Movie review - "Rope" (1948) ****1/2 (re-watching)

 Love this film. Don't get why it isn't more critically acclaimed. Seems to have fans. John Dall should've been a bigger star. Farley Granger is excellent. James Stewart is miscast yes and his dialogue doesn't work in the first bit for his persona but he's good in the last third as he figures out what's going on. Good support cast too with Cedrick Hardwick being touchy. With that young man revealed to have dump the girl... is every male character in this film gay? I love the sun going down in the background, the ending.

Movie review - “Sorry Wrong Number” (1948) ***1/2

The original radio play is a pretty much perfect 30 minutes - how do you expand it to a feature? You could have kept it with the main lady (Barbara Stanwyck) on the phone, added more twists and turns, or you go more into the motive... which is what this film does. It fleshes out the characters of her husband (Burt Lancaster), who grows to resent his wife’s money, controlling nature and ill health. There’s also her rich dad who is a great character, and her old friend (Ann Richards) who saw Something Suspicious.

It’s not a bad mystery, with William Conrad on hand to provide menace. Richards has another thankless best friend role but get some decent screen time and a suspenseful scene where she follows her husband out to a beach.

Not as good as the play but pretty good - probably Richards' best American film.

Movie review - "The Cat and the Canary" (1978) **

 Straight old timey chiller from porn filmmaker Radley Metzger, who does a solid job. I like the genre - will readers and people who have to survive until dawn. There's not a lot of humour in it or that much suspense, but it's fine. Baddie conveniently waits a long time to kill heroine so enable male lead to come to rescue.

Cast is B/C list, I guess except Wendy Hiller who is a the housekeeper. Wilfid Hyde White is the deceased (in a video) and Carol Lynley bad, all awkward and dull, as the female lead. Michael Callan gets a decent later film role as her paramour who may or may not be bad. There's people like Daniel Massey and Peter McEnery who you'll vaguely recognise and others like Honor Blackman and Olivia Hussey (who probs should've played the lead  -she does "scared" very well) who you will recognise.

Movie review - "Lady in a Cage" (1964) **

 I was curious to see this, which presages Wait Until Dark - woman in peril thriller. Olivia de Havilland gets stuck in a lift. Boozy Jeff Corey turns up to rob her. Ann Sothern in cahoots with her. Corey blabs to a trio of hoods - led by sexy young James Caan, sexy and psycho, his overacting blonde girl and a Latino. They hop around, act. Writer Luther Davis has thirty minutes of plot - he throws in various characters (a local gangster who sends in his hoods, de Havilland suicidal son) without getting them to interact or develop relationships. It all feels like padding when it needn't be it just needed some twists and turns.

Flashy direction from Walter Graumann, stylish black and white photography, jazz music, a dog getting run over. I think he was making a statement about Violence Today with people looking on.

De Havilland is good as is Caan - he was strong from the beginning.

Movie review - "Visitors" (2003) ** (warning: spoilers)

 I saw this at the Valhalla in Glebe with high ish hopes... it sounded intriguing a limited location film on a yacht, reuniting Richard Franklin and Everett de Roche in the thriller genre. There are some really spooky moments - a yacht is a creepy place, and star Radha Mitchell has a compelling presence with her look and beauty. Nicely shot. Effective sound.

Main problem - not enough happens. It's a series of scares. Other boat thrillers things happen - Dead Calm they've lost the kid in the opening sequence, they pick up Billy Zane, Sam Neill gets stranded and has his own B plot, he has a goal, Nicole has to sleep with Billy, etc etc 

De Roche/Franklin needed to think more in terms of acts... a real visitor on the boat, as opposed to a fake visitor (she can be unsure). Big things happening at home - not just an unexciting affair between Dominic Purcell and Totti Goldsmith but, say, her father having been murdered or her mother has escaped. Or, I don't know, a shark attack. Some progression.and genuine threat. Or have Radha follow in the footsteps of a woman who went missing on another voyage so they could solve that mystery.

I think a lot of it is too easy for her. There's no storms. No real threat. Even the pirates aren't real. Also very under-developed relationship with that random accountant.

I was getting more confused as it went on and the ending didn't seem to make sense with Radha not stepping off at the end (I mean, why not... okay Tottie rooted her boyfriend but she still ponied up the cash) No sense of triumph at the end. They should've killed off Radha at the end. At least that would've had some oomph.

