I’m not sure why I have never got around to seeing this before but watched it last night with 11 year old CHB Jr. We both enjoyed it immensely.
Jack Skellington of Halloween Town wanders accidentally into another holiday themed town, Christmas Town, and becomes obsessed with bringing the joyous season to the Halloween Town residents.
The stop-motion animation is excellent and the lyrics are clever. It’s unusual and captivating, thoroughly recommended.
Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.
An old favourite, watched for the umpteenth time. Hammer's version differs entirely from the old Universal "Frankenstein" series. As a kid, I used to wonder how the nice, kind, gentle Peter Cushing I saw as Sherlock Holmes or jesting with Morecambe & Wise could possibly be
It took some time before I realised that he wasn't. Cushing played Baron Frankenstein in the Hammer series, making a succession of creatures, while the Universal series focussed on Frankenstein's Monster.
This was the first of the series, and totally different to the old b&w movies. Completely delightful and enjoyable for fans of this kind of material. Cushing is great, of course, and this is the film where he met Christopher Lee (as the creature) which was the beginning of a classic screen partnership.
This is from the Wallace and Gromit team - Aardman Animations I think it's called - and is set in the 1830s where a ramshackle pirate ship decide to take compete in the Pirate of the Year award despite never having won it in the previous two decades.
I had a blast watching this on the telly a few years back but it seems it's never been on since so I bought it second hand on DVD. It has a long pre-credits almost on a par with you know what, and a jaunty swaggering hit song from the early 80s over the credits that most of us will recognise, the end credits have an equally uplifting Britpop song.
I didn't enjoy it so much this time round - the DVD quality wasn't great, are they trying to run them down so we all buy BluRays? - and there's a lot of detail that didn't come out visually. If you're watching a comedy with a family member who is not really up for it it's always going to be a drag, less so with a horror or drama, it doesn't pressurise for a validating reaction every few seconds. It does seem that the gag of depicting historical figures like Darwin and Queen Victoria as a cowardly, virginal thief and backstabber, and psychotic vengeful mad woman respectively did seem a tad disrespectful - or do I just seem middle-aged now? - and some of the gags seem unPC or is that just the fragility of the post Brexit, post Covid or woke era? I don't know.
Hugh Grant does a good voice for the main pirate captain, though he rarely really owns any film he's in, he's often part of an ensemble, isn't he? Much of the thing is Wallace and Gromit style, with the pirate captain hatching a foolhardy plan while his second in command, voiced by Martin Freeman, pulls doubtful expressions like Gromit the dog. It's fun in a steampunk way, I'm not sure why it didn't work for me so much this time round. The 'parrot' that is centre of the plot is just not as charming as it should be, not like the sheep in Wallace & Gromit, and there's nothing as comically sinister as the penguin either. But if it comes up on telly over the Christmas period, it's well worth a look.
Bond fans and cinema fans should check this out because it really does run the gamut of early Bond films, before long you'll be ticking off scenes. That said, this is quite a nasty film and of course it got pulled from cinemas because of the similarity with the actual shooting of President Kennedy the following year. Sadly, its star Frank Sinatra starred in another such film, Suddenly, and that had to be buried too.
It co-stars Lawrence Harvey, or maybe that should be stars, but Sinatra got paid a lot more, for sure. That Pyscho actress is in it too, name temporarily escapes me. Angela Lansbury is the stand out as a conniving mother and senator's wife. It's all parodies the McCarthy era hysteria while also tapping into it. A very fine, eerie movie, well recommended.
@Napoleon Plural I enjoyed Pirates! as well when I watched it, but have never revisited. I have recorded The Manchurian Candidate for future consumption. Thanks for these heads ups.
I put Casino Royale on today to make sure my blu ray player was still working. It’s hard to put into words what a great film it is. It ticks every box for me. It’s a shame DC never even came close again in his tenure to reach the heights of this film in my opinion.
I agree, but IMHO that's because of the high Fleming content. It had been years since we'd had a film with that level of faithfulness to Fleming, which to my mind was its strongest point.
One of the reasons given for the success of Dr. No was that it was an antidote to the “ kitchen sink” or “angry young men” dramas that were prevalent at the time, Saturday Night And Sunday Morning, A Taste Of Honey and the one I’ve just seen, A Kind Of Loving, being amongst them.
Directed by John Schlesinger and starring Alan Bates as the angry young man, he plays a draughtsman who is dating a typist at his works, when she becomes pregnant he reluctantly proposes to her and they move in with her domineering mother-in-law, played by Thora Hird, in a simply brilliant performance. How she was never nominated for an Oscar for this role is unbelievable. The scene where Alan Bates returns home drunk and throws up behind the sofa is as good a piece of acting as you will ever see.
The kitchen sink dramas were uniformly excellent, but ultimately depressing for those who had no escape from a humdrum life. One can see how the exotic world of James Bond appealed to the young men of that generation and they all wanted to be him and revel in the escapism that the Bond films portrayed.
Highly recommended.
Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.
in our BondHistory books, I have often seen Dr No contrasted to these Angry Young Men genre films, but never seen an example myself, so thanks for the report @CoolHandBond to give some context
I know Monty Python would parody the genre, eg Graham Chapman as the playwright father taunting working class son Eric Idle "Gala looncheon's not good enoof for ye, lad?"
This famous movie musical is based on a Broadway stage success which starred Fred Astaire and was titled Gay Divorce. R.K.O. Studios tactfully altered the title for American audiences as the Hays Code considered ‘divorce’ a serious subject and not one to be cheerful about. A ‘divorcee’ of course, could be as gay and light headed as she liked. Ginger Rogers character is married in the film, so I don’t understand how the Hays code or R.K.O. figured any of that relevant.
Astaire and Rogers had worked together as supporting players in Flying Down to Rio (1933) and created a stir with the famous dance number The Carioca. Here they and the chorus line spend seventeen interminable minutes faffing about to The Continental. It’s a dreary stop-start tune with terrible lyrics, but the choreography shows off Astaire and Rogers well and is framed by Van Nest Polglase’s enormous art deco set, which is meant to be a hotel in Brighton, England. There is nothing resembling this outlandish design on the English south coast. This ditty was given the first Academy Award for Best Original Song, which began a long list of undeserving winners.
