Script review - "Duck Soup"

The Marx brothers most anarchic, political and beloved-by-hardcore-fans movie. This draft of the script offers some intriguing differences - Rufus Firefly is appointed dictator, there are some key comedy sequences in the second half that were replaced (there is a lot more of the final war, no mirror or trial sequence, instead there are other ones). It's done in terms of sequences, up to K. It's fascinating to see how tightly scripted the action on screen was. The freewheeling, mad cap nature of the movie bounces off the page.

Movie review - Bergman#15 - "Dreams" (1955) **1/2

Lesser known Bergman movie is about a model (Harriet Andersson) and her photographer (Eva Dahlbeck), a former model, and their love lives. They go to a small town and both have sort-of romances with guys - the model with someone new, the photographer with a distractingly bald old flame.

Bergman was fully confident by now - his handling of the material is bold and strong. I wish I enjoyed this movie more. I was thrown by the structure - it concentrates on the young girl then switches and concentrates on the older one. Also the plot seems uninspired - the wife/daughter turn up, people are tempted but don't go through with things, reality isn't as good as memory, middle age men are prats trying to reinvigorate themselves through affairs who shouldn't be relied on, etc.

Most memorable bit was when the elder woman shoves her head out of a train in the rain. Of the two leads I thought Andersson came across better than Dahlbeck because the latter was such a misery guts.

Radio review - BBC radio play - "The Dumb Witness" by Agatha Christie (2006)

Not one of the most famous Poirot stories, for me this took a while to get going but once it did I enjoyed it and couldn't pick the killer. The opening gimmick is Poirot gets a letter requesting help from a lady who soon after dies; there's also a need twist as to the ID of the one who dunnit. The characters are greedy upper middle class types after the will; Poirot is helped by his buddy Major Hastings.

Movie review - "The Wind Cannot Read" (1958) *** (warning: spoilers)

A case of what might have been - David Lean wanted to make a movie out of Richard Mason's novel, intending at one stage to star Kenneth More, but never got around to it and the project wound up being made by the team of Dirk Bogarde and Ralph Thomas. Thomas could be okay as a director, he just wasn't David Lean.

This isn't bad, and benefits from a good performance from Bogarde, who is deal as the soulful British officer who falls in love with a Japanese girl in India in 1943. Bogarde wasn't always convincing as a man in love with women - far too many performances he seems disinterested - but he tries here, and his aloofness works with the cross cultural gap (for lack of a better word).

His female co-star isn't really up to him, but it's not that fatal because she doesn't have much of a character to play - a mysterious Oriental beauty. (It was the 1950s - foreigners could sleep with white stars but they had to be exotic and die at the end.)

There is some lovely location photography in India, we don't get many World War Two stories set in India and Burma which is great, the melodrama isn't bad, Roland Lewis gives one of his best performances as Bogarde's nasty colleague, and it's quite well done. Not a classic but definitely one of Thomas' best movies.

Movie review - "Little Miss Marker" (1934) ***

Shirley Temple's first proper starring feature (she's billed above the title) benefits from a strong story and support cast: she's a little girl whose gambler father uses her as collateral for a bet, then is forced to live with gangsters once he kills himself. That's pretty full on and it gives this a good tough undercurrent which perhaps helped explained why little Shirl was so popular during the Depression.

Adolphe Menjou manages to keep the sentimentality respectable as he goes through the scenes he's expected to perform: teaching Shirley how to play, watching her learn gangster slang, dressing up as knights and wenches to cheer her up. There's not much he can do about the convenient last minute horse accident which requires an operation, but I did like the gangsters kidnapping the doctor from his wedding to operate on her and Charles Bickford's tough gangster melting like all the others.

There's also a sweet romance between Menjou and tough-as-nails-but-with-a-good-heart Dorothy Dell (who died in a car crash not long after this was made) - this is well done. This isn't awesome but is quite well done.

Movie review - Bergman#13 - "Sawdust and Tinsel" (1953) **

Shenanigans at the circus, Bergman style - so there's adultery, unhappy marriages, mistresses, tormented artists and a suicide. There's also a heathy dose of grotesques, which perhaps indicates a Fellini influence. This is visually very trippy with clowns and midgets and elephants walking through a town, an extended silent movie sequence at the beginning, and long bits without dialogue elsewhere.

The plot involves a fat middle aged ringmaster with a girlfriend way too young and hot for him visit his home town and his ex wife. His girlfriend has a fling with an egotistical young actor. Generally the men treat the women badly and it goes haywire with circus performers running through town and over the horizon like at the end of The Seventh Seal.

This is consistently visually interesting and a bit confusing; I liked the girl but really what's she doing with the fat ringmaster? Come on. And the stuff about "I'm a ringmaster and life's a circus" was a bit annoying after a while. Not one of my favourites but it's incredible to see such a visually bold movie from Bergman.

