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A Matter of Choice (1963)
Amazing anatomy of the force of circumstances
Don't watch this film for the sake of Anthony Steel, because he is almost put out at once. You keep hoping for his recovery, he is after all Anthony Steel and the only star attraction of the film, but he does nothing to earn it. He is just swept away by those circumstances, which no one can do anything about, since no one ever could about the force of circumstances. Here they are exposed to their maximum of perplexity of chance. No one is really guilty of anything of all that happens, and yet they all contribute to their fantastic machination, being all perfectly innocent victims of chance. The two boys get away with pure fright, they least of all wanted anything of this to happen, and yet only they caused this fantastic train of events which no one could stop or control. At first the film seems innocent and stupid enough, young boys do foolish things, but when once there is a traffic casualty no one can stop the avalanche of destiny, really the force of circumstances. It's a wonderful, fantastic, skilfully contrived maze of a film, where only the audience can understand the utter helplessness of the unfortunate actors and their most unintentional mess.
Blind Corner (1964)
Only the blind can see beyond the obvious
Lance Comfort made a long string of excellent thrillers from the 40s and on, and this is just one more pearl in the necklace. Paul, a composer and pianist who composes pop music for a change to make money, is married to an actress, who married him before he went blind, and after the curtain fall of his blindness she would use do anything to get out of her marriage and to dispose of the blind pianist, of whom she is tired of just pitying. So she gets some lovers and use them in an intrigue to set her husband off. The script is very well written and cleverly composed, the dialog is excellent, and above all, the music is outstanding and veils the film in silk. You might object against the cynicism of this brilliant chamber play, but the character of the blind pianist (William Sylvester) outweighs any objection. More often than not, blind men acquire a second sight and deeper sensitivity and sharper sense of reality than any easily fooled superficial eyesight.
Last Embrace (1979)
Jonathan Demme copying Hitchcock with awkward results
In the first scene someone tries to shoot down Roy Scheider but kills his wife instead. That's not a bad start of an intrigue. But the problem here is the lack of motivation. We never learn who or why Roy Scheider had to be killed, and there are a number of assassination attempts. He works for intelligence, all right, but that is not enough. His boss seems to be Christopher Walken, who is expert on wicked roles, and he actually tells Scheider's wife's brother to kill him, but there is no motivation. The lack of any motivation here makes the film absurd in its forced effort to contrive a great action thriller, while nothing makes any sense. There is a girl who also eventually proves to have some desire to kill him because of some grandmother's trauma, which deviation from all sense and logic only adds to the nonsense of this ridiculous plot. Roy Scheider is always good and saves the film in many ways, but the only real value of the film is the fantastic score by Miklos Rosza, in collaboration with no one else than Bernard Herrmann, which adds to the film's character of being nothing else than a poor Hitchcock paraphrase.
93, rue Lauriston (2004)
The autopsy of the French gestapo
This film is amazingly skilfully done, especially as it consistently sticks to facts, although everything is veiled in the euphemism of so called fiction, but the bones stick out of the well dressed flesh, and you can never hide the skeleton. It's a gruesome story with horrible ingredients of torture and brutal violence, all accentuated by unfortunately a most authentic cynicism giving the film a most inhuman character, but as it is so expertly done in total realism all the way you are fascinated and will endure it to the end, not with relish, but with constantly increasing interest and irresistible fascination. Michel Blanc plays the investigating police who after the war tries to get together some documentary of what the French gestapo really was busy about, interviewing many people with astounding objectivity - there is hardly room for any feelings or human upsets in this film, although the chapter is overwhelmingly upsetting. There are a few women who succeed in adding a human touch to the terrors with some emotion, but even the Jewess who gets away is stone cold and betrays nothing of her feelings. It's a great, amazing and admirable film penetrating thoroughly into one of the most revolting chapters of French history, and you will never forget this film for its sharpness.
So Ends Our Night (1941)
What do you do without a passport, being thrown out of every country? The only thing you can do is to try to survive.
