Film Reviews by Steve

Britain's first ever animated feature film is a simplified but brutal and macabre version of George Orwell's political allegory about the betrayal of the Russian revolution by Joseph Stalin. Or in this case, Napoleon, the pig. Aside from an incongruously cute baby duck, there could hardly be a greater contrast with contemporary Disney cartoons.

The production was secretly financed by the American CIA to show to children in classrooms as anti-Soviet indoctrination. The uprising of the animals against the cruel farmer proves futile as the pigs merely assume the role of exploitative suppression.

But the film doesn't really work as anti-communist propaganda as it creates such a powerful impression of the transgressive cruelty of capitalism. Though the ending is changed to leave us with a little optimism, this adapts Orwell's theme with faithful clarity. The author abhorred Joseph Stalin's treachery, but he was still a socialist.

Mátyás Seiber's score and the sound treatment of Maurice Denman's animal voices are crucial contributions. The artists create a powerful sense of (often surreal) threat, but the landscapes rather charmingly evoke the idyllic poster art of Britain between the wars. There is impressive, old school animation, but this feels an incredibly dark film for kids!

1954 was the year that Dirk Bogarde became a major British star with Doctor in the House. But The Sleeping Tiger was a more significant indication of the actor's future direction. It was the first of many collaborations with Joseph Losey, an elaborate psycho-drama with Dirk playing a complex, dangerous criminal who moves in with a psychiatrist.

Alexander Knox plays the narcissistic shrink who wants to get into the head of the volatile delinquent, and unlock his suppressed trauma with Freudian analysis. But didn't reckon on his bored, beautiful wife (Alexis Smith) falling for the handsome, imperious younger man. Wrong move! She has hidden motives too. And the film becomes a malign power struggle.

It's the kind of cerebral, brooding psychological stand off for which Losey is remembered. It's an actors film, and Alexis Smith is excellent as an emotionally hungry neurotic who is outwardly assured and elegant. But Bogarde dominates playing a sardonic, insidious sociopath; a forerunner of his signature performance in Losey's, The Servant.

Losey released his UK debut under a borrowed name, because he was a refugee from McCarthyism. He became arguably the standout director of 50s-60s British films. This is an intelligent and unconventional drama, rather than groundbreaking. He wasn't quite there yet. But it's an early gateway into his oeuvre, and the dark charisma of Dirk Bogarde.

David Niven was the only British expat in Hollywood to return to fight with the onset of war in Europe in 1939. So he may have seemed ideal casting as a veteran combat hero. Certainly, he was always a natural in uniform, officer class. He plays a Major who won the Victoria Cross for valour at Tobruk.

But with the war now a memory, he is resented by some, and let down by the ministry and the army who are holding out on back pay. Most miserably of all, his wife is dismayed that the hero never amounted to a big shot in peacetime. When the Major is up in front of a court-martial for stealing army funds, she lies to shoot down his defence.

The principal theme is of post war malaise in the British army. Which is hung on a fascinating courtroom drama. It's directed for maximum tension by Anthony Asquith, and elevated by the performances of Niven and particularly Margaret Leighton as his neurotic, self-absorbed wife. The scene when she perjures herself to destroy him is a heartbreaker.

In a strong support cast of bristling army types, Victor Maddern stands out as a grunt who sticks his neck out for the accused. It's shot like a stage play and makes a virtue of the insular, isolated feel of the army camp, with its idiotic ceremonies and absurd exceptions. The wordy script touches on broader issues of military law, but this doesn't compromise the compelling suspense.

This is a conspicuous imitation of Carol Reed's own The Third Man, this time set in the ruins of Berlin. And almost inevitably it got lost in the shadows of a legend. The Man Between suffers in comparison in many way, but most obviously the script. There isn't the moral complexity of Graham Greene's story, where the McGuffin of the diluted penicillin is genuinely poignant.

This time there's an East German spy ring kidnapping agents from the west. Claire Bloom is a young English tourist visiting her brother in pre-wall West Berlin. She becomes entangled in the schemes of a former Nazi soldier now working for the Communists, played by James Mason. Her naivety makes it difficult for her to understand how corrupt he is.

And his cynicism makes him utterly unable to comprehend her innocence. Which is an interesting contrast, and the film deepens when they fall in love during a long sequence while he helps her escape from his own comrades. Leading to a classic denouement, trapped between the check points in no mans land.

