DB7

The Caretaker

Something of a kitchen sink oddity written by Harold Pinter. A piece of 'filmed theatre' (cinematography by Nic Roeg) set mostly in an attic bedroom in London and involving just three characters - two brothers and a tramp. But it's the acting that carries the project and particularly that of Donald Pleasance before he had become typecast in horror's.

ChristineCB

'Tis Halloween Season at the movies...

Mark Of The Vampire (1935). I've never seen this before, and was fairly stunned but the film's climatic twist, where it turns into a whodunit murder mystery. Bela plays the caped Count Mora, and "plays" is right. John Barrymore plays a Van-Helsing type that's considerably more Poirot than expected. Quite an ending.

DB7

Nothing but the Best ('64)
60's take on Kind Hearts and Coronets with London estate agent Alan Bates as a single-minded social climber. Bates' mentor is Denholm Elliott who manages to steal pretty much every scene he's in. Donner and Roeg are the respective director and cinematographer.

Moor Larkin

I recalled poor reviews of this at the time of the cinema release. For the first forty minutes or so it wasn't bad........ then CGI went Critical. Venice falling down, gigantic mondo-Mr.-Hyde...... yawn...zzzzzzz........
What a shame they couldn't sustain the characters or the plot.

[code]http://www.flickr.com/photos/29487363@N02/sets/72157606700675506/code]

ChristineCB

I did the Christmas League Of Gentlemen, and I might snag the rest of those in the coming weeks.

smudge

McVICAR (1980) ; Tom Clegg's SWEENEY style bought to the big screen in the part fictionalised account of an episode in the life & times of career criminal John McVicar.

The film maintains its impetus solely whilst McVicar is in prison/planning the breakout/on the run. After this, the scenes of home life drag things down significantly, but they do serve to highlight the hypocrisy of a person like McVicar, wanting his family to have a decent life, but not caring at all about somebody who he has just shot.

A decent performance by Daltrey in the lead, adequate by Adam Faith and unconvincing from Cheryl Campbell as the fictionalised 'wife'. Nice support from Steven Berkoff.

Worth a view, but maybe not the 'classic' it has always been made out to be.

Cracking bit of 'acting school - PROPER' imparted by an uncredited Ian Hendry to Billy Murray, though ! And a nice part for our very own Aitch too !

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

ollie

Not forgetting the loverly georgina hales escape present :

cheers Ollie.

"Bullseye !!"

DB7

Dead Mans Shoes

I do like this as it's the antithesis of the usual drugs and revenge story. There's a 2CV rather than Beamers; knives rather than Uzi's; no 'trendy' pumping soundtrack; just Paddy Considine slowly exacting revenge. The finale is really the icing on the cake as the story isn't neatly wrapped up with a Hollywood ending.

smudge

Yes - Mrs. Smudge laughed her head off when she saw how GW was frying those sausages !

I quite enjoyed it though....

SMUDGE

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

Freddy

I too started to watch Dead Mans Shoes and couldn't switch it off. DB7 has put it in a nutshell. Very good film, I know this topic has been covered before but Gary Stretch, former British Light Middleweight Champion who played Sonny has made a good transition to acting.

Freddy

DB7

Ladies Who Do

Slight 60s comedy about a troupe of cleaners led by Peggy Mount. The collective intend to stop property developer Harry H Corbett from demolishing their homes by passing on the titbits of information they collect at work to Robert Morley, who in turn plays the stock market with the insider tips. A good cast but a film slightly out of time.

Steve Crook

Not at all. Insider trading is still very popular I believe

Steve

DB7

Johnny Nobody (1961)

In a small Irish village a recently returned atheist author is blaspheming in the local pub when, after a fight with the locals, he walks to the steps of the local church and challenges God to strike him down with a thunderbolt. Instead, a shot rings out and the author is killed by an unknown assailant staring blankly with a gun, dubbed Johnny Nobody the press, the case goes to trial in Dublin where the accused claims he was driven by God.

Neat little drama/thriller starring Nigel Patrick and Aldo Ray that follows similar lines to that of Witness for the Prosecution.

