Wonder Boys (2000 Curtis Hanson)

Really well written by Steve Kloves (BAFTA and Oscar nominated) from Michael Chabon's novel, offering Michael Douglas a great part as a world-weary professor / writer. (He received a BAFTA nomination but not, interestingly, an Oscar nod.) It's funny how uptight student Tobey Maguire resists offers of drink and drugs, then takes to them both with some alacrity. And when asked why he's written such a long book, the author replies "Because I couldn't stop."

Frances McDormand, Robert Downey Jr., Katie Holmes, Rip Torn, Jane Adams. Richard Thomas, Michael Cavadias (transvestite). Totally confused though who played 'Vernon Hardapple' or whatever his real name is (the true owner of the car). He's credited as Richard Knox, but it sure ain't this guy that Google shows as being he:

Edited with great smoothery by Dede Allen (one of her three Oscar nominations with Reds and Dog Day Afternoon). Well photographed by Dante Spinotti.

"Did Alan Ladd really put paprika on it?" (his penis)
"Yep - salad dressing, ground lamb..."

The Breakfast Club (1985 John Hughes & scr)

Emilio Estevez, Anthony Michael Hall, Molly Ringwald, Judd Nelson and Ally Sheedy attend a long detention (7 AM - 3 PM - really?) in a nice school library in Chicago, and get to know each other. Paul Gleason is the supervising teacher, John Kapelos the janitor.

Dede Allen reports that Hall had a sweetness and Sheedy a kookiness that she helped exploit, and that one of the execs hated the 'analysis' scene, which is of course the crux of the film. It can easily be criticised for featuring a cast of stereotypes, but nonetheless is fun.

Thomas del Ruth shot it in the closed Maine North High School, Illinois. The library set was built in the gym.

The apprentice editor is William Goldenberg, later Oscar winner for Argo.

The Trip to Spain (2017 Michael Winterbottom)

Mags Arnold has graduated to lead editor; James Clarke was the DP.

Lupin - Season Two (2021 Creator George Kay)

Was this inspired by what the BBC had done with Sherlock? Also has a bit of Hustle to it - 'Fourteen days before' sort of thing.

Anyway, this is really Season 1 part 2 as it continues directly, and in a rather unsatisfactory way, with the kidnapping of the boy, but picks up steam when Lupin finally gets his revenge on evil Pellegrini (Hervé Pierre), though if he's cleared himself of all accusations, why is he pursued at the end by the Keystone Cops - why does he need to go away?

Loved  the moment where they give the catacombs map back to the lady twenty-five years later - with a diamond. (Something like this happens in season one too.)

Next: Lupin in New York.

With Omar Sy are Ludivine Sagnier, Shirine Boutella, Antoine Gouy, Soufiane Guerrab, Etan Simon.

Calm With Horses (2019 Nick Rowland)

 'It's not calm, and there aren't many horses' was Q's succinct commentary. Indeed, it begins in a seriously brutal way, following somewhat dumb ex-boxer gang enforcer Cosmo Jarvis (coming over like a young Brando) and his vile mate Barry Keoghan (Chernobyl, Dunkirk, '71, BAFTA nominated) beating up an alleged paedophile, and his ex Niamh Algar (BAFTA nominated) and challenged son Kiljan Moroney. Quite painful and baleful, though not without subtlety, moves towards atonement in rejecting murder; great long take as Jarvis, seriously wounded, wishes his ex well as she leaves the area for a better life.

With yer other fellers Liam Carney, David Wilmot, Brian Doherty, Ned Dennehy, Brid Brennan.

Could have done with a shot of McDonagh humour, but then they wouldn't be making this film. Joe Murtagh wrote it, from Colin Barrett's short story. BAFTA Best British Film nomination.

Sparkle (2007 Neil Hunter, Tom Hunsinger)

As described here. Boyfriends and Lawless Heart their only other films. A shame as this is so good, the cast great, the writing great.

Stockard Channing, Shaun Evans, Leslie Manville, Amanda Ryan, Bob Hoskins, John Shrapnel, Ellie Haddington, Anthony Head.

The Book Group (2002-3 Annie Griffin & scr)

You know - she did Festival. This is also drily funny and dark, somewhat frank and certainly a hell of a lot better than that godawful Diane Keaton book club thing, but quite unappetising in its depiction of human behaviour.

