Movie review – “Saga of the Viking Women” (1957) **

One of Roger Corman’s least regarded films (especially by himself) is up on the net on the AMCTV website. It’s actually not too bad – I don’t think Corman has ever made an out-and-out bad film – although stories about Vikings don’t lend themselves to low budget filmmaking.

From the beginning of his career Corman showed an interest in female protagonists and this is no exception: the plot is about some viking women who go looking for their men, who went out on an expedition a few years ago and haven’t come back – that’s not a bad idea for a film. Neither is the idea they wind up in a foreign country where the architecture gives hints that maybe the Vikings are around. Sure enough they are there – kept as slaves.

This has some good looking women in viking outfits and impressive photography. It’s also quasi-feminist, with women Vikings beating up various men – one even beats the effeminite local prince in an arm wrestle. Sometimes the low budget hurts – the crappy back projection sea monster at the beginning and end, rather sparse banquet halls, poor acting, and sometimes the actors look plain silly in their outfits. Structure-wise the last ten minutes feel added on – the film feels like it should end when they escape and havet the baddy at their mercy. But they let him go, enabling him tohave a funeral for his son then chase after them.

But there’s plenty of action – there’s always someone running around, either on horseback or throwing a punch, a burning at the stake. There’s also a funeral where they throw a live woman on to the pyre to keep the dead prince happy (the prince was killed by a bolt of lightening) and a bit where the goddies pray for rain and it comes.

Susan Cabot adds some star quality as a priestess viking tempted to betray her people and Abbey Dalton is pretty. The men aren’t much – Cormon seemed to have a lot of bland blonde leading men around this time, the king of the Vikings is one he looks like a footballer called Chad.

Radio review – Lux – “Shane” (1955) ***

Because this famous Western doesn’t have that much action (you think it does because what’s there is so memorable) it transfers well to radio. It helps Alan Ladd and Van Heflin are on hand to reprise their film roles, although Jack Palance and Jean Arthur don't and you miss them. The kid is especially whiny on radio. It remains solid drama.

Movie review – “Hell Has Harbour Views” (2006) ***

I remember being given the book on which this is based by a lawyer friend who gushed over how much he liked it; it was enjoyable and makes an enjoyable film, of most appeal for lawyers or ex-lawyers. It’s a career boy tale, with Matt Day as a rising lawyer in a massive firm who has a crisis of conscience – although that doesn’t stop him from two-timing his girlfriend with Lisa McCune.

Writer-director Peter Duncan has Day address the camera directly instead of using voice over; I’m not convinced it’s the best way to go but it doesn’t harm the film. The story feels better suited to a book than a movie (lots of internal monologues, various subplots as opposed to a big driving narrative, protagonist often passive), but Duncan finds interesting ways of opening up such as the “don’t call her” monologue by Day, a North by Northwest homage, and a neat “every legal team has a hot female lawyer for a mediation” montage.

The cast is very strong and all the lawyers actually seem like lawyers, which isn’t always the case with films: Day, Peter O’Brien, Tony Llewellyn-Jones (the way he squinted through his glasses was spot on), Tony Barry, Freya Stafford, Marta Dusseldorp, Tirel Mora, Simon Chilvers, Kris McQuade (I know a few public servant lawyers who looks like her). My particular favourite was Frank Whitten as the smarmy barrister Giles, peering over his glasses and demanding coffee – he was astonishingly accurate. The one that didn’t feel quite right was Lisa McCune as the journalist, a “she’ll save me” figure – I normally like McCune, she is perky and pretty, and her performance here was fine, she even flashes a boob… she just felt a bit miscast, that’s all.

This didn’t have the weight to be a feature but is a reminded of how good telemovies can be – if only we’d make more of them.

Radio review – Lux – “Take a Letter, Darling” (1950) ***

Adaptation of one of the many lesser-known romantic comedies Rosalind Russell made in the wake of her success in His Girl Friday. They normally involved career girl Russell being convinced of the joys of domesticity by some handsome co-stars – in this case Fred MacMurray. The warning bells go off but actually this is a lot of fun, and surprisingly PC.

The plot involves ad exec Russell hiring MacMurray to act as her secretary in order to help battle with clients who don’t like dealing with women; they fall for each other – MacMurray in part because he likes Russell’s drive. It doesn’t end with Russell quitting to become a housewife and be supported by MacMurray – both quit and run off to Mexico, where he can paint and she can write poetry.

I like the third act twist where MacMurray confides in a tobacco tycoon he’s in love with Russell and the tycoon encourages him to make her jealous – so the tycoon can pinch Russell. It’s also cute how MacMurray sends Russell and the tycoon a nude painting as a present with Russell’s head painted on – the tycoon says he forgives Russell and Russell becomes indignant and dumps him. Good fun.

Movie review – “The Black Book” (1949) ***1/2

Eagle Lion and Anthony Mann had success turning real life modern day crime stories into film noir about people going undercover, so why not do the same thing for the French Revolution? 

Bob Cummings stars as a Frenchman who goes undercover as a prosecutor for Robespierre in order to stop Robespierre appointing himself dictator of France. To this end, he takes on the identity of a real-life prosecutor – who Cummings has killed! Full on – an assassin as hero. The MacGuffin is a black book of names of enemies of France, and there’s various twists with the baddies seemingly busting Cummings, but then being persuaded he’s the real deal and so on.

Cummings is best known for his light comedies and it’s rather odd to see him as a sort of hard bitten tough guy investigator, particularly in his “I’m hurt by you” moments with his ex Arlene Dahl and him killing people. (The goodies in this film are quite ruthless.) But you get used to him and there’s nothing wrong with his performance, it’s just his persona is a bit lightweight.

Mann’s direction is impressive, helped considerably by the great DOP John Alton – lots of great camera angles, and big faces, and brisk pacing. The story has plenty of twists and turns, with a solid basis in historical fact (Robespierre did have a list), and the production details are impressive – although not a large budgeted film, it’s still got these terrific sets and costumes, and even has some crowd scenes. And the cast is strong: it also includes Richard Basehart, Norman Lloyd and Charles MacGraw.

This is a real curio, a combination of film noir, historical movie and gangster film – I can’t think of anything else quite like it.

(NB After making this Mann took DOP John Alton and went over to MGM where they made a semi-documentary film noir with an undercover plot, Border Incident. Then Mann went into the Westerns for which he is chiefly remembered today.)

Movie review – “There’s No Business Like Showbusiness” (1954) ***

Big budget 20th Century Fox musical is mainly remembered for Marilyn Monroe in a support role – although she does get to perform ‘Heatwave’. I remember some pre-puberty stirrings going on when I first saw this – a lightbulb going on as to Monroe’s appeal.

The film centres around a vaudeville family – Ethel Merman and Dan Dailey are the parents, the kids are Donald O’Connor, Mitzi Gaynor and Johnnie Ray. None of them are a full blown film star – support actors, singing stars, stage stars… but of the cast only Marilyn is the A ranking. She plays a showgirl who has a fling with O’Connor which ends badly. Apparently O’Connor wanted something more – hey listen O’Connor, look in the mirror, and be grateful you got her for a bit.

The bulk of the story concerns womanising O’Connor, his relationship with Monroe and clash with his father. They seem reluctant to stray too far from this – poor old Mitzi Gaynor is shoved to the side (she is given this obnoxious boyfriend who announces to his parents they’re going to get married without even asking Gaynor; I think we’re supposed to find this brashly charming but it’s cringe-inducing).

Every time Johnny Ray appears on screen I couldn’t help laughing, and Ethel Merman’s presence is also a bit camp – they’re both just, well, Johnny Ray and Ethel Merman. But you know, there’s so much talent on display, and the Irvin Berlin songs are so good, you do enjoy it – Marilyn flashing her legs, Ethel singing the title tune, the dancing of O’Connor and Gaynor.

Movie review – “Parole Inc” (1948) **

Another low budget undercover story from Eagle Lion –Micheal O’Shea plays an agent who goes undercover as a parole violator in order to battle parole corruption. That’s not a bad idea for a film – parole boards always appear in crime movies but are rarely the focus of them. 

I’d never seen O’Shea in something before this - he was a comic who enjoyed a brief vogue as a leading man in the 40s (even co-starring with Sonya Henie). It took a while to get used to him at first, his jaunty nature very different from the buttoned down sort of actors who normally play these roles, but I got used to it and enjoyed the energy – he’s like a Grade C James Cagney, but there’s worse things for actors to be. 

Although it’s O’Shea’s film, he is billed beneath some old Universal stars, Evelyn Ankers, who plays the owner of a nightclub, and Turhan Bey (who doesn’t appear until 30 minutes in and has a small role), as her boyfriend. Ankers looks a little bit old here - maybe she was missing the quality of the Universal camera dept. 

