Winchester '73 (1950 Anthony Mann)

Jimmy Stewart wins a one-in-a-thousand rifle in a shooting contest in Dodge City. The gun is stolen by someone with whom they clearly have a bad prior history, Stephen McNally. The gun is stolen again, traded, stolen again, and all the while Jimmy's on the trail of the thief, with his best mate Millard Mitchell.

Dan Duryea is suitably psychotic; good cast includes Shelley Winters, Charles Drake, John McIntyre, Will Geer, Jay Flippen (the sergeant), Rock Hudson and 'Anthony' Curtis.

The ending - shoot out in the rocks - is a bit dull after all that's gone before, but otherwise it's a good ride. Written by Robert Richards and Borden Chase from a story by Stuart Lake. Photographed by William Daniels, music supervisor Joseph Gershenson.

Foyle's War: A Lesson in Murder (2002 David Thacker)

A conscientious objector is killed in prison - Foyle investigates. There's a link to a powerful Judge, Oliver Ford Davies and his wife and daughter, Cheryl Campbell and Sophia Myles, an Italian restaurateur and his son, Allan Corduner and Danny Fucking Dyer, and various others, including David Tennant.

Once again Horowitz surprises and informs us (secret manufacture of coffins, etc.)

Joan of Arc (1948 Victor Fleming)

Hollywood religious films of this era take themselves so seriously, they're what I can only describe as 'po faced'. And the dialogue is ridiculously stilted and unconvincing, viz:

"Why - you make a handsome lad."

and

"We're honest men."
"You may be, but I must look at you."

Joseph Valentine won the Oscar for cinematography, with William Skall and Winnie Hoch assisting with the Technicolor. The music's by Hugo Friedhofer. Interesting credit for associate director Slavko Vorkapich.

As a film it's not dramatically great as following Joan's betrayal by the French and her trial, it all goes downhill towards the inevitable burning at the stake after two hours and twenty minutes. (Her last wish was for a steak and chips, but she was misunderstood.)

An interesting subject though for filmmakers - Dreyer made the highly regarded the Passion of Joan of Arc with Renée Falconetti (1928); Bresson's version was The Trial of Joan of Arc in 1962. And I am reliably informed there's a 1999 Luc Besson version, of all things, with Milla Jovovich. And let's not forget Marco de Gastyne's criminally neglected 1929 La Merveilleuse Vie de Jeanne D'Arc... by all means, let's not.

Ingrid's great of course. And Francis L Sullivan perhaps makes the best supporting impression as the English inquisitor. With José Ferrer, George Coulouris, Gene Lockhart, Cecil Kellaway, Aubrey Mather, Ward Bond, Alan Napier.

An independent, Sierra Films / Walter Wanger production.

Bloodlands - Season 2 (2022 Writer / creator Chris Brandon)

Jimmy Nesbitt hugs only daughter. 'Take care.'

Cut to -

'I'm the only one who can find the gold.'

Jimmy shoots him in the back.

Jimmy: 'Shit.'

Cut to -

Jimmy looking sly and eyebrow raisey. (I don't see why P.G. Wodehouse should be the only one to make up words.)

I find the Victoria Smurfit character annoying, and / or it's the acting. Find The Grey Fox risible too. The whole show is faintly laughable - not sure it's meant to be.

Ends in the absolutely typical way these days of leaving us in a completely unresolved situation, ready for season three.

Halloween (1978 John Carpenter)

Haddonfield is in New Jersey, and where co-writer Debra Hill grew up. The film is set in the fictional Haddonfield, Illinois. (It was filmed in California.)

The Invisible Man (1933 James Whale)

Amusing recreation of British village life in Hollywood, by a Brit. Another one, R.C.Sherriff, (whose play 'Journey's End' was Whale's first big theatre, then Hollywood, hit) adapted H.G. Welles' story.

The sight of Claude Rains eating with no mouth, or settling down into bed in pyjamas but no head, is still quite unsettling.

