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Reviews
Jigsaw (1962)
A small masterpiece.
Now I knew the story of this film, because I'd read the novel it was based on, so the unmasking of the villain was no surprise. (And mindful of 'spoilers' I'm not going to say who it was here.) But what really makes this ingenious detective film stand out, is its brilliant script by Val Guest shifting the setting from Massachusets to Brighton, it is as tight as a drum, plays absolutely fair with the audience, and is a model of crispness and authority. The actors respond in kind, all performances are superb, but I must single out the ever reliable Michael Goodliffe, so good in everything he appears in as Clyde Burchard.
The setting, a seedy Brighton of 1962 is evocative, you feel the undercurrent of crime in every shot. Nothing is overlooked to hold you gripped in your chair until the denoument. Val Guest made another classic the same year, the sci-fi 'The Day the Earth Caught Fire' a picture of Fleet Street. These two films stand as his monument. Two of the best films to come out of Britain in the post war period.
The Dam Busters (1955)
A gleaming reminder.
Two of my all time heroes in one film. Two of my favourite actors. And the greatest title tune ever. We have been spoiled by 'The Dam Busters' the best war film ever made and I mean EVER. 'Saving Private Ryan'? No heart. Some people boringly evaluate films according to the sensitivities of today, and not when the film was made. Who cares about the dog's name? These men in Bomber Command were fighting real racial genocide and paying with their lives. God save us from such a thing happening again.
Barnes Wallis was such a brilliant chap, and Redgrave does him so well. He was actually working right up to his death at 90, he apparently designed a better plane than Concorde but the Government turned it down, surprise. And 'Gibbo' Guy Gibson, of course Richard Todd has only ever acted one way, but he is SO right in this film. Everything works. The cast are brilliant. Apart from the dodgy explosions the effects stand up very well. It is beautifully written.Gibson's simple line 'I have some letters to write' at the end says all that needs to be said without self indulgent emoting. People mistakenly confuse wearing your heart on your sleeve with 'caring'. I would sit these people down in front of The Dam Busters.' As the lessons of history are forgotten, as history is despised and untaught in schools, the statue of the Bomber Command chief Arthur Harris is defaced in London, a city that bore the brunt of German bombs unflinchingly, this film stands as a gleaming reminder of the time when we knew what we were fighting was right, and that we were the vanguard for Christian civilisation. That makes this classic film as much of an historical document as any of the greatest treasures of mankind. It has those messages and they are chrystal clear. And for that reason alone I might agree with a previous contributor and call it the greatest film ever made. The happiest of happy accidents. They could never make it again.
The tears run down my cheeks every time I see it. No 'love' story can do that. A wonderful, wonderful film.
Pygmalion (1938)
One of the greatest of all British films.
Perfect cinema. That was my reaction when I first saw Pygmalion, the first of 50 viewings and counting, and I still think so. Who could not fall in love with Leslie Howard, one of our greatest actors, so tragically assassinated in the Second World War? Wendy Hiller IS Eliza. The cast is flawless. The script... words fail me, for George Bernard Shaw was a genius, he did not simply adapt his play for the screen, it is so good that it is like it's happening before your eyes. My God, after seeing this is there anyone out there who thinks 'My Fair Lady', the slowest film musical on record, is the best screen version of Shaw? If they do, they are mad.
That film moves me not one jot, everything is so clean, so smug, so unreal. Here we see poverty, but also hope. These are not actors and actresses moving through the sets garbed in Cecil Beaton, but real people, real suffering, but humanity lights every scene like a beacon. The unbearably moving scenes of Eliza capturing society at the ball, the irresistible waltz, watch this with no tears in your eyes, I dare you. Halliwells Film Guide calls this 'one of the most heartening and adult British films of the thirties'. Too right. I cannot fault this film, it is priceless. By the way, I saw 'My Fair Lady' on stage recently, and it's miles better than the film version. Warner Bros really let Shaw down, and it's impossible to put it right. But this...well it is a big compensation. And I don't miss the songs one little bit.
There are so many classic scenes I can't pick any out. Of course viewers will spot that it was 'updated' to 1938, and the original play set in the Edwardians. That doesn't hurt it at all, 'polite' society didn't change much in the intervening years and gives the play an added 'contemporary' edge. Please, please, please see this film. You will be gripped.
Diana: Her True Story (1993)
Mainly hilarious, but sometimes moving.
Oh dear, oh dear, the very first Diana cash-in when she was still alive, I would really like to know if she ever saw this and what she thought. Many of the lines are almost beyond belief. Charles as played by David Threlfall is so beyond caricature, it is like watching a walking talking dummy from Madame Tussauds. The Queen: You must alter the substance of your relationship. Charles: There IS no substance to our relationship! And when Diana has either cut her wrist, or thrown herself downstairs, or run in tears from a reception, The Queen to Charles: What did you do THIS time! Although the costuming and sets are pretty good, small details like completely fictitious newspapers are irritating and I think unnecessary, it is recent history after all. Serena Scott Thomas plays Diana as a very wilful character more so than in Morton's book but affecting I think, and believable. We will never remember Diana through films like this of course, but this is an oddly moving though hilarious account of 12 tumultuous years, and although less said about the support cast especially those playing the royals the better, it is the best of the sorry crop of 'biofilms' on Diana. (Not a high recommendation.)