Anne Dudek (Mad Men) is the caustic American, Rory McCann in wheelchair (of course! Hot Fuzz - 'Aargh?'), Michelle Gomez, Bonnie Engstrom, James Lance (Sensitive Skin, Hotel Babylon, Murder Is Easy), Saskia Mulder, Derek Riddell (Gentleman Jack, Shetland, The Missing, Happy Valley). Karen Kilgariff joins season two.

Vic Boydell cut the pilot. Danny Cohen shot season two, which has Doves playout music.

Doc Hollywood (1991 Michael Caton-Jones)

 We wanted something familiar and feel-good. Michael J Fox just turned 60.

Q loves this colour purple

It's not the first time that Taxi Driver's DP Michael Chapman has overlit night scenes - at the insistence of the studio, no doubt.

The Final Problem (2017 Benjamin Caron)

Can't remember how this ended up, now. Violins. Sian Brooke is the other Holmes. Last in the series.

Involves an island fortress and being set various macabre challenges.

Did love the final little reference to 'Rathbone Place'.

The Lying Detective (2017 Nick Hurran scr. Moffat/Gatiss)

Inspired by the short story, 'The Dying Detective' this has something of a whiff of Saville about it, as Sherlock is off his head on drugs whilst trying to trap a TV personality / serial killer, played with menace by Toby Jones. It's all been set up by Mary from beyond the grave as she knows that if Sherlock's in trouble Watson will help - great moments here where she appears in the scenes with them even though she's not there - fabulous performance from Amanda Abbington.

Wide Sargasso Sea (2006 Brendan Maher)

Jean Rhys novel adapted by Stephen Greenhorn. Didn't know Maher - started out as Neighbours / Home and Away director.

This is the Jane Eyre prequel, starring Rafe Spall and Rebecca Hall, who are both good, though her accent is distracting. Nina Sosanya, Victoria Hamilton, Fraser Ayres and Lorraine Burroughs offer good support.

Nicely shot by David Luther (though perhaps the decision to shoot everything hand held was a mistake) and cut with some force by Vic Boydell, literally sometimes just jump cutting two shots together. In fact I would suggest that the brilliant interesting cinematic treatment of certain scenes (e.g. the poisoning) and flourishes were down to the editor rather than the director. A BBC production. 

It's a stingy tale. 'Is everything on this island designed to prick, bite or sting?' But I didn't mean it that way. Jamaica looks quite like England, really, though I'm led to believe it actually was filmed on location. Creole is mixed black / European, specifically French Louisiana.

Fatherhood (2021 Paul Weitz & co-scr)

Kevin Hart brings up Maddy Legelin on his own, with help and hindrance from dumb friends and no-so-dumb family, including Alfre Woodard, the original Viola Davis.

It's not very good, really.

Fox (1980 Jim Goddard, scr Trevor Preston)

Peter Vaughan is 'King Billy', head of a South London family, married to Elizabeth Spriggs. Sons are Bernard Hill, with deaf son, lothario Larry Lamb (a black cab driver), nightclub owner Derrick O'Connor, student Eamon Boland, and boxer Ray Winstone. Clapham location is not the only thing that parallels it with This Happy Breed.

A birthday party interrupted by rats, corrupt coppers, a violent cheated-on husband, a quirky fashion designer... Then Winstone accidentally kills his boxing opponent, can't deal with it, and heads for the sea, a not unfamiliar plot device, where he's robbed then held for ransom. O'Connor seeks retribution - he has been in  prison, we learn - a big drinker - comes across like Bogart in Casablanca (even does an impersonation in later scene). He finds the couple responsible but lets them off lighter than he might.

A young Bill Nighy appears as a journalist, one of his earliest appearances. Jim Carter and David Calder also pop up.

Incredible scene where the mother goes to break the news to her husband's lover Julia Sutton. Incredible long take between Larry and his girlfriend.  Gritty fight in pub. Great funeral procession to New Orleans jazz. Lovely scene where family are gathered at bottom of stairs and Boland tries to get Winstone to open his door. Goddard knowing when not to move the camera.

