Thu Aug 02, 2012 6:00 am
Please excuse this long-winded group of reviews, but I've taken them from another blog done over a period of a month or so of watching several Brit films: these were my reviews:
I watched "Meet Mr. Callaghan" (1954), a really wonderful (and possibly for British people nostalgic) British film about a down-and-out private detective, Slim Callaghan, played by Derrick de Marney, who suddenly gets a client at 11:00 at night, played by Harriette Johns, who thinks she'll be accused of the murder of her very wealthy stepfather - who at that moment is still alive! She puts five hundred pounds on de Marney's desk, and, of course, he takes the case! The film had opened, by the way, with de Marney's secretary walking out of the office in a huff because she hadn't been paid! The secretary, too, had wished de Marney the worst of luck! Well, the man does get killed, and de Marney becomes mired in the case and has to worm his way through things to get out of it! He's smarmy and not necessarily circumspect, but that's the charm of the film - and it reeks of charm - old-fashioned British charm that was part of nearly every film made there in the 30's, 40's, and 50's, up to the early part of the 60's.
This is considered by some a classic British detective film yarn. It certainly is a wonderful film. De Marney plays a character who has many similar facets of Sam Spade, although he's got a rather comical way about him instead of pure hard-boiledness. His disheveled hair and slight smile make him look as if he's had a couple drinks too many, but that's not the case, just the way he looks. By the way, he smokes so much that it's a wonder he doesn't go up in smoke himself!! Everybody in the film does the same, but his habit is almost annoying to watch today...
Also in the film are Peter Neil, John Longden, Frank Henderson, and Roger Williams as the four relations of the murdered man. Did one of them kill him?
Along for the ride are Larry Burns (playing a sort of side kick to de Marney called Darkey - the implication being that he is Moroccan), Belinda Lee, Delphi Lawrence, Trevor Reid (as the genuine detective who not only looks for the murderer, too, but hounds de Marney - of course!), and last, but certainly not least, Adrienne Corri. The last, by the way, plays a part seventeen years before she played the gang rape victim in Kubrick's "A Clockwork Orange" (which made her resent Kubrick for years on end because he filmed the scene over and over and over, and she had to be nude in the scene). Here she plays a singer in a club who knows more than she's telling. She's also about as sexy as it gets for the 1950's. My wife kept saying she sounds French when she was singing. Turns out in real life she's a Scot born of Italian parents. She was famous for her flaming red hair, although in this black and white print her hair actually appears quite dark!
In case the star's name isn't familiar on this side of the pond: try to go back seventeen years before this film was made to 1937. Hitchcock released a film called "Young and Innocent". Its stars were young Nova Pilbeam and a young Derrick de Marney. He still looks basically the same seventeen years later, but he's put some age on.
This film is part of a two DVD set with six films in it called "British Crime and Noir", and it's made for all regions. Very highly recommended!
I watched "Blackout" (1950), another British crime drama from a set of six films on 2 DVDs, "British Crime and Noir". This one stars Maxwell Reed and Dinah Sheridan, with Patric Doonan, Kynaston Reeves, Eric Pohlmann, Michael Evans, Annette D. Simmonds, Michael Brennan, and Ernest Butcher.
Fascinating premise: Maxwell Reed has been blind for eighteen months - we don't know why - and he's about to have an operation to correct that. He needs to go to 3 Linsdale Gardens to meet someone. A man named Tom takes him to his appointment, only he accidentally takes him to 3 Linsdale Place instead of 3 Linsdale Gardens around the corner. Reed is able to make his way without help, and he goes to the wrong house. Here he finds a murdered individual with a knife in his back. Three men confront him, and they discover he's blind. What they don't realize is that his hearing has become much more acute, and he remembers their voices. Let the story begin.
He eventually meets the sister of a flyer who supposedly was killed, but she's a twin, and she says that she has a feeling... She is the one who lives at 3 Linsdale Place, but she was on vacation when he 'visited' her house, and nobody was there...
