Silent Witness - Season 11 (2007)

Hippocratic Oath, Tony McHale. Director Diarmuid Lawrence.

In a stunning beginning, a lorry ploughs into a hearse - the coffin is ejected and two bodies fall out. And it's not long before we're in the company of innovative child surgeon Natasha Little, and the strange machinations at her hospital. It's a crafty and sinewy tale which puts Nikki in danger of being clonked.

One thing that pissed us off is Leo leaves Harry by Nikki's hospital bedside saying 'look after her' (a hospital whose staff are offended at being investigated), and the next thing Harry's over at Little's place having spaghetti bolognese! What the fuck?? (Something was edited out of the script?)

Another good one: Double Dare. Two ghosts from Nikki's past. One is a child murderer she defended four years ago is killed, horribly, by knife wound and a burning car. And her shiftless, lying father comes back on the scene and puts her through the wringer. She begins to doubt her first summation was correct. Then some long dead bodies are discovered. Nice twists here.

Hugo Speer, Nick Court, Cara Horgan, Danny Midwinter (the unpleasant DS).

A Tale of Two Cities (1935 Jack Conway)

Dickens given the MGM Hollywood treatment doesn't compare to the two David Lean classic adaptations of the forties; the adaptation is by W.R. Lipscomb and S.N. Berhman. To be fair it doesn't quite have the same emotions and complications as the other two, and Selznick himself, when comparing it to his earlier adaptation of David Copperfield, felt it didn't have anywhere near the same number of great, rounded characters. Still, it's definitely given the big Selznick touch and the end result is exciting and tragic enough, without somehow quite hitting the nail on the head. For example, the storming of the Bastille scene, researched and written by Val Lewton, is probably historically accurate without being the most exciting moment. And on the eve of the prisoner's execution, there's somewhat too much weeping and wailing before Colman leaps into action - to paraphrase John Madden, the film is dawdling where it needs to motor.

Interesting for the way in which it's presented that the revolutionaries would then murder anyone who had anything to do with the aristocrats, even servants.

Good cast: Ronald Colman, Elizabeth Allan (I know - who? But she is in Went the Day Well?), Edna May Oliver, Reginald Owen, Basil Rathbone, Blanche Yurka (I thought she was good - had something of the intensity of Pamela Brown - but perhaps a shade too theatrical in the court scene), Henry Walthall (long imprisoned father), Donald Woods (Rathbone's son), Walter Catlett (the fraudster), Fritz Leiber, H.B. Warner, Mitchell Lewis, Billy Bevan.

The wine shop gave Oliver T Marsh photographic problems with the action both in the interior and outside in the street. He used ten varying shades of amber glass on the windows for the time of day. The Paris scenes were an ingenious mixture of sets, matte painting and miniatures.

The music oddly uses bits of Chopin, O Come All Ye Faithful and La Marseillaise!

On right, annoying woman who cackles at everything

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...

Silent Witness - Season 11 (2007)

Harry and Nicki witness a helicopter crash on to a detainment centre for illegal immigrants, leading to a terse and sombre episode - the good that they (try and) do makes matters worse.

Apocalypse was written by Stephen Davis and directed by Maurice Phillips.

Then Suffer the Children looks at child sacrifices for tribal African folk cures. This runs in parallel to the suspected suicide of a priest in a boys' school (couldn't track it down. Yes I could. It's Royal Connaught Park, formerly the Royal Masonic School for Boys, Bushey, which closed in 1970. It's apparently been used in Lucky Jim, The Meaning of Life, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and the Harry Potter films.)

And Leo keeps 'seeing' his dead daughter Cassie.

Michael Byrne is the grizzled headmaster / priest

99 River Street (1953 Phil Karson)

Efficient, independent noir thriller, featuring washed up boxer John Payne (Miracle on 34th Street, and the previous year's Kansas City Confidential, also directed by Karlson) whose marriage to Peggie Castle is also washed up - she's having a thing with a murdering robber Brad Dexter.

He's also mixed up (in a platonic way) with Broadway wannabe Evelyn Keyes (Hell's Half Acre), who suckers him into a fake murder scene at the theatre (this is a lovely twist scene); he loses it, violently, but is even more upset when his wife is murdered and he looks like the suspect. The film is typified by violent fights and violent characters.

From producer Ed Small, who'd given us T-Men and Raw Deal. Walk a Crooked Mile is (according to Eddie Muller) worth checking out also. 

Photographed by Franz Planer, edited by Ed's son Buddy Small. With Frank Faylen (buddy at taxi co), Jay Adler, and Jack Lambert (heavy, The Killers, The Enforcer) who kept annoying Q by hitting Payne on the neck.

