Indian Summer (1993 Mike Binder & scr)

An unofficial remake of The Big Chill supplanted to a kids' summer camp; even Alan Arkin and Diane Lane cannot boot life into this lame 'what are we like now?' comedy-drama. As though to complicate things, director Sam Raimi plays the camp goof.

It doesn't help that two of the leading men look too much like each other.

Getting high scene - "I'd forgotten about the munchies" - is just embarrassing.

Matt Craven, Bill Paxton, Elizabeth Perkins, Kevin Pollack, Vincent Spano, Julie Warner, Kimberly Williams.

Per Un Pugno di Dollari / A Fistful of Dollars (1964 Sergio Leone)

The first of Leone's spaghetti westerns already bears his trademark stamps - gallows humour, deep focus widescreen, dynamic cutting, drawn out scenes to Morricone, the deguello ('cut throat') theme*, slaughter. According to Mark Cousins, it was the innovation of the Techniscope process in Italy that allowed for the deep focus not so easily achievable in other widescreen formats - there's less of it in the Cinecitta interiors. And Leone's work as assistant director in  big budget Hollywood films had given him a sure sense of mise en scene, e.g. tracking shot of Eastwood under the boardwalk whilst the Rojos search for him and end up right on top of his position.

Eastwood is marvellously confident already (particularly working with a European crew with little English), Gian Maria Volonte is a charismatic baddie. The one aspect I didn't remember is that the Man with No Name ('Joe') helps the mother and her child 'Because I once knew someone like you' - not the totally amoral figure you remember. (It had been a LONG time.)

Joseph Egger is the coffin-maker (he is NOT the elusive actor I was trying to place from My Name is Nobody) and Jose Calvo the innkeeper. Plus Marianne Koch, Wolfgang Lukschy, Sieghardt Rupp, Margarita Lozano, Mario Brega.

Clint eventually realised that the film he'd made, then called The Magnificent Stranger, was the hit Italian success A Fistful of Dollars - no one had bothered to tell him. A massive hit across all of Europe, eventually finding its way to the US in 1967. One young critic who was impressed by it was Dario Argento. It was written by Leone, and, uncredited, Duccio Tessari, Victor Catena and G. Schok, with dialogue by Mark Lowell. The credits are amusingly Americanized, thus DP Massimo Dallamano is 'Jack Dalmas', production designer Carlo Simi is 'Charles Simons' and editor Roberto Cinquini is 'Bob Quintle'!

One of the terms of Eastwood's was that he could change the dialogue. In the end, he fought for reducing his lines substantially - Leone's script, he argued, was over-expository. He's not an infallible anti-hero - he's twice saved by other people. But the ending - his armour plate, and the final quick draw - is a doozy.

*Which - it turns out - was inspired by Dmitri Tiomkin's theme from Rio Bravo. Thanks to Christopher Frayling, covered in his novella-like chapter on the film in his 'Something To Do With Death'.

Spanish poster, based on the original Italian design - there's no Eastwood representation because no one knew who he was. Note director credit - 'Bob Robertson'! Note also top billing of Marianne Koch despite her two lines of dialogue!

The Newsreader (2021 Emma Freeman)

Created by Michael Lucas, and written mainly by he, with Niki Aken, Jonathan Gavin & Kim Ho. Sucks you in right from the off of six part series.

1986 Australia. A highly strung newsreader Anna Torv is in conflict with her producer William McInnes. Wannabe reader Sam Reid (Belle) becomes involved with her after a suicide attempt. (Good performances from all three.) Weaves in real news (police station bombing in Melbourne, missing baby / dingo case, AIDS, Chernobyl) well.

I was expecting lots of sexism, racism and boorish behaviour, so was pleasantly surprised. The synthy music score is a nice touch (composed by Cornel Wilczek).

With Robert Taylor (other anchorman), Stephen Peacocke (sports journalist), Michell Davidson (super-useful researcher), Chai Hansen (cameraman), Marg Downey (manipulative wife).