Elizabeth Spriggs and Julia Sutton

Euston Films operated 1972-1994, home of The Sweeney, Minder, and Out, also directed by Goddard and written by Preston. (I remember Out clearly but this one didn't ring a bell at all.) They seemed to specialise in gritty London things, shooting on location on 16mm film. Preston has many TV credits going back to 1967 and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, created Ace of Wands in 1970, wrote Sweeney, Ruth Rendall Mysteries, I'll Sleep When I'm Dead. He also wrote the cult Billy the Kid and the Green Baize Vampire and the Britt Ekland - Mark Lester Night Hair Child.

It won the 1981 TV Writing BAFTA award. 13 50 minute episodes, originally in the 9 / 9.15 pm slot on a Monday night - very surprised to hear 'fuck' then. Some rather questionable songs are my only fault with it.

I think here 'steamers' means prostitutes' clients. Liked 'And one for the queen' (make it a triple).

Covent Garden market was relocated in 1974; the main building opened as a shopping centre in 1980. Michael Palin bought a property in Neal's Yard in 1976 and reported 'There's a good healthy feeling of an area coming to life again'.

Endeavour - Season Seven (2020 Russell Lewis)

A brilliant little tale - little? It takes place over a year, exactly - worked out over three films involving a femme fatale in Venice and a tow path murderer, which starts out with Shaun beautifully reading this:

"The good ended happily, and the bad, unhappily. That's what fiction means, only until it begins, you don't know what the opera will be, or where the story might take you, whether it'll be comedy, or tragedy. This... is a story about love." (It was only later than I realised the beginning is a direct quote from 'The Importance of Being Earnest.)

In 'Oracle' we are introduced to said woman - The Wrong Woman, of course - Stephanie Leonidas. Meanwhile a barmaid is murdered by a whistling assailant. Suspects include an extremely sexist research facility, a dodgy chef and an ex-boyfriend. Angus Wright is the vile professor, Richard Harrington and Reece Ritchie aren't much better, Naomi Battrick the female researcher who comes to an untimely end. Shaun directed.

Morse is super-friended by Ludo, Ryan Gage, whilst he and Thursday disagree over the identity of the tow path murderer, which a girl with supposed ESP (Holli Dempsey) thinks she's 'seen'.

The Wrong Woman is, of course, Ludo's wife, and despite Morse's attempts to resist her they end up in an affair. 'Raga' brings in a race angle with skinheads and attacks, but also the murder of a chef and the disappearance of a food writer. Whilst this is going on, Frazil brings to Morse's attention a series of bizarre accidents, but Thursday, in disagreeable mood, will have none of it.

The Jolly Raja and Tiffin Court are among the cultural jokes, and when the mother of murdered skinhead slaps the racist politician in front of everyone, it seems we're back in Jaws territory.

All stories dovetail beautifully in 'Zenana' (Persian; part of the house for the women). Morse and Thursday finally fall out with each other, are going their own ways, even with Bright's wife dying (more great acting from Anton). Then Morse writes a beautiful and persuasive letter to Joan (none of her this series, unfortunately) which includes the following:

"To my lasting regret, we parted on poor terms. The fault was mine entirely. He's ever been the best and wisest of men and a better friend to me than I could have wished for, or deserved. I let him down..."

Wonderful climax back in Venice evokes Don't Look Now and cross cuts the action beautifully to opera, which I am astonished to learn was written for the show specifically by Matthew Slater and Russell Lewis. (Note therefore use of 'opera' in the very opening lines.)

DPs: Phil Wood, James Aspinall, James Moss. Other directors: Zam Salim, Kate Saxon.

If (and I suspect it will) the series parallels Morse and Lewis, with 33 episodes each, there are only three Endeavours left...

There are no more women only colleges at Oxford.

Once it's all over it just leaves you wanting more (thus why last time we then started Morse and Lewis again!)

Fargo - Season 4 (2020 Noah Hawley)

Kansas City, MO (Missouri) 1950. A delicate peace exists between Italian and black underworld (they have traded each other's sons to protect it). A mixed race couple run a funeral parlour, their daughter befriends a murderous nurse opposite.

Well acted by E'myri Critchfield (bright but disobedient daughter), Jason Schwartzman, Ben Whishsaw, Chris Rock, Jessie Buckley (who has a really funny walk), Timothy Olyphant, Jack Huston (detective), Jeremie Harris, Glynn Turman ('Doc', the more senior black gang leader), Andrew Bird, Salvatore Esposito (really having fun with the role, like a lovable yet murderous teddy bear). Also the girl 'outlaws', Karen Aldridge and Kelsey Asbille.

