Trio (1950 Ken Annakin, Harold French)

Opens with Maugham telling us it's our fault there's a sequel as Quartet was popular!

James Hayter is "The Verger" who is let go (by Michael Hordern) because he can't read or write. ("What's he doing with a newspaper?" Q asks later.) Decides to marry Kathleen Harrison and make a go of it.

Nigel Patrick gives one of his frenetic performances as "Mr Know-All" who takes an overseas voyage with fellow passengers Wilfred Hyde White, Naunton Wayne and Anne Crawford. Despite his unpopularity he proves to be a man with heart.

R,C. Sheriff and Noel Langley join Maugham as screenwriters, though who wrote what isn't attributed. Similarly the camera duties of Reginal Dwyer and Geoffrey Unsworth aren't defined.

In the most personal episode, "Sanitorium" where Maugham himself was treated for TB, the great Roland Culver is admitted as a new patient. Fellow sufferers are Jean Simmons, Raymond Huntley (with visiting wife Betty Ann Davies), rivals John Laurie and Finlay Currie, shady past Michael Rennie and Marjorie Fielding and Mary Merrall (both rather unfairly uncredited). The doctor is André Morell. It's bittersweet and rather deeper than the other two - the best segment. This is the one French directed.

It was the ladies I didn't know so well. Anne Crawford was in a ton of movies I've never even heard of, as well as Millions Like Us, so it's not surprising we're not better acquainted. Betty Ann Davies though was in Kipps, It Only Rains on Sunday, The Passionate Friends, The History of Mr Polly, The Blue Lamp, Outcast of the Islands, and we've just seen her in Grand National Night. She sadly died young following appendicitis complications.

Encore (1951)

"The Ant and the Grasshopper". Adapted by T.E.B. Clarke, directed by Pat Jackson.

A pleasure to have Nigel Patrick and Roland Culver in the same episode playing brothers, one a dissolute wastrel, the other a serious hard worker. Patrick is great as he turns up to embarrass his brother becoming his club's door man, bartender, window cleaner etc.

"Winter Cruise" adapted by Arthur Macrae, directed by Anthony Pelissier.

A chattery woman, played by Kay Walsh (a splendidly atypical performance), starts to drive officers on cruise ship crazy: Noel Purcell, Ronald Squire (The Rocking Horse Winner) and John Laurie. They launch a French steward at her with somewhat bizarre results.

"Gigolo and Gigolette", adapted by Eric Ambler, Directed by Harold French.

Maugham introduces this story by saying it should be illegal for people to perform death-defying stunts to amuse a vacuous crowd. We agree. This kind of act emerged in the 1920s, I think. Glynis Johns is the high diver who's beginning to get the shakes. Her husband / boyfriend or whatever he is (Gigolo?) Terence Morgan doesn't seem to really care about her. Leads to a curiously unsatisfying (though scary) finale.

Overall, the lesser of the three films (and the last of the series). Photographed by Desmond Dickinson at Pinewood.

Mrs Harris Goes to Paris (2022 Anthony Fabian)

Only watched it a couple of years ago - see here - but a good one to end a Sunday Four (or Five, in my case).

Pictured: Leslie Manville, Ellen Thomas, Jason Isaacs, Freddie Fox, Jeremy Wheeler. Rose Williams in the wannabe actress who we probably recognise from Sanditon.

Much of Paris and London was actually filmed in Origo Studios in Budapest. The production designer Luciana Arrighi had actually been a Dior model in the 1960s so knew the world well. And Dior themselves were helpful in providing photos so that they could recreate the salon accurately. She has worked as a production designer since 1965, notably on the Merchant-Ivory films (she won an Oscar for Howard's End), also Sense and Sensibility.

The costumes (modelled here by Alba Baptista) were the work of Jenny Beavan, also Cruella, The King's Speech, Sherlock Holmes, Gosford Park, Sense and Sensibility, Remains of the Day, Howards End, Mountains of the Moon, A Room with a View.. in fact pretty much all of the Merchant-Ivory films.

Journey Into Fear (1943 Norman Foster)

Orson was directing The Magnificent Ambersons by day and acting in this at night - he's not too happy with his own performance which seems to him like a parody of a cynic. It is not true that he co-directed though he did co-write it with Jo Cotten, and 'planned' it, particularly with what he thought was a novel beginning - a pre-credits scene involving the assassin and his sticking record-player. (He later found out there'd been a pre-credit scene in Of Mice and Men.) He didn't like the way it turned out - felt the studio had cut out interesting performances, turned it into a B thriller, when  he described Eric Ambler's source material as 'antiheroic and antiaction'. (He also wrote the somewhat cerebral The Mask of Dimitrios.) I have to say that it is in a way a bit of a mess, but the Kafkaesque beginning and ship with all sorts of interesting types - murderers included - and the brilliant photography of Karl Struss do produce an engaging (though short) end result, with quite a few laughs.

