This Happy Breed (1944 David Lean) / All Or Nothing (2002 Mike Leigh)

What on earth would these families make of each other? And here's another question: what would Leigh have thought about Noel Coward's world, and vice versa? Watching the two back to back is remarkably interesting.

Put it another way. Transplant Robert Newton, Celia Johnson, Kay Walsh, Eileen Erskine and John Blythe into the twenty-first century Greenwich housing estate; put Timothy Spall, Lesley Manville, Alison Garland and James Cordon less than ten miles away into inter-war Clapham...

They're both emotional, and funny, Leigh's despite its bleak landscape (physical and personal). (Spall: 'It's... wossname... fate accompli.') The acting in the latter film is outstanding throughout and perhaps wins in that department. John Mills = Ruth Sheen? I love them both, they both give you hope. Leigh's film in particular does that - it presents a slice of Britain in 2002, but doesn't say 'Isn't this awful?' (like I guess Jonathan Ross* read it), instead it says 'There is a way forward, things will get better'.

The most striking thing I suppose is the total lack of respect the kids have for the adults.

" 'Course you can have a heart attack without really knowing about it."
"Can you?"
"You just don't feel very well."

Spall looks like a man who is haunted by himself. Fabulously underscored by Andrew Dickson. Marion Bailey (the drunk) is now with Leigh.

The trio of medals worn denoting WW1 service were colloquially known as 'Pip, Squeak and Wilfred'.

* "This is Mike Leigh up to his old tricks, serving up a dollop of misery which becomes progressively more black and depressing and, in my view, ever more condescending in its depiction of working class life in modern Britain." Leigh was nominated for the Palme D'Or at Cannes...

Rear Window (Hitchcocko 1954)

An absolute dream of a sound track.

Torn Curtain (1966 Halfred Itchcock)

It's too long (but not as long as Topaz).  Not for forty minutes is it revealed that Newman is there as a double agent. What would I have cut? That's another matter. The scene in the museum? (All footsteps.)

Written by  novelist Brian Moore (and Hitchcock), polished by Willis Hall and Keith Waterhouse (who didn't think much of it).

I often thought it was very like his early British films. And with all the German going on, maybe a touch of UFA...

Newman and Andrews. Great supporting cast, especially Hansjorg Felmy, Lila Kedrova and Ludwig Donath (professor). With Tamara Toumanova as the frequently upstaged ballerina, Wolfgang Keiling (Gromek), Carolyn Conwell.

Contains several classic sequences apart from the farmhouse murder, including a tense bus journey.

Weird to see a Thomas Cook office the week it went bust.

I Married a Witch (1942 Rene Clair)

There's a wonderful moment near the beginning where Fredric March is engaged in conversation with his horrible fiancee Susan Hayward and whatever reply he gives her is masked by thunder; a little later on, two bottles talk to each other. Robert Pirosh and Mark Connelly adapted Thorne Smith's story 'The Passionate Witch' with great success. Clair also made The Ghost Goes West in 1935.

With March are Veronica Lake (dead by 50), Cecil Kellaway, Robert Benchley, Robert Warwick and Robert Greig (town crier). It's photographed by Ted Tetzlaff.

Peaky Blinders - Season 4 (2017 Steven Knight)

David Caffrey directed, Cathal Watters shot it.

Has a cracking opening in which the family are saved from the noose in the nick of time. Then a year passes without contact from Tommy. Then (just in time for Christmas) the Sicilian mafia deliver Black Hands to them all and it's war, with Tommy savagely killing a chef (in an already blood drenched kitchen) and John bumped off immediately in shocking episode one ending. And Arthur finally sheds his beads and kaftan when two men try and kill him in a paint shop, another red-soaked scene. Actually it might have been more fun / tense to use a couple of slips in the paint here - but overall the writing's so good you're absolutely hooked throughout. And we still have the war hanging over everything - 'We died when we were out there / No one came back the same...In the bleak mid winter..'

Arthur (Paul Anderson) is probably our favourite character, flaws and all.