The Gay Divorcee is the template for all of the Astaire / Rogers musicals that followed: a misunderstanding leads to the two dancers getting it on, usually through a series of musical numbers and comic sketches. This example isn’t very well structured. The comedy is laboured, especially for the usually rapid-fire thirties, and the score is dull. Most of the songs sound the same and there’s only six of them. Disappointingly the movie dispenses with all Cole Porter’s original numbers except Night and Day, which is the stand out dance routine, after which Ginger Rogers lies on a settee, panting provocatively and Astaire murmurs: “Fancy a cigarette?” This metaphorical moment of blissful coitus slipped past the dummies at the Hays Office and is the funniest line in the movie. Alice Brady and Edward Everett Horton show superior comic timing and just about rise above the worst of the script.
The famous dance partnership isn’t quite in bloom. At times Astaire seems to be dragging Rogers with him and her timing is noticeably off. Additionally, Astaire’s singing style is startlingly broad; he’s not refined his voice for the movies and is still performing as if he’s on a theatre stage. Blink and you miss Betty Grable whooping it up in the inconsequential Let’s Knock Knees. She displays all the umph and willingness most of the cast forget. Director Mark Sandrich is serviceable. Everyone did better with the next year’s Top Hat.
@Napoleon Plural reviewed this above. I can't share his honest enthusiasm. Sorry, Nap.
John Frankenheimer’s Cold War thriller from 1962 is an unsettling and unsettled piece. It prefigures events of November 1963 and the J.F.K. assassination, which lend the film a documentary edge among the drama. The final scenes at a Republican convention, with the brainwashed anti-hero Raymond Shaw preparing to murder a presidential candidate, have grip and edge and are prescient of Oswald at Dallas.
Laurence Harvey plays Shaw, the son of a senator whose overbearing mother manipulates her drunken husband as well as everyone about her. Along with his platoon, Shaw has been captured during the Korean War and experimented on. A deck of cards and the word ‘solitaire’ triggers his conditioning and he performs a series of political assassinations for his Communist masters. He, of course, is completely unaware of his crimes. Frank Sinatra’s Major Ben Marco has recurring nightmares of their incarceration and sets out to investigate.
Good performances from Sinatra, Harvey and the Oscar-nominated Angela Lansbury, as the domineering McCarthyite mother. Apparently in Richard Condon’s original novel there was an incestuous relationship between mother and son, ugh, so I’m glad they cut that out. Janet Leigh is completely wasted; her character may as well not be there at all.
The film is remarkably uneven, which I was surprised by. Some scenes have real flair, others drift past. The plot is interesting and well conveyed, but throughout the movie I kept asking myself questions about the screenplay. For instance, there were nine surviving members of Shaw’s platoon, but Sinatra’s character only discusses two of them and investigates one, which seems an oversight. And why do the Chinese only brainwash one soldier when they have nine? Marco also discovers the brainwashing ‘hook’ far too easily. And quite why no one questions Shaw’s valet Chunjin a little closer – he’s the Korean guide who led the platoon into being captured – is never explained. If a viewer can brush over these little niggles, and others, they’ll probably enjoy it a lot more than I did.
There’s a spectacular karate fight between Sinatra and Henry Silva which must have influenced the Bond franchise, especially the ‘gate crasher’ rumble in OHMSS, and a quite stunning, oblique domestic dual murder which has tremendous emotional impact. Otherwise, apart from the suspenseful ending, the film lags quite a lot, especially during a humdrum romantic flashback sequence. The good, thriller moments, are interspersed too far apart from each other to keep this viewer fully entertained. It’s wordy, worthy and a little one paced.
It's widely known that Bela Lugosi turned down the part of the Monster in the 1931 "Frankenstein". Instead, he played Dr. Mirakle in this Poe adaptation, directed by the original "Frankenstein" director (until he was replaced by James Whale) Robert Florey.
The story involves an ape, a mad scientist (Lugosi, of course), a romantic subplot, too much very dated comedy relief, and some studio interference which leaves part of the story to the audience's imagination. The cinematography is by Karl Fruend, whose credits include the Lugosi "Dracula", the Karloff "The Mummy" (as director), and no less than "Metropolis", which should be enough credentials to recommend him.
The Poe story is expanded and is often paid only lip service to... as ever. Today the main reason to watch it is to see Lugosi, irresistible as always. The young ladies spend a lot of the time screaming and swooning, often in filmy négligées.
As I understand it, the film was only a moderate success while "Frankenstein" was a blockbuster, and led to Lugosi's cinematic decline compared to Karloff's rise to stardom.
Death Trench aka Trench 111 I tuned into accidentally on Channel 8 aka London Live. This is an odd channel, under promoted. It shows a lot of the stuff that goes on Talking Pictures, which deals alternately with old movies of the kind that tend to star Alistair Sim, Jack Hawkins or Bernard Lee or trashy Hammer films that get wheeled out on Friday evening, introduced by Caroline Munro. London Live has a Twitter feed but doesn't promote its films on it, unlike Talking Pictures, so you tend to miss stuff, though often it's trashy East End gangster films that feature Ian Ogilvy for reasons that escape me.
Anyway, Death Trench is set in the dying days of World War 1 and involves a platoon sent to investigate an underground set of German tunnels with a grisly secret. It looks like a load of old rubbish but I found it refreshing to see a film that sets out to do what it says on the tin, unlike frankly the recent Bond movies under Craig who promise you a good time but tend to be a bit miserable. There is some good dialogue about how some of the Germans think they will rise from the ashes of their loss in the war. I made me pine for a really rubbish movie of this ilk, Dead Snow, which is set in modern times and features Nazi Zombies! I say it's rubbish, but it's also great. There's another one a bit like this, Overlord, set on the eve of D-day. I've half a mind to settle my 93-year-old dad in front of one of these movies, saying, hey Dad, here's one of those World War II movies you like...