There’s none of the semi-documentary flavour of Trapped or T-Men (eg no montage about how hard parole depts work) and the whole film has clearly been made by people who aren’t as talented as Anthony Mann or Richard Fleischer. It’s also weird the whole story is narrated by O’Shea in a hospital bed after having been beaten up. This passes the time well enough but it a long way from “hidden gem” status.

Movie review – “The Hangover” (2009) ****

Fresh and funny comedy which I don’t mind admitting gave me writers envy. The plot is solid and simple – surely someone has thought of this before – combining elements of Todd Phillips two previous big hits: 30-something guys acting badly (Old School) going on a Road Trip. The cast are excellent across the board, and the humour is consistently inventive and funny. The ace in the pack is the guy with the beard – it’s always good to have a crazy character because you can push them in unexpected directions (eg 30 Rock).

My only gripe is at times the film feels as though it needs a more emotive subplot, to cover the episodic nature of the adventures. Some potential ones are set up – Bradley Cooper’s home life, the Heather Graham marriage – but not really followed through. Were they cut out? Also the Asian villain does come a bit close to racist caricature. But the best comedy I’ve seen in a while.

Book review – “The Naked Truth” by Graeme Blundell

In Australian film history, is any actor more responsible for the success of the film in which he starred in than Graeme Blundell in Alvin Purple? Off the top of my head I can only think of a few – Jack Thompson in Petersen, Bruce Spence in Stork, Hogan in Crocodile Dundee. It’s hard to imagine who other than Blundell could have made Alvin work as well as he did: his sad eyes, gawky nature and unassuming nebbish face took the sting out of the central concept, and helped turn this one joke film into a massive smash. Alvin has not dated well – it’s repetitive and dull, all that nudity notwithstanding – but Blundell’s performance has.

There was something very Australian about Blundell – he was as Aussie in his way as the macho Chips Rafferty or Jack Thompson: shy best mates, quiet soldiers, Liberal voting businessmen who get bullied at Labor election night parties. And his background entirely suited his “look” – working class Melbourne lad, son of a ex-serviceman who worked in a shoe factory, loved cricket and died young, honourable and a little sad, (it was a shock to see a picture of Blundell’s father to find he didn’t look like Graeme Blundell).

At the time of Alvin, Blundell was already familiar to Australian cinema audiences through his lead role in The Naked Bunyip and support part in Stork. Indeed, with Alvin Blundell could make some claim to being the first new film star of the 70s revival. Unfortunately, he never enjoyed a follow up star part to match it in the way, say, Jack Thompson had in Sunday Too Far Away to follow Petersen. (Blundell did go into Don’s Party but that was an ensemble piece). Nonetheless, he was as busy as any actor in Australia during the 70s and 80s.

There was a lot more to Blundell than movies, though – he made an incredibly important contribution to Australian culture through his theatre work. He at the beginning of La Mama, the Pram Factory, the MTC; he was involved in early productions of Don’s Party, Norm and Ahmed (for which he was arrested for obscenity) and Dimboola; he helped set up Playbox and Kinsellas. Blundell’s never really been given credit for this – partly I think because of the Alvin thing, partly because of his problems with the Carlton set (he seems to have been politically a liberal rather than a hard-core leftist and those people seemed to cop it in the theatre land of the 70s). Nonetheless, it’s a massively impressive track record and it’s a shame he gave away setting up theatre companies after the late 80s.

For the past decade or so Blundell has mainly been a writer – his biography on Graham Kennedy is superb – and this autobiography is very well written, full of vivid descriptions and excellent analysis of various actors and directors eg George Ogilvie, John Sumner, Kennedy. I also think there’s a play (or a rom com) based on his experience writing a biography of Brett Whiteley with his de facto, Margot Hilton – it ended up ruining their relationship and Hilton ran off with the former lover of Whiteley’s wife.

Having said that, the book felt a little bogged down in places. I couldn’t think exactly what it was – maybe it a lack of joy and humour. Blundell seems tired by his experiences at times, particularly his marriages and the politics of the Australian theatre scene. There’s a little too much analysis and description and not enough life, if that makes sense. For instance, sketches of Frank Thring and Barry Humphries fairly leap off the page – maybe there needed to be more of this, or more stories. In particular I would have liked to have known a bit more about filming the various movies, putting on the shows (surely there was one decent anecdote from Pacific Banana?). But that’s just a personal opinion.

Nowra vs Ellis

After getting stuck into Kristen Williamson for her book on David, Louis Nowra has taken on Bob Ellis in the ALR. Good old Louis has never been afraid to stir the pot - it's a shame his piece has a few factual errors (Ellis has written more plays that Nowra mentions, not to mention novels). Literary stoushes are, to quote Guy Rundle, akin to knife fights in dinghy. But it's fun to watch, especially when you're very familiar with the works of the writers concerned.

Book review – “Courts of the Morning” (1929) by John Buchan

Richard Hannay introduces the book but this isn’t really a Hannay adventure, it focuses more on other characters: Archie Roylance (now an MP, Lord help us), the American Blenkinron, Sandy Clanroyden, Janet Roylance. There are reports that Blenkinron is dead and Sandy has a mid-life crisis; in actual fact they’re both undercover in a fictional South American country fighting a new master criminal, Castor, who is passionately anti-American.

They get involved in destabilising the whole regime, which is a like CIA for my tastes, and you never really take Buchan’s word for it that the baddies are actually bad – we are told how peaceful and prosperous the country is before the “goodies” get started trying to bring the government down. There is some talk of defending exploited Indians but Buchan never really makes a convincing case for causing war and his heroes come across at times like a bunch of public school adventurers whipping up trouble in the third world for the sheer sport of it (Archie and Janet Roylance get involved while on a delayed honeymoon); none of them really have a personal stake in the country, they are having fun, except for a vague desire to fight forces of anti-Americanism (what this anti-Americanism actually consists of is never really spelt out.)

Having said that this is an exciting novel. You enjoy the absence of Hannay, and it has real scope and sweep, since it involves the fate of the entire country, and pitched battles and armies (it’s like the end of Mr Standfast, without history to hold it back). There’s a lot more violence and even sex – lots of people being stabbed, Janet is almost raped – and it seems more emotional, with Castor falling for Janet (who to be honest seems too good for Archie).

The book has a lot more energy than the later Hannay’s. Sure there’s still pontificating and what not, but it’s a minimum. There’s also not one but two spirited female characters – one who even seems to convert Sandy to heterosexuality (although we never see a romantic scene between them – like Dick Hannay and Mary there’s a large age difference). Finally there is a central conceit which I can’t remember being in any other book – Sandy kidnaps Castor and whips up the revolt – which he has in Castor’s name; he then sets about trying to convert Castor to his cause… and succeeds. It’s something I haven't read in another adventure book.

Movie review – “Trapped” (1949) **1/2

The two main producers for Eagle Lion were Edward Small and Bryan Foy. Small enjoyed a big success paying tribute to the Treasury Department with T Men, which presumably inspired Foy to come up with his own tribute. Like T Men it’s the story of an undercover investigator who helps best a counterfeiting ring – although in this case the bloke going undercover is a former counterfeiter (Lloyd Bridges, in an early leading role – young face but the voice is as raspy as ever). Then there’s another twist in that Bridges runs away from his secret service agent – he’s still a baddie. And he sets about trying to reignite his baddie life, including an old flame (Hollywood girl around town and later prostitute, Barbara Payton). But luckily there’s someone else going undercover, a treasury man pretending to be a gangster.

Yet again the goodies are very bland, but this is a taunt, enjoyable little thriller. I liked seeing Bridges as a gangster and there’s enough plot twists – such as the protagonist shifting half way through the film from being Bridges to the cop - to make up for the fact those twists aren’t that original.

Radio review – SDP – “Prisoner of Zenda” (1949) **

Ronald Coleman reprises his famous part for radio yet again – no doubt a big attraction was the casting of his wife, Benita Hume, opposite him. This may explain why a lot of time is given to the romance scenes whereas some important plot points (eg deciding to do the impersonation in the first place) are rushed over. The story works pretty well, although the gimmick of impersonation is better when you see it.

Radio review – Theatre of Romance – “Gentleman Jim” (1946) **

The Theatre of Romance is an odd title for a radio show – a half hour version of the famous boxing biopic would seem better suited for Lux or Screen Directors Playhouse. Still, here’s Errol Flynn reprising that actor’s favourite big screen role. 

Errol is good value but the adaptation really isn’t that much; it lacks the atmosphere and humour of the film, and the boxing sequences and period detail are badly missed. The introduction refers to this being a rare radio appearance by Errol, which I guess it was in the mid 40s, although he acted in plenty of radio in the late 30s.

