Movie review - "The Sea Shall Not Have Them" (1954) **

A film best remembered today for Noel Coward's famous one liner about seeing a poster advertising Michael Redgrave and Dirk Bogarde in the film - "I don't see why not, everyone else has." The title is silly (how often do yo used the word "shall" used in a title?), but at least it's got a fresh angle, focusing on a sea rescue service.

The plot involves four Britons who crash in the ocean - Redgrave, Bogarde, resident American Bonar Colleano (called "Canada" just so we know where he's from), and Jack Watling - and wait to be rescued by a ship led by Anthony Steel and Nigel Patrick. When you realise that this film doesn't star John Mills, John Gregson, Jack Hawkins, Richard Todd, Kenneth More or Alec Guiness, you realise just how many stars in uniform were working on the sound stages of British cinema in the 1950s.

There's not a lot of plot twists, it's just the rescue is a bit more difficult than they first think: it rains, a rescue ship breaks down, there's a fire on board, the survivors run out of food, it's cold. The result is that the story feels as though it drags on. Basically it's four people in a raft, and others come to pick them up. Redgrave has to deliver some top secret documents, Bogarde gives a long monologue in a lower class accent (this was the year of Doctor in the House, he wasn't a big star yet), some women fret, the rescuers squabble, there's no one real hero... that's about it. 

The highlight is probably the incorporation of documentary footage and occasionally the action seems realistic - conking heads on ceilings, shivering, knocking things over, etc.

Movie review - "Dunkirk" (1958) *** (warning: spoilers)

Ealing's last significant work, featuring some big (British) names and budget, along with a "marquee" subject matter - to wit, the evacuation of Dunkirk by the British in 1940, a defeat so famous that it's surprising in a way it took until 1958 to earn a film (although it does feature in Mrs Miniver). The two leads are definitive England's favourite "Mr Ordinary" actors, John Mills and Richard Attenborough - the former a soldier whose section gets cut off from the main body of troops in France (the budget wasn't that big) the latter a foot-dragging civilian who reluctantly lends his boat to the cause. The third biggest part (it's actually equal first biggest) goes to Bernard Miles as an annoying journo - it's actually the worst role because Miles just spends the whole time whining about how ill-prepared the British are, and how cowardly Attenborough is. I didn't shed too many tears for his (admittedly unexpected) death on the beach.

A lot of this is very effective: the opening use of newsreels, a stirring moment where Miles and the civilians offer their boats to the cause (I choked up a bit at this), the mostly no-nonsense attitude of the British soldiers (there's some whining and cowardice), spectacular shots of extras climbing into boats and scrambling for safety on the beaches, Mills' craggy face. The Germans are mostly seen in long shot or heard via explosions; the French barely feature at all. Women don't come off too well - Miles has a silent, noble wife whereas Attenborough has a nagging one (a feature of 50s British cinema). It also could have done with more vigorous handling - Leslie Norman wasn't the best director in the world and it's a shame someone like Lewis Gilbert couldn't have handled the action. Oh, and it's over long (almost two hours and ten minutes). Still, a worthy depiction of a famous story.

Movie review - "A Tale of Two Cities" (1958) ***1/2

Proof that Ralph Thomas could make a really good movie when he pulled his finger out - he was helped by a decent budget and strong script from TEB Clarke, and of course Dickens' source material. Dirk Bogarde is excellent as the doomed Sidney Carton, all self-loathing charm and dashing looks as he goes to the guillotine. Dorothy Tutin and Paul Guers aren't that crash hot as the married couple for whom he makes the sacrifice - not really worth the effort (he especially is a charmless prat and he looks nothing like Bogarde).

But there's a superb supporting cast including Cecil Parker, Athene Seyler (Mrs Pross), Donald Pleasance, Christopher Lee (loathsome aristocrat), Rosalie Crutchley (Madame de Farge), the guy who plays the guard, Marie Versini (the seamstress, whose instant relationship with Carton was one of the things I always liked about the book - her part feels bigger here). These are all extremely good.

Because the ending is so strong I always forget how much other plot there is in this before Carton makes his sacrifice. It spanks along, with no punches pulled about the horridness of the French nobility, toughness of British "justice" or ferocity about the revolution. Bogarde and others wished it had been shot in colour - I quite liked the black and white photography but colour may have helped it escape the shadow of the 1935 version.

Movie review - "Simba" (1955) **1/2 (warning spoilers)

This has one of the most striking openings of 1950s British cinema - a Kenyan is bicycling through the country on a sunny day, singing, when he comes across a bloodied white man. The Kenyan pulls out his hatchet and finishes the guy off. Dirk Bogarde arrives in town to meet his brother, who has been killed. He then sticks around to find to who's responsible, like a hero in a Western - which is what these British neo-Imperial adventures were often like: The Overlanders, Campbell's Kingdom.

It's a politically fascinating piece, with its racist white settlers, liberals, Uncle Tom doctors, savage Africans. There's also similarities between the novel and film Something of Value which makes me wonder if the makers of that didn't watch this - to wit, we get to know an established White Kenyan couple, he's racist unrepentantly and his wife isn't but he loves her, and the Mau Mau cut them up but she just manages to live. There's also a romance between a lead couple, one of whom returns home after being away for a while, which is a vague triangle with a black African. And a final image where a nice African dies... but we cut to the face of a young boy. (As in, "it's too hard to work things out with the blacks now - but hey maybe we can do it with the next generation.") On the flip side of this there's a district officer character, played by Donald Sinden, who is reminiscent of the Anthony Steel part in The Planter's Wife  - nothing is original.

