Absolute Power (1997 Clint Eastwood & prod)

William Goldman adapted David Baldacci's novel 'Executive Power', and how he did it is amusingly told at length in 'Which Lie Did I Tell?' For one thing, there were far too many characters. Secondly, there wasn't a star role. Third, the most interesting character dies halfway through. The first draft was written for Clint Eastwood as the detective, but no - he wanted to play the burglar, and not have him killed. Needless to say the plot of the book was changed substantially.

The beginning is classic Goldman. Paintings (a recurrent image) in an art gallery. A man sketching. A woman observing. "You work with your hands." The man goes into a bar and hands over a VCR tape. Huh? His drawing of a mansion becomes a mansion at night. He's a burglar, breaking in. He's about to clear a lot of money when a drunken couple arrive...

Eastwood had two suggestions. Can the President's wife be away somewhere so she's not involved? Can you put the burglar's daughter in danger? Good suggestions.

Good cast: Clint Eastwood (whatever happened to him?), Gene Hackman, Ed Harris, Laura Linney, Scott Glenn, Judy Davis, Dennis Haysbert, E.G. Marshall, Richard Jenkins.

Photographed by Jack Green in Panavision, edited by Joel Cox. Clint contributed two themes to the score. Made by Malpaso for Castle Rock.

It's that Alison Eastwood again. And Kimber Eastwood is the White House Tour Guide.

The Mad Miss Manton (1938 Leigh Jason)

Vintage Hattie McDaniel stuff - according to biographer Carlton Jackson, the act of the black maid throwing water in the face of the white man caused quite a stir. It's also great to see she's the boss - when she orders the gals out of the apartment they all leave without protest.

Barbara Stanwyck and Henry Fonda (by all accounts, not a very nice man) star. Sam Levene is good value as the exasperated cop and Stanley Ridges rather good as the baddie. The trick as to how the murder was pulled off is a good one. Written by Philip Epstein (Wilson Collinson story).

The two occasions where the gals overpower Fonda and leave him bound and helpless are doubtless messages of some sort of sexual politics, if one should care to read it like that.

Also with Whitney Bourne, Frances Mercer, Vicki Lester, John Qualen.
Shot by Nick Musuraca, music by Roy Webb; RKO.

A Room for Romeo Brass (1999 Shane Meadows & co-scr)

There's two key sequences in A Room For Romeo Brass, which begins as a quirky comedy between friends Ben Marshall and Andrew Shim and the slightly pathetic and funny figure of Paddy Considine. The first is when Considine challenges Shim's dad Frank Harper, and whilst he doesn't seem afraid, you sense he's all mouth and no trousers. Thus when he suddenly launches a brutal attack on a random stranger who he thinks is after his girl Vicky McClure, it's quite shocking. The second is that when he's staked out the house, after Shim, it's Marshall's father - who up until this point has seem a complete waste of space - who takes a stand against the psycho, which almost costs him his nut.

Considine's speech mannerisms (before he goes psycho) are so funny.

It was the debut of Shim, Considine and McClure.

Paul Fraser - who also provided 'choreography' and was 'magic adviser' - wrote it with Meadows. It works as quirky/gritty - a difficult combination. But also credible e.g. that the youth doesn't want to go to hospital to visit his friend.

With Julia Ford and Ladene Hall as the mothers and Bob Hoskins as the teacher.

Photographed by Ashley Rowe, edited by Paul Tothill (Atonement).

Hands Across the Table (1935 Mitchell Leisen)

Lombard had been under contract to Paramount since 1930, so I'm not quite sure why she had been in all these Columbia films in the early 30s*. Anyway, here she's teamed with Fred MacMurray, as a couple of fortune hunters who end up temporarily living together, with foreseeable results. Lombard is energetic, MacMurray is screwy, Ralph Bellamy looks a little uncomfortable in role of wheelchair-bound millionaire. Fun to see future Sturges people like William Demarest and 'Snowflake' Toones.

