Salt and Pepper

Enough with the blaxpoitation, kung fu and low budget science fiction movie trailers, I said to myself - lets give them something altogether classier this time around.  A movie with genuine mainstream stars, location shooting, good production values, a budget and a top director.  So, here we have the trailer for the swinging sixties comedy blockbuster Salt and Pepper.  What?  You've never heard of it?  Not many people have these days.  I suppose it falls into the category of 'Forgotten Films', in that it was clearly a major release in its day, (it must have enjoyed a degree of commercial success as it spawned a sequel, One More Time, a couple of years later), but is barely remembered now.  I can't recall a TV airing in at least twenty years and, although I believe there was a US DVD release, it doesn't appear to be available on DVD in the UK.

Clearly designed as a vehicle for two fifths of the 'Rat Pack', with a Soho club setting to try and exploit the whole 'swinging London' phenomena of the late sixties, judging by the trailer, it  hasn't aged well, which might explain its descent into obscurity.  I particularly liked the bad back projection, (worthy of an episode of The Saint), in the car chase sequence.  Maybe that's the problem, apart from its Hollywood stars, to modern audiences the film would probably seem little different from an episode of one of those ITV action series made in the sixties.  Even the 'whacky' humour, bizarre goings on in barber shops and plot concerning an attempted military coup in the UK wouldn't have been out of place in an episode of The Avengers.   Then there's the question of the stars - sadly Sammy Davis Jr and Peter Lawford just aren't the audience draws today they were back in the sixties.  Indeed, many contemporary viewers wouldn't even recognise their names.  Interestingly, the director - Richard Donner, now better known for films such as The Omen - nowadays doesn't even acknowledge that he directed this movie.  Surely it isn't that bad?