Zampi vs Del Guidice

 Two friends turned enemies.

 

Movie review - "Dementia 13" (1963) **1/2 (rewatching)

 I wanted to see this on the big screen. Thoughts:

- wanted to like it more than I do but as a quickie it's impressive

- Luanda Anders is wonderful and the film never recovers from her death, the best bit

- Bobby Campbell a little odd, the other female lead a little erratic, Patrick Magee terrific

- needs a Vincent Price

- spooky atmosphere

- lots of chat, I got confused. 

Movie review - "High Tide at Noon" (1957) **

 Phil Leacock and Neil Paterson had a successful film in Nova Scotia so went back there, although the novel was set on Maine. The Little Kidnappers had splendid casting - this not so much. It's a woman's picture with Betta St John pursued by three men - sleazy Patrick McGoohan, no good charmer William Sylvester, true love Michael Craig.

Nothing wrong with that formular but you've got to give good stuff - a real star, glamour,  pretty things to look at.

They don't do that here. Betta St John isn't up to it. All the crap roles given to potential Rank Organisation greats like Diane Cilento, Kay Kendall, Diana Dors and it goes to St John who is pretty and nice and fine but not a star.

Sylvester isn't handsome enough - McGoohan and Craig are. They miss Dirk Bogarde or Anthony Steel.

The pace is slack. This needed to be full blooded. Sex, passion, like Gainsborough. More Canadian feel or at least sense of community. Not there. 

Gainsborough would've made this well in the 1940s - or needed to be made a few years later with more sex 

Movie review - "The Naked Truth" (1957) **1/2

 I wanted to like it more than I did because it was so great to Rank making a black comedy, a spoof of scandal mags with Dennis Price's publisher blackmailing some lovely actors, including Terry Thomas, Peter Sellers and Shirley Eaton. There's a few too many characters - some consolidation would not go astray. Sellers is fun, ditto Eaton - and everyone really. It doesn't quite nail it but is fine.

Movie review - "House of Secrets" (1956) **

 

A thriller from Rank, aiming at the international market and trying to turn Michael Craig into a big star.

Doesn't work, despite some decent action, great colour and locations and not bad cast.

Why doesn't it work?

- undercover story (a lookalike) but doesn't really exploit it - no fun of contrast.

- the person he looks a like is killed off, he should've still be alive and cause trouble

- didn't lean in to the concept - the fun/danger of being a crim

- he's not in enough danger... always reporting back to Geoffrey Keen

- no ticking clock and rising stakes. Who cares about currency. Just make it a bomb.

Just badly plotted.

Movie review - "Up in the World" (1956) **1/2

 Colour, action, movement, songs. John Paddy Carstairs always has something going on. Maureen Swanson is a bright love interest. Norman Wisdom is warm and sympathetic as the rich and shobby bossy him around.

Swanson is too hot for him but that's okay. There's a soccer game, some songs, a bratty kid. It works whereas the Frankie Howerd comedy didn't.

Movie review - "True as a Turtle" (1957) **

 Attempt to do Genevieve with a yacht. Could have been fun. I wanted to like it. But no tension because it's not a race, no interesting character dimension, no Bill Rose script. John Gregson is affable but his wife is dull I missed Dinah Sheridan. Keith Michell is handsome but no Kenneth More - plays a mystery character and theres a plot about counterfeit chips at a casino like who cares? SHould've been about boats. His girl is no Kay Kendall.

They just should've remade Genevieve, had a race.

Movie review - "Jumping for Joy" (1956) **

 Rank turned Norman Wisdom into a film star and tried to do the same with Frankie Howerd. It didn't quite work, Howerd's particular magic doesn't come across, at least not to me. (I did like him in Up Pompeii). 

The story is serviceable enough, being about a man at the greyhounds who gets involved with crooks. 

It just sort of went on and one. I'm resistant to this Rank comedy. In black and white too. Stanley holloway is in it, not a big part.

There needed to be some romance maybe, although there is a pretty girl, Susan Beaumont. Tony Wright plays a gangster - he does have an impressive look with that blonde hair but his voice is badly dubbed.