Unable to convince anyone that a murder took place, he still gets his operation; his blindness is overcome; he begins to have a sort of relationship with the sister (Dinah Sheridan) who doesn't necessarily believe her brother was killed in any plane crash; together they begin doing some interesting research based on people who knew the brother. A ring Reed finds leads him to discover a man whose voice he recognizes from the time he was accidentally taken to what he thought was a murder scene...
Really neat little noir drama that doesn't let up from the get-go. Only drawback is the lead, Maxwell Reed. He's about as exciting as watching paint dry. But the plot and the rest of the cast, including baddie Eric Pohlmann (who's always a baddie!!), are wonderful.
Good speedy (73 minutes) little noir that is definitely worth the watch! If you like British crime mellers, this one's for you.
An interesting coda: Maxwell Reed was Joan Collins' first husband. He was a heartthrob of girls in the late 40's, early 50's. His wife, Collins, told him to base his acting style on James Mason. He, instead, based it on Stewart Granger. Why I'm mentioning this at all is because Margaret last night actually said, "He reminds me so much of Stewart Granger!" I thought that somewhat vindicated him, although, as I said, I thought he was about as exciting to watch as watching paint dry on a board. Tea for you and coffee for me...
I watched another British crime thriller, this one directed by Terence Fisher, a very fine British director known for episodes of the TV show "The Adventures of Robin Hood", plus known later for directing an entire group of horror films of note. I watched "Home to Danger" (1951), a really well done crime film with Guy Rolfe and Rona Anderson, along with Francis Lister, Alan Wheatley, Bruce Belfrage, Peter Jones, Dennis Harkin, and a very young Stanley Baker, the last of whom one could easily see why he became so famous later.
This one begins with Rona Anderson coming home after five years away. We find out she left because she had a serious disagreement with her father, and she went East. The plane which brings her home has someone announcing at the airport where it arrives that it is coming from the Far East. Anyway, we quickly learn that "your father committed suicide." Well, did he?
The nefarious characters in this piece are wonderfully realized. The pacing is perfect. The suspense build-up is impeccably realized. We finally discover that dope is at the bottom of all the trouble. The leader of the gang wants the daughter dead. Who's the leader of the gang?
The one thing that just is amazing is the photography! Reginald Wyer's cinematography is astonishingly beautiful. The film was shot in the English countryside, and it is gorgeously done. Just to see the English countryside in 1951 is worth the entire film. The original music for the film was done by none other than Malcolm Arnold.
All in all, a great film for a small "B" production. The lead, Guy Rolfe, is a very interesting person in his own right. He began as a race car driver, an amazing fact seeing as how he's a very tall individual! He also has Jack Palance's scull face, a gaunt and saturnine look if ever there was one. He's very good in this show. He would become even better known when he was in his late eighties (!) playing in a series of three slasher films! He died at 91, still acting.
I've really enjoyed this series of British crime films immensely. They're wonderfully done; each exciting and well written, and, for the most part, well acted. The direction of all of them has been exceptional. Three to go. There are six in total in this set called "British Crime and Noir. Look forward to the other ones in the near future.
I watched "No Trace" (1950), another British crime thriller from the set of six, "British Crime and Noir". Many people consider this one of the very best "B" films ever made in Britain. I agree that it's quite good, but I enjoyed the first three films I watched in the set better than this one. First of all, Hugh Sinclair is sometimes just plain boring. I've got him in a couple of other "Saint" films made in the early 40's, and, although he's good, he's no where near what George Sanders was. He's good looking, but not the criminal lead type. He looks constantly as if he might be depressed.
Anyway, this one has Sinclair as a crime novelist who has to kill a blackmailer so that his (Sinclair's) past won't come up. He's now a recognized writer and personality - from the radio - and his past includes escaping after committing a bad crime while spending some time in the United States. His other crime cronies in that venture ended up serving five years in prison. Well, one of them finds him and... The rest of the film shows us Sinclair trying to get out of the clutches of the blackmailer. He does, but... Like I said, good premise, good film, but would have been a whale of a better film with a stronger lead...
Also in the show are lovely Dinah Sheridan, John Laurie (one of my own personal favorite British actors), Dora Bryan, young Barry Morse, Michael Brennan (as the blackmailer), and others.