Margaret Sulllavan was not beautiful, there was nothing really attractive about her, but there was something about her that always made her adorable in every film of hers. Usually she ends tragically in all of them with heart-rending death scenes and departures, but this is slightly different. There are in fact many strikes of comedy here, and several scenes are directly hilarious. The acting is superb, especially by the leading characters Frederic March, Glenn Ford and Margaret Sullavan, but many (if not all) the supporting actors are also contributing to the film with outstanding if not unforgettable performances, including the music score. Erich von Stroheim is his usual character of more depths than one, but also the two other female parts are absolutely smashing, to say the least. This is not one of the best known Remarque novels, but it does deliver all his finest qualities, above all an infinite human tenderness and compassion. This is a film to love and learn from especially in our troubled times, when new dictatorships threaten the entire world.
Lonelyhearts (1958)
A good effort that fails to strike home
Montgomery Clift was one of the most sympathetic actors Hollywood ever brought forth, and every film with him is watchable for his sake. Myrna Loy was always excellent, and she doesn't deny her excellence here. Robert Ryan was one of the most difficult actors of Hollywood, often in very tricky roles, here he is a cynical newspaper editor who employs Montgomery Clift just to see if he can make it, he makes it and resigns. Then there is the argument about the Miss Lonelyhearts column, this is a film about a newspaper column of the most deplorable kind, a column where anyone can squeeze his heart out in tears and blood just to get their self pity under treatment, yearning perhaps for some sympathy and understanding. This is the column Montgomery Clift is taking on with great pains. There is some slight drama also, but the gun is never fired, although you almost would have wished Mr. Shrike to use it against himself. Nathaniel West also wrote "The Day of the Locust" which is even sharper and more ruthless and to the point concerning forces of the establishment, and "Lonelyhearts" although an effort at a settlement with journalism falls deep in the shadow of the "Locust".
Black Rainbow (1989)
This is not a question of believing or not believing, but of accepting or not accepting.
Walter Travis (Jason Robards) has been in the business all his life, making money out of people's credulousness, using his daughter (Rosanna Arquette) as a medium to make people believe they get in contact with the other side. But he is in for a shock when his daughter's visions actually prove true, when she foresees deaths and catastrophes that must be termed unpredictable and which actually happen. A journalist (Tom Hulce) gets intrigued by the improbable coincidences of Rosanna's visions actually manifesting themselves in reality and tries to get in closer touch with both her and the father in order to denounce a racket, but instead he is faced by an unsolvable mystery for perpetual perplexity. All three leading characters. Rosanna Arquette, Jason Robards and Tom Hulce make amazing unforgettable performances, and whatever you may think about metaphysics on films this is actually intriguing and makes some sense.
The Human Factor (1979)
"You killed the wrong man."
This is a typical Graham Greene story in its very human aspects of things pertaining to espionage, in which business human values are ignored our just ruthlessly driven over. The story involves an employee in the intelligence concerning African affairs, Maurice Castle (admirably played by Nicol Williamson) who is sent to South Africa to take the temperature of the communists there, which leads to his falling in love with a local woman. When they grow serious about their relationship he doesn't know she is expecting a child with an African man now dead, but instead of complicating matters this makes him more eager to pursue the relationship and accept the child. What she doesn't know is that he is now a double agent. Another colleague of his is suspected (Derek Jacobi) and made a scapegoat, while Williamson has to escape, leaving his African wife and her son in England. It's a scurvy cocktail indeed, and there is no end to it. We are left hanging with question marks, and Graham Greene is pleased with just having presented the problem.
Lady in White (1988)
A weird film of a weird story, but that's how the child found it
Although a film of little children with youngsters in the lead, the chief one being no more than nine years old, this is hardly a film for little children. Walt Disney's first full length cartoon films like "Snowhite" and "Pinocchio" were notorious for scaring children out of their wits and giving them perpetual nightmares, although these masterpieces of children's films are made for no other audience, and this film is related to that kind. Young Frankie is almost constantly scared out of his mind because of what he experiences with weird ghosts of spooky lovely ladies in white waving clothes, like angels, and someone unknown actually trying to murder him for nothing as it seems, and that is just the beginning of his ordeals. The film is beautifully well done, you might question the verisimilitude of the plot, but the interesting thing is that the film is made with the mentality of a child and just as the child would have experienced all these things. The acting is wonderful especially on the part of young Lukas Haas, the camera work is brilliant and the cinematography is impressing, and to all this also comes a refreshing taint of good Italian humour. This is a film very difficult not to surrender to.