It was another big hit after Twentieth Century. But it's less madcap than that and not as screwy as the best screwball comedies and so today doesn't hold up quite as well. Ted Tetzlaff again photographed. The script was by Norman Krasna, Vincent Lawrence and Herbert Fields.

* She was being 'punished' by Paramount for not taking various worthless pictures they offered her, but in fact she was one of the rare people who got on with Harry Cohn and always had a great time there.

Lady By Choice (1934 David Burton)

A follow-up, I guess, to 1933's Capra movie Lady For a Day, also featuring May Robson as the delinquent old, adopted here by 'fan dancer' Carole Lombard. When we finally see the dance, those fans - they're massive - could have hidden a whole Busby Berkeley chorus behind them - were they specially designed by the Hays Office?

Robson - 76 here - is best known to us from Bringing Up Baby and A Star Is Born. She reforms rather too quickly for my taste.

With Walter Connelly, Roger Pryor, Arthur Hohl, Raymond Walburn.

Nicely lit by Ted Tetzlaff, one of ten Lombard films he photographed in the thirties. Written by Jo Swerling from Dwight Taylor story.

Not bad - Lombard-Robson partnership, the usually exasperated Connelly, and Tetzlaff, the best things. Columbia.

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children (2016 Tim Burton)

I was surprised to see Jane Goldman was the writer (adapting Ransom Riggs' book) as it's a humourless affair. The somewhat colourless Asa Butterfield is never going to make the most interesting performance, but the character isn't written very interestingly either.

It's a bit like a live action Nightmare Before Christmas in style, with little nods to other films like The Evil Dead, Groundhog Day, the Harry Potters and Ray Harryhausen.

Packed with names like Terence Stamp, Judi Dench, Eva Green, Chris O'Dowd, Samuel L. Jackson, Rupert Everett and Alison Janney it never resolves its own dilemmas (that the main character will have to desert his parents, that his love - Ella Purnell - will never be able to leave one of these time portaly things without ageing). It doesn't really gel or connect with the emotions.

Shot by Bruno Delbonnel somewhere in CGI Land.

I'll Be There (2003 Craig Ferguson & co-scr)

Craig Ferguson himself is an alcoholic - he'd sobered up in 1992 - thus perhaps why it's a theme here in his and Philip McGrade's screenplay. (He later hosted The Late Late Show for nine years.) A fun, warm-hearted film which does occasionally go too far (at finale, gay's ex lover has to have a timely appearance?)

Joss Ackland fun as old groover, Jemma Redgrave and Charlotte Church fine. With Stephen Noonan, Imelda Staunton, Ralph Brown, Ian McNeice, Anthony Head, Dominic Cooper in bit part.

"No way."

The new song 'Would I Know?' Charlotte sings is rather good. It was composed by Diane Warren, and weirdly not released as a single.

The house is Dorney Court, Windsor. It's appeared in A Man For All Seasons, The Missionary, Lock Stock, Elizabeth, Marple: The Body in the Library, The Invisible Woman, Bohemian Rhapsody and the new David Copperfield.

The Mule (2018 Clint Eastwood)

The beginning of The Mule is a flashback to when Clint Eastwood's character was younger and popular - watching him in this role made me regret that he hadn't acted lots of charming, sophisticated types more than the strong silent guy kind of thing. He's really good in this, very likable.

Nick Schenk's screenplay is based on a true story. As he gets more involved with the drug gang (who start calling him 'papá'), his returning fortunes enable him to get closer again to his estranged family, but FBI agents Bradley Cooper and Michael Peña are closing in...

The 89 year old shows no sign of slowing down - in fact the closing song is 'Don't Let The Old Man In' by Toby Keith - Clint's own mantra.

With Diane Weist, Taissa Farmiga (Vera's sister), Andy Garcia, Laurence Fishburne, Ignacio Serricchio, Alison Eastwood.

