Film Reviews by Steve

Eccentric British comedy which channels the kind of absurd humour typical of The Goons and Monty Python. The impoverished Duchy of Grand Fenwick invades the United States, intending to immediately surrender and apply for war aid. But their troops, armed with bows and arrows, blunder into winning the battle by capturing an atom bomb.

Peter Sellers plays multiple members of the court, including the Grand Duchess, performed in the manner of Margaret Rutherford. He dominates the film and the rest of the cast play straight to his suppressed craziness. Jean Seberg contributes some elfin love interest. David Kossoff is effective as the nuclear scientist, like a daft Albert Einstein.

There is a little satire built around such dunderheads having control of the means of global destruction. And maybe there's a hint that Fenwick is Britain in its diminished status after the recent Suez crisis. But mostly this is just cartoonish high jinks full of extraordinary plot complications which are often inspired.

But is it funny? Well of course that depends, but those who enjoy the classic surreal British humour will laugh at this. Or Irish, as the writer of the source novel (Leonard Wibberley) was from Dublin. It has lost most of its topicality, but the clever script and Sellers' multifaceted comic talent keeps the comedy fresh.

Like J.Lee Thompson's Ice Cold in Alex a year earlier, this brings together a loose alliance of uprooted mavericks who travel in ramshackle transport across a war ravaged country with a traitor on board. This time it's British India in 1905, and an army officer (Kenneth More) must get an infant Hindu prince to a safety by train, as north-west India spills into civil war.

And he's accompanied by a party of diverse civilians, with Lauren Bacall as a proto-feminist in her best post-Bogart role. Herbert Lom is typecast as the saturnine villain. IS Johar plays the obsequious Indian train driver as a dated stereotype, but he is charismatic, self deprecating, and ultimately a hero. And then there's a huge cast of extras.

This is an epic adventure which fills the magnificent CinemaScope with spectacular action. There is some thematic talk of colonialism and religious conflict which strays into clumsy editorialising. But this is broken up by incredibly suspenseful cliff hangers, particularly the nerve shredding crossing of a blown up railway bridge...

Spain effectively stands in for occupied India. While some of the attitudes are of their time, there is quite a critical attitude to the British Empire, compared with the Hollywood Raj films of the thirties. Kenneth More makes a dashing Ripping Yarns style hero. While maybe too verbose for some, it's a thrilling and good looking British blockbuster.

Strange, eerie adaptation of a Daphne Du Maurier story which smooths out the novel's lumpy plot complications and instead offers a simple, haunting impression of a lonely, morally exhausted man trying to find a reason to go on. Though never admired by critics, it has the deep poetic melancholy which is typical of Robert Hamer's best films.

The doppelganger device is pure literary artifice. Alec Guinness plays a language professor from an English University on a driving holiday in France who meets his double, a decadent aristocrat. So Guinness has a dual role. Naturally, the bankrupt toff changes places with the academic to provide an alibi for the murder of his rich wife.

Only the fall guy has found solace in his new home and doesn't want to give it back. On a realistic level, this is all ridiculous. But as the story of a fanciful, enervated sentimentalist who imagines an unlikely, but romantic end to himself, this becomes a poignant fantasy. Thanks in large part to Guinness wistful performance.

The locations around the town and country estate of Le Mans add much to the atmosphere, and there are sensitive, subdued performances from the cast. Bette Davis is a counterpoint in her wholehearted cameo as a frumpy, drug damaged matriarch. The big plot twist comes as no surprise, but this can still be enjoyed as a sad, ethereal daydream.

The final release from Ealing studios is an Australian film noir about a prison break. Brawny Aldo Ray is sprung from stir and hiding out with his pals in a former penal colony on an island in Sydney Harbour, now a tourist attraction. They take a family of caretakers hostage while the fugitive demands a retrial from the State Governor.

And most cinematically, the gang's former naval gunner (Victor Maddern) has trained the battlement's functioning cannon on a ship in the bay loaded with explosives, ready to fire if their demands are not met. It's a wild plot, but the main attraction is the unusual historic location of Pinchgut, and the wider use of Sydney.

