Reviews

There are more craggy features in "Villain" than there are on Ben Nevis.

This would have to be a collection of the toughest looking blokes outside a World Cup Rugby scrum with Craig Fairbrass, Tomi May and Michael John Treanor to the fore. I get the feeling if Jason Statham had turned up for a role they would have said; "Sorry mate, but we don't have a part for an accountant".

The story of an ex-con who intends to go straight, but through circumstances is drawn back into his old life of violence and crime is hardly new, although it's handled well here.

Eddie Franks has done his time, and just wants to get out of prison and run The Green Man, the pub his brother, Sean, has been minding for him in the East End of London. But he finds that the pub is unlikely to be included in VisitEngland's list of tourist walks. Dimly lit, run down, it also features a sleazy striptease by Sean's flaky girlfriend, Rikki. And to top it off, his brother is a "sniffhead" in debt to some very heavy people, and time to pay is running out.

And so it goes, Eddie is rough around the edges, but has a rough-hewn sense of honour. Not easily intimidated, he only resorts to fists when he hasn't got a hammer, baseball bat or a vial of capsicum spray handy. The lads get stuck into some mean bits of business, which gives the film real edge.

"Villain" is unrelentingly tough; re-establishing the relationship with his daughter is fraught while the only real warmth comes from the loyalty Eddie receives from Michael, an old partner in crime.

There needed to be more of a build up to how the police get on Eddie's trail towards the end and I'm not overly in love with that "ironic" finale. However it's Craig Fairbrass' Eddie that makes "Villain" riveting.

The filmmakers went for an original score by Aaron May and David Ridley, which adds to the film's sense of loss and unavoidable fate. It also gives the film a unique aural identity. The tone reminded me of another brilliant score from years ago, "The Gambler", by Jerry Fielding, which takes its protagonist down a similar, inevitable road.

I'll leave it a while, but "Villain" is a film I will probably watch again.

About midway through "The Quiet American", Audie Murphy lifts Michael Redgrave onto his shoulders and carries him across a muddy field. Redgrave must have hated doing it. He didn't like Audie, but it shows how surprisingly strong Audie was, he wasn't a big man, around 5'6" while Redgrave was 6'2''.

I've always found Audie Murphy a fascinating actor ever since my Dad took me to see "To Hell and Back" in 1956. Whenever I watch Audie's onscreen heroics, I know they were backed up by real heroics during WW2.

"The Quiet American" is set in Vietnam in1952, against the backdrop of the French Indochina War. Audie's character is referred to only as 'The American'. Redgrave played the cynical, older journalist Thomas Fowler who feels that the self-righteous, naïve American is intruding in the country's affairs in a way that promises disaster; he becomes involved in a plot against him.

Both love the same Vietnamese girl, Phuong, played by Giorgia Moll. Giorgia was a stretch as a Vietnamese woman. Indigenous in Graham Greene's novel, she's not even introduced as Eurasian, however she is beautiful enough to be believable as causing the disturbance between the boys.

I still think "The Quiet American" is one of most intriguing films of the 1950's. Not just for the casting of Audie, but for when and where it was made; in Saigon in the gap between the French and American involvements in Vietnam; the eye of the storm if you like.

Much in the novel had to be toned down for a 1958 film. Fowler and Phuong sharing their evening opium pipe didn't make it into the script, and Green's rather disdainful view of Americans expressed through the character of Alden Pyle was defused to the point where he is nameless in the film. Pyle's name after all was an allusion to him being a pain in the backside.

In Don Graham's biography of Audie, "No Name on the Bullet", he tells how Laurence Olivier turned down the role of Fowler when he learned Audie was in it. There seems to have been a bit of British theatrical sniffiness to Audie's casting. Redgrave accepted the role, but Audie's initial nervousness being paired with the classy actor, and the fact that he always had a gun about his person, put Redgrave off.

But there are powerful scenes. Although Audie started out a little stiff, he got into his stride, especially in a tense scene when he calls out Fowler's duplicity over Phuong. He gave the character his real life readiness to confront when he felt it needed doing.

