Sunday, 10 May 2026
Saturday, 9 May 2026
Thursday, 7 May 2026
Silent Witness - Season 26, cont. (2023)
A van containing dead and half-alive people is found in Kent - some of them, it turns out, are immigrants being smuggled out. But the others? Rebecca Wojciechowski's screenplay for Familiar Faces - also involving drug gangs and missing teenagers - isn't I'm afraid very exciting.
Of more interest is another contribution from Jim & Dudi - Star (this time directed by Bindu De Stoppani) which looks at the music scene and the malign workings of an 'e-pimp' for social media influencers.
Velvy is working through his own shit - a wife and child he left behind in the orthodox community.
Hannah Rae plays both 'Star' and her sister in a neat twist but overall I wasn't too impressed with this one either - too much of the 'running away' stuff and a somewhat unbelievable murder. It was Bindu's idea, apparently.
The three faces of Hannah:
Wednesday, 6 May 2026
Silent Witness 26 (2023)
When you see that the season opener The Penitent is written by Dudi Appleton and Jim Keeble, with Dudi directing, you're on fairly safe ground it's going to be a good one. And it is, with the 'Ndrangheta's tentacles being felt everywhere and everyone and their families threatened.
Nikki is being forced into finding one of their number in witness protection and kill him. We think she'll come up with a plan to make it seem like this has happened, but in the end, doesn't get the chance to go through with it.
Great moment where she enters Jack's (new) house and a menacing man appears over her with a hammer - it's a Hitchcockian moment - but he's the contractor... or is he? Sense of menace not helped by fast flash-forwards of Nikki seeing Jack being killed.
The denouement is really clever and totally unexpected.
Felt there were film references - scene in church and hospital felt like The Godfather, Q noticed tin can in pig likely a Jaws reference, others..
Whilst all this is going on we're introduced to lapsed Orthodox Jew Alastair Michael and brusque data-obsessed pathologist Aki Omoshaybi. And opens opportunities for some humour to come out, something the series has lately been sorely lacking in.
With William Willoughby, Sophia Myles, Matteo Carlomagno, Issy Knopfler (daughter of Mark).
Silent Witness 25: History (2022)
An ambitious six part story, linked by former pathologist Sam (Amanda Burton) and what's going on now with her and her husband's medical data company (Hugh Quarshie). The Health Minister is shot and killed by a long range assassin but was she the real target? It turns out that Nikki's former husband Matthew Gravelle is involved, causing her to withhold evidence from the police. (Did we know Nikki had been married, albeit briefly?) The opening two are by Ed Whitmore.
She and Jack are at least having some kind of a relationship, and she's there when his father dies in Ireland.
Into the main story are smaller ones: a woman claiming to have killed her husband (Christine Bottomly, writer Caroline Carver) - Duncan Preston is the old-school investigating officer and Simone's missing sister is a sub-plot; a burned body connected to a farm (writer Phil Mulryne). Jemma Redgrave rudely investigates again, Clive Russell and Mark Frost (Unforgotten, The Long Shadow) are familiar looking suspects.
Then we go back to the main story for the last two episodes - I feel this is maybe rather unwieldy storytelling, written by Alyn Farrow and Katerina Watson. Of course Sam isn't a bad guy! Of course the Chinese have a dodgy involvement! And of course it's all down to a corrupt Government official as usual! Security of personal data is a hammered home theme.
Ian Puleston-Davies is the (typically) belligerent DSU who finds out too late he should have been looking out for his No. 2 Shireen Farkhoy.
Monday, 4 May 2026
The Odd Couple (1968 Gene Saks)
The Odd Couple TV series ran from 1970-75 and starred Tony Randall as Felix and Jack Klugman as Oscar:
The first season at any rate was shot on the same set as the movie.
Living (2022 Oliver Hermanus)
A more concise retelling of Kurosawa's famous 1952 original (by Kazuo Ishiguro) is a perfect vehicle for Bill Nighy.