It's fascinating to see the city before its modern transformation into a great metropolis. Just a big sunny provincial sprawl. There's a memorably eerie scene in the empty streets, evacuated beyond the range of the threatened explosion. Local actors got some minor parts, but Ray is the star and he dominates as the charismatic, headstrong convict.

Ironically he breaks out of one prison, only to be penned into another. The great Ealing studio brought down the curtain with a production which reflected their penchant for social realism. And their ambition, with Harry Watt making his third film in the lucky country. It's not among their first rank of classics, but still a tough compelling noir.

Just another quota quickie among hundreds made in the UK between 1928 and 1960. Though intended to promote the home film industry, the legislation led to the production of low budget filler which ended up on the lower half of double bills. And few of these micro-budgeted relics survive as much more than obscure curiosities.

This is one of the last gasps. It clocks in at 62m and betrays many typical flaws. There is basic, flat lighting which makes the black and white look drab. There are limited interior sets, and lesser known actors. Director Wolf Rilla made some more auspicious films but this doesn't have any visual style.

However, it is one of the best quota quickies ever made. The queen of the British Bs Patricia Dainton plays a resourceful blind woman helping the police investigate the murder of her elderly neighbour, exclusively through what she has heard. It mainly stands out for the intelligent script which takes a little time to reflect on its themes.

Rilla tells his story coherently, which almost never happened. There is some chemistry between Dainton and Conrad Phillips, as the Inspector. And Nigel Green is properly intimidating as the killer who returns to eliminate the witness. It's a woman in peril film which owes a debt to to The Spiral Staircase (1946), but survives on its own merits.

For an hour, this adaptation of Wolf Mankowitz's stage production about the showbiz promoters of Soho shapes up as one of Britain's greatest film musicals. There is an impression that Mankowitz, and director Val Guest knew the seedier pavements of the West End pretty well. This is enormous fun.

And the film benefits from a crazy, out of control performance from Laurence Harvey as a personal manager of uncertain integrity and reliability. And accent. He discovers a coffee bar teenager ripe for exploitation by the cynical London music machine. Cliff Richard brings some chubby star quality into the spotlight as the surly young rocker.

This is easily Harvey's most likeable screen performance, and the problem with the later part of the film is his character spends time off screen and the energy is lost. The songs are variable, with the numbers from the theatrical version generally strong, and those added to showcase Cliff's real life chart pedigree, not so hot.

Still, in places it is extraordinarily good, particularly the fast, funny, motormouth script and the portrait of the sleazy bright lights of fifties Soho: the strip club worked by Harvey's rainy day girlfriend (Sylvia Syms); and the the cappuccino shops where the beatniks hang out. It's a fabulous period memento, topped by Harvey's garrulous performance.

The last of Carol Reed's three Graham Greene adaptations is an eccentric cold war spy satire filmed in Cuba around the time of the revolution. It's an unusual and complicated spoof with many offbeat, ironic flourishes, though these are all cerebral rather than providing much spectacle.

Alec Guinness plays an agreeable vacuum cleaner retailer in Havana who is recruited by the British secret service to keep an eye on political instability. And he finds that by inventing his agents and their intrigues, he makes far more money to spend on his teenage daughter (Jo Morrow). But these creations have real world consequences.

The unassuming spy is a stand in for the author. He contrives a narrative which leads to conflict and then unexpected outcomes. What we now call 'meta'. But the interesting premise is marred by dull acting. Guinness is unusually inert. The mostly Hollywood support cast is fine, but poor substitutes for, say, Denholm Elliott and Michael Hordern.

It is the least of the Greene/Reed collaborations, but then the others are immortal. It works better as a novel. But the location CinemaScope photography of Cuba at a turning point in history is artistic and the rumba soundtrack brings atmosphere. There is an outlook of sharp political cynicism and wit. And actually, a few clever laughs.

Erratic World War II prison drama, set in Italy in '43. While the narrative mostly addresses the murder of a suspected collaborator, it is staged at an interesting time in the campaign, with the Italians about to surrender to the Allies, and the Nazis intending to take over the camp. Only every single prisoner escapes before the changeover!

Earlier scenes rely on the skilled acting of many veterans of the screen war, because the script is packed with witless banter and high jinks. In fact, so flippant and conventional are these scenes that it's almost a send up. But the POW film is a resilient breed and when the mood darkens for the climactic breakout, its motifs work again.

