Movie review – Saint #9 – “The Saint’s Girl Friday” (1954) **

The Saint returned to the big screen after a twelve year absence, and to sweeten the deal RKO have Louis Hayward reprise the role – even if he only played it once, he was the first. This is a very British focused story, unlike the George Sanders films – it’s British setting and characters make it closer to the Hugh Sinclair movies, although Hayward’s Saint is, again, American.

The plot has the Saint called back to England by an old girlfriend, who turns out to have been killed in a car crash. He starts investigating, visits gambling dens. Diana Dors has a support role – a fun scene where she seduces Hayward to distract him. Also fun when some old biddies excitedly ask Saint about his violent activities.

The Saint does have a girl Friday, a pretty thing who assists him – but she only is properly introduced after the film is half over. The revelation of the identity of one of the crooks is a genuine surprise, but as a whole the film is a bit flat – more like an episode of a television series, and that wasn’t enough in 1954. It needed colour and a bit of flash, like the Roger Moore series later provided.

There is a cute final brawl where the Saint punches out the baddy while his henchman punches the baddy’s henchman and his girl punches the baddy’s girl. Hayward doesn’t kill as many baddies in this one but he does engineer things so that baddies kill their own men twice.

Book review – “The Big Sleep” by Raymond Chandler

This new Penguin paperback series is great – only ten bucks, and the books aren’t heavy. (Physically, that is). Chandler writes so beautifully his words are a joy to read. I don’t read that much crime stuff and found the plot a little tricky to follow, maybe because I forgot who was who, but having seen the movies helped. And it does sort of sag around the three-thirds mark after Marlowe solves one crime, but then goes “but I wasn’t going to give up until I solved this other crime”. It was tricky to get the momentum going again.

But I guess the delight of Chandler is more the wonderful language, characters, atmosphere and dialogue – thumb sucking Carmel, hopeless Joe Brody, the withered General Sternwood, tortured Marlowe. Marlowe is quite homophobic (all pansies are physically weak) and smacks around women. I was surprised how he seems to walk everywhere – maybe that’s what keeps him fit despite all that drinking he does. Wonderful corrupt atmosphere – rainy nights, seedy bars, gay antique dealers, corrupt cops, cynicism to burn. Very satisfying ending which tied everything together better than I remembered.

Books review – “Rumpole and the Penge Bungalow Murders”

I always thought John Mortimer would use the Penge Bungalow Murders would be like Sherlock Holmes’ Rat of Sumatra adventure or Flashman’s US Civil War tale, but no in the autumn of his years Mortimer has decided to finally tell fans what happened during the oft-quoted triumph where Rumpole gets his defendant off alone and without a leader. My reaction was a bit similar to the one I had when I watched The Simpson’s Movie – relief it didn’t suck, and enjoyment at a solid entry into a wonderful series, though it was no masterpiece. But honestly at this stage in the game that’s a bit much to expect.

This isn’t the first full length Rumpole – from memory there was Rumpole’s Last Case, where he went to America. Like that one, Mortimer pads it out with another case (his first encounter with the Timsons which is fun), and a modern day case (Claude Erskine Brown in trouble for sexual harassment, which is not that much fun – hadn’t this story been done a few times before? Maybe it would have been better to do some story which tied back in more with the Penge Bungalow Murders). But it’s enjoyable, I enjoyed the mystery and the early romance with Hilda (including another female who Rumpole was interested in scoring). It was fun to see the Timsons and Rumpole’s old war friends.

I’d love to read more flashback Rumpoles – Rumpole at uni, in the war, with his son as a young men. With Leo McKern being irreplaceable, maybe there’s another TV series here – Rumpole as a young man. But who would play him? A young Leo McKern – good luck finding him.

Watching silent movies

I’m not a big silent movie fan but I’ve found a new way to enjoy them – put them on fast forward. It takes less time and you get the gist of what’s going on. You’re not missing anything without the sound as most copies of silent films I watch just use the same any-old-classical –music-we-can-get-our-hands-on.