Titanic (1997)
Flawed, but with a touch of the sublime.
An extraordinary interest still exists in Cameron's film, still argument rages over just how good it is. The timing of its release was significant, the obsession with the film might be explained as a form of pre millennial tension at the close of the most murderous century the human race has known, a century which began with such hope and optimism, and in which the Titanic was ironically such a proud symbol.
'A Night to remember' was released amid worries about the Bomb and the feeling that science was again out of control. 'Titanic' amid millennial jitters. The most discussed aspect is the script, there are lines in the film that are moronic, irritating, senseless and just plain dumb. Others were quoted from the U.S.Senate Enquiry, which proves how people then had a better command of language than we do. Why do Jack and Rose board at Southampton when they've come from Paris? Why doesn't the diamond fall out of Rose's pocket going down with a sinking ship? Why doesn't she find it in her pocket on the Carpathia before reaching New York? Why is it that you can be rude to the ship's owner, assault and abuse the staff, 'fly' from an offlimits bow, run through boiler rooms and cargo holds, cause two stewards looking for you to drown, distract the lookouts, climb in and out of lifeboats, damage property, and NEVER get into trouble? Why do the steerage accept rich snooty first class gatecrashing their party? Why, why, why?
Too much time is spent on the wrapping footage, though the unseen sunken interiors are breathtaking. The taste of showing the Titanic sinking like a computer game in front of a survivor isn't questioned. The dissolve of the wreck into the pristine ship packs an emotional wallop every time. Winslet isn't a great actress, she plays the same in every film. On Leo, when Titanic leaves port in a classic series of images, we feel his joy. But it's downhill from here.
The engine room montage is another classic, but it's looking artificial. Murdoch's feet are all over the deck. The ship looks like it's populated by the Thunderbirds.
Relief, Victor Garber arrives as Thomas Andrews and gives the dialogue meaning, conviction, dignity and charm, quite a feat since thanks to Cameron's warped priorities he only speaks two lines. A thing apparent in Rose is how lacking in charm she is, lighting up at table, and indelicate. No Edwardian. And as this film isn't subtle, but whacks you on the head and biffs you in the stomach we must have the class speech straight away. Tommy Ryan is the most irritating character I've seen on screen and completely unlike any Irish I've met. The next situation isn't credible. Isn't there a better way of introducing these two than the unbelievable jumping off the stern. There is one good line in the dull walk and talk that a first class wench would have said 'This is MY part of the ship' huffs Rose. But with the spit scene any hopes of a romantic wallow are dead.
The cheek of the dinner party is how Jack Dawson, somebody who if Rose had chopped his hand off with the axe, would have been pushed to earn a living, has the temerity to lecture a brilliant engineer, a captain with 40 years experience and captains of industry on how to live life, when he hasn't started shaving himself. We need a unmaterialistic message in films, even if it would come better from a director who hadn't overspent his budget by $100million. But the portrayal of rich and poor is straight out of a propaganda film for the gulag.
It's a pity, there is such a brilliant Irish band on board, and there aren't equally brilliant dancers.
Whether the film has a Christian message at the core or if it's proclaiming that doing your own thing is more important, it's hard to say. The divine service was open to all classes so Jack being turned away is misleading and pointless. A stunning scene on the bow but there hasn't been a romantic exchange yet between this couple that convinces us. Such models of taste and discernment and the brightest thing they say about Monet is that his use of colour is extraordinary. The funniest line in film history: 'This is a ship, only so many places she could be'. The next shot: Titanic bowling merrily along. A thousand rooms!
The iceberg finally turns up, the collision is breathtaking, the acting top notch and inseparable from the historical event even if Titanic hits the only iceberg in the whole Atlantic. The surreal party with music and lifejackets shows Cameron can write. Sometimes. But Jack manacled up is tedious and the crew wouldn't have done that on a sinking ship. The real story is lost in Rose running around. The lifeboats when we see them are done far better than any other version, and the timeline makes perfect sense.
Titanic alone and helpless, a tiny ship with a futile rocket in an empty ocean is inspired. The film takes on a different dimension and has a touch of the sublime. The images that accompany the hymn are elegiac and perfect. The choreography around the last two boats can't be surpassed. Now we do feel a sense of the panic and despair. The water through the dome, a baptism of fire. No one can fail to be moved by the 20 minutes of terrible destruction. The lifeboat scenes couldn't have been done better, and the Carpathia is a painting brought to life. How exactly Rose retains her incognito through the years when she's a publicized actress, an aviator and everything else in the known universe isn't explained. The ending is a straight pinch from 'Somewhere in time' which did a better job of a love story set in 1912.
The frustrating thing is how many things ARE done well. There are gems of writing and acting. It looks terrific. But it proves that you can recreate the cutlery, carpets, staterooms, clothes, but it's so much harder to recreate history. It isn't 1912. And half the film isn't Titanic.