Sotto il sole di Roma (1948)
In the streets of Rome in the aftermath of the war.
Most of the actors here are amateurs, but two of them stick out as professionals, Alberto Sordi and Francesco Golisano. Golisano makes the most sympathetic character, a vagabond boy who lives in the ruins of Colosseum, and the first part of the film is dominated by spectacular scenes from the Colosseum, as the street boys play hide and seek and other games there and are very busy. It's a comedy but a very realistic one, it is a true story, and there are some sinister moments of real neo-realism, as the action takes place during the final act of the war, when the allies invade Sicily and the Germans take a firm grip of Rome. Golisano is best remembered for his leading character in "Miracle in Milan" by Vittorio de Sica eight years later, but he makes an unforgettable character already here. The music is by Nino Rota, it is excellent all the way, and there are many scenes that you would like to return to with some very memorable shots - the camera work is outstanding all the way, like the acting, the characters are all genuine and natural, so this is definitely a film you would like to see some time again.
Journey Into Fear (1975)
On the run for your life without knowing why
The main interest of the plot here is that you never really are informed of what it is all about. Sam Waterston as Howard Graham gets into deep trouble from the beginning and is persecuted hard throughout the film, without his ever understanding why everyone wants to kill him. As the audience you are as bewildered and confused as he, you eagerly wait for some explanation which never comes, and like Howard Graham you just learn to think the worst of everyone, as even the one murderer who appears visible never says anything but only waits for him everywhere. This was according to Hitchcock a capital sin in a thriller movie, who was always meticulous about keeping the audience in the clear about everything. Here you are kept confused even beyond the end. It's an efficient thriller though, there are many moments of truth of sustained suspense, and all kinds of great actors walk by as in a parade, like even Shelley Winters and Stanley Holloway as a displaced American couple. Zero Mostel in the beginning makes a wonderful impression, and so does Joseph Wiseman as a very strict and correct Turkish officer. Yvette Mimieux is a relief between all the manhunts and massacres, and fortunately she at least is innocent. The film ends abruptly in Genoa with the story unfinished, and we shall never learn what it really was all about.
Skipping Stones (2020)
Accidents will happen, it's nobody's fault, and yet they all blame themselves for it and never get out of it
This is a very slow melodrama which never seems to move on, and it never does. They are all stuck in a post accident which they have been able to confront, and whenever someone touches the subject he is told to stop it and shut up. Young David Travers comes home from collage unable to carry on his studies, looking up his roots to try to get to understand what happened ten years ago, of which he has no clear memory although he held the gun. He encounters walls of silence by repressed emotions, as everyone feels guilty about nothing. A young girl, Amanda, (Gabrielle Kalomiris) also feels the repression of unreleased feelings and has problems with her mother, who also never has got over the loss of her only son by that accident ten years ago. There are heavy charges here, and someone has to suffer for it, and in the end it's the wrong person, giving new occasions for chains of guilt complexes. It is beautifully done, the actors are all perfect, but the pace does hardly move at all until in the last act.
The Visitors (1972)
Bringing the war home to shatter what's left
Two films are related to this one: Sam Peckinpah's "Straw Dogs" and Brian de Palma's "Casualties of War", all equally brutal and revolting, they all tell the same story but in different ways, and this one is like a chamber play version of the drama. Is it an anatomy of the infamous "post traumatic stress disorder", all three characters are Vietnam veterans recently returned from the war, one disgusted by it and practically a pacifist, while the other two, who come to visit him casually by the way, have some unfinished business with him. The moment they enter the house you know what is going to happen, it is over-obvious from the beginning, but Elia Kazan as the master director he was, builds it up carefully and slowly detail by detail, gradually starting up the tension and the towering suspension all through the disaster to the bitter end, finally leaving all four characters hanging in the air with the ruins of their lives. It is brutal and barbaric, but that is what war does to people. They never recover.
