Category: Classic Films

Film Review: The Man Who Never Was

I’m even more excited than usual to be writing a review of this British-made Second World War drama because not only does it tell an incredible story based on actual wartime events but also because it follows on rather satisfyingly from an earlier article I scribbled entitled ‘Podcasts – an alternative to bad TV’. For it was while listening to a podcast from the unfailingly listenable Sarah and Deblina from ‘Stuff You Missed In History Class’ that I learned all about “Operation Mincemeat” – a highly devious and clandestine plan British Intelligence cooked up in 1943 to deceive the Nazis into thinking a planned Allied invasion of Sicily would take place elsewhere.

 

The Man Who Never Was was made in 1956 and, directed by that stalwart of British cinema Ronald Neame, it tells how that deception was accomplished. Neame produced such celebrated pictures as Brief Encounter, Great Expectations and Oliver Twist in the 1940s before turning director in ’47 and delivering such cinematic gold as Tunes of Glory, The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie and The Poseidon Adventure. His career, from humble assistant cameraman on the first ever “talkie” made in England went on to span six decades and he was awarded the CBE in the 1996 Queen’s Birthday Honours List for his services to the film industry.

 

The film is based on the book of the same name by Ewen Montagu who, while serving as a Lt. Cmdr. in Naval intelligence during WWII was responsible for conceiving “Operation Mincemeat”. Clifton Webb portrays him in the picture. The premise of the story is that in order to attempt to divert German forces away from Sicily, an invasion of which the Allies have planned in order to open up the Mediterranean to Allied shipping, a deception is needed to convince the Germans that the Allied objective is really Greece and Sardinia.

 

“Operation Mincemeat” came into being when an idea was suggested to Montagu early in 1943 that if a dead man carrying top-secret documents which contained intelligence about a fake invasion was to fall into enemy hands and that if those documents were convincing enough to be believed, the Germans might move part of their forces from Sicily to Greece and Sardinia, thereby sparing the lives of countless Allied troops during the real invasion. Of course, even if the plan was given the green light by his superiors, where would Montagu get a dead body and if he did, what of the moral dilemma? After all, “Every body belongs to somebody and it isn’t a thing people want messed about” runs a line in the film. Also how would Montagu convince the Germans that the dead body was the sort of person who would be carrying such sensitive documents and equally, how would he convince them that the documents themselves are genuine etc etc? It’s almost guaranteed that the German High Command would investigate the man and the documents for authenticity.

 

It’s an absolutely fascinating story and the film does a great job of re-telling it. The lengths that Montagu and his small team go to to create a fictitious “life” for the corpse that they acquire is extraordinary – the dead body belonged to a Welsh man named Glyndwr Michael in life but then became Captain William Martin of the Royal Marines in death. Even though the film adds just a little fictitious sparkle to proceedings, the level of detail written into the screenplay lends the film a great sense of realism. The pace throughout the hundred or so minutes of the movie is steady rather than spectacular but it promotes genuine intrigue and it builds to a wonderfully tense conclusion thanks to the introduction of an Irish spy played by Stephen Boyd. Although this latter character was a complete fabrication, Montagu later said he was happy with it because despite the fact that there wasn’t a spy involved, there may well have been.

 

“A dead man goes to war!” cried one of the taglines that went with the film upon its release and with that, I’ll reveal no more as to how exactly that happens – it’s definitely worth checking out. But I will say that the cast is top notch – lots of familiar faces from a golden age of British cinema including Laurence Naismith, Geoffrey Keen and Michael Hordern while Ewan Montagu himself has a cameo role of an Air-Vice Marshal. There’s even a romance entwined within the plot which, as you will see, becomes a crucial subplot to maintaining the deception’s secrecy.

 

All in all, it’s a terrific film telling a fantastic and extraordinary true story. I shall end by simply saying you never what you can learn from podcasts. I knew nothing about this covert operation until a few days ago but now I’m all the more educated for learning about it and to see it told well in a film is a satisfying bonus. Thanks Sarah and Deblina from ‘Stuff You Missed In History Class’. I eagerly await your next episode.

