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SCANDAL

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  This film is a fictionalised account of the Profumo scandal.  Profumo was the Secretary of State for War in the early 1960s when it emerged that he,à married man in his forties, had been enjoying a sexual liaison with Christine Keeler, a young woman barely twenty years of age. To make the scandal even juicier she was at the same time having a fling with a Soviet attaché who was probably a spy. It may be one of the biggest scandals in British political history but I’m not certain it has enough substance or interest to justify a feature length film with Ian Mckellen as Profumo (sporting a bizarre haircut). The film focuses on the relationship between Keeler (played by Joanne Whaley) and Stephen Ward (John Hurt) with the result that Profumo himself barely features, with Mckellen’s talents wasted. Ward was an osteopath whose clientele included many high profile people from the worlds of politics, business and entertainment . He had an eye fro pretty girls who he encouraged to ci...
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À FOREIGN AFFAIR

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This 1948 Billy Wilder film is set in post-War Berlin, which must have added to its interest for US audiences at the time.  Wilder and his co-writer Charles Brackett do a great job of smuggling into the story details about the challenges of rebuilding Germany after the War, and the suffering the civilian population had endured. In addition of course it wouldn’t be a Wilder film without some dark humour. We learn that on the day Berlin’s gas supply is restored there are 160 suicides.  Hitler and Eva Braun killing themselves after marrying in the bunker is described as the ‘perfect honeymoon’.  There are some references to gas chambers and shaved heads which made me wince. The film doesn’t shy away from the fact that US servicemen in Berlin are trading small necessities and luxuries of life for sexual favours.  In fact this activity is front and central to the story. Captain Pringle has no intention of returning home to Iowa given that he is enjoying a relationship wit...
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DEATH ON THE NILE

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This 1978 adaptation of an Agatha Christie novel, the first to feature Peter Ustinov as Hercule Poirot, was a star studded affair which was a big hit.  The story as presented here had some aspects which didn’t strike me as typical of Christie so I went and read the source novel to see what changes screenwriter Anthony Shaffer had made. Understandably he cut out some of the characters as well as some subplots, for example one involving jewel robberies, so as to focus on the central murder mystery.  Given that the studio would want to make the most of the Egyptian locations Shaffer added the absurd scene where the newlywed couple of Linnet and Simon climb the Great Pyramid thinking they are totally alone when who should pop up but Jackie, still angry at having been tossed aside by Simon. À significant change by Shaffer is to give several characters motives for killing Linnet, which are absent from the novel.  Whilst on one level this makes sense (multiple suspects with moti...
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RIDE THE HIGH COUNTRY

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This is Sam Peckinpah’s second film, another Western, released in 1962.  In it one can see the start of the transition from traditional to revisionist Westerns which Peckinpah himself would advance more spectacularly with ‘The Wild Bunch’ . The lead actors are Joel McCrae and Randolph Scott and you can’t get much more traditional than that.   On the other hand there are some moments in which Peckinpah shows his propensity to push the boundaries.  There’s an horrific scene in which à young bride nearly gets gangbanged by the groom’s brothers. And in the climactic shootout Peckinpah doesn’t softsoap the brutal violence. As is often the case with Peckinpah there is a strong elegiac theme. How could there not be with two old timers together for one last time, this being Scott’s last film and one of McCrea’s last. The characters they play (who know each other from way back) have both fallen on hard times but have reacted in different ways.  Steve (McCrae) is happy enough ...
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THE BEDFORD INCIDENT

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This obscure 1965 Cold War thriller was a real discovery. It’s the first film to be directed by James B Harris who at that time was best known for coproducing some early Kubrick films.  But not Dr Strangelove, which apparently Harris felt shouldn’t be a black comedy, so this film is his attempt to cover the same ground but in serious fashion. In fact he goes to the other extreme and gives this story a documentary feel in which there’s very little by way of conventional drama, just an insidious sense of a rising tension. That documentary feel is established right from the start when we see Sydney Poitier and Martin Balsam being lowered from a helicopter onto the deck of the USS Bedford.  It’s a real helicopter and a real ship so never mind that stunt doubles are used, Poitier plays a journalist whilst Balsam is the ship’s doctor.  Neither is made to feel especially welcome by Captain Finlander (Richard Widmark).  In the case of Poitier though it thankfully has nothing...
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THE FURIES

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This was a film whose existence I had inexplicably forgotten about, until I stumbled upon it on a streaming platform, and what an exciting discovery it was - a highly rated Western starring Barbara Stanwyck and directed by Anthony Mann.  Wow! Mind you, to describe it as a Western is rather misleading;  it's really a moody psychological drama with a Western setting, specifically a  ranch called (for some strange reason) The Furies, in Texas in the late nineteenth century.  It is owned by TC Jefford, an ebullient widower who has accumulated more land and cattle than he knows what to do with. Now that he's getting on in years TC is prone to disappearing for long periods to California where his extravagances are threatening the financial viability of his empire.  The weakness of his finances are being obscured by him issuing his own banknotes, which are essentially IOUs.  TC's relationship with the bank to whom he owes money plays a surprisingly important role ...
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THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE

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Back in 1978 I made the terrible decision to go see ‘The Swarm’, now generally reckoned to be one of the worst films ever made.  It was an Irwin Allen production and this may explain why I’d never got around to catching two of his earlier, more successful films, this one and ‘The Towering Inferno’.  But I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed this potentially quite silly story about a luxury liner that gets turned upside-down by a giant wave. To be fair to Mr Allen he brought a lot of talent to bear on this adaptation of à best seller. The cast includes no less than five Oscar winners:  Gene Hackman (who won his first Oscar during filming), Shelley Winters, Ernest Borgnine, Jack Albertson and (checks notes) Red Buttons.  They form the backbone of the small group of survivors trying to make their way up (or do I mean down?) the stricken vessel.  They are joined by Roddy McDowell (sporting a dodgy Irish accent), three actresses who all ...
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