The Dresser (2015)
King Lear in the Blitz
If you have seen "The Dresser" once you would not like to see it twice. Even less you would like to see another version with Ian McKellen and Anthony Hopkins, if you saw the real version with Albert Finney and Tom Courtenay. Hopkins is all right and lives up to the role, but McKellen plays it down completely by overacting and exaggerating, appearing constantly drunk, while Courtenay never appeared drunk in spite of his prudent drinking. Emily Watson is also all right, while Edward Fox appears as a surprise in a role very out of his style, the fool unmasked as a modest gentleman. It's an interesting play but a poor travesty deep in the shadow of Shakespeare, and although the Blitz is used as an efficient background, it never becomes a drama, in spite of Hopkins' passionate outbursts. Donald Wolfit was a great actor with a company of his own, but both Finney and Courtenay are fruits having fallen some distance off from his tree.
Wagner (1983)
Richard Burton in his most magnificent role as a super scoundrel
This monumental biopic is perfectly adapted to Wagner's own pretentiousness, vanity and abominable egoism - it is as interminable as his operas, it is about nine hours long which is a bit too much and too long for a film and actually double the length of Wagner's longest opera. It is beautifully made, there is a magnificent team of all the greatest contemporary actors, but what does all that help when the subject is so utterly revolting? It is worth watching though for all those victims of Wagner, his wife, outrageously maltreated by him from the start, the king whom he ruined, his best friend Hans von Bülow whose wife he took for his own, and shame to say the biopic is rather one-sided to his favour while it omits many vital ingredients, like the anger of both Liszt and Bülow for his seduction of Bülow's wife, (Bülow actually wanted to challenge him to a deadly duel, which the film ignores,) and many other such details. Visconti's film "Ludwig" ten years earlier was more correct, and so was the Wagner film with Alan Badel "Magic Fire" (1956) which included Liszt's great anger and did not conceal the fact that Wagner was a most abominable character. This film is at least truthful enough to reveal his unbearable vanity. Fortunately there was also Verdi who was his opposite in everything, who actually admired Wagner but who Wagner despized and abused like everyone else.
Satan's Triangle (1975)
Three men in a boat and a very beautiful girl
This is comparable with the best of Edgar Allan Poe, like "Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pam", another horror tale at sea, and many details here are reminiscent of that tall story, especially the settings and the atmosphere. The coast guards in a helicopter come across a yacht that obviously has had some bad moments in very bad weather, since there are three dead bodies on board, one of them hanging and dangling from the mast. There is one survivor though, who is no one less than Kim Novak, still outrageously beautiful, here acting as a former prostitute. As she is rescued she tells the story, they were a party of three sporting fishermen who were chasing a giant marlin, when their attention was divided to save a shipwrecked priest sitting on some flotsam. When the priest got on board, all the crew left and fled in panic, struck by some weird superstition. They knew though what they did. As the hunt for the marlin was taken up again, that fish was caught, but then they all were caught by very bad weather. In the course of the storm and the panic it spread, all three fishermen died, one in a ghastlier way than the other. So finally only the girl survived, but the film was not finished yet. The coast guards come out again with another ship and a helicopter, but here the magnificent logic of the film ends, and the rest is just a way to sensationalise an absurd finale which makes no sense. The film claims to solve one mystery of many of the Bermuda Triangle, but it is only a mystification, although very efficient and well made with small means.