Movie review - "Bombay Clipper" (1941) **1/2 (warning: spoilers)

Fun little Universal programmer which is mostly set on a plane. I actually wish the whole thing had been set on a plane but appreciate that would be tricky. It gives an early role to Maria Montez, who doesn't have a big part, and also to Turhan Bey, whose part is bigger.

The writers shove in a lot of plot - William Gargan as a reporter (he lost his voice through smoking so its hard to see him smoke here), Irene Hervey as his fiancee (it's cute how they get married on the plane!), Truman Bradley as a nasty doctor, Lloyd Corrigan as a courier, Turhan Bey as a shifty looking local who turns out to be an agent, Philip Trent as a pilot with a past. Some times it is hard to tell people apart but it goes at a great speed.

John Rawlins could normally be relied upon to do a solid brisk job and he does so here.

Movie review - "Hush" (2016) ***1/2

A slasher film in one respect because the killer has a mask. Really its a one location thriller - a woman, Kate Siegel, stuck at home while being terrorised. The gimmick is she's deaf which provides some great moments - a victim banging on the door and she can't hear, she can't hear him creeping around the house. I did wish they did more with it, but couldn't think of what... maybe use sign language with someone else. They do use an alarm.

The killer is played by John Gallaher who played the irritating Jim in The Newsroom and I did have fun imagining that this was what Jim got up to on the weekends ie. putting on a mask and killing people. The minor roles are well cast - everyone does well.

Expertly directed by Mike Flanagan who is becoming one of my favourite filmmakers.

Movie review - "Forever England" (1935) **1/2

The first screen version of C.S. Forster's excellent novel is a little creaky. More faithful than Sailor to the King it nonetheless doesn't quite capture the book's magic. The opening sequence is there, slightly hampered by Betty Balfour's slightly manic performance as mother and Barry MacKay's wet work as the sailor (the character is a lightweight in the book but does he have to be wet?).

John Mills is fine as Brown - he's got an everyman quality that the role requires - and Jimmy Lyndon ideal as Ginger.

The film is less harsh than the book - MacKay not as motivated by ambition, Brown's heroism is recognised at the end instead of being destined to be not known.

Surprisingly the attack only takes up 25 minutes of screen time - it doesn't get going til 45 minutes in. I think Walter Forde wasn't a great visual director. Imagine if someone like Hitchcock or Michael Powell had done it. The film never really makes it clear what Brown is doing, or how he got to hang out, and misses some key action stuff like Brown shifting his position overnight, and the German strategy.

Instead the running time is padded out with shots of training for sailors and footage of British ships (this had official naval co operation), a boxing game with some Germans.

I did always remember one things about this movie - the fact the officers of each ship know and tell the enemy there was nothing they could have done in the battle because the ships were bigger, i.e the German tells Brown that there was nothing they could have done because the German had the bigger ship and at the end the Britisher tells the German there was nothing he could have done because he had the bigger ship. Such matter of fact honesty is rare in American war films.

Book review - "Brown on Resolution" by CS Forster (1929)

A delightful surprise - I was curious to read this because I enjoyed Sailor of the King, based on it. It has a reputation of a stiff upper lip tale which I guess it is - but it's extremely well written, with evocative descriptions and fast pace, anchored with research. It's also surprisingly racy, downbeat and cynical - Brown's mother meets a sailor while on holiday and decides to spend five hot days in bed with him. The sailor is dim but a good military guy with excellent prospects - when he sinks the ship at the end he's mostly glad because it improves his chance of a post career cushy job and fame. The mother decides to raise the kid on her own, is devoted to him, has a financial knock back but hangs in there, forces him into the navy, and dies very young of cancer - in part because, Forster makes clear, she was too proud to seek treatment early.

Brown is a very average sort of guy - amiable, obedient to his mother. He's a good sailor with solid prospects, keen for the promotional opportunities that war gives him. When he sneaks away to Absolution Island he could just hide out but he decides to do his duty even though he knows it'll probably mean death. He does it, and dies - again, mostly due to bad luck, from a bullet by a slacker German disobeying orders (I love this touch). If the Germans had gotten away half an hour earlier they would've been okay. And the kicker is, no one will know about Brown's heroism - the Germans knew but they are all killed in the ensuing attack. It's really great stuff.