Bogarde's performance is a great weakness - he simply doesn't look at home in Kenya, or this type of movie, to be honest, and one wishes the original choice Jack Hawkins could have done it. Or even - don't laugh - Anthony Steel, who was a more believable physical type. (Bill Travers is another actor from this time who could've done it. Or Kenneth More.) Bogarde's miscasting is a big problem because one of the central dramatic conceits of the movie is Bogarde's character moving from hating Africans to accepting them and being positive for the future - Bogarde is not convincing doing  any of this. Another debit is the awkward cutting between location footage and studio, which is jarring and keeps pulling you out of the reality of the movie.

On the sunny side Virginia McKenna is convincing as a white Kenyan (this is relative - she at least looks like she lives outdoors, which is more than you can say for most British female stars of the time), Donald Sinden is fine, Earl Cameron grabs all his chances in what is a flawed part, a self-loathing black doctor who keeps talking down about his race, but is still a character of some complexity, more than most black actors got the chance to play at the time.

The photography and colour are impressive, the director handles the action sequences with flair (it's an exciting movie), the script is only really concerned with white people as opposed to blacks, it doesn't really offer any solutions more than "be nice to each other", the racist whites are humanised in a way the racist blacks aren't... anyway, academics could have a field day with it.

Movie review - "They Who Dare" (1954) ***

Britain made so many war films in the 1950s that at times it's difficult to tell them apart but this one had several advantages: a really good director in Lewis Milestone, colour photography, Greek setting, and location filming on Cyprus. The story is simple, but effective: Dirk Bogarde leads a group of eight men to blow up two airfields on the island of Rhodes. There's a little bit of squabbling amongst the group (who include some comic relief working class types and exiled Greeks).

Dirk Bogarde wasn't always believable as a man of action but he does good work here - it helps that he's young and enthusiastic. The actual landing on the island and blowing up of the airfields is relatively easy but it's in the race to safety things get tricky and the film gets better and better. It's a shooting gallery plot with the Germans picking off our heroes on by one and you're not sure who is going to make it apart from Bogarde. Based on a true story, apparently. Denholm Elliot is one of the men on the mission.  I really liked the final image of the survivors sitting down surrounded by empty plates for their comrades.

Movie review - "The Little Hut" (1957) *1/2

This has a reputation of being a flop, but it actually turned a tidy profit - due, one supposes, to the drawing power of its three stars and the fact its play source was so successful. 

It's heavy going, though - 1957 was too early to properly adapt the story, and so the censor's influence is all too felt. David Niven and Ava Gardner haven't been having an affair - Niven's just wanted to, but hasn't acted on it, despite the fact best mate Stewart Granger doesn't seem that interested in Gardner. Gardner enjoys having men chase after her but things with Niven don't progress beyond kissing.

Niven and Gardner were famous for their sexual exploits in real life, which adds a bit of tang to the story. Gardner's hard living was beginning to catch up with her (her figure was starting to fill out), but she's very sexy with that husky voice, and she takes to island life with disarming ease - putting a flower in the hair, wearing a swimsuit most of the time, enjoying the men chasing after her. Her eyes light up at male attention, helping give this some badly needed sexual undertones.

Granger and Niven are professional but the material defeats them. It's so light and weak - there's this extended sequence where they do a mock divorce being particularly painful. 

No one acts like a recognisable human being: not Niven with his love from afar, Granger with his reactions to Gardner's flirting, the fact the whole affair is "pretend", the trio on the island. The studio setting gets annoying after a while (surely they could have at least stumped up for some second unit)

Walter Chiari pops up as the fourth member of the cast - she and Gardner had an affair in real life.

 This shouldn't have been made until a few years later when the censors would have allowed a bit more freedom. Or until they could have gotten a better adaptation.

Play review - "The Gingerbread Lady" Ensemble Theatre Sydney April 2012

Neil Simon talked at length about the writing of this play in his memoirs, as it was such a departure for him - yes there were the one liners and a New York setting and it was based on people he knew, but it was darker and the characters even more flawed. I never saw the original, and haven't caught the film version, but I am familiar with the two lead actors in the original production - Maureen Stapleton and James Coco. Watching this production (I'd read it twice before) I could imagine both those actors in the parts and they seemed more suited than Kate Raison and Tamblyn Lord. Both are good actors, but they seem too thin and sensible than Stapleton and Coco, both of whom had a more self-destructive quality. And I never believed Danielle Carter was so stunningly pretty in her youth she'd want to hang on to it. Like a number of Simon comedies, there's a wisecracking, wise-beyond-her-years teenage daughter - a nothing much role which is hard to get much out of, and not much is got out of it here.

The Ensemble is a lovely theatre - every seat is a good one. A little old lady dropped her crutches twice but no one died.

Stage review - "Jay and Silent Bob Get Old" Enmore Theatre Sydney 20 April 2012

Kevin Smith may not be a great director but he is great Q and A talent, among the greatest ever. He's parlayed his film career into one as a performing artist - how many other directors can claim that? Maybe Hitchcock, who was similarly chubby. He's been smart enough to share the burden, doing partnerships, with Ralph Garman, Scott Mosier and Jason Mewes.

I admit to wishing it was Ralph Garman rather than Mewes before going to this, but Mewes is good talent - he tells a very funny stories about having sex and is also gifted physically, which is important since Smith sat down most of the time, sweating considerably. The show went for around two hours - I've heard they can go on but their wives were with them so they probably wanted to rest for sight seeing. Nonetheless it was good value - props to Smith for making some local jokes, drawing parallels between Australia's convict history and Escape from New York, talking about Bananas in Pyjamas and The Wiggles (who used the stage earlier that day). The depiction of sexual acts created by Mewes was very funny. Things started to drift a bit for me around the middle but it didn't last long.

The audience were very good value, except for the boofheads who would yell out things like "talk about movies". There was a guy who tried to pretend he was someone else whose name was called out to come up on stage - even though the other guy was up there; a chubby guy who kept talking about how he couldn't get a date; the recovering alcoholic who said he was inspired by Jason Mewes' struggle in between telling hecklers to f*ck off - actually all the people who came up would do this. Fan boys are aggressive.

