Horror and Sci-Fi films old and new, weirdo trash, arthouse, forgotten gems, well loved classics, and I'm watching the original Dr Who from the beginning.
Despite being set in La Belle Époque, Casque d'Or is not a stuffy period drama. Director Jacques Becker creates a rich and believable world that is also vibrant and contemporary.
The story centres around Marie (Simone Signoret), the girlfriend of Roland, a gangster in a small French town. After a chance meeting, Marie she falls for Georges, a humble carpenter, and her boyfriend's jealousy leads to a fatal showdown.
The subdued tone means little or no histrionics or melodrama, even in the confrontation scene between Georges and Roland. There is no explicit violence, but the coldness and the closeup shots are chilling and uncomfortable. There is no music and glamorization of what is happening.
When Georges goes on the run there is also an interesting contrast between the dark, dense city, full of crime and death and the wide expansive and peaceful countryside.
The haunting finale mirrors the opening. This is a film with a bleak worldview. Georges is an honourable man in a dishonest world. Everyone does the decent thing, and nobody is happy.
Machine Gun Kelly is a change of pace from Roger Corman's more common 1950s output of cheap monster movies. It has an intelligent script, lean muscular direction from Roger Corman, and a brooding early performance from Charles Bronson.
Bronson plays George "Machine Gun" Kelly, a bank robber with two major obsessions - death, and a particular type of firearm. After a particularly successful job, Kelly is now Public Enemy Number One. Tensions grow in his gang, especially his partner in crime Flo Becker (Susan Cabot), who starts to question if he is a real man.
The screenplay uses Freudian elements to create a title character who is more than one dimensional. Kelly is infantilised by everyone around him. He has a fear of death that is repeatedly triggered by symbols that he sees. And he is a snivelling coward once deprived of his phallic machine gun. As well as making for interesting characterisation, this approach allows Corman to refute accusations that he is glorifying criminals.
Corman's directorial stylistic high point would come later, with his rich and surreal adaptions of several Edgar Allan Poe stories. Here, he shows the versatility and good taste to know that what he needs to do is to keep things focussed and moving. However, there are some great stylistic choices, such as the wordless opening sequence, showing a violent bank robbery that ends in the death of a security guard.
I will sit through anything with Boris Karloff in at least once, but with some films, once is more than enough.
Set in the Côte d’Azure, Juggernaut sees him playing a doctor, desperate for funds to complete experiment into cure a form of paralysis who gets caught up in a plot by a scheming heiress to murder her husband.
Despite Karloff playing a murderous scientist, Juggernaut is not a horror film, but a crime melodrama, and not a very good one at that. The story isn't always clear, the script is overly talky, the acting poor (even Karloff) and the film itself is badly directed, with poorly framed shots sometimes held for several minutes.
It's also a completely misleading title, covering a dreary affair with no momentum that fizzles out long before the end.
An energetic and atmospheric take on the Sherlock Holmes tale, the Hammer Studios version of The Hound of the Baskervilles works as both an exciting detective story and an atmospheric Gothic chiller.
Although some changes are made to the source material, the basic plot remains the same, with Holmes (Peter Cushing) and Watson (Andre Morell) called on to investigate the mythical supernatural beast that has been haunting and killing members of the Baskerville family for hundreds of years. After his uncle Charles Baskerville is found dead, nephew Henry, the last of the line, finds himself left with the family estate – but does this have an unwanted extra, namely, the fatal family curse?
Cushing makes an excellent Holmes, a keen and energetic man with a razor-sharp brain and tongue to match, while Morell plays Watson closer to the literary version of the character, the heart to Holmes' brain, rather than the affable duffer that Nigel Bruce went for in the Basil Rathbone era films. Christopher Lee acquits himself well, playing a good guy for a change, but with enough charisma and haughty aristocratic manner to make Sir Henry convincing. The script rattles along at a good pace, and the changes from the novel merely help make the story pacey and visual without dumbing it down.
What really makes this a unique take on the story is the way director Terence Fisher seamlessly blends Holmes and his world into that of Hammer Horror. The Baskerville house could just as easily be the Frankenstein residence, and the lush colours, bold music, and spooky atmosphere could be right out of any of their genuinely more supernatural efforts.
One of Hitchcock greatest films, Rear Window is an ode to voyeurism that effortlessly combines mystery, wit, and romance, and has some interesting things to say about both the movies and moviegoers. Hitchcock is at the height of his powers, and his complete control of the film means there is not a wasted scene or line.
