California Suite (1978 Herbert Ross)

Would the behaviour of competitive doctors Bill Cosby (now looking seriously like a sex criminal) and Richard Pryor be as annoying as I remembered it? No, as it turns out, though film has some quite serious episodes, particularly the bitchy and brittle Jane Fonda who's battling over her daughter's custody with ex Alan Alda.

Maggie Smith and bi husband Michael Caine are both equally good (Maggie won Oscar but Caine wasn't even nominated), Walter Matthau as reliable as ever as a man who wakes up to find a naked Denise Galik in his bed (arranged by brother Herb Edelman) - will Elaine May forgive him?

There are of course some great funny one-liners but it has a gravity that underlines the comedy. More bitter than sweet, in fact.

Diary of a Mad Housewife (1970 Frank Perry & prod)

Written by Frank's wife Eleanor (from Sue Kaufman's novel), obscure film has to be purchased as a VHS transfer. Richard Benjamin is horribly convincing as a controlling husband, Carrie Snodgress also good as lacking-in-confidence housewife and begins affair with young Frank Langella (who turns out to be another arsehole - though he does at least warn her). Her children are horrible and they have adopted Father's habit of using the 'bloody' adjective. Also, doesn't Langella say 'cunt' at the opening party scene? Scandal!

And ordering Lambrusco with lamb ('grey, the American way'): I ask you.

Funnily enough we ended up drinking a Romanée Sant-Vivant ourselves.

The film isn't that funny but seduction scene was convincingly sexy.

A New Leaf (1970 Elaine May & scr)

Even in its abridged form (described here), still very successful and funny with bloody marvellous performances from Walter Matthau and Elaine May. She acted also in Small Time Crooks (2000) and California Suite (1978) and also wrote:

(From our May 2015 retrospective)

Ishtar (1987, also directed)
Such Good Friends (1971)
Primary Colors (1998)

And:

Mikey and Nicky (1976 - Peter Falk and John Cassavetes gangster film, serious, also directed)
Heaven Can Wait (1978)
The Birdcage (1996 - adapted the French original)

Trouble in Paradise (1932 Ernst Lubitsch & prod)

Written by Samson Raphaelson, adapted (by Grover Jones) from play 'The Honest Finder' by Aladar Laszlo. Romantic triangle comprises Herbert Marshall, Miriam Hopkins and Kay Francis.

The Criterion edition is usefully introduced by Peter Bogdanovich, who argues that this film paved the way for the classic romantic comedies of the thirties (It Happened One Night), and that before Lubitsch, Hollywood films lacked sophistication. This one has it in spades making modern movies look terribly old-fashioned and crude, with gags and filming of the subtlest order (the film is about thieves, PB says, yet you don't see one thing being stolen).

Great supporting cast too of Charlie Ruggles, Edward Everett Horton, C Aubrey Smith and Robert Greig. Shot by Victor Milner.

The lines about 'suite 53, 5, 7 & 9' make me think of Billy Wilder particularly.

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

Last seen October 2012, film is great fun and gets funnier as it proceeds. Edwards was a good director, packing frames with exuberant action (it's in Panavision) and using great visual gags such as a tank which suddenly disappears beneath the earth, and the way James Coburn quickly hides drunken Dick Shawn's bottle in a chest only to find someone else is hiding in it.

Presumably in this Spanish release we are losing the English subtitles which must have been present originally over Italian and German passages.

Filmed on a reasonably authentic (well, half of it is) set in Lake Sherwood California. Shot by Philip Lathrop, editor Ralph E. Winters (many Edwards films plus Avanti, The Front Page, The Thomas Crown Affair and Ben-Hur).

Dick Shawn was in The Producers, It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World, Love at First Bite and lots of TV.

Return to Sender (2015 Fouad Mikati)

Initially murky film ends up just plain fishy: Hitch could have told the same story in 30 minutes, and it lacks credibility, in fact the ending is almost laughable.

Rosamund Pike is great, Shiloh Fernandez is mis-directed, Nick Nolte is bearded.

Daft title as well. And the device of obscuring the voices in the prison phone scenes is ridiculous and really annoying.

If It's Tuesday, This Must be Belgium (1969 Mel Stuart)

Not the best film in the world, nevertheless sporadically amusing tale of whirlwind coach tour of 9 countries in 18 days during which Ian McShane attempts to woo Suzanne Pleshette. Passengers include Murray Hamilton, Norman Fell, Mildred Natwick and guest stars Robert Vaughan, Joan Collins (in long shot) and Virna Lisi (in two second cameo).
Moments include Sandy Baron escaping from Italian relatives.

Labor Day (2013 Jason Reitman)

What he said last time.