Silent Witness - Season 10 finale (2006)

Christian Spurrier wrote Schism about animal rights activists. I thought the torturing dentist bit was way unbelievable, but putting Nikki in danger a good idea, with Harry thinking about leaving for a professorship in the US. Nicholas Renton directed. Didn't quite understand the end - who was undercover (if anyone)?

Leo is defending an old friend in court in a less interesting storyline.

Joseph Mawle, Antonia Campbell-Hughes (Lead Balloon, Jack Dee thing).

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

Circle of Two aka Obsession (1980 Jules Dassin)

Fifteen year old schoolgirl Tatum O'Neal falls in love with sixty year old artist Richard Burton. I mean, it's a must, isn't it? I rather enjoyed it. And it's got one of those sad, sort of 'European' themes that I'm a sucker for (by Bernard Hoffer). Filmed in Toronto. Based on the novel 'A Lesson in Love' by Marie-Terese Baird.

The despicable parents are Patricia Collins and Robin Gammell, who are way more concerned over this May-December relationship than the fact her boyfriend tried to rape her, and keep her prisoner in her room! Michael Wincott is the horrible ex.

It's apparently 106 minutes and in 1.85:1 - our copy was 98 minutes and in 4x3 (though didn't look badly cropped).

Count Dracula and the Vampire Bride is not a real film.

Was vaguely wondering how many bottles of vodka a day Burton was on at the time.

Sunday Dinner for a Soldier (1944 Lloyd Bacon)

Martha Cheavens' story was adapted by Wanda Tuchock and Melvin Levy. Anne Baxter runs a poor Florida family of much younger kids without help from 'Grandfeathers' Charles Winninger. Anne Revere (and maid Marietta Canty) are neighbours. John Hodiak is the soldier who comes to lunch (eventually).

And that's it. A delightful film. The kids are Bobby Driscoll, Connie Marshall and Billy Cummings. With Chill Wills, Robert Bailey and Jane Darwell.

It's slightly trippy seeing Russell Spencer and Lyle Wheeler's 20th Century Fox fake Florida. Joe MacDonald's the photographer. The music's by Alfred Newman.

I thought the chemistry between Baxter and Hodiak was tangible; they married in 1947.

Le Notti di Cabiria (1957 Federico Fellini & co-scr)

A fabulous opening: the camera tracks  a courting couple at polite distance, they reach the river... then he grabs her bag and pushes her in. Swept away by the current, she is drowning... but some ragazzi spot her and save her. A crowd gathers and she is revived... But she just wakes up mad at the guy who pushed her in.

This fiery, independent, vivacious character is given life by Giulietta Masina, who won Best Actress at Cannes, but amazingly not the David di Donatello award - che stronzi! They gave it to Ingrid Bergman for Anastasia instead! (Fellini at least won Best Director and it was Best Foreign Film Oscar.)

In typically episodic fashion, streetwalker Cabiria shouts and fights, is picked up by a film star, goes to a Holy Blessing, is hypnotised on stage and romanced by a bourgeois accountant. You just know it's going to end badly, and it does, with some circularity, but then Cabiria responds to the smiles and songs of passing people.

Nino Rota's score adds a lot.

With Francois Perier, Franca Marzi (also good as her friend). Written with Ennio Flaiano, Tullio Pinelli and Pier Paolo Pasolini.

Photographed by Aldo Tonti.

It's maybe my favourite Fellini, and kept making me think of Woody Allen and just how influential the Italian was.

Silent Witness Season 10 cont (2006)

I actually didn't really enjoy Supernova for a change. It was written by Paul Farrell and directed by Phillippa Langdale, so you might start off pointing the finger of blame there. A school girl is killed; suicide is suspected but all is not what it seems, and the culprits are a group of teenagers executing 'criss cross' murders. It's not very credible. But worse than that is that someone's made the sound designer the most prominent person in post, with giant 'bangs' every time an email is sent, or those stupid 'whooshes' that accompany a superfluously tricksy edit. Such a shame; and interesting, as we're essentially watching how TV thrillers were presented over a period of time - none of this stuff was remotely needed in the earlier films.

I Swear (2025 Kirk Jones & scr)

Scott Ellis Watson and Robert Aramayo are both brilliant as respectively the younger and older version of real life Tourette's sufferer John Davidson (who's featured in the end credits).

Scene where he meets fellow Tourrette's case in car had me crying with laughter, but of course it's not a funny business, as the attack with a crow bar proves.

Ably supported by Maxine Peake, Peter Mullan and Shirley Henderson. And Paul Donnelly.