With Dolores del Rio, Ruth Warrick, Agnes Moorehead, Jack Durant, Everett Sloane, Eustace Wyatt, Jack Moss good as killer.

My Sister's Keeper (2009 Nick Cassavetes & scr)

Jeremy Leven and the director adapted Jodi Picoult's novel. Nick has cast well / brought out the best acting in splendid cast: Cameron Diaz, Abigail Breslin, Sofia Vassilieva, Jason Patric, Alec Baldwin, Thomas Dekker, Evan Ellingson, David Thornton (sympathetic doctor), Joan Cusack. The narration from different characters works well, and the story begins and ends on a court case and has an unexpected love story in the middle. Very good story-telling.

Unfortunately Breslin's work since the 2013 August: Osage County has been patchy, Vassilieva's CV is similarly unsensational.

It's beautifully photographed by Caleb Deschanel and edited by Alan Heim (All That Jazz, Network) and Jim Flynn.

Of Cassavetes' career, he appears as an actor in not well rated things, made the delicious Unhook the Stars in 1996 followed by the horrible She's So Lovely, then followed with high rated John Q, The Notebook, Alpha Dog and then this, and unfortunately hasn't had a hit since. It seems like this film was a sort of unlucky charm...

Johnny Come Lately (1943 William K Howard)

Produced by Cagney's brother William (for United Artists), who was himself an actor briefly in the 1930s, then turned to producing several films, mainly starring his brother: The Strawberry Blonde, The Bride Came C.O.D., Captains of the Clouds, Yankee Doodle Dandy, Blood on the Sun, The Time of Your Life, Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye and A Lion Is In the Streets.

A quaint town is crawling with corruption and an old lady running a newspaper single-handed (Grace George) is the only one speaking against it. Cue arrival of tramp (angelic figure) Cagney to take her side and fight corrupt politician Edward McNamara and No. 2 Robert Barrat.

Fiercely protective maid Hattie McDaniel has a good part - she's fifth billed, above the bad guys, but below Marjorie Main, who's great as a nightclub owner, and love interest Marjorie Lord. Also involved: William Henry, George Cleveland (pissed newspaperman), Margaret Hamilton.

A slightly wimpy beginning with too much period music gives way to exciting, satisfying tale.

Photographed by Theodore Sparkuhl.

Made me want to watch other Marjorie Main pictures like Another Thin Man and Heaven Can Wait.

The Ox-Bow Incident (1942 William Wellman)

Had long been intrigued by this film - now we've been introduced, I find it very strong and good. Cattle folk Henry Fonda and Harry Morgan arrive back in town to hear of the death of one of them. Irregardless of the Mayor's wishes, the folk quickly assemble an illegal lynch mob to hunt down the perpetrators. And they are mainly a vile bunch, including Marc Lawrence, major Frank Conroy, sick joker Paul Hurst and one of the worst, tough Jane Darwell. Joining Fonda on the side of good, Harry Davenport and the major's son William Eythe.

The unfortunates they discover - Dana Andrews, Anthony Quinn and Francis Ford.

Loved the energy in early scenes, like Fonda and the painting. Also loved the moment he bumps into his ex Mary Beth Hughes, who's just married, and the way they look at each other but don't say anything.

The ending is memorably bleak and mature for a Hollywood film of this era. Written by Lamar Trotti from Walter Van Tilberg Clark novel. Well photographed by Arthur Miller on Fox sets. Wellman had long wanted to adapt the novel and eventually bought the rights to it himself. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the film flopped.

Strange framing

We Live In Time (2024 John Crowley)

Written by Nick Payne. In chronological disorder, Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield meet, love, suffer and have a daughter. The leads are as good as you'd expect, but somehow I didn't really engage with the material.

A Walk in the Sun (1945 Lewis Milestone & prod)

Based on a novel by Harry Brown, who neatly enough became a screenwriter and won an Oscar for his adaptation of A Place in the Sun. This is written by Robert Rossen and is apparently quite faithful to the source.