InSight (2011)
Confused murder plot confusing enough to confuse anyone who tries to sort it out
The only witness of the terrible case is a nurse who is with the victim after death, but who anyway seems to hear the victim say something which would indicate the murderer. Since no one else wants to have anything to do with the case, that nurse cannot let it go, but she has nothing to go on but her confused problems with second sight. Her mother has passed away, but she still seems to carry on as usual, while the daughter's problem is her constant confusion with reality and her second sight - she can't separate them, so she believes her second sight visions are all reality while reality naturally can't take her seriously - the usual problem in all films about second sight. Finally the detective decides to take her seriously, that's where the film gains momentum, but when he is faced with the fact that she is delusional about her mother as a result of the trauma of her death, the case becomes critical, and although she is certain about the murderer, that does not help. The end is tragic but logic and consistent, as the nurse is left alone with her dead ghosts.
The film gives a rather off-hand impression as if improvised, it was shot in a very short period, so no wonder it is confusing, which does not confuse its obvious intelligence, enhanced by equally intelligent and beautiful cinematography.
Last Dance (2012)
The good Samaritan
This is a heart-melter. Julia Blake makes a sincere performance as the old Jewish lady in the outskirts of Melbourne, a holocaust survivor who came to Australia after the war with her husband and their son, who later died fighting for Israel. The last thing she would want, happens to her as there is a terrorist bomb attack against a synagogue in the city conducted by two Jihadists, one is shot but the other gets away and ends up in Julia Blake's quarters, taking her as a hostage. He is badly wounded, but she was a trained nurse, and when he runs the risk of bleeding to death she takes care of him and dresses his wound. Gradually they develop a relationship, as his family also was completely wiped out by an Israeli tank, like she lost all her family in the holocaust, relocating her husband by way of a miracle after the war. She actually wants him to get away and tries to help him, giving him a ticket and her son's passport, the set-up for his getaway is perfect, but also his own fellow Jihadists are after him. It's a tense drama connecting the holocaust problem and trauma with that of Israel and the Palestinians, and the human interplay is magnificent and totally convincing. I would almost give it a 10.
BBC2 Play of the Week: Shooting the Chandelier (1977)
Great English theatre at its best
Edward Fox is the perfect military man, an officer on duty, meticulously sticking to his mission and constantly demonstrating his militariness, although he wanted to be an archaeologist; Denholm Elliott is an academic, a professor and teacher at the university, well versed in history, literature and philosophy; they are both officers in the Red Army as it liberates Czechoslovakia in April 1945, Edward Fox is a colonel and Denholm Elliott is a deserter hiding in a ditch when Edward Fox comes across him in his jeep, and they recognize each other, the professor and his former student. Fox takes him on in his jeep, and their trip takes them to a fine old manor which has seen better days, with only a young girl and her old nurse living there. The girl is the sole survivor of a wealthy family whose father was killed by the Nazis and the mother died of grief six months later three years ago. Fox and his soldiers arrive there with Elliott, trying to restore something of the old glory of the house, including a magnificent chandelier in the former dining hall. The girl insists on having another of those old great banquets under the chandelier with only Elliott and Fox as guests apart from her and the old nurse. It's a great drama, the fantastic banquet is the final scene with some settlement with both the past and the present, but above all the acting is absolutely formidable, the prize going to Denholm Elliott who finally makes an effort to rise out of the mire of his human degradation.
Lucky Jordan (1942)
Ridiculous war propaganda comedy but great fun
An intolerable gangster ends up a gardener digging in a park among rare tulips after having been chased all around the garden by other tougher gardeners and Nazis in this very implausible propaganda comedy during the war, trying to bribe a momentary mother to avoid getting enlisted for war service, but that mother is basically only interested in drinking. When Alan Ladd buys her a bottle of gin for mother's day she is enraptured by euphoria and calls it the nicest present a son ever gave to his mother. So there are moments of great fun here, which makes it worth watching, but the temporary mother steals the show completely, and you miss her when she is gone.