DP James Blann. Composer Stephen Rennicks. Editor Sam Sneade.

Silent Witness - Season 10 (2006)

Terminus. There's a lot going on in this one - too much, arguably. Written by Jeff Povey, directed by Alrick Riley. What happened about the self-inflicted firestarter, for example. We really didn't like the investigating detective, played by Nigel Betts. There's also a story of a run over teenager and how he connects to a footballer.

Rhidian Brook's Body of Work (directed by Martyn Friend) begins promisingly with Harry kissing Nikki. But then a woman who meant something to him when young rolls up in the morgue. You wouldn't believe what goes on in this one - it's a corker. And at the end, you somehow think the Harry-Nikki thing is doomed not to work. Great performance from Tom Ward here. He hasn't been on screen since 2017.

Featuring Jim Findley, Deborah Cornelius, Larry Lamb, Sean Chapman, Matthew Dunster, Harry Procter.

In parallel the death of a conceptual artists bothers Leo.

Silent Witness - Season 10 (2006)

Cargo. Doug Milburn. Director Michael Offer.

A boat of illegals is found in the Thames. People from China, Albania and the Ivory Coast are among them. Some have survived, including a little girl, who Nikki will not give up on...

Wai Kee Chan, Li-Leng Au. lovely to see Bert Kwouk, Patrice Nalambana.

Tricksy editing is distracting.

Little Caesar (1931 Mervyn LeRoy)

Released in January, this isn't up to the standard of The Public Enemy (released May) - what a difference a few months make. (Also our print is noisy and soft.) From the W.R. Burnett novel, his first published, in 1929, adapted by Francis Edward Faragoh and Robert N Lee. Of main interest for Edward G Robinson's star making performance and for the way it addressed the Italian gangster (i.e. Mafia) organization, in its own way influencing both The Godfather and The Sopranos as the later film did.

I was wondering if it was cinematographer Tony (Antonio) Gaudio's first film but he'd been shooting them since 1903 - born in Cosenza, Calabria; in the US from 1906. The interesting set designs are by Anton Grot.

But I was a bit confused in a couple of places.. I thought the guy he shot down on the church steps was his dancing buddy Douglas Fairbanks Jr. Turns out it wasn't. And was that his mother who he gave all his dough to? We hadn't seen her before - could have done with one more scene. Loved though that she would only give him $150. Also the drive-by shooting from an ice cream van! Use of machine guns on both sides interesting - a vestige from WWI, perhaps?

So, overall enjoyable Warner Bros. hit. With Glena Farrell, William Collier Jr, Sidney Blackmer (top boss), Ralph Ince, Thomas E Jackson (detective), Stanley Fields, Ferike Boros (uncredited).

And then the solitary moment of compassion...

Silent Witness Season 9 cont. (2005)

The Meaning of Death. Rhidian Brook. Director Brin Higgins.

Harry investigates the death of a woman in a paddling pool.

Separately a kidnap victim is found dead, then various other random murders occur. We're in Rope / Leopold-Loeb territory here, with Rory Kinnear and Leo Bill (Becoming Jane, Gosford Park).

And we meet Nikki's convict father, Leigh Lawson, who swears he's going straight.

Mind and Body by Jeff Povey. Director Richard Signy.

Ingenious look at parallel drugs trade where it is legal to import drugs from one country, repackage them and sell them to another. Only in this case, the fraudulent trader is replacing the drugs with weaker or older versions.

Starts with Nikki madly tailing a 'vicar' who's just stabbed three people into a church.

And from various corpses that end up in our mortuary we begin to see the direct impact of this on various patients with mental problems. First a rehab centre is suspected, then a single mum drug dealer until we get to the real crook.

Some nice photography from Kevin Rowley.

Povey introduces some welcome humour, e.g. on post mortem on dog, which helps to prove that wife of kidnap victim was lying (Lolita Chakrabarti investigating). And Harry: "I'll tell you about my Aunt Miriam who thought she was a lemon and lost her zest for life."

Silent Witness - Season 9 (2005)

In a shocking season opening, Leo's wife and daughter are killed as a result of a car crash. He travels to Sheffield and becomes a one-man vigilante after revenge - even Harry and Nikki can't make him see sense. In parallel the London murders of two undercover cops is linked. Ghosts was written by Tony McHale and directed by Richard Signy.

With Nicholas Gleaves, Noma Dumezweni, Samantha Kelly, Jack Deam.

Leo is of course still feeling the fall-out when a gang war erupts with a shooting outside a nightclub in Choices, written by Doug Milburn and directed by Andy Hay. Harry immediately befriends a kid, Perry Allen, who becomes central to the story and provides the film's devastating last look.

