Sex-horror from those erstwhile gothic aficionados Hammer Studios, this one a second sequel to The Vampire Lovers originally entitled Vampire Virgins, which gives you some idea where the thrust of the narrative is heading. When producer Harry Fine saw Playboy’s Playmate of the Month Sep 1970, a photospread of Maltese twins Mary and Madeleine Collinson, he drastically altered the storyline specifically to accommodate their beautiful figures and expressive faces.
I say that with no sarcasm. The film is enlivened considerably by their presence. Following the sudden deaths of their parents, the Gelhorn girls have found themselves transported from decadent Venice to backward, superstitious Styria and are under the guardianship of their uncle, the pious, authoritarian preacher Gustav Weil, given a frenzied turn by Peter Cushing. Madeleine Collinson is Frieda, the headstrong, sensual, lustful twin, who embarks on a wild affair with wicked overlord Count Karnstein, played with some delight by Damien Thomas. Mary Collinson meanwhile becomes the delicate, submissive romantically inclined Maria, who falls for Anton, the local choirmaster.
Director John Hough and writer Tudor Gates must have spent time watching Witchfinder General [a film I reviewed here recently] as they allow Weil to inhabit the same complex moral position as Vincent Price’s Matthew Hopkins. Caught by a fanatical religious zeal, Weil fails to differentiate genuine evil from desperate poverty and is touring the countryside burning women he believes are witches. Mostly prostitutes and widows, these women scratch a living and are defenceless against the Brotherhood, Weil’s band of prominent townsfolk who carry out these hunts on a regular and punitive basis. Anton knows they are misguided, but Styria has lived in shadow of the devil for so long, the Brotherhood for all its good intentions has come to strike an equal dread on its population. The sight and sound of them, galloping on horseback, chasing down a young flower girl is more frightening than a dozen neck nibbles.
Karnstein, the real devil of the detail, laughs in their faces while carrying out debauched Satanic festivals in his crumbling castle. One of these ceremonies leads to the resurrection of his ancestor Mircalla – an underused Katya Wyeth – who seduces him with promises of eternal life and unending power. This should be a moment of high drama, but after some reasonable smoky special effects, the original succubus arrives clothed in a cowl so thick it reminded me of the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come from the Leslie Bricusse musical Scrooge. I almost expected Karnstein to break into song: “Thank you very much, thank you very much, that’s the nicest thing that anyone’s ever done for me…”
This moment of unintentional high hilarity aside, the movie for the most part is sombre, a little silly and quite brutal. The photography is uniformly dark; the sets spare, bleak and grey. Early on there’s a brilliant image of a horse-drawn carriage pulling into the mud-sotted town square and in the background three children are fighting until their mother throws the daily slops over them. Yeah, bleak’s the word alright. The houses and meeting halls of this grim village are as spartan as those in Witchfinder. The environment is depressed and unhappy. The local women find solace in small chatty groups; the men leer and drink and rabble rouse. The village is completely dysfunctional, given over to a form of religious worship so obsessed with the measure of goodness, it has ceased to recognise the evil that breeds within its own society. When the Gelhorn Twins arrive, their presence stirs the males’ amorous intentions to the point this dichotomy can no longer be ignored.
Meanwhile, Anton and his sister Ingrid [David Warbeck, Isobel Black, both functional at best] try to educate the young local women. The finishing school is of course attended entirely by teenagers with deep cleavages and gossipy gorgeous mouths. For this effrontery, Ingrid gets murdered by a vampire. The Twins meanwhile spend most of their time in bed, discussing how to escape their uncle’s clutches or pacify his rages, their breasts barely contained by the opaque night dresses they wear.
Madeleine Collinson gives the more attention grabbing performance as the evil sister, haughty and impudent, sexually provocative, she’s enthralled by the satanic rites performed at Castle Karnstein and engages in some cod-lesbianism to prove her devotion to the Count. Lusting for fresh human blood, her eyes flicker with intent over the throat of every man and woman, her bosom heaving with intent, her fanged mouth offering beguiling smiles; she enjoys the seductions and revels in the murders. Earlier, she recoils from the threat of vampirism, but once converted becomes passionate for the strength and freedom it delivers. Unlike Karnstein however, she still fears death, even as an undead, and as the townspeople gather for the slaughter, Madeleine Collinson is suitably perturbed. When Frieda comes to an end it is in a moment of true medieval horror. We assume her soul is saved as her body doesn’t deteriorate. In fact, the mythologies of vampirism are twisted a little to suit the storyline, sometimes for better, others for worse. For instance, I was impressed the undead were allowed to walk around in daylight, less so by the sudden bare-seconds change affected by a vampire’s bite.
There’s an interesting contemporary irony here as the characteristics which mark Freida as evil are the very attributes associated with positive female role models: assertiveness, career minded, mould-breaking, powerful, sexually liberated. She detests the confines of the schoolroom and the house, yearns not only for finery, but for passion, excitement and freedom. This of course also proves her downfall. Hough and Gates seem to suggest that liberation is fundamentally driven by sin, or at least moral ambivalence. I’m not sure that quite holds water, but it is interesting the story’s attention is focussed primarily on Freida Gelhorn rather than her sister.
Mary Collinson offers a quieter presence; obviously timid, she isn’t quite as effective in a role which has none of the scene stealing possibilities of Frieda. Mostly Maria pleads and wrings her hands. So devoted to protecting her twin, she even accepts beatings from her uncle, first when taking the place of her sister, then again for covering up for her. She’s disconcertingly passive about everything, even when heading for the stake. It’s odd the scenes of domestic violence are not shown as the film is one of Hammer’s more noticeably bloody affairs. It might also have raised Maria’s profile to more than a cypher for goodness. Sadly for this viewer, the siblings don’t even have a pillow fight.
Twins of Evil, with its all-encompassing dark tone, allows Peter Cushing to revel in playing the odious puritan. He gives one of his most forceful Hammer performances, never better than when inciting his Brotherhood to go on another witch hunt. As the tide turns against Weil and one of his own kin becomes a vampire, his desolation is keenly portrayed. It’s unusual to see emotions other than fear in a Hammer production and the agony and guilt Cushing allows Weil is welcome. Even when heroic, the preacher retains an air of gloomy fanaticism, as if hell, not heaven, lurks on his shoulder.
The story gets more bloody as it progresses. Roy Stewart [Quarrel Jr in Live and Let Die] plays the mute coachman who delivers and endures gory death. Dennis Price crops up to be bitten by Frieda’s glamourous fangs. The reused or to-be-used sets from several Hammer productions feature highly. The movie’s slick and fast. The climax recalls both Dracula and Frankenstein and it’s rather fitting none of the embodiments of evil survive the final reel. The film holds an audience’s attention mostly through the antics of the Collinson Twins, who despite being dubbed, deliver consummate performances in a movie where the visuals – their visuals – are more important than the whole. The film’s about the twins, it’s in the title and I quite enjoyed watching the Collinsons, Peter Cushing and Damien Thomas giving full vent to the age-old battle of good versus evil.
One question remains: whatever happened to the resurrected Mircalla?
That’s a great review of Twins Of Evil, chrisno1. It’s one of my favourite Hammer movies. Just one small error, Vincent Price played Matthew Hopkins in Witchfinder General, not John Hopkins.
Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.
Renate Reinsve was given the Best Actress award in Cannes for this movie in her first lead in a movie ever. It was in fact her first major role in a movie. Director Joachim Trier had however saw her in the teatre and delivering one line in one of his earlier movies. The movie is second in the Norwegian box-office after NTTD. International reviews are glowing and the Rotten Tomatoes numbers so far are unbeatable. Varity calls it the best movie at Cannes (so far) in 2021 and The Guardian compares Renate Reinsve to Alicia Vikander. Variety also says the movie "the one to beat" for the Best International Feature at the Oscars.
It's a comedy-drama about Julie, a woman of about 30 who has problems deciding on her careers and boyfriends. There is a lot of talk about feelings in this movie. As we all know, feelings is something women invented to make life difficult for men. In fact there were only five men in the packed cinema, including my friend and I. But the joke is on all the men not in the cinema, because the movie is excelent! The story and lines were very well-written, the humor sharp and the acting first rate. Unlike most personal dramas this movie has CGI special effects, and it's very effectively used. If you only watch one Norwegian relationship drama/comedy in 2021, watch "The worst person in the world"!
Renate Reinsve has reportedly been approached by several famous directors after her Cannes win and Joachim Trier is turning into an important European director. If any of you watch this movie and like it, do yourself a favour and watch his "Thelma" too! 😃
A lesser-known, and indeed lesser, Hammer film. Lacking the solid presence of either Peter Cushing or Christopher Lee, lacking any supernatural element, just a film about bad people doing bad things. The always reliable Robert Hardy here hams it up something dreadful, assisted by Patrick Magee. Bond's Robert Brown has a small part.
As far as I know, the film's only claim to fame is the first appearance of full-frontal nudity in a Hammer film. The plot is weak, the acting equally so. Not recommended (and I love Hammer movies).
