Film Reviews by Steve

Cheerful period horror which has zero scares, but is full of the kind of sexy decadence which was standard in Hammer films around 1960. Much of the salacious subtext of Robert Louis Stevenson's eternal classic is turned into sterile dialogue in the first few minutes, after which Wolf Mankowitz's script shuffles the deck to good effect.

So while Dr. Jekyll is a bearded Victorian gentleman, his alter ego is clean shaved and blue eyed, because, of course, beauty is no guarantee of virtue. And there is the implication that Mr. Hyde's philosophical egotism equates him with fascism. But no matter, it's fun to see the mad scientist slumming around the degenerate London underworld.

There is exotic dancing with a snake and much imaginative murder. Oliver Reed is a rowdy pimp last seen having his head staved in by the angry medic. Paul Massie is too respectable to play the debauched beast of the unbridled human id, but Christopher Lee is reptilian enough as his slippery rival/victim. And Dawn Addams is deliciously hedonistic as Mrs. Jekyll.

It's a bit of a lurid romp, but well directed by the studio's main man Terence Fisher, with excellent sets and costumes. But it's a Jekyll and Hyde which omits any transformation scene. And while the vulgar cruelty of Victorian London is more conspicuous than in Rouben Mamoulian's 1931 classic, the pre-code version is far more transgressive, and disturbing.

Jaw-dropping teenage exploitation flick, which borrows a few conventions from the Hollywood juvenile delinquent films of the rock and roll era, but this quirky British variation on youth gone wild is a different beast. The Beat Girl is sixteen year old Gillian Hills, who explodes onto the screen like a Kensington Bardot.

The rich father of an alienated teenager brings his sexy new wife home to his modernist penthouse. The stepmother is an older version of the girl, who feels challenged and tries to undermine her dad's new found happiness by getting wild for kicks in a Soho jazz cellar with her beatnik pals. Including a surly rocker played by Adam Faith.

And the naive art-school kid gets drawn into a nearby strip club run by a predatory Christopher Lee. To a degree, this is dated and absurd. But the film keeps turning up moments of quality, or extraordinary eccentricity. Mostly it's Gillian Hills, who isn't much of an actor, but she is astonishing. Then there's the strange aura of atomic era nihilism.

And a (still) steamy strip routine (by 'Pascaline'). But the film survives because it is so stylishly directed by Edmond Gréville, and elevated by John Barry's big band-rock and roll score; particularly the Beat Girl theme. Of course, the beatnik dialogue is corny, but so outré that it attracted a cult. As has the film. It sends me. Over and out- daddi-o.

Faithful adaptation of John Wyndham's classic science fiction novel The Midwich Cuckoo's. Wolf Rilla was a B film stalwart, but given a better budget than usual, he directs easily his best film, with acceptable effects. Though he lacks the flair to make the most of its inspired premise.

The residents of a small rural village are rendered unconscious while emergency services are unable to gain access. Afterwards all the young local women are inexplicably pregnant. An incident repeated across the world. The blond offspring have a similar, synthetic look and share a hive mentality. And can read the minds of dumb earthlings.

Clearly these kids represent an existential threat to mankind. A local Professor (George Sanders) is given a year to appeal to their better natures, but they are cold, impassive intellects. The film mostly follows the novel. It begins auspiciously with the mysterious coma, and builds to a thrilling climax as the mentor attempts to outwit the invulnerable invaders.

The idea of a generation of young people incompatible with the values of their parents entered the culture from Wyndham's story. The philosophical entitlement of the kids also echoes the recent scourge of fascism. Today, it's the concept that a destructive elite threatens life on earth which resonates. Like the best sci-fi, it keeps on shape-shifting.

Subdued, low budget moral tale set around a US air base and the nearby English village during WWII. It is not a war film, but an intimate staging of personal insecurities. The director Sidney J. Furie came from broadcasting and this looks like the television plays of the period, except for the sexual themes and brief nudity.

Don Borisenko plays an American bomber pilot in England faced with one last mission. His natural anxiety reaches a crisis when his buddy kills himself after being emasculated in a raid. The flyer is unbalanced by the fear he may die on his final flight while still a virgin. It's mostly a two-hander with Susan Hampshire as the compassionate girl who tries to reach him.

