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00:16Terry meets Julie, Waterloo Station, every Friday night.
00:22Terry also shares a flat with Michael.
00:27Who is an understudy for Peter.
00:31And chases the same girls as another Peter.
00:36And is also good friends with Sean.
00:41None of these actors had been famous in the 1950s.
00:45All were international stars in the 60s.
00:48Thanks to films like Doctor No, Doctor Strangelove and Doctor Zhivago.
00:56And whilst the swinging London of the 1960s may have partly been a media created myth, there
01:04was definitely a sense that everyone who was anyone knew everybody else.
01:10These young British actors would become iconic figures who symbolised the decade, leaving
01:18the film world shaken and stirred.
01:33Sean Connery was the Bond bombshell and perhaps the most iconic of the lot.
01:40He was the cinema's hottest ticket of the 60s.
01:45And by the time of 1964's Goldfinger, it was Connery who seemed to be the man with the Midas touch.
01:53A few minutes ago, you were having a pretty tough time I saw in a dungeon.
01:56I'm glad you've fought your way out to talk to us.
01:58Do you find this side of filming particularly strenuous?
02:01Well, no more strenuous than some of the digs I was doing in Manchester.
02:08No, it's all pretty well worked out, and it's not advisable on top of a heavy breakfast or
02:13a hangover.
02:14Otherwise, it's all right.
02:16This is your third James Bond picture, and I'm sure that as far as picture goes, they're
02:20concerned they could see more and more, but how do you feel about this yourself?
02:24Oh, I think it's splendid.
02:26I think it's very good entertainment.
02:28They obviously like it.
02:29And one every year, 14 months is a sort of good, healthy issue, I think.
02:36Now, James Bond really conjures up a picture of blondes, bullets, and boos.
02:40Do you find that people expect you to be like this in real life?
02:45Well, I don't meet a great deal of people, really.
02:47I've been so busy.
02:48I'm on my fourth film in one year, so the chances of meeting people are pretty remote.
02:54And other than going to the theatre or going out to a restaurant to eat or something,
02:58or driving somewhere, I leave the house at 7 in the morning and get back at 7 at night.
03:04So the chances of bruising with blondes and bullets are pretty remote.
03:12Connery made spying sexy and sophisticated, but in 1965 Bond producer Harry Saltzman thought
03:21a less glamorous alternative to 007 could also prove profitable.
03:27And so the Harry Palmer series was born.
03:32Saltzman cast Michael Caine as an everyman hero who was down to earth, even dull,
03:39and wore specs instead of a tux.
03:45Good morning.
03:46The hero is not necessarily a man who's six foot three and can ride a horse and
03:50shoot a gun straight and all this sort of thing.
03:54The hero is just anybody who does something heroic.
03:58What I was was just anybody who didn't even bother to do anything heroic and was just against the normal
04:06type of screen hero that one saw.
04:09As a young man sitting there with glasses very thin, rather pimply, I used to watch the screen
04:16and all the men were so big and broad and suntanned and handsome that they were actually
04:21insulting the people they were aimed at, which was namely me. And I like to think of myself as
04:27complimenting the people I'm aimed at.
04:30Is that my B107, sir?
04:32As if you didn't know.
04:34And it makes awful reading, Palmer.
04:37You just love the army, don't you?
04:39Oh, yes, sir. I just love the army, sir.
04:42I was in a restaurant and Harry Saltzman, who was the partner of Cubby Broccoli and Making the Bonds,
04:47came in and he sent a note over and said,
04:50would you have a drink with me? And I went over.
04:52He said, have you read the Ipcrest file?
04:55I said, I'm reading it now. Isn't it great?
04:57He said, would you like a part in it?
04:59I said, yeah.
05:00Then he wanted to make a spy who was a bit more really like a real spy.
05:06I've played a lot of winners who look like losers.
05:09Harry Palmer looked like a loser.
05:11You knew he wasn't going to go up against the Russians and win for Pete's sake, but he did.
05:16But I mean, we carried it to such an extent that we scared the executives.
05:24And then the final straw was when I cooked a meal for the government.
05:25And then I'm shopping in a supermarket for button mushrooms and everybody's going, oh, so sissy.
05:31Champignon.
05:33You're paying tenpence more for a fancy French label.
