Film Reviews by sb

FILM & REVIEW With the odd exception the Hammer series of Frankenstein and Dracula films are really good. The same cannot be said for the Mummy ones - and this the third in the series is very poor. Had high hopes as director John Gilling the previous year made The Reptile and Plague of the Zombies back to back (both of them superb ) but this just plods its way through the formulaic routine. The usual stuff - tomb of the pharaoh is disturbed and his mummyfied servant seeks revenge but it’s just dull. Morell brings his usual gravity to his role and Dalgado has fun bringing down Pharonic curses but the rest just go through the motions - you can tell the quality when the Mummy is played by Christopher Lee’s stunt double - 2/5

FILM & REVIEW Always been a fan of the work of Aki Kurosmaki a director and writer of very deadpan and very droll takes on the human condition. This is quite a departure a more or less straight update of the Shakespeare play set in a Helsinki wood chopping business The splendidly named Pirka-Pekka Petelius plays Hamlet as a pouty petulant teenager whose only interest in Ophelia is getting into her knickers and treats everyone else with disdain. The film follows the rest of the play but interestingly condences down 4 hours into 88 mins without losing any of the main plot points. Kurosmaki can’t resist adding a neat twist of his own to the ending and it’s all shot in crisp monochrome - a real refreshing take on the play - 4/5

FILM & REVIEW In the 1950’s the films of Douglas Sirk were huge at the box office but sneered at by all the critics as lurid melodrama’s and “women’s pictures” Then a very odd thing happened - in the early 60’s various French critics writing for Cahir du Cinema including up and coming new wave directors like Truffaut and Godard began to praise his films saying too many people had been watching them in the wrong way . They argued they are social satires of bland, complacenct post war America and have been revalued in this light. This is the first major one in the series with a plot so overipe that it’s hilarious. Obnoxious playboy Bob Merrick (Hudson) crashes his sports boat and the only defibrillator around belongs to a local doctor . Merrick is saved but at the very same time the doctor has a heart attack and dies - if only he still had the defibrillator…. His widow Helen (Wyman) blames Bob and all attempts to bring her round fail. It’s revealed the doctor gave away all his money to help those in need with a philosophy that it must be kept secret and never repaid making him a better person. Bob tries this but again Helen rebuffs him and is run down by a taxi and ends up blind. He used to go to medical school but gave it up so determines to resume and becomes a first class brain surgeon- as you do. Helen’s condition worsens and only one man can save her…..paging Dr Bob. The whole thing is so overdone ( every time an emotional moment arrives a heavenly choir fills the score) it’s an absolute hoot. The Lake Tahoe locations are great with everyone perfectly dressed and all living in large houses with servants so casts a wry eye over a society with has become completely self absorbed - 4/5

FILM REVIEW Shoeshine - in 1948 Vittorio De Sica made The Bicycle Thieves which is one of greatest films ever made - two years earlier he made this which is equally good. Set in Rome in the grinding poverty of the post war years we meet two shoeshine boys - Pasqualle ( Interlemghi) and Guiseeppi (Smordoni) who dream of buying a horse. Most of their customers are occupying GI’s who tip well so over time they save enough up. But this dream is short lived as they pass stolen blankets on behalf of Guiseppi’s brother, get arrested and sent to juvenile prison as they refuse to squeal. Life is hard inside with terrible food and 5 boys to a cell with regular violence. Pasqualle is fooled into thinking that Guiessippi is being beaten by a warden so gives up the brother causing a rift between the two. Meanwhile an older boy in Guiseppi’s cell hatches an escape plan to be carried out during a film show - but some money he was relying on falls through so Guliseppi tells him about the horse. This is the ultimate betrayal for Pasqualle so he sets in motion events ending in a heart breaking finale . Using almost all amateurs and using the story to examine just how important friendship is at that age it’s a gripping complelling story and one of the greats of Italian Neo-Realism cinema. As Orson Wells describes it - the camera disappears, the screen disappears- there is only life -5/5

FILM & REVIEW Not seen this is an age so thought I’d revisit it. On paper it’s got a lot of promise - 3 bodies buried in a Moscow Park with their faces sliced off, an American business man trading in sable fur, various corrupt Soviet officials, a renegade US Cop and a beautiful dissident student But it’s remarkably dull- it really plods through all the plot twists and triple crosses so after a while you just don’t care anymore . Lee is very good as the ferocious bad guy and Hurt does his usual hang dog take pity on me routine with a fine collection of British thesps but only Pecula as the girl really engages. Helsinki stands in for Moscow and the sheer dullness of Soviet life is well portrayed but the narrative never shifts out of second gear so it makes for a long 128 minutes….3/5