Bellman and True (1987)
A widower and a boy as hostages in a spectacular bank robbery
Bernard Hill makes an unforgettable character as the reluctant participant of one of the most exciting and detailed bank robberies ever filmed, second only to Jules Dassin's "Rififi" 30 years earlier, but this is more intricate and human, as both children and women also are involved. The film is very technical as Bernard Hill is a computer programmer who is the only technical expert of the film, he agreed to solve a computer problem for some criminals planning to rob a bank and got paid for it, but those ruffians won't let him go until the heist is completed, as they need continuous technical help from him, keeping also his son as a hostage. The son is not really his son, he married his mother who has deserted them both, but he does not want the boy to know. This family intrigue complicates matters of course, but the thriller only gets better as the complications continue to pile up. This is a masterpiece of suspense, Bernard Hill actually at times reminds very much of Alec Guinness, who would have made this role equally excellent. This will be a classic, unforgettable to everyone who sees it, as the realism, the plot, the characters, the complications, the ladies, everything is perfect.
Circles of Deceit: Kalon (1996)
"Never assume for a moment that our hands are clean."
This is not the best of the four films in the series but possibly the worst. It is all about drug trafficking and money laundering. As usual Dennis Waterman reluctantly accepts an assignment by SAS or is forced to, a recurrent phrase in this film is "you have no choice", as various people are coerced to accept dirty missions and carry them through whether they like it or not, and the mission here is particularly nasty. A link in the racket is being shot to death, and SAS wants Dennis to find out why and by whom. The victim had a girl friend, Saskia Wickham, and Dennis tries to find out what killed the officer by her, but she actually knows nothing, and still Dennis is ordered to kill her, which he refuses to. For once in these films the lovely female leading character does not become a casualty, so it actually ends rather well. Still it is not as interesting as the other three, of which"Dark Secrets" is the best.
Silent as the Grave (2023)
A rather banal mystery case about jealousy with an unwanted outcome
Graves are never silent, especially not if someone continues to put flowers on it 60 years after what was officially an accidental death, so naturally someone has to start digging about it, in this case a young enthusiast for noir films whose wife is expecting their first baby, while his interest in digging about the grave risks his marriage and family, since his wife just can't put up with competition from a grave that is not silent. Naturally he has to finish the job and keep digging even when threatened and beaten up by thugs, and finally gets some help by someone who has kept silent for too many years (60), and that's where the film becomes interesting. The first hour is a lost hour, nothing happens, while the last hour at last presents a case. As so often in such cases, when you get to know too much, it's no idea pushing it on any further, especially if your young wife will have that baby and you want to keep your family. Enough is enough.
Circle of Deceit (1993)
An Irish tragedy
This is the first of the four films of "Circles of Deceit", and this circle of deceit is probably the most shocking and upsetting one. It is entire Irish and deals with the IRA, who are expecting a shipment of ammunitions from Libya, and the veteran Waterman is asked to infiltrate and report their business, which he does, while the daughter of the old leader of the terrorists (Peter Vaughan, always scary,) has a young son whom she wants to keep out of the IRA business at any cost. Waterman has seen her somewhere before, he recognises her, but she does not recognise him and learns to trust him after he (spontaneously, by accident) saved her son from a fire brought on by some IRA skirmish. They develop a relationship which is ruined by his engagement and its consequences, while Peter Vaughan as the very concerned father by accident happens to wreak the tragedy. It is a great introduction to the series, of which all four films are extremely intriguing and captivating, but this one is perhaps the most exciting of them for its constantly increasing tensions.
Star of Midnight (1935)
No cocktails, please - Bring some more cocktails.
Like in "The Thin Man" there is an awful lot of drinking going on and some murder intrigue between the cocktails, but no Myrna Loy, and no Asta, instead there is Ginger Rogers who is not dancing, only acting, but doing well in keeping up the comedy, for it is a criminal comedy that desperately tries to keep some criminal intrigue going, which only gets mixed up in a lot of extra intrigues, while like one of the actors you desperately wait for the lost actress to turn up, who never turns up, no matter how much she is constantly discussed, and when someone like her at last turns up and with a shotgun she is just a disguised man. The music is good though, and gives the film a lot of fine atmosphere, as the main theme keeps constantly returning and forms part of the intrigue, because the singer of the song is the lost actress. That's the only way we get to know her.