 

E.T. Gets His Guns Back

Anyone for whom the 1982 film “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial” is a treasured childhood memory will have shared my rage when, back in 2002, Steven Spielberg and his producer Kathleen Kennedy digitally disarmed the cops pursuing the cute alien and his human pal, replacing their firearms with walkie-talkies. At the time, Ms Kennedy had worked hard to placate fans, explaining that Spielberg had always regretted the presence of weapons in the film and had thought it nonsensical that police would have tooled up to go chasing children (um, children and an alien, and this is America, but hey, who am I to stereotype?). This edit, one of many made for the theatrical re-release of the movie to mark its 20th anniversary, has been lambasted and quite shamelessly parodied since, particularly by the satirical geniuses behind South Park (the “Free Hat” episode). And there’s a good reason for the reaction: swapping out guns for walkie-talkies was a damn silly thing to do, and quite frankly smacked of an aging man getting embarrassingly jiggy with new technology in an attempt to reconnect wiv da kidz.

Well, it would seem that over the next nine years Mr Spielberg had a change of heart, and by 2011 had admitted that he regretted this “pointless” alteration of what is arguably his greatest film ever. (Seems Spielberg has a lot of regrets – I hope the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is one of them.) I’m sure that fans and geeks everywhere will be ecstatic to hear that, in the 30th anniversary Blu-ray edition of ET, which will be released in Autumn 2012, the walkie-talkies are out and the guns are back in. Hell, I’m happy enough, and I don’t even have a Blu-ray player.

I can understand that directors, like many artists, are rarely wholly satisfied with their finished product and are often itching to tinker with it – take Picasso, for example, who would keep paintings back, sometimes for years, in order to continue adding to them – or Leonardo da Vinci, who reputedly said that art is never finished, only abandoned. But when your work has had such a positive effect on so many people, shouldn’t you just be content? With that level of impact, is it even really “yours” to tinker with anymore? Or do you make like Mr Lucas and insist that “my movie, with my name on it, that says I did it, needs to be the way I want it”? There are those who say that art is inherently selfish, but when you sell your art to others, it kinda becomes theirs.

Film Review: How Green Was My Valley

Not that it holds any significance but the first time I heard of this movie was during an episode of Frasier, that sitcom, which in this reviewer’s opinion, is quite possibly the cleverest and finest ever produced. Intrigued by Doctor Crane’s appraisal of the film, I sought out a copy to see why that pompous Seattle-based shrink regarded it so highly. And as the end credits rolled, I could do nothing more than concur with the good Doctor’s assessment. It truly is a masterpiece. It was nominated for ten Academy Awards and ended up winning five including Best Picture and Best Director – this in a year when such future classics as Sergeant York, Citizen Cane and The Maltese Falcon were also competing.

Set in a small coal-mining town in the South Wales Valleys at the end of the nineteenth century, the film follows the lives of the Morgan family, told in retrospect through occasional narrations by the youngest of the clan, Huw (a splendid performance by a twelve year old Roddy McDowell). It follows them through socio-economic upheaval, the passing of a way of life and the disintegration of their close-knit family unit. It is at once moving, tragic and uplifting.

Director John Ford (who, with a total of four, holds the record for most Best Director Oscars won) was always adept at giving us the idyllic family scenario and never more so than here. Living in a frugal household with five brothers – all coal-miners like their father – and a sister (the breathtakingly lovely Maureen O’Hara), Huw’s childhood seems perfect as the film begins. Love and respect abides in his home while the surrounding Welsh countryside (filming actually took place in the Santa Monica Mountains) is beautiful and not yet spoiled by the byproducts of mining. With moments of simple humour, Ford gives us a vision that is almost fairytale in its wholehearted goodness.

But then, trouble casts a shadow across this happy existence when the owner of the mine reduces the wages he pays. The miners strike in protest but not before Huw’s father Gwilym (Donald Crisp) fails to attempt a mediation and ends up estranged from the other miners as well as all his sons bar Huw.