Radio review – “The Modern Adventures of Casanova” (1952) **1/2

A short lived radio series about Chris Casanova, a modern-day descendent of you-know-who, who works as a sort of globetrotting policeman. The lead role is ideally played by Errol Flynn – indeed, according to the end credits, the series was Flynn’s idea; this may also explain why the story for the episode I listened to (one of only two surviving, apparently) is set in Jamaica. 

It revolves around the search for an old piece of treasure; Errol romances a married lady and gets up to some mild-derring do. 

It’s quite entertaining and Errol has a good voice for radio; I wonder if he ever tried to get this up as a tv series because it would have made an ideal one. (The end credits say the show is courtesy of MGM – maybe it was an MGM project, or Errol had to get permission from that studio under his short-term contract with them.)

Movie review – “The Brasher Doubloon” (1947) **

George Montgomery was a brash Clarke Gable type who enlivened a number of musicals in the early 40s; his career never really recovered momentum after military service, but he did get to play Philip Marlowe in this film, perhaps the least known Marlowe adaptation. It’s based on The High Window, which also served as the basis for a Michael Shayne movie. You’d think The High Window was a slightly more sensible title than The Brasher Doubloon, which has a pirate flavour to it, but there you go (maybe they were hoping to draw comparisons with The Maltese Falcon).

Montgomery isn’t one of the great Philip Marlowes – he lacks a little depth (Montgomery was always most effective paired against a strong female co-star). To be fair the film doesn’t help him that much – John Brahm made a number of impressive films in his career, including a pair of Laird Cregar starrers, but his aim was slightly off on this one. The script doesn’t help – it features that staple of lazy scriptwriting: someone saying “there’s really no reason why I should tell you this but I’ll tell you anyway”; there’s also a Thin Man like finale with all the suspects gathered while Marlowe reveals who did it.

The supporting cast is a little undercooked. Nancy Guild is pretty as a girl who can’t bare to be touched although attracted to Marlowe, but she lacks a bit of spark. So too do the others, although they include Florence Bates and Conrad Janis – you can’t help compare them (not flatteringly) with the rogues gallery in The Big Sleep and Murder My Sweet.

Movie review – “3 Acts of Murder” (2009) ***

We are meant to have filmed all our interesting history, but fascinating stories keep popping up. I knew a bit about Arthur Upfield, the creator of Bony, but had no idea he had helped provide inspiration for a real life killer. The sheer novelty of this story plus its Depression-era-rural-WA-setting makes this a must-see for Aussie crime buffs; it is also well acted, and looks terrific, full of atmosphere (desert sunsets, old courtrooms and bookstores, camel stations, billies of tea, etc).

The first bit is the best – Upfield and Snowy being mates in the outback; Upfield being stumped for plots; Snowy wanting something better while banging a cute girl (Emma Booth in what is really gratuitous nudity, although enjoyable). You get a real sense of mateship and camaraderie of these lonely isolated people – which makes Snowy’s crimes all the more awful. It’s like a true life version of Wolf Creek.

The second half isn’t as good. I think too much time is given to Upfield wandering around feeling bad and not getting along with his wife; Robert Menzies is an excellent actor but surely it would have been better to concentrate on Nicholas Hopes’ character, who at least is active? The stuff with Upfield is a bit dreary – I kept wanting to go back to Snowy and the investigation/persecution. It’s still enjoyable.

Play review – “Shane Warne: the Musical”

Entertaining musical which perhaps would have worked better in a smaller venue than the Enmore Theatre – would have been great in the Old Fitz or Downstairs Belvoir. Eddie Perfect is great value and the support cast can’t be faulted; some of the songs are a bit ordinary, but others are fun – I especially liked the one about sledging (‘Never Cross the Line’) and about the AIS. It’s a bit harsh on Simone, but quite moving about Terry Jenner. It’s a little confusing in places too – bitsy.

Note – a SMH article on the subsequent cancellation of this show referred to ticket prices of $89 being “reasonable” – that’s only reasonable by ridiculous theatregoer standards. People who don’t normally go to the theatre – a large chunk of the audience for this – will think it’s a rip off, which it is. $50 – the price of preview tickets – should have been what it cost, especially for a musical without whiz-bang pyrotechnics.

Radio review – SDP - “Stagecoach” (1949) **

John Ford introduces this radio adaptation of his classic western, which works quite well at first because a lot of the initial action takes place in the stage coach. Later on it becomes less sure – you really want to see the shoot outs and action, etc. Also there is a highly unintentionally amusing scene where Claire Trevor is praying for John Wayne to make it while in the background we hear gun shots of a battle in which Wayne is involved. It's fun to hear Wayne and Trevor reprise their screen roles; Ward Bond steps into Thomas Mitchell's part.

TV review – “Liza with a Z” (1972) ****

Liza Minnelli technically was a film star despite only two real hits on her resume – Cabaret and Arthur – so it’s great that this TV special has re-surfaced to demonstrate of stage abilities in her prime. It was directed by Bob Fosse with songs from Kander and Ebb, plus a few other random contemporary songs (“Gotcha”). 

Because it's Fosse there’s lots of dances with stockings and no bra (Liza included), plus sexy silhouettes – apparently this caused censorship troubles at the time. Liza does a bit of patter, and laughs through the tears, or is it crying through the laughter? She has this wide-eyed chipmunk look; her dancing is fine, but her singing is stunning.

Movie review – “Wild in the Streets” (1968) **

Christopher Jones is one of those too cool of school actors that pop up every generation or so – brooding types who get all the women, and who men get crushes on. He was a quasi-star for a few years, making this and Three in the Attic for AIP, before graduating to Looking Glass War and Ryan’s Daughter, then dropping out. This is probably his best known film – he plays a 22 year old pop star who winds up President when the voting age is dropped to 15. (NB this doesn’t happen until the last act.)

It’s a bright idea for a 60s satire, although the film doesn’t really explore the issue of young people voting to any great extent. This is actually quite a conservative film, reassuring to elder viewers – young rock tycoon simply wants to be a dictator after money and power; young people do whatever Jones tells them; the young people aren’t particularly political just greedy and stupid; if someone got into power based on the youth vote they would turn fascist. Even the songs are seem old-fashioned (they are also quite ordinary).

The cast is notable: Shelley Winters plays a – surprise – ball busting mother; Barry Williams aka Greg Brady is young Jones; Richard Pryor is Jones’ drummer; Diane Varsi is Jones’ often-nude-and-wacked-out keyboardist and girlfriend (she’s supposed to be 24 – yeah, right); Hal Holbrook is a senator (who is presented as the most reasonable character); Millie Perkins is Holbrooks’ wife.

There are some effective moments – such as the only casualties from a youth demonstration being Orange County matrons who died of a heart attack watching the demonstrations on TV at home; the only state which doesn’t vote for Frost is Hawaii. But it’s mean-spirited and lacks genuine cleverness of a Wilder, Sturges or Chuck Griffith. (Although the writer, Robert Thom, worked on Death Race 2000 with Griffith.)

Movie review – “Lady in the Lake” (1946) **1/2

The Raymond Chandler novels that everyone seems to like are Farewell, My Lovely, The Big Sleep, and The Long Goodbye. There is less overall enthusiasm for the other three, although The Lady in the Lake made an interesting film. The Marlowe is Robert Montgomery, a second-tier movie star who managed to prolong his career by turning to producing and directing; he directed this one which has the gimmick of mostly being told from the camera POV of Philip Marlowe.

It is interesting to see a film done this way, although it means the pace is slower – there are lots of single takes. Some cute bits, like only seeing Marlowe via a reflection in the mirror (although he does introduce the film), Marlowe going in for a kiss, Marlowe getting slapped by Lloyd Nolan then punching him out. The technique is most effective when Marlowe is poking around a house on his own – there’s a brilliant sequence where he discovers a dead body in a shower, and another good one where he’s in a car accident and recovers (Montgomery uses lack of music to good effect here, with spooky back effects). But over a whole film it does get wearying.

(It just occurred to me the late 40s were an experimental time with POV in Hollywood – you had this, Rope, Dead Reckoning).

The plot has Marlowe sell a story to a magazine, only to find out they really want him to investigate a case on their behalf. MGM weren’t known for their tougher detective films - the Thin Man series was more along their line – and at times the cast don’t really feel up to it, including Montgomery himself, Audrey Totty, and Tom Tully. Lloyd Nolan is good, though and this is a good film to have seen.

Book review – “Three Hostages” by John Buchan

Dick Hannay is pulled out of retirement to investigate the abduction of three children of rich men – I wonder why Hannay’s child wasn’t one of the victims, it makes sense, and is a change Hitchcock surely planned to make for the film version he was considering. Hannay comes up against his second super villain, the imposing Medina, but has the use of several of his friends, including the chipper idiot Archie Roylance, Hannay’s game wife Mary, and Sandy; there’s also a cameo from Edward Leithen and Palliser Yeates.

