Tag: film reviews

Film Review: A Town Like Alice

I’m not sure what I was expecting when, a few days ago, I sat down to watch this film. It was one I’d heard of but never before given a viewing for whatever reason. The title suggests something domestic and perhaps slightly delicate and pretty and yet the blurb on the TV guide said it was a WW2 drama starring Virginia McKenna and Peter Finch. So after two hours of well-crafted cinema, intrigue became enlightenment and awe.

A Town Like Alice is a gripping 1956 British drama film based on the book of the same name by Nevil Shute. It tells the harrowing story of a group of women and children forced to march hundreds of miles across Malaya from village to village by the occupying Japanese forces who refuse to take responsibility for them. It is at once awful to witness the hardship and suffering the group has to endure and yet uplifting to behold the strength of the human spirit in times of woe.

The film opens with Jean Paget (played by Virginia McKenna), in a London solicitor’s office shortly after the war. The solicitor informs her that she has a large inheritance and, asked what she wants to do, Jean decides to go to Malaya to build a well in a small village. As work gets under way, she recalls her three years of living in the village and the journey she endured to get there during the war.

Flashback to 1942 and Jean is working in an office in Kuala Lumpur when the Japanese invade and take everyone prisoner. The men are sent off to labour camps and the women and children are told they must walk to a women’s camp fifty miles away. Jean being fluent in Malay, is therefore a prominent figure within the group and helps arrange the acquisition of food and medicines they require from the locals. But after an arduous march in unbearable heat and mosquito infested swamps, the women are told by the camp commanders that they are not wanted and are therefore forced to march on in search of another camp. And so their journey continues with disease and danger always close behind.

Along the way, the group meets young Australian soldier, Joe Harman (Peter Finch), also a prisoner of war, who drives a truck for the Japanese. He and Jean quickly forge a friendship and often meet behind their guard’s back to share a cigarette and swap stories. It is here that he tells her about his hometown of Alice Springs and this is where the story’s title comes from. Joe is appalled by the suffering the group has to endure and helps them by stealing food and medical supplies from his Japanese captors. However, a theft of chickens is investigated and with Jean being the initial suspect, Joe confesses his guilt to save her and the rest of the group. For his troubles, he is beaten and crucified to a tree and left to die. The women are forced to march away but a while later, when their guard dies, Jean begs that the group be allowed to stay in a village where they will gladly work and become part of the community. This they do until the end of the war when they are repatriated.

Returning to the present day in the village where the well is being built, Jean learns that Joe Harman didn’t die against that tree and that he survived the war and returned to Australia. She therefore travels there to search for him. Likewise, he travels to London in search of her and after some disappointment, the two finally meet in the airport at Alice Springs. Very moving it is too.

This is where the film differs from the book because where the cinematic story ends, the novel continues to explore Jean’s new life in the Australian outback and examines all the joys and difficulties that that throws up.

The film was shot mainly at Pinewood studios although some exteriors were filmed in Malaya and Australia. It was directed by Jack Lee (arguably his best known work) and distributed by The Rank Organisation. It was the third most popular film at the British box office in 1956 and won BAFTAs for both McKenna and Finch. Give it a look and you’ll see why. Their performances are faultless. But then, the same could be said of the entire cast. The film itself was nominated too as was the screenplay. The pacing is spot on – your attention and interest in the characters never wanes – and the look of the film is frighteningly real.

All in all, an incredible tale of triumph over adversity – a great film made from a great novel.

 

Film Review: Rififi

Ah, the heist movie! Love them or loathe them, just thinking about them conjures up images of a group of misfits enduring painstaking preparation overseen by some intelligent mastermind. Of masked gunmen overpowering unsuspecting night-watchmen. Of safecracking equipment and smoke grenades. Of fast getaway cars. All the ingredients for a thrill-a-moment spectacle.

Hollywood obviously loves them. The success of remakes like Ocean’s Eleven (and its sequels), The Italian Job and The Thomas Crown Affair is proof that, for the most part, we do too. There are of course, dozens of titles worthy of viewing, both old and new, but if you want to watch one of the most influential of them all, then I recommend the 1955 French classic, Rififi.

