David Niven

Murder by Death

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The detectives assembled

In Murder by Death Neil Simon proves he’s not always the surefire comedy hotshot, Peter Sellers reminds us that his non-European comedy characters are stinkers and Truman Capote demonstrates, in his only proper acting role, that he’d have made a pretty good Bond villain. It’s a spoof of a country house whodunit, written by Simon, directed by Robert Moore and with a cast that’s pure gold and the saving of this movie demonstrating that if you’re going to kick the legs out from under a genre, you’d better have done your homework. The conceit that Simon has come up with is to collect all the world’s most famous detectives – names slightly changed … Read more

Bedtime Story

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Lawrence and a wealthy widow

Bedtime Story is one of a string of movies produced by Marlon Brando’s Pennebaker Productions, a company run by Brando’s father, Marlon Sr, and named after his mother, Dorothy Pennebaker. They didn’t all feature Brando Jr. 1961’s Paris Blues was a vehicle for Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, Sidney Poitier and Louis Armstrong. 1959’s Shake Hands with the Devil starred James Cagney. 1964’s Man in the Middle was a courtroom drama set during the Second World War and handed a lead role to Robert Mitchum. You’ve probably not heard of any of them, and apart from One Eyed Jacks, Pennebaker Productions’ hit rate wasn’t astonishing, though the films they turned out did generally feature … Read more

King, Queen, Knave

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John Moulder-Brown, David Niven, Gina Lollobrigida

Here’s the sort of film King, Queen, Knave is – one where a pratfall comes with a sound effect, in case the pratfall wasn’t obvious enough. One where a woman’s breasts seem ready to be fondled, as if fitted with a homing device for wayward hands. One where an attractive woman at a certain point in the evening slips into “something more comfortable”. One where bed springs are noisy. It’s from 1972, it might be no surprise to hear, and stars David Niven, Gina Lollobrigida and John Moulder-Brown – Niven plays German department store magnate Charles Dreyer, Lollobrigida is his lusty younger wife, Moulder-Brown is Dreyer’s nephew, a gauche and timid young thing thrown … Read more

A Matter of Life and Death

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Marius Goring in A Matter of Life and Death

A movie for every day of the year – a good one 29 December UK pays off Second World War debt, 2006 On this day in 2006, the last working day of the year, the British Government made the last of 50 payments to the US and Canada, money it had borrowed off them in 1945 at the end of the war, when the British economist John Maynard Keynes had been dispatched to Washington with the begging bowl. With the national debt standing at 180% of gross domestic product, the government had expected, or hoped for, a grant. Instead it was offered a loan, on terms of 2% interest annually, a rate that … Read more