Alec Guinness plays a man who believes he has found the secret to happiness - a wife in every port, who each fulfill different needs: the red-blooded good-time girl in North Africa, and the homely matron in Gib. Needless to say, the unraveling starts in the 2nd reel and by the 3rd the cat is well and truly among the pigeons. The twist at the end is breathtaking, and you walk away wishing that you too could pull this off. Typical British fare of the era, no sex, no profanity, just plenty of Alec Guinness Being Alec Guinness - lighthearted fluff, lots of fun. To the person who says they're speaking the "wrong" language - Gibraltar is attached to Spain, and there's quite a bit of it spoken there. What they're speaking in Cali isn't Spanish, but some wonderful melange of Spanish, cod-Arabic, and something else. The implication is that Cali is a Spanish enclave, halfway between Spain (civilised, European), and The Dark Continent (wild, lawless, full of forbidden promise).
Reviews
5 Reviews
No Limit
(1935)
Love It!
4 April 2006
The greatest movie of all time this isn't. I don't think it ever tried to be. It's a vehicle of George "oooh, mother!" Formby and his ukelele, in an era when Vaudeville was coughing up blood and there was a pool of talent going idle (assuming you consider the ukelele a talent!). It's lots of fun, and entirely predictable - underdog battles the odds, has a few scrapes, but gets the girl (and other things) in the end, baddies roundly thrashed, and all to the strains of the obligatory musical numbers that permeate the movie. I grew up on the Isle of Man and used to marshal on the TT course - there wasn't a year went by that at least one rider didn't have his machine painted in the Shuttleworth Snap checkerboard pattern, such is the legacy of this movie in the road-racing fraternity. Filmed almost entirely on location, it cuts in archive race footage (amazing to see what's changed and what hasn't) and it's sublimely ridiculous. If you're a road-racer, or know people who are, this is a must. For everyone else, it's a maybe. Bizarrely, in the scene at the beginning of the big race, there is a swastika flag flying from the grandstand. It's customary to fly the flags of all of the countries that the competitors are from, and I guess in 1936 there were German riders - still, it's a little strange to see it there, looks out of place.
Private's Progress
(1956)
Just the ticket
17 January 2006
Growing up in England we are blessed to have the comedic genii of the Boulting Brothers and Ealing Studios. Films like Kind Hearts & Cornets, the Lavender Hill Mob, and School for Scoundrels, comedies that make us root for the crook even though we know (thanks to censorship) that they won't get away with it. Private's Progress (the precursor to I'm Alright Jack) is in the same mould. The sublime Ian Carmichael, the Machiavellian Terry-Thomas, the spivvy Richard Attenborough, the slightly otherworldly John LeMesurier - perfect stereotypes of post-war Albion. Movies like this are made to be watched on wet Sunday afternoons, cozy slippers and a pot of tea, perhaps even a biscuit or two or a slice of rich fruitcake dense with candied peel and other goodies. Safe to watch with your Auntie Doris (no sex, violence or swearing, no sir), a film that carries itself purely on a clever script and a rattling pace. Complete fluff, of course, but just the ticket as the winter's evening closes in and you're dreading returning to work on Monday. File under pretty much anything from that era with Alec Guinness (may his name be praised), Sink the Bismark, Ice Cold in Alex, Rommell, or Dambusters. British through and through, and a jolly good thing too. They don't make movies like this anymore, more's the pity.
Runaway Jury
(2003)
Nice film, shame about the ending
20 October 2003
Warning: Spoilers
CAUTION - this comment contains spoilers!!
Until the last 30 minutes of the film, it manages to keep the audience guessing with plot twists and turns. Unfortunately the last half hour descends into sentimentalism, to the point where you can see the climax coming a mile off. John Cuskak's repeated reference to his pocket watch (he looks at it 3 times, and discusses it with Gene Hackman) is never fully explained - why was it significant? We can see a black-and-white photograph in the inside of the case - who is it of? What's the significance of it being a 1910 Longines (perhaps it belonged to his father, who was shot??)? Why would he have been so careless as to leave the i-Pod in his apartment, when everything else was over at his girlfriend's place? And why are we treated to a glurge-ific ending about a school shooting 20 years ago, which pretty much holds up a neon sign reading "Anyone who can't guess how this will turn out, here's a big clue." To be honest, this could have been a great heist/caper movie, but perhaps as a result of audience testing the ending failed to live up to the fast-pace of the previous 80 minutes. Bottom line: if you want a film about how mean and evil gun-makers are, watch this film. If not, save your cash.
Until the last 30 minutes of the film, it manages to keep the audience guessing with plot twists and turns. Unfortunately the last half hour descends into sentimentalism, to the point where you can see the climax coming a mile off. John Cuskak's repeated reference to his pocket watch (he looks at it 3 times, and discusses it with Gene Hackman) is never fully explained - why was it significant? We can see a black-and-white photograph in the inside of the case - who is it of? What's the significance of it being a 1910 Longines (perhaps it belonged to his father, who was shot??)? Why would he have been so careless as to leave the i-Pod in his apartment, when everything else was over at his girlfriend's place? And why are we treated to a glurge-ific ending about a school shooting 20 years ago, which pretty much holds up a neon sign reading "Anyone who can't guess how this will turn out, here's a big clue." To be honest, this could have been a great heist/caper movie, but perhaps as a result of audience testing the ending failed to live up to the fast-pace of the previous 80 minutes. Bottom line: if you want a film about how mean and evil gun-makers are, watch this film. If not, save your cash.
My New Partner
(1984)
Flippin' Marvellous
23 June 2003
Came across this film years ago, the french teacher at school put the video to keep us quiet; thought it was brilliant then. Caught it by accident the other night on cable - its got better with age!! The characters are superbly drawn and believable, the plot just bizarre enough to work. Which begs the question, why isn't it available on DVD? Or if it is, where?
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