Even though Rififi is filmed in glorious Paris, the French capital has never looked so bleak. Director Jules Dassin, argued on more than one occasion with his cameraman by insisting he didn’t want to shoot in sunshine. He wanted the overall look of the film to be grey and cold and consequently it’s about as far removed from the glitz and glamour of somewhere like Ocean’s Eleven’s setting of Las Vegas as it’s possible to get. Dassin wanted gritty realism and boy! – that’s exactly what he got. Indeed, so real is it’s actual heist scene – an incredible 30 minute segment void of any dialogue or music – that upon its release in ’55, several countries banned it on the grounds that it was akin to watching a training film for anyone wishing to commit burglary. A reviewer in the Los Angeles Times referred to it as a “master class in breaking and entering as well as filmmaking”. Burglaries mimicking the film’s scene began occurring around the world. Dassin responded to critics by claiming that the film showed how difficult it actually was to carry out a crime.

Jules Dassin was American by birth and found success as a director in the ’40s, particularly with a number of noir films. But when the communist witch hunts burned through Hollywood like wildfire he was blacklisted and consequently decided to move to Paris to continue looking for work. Nothing came his way for five years until he was offered Rififi, an adaptation of Auguste Le Breton’s novel of the same name and despite shooting on a low budget and with a no-name cast, the film revived his career.

The film follows Tony le Stéphanois (played by Jean Servais), an ageing gangster recently released from a five year prison stretch for jewel theft. Down on his luck, he meets up with two gangster friends Jo le Suédois (Carl Mohner) and Mario Ferrati (Robert Manuel) who propose to him a smash-and-grab job from a parisian jeweler’s window display. Initially Tony refuses but when he learns that his girl has hooked up with nightclub owner and rival gangster Pierre Grutter (Marcel Lupovici), he accepts the job on condition that they go for the safe inside rather than simply what is in the window. Mario suggests they bring in expert Italian safecracker César le Milanais (played by Jules Dassin under the pseudonym Perlo Vita). The four men then concoct and rehearse an intricate plan to break into the jeweler’s and disarm the (then) state-of-the-art alarm system. The heist is pulled without any major hiccup but the problems arise, as they so often do in this type of story, in the aftermath. And with that, I shall say no more about the plot. I should hate to spoil it for those who haven’t seen it.

Not only did Rififi revive its director’s career but it also found success in America, making Dassin the first artist to come back from the Hollywood blacklist. The film was praised by audiences and critics alike and won several awards during the ’55-’56 season. It also quickly became a hugely influential marker for many heist films that followed. If you’ve never seen it, give it a look and see what all the fuss is about. I promise you won’t be disappointed.

 

Film Review: The Fast Lady

Okay, so winter may not arrive officially until the 21st of next month however unofficially, in my mind it’s moved in already and taken over like an occupying force. I reckon we can all admit to having enjoyed a long warm summer this year and that’s an increasingly rare thing to say but don’t those glorious days of sandals and sun lotion seem an age ago already? And what’s replaced them? Wind, rain, chills and that annual pain-in-the-neck, the common cold. Yes, you’ve guessed it – I’ve got a stinker already!

For the last two days I’ve been shuffling around like a think-headed, red-eyed zombie, my joints aching and my nose itching and streaming so much that I wonder just where the hell all that fluid comes from. It may not be quite debilitating but it certainly makes you feel miserable.

So, last night as a counter-measure, I prescribed for myself a good dose of humour. A hearty laugh is always a sure-fire tonic and the sort of dose I was thinking of administering would be found in something like a Carry-On film or one of those slightly daft yet rib-tickling comedies from the ’50s or ’60s, starring a role-call of familiar faces from British cinema in its heyday.

I settled on a film that was completely unfamiliar to me – The Fast Lady from 1962. It tells the story of enthusiastic cyclist Murdoch Troon (played by Stanley Baxter) who one day is run off the road by impatient Charles Chingford (James Robertson Justice) in his Rolls Royce. Troon tracks the man down to his beautiful home with its manicured lawns and demands compensation for his damaged bicycle. It is here that he meets Chingford’s beautiful daughter Claire (Julie Christie) and the two are instantly attracted to one another. Learning that she is a lover of sports cars as well as “the men who drive them”, Troon decides to buy a car and pass his driving test.

