JANUARY 5, 2013

006 DIE ABENTEUER DES WERNER HOLT/The Adventures of Werner Holt (1965) Directed by Joachim Kunert.  ****

A friend with a particular interest in Eastern European cinema showed me this and for the first three-quarters of an hour (it runs two and three quarter hours) I really couldn't get into it. Then suddenly everything clicked and by the end I was convinced I had seen a great film. At the outbreak of the Second World War two students are called up to serve in the German Army and are assigned at first to an ack ack unit but later, as the war progresses, they see front line combat against the advancing Russians. One of the young men is patriotic enough to be drawn along by the propaganda about defending the Fatherland without being totally convinced by the nazis while the other is a fanatical supporter of Hitler. The former boy (the eponymous Werner Holt) becomes more and more disenchanted with the fascist regime as he sees the horrors perpetrated by the SS, the senseless brutality and the concentration camps but although he openly challenges his friend on several occasions he can never quite bring himself to desert him or the German cause. Made in East Germany the film never offers simple answers as it shows a world where basic human decency and morality have been turned topsy turvy. The ensemble cast are excellent by special mention must be made of
Klaus Peter Thiele (who bears a strong resemblance to Ryan Gosling) as Werner. The film also contains some disturbingly black humour.

Die Abenteuer des Werner Holt

JANUARY 4, 2013

004 THE WEB (1947) Directed by Michael Gordon ***

Michael Gordon had quite a diverse career which included Jose Ferrer's CYRANO DE BERGERAC and being a director favoured by Doris Day. In this later capacity he was responsible for the delightfully silly chiller MIDNIGHT LACE which had poor Doris menaced in the London fog by a maniac. With THE WEB he delivers a really enjoyable film noir. Forget the plot as anybody with two brain cells to rub together will figure out what is going on almost before it happens, but it has a terrific cast headed by Edmund O'brien and the lovely Ella Raines. Vincent Price is on top form as the suave villain abetted by John Abbott. Abbott was rarely given a chance to shine although his turns  as a particularly intelligent bloodsucker in THE VAMPIRE'S GHOST and a killer in THE BLACKOUT MURDERS are worth catching. William Bendix is at his best as the tough, no nonsense, cop who has everything figured out right from the beginning, unlike O'Brien who seems very gullible for the smart attorney he is supposed to be.

005 ONE BODY TOO MANY (194 ) Directed by Frank MacDonald  ***

A will is about to be read, a stormy night, a vanishing corpse, secret passages, the beautiful heir in peril and a sinister butler. In terms of originality this old dark house horror/comedy offers no surprises but it stand out as a cracking example of this sub-genre. It has a first class cast led by Jack Haley and Jean Parker who are more than ably backed up by the likes of Bela Lugosi, Lyle Talbot and Douglas Fowley.  Although Bela is used, yet again, as a red herring, he plays his role as the sinister butler with enthusiasm and the running joke about the coffee ("This coffee won't keep you awake") is done nicely and raises a smile if not a laugh. But the real reason this film stands out from others in similar vein is its pace. Graced with a better than average cast and script Frank MacDonald keeps things moving with not a minute wasted.

One Body Too Many

006 THE MAN IN THE ATTIC (1953) Directed by Hugo Fregonese ***

       Fregonese, like Robert Florey and Edgar Ulmer, was one of those foreign born (Brazil in Fregonese's case) directors who occasionally turned in offbeat work which achieves for them a cult reputation. My personal favourites among his films are BLACK TUESDAY and his Argentinian "Western" SAVAGE PAMPAS. If I say that THE MAN IN THE ATTIC is a perfectly good reworking of the oft filmed THE LODGER by Mrs. Belloc Lowndes - twice filmed with Ivor Novello (once with Hitchcock at the helm) and so memorably in the Forties by John Brahm with Laird Cregar - I'd probably be doing it an injustice. Jack Palance is excellent as the mysterious Mr.Slade, achieving a nice balance between the sympathetic and the sinster and once free from the confines of the boarding house Fregonese's direction comes to life with some atmospheric Whitechapel street sets.  There are two musical numbers set in a theatre that, despite being set in 1888 bear all the marks of 1950's Hollywood and jar against the tone of the rest of the film.

There is an interesting little  "mystery" in that the heroine of the piece, played by Constance Smith, is an actress whose dresser/maid is shown to be an Asian lady. It seems odd that this should be in the script with no explanation, especially in Hollywood at the time,  The explanation may lay with the Brahm 1944 version where the actress was played by Merle Oberon.  Oberon really did have an Asian Dresser/maid.  Oberon, although it was not revealed until years later, was of mixed race and her maid was really her mother, although few people knew it. I find it difficult to believe that this was a coincidence.

The Man in the Attic

JANUARY 3, 2013

003 IL BARBIERI DI SIVIGLIA/The Barber of Seville (1974) Directed by Jean-Pierre Ponnelle ****

This was a real find for me. I am in the process of transferring some VHS recordings of opera productions to DVD. This one had mysteriously (not by me) been labelled as a 1980's Glynbourne production. Instead it turns out to be Jean-Pierre Ponnelle's 1974 film version of his La Scala production of two years earlier. Being a film it opens out the action a bit more than some other filmed stage productions such as the 1988 version with Cecilia Bartoli as Rosina.  When I say than this is far superior to the Bartoli (which I adore) I am not giving faint praise. Visually it is more interesting for the reasons stated above and vocally it is graced by the German baritone Hermann Prey as Figaro and the beautiful Teresa Berganza as Rosina. Next to Mascagni's CAVALLERIA RUSTICANA this is Rossini probabably my favourite opera. Based, like Mozart's THE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO on a story by Beaumarchais it is hard to imagine that these tales originally ran into censorship problems because they showed servants outwitting and being cleverer than their masters at a time when the French Revolution was very much on peoples minds.