Returning from America, Ada (Sophie Rundle) is proving to be useful in uniting the family, and the secondary characters Johnny Dogs (Packy Lee) and Curly (Ian Peck) continue to be good value. Why is Charlotte Riley there, briefly? Because she's going to continue to feature in later series. Is Tom Hardy dead? Why does Tommy walk alone into an ambush? (In this scene as Tommy's running upstairs I noticed a cobweb on the banister - lovely attention to detail.) Is Michael banished for good?

Adrien Brody (who seems to be channelling Brando in The Godfather) and Aidan Gillen are the new bastards in town, and Charlie Murphy is the Union lady.

'Welcome to the Extraordinary General Meeting of the Shelby sisters!' Note Kate Phillips (Linda) is on the coke now too, as well as swearing a lot.

Fleabag (2019 Phoebe Waller-Bridge)

A filmed recording of this year's one-woman show, reprised from its initial debut in Edinburgh in 2013. PWB is sensational, whether arching her eyebrows or squeezing the life out of a hamster.

Peaky Blinders - Season 3 (2016 Steven Knight)

Three is proving to be Left Turn City. Who would have thought Tommy would be married, only for Grace to be dead by the end of episode 2? Who would have thought Arthur would be hooked up with a God-botherer? Or that a sapphire would be cursed? Has a most exciting final episode which in itself contains two major plot twists.

Churchill's got him involved with dodgy White Russians this time, and the new character-to-hate is 'priest' Paddy Considine. The plot is literally putting Tommy in tunnels this season - tunnels under the Thames. And there's a shadow of The Godfather when Michael / Corleone gets personal and gets his hands dirty.

From the look of Tommy's mansion, things certainly are going well. Couple of great scenes here with the brothers (and cousin) congregating in the servant's kitchen (Arthur: 'It's where the booze is') and then later, the madness that follows when they give Michael a gun..

How could you shoot one of these?

Great scene when Tom Hardy asks Tommy if he's different from any of the other bastards...

Have to mention Curly (Ian Peck) and Johnny Dogs (Packy Lee). The Russian princess is Gaite Jansen and the grand duchess Dina Korzun (Last Resort).

Cinematographer this series is Laurie Rose. And there's welcome bit of Bowie's 'Lazarus' (he was a fan of the show). (I thought I'd heard something that sounded like White Stripes earlier.. I have to admit I assumed all the music was written for the show. Then I thought I heard Radiohead..)

Mum's List (2016 Niall Johnson & scr)

'Acres and acres'. A true story, sympathetic and I'm sure realistic (though no one seems to have to work for a living), but it doesn't really do anything much for me. Winningly played by Emilia Fox and Rafe Spall (and, as their younger selves, Sophie Simnett and Ross McCormack), Elaine Cassidy, Richard Cordery and William and Matthew Stagg.

Gold (2016 Stephen Gaghan)

The first hour of this film is really boring.. Luckily it then picks up with a twist or too.

Matthew McConaughey, Edgar Ramirez, Bryce Dallas Howard, Corey Stoll.

Blonde Crazy (1931 Roy Del Ruth)

Story by Kubec Glasmon and John Bright.

Smooth operator Jimmy Cagney (a bit lechy, but also hilarious in places) seduces cute Joan Blondell into life of schemes but she's a good girl and ends up marrying Ray Milland - but then he's a crook too. It ends moralistically. Although a little creaky, film fair zips along, expecially compared to the same year's oh-so-slow Man of the World (I like the word 'expecially'- it makes me think of Barcelona).

Familiar faces are Louis Calhern (The Asphalt Jungle), Guy Kibee and Nat Pendleton, with Noel Francis and Polly Walters. Photographed by Ernie Haller and Sid Hickox.

Warner Bros. Ending makes no sense whatsoever. The stolen bonds wouldn't have been found on Cagney and so if he'd told Milland's story they would more likely have believed it. Even better - Blondell works it out and saves Cagney from prison. There you go.

The General (1926 Buster Keaton, Clyde Bruckman & scr)

Epic Civil War silent comedy. Keaton loves his train and Marion Mack - thus when they're both stolen by Unionists he follows in hot pursuit. Inventive gags and dangerous stunts abound, with Keaton utterly deadpan in the midst of it. Some huge set pieces but lovely little moments  -such as when the boys follow him into girlfriend's house, or when she starts putting tiny pieces of wood into the furnace, then starts sweeping the floor. It's absolutely brilliant.