Helen Scott's production design and sets gorgeously photographed by Jamie Ramsay in the unusual aspect ratio of 1.5:1.
The Bad News Bears (1976 Michael Ritchie)
Discussed elsewhere, the behaviour of the kids, and their grossly inappropriate language, is great fun. Matthau loved working with them, would hang out with them between takes and tell them raunchy jokes; thus he was one of them, not the star.
The Bears: Chris Barnes, Erin Blunt, Gary Lee Cavagnaro, Jaime Escobedo, Scott Firestone, George Gonzales, Jackie Earle Haley, Alfred Lutter, Brett Marx, David Pollock, Quinn Smith and Tatum O'Neal.
Music: Bizet's Carmen. On camera: John A Alonzo (I fear our print to be a shade darker than he would have liked).
I first saw it on December 27th 1977, gave it 7/10 and particularly rated Matthau, O'Neal and Alonzo. Tatum thought she was the big star but her performance had to be cajoled out of her.
The Three Burials of Mesquiades Estrada (2005 Tommy Lee Jones)
Written by Guillermo Arriaga, and thus not presented in a strictly linear manner. However it becomes clear that Jones' Mexican buddy Julio Cesar Cedillo has been killed, by border control officer Barry Pepper - it's a revenge tale as Jones kidnaps the cop and forces him to accompany him and the corpse into Mexico to bury him in his home town.
As soon as we meet Pepper he punches a fleeing Mexican woman hard in the face - I was hoping something bad would happen to him in return and pleasingly, it does, for much of the film. He also had a dreadful attitude to his wife January Jones.
It's quite amusing, had me in mind of both The Good the Bad and the Ugly and Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia. Good make-up of the corpse.
Beautifully filmed by Chris Menges. Edited by Roberto Silvi.
With Dwight Yoakam, Melissa Leo, Levon Helm (blind man), Mel Rodriguez.
I'd long wanted to see this - now I have.
Sunday, 3 May 2026
The Duchess of Duke Street (1976 John Hawkesworth)
Producer Hawkesworth brings his Upstairs Downstairs sensibilities (and filming style) to the BBC, as chef Gemma Jones defies the upper classes for her shot in early twentieth century London.
We seem to have missed the beginning (only the opening episode thankfully) and find herself already having made a good impression with a Major, Michael Culver (Roland's son) and Lord Bryan Coleman, but is pressed into marrying butler Donald Burton so she can be mistressed out to the Prince of Wales, Roger Hammond. That I find a bit much.
Familiar faces in June Brown, John Raply, Doreen Mantle, John Welsh, David Cater, Robert Hardy, Christopher Cazenove, Richard Vernon.
She later starts a hotel, despite her husband trying to ruin her; has a baby, exposes fraudsters and adulterers. Entertaining series.
There's also something insanely catchy about Alexander Faris's theme tune.
Silent Witness - wrapping up Season 24 (2021)
In Brother's Keeper (Marteinn Thorisson) you begin to wonder whether Paulette Randall has ever directed actors before, in badly staged and acted story involving underground boxing, which seems fairly unbelievable - the distancing effect of Covid is quite clearly felt here. Lorraine Ashbourne holds her own. Simone (Genesis Lynea) is the new pathologist. And it's her GF who's investigating, Danielle Henry.
Then for the finale, Matters of Life and Death, written by Martin Crompton (someone heard me and commissioned one of the seasoned SW writers, who also did the last finale), a murder is discovered in Nikki's pathology class - a good start. Then looks at relationships. Simone gets Jack a date. Nikki most unwisely has a relationship with a student. (What was she thinking?) Then Nikki kisses Jack... but then he hears she's had the affair and goes all bitter.. There's even a rather sweet relationship between Jack and care home resident Sian Phillips.
Good cast: Nicholas Woodeson, India Eva Rae, Steven Wight returning as the DS. And lots of rain.
