Movie review - "The Sea Shall Not Have Them" (1954) **

A film best remembered today for Noel Coward's famous one liner about seeing a poster advertising Michael Redgrave and Dirk Bogarde in the film - "I don't see why not, everyone else has." The title is silly (how often do yo used the word "shall" used in a title?), but at least it's got a fresh angle, focusing on a sea rescue service.

The plot involves four Britons who crash in the ocean - Redgrave, Bogarde, resident American Bonar Colleano (called "Canada" just so we know where he's from), and Jack Watling - and wait to be rescued by a ship led by Anthony Steel and Nigel Patrick. When you realise that this film doesn't star John Mills, John Gregson, Jack Hawkins, Richard Todd, Kenneth More or Alec Guiness, you realise just how many stars in uniform were working on the sound stages of British cinema in the 1950s.

There's not a lot of plot twists, it's just the rescue is a bit more difficult than they first think: it rains, a rescue ship breaks down, there's a fire on board, the survivors run out of food, it's cold. The result is that the story feels as though it drags on. Basically it's four people in a raft, and others come to pick them up. Redgrave has to deliver some top secret documents, Bogarde gives a long monologue in a lower class accent (this was the year of Doctor in the House, he wasn't a big star yet), some women fret, the rescuers squabble, there's no one real hero... that's about it. 

The highlight is probably the incorporation of documentary footage and occasionally the action seems realistic - conking heads on ceilings, shivering, knocking things over, etc.

Movie review - "Dunkirk" (1958) *** (warning: spoilers)

Ealing's last significant work, featuring some big (British) names and budget, along with a "marquee" subject matter - to wit, the evacuation of Dunkirk by the British in 1940, a defeat so famous that it's surprising in a way it took until 1958 to earn a film (although it does feature in Mrs Miniver). The two leads are definitive England's favourite "Mr Ordinary" actors, John Mills and Richard Attenborough - the former a soldier whose section gets cut off from the main body of troops in France (the budget wasn't that big) the latter a foot-dragging civilian who reluctantly lends his boat to the cause. The third biggest part (it's actually equal first biggest) goes to Bernard Miles as an annoying journo - it's actually the worst role because Miles just spends the whole time whining about how ill-prepared the British are, and how cowardly Attenborough is. I didn't shed too many tears for his (admittedly unexpected) death on the beach.

A lot of this is very effective: the opening use of newsreels, a stirring moment where Miles and the civilians offer their boats to the cause (I choked up a bit at this), the mostly no-nonsense attitude of the British soldiers (there's some whining and cowardice), spectacular shots of extras climbing into boats and scrambling for safety on the beaches, Mills' craggy face. The Germans are mostly seen in long shot or heard via explosions; the French barely feature at all. Women don't come off too well - Miles has a silent, noble wife whereas Attenborough has a nagging one (a feature of 50s British cinema). It also could have done with more vigorous handling - Leslie Norman wasn't the best director in the world and it's a shame someone like Lewis Gilbert couldn't have handled the action. Oh, and it's over long (almost two hours and ten minutes). Still, a worthy depiction of a famous story.

Movie review - "A Tale of Two Cities" (1958) ***1/2

Proof that Ralph Thomas could make a really good movie when he pulled his finger out - he was helped by a decent budget and strong script from TEB Clarke, and of course Dickens' source material. Dirk Bogarde is excellent as the doomed Sidney Carton, all self-loathing charm and dashing looks as he goes to the guillotine. Dorothy Tutin and Paul Guers aren't that crash hot as the married couple for whom he makes the sacrifice - not really worth the effort (he especially is a charmless prat and he looks nothing like Bogarde).

But there's a superb supporting cast including Cecil Parker, Athene Seyler (Mrs Pross), Donald Pleasance, Christopher Lee (loathsome aristocrat), Rosalie Crutchley (Madame de Farge), the guy who plays the guard, Marie Versini (the seamstress, whose instant relationship with Carton was one of the things I always liked about the book - her part feels bigger here). These are all extremely good.

Because the ending is so strong I always forget how much other plot there is in this before Carton makes his sacrifice. It spanks along, with no punches pulled about the horridness of the French nobility, toughness of British "justice" or ferocity about the revolution. Bogarde and others wished it had been shot in colour - I quite liked the black and white photography but colour may have helped it escape the shadow of the 1935 version.

Movie review - "Simba" (1955) **1/2 (warning spoilers)

This has one of the most striking openings of 1950s British cinema - a Kenyan is bicycling through the country on a sunny day, singing, when he comes across a bloodied white man. The Kenyan pulls out his hatchet and finishes the guy off. Dirk Bogarde arrives in town to meet his brother, who has been killed. He then sticks around to find to who's responsible, like a hero in a Western - which is what these British neo-Imperial adventures were often like: The Overlanders, Campbell's Kingdom.