Fortunately for Troon, his friend and fellow lodger is Freddie Fox (Leslie Phillips), an under-performing used car salesman with a keen (make that VERY KEEN) eye for the ladies. On discovering that Charles Chingford is the owner of a local sports car dealership, Fox sees the possibility of getting in with Chingford as well as selling Troon a car. And the car in question is a 1927 vintage Bentley named The Fast Lady.

What follows is all perfectly charming and uncomplicated fun as Troon, determined to be the man he thinks Claire wants him to be, takes his first driving lesson and then later, his test. He also has to deal with Claire’s bad-tempered father and the man’s extreme dislike of him and the two go on to make a wager that, should Troon lose, means he must never see Claire again. Meanwhile, Freddie Fox schemes, Claire Chingford coos, her father blusters and Troon, a rather clumsy Scot, soldiers on seemingly oblivious to the disaster he leaves in his wake. All very amusing.

The film was directed by Ken Annakin, a man of great talent and diversity. Not only did he give us such Disney classics as The Story of Robin Hood and His Merrie Men and Swiss Family Robinson, he also directed big scale war movies like The Longest Day (the British segments) and Battle of the Bulge as well as riotous comedies like Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines and Monte Carlo or Bust!

Perhaps best known for his hilarious television shows which first appeared in the ’60s, Stanley Baxter – a Scotsman himself – plays Murdoch Troon with a believable measure of innocent heroism. He’s not as naive or hapless as, say, Norman Wisdom in his slapstick comedies, but he’s not a million miles away either. He’s a likeable chap though and you root for his character from the off.

Leslie Phillips is perfect doing what he does best and there’s only one other actor I can think of who nailed the cad as well – albeit to a more rotten degree – and that was Terry Thomas. Julie Christie, in only her second film role, seems quite at home in her part. Annakin captures her extraordinary beauty in several well-framed close-ups and it’s no wonder that she would soon become a global star. Three years later, when she starred as Lara Antipova in Dr Zhivago, Life magazine hailed 1965 as “The Year of Julie Christie” such was her impact on the silver screen. James Robertson Justice as her father, is excellent as always, and his domineering and acerbic Charles Chingford is similar to his Sir Lancelot Spratt in the Dirk Bogarde “Doctor” movies.

Along the way, the familiar faces of numerous comedy and character actors from the era pop up in cameos, among them Frankie Howerd, Dick Emery and Bernard Cribbins. I loved seeing how the roads and the high streets have changed over the years (the film was shot in and around Beaconsfield apparently) and also enjoyed car-spotting all those models that are now only seen at classic car rallies. The Fast Lady enjoyed great success at the British box office upon its release and fifty years later, it still has the ability to take your mind off your worries.

 

Film Review: Separate Tables

I always derive great pleasure from watching a well-adapted film version of a stage play. I think it’s because fundamentally what makes a good story is its characters and a stage play is, in essence, nothing more than a study of its characters. Of course, there’s usually a plot of some kind that unfolds, twists and turns and events that occur to affect the behaviour of those in the tale and thereby expose more about them as people to us, the audience. For me, it always lays bare the artists’ talents in the writing and the performing departments because there’s no whizz-bang action and explosions to boggle our minds or death-defying stunts to draw our attention away from the human element of the tale. It really is basic storytelling, which some would argue is the purest kind.

Usually, a theatre audience will retain a certain detachment from the performance it watches, never really giving in to the world of make-believe on the stage, never completely forgetting that it is enjoying (or not) a group of performers. By contrast, the cinema audience gets drawn into the world on screen (assuming the director knows what he’s doing), the camera lens acting as its eye. Yes, we know the camera is mounted on a dolly which is being pushed by a Grip along a New York sidewalk but when it comes to watching the end product we forget this, we are there in the Big Apple jostling through the crowds on East 42nd Street and on into Grand Central Station. A scream comes from behind and the camera swivels around to investigate saving us in our seats the effort of looking over our shoulders. For all intents and purposes, we are the camera lens and we can get as close up and personal to the most intimate of moments between characters or we can stand on the edge of a bluff and behold the most spectacular of vistas below our feet. We’re not so much watching it as witnessing it. Think about it. It’s quite magical.