James Stewart plays L.B. Jeffries, a globe-trotting, thrill-seeking news photographer whose last assignment left him with a broken leg. Apart from visits from his socialite girlfriend Lisa (Grace Kelly), and his insurance company nurse Stella (Thelma Ritter), he is forced to spend the summer cooped up in his apartment, passing the time by taking an interest in the lives of his neighbours in the courtyard opposite. There is the beautiful ballet dancer, the newly married couple, Miss Lonely Hearts, a composer struggling with writer's block - and a salesman, Lars Thorwald (Raymond Burr) and his bedridden wife. When the wife mysteriously disappears, Jeffries begins to think there is something sinister going on.
The whole story takes place in one room, something Hitchcock had attempted before with the flawed but interesting Rope, but here there are two important differences. Firstly, while Rope was set in real time, Rear Window takes place over a week or so, giving more time to introduce the characters and build up the storyline. Secondly, in Rear Window, the location is used to provide a portal into a much larger world.
The window itself becomes a metaphor for the screen that we watch the film on. What he is seeing is just like a movie. The characters and story form, he gets gripped by this, but at tense heart stopping moments, he is almost always as powerless to intervene as we are, and like us, is reduced to the role of passive voyeur.
The theme even extends beyond the on screen characters, to take in our viewing of the relationship between the two leads. There is great chemistry between the leads, and several times Hitchcock shoots passionate scenes between Stewart and Kelly in such an extreme close manner that we begin to feel like voyeurs.
However, in a further twist, Jeffries goes beyond the role of passive voyeur, when he tries to intervene in the plot of the unfolding story. After antagonising his chief suspect, said suspect performs the equivalent of the movie monster coming out of the cinema screen and into his real life, threatening him physically.
Hitchcock's genius is to set all this within a tense, witty suspense thriller with two gorgeous likeable and charismatic stars, and a great supporting cast, particularly the sinister Burr, and Thelma Ritter as Jeffries' droll nurse Stella, whose disapproving attitude towards the sleuthing soon morphs into morbid fascination.
The Hand has a grisly premise and a seedy atmosphere but the film loses its way with a talky confused script, uninteresting characters, and poor acting.
Starting in 1940s Burma, the story sees three captured British soldiers being interrogated by the Japanese. When two of them each have a hand chopped off, the third agrees to talk. Cut to 1960s London and a policeman makes a gruesome discovery - a tramp who is missing a hand - is there a link back to the events in the Far East?
The majority of the film is taken up with the police investigation involving Inspector Munyard and his sidekick Sergeant Foster, two solid, characterless, permanently smoking detectives. The investigation mostly consists of the two of them talking, going to places, talking some more, and then smoking, which does not make for gripping cinema. It is not helped by the poorly written script, which feels like a great central premise that nobody knew how to write a pay-off for. The fractured, hard to follow storyline feels like certain key expositional scenes were either not written, not filmed, or cut out.
Having said that there is, for the time it was released, occasional brutal (if off screen) violence, and some surprisingly coarse language. The Hand also has a rather pleasing ambience of Trad Jazz, fog and Brylcream, so if those things appeal, come for the story, stay for the atmosphere.
The Raid is one of the most compellingly relentless action films of recent times.
Rama (martial arts star Iko Uwais) is a rookie officer in an elite Indonesian police paramilitary unit. His team's first mission is to infiltrate the high-rise slum fortress of ruthless gang boss Tama, previously considered untouchable by the police. However, things very quickly go wrong The problem? The apartment complex the cops are invading is occupied by tenants who range from assassins to thugs to certifiable psychopaths – and all the other scum the slums have to offer. The cops barely make it through the door before they’re spotted by the crooks, and from there it is an all-out war, floor by floor, as Rama and his teammates try to brave a nightmare of violence and destruction in order to make their arrest.
Writer and director Gareth Evans takes a simple concept and wisely avoids overcomplicating it, keeping the story moving forward at all times and also steers clear of modern cliches such as smirking one-liners, and “bromance”. The characters are far from invulnerable, giving a real sense of uncertainty to the outcome at times.
The action is shot and edited for maximum impact, with hardly a wasted shot or scene, leaving the viewer breathless. Granted, this does not leave much time to introduce the characters, many of whom, good and bad, get bumped off before we've barely had time to learn their names. This does have two justifiable outcomes however, as the scale of the carnage sets the tone of the threat, and the diminished cast keeps the story focussed.
While The Raid is ostensibly an action film, the gore, confined spaces and overwhelming tension at times make it feel like a horror film. There is also one other disconcerting element that links it to that genre - the building itself. The exterior has a slightly unreal feel, the overwhelming height giving the feel of a fairy tale castle. The interiors are nightmarish, dark, dingy, more like an insane asylum than a residential tower block.