Movie review - "Lost" (1956) *** (warning: spoilers)

 In the 50s the Rank Organisation made a heap of thrillers, then stopped for a bit, then started again with films like this.

It's not bad, the story of a kidnapped baby. Who can't feel for that? Janet Green was a handy writer.

It struggles with the Rank-ness of the time. There's too many characters. They should've just had the mother not both parents - get rid of the dad (David Knight), make it a single mum, she could've romanced the detective (David Farrar), and done work on her own (more scary).

Really nice colour.  Third tier Rank star power - David Knight who can't act well and the girl. Shirley Ann Field is in it, very fetching, with a dubbed voice.

The police follow lots of dead ends - clues that lead nowhere, scammers, journalists exploiting them - which does feel real though is also unsatisfactory. I think they needed some human story to progress it like the cop having a personal issue instead of being right all the time (he's smug about not paying kidnappers) or the father feeling guilt about an affair or the couple having broken up or something. 

I will say it's great suspense because you don't know who did it - then it turns out to be the old Law and Order standbye, the deranged mother who lost her own baby.

I do like a female writer has ensured some key breaks are from women - one who discovers a clue reading a racy book while another a female cop. Green did what she could.

Movie review - "Up To His Neck" (1954) *1/2

The team who made Top of the Form return for another Ronald Shiner vehicle.

Hard going. Unfunny. Just kept going and going. If you like Shiner you'll like this. 

I enjoyed Bryan Forbes as a bright officer - he felt like a real type, like Dand McNeill in the George MacDonald Fraser stories. I also like the dim senior officers promoting Shiner.

But the film just dragged on and on. There are gags.

It's set on a Pacific Island - the idea of Shiner being a leader and bluding is funny. That should've been the film really the story of how it came to be, a comic Farewell to the King, but when the film starts he's been there for years. 

Sorry this review is grumpy I know. I'm sure the film has its fans.

Demi Moore Top Ten

 Let's look at the body of work (this is films not TV)

1) The Substance (2024) - deserved an Oscar

2) St Elmo's Fire (1985) - excellent in the flashiest part

3) About Last Night (1986) - should've done more Mamet

4) Ghost (1990) - made her a star

5) A Few Good Men (1992) - should've done more Sorkin

6) Indecent Proposal (1993) - trashy film lots of fun

7) Disclosure (1994) - no one talks about it but she was very good

8) GI Jane (1997) - balls to the wall film that I think still has a rep?

9)  Striptease (1996) - overhyped but actually a lot of fun

10)  Margin Call (2011) - only a small role but she's good as always and I wanted to include some newer movie

Movie review - "Blue Jay" (2016) **

 I like the stars, Sarah Poulson (who seems like the nicest person IRL) and Mark Duplass and the movie has an enjoyable low key vibe, 90s style. But there's not enough here for a feature - it's a subplot really.

Movie review - "As Long as They're Happy" (1955) **

 Cheerful, colourful (as in the colour is good) comedy about a Johnny Ray type crooner who stays with an English family.  Based on a popular play which like this starred Jack Buchanan as the dad.

Someone called Jerry Wayne is the singer, Janette Scott is the gal who invites him over, Jean Carson is her sister. Carson sings as does Wayne, and Diana Dors, who has more charisma that Carson or Scott. Nigel Green is Carson's boyfriend with a beard - at the end he shaves it off, and sells out like evertyone in a rnak film.

There's a subgenre of musicals about bewildered das of daughters. Buchanan has three. Susan Stephen is another one. Dors steals the film in her one scene, as an actress at a party.

This probably played better on stage.

J Lee Thompson directed. It's not exactly typical of his output but his handling is appropriate.

Movie review - "Mad About Men" (1954) **

 Sequel to Miranda isn't as good although from the team of Ralph Thomas and Betty Box and with Glynis Johns and Margaret Rutherford reprising their roles, plus colour.

This had tremendous potential. The idea is very good: Miranda, the mermaid, decides to swap places with a lookalike distant cousin, then sees a photo of said cousin's fiancee and decides her relative can do better and goes around seducing men.

