Dec 13th  
The Kidnappers**  
(GB 1953)
Rank/Group Film. 93m. bw

In early 20th century Nova Scotia, a Scottish farmer comes to terms with the Dutch settlers after his two grandsons unwittingly abduct a baby from them. Quietly entertaining drama with the feel of a Western (but without the gunfighting), with slightly unconvincing child playing but a good all-round ensemble. 

w: Neil Paterson, from his novel
p: Sergei Nolbandov, Leslie Parkyn
d: Philip Leacock
s: Duncan MacRae, Jon Whiteley, Vincent Winter, Adrienne Corri, Jean Anderson, Theodore Bikel, Francis de Wolff
ph: Eric Cross
m: Bruce Montgomery

Preceded by:
Love at First Sight**
(GB 2010. Spellbound Films. 12m,; Romance in a retirement home, with a poignant twist.; w: Julian Unthank; d: Michael Davies; s: John Hurst, Phyllida Law; ph: Ian Salvage; m: Mark Russell.)

THE KIDNAPPERS (1953). Among the last programme of films to be shown at the old Empire (aka. Vaudeville) Cinema in Mersea Road, Colchester in 1959 (Cinema photo: L. Reid)

Oct 9th  
Sunday Bloody Sunday**   
(GB 1971)  
United Artists/Vectia. 110m.

A bisexual young artist has parallel love affairs with a Jewish doctor and a divorced woman.
Following on from the success of Midnight Cowboy(qv), Schlesinger now lifts the lid on middle class London, in an authentically accurate depiction of the drab early 1970s (and some dodgy period flashbacks). Notable mainly for its honest and unsensational depiction of a gay love affair - a subject close to the director's heart; as a result some of the other characters don't get too much of a focus, but very much a film ahead of its time.

Written by: Penelope Gilliatt (and David Sherwin, John Schlesinger).
Producer: Joseph Janni.
Director: John Schlesinger.
Starring: Glenda Jackson, Peter Finch, Murray Head, Peggy Ashcroft, Maurice Denham, Tony Britton, Vivian Pickles, Frank Windsor, Jon Finch, Bessie Love, June Brown, Richard Pearson.
Photography: Billy Williams.
Music: Ron Greesin, Mozart, and others.

SUNDAY BLOODY SUNDAY. Glenda Jackson was the 'name' star of the time, also in love with Murray Head, as is Peter Finch. This still shows suitably where the film's real sympathies lie. 

Apr 14th  
Cleopatra  
Sub-Title: The Romance of a Woman and a Queen
(US 1912)
Helen Gardner Picture Players. 87m. bw. silent

A devoted slave to Queen Cleopatra agrees to die for her, but in the end helps her reach that fate herself after her meeting with Marc Antony.
First feature length film version of this subsequently much told historical romance; static and stilted, but no more than all the other later versions.

w, d: Charles L. Gaskill, from the play by Victorien Sardov.
p: Helen Gardner
s: Helen Gardner, Charles Sindelar, Mr Howard, Harry Knowles, Miss Robson
ph: Lucien Tainguy

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

Mar 12th  
The Wedding Date 
(US/GB 2004)                       
Universal/Gold Circle. 88m.

A single woman falls for the male escort she has hired for her sister's wedding where her ex-fiancee is best man.
Fairly one-note romantic comedy in the wake of Four Weddings and a Funeral, with most of the comedy cliches in place and some good comedy cameos.

w: Dana Fox, based on the novel "Asking for Trouble" by Elizabeth Young
p: Jessica Bendinger, Paul Brooks, Michelle Chydzik, Nathalie Marciano
d: Clare Kilner
s: Debra Messing, Dermot Mulroney, Amy Adams, Jeremy Sheffield, Jack Davenport, Sarah Parish, Peter Egan
ph: Oliver Curtis
m: Blake Neely

Nov 24th  
Laxdale Hall*
(GB 1952)             
Group 3. 77m. bw

A Parliamentary delegation is sent  to a remote Highland village where the locals have taken the law into their own hands to combat poachers and to petition for a new road.
Decent enough scenic Scottish whimsy, of a fashion for the time, not especially dramatic but with pleasant performances.