I don't suggest anyone seek out Death Trench, but sometimes these B-movies don't disappoint, I don't know, maybe I'm caving into middle age.
Following a disappointing Strictly Come Dancing final, my family tuned into this feel good adult comedy drama from writer Simon Beaufoy and director Peter Cattaneo, neither of who have quite reached these heights since.
Six jobless ex-steel workers are inspired to take up male stripping to earn some much needed cash, advertising their stage show as going ‘the full monty,’ i.e. completely naked. Cue lots of scenes of gently deprived urban living, dance rehearsals of collective embarrassment, lots of fairly basic but well-observed and chucklesome humour, and a good range of ensemble acting from the keen male cast, including Robert Carlyle and Tom Wilkinson. Self-respect is earned and we all have a good time.
Much more cheerful than the icky-some entertainment of Strictly.
Watched this from a recording I made a number of weeks ago when the comeback album Voyages was released and Channel 5 was repeating all things Abba. It’s one of those curious 1970s rockumentaries, part concert film, part drama, part documentary. It doesn’t really succeed in any genre. Lasse Hallstrom would go on to great success helming low key dramas like Chocolat and The Cider House Rules, but his career started directing almost every single Abba music promo – I’m not sure the term video was primed in the seventies – as well this, his second movie, billed as a record of the band’s 1977 tour of Australia.
It’s an odd film, framed around struggling D.J. Ashley Wallace [played sympathetically by Robert Hughes] who is charged with obtaining the unobtainable, a warts and all exclusive personal interview with the four famous Swedes; Bjorn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson, Agnetha Faltskog and Anni-Frid Lyngstad. Interspersed among his countrywide adventures is concert footage from the tour, including a monumental 19 songs.
If you like Abba, you’ll probably love this. If you don’t it’ll be a trawl. I had mixed feelings. The framing device doesn’t really work, but it’s more relevant than those flights of fantasy Led Zeppelin inserted in The Song Remains the Same. As Ashley’s efforts become more and more embarrassingly incompetent, I started to lose interest. It’s never clear if his initial scepticism is changed by his contact (or non-contact) with the band and the almost universally insipid fans.
The backstage footage is good, demonstrating the almost haphazard nature of concert tours of the era. The music is surprisingly lively. I can only think how, without the benefit of display screens, it must have been almost impossible to make out the band, all dressed in white against a white garbed backing band, orchestra and chorus.
Wim Wenders American experiment, Paris, Texas, starts off with a stunning, beautiful widescreen shot of the Mojave desert. We are drawn immediately into the landscape. We want to know where we are going. We want to know what will abound.
Not a lot, as it happens.
This film was widely venerated on its release, with critics comparing it to the great ‘quest’ movies like The Searchers. If they mean the lead character begins alone, completes his quest and ends alone without really going anywhere, I guess you could compare it to Ford’s statuesque looking western. If you want something really deep, about American dreams, or the breakdown of family institutions, the nature of obsessive love, blah, blah, you’re really going to struggle.
Harry Dean Stanton’s verbally challenged Travis is walking from Mexico to Paris, Texas. He faints at a gas station, is saved by an alcoholic doctor and taken to Los Angeles by his brother, where he reignites a failed relationship with his son. So far, so bland. Nothing happens here. The kid’s quite spunky. There are elements of sibling rivalry. We come to learn Travis had a decorative, young wife and that a trauma occurred in their relationship which led to Travis’ disappearance and Jane (his wife) abandoning Hunter (the child) with her in-laws. Nobody communicates with anything like a proper sentence, Travis in particular. We never learn where Travis has been for four years. My guess is, from his bizarre, structured and phobia orientated lifestyle, it’s a lunatic asylum.
So, one half of the movie plays out quite nicely. Then Travis and Hunter track Mummy down to a greasy back-alley peep show where we learn she has been the victim of a violent alcoholic, control and coerce domestic abuser – the very man we are supposed to have been sympathising with. They have two very long head-to-heads via the peep show mirror, both scenes directed very, very slowly and hopelessly over-theatrical. Here we are led to understand he is trailer trash and his wife tried to burn him to death after he chained her to the gas stove in a drunken jealous rage. After the finale, with its speculative reunion between mother and son and Dad driving off into the sunset, I had an empty, unwelcome feeling.
Am I really supposed to care for Travis and Jane and their f***ed up romantic life? Stanton really tries, but I didn’t buy it. He’s unlovable and he knows it. Nastassja Kinski has the even tougher role, given she’s got so little dialogue. Psychologically, it’s not a surprise to find a victim of abuse turning to prostitution and even murder, but this is hardly discussed; she’s your good-hearted whore with a kid and a bank account, so they must end up with each other and he becomes the gallant loner. Tosh.
Am I being too harsh? I don’t think so. If someone wishes to explain it to me, good luck.
I'm an ABBA fan@chrisno1 in as much as I like the singles but detest ABBA: The Movie. Seems to depict the band as some kind of cult with nothing witty or interesting to say. The music journalist doesn't like their music and Job-like, must endure all kinds of humiliation and bad-tempered indignity to get his scoop. Only after he's been to see them in concert - paying himself - and is shown basked in light, full of appreciation and Bjorn Again - does the plot allow him to bump into them accidentally.
My Dad took us to see it at the local cinema where they played it too loud, he complained about it and was ill in bed for a week afterwards.
Stagy. Stiffly photographed. No music, or very little at least. Some flagrant overacting- but this was in the early days of sound movies, so a pass might be in order. Cutaways any time something "scary" might be happening. Hopelessly dated, unlike its near-contemporary "Frankenstein" which still holds up.
And yet...
Saved by its star. Bela Lugosi inhabits the role with such total conviction that he remains, almost a century later, the only credible rival to Christopher Lee as the definitive Dracula. Many distinguished actors (Gary Oldman, Frank Langella, Jack Palance, Louis Jourdan, to name but a few) have played the part- and some very well- but still it belongs to either Lee or Lugosi. (My pick is Lee, but that's a personal choice.)
