Film Reviews by Steve

Probably the best of Billy Wilder's later comedies, and the film which first brought together its star duo: Jack Lemmon as a sports cameraman who is knocked flat by the Cleveland Brown's runner at a football game; and Walter Matthau as the conniving 'Whiplash Willie', a lawyer who plots to turn the collision into cash.

Willie is the last of Wilder's great finaglers; no ruse too dodgy in his ruthless drive to strike pay-dirt. The director gives us a moral alternative in the football star 'Boom Boom' (Ron Rich) who takes care of Lemmon while he feigns injury. Like in Wilder's The Apartment, Lemmon has to stand up to his bully and be a mensch.

Matthau won an Oscar and he plays a fine crook without any scruples. He dominates the film. Boom Boom is an African American and Lemmon finally reveals he is a fake by punching the insurance investigator in the face after a very racist comment. This feels a little clumsy now, but maybe a sign that Wilder was taking a side in the civil rights movement.

The film is a satire on the lawsuit racket fed on by parasitic lawyers out to scam a quick buck from of the capitalist legal system. Lemmon is that classic archetype, the good guy who goes to the dark side. By allowing himself to be manipulated by a rogue like Willie he risks destroying the real hero of the film, Boom Boom. Welcome to the fight Mr. Wilder.

Stanley Donen makes a Hitchcock film and while it doesn't have Hitch's distinctive touch of the outré this is still an entertaining comedy caper. It's debatable whether Donan was referencing the Master, or ripping him off. Hitchcock had created his own genre rules which were widely copied in the sixties, and never better than Charade.

Audrey Hepburn is an innocent abroad in Paris who gets tangled up in the pursuit of some US Government MacGuffin, with the phenomenally untrustworthy Cary Grant and a ruthless gang of impressive Hollywood character actors, including Walter Matthau, Lee Marvin and George Kennedy. Who can she trust? There is suspense, though it's hard to take any of his too seriously.

The disparity in the ages of Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn doesn't help the romance, but there is a faint thready pulse of chemistry. And it's great to see such legendary stars together, for the only time. The comedy is amusing and engaging rather than actually funny. There's an atmospheric spy film score from Henry Mancini, but Donan doesn't get the most out of his photogenic locations.

The film is enjoyable as an approximation of a Hitchcock comedy-thriller. This is where Cary Grant pays off. When Kennedy is stamping on Cary's fingers on top of the American Express building, the audience is transported to Mount Rushmore in North by Northwest. It's a stylish, fast moving escapade but Hitch had already moved on. In 1963 he made The Birds.

This is an adaptation of a French stage musical, but it junked all the songs. That leaves a magnificent comedy premise set in the Parisian lower quarter. Jack Lemmon is a naive gendarme who accidentally becomes the pimp of Irma la Douce (Shirley MaLaine). When he falls in love with her, he creates an alter-ego, an English lord to give her enough francs so she doesn't need any other johns.

But his plan runs aground because the ex-copper has to work all night to make enough money to give to Irma to keep her off the streets. Feeling shunned by her exhausted protector she plans to elope with the attentive aristocrat. Voila! Lemmon kills his creation and goes to prison. What a brilliant plot for a farce!

The location photography of the city is attractive, and the sets and decors are wonderful, a comical pastiche of Parisian low-life. The weakness is Wilder and IAL Diamond's variable script which lacks wit, even if its morality conveys typical Wilder cynicism. It's the situations that are often funny.

MacLaine and Lemmon are predictably excellent and keep just enough reality on screen for us to care. It's yet another occasion in the sixties she played a sex worker. There's a note of sadness in her which gives the farce a little necessary weight. Curious that the two main characters spend so much time playing cards together, just as Shirley and Jack did in The Apartment.

A comedy sensation thanks to Peter Sellers' landmark performance as Inspector Clouseau. Otherwise, this is a send up of the chic crime capers Hollywood made in Europe in the sixties. This is set in Los Angeles, Paris, Rome and Switzerland and it has the visual opulence of those films, with its ultra-widescreen Technicolor.

The so-so pastiche is completely unbalanced by Sellers' scenery wrecking intervention as the clueless detective investigating the rumoured theft of a priceless diamond. His performance remains very funny. Admittedly, it's not as hilarious as when I was twelve, but there is detail and intelligence to his physical comedy which is quite impressive.

The other actors have to hold on and hope. And they do a reasonable job in archetypal roles. Claudia Cardinale is plainly stunning as the Princess who owns the famous titular jewel. David Niven resented that Sellers took over production but comes out well as the gentleman thief. There's a bossa-nova number by Fran Jeffries for variety.

