willowgreen

Though I've seen it since (and still enjoy it thoroughly), it was back in 1968 when I first saw this magical musical in the theatre. I was eight years old and completely captivated: came out of the State imitating Oliver Twist, while my friend was likened to the Artful Dodger! Truly one of the last great musicals, it takes the viewer back to an atmospheric London of the early nineteenth century where the most colourful characters imaginable are fascinations to watch. The entire cast is sterling: Mark Lester makes a sensitive, very appealing Oliver while Ron Moody is perfect as Fagin. The rascally Artful Dodger is synonymous with Jack Wild, Bill Sikes is suitably boorish as played by Oliver Reed & Shani Wallis is a very vivacious as Nancy. The dance choreographer, Onna White did a great job with the musical numbers, and although the musical score isn't spectacular, it's certainly well sung. Particularly memorably beautiful is the scene in Mayfair where Oliver is seen looking out of his bedroom window while the various street peddlars inquire hauntingly WHO WILL BUY? Deservedly the BP AA winner of 1968, its a timeless delight full of thrills, laughter and tears.

This undisputed camp classic of the thriller genre will no doubt please generations to come. Even given the fact that it's in many ways a "cheap-jack" film, it merits countless viewings due to the one-and-only legendary teaming of the two greatest movie divas Hollywood ever knew: Bette Davis & Joan Crawford. The film deserves its cult status. As the demented alcoholic slattern Baby Jane Hudson, Davis frankly shocked the public and critics alike with her fearless portrayal of a grotesque misfit who can't forget that she was once a child star in Vaudeville. It's fitting, by the way, to show Blanche as the older sister in the prologue: Davis was a full four years younger than her screen rival in real life. The film goes on and on in a light dimmer than necessary, and the cop-out ending isn't exactly Hitchcock, but the performances are indeed striking. The wig Davis wore for her interpretation of the title role was an old bleached-out wig reputedly once worn by Crawford in either a twenties silent or in the 1939 fiasco ICE FOLLIES OF 1939: no one seems to know for sure. As the wheelchair-bound crippled Blanche, Crawford wisely underplays Davis, and her performance is admirably restrained - if a mite deceiving: she's not all sugar and spice, it turns out! During the filming, director Robert Aldrich had to contend with each actress individually griping about the other: somehow he drew two nicely contrasted performances instead of totally letting the two icons chew each other up & spit each other out. The house in which the film was shot still stands in the Hancock Park section of Los Angeles. Maidie Norman and Victor Buono are terrific in their roles of Elvira the maid & Edwin Flagg respectively. Anna Lee has a cameo as the nosey neighbour, Mrs. Bates - whose daughter is played by Davis's fourteen year-old daughter B.D. Indeed, talent must skip a generation...

One of the finest romantic films ever filmed, this 1939 Samuel Goldwyn production rates with many - including myself - as being the most beloved version of Emily Bronte's haunting novel. Although it stops at chapter seventeen and the ending is seen as a bit trite by some, it's a brilliantly enacted, finely mounted production with beautiful photography and authentic period detail set-wise. Merle Oberon is well-cast as the selfish, vain and rather shallow Cathy. What makes her character so intriguing and interesting is that no matter what happens to her materially, she has an undying love for the gypsy-blooded heathen named Heathcliff. Laurence Olivier, never a great success in films prior to this, gives a brutally honest account of everything Bronte's Heathcliff should be: proud, bold, vengeful & darkly brooding -a tortured soul in general. Wyler's guiding hand is patent throughout: it was Olivier himself who gave credit to the meticulous director in teaching him the particular ropes of screen acting: it shows! Lady-like Isabella is well-played by the Irish Geraldine Page, while Ellen, the long-suffering servant is played sympathetically by the fine character actress Flora Robson. David Niven, ideally cast as the milquetoasty Edgar Linton, actually had a clause in his contract which freed him from having to do crying scenes! A timeless masterpiece of the "haunting" love story genre, this was Goldwyn's personal favourite of all his films.