Vertigo (1958 Alfred Hitchcock & prod)

Hitch apparently approached the filming with great seriousness unlike his usual self. He was not best pleased at not having Vera Miles in the lead (she was pregnant) and didn't have the greatest rapport with Novak. He moulded her, the same way Stewart's character moulds her, but most critics acknowledge he brought out her finest performance. The film was a flop. The New York Times thought it 'devilishly farfetched' and Time claimed it was 'another Hitchcock-and-bull story in which the mystery is not so much who done it as who cares'. Wow.

The restaurant featured, Ernie's was (in typical style) one of Hitch's favourites.

Barbara Bel Geddes' character Mitch is the heart and soul of the film

A film to marvel at time and again.

Odd to see a scene set amidst the giant Sequoia trees which are currently under threat from Californian wildfires. Some of then are 3000 years old.

Brief Encounter (1945 David Lean)

We didn't want to think today - just wallow in great films. We happened on two in which trains are central. And what links all today's choices are incredible performances by their female leads - here Deborah Kerr, or Celia Johnson, as she's sometimes known.

I've kinda covered all this ground before, but there's a lot going on here. The soundtrack is marvellous. The way their trains are going in different directions is a great metaphor for their relationship. I think those flashback moments are done simply by killing the fill light and leaving the key light on the actor (well, Johnson) against a backdrop of blackness, but there's a more complicated dissolve when she appears bottom right in the sitting room but the rest of the frame is still the flashback scene - not sure how that was done.

And on thinking the scene with the friend's flat inspired Wilder and The Apartment, there's a scene after of Johnson running away along a street that you could cross-cut with Wilder's film and Shirley MacLaine doing exactly the same thing.

And as I've said a million times before, it's a very modern film, beginning at the end the way it does (Lean's idea). Also, the parallel relationships - there's certainly also something going on between conductor Stanley Holloway and tea shop proprietress Joyce Carey (even, in very slight sub-story, a romance between her assistant and a passing soldier).

It was Oscar nominated for Johnson, Lean as director and Lean, Ronald Neame and Anthony Havelock-Allen for screenplay; though interestingly it was not BAFTA nominated for a single thing*. Also won Grand Prize at Cannes. Noel Coward wrote the original idea as a thirty minute play called 'Still Life' set entirely in the waiting room.

J. Arthur Rank was one of the film distributors at the time who had no involvement in the creative side of the films he financed and thus it was a very successfully creative period of British film making, if you think of Powell & Pressburger, Lean, Carol Reed etc.

*Ed. That's because the first BAFTA Awards were not held until 1949.

The Railway Children (1970 Lionel Jeffries & scr)

Bernard Cribbins (93) died today, thus the first in our double bill of British train-themed films. He and Jeffries obviously knew one another as they'd acted together in such films as Two Way Stretch, The Long Arm of the Law and Dunkirk, perhaps how the casting of Cribbins as Albert Perks came about - a nice way to be remembered in all time favourite family drama.

The cast seems comfortable with the actor's direction, but Jenny Agutter stands out.  Where other actors might emote, or 'act', she remains very still and internal and thus her performance seems not like acting at all. It's probably the film she'll be best remembered for, too. Also enjoyed Peter Bromilow as the drinking doctor. In fact started having most unworthy thoughts about which of the characters would have fancied bonking Bobby - the doctor certainly would have been one of them. Even the nice old gentleman William Mervyn - 'Come into my study, dear - I want to thank you properly'.

Good score from Johnny Douglas. Wardrobe supervisor Elsa Fennell is I think no relation to Emerald.

Hopefully the watch Bobby's received (for saving the train) will be in the sequel.

The Dry (2022 Paddy Breathnach, writer Nancy Harris)

Dublin-set dramedy as five months in remission alcoholic Shiv returns to family home for grandma's funeral. Rest of family seem quite fucked up too, and a brother has died... Her return (seems to) make the rest of the family unravel.

Roisin Gallagher, Siobhan Cullen (sister), Pom Boyd (mother), Adam John Richardson (brother), Ciaran Hinds (father), Moe Dunford (ex).

We enjoyed it. Broadcast by Britbox.

Control Room

Another daft Summer Series begins when a control room operative takes a call from a woman who says she's just killed a man - and they recognise each other's voices. In a style which I describe as 'shadowy glue', we don't know what went on between them, but no doubt we'll find out if we persevere. Shouldn't really be the right response, should it? What you want is 'Wilder! That opening episode was so riveting, I can't wait to watch the next one'. But that's why it's on in the summer.

