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GLADIATOR

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This classic from Ridley Scott scores 80% on Rotten Tomatoes which sounds good until you realise that it means that one in five critics couldn’t bring themselves to give it a positive review. My memory of seeing it on the big screen was of a visually impressive revenge epic with stellar performances, iconic lines, a fine last role for Oliver Reed, plenty of spectacle and a soupçon of political intrigue. It was somewhat to my surprise therefore that I found myself on a rewatch (admittedly on the small screen) acknowledging that the dissenting critics did have something of a point. One critic decried the “lack of joy” whilst another called it “glum”, so goodness knows what they made of Scott’s later take on the Robin Hood legend, also starring Russell Crowe. It is true that although the story ends with Maximus avenging the murder of his family it’s not exactly a triumphant finale, what with him heading off to the Elysian Fields, although to be fair to Scott this downer of an ending is fo...
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HOBSON’S CHOICE

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I'm not a huge fan of broad comedy and so I found the jaunty comedic music at the outset of this acclaimed film a little off-putting. But I needn't have worried, since once the film (directed by David Lean) gets into its stride it's perfectly fine. It's an adaptation of a play written in 1915 and even then the phrase 'Hobson's choice' was a well-established one, to mean a situation where superficially there might be a choice but in reality there is only one sensible or possible option. The setting is Salford circa 1880 where Henry Hobson is a successful owner of a boot shop.  He's a widower who is perfectly content with his life - both his shop and his domestic household run themselves with little help from him, leaving him plenty of time to get tipsy at the local pub, the Moonrakers, with his mates. He has three daughters and the story starts with him deciding that the the two youngest should be married off, the only obstacle being that he isn't pre...
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CACTUS FLOWER

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This adaptation of a Broadway comedy wasn’t known to me despite it being a hit in the year it came out, 1969. The main reason I watched it was that it gets the thumbs up from the usually reliable “Sunday Times Guide to Movies on TV”,  plus I was intrigued by the combination of Walter Matthau, Ingrid Bergman and (in one of her first film appearances) Goldie Hawn. Matthau is Julian, a dentist who for the last year has been enjoying a dalliance with Toni, a much younger woman (Hawn).  To keep her at arms length he has pretended that he is married, a stratagem that has worked well until now when he decides it would be a good time to settle down and marry her. This necessitates a further lie, that he is now divorcing his fictitious wife, but c omplications ensue when Toni wants to meet his wife. This is a classic comedy setup from this era, and in the wrong hands it could end up being laboured or silly or both. Fortunately the  play was adapted by I.A.L. Diamond, best known fo...
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ICE STATION ZEBRA

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Basically the story here (from an Alistair Maclean novel) is of a race against time between the good guys (Yanks and Brits) and the bad guys (the Russkies), to get to the Arctic and secure a vital film that has been dropped there from a Russian satellite.  To spice things up further it's a  Maclean story so you know there's going to be a traitor somewhere along the line.  This might sound exciting on paper, but on film (well, this film anyway) it's terribly dull.  Problem number one is that we spend what seems an interminable amount of time on an American nuclear sub (under the command of Cdr. Ferraday, played by Rock Hudson at his most wooden).  For a long time nothing much happens (until the inevitable act of sabotage) other than being introduced to the other main characters. There's British intelligence officer Jones (Patrick McGoohan) who spends a lot of his time on board drinking scotch.  His only character trait is that he's acerbic to all and sundry,...
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ASSAULT

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The only reason I watched this 1971 British thriller was that it gets the thumbs up from 'The Sunday Times Guide to Movies on TV' by Elkan and Angela Allen, but for once my ‘bible’ badly let me down because this is a quite dreadful film. It starts with the rape of a teenage schoolgirl in some woods near her school, which leaves her so traumatised that she can’t speak and therefore cannot help the police. And the police in the form of DCS Velyan (Frank Finlay) certainly needs help because he goes through the film displaying less interest than if he was dealing with a motoring offence. Two months later (and very implausibly) another schoolgirl goes to the same woods after school for no apparent reason, and is raped and murdered.  Her art teacher Julie West (Suzy Kendall) goes into the woods searching for the girl and manages to catch a glimpse of the killer but not sufficiently to be of much help. However Miss West has the bright idea of making herself bait by planting a story in...
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A STAR IS BORN (1976)

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This is the third version of a story which frankly I’ve never found that compelling.   Given also that it stars Barbra Streisand and Kris Kristofferson, whose talents lay more in the music industry, meant that I watched it more out of curiosity than hope. Frank Pierson was, on the face of it, a strange choice as director given that he had little experience at this late stage in his career (he was born in 1925). On the other hand he was a talented screenwriter, having received two Oscar nominations before winning at the third attempt with ‘Dog Day Afternoon’.  Surprisingly he is only one of three screenwriters credited to this film. By chance, having just watched one film with a very troubled production history (‘Superman II’) I was now watching another such film, as Pierson documented in detail after it was released.  Pierson found himself embroiled in a battle with Streisand and her then boyfriend Jon Peters, who was the inexperienced producer on the film.  He ...
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FRENCH EXIT

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My only reason for watching this 2020 ‘dark comedy’ is that it stars Michelle Pfeiffer (and that it is set mainly in Paris). She plays Frances, a Manhattan heiress who has been so irresponsible with her money that at the start of the film she is obliged to move into a (very spacious) apartment belonging to a friend who has no other use for it (the rich really do have it tough don’t they?). Accompanying her is her son Malcolm.  It’s difficult to gauge his exact age but he is certainly old enough to hold down a job but the idea of his working in order to help their finances never appears to cross their minds. Also with them is a cat who Frances believes possesses the spirit of her dead husband, Franklin.   We have to endure a couple of surreal scenes in which Franklin communicates with Frances via the voice of Tracy Letts. Frances and Malcolm are befriended by a lonely and eccentric American expat who we know is eccentric because she keeps a dildo in her freezer. I thought there...
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