A Pocketful of Rye (2009 Charles Palmer)

Julia McKenzie. Helen Baxendale, Joseph Beattie, Ken Cambell, Lucy Cohu, Ken Cranham, Rupert Graves, Ralf LIttle Matthew Macfadyen, Anna Madeley, Ben Miles, Hattie Morahan, Wendy Richard, Edward Tudor Pole, Liz White, Prunella Scales

Written by Kevin Elyot.

Take large country house. Add several relatives who don't get along. Provide murders and absurd clues. Produce policeman who alone can't solve case. Sprinkle with Marple.

This one at least has a copper who's halfway decent, enacted by the delectable Macfadyen. There's no romantic sub-plot, which seems to be a feature of the best of these ITV adaptations. There is some very variable acting. It's a bit palsy.

This, though, is Laura Haddock, who in an Any Human Heart tangent is married to Sam Claflin,

Jaws 2 (1978 Jeannot Szwarc)

Well. This is not bad, actually. Having Carl Gottleib as writer again (with Howard Sackler) no doubt helps. OK, obvs another Great White isn't going to attack Amity Islanders again, and we're clearly playing the same game (who will survive this scene?) but without the beautiful Brodie/Hooper/Quint relationship that is one of the key factors in the original's success. (Brodie does put in a call to Hooper, but amusingly he's on an Antarctic research trip and 'out of contact till Spring'). And mayor (or whatever he is) Murray Hamilton surely can't be such a putz again,  though in the original cut, the mayor is the only one to vote for Brodie (in fact the story of mayor and developer Joseph Mascolo just fades out, as does animosity between Brodie and developer over his wife).  Intriguingly, Dorothy Tristan's original draft had Amity Island a ghost town following the first film, with the developer and council in debt to the Mafia - thus ignoring Brodie's warnings made more sense...Universal disliked that (good) idea and brought in Gottleib to make it more humorous and actiony.

Strangely, unless we saw a cut ITV print that was on at 11.35 pm, there's hardly any gore in it.

Anyway, Roy Scheider's good as always, and the focus on the predicament of the teens is well done. John Williams wrote the score again, and the widescreen cinematography of Michael Butler (confusingly, no relation of the original's Bill Butler) is fine. And there's a great scene in which a girl water-skiing is pursued by the shark.

With Lorraine Gary, Mark Gruner (older son), Jeffrey Kramer (deputy), and a bunch of 70s attired teens including Ann Desenberry, Donna Wilkes, Marc Gilpin (young Brodie) and Keith Gordon, who I guess we recognised from Stephen King's Christine and Dressed To Kill. And three more malfunctioning mechanical sharks.

Verna Fields, editor of the original, was one of Universals' executives by this time - one of her contributions was to break up a fight between Scheider and Szwarc.

Informer (2018 Rory Haines & Sohrab Noshirvani)

Well...  It begins... No. It actually begins with a man rushing to try and give a woman her phone back, that she's left on the train. He finds her in a coffee shop, and then the shooting begins. And the inquest into this begins each episode. But who's the shooter?

Is it Nabhaan Rizwan (who's rather good) after the frankly unbelievable way he is blackmailed into becoming a snitch by Paddy Considine and Bel Powley - who could blame him? It's a damning indictment of the way counter-terrorism operates, in fact, emphasised by Considine's question 'Do you feel safe?', which is less to Nabhaan as it is to the audience. And Powley making out Nabhaan was sexually abused at school to get the information which blackmails him.

The writers (whose debut this is) show lots of promise, humour and leading the audience down the wrong path (the eventual identity of the killer doesn't really make sense to me). I really liked Bel correcting one of the suspects on his misunderstanding of the Koran - she then gives him the next line in Arabic. And we were hoping that they would re-use the statue dripping with red paint later... and they did!

Jessica Raine also very good. With Sunetra Sarker, Reiss Jeram (brother), Sharon D Clarke & Stanley Meadows (police bosses), Paul Tylak, Arsher Ali (good, Four Lions, Line of Duty, The Missing), Nell Hudson. We weren't entirely sure about Roger Jean Nsengiyumva's performance in an otherwise strong cast.

