The Best Silent Witnesses

Divided Loyalties. Niall Leonard. Dead woman and baby. Drugs. 'Stukie'.

The World Cruise. Tony McHale. Auschwitz resurfaces.

The Fall Out. Tony McHale. Multiple vehicle pile up. And a spare arm.

Closed Ranks. Tony McHale, Season 6. Leo's wife and daughter are visiting when a case similar to one of his old ones appears.

Answering Fire. Dusty Hughes. Fire in hotel. Dodgy politician.

Choices. Doug Milburn. Harry befriends kid who's involved in night club drive by shooting.

Cargo. Doug Milburn. Boat of illegals capsize. Infectious disease on board, and little missing girl who Nikki just will not give up on.

Body of Work. Rhidian Brook, Season 10. Harry and Nikki are starting to get it on when an old flame of Harry's turns up dead.

Schism. Christian Spurrier. A bit far-fetched, but Nikki is kidnapped.

Hippocratic Oath. Tony McHale. Two bodies in one coffin...

Shadows. Dudi Appleton and Jim Keeble. Killing spree at Uni. Season 13.

Bloodline. Dudi Appleton and Jim Keeble again. Harry in The Third Man. 

A Stressload of Silent Witness (2011)

Not so much in the first one, First Casualty, by Oliver Brown and Michael Crompton, directed by Keith Boak. An army lieutenant is clearly showing signs of PTSD, Kieran Bew. Both he and his former colleague's girlfriend are found dead - is it murder? Army colleagues involved are David Ajala (Nine Bodies in a Mexican Morgue, Starred Up), Darren Morfitt (good as sergeant; he also appears in a Season 20 episode as a DCI!), Theo Barklem-Biggs (Rogue Heroes).

The suspect runs away again, twice...

But it's the next film, written by Dudi Appleton (who also directed) and Jim Keeble, Bloodlines, that really shakes the barley. In an arresting flash forward, Harry is seem running through the streets of Budapest covered in blood. It turns out he's out there to perform an autopsy that has already been cremated - the corrupt nature of the city coming through already; and to visit his new GF, rights campaigner Lili Bordán. There's a jokey feel to the early scenes -

Nikki: What is it, have you shagged everyone in London?
Harry (looking pointedly at her): Not quite.
Nikki: I think you like her, this Ava.. Eva.
Harry: Anna. Yes I do. I've only spent a couple of weekends with her, but yes I do like her. But I love you.

This jokey feel is maintained through to Budapest and even to a meeting with Anna's father, Julian Glover. But then Anna is murdered and Harry's seen the assailant, but in fleeing knowing he's become the No.1 suspect, and suddenly we're in The Third Man territory, where no one can be trusted, and Hitchcock's classic Wrong Man on the run. But then when at the end of episode one Harry is killed (and the look of terror on his face is fabulous) it's like the end of the world... To say more would be a spoiler, but it goes places you wouldn't expect at all.

 

The two writers talk about it here. "Sometimes, it seems, you don't give the audience what they want and they like you for it."

The film does for Hungary's tourist board what Finding Rachel did for Zambia.

Ferenc Elek plays a shabby former idealist, Kata Dobó a junkie prostitute, who both help Harry (both wonderful performances). Mike Kelly's the diplomat, Iván Kamarás the dodgy detective.

Some of its flash forward editing - by Katie Wieland - is in the Boydell Class. She's worked on high profile stuff like Slow Horses, GoT, Big Little Lies, Taboo and two more of these coming up. It was photographed by Tim Fleming.

Walk A Crooked Mile (1948 Gordon Douglas)

Another Edward Small production, for Columbia, saddled with a solemn and redundant voiceover which keeps telling us things which are bleedin' obvious.

FBI agent Dennis O'Keefe teams up with Brit Louis Hayward to stop secret plans being leaked from top nuclear facility - how it's being done is the interesting denouement, but before that happens the couple are almost executed by the murderous gang - saved only by an emigré who has lost her family to Nazis and is willing to sacrifice all for her new Mother country yatter yatter. Raymond Burr is one of the nasties.

