Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon (1942 Roy William Neill)

Basil Rathbone (in a variety of disguises), Nigel Bruce, Lionel Atwill, Kaaren Verne (Kings Row), William Post Jr.

Good beginning in the thick of the action as Holmes disguised as Nazi manages to extricate Post from dangerous situation in Switzerland.

Clever stuff with code must clearly be from Conan Doyle original story "The Dancing Men".

Moriarty proves himself particularly inept in despatching Holmes this episode.

Shadow of the Thin Man (1941 Maj. W.S. Van Dyke II)

New writers - Harry Kurnitz and Irving Brecher - provide entertaining episode in which Nick is back on West Coast home territory, Nick Jr is being taught the racetrack and Asta (or whichever hound is now playing the role) is shown at all sorts of dizzying film speeds for comic effect.

The couple are enjoying a drink or two again I'm glad to say - at one point Nick owes Nora 240 Martinis on terrapin race betting!

Nora can summon Nick from the park just by mixing a cocktail. Louise Beavers: "Can he hear it or can he smell it?"

Plot features Donna Reed, DA Barry Nelson and Judge Henry O'Neill. Bad guys and gals are Alan Baxter, Stella Adler*, Joseph Anthony, Lou Lubin. Regular cop is Sam Levene. Louise Beavers (Imitation of Life) is the maid and that's Adeline de Walt Reynolds as landlady with radio.

Silkily shot by William H Daniels.

*Postscript 9/12/14. I had no idea I was watching the legendary acting teacher in one of only three feature appearances, making this a must to see again.

Fargo (1996 Joel Coen)

See here.

Did not notice any overlighting of snow this time, proving that I am an idiot. Sorry, Roger.

Carter Burwell music memorable.

Loved scene of the two bad guys having sex with girls they've picked up in motel; then next shot is the four of them watching TV! (One of many scenes to love in delightful, ironic, violent thriller.)

Also I thought the movie ended with a shot of the fence. It doesn't.

The Five Year Engagement (2012 Nicholas Stoller)

Also here. Blunt's academic career drags the couple to Minnesota, where it appears to be continuous winter.

I thought it was a bit dull this time round.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005 Mike Newell)

An interesting choice - Mike's best known in this house for Enchanted April and Four Weddings and a Funeral - not, you would think, an obvious first choice. Roger Pratt has gone back on camera (a bluer, colder look than Seresin) and Mick Audsley is editing - sensational cutting in early crowd scenes, then, as usual, I forgot to notice. Patrick Doyle has taken over from John W.

Brendan Gleeson is good value as the new Dark Arts teacher. Miranda Richardson is a journalist and Ralph Fiennes debuts as Voldemort. Plus: Clémence Poésy, David Tennant, Roger Lloyd Pack, Eric Sykes, Katie Leung, Robert Pattinson, Frances de la Tour.

It's the one where they need to invite girls to a dance, and Ron and Harry fall out. Rupert is getting into his acting stride. Suede are in it.

There really aren't many films with the word goblet in the title - look for yourself.

The Holiday (2006 Nancy Myers & scr)

What's wrong with this film? I don't understand the negative reviews. Jude Law ("I sew and I have a cow") is super charismatic against Cameron Diaz (whose film trailer voiceover moments are great), Kate Winslet sweet with Jack Black and veteran screenwriter Eli Wallach, who quotes Lubitsch in his 'meet cute' example:

Kate excited about having a pool:

Also with Rufus Sewell.

The way that dog suddenly pops up from nowhere though is just WRONG.

Shot by Dean Cundey and scored by Hans Zimmer.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004 Alfonso Cuaron)

I am just nuts about Cuaron's Harry Potter film, which stands head and shoulders above the rest in the series and also is the best of the books. It brings a real sense of magic to the proceedings, and real danger, plus is written through with strong themes e.g. fear. Notice the use of silent movie iris dissolves - attack on train one of the great movie sequences:

On a bit of a tangent, it takes a Mexican (the director) to remind us about our own film heritage:

I hate lists because films are not groceries, but here I am trying a quick one – in no special order.

I opted for variety, otherwise I would have included more titles from the Brighton School: James Williamson, George Albert Smith and Alfred Darling. Those guys were brilliant, they pretty much invented the film grammar we still use and nobody gives a damn about them.* I would have also included every film Hitchcock directed on this island.

(http://www.timeout.com/london/film/the-100-best-british-films-directors#alfonsocuaron)

Note use of time imagery underlying film's great twisty sub-plot (and the ticking makes its way into the soundtrack):

Absolutely brilliant animation of Buckbeak. Ray Harryhausen would have been just amazed.

