hugh1971 Reviews

Strictly Confidential (1959)

Honour of the regiment, old boy...

[7 November 2015]

Yes, it's a slightly creaky and low budget 1950s comedy with a minimal plot, but anyone who loves the world of the shabby, down at heel, faux-genteel English confidence trickster will love this film.

The two male leads have great chemistry as a pair of fake ex-military city gents getting out of their depth in a share dealing swindle in 1950s London.

There are some lovely comic moments and amusing repartee. I particularly liked the scene with the tricksters at home in their bedsit in London's seedy Camden Town district, getting dressed up in dinner jackets to attend a posh dinner - and having to walk all the way to Kensington because they can't afford the bus fare.

William Hartnell is also good as an old fashioned but efficient company boss who refuses to fall for the pair's tricks. Well worth a watch.

Carry on Emmannuelle (1978)

Please put us out of our misery

[1/10 · 26 September 2007]

I do think this is possibly one of the worst films I've ever seen. Carry on England was dire, but the Windsor Davies/Ken Connor routines weren't bad and the film seemed at least competently produced, but Emmanuelle is just poor from so many angles - technically - the awful cheap film stock which looks like it was leftover from a Shake 'n' Vac commercial, the crass innuendos and the need to hammer home obvious jokes (eg: I left in 1953. But the war ended in 1945...?).

Then there's the stock footage of London tourist spots in a lame attempt to interest overseas viewers, and the rubbish sub-Terry Gilliam 'special effects'. We also get the staple flouncy homo and comedy pakistanis. The acting is woeful with the good actors looking embarrassed or bored and the bad ones trying too hard. Miss Danielle, though very pretty, was I suspect overenthusiastically cast in the Mary Millington mould - perhaps the protégé of someone in the film industry who promised to 'make her a star'.

It's also very dated in its approach to sex. You can almost hear the writers thinking 'all that innuendo in the fifties and sixties is old hat, man. This is the permissive society now, and, like, sex is cool and everybody's doing it, even fat old ladies in launderettes!' This results in a number of sordid 'gags'(middle aged servants spying on a couple in bed, a leering football team queueing up for a gang bang, references to contraceptive pills, but strangely no reference to the clap, which I would imagine Emmannuelle must have picked up a few times - though perhaps STDs didn't exist in the mind of 1970s scriptwriters... etc).

The film even opens with the seventies fantasy of random strangers joining the 'mile high club'. One or two jokes made me laugh 'You for coffee? No I'm staying here' but these were few and far between.

This could have been so much better in the hands of a competent scriptwriter and the old Carry On gang, but as it is this is a sad shadow of the former films and not really a Carry On at all, but a feeble dated British sex comedy, which is neither sexy nor funny.

The History Boys (2006)

More than a whiff of lavender...

[6/10 · 11 November 2006]

This film had such great potential and reminded me in many ways of my own schooldays, and did have some very funny and touching scenes (Brief Encounter!), but also failed on so many levels: 1. Wrongly marketed. Not a criticism of the film as such, but it was marketed in the trailers as a knock-about comedy, along the lines of an English 'American Pie'. I suspect this is the reason why so many dimwits walked out in horror when confronted instead by 'long words'.

2. Little or no analysis of the social and class implications of a bunch of middle/lower middle class state school boys going to Oxbridge. It was just taken as read. To be fair, Alan Bennett does say in 'Untold Stories' that an analysis of the Oxbridge experience is the subject for another film, but it would have made a better one, in my opinion. It was also extremely unrealistic in that all the boys got places - In my school only about half did.

3. The unrealistic treatment of homosexuality. I hesitate to use the term 'gay agenda' as it is generally the preserve of American fundamentalists, but the whole Dakin/Posner/Hector/etc love triangle (or should that be love square) did not ring true.

I went to an almost identical school at around the same time and I can assure you that there was NEVER any overt talk of same sex relationships, and boys I have know from other grammar and minor public schools have confirmed this. You simply would have been ostracised or beaten up if you had.

Yes of course there were boys who we knew or suspected were gay, and masters too, but the scene where Dakin hugs Posner and Posner says 'is that it' would just not have happened. Also, Dakin revealing himself as a predatory bisexual was a bit unlikely for someone of his age and experience - he hadn't even got to 'second base' with the school secretary so why would he have the confidence to attempt the seduction of a male teacher? Much as I admire Alan Bennett, this all seems to me purely the fantasy of an elderly homosexual playwright, which brings me onto my next point:

4. The unrealistic dialogue. The boys were simply TOO precocious. 17 and 18 year olds, even Oxbridge candidate geniuses, in my experience just don't talk like that or have that depth of interest in history and literature, or universal knowledge of films like 'Now, Voyager' and 'Brief Encounter'. Again, this was the dialogue of a 72 year old playwright being put into the mouths of the boys.