Tony Slater Ling shot it and the rather good music was by Ilan Eshkeri.

The 39 Steps (1959 Ralph Thomas)

Frank Harvey's version of  - what? Is it an adaptation of the book, or the Hitchcock version? I'd have to say the latter, as much of the classic is copied verbatim, but there are some inventive (Hitchcockian, even) differences - the opening, featuring a nanny with a pram and a gun, a moment where Hannay hides in a wheat field, only to have it being harvested, and turning his female foil into a teacher at a girls' school, where he has to make an impromptu speech.

Of course it's easy to say "Murmur, murmur, not as good as the original, blah blah" but it's really not bad, though Kenneth More is perhaps a little too easy-going and Taina Elg is no actress. Compensations come with Brenda de Banzie (Hobson's Choice, The Man Who Knew Too Much), Reginald Beckwith, Faith Brook ('Nanny'), James Hayter ('Mr Memory'), Joan Hickson and Sid James.

I knew of the Robert Powell seventies version (must watch this - David Warner's in it too and John Coquillon shot it) but there's also a 2008 Rupert Penry-Jones effort which has very mixed reviews.

Another of those fifties films that people are quite happy to show in a 4x3 cropped version (even the DVD is reportedly in this shape). Ernest Steward wouldn't have approved.

Swallows and Amazons (2016 Philippa Lowthorpe)

Despite presence of adults Rafe Spall, Andrew Scott, Kelly Macdonald and Jessica Hynes, a routinely acted and written film with score to match.

My Man Godfrey (1936 Gregory La Cava)

Like the previous film, marked by a strong central performance - from Carole Lombard, who's so natural, way ahead of her time.

Screwball at its most sublime.

Bridget Jones's Diary (2001 Sharon Maguire)

Helen Fielding, Andrew Davies and Richard Curtis' script well matched by players, particularly Renee Zellweger as Bridget, but also Hugh Grant and Colin Firth - it's a sort of The Philadelphia Story for a new generation.

Stuart Dryburgh shot it in Panavision, Patrick Doyle wrote the music (worked often with Kenneth Branagh).

Doesn't really need the very ending.

Brothers in Law (1956, released 1957 Roy Boulting)

The legal milieu (difficulties of newbie barrister - bless them!) seems true, probably because it's based on a 1955 comic novel of the same name by Henry Cecil, a former barrister and High Court judge. The screenplay's by Frank Harvey, Jeffrey Dell and Roy Boulting.

I've become a real fan of these fifties Boulting Bros. films: Private's Progress, Lucky Jim, I'm All Right Jack, Carlton Browne of the F.O., Suspect (biological warfare thriller), Heaven's Above. My favourite of these genre pictures is nothing to do with them - School for Scoundrels - but many of the same faces appear, and that's partly why they're so enjoyable - precisely because we have Ian Carmichael, Terry Thomas, Dickie Attenborough, Jill Adams, Irene Handl, Miles Malleson, Peter Sellars, Nicholas Parsons, John Le Mesurier, Kynaston Reeves etc.

This film is distinguished by an out-of-character performance from Terry Thomas as a criminal who knows the law better than the barrister. Interestingly Dickie gets a higher billing than Carmichael.

Tudor Productions / Charter Film. For more info - and Jill Adams' legs - see here.

Carmichael is about as good at golf as I would be

The More the Merrier (1943 George Stevens & prod)

Robert Russell and Frank Ross story written by them and Richard Flournoy and Lewis R. Foster.

Has a slightly slapstick feel, but then some great laconic repartee between Joel McCrea and Charles Coburn - with these two involved it's a mystery why we hadn't seen it since 2005. With topical background of accommodation shortages in wartime Washington, Coburn acts as cupid between McCrea and Jean Arthur as they all share her flat. Most entertaining.

Shot by Ted Tetzalff. Columbia.

The Limehouse Golem (2017 Juan Carlos Medina)

Jane Goldman has made a good screenplay (interesting structure) from Peter Ackroyd's 1994 novel - this is a guy who clearly knows his Victorian London shit. Bill Nighy and the great Daniel Mays are accompanied by Olivia Cooke - who? we thought, then realised.. only Vanity Fair. So that's all good. I was less sure of the performances of Douglas Booth and Sam Reid. With Maria Valverde, Paul Ritter, Eddie Marsan, Nicholas Woodeson.