While this can't match the famous visual imagery of The Third Man, the b&w photography is still gorgeous, particularly of cold war Berlin in the snow. The stars are well cast. There's a fine, moody jazz score. The story is a bit of a muddle. It succeeds most as an atmospheric period piece, a photogenic fantasy of espionage on the edge of a new frontier.

Box office smash adapted from Nicholas Monsarrat's best seller, which is the authoritative WWII film about the Battle of the Atlantic. It's an understated, procedural drama that explores the mental trauma of combat more than the history. In fact, these men are so isolated from home and HQ that they become alienated from the war, and the country they fight for.

Everyone remembers The Cruel Sea for the incident when the Captain (Jack Hawkins) sacrifices the lives of British men abandoned in the cold, oily sea, in an attempt to finish off a U boat. And over two hours, the film documents the psychological toll, until Hawkins becomes a numb predator. Ultimately we wonder at the cost of total warfare on the survivors.

Nearly all of the leader's colleagues die. The only human attachment comes from his relationship with his First Lieutenant (Donald Sinden) but even that barely endures. The story covers the whole war, and it has an epic dimension. The action is shown from the point of view of view of the skipper's two ships as they evolve in technology and efficiency.

Hawkins famously breaks down once, and emotes, 'it's the war, the whole bloody war!' He has no hatred for the men in the U-boats. To the Captain, the enemy is the cruel sea. So, it's a film of rapprochement. There's a superb script by Eric Ambler, and austere realism from director Charles Frend, but Jack Hawkins' commanding performance embodies the whole conflict.

Period drama set in Nova Scotia, Canada in the first decade of the twentieth century. A community of Scottish settlers has made a simple home in the snowy mountains, and is reluctantly accommodating new Dutch immigrants. The patriarch of a meagre smallholding (Duncan Macrae) is driven by resentment and prejudice, stoked by a land feud.

Philip Leacock was a specialist in directing films featuring small children, and The Kidnappers is mainly remembered for Jon Whiteley (aged 8) and Vincent Winter (5), who both won a special Oscar. Leacock does a great job in piecing together their performances, and they have plenty of natural charisma.

The boys travel across country to live with their inflexible grandfather, who rules by the bible and the lash. And the film is about how the family is traumatised by a lack of love. Not just the children, but his daughter (Adrienne Corri) who is growing old alone in the remote settlement. Refused a dog, the young brothers snatch a baby...

Which may give the film its title, but it's a brief, unlikely episode. The film is about the family dynamic and their frustrated emotions. There is a strong sense of location, with the Scottish highlands standing in for Canada. But the main attraction is the child performances, and even those allergic to the cutes are going to find them pretty irresistible.

Definitive film version of Oscar Wilde's immortal play, which brilliantly capitalises on all of its dazzling virtues, without ever overcoming the flaws. Anthony Asquith presents the scenes as if on a stage, and is extremely faithful to the text. And his ideal cast delivers Wilde's polished epigrams with aplomb, as the drollery of the ingenious plot unspools.

Michael Redgrave and Michael Denison are frivolous bachelors of the privileged class who adopt alternative identities to free themselves of their minor responsibilities. Joan Greenwood and Dorothy Tutin are pretty debutantes who fall in love with these alter-egos. But Margaret Rutherford and Edith Evans steal the film as their elderly chaperones.

As with the play, characters are mere cyphers, a means of moving the plot around while delivering sparkling bon mots. The men are charming, disingenuous fops. The older women are monsters, which makes them more interesting. But it's impossible to invest any care in them. It's all surface. Which is fine, because the scenes fizz with incredible lines.

A few witticisms inevitably fail to launch, and without anyone to care about, the film quickly stalls. The ironic inflection becomes irritating. But these are moments. The period costumes and Victorian habitat are richly reproduced in gaudy Technicolor. The stars perform the hilariously absurd frou-frou with expertise. And Asquith has genuine rapport with Oscar's unique depiction of the upper class.

Delightful adaptation of Charles Dickens' debut novel; a picaresque adventure which rambles through all classes of Victorian society. There's a beautiful period recreation and a long cast list of British character actors playing cameos of classic Dickens caricatures. This might be the most English film ever made.

