Bryan Forbes

The Whisperers

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Close up of Edith Evans as Mrs Ross

As good a portrait of what it means to be old and lonely as any you’ll see, 1967’s The Whisperers is an atypical British movie for the Swinging mid-Sixties, almost a return to the kitchen-sinkers of the early part of the decade. Bryan Forbes, who wrote and directed and was a smart man, understands the risks of making this film at this time and so doubles down on the “grim up north” stereotype, starting his film with visuals strongly reminiscent of the TV show Coronation Street – back-to-back houses, empty streets, dogs in the alleys rather than people, chimney-tops and brick walls – before bringing his focus in on one elderly lady. He … Read more

The Wrong Box

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John Mills in bed and Michael Caine standing over him

Lovely wallpaper. It’s not the highest praise you could give to a film, but The Wrong Box is one of those British films of the 1960s that’s so fundamentally terrible that you are left scrabbling to find something good to say about it. It’s a bad picture but isn’t the frame lovely? It’s one of those sub-Agatha Christie comic capers set in the Victorian era, where two ancient brothers are the last survivors of an elaborate tontine pact set up decades before – everyone pays in but only the last surviving member benefits from the payout – with John Mills and Ralph Richardson as Masterman and Joseph Finsbury, the two old duffers trying … Read more