Jun 23rd
My Favorite Year**  
(US 1982)
MGM-UA/Brooksfilms. 92m.

A drunken ex-swashbuckling star makes a guest appearance on a US comedy TV show, with several misadventures along the way.
A delightfully nostalgic comedy (based on Mel Brooks working with Errol Flynn), with a very good flavour of 1950s New York, and a careful balance of raucous comedy and occasional pathos, which only occasionally veers over the top.

Written by: Norman Steinberg, Dennis Palumbo.
Producer: Michael Gruskoff.
Director: Richard Benjamin.
Starring: Peter O'Toole, Mark Linn-Baker, Joseph Bologna, Jessica Harper, Bill Macy, Lainie Kazan, Lou Jacobi, Adolph Green, Cameron Mitchell.
Photography: Gerald Hirschfield.
Music: Ralph Burns.
Production Design: Charles Rosen.

Peter O'Toole and Joseph Bologna as fine emulations of Errol Flynn and Sid Caesar

Jun 16th    
Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves* 
(US 1991)
Warner Bros/Morgan Creek. 143m.

Robin of Locksley escapes imprisonment during the Crusades with the aid of a Moor, to find that things are even worse in his homeland, and turns outlaw.
Entertaining but grittier and nastier variation of the legend, for what supposedly suits 1990s audiences more than Errol Flynn (the two styles combined were spoofed in Mel Brooks' Robin Hood: Men in Tights), with a rather self-indulgent star and a sluggish, hammy finale.

Written by: Pen Densham, John Watson.
Producers: Pen Densham, Richard Barton Lewis, John Watson.
Director: Kevin Reynolds.
Starring: Kevin Costner, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, Morgan Freeman, Alan Rickman, Christian Slater, Geraldine McEwan, Michael Wincott, Nick Brimble, Mike McShane, Harold Innocent, Brian Blessed, Sean Connery (as King Richard - uncredited).
Photography: Douglas Milsome.
Music: Michael Kamen.
Editing: Peter Boyle (and others).
Production Design: John Graysmark.

One of the best things about ROBIN HOOD: PRINCE OF THIEVES: Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio as Maid Marian, with a rather Californian Kevin Costner in the title role

Jun 11th  
The Capture    
(US 1950)                             
RKO. 91m. bw

An oil worker hunts down a wrongly accused thief, feels guilt and ends up being hunted himself in pursuit of the real culprit.
Fairly passable minor league thriller, with a not entirely convincing plot.

w, p: Niven Busch
d: John Sturges
s: Lew Ayres, Teresa Wright, Victor Jory, Barry Kelley, Jacqueline White, Jimmy Hunt
ph: Edward Cronjager
m: Daniele Amfitheatrof

Jun 9th    
The Man Who Never Was**  
(GB 1955)
Twentieth Century Fox/Sumar. 103m. Cinemascope

The true story of how in 1943 British Naval Intelligence devised a means of distracting enemy attention from the invasion of Sicily by planting false information on a fictitious soldier 'Major William Martin'.
The subsequent espionage intrigue involving a German agent is the only fictionalisation in an otherwise interesting, slightly solemn war drama (in unison with the gravity of its subject matter), lacking a certain amount of British self-deprecation or humour, but certainly a pleasantly unusual item to have come out from a Hollywood studio only ten years after the war itself.

Written by: Nigel Balchin, based on the book by Ewen Montagu.
Producer: Andre Hakim.
Director: Ronald Neame.
Starring: Clifton Webb, Robert Flemyng, Gloria Grahame, Stephen Boyd, Josephine Griffin, Laurence Naismith, William Russell, Andre Morell, William Squire, Moultrie Kelsall, Cyril Cusack.
Photography: Oswald Morris.
Music: Alan Rawsthorne.

+ the voice of Winston Churchill is provided by an uncredited Peter Sellers

Jun 2nd  
My Old Lady**     

(US/GB/Fra 2014)     
BBC Films/Cohen Media Group/Ingenuous. 107m. Panavision

An American inherits a house in Paris complete with old lady inside it, who turns out to be an ex-lover of his late father.
Slight and full of Bohemian Parisian charm, this sentimental comedy melodrama (with, strictly speaking, a miscast English old lady instead of French) would be a little meandering and boring, were it not for excellent performances.

Written and Directed by: Israel Horowitz, based on his play.
Producers: Rachel Horowitz, Gary Foster, Nitsa Benchetrit, David C. Barrot.
Starring: Kevin Kline, Maggie Smith, Kristin Scott Thomas, Dominique Pinon, Stephane Freiss.
Photography: Michel Amathieu.
Music: Mark Orton.

Preceded by:
Read All About It**
(GB 1945. ABCA. 28m. bw; Curious semi-information drama about the various editorial methods in telling the same newspaper story - quite contrasting to nowadays, but intrinsically no different.; w: Jack House; d: Roy Baker; s: John Laurie, Alfie Bass, Derek Blomfield, John Slater, Ralph Truman, and others.)

MY OLD LADY (2014). Kevin Kline meanders past the now poignant sight of the spire of Notre Dame Cathedral.