There is the usual dreary Buchan philosophising – going on about Jews and the fanaticism of Ghandi – which makes you and times just want to go “shut up and tell the story, Buchan”. But the mystery itself isn’t bad. Medina is a good antagonist, the hypnotism is some strong, atmospheric writing, plus lots of eerie waking up in homes and not knowing where you are. There’s also a great bit where we met Medina’s “beautiful” really old mother – no wonder Hitchcock was attracted to the story, he loves a mother’s boy – and an exciting climax where Medina seeks his revenge on Hannay in the highlands (although Buchan has Hannay act like a casual, illogical idiot- “I didn’t care about the danger I wanted to see the matter come to its conclusion” – how did thus guy end up in charge of a brigade?)

The finale involves Mary getting Medina to confess by threatening him with torture and permanent disfigurement which is pretty full on for Buchan, whose heroes normally beat the baddies fair and square by some jolly good fair play; maybe such rules don’t apply for women.

Movie review – “Murder My Sweet” (1944) ***1/2

Farewell, My Lovely had already been filmed by RKO as The Falcon Takes Over, but the studio decided to make another version a few years later when crooner Dick Powell wanted to play Philip Marlowe to change his image. (They changed the title of the novel out of fear that audiences might think Farewell My Lovely was a musical.)

It’s crisp, strong film noir filmmaking. It starts memorably with a blinded Marlowe being interrogated by cops. Marlowe gets called in three cases: a search for Velma by Moose Malloy, a blackmail attempt that ends in murder, and a search for a necklace. They all connect, and incorporate various shady types and slinky dames; Marlowe gets knocked out and interrogated by police several times, flirts with and slaps around women, drinks liquor and eventually figures out what’s going on. I admit that occasionally I found it dragged – I get that way with a lot of detective movies, there comes a point around the two-thirds mark when it feels just the scenes are just scenes with more character actors or something. But overall I liked this a lot.

The cinematography isn’t as “dark” as later noirs, but there is an utterly trippy dream sequence which results in Marlowe waking up in an institution, worthy of Spellbound. (Powell gets the chance to act a bit crazy here, which actors playing private eyes didn’t get to do that often, and he does quite well. Come to think of it, he also gets knocked out a few times and is temporarily blinded at the end – a very human detective.) There’s a cute ending where Powell can’t see but the female love interest can and won’t tell him.

The support cast includes Claire Trevor (main femme fetale), Anne Shirley (who I think was married to producer Adrian Scott, one of the Hollywood Ten), Otto Kruger, Mike Mazurki and Miles Mander (who always seems to pop up in the old movies I’ve been watching lately). Marlowe at one stage says “a cancer doesn’t stop just because you ask it to” – Powell died of cancer. Sniff. 

Good script by John Paxton and excellent direction by Edward Dmytryk. RKO weren’t the best Hollywood studio by a long shot, but they had few equals when it came to turning out B pictures (or, more accurately in this case, A2 pictures).

Movie review – “The Old Dark House” (1932) ****

James Whale’s horror films have dated incredibly well, due to the vigour of the handling and the strength and energy of the performances. They also tended to have decent stories – this one is based on a novel by JB Priestley, about a group of travellers who wind up in an old dark house. The structure is basically “if you think that person was weird, wait until you meet X”. We have a crusty weird old deaf and dumb butler (Boris Karloff), a effeminate coward (Ernest Thesinger), his religious sister, their 110 year old father (played by a female actor) and super scary elder brother – who at first meeting seems to be the most normal but is actually the weirdest.

It helps that the travellers are a bunch of interesting characters played by an excellent cast – Melvyn Douglas as a world-weary, romantic war veteran; Raymond Massey and Gloria Stuart as his married friends; Charles Laughton (in his feature debut) as a likeable industrialist and Lilian Bond as his mistress. Actually all the performances are strong. Just thinking about it, Whale made stars of Colin Clive, Boris Karloff, Claude Rains, Charles Laughton (and greatly helped Douglas and Massey)… that’s a pretty good strike rate, even allowing for the fact this happened during the early days of sound when there was an unusually high number of new names.

There is some enjoyable pre-Code sexiness – Gloria Stuart gets changed into a nightie for no good reason other than a perve; Bond is clearly Laughton’s mistress but isn’t punished for it - indeed, she gets Douglas. Good fun.

Movie review – “Port of New York” (1948) **1/2 (warning: spoilers)

T Men paid tribute to treasury officials, the heroes of this one are customs officials. They are fighting drug smugglers in the form of Yul Brynner – in his first movie role and with hair! He’s very effective, the best thing about the movie.

Scott Brady, the bland hero from He Walked By Night, plays the bland hero here – you find yourself longing for Denis O’Keefe! Indeed, all the police heroes are bland, it’s hard to remember them at all – whereas you do remember Brynner, and the guy who plays a Charles Laughton-impersonating criminal.

The biggest surprise comes 60 minutes in when Brady, who has gone undercover, is busted and shot by the baddies, watched by another cop (Richard Hober) – a reprise of the moment in T Men but still something I wasn’t expecting, which is more than you can say for most of the rest of the film. Hober has to go undercover himself for the last section and finally gets his man. I enjoyed the location footage of the New York ports.

TV review – “30 Rock – Season 3” *****

My favourite sitcom keeps its standard high with an excellent season. I’ve become used to Scott Adsit character and can see his value on the show now – he’s a normal person on the bench, to bring in when they want to send Tina Fey’s character crazy. (Normally Fey is normal but occasionally she goes off into the stratosphere and they use him as a counterpoint.) The fight club moment is one of comedy’s greatest.

Movie review – “Van Diemen’s Land” (2009) **

A film with much to admire – stunning locations, strong performances by a cast full of unfamiliar names (apparently they mostly came from Melbourne theatre), a genuine sense of authenticity (helped by having some of the characters speak in Gaelic, a terrific idea), it treats the story – one of Australia’s most amazing - with dignity, fidelity and respect. But it goes on too long, is repetitive and at the end of the day is about some fairly uninteresting people. They make two of the convicts gay but apart from that it’s hard to tell them apart – they’re all too, well, convict-ish, all beards, uniforms and accents. I know, I know, how else can do you do - the actors do good jobs, but I think the concept is too inherently trickly. (Normally you get a bit more variation among the characters in a shooting gallery movie, which at the end of the day this basically is.)

The script never surmounts the structural problems of the matter – one death, then another death, then another. There’s an effectrive sequence towards the end where one of the characters starts imagining his victims coming back – maybe the film needed more of this expressionism. Or more violence, and some variety in the deaths. Or just a shorter running time.

Bizarrely, this is the third film to come out in recent months which deals with the Pearce story, after Dying Breed and the Last Confession of Alexander Pearce. It's weird, especially considering the only other the airing the story really got was in For the Term of His Natural Life.

Play review – “Voyage Round My Father” by John Mortimer

Mortimer’s best known play, and apart from Rumpole his work which is mostly likely to survive over the years. I was familiar which much of the material from having read Mortimer’s other autobiographical works, not to mention the biographies on him, but still found it very moving, funny and effective. It’s a memory piece of a play, with a very strong character in the father and that wonderful Mortimer sense of humour.

Play review – “The Dock Brief” by John Mortimer

This short play (two acts) contributed immensely to Mortimer’s early literary reputation – it was very popular and even turned into a film, for which it doesn’t have quite enough story. But it has two great characters, and a memorable twist, i.e. a murderer gets off due to his lawyer’s incompetence. A little long – like another famous two-hander, Norm and Ahmed – but fun.

Radio review – Lux - “War of the Worlds” (1953) **1/2

Sci-fi works well on radio because what your imagination comes up with is often better to special effects. This is a decent adaptation of George Pal’s film version of Wells’ tale; it’s not as good as the famous Orson Welles version, but it’s alright. The main debit is irritating Pat Crowley as a chirpy girl – I always remember Crowley being introduced by Paramount with this big credit at the end of the Ginger Rogers-Bill Holden starrer, Forever Female; she seemed to disappear soon after that and to be honest it’s not that much of a mystery. Dana Andrews takes over Gene Barry’s screen role as a physicist – there’s a fun bit where Andrews, “speaking on behalf of his fellow physicists” encourages the military to use nukes. Like they didn’t consider that already! It’s always entertaining listening to Andrews on radio because you can’t help wondering if he’s drunk.

Play review – “The Farnsworth Invention” by Aaron Sorkin

Sorkin’s return to the stage was originally envisioned as a screenplay and at times you can tell, especially in the scenes of Farnsworth and Sarnoff as children. There is too much commenting on the action for these moments and showing off of research, but when Sorkin relaxes and lets the human emotion take over this is bright, tangy entertainment. Like most Sorkin pieces there are long soliloquies about hope and overcoming adversity; there's also a loyal, wisecracking secretary. The story is ultimately downbeat so it doesn’t stir you the way The West Wing does – but it’s adult and quite powerful. The work this most reminds me of is The Great Moment, the Preston Sturges film about the guy who invented ether.

