They Made Me a Fugitive (1947 Cavalcanti)

Scr. Noel Langley, novel Jackson Budd.

Trevor Howard, Sally Gray, Griffith Jones (a memorably nasty turn), René Ray, Mary Merrall (the old lady)

Ph. Otto Heller, Mus. Marius François Gaillard

Unexpectedly tough revenge thriller which hardly lets up from the start, with an almost Performance-like realistic underworld and sharp, sardonic dialogue, particularly from crime 'madame' Merrall.

Made for WB UK Ltd, which may explain the title, though the Americans didn't even like it themselves, called it 'I Became a Criminal' and cut 20 minutes down to 78!

Nasty beating up scene, with that shot of Jones' distorted face, and the double-exposed kicking, particularly memorable. Bleak down to the ending: ironic final battle against RIP sign is not the only smart directorial touch.

A Double Life (1947 George Cukor)

Ronald Colman (AA), Signe Hasso, Edmond O'Brien. Shelley Winters, Ray Collins (Bachelor Knight, Best Years..., Kane), Millard Mitchell.

Music Miklos Rosza (AA), ph. Milton Krasner (stylish)
Scr Ruth Gordon (yes, the same one) & Garson Kanin (they were married) - also nom. with Cukor

Not what we were expecting, as bonkers as Black Swan, and we certainly know that scene from Othello well now.

An independent 'G.K.' (Garson Kanin) production.

Kiss Them From Me (1957 Stanley Donen)

scr Julius Epstein, play Luther Davis, novel 'Shore Leave' by Frederic Wakeman

Cary Grant, Jayne Mansfield, Suzy Parker (well-known fashion model), Ray Walston, Larry Blyden, Leif Erickson (ship builder)

Ph. by the always reliable Milton Krasner, in CinemaScope and De Luxe.

Not very funny, but has unexpected anti-war stings in its tail / tale, and is quite risqué for its time. Jayne not unnaturally gives her trademark squeal. C4 presentation looks very slightly stretched?

20th-Fox.

The Man Who Watched Trains Go By (1952 Harold French & co-scr)

Claude Rains, Marius Goring, Marta Toren, Ferdy Mayne, Herbert Lom, Anouk Aimee, Felix Aylmer.

Ph. Otto Heller in his very distinctive pallette.

Downright odd film (source: Georges Simenon), quite dream-like, with a most peculiar ending.

Wanted more Heller, though, so went straight into The Ladykillers. He has 235 film credits, from 1918 - oldest ones look Czech.

The Brave One (2007 Neil Jordan)

Jodie Foster, Terence Howard, Naveen Andrews (a bit).

Curiously uninvolving remake of Death Wish (maybe that's why) despite talent involved. Good vigilante film needed. Jordan puts film on too much of a tilt.

Ph. Philippe Rousselot, Panavision, very green.

Distinctive editing by Tony Lawson.

The guy from Changeling? No - Nicky Katt.

Cocoon (1985 Ron Howard)

The sudden, brilliantly timed appearance of a friendly dolphin in a long sea / night take with Steve Guttenberg is worth the price of admission alone. Also fun are the shenanigans of the oldies, who are Don Ameche, Hume Cronyn (Lifeboat and Shadow of a Doubt early appearances), Wilford Brimley (looking too young really), Jack Gilford (Catch-22, lots on TV), Maureen Stapleton (Q correctly pegs her in The Money Pit; Plaza Suite), Jessica Tandy (Fried Green Tomatoes - Q again, Driving Miss Daisy, Garp, The Birds). Brian Dennehy (Belly of an Architect) is the strangely shaped alien.

Stromboli, Terra Di Dio (1950 Roberto Rossellini & co-scr)

Ingrid Bergman, Mario Vitale.

Music by Roberto's son Renzo, making me think a little of Herrmann. Ph. Otello Martelli.

Bleak but interesting - I don't blame her for wanting to escape. Amazing fishing scene. She attempts even to seduce the priest - scandal!

Talking of which, Bergman fell in love with Rossellini, became pregnant and was blacklisted in Hollywood for years.

Quite understandably there are only a few hundred inhabitants now. Hoping Lipari nothing like it!

Tough, grim way of life presented in neorealist style (non-actors etc.) Neorealism came out of post-war problems and dissatisfaction with film industry by a group of film critics, therefore obvious influence on French New Wave.

There is a funny alternate ending - she does make it over the other side, and there's a fun party town..

Hereafter (2010 Clint Eastwood)

Matt Damon, Cecile de France, Rebekah Staton, Lyndsey Marshal (heroin mum), Frankie and George Mclaren, jay Mohr (Matt's brother), Marthe Keller.

Ph. very darkly by Tom Stern. Scr. Peter Morgan. Music by Clint.

I didn't really get it. Unfortunately the quotes from Dickens are better than anything in the screenplay.

Madeleine (1950 David Lean)

Ann Todd, Norman Wooland, Ivan Desny.

Ph. Guy Green. Music William Alwyn.

Not quite sure why I didn't get on too well with this. Todd's performance somewhat petulant, makes her unsympathetic, in fact only her fiancé I liked. Certainly cinematic in places.

