Movie review - "The Gorgon" (1964) *** (re-watching)

 Solid Hammer entry - Chris Lee in a silly moustache, Peter Cushing looking intent, a lot of screen time to Richard Pasco (one of those actors whose face you'll know without recalling their name, at least that's how it was for me), a flashy part for Barbara Shelley. Satisfying ending with people dying, the use of Greek mythology is fresh for Hammer and makes one wonder why they didn't do it more.

TV series - "Surfside 6 - Ep 1 Country Gentleman" (1960) **

 One of Warners' detective shows that featured three hunks and gals who hang around in some exotic location - there was 77 Sunset Strip, Bourbon Street Beat, Hawaiian Eye, this. The first ep is powered by Van Williams, hired to prove ex gangster Ray Danton killed some old stuff type. Troy Donahue appears a bit and looks hiliariously uncomfortable. Williams can act.

Movie review - "Five Graves to Cairo" (1943) **** (warning: spoilers)

 Often overlooked in discussions of Wilder - it's a war propaganda film, has second tier stars, quite simple (mostly taking place in one location, a hotel), but is full of clever twists and plenty of story. It's a film of plot rather than character - I don't mind Franchot Tone but who is he playing? A rogue? Stock guy? He doesn't have the star persona to carry off playing himself (cf someone like Cary Grant).  Akim Tamiroff underplays, von Stroheim offers some star pizzaz, it's a clever story, I like it how Anne Baxter died it gave the piece some emotional weight. Visual flourishes too like opening with Tone passed out in a driving tank.

Book review - "Royal Flash" by George MacDonald Fraser (1970)

 The second Flashman, it's never been one of my favourites, though it's a quality entry, full of pace, and humour. A few reasons. Flashman is too dumb, foolishly going to Europe on the basis of a dodgy letter and at the end foolishly throwing in with Lola Montez. It's set in a fictitious place, a duchy, which is inconsistent with the rest of the series. And it borrows the plot wholesale from Prisoner of Zenda, though that is amusing covered - it still feels like cheating.

Still, Lola and Bismarck are vivid characters, Irma and life in the duchy is entertaining, the plot really kicks into high gear half way through when Flashman realises he's been conned, there's plenty of fun made up characters even if pilfered from Zenda like Rudi von Sternberg, I enjoyed the Karl Marx cameo.

Movie review - "Seven Year Itch" (1955) ***

 A one-joke film - man fantasises about cheating on his wife - but some of the variations on the joke are very funny, and Marilyn Monroe is incandescent. You'll see a lot of Tom Ewell - he's in most scenes - as the day dreaming wannabe Don Draper. Ewell works here - gumby face, self delusion... Jack Lemmon would've been too young, James Stewart wouldn't have been right.

Evelyn Keyes is his wife and Sonny Tufts not bad as the imagined love rival. Good on Sonny Tufts for being in a hit. It's Marilyn's film though.

Movie review - "Titanic" (1953) ****

Daryl Zanuck was attracted to this via its ability to use CinemaScope and the talents of Clifton Webb, who plays one of the several millionaires on the Titanic. The writers (Charles Brackett and his old Billy Wilder era collaborators Richard Breen and Walter Reisch) have given him a decent plot - he's trying to retrieve wife Barbara Stanwyck.

There's a role for other Zanuck favourites, like Robert Wagner as a young college boy (who's allowed to be heroic but still survive by cutting a rope and falling in the water), and Thelma Ritter as Molly Brown.

It's fun to see a scene where Wagner is trying to get information out of Stanwyck about the latter's daughter Audrey Dalton knowing that in real life Wagner and Stanwyck were getting it on. (She does seem very lively in the scene, as does he - it's a shame they didn't work together more). Later on she reveals to Webb she slept with some young guy on the beach, who impregnated her... this could've been a Wagner type!

Wagner is quite sweet - he sings a number and does a jig. Audrey Dalton is good as the stuck up daughter of Webb and Stanwyck. The subplot about Richard Basehart's drunken priest is a little dull. Thelma Ritter is fun as Molly Brown. Brian Ahern offers some star power as Captain Smith, ditto Edmund Purdom as Lightoller.

The last half hour is terrific with some wonderful moments like Webb's son, rejected by Webb previously, giving up his seat to go and die with his father.

I think this was a solid success rather than a big hit - because of its cost, I wonder if Fox made a profit on it - but it's one of the finest movies Webb made at Fox, not to mention Brackett.

Movie review - "Assault on Precinct 13" (1976) ***1/2 (re-watching)

 A film of wonderful mood: endless deserted streets, sun going down over baked roads, gangsters walking around killing people at random (ice cream truck guy, little girl), isolated phone booths, cut off precincts.  It's horror as much as action.

This version has mystery missing in the remake: the gang kill people at random, we don't know what the death row prisoner is in for or what happened to him. It's a super Hawksian take with these professionals banding together - the gal, the cop, the prisoners - to defeat the enemy. The death row prisoner channels Gary Cooper the cop John Wayne.

Very enjoyable. The low budget causes some dramas but it's compelling.