Everything That Dies, Some Day Comes Back

In 1951 director John Huston scored a big hit with ‘The African Queen’, and it seems like a few years later someone, maybe Huston himself, had the bright idea of trying to repeat a winning formula. Instead of Africa in World War I we are somewhere in the Pacific in World War II, and instead of Katherine Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart as the mismatched companions we have Deborah Kerr and Robert Mitchum. He’s Mr Allison, a US Marine who gets washed up on a tiny atoll which has just the one inhabitant, a nun, Sister Angela, who herself has only been there a few days. Surprisingly they hit it off straightaway so any dramatic tension comes from whether they can avoid the Japanese who arrive shortly afterwards, and whether their relationship will develop romantically. I was less interested in the former, so that a long and rather unbelievable sequence in which Allison tries to steal food from the Japanese camp struck me as a misstep. Deborah Kerr, even though she has to put on an Irish accent, ...

This is yet another film I had been avoiding for no good reason, I just thought it was going to be a silly bit of sub-Freudian psycho-nonsense. But I was reassured from the outset - the makers of this film are not content with simply a caption telling us that this is a real story, they have distinguished broadcaster and journalist Alistair Cooke on screen to tell us directly that this is the case, and have him provide voiceover narration throughout complete with the dates of each important event. The unfortunate person at the centre of the drama is a timid housewife and mother Eve White (played by Joanne Woodward) who, suffering from headaches and blackouts, becomes a patient of a psychiatrist with the sinister name of Dr Luther (played by Lee J Cobb). He uncovers a second personality hiding within Eve White, who is her opposite - extrovert, outspoken, flirtatious, etc, who is dubbed Eve Black (see what they did there?). Whilst Dr Luther is trying to find a way of "curing" Ev...

This 1957 Western has a great pedigree: Anthony Mann directed it, Dudley Nichols wrote the Oscar-winning screenplay, Elmer Bernstein wrote the score, and Henry Fonda stars.  Intriguingly Anthony Perkins co-stars, in one of his earliest roles. As with 'High Noon' the sheriff here (Ben, played by Perkins) can't rely on his local townspeople in a crisis.  Unlike Gary Cooper, Ben is new to the job and young and inexperienced, and the crisis takes some time arriving.  The film starts with a bounty hunter, Morgan (Fonda) coming into town to claim his reward, having killed a wanted man.  Everyone is a bit snooty about it, they wanted the bad guy brought in alive so that they could try him - which is ironic given where the film ends. Anyway Morgan has to hang around to collect his reward, and finds lodging with a local widow who is a bit of an outcast owing to her husband being an Indian, and her having a mixed race son, Kip.  Racism is an undercurrent throughout, which...

This is Kurosawa’s adaptation of ‘the Scottish play’, which I persuaded myself to watch even though I’m not Shakespeare’s biggest fan.  After all, Kurosawa is one of cinema’s greats and having studied (if that's the right word) the play at ‘O’ level I have a pretty good grasp of the basic plot, although admittedly  I can’t be sure exactly what detailed changes Kurosawa made. I’m pretty sure though that in the play Lady Macbeth doesn’t get pregnant and then give birth to a stillborn child.  In this adaptation she doesn’t go in for any sleepwalking but we do get the very disturbing scene where she is endlessly washing her hands (with or without water) to get rid of non-existent blood.   Not that she gets any sympathy from me given how sinister she is earlier, filling her husband’s head with paranoia about Banquo’s Miki's intentions as well as encouraging his ambitions which have already been stirred by the prophecies of a spirit creature (which has replaced the t...

As I was watching this supposed classic Western I reflected, not for the first time, upon the patience of film audiences back in the day given that there is no action of any consequence until the last reel.  Before then we get to sit through a lot of suspense - can downtrodden rancher Dan successfully get outlaw Ben on the titular train despite Ben's gang trying to stop him? It's based on a short story (by Elmore Leonard) and it does feel a mite flimsy as a feature film albeit with a running time of barely 90 minutes, which does include some padding in the early stages. Van Heflin is well cast as Dan, ably supported by a strong supporting cast, and the whole thing  is well directed by Delmer Daves, with above-average cinematography and score.  But Glenn Ford as Ben is too likeable in the role (where's Lee Marvin when you need him?), t he climactic action isn't quite good enough to justify the lengthy build-up, and we don't get to learn much of the back stories of ei...

This is a film noir, albeit without a femme fatale, about corruption: the corruption of power as represented by celebrity columnist J.J.Hunsecker (Burt Lancaster), and the corruption of ambition as represented by struggling press agent Sidney Falco (Tony Curtis). Their seedy and symbiotic relationship is at the heart of the film.   Falco needs items in Hunsecker’s column about his clients, and Hunsecker needs Falco to dig up juicy items of gossip and to do his dirty work. The power dynamic between them is very much in one direction, with Falco prepared to debase himself every which way, and Hunsecker all too happy to show his contempt for Falco. The film has impressive production values: stunning black-and-white location photography of New York by James Wong Howe, a jazzy score by Elmer Bernstein, and a screenplay by Ernest Lehman and Clifford Odets.  The only surprise perhaps is that this very American film is directed by British Alexander Mackendrick, whose experience ...

This 1957 film set in wartime Crete, made by the eminent partnership of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, is very much a lightweight affair. The plot is simple: some British officers, led by Dirk Bogarde, kidnap the top German general on the island, and then they have to get him onto a ship to take him to Cairo.  This mission comes across more as an escapade since it has no military value, and seems to have been dreamt up by Bogarde simply to embarrass the Germans. The Brits in this film come across as ex-public schoolboys on a jolly jape. Maybe because I have a very low tolerance for this sort of thing, the film totally failed to charm me. Bogarde’s air of nonchalance throughout irritated me like hell. I would imagine that life under German rule wasn’t much fun for the Cretans but you wouldn’t get that impression from this film. All the locals we see seem to be having a great time of it. At one point the Germans circulate leaflets threatening reprisals on the locals unless th...

That this courtroom drama based on a play by Agatha Christie is directed by Billy Wilder is perhaps more of a surprise than is the denouement itself. The main pleasures are Charles Laughton’s performance as the self-regarding QC Sir Wilfrid Robarts and that of Elsa Lanchester (Laughton’s wife in real life) as his private nurse Miss Plimsoll (great name) who has the unenviable task of looking after Sir Wilfrid.   Wilder of course can be relied upon to bring out the comedic elements of their relationship. Where the director struggles perhaps is to make an effective drama out of a story which is more interested in plot than character.  The fact that Marlene Dietrich at one point shows up in some unconvincing makeup and trying out a Cockney accent (ouch) only serves to emphasise the stagey nature of the material.  That scene aside Dietrich does a good enough job of bringing her character, Christine Vole, to life.   Her relationship with Leonard Vole, who is accused ...