Movie review – “Sabotage” (1937) ***1/2

Hitchcock in gloomy mode – there’s not going to be any happy ending for mousy Sylvia Sidney, an atypical Hitchcock heroine. For one thing she’s married to a terrorist, so you know he’s going to die; for another she has a kid brother who winds up a victim of a bomb – in a scene that still shocks. (It’s like putting Gwyneth’s head in a box.) Sure, there’s a love interest available in John Loder’s undercover cop, but does she look really interested in him? This is a gripping, dark thriller, very adult – Hitchcock’s hot streak was still going strong at this stage.

Radio review – Lux - “The Count of Monte Cristo” (1939) **

Robert Montgomery, the star you get when you can’t get the star you want, pops up as Edmond Dantes, in this decent version of the classic tale. I kept comparing it with Orson Welles’version - the account of the escape from prison isn’t as exciting but the revenge is done better.

Radio review – SDP - “The Exile” (1949) **

This swashbuckler suits a half hour adaptation because the story is so slight – indeed, it’s lucky to make that long (although they do cut out the Maria Montez role). Without the visuals of the action and Max Ophuls direction this is very slight; it does have Doug Fairbanks Jnr reprising his role (excellent speaking voice) and its fascinating to hear Ophuls himself introduce the show in his soft spoken, accented English.

Book review – “A Figure of Speech" by Graham Freudenberg

Freudenberg was a leading – if not the leading - Labor Party speech writer for over 40 years. A former journo, raised by Liberal voting parents, he wound up writing key speeches for Calwell, Whitlam, Wran, Unsworth, Hawke and Carr – he was at Calwell’s side during the near-success in 1961 (the one Labor came so close to winning – I think the country would have been much better off if they had, if only to have power for a term, it’s not healthy to have one party in power for so long – but no one ever seems to regard this as a great “what if” of Australian history), then later on during the Vietnam War stoushes; he was with Whitlam during his battle against the executives, particularly in Victoria, and of course the dismissal; he was close to Wran during the height of Nifty’s popularity, and later during this troubles with the ABC; he was also part of the Bob Carr-led comeback.

We get an interesting view of Australian political history during that time – although it’s not as good as when Bob Ellis does it. There are lots of quotes from speeches, which is interesting. But it feels insufficient, too closed off. We get very little of Freudenberg’s private life – his marriage and divorce is disposed of in a few sentences; there are lots of allusions to drinking but no real exploration of that. He also doesn’t strike me as a deep thinker outside politics – apparently giving independence to Papua New Guinea was a terrific thing to do should have happened quicker; the nasty ABC and Herald persecuted poor Nifty and Lionel Murphy (the corruption of the ALP isn’t really explored). In his introduction where he talks about people’s interest in speech writers he refers to George W Bush, but doesn’t mention the West Wing, surely the biggest factor of them all in the recent interest in that species. Worth reading; you just wish it had been a bit better and more candid.

Movie review – “Moving Violations” (1985) **1/2

I remember watching this obsessively on video when younger. It’s an 80s teen comedy par excellance, a worthy follow up to Police Academy – a bunch of misfits unite to battle an authority figure, who is actually corrupt. 

The jokes like the plot are rickety, but the cast is fascinating – there’s a wisecracking Mahoney-like hero (John Murray, Bill’s brother – who actually is good value), a sex-mad female cop, a politician who’s into bondage (Sally Kellerman), a corrupt authority figure (James Keach), a nerdy guy who gets involved with an underage girl like Animal House (he is played by Brian Backer, who was the nerd in Fast Times at Ridgemount High – and Police Academy 4), a wacky little old lady, a chubby girl (played by the chubby girl from Bachelor Party and Bosum Buddies), a comedy conservative black, a bloodthirsty type (played by the cop on Law and Order: SVU), a stuffy doctor (Fred Willard). There’s also this character with a perm who doesn’t seem to have any purpose in the film –a sort of conservative friend of Murray’s. Plus Don Cheadle as a drive in attendant. Right on!

Movie review – “Bronson” (2009) **

The sort of movie you’ll like if you really like Clockwork Orange – certainly the director seems to have been heavily influenced by it, with it’s super duper ultra violent hero, who still pulls the chicks, bashes people up surrounded by bright colours to the soundtrack of classical music; there’s even a scene where he comes home from prison to stay with his old fashioned parents. 

The lead role is a gift part – you get to be bald, muscly and crazy, crack jokes and act like a complete psycho. Not my cup of tea – it was wearisome to start off with and didn’t get much better; the film seems like this add for prison guard brutality.

Move review – “Pontypoon” (2009) **

Canadian zombie film has plenty of intelligence and good ideas – people getting infected by words is great, as is having a background of French separatism, and being set in a radio station. But they can never bring it together – it’s confusing, takes too long to get on to its gimmick, and characters don’t behave logically (what’s with that doctor? What do they do for food? Don’t they have an obligation to broadcast in an emergency? Etc). You start wishing for some sex and nudity or at least some zombie action. Also, most crucially of all, this is a radio play rather than a film – too much talking, especially of characters talking on the mike. You can have zombie films set in one location – look at Night of the Living Dead – but you’ve got to get the characters moving out and about.

You’d assume it was low budget but according to the credits there were a lot of crew on this – and that weird sequence at the end would surely have cost a motza. Why not spend the money on some decent production value instead? Performances are okay – the male lead has a great voice but a decent character for him to play would have been better.

Radio review – Lux - “Whistle Stop” (1946) **

The introduction to this drama continually emphasises how popular the film version is at the box office – is that true or where they self conscious about adapting essentially a B picture? Mind you, it’s a B picture that has achieved some renown because it gave an early break to Ava Gardner – who doesn’t reprise her role here, Evelyn Keyes does. Alan Ladd steps in to George Raft’s role as a small town loser – he’s very effective, better than Raft. The rest of it is a decent enough drama, a sort of quasi-film noir.

Movie review – “The Big Parade” (1925) ***1/2 (warning: spoilers)

At one stage this was one of the most popular films of all time. It holds up reasonably well, especially compared to other silent films of the period. John Gilbert is the star; he is best remembered for his swashbuckling, great lover roles, of which to be honest this is a variation – he is a rich man’s son who joins the army at the prompting of his bloodthirsty fiancee and father, and winds up romancing a French girl and becoming a hero. He also loses his leg – a great shock and the best bit of the film. I enjoyed Gilbert’s performance, even if occasionally he can’t help wailing at the sky and there’s a scene where he goes a bit melodramatic and over the top.

The structure is interesting – the first half is mostly gentle romance and service comedy, before he goes off to war (a great sequence, with memorable shots of an endless truck convoy), then winds up in the trenches.

Movie review – “Overlord” (1975) **

A soldier goes through training to D Day, with real life documentary footage incorporated. That seems to have more power – especially the vision of soldiers in a boat crashing on the shore. I was thinking this would make a great Aussie film and was wondering why it hadn’t been done, then it occurred to me, it had – Newsfront, a much better film that this because the drama was so much better.

Movie review – “I Love You, Man” (2009) ***1/2

This would have made a great Australian movie because of the mateship undercurrent but it’s still pretty good. It’s made in that casual-seeming Judd Apatow style – scenes tend to amble along, with a semi-impro feel and often obsessional references to slightly obscure pop culture items (here it’s Lou Ferrigno, the band Rush – not the Australian one, and Chocolat). 

The casting isn’t quite as strong as for the best of Apatow, but it has some fine lead performances; Paul Rudd, a girl’s guy star, is very well cast as a girl’s guy who needs a friend and Jason Segel further establishes himself as the next big comedy star. Rashid Jones is very likeable as Rudd’s fiancée, and Jamie Lynn Presley and Jon Favreau (as a bullying, angry Jew – a type we don’t see often on screen) are strong in support. Some great moments, such as Rudd excitedly trying to introduce Jones his favourite band via the tinny sound of itunes

Movie review – “Stone Forever” (2002) ****

Terrific documentary about the cult around Australia’s only biker movie. Is there an Aussie film with more devoted fans? Aussie bikers seem to love it with a passion – the respect with which it treated the sub-culture, the dialogue, the honesty of it’s ending, the maverick status of the director and the cast. I remember at high school the film had a group of devoted fans who would recite dialogue incessantly – and this was an all-boys private high school.

Sandy Harbutt comes across as an intelligent, well spoken chap (he trained at the Ensemble) who is a bit of an outlaw. So too are the rest of the cast – Roger Ward, Vincent Gill, Hugh Keays-Byrne, etc. – they look like they still breathe the ethos of the movie. (Idea for Aussie comedy – cast of Stone get involved in real life bikies and wacky chaos ensues.)