FILM & REVIEW It Always Rains on Sundays - terrific Ealing social drama has Withers as Rose married to much older widower George and whose 2 teenage daughters bitterly resent her. We learn that Tommy Swann (McCallum) has escaped from prison and may be heading back to East London and in a flashback he and Rose were engaged and he had one final job to do before they get married - but that gets him 7 years hard Labour. She discovers him hiding in the outhouse and agreed to shelter and feed him for a day before he heads for the docks. Of course with a large family coming and going all day ( there is also a son which may be his) isn’t easy as the net closes led by local copper Jack Warner . What’s brilliant is all the background and subplots that unfold around the main narrative with philandering band leaders, Jewish market traders , 3 hapless crooks who find an empty safe and end up with boxes of roller skates to unload and a full on bustling Sunday market. It’s also got a brilliant finale in a local railway yard as Tommy realises he’s not going to make it . Set in and mainly filmed in Bethnal Green with its post war ruins and rationing its a great snapshot of the time. Withers leads a first class cast and if any film has characters who can described as hanging on in quiet desperation it’s this - 4/5

FILM & REVIEW Genuinely creepy pagan sacrifice movie. Middleton plays Rebecca a vicar newly installed in the village parish with her husband and daughter. The daughter Grace seems to have behavioural issues that that they hope to work through but the harvest festival in imminent which takes up time. As it’s a pagan festival Rebecca goes along but believes her faith is far stronger but when Grace dissapears that night with no clues this comes into question. It appears that the village owes its true allegiance to the spirit Garrowgog which historically has blessed the village with a good harvest in return for a gift. It’s soon becomes apparent that this time this is Grace. At first the village rally round that it soon becomes apparent it’s all for show and soon Joseph Abney ( a very sinister Inesen) takes charge and it’s revealed that he too lost a child in similar cicustances but has taken a diffident path to Rebecca. Of course all films of this kind live in the shadow of The Wicker Man and this is quite happy to follow in the tradition. Middleton is very good in the lead prepared to do anything to save her daughter and the whole thing has a genuinely creepy atmosphere. It’s interesting it came out about the same time as Midsommer and this is the better film - bur never got the attention - 4/5

FILM & WATCHED So one one the most notorious films of all time gets a reconstruction - in that rather that recut the various existing prints Thomas Nevogan went back to the original rushes ( all 70 hours of them) and rebuilt the film back up from scratch sticking as closely as he could to Gore Vidal’s original script. So is it any good….well not really - on the plus side McDowell is extraordinary - a really electric performance where he uses those ice cold blue eyes to express the inner insanity. The set design is very good with some huge lavish interiors and constumes. But the tone is very variable at times lurching from Pythonesque silliness to really unpleasant gross out and a lot of the supporting cast are fairly poor. Mirren throws herself into the role with gusto but O’Toole just hams it up like mad and at 178 minutes it’s a real slog… So kinda worth to see it just for sake of it but not much more - 3/5

FILM & REVIEW Director Joseph Losey was forced to flee Hollywood during the communist witch hunts so moved to England and made a series of off centre unsettling films of which this is one of the finest. Two men both with hands tied behind their backs run across a bleak hostile almost alien landscape pursued by a sinister helicopter. We learn this is Mac (Shaw) and Anselm (McDowell) but we never learn who they are escaping from or why. It’s implied they are soldiers but are they POW’s or deserters or common criminals - the film just tells us they are on the run and never anything more . Although we learn later the helicopter is armed at this point it seems content to harrry them , buzzing them at impossibly low angles then flying away, The pair enter a village , free their hands and steal provisions including a rifle so at the next encounter Mac shoots at the helicopter killing the copilot who drops to the ground so now they have a machine gun as well. But all this does is enrage the authorities who mobile the army to hunt down the pair forcing them into ever more desperate measures It’s all very enigmatic and Shaw who also wrote the screenplay is happy to leave it up to the audience to desipher. His Mac is very much the older hard man to McCowell’s younger softer individual but as things progress he becomes more and more unhinged. It’s quite a remarkable film with a stunning finale filmed in the Spanish Sierra Nevada. Been on my wish list for years so really glad I finally caught it - 5\5

FILM & REVIEW Remarkably dull British horror movie - begins quite promisingly with a girl being whipped in what appears to be a fetish dungeon then a new adept plunges a dagger into her before being branded by some blokes in S&M gear. The adept is Peter Manning who his brother Robert tracks down to a remote country house where he meets Eve (Whetherell) the niece of Morley (Lee) he denies knowing the brother. He also meets Professor March (Karloff) who is an expert on witchcraft and learns that Morley is the decedent of a witch burned 300 years ago. The film then plods along as Robert uncovers the truth about his brother and his own family ancestry but it’s really dull - Lee is his usual menacing charm and Karloff brings a quiet dignity to one of his final roles. The reason both were cast was because they couldn’t get insurance for Karloff as too old and infirm so cast Lee only to discover the contract states they would have to pay Karloff either way so rewrote the film to accommodate both. It’s all shot on location in a country house in midwinter and Lee has said he has never been so cold….but a very poor entry to the genre - 2/5