05:36If you want button mushrooms, you get better value on the next shelf.
05:39It's not just the label.
05:41These do have a better flavour.
05:43Of course.
05:44You're quite a gourmet, aren't you, Palmer?
05:46And then the final straw was when I cooked a meal for the girl.
05:56You're very professional.
05:58So are you.
06:02Do you need all that?
06:04Well, it's as easy to cook for two as it is for one.
06:07I thought you might join me.
06:10No, thanks.
06:12I'm not hungry.
06:15The Bond was the spy as a hero.
06:19The Ipcrest file in the Harry Palmer series was the spy's victim.
06:23How he equated me with Harry Palmer, I don't know.
06:27But I think what he liked was I wore glasses.
06:29He wanted a hero with glasses.
06:31This is a typical of what a real spy does.
06:34He just sits in a car for hours doing absolutely nothing,
06:37waiting for something to happen.
06:40These guys are lonely people.
06:47Kane wasn't lonely in his next role.
06:50He took off the glasses and made a lot of passes,
06:55playing a confident Cockney Casanova.
06:58Well, you all settled in?
06:59Right, we can begin.
07:01My name is...
07:02Alfie.
07:04Alfie.
07:09Michael Caine always seems totally comfortable with movie stardom.
07:13A natural.
07:16Someone with a more complicated relationship with fame
07:19was his good friend Peter Sellers.
07:22As one of the goons, Sellers had turned British comedy on its head.
07:28He'd enjoyed movie success in films like The Ladykinners and I'm Alright Jack.
07:34But the 60s saw his movie career really take off.
07:39There were two highly praised performances in the Stanley Kubrick films Lolita and Dr. Strangelove.
07:47But it was the bumbling French detective Inspector Clouseau that really made him an international star.
07:55Clouseau is a special sort of character, you know.
07:58There are people like Clouseau around all over the world.
08:01He's a sort of man with great inbuilt dignity, you see.
08:04Great, great dignity.
08:06He's an idiot, but he knows that.
08:08But he wouldn't let anyone else know that, you see.
08:11He's very, very keen.
08:12So if he, something goes wrong, you see.
08:15If he falls over or something, you know, something awful happens.
08:18He immediately suspects that someone said, yeah, bleeding idiot, you know.
08:22And, but you see, he wouldn't let that disturb me.
08:24You say, what was that?
08:25What is that you said?
08:26What, I heard that.
08:27What was that?
08:28And someone, you know, some schlapper would say nothing, sir.
08:31He said, yes, of course, nothing.
08:33Yes, yes.
08:34Like if there's a phone call and this is a phone call for you Inspector.
08:37He said, ah, that would be for me.
08:38Because, you know, I mean, because he, he wants to be one up all the time, you see.
08:44An awful lot of people like that about, you see.
08:46I believe everything.
08:49And I believe nothing.
08:51I suspect everyone.
08:54And I suspect no one.
08:57I gather the facts, examine the clues.
09:02Before you know it, the case is solved.
09:07Oh, yes, there is much here that does not meet the eye.
09:10That is quite obvious.
09:15What is that you said?
09:17Nothing, monsieur.
09:19All right.
09:21You can go now.
09:25There is a famous story about how Michael Caine discovered the Swedish actress,
09:31Brit Eklund, had just arrived in London,
09:34and dashed to her suite at the Dorchester Hotel, hoping for a date.
09:41When he knocked on the door, Peter Sellers answered, saying,
09:45too late, Mike.
09:47You've got to be quicker off the mark than that.
09:52Ten days later, Sellers and Eklund were married.
09:56A whirlwind romance.
09:58So extraordinary, even BBC News was fascinated.
10:03Less than two months later, Sellers suffered a huge heart attack,
10:10which meant a year away from Hollywood, but not from the news cameras.
10:19Peter, when you had your heart attack last year, you were very close to death.
10:22Now, this must have changed the tempo of your living.
10:24Has it changed your way of thinking, your approach to your career?
10:28No, of course, one has to go through a year of convalescence, really, to get back to normal,
10:33completely back to normality, where I'm pleased to say I am now.
10:38A year of concentrated exercise and all kinds of things, you know.
10:43But has it affected your sense of humour, for example, or jokes about death no longer funny?