Nice quickey directed by John Gilling. What I most appreciated was the fact that at one point you see people driving up to and into Hyde Park, then just parking their cars at will. Try that one today!!!!!!!!! Yeah, sure...
Margaret and I watched what we consider one of the best thrillers we've seen in a long time, "Bond of Fear" (1956), about a family in Britain about to go on holiday driving a caravan (car with a trailer), and eventually going over to the coast of France. Before they go, a man who has committed murder is now on the loose, and he escapes from the clutches of the police. He ends up kidnapping the entire family at gunpoint, and the rest of the film is about the events that follow one upon another while they're on the road until there is resolution at the end. It's intense (for its day), extremely well directed - taut and not an instance of extra anything thrown in for good measure! - and well-acted. The family includes the father, played by lead Dermot Walsh, the mother, played by Jane Barrett, their son, played really excellently by Anthony Pavey, their daughter, played by Marilyn Baker, and the kidnapper and murderer, played to perfection by John Colicos. Colicos, who most on this board have probably seen in something or other at least once during their lives, specialized in really nasty characters. He has a certain sinister look about him that fits those parts like a glove.
One critic on the IMDb said that he thought the show was really excellent except for the ending, which he thought was too pat and unrealistic. I must tell you that I thought it couldn't have ended any other way! But then, that may be saying something about my age, too...
Really great "B" movie from the middle fifties in Britain. Great! From the six pack, 2 DVD selection "British Crime and Noir". More than highly recommended. This is in the same league as "Hitchhiker" (1950) and "The Desperate Hours" (1955), both classics of their sort; this deserves to be much, much better known. Only problem might be boring title...
Watched the last of six in a series of British crime and noir films that are on 2 DVDs in a set called "British Crime and Noir", this one called "Recoil" (1953), starring Kieron Moore, Elizabeth Sellars, and Edward Underdown. In this one, bad boy brother Kieron Moore and his gang rob a jeweler, but stab him to death, besides. The getaway car is eventually wrecked and burns, killing two of the thieves, but Kieron Moore, the head thief and the murderer, gets away. He goes back to his brother, a physician, to get fixed up from his injuries in the automobile accident. Meanwhile, Elizabeth Sellars, the daughter of the murdered jeweler, and who bumped into Kieron Moore as he was getting away from the murder, begins an earnest search for the killer.
Eventually, getting enough information, Elizabeth Sellars infiltrates the establishment where Kieron Moore lives, thinking maybe his brother was involved, too. She finally realizes that he is not involved, and she is in a sort of relationship with him, anyway.
Getting to this point is a good amount of the film, and though it is action filled, it is interestingly mainly a character study of all involved, and a good one for such a "B" film. Directed by John Gilling, who directed another couple of the films in this collection and wrote a couple of them, too, again this is taut and free of any fat, giving it a fine 79 minutes of good storytelling. No, it's not a classic in the vein of "39 Steps" or anything like that, but it's a well done show that deserves a fine reputation. Definitely worth the while to watch if you can find it, or it comes on television at some point. Elizabeth Sellars is a cutie for her day, and she's a fine actress, too. With her beautiful cheek bones, she ended up playing a lot of exclusive ladies in her career, countesses and the like. A Glaswegian by birth, she's now 89 years old and evidently retired from the screen.
Kieron Moore had a minor, but good, career, beginning with films after WW II, including playing Count Vronsky in the Vivien Leigh version of "Anna Karenina" (1948), and he was a member of the cast in "Darby O'Gill and the Little People" (1959), but he eventually retired and worked for the Catholic Church, making a couple of documentaries, too, about the third world.
Edward Underdown may be remembered by American audiences for his part in the monstrous film with Bogart, directed by John Huston, "Beat the Devil" (1954), made the year after "Recoil". His career began all the way back in 1934 in films, and he made some decent ones in a career that lasted until 1980. He was a noted stage actor, besides; and his television career was also notable, including episodes of "Upstairs, Downstairs", "Dr. Who", "The Duchess of Duke Street", "Dad's Army", and so forth.