Nikki Amuka-Bird (The Personal History of David Copperfield, Luther), 'Q', Vinta Morgan, Freema Agyeman (Doctor Who, New Amsterdam), and assorted gang types. John McEnery investigates. Nikki gets mixed up with a strung out junkie Alice O'Connell, Samantha Edmonds is the boy's mum and Garry Robson the paraplegic.

Drugs and guns are at the heart of a well written film. well edited by David Barrett. Also features a lovely theme which opens and closes the film, by Sheridan Tongue and / or John Tarle, played on a santoor or a cimbalom or something.

The Public Enemy (1931 William Wellman)

Incredibly brisk and modern looking seminal gangster film - you can almost see shades of The Godfather and The Sopranos in it. Jimmy Cagney is great as the amoral criminal but the supporting cast is good and not stagey - Edward Woods (his pal), Donald Cook (older brother), Leslie Fenton (fellow criminal), Beryl Mercer (Ma), Robert Emmett O'Connor (the organizer), Murray Kinnell. It was the youngest I'd seen Joan Blondell (24) though she was in two other Warner Bros. films I've seen that year - Night Nurse (also directed by Wellman) and Blonde Crazy (again with Cagney), one of her nine films released that year! And, 45 minutes in - Jean Harlow.

Blondell and Cagney were on stage together in 1929 in 'Penny Arcade'. Warners decided to film it (as Sinner's Holiday 1930) and cast them together.

The ending is amazingly powerful and downbeat.

'The Warner Bros Story' tells us that Mae Clarke had been assured Cagney wouldn't actually touch her face with the grapefruit - thus her look of shock when he shoves it in her face is genuine.

Kubec Glasmon, John Bright and Harvey Thew wrote it from Bright's original story, 'Beer and Blood'. Photographed by Dev Jennings, a silent cameraman from 1915 who shot some of Keaton's major films like The General.

Yeah - I don't quite know what to make of this. But thought it worth a mention

Must watch Little Caesar next.

Silent Witness Quadruple Bill: Season 8 (2004)

A Time To Heal. Stephen Brady. Director Ashley Pearce.

Our trio are in Northern Ireland where two bodies from the Troubles have been found. Is one of them the father of Kathy Kiera Clarke? Is politician Bryan Murray involved?

Sam begins to realise that her father might have been involved, and that some of the police he worked with might be bent.

And - she has a son, a badun who's been in prison twice already and wants her help.

When Sam is deliberately run over it's quite a moment. Andreas Petrides is the stunt coordinator.

Death By Water. Dusty Hughes. Director Patrick Lau.

In Sam's absence Leo and Harry fall out over the latter's possible promotion to professor - shit Anton Lesser also after the job. And they can't agree to the cause of a group of kids who suddenly experience breathing problems. It takes further deaths for them to work it out. Natalie Press is in cast.

This one lumbers a bit more than usual and Sam's absence is keenly felt. Which is why in

Nowhere Fast (Richard Holland, director Danny Hiller) it's a breath of fresh air when Nikki (Emilia Fox) turns up. cleaning her teeth in the mortuary sink, and investigating some iron age bones. She quickly becomes part of the team. ("I thought you'd never ask.")

The story involved the deaths of a horse and a jockey, and the passengers on a helicopter.

Anastasia Hille, James Wilby, Ramon Tikaram (This Life), Adam Jessop.

Harry has been helping a copper Joe Duttine (Life on Mars) who it turns out likes to fit up his suspects.

And another multi-body episode involving a train crash, Body 21 (Michael Crompton, director Douglas Mackinnon). The army is involved, and a survivor's group. Emma Cunniffe, Danny Webb, Stephen Boxer, Eddie Marsan, briefly. And some great prosthetics.

Emilia is Edward Fox and Joanna David's daughter and sister of Freddie. She was in TV's Pride and Prejudice, Shooting the Past, The Pianist, Keeping Mum, lots of other stuff, and - so far - 207 episodes of this!

Anne of the Indies (1951 Jacques Tourneur)

Refreshing pirate film with Jean Peters (Pickup on South Street, Three Coins in the Fountain, Viva Zapata) on zesty form as a pirate captain, who can out-duel Blackbeard (Thomas Gomez). Yes, an eclectic cast, with Herbert Marshall, James Robertson Justice (rubbish Scots accent), Debra Paget, Louis Jourdan.

Shot in swarthy Technicolor by Harry Jackson, music by Franz Waxman.

"Harlot's trumpery!" Fox.