Film Reviews by Steve

Compelling thriller which has periodic shifts in style and atmosphere but maintains suspense all the way- boosted by its popular stars. Trevor Howard plays a burned out operative laid off by MI6. So he takes a low stress job in a country estate, cataloguing butterflies for a collector...

Where he finds the pretty young niece (Jean Simmons) of the avuncular lepidopterist is being gaslit over the mysterious suicide of her parents. When the hunky gamekeeper (Maxwell Reed) turns up dead, the jittery teenager gets the sinking feeling she is being fitted up for the noose. So she and the demobbed spy go on the run.

Which gives her time to remember what really happened to mum and dad all those years ago. The on-location photography is a huge strength as they flee to Newcastle, the Lakes and the finale in Liverpool. Barry Jones and Sonia Dresdel are splendidly menacing as the guardians. Kenneth More is a genial presence as the hero's secret agent pal.

But the laconic Howard is best of all. The early scenes are suggestive of John le Carre's Whitehall Circus, before the film turns into the psychological noir of the house of shadows. Then finally, a Hitchcock inspired pursuit. The actual mystery isn't a big asset, but Ralph Thomas' direction makes a fair approximation of the Master.

Powerful adaptation by Terence Rattigan of his own one act play about the last few days in post of a pompous, unprosperous classics master in an English public school. The middle aged teacher is forced to evaluate his humiliating marriage and dismal career, and unexpectedly elicits a little hope before the final fadeout.

The overwhelming strength is a showpiece performance by Michael Redgrave. He starts the film as a shuffle of sterile mannerisms, but then gradually colours in the whole of the man, inviting our understanding without resorting much to sentimentality. Jean Kent also excels with her portrayal of his ruthless, unfaithful wife.

Rattigan's script reveals in painful clarity the awful process through which the promising scholar became the inert, complex oppressor of the lower fifth, backfilled with disappointment and forfeiture. He becomes a ghoul who purveys boredom, because that is the only sphere left in which he excels.

It's a brilliant fusion of character and performance. The film also advocates for education as a kind of socialisation rather than the mere passing on of knowledge. Anthony Asquith (like Rattigan) fell out of favour over the next decade. He may not have a critically approved visual signature, but he directed so many classic British films.

Alan Paton's adaptation of his own famous novel about South African apartheid, is only a partial success. The main weakness is a long diversion into Christian self analysis. And because the film strives for balance when surely a polemic would be more appropriate. Also the casting of amateurs in minor parts slows the film down.

The technical film making is rudimentary, but there is such a strong impression of this country at a turning point in its history. The book was published the year apartheid began in 1948. Three years later, the film was made under duress from the government, particularly to the black actors who travelled to star in the film.

Canada Lee plays a (black) country minister who undertakes an odyssey to Johannesburg to find members of his family who have disappeared into its underworld of prostitution and crime. Sidney Poitier is a more streetwise city priest who helps in the quest. While the country is ostentatiously rich, the black majority is exploited for profit while living in squalor.

This is the first draft of history, and sometimes it's unconvincing, though the raw location photography is realistic. Paton's script exposes endemic racism, but mostly vindicates the church. The film ultimately leaves us with hope... But, there would be 46 years of apartheid.

Formula fifties farce, but with funnier, more plentiful gags than most. A quality cast of British light comedy pros squeeze all the laughs out of a pretty good premise: the will of a dead practical joker makes some unusual conditions of its four beneficiaries. And so they all learn life lessons.

It's an anthology of four intertwined tales. The film is actually quite conceptual, as it explores a single comedy formula; the fish out of water story. These contrasting heirs are compelled to carry out a task that is contrary to their character. So, George Cole is a spineless clerk who must hold up his bank with a water pistol.

The best of these features Alastair Sim as law abiding crime writer who has to get banged up in stir for 28 days. The complication is he is due to marry a frightful officer in the women's army at the weekend, played by an ultra-toothy Joyce Grenfell. As always, they are a fine comic match.