Kevin McCarthy plays a doctor who is besieged by complaints from his patients that their loved ones are behaving strangely. Upon investigation he discovers that they are being replaced by aliens who are assuming their identities after being grown in pods to their exact likeness. The scene where McCarthy discovers the pods being grown is highly effective along with the one where McCarthy is on a highway screaming “They’re here, they already here!”
Directed by Don Siegel, who would go on to direct several Clint Eastwood movies, and John Wayne’s last movie The Shootist, this is intelligent sci-fi of the highest order. Highly recommended.
Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.
Something of a return to form for Spike Lee, a drama laced with inappropriate comedy, this tells the highly fictionalised story of Ron Stallworth, the only black serving police officer in Colorado Springs, who because of his unique position is quickly seconded into the undercover crime unit.
At first he infiltrates a Black Panther meet, where Kwame Ture delivers a searing call to arms and where Ron falls for Black Student Union President Patrice Dumas. Later he manages to infiltrate, along with his white Jewish colleague, the local chapter of the Ku Lux Klan and uncovers a terrorist plot. Political, social, career and romantic bridges are built and burnt. The film take itself very seriously despite peculiar forays into farce. It's disappointing the real story is less interesting than the one we see on screen.
Good performances. Lee as director shows his class in some of the quieter sections, especially when Ron and Patrice are courting to the sounds of Too Late to Turn Back Now by the Cornelius Brothers, but he's too prone to contemporary allusions - which was probably what he wanted to achieve anyway. There's a moment where Ron is asked if he really wants a white racist, misogynistic bigot in the White House and we know exactly which President is being referred to. Harry Belafonte gives a brilliant monologue relating the true life 1915 lynching of Jessie Washington which as all the gut wrenching sense of injustice, fuelled by a belief in community and individual power and burgeoning legitimacy.
The newsreel coda featuring Donald Trump attempting to justify the actions of white supremacists interspersed with footage of the lethal drama which unfolded in Charlottesville rather knocks the nail in the coffin for the argument. Worthy and slow, it's alright.
Finally Scarlett Johansson got her standalone Black Widow movie and the first Marvel movie with a female lead. To her credit it's a solid movie. It begins when Romanov is a child living in the US with her younger sister and their parents, but in reality they're Soviet undercover agents. Soon we jump to 21 years later during the time when superheroes are illegal and Romanov hides in Norway. Yay! The country even gets a title card. More exactly she takes a ferry I've been on, does her shopping in a grocery store I've used a few times and lives on top of the Trollstigen road (a place with tons of tourists 😂). Svalbard is also used in the movie. All and all my country is well represented. Even the weather in Sæbø is realistic.
I like the plot in this movie. It's less reliant on obviously CGI constructed action scenes than many Marvel movies. The acting is good, especially Florence Pugh is a standout as Black Widow's younger sister. Scarlett Johansson is very convincing as an action star, she acts very well and she's of cource hot as hell. Some of the best scenes are about the relationships in Black Widow's "family", just small comedic and personal moments. We also discover Black Widow is a fellow James Bond fan. She watches Moonraker during her stay in Norway, making Number24 a very happy boy! 😁
Black Widow is also given a fake ID with the name "Fanny Longbottom", a name that sounds like it's straight out of a Roger Moore Bond movie. Her reaction? "Are you twelve?"
Maybe language is the main problem of this movie? Black Widow's undercover "family" in the US all speak with an American accent, so why is everyone but her speaking in a Russian accent later in the movie? We get to hear a "Norwegian" radio report spoken by a Swede with American Rs and the mistaken belief he can speak Norwegian. This is a Hollywood tradition, but one would think Marvel has the time and money to get an actual Norwegian actor in a sound booth for a day.
This is after all a minor problem and I think Black Widow is one of the better Marvel movies.
I didn't quite enjoy it as much as you, but Florence Pugh very much stole the show. They really need to find a way to put that lady in the next bond film.
I watched the whole of Thunderball again yesterday. My absolute favourite Connery film and easily in the top five of my Bond films.
I’ve said it before but going to the Cinema in 1965 and seeing this film must have been an absolute treat. Exotic locations, Connery on top form and maybe the best Bond girls ever. It’s aged a bit but what hasn’t. Still an utter joy to watch 👍
This is a Bob Hope western parody that was quite a success back in the day. Someone is smugling weapons to the indians and Calamity Jane (Jane Russell) is released from jail by the governor to take down the criminals. If she succeeds Jane gets a pardon. She enda up partnering with "Painless" Peter Potter (Bob Hope) a failed traveling dentist. He travels in a wagon decorated with a tooth. I'm pretty sure Christoph Waltz' mode of transportation in Django Unchained is a homage to "Painless".
The two leads look a lot like Kelsey Grammer (Frasier) and Salma Hayek, and they do a great job. Bob Hope is very funny, but I wish he was more generous with the jokes. He gives himself nearly all the funny lines, but I'm sure the movie would've been better if he has given some to his co-stars. The movie is still funny and worth a look.
Never seen this film from start to finish before, though I've caught the excellent and authentic First Blood, the first film to feature Vietnam vet John Rambo, several times.
This is an odd sequel. The 'hero' John Rambo is the same guy as in the first one, but the cinematic universe is wholly different, and he's been muscled up and repurposed for an all-action adventure film. It's as if you went from From Russia With Love straight to You Only Live Twice, it's the same guy but the scope and reality is very different.
I turned up my nose at these kinds of films as a teenager, figuring I was a cut above with my suave Bond movies, but I shouldn't have. Not sure I'd have made it into an 18 certificate, if this was. Certainly after the increasingly sober and ambitious recent Bond films, watching this was a breath of fresh air, and look! There's Berkoff's General Orlov popping up as a nasty Russian in a helicopter! He was also the villain in Eddie Murphy's Beverely Hills Cop so he had a thing going on in the 80s didn't he.
For a movie known for its high body count at the time, perhaps I missed a savage opening by tuning in 10 mins late but it seems 30 or 40 mins go by without John Rambo shooting or killing anyone. Things pick up later of course but actually compared to the indiscriminate machine gunning in later Bond films, it's nothing too OTT.
Much as I enjoyed Moore in A View To A Kill, you just can't see him in this role with his shirt off running around shooting stuff. Perhaps I am being unfair! Anyway, films like this just adjusted the mean for Hollywood action heroes, it made the Bond thing look passe and I'm afraid Dalton wouldn't have done much to avert that, he hardly ever got his shirt off and when he did it was nothing to shout about. He wasn't a physical presence much.
Surprisingly for a movie I thought would be all gung-ho my country right or wrong, this film has a savagely cynical attitude to US leadership and the bureaucrats running things. It's quite political albeit in small soundbites.
It's also a very simple, seemingly short movie. Maybe all the jungle stuff was mocked up in the studio but otherwise I can't see how this would have broken the budget. The returns would have been immense.
I think this film got maligned largely because of the kind of people who went big for it, with tabloid reports of dumb Yanks going in to relive Vietnam - only they got to win this time! - and shouting out 'Go get em, Rambo!' There is some dumb stuff in this of course, my favourite is when our hero is getting hostages out only a villain appears with a gun and lets fire! One gets hit before the villain is taken out. But as the helicopter flies off, we never get to see if he died or not, indeed the shot hostage is never referenced again!
Sadly, I did read there is evidence to suggest that some Vietnam vets were left as hostages there and the US Govt let them rot, being unable or unwilling to extricate them, don't know if that's wholly true.
The two trailers I’ve seen have been amazing. Steven Spielberg directs a new version of what is my favourite musical and I cannot wait to see it. It even has Rita Moreno who starred in the 1961 version in it. This could be an all time classic.
Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.
The lovely Ingrid Pitt spends a lot of this movie in “elderly” make up in varying degrees of effectiveness. A countess discovers that she can become temporarily young again by bathing in the blood of young women. With the help of her lover and her maid, they kidnap local girls for their blood to rejuvenate her, finding out along the way that only virgin’s blood will suffice.
This is an odd entry in the Hammer series as the countess is not a vampire but only nicknamed Countess Dracula by peasants in the final scenes. Nigel Green, Maurice Dunham and Peter Jeffrey all turn in good performances, along with Ingrid Pitt, but the rest of the cast are lacking gravitas somewhat. There is a notable lack of gore as well which doesn’t help proceedings.
An interesting effort but a little dull.
Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.
Nice to watch a good old fashioned movie with a happy ending, after that bummer of a James Bond film.
Surely Tarantino's nicest film?
So, is Brad Pitt's character imaginary? cuz I saw this other film with Brad Pitt in it once and he turned out to be imaginary in that one, and maybe in this one Leonardo diCaprio has to leave his imaginary friend behind so he can like himself again and move on to better things.
Not sure, I didn't 'get' that film the first time I saw it so I was a bit non-plussed. Now I do, in that - oh, I don't know how to so spoilers on this new format so I won't bother.
Halloween
John Carpenter's original, for the first time last night. His eerie, electronic music - as used in Assault of Precinct 13 - sets the tone and it also captures the strangeness - to English eyes - of US middle-class suburbia, all these nice large houses with a front porch and a garden and greenery all around them, unlike the straight, cheek-by-jowl stacked arrangement we have.