Photographed by Bert Haines and Devereaux Jennings. An independent - Joseph Schenk production.

Breakfast on Pluto (2005 Neil Jordan)

Is this a Cillian Murphy I see before me? It can't be... A real brainshock to see his vulnerable gay survivor back-to-back with Tommy Shelby. It's a great performance. He'd already been in The Trench, 28 Days Later, The Girl with the Pearl Earring, Cold Mountain, The Wind That Shakes the Barley...

From the animated talking robins at the outset we know we're in the slightly strange head of Neil Jordon, who co-wrote with original author Patrick McCabe - a mix of humour, whimsy, Irishness, and cruelty.

With Liam Neeson, Brendan Gleeson (hilarious as aggressive Womble), Stephen Rea, Ruth Negga, Eva Birthistle, Liam Cunningham, Ian Hart, Dominic Cooper and Down's sufferer Seamus Reilly.

Photographed by Declan Quinn and edited by the great Tony Lawson. Amongst other music featured is Dusty Springfield's beautifully laid-back 1969 version of 'Windmills of Your Mind'.

Peaky Blinders - Season 2 (2014 Created and written by Steven Knight)

Begins well by putting Tommy on the back foot: initially because unaware he's working for his nemesis Major Campbell through the IRA; secondly his incursion into the Italian-Jewish gang war in Camden ends up almost killing him - the most painfully violent scene we've had so far. (We missed taping the first episode when it was broadcast. I remember John saying "Nothing much happens in the first episode"!) The pattern seems to be emerging - put Tommy in boxes (or, more appropriately, tunnels) and see how he gets out.

It all comes to a climax at the Epsom races (though we don't even learn how Tommy's horse did) and Polly delivers the fateful blow to Campbell - a major relief.

Noah Taylor (with somewhat unconvincing accent, but plenty of menace) plays the Italian, and scene-stealer Tom Hardy the Jew. Plus we meet Polly's son Finn Cole - we think he's going to be trouble - and widow / horse trainer Charlotte Riley (who's in real life married to Hardy).

Great to see Josh O'Connor popping up again (The Durrells) - apparently great as Charles in the new The Crown. And must mention Natasha O'Keeffe as Tommy's loyal secretary.

Photographed by Simon Dennis, who went on to shoot The Limehouse Golem. All epsiodes directed by Colm McCarthy.

Peaky Blinders - Season 1 (2013 Created and written by Steven Knight)

Directors: Otto Bathurst, Tom Harper.

Opens like a western. The grimy backdrop reminds me of Once Upon a Time in America. The gangs and ultra-violence and period make me think of Gangs of New York. In terms of plot and pacing, it's akin to The Godfather in its story of family and cunningly timed outbursts of violence. The look of it evokes The Road to Perdition.

The plot's good: World War One horror flashbacks and unity between returned comrades; family clashes and loyalty (especially when Dad turns up); the bar maid who's a police agent; the vengeful police chief; the way the brother's marriage plans turn out. Tommy thinking one step ahead.

Cillian Murphy, Sam Neill, Helen McCrory, Paul Anderson, (Arthur Jr.) Annabelle Wallis (Grace), Iddo Goldberg (Freddie Thorne), Ned Dennehy (Uncle Charlie), Charlie Creed-Mills (Billy Kimber), Sophie Rundle, Joe Cole (John), Tony Pitts, David Dawson. And should mention Samuel Edward-Cook as the unfortunate 'Danny Whizz-Bang'.

The Shelby's street is actually in Liverpool (Admiral Grove and Powis Street) and extensive filming also took place at the Black Country Living Museum in Dudley.

Knight wrote Dirty Pretty Things (2002), Eastern Promises (2007), Locke (2013), The Hundred Foot Journey (2014), Burnt (2015), Allied (2016 WW2 drama-romance with Brad Pitt,) Taboo (2017 long-form with Tom Hardy in 1800s Britain), Woman Walks Ahead (2017 1890s Native Americans), The Girl in the Spider's Web (2018), lots of others including an upcoming Christmas Carol. He was also one of the creators of Who Wants to be a Millionaire! His mum and dad grew up in Small Heath and used to tell him stories that otherwise weren't depicted anywhere, concerning family members that were involved in bookmaking and law-dodging. The Garrison was a real pub there.

