Some Like It Hot (Billy Wilder 1959)

Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon, Marilyn Monroe, George Raft, Joan Shawlee, Joe E Brown, Mike Mazurki, Harry Wilson (the other hood).

Written by Wilder and IAL Diamond, scored by Adolph Deutsch and brilliantly, lovingly, luminously lit by Charles Lang (winning one of his 18 Oscar nominations!) Stories of the filming are now almost as well-known as the film itself.

Sill courtesey Julien's Auctions

 That dress, the source of much debate in this house, was designed by Orry-Kelly.

This was the closest Wilder came to working with Cary Grant.

Les Quatre Cents Coups (1959 François Truffaut)

Ground-breaking nouvelle vague film is essentially an autobiography of Truffaut himself, played by Jean-Pierre Léaud, with Claire Maurier and Albert Rémy.

Its many unforgettable moments include those painful 'blows'*, a long tracking shot of the escaping boy, a crocodile of children which evaporates, children's faces watching a Punch & Judy show, a night alone in Paris, a psychiatric interview (in which we learn all about the boy's unhappy upbringing - apparently, Léaud's screen test) and that incredible, haunting final freeze frame, surely one of the most famous endings in film history.

Dedicated to Truffaut's mentor and saviour André Bazin ("my real father"), who had died the night of the first day's filming, aged 40, and who thus missed his protégée's feature debut (and his best director award at Cannes).

Haunting music by Jean Constantin, natural photography by the essential Henri Decae (in Dyaliscope).

I'm awfully glad the director continued the boy's story as to have left him there would have been heart-breaking. It manages that great Gallic trick of seeming to be light and unsentimental whilst delivering a crushing emotional weight.

I first watched it on 9 September 1978 at the age of 15 - just the right age - and loved it immediately.

* Though the title's also a pun - faire les quatre cents coups means to create mischief.

The Way, Way Back (2013 Nat Faxon & Jim Rash)

Liam James is the unhappy son of feckless mother Toni Collette, forced to endure a seaside summer with her new boyfriend Steve Carrell (rather good in unsympathetic role) and daughter Zoe Levin. Luckily next door neighbours are Allison Janney, AnnaSophia Robb and River Alexander (who greets his mother after being out all night with "We'll talk when I wake up") and things considerably improve when he is befriended by immature fun park worker Sam Rockwell (Lawn Dogs, The Assassination of Jesse James...) - who delivers an inspired line in nonsense - and girlfriend Maya Rudolph. Amanda Peet and Rob Corddy are distracting friends of Carrell (scenes between these four and the exclusion of the boy are realistically done).

I'm now officially a big fan of Faxon and Rash, who showed in The Descendants a canny insight into family behaviour and the subtlety of relationships (note the somewhat equivocal behaviour of Janney to her children), and do it again here, only with more humour. TV actors, they both appear (as respectively Water Wizz's Roddy and Lewis) and their only writing credit prior to the Clooney film is the 2005 TV movie Adopted with Christine Baranski, sadly not available.

The two have picked an experienced cameraman in John Bailey (American Gigolo, As Good as it Gets, Groundhog Day). Looking forward greatly to their next film.

The Last Time I Saw Paris (1954 Richard Brooks)

F Scott Fitzgerald story 'Babylon Revisited' (1930) (adapted by the Epsteins and Brooks) about an American serviceman (Van Johnson) who meets Donna Reed and sister Elizabeth Taylor in Paris and falls in love with the latter. Walter Pidgeon is the playboy father and Sandy Descher rather good as the child. Roger Moore, displaying an early lack of acting skill, and Eva Gabor are rivals for the couple's affections.

Thankfully from the Warners Collection (it's actually an MGM film) we finally have a decent print of Joseph Ruttenberg's pastel hues (quite unlike your typical shiny red Metrocolor pictures) - The 'Classic Movies Collection' version of the film is so awful we could only watch about 3 minutes.

Van Johnson kept reminding me of the dummy in Dead of Night.

It isn't quite great, somehow the performances and the story and the Paris setting aren't convincing, and thus it is perhaps due for a remake? The story of the story is well told in this article in The Telegraph.

The Trouble with Harry

Last reviewed here.

A Hitchcock with a difference (he was always challenging himself) - no murder, no stars - in which we missed the director's appearance again.