Greene could certainly write about the desperation of a dissipated, middle-aged man trying to hang onto a beautiful young woman under the spell of a younger rival. Director/ screenwriter Joseph L Mankiewicz doubled down on it with a bleaker ending than Greene's.

Mankiewicz thought the film bad. Not so, but it's not without flaws. The brilliant exteriors shot on location around Saigon were not so artfully combined with over-lit interiors shot in Rome, the opportunity to use high and low angled shots with swirling fans and dramatic shadows was missed; despite the cinematographer being Robert Krasner who had lensed "The Third Man".

In 2002 another version was filmed in Vietnam. It's closer to Greene's novel, with Alden Pyle finally getting his name. This time the filmmakers were not so reluctant to paint 'The American' in Greene's darker hues.

"Oppenheimer" almost seems to have been put together by taking all the sequences, throwing them in the air and then putting them together just as they fell. There are no standard flashbacks or flashforwards. I couldn't help thinking it was like how Billy Pilgrim in Vonnegut's "Slaughterhouse Five" randomly dropped in and out of the events in his life.

It takes a while to get the hang of it. For those in the audience that knew nothing about Oppenheimer, it could be a head jumbler. It's a risky technique, however, by the end, the dots join up.

A couple of surprises: the film does not dwell on the creation of the bomb and the first Los Alamos test.

The other surprise was a lost opportunity, the failure to capture the scale of the Manhattan Project that sprang from the desert. There is a scene where the camera rises from behind a hill to reveal a few of the buildings; in reality the project was huge with closely packed buildings.

Oppenheimer's relationships with friends, enemies, colleagues and lovers drive the story.

The film captures the intimacy of Oppenheimer's relationship with his wife and with the enigmatic Jean Tatlock. We also sense the awkwardness of Oppenheimer's dealings with his intellectual friends that were involved in the communist party and tempted him to reveal secrets causing doubts about his loyalty.

When I was growing up in the 1950s in Australia, which was just outside Japan's high tide mark as it advanced through Asia and the Pacific, if there was one certainty it was that the dropping of the atomic bombs on Japan had ended WW2. Our fathers had fought in it, and there was not much love for the Japanese at the time due to their brutal treatment of civilians and prisoners of war.

With that said though, as the horror of WW2 receded, and mistrust of institutions increased in the 1960s, there has been plenty of revisionist thinking, much of it fact-free.

In "Oppenheimer" it seemed to me that the notion that the bombs were being dropped on an already defeated enemy comes across more strongly than Oppenheimer's reminder that the GIs may not feel that way about it.

The Japanese had adopted the strategy of making the advance to the home islands so bloody that America would grant terms rather than demand unconditional surrender (50,000 U. S. casualties on Okinawa alone); the Japanese were down, but they weren't tapping out.

Truman and his inner circle are characterised as an un-empathetic bunch focussed on impressing the Russians at Potsdam.

However it must have also been uppermost in Truman's mind that if he accepted the arguments for not dropping the bomb and the invasion of Japan had gone ahead, that he would have to face Americans knowing he had held back a weapon that could have saved thousands of them?

Still this film makes you think and maybe worry that Oppenheimer's fears, expressed in the film, about a race to build bigger and deadlier atom-chewing bombs were alarmingly prescient.

It was good to see Connery back as 007 and a relief that "Never Say Never Again" avoided the self-parody of the Roger Moore Bonds; that's if you ignore Rowan Atkinson's character, Nigel Small-Fawcett.

"Thunderball" is one of my favourite Bond movies despite the crappy rear projection at the end. Although "Never Say" had the benefit of more modern effects,"Thunderball" loses nothing in comparison.

A plan by SPECTRE sees two atomic bombs stolen from NATO by Maximilian Largo. One of the bombs ends up under the president's bed or somewhere, the other is taken by Largo to the South of France. Bond is sent to sort things out. Along the way he meets two stunning women: the dark and dominating Fatima Blush and the blonde, dominated Domino.

