DB7

The Silent Passenger (1935)
The passenger of the title happens to be the dead body of a blackmailer locked in a trunk aboard a train. Cue Lord Peter Wimsey coming to the aid of the innocent man arrested for the time. Unchallenging and debut quickie quota outing for the Dorothy L. Sayers amateur sleuth.

julian_craster

Billion Dollar Brain (1967)

Does anybody else like this ?

Very stylish, superb locations, photography, music score

Nearly 40 years old - but looks very 'modern'

Of course, the plot is very far fetched. ...

I mean, a rabid anti-Communist billionaire from Texas with God on his side plots downfall of Latvia and other Eastern European states. This could never happen !

smudge

FUNNY BONES - Peter Chesholm's surreal and out-of-time examination of his home town of Blackpool. Great comedy with dark and interesting undertones. Nice performances from Lee Evans, Jerry Lewis and Oliver Platt.

TOMORROW NEVER DIES - Revisited this latter days 007 outing ; visually far better than I remembered, but Jonathan Pryce is still ineffective and embarrassing in his Bond villain role.

GOLDFINGER - Back-to-back with the above ; Bond how it SHOULD be done...

Smudge

Welcome to my house. Enter freely, and of your own will...

smudge

Count me in on this one ; much rubbished by fans of the earlier 'Harry Palmer' films, this one certainly had a style all of its own, and that wonderful music...

SMUDGE

Welcome to my house. Enter freely, and of your own will...

ChristineCB

FUNNY BONES, absolutely. Also gets a huge nod for its incredibly strange and well-fitted soundtrack. What a menagerie of music.

I'll be sorry if Lee and Oliver never get the chance to do a better film, but I place FUNNY BONES at the top of most of my Favorites lists, so maybe doing one great film will be enough. Lee's Radio-Boy skit is often cited as the film's skit high-point, but the numerous auditions as well as the Spaghetti Restaurant skit are superb, too.

Truly a wonderful ode to Blackpool.

smudge

Not to mention the marvellous (and perfectly logical) responses to the psychiatrist's questions after Jack's been talked down from the tower by his Mum... Brilliant !

SMUDGE

Welcome to my house. Enter freely, and of your own will...

DB7

A Cock and Bull Story
Framed as a film about a film, like the novel it never gets beyond Tristram Shandy's birth and instead focuses on Coogan and Rob Brydon sniping at each other. An offbeat and inventive film.

penfold

Champagne For Caesar....Hollywood, early 50's comic precursor to Quiz Show....Ronald Colman as a highly intelligent and well read unemployed man who goes on to a 'Who Wants to be a Millionaire' style quiz show to gain revenge on the soap company who sponsor it...only they have forgotten to put an upper limit on the 'double or quits' format....and soon he's about to own the firm. Colman his suave impeccable self, Vincent Price is the comedy soap manufacturer, Celeste Holm his Mata Hari, and Mel Blanc the reprobate parrot...Good fluffy fun, with some sly digs at the US TV industry of the fifties.

Bit of a Bay Window, what??

penfold

Not forgetting George Carl and Freddie Davies as the brothers, and keepers of the comedy flame...real troupers, and a final hurrah for them both. Brilliant...and I could never stand Davies as a kid....a great exploration of how Comedy and Tragedy are but different sides of the same coin...an ignored classic IMHO...and features my favourite british cartoon character of the 1920's - Bonzo - in a cameo role too!!

Bit of a Bay Window, what??

ChristineCB

Pen, I'm too uneducated to catch the Bonzo Cameo.

There are so many films - and TV adverts - that use background actoin as the attention-getter. Good grief, they could have stood those two "brothers" in the background for a dentist-drill ad, and receive more attention than Who Shot JR episodes almost.

I don't know why FUNNY BONES will end up on the Overlooked heap. I think it starts too slow, perhaps. Out on the boat, the exchange. Maybe that was too slow for the 30-second-attention-span crowd. I don't know anyone who's seen it that doesn't rave about it. I just don't know that many folks that see it!

Lee Evans' American follow-up MOUSE HUNT has laughs all its own, but I don't think anyone singled out Lee's performance enough to beckon their interest in his earlier work. Too bad - their loss.

When I rewatch FUNNY BONES, it's still the soundtrack's audacity that surprises me. A total mismash of unusual numbers, from the Las Vegas faux singer to the quirky blues intro to Blackpool. Who in their right mind would have scored a film like that? Yet it's a perfect fit - the music never lets me get bored or too comfortable with its place in any film-segment, and the film's finale warns me never to get too complacent predicting any earlier scene's outcome.

penfold

That's just me...I've been researching Bonzo for years now, trying to sort a filmography...Oliver Platt's toy mascot in the Vegas changing room? That's a 'Bonzo' made by Chad Valley in the 1920's...and I'd seen the film a dozen times before I noticed..
It was undermarketed IMHO...and the DVD release is shockingly bad; no extras or commentaries is one thing, but the cover is a Photoshop thing with a lousy tagline, and Lewis and Platt in a conjured-up scene that doesn't exist in the film...no mention of Evans et al, or a hint of it's surreality...everyone I've lent it too loves it, so we are not alone.

Bit of a Bay Window, what??

foha80

O.K. you have convinced me ,just clicked and bought at play.com-£5.99 delivered.
It better be good as i don't like spending money just before I go to bed.

Cheers

terry

penfold

I just wish I was on commission....
I promise you will not regret it.....but have your humour sense set on 'dark' when you watch it.... My favourite British film of the last ten years.....

Bit of a Bay Window, what??

ChristineCB

FUNNY BONES was indeed undermarketed. I went to see it on a lark, and is one of the few films I waited 20 minutes between shows and sat thru it a second time immediately.

Of couse, part of that was the embarrassing realization that I couldn't remember how this film started. And when I saw the boat and the faux money-exchange, I kept wondering, "Did I miss this part? Did I come in late?"

But once we were watching the Las Vegas singer, ah yes, I did remember this part.

I know it starts slow. It's one of my pop-in-for-no-good-reason DVDs, just to have something other than war news and hate-talk TV. Invariably, I waste more time sitting and watching scene after scene.

Richard Dreyfuss' LET IT RIDE and occasionally RUTHLESS PEOPLE (Danny DeVito, Bette Midler) also join this rotation. LET IT RIDE strikes similar chords as FUNNY BONES does, but without the odd soundtrack, but even more wierd characters. RUTHLESS just strikes me as a perfect example of the all-too-rare "Be Careful What You Ask For..." film.

My suggestion to FUNNY BONES first-time viewers - be patient. It does start slow. There are confusing pieces that make more sense on subsequent viewings but I don't know anyone who's only seen it once.

DB7

It's rumoured the original cut is over 4 hours long with whole scenes and subplots missing so you have to wonder why they never made it onto the dvd extras. I had heard Chelsom was peeved and post-production editing was done by the film company to try and salvage something with commercial appeal.