Along with this economic turmoil that tears apart the very fabric of the townspeople’s existence, Ford interweaves a story of forbidden love between Huw’s sister Angharad (O’Hara) and the town’s new priest Mr Gruffydd (Walter Pidgeon) who refuses to act on her declaration of love because he cannot expect a wife to share his life of spiritual servitude, however dutiful she may be. We also get our heartstrings pulled during Huw’s first few days at school when he encounters bullying but then they are gratifyingly massaged back into place when his unkind headmaster becomes an unwilling pupil himself, albeit fleetingly. It’s a touching moment that will make you laugh and cheer.

The film gives us a glimpse of the political changes happening in the world at the time, when younger workers bandied together in unions to fight against unfairness from their employers, an idea that might have produced a bad taste in the mouths of the town seniors, but things were a-changing and the time-honoured moralities and simple ways of the past were sadly slipping into history. Tragic indeed but no one can stop the locomotion of progress!

For some reason, this film flew below my radar for many years (as did It’s A Wonderful Life) and after watching it, I thought, “How could I not have seen this before?” But ultimately, the satisfaction comes from finding them, however eventual that may be because for true Filmofiles (if there is such a term), it’s one of life’s great pleasures to unearth a classic that has passed you by.

A truly remarkable film from a truly remarkable film-maker.

Film Review: North By Northwest

If ever there were to be a radio programme called Desert Island DVDs and (unlikely I know but) in the event that I were to find myself one of the show’s castaways, invited on to divulge eight film titles I would want with me on that small sandy speck amidst a turquoise sea, North By Northwest would most definitely be one of those eight. These two hours and sixteen minutes of pure Tinseltown magic have enthralled me many times over the years and I hold an unwavering certainty that they will do so each and every time I decide to view them in the future.

This most spectacular of all Hitchcock’s thrillers can surely lay claim to be a Blockbuster movie years before the term was widely bandied about by the Hollywood marketing machine. It has everything that a rip-roaring edge-your-seat adventure flick should. Even before the MGM lion (uniquely seen here against a green background) has cleared its throat, Bernard Herrmann’s stunning soundtrack sets the mood with its menacing intro of timpani and double bass. It builds quickly into a full-on orchestral frenzy, an unmistakable musical interpretation of a chase which, after all, is the theme at the very heart of the movie.

The opening title sequence designed by Saul Bass is a thing of beauty too and is supposedly the first feature film to use kinetic typography in its title. This is an animation technique that uses moving text to evoke an emotion or idea, in this case, the moving titles against a backdrop of an office building give the impression of a lift (or in U.S. parlance, elevator) going up and down. Watch it, it’s terrific. It’s artful.

The film stars arguably that most debonair of all leading men ever to have graced the silver screen, Cary Grant. Grant plays Roger Thornhill, a New York advertising executive who happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and gets mistaken for a government spy and shortly after, a murderer to boot and from then on, he’s a fugitive after the truth to prove his innocence while trying to evade the good guys as well as the bad. I shall refrain from divulging any more detail of the plot and instead encourage anyone who hasn’t seen it to do so very soon because it really is about as fine a mystery/thriller as you are ever likely to see.

The original screenplay was penned by Ernest Lehman who stated that he wanted to write “the Hitchcock picture to end all Hitchcock pictures” and he was nominated for an Academy Award for his efforts. It’s an absolute cracker of a script, full of intrigue and sophisticated dialogue, wit and wonderful locations plus it includes two of cinemas most iconic sequences, one involving a crop-duster plane and the other a climb over the heads of spectacular Mount Rushmore. Once seen, never forgotten.

Hitchcock’s masterpiece it may not be, scholars and critics tend to reserve that particular appellation for Vertigo or Psycho but North By Northwest is not without its share of praise. The American Film Institute rank it highly in many of their 100 Years of… categories and seventh in their 10 Top 10 Mystery films. The film’s name has influenced a music festival in Texas “South By Southwest” and numerous scenes from it have been parodied on TV shows such as Family Guy. The grey suit worn by Cary Grant throughout most of the movie even has its own accolade. In 2006, a panel of fashion experts brought together by GQ magazine named it the best suit in film history as well as the most influential on men’s style. Apparently, it has since been copied for Tom Cruise in Collateral and Ben Affleck in Paycheck.