Barbara Carrera played a lot of femme fatales, but her Fatima Blush tops them all. She could always steal a scene just by being in it; the film sagged after she exited with a bang. Kim Bassinger as Domino totally dazzles with her fitness, especially when she works out with a dance instructor.

The best Bond adversaries are ruthless and larger-than-life: Dr No, Blofeld, Goldfinger and definitely Emilio Largo in "Thunderball". But Klaus Maria Brandauer as Largo in" Never Say" doesn't so much project danger as petulance. Although he tells Domino he'll cut her throat if she ever leaves him, she actually looks like she could lay him out with a classic shoulder throw.

It's hard not to compare Connery here with his younger self in "Thunderball", but you get the feeling that he was over his typecasting reservations, and actually seemed to be having fun.

There are strong sequences in "Never Say". The fight in Shrublands health resort with Lippe, played by the awesome Pat Roche, ends with one of the funniest scenes in a Bond movie when Bond totally incapacitates Lippe by splashing a container of liquid in his face only to discover it was a urine sample he'd given earlier.

However the stealing of the bombs isn't a patch on the capture and concealment of the Avro Vulcan bomber in "Thunderball".

The holographic videogame that Largo and Bond play is confusing. Bond is more at home sitting at a baize-covered table in a casino, drawing cards from a baccarat shoe surrounded by tuxedoed dudes with glamorous women looking over their shoulders; "Bond, James Bond".

But where "Thunderball" is unbeaten is in the Caribbean setting; clear blue water pervades the film. It's where Bond belongs, not being chased by Arabs in North Africa.

Finally there's an aural emptiness, absent is the 007 theme. Michel Legrand did the soundtrack, I love his "Summer of "42" and "The Go-Between", but this wasn't his forte. This is John Barry territory, and the theme song at the end fades next to Tom Jones' tour de force.

"Never Say Never Again" is very watchable, but opportunities and some basic Bond colours were missed - no fabulous poster by Robert McGinnis or Frank McCarthy either.

When I first saw this film in the late 1950s, movies and especially television were saturated with Westerns, but "Apache Drums" still seemed unusual and different.

I agree with those that think Val Lewton's last film suffers from too much talk; the love triangle between the three principals is tiresome. However when the unique Lewton touches cut in, they give this film almost a surreal vibe.

Lewton was known for a series of psychological horror films made on shoestring budgets, often utilising existing studio sets. Val and his various collaborators used shadows and sound effects to create a number of moody masterpieces starting with "Cat People".

However here, Lewton and director Hugo Fregonese shot the story in a wide-open, sunlit desert location.

The set is no overused Western town with fake facades, but an intriguing cluster of dun-coloured adobe buildings including a high-walled church.

The townspeople of Spanish Boot want respectability. Gunfighting gambler, Sam Leeds (Stephen McNally), and Betty Careless, a madam with a crew of dance-hall girls, are sent packing.

Leading the purity push is the big blacksmith and mayor, Joe Maddern (Willard Parker), and Welsh minister, the Reverend Griffin (Arthur Shields). The mayor is also competing with Leeds for the attention of Sally (Colleen Gray) the cantina owner. Among Reverend Griffin's flock are Welsh miners. Oddly, the miners wear their miner's hats to the dinner table; it certainly would not have been done at the Morgan table in "How Green Was My Valley".

Eventually after finding the girls massacred by marauding Apaches led by Victorio in some genuinely eerie scenes, Leeds returns to the town to warn the townspeople that hell is coming their way.

As Leeds and the townspeople try to protect themselves, "Apache Drums" has one of the strangest sequences in any Western. When the surviving townspeople are besieged in the claustrophobic church with its deep shadows, garishly painted Apaches leap down from windows so high up the defenders can't reach them.

In Edmund G. Bansak's biography of Lewton and his films "Fearing the Dark" he makes the observation that the Indian drums in this film are as omnipresent as the voodoo drums in Lewton's "I Walked with a Zombie".

In the forward to Bansak's book, director Robert Wise paid tribute to Lewton's creativity, telling how he worked closely with his scriptwriters and was vitally interested in the visual look of his films, yet never imposing himself heavily on the directors.