Finished the last of eleven episodes after a two week delay, caused by Endeavour. In black and funny turn of events, almost everyone is killed, including Whishaw, who goes up in a tornado in Wizard of Oz episode, but our girl who kicks off the story is the ultimate winner. (The only winner, in fact.)

Some of the dialogue is juicily enjoyable.

Hawley had numerous jobs, worked in law, wrote first novel 'A Conspiracy of Tall Men' published 1998, First TV work was on Bones, comedy drama about forensic team. The Coen Brothers are reportedly not that interested in the series.

Very stylish. Music: still Jeff Russo. Dark DPs: Dana Gonzales, Paula Huidobro, Gonzalo Amat, Pete Konczal, Erik Messerschmidt. Editing: Regis Kimble (who's also a producer), Curtis Thurber, Jordan Goldman. Production design: Warren Alan Young.

Endeavour - Season 6 (2019 Russell Lewis)

'Pylon'. Everything's changed: Morse is in uniform ('It was all that was available' i.e. someone's still fucking around with his career), Thursday's been demoted (someone's now fucking around with his career?), Bright's on traffic, Strange is.. doing something. Anyhow, they seem to come together, despite Ronnie Box (Simon Harrison) now being the guv'nor. This one's about a dead girl in a field.

Max at home: "It's nothing sinister. I'm just getting a seed cake out of the oven."

Van: 'Horse slaughterers and glue boilers'.

'Apollo'. Apollo 11, wife swapping, runaway kids, experimental therapy, a Thunderbirds type TV show, all artfully woven together. Stephen la Riviere was responsible for making some revival Thunderbirds episodes. He used existing and new puppets (one of which was chosen as it looked a bit like Dexter!), and had a Century 21 puppeteer and director on set. Shaun directed this one, Sophie Winkleman (from Trust) and the nutty therapist stand out in non-regular cast.

Not sure if there's any link really from Jago to Iago other than the latter is Othello's main antagonist.

'Confection.' Poison pen letters in Trumpton type village, involves agony aunt, sweet factory and murder. Morse falls for the wrong woman, as he is prone to (Olivia Chenery). Win is barely talking to Fred, who's getting a bit too chummy with Box and Jago.. Bright's wife is ill.

'Degüello.' The final tense episode. A tragedy at a dodgy tower block, a bent politician and construction company, the gun that killed Fancy, a dead surveyor, Strange's pursuit of Chinese heroin deaths, an assassination attempt on Bright.. It's corruption at a top level again, ending in a genuine Western showdown (even with the cavalry arriving!)

Very moody lighting (Chas Bain). Each film seems to have different editors and DPs.

But.. didn't really get who killed the librarian at the Bodleian, nor about the mysterious muddy footprints. (Q says it's a 'winkle-picker'.) Thursday: 'I'm more of a Holly Martens man myself' (The Third Man).

More seriously great work from Anton Lesser (e.g. scene in club discussing wife with De Bryn), Allam and Evans, Sara Vickers.

Only just learned that as 'Frazil' is old English for ice, her name is 'D. Ice' = 'Thaw'!

Endeavour - Season 5 (2018 Russell Lewis)

'Muse'. An ironic title, as a powerfully independent redhead (Charlotte Hope) is the only link to three murders - turns out it all links back to a horrible 'Rotter's Club' type incident, which even suggests the infamous Blair-pig's head moment. Gangster Eddie Nero (Mark Arden) is introduced, sixties racism is present, and there's a new detective on the block, George Fancy (Lewis Peek).

I must get my actors in the right order. James Bradshaw is De Bryn, Sean Rigby is Strange.

'Cartouche'. OED again = Archaeology, an oval or oblong enclosing a group of Egyptian hieroglyphs, typically representing the name and title of a monarch. This is great. The stuff about 'The Pharaoh's Curse' for example, everyone involved dying, is a complete red herring. And, you know, 1968, cinemas could be packed, they still had organists, and doormen... Not for much longer, I'll wager. I started going to the cinema soon after, don't remember any of that. 

Joan's back - as predicted she's pissed off with her dad for getting involved in her life, leading to her being assaulted and losing her place to live in Leamington Spa.