But perhaps this is delving a little too deep and some of you might say, “Oh come on, it’s only a film, after all.” Nevertheless, only a film it may be, but when a collection of highly talented individuals come together and work as a team they can sometimes produce something extremely worthwhile and having already recommended this film for viewing several paragraphs ago, I will end with the admission that that is how I regard the two hours and sixteen minutes of this movie – extremely worthwhile!

Film Review: So Long at the Fair

This period mystery made in 1950 and starring a very young and incredibly beautiful Jean Simmons really is a little known gem of British cinema and I highly recommend it to anyone who hasn’t seen it. Chances are, a good number of you haven’t even heard of it because it rarely crops up on anyone’s list of must-see movies. But do yourself a favour and don’t let that put you off – it’ll grip you from beginning to end!

Simmons plays Vicky Barton, who along with her brother Johnny (David Tomlinson – perhaps better known for his roles in Bedknobs and Broomsticks and Mary Poppins) is en route from Naples to the Paris Exposition of 1889. She is brimming with excitement at her first visit to the French capital and can’t wait to be one of the first people to climb the new Eiffel Tower. Johnny though is more reserved, one might even describe him as stuffy but he’s willing to endure the sightseeing to please his dear little sister. Vicky is keen to stay in Paris for at least a week but he’s only booked their hotel rooms for two nights and doubts whether they will be able to extend their booking on account of the crowds that have descended on the city for the Expo. He’s also tired and keen to get home to England.

On arrival at their hotel, Vicky and her brother are welcomed by owner and manager Madame Hervé (Cathleen Nesbitt), a chalk cliff-faced widower if ever there was one and she gives them the keys to their rooms, 17 and 19. Johnny is about to sign the hotel register when he is distracted by a missing item of luggage and while he pops outside to their coach to retrieve it, Vicky signs the register instead. After having settled into their rooms, Vicky drags poor tired Johnny out for a night on the town and following dinner they head to Moulin Rouge where she encounters George Hathaway (Dirk Bogarde), a charming young artist living in Paris. However, George is with friends and so their encounter is only brief.

Back at the hotel, Vicky leaves her brother in the lobby to enjoy a nightcap and she heads up to her room with the threat that she’ll drag him out of bed at 9 in the morning. As Johnny enjoys his drink, George appears with his friends who just so happen to be staying in the same hotel. He asks Johnny if he has change for a 100 franc note because he doesn’t have anything smaller to pay his cab fare but the best Johnny can do is lend him 50 francs, which he does. George promises to pay him back in the morning. And so nightcap imbibed, exhausted Johnny finally retires to his bed behind door number 19.

In the morning when Vicky trots down the corridor towards her brother’s room his door isn’t where she thought it was and on closer inspection, door number 19 opens to reveal a communal bathroom. Assuming she must have remembered his room number wrongly, she asks Madame Hervé which room her brother is in to which she is told – “Your brother? But surely you are here alone.’ Startled, she asks the hotel porter who confirms that she arrived on her own and the register backs up their story because only her name is in it. In fact, there’s no evidence of her brother at all, not even the room he was supposed to have taken. And so begins a wonderfully paced yarn full of Victorian etiquette and charm that will keep you guessing right up to the end.

I would be doing you a disservice if I revealed the rest of the plot so I won’t but I will say that Vicky seeks help from the dashing young George who is only too happy to come to this fair maiden’s aid. Simmons is just terrific as the confused and rather helpless innocent abroad and Bogarde plays his part of the raffish young hero as easily as he does in many of his movies. The sets and costumes are splendid as are the exterior shots; you’d never guess it was filmed entirely at Pinewood and to add to the film’s overall authenticity many of the British supporting cast (who are all excellent by the way), speak French like natives. The audience is not distracted by unnecessary subtitles either and it works because even if you don’t understand the language, you understand body language. Sometimes a shrug of the shoulders or a wave of a hand can relate as much as any line of dialogue.