And there's the bonus of a brief cameo for Audrey Hepburn, who gets an introducing credit as a cigarette girl. It's an undemanding, entertaining comedy with a twist ending which will surprise no one. But the splendid cast is given space to bring their schtick to the amusing scenarios, and they transform it into a minor classic.

This stands apart from most suspense thrillers because it draws quite realistically on scientific theory. The author of the 1948 source novel, was Nevil Shute, who had previously been an aeronautical engineer, and the hazard of metal fatigue to aircraft safety would result in a real life tragedy a few years later.

James Stewart plays a research scientist concerned about the sustainability of the aluminium frames of a new line of commercial aircraft. He predicts the tails will fall off after 1440 flight hours. And then it happens. While traveling to Canada to examine the crash debris, he discovers the plane he has boarded is approaching the crucial time span...

So for all the boffinry, this settles down into a disaster film. Stewart is a complex character; autistic, a widower, and a loner. But essentially a loose screw on a commercial flight which he claims is about to fall out of the sky. Meanwhile head office insist there's nothing to see, fearful of the bottom line.

Among the fellow flyers, Marlene Dietrich packs some incidental glamour, but Glynis Johns' flat performance is a negative. Stewart is solid as a shy, unheroic man made eccentric by his extreme intelligence, and suffering from his own stress fatigue. While there's a thoughtful production, its best factor is Shute's exciting plot premise.

Handsome but sedate production of Alexander Pushkin's story from 1834; a supernatural allegory of greed set in the St. Petersburg barracks during the Napoleonic Wars. Director Thorold Dickinson creates a powerful sense of macabre superstition, though doesn't relate the narrative as effectively, and the story drifts at times.

A lowly born engineer in the Russian army (Anton Walbrook) will go to any length to learn a formula for winning at cards from an elderly, grotesque former beauty (Edith Evans) who is said to have sold her soul for the secret. And he either goes insane with his obsession, or the old lady tricks him from beyond the grave. Your choice...

Either way, he loses his life savings to the degenerate officers he envies, and resents. The first hour of the film is very slow and interest rests on the supernatural atmosphere and period clutter. It's all carefree gypsies and decadent aristocrats. There's some fascinating detail related to an ancient book of souls that Walbrook discovers.

The acting is quite theatrical, but then the events take place in an illusory realm. Edith Evans plays a contender for the most disagreeable character in films, ever. The story comes eerily to life in the last third, as the engineer's superstitious dread envelops him, and the momentum builds to a thrilling climax, which is well worth the wait.

Edward Dmytryk was a pioneer of American film noir, and after becoming one of the first casualties of McCarthyism, he moved to England and directed Obsession, among the most authentic looking British noirs. And it's a terrifically suspenseful thriller.

Its preoccupation is the perfect murder. An egotistical psychiatrist (Robert Newton) is intent on killing his wife's lover (Phil Brown) and locks him in a hidden room. But the garrulous shrink plans to keep his rival chained up during the investigation into the disappearance, and murder him when the heat is off.

 Which will give the captor time to fill a bath with acid, while he toys expansively with his victim. Regrettably, Newton gives a typically bumptious and tiresome performance. Sally Gray though, is a most effective floozy; a victim of her husband's psychopathic jealousy but without being sympathetic either.  

Naunton Wayne gives the film a big lift in the second half as a proto-Colombo who turns up unexpectedly, asking awkward questions. It's such well directed and exciting thriller that it's possible to overlook Newton's histrionics. And his really strange accent. This is one of Dmytryk's best films.

Eccentric social comedy adapted from the HG Wells novel, which is pretty much a one man show for its star and producer John Mills. He plays a genial, self-effacing Edwardian slacker, who lacks ambition. His life is occasionally blown off course by a major event, but eventually drifts back into inertia.

Mills isn't usually comfortable playing outside the middle class, but he's fine here, and stirs up a few laughs with Alfred Polly's verbose pattern of speech: 'Suicide arsonical. Good idea. Right-oh!' Polly's world is dominated by assertive women, but in an episodic film, the female performances are cameos.