Little Fugitive (1953 Ray Ashely, Morris Engel, Ruth Orkin & scr)
Richie Andrusco is the seven year old who - believing he has shot his brother Richard Brewster - wanders off on his own to Coney Island,
I wondered if the camera was hidden, or they just get away with a lot because it's always pointing down, at small boy height. Engel is credited as cameraman: it was carried at waist height and you looked down into the viewfinder. Orkin (Engels' wife) edited with Lester Troob. Eddy Manson's score uses the harmonica imaginatively. It was apparently shot silent.
Allegedly an influence of the French New Wave. However it's not referred to in my de Baecque and Toubiana Truffaut biography, not the director's own 'Films of My Life' nor in the pages of the collected Cahiers du Cinéma Vol.1. But I find this quotation on TCM, authored by Sean Axmaker in 2009, ""Our New Wave would never have come into being if it hadn't been for the young American Morris Engel, who showed us the way to independent production with his fine movie, Little Fugitive" - Francois Truffaut - though no source is given. I'll have to investigate.
Following it's success they also ma de Lovers and Lollipops (1956), Weddings and Babies (1958) and I Need A Ride to California, filmed in 1968, completed in 1972 but somehow not shown publicly until 2019.
It's very good. Won the Silver Lion at the Venice Film Festival and was Oscar nominated. I'd never heard of it before.
Frank Borzage biography
By Janet Bergstrom, Professor at UCLA.
Frank Borzage (pronounced borZAYgee) was born on April 23, 1894 in Salt Lake City, Utah to Italian-Austrian and Swiss immigrant parents, the fourth of fourteen children (six died in early childhood). He died in Los Angeles on June 19, 1962 at the age of 68. Between 1915 and 1959, he directed over 100 films. Stagestruck as a boy watching a local company perform, Borzage worked in the mines for a few months to get money for drama school, then struck out on his own, acting with travelling players around the west between stretches of miserable poverty In Los Angeles around 1911, he found work as an extra at Universal. Then, unexpectedly, Thomas Ince made him a leading man in fast-made two-reelers. In 1915 Borzage began acting for the American Film Company (The Flying A) in Santa Barbara, soon moving into directing short westerns as well. By the end of 1917, when he turned fully to directing, he had appeared in nearly 100 films and directed 21. Later on, his brother Lew became his assistant director from at least 1919 to the end. Family members appear in bit parts. His brother Danny became an indispensable member of John Ford's stock company, setting the mood with his accordion.
In 1925 when Borzage came to Fox from MGM, the Los Angeles Times noted that he had made 'some of the finest pictures ever filmed’, ranging from Humoresque (1920) to Norma Talmadge's The Lady (1925) and Secrets (1924). Lazybones (1925), his first film for Fox, scripted by Frances Marion, featured western star Buck Jones cast against type in a delicate small-town melodrama, playing the kind of soulful, introspective character the director would become known for. Lazybones still plays wonderfully, especially Jones' understated portrayal of deep, unspoken emotions. Borzage's next five films for Fox are inaccessible or presumed lost.
Then came 7th Heaven (1927), the film that launched Borzage's reputation as a world-class director. His visual style had changed markedly, showing the influence of famed German import F.W. Murnau, whose production of Sunrise for William Fox dominated the studio from the fall of 1926 through the beginning of 1927. 7th Heaven was scheduled before Sunrise, but was postponed until after Murnau finished shooting: both films starred Janet Gaynor. Everyone at Fox watched as Murnau worked with his technical people - architect/art director Rochus Gliese, cinematographers Charles Rosher and Karl Struss - merging set design, camera work and acting to find unique solutions for artistic ends scene by scene. William Fox allowed his best directors — Borzage, John Ford, Raoul Walsh, Howard Hawks — to follow the dark, moody undercurrent of the German expressionist heritage, strong on atmosphere and heightened technical and artistic ambition. Borzage and his technical team - art director Harry Oliver and cinematographer Ernest Palmer — filtered these ideas through their own to create some of the most memorable films of the late 1920s: 7th Heaven, Street Angel (1928), The River (1929) and Lucky Star (1929; Oliver without Palmer, but a similar look).