That’s why a well-filmed stage play can be so rewarding. There’s nothing to distract you from the humanity of the story. There’s no bustling sidewalks or majestic panoramas to enjoy. The entire story is expressed through dialogue and body language and little else. Yes, the camera (our eye) now has the freedom to move around the room, to close in on an object or a facial expression or some other detail but more often than not, there’s still a sense of confinement, of being indoors and away from the rest of the world. And in the case of Separate Tables this confinement is the ground floor of a small hotel in Bournemouth, a seaside resort on the south coast of England.

Based on two one-act plays by Terrence Rattigan (Table by the Window and Table Number Seven), Rattigan himself stitched them together and added a few characters to hide the seam. The film was directed by Delbert Mann who had, three years earlier in 1955, won the Academy Award for his romantic drama Marty, a film which also won Ernest Borgnine the award for Best Actor in a Leading Role. No question that the guy clearly knew what he was doing then.

Separate Tables boasts an all-star cast with David Niven, Rita Hayworth, Deborah Kerr, Burt Lancaster and Wendy Hiller – two of whom would go on to win Oscars for their performances.  Niven plays Major Pollock, a spiffing, moustachioed war veteran who happens to be hiding a shameful secret. Sibyl Railton-Bell (Deborah Kerr), is a meek and rather dour spinster suffocating under the firm control of her Victorian mother (Gladys Cooper) who also appears to be the hotel’s resident matriarch. The sober hotel owner Pat Cooper (Wendy Hiller) is in love with a long-term resident, the alcoholic John Malcolm (Burt Lancaster), who in turn gets a surprise visit from his ex-wife Ann Shankland (Rita Hayworth). The plot lines of these five individuals are woven together with a deft subtlety that is absolute poetry. Their characters start to evolve as soon as the film begins but it’s not until the sudden discovery of Major Pollock’s awful secret, a revelation that divides and illuminates at the same time, that we really get to see what these people are made of.

Niven’s performance is possibly one of the best of his distinguished career and garnered him his only Oscar. His Major Pollock is all bluff and twitter as he regales boorish tales of his time at Sandhurst Military Academy or during the North African campaign always with just a little too much zeal. It’s obvious from the get-go that he’s not all he seems and when his world does come crashing down, the contrast in his behaviour is extremely well-judged. Like-wise, Lancaster’s performance is spot on and the arrival of his ex-wife (Hayworth at first purring glamour and controlled serenity but then revealing pain and loneliness) claiming that they can’t live without each other gives him the opportunity to show how vulnerable and doomed his character is. Deborah Kerr, playing very much against type, is shy and awkward and again conveys a loneliness that seems to be very much prevalent in most of the characters here. Indeed, Major Pollock, having just been told by Sibyl that they know all about him and his secret, tells her that they are really much alike in as much as they are both afraid of life. She’s utterly reviled by Pollock’s guilt but totally devastated too because she was secretly in love with the old fellow. Finally, Wendy Hiller who won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her role as the proprietress does a great job of keeping a level-headed perspective on the gossip and bigotry that affects her guest as well as coming to terms with the fact that the man she loves still loves his ex-wife. She’s without doubt the most sane person under her roof. Without giving too much away, the final scene of this film is simply perfect – at first excruciating in its uncomfortableness but then extremely moving. Bottom line, a classic drama that’s all about great writing and stellar acting. Highly recommended.

 

 

Film Review: Grand Prix

The recent buzz surrounding Ron Howard’s new film “Rush” got me thinking about motorsport in movies and in particular, Formula One. Films with a sporting theme at their core are always a little iffy with audiences and often don’t mirror the success in box office receipts as the sports themselves do with fans however, there have been a few exceptions over the years. Boxing and baseball seem to be the safest bet in Hollywood for studio bosses and yet, considering F1’s global popularity it’s cinematic outings are somewhat rare.