Megs Jenkins stands out as the comfortable innkeeper he settles for. Otherwise, Finlay Currie makes an impact as an idler much like Mr. Polly, but violent rather than passive. In their period clothes, the duo's slapstick scenes together recall the comedians of silent films.

Alfred is an unhappy man who seeks refuge from a world of conformity which he lacks the intelligence or gumption to transcend. It's an offbeat film, maybe even unique, full of elaborate, unorthodox language. More whimsical than hilarious. A treat for any who may identify with Mills' portrayal of an ineffectual introvert.

Groundbreaking black comedy which might as well be a definition of the word 'droll'. The film is usually remembered first for the eight performances by Alec Guinness as the various idiotic, aristocratic members of the D'Ascoyne family who a poor relation (Dennis Price) must kill in order to inherit their land and wealth.

Price's trademark plummy froideur makes him perfect casting. This is an incredibly literary film, with writing that is often poetic. Most of the script is Price's acerbic first person narration which is a masterpiece of irony and innuendo and creates a comical tension between what is said, and what is shown. Great final twist too.

Robert Hamer satirises both the aristocracy, and everyone else who defers to them. But there is something deeper. The film pulls together strands of understatement, absurdity and irony which we have come to regard as the English sense of humour. Often this is more whimsical than hilarious, but close attention is rewarded with some big laughs.

It constructs a Victorian facade of genteel privilege, which obscures an underlying misery. This is the best of the Ealing comedies, and one of the great British films. This is mostly because of the tone of the writing and the dry, deadpan performances. Guinness' garrulous but dimwitted vicar is my personal favourite.

From the silent era to the swinging sixties, Butcher's Film Service turned out the lowest budget releases in British cinema, with murky sound and vision, limited sets and short shooting schedules. Almost none of them have any ambition. The Monkey's Paw is a cheap fright film which partly works because of these limitations.

Low budget horror directors say it's the dark that frightens audiences most. Norman Lee fills his frame with shadows, but also the poor quality photography opens up patches of black all over the screen. And, crucially, he doesn't show his monster, but leaves it to our imagination, as it bangs on a jammed door in a thunderstorm.

It is the best version of the famous old parable. A mummified monkey's paw is cursed by an Indian mystic to deliver three wishes. But fate must always deal an ironic joker... Megs Jenkins is a bereaved mother who wants to bring her son back after he dies in a motor accident. But he is returned in his burned, decomposed state.

The cast is a mix of seasoned support actors and enthusiastic amateurs. It lasts only an hour, and there are no lulls, but plenty of gruesome melodrama. The horrifying climax as the corpse escapes its grave and comes home, packs a punch of powerful dread. It's a genuinely creepy experience. And surely Butcher's best film.

Documentary style dramatisation of Robert Scott's quest to be first to the South Pole in 1912, which ultimately proved to be unsuccessful and tragic, with the final group of four men dying 11 miles from return camp. The realist approach accentuates the small details of the expedition, and draws on Scott's diary for the narration.

The use of Technicolor though makes the film look more artistic, and the location footage seem artificial. And the inscrutable facades of the actors and their brittle, cheerful received pronunciation makes the characters difficult to get to know. It's a lot of posh blokes going to the pole, and can at times feel like a Monty Python sketch.

Even their wives are impassively stoic. There is no rewrite of mythology. The men are heroic and uncomplaining. Team spirit is invincible. Every heart is devoted to god and empire. This is a film of surfaces and reportage. John Mills is perfectly cast as Scott, but a cypher. Most of the emotion is imparted by Vaughan Williams' heart pumping score.

Still, it's an exciting portrayal of a brave and ambitious misadventure. As the men grow tired, mistakes are punished and luck runs out. Scott and his companions were beaten to the pole by Norwegian expertise, but their journey- and this film- is a monument to human endurance, and obsessive, imperious ambition.

As the influence of American film noir spread after WWII, John Mills emerged as the best of the British actors to play the archetype of the jinxed male dupe at the mercy of malign destiny. He is the centre of Roy Ward Baker's debut, drifting through a striking but sombre shadow world of danger and rain and loss.

