Music and Lyrics (2007 Marc Lawrence & scr)

A daft film well summarised in my last jotting: "In the climax performance, Grant having managed to write the new song perfectly well all by himself, that fluttering sound you hear is the script flying out of the window." 

Mildred Pierce (1945 Michael Curtiz)

Fine film noir melodrama backed with great Max Steiner score (orchestrated by Friedhofer) and photographed with lots of lovely lighting detail by Ernie Haller.

Mildred really is a bitch - trying to frame Jack Carson for a murder she knows he didn't commit! She's also an idiot who doesn't realise her bitch cunt daughter is taking her for a ride.

The Yellow Rolls Royce (1964 Anthony Asquith)

A trio of sad Terence Rattigan stories about love.

The 1920s. (Or is it? My previous jotting contends that the car is a 1930 model.) Foreign office minister (whose idea of a hard day's work is to sign a document) buys his wife Jeanne Moreau said vehicle but bitchy Moira Lister reveals to him what we all know - she's having an affair with his assistant Edmund Purdom. He catches them at it in the car at Ascot.

The telephone is for speaking to the driver - you idiot!

With Roland Culver, Michael Hordern, Lance Percival.

The 1930s. (This I can be more sure about - we see the Dinner at Eight poster so must be post-1933). Gangster George C Scott buys car in Italy to use on vacation with moll Shirley MacLaine and his sidekick Art Carney. She falls for photographer Alain Delon, but Carney makes her see that if she doesn't leave him the consequences will be ghastly. This is the most effective episode, Carney particularly good and a really sympathetic character.

Then in the 1940s wealthy socialite Ingrid Bergman gets involved with Yugoslavian partisan Omar Sharif and helps him in their fight against the Germans. But he ends up sending her back to safety. A shame, really, as she's a sort of Nancy Wake type and could easily have stayed fighting alongside them. With Joyce Grenfell.

All splendidly photographed on location in widescreen by Jack Hildyard. MGM.