Use of light wonderful:

New cast includes Michael Gambon as Dumbledore (with the film's best line), David Thewlis good as Lupin, Timothy Spall (Peter Pettigrew), Gary Oldman (Sirius Black), Emma Thompson. Julie Christie is hardly visible through Harry's Cloak of Invisibility. Lovely moment when Hermione punches Malfoy.

Hats off too to Michael Seresin for his moody old-fashioned photography. John Williams' score has gone somewhat medieval, except for the remarkable night bus scene which is modern jazz. Even the end credits are nicely imaginative. Love the painting of a single eye!


* James Williamson made The Big Swallow (1901) in which a man nears the camera and then swallows it and the cameraman, An Interesting Story (1905) about a chap who is so engrossed in his book - touches of The Trouble with Harry - that he allows himself to be run over by a steam roller, and the self-explanatory Fire! (1901).

George Albert Smith made A Kiss in the Tunnel (1899) with a camera mounted to a train, a lady's foot As Seen through a Telescope (1900) and Mary Jane's Mishap (1903). He invented the first colour film process.

Alfred Darling developed much of the cinematography equipment.

The World's End (2013 Edgar Wright)

A bit of a disappointment. I liked the way Pegg and Frost's roles were originally reversed, but then they don't really make anything of it (Pegg and Wright wrote a sort of spin on Invasion of the Bodysnatchers on the back of a fag packet).  That the ending gives way to a race against a CGI fireball shows how the imagination is on low power (think of the inspired ending of Hot Fuzz in a model village). It isn't really character driven (again compare to the previous two films) and not as funny as previous efforts.

The pub crawlers:

Simon Pegg, Paddy Considine, Nick Frost, Martin Freeman, Eddie Marsan:

And: Rosamund Pike, David Bradley, Michael Smiley (Rev Green), Pierce Brosnan, Steve Oram, Darren Boyd, voice of Bill Nighy.

Shot by Bill Pope (Matrix films). Paul Machliss (also Scott Pilgrim) is emulating - less successfully - the editing style of Chris Dickens, who has moved on to better? / different things (Les Mis, Berberian Sound Studio).

Rome Express (1932 Walter Forde)

Let's get our train thrillers shunted into the right order. Graham Greene's seminal 'entertainment' Stamboul Express (well worth reading) was also published in 1932 (and intriguingly, filmed in 1934 under this title and Seven Lives Were Changed*), two years before Agatha Christie's classic (published 1 January 1934). The Wheel Spins  (Ethel Lina White) came out in 1936, two years before Hitchcock filmed it as The Lady Vanishes (Sidney Gilliat is the writer who links Forde's and Hitch's films). 1932 was also the year of Dietrich train cult hit Shanghai Express.

I didn't know Walter Forde, but the direction's quite interesting: beginning with a (somewhat wobbly) camera prowl around a Paris station while we eavesdrop on various passengers alighting, already such a convention that Hitch deliberately avoids it in his train thriller. (Günther Krampf (Pandora's Box, The Student of Prague, The Hands of Orlac) is on camera.) And there's some quite interesting intercutting between scenes.

Donald Calthrop (Blackmail, Major Barbara) is on the run and gets mixed up with Harold Huth and Joan Barry (both married, but not to each other) while trying to dodge fellow villains Conrad Veidt and Hugh Williams, who's smitten with ex and now film star Esther Ralston, managed by publicist Finlay Currie. Also involved are hard-assed millionaire Cedric Harwicke and humble employee Eliot Makeham, and Poirotish sweet-popping head of the Sûreté Frank Vosper. Gordon Harker is the train bore, who we heartily wished had been thrown off the train or murdered (think of Lionel Jefferies in annoying role).

Esther Ralston.

"I saw her first!" Harker, Calthrop, Huth.

Thoroughly enjoyable.

* No sign of it on DVD, naturally. Even the BFI doesn't have a copy.

Train of Events (1949)

Multi-story Ealing film (unfairly criticised - in both George Perry's Ealing book and by Time Out - as a substandard replication of Dead of Night) linked together by a fateful journey of the Euston-Liverpool express, begins in a very modern way - with a dramatic train crash, followed by the title "Three days earlier" -  a staple device of modern TV dramas.

The intercut stores aren't actually titled on-screen. They are:

"Engine Driver" (director Sidney Cole). Our familiar and beloved Ealing staple, the nice working-class family, Jack Warden, Gladys Henson and Susan Shaw as the daughter. With Miles Malleson and Leslie Phillips (missed him again!) Reality of working for British Rail well caught.

"Prisoner of War" (d. Basil Dearden). Joan Dowling loves on-the-run tragic German Laurence Payne. Can they escape their succession of truly grotty digs?

