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 hand'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

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.

The Best Things in 2026

Say Nothing.

The Inspector Lynley Mysteries.

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

Bird (Andrea Arnold)

My Week with Marilyn (2011 Simon Curtis)

A very edited film (Adam Recht). Much reviewed elsewhere.

Curtis made  Man and Boy, Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky, A Short Stay in Switzerland, Goodbye Christopher Robin, Woman in Gold and the last two Downton films (which Recht also cut).

Bird (2024 Andrea Arnold & scr)

Andrea and her long time collaborator Robbie Ryan (finding a rare break from Noah Baumbach and Yorgos Lanthimos movies) capture grim goings-on in Gravesend. Grim? And somehow beautiful. Neglected 12 year old Nyklya Adams (another one of Andrea's prototype disaffected young women) meets a strange youth Franz Rogowski. A monocular film; she holds the screen well.

"I don't like saying goodbyes."

And yes, Robbie is holding his own camera, shooting on 16mm film (in 1.66:1), tracking Adams and her father Barry Keoghan's scooter rides on another scooter. Yet he also manages to capture seriously rich images too.

This was the starting point of Andrea's screenplay

But when Rogowski actually seems to turn into a bird, we wonder whether in fact he hasn't actually been there all along.

It's something of an emotional journey, feels like we're put through a wringer, ending on that song 'Is it too real for ya?' performed by the people of Gravesend. 'Was Andrea's life like this?' Q asked, sensibly. I don't know, but she is in print saying 'the film is set in or near the area where I grew up'.

The couple are great with the kids, who are captured incredibly naturally.

With Jason Buda, Jasmine Jobson, James Nelson-Joyce (This City is Ours).

You can't help thinking that Andrea (in her own incredibly special way) might be alluding to Inarritu's Birdman - and indeed, Alan Parker's strange film from 1984, Birdy.

Edited by Joe Bibi.

Reminded me of Hitch's comment 'Some people's films are slices of life; mine are slices of cake.' This is definitely in the 'life' category.

Son of Frankenstein (1939 Rowland V Lee)

The poor old monster takes a beating again and ends up in a pit of sulphur.

I can't help feeling this is played for laughs. e.g. Lionel Atwill and his fake arm (which amusingly the monster rips off again at the end) and dialogue like this:

"It's an old superstition. If the house is full of dread, place the bedsteads head to head"

and "Tell me, or we'll hang you again and make a better job of it."

But it's mainly of interest for Jack Otterson's sets, photographed by George Robinson.

And the kid (Donnie Dunagan) really is fearless - thus happy to accompany Monster into laboratory.

Basil Rathbone, Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, Josephine Hutchinson. Universal.

Sinners (2025 Ryan Coogler & scr)

Um. How do we unscramble this? Is the vampire element just there to attract bigger crowds, or is it a metaphor for the White Menace? Both, I guess. The ending, where Michael B. Jordan mows down the KKK is definitely the ending we wanted. (There's then a sub-ending, which is cool. And then a sub-sub ending, which is even cooler.)

It's also a story of the Blues. The moment when Miles Caton starts playing and the past and future spirits appear is bravura cinema, brilliantly staged and scored.

The Oscar-nominated DP is a woman. Hooray! Here she is:

She's Autumn Durald Arkapaw (previously Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, The Last Showgirl). I found the photography a little on the dark side, though her low light dusk stuff is great.

The changes of aspect ratio (from 16:9 to some super-wide 2.78:1) are sometimes effective but you do wonder 'What's the point?' (The changes of aspect ratio in First Man or Dunkirk are there for a reason.) Also I love the way she tracks Helena Hu crossing the street and back.

A really good cast: Michael B Jordan playing both 'Smoke' and 'Stack', Miles Caton, didn't even recognise Hailee Steinfeld, Wunmi Mosaku (who doesn't get to show off her great voice, unfortunately, but has a fabulous accent), Delroy Lindo, Jack O'Connell,  Yao, Li Jun Li, Dave Maldonado and Buddy Guy as 'Old Sammie'.

It's had the record number of Oscar nominations (16). Great music Ludwig Goransson and sound design, production design Hannah Bleachler, editing Michael P Shawver.

I kinda 'did' vampires when I was a teenager and don't have much enthusiasm left for the genre.

Silent Witness - Season 7 (2003)

Fatal Error. Michael Crompton. Director Renny Rye.

Good opening as Sam and Leo have come up with different interpretations of a crime scene and are pitted against one another in court. In parallel, a series of seemingly unconnected murders start to hone in on Sam - leaving her in real danger.

With Ashley Jensen, Eva Birthistle, Cal MacCaninch.

