Not bad little mystery I only really watched because Ken Hughes directed. It's a short around 25 minutes and feels like the episode of a TV show but was well done. It's about the discovery of a corpse during a bombing raid and finding out who they were. John Le Muisier and Australia's own Vincent Ball are detectives; Vincent Platt is the accused.
Part of The Scotland Yard series for Anglo-Amalgamated.
Highly entertaining update of Shakespeare from Philip Yordan, who also updated Anna Christie. Directed by Ken Hughes who I'm having an increasing amount of time for, Cromwell apart.
The basic structure is solid and adapts extremely well to Chicago gangsters: the card reading fortune teller, the violence, the ambition.
Old British hands like Sid James and Bruno Colleano provide solid backing to the two leads, both excellent: Paul Douglas and Ruth Roman. Everyone needs to act there and they do.
It's not fun but it's like a colourful museum and every Bond fan should see it. And because there is so much happening with so many actors I like I got something out of it.
Where to start:
- Woody Allen has genuinely funny gags with the firing squad
- I liked Peter Sellars as a Bond type
- Orson Welles is a terrific Bond villain
- quite a few women have agency: Ursula Andress as Vesper, Barbara Bouchet as Miss Moneypenny, Joanna Pettet is the hero of her own segment
- Terence Cooper gets a big intro then disappears
- Deborah Kerr really really overacts
- I don't think David Niven was anything like Bond, in the books or movies
- Bouchet and Jackie Bisset should have been real Bond girls they are gorgeous
- there is a lot of genuine cleverness
- there is a lot more laziness
- it piles it on but then many 60s comedies did (The Great Race, It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World)
- the music score is great - the theme and "The Look of Love"
- there's genuine emotional moments which could have (don't laugh) been more mined: Andress falling for Sellers, Pettet and dad Niven
Ridgeley has always been a bit of a joke even during Wham!'s heyday - even small kids noticed that George Michael wrote all the songs, except, oddly 'Careless Whisper'. What role did he have? Was he crush of George's? Did he have blackmail material? Was it just luck? Lots of girls back in the day thought he was the cuter one but that's not exactly a ringing endoresment.
Well luck was obviously a lot of it - but from this (and this confirms with other stuff I've read) Ridgely provided George Michael with confidence. Michael had the talent, the songwriting ability and the voice... but Ridgley had the chutpzah to actually start a band in part due to more supportive parents than Michael's conservative Greek's (Ridgley's dad was Egyptian, mind). Also being a duo and genuine friends, the two of them had a chemistry that came across... they had a friendly vibe and clearly were having a great time. As great was Michael was, I doubt he would have been as big without Ridgley.
This is a warm and affectionate account of their friendship up until the end of Wham!... which is when the book cuts out. The rest is a chapter... Ridgley's acting career gets barely a paragraph, his racing career only a few pages and there's nothing about marrying someone who was in Banarama, and only a bit about his own album. I mean, self effacing is fine but come on. Why did he not keep going in music?
It's nice to hear about Shirley and the people from the early days and where they grow up. Fans of the band will enjoy it a lot.
So-so thriller about Enemy Agents offing British scientists. Richard Conte is the imported American star trying to stop it. He has a sweet romance. Crisply directly with some hammy accent villain acting, the odd decent action sequence. It's too silly for me to care but it was alright. Might enjoy it more if you like Conte.
Gripping account of the debates between Stephen Douglas and Abraham Lincoln, heavily quoting from the actual speeches. Powerful stuff. Doesn't shy away from Lincoln's derogatory comments about black people. Uncomfortable to listen to at times - so many of the attitudes still remain. But they knew how to talk.
A musical co written by Harry Shearer - this production has Kelsey Grammar, John Goodman, Chris Guest and others, so the acting is fun. And I laughed though it is a one joke show, ie. that Hoover was gay. That would have been fresher in the 1990s. The show occasionally brings up Hoover's power and the secrets he kept on people but can't quite link the two - if it had maybe this would be stronger. But some of it is funny like Clyde Tolson accusing Mevin Purvis of going after Hoover. And Shearer and a friend appear at interval to impro (it feels) a very funny bit where they impersonate the "authors" of the musical, some Courtney St Claire types.