Hadn't noticed actor Iain Caestecker, but he uses his hands a lot (not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing at the moment). With Joanna Vanderham.

Episodes 2 & 3 followed, sadly.

Bringing Up Baby (1938 Howard Hawks)

Breathless screwball comedy - maybe the best one made? Grant and Hepburn are indescribable, but watch too for a brilliantly unshowy performance from Wesley Ruggles as the Major.

Hawks says in this scene - 

- the censors were laughing so much they missed the line of Grant's "I feel a perfect ass". Well I'm sorry to say they did notice, as that line isn't in the film. Which just shows to go you shouldn't believe a word film directors tell you (except John Madden, who seems entirely trustworthy).

Gardens of Stone (1987 Francis Ford Coppola)

James Caan died July 6. He and Coppola met at Uni, then was plenty on TV before Hawks cast him in El Dorado, then Coppola put him in The Rain People and then famously The Godfather. This was his comeback film after wilderness years - he was difficult to work with, walked off a film and was addicted to cocaine. I'm glad we watched this as his performance is good - he brings the right pathos.

He's accompanied by other good people in the shape of James Earl Jones (now in his nineties) and Anjelica Huston. With DB Sweeney, Dean Stockwell, Mary Stuart Masterson, Dick Anthony Williams, Lonette McKee, Sam Bottoms, Elias Koteas, Laurence Fishburne, Casey Siemaszko.

Written by Ron Bass (Black Widow, Rain Man), from Nicholas Proffitt's novel, it's a nicely balanced screenplay, as anti-Vietnam feeling is raging (it's 1968), Huston is a protestor, but all Caan wants to do is go back to Nam and help the soldiers. The pomp and ceremony of the military burials is a nice irony to the senseless loss of life. It's an elegiac film, and as it takes place largely in a massive cemetery, that's probably exactly the right word.

DP Jordan Cronenweth, editor Barry Malkin, music Carmine Coppola.

It's also a very interesting companion piece to Apocalypse Now; here there's no action except TV newsreel footage; the two films are linked by The Doors (here 'Break on Through').

The Miracle Worker (1962 Arthur Penn)

William Gibson wrote it (with the uncredited help of Arthur Penn) first as a 1957 TV movie with Teresa Wright, Patty McCormack and Akim Tamiroff, directed by Penn. It was a massive hit. Penn had directed many TV films by then. Gibson then wrote the play 'Two for the Seesaw' which opened with Henry Fonda and Anne Bancroft. So knocked out by Bancroft was he that he decided also to adapt the Helen Keller story for theatre for her. It opened on Broadway in 1959 with Bancroft and Patty Duke, with Arthur Penn directing, so all three were well rehearsed for the film - and it shows. 

Penn had had one feature film under his belt - The Left Handed Gun with Paul Newman. When it came to the film of The Miracle Worker, he was allowed his own cast (the studio wanted Audrey Hepburn to play the lead) and final cut. Bancroft and Duke quite rightly won Oscars, as did Gibson, and Penn was nominated.

His only regret was that he left too many of the play's words on-screen, not fully realising the power of the film medium. (Thanks to the Archive of American Television for this interview.) However this is where I'll butt in and say that Penn hired the right editor, and that elevates the film to a higher level. Aram Avakian was best known for his documentary editing on Jazz on a Summer's Day in 1959, had one feature to his credit (Girl of the Night). He does these incredible things with overlapping images and sound, multiple exposures, and also brings in this element of the childhood flashbacks appearing in a super-grainy, almost ghostly way, again, only exposing a part of the image.

There's no way the girl's six, by the way - she's far too strong. The scenes of conflict between the two women are exhausting, brilliantly filmed (multiple cameras? They would have been on TV. Not sure. According to TCM, via Wikipedia, the dining room scene was shot over five days with three cameras.) Made me think they were the inspiration for The Exorcist!

Rest of cast good too: Victor Jory, Inga Swenson, Andrew Prine, Kathleen Comegys. Hadn't heard of Cuban DP Ernesto Caparrós, music by Leonard Rosenman.

