Everything That Dies, Some Day Comes Back

This 1945 British film is a horror anthology which had been on my watchlist for a long time, simply because the last of the five stories, with Michael Redgrave as a ventriloquist, is always spoken of as something quite special. As indeed it is.  It has a neat premise, of a ventriloquist being controlled by an evil puppet.  Or is he?  One of the clever things about the story is that even at the end it is open to two interpretations, either a supernatural one or one in which it is simply a case of the ventriloquist undergoing some sort of mental breakdown.  Redgrave is superb either way. I was prepared to find the rest of the film disappointing in comparison, but this was not the case.  Admittedly only one of the other stories, about a sinister mirror, is up to much but this doesn't matter as much as it might have because of the high quality of the linking story.   It concerns an architect who turns up at a farmhouse for an assignment who then realises t...

I didn’t have very high expectations of this 1957 musical.    It stars Fred Astaire who was in his late fifties and Audrey Hepburn who was not renowned for her singing or dancing.  Given the thirty year age gap between them any romance would make for uncomfortable viewing. And there's only two songs of note,  one of which (''S Wonderful') I don’t much care for. Astaire plays Dick, a photographer for a fashion magazine which is looking for a new model, whilst Hepburn plays Jo, a bookish young woman who has an interest in philosophy.  It’s blindingly obvious where we're heading.   That I found the journey passably entertaining rather than crushingly tedious is testament to the charm of the two leads and to the skills of director Stanley Donen who brings visual flair and a light touch to proceedings.  Another plus is the lively presence of Kay Thompson (à new name to me) as Dick's swaggering boss.   At 103 minutes the film moves breezily al...

  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...

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...

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...

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 ...

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...

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 ...

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 ...

This film starts off with Josey (Clint Eastwood) in the unlikely role of a farmer whose wife and child are killed by a marauding gang.  It’s during the Civil War so naturally Josey’s immediate response is to practise his firearm skills and join the Confederate army. Fast forward to the end of the War and Josey refuses to take the amnesty on offer from the victors, which is a good decision because it's a trap set by the nasty Union soldiers who are going to massacre Josey’s comrades. Cue some unconvincing action as Josey gets to a Gatling gun and fights fire with fire. The upshot of all these preliminaries is that Josie is now a wanted outlaw with a price on his head, pursued by (in an unlikely coincidence) the guy who led the gang that killed Josey’s family, Captain Terrill. So far so fairly humdrum, and we seem set up for a straightforward revenge narrative. But that’s not what we get at all.  Instead it’s more like a ‘Mosey with Josey’ hangout movie where Josey ambles t...

This is an Australian Western set in the late nineteenth century which, as one might expect given that it is written by Nick Cave, combines moments of brutality and rage with more meditative and melancholic interludes. The plot centres around three criminal brothers headed up by psycho Arthur (Danny Huston in fine fettle).  The youngest, Mikey, is what can only be described as simple-minded. Caught between them is relatively sane and likeable Charlie (Guy Pearce).  Ray Winstone is Captain Stanley who has the challenging job of keeping law and order in what seems like a very primitive society.  Having captured Charlie and Mikey he comes up with the imaginative idea (or proposition) that Charlie should bring Arthur to justice within nine days in order to save Mikey from the gallows. It’s a daft idea but perhaps the incessant heat has got to Stanley’s brain. An obvious flaw in Stanley’s cunning plan is that Charlie and Arthur might team up to rescue Mikey, which indeed is wh...

This 1952 British comedy film is an adaptation of a 1911 comic novel by Arnold Bennett.  The adaptation was written by Eric Ambler, a surprising choice in that Ambler is best known as a writer of thrillers.  The plot of the film follows that of the novel closely, and it is set in Edwardian England rather than being brought into the present-day. Alec Guiness is rather old for the part but otherwise is perfect as Denry, the upwardly mobile son of a washer woman.  He starts off as a legal clerk but when he is put in charge of sending out invitations to a ball held by the Countess of Chell (Valerie Hobson) he seizes the opportunity presented to invite himself, and not being backward in being forward he dances with the Countess, the start of a friendship which will benefit him later. His dancing teacher, Ruth Earp, is played by Glynis Johns, who gives the outstanding comic performance on view, as someone adept at using her feminine charms to get her way, particularly spending ...