The film is also enhanced by Henry Mancini's celebrated lounge-jazz soundtrack, and the cartoon Pink Panther which features over the credits. Some of Blake Edwards' surrealism is inspired, like when two men at a fancy dress party dressed as gorillas break into the same safe. There are longueurs, but its best parts are legend.

Neutered sex comedy which was a code-buster at the time because the split screen editing made it look like stars Doris Day and Rock Hudson, though in their own apartments, were sharing a bed, and even a bath! The script had knocked around Hollywood for decades and it's a standard screwball plot of a man and woman who hate each other, and then fall in love.

The film works best as a photograph of America- and New York- in the 1950s. Postwar austerity is forgotten. She has an independent single life as an interior decorator. He is a playboy with a bachelor pad where he operates a number of casual affairs. Best pal Tony Randall has a swanky office in a downtown skyscraper. And the stars have a phone in every room...

Rock and Doris were approaching forty when this was made. It was a film for a grown up audience looking for risqué sophistication; more fun than funny. The stars are attractive and the widescreen Technicolor makes the film feel luxurious, particularly for a comedy. There are negatives. It's especially sad to hear Hudson voicing dialogue mocking homosexuals.

The story is familiar. Day made it a year earlier as Teacher's Pet. It's a period piece which illustrates the myths of Eisenhower's America:  the relative sexual freedom; the prosperity of the urban middle class; and the modern American city as place of recreation rather than industry. It's the ultimate Doris Day film, with all the kitsch that implies.

Stale political farce set in the divided city of Berlin just before the wall went up. Maybe the jokes were fresh when the film was produced but the premise of a beautiful American capitalist (Pamela Tiffin) falling in love with a Communist (Horst Buchholz) certainly wasn't. And there are scenes which lack taste that might be overlooked in a better film, but here land with a thud.

Apart from a dull script stuffed with predictable jokes and dated taunts at the expense of the Germans, the major problem is with the cast. Tiffin and Buchholz are lookers, but neither is even comfortable on camera. And sadly Cagney is unable to bring any charm or nuance to his role as a big business wheeler-dealer. He does reprise some famous dialogue from the thirties though.

The best performances are by the Germans. There's Hanns Lother as Cagney's obliging, obsequious go-fer and Liselotte Pulver as the executive's ditsy rainy day squeeze. Hubert von Meyerinck playing a former aristocrat reduced in circumstances since the war gets the most laughs in a five minute cameo, as he riffs on Emil Jannings' in The Last Laugh (1924).

Wilder gets the whole bundle up on its feet for the frantic finale, but the film is a disappointment. At least Wilder soft pedals the propaganda. He sends up corporate capitalism at least as much as Communism. The black and white photography is attractive and Andre Previn's energetic score is effective. But for a director of Wilder's reputation, it's ordinary. Maybe one for cold war nostalgics.

A case of style over content, but what style. The mood of the film is established by Henry Mancini's era defining lounge-jazz score. The luminous colour photography of Manhattan makes for a gallery of classic New York images. These are the setting for Audrey Hepburn's irresistible portrayal of Holly Golightly, a gamine in a little black dress.

It's a loose adaptation of Truman Capote's novella. George Peppard is a writer-gigolo who moves into Holly's brownstone apartment. She is a paid escort. The film backtracks on Capote's implication this involves prostitution, but there remains an obvious correlation between the two characters. Because they are mercenary, but also, lost souls adrift in a city where people come to reinvent themselves.

If it is a role of cinema to enchant then Breakfast of Tiffany's is a classic. The scene when Audrey sits at the window singing Moon River is is one of the most lovely in films. But it's also phoney! There's no reason why Holly should be singing at all! There's no other reference to her being musical. For all its magic, the film makes little sense.

The climax is disappointing. And everyone surely wishes Mickey's Rooney's role as a Japanese neighbour could be snipped out and burned. Peppard is big and handsome, but stuck on one bum note- his sanctimony. It feel cruel to be so harsh because the film is delightful and Hepburn is truly iconic. And it has the greatest party scene in celluloid history. It's a sugary treat.

Musical remake of The Philadelphia Story mostly follows the same plot, as a pair of tabloid reporters cover the lavish nuptials of the American aristocracy. This time, naturally, there are songs (no dancing). And what songs. Cole Porter's soundtrack is phenomenal, especially Well, Did You Evah and Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? And True Love. And Now You Has Jazz...