Not sure why Tom Stern - Clint's regular cameraman - didn't do it - it was Yves Bélanger. Joel Cox edited.

Very successful and enjoyable.

Juliet, Naked (2018 Jesse Peretz)

Nick Hornby novel adapted by Evgenia Peretz, Jim Taylor and Tamara Jenkins.

Chris O'Dowd is obsessive fan of long-disappeared singer Ethan Hawke, with whom his girlfriend Rose Byrne strikes up a relationship.

Something about the dialogue or delivery of it from Byrne and her woman hungry sister Lily Brazier doesn't work for me. O'Dowd is suitably irritating. Azhy Robertson is the kid.

Shot by Remi Adefarasin.

Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip (2006-7 Aaron Sorkin)

This is what he did straight after The West Wing, and brought with him Bradley Whitford and Matthew Perry and Timothy Busfeld, not to mention photographer Thomas del Ruth, producer Eli Attie and director Thomas Schlamme. And the bald guy from Californication. Then added an Amanda Peet for good measure.

Others are: Sarah Paulson, Steven Weber as the (initially) unpleasant head of network, D.L. Hughley (can't think who his voice reminds me of), Nate Corddry, Lucy Davis, Merritt Wever, Ayda Field.

Loved moment where Perry says 'I have to make things happen!' and accidentally smashes the window behind him with his baseball bat.

'Dangling modifier' crops up again... (A grammatically badly worded phrase that leaves it open to misinterpretation.)

Guest stars: Judd Hirsch, Eli Wallach, Rob Reiner, Sting, John Goodman (in great 'Nevada' two-parter), Allison Janney.

Was it a real old studio? I don't think so but it's hard to be sure.

We loved it.

A Waste of Shame (2005 John McKay)

William Boyd's sympathetic Shakespeare, his story behind the sonnets. Rupert Graves gives a good performance as the bard, suffering mixed feelings about a young 'adonis' (Tom Sturridge) and a French 'doxy' (Indira Varma), feeling the commercial pressure of the plague, and suffering from the pox.

It's uniformly well played by all - rest of cast: Zoe Wanamaker, Tom Hiddlestone, Anna Chancellor, Andrew Tiernan (Dr. Johnson), Nicky Henson. Alan Williams, Nicholas Rowe, John Voce, Christopher Fairbank (lots and lots and lots of telly since Z Cars in 1978).

Lovely music by Kevin Sargent (also The Hours). Photographed by Tim Palmer.

Gone With the Wind (1939 Victor Fleming)

Where to begin with this epic, which washes out the rest of a Sunday? Jack Cosgrove, the guy responsible for those amazing paintings, the skies. A huge budget, for sure, but quite a lot of trick effects, viz:

Cosgrove added the figures and cart over the burning building

Sidney Howard is credited with adapting Margaret Mitchell's bestseller, but Oliver Garrett, Ben Hecht, Jo Swerling and John Van Druten all worked on it too. Scarlett grows up, that's for sure, but never appreciates what Rhett keeps telling her - they're the same. And only after - well, he drunkenly rapes her - does she seem fleetingly happy with him... but it's too late. She has at least had the gumption to hold Tara together. But it's the other women that make GWTW so strong - the faithful but not subservient Mammy (the fabulous Hattie McDaniel), the saintly Melly (Oliva de Havilland - ethereal) and the tart with a heart Belle (Ona Munson) - in fact the scene between these two in the carriage (Belle doesn't want Melly calling at her house of disrepute) is one of the sweetest in the film.

George Cukor worked closely with Selznick for two years' worth of pre-production, writing, casting and production design. (Hattie Noel and Louise Beavers were considered for Mammy.) But once shooting began it seemed they disagreed about everything and he was replaced with Fleming. Then Selznick (politely) fired cameraman Lee Garmes, who had shot most of the material in the first hour, including the barbecue at Twelve Trees which Selznick - preferring primary colours - had complained of being too 'neutral', the prayer scene 'too dark'. These scenes are probably the most beautiful in the film. Ernie Haller replaced Garmes, having never shot a colour film before, and shared the Oscar with Ray Rennahan. Then Fleming fell ill and Sam Wood took over... The filming all happened January - June, 1939.