Shot in chiaroscuro by George Robinson, a routine Columbia B movie photographer. Written by George Bruce from Bertram Millhauser story. The title is better than the film.

Silent Witness Season 14 (2011)

A Guilty Mind. Timothy Prager. Director Sue Tully.

Three deaths in one night at hospital. Nikki in danger again - no wonder she's referred to a psychotherapist. This one almost ventures into horror film territory and is a little far fetched, though tense and enjoyable. Nikki's flat, round the corner from the Royal Albert Hall, looks rather amazing (and expensive). It's Queen Alexandra's House, SW7, used as female only student accommodation!

And I think it's nearby Onslow Square Gardens where the professor is shot.

The routinely horrible investigating detective is Mark Lewis Jones with Kelly Harrison. Arsher Ali is becoming a regular in the 'cutting room'. With Roy Marsden, Sinead Keenan and Sorcha Cusack.

Lost. Richard Davidson, director Anthony Byrne. Nutty archaeologist Mark Benton uncovers a body which isn't as old as he thinks. Links to the 'Ketamine killings' which Leo investigated back in the eighties, draws him back into world of victim Barbara Flynn and the now imprisoned murderer Sean Baker. Helps crystallise his thinking on adoption.

Tony Pitts (All Creatures, Giri/Haji, Peaky Blinders, Funny Cow, Red Riding) and Christine Tremarco (Adolescence, Clocking Off, The Responder) investigate.

Harry's old pal Charlie Creed-Miles, who funnily enough we earlier saw in (almost) debut in Press Gang, drops his son on him and disappears.

Unfaithfully Yours (1948 Preston Sturges and scr)

Didn't think too much of it when we last saw it 13 years ago; seems much better when reevaluated. Rex Harrison is funny from the off as conductor not wanting to believe anything bad about his wife, glamorous and younger Linda Darnell, but can't help accepting she's had an affair. Over the course of three classical music performances he imagines different outcomes to the news involving murder, forgiveness and accidental suicide. Then when he tries to recreate the murder he finds it's much harder than he's imagines in the funniest scene. "Number please."

Many trademark long takes, inspired use of sound effects, distinctive extreme close-ups. With many Sturges stock company in bit parts. Rudy Vallee, Lionel Stander, Barbara Lawrence, Kurt Kreuger, Edgar Kennedy, Al Bridge, Robert Greig etc.

"So simple a child can use it"

Thunder on the Hill (1951 Douglas Sirk)

A convent opens its gates to flooded villagers - and a young woman who is about to be executed for murdering her brother. But strong willed nun Claudette Colbert doesn't believe she's guilty.

Atmospheric tale of faith and justice, adapted from Charlotte Hastings' play 'Bonaventure' by Oscar Saul and Andrew Salt. Great to see a new Sirk for the first time. Atmospherically designed and filmed (at Universal) - Bernard Herzbrun & Nathan Juran (coincidentally I was half-watching and enjoying his terrible Jack the Giant Killer earlier while cooking) and William H Daniels.

Cast: Ann Blyth, Robert Douglas (doctor), Anne Crawford (his wife), Philip Friend (Fiance), Gladys Cooper, Michael Pate (village idiot), Connie Gilchrist  (whose 'Never throw away newspaper or string" becomes usefully prophetic).

Good music by Hans J Salter, another of Hitler's gifts to the USA.

Sirk doesn't say a lot about it in Halliday's book, other than that he wasn't interested in the religious angle at all. It was his first picture for Universal, and he liked them because they let him work on the material and left him alone to cut.

No Reservations (2007 Scott Hicks)

An utterly predictable remake of  German film, which is fun. Catherine Zeta Jones inherits Abigail Breslin and runs up against new chef Aaron Eckhart. Carol Fuchs adapted Sandra Nettlebeck's original screenplay (which is a much higher rated film on IMDB).

The restaurant is at 22 Beeker Street in the Village.