Il Barbieri di Siviglia

JANUARY 2, 2013

002 FIRES WE STARTED (1942) Directed by Humphrey Jennings.  *****

Also known as I WAS A FIREMAN. I have a feeling I've seen this before but I'm possibly confusing it with Basil Dearden's THE BELLS GO DOWN made the same year which I saw when I was about ten. But whatever, this is an authentic masterpiece of British cinema made by Humphrey Jennings whom Lindsay Anderson called "a poet".  A simple story of a fire fighting crew during the London Docks Blitz is truly amazing and I think it effected me emotionally more than any film I saw during 2012.  Acted by a cast of real fire fighters ( one of them went on to have a very long career as a character actor) the film is grimly realistic and the fire scenes very convincing (they were staged for the film). My own step-father was an ambulance driver at London Docks during the blitz so the film has added interest for me.

Fires Were Started (1942)

JANUARY 1, 2013

001 ROGUE'S REGIMENT (1948) Directed by Robert Florey ***

French born Robert Florey was set to direct FRANKENSTEIN for Universal before he was usurped by James Whale. This was probably a blessing given the evidence of THE MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE. Florey has, at least, a couple of good films to his name, both starring the great Peter Lorre, THE FACE BEHIND THE MASK and THE BEAST WITH FIVE FINGERS. Mainly because one of its stars is Vincent Price I have wanted to see ROGUE'S REGIMENT for a long time and while it does not bear comparison with the two Lorre films it stands the test of time as a competent thriller - part post-war propaganda and part film noir. It is probably the first film to deal with the situation in Vietnam under French rule. Dick Powell is an American agent who joins the French Foreign Legion in Saigon while on the trail of a fugitive German war criminal played by the excellent and underrated Stephen (Horace) McNally. He is hindered in his investigation by illegal arms dealer, Vincent Price, who is running guns to the Viet Cong. The performances are excellent with the lovely Marta Toren as the sultry night club singer who is more than she seems.

Rogue's Regimen (1948)

FALL OF THE LOUSE OF USHER (2002)

The great thing about Ken Russell's FALL OF THE LOUSE OF USHER is that in the future when anybody prompts me to answer the killer question "What is the worst film you have ever seen" I will now be able to answer Ken Russell's FALL OF THE LOUSE OF USHER without hesitation.  It is, to put it is Biblical terms, an abomination. Not only is it an insult to Edgar Allan Poe it is far worse, it is Ken Russell pissing on his own talent. As I said in my piece when Ken passed away I was never an uncritical admirer of his cinema films, preferring his BBC work, but he had is moments. His increasingly silly films began to irritate me although I have a soft spot for LAIR OF THE WHITE WORM which works in a strange way all of its own. The film under discussion has little to do with the Poe story that inspires the pun of the title and seems to me to be the product of a sadly deranged mind - and I mean that quite seriously. Ken appears as mad Dr.Calahari (oh, yawn) and looks like he is a victim of the Red Death, although I was unsure if this was another reference to Poe or whether Ken was  suffering from some terrible skin affliction. Rating : 0

DON'T BE AFRAID OF THE DARK (2011)

I'm pretty forgiving when it comes to silly horror movies (see previous reviews). Sometimes the plot flaws and the general incompetence are part of the fun. When a lot of money is spent on a movie and things are sloppy it is a different game altogether. I was recently enjoying THE AWAKENING which is a pretty intelligent (for the most part) haunted house film.....then as the film builds to its climax it throws a surprise twist into the plot. Nothing wrong with that except that the trick that the scriptwriters have been playing on the audience turns out to be the same trick used by another very famous ghost film. After that we are hit with a plot contrivance that is so far fetched and unlikely that the film lost credibility for me. I still like THE AWAKENING fo r its atmosphere, performances, photography etc. but........you get my gripe.  DON'T BE AFRAID OF THE DARK is a remake of a dumb but enjoyable 1970's made-for-tv movie with Kim Darby.  People acted pretty stupidly in that movie. In the remake they take stupidity to a new level and the plot, which in its basics is an improvement on the original, has plot holes you could drive a bus through. It is technically very well made, looks great, has some terrifically nasty "fairies" and perfectly adequate performances....but, oh dear, the script!  Not written by hacks either as Guillermo del Torro and Matthew Robbins are the culprits.  A shame because this could have been a classic but instead it is just another very enjoyable dumb horror film....see I am forgiving. Director Troy Nixey may do something much better.  Guillermo del Torro is a worry. I've sort of liked all his films so far without becoming a fanboy.  I enjoyed the HELLBOY movies on a comic book level but his Spanish horror films (as both producer and director) while remaining a cut above the recent Hollywood fodder have all seemed to me to have two stories. I can see the point that they are trying to make - relating horror to war etc and applaud the attempt but for me the films remain a bit schizo as I don't think the stories gel together. He does, however, remain one of the more interesting genre artists around - especially now I've almost given up given up on Tim Burton. Rating ***