Running on Empty. Ed Whitmore (his first in the series). Director Jon East.

Good death by fall opening. Good start as Sam (traumatised by previous events) can't sleep, goes running, is helped by athlete Don Gilet. Turns out the dead women was his agent. Introduce family Sarah Paul, Brian Bovell, Jude Akuwudike, Dona Croll. Katherine Kelly is a suspicious co-worker.

Harry fucks up by taking flies' larvae to calculate time of death, but in a neat twist the victim - from whose nose the flies came- was a cocaine user and this has sped up their evolution.

Silent Witness - Season 6/7 (2002-3)

Closed Ranks. Tony McHale. Director Paul Wroblewski,

This is another good one. Leo (William Gaminara) is taking a few days' leave as his wife and Stephen King-loving child (Clare Holman and Lucinda Dryzek) are visiting from Sheffield. But he's called in to work as there's been a body found in remarkably similar pose to one Leo worked on some years before.

Sam is teaching at a police training school, run by Jack Shepherd, whose son Nicholas Audsley (no relation to editor Mick Audsley) is a star pupil (he's good); the corpse is one of the trainees. You sense a lot of these people are theatre actors dropping in for a bit of TV loot now and then.

And Harry gets involved with the ex of a former friend, Esther Hall, and a resultant ethical dilemma.

It's all about second chances.

Tim Healy (Auf Wiedersehen Pet) investigates.

We noticed some outstanding editorial work from Ian Sutherland.

Answering Fire. Dusty Hughes. Director Nicholas Renton.

Opens with a horrific fire in a hotel. Cross cut with a dinner guest trying to rape Sam. That's how you open a season.

Involves a dodgy politician, who's always smiling (like Farage) - an untrustworthy characteristic. An arms deal. An Indian family. A drag queen. And some dodgy staff.

Clive Russell is the wholly objectionable copper on this one. With Roshan Seth, Jo Joyner, David Mallinson, Robert Cavanah, Deborah Findlay.

After the Flood - Season 2 (2026 Mick Ford)

Sophie Rundle and her ex Mark Stokoe are having to tolerate the situation that bad guy murderer Nicholas Gleaves is still around.

Then a body is found on the moors.

Lorraine Ashbourne is her councillor mum, Philip Glenister now bankrupt property developer, Jill Halfpenny acting mysteriously, Alan Armstrong a local business owner.

It's partly - but not entirely - about chemicals being dumped in the local waterways.

The murder at the end doesn't make sense - the PM would clearly have identified the victim was beaten before being pushed over - Q thinks the murderer had gone crazy by then.

A 6 x 45 for ITV.

Silent Winess - Season 6 (2002)

Tell No Tales. Avril E. Russell. Director John Duthie.

A decomposed body is found at a factory. Turns out it's the lost love of Maggie Lloyd Williams, who's now with criminal Jake Wood. 

But there's a parallel story going on, Harry being attracted to flirty Nancy Lodder, whose dad is a college fund giver (Michael Pennington). Her wannabe boyfriend is a young Benedict Cumberbatch. But she's killed...

The two stories aren't in fact connected.

The Night Manager - Season 2 (2026 David Farr)

John Le Carré had died and never had a Carré sequel been written without him. Farr says the idea for how it continued came to him in a dream - a little boy, waiting in a monastery.

Anyway, it's ten years later. Opens with Olivia Colman seeing Roper's body and pronouncing him dead. The Tom Hiddlestone character has had a complete identity change and is running a group of Intelligence surveillance agents. Sees something that convinces him there's a connection to the old Richard Roper dodgy arms deals. Without authorisation he sends his team in and two of them are killed. A survivor, Hayley Squires (I, Daniel Blake), joins him to seek out the bad man responsible, Diego Calva.

In Episode 3 (of 6) I was just thinking "This isn't as good as the last one, because Hugh Laurie isn't in it" and guess what happened?

Camilla Morone, Alistair Petrie, Douglas Hodge, Indira Varma, Michael Nardone, Paul Chahidi. And whoever played the great detective who works with Pine.

Did not see that ending coming.

Looks like it cost a lot of money even if they didn't actually go to all the locations. Photographed by Tim Sidell and edited eps 1-4 by Izabella Curry (with Napoleon Stratogiannakis on 2 and Dan Crinnion on 3). Stratogiannakis did 5 on his own and Crinnion did 6. Music Federico Jusid.

Silent Witness - Season 6 (2001)

The Fall Out. Tony McHale. Director Coky Giedroyc.