The film was seminal I guess in that it began all these high-school slasher movies. It would have won publicity perhaps for the sense it incited such behaviour - we don't hear of that stuff so much now, largely because any real sickos can just find stuff to watch online, perhaps. Jamie Lee Curtis is very good in her role as the repressed teenager and of course this follows the commented upon cliche that the loose, sexually liberated teens get punished, it's all very puritanical despite it all.
Our own Donald Pleasance has a key role as a psychiatrist who is on the trail of Michael Myers who has escaped the asylum and headed back to his home town. But the actor's role is underwritten and he doesn't have much to do. He just blathers on about how evil Myers is - it's at that point, all tell and no show. He spends much of the movie dramatically wasted, just hanging around Myers' old empty house waiting for his charge too show up, he almost puts you in mind of Ed Rooney going after Ferris Bueller!
I enjoyed it but it seems this kind of movie has been improved upon or at any rate ramped up over the decades, I guess it's like the porn of the time might have been a big deal - Debbie Does Dallas? - but it's all moved on since. Very possibly they were restricted by the censors back then anyway.
I didn't quite get how evil Myers was - he seems to be going through the motions as a generic bogeyman for much of it - he almost puts me in mind of Safrin in the latest Bond film. With Myers, It's not clear if he's a real person or someone with mysterious magical powers. I suppose he's some kind of abstract foe.
I've seen a part of 'Black Widow' (the rest to follow) and Florence Pugh's awesome performance in the disturbing folk horror film 'Midsommar' (2019). I agree she'd be great in a Bond film.
The most recent film I've seen (yesterday) is 'Fighting With My Family' (2019) in which Ms Pugh plays Paige, the real-life English break-out star in the world of WWE. It's a Brit comedy drama with themes and an emotional trajectory fairly typical of films of that ilk, but it's written and directed by Stephen Merchant, whose brand of humour I like, and Ms Pugh is totally captivating as the feisty goth-babe wrestler from Norwich, England who has to overcome her insecurities to prove herself in the States. There are wonderful cameos by Dwayne Johnson and A J Lee.
Critics and material I don't need. I haven't changed my act in 53 years.
I binge-watched all of these at home in March 2020 and thought them totally generic and undemanding but entertaining. After the first one they all kind of blur into one another for me but Mila Jovovich is definitely the main attraction and she's a lot of fun on the commentary tracks, too.
Critics and material I don't need. I haven't changed my act in 53 years.
Another up-and-coming actress is Renate Reinsve, bur her career is at an earlier stage than Pugh's. International media are tipping Reinsve as a future star after her breakthrough performance in "The worst person in the world" ( reviewed in this thread). She won the Best Actress award in Cannes and her chances of walking the red carpet at the Oscars next year are very good. She's 28 years old and 5' 10'', and just the type of talent EON should be looking for.
Alfred Hitchcock’s Notorious is probably his most condensed and satisfying thriller. Filmed at the very end of the Second World War and released in September 1946, the film is a taut, gripping and subversive romantic espionage thriller. Ingrid Bergman, who Hitch was fixated with through the late ’40s, plays Alicia Huberman, a German emigree U.S. citizen whose scientist father has been convicted by a Miami Court of crimes against the state. She’s not your usual 1940s heroine. Young and liberated, Alicia is drunk when we first properly meet her, flirting with Cary Grant’s gate-crasher at an awful, louche party and planning to abandon her father to gaol and go on a cruise with a rich businessman. What Hitchcock does so well, aided by a superb performance from Bergman, is turn the audience’s distaste into affection as she rediscovers her self-respect while beginning an undercover assignment for the American secret services. She is mistreated by the man she loves, the people who employ him and the man she is forced to marry.
Following the drunken party, special agent T.R. Devlin, a sublime Cary Grant in one of his tastiest and nastiest roles, takes Alicia to Rio de Janeiro on the pretext working with him will prove her loyalty to the United States. While spending time together, the pair embark on an affair which turns to love, although Devlin denies it once he discovers Alicia’s mission: to spy on Alex Sebastian, a German businessman who was once in love with her. The Americans believe Sebastian and his ex-pat Nazi friends, who all worked with Huberman for Faver Industries, are conducting clandestine unfriendly activities in Brazil. Unable to access Sebastian directly, they hope Alicia can obtain vital information for them, which leads to her first seducing and then marrying the German. Due to an indiscretion at a party, Sebastian learns his wife has betrayed him and sets out to kill her. Trapped in his mansion, Alicia can only hope for help.
This, of course, was one of Hitchcock’s favourite tropes, the lone, trapped victim in peril. He repeated it in many different disguises throughout his career, but never had he been so cruel to his heroine. Ben Hecht’s fantastic script pulls no punches about Alicia’s behaviour. It isn’t as obvious as you’d hear in a modern movie, but the clues are there and handled with subtlety: “You can add Sebastian to my list of playmates,” she tells Devlin bitterly. Even more forthcoming is the exchange between her American bosses:
Beardsley: She’s had me worried for some time. A woman of that sort.
Devlin: What sort is that, Mr. Beardsley?
Beardsley: Oh, I don’t think any of us have any illusions about her character. Have we, Devlin?
Devlin: Not at all, not in the slightest. Miss Huberman is first, last, and always not a lady. She may be risking her life, but when it comes to being a lady, she doesn’t hold a candle to your wife, sitting in Washington, playing bridge with three other ladies of great honour and virtue.
This sharp, incisive and insensitive dialogue is astounding for a film of 1946. The picture painted of the American Secret Service is not pretty. First they are openly sponsoring a form of blackmail prostitution and second they seem to be not only capable of, but willing and enthusiastic about the exploitation of a potentially vulnerable woman. This is certainly a bleak and muddied depiction of American officialdom, chauvinistic and callous, marked too by condescension towards the outside classes. Devlin has to apologise for slighting Beardsley’s wife, but no one apologises for slighting Alicia.
Devlin is your consummate anti-hero. He may be a white knight at the end, but he’s obnoxious at the beginning, pensive in his love, exploitive in his actions and so caught up with the job in hand he ignores his genuine passions. He’s something of a cad [it’s in the name, a bastardisation of ‘devil’] yet it is he who recognises the position of emotional danger he’s been forced to place Alicia in. That this danger becomes physical, in both a sexual and a corporeal manner, is what eventually forces him to confront his failings, redeeming himself at the last.
Hitchcock introduces Devlin from behind, a man of mystery. Terence Young must have noted this, for it is exactly how he introduces Sean Connery as James Bond in Dr No. Devlin says nothing at the party; he sits and smokes and all the knowledge we gain about him is his silhouette. Finally alone, he and Alicia begin some saucy banter. “You want to go for a ride? – Very much – I don’t like gentlemen who grin at me.” They go for a midnight drive and he places a scarf not around her neck, but her waist, like a chastity belt, claiming her. She recognises the movement and it seems to both entice and annoy her: “I want the speedometer to touch eighty so I can wipe that grin off your face.”
Throughout the film, Devlin’s behaviour continues to be kind and cruel. It isn’t clear he’s falling for her until they share a meal at her apartment. [“Do we have to eat?” he asks wickedly.] There’s a four-minute kiss, during which the actors constantly break for dialogue or distraction – some of it occurs during a telephone call – a clever scene designed to comply with the Hays code, but one which ends up highlighting their desire. Grant’s reaction when Devlin discovers the mission is outright anger, but he’s swayed by the patriotic loyalty he himself demonstrated to Alicia when recruiting her. His boss, Paul Prescott, played with some understatement by an excellent Louis Calhern, recognises something is amiss; when Devlin leaves his office, Prescott notices his agent also left a bottle of Krug Champagne.
When Devlin tells Alicia of her mission and what it involves, he’s cold, brutal. The evening is curtailed, as is their relationship, for when Bergman says “We should have eaten inside, the food’s gone cold,” she isn’t talking about the roast chicken. Alicia has been slowly rebuilding her life thanks to Devlin. She’s cut back on the drinking. She’s happy. She’s decided not to grieve for her father, who committed suicide:
“When he told me a few years ago what he was, everything went to pot. I didn’t care what happened to me. Now I remember how nice he once was, how nice we both were. It’s a very curious feeling, a feeling as if something had happened to me, not to him. You see, I don't have to hate him anymore or myself.”
Love, it seems is the cure, yet Devlin doesn’t say it, she even pleads for him to do so to give her an excuse not to go through with the charade: “If you’d only once said you loved me.” Curiously, it is Alex Sebastian who treats her most kindly. As a suitor he is attentive and polite; he has money and social standing. At any other time, he would be a good match. The ever cultured Claude Rains plays him with an English accent and I wonder if this is where cinema developed its belief that all great villains must have an English – or German – accent? More on the latter later. Hitch and Hecht provide a series of scenes which demonstrate the depth of Sebastian’s adoration wrapped in the deviousness of his Nazi cabal, a council of fear he cannot escape, one which he is leading Alicia indirectly into conflict with.
