The Laughing Policeman (1973 Stuart Rosenberg)

Written by Thomas Rickman from the novel 'Den Skrattande Polisen' by Per Wahlöö and Maj Sjöwall, one of a series of novels featuring Stockholm detective Martin Beck, transplanted to seedy seventies San Francisco. Starring Walter Matthau in one of his dead serious roles, with Bruce Dern as his new associate trying to solve the murder of a busload of passengers. Dern rather steals the film - Matthau not only seems on low power, but the editing favours Dern also. (All Walter's biography says is he 'liked walking the hilly streets' of the city.) So I don't really know what's going on there. But there's a gradual warming up of relations between the two men (it never seems to go the other way round - two cops start out liking each other but by the end can't stand one another.)

The film is impressively detailed - the scenes in which the detectives minutely examine the murdered passengers and bus, and the hospital scenes, are almost documentary-like, played out with little music. (Thus when music does kick in later, it seems out of place.)

The plot revolves around an investigation by his murdered partner that links back to an earlier case of Matthau's he was unable to solve. I've got to admit I didn't really understand the villain's motivations, nor what he thinks he's doing at the end, about to shoot another busload of passengers with his 'grease gun'. Maybe it's his thing...

So it doesn't quite click but is interesting. With Lou Gossett, Albert Paulsen, Anthony Zerbe, Val Avery, Cathy Lee Crosby, Mario Gallo, Joanna Cassidy. Photographed by David M Walsh (Sleeper, Silver Streak, The Goodbye Girl) and edited by Bob Wyman.

Union Station (1950 Rudolph Maté)

Paramount thriller, in which Union Station detective William Holden helps Nancy Olson locate a kidnapped, blind heiress (the two also acted together in Sunset Blvd.; both films were released in August 1950). Written by Sydney Boehm from Thomas Walsh's novel 'Nightmare in Manhattan', it also stars Barry Fitzgerald, with Lyle Bettger (No Man of Her Own) good as the kidnapper, Jan Sterling as his moll. Strange that no one thinks about where and how the kidnapping took place, which might have helped track down the culprits. Quite exciting, however.

I'm sure at one point Sterling says 'What'll we do with all that cabbage?' meaning cash - hadn't heard that one before.

Photographed by Daniel L Fapp.

Jan Sterling with Allene Roberts as the kidnappee

Union Station is in LA and looks very much unchanged today.

Per Qualche Dollaro in Più / For a Few Dollars More (1965 Sergio Leone)

A complex gestation: based in fact on an (uncredited) treatment by Enzo dell'Aquila and Fernando Di Leo called 'The Bounty Killer', then adapted by Leone and Fulvio Morsella, then scripted by Luciano Vincenzoni, with some polishes (such as the great joke at the end where the bounty on all the dead bandits doesn't add up) from Sergio Donati. Apparently the film also borrows from westerns Leone was familiar with such as The Bravados, The Bounty Hunter and The Tin Star. Influential on later films - the flashback device anticipates Giu La Testa, the revenge story comes into Once Upon A Time in the West, the final circular duel foreshadows the ending of The Good the Bad and the Ugly.

Assistant director Tonino Valerii went on to direct My Name is Nobody, editors are Eugenio Alabiso, Giorgio Serrallonga, more great deep focus photography from Massimo Dallamano. (Yes, the credits are all using their proper Italian names on this one.)

Leone had again tried to get Henry Fonda and James Coburn and Charles Bronson (he did in the end, of course), almost got Lee Marvin who cancelled at the last minute. Lee Van Cleef had been badly injured in a car accident and had given up acting when offered the part - he had to delay for two days whilst finishing painting a house! He had some difficulties on set, couldn't run, could ride only a very tame horse, and was seen self-medicating many an evening in the hotel bar. Being 40 he wasn't that much older than Clint, so the 'Old man' / 'Kid' repartee doesn't really work. Gian Maria Volonte is good as dope-smoking villain (the first in a mainstream film).

It's also funny from the opening scene; the kid who demands money, the man thrown out of his hotel room, the ending, the duel between Eastwood and Van Cleef - when Clint's hat is bobbing up and down in the air it made me think of René Clair, I'm not quite sure why - something to do with Entr'acte? I think the biggest laugh I had was in the extended pocket-watch scene with the man who betrayed Indio - it's very protracted but then goes into a massive church organ passage - it's so over the top I found that hilarious. Ironic use of interesting instruments - the single twang of the Sicilian maranzano (Jew's harp') as a quirky commentary. Quite irreligious in the way Indio 'preaches' to his gang from the pulpit of a church. Loved the scene with the old man (Joseph Egger) who's house is dangerously close to the railroad - Clint here displaying a nice line in bemusement. His character is essentially a little more human than in the previous film. His salary of $15,000 had risen to $50,000, and the film's bigger budget shows in the interior designs (by Carlo Simi again) and the creation of an entire town in Almeria.