Richard Todd is top billed as the dour Scot running the escape committee. But the screen time is spread evenly among a large cast. With the early focus on comedy, Michael Wilding and Dennis Price are prominent as a pair of thespian fops putting on Hamlet. Later on, Bernard Lee is typically unflappable as the senior officer.

This is less about the experiences of captive British soldiers, than a pastiche of other POW films. And it's just possible to sense the last gasp of this durable genre. Maybe so many were made because budget requirements were modest. But it's still an entertaining film, and ultimately exciting, despite overfamiliarity.

Sprawling, fictionalised biopic about Lionel Crabb, an underwater bomb disposal specialist based in Gibraltar in World War II. With his team of expert skin-divers his mission was to continually clear the docks of mines planted by a crack squad of Italians with superior technology, based across the straits in Spain.

Laurence Harvey plays the naval lieutenant as a determined egotist with a prodigious work ethic. Michael Craig is excellent, but barely recognisable, as Crabb's top diver. Unfortunately, the earlier episodes are padded out with clumsy banter, mostly issued by Sidney James as the group's trainer and jack of all trades.

But the film is invigorated by some excellent underwater action in the later scenes, particularly a stand-out knife fight between Crabb and his Italian counterparts in the submerged wreckage of a plane crash. Or by the stuntmen anyway.

With the personal duel of wits against a foreign nemesis operating from an underground HQ, some continental glamour, the array of gadgets, Harvey's aristocratic sneer and the abundant comic relief, this looks like a budget prototype for the James Bond series. There isn't as much style, or colour, but it's still an exciting action film.

Reverent adaptation of Charles Dickens' historical epic of the French revolution, which is a fine star vehicle for Dirk Bogarde as the insouciant cynic who makes the ultimate sacrifice, for love. The script makes a fair attempt at cutting the lengthy novel down to under two hours; the result is superficial, but it does hit the important dramatic marks.

While Bogarde is perfect casting, Dorothy Tutin is little more than pretty as the innocent who wins his devotion. As so often with Dickens, the minor roles are more memorable, with Donald Pleasence a perfect perfidious traitor. Rosalie Crutchley stands out as a vicious, reptilian champion of the revolution about to get swallowed up by history.

The 1935 MGM version is better; more spectacular, with greater historical depth. It's bewildering that Ralph Thomas didn't elect to use Technicolor and CinemaScope to at least differentiate his remake. Still, the sets and costumes are convincing, and the location photography in the Loire Valley brings some authenticity.

And it will take a hard heart to not blink away a tear as Bogarde ascends the platform to the guillotine for the rousing climax. Accompanied by a narration of Dickens' famous closing lines... This version gets the story done and it doesn't fumble some of the most famous scenes in fiction, but it stays well clear of the politics.

Widely loved adventure set in North Africa in WWII, with a ragbag group of Brits trying to drive across the desert to Alexandria in a beat up old ambulance, in the company of a Nazi spy. It's an episodic film of many rousing set pieces, including the struggle in the quicksand, and especially the cranking of the van up a hill backwards. Twice.

John Mills plays the sort of competent officer who ends up taking all the risks, but is now wrecked on fear and booze. Anthony Quayle is the giant, booming German posing as a South African ally. Sylvia Syms is probably best remembered for this role as the army nurse. Harry Andrews is the phlegmatic, reliable Sergeant Major.

As an ensemble, the four characters have become legends of British cinema. But although this is a war story, it is really about rapprochement which probably reflected attitudes in 1958 more than 1941. The four survive the challenge of their hostile environment as a team, and Mills' war trauma can only be alleviated by this harmony.

The film is visually memorable for the arrangement of the actors against the landscape. Which is as iconic as any John Ford western. The story moves forward at top speed and J.Lee Thompson squeezes all the suspense out of each crisis. And when the four finally have their glasses of Carlsberg lined up on a bar in Alex, no beer has ever looked as irresistible.

Cerebral thriller which sustains a high level of suspense despite a dense concentration of dialogue. Though adapted from a novel, it feels like a film version of a play, mainly set in a couple of locations and opened up with extensive flashbacks shot around a black and white London.