It's a tough, succinct and somehow poetic account of a WWII US Platoon's six mile trip to a farmhouse in Salerno, with quite limited battle scenes (a lot of the action is off-screen). Shot mainly on location (California plays Italy) with some studio stuff skilfully blended in. Milestone does that tracking shot thing familiar from All Quiet on the Western Front, but also favours long takes and two shots, whether with a fixed or tracking camera, particularly in dialogue with machine gunner Richard Conte and loader George Tyne. Dana Andrews is the sergeant who has to take over the platoon, from Matt Willis, who has a breakdown, and John Ireland is the letter-writer.

With Lloyd Bridges, Sterling Holloway,  Norman Lloyd, Herbert Rudley, Richard Benedict.

Has a good down-to-earth feel - how they complete the mission when they've run out of cigarettes... And good laconic dialogue, such as:

"You're a travelling salesman selling democracy to the natives."

"Did you ever go camping in  the woods?"
"What woods?"

and "Nobody dies."

Photographed by Russell Harlan.

Really good. And, you would have thought, a contender for one of Will's worthy war films.

Protection (2024 Kris Mrksa)

Begins with statistics. 3000 people are in witness protection and the officers who run the cases themselves have to have aliases. Their department has to be separate from any other police department.

Siobhan Finneran is assigned to a WP family that is wiped out by hit men, and her colleague (Barry Ward)  is also shot. But there's two problems with that. 1. He's not working on that case and shouldn't even know where the family is. 2. He is married but they are having an affair. The survivor, a little girl, knows something but is not telling and that puts her in danger from crime boss Alec Newman. So lots of good conflict.

And there's more conflict from investigating police Nadine Marshall and Katherine Kelly (Mr Bates vs the Post Office, The Long Shadow, Gentleman Jack). Chaneil Kular is her No. 2. Andrew Knott is a helpful DI, David Hayman is the father in deteriorating health and Jodie Price the daughter, Nichola Burley is the cheated-on wife.

Siobhan we know from as far back as Rita, Sue and Bob Too, her debut, in 1987. Then lots of TV, notably Clocking Off (2000-02), Boy A (2007), Downton Abbey (2010-12), The Syndicate (2013), feature film The Selfish Giant (2013), Cold Feet (2017-19), Happy Valley (2014-2023), Time (2021-23) and Alma's Not Normal (2021-24).

Mrksa is the creator but it's 'inspired' from an idea by Gary Madden, and there are co-writers in the shape of Polly Buckel and Giulia Sandler. A six-parter for ITV. Features an atypical score from the hard-working Dominick Scherrer.

Cold Feet - Seasons 6 - 9 (2017 - 2020 Mike Bullen)

Fourteen years later, and Adam has more hair - an item that is dealt with early on. Although he's about to get married to a woman in Singapore, Karen David, he's having trouble with his son Ceallach Spellman, who's having an existential crisis. Poor old Pete is suffering from depression, though is also a carer for feisty James Bolan. Karen is being romanced by Art Malik and David is in legal trouble, and ends up in prison. Then he ends up getting involved with Siobhan Finneran and her violent husband Robert Glenister.

So it's all very smoothly and believably been revived.

Also new are Pete and Jenny's kids Jack Harper and Madeleine Edmondson (not Adrian's daughter - that's Freya) and Karen's daughters Daisy Edgar-Jones and Ella Hunt. And Adam's landlady, Leanne Best. And, irregularly, Callum Woodhouse as Josh.

There are other writers here and there.

Paul Ritter is a rather grumpy publishing partner who reveals he's a romantic fiction writer. Ivanno Jeremiah is Jen's cancer buddy. Eve Myles briefly dates Adam, but he's in love with Karen. Gemma Jones is the new Karen's mum.

Great twist has Pete on jury service and the defendant is only the little girl that Adam and Rachel were going to adopt, played by Sacha Parkinson (though strangely her story then completely peters out). David's brief acquaintanceship with homelessness is dealt with well (he's rescued by both ex wives!)

A disastrous birthday party:

Four Days (1951 John Guillermin)

A dreadful film. Neglected housewife Kathleen Byron has affair with boss Hugh McDermott's employee Peter Reynolds. He finds out, she tries to kill him, he attempts suicide, the fall causes memory loss... but the memory returns. Thankfully it's only 55 minutes.

A true indie made by Vandyke Pictures, whoever they are,

The Fugitive (1947 John Ford)

Was John Ford religious? Though set in Mexico, this is essentially the story of Jesus, and Three Godfathers, made the following year, is a parable about the three wise men. He was Catholic though not a church-goer.

Based on a Graham Greene novel 'The Power and the Glory', it harks back to the anti-clerical rule in Mexico in the 1920s.