Written by: Alfred Shaughnessy, John Eldridge, from the novel by Eric Linklater.
Producer: Alfred Shaughnessy.
Director: John Eldridge.
Starring: Raymond Huntley, Ronald Squire, Kathleen Ryan, Sebastian Shaw, Fulton Mackay, Prunella Scales, Jameson Clark, Andrew Keir, Kynaston Reeves, Jean Colin.
Photogtsphy: Arthur Grant, Ken Hodges.
Music: Frank Spencer.

LAXDALE HALL. Romance blossoms for two future sitcom stars: Fulton Mackay and Prunella Scales.

Nov 15th
Sex, Lies and Videotape**
(US 1989)             
MGM-UA/Virgin/Outlaw. 100m.   

A young man who compensates for his impotence by privately interviewing women on his video camera, travels to meet his old school friend, who is cheating on his wife by having an affair with her sister.
A fresh perspective on the old menage a quartre (in keeping with Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice, Carnal Knowledge, and more recently Closer), told with a sharpness and a thoughtful insight for its characters, matched by equally affecting performances. It launched its director on a fruitful, varied career which sadly has not blossomed as much as it should - mainly due to the changing face of cinema - to make this first film with its videotape motif rather an ironically nostalgic item.

Written and Directed by: Steven Soderbergh.
Producers: John Hardy, Robert Newmyer.
Starring: James Spader, Andie MacDowell, Peter Gallagher, Laura San Giacomo, Ron Vawter, Steven Brill.
Photography: Walt Lloyd.
Music: Cliff Martinez.

Oct 29th
The Ghost and Mrs Muir**
(US 1947)         

Twentieth Century Fox. 104m. bw

A widowed young mother retreats with her daughter to a south coast cottage haunted by a sea captain who wants it put into the right hands.
Superficially plotted but glossily well made supernatural romance, with actors not ideal for their roles but investing all their best attributes into it, and they spark off each other very well.

Written by: Philip Dunne, from the novel by R.A. Dick (Josephine Leslie).
Producer: Fred Kohlmar.
Director: Joseph L. Mankiewicz.
Starring: Gene Tierney, Rex Harrison, George Sanders, Edna Best, Natalie Wood, Robert Coote, Vanessa Brown.
Photography: Charles Lang.
Music: Bernard Herrmann.

Preceded by:
Tom and Jerry in
The Cat and the Mermouse***
(US 1949. 7m.; d: William Hanna, Joseph Barbera; p: Fred Quimby.)

Sep 18th  
Corridor of Mirrors**           
(GB 1948)                                                 
Apollo/Cartier-Romney. 105m. bw

A London socialite falls for a mysterious man who lives in the past and claims that she is the reincarntion of his past love.
Curious romantic melodrama - something of a vogue for the time - and surprisingly lavishly well made, influenced by Cocteau as well as Brief Encounter, but uneven in both respects with shifting audience sympathies, and style generally superseding content - a recurring theme with this director's later work, including James Bond.

Written by: Rudolph Cartier, Edana Romney, based on the novel by Christopher Massie.
Producer: Rudolph Cartier.
Director: Terence Young.
Starring: Edana Romney, Eric Portman, Barbara Mullen, Leslie Watson, Hugh Sinclair, Bruce Belfrage, Alan Wheatley, Christopher Lee (his first film), Lois Maxwell.
Photography: Andre Thomas.
Music: Georges Auric.

Aug 11th  
Knight of Cups*
(US 2014 - released 2015)                                                                   
Dogwood Films/FilmNation/Waypoint Entertainment. 118m.ws

A Los Angeles screenwriter reflects on life through relationships with a succession of women as well as remembering his dead father.
Another pretentiously profound drama by Malick, with moving moments and famous faces passing by like ripples in the river.

Written and Directed by: Terrence Malick.
Producers: Nicolas Gonda, Sarah Green, Ken Kao.
Starring: Christian Bale, Imogen Poots, Brian Dennehy, Isabel Lucas, Wes Bentley, Antonio Banderas, Cate Blanchett, Isabel Lucas, Natalie Portman, Teresa Palmer, Ryan O'Neal, Armin Mueller-Stahl, Ben Kingsley (voice only).
Photography: Emmanuel Lubezki.
Music: Hanan Townshend.

