Dracula*** (1930) Spanish language version

A re-filming on the same Universal sets as Tod Browning's Bela Lugosi original, and something of a revelation in terms of fluid camera movement and some individual performances which complement and sometimes exceed the English language version - although Villarias is no Lugosi. Shown here in an interesting artist's superimposed comparison of each other, blended throughout with the more thoughtfully dramatic (and longer) Spanish version.

adapted by Fernandez Cue
d: George Melford
s: Carlos Villarias, Lupita Tovar, Barry Norton, Eduardo Arozamena (as Van Helsing), Pablo Alvarez Rulio (as Renfield).
ph: George Robinson

DRACULA (1930). Bela Lugosi and the lesser known Carlos Villarias in the title role. Judge for yourselves.

Oct 29th  
Destination Wedding*   
(US 2018)          
Sunshine Pictures/Two Camel/The Fyzz Facility. 85m. Panavision

Two reluctant guests travel to the same wedding, and their antipathy towards each other turns into a one-night stand.
Ironically engaging, if relentlessly chatty (even during its love-making scene) romantic comedy, with stars on uncharacteristically comical form. The ultimate outcome is obvious from quite early on, and could just as effectively be done as a play, in sometimes superfluously beautiful scenery. A more cynical variation on Before Sunrise, and patterned also a little after Woody Allen.

Written and Directed by: Victor Levin.
Producers: Elizabeth Dell, Robert Jones, Gail Lyon.
Starring: Keanu Reeves, Winona Ryder.
Photography: Giorgio Scali.
Music: William Ross, Paul Joseph Smith.

Preceded by:
The Lottery**  
(US 1969. Encyclopedia Britannica. 18m.; A contemporary American small town stages an annual lottery to decide who is unlucky enough to be sacrificed.; w, p, d: Larry Yust, from the novel by Shirley Jackson; s: Olive Dunbar, William Benedict, William Fawcett, Joe Haworth, Ed Begley Jnr.; ph: Isidore Mankofsky.)

Oct 25th  
The Miracle Club* (12A)  
(Everyman Chelmsford)                                      

(Ire/GB 2023)
Lionsgate/Zephyr/City Films Entertainment/Ingenious/Shin Awil. 90m.

In 1967 Dublin four women win a pilgrimage trip to Lourdes, hoping for miracles but coming to terms with themselves instead.
Entertaining and only incidentally moving comedy-drama with a certain of Irish lightness of touch, also avoiding being overly religious in tone.

Written by: Jimmy Smallhorne, Timothy Prager, Joshua D. Maurer.
Producers: Chris Curling. Joshua D. Maurer, Alixandra Witlin, Larry Bass, Aaron Farrell, John Gleeson, Oisin O'Neill.
Director: Thaddeus O'Sullivan.
Starring: Laura Linney, Maggie Smith, Kathy Bates, Agnes O'Casey, Stephen Rea, Mark O'Halloran, Brenda Fricker (voice only).
Photography: John Conroy.
Music: Edmund Butt.

Oct 24th  
Voyage of the Damned*    
(GB 1976)
Rank/ITC. 155m.

In May 1939 the German liner St. Louis leaves Hamburg with several Jewish refugees bound for Cuba, who subsequently refuse to accept them, as do other countries.
A rather sombre voyage, not only historically but also cinematically, with some individual moving performances and vignettes among the all-star line-up, only some of whom get a long enough look-in. Its themes (sadly) could not be more relevant today in so many ways.

Written by: Steve Shagan, David Butler, based on the book by Gordon Thomas, Max Morgan-Witts.
Producers: Robert Fryer, William Hill.
Director: Stuart Rosenberg.
Starring: Oskar Werner, faye Dunaway, Max Von Sydow, Malcolm McDowell, Lee Grant, Sam Wanamaker, Lynne Frederick, Denholm Elliott, Leonard Rossiter, Helmut Griem, Orson Welles, Jose Ferrer, James Mason, Victor Spinetti, Katherine Ross, Wendy Hiller, Luther Adler, Julie Harris, Maria Schell, Nehemiah Persoff, Janet Suzman, Ben Gazzara, Jonathan Pryce.
Photography: Billy Williams.
Music: Lalo Schifrin.
Production Design: Wilfred Shingleton.