Photographed by George Steel, who then went on to The Honorable Woman and War and Peace, also directed by Harper.

The acting's terrific with Cillian a mesmerizing lead.

Chinatown (1974 Roman Polanski)

It's not wide lenses, it's narrow ones that give it its distinctive look - in fact 50mm lenses which in the anamorphic format closely resembles the human field of vision.* Like people can be right up close to the lens, an in-your-face feeling. The great Stanley Cortez started on the film and was involved in all the pre-production, but wouldn't shoot it the way Polanski wanted, then John Alonzo (who took inspiration from James Wong Howe) was called in. Polanski wanted it shot straight - 'no diffusion or other tricks'. (This makes nonsense of Halliwell's seventies review - 'tending to suggest period by use of an orange filter' - honestly, don't say things like this unless you're sure. Yeah, like my last review of this...) What Alonzo did, was to use 'Chinese tracing paper to shift the light and colour, so that it turned beige and gold. Roman liked it.' It's a film blanc...

Nicholson and Dunaway are terrific. So is Richard Sylbert's production design. And Jerry Goldsmith's score - a haunting, influential theme. It has a wonderful, complex plot and I finally paid enough attention to work out whose glasses they were. For quite a talky film, it picks up in momentum successfully.

I like the moments when you hear sound and don't know where it's coming from - someone washing a car, or stencilling a name on an office door. Or the typewriter, off-screen. And the cripple with the crutch who keeps hitting the wrong people.

With John Huston, Perry Lopez (cop), John Hillerman, Darrell Zwerling, Diane Ladd, Polanski, Bruce Glover, Burt Young ('Curly', recently in Win Win). Edited by Sam O'Steen.

It's a chilly film. I don't really buy the relationship between Nicholson and Dunaway.

Good one for the obscure screen shot series

I looked up Towne's original ending - Evelyn and her daughter get away, Noah Cross is killed. Polanski's ending is much more powerful...

Robert Evans died October 26.

*No it isn't, it's wide lenses! What I find really confusing info about Polanski's lenses here. I think the wider they are the smaller the mm. I don't know where this stuff about 50mm lenses comes from when Edelman says "“Roman has been shooting his movies with one or two lenses all his life. He likes wide lenses because he likes to see the characters integrated with the space."

Fosse / Verdon (2019)

Fosse certainly was a shit, especially to his wife who - this timely screenplay reveals - was a perfect partner for him - they simply should have always worked together. Though it's well rounded - she was no angel either (is quite manipulative, especially towards Fosse's new girlfriend) and neither are good parents, having both had difficult childhoods themselves.

It's based on Sam Wasson's biography, written and created by Thomas Kail (no previous writing credits, also directed five of the eight episodes - a Tony award winning theatre director) and Steven Levenson (Masters of Sex and not much else on TV, but also a playwright).

Brilliant editing and sound editing connects scenes and time periods through tap dancing, door bells, phones, in most interesting style, reminiscent (I think - it's been a while) of the way the director's own All That Jazz was made.

Sam Rockwell and Michelle Williams continue their incredible careers.  With West Wing's Nat Corddry (as Neil Simon) and Norbert Leo Butz (Chayefsky), Aya Cash (Joan Simon), Blake Baumgartner and Juliet Brett (Joan Fosse), Margaret Qualley, Kelli Barrett, Evan Handler.

Great scene at the end of four when his entire cast, wife and friend Paddy Cheyefsky sing him towards suicide - but he's saved at the last minute by the plaintive tune of his daughter. By comparison, the ending is a little flat (anti-climactic).

Later Williams delivers a great rendition of the Sweet Charity number 'Where Am I Going? (Cy Coleman music, Dorothy Fields lyrics) as a tribute to Neil Simon's wife Joan. The same episode features more great editing - the scene with Verdon remembering her is done like The Pawnbroker - longer and longer flashbacks - nice to see stuff like this again.

