A gentle ripple of acoustic, Latin- inflected guitar gives way to a blast of horns heralding possibly the most incongruous theme to a horror film ever: switch the TV on two bars into Laurie Johnson’s brassy caper tune (actually the result of an idea from Bernard Herrmann), set to the relaxing sight of bicycles traversing French roads as trees sway gently in the breeze, and you might be forgiven for thinking you’re actually watching a light comedy, rather than one of the scariest, most … [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...]

When discussing “Swinging London” cinema as a genre in itself (as opposed to an offshoot of the more provincially-minded “Social Realism” movement), the same names tend to crop up: Alfie, Here We Go Round The Mulberry Bush, Blow-Up, Performance, Up The Junction, Privilege, Darling, et al, and quite rightly so- all are classics, and deserve constant re-examination. Yet, as with any genre, there are always those that don’t, for whatever reason, quite garner the same appraisal, and slip the net, … [Read more...]

Those old bugbears of film history- orthodoxy, general consensus and received wisdom- tell us it’s difficult to fully engage with a film in which you feel little or no sympathy for the central character. Unless, of course, you’re the type who delights in watching the bleakest, most uncompromising, scarifying films on purpose to show how much of a hardened cineaste you really are. In which case, don’t worry- I was like that in my early 20s. You’ll get over it. Such beliefs are there to be … [Read more...]