Avakian edited the weird and wonderful Lilith, again with some panache, then cut Mickey One, again for Penn.

So great to see something so good we'd never seen before.

Trying (2022 Andy Wolton, Margaret Cabourn-Smith)

We think this might be the best series so far, as they have actually adopted a young girl and her even younger brother, determined not to let them be parted.

Rafe Spall, Esther Smith, Darren Boyd, Sian Brook, Oliver Chris, Phil Davis, Paula Wilcox, Roderick Smith, Marian McLoughlin.

The Duke (2020 Roger Michell)

Roger's last film leaves us liking him again. Richard Bean and Clive Coleman's script seems to be original, though is based on a real case of the theft of a Goya from the National Gallery in 1961. (There's a smart reference to this in Dr No, which is pictured at the end.)

Jim Broadbent is our amateur playwright and social conscience, grieving the death of his daughter. Helen Mirren is long-suffering wife, who won't talk about the loss, Fionn Whitehead the son. Plus Anna Maxwell Martin, Matthew Goode, John Heffernan, Charlotte Spencer, Aimée Kelly, Charles Edwards, Joshua McGuire.

Three minor carps: shouldn't have been in widescreen, the split screen bits don't add anything, there's one too many shots of the court administrator tittering (going to prove that comedy - editing, writing, acting, all aspects - is a very tricky thing to get exactly right). Actually four - wouldn't have used 'Jerusalem' for no reason at the end either. Otherwise, thoroughly entertaining and positive.

" 'I will not let anyone walk through my mind with dirty feet.' Mahatma Ghandi." Knows 'The Cherry Orchard' too.

DP Mike Eley, editor Kristina Hetherington (My Name is Leon, Le-Weekend, Parade's End, Birdsong), music George Fenton.

It began when the grandson Chris, had a go at writing the story himself, then the producers got Bean and Coleman involved. Bean's a playwright with no screen credits, Coleman a barrister turned journalist with the odd TV and theatre credit. They wrote it with Jim in mind, for his voice.

From the Terrace (1960 Mark Robson)

Long - I knew it would be. Filmmakers thought that colour and Cinemascope weren't enough to drag audiences away from television, everything had to be super-long as well.

Paul Newman is the surviving son of unloving, strict Leon Ames and alcoholic adulterer Myrna Loy (who sadly disappears from the film entirely). Wants to make it big. Marries Joanne Woodward, from a good family, though it turns out she's a slut who's soon cheating on him. In saving the life of the grandson of Felix Aylmer, Newman gets job for the financier but it helps ruin his marriage. Then he meets Ina Balin...

The leads are as good as you'd expect. With Elizabeth Allen, Barbara Eden, George Grizzard, Patrick O'Neal, Malcolm Atterbury, Ted de Corsia.

John O'Hara's novel adapted by Ernest Lehman, leaves things slightly inconclusively - has he lost his job? Were the photos printed? (At any rate he must still own his dad's steel mill?) Did Myrna Loy sober up? Still, most enjoyable.

Photographed by Leo Tover, scored by Elmer Bernstein and edited by Dorothy Spencer, who's in a dissolvey phase, though doesn't mind pulling off an audacious jump cut before the boy falls through the ice. 20th Century Fox.

Val Lewton - The Man in the Shadows (2007 Kent Jones & scr)

Useful documentary of the melancholy Lewton and his themes of war and repressed femininity. Born in Yalta, home of 'The Lady with the Dog', nephew of actress Alla Nazimova. Interesting on his use of less familiar actors, good contributions from his son. Narrated by Scorsese.

The Curse of the Cat People looks like the masterpiece we've yet to see.

Roger Corman and Robert Wise are among the contributors.

Everything I Know About Love (2022 Dolly Alderton)

She wrote the novel and is credited with writing it... but there's also a credit for 'Writer's Room'...

Emma Appleton (The Last Letter From Your Lover) and Bel Powley are childhood friends who move in to a London house, shared with Uni friends Aliyah Odoffin and Marli Siu (teacher). Appleton gets lucky with a job in TV (the 'reality' show 'Heirs and Graces') offered by Jill Halfpenny, less lucky with musician boyfriend Connor Finch, who's a bit of a twat (evidenced  by his film poster - House of Frankenstein - I mean, is that supposed to be cool or something?); Powley finds her first love with straight insurance guy Ryan Bown.

