Saturday, June 27, 2009

June 25th
The Wrong Box*
GB 1966. Columbia/Salamander. 110m.

The jealous families of two surviving members of an ancestral lottery battle each other to kill the other off.
An all-star cast over-indulges itself in this colourful looking Victorian black comedy, crowding out the original story, but with some pleasurable moments of eccentric humour.

Written by: Larry Gelbart, Burt Shevelove, based on a story by Robert Louis Stevenson, Lloyd Osbourne.
Producer/Director: Bryan Forbes.
Starring: Ralph Richardson, John Mills, Michael Caine, Nanette Newman, Peter Cook, Dudley Moore, Peter Sellers, Tony Hancock, Wilfrid Lawson, Thorley Walters, Cicely Courtneidge, John Le Mesurier, Irene Handl, and others.
Photography: Gerry Turpin.
Music: John Barry.
Titles: Robert Ellis.

Preceded by:
Flying Elephants*
(US 1928. 20m. bw. silent; Stone Age men face a race against time to win suitable wives.; w: H.M. Walker, Hal Roach; d: Frank Butler; s: Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, James Finlayson, Edna Marion, Dorothy Coburn, Viola Richard, Leo Willis.)

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Wednesday, June 24, 2009

June 23rd
Festen**
(Celebration)
Den/Swe 1998. Nimbus Films/Dogme95. 108m.

A family celebration turns sour when the eldest son unexpectedly alleges his father of sexually abusing the youngest daughter, who has recently committed suicide.
Strangely compelling black comedy, unpleasant in tone and abrasively made on hand-held digital video camera which works only with the immediacy of the grand house setting - out of doors it just looks ugly. The first of the "Dogma" films.

Written by: Thomas Vinterberg, Mogens Rukov.
Producer: Birgitte Hald.
Director: Thomas Vinterberg.
Starring: Ulrich Thomsen, Henning Moritzen, Thomas Bo Larsen, Birthe Neumann, Paprika Steen, Trine Dyrholm, Helle Dolleris.
Photography: Valdis Oskarsdottir.

Friday, June 19, 2009

June 18th
Horror Express*

aka: Panico el del TransiberianoSpa/GB 1972. Gala/Granada/Benmar. 88m.

A British scientist who believes he has found the Missing Link in the frozen wastelands of Siberia transports it back by train, where it thaws out and terrorizes the passengers.
Slightly cheap and nasty but lively Trans-Siberian Express-set horror thriller, ambitious in scope although with variable dubbing problems but held together by the familiar presence of two horror regulars.

Written by: Arnaud d'Usseau, Julian Halevy, from a story by Eugenio Martin.
Producer: Bernard Gordon.
Director: Eugenio Martin.
Starring: Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, Telly Savalas, Alberto de Mendoza, Julio Pena, Silvio Tortosa.
Photography: Alejandro Ulloa.
Music: John Cavacas.

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Wednesday, June 17, 2009

June 16th
Goldeneye**
GB 1995. United Artists. 130m. Panavision

James Bond combats a renegade Russian force out to use a powerful satellite, led by a treacherous former colleague.
After six years in the doldrums and the end of the Cold War, the Bond series returned in passable fashion with a ready-to-order 007 (who missed out back in the 1980's because of contractual commitments to Remington Steele), but in spite of its post-Cold War setting, old habits die hard; the overdressed plot, surfeit of action and (of course) gadgets occasionally have some surprises up their sleeves - such as the introduction of a female M (mimicking real life when Stella Rimington became head of MI6.)

Written by: Jeffrey Caine, Bruce Feirstein.
Producers: Michael Wilson, Barbara Broccoli.
Director: Martin Campbell.
Starring: Pierce Brosnan, Sean Bean (as 006), Izabella Scorupco, Famke Janssen, Alan Cumming, Joe Don Baker, Judi Dench (as M), Samantha Bond (as Miss Moneypenny), Gottfried John, Robbie Coltrane, Desmond Llewellyn, Tcheky Karyo, Michael Kitchen, Minnie Driver.
Photography: Phil Meheux.
Music: Eric Serra (title song sung by Tina Turner).
Production Design: Peter Lamont.

