Film Reviews by LN

5 seasons. 1994-97

Charming and gentle, quintessentially British BBC series about DI Henry Crabbe (Richard Griffiths) whose one slip up apprehending a villain (Michael Kitchen) is used as constant blackmail to keep him on in the force doing special investigations for the wonderfully acerbic ACC Fisher (Malcolm Sinclair) when all he desperately wants is to retire to run his restaurant with his accountant wife Margaret (Maggie Steed). Cracking, quirky mysteries, with a bit of police procedure along with the ins&outs of the restaurant kitchen plus lots of lovely food, recipes and cooking suggestions. Really, what's not to like?

Outside of restaurant filmed in Hemel Hempstead, rest in studios at Bray.

Lots of well know faces, like Joe Duttine, Samantha Janus/Womack, Sheila Gish, Julian Wadham, Derren Litten, Ian McNeice, and the delightful Helena McCarthy(in 2 episodes), Denis Lawson, Phyllis Logan, John Castle, David Ryall.

I bought the boxed set and periodically re-watch episodes. So restful.

1955 Colour Directed by Ralph Thomas, produced by Betty Box, adapted for the screen by Richard Gordon, the writer of the Doc series. Music conducted by Muir Matheson, one song Je Ne Sais Pas sung by Bardot was written by Hubert Gregg, one of the cast members.

There were 7 doctor films, 4 with Bogarde, the rest with Leslie Phillips. There'd only been one before this one (Dr in the House -1954) then came:

- at Large ('57)

- in Love ('60)

- in Distress ('63)

- in Clover ('66)

- in Trouble ('70)

Oh dear, what to say about this travesty? I got it out of sequence having seen a couple of other Doctor films just to catch up with Bogarde, he's Simon Sparrow again in this but ostensibly working in private practice with the classically lazy Doctor George Thomas (according to the plaque, only available 2 hours a day in his consulting rooms leaving poor Sparrow to do everything else!). Dirk is craving escape from the assumptions of the Doctor's family who he lives with (a brief few glimpses of Joan Hickson as the mother) trying to pair him off with their shy daughter (equally brief appearance by Joan Sims) so he elects to take a job at sea as ships doctor to get as far away as possible.

So far so good, until he steps aboard to meet Captain Hogg - played by...wait for it, James Robertson Justice. Hey, wait, What? He's not Sir Lancelot Spratt ?? Talk about confusing! Isn't this the Doctor series ?

Whilst the rest of the film has its highly comical moments and the sailors, Gregg, Medwin, Coulouris, Purcell, and especially Denham, provide a lot of kooky moments I was still irked by the changed roles. Brenda da Banzie is just irritating and looks a bit too old to be constantly muttering about "Daddy". Brigitte Bardot in her first English film role is there as eye candy but ultimately knowing Dirk wasn't interested in girls (carefully hidden at the time) it somehow falls a bit flat although technically he gets the girl in the end and goes to Rio....but then what happens next in the series? According to the Dr. at Large plot he's back again to St Swithins...huh? What's going on???

JRJ manages to be even more bullying and opinionated, shouting constantly at the crew. When he goes ballistic on the bridge due to pills and booze I cheered them putting him out of action. Hmn.

OK, maybe, simply to view separately from the rest of the series, but I don't lump it in with the hospital based ones. I wonder where the producers really thought they were going with this one?

Lightweight, "pedestrian" (ha,ha) B&W 1949 film by Gainsborough Pictures filmed on location in Yorkshire. Directed by Ralph Smart (to me better known for directing Patrick McGoohan's 60's DANGER MAN). Dreamed up by Sydney Box and commissioned to be written by the prolific screenwriter Ted Willis.

Nice aerial views of the bikes winding through blissfully empty stonewalled country lanes and village streets.

Thankfully does have subtitles for the sometimes difficult rural accents.

This was flagged up on CP as a Diana Dors picture but she's not top billed, Honor Blackman, Patrick Holt and Australian John McCallum are. Lots of later well known character actors appear, like Maurice Denham, Thora Hird, Megs Jenkins.