Movie review - "Northwest Frontier" (1959) *** (warning: spoilers)

In the late 1950s the Rank Film organisation made a concerted effort to take on the international market, turning out lots of action/adventure tales, usually in colour with at least one Hollywood name, co-production with a Hollywood studios, in CinemaScope and set in an exotic corner of the Empire. This was probably the best, an elaborate and enjoyable train movie, well directed by J Lee Thompson at his peak.

It stars Kenneth More in cheery action hero mode, very Douglas Bader. He's a British officer asked by a Hindu ruler to escort his young son across country with Muslims in pursuit. Most of the story takes place on and around a train, with a cross section of passengers snapping at each other in between action sequences.

This is at its best when focusing on the action stuff. There's some terrific spectacle (teems of extras rushing in attack, scores of corpses at a railway station), good action (the initial escape, starting the train, crossing a desolate bridge) and impressive production values. The story could have done with a bit more of a death toll though - one or two of the good characters dying would have made it more exciting, if only because we'd be less sure who would survive. (Even the people running the fort who are left behind are allowed to live.)

It's not as good with the talks on the train. The film sort of tries to acknowledge the changes to Britain's position in the world since the war but does it defensively. British policy and hypocrisy is criticised, but by a journalist who turns out to be a murderous fanatic, a gun runner, and a governess who falls for a soldier and comes to realise how awesome the British are, so it's not really a fair fight, and the Brit characters always have the last word. There's a fascinating defensiveness and sookiness about attitudes to British imperialism in this movie: "half the world is only civilised because we made it so", "that's all the thanks we ever get", etc.

Herbert Lom is a surprisingly sympathetic villain - although that old hoard standby, a half-caste (and a Muslim a boot), who tries to kill a child (several times - he keeps whimping out), you do feel for him because he just wants a country where he belongs. Wilfred Hyde White and Ursula Jeans sip tea and act pukka (why not kill off one of them) and I.S. Johar is funny as the train driver.

Lauren Bacall is professional as always but I couldn't help feeling she was miscast - she's too contemporary or something (Bacall isn't in that many period films). Her romance with More never quite works - maybe this is part of the reason why the movie never enjoyed the same success in the US as it did in Britain.

Movie review - "The Man in the Moon" (1960) ** (warning: spoilers)

Basil Dearden wasn't known for his comedies and there's a definite smart arse tone to this satire, which never works, despite solid work from Kenneth More in the lead. He is charming and accomplished as ever but the material defeats him starting with a dim central idea - More is impervious to all illness due to his cheerful nature, so is selected to be the first man on the moon. That's a weak basis for a comedy and the execution doesn't help.

The jokes are lame and a bit smug in that we're-socially-progressive-and-making-a-comedy-aren't-we-funny way so you sometimes get when do-gooders try to lay them in the aisles (eg "are you political?" "I vote conservative" "So that's a no."). More does his best and there's good support from Michael Hordern and Charles Gray (as a rival astronaut).

I took me a while to get used to a blonde Shirley Ann Field as More's stripper girlfriend (who seems to be a stripper mainly to get her into some crazy outfits which I guess is fine) and her acting is a bit erratic, but she's very good looking and sexy. She's not the problem with the film - none of the actors are: it's the script. Actually it's the idea.

NB Australian viewers might get a kick out of the fact that the end of the movie is set at Woomera - when More thinks he lands on the moon at the end it turns out to be the Australian desert (an annoying shaggy dog finish which robs the piece of further excitement but at least gives a laugh to Aussies).

Movie review - Bergman#11 - "Secrets of Women" (1952) ***

Bergman's take on A Letter for Three Wives - four women chat in a summer cottage while waiting for their husbands, each one flashing back to an adventure they'd had in the past. One has an affair, with quite a sexy seduction scene followed by a a boring denouement involving her husband; one flashes back to her pregnancy where she flashed back to getting pregnant (a summer affair in Paris); one remembers being stuck in an elevator with her husband who she normally doesn't spend much time with. A fourth, which is played out and not a flashback, decides to elope.

I really liked this - I didn't expect to, and the stories aren't that amazing but all of them are different. The first one is this sort of erotic melodrama, similar in many ways to later Bergman, full of sex and angst and married people battling on no matter want; the second one has an extended silent sequence and is highly visual (the director flexing his visual muscles and pulling it off, helped off course by his ace cinematographer); the third one is two people stuck in a room learning to reconnect (it reminded me in a way of the Linda Darnell Paul Douglas scene in Wives).

It's not a masterpiece but it's well done with some accomplished acting and is consistently interesting. 

Movie review - Bergman#10 - "Summer Interlude" (1951) ***1/2

This has been described as the film where Bergman really became Bergman. It's a lovely story about a hard arse ballerina who is sent a copy of her old diary - she reads it and recalls when she was young and in love. These flashback scenes are poetic and wonderful - I kept thinking of Galsworthy's Apple Tree and Nick Earls' After January. It's helped by some divine photography and Maj-Britt Nilsson is terrific as the girl.