Oct 21st  
Killers of the Flower Moon** (15)          
(The Garden Cinema, Covent Garden)  

(US 2023)
Paramount/Apple/Imperative Entertainment/Sikelia/Appian Way. Panavision/IMAX

In post WWI Oklahoma, the Osage Indian community inherits a fortune from the discovery of oil on their land, but many are secretly murdered by the corruptible forces of law and order, until eventually the newly formed federal Bureau of Investigation steps in.
Long but engrossing historical racism drama on an epic canvas with almost faultless period detail and some absorbingly manipulative performances. The younger Scorsese would have elaborated much less to provide a much sharper film: here, he (and De Niro) are in much more measured, thoughtful mood. 

Written by: Eric Roth, Martin Scorsese, from the book by David Grann.
Producers: Dan Friedkin, Bradley Thomas, Martin Scorsese, Daniel Lupi.
Director: Martin Scorsese.
Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert De Niro, Lily Gladstone, Cara Jade Myers, Tantoo Cardinal, Jesse Plemons, John Lithgow, Brendan Fraser, Martin Scorsese.
Photography: Rodriego Prieto.
Music: Robbie Robertson.
Editing: Tessa Schoonmaker.

Oct 20th
The Sting**      
(US 1973)                          
Universal/Zanuck-Brown. 129m.

Two Illinois conmen plan an elaborate scheme to swindle a Chicago gangster as revenge for the killing of their mentor.
Seriously slanted and very stylishly evoking some of the atmosphere of the period, but inherently a rather smug Hollywood entertainment, banking a lot on the re-teaming of the two stars of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid(qv), here transplanting their charisma from the Wild West to 1930s Chicago in seamless fashion.

Written by: David S. Ward.
Producers: Tony Bill, Michael Phillips, Julia Phillips.
Director: George Roy Hill.
Starring: Robert Redford, Paul Newman, Robert Shaw, Eileen Brennan, Charles Durning, Ray Walston, Harold Gould, Jack Kehoe, Robert Earl Jones, Dana Elcar.
Photography: Robert Surtees.
Music: Scott Joplin (arranged by Marvin Hamlisch).
Editing: William Reynolds.
Art Direction: Henry Bumstead.
Costume: Edith Head.

Oct 11th 
The Great Escaper** (12A)
(Curzon Colchester)                                           
 
(GB/Fra 2023)  
Warner Bros/Pathe/BBC/Ecosse. 96m. ws

A D-Day veteran misses out on a group trip to Normandy, so he sneaks away from his convalescent home and his wife to do the trip himself.
Two veterans on vintage form in this commendably unsensational true-life drama about the perils of old age, and also a moving inverse of Saving Private Ryan where most of the action in flashback is an incidental to the more pressing truth of veterans who feel guilty when their friends were killed long before.

Written by: William Ivory.
Producers: Robert Bernstein, Douglas Rice.
Director: Oliver Parker.
Starring: Michael Caine, Glenda Jackson, John Standing, Wolf Kahler, Danniele Vitalis, Jackie Clune, Ian Conningham, Will Fletcher, Laura Marcus.
Photography: Christopher Ross.
Music: Tony Armstrong.
Editing: Paul Tothill.

Oct 10th   
Ha'penny Breeze*   
(GB 1950)
Associated British Pathe/The Storytellers. 72m. bw

Fishermen in the Suffolk hamlet of Pin Mill revive their ailing industry by entering into a nearby yacht race.
Quietly effective little local drama with one or two traits similar to Ealing but in much more semi-documentary settings (influenced by the Italian neorealists), with one or two entertainingly diverting moments.

w: Don Sharp, Frank Worth
p: D'arcy Conyers
d: Frank Worth
s: Edwin Richfield, Don Sharp, Gwynneth Vaughan, Eva Rowland, D'arcy Conyers
ph: Gordon Lang, George Stretton
m: Philip Green