Halloween (1978 John Carpenter)

Considering that I've watched this film a million times, there are a surprising number of things I haven't figured out, like

1. Who is producer Moustapha Akkad? He was a Syrian who came to the US to study film and made The Message, before the Halloween series. He and his daughter were killed in the 2005 Amman bombing in Jordan. He was at that time producing a big budget film about the Crusades with Sean Connery.

2. I don't think I'd really twigged that that is Laurie's father at the beginning who gives her the key to the Myers' house, so we do meet one of her parents at least. Can't say they seem to have the warmest relationship.

3. After years of banging on about how great Dean Cundey was and what a brilliant innovation the Panaglide provided, it's about time to name check the camera and Panaglide operator, Ray Stella. He was a grip on Candy Tangerine Man back in 1975 and assistant camera - to Cundey - in other arthouse fare such as Creature from Black Lake and Satan's Cheerleaders (which incidentally has the incredibly eclectic cast of John Ireland, Yvonne de Carlo, Sidney Chaplin, John Carradine and Jack Kruschen!)

4. That comment of Laurie's - 'Well Kiddo, I thought you outgrew superstition" - is actually aimed at herself, a reaction to hearing the hijinks of trick or treaters.

5. According to this fan site, Donald Pleasance was actually paid $20,000 for his appearance. Jamie apparently earned $8000. The remaining $150,000 of the budget that wasn't spent on the Panaglide is reducing fast...

6. The unkillable Michael Myers actually brought his own editor to the film, which is why he is able to disappear from the frame so suddenly. To end the film in that cliff-hanger way was quite audacious...

The Uninvited (1944 Lewis Allen)

What a great artist Charles Lang was. If you closely look at the way he lights people lighting candles: he matches the flare up of the match, then dims it as being lit, then lights more for the candle to be bright. There's no electricity in the house, so this sort of thing happens a lot.

Brackett's diary indicates he was going through his usual emotions of elation and torment. About the rough cuts, he writes: "I made a great many notes - most of them on top of each other, due to a failure to turn a page in the dark." And another day, "The final day of real shooting on The Uninvited. Most of it Ray and the ghost..." It also reveals that Doane Harrison had brilliantly cut together the take where Gail Russell had really fallen as the cliff collapsed (injuring herself slightly) with a take of her being pulled up "in an incredibly credible way..."

Ray Milland is perhaps a shade too flip for us to take the ghost stuff as seriously as we might. (I am reminded that despite his Oscar for Lost Weekend, Wilder didn't really rate Milland as an actor - "I can say that now he's dead".) With Ruth Hussey, Donald Crisp, Cornelia Otis Skinner, Alan Napier.

Good script by Dodie Smith and Frank Partos. Good music from Victor Young.

Joan (2024 Anna Symon)

Based on a true story, a single mum in the eighties turns to crime to try to reunite her with her daughter.

Some of her outfits are hilarious.

But trying to do a deal with the IRA starts a downward spiral, culminating in a disastrous jewellery store robbery and imprisonment, leaving her much further from being reunited with her daughter. Then in an abrupt ending, it's four years later, she's back in Spain, her former accomplice gives her money, and she's going to start some kind of crime dynasty... It's not a very satisfying ending, to say the least.

Sophie Turner, Kirsty Curtis, Frank Dillane, Laura Aikman, Gershwyn Eustache Jr.

6 x 45m for ITV.

Stigma (1977 Lawrence Gordon Clark)

Have to mention this obscure short horror film originally part of BBC's Ghost Story for Christmas season, as it's quite macabre and memorable.

A family in the country, comprising Peter Bowles, Kate Binchy and Maxine Gordon. He decides to move an ancient rock from his garden, even though he can see it's obviously one in a ceremonial line. Weird things start happening and the mother just bleeds and bleeds. It seems they've uncovered an ancient burial site.

She's being whisked to hospital... and then dies. It's quite unexpected and horrible, particularly underlined by Bowles' anguished exclamation of "No....!". Written by Clive Exton.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1955, released 1956 Don Siegel)

Siegel liked working with producer Walter Wanger - they had made Riot on Cell Block 11 together - a producer who inspires creativity and doesn't try to direct. Siegel worked on the script with Danny Mainwaring, which was based on a story by Jack Finney - "A damned good one. We just translated it into cinematic terms. There was a real effort to make it completely believable. This is probably my best film and I felt that this was a very important story. I think that the world is populated by pods and I wanted to show them. I think that many people have no feeling about cultural things, no feeling of pain, of sorrow. I thought I shot it very imaginatively, as in the cave I found..." The opening and ending were stuck on (at the studio's insistence), and actually really dilute the film, which would have ended with Kevin McCarthy pointing at the audience and screaming "You're next!"...