The two teenagers share a long night of the soul. The dialogue is scarcely frank, but the themes are unusual. The boy is damaged by having to continually pretend everything is ok. While inevitably wordy, this is an unusually sensitive drama. Some attitudes now feel dated, as does Borisenko's laborious channeling of the Method.

While the acting is clumsy, it conveys a touching impression of vulnerability. There's a haunting harmonica score which accentuates the sadness of their experiences. These are lost spirits, traumatised by history. It's Furie's British debut and he wrote, produced and directed a melancholy chamber piece which is raw and sincere.

Perceptive psychological drama set in the barracks of a Highland regiment some time after World War II. It's a character study of the conflict between two uncompromising officers during peacetime, when there is no external enemy to fight. And so, they destroy each other instead.

Alec Guinness is an officer who commands through personality and favouritism with a kind of ebullient tyranny. He showed uncommon bravery in the desert war, but conceals a brittle self doubt due to his lack of education and rank. The passionate Scot is replaced by an eligible Oxford man played by John Mills, who is uncharismatic and leads by enforcing the rules.

And the film is their personal combat for authority, which ends in tragedy. Both must be ascendent at any cost. To compromise is defeat. Gordon Jackson is the go-between operating on the edge of the officers' fanatical egomania. And it is clear these men have been psychologically damaged by the recent war.

Tunes of Glory refers to the ceremonial bagpipes that provides the score, which won't be to all tastes. The production is mostly staged within the camp, like a play, with few distractions from the primacy of the key performances. Guinness wins the battle of the legends, though he has a flashier role. The ending is a letdown, but the two stars make this an actors masterclass.

Simplified and condensed version of DH Lawrence's epic autobiographical novel directed by legendary cameraman Jack Cardiff. Stripped of the author's prose, this is quite a conventional historical saga of a working class boy from a Nottinghamshire coalfield who cannot find artistic or sexual freedom within the confines of his class.

It's a domestic drama with American Dean Stockwell playing the angry young man as a kind of Edwardian James Dean. The acting is generally strong, with Trevor Howard as the father, a crude, drunken miner, and particularly Wendy Hiller as the suffering mother who finds comfort through her cultured, brooding child.

Its main virtue is the stark black and white photography of grimy Nottinghamshire mining towns, shot around the pit where Lawrence grew up. It was a big box office hit, maybe because there was a vogue for working class realism when released, and for stories about conflict between generations. And it's quite sexually frank for the period.

The script is uninspired, but most aspects of the production are fine. It's a well made and entertaining literary adaptation, but Cardiff doesn't create anything perceptive or enduring out of his material. It's surprising that it was nominated for seven Oscars, though not that it actually won for the cinematography.

Complex slasher prototype which was buried by the critics in 1960 who were horrified by the perverse violence and compassion for its psychopathic murderer. And it finished Michael Powell as a director in his homeland. Over time it became a cult item and now has acquired legend status, particularly among film makers. This is horror as art-film.

Karlheinz Böhm plays a photographer with daddy issues. His dead father was a psychiatrist who filmed his child for his studies into fear. And then gave the kid his own cine-camera. One day, Junior will attach to a blade so he can record the terror in the eyes of his female murder victims when he is sexually aroused. Then it gets even darker, but you get the picture...

So there's a pretty grotesque horror premise, but this is just the portal into an intricate web of subtext. It's possible to get lost in these thematic layers, but most obviously there's the connection between the voyeurism of the maniacal killer and the audience. And the manipulative dominion of the film director compared to a sick obsessive... and so on.

Maybe it wasn't what was expected in an era of social realism. Some may find it pretentious or gimmicky or offensive. But this is an immersive experience, and its lurid, trashy colour palette and discordant piano score are as much a feature of that as the unsettling themes. A personal film with an imaginative reach that never gets old or used up.

Ultra-stylish morality tale which pulls together motifs from prison and heist films into a vehicle for liberal themes typical of Joseph Losey. Particularly on greed and justice. Trauma eyed Stanley Baker is ideal casting as a violent con who leaves stir to set up a racetrack heist. Soon he's back inside, but with every villain in London after the loot.

The gangster lives without trust. He is a loner. There may be portents of the emerging swinging London in his flashy consumerism, but he is emotionally austere. Baker dominates the film. Among the exceptional support cast, Patrick Magee is a standout as a manipulative, autocratic screw. Who isn't quite right in the head.