It's at the very begining of Dors' career, she's not buxom nor platinum blonde yet but still attractive in shorts, as are all the svelte bicycle club, and she's already very competent as an actress. The scene of lots of the bike club in swimsuits and swimming in a river (filmed in Sept '48 - I hope it was warm!) is a touch risque!

McCallum was married to Googie Withers. Anthony Newley is a naughty teenager involved in filching a bike.

They said Dors was put in to appeal to the US market (was she known, that early on?) but I doubt the film or rural theme would have flown or been of any interest in the USA. Honor wasn't really in the map until the Bond film GOLDFINGER as the feisty Pussy Galore. I tend to put these on my CP list based on the actors, I don't remember specifically whether it was for Blackman or Dors - but Diana is good, tho' her airtime is minimal, Honor does a good Yorkshire accent. Gentle film, nothing spectacular, but adequate for a quiet afternoon and a slice of post war life.

"Thems were tough people oop in Yorkshire"!

1955. Colour. 84 mins.

Part filmed at Osterley House.

BEWARE SPOILERS - -

I love looking at 50s films but this was t.b.h. a bit weird. I got it out of CP for the early Diana Dors and Donald Sinden. Diana was actually very young, thin, and less buxom then and less obvious than she got known for later but was still a great actress.

Thought this would be a nice Ealing type comedy from the period but it couldn't really make up its mind between a musical, a comedy, a farce or a ...I dunno what!

The wonderful gritty voiced Wilfred Lawson whose last film (I think) was the delightful The Wrong Box, makes a brief appearance in the ferry. He has a pet alligator named Daisy on board and in order to return to his estranged wife he leaves it in the care of the amiable Donald Sinden who has no idea what to do with the animal.

Donald meets Moira the Irish redhead (actress Jeannie Carson) on board, quite fancies her, only ultimately it turns out Donald is already engaged to a very young & beautiful Diana, daughter of James Robertson Justice, who's very rich.

Thereby starts the slightly unbelievable chain of events: Moira suddenly breaks into song and dance a few minutes in. What the.. ?? Music and lyrics by the estimable Paddy Roberts but it all seems rather disjointed. There are also the odd reactions (or lack of) by all the people who encounter "Daisy", plus tycoon JRJs strange acceptance of Donald, a mere record shop assistant. Moira is a brash opinionated London zoo keeper and JRJ (who only ever plays classic JRJ!) goes on to organise a strange Alligator Festival in the grounds of his home...huh?? The brilliant Margaret Rutherford appears as a pet whisperer/pet shop owner when Donald tries to rid himself of Daisy - it's brief but very Margaret Rutherford!

Then there's the entrance of American actor Stephen Boyd as ostensibly Moira's fiancé returned from South America. [SPOILER: Turns out he's not. Talk about confusing.]

Curiously "Daisy" the alligator (in reality I believe a He) is quite chilled around people but all the time I got rather worried the poor animal might have been a bit chemically subdued or something. Clearly at times it's been replaced by a well made rubber model for some scenes, but quite obviously Donald et al. are interacting, touching, handling and carrying a living reptile in other scenes where it moves or swims off into water. I had no idea alligators could be quite so restrained. Quite a revelation.

3 out of 5 I think. Nicely filmed but don't think I'll rush to see it again.

Haven't seen this particular version of MY OLD MAN but FYI I've just seen the disc SEVEN OF ONE, showing 7 short pilots of potential series filmed in the 70s in which Ronnie Barker did the central character.

Ronnie played this character Sam Cobbett, an elder who's the last resident to move out of a condemned street and into a modern centrally heated high rise with his daughter and family. Sam despises all aspects of the new place which is so alien to his old way of life but the dialogue is funny and poignant. The clash of old and new is a revelation. Hopefully the scripts were similar in this Clive Dunn version which I'm putting on my CP list.

The pilot was excellent so I'm awarding the Clive version a good rating.

Interesting TV drama apparently taken from a stage play called MISS NIGHTINGALE, written by John Bowen (known for HETTY WAINTHROPP INVESTIGATES, ARMCHAIR THEATRE, the excellent WILDE ALLIANCE and several PLAY FOR TODAYs).