It's a cute murder story. The puzzle is really a vehicle for an examination of privilege, but the noirish plot still delivers a few twists. Hardy Krüger is a poor Dutch painter set up by a chic femme fatale (Micheline Presle) to take the rap for the murder of her husband's lover, which is investigated by a persistent Welsh cop (Stanley Baker).

She is a rich woman whose tragic flaw is that she grows to love her dupe. Which is not what people of her status are bred to do. Class is a recurrent motif of the blacklisted director, Joseph Losey. Also characteristic are the deep performances, with French star Plesle fascinating as the brittle, entitled seducer.

There's a playful opening with cool bebop on the soundtrack, like the thrillers of the French New Wave. But that turns out to be a record on the dead woman's turntable, and we get a more straightforward score. There is a quality script, and interesting themes, but reaction to this film may depend on tolerance of so much talk.

Lurid shocker which is more vulgar than gory, but still deals out some unexpected horror shocks. A schizoid sicko (Michael Gough) keeps a secret museum of murder weapons. Not only does he hypnotise his personal assistant (Graham Curnow) to kill his enemies with these exhibits, he develops a potion to release the unlucky employee's bestiality.

So that already rips off Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and Jekyll and Hyde! Most of the plot is taken from the remains of a dozen other horror films. And Gough's performance is just a decent facsimile of Vincent Price, though there is something disturbingly squalid about his portrayal of an egotistical crime journalist who stages his own exclusives.

But aside from all this cheerful imitation, there are signs someone cared about this. Most obviously, there's the use of Technicolor and CinemaScope which is a real bonus for a fifties B horror. There are the oddball means of execution, including death by binoculars. And there's obviously a coercive homoerotic relationship between the master and servant.  

Stalwart Geoffrey Keen makes a good adversary for the maniac as a waspish detective. The brief cameos of the female victims are cast more for sex appeal than acting pedigree, which is a genre standard. It's just a gimmicky exploitation curiosity, but made with some thought. It's trash, but decent trash.

Stylish suspense thriller filmed on the Costa Brava with an ultra-designed plot which delivers one of those big twisty payoffs which were everywhere in the mid fifties. This one is as improbable as it is satisfying. But, why is a stranger claiming to be the brother of a rich heiress after she has already identified his dead body in a car crash...?

And what happened to the diamonds? Richard Todd lacks charm as the imposter. Anne Baxter is actually pretty good as the vulnerable woman, and extremely chic, but the cute script probably justified bigger stars. As usual, Herbert Lom is good value in support, this time as a skeptical, ambiguous Spanish cop.

Michael Anderson directs the big suspense moments with panache. And the film is beautiful to look at, with Baxter's voguish costumes, the classic sports cars and the gorgeous noir photography of the luxury seaside villa. And also to listen to, with a soundtrack of plaintive Spanish guitar (by Julian Bream). This is a very elegant production.

There's a stand out episode when the rogue brother drives like a maniac around the coast road to unnerve his mark. It's one of those vulnerable woman-in-peril thrillers, like a glossy update of Gaslight. But then the big finale upturns the whole programme. Probably, the twist only really works once, but there's still all that period atmosphere to enjoy. 

This acknowledges the work of the Long Range Desert Group, a squadron of volunteers from other regiments who carried out commando raids in North Africa in WWII. It's a familiar story of an ensemble of soldiers who are detailed to blow up a German fuel dump in the desert, but this is the best of its type.

Once the men have negotiated the minefield and set their detonators, they discover a large number of tanks gathered in preparation for El Alamein and must get this intelligence back to camp, while chased all the way by the Nazis. This is tautly directed by Guy Green who creates great suspense with excellent battle scenes, and impressive explosions.

And if they lay on the heroics towards the climax, then surely that was a part of the reality too. The drama is intensified by the antagonistic relationship between the two officers, with John Gregson playing the by-the-book career soldier at odds with Michael Craig as the thin skinned amateur, and his gang of tough, grubby mavericks.

A big bonus is the artistic desert photography, in stark monochrome. And this is a rare British war film of its period in which the grunts are not just grumbling halfwits. They get to trade some witty backchat. It's a tribute to special operations in the desert war, and their bravery and sacrifice, which blows up the scenery, but digs deeper than most.