She looks guilty and sheepish at the same time

Don't bother parking properly

Trois Couleurs Rouge (1994 Krzysztof Kieslowski & co-scr)

There's a moment where Irène Jacob says to Jean-Louis Trintignant "I feel I'm in the middle of something important going on around me" and that's a bit like what watching this film is like. Because the rather beautiful piece of parallel action going on to Jacob's life, involving a neighbour who is studying for a law exam (Jean-Pierre Lorit) and whose girlfriend (Frédérique Feder) cheats on him, is actually the former life of strange reclusive ex Judge Trintignant, who befriends Jacob over a runaway dog.

Has some stunning moments, like the camera dropping from the balcony at the theatre. And interesting sound (the sound from the very opening for example coming in much later - Jean-Clause Laureux).

For the third time a wizened old person tries to get a bottle into the recycling - but this time she is helped. And the finale brings back the characters from the previous two films. It's a most interesting trilogy of films. Written again by Kieslowski and Krzysztof Piesiwicz with contributions from Agnieszka Holland, Edward Zebrowski and Edward Klosinski.

Photographed by Piotr Sobocinski (Marvin's Room), composed by Zbigniew Preisner, production design Claude Lenoir, editing Jacques Witta. It was nominated for key BAFTAs, Oscars and Césars but didn't win any.

At the very end of the film

Jacob was in Au revoir Les Enfants (1987) and starred in Kieslowski's The Double Life of Véronique in 1991, which also sounds good.

National Velvet (1945 Clarence Brown)

Horse mad Elizabeth Taylor isn't the only mad one in eccentric family governed by Donald Crisp and Anne Revere (who's wonderful and won Oscar), with teenager Angela Lansbury, Juanita Quigley and insect mad Jackie Jenkins, as evidenced by this dialogue:

"I want my insect jar."
"Shut up and stop being disgusting."

Slightly dodgy itinerant Mickey Rooney turns up (then 24) and happens to know a bit about horses, which is lucky when events end up at the Grand National, an excitingly filmed horse race with little back projection.

Familiar faces include Arthur Shields, Dennis Hooey, Aubrey Mather, Arthur Treacher, Reginald Owen.

It's jaunted along by Herbert Stothart's score which references traditional English tunes. Photographed by Leonard Smith. Robert Kern's editing won the Oscar.

'Suffolk' coastline aka Pebble Beach, California

Not sure I'd seen it before; most enjoyable. First in a double bill of Leonard Maltin **** films.

A Night to Remember (1958 Roy Baker)

Stiff upper lips abound in Titanic tale, with Kenneth More and Leonard Naismith in command of sinking ship, excitingly and memorably done with fine attention to detail.

The fact that there was a half-asleep ship only ten miles away was incredibly ironic. Liked the bits of humour emanating from drunken steward and indomitable Molly Brown (Tucker McGuire).

Lots of cast includes Honor Blackman, David McCallum, Kenneth Griffith, Alec McCowen, Ralph Michael etc etc.

Written by Eric Ambler from Walter Lord novel. Features memorable dialogue like

"My pig! I must have my lucky pig!" and

"That man's smoking a cigarette. It's disgraceful!"

Handsomely shot by Geoffrey Unsworth with good models / effects filmed at Pinewood. Alexander 'Vetch' Vetchinsky was the designer / art director. Sidney Hayers edited.

One cavil - soaked More doesn't shiver or seem cold at all.

Just tried to watch The Making of a Night to Remember and it was the most soul-suckingly boring film I've ever seen. 

Trois Couleurs Blanc (1994 Krzysztof Kieslowski & coscr)

Written again by Kieslowski and Krzysztof Piesiwicz with contributions from Agnieszka Holland, Edward Zebrowski and Edward Klosinski. This is a bizarre and funny revenge fable, peerlessly acted by Zbigniew Zamacowski (who amazingly didn't win any awards), Julie Delpy and Janusz Gajos. Not being able to read sign language, the very ending was somehow elusive but still moving. The fade to white is memorable.

"That's my wife."
Cut to - Brigitte Bardot Contempt poster.
"No, the wIndow next to it."

Composer Zbigniew Preisner is the constant, this has another cinematographer in the shape of co-writer Edward Klosinski and a different editor, Urszula Lesiak.

