Tickle Me: The Angry Hills (1959)

U.S. One Sheet Poster

The Angry Hills, a British war drama directed in black and white by Robert Aldrich, is based on a book by Leon Uris. It tells the story of Mike Morrison (Robert Mitchum), an American war correspondent, who arrives in Athens, Greece as the Nazis are about to take over the city. Against his wishes, he is slipped a list of Greek citizens who will help the Allies and resist the Nazis. He is pursued by a Nazi sympathizer, Dimitrios Tassos (Theodore Bikel) and a Gestapo agent, Conrad Heisler (Stanley Baker).

After escaping Athens in a military convoy, Morrison is wounded by an air attack, but he is rescued by a fisherman and taken upriver to a village of Greek resistance fighters. After being nursed back to health by Eleftheria (Gia Scala), he tries to help the men of the village in their resistance efforts. Ultimately, he returns to Athens and is assisted by Lisa Kyriakides (Elisabeth Muller), who is a member of the resistance but has had a love affair with Heisler. The remainder of the film involves the efforts of Tassos and Heisler to coerce Kyriakides into turning over Morrison and Morrison's efforts to escape the country with the list remaining only in his mind.

Jocelyn plays the role of Maria Tassos, the half-sister of Dimitrios Tassos. Maria becomes the lover of Heisler, but her role is mostly just for show. It is not particularly important to the plot. There is a running joke in the film, in which amazement is repeatedly noted in regard to how Maria and Dimitrios could be siblings, because Maria is beautiful and Dimitrios is overweight and a slob. Jocelyn performs well and is well-cast in this small supporting part, speaking her English with little discernible accent. The role doesn't require much from her acting skills, but her screen presence and respectable performance left me once again wondering why she was not getting bigger parts at the time.

I thought that Mitchum performed fine, even if this wasn't one of his better roles. He seemed to positively beam in an early, humorous scene in a cabaret with Leslie Phillips (in a small supporting role), a scene involving a very attractive and well-proportioned topless dancer. It is an extended scene, and I cannot imagine that it was shot for inclusion in a print for U.S. and British theaters in 1959. My presumption is that the scene was included in prints for parts of continental Europe. The rest of the cast performed admirably, and we even get an appearance from Sebastian Cabot (most remembered in the U.S. as Mr. French on the TV show Family Affair and as the narrator of the Winnie the Pooh shorts).

The first time that I watched The Angry Hills (a few years ago) I found it to be a bit dull and confusing. However, when I watched it again recently for this post, I appreciated it more. It's by no means a classic, but it is a professionally made, reasonably entertaining film that includes several classic stars worth watching. Jocelyn fans should make a point to see this one.

Filmed in Greece and England, production on The Angry Hills commenced in Greece in mid-June of 1958. By mid-August the production had moved to England, and it wound in mid-September.

It appears that The Angry Hills may have received a release in the UK in February of 1959, as it was reviewed in the February 18, 1959 Variety based on a February 17 showing at the Metro Private Theater in London. The generally OK review summarized that it was a "rather confused but entertaining war yarn, slickly directed and good performances by cast headed by Robert Mitchum; solid b.o. prospects." There was no mention of Jocelyn.

The Angry Hills was again reviewed in the June 4, 1959 edition of Variety, based on a studio preview on May 29 (with a running time of 105 minutes) and with no mention of Jocelyn. The reviewer concluded: "What Robert Aldrich apparently was attempting, in story and in treatment, in 'The Angy Hills,' was the kind of espionage-intrigue film that the Europeans frequently do so well. That he does not succeed is due partly to script deficiencies and inadequacies, but also to the overall conception jof the story. The Raymond Stross production for Metro has some fair names, but it not likely to stir much interest."

Distributed by MGM, the film was rolled out in June 1959 to theaters in various U.S. cities and reported generally mild box office returns. It was rolled out in New York City on July 15, 1959 and was reviewed in the July 16 New York Times by Howard Thompson, who gave a rather scathing review, concluding that it "fritters away a capable, cosmopolitan cast, headed by Robert Mitchum, plus some beguiling backgrounds of Athens and the countryside." Again, no mention of Jocelyn.

By August 1959, the film was being double-billed in some cities with Beat Generation.

I have seen no indication of any home video releases, but the film has aired on television.

Here are a few screen caps of Jocelyn:

Here is the original theatrical trailer:

At the top of this post is the U.S. one sheet poster. Here is the U.S. pressbook, three sheet, half sheet and insert posters, along with the set of lobby cards (some of these images are courtesy of the archives at emovieposter.com, as indicated by its watermark):