This production could indeed have been the filming of a stage play as the sets were fixed, with only one or two outside scenes, probably due to budget constraints. It gets a tad confusing as we cut between snippets of her as a child, her nursing supervisor career, the privations of the Crimea, and latterly as a near dying woman - interspersed with several scenes of a modern student researching a paper on Florence's history, trying to elicit more information & gather insight into the real woman behind the formidable legend. What was her motivation to launch into nursing in a wholly restrictive Victorian age where nurses where held to be lower than low & considered mostly as drunkards, a fact that did not please the family, even her rather more indulgent father who'd encouraged her education, but who still had total control over her adult life whilst living at home.

Janet Suzman gives "illuminating" life (ha ha) to the revered Lady of the Lamp, but she cleverly reveals FN as a very determined and complex woman, unusual for the time, someone literally tough as old boots and at times even utterly ruthless. She was less interested in physically doing a nursing job, her main claim to fame was not wiping fevered brows, it was information: writing reports, gathering statistics and pushing reform of medical practices by initiating radical changes that made the nursing profession not only respectable for ladies by the turn of the century but also changed government policies. She wasn't pushing for women to suddenly become equal unlike the Pankhursts a half a century later, but in a left handed way really did much to forward womens rights.

Definitely worth a watch, given the reverence with which history holds FN in an almost saintly high position. You might be a bit shocked at her rather unsympathetic character and hard as nails attitude contrasted with her simpering sister Parthenope and mother (played wonderfully by veteran actress Renee Asherson) who seemed to get the vapours at the least little whiff of impropriety or scandal.

Hot stuff. Try it out. Very modern and brave for 1974.

Richard Hearne plays William Ningle, a devoted family man with a loving wife and 2 daughters. He's a stickler for timekeeping as seen in the opening moments of this 1950 film before he ostensibly goes off to work "in the City" - but when he arrives we see him enter a small rented room and change out of his bowler & pinstripes. Instead of being SOMETHING IN THE CITY he then spends his day dressed down and selling handmade artwork with a bunch of other colourful street sellers because in fact he's lost his job years before and hasn't had the heart to tell his family.

This to me this theme was reminiscent of the Sherlock Holmes' story THE MAN WITH THE TWISTED LIP where a man goes to town and earns his living by becoming a beggar.

Ningle's secure little world is about to implode as one daughter announces her engagement and the fiance's blustering newspaper editor father wants to know more about the potential bride's family. Multiple, rather inventive misadventures ensue, through which Hearne does a lot of acrobatics and slapstick that make his antics seem like he's a British version of silent stars Charlie Chaplin (yes I know he WAS British) or Buster Keaton.

This, I now see, was just before Hearne played the character Mr.Pastry which made him better known. The whole Mr. Pastry phenomenon was just before my time so I had no idea what it was all about, but with a bit more research I can now see how this SITC film may well have influenced his later character. It's quite funny and rather charming, I thoroughly enjoyed it.

It was great seeing a London of 1950, with the landmarks, the cars, the refreshing lack of traffic, all the people on the street properly dressed, and a young Dora Bryan as the outspoken tea shoppe lady.

Give it a whirl.

Finnish films by Kaurismaki are full of dour, monosyllabic characters, blank faced, full of silent pauses, and highly odd, quirky situations amongst poor and struggling manual workers. Gives you an extremely odd impression of Finland but fascinating to watch.

They really shouldn't have a major image of the director's prominent leading lady Kati Outinen above, for once she isn't even in it.

The competent Turo Pajala plays a lanky and more appealing character who you root for when he's down and out but bouncing up, what else would you do in his situation, but what grates is he didn't speak up for himself. Let's himself be charged and convicted in court for an assault on the guy who mugged him. Oh come on! Why wouldn't you defend yourself by explaining the situation?

A few funny moments, the kid with a gun "Do you want breakfast?" "Toast or crispbread?" and the nearly botched bank robbery because the car wouldn't move.

