Movie review – “The Wooden Horse” (1950) **1/2

Ripping Yarns brilliantly spoofed this in Tomkinson’s School Days – a pukka tale of British POWs trying to escape during World War Two via a vaulting horse. Lots of smoking pipes and being jolly good and decent about it.

The story is amazing, which is a good thing since the handling is so understated and undramatic - the budget seems to have been very low (that prison camp is sparse), the escape quite easy, ditto their adventures in occupied Europe. And what's with ending the movie on a silly gag?

As has been pointed out in many books, the whole thing is treated like adventures at school, with the prisoners as students and guards as teachers. (An exception to this is the killing of the German soldier towards the end - this is well done.)

Leo Genn and Anthony Steel are the main escapees, joined by David Tomlinson. Steel walks around in just shorts most of the time, establishing himself as a heart throb for the rest of the 50s. None of them are that good; Peter Finch impresses as an Australian soldier who escaped but was recaptured and helps Genn with information while recovering in hospital.

It's a great story, and proved enormously popular, you just wish it was done better.

Radio review – Suspense – “The Great Train Robbery” (1953) ***

Many real life crimes use this title but this seems to be a fictitious account of a struggling suburbanite (Fred MacMurray) who agrees to go along with a relative’s plan to rob a train. MacMurray was always effective playing seeming Mr Average with an underbelly and his ordinariness works here. Loved the ending with his wife inadvertently being responsible for him being arrested out of concern.

Radio review – Inner Sanctum – “Study for Murder” (1942) ***

Boris Karloff is excellent value as a shrink who works with a man on Death Row and becomes obsessed with the idea of killing someone, what it would feel like. He goes ga-ga and do you reckon his wife will make it?

Movie review – “White Mane” (1954) ***

Charming short French film about a boy and a horse with some amazing footage of horses fighting and tracking shots of horses running through the marshes. Very simple and sweet - a bit of fantasy at the end but that's about it.

Movie review – “Knight and Day” (2011) **

Starts wonderfully, with Cameron Diaz hooking up with mystery man Tom Cruise on a plan – lots of playful banter, intrigue and star power. It started to lose its way around the time when they land and he puts Diaz in her house – when the tension should be increasing (eg she’s accused of the crime and goes on the run herself or something) or at least she should be having more genuine stakes, it slows down and has to start up again – then there’s another action sequence which is far too cartoony and CGI-like to be genuinely exciting.

 

The movie never recovers – the device of the scientist feels under-used, it’s too obvious that Peter Skaarsgaard is really a baddy (cf in Charade Walter Matthau was a lot more convincing). I get they were going for Charade but that whole film is about Audrey Hepburn’s husband being killed and her unknowingly be in possession of the money – you could have taken Cameron Diaz out of this movie and it still could have played out. 

 

Some fun moments (eg the reveal of Cruise's island), surprisingly chaste (why not have them have sex?), characters you think are going to be important aren't (eg the scientist, Cameron's ex), the head of the CIA is really dull.

Movie review – “The Beautiful Blonde from Bashful Bend” (1949) ***

Preston Sturges last film for a Hollywood studio was a deliberate attempt at making a box office hit: Daryl Zanuck gave him technicolour, Betty Grable at her box office peak, and a handsome budget. The resulting film lost money and isn’t particularly well remembered today.

It starts marvellously, with Grable in bright, animated form and very sexy as a saloon singer with a hot temper and quick to shoot her cheating boyfriend (Cesar Romero). She accidentally shoots a judge in the backside and hot tails it to a small town where she and her mate are mistaken for school teachers and she sets her cap at a rich miner (Rudy Vallee). So far so fun – a terrific set up, the action is bright and breezy, and Sturges can’t get enough scenes of Grable changing in and out of clothes.

 

But then it runs into trouble – Cesar Romero comes back, but instead of having him as a false love interest he’s the real love interest – which is troublesome since you know he and Grable have problems that will never reconcile (the ending makes a gag along these lines but it means the ending has hollow emotion). You keep expecting him to reform a la the Great McGinty but it doesn’t happen. 

 

Also there are these two over acting character actors as trouble some brothers, whose supposed death prompts the villain to want to hang Romeo and Vallee – but if he thinks his sons are dead that doesn’t make him that villainous, you feel sorry for the guy. So it lacks a real hero and villain, and heart (which the best Sturges films all had) – and the fact they impersonate school teachers isn’t really paid off. There’s a sort of funny teaching scene, and a sheriff checks if she’s a fugitive… but that’s about it. So it’s a real shame. Still, lots of racy dialogue and good energy.

Movie review – “The Great McGinty” (1940) ***1/2

Preston Sturges became the patron saint of all writers who wished to direct by making such an impressive splash with this film. It still holds up today, as cynical tales where everyone is out for themselves tend to do. The girl who plays his wife isn’t that good looking but does her best and I loved the moment where they’re discussing marriage, he glances at her legs and she says “what’s that got to do with it?”

 

Brian Donlevy is lively and good value as the down at heel bum who becomes mayor (although if he was so clever how did he get so poor?) - his scuzzy persona and not-handsome-enough-for-traditional-leading-man looks work well. Akim Tamiroff is terrific fun as his boss and there is, as would become usual for Sturges, a rich gallery of supporting characters. 

 

Genuine pathos which works too - McGinty feeling ashamed because his step kids get in fights over him, McGinty talking about going to work when he was young (all the better because this is done wittily), and most of all the finale, with McGinty having been arrested but being allowed to escape... presumably the censor didn't mind this because he is parted forever from the women and children he loves.