Silent Witness - Season 24 double bill (2021)

Did they film these in lockdown? Let's ask Emilia Fox:

"We were a week away from filming Series 24 when lockdown happened so there was a massive amount of disappointment and sadness not to be starting filming. When we were allowed to start up again, we felt very grateful. Silent Witness has always had a great loyalty from crew and production, so it was a lovely feeling to be able to work and be back together again.

The story lines had to adapt as we were filming under Covid restrictions, the writers tackled this by containing us in certain locations, as we couldn’t do as much filming around London. This series feels more about the conversation, characters, and cases."

Redemption. Lena Rae. Prison episode brings back characters from old story, Shadows (the University shooting one). Kevin Doyle, Kevin Eldon, Elliott Tittensor reprising his role as the killer.

Bad Love. Susan Everett. Jack has a niece, who's deaf. New pathologist Adam appears, Jason Wong - he knows sign language. Convenient, eh? Jack Deam and Patrick Baladi are familiar faces.

The Heiress (1949 William Wyler & prod)

Henry James' novel Washington Square inspired a play by Ruth and Augustus Goetz, which they adapted well for the screen: it doesn't feel play-like.

Father doctor Ralph Richardson considers his daughter a disappointment; when she falls for good looking but poor Montgomery Clift he shuts it down. But she fights for him...

Olivia de Havilland's transformation from lovesick sap to hardened father's daughter is remarkable - she won the Oscar, as did Aaron Copland's score and the art direction and costume design.

Miriam Hopkins is fine as the giddy aunt under Wyler's strict direction. With Vanessa Brown as the faithful maid.

Wyler's love of deep focus isn't too in evidence in Leo Tover's photography. (Gregg Toland had died in 1948, aged only 44 - heart attack brought on by heavy drinking.) It was made at Paramount.

Guess how much a house is there now! Twenty mil! (That's nothing. There's town house in Fifth Avenue going for sixty million!)

Junior Bonner (1972 Sam Peckinpah)

Am I right in saying that in this Arizona set film featuring big crowd scenes I saw not one black face? It seemed like it. Which is quite shocking. Also weren’t a high proportion of the original cowboys black? I should pay more attention next time.

But yes, this is good. McQueen is the aging rodeo star whose dad Robert Preston is still riding too, and going from one money-making venture to another, well distanced from former wife Ida Lupino; brother Joe Don Baker is making millions in real estate. McQueen circles the family warily and knowingly in the first of his two collaborations with Peckinpah. Ben Johnson is the promoter.

And he partakes in a rodeo that's come to his home town, anxious to get the better of a particularly viscous bull. Peckinpah and editors Frank Santillo and Robert Wolfe and DP Lucien Ballard make the most of intercutting action with lots and lots of footage of spectators, and in using editing on zooms interestingly. The occasional split screen is not as successful (I don't think it's ever been used that well).

Has a sweet ending. Written by Jeb Rosebrook. It's not so much about the passing of the old west (rodeos are even now still a big thing) but what happens to the people as they age (The Wild Bunch and Guns in the Afternoon are about this too). And about the Individual, the Loner. We like him at once as he buys apples for his horse. Moment where he's threatened by a bulldozer is memorable.

I used to have a book about Sam Peckinpah, I think. There are so many now. I read that Ida Lupino found him living in a shack and gave him a job on her TV show; he repaid the favour by casting her here.

Researching McQueen somehow led me to John Ford's Hurricane, which Maltin rates ***1/2.

It bombed.

Silent Witness - Jack in Danger! (2020)

What do you expect - it's the season finale. Nerve gas is the bad guy and suspects drop like flies - including a friendly DS (Adelle Leonce), then Jack himself. But Martin Crompton's screenplay for The Greater Good hides even worse to come, one of those end of season shock deaths. Goodbye Richard Lintern, yea though fly his kite did he.

With William Ash (Burn It, Clocking Off), Clare Higgins, Ben Bailey Smith, Richard Durden (Jack's dad).

I found some of David Head's editing a bit questionable.

Silent Witness (2020)

A body is found in a concrete pillar - turns out to be connected to girl who is cryogenically frozen. Hope, by Lena Rae, is thus something of a tall story and quite difficult to follow. In parallel Clarisse is torn when her mum has cancer and she doesn't know what to do.

Jemma Redgrave gruffly investigates. Anastasie Hille is up to something.

Silent Witness - Season 23 double bill (2020)

Close to Home. Ed Whitmore. Young boy found in Hertfordshire - all the locals assume it's paedo Andre Flynn, but of course as anyone who's seen this show before knows it's never the obvious suspect (even though, true to form, he does try and run away). Robert Pugh his violent dad tries to protect him.