Movie review – “The Back Pirate” (1926) ***

Enjoyable swashbuckler, which Jeffrey Richards says is Doug Fairbanks Snr’s best movie. As it’s the only one of his I’ve seen I can’t really say if that’s true, but there is lots to admire – maybe not so much the story which is basic (young noble swears vengeance against pirates who killed dad) but a bit weak (he then joins the pirate crew, doesn’t seem to have much of a plan of action, but then gets sidetracked when he falls in love with a beautiful princess the pirates have captured).

It’s great strength is its action set pieces – Fairbanks fighting a muscular duel on a beach with a bald pirate captain, Fairbanks capturing a boat single handed (including the famous shove-sword-in-sail-and-slide-down bit), Fairbanks duelling against a whole bunch of pirates on his own, the goodies swimming underwater to the boats (magnificent stuff – I can’t believe this hasn’t been ripped off more), Fairbanks being lifted up by his men up several levels of the ship.

There is plenty of action, extras and swordplay, a couple of full on moments which wouldn’t have survived the Hays Code (a prisoner swallows a ring to keep it safe from the pirates – but then a pirate grabs his sword and walks out of shot then comes back in shot with the ring… he’s cut the dude open!!!; also in another scene a pirate tests his sword by impaling someone).

Doug walks the plank and fights lots of duels. He runs around in tight shorts flashing his chest – Victor Mature was never so exploited. The romance with Billie Dove is a bit simpering (how about some revealing outfits for her? But no, she’s fully clothed). Donald Crisp is fun as a one armed pirate. I got confused when Doug suddenly found all these men to help him at the end – where did they come from. Fairbanks is very charismatic – he seems a more American actor than his son, lots of energy and brashness.

Movie review – “How to Lose Friends and Alienate People” (2008) **1/2

Not quite right. A very strong cast but the handling is a bit flabby and the script lacks drive. It needed something to propel the action. Also the relationships with the characters, with the exception of the Kirsten Dunst romance (which worked quite well), are undeveloped – there was more in particular to the Simon Pegg-Jeff Bridges relationship, their connection; plus also it would have benefited from a bit more complexity with Danny Huston and Gillian Anderson’s characters. It feels as though the movie could have been smartened up a bit but they weren’t sure of the tone or where they wanted to pitch the movie. Career boy movie? Rom com? Satire?

Movie review – “The Women” (2008) **

Artistically mostly a failure but fascinating to watch because you can see why they made the wrong choices they made. It would have been impossible to remake the 1939 film, which was inherently sexist – a bunch of women bitching and desperate to hang on to their men, nothing without them. So here the women are more supportive – they have careers and you are allowed to go back to a cheating husband, but only after you set up your own fashion line first. It means the work has been de-fanged a bit – the troublesome Rosalind Russell character becomes the bitch but with a heart of gold Annette Bening, there is Hollywood horseshit with Ryan running her own company.

That doesn’t matter so much. The real problem with this is that the ghost of Sex and the City lingers over it so much. I can understand why this is – presumably the success of that series/movie helped this get greenlit – but did Annette Bening have to be so reminiscent of Kim Cattrall? Did they have to focus on four friends and have scenes of them having lunch together chatting around a table being witty? Did it have to end with one of them having a baby? Did it have to be set in New York?

If this had come out in 1994 as originally planned it would have gone gangbusters. But now it just seems so old fashioned, with this irritating product placement for Sacks and this silly third act point where Bette Midler (wasted) inspired Meg Ryan with the words “you have to say to yourself ‘what do I want’?” The woman has a maid, housekeeper, one kid, big house and cool job - she doesn’t exactly strike me as Miss Selflessness.

English’s direction is very poor with anything other than a two hander (the two handers are fine but honestly who can’t direct one of them). Meg Ryan is okay, Bening too close to Cattrall, Debra Messing, Eva Longoria and Debbie Mazar are good, Candice Bergen and Cloris Leachman are terrific, Jada Pinkett Smith is poor (she plays it totally wrong, all sitcomy – and I didn’t believe that these women would be friends with that sort of lesbian).

Some really good scenes – Bergen and Ryan (really wonderful two hander), Bening and Ryan’s daughter. And there are bright lines and lots of good actors. This didn’t deserve the shell-acking it received at the hands of middle aged male critics, who seemed to be personally offended by it, but it’s still a disappointment.