With Luigi Pistilli, Klaus Kinski, Luis Rodriguez, Mara Krupp, Mario Brega.

It was the biggest hit in Italy up until then and held the record until 1971, when it was topped by the first Terence Hill / Bud Spencer Trinity film (I think - it's just a jotting - don't actually quote me on any of this shit. Actually most of the above information comes from Christopher Frayling's extraordinarily detailed and well researched book 'Something To Do With Death' - a must for any Leone fans.) Also an interesting Nick Fun Fact that Sergio's wife Carla was often on set trying to smooth potential bust ups between the crew.

P.S. Why isn't it Per Qualche DOLLARI in Più?

RT: 130 mins.

Dangerous Minds (1995 John N Smith)

Written by Ronald Bass, from LouAnne Johnson's autobiographical account 'My Posse Don't Do Homework', though to us it's very reminiscent of To Sir With Love. Our major problem is there isn't a confrontation scene with the principal, who is so insistent on good manners that he denies the at-risk pupil help, an act which condemns him to death. Also we didn't really buy Michelle Pfeiffer an an ex Marine (though to be fair LouAnne doesn't look like one either, insofar as you can 'look like' anything), but enjoyed the film overall.

With George Dzundza, Courtney Vance (principal), Robin Bartlett (Alice, 12:01, Inside Llewyn Davis), Wade Dominguez (the doomed one), Idina Harris (the smart one), Renoly Santiago, Marisela Gonzales, Marcello Thedford.

Shot by Pierre Letarte, edited by Tom Rolf. A rappy soundtrack.

Wedding Season (2022 Tom Dey)

From the sublime to the ridiculous. Annoying Indian mothers put pressure on children to get married. Shiwani Srivastava has fed his or her characters into the romcom generating app and the result is entirely transparent, predictable and really quite poor. 

Pallavi Sharda, Suraj Sharma, some other people.

The Sun Shines Bright (1953 John Ford)

Another piece of Ford brilliance: warm, witty, tender, poignant. Small town Virginia - the Civil War is over, and what remains of North-South hostilities is played out in respectful admiration with duels over banjo-played songs and flag 'borrowing'. Great script from Laurence Stallings from stories by Irvin S Cobb, story involves election battle between Judge Billy Priest, and town secret concerning the local Madame. Funeral procession scene is one of those that are so simply done yet so deep and moving. Lots of understatement and plot being revealed slowly, subtle looks and touches, lots of fondness for black community - scene where he saves boy from lynching, whilst similar to Young Mr Lincoln, is wonderfully gripping.

Great score from Victor Young, shot by Archie Stout.

Charles Winnegar great as drinking Judge. With Arleen Whelan, John Russell (no-good returnee), Stepin Fetchit (I maintain the source for the best friend character in Forrest Gump!), Russell Simpson (Doctor), Ludwig Stossel, John's brother Francis Ford (permanently drunken marksman), Slim Pickens, Eve March, Jane Darwell.

Ford: "It's my favourite picture - I love it. And it's true to life, it happened. Irvin Cobb got everything he wrote from real life, and that's the best of his Judge Priest stories." (Ford talking to Peter Bogdanovich, 1966.) It was a remake of his own Judge Priest in 1934.

用心棒 / Yojimbo / The Bodyguard (1961 Akira Kurosawa & co-scr)

The film that Leone remade as Per Un Pugno di Dollari. Toshiro Mifune is rather cool as the samurai who plays two evil families off against each other. The baddies seem almost pantomime villains. It isn't as funny as Leone's version.

Interesting compositions and use of widescreen, aided by unusual score by Masaru Satô, who several times collaborated with Kurosawa. The DP is Kazuo Miyagawa, who captures the town and chilling Autumn well.

Indian Summer (1993 Mike Binder & scr)

An unofficial remake of The Big Chill supplanted to a kids' summer camp; even Alan Arkin and Diane Lane cannot boot life into this lame 'what are we like now?' comedy-drama. As though to complicate things, director Sam Raimi plays the camp goof.

It doesn't help that two of the leading men look too much like each other.

Getting high scene - "I'd forgotten about the munchies" - is just embarrassing.

Matt Craven, Bill Paxton, Elizabeth Perkins, Kevin Pollack, Vincent Spano, Julie Warner, Kimberly Williams.

