drawing more attention than her performance. I'm certainly not complaining. They are really a presence in this film--the other actors keep accidentally bumping them, including Reed with a wide gesticulation in one scene.



Patrick Allen plays a captain in the Royal Navy, former arch enemy of Captain Clegg, and now intent on busting the smugglers with a passion that well outstrips the magistrate's interest in the matter. His character, along with Cushing's, helps add to the sense of moral complication to the film, much greater and more satisfying than most Hammer films. Even Reed's relatively simple lovestruck young squire character is more complicated than average when the extent of his participation with the smugglers is in question. This complication is best manifested, though, in the subtly expressed adversarial relationship between Cushing's and Allen's characters.



And on top of all this, the film opens with mysterious skeletal riders and a living scarecrow that terrorise the marsh. All of these elements might seem like too much in other films but this one ties them altogether beautifully, with Cushing as an intriguing centre of gravity.

Twitter Sonnet #987

The hair that seeps between the split'll drain.
A captured chemical equips the breeze.
A flound'ring corpse amends the shape of sane.
In sockets shaved in rinds she always sees.
In pale constructions carved to swim they go.
The folded birds observe as stars descend.
The egret signs adorn the spreading crow.
A ceiling saw what shaking coins upend.
A chomping C engraves the tomb all night.
Forever canvas blanks opine to eat.
Engagements corked remain in bottle sight.
Along the circuit band she sparked a beat.
The rain of muppet worms enriched the air.
On particles they danced like Fred Astaire.