5. I got the impression that the black and Asian boy were put in as a gesture, and this is confirmed by the fact that they have little dialogue or character development, in fact pretty much the only lines they got were racially charged ones. This strikes me as the somewhat heavy-handed stamp of liberal/left guilt and tokenism.

I think Mr Bennett was basing the characters on his memories of grammar school boys in the early fifties, who probably were more erudite, but since the cultural revolution of the sixties (of which Mr Bennett no doubt heartily approves) adolescents mainly don't think or act like that any more, as popular culture has dumbed down immensely. The boys all spoke and acted far more like third year undergraduates than sixth formers. How many 18 year olds have a wry, sarcastic take on Christianity like the religious boy? How many 18 year old boys, however good looking, would act like Dakin?

I think the main problem is that The History Boys is a somewhat expressionist play ('a poem, not an essay' as Pinter would put it) which has been rather clumsily translated into a naturalist film and given a populist gloss. Whilst it has a lot of great scenes, overall it just doesn't work as well as it could. Sign me up for the Dead Poets' Society instead!

Whistle Down the Wind (1961)

I'll call my kitten Spider. And when he grows up I'll teach him to hate yours!

[23 September 2006]

Once in a while you come across a film that is perfect - and this film is one of them. It has everything - humour, pathos, skilled acting, beautiful cinematography and it deals with the deepest questions of human existence. I found myself alternating between laughter and tears. It seems to touch on deep themes which films rarely dare to nowadays - themes of belief, faith, and the meaning of love.

The photography of the bleak Lancashire countryside is superbly crisp, the facial expressions of the actors (especially Mr Bates) let us know exactly what is going on in their minds but subtly, in a way that is never seen nowadays in films where everything must be made explicit.The children interact entirely naturally and they are not merely credulous, but curious and questioning ('he's not Jesus, he's just some fella'). Some scenes are deeply moving, in particular when the children dance under a tree to the music of 'We Three Kings' in joy and praise at seeing what they believe to be their Saviour - seeming to sum up the deep, almost pagan connection between religion and the English countryside.

The film deftly deals with the changing England of the time. By the early sixties, mainstream Christianity had begun to lose its hold on the English people (this was the time of Bishop Robinson and the 'Honest to God' debate); the decaying, plundered church is representative of the decline in organised religion, juxtaposed with the 'true' faith of the children. The religious figures, however, are not pilloried as would be the case in most modern films - they are treated sympathetically. I particularly liked the look of awkwardness on the Sunday school teacher's face when she is asked a question about Jesus which she knows she cannot answer with any honesty, and which she clumsily sidesteps.

In many ways the film is an elegy for a lost England - an England where children roam the countryside freely, where the nearest telephone is half a mile away, and where children live in relative material poverty but with strong familial love, where the simple pleasures of life are enjoyed - playing in the open air, having a birthday party at home, or reading late into the night. The film could not realistically have been made even just ten years later.

Clockwise (1986)

The secret to knowing who you are is WHERE you are, and WHEN you are

[7/10 · 22 February 2006]

I first saw this film on its cinema release and thought it a gentle, slightly dated but amusing English comedy. Watching it again last night (it was given out free on DVD with a Sunday newspaper) I realised what a greatly underrated, highly intelligent film it is. In fact I suspect it is a little TOO intelligent for mainstream audiences, which perhaps is why it has never been a blockbuster.

What impressed me was the highly philosophical nature of the plot which deals with the artificial nature of timekeeping in modern society.

Stimpson suffers from the modern disease of believing that all the problems of life can be solved by the imposition of obsessive man made order and regulation (something our present Government appears to suffer from also) in particular with regards to timekeeping. His whole identity is based on timekeeping and he is unable to relate to anything outside his own worldview. Stimpson is the classic tragic overreacher who doesn't realise that his attempts at control are actually having the opposite effect.

The sense of dislocated identity is a recurrent motif in the film. The senile old ladies are not merely there for comic relief - they act as a mirror to Stimpson's own disintegrating sense of self. One of the ladies (the late great Joan Hickson) is stuck in a 'loop' of consciousness relating to sherry glasses, and the other is convinced that she is in the place she has already left, but the third lady, 'aren't we lucky people!' represents the childlike happiness of those who are literally outside time - her polite bewilderment and contented singing at the end of the film as Stimpson is led away underscore this neatly.