Whale certainly likes to take the mickey out of British types, especially Una O'Connor's shrieking landlady, but also flat-footed coppers.

With Gloria Stuart, William Harrigan, Henry Travers. Arthur Edeson would later photograph Rains again in Casablanca.

Whale's career peaked with Bride of Frankenstein.

From Scratch (2022 Nzingha Stewart, Dennie Gordon)

Couldn't believe first (50 minute) episode - not another young American woman in Italy (Florence) series of clichés. Fortunately things pick up thereafter back in LA - the honeymoon's over and difficult times with families and work ensue. Indeed, it goes off not where you're expecting.

A Netflix eight part thing. Created by Tembi Locke, from the novel.

Zoe Saldaña, Eugenio Mastrandrea, Danielle Deadwyler (sister) Kellita Smith (mother), Keith David, Roberta Rigano, Lucia Sardo, Paride Benassai, Isla Colbert.

The Thing From Another World (1951 Christian Nyby)

A Howards Hawks film in all but name. His framing is utterly recognisable, as is group of tightly knit protagonists (think everything from Ceiling Zero to Rio Bravo). However, in conversation with Peter Bogdanovich, Hawks says he gave Nyby the job as he had done a great job cutting Red River and wanted to direct. Hawks was 'at the rehearsals and helped them with the overlapping dialog'. Nyby has clearly followed in the master's footsteps.

We finally got to see the film that's on in the background in Halloween.

And it's a lot of fun, particularly in the banter between all the people, and that constant rapid-fire overlapping dialogue which gives it such pace. The actual plot is like any cheap fifties science fiction film really - a blood-eating alien is found in the North Pole. There's a quick discussion about how interesting a bit of science it all is before they kill it.

Unknown cast: Margaret Sheridan, Kenneth Tobey, Robert Cornthwaite, Douglas Spencer, James Young, Dewey Martin, Robert Nichols.

A Winchester Pictures / RKO release. Written by Charles Lederer and (uncredited) Ben Hecht (based on a four page story 'Who Goes There?' by John Campbell), photographed by Russell Harlan, music by Dmitri Tiomkin.

I must admit to being somewhat under the fairy lights by the time we finished it, so looking forward to it again already.

The Omen (1976 Richard Donner)

David Seltzer's original story is not very brilliantly filmed by Donner - Stuart Baird's editing is a distinct plus. Also it seems to wander around the world too much, rather unsatisfactorily.

Gregory Peck and Lee Remick raise devil's child Harvey Stephens, protected by evil guardian Billie Whitelaw. David Warner and Patrick Troughton try to help, but lose their heads.

I think the trick they missed is leaving the boy almost without dialogue whereas the tactic from The Innocents - children saying sinister things - would have perhaps provided some more scares. Well, some scares. It's not a scary movie.

I wish I'd tried that tactic to get out of going to Church.

I daresay it made a shit load of money.

The Night of the Hunter (1955 Charles Laughton)

A curious and compelling film, written by film critic James Agee* (from Davis Grubb novel), Laughton's only film as director.

Based on a promise young Billy Chapin makes to his convict father Peter Graves - don't tell where the money is, and look after your sister (Gloria Castillo) - he holds out as long as he can. But reckons without psychotic murderer Robert Mitchum, in one of his most memorable roles. Shelly Winters great too as their murdered mom, but Lillian Gish steals the film as a quietly determined foster mother.

Journey on the river is strangely like a fairy-tale or folk legend. (Some of this looks studio-set to me. The art director is Hilyard Brown.) The photography of Stanley Cortez is a major asset - I was thinking the way he lights houses at night may have influenced The Exorcist. Music by Walter Schumann, edited by Robert Golden.

Strangest moment is where Mitchum is staking out the house through the night while Gish stands guard... and they start duetting together!

You could take endless screen shots. Here are some:

Can something be eerie and lyrical at the same time?

* As we later learned, his script was unusable and Laughton rewrote it himself.

