Zampi vs Del Guidice

 Two friends turned enemies.

 

Movie review - "Murder at the Windmill" (1949) **

 Only an hour. Includes a couple of songs, which are fine, and an unfunny long comedy sketch. Maybe you had to be there. Maybe it just needed nudity. No nudity here although the characters allude to it.

There's a murder, cops investigate, kids put on a show. Val Guest directs and writes with customary energy but the cast feels weak. The girls are really young. Were they this young on stage?

Nat Cohen had money in this and is listed as "presents".

The Robert Clarke account

 

Movie review - "A Man About the House" (1947) *** (warning: spoilers)

 After leaving Gainsborough, producer Ted Black joined Korda then seemed to have trouble getting films made. He eventually made this which at heart is an old gaslighting saga about two sisters, Dulcie Gray and Margaret Johnson, who go to Italy. Both fall for handsome local Kieron Moore who marries Johnson and then seems to be trying to poison her to get the land.

It's handled very well. Gray and Johnson are excellent even if both lack X factor of a star - I did miss Phyllis Calvert and Margaret Lockwood say. Moore looks the part and mostly is fine - when he gets too much dialogue the Italian accent is wearying. Guy Middleton is fine but he's so old - he's Gray's love interest and he beats up Moore at the end but he looks 105. Why didn't they cast a young spunk? What was Black thinking?

Some scripting problems - the girls are passive for so long. Takes them ages to figure out what's going on and then they just whistle for help - well, Gray, Johnson never does. It lacks another twist, a bigger role for Moore's secret lover say.

I did like the way it conveyed Moore was shagging Johnson into compliance - her look of dreaminess.

The film cost too much. It was shot on location in Italy and didn't need to be, not really. It's in black and white.

Black's star spotting hadn't abandoned him altogehter - Gina Lollobrigida has a small part.

Movie review - "Eureka Stockade" (1949) *** (re-watching)

 I've got it - they should've just made Chips play Dan McAlpine again and give him a family and plop them in the middle of the Eureka Stockade. The hot daughter could've romanced a digger and a cop, make the historical people background figures.

Movie review - "Passionate Friends" (1949) **

 So beautifully shot and directed it can't be a bad movie but it's not a very good one, as a simple story is stuffed. You might enjoy it more if you're an Add Todd fan - she leaves me cold, only succeeded in one film, The Seventh Veil where she had James Mason. Here she's bland and strikes no sparks against Trevor Howard who is dull. His dullness worked in Brief Encounter because he was a repressed dull doctor and had Celia Johnson. These characters jet about - they live in Italty, they're sophisticated. It's hard to care. These people should be able to work it out.

The film lacks passion, and/or actors able to convey passion. It's not interesting and I cared less as it went on. Rains is professional. Maybe a juicy fourth lead could've spiced things up.

Gainsborough did this stuff much, much better.

Movie review - "Blithe Spirit" (1945) ***1/2

 Noel Coward's lovely play isn't tampered with - he whinged about the ending apparently but I didn't mind it. The colour photography is lovely but probably wasn't worth getting for a film about people in a room. Indeed, it might've been better had they not done it because they might've avoided the worst mistake of the film - painting Kay Hammond all green.

Rex Harrison and Margaret Rutherford are divine in their roles - Harrison did Coward better than Coward, more focused (and I can say it with authority  because I've seen the TV version). Cummings and Hammond are fine - it's not Hammond's' fault she's green - but I kept wishing for proper stars. Elvira at least should've been a star - imagine Vivien Leigh or someone.

Movie review - "Brief Encounter" (1945) ****

 One of those "it just clicks" film. Very strong source material, one of Coward's best plays, given loving treatment from skilled collaborators - David Lean, Ronald Neame, Tony Havelock-Allen, Robert Krasker, Celia Johnson, Trevor Howard.

The ace in the hole is Johnson with her average appeal, gorgeous eyes that switch from every day living to love, to passion, to terror, to devastation. It's one of the great performances. Trevor Howard is very good too - he just doesn't have Johnson's eyes. Or POV in terms of storytelling.

Admittedly, you can mock this if in the mood. 

Lovingly shot. Great little performances from Johnson's dim sexless husband who does realise something is going on, and Howard's slimy mate who loans him an apartment.

Movie review - "This Happy Breed" (1944) **

Amazing to think that in wartime they stumped up colour for a domestic drama without much spectacle - but such was the impact of In Which We Serve. Oh, there is some spectacle - a fun fair, a parade, some action during the General Strike, walking past the king's coffin - but it's not really needed, it could've been shot cheaply.