FILM & REVIEW Effective horror has a band of mercenaries led by DC (Stephenson) who are hired by Hunt (Wadham) to investigate an underground bunker in modern war torn Eastern Europe. He maintains it’s to investigate a mineral deposit but both they and we know he’s lying. They investigate the mysterious darkened corridors and and find a pile of bodies and one comatose survivor. They also discover a giant swastica and before long are under attack from shadowy soldiers who appear to be linked to a mysterious machine at the heart of the complex. Made for very little money it’s uses its limited budget to its advantage where in the first half the scares are hinted at leading to its blood soaked conclusion. Doesn’t stint on the gore or sadism either with a good solid cast ( including the ever dependable Michael Smiley) - and is a really solid piece of work - 4/5

FILM & REVIEW Very effective if almost unbearably bleak post apocalyptic German film. Due to sunspot activity the solar output has risen catastrophically with median global temperatures rising by over 10 degrees causing civilisation to crash and the few survivors reduced to a feral existence. Maria and her younger sister Lenonie are driving north where there are rumours of water with Phillip providing the transport . They encounter Tom who initially fights them but they release they are all better off together . They encounter a road block and are attacked with Leoni and Tom captured. Maria follows and in a church encounters a kindly old lady who offer her shelter on her nearby farm but Maria realises that nothing is what it seems and with all the livestock dead they need something else for the food chain. It’s very well shot in overexposed and bleached out film - you can really feel the searing heat with solid performances that lift it out the out derivative but dear me it’s a bleak take on the human condition - 4/5

FILM & REVIEW Superb documentary about one of life’s true genius’s. Bit worried at first as it seemed to be going down the usual talking heads format of people fawning over him but director Steinaeker soon realises that the best way to understand Herzog is to get him to talk about Herzog. Let’s face it with that voice and accent he could read the phone book and it would be engrossing so by sending him to various locations where he made his films and getting him to reflect on just how close to madness a lot of them took him is riveting. Of course there is some going over old ground about Kinski but the early stuff about his impoverished wartime childhood and his rise to European art house fame and ultimately becoming a cultural icon is fascinating. Loads of clips from his feature films and docs plus his sanguine reflections on life and contemporary society make it a really terrific viewing - 4/5

FILM & REVIEW Was looking forward to catching this as its ( as far as I know ) the only Hammer movie in the Pirate genre - but sad to report it’s fairly dull. Set in a New England Puritan colony dashing hero Jonathan (Matthew’s) is caught having an affair with another man’ wife. They flee only for her to caught in a river and eaten by piranhas (which passes for Gods Judgement ) and he is sent to a penal colony from which no man ever returns. He escapes and is capture by pirates led by Captain Larouche (Lee clad in black and sporting the obligatory eye patch). He is convinced the village has treasure but they deny it so a stand off ensues….various battles take place until the truth is revealed. The main issue is that is a pirate movie which due to budgetary constants is set wholly on land (shot mainly around Wiltshire) so you get mimimal pirate action. Lee seems rather bored with it all and although Oliver Reed gets billing he is in it for about 5 minutes with about 2 lines of dialogue and Hammer regular Michael Ripper over does the aye aye Captain bit. Director John Gilling would go to make The Reptile and Plague of the Zombies two Hammer classics - this - not so much - 3/5

FILM & REVIEW Mario Bava’s celebrated sci-fi / horror hybrid has two scout ships lured to a planet by a distress call. Both ships are sucked into q gravity well far more powerful than the planets mass can produce and when the crew gain consciousness they immediately attack each other. The captain of the Argos stops this and they search for the sister ship. It’s found but all the crew are dead having murdered each other so the Argos buries them and prepares to replace some equipment from their ship to escape. But it’s not long before the dead crew rise up to stop them and it’s revealed that the native population exist on a different corporal plane and whose Sun is dying and intend to use the dead astronauts to colonise the human world. As always with Bava he takes a minimal budget and makes it go a long way - the interior of the ships is very good and the alien landscape works very well with swirling mists and pulsating lights to disguise the budget. What makes it interesting is its influence - the exterior of the spaceship is that of the ship the crew in Alien discover and in this one they find another ship with the skeletons of giant humanoids. Although Dan O’Bannon denied it at time this whole sequence inspired the Engineers in Alien and even more so in Scott’s prequal Prometheus. So Bava’s film is worthwhile on its own terms but also the influence it has had. - 4/5