Film Reviews by Steve

Jack Lee was one of the directors who came through the documentary movement at the GPO before making feature films. While this is beautifully photographed, it has the realism which is quite common to British war film of the '50s and '60s, with its understated acting and location filming in Malaysia and Australia.

The novel by Nevil Shute was inspired by the experiences of Dutch women in Indonesia. Here they are British women and children in Malaya, swept out of their colonial offices and homes by the rapid invasion of the Japanese army, and forced to march across country in the company of a monolingual guard, until they begin to die from malaria and malnutrition.

The women are trenchantly portrayed by a wonderful cast of character actors. It really feels like we get to know them. It leaves the impression of an epic, despite its average running time. It is a tremendously moving film about the suffering of the displaced prisoners. Though please note some racist language is used.  

The diverse, stoical ensemble is superbly led by a pragmatic Virginia McKenna, adapting to circumstances grotesquely alien from civilian life. Her alliance with Peter Finch is captivating and inspiring. And it is good to see that the adversity borne by the local people is featured far more than is usual in British war films.

The first, best and quintessential screwball comedy. It defines the genre, from the opening scene in which an heiress (Claudette Colbert) jumps over the side of a yacht into the sea at Miami, to the conclusion as she flees from her society wedding to a playboy waster into the waiting car of the working stiff newspaperman she really loves (Clark Gable).

It's also a story about the depression. Cut loose from her privileges, the runaway must learn to live on a budget. The reporter loses his job and has to experience the indignity of not being able to provide for the woman he grows to love. They witness the nation's poverty in their journey across country on a bus. 

Over the next decade Frank Capra's vision of America would darken. But despite an undertow of real sadness,  this is an uplifting experience, and one of the funniest films ever made. Alan Hale as a singing motorist is memorably uproarious among the fine support. And Colbert and Gable share an enchanting chemistry. The beautiful photography bestows on them a kind of magic.

Strange that they wrapped thinking it was a disaster. An opinion they revised when it won them both Oscars- as well as for best film, director, and Robert Riskin for his once in a lifetime screenplay. This is a classic story of romance, which has been endlessly copied, that will speak to people for as long as they go on falling in love. 

Of course there is no objective answer to the question of who gives the best performance in films, never mind in any particular year at the Oscars. But when the conversation takes place, it has to include David Thewlis' literate, traumatised anti-hero in this brilliant stream of consciousness about urban alienation.

It is a state of the nation address by Mike Leigh about the collapse of society, provoked by the Thatcher revolution. It is absolutely the London I remember from the period- of rootless, insecure outsiders. It feels like the end of the world.

Down from Manchester, Thewlis' roams the capital by night, spitting out a bitter apocalyptic commentary on a country and a world he sees as irrevocably damaged, and sliding into the end of days. The centrepiece is a meeting with a nightwatchman who  guards empty office space, which is stunningly scripted and performed.

And it's unsettling. There is humour, but it is desolate. There is something of Catcher in the Rye, but more pessimistic. Mike Leigh again captures the time and the place forensically and prophetically, though like all his films, they get a hugely polarised response.

Probably the best film adaptation of an Agatha Christie story. Her characteristic plot twists are implausible, but Billy Wilder's cute and acerbic comedy makes the film a delight. Tyrone Power gets top billing as the shifty, shiftless wide-boy who murders for money, but the film is dominated by Charles Laughton as his irascible barrister. 

There's a sort of screwball romance between Laughton and Elsa Lanchester, his carping, exasperated nurse. They certainly walk off arm in arm at the end. Marlene Dietrich gets the title role. She's 20 years too old, but she does allow a nice flashback to cabaret in the ruins of black market Berlin. It's her acting sleight of hand that gives the mystery its final reveal.

It's set in London, but was shot in the MGM studios. The sets feel realistic, particularly of the Old Bailey. There's a fabulous cast of British expats in support, with Una O'Connor scoring in her final screen appearance as the victim's cranky housekeeper. A sickly looking Tyrone Power is also in his last role. His flashy but squalid gigolo isn't his normal territory, but he excels.

This hasn't the psychological complexity of fifties film noir. It's a puzzle. Realism isn't a factor. Like most golden age murder mysteries, its credibility relies on the goodwill of the viewer. But, it delivers some delightful surprises. It's peak Wilder,  a Hollywood comedy-thriller of suspense and compelling entertainment.