The action sequences on Resolution are superb - the escape (relatively easy because the Germans don't really care), slipping into the water, climbing through the bushes. Forster is very good making a far fetched scenario realistic - he goes to great pains describing the German's slackness initially, the fact Brown is helped by the rough vegetation on the island which makes it hard to get through and provides excellent hiding places for Brown. The sequences are logically worked out - he escapes, finds a good spot, starts shooting the next morning, manages to fight off an initial boarding party due to his location, then changes locations over night and fights again, succeeds in taking out over 30 Germans.

You do get the sense it should be a short story - the stuff about the mother having an affair does feel a bit padded out. It's not as though Forster adds much character to Brown - for instance, he has a mate Ginger who survives the attack but with half his face blown off... Forster goes "oh they were friends for two years" but that's it. Still, a fantastic adventure book.

Script review - "Into the Darkness" by Anthony Jaswiski (warning: spoilers)

This became The Shallows. It's an excellent one person thriller - well not really one person, there's also two surfers, a drunk, a kid, a seagull and the shark. It's a great role for the lead however - Nancy, the nurse student who can surf, stitch up her wound, fight off a shark.

The structure is solid. The writer throws in a buoy for her to clamber on - and a reefy rock. There's a drunk on the beach who steals her things, two other surfers one of whom has a go pro on his head. She uses jelly fish as an electric shield.

It's very well written. I loved Jaswiski's use of big print - very evocative. Nancy really goes through the wringer.

I havent seen the film. I read the synopsis on line - some interesting changes, such as in the final film Nancy doesn't lose her leg, she talks to her dad not her brother, she wants to be a doctor not a nurse, she kills the shark via impalling it not through shooting a flare on the oily water, the seagull lives whereas in the film he dies. I don't know why these changes were made they don't necessarily improve things. Actually yes I do - to soften it.

Script review - "Rope" (1948) by Ben Hecht, Arthur Laurents

This tends not to be regarded among top flight Hitchcock - I've never been sure why. Maybe because James Stewart is so patently miscast in a role needing Cary Grant or James Mason. Maybe it's regarded as "film theatre" even though it improves mightily on Patrick Hamilton's already excellent source material - and it is cinematic too, using close ups of the rope, the chest, the various people talking.

It's a brilliant screenplay. It starts with a bang - a murder - and proceeds at a fine pace. The two killers, Brandon and Philip, are very definiable and different. The supporting characters too - which no one remembers - are easy to understand: the dopey guy who was in love with the dead man's girlfriend, the dead man's girlfriend, a nattering woman, the dead man's father, the house keeper. Most of all there's Rupert, the superior intellectual whose words and attitudes are thrown back at him by the killers.

The build up of tension is done extremely well as Rupert slowly figures it out, clocking the interactions at the party. The killers almost get away with it right up until the end. The homosexual subtext - is it that, or more subtle depictions of gay characters (the two guys live together, are clearly a couple) - is completely appropriate for the story: two people living in a hidden world, turning their exclusion into superiority. I suppose there are some overly convenient things, like Brandon letting Rupert come back up and Brandon giving away his gun. And some speeches are preachy. But this is a knockout.

Movie review - "10 Cloverfield Lane" (2016) ***1/2 (warning: spoilers)

Enjoyable, unpretentious thriller which starts off as The Collector and turns out as a Cloverfield sequel. Sorry for the spoiler but honestly the title is a bit of an indication. It helps having strong actors: Mary Elizabeth Winstead is a good scream queen (no back handed complimenting intended - that stuff is hard to do well, it's just I've never seen her in anything else), John Goodman is always reliable (and turning into a good gauge of whether a film is worth watching via his presence in it), and I was glad to see John Gallagher in something other than his annoying Newsroom persona.

It's suspenseful, and quite clever. I did feel in places the direction was adequate rather than superb - some scenes tended to end abruptly, and could have done with more atmosphere. Also the running time could have been shaved. But an entertaining watch.

Book review - "Larry Cohen: The Stuff of Gods and Monsters" by Michael Digby (2015)

Larry Cohen has done a lot of interviews in his time - one of them, for The Incredibly Strange Film Book, is one of my favourite, his no-nonsense approach to filmmaking helped encourage me to be a writer. When I heard about this book I wondered if there was a point to reading it, because there are so many other Cohen interviews out there. But there is, because it's so exhaustive.