Written by Hugh Mills and Anthony Thorne and directed by Terence Fisher and Antony Darnborough the film has parts that will make you giggle and others that will send a shiver down your spine. Imagine being a stranger in a strange land with no money and very little knowledge of your environment only to be told the person you arrived with (and more worryingly your guardian – the person who was looking after you) was but a figment of your imagination! A hard to imagine scenario, isn’t it but scary nonetheless. But did it really happen? Well, according to legend it did (with a slight variation on the characters) although there is no evidence to back up this claim (sounds like poor young Vicky).

So Long at the Fair is an intriguing British noir, a dark little tale set in the city of light. It’s worth a look for many reasons not least because there’s something frighteningly real about it. Has such a thing really happened before? And in today’s complicated and technologically advanced world could such a scenario happen at all? Surely not. But just suppose the day before the opening ceremony at London 2012…

Film Review – “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre”

Collaborating for a third time were star Humphrey Bogart and writer/director John Huston in this 1948 classic. They would go on to make a total of six movies together including The Maltese Falcon and The African Queen and all I can say to that is – like eggs and bacon, some partnerships were just meant to be!

Some films thrill us with their stunning visuals and intricate plots that weave and wend through a patchwork of location changes and character allegiances; some make us laugh from witty dialogue or weep from a deep emotional connection but then others simply lay bare, in all its divine glory or unholy horror, the spirit of humankind.

The Treasure of the Sierra Madre has one of the seven deadly sins at its core but in spite of its heavy theme, it remains surprisingly entertaining. That’s what a great writer can achieve and Huston was rewarded with the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay for his troubles. He also took home the Award for Best Director and just to keep things in the family, his father (Walter Huston) took home the statue for Best Supporting Actor.

In 1920s Mexico, American drifter Fred C. Dobbs (Humphrey Bogart) and fellow vagrant Bob Curtin (Tim Holt), find themselves begging for food in the small town of Tampico because they’ve been cheated out of several days wages by an unscrupulous contractor. In a frowsy boarding house, they meet grizzly old-timer Howard (Walter Huston) who captivates them with his tales of gold prospecting and it doesn’t take long before their heads are filled with dreams of striking it rich in the Sierra Madre mountains. After Dobbs and Curtin allow their fists to persuade the swindling contractor to cough up what he owes them, they purchase prospecting equipment and together with Howard, they head up into the hills in search of their fortune.

Howard, the old-timer has been on this fortune trail before and is all too aware of the perils they face. He explains about the bandits and the inhospitable elements and he also warns about the danger they present to each other. “I know what gold does to men’s souls”, he says. It’s clear from the outset, when Dobbs promises that everything will work out dandy and that any gold they find will be split three ways, that Howard is the least convinced of the three.

With Howard’s knowledge of the mountain together with his mining know-how, they begin to extract their gold. The work is filthy and hard but their labours continue and the gold piles up. Greed soon comes into camp though and Dobbs becomes increasingly distrustful of his partners to the point of being terrified they will kill him. Sleep becomes something all three attempt to avoid in order to stay alive but then a fourth American, James Cody appears on the scene thereby setting up a moral debate regarding the sharing out of the gold. Paranoia increases, bandits turn up, guns are fired and the ending is a bitter irony and a lesson to be learned.

This film is a far cry from the cool sophistication of Bogart’s earlier Huston-directed efforts and in this he’s about as charming as a scorpion in your lunchbox but all in all, it’s a cracker of a movie. Walter Huston takes the honour of finest performance though and indeed, it was rumoured that he was asked by the director (his son) to tone down his performance so as not to steal the movie from Bogart. It is noted for being one of the first Hollywood films to be shot almost entirely on location outside the U.S and is quite faithful to B. Traven’s novel of the same name on which it is based.

If you haven’t seen it yet, lucky you. Go rent it or better still, buy it because you’ll want to see it more than once for sure. It’s a title that appears in numerous top 100 polls, it includes an iconic quote about “stinking badges” and best of all, it’s devoid of any visual flab so common in mediocre moviemaking. It’s bare boned, gritty and powerful; cinematic storytelling at its very best.