Lewton died shortly after the film was mad; he was only 46. Even today, those that have never heard of Val Lewton would have to agree that "Apache Drums" is anything but a run-of-the-mill Western.

When someone says they don't make 'em like that anymore after watching an old, feel-good Hollywood movie, well, they do sometimes, "Mrs Harris goes to Paris" is one of them.

This little movie has a touch of the magic of the old Hollywood studios combined with the engaging eccentricity of the mid-50s Earling comedies.

The usual synopsis doesn't do it justice: "Mrs. Harris Goes To Paris tells the story of a widowed cleaning lady in 1957 London who falls madly in love with a Christian Dior haute couture dress and decides that she must have one of her own".

But Ada Harris (Lesley Manville) is a more complex character than that. We realise that she is a generous, caring person. A run of good luck brings her the money she needs to head off to Paris initially in pursuit of the gorgeous gown, but eventually it also reveals inner qualities, which attract a fascinating, disparate group of people.

An intriguing aspect of the movie is the way Dior haute couture garments were displayed in the 1950's and bought by clients, followed by the critical individual fitting. When slim, sixty-something Ada Harris is measured for her dress, she is told, "Madam has the proportions of a model". Eventually we see how well her gown fits her.

Filmed in London and Paris, the film looks as fabulous as the Dior gowns. The story has been filmed a couple of times and if you've seen it, it's interesting to compare it to the 1992 version with Angela Lansbury, "Mrs. 'Arris Goes to Paris". It must have been a break from playing Jessica Fletcher in 9 seasons of "Murder She Wrote". However that earlier film is like a sketch compared to producer/director Anthony Fabian's more fully rendered work.

Rael Jones' vibrant waltz themes and lilting piano solos show the power that a superb original score can have over a compilation of existing songs.

If you are a fan of the Marvel franchise or into Jason Statham's brand of house cleaning, then Mrs. Harris with her bucket and mop possibly isn't for you. But the film has appealing characters, and goes in such unexpected directions that you may find yourself absorbed before you know it.

As a young lad, I saw all those wars movies of the 1950s, but it would be a mistake to think that even at that age we weren't discriminating.

Based on best-selling novels, most had a good proportion of love to war; in fact one of them was called "In Love and War". However "The Naked and the Dead" opened with a fake-looking nightclub scene and then had the most intrusive, unbelievable romantic scenes that descend like drop-short artillery rounds into the story at inappropriate times with the women dressed like Gil Elvgren pin-up girls of the 1950s.

Back then, most of our parents had been in the war, and we also read books about it and saw documentaries. We had a fair idea about what had happened in the Pacific. However the island in "The Naked and the Dead" was fictional. Anopopei. It was ridiculous with a jungle covered, Matterhorn-like mountain in the middle.

We see the invasion of Anapopei from the brass-eye view with Raymond Massey as General Cummings. Then we get the foxhole-eye view with a platoon of grunts under Aldo Ray's Sergeant Croft, a man who would as soon whack a dame as he would the enemy. However, Cummings and Croft are cut from the same bolt of jungle greens, sharing the philosophy of making their own men more afraid of them than the Japanese.

Aldo Ray is totally believable. Director Raoul Walsh, according to his biography by Marilyn Ann Ross, reckoned Aldo was drunk most of the time, but his sheer physical presence commanded every scene he was in. Like many in front of and behind the camera, he had been in the real thing; a naval frogman who went in ahead of the landings on Okinawa, no wonder he looked so good in the swimming scenes; Aldo had definitely walked the walk.

As a young guy going to school back when discipline was more stringently applied, I didn't buy that General Cummings took all that back-chat from Lieutenant Hearn, his lippy, disrespectful aide played by Cliff Robertson. If Hearn had tried that with George S Patton he would have had the muzzle of an ivory-handled pistol stuck up his nose. Eventually Cummings punishes him by putting him in charge of Croft's platoon in a patrol over the mountain with a plan to fool the Japanese.

