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HAIL THE CONQUERING HERO

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This comedy is the last of five terrific films written and directed by Preston Sturges that were released between 1941 and 1944, in a remarkable burst of creativity. We start off in a bar where our protagonist Woodrow Lafayette Pershing Truesmith is feeling very sorry for himself.  His lifelong ambition has always been to emulate his dad and join the Marines, but when he enlisted a year ago he was quickly discharged on medical grounds (chronic hay fever, since you ask). Woodrow was so ashamed of his failure (as he saw it) that instead of going home he’s spent the last year working in a shipyard, pretending to his mother that he was on active service, and ditching his fiancée on the pretence that he has met someone new. Who should then come into the bar but six actual Marines, who are sympathetic to Woodrow's story, especially Sarge (played by the wonderful Sturges regular William Demarest) who knew Woodrow's dad before he died in battle. Before he knows what has hit him the Mar...
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OBSESSION

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What induced me to watch this obscure 1947 thriller with a cast of relative unknowns is a bit of a mystery other than that it seemed to have an intriguing plot, and that it has a decent director in Edward Dmytryk. Dmytryk had fled the US where he had been sentenced to prison for refusing to testify in front of the House Un-American Activities Committee, so I guess he was happy to take on any assignment he could get hold of. The screenplay is an adaptation by one Alec Coppel of his own play, 'A Man About A Dog', and in very broad outline the story resembles that of the later 'Dial M For Murder' - a husband who discovers that his wife is having an affair with an American responds by planning 'the perfect murder'. In this case the wife's affair is the latest in a long line, and husband Dr Riordan, a psychiatrist, has had enough.  But instead of murdering his wife he plans to murder the lover, Bill, and just to rub it in he wants his wife, Storm, to know that th...
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THE KID

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I'm a Keaton guy and so I have never got around to watching any of Chaplin's feature length films before now.  This is his first, from 1921, and the first of five films to feature The Tramp. It takes a while for Chaplin to appear because first we meet an unmarried mother, who is forced to abandon her baby.  Instead of leaving it outside an orphanage, say, she leaves it in the back seat of a car, although admittedly it is outside a mansion.  How is she to know that almost immediately the car will get stolen?  Anyway, as a result, the baby ends up being looked after by The Tramp. In these early scenes there are a couple of odd moments when the mother is linked to religious imagery.  I can only assume that this is meant to indicate that despite being an unmarried mother she is a good person. We then flash forward five years, and the baby is now The Kid.  He and Charlie have a good scam going whereby The Kid breaks windows so that Charlie can then turn up and g...
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MONKEY BUSINESS

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Well, I’ve avoided this film up to now because the premise (an elixir of youth) seemed too silly.  Not that the idea might not have possibilities in the right hands but here back in 1952 I feared that the treatment would be little more than basic slapstick, despite the copious amount of talent deployed. And I was right. Cary Grant plays Barnaby, an absentminded professor who is trying to develop a formula which might at least slow down the aging process, although his aged boss is looking to actually reverse it. Accidentally one of the chimps being experimented upon does create such a thing.  Unknowingly Barnaby takes it and for a few hours behaves like a teenager before the effect wears off.  Then his wife Edwina (Ginger Rogers) takes it so that she too becomes a teenager for a while. Then they both inadvertently take a really large dose and regress to toddler.  Then that wears off and the rest of the rejuvenation potion is accidentally poured down the sink. The end....
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PLANET OF THE APES

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I would love to be able to watch this film afresh with no knowledge of where it is leading.  At what point if at all would I realise that the planet Charlton Heston and his crew have crash landed on is in fact the Earth?  After all there are several pointers in that direction,  from the Earthlike atmosphere (very fortuitous) to the presence of humanoid creatures, albeit they are mute and have been subjugated by intelligent apes.   But the biggest clue of all (which can’t be overstated!) is that the apes speak English! What are the chances?  Heston’s character Taylor really should give this apparent coincidence a lot of consideration. Mind you, he’s got a lot on his plate.  Because a gunshot wound has left him temporarily mute he’s struggling to convince his scientist captor Dr Zira that he is intelligent even though a rapport is developing between them.   Then there’s the ever present threat of him being carried off for a quick lobotomy or neutering. O...
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ACE IN THE HOLE

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I had a very good memory of this 1951 Billy Wilder film, which testifies to its dramatic power.  The story was ‘inspired’, if that’s the right word for such a dark tale, by a couple of real life incidents, where journalists exploited people’s misfortunes in order to make a better story. The film is dominated by Kirk Douglas as Chuck Tatum, a washed-up reporter.  In a nice touch, our first sight of him is in his broken-down car being towed into Albuquerque, symbolising how far he has fallen.  In the past he has worked for big newspapers across the country but he is now forced to virtually beg to get taken on at the local Sun-Bulletin .  The reasons why Chuck has been kicked out by all those other editors seem to be manifold, ranging from a drink problem to playing fast and loose with the truth. Fast forward a year and Chuck is getting mighty frustrated at the trivial nature of the news reports he has to work on, life in and around Albuquerque being unexciting to say t...
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GASLIGHT

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This story is set in late Victorian England, a time when lighting was by gas rather than electricity.   It was also a time when the legal rights of a married woman amounted to very little. So a woman needed to choose her husband very carefully.  Unfortunately young Paula (an Oscar winning performance by Ingrid Bergman) is so swept away by handsome and charming pianist, Gregory (a foreigner to boot) that they marry within a weeks of meeting. Unlike the titular character in 'The Heiress', Paula has no father to warn her about men who might be after her fortune, because her parents died when she was young, so instead she was brought up by her aunt, a famous opera singer.  Tragically, ten years before the start of the film Paula's aunt was brutally murdered in her home in London (9 Thornton Square). As a result  it seems that ever since  that traumatic event Paula has lived in Italy, or at least not in London. So the last place Paula wants to return to after sh...
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