This was made as a riposte to High Noon which Howard Hawks and John Wayne felt was anti-American, and they mocked the film for the notion that a sheriff would expect the support of his community; he should go out and shoot the bad guys alone. Though, in Rio Bravo, when the outlaws hit town, Duke has enough deputies and allies to fill a minibus.

It imitates the odd couple bromance of Gunfight at the OK Corral. Wayne is the steadfast, sharpshooting Sheriff. Dean Martin is the charismatic, drunken deputy. The films share many similar details, but Rio Bravo is more comic and cartoonish. Minor characters have names like Stumpy and Dude. Angie Dickinson wears feathers and so is called Feathers.

And by the finale, Walter Brennan is throwing sticks of dynamite around like it's Looney Tunes. After Hawks made The Big Sleep he decided that audiences don't care about  thestory, just the comedy and characters. Leigh Brackett wrote both films, and Rio Bravo is a series of archetypal western situations set into a loose narrative. The plot barely matters.

It's a long, episodic film and by the time Dino and Ricky Nelson present a couple of Mariachi ballads, it begins to feel more like a revue. We get a pair of comedy Mexicans and Dickinson reprises the Lauren Bacall persona of earlier Hawks films. But, the director and his star made this to support the human rights abuses of the McCarthy witch hunts. And that really sours the experience.

Crowd-pleasing, sentimental western which draws on the range wars between settlers and cowboys in 1890s Wyoming. This one takes the side of the farmers who are stampeded and burned out of their homes by the cattle barons whose demand that the plains remain open is backed up by intimidation, guns and a lot of muscle.

Van Heflin plays the most resolute of the farmers, a family man who can't operate a firearm but won't back down. He is supported by Shane (Alan Ladd), a mysterious, impassive drifter who might be a gunman seeking to bury his bloody past. When the cattle boss drafts in a cold eyed assassin- Jack Palance as a kind of proto-Terminator- maybe Shane will strap on his pistols one last time...

The main weakness is an astonishingly irritating performance by Brandon De Wilde as Heflin's impressionable 12 year old who hero-worships Shane. But, without him, this would be just another range war western. It's the way the stranger ingratiates his way into the the family, including the wife (a rather elderly Jean Arthur) that sets the film apart.

Maybe Ladd lacks stature, but his role remains one of the most potent in fifties cinema. It's Heflin who physically dominates the frame. But Shane is the quintessence of the western's most enduring archetype; the wandering gunfighter who can never escape his past, so must go on searching the valleys of the old west for an elusive peace. 

Intelligent western which relocates Joe Mankiewicz's 1949 noir House of Strangers to the old west, and improves it. Spencer Tracy plays an ageing pioneer who built up a cattle empire which will soon pass onto his four sons. The most loyal of these- Robert Wagner- is the child of his marriage to a Native American.

The other three belonged to his first (Irish) wife who died during the settlement. They are led by the more procedural Richard Widmark who wants to sell the land for oil. But they are motivated by prejudice too. The film alludes to the racism of the 'Indian' wars which is hardening into a legal apartheid.

It's a story of the coming of law to the frontier. There's an audacious scene in a courtroom when Tracy goes on trial for dispensing instant justice. A grandstanding east coast lawyer puts on the squeeze, not so much for pulling down the copper mine which is poisoning his rivers, but for all the improvised law of the old, wild west.

This is one of the great westerns, a fascinating film with a brilliant script which presents realistic characters and complex ideas. Spencer Tracy is absolutely credible as the bullheaded, imperious patriarch who is an anachronism in his own lifetime. It's been called King Lear reimagined as a western! Which is tenuous, but gives an impression of its ambition.

The second of a pair of period films made by 20th Century Fox with Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce as Arthur Conan Doyle's immortal Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. These and the further 12 updated stories at Universal have widely established the duo as the definitive Holmes and Watson on the big screen.

This stands out among the 14 because it is such a handsome production. The plot stands little scrutiny, but the film was made with a lot of love. There is is an atmospheric London of foggy, gothic graveyards, beautiful Hansom cabs and gas lamps. The excellent sets are painted in deep shadows. There's a touch of the exotic too, which is classic Doyle.