The Small Hand (2019 Justin Molotnikov)

Nineteen minutes in, I was already finding this slow. Douglas Henshall is drawn to an old house. Despite the fact he's on his own, he buys it, although it's remote and far too large. Turns out he knew the former occupants, who haunt him, causing the death of his girlfriend Louise Lombard, who's married to Adrian Rawlins.

Henshall's older brother Cal MacAnich and wife Maryam Hammidi and vicar Paul Barber are peripherally involved.

The house was far too large for the original occupants also. MacAnich and wife have a perfectly nice house (to judge by the windows) already and don't need to move in to The Haunted Palace.

Woody Norman - the spook boy / murderer - was in C'mon C'mon.

Could have been a thirty minute Alfred Hitchcock Presents or a 45 minute Tales of the Totally Expected.

Nice lighting by Alan McLaughlin, music from Lorne Balfe (according to the credits) or Matt Jantzen (according to IMDB). Made for Channel 5, which, I'm afraid, speaks volumes.

Poltergeist (1982 Tobe Hooper)

Well, it's a Spielberg film, surely. A smartarse like me thinks he recognises scenes Spielberg directed e.g. on top of the hill by the graveyard. Why? Long takes - Spielberg's 'oners'. He co-wrote and produced it, and the whole film really seems to have its gestation in that scene in Close Encounters where the boy is fascinated by the moving toys and the light. Yes, it's a film very much about light. And, frankly, remove the scene where the ghostbuster pulls his face off, and it's a kids' film. A Spielberg film, in other words. (Did I mention Michael Khan edited it?)

Anyway, most enjoyable. Craig T Nelson and JoBeth Williams combat the united powers of Industrial Light and Magic (the credits are amusingly old-fashioned, including 'matte painter' and 'wire performer'). It does seem to contain a self-referential sense of humour. And a million ads for George Lucas's Star Wars merchandising empire (strikes back).

Just pull the curtains, for Wilder's sake! And get rid of that clown!

Wonder if this is where J.K.'s aggressive tree came from? It certainly often looks like a Harry Potter film.

Jerry Goldsmith wrote the music. Photographed by Matthew Leonetti.

Above all, it's a powerful warning not to let your kids stay up late watching TV.

Foyle's War: White Feather (2002 Jeremy Silbertson)

May 1940 (I think) and Britain is on the brink of invasion. Fascists led by Charles Dance group together at titular hotel preparing to welcome Nazis, when one of their number is shot dead. In a neat dovetailing, Milner (Anthony Howell) has already been introduced to this group and isn't sure what to make of it; and a young suspect, who may be vaguely involved, ends up at Dunkirk.

'By the way - do you cure your own meat?' is Foyle / Horowitz's great left field question.

Anti-Semitism hugely apparent in certain echelons of society, visualised by that controversial and totally faked publication 'The Protocols of the Elders of Zion', brilliantly debunked in Will Eisner's final graphic novel (graphic documentary, in this case) 'The Plot' in 2015. You don't see this sort of thing in the war films of the era (naturally).

Milner's plight as a war casualty is further being etched through the behaviour of his unfeeling wife (Mali Harries).

With Colin Tierney, Maggie Steed, Paul Brooke, Bernard Kay, a young Tobias Menzies and Honeysuckle Weeks (of course).

The Big Bang Theory (2007 - 2019 Chuck Lorre, Bill Prady)

We have been enjoying the nerdy adventures of Leonard (Johnny Galecki), Sheridan (Jim Parsons, who certainly does have a lot of complicated lines to master), Raj (Kunnal Nayaar) and Howard (Simon Helberg), and the attractive waitress who lives opposite, Penny (Kaley Cuoco).

Particularly enjoyed meteor shower / hash cookies episode. Also episode in season 3 where Leonard and Penny are no longer together and they're looking after Sheldon like he's the child of separated parents.

Also love Kaley's clearly for-real moments of laughter, usually in reaction to Jim.

Writer Steve Holland is not 'Savage' Steve Holland.