Really wonderfully written (John Michael Hayes) and scored (Herrmann's first collaboration) and breathtakingly photographed New England scenery (Robert Burks).

Up in the Air (2009 Jason Reitman)

Very well written (BAFTA-winning) film, by Reitman and Sheldon Turner (and adopted from Walter Kirn's novel) about people who are hired to fire other people. George Clooney is the airmiles obsessed sacker who meets fellow traveller Vera Farmiga  and newbie Anna Kendrick (all three nominated by both Academies, as were film and editing). Danny McBride is the boss, with cameos from JK Simmons and Sam Elliott.

Nicely edited (Dana Glauberman), shot (Eric Steelburg) and scored (Rolfe Kent).

Good touches: two suitcases being pulled for a change, the photo that won't fit in the case, the jump cut of Kendrick on the travelator.

Jason is the son of Ivan Reitman (Ghostbusters, No Strings Attached) and has since made Young Adult and Labor Day (out in March).

Five Graves to Cairo (1943 Billy Wilder)

If Billy had remained a scriptwriter he could well have contributed to our previous film - in fact it's down to Mitchell Leisen's lack of respect for his scripts that he began directing at all.

Ingenious, crafty film opens with a driverless tank and closes on a parasol. Franchot Tone is the British soldier who finds himself undercover at the Empress of Britain Hotel, Egypt, run by the wonderful Akim Tamiroff and French maid Anne Baxter, which becomes overrun with Nazis including Eric von Stroheim and Peter van Eyck.

Prime collaborators are Miklós Rózsa and John Seitz, with Charles Brackett co-writing and producing and Doane Harrison editing.

Tamiroff's face at the end is a heartbreaker.

No Time for Love (1943 Mitchell Leisen)

Poorly titled, most interesting comedy stars Claudette Colbert as wilful photographer and Fred MacMurray a 'big ape' labourer on tunnel digging project (a 'sandhog'). Richard Haydn is a composer friend who gets involved, I think it's Murray Alper who's MacMurray's labourer pal and indeed it is Lillian Randolph as the maid.

Wacky dream sequence

Charles Lang shot it; for Paramount.

The Descendants

Perfectly well reviewed here.

Only to add that Clooney is brilliant - scene where he learns wife has no chance is exemplary acting...

The Night of the Hunter (1955 Charles Laughton)

The only film Laughton made was critically panned - why? It's fantastic.*

Robert Mitchum has never been more sinister (that he's directed by a great actor is no coincidence). So are the kids good (Billy Chapin and Sally Jane Bruce) and Lillian Gish is just wonderful.

Shot in splendid contrasty style by Stanley Cortez. Haunting and somewhat like a Grimm's Fairy Tale. Shelley Winters underwater an unforgettable image.

Mitchum looked after the kids as Laughton 'didn't like them'.

* No.  2 in The Cahiers du Cinéma Top 100.

Dangerous Moonlight (1941 Brian Desmond Hurst)

Anton Walbrook (born in Austria-Hungary, Vienna) is a WW2 Polish composer-pilot who falls for American journalist Sally Gray (not the best actress, poor screen kisses). With Derrick de Marney (Young and Innocent), Cecil Parker, Frederick Valk.

The all-important music is by Richard Addinsell.

Shot by Georges Périnal.

How does my Mum know the Polish national anthem? Because they used to play it when the radio shut down every night.

Shotgun Stories (2007 Jeff Nichols & scr)

Michael Shannon, Barlow Jacobs (the headstrong brother), Douglas Ligon (the one who sleeps in the van).

Shakespearean tragedy well placed in Arkansas setting, made with concision. You wonder whether the shotgun wounds (we assume from "protecting his family") were caused by the father. If so, that might have been made more explicit as it would have reinforced the film's basic premise of family feud; but maybe not.

I liked the detail of the stereo which comes on haphazardly.

Ph. Adam Stone in Panavision.

Sherlock: His Last Vow (2014 Nick Hurran)

Written by Steven Moffat; typically entertaining and exciting episode, concerning the true identity of Mrs Watson.

Splendidly staged and shot (by Neville Kidd this time, normally associated with documentaries).