Arguably the most famous racing movie to date is Steve McQueen’s “Le Mans” from 1971 and love it or loathe it, you have to concede that it is a bonafide racing spectacle. But it’s not F1. It’s an annual 24 hour endurance race. And if we discount Asif Kapadia’s excellent “Senna” that came out in 2010 on the basis that it’s a documentary rather than a dramatised biopic or adaptation, we have to go back to 1966 to find a film based on Formula One.

John Frankenheimer, who helmed “Grand Prix” began his directing career in television shows like “Playhouse 90” for CBS but after making the transition to movies he found critical and commercial acclaim in the early ’60s with a string of hits including “Birdman of Alcatraz”, “The Manchurian Candidate”, “Seven Days in May” and “The Train” – four cracking films that share nine Oscar nominations between them. “Grand Prix” was his most ambitious project to date and oddly enough, it would also be his first shot in colour. Which of course helped capture the splendour and spectacle that was (and still is, for some) Formula One.

The film boasts an international all-star cast headed by James Garner and Eva Marie Saint as well as virtually all the racing drivers you care to mention from the era. And what an era it was! With beautiful cars unspoiled by sponsorship logos and downforce addendum, circuits that were little more than country lanes in places with no corner markers or kerbing to aid the drivers, it was a great deal more exciting than the regulation-strangled sport of today is. But then it was also far more deadly and according to IMDB, five of the real-life drivers who participated in the film died in racing accidents in the next two years and another five in the following ten years. It’s no wonder things had to change.

The film puts us right down there on the starting grid from the get-go with a highly charged opening sequence designed by the legendary Saul Bass – the man who gave us perhaps some of the most iconic opening titles in the history of cinema (“The Man with the Golden Arm” and “North by Northwest” to name but two). We can almost smell the gasoline and the hot engines of the racing cars as the 70mm Super Panavision film captures close-up images of spark plugs being tightened by mechanics, rev counter needles flicking towards redlines, tyres, exhaust pipes, the expectant crowd waiting for the Monaco Grand Prix to start. All these images overlaid with the soundtrack of a race about to thrill us. It’s gobsmacking.

The same goes for all the racing sequences throughout the film as we behold several of the world’s greatest circuits in their earlier days, Spa and Monza (complete with the infamous banking section) being of particular interest for the way they have now changed. For F1 fans, especially those that find interest in its history, this movie is a must-see!

The plot away from the racing leans a little towards soap-opera melodrama but it injects a dose of glamour and gives the actors something else to do other than race. (Apparently James Garner was so competent behind the wheel that real F1 drivers Graham Hill and Jack Brabham told him he could have been a successful driver had he not gone into acting). The film follows the fates of four drivers through a fictionalised version of the 1966 season, their ups and downs and the women who love them and try to deal with this most dangerous of lifestyles. On the whole, the acting is faultless.

The main character of “Grand Prix” though is the racing itself and Frankenheimer, who had always been a bit experimental with camera angles, was adamant to never cheat his audience with back projections or speeded up film. With cameras mounted onto the racing cars, (sometimes even swivelling from an ahead shot of the track round to the driver!) and on a following or trailing Ford GT40 camera car driven by Phil Hill (the only American-born driver to win a F1 Drivers’ Championship) he really nails the action. Add this to real footage of the 1966 season and there’s very little else like it other than watching a current race. And if you’ve ever seen his 1998 thriller “Ronin”, you’ll remember the car chase and you’ll know how good Mr Frankenheimer is at capturing excitement via speeding cars. The film won 3 Oscars at the ’67 Academy Awards – Best Sound, Best Film Editing and Best Effects/ Sound Effects and it’s not hard to see why.

Ron Howard’s new film is rightly garnering the attention at the moment and it may even go some way to improving Formula One’s image in the United States however, it was undoubtably Frankenheimer’s “Grand Prix” that laid the cornerstone 47 years ago. If you’ve never seen it and you love racing, I urge you to do so. It’s a rush!