Per Un Pugno di Dollari / A Fistful of Dollars (1964 Sergio Leone)

The first of Leone's spaghetti westerns already bears his trademark stamps - gallows humour, deep focus widescreen, dynamic cutting, drawn out scenes to Morricone, the deguello ('cut throat') theme*, slaughter. According to Mark Cousins, it was the innovation of the Techniscope process in Italy that allowed for the deep focus not so easily achievable in other widescreen formats - there's less of it in the Cinecitta interiors. And Leone's work as assistant director in  big budget Hollywood films had given him a sure sense of mise en scene, e.g. tracking shot of Eastwood under the boardwalk whilst the Rojos search for him and end up right on top of his position.

Eastwood is marvellously confident already (particularly working with a European crew with little English), Gian Maria Volonte is a charismatic baddie. The one aspect I didn't remember is that the Man with No Name ('Joe') helps the mother and her child 'Because I once knew someone like you' - not the totally amoral figure you remember. (It had been a LONG time.)

Joseph Egger is the coffin-maker (he is NOT the elusive actor I was trying to place from My Name is Nobody) and Jose Calvo the innkeeper. Plus Marianne Koch, Wolfgang Lukschy, Sieghardt Rupp, Margarita Lozano, Mario Brega.

Clint eventually realised that the film he'd made, then called The Magnificent Stranger, was the hit Italian success A Fistful of Dollars - no one had bothered to tell him. A massive hit across all of Europe, eventually finding its way to the US in 1967. One young critic who was impressed by it was Dario Argento. It was written by Leone, and, uncredited, Duccio Tessari, Victor Catena and G. Schok, with dialogue by Mark Lowell. The credits are amusingly Americanized, thus DP Massimo Dallamano is 'Jack Dalmas', production designer Carlo Simi is 'Charles Simons' and editor Roberto Cinquini is 'Bob Quintle'!

One of the terms of Eastwood's was that he could change the dialogue. In the end, he fought for reducing his lines substantially - Leone's script, he argued, was over-expository. He's not an infallible anti-hero - he's twice saved by other people. But the ending - his armour plate, and the final quick draw - is a doozy.

*Which - it turns out - was inspired by Dmitri Tiomkin's theme from Rio Bravo. Thanks to Christopher Frayling, covered in his novella-like chapter on the film in his 'Something To Do With Death'.

Spanish poster, based on the original Italian design - there's no Eastwood representation because no one knew who he was. Note director credit - 'Bob Robertson'! Note also top billing of Marianne Koch despite her two lines of dialogue!

The Newsreader (2021 Emma Freeman)

Created by Michael Lucas, and written mainly by he, with Niki Aken, Jonathan Gavin & Kim Ho. Sucks you in right from the off of six part series.

1986 Australia. A highly strung newsreader Anna Torv is in conflict with her producer William McInnes. Wannabe reader Sam Reid (Belle) becomes involved with her after a suicide attempt. (Good performances from all three.) Weaves in real news (police station bombing in Melbourne, missing baby / dingo case, AIDS, Chernobyl) well.

I was expecting lots of sexism, racism and boorish behaviour, so was pleasantly surprised. The synthy music score is a nice touch (composed by Cornel Wilczek).

With Robert Taylor (other anchorman), Stephen Peacocke (sports journalist), Michell Davidson (super-useful researcher), Chai Hansen (cameraman), Marg Downey (manipulative wife).

Vertigo (1958 Alfred Hitchcock & prod)

Hitch apparently approached the filming with great seriousness unlike his usual self. He was not best pleased at not having Vera Miles in the lead (she was pregnant) and didn't have the greatest rapport with Novak. He moulded her, the same way Stewart's character moulds her, but most critics acknowledge he brought out her finest performance. The film was a flop. The New York Times thought it 'devilishly farfetched' and Time claimed it was 'another Hitchcock-and-bull story in which the mystery is not so much who done it as who cares'. Wow.

The restaurant featured, Ernie's was (in typical style) one of Hitch's favourites.

Barbara Bel Geddes' character Mitch is the heart and soul of the film

A film to marvel at time and again.

Odd to see a scene set amidst the giant Sequoia trees which are currently under threat from Californian wildfires. Some of then are 3000 years old.

Brief Encounter (1945 David Lean)

We didn't want to think today - just wallow in great films. We happened on two in which trains are central. And what links all today's choices are incredible performances by their female leads - here Deborah Kerr, or Celia Johnson, as she's sometimes known.

I've kinda covered all this ground before, but there's a lot going on here. The soundtrack is marvellous. The way their trains are going in different directions is a great metaphor for their relationship. I think those flashback moments are done simply by killing the fill light and leaving the key light on the actor (well, Johnson) against a backdrop of blackness, but there's a more complicated dissolve when she appears bottom right in the sitting room but the rest of the frame is still the flashback scene - not sure how that was done.

