Feb 26th  
All is Lost**       
(US/Canada 2013)     

A lone yachtsman's boat is crippled by a drifting container in the Indian Ocean, as a major storm also hurls whatever it can at him.
Solo survival drama with an iconic star willing to take on new challenges in his seventh decade. Also rather undercharacterised, but with pictorial moments of beauty and similar elements of drama to the same year's Gravity(qv).

Written and Directed by: J.C. Chandor.
Producers: Justin Nappi. Teddy Schwarzman, Neal Dodson, Anna Gerb.
Starring: Robert Redford.
Photography: Frank G. De Marco.
Music: Alex Ebert.

ALL IS LOST (2013). Robert Redford versus Mother Nature. In this case, Mother knows best.

                       

Feb 20th 
(Regent Street Cinema, London)  
Trapeze**       

(US 1956)   

A trapeze artist teaches a young pretender to do a dangerous triple somersault in spite of the woman who comes between them.
The old hat love triangle, set vividly in a Paris circus capturing all the melodrama and the atmosphere of that environment, with some dedicated work by the stunt doubles. In spite of all the cliches, an ideal vehicle for Lancaster, who does (some of) his own stunts.

Written by: James R. Webb, Liam O'Brien, based on the novel "Killing Frost" by Max Catto.
Producer: James Hill.
Director: Carol Reed.
Starring: Burt Lancaster, Tony Curtis, Gina Lollobrigida, Thomas Gomez, Katy Jurado, Johnny Puleo, Sidney James, Minor Watson.
Photography: Robert Krasker.
Music: Malcolm Arnold.

Feb 13th  
Why Worry?**       
(US 1923)   

A hypochondriac millionaire eventually makes a man of himself on vacation on a Mexican island where a local revolution is taking place.
Highly contrived star comedy, disappointing as a follow up to Lloyd's classic Safety Last, but with individual gags and set pieces that please, even if the story doesn't hang together.

Written by: H.M. Walker, Sam Taylor.
Producer: Hal Roach.
Directors: Fred Neumeyer, Sam Taylor.
Starring: Harold Lloyd, Jobyna Ralston, Johan Aasen, Leo White, Wallace Howe..
Photography: Walter Lundin.

Musical Accompaniment: Robert Israel

Preceded by:
Our Gang in
Wild Poses*
(US 1933. 29m. bw; A baby photographer has the unenviable task of trying to photograph Spanky.; w:H.W. Walker, and others; d: Robert F. McGowan; s: Franklin Pangborn, George McFarland, Emerson Treacy, Gay Seabrook, gag appearance by Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy.)

                                                       

Feb 10th 
(National Film Theatre)   
The Shop Around the Corner*** (U)                 
(US 1940)             

The junior manager of a small Budapest department store and his feisty colleague engage in a secret pen pal correspondence that they don't realise is to each other.
Endearing romantic comedy where the charm and depth is in the supporting characters in an excellent Lubitsch ensemble. Short on visual flair or intimacy, but it's the words that matter.

Written by: Samson Raphaelson, based on the play "Parfumerie" by Nicholas Laszlo.
Producer/Director: Ernst Lubitsch.
Starring: James Stewart, Margaret Sullavan, Frank Morgan, Felix Bressart, Joseph Schildkraut, Sarah Harden, William Tracy, Charles Halton.
Photography: William Daniels.
Music: Werner Heymann.

Feb 7th    
Passport to Pimlico***  
(GB 1949)                                                     

A post-war London borough unearths evidence that it is actually owned by the Duke of Burgundy and therefore free of rationing and other English laws.
Only fleetingly fantastical and whimsical but always enjoyable gentle satire of Britain at the time (with its opening epitaph to ration books), one of Ealing's best at conveying the common spirit of the nation (generations before the sad uncertainty and insecurity of "Brexit") in semi-documentary fashion, with plenty of twists and turns in the script and a great British cast.

Written by: T.E.B. Clarke.
Producer: E.V.H. Emmett.
Director: Henry Cornelius.
Starring: Stanley Holloway, Raymond Huntley, Margaret Rutherford, Hermione Baddeley, Barbara Murray, Basil Radford, Naunton Wayne, Paul Dupuis, John Slater, Jane Hylton, Sidney Tafler, Charles Hawtrey, Michael Hordern, and others.
Photography: Lionel Banes.
Music: Georges Auric.

PASSPORT TO PIMLICO. Pimlico was actually Hercules Road, Lambeth for filming purposes, now a silent ghost of a gentler, less cynical Britain long before the days of "Brexit". 

Feb 2nd
The Trap
(GB/Canada 1966)

A brutish fur trapper is sold a mute wife, and the two of them collectively have to depend upon each other's survival.
Unpleasant pastoral melodrama in starkly pictorial surroundings that only occasionally appear in the narrative. The title music had a better afterlife as the theme music to the London Marathon on TV years later.

Written by: David Osborn.
Producer: George H. Brown.
Director: Sidney Hayers.
Starring: Oliver Reed, Rita Tushingham, Barbara Chilcott, Rex Sevenoaks.
Photography: Robert Krasker.
Music: Ron Goodwin.

Precedeed by:
The Face
(GB 2016. Chromaquay. 3m.; Adequately well mounted tribute to Frankenstein and film noir.; w: Clair Sams; d: Broa Sams; s: Patrick Marlow, Nicola Goodchild; ph: Jamie Weston.)