William Cameron Menzies was responsible for the colour design

Have to mention Harry Davenport, Butterfly McQueen, Leslie Howerd, Thomas Mitchell and Barbara O'Neil (Scarlett's parents), Oscar Polk. And Max Steiner, Hal Kern (editor), Lyle Wheeler (art direction), Walter Plunkett (costumes).

It was the first film we saw on Blu-Ray, 10 December 2010, and apparently noticed a wonky banister outside one of the houses!

Get Out (2017 Jordan Peele & scr)

Q cottoned on to The Stepford Wives in a flash, I had Invasion of the Bodysnatchers going, but ultimately this is a nicely not-so-veiled commentary about the black-white thing.

Daniel Kaluuya, Bradley Whitford, Allison Williams, Catherine Keener, Caleb Landry Jones, Marcus Henderson, Betty Gabriel (rather good as the maid) and Atlanta's LaKeith Stanfield. And Lil Rel Howery as the useful friend.

Good fun.

Catch-22 (2019 Luke Davies, David Michôd)

Stars Christopher Abbott. Apart from such names as Clooney and Hugh Laurie (and Giancarlo Giannini) most of cast are relatively unknown. Well, to me...

Kyle Chandler (Cathcart), Grant Heslov (doctor - I know, I didn't realise - good performance), Daniel David Stewart (Milo), Julie Ann Emery, Pico Alexander, Graham Patrick Martin, Tessa Ferrer (nurse), Rafi Gavron, John Rudnitsky.

Luke Davies wrote Lion. David Michôd didn't. Is it their fault that this somehow fails to fully engage? Or is it that the material just doesn't hold up as well any more? Reviews of Mike Nichols' 1970 version were mixed at the time... good to see it now has a very loyal following. It casts a long shadow.

How much did it all cost? Q wondered.

Directors include Grant Heslov, Clooney (in one of the most effective moments, all sound but the bombing instruments are filtered out - this is one of the episodes that sneaks in Rosemary Clooney!) and cinematographer Ellen Kuras.

Born Romantic (2000 David Kane & scr)

Taxi driver Adrian Lester helps bring together several couples: Craig Ferguson (whose film I'll Be There with Charlotte Church is sadly unavailable*) and Olivia Williams, David Morrissey and Jane Horrocks and Jimi Mistry and Catherine McCormack. Why did I put the men first in that list? I suppose because they are the ones pursuing the aforementioned girls. Oh, sorry, not allowed to say 'girls'. Women.

Mix in the following for flavour: Ian Hart, John Thompson, Kenneth Cranham, Paddy Considine, Hermione Norris, Sally Phillips, Jessica Hynes and Ashley Walters.

Liked the subsiding house in which everything slopes - the separated couple are obliged to still live together.

* No it isn't - see here. You can get it on Amazon.

Man of the World (1931 Richard Wallace, Edward Goodman)

What a difference a year makes.... This is sooooooooooo slooooooooooooooooooow that I had time to re-read 'Pale Fire'* while it was running - it would be slow at double speed.

Notable though as it's where Powell and Lombard met (they married soon after).

For the record, Powell is a blackmailer who falls in love with Lombard in Paris. It doesn't even have a happy ending.

Paramount are responsible.

(However even this was better than the next Lombard we tried, 1934's We're Not Dressing, with FAR too many songs, Bing Crosby and a performing bear - and a young Ray Milland.)

*Editor's note. The author has never read 'Pale Fire'.

The Thing Called Love (1993 Peter Bogdanovich)

Well covered in previous reviews, wonderful warm-hearted film can be viewed over and over again.

Loved the song lyrics shown on road signs all over the place, like 'I Miss You Already and You're Not Even Gone'.