Whilst Siegel (in conversation here with Peter Bogdanovich) acknowledges the reference to McCarthy and totalitarianism, he thinks it's not specifically about America but the world in general.

That scene in the mine shaft - with the aliens running over the boards with the couple beneath - does stand out, as does the sequence where they observe the townspeople, seemingly behaving normally, then suddenly are all called to order to disperse pods.

Apart from Kevin McCarthy - who we know from Hotel - I didn't recognise any of the cast names nor the crew. For the record, the cast includes Dana Wynter, Larry Gates. King Donovan, Carolyn Jones, Jean Willes... and Sam Peckinpah!

On camera: Ellsworth Fredericks, music Carmen Dragon, editing Robert Elsen.

Cake (2014 Daniel Barnz)

Written by Patrick Tobin, whose only other credit is for the unreleased 1994 drama No Easy Way. In good drip feed writing, we learn why Jennifer Aniston is so injured and drug addicted and what has brought her there. Her maid / carer Adriana Barraza (Babel) really is a long-suffering marvel. To add to the fun, Jen keeps seeing suicide Anna Kendrick appear and interact with her.

Jen's excellent.

Photographed by Rachel Morrison (Seberg, Black Panther, Mudbound).

With Sam Worthington, Mamie Gummer, Felicity Huffman, William H Macy, Lucy Punch.

Deadline at Dawn (1946 Harold Clurman)

A most interesting post-war drama with noirish notes, it takes place in NYC one night between 2 AM and 6 AM - and that alone makes for fascinating stuff. Who are all these people and why are they up so late - the City that never Sleeps* - makes you feel exhausted. There's a soda parlour still open, and a nightclub hosting a police retirement that's still going after 4...

There's quite a confusing number of characters and a jumble of a plot derived from Cornell Woolrich (as William Irish) novel, as on leave sailor Bill Williams and jaded dance hall girl Susan Hayward get involved in murder, and European cab driver Paul Lukas (not the only foreign cab driver here) helps them. There's a nasty villain, Joseph Calleia, and several dodgy women of the night, Osa Massen and Lola Lane, plus an early stalker in the shape of Steven Geray. The ending - changed from the novel - is quite nuts, but the film is interesting enough for you to go with it.

Lukas was in many silent films in his native Hungary; latterly in Little Women (1933), Dodsworth, The Lady Vanishes, Watch on the Rhine, Lord Jim, Berlin Express.

Clurman hadn't directed before but he's accompanied by the great Nick Musuraca on camera. The screenplay's by Clifford Odets, who had worked with Clurman in The Group Theatre. Includes the lines "This is New York. Hello means goodbye" and "Remember - speech was given to man to hide his thoughts".

The quintessential noir staircase / hallway shot

*There's a 1953 thriller of this title with Gig Young that might be worth watching...

Jamaica Inn (1939 Alfred Hitchcock)

An atypical Hitchcock period drama, though not without suspense. Also features a highly gutsy and strong willed female lead - good stuff. It's Maureen O'Hara, in not quite her debut. And a quite wonderfully sinister and urbane Charles Laughton.

Rest of cast good too, especially Emlyn Williams in the pirate gang. With Robert Newton, Leslie Banks, Marie Ney, Horace Hodges (butler), Basil Radford, Mervyn Johns.

Hitch is having fun with height, shooting down - not only in the tense hanging scene but in the cave also.

It's well put together and edited by Robert Hamer - first wrecking scene for example is very lively. Photographed by Harry Stradling and Bernard Knowles, great design - of roads, inn, manor house and shipwrecks - by Thomas Morahan. It was an independent Mayflower production, produced by Laughton and Erich Pommer, and a big hit. The source is Daphne du Maurier, adapted by Sidney Gilliat and Joan Harrison with additional dialogue from JB Priestley.

Laughton's eyebrows are pretty crazy. He had cast Maureen O'Hara, fresh from the Abbey Theatre, and when he left for Hollywood took her with him, where she immediately won the lead role of Esmeralda in Hunchback of the Notre Dame opposite Laughton.