And on thinking the scene with the friend's flat inspired Wilder and The Apartment, there's a scene after of Johnson running away along a street that you could cross-cut with Wilder's film and Shirley MacLaine doing exactly the same thing.

And as I've said a million times before, it's a very modern film, beginning at the end the way it does (Lean's idea). Also, the parallel relationships - there's certainly also something going on between conductor Stanley Holloway and tea shop proprietress Joyce Carey (even, in very slight sub-story, a romance between her assistant and a passing soldier).

It was Oscar nominated for Johnson, Lean as director and Lean, Ronald Neame and Anthony Havelock-Allen for screenplay; though interestingly it was not BAFTA nominated for a single thing*. Also won Grand Prize at Cannes. Noel Coward wrote the original idea as a thirty minute play called 'Still Life' set entirely in the waiting room.

J. Arthur Rank was one of the film distributors at the time who had no involvement in the creative side of the films he financed and thus it was a very successfully creative period of British film making, if you think of Powell & Pressburger, Lean, Carol Reed etc.

*Ed. That's because the first BAFTA Awards were not held until 1949.

The Railway Children (1970 Lionel Jeffries & scr)

Bernard Cribbins (93) died today, thus the first in our double bill of British train-themed films. He and Jeffries obviously knew one another as they'd acted together in such films as Two Way Stretch, The Long Arm of the Law and Dunkirk, perhaps how the casting of Cribbins as Albert Perks came about - a nice way to be remembered in all time favourite family drama.

The cast seems comfortable with the actor's direction, but Jenny Agutter stands out.  Where other actors might emote, or 'act', she remains very still and internal and thus her performance seems not like acting at all. It's probably the film she'll be best remembered for, too. Also enjoyed Peter Bromilow as the drinking doctor. In fact started having most unworthy thoughts about which of the characters would have fancied bonking Bobby - the doctor certainly would have been one of them. Even the nice old gentleman William Mervyn - 'Come into my study, dear - I want to thank you properly'.

Good score from Johnny Douglas. Wardrobe supervisor Elsa Fennell is I think no relation to Emerald.

Hopefully the watch Bobby's received (for saving the train) will be in the sequel.

The Dry (2022 Paddy Breathnach, writer Nancy Harris)

Dublin-set dramedy as five months in remission alcoholic Shiv returns to family home for grandma's funeral. Rest of family seem quite fucked up too, and a brother has died... Her return (seems to) make the rest of the family unravel.

Roisin Gallagher, Siobhan Cullen (sister), Pom Boyd (mother), Adam John Richardson (brother), Ciaran Hinds (father), Moe Dunford (ex).

We enjoyed it. Broadcast by Britbox.

Control Room

Another daft Summer Series begins when a control room operative takes a call from a woman who says she's just killed a man - and they recognise each other's voices. In a style which I describe as 'shadowy glue', we don't know what went on between them, but no doubt we'll find out if we persevere. Shouldn't really be the right response, should it? What you want is 'Wilder! That opening episode was so riveting, I can't wait to watch the next one'. But that's why it's on in the summer.

Hadn't noticed actor Iain Caestecker, but he uses his hands a lot (not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing at the moment). With Joanna Vanderham.

Episodes 2 & 3 followed, sadly.

Bringing Up Baby (1938 Howard Hawks)

Breathless screwball comedy - maybe the best one made? Grant and Hepburn are indescribable, but watch too for a brilliantly unshowy performance from Wesley Ruggles as the Major.

Hawks says in this scene - 

- the censors were laughing so much they missed the line of Grant's "I feel a perfect ass". Well I'm sorry to say they did notice, as that line isn't in the film. Which just shows to go you shouldn't believe a word film directors tell you (except John Madden, who seems entirely trustworthy).

Gardens of Stone (1987 Francis Ford Coppola)

James Caan died July 6. He and Coppola met at Uni, then was plenty on TV before Hawks cast him in El Dorado, then Coppola put him in The Rain People and then famously The Godfather. This was his comeback film after wilderness years - he was difficult to work with, walked off a film and was addicted to cocaine. I'm glad we watched this as his performance is good - he brings the right pathos.

He's accompanied by other good people in the shape of James Earl Jones (now in his nineties) and Anjelica Huston. With DB Sweeney, Dean Stockwell, Mary Stuart Masterson, Dick Anthony Williams, Lonette McKee, Sam Bottoms, Elias Koteas, Laurence Fishburne, Casey Siemaszko.