The girls fall out somewhat in the penultimate episode as Powley says she's leaving them to move in with her BF. The finale sees Appleton on her own and not enjoying New York - Greenwich Village no less - until she bumps into a guy who seems perfect for her. Almost the very ending is a beautifully written monologue from her mum, Sophie Thompson, that maybe the guy appealed to her so much because he's like her friend (who by the way has aged before her time - what 25 year old wants a salmon dish??)

7 x 45 Working Title for BBC. Directed by China Moo-Young and Julia Foster. Looked very much like it was set up for Season 2. We thought it was most successful, well acted - the girls are a bit much sometimes.

Sorry Wrong Number (1948 Anatole Litvak)

Barbara Stanwyck, a bed bound hypochondriac, receives a crossed line telephone call which seems to announce a murder - it takes her a while to figure out it's her own. Lucille Fletcher adapted her own radio play, which was filmed before for television in 1946, with Mildred Natwick.

Then we flash back a lot, to see how she got together with Burt Lancaster, taking him away from Ann Richards, and how doctor Wendall Corey, chemist Harold Vermilyea and gangster William Conrad are involved. With Ed Begley as Stanwyck's father.

It's funny how the calls she keeps making and receiving are hindered by background noise of one sort or another.

Sol Polito's camera prowls around beautifully - he gets the rare solo credit that you usually only see with Gregg Toland - but credit to his operator and focus puller too. Powerful score by Franz Waxman.

A Paramount film. The ending is unusually bleak and surprising. Stanwyck was Oscar nominated.

The Undeclared War (2022 Peter Kosminsky)

It is 2024, and Russia has taken down the Internet with a cyber-attack. Workplace student at GCHQ Hannah Khalique-Brown joins the malware team and starts to crack the code. The way this is done is interestingly visual - she is walking down corridors, selecting doors, removing blockages, using tools, climbing... (Kosminsky started out making documentaries.)

She teams up with American Maisie Richardson to help, as well as a former decoder Mark Rylance. (Kosminsky also wrote and directed The Government Inspector.)

Meanwhile, we learn how a fellow student of hers Herman Segal ended up in Russia on the other side of the war, with newly acquired girlfriend Tinatin Dalakishvili.

Starts to sprawl - rigged elections, staged news, deep fakes. It ends in a rush of almost-war, like there's going to be a second season. And the murder (?) of the Rylance character seems particularly unexplored and elusive.

With Adrian Lester, Simon Pegg, Alex Jennings, Kerry Godliman, Edward Holcroft, Hattie Morahan, Ed Stoppard.

Some of the early scenes seem a bit stilted.

Think I've heard of what3words.com - tried it on our address and it was wrong! Seems a bit pointless though made a good plot device. Useful to be told FSB is the new KGB.

IWWAZ (1943 Jacques Tourneur)

It was 36°C today. There's quite a lot of opacity to this tale - Tom Conway's wife (Christine Gordon, her only performance) cannot be a zombie - yet when she is stabbed, she doesn't bleed. And what was going on with her - was she about to leave him for his brother, drunkard James Ellison?

Tourneur met Val Lewton when both were working for David Selznick on David Copperfield in 1935. When Lewton set up his mini-studio at RKO, producing that series of intelligent and atmospheric horror films, Tourneur was his first choice, and he directed Cat People, this and The Leopard Man, all of which are terrific - but for pure atmosphere, and its subtext of island culture and slavery, this one takes the cake. And eats it, if that doesn't scramble metaphors too badly.

Frances Dee is the nurse, Edith Barrett the enigmatic Mrs Rand. Sir Lancelot seems like a nice polite man, but when he finds Dee on her own, he's almost threatening her with his calypso (Q says warning). Theresa Harris is charming as the maid, Darby Jones memorable as Carrefour (was he stoned, or had the RKO medics given him starey potion?) I love that moment when he's at the house, advancing, and there's a close shot of him that's quite out of focus - it doesn't matter, in fact it may have been deliberate. As I've said before it's possibly J Roy Hunt's finest hour and is one of the most texturally interesting examples of cinema photography ever.