Nadine (1987 Robert Benton & scr)

Somewhat contrived 1950s set comedy thriller as Kim Basinger stumbles upon maps of real estate development and involves ex Jeff Bridges. There isn't much chemistry between them and the ensuing thrills are on the childish side. Quite enjoyable; short.

Rip Torn, Gwen Verdon, Glenne Headley.

Shot by Nestor Almendros, edited by Sam O'Steen, music by Howard Shore.

Silent Witness (2013)

Home. Michael Crompton.

We're back in Africa, South. Nikki is there identifying victims of a political execution, is being manipulated by boyfriend. Leo is involved in young torture victim who has been deported - gets drawn into sex trade. Best moments - Nikki meeting her former nanny, and no nonsense detective punching suspect in the face.

Silent Witness - Season 13 (2010)

Voids, concluding part.  Harry loses it with his Mum for having had an affair when married. 'Undercover' cop turns out to be a complete fantasist. Sue Tully directed.

Then Shadows, Part 1 is one of the most terrifying things we've seen so far,as Nikki and Harry are trapped in a classroom when a deranged student starts a killing spree. 'What's Harry doing?' we were shouting, expecting him to be dead at any minute. It's very exciting.

Dudi Appleton and Jim Keeble are the writers and Farren Blackburn directs with a sure hand.

For me, Part 2 was something of a let-down. Although the two-hander between Nikki and killer suspect Toby Wharton is engaging enough, it lies - he is not the cold-blooded killer at all, but someone who's just been traumatised by what his 'friend' has just done. Still, ends on Harry having another near miss...

Wunmi Mosaku's back. With Anna Chancellor, Phyllis Logan.

The Left Handed Gun (1958 Arthur Penn)

A version of the Billy the Kid story, adapted from a Gore Vidal play by Leslie Stevens. From the get go I didn't understand scenes and motivations. Why does William Bonney take it upon himself to avenge the murder of a cattle man he barely knows? Why is a house set alight? Why attack the soldiers with flour? And so on. It makes for a frustrating experience; in fact we didn't even finish it.

Paul Newman is OK giving a Methody performance. The antics of him and his two buddies are nothing short of childish. I didn't know anyone else in the cast, which includes Lita Milan, John Dehner (Pat Garrett), Hurd Hatfield (OK, I do know him), James Congdon, James Best.

Photographed by J Peverell Marley and edited by someone called Folmar Blangsted. The film was apparently taken out of Penn's hands by Warner Bros. and recut without him.

William Boyd referred to Bonney as 'a revolting scumbag of a human being'. Now his version I'd love to see...

A Half and a Half of Silent Witness (2010)

Sounds like some sort of order you'd give in a pub.

Thankfully, Harry and Nikki stop 'squabbling' (to use Leo's description) in Voids. We think John Lynch's daughter (Josephine Butler) killed her step-mother, and planted the evidence elsewhere, and she then commits suicide. Ed Whitmore's screenplay is somewhat opaque in that department.

Then we begin Andrew Holden's Run, directed by Sue Tully. DI John Bowe doesn't seem to give much of a shit about an unknown suicide, but it turns out she has been shot and may be connected to a case involving (possibly) an undercover copper, Alec Newman. His GF is a young Denise Gough - I didn't recognise her. Well blow my chimneys.

Tender Mercies (1983 Bruce Beresford)

Robert Duvall's Oscar (and Golden Globe) win; Horton Foote's screenplay won also (he adapted To Kill a Mocking Bird). It was Beresford's (and regular editor William Anderson's) first American film, and he compared the desolate community living in rural Texas as similar to that of the Australian outback. Beresford I should remind us directed A Good Man in Africa and Mister Johnson, as well as Driving Miss Daisy and Breaker Morant.

It's a very quiet (and thus you notice the really good sound design) film, almost European in its laid backness. Duvall sang all the songs and indeed wrote a couple of them himself in tale of singer's redemption. It's quietly moving.

Tess Harper is the saviour and Allan Hubbard rather good as her young son. Betty Buckley is Duvall's ex and Ellen Barkin their daughter, Wilford Brimley the manager; Norman Bennett is familiar to us from Terms of Endearment.

