Film Reviews by Steve

 Astaire & Rogers represent so much of the classic glamour of 1930s cinema. Swing Time is their usual screwball frou-frou with Fred as a shiftless gambler looking to blag a fortune to marry a rich looker (Betty Furness) but falling in love with working girl Ginger.

A few of the support cast from Top Hat return, including the super-unctuous Eric Blore and comedian Helen Broderick, again playing Ginger's older pal. Swing Time's weakness is that it lacks the wit of Top Hat, and Fred's character really isn't all that easy to like. But...  

...it boasts some astonishing musical standards from Dorothy Fields and Jerome Kern, and dance numbers that can be included among  Fred & Ginger's greatest hits. Fred sings the sensational romantic ballad, The Way You Look Tonight. His Bojangles tribute to Bill Robinson  is the showstopper. The legendary duo make magic together on Never Gonna Dance.

 And there's Pick Yourself Up, A Fine Romance and the title waltz! The art deco sets are wonderful too. Neither Astaire nor Rogers was a great actor or singer, in my view.. But ninety minutes spent in their company is a time machine back to a world of romance, grace and sophistication.  

*warning, film includes a blackface number. 

This is a heist film which closely follows the genre rules established by John Huston's The Asphalt Jungle. The star of that film, Sterling Hayden also features in The Killing, though as the leader of the caper, rather than a heavy.  

The heist takes place on a racetrack, worked by inside men, particularly a crooked bookie played expertly by Elisha Cook jr. He's a sexual flop, pitilessly squeezed dry by his unfaithful, predatory wife. As they must, the caper falls apart disastrously on the big day.

There is a good hardboiled script, which uses the unusual device of telling the heist from the various points of view of all the gang members, with the sort of strident third person narrative familiar from documentary style noirs like The Naked City.  

This low budget film was Kubrick's first significant release. It didn't sell too many tickets, but it gave him the opportunity to make Paths of Glory the following year. It is a genre classic, and stylishly made. 

The last of the stunning sequence of silent dramas made by Fox films at the dawn of the talkies. City Girl was released in a movietone version with some dialogue but only the beautiful silent alternative remains.

 It is a domestic drama with a rural setting. Charles Farrell goes to Chicago to sell his father's wheat and impulsively marries the flirtatious but world weary waitress (Mary Duncan) he meets working in a big city diner. When he returns home with his bride he finds his father unimpressed with his business acumen and his choice of wife. In fact his father finds much to be angry about.

 This is a work of realism without the metaphysical elements of the films Frank Borzage was making for Fox at this time. But its naturalistic narrative is gloriously illuminated by the golden splendour of its images (photographed by Ernest Palmer). Its artistic lighting is enchanting.

 City Girl absolutely works as a romantic drama. Its location shooting in Oregon (standing in for Minnesota) is richly atmospheric. Farrell and Duncan handle the comedy particularly well (though they lack the chemistry he shared with Janet Gaynor). But it's the visual appeal of the film which makes it such an exalting and haunting experience.

The ultimate film about the eighties political revolution and its economic Darwinism.

It's an acting masterclass with a magnificent ensemble cast, which Jack Lemmon just about shades as the corporate also-ran, way beyond his breaking point. Great actors must kill to get their hands on material as good as this.

A version of, and improvement on, David Mamet's 1984 Pulitzer Prize winner, which is my generation's Death of a Salesman.

A transcendental film about two identical young women (Irene Jacob) who live materially unconnected but similar lives, one in Paris, the other in Warsaw, with contrasting but linked destinies.

This ethereal film is a mystical experience which speaks to us in a visual, impressionistic language.

It is an exquisite, metaphysical poem from the great Krzysztof Kieslowski. Irene Jacob is luminescent in the demanding dual roles.

As much a vision as a film. A quiet, meditative and incredibly beautiful experience.