The film has unexpected resonance – Harbutt’s failure to get up another film (he spent nine years trying to get up Drums of Myrrh), the love Vietnam Vets and other bikers have for the movie and its cast. However, the sexism of Stone really isn’t explored – this is covered inadvertently to a greater degree in The Making of Stone, a contemporaneous documentary on the film narrated by John Laws, where some bikiers talk about gang banging women (“90% of us are into it”).

Movie review – “The Velvet Vampire” (1971) **1/2

Stephanie Rothman followed up her Student Nurses success with this vampire film for New World. It fits squarely into the lesbian vampire sub-genre that was popular at the time (Lust for a Vampire, The Vampire Lovers, etc), with a more feminist slant. There is talk of men hating women because they are envious of women having better sex.

The closest thing to a name in the cast is Michael Blodgett, who was the playboy in Beyond the Valley of the Dolls. He and his wife (Sherry Miles) hook up with a girl (Celeste Yarnall) who may or may not be a vampire – she invites them to her place out in the desert.

Some laughable moments – the dune buggy doubt entendre, “it’s only a coyote” comment to screams of death. The biggest debt is Sherry Miles – she’s childish, whiny and irritating. None of other performances are strong, but the leads (including, it must be said, Miles) have good bodies so it is quite sexy at times. Celeste Yarnall, is especially hot – she could do better than Miles.

Like Student Nurses, the running time feels padded with lots of shots of running around the desert. There are also some logic problems, especially at the end – Yarnall gets on the bus with Miles and doesn’t do anything until they reach LA, is that right?

Movie review – Nurses#1 - “The Student Nurses” (1970) ***

One of the earliest successes for Roger Corman’s New World company, this remains an enormously fun piece of career girl tosh. It was directed by Stephanie Rothman, whose reputation tends to go in and out of fashion, but with this she really succeeded (I would argue) in creating a piece of genuine feminist exploitation.

Sure, there is nudity, bad acting and lots of sex but the women are in charge of their own destinies – a blonde nurse has sex with the wrong man accidentally but she isn’t punished for it; the nurses support each other, yes lending clothes to justify nudity but also helping one of their number get an abortion (even the pro-life one isn’t anti the girl who had it); the girls know the importance of a good root and a job with a career; three of the four are single at the end and the fourth goes on the run (but it's her choice); some of them have men let them down but others are supported by men - it isn't man bashing, it's rather pro women.

There are four nurses – a sexy not-too-bright one (surprise, the blonde - but even she’s given a decent character – she doesn’t want to work around patients who might die, and is pro-life); a Hispanic who gets involved with her people and becomes politicised (and at the end she takes off on the lam with him to look after the poor with a gun in her glovebox without either going to gaol – right on!); a hippie who hates wearing a bra and gets involved with a drug dealer (who is a lousy lay); and a devotion to duty one who falls for a dying patient (and gives him a grope before he carks it – then goes off to Vietnam).

The stand out sequence is where free spirit Barbara Leigh (she dislikes wearing a bra) gets pregnant to her dead beat lover, and decides to have an abortion. Rothman takes her through a lot of the steps - trying to get permission from an unsympathetic hospital board, a sympathetic female doctor advises her to "have a safe one", her friends Elaine Giftos and Brioni Farrell do it at home with doctor who is going out with Karen Carlson, who hates the idea of abortion and goes out and seduces the doctor's friend to prove a point. This is good drama, better treated than many films these days even.

These films probably work better with three leads instead of four. At times the running time feels padded – nurses walking through fields listening to music, etc. – but it is cheerful and has the verve and energy of a film at the start of a successful cycle. The theme song got stuck in my head and wouldn't leave for several days.

The only cast members you are likely to recognise are Elaine Giftos (the devoted nurse) and Reni Santoni (militant – he was Clint Eastwood’s partner in Dirty Harry). The two best looking ones, Karen Carlson and Barbara Leigh are the most nude. Leigh's sex scene on the beach while tripping with drug dealer Richard Rust is genuinely hot.

Radio review – CP#6 – “Mutiny on the Bounty” (1939) **

Orson Welles tackles the world’s most famous mutiny – partly, one guesses, because it gives him a chance to play Captain Bligh. He’s in fine bombastic form and this is a decent version of the tale – it lacks a bit of zim. The final section has people from Pitcairn Island chat about life on the island.

Radio review – Lux - “Trade Winds” (1940) ***

The 1938 Sam Goldwyn film was created in order to show off location footage of various exotic spots around the world; it’s chiefly remembered today if at all for being the movie where Joan Bennett changed her hair colour from blonde to brunette. Both these things are visual, so you might ask yourself “why do a radio play?”

 I couldn’t help feeling a big reason was to attract Errol Flynn, who is perfectly cast as the womanising, wonderlust detective who chases after Bennett. (You get the feeling Flynn would have loved to taken part in the film, especially the location stuff). 

The hokey story actually translates quite well – there is some bright dialogue, you can use your imagination for the locations, and Flynn and Bennett are enjoyable together. There’s also Mary Astor (wisecracker) and Ralph Bellamy (dumb ox) in a broad comic support performances, giving this real star power.

Radio review – Lux Radio - “The Virginian” (1936) **1/2

The original novel helped popularise the Western, in particular key elements of the genre: the silent hero, shoot out between goodie and baddie at high noon, frontier justice. The Virginian is a cowboy who is forced to lynch an old mate because the mate is a thief; this upsets the Virginian’s girlfriend, but she eventually comes to realise a little lynching is needed in the old West and she’s on his side when he has a shoot out with Trampas, one of the best-named Western villains of all time. This also has the classic line, “when you say that, smile”. The cast of this is strong, including Gary Cooper in the title role and Charles Bickford as Trampas.

Radio review – “Lucky Jordan” (1951) *1/2

This wasn’t the greatest Alan Ladd film but it had a charm that eludes this radio adaptation. One problem is the length – this goes for an hour, which is far too long for such a light story. Ladd’s performance is smooth rather than energetic and the whole piece feels silly outside of wartime (it was silly in wartime too but the silliness didn’t seem to matter to much with a war on.)
The most interesting thing about it is King Vidor narrates – he’s got this dopey, flat-sounding monotone, like he’s playing a dumb cop or something.

Book review – “Orson Welles” by Frank Brady

I was keen to read this since so many pieces on Welles claim this to be one of the best works on the man, and I wasn’t disappointed. Excellently researched, well written, it’s pro-Welles without being silly or obnoxious about it. It doesn’t have the dazzle of Simon Callow’s books but it’s still very strong.

The fascinating Welles has with people isn’t hard to fathom – the sheer bulk of his persona and talent, the depth and breadth of his accomplishments, the variety of his work, the drama of his career (did he waste his talent? Etc etc), his charisma. It also has a great romantic aura - by his mid 20s Welles had already produced one of the greatest (if not the greatest) films of all time, the most famous radio drama of all time, several of the most famous Shakespearean productions of all time – where else was there to go but down? Or did he?

His early years were incredibly action packed – dad was loaded (with money and booze) so he’d been around the world several times before his teens were over; drove a car around Ireland when he was 16; went to see Manhattan Melodrama in the session after John Dillinger; produced a voodoo MacBeth where the cast put a curse on a critic who bagged it – and the critic died; directed the legendary production of Cradle Will Rock (“lock us out of the theatre? – let’s march down the street and use another theatre”); dabbled in bull fighting; directed a pioneering play of the African-American experience, Native Son; etc, etc. Then Hollywood and Citizen Kane - and the book is half over.

It is clear Welles was given too much rope – Citizen Kane lost money on it’s initial run, yet RKO gave him a million bucks to make a film out of a novel with little obvious commercial potential (apparently the Board was knocked out by the Mercury radio production). They sent him down to South America with a decent budget and no script. (NB To be fair this was the method Ealing used for Henry Watt when he went to Australia during the war – the result was a big hit, The Overlanders. The crucial difference – Watt was a highly experienced documentary filmmaker). And while Welles did work hard and bring back some great vision, he did gallivant. (You just get frustrated RKO couldn’t have forgiven him enough to let him cut together the footage, make something out of it.)

The Ambersons-It’s All True saga didn’t destroy his career, but damaged it. (Ambersons was nominated for a Best Picture Oscar). Welles was still in demand as an actor, especially on radio – for instance, he turned down Claude Rains’ role in The Uninvited. He had a great knack for getting publicity (marriage to Rita Hayworth, a magic show) and he managed to get up three more studio films in the 40s – The Stranger (which was meant to be the first of a four picture deal for Bill Goetz – I didn’t know that), Lady from Shanghai and MacBeth (which made money). Five films in a decade isn’t terrible – it’s certainly a higher strike rate than he enjoyed in subsequent years.