I didn't like this movie. In fact I hated it. 

I appreciated some of it. The opening shot with the camera panning down. The scene where someone is told of the death of a son and his wife off screen but the camera holds on the garden. (Why not show the accident, though?) David Lean was already very confident as a director.

But I couldn't care less about this family. These working class tories who unthinkingly support the establishment. A daughter's boyfriend dares to suggest changes to the status quo, worries about poverty and wages, and is mocked and sorted out. A daughter dares to want to be something more than a boring housewife and mother and is scolded by a horribly oppressive childhood friend (John Mills) who she doesn't like and her own parents, especially her dad, then runs off with a married man, which okay was scandalous, but the parents make it all about them. What a pack of whingers.

I'm sorry their son died and his wife but they sort of die for convenience and it doesn't seem to affect them too much apart from one scene.

Celia Johnson is good as the mother. Robert Newton feels all wrong as the father, as if he's slightly sending it up. Newton seems more interested in his friend Stanley Holloway than his wife, and he seems drunk telling her daughter to give up dreams, and complaining about the British people daring to want peace (you can make a good anti appeasement argument - but it's not done here).

John Mills is good even if his character is clearly controlling (the girl never says she loves him and then she later gives their kid to her parents to raise while she goes to Singapore!)

I recognise that people would feel differently if they knew these characters and lived through this period, but I felt they were wankers, and I haven't felt that about other Coward characters.

There's so many scenes where you go "why didn't they dramatise that" - the accident that killed the son, John Mills running into the daughter, John Mills spending time with the daughter.

This film sucked.

Movie review - "In Which We Serve" (1942) ****

 A big hit in the US, contributing to the British delusion that its industry could regularly match Hollywood. Noel Coward is a little odd at times as a naval captain - it does it in clipped unemotional tones which means the audience can project. But it can also be effective when his ship is blown up and Coward is covered in oil bobbing around in the ocean.

Mountbatten was a very ineffective officer in World War Two and afterwards - his career is littered with failure, death and destruction - but it is interesting to see a film based on a ship that sunk, not a great victory. It feels more true and I think that's what audiences responded to - the adversity.

The flashback device works well. The ship sinks and we cut back to the lives of its sailors. There's a little bit of Coward and his posh wife Celia Johnson, their kids (to whom he seems monumentally uninterested) and servant. There's also some cheerful lower orders, including John Mills. There's a young officer, Michael Wilding, plus Bernard Miles.

You can mock it especially the Coward-Johnson scenes - like when the maid comes in and finds out Coward's alive. The lower orders tug their forelocks.

But it has immediacy and authenticity. These people lived and these things happened. And it's about defeat, a perservering - Dunkirk, Norway, Crete.  There's no victory, just survival. There's not too much Coward, plenty of time goes to others (Richard Attenborough in a star turn a a coward, Mills shines as a "good bloke" a persona that would take him to the top). And some scenes pack a wallop like the three girls at home having bomb fall on their head. The film got better as it went on. A tribute to the British industry.

Play review - "The Browning Version" by Terence Rattigan

 Elegant jewel from Rattigan. Easy to mock on one hand - as William Goldman says, the wife is a whore, the husband is weak, the only wisdom lies in bachelors and young boys. But he does write with empathy and sympathy, Croker Harris is another Rattigan character with a low sex drive so the wife goes looking for it elsewhere. She's a snob but she's got nothing else. I thought maybe she could've been given a little speech. The tyranny of the headmaster and the world - polite, dogged, unknowingly patronising - is well conveyed, as well as the fact that, well, the Crock probably wasn't a very good teacher, with his self indulgent puns. The play doesn't always take easy sides. Maybe it does for the guy Frank. But the scene where he breaks down is powerful as is the reveal it was a put up, and his small act of defiance at the end is rousing.

Movie review - "Green for Danger" (1946) ***

 Stylishly shot. Clever. Bright concept -a murder during an air raid. Strong cast. I wasn't blown away. Couldn't put my finger on it. Alistair Sim didn't help. He doesn't appear until a third of the way in, but I found him annoying. No hero apart from him.

Strong cast - Leo Genn, Trevor Howard, Sally Grey, Rosamund Johns. (I admit I got the last two mixed up.) Excellent cinematography. A lot of intelligence. I respected this more than enjoyed it. First movie ever shot at Pinewood apparently.