ChristineCB

Another great gem, it sounds like and, of course, t'ain't available... BLAST THOSE DVD PRODUCTIONS GODS! (And I'm going to duck quickly.)

Steve Crook

Contraband (1940) on More4
I've seen it loads of times before of course, as is the case with all Powell & Pressburger films apart from their missing solo work.
But I do have an odd affection for this one.

I don't claim it's great in any artistic way or any thought provoking way like their later main body of work. But it has hidden shallows. It's very well made and performed and has some nice comedic touches.

It was only their second collaboration but most people tend to concentrate on their first film together, The Spy in Black when they look at their early work together.

Contraband reunites Conrad Veidt and Valerie Hobson from SiB, but this time Conrad is the captain of a Danish merchant ship that is detained in the contraband control port of Eastgate-on-Sea (actually Ramsgate) at the start of WWII. Valerie is a passenger on his ship and she steals a couple of passes to get herself and her companion Mr Pidgeon (the redoubtable Esmond Knight) ashore. Capt. Anderson (Veidt) chases after her through blacked out London and a "British noir" tale involving spies and deception develops.

I've often thought (and said) that Contraband should be nominated as one of the sexiest or possibly kinkiest movies P&P ever made. Everyone first thinks of Black Narcissus, The Red Shoes (or maybe Gone to Earth) when they think of P&P's sexiest movie, but consider ...

It starts when Andersen calls Mrs. Sorensen (Valerie Hobson) to his cabin & asks if she wants to be chained up ("clapped in irons")

When Capt Andersen is looking for Mrs Sorenson on board the ship, first he nearly gets ensnared by the young lady doing the exercises on her bed - "You can read the newspaper here."
In fact she's Mrs. Abo (Olga Edwardes), the young, beautiful wife of Prof. Abo (Eric Berry) who's seen in the dining room with her. She's also his ex-student so the Prof isn't as frail and doddery as he looks.
Then Capt Andersen goes into Mrs Sorenson's cabin and while he's looking for clues as to where she might be he's fondling the stockings that she's left on the drawer.

When Andersen tracks Mrs Sorenson to London he nearly follows her into the ladies toilets !!

When they get to London he follows her in the blackout by keeping his torch shining on her long legs & high heels.

There's all the "flirty banter" and touching while they play with his watch and sing the song in the restaurant.

Mrs. Sorensen: Did you ever try being married? That can be quite a big adventure.
Andersen: [sighs] Why do women always say that? Marriage ends adventure.
Mrs. Sorensen: [copies sigh] Why do men always say that?

When Mrs S. is being interrogated she's about to be undressed in front of the assembled company but doesn't seem to mind. Maybe she thinks those MASSIVE shoulder pads will hide her?

Then when they're captured and tied up she has to "use her long legs" to help get him free his feet.

Andersen then stands up to free his hands

Andersen: I shall have to hurt you
Mrs. Sorensen: "Go ahead" <winces>

Then he ties her up again - does she enjoy that a bit too much? He goes off gallivanting leaving the damsel tied up - not the act of a gentleman and what about that "stolen" kiss just before he went?

After the battle, Andersen rescues her (and Mr Pidgeon) and leads them up to the top floor where he can shine the torch on her legs again as she walks across the beam (or whatever it is).

Then there's that final scene back in his cabin where they hold each other close. He tells her to drop the lifejacket and it tumbles to the floor - what happens next?

As I said quite sexy with a bit of kinkiness thrown in :)
All very risqué for 1940.

BTW The film also has what I consider to be one of the cleverest lines in a film of the period.

Mr Pidgeon (Esmond Knight) is a talent scout looking for new variety acts to bring to Britain. When they are all being interviewed by the Royal Navy inspection party they say to him that that must be hard work.

Mr Pidgeon: Oh, Per Ardua Ad Astra.

"Per Ardua Ad Astra" is of course, the motto of the Royal Air Force and means "Through adversity to the stars".

Well I thought it was clever :)

Steve

Steve Crook

PaPAS