Fun stuff going on - ice cream girl Betty Persky - that's Lauren Bacall's real name. Inspector Atwill is probably a reference to horror film actor Lionel Atwill. Mammoth Films - Endeavour's production company is Mammoth Screen. Donald Sumpter is the aging film star, Christopher Sciueref the Egyptologist who suggests that his line of work and being a detective is the same thing - they're both 'guardians of the dead'.

'Passenger.' Damned clever episode, centring around railways, and missing sister. Jamie Cairney's photography excellent. Also, there's a new, murderous gang in town. Thursday: "Forget it - it's Summertown" (Chinatown?) Dexter on poster in railway station?

'Colours'. Murder at army base. Fancy almost gets blown up, Morse is shot at. Features Fascist aristocracy. Ian Pirie is Lt. Col. 'Mad Jack', perhaps based on 'Mad Jack' Churchill who went into battle armed with sword, bow and arrow and bagpipes.

Morse has a new girlfriend, but she's one of these continental types who doesn't believe in love, only sex. Since when did Morse take up smoking?

There seem to be six films this season rather than the usual four. Perhaps Lewis was enjoying a particularly creative spurt. We think Thursday thinks Morse is a better detective than he is.

'Quartet'. Begins with 'Jeux Sans Frontieres' but rapidly becomes an international spy thriller. The evidence in the lethal fish tank seems to reference the 'Live and Let Die' novel. All the supporting characters are involved. Good acting from various cast members - Richard Durden, Ian Bartholomew, Mary Roscoe, Ellie Haddington.

Lewis interviewed for Radio Times 14 April 2020: "I’m unhealthily obsessed with that early 70s aesthetic… It’s the world of Peter Serafinowicz and Robert Popper’s Look Around You… An era of Doomwatch, and Nigel Kneale’s The Stone Tape…

What about the TV series and screenwriters that made an impression on the young Russell Lewis? It’s a huge list, which includes Play for Today, the Dennis Potter dramas (Pennies from Heaven, Blue Remembered Hills, The Singing Detective), Mike Leigh, Alan Clarke, Ken Loach, Steven Poliakoff’s Bloody Kids, Alan Bennett… In short, “Oh my goodness. Everything! Between the 60s and 70s, I was just a living VCR with its button stuck on record. And crime writers? “I guess everything has an influence – for good or ill. Agatha Christie, as a kid. Those Tom Adams covers had me hooked. Around 1975, the BBC aired the Ellery Queen Whodunit series, which was fantastic, if short-lived. Conan Doyle, naturally. Like a lot of boys, I’m sure Ian Fleming was an early influence. I’d write Bond knock-offs over the summer holidays, filling exercise books with chapter after chapter of derring-do!

“An English teacher – Mr Harris – indulged my scribbling and pointed me towards Chandler and Hammett, and the whole hard-boiled school. My interest was fired further by a string of adaptations of Chandler on Radio 4, starring the late, great Ed Bishop as Philip Marlowe.

“These days, I try not to miss any of Martin Cruz Smith’s Arkady Renko novels. The late, great Ruth Rendell writing as Barbara Vine was and remains another favourite. I don’t know if you’d class it as crime, but the early Len Deighton novels featuring the nameless hero, upon which the Michael Caine movies were based, have owned my heart ever since I first read them in my teens.”

Then, extremely weird to find myself back in Reading School in 'Icarus', which turns Unman Wittering and Zigo into If... but also features the death of Fancy. What on earth was he doing in there?

The Trip to Italy (2014 Michael Winterbottom & scr)

It was constructed over a year, with Coogan and Brydon, the journey connected to Byron throughout. Whilst the actual filming is improvised, there's clearly stories going on - here with Brydon's affair and Coogan's family relationship. It looks simpler than it is - for one thing there must be a hell of a lot of material to cut, and more than one take of things - there's usually three editors on any given 30 minute episode.

That wonderful Strauss, Four Last Songs - Sunset - is used wonderfully. Though when indispensable PA Claire Keelan references Contempt and that 'great piece of music, but it just keeps coming back on, again and again' - you wonder whether that's a sort of in-joke criticism of itself.

Doesn't make you miss Italian food or Italy at all.

Endeavour - Season 4 (2017 Russell Lewis)

Follows on directly from Three (therefore still 1967) and Joan's departure - Thursday's taking it out on Morse, who's not amused by this nor that his sergeant's exam papers have disappeared, so he's failed. Both Bright and Thursday warn him that powerful figures will attempt to thwart his career at every turn, and to transfer to another district, but he's not being forced out.