Many things I was unaware of – he toured Europe in the 50s with a theatre show that included Importance of Being Earnest – and made a film out of it! (Like his Moby Dick film apparently). He was courted by television production companies in the 50s but couldn’t seem to make a go of a series. He always found work as an actor and voice over expert, although his fatness meant he was offered a lead role. He worked with a heavy metal band in the 70s! (Some voice work - his daughter was a fan of the band.)

Welles continually returned to theatre but never managed to enjoy an out-and-out triumph like he had in the 30s – partly because he’d raised the bar too high, partly because he needed a stronger producer than himself to keep him in line. Around the World in 80 Days sounds like terrific fun but it was too expensive (the producer, Mike Todd, dropped out during rehearsals); ditto his King Lear in the 50s. His early 50s Othello (with Peter Finch as Iago) seems to have been well received, as was his production of Rhinoceros, but neither have lived on in the memory in the way his 30s productions did – maybe due to lack of a “gimmick”. (NB a play has been written about the making of Rhinoceros – Welles was directing Olivier, who was about to leave Vivien Leigh for Joan Plowright.) It’s a shame he never went back to theatre after the 60s – but then one of the romantic things about Welles, and part of the reason for his appeal, is there’s so many things of which you could say “it was a shame he never XXX”. (Except radio – I think he fulfilled all his promise in that medium.)

Welles clearly thrived when he had a benevolent benefactor, who encouraged and protected him – his guardian Dr Bernstein, Roger Hill and the Todd school, John Houseman at the Mercury and RKO, George Schaefer at RKO; later on there were the Salkinds for The Trial. Without this protection he suffered – although it must be said that when he worked with a strong but less helpful producer (eg Harry Cohn, Zugsmith), the films at least got finished, which is more than you can say for the bulk of Welles’ independent films which he produced on his own.

There are so many facets to Welles career – you could write whole books out of small bits (and people have). The War of the Worlds saga; his adventures in the theatre trade; Welles and African-Americans (MacBeth, Native Son, his interest in jazz, his romances with Lena Horne and Eartha Kitt); his romance with Rita Hayworth; Welles and radio; the making of almost all his films and their post-production battles. At times Brady seems hard put to include it all – sometimes he gets bogged down with “who-changed-what” items for the films, which is really the subject of its own book – but overall he does a very impressive job.

Movie review – Thin Man#3 - “Another Thin Man” (1939) ***

The Thin Man was a classier series, like the early Tarzans, so it followed continuity – Nick, Nora and Asta are now joined by Nick Jnr. Not that they seem to do much parenting – they have plenty of servants and a nanny. That’s the way to do it! Nick is called in by C Aubrey Smith who suspects that people are out to kill him. When Smith meets Nick he locks up the liquor cabinet but enabling wife Nora sneaks it to him – good on ya Nora.
Smith winds up dead and the adventure takes off – there are late night assignations, a follow up death; Nick tries to keep Nora out of it but Nora follows (resulting in a fun night club sequence), and both flirt with other people; there’s another party with Nick’s low life old mates (this one with babies which is cute), and a finale where all the suspects are gathered together. It’s a classy production, with pleasant photography and sets, plus an impressive support cast: future cult star Tom Neal, Patrick Knowles, Virginia Grey, Nat Pendleton.

Book review – “Moss Hart: Prince of Theatre” by Jared Brown

I’m surprised someone felt the need to write another biography of Hart so soon after Steven Bach’s Dazzler but this is an entertaining look at one of the giants of a period which is essentially gone now. Out of show try outs, new shows every year, disdain for Hollywood, houses in Connecticut near other showbiz type, writing a show on a trip around the world with Cole Porter and his entourage (144 days – imagine!), glossy apartments, dining out at restaurants. It really did happen.

It’s important to create the world because Hart himself isn’t that fantastically interesting – possibly bisexual, once poor, money burned a whole in his pockets, charming and easy to work with, major battles with depression, etc.

Brown has access to Hart’s diaries and letters, giving us an invaluable insight into his mental state – particularly his battle with depression. Well researched, workman-like prose. Brown never really succeeds in making the past come alive the way say a Simon Callow might but he does well enough.

TV series review – “Battlestar Galactica: Season 4 Part 2” (2009) ***** (warning: spoilers)

The finale was never going to make anyone happy – what finale’s do? But there are enough brilliant moments to ensure the series average remains high. For me, this had two great high points – the mutiny and the final raid. The first is breathtaking exciting – it kind of reminded me of a Tudor England-era take over, like Lady Jane Grey or the Earl of Essex or something. The second is also brilliant – that has more of a “one last roll of the dice” Wild Bunch feel. In between these two high points things do dip, but I guess they had to.

There are lots of endings – you can’t but helped be moved. I don’t mind admitting I got a tear. (It might have been even more moving had not so many favourites died). Lots of my wishes came true – Cally got justice, Anders got pummelled; I felt so sorry for Dee.

Okay some gripes – didn’t quite believe the colonists would give up their technology so easily (even if they did, they’d be regretting it the first batch of illness and crop failures they encountered); I get that they had to get rid of it, but what about another reason, like sheer lack of materials and fuel to keep them going – so they become fossils? I also get that Hera is meant to be the chosen one – but does she have to be such a dopey child, forever wandering off in story-convenient directions while people are trying to rescue her?

I did like how after all that time on the ship lots of humans just wanted to be left the frack alone. Wonderful series.

Movie review – “The Foot First Way” (2006) **1/2

A credit card movie fairytale – it didn’t become the box office sensation that Napoleon Dynamite did, but it helped make a name of Danny McBride and help its talented director (who is hilarious in a support role) get a Hollywood feature.
The basic concept is strong – a tae kwon do instructor with a bad personal life – and you can see why it quickly became a cult film, with Will Ferrel amongst its’ fans: plenty of great lines and “bits”. There’s grown men beating up little kids, jokes about Hollywood stars, a cute little fat kid. Guys who took martial arts lessons at some stage will find it especially fun and you can imagine fans reciting the dialogue ad nauseum.
But there really isn’t a story, and I found it got a bit tiring after a while. It lacked a little heart or something. The best moment is the party where McBride and his gang start kicking butt.

Movie review – “The Secret Agent” (1936) ***

It’s a little odd to see John Gielgud playing a romantic leading man part on film – I’m so used to seeing him in support roles. Is that a toupee? He’s not too bad, although he lacks Robert Donat’s lazy charm or Michael Redgrave’s chipperness.

This is Hitchcock in a darker mood – the crux of the plot involves our spy heroes killing the wrong man and Gielgud and Madeline Carroll come to hate their jobs (you think they’d be a bit grateful since the job brought them together). The only one who seems to have a good time is Peter Lorre, smoking and drinking away, and laughing when he finds out he’s killed the wrong person.

This doesn’t totally work – at times you feel the film is more an excuse for set pieces (the murder, a scene in a chocolate factory), and our heroes are often passive, with events taken out of their hand. There is a film in the concept, but not here - here it feels "bitsy".

Movie review – “The Climax” (1944) **

Universal wanted a sequel to Phantom of the Opera but Claude Rains didn’t want to repeat his role and Nelson Eddy wasn’t available, so instead they came up with this MAWB (may as well be) sequel. It reprises many of the same elements as that first film – there’s a mad person played by a distinguished horror actor (Boris Karloff), Susannah Foster singing opera, technicolour, gorgeous sets (including the opera house), a handsome leading man (Turhan Bey), an impressive support cast (including Gale Sondegaard); the plot involves a man being obsessed with Foster, who also has to battle a jealous primma donna.

But it doesn’t have the name recognition of the Phantom or the crashing chandelier – or the underlying feature of love. So the story is weak at the core. The Phantom wanted to do the best for Foster, to support her career; that’s what made him kill. But Karloff’s hypnotist wants to stop Foster singing. (Another influence on this is Trilby, which actually would have been ideal material for a Phantom follow up but presumably they couldn’t get the rights. It’s a shame because I think that would have solved the problem - Svengali wanted Trilby to sing.)

There are other story problems too – Karloff doesn’t really do anything villainous apart from kill the singer at the beginning, and try to stop Foster singing. He should have done a few nastier things. You keep waiting for him to kill someone, especially the nasty primma donna but no – she lives; everyone lives - he doesn’t even kill Sondegaard. To top things off, his death scene is unmemorable – a fire at his house (which doesn’t wreck the big performance).

Bey is a little irritating. During the first opera show, they keep cutting back to him chewing on his program – it’s like he or the director or whoever went “what a great bit of actor’s business” and kept putting it in the film. There are too many close ups of him looking mooningly at Foster, and he’s too much like a stage door Johnny, running around after this girl (he’s meant to be a great composer but we don’t see that much of it – and the way he carries on when Foster can’t sing it’s like “What’s your problem, Bey? Afraid your meal ticket won’t come through?”)