The pitch for The October Man is an old noir stand-by; a man of unreliable rationality is accused of a crime he didn't commit and must clear his name. Mills plays a troubled stranger who leaves hospital after a crack on the head. When a floozy from his austere guesthouse is found dead, no one believes his story.    

If this British noir lacks Hollywood glamour, then that accords with the downbeat mood of the film. This isn't so much existential despair, as the depressing greyness of the postwar years. Stupid rules are ascendant. Everybody is cold and badly fed. And truth yields to gossip and narrow minds.

While Eric Ambler's whodunit structure works well, what endures is the emotional and material poverty of a threadbare country. Where a woman being into the room of a gentleman is a scandal. Where the old have no fuel. And the police are dour and stupid. It's a powerful evocation of a national malaise.

This critically adored catholic noir is a masterpiece of expressionist photography. James Mason plays an IRA boss who leads a robbery to fund their political machinery. He is wounded while shooting a guard and gets separated from his men. Then is left to wander through the dark, rainy streets of Belfast at night.

This is a realistic, bomb wrecked city of sympathisers and informers. But it is also a metaphysical place. As the killer becomes delirious from his bullet, his surroundings turn increasingly surreal. When the snow starts to fall, the streets become a mysterious agent of god's grace. The partisan is existentially alone, but his soul is saved.

James Mason dominates the film and delivers a magnetic, subdued performance, though his screen time is quite limited. Increasingly, the scene is seen through his eyes. The picture gets ever more distorted and dark as he begins to hallucinate while he passes thorough a series of encounters with an A-Z of Irish stage actors.

The film is damaged by a typically gung-ho performance by Robert Newton as an enraptured artist who wants to paint death. The script is didactic, though not interested in politics. The suspense gets stretched by the wordy religious themes. But the film is legendary for its stunning visual artistry, and Mason's powerful despair.

Tough, dirty gangster noir, which also explores the experiences of the heroes returning home from war and prison camps. Trevor Howard plays an ex-RAF pilot and POW who can't adjust to the banality of peacetime or a country where it seems everyone is on the make. He falls in with a gang running a black market operation.

One of the stalwarts of Brit-noir is the wide boy who dealt in contraband during the war while others were fighting, and later spins his small time enterprise into something more profitable. In this case, cocaine. Griffith Jones is the ruthless mob leader who is doing a whole lot better than the demobbed forces looking for jobs.

When the two men fall out over the ethics of running illegal drugs, Jones frames Howard for killing a copper. Then the fall guy escapes from Dartmoor with retribution in mind. It's a fairly simple revenge story, but violent, with sweet repartee and a lot of style. Sally Gray brings her usual sullen glamour as the moll who changes sides.

The unsubtle symbolism evokes the Hollywood gangster films of the early '30s. It has the look of American noir, but is more violent, and even dares an unjust resolution. And these mean streets are very British.  Plenty of credit goes to the star. Howard is so good it feels like he could have made a career out of playing tough losers.

No other film better captures the grit in the soul of Britain after WWII. Robert Hamer's realist masterpiece doesn't just document the squalid poverty of working class London, but saturates it in a gloomy, damp despair. Even now, the title (from Arthur Le Bern's novel) captures something of England's inherited pessimism.

 The story is a collection of interwoven vignettes from a street in the East End. The dominant strand relates to Googie Withers, stuck in a marriage of convenience with the stolid Edward Chapman She is surprised by an old flame (John McCallum) on the run from Dartmoor. All the old passions are stirred up, but for no gain.

Everyone is trapped. The convict escapes, but only briefly. This is the London of the black market. The local economy is crooked. Jack Warner plays the neighbourhood cop not only in pursuit of the hunted fugitive, but a trio of petty stooges who have stolen roller skates no one wants. They are more tragic than comic.

A day in the life of a community is assembled on the wet grey of the screen, from threadbare hardship to tawdry glamour. Escape means infidelity, religion, or a stiffener. Opportunity is crime or a quick sale of fleeting youth. Googie Withers is heartbreaking. Haunted by disappointment, her only solace is numb acceptance.