Russell Boyd photographed it evocatively. Chris Newman is the sound mixer, Maurice Schell is the supervising sound editor and our old friend Dick Vorisek supervised the rerecording.

2 ½ Silent Witnesses (2008/2010)

Season 12 ends in Zambia, Zaire, Zululand or somewhere. Robert Pugh's daughter had gone missing, Patrick Baladi knew Nikki from before, Kevin Doyle, Sian Webber and Nina Milner are religious hospital workers, John Kani a helpful local pathologist, Siyabonga Shibe a wronged suspect. Pugh and Baladi's accents quaver badly, and it's distracting. Finding Rachel was written by Martin Crompton and directed by Tim Fywell. Suspect runs away - again. Such a cliché.

You may get nice giraffes and all, but when you weigh that up against machetes, corruption, superstition, AIDS and no doubt a selection of poisonous snakes and insects, I'd rather stay at home. As such, it's not a particularly helpful film for the Zambian Tourist Board.

Season 13 kicks off with a story revolving around insurance fraud, written by Timothy Prager, Intent. It's directed by Udayan Prasad.

Features a very persistently annoying investigator Polly Frame, who we hope never to meet again, and Harry stupidly falls for obviously dodgy femme fatale Lucy Cohu (a somewhat unlikely character development). Wunmi Mosaku is a smart pathology assistant red herring. Nigel Lindsay investigates.

But Leo is seriously injured...

Then in a new screenplay by Ed Whitmore, Voids, a left wing writer supposedly finds his wife dead at the bottom of the stairs. Nikki and Harry both do autopsies and come out with completely different conclusions.

Three Secrets (1950 Robert Wise)

In Martin Rackin and Gina Kraus's story 'Rock Bottom', a five year old boy in a plane crash may be the son of one of three women who all gave up their babies for adoption. They are Eleanor Parker (The Voice of the Turtle, Caged, Detective Story, Between Two Worlds) -

- who's been jilted by a soldier in WWII, Patricia Neal (Hud, The Day the Earth Stood Still, The Breaking Point) -

- a workaholic journalist whose career always comes first, and Ruth Roman (Strangers on a Train) -

- a dancer who has been horribly rejected by her powerful boyfriend, and kills him. (Ted de Corsia is his minder.)

Of the three, Neal's is the best developed character, all told in watery flashbacks. It's good though; Wise knows his stuff from years editing and graduating to director under Val Lewton.

Photographed by Sid Hickox, good score from David Buttolph (The Enforcer, Till We Meet Again, This Gun for Hire). Warners.

Bollocks of 2026

It's sadly early to start this list (5 January) but unfortunately we have a contender already, Hunting Wives, some crap about a woman who finds herself in the gun packing heart of Texas Republicanism. The title indicates how crap it will be.

Can You Keep a Secret? Dawn French, Mark Heap 'comedy'.

The Lady. True story of Fergie's dresser-turned-murderer. Just wasn't engaging.

Silent Witness - Season 12 (2008)

We've done Muslims, now the series turns to Hassidic Jews. And Polish Nazis. Judgement was written by Christian Spurrier and directed by Diarmuid Lawrence. Fake accents are the order of the day, especially from 'Rabbi' Ron Cook.

Then The Lost Child kicks off with one dead boy and another missing. Nikki reconnects with a head teacher who was important to her when a teenager - he knows her rather too well, we thought. Is the title about her, or the missing person? Dudi Appleton co-wrote (with Jim Keeble) and directed.

Reece Dinsdale, Alan Williams.

The BAFTAs

Biggest surprise was Robert Aramayo not only winning Rising Star, but sweeping Best Actor from under the noses of Leo, Timothee Chalamet, Ethan Hawke, Michael Jordan and Jesse Plemons.

Sinners won Best Original Screenplay over I Swear, Marty Supreme, The Secret Agent and Sentimental Value. But PTA won for Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Director. He credited his AD Adam Somner who had been his assistant for 20 years and who died during the filming of One Battle After Another.