10:47No, it hasn't at all. I think they're even more funny.
10:50When you play these characters, or someone like Inspector Crusoe,
10:53are you consciously amused by the character while you're playing him?
10:58Yes, that's, of course, a great problem with me, is I'm a terrible giggler,
11:01and if I dare stop to think about the character being funny, I'm finished.
11:06I can't get through it, you see.
11:07I just have to do it until I'm sick of it, and then try and get down to it.
11:12I mean, for example, Crusoe amuses me, not because he falls over things,
11:15but because he's so serious and has such great dignity, you see.
11:20He has great integrity.
11:21He thinks he is the greatest detective in the world,
11:23and it's because of this that I find him amusing, you know.
11:27Must be a habit of yours of giggling over the character you're playing,
11:30must be easier when you're shooting film.
11:32The one you've just done, for example, What's New Pussycat?
11:34Now, I've heard that this is a kind of surrealist farce.
11:37Are you breaking new ground again in comedy here?
11:40Well, I honestly don't know what it is.
11:42It certainly will be very new, and certain parts of it will be certainly very surrealistic,
11:50I should think.
11:52It's a potpourri of all kinds of things.
11:55Is it true that you do a send-up of Sir Lawrence Olivier?
11:59Yes, Peter O'Toole has a nightmare, and I wear this long wig that looks like a Richard III wig.
12:05In fact, Lawrence Olivier wore in Richard III, and I do it, except I do it in a German accent.
12:11I do now, as the winter of our discontent, in a German accent.
12:15I haven't seen any of it, but they all seem pretty happy about it, so I hope it turns out
12:20well.
12:24It didn't turn out particularly well, especially for Sellers co-star Peter O'Toole,
12:31who many critics said should avoid comedy and stick to what he did best.
12:37But there was no denying that O'Toole was one of the best when it came to straight acting.
12:43On screen and off, he had a magnetic quality, and the role that transformed his life
12:50was that unforgettable portrayal of Lawrence of Arabia in David Lean's 1962 classic.
13:02I'll give an example of how I came to it.
13:07I remember sitting in a black tent in a place called Il Jaffa,
13:16and we were talking about Lawrence to a lot of Arabs,
13:20and someone said,
13:22Oh, Abdi would know better, and they shouted for this man.
13:27And in clanked a huge Sudanese gentleman, about 80.
13:34And he was a slave, a now freed slave, whom Aouda Butai, who was one of Lawrence's chief warriors,
13:43gave to Lawrence to look after him.
13:46And someone said, What did Lawrence look like?
13:50He pointed at me and said, Him.
13:53Well, needless to say, I grabbed him, and we talked and talked and talked,
13:58he worked on the picture. He made the coffee, in fact.
14:01And, er, one day I was playing a scene, and he said,
14:11I was sort of talking to someone and being rather remote and looking all over the place,
14:15and he said, A battle, a hero, doesn't look here or there or up or down.
14:24He gives someone the plain of his face.
14:28I remember two things I'd read. One, Graves told me that Lawrence apparently never looked at anybody.
14:34He made a sort of inventory of everyone's clothes.
14:38But, er, Kennington, the sculptor who sculpted him a lot,
14:41and did all the, um, illustrations for Seven Pillars,
14:45said this remarkable thing, which I'd never understood before,
14:49which was that Lawrence reminded him of a middleweight boxer.
14:54And at that moment, something very important clicked.
14:58And, er,
15:01I knew exactly what Aouda meant by the plain of his face,
15:06which was this.
15:11And the eyes didn't travel over the, the clothes,
15:16but they were aware of the hands,
15:18and aware of everything that was going on.
15:20And it was at once withdrawn, as a boxer must be,
15:25and at the same time very penetrating.
15:27And this one physical thing
15:31really clicked, and it made a whole difference to the way I played it.
15:35Now, this is the way I work.
15:36Yes.
15:36I can't work, but it's not an exact science to me.
15:40Yeah.
16:02I've never seen a man killed with a sword before.
16:06Why don't you take a picture with a man?
16:10What about his height, Peter?
16:12He was a very short man, and you're a very tall man.
16:15Do you make any effort as an actor to think like a small man?
16:21No, no, no.