Bergman fans will get a kick out of some (in hindsight) allusions to other works: characters eating strawberries, playing chess, etc. And when I think about it this covers much of the same ground of To Joy: a young couple in love, one of them a tormented artist (in this case it's ballet) allowing frequent cutting away to performance scenes, we know up front it's going to end badly. But this is much better - the leading couple are nicer, the middle aged man who gets involved is a threat not a kindly old buffer who provides no drama, the handling is far more sure.

The stuff on the island is magical, I found the last third less so - although it does have some great clown make up and more superb Nilsson acting.

Movie review - "Austin Powers: the Spy Who Shagged Me" (1999) ***

A movie that's more fun watching for a second time than the first because its patchiness isn't as distracting, and you can still enjoy the gags on re-viewing. There's also Heather Graham, who in this movie is perhaps one of the hottest female leads in a film of all time - even if her voice and acting isn't up to it.

There's terrific production design, an enjoyable line up of supporting actors (including Rob Lowe), some irritating cameos (Tim Robbins kills the fun of anything political he's in because you can all too easily imagine him droning on about Nixon when the camera wasn't rolling), a lively spirit and genuine love for the Bond movies, the addition of a couple of great new characters (Mini Me, Fat Bastard). I don't often come across anyone who quotes or even remembers Goldmember but people refer to this one all the time.

Movie review - "Outpost in Morocco" (1949) ** (warning: spoilers)

George Raft manages to look miscast in every role he plays except for that of a gangster, so he sticks out like a sore thumb in the French foreign legion. The scriptwriters have seemingly tailored the part for him - he's a man with a past, a lady killer and a great dancer... but he still looks and sounds weird defending the interests of colonial France. It doesn't help that at times he seems old and bored (his career as a Hollywood leading man was about to end).

It's not a bad story - he falls in love with Marie Windsor (equally miscast) the daughter of a local emir who may or may not be intent on causing trouble against the French. There is some decent action and Akim Tamiroff as a local; it loses points for having Tamiroff pray for rain at a key point and it actually rains, but gains them for the downbeat romance between Raft and Windsor - which results in him effectively ordering her death!

It's not in colour but benefits immeasurably from location shooting. The real foreign legion actually collaborated with the filmmakers, which might explain why there's a scene where a bunch of tribes refuse to join in the uprising against their colonial masters.

Movie review - "Magic Mike" (2012) ***1/2

As artfully a constructed star vehicle as anything in Clarke Gable's day, with the added appeal that Channing Tatum really was a stripper. He's kind, likeable, funny, can dance, good looking, shows his backside in the first couple of seconds (with two women in bed - how's that for a star entrance), is nice to young Alex Pettyfer, just wants someone to settle down with and leave stripping, wants to make driftwood out of stuff he finds on the beach.... swoon.

In all seriousness Tatum is pretty good - he's clearly comfortable in the role, does the dances well, has some good support. Matthew McConaughey continues to defy those who are convinced he's a rom com specialist with an engaging performance as the old stripper who is Tatum's boss (I did feel he would have used another scene just for him), and Alex Pettyfer isn't annoying for the first time I've seen him. These three provide a solid foundation for the movie and ensure it always has somewhere to go.

Some really good scenes, and confident handling; it looks great with it's bright Florida sunshine and dingy clubs (how the hell did this only cost $7 million?). Cody Horn - the love interest - starts off impressive and interesting but we soon realise she doesn't have anywhere to go apart from giving sass to Tatum and worrying about her brother, but Olivia Munn is great as the sophisticated psych student into sex games with Tatum. There's also a rich array of support characters - the other strippers are all well cast (their dodgy dances are funny) and the casting of the girls who go to the shows is spot on (giggling, screaming, flirting, etc.)

At times this was reminiscent of Shampoo (Tatum tries to get a bank loan but is knocked back) but this is a different sort of movie, a lot more positive and "Hollywood". But it's enjoyable and deserved its success.

Movie review - "Janet Leigh: A Life in Hollywood" (2003) ***

Was Janet Leigh ever a star? Maybe not. Off the top of my head I can't think of a movie which was a Janet Leigh vehicle, where she drove the action in the way of say Sandra Dee or Doris Day. But she was definitely a leading lady - very pretty and likeable, capable of giving a good performance when required... just look at her work in Psycho, which is terrific: the naked desperation, the anxiousness.

For over a decade Leigh could be counted on to prop up handsome leading men, notably Tony Curtis who was her husband off screen, a romance which in all honesty made her a bigger name than she otherwise would have been. But she was also a hard worker and seems like a good person - even though this is a rose coloured glasses view of her life I've never heard a bad word about her.