It's a politically fascinating piece, with its racist white settlers, liberals, Uncle Tom doctors, savage Africans. There's also similarities between the novel and film Something of Value which makes me wonder if the makers of that didn't watch this - to wit, we get to know an established White Kenyan couple, he's racist unrepentantly and his wife isn't but he loves her, and the Mau Mau cut them up but she just manages to live. There's also a romance between a lead couple, one of whom returns home after being away for a while, which is a vague triangle with a black African. And a final image where a nice African dies... but we cut to the face of a young boy. (As in, "it's too hard to work things out with the blacks now - but hey maybe we can do it with the next generation.") On the flip side of this there's a district officer character, played by Donald Sinden, who is reminiscent of the Anthony Steel part in The Planter's Wife  - nothing is original.

Bogarde's performance is a great weakness - he simply doesn't look at home in Kenya, or this type of movie, to be honest, and one wishes the original choice Jack Hawkins could have done it. Or even - don't laugh - Anthony Steel, who was a more believable physical type. (Bill Travers is another actor from this time who could've done it. Or Kenneth More.) Bogarde's miscasting is a big problem because one of the central dramatic conceits of the movie is Bogarde's character moving from hating Africans to accepting them and being positive for the future - Bogarde is not convincing doing  any of this. Another debit is the awkward cutting between location footage and studio, which is jarring and keeps pulling you out of the reality of the movie.

On the sunny side Virginia McKenna is convincing as a white Kenyan (this is relative - she at least looks like she lives outdoors, which is more than you can say for most British female stars of the time), Donald Sinden is fine, Earl Cameron grabs all his chances in what is a flawed part, a self-loathing black doctor who keeps talking down about his race, but is still a character of some complexity, more than most black actors got the chance to play at the time.

The photography and colour are impressive, the director handles the action sequences with flair (it's an exciting movie), the script is only really concerned with white people as opposed to blacks, it doesn't really offer any solutions more than "be nice to each other", the racist whites are humanised in a way the racist blacks aren't... anyway, academics could have a field day with it.

Movie review - "They Who Dare" (1954) ***

Britain made so many war films in the 1950s that at times it's difficult to tell them apart but this one had several advantages: a really good director in Lewis Milestone, colour photography, Greek setting, and location filming on Cyprus. The story is simple, but effective: Dirk Bogarde leads a group of eight men to blow up two airfields on the island of Rhodes. There's a little bit of squabbling amongst the group (who include some comic relief working class types and exiled Greeks).

Dirk Bogarde wasn't always believable as a man of action but he does good work here - it helps that he's young and enthusiastic. The actual landing on the island and blowing up of the airfields is relatively easy but it's in the race to safety things get tricky and the film gets better and better. It's a shooting gallery plot with the Germans picking off our heroes on by one and you're not sure who is going to make it apart from Bogarde. Based on a true story, apparently. Denholm Elliot is one of the men on the mission.  I really liked the final image of the survivors sitting down surrounded by empty plates for their comrades.

Movie review - "The Little Hut" (1957) *1/2

This has a reputation of being a flop, but it actually turned a tidy profit - due, one supposes, to the drawing power of its three stars and the fact its play source was so successful. 

It's heavy going, though - 1957 was too early to properly adapt the story, and so the censor's influence is all too felt. David Niven and Ava Gardner haven't been having an affair - Niven's just wanted to, but hasn't acted on it, despite the fact best mate Stewart Granger doesn't seem that interested in Gardner. Gardner enjoys having men chase after her but things with Niven don't progress beyond kissing.

Niven and Gardner were famous for their sexual exploits in real life, which adds a bit of tang to the story. Gardner's hard living was beginning to catch up with her (her figure was starting to fill out), but she's very sexy with that husky voice, and she takes to island life with disarming ease - putting a flower in the hair, wearing a swimsuit most of the time, enjoying the men chasing after her. Her eyes light up at male attention, helping give this some badly needed sexual undertones.

Granger and Niven are professional but the material defeats them. It's so light and weak - there's this extended sequence where they do a mock divorce being particularly painful. 

No one acts like a recognisable human being: not Niven with his love from afar, Granger with his reactions to Gardner's flirting, the fact the whole affair is "pretend", the trio on the island. The studio setting gets annoying after a while (surely they could have at least stumped up for some second unit)

Walter Chiari pops up as the fourth member of the cast - she and Gardner had an affair in real life.

 This shouldn't have been made until a few years later when the censors would have allowed a bit more freedom. Or until they could have gotten a better adaptation.

Play review - "The Gingerbread Lady" Ensemble Theatre Sydney April 2012

Neil Simon talked at length about the writing of this play in his memoirs, as it was such a departure for him - yes there were the one liners and a New York setting and it was based on people he knew, but it was darker and the characters even more flawed. I never saw the original, and haven't caught the film version, but I am familiar with the two lead actors in the original production - Maureen Stapleton and James Coco. Watching this production (I'd read it twice before) I could imagine both those actors in the parts and they seemed more suited than Kate Raison and Tamblyn Lord. Both are good actors, but they seem too thin and sensible than Stapleton and Coco, both of whom had a more self-destructive quality. And I never believed Danielle Carter was so stunningly pretty in her youth she'd want to hang on to it. Like a number of Simon comedies, there's a wisecracking, wise-beyond-her-years teenage daughter - a nothing much role which is hard to get much out of, and not much is got out of it here.

The Ensemble is a lovely theatre - every seat is a good one. A little old lady dropped her crutches twice but no one died.