The first film to pair Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce as Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson, The Hound of the Baskervilles is great fun, with a fast paced story, two perfect actors in the lead roles and lashings of spooky foggy atmosphere.
Sticking closely to the novel by Arthur Conan Doyle, the story sees Holmes and Watson investigating the legend of a deadly supernatural beast that has been haunting the Baskerville family for hundreds of years. After his Charles Baskerville is found dead, his face twisted in horror and giant paw marks near the body, his nephew Henry, the last of the line, inherits the family estate – but has he inherited the family curse? Or is there a more down-to-earth explanation?
Moviegoers in the 1930s had no shortage of detectives to watch, such as The Thin Man, Bulldog Drummond, The Saint, Charlie Chan and Mr Moto. One element of The Hound of the Baskervilles that makes it stand out from these is one that we might take for granted nowadays, which is the fact that it is set in the Victorian era it was originally written in, rather than the time it was released in.
Another factor that sets The Hound of the Baskervilles aside from other contemporaries is that, as well as a detective story, it is a wonderfully spooky Gothic tale, with a crumbling mansion, a seemingly supernatural beast and fog shrouded moors, all of which translate perfectly to the screen, with an ambience reminiscent of the classic Universal horror films. It is perhaps not surprising that Hammer chose this same tale to follow up their Dracula and Frankenstein films.
Of course, a detective story is only as good as the detective and thankfully we have one of the best portrayals of Holmes ever. Rathbone is a dead ringer for the Holmes depicted in the Sidney Paget illustrations that accompanied the original publication, but he also brings a steely determination and energy to the part, and makes such an impact that it is easy to forget that the character is absent from most of the middle third of the story.
Nigel Bruce's take on Watson has come in for some stick over the years and there is no denying that this is a far more buffoonish than the book version. However, in his defence, Watson does have to be slightly behind events so that Holmes has someone to explain things to for the benefit of the audience, and in addition, there is no shortage of the other essential traits we associate with the character, the tenacity and loyalty.
Rounding out the films credentials as a work of horror is the supporting cast of suspicious characters, featuring no less than John Carradine as the Baskerville butler, a man who could read a shopping list and make it sound like a sinister threat, and Lionel Attwill as Dr Mortimer, the man who brings the whole matter to Holmes in the first place for reasons that seem unclear. Attwill usually gets typecast as sinister or sleazy villains and it is not surprising that he would go on to play Holmes nemesis Professor Moriarty in the later Rathbone film Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon.
Making less of an impression is Sir Henry Baskerville himself, played by future TV Robin of Sherwood Richard Greene, although perhaps that is more a case of being overshadowed by the charisma and talent of the rest of the cast. In a sign perhaps of how little 20th Century Fox anticipated the success of the film, and the chances of any sequels, Greene actually gets star billing on the poster, over Rathbone and Bruce, despite this only being his second movie outing.
All of this is helped by a script that sticks to the basic storyline and zips along a good pace, intriguing without being confusing, while still leaving time to learn about something of the character of Holmes and soak up the glorious gloomy atmosphere of Grimpen Mire.
Coming before the droll British chase films of the 1930s,
the glamorous Hollywood psychodramas of the 1940s and 50s and the controlled
cruelty of his later work, the silent films of Alfred Hitchcock can get
overlooked. Despite lacking the budget, resources and superstars of the later
work, there is still much to enjoy as well as some pointers as to where the
career of Mr Hitchcock was going to go, most particularly in The Lodger.
The plot sees a sinister Jack the Ripper style killer called
The Avenger on the loose on the foggy streets of London, a killer who only
targets blonde women. A mysterious man (Ivor Novello) arrives at the house of
Mr. and Mrs. Bunting, looking for a room to rent. The Buntings have a daughter,
Daisy, who is a fashion model, and has a police detective boyfriend, Joe- and blonde hair. As Joe investigates the
murders, he begins to suspect the Bunting's new lodger - just as Daisy starts
to find herself attracted to him. Does Joe have the right man? Moreover, is he
about to lose his woman to him?
The Lodger was
Hitchcock's third completed film but already we can see many of the themes and
tropes that would crop up time and time again in his work over the next 50
years. The plot revolves not just around murder, but the murder of women, and
blonde women at that. There is also a man wrongly accused of a crime, a
slightly buffoonish police officer, a streak of black humour, and a twist
ending. We also see in Ivor Novello, a leading man cast in a different light to
how the public were used to seeing him – think of James Stewart as a neurotic
weirdo in Vertigo.
