It’s always good to watch an old fashioned Hammer costume epic at this time of year. Maybe it’s the way the snow and ice seem to bring out the hidden urges within us all to sit in front of a roaring log fire in an old castle, enjoying a palatial banquet and a bottle of vintage port. Maybe it’s the way the trees take on eerie, foreboding shapes when stripped of their natural foliage. Or maybe it’s just because they used to show them all through the holidays without fail when we were kids, and … [Read more...]

The House in the Square, AKA I’ll Never Forget You, is an oddly unexciting title/s for a time travel romance. You’d think something more exciting, and less generic, could have been invented. The movie is a remake of Berkeley Square, (starring Leslie Howard) in itself an adaptation of a play which lifted its plot from Henry James’ unfinished novel The Sense of the Past. Said plot being, well, a time travel romance. The prolific American screenwriter Ranald MacDougall makes a few changes to the … [Read more...]

“You ought to know I’ve always had a liking for dramatic effects.” Corridor of Mirrors, made in British cinema’s most exciting year,1948, was the first film of both director Terence Young, and a youthful bit-part player named Christopher Lee. The actor recalls in his autobiography that Young loaned him a tuxedo for his big scene (a few snarky lines purred in a nightclub) so I watched with interest to see if Young had Lee make a little square out of his pocket … [Read more...]

The soundtrack of Basil Dearden's racially-charged 1959 cop-flick Sapphire, composed by Philip Green but arranged by the great Johnny Dankworth in a sleazy jazz style reminiscent of Taxi Driver, comments on shocking turns in the action in the traditional manner, with excited blasts at key moments. But the decisions about what is actually supposed to be shocking are pretty interesting, and convey all kinds of sublimated panic. A young white woman is found stabbed on Hampstead Heath. Her … [Read more...]

ROGER WHITAKER’S ALMANAC The fact that sci-fi apocalypse movie No Blade of Grass (1970) begins with a Roger Whitaker song may seem like a misstep right at the start – seriously, how did they expect that not to date the film? – but that’s only the first in a long line. The movie is flawed, sure: inescapably, massively flawed. But, in its favour, it’s sincere, intense, often ahead of the curve, and quite unique. Nigel Davenport plays a retired soldier called John … [Read more...]