Here, Lugosi is the only reason to watch this film. His unique (though often imitated) voice, his mannerisms, draw the viewer in. He's hypnotic. This should have led to a career starring in Hollywood movies, or at least the horror kind. Unfortunately for him, next he walked from "Frankenstein" (long story) and was replaced by Boris Karloff... who did go on to a career starring in Hollywood movies until his death. Lugosi saw his career descending into Ed Wood territory- but that's another story.
this was the sort of repertory house art-film I was watching in the 80s instead of seeing a View to a Kill and the two Daltons like I was supposed to be doing. In general I think Wim Wenders is too much into the hypnotic pace and characters staring at the camera and delivering lethargic monologues. Wings of Desire on the other hand is very good, same basic moves maybe but more imaginatively applied.
@Barbel It's worth remembering Lugosi played the role on stage and the film is an adaptation of the stage play, not the book, although I don't think that's mentioned in the credits. His acting style is much more 'towards the back of the theatre' than the camera - all those generous arm movements and slow dialogue deliveries. As you say, worth a pass.
The Spanish version is even better. The two were filmed side by side, but its much sexier, if that's your bag, longer and creepier. It doesn't feature Lugosi but Carlos Villarias. Universal used the same sound stages but filming took place at night so as not to coincide with the daytime shoots. It's available on DVD, I think.
Meticulous, well-acted, well photographed and designed, First World War courtroom drama from Stanley Kubrick based on a stage play based on a novel based on real life events. Three French soldiers are tried for cowardice after an abortive attack on a German emplacement. Kirk Douglas’ Col. Dax attempts to defend them and in doing so uncovers the hypocrisy and incompetence of his superiors. Accents are all over the place. Grand settings in a French chateau [actually a German schloss] start the thing off on an ironic tone, the war scenes are splendid, the courtroom battle inevitably flawed and therefore lacking tension, the treatment and anguish of the prisoners is overplayed; there are two codas neither of which satisfy. The whole thing leaves a nasty taste in the mouth. You wonder how and for how long military officialdom got away with this sort of action. There’s no happy centre. The men, officers and troops alike, go back to war to do it all again.
Adolphe Mejou’s scheming, wily, affable General Broulard is excellent.
The sole female cast member is Susanne Christian and she became Kubrick’s wife.
correction in attribution: Barbel commented on Dracula, I commented on Wim Wenders.
but I have a follow-up question for all, which is better, Lugosi's Dracula or Nosferatu?
Paths of Glory is the first Kubrick film where I really notice the long tracking shots straight down symmetrical corridors towards the vanishing point, both in the government offices and in the trenches. To me that suggests architecture is more important than mere mortal lives. I recall the Killing having a more typical film noir look, I never notice Kubrick's signature camera move in that one. There's also the shot of the soldiers failing to take the hill and falling back where the camera is perpendicular to the soldiers' movement but tracks sideways keeping pace then slows as they advance no further, the central image in the film.
have you seen Fear and Desire, Kubricks first film, which also was a war film?
Red Sparrow, 2018: a recent spy film so I better file a report
Jennifer Lawrence is beautiful as always and learned ballet to do this part. The film has the graceful flow of ballet and appropriate orchestral score building to dramatic surges.
I'm not sure the ending adds up and would have to watch it again to check the logic, but I dont have the stomach for that. Lawrence's character would need to have done too much planning for it to fall in place as it did and yet it seemed a lot of random events complicated things along the way.
The level of violence is stomach turning, especially the two torture scenes. Lawrence's character is also humiliated repeatedly in ways I could not imagine a male protagonist being subjected to, but maybe thats the point. It certainly does draw attention to the gender inequities of this world.
The film is based on a book by an actual former CIA agent who claims the premise is real.
I have not seen Kubrick's debut. The trench scenes were the best in Paths of Glory IMO, the long sequence of the General inspecting the troops, then later Kirk Douglas retracing the same route before battle. Had a genuine feel of battle weary people and place. Overall though, for me the film didn't impress.
I thought Red Sparrow was a horrible film. As you say, Lawrence's character is treated very badly. That'd never happen to Tom Cruise. This kind of depiction of women in film only pays backhanded complements to equality and diversity. Too violent. Very unrealistic considering it is based on a book written by an 'insider.'
ha! like Siskel and Ebert! so what's the Dog of the Week?
further thoughts on Red Sparrow if we're interested in discussing, probably nothing original...
the American side of the espionage story was straight out of le Carre with all the moles and handlers and bureaucracy, all that detailed and rather banal tradecraft.
The Russian side too, but in those scenes what was noteworthy was this hopeless vision of the Russian state, where the Secret Service arbitrarily controls all and individual lives are subject to blackmail from the spymasters who run this world. Even relatives are blackmailed, into "whore school". the bad guy in this story may be the creepiest uncle in any movie ever!
I'm still thinking whether the ending adds up. Lawrence would have had to begin planning as soon as she was given her mission. Her every move, revealing herself to her CIA target, and her interactions with her roommate and local section chief are all predetermined moves in her plan. But there's still too many random events for such a detailed plan to unfold as intended, and who does she file her final report to, so that the finale unfolds as it does?
Comments
THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS (1993)
I’m not sure why I have never got around to seeing this before but watched it last night with 11 year old CHB Jr. We both enjoyed it immensely.
Jack Skellington of Halloween Town wanders accidentally into another holiday themed town, Christmas Town, and becomes obsessed with bringing the joyous season to the Halloween Town residents.
The stop-motion animation is excellent and the lyrics are clever. It’s unusual and captivating, thoroughly recommended.
The Curse Of Frankenstein (1957)
An old favourite, watched for the umpteenth time. Hammer's version differs entirely from the old Universal "Frankenstein" series. As a kid, I used to wonder how the nice, kind, gentle Peter Cushing I saw as Sherlock Holmes or jesting with Morecambe & Wise could possibly be
It took some time before I realised that he wasn't. Cushing played Baron Frankenstein in the Hammer series, making a succession of creatures, while the Universal series focussed on Frankenstein's Monster.