No it's not until well into part 2 we discover who it is. With Tom Goodman-Hill (Humans).

As soon as you see the name Tim Prager you know what you're about to watch is hard hitting and socially topical. Seven Times - directed by Kate Saxon - is no exception, dealing with domestic abuse against women. Artfully woven into this is Nikki's own past in which her own mother suffered the abuse; and accordingly she bonds with a young witness, who in the shattering final line says to Nikki 'Tell me it won't happen to me'.

In a neat sub-plot, Thomas is somehow involved in a men only club of cunts and is expected to try to help the reputation of a judge who's assaulted a young woman.

Michael Maloney is the judge. Garry Dobson as disabled detective adds tang. Slightly bonkers ending though lets it down - has the mother gone psycho?

Silent Witness - Season 23 (2020)

A private plane crashes. Is someone trying to encourage suicide? Deadhead was written by Graham Mitchell.

Crazy / Beautiful (2001 John Stockwell)

Privileged but mixed up kid Kirsten Dunst gets herself involved with straight and hard-working Latino Jay Hernandez. And that's it, really, but it's engaging and well done. Written by Phil Hay and Matt Manfredi.

Kirsten Dunst is good as the messed up kid (she would have been about 19). With Bruce Davison (dad), Taryn Manning (wild friend), Lucinda Jenney (step mom). 

Notes: Hernandez's mother isn't at all polite to Dunst. He pretty much abandons her at family party. She's lovely getting him his first flight. When she wants to have sex with him and her father's outside her window it's pretty gross.

Actually didn't mind the music soundtrack.

"That's your mother isn't it?"
"Yeah. She was in bed asleep, I thought. So I went downstairs and I stayed real quiet all afternoon so I wouldn't disturb her. And then I went back up and she was still lying there."

Shane Hurlbut photographed, Melissa Kent edited.

Silent Witness (2019)

Nikki's prognosis is challenged in court - turns out the evidence has been fiddled with - she's lost her heart. Betrayal was written by Michael Crompton and Virginia Gilbert.

Also a team of researchers are experimenting on themselves with perilous results. Clarissa tangles with pharmaceutical boss Art Malik.

And Dirvla Kirwan is having naughties with Thomas.

All Through the Night (1942 Vincent Sherman)

Made in the Autumn of 1941 and released after Pearl Harbor in the New Year. Minor criminal 'Gloves' Humphrey Bogart discovers filthy Nazis at work in Manhattan in this jocular crime drama, produced by Hal Wallis and featuring pre-Casablanca Conrad Veidt and Peter Lorre, who met his wife-to-be Kaaren Verne on the picture. (It didn't last.)

Bogart's buddies William Demarest and Frank McHugh provide laughs. It's a cracking cast, actually, also with Jane Darwell, Judith Anderson, Jackie Gleason, Phil Silvers, Barton MacLane and Edward Brophy. And Sam McDaniel.

Written by Leonard Spigelgass and Edwin Gilbert. Photographed by Sid Hickox. Music by Adolph Deutsch (actually born in London). Edited by Rudi Fehr (German-Jewish; in the USA from the mid-thirties, became head of post-production at Warner Bros in the fifties.)

Interesting though to hear Dachau being referenced so early on.

Bogie's fights are tough and difficult and awkward, which makes a nice change.

Abraham Orovitz wanted to be an actor and changed his name to Vincent Sherman. He won a few small roles in the thirties (acted alongside Richard Quine, funnily enough) then became a writer before moving up to director. He had affairs with Bette Davis, Joan Crawford and Rita Hayworth. Was greylisted in the fifties as a result of HUAC investigation, came back as a TV director. Other notable films: Mr Skeffington (interesting, considering its subject matter), Old Acquaintance.

Anzio (1968 Edward Dmytryk)

Opens with a terrible song - not the way to do a war film. Robert Mitchum is the war correspondent who finally has to pick up a gun, and decides that the reason for war is that 'men love killing'. I see.

Peter Falk is a crazy soldier. Robert Ryan, Arthur Kennedy, Reni Santoni (who would get stoned with Mitchum), Earl Holliman; didn't recognise Giancarlo Giannini.

The Italian (Dino de Laurentiis) production was a mess, with script changes being made up to and during filming. It was at least photographed by Giuseppe ('Peppino' ) Rotunno.

This Life (1996 Amy Jenkins)

Meet yuppie lawyers Jack Davenport, Amita Dhiri, Andrew Lincoln, Daniela Nardini and Jason Hughes.

