The Singer Not the Song

The Singer Not the Song (1961) is a definite oddity. Roy Ward Baker's quasi-Western frequently gets tagged with homoeroticism - and with Dirk Bogarde swaggering about in shiny leather pants, it's hard to ignore. Mainly though it's portentous, talky and dull.

Father Michael Keogh (John Mills) travels to Quantana, a remote Mexican village. He clashes with Anacleto (Dirk Bogarde), a sadistic, God-hating bandit who effectively runs the town. Anacleto starts killing locals to hasten Keogh's departure, foiling the Police Captain's (John Bentley) efforts to arrest him. Anacleto grows fascinated by Keogh, saves his life and even contemplates converting. But their mutual affection for troublemaker Locha (Mylene Demongoet), and Anacleto's evil nature, make renewed conflict inevitable.

Based on Audrey Erskine-Lindop's novel, The Singer Not the Song is a pretentious mess. It vaguely resembles John Ford's The Fugitive (1947), another South of the Border religious allegory. But Baker's boring direction lacks Ford's artistry, shooting Spanish locations in pretty but flat Technicolor. Too much overripe dialogue slows things to a deadening crawl. Even the climactic action scene is a yawner, closing with painfully explicit Christ imagery. Of course, Christ didn't die groping a leather-clad gaucho in the dust, so the analogy isn't perfect.

What's Baker on about, exactly? He and writer Nigel Balchin don't bother making sense. Singer takes place in the modern day yet characters dress like Old West extras, some even toting Winchester rifles. We're told that Anacleto controls the town, yet with three scabby henchmen he doesn't seem much of a threat. All his evil actions occur off-screen; the meanest thing we witness is sabotaging Keogh's breaks. Bush league pranks, surely, for a man representing Evil Incarnate.

Singer gets so wrapped up in allegory it lacks even internal logic. We can almost understand why Keogh wants to convert Anacleto, but what does the latter see in the priest? Anacleto reforms, or pretends to, until affection for Locha drives him back to the dark side. Keogh's briefly tempted by Locha, but is so upright he's not even a good foil. The last act attempts to juxtapose Christian forgiveness with temporal righteousness - as if denouncing a mass murderer is hypocritical! Singer manages the neat trick of being hamfisted and incomprehensible.

John Mills's role plays to his weaknesses, namely woodenness masked as rectitude. Instead of seeming steadfast, Mills comes off constipated. Dirk Bogarde relishes his camp villain, a character the script doesn't even try to make credible. (One wonders if Giulio Questi saw this before making Django Kill.) Laurence Naismith (A Night to Remember) outdoes them both with laughable scenery chewing. Mylene Demongoet just sits there looking pretty, while John Bentley is a stiff stooge. 

I'd call The Singer Not the Song a camp classic, but that implies there's fun to be had. Despite the weird premise and good cast, Singer is garbled and unbelievably boring.