Their marriage comes swift. His mother doesn’t like it. Leopoldine Konstantin is magnificent as the dowager matriarch with a predisposition to suspicion, a woman committed to the memory of the Nazi cause. When Sebastian realises he’s made a mistake and married a spy, she scoffs at him, admonishes him then sits back on her pillows and strikes a cigarette to plot a diabolical end for her daughter-in-law. This is wonderfully effective and efficient characterisation – modern filmmakers should take note. Her motives though are less to do with the Nazi cause than with maintaining her and her son’s preeminent position among the community. This band of dastardly brothers are an intense, dedicated committee, quick to administer summary justice. The weak and dishonest are not of interest to them. Full marks to the small, ghoulish ensemble who inhabit these terrors.
Central to Notorious is the theme of trust. It is given too easily by some, most notably Sebastian, but also Alicia. Madame Sebastian never trusts anyone, not even her son, and she resolves to solve their problems alone. This is completely the opposite of Alicia’s character; she requires an element of trust to build her relationships. Devlin meanwhile takes the whole film to decide where his honour lies. His conflict of trust comes with his employers. Throwing Alicia and Sebastian together, exploiting her notoriety for gain, sits badly at odds with his view of the world, shaped as it is by loyalty and duty. His bitterness is palpable, especially when he recognises what an excellent extracurricular job she’s made of being sexual bait. He can’t express it without giving Alicia the excuse to escape the situation and expose the mission. He trusts her indignantly at distance.
Sebastian meanwhile is a more sympathetic, though equally complex, character, probably one of Hitchcock’s most nuanced villains. He is a jealous lover, a war criminal, an effete socialite, a cuckold to his domineering mother and a cold hearted killer. Yet when his confidence is betrayed, when he recognises his folly, it hurts us, the audience, because we also recognise he is genuinely in love and has been badly deceived. Alicia however is being coldly manipulated by both the man she loves and the man she doesn’t. Hearts are being damaged everywhere.
Hitchcock emphasises this through a series of terse meetings between her and Devlin, her and Sebastian, her and Madame, Madame and Sebastian. It comes to a climax at a society party, where Alicia helps Devlin gain access to the cellar and they discover wine bottles packed with uranium ore awaiting for despatch to client countries [one assumes the USSR, but it isn’t stated.] Hitchcock was always good at doing parties and he doesn’t disappoint here, as the camera seamlessly moves from room to room, person to person. It commences with a brilliant tracking zoom starting at the peak of the mansion’s staircase and ending at Bergman’s hand, the stolen cellar key clasped in her palm. The difference between the serenity of Sebastian’s mansion, where danger lurks and the huge spaces feel unwelcome, and the chaos of Alicia’s Miami pad, which was safe and homely, is brilliantly identified. Bergman especially excels, at turns calm and controlled, then panicked, almost terrified. When Grant kisses her in front of Sebastian – “He’ll think we came down here deliberately – That’s what I want him to think” – it releases her fears and she, metaphorically, melts into his arms in relief.
As the action plays itself out, Hitchcock and cinematographer Ted Taztlaff – rarely better – invoke a series of excellently framed scenes which draw us into the tension: Alicia realising the coffee is poisoned at the same time we do, by the camera focussing on a close up of a China cup; the long walk down the staircase to freedom, watched by the piercing eyes of the German cabal; Sebastian’s return to the mansion, his death imminent, the door closing on his life. Perhaps best of all, as Alicia lies sick in bed, the camera is positioned for the same angled close-up used to photograph her hungover in Miami; this time, rather than a glass of aspirin it’s water and Devlin’s figure isn’t backlit, furry, off-kilter and upside down, but upright, certain and focussed. The white knight has finally materialised.
It’s worth noting that Mission Impossible 2 borrowed the plot of Notorious almost verbatim. Compared to the colourful remake, the 1946 version is amazingly composed despite being completely studio made. It barely notices, such is the configuration of long shots in small environments and edgy shifting camera angles to suggest space and the haunting close-ups of desperation which interrupt our attention. There’s a lot less killing also; three deaths only, all off-screen. The movie’s depiction of how and why we trust is mature, delicate and intelligent; in being elusive, the script allows an audience to engage with the characters’ emotions as the actors interpret them. When compared to more modern, heavy handed treatments, Notorious is a flawless success, skilfully blending a romantic subplot with an overarching international threat and treating its incidents and people with prurient elegance and a veneer of style, wrapped up of course in the suspense we all know Alfred Hitchcock loves to deliver.
Notorious makes me think of the novel Casino Royale in many ways, particularely in tone. I'd love it if Hitchcock had made CR much like this, maybe even with the same cast.
This is an interesting entry from Hammer as it is also a mash-up of the Jack The Ripper and Burke and Hare cases. And of course Jekyll turns into our own sultry Martine Beswick instead of the usual handsome cad. Capably directed by Roy Ward Baker, it stars Ralph Bates as Jekyll and a nice turn by Ivor Dean as the grave robbing Burke, a change from his usual portrayal of police Inspectors in The Saint and Randall & Hopkirk (Deceased) TV series.
The leads have incredible look-a-like features and the transformation is well done. This is probably Beswick’s standout movie in her career. It’s all played straight and better for it and even though the sets are obvious it has a lot of atmosphere.
Well worth a first time watch or repeat viewing.
Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.
Movie spin-off of the British sitcom - actually by this time known as Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads? but shortened back to its original title of the 1960s to fit on the cinema boards.
Originally in its 1960s black and white incarnation, this sitcom was about two Newcastle lads making their way in the world - drinks and women I guess, these episodes aren't shown mum now - but years later the writers Dick Clement and Ian Le Frenais (brought by Connery in to be script doctors on NSNA many years later) returned to the characters with a new spin - Bob the straighter more conscientious one was married to Thelma, a slightly hissy, disapproving woman, the perfect foil for Bob's dissolute layabout mate Terry.
But I imagine many younger readers are going, 'What's a sitcom, Granddad?' and I have to point them to the likes of The Big Bang Theory, as it seems no UK TV channel makes them anymore, relying instead on panel games which are cheaper. I think Not Going Out is the only one out there. Maybe the 'situation' thing is harder these days where working life is more fluid that it used to be, or perhaps post New Labour there's the sense that everyone is meant to be all the same - middle class, bland, aspirational - and if you're not like that you're not worth the attention anyway, you're on the wrong side of a situation, never mind any comedy.
Big screen spin-offs of sitcoms were big in 1970s Britain, though we've seen it recently again with the Channel 4 sitcom The Inbetweeners, to be fair, and maybe Alan Partridge stuff - I'm contradicting myself a bit aren't I? The smash success of On The Buses actually rivalled our very own Diamonds Are Forever at the UK box office and of course wouldn't have cost nearly so much to make. This maybe worked well with On the Buses as it had a kind of bawdy raucousness to it, but many Britcoms were actually pretty downbeat and depressing and crucially deprived of a laugh track, what works for a 30 mins slice of hilarity and gloom can become a bit much spread over two hours. Porridge - also by Clement and Le Frenais and set in a bleak prison - was another one like this. Some of these movies, perhaps with on eye on the US market, tried to pitch themselves as standalone from the series - Dad's Army did this, essentially beginning the story all over again with the recruitment of the Home Guard upon hearing the declaration of war, a sort of reboot situation that we saw with our hero when Daniel Craig took over the role.
The Likely Lads in the usual tradition is not as good as the current series at the time and tries to ramp things up with a bit of sleaze and sauciness. There isn't much of a plot at all - Terry has a Finnish girlfriend and Bob is feeling the frustrations of married life, so Thelma tries to get them all to bond over a caravan trip. It does winningly encapsulate the awfulness of 1970s life in the UK, all rain and early closing on a Wednesday, many of the shops shut, a bit Brexity you might say. I enjoyed watching it because it's now a slice of social history, you could watch it on a double bill with Get Carter. 'In the chocolate box of life, the top layer has gone and someone's nicked the orange creme from the bottom' goes one line summing up the kind of disappointment also seen in the lyrics of the series 'The only thing to look forward to... the past' which might also sum up disillusioned James Bond fans!
Someone on Twitter is a massive fan of the late character actor Ronald Lacey who appeared as the whiney sneak thief Horrible Harris in Porridge and also as the chief Nazi in Raiders of the Lost Ark. She pointed out that Lacey has a small role in this as Terry's slobbish brother in law.
I enjoyed this movie sitcom chiefly because as I've said, they don't make them like that anymore, though Frankie Boyle's standup routine has a lot of sour observation and self-loathing, it's not sitcom., and sitcom is a great way of letting out the pressure from a society. One funny scene has the lads deciding to give up on their caravan trip and head home, with their other halves still asleep in the tow caravan behind them. Anyway, you can find out how it plays out if you watch it. For all that, watching a film like this on your own at a certain time in your life - seeing lads in their 30s wondering where their life has gone - is perhaps not advisable if you want to keep your mood on an even keel during these straightened times.
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TWINS OF EVIL (1971)
Sex-horror from those erstwhile gothic aficionados Hammer Studios, this one a second sequel to The Vampire Lovers originally entitled Vampire Virgins, which gives you some idea where the thrust of the narrative is heading. When producer Harry Fine saw Playboy’s Playmate of the Month Sep 1970, a photospread of Maltese twins Mary and Madeleine Collinson, he drastically altered the storyline specifically to accommodate their beautiful figures and expressive faces.