The crowd was a mixture of fat Smith look alikes (men and women - there were a lot of fat people), tough looking guys with tats, tough looking chicks with tatts, skanky looking women, lots of guys in shorts. I was one of the few people to wear a collar and the colour white.

Book review - "Hammer Fantasy and Sci Fi" by Bruce Hallenbeck

There was more to Hammer than horror and this is a long-over due book, focusing on their fantasy and sci-fi films (the completist in me wishes that someone would do a similar one for their psycho thrillers, swashbucklers, war tales and crime dramas... not really their comedies, though). The introductory summaries of science fiction and fantasy feels perfunctory but the book gets better once it start talking about Hammer's films.

In hindsight, Hammer's record with sci fi and fantasy is very impressive - the Quatermass movies that put them on the map, X the Unknown (which really started Jimmy Sangster's writing career), The Abominable Snowman, One Million Years BC (which produced the most famous Hammer image), She, The Damned... these movies rank with the best the studio ever came up with. However when they went wrong they really went wrong - Creatures that Time Forgot and Moon Zero Two helped wreck the company and rank with the worst movies Hammer ever made.

This is an enthusiastic book which perhaps over relies a little too much on secondary sources and could have had more detail but has plenty of pictures and is full of interesting stories, like the troubles making When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth and The Lost Continent (major head ache epics). Michael Carreras was more of a creative figure for these films - not always to their benefit. I enjoyed the critical round ups of the movies, particularly the appreciation of The Damned.

Movie review - "The Scarlet Blade" (1965) **1/2 (warning: spoilers)

The English civil war hasn't been that terribly popular with movie makers, even swashbucklers - probably because while the Roundheads stood for things like parliamentary supremacy and democracy, the Cavaliers really were supporting a dictator - but they were the ones with the glamour (and better uniforms). So the heroes of this are Royalists trying to save King Charles I. We know they're not going to succeed, so then it becomes about whether our heroes are going to escape.

This film does try something new for swashbucklers - many of the characters are conflicted. It's mostly set at an old English house (a good idea - helps hide the low budget) with Lionel Jeffries in fine form as a roundhead keen to kick some royalist but - but his daughter June Thorburn is a royalist and his lieutenant Oliver Reed (excellent) is in love with Thorburn and so ends up betraying his cause. 

These characters are a lot more complex than the lead - Jack Hedley who is the Scarlet Blade, a royalist do-gooder who was reported as killed in a battle and goes around the countryside using his non de plume. This sounds Zorro ish but the point of Zorro was he got to pretend to be a toff, which this doesn't do. It's a rather thankless role for Hedley, who isn't very charismatic (most romantic male leads for Hammer weren't), but the other male leads make up for it.

There's not enough action, but at least it's different: the big battle at the end is kind of pointless, Jeffries lets his daughter and her lover go free at the end, Jeffries shoots Reed. Not a success but a bit more different than say A Challenge for Robin Hood.

Movie review - "A Challenge for Robin Hood" (1967) **

Hammer films reboot the Robin Hood story but the final result is a long way from Batman Begins. A cast of no-names (seriously, even Michael Ripper isn't in this) - the crew aren't familiar either. Barrie Ingham is one in a series of uninspiring middle aged stars for Hammer around this time (well, he was 35) - Edward Judd being another one. In this version Robin is a Norman who is distrusted by the Saxons even though he does things like stopping a little boy be skewered with an arrow. However, they start to come around after he becomes an outlaw due to his nasty brother wanting him out of the will. They go to live in Sherwood forest, he decides on the name Robin Hood, makes easy friends with Friar Tuck but it takes longer for Little John (Leon Free) to come around.

There's a brunette Maid Marian, a sing-a-long around the campsite from the merrie men, Australia's own Reg Lye as Much. Robin is given command of the gang very easily, Robin rescues Will Scarlet rather than Maid Marian (this film is big on bromance), the finale is reminiscent of The Prisoner of Zenda with Robin storming a castle via swimming through the swamp, Alan a Dale has a bigger part than usual, the villain is smart.

It's a bit bland a lot of the time and the low budget hurts - you really want teams of extras in a Robin Hood movie. It also lacks star power and zing. It does have a nice shade of dark green.

Script review - "Point Blank" by Alex Jacobs

I was curious to read this because Walter Hill said it made him look at writing scripts in a completely new way. It's tough and terse and short like the best Hill scripts with minimal description, character through action and sudden bursts of violence. It's confusing to read at times, like the film was confusing at times - all those jump cuts and time leaps - and the female characters aren't exactly deep (the wife and her sister are basically whores with the sister just a nicer one)... but then the male characters aren't exactly deep (tough and treacherous, tough and honourable). There is some 60s stuff with the mafia bad guys talking about being more corporate and into profit but they are still into the same honour killings. There is the occasional clunky line of dialogue.

Script review - "Bonnie and Clyde" by Robert Benton and David Newman

A lot of the credit went to Arthur Penn, Warren Beatty and even Robert Towne but the magic is all in the original script - Bonnie and Clyde as glamorous young things, she's nude when we first meet her, he's trying to rob a car; full of violence, Texas atmosphere, humour and pace. All the jazzy camera angles are on the page. There are some differences (e.g. the ending in the script we don't see them die) but not that many. I'd heard CW Moss was more of a sexual threat but he's clearly not here. Bright lines, full of the authenticity of a Texan native - it's more Bonnie's story than anyone else. It does go easy on them - they are killed once Clyde learns how to get it up.

Movie review - "Darling" (1965) **1/2

This swinging 60s classic impressed a lot at the time, winning several Oscars and confirming Julie Christie as a star, but it didn't do much for me. There's plenty of jump cuts, zooms, non-synchronous sound, first person voice over, tricky visuals, man-in-the-street interviews, pastiche commercials and TV shows, and elegant unhappiness - maybe it's been copied too much but I just couldn't care. For all its hipness and it's heart this is an old fashioned star vehicle for Christie - who it must be said is particularly beautiful and beguiling, frequently wearing low cut gowns and lingere, showing her bare back (and backside, in one scene - this was a shock).