Love those wind-powered hanging flute bowl things, same sort of principle as an Aeolian Harp.

From an original idea by Inez Wallace, whoever she is, written by Curt Siodmak and Ardel Wray. I think comparisons to 'Jane Eyre' are rather over-stretched.

Passport to Pimlico (1949 Henry Cornelius)

It was 35ºC. Hermione Baddeley great as feisty dress shop owner, Betty Warren as the common sense one ("Well why don't you go and turn it on again?") Charlie Hawtrey has one of his most substantial performances (he's actually billed higher than Margaret Rutherford). The British like supporting the underdog, even though it's (sort of) foreign.

"Genuine stolen nylons."

Rear Window (1954 AH)

Last seen here. Only 48 in the AFI's Top 100 (Psycho is 14). You could watch (listen to) the film purely as an example of great sound design (as I mentioned before, it's a terribly noisy neighbourhood). We are, I pick up, off West Ninth Street - Greenwich Village, in fact, whilst Lisa (naturally) lives in a posh Uptown district of West 63rd Street.

In the Truffaut book, Hitch reveals that the Stewart-Kelly relationship in which he is disabled mirrors the murderer's in which the wife is similarly confined - mirror images. And that he was disappointed with Franz Waxman's love theme which the composer is creating.

The scene with the dead dog is the only one that breaks the 'rules' of the film where the shots are not from Stewart's point of view.

With Notorious, Truffaut's favourite Hitchcock film.

I love the way everyone just lets themselves into Stewart's apartment without knocking, even the detective - this is obviously a very deliberate point as finally, it's the murderer who lets himself in - he's just copying everyone else.

I Hired a Contract Killer (1990 Aki Kaurismäki & scr, ed)

Had long wanted to see Karusmäki's only English language film, starring the quintessential Frenchman, Jean-Pierre Léaud, who's as fabulous as ever.

Delighted to see it was dedicated to Michael Powell and from the red credits through Margi Clarke's red lips and roses you get that Powell red thing running throughout. In mood though, it reminded me more of Powell's better 'quota quickies' of the thirties in its brevity and wacky plot. Léaud puts out a hit on himself then changes his mind when he meets Clarke. Love the way he leaves a note for his assassin to say he's in the pub opposite! Meanwhile the killer, Ken Colley, isn't feeling very well... 

Colley is not only still alive but features in upcoming Dan Hawk Psychic Detective. And he was in Peaky Blinders (briefly). He was a favourite of Ken Russell.

Short quirky scenes and deadpan humour conspire beautifully together in a run-down looking London.

Off thing though is Clarke's delivery of lines, almost like English isn't her first language. (It isn't of course - it's Liverpudlian!)

Photographed by Timo Salminen. Good sound, too, from Timo Linnasalo.

The Nun's Story (1959 Fred Zinnemann & prod)

Begins slowly in Belgium with seemingly endless formations of black and white and prostrating nuns - the whole process of becoming a nun seems a mad practice and really quite negative in its repression of memories and self-castigation. "I hope this film ends in a bar in Montparnasse' I said hopefully, perhaps thinking of Buñuel's Simon of the Desert again. In fact, more the thought, "If only this film had been directed by Buñuel" - that would have been something.

Anyway, apart from relishing Audrey Hepburn's great performance (she was Oscar nominated), and admiring Franz Planer's photography and Franz Waxman's music, and enjoying the thought that most of the interiors were filmed at Cinecitta, the story picks up when she moves into the outside world at a tropical medicine school, then a mental institution, before she finally gets her dream to practice in the Congo. (There's no mention here of course of the awful history of the Belgians in Congo.) She becomes a match for hardworking doctor Peter Finch (good), who saves her life when she acquires TB.

Wasn't sure why there is an episode where she travels to meet a doctor who's dealing with leprosy victims - it doesn't integrate with the rest of the story.