I say that with no sarcasm. The film is enlivened considerably by their presence. Following the sudden deaths of their parents, the Gelhorn girls have found themselves transported from decadent Venice to backward, superstitious Styria and are under the guardianship of their uncle, the pious, authoritarian preacher Gustav Weil, given a frenzied turn by Peter Cushing. Madeleine Collinson is Frieda, the headstrong, sensual, lustful twin, who embarks on a wild affair with wicked overlord Count Karnstein, played with some delight by Damien Thomas. Mary Collinson meanwhile becomes the delicate, submissive romantically inclined Maria, who falls for Anton, the local choirmaster.
Director John Hough and writer Tudor Gates must have spent time watching Witchfinder General [a film I reviewed here recently] as they allow Weil to inhabit the same complex moral position as Vincent Price’s Matthew Hopkins. Caught by a fanatical religious zeal, Weil fails to differentiate genuine evil from desperate poverty and is touring the countryside burning women he believes are witches. Mostly prostitutes and widows, these women scratch a living and are defenceless against the Brotherhood, Weil’s band of prominent townsfolk who carry out these hunts on a regular and punitive basis. Anton knows they are misguided, but Styria has lived in shadow of the devil for so long, the Brotherhood for all its good intentions has come to strike an equal dread on its population. The sight and sound of them, galloping on horseback, chasing down a young flower girl is more frightening than a dozen neck nibbles.
Karnstein, the real devil of the detail, laughs in their faces while carrying out debauched Satanic festivals in his crumbling castle. One of these ceremonies leads to the resurrection of his ancestor Mircalla – an underused Katya Wyeth – who seduces him with promises of eternal life and unending power. This should be a moment of high drama, but after some reasonable smoky special effects, the original succubus arrives clothed in a cowl so thick it reminded me of the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come from the Leslie Bricusse musical Scrooge. I almost expected Karnstein to break into song: “Thank you very much, thank you very much, that’s the nicest thing that anyone’s ever done for me…”
This moment of unintentional high hilarity aside, the movie for the most part is sombre, a little silly and quite brutal. The photography is uniformly dark; the sets spare, bleak and grey. Early on there’s a brilliant image of a horse-drawn carriage pulling into the mud-sotted town square and in the background three children are fighting until their mother throws the daily slops over them. Yeah, bleak’s the word alright. The houses and meeting halls of this grim village are as spartan as those in Witchfinder. The environment is depressed and unhappy. The local women find solace in small chatty groups; the men leer and drink and rabble rouse. The village is completely dysfunctional, given over to a form of religious worship so obsessed with the measure of goodness, it has ceased to recognise the evil that breeds within its own society. When the Gelhorn Twins arrive, their presence stirs the males’ amorous intentions to the point this dichotomy can no longer be ignored.
Meanwhile, Anton and his sister Ingrid [David Warbeck, Isobel Black, both functional at best] try to educate the young local women. The finishing school is of course attended entirely by teenagers with deep cleavages and gossipy gorgeous mouths. For this effrontery, Ingrid gets murdered by a vampire. The Twins meanwhile spend most of their time in bed, discussing how to escape their uncle’s clutches or pacify his rages, their breasts barely contained by the opaque night dresses they wear.
Madeleine Collinson gives the more attention grabbing performance as the evil sister, haughty and impudent, sexually provocative, she’s enthralled by the satanic rites performed at Castle Karnstein and engages in some cod-lesbianism to prove her devotion to the Count. Lusting for fresh human blood, her eyes flicker with intent over the throat of every man and woman, her bosom heaving with intent, her fanged mouth offering beguiling smiles; she enjoys the seductions and revels in the murders. Earlier, she recoils from the threat of vampirism, but once converted becomes passionate for the strength and freedom it delivers. Unlike Karnstein however, she still fears death, even as an undead, and as the townspeople gather for the slaughter, Madeleine Collinson is suitably perturbed. When Frieda comes to an end it is in a moment of true medieval horror. We assume her soul is saved as her body doesn’t deteriorate. In fact, the mythologies of vampirism are twisted a little to suit the storyline, sometimes for better, others for worse. For instance, I was impressed the undead were allowed to walk around in daylight, less so by the sudden bare-seconds change affected by a vampire’s bite.
There’s an interesting contemporary irony here as the characteristics which mark Freida as evil are the very attributes associated with positive female role models: assertiveness, career minded, mould-breaking, powerful, sexually liberated. She detests the confines of the schoolroom and the house, yearns not only for finery, but for passion, excitement and freedom. This of course also proves her downfall. Hough and Gates seem to suggest that liberation is fundamentally driven by sin, or at least moral ambivalence. I’m not sure that quite holds water, but it is interesting the story’s attention is focussed primarily on Freida Gelhorn rather than her sister.
Mary Collinson offers a quieter presence; obviously timid, she isn’t quite as effective in a role which has none of the scene stealing possibilities of Frieda. Mostly Maria pleads and wrings her hands. So devoted to protecting her twin, she even accepts beatings from her uncle, first when taking the place of her sister, then again for covering up for her. She’s disconcertingly passive about everything, even when heading for the stake. It’s odd the scenes of domestic violence are not shown as the film is one of Hammer’s more noticeably bloody affairs. It might also have raised Maria’s profile to more than a cypher for goodness. Sadly for this viewer, the siblings don’t even have a pillow fight.
Twins of Evil, with its all-encompassing dark tone, allows Peter Cushing to revel in playing the odious puritan. He gives one of his most forceful Hammer performances, never better than when inciting his Brotherhood to go on another witch hunt. As the tide turns against Weil and one of his own kin becomes a vampire, his desolation is keenly portrayed. It’s unusual to see emotions other than fear in a Hammer production and the agony and guilt Cushing allows Weil is welcome. Even when heroic, the preacher retains an air of gloomy fanaticism, as if hell, not heaven, lurks on his shoulder.
The story gets more bloody as it progresses. Roy Stewart [Quarrel Jr in Live and Let Die] plays the mute coachman who delivers and endures gory death. Dennis Price crops up to be bitten by Frieda’s glamourous fangs. The reused or to-be-used sets from several Hammer productions feature highly. The movie’s slick and fast. The climax recalls both Dracula and Frankenstein and it’s rather fitting none of the embodiments of evil survive the final reel. The film holds an audience’s attention mostly through the antics of the Collinson Twins, who despite being dubbed, deliver consummate performances in a movie where the visuals – their visuals – are more important than the whole. The film’s about the twins, it’s in the title and I quite enjoyed watching the Collinsons, Peter Cushing and Damien Thomas giving full vent to the age-old battle of good versus evil.
One question remains: whatever happened to the resurrected Mircalla?
It's 10.45pm and I am a bottle of Malbec down. No way am I going to start reading a @chrisno1 review about a sex-horror movie.
This treat awaits tomorrow.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
That’s a great review of Twins Of Evil, chrisno1. It’s one of my favourite Hammer movies. Just one small error, Vincent Price played Matthew Hopkins in Witchfinder General, not John Hopkins.
Thanks @CoolHandBond duly noted and corrected - my mistake - memory's going again.... Glad you enjoyed it.
The worst person in the world (2021)
Renate Reinsve was given the Best Actress award in Cannes for this movie in her first lead in a movie ever. It was in fact her first major role in a movie. Director Joachim Trier had however saw her in the teatre and delivering one line in one of his earlier movies. The movie is second in the Norwegian box-office after NTTD. International reviews are glowing and the Rotten Tomatoes numbers so far are unbeatable. Varity calls it the best movie at Cannes (so far) in 2021 and The Guardian compares Renate Reinsve to Alicia Vikander. Variety also says the movie "the one to beat" for the Best International Feature at the Oscars.
It's a comedy-drama about Julie, a woman of about 30 who has problems deciding on her careers and boyfriends. There is a lot of talk about feelings in this movie. As we all know, feelings is something women invented to make life difficult for men. In fact there were only five men in the packed cinema, including my friend and I. But the joke is on all the men not in the cinema, because the movie is excelent! The story and lines were very well-written, the humor sharp and the acting first rate. Unlike most personal dramas this movie has CGI special effects, and it's very effectively used. If you only watch one Norwegian relationship drama/comedy in 2021, watch "The worst person in the world"!
Renate Reinsve has reportedly been approached by several famous directors after her Cannes win and Joachim Trier is turning into an important European director. If any of you watch this movie and like it, do yourself a favour and watch his "Thelma" too! 😃
Demons Of The Mind (1972)
A lesser-known, and indeed lesser, Hammer film. Lacking the solid presence of either Peter Cushing or Christopher Lee, lacking any supernatural element, just a film about bad people doing bad things. The always reliable Robert Hardy here hams it up something dreadful, assisted by Patrick Magee. Bond's Robert Brown has a small part.
As far as I know, the film's only claim to fame is the first appearance of full-frontal nudity in a Hammer film. The plot is weak, the acting equally so. Not recommended (and I love Hammer movies).
INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS (1956)
Kevin McCarthy plays a doctor who is besieged by complaints from his patients that their loved ones are behaving strangely. Upon investigation he discovers that they are being replaced by aliens who are assuming their identities after being grown in pods to their exact likeness. The scene where McCarthy discovers the pods being grown is highly effective along with the one where McCarthy is on a highway screaming “They’re here, they already here!”