Leigh was very lucky in many respects. Her path to stardom has to be one of the easiest in history: her photo was up on the wall of her parent's lodge when spotted by Norma Shearer, who recommended her to MGM. She was cast in a leading role in her first movie, and that was it: from then on was never out of work, even if she had to learn acting on the job. Her peaches and cream image (doe eyes, big boobs) fitted in perfectly with MGM and the 50s, as did her romance with Curtis. Her image was a good girl who was up for a bit of nooky - she had little trouble segueing into more sexually explicit roles as her career went on.

Leigh's life had tragedy and incident - she eloped at 14 (saucy minx), married again before becoming a star, her father went broke and killed himself the year Curtis left her. (She was shooting The Manchurian Candidate at the time). She found happiness with a fourth marriage, had a great relationship with her kids, put her family before her career (she turned down the lead in The Pink Panther, something I didn't know), but kept busy in TV and stage shows for as long as she wanted.

This is a bright, fun doco which packs a decent amount in for a short running time - talks with Leigh, her two daughters, Chuck Heston. No Tony Curtis, which is a shame, but some great home movie footage.

Movie review - "Union Pacific" (1939) ***

The success of The Plainsman was such that Cecil B de Mille was inspired to go West again, with a tale of nasty business interests whipping up trouble among the Indians (who normally would have accepted white expansion peacefully, I'm sure) and Barbara Stanwyck returning as a tomboy with a yen for a hunky cowboy - played here not by Gary Cooper, but the actor you got when you couldn't get Cooper, Joel McCrea.

There's a simple "political action" plot - evil interests are whipping up trouble among the Indians, who are delaying construction on the railway. In one still-shocking scene a train passenger casually shoots a passing Indian through a window. That's not to say Indian characters are given any sort of dimension or complexity, though - they're depicting as hollering savages who are mowed down by the goodies at the end. They're just given a bit more motivation.

There's also a romance plot which is far less simple - Stanwyck loves McCrea, and is loved by dodgy Robert Preston (who would go on to play several variations of this role for de Mille); Stanwyck and McCrea always seem to be about to get together but these contrived situations keep happening where it's stopped. (This feels very Gary Cooper-ish - Cooper was always not getting together with women for weak reasons in his films). It gets confusing and lacks the emotional kick of say Sign of the Cross.

I admit I might be biased because Stanwyck's Irish accent got on my nerves (the only sort of immigrants we really see are the Irish - there are no Chinese). She seems too old and sensible to pine like this. McCrease is okay, Robert Preston is excellent and there's a superb support cast including Anthony Quinn and Akim Tamaroff (basically playing the same role as in The Buccaneer).

The spectacle is tremendous, with some great sets and a fantastic train crash and Indian attack. It's flawed but fun.

Movie review - Bergman#9 - "This Can't Happen Here" (1950) *1/2

Bergman used to trash this movie - it and The Touch were two he always bagged. For the first half hour or so I thought he was being way too hard on himself, showing off with his self-deprecation - it was a perfectly acceptable spy thriller with men in hats driving around in cars and hanging around in alleyways talking mysteriously. The opening spiel which said "this is all made up and takes place somewhere that doesn't exist" was annoying (and patronising) but I went with it.

It's set in a fictional Eastern European country where a secret agent for the baddies goes to visit his ex who is a (unpaid) secret agent for the goodies (a people smuggler) and she winds up trying to kill him... which is fairly full on for the hero. She's not the only hero - there's a dull honest cop who is investigating. There are villainous associations, people who aren't what they appear to be, car chases, assassinations and a race for the border. It's crap.

Signe Hasso, who appeared in some Hollywood movies, plays the lead but isn't that good - no one in this movie is, really. It's done well enough technically, with some nice cinematography, a few funky camera angles, and gets novelty points for being a Bergman thriller with an anti-Soviet slant. But it's dull and confusing and I found it a real struggle to watch. Maybe this is hindsight but Bergman's contempt for his material does come across.

(This was actually made before Summer Interlude but released afterwards.)

Documentary review - "Monty Pyton: Almost the Truth" (2009) ***1/2

Highly enjoyable documentary about the famous comedy troupe - I was disappointed to learn that it was actually in six parts but the ABC only had a shortened two part version. Still there is lots of good stuff on show here - old photos, clips from the David Frost show, interview footage with Graham Chapman, forthright interviews where the members admit to inter group politics (eg the little writing gangs that formed, John Cleese vs Terry Jones dynamic, John Cleese wanting to play the lead role in Life of Brian), news footage of Life of Brian protests. I didn't even mind some of the celebrity chats about how great Python was - Steve Coogan reciting a wholesale sketch in particular was wonderful. Now for the full version!

TV review - "Girls - Season 1" (2012) *****

A really terrific show - it takes what isn't the most original template in the world (a bunch of young girls on the go in New York City... it goes back to The Best of Everything and Three on a Match) but done with freshness, vivacity and bravery. I've never seen sex scenes quite like it, and most of the lines and situations come up with something new. Very well cast too. Some of the dialogue is divine.