16:23I've always said when anyone asks me about Lawrence, his inches,
16:25I always say it's a question for his tailor, not his interpreter,
16:28and that's probably a bit flip.
16:30But there's nothing I can do.
16:31I don't think it's really all that important anyway.
16:34And I'm certainly sure he never thought I was a small man.
16:37And I happen to be eight foot five, as you clearly implied.
16:40And I can't chop off my legs and roam around on bloody stumps,
16:43so I really have had to disregard.
16:49O'Toole was another key member of the acting clique
16:51that dominated the decade.
16:54A drinking buddy of Kane, Albert Finney, Richard Harris and Terence Stamp.
17:00Stamps' big break came in the 1962 film Billy Budd,
17:05directed by Peter Ustinov.
17:08He was a new type of heartthrob,
17:11and success changed his life completely.
17:29When I started, uh, Tony Curtis was good-looking,
17:33and Brock Hudson was good-looking,
17:37and Curly Hair was good-looking.
17:38So I wasn't, uh, I was really an ugly duckling.
17:43I think the style changed, and I woke up, and I was good-looking.
17:48I imagined that it would be,
17:51that famous people would live in another world,
17:53and, and when I became famous,
17:56I would be somehow magically moved to this other world,
18:01where everything would be somehow more glamorous and more colourful.
18:07And on the morning that I woke up,
18:10and I was famous, and the phone rang,
18:14I really, I expected it to be, uh, to be Brigitte Bardot, in fact.
18:19And it was my mother, and it brought me back to a kind of reality.
18:30Stamp did end up going on a blind date with Bardo years later,
18:36but it was a one-off.
18:39His most enduring relationship was with the model Jean Shrimpton,
18:45and together they made one of the decade's most glamorous couples.
18:52Before Shrimpton, he had also dated Julie Christie,
18:56arguably the actress who best captured the spirit of swinging London in the 1960s.
19:06There were bigger names out there,
19:09but Julie Andrews was too wholesome.
19:12Liz Taylor too glamorous and removed.
19:16Julie Christie just had it.
19:20I suppose the pot, the,
19:23go back to the Beatles, I mean, really, isn't it?
19:25Um, the, you know, we were lucky enough that they were quite cool and hip,
19:31and there weren't an awful lot of cool, hip people around,
19:34not a majority, and that they became idols,
19:37and like any idol, they were copied.
19:41So, that's why London perhaps is now cool and hip.
19:49Christie's big film breakthrough came in 1963's Billy Lyre alongside Tom Courtney.
19:55But things really came to a head two years later.
20:00Life magazine calling 1965 the year of Julie Christie.
20:07She starred in David Lean's very important film Doctor Zhivago and Darling,
20:15playing a model who rises through London's jet set society.
20:20The role earned her an Oscar for Best Actress and meant a level of fame that she wasn't entirely happy
20:29with.
20:33Miss Christie, you yourself recently said I'm a bit of a fluke, just a passing fad.
20:39Now, even if you fear that this might be true, you must hope it's not.
20:43Isn't it perhaps a form of self-protection saying things like this?
20:47Um, no, yes, of course.
20:55Why I said I was a passing fad is because it's quite extraordinary, as I said,
21:00this sort of constant flight of mine upwards, which has culminated in the Oscar,
21:08which seems to have no real explanation.
21:11You feel it can't last? Is this the feeling inside your bones?
21:15Well, I've got to a point now where I've got to come down and start, I hope, just carry on
21:19absolutely normally.
21:21But I hope it'll last. But there's every chance of it not doing so.
21:25I mean, I have 50 for me, 50 against, really.
21:28This normality, isn't this going to be increasingly difficult?
21:31Because although you rather loudly proclaim how much you hate all the star stuff and project a sort of anti
21:37-star image,
21:37you know, the fish and chips round the corner with your mates and so on,
21:40isn't this a lost battle now that you're a famous face?
21:44I hope not, because, um, I do, I hope you can go on just working at your job and
21:51not getting embroiled in all the publicity and star system.
21:55I shall certainly go on trying, because I wouldn't be very happy if I, if I lost the battle.
21:59But you see, inevitably, aren't you a product of the system and aren't you a part of it?
22:03Don't you have to adjust to the realities of this new situation?
