Friday, March 08, 2024

Mar 7th  
The Thief of Bagdad**  
(US 1924)
126m. bw. silent

An agile thief wins the hand of the Caliph's daughter as well as defending the city from a Mongol invasion.
Lavish Fairbanks fantasy in which much of the interest and imagination is to be found in the latter half of the film.

Written by: Achmed Abdullah, Lotta Woods, Douglas Fairbanks.
Producer: Douglas Fairbanks.
Director: Raoul Walsh.
Starring: Douglas Fairbanks, Julianne Johnston, Snitz Edwards, Sojin Kaniyama, Charles Belcher, Anna May Wong, Brandon Hurst, Noble Johnson.
Photography: Arthur Edeson.
Production Design: William Cameron Menzies.

Music Composer/Conductor: Carl Davis.

Preceded by:
The New Cardinal*
(Czech 2024. 10m.; Identical twin brothers, one a priest and the other a strip club owner, come to terms with each other's role in life.; w, d: Matej Stepan; s: Scott Sophos, Diana Dulinkova. ph: Ales Svoboda.)



Wednesday, February 28, 2024

Feb 27th  
Sarafina!**   
(US/GB/Fra/South Africa 1992)
Hollywood Pictures/Miramax/Distant Horizon. 98m.

A Soweto schoolgirl dreams of becoming a star amidst the background against the Apartheid regime.
Refreshingly unusual political musical which works best away from the violent moments by expressing its political points in song and dance.

Written by: William Nicholson, Mbongeni Ngema, based on his stage musical. 
Producer: Anant Singh.
Director: Darrell James Roodt.
Starring: Leleti Khumalo, Whoopi Goldberg, Miriam Makeba, Mbongeni Ngema, Dumisani Diomini, John Kani, Sipho Kunene.
Photography: Mark Vicente.
Music: Stanley Myers.
Songs: Mbongeni Ngema, Hugh Masekala.
Choreography: Mbongeni Ngema, Michael Peters.

Preceded by:
The Perils of Pauline*
(Chapter 1: Trial by Fire)
(US 1914. Electic Films. 29m. bw; First instalment of the quintessential damsel in distress story in serial form, quite daringly film in places and with sincere enough performances within its rudimentary melodramatic function.; w: Charles W. Goddard, George B. Seitz; d: Louis J. Gasnier, Donald MacKenzie; s: Pearl White, Crane Wilbur, Paul Panzer, Francis Carlyle; ph: Arthur C. Miller.)

(US 1914. 


Saturday, February 10, 2024

Feb 10th   
The Boys in the Boat*
  (12A)      
(Electric Palace, Harwich)     

(US 2023)       
MGM/Smokehouse/Spyglass Media Group. 124m. ws

An impoverished student joins the University of Washington junior rowing team, that becomes strong enough to compete in the 1936 Berlin Olympics.
Well filmed sporting drama with most of the cliches firmly in place. A little more of the context of the period might have helped.

Written by: Mark L. Smith, from the book by Daniel James Brown.
Producers: Grant Heslov, George Clooney.
Director: George Clooney.
Starring: Callum Turner, Joel Edgerton, Peter Guinness, Jack Mulhern, James Wolk, Hadley Robinson, Alec Newman.
Photography: Martin Ruhe.
Music: Alexandre Desplat.
Editing: Tanya M. Swerling.

+ shot mostly in UK

Tuesday, February 06, 2024

Feb 6th  
Krull*   

(GB 1983)                
Columbia/Barclays Mercantile. 121m. Panavision

A planet-marauding beast kidnaps the bride of the King of planet Krull, and he tries to rescue her with the aid of rogues and wizards.
Dull science fantasy combining familiar elements of Star Wars and Tolkien. Engaging and not unimaginative, but also uneven.

Written by: Stanford Sherman. 
Producer: Ron Silverman.
Director: Peter Yates. 
Starring: Ken Marshall, Lysette Anthony, Freddie Jones, Alum Armstrong, David Battley, Bernard Bresslaw, Francesca Annis, Liam Neeson, Robbie Coltrane, Todd Carty, John Welsh, Bernard Archard.
Photography: Peter Suschitzky.
Music: James Horner.
Special Effects: Derek Meddings, Brian Johnson.