TV review - "Boss - Season 2" (2012) ***

Astonishingly bleak for an American show - Hollywood is known for focusing stories in characters who are likeable and winners. Well Mayor Crane is a winner, in a way, but he's also dying, he betrays his nice (and hot) drug addicted daughter, everyone around him is looking to stab him in the back and drag him down. It's relentlessly grim - and not quite believable that someone has the skill of pulling off all these murders.

The character Kathleen Robertson played developed a bit disappointingly for me - she seems to have this complexity, struggling with trying to do the right thing and what seems like a sex addiction but then just becoming completely ruthless towards the end, with no real indication why.

The crusading journalist was okay I guess, but what I really loved were the developments involving the super slimy Zajak and his opposition candidate, plus all the ruthless black characters (NB watching this it struck me how rarely black actors get to play evil, complex roles on TV apart from pimps and drug dealers... it doesn't come across as offensive on Boss because everyone is equally bad.)

Kelsey Grammar's performance remains superb and he's well matched by other members of the cast. It's beautifully shot, too - the city of Chicago seems cold, harsh, distant. (There's no place of warmth.) The sex scenes feel thrown in, though - it's as if they go "hey we're on Starz, we'd better get people to have sex."

Movie review - "Bridget Jones' Diary" (2001) ***1/2

Over a decade on, this romantic comedy stands up extremely well, due in part to its three perfectly cast leads. We can tell this in hindsight but at the time things weren't so clear - Hugh Grant made his name playing nice guys rather than cads, Colin Firth's several previous attempts to become a film star had come to nothing, and there was outcry and confusion over Renee Zellweger's casting for such a British role (especially with Kate Winslet hanging around).

But Grant revived his career with a performance that presumably is a lot closer to the real life Grant, Firth's awkwardness was very well used and Zellweger turned out to be cute and likeable, with a (to my foreign ears anyway) effective accent. There's also an outstanding support cast including people like Jim Broadbent plus the 50 worders who play the smug marrieds.

Occasionally this strikes a bung note - Bridget's friends feel under-used, Darcy falls for Bridget awfully quickly (and she becomes a TV presented with equal rapidity), it glorifies drinking and smoking and mediocrity, and gave unrealistic dreams to far too many women who worked in TV in real life. But a very winning, likeable movie.

Movie review - "His Kind of Woman" (1951) **** (warning: spoilers)

A real delight - there's no other film quite like it. Two thirds or so consists of familiar third world noir, with Bob Mitchum in laconic hunky form as a drifter who agrees to go missing to help a gangster into the country. When we first meet Mitch he's a bit of a loser, hanging out in dingy dives and getting smacked around, but once he sees Jane Russell on the plane to the resort he perks up and when he arrives he's super smart. (Even helping a drippy kid on his honeymoon win some money so he can have sex with his wife a la Casablanca - if Mitch is so smart how did he get so broke?)

Mitchum and Russell were one of the great scream teams and it's a shame they couldn't have worked more often; they have terrific chemistry, especially when he's rubbing lotion into her back. She looks wonderful, all legs and swimsuits and slinky gowns, singing songs and exchanging banter.

The supporting characters at the resort are a strong bunch - Raymond Burr is as always a strong villain, Jim Backus is enigmatic as a guest, Tim Holt turns up as a government cop (Holt was always popping up in classics - he's not bad here, although not a very convincing drunk), John Mylong as a creepy author, Charles McGraw as a tough guy.

Most of all there is Vincent Price, who initially appears as Russell's false love interest (no real threat because Mitchum and Russell are so into each other), but then for the last third becomes the film's hero when this movie is turned totally on its head and becomes a glorious tongue in cheek romp: Mitchum keeps getting knocked out, Russell disappears, and Prince hams it up wonderfully.

This is probably overlong (two hours is pushing it) - Backus should either have been used more or cut out, I didn't particularly care for the newlyweds. But a real romp and proof that Howard Hughes' meddling sometimes made his films more fun. Lots of lovely touches like Mitchum ironing money.

Movie review - "Sign of the Cross" (1932) ****

My memories of seeing this when younger were not good so my expectations were low but I completely went with this - a gripping tale of life in Ancient Rome under Nero. Charles Laughton's fake nose was distracting but his performance is excellent as the tyrannical leader, frequently bored, longing for distraction, keen to blame the city's ills on that new sect, the Christians. He's bested by Claudette Colbert as his seductive wife Poppea, who in pre-Code Hollywood never looked sexier, whether taking milk baths while kittens lap at the edge or wearing a variety of gowns that barely cover her.

Sex is very much on the brain in this Ancient Rome bodice ripper - Colbert wants to get it on with tight-shorts-wearing centurion Frederic March who wants to shag hot little Christian Elissa Landi, who wants to bang March too (lust is all over both their faces when they first meet) but can't bring herself to do it. (Or does she? When she lives in his house you could assume she's banging him). He tries to get her to loosen up and join in the orgies, even sending in a hot woman to do a lesbian seduction dance (I'm not making this up), but she holds fast... and he falls in love with her.