22:06I don't think so anymore. I think that's unnecessary.
22:09The only thing that's difficult is sort of denying the press what they want so much,
22:17and they seem to want an awful lot of me.
22:19What's that?
22:20Well, you, me. I mean, they seem to want me of me, you know.
22:24What a sort of carcass, you mean?
22:25Yes, yes. And that's what's difficult, but I don't think it's necessary.
22:29I don't think it's in the least bit necessary.
22:31Obviously, you hate that. What are the other things that you hate most about being
22:34suddenly projected into this glare of publicity?
22:38Well, it's that. It's the fear it's bred.
22:40And the fact that you can be praised as well as criticised, but with no retort of any sort from
22:48yourself, sort of by remote control, you can be criticised and praised.
22:54I don't mean sort of my work. I'm not talking about my work now, which is, that's my job,
22:59to be criticised and so forth, and my work. But when your private life is scrutinised and made public
23:05and everything, that absolutely terrifies me, and I seem to have no defence against it.
23:09Miss Chrissie, are you an ambitious person? I mean, how would you like to think life is going to be
23:14for you
23:14in, say, ten years' time? I'm not particularly ambitious. I'd like things to not go downwards,
23:22to stay upwards. But I really don't know. I don't know what happens in ten years' time.
23:27You can't go on being what they call a symbol of one's generation forever and ever.
23:34In 1967, Julie Christie and Terence Stamp were reunited on screen for the first film adaptation
23:41of Thomas Hardy's novel, Far From the Madding Crowd, directed by John Schlesinger.
23:49Christie played the beautiful and headstrong Bathsheba Everdeen. Stamp was the dashing rogue,
23:56Sergeant Frank Troy. A bit of casting that Stamp's female fans approved of strongly.
24:09I think that Hardy is a really, you know, he's a really romantic writer, and his stories are for
24:20the true romantics. And I think women are sort of more romantic than men at the end of the day.
24:30One of the film's most famous moments has Sergeant Troy dazzling Bathsheba with his sword skills.
24:40A scene that very nearly ended in disaster.
24:45You're the enemy, right? No! You're not scared, are you? No. Because if you're scared,
24:53I can't perform. I promise I won't touch you. Don't move.
24:59Is it very sharp? No, I've got no edge at all. Hold still.
25:14Schlesinger had discovered that cavalrymen at that point were not left-handed,
25:21and so I had to, and I'm a natural lefty, so I'd had to learn all that sabre stuff with
25:27my right hand.
25:28When we started, I was really proficient. I felt really comfortable with the sabre.
25:34I'd also built a very good relationship with Nicholas Rogue.
25:38A cinematographer?
25:39Yeah, I didn't get on too well with Schlesinger.
25:41And I heard that he pushed you in that scene to slice so close to her face that you almost
25:46touched her face?
25:47I did, I did. He just kind of, he saw that I was very adept with a sabre.
25:55And during the scene where I slice a piece off her hair, he kept saying,
25:59surely you can get closer than that, surely you can get closer than that.
26:02And at a certain point, I actually slashed and I felt the sword hit something.
26:08And she, she was, I mean, Christie's a real trooper, like she didn't, she didn't move.
26:15And I nearly passed out, you know, because I knew I'd hit her face, you know.
26:19And in fact, I'd cut the skin.
26:22And I'd just touch the bone, you know.
26:25But like an eighth of an inch shorter, I'd probably broke her jaw because they're very,
26:29they're very heavy, those Victorian sabres, you know.
26:32And I hope Schlesinger felt really guilty.
26:34I don't think so. I mean, he used the shot, you know.
26:37I mean, that, the shot where I hit her is the shot that he used, you know.
26:41Miss Everdeen, you do forgive me, don't you?
26:45I do not.
26:47How can you blame me for your looks?
26:51A woman like you does more damage than she can conceivably imagine.
26:57Please go away. I'd rather you didn't talk to me again.
27:00Madding Crowd was, it was the end of an era for me because it was,
27:08I suddenly, I'd done everything that I wanted to do.
27:13All my fantasies that I'd had as a boy had been realized.
27:17And with the ending of Madding Crowd, I,
27:22I had to rethink my life, really, because I thought this is what I've always wanted.