Loved this shot, with 'Elvis's barber':

Ebert's 1 / 5 review focuses entirely on River's performance, that he was thin, ill and druggy. That is entirely contradicted by Peter's own recollection of his behaviour before and during filming told in 'Who The Hell's In It?'

Brief Moment (1933 David Burton)

At Columbia still, 'women's picture' has Lombard a singer who marries above her station into a disapproving wealthy family. Gene Raymond is rather disappointing as her wastrel husband, Arthur Hohl is the club manager who loves her too.

Ted Tetzlaff has the pleasure of lighting Ms Lombard.

Features some fairly messy montage sequences.

No More Orchids (1932 Walter Lang)

Brisk, humorously written romantic comedy with Carole Lombard a spoiled rich girl who falls for straight guy Lyle Talbot. Her adoring father Walter Connolly is having financial difficulties and Louise Closser Hale is good value too as a no-nonsense granny. With C. Aubrey Smith.

Writers are Grace Perkins, Gertrude Purcell and Keene Thompson. Has a disappointing final plot development which could have been improved upon.

Shot by Joseph August. Made by Columbia, apparently, though our print didn't say so.

Ahh... the pre-Code days...

Otherhood (2019 Cindy Chupack)

Mothers Angela Bassett (Poliakoff's Close To The Enemy), Patricia Arquette and Felicity Huffman (currently in court on college admission scam charges) visit sons Sinqua Walls, Jake (son of Dustin) Hoffman and Jake Lacy (Carol, Girls, Fosse/Verdon) as they feel they're being neglected - turns out mums all have issues which the boys help straighten out in the rather neat way you're expecting right from the outset, down to the pukey 'one year later' coda.

A few laughs - not as bad as it could have been. Although the word 'pabulum' did come to me more than once.

Written by Chupack and Mark Andrus (As Good As it Gets, And So It Goes) from William Sutcliffe's novel; photographed by Declan Quinn.

Atlanta: Robbin' Season (2018 Donald Glover)

Absolutely amazing (and unexpected and funny) beginning in which a couple attempt to rob a drive-through. Then a man who keeps an alligator. And another rapper who seems friendly but isn't.

But.. still very much on the current Black existence, the casual and explicit racism. Also the ineptitude and falseness in the music business.

The hilarious episode with Paper Boi and the barber heralds a series of single character episodes which grow increasingly bizarre. In the next, Earn and his bae Van (Zazie Beetz) attend a strange kind of Oktoberfest and effectively split up, and in the weirdest of all, Darius (Lakeith Stanfield) attends the home of a reclusive black-turned-white musician (played by Glover). Then Van and her mates attend a party where the main attraction isn't even there. Finally, Paper Boi attempts to have a day out with a social media junkie star, gets attacked and lost in the woods.

Last three episodes bring the crew back together for an eventful college gig, a school flashback and the fate of Earn (and that gun that's been wandering around since episode one).

Donald Glover and Brian Tyree Henry both great (particularly the latter's reaction or non-reaction expressions).

Produced for FX. A bold, surreal and often laugh out loud funny series.

'Teddy Perkins'

Alone in Berlin (2016 Vincent Perez)

A very strange project based on the true story of a couple who distributed anti-Nazi cards in Berlin, were caught, and executed.

Brendan Gleeson and Emma Thompson give subdued performances (especially hers), Daniel Brühl rather good as investigating detective.

Alexandre Desplat offers some good music and Christophe Beaucarne's widescreen photography of Görlitz and Brandenburg is elegant.

My own preference for the ending would have been that after the executions, a new card turns up... The resistance continues...

That's why it's odd - the resistance fails and that's the end. A bit of a downer, to be sure.

Dark Money (2019 Writer: Levi David Addar)

Largely successful attempt to look at issues of abuse in showbusiness, NDAs and pay-offs, this featuring 13 year old child star (Max Fincham) and his parents Babou Ceesay and Jill Halfpenny, sister Olive Gray, half-bro Tut Nyuot, his mum Susan Wokoma, Ellen Thomas the grandmother and Rebecca Front the negligent agent.