Altogether I enjoyed this movie, Kaurismaki thinks it one of his best and I agree. Give it a go.

In B&W of course

I remember watching this in the 50s in the USA. It was a real institution, everyone's firm favourite and still classic comedy. No smut, no innuendo, purely verbal, physical & visual comedy from consummate professionals.

Curiously, almost from the 'Off', Ethel loathed Fred but you can't see the cracks.

For some extraordinary reason the disc I got (D24 only because I wanted to see episodes purportedly in London and Paris) is subtitled only in Spanish. What the...?

I think it was popular at the time but probably propped up by the Greek locations, the gorgeous Alexandra Bastedo (RIP) and Brian Blessed playing... well gruff, booming Brian Blessed.....in disguise as a Greek peasant.

Watched both episodes and honestly had no idea what was going on. It went backwards and forwards like a yo-yo, everyone double-crossing the other. Someone was after some riches in the form of jewelry, some rich American on a yacht played a snake in the grass wanting to get his hands on it, and the cute Peter McEnery seemed to be having hallucinations whilst investigating his brother's death.

Another 70s Michael J Bird production but have just watched another of his, Who Pays the Ferryman, set in Crete, and it was much more interesting and credible.

1972 film from an Edna O'Brien story.

3 out of 5.

Filmed at Shepperton.

Actually called X, Y and Zee. As Brits pronounce "Z" as Zed it's also been entitled Zee and Co.

I endured this film by letting it run all the way through as it was actually a well filmed, polished in production, had nice backgrounds and was true to the early 70s.

Elizabeth Taylor is pretty good but her character "Zee" is a total harridan, something she often specialises in. Michael Caine is the errant husband and as wooden as always but gets to yell some pretty vile oaths at her numerous times. Why his surly and at times expressionless character attracts the pretty Susannah York across the room, then conducts an entirely obvious affair in front of his wife, heaven knows. If he's that feckless why would she want to keep him ??

The very young Michael Cashman (now a career politician & before his stint in The Sandbaggers) appears as ST's employee in the shop and John Standing is a gay man and confidante.

Margaret Leighton, almost unrecognisable in a strange beige/gold curly wig right at the beginning in the first drinking party has a delicious short & slightly catty role as the introducer of MC to SY.

Nice production I suppose if you like watching jealous and mismatched couples constantly yelling at, and belittling each other, It's just one of those films I knew about from 50 (yikes!) years ago and thought I ought to catch up. Not decided whether I'd have liked it at the time, possibly the star quality of Taylor in the day would have swung it.

No horrendous sex scenes, a tiny bit of nudity (not that it matters these days with full exposure daily

on our TV screens!), and interesting slightly hippy fashions.

Maybe worth a watch - once.

2004. Agatha Christie: A Life in Pictures

I thought when I put this one on my CP list it was a documentary on the famed and prolific crime author. Story would be interesting, I thought.

Instead it's a full film that starts out with Anna Massey as Agatha excluded rather remarkably and rudely from her own party, celebrating her play The Mousetrap's first 10 years.

I did not "get" exactly the reference to a Life in "Pictures".

AC may have been shy but she certainly wasn't thin like Massey so if you know anything about the 1960s Christie, that lone fact grated....immediately - plus I'm quite certain that by that age she was much more mature in dealing with the general public than was portrayed.

Olivia Williams playing the younger, assured Agatha thru the First World War was good, as was Ray Coulthard as her first husband, Archie the flyer and the cad.

As no one knows to this day exactly what happened to AC during the mysterious episode in 1926 when she went missing (eventually turned up at the Old Swan Hotel in Harrogate checked in as Mrs. Teresa Neele of South Africa) this film also speculates, as did the 70s film with Vanessa Redgrave, but it adds in a psychiatrist trying to help restore her blanked out memory. Once we'd gone through all that, the ending seemed a bit rushed through, meeting the man who became her 2nd husband on an archaeological dig. That marriage was successful and she was married to him until the end of her life. His character was glossed over and never developed but with the theme they clearly didn't think that was as important.