The battle scenes are impressive even if some were borrowed from the much more satisfying "Battle Cry" made a couple of years earlier.

Bernard Herrmann gave the film an ominous, distinctive score. It's not the most memorable war movie score of the 50s, see Hugo Friedhofer for those, but it's unlike any other.

War films of the late 50s, from Hollywood and Britain, had taken on a cynical edge. Now the Allies were portrayed as mean as the enemy. This film was a classic example. There were forces in society that were beginning to react to the traditional view of the military and the establishment that would dominate the 1960s.

I think Paul Newman was inspired in this role. Cool Hand Luke is a non-conformist, that guy who never backs down. We've probably all known someone like that, this movie epitomises that quality in a fascinating setting, life on a chain gang in Florida; the film smacks of authenticity.

After seeing it, I read the book. It was fascinating discovering what did and didn't make it into the movie.

Donn Pearce based his novel on his experiences as a convict in Florida in the early 1950s. He is the narrator known as Sailor in the book who tells about a legendary convict, Cool Hand Luke, who went against the grain refusing to have his spirit broken. In the book, Luke is already gone; the story is based on the prisoners' memories of him.

In an interview, Pearce, who had a hand in writing the screenplay, revealed that Luke was based on a real character, they did not meet and he was only told about him. Maybe it gave him free reign to create the legend.

Pearce attributed some things he witnessed to Luke's character. The fight between Dragline (George Kennedy) and Luke isn't in the book, Dragline loved 'mah boy' from the get go. But Pearce witnessed the meanness of the guards; the walking bosses. The build-up of resentment to Luke's defiance is nastier in the book. The Captain, "Git your minds right", and the guard in the reflective glasses, "The Boss with No Eyes", are straight from Pearce.

Lalo Schifrin's captivating score is built around a lilting banjo theme capturing Pearce's descriptions of Luke's ability with the instrument. Schifrin also captures Luke's unbreakable spirit as he shows the gang that the way to beat their degrading condition was to perform more than required.

The film only mentions that Luke had been a war hero. In the novel, Pearce's anecdotes about Luke's combat were possibly gleaned from veterans shooting the breeze. It wasn't first-hand knowledge, underage, Pearce was actually pulled from the army.

However, when you read Pearce's descriptions of the pandemonium when a prisoner escaped, you know the guy saw these things. The book is full of detail about life on a rural chain gang and the mindset of the prisoners. They inhabit almost an alternate reality with their guards.

There are odd protocols, and even language: "Gettin' up Boss", "Shakin' it Boss". Pearce gave the film all that, but he also felt the film unnecessarily alluded to the social issues of the 1960's. The book is more pragmatic; the prisoners try to get by with the least amount of pain - except Luke.

Pearce may even have been a little like Luke. The final third of his book is riveting. Rosenberg's film simply had to recreate those vivid scenes to give this film its unique quality.

The ending in the film didn't need those repeat images of Luke smiling, it missed the life-goes-on sadness of the novel, but Paul Newman created a memorable character. Loners and rebels are a staple of movies, but Newman's Luke eclipsed most, thanks in no small part to Pearce's powerful storytelling.

I know it bombed, I can make a few guesses as to why, but it deserved better than that.

The opening is like the most frenetic Baz Luhrmann film increased by a factor of ten after Acid was dropped in the water cooler. And that last party in the tunnel would have been too much for "Fellini Satyricon". To say the film is polarising understates it wildly; it polarised me, towards both poles.

Not just over-the-top, some scenes are repulsive, but then others were so funny, I nearly fell off my exercise bike as I watched the film over three separate sessions; it's very long.

It's about the early days of Hollywood and that cathartic transition to sound in 1927. It sure isn't "Singing in the Rain", although there are references to that film.

Real-life figures weave though the story and we see filming in the Californian sunshine in open-air studios, the gold rush like mania to get into movies, the worship of big stars and their abandonment when their use-by-date is up or when the intrusive microphone picks up a voice that doesn't seem to fit a face. There is even a cringe-worthy nod to Fatty Arbuckle's fall from grace.