Film Review: The Stranger

Isn’t YouTube a marvellous resource? As a video library to delve into for few moments of pleasure it’s practically a bottomless pit of entertainment. The choices of things to watch are virtually limitless. But it should come with a warning just to remind you that it’s all too easy to end up spending hours rather than minutes of your spare time engrossed as you segue from one upload to the next. The suggestions that pop up at the end of each video do a fine job of enticing continued viewing.

But aside from the cute videos of pets and babies and the millions of other “caught on camera” moments, YouTube is for me, a great film library. Thanks to a copyright lapse in many old classic films, there are a plethora of great movies available and just one click away. I found one such film this morning. The Stranger from 1946 starring Edward G. Robinson, Loretta Young and Orson Welles (who also directed) is a superbly put together drama that, thanks to its style, is also a fine example of film noir. Robinson is always good to watch and with great support from Welles and Young, the hour and a half that this film runs for, simply flies by.

Edward G. Robinson plays Mr Wilson – a “detective, of sorts” for the United Nations War Crimes Commission – who is hunting down a Nazi fugitive called Franz Kindler (Orson Welles). Kindler, having carefully erased all evidence of his former life and assumed a new identity – Charles Rankin – is now a prep school teacher in small town U.S.A. On the day we meet him, he marries Mary Longstreet (Loretta Young) who happens to be the daughter of the local Supreme Court Justice. In short, he’s managed to transform himself from a Nazi war criminal into a pillar of an American community.

Wilson releases Kindler’s former right-hand man Meinike (Konstantin Shayne) from prison in the hope that he will lead him to Kindler which of course, he does. All the way to the pretty town of Harper, Connecticut. But he loses him before he makes contact with Kindler. When Meinike (now a religious convert) and Kindler do meet, he begs his former superior to repent and to confess his sins. However, Kindler, afraid of being exposed by his former associate, strangles him instead.

The story unravels in a gripping, almost claustrophobic way as the determined hound chases down the wily fox. Wilson is pretty sure Rankin and Kindler are one and the same but without having witnessed Meinike meeting with him, he had no proof. So it’s left to Father Time and Kindler’s own fear at being exposed, a fear that will force him to make a paranoiac mistake – to betray his true identity to his pursuers.

As a screenplay, it’s a wonderfully taut piece of writing (Oscar nominated too) with very good dialogue – particularly from the authoritative figure of Wilson. Edward G. Robinson plays this to perfection and he lends his character an intelligent doggedness that is simply believable. Welles is also excellent at conveying a man desperately trying to hide something while Loretta Young is convincing as the new wife who refuses to accept that she fell in love with the wrong man. The town is dotted with other great characters too, in particular, Mr Potter the town clerk and proprietor of the local store/diner. He’s a hoot whenever he’s on screen.

Apart from the opening few minutes, all of the action takes place in Harper – a pretty little town where “there’s nothing to be afraid of” as quoted by Mary Longstreet. For a fugitive, it seems an ideal refuge but of course, for a local it seems like the last place on earth where something like that would occur. Welles’s direction confines us within the town, never giving us any long shot vistas of space and scenery, helping to create the sense of suffocation that Kindler must be feeling as his past captures up with him and his world closes in. Welles’ camera moves beautifully too on cranes and dollies and there are a few reminders of his Citizen Kane brilliance with emotive use of light and shadow in some of the interior shots as well as a lovely reflection in a camera lens. The film builds beautifully to a highly charged climax of which the set piece brings to mind Hitchcock’s Vertigo.

Curiously, The Stranger was the only film made by Welles that had any impact at the box office upon its original release. Hard to believe considering how highly some of his work is now regarded. Coming out shortly after the Second World War perhaps its anti-Nazi theme and the fact that war criminal fugitives really did exist, caught the public’s imagination. It contains, supposedly for the first time in a feature film, actual footage of concentration camps and although what we see is brief, together with Edward G. Robinson’s dialogue, it’s enough to horrify.

Overall then, The Stranger is a great waste of an hour and a half.