Henry Fonda is the last remaining priest in Mexico who finds he is unable to flee the country. There's a great scene where he is summoned to pronounce last rites on a dying man but has no wine, so heads to a dodgy hotel to get some, but the proprietors start drinking it. Then he's arrested for having brandy (alcohol is also illegal). Another great scene where soldiers are after him but he's fallen asleep outside the taverna and no one notices him.

It's actually very interesting and looks amazing thanks to Gabriel Figueroa, who trained under Gregg Toland and was also responsible for eminent Mexican films La Perla and Maria Candeleria, Bunuel's Nazarin, El, Simon of the Desert and Los Olvidados, and later for Under the Volcano, The Night of the Iguana, Kelly's Heroes and Two Mules for Sister Sarah.

With Dolores del Rio (Mexican star who made it big in Hollywood in the 1920s), Pedro Armendariz, J. Caroll Naish (the informer), Leo Carillo, Ward Bond, John Qualen.

Ford: "It came out the way I wanted it to - that's why it's one of my favourite pictures.. It wasn't popular...It had a lot of damn good photography, and we'd wait for the light - instead of the way it is nowadays where regardless of the light, you shoot."

Shots like this were making me think of de Cirico

Early talkies double bill: The Most Dangerous Game (1932 Irving Pichel, Ernest Schoedsack) / The Criminal Code (1930 Howard Hawks)

The Most Dangerous Game is significant because it anticipates King Kong the following year, in its exotic RKO studio jungle setting, its producer Merian C Cooper and composer Max Steiner, and its female star, Fay Wray. It's short. Hunter Joel McCrea becomes the prey of Leslie Banks.

David Selznick is executive producer.

One thing they could have made more explicit (it was pre-Code) is that when Banks goes over the balcony at the end he is then torn to bits by his dogs.

Considering it's even older, The Criminal Code is rather more interesting. DA Walter Huston sends young murderer Phillips Holmes to prison for 10 years, where he becomes ground down. Intense Boris Karloff, making an early impression, is a cell mate with a grudge. Then Huston becomes the prison warden - there's a great scene where the prisoners who all hate him sound out their protest, and he calmly walks among them smoking his ever-present cigar until they quieten - based on a true story. Lots of good moments, montages, long takes like kid learning his mother's died. Constance Cummings is the warden's daughter.

A Columbia picture, photographed by 'Teddy' Tetzlaff and 'James How', whose very underlit photography is in evidence. Andy Devine is an uncredited convict.

It was improved on Martin Flavin's play by Seton Miller and Fred Niblo.

The prison yard was an MGM set built for The Big House (1930).

This is the film Peter and Boris are watching in Targets.

Films of the Year 2025

Coup de Grace

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Adolescence

Grand National Night (1953 Bob McNaught)

Nigel Patrick - who I've come to admire in a variety of roles, such as fast-talking villain in Noose, rotten care home manager in Tales from the Crypt, Jingle in The Pickwick Papers and 'Mr Know-All' in Trio - was originally a respected stage actor. In WWII he achieved the rank of Lieutenant Colonel in the army, then returned to the stage and screen. His wife from 1951 Beatrice Campbell (until her death) co-starred with him in this as the sympathetic friend. Patrick himself survived her by two years but was working on TV the year he died - good for him.

Here he's a horse trainer with an entrant in the Grand National. but married to extremely horrible Moira Lister, who is carrying on with another man. She tries to stab him, they fight.... and then she disappears and we assume he has murdered her. This is pretty obviously based on a play, by Dorothy and Campbell Christie, adapted by the director and Val Valentine. It's full of people saying 'Only got Scotch' - 'That'll do' sort of thing and characters called Pinky, Babs and Buns. Also with Betty Ann Davies, Michael Hordern, Noel Purcell  (the big Irishman), Leslie Mitchell, Barry MacKay, Colin Gordon and Gibb McLaughlin (butler). It was photographed by Jack Asher and was an early editing assignment for Anne Coates, who pulls of a most interesting montage of a dreadful night-time car journey. She also loved horses so that aspect of the film must have been appealing to her.

So yes, quite watchable.

Moira Lister

Nigel Patrick and his wife Beatrice Campbell

Cold Feet - Season 5 (2003 Mike Bullen, Matt Greenhalgh)

Who? You know, Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool and Back to Black. And before that, Nowhere Boy and Control.

We put it on to cheer us up immediately after Adolescence and it was only the one where fucking Rachel gets hit by a truck! Cueing guest appearance from Jen from NYC (pregnant). At least Adam has reconciled with his dad, Ian McElhinney. David is seeing his divorce lawyer, Lucy Robinson.