Herbert Lom

Gambit

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Harry on the phone

Gambit upends the crime caper and that’s reason enough to watch it. It also features Michael Caine and Shirley MacLaine playing exquisitely to type – another. Caine one year after Alfie and the same year as The Ipcress File is the smart, cocky working class guy in a hurry; MacLaine halfway between Billy Wilder’s Irma La Douce and Bob Fosse’s Sweet Charity is the streetwise operator who’s sharper than she’s letting on. Short story: Harry (Caine) recruits dancer Nicole (MacLaine) because she is the spitting image of the dead wife of Shahbandar (Herbert Lom), the richest man in the world. Together Harry and Nicole pull off an elaborate heist after working their way … Read more

Night and the City

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Harry with a silhouette of St Paul's Cathedral behind

Night and the City is often described as the best film noir out of the UK. It was made by an American director with a French sounding name, Jules Dassin, which is poetically appropriate at least since the US is the home of noir and it was the French who coined the term. The title is surely the noirest of the noir – both night and the city are key elements of the genre. But this is London-based, and with a vengeance. Dassin, having fled the House UnAmerican Committee’s McCarthyite witch hunt after taking Twentieth Century-Fox’s Darryl F Zanuck’s advice to make himself scarce and head to London, took full advantage of a … Read more