Everything That Dies, Some Day Comes Back

As a Hitchcock completist it was inevitable that one day I would get around to seeing this 1949 flop, a costumer set in 1830s Australia which is more of a romantic melodrama than the thriller which audiences would have been expecting. What we have here is not so much as a love triangle as a love rectangle. In one corner we have Sam Flusky (Joseph Cotten) who came to Australia as a convict, but is now a rich landowner who has something of a chip on his shoulder about not being accepted by local high society.  He started off life in Ireland as a humble stable lad who eloped with his employer's daughter, Henrietta, and then shot dead one of her brothers. In another we have his wife, Lady Henrietta Flusky (Ingrid Bergman) who has stuck with him despite his murdering her brother, but who is struggling with a severe alcohol problem. In another there is the newly arrived Hon. Charles Adare (Michael Wilding), the charming but indolent second cousin of the local Governor of New South Wales ...

This film when it came out was well received and represented something of a revival in Hitchcock's fortunes, so it is strange that in the 1950s he felt the need to remake it, as if he was disappointed in the original.  The two versions differ in many respects, but they share the same fundamental setup: a married couple on a foreign holiday stumble upon a scheme to assassinate a foreign politician, and to keep them quiet their child is kidnapped.   And in both films the assassination attempt takes place during a concert at the Royal Albert Hall.  It makes for a very suspenseful set piece so I can see why Hitchcock kept it in the remake. We start off in the Alps where the Lawrence family (Bob, Jill and daughter Betty) are on holiday.  It's not that long before a Frenchman who is dancing with Jill is shot dead.  It's an effectively shocking moment even if shooting someone through a window at night when they are in a crowded danceroom is an unlikely way to go a...

In 1935 Hitchcock directed the incomparable 'The 39 Steps', about a man on the run from the police who needs to identify the real murderer in order to establish his innocence. So it's a surprise that only two years later Hitchcock revisited the same terrain by directing this film which was bound to be inferior in every way.  And it is. If you can stop comparing it with the earlier classic I guess it's a mildly diverting tale, but I confess my attention was in danger of wandering throughout. There's a surprising lack of dramatic incident and of suspense.  The accused man, Robert, seems remarkably laidback about the bind he is in, and similarly the young woman Erica who helps him is relaxed right from the off about being on the run with an accused murderer. Inevitably these two young people fall in love but the actors playing them don't have any chemistry that I could see.  In particular I found Derrick De Marney (who plays Robert) irritating throughout because of...

I can watch Russell Crowe in pretty much anything, even a film as unappealing to me as this variation on 'The Exorcist'. Crowe plays a real Catholic priest, Father Amorth, who claimed to have performed tens of thousands of exorcisms, which is plainly absurd and ridiculous.  I've no idea whether he was anything like Crowe's portrayal which manages to give him both gravitas and quirkiness.   The latter quality is signposted by him getting around on a red-and-white motor scooter.  He even uses it to travel between Rome and Castile in Spain, a distance of over a thousand miles;  no wonder he needs a shot of whisky when he arrives. Why is he in Castile?  Well, because there's a ruined abbey here where a young American boy Henry is showing signs of demonic possession.  This is after Henry has not said a word for a year, since his father died in a car accident where Henry was present.  Father left the abbey to Henry's mum Julia, and now they, together wi...

I probably saw this film when it came out, but if so it made zero impact.   Given that it was a commercial and critical hit I thought I should check it out again. I associate director Tim Burton with dark, gothic material (such as 'Batman') so I was surprised that for much of the running time this fantasy is light and airy.  Edward (Johnny Depp) is stuck in a castle until Peg (Dianne Wiest) arrives and welcomes him into her home and family.   She's not at all bothered that he's a synthetic creature with large scissor blades for hands.  In fact everyone in her community takes a liking to Edward right from the off.   That's not terribly believable but it's OK because this is a fantasy version of suburban America, complete with pastel-coloured houses. Whilst Edward's 'hands' are an obstacle to carrying out simple tasks, providing some Chaplinesque humour (such as Edward trying valiantly to eat peas), they are incredibly deft at topiary, and coiffure,...

Judging by this film, seventeenth-century England was a rough time to be a woman. Take young Sarah for example. She lives with her uncle, a priest, and is happily betrothed to Richard, a handsome and dashing Roundhead soldier (yes, we're in the Civil War).  When he pops by on leave, and hears that she and her uncle are concerned that they might be the target of local lawlessness he promises he will protect her.  Great!  Except he then has to re-join his regiment, and isn't at all concerned when on his way out of the village he meets Matthew Hopkins (Vincent Price sporting an evil haircut) coming the other way. Hopkins is going from place to place torturing  interrogating suspected witches before executing them, and receiving payment from the local magistrate into the bargain.  And he has no problem with any of his victims offering their bodies to him in the vain hope of being let off. Sure enough he sets his sights on Sarah's uncle (witches are not exclusively f...

This horror classic from Brian de Palma is so good I felt I had to rewatch it even though, as someone who hates bullying, I find some scenes hard to watch.     After a short scene that establishes that Carrie (Sissy Spacek) is useless at sports and derided by her classmates,  we switch unexpectedly to a borderline soft porn sequence wherein the camera pans lovingly across the girls' changing room as they move in slow motion in varying states of undress.   This lulls us into a false sense of security before the girls bully Carrie unmercifully when she freaks out as a result of experiencing her first period - it's a brutal scene to watch. Carrie's mother hadn't forewarned her daughter about periods and the like, because she (the mother) is a religious fanatic who regards anything to do with sex as sinful.  Poor Carrie's homelife seems to consist of being on the receiving end of diatribes about sinful boys, and whenever she offends her mother (a frequent ...