" I tried not to remember why I buried my horn... " Fnarr fnarr. Two minutes or so into this, one of several British-funded films Franco made in the late 60s under the patronage of the notorious Harry Allan Towers, and we've already hit a double entendre. Start as you mean to go on, I say.  "A guy like me without a horn is like a man without words.." Yes, Franco did write the dialogue (spoken with, it has to be said, sheer conviction by the fine American actor James Darren) himself, and … [Read more...]

“The Case of the Frightened Lady” is a tightly written murder mystery based on a play by Edgar Wallace that takes place on an English estate called Marks Priory. The Lebanon family, which has lived there for centuries, prides itself on being able to maintain their elite status, but they also harbor a much more terrible secret that eventually unfolds throughout the movie. As the credits open to the film, the central staircase in the grand foyer of Marks Priory is shown up close. Maybe it is … [Read more...]

This beautifully scenic Powell and Pressburger film is about a young native Brazilian boy who is removed from his jungle village and thrust into the civilized world of modern Brazil, only to discover he is arrested and put on trial for a crime he committed that was accidental and not premeditated. A series of flashbacks of what led to Manoel's displacement from his village home is recounted with a sensitivity that makes the viewer sympathetic to his plight into the modern world. The film … [Read more...]

Partly filmed in the beautiful English Lake District, this intriguing film concentrates on the relationship between Samuel Taylor Coleridge, (Linus Roache), and fellow poet William Wordsworth (John Hannah). The inner demons of Coleridge, especially, take the viewer to another place, a Bohemian utopia, and a place of `goats, apple trees and a place to sit and write poetry` forever more. This film concentrates on a group of people who were part of the original English anti-establishment of the … [Read more...]

“Old Mother Riley, MP” is one of the later films that have Arthur Lucan's brilliant character Old Mother Riley in a role that is both feminist and hilarious as a living caricature of an old lady who will do anything to fend for survival. Mother Riley recognizes her disenfranchised status as a poor person, and plans on doing something about it by running for a Parliament seat. She encounters a number of obstacles on the way there, but manages to overcome them through the support of … [Read more...]