The basic plot was used in Quo Vadis? and is very effective - I'm surprised they haven't used this story again, it and Ben Hur offer the two can't-miss Ancient world templates. The last half hour or so is terrific - one long sequence at the Circus where Romans bitch and moan about their seats as various midget gladiators kill each other and Christians get taken out one by one and March decides to go to his death with Landi. Powerful, hokey melodrama but I completely bought it, in part because it was so dark - Poppea and Nero aren't punished in this film.

Maybe I saw this in a weak moment but I was really moved and impressed.

Movie review - "Cleopatra" (1934) ***

George MacDonald Fraser ranked this above the 1963 film and I'm inclined to a agree - it lacks Mankiewicz's sparking dialogue and the excellence of Rex Harrison, and it's definitely rusty in places, but it's a lot tighter and more professional than the later film, and the character lines (and "arcs", for lack of a better expression) are far more clearly drawn.

Octavian is very old here, the same age as Antony, and I'm sure it's riddled with historical errors, but it has an authentic feel. Henry Wilcoxon is very good as the spoilt, brutish playboy Anthony, Warren William is okay as Caesar (maybe a bit too dandyish) and Claudette Colbert sexy and impressive as Cleopatra. The spectacle is done with pizzaz and style, not poured down anyone's throat

Movie review - "The Buccaneer" (1938) **

I'm all over the shop on these Cecil B de Mille films - ones I assumed I'd hate (The Sign of the Cross) I really liked, others that I figured I'd love, such as this, I couldn't stand. It's got a terrific story - Jean Lafitte in the War of 1812, trying to be loyal to his adopted country despite its suspicion of him - but never quite works (for me, at any rate).

I think I never recovered from the opening; what should have been a sure fire sequence (the burning of Washington) is wrecked by a caricature dumb black servant advising Dolly Madison to get out of Dodge as the British were coming, and one of those de Mille asides where Madison's husband asks what's that she's got with her and she says the Declaration of Independence. Then there's Frederic March, never my favourite actor, looking uncomfortable and unconvincing in curls and an accent as Lafitte - a role that needed a Flynn, Fairbanks or Power gets this middle aged ham who lacks dash and verve. His performance ensures this movie has no emotional core - you don't care about Lafitte's rejection from the US, or having to leave his love at the end, because he's not Lafitte he's an actor in curls.

There's a lot of running around and over acting from the support casting, including a Dutch girl who loves Lafitte and various hammy pirates. Walter Brennan is in it as a Davy Crockett type, Hugh Southern is unmemorable as Hickory Jackson, the female leads are unremarkable. The Battle of New Orleans was quite well done. A real shame.

Movie review - "Manila, Open City" (1968) **

Eddie Romero is probably the best known director from the Philippines (to fans of exploitation films at least) and he wrote, produced and directed this actioner which tells of the Battle of Manila in 1945. It was a gritty, bloodthirsty affair in which the Japanese massacred thousands of civilians - one of those heartbreaking stories from the end of the war when so many people died who shouldn't, purely because of a nation's spite.

This has some impressive production values (tanks, extras running from buildings, explosions) and plenty of action. Unfortunately it's often hard to keep track of who is who - there are too many main characters (either that or Romero fails to differentiate them enough).  There are also too many explosions.

James Shigeta plays a more sympathetic Japanese and John Ashley pops up as an American soldier.

Movie review - Bergman#8 - "To Joy" (1950) **1/2

We hear that a woman has been killed by an exploding stove so Bergman isn't exactly setting us up for a romantic comedy. Wed flashback to seven years beforehand when the woman met her husband while both were working in an orchestra. Like many of Bergman's early films it's about a young couple in love trying to make a go of it; but Bergman's a little bit older now - a little more bitter and weary. So while the two are sweet falling in love she's worried about being a fraud, and so is he, and he gets jealous.

There's lots of music here, and Victor Sjostrom as the wise conductor, but this is mostly about the self loathing male lead - he worries about not being up to being a violinist, he realises he isn't up to it (an effective sequence), he cheats on his wife, he slaps her around (my sympathy for him vanished at this point), he's moody and annoying but she loves him and I think it's meant to be sad when it doesn't turn out for him.

Bergman was apparently inspired by his own feelings of guilt from cheating on his wife. "Look at me, I'm cheating on my wife and feeling bad about it! I have a rotten protagonist and give all the sympathy to the woman! I can't overcome my demons but I don't feel good. Look at me!"

This got on my nerves, you can tell. You can't dismiss it - it was clearly made by a person of great talent, the photography is wonderful and there are some outstanding sequences. But I wasn't that impressed. I know it's Bergman but sorry it's true.

Play review - "The Midnight Wedding" (1900s) by Walter Howard

I can't believe codswallop like this was actually popular with Australian theatre goers in the early 20th century, but apparently it was - so much so Raymond Longford filmed it in 1913. That's the only reason I read it - the film version doesn't exist but based on this it would have taken all Longford's skill to make it remotely watchable.