Gale Sondegaard is wasted – it would have been better had she been in cahoots with Karloff. Foster is likeable and very pretty, with that great voice – it’s a shame her subsequent life had so much tragedy (although she lived to a great age.) The sets are tremendous - Deanna Durbin must have seen all the money and colour that this got and wondered why she was never treated this way at Universal.

This film goes to show you can still have all the elements, but if you don’t put them in the right order it’s not going to work.

Book review – “Chips Rafferty” by Bob Larkin

Rafferty had one of those upbringings that Australians don’t seem to have any more – nomadic, moving from place to place as a child, then spending his early adult hood doing various jobs around the countryside. Even if he did hype his adventures a little (and who wouldn’t), it’s still fairly gypsy-ish. He eventually wound up in Sydney, where he worked as a cellarman; he lived in a boat in Sydney harbour for a number of years, how cool is that? Different times. Then he got into acting. 

Ken G Hall convinces Larkin that he should get credit for discovering Rafferty rather than Chauvel – indeed, Hall used Rafferty in two films before Chauvel. But they were only bit parts whereas Chauvel gave Rafferty a decent role which established his persona; indeed he even knocked back an established name – Pat Hanna, who was originally cast – to use him. (One can’t imagine the more conservative Hall – who liked to used stars already established on stage, eg Bailey, Wallace – doing such a thing. I think Hall was a little annoyed that Chauvel had the reputation as the star maker. Both did alright; in the final tally I think you’d give Chauvel credit for Errol Flynn, Mary Maguire, Rafferty, Michael Pate and Tudawali; you’d give Hall Grant Taylor, Ron Randell, Shirley Ann Richards.)  

Forty Thousand Horsemen established Rafferty as an actor, then The Overlanders turned him into an international star. He followed this up with the popular Bush Christmas, but found things harder when he left his persona in Eureka Stockade; he was better cast in Bitter Springs but the film did not find favour. Like many an Australian star, he went into independent production, forming Southern International and making a series of films with Lee Robinson. These were based on two twin factors, Rafferty’s appeal and exotic locations, and when they departed from that (Dust in the Sun, The Stowaway, The Restless and the Damned) they found themselves in a great deal of financial trouble.Luckily for Rafferty, he was cast in a small role in Mutiny on the Bounty – filming for this dragged on over a year, by which time he’d paid off his debts and earned enough to buy a block of flats. (Every actor should have one windfall like that in their life.) 

Larkin doesn’t shy away from the less pleasant side of Rafferty’s character, or at least criticisms of him that have been made of him by others (although he is often vague as to who these critics are) – like many Aussies at the time he drank a bit too much; he seems to have made a bit of a goose of himself on his first trip to England (where he made The Loves of Joanna Gooden); his financial naivety helped cause the trouble at Southern International; he was a limited actor, particularly in romantic scenes (ironically his marriage to Quentin – who predeceased him owing to a heavy smoking habit – was one of the great showbiz romances). But the final ledger is overwhelmingly positive. 

Larkin gets upset with the disdain Rafferty has been treated with over the years. I’m not aware of any such disdain although the book came out in the 80s maybe it was different then. I do recall a lot of articles about our industry in the 50s and 60s written by people who would complain “our only film star was Chips Rafferty” (who would they have preferred?) Nowadays I think it’s calmed down a little and people can appreciate Rafferty for his achievements, which were notable. The last years of his life were melancholy – he had money, but his wife had died; he kept busy, but in undistinguished projects (with one large exception – Wake in Fright); he had no children. But he had mates, money and growing respect - he was a good bloke. This is an excellent tribute to a true Aussie legend - well-researched, passionate, not one-eyed. I wish there was something half as good for Raymond Longford, Chauvel, Hall, Lottie Lyell, etc.

Radio review – Lux – “Green Light” (1937) **1/2

This adapts to radio than many other Errol Flynn films because it was a soapy, and they cross over better than swashbucklers and Westerns. It’s still a fairly soggy drama, but it seems more at home here on the screen. It also reteams Errol Flynn and Olive de Havilland, who plays the adoring nurse (which she didn't in the film). 

Again, you wonder why Errol doesn’t go off with the nurse instead of the daughter of the woman he has killed (who isn’t given any lines here). Errol has an unfortunate scene where he talks to a dog. At the end he chats to Cecil B de Mille about how he’s just bought the Sirocco (well, Sirocco II) and his plans to go boating in the Caribbean after he finishes his next movie (Four’s a Crowd).

Book review – “In Search of the Third Man” by Charles Drazin

Everything you wanted to know about The Third Man but were afraid to ask. It was a film that seemed relatively easy to finance, especially compared with today – Korda was keen to use up frozen funds in Europe, hired some talented people and got cracking. Of course, after that it proved tricky, despite the excellence of Greene’s script – Cary Grant turned down the lead, ditto Ralph Richardson for the support; various people including Noel Coward were considered for Harry Lime before Reed persuaded Selznick to cast Orson Welles. (NB Joseph Cotten was a second-tier star but casting him gave not only greater depth to the scenes with Welles, a real-life friend, it made it more believable that Alida Valli walked away from him at the end – Cary Grant, you wouldn’t have believed it.)

Drazin’s scholarship is admirable. He debunks some myths, including Selznick’s supposed non-involvement (even though the American was in decline he still made good suggestions which were taken up). There’s also some fascinating stuff about Greene’s relationship with the spy Philby, and an utterly inspirational story about how Reed decided to use zither music (it was his notion, a brave one and it worked brilliantly, creating film history and changing the life of the person who composed it).

Orson Welles fans will be delighted to read that he takes over the book when he appears rather like Lime does in the film – Korda literally had to hunt him down in Europe to get him to sign the contract, he was a primma donna on set, he had the chance of a percentage of the profits but turned it down because he needed cash, etc. But he did have a later financial windfall from the film – Harry Lime became the hero of a popular radio series.

One gripe – the structure Drazin uses is a little odd. He plunges straight into the story, and doesn’t get around to giving biographies of the lead characters (Greene, Korda, Reed, etc) until towards the end. This took a little getting used to.

Radio review – Lux – “The 39 Steps” (1937) **

Robert Montgomery and Ida Lupino are poorly cast and too American for this adaptation of the Hitchcock version of Buchan’s novel (cf Orson Welles’ version which was more faithful to Buchan). They do remove some classic bits – the encounter with the milk man, the made up political speech – and you get the feeling the piece is only comfortable with Montgomery and Lupino bantering. If you like them you’ll enjoy this, otherwise give it a miss.

Radio review – Lux - “The Plainsman” (1937) **

Gary Cooper fell ill and was unable to reprise his screen role in this broadcast – so Frederick March (who always struck me as the sort of film star you cast when you can’t get the actor you want) stepped in. March makes the unwise decision to imitate Cooper. I’ve never been a big fan of Cooper – so many people claim he was a great screen actor but I still can’t see it; he always seems to play a sook. But he’s better than March playing Cooper.

Fortunately Jean Arthur returns as Calamity Jane – she’s really cute, even on radio, full of pining love and indignation, a great mythical Jane. Joan Fontaine pops up as Mrs Buffalo Bill. There is some action which doesn’t translate that well (although one scene does – Hickock and Jane being captured by the Indians); but the relationship between Hickok and Jane puts this over the line.

Movie review – “He Walked By Night” (1948) ***

Eagle Lion struggled with it’s lack of name stars and material but it struck gold with T-Men, a medium budget combination of documentary realism and film noir expressionism, so they commissioned a series of follow up films. Like T Men, this was shot by John Alton and directed by Anthony Mann (mostly, that is – Mann is actually uncredited.)

This one falls into the sub-genre known as “police procedural”, with a great emphasis on realism. The intro claims it’s a true story, with names changed to protect the innocent (adding to the Dragnet connection, Jack Webb’s in the support cast). There is a narrator who talks about the reality of it all, the police are professionals with little private life, there’s a lot of emphasis on “hey look at this neat technological development in catching crooks” (here it’s creating an identikit of the killer – in White Heat I remember it was tracking a car).

Richard Baseheart is good as the brilliant crook, based on a real person – he used to work for the police so knows their procedure; listens to police on the radio; can fix himself up after being shot; is a skilled electronics expert. These sort of showy parts normally launch stars – remember Dick Widmark in Kiss of Death? Basehart never became one – maybe because of subsequent poor choice of material, maybe because he doesn’t have much dialogue and doesn’t really get to interact with anyone. Bland Scott Brady is technically the hero.

Lovely photography and many memorable shots of late night LA – deserted lonely streets, back alleys, the final shoot out in the sewers (reminiscent of The Third Man).