But the story is wonky. Miranda needed to focus on Donald Sinden, who is a rich fisherman (playing it in leading man mode, serious and dreamy, with dyed blonde hair)... he should have had Anne Crawford as fiancee. Also she needed to genuinely love someone. There's nothing at stake. There needed to be more differences between the two Johns' characters - the landlubber needed to be more of a presence. Miranda needed to love Sinden, who needed a fiancee to wreck things.  Get Miranda's friends out of the water.  Use the dull Johns character more.

This film could've been good. It's not.  It's also hollow because Miranda pretends to be her cousin to get the guy but he falls for Miranda, right? So he's not with the girl he thinks he's with?

These Rank movies of the 1950s were so frustrating. This one especially because it's a rare film driven by a woman.

Movie review - "All for Mary" (1954) **

 This was a hit on stage and the colour is gorgeous and it has a woman director and there are Swiss locations. Still, hard going. Zany antics, Running around. A gag of a nanny treating her former charges now grown up as children. This film got on my nerves.

Why was Nigel Patrick a star? Ditto Kathleen Harrison?

Everyone tries. 

Movie review - "Fast and Loose" (1954) **

 Cheap remake of A Cuckoo in the Nest which might have played in 1933 but hasn't acted well. Everyone tries, perhaps too hard, and it stars Kay Kendall who has some glamour. Brian Reece is dull - this could've used Donald Sinden. June Thorburn is another dull Rank startlet.

This movie was annoying. It felt like it was made to cover overhead.

Movie review - "You Know What Sailors Are Like" (1954) **

 Rank really liked Donald Sinden. Here is is as a young naval officer caught up in an Arab country which think the Brits have a weapon when they don't. Appparently the original novel on which this is based had more point. Maybe.

Rank invested in colour and elaborate sets, the film pushes Sinden as a hunk (he's often without his shirt), there are Arab harem women like a 1950s Universal movie, I'm sure the lechers went through then, yet still in a studio that had Kay Kendall and Diana Dors under contract the dull Sarah Lawson is the lead. When Lawson goes undercover as a harem girl at the end it should be funny - imagine the Carry On girls doing it - but it's not.

The movie starts of with three sailors and it should have had three sailors all the way through - it mostly has Sinden, although Bill Kerr joing him an hour in and the action perks up. It's fun to see him as an Aussie.

Kenneth More wanted to play the lead but it was after Genevieve had been shot and before it was released. That was a mistake. 

This movie seemed to go on forever despite gorgeous colour, sets and girls, there was just something plodding about it. Director Ken Annakin later admitted farce wasn't his natural genre and he was right.

Movie review - "The Young Lovers" (1954) ***1/2

 A surprise. This flopped and it doesn't have the stars (David Knight and Odile Versois) to put it over but it's beautifully made, simple, empathetic. Maybe too much Swan Lake. Anthony Asquith did a beautiful job and it's lovely shot. If only Dirk Bogarde and Mai Zetterling had one it.

Movie review - "Purple Rain" (1984) ****

 Holds up well. Hero is violent to women as is his dad and neither are really punished but it's not endorsed. Amazing music. Sexy. Prince has charisma, Apollonia is gorgeous, the girls in the band are sensational, interesting look visually. Morris Day and the Time are great.

Movie review - “The Critic” (2024) ***

Starts off great fun, with Ian McKellan having the time of his life as a bitchy theatre critic, very good support cast, enjoyable period detail and nods to the time (British racism, anti gay laws, the newspaper industry). Gets less fun as it becomes more serious.

Movie review - “The Substance” (2024) ***1/2

Body horror which is brilliantly directed and acted. Demi Moore goes for it so does Margaret Qualley and Dennis Quaid has a high old time. The film is too long.

Movie review - “The Way We Live” (2025) **1/2

Love Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield as actors. Not a bad movie at all. Made with taste. But doesn’t seem to go anywhere. No real progression in their relationship, regardless of non chronological storytelling. The only real conflict is she wants to go in her cooking competition. Love Story had a progression in terms of their relationship (he was uptown, she was poor), and also fleshed out the world in terms of their relationship with their respective dads. We meet family here but don’t do much with them. And friends. It doesn’t even get tears going.