She plays a young model who has a series of adventures: shacking up with married TV presenter Dirk Bogarde, a fumbling acting career, an abortion, a fling with lecherous Larry Harvey (who, if I'm not mistaken, goes down on her in one scene), trips to Paris and Italy, an affair with a count, has a gay best friend (a photographer), marries an Italian because no one loves her then gets upset when he's too busy.

It's all very decadent: rich women with jewels gamble at fundraising for starving Africans; a party in Italy results in guests swapping clothes/taking them off and passing in the corner; advertising men chuckle over photographs; commercial shoots in Italy; the rich and beautiful hang out on yachts along the Mediterranean coast; lying on the beach in a bikini surrounded by cute boys in shorts, changing for tan according to the sun; disrobing while crying in an empty Italian mansion. But are they really happy? For most of the time they seem to be.

Bogarde was never that convincing as a straight man and looks bored here - you never get the sense he really likes Christie so when their relationship busts up he doesn't seem to care. Harvey is better as the ruthless opportunist, presumably because it was closer to his real character.

The whole point is Christie is shallow and her world and friends so ultimately the piece isn't involving. It also lacks a strong narrative, and isn't in colour. The Yanks liked it though - all that sex.

Movie review - "HMS Defiant" (1962) **1/2

The year before The Servant sees Dirk Bogarde tormenting another weak man who is ostensibly his superior - Alec Guiness. It's set on a ship in 1797 during the Napoleonic Wars, with Guiness as a captain and Bogarde his officer. Bogarde is sadistic and cruel but also well connected so has a history of tormenting his captains. Guiness doesn't know how to deal with him for the most part, especially when Bogarde starts picking on his weakling midshipman son. Meanwhile downstairs the troops want to mutiny. (This is based on a true story - the Spithead mutinies, which are referenced).

The first problem with this film is it tells two stories - Bogarde undermining Guinness, and the mutiny. It tries to have it both ways, with the troops being inspired to go for the kill when Bogarde takes over after Guiness is injured... but then they were plotting mutiny before... only it wasn't a real mutiny because they just want justice...

The second problem is it pulls its punches. Bogarde orders some people flogged and is mean but his evilness is more sadism. Guiness never really seeks revenge he gets frustrated. The mutineers just want a better deal, only one wants violent payback, and he's the real baddie. It's like cosy British post war industrial relations before the cut-throat antics of the 70s and 80s with the sailors (decent folk as exemplified by Anthony Quayle) going on strike rather than genuinely mutinying. Like so many class conscious films, it's prejudiced - Bogarde is allowed to die because he's bad, but Guiness and his idiot son are allowed to live, and Quayle and the extremist mutineer die.

There's some gorgeous colour photography, an accurate seeming depiction of life on a boat during this time, a bit of action, a decent enough story despite the above problems. Bogarde sweeps the floor with Guiness, whose Obi Wan Kenobi voice is really distracting here and who seems more like a benign hippy that a sea captain. (While I'm at it, it's hard to have too much sympathy for a man who press gangs his sailors.)

Movie review - "Victim" (1961) **** (warning: spoilers)

Remarkable movie which has aged better than you might think. As one of the first films to tackle homosexuality head on it's received a lot of nit picking over the years (such is the lot of pioneering movies - people get sick of them). The two main strikes against it seem to have been (a) it's done in a polite, formal style of say Terence Rattigan and (b) the majority of gay characters are weak and cowardly.

Well to tackle the first issue - not it's not the British new wave and Basil Dearden wasn't a great stylist but a polite, formal style at least means the story is well structured and the acting strong - and it also suits the world of the film, a polite, formal British society with this undercurrent.  As for the second, that definitely does have validity - but it's required dramatically to increase Dirk Bogarde's heroism, and his character is gay.

Bogarde may not have come out of the closet in real life but few actors did it more on screen (at least in a non camp way) - whether overtly as here and Death in Venice or more obliquely as in The Servant and Cast a Dark Shadow. It's a superb performance - a risk that paid off in spades for him as the terribly nice, handsome barrister who basically gives up everything (his marriage, career) to avenge the suicide of a man who was obsessed with him. I can't believe they originally wanted Jack Hawkins - although mind you that could have been effective. I just can't imagine a young boy wanting to kill himself over Hawkins - Bogarde just gets away with it. (James Mason, the second choice, also would have been interesting). The famous scene where Bogarde confesses his desire for the young man remains powerful; maybe it's a cop out he didn't act on his urges, but it's totally consistent with the character and the times, and that scene is in there.

Other actors are also good - I liked Dennis Price as the Noel Coward type. Sylvia Syms is the wife.

 

The script occasionally falls into characters spouting slabs of "this is one point of view of people in society" and "this is another one" that you saw sometimes on Law and Order. Also the blackmailer character, with his dark sunglasses and jazz music accompaniment sometimes seemed over the topic. But the film gets props for finishing with the blackmailers unrepentant - one cocky, the other (nasty female) motivated by homophobia. I was genuinely surprised that two comic pub characters were revealed to be blackmailers - all social issue aside, this film works purely as a whodunnit and look at blackmail.

A very, very fine film and Bogarde was gutsy as hell to do it.

Movie review - "Night of the Demon" (1957) ***1/2

A conscious throwback to the cinema of Val Lewtown from Jacques Tourneaur, working off an excellent, literate script (co-credited to Hitchcock's old crony, Charles Bennett). The ever-reliable Dana Andrews is one of the many second-tier Hollywood stars who headed to England in the 50s to make genre movies, but was accidentally rewarded with a cult hit. He's a skeptical professor who is going to speak at a conference, and winds up investigating the death of a colleague.