In addition, Hitchcock is already starting to not just hint
at sex and violence in his films, but draw a link between the two. This is most
explicitly shown here, not just by the killer, but by Joe the detective, who
gleefully talks of putting a ring on Daisy's finger after he has put a rope
around the neck of the Avenger, implying that the perfect climax to a violent
death is consummating his marriage.
However, the Lodger is more than just a dry run for
Hitchcock's career, and is a great thriller in its own right. The cinematic
style is at wonderfully audacious, with some brilliantly designed shots and
scenes that show Hitchcock had grasped the unique power of the medium, and was
also paying attention to and learning from some of his contemporaries,
particularly the German Expressionists, such as Robert Wiene and his silent
classic The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
As always with a silent film, the soundtrack that
accompanies your screening will be a definite factor. While previous viewings
have been on DVD with a soundtrack played by the London Symphony
Orchestra, a recent watch on the big screen for me had music by
drums/bass/guitar trio Minima. This was in itself an eclectic affair, moving
seamlessly between jazzy noire, eerie atmosphere psychedelic noodling and loud,
dramatic rhythm and may initially feel somewhat anachronistic, compared to the
large ensemble or organ score of the time of the films release, However, it
actually gives the film a completely different feel, one that is to my mind
somewhat closer to the Giallo genre, and given that one of the progenitors of
Giallo, Dario Argento, made his name with visually stunning films about
sexually charged murder (with great soundtracks) this actually makes sense.
An entertaining whodunnit, Town on Trial is also a peek behind the curtains of middle class village life in 1950's England. While the crime aspect of the film is not entirely successful, the subject matter is surprisingly frank for the time that it was made, and the script takes some surprising turns with characterisation. When a young woman is found strangled by a stocking in the English village of Oakley Park, there is no shortage of suspects, from Mark Roper, the married Lothario secretary of her tennis club, to the local doctor with a secret from his past, to a troubled young man with a history of blackouts. Superintendent Mike Halloran (John Mills) is brought in to solve the case, something he pursues with relentless zeal, but with the locals resenting the outsider and refusing to help, can Halloran succeed before the killer strikes again? The detective aspects of the story do not always work, with the clues and police procedural work rarely rising above the sophistication of an episode of Midsomer Murders, while the killer's motives seem vague. Much more convincing is the claustrophobic and sometimes mean-spirited world of village life, where many residents seem more interested in sweeping the murder under the carpet rather than finding out who did it. Conformity and fitting in is the name of the game, a theme that drives or shapes many of the main characters. The murder victims both stray from the accepted social norms for women, giving their deaths an air of puritanical retribution akin to some horror films, accentuated by the by the Bible quotes left at the murder scenes. The detective is also an outsider, something underlined in the scene where, after a conversation about ties worn by former pupils of Harrow Public School, Halloran pointedly replies that he went to London Polytechnic. He is certainly a man who feels more at home with inner city life "a place you can see the dirt – here you have to dig for it". The suspects, on the other hand, are doing their best to keep their heads down and out of trouble. Roper has spun an extraordinary web of deceit in order to keep his coveted position as secretary of the tennis club, a web that soon comes unraveled once the police start poking into his affairs, and his past. The plot mixes sex, violence, and stockings in a way reminiscent of Hitchcock, with the story generally pacy, and the revelations and twists coming thick and fast. The Hitchcock influence is also felt in the climax, which sees Halloran clinging for dear life to the side of the church steeple.
The recent BBC TV series was not the first attempt to move Sherlock Holmes from Victorian times into a more contemporary setting. Universal set several of the series of films starring Basil Rathbone as Holmes and Nigel Bruce as Dr Watson, during the wartime 1940s world that they were released in. What makes Sherlock Holmes Faces Death one of the best of these is that the war is now the backdrop to, not the driving force behind, the story, and the filmmakers went back to the source, adapting the Conan Doyle story "The Adventure of the Musgrave Ritual".
The plot sees Watson working at to the Musgrave estate, a country mansion turned makeshift hospital for soldiers wounded in World War Two. When one of his colleagues is mysteriously attacked, Watson asks Holmes to help investigate, but when the great detective arrives, he finds one of the Musgrave family murdered, a long list of suspects, and a possible link to an old and sinister family tradition.
The script plays fast and loose with the original short story, making it more of a straightforward murder mystery, set in a slightly hokey haunted house, complete with thunder, lightning, suits of armour, secret passages and cobwebs. The story plays out in a somewhat formulaic manner, quickly setting up the story and showing us the suspects one by one.