This was the first of the series, and totally different to the old b&w movies. Completely delightful and enjoyable for fans of this kind of material. Cushing is great, of course, and this is the film where he met Christopher Lee (as the creature) which was the beginning of a classic screen partnership.
The Pirates! in an Adventure with Scientists!
This is from the Wallace and Gromit team - Aardman Animations I think it's called - and is set in the 1830s where a ramshackle pirate ship decide to take compete in the Pirate of the Year award despite never having won it in the previous two decades.
I had a blast watching this on the telly a few years back but it seems it's never been on since so I bought it second hand on DVD. It has a long pre-credits almost on a par with you know what, and a jaunty swaggering hit song from the early 80s over the credits that most of us will recognise, the end credits have an equally uplifting Britpop song.
I didn't enjoy it so much this time round - the DVD quality wasn't great, are they trying to run them down so we all buy BluRays? - and there's a lot of detail that didn't come out visually. If you're watching a comedy with a family member who is not really up for it it's always going to be a drag, less so with a horror or drama, it doesn't pressurise for a validating reaction every few seconds. It does seem that the gag of depicting historical figures like Darwin and Queen Victoria as a cowardly, virginal thief and backstabber, and psychotic vengeful mad woman respectively did seem a tad disrespectful - or do I just seem middle-aged now? - and some of the gags seem unPC or is that just the fragility of the post Brexit, post Covid or woke era? I don't know.
Hugh Grant does a good voice for the main pirate captain, though he rarely really owns any film he's in, he's often part of an ensemble, isn't he? Much of the thing is Wallace and Gromit style, with the pirate captain hatching a foolhardy plan while his second in command, voiced by Martin Freeman, pulls doubtful expressions like Gromit the dog. It's fun in a steampunk way, I'm not sure why it didn't work for me so much this time round. The 'parrot' that is centre of the plot is just not as charming as it should be, not like the sheep in Wallace & Gromit, and there's nothing as comically sinister as the penguin either. But if it comes up on telly over the Christmas period, it's well worth a look.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
The Manchurian Candidate
A fine print of this 1962 film on BBC4 tonight.
Bond fans and cinema fans should check this out because it really does run the gamut of early Bond films, before long you'll be ticking off scenes. That said, this is quite a nasty film and of course it got pulled from cinemas because of the similarity with the actual shooting of President Kennedy the following year. Sadly, its star Frank Sinatra starred in another such film, Suddenly, and that had to be buried too.
It co-stars Lawrence Harvey, or maybe that should be stars, but Sinatra got paid a lot more, for sure. That Pyscho actress is in it too, name temporarily escapes me. Angela Lansbury is the stand out as a conniving mother and senator's wife. It's all parodies the McCarthy era hysteria while also tapping into it. A very fine, eerie movie, well recommended.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
@Napoleon Plural I enjoyed Pirates! as well when I watched it, but have never revisited. I have recorded The Manchurian Candidate for future consumption. Thanks for these heads ups.
If you recorded it off last night's showing, the print quality is excellent - and no ad breaks of course.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
I put Casino Royale on today to make sure my blu ray player was still working. It’s hard to put into words what a great film it is. It ticks every box for me. It’s a shame DC never even came close again in his tenure to reach the heights of this film in my opinion.
I agree, but IMHO that's because of the high Fleming content. It had been years since we'd had a film with that level of faithfulness to Fleming, which to my mind was its strongest point.
Correction: decades.
Yet many detest Thunderball - which has a high Fleming content. Or does it? How much was McClory?
Of course CR boxed them in - in a good way - it forced them to take bold decisions as they had to adhere to the source novel.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
I'd love a 5 hour version of TB!
One can always find people who detest something others love, or the other way around.
Exactly! Brilliant book and even better film. I love Thunderball as well which is my second favourite Bond movie after Casino Royale.
A KIND OF LOVING (1962)
One of the reasons given for the success of Dr. No was that it was an antidote to the “ kitchen sink” or “angry young men” dramas that were prevalent at the time, Saturday Night And Sunday Morning, A Taste Of Honey and the one I’ve just seen, A Kind Of Loving, being amongst them.
Directed by John Schlesinger and starring Alan Bates as the angry young man, he plays a draughtsman who is dating a typist at his works, when she becomes pregnant he reluctantly proposes to her and they move in with her domineering mother-in-law, played by Thora Hird, in a simply brilliant performance. How she was never nominated for an Oscar for this role is unbelievable. The scene where Alan Bates returns home drunk and throws up behind the sofa is as good a piece of acting as you will ever see.
The kitchen sink dramas were uniformly excellent, but ultimately depressing for those who had no escape from a humdrum life. One can see how the exotic world of James Bond appealed to the young men of that generation and they all wanted to be him and revel in the escapism that the Bond films portrayed.
Highly recommended.
in our BondHistory books, I have often seen Dr No contrasted to these Angry Young Men genre films, but never seen an example myself, so thanks for the report @CoolHandBond to give some context
I know Monty Python would parody the genre, eg Graham Chapman as the playwright father taunting working class son Eric Idle "Gala looncheon's not good enoof for ye, lad?"
THE GAY DIVORCEE (1934)
This famous movie musical is based on a Broadway stage success which starred Fred Astaire and was titled Gay Divorce. R.K.O. Studios tactfully altered the title for American audiences as the Hays Code considered ‘divorce’ a serious subject and not one to be cheerful about. A ‘divorcee’ of course, could be as gay and light headed as she liked. Ginger Rogers character is married in the film, so I don’t understand how the Hays code or R.K.O. figured any of that relevant.
Astaire and Rogers had worked together as supporting players in Flying Down to Rio (1933) and created a stir with the famous dance number The Carioca. Here they and the chorus line spend seventeen interminable minutes faffing about to The Continental. It’s a dreary stop-start tune with terrible lyrics, but the choreography shows off Astaire and Rogers well and is framed by Van Nest Polglase’s enormous art deco set, which is meant to be a hotel in Brighton, England. There is nothing resembling this outlandish design on the English south coast. This ditty was given the first Academy Award for Best Original Song, which began a long list of undeserving winners.