This was to me an obscure film from 1944 made by an obscure director, John M Stahl.  But Scorsese rates it very highly and Gene Tierney, the lead actress, got an Oscar nomination out of it, so I gave it a go. It’s one of those films where the bulk of the story is told in flashback. In this case this is done to set up a mystery (why was Cornel Wilde’s character sentenced to two years in prison?) which helps to keep us interested during the early scenes which are, it’s fair to say, undramatic to the point of being dull. Wilde plays a successful author, Richard, who meets and immediately falls in love with Ellen,   played by Tierney.  Studio boss Darryl F Zanuck is quoted in Wikipedia as saying that she was “unquestionably, the most beautiful woman in movie history“.  No doubt there was a certain amount of self interest in this statement about a star of his studio but when we and Richard first set eyes on her one can see where Zanuck was coming from even if her loo...

This 1982 film is the second outing for Peter Ustinov as Agatha Christie's famous detective, Hercule Poirot, following 'Death On The Nile' in 1978. Although the original 1941 novel is not one of Christie's most celebrated, Poirot is presented with a satisfyingly perplexing problem in that all the possible murderers seem to have a watertight alibi.  Screenwriter Anthony Shaffer (who also adapted 'Death On The Nile') has the good sense not to tinker with Christie's clever solution whilst making a lot of changes around the edges in order to both streamline the novel and to enhance its commercial appeal, for example moving the location from a hotel in Devon to a hotel on a small Mediterranenan island. Shaffer also adds a lot of humour which I am sure is not in the original novel.  Ustinov's portrayal of Poirot is of course very droll, but in addition we get the comedic pleasure of Maggie Smith as the owner of the hotel. James Mason is probably the biggest na...

The title is misleading since it turns out that Warlock is not a person but a town. Well, not even a town since legally it’s not entitled to a marshal, which turns out to be an important plot point. So the town has to make do with a mere deputy sheriff, but unfortunately but in the opening scene the latest holder of this post is run out of town by the McQueen gang, who seem able to terrorise the place whenever it suits them. In desperation the townspeople decide to appoint themselves a marshal (the law be damned) and they have just the right person for the job in mind: Blaisdale (Henry Fonda) who  together with his friend Morgan (Anthony Quinn) go from place to place restoring law and order.   When Blaisdale arrives he predicts what will happen: at first his efforts will be appreciated but then the locals will begin to fear and resent his position of authority over them, at which point it will be time for him and Morgan to move on. Events at Warlock however don’t quite follow ...

As someone who has only watched the first Shrek movie out of the franchise I’m not in a good position to comment on this Puss In Boots sequel, b ut here goes anyway.  I understand that part of the reason for the long gap between the original Puss In Boots film and this one was that the producers wanted to wait until they had a good enough story. That’s a novel approach to sequels which I doubt will catch on. Was the story worth the wait?  The key idea is to have Puss face up to his mortality, having used up eight of his nine lives.  As in ‘The Seventh Seal’ he is literally stalked by Death throughout the film.   This means we get a more subdued and humble Puss, thankfully, since I think I would find a whole film of him doing his 'Look At Me I’m A Legend' shtick rather wearisome, no matter how endearing is Anthony Banderas’ voice work.   Puss has to face up to his shortcomings, especially since Kitty is very happy to throw them in his face at every oppo...

I had hoped that this low budget noir directed by Ida Lupino would be taut and suspenseful but alas no. Two boring middle-aged guys are on a fishing trip down Mexico way when they pick up a hitchhiker. Bad mistake! He’s a serial killer on the loose who pulls his gun on them and commandeers the car. They eventually get to a small port from where said serial killer plans to make his getaway.  But the police easily nab him.  End of film. That the conclusion to this film is lame wouldn’t be so bad if the journey to get to it was entertaining, but it’s not.  The three characters are all dull and predictable. One of the guys is played by Edmond O’Brien who was a decent enough character actor to win an Oscar but even he can’t breathe any life into proceedings. As for incident, there’s precious little of interest other than maybe a shooting contest the killer sets up so as to have some sadistic pleasure with his prisoners. Lupino was a pioneer as a woman director in Hollywood at ...

If you came away from 'The Martian' thinking that what it really needed was for dour Matt Damon to lighten up and be replaced by Ryan Gosling, and to have a creature made of rocks as a companion, then this is the film for you.   Instead of being stranded on Mars, Gosling's character (maverick scientist Ryland Grace) is out in the Tau Ceti star system, trying to work out why that star isn't dimming whilst our Sun is.  The Sun is losing energy due to some pesky micro-critters (called Astrophage) appearing from nowhere and taking a one-way trip from the Sun to Venus.   This is going to lead to catastrophic consequences for humanity, which is why the jokey tone of this film sometimes rubbed me up the wrong way.  For example, there's an early scene where Grace and a companion go to a DIY store to buy some kit with which to conduct an experiment on the Astrophage, and in case the audience might find this boring they of course have to do some clowning about. ...