27:27And in fact, having lived it, I discovered that it wasn't what I always wanted.
27:34I didn't, it didn't give me a, a great,
27:40yes, it didn't give me any real happiness.
27:42It was nice and it was wonderful for a while.
27:45And then when, when about the time of Madding Crowd, I began to wonder,
27:52you know, what else I had to do in order to feel right.
27:56I had to do it.
28:00Terrence Stamp wasn't the only star who was feeling disillusioned.
28:05By the second half of the 1960s, Bond Mania was second only to Beatle Mania.
28:12It's influence was clear to see in television and on other films of the period.
28:19The posters for 1967's You Only Live Twice declared,
28:25Sean Connery is James Bond.
28:29But the man himself had other ideas.
28:36I've had a long sort of innings, as it were, and very intense innings,
28:42and I want to change direction now, take another breath and do something else.
28:47So this is your last Bond film?
28:50Yes. I'm very tired because I've been, I'd say it's a long uphill grind.
29:00The man given a license to follow Connery was 29-year-old Australian model
29:08and a former used car salesman, George Lazenby, not an actor and out of his depth.
29:16On Her Majesty's Secret Service has grown in reputation since its release in 1969,
29:24but the public didn't take to Lazenby.
29:27There were reports that he'd fallen out with his leading lady, Diana Rigg,
29:31so badly that she deliberately ate garlic before one of their love scenes.
29:38And the fact that he wore a beard for the film's premiere
29:43was seen as an indication of how out of step with the Bond world he truly was.
29:52Well, what about the reports that you were deliberately awkward and hostile?
29:56Well, they were true in a way because I was very uptight lots of the times,
30:02because I didn't understand exactly what was going on.
30:05And the only person you could ask, the only person who knew what was going on was the director.
30:11And the director was very busy with his technical things and he had control of two units and a whole
30:17lot of things.
30:17And he didn't really feel that an actor was important in the role.
30:23He felt that you could get any guy, I think he mentioned on BBC radio,
30:28that you could get any guy, put him in that part and make him James Bond,
30:31providing he looked similar to what the public feel James Bond looks like.
30:37And that vibration came off the director onto me all the time.
30:41One of the biggest examples of that so-called hostility was the very much publicised rift between you and your
30:47co-star Diana Rigg.
30:48Now, what was the truth behind that?
30:49I said to the director, Diana doesn't speak to me.
30:52You know, I think you had an upset with her some time. Why don't you apologise?
30:56I did and it was a bit late then to apologise and the whole thing didn't work.
31:00And it was down. But since then, we do speak, you know, we've, has spoken since.
31:06And it was pretty bad that that came up.
31:10But that came up just by remarks from the studio about that garlic thing, which she had,
31:15but it wasn't as troublesome as it was all made out to be.
31:20I mean, it didn't bother me.
31:21This is when she had eaten garlic before I've seen.
31:23Yeah, well, like she took precautions, which she said, but it was all built up into a big thing.
31:28And it was nothing, you know, I was, you know, I enjoyed the whole scene anyway.
31:37I'd love you.
31:39I know I'll never find another girl like you.
31:45Will you marry me?
31:57You mean it?
31:59I mean it.
32:11You went on, on a publicity tour of the United States, which you paid for yourself.
32:16Hmm.
32:16Why?
32:18Uh, on principle, I was promised a tour of the United States to publicise the film.
32:24I was looking forward to it.
32:26And because of my beard and long hair, I wasn't allowed to go.
32:29I was allowed to go on the condition that I looked like James Bond.
32:33And, uh, and I said, well, anyone, anyone can understand that James Bond isn't a real person.
32:38And they're not going to mind the fact that I, that I haven't had a shave for a month.
32:42You know, everyone knows that James Bond must have a beard, even though you never see it in the film.
32:47If he doesn't shave.
32:49Anyway, it all ended up, they sent Diana Rigg.
32:51So, I went on afterwards and arranged my own tour, which was, uh, fun and games because I'd never been
32:58to America.
32:59And I was more or less going up to television companies and knocking on the door and saying,
33:02Hey, uh, excuse me, can I go on your television show?
33:05And they used to say, who are you?
33:07I said, well, I've got this film coming out in a month.