Tim Ives shot it. The editors were Tim Streeto, Erica Freed Marker, Jonah Moran and Kate Sanford. Daniel Timmons and Tony Volante were the supervising sound editors. A guide to the musical references can be found here. Made for FX, which seems to be the home of quality these days.

I'm glad I've seen All That Jazz and Lenny because I bet they're quite a depressing watch now. And I will never forgive Fosse for making Star 80. Also didn't know about Neil Simon's sad loss of his first wife Joan (in July 1973), who encouraged him into writing plays - his film Chapter Two is based on his fast courtship and marriage to Marsha Mason six months after the death.

This Way Up (2019 Aisling Bea)

Felt a quick mention was due to Aisling's debut as a writer. But it's that she's so fantastic in the role - utterly credible. This will open doors.

True Confession (1937 Wesley Ruggles)

Thankfully our mixed bag six film Carole Lombard 'Glamour Collection' ends on a high note, back at Paramount (home of the best thirties comedies) and re-teamed with Fred MacMurray, and - of course - Ted Tetzlaff, who follows her everywhere, like a faithful dog. (In fact there were quite a few star / cameramen teams in the old days, if you think Robert de Grasse and Ginger Rogers, Franz Planer and Audrey Hepburn, Garbo and Bill Daniels...)

Fanciful Lombard, in good screwy role, forever making up stories, gets into trouble when Weinstein-like employer turns up dead. Lawyer husband MacMurray defends her but only after she's claimed she killed him. Then dipso John Barrymore (I'm saying nothing about real-life parallels here), accompanied by Friedrich Hollander's dipso theme, turns up, claiming he did it...

Good support from Una Merkel, Porter Hall, Edgar Kennedy (exasperated cop), Lynne Overman (bartender), Fritz Feld (butler), Tom Dugan (attempting to repossess typewriter) and Hattie McDaniel in one of her two minute parts, wanting to know if it's OK if she bumps off her boyfriend.

Love Before Breakfast (1936 Walter Lang)

Lombard was lent to Universal, to no great shakes. She's playing a woman, which in itself is a good start, who's supposedly in love with Cesar Romero, a man who's posted to Japan so that rich businessman Preston Foster (who's himself nominally engaged to Janet Beecher) can pursue her himself.

I don't know who all these people are and it's a dull, poorly written story that you have to endure for the only good moment - the ending - well, let me put that another way - the finale, which has Lombard arguing with Preston as they are declared married, she in bathrobe and feet in a hot tub.

Ted Tetzlaff was clearly hired out with Lombard, as Universal didn't trust their own cameramen. (What do I know? She may have had the authority to choose her own DP..) (Learned subsequently - she did.)

Abschied / Farewell (1930 Robert Siodmak)

Interesting little UFA film set in lodging house involves Aribert Mog's decision to move to Dresden for work, leaving girlfriend Brigitte Horney behind. Landlady Emilia Unda stirs it up, and there's also the involvement of a composer (whose piano playing opportunistically provides the score), a Russian, three sisters and a somewhat slimy grifter who saves the day... sort of.

Notable as an early Pressburger script. Shot by Eugene Schufftan.

Moves along - not bad. Relationship of the leads seems quite credible. Lots of good, human touches.

The Sisters Brothers (2018 Jacques Audiard) / Hell or High Water (2016 David Mackenzie)

I was only thinking that morning it might be fun to watch a double bill of films called 'The General' (by Buster Keaton and John Boorman) and instead we chanced upon two great films, both coincidentally about a pair of brothers, one of whom has killed their father. Neither film has much time for women, either.

Audiard made A Prophet and Rust and Bone. His is an ultra-realistic western, fabulously photographed by Benoît Debie (winning the César, along with Audiard as director), based on Patrick DeWitt's  novel and written by the director and Thomas Bidegain. It's certainly a great plot with one left turn after another. John C Reilly and Joaquin Phoenix are the brothers in pursuit of Jake Gyllenhaal and Riz Ahmed (both giving as good performances as the two leads). Alexandre Desplat wrote the music.