The story leans on the psychological war between Holmes and Moriarty (George Zucco) who intends to steal a priceless emerald from the Tower of London. But more thrillingly, the professor intends to destroy Holmes, who is the Napoleon of Crime's only realistic adversary. Obviously Scotland Yard is just a storage facility for idiots.

Bruce's bumbling doctor is a matter of taste, but he does bring some effective humour and he looks the part. But Rathbone is perfect casting. He's a ringer for Sidney Paget's original drawings in The Strand Magazine. The stars and the dense ambience of Victorian London make this a strong candidate for the best feature film about the great detective.

Fascinating curiosity which pre-dates many of the techniques and motifs which would soon be applied to film noir. A reporter (John McGuire) gives evidence at a trial which may send an innocent man (Elisha Cook Jr.) to the chair for murder. Under this pressure, the newsman's psyche begins to unravel just as he spies a mysterious stranger (Peter Lorre) who may be the real killer.

This was a minor, low budget release and it's isn't likely that it inspired the pioneers of noir. But some of its technical team became key players in the genre, like cinematographer Nicolas Musuraca (Build My Gallows High) and art director Van Nest Polglase (Gilda). They are the main contributors here, giving the film an ostentatiously expressionistic look.

There are quirky details that predict noir themes. McGuire is eventually accused of both murders and his girlfriend (Margaret Tallichet) must investigate to clear his name, which is a classic noir premise. There is voice over narration, a dream sequence, and a sense of oppressive uncertainty with an innocent man confronted by a malign, inexorable fate.

It was clearly influenced by Franz Kafka and feels like the work of the Hollywood socialists of the period. Authority figures are shadowy, menacing figures. The individual is helpless to resist. McGuire and Tallichet lack star wattage, but Lorre brings a surge of energy towards the climax and is appropriate casting for a production that owes a debt to German Expressionism.

Stylish whodunit from the year zero of film noir. It differs from most other noir classics in being a golden age murder mystery set among the cultural elite rather than tough, dirty pulp fiction. There is a deep and dreamy aura of romantic fantasy. The cinematography (Joseph LaShelle) won the Oscar and the web of expressionist shadows fills the screen with atmosphere.

When Laura's body is found in her swanky apartment she leaves behind a clique of rich, unlikeable and droll suspects. Mostly men who are in love with her. The detective (Dana Andrews) falls under her spell too, through her woozy, mysterious portrait. And then she walks back into her penthouse leaving the NYPD to wonder who the corpse really belongs to.

The famous romantic score perfectly elevates this mood of narcotic glamour. In the title role, Gene Tierney's unconventional beauty is a huge bonus. But too much doesn't work. Not so much the crazy, overelaborate murder plot, which is standard for the genre but because Otto Preminger just can't seem to stop the suspense from sliding out of the frame.

Clifton Webb, as the excellently named Waldo Lydecker utters weary epigrams which are too banal for the supposed doyen of fashionable New York, and is too creepy for it to be obvious why Laura spends time with him. The co-suspects (Vincent Price and Judith Anderson) are transparent. It was a massive hit. There's an interesting premise and it looks amazing. But Preminger fluffs it. 

This is Alfred Hitchcock's first entirely successful film. It combines the thriller with screwball comedy to create a new genre. Robert Donat is the model for many of the director's wrong men. Madeleine Carroll is the prototype Hitchcock-blonde. The chemistry of their flirtatious crosstalk is dynamite.

The narrative is only loosely based on John Buchan's rather anaemic novel, and most of what was great about the film was added by the director and Charles Bennett's witty adaptation and script. Donat is presumed guilty by the press, public and police of a murder he didn't commit and is compelled to escape north to Scotland by train

He must clear his name with the impediment of being handcuffed to a beautiful, but unsympathetic woman. The episodic structure is bursting with classic scenes, and characters you really care about, far more than is typical with this genre, like Peggy Ashcroft as a crofter's wife, stuck in an isolated cottage with an abusive husband.

It's the kindness of strangers to the innocent man which makes the film gently moving. The support cast is excellent, but the stars are a sensation. The only weakness is a contrived MacGuffin, but it hardly matters. The Master's touch is sublime. This is my favourite Hitchcock film.

Woody Allen begins like a stand up, addressing the camera, reflecting on the end of an affair. But everything has changed. His bald patch is concealed under a comb-over. The wild hair from his early funny films has gone. He has been styled into a suit, though the trademark spectacles remain.