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Sunday, June 14, 2009

June 13th
Overlord*
GB 1975. EMI/Joswend/Imperial War Museum. 83m. bw

In WWII a young conscript joins the Army during the preparations for D-Day where he is killed on the beaches.
Low key and low budget rendering of Longest Day-type material, a quietly intimate story that hardly paints an accurate overall picture of the Normandy landings - so considerable stock footage is used, and the transitions are usually jarring and obvious. But the film still has some powerful moments.

Written by: Stuart Cooper, Christopher Hudson.
Producer: James Quinn.
Director: Stuart Cooper.
Starring: Brian Stirner, Davyd Harries, Nicholas Ball, Julie Neesam, Sam Sewell, John Franklyn-Robbins, Stella Tanner, Ian Liston.
Photography: John Alcott.
Music: Paul Glass.

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Sunday, June 07, 2009

The Lost Musicians, Music in the Cinemas, and The Stone of Mazarin

June 6th
Barbican Cinema

The Barbican's final seminar of the 12th British Silent Film Festival was a thoughtful dissertation by Neil Brand on the forgotten history of musical accompaniment in local cinemas of the time: not usually a single piano player improvising, Brand points out, but often a 3 to 6-piece orchestra, depending on the size and prestige of the auditorium. To demonstrate this, Gerry Turvey listed a series of cinemas in the Finchley area (such as The Grand Hall, The Rink cinema, the New Bohemia and the Coliseum - the latter still in operation as The Phoenix), where the various outlets competed with each other for the best orchestras to attract the biggest audiences.

With the aid of gifted American accompanist Philip Carli, there was also a brief demonstration that major silent films were never improvised, thanks to cue sheets provided by the major studios: Carli played a brief introduction to Douglas Fairbanks' 1926 adventure The Black Pirate, based on instructions contained on the original Paramount cue sheet.

To finish off the afternoon, Brand accompanied a nostalgic old British segment of the Sherlock Holmes series starring Ellie Norwood (in the days before Basil Rathbone made the role his own):

The Stone of Mazarin* (U)
(GB 1923. 23m. bw. silent; Holmes recovers the missing emerald with the aid of his trusty violin and a wax dummy.; w: Geoffrey H. Malins, P.L. Mannock, from the story by Arthur Conan Doyle; d: George Ridgwell; s: Ellie Norwood, Hubert Willis, Lionel d'Aragon, Tom Beaumont, Laurie Leslie.)
June 6th
The Manxman* (PG)
Barbican Cinema, London

GB 1929. British International. 90m. bw. silent

A publican's daughter marries a local fisherman but loves his best friend, an aspiring Isle of Man deemster.
Average love triangle melodrama, uncharacteristically shot (for Hitchcock) in beautiful Cornish locations instead of the Isle of Man. Though not a thriller, ample evidence that Hitch could have turned his hands to other genres had he been allowed to.

Written by: Eliot Stannard, from the novel by Hall Caine.
Producer: John Maxwell.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock.
Starring: Carl Brisson, Malcolm Keen, Anny Ondra, Randle Ayrton, Clare Greet.
Photography: Jack Cox.

Musical Accompaniment: Stephen Horne (on two instruments).

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Thursday, June 04, 2009

June 2nd
Silent Movie*
US 1976. Twentieth Century Fox/Crossbow. 87m.

An ex-alcoholic film director hits on the idea of making a silent film to save the studio.
A nostalgic idea for a modern silent spoof is given rather lame comic treatment - with rather pointless jokes about silence - but the slapstick sequences are well done (although pretty average by Chaplin's standards), and the guest stars enjoy themselves.

Written by: Mel Brooks, Don Clark, Rudy de Luca, Barry Levinson.
Producer: Michael Hertzberg.
Director: Mel Brooks.
Starring: Mel Brooks, Marty Feldman, Dom DeLuise, Bernadette Peters, Sid Caesar, Harold Gould, Fritz Feld, Carol Arthur; and Burt Reynolds, James Caan, Liza Minnelli, Anne Bancroft, Marcel Marceau (who has the only line of dialogue), Paul Newman.
Photography: Paul Lohmann.
Music: John Morris.

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