A multi-vehicle pile up includes an unidentified woman and a solitary dismembered arm which doesn't belong to any of the bodies. Sam investigates with her new posse of William Gaminara and Tom Ward (good; Death Comes to Pemberley, The Infinite Worlds of HG Wells) who has to perform his first autopsy on a child.

Shaun Dooley, Luing Andrews, Christopher Fulford are all involved, as is a gang of Albanians.

Paterson Joseph is on traffic. Lia Williams is a truly annoying DS who won't tell Sam what's really going on and thus indirectly causes the deaths of girls being sex trafficked, Barnaby Kay her No. 2.

Kith and Kill. Peter Lloyd. Director Renny Rye.

There's been something of a massacre in a family home belonging to a ruthless haulier. Sam and her N Ireland ex Stuart Graham investigate.

With Ben Crompton, Russell Tovey, Amber Noble.

Silent Witness Quadruple bill (1999 - 2000)

 A Good Body, Writer J.C. Wilsher. Director David Thacker.

A fire in a cinema leaves one unidentified body... who turns out to be someone presumed dead and for whose murder Jack Dee languishes in prison. (How someone could be convicted of murder when there's no body is something that bothered us.) Turns out the police were over-keen to do him, cueing arguing between Sam and her ex boss Nick Reding. And Sam having a most unsuitable fling.

The World Cruise. Writer Tony McHale. Director Coky Giedroyc.

Two old Jewish men are found murdered. But how does this connect with a professor who's championing genetic engineering (Richard Todd, Stage Fright, The Dam Busters)? He certainly upsets one of Sam's students, who is horribly cocky and forward with her. And is racist Neil Maskell involved? And ageing professor, Andrew Sachs (and wife Suzannah Bertish)?

It's a good one. Ace Bhatti is a new DCI. Takes us right in to the heart of Auschwitz.

Two Below Zero. Tom Needham. Director Rob Evans.

A naked body is found in the Norwegian snow. Then another. One of them is the daughter of Stephen Moore (The Boat That Rocked, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy) and Mel Martin. Odious sex pervert Anthony Head is the uncle.

I was surprised to learn that a woman can carry two babies of different fathers.

Managed to guess the villain before the end. With Angela Bruce from Angels and Richard Graham as 'Stephen Merchant'.

Faith. Stephen Brady. Director Paul Unwin.

Sam is ill. Thinks it might be affecting her judgement in case of headmaster's wife who appears to have killed herself. In taking a break, Sam is called in by the Catholic Church to investigate a 'saint', meets nun Kathryn Hunter.

With Philip Jackson, Prunella Scales, Matthew Marsh.

Thought this one was actually badly directed: too much extreme close ups, unnecessary slow mo, deliberately obscured shots. Yes, it appears I've had problems with him before.

Broken Lullaby (1932 Ernst Lubitsch & prod)

You know that expression 'Scream if you want to go faster'? (Actually I think it's a Gerry Halliwell song title.) Well, in relation to this film, SCREAM!!

Yes, after a nicely edited montage of Paris, Armistice Day 1919, Lubitsch lets the pace drop considerably, with long, turgid, stagey sequences of dialogue; really strange considering the zip with which he made his silent films.

French Phillips Holmes (terribly wooden) travels to Germany to confess to the family of the German soldier he has killed. But when he meets Lionel Barrymore, Louise Carter and fiancee Nancy Carroll, he cannot bring himself to. Until ultimately (in the last 10 minutes) he does to the girl.

When the couple play out on a duet I wanted to hurl something at the TV.

It didn't help that Barrymore kept making me think of Mark Heap.

Lubitsch's worst film, but not all bad.

With Lucien Littlefield (good), Zasu Pitts relegated to role of maid. Written by Samson Raphaelson and Ernest Vajda from Maurice Rostand play. Photographed by Victor Milner at Paramount.

Only Angels Have Wings (1939 Howard Hawks)

According to Hawks this was based on real characters, the pilot in a little airfield and the chorus girl who falls for him, and the flyer who has to prove his bravery; even the eagle flying through the windshield actually happened during the shoot.

Good production design - the port in the opening, the airfield - attributed to art director Lionel Banks. Lovely lighting from Joe Walker. Edited by Viola Lawrence.

Classic Hawks framing evident, e.g. scene of Jean Arthur 'performing' at piano. 

Cary Grant, Thomas Mitchell, Richard Barthelmess, Rita Hayworth, Sig Ruman, Allyn Joslyn.

I tried to get on a Hawks double bill, with The Big Sleep next, but it was not to be.

Peter Bogdanovich came up with the interesting theory that the characters of Grant in this, Bogart in The Big Sleep and John Wayne in Rio Bravo were the same person at different times in their lives, something with which Hawks did not disagree.