Misery (1990 Rob Reiner)

My wife's choice, a suitably scary and gruesome one, and if not a little funny.

William Goldman wrote the part for Kathy Bates, having been a fan of hers from her theatre work. (One of her performances he admired was in 'Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune'). And Reiner agreed. And it was an asset being an unknown movie actor because the audience didn't know her and therefore would be scared of her.

Casting the writer was harder. Here's a list of people who turned it down: Kevin Kline, William Hurt. Warren Beatty, Dustin Hoffman, Richard Dreyfuss, Michael Douglas, Harrison Ford. de Niro, Pacino, Hackman, Redford... Caan had been in a drugs wilderness but came to the project clean. Goldman says that he's an actor who's always on the move, and so the desperation of being stuck in a bed for months is genuine and comes over on the screen.

Robert Leighton is the skillful editor at work. He frequently teamed with Reiner: The Sure Thing, Stand By Me, The Princess Bride, When Harry Met Sally, A Few Good Men, The American President.

Red Rock West (1993 John Dahl & co-scr)

Unemployed Nicolas Cage turn up at a Texas bar and is mistaken by J.T. Walsh for a hitman he's hired to bump off his wife, Lara Flynn Boyle. Then she pays him to bump off her husband. But we know he's a proud man of integrity and so tries to sort the mess out without bumping off anybody. But somehow he keeps getting sucked back to Red Rock, eventually and unwittingly coming up against the real hitman, Dennis Hopper.

Didn't know Dahl or his co-writer brother Rick, or in fact anyone at all behind the camera, but it's perfectly competently shot, edited and scored. And really quite an enjoyably noirish tale in the Blood Simple vein. (Welcome to Red Rock would also have worked.)

Duel in the Sun (1946 King Vidor)

Another epic David Selznick production (we heard him shouting 'More horses! There aren't enough horses in this scene!' - I wrote that as a joke, but it's actually in one of his famous memoranda - 'I wish we had more horses'...).  Luckily this one's only just over two hours. It's a strange and overheated film - the ending is just somehow hysterically funny and overwrought. (Q's comment: "Oh how ridiculous, but marvellous.") Jennifer Jones overacts somewhat, though was awarded an Oscar nomination - beaten by Ethel Barrymore for None But the Lonely Heart. It ran into all sorts of censorship problems. Gregory Peck is a bad guy, for a change. With Joseph Cotten, Lionel Barrymore, Lillian Gish, Butterfly McQueen, Charles Bickford, Walter Huston, Harry Carey, Herbert Marshall, Joan Tetzel, Otto Kruger, with opening narration from Orson Welles. Butterfly's rather difficult to understand character name, by the way, is the unusual 'Vashti'.

Selznick repeatedly rewrote scenes and fiddled with Vidor's direction to the point where he walked out. William Cameron Menzies directed that amazing single crane shot take at the party, and William Dieterle was brought in to do retakes following a disastrous preview of a then four hour film. Hal Kern led the editing. It was based on a sensational novel by Niven Busch.

It looks amazing. Lee Garmes and Selznick must have had a complicated relationship - Selznick memorably fired Garmes after he'd shot the first hour of GWTW, but then hired him back on other projects like Since You Went Away. Here he's credited as the lead cameraman, with Ray Rennahan and Harold Rosson, with additional (uncredited) footage from W Howard Green and Charles Boyle. Jack Cosgrove adds his customary trick skies.

Selznick and Jones were not married until 1949.

Ludwig (2024 Creator Mark Brotherhood)

Not sure this is much good really. David Mitchell doesn't have much range, the 'comedy' moments aren't funny, the whole premise is daft - people disappearing without a word is annoying and dramatically difficult to sustain. It's also rather gloomily photographed.

Did enjoy Derek Jacobi as an absent-minded teacher. With Anna Maxwell Martin, Dipo Ola (We Hunt Together, Landscapers), Sophie Willan, Gerran Howell (1917), Dorothy Atkinson, Ralph Ineson.

A six part BBC production, with a clear path to another series as Ludwig is now employed as a consultant (i.e. Professor T again) and his brother is still missing - not that anyone seems to care much...

Dead of Night (1945 Cavalcanti, Charles Crichton, Robert Hamer, Basil Dearden)

Watched it last Halloween... obviously.