Davenport alienates everyone by getting involved with druggie bulimic model Charlotte Bicknell; he can't see that she's vile.

Shot in that same verité style as Cops with the camera close on people's faces. Interesting style with the camera (not hand held, I thought - turns out it was) whipping to and fro to actors' faces, or cutting energetically between shots / takes (more than one camera rolling?)

With Luisa Bradshaw-White (Hughes' bubbly cousin), Paul Copley (Lincoln's dad), David Mallinson (senior solicitor), Steve John Shepherd (clerk), Ramon Tikaram, Mark Lewis Jones.

Hamnet (2025 Chloe Zhao & co-scr)

Written with Maggie O'Farrell, based on her novel. And an interesting change of pace for Zhao, whose previous two films were very naturalistic; a departure also in that she's no longer (working) with her DP/ partner Joshua James Richards. This is shot in the lowest light imaginable by Lukasz Zal, who we know from Pawel Pawlikowski's Cold War and Ida, and The Zone of Interest. (Interestingly he wasn't nominated for any awards for this - perhaps it was too dark. Weirdly the clips shown in the production video look sharper than in the film itself.)

Max Richter provides the score (L'Amica Geniale, Taboo, Miss Sloane, The Lunchbox). Beautifully designed by Fiona Cromble. Edited by Zhao and Affonso Goncalves

Looking at the production video is was indeed a happy set, with actors dancing between emotional scenes, Zhao acting as stand-in mother to young cast - Bodhi Rae Breathnach, Olivia Lynes and Jacobi Jupe - who's amazing. As is Jessie Buckley, who found under Zhao's direction she was capable of even more than she thought possible - and won all the awards.

With Paul Mescal, Emily Mortimer, David Wilmot, Joe Alwyn, Noah Jupe (Hamlet, brother of Jacobi).

"The rest is silence."

My Cousin Vinny (1992 Jonathan Lynn)

The Yes Minister writer didn't write this one - that was Dale Launer, who sets up Ralph Macchio and Mitchell Whitfield for murder in Georgia, and get novice attorney Joe Pesci to defend them... with the invaluable support of Marisa Tomei, who won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar. (She beat Judy Davis in Husbands and Wives, Joan Plowright in Enchanted April, Vanessa Redgrave in Howard's End and Miranda Richardson in Damage.)

Courtroom scenes where Pesci comes into his own, winning appreciation of Judge Fred Gwynne, are the most fun.

With Austin Pendleton, Lane Smith. Bruce McGill, Maury Chaykin.

Photographed by Peter Deming and edited by Lou's son Tony Lombardo.

"Do you two know each other?"

Silent Witness (2019)

An Irishman's wife is blown up in a car bomb. He reacts suspiciously, either like he knows someone is after him, or he did it himself. Whilst the Troubles are at the heart of it, the murderer is not who you expect. (In fact I've forgotten who it was now already.) It all brings up the past of young Jack in Belfast.

The man Ian McElhinney gets his son Josef Davies involved - what a bastard!

Sean Campion (chauffeur), Richard Durden, Silas Carson, Gary Lilburn. Ray Fearon investigates.

It's called Deathmaker and Marteinn Thorisson wrote it. Directed by Bill's daughter Mary Nighy.

Silent Witness (2019)

To Brighton, To Brighton. Involving the discovery of highly decorated Japanese tattooed body parts in said coastal town. Whilst we seem to be presented with the culprit from the off, the explanation is of course much more complex. Michael Crompton is the writer. 

There's a subplot about children as Nikki thinks she might be pregnant.

Made me wonder whether 'The Colourful Corpse' has ever been used as a title (book or film). Amazingly, it seems not.

Head finally reunited with body

Storyline involving man tied up in boat as somewhat over-stretched.

The Mystery of Natalie Wood (2004 Peter Bogdanovich)

A strange hybrid, based on two biographical books, peppered with talking heads of friends, photos and film clips, but largely a dramatized TV movie, not very well written by Elizabeth Egloff, but with Peter getting the most out of his actors and material.

Natalie is played by Justine Waddell -

- and by Elizabeth Rice (Mad Men) as a teenager -

- and Grace Fulton as a kid. Here she is with the villain of the piece, her mother (Alice Krige) -

According to Lana Wood's biography 'Little Sister' the star who raped her was Kirk Douglas. She also thought her death mysterious.

Likely there's still some Wood back catalogue worth exploring, for example Love With the Proper Stranger (1963 Steve McQueen), The Star (1952 Bette Davis), The Blue Veil (1951 Jane Wyman), The Jackpot (1950 James Stewart), No Sad Songs For Me (1950 Margaret Sullavan) and Driftwood (1947 Walter Brennan).