Cracker: White Ghost (1996 Richard Standeven)

A one-off, a year after the main series ended, set in Hong Kong, written by Paul Abbott, doesn't quite work for me. It's partly that Fitz doesn't seem to quite exist away from his usual universe (Ricky Tomlinson's appearance is largely redundant); also that the behaviour of the killer is just so far-fetched that it leaves me cold. (Maybe also the one note performance from Barnaby Kay.)

Fitz is enlisted by Governor Michael Pennington and local DI Freda Foh Shen. Rene Liu is the unfortunate fiancee and Benedict Wong a victim.

Abbott gets in some 'we shouldn't have been here in the first place' messaging, which is perhaps a little superfluous on the eve of the withdrawal.

There was a ten years later one-off, Nine Eleven, which I'm not sure we've even seen...

The Woman in Green (1945 Roy William Neill & prod)

Not sure what Conan Doyle material is being evoked in murder and blackmail by hypnotism story, though there is an element from 'The Empty House' in there. Imaginatively written by Bertram Millhauser. Plot also revolves around Holmes - almost accidentally - seeing the murderer's associate in a night club. Still, good fun with Henry Daniell as Moriarty, Hillary Brooke as femme fatale. Plus Paul Cavanagh, Matthew Boulton, Eve Amber, Mary Gordon.

Amusing that at one point Holmes has taken 'cannabis japonica' to counter-effect effects of pain!

Photographed by Virgil Miller.

Watson proving himself 'immune' to hypnotism

That's quite enough Sherlock Holmes for now.

Foyle's War - The German Woman (2002 Jeremy Silbertson)

We're just about at the end of our riveting 90s crime films in the Cracker season and this, rather more gentle, but no less engaging film series gets a welcome repeat. (It was commissioned by ITV after Morse ended.) Created and written by Anthony Horowitz.

In which we're introduced to sharp, undemonstrative, rigidly duty-bound and morally incorruptible Chief Superintendent Christopher Foyle (played to perfection by Michael Kitchen), his former sergeant (Anthony Howell), now a WW2 recovering patient, and a perky and bright driver, Honeysuckle Weeks, who proves her worth immediately by knocking out a fleeing suspect with a dustbin lid. This is a good opening, actually, in which Foyle is posing as a man seeking to bribe his son clear of service - but in parallel his son actually has been drafted.

That corruption that goes up to the top is an element even in this first one, and you can't help thinking if the treatment of the Jewish refugees is somehow autobiographical to Horowitz's own family.

Loved the murderer's protestations that he is so essential to the shipping war effort that Foyle shouldn't shop him.

Good featured cast of Edward Fox, Robert Hardy, Joanna Kanska, Rosamund Pike, Philip Whitchurch, James McAvoy, Dominic Mafham. Photographed by David Odd.

Meet your new driver

Cracker: True Romance (1995 Tim Fywell)

In Paul Abbott's merry adventure, a psychotic woman (and yes we do learn why), Emily Joyce (a sensational TV debut) begins to kill students at the University where she works in order to catch the attention of Fitz, with whom she declares she's in love.

And of course it's about all sorts of stages of relationships - Judith is about to have an affair with Fitz's brother, Mark's girlfriend has lost a child, Fitz and Penhaligon are never going to work, DI Wise has been kicked out by his wife following Fitz giving her a psychotherapy session (!), and - perhaps key to proceedings - the murderer has tried to ruin her sister's wedding by revealing something we'd never guess.

The House of Fear (1945 Roy William Neill & prod)

 

Nigel Bruce - 'Yes but I say Holmes hrumph hrumph'

Harry Cording and Paul Cavanagh

Rathbone, Aubrey Mather, Holmes Herbert

An adaptation of 'The Adventure of the Five Orange Pips', by Roy Chanslor.

Scotland, Universal Studios. A group in a secret society begun dying one by one in fairly satisfying entry to series. Photographed by Virgil Miller.

Mather's an entertaining presence. He's in Heaven Can Wait too, but I don't recall. And Ball of Fire, The Lodger (the remake).