From when this was written:

Moments to love. The way Anthony Baird slowly walks up to the the hospital window, all sound having disappeared. That slow track in on Ralph Michael as he tells Googie Withers he must be going mad. Sally Ann Howes' mother bursting in with the film's funniest line. Googie seeing the haunted room. And the antiques dealer - "It's a rather curious story" - Curious?? Douglas Slocombe's eerie lake. That final look of Michael Redgrave - totally deranged. Georges Auric - demented brass. The slow motion cigarette smoke right at the end.

It's quite funny how sanguine and stiff-lipped everyone is about their and the others' ghost stories, as they smoke countless cigarettes.

"Milk and sugar, Mr Craig?" I love his expression.

But the line that stuck in my head this time was Basil Radford's - "Must count the cups, darling. Yes, always count the cups before going to bed."

Woman of the Hour (2023 Anna Kendrick)

This isn't a film. What do I mean by that? It's based on a true story about a serial killer who escaped the law for ages, played here by Daniel Zovatto. We see some killings, and the one that got away (Autumn Best). The main bit of the story is about a failing actress, played by Kendrick herself, who appears on a televised Blind Date, and one of the suitors is the killer, recognised by audience member Nicolette Robinson. Who is unable to do anything about it. So dramatically it doesn't really work, and suffers from the red flag of lots of expository text on screen after the film is finished.

Best stuff is Kendrick going off the 'script' of the game show, urged on  by makeup lady Denalda Williams (I think).

Since You Went Away (1944 John Cromwell)

16 July 2017:

Margaret Buell Wilder adapted her own novel (a series of letters to her husband) and it was written by David Selznick - probably a mistake, for though the film covers similar territory to Best Years of Our Lives it isn't its equal despite great performances and treatment. Claudette Colbert, Jennifer Jones and Shirley Temple (and maid Hattie McDaniel) let out their home to Monty Woolley, involving grandson Robert Walker and friend Joseph Cotten. A lugubrious dog completes the menagerie. Agnes Moorehead is a bitchy friend and Lionel Barrymore and Albert Bassermann appear briefly. (All acting good.)  The problem I feel is that the film forces sentimentality on you, cranked up by Max Steiner's score. However it is sincere and moving and well acted, with plenty of laughs and interesting detail.

Jones and Walker were nearing the end of their marriage here.

Typically complicated Selznick production also has Tay Garnett and Edward Cline directing sections. Cameraman George Barnes began it, was fired after two weeks as couldn't photograph Jones to Selznick's satisfaction, then Stanley Cortez filmed the first third (he was either called up or sacked, depending on the source) and Lee Garmes finished it - so all those moments of beautiful dark which I confidently asserted were Cortez weren't... though this one could have been:

Also love the modernity of this tracking shot (Cortez again):

You get a sort of Soy Cuba feeling some of the time

The DVD, complete with overture and intermission, runs 177 minutes. It's a bit of an emotional monster.

Today:

Yes I think Selznick does try and over-sentimentalize it, and keep showing us all these 'inspirational' printed slogans of things throughout, and includes corny close-ups of cats and things. The much lauded scene with immigrant played by Alla Nazimova seems entirely stuck on. It's really too long. Similarly Keenan Wynn's appearance at the end is somewhat bewildering - like - 'after all this time now you're going to introduce a new character?' The sailor who befriends Walker and Jones was a telephone lineman who Selznick signed up and changed his name to Guy Madison. And Max Steiner's score isn't one of his best (orchestrated by several uncredited gentlemen). Jack Cosgrove's special effects are invisible (though I wondered if a rather lovely cloud over Walker and Jones might be one of them). Hal Kern is the lead editor.

Talking of actors, Hattie McDaniel's performance is multi-faceted and exquisite. Jones was very unhappy throughout, thinking she was too old and gangly and particularly finding the romantic scenes with Walker too difficult (they had separated). She still received an Oscar nomination, though - perhaps for the way she grows up - but lost to Olivia de Havilland in To Each His Own. Shirley Temple was brought out of a two year 'retirement' to play a gutsy teenager.

Selznick borrowed Joseph Cotten, Agnes Moorehead, Stanley Cortez and production designer William Pereira from The Magnificent Ambersons. All this information courtesy of Ronald Haver's aircraft carrier sized book 'David O Selznick's Hollywood'.

It was not particularly well received critically or commercially, and was subsequently cut down for reissue; but overall it's still an impressive piece of work and an emotional experience despite its faults.