4 x 1 hour for BBC.

A Canterbury Tale (1944 Powell & Pressburger)

An incomparable, unique film / experience.

As much about Powell's Kent as it is the effects of war, medieval history, religion, loves and losses. A story of friendship, a detective story, a comedy, a history lesson, a fantasy.

I love it when you know a film so well you can recognise and appreciate just a single, incidental shot. One of them is in this, when the tank drives towards the camera then pulls a sharp right, the camera panning slightly to follow it - it's full of energy. And the 'halo' on the train.

Notes:

The £500 John Sweet received as his fee he donated to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. On the Carlton DVD release he's called 'John Smith'!

The US release cut some scenes and introduced a new beginning in New York with Sweet married, to Kim Hunter. The film was then reconstructed as a flashback.

The interior of the Cathedral was built at Denham Studios (as were the bells) by Alfred Junge, though Powell and Hillier did sneak a few interior shots whilst 'fact finding'! Desmond Dickinson was an uncredited camera operator.

"You can't hurry an elm!"

Never noticed the sleeper before

The Thirty Nine Steps (1978 Don Sharp)

Well now we know why Big Ben needed fixing...

It's interesting how different the three versions are, this one being closest to Buchan's novel. But. The direction and music are pedestrian. The John Mills character claims to know quite a bit about Hannay - this isn't explained. There's no humour. The Karen Dotrice character is flat. The Big Ben ending is fun, but then the actual ending is a real disappointment, like they ran out of script or money.

Robert Powell is fine, Mills looks fit for 70. David Warner and Eric Porter are fine. John Coquillion's photography is less moody than usual, but he catches the Scotland scenes well (though the opening night scenes are so dark it's really annoying - and I like a dark night scene...)

Michael Robson's early screenplays were for sex star Fiona Richmond. He later wrote the TV series Hannay in the eighties, also with Powell.

A Very Peculiar Practice - Season Two (1988 Andrew Davies)

Not as good as the first, unfortunately. The Americans with the dark glasses security people doesn't work as well, Chen is sorely missed (his replacement Dominic Arnold isn't so well integrated), Joanna Kanska is a scary substitute for Amanda Hillwood. But still enjoying the characters of wily Jock (Graham Crowden), immoral bastard Bob (David Troughton) and the increasingly defiant Steven (Peter Davison).

Stuff with nuns getting a bit silly and old hat now. The manipulations of the healthcare practice, most notably enacted in the scene where they turn the visiting psychoanalyst into a quivering wreck, still fun, but Rose is getting annoying and we would have liked to have her receive some kind of comeuppance for her Machiavellian behaviour.

However it does underline the zeitgeist - money over education - and that Solidarnosc banner is not there idly.

A Very Peculiar Practice - Season 1 (1986 Andrew Davies)

So many things oddly familiar, like Chen's line, 'Yes Steven, I know how to live in the twentieth century' and Daker erupting at the end of episode one at Jock's offer of a drink  - 'I'm still on duty!'  And the secret of P.J. Pettyman. Is this last one an old idea, or is this the origin of the idea (the one of the three who looks the most bumbling and incompetent is the decision maker)?

Anyway, it's very enjoyable, especially the relationship between Daker and Lyn Turtle (yes, many of the names are funny, the VC is 'Ernest Hemmingway'!) and the inter-doctor banter and manoeuvrings. This hotch potch of physicians is played by Peter Davison, Graham Crowden, Barbara Flynn and David Troughton (yes, Patrick's son).

Amanda Hillwood was of course the pathologist briefly in Morse. Lindy Whitford is the nurse, with John Bird, Takashi Kawahara, Jean Heywood (rebellious professor of history).

Unlikely guest stars are Hugh Grant and Kathy Burke, with Timothy West as a volatile professor.