Playing It Cool (2014 Justin Reardon)

Chris Evans (Knives Out, Fierce People) falls for Michelle Monaghan (Kiss Kiss Bang Bang) - who's otherwise engaged - while - conveniently - writing a romcom screenplay.

Yes, quite enjoyed this, playful. Written by Chris Shafer, Paul Vicknair.

With Topher Grace, Aubrey Plaza, Luke Wilson, Martin Starr (Knocked Up, Superbad), Anthony Mackie, Ioan Gruffudd, Philip Baker Hall.

Filmed in LA and San Francisco. Hey - is that where the brand name Cisco came from? Am I the last person in the world to figure that out?

Cracker: Best Boys (1995 Charles McDougall)

Another rather nutty episode, written by Paul Abbott, has a couple of chaps stoop rather too easily to murder, without much rhyme or reason. Though having said that, the landlady they kill first is horrible. They are Liam Cunningham and a young John Simm.

And that's about it, review-wise.

With Annette Ekblom, who we might have recognised from Brookside

Cracker: Brotherly Love (1995 Roy Battersby)

Written by Jimmy McGovern, featuring two sets of brothers. Beck is back, and Penhaligon is determined to get him to confess to her rape. In this episode, Jimmy McGovern is as tough on women as he is men - no one is safe.

It's directed distractingly close up, but the fall of Beck - with its sound pulled - is still extraordinary.

Also we loved the head butt Fitz gives Beck outside the hospital - a 'hurrah' moment. Fitz's worried cab driver: 'You smoke as much as you want!'

With Robbie Coltrane is his brother Clive Russell (terrific scenes together). All cast at top of game: Geraldine Somerville, Lorcan Cranitch, Barbara Flynn, Robert Cavanah, Ricky Tomlinson, Paul Copley, Brid Brennan, David Calder, Mark Lambert.

It comes as no surprise that Fitz has been pissed at all three of Judith's births.

Paul Abbot is no longer producing - it's Hilary Bevan Jones. Dick Dodd is on camera, Edward Mansell editing - and he makes some lovely cuts in this one.

I Cento Passi (2000 Marco Tullio Giordana)

So I was reading Giorgio Locatelli's excellent 'Made in Sicily', which is not just about food but the wider culture of the land, and he referred to John Dickie's study of the Mafia there, 'Cosa Nostra' so naturally I had to read that too, and in it was the story of Peppino Impastato, a sort of folk hero who stood up to the Mafia, and was murdered, and I thought 'Wow! That would make a great film!' and two pages later I read that it had been made into a great film, which won the Silver Bear at Venice, and was called I Cento Passi, and was only sat there on our (large) shelf of unwatched DVDs (bought because of being a big fan of the director, who made possibly the best film in the Italian language, the six hour La Meglio Gioventu, as well as Quando Sei Nato non puoi piu Nasdconderti and Sangue Pazzo, all which need re-watching). (In fact I also realise that we own another of his films, Romanzo di Una Strage, which we also have never watched!)

Anyway, the story is beautifully told here by Claudio Fava, Monica Zapelli, Vanda Vaz and the director, with a charismatic central performance by Luigi Lo Cascio (also La Meglio Gioventu). All the acting is good: Luigi Maria Burruano, Lucia Sardo, Paolo Briguglia, Tony Spernadeo, Andrea Tidona (sympathetic Communist).

Photographed by Roberto Forza, edited by Roberto Missiroli, music from Giovanni Sollima. The English subtitles were amusingly bad. ('Picciriddu', I later learned, means 'kid' in Sicilian.)

The murder was quite covered up for a long time, then finally in 2002 (after the film was released) 'Tano' Badalamenti was convicted of ordering the execution, and given a life sentence, following campaigning by his mother and brother (the father was killed in a hit-and-run which the family believe was also murder).

In his gutsy attitude, Peppino reminded me of Charlie Hebdo's 'Charb' (Stephane Charbonnier).

