In the October 1963 issue of "Vogue" magazine, both the British and the U.S. editions, there appeared a pictorial that would soon send shock waves around the world. In it, up-and-coming hairdresser Vidal Sassoon was seen giving a radical new cut to Eurasian star Nancy Kwan, snipping off her trademark long locks and giving her what I believe is called a neck-length geometric bob. The occasion for this radical transformation was Kwan's upcoming film, which would be her seventh, and entitled "The Wild Affair." Kwan's career had been jump-started three years earlier when she appeared in her first film, "The World of Suzie Wong," at the tender age of 21. But after her second film, the beloved/disdained musical "Flower Drum Song," her career seemed to flounder a bit. Four middling films would follow: "The Main Attraction," in which she played a circus bareback rider opposite Pat Boone, of all people; "Tamahine," in which she portrayed a Polynesian girl who throws an English boys' school into pandemonium; "Honeymoon Hotel," a silly comedy in which her role is a small one; and "Fate Is the Hunter," a fine drama that again features Kwan in a subsidiary role. All these films, for this viewer anyway, were salvaged by Kwan's great beauty and even greater charm. But in "The Wild Affair," she would finally be given a decent script and the opportunity to appear in every single scene in that film. The result is a picture that all fans of this wonderful actress should just eat up. Filmed in 1963 but not released until December '65, "The Wild Affair" has been very difficult to see ever since, never having been given the DVD treatment until just a few years back. But a recent watch has demonstrated for this viewer how very charming a film it is.
In it, the viewer is introduced to 20-year-old Marjorie Lee (our Nancy), who, when we first meet her, is about to be married to the bumbling Andy (Donald Churchill). Marjorie is thus about to leave her job, at the IT cosmetics company; a thing that apparently all fiancees did right before tying the knot back in the early '60s. Marjorie's last day at work, as fate would have it, is the day of the office's big Christmas party, a bash at which Marjorie intends to sow some first and final wild oats. It seems that Marjorie is what was once called "a good girl" - a virgin, as we would call her today - and, unbeknownst to everyone, has an alter ego named Sandra (also played by Kwan, natch, giving her what is essentially a double role in this film). She sees Sandra in mirrors and any reflective surface that she comes across, even in the bottom of wineglasses, and Sandra has been compelling her lately to go a little wild; to have a fling before she settles down into domesticity. "Get out there and enjoy yourself while you can. It'll give you something to look back on when Andy's at work and you're stuck at home doing the ironing," Sandra counsels her. And, as we soon learn, Marjorie will have any number of chances to lose her virginity at this Christmas bash, as every single male in her office can't seem to keep his lusty hands off of her, including her manager, Hearst (Paul Whitsun-Jones), and her big boss, Godfrey Deane (the great character actor Terry-Thomas, her sans moustache, for a change). Things become even more problematic for Marjorie when the company's chief cosmetics artist, Quentin (Victor Spinetti, who many will recall as the TV director from "A Hard Day's Night"), uses her to demonstrate his upcoming "vampire look," transforming her into a makeup-caked creature who is the spitting image of...Sandra! (And causing the building's doorman, Bletch, to exclaim to himself "If I was your father, I wouldn't let you go in the backyard looking like that!") Marjorie's temptations will soon be put to the real test, when the company's visiting overseas sales manager, Craig (hunky dude Jimmy Logan), whisks her off to lunch in a private suite at a fancy hotel, and when that Christmas party finally gets started...the wildest holiday party shown on screen since the great bash depicted in Billy Wilder's "The Apartment" three years earlier. So, who will win out in this battle of wills...the staid and proper Marjorie, or the devilish and wanton Sandra? As the liquor starts to flow freely at this Yuletide bacchanal, the answer to that one becomes increasingly problematic....