Local Hero (1983 Bill Forsyth & scr)

Next in our Scotland double-bill is Forsyth's best film, in which American Peter Reigert travels to Scottish village (with Peter Capaldi) to buy it for an oil refinery. Wily villagers led by hotelier / lawyer (everyone has more than one job) Denis Lawson embrace the plan. It's a bit like an Ealing film, with a humour that is gentle but cynical and characters who are human. It is also fantastically filmed by Chris Menges (a year ahead of his first Oscar) with dazzling magic hour scenes on the beach. Like the visitors, the viewer finds themselves falling in love with the place and the people.

I couldn't find out if the aurora borealis was real or a special effect.

Burt Lancaster, Fulton Mackay, Jenny Seagrove (the marine biologist), Jennifer Black.

Thankfully Mark Knopfler's score has not dated at all.

I Know Where I'm Going! (1945 Powell & Pressburger)

Known between the two (and on the opening, imaginative credits) as IKWIG this is one of their dead centre arrows, and therefore a success.

Headstrong Wendy Hiller travels to Western Islands to marry, but nature and Roger Livesey intervene... Great cast includes the striking Pamela Brown, Finlay Currie, C.W.R. Knight (the Colonel) and John Laurie.

You can tell Powell has a love for this part of the country, strikingly shot by Ernest Hillier especially in low light scenes. As usual with prime P&P, full of great, amusing dialogue ("I haven't heard any intelligent female nonsense for months"), fantastic direction and editing (Kayleigh scene; whirlpool; moment where there is a lightning fast cut to close up of Pamela years ahead of its time (John Seabourne)), music (Allan Gray), magic, romance and wonderful creativity (Scottish hills made of tartan!).

 Thought to be the exterior of Denham Studio

Split-second cut to Pamela Brown

You'd never know that Roger Livesey was nowhere near the Western Isles, and it's most amusing (mixture of good back projection and a stand-in).

Finally, loved the curse that isn't a curse! One of my absolute favourites.

I Married a Witch (1942 René Clair)

Frederic March is the descendant of a Puritan who has been cursed by witch Veronica Lake (rapidly becoming a new favourite) to always marry the wrong girl. She and her sorcerer father Cecil Kellaway (rather good) rematerialise and start to cause him trouble. Also involved are friend Robert Benchley and fiancée Susan Hayward.

Light, witty, sophisticated comedy, shot by Ted Tetzlaff and winningly scored by Roy Webb, with imaginative and funny special effects. A real treat which we'd somehow missed.

Wrtten by Robert Pirosh (Rings on her Fingers) and Marc Connelly, from a story by Thorne Smith and Norman Matson.

Wings of Desire / Der Himmel über Berlin (1987 Wim Wenders)

I knew at once from the roving, black and white heaven-sent camera and angels Bruno Ganz and Otto Sander eavesdropping on Berliners' thoughts that this was going to be something special. Perhaps referencing AMOLAD, the earth-bound moments are in startling colour (that the film was so beautifully shot by 78 year old Henri Alekan is a little miracle of its own), as we get involved in the lives of circus performer Solveig Dommartin, elderly professor Curt Bois (Casablanca's pickpocket!) and actor Peter Falk.

Ganz's sympathetic expression - especially to the kids who can see angels - is beguiling, as is his desire to experience life. Ruminative, philosophical, powerful, tender, funny film written by Wenders and Peter Handke and powered by a strong score from Jürgen Knieper.

Shot on Eastman Kodak with an Arriflex BL4. Berlin somehow looks even worse when it's in colour! I love that the Circus is the 'Circus Alekan'!

Screen shot The Funambulist

The title's literally 'Heaven over Berlin'.

The Music Box (1932 James Parrott)

Famous Laurel and Hardy film won Oscar for best short, produced by Hal Roach. Beautifully simple and funny.

There was a time when Laurel and Hardy were frequently on daytime TV but there seems to be no place for them any more, and we are worse off for it.

Taxi Driver

See here.

It's a film noir.

A remarkably assured performance from the 13-year old.

People keep pointing gun fingers at Travis - he ends up doing it himself.

Anchorman (2004 Adam McKay)

Will Ferrell co-wrote it with McKay. With Christina Applegate, Paul Rudd, Steve Carell, Vince Vaughan, David Koechner.

The sensational jazz flute is apparently played by Katisse Buckhingham.