Popular Reviews
Penny and the Pownall Case
A Rank Organisation B movie coming in at only 47 minutes, Penny and the Pownall Case is interesting for all sorts of ancillary reasons, but interesting in its own right too. The ancillaries. An early role for Christopher Lee. An early role for Diana Dors, still brunette and not yet in “British Marilyn Monroe” mode (but then in 1948 Monroe herself was still on the starting blocks). The only film directed by the curiously named Slim Hand, who was more usually one of Rank’s production managers. The first British film scored by a woman, Elisabeth Lutyens (daughter of renowned architect Edwin). Lee referred to his time on the film as a “truly grisly … Read more
Fireworks Wednesday
A movie for every day of the year – a good one 18 December Islamic Development Bank founded, 1973 On this day in 1973, finance ministers meeting at the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (now called the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation) set up the Islamic Development Bank. Designed to serve Muslims around the world, it is bankrolled by Saudi Arabia, Libya, Iran, Egypt and other leading Islamic countries and in May 2013 it tripled its authorised capital to $150 billion. It operates by lending money for “productive projects and enterprises” – development projects including bridges, canals, roads and other infrastructure. Though it is often assumed that the earning of interest against the lending … Read more
Lucky Grandma
There’s a silent movie quality to Lucky Grandma, the story of a Chinese grandmother in New York’s Chinatown who gets tangled up with the Triads and somehow (OK, improbably) comes out on top. But first let’s meet Grandma, played superbly by Tsai Chin (86 when this was made, though she could easily be 15 years younger) as a Buster Keaton-style stone-faced senior, smoking smoking smoking the entire time, partly just because she wants to, partly, we suspect, as a rebuke to a world that is increasingly infantilising her. One of the places where she isn’t infantilised is the casino, where we follow her just after she’s turned town her caring son’s offer of … Read more
The Saddest Music in the World
A movie for every day of the year – a good one 17 October The London Beer Flood, 1814 On this day in 1814, a huge vat containing the equivalent of one million imperial pints of porter ruptured in central London, causing a tidal wave of beer to cascade down the road and through neighbouring houses. Eight people died, either by drowning or underneath the buildings brought down by the liquid. The brewery was owned by Henry Meux (pronounced myooks) and could be found just off the Tottenham Court Road, London, roughly where the Dominion Theatre is today, and its giant vat was one of a series constructed around that time, big vats … Read more
Showgirls
The film that ruined a lot of careers, Showgirls has a reputation it only partially deserves (though there is that sex scene in the swimming pool). Since it debuted in 1995 it’s been a soft target for any prurient soul looking for an easy win. Look – naked women! Its actual failings are far less regularly mentioned. Sleazy, camp, sexist and so on. It’s none of these, but it does portray a sleazy, camp and sexist world in a bracingly honest way, and there are plenty of commentators with an agenda only too willing to deliberately confuse the two. It’s an A Star Is Born story, with Elizabeth Berkley as the wannabe turning up … Read more
Till Death
Till Death isn’t much of a film for irony but the title, recalling the “till death us do part” line from the wedding vows, is rich in it. Megan Fox plays the straying wife whose husband decides to take an exquisite form of revenge, one which winds up with her shackled to a dead corpse in a remote holiday home that’s been cleaned of every utensil, tool or scrap of anything that might serve as a key. There’s no parting here. And that’s the setup – Emma (Fox) in her ivory silk underwear and covered in blood and bits of the dead man’s brain, with no working phone line, her mobile phone dunked … Read more
Le Dernier Tournant (The Last Turning)
Le Dernier Tournant (The Last Turning) was the first screen adaptation of James M Cain’s novel The Postman Always Rings Twice. The novel, a best-seller and a critical hit, was published in 1934 and Pierre Chenal got his hot, fast and lyrical interpretation of it into cinemas in 1939. There have been many other versions since. Luchino Visconti made his directorial debut in 1943 with Ossessione, his unacknowledged adaptation of the story. And Michelangelo Antonioni made his directorial debut with Cronaca di un Amore (Story of a Love Affair), which lifted plot elements from Cain’s novel. Most famously there’s the 1946 Lana Turner and John Garfield version, which stuck with Cain’s title, and … Read more
The Avengers: Series 4, Episode 10 – Dial a Deadly Number
Set in the world of the well-to-do, the very satisfying Dial a Deadly Number first aired in the UK in the early days of December 1965 and returns to two regular Avengers fascinations – businessmen and undertakers. In what sounds like the setup to a joke, there are these three business magnates sitting in a bar, bemoaning movements on the stock market. One of them gets bleeped, by an early manifestation of a pager, and heads back to the office. There is no funny payoff, though, because en route to the boardroom, the bleeped man’s pager gets switched and he is soon dead of a sudden “heart attack” after being struck by some … Read more
Broken Flowers
If you’re looking for peak Bill Murray, 2005’s Broken Flowers is a strong contender. Murray himself recently said, “that was a perfect movie… it really did happen”, (while eating spicy chicken wings on a YouTube show called First We Feast, in case you want to check that out too). It’s peak Murray because it’s a Jim Jarmusch movie, and Murray and Jarmusch are both masters of cool deadpan. But also because this is a Murray vehicle in a way even Groundhog Day cannot match. He is in every scene, the story is all about his character and though there’s obviously a gulf between the Murray we see on screen and the real one, what … Read more
Headhunters
A movie for every day of the year – a good one 26 October Norway becomes independent, 1905 On this day in 1905, Norway became independent from Sweden. An independent country during the Viking and post-Viking era, Norway’s power declined after 1265, with the Black Death and competition from the North European trading and economic union the Hanseatic League forcing it out of its eminent position. In 1380 it was absorbed into a union with Denmark which stayed in place for four centuries (the country was formally dissolved in 1536, then re-established in 1660, though it continued to recognise itself as being Norwegian, and had standalone institutions and laws). Remarkably, this union was … Read more
The Avengers: Series 4, Episode 7 – The Murder Market
The Murder Market is one of the episodes first shot with Elizabeth Shepherd playing Mrs Peel, then reshot with Diana Rigg in the role after it was decided that Shepherd didn’t fit the bill. Hence the two directors on the imdb credits – Wolf Rilla shot the original, Peter Graham Scott this version, which eventually was broadcast on 12 November 1965, a Friday night, rather than the usual Saturday (in the London region at least). Order was restored the following Saturday. The title is a weak pun on “meat market” since the plot revolves around a dating agency with a natty sideline in murdering people – as established in the opening scene in … Read more
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
A movie for every day of the year – a good one 3 April Jesse James dies 1882 On this day in 1882, the outlaw Jesse Woodson James died. Born in Missouri, he had come to prominence as the leader of the James-Younger gang having served as a Confederate guerrilla in the American Civil with his brother Frank. Continuing in peacetime the activities that had been sanctioned during the war, he robbed banks, trains, stagecoaches. His gang was most prolific from the years immediately after the War, which had ended in 1865, and it continued successfully until 1876 when its raid on a bank in Northfield, Minnesota, failed, resulting in the death or … Read more