Movie review - "The Loves of Joanna Godden" (1947) ***

Mostly enjoyable tale of life among farmers on the Romney Marsh with Googie Withers as a gal determined to farm despite disdain of her neighbours including hunky John McCallum. So far so feminist but it was Ealing so you sense she'll be miserable until she realises McCallum is the man for her, which is the case.

She does meet and fall for Derek Bond who admires her pluck only he disappears at sea (if I saw that right... they were just at the beach). An old codger likes her, too.

Jean Kent is great fun as her sister. She's not that individual, Kent, but she always goes for it, and her character livens up the piece. Really the film should have focused on both throughout - the good and bad one. I think that would have been more fun, and richer. But that would've been too many women for an Ealing film. Still the ending as is feels abrupt... McCallum is with Kent, she bails... so he goes for Withers. Which is realistic but not satisfying.

Chips Rafferty pops up - he made this after The Overlanders. I liked him because he seems like an old time English farmer with that gangly appearance; the accent is slightly disconcerting.

This has a slightly documentary feel of life on the marshes, which is what Ealing excelled in, so that works. Location shooting helps. Withers has strength as an actor. I enjoyed this.

Movie review - "The Brothers" (1947) ***

 David MacDonald directed so many bad British movies the quality of this one is a surprise. It helps the story is simple - Othello on the Isle of Skye - and it was shot on location, so looks terrific and is a documentary-ish view of life on the island, and MacDonald came from docos.

Patricia Roc is lovely as the orphan girl who goes to work for laird Finlay Currie and is lusted after by his sons, Duncan Macrae and Maxwell Reed, as well as Andrew Crawford. There's excellent work from Currie, Macrae and Crawford, as well as Will Fyffe (another local) and Roc is very good. In real life she was a good time girl so knowing that makes this more enjoyable. She does a nude swim - at least her body double does - at long distance; we see her backside which has to be some sort of first.

Reed has the right brooding appearance but struggles to act - when he has dialogue he can barely get it out. When he doesn't talk he's fine. But honestly. Come on, Box, surely there were better people around? (Andrew Crawford for instance can act).

Stunning photography. Love the music. It's a tale about a woman in love with an abusive man, like The Seventh Veil also made by Sydney Box. It is one of his better films.

Movie review - "The Huggets Abroad" (1949) *1/2

 An example of the commercial ineptitude of Sydney Box's Gainsborough  - take a solid bunch of actors playing recognisable types and put them in a stupid story. The Huggetts decide to emigrate to South Africa so they... get a truck and drive across the desert? What? Who does that?

They don't get further than Algeria. There's the balding son in law, a new girl playing his wife (Dinah Sheridan), an American diamond smuggler. Petula Clark sings, Susan Shaw looks hot, there's some Arabs and French Foreign legion forts.

The actors are fine. But it's so stupid, the Huggetts driving across the desert.

Movie review - "Eureka Stockade" (1949) *** (re-watching)

 Three stars is generous but I am Australian.

The pros

- spectacular production value - it was the most expensive Australian film made until that time, apparently, but a lot of that is up on screen - spectacular sets of the mining camps and settlements and stockade, and teems of extras... it's a shame they didn't re-use the sets for another film or two, or at least re-use the footage.

- I appreciate the effort it went to to get the historical facts right.

- The action sequences are very well done - the attack on the stockade, the murder of Scobie, the miners rioting.

- the photography is beautiful.

- the editing and other technical aspects are first rate.

- Gordon Jackson and John Fernside manage to create living, breathing characters with very little. 

- I loved that random bug eyed doctor who cut off Lalor's arm at the end.

- they do show an occasional POC such as one of the Eureka people standing trial and the very occasional Aboriginal.

The cons

- the script isn't great - Harry Watt whinged about Australian writers, justifying importing Walter Greenwood - it goes through the events without managing to dramatise them.

- the characters aren't characters they are people who say speeches - there's no life say in the Chips Rafferty-Jane Barrett romance, Rafferty spouts platitudes (Lalor has been de-Irished), I didn't know what Finch's character was (he just appears as an Important Person - I had to google him)

- Commissioner Rede twirls his moustache but is depicted as being so reasonable (surely motivated by fear out of offending the establishment) about his position it sucks the piece clear of drama (it kind of hints maybe he's interested in Jane Barrett but it's only a hint).

- the only people who seem real are Gordon Jackson, the doctor and John Fernside - Fernside is best because he is a spy, just a good old fashioned villain.