4 of the lads at Croke Park, Dublin, 6th visit there, in front of a clearly capacity crowd. Says "Westlife's 20 Tour" - it's not IN 2020 as you might think but 2019 before everything was closed down. All their favourite hit tunes plus a central section seemingly devoted to Queen numbers, performed competently. Interesting staging, pyrotechnics, a long runway to a central stage, costume changes, a short cartoon and at the end, individual interviews. I'm not that familiar with them so didn't know Who was Who, they were never identified with captions or subtitles. At one time there was a 5th member but further research says he quit years before this gig. Nice interlude for Westlife fans.

2 episodes. Most British people know who the 2 Moors Murderers were, the iconic mugshot of Myra with the bleached hair still impresses and horrifies. It tends to overshadow Brady's part in it as somehow the horror of a woman participating in what turned out to be some unutterably heinous atrocities to young children, sickened both the police and the public.

Maxine Peake takes on the mantle of Myra and she does it with the right amount of normalcy that subtly morphs to sinister. Friendly family get-togethers in the cosy living room hid the fact that H&B had already murdered one, then 2, then 3 children and buried their bodies on the moors yet she acted cool as a cucumber. What I'd never appreciated from that was Myra had a perfectly normal family (well, duh most people do) but in these situations they tend to get glossed over as the horrors unfold even though the fallout for them due to their murderous relatives causes major shame and rifts in their own lives.

Really this film studies the effect that Hindley and Brady's actions had on them (her mother, her sister and her sister's husband) as well as the child victims' families, and that just made it gripping. Brady played by Sean Harris (not a face I think I've seen before) is from first sight a villain. Joanne Froggatt as Maureen and Michael McNulty as husband Dave play their parts perfectly.

It is of note that Myra initially staunchly denied any involvement and Brady had subtly tried to incriminate poor Dave, so it wasn't until the police uncovered tapes & photos that she was charged with involvement. The only remorse she ever appeared to show was when her dog died, never a scrap apparently for the victims and she would never reveal the whereabouts of 2 of the remaining victims before she died in 2002. Sadly for his family they still have never found Keith Bennett's body.

George Costigan and John Henshaw play the high up policemen. This is a great period piece plus atmospheric production with the script based on hours of research and interviews, as it says, with police, family and victims families.

Enjoyed this (if you can say the subject matter is enjoyable) so highly recommended.

Why has no one reviewed this? If nothing else it would surely be in total indignation and disbelief that ITV sanctioned this.

The writer is also responsible for the series with Suranne Jones called DOCTOR FOSTER (which was miles better than this absolutely objectionable load of drivel) even if it did have the titular character acting at times in some very smug, weird and unprofessional ways.

Simm and Lester are normally fine actors but right from the word "go" I just hated Simms' character. What's up with the guy? He's suddenly unhinged by grief after his son is stabbed in a street brawl but irrationally he blames the doctor (not even any of the many other medical staff seen clustered around the patient in Resus in A&E) who tried to save him, not once seeming to apportion any blame back to the stabber!

I had to replay one scene a couple of times to satisfy myself that there wasn't anything else I missed and even halfway through the first episode (until I turned it off in disgust) I was wondering where this was all going? Luckily I found that out reading other reviews on IMDb and other sites and the concensus was much the same. Really, for most reviewers, it was like a big shout out...How dare you try to make a drama with this loony premise? It's like someone hates the medical profession and wants to smear it's reputation ! Of course it ain't perfect but medical personnel do the best they can and they take a lot of flack from selfish idiots like Simm who don't listen and while they're so busy being objectionable and entitled, go off on a tangent, preferring to shift blame, via kneejerk reactions, onto anyone else in the firing line. Equally Lester's doctor came down to being a wimp. This became nothing at all to do with competence but all to do with jealousy and a distinct class envy that boils up and overflows.

Apparently in the later episodes both men go on to do completely loony things because the doctor becomes unhinged by the unhinged - but I couldn't hang on that long. Nope, took it out of the dvd player and sent it back. I rarely give up on films as I feel I'm somehow maligning it and maybe I just don't "get" the plot, but this one really deserves a big fat zero.