To Be Or Not To Be (1942 Ernst Lubitsch)

Story Melchior Lengyel, scr Edwin Justus Meyer (also co-wrote the story of Midnight).

Carole Lombard, Jack Benny, Robert Stack, Felix Bressart, Lionel Atwill, Stanley Ridges, Sig Ruman, Halliwell Hobbes.

Ph. Rudolph Maté.

Great identity confusion. Lombard's last (plane crash). Beard scene incomparable.

Marley (2012 Kevin Macdonald)

Our third premiere of the day, intelligently put together (some of the new footage has beautifully filmed shots, use of photos and Bob's words in titles).

Interestingly quite light on family (11 children by 7 women) and drug-taking, through we gather he liked fish tea and football.

Ph. Alwin Kuchler (Hanna ), Mike Eley (Parade's End, Touching the Void ) & Wally Pfister (additional footage).

It isn't overwhelmed with greatest hits either.

What Did You Do In the War Daddy? (1965 Blake Edwards, & story)

Another premiere, a wacky war comedy, scr by William Peter Blatty!

James Coburn, Dick Shawn (reminding us of Alec Baldwin), Sergio Fantoni, Aldo Ray, Harry Morgan (who goes completely mad), Carroll O'Connor (General), Giovanna Ralli

Mus. Henry Mancini, ph Philip Lathrop.

Great fun with highlights of festival, fake battle, Shawn in drag, finale. Lots of silent stuff - where it all came from.

Design for Living (1933 Ernst Lubitsch & prod)

Play Noel Coward, scr. Ben Hecht

Fredric March, Gary Cooper, Miriam Hopkins, Edward Everett Horton, Franklin Pangborn, Jane Darwell

Ph Victor Milner

On first viewing, not as sprightly or funny as other Lubitsches, but I'm sure when we get to know it we'll love it. Great opening. Seems to have no music. Very risqué material. The dusty mattress!

The Searchers (1956 John Ford)

Scr Frank S Nugent, novel Alan le May

John Wayne, Jeffrey Hunter, Vera Miles, Ward Bond ('Rev'), Natalie Wood, John Qualen, Henry Brandon (Scar), Hank Worden (Mose), Patrick Wayne (the young lieutenant).

Incredible photography Winton C. Hoch. You can tell Ford was a silent director - whole film works without dialogue. Simple filming. Wayne is starting to soften when he covers up dead squaw / wife. Picks Wood up like he did the child. Amusing letter sequence. Really good.

Il Buono, Il Brutto, Il Cattivo / The Good the Bad and the Ugly (1966 Sergio Leone)

The Quantum Leap for Leone (seriousness, scale).

It seems only right to watch Il Buono, Il Brutto, Il Cattivo while reading Christopher Frayling's excellent 'Once Upon a Time in Italy', which acknowledges the contribution of production designer Carlo Simi to the Leone classics. This is certainly an epic western, in the production of which the bridge was blown up twice (due to an Italian-Spanish misunderstanding).

Eli Wallach is the heart of the film (it's perhaps his best performance), chosen not on the back of The Magnificent Seven but because Leone saw him being playful with children in How the West Was Won, and in the train / handcuff scene it's not a double (the train comes close to taking his head off). And his growl at the spectators to his lynching is a genuine out-of-character response that Leone left in.

Leone, it seems, liked his duels in circles: Simi guessed at some psychological reasons but didn't ask. But Leone was very sensitive as well, it seems - he cut the ending of Giu La Testa because someone stood up before the film had ended - Sit Down You Sucker!

Damaged people (prison camp and bridge scene), emotional reunion of Tuco and his brother Luigi Pistilli (Illustrious Corpses ) (who didn't speak a word of English), the perfection of the shots in the final duel (he was very technical, and filmed many takes). The mocking Morricone.

"There are two types of people..."

"Every gun makes its own tune."

Footnote whilst cleaning, 12 October 2017:

"Leone was inspired in TGTB&TU by photographs of the horrible condition of Civil War camps like Andersonville but also had in mind Nazi concentration camps in the scene where the cries of tortured prisoners is drowned out by the orchestra. The scenes of prison camps have a double impact, both questioning America's official line on the Civil War (it is striking how few westerns emphasize Civil War prison camps) and commenting on the eternal recurrence of wartime atrocities by bringing twentieth century political touchstones into a nineteenth century story."

'The Art of Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in the West: A Critical Appreciation' by John Fawell.

Not sure Frayling picked up on that specifically, and the above is unsubstantiated (though I'm sure I've heard of this elsewhere)... I guess I need to read his 'Something To Do With Death' next...

The Long Memory (1952 Robert Hamer)

Written by Hamer and Frank Hardy from a novel by Howard Clewes.

Tons of location atmosphere in moody Kent seafront and night silent towns, a revenge tale with a wonderfully (and uncharacteristically) terse John Mills seeking out Pimlico's John Slater and ex Elizabeth Sellars, whilst real culprit John Chandos and henchman John Horsely appear to be gay (Horsely is Doc Morrissey, no less!)