We were delighted that Jessie Buckley and Wunmi Mosaku won their acting categories.

Pushed into the 'awarded earlier' slot was now Best Cinematography - can you believe that? They'll cover Visual Effects but not Cinematography?? Michael Bauman won for One Battle. Editing went to Andy Jurgensen for the same film.

There was some controversy over the fact that in the audience was I Swear's real life protagonist John Davidson, who happened to unfortunately tick while Michael Jordan and Delroy Lino were presenting. If only this moment had been embraced by somebody - presenter Alan Cumming for example - it would have helped understanding of Tourette's instead of becoming yet another embarrassing moment for the BBC - 36 hours later, the ceremony has still been pulled from BBC iPlayer. (Cumming has in fact pre-warned the audience but that didn't make it to the edit - another unfortunate decision.)

Sherlock Holmes (2009 Guy Ritchie)

I think Guy Ritchie's incarnation of Sherlock Holmes to be the worst on film; and I think Sir Arthur would agree with me. Over-edited, over-CGIed film is fairly exhausting. Good people though - Downey, Jude Law, Mark Strong, Rachel McAdams, Eddie Marsan, Kelly Reilly, James Fox, Clive Russell. Robert Maillet is the French juggernaut.

Good music from Hans Zimmer and photography by Philippe Rousselot. The dockside blowing up is rather beautifully filmed.

Silent Witness - Season 12 (2008)

Terror.  Michael Crompton. Director Alex Pillai.

Police shooting in 'terrorist' house comes under investigation.

Best bit: Nikki taking part in armed simulation.

Shaun Dooley, Ciaran McMenamin (The Trench), Andrea Lowe, Gary Lewis.

The Fabelmans (2022 Steven Spielberg)

'What sort of film are you in the mood for next?' I asked Q. 'The Fabelmans,' she replied.

Spielberg wrote this autobiographical story - as much about his parents' relationship as anything - with Tony Kushner.

Best bits: tornado causing shopping trollies to cross the street; visit of uncle Judd Hirsch; finding his mother's secret in the edit; meeting John Ford (David Lynch) (and that funny camera move on last frame).

Gabriel LaBelle carries it well. With Michelle Williams, Paul Dano, Seth Rogan, Jeannie Berlin.

Usual team of Kaminski, Williams and Khan (with Sarah Broshar), production design Rick Carter (The Post, The BFG, Munich etc.)

Its 2 hours 25 runs past effortlessly.

Late Autumn / 秋日和 (1960 Yasujiro Ozu & co-scr)

How can you not love Ozu? He's the most lovely of filmmakers, with his small (yet immense) stories of families and relationships, presented in the most polite way in cinema. Aged only 57, this was one of his last films (he died in 1963- he went out as I came in).

And this is Jane Austen by Ozu! It is! Three elderly former college friends try to matchmake the daughter of a passed fourth and make a hash of it. Naturally the women involved are smarter.

The three men: Shin Saburi, Nobuo Nakamura and Ryuji Kita. And their observations about aging are great, and youth vs age, and the fact they keep lying to their wives and obviously all still fancy the widow.

The pipes!

Loved Yoko Tsukasa not being pushed around by her uncle; claiming not to want marriage for her mother's sake; becoming extremely sulky and petty when she thinks her mother is remarrying. Setsuko Hara is the wonderfully upbeat mother. And the way that friend Mariko Okada becomes so important to the story (she's absolutely delightful).

Keiji Sada is the fiance. (Loved his story about his tantrum with his mother who then died and how you shouldn't quarrel.) And Ozu's favourite actor Chisû Ryû, who appeared in 52 of his 54 films, also turns up.

All told through Ozu's precision square on set ups and low camera. And with its atypical music dividing up sections of the story it strangely makes you think of Woodv Allen.

The establishing shots showing Japan in 1960 alone are fascinating. I can even get excited by shots like this - no one in frame, just gently moving patterns of light on the walls:

Another humane, funny and acute study of human behaviour.

Photographed by Yuharu Atsuta (several other Ozu's including Tokyo Story).