The prisoners are mostly either mentally ill or of limited intellect. There is no rehabilitation, just perpetual horror. Losey doesn't editorialise, he merely creates a context for his sociopathic antihero. The film is stylistically unorthodox: psychedelic POV shots imply drug use; there's a great Johnny Dankworth's jazz score, and even some nudity.

And Cleo Laine's deep, melancholy Prison Ballad recurs like a chorus. These fashionable details date the film now, but also give it an elegant period mystique. Not everything works. The calypso singer who comments on the action is clunky. But, it puts a black face in the cells. The years have eroded the realism but this still excels as a cold, fatalistic noir.

Bruising cop drama influenced by the procedural docu-noirs that came out of Hollywood after WWII. And while Val Guest's revision retains stylistic riffs which have become genre clichés, once the exciting story kicks in these hardly matter. This is a gripping thriller, led by a typically laconic and impassive performance from Stanley Baker.

He plays a hard as nails detective- yes, married to his job and neglectful of his long suffering wife. While investigating the murder of a young woman in a holdup, the cop finds he is on the trail of an escaped convict (John Crawford) he sent down and who swore revenge. Now all the contacts of the killer are in danger.

There's a nice plot detail which adds a little social commentary. The stolen banknotes have been treated with a chemical which shows up on the hands of everyone who handles them; who become literally marked. The cops trace the stain of dirty money as it spreads through the criminal community. Because crime touches everyone.

This is a realist film, expressively shot on the streets of Manchester and the surrounding moors. But the title is a little misleading; the mean streets of the black and white city just provide atmosphere. This is primarily a violent, fast moving policier and an ideal vehicle for Stanley Baker as the classic crime-busting loner.

This late period British noir was bombed by the critics, but now looks like a genre classic. It was a big change of pace for its two stars. Richard Todd is a brittle middle class, middle aged wage-slave, drowning in debt and about to lose his job. Peter Sellers is a flashy, sociopathic racketeer who runs a criminal gang which steals cars to be customised in his Paddington lock-up.

When the desperate salesman gets his new motor nicked, he goes vigilante. He's tired of getting pushed around. But in fighting back, he destroys himself and his marriage. Though cast against type, this is the best performance of Todd's career, and while not realistic, Sellers is astonishing too. He literally rips up the scenery. Under pressure, both men fall apart.

This is the human jungle where the weak are exploited and the most ruthless get the rewards. The set up has been used many times, but rarely as well. Maybe best of all is the nasty, poetic script (Alun Falconer). There's an extraordinary scene when Todd's loving wife (Elizabeth Sellars) explains that he is a loser and she has settled for disappointment.

John Guillermin directs with a little unexpected style. John Barry composed the jazz soundtrack and scored the title song for Adam Faith, who plays a delinquent carjacker. Carol White is affecting as a pitiful, vulnerable teenager preyed on by the sadistic gangster. All staged in a tough, cruel London. This is one of the best British crime films of the sixties.

Groundbreaking British New Wave film adapted by John Osborne from the play he wrote for Laurence Olivier. Critics claim that Larry was far better playing Archie Rice on stage than screen, which is staggering. His performance here is among the masterpieces of English cinema. He killed the role for anyone else.

Archie is a soft shoe shuffle comic in the last days of music hall: bankrupt, lecherous and a little grotesque; barely scraping a living from an old seaside town while his options for the future are closed down. He has no reason to go on, but is unable to stop because it's all he knows. Olivier gives us a journey into his humiliation.

Though Archie is a scoundrel, the star makes it possible to empathise with his degradation. Eventually it becomes clear that this story of a derelict song and dance man still doing the old routines to an indifferent world is an allegory for Britain's diminished status made apparent during the Suez crisis, which is when it is set.

The support cast operates in the shadow of Olivier, but it is interesting to see the film debuts of Alan Bates and Albert Finney. The realistic location shoot in Morecambe during holiday season now makes the film look like a period piece, but the theme of a declining country divided by class, race and the generations is still familiar.

Sentimental WWII melodrama set in a convent in Tuscany in 1943 which operates as a safe house for the transit of Jewish children out of fascist Italy. After the assassination of Mussolini, the Nazis take over security of the nearby prisoner of war camp and threaten to brutally crush the humanitarian work of the nuns.