'Game' is the one with the murders linked by drowning, and the computer playing chess. 'I should have listened to you,' Thursday finally relents. 'You're always right.'

"And one was fond of me and all are slain" de Bryn quotes from AE Housman 'Ask me no more, for fear I should reply'. And I think Q was right, the computer typo Re: Drum is a reference to The Shining.

'Canticle' is the one with the Mary Whitehouse figure and The Wildwood. I think we see Dexter in a newspaper column. ('Canticle' = a hymn or chant forming a regular part of a church service.) The sub-plot about the Whitehouse daughter having had enough and leaving parallels Joan to Thursday.

Barrington Pheloung's music continues to be inspired.. though Matthew Slater is beginning to come in.

'Lazaretto'. Bed No. 10. Who's bumping off the patients? Who include a potential witness, and DS Bright (note how often Trewlove is there visiting). Also there is Morses' ex's mother, who's an utter bitch (Phoebe Nicholls). I think it's a good job Morse didn't end up with the daughter. But there's perhaps some closure there. 'Lazaretto' = historical - an isolation hospital for people with infectious diseases, especially leprosy or plague. 

You half expect the parrot to reveal the murderer's identity - but Lewis isn't that cheesy.

'Harvest'. (The 'mere' referred to is a term for wetland.) How a man's disappearance five years before links to a nuclear accident that's about to be repeated. But really, the episode's all about Joan, who's in hiding because she thinks the bank job was all her fault. She's definitely a bad judge of men, having palled up with another badun. Thursday visits, makes the situation worse, and she's pregnant, for a time... 'Marry me.' So sweet. Whether she throws herself down the stairs or he did, we don't know... Also, Morse was about to leave for a new job in London - it looks like he chose not to, even before realising he'd been promoted, but again it's not really clear. 

Morse: 'Snappy' Jenkins?
Frazil: Well, you can be.

Frazil: Girl trouble?
Morse: I don't have a girl.
Frazil: Well maybe that's the trouble.

The chap who writes the fan site https://morseandlewisandendeavour.com/ may be very helpful and interesting but of the above episode he wonders whether Lewis should have other writers come in, considers the hostile village clichéd, and thinks the Joan character should have been 'killed off'. I take extreme objection to all of these. I think it's so cool that Lewis has written every single episode - he is a great writer, constructs each one so cleverly.. I don't know where he gets all his ideas from - and doesn't need any outside help, thank you. The hostile village is obviously there as a gleeful reference to The Wicker Man and English horror films in general - it's there for the audience to enjoy, same as the Jaws references throughout 'Prey'. As for 'killing off Joan', this shows he doesn't really get one of the plot cornerstones of this series, the Morse-Joan-Thursday conflict, and it's in this particular instalment you get some of the most powerful fallout from that dysfunctional relationship. So you can carry on cleverly identifying all the music and art references, Mr. Sullivan, and leave the intelligent stuff to us.

Dexter died in 2017, aged 86. Housman was clearly one of Dexter's favourites as he bought first editions. His dad was a taxi driver. Thursday is based on Lewis's dad.

Endeavour - Season 3 (2016 Russell Lewis)

It's 1967, and Morse is living in a rich friend's lake house, gets involved with even richer neighbour Bixby (David Oakes). 'Ride' is the title, and it seems to have some Gatsby influences, and involves a fairground and a murder, which gradually brings Morse (somewhat disillusioned) back to the force - there has been a major cover up of Blenheim Vale and the corruption. 'What did you expect?' asks Thursday.

'Arcadia' isn't quite as mad as the others, does kick off with a brilliant bit of exposition as a woman comes out of Robinsons supermarket and drops to the street as some poshers pursue an African and throw him into the river - turns out he is important to the story, as was her death. The bright spark PC Trewlove is introduced (Dakota Blue Richards) and Jakes unexpectedly finds a future in America as a cowboy!

'Prey'. The first shot is a tiger skin rug. 'A tiger - in Oxfordshire?' you almost expect Anton Lesser to exclaim. I find the idea of a tiger in a maze somehow wonderful. And Thursday brandishing fire at it - The Jungle Book? The tiger in question - Shere Khan! - was filmed in his own enclosure, which had some maze walls added.