Other motifs of dislocated identity and location abound. Stimpson drives a car which does not belong to him, and which does not belong to the girl he takes it from, who is also not licensed to use it. It is then driven in a completely random, directionless way across fields ('we don't need the track!')until it has to be rescued by a tractor which Stimpson refuses to see even though he's standing right next to it. (This particular sequence, with the Morris 1100 driving over the fields, has an almost lyrical quality to it, especially to someone who spent most of his childhood holidays in a similar car).

Stimpson then spends some time in a monastery, where the characters, like the senile ladies, are outside of time in the conventional sense - almost stuck in the middle ages - again the innocent happiness of those outside time is shown by the monk cheering on Cleese in his chase after the car.

Finally Stimpson makes his last ditch attempt to reach the conference in a car stolen from someone who again, does not own it himself, and in a stolen suit which does not fit him which, in a hilarious counterpoint to his own crumbling identity, falls to pieces while he is wearing it.

The only thing the film lacks is perhaps a little more background on what changed Stimpson from being a hopeless timekeeper to an obsessive one, and what happened to him after he was caught.

Monday Morning (2002)

Defense de Fumeur

[7 June 2005]

A quirky, amusing little film about a French factory worker attempting to get away from it all. The factory scenes at the beginning definitely show a strong Jacques Tati influence and the rest of the film is very much a French version of a Mike Leigh film. Like a lot of French films, plot is not particularly important, but the characters and the atmosphere just wash over you.

My favourite characters were the cigarette smoking, sports car driving grandmother and the fat old man in the wheelchair, M. Albert. The scene where his carer pushed him down the hill in his wheelchair was hilarious! If you like gentle, atmospheric foreign films that don't really 'go' anywhere, then this one is for you.

The Knowledge (1979 TV Movie)

How do you get from Manor House station to Gibson Square?

[1 October 2004]

I was surprised to see so few comments on what I think is an excellent play, by the very talented Jack Rosenthal.

Non British, and even non-Londoners are unlikely to find much of interest, but anyone who knows the capital well will find this an enjoyable little film.

It concerns a group of Londoners who are all on the same 'knowledge' course, the gruelling test set by the Metropolitan Police which all cabbies must take before they get their coveted 'green badge' or taxi driving licence.

The test involves learning every street and public building within six miles of central London - a massive feat of memory that only 30 per cent of applicants manage to pass. The students must spend every waking hour cycling or motorbiking around London so that they know the city back to front.

It is this challenge that provides the dramatic tension and much of the humour of the play, as the test begins to take over every aspect of the students' lives, and leads their wives and girlfriends to despair.

The tour de force is by the late Nigel Hawthorne, who plays 'Dracula', the extremely strict test examiner, who behaves rudely and oddly to try to simulate the difficulties the drivers will experience when in their taxis.

Mr Rosenthal's light touch on the big issues of life is much missed in our present era of earnest, heavy handed drama, and the film is also a delightful period piece showing a London which in many respects has not changed to this day, but in other respects could almost be in the nineteenth century.

Carry on Abroad (1972)

Room servicings?

[4 August 2004]

A hilarious low budget romp for the carry on team. This film sends up both foriegners and Brits. The new idea of package holidays was a rich vein for comedy in the early seventies (see also the brilliant 'Are You Being Served' film), a time when most British people had never been abroad before (except perhaps during the war), so there was much scope for humour.

Amazingly the British weather held up long enough for the island of Elsbels (Camber Sands) to look convincingly like a mediterranean resort (well...in winter anyway!) but a large number of scenes are indoors anyway, so it doesn't matter. All the usual smut, innuendo, and gags about falling down hotels are there, and I defy anyone not to chuckle a few times. The only slight downside is the rather poor acting by Kenneth Williams' assistant, but she is extremely 'easy on the eye' so gets away with it.

My favourite scene is when the prison guard gives the gang the 'fine old British gesture' of two fingers up, to which Kenneth Connor replies 'Damned FILTH!'.

Best Defense (1984)

Befuddly Dudley

[14 July 2004]

On a dull evening at home recently I saw this was showing on ITV2, and I settled down to enjoy what I thought would be a reasonably amusing comedy.

Oh dear.