Directed by Don Siegel, who would go on to direct several Clint Eastwood movies, and John Wayne’s last movie The Shootist, this is intelligent sci-fi of the highest order. Highly recommended.
BLACKKKLANSMAN (2018)
Something of a return to form for Spike Lee, a drama laced with inappropriate comedy, this tells the highly fictionalised story of Ron Stallworth, the only black serving police officer in Colorado Springs, who because of his unique position is quickly seconded into the undercover crime unit.
At first he infiltrates a Black Panther meet, where Kwame Ture delivers a searing call to arms and where Ron falls for Black Student Union President Patrice Dumas. Later he manages to infiltrate, along with his white Jewish colleague, the local chapter of the Ku Lux Klan and uncovers a terrorist plot. Political, social, career and romantic bridges are built and burnt. The film take itself very seriously despite peculiar forays into farce. It's disappointing the real story is less interesting than the one we see on screen.
Good performances. Lee as director shows his class in some of the quieter sections, especially when Ron and Patrice are courting to the sounds of Too Late to Turn Back Now by the Cornelius Brothers, but he's too prone to contemporary allusions - which was probably what he wanted to achieve anyway. There's a moment where Ron is asked if he really wants a white racist, misogynistic bigot in the White House and we know exactly which President is being referred to. Harry Belafonte gives a brilliant monologue relating the true life 1915 lynching of Jessie Washington which as all the gut wrenching sense of injustice, fuelled by a belief in community and individual power and burgeoning legitimacy.
The newsreel coda featuring Donald Trump attempting to justify the actions of white supremacists interspersed with footage of the lethal drama which unfolded in Charlottesville rather knocks the nail in the coffin for the argument. Worthy and slow, it's alright.
Black Widow (2021)
Finally Scarlett Johansson got her standalone Black Widow movie and the first Marvel movie with a female lead. To her credit it's a solid movie. It begins when Romanov is a child living in the US with her younger sister and their parents, but in reality they're Soviet undercover agents. Soon we jump to 21 years later during the time when superheroes are illegal and Romanov hides in Norway. Yay! The country even gets a title card. More exactly she takes a ferry I've been on, does her shopping in a grocery store I've used a few times and lives on top of the Trollstigen road (a place with tons of tourists 😂). Svalbard is also used in the movie. All and all my country is well represented. Even the weather in Sæbø is realistic.
I like the plot in this movie. It's less reliant on obviously CGI constructed action scenes than many Marvel movies. The acting is good, especially Florence Pugh is a standout as Black Widow's younger sister. Scarlett Johansson is very convincing as an action star, she acts very well and she's of cource hot as hell. Some of the best scenes are about the relationships in Black Widow's "family", just small comedic and personal moments. We also discover Black Widow is a fellow James Bond fan. She watches Moonraker during her stay in Norway, making Number24 a very happy boy! 😁
Black Widow is also given a fake ID with the name "Fanny Longbottom", a name that sounds like it's straight out of a Roger Moore Bond movie. Her reaction? "Are you twelve?"
Maybe language is the main problem of this movie? Black Widow's undercover "family" in the US all speak with an American accent, so why is everyone but her speaking in a Russian accent later in the movie? We get to hear a "Norwegian" radio report spoken by a Swede with American Rs and the mistaken belief he can speak Norwegian. This is a Hollywood tradition, but one would think Marvel has the time and money to get an actual Norwegian actor in a sound booth for a day.
This is after all a minor problem and I think Black Widow is one of the better Marvel movies.
Yes, the "family scenes" were the best.
I didn't quite enjoy it as much as you, but Florence Pugh very much stole the show. They really need to find a way to put that lady in the next bond film.
Also: Olga Kurilenko is in it. Watch the movie and see if you can spot her!
I spotted her name in the opening credits when I seen it in the cinema. Needless to say, her role wasn't exactly unexpected when it came!
I watched the whole of Thunderball again yesterday. My absolute favourite Connery film and easily in the top five of my Bond films.
I’ve said it before but going to the Cinema in 1965 and seeing this film must have been an absolute treat. Exotic locations, Connery on top form and maybe the best Bond girls ever. It’s aged a bit but what hasn’t. Still an utter joy to watch 👍
Spot on !
Yes, it certainly was.
The Paleface (1948)
This is a Bob Hope western parody that was quite a success back in the day. Someone is smugling weapons to the indians and Calamity Jane (Jane Russell) is released from jail by the governor to take down the criminals. If she succeeds Jane gets a pardon. She enda up partnering with "Painless" Peter Potter (Bob Hope) a failed traveling dentist. He travels in a wagon decorated with a tooth. I'm pretty sure Christoph Waltz' mode of transportation in Django Unchained is a homage to "Painless".
The two leads look a lot like Kelsey Grammer (Frasier) and Salma Hayek, and they do a great job. Bob Hope is very funny, but I wish he was more generous with the jokes. He gives himself nearly all the funny lines, but I'm sure the movie would've been better if he has given some to his co-stars. The movie is still funny and worth a look.
Rambo II - or whatever it's called.
Never seen this film from start to finish before, though I've caught the excellent and authentic First Blood, the first film to feature Vietnam vet John Rambo, several times.
This is an odd sequel. The 'hero' John Rambo is the same guy as in the first one, but the cinematic universe is wholly different, and he's been muscled up and repurposed for an all-action adventure film. It's as if you went from From Russia With Love straight to You Only Live Twice, it's the same guy but the scope and reality is very different.
I turned up my nose at these kinds of films as a teenager, figuring I was a cut above with my suave Bond movies, but I shouldn't have. Not sure I'd have made it into an 18 certificate, if this was. Certainly after the increasingly sober and ambitious recent Bond films, watching this was a breath of fresh air, and look! There's Berkoff's General Orlov popping up as a nasty Russian in a helicopter! He was also the villain in Eddie Murphy's Beverely Hills Cop so he had a thing going on in the 80s didn't he.
For a movie known for its high body count at the time, perhaps I missed a savage opening by tuning in 10 mins late but it seems 30 or 40 mins go by without John Rambo shooting or killing anyone. Things pick up later of course but actually compared to the indiscriminate machine gunning in later Bond films, it's nothing too OTT.
Much as I enjoyed Moore in A View To A Kill, you just can't see him in this role with his shirt off running around shooting stuff. Perhaps I am being unfair! Anyway, films like this just adjusted the mean for Hollywood action heroes, it made the Bond thing look passe and I'm afraid Dalton wouldn't have done much to avert that, he hardly ever got his shirt off and when he did it was nothing to shout about. He wasn't a physical presence much.
Surprisingly for a movie I thought would be all gung-ho my country right or wrong, this film has a savagely cynical attitude to US leadership and the bureaucrats running things. It's quite political albeit in small soundbites.
It's also a very simple, seemingly short movie. Maybe all the jungle stuff was mocked up in the studio but otherwise I can't see how this would have broken the budget. The returns would have been immense.
I think this film got maligned largely because of the kind of people who went big for it, with tabloid reports of dumb Yanks going in to relive Vietnam - only they got to win this time! - and shouting out 'Go get em, Rambo!' There is some dumb stuff in this of course, my favourite is when our hero is getting hostages out only a villain appears with a gun and lets fire! One gets hit before the villain is taken out. But as the helicopter flies off, we never get to see if he died or not, indeed the shot hostage is never referenced again!
Sadly, I did read there is evidence to suggest that some Vietnam vets were left as hostages there and the US Govt let them rot, being unable or unwilling to extricate them, don't know if that's wholly true.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
WEST SIDE STORY (2021) The trailers.
The two trailers I’ve seen have been amazing. Steven Spielberg directs a new version of what is my favourite musical and I cannot wait to see it. It even has Rita Moreno who starred in the 1961 version in it. This could be an all time classic.
COUNTESS DRACULA (1971)
The lovely Ingrid Pitt spends a lot of this movie in “elderly” make up in varying degrees of effectiveness. A countess discovers that she can become temporarily young again by bathing in the blood of young women. With the help of her lover and her maid, they kidnap local girls for their blood to rejuvenate her, finding out along the way that only virgin’s blood will suffice.
This is an odd entry in the Hammer series as the countess is not a vampire but only nicknamed Countess Dracula by peasants in the final scenes. Nigel Green, Maurice Dunham and Peter Jeffrey all turn in good performances, along with Ingrid Pitt, but the rest of the cast are lacking gravitas somewhat. There is a notable lack of gore as well which doesn’t help proceedings.
An interesting effort but a little dull.
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
Nice to watch a good old fashioned movie with a happy ending, after that bummer of a James Bond film.
Surely Tarantino's nicest film?
So, is Brad Pitt's character imaginary? cuz I saw this other film with Brad Pitt in it once and he turned out to be imaginary in that one, and maybe in this one Leonardo diCaprio has to leave his imaginary friend behind so he can like himself again and move on to better things.
Not sure, I didn't 'get' that film the first time I saw it so I was a bit non-plussed. Now I do, in that - oh, I don't know how to so spoilers on this new format so I won't bother.
