THE BALLAD OF TAM LIN

 Probably no period in the last one hundred plus years has dated as badly as 'the swinging sixties'. Looked at today the fashions, music and behaviors in general of that decade now seem as remote as Ancient Greece though Roddy McDowall's sole effort as a director, "The Ballad of Tam Lin" made in 1971 but clearly a product of the sixties, tries to circumvent that by making a 'Wicker Man' style piece of folk-horror.

Ava Gardner is the undeniably beautiful, 'ageless' but ageing Earth Mother who seems to keep her youth, not in a box at the bottom of the bed as the old joke goes, but by surrounding herself with beautiful young things, chief of whom is current lover Ian McShane but when McShane sets his sights on vicar Cyril Cusack's daughter Stephanie Beacham, (yes, she too was young once), Ava doesn't take too kindly to it.

Nicely shot by Billy Williams around the Scottish borders and actually rather well played by Gardner, Beacham and a surprisingly good Richard Wattis in a rare dramatic role as Ava's sinister secretary this is a lot better than its reputation would suggest, (a commercial flop, it disappeared and is now considered something of a cult movie). It may not work as a 'horror' film, (it's really rather silly), and yet McDowall handles it all with considerable brio. It's certainly stylish and suggests McDowall could have had a future as a director. Good music, too, from the folk group Pentangle.