Eva Bergh (not much of a career) is the refugee, Geoffrey Keene a helpful journalist, John McCallum the investigator. Also, Thora Hird, Laurence Naismith, Peter Jones.

Shot by Harry Waxman, music William Alwyn.

Good framing, deep focus, moments cut to dramatic music like 'The Haunted Mirror' e.g. terse Mills seen through letterbox. Final hurrah to Michael Martin Harvey who I knew would save the day, though frankly film would have worked as well with a downbeat ending.

Top marks to Eagle Eye Qued who in one second identified 11 year old Christopher Beeny  as Edward in Upstairs Downstairs.

A Europa film.

Also liked some of the angles, e.g. Mills and Bergh head to head. Two stars in Radio Times? Fuck off.

Johnny: "It would have been better if Hamer had laid off the sauce. He twice walked backwards into the Thames with viewfinder in eye!"

Cavalcade (1933 Frank Lloyd)

Cavalcade is like an early version of This Happy Breed (Noel Coward was 33). Diana Wynyard (one of those stare into the distance breed), Clive Brook, Una O'Connor, Herbert Mundin, Beryl Mercer, Merle Tottenham, Ursula Jeans. Wynyard though Oscar nominated - and film, Lloyd and art direction won.

Directed by the unremarkable Lloyd, with a memorable war montage by (William) Cameron Menzies and shot by Ernest Palmer (it is actually a US production, for Fox, so that probably is the American Ernest Palmer not the British one).

The stripy seaside entertainer could be straight out of Family Guy.

The Woman in the Fifth (2011 Pawel Pawlikowski)

We were somewhat baffled and disappointed by Pawel Pawlikowski's treatment of Douglas Kennedy's The Woman in the Fifth. It was stunningly directed, but to no avail in audience-defying 'wh'appen?' plot.

Ethan Hawke, Kristin Scott Thomas and Joanna Kulig, plus Samir Guesmi.

Why pick that book??

Ph. Ryszard Lenczewski, music Max de Wardener.

Shame, as it begins so well. Love the way he hangs on to certain shots a bit longer than you'd expect.

My Summer of Love (2004 Pawel Pawlikowski)

I was wondering what happened to Pawel Pawlikowski after winning Newcomer BAFTA for The Last Resort (2001) and film BAFTA for My Summer of Love. He'd shot 60% of black comedy The Restraint of Beasts ('Looks great, like nothing I've ever done or seen before') when wife became seriously ill. He quit to look after her and kids but she died a few months later. Then he was supposed to be making a Stalin film for Film 4. Now at least has finished Douglas Kennedy adaptation.

Anyway My Summer was feature debut of Natalie Press (Wasp) and Emily Blunt, and the style is quite distinctive (our fave moments: the girls disappear into gorse, then a puff of smoke; Natalie showing how her ex made love).

Shot by Ryszard Lenczewski, music Will Gregory & Alison Goldfrapp.

Sweet and sour.

Paddy Considine was also in Last Resort. Both leads fab. Sense of summer and place well caught. Can't be England though as it doesn't rain once. Intimate close-ups.

Young Victoria (2009 Jean-Marc Vallée)

An accidental double-bill of Jim Broadbent films. In Young Victoria he has a short but powerful part as King William. Emily Blunt and Rupert Friend are perfect as the young couple, great support from Mark Strong, Miranda Richardson, Paul Bettany and Harriet Walter as Queen Adelaide. Had forgotten Julian Fellowes wrote it and Scorsese co-produced.

The Director is a Canadian whose previous film C.R.A.Z.Y.  (2005) was very well received.

Hagen Bogdanski's lighting is very natural (The Lives of Others ), and apart from the totally inappropriate pop ballad that accompanies the end credits, my only critique is to say it's a bit like eating a fabulous meal but still feeling hungry afterwards.

The Boys are Back (2009 Scott Hicks)

We watch an interesting double bill about men dealing with the loss of their wives!

Clive Owen does so by building relationships with his two sons, in somewhat unconventional ways, amongst South Australian scenery, directed by Shine's Scott Hicks. The boys younger and older are Nicholas McAnulty and George Mackay, with Emma Booth and Laura Fraser.

Written by Allan Cubitt from Simon Carr's novel.

The Abominable Dr Phibes (1971 Robert Fuest)

Taking a rather different approach to dealing with the loss of his wife (in our double bill), an almost silent Vincent Price takes grisly revenge on the doctors who he considered murdered her (Caroline Munro in stills only), with much humour ("I'm a headshrink!")

Is this the most elegant horror film ever? Former artist and art director Fuest and his a.d. Bernard Reeves cram every frame with beautiful art deco detail, even down to the cups, all handsomely lit by Norman Warwick.

AIP.

Avanti (1972 Billy Wilder)

Juliet Mills on the terrace of the Grand Hotel Excelsior Vittoria, Sorrento, doubling for Ischia

 

Jack Lemmon, Juliet Mills, Clive Revill (an absolute sensation as the Italian hotel manager), Edward Andrews (J.J. Blodgett).