The Gay Divorcee is the template for all of the Astaire / Rogers musicals that followed: a misunderstanding leads to the two dancers getting it on, usually through a series of musical numbers and comic sketches. This example isn’t very well structured. The comedy is laboured, especially for the usually rapid-fire thirties, and the score is dull. Most of the songs sound the same and there’s only six of them. Disappointingly the movie dispenses with all Cole Porter’s original numbers except Night and Day, which is the stand out dance routine, after which Ginger Rogers lies on a settee, panting provocatively and Astaire murmurs: “Fancy a cigarette?” This metaphorical moment of blissful coitus slipped past the dummies at the Hays Office and is the funniest line in the movie. Alice Brady and Edward Everett Horton show superior comic timing and just about rise above the worst of the script.
The famous dance partnership isn’t quite in bloom. At times Astaire seems to be dragging Rogers with him and her timing is noticeably off. Additionally, Astaire’s singing style is startlingly broad; he’s not refined his voice for the movies and is still performing as if he’s on a theatre stage. Blink and you miss Betty Grable whooping it up in the inconsequential Let’s Knock Knees. She displays all the umph and willingness most of the cast forget. Director Mark Sandrich is serviceable. Everyone did better with the next year’s Top Hat.
THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE (1962)
@Napoleon Plural reviewed this above. I can't share his honest enthusiasm. Sorry, Nap.
John Frankenheimer’s Cold War thriller from 1962 is an unsettling and unsettled piece. It prefigures events of November 1963 and the J.F.K. assassination, which lend the film a documentary edge among the drama. The final scenes at a Republican convention, with the brainwashed anti-hero Raymond Shaw preparing to murder a presidential candidate, have grip and edge and are prescient of Oswald at Dallas.
Laurence Harvey plays Shaw, the son of a senator whose overbearing mother manipulates her drunken husband as well as everyone about her. Along with his platoon, Shaw has been captured during the Korean War and experimented on. A deck of cards and the word ‘solitaire’ triggers his conditioning and he performs a series of political assassinations for his Communist masters. He, of course, is completely unaware of his crimes. Frank Sinatra’s Major Ben Marco has recurring nightmares of their incarceration and sets out to investigate.
Good performances from Sinatra, Harvey and the Oscar-nominated Angela Lansbury, as the domineering McCarthyite mother. Apparently in Richard Condon’s original novel there was an incestuous relationship between mother and son, ugh, so I’m glad they cut that out. Janet Leigh is completely wasted; her character may as well not be there at all.
The film is remarkably uneven, which I was surprised by. Some scenes have real flair, others drift past. The plot is interesting and well conveyed, but throughout the movie I kept asking myself questions about the screenplay. For instance, there were nine surviving members of Shaw’s platoon, but Sinatra’s character only discusses two of them and investigates one, which seems an oversight. And why do the Chinese only brainwash one soldier when they have nine? Marco also discovers the brainwashing ‘hook’ far too easily. And quite why no one questions Shaw’s valet Chunjin a little closer – he’s the Korean guide who led the platoon into being captured – is never explained. If a viewer can brush over these little niggles, and others, they’ll probably enjoy it a lot more than I did.
There’s a spectacular karate fight between Sinatra and Henry Silva which must have influenced the Bond franchise, especially the ‘gate crasher’ rumble in OHMSS, and a quite stunning, oblique domestic dual murder which has tremendous emotional impact. Otherwise, apart from the suspenseful ending, the film lags quite a lot, especially during a humdrum romantic flashback sequence. The good, thriller moments, are interspersed too far apart from each other to keep this viewer fully entertained. It’s wordy, worthy and a little one paced.
MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE 1932
It's widely known that Bela Lugosi turned down the part of the Monster in the 1931 "Frankenstein". Instead, he played Dr. Mirakle in this Poe adaptation, directed by the original "Frankenstein" director (until he was replaced by James Whale) Robert Florey.
The story involves an ape, a mad scientist (Lugosi, of course), a romantic subplot, too much very dated comedy relief, and some studio interference which leaves part of the story to the audience's imagination. The cinematography is by Karl Fruend, whose credits include the Lugosi "Dracula", the Karloff "The Mummy" (as director), and no less than "Metropolis", which should be enough credentials to recommend him.
The Poe story is expanded and is often paid only lip service to... as ever. Today the main reason to watch it is to see Lugosi, irresistible as always. The young ladies spend a lot of the time screaming and swooning, often in filmy négligées.
As I understand it, the film was only a moderate success while "Frankenstein" was a blockbuster, and led to Lugosi's cinematic decline compared to Karloff's rise to stardom.
Death Trench aka Trench 111 I tuned into accidentally on Channel 8 aka London Live. This is an odd channel, under promoted. It shows a lot of the stuff that goes on Talking Pictures, which deals alternately with old movies of the kind that tend to star Alistair Sim, Jack Hawkins or Bernard Lee or trashy Hammer films that get wheeled out on Friday evening, introduced by Caroline Munro. London Live has a Twitter feed but doesn't promote its films on it, unlike Talking Pictures, so you tend to miss stuff, though often it's trashy East End gangster films that feature Ian Ogilvy for reasons that escape me.
Anyway, Death Trench is set in the dying days of World War 1 and involves a platoon sent to investigate an underground set of German tunnels with a grisly secret. It looks like a load of old rubbish but I found it refreshing to see a film that sets out to do what it says on the tin, unlike frankly the recent Bond movies under Craig who promise you a good time but tend to be a bit miserable. There is some good dialogue about how some of the Germans think they will rise from the ashes of their loss in the war. I made me pine for a really rubbish movie of this ilk, Dead Snow, which is set in modern times and features Nazi Zombies! I say it's rubbish, but it's also great. There's another one a bit like this, Overlord, set on the eve of D-day. I've half a mind to settle my 93-year-old dad in front of one of these movies, saying, hey Dad, here's one of those World War II movies you like...