Absolutely, some of it will be familiar, especially his writings on his more cult-y favourites like God Told Me To, It's Alive and Black Caesar, as well as the recent blockbuster Phone Booth and famous-for-being-Bette-Davis'-last-film The Wicked Stepmother and The Private Files of J Edgar Hoover which Cohen likes to talk about a lot. I did know of his TV work, which is well covered in Backstory 4.

But because Cohen is so incredibly prolific there was heaps I didn't know - his childhood, plays, lesser known directorial efforts (The Ambulance, Special Effects, Perfect Strangers), recent concentration on being a screenwriter, the extent of his success in 60s TV. He was often unhappy with the work directors who weren't him did on his films - even Sidney Lumet on Guilty as Sin and Joel Schumacher on Phone Booth (he basically likes the job the latter did but wished it had a bigger star than Colin Farrell and thought Schumacher could have shown him more respect). He really gives it to William Lustig, director of the Maniac Cop series.

A very clear picture of Cohen emerges - as you'd hope from 700 plus pages of interviews! Talented, smart, a ferocious work ethic, independent, grumpy, always a little touchy about lack of industry respect and mistreatment. He talks about his encounters with Alfred Hitchcock, troubles with Bette Davis, a friendship with Sam Fuller (who he used as an actor), his good experiences with some difficult actors (eg Eric Roberts), his fights with friend David Carradine, his unhappy experiences in network television (even on NYPD Blue), Billy Dee Williams' drinking problem, working for AIP in the 70s, getting fired off several movies, and lots more.

His key creative impulses seem to be social commentary, a lively imagination, and old movies of the 30s and 40s, particularly Warner Bros and Universal. It's a very comprehensive, impressive book that made me want to go revisit Cohen's work.

Movie review - "Black Christmas" (1974) ***1/2

I went into this with a relatively open mind, not knowing much about it except it was an early Bob Clark work and has claim to being the first slasher film. Many of the tropes it either introduced or was one of their to exploit are highly familiar now - obscene phone calls, creepiness in the attic, POV of the killer, the phone call coming from inside the house, sorority girls - and maybe they were familiar then, I'm not that across the history of the genre, but it is very well directed - genuinely spooky and I got chills watching some scenes.

There is lots of effective poking around the house at night and going up to the attic and down to the basement etc. The logic of the script doesn't really hold up but if you go with it like I did you'll have a good time. Good use of obscene phone calls and an unexpectedly pseudo feminist bent as most of the bad characters are trying to oppress women - the killer is misogynist, Keir Dullea wants Olivia Hussey to have his baby even though she doesn't.

Hussey is a perfect slasher film heroine - beautiful, likeable, vulnerable (she looks so scared you have no confidence she'll survive). Margot Kidder has fun as the obligatory slutty friend, Keir Dullea is appropriately creepy and John Saxon does a cool turn as a cop (most of his scenes done in the one set, the cop shop). I didn't mind the ending.

Movie review - "Locke" (2013) ***1/2

One of those gimmick films, like Buried or Phone Booth - this was one person driving in a car in real time talking on the phone. It gets points for not being about a gangster, soldier or assassin - he's just a regular guy... well, a reasonably successful concrete worker (his car is very nice) driving north to attend the birth of his son... to a woman not his wife. He's got to break the news to his wife, deal with a lot of concrete hassle, and also handle stresses of the baby coming.

At times - I admit it - I wish there was gunplay or murder involved but for the most part this was surprisingly engrossing. It took me a few minutes to get into it, but I did, helped by Tom Hardy's strong performance (he plays it in a Welsh accent). Occasionally the drive feels padded and you can't help wondering if at heart this wasn't a 30 or 50 minute episode of a TV anthology drama. But matters are helped by strong acting from the voices at the other end of the phone, and some beautiful photography and lovely music.

Movie review - "All is Lost" (2013) ***1/2

Robert Redford wakes up on his yacht one morning to find he's hit some discarded cargo and is leaking in the middle of the Indian Ocean - he has to spend the rest of his film battling this problem and all that flow from it, including the elements. It's a gripping story, with Redford having to carry almost the entire action silently - he doesn't even have a beach ball to talk to.