Both words and music are exceptional.  Also among the positives, Grace Kelly's stunning beauty at least helps us understand why so many eligible men want to take on Tracy Lord in spite of her mean, shrewish nature. On the debit, Bing Crosby is so square and stiff it's not obvious why she would marry him, twice.

And his singing voice hasn't stood the test of time. Frank Sinatra and Celeste Holm are convivial as the reporters, and Frank sings well, including his solo, You're Sensational. But any scene featuring Louis Armstrong is stolen with panache. The Vistavision and Technicolor make this a striking production even if Charles Walter's direction is prosaic.

Compared with The Philadelphia Story, this is superficial entertainment. There's no darker side. Nothing about class conflict and at times it feels like we're expected to fill in gaps from having seen the original. But Kelly's supreme elegance and particularly Porter's forever classics make me prefer High Society. And there are great songs I haven't even mentioned.

A musical starring Audrey Hepburn and Fred Astaire in a touristic Paris among elite fashionistas... Hepburn wears Ginenchy, Astaire dances with his cane... There are songs by the Gershwins... How can it fail? Well, maybe once upon a time it was a fairytale about a plain, bookish girl who finds love, fame and beauty in one of the great cities of the world...

But, now it feels more about an intelligent girl who is made trivial by being plucked from a Greenwich Village bookshop and strong-armed into becoming a model. Still, Audrey and Paris are beautiful, and Stanley Donan's colourful visuals in Vistavision are vividly chic, so why not just give in to the glamour?

Astaire was 58 when he made this and it's not his best work as a dancer. And he's too old as a lover, for her. But he has some fine songs (including S'Wonderful). It's the vivacious and lovely Audrey who gets the film on its feet. Her dance numbers are actually more fun. There are some amusing sketches, particularly when Fred and Kay Thompson gatecrash a beatnik party.

It's hard to credit Hepburn as the plain Jane of the title, but this is the movies. And she graces the fluff with a sincere performance. The script tries to convince us that the intellectual world is as phoney as high fashion, but that doesn't compute. This is superficial frou-frou that the great stars almost turn into Hollywood magic.

Intelligent comedy drama which follows a standard romcom story arc featuring a pair of adversaries who fight each other before falling in love. Clark Gable is a gnarled, old school newspaper editor who goes incognito to a school of journalism in order to prove that classroom learning is pointless.  

Naturally he discovers the opposite and begins to doubt himself. Doris Day is the teacher who he romances through false pretences. Gable was 57 when he made this and even under heavy makeup he looks ten years older. Day was a fresh faced 36. Their relationship doesn't really make sense, but he is at least believable as an old school newspaperman.

No matter. Everyone remembers this for Gig Young's Oscar winning support performance as Clark's rival for Doris; an educated man who infuriatingly can do anything. When they are in an African jazz club he plays bongos and speaks perfect dialect while the older man just gets bitterly drunk. And he even turns out to be a pretty nice guy.

The film explores interesting themes relating to education, social deprivation and journalism. Though its two hour running time is a stretch. The script is literate and some of the dialogue is exceptional. But it is starved of jokes. There is a diverting cameo by Mamie Van Doren as an archetypal dumb blonde. But it's Gig Young who lifts this above average as a comic film. A+ for him.

The title applies to the relationship of a potential Republican nomination (Spencer Tracy) to his wife (Katherine Hepburn). And of course, to the condition of the United States. The marriage is threatened by a predatory young press magnate (Angela Lansbury) while democracy is vulnerable to powerful vested interest.

It's an exposé of Washington realpolitik and the parasites and henchmen that attach themselves to the public relations roadshow. Tracy is persuasive in the lead. Hepburn has a support role though the film seems to be suggesting that her character is the more natural leader. Lansbury is wonderfully chilling as a manipulative agent of the far right.

This was Frank Capra's last masterpiece, though it was a departure. It's quite naturalistic compared with his great political fantasies of the thirties. Only at the end when Matthews confesses to his dishonesty on network tv and calls for labour and capital to pull together do we feel the director's old touch.

We witness a political machinery which promotes narcissism and rewards insincerity. This is a comedy in the sense that the people who occupy the screen talk with in constant flow of irony, which evades explicit meaning. The writing is sharp and witty, but the strength of the film is its cynical vérité. It feels true, and it feels it is still true.

Social comedy which is lightweight but clever. Though made shortly after WWII it feels more like the fifties America of prosperity and consumerism. Even the maid has bought a new fridge, by instalments. Class divisions are obvious, but cordial. Three friends receive a letter informing them that the sender has eloped with one of their husbands.