Peter Cook and Dudley Moore were one of the greatest ever comedy acts. Peter Cook was a hilarious solo act. Dudley Moore was a brilliant musician...but NOT a good solo comedy player.

All Mr Moore's films seem to have him in an ill fitting three piece suit and horrible seventies hairstyle, running manically around hotel corridors and swearing a lot. This film is no exception.

It just didn't have any really funny moments. Mr Murphy (whose scenes were slotted in later) had one or two funny lines but that was about it.

If Saddam Hussein got the idea of invading Iraq from this film, that would be a good reason to ban it!

Repulsion (1965)

The original 'bunny boiler'

[2 July 2004]

I happened upon this film while channel hopping, and initially I was convinced it was a French film dubbed into English, because of its long static shots and arty feel.

Whilst it may have been groundbreaking at the time, the film now comes across as standard arty sixties psychobabble, a style that has been parodied so many times by the likes of Harry Enfield and the Fast Show that it is hard to take seriously.

The main things I liked about the film however were:

The photography: the crisp black and white film and the long, lingering shots and good use of close up make this seem more like viewing a photography show than a film. It is VERY well filmed, and the sense of claustrophobia in the flat was well conveyed (whoever said it was a 'tiny' flat should see my place in London...). By the end of the film I felt I had lived in that flat.

The period atmosphere. Most films made in England at that time limited their location work to factory chimneys, back terraces, or Carnaby Street boutiques. This film, with its atmospheric shots of London streets, pubs etc almost makes you feel you've been transported to London in 1965. That world, before the social and economic upheavals of the late sixties, less than forty years ago, seems to have more in common with 1865 than 2004.

It was also nice to see a young Helen Fraser (the manicurist) who British viewers will recognise as the old battleaxe wardress in 'Bad Girls'.

Ravenous (1999)

HE WAS LICKING ME!!!!!

[29 May 2004]

Spoilers ahead

This film is first and foremost a curiousity piece. It probably won't appeal to the 14 year old at the Iowa drive-in (the standard audience that all films seem to be aimed at these days).

Too quirky for real horror and too low budget for a blockbuster, it combines terror, suspense and humour, and, brilliantly, manages to combine a feeling of the vast wilderness of the American West with a claustrophobic, almost stagey feel. In fact, the interaction of the characters is such that you almost could perform this on the stage in one setting. The obviously zero budget does not make it feel 'cheap' either.

The setting is unusual and superb. Post-revolutionary, pre-civil war America is a period rarely shown on screen and it was a delight to see the period uniforms and even an attempt at period speech by the actors.

And as for the cave scene - that is probably one of the scariest scenes I have seen for a while. While Ives borders on a pantomime villain, Colhoun is sh*t-scarey and the scene where he goes bananas outside the cave had me quivering with fear. That definitely should have been used in the theatrical trailer as well as the 'Let's get that b*stard' scene.

Overall it's too quirky for my liking to be a satisfactory thriller, especially in the final scenes.

Billion Dollar Brain (1967)

I swear by Almighty God to serve Her Brittanic Majesty and none other

[26 October 2003]

I found this film rather disappointing. It was fun in an 'Austin Powers' way, but the whole attraction of 'Ipcress' was that it was anti Bond and concentrated on the rather seedy and humdrum everyday life of the intelligence services.

BDB started off well with the scene in Harry Palmer's rundown office, but once the quick cuts to Finland and Texas started we were firmly in Bond territory.

It seems also that by the time of this film Michael Caine with his longer hair and thicker specs was clearly playing Michael Caine rather than Harry Palmer.

A watchable follow up but ultimately too cheesy to compare with the grit of 'Ipcress'.

BBC Sunday-Night Theatre: Nineteen Eighty-Four (1954) Season 5, Episode 50

'You may as well say goodbye'

[17 June 2003]

I had heard of this programme but never seen it so was very pleased when BBC4 screened it recently.

In many ways the play was shockingly 'modern' with its allusions to sex and pornography...even the word 'orgasm' is mentioned which must have caused a few raised eyebrows in English drawing rooms! ('ask your father, dear....')

What struck me more though was how BBC drama has changed since this was broadcast in 1954. While the production values are minimal (the sets of Victory Mansions for example look like something out of a primary school play, and the opening 'exterior' shot of the Ministry of Love looks like it was drawn with crayon) the acting is superb and unlike anything you would get on a modern tv drama.