+ in addition to Ben Kinsgley, other offscreen narrators include archives of John Gielgud and Ralph Richardson

Jul 18th   
Yesterday* (12A) 
(Curzon Colchester)     

(GB 2019)
Universal/Perfect World/Decibel Films/Working Title. 116m. Panavision

A luckless Lowestoft singer-songwriter has an accident during a global blackout, and becomes a star because no-one else has heard of The Beatles.
A neat idea for a musically comedic Twilight Zone that is never really explored as it should be. The satirical possibilities are also threadbare as the film opts to spend most of its time rehashing the familiar Four Weddings sentimental scenario all over again. Of worth for music fans to enjoy the famous tunes, reasonably well presented.

Written by: Richard Curtis.
Producers: Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, Bernie Bellow, Matthew James Wilkinson, Richard Curtis, Danny Boyle.
Director: Danny Boyle.
Starring: Himesh Patel, Lily James, Joel Fry, Ed Sheeran, Kate McKinnon, Robert Carlyle (uncredited - as John Lennon), Sanjeev Bhaskar, Meera Syal, Sarah Lancashire.
Photography: Christopher Ross.
Music: Daniel Pemberton.

Jul 17th
The Theory of Everything**                         
(GB 2014)
Universal/Working Title. 123m. ws

The academic life of Stephen Hawking coupled with his crippling motor neurone disease, taken from the perspective of his first wife Jane.
The onset of the disease comes surprisingly early into a film that, for its interest in Time, seems to spend a lot of it labouring along, often carefully selecting its moments in Hawking's life story (made while he was still alive) with some of the personal moments and the science wishy-washy, and shot in nostalgiclly rose-tinted brigt colours, with moments of pictorial imagination and meticulous, hard-working central performances.

Written by: Anthony M. Carten, from the book "Travelling to Infinity: My Life with Stephen Hawking" by Jane Hawking.
Producers: Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, Lisa Bruce, Anthony McCarten.
Director: James Marsh.
Starring: Eddie Redmayne, Felicity Jones, David Thewlis, Charlie Cox, Simon McBurney, Emily Watosn, Harry Lloyd, Adam Godley.
Photography: Benoit Delhomme.
Music: Johann Johannsson.

Preceded by:
Cricket**
(GB 1950. Pathe/British Council. 17m. bw; Evocative information documentary about the game, revolving around the 1948 Lord's Test between England and Australia; w: Jack Howells, John Arlott; p: Peter Baylis; d: Grahame Tharp; narr: John Arlott, Ralph Richardson.)

+ opening message: "The purpose of this film is not to teach cricket to the unbeliever - but merely to give pleasure to the converted. But, if there be an unbeliever, then his discerning eye perhaps may see something of those virtues that explain the enthusiasm of so many."

May 18th  
(Ipswich Film Theatre)  
Trautmann** (15)
GB title: The Keeper                  

(Ger/Northern Ireland 2018)

The triumphs and tragedies of German PoW Bert Trautmann, an Iron Cross winner who also overcame British animosity to become Manchester City's star goalkeeper in the 1956 FA Cup Final.
On Cup Final day itself, an appropriate choice: this movingly played biopic, carefully well scripted and reconstructed, without too many obvious elements of fictionalization.

Written by: Robert Marciniak, Marcus H. Rosenmuller,Nicholas J. Schofield.
Producers: Chris Curling, Robert Marciniak, Steve Milne.
Director: Marcus H. Rosenmuller.
Starring: David Kross, Freya Mavor, John Henshaw, Dervla Kirwan, Harry Melling, Gary Lewis, Julian Sands.
Photography: Daniel Gottschalk.
Music: Gerd Baumann.

May 10th  
Alfie***      
(GB 1965)                                                           

Sexual misadventures of a common London lothario.
Cleverly made 60s comedy (although sometimes amateurishly photographed) which really plays better as drama and seems horribly dated by today's standards. It captures and satirizes perfectly the generation of bragging masculinity (significantly Alfie has no family background of his own), with innovative touches including Brechtian opening and closing credits, and Caine's constant and often insufferable monologues to camera. This defining role was his calling card to Hollywood.