"The Composer" (d. Charles Crichton) is Raymond Hillary; Valerie Hobson has fun playing his far too understanding wife; Irina Baranova is the other woman. The music 'The Legend of Lancelot' is not Rachmaninov but written for the film by Leslie Bridgewater. Amusingly saucy conversation in musical metaphors.

"The Actor" (d. Basil Dearden) is the screen debut of Peter Finch whose war has left him hardened to philandering wife Mary Morris; with Laurence Naismith and Michael Hordern.

The writers are TEB Clarke, Dearden, Angus MacPhail and Ronald Miller and the stories of tatty post WW2 England hold up well, though they don't integrate, and there are many good touches of script ("That boy's going far") and effect (Trafalgar Square / Underground sequence).

Would a film like this work now?

Photographers are Gordon Dines, Lionel Banes and Paul Beeson.

Another Thin Man (1939 W.S. Van Dyke II)

Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett are still writing the third of MGM's series. Nick and Nora have been touring America with Nick Jr and Asta, and "Nick was sober in San Diego". Thereafter the couple's drinking has been toned down radically as they become involved in plot to murder C. Aubrey Smith (because he shouts at everyone), though there is the usual nightclub scene (the 'West Indies', featuring some very unusual dancing).

With Virginia Grey, Otto Kruger (somewhat mad-looking detective), Ruth Hussey, regular Nat Pendleton, Sheldon Leonard and Don Costello as creepy villains, Patric Knowles and Tom Neal as the nice boys, and Marjorie Main fun as a forthright landlady. The murky plot - in which all the attendants of the denouement look as guilty as one another - is from Dashiell Hammett.

Photographed by Oliver T Marsh and William Daniels.

Asta provides most of the laughs and has a great relationship with Nick Jr:

The real Asta (real name Skippy), who starred in Thin Man I & II also appears in The Awful Truth, Bringing Up Baby, and Topper Takes a Trip but had actually retired by now, and therefore there's some mystery as to which wire haired terrier this actually was. He's very acrobatic, anyway.

Bridget Jones and the Edge of Reason (2004 Beeban Kidron)

I like this one because Q never remembers the twist involving Jacinda Barrett.

Friends as before: Sally Phillips, Shirley Henderson, James Callis (a recognisably Curtis bunch). Adrian Biddle shot this one, apparently in a more diffused style than One.

Noticed another bit of unforgivable CGI excess: late night London Bridge scene has flock of birds flying over. Why? Why?

And far too many songs.

Bridget Jones's Diary (2001 Sharon Maguire)

Apart from Incendiary Maguire has hardly directed anything but documentaries. Did she get the gig because she was a friend of Helen Fielding? It is neatly put together, though we really have to credit co-writers Andrew Davis and Richard Curtis, who's influence is all over the place.

With Renee Zellweger, Gemma Jones, Jim Broadbent, Celia Imrie. It's great watching the pairing of Grant and Firth, though the latter's character is annoying (he frequently doesn't say anything).

Photographed by Stuart Dryburgh in Panavision, with annoyingly CGIed snowy village bookends.

I like the way he scoops her up in his coat at the end:

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002 Chris Columbus)

Much as before, with a beautifully animated house-elf, some spiders, an independent-minded Ford Anglia and a giant snake which owes a certain something to Ray Harryhausen. Over-acting honours this time go to Jason Statham. Kenneth Branagh is the new Defence of the Dark Arts teacher.

Shot by Roger Pratt (Brazil, Batman, The Fisher King, Dorian Grey) in Panavision.

It is useful to have a phoenix about you.

I love the attention to detail and production design.

Loved (1997 Erin Dignam & scr)

William Hurt cross-examines an annoying girl (Robin Wright Penn, one of an annoying family) about her obsession with violent controlling ex. When the ex does finally open his mouth, we realise why she 'stepped' out of the window.

Indulgent film eats itself. It's so boring. How did it get funded?  Luckily Dignam - who may have been watching too much Bergman - wasn't allowed to do much other damage.

At 1:14 a bird flies into the shot and it's the most exciting thing that happens.

Sean Penn is in it a bit and Richard Schiff is familiar - perhaps from Any Human Heart.

Missing British films

Where are the following?

I Start Counting (Jenny Agutter 1969) - rereleased a couple of years ago but no sign on DVD.

Unman Wittering and Zigo (1971) - dangerous goings-on at public school. With David Hemmings, shot by Geoffrey Unsworth

The Class of Miss MacMichael (Glenda Jackson, Oliver Reed, 1979).

Three Into Two Won't Go (Judy Geeson 1969).

My Lover My Son (1970 Romy Schneider, Dennis Waterman).