Book review - "Irving Thalberg" by Mark Viera

 Thalberg is such an engimatic figure in Hollywood history but Viera does a good job of digging into the primary sources and making him into a real person. It's hard to ascertain the contribution of a producer but Viera rises to the occasion.

Book review - "Operating Biting" by Max Hastings

 Hastings' smaller books aren't as good as his epics - he gets bogged down in detail, lacks the big sweep, characters and gift of zooming in on the telling anecdote. As a book on it's own merits it's fine, just not as good as his bigger pieces. No mention of the Alan Ladd film The Red Beret.

Book review - "Scripts from the Crypt: The Brute Man" by Tom Weaver and Scott Gallinghouse

 Definitive biography of Rondo Hatton and The Brute Man. Exhaustive, moving, affectionate, not too long. I enjoyed it.

Book review - "Touch the Devil" by Jack Higgins (1982) (warning: spoilers)

 Brisk and easy to read though it feels like reheated left overs - not just one IRA dream hit man who is artistic and has a conscience but two, an enigmatic French woman who actually doesn't do that much in the story, an escape from prison, a woman turned traitor because of a big dick, a chase after a psycho,getting out of troubl with a hidden gun,   a confrontation at the end between a Prime Minister and an assassin. Really Brosnan (one of the dreamy IRA men, Liam Devlin is another one) should have died at the end but Higgins couldn't bring himself to do it.

Book review - "The Future was now" by Chris Nashawaty

 Not bad look at key films from 1982 - ET, Poltergeist, The Thing, Blade Runner, etc. I didn't learn anything new and some of the prose was a little purple but it passed the time.

Book review - "Universal Terrors 1951-55" by Tom Weaver, David Schecter and Robert Kiss

 Exhaustive. Thorough. Definitive. Probably best read in small chunks when watching the films.

Book review - "Best Possible Place, Worst Possible Time" by Barry Sonnenfeld

 Hugely entertaining second volume of memoirs, more fun than the first because it's just about movie stars and he doesn't go on as much about his wife (sorry to be blunt, it just gets wearying). 

Great stories about self hating Gene Hackman, fun but mercurial Will Smith, lazy John Travolta, difficult Walter Parkes. No punches pulled, it seems.

Book review - "Fan Mail" by Nick Hornby

 Entertaining collection of non Fever Pitch soccer writings by Hornby. As with that book sometimes I didn't follow what was going on but always worth reading.

Book review - "Hell Hath No Fury Like Her - Story of Christine" by Lee Gambin

 Solid book, slightly odd structure, excellent interviews (John Carpenter, Bill Phillips, Keith Gordon, Alex Paul though weirdly no John Stockwell or Steven King). No big behind the scenes dramas, just professionals doing a good job.

Movie review - "The Seekers" (1954) ***

 Few seem to have kind words for this melodrama but I liked it. Robust Ken Annakin direction, colour, location shooting in New Zealand, silly storyline but full of action, Jack Hawkins not entirely well cast as a tormented man but still authorotative, ditto Glynis Johns as his wife. Noel Purcell solid as Hawkins sidekick Kenneth Williams as another Britisher - I think Anthony Steel should have played this role, maybe even Hawkins' role... who wants to see Hawkins commit adultery? Laya Raki is the Tondeleyo part.

Not great, but always something going on. I had fun.

Movie review - "A Day to Remember" (1953) **

 Harmless Betty Box-Ralph Thomas comedy made just before Doctor in the House which has some location filming in France but isn't in colour and doesn't quite have the stars. Rank was giving Donald Sinden a big push here he's the romantic lead of a team of men from a London pub who go to paris.

Sinden is a war vet visiting a grave and falling in love with once young now nubile Odile Versois, both of whom who are fine and can act but neither are as captivating as say Dirk and Brigitte in Doctor at Sea. Sinden has a girlfriend Joan Rice but fortunately she goes on a date and falls in love with a visiting Yank on the same day. Phew. No stakes though.