She doesn't say which. There's the timid wallflower (Jeanne Crain), the career woman (Ann Sothern) and the beautiful devil (Linda Darnell). As they spend a day together on an island retreat they reflect on their marriages and wonder which will return to an empty house on a conventional street in their small, quiet town.

They live ultra-conservative lives of dinner parties and evenings at the country club. There is satire at the expense of radio, materialism and difficult servants. Dig deeper and there are pokes at patriotism and conformity. Kirk Douglas (husband of feisty Ann Sothern) gets the best dialogue as an intellectual school teacher with an inferiority complex.

My favourite of the leads is Linda Darnell as a pragmatic but spirited working girl who marries into money. It's a well observed commentary on ordinary middle class life. The expectations of women have been transformed but the social themes remain relevant. They all want something else, maybe someone else's husband. Nobody values their privilege.

Broad farce which exists solely to get Cary Grant into drag. It's an odd couple screwball comedy set in Germany after WWII. While working for the military, a French Captain (Grant) and US officer (Ann Sheridan) fight like wildcats and then decide to get married. But government bureaucracy means he is only able to go to America as a war bride.

The most interesting aspect of the film is the subversion of gender roles. Sheridan is always in charge. She drives the motor bike, he sits in the side car. She solves the perfunctory MacGuffin. And he ultimately puts on a woman's uniform in an attempt to board a ship sailing to his wife's country.

It's not a typical Howard Hawks comedy. The pace is slower. There is far more slapstick. Like when sleeping Cary speeds into a haystack on the motorbike. Sheridan is no fast talking dame, though there is a nice moment when she does an impression of one of Hawks' former leads, Lauren Bacall. The support cast is unfamiliar and lacklustre.

The location work in war ravaged Germany adds interest. The script was co-written by Charles Lederer who adapted His Girl Friday for Hawks and Grant, but this is not in that class. The dialogue lacks wit. The humour comes from the crazy scenarios and the quarrelling leads. The film leans on their star chemistry, and they make the film fun, if unexceptional.

A candidate for the saddest comedy the Hollywood studios ever made. There's a classic romcom premise of a pair of quarrelling work colleagues falling in love through unwittingly being pen pals... But the whole film is immersed in a heavy melancholy. Not so much because of the attempted suicide of the pair's employer, but the sombre mood of sorrow.

The speech of the actors is slowed right down. James Stewart talks the whole film in a hushed monotone like he is hypnotised. The workers are poor and controlled by an often inconsiderate boss (he does redeem himself). Their employment in a Budapest luxury goods store doesn't bring them satisfaction, but indignity. They toil only to provide and survive.

The simple solace the workers have is the support of each other, which cannot be relied on. And the possibility that they may marry one day. It's a film about the tension between appearances and reality, which leads to misunderstanding. Stewart and Margaret Sullavan hate each other, but when they exchange their deepest thoughts by letter, they fall in love.

It's not a typical Ernst Lubitsch film. We are back in Europe, but there's no carefree innuendo or high society glamour. Its influence on Billy Wilder's The Apartment is unmissable. Without the element of comedy the feeling of despair would be unbearable. It's one of the great American films; heartfelt, captivating and unorthodox. But thank goodness for the happy ending.

The best of the many satires about tv and radio to emerge after WWII, as Hollywood struck back against the competition. This sends up the vogue for television quiz shows (which were eventually found to be widely fixed). Ronald Colman is the charming, well spoken Beauregard Bottomley, one of those names that only ever occur in golden age comedies.

He is an intellectual and a polymath who despairs at the idiocy of American popular culture and in particular, advertising. He aims to destroy soap boss Vincent Price by winning week after week on the quiz programme he sponsors. Each time the questions get harder. Eventually Bottomley is answering interrogation on Einstein's Theory of Relativity. Correctly.

It turns out Albert Einstein is a regular watcher. In order to destabilise the infallible contestant, Price sends Celeste Holm, a sort of cerebral double agent, to distract him with emotion. The film is extremely entertaining to this point thanks to Colman's ultra-likeable performance, but the possibility that he might be trumped is actually too maddening to be amusing...

There are satirical takedowns of capitalism.... This is quite a clever film. Caesar is Beauregard's parrot who just repeats what he hears, surely a parody of learning without understanding. The film tells us that television is an agent of cultural atrophy, a message that fifties Hollywood was to circulate with enthusiasm.