This is set in a Ruritania never never land where an impossibly perfect cavalry captain is adored by his men, and envied by a villainous rival. There's a beautiful princess who is going to be married off or forced to enter a convent under the terms of one of those unconvincing wills beloved in melodrama, plus some familiar ingredients:  an easy woman who lusts after the hero and gets jealous when he's keen on the pure heroine; a comic underling who has a comic romance (three soldiers pursue a barkeep); two duels too many; a (yawn) revelation of the hero's parentage.

The two interesting things of it were the midnight wedding, where the hero and heroine are married in secret - which is a good idea, sexy and romantic, and I wish more had been made of it (eg them having to spend the night together or something). I also quite liked the ending where the hero told his dad, the Crown Prince, to go get stuffed. But it's very slim pickings for a long, unbelievable, repetitive play full of uninteresting characters.

Play review - "Fire on the Snow" (1941) by Douglas Stewart

The years from the 1930s to the 1960s were bleak ones for home-grown theatre - it wasn't as if the writers weren't around (there were a bunch in radio) but they weren't given much chance to do plays. The list of local "classics" is a short one - The One Day of the Year, The Summer of the Seventeenth Doll, Rusty Bugles, Lady in Danger (maybe I'm stretching that one but it did make Broadway) and this, which is probably best known as a radio play.

It's not on an Australian subject, though, concerning itself with Scott's expedition to Antarctic. This is sure fire material which almost always works and Stewart's version of it doesn't disappoint; the language is evocative and powerful while still being clear. It's a little unfair this radio play got most of the radio play kudos from the time, but it's accomplished nonetheless.

TV review - "Walking Dead - Season 2" (2011-12) **

I've never seen such a love letter to the glories of survivalism and the joys of shooting people in the head as "Walking Dead" season 2. Where the secret to survival seems to be mastering first person shooting games. Where all but one female characters concentrate on cooking, cleaning and worryin' about their men folk while the men folk worry about protectin' their property and defendin' their women. Where 12 year old kids wear stupid hats. Where opportunities for a really interesting and exciting human drama, storytelling and character work along the lines of Battlestar Galactica or Game of Thrones or George Romero's zombie films are missed wholesale by third rate writing and bad acting and scenes which come out of the wet dreams of militant NRA types. Where everyone seems to have the ability to shoot zombies in the head with a hand gun while moving after minimal practice. 

There was some good stuff here - an exciting trip to a chemist, the wish fulfilment of Glenn being seduced by the hot cowgirl, Scott Wilson's gravitas added to the support cast. But mostly it was glorifying survivalist totalitarianism.

This show is going to inspire someone to go on a shooting spree if it hasn't already and the producers ought to be ashamed, not only for irresponsible glorification of guns but (even worse) failing to exploit the potential of its premise. And the fact this has rated its socks off has, I predict, ushered in the beginning of the end of the golden age of American cable drama.

Movie review - "They Were Expendable" (1945) **** (warning: spoilers)

A remarkable film, typical of its director John Ford, who did "noble defeat" better than anyone else. It's the story of a squadron of PT boats based out of Manila during the Battle of the Philippines, beautifully understated and excellently done. There's no ra-ra or broad comic drunk Irishmen, just lots of professionalism and respect for the armed services.

This has a lot in common with the "calvary post" westerns Ford later made like Fort Apache in its depiction of the rituals and characters at a military outpost - singing songs, gentle romance with the nurses (a sweet Donna Reed), sitting around listening to the radio, multi generations. It's full of lovely little touches - turning off the radio before the news of Pearl Harbour, gentle banter between the men, a sailor asking Douglas MacArthur for his autograph, a makeshift funeral service in an island chapel, Robert Montgomery asking the old soldiers to look after the kids (sob), the agonising ending where people think they're going to be flown home but aren't.

It continually undercuts expectations - the final talk between John Wayne and Reed is literally cut off (we never find out for sure what happened to her). The battle scenes are extremely well done and feel realistic - they are almost beautiful in a way (wide expanses of oceans, clouds of explosions, the waving palms).

To be honest this is overlong - it felt as though a half hour could be cut out of it, no matter how poetic; a lot of it is repetitive (someone doing something brave, poetic and elegiac) and I would have preferred it if either John Wayne and Robert Montgomery had died. Occasionally it fell into Hollywood mode too - like the dying soldier going "tell me straight" after everyone leaves and Wayne trying to stay at the end. But these were small lapses. It's an incredibly fine, moving film, a tribute to the best of the American armed services and everyone who worked on it should be very proud.

Movie review - "The Story of Dr Wassell" (1944) ***

Few films have been made about the Dutch East Indies theatre of World War Two - presumably because it was the sight of so much Allied defeat - so it gives this big budget de Mille epic considerable novelty. Australians will get an extra kick out of hearing the references to Australia, and the fact the final scenes are set here (even if it doesn't feel very Australian).