The direction / action is a bit slow in dialogue scenes but the show is constantly inventive and funny, e.g. Catastrophe Theory, the source of the NSU outbreak, experimental drug 'Confidan' which causes red ears, the writer who is trying to write about the university for the BBC...

Sabrina (1954 Billy Wilder)

The gold standard. It's so good I can watch it over and over again. Actually, it all came from

N: Shall we watch Audrey Hepburn?
Q: What we did on our holidays.
N: December 2018. They All Laughed?
Q: We only saw that a couple of months ago.
N: Mmm... Rome or Paris?
Q: Paris.
N: Love in the Afternoon.
Q: No, Sabrina.

Do Walter Hampden's cigars get longer and longer?

"It was a play [written by Samuel Avanti Taylor]. It was first made into a movie, with all the changes, radical changes, and the play came out a year after the movie and was a complete flop. It did not have the same structure any more." Wilder and Ernest Lehman adapted it.

Win Win (2011 Tom McCarthy & scr)

Paul Giamatti, Amy Ryan (Birdman, The Wire, Bridge of Spies), Bobby Cannavale, Burt Young, Alex Shaffer, Jeffrey Tambor, Melanie Lynskey, Margo Martindale.

I like the way Bobby keeps his coach seat, and the way he becomes to dress like the others.

Mm hm. Warm and splendid, like a tropical sunset.

Life Itself (2018 Dan Fogelman & scr)

Oscar Isaac and Olivia Wilde, Mandy Patinkin, Olivia Cook, Antonio Banderas and Laia Costa and Alex Monner... An ambitious storyline, which jumps and plays around nicely in the writer's familiar style.

Not convinced by the father (Sergio Peris-Mencheta) walking out on his beloved family, and the ending is rather sicky. Annette Bening and Samuel L Jackson are in it too.

Filmed by Brett Pawlak (the This Is Us pilot) and edited by Julie Monroe (Danny Collins, Mud, Midnight Special).

Il Buono Il Brutto Il Cattivo (1966 Sergio Leone)

Such a great plot - the cat and mouse between Blondie and Tuco, the separate story of Angel Eyes and how they become intertwined. Twists just where you don't expect them (a shell falling on the hotel, Tuco handcuffed to corpse, blue uniforms not grey). Constant prevailing gallows humour. Film could have been called 'The Three Bastards'.

Luciano Vincenzoni came up with the story on the spot, slightly riffing on his own La Grande Guerra (1959, remade as The Best of Enemies 1961, Sordi and David Niven). Age and Scarpelli contributed not much, Sergio Donati also was involved. Sounds like Leone was like Hitchcock, putting the story through rewrites, adding his own unique spin...

Loved Q's joke after first hanging / rescue / reward: "Well it's one way to make a living".

In the final shoot-out, Angel Eyes is definitely the one who's going to get shot.

I spotted a lens flare in the desert scene - Tonino Delli Colli a year before Conrad Hall in Cool Hand Luke.

Greed specifically; Treasure of the Sierra Madre generally

We came up with the idea of a film about the making of the film, with Ryan Gosling as Clint, featuring such stuff as the Spanish-Italian translation mix-up that caused the bridge to be blown up too early!

Interesting later to read that Leone was inspired by artists such as Degas, Magritte, Dali and de Chirico:

Giorgio de Chirico 'The Myth of Ariadne'

Vertigo (1958 AH)

There's a lot of subtext - in this frankly bonkers film - about desire and relationships. Men wanting women to look a certain way, to be a certain way.

Very interesting geometrically.

Good supporting cast as usual.

And even..

Before We Go (2014 Chris Evans)

Written by Ronald Bass and Jen Smolka (story) and Chris Shafer and Paul Vicknair. That's a lot of people for what is essentially a simple story, which is:

Trumpeter Chris Evans tries to help stranded Alice Eve (daughter of Trevor) get home.

Enjoyed it though, despite it being a filmed play. Leads likeable.