Written by Ron Bass (Black Widow, Rain Man), from Nicholas Proffitt's novel, it's a nicely balanced screenplay, as anti-Vietnam feeling is raging (it's 1968), Huston is a protestor, but all Caan wants to do is go back to Nam and help the soldiers. The pomp and ceremony of the military burials is a nice irony to the senseless loss of life. It's an elegiac film, and as it takes place largely in a massive cemetery, that's probably exactly the right word.

DP Jordan Cronenweth, editor Barry Malkin, music Carmine Coppola.

It's also a very interesting companion piece to Apocalypse Now; here there's no action except TV newsreel footage; the two films are linked by The Doors (here 'Break on Through').

The Miracle Worker (1962 Arthur Penn)

William Gibson wrote it (with the uncredited help of Arthur Penn) first as a 1957 TV movie with Teresa Wright, Patty McCormack and Akim Tamiroff, directed by Penn. It was a massive hit. Penn had directed many TV films by then. Gibson then wrote the play 'Two for the Seesaw' which opened with Henry Fonda and Anne Bancroft. So knocked out by Bancroft was he that he decided also to adapt the Helen Keller story for theatre for her. It opened on Broadway in 1959 with Bancroft and Patty Duke, with Arthur Penn directing, so all three were well rehearsed for the film - and it shows. 

Penn had had one feature film under his belt - The Left Handed Gun with Paul Newman. When it came to the film of The Miracle Worker, he was allowed his own cast (the studio wanted Audrey Hepburn to play the lead) and final cut. Bancroft and Duke quite rightly won Oscars, as did Gibson, and Penn was nominated.

His only regret was that he left too many of the play's words on-screen, not fully realising the power of the film medium. (Thanks to the Archive of American Television for this interview.) However this is where I'll butt in and say that Penn hired the right editor, and that elevates the film to a higher level. Aram Avakian was best known for his documentary editing on Jazz on a Summer's Day in 1959, had one feature to his credit (Girl of the Night). He does these incredible things with overlapping images and sound, multiple exposures, and also brings in this element of the childhood flashbacks appearing in a super-grainy, almost ghostly way, again, only exposing a part of the image.

There's no way the girl's six, by the way - she's far too strong. The scenes of conflict between the two women are exhausting, brilliantly filmed (multiple cameras? They would have been on TV. Not sure. According to TCM, via Wikipedia, the dining room scene was shot over five days with three cameras.) Made me think they were the inspiration for The Exorcist!

Rest of cast good too: Victor Jory, Inga Swenson, Andrew Prine, Kathleen Comegys. Hadn't heard of Cuban DP Ernesto Caparrós, music by Leonard Rosenman.

Avakian edited the weird and wonderful Lilith, again with some panache, then cut Mickey One, again for Penn.

So great to see something so good we'd never seen before.

Trying (2022 Andy Wolton, Margaret Cabourn-Smith)

We think this might be the best series so far, as they have actually adopted a young girl and her even younger brother, determined not to let them be parted.

Rafe Spall, Esther Smith, Darren Boyd, Sian Brook, Oliver Chris, Phil Davis, Paula Wilcox, Roderick Smith, Marian McLoughlin.

The Duke (2020 Roger Michell)

Roger's last film leaves us liking him again. Richard Bean and Clive Coleman's script seems to be original, though is based on a real case of the theft of a Goya from the National Gallery in 1961. (There's a smart reference to this in Dr No, which is pictured at the end.)

Jim Broadbent is our amateur playwright and social conscience, grieving the death of his daughter. Helen Mirren is long-suffering wife, who won't talk about the loss, Fionn Whitehead the son. Plus Anna Maxwell Martin, Matthew Goode, John Heffernan, Charlotte Spencer, Aimée Kelly, Charles Edwards, Joshua McGuire.

Three minor carps: shouldn't have been in widescreen, the split screen bits don't add anything, there's one too many shots of the court administrator tittering (going to prove that comedy - editing, writing, acting, all aspects - is a very tricky thing to get exactly right). Actually four - wouldn't have used 'Jerusalem' for no reason at the end either. Otherwise, thoroughly entertaining and positive.

" 'I will not let anyone walk through my mind with dirty feet.' Mahatma Ghandi." Knows 'The Cherry Orchard' too.

DP Mike Eley, editor Kristina Hetherington (My Name is Leon, Le-Weekend, Parade's End, Birdsong), music George Fenton.

It began when the grandson Chris, had a go at writing the story himself, then the producers got Bean and Coleman involved. Bean's a playwright with no screen credits, Coleman a barrister turned journalist with the odd TV and theatre credit. They wrote it with Jim in mind, for his voice.