Sep 26th
Medal for the General**
(GB 1944)
Anglo-American/British National. 99m. bw

An old soldier is rejected from active service, but is helped to come around by the arrival of re-billeted evacuee children.
Sentimental wartime feelgood drama with an incidental propaganda message about post-war aspiration. Movingly acted.

Written by: Elizabeth Baron, from the novel by James Ronald.
Producer: Louis H. Jackson.
Director: Maurice Elvey.
Starring: Godfrey Tearle, Jeanne de Casalis, Morland Graham, John Laurie, Petula Clark (film debut), Thorley Walters, Irene Handl.
Photography: Arthur Grant, James Wilson.
Music: William Alwyn.

Sep 24th
Bill and Ted Face the Music* (PG)
(Curzon Colchester)

(US 2020)
Warner Bros/Endeavor Content/Hammerstone. 91m.ws

The goofy former teenagers Bill and Ted try to save space and time from collapsing by creating music with the help of their chip-off-the-old-block daughters.
Venturing to return to the cinema again with the dysfunctional heroes of Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, too "far out" to need to go into into any critical detail, and the humour still raises some chuckles.

Written by: Chris Matheson, Ed Solomon.
Producers: Scott Kroopf, Alex Lebovici, David Haring, Steve Ponce, Ed Solomon, Alex Winter.
Director: Dean Parisot.
Starring: Keanu Reeves, Alex Winter, Kristen Schaal, Smara Weaving, Brigette Lundy-Pearce, Hal Landon, William Sadler.
Photography: Shelly Johnson.
Music: Mark Isham.

Sep 23rd
And Then There Were None*  
aka: Ten Little Indians  

(GB/Ita/Fra/WG/Spa 1974)                 
EMI/Filibuster. 98m.

Ten people with guilty consciences are invited to an isolated hotel by a mysterious host who proceeds to murder each one of them.
Unattractive version of a famous whodunnit, taking its revised plot from the stage adaptation and the 1945 original Rene Clair film, that contrived a less bleak ending. An international cast gives a varying degree of conviction to an already implausible story.

Written by: Peter Welbeck (Harry Alan Towers), based on the novel by Agatha Christie.
Producers: Harry Alan Towers.
Director: Peter Collinson.
Starring: Oliver Reed, Elke Sommer, Richard Attenborough, Herbert Lom, Gert Frobe, Stephane Audran, Adolfo Celi, Charles Aznavour, Maria Rohm, Alberto de Mendoza, Orson Welles (voice only).
Photography: Fernando Arribas.
Music: Bruno Nicolai.

Sep 18th
Seventh Heaven**
(US 1927)
Fox. 113m. bw

In 1914 Paris, a girl forced to turn prostitute falls in love with a sewer worker who has rescued her from her vindictive sister, but the war intervenes.
Quite gritty but also poetic silent melodrama (at the onset of sound with added Movietone soundtrack), with occasional good comedy moments amid the generally whimsical tone.

Written by: Benjamin Glazer, Harry H. Caldwell, Katherine Hilliker, from the play by Austin Strong.
Producer: William Fox.
Director: Frank Borzage.
Starring: Janet Gaynor, Charles Farrell, David Butler, Gladys Brockwell, Albert Gran, Emile Chautard, Brandon Hurst, George E. Stone.
Photography: Ernest Palmer, Joseph Valentine.
Production Design: Harry Oliver.

+ the first film to win Oscars for Best Direction, Actress and Adapted Script

Preceded by:
Intimate Interviews: Bela Lugosi*
(US 1931. 7m. bw; As given by an overawed Dorothy West.; d: Grace Elliott.)

SEVENTH HEAVEN - among the opening programme at the Whitehall Cinema in Witham (now a branch of Essex Libraries) in September 1928

Sep 12th 
Being There**
(US/WG 1979)
Lorimar/North Star/CIP. 130m.

An innocent simpleton gardener whose main outside influence is television is thrown out into Washington once his master dies, and a misunderstanding society adopts him as a national philosopher.
Gentle and mostly sombre comic fable with some clumsy direction, and Sellers downplaying with an uneasy mixture of suppressed Goonishness and small traces of Stan Laurel.

Written by: Jerzy Kosinsky, from his novel.
Producer: Andrew Braunsberg.
Director: Hal Ashby.
Starring: Peter Sellers, Shirley MacLaine, Melvyn Douglas, Jack Warden, Richard Dysart, Ruth Attaway, Richard Basehart.
Photography: Caleb Deschanel.
Music: Johnny Mandel.

Sep 2nd  
My Darling Clementine***  
(US 1946)                                             
Twentieth Century Fox. 104m. bw

Wyatt Earp avenges the murder of his brother by the Clanton gang by becoming marshal of Tombstone and confronting them at the O.K. Corrall.
Vintage Ford Western taking his own dramatic slant on history, beautifully scenically conveyed with a wide variety of strong performances.

Written by: Samuel G. Engel, Winston Miller, Sam Hellman, from the novel "Wyatt Earp: Frontier Marshal" by Stuart N. Lake.
Producer: Samuel G. Engel.
Director: John Ford.
Starring: Henry Fonda, Victor Mature (as Doc Holliday), Walter Brennan, Linda Darnell, Cathy Downs, Ward Bond, Tim Holt, Alan Mowbray, John Ireland, Jane Darwell.
Photography: Joseph MacDonald.
Music: Cyril Mockridge.

Preceded by:
London Can Take It***
(GB 1940. 9m. bw; Classic historical propaganda record of the city coping with the Blitz (on its 80th anniversary).; d: Humphrey Jennings, Harry Watt; narr: Quentin Reynolds; ed: Stewart McAllister.)

 Aug 31st 
The Swarm  

(US 1978)                                         
Warner Bros. 152m. Panavision

A Texas community is beset by a mutated force of killer bees.
Straight-faced nonsense with risible dialogue among an impressive cast, that tries to lend pathos where it can. The central theme is handled on a misguidedly epic level 20 years after this sort of film was made for less money and more effectively as a straightforward monster movie.

Written by: Sterling Silliphant, from the novel by Arthur Herzog.
Producer/Director: Irwin Allen.
Starring: Michael Caine, Katharine Ross, Richard Widmark, Henry Fonda, Richard Chamberlain, Olivia De Havilland, Fred MacMurray, Ben Johnson, Jose Ferrer, Bradford Dillman, Patty Duke, Slim Pickens, Lee Grant, Christian Juttner.
Photography: Fred Konenekamp.
Music: Jerry Goldsmith.