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. 

Death Has No Dominion. Ed Whitmore. 'The wraith'!

And Then I Fell In Love. Timothy Prager. Young girls being groomed. Season 15 finale - Harry's last appearance in one of the toughest to watch.

Then lost its edge a bit, Harry sorely missed.

Perks up from Season 20. Awakening. Dudi Appleton & Jim Keeble. Nikki buried alive in Mexico. 

One Day, Timothy Prager. Abuse in care home. 

Family. Michael Crompton. The Christmas Special! 

Lift Up Your Hearts. Tim Prager again - drug dealing to school kids.

The Other Bennet Sister (2026)

Based on a novel by Janice Hadlow (a good idea), adapted mainly by Sarah Quintrell (and Maddie Dai), directed by Jennifer Sheridan and Asim Abbasi. Am I enjoying 10 x 30 for BBC? I'm not sure really. I find Ella Broccoli too dithery, says 'er' too much. Her name's not that really, it's Ella Bruccoleri. I find her suitors somehow annoying. And it has this triumvirate of horrible characters: 1. Her mum (Ruth Jones). 2. One of her sisters and 3. Caroline Bingley, Tanya Reynolds.

Indira Varma, Laurie Davidson, Richard Coyle, Donal Finn, Maddie Close, Poppy Gilbert, Grace Hogg-Robinson (who we've just seen in Silent Witness), Ryan Sampson (of course, from Mr Bigstuff), Richard E Grant.

Does have the requisite Austen happy ending, so that's something.

Silent Witness Season 22 (2019)

Two Spirits. Graham Mitchell. Someone is killing people connected with a transgender centre - is it cross dressing soldier Andrew Knott? It seems unlikely, where's the motivation? But then who is it?

Johann Myers is good as a dodgy detective who tries to turn his own cock up back on Thomas, who considers resigning. Naturally the teams pulls together and finds a kidnapped victim before solving the case.

Then we feel the Timothy Prager social realism effect again in the hard-hitting Lift Up Your Hearts, which concerns drug dealing to school kids. Prager has created a great inspirational head teacher, played by Colin Salmon, but he cannot protect his girl from being overdosed to death with the smallest amount of fentanyl. And her BF runs in the gang responsible, setting up great conflicts. Good use of the school choir spirituals over key scenes.

Samantha Womak is a frisky DI with her eye on Jack: when she tries kissing him on the job, he's outraged; then she threatens him with sexual misconduct; then he's stabbed! Nice writing. Dan Li is a particularly unempathic officer.

Michael Ajao, Jo Martin (mother), Shalisha James-Davis (daughter), Radoslaw Kaim (dealer), Hara Yannas (addict), India Brown (her daughter), Uriel Emil (drug importer), Tuwaine Barrett (almost likeable dealer; Hard Truths), Alhaji Fofana (son). Directed by Thaddeus O'Sullivan.

Silent Witness season finale (2018)

Family. Michael Crompton, director Colin Teague. First broadcast in February 2018 - they should have brought it forward as a Christmas Special.. which it definitely is. It's Christmas Day, no less, and the team are summoned to an ultra-modern house populated by dead bodies. And it's partly how their own lives are disrupted and reflected in this tale of a family gone mad. It's also unique in that the gang are all miked up and live streamed, so there's a very cinema verité angle to the opening, a tense scene interrupted by an unidentified shooter and an injured girl (and horse).

Stukie's back, and he's up to something. Also with Natasha Little, Grace Hogg-Robinson, Steve Evets.

Stukie talking them through what might have happened

Photographed by Jan-Richter Friis, edited by Mark Thornton.

Materialists (Celine Song & scr, prod)

We know that NYC matchmaker Dakota Johnson's view of perfect couples is all wrong but it takes the whole film to catch on she should be with Chris Evans - he's better looking than Pedro Pascal too.

Song directs with formality and isn't afraid to leave characters in long takes and medium shot. She takes great care with scenes too - for example the wedding dance the couple find themselves in the middle of, and that tree behind Evans' head at the end.

We thought it was great, didn't even realise Song (Past Lives) had another film out and funnily enough, I was thinking this reminded me in tone of Lost in Translation, something that applied to the earlier film too.

With Zoe Winters, Marin Ireland, Dasha Nevrasova, Emmy Wheeler, Louisa Jacobson, Eddie Cahill, Sawyer Spielberg (son of). DP Shabier Kirchmer, editor Keith Fraase return from the previous film. Daniel Pemberton's score has a nice way of keeping it going.

