DANGEROUS MOONLIGHT (1941)

I've been after this film for a while now and was given a DVD by a friend only this weekend. The film, which is best remembered today for "The Warsaw Concerto" is a romantic drama about an American girl (Sally Gray) who meets and marries a concert pianist (played by Anton Walbrook) who had been one of the Polish pilots to escape from the German invasion in 1939. In America Walbrook resumes his concert career but is obsessed with returning to Europe to continue the fight against the nazis. The film is pretty ordinary in its execution but none the worse for that, although how much you enjoy it will probably depend on how big an Anton Walbrook fan you are. I enjoyed it immensely. Rating ***

OSSESSIONE (1943)

James M.Cain has been quite lucky with film adaptions of his novel The Postman Always Rings Twice. There have been two versions under the book's title - an excellent 4o's version by Tay Garnett with John Garfield and Lana Turner and a later rather good version by Bob Rafelson with Jack Nicholson and Jessica Lange. The first version, however, was made in wartime Italy by the great Luchino Visconti. It is a fascinating mixture of neo-realism and film noir and perfectly captures the seedy, sweaty atmosphere of the original novel. The stark black and white photography and austere settings are perfectly matched by the performances by Clara Calamai, Massimo Girotti and Juan de Lauda. I can;t say it is my favourite version but undoubtably it is the best. Rating *****

TONY CURTIS 1925 - 2010

Whenever possible I like to pass on personal memories of those film celebrities that I have been lucky enough to meet personally. Tony Curtis was one of those. It was sometime during the mid-60's that I was lucky enough to spend time in the presence of Tony and his then wife, the actress Christine Kaufman, in their suite at London's Savoy Hotel. I had just delivered some tickets to them and in the process of bringing them to the hotel I had been caught in a downpour of rain. Tony insisted on sending my jacket to be dried which took about twenty minutes. He was completely unaffected by his star status and talked about his early days working in Universal Studios. Despite his pretty boy looks (and he was ridiculously handsome even during the 60's) Curtis was a fine actor, as witness such films as THE OUTSIDER, SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS, SOME LIKE IT HOT, THE BOSTON STRANGLER, SPARTACUS, THE VIKINGS and others.Sadly, as the looks faded Tony didn't seem to handle it too well and he appeared in a succession of bizarre toupees and hats. In the last couple of years he seems to have found peace with himself. He was 85 when he died and it was a privilege to have shared 20 minutes or so of that remarkable life.

SHERLOCK HOLMES (2009)

Eighteen minutes into this film I thought "Why am I watching this piece of shit?".

CORRIE : THE ROAD TO CORONATION STREET (2010)

Charles Sturridge's television film based on actor/writer Tony Warren's fight to get his script for "Florizel Street" made by Granada Television is as perfect a piece of entertainment as I've seen on the box for many a day. It's easy to get snobby about soaps - I've given them up along with broadcast television - but I still remember clearly the day back in 1960 when CORONATION STREET(as it eventually became) first appeared on our screens. I was 14 at the time and now 50 years later it is still running. Like many I followed it for years and for many years I enjoyed it for its balance of drama and comedy. I was never a fanatical follower and it never worried me if I missed episodes but it was part of my life and there were many characters that I still feel genuinely fond of. This film tells how the show came into being, how the pivotal characters were cast and ends just as the first episode goes on air.I admit that I felt quite emotional watching it and loved the way that, like the show, it balanced the drama and comedy. It is helped enormously by casting that is near genius. David Dawson is superb as Tony Warren - keeping his portrayal of the then 22 year old writer just this side of camp - while it took me a good thirty minutes before I realised that the Canadian producer Harry Elton was played by none other than Christian Mackay who proves that he is more than a one trick pony after his portrayal of Orson Welles in ME AND ORSON WELLES. But Warren and Elton were behind the scenes faces and films of this kind can lose credibility if no attempt is made to cast the more familiar faces. Lynda Barron is magnificent as Violet Carson and Celia Imrie as regally perfect as Doris Speed. A nice touch was having James Roache play his own father William ("Well, it's only for 13 weeks")Roache but the real plaudets must go to actress Jessie Wallace(herself a veteran of over 500 episodes of EAST ENDERS) who gives a performance as Pat Phoenix that is so spookily accurate that it has to be seen to be believed. Steven Berkoff appears as Granada supremo Sidney Bernstein. Script is by Darren Little whose previous work includes EAST ENDERS, HOLLYOAKS and, of course, CORONATION STREET episodes. Rating ****

Claude Chabrol : A personal appreciation.

The death of Claude Chabrol has robbed the French Cinema and the world of one of its masters. Chabrol started is career as a film critic, one of the group which included his friends Francois Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard who gathered around the influential film journal Cahiers du Cinema. Along with Truffaut, Godard and others he moved on to become a film director and a leading light in the Nouvelle Vague movement that revolutionised French cinema and widely influenced the whole world of film making. Unlike Godard, but like Truffaut, Chabrol was a heart a traditional film-maker and his best films for me are those where he displays his love of classic films, particularly Alfred Hitchcock. But Chabrol was not a slavish imitator like Brian DePalma, his best films shared certain preoccupations with the master. His career embraced everything from literary classics like MADAME BOVARY to Euro-spy films like MARIE CHANTAL CONTRE DR.KHA and his two "TIGER" films - often made as commercial assignments when he neeed to raise money for more personal projects. He made DR. M which was a modern day Dr.Mabuse adventure and on television he even tackled FANTOMAS and Edgar Allan Poe. My favourites among his movies are LE SCANDALE, LA FEMME INFIDELE, THE BEAST MUST DIE, LE BOUCHER, JUSTE AVANTE LA NUIT, LES BICHES, TEN DAYS WONDER, THE HATTER'S GHOST and REINE NE VA PLUS. A favourite moment ? It has to be that heart rending look that passes between Stephane Audran and Michel Bouquet at the very end of LA FEMME INFIDELE - full of emotion but typically Chabrol achieves the effect by having the faces of his actors immobile and blank. Of Chabrol himself - his wonderful, very French, face domininated by his eyes so full of humour (and magnified by his glasses) indicate somebody who enjoyed life as much as he loved cinema. He was married to the beaufiful Stephane Audran who starred in many of his best films. R.I.P.

THE LOVELY BONES (2010)

I have no idea what the original novel that the film is based on is like although the only person I know who tried to read it hated it. The main problem with Peter Jackson's film version is it can't make up its mind what it wants to be. While it is earthbound it is fine but once we get to heaven we get lost in the too cute CGI effects - we might as well be in Oz with Dorothy. Films based on novels that have unconventional narrative structures are often better off ignoring them rather than finding a cinematic equivalent (am I alone in thinking that the film version of one of my favourite novels THE FRENCH LIEUTENANT'S WOMAN totally failed in this mission as well?) and here I kept imagining what a director like Hitchcock or even Claude Chabrol could have done with the story without the heavenly interludes. Given the course the film does take the plot just cries out for some sort of closure for its characters that is dramatically satisfying for its audience and even that is missing from the strangely schizophrenic film. Performances are exemplary with Stanley Tucci, Mark Wahlberg and Susan Sarandon being especially notable. Rating **