- the miners come across as a bunch of whingers - complaining about having to pay a fee (should they have it for free?), Scobie is a drunken brat who throws something through a window (I mean it was harsh he was killed but he wasn't like this innocent victim).

- it wasn't worth importing Jane Barrett, or any of the cast they brought in, except maybe Jackson - the British cast are dull, lacking charisma and surely had no name value at the box office.

- Peter Finch or Grant Taylor should have played Lalor and Muriel Steinbeck could've played Alicia.

- I barely recognised Grant Taylor, in whiskers as a cop.

Actually they shouldn't have focused on Lalor - that straightjacketed them to history. They should have had a fictitious love story-  maybe center around two brothers in love with the same girl or something else simple but effective.

The waste of it gets me irritated at times because it didn't have to cost as much money, be so hokey or have such a miscast star. I get Harry Watt was feeling confident after The Overlanders but not so much that he could leave history - he leant into it. Which is fine, we all make mistakes, but he spent too much money.

Still, there is much to admire about it.

Movie review - "Dancing with Crime" (1947) **

Richard Attenborough is just out of the army and struggling to make a go of it as a cab driver. His old army pal has gone into crime - which is a great set up for a thriller,Atteborough being tempted so he can provide for Sheila Sims, dealing with post war adjustment problems for veterans. But this promising situation is dealt with perfunctorily - Attenborough is never tempted, his mate is killed, Attenborough goes investigating.

They should've kept the mate alive and killed a third mate or something. Had both men in love with Sims.

Too much time is given to boring cops and moralising, not enough to gangsters. I did like how Sims got involved and went undercover - I wish they'd done more wiht it. Diana Dors is a dancer at a club - she was just a few years too young for this sort of role for which she'd otherwise be perfect.

Barry Barnes is the villain - he's better than as leading man.Judy Kelly has a big part as a gangsters moll - a part Dors would've been good at later. Aussie John Warwick is a cop.

The last act is quite exciting. Apparently Dirk Bogarde has a small bit.

Movie review - "Peggy and the Pownall Case" (1948) **

From Highbury Films a short lived company J Arthur Rank set  up to turn out 50 minute movies when he thought he was going to have to provide all British cinema.

This has an amateurish feel - I don't think the director was a star. It's a shame because the central idea is perfect for a B - about a model who gets involved in busting a spy ring. Peggy Evans is lively in the lead - I wonder why she didn't kick on.

I watched this for Diana Dors, who is wasted as the secretary to someone in British intelligence. Normally I write Dors is the best thing about her movies - not so much here, anyone could have played the part really but she has warmth and energy. She pops on screen. In a few years she would have been perfect for Evans' role but she does feel too young here.

The direction is pervy at times - Evans changes her clothes a lot. Some lazy writing like Dors and Evans having to share a flat when Evans realises her photographer Christopher Lee is a spy. But Lee is in it which is great. He's awkward, all tall and teeth, but it is a young Lee.

The ending has a bit of pace. This could have been a cracker of a B with the concept and the cast but they could't pull it off.

Movie review - "The Shop at Sly Corner" (1947) **1/2 (warning: spoilers)

I mostly watched this because it was the first screen role for Diana Dors, who has a scene - as a floozy (surprise) the gal of slimy blackmailer Kenneth Griffith.

This is a pretty decent thriller. I was distracted by Oscar Homolka's moustache. The girl violinist he's Doing It All For is dull as his her boyfriend. Griffith is splendid fun,  a wonderful sleazebag - the film never really recovers from his death. I wish there had been a second villain maybe to come along.

The story feels familiar - ex crim gone respectible, blackmailer, sympathetic murder, violinst - but maybe this was imitated. The acting is solid. I wasn't that familiar with the work of director George King but felt he does a good job.

Boris Karloff played the lead on Broadway and once I read that it did make me wish he'd done this film.

Movie review - "Vote for Huggett" (1949) **

I liked the first two Huggett films but this entry didn't work for me. Jack Warner and Kathleen Harrison do fine work - actually the acting is accomplished. I just didn't care. Political storylines get so vague... it becames about land values and crap.

This was uninteresting. There's some pretty women without characters to play, really old leading men, a lack of a sense of family and life. All love couples have old men and younger women.

Diana Dors, one of the best things about the last movie, is given a different role, that is minor - the girfriend of a spiv who looks like Turhan Bey. She's wasted.

There's some ordinary songs. Little charm.

Sydney Box was a lousy studio head.