Brilliantly written by Wilder and IAL Diamond - "The black socks... was it because you were in mourning?" From a play by Samuel A Taylor.

Carlo Rustichelli is only credited as music arranger leading me to infer that the properly catchy melodies are all Italian traditionals.

Notice the brilliant, silent movie opening. Plenty of jokes at the expense of America (and Italy and GB too, come to that). 'Will and Kate Carlucci'. Pippo Franco is Qued's wonderful mortuary guy. So well constructed. Use of 'avanti', three coffins, 'weight problem' etc.

Can't argue with Cameron Crowe: "The prize of Wilder's later-period work." This beautifully constructed, wonderfully written jewel of a film is unfairly undervalued and all but unknown.

The hotel set is very clearly modelled on the Excelsior's actual decor

A view of the front of the hotel - still very much as it is today

Only a few scenes were actually filmed on Ischia - for example, the morgue, harbour and burial scenes, Actually I don't know that! Does anyone?

Shot by Luigi Kuveiller (Profondo Rosso, Warhol's Dracula and Frankenstein. Wilder liked his work on Un Tranquillo Posto di Campagna 1969, directed by Elio Petri, Repulsion-like, with music by Morricone.)

More Avanti

Chinatown (1974 Roman Polanski)

Just the one Oscar, for writer Robert Towne (though Polanski worked so extensively on the script that he reportedly could have claimed co-author credit), but the film was up against Godfather II, Lenny, Alice Doesn't Live Here Any More, Day for Night and The Conversation in all other categories.

Trademark skilful use of sound.

Also hadn't realised quite how good Faye Dunaway is.

Still there are mysteries - whose glasses are they?

Sam O'Steen is the editor and Jerry Goldsmith's memorable score was apparently written in 10 days.

Wide lenses put you right in the action, as does camera in back of car (John A Alonzo).

With Jack Nicholson, John Huston, Perry Lopez (cop).

Fellini Roma (1972 Federico Fellini & co-scr)

 Co-written with Bernardino Zapponi.

Peter Gonzales Falcon, Anna Magnani.

Music Nino Rota, ph. Giuseppe Rotunno.

Astonishing film with a lot of funny dialogue and a very disrespectful cabaret audience. Many amazing moments: religious fashion show, dissolving frescoes, final city tour on motorbikes. Shadows of dogs, couple reflected in tunnel...

It is brilliantly shot.

Could only be a Fellini.

Though we didn't love the English HOH subtitles e.g. 'dog barks'. Film though is supposed to be 128 mins and the DVD is 114.

Rebecca (1940 Alfred Hitchcock)

A double bill of Hitchcocks. There's quite a bit to be said about REBECCA. For example, it contradicts the theory that Citizen Kane invented cinema. Like Kane, this begins with the camera gliding through Manderley's gates followed by some clever trick photography / model work.

The acting is great and quite rightly Olivier, Fontaine and Judith Anderson (who virtually steals the show) were nominated, along with Hitch, Franz Waxman (who appears to be using an organ at points and is thus being quite experimental: a great score), writers Robert E Sherwood and Joan Harrison ("I am Mrs. de Winter now!") and editor Hal Kern. George Barnes throws lovely shadows everywhere and there's a great curtain-drawing shot in Rebecca's bedroom. Does the second Mrs De W. have a first name?

Gladys Cooper and Nigel Bruce aren't in it enough, Leo G. Carroll just enough, George Sanders is beastly and Florence Bates ghastly. Reginald Denny as the estate manager is perhaps the weak link. C. Aubrey appears too.

Also, Bates to Fontaine:

"Have you been doing something you shouldn't?"

Oddly, it's not particularly Hitchcocky, as opposed to Q's choice:

Rear Window (1954 Alfred Hitchcock)

Seems to have begun as a cinematic exercise. Robert Burks' photography is easy to underestimate but notice just one shot where camera tracks from dog to Stewart's massage without a tremor (William Schurr was the operator. He worked on a few Hitchcocks and was also camera operator on The Apartment). The rigidity of the shots is such that when there is an odd overhead or low shot (such as where L.B. and Stella watch helpless as Lisa is caught) they really stand out.

Despite its striking visual nature, John Michael Hayes' script should not be undervalued (e.g. Thelma Ritter predicting  the Wall Street crash).

The diegetic soundtrack comprises beautifully put together effects (did Hitch love car horns from Blackmail on?) plus Franz Waxman's 'Lisa' melody plus some deliberately clashing moments of tension to background music.

It's from his fade to black period.

Contains Hitch's grisliest murder, but there's no corpse nor drop of blood in sight (nor even a murder!)

 

Love that slow motion kiss, and the varying states of relationships through the windows.

Queen of Spades (1948 Thorold Dickinson)

Anton Walbrook, Edith Evans, Yvonne Mitchell, Ronald Howard

Ph. Otto Heller
Music Georges Auric

Clock stops as she dies.

Casablanca (1942 Michael Curtiz)

Warning: Old pros at work!