Halloween
John Carpenter's original, for the first time last night. His eerie, electronic music - as used in Assault of Precinct 13 - sets the tone and it also captures the strangeness - to English eyes - of US middle-class suburbia, all these nice large houses with a front porch and a garden and greenery all around them, unlike the straight, cheek-by-jowl stacked arrangement we have.
The film was seminal I guess in that it began all these high-school slasher movies. It would have won publicity perhaps for the sense it incited such behaviour - we don't hear of that stuff so much now, largely because any real sickos can just find stuff to watch online, perhaps. Jamie Lee Curtis is very good in her role as the repressed teenager and of course this follows the commented upon cliche that the loose, sexually liberated teens get punished, it's all very puritanical despite it all.
Our own Donald Pleasance has a key role as a psychiatrist who is on the trail of Michael Myers who has escaped the asylum and headed back to his home town. But the actor's role is underwritten and he doesn't have much to do. He just blathers on about how evil Myers is - it's at that point, all tell and no show. He spends much of the movie dramatically wasted, just hanging around Myers' old empty house waiting for his charge too show up, he almost puts you in mind of Ed Rooney going after Ferris Bueller!
I enjoyed it but it seems this kind of movie has been improved upon or at any rate ramped up over the decades, I guess it's like the porn of the time might have been a big deal - Debbie Does Dallas? - but it's all moved on since. Very possibly they were restricted by the censors back then anyway.
I didn't quite get how evil Myers was - he seems to be going through the motions as a generic bogeyman for much of it - he almost puts me in mind of Safrin in the latest Bond film. With Myers, It's not clear if he's a real person or someone with mysterious magical powers. I suppose he's some kind of abstract foe.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
I've seen a part of 'Black Widow' (the rest to follow) and Florence Pugh's awesome performance in the disturbing folk horror film 'Midsommar' (2019). I agree she'd be great in a Bond film.
The most recent film I've seen (yesterday) is 'Fighting With My Family' (2019) in which Ms Pugh plays Paige, the real-life English break-out star in the world of WWE. It's a Brit comedy drama with themes and an emotional trajectory fairly typical of films of that ilk, but it's written and directed by Stephen Merchant, whose brand of humour I like, and Ms Pugh is totally captivating as the feisty goth-babe wrestler from Norwich, England who has to overcome her insecurities to prove herself in the States. There are wonderful cameos by Dwayne Johnson and A J Lee.
I binge-watched all of these at home in March 2020 and thought them totally generic and undemanding but entertaining. After the first one they all kind of blur into one another for me but Mila Jovovich is definitely the main attraction and she's a lot of fun on the commentary tracks, too.
Thanks, I'll check that out. She was also awesome as Cordelia against Anthony Hopkins' Lear in the 2018 BBC production of 'King Lear'.
Another up-and-coming actress is Renate Reinsve, bur her career is at an earlier stage than Pugh's. International media are tipping Reinsve as a future star after her breakthrough performance in "The worst person in the world" ( reviewed in this thread). She won the Best Actress award in Cannes and her chances of walking the red carpet at the Oscars next year are very good. She's 28 years old and 5' 10'', and just the type of talent EON should be looking for.
NOTORIOUS (1946)
Alfred Hitchcock’s Notorious is probably his most condensed and satisfying thriller. Filmed at the very end of the Second World War and released in September 1946, the film is a taut, gripping and subversive romantic espionage thriller. Ingrid Bergman, who Hitch was fixated with through the late ’40s, plays Alicia Huberman, a German emigree U.S. citizen whose scientist father has been convicted by a Miami Court of crimes against the state. She’s not your usual 1940s heroine. Young and liberated, Alicia is drunk when we first properly meet her, flirting with Cary Grant’s gate-crasher at an awful, louche party and planning to abandon her father to gaol and go on a cruise with a rich businessman. What Hitchcock does so well, aided by a superb performance from Bergman, is turn the audience’s distaste into affection as she rediscovers her self-respect while beginning an undercover assignment for the American secret services. She is mistreated by the man she loves, the people who employ him and the man she is forced to marry.
Following the drunken party, special agent T.R. Devlin, a sublime Cary Grant in one of his tastiest and nastiest roles, takes Alicia to Rio de Janeiro on the pretext working with him will prove her loyalty to the United States. While spending time together, the pair embark on an affair which turns to love, although Devlin denies it once he discovers Alicia’s mission: to spy on Alex Sebastian, a German businessman who was once in love with her. The Americans believe Sebastian and his ex-pat Nazi friends, who all worked with Huberman for Faver Industries, are conducting clandestine unfriendly activities in Brazil. Unable to access Sebastian directly, they hope Alicia can obtain vital information for them, which leads to her first seducing and then marrying the German. Due to an indiscretion at a party, Sebastian learns his wife has betrayed him and sets out to kill her. Trapped in his mansion, Alicia can only hope for help.
This, of course, was one of Hitchcock’s favourite tropes, the lone, trapped victim in peril. He repeated it in many different disguises throughout his career, but never had he been so cruel to his heroine. Ben Hecht’s fantastic script pulls no punches about Alicia’s behaviour. It isn’t as obvious as you’d hear in a modern movie, but the clues are there and handled with subtlety: “You can add Sebastian to my list of playmates,” she tells Devlin bitterly. Even more forthcoming is the exchange between her American bosses:
Beardsley: She’s had me worried for some time. A woman of that sort.
Devlin: What sort is that, Mr. Beardsley?
Beardsley: Oh, I don’t think any of us have any illusions about her character. Have we, Devlin?
Devlin: Not at all, not in the slightest. Miss Huberman is first, last, and always not a lady. She may be risking her life, but when it comes to being a lady, she doesn’t hold a candle to your wife, sitting in Washington, playing bridge with three other ladies of great honour and virtue.
This sharp, incisive and insensitive dialogue is astounding for a film of 1946. The picture painted of the American Secret Service is not pretty. First they are openly sponsoring a form of blackmail prostitution and second they seem to be not only capable of, but willing and enthusiastic about the exploitation of a potentially vulnerable woman. This is certainly a bleak and muddied depiction of American officialdom, chauvinistic and callous, marked too by condescension towards the outside classes. Devlin has to apologise for slighting Beardsley’s wife, but no one apologises for slighting Alicia.
Devlin is your consummate anti-hero. He may be a white knight at the end, but he’s obnoxious at the beginning, pensive in his love, exploitive in his actions and so caught up with the job in hand he ignores his genuine passions. He’s something of a cad [it’s in the name, a bastardisation of ‘devil’] yet it is he who recognises the position of emotional danger he’s been forced to place Alicia in. That this danger becomes physical, in both a sexual and a corporeal manner, is what eventually forces him to confront his failings, redeeming himself at the last.
Hitchcock introduces Devlin from behind, a man of mystery. Terence Young must have noted this, for it is exactly how he introduces Sean Connery as James Bond in Dr No. Devlin says nothing at the party; he sits and smokes and all the knowledge we gain about him is his silhouette. Finally alone, he and Alicia begin some saucy banter. “You want to go for a ride? – Very much – I don’t like gentlemen who grin at me.” They go for a midnight drive and he places a scarf not around her neck, but her waist, like a chastity belt, claiming her. She recognises the movement and it seems to both entice and annoy her: “I want the speedometer to touch eighty so I can wipe that grin off your face.”
Throughout the film, Devlin’s behaviour continues to be kind and cruel. It isn’t clear he’s falling for her until they share a meal at her apartment. [“Do we have to eat?” he asks wickedly.] There’s a four-minute kiss, during which the actors constantly break for dialogue or distraction – some of it occurs during a telephone call – a clever scene designed to comply with the Hays code, but one which ends up highlighting their desire. Grant’s reaction when Devlin discovers the mission is outright anger, but he’s swayed by the patriotic loyalty he himself demonstrated to Alicia when recruiting her. His boss, Paul Prescott, played with some understatement by an excellent Louis Calhern, recognises something is amiss; when Devlin leaves his office, Prescott notices his agent also left a bottle of Krug Champagne.
When Devlin tells Alicia of her mission and what it involves, he’s cold, brutal. The evening is curtailed, as is their relationship, for when Bergman says “We should have eaten inside, the food’s gone cold,” she isn’t talking about the roast chicken. Alicia has been slowly rebuilding her life thanks to Devlin. She’s cut back on the drinking. She’s happy. She’s decided not to grieve for her father, who committed suicide:
“When he told me a few years ago what he was, everything went to pot. I didn’t care what happened to me. Now I remember how nice he once was, how nice we both were. It’s a very curious feeling, a feeling as if something had happened to me, not to him. You see, I don't have to hate him anymore or myself.”
Love, it seems is the cure, yet Devlin doesn’t say it, she even pleads for him to do so to give her an excuse not to go through with the charade: “If you’d only once said you loved me.” Curiously, it is Alex Sebastian who treats her most kindly. As a suitor he is attentive and polite; he has money and social standing. At any other time, he would be a good match. The ever cultured Claude Rains plays him with an English accent and I wonder if this is where cinema developed its belief that all great villains must have an English – or German – accent? More on the latter later. Hitch and Hecht provide a series of scenes which demonstrate the depth of Sebastian’s adoration wrapped in the deviousness of his Nazi cabal, a council of fear he cannot escape, one which he is leading Alicia indirectly into conflict with.