I didn't realise there's a Lewis connection here. The gardener Philip Hathaway is the father of the detective who grows up there - the house is in the episode 'The Dead of Winter', written by Lewis. (It's actually Rousham House, Bicester.)

Then the inevitably gripping season finale, 'Coda' - the bank siege. I don't think Joan can believe she's seen her dad almost kill a man in cold blood, so she just leaves... With Samantha Colley and Mark Heap as a duplicitous don.

Endeavour - Season 2 (2014 Russell Lewis)

1966. 'Trove'. In the opening of this, there are seven different things going on. (Lewis's screenplays aren't published, unfortunately. I'd love to read one.) Particularly liked it when Morse corrects a very snobby Don. This is the one with Jessie Buckley. Morse meets his flat neighbour - a nurse (Shvorne Marks). 'Nocturne' is the one in the girls' school (recognised Anya Taylor-Joy but not Lucy Boynton) and the 100 year old crime (it's Chopin's Opus 9 No. 1). There isn't, I think, a Bunty Glossop in PG Wodehouse, but the girls' school is Bearwood College. (Am I allowed to say the plot is a little far-fetched?) Liked the fan site that points out the reference to the Genesis 'Nursery Cryme' album cover. 'Sway' is the black stocking strangler and the one where Thursday's old Italian flame turns up. Opens with Mozart's Requiem then picks up on the Dean Martin song, which acts as a trigger for the killer.

Another brilliant series finale, 'Neverland' has a young runaway boy (highly pertinent to the tale) and an escaped convict, and produces a terrible tale of historical child sexual abuse at Blenheim Vale, and corruption on high, revealing DC Peter Jakes (Jack Laskey) to have been a victim, and ultimately putting both Morse and Thursday in grave danger... and Morse in prison. Use of the Peter Pan quote is inspired. And 'The Lost Boys' - yes, indeed.

Nice to see Colin Dexter popping up in them.

Endeavour (2012-13 Russell Lewis)

It was an Endeavour day, somehow.

The pilot - an exemplary piece of work - starts out with a bus on the way to Woodstock, and involves a missing girl - Dexter's first novel was 'Last Bus to Woodstock' and another early one, 'Last Seen Wearing' is about a missing schoolgirl. Plus Dexter cameos. The Evans-Allam combo is another unbeatable one, like Jason-Ferris. Or Powell-Loy. Or Lemmon-Matthau. But it's also about an opera singer, one who 'saved my life' - the ending of this from concert stage to police cell and back, is an outstanding piece of montage. Flora Montgomery is the singer. Colm McCarthy directed, Masahiro Hirakubo edited.

It's also a much bigger story than it appears to be - senior level corruption figures right from the off.

In 'Girl', Morse looks after a young mother but annoys new CI Bright. 'Fugue' is about a murderer playing games - ends up high on the roof, after a Safety Last reference. 'Rocket' is the one filmed at and in the Janssen building. Lewis is such a great writer. Early in one episode (film) I'd noticed there were six separate stories going on. And 'Home' is the cracking, gun-filled season finale, old ghosts returning to haunt the Thursdays. It's particularly nicely shot by Peter Robertson.

'Rusticated' = suspended from university. 'Odalisque' = female slave in harem.

Just a six hour stint, then.

Interesting details emerge. Morse's father was a taxi driver, 'until he lost his licence'. His mother was a Quaker, died when he was 12. He grew up in a 'grey' place. He didn't complete University, was engaged to a girl who went back to her first love. Thursday fought in North Africa, then up to Italy, Monte Cassino, speaks Italian and German.

P.S. 5/11/21 Read an interview with Sara Vickers today. She was originally only going to be in two episodes. 'Russell said the first moment Joan opens the door to Endeavour, 'There's something there and I think I'm going to run with the story'. He says he takes a lot from what I do and gets ideas from watching the previous series.'

Hustle - Season 1 (2004 Tony Jordan / Bharat Nalluri)

Was this modelled on Out of Sight? I mean from a style point of view. It has that same kind of music and visual tricks like the freeze frames. Vic Boydell, who edited the first three - and thus set the series style - is having fun with all sorts of wipes all over the place, at times moving the whole image across the screen and bringing on the next. There's some bloody clever CGI too in which a scene freezes but some of the characters in it move around. Also a very funny musical number in the third episode featuring Adrian Lester and Mark Warren doing a routine in a night club. With Robert Vaughan, Robert Glenister, Jaime Murray.