Written and helmed by director John Krish, working from William Sansom's 1961 novel "The Last Hours of Sandra Lee," "The Wild Affair" is a very fast-moving British film that manages to clock in at just under 90 minutes. Krish's script is a winning one, albeit with a predictable ending, that lets us learn a bit about Marjorie's many coworkers: blonde office meanie Monica (Joyce Blair), kindly Mavis (Betty Marsden), charwoman Mrs. Tovey (Welsh comedienne Gladys Morgan), expectant young father Ralph (David Sumner), et al. And as the modern-day viewer watches Marjorie at her job, it will be with an ever-growing sense of astonishment at the amount of sexual harassment that the poor gal has to put up with, be it of the verbal or physical variety. In truth, this is the kind of film that might justly be shown by proponents of today's MeToo movement as an exemplar of what women had to put up with back in the day; indeed, the film's promotional poster asks "Can A Secretary Say No, When Her Boss Says Yes?," as if it were even a legitimate question! By the film's end, just about every male character will have made a sober or drunken pass at her, or uttered some kind of lewd or indecent comment, despite the fact that all the males see her as being a woman with "all in the window, and nothing in the shop." Granted, these were different times, before every large company had an HR Dept. in which one might level a complaint regarding these matters. Fortunately for all, Marjorie manages to put up with it with good grace.
Her character here is an interesting contrast to Suzie Wong, a prostitute who initially pretended to be a virgin; Marjorie, on the other hand, really is a virgin, who pretends to have more knowledge about sex than she actually does. And whereas Suzie's trademark line was the perpetual "For goodness sake," Marjorie's is the exasperated "For Pete's sake!" And both characters even come out with the line "I'm a respectable girl," although in the case of Suzie, it was all for sham. But Nancy, need it even be said, is absolutely adorable in both roles. As I mentioned up top, her fans will be glad to see her in every single scene in this film, and in dual roles, to boot. She looks quite fabulous here, I might add, with her new Vidal Sassoon hairdo, and dressed in some very impressive outfits by the great fashion designer Mary Quant, the (debated) creator of the miniskirt and the hot-pants outfit. (Yes, Quant does Kwan!) Curiously, nothing is made of the fact that Marjorie looks like a Eurasian woman in this film. She is the daughter of properly British parents (her mother, by the way, is played by the great silent-film actress Bessie Love), so I suppose we are to believe that she too is English. Is she adopted? Is she supposed to just look like a half-Chinese woman somehow? Strangely, nothing is made of this.
"The Wild Affair" has been shot in gorgeous B&W by ace cinematographer Arthur Ibbetson and features some fascinating shots of London as it was right before it became known as Swinging London. Its dialogue is fired at the viewer at a lightning clip, and some of the British gibberish might require a second viewing for American ears to decipher; not a problem, really, as a second viewing proved even more rewarding for this viewer. The film's ending, if telegraphed and a bit predictable, is surely in keeping with Marjorie's character, and is assuredly not as disappointing as the cop-out finale to be found in "Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice" ... and that one was made in the Free Love era of 1969! The film offers up some rewarding words of wisdom, courtesy of that charming old biddy Mrs. Tovey, especially when she tells Marjorie that she won't offer the bride-to-be luck, because marriage doesn't require luck, but rather a lot of hard work, and that Marjorie shouldn't wait to have kids until she can afford them, because she never will. It is a sweet and charming film, and a complete success for Nancy Kwan, who demonstrated here what a terrific actress she could be, when given the chance to shine. Her next two films, the silly Disney comedy "Lt. Robin Crusoe, U.S.N." and "Arrivederci, Baby" (in which her role was again a small one), would once more find her in parts unsuited to her talent, but at least we have "The Wild Affair" as a testament to what the actress was capable of when all the right elements came together. Ending on as sweet a note as possible, with Marjorie and Andy lying on the floor and covering each other's face with dozens and dozens of little impassioned kisses, the film serves as a fine time capsule, a winning comedy, and an ample demonstration of the abundant charms of Nancy Kwan....
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