I like the way Johnson's handled her career, no doubt supported by her mum and dad Melanie Griffiths and Don Johnson.

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1945 Elia Kazan)

Some of Leon Shamroy's lighting of rain patterns on Dorothy Maguire almost foreshadows Conrad Hall's in In Cold Blood.

Expert direction of actors - you sense he's been allowed time to rehearse with them - lots of long takes, but Dorothy Spencer knows how to cut it together too.

See here for more considered jottings.

No Hard Feelings (2023 Gene Stupnitsky & co-scr)

To get a car, Jennifer Lawrence agrees to date 19 year old Andrew Barth Feldman and 'make a man' of him - she starts out by coming over far too strong. Then the inevitable happens.

Scene where Lawrence mounts stairs in roller skates is so stupid I almost puked. Highlight: stark naked Lawrence beating up kids who've stolen their clothes.

With Laura Benanti, Matthew Broderick, Natalie Morales (The Morning Show), Scott MacArthur.

生きる / Ikiru / To Live (1952 Akira Kurosawa & co-scr)

Takashi Shimura is absolutely wonderful as Mr Watanabe, 'the mummy' who has drowned in bureaucracy but slowly wakes up to life when he learns he's dying. He's assisted by a cheap novelist Yunosuke Ito and a young free-spirited girl, Miki Odagiri. But even she gets bored with his company. There's a great scene where he confesses his illness to the girl while contradictory happy music plays to accompany a birthday party behind them. And he tries to tell his son and daughter in law what's going on but they just think he's having an affair with the girl.

He dies, and in an increasingly drunken wake, his colleagues begin to realise why he so pushed for the development of a playground, and all promise to behave more humanely.. naturally, the following morning, all is forgotten. Great flashback where Watanabe will not be pushed around by gangster because he has nothing to lose. So it's as much a critique of bureaucracy as a lesson in appreciating life.

Photographed by Asakazu Nakai.

Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994 Mike Newell)

It is unfortunate that the key scene where Kristin Scott Thomas reveals to Hugh Grant she loves him is very slightly out of focus - I imagine they thought the take was so good they'd just go with it. Michael Coulter's the DP, Chris Plevin's the focus puller.

Not this one...

...this one.

The vicar's line before the wedding - "Ready to face the enemy?" - is funny because it's so wrong.

Defending Your Life (1991 Albert Brooks & scr)

Although the food arrives instantly, and is as good as you've ever eaten, it does seem somewhat bizarre (omelette served with strawberries, roast chicken with multicoloured pasta, carrots and peas).

Michael Grillo is the producer and first AD, a useful fellow, worked extensively with Laurence Kasdan.

Zulu (1964 Cy Endfield & co-scr)

Enjoyable recreation of battle at Rourke's Drift, 1863, filmed in Natal by Stephen Dade almost entirely in deep focus (a good idea). This is by far the best known of his films. The widescreen suits the material well.

Stanley Baker and Michael Caine are the officers, Nigel Greene good as sergeant. With Jack Hawkins, Ulla Jacobsson, James Booth, Ivor Emmanuel, Paul Daneman, Patrick Magee. Richard Burton narrates. Kept thinking I saw James Fox - didn't. Couldn't help but feel the Zulu warriors weren't presented as well as they might be. Best moments are the huge vocal sounds of the Zulu army.

Just because the women are African, the British censor allowed topless female nudity, which seems bizarre indeed.

John Barry wrote the score and John Jympson edited. 

Tomorrow Is Forever (1946 Irving Pichel)

 We thought Welles could have looked worse, scars for example.

Claudette Colbert, Orson Welles, George Brent, Natalie Wood (her debut), Ian Wolfe, Lucile Watson, Richard Long (also the Stranger, Dark Mirror, Criss Cross).

It's... y'know -

Silent Witness (2018)

A woman loses it behind the wheel, crashes and dies. Her son is in a care home, where awful things are going on. In parallel a dead dementia patient is found to have been overdosed, and there's (eventually) a link to the care home. One Day was written by Tim Prager (he did the social work episode Protection as well, the grooming one And Then I Fell in Love, Safe, gang violence in Brixton, and Identity, immigrant crisis) and it's another disturbing one, buoyed by excellent performances from Toby Sams-Friedman and Rosie Jones, and from Charlie Creed-Miles and Sara Powell. A lyrical moment at the Great Conservatory at Syon House turns sour when police marksmen get involved.

Prager said in interview that one of the reasons he loves writing is because he can share important social issues with a wider audience.