It is apparently an urban myth that eye drops will cause instant diarrhoea. Also very dodgy art knowledge to suggest that Neo-Plasticist Mondrian would have come up with Cubism before Picasso - the other way around in fact (Cubism inspired him).

First three shot by Adam Suschitzky, directed by Bharat Nalluri who came up with the idea.

How to Murder Your Wife (1964 Richard Quine)

 Funny that on July 4th we chose to celebrate with an American film featuring an Italian and a Brit!

Women had been allowed to serve on New York juries since 1937.

Virna Lisi is great in this. She'd been in films since 1953, aged 17.

Monkey Business (1953 Howard Hawks)

Written by Ben Hecht, Charles Lederer and Izzy Diamond, this is somehow completely trippy, with Cary Grant and Ginger Rogers regressing into both teenagers and children. Many great single takes, like when the chimpanzee frees himself then starts mixing chemicals, or Ginger getting flat on her back with a glass of water on her head; simple filming but incredibly effective. Hawks once again gets Grant to look ridiculous, in wife's coat or as Red Indian.

Hawks didn't think it worked, that the audience wouldn't buy that the monkey would mix the formula, but as we see it clearly mixing it, I don't think that was a problem.

With Charles Coburn, Marilyn Monroe, George Wilson (1958 his last appearance).

Marple: Endless Night (2013 David Moore)

Kevin Elyot has attempted to bring Marple into Agatha's 1967 thriller, and it doesn't work very successfully, though does put her in danger from Tom Hughes, who, it turns out, has been a psychopath right from the off. Filmed at The Homewood, setting for Endeavour film 'Rocket'. The car.. I don't know.

With Julia McKenzie are Wendy Craig, Joanna Vanderham, Anuerin Barnard, Tamzin Outhwaite, Birgitte Hjort Sorensen, Hugh Dennis, William Hope.

Mister Roberts (1955 John Ford, Mervyn Le Roy)

Overlong and uncomfortable filmed play, providing Jack Lemmon with his first Oscar. Ford controls the sailors well, but it doesn't really feel like a John Ford movie, somehow. (In theory it should be, but the play's the limitation.)

Henry Fonda, William Powell (his last performance), Jimmy Cagney, Ward Bond.

Shot on location in the Pacific by Winny Hoch in CinemaScope and Warnercolor.

Nomadland (2020 Chloe Zhao & scr, ed)

America, as seen through people who live in vehicles, based on non-fiction book by Jessica Bruder. featuring many real nomads. Frances McDormand won her third Oscar, Zhao her first two (film and director). Joshua James Richards shoots hand held in natural light and intimately on an Alexa Mini (he won the BAFTA) and is also the production designer.

It was David Strathairn. (I kept thinking it was that guy that looks like David Strathairn but isn't.) Must watch Good Night and Good Luck again.

Overrated, though.

Marple: The Sittaford Mystery (2004 Paul Unwin)

Both the manor house and the hotel are static shots with variously CGIed bits of snow and lighting thrown upon them. Unwin is annoying. With Geraldine McEwan are James Murray, Laurence Fox, Zoe Telford, Patricia Hodge, Rita Tushingham, Timothy Dalton, Mel Smith, James Wilby, Paul Kaye, Carey Mulligan, Matthew Kelly.

Le Grand Weekend (1992 Gareth Davies)

So the last episode in our box set is in fact the season 2 Christmas special (just 50 minutes) broadcast at the end of 1992 (Boxing Day, in fact). Despite the chronological disoderliness, it's a nice way to go out, as Pa and Ma's trip to Paris turns into one in Berkshire, with a load of fellow travellers, including a young Andy Serkis.

Why is this series so popular? Well. Two answers to that are David Jason and Pam Ferris. Another is the same kind of humorous, plucky, anti-establishment characters you get in Ealing, particularly Passport to Pimlico. It's classless, in a way, and something rather sweet generally happens. Reality doesn't intrude much (the episode where Pop finds a flick-knife wielding ton-up girl in his barn always seems like an aberration.) Unusually, it celebrates drinking and eating too much, something we're not supposed to be allowed to do - so it's vicariously enjoyable. The last Larkin novella, 'A Little of What You Fancy' (1970) involved Pop having to give up booze and nice food under doctor's orders - yes, I don't think any of us wanted to see that episode...