I don't suggest anyone seek out Death Trench, but sometimes these B-movies don't disappoint, I don't know, maybe I'm caving into middle age.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Two fun facts for you:
- Jenny Skavlan, the brunette in the Dead Snow outhouse scene, auditioned for a Bond girl role (most likely Madeleine).
-There's also "Dead Snow 2" (2014) with even more nazi zombies! 😁😱
THE FULL MONTY (1997)
Following a disappointing Strictly Come Dancing final, my family tuned into this feel good adult comedy drama from writer Simon Beaufoy and director Peter Cattaneo, neither of who have quite reached these heights since.
Six jobless ex-steel workers are inspired to take up male stripping to earn some much needed cash, advertising their stage show as going ‘the full monty,’ i.e. completely naked. Cue lots of scenes of gently deprived urban living, dance rehearsals of collective embarrassment, lots of fairly basic but well-observed and chucklesome humour, and a good range of ensemble acting from the keen male cast, including Robert Carlyle and Tom Wilkinson. Self-respect is earned and we all have a good time.
Much more cheerful than the icky-some entertainment of Strictly.
ABBA: THE MOVIE (1977)
Watched this from a recording I made a number of weeks ago when the comeback album Voyages was released and Channel 5 was repeating all things Abba. It’s one of those curious 1970s rockumentaries, part concert film, part drama, part documentary. It doesn’t really succeed in any genre. Lasse Hallstrom would go on to great success helming low key dramas like Chocolat and The Cider House Rules, but his career started directing almost every single Abba music promo – I’m not sure the term video was primed in the seventies – as well this, his second movie, billed as a record of the band’s 1977 tour of Australia.
It’s an odd film, framed around struggling D.J. Ashley Wallace [played sympathetically by Robert Hughes] who is charged with obtaining the unobtainable, a warts and all exclusive personal interview with the four famous Swedes; Bjorn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson, Agnetha Faltskog and Anni-Frid Lyngstad. Interspersed among his countrywide adventures is concert footage from the tour, including a monumental 19 songs.
If you like Abba, you’ll probably love this. If you don’t it’ll be a trawl. I had mixed feelings. The framing device doesn’t really work, but it’s more relevant than those flights of fantasy Led Zeppelin inserted in The Song Remains the Same. As Ashley’s efforts become more and more embarrassingly incompetent, I started to lose interest. It’s never clear if his initial scepticism is changed by his contact (or non-contact) with the band and the almost universally insipid fans.
The backstage footage is good, demonstrating the almost haphazard nature of concert tours of the era. The music is surprisingly lively. I can only think how, without the benefit of display screens, it must have been almost impossible to make out the band, all dressed in white against a white garbed backing band, orchestra and chorus.
A cult film, probably for fanatics only.
PARIS, TEXAS (1984)
Wim Wenders American experiment, Paris, Texas, starts off with a stunning, beautiful widescreen shot of the Mojave desert. We are drawn immediately into the landscape. We want to know where we are going. We want to know what will abound.
Not a lot, as it happens.
This film was widely venerated on its release, with critics comparing it to the great ‘quest’ movies like The Searchers. If they mean the lead character begins alone, completes his quest and ends alone without really going anywhere, I guess you could compare it to Ford’s statuesque looking western. If you want something really deep, about American dreams, or the breakdown of family institutions, the nature of obsessive love, blah, blah, you’re really going to struggle.
Harry Dean Stanton’s verbally challenged Travis is walking from Mexico to Paris, Texas. He faints at a gas station, is saved by an alcoholic doctor and taken to Los Angeles by his brother, where he reignites a failed relationship with his son. So far, so bland. Nothing happens here. The kid’s quite spunky. There are elements of sibling rivalry. We come to learn Travis had a decorative, young wife and that a trauma occurred in their relationship which led to Travis’ disappearance and Jane (his wife) abandoning Hunter (the child) with her in-laws. Nobody communicates with anything like a proper sentence, Travis in particular. We never learn where Travis has been for four years. My guess is, from his bizarre, structured and phobia orientated lifestyle, it’s a lunatic asylum.
So, one half of the movie plays out quite nicely. Then Travis and Hunter track Mummy down to a greasy back-alley peep show where we learn she has been the victim of a violent alcoholic, control and coerce domestic abuser – the very man we are supposed to have been sympathising with. They have two very long head-to-heads via the peep show mirror, both scenes directed very, very slowly and hopelessly over-theatrical. Here we are led to understand he is trailer trash and his wife tried to burn him to death after he chained her to the gas stove in a drunken jealous rage. After the finale, with its speculative reunion between mother and son and Dad driving off into the sunset, I had an empty, unwelcome feeling.
Am I really supposed to care for Travis and Jane and their f***ed up romantic life? Stanton really tries, but I didn’t buy it. He’s unlovable and he knows it. Nastassja Kinski has the even tougher role, given she’s got so little dialogue. Psychologically, it’s not a surprise to find a victim of abuse turning to prostitution and even murder, but this is hardly discussed; she’s your good-hearted whore with a kid and a bank account, so they must end up with each other and he becomes the gallant loner. Tosh.
Am I being too harsh? I don’t think so. If someone wishes to explain it to me, good luck.
I'm an ABBA fan@chrisno1 in as much as I like the singles but detest ABBA: The Movie. Seems to depict the band as some kind of cult with nothing witty or interesting to say. The music journalist doesn't like their music and Job-like, must endure all kinds of humiliation and bad-tempered indignity to get his scoop. Only after he's been to see them in concert - paying himself - and is shown basked in light, full of appreciation and Bjorn Again - does the plot allow him to bump into them accidentally.
My Dad took us to see it at the local cinema where they played it too loud, he complained about it and was ill in bed for a week afterwards.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Dracula (1931)
Stagy. Stiffly photographed. No music, or very little at least. Some flagrant overacting- but this was in the early days of sound movies, so a pass might be in order. Cutaways any time something "scary" might be happening. Hopelessly dated, unlike its near-contemporary "Frankenstein" which still holds up.