I liked Bill Owen wanting to join to foreign legion because he's embarrassed his girlfriend is too tall. There's a not bad one about a guy trying to smuggle watches.

The cast and charm isn't quite right. It's not bad, mind. Just not quite there. Sinden loved it but that's not surprising - he gets the girl, gets to be charming and moody and all that.

Movie review - "The Million Pound Note" (1954) **

 Mark Twain's story had enough potential to be a decent film but it's not a good adaptation - no sense of character for the lead, no wish fulfilment, lack of subplots (needed a femme fetale, needed a villain, needed hero to do more cool stuff). Feels written for Alec Guinness. Gregory Peck isn't very good. No one is good, really, Sidekick valet doesn't even talk.

Colour is wasted. As are character actors. Dull female lead who seems greedy. Were there no others available?

Misfire.

Movie review - "The Kidnappers" (1953) ****

 Charming account of two little brothers whose father has died going to live in Canada (shot in Scotland) with their grumpy grandad (Duncan Macrae) his nicer wife (Jean Anderson in make up) and single daughter (Adrienne Corri, beloved for her 70s efforts).

The stars are the kids, Jon Whitely and Vincent Winter, who are sensational. I loved the atmosphere. It's a little hairy they're looking after a baby - the baby is cute too.

I loved the Boer War stuff - Macrae is annoyed at all this Boers who've moved to Canada, which I assume is based on a real thing.

It feels like Nova Scotia to me even though I've never been there and it was shot in Scotland. Worked for me though! 

J Arthur Rank loved this movie. I think the great northern nepo baby related to all those tactiurn gruff characters (grumpy grandad who wants the kids to go to work at age eight, the Afrikaaner farmer) melting just slightly because of the kids. (Though the farmer makes a point of blaming his daughter.) This is the northern methodist equivalent of a guy cry movie.

Sidebar: Vincent Winter made a bunch of other films then moved into behind the scenes, production managing and assistant directing. Like Kevin Corcoran. Had a good career, but died of a heart attack aged only 50. Smoker, I assume.

Movie review - "Top of the Form" (1953) **

 Ronald Shiner was once a huge comedy star - he had been plugging away for years then had some monster hits on stage and screen. This was at his peak. If you like him, great. I found it dull and unfunny despute a funny set up - bookie winds up as headmaster, chaotic school.

Fun to see Ronnie Corbett and Anthony Newley as school kids.

Audiences at the time liked it.

Movie review - "Desperate Moment" (1953) **

 Dirk Bogarde and Mai Zetterling prop this up by virtue of sheer star power. Location filming in Berlin helps. But it's not much of a story. Bogarde confesses to a crime he didn't commit because he thinks Zetterling is dead, then discovers she's alive and escapes to clear his name.

Again one senses Rank was hoping for some Third Man style grosses.  Bogarde is full of charisma but his character is an idiot and I couldn't care about his adventures. This film just felt dull and sluggish. Location filming in Europe is interesting but that's about it. Philip Friend, who loves Zetterling, is dull, Albert Levien twirls his moustache. I just didn't care. 

This is a negative review. Sorry. But it was dull.

Play review - "Hail to the Thief" (May 2025)

 Well directed. Nicely stylish. A little overpraised. If you don't know the play it's hard to follow. A friend said of this show it's a red flag when you watch a show and can think of its parody. I like the Ophelia-Hamlet dance - she was great.

Paul Wendkos

 Films and Filming Aug 1968

 

Don Sharp Films and Filming 1963

 

Nat Cohen articles

 

Rod Taylor at debut of The Man Who had Power over Women

 

Peter Finch on acting

 Films and Filming

 Also Films and Filming

 

Piece on Alan White

Films and Filming (I think 1957)

 

Nigel Patrick on Uncle George

 Films and Filming

 

Earl St John interview

 1957 interview Films and Filming

 

Anthony steel interview

 Films and Filming

 

Ralph Thomas Interview

 Thomas, Ralph, 'My Way with Screen Humour', Films and Filming, Feb. 1956, p. 5

 

Book review - "The Secret Life of Ealing Studios" by Robert Sellers

 A book to be enjoyed as a collection of anecdotes from lesser known figures at Ealings - assistants and what not. It does provide an interesting take. Not sufficient depth to be regarded as a stand alone book more something to be read in association with other histories on the studio.