The macguffin here is passing a parchment which kills those who hold it -I wonder if the makers of The Ring were inspired by this at all? There's some interesting discussions of the role of demons and folk stories, plus scenes involving a seance, old hieroglyphics, stone hedge. The most effective moments are the seemingly normal ones a little inverted: Niall McGinnis (superb as the villain) in a clown outfit playing with children, the impending storm, walks through the woods at night, a visit to a catatonic man's religious family. There are some good old fashioned shocks too like the catatonic man leaping to life.

Andrews is mostly study (a believable professor) although in one or two scenes he seems drunk (I may be projecting here - but look at the seduction scene with Peggy Cummins). Cummins is fine as "the girl". The monster looks a little silly but there's not much of it.

Movie review - "Cast a Dark Shadow" (1955) *** (warning: spoilers)

Dirk Bogarde didn't get serious critical acclaim until the early 60s but he's superb here as a lower middle class man married to a rich elder woman who he murders for money, then sets about wedding another type (Margaret Lockwood). Lockwood is nearly unrecognisable - the 40s glamorous favourite totally immerses herself as a lower class sort of cockney, and while I missed the old good looks she's very convincing.

Bogarde is in his element - sneering, arrogant, capable of charm, possibly gay (is that a muscle magazine he's reading in the resort?), clever, a very self-aware psychotic. It's terrific work, very much in the vein of his seducers in The Sleeping Tiger and The Servant.

The piece is very snobby in a way - all the working class characters are fairly stupid (the maid, Kathleen Harrison, is a moron, Lockwood is hoodwinked; the heroes are a middle class detective and lady Kay Walsh). Lewis Gilbert directs with verve, with memorable moments like the opening fun ride. The final crash where Bogarde dies is a bit ridiculous and feels tacked on.

Movie review - "Footloose" (2012) **1/2

A respectful, intelligent version of the 80s classic, which uses the same structure, much of the dialogue even the choreography and songs. Some of the additions are good - showing the accident that caused the ban at the beginning - ditto some of the deletions (gay jokes). The lead girl is better than Lori Singer the lead boy is no way near as good an actor as Kevin Bacon (he just hasn't got it) but he can dance. Dennis Quaid is a bit more sympathetic. They play some scenes a different way, others the same. There's not really much point to it but it is well done.

Movie review - "Elephant Walk" (1954) **1/2

A film best remembered for triggering Vivien Leigh's nervous breakdown, I actually enjoyed this more than I thought I would. Elizabeth Taylor is probably better cast than Leigh because she's younger so it makes more sense she'd be swept off her feet by Peter Finch and go to Sri Lanka. She soon finds herself bored out of her brain with no white women to talk to, her husband turns into a bit of a tool back at home obsessed by the ghost of his father (to emphasise the Rebecca parallels there's even a servant who loved the father and doesn't rate Taylor), and always keen to get on the grog with his fellow white colonists. She's attracted to a hunky manager Dana Andrews and further stress is provided by elephants who are upset that Finch's house is built slap bang in the middle of their path, and a cholera outbreak.

This is no ad for colonialism - although the head servant tsk tsks his people for not taking their shots, the English are mostly shown to be drunken buffoons insensitive to the locals. Finch even shoots one who has disease. Yet Taylor still goes back to him at the end and he has to keep things under control when there's a cholera outbreak so I suppose that is endorsement of the system. It is occasionally reminiscent of Red Dust and John Lee Mahin was a writer for this too.

Taylor is beautiful and does her best - I quite liked her. Finch is excellent, very believable as a colonial type (arrogant, drunken, harsh, yet capable of kindness and charm); he looks like he's a man of his hands, whereas Dana Andrews doesn't really - but Andrews has a strong masculine presence and he's a good foil to Finch, a genuine threat. You don't know who she's going to wind up with at the end, which gives some sort of tension (although you guess they will make it because they are married).

Movie review - "The War Lord" (1965) ***1/2

Charlton Heston later became mocked for his 11th hour career as a ranting gun-toting right-winger (not inconsistent with his earlier attitudes as displayed in his journals but I get the impression he hyped it up because it gave him a good role and something to do in his sunset years), but he used his stardom in the 50s and 60s as few other actors did, constantly developing interesting projects, taking risks on untried directors, experimenting with roles: he got Orson Welles a gig in Touch of Evil, took a risk on Planet of the Apes, went to the mat for Sam Peckinpah on Major Dundee, found Tom Gries for Will Penny, made two Shakespearean movies, and developed this.

Although he plays a knight and gallops around on horseback this isn't a traditional medieval Chuck Heston role - it's in a grimy, non-glamourised middle ages (France), where power is held by tyrants and life is violent (the Fresians are always about to invade), people are under the sway of religion (the old ones like druidism are dying hard), women are oppressed.

Heston meets cute local girl Rosemary Forsyth swimming nude and although she's engaged to another man he decides to exercise the droit de segnuir - I can't remember too many Hollywood films were the protagonist basically forces upon himself a girl. Of course she develops affection for him, so that makes it all okay.

Forsyth is really pretty and I'm surprised she didn't become a bigger name. (Even if the role isn't much - she's just this passive vessel), There is excellent support from Richard Boone as Heston's man friday and Guy Stockwell as his brother, plus a dwarf who betrays him.

Heston does well enough within his limitations. I want to like Heston in stuff more than I do because it's clear from his journals that he's got a brain, works hard and wants to be a good actor, but the fact is he always comes across really stiff and awkward.

The last half hour or so is almost entirely action which is good - the build up to then is mostly talk. It's shot in that ugly studio set Universal style of the time and doesn't look too authentic but at least feels like a story that actually could have taken place in the middle ages. Part of my just wishes the Poms had made it, that's all.