The Pickwick Society is a club of gentlemen oddballs who travel through town and country in search of unusual encounters. Japes and scrapes. James Hayter gets a rare chance to lead and he is uncannily perfect as Samuel Pickwick. His good companions travel from inn to coaching station, and fight a duel, or are sent to debtors prison...

... or many other idiosyncrasies of fate. But mostly they keep getting entangled in the sly intrigue of Mr. Jingle who isn't quite the hail fellow that the Pickwick Society is looking for. He is played with splendid panache by Nigel Patrick.

The multi-facets of mid nineteenth century life are glimpsed through a distorting squint of playful whimsy. Strangers meet and are soon clanking tankards together. It's not by any means the real world, but it charmingly captures the comic élan of Dickens' England.  Note- the film was made in b&w but a colourised version is widely circulated. 

After WWII, anthology films became big box office in the UK, like those from W. Somerset Maugham stories, Quartet, Trio and Encore. Soon such episodes would become the province of television. Meet Me Tonight is one of these packages of short films, adapted from three one act plays by Noël Coward. But in Technicolor, which tv couldn't reproduce.

And British tv in the early fifties would have struggled to match this ensemble of stars and old pros. The stories are linked by the conflict of married couples. Kay Walsh and Ted Ray are a couple of music hall troopers with a song and dance act who only cease fighting with each other when there is someone to gang up on. Leading to the demolition of the theatre.

The middle section is effective, but uncomfortable. Stanley Holloway has a midlife crisis and leaves his burdensome family. We can believe his life is hell, but his bullying revenge is awkward. Most of the budget was spent on the last and best story, with Valerie Hobson and Nigel Patrick happily cast as a couple of bankrupt sophisticates on the French Riviera.

They are sensational at delivering Coward's screwball banter. And there is some nice location footage of Monaco spliced into the bickering. The best two plays are very funny and great entertainment. Ray and Walsh get a couple of Noël's comic songs to perform. There's the writer's usual snobbery and preoccupation with class to contend with. But it's well worth it.

Powerful, emotional drama which miraculously- given its subject- manages to evade sentimentality because of its procedural style and understated performances. A child (Mandy Miller) is deaf and mute and born into a life of limited possibilities to an ineffectual, if rather well off father (Terence Morgan).

When she is eight, her mother (Phyllis Calvert) takes the girl to a special school run by an irascible, frighteningly motivated headmaster (Jack Hawkins). Mandy is so irresistible that the film builds a potent dread of anything which might stand in her way. Like the father, or the hostile administrator (Edward Chapman) who resents the teacher's methods.

The moment when Mandy learns to say 'b' is overwhelming. Hawkins plays a proper cinematic hero, who who fights using his intellect for complex, humanistic ideals. It's an inspiring portrayal. The film implicitly becomes a polemic which quietly promotes the public provision of special schools.

Alexander Mackendrick deserves credit for making it all matter so much, and presumably for piecing together a convincing performance from of the child lead. It's a neo-realist classic, shot in a working school for the deaf, in the bomb sites of Manchester. And was made with love, craft and conviction.

The ominous title reflects the weighty, unsubtle symbolism that grows wild through this tale of human pity. A meek, henpecked clerk lives a monotonous life in a drab backwater with his wife and child. He thinks of the trains that pass him by, and their romantic destinations. When a bundle dirty money comes his way by chance, he gets to take the express to Paris.

Claude Rains is the main asset, as the fastidious middle aged drudge for whom fortune deals an ill fated second chance. He becomes involved with a beautiful mercenary (Märta Torén) who only has eyes for his suitcase full of cash. Away from his usual bonds, the naive dupe unravels as his dream escapes him.

Really, it's film noir, but in inky Technicolor, and set in Europe. The radiant location footage of fifties Paris is a big bonus. The film doesn't quite sustain its suspense to the climax. And it lacks the touch of a skilful director. But there's a haunting atmosphere of gloomy fatalism which stays in the memory.

It's an adaptation of a story by Georges Simenon, but sans Maigret. Marius Goring is the Dutch policeman on the trail of the swag. Märta Torén makes a stunning, and very cold hearted femme fatale. But it's most distinguished by one of Claude Rains' very occasional leading roles, as a man who dares to recklessly dream, and pays the big price.