After Sapphire, Dearden and scriptwriter Janet Green again married social commentary to a murder story, this time to explore the illegality of homosexuality which was allowing the widespread blackmail of homosexual men. Victim pulls a lot of punches. The lawyer played by Dirk Bogarde who expedites the investigation into the death of a rent boy doesn't actually have sex with men. He is married, and resists the impulse. But he does make clear the desire is there in a passionate speech apparently written by Bogarde himself. But the level of candour was still a big leap forward. Credit to all the cast and crew in making this film when the stigma might have caused considerable harm to their careers. It was banned in the US. The main attraction of Victim for me is the poignant performance by Dirk Bogarde, really the gateway to his many great roles of the sixties, particularly with Joseph Losey.

The Special Operations film, and the design, organisation and execution of a dangerous, covert enterprise in a foreign country under occupation was one of the most robust and rewarding subgenres of the 1950s war film. There was usually a great deal of genre conformity in these films, from the tough sergeant major, the explosives boffin, the repressed emotions of the final briefing through to their brave death or unlikely escape. Carve Her Name with Pride is distinctive because it about the training and operation of a woman, Violette Szabo who worked with the resistance in France and was executed at Ravensbrück concentration camp 1945. It is a dignified and charismatic portrayal by Virginia McKenna and a worthy tribute. The ending when she is executed with Denise Bloch and Lilian Rolfe is powerful and deeply moving.

This version of Elizabeth von Arnim's 1922 novel (filmed badly in 1935) was originally made for the BBC but later given a cinema release by Miramax. Four women mostly suffering from disappointing marriages, the grey fustiness of London and English middle class life, and a lingering despair brought on by World War I, travel to the picturesque fishing village of Portofino in north western Italy. There, established in a castle rented to tourists, in the light and warmth of their surroundings, the society of local inhabitants and free from the restrictions of their usual lives, they begin to thrive and grow again.  So pure escapism. A vicarious fantasy. Yet such a beautiful one, which works like an opiate flooding our veins and then our hearts with sweet release. The light, the Italian locations, the beautiful performances, they all allow us a little of the peace and optimism that the ladies find within themselves, released by the Italian riviera. And in my 1991, that was glorious, charming and irresistible.

A great stroke of luck for Monty Python was that they got the sets from Franco Zeffirelli's 1977 tv epic, Jesus of Nazareth which allowed this film to look a whole lot more authentic than Up Pompeii. Life of Brian is a series of sketches harnessed to the story of (an alternative) Christ. Its attraction is mainly twofold: it is an inspired and intelligent skewering of the characteristics of religious fundamentalism; and it is very funny. There is little characterisation save Graham Chapman's Brian, but there are some inspired performances, such as Michael Palin's Pontius Pilate, and John Cleese's Reg, leader of the Judean resistance. Brilliant comical scenes keep on coming, like the pessimistic, equivocal prophet, or the Roman soldier correcting the Latin of Brian's graffiti. I'm not usually an admirer of the work of Monty Python as a collective, but this is their absolute peak, and the hyperbolic reaction to the film's release (the BBC discussion between Palin, Cleese and Malcolm Muggeridge and the Bishop of Southwark was lamentably witless on the part of the offended Catholics) indicated that a national, or global conversation was long overdue.

The work of married team Anna Neagle and Herbert Wilcox hasn't aged all that well, but this is an unexpected exception, an admirably realistic biopic of Odette Sansom, British spy, recipient of the George Cross and survivor of Ravensbrück concentration camp. It follows the standard special operations layout, but surprisingly the true events are hardly embellished, partly due to the influence of Odette herself. This means that the plot may feel a little undeveloped, but the film leaves a surprising impression of vérité. This is the role of Neagle's life, and she gives it a great shot, given her limitations, and Trevor Howard is as ever calm and understated and stiff of lip as the British leader of liaison with the Maquis who Odette would marry (and divorce) after the war. Tremendously moving and humbling of course, given the subject matter.