Written by: Bill Naughton, from his play.
Producer/Director: Lewis Gilbert.
Starring: Michael Caine, Julia Foster, Millicent Martin, Shelley Winters, Jane Asher, Eleanor Bron, Shirley Anne Field, Vivien Merchant, Alfie Bass, Graham Stark, Denholm Elliott.
Photography: Otto Heller.
Music: Sonny Rollins (title song sung by Cher).

Apr 23rd 
(National Film Theatre) 
Lolita** (X)   

(GB 1961)             

A literary scholar in America marries a widow because of his infatuation with her young daughter Lolita.
A scandalous novel becomes self-sanitised to make it more acceptable for cinema standards of the time, translated by Kubrick into semi-black comedy (as a precursor to Dr. Strangelove, with Sellers in more than one guise), with performances therefore ranging from compelling down to caricature. It all makes for a peculiarly unsettling romantic whole.

Written by: Vladimir Nabokov, from his novel.
Producer: James B. Harris.
Director: Stanley Kubrick.
Starring: James Mason, Sue Lyon, Peter Sellers, Shelley Winters, Gary Cockell, Diana Decker, Lois Maxwell, Cec Linder.
Photography: Oswald Morris.
Music: Bob Harris, Nelson Riddle.

+ although Nobokov is credited, most of the screenplay was re-written by Stanley Kubrick and James B. Harris

Apr 8th   
To the Wonder*    
(US 2012)                           

An American has a tortuous love affair with a French single mother, and in between he also briefly rekindles his relationship with his boyhood sweetheart.
Another of this director's pretentious meditations on the fragility of life: a deeply personal and self-indulgent study of broken human beings hoping to find happiness (based on his second marriage), always beautiful to look at, with flashes of thoughtful scenes involving a Catholic priest struggling to keep his faith.

Written and Directed by: Terrence Malick.
Producers: Sarah Green, Nicolas Garcia.
Starring: Olga Kurylenko, Ben Affleck, Javier Bardem, Rachel McAdams, Tatiana Chiline.
Photography:Emmanuel Lubezki.
Music: Hanan Townshend, and others.
Editing: A.J. Edwards, Keith Fraase, Shane Hazen, Christopher Roldan, Mark Yoshikawa.

Mar 11th  
Midnight in Paris**   
(US/Spa/Fra 2011)                                   

A California scriptwriter on vacation in Paris drifts away from his fiancee as he intermingles with figures from the city's literary past.
Woody on his European travels; a gentle Twilight Zone nostalgia comedy with a few familiar Allen stereotypes, and Paris evoked in picture postcard fashion, much like it was for Everyone Says I Love You.

Written and Directed by: Woody Allen.
Producers: Letty Aronson, Stephen Tenenbaum, Jaume Roures.
Starring: Owen Wilson, Rachel McAdams, Marion Cotillard, Michael Sheen, Kathy Bates (as Gertrude Stein), Tom Hiddleston (as F. Scott Fitzgerald), Corey Stoll (as Hemingway), Adrien Brody (as Salvador Dali), Lea Seydoux, Carla Bruni.
Photography: Darius Khondji.
Music: Stephane Wrembel, and others.

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 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.

May 18th
Ninotchka***
US 1939. MGM. 110m. bw

In between-the-wars Paris, Bolshevik agents trying to sell Russian jewels are corrupted by the city's romance.
"Garbo Laughs!" ran the publicity for this MGM-style Parisian romantic comedy of manners, but it's also a pretty near-perfect vehicle for a typically colourful Lubitsch ensemble.

Written by: Charles Brackett, Billy Wilder, Walter Reisch, from a story by Melchior Lengyel.
Producer/Direcor: Ernst Lubitsch.
Starring: Greta Garbo, Melvyn Douglas, Ina Claire, Sig Rumann, Felix Bressart, Alexander Granach, Bela Lugosi, Gregory Gayle, Rolfe Sedan, Edwin Maxwell.
Photography: William Daniels.
Music: Werner R. Heymann.

+ introduction: "This picture takes place in Paris in those wonderful days when a siren was a brunette and not an alarm - and if a Frenchman turned out the light it was not on account of an air raid!"