Movie review - "Frank Hurley: the Man Who Made History" (2004) ***

Frank Hurley deserves a documentary and this hits the all the main things, but it's a shame the narration wasn't a little less annoying. Going tsk tsk to some doctoring of war photos and criticising him for not taking photos of aboriginals or poor people when asked by the government to promote Australia... that's just silly, and sounds like the nitpicking of an academic rather than someone who understands the filmmaking process. Sometimes too it's just wrong - most of Cinesound's films weren't epics but rural comedies. And they often had hungry people - On Our Selection and The Broken Melody.

There are some great talking heads, most notably Hurley's twin daughters who barely knew him and still wear matching loud floral outfits - they're sweethearts. The photographs and photography remain great. Hurley had an interesting life - I didn't know he came back from World War II nearly broke. Indeed, 55 minutes isn't really enough. But be grateful for what we have I suppose.

Movie review - "Thief" (1981) ***1/2

Michael Mann's first feature has many of his trademarks in place - scenes set with waves crashing in the background and in diners at night, wet roads at night reflecting shimmering fluro lights, an ex-con hero who lives by his own existential code, a thumping electronic music score, sense of realism, interesting array of character actors who look as though they've done a lot of living, stylised sex scenes. This was 1981 and the budget probably wasn't huge so some of the stylisation looks a little silly - many of the faces seem to have a hang over from the 70s gritty realism days, and there's lots of bouffy hair and bad fashion.

It's got great scenes like James Caan explaining to Tuesday Weld about his past (a diner scene), Caan talking to Willie Nelson (who's terrific, full of pain and age) through a glass window in prison, Robert Prosky (who goes from being cuddly to terrifying in lightning speed) telling Caan that Caan's child is his and he's leasing it out, Caan defying police who want a bribe, Caan kicking arse and taking names, the lawyer negotiating a bribe with a lawyer.

Mann's handling of action sequences isn't as assured as it would become in later years - when Caan goes on his rampage is perfunctory rather than expiring, and some bits (e.g. Jim Belushi being killed) seem over the top. The robbery sequences aren't that exciting - for all the research it mostly looks like welding. And the fashions and hair were really distracting. But it remains effective drama, and Caan gives one of his best performances.

Movie review - "So Long at the Fair" (1950) ** (warning: spoilers)

Based on the same urban legend that inspired The Lady Vanishes only this case more specifically so: Jean Simmons is very winning as the young thing who goes to the Paris Exhibition of 1882 with her brother (an exceedingly wet David Tomlinson), but after visiting the Moulin Rogue one night her brother goes missing and everyone denies his existence.

It's intriguing but there's really not enough here for a feature film - it would have been better as an episode of an anthology series. The Lady Vanishes improved on this by having the missing person being a spy and therefore important, with people willing to kill them. There were life and death stakes. Here no one wants to kill Simmons they just want her out of town. Also there are silly bits like tracking down a maid who served her brother - only to see her blow up in a balloon accident before she's got the chance to talk to her. And there is a lack of subplots to pad out the running time.

To make matters worse, the filmmakers miss opportunities by underplaying the romance between Simmons and Dirk Bogarde, who is a visiting British painter. Doesn't he have a girlfriend at the beginning (Honor Blackman) who he just kind of drops? There is a thinly-disguised strain of xenophobia through the movie - no foreigners are to be trusted - whereas The Lady Vanishes was more complex because Brits were in on the plot too.

Still there are some pleasures: Simmons is likeable solving the mystery, young Bogarde is a dashing hero, the cast is full of recognisable faces (e.g. Felix Aylmer) and the art direction pleases.

NB Why don't we see Tomlinson's face at the end? Is he full of disease and looking foul?

Movie review - "Attack the Block" (2011) **1/2

A return to the territory of Shaun of the Dead only aliens instead of zombies, and street kids in the project instead of under achieving Gen X slackers. For me it got off to a bad start with our heroes mugging a nice nurse with a knife then killing an animal - I know they come from a broken home and all that but it was very hard to feel sympathy. And confusing too - why keep them so hostile and mean all the way through? I know life is hard - it's not that hard.

I guess at least director Joe Cornish has the guts to stick up for his vision. The slang on display is delightful, the cast of young actors are excellent and authentic, there is a decent amount of action. I just didn't care for them and for me the movie never really recovered from it's opening minutes.

Movie review - "The President's Analyst" (1967) ***

No one quite encapsulates swinging 60s cinema more than James Coburn. His skinny frame, deep voice, and grey hair, coupled with cool assurance and suave cockiness. There are also all the movies he made after he became a star with the Flint pictures: Waterhole #3, Duffy, Dead Heat on a Merry Go Round, Hard Contract. You can hear the twang of guitars and see the groovy chicks just by virtues of the titles.

This is perhaps his best known groovy movie - I've never been able to confirm whether it was a hit or not (some writers say it was, others claim it wasn't), but it is a cult favourite. I'm guessing it wasn't a popular success - it's a bit too clever by half and up itself. It's also pure satire, as opposed to say the Flints which could be enjoyed as straight up spy films as well - although it does have an action finale with Coburn in a villains lair blasting away with a machine gun at henchman.

This has a brilliant idea - Coburn is an analyst who goes to work for the president and soon finds everyone out for him. Curiously, we don't see see many moments with Coburn and the president - act two begins with him going on the lam, which is probably too soon. It's like they skipped over a whole bunch of satirical situations to get him going on the run.

Act two consists of people trying to kidnap Coburn - it's a bit repetitive but I loved the Canadian Secret Service who are undercover as a boy band. That is truly brilliant. He winds up with hippies but gets taken by the KGB, who Coburn manages to talk around.

Everyone is sent up here, it's an equal opportunity movie: the FBI (they have a surrogate here), gun-loving liberals (personified by William Daniel), Canada, Britain (they want to kill Coburn), the KGB, media, hippies (though the movie goes softer on them). I loved how the biggest villain is the phone company who want legislation passed - this struck me as very true.

