Silent Witness - Season 24 double bill ((2021)

Did they film these in lockdown?

Prison episode brings back chaarcters from old story.

Jack has a niece. New pathologist appears

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)

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.

The Best Things in 2026

I Swear

Say Nothing.

The Inspector Lynley Mysteries.

One Battle After Another. Far fuckin' out, brother!

Bird (Andrea Arnold)

Le Notti de Cabiria

Materialists

Hamnet (and, come to that, Hamlet)

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.