Odd Man Out (1947 Carol Reed & prod)

An unusual film, almost a black comedy - ironically makes a good pairing with After Hours. James Mason is a badly wounded terrorist from an unnamed organisation (the IRA) in an unnamed city (Belfast) who is also struggling to get home. It becomes less about him and more about the various characters who help and hinder his progress.

Makes great use of locations and weather, with some interesting directorial touches e.g. floating paintings sequence.

Very well acted: Kathleen Ryan, Cyril Cusack, F.J. McCormick, Denis O'Dea, Robert Newton, William Hartnell, Fay Compton, W.G. Fay, Maureen Delaney, Elwyn Brook-Jones, Robert Beatty, Dan O'Herlihy,

Robert Krasker's photography looks damned handsome on Blu-Ray. Great score too by William Alwyn. Edited by Fergus McDonell. written by F.L. Green and R.C. Sherriff.

After Hours (1985 Martin Scorsese)

Another film that had been hiding away in the cupboard. Is this Marty's tribute to Roger Corman? For him, it's unusual in the number of gay characters portrayed; Dick Miller is in it; the live body covered in plaster is a tribute to A Bucket of Blood; the setting is Bohemian New York (Soho)?

It's certainly nutty enough to be a Roger Corman. Written by Joseph Minion.

Griffin Dunne makes a date with Rosanna Arquette and things go downhill from there on. Is it about male-female relationships? Could be.

With Verna Bloom, Linda Fiorentino, John Heard, Teri Garr, Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong, Catherine O'Hara. Photographed by Michael Ballhaus (with Florian assisting, of course), edited by Thelma Schoonmaker with her customary and arbitrary disregard for film speeds, sound re-recording by the ever-present Dick Vorisek.

I love Marty's fast track-ins. And that swirling shot under the end credits is quite something. Nice and short, too.

In America (2002 Jim Sheridan)

A semi-autobiographical film, written by Jim and his daughters Naomi and Kirsten, and dedicated to Jim's brother Frank, who died when he was ten. A Big film, well overdue.

Paddy Considine, Samantha Morton, Sarah Bolger and Emma Bolger are phenomenal as the family; Djimon Hounsou is their neighbour who becomes a friend. It's set and filmed in Hell's Kitchen, a traditionally actory / Irish-American area to the West of Broadway, between 34th and 59th Street and Eighth Avenue.

Photographed by Declan Quinn.

Cracker: Men Will Weep (1994 Jean Stewart)

You know, I'm assuming Jean Stewart is a woman, though can't corroborate that anywhere - I was going to say it was a smart move to engage a female director on a three-parter that is focused on rape - Jimmy McGovern's most intelligent screenplay looks at all attitudes - male attitudes to women generally and on rape specifically, the crime, the rapist, the victims, the friends and relatives of victims, the societal implications (including race), police attitudes (both outward and internally) and procedures (telling line from police doctor to victim - 'It's so much easier when they're educated'). But not in a didactic way. In fact, putting Panhandle and the long-questionable Beck and Fitz into the centre of the story makes it uniquely involving, one of the best of the series. It even ends the season on a cliffhanger (after the tense ending at Fitz's home) with Panhandle - sorry, Penhaligon - holding Beck's own gun in his mouth as she straddles him... This is also great for the audience because (despite nuanced writing) most of us can't stand Beck, and couldn't even thirty years ago...

Graham Aggrey is the rapist. Ivan Strasburg still on camera, Tony Cranstoun editing.

The Pearl of Death (1944 Roy William Neill)

Solid adaptation - by Bernard Millhauser again - of Conan Doyle story 'The Six Napoleons'. The early sequence where Holmes shows off his cleverness in disabling the museum's security - thus allowing the pearl to be stolen - is classic.

Familiar cast from series - Evelyn Ankers, Miles Mander, Ian Wolfe, Dennis Hoey, Mary Gordon - plus Rondo Hatton as 'the Creeper', a man whose strange face was a result of a rare condition called Acromegaly - more about him was written by Fred Olen Ray, but can't find it online, though this article is informative.

Rondo Hatton

Evelyn Ankers with 'elderly passenger' (guess who?)