Blithe Spirit (1945 David Lean)

Written and produced by Lean, Ronald Neame and Anthony Havelock-Allen.

Rex Harrison, Constance Cummings, Kay Hammond (Elvira), Margaret Rutherford (energetic - 'That cuckoo's very angry,' 'How can you tell?' 'Timbre.')

The photography (Neame) and make up are very clever, especially in outdoor scenes. Love the realism of the garden backdrop (except when it doesn't move in storm!)

Maid Jacqueline Clarke also in The Way to the Stars.

Suffers from Coward's insistence to change not one detail from the play.

Mi Fratello è Figlio Unico / My Brother Is An Only Child (2007 Daniele Luchetti & co-scr)

Unsurprisingly - sharing the same writers Sandro Petraglia and Stefano Rulli - it comes across as a mini-Meglio Giuventu, setting a family saga within the mess of modern Italian politics, and charting the course of two brothers, Elio Germano and Riccardo Scamarcio, and how the former travels through Facism (egged on by substitute father Luca Zingaretti), communism, and finally honorable family man, in part down to love for Angela Finocchiaro.

Distinctive sounds courtesy Franco Piersanti. Ph. Caludio Collepiccolo.

Le Souffle au Coeur (1971 Louis Malle & scr)

Lea Massari, Benoit Ferreux, Daneil Géllu, Michael Lonsdale.

Ph. Richard Aronovich. Lots of Charlie Parker.

Not your average coming-of-age film, unpleasant story charts adventures of callous youth, whose mother is somewhat over-solicitous to him!

Maltin "Builds to a thoroughly delightful resolution"?? What film was he watching?

M*A*S*H (1970 Robert Altman)

Scr Richard Hooker (& novel), Ring Lardner Jr.

Donald Sutherland, Elliott Gould, Tom Skerritt, Sally Kellerman, Robert Duvall, Roger Bowen (Colonel), Gary Burghoff (Radar), Micahel Murphy, Jo Ann Pflug, Bud Cort.

Ph. Harold E Stine, Panavision.

Another film Q didn't want to watch then thoroughly enjoyed. Radar stealing Colonel's blood; dog in Sugar Lips line-up; Keystone Cop moments; overlapping dialogue; frequently pointless PA system; completely useless priest.

Kinamand / Chinaman (2005 Henrik Ruben Genz)

Bjarne Henriksen, Vivian Wu (The Last Emperor, many others). Linkun Wu (working as a bus driver when cast fo this, his first film).

Scr. Kim Fupz Aakeson.

Maybe a shade too gentle and slight. But fun. The first Chinese-Finnish co-production.

Une Femme Infidèle (1969 Claude Chabrol & scr)

Stephane Audran, Michel Bouquet (an unforgettable performance), Maurice Ronet.

Beautifully simple.

Loved the giant Zippo!

Ph. Jean Rabier

 

Sophie's Choice (1982 Alan J Pakula & scr)

Meryl Streep (AA), Kevin Kline, Peter MacNichol.

Ph. Nestor Almendros.

It wasn't all depressing, contrary to urban myth.

Oh, Mr. Porter (1937 Marcel Varnee)

Frank Launder and Sidney Gilliat were writers.

Will Hay, Moore Marriott, Graham Moffat (the three often appeared together; Moffat is the 'Seven Sisters sergeant' in Canterbury Tale.)

Funny gags at outset not sustained ('What happened to him?' 'I don't know, but I remember we sent a wreath') but good windmill and train chase scenes.

Ph. Arthur Crabtree.

The Poseiden Adventure (1972 Ronald Neame)

Gene Hackman, Ernest Borgnine, Stella Stevens (his wife), Red Buttons, Roddy McDowell, Shelly Winters, Jack Albertson (her husband), Pamela Sue Martin, Eric Shea (her brother), Carol Lynley (the singer), Leslie Nielsen (difficult now to take seriously in anything).

I though the other preacher looked familiar - Arthur O'Connell from Anatomy of a Murder, written by Wendell Mayes, who also wrote this (with Sterling Silliphant). Music John Willimas.

It was more tragic than I remembered. And, therefore, not as much fun. The lengths some filmmakers will go to show off girls' legs...

Le Feu Follet (1963 Louis Malle)

Maurice Ronet kills himself.

Malle doing Bresson before Bresson.

Volker Scholdorff is assistant director.

Zazie Dans le Métro (1960 Louis Malle & co-scr)

Catherine Demongeot, Phillipe Noiret, Hubert Deschamps, the striking-looking Carla Marlier.

It's as though Malle saw what the New Wave were doing (referenced in the film), then threw away the rule book. The dazzling tricks and colour (ph. Henri Raichi) seem to have influenced Amelie, or closer in time, Dick Lester's Beatles films and the swinging sixties, though the hilarious chase sequence is pure Warner Bros. cartoon. Zazie's coarse language also makes us think of Paper Moon.

But it's all too much - needs a chill-out section, which it nears in a night scene with a great jazz-pop score - and the end punch-up in the restaurant is just silly (though even here there's a very Godardy device of background images being bigger than the foreground). The scenes atop the Eiffel Tower are terrifying.

Richard Ayowade reckons he watches this film once a month.