Its big strength is the location shoot in the sunny Italian campagna, especially the fourteenth century monastery, which gives the film atmosphere and authenticity. Some of the dialogue is excellent, particularly the psychological manoeuvres between the mother superior (Lilli Palmer) and the German officer (Albert Lieven).

The nuns are archetypes, with Sylvia Syms a sensual novice and Yvonne Mitchell a scary fundamentalist. The German officers are ultra-sadistic, but this feels more melodramatic than realistic, driving the suspenseful plot to a frantic climax. Will the Nazis discover the hidden kids during their (noisy) religious ceremony?

Setting aside historical fidelity, ultimately the film is spoiled by an excess of the cutes. The performances of the children are badly misjudged, which is the director's fault. And this is exaggerated by the lush, romantic soundtrack. And transforming this holocaust story into a manipulative tearjerker feels like a failure of judgement.

Lightweight but fun comedy based on the satirical non-fiction of Stephen Potter, which entered the words 'gamesmanship' and 'one-upmanship' into the dictionary. Ian Carmichael is a passive washout who wants to romance the astonishingly cute/sweet Janette Scott but is always trumped by a pushy blowhard played by Terry-Thomas.

So the clueless schmuck goes to a school in lifemanship run by Alastair Sim and learns how to turn the tables and win the girl. It's a simple story which swerves the many possible complications of imagining a society of competing sociopaths and just goes for chuckles. And thanks to an ideal cast it delivers a blissful diversion.

This is an England of the wealthy. Even the supposed loser, runs an accountancy firm. Though he is bullied by the staff until he learns how to push back. The events take place in exclusive restaurants and country clubs, a long way from the class divisions which might have given the story some bite.

It was the last film directed by Robert Hamer, though it doesn't have the complexity of his best work. Or the sadness. Ill health meant it was finished by other hands, but there is no evidence of a troubled production. It's a typical British comedy of the 50s-60s, and if the familiar period sexism can be overlooked, this is among the best of its type.

Exuberant satire aimed at the stereotypes of labour relations which became entrenched after WWII. It's the workers versus the bosses and both sides are presumed to be dishonest and mercenary. Peter Sellers' performance as the trade union leader Fred Kite became a standard image of the shop steward; bumptious, intractable and defensive.

This is a sequel to the Boulting Brothers', Private's Progress, with most of the same cast; a formidable assembly of British comic talent from a golden age of character actors, including Terry-Thomas as middle management and Margaret Rutherford as a dotty aristocrat. Irene Handl stands out as Fred Kite's more conciliatory wife.

Ian Carmichael stars as a well meaning relative of the factory boss who takes a job on the shop floor, naively stirring up hostility to the benefit of the executives. While the film characterises everyone as self-interested, it is guilty of false equivalence; a factory worker seeking to hold on to his rights isn't really the same as a corrupt boss making a crooked fortune.

Perhaps the film actually did harm in embedding extreme caricatures. Unforgivably the workers are portrayed as stupid. Depressingly, there is a prohibition on black union members. But this England of factory chimneys is a long ago country now. This is a period piece with an interesting gallery of rogues, but only a few laughs.

Courtroom melodrama guilty of many shameless plot stunts but which also generates a few delicious dramatic flourishes. It is based on an old faithful of the theatre but updated to WWII. Though the woozy insanity of the narrative would better suit the Great War. Anthony Asquith and a quality cast bring a deep shine to the improbable intrigue.

Dirk Bogarde plays a pair of identical POWs captured at Dunkirk. One is permanently brain damaged in a breakout, while the other gets back to England to be the titled inheritor of a stately pile. But was the wealthy baronet nobbled by his snivelling lookalike, who was a skilled actor? Certainly, the third member of the escape party (Paul Massie) thinks so.

And, after a dramatic court case to establish identity, so does the aristocrat's wife. She is portrayed by Olivia de Havilland, who gets top billing, but this is really a star vehicle for Dirk Bogarde, who is adorably sincere in his absurd predicament. Robert Morley and Wilfred Hyde White are also a fun double act as the combative barristers.

There are no genuine feelings on display, this is pure melodrama. There is some reflection on the reliability of memory. Inevitably, justice is done and social equilibrium is restored, but there is pleasure to be had watching the haughty toff squirm for a while. And Asquith adds striking expressionistic strokes to another of his classic legal dramas.