Then things take a strange turn - she's summoned back to Belgium and WWII starts, she loses her desire to be a nun and is more interested in helping the resistance. And thus it ends with her leaving the order in a beautifully held long shot (where Q's joke comes in - 'Why change the habit of a lifetime?') Not a recruitment film for wannabe nuns, then, but overall, interesting.

With Edith Evans, Peggy Ashcroft, Dean Jagger, Mildred Dunnock, Patricia Collinge, Beatrice Straight (good as Mother in sanatorium), Lionel Jeffries, Coleen Dewhurst (schizo patient). Written by Robert Anderson, novel Kathryn C. Hulme. Edited by Walter Thompson (also Fat City, Farewell, My Lovely). Warner Bros.

I would have called it 'A Nun's Story', myself.

Sergio Leone was one of the assistant directors. He tried to pigeonhole Zinnemann about the High Noon train station scenes, but he was too busy.

The 'Warner Brothers Story' notes the decision not to have music at the end was because if it was upbeat, it indicated Hepburn had done the right thing, if downbeat that she hadn't - both of these could have upset portions of the audience. Much against Jack Warner's wishes, Zinnemann held out for none. It actually makes it work better.

The Great Buster (2018 Peter Bogdanovich & scr, narrated)

Feature length documentary, with some great material, e.g. the ads he did in the 1950s and 60s. Thankfully he did recover from his terrible mistake of moving in 1930 to MGM, where all creative control was taken away from him and he was badly mismanaged. Love that at the 1965 Venice Film Festival he received the longest standing ovation in its history. Some brilliant clips from early shorts and his run of amazing features, and loved the montage which showed all his injuries sustained throughout making them.

An eclectic cast of commentators includes Richard Lewis, Quentin Tarantino, Werner Herzog and Carl Reiner.

The Navigator, Sherlock Jr., Our Hospitality definitely all on the must-see list.

We Own This City (2022 Reinaldo Marcus Green)

Y'know - King Richard. Before that, three episodes of Top Boy.

David Simon and George Pelecanos were showrunners on The Wire, but this is based on a non-fiction account of police corruption from Baltimore Sun journalist Justin Fenton (Simon introduced him to his publisher for a book deal, not thinking about making a TV version of it), so it feels like familiar Simon territory. Yes, I can't read any more of that interview as I've inadvertently read about the death of a character. But they definitely feel police corruption is now worse than it was in The Wire days. (Jimmy McNulty may have been unorthodox, to say the least, but at least he got results. These guys get results actually - they're just pocketing most of the cash and drugs they seize.)

It's quite complex, jumping between time zones, but very absorbing. And ultimately shattering, that the corruption extended way up as well. And that the war on drugs is lost. And that under Trump, civil rights went right on the back burner.

Jon Bernthal, Wunmi Mosaku (Temple, Luther, Capital, Dancing on the Edge), Jamie Hector (homicide cop), Josh Charles (The Good Wife), McKinley Belcher III (the least bad of the corrupt unit), Darrell Britt-Gibson, David Corenswet, Don Harvey, Delaney Williams (police commissioner), Larry Mitchell.

A six part series for Sky, edited by Matthew Booras and Joshua Raymond Lee, photographed by Yaron Orbach (Modern Love, Sing Street).

Back to School (1986 Alan Metter)

Cheerful rubbish, as successful businessman bug-eyed Rodney Dangerfield enrols at his son's high school, becomes extremely popular.

Here's a clue: story by Dangerfield, Greg Fields & Dennis Snee, screenplay by Steven Kampmann & Will Porter and Peter Torokvei & Harold Ramis.

One or two laughs.

Interesting cast: Keith Gordon, Sally Kellerman, Burt Young, Ned Beatty, Robert Downey Jr., Paxton Whitehead, Terry Farrell, M Emmet Walsh, Adrienne Barbeau, William Zabka, Severn Darden.

Comedian Dangerfield is an acquired taste.

Breeders - Season 3 (Simon Blackwell, Chris Addison)

Certainly not a comedy as the Martin Freeman character continues to blow a fuse about everything - worse, starts neglecting his wife Daisy Haggard who's suffering menopause problems. Best moment - she really doesn't want to talk to chatty neighbour, but he has sage pills for her, for the night sweats, and he's the only person to be thinking about her. The child problems are now with the ten year old daughter, who has the weight of the world on her shoulders - gets help from local vicar at least.