I've enjoyed all six of the films in this set of 2 DVDs, and highly recommend any of the six films to any who enjoy crime or noir style films. These are all British, so Americans may not necessarily know the leads, but they'll still enjoy the shows immensely. They're all well directed, well written, and well acted. The set is called "British Cinema: Renown Pictures Crime and Noir", and Amazon.com right now has the set available here in America with new sets beginning as low as $10.99, or less than $2 per film!!
I watched an Academy Award film that never even had a chance to compete for an Academy Award - probably has been forgotten by nearly everybody, but certainly stands up to the very best of the Powell/Pressburger films. This film needs to be given a new kick-start and be seen by many more people. I haven't ever been so impressed by a film that I've never seen that has almost no critical history written about it!
The film is called "The Brothers" (1947), and it stars Will Fyffe, Patricia Roc, Maxwell Reed, Finlay Currie, John Laurie, Andrew Crawford, and John Macrae, with minor parts starring James Woodburn, Morland Graham, Megs Jenkins, David McAlister, and Patrick Boxill. The genuine star, however, may actually be the scenery, for this was filmed entirely on The Isle of Skye, Scotland, and the cinematography by Stephen Dade captures the essence of the remoteness and eerie mistiness of the place to perfection. I must admit my prejudice, as my remote ancestors are from this isle, and I've visited it many times with great attachment.
This is not a film for the person who doesn't like a Greek tragedy. It IS a Greek tragedy, only in the "modern" dress of 1900 Isle of Skye, Scotland, where it is set, and where the culture captured is encapsulated as if we are there watching. We are the chorus with our own emotions; the actors are the reaches of good and evil in all of us; the play simply the parts God has given them.
The story opens with a man of the faith picking up a girl from a ferry coming from the mainland, an orphan girl who has been raised in a convent, now coming to work for a living. She is going to be working for the Macraes, a widower father with two sons, a family who has a running feud with the clan McFarish. Just the setting alone of all this - in a crofters house with a small wall bed for the girl (played by Patricia Roc) - is a setup for inherent possible trouble. When she's eventually captivated by the son of the McFarish family, that's trouble enough; but when the Macrae father (played to uttermost perfection by Finlay Currie) is about to die, he notes to the oldest son that the younger son is smitten by the girl and should marry her. Then the father dies. But the older son, also smitten, says that the father mentioned that HE, the older son, should marry her. Then he sets up a conflict which leads ultimately to the denoument of Greek tragedy where all die.
I should note, too, that the Macrae clan makes their living ostensibly by crofting, but actually by bootleg whiskey made at illegal stills. This part of the story is only told in a cursory manner. It is part and parcel of the story, but not necessarily related as much to the story as to the environment of the story itself.
One absolutely fascinating (in a very morbid sense!) facet of the film is how an execution is carried out by these islanders. A large fish is tied to the head of a person who is put in a small boat, with the person bound at the feet and hands, and set adrift. The large gulls will attack the fish and literally eat the person's head!! It's gruesome beyond belief, but we don't actually see the person being killed. Maybe that's why the thought of people watching such a spectacle, and we, as spectators of those watching - only - but not seeing the spectacle itself - is so intensely gruesome!
I think this is one of the finest films - of its sort - ever made. It's almost totally unknown, although I discovered its existence by reading a book called Scotland in Film by Forsythe Hardy, published in 1990. His opening remarks about the film are these: "Uncomprimising is the keyword for "The Brothers". This was no prettified tale set against a picturesque Highland background, but a powerful story of love and hate among the crofters and fishermen of the West Coast."
Not only highly recommended, but GO LOOK FOR THIS. Unfortunately, it has been recently released in a complete and pristine version in the UK - but only in PAL format. No release in region 1 is available, that I know of.