This is an odd movie - de Mille rarely used stories ripped from the headlines, but no doubt he wanted to do his bit (when he wasn't tracking down communists) and the story of Dr Wassell was one of the few feel good tales during the early days of the Pacific War. It wasn't a terribly strong story, though - while Wassell was clearly brave staying with his men as everyone was being evacuated, when push comes to shove all he really did was hang around with them for a few days until they could all get a lift later.

So de Mille pads it out with flashbacks to Wassell's time at home, falling in love with Laraine Day's photo, going to China and researching the bug, impotently struggling to get anywhere with Day; there's also subplots among his men - one of whom (Dennis O'Keefe in a showy role) is loved by that old throwback, the half-caste nurse full of simple devotion (you can practically see the target across her head), the other whom (Elliot Reid best known for being Jane Russell's inadequate love interest in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes) rather touchingly is in love with a Dutch nurse engaged to a Dutch soldier (but it's okay - he's dead keen to lay down his life so she can go off with the yank).

Gary Cooper is especially annoying here. Once again he plays a big wet sook who refuses to tell Day he's interested in her (for no good reason); he won't propose because some other doctor beats him to the punch discovering a cure for a disease (as if it matters), he doesn't do much stuff to help his men except pray to god and he does far too many "comic" double takes. Why do people claim this guy was a great screen actor? It escapes me.

Okay, now I've spent a few paragraphs bagging this movie I should admit I actually enjoyed it. I'm a sucker for stories about stragglers during a time of mass retreat and panic, and the scenes of the evacuation of Java are very well done. It's also got some impressive spectacle (teaming extras clambering into boats and so on) and the subplots involving the soldiers may be melodramatic and hokey but they still work. I really liked the multi-national aspect of it - Americans, Brits, Javanese, Chinese, Australians... you didn't often see that in Hollywood films and it's refreshing. It's also moving because it really happened - so many of these brave kids (and adults and old people) died.

This is overlong, occasionally silly and Cooper is a pain, but while it's not one of de Mille's better known pictures I liked it a lot more than I thought I would.

Movie review - "The Devil Thumbs a Ride" (1947) ** (warning: spoilers)

I kept wanting this to be better than it was - it had Lawrence Tierney, a really cool title, a running time that goes for not much over an hour, brisk pacing and an opening that throws you right into it. But as the story goes on it gets less and less believable - would a man on the run really pick up two extra hitchhikers even if one of them was hot? Would the others not sense something was wrong after he speeds past a cop? After he says he's been to juvey? After it's obvious he's going to get busted? After a lot of things, actually. I know in real life sometimes that happens but we're not watching real life we're watching a movie and it just didn't feel real.

There is an effective jolt in the death of the young girl - I didn't see that coming. And I liked the trashy blonde character they pick up. But the drunk guy who drives the car (Ted North) is an annoying simpleton, the comic relief involving the gas station attendant is tiresome. I'd really like to call this a "small gem" as I'm sure some people do, but it's too silly.

Play review - "Candida" (1894) by George Bernard Shaw

I was curious to read this because Garson Kanin mentioned it in one of his books as a great Shaw female role, and a possible vehicle for Katherine Hepburn. Candida is sensible, smart, funny, beautiful, loyal and so on - so much so that you never really feel she even comes close to leaving her clergyman husband for Marchbanks. This character, the young and in love aristocrat, is actually more interesting a character than Candida - who is more of a star role than a character, and is passive a lot of the time, for all that the men pant over her. (I had a similar problem with Major Barbara too).

Still, it's not hard to imagine with the right three actors this would be a treat to watch. Not major Shaw but it was worth reading.

Play review - "As You Like It" by William Shakespeare

A real charmer - sweet and enchanting, with surprisingly strong female roles. It's not up in the Midsummer Night's Dream class but it's a lot of fun and very winning, much better than say Love's Labor Lost. It isn't plot heavy but it's very lovely, helped considerably by being set in a forest. Rosalind and Celia are a great buddy duo - funny, smart, a bit neurotic, brave, loyal to each other.

There's a lot of falling in love at first sight, not much conflict, heaps and heaps of songs (it reads like the book to a musical at times), witty comments on the battle of the sexes. It reads as though Shakespeare wanted to have fun with this one and he did and we do.

Play review - "The Merry Wives of Windsor" by William Shakespeare

I didn't think much of this - I can imagine that in the right actor hands Falstaff would come alive on stage (or screen) but I found him wearying here, especially as he doesn't have that much to do, and there's no war. He's trying to get out of debt by seducing women, but as they're both married how is that going to work? There's too many characters for this to be much fun on the page - there's Falstaff, his assistants, the hot girl, the three guys after her, the two married women, their husbands, various servants, and so on. Much running around the castle, hopping in laundry baskets and pretending to be fairies.

It's entirely possibly this plays a treat when you see it but I haven't so I can't go off that.