Then it transpires Freeman's dad Alun Armstrong has had an affair with a woman in the past and his mum Joanna Bacon isn't going to forgive him.

Alex Eastwood and Eve Prenelle are the kids.

10 episodes for Sky.

Barry - Season 3 (2022 Alec Berg, Bill Hader)

We didn't realise Now TV had left us only hours to complete the entire eight episode series - we didn't quite make it, unfortunately. It was all my fault, apparently... It wasn't annoying at all.

Highlights are - a scooter chase; and the scene where Barry has to detonate a bomb in the Bolivians' house - his detonation app doesn't work and he has to call tech support...

Meanwhile acting coach Henry Winkler thinks Barry has killed his wife, and is faced with his past by former colleagues he's been a shit to; and Barry's GF Sarah Goldberg is finding working in television difficult, with producers who believe in algorithms more than ratings.

"Vengeance is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die."

Stephen Root is the psychotic 'uncle', Anthony Carrigan the gay Chechen, With Elizabeth Perkins, Fred Melamed, Michael Irby, D'Arcy Carden, Joe Mantegna, Annabeth Gish.

Assassin for Hire (1951 Michael McCarthy)

Poor, set-bound independent British film, in which it is revealed far too early that Sydney Tafler is a hit man, thus zero suspense. The twist is easily guessable, and the whole story could have been told in 30 minutes. If only we had been watching Barry Season 3, not knowing we had only hours to complete it - the real tension...

With Ronald Howard (Trevor's son), Katharine Blake, John Hewer, Jane Rodney.

Suspect (2022 Matt Baker)

Another one that's clearly compromised by Covid as it takes the form of a succession of eight, short two-hander plays, as Jimmy Nesbitt confronts several people associated with the death of his estranged daughter. They are Joely Richardson, Ben Miller, Niamh Algar (good),  Antonia Thomas (good), Sacha Dhawan [more later]

An adaptation of a Danish series, Forhøret, which itself had mixed reviews. 

Gave up after four episodes.

The Outlaws, Season 2 (2022 Stephen Merchant)

Nice to have them back. It was filmed back-to-back with season one and so both must have been commissioned together.

Christian and Rani (Gamba Cole and Rhianne Barreto) finally get together. Is Frank (Chrsitopher Walken) reforming? Lady Gabriella (Eleanor Tomlinson) realises she has no real friends - except the faithful Gregory (Merchant). You sense the initially antagonistic John and Myrna (Darren Boyd and Clare Perkins) might be forming a mutual respect.

Yes, it's rather good as the gang have to start selling drugs to repay crime boss Claes Bang. Charles Babalola is good as the imprisoned dealer. But Barreto is fun as she gradually takes command, relishing her new crime role. Wraps things up nicely in double-bluff final episode.

Comissario Montalbano: Il Metodo Catalanotti (2021)

Interestingly, there's no director credited, through IMDB lists them as Alberto Sironi and Luca Zingaretti.  Screenplay (Sceneggiatura) by Francesco Bruni, Andrea Camillieri, Salvatore de Mola & Leonardo Marini, with additional dialogue by Valentina Alteri, from Camillieri's final Montalbano novel. DP Franco Lecca.

Greta Scarano is the new forensics expert with whom Montalbano is immediately smitten. Well not so much smitten as falls head over heels in love with, prompting the ending of his seemingly endless relationship with Livia.

I have to say that Franco Piersanti's score (which I think is all new) is stunning, sometimes making you think you're listening to Puccini. His love theme is exquisite.

It's a typically quirky number this one with only one plot, for a change, revolving around a dead body that Mimi has (literally) stumbled over whilst leaving his girlfriend's by the window - he then feels he can't reveal it - and an identical corpse found elsewhere. It all turns around the victim, who has unusual acting methods (thus the title).

Mimi posits that Montalbano's housekeeper should be made a Saint for her cooking.

With Zingaretti, the usual suspects - Cesare Bocci, Peppino Mazzotta, Antonia Truppo, Angelo Russo. And as this was Camillieri's last novel, probably the last time we'll see them all together.