The upheaval caused by the 'tidal wave' toward talking pictures affected The River and Lucky Star. Both were planned as silent films with Movietone music and effects soundtracks. But by 1929 'talking' seemed essential for financial success. The last reel of The River and half of Lucky Star were re-shot with dialogue written by Broadway experts, recorded by Movietone experts. For Lucky Star, Borzage persevered to manage his dialogue sections. The only prints known to survive are the silent versions (The River is incomplete), which were intended for US theaters not yet equipped for sound projection and for foreign distribution.
Handsome, soft-spoken and warm, Frank Borzage seemed like the melancholy, introspective protagonists he excelled in portraying. Some of the unforgettable films in his later career include Man's Castle (1933), Desire (1936), History is Made at Night (1937), Three Comrades (1938), The Mortal Storm (1940) and Moonrise (1948). Film historian John Belton termed Borzage the poet of the working class, rightly emphasizing the director's fidelity to his origins as well as an irreducible aspect of his best films in which a private unshakable bond takes hold of two people, an unstated, almost other-worldly romanticism that transcends their physical circumstances. A phrase from an inter-title in Street Angel evokes that intensity: 'souls made great by love and adversity'.
Copy taken from the BFI's ‘Frank Borzage Volume 1’ DVD booklet.
Also in the Jottings: A Farewell to Arms (1932), The Shining Hour (1938), Strange Cargo (1940).
Street Angel (1928 Frank Borzage)
Perhaps not quite in the same league as 7th Heaven but another strong slice of romantic drama from Borzage again teaming Janet Gaynor with Charles Farrell. Set in Napoli it has a seriously gripping beginning in which Angela needs money for her mum's prescription, clumsily attempts to solicit a man, steals and is immediately caught and sent to prison, makes a plucky escape, finds her mum dead, and then is protected by a travelling circus who hide her from the police in the drum that has been damaged in scene one! Phew!
And then she meets artist Farrell.
Has great moments like the policeman who will allow Gaynor one last hour with him. or the prostitute who tries to seduce him, and the very powerful ending where the lovers reunite and he tries to kill her...
Gaynor is brilliant again. Her last appearance was in The Love Boat in 1981! Other notable films: The Young in Heart, A Star Is Born (the original) and Lucky Star, another Borzage-Farrell collaboration from 1929.
All glowingly shot by Ernest Palmer again, with Paul Ivano, impressive sets by Harry Oliver.
It's pronounced 'borZAYgee'.
Saturday, 2 May 2026
The Best Things in 2026
Say Nothing.
The Inspector Lynley Mysteries.
One Battle After Another. Far fuckin' out, brother!
Bird (Andrea Arnold)
Hamnet (and, come to that, Hamlet)
7th Heaven
To Kill a Mockingbird (1962 Robert Mulligan)
There's one thing that I will declare - this film wouldn't be as good without Elmer Bernstein's brilliant score. Also I noticed future Clint Eastwood collaborator Henry Bumstead is the art director.
Gregory Peck was apparently in real life just like Atticus.
Who, by the way, seems to have a good relationship with his neighbour Maudie (Rosemary Murphy), who seems also to be single. They'd make a good couple.
Two Weeks in Another Town (1962 Vincente Minnelli)
Having just stayed in the Via Veneto is was most timely to enjoy this as it was partly filmed in and around the Hotel Excelsior; and also in Trastevere and the Spanish Steps.
Most enjoyable, overheated melodrama though we can't see what Kirk Douglas ever saw in Cyd Charisse - she's awful.
Irwin Shaw novel adapted by Charles Schnee; also The Bad and the Beautiful, Red River, They Live By Night. Photographed by Milton Krasner in CinemaScope.
