Everything That Dies, Some Day Comes Back

If this film is anything to go by life in Scandinavia circa 900 was no bed of roses whether you were a king or a peasant. If the former you might get bumped off by your brother, as happens here in the opening scenes when King Aurvandill (an unrecognisable Ethan Hawke) is killed by Fjolnir.  If the latter you were at risk of being the victim of rape and pillage raids or being enslaved. Our protagonist, Amleth gets to see both sides of this coin.  As a young boy at the start he sees his father Aurvandill get killed.  After fleeing for his life, he ends up years later surreptitiously joining a gang of slaves which is en route to Iceland, having been acquired by Fjolnir who has lost his kingdom and gone down in the world. At this stage all Amleth can think about is avenging his father’s death and rescuing his mother, Queen Gudrun, who was last seen being carried off by Fjolnir.  However his straightforward desire to wreak vengeance suffers a couple of complications. Firs...

This 1967 Sidney Lumet film is an adaptation of John le Carré's first novel, 'Call for the Dead'.  The novel features George Smiley who would reappear in many later le  Carré novels, but for legal reasons his character name here is Charles Dobbs. He is played by James Mason, which is decent enough casting.  Less satisfactory is Swedish actress Harriet Andersson as his wife Ann, given that she is over twenty years younger than Mason.   Which is not to say that Andersson doesn't give a good performance.  In fact all of the cast do a good job.  Simone Signoret is memorable in the two speaking scenes she gets, and I liked both Harry Andrews and Kenneth Haigh as Dobbs' two sidekicks as he tries to get to the bottom of the mystery of the apparent suicide of a Foreign Office mandarin.  Roy Kinnear gives a nice performance as a small-time criminal caught up unwittingly in the espionage goings-on. Freddie Young used this film to pioneer a new techniqu...

This 1932 film is an adaptation of a Noël Coward play directed by Ernst Lubitsch.  If the combination of Coward and Lubitsch suggests a concoction that might be a little too arch for its own good, one can rest easy because it seems that screenwriter Ben Hecht coarsened the play almost beyond recognition. And if that wasn’t enough the unlikely duo of Gary Cooper and Frederic March play the two male leads, rather than Lubitsch’s initial choice of Ronald Colman and Leslie Howard. Cooper and March are a struggling painter and writer respectively, eking out an existence in Paris. When they meet Gilda (played by the wonderful Miriam Hopkins) they both fall for her. She for her part seems equally attracted to both, creating a Jules-et-Jim-type love triangle. Rather shockingly, one imagines for cinema-going audiences at the time, they agree to live together, but as Gilda states explicitly, with “no sex”. This film was made just before the Hays Code came into effect, so that it would be sev...

The title song over the opening credits of this 1959 Douglas Sirk melodrama informs us that à life without love is just an 'imitation of life'. Most obviously this description applies to the main character, Lora, played by Lana Turner, who at the start of the film is a struggling wannabe actress. Budding photographer Steve proposes marriage but makes the mistake of linking it to her giving up on her acting dreams. Big mistake!  She has a burning ambition to tread the boards, which means love in the form of a life with Steve is tossed aside.  She of course goes on to become an incredibly successful star of the stage (it’s that sort of film) but there’s not much love in her life.  After the elapse of some ten years, and when we are getting towards the end of the film, she finally does decide to retire and marry Steve (somehow despite being handsome and becoming a successful advertising executive Steve has remained unattached in the meantime). Turner, and John Gavin as Steve...

  In a recent Guardian poll of writers, critics and academics 'The End of the Affair' by Graham Greene rated as one of the 100 best novels of all time. I don't disagree.  In my youth I was totally gripped by this story so much so that in my memory at least I read it in a single sitting, reading it late into the night. So I couldn't pass up the opportunity to watch this adaptation, especially since it stars Deborah Kerr, possibly my favourite actress.  Even so I approached it with some trepidation given the mixed reviews it received. It divides into two halves.  The first is narrated by Maurice, an American write living and working in London during World War II.  He meets Sarah, the wife of boring civil servant Henry, and they instantly fall in love and begin a passionate affair.  When Maurice survives (miraculously?) a bomb falling on his house Sarah breaks off the affair without explanation. A year later Maurice bumps into Henry, who is worried that Sarah ...

A film that has always been on my must-see list is 'The Thin Man', but so far the opportunity to watch it has never arisen. So I decided to make do instead with the 1936 sequel, which received a positive reception. It stars William Powell and Myrna Loy as Nick and Nora Charles.  He's a retired private detective and she's a charming heiress,  and they have a nice easy-going relationship in which they gently tease each other, and drink copious quantities of alcohol whilst never seeming to get more than tipsy. As a bonus, this film also features James Stewart, which was a pleasant surprise although it was also a bit of a shock to realise that as late as 1936 he wasn't yet that big a star.   The first 'Thin Man' film was based on a novel by Dashiell Hammett which was something of a departure from his normal hardboiled style in being lighter and more comedic.  Although he didn't write any more novels featuring Mr and Mrs Charles, he contributed the storyline ...