 Diane Keaton- in the title role- is made over into a preppy look that was copied across the world. A Woody Allen release is now is aimed at a mainstream audience, and wins the Oscar for Best Film. There are moments of drama which are no longer punctured by a joke about bodily functions. And the quality of the writing is at another level.

This is innovative and personal, but has moments of delicious romance. It is funnier than his early funny films, but Woody's persona now has a darker side. Keaton's comic performance is irrepressible, and stands comparison with anyone from any period. She's screwball, but absorbs genuine emotions too.

Nothing doesn't work. Every joke hits the mark with exquisite timing. Like the scene when Woody sneezes into a lot of dollars worth of cocaine. It has an all time great screenplay, which has been widely copied, but never improved on. This is one of the great films of American cinema. 

My favourite Woody Allen film. It's a mystery why this warm and very funny morality tale isn't more widely loved. A group of comedians in a delicatessen spend an evening reminiscing and telling stories about Danny Rose,  a theatrical manager. The central anecdote takes place around New York in about 1970.

Danny handles unpropitious acts- like his blind xylophone player or a skating penguin- who he promotes with extraordinary commitment and optimism. He signs an overweight Italian night club crooner who might be about to breakout. The story relates Danny's adventure escorting the singer's other woman, a noisy blonde, to a key show.

 Mia Farrow is fun as this intractably pragmatic former mafia moll. And Woody is immensely sympathetic as the devoted champion of lost causes. But the most stunning performance is by Nick Apollo Forte as the alcoholic ex-teen star looking for a second chance. He even wrote, and performs, a couple of perfect supper room ballads.

Gordon Willis' black and white New York is a dream. The screenplay is inspired. The brilliant last scene at the Thanksgiving dinner is a heartbreaker. It ends outside the very deli where this story will one day be told. One of the best films I've ever seen. And I swear, my hand to god, you will love stuttering ventriloquist Barney Dunn

This is film noir's year zero. If noir was created at the junction of US pulp fiction and German film aesthetics, it couldn't be more auspicious. It was adapted by Raymond Chandler, the crime novel's ultimate poet. Director Billy Wilder emerged from UFA in Berlin, and Miklós Rózsa, the composer of the dreamy orchestral score, went to Hollywood on the same wave.

It invents most of the genre motifs, and the closer a film adheres to its archetypes, the more noir it feels: the witty, pessimistic dialogue and narration; the angel-of-death femme fatale; the weak natured hero caught in the grip of an implacable destiny; the shadows and the neon soaked streets.

It is also a vehicle for Barbara Stanwyck's chilling performance as a psychopathic murderer who lies dormant in the Los Angeles suburbs until reanimated by Fred MacMurray, an insurance salesman looking to dupe the system from within. It is about corruption and greed hidden in the hearts of ordinary seeming people, shielded from the public gaze in the dusty interiors of American homes .

There is a sickness in their malign desires, which is horrifying. Much of this is taken from James M. Cain's source novel. The incredibly dark photography is classic noir. While the film is flawless in every respect, it's Chandler's voice that makes it sublime, whether the fabulous wisecracks, or explaining the nihilistic dreams of its doomed heroes. 

This is a propaganda film, a sort of 'why we fight' reflection on English culture made as the threat of invasion diminished after the Battle of Britain. But it isn't like other WWII morale boosters. There is no flag-waving in this subtle, literary tale. It creates an impression of identity- a profound and unconscious tradition- forged in the legends of history.

It starts as a falcon soars skywards at the time of Geoffrey Chaucer's pilgrims, which is edited into a Spitfire as we pass through 600 years in a single, amazing jump cut. Three modern travellers find themselves in Kent in search of blessings, and come within the influence of a local historian/magistrate (Eric Portman), who may himself travel in need of penance.

The acting of the trio is variable. Real life American soldier John Sweet, is plainly an amateur. Dennis Price is well cast. But Sheila Sim in her debut is extremely good as an ordinary girl surviving unusual times. The McGuffin of the glueman who pours the sticky stuff onto the hair of women out late at night is eccentric, but works in such a strange, illusory environment.

It is a wonderful work of magic realism made with rare intelligence which creates a profound impression of the Kent countryside, and reflects a local facility for wry understatement. But it is impossible to say what this spiritual, intuitive film means exactly, it has to be experienced. Powell and Pressburger communicate the unsayable.