Quick cuts and huge scenes dominate the first hour. Just as it gets too much, the film settles down, and out of the chaos, a compelling story emerges.

Manuel "Manny" Torres (Diego Calva) an enterprising guy from Mexico makes himself useful, takes opportunities offered by Brad Pitt's fading star, Jack Conrad, and works his way into making movies. However he almost fatally falls for silent screen discovery, "It Girl" Nellie LeRoy (Margot Robbie), until her self-destructiveness almost destroys him as well. There are other characters and their adventures together are wild, embarrassing, funny and ultimately sad.

Worth the price of admission: Manny transporting the elephant; Nellie and her director at war with the early sound system, and Manny learning he is about to pay off a sadistic gangster with movie prop money.

Along with streams of obscenities and projectile vomiting we get witty dialogue and keen insights into a fascinating period of Hollywood history.

An unusual, vibrant score drives "Babylon". There's homage to the Jazz Age and even a twist on Ravel's "Bolero", but a lilting, off-key piano delivers a haunting theme.

"Babylon" nearly had one of those bittersweet endings that make some movies unforgettable. If writer/director Damien Chazelle had ended the film as Manny and his new family walk away from the Kinoscope Studio in 1952, after showing them where he used to work, that finale would have stayed with you. But he milked it. Instead we get a mangled over-emphatic 15 minutes of repeat scenes and homage to the movies. Indulgence that dissipates the powerful mood already achieved.

R18 hurt "Babylon". The early excess set a tone. But I became invested in the characters, and the true test for me is would I watch it again? Yes. Just not right away.

This was John Ford's favourite among his films. He said so in a book of interviews with Peter Bogdanovich.

But it's a long way from being my favourite John Ford film. To show the diversity of opinion, Joseph McBride in his brilliant, "Searching for John Ford" called it a candidate for his worst movie.

"The Fugitive" seems a cinematic equivalent of those demonstrations master painters sometimes execute in front of their peers to showcase their skills. Ford was an artist with film, he worked with great cameramen and crews that captured his vision; in this film he displayed all his technical mastery.

Working with Mexican cinematographer, Gabriel Figueroa, we get his sense of composition; his visual storytelling without pages of dialogue, his handling of extras and action as horsemen clatter up perilous steps and wheel in formation through shaded archways and sunlit courtyards.

However it is so considered it seems self-conscious.

Ford was always wary of big orchestral scores. However composer Richard Hageman poured it on with powerful dramatic music, Mexican themes, bells, and enough spiritual reverence for "The Song of Bernadette" plus a sequel.

Based on a Graham Green novel, the last priest in the totalitarian Latin-American state of Tabasco is hunted by a zealous policeman angered by the people's blind devotion to the church. Finally betrayed, the priest's faith sees him give up his chance to escape.

Casting Henry Fonda as Green's small, humble, tragi-comic priest was as problematic as casting him as Pierre in King Vidor's "War and Peace"; his Midwestern accent went with him in both cases. Apparently Ford knew it and tried to get José Ferrer, but he was unavailable, so Henry it was. Fonda seemed to struggle to find the balance between hapless and honourable.

No problem for Pedro Armendáriz as the police lieutenant; he stole the movie and Delores del Rio was photographed more lovingly than "The Pieta".

Ford told Bogdanovich that the film came out how he wanted, and the story wasn't altered much, "...but you couldn't do the original on film because the priest was living with a woman".

He also thought it was influential. There were things in it he said he'd seen, ..."repeated a million times in other pictures and on television". But although the Mexicans were initially fine having Ford make a film in their country, they were less pleased with the result.

One filmmaker Ford had an impact on was Elia Kazan. It may be a surprise to see their names in the same sentence, but they had met and in Kazan's autobiography he gives Ford big raps claiming he inspired him to get away from the studio and shoot on location, he never went back.

When Kazan made "Viva Zapata!" a few years later, the Mexican government wanted more control. Although he ended up shooting most of it in Texas, even a cursory glance shows similarities with "The Fugitive".

Of course, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. It's one to decide for yourself.