Cinematic version of The Who's classic concept album plays like a return to the kitchen sink values of the early sixties (which is when the action is set). Quadrophenia elects for an unglamorous presentation of working class locations, distant from most of the usual chic of the decade; though the teenage mods do long for the elegant materialism that is hoarded elsewhere, and the status that will always be out of reach. The story, lifted from the impressionistic lyrics of the rock opera is mostly reportage; the amphetamines, the mod sound, the beach fights and the knee tremblers. But the film fuses with the soundtrack brilliantly, offering a profound empathy for adolescent yearning. This stems from Phil Daniel's authentic performance, and from Pete Townshend's songwriting, particularly the ethereal, spiritual ache of I'm One and Love Reign O'er Me. One of the great films about the brief tragic metamorphosis that happens between being a teenager, and being a wage slave.

First film version of JB Priestley's classic socialist play about the thoughtlessly cruel exploitation and degradation of a working class girl. In his greatest performance, Alastair Sim plays a police inspector who visits the home of a factory owner, not so much to investigate, but to identify the guilt of each member of family in the suicide of a young woman who crossed all their lives. Rather thrillingly, she may have been a composite person comprising many of her class, making her a symbolic victim. The film version develops the supernatural element of the play, making it very spooky indeed. The newly scripted flashbacks work very well, but otherwise the film takes place in a single room, with a great deal of talk, which doesn't prove to be problematic. A fine achievement for Hamilton, best known for his Bond films. Brilliant, heartstopping ending too.

The Graham Greene source novel was a joyful, optimistic affirmation of life and the film gloriously conveys those emotions on to the screen. At his mother's funeral, a naive, mundane middle aged bank manager Henry Pulling (Alec McCowen) meets for the first time the capricious Aunt Augusta (Maggie Smith) who initiates him into an adventure incorporating her many, varied and usually eccentric or criminal associates and friends scattered across the more glamorous cities of Europe. Henry is shaken out of his complacency and led to the unsurprising conclusion that it is the impulsive and resourceful Agatha who is his real mother, and not the conservative woman who brought him up. And he begins to discover the Agatha dormant within. This is a feelgood experience, set in beautiful locations and gorgeously acted by its eclectic cast, particularly Smith and McCowen. It's surprising to me that this film has such a poor reputation. It feels like mainlining nirvana. Unsentimental optimism is a rare commodity on screen and this picaresque, secular pilgrimage delivers its surge of serotonin with a lot of style and wit.

Cerebral drama written by Harold Pinter with the implicit menace, allusive meaning and expressive silences that we expect from the playwright. It is a slow moving story with a strong evocation of a rural summer, and of the aloof academia that gathers around a pair of ascendant Oxford scholars. A lot of the lifting is done by the lead actors, Dirk Bogarde and Stanley Baker, who are both superb, and the latter, a revelation. There is an art to making very psychological films so compelling, which might easily be portentous and pretentious. This kind of film making was more often found at this time in France and Italy (Rohmer, Antonioni) but Losey proves himself comfortably equal to the task. It is a taut, haunting and atmospheric film by the best director in sixties UK cinema.

Even before the fighting was over Britain began to reflect nostalgically and mythologise World War II. Which Anthony Asquith and tail gunner and scriptwriter Terence Rattigan did here for the RAF from 1939-1944. The action starts looking backwards, the camera seeking out memories from the unmaintained airfield, the traces left behind by the flyers and mechanics. Then we're back to the Battle of Britain, the adrenaline rush of the conflict, the sadness of the pilots who didn't return, hidden by the survivors behind a stiff smile and an aphorism. Like Flight Lieutenant Michael Redgrave, mourned by his widow, in a touching performance by Rosamund John. Much of the film takes place in the local hotel, where the pilots unwind, dominated by resident pub bore Stanley Holloway. In 1942 the Americans arrive and John Mills and Basil Radford are joined by Douglass Montgomery and Bonar Colleano and much cultural misunderstanding ensues. The film stays a long way from the action. We just see the eyes from the ground raised skywards and counting the planes coming in. It's a powerfully moving film of stoicism and sacrifice and try getting through it without shedding a few tears.