The ending is perhaps a bit too neat and Hollywoody.

But, terrifically well done.

Kiss Me Stupid (1964 Billy Wilder & prod)

Not prime Wilder, somehow, but easily tops most people's films. The notion that the star (Dean Martin) can come in and take a wife and that she is treated purely as a sex object, is rather hard to take, (the objection finally voiced in protest by Ray Walston) though of course the path of Wilder and Diamond's screenplay is not straight and all wrongs are redressed. The source is a 1944 play 'L'Ora della Fantasia' by Anna Bonacci, also filmed as Wife for a Night with Gina Lollabrigida in 1952. The ending is a beaut, the beginning has a great visual joke, and there are some fabulous props such as a bottle of buttermilk in the piano, and a ridiculous chianti bottle. Plus a parrot that is a TV addict.

Ray Walston and Cliff Osmond are the budding playwrights, Mrs Lemmon Felicia Farr is superb as the wife and of course so is Kim Novak as 'Polly the Pistol' - it's her enjoyment at being Mrs Walston for the night that gives the film its heart. And the move in which she avoids having her bum slapped twice is beautifully choreographed.

Music Previn, art direction Trauner, photography La Shelle (Panavision). Funny songs from George and Ira Gershwin too.

Mary and Max (2009 Adam Elliot & scr, designed)

Unique, dry and funny relationship drama animated in a totally endearing way (I love for example the way people's mouths move when they eat, and the looks of the various bug-eyed animals).

Unlikely friendship evolves over many years between pen pals friendless Mary (Bethany Whitmore growing up into Toni Collette) and friendless and Asberger's Max (Philip Seymour Hoffman), with dry narration by Barry Humphries.

Bottle of tears, five favourite words.

Une Femme est une Femme (1961 Jean-Luc Godard & scr)

Utterly distinctive and playful from the colours of the letters that introduce the participants (surnames only - including Lubitsch!) over what sounds like some on location audio; music and sound which suddenly appear and disappear; naturalistic lighting; in-jokes (references to Bout de Souffle; Jeanne Moreau at bar - "How's Jules et Jim going?"); looks to camera; slapstick editing.

Raoul Coutard is doing something very interesting with lenses. Features Anna Karina, Jean-Claude Brialy and Jean-Paul Belmondo. Absolutely outlandish score by Michel Legrand.

Often funny; very lively.

Shot around Rue du Faubourg St Denis:
http://www.l2tc.com/cherche.php?titre=Une+femme+est+une+femme&exact=oui&annee=1961

Funny People (2009 Judd Apatow & scr)

Can't argue with myself. Supporting characters good (Jason Schwartzman, Jonah Hill, Aubrey Plaza). Not convinced Leslie Mann is that good. Brilliant photography by Janusz Kaminski. Sandler is an acquired taste (haven't acquired it).

I Start Counting (1969 David Greene)

Our second Rare Film, finally an acceptable 14x9 print, from video, courtesy of My Rare Films. Last saw it on TV, aged 13 (6 June 1977).

Intimate portrait of 14 year old schoolgirl Jenny Agutter (actually 16) who has a crush on her adoptive older brother Bryan Marshall, who may be a murderer. Agutter is fantastically believable and natural - she's in every scene. This is the film before Railway Children and Walkabout. From novel by Audrey Erskine-Lindop, adapted by Richard Harris (not that one). Also with Simon Ward.

Shot by Alex Thomson, much in close-up, and filmed at a very familiar block of flats in Bracknell (Point Royal)!

Giu La Testa / Duck You Sucker / A Fistful of Dynamite (1971 Sergio Leone)

Restored version, with characteristically memorable Morricone score, and swearing. Music provides wonderfully ironic commentary to the action - Leone and Morricone are utterly inseparable.

Leone really plays us here. It's all very jolly, then unexpectedly Steiger's family is killed and there's Fascist-style executions. It's very much of the time, more overtly political than the other Leones (this written by he and Sergio Donati, and Luciano Vincenzoni).

Steiger is like the Eli Wallach character in TGTBTU, the honest bandit. He's extraordinary. Much close up of the fabulous twinkly eyed James Coburn. Romolo Valli also noteworthy as revolutionary doctor (he was also in The Leopard) and it was shot by Giuseppe Rozzelini in Techniscope. (The second unit photographer is Franco Delli Colli, I guess Tonino's brother.)

The extra story's in the flashbacks, apparently originally cut (great to hear Christopher Frayling about all of this). Many superb touches and scenes of pure cinema.

The 'shom shom shom' and the whole score is of course wonderful as is Leone's style and Nino Baragli's cutting (also Benigni's The Monster, Mediterraneo, Nest of Vipers - Ornella Muti and Senta Berger, Salo, Arabian Nights, My Name is Nobody, A Genius Two Friends and an Idiot, and most of the other Morricones - since 1950. Died 2013 aged 87).