Book review - "John McTiernan" by Larry Taylor

 I enjoyed this I just wish it was better, had more research done. Felt like an extended magazine article. Needed less skim analysis of the films, more of a deep dive.

Book review - "The Eagle Has Landed" by Jack Higgins

 Splendid book. Really terrific storytelling. Bold idea well worked out, plenty of twists and obstacles. Benefits from slightly unusual angles eg IRA working with Germans, British Free Corps soldiers, Channel Islands in wartime. There's a superhero honorable German, a superhero honorable German - these were more novel then. A nubile seventeen year old girl who just wants It. This is less good. Still, a great yarn.

Movie review - "The Long Memory" (1953) ***

 Robert Hamer effort is very well directed, with plenty of style and snazzy use of locations. John Mills is a little bland as the man wrong sent to prison for 12 years - the sort of part that would've really suited say Stanley Baker, who wasn't established at the time yet. Dirk Bogarde could've done it (even if perhaps too young). Jack Hawkins. Richard Todd.

Elizabeth Sellars is the woman who helped betray him and is now married to cop John McCallum. This is really intriguing only not much is done with it story wise except McCallum worries, feels guilty and get Sellars to confess. McCallum really needed to try to kill Mills - or to be killed by the baddy, to give it a kick. Or Mills needed to die or still be in love with Sellars. It's too easy for him to forgive and have the nice horny foreign girl come along.

Still, a pretty good film.

Movie review - "The Farrows of Hollywood: Their Dark Side Of Paradise” by Marilyn Ann Moss

 John Farrow is a fascinating, under appreciated director and character in Hollywood history. He deserves a really strong book. This isn't quite there though it's got some good stuff. It also has a lot of waffle and psychology. I was hoping for more research, such as analysis of Farrow's writings (of which there were a lot eg his book on the popes and Damien the Leper). Being fair, there's some research, I wanted more of it and less psychology. Maureen O'Sullivan and Mia Farrow get decent airings as well.

Movie review - "The Venetian Bird" (1952) ** (warning: spoilers)

 I think the filmmakers and Rank were hoping for a new Thin Man in this tale of Richard Todd investigating a mystery in Venice. There is some location work in Venice but the movie is rather gloomy. The photography feels overcast and Todd is grim, as is Eva Bartok. 

Director Ralph Thomas and Betty Box became known for breezy entertainments and a lighter touch might have helped this - imagine say David Niven in the lead instead.

The story is both confusing and simple. Todd's looking for a guy, everyone says he's dead, we know he's not because John Gregson is billed third. Gregson is with Bartok and Todd doesn't know Gregson so Todd doesn't have a strong personal connection to the cast.

Location shooting helps and Gregson has a decent fall to his depth. Reality is undercut by all the non Italians playing Italians eg Sid James, Gregson, Geogre Colouris.

Movie review - "Something Money Can't Buy" (1952) **

 This starts off as a lovely surprise - a look at a young married couple, Anthony Steel and Pat Roc, starting out on marriage after the war with kids, Director Pat Jackson has clearly done work with his leads who are much better than in other films - both gorgeous, especially she who is very sweet.

 Then things go wonky as the couple go off separately - not as in separate separate but spend tome apart - working for an agency. He's a chef with a food truck and she has an agency and all the relatable stuff goes. The film loses its way.

Still one of Steel's best performances, ditto Roc.

Theatre review - "Back to the Future The Musical" (May 2025)

 A surprise - my expectations were low, I'd heard some songs that weren't much but this is a really colourful, fun show, a reminder of what a terrific film its source material was, bright 80s and 50s fashion and fun, energetic numbers. I liked some changes - swapping terrorists for plutonium, and having the car only respond to Doc's voice not Marty's. The heart of this is George but the by play between Marty and Doc is joyout and the horny mother gives it an edge.