Handsomely staged and shot by Grant Montgomery and Simon Dennis, who had worked together on Peaky Blinders. In fact we wanted all the sets for our Black Cab Halloween episode.

The thing about Nighy's character maybe being gay though is somehow irrelevant. His part was originally cast for Alan Rickman, and the film is dedicated to him.

The Little Drummer Girl (2018 Park Chan Wook)

Not sure about some of the muddy writing / exposition (Michael Lesslie, Claire Wilson , from John Le Carré). After three episodes it's certainly not in the same category as The Night Manager.

Florence Pugh is great - but don't get her lust for blank canvas Alexander Skarsgård. With Michael Shannon.

At the end of the day it was very slow and actually quite boring.

Casino Royale (2006 Martin Campbell)

This is what the franchise needed - a reboot with a tough and tender Bond, closer to Fleming's version - the script uses most of the original plot (even the credits scene vaguely invokes Richard Chopping's original jacket design). (Noticed however a couple of borrowings from 'Thunderball' - blue and white super-yacht and Bahamas - this sort of pillage eventually got the writers into hot water with Spectre.) You feel he's properly tough - can't imagine it with Roger Moore (or Brosnan, or Dalton - perhaps Connery.) The film constantly plays on and subverts the Bond myth, e.g. it features a female who's every bit his equal (Eva Green) - their scenes even have a slight romcom feel to them, and she even saves his life at one point! Bond is not at all respectful to M, who's again played by Judi Dench (inspired casting). There's no gadgets (the phones look really dated already) and the 1964 Aston Martin morphs into a new version (prefer the older, naturally). Bond says 'Ow'!

Robert Wade and Neal Purvis are largely responsible, so full marks to them, with Paul Haggis brought in to do a three week 'polish'. Stuart Baird edits at a hundred miles an hour, Phil Meheux shot it. David Arnold is responsible for the music.

Of course Giancarlo Giannini wasn't the bad guy! It's long (two hours fifteen) - too long - but so is any film if you keep stopping it and chatting. (For the record, OHMSS is longer.) With Mads Mikkelsen, Jeffrey Wright, Isaac de Bankolé... and Tsai Chin.

Dumplin' (2018 Anne Fletcher)

A #MeToo film which ticks the boxes. An unsubtle screenplay by Kristin Hahn and Julie Murphy is enjoyable enough for what it is.

Danielle Macdonald, Odeya Rush, Jennifer Aniston, Maddie Baillio, Bex Taylor-Klaus, Luke Benward, Harold Perrineau. Someone called Sam Pancake is in it too. I like pancakes, though that has little bearing on this jotting.

It's shot by Eliot Davis in Panavision and edited by Emma Hickox.

Hot Fuzz (2007 Edgar Wright & co-scr)

Chris Dickens won not one award for his jaw-dropping editing. (There's a wonderful piss take, near the beginning, of that editor trick of cutting on something passing the camera to hide the fact we've moved closer. It's so overdone it's brilliant.) The sound mixing / editing is great too.

Some People (1962 Clive Donner)

Ahead of his swinging London films comes Donner's singing Bristol film - and a refreshing change that makes, though the plot of teenagers making music and having bust ups is nothing we haven't seen before or since (writer John Eldridge). The Knack's Ray Brooks, volatile David Andrews and a young David Hemmings are the original group with Angela Douglas (Carry On and The Comedy Man) as a sort of groupie. Then we meet kindly choirmaster Kenneth More and his daughter, played very naturally by Anneke Wills, who was in the 1957 Railway Children series and then had a long run in Dr. Who in the sixties. With Timothy Nightingale (the nerdy one) and Frankie Dymon (drummer) who made a short film about Swinging London Death May Be Your Santa Claus in 1969.

Angela and Kenneth got together during this film and were married until his death in 1982. Valerie Mountain is her singing voice.

Edited by Fergus McDonell.