Micro-budgeted British B film which overcomes its limitations to deliver solid social commentary. It can't have had an auspicious pitch. This is about council drains... But it's also a David and Goliath story, as a middle aged housewife (Jill Esmond) goes up against the town hall and accuses them of graft, which leads to tragedy.

The film is compromised by its short running time and a lack of money. Plot lines are curtailed. The look is bare and the sound is rudimentary. The director chooses as few set ups as possible for his static camera. The actors are familiar without being even minor stars. There is a feeling of the budget running out as the big finale is replaced by a chat

But the premise of the underdog taking on entrenched vested interest is a resilient one. The script grinds a small political axe. The council is implied to be Tory, and there is warning of the dangers of fascism from the crusading local news reporter (Gerard Heinz), who was a refugee from the Nazis. But mostly we get an impression of how insulated are the guardians of power.

This is the sort of subject that in the sixties would be covered by the BBC on The Wednesday Play. But they would have used working class characters. Esmond, Jack Watling and Carol Marsh are all improbably posh as a family of council house tenants. It's an emotive film, a polemic. The corrupt officials are incredibly entitled. And the poor get stiffed again.

Probably it would be mean to suggest Alastair Sim was born to play Ebenezer Scrooge, but surely he gives the definitive version of Charles Dickens' immortal misanthrope. This is an adaptation of A Christmas Carol which owes far more to horror than whimsy and Sim's gaunt, gruesome moneylender is drawn in dark, heavy lines.

The support roles are well cast, with Mervyn Johns a fine Bob Cratchit, but Sim dominates the frame. The period recreation is strong and there is a potent atmosphere of Victorian misery. The main debit is the direction lacks flair and the narrative gets a bit stuck on occasion, but Dickens' moral intention survives intact.

While the depiction of the stoical, happy poor is not plausible, it is essential to the balance of the story, and this interpretation isn't wary of the politics. Scrooge is unambiguously a sociopathic capitalist who amasses wealth through nefarious means that the law fails to discourage. The depiction of what poverty means is particularly grim.

No more so than in Dickens' future Christmas when the poor share out and sell Scrooge's meagre possessions after his death. The staging is pantomimic, and occasionally sentimental, but also stark and abrasive. This isn't really primarily for children. And its message is still very pertinent; the greatest threat to any society is ignorance and want.

Genial caper which was one of the most successful of the post-war Ealing comedies at the box office. It's curious how the heist film became so abundant across Europe in the early fifties. Maybe the dreams of people still using their ration books made it a popular temptation to make off with the contents of a safe.

It's that image of the underdog who has his day which inspires Alec Guinness performance as a wage slave who is assumed to be a mild, unambitious man in a pin stripe and bowler hat.... who then robs a security van full of gold ingots in the pursuit of a more lavish, exotic lifestyle.

He makes a fine comic team with Stanley Holloway, who melts the gold into Eiffel Tower paperweights, in order to get the swag out of the country. With Alfie Bass and Sidney James they are a likeable bunch of rogues. Audrey Hepburn has a brief pre-fame cameo as a society it girl.

It's an entertaining diversion which pastiches American noir, with the shadows and procedural voice over. The Oscar for best screenplay feels a bit of a stretch; it isn't really that funny. Unusually for a mainstream comedy, there is no romance. But there is a strong flavour of austerity Britain, its citizens finding escape in improbable fantasies.

Charming Ealing comedy/science fiction which smuggles in a few darker political themes in among the usual whimsy. Alec Guinness plays an eccentric scientist who has to go to extreme lengths to develop an everlasting fabric that would be of great benefit to mankind. But will kill off the textile industry.  

The usually antagonistic class interests come together to stop him; the business owners who will lose their profits and the workers who will have no jobs. The film mostly has the energy of farce, and there are quite a few chases. But there is pessimism too. Partly because of the ostentatious gulf between the rich and poor.

But this note of melancholy is mostly due to the implication that Britain is hampered by vested interests which are unable to act for the greater good, or to enable progress. So scientists and visionaries appear as oddball agents of chaos. While this is a funny film, with imaginative plot complications, it's quite downbeat too.

The photography of industrial Lancashire gives the film atmosphere, with great sets and the famous sound effect of the bubbling polymers. Guinness is excellent as the naive genius in a corrupt world. The vision of him running through the dirty streets in his glowing white suit is one of the all time classic images of British cinema.