Preceded by:
Tom and Jerry in  
Professor Tom* 
 
(US 1948. 7m.; d: William Hannah, Joseph Barbera; p: Fred Quimby.)



Tuesday, January 30, 2024

Jan 30th
Perfect Understanding*
  
(GB 1932)
United Artists/Gaumont British. 85m. bw

An American marries handsome Englishman in spite of the continued interest of his former sweetheart.
Stylish although slightly artificial vehicle for its star/producer, a romantic comedy with unnecessary serious tone adopted later, but an interesting historical item both for its stars and the era in which it was  made (between the wars Berlin briefly appears in a montage.)

Written by: Miles Malleson, Michael Powell.
Producer: Gloria Swanson.
Director: Cyril Gardner.
Starring: Gloria Swanson, Laurence Olivier, John Halliday, Nora Swinburne, Nigel Playfair, Michael Farmer, Genevieve Tobin, Charles Cullum, Miles Malleson.
Photography: Curt Courant.
Music: Henry Sullivan.

Preceded by:
Dog Factory  
(US 1904. 5m. bw. silent; Two peddlars turn sausages into dogs (and vice versa) for various prospective customer.; d: Edwin S. Porter.)

Preceded by:
Megalopolis*
(2016. Generally effective "fan trailer" for Francis Coppola's often-in-production cherished project.; d: Marine Maloy.)


PERFECT UNDERSTANDING. Gloria Swanson from the days when, like Norma Desmond, she was looking for a comeback from Silents into Sound, and Laurence Olivier from the days when he was still trying to make a name for himself on both stage and screen.

Friday, January 26, 2024


Jan 26th
One Life**
(12A)  
(Electric Palace, Harwich)   

(GB 2023)    

Warner Bros/BBC Films/See-Saw/MBK/Cross City Films/FilmNation Entertainment/Lipsync. 110m.

Elderly retired stockbroker Nicholas Winton looks back on his experiences in 1938 rescuing children from pre-war Prague.
Moving variation on Schindler's List, less stylized and playing sometimes on the easily sentimental, but the main performances do just the job, with Hopkins in good form harking back to his Shadowlands days.

Written by: Lucinda Coxon, Nick Drake, from the book "If It's Not Impossible: The Life of Sir Nicholas Winton" by Barbara Winton.
Producers: Joanna Laurie, Ian Canning, Emile Sherman, Guy Heeley.
Director: James Hawes.
Starring: Anthony Hopkins, Johnny Flynn, Helena Bonham-Carter, Lena Olin, Romola Garai, Alex Sharp, Jonathan Pryce, Samantha Spiro, Marthe Keller.
Photography: Zac Nicholson.
Music: Volker Bertelmann.
Editing: Lucia Zucchetti.

Saturday, January 20, 2024

Jan 19th  
The Beekeeper*
  (15)     
(Vue Stratford Westfield)

(US/GB 2024)  
Sky Original/Miramax/Cedar Park/Punch Palace. 105m.

A retired special agent avenges a victim of Internet hacking, on a trail that leads violently all the way to the top.
An interesting social statement underscores this forceful actioner harking back to the days of Clint Eastwood-style vigilante thrillers, where the villains are one-dimensionally nasty enough  to make the audience yearn for their comeuppance, although the characterisation, particularly its leading man, could have been developed more.

Written by: Kurt Wimmer.
Producers: Jason Statham, Bill Block, David Ayer, Chris Long, Kurt Wimmer.
Director: David Ayer.
Starring: Jason Statham, Emmy Raver-Lampman, Bobby Naderi, Josh Hutcherson, Jeremy Irons, Jemma Redgrave, Minnie Driver, David Wills, Phylicia Rashad.
Photography: Gabriel Beristain.
Music: Dave Sardy, Jared Michael Fry.
Editing: Geoffrey O'Brien.