Baxter! (1973, Sally Thomsett, directed by Lionel Jeffries. With Patricia Neal, Jean-Pierre Cassel, Britt Ekland & Paul Eddington). 

Made (1972) - Carol White, Roy Harper.

Running Scared (1972) Directed by David Hemmings.

Update June 2024:

I Start Counting, and Three Into Two Won't Go are out now on Blu-Ray. Unman, Wittering and Zigo has for some inexplicable reason (probably to do with copyright) only a Region 1 Limited Edition Blu-Ray release, but is available to rent on Amazon Prime. Baxter  is now available and well worth watching. No sign of the others, other than a print of Running Scared was shown at Braunston Marina (where some of the film was shot) in 2011!

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (2001 Chris Columbus)

It was ITV's fault. First they showed Holiday on the Buses, then we came in on the comically young-looking trio of Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson and decided we had to revisit the film / series, which is great fun and boasts a stellar line up including Robbie Coltrane, Richard Harris, Maggie Smith ("I knew that Jean Brodie accent would come in handy again"), Alan Rickman (hilariously camp - the pantomime bad guy), Ian Hart, Richard Griffiths, Zoe Wanamaker (terrific, but she reportedly priced herself out of any more), Julie Walters, John Hurt etc. I was thinking "Warwick Davis missed out here", but of course he is not only a goblin but Professor Flitwick as well (did he get paid twice?) Of the youngsters, Tom Felton as Draco is the most assured (possibly because it's easier to act the bad guy?)

Chris Columbus no doubt got the job on the back of Home Alone - "you know, he's good with kids!" Though as film snobs like me will have it, the job should have gone to the director of the third and best film (Azkeban) Alfonso Cuaron, who's good with kids, magic and startling imagery.

Some of the effects in the Quidditch game and around the Cloak of Invisibility are really not much better than they were in King Kong and The Invisible Man in the thirties. Great attention to detail and sets:

John Williams' score is peerless. John Seale shot it. Adapted by Steve Kloves, fortunately without changing any of the story or characters.

Film is like a Charles Dickens reinterpretation of one of those boarding school kids' books. Also features a damned fine looking cat:

I like the name Nicholas Flamel, and may start using it.

The Silence of the Lambs (1991 Jonathan Demme)

Anthony Hopkins (AA) Jodie Foster (AA) Scott Glenn, Anthony Heald (doctor).

Scr Ted Tally (AA) (who wrote the previous year's White Palace) met author Thomas Harris socially, read the novel and thought "Not only is this really clever but the audience are going to love it". He decided to focus the story on Clarice Starling (see here).

Jonathan Demme says it's better to confuse the audience for a couple of minutes than bore them for ten seconds - clearly evident in scenes where we're misdirected in a Hitchcocky manner (the film's best moments). Demme also won Oscar and there's more evidence of his straight on shooting style with much of the film in close up and not much in the way of establishing shots: note the wonderful interchange between the two leads firstly perfectly through bars, then closer and closer until we're all in extreme close up:

Jodie apparently recently said about it "None of us were that good before and none of us were ever that good again". Of her own career this may sadly be true, though Demme went on to make the splendid Philadelphia and Hopkins subsequently received three Oscar nominations (one for Remains of the Day).

Demme is again in partnership with Craig McKay (editing; nominated) and Tak Fujimoto (camera) - Howard Shore's music is underwhelming. Has the distinction of being one of only three films to have won the top five Oscars (the others being It Happened One Night and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest), though in the UK it lost out to the now less well-known The Commitments.

I like the way Demme casts former mentor Roger Corman in his films.

Holiday on the Buses (1973 Bryan Izzard)

Reg Varney, Bob Grant, Stephen Lewis, Wilford Brimley.

It was like watching a car crash - something made us keep looking. But we were witnessing the death of the British film industry.

Disguised film about screwing, with nudge nudge factor. Two large Martinis help.

Commissario Montalbano (2013)

Is this latest series of Uncle Monty (as I have started calling it for no good reason) getting predictable, I had been thinking? Always two seemingly unconnected stories that are always connected, always the damsel in distress who isn't what she seems, the pantomime behaviour of Catarella, unfinished meals etc. Then the third episode kicks in, with its rather more serious tale of Mafia 'suicide' and political intervention. Montalbano despairs of his country in which a senior politician has said "We must learn to live with the mafia" (whether this is true I couldn't corroborate) to the extent that it has put him off his lunch: both the prandial and political aspects of this are series firsts, as the show has always slightly skirted around direct mafia criticism or focus.

The drama still benefits enormously from Franco Piersanti's marvellously evocative and moody score - some of it I think new for this season - which is unlike anything else on television ever.