The female roles aren't much - they are all sex-objects, even Coburn's girlfriend (there's a hippy who wants to bonk him at the drop of hat). There are two juicy support roles, the KGB agent and Godfrey Cambridge's American agent. The script includes several monologues which are clever but at times seem shoe-horned into the script: Cambridge on how he discovered racism, Coburn's declaration of love to his girlfriend, William Daniel on guns.

It's bright, cheeky, anarchic and occasionally brilliant but I admit to not liking it as much as I thought I would. Maybe this is one of those movies better discovered than anticipated.

Movie review - "Panic in Year Zero!" (1962) ***

One of the most fascinating movies that came out of AIP in the early 60s - genuinely thought provoking, especially if you don't assume the movie endorses the actions of it's lead character, Ray Milland.

He's a typical middle class American suburban dad (albeit with his British accent) who goes on a fishing trip with wife and two kids, when they get news that World War Three has started. Milland instantly goes into survival mode - the refuses to return home to LA to pick up his mother in law (for safety reasons he says, although it's possible he had another agenda!), stocks up on supplies, won't tell the guy who runs the corner store that there's a war on, steals some guns at gun point, becomes very closed and doesn't help people. He constantly gets son Frankie Avalon to cover him with a gun as he runs people, ignores his wife's wishes and concerns, and won't let his daughter go out on raids with him and Avalon.

Eventually his daughter is raped by some juvenile delinquents (in many ways this is a JD film more than a post-apocalyptic one, complete with angry middle aged men, black and white photography, jive talking villains and jazzy score) - Milland doesn't seem so much interested in whether she's alright but in getting revenge. He shoots the two rapists, rescues their kidnapped sex slave (this, years before Casualties of War), and deals with the third.

A lot of this is corny and I get the feeling if I saw it in a cinema it would be full of laughter (e.g. Avalon drawing a painting on a wall, Milland's wife reassuring him about killing two men that she tried to kill them too). But it's also fascinating and doesn't whimp out - and within reason it's fairly realistic. A lot of men would react like Milland.

Movie review - "Hannibal" (1959) ** (warning: spoilers)

Hannibal remains probably the most famous general to take on Ancient Rome, even more so that the ones who actually knocked Rome off their perch (e.g. Goths, Vandals). He wasn't necessarily black but it's unlikely he looked too much like Victor Mature, who is the star here. Having said that Mature isn't bad as a hardened, tough general - he looks as though he's seen a lot of fighting and could lead men, and does particularly well in the later stages of the movie when his heart is broken.

History buffs will find some things to enjoy - there's a crossing of the Alps, which lots of soldiers being frostbitten and falling down hillsides to their death, and the Battle of Cannae, and Fabius Maximus. But most of the time is taken up with Hannibal falling for a Roman noblewoman, captured niece of Fabius (who winds up killing herself). The movie is also anti-climactic after the Battle of Cannae - it just has this sort of postscript which says that Hannibal hung around in Italy and fought for a long time (which is true but doesn't make for very good drama).

It's a choppy sort of movie - occasionally there are scenes with lots of extras then ones with hardly any, then stuff on location intercut with shots very obviously on a set. It goes in fits and starts, the acting/dubbing is erratic and often laughable. Interesting enough but could have been much more so.

Movie review - "The Sea Chase" (1955) ***1/2 (warning: spoilers)

If you thought John Wayne was miscast in The Conqueror wait til you see him as a German sea captain in 1939. He's one of those Good Germans - a brave soldier from World War I (because, you know, they believed in freedom so much) who has called afoul of the Nazis so is only captaining a crummy freighter, is best friends with a British naval captain (David Farrar) and breaks up his engagement to a girl with a trashy past (Lana Turner), is admired by his men except the Nazi first mate.

He's in Sydney Harbor (cue some location shots) when the Germans invade Poland. Realising things are going to get hot he slips out and is pursued by Farrar. Matters get especially hot when the Nazi shoots some innocent fishermen on Auckland Island, which makes Wayne and his gang a war criminal.

I ended up enjoying this a lot more than I thought I would. Wayne is never for a second convincing as a German but he's believable as a sea captain of integrity. Lana Turner emotes all over the shop as a Nazi spy but her relationship with Wayne does work (they have sex several times). What gives it real emotional kick is they both die at the end - this cleanses a lot of sins. 

 

It's also an engrossing story with plenty of incident - fleeing Sydney, Auckland Island, running out of fuel, a South Pacific island interlude, going into Valpariso. Occasionally I didn't buy it lie Dave Farrar arranging for a transfer to the North Sea to chase Wayne - I know why they did it that way but I didn't buy it.

This must have been one of John Farrow's most personal projects: starting off in his home town of Sydney, about boats during World War 2, the navy, going across the Pacific and staying on a Pacific Island. Tab Hunter isn't on screen very much as an officer; there are other people with far bigger roles, such as the ancient sailor, the burly sailor who comes to respect Wayne, the Nazi, the shark victim who kills himself, etc.

NB In the 1950s there was a whole sub genre of "sympathetic German" films: The One Who Got Away, The Desert Fox, The Young Lions, The Enemy Below, this. All popular. People didn't mind a sympathetic German hero so long as he was anti-Nazi and died at the end.

Movie review - "The Sleeping Tiger" (1954) ** (warning: spoilers)

The first collaboration of Dirk Bogarde and Joseph Losey has interesting parallels to their later classic The Servant - again he's a mysterious, dangerous man who is invited into a household by a man of a higher social class and wrecks havoc with the man's wife. In this case the household is psychiatrist Alexander Knox and wife Alexis Smith, whose marriage is soon seen to have plenty of flaws. Bogarde and Smith have an affair and Smith goes batty.