Nat Cohen article 1986

 

Book review - "George Cukor's People" by Joseph McBride

 Interesting take on Cukor's career, focusing on performances and acting. McBride isn't an actor or director but is a good writer and it's a fresh take. He doesn't seem to want to write in depth biographies any more but it's worth a read.

Book review - "The Girl on the Balcony" by Olivia Hussey (2018)

 The sort of book I expected Hussey to write - sweet, a bit scatty, full of love and emotion. She was Argentinian but went to England as a girl, didn't have a lot of money but was blessed with beauty. Had a long stage run in The Prime of Miss Jean Bodie then got Romeo and Juliet. Admits she didn't take her chances -blew True Grit and Anne of a Thousand Days and did All the Right Noises, was prone to taking off long slabs of time but developed a niche for being in ensemble pieces such as Death on the Nile and was especially good at played scared girls. She seems like a lovely person.

Movie review - "Made in Heaven" (1952) **

 Dimwitted British comedy from the Rank Organisation which wastes color photography. How's this for high concept - a couple (David Tomlinson, Petula Clark) hire a maid from Hungary who is hot so all the men want to root her. Tomlinson and Clark are in some competition where they have to be happy for a year - this is based on a real thing and that's a basis of a good movie. I think they needed several couples in competition.

Clark is too young (19) and too pretty for Tomlinson. Everyone tries.

Maybe the film would've been better had they cast Yvonne de Carlo, who'd been in a comedy from the same producer (George Brown) Hotel Sahara - her being a man-trap maid would've been fun. But Sonja Ziemann is just amiable.

Movie review - "It Started in Paradise" (1952) **

This film sucked. Basic idea is good - All About Eve in world of woman's fashion. Plenty of clothes and Jack Cardiff colour photography. Crap script which fails to dramatise and create differentiated charaters. The stars aren't up to it - Jane Hylton dull, and Muriel Pavlow. The men aren't better - Ian Hunter, Terence Morgan.

Thing is they had Kay Kendall in the film! In a minor role! Ditto Dana Wynter!

Director Compton Bennett does a bad job. This is the sort of movie Ted Black would've knocked out of the park.

Problems - bad pacing, inadequate stars, confusing story. No sex, no decent romance, no delienated stars.

 

Movie review - "Meet Me Tonight" (1952) **

 Anthology films were briefly the rage in Britain, which explains this not very good adaptation for three Noel Coward plays.

I disliked the first two. Red Peppers, about the feuding couple (Ted Ray, Kay Walsh), felt like a star vehicle that would work if you liked the stars but I didn't know Ray or Walsh (yes I know they're famous back then but not to me). It was a drag. 

Fumed Oak was dreadful - a whingeing Stanley Holloway.

Ways and Means, about a dodgy couple, was more fun, with Nigel Patrick and Valerie Hobson animated.

The color photography felt wasted.

Movie review - "The Importance of Being Earnest" (1952) ***1/2

 The play is actor proof, and this has a fine cast, even if Michael Redgrave was a little old. Michael Denison is a lot of fun and one wonders why he didn't have more of a film career. Joan Greenwood is sexy, Dorothy Tutin bright and sparky, Edith Evans as excellent as you'd think, ditto Margaret Rutherford.

Rank's films under the British Film Makers scene via the NFFC and Earl St John were of solid quality, on the whole.  This, The Card, Hunted... it's not a bad effort.

Movie review - "The Card" (1952) ***

 I know Alec Guinness has a lot of fans. For me he's a little too twee, too smug, too ethereal. This isn't a bad film. It helps his character has some get up and go. Ronald Neame directs with aplomb and Glynis Johns is sexy and greedy. Petula Clark is the dim ever loving young thing Guinness goes off with at the end. More could've been done with Valerie Hobson's aristocrat.

Not an Ealing Film, made by Rank. 

Book review - "The Violent Enemy" by Jack Higgins (1966) (warning: spoilers)

 Read this because of the movie. One of Higgins' IRA supermen (brave, smart, World War Two hero, worried about violence) busts out of prison to help with the cause. Young woman finds him hot. Dodgy collaborators. Javert like cop. Plenty of action and pace, though Higgins as he admitted hadn't learned the art of characterisation yet. The happy ending felt a little odd.