And yet...
Saved by its star. Bela Lugosi inhabits the role with such total conviction that he remains, almost a century later, the only credible rival to Christopher Lee as the definitive Dracula. Many distinguished actors (Gary Oldman, Frank Langella, Jack Palance, Louis Jourdan, to name but a few) have played the part- and some very well- but still it belongs to either Lee or Lugosi. (My pick is Lee, but that's a personal choice.)
Here, Lugosi is the only reason to watch this film. His unique (though often imitated) voice, his mannerisms, draw the viewer in. He's hypnotic. This should have led to a career starring in Hollywood movies, or at least the horror kind. Unfortunately for him, next he walked from "Frankenstein" (long story) and was replaced by Boris Karloff... who did go on to a career starring in Hollywood movies until his death. Lugosi saw his career descending into Ed Wood territory- but that's another story.
chrisno1 said:
PARIS, TEXAS (1984)
this was the sort of repertory house art-film I was watching in the 80s instead of seeing a View to a Kill and the two Daltons like I was supposed to be doing. In general I think Wim Wenders is too much into the hypnotic pace and characters staring at the camera and delivering lethargic monologues. Wings of Desire on the other hand is very good, same basic moves maybe but more imaginatively applied.
Dracula (1931)
@Barbel It's worth remembering Lugosi played the role on stage and the film is an adaptation of the stage play, not the book, although I don't think that's mentioned in the credits. His acting style is much more 'towards the back of the theatre' than the camera - all those generous arm movements and slow dialogue deliveries. As you say, worth a pass.
The Spanish version is even better. The two were filmed side by side, but its much sexier, if that's your bag, longer and creepier. It doesn't feature Lugosi but Carlos Villarias. Universal used the same sound stages but filming took place at night so as not to coincide with the daytime shoots. It's available on DVD, I think.
Apologies to @caractacus potts for misquoting earlier
PATHS OF GLORY (1957)
Meticulous, well-acted, well photographed and designed, First World War courtroom drama from Stanley Kubrick based on a stage play based on a novel based on real life events. Three French soldiers are tried for cowardice after an abortive attack on a German emplacement. Kirk Douglas’ Col. Dax attempts to defend them and in doing so uncovers the hypocrisy and incompetence of his superiors. Accents are all over the place. Grand settings in a French chateau [actually a German schloss] start the thing off on an ironic tone, the war scenes are splendid, the courtroom battle inevitably flawed and therefore lacking tension, the treatment and anguish of the prisoners is overplayed; there are two codas neither of which satisfy. The whole thing leaves a nasty taste in the mouth. You wonder how and for how long military officialdom got away with this sort of action. There’s no happy centre. The men, officers and troops alike, go back to war to do it all again.
Adolphe Mejou’s scheming, wily, affable General Broulard is excellent.
The sole female cast member is Susanne Christian and she became Kubrick’s wife.
correction in attribution: Barbel commented on Dracula, I commented on Wim Wenders.
but I have a follow-up question for all, which is better, Lugosi's Dracula or Nosferatu?
Paths of Glory is the first Kubrick film where I really notice the long tracking shots straight down symmetrical corridors towards the vanishing point, both in the government offices and in the trenches. To me that suggests architecture is more important than mere mortal lives. I recall the Killing having a more typical film noir look, I never notice Kubrick's signature camera move in that one. There's also the shot of the soldiers failing to take the hill and falling back where the camera is perpendicular to the soldiers' movement but tracks sideways keeping pace then slows as they advance no further, the central image in the film.
have you seen Fear and Desire, Kubricks first film, which also was a war film?
Red Sparrow, 2018: a recent spy film so I better file a report
Jennifer Lawrence is beautiful as always and learned ballet to do this part. The film has the graceful flow of ballet and appropriate orchestral score building to dramatic surges.
I'm not sure the ending adds up and would have to watch it again to check the logic, but I dont have the stomach for that. Lawrence's character would need to have done too much planning for it to fall in place as it did and yet it seemed a lot of random events complicated things along the way.
The level of violence is stomach turning, especially the two torture scenes. Lawrence's character is also humiliated repeatedly in ways I could not imagine a male protagonist being subjected to, but maybe thats the point. It certainly does draw attention to the gender inequities of this world.
The film is based on a book by an actual former CIA agent who claims the premise is real.
@caractacus potts Duly noted and corrected re. Dracula.
I have not seen Kubrick's debut. The trench scenes were the best in Paths of Glory IMO, the long sequence of the General inspecting the troops, then later Kirk Douglas retracing the same route before battle. Had a genuine feel of battle weary people and place. Overall though, for me the film didn't impress.
I thought Red Sparrow was a horrible film. As you say, Lawrence's character is treated very badly. That'd never happen to Tom Cruise. This kind of depiction of women in film only pays backhanded complements to equality and diversity. Too violent. Very unrealistic considering it is based on a book written by an 'insider.'
gymkata said:
I thought Red Sparrow was outstanding,
chrisno1 said:
I though Red Sparrow was a horrible film.
ha! like Siskel and Ebert! so what's the Dog of the Week?
further thoughts on Red Sparrow if we're interested in discussing, probably nothing original...
the American side of the espionage story was straight out of le Carre with all the moles and handlers and bureaucracy, all that detailed and rather banal tradecraft.
The Russian side too, but in those scenes what was noteworthy was this hopeless vision of the Russian state, where the Secret Service arbitrarily controls all and individual lives are subject to blackmail from the spymasters who run this world. Even relatives are blackmailed, into "whore school". the bad guy in this story may be the creepiest uncle in any movie ever!
I'm still thinking whether the ending adds up. Lawrence would have had to begin planning as soon as she was given her mission. Her every move, revealing herself to her CIA target, and her interactions with her roommate and local section chief are all predetermined moves in her plan. But there's still too many random events for such a detailed plan to unfold as intended, and who does she file her final report to, so that the finale unfolds as it does?