Rathbone's take on Holmes is one that keeps many of the traits of the books, such as the unpredictable energy, fierce intelligence and eccentricity (we first see him shooting bullets into his living room wall in order to test a theory, and he also has an encyclopaedic knowledge of train times and current affairs). His portrayal is the one that I grew up with, and is the one that perhaps set the public perception of the character in the twentieth century,
Watson is not as quick-witted as in the books, but he is a loyal and likeable fellow, as well as, for the audience sake, filling the role of giving Holmes someone to explain the story to (and being the sort of Doctor who prescribes patients "those American cigarettes you like")
Regular Holmes foil Inspector Lestrade is on hand to provide the comic relief, bumbling from one mishap to the next, even though nobody has any explanation for why a London police officer is investigating a murder in Northumberland. Having said that, nobody has any explanation as to why the English village has a distinctly Mediterranean look either.
Unlike previous wartime Holmes films, here, he is not working for the Allies, and the conflict seems rarely to get a mention. Interestingly though there are hints at some tensions between the British and the billeted US soldiers, with one villager talking disapprovingly of somebody "running off with a Yankee". The only time war comes to the fore is the stirring speech by Holmes at the very end, talking of "a new spirit abroad in the land" where "the old days of grab and greed are on their way out". It feels tacked on, and jars somewhat with the rest of the film, which is a fun, interesting, and atmospheric mystery thriller.
The penultimate entry in the RKO series of Falcon mystery thrillers, The Falcon's Alibi is one of the most enjoyable, thanks to two actors who nearly outshine the lead, as well as the film taking a more "hard boiled" approach to crime than usual.
The story starts with the Falcon aka Tom Lawrence (played as usual by the suave and charming Tom Conway) befriending a lady at a racetrack. The lady in question is Joan Meredith (Rita Corday), secretary to wealthy socialite Gloria Peabody. Mrs Peabody is unaware that some of her expensive jewels are missing, and Joan is concerned that suspicion will fall on her. Lawrence steps in to help, but along the way falls foul of the police, a gang of LA crooks, a terrified nightclub singer, and a radio DJ who may not be everything he appears to be.
The format for these films is solidly in place by this stage, with Lawrence stumbling into a mystery without even trying, aided and abetted by a sidekick (in this case the semi-regular character Goldie Locke) and dimwitted police detectives, charming his way to a rather rushed conclusion. However, what lifts The Falcon's Alibi above the norm is the intriguing supporting cast, and their story. Elisha Cook had his big break playing the creepy but hapless low-rent crook Wilmer in John Huston’s groundbreaking version of The Maltese Falcon and here as Nick, the local radio DJ he brings the same sort of unsettling intensity. He is excellently complemented by the alluring Jane Greer as Nick’s wife, nightclub singer Lola Carpenter. Greer gives her a believable vulnerability and likeability. Their doomed, crumbling relationship becomes a more intriguing storyline than the missing jewels, to the point where you sometimes feel, jumping between them and the Falcon, as though you are watching two different stories, one of which is not going to end well.
Cook and Greer would continue to shine in Film-Noir classics such as The Big Sleep, The Killing, and Out of The Past, but sadly the future was not so bright for the Falcon, as the waning popularity of the series would see RKO make one more before pulling the plug.
The Falcon in
Hollywood is
one of the best of the original RKO Falcon series, with the hackneyed plot more
than compensated for with the breezy script, debonair star, and his sassy
sidekick. In addition, we also get a fascinating behind the scenes tour of the
RKO backlot.
This time the
Falcon is on vacation, in Tinseltown, enjoying a relaxing day at the races.
However, within minutes of the opening credits he is being questioned by police
detectives and approached by beautiful women. Before you can say "how does
he do that?", he is embroiled in a murder mystery involving a shady
businessman, a neurotic, superstitious Shakespeare quoting movie producer and
film that seems to be cursed.
The script keeps
our hero busy locking horns with the police, the criminals, the filmmakers and
the actresses. Helping and hindering in equal measure in the faithful sidekick
role is cabbie Billie (Veda Ann Borg).Although the part is played by a woman,
the character is pretty gender neutral and, refreshingly, she is not presented
as merely a love interest who occasionally screams, but as great comic
relief.
Given the subject
matter and setting, The Falcon in Hollywood qualifies as a film about
filmmaking, with the focus on the behind-the-scenes drama as much as any taking
place in front of the camera. With the ruthless scheming producer, autocratic
director and pompous diva actors, it is fascinating to see how the movie world
sees itself.