Being commissioned by the Duke of Edinburgh Award gives the film a charming oddness.

Frank & Lola (2016 Matthew Ross & scr)

What's Imogen Poots up to with volatile chef Michael Shannon? This I can tell you - blink, and you'll miss the ending.

Who's Matthew Ross? I dunno. This is his first feature.

Um. Well, it's quite intriguing. Imogen is as good as always, Shannon does glowering intensity well. With Justin Long, Rosanna Arquette, Michael Nyqvist, Patrick Rocca.

Photographed by Eric Koretz.

I didn't really know what I thought of it.

The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes' Smarter Brother (1975 Gene Wilder & scr)

Fresh off the back of the Mel Brooks movies, Wilder writes something similar and reassembles a key cast of himself, Madeline Khan and Marty Feldman - who alone are reason to watch this. (Wilder has the slowest reactions to things; Khan is great when acting and singing; Feldman is so tender.)

Some of it's rather silly, and patchy, but the laugh out loud moments (e.g. fight on top of coaches, the kangaroo song) are there.

With an English supporting cast of Leo McKern, Roy Kinnear , John Le Mesurier, Douglas Wilmer, Thorley Walters... and Dom de Luise.

Shot by Gerry Turpin and edited by Jim Clark.

Funny cameo by Albert Finney!

Marathon Man (1976 John Schlesinger)

I always remember the scene where Hoffman begs the Puerto Ricans over the road to burgle his apartment, I'd just forgotten how great everything else is in this film. You can see Goldman writing it:

The wheels of pram
Close up
A doll's head in the pram.
Sound of TICKING.

And just the audacious plot. How does it begin?

A man running around Central Park
Cut to - black and white flashback of marathon runner
Cut to - a man in a bank vault. Man takes tin out of security box.
Man drives - his car conks out. It's a Mercedes.
Another man. A Jewish man.
The fight, the explosion.

Then - we're in Paris. Roy Scheider. How does he fit in?

All with excellent support from Jim Clark (editing) and Conrad Hall (camera - he and Goldman worked a few times together).

You'd think Goldman would have won awards wouldn't you? No, Larry did. I'm really not sure Larry was ever any good, even though my mum wouldn't like to hear that. I was not impressed by Goldman's story that Method Hoffman wanted to improvise for an hour with he and Larry on their feet, though Larry was really suffering and in great pain. (You can see it in the rather ungainly way in which he climbs into a taxi.)

With Marthe Keller, William Devane.

Thank god he gets some clothes - must have been freezing. Made me think of 'Stars and Bars'.

Scorching story by a Jew about concentration camp monster and diamonds, recognised in Jewish quarter of city, terrific.

Music by Michael Small.

The Notorious Landlady (1962 Richard Quine)

Written by Larry Gelbart and Blake Edwards, from a story by Margery Sharp.

Film is great fun as Lemmon immediately falls for the Kim Novak of the title, aided and abetted by Fred Astaire and Lionel Jeffries. Hollywood London is full of fog and 'Slaughterhouse Lane's, topped by wacky, silent scenes to Gilbert & Sullivan.

Our second Novak / Quine / Duning collaboration of the day.

Strangers When We Meet (1960 Richard Quine)

A good triple bill began with -

Kim Novak is particularly good at conveying emotionally vulnerable characters, never more so than in this, for which she won seventeen Oscars. (Well, in my head. She breaks my heart.) George Duning's music helps.

Our copy is 2.20:1 - unusual for CinemaScope?

David Bowie released a song of the same name.

Written by Evan Hunter, (Last Summer, The Birds) from his own 1958 novel.

I think after Vertigo someone (Charles Lang) realised Kim has a great profile.

Luckily, people on Amazon are better reviewers than I am:

This is a film I watched in the cinema in the early 60's.

I have tried to purchase it for several years and now have managed to get it.

The delivery was very fast and now I intend to enjoy the film.

Thank You.

With Kirk and Kim are Barbara Rush (Kirk's wife), Ernie Kovacs, Walter Matthau, John Bryant her husband, Nancy Kovack, Virginia Bruce, Kent Smith.