33:09They said, but you haven't done anything yet.
33:11We can't let you on the show with that.
33:12You've done something that people want to see someone who's done something.
33:15And I thought, well, you know, and I chatted them into letting me on there and had a lot of
33:20fun.
33:24Someone else looking for fun was that man, Michael Caine, again.
33:30Bond may have been faltering.
33:32The Beatles may have been splitting up.
33:34But Caine fancied finishing the decade with a smile on his face.
33:39And what put it there was the Italian job.
33:44I was looking at the What's On one night, and I just wanted to go and see a fun film
33:50and not worry about anything, not to be preached at, not to have to use my brain at all.
33:56I was just tired.
33:57I just wanted to sit back and be entertained.
33:59And the whole idea of making the film sprang from that in as much as I just wanted to make
34:04a big fun film.
34:05I didn't, as a star would normally do who sets up a picture, which is what I did, is I
34:11set up the script.
34:12I got the $3 million to make it and everything.
34:14I didn't do it in order to push myself over on the public.
34:20I wanted to have the biggest car chase.
34:23I wanted the car chase to be the star of the thing.
34:25I wanted to have no account in it.
34:28I wanted it to be really more or less the way it is.
34:32Of course, one would always want it to be better than the way it is.
34:35But it turned out to be a fun picture, which gives a tremendous amount of entertainment to a lot of
34:41people.
34:42And it's very successful on that level.
34:44I never at any time tried to get the Academy Award with it or do anything else with it,
34:49except to have a laugh and a bit of fun.
34:51That's all.
34:52Of which it struck me.
34:53There was very little about.
34:54It's also a film.
34:58Something which I liked about it is films are full of violence against people.
35:05And always have been, actually.
35:07I was just about to say nowadays, but they've always have been.
35:10Gore Vidal once called it the pornography of death.
35:13And I just thought for a change, instead of all these machines killing people,
35:19it might be a change just for fun to have all these people killing machines.
35:26And I dislike cars intensely.
35:31And if you go and see the picture, you'll see it coming out.
35:33Because we destroy cars left, right and centre.
35:38Which also brings about its own type of violence.
35:44In as much as if you see an actor killed or tortured or beaten up on the screen,
35:52the effect is there for a moment that's happening to him.
35:56But you do know that they haven't actually done this to him.
35:59But if you destroy objects, the audience can actually see that you really are destroying
36:06a Lamborghini Miura and an Aston Martin and five E-types.
36:10And I think 15 minis we had to see.
36:15We destroyed every make of car you can possibly think.
36:19And in very spectacular ways.
36:42And in very spectacular ways.
36:53It wasn't just the car chases and car crashes.
36:57The Italian job also left audiences dangling with one of cinema's greatest.
37:04How did they get out of that moments?
37:14I'm sure you've encountered this, but it's a kind of popular parlour game.
37:17Whenever film boards get together, is to work out what happens next after the final scene.
37:23You're suspended, in the coach, on the edge of the cliff.
37:26You turn around and you say,
37:28Hang on a minute lads, I've got a great idea.
37:35And the idea is?
37:36You turn the engine on, you'll sit exactly where you are,
37:39till all the petrol's run out, which changes the equilibrium.
37:43The guys all go up the other end, they jump out, the gold goes over the cliff.
37:48And sitting at the bottom is the French Mafia, sitting waiting for the gold.
37:52And then you're off on the chase trying to get it back.
37:57Just like that final image from the Italian job, British cinema was hanging in limbo,
38:03as the swinging sixes made way for the serious seventies.
38:08The excitement around Britain's acting talent was stalling.
38:12And of course, those once new, fresh faces were now part of the establishment.
38:19But, fast forward a few decades, and these names are now acknowledged as icons.
38:26Cinematic symbols of one of the most exciting decades in modern memory.
38:32And as long as we gaze back at them, we can still feel that we are a movie paradise.
38:39If you're a movie paradise.
38:42And as long as we go to the moon, we can still know who the film is,
38:49but it's a mystery isn't real, that's how it's going to be so different.
38:50And as long as we make a movie paradise.
38:50If you have any of the memories...
38:53...we are the books to find out.
38:54This is the fourth one, I'm a one of the biggest ones.
38:54But I'm a pretty good one.