I watched a wonderful sentimental tale which even won great critical reviews here in America back in 1938. Made completely in Scotland, the film is called "Owd Bob" (1938). The film is taken from a novel written by Alfred Ollivant, published in 1898, and it had already been made into a silent in 1924. (For the record, it was made twice more after the 1938 version, the latest in Germany in 1998.) This one stars the great Scottish actor, Will Fyffe, along with English actors John Loder and Margaret Lockwood. Interestingly enough, both Moore Marriott and Graham Moffat have pivotal parts, too; interesting because they'd made their mark together in several Will Hay comedies already, and this is not a comedy, nor their parts comedic necessarily, though there is subtle humor inherent in both characters.
We begin by seeing John Loder newly moved into the territory as a shepherd and sheep pasture owner, and the owner of his main sheep dog, Owd Bob. He happens, near the close of one end of the pasture pass, upon a group of angry souls, especially one, who are after and arguing with Will Fyffe, shepherd and tenant of the adjacent pasture, and owner of his sheep dog, Black Wull. They have come because they think Black Wull has mauled one of their sheep, and evidently not the first time at all.
This begins the story. Of course this natural bachelor - actually a widower, Fyffe - DOES have a daughter - that's right, it's Margaret Lockwood. She and Loder end up married. Her cantankerous father - Fyffe - and a more cantankerous individual you'd never meet! - and Loder end up going to the sheep fair where there is a yearly contest for the best sheep dog. Who'll win? Who do you think? Black Wull has won it four years running so far... The new dog, Owd Bob, has a good chance, though...
The ending of this piece is sad, too. The two newlyweds are fine, and all the humans are alive, but there is one piece of tragedy that, though seemingly sentimentally conceived by today's standards, is really touching, moving emotionally.
I loved this film. It is extremely well done, beautifully directed by Robert Stevenson and well acted by all concerned. The scenery is spectacular, although several scenes are obviously done on sound stages. The culture is well captured. A complaint, even back in 1938, is that Margaret Lockwood is so obviously English, not Scottish. It'll make no difference whatsoever to American audiences, although Scots watchers WILL, indeed, see/hear a major difference in dialect. This DVD is a newly restored version of the film, although it certainly could have been better restored; but I know from past viewings that the old copies have been from really lousy prints. My DVD is PAL.
Very highly recommended.
Last night we watched "The Card" (1952) with Alec Guinness, Glynis Johns, Valerie Hobson, and Petula Clark. Also in pre-eminent parts are Edward Chapman, Veronica Turleigh, George Devine, Gibb McLaughlin, and a pre-Miss Marple Joan Hickson in a part so far removed from Miss Marple as to make one look twice to see that it really is Joan Hickson! Look closely for early Michael Hordern and Wilfrid Hyde-White, too.
When one calls someone a 'card' in the US, one usually is referring to an individual who is comic, unsubtle, and probably off-the-wall. In the UK the same kind of definition applies, but more in the sense of a self-promoter, too. The US released the film as "The Promoter" when it came out, so we see the subtle differences in the use of a word.
This one has Alec Guinness beginning his days in the poor district, using his wiles to get to a fine school - where he's horrifically harrassed because his mother is a washerwoman - but nevertheless progressing, going further, graduating, getting a job as an assistant at a solicitor firm; progressing further and so forth through a Countess, meeting two other women along the way (all three women are the three leads besides Guinness), and ending up married to Petula Clark and becoming the Mayor of the borough of five cities!
Based on the novel by Arnold Bennett, this one begins in the late 1880's and progresses to about 1905 or possibly later. Really well done gentle comedy - the way only the British can do it. This one is SO British! If you like the gentle British comedy - of which Alec Guinness is a master! - you'll love this one. It begins by making sure the viewer is set-up well; that is, it begins somewhat slowly and meticulously, then gathers steam; then moves faster and faster until the end.
By the way, the boy at the beginning playing Alec Guinness as a youngster is his real life son, Matthew.
This is a PAL release, bought in England. Mucho recommended to those who love the late 40's, early 50's gentle comedies of Britain. You'll love Glynis Johns as a predator on men and their money - she's a hoot. Beautiful Valerie Hobson as the Countess is typical of the parts she could play. And, last but not least, Pet Clark is amiable in the part, though it's slightly short in scope, but nevertheless well done. Guinness - as usual - is flawless...