Q loved it as well. Previously 17 June 2012.

Arabella (1967 Mauro Bolognini)

Rare Films Day, beginning with from-video dubbed Italian comedy, somewhat cropped unfortunately.

Minuses: Lack of plot and laughs. Thankless role for James Fox.

Pluses. Virna Lisi in an array of gorgeous 20s costumes. Four Terry-Thomases and a Margaret Rutherford. Giancarlo Giannini pretending to be gay. Funny, bizarre score from Morricone.

To Have and Have Not (1944 Howard Hawks)

http://nicksfilmjottings.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/to-have-and-have-not-1944-howard-hawks.html

A Matter of Innocence / Pretty Polly (1967 Guy Green)

Released under the Polly title in the UK, film is strangely obscure and only available as poor transfer from cropped VHS (original in Techniscope). Colourful tale set in Singapore where Hayley Mills' overbearing and horrendous aunt Brenda de Banzie dies (too many spare ribs and ice cream followed by swimming) leaving the girl to fend for herself - which she does admirably with the help of a suite at Raffles and the affections of Shashi Kapoor.

Shot by Arthur Ibbetson, written by Keith Waterhouse from Noel Coward story, also featuring Trevor Howard and Dick Patterson (and Kalen Liu). Music by Michel Legrand. Moves along fine.

The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948 John Huston & scr)

Straight from one Huston to the next - actually two for the price of one as John himself appears as a tourist in the opening scenes. Famously he remains the only person to have directed both his father (here) and daughter (for Prizzi's Honor) to Oscars.

This is a beautifully ironic story (originally written by the mysterious B Traven) which foreshadows the Coen Brothers, with an on-the-edge Bogie quite unlike his cool, sardonic usual persona.

For an outdoor adventure it's quite studio-bound, Ted McCord lighting background detail precisely and catching the protagonists in useful deep focus, cut artfully by Owen Marks to Max Steiner's rambunctious score.

Walter is wonderful; Tim Holt is the nice guy of the trio (though even he agrees to murder the newcomer who a minute later - in another satisfying change of fortune - becomes invaluable); Alfonso Bedoya is the bandit 'Gold Hat'. Barton MacLane is the cheating contractor (not a young Clifton James as I thought).

A Handful of Dust (1987 Charles Sturridge)

Evelyn Waugh was supposed to be a comic novelist, and certainly a dip into the novel (published 1934) shows a wry tone. But there's not much evidence of humour or irony in this adaptation, which succeeds only in being overwhelmingly sad. (It does preserve the great ironic line voiced by the adulterous wife "I am still fond of him, despite the monstrous way he's behaved.") William Boyd argues it is not Waugh's best, overrated and disconnected, such as the ending being stitched on from a previously published short story. And one of his criticisms of the book - the wife thinking first the identity of the dead 'John' is her lover's - applies to the film too - we don't really think of the lover as 'John' but as 'Beaver'.

There's no problem with the way it is acted by Kristin Scott Thomas, James Wilby, Rupert Graves, Judi Dench, Pip Torrens, Alec Guinness, Stephen Fry, Anjelica Huston and Graham Crowden.

George Fenton's pan pipes seems at odds with the main part of the film - clearly they are there to predict or unify the last chapter with the rest of the film. Peter Hannan shot it and it's one of those big budget ITV productions you no longer find - hoping perhaps to chase the tail of Brideshead's 1981 small screen success also directed by Sturridge.

The ending is nightmarish - a kind of Hammer House of Horror ending - and is a cautionary reminder not to go wandering impulsively into the Brazilian jungle with eccentric professors. (In fact, in light of the stay-at-home dullness of the character, it seems most improbable.)

Not With My Wife You Don't (1966 Norman Krasna & co-scr)

Not bad Tony Curtis vehicle - at his best in igloo scene (he's almost winking at the audience), George C Scott showing a nice touch for comedy, Virna Lisi as dependable and gorgeous as ever. She just died last December, having survived her husband of 53 years by just over a year. She actually made quite a few English-language films but her hour of glory was 1994's La Reine Margot for which she won the César and Cannes awards - looks great.

Best scene is where she goes to see Italian film and they all end up appearing in it; and fight scene where they're trying not to make a noise. Carroll O'Connor is the General and Eddie Ryder the faithful sergeant.

Shot by Charles Lang.

There's also a great gag featuring a cow! Quite a lot of airforce jet footage, almost as though they are showing off - arguably, too much. Great sequence though where they fly over London, Paris, the alps and end up over the Colosseum.