And while Redford's limitations as an actor are apparent at times (his breakdown isn't much of a breakdown and he's never been good at suggesting tension) he has charisma and likeability which mean we're with him the whole way, the fact he's a star means we feel we know him even in the absence of any back story, and he's obviously a physical guy so I bought it that he was sailing around the world even at that age, and is as capable as his character seems to be (I don't know whether you'd believe it of, say, Anthony Hopkins). So I hope he gets the Oscar nomination that must have been at the back of his mind when he wanted to do this.

The filmmakers did a marvellous job of recreating the experience of being on a yacht. I think the second ship passing was one too many but I know why they did it. This is something a bit new for an action adventure tale and I hope it makes a lot of cash.

Movie review – “Wait Until Dark” (1967) ***1/2

All writers should have careers like Frederick Knott – apparently he made enough money out of two hit plays to not have to work, which perhaps explains why he wasn’t that prolific. His first big hit was Dial M for Murder, which ran forever; this was his second – not as big a success but still highly popular. Like Dial M it’s got a bright central idea, and lots of well-thought-out-if-slightly-convoluted plot.
Basically it’s about a blind lady at home unaware the doll her husband has mistakenly come into possession of is full of heroin. I’m surprised Knott didn’t use the husband as a baddie but there you go; there’s an impressive trilogy of villains: Richard Crenna, Jack Weston, and Alan Arkin. Arkin over-acts with a dodgy accent, but Audrey Hepburn is a terrific heroine. 50s/60s ken doll Effrem Zimbalist Jnr plays her hubby. Memorable climax when Arkin takes on Hepburn, efficient direction from Terence Young.

Radio review – BP – “Rope” (1952) ****1/2

If you thought James Stewart was miscast in the film, wait til you hear Victory Jory here. Jory has a wonderfully deep radio voice, and he tries – and isn’t terrible it should be said – he’s simply not believable as the one legged, tormented Rupert. Hurt Hatfield and Lloyd Bochner however are excellent as the killers and the piece is full of menace and dread. The stuff in the play with the girl going “I bet the dead body is in that chest” is less OTT on radio because you can’t see the chest.

Script review – “Phone Booth” by Larry Cohen (warning: spoilers)

Cohen says he discussed the concept of this film with Alfred Hitchcock years ago but it only came to life when he thought of the sniper idea. It’s a very clever movie, logical enough, which is all it needs to be, and sufficient story beats to keep you watching… just. After some okay set up (Stu is a publicist – Cohen presumably settling scores here, or paying homage to The Sweet Smell of Success) he makes sure something new happens every ten pages or so: the initial threat, the shooting of the pimp, the arrival of the cops, the arrival of Kelly (his wife), etc. 

This draft doesn't have the arrival of the pizza guy or the ending of the film where the sniper gets away - the sniper is killed here. Also here Stu saves the day by sneaking a call to emergency services as opposed to Kelly.

Movie review – “Frozen” (2010) *** (warning: spoilers)

Terrific little thriller that would have been better with another 20 minutes cut out of it. It’s a worthy entry into that horror sub-genre, the “bunch of people trapped in a location” film, which also includes Buried (coffin), Devil (elevator), Black Water (swamp with a crocodile), Cujo (car), Open Water (ocean). Here they are stuck up a chairlift at the end of a day’s skiing – the operators have gone home, the resort is shutting down for a few days and wolves are prowling downstairs. It’s a fantastic idea – I would guess most skiers have been afraid of such a thing happening even if only once.

It helps that the actors aren’t too bad and their dialogue is quite witty, helping pass the time until they get stuck. It also means the people stuck there are real characters (well, real-ish) which makes us feel for them and adds to the emotional intensity of what’s going on. The entire sequence in the middle where they realise they’re stranded and which ends in tragedy is marvellous (there’s a real “what would you do in that situation” moment where their friend is being attacked and they’re up in the chair). The next day things slow down, though, with what seems like a long slab of dialogue that saps the film of tension. This felt like it took ages. Then it sparks up again with an escape attempt and ends satisfactorily (although part of me was thinking the girl would get run over at the end). Pleasing locations and believable storms and wolf acting – stuff that’s very hard to do.