This starts very well, with Bogarde in superb touch as a seductive crook and Smith also excellent as the housewife whose passion Bogarde unleashes by smacking around the maid and taking her to wild jazz-playing Soho nightclubs. But then it sort of runs out of ideas - there are too many investigative scenes with cops asking questions that feel repetitive.

Knox is a bit bland (he doesn't even seem to care when he catches his wife and Bogarde in a dodgy embrace); although is smugness is good, he really needs something more for us to get into this character - what sort of man allows himself to be cuckolded, then makes up fake alibis, etc. Bogarde's "I'm like this because they took my fire engine away when I was little" scene is not very convincing.

And it was annoying how at the end Knox and Bogarde gang up on Smith e.g. Bogarde dumping her, Knox pretending to shoot Bogarde (what a mind f*ck), and it's Smith who dies not Bogarde - there was an anti-female slant to Losey's work with would constantly re-emerge. It gets a bit silly and dull.

Movie review - "The Siege of Pinchgut" (1959) ** (warning: spoilers)

How to take a terrific idea and suck all the excitement on it. The concept of this is similar to the later block buster The Rock - a group of escaped criminals take over a fort on Sydney harbour and threaten to blow up a munitions boat. Sounds great, right? But it goes wrong. Why?

Well, it starts pretty good, with an ambulance driving through Sydney, containing the four desperate men (the title of the US release) including Aldo Ray. There's a few narrow escapes, they go through hospital, steal a boat and head into the harbour, break down and stumble upon Fort Pinchgut. There's a caretaker and his family there, and a hostage situation develops.

So far so good, but then when all the filmmakers have to do is follow The Petrified Forest template, the wheels fall off. Aldo Ray tells his men (and the hostages!) that he doesn't want to kill them, or anyone really. And he's only trying to whip up public opinion in his favour to get a retrial (as if anyone would care. We never find out if he's genuinely guilty by the way). So he and his men are no threat - the Italian is a little more ruthless but not much, Ray's brother is a whimp, the British ex-naval gunner is quite amiable.

There is a very unexciting sequence where a group of tourists visit the island, some unengaging squabbles amongst the kidnappers (in front of the hostages) and an undeveloped love plot.

Heather Sears calls out to police, but no one takes action at her - she's not even punched out or threatened with rape. Grant Taylor shoots and wounds Neil McCallum, but he doesn't die and even that doesn't set Aldo Ray off. Half-way through Ray gets the idea to blow up a munitions ship but even that takes a long time - the authorities have plenty of opportunity to evacuate suburbs and take munitions out of the ship. Ray's men are picked off one by one but he doesn't seem to care. It's the most lethargic action film I've ever seen. It only perks up at the end when Ray goes bonkers, the cops storm the island, and Ray is given a White Heat like death on top of a tower.

Ray's performance is okay - he's effective when he goes bonkers, he should have done it from the beginning - but it feels clunky that he and his brothers are Americans living in Sydney. It just doesn't feel right.

Neil McCallum isn't very good, though the others are okay. Alan Tilvern is impressive as a hardened cop (he's got a good Aussie accent) and there some nice Aussie jokes presumably provided by Jon Cleary, who worked on the script (people complaining about the siege interfering with the races, a two up game, people squabbling over the politicians). But it's a real shame and the movie would be good to remake.

Movie review - "Accident" (1967) **1/2

Harold Pinter and Joseph Losey were made for each other - Losey's stylish visuals perfectly combed with Pinter's nuances and pauses, creating memorably creepy entertainment. This isn't as well known as The Servant - and I'm not surprised because after an intriguing start it becomes dull.

The film starts with an accident in which young Michael York is killed and beautiful Jacqueline Sassard lives. Dirk Bogarde rescues her and we flash back to their relationship. Basically Bogarde is York's tutor and he lusts after his girlfriend - who is also chased by Stanley Baker.

There are plenty of creepy bits like the chair at the tennis match which is suddenly empty, and Bogarde stalking in to a room at night. But after a while I did get a bit sick of it. The Servant had a steadily rising narrative line as James Fox sunk further into depravity. This is just bits and pieces - you long for someone to want to kill someone else.

Bogarde is excellent as the mid life crisis Don - all the outward signs of success (nice house, good job, wife and kids) but still pining for a hot bit of French totty, jealous of his student's youth and looks and his friend Baker's fame. Baker is effective as an academic - not an all time great performance (it smacked a little of gimmick e.g. "hey it's Stanley Baker playing an academic how non typecasting is that?") Sassard and Vivienne Mercant have the thankless girl roles - this is really all about the guys.

Movie review - "A Dangerous Method" (2011) ***

Literate, smart and thoughtful entertainment almost entirely derailed by an appalling performance form Keira Knightley, full of ticks and gestures and erratic accent, like some bad acting grad fresh out of QUT who mainly got the role because she was really hot and willing to show a little nipple. David Cronenberg really should have pulled her under control - she's not remotely believable as someone capable of being a doctor herself. She's a film star trying to be an actor, and good for her, but she needed a month's more rehearsal and probably a director who is better with women.

There's excellent work from Michael Fassbender, Viggo Mortensen (once you get used to his false nose) and Vincent Cassell (as a rock and roll lifestyle shrink - give into temptation, take drugs, sleep with your patients). Sarah Gadon is a completely blank canvass as Fassbender's wife. The most interesting character is Freud - smart, arrogant, not wanting to be questioned, more political than he seems.

Lots of ideas fly around, the main one being the difference in approach between Jung and Freud. It's treatment is a little stolid - at times I wished Peter Weir or someone more cinematic directed this, Cronenberg's approach feels stiff, as if he was intimidated by the pre-World War I-ness of it all and the literary quality of Christopher Hampton's script. It's very bright and clean and HD, something which didn't work for me (although I know others liked it). For all it's spanking scenes it is curiously unerotoic.