Nov 25th
Five Easy Pieces** (15)
Electric Palace, Harwich

US 1970. Columbia/Bert Schneider. 98m.

A drifter who is also a talented pianist rejects his family and his pregnant girlfriend and reflects on his empty life by heading north to Alaska.
Compelling 70s fable with more than a ring of truth to it (symptomatic of the disaffected generation of the late 1960s), low key for the most part but with outstanding individual scenes that are worth the wait.

Written by: Adrien Joyce, Bob Rafelson.
Producers: Bob Rafelson, Richard Wechsler.
Director: Bob Rafelson.
Starring: Jack Nicholson, Karen Black, Susan Anspach, Lois Smith, Billy Green Bush, Ralph Waite.
Photography: Laszlo Kovacs.
Music: various.

100 Favourite Films: Five Easy Pieces

Nov 22nd
The Neverending Story**
WG/US 1984. Warner Bros/Bavaria Studios/WDR/Neue Constantin. 94m. Technovision

A boy instigates the story of the mythical land of Fantasia where nothingness is threatening to destroy it.
Existential children's fairy tale with some dark moments, jarringly edited in some of the transitions between fantasy and reality but with great imagination.

Written by: Wolfgang Petersen, Herman Weigel.
Producers: Bernd Eichinger, Dieter Geissler.
Director: Wolfgang Petersen.
Starring: Barret Oliver, Noah Hathaway, Gerald McRaney, Thomas Hill, Tami Stronach, Moses Gunn, Patricia Hayes, Sydney Bromley.
Photography: Jost Vacano.
Music: Giorgio Moroder, Klaus Doldinger.
Production Design: Rolf Zehetbauer.

Preceded by:
Sugar Daddies*
(US 1927. 15m. silent. bw; A bumbling millionaire calls upon his lawyer and butler to help him escape unwanted in-laws.; w: H.M. Walker; d: Fred L. Guiol; s: Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, James Finlayson, Noah Young, Charlotte Mineau, Edna Marian, Eugene Pallette; ph: George Stevens.)

Nov 16th
You Again* (U)
Cineworld Ipswich

Female rivalries are re-ignited when former high school girls discover they are marrying into the family of someone who bullied them.
Spirited bitchy comedy with sentimental interludes and uncertain characterisation but some good star guest turns.

d: Andy Fickman
s: Kristen Bell, Odette Yustman, Jamie Lee Curtis, Sigourney Weaver, Betty White, Victor Garber, James Wolk, Kristen Chenoweth, Sean Wing, Patrick Duffy, Cloris Leachman

Nov 16th
Becket**
GB 1964. Paramount. 149m. Panavision

The high-living King Henry II unwisely appoints his best friend Thomas Becket as Archbishop of Canterbury, which brings them into conflict.
Stately, very grand looking historical drama with two hellraising stars enjoying themselves, a mixture of the playful and deeply reverential. The occasional star cameo enlivens what is basically a two character piece.

Written by: Edward Anhalt, based on the play by Jean Anouilh.
Producer: Hal B. Wallis.
Director: Peter Glenville.
Starring: Richard Burton, Peter O'Toole, Donald Wolfit, John Gielgud (as Louis VII), Paolo Stoppa (as Pope Alexander III), Martita Hunt, Pamela Brown, David Weston, Felix Aylmer, Sian Phillips, and others.
Photography: Geoffrey Unsworth.
Music: Laurence Rosenthal.
Production Design: John Bryan.

Nov 8th
Are You Being Served?
GB 1977. EMI. 95m.

The clothing department of Grace Brothers go on holiday to the Spanish resort of Costa Plonka, just before a revolution there.
Cheap and cheekily effective adaptation almost indistinguishable in style from a Carry On film, with most of the regulars and allowing for most of the TV show's saucier jokes.

Written by: Jeremy Lloyd, David Croft.
Producer: Andrew Mitchell.
Director: Bob Kellett.
Starring: John Inman, Mollie Sugden, Frank Thornton, Trevor Bannister, Wendy Richard, Nicholas Smith, Arthur Brough, Arthur English, Harold Bennett, Andrew Sachs, Glyn Houston.
Photography: Jack Atcheler.
Music: David Croft, Ronnie Hazlehurst.

Nov 2nd
All About Eve***
US 1950. Twentieth Century Fox. 138m. bw

An admirer of Broadway star Margo Channing turns out to also be a scheming vixen who wants to jump into her shoes.
The story is artificial, but this is otherwise a brilliantly acerbic backstage melodrama (with next to no on-stage footage) with an A-rate cast who don't take any prisoners. Probably the one film that most accurately captured the plight of older actresses who are deemed to be past it.

Written and Directed by: Joseph L. Mankiewicz.
Producer: Darryl F. Zanuck.
Starring: Bette Davis, Anne Baxter, Celeste Holm, George Sanders, Thelma Ritter, Gary Merrill, Hugh Marlowe, Gregory Ratoff, Marilyn Monroe, Barbara Bates.
Photography: Milton Krasner.
Music: Alfred Newman.