Their marriage comes swift. His mother doesn’t like it. Leopoldine Konstantin is magnificent as the dowager matriarch with a predisposition to suspicion, a woman committed to the memory of the Nazi cause. When Sebastian realises he’s made a mistake and married a spy, she scoffs at him, admonishes him then sits back on her pillows and strikes a cigarette to plot a diabolical end for her daughter-in-law. This is wonderfully effective and efficient characterisation – modern filmmakers should take note. Her motives though are less to do with the Nazi cause than with maintaining her and her son’s preeminent position among the community. This band of dastardly brothers are an intense, dedicated committee, quick to administer summary justice. The weak and dishonest are not of interest to them. Full marks to the small, ghoulish ensemble who inhabit these terrors.
Central to Notorious is the theme of trust. It is given too easily by some, most notably Sebastian, but also Alicia. Madame Sebastian never trusts anyone, not even her son, and she resolves to solve their problems alone. This is completely the opposite of Alicia’s character; she requires an element of trust to build her relationships. Devlin meanwhile takes the whole film to decide where his honour lies. His conflict of trust comes with his employers. Throwing Alicia and Sebastian together, exploiting her notoriety for gain, sits badly at odds with his view of the world, shaped as it is by loyalty and duty. His bitterness is palpable, especially when he recognises what an excellent extracurricular job she’s made of being sexual bait. He can’t express it without giving Alicia the excuse to escape the situation and expose the mission. He trusts her indignantly at distance.
Sebastian meanwhile is a more sympathetic, though equally complex, character, probably one of Hitchcock’s most nuanced villains. He is a jealous lover, a war criminal, an effete socialite, a cuckold to his domineering mother and a cold hearted killer. Yet when his confidence is betrayed, when he recognises his folly, it hurts us, the audience, because we also recognise he is genuinely in love and has been badly deceived. Alicia however is being coldly manipulated by both the man she loves and the man she doesn’t. Hearts are being damaged everywhere.
Hitchcock emphasises this through a series of terse meetings between her and Devlin, her and Sebastian, her and Madame, Madame and Sebastian. It comes to a climax at a society party, where Alicia helps Devlin gain access to the cellar and they discover wine bottles packed with uranium ore awaiting for despatch to client countries [one assumes the USSR, but it isn’t stated.] Hitchcock was always good at doing parties and he doesn’t disappoint here, as the camera seamlessly moves from room to room, person to person. It commences with a brilliant tracking zoom starting at the peak of the mansion’s staircase and ending at Bergman’s hand, the stolen cellar key clasped in her palm. The difference between the serenity of Sebastian’s mansion, where danger lurks and the huge spaces feel unwelcome, and the chaos of Alicia’s Miami pad, which was safe and homely, is brilliantly identified. Bergman especially excels, at turns calm and controlled, then panicked, almost terrified. When Grant kisses her in front of Sebastian – “He’ll think we came down here deliberately – That’s what I want him to think” – it releases her fears and she, metaphorically, melts into his arms in relief.
As the action plays itself out, Hitchcock and cinematographer Ted Taztlaff – rarely better – invoke a series of excellently framed scenes which draw us into the tension: Alicia realising the coffee is poisoned at the same time we do, by the camera focussing on a close up of a China cup; the long walk down the staircase to freedom, watched by the piercing eyes of the German cabal; Sebastian’s return to the mansion, his death imminent, the door closing on his life. Perhaps best of all, as Alicia lies sick in bed, the camera is positioned for the same angled close-up used to photograph her hungover in Miami; this time, rather than a glass of aspirin it’s water and Devlin’s figure isn’t backlit, furry, off-kilter and upside down, but upright, certain and focussed. The white knight has finally materialised.
It’s worth noting that Mission Impossible 2 borrowed the plot of Notorious almost verbatim. Compared to the colourful remake, the 1946 version is amazingly composed despite being completely studio made. It barely notices, such is the configuration of long shots in small environments and edgy shifting camera angles to suggest space and the haunting close-ups of desperation which interrupt our attention. There’s a lot less killing also; three deaths only, all off-screen. The movie’s depiction of how and why we trust is mature, delicate and intelligent; in being elusive, the script allows an audience to engage with the characters’ emotions as the actors interpret them. When compared to more modern, heavy handed treatments, Notorious is a flawless success, skilfully blending a romantic subplot with an overarching international threat and treating its incidents and people with prurient elegance and a veneer of style, wrapped up of course in the suspense we all know Alfred Hitchcock loves to deliver.
Marvellous.
Notorious makes me think of the novel Casino Royale in many ways, particularely in tone. I'd love it if Hitchcock had made CR much like this, maybe even with the same cast.
DR. JEKYLL AND SISTER HYDE (1971)
This is an interesting entry from Hammer as it is also a mash-up of the Jack The Ripper and Burke and Hare cases. And of course Jekyll turns into our own sultry Martine Beswick instead of the usual handsome cad. Capably directed by Roy Ward Baker, it stars Ralph Bates as Jekyll and a nice turn by Ivor Dean as the grave robbing Burke, a change from his usual portrayal of police Inspectors in The Saint and Randall & Hopkirk (Deceased) TV series.
The leads have incredible look-a-like features and the transformation is well done. This is probably Beswick’s standout movie in her career. It’s all played straight and better for it and even though the sets are obvious it has a lot of atmosphere.
Well worth a first time watch or repeat viewing.
The Likely Lads
Movie spin-off of the British sitcom - actually by this time known as Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads? but shortened back to its original title of the 1960s to fit on the cinema boards.
Originally in its 1960s black and white incarnation, this sitcom was about two Newcastle lads making their way in the world - drinks and women I guess, these episodes aren't shown mum now - but years later the writers Dick Clement and Ian Le Frenais (brought by Connery in to be script doctors on NSNA many years later) returned to the characters with a new spin - Bob the straighter more conscientious one was married to Thelma, a slightly hissy, disapproving woman, the perfect foil for Bob's dissolute layabout mate Terry.
But I imagine many younger readers are going, 'What's a sitcom, Granddad?' and I have to point them to the likes of The Big Bang Theory, as it seems no UK TV channel makes them anymore, relying instead on panel games which are cheaper. I think Not Going Out is the only one out there. Maybe the 'situation' thing is harder these days where working life is more fluid that it used to be, or perhaps post New Labour there's the sense that everyone is meant to be all the same - middle class, bland, aspirational - and if you're not like that you're not worth the attention anyway, you're on the wrong side of a situation, never mind any comedy.
Big screen spin-offs of sitcoms were big in 1970s Britain, though we've seen it recently again with the Channel 4 sitcom The Inbetweeners, to be fair, and maybe Alan Partridge stuff - I'm contradicting myself a bit aren't I? The smash success of On The Buses actually rivalled our very own Diamonds Are Forever at the UK box office and of course wouldn't have cost nearly so much to make. This maybe worked well with On the Buses as it had a kind of bawdy raucousness to it, but many Britcoms were actually pretty downbeat and depressing and crucially deprived of a laugh track, what works for a 30 mins slice of hilarity and gloom can become a bit much spread over two hours. Porridge - also by Clement and Le Frenais and set in a bleak prison - was another one like this. Some of these movies, perhaps with on eye on the US market, tried to pitch themselves as standalone from the series - Dad's Army did this, essentially beginning the story all over again with the recruitment of the Home Guard upon hearing the declaration of war, a sort of reboot situation that we saw with our hero when Daniel Craig took over the role.
The Likely Lads in the usual tradition is not as good as the current series at the time and tries to ramp things up with a bit of sleaze and sauciness. There isn't much of a plot at all - Terry has a Finnish girlfriend and Bob is feeling the frustrations of married life, so Thelma tries to get them all to bond over a caravan trip. It does winningly encapsulate the awfulness of 1970s life in the UK, all rain and early closing on a Wednesday, many of the shops shut, a bit Brexity you might say. I enjoyed watching it because it's now a slice of social history, you could watch it on a double bill with Get Carter. 'In the chocolate box of life, the top layer has gone and someone's nicked the orange creme from the bottom' goes one line summing up the kind of disappointment also seen in the lyrics of the series 'The only thing to look forward to... the past' which might also sum up disillusioned James Bond fans!
Someone on Twitter is a massive fan of the late character actor Ronald Lacey who appeared as the whiney sneak thief Horrible Harris in Porridge and also as the chief Nazi in Raiders of the Lost Ark. She pointed out that Lacey has a small role in this as Terry's slobbish brother in law.
I enjoyed this movie sitcom chiefly because as I've said, they don't make them like that anymore, though Frankie Boyle's standup routine has a lot of sour observation and self-loathing, it's not sitcom., and sitcom is a great way of letting out the pressure from a society. One funny scene has the lads deciding to give up on their caravan trip and head home, with their other halves still asleep in the tow caravan behind them. Anyway, you can find out how it plays out if you watch it. For all that, watching a film like this on your own at a certain time in your life - seeing lads in their 30s wondering where their life has gone - is perhaps not advisable if you want to keep your mood on an even keel during these straightened times.
Roger Moore 1927-2017