Tom Lisanti’s affection for cult-movie starlet Pamela Tiffin runs deeper than most. Heck, he’s even written a book about her brief career in film, the newly available Pamela Tiffin: Hollywood to Rome, 1961-1974, released by McFarland. Lisanti has penned eight books total centered on Sixties Cinema (also the name of his website), including Drive-In Dream Girls, Glamour Girls of Sixties Hollywood, Film Fatales and Hollywood Surf and Beach Movies. Here, to commemorate his Tiffin title, the author contributes a Guest List to Flick Attack, counting down a solid half-dozen of her silver-screen appearances. So without further ado and in chronological order …
1. One, Two, Three (1961)
Pamela Tiffin’s second motion picture contains her most memorable performance (she received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Supporting Actress) and catapulted her to the top of the sixties starlet heap destined for stardom. A fast-paced, hilarious satire set in Berlin and poking fun at Communism and Capitalism, it was directed by Billy Wilder and written by him and I.A.L. Diamond fresh off their Academy Award wins for The Apartment. Tiffin plays impetuous Southern belle Scarlett Hazeltine who, while under the care of Coca-Cola’s man in West Berlin C.R. MacNamara (James Cagney delivering a brilliant rapid-fire performance), sneaks across the border into East Berlin and marries Communist Otto Ludwig Piffl (Horst Buchholz) causing all sorts of comedic trouble for MacNamara. He first undoes the marriage only to have to turn Otto into a capitalist son-in-law in good standing once the boss’ daughter’s pregnancy (“Scarlett is going to have puppies,” his daughter announces) is discovered.
Pamela truly excelled in the movie. The scenes where Scarlett nonchalantly reveals her marriage plans and introduces Otto to MacNamara are some of Pamela’s best ever on film. She plays dumb so sincerely that you cannot help but laugh. Her lilting Southern drawl coupled with her slow delivery compared to Cagney’s fast sharp-tongued comebacks make her performance even more humorous, as dim-witted Scarlett seems to be in a world of her own oblivious to everything around her. She makes a wonderful foil to Cagney’s frustrated businessman who bemoans, “I’d rather be in hell with my back broken.” For Pamela Tiffin fans, this hell is heaven.
2. The Pleasure Seekers (1964)
Though One, Two, Three proved Pamela was a talented comedienne, the studios typecast her as the innocent virgin in a string of popular drive-in movies including Come Fly with Me, For Those Who Think Young and The Lively Set. The Pleasure Seekers is her second three-girls-looking-for-romance travelogue and is a standout due to the glossy production values, beautiful on-location cinematography by Daniel L. Fapp in Spain, and a standout performance by Pamela Tiffin who looks stunning and steals the movie. This was a remake of 1954’s Three Coins in the Fountain, from that film’s director Jean Negulesco, about three girls looking for love and romance this time in Madrid. Here Tiffin is naïve Susie Higgins newly arrived in Spain who falls for caddish playboy Emile Lacayo (Tony Franciosa). College friend Maggie Williams (Carol Lynley), working for a news wire service, pines for her married boss (Brian Keith) while ignoring her true feelings for loyal playboy reporter Pete (Gardner MacKay) while aspiring singer/dancer Fran Hobson (Ann-Margret) falls for a poor Spanish doctor (Andre Lawrence).
Ann-Margret sings/dances well and cries atrociously, while Lynley pouts prettily throughout leaving the real acting to Tiffin. She has the most rounded part and juggles the dramatic, comedic, and romantic scenes quite well. She also gets the best exterior scenes in Spain and the viewer does not mind looking at a vision as lovely as she in front of some gorgeous Madrid and Barcelona scenery. One of Tiffin’s most amusing scenes is when Susie attends her first Spanish party and Maggie schools her friend on the caddish ways of Emilio. The beautiful Tiffin elicits laughs with just the quizzical look on her face or a quick quip as the conflicted Susie knows she should not care about Emilio, but cannot help herself from being attracted to the no good playboy. Her romance culminates with a meeting with his mother (the elegant Isabel Elsom) where a touching Tiffin’s mortified Susie realizes she was duped by Emilio’s fake marriage proposal and faces him while his mother apologizes profusely for the behavior of her cad of a son. The Pleasure Seekers is a movie well worth seeking out especially for fans of these ’60s starlets at their loveliest.
3. Harper (1966)
Released during the mid-’60s spy boom when secret agents James Bond, Matt Helm and Derek Flint were ruling the box office, Harper was a throwback to the ’40s tough private eye yarns. This was Pamela Tiffin’s biggest hit and one of her best movies — not surprising since her leading man was Paul Newman. Based on Ross MacDonald’s novel The Moving Target, this intriguing twisty mystery yarn has Newman’s gumshoe Lew Harper being hired by icy paralyzed equestrian Elaine Sampson (Lauren Bacall) to find her hated missing industrialist husband, which leads him to mix it up with a colorful cast of suspects including Robert Wagner, Shelley Winters, Julie Harris and Robert Webber. Pamela Tiffin finally gets to act the vamp as the missing man’s spoiled hot-to-trot daughter who first appears on screen when Elaine instructs Harper to speak with Sampson’s young pilot Alan Taggert (Wagner), the last to see him before he vanished after disembarking from his private jet in Los Angeles. Alan is poolside with Miranda wearing a white polka-dot bikini. She is dancing on the diving board and gives a nonchalant wave over her head when Alan introduces her as she keeps shimmying to the music.