Movie review - "Tangerine" (2015) ***

 Watched this after Anora and it's striking how much the works have in comment (observation not criticism) - story of sex worker, narrative is tracking someone down, lots of driving around town at night searching for someone, person throws up in cab, Armenians (same actor), ending cut to black, story light. Absolutely worth watching.

Book review - "Woody Allen - A Travesty of a Mockery of a Sham" by Patrick McGilligan (2024)

Big tome. Like all McGilligan books it's very thorough, goes into detail on it's subjects ancestors, possibly wastes too much time going on about critics and critical reputation. Goes through the allegations with admirable thoroughness which also makes the book really depressing to read. Not McGilligan's fault. He tries to be objective but his sympathies are with Allen, invoking the blacklist, Allen's donations to progressive causes, invoking The Bad Seed and The Children's Hour as well as the Scottsboro Boys and the McMartin case (like, seriously?) without seemingly having done too much research into reports of sexual abuse or empathy as to why women especially got so upset. We are all prisoners of our age, race, gender and class I guess. Also is there no better source for box office than Buzzfeed? Wikipedia was cited there too.

I'm nit picking. It's very thorough and will, like all McGilligan biographies, stand the test of time.

Movie review - "Millers in Marriage" (2024) **1/2

 Ed Burns in more contemplative mode - less jokes, actually no jokes, a lot of philosophising as former 90s heartthrobs flirt. Juliana Margulies,  Burns and Gretchen Mol are siblings, all having relationship dramas - Margulies is a best selling author with whiny Campbell Scott as husband, Mol has alcoholic Patrick Wilson and flirts with Benjamin Bratt, Burns is with Minnie Driver and deals with eccentric ex Morena Baccarin. A plot involving Brian d'Arcy James and Margulies is teased but not developed. The intensity of Baccarin gives the film some needed energy. It's very laid back. Kind of Burns' Interiors I guess.

Movie review - "High Treason" (1951) **

 Semi sequel to Seven Days at Noon isn't as good. No ticking clock, no compelling lead just a smug copper and a dull stressed agent, no humour, no interesting characters.

Red scare movies are fine if there are scares but this doesn't have any.

Stylishly shot and professionally put together. Just annoying, somehow. The posh commie villains lack the pizzaz of Hitchcock's foreign agents.

Movie review - "Pillow Talk" (1959) **** (rewatching)

 Really good script. Witty. Well structured. Maybe Thelma Ritter could've been used more (her suggestion to Rock is something Rock could've thought up). Risque - bathtub scene, jokes about Rock being gay and Rock having a baby. Rock is handsome and winnings. Doris terrific. But Tony Randall also superb. Everyone is terrific.

Saw this on the big screen. Stylish. Fun.

Movie review - "Return of Swamp Thing" (1989) **1/2

 Fun Jim Wynorski where it's great to see Heather Locklear out of soap stuff having a fine old time. Sarah Douglas is lots of fun and Louis Jourdan. The Jaws spoof of people showing scars was not originated in Clerks  - Wynorski does one here with Monique Gabrielle.

Movie review - "Top Secret!" (1984) **** (re-watching)

 Bewildering this wasn't a hit as the jokes are great. Maybe it doesn't have the same heart.  Maybe it lacked cameos. Maybe the central romance isn't as strong. Who knows?

A lot of big props gags.

Movie review - "Anora" (2024) ****

 Confident, very well done. Maybe could've had a half hour cut out - all those searching scenes. Excellent acted. Ideal for Mikey Madison - cheerful, not too bright, likeable girl with spine. Yura Borisov is a standout too.

Movie review - "Juror No. 2" (2024) ***

 If this is Clint's last film it's a classy one to go out on - confidently made, interesting, no clear hero (maybe the lack of a star hurt it at the box office - Clint could've played the Nick Hoult role even, just adjust the kid plot for a grandkid or something), amibiguous ending. The spirit of the 70s goes on. Shame it didn't get a proper push.