TEN TO WISH FOR Part Two

3.

GUNN (1967: Dir. Blake Edwards)

The life of a completist collector is often a frustrating one, especially when the final piece of the puzzle remains consistently beyond one's grasp. I am a devoted fan of Blake Edwards and his seminal jazzy television hero Peter Gunn, having acquired nearly all of Edwards' feature films and the entire 1958-1961 run of his Peter Gunn TV series. Then why can't I get my hands on Gunn, the feature film spin-off, that like many vintage Paramount productions, seems buried in a vault somewhere, never to see the light of day. I salivate as I read about its swinging Sixties style and risque plot twists dreamed up by screenwriter and author of The Exorcist William Peter Blatty, but alas, I am resigned to gaze longingly at its kinetic poster campaign wishing for the miracle of its long-delayed reappearance.

                                                                         4.

                                 FRAULEIN DOKTOR (1969: Dir. Albero Lattuada)

Another lost Paramount classic and for many years my most wanted film after an unforgettable viewing on A&E channel in the late Eighties. Fraulein Doktor is Sixties Euro-pudding at its finest, an Italian co-production shot in Yugoslavia with a predominantly British cast and co-written by three Italians, an Irishman and a Canadian, detailing the heart-stopping adventures of a female German counter-spy in World War I. Impressive for its careful balancing of large scale action with intimate drama resulting in a potent anti-war film that deserves to be expeditiously rescued from its imposed obscurity.