Pamela is quite a vision of loveliness and elegance and her diving board shimmy has become one of ’60s cinema’s most iconic images. The actress plays off Paul Newman quite well during the entire movie with her rude insights delivered in a droll manner as she accompanies him first to L.A. and then a mountaintop retreat to find clues to her father’s whereabouts. Though Miranda was spoiled, privileged and insensitive, compared to the other vile characters Harper meets in his investigation, the brazen Miranda comes off the most likable due to Pamela’s ability to get the audience to feel some empathy towards her due to the disappearance of her father and how shabbily she is treated by Elaine and Alan. Pamela proved she had the acting chops to go toe-to-toe with acting legend Paul Newman and more than held her own with him on screen.
4. Kiss the Other Sheik (1968)
Not Pamela Tiffin’s best movie by far, but it is notable for changing her life when asked to go blonde to act the sexpot in this Italian sex comedy starring Marcello Mastroianni. She would remain a blonde working in Italy for the rest of her career severely curtailing her chance for superstardom. A re-edited version of 1966’s three-part Oggi, domani, dopodomani (never released in the U.S.) with newly filmed scenes, Tiffin plays sexy, ditzy housewife Pepita, whose husband Mario plots to sell her to a sheik for his harem, but discovers his wife is shrewder than he thought. You may ask why Mario would want to dump a wife as beautiful as Pepita until you see scenes of the wife lazing in bed while the maid cleans up around her or dumping the dinner dishes over the balcony because she is too lazy to wash them.
The film is recommended just for the visage of newly blonde Pamela Tiffin. The sweet dark-haired Hollywood ingénue of State Fair only a scant three years prior is long gone. Watching her pose with nothing but a straw hat or seductively trying to entice her husband into the boudoir or dancing in a tight gown for a sheik, Pamela is a stunner. And although she is badly dubbed, her knack for comedy comes through with her facial expressions be it surprise running from sword-wielding guards or satisfaction in her revenge on her louse of a husband. After seeing her in this movie, her decision to remain blonde makes perfect sense.
5. The Fifth Cord (1971)
In my opinion, Pamela Tiffin’s best Italian movie is this stylish entertaining giallo from director Luigi Bazzoni. As with Harper, Pamela is once again part of an ensemble cast and once again is a highlight. And once again she has an excellent leading man this time: Franco Nero, who plays Andrea Bildi a reporter investigating a series of murders that begins after a New Year’s Eve party. He soon becomes the assigned police detective’s No. 1 suspect since he is acquainted with all the victims. Pamela played Bildi’s no-strings-attached paramour Lu.
Though this role is by no means an acting stretch for Pamela, it is wonderful to see her play a sexy contemporary vibrant role with a bit of mystery. Pamela also has wonderful chemistry with Nero. Her character brings out the playful side of Andrea (despite his mistreating of her) rather than his gloominess seen throughout the rest of the movie. In fact, she is perhaps the only character who is happy and perky, as the other characters must deal with the death of friends. Considering her forte for comedy, it is no surprise she would be cast in the most lighthearted role. This violent suspenseful thriller (featuring impressive cinematography by Vittorio Storaro and a memorable score by Ennio Morricone) will keep suspense game players guessing to the end and is highly recommended.
6. Deaf Smith & Johnny Ears (1973)
Pamela Tiffin’s swan song for American audiences was this late-in-the-cycle violent spaghetti Western from director Paolo Cavara that reteamed her with Franco Nero. Tiffin delivers a feisty performance as Susie, a whore with a heart and mine of gold who falls for gunslinger Johnny Ears (Nero), the companion to the hearing-impaired Erastus “Deaf” Smith (an effective Anthony Quinn) working for the state of Texas to stop a rebellion. Johnny becomes caught between the demands of his new love who wants to run away with him and his commitment to the deaf Erastus that needs him — or does Johnny need Erastus?
Arguably this is Pamela’s best performance after One, Two, Three. She is well-matched with Franco Nero and play off each other expertly. She is wonderfully funny in their early scene at the whorehouse as she tries to fight him off as they climb and tumble up the stairs. Deaf Smith really gives her a chance to show her range as an actress. Amusing in one scene complete with pratfalls, and tough and hardened in the next, as she pushes and flings Nero’s Johnny away from her only to wind up in his bed where the two realize they are in love. Her character has many nuances and reminds one of Tiffin’s excellent turn in Harper where her Miranda was a woman of many emotions. On its own, the Western is quite entertaining. Its premise, with one of the leads being deaf and mute, is a novel and intriguing idea. There are some nice touches as seeing the action through Deaf Smith’s eyes with no sound. Though quite stirring for the most part, the plot is a bit implausible expecting moviegoers to believe that the fate of Texas is left in the hands of only two men. It is also full of plot holes and a longer than necessary shoot-’em-up finale. Despite these minor shortcomings, Deaf Smith & Johnny Ears is buoyed by the three lead actors and a special treat for Pamela Tiffin fans. —Tom Lisanti