Quite grim film is not without its moments of humour - John Reilly first cleaning his teeth a memorable moment.

Hell or High Water features Chris Pine and Ben Foster (Leave No Trace) as the bank-robbing brothers pursued by Jeff Bridges and Gil Birmingham, and Taylor Sheridan's screenplay was both Oscar and BAFTA nominated.

Nick Cave's Burwell-ish score evokes Fargo - film is in the same deadpan style. West Texas looks like a godforsaken place (well-chosen locations).

Mackenzie made Starred Up; Sheridan wrote the two Sicario films.

Sunset (1988 Blake Edwards)

In Rod Amateau and Blake's story, 1929 cowboy star Tom Mix (Bruce Willis) is teamed up with Wyatt Earp (James Garner) by evil producer Malcolm MacDowell (when did he emigrate? The end of the seventies). The two get on great and are soon mixed up in a murder plot featuring Mariel Hemingway, Kathleen Quinlan (good - A Civil Action, Lawn Dogs, Apollo 13, The Doors), Jennifer Edwards, Patricia Hodge, Richard Bradford, M Emmet Walsh and Joe Dallesandro. And Dermot Mulroney.

Fortunately not in the Pink Panther slapstick mode, film has high production values and is generally good fun. Some memorable stunts and Spanish dancing scene, and an easy-going pairing between the two leads.

Score by Henry Mancini, handsomely photographed by Anthony Richmond.

The Princess Comes Across (1936 William K Howard)

Lombard is pretending to be a Swedish princess (cuing amusing acting / accent) on transatlantic liner; MacMurray is adjacent passenger - a concertina player, no less. (Whoever's actually playing that concertina is damn good.) Also on board is a murderer, a blackmailer and an international troupe of detectives, memorably including Misha Auer and Sig Rumann. So it's a merry pot.

How can it be adapted from a novel (Louis Lucien Rogger) and 'based on a story by' (Philip MacDonald)? But it is. Screenplay: Walter DeLeon, Francis Martin, Don Hartman (Road films, director of A Holiday Affair) & Frank Butler.  Shot at Paramount by Ted Tetzlaff.

With Douglass Dumbrille, Alison Skipworth, The Man Who Came to Dinner's George Barbier, William Frawley, Porter Hall (Sullivan's Travels), Lumsden Hare, Bradley Page & Tetu Komai.

Indiscretion of an American Wife (1953 Vittoria de Sica)

Both my Selznick books (he co-produced) contain annoyingly nothing on this, other than as Truman Capote was in Italy writing additional dialogue for the film, Selznick recommended he went to to join John Huston's merry company making Beat the Devil.

Set entirely in the main station in Rome, as married Jennifer Jones tries to end relationship with Montgomery Clift whilst bits of life happen around them (the kids given the chocolate remains an evocative scene).

We saw the re-edited 63 minute version of Statzione Termini, originally 90 minutes, though the US release didn't even include the opening - Jones approaching Clift's apartment but not being able to go through with it. (Maybe this was the UK release, though that was titled Indiscretion). The Italian version has much more of the various secondary characters (waiters etc.)

Interesting. Though when Clift hits her hard, for her saying he should go, we both wanted to push him under a train.

The Male Animal (1942 Elliott Nugent)

Considering the credits - James Thurber story, Epstein brothers screenplay, Warners, cast - something went wrong. College professor Henry Fonda is dealing with wife Olivia de Havilland's ex-flame Jack Carson and facing censorship from college (Eugene Pallette) over threatened reading of Vanzetti letter to class.

Despite the writers it isn't particularly funny, and the marital bust-up thing is just annoying and lacking in credibility (Olivia bursting into tears at any moment, Fonda unable to handle about two drinks). And too much football stuff.

In a sort of mirror, actually quite a good mirror, the sub-plot has daughter Joan Leslie being dated by football jock Don DeFore (a ridiculous 29) and intellectual Herbert Anderson (slightly better: 25).

No problem with Arthur Edeson's photography nor with Ivan F Simpson as supportive Dean, nor Hattie McDaniel - though she's seems to be relegated to a basically nice but slightly dotty housekeeper role again - a retrograde step.