The sense of claustrophobia is intense and the 'stagey' feel adds to this. Cushing is brilliant as are the majority of the cast. While set in 1984 the atmosphere is clearly that of bombed out, austere post war London - the dinner lady 'Them's stew with salt; them's stew without' has an Edwardian proletarian twang which has now utterly gone from English speech. My one dislike was the scene when the 'proles' were reading a pornographic book - this looked like three RADA students pretending to be 'common'. Wilfred Brambell as the old man was suspiciously like 'Steptoe' - did Galton and Simpson get the idea from this, I wonder...!

And Orwell's story comes across excellently - the sense of hopelessness in the face of grinding totalitarianism - he would have been proud.

Scum (1979)

My religion is a great comfort to me Sir

[30 May 2003]

I watched this film on DVD the other day and found it amazingly shocking for something made nearly twenty five years ago. The film is gripping, relentlessly violent (I had to look away a couple of times)and excellently photographed. Ray Winston is particularly good as 'The Daddy'.

However, I feel there is a strong element of bias in the film which spoils it somewhat. All the staff of the borstal (except perhaps the elderly one who offer Archer some coffee) are shown as violent, corrupt and evil, almost pantomime villains, to all intents and purposes worse than the inmates.

We are meant to feel sympathy for the inmates, for example Carling who is inside for 'stealing thirty bob's worth of junk'. The implication is that he wants to conform ('I just want to do me time') but someone who handles himself as viciously as he does is obviously no angel.

The character of Archer is also unrealistic. It is extremely unlikely that someone like him would be in Borstal in the first place (although an explanation of this is given it seems a bit feeble). It seems to me that he is put in as a mouthpiece for the liberal conscience of the intended viewer, a bit like the Sean Connery character in 'The Hill' only far less well drawn.

In fact, a far better prison drama is 'The Hill' because it shows the conflict between the different styles of enforcing authority (good cop/bad cop) by those in power. This is not touched on in 'Scum' as all the staff are shown as united in their evil.

On a final note, I can't understand the reviewer that said the film is about '80s fascism' and 'Thatcher's Britain'. Hardly likely when it was written in the seventies before Thatcher was elected.

Shout at the Devil (1976)

Oi've got just the man for ye

[6 May 2003]

Contains spoilers.

Perhaps it was the fault of my DVD edition, but this film just seemed totally haphazard. It starts off well as a comic period drama, with a leering Roger Moore being signed up to help smuggle ivory through German East Africa.

But it soon rapidly falls apart. Several scenes are repeated to the point of tedium, ie the stereotypical swaggering Prussian officer shouting at his men (and why are so many scenes in German without subtitles?) and the Colonel being bribed with cases of gin. There is however a very funny scene where Roger Moore impersonates a German tax collector.

The first half of the film rambles along without pace. After the death of the baby the film picks up pace but by this time loses all its humour and becomes a darker thriller. Even Roger Moore is unhumourous in the second half. Lee Marvin, with his white hair, stubble and shambolic manner seem to adopt the 'granpappy with red underwear' acting style of the Westerns.

Overall the film lacks pace and editing and is about half an hour too long. A disappointme

La Dolce Vita (1960)

Dolce et decorum est

[6 May 2003]

I have a strong dislike of the pretentious pseudo-intellectualism of much 'art house' cinema, especially films loaded with European existential angst. So I wasn't expecting to like 'La Dolce Vita' but thought I'd give it a go as I'd just come back from holiday in Rome.

I was pleasantly surprised. Although three hours long, it didn't seem to drag, mainly because of the lyrical beauty of the photography which makes up for the lack of plot. (And as for beauty, Miss Ekberg has to be THE most beautiful actress of the black and white era, with the exception perhaps of Miss Bacall).

While the film is about the nihilism of modern life, I would suggest Fellini is not completely against religion as a way of salvation. Although the gullible crowds at the shrine of the 'Madonna' come in for heavy attack, the no-nonsense priest refuses to accept it is a miracle, and the scene where the old man recieves the last rites after the crowds have departed is touching. And there is a suggestion that salvation can come in the form of the waitress on the beach, whom Marcello has previously described as 'looking like an angel from a church in Umbria'.

The Ipcress File (1965)

Do a good bit of a lunch at your club do they?

[7 April 2003]

The best thing about this film is the fascinating period atmosphere. When this film was made, 1965, Britain, and British filmmaking, was exactly on the cusp between the old, class ridden, Imperial culture of films like 'Zulu', and the gritty, modern, realist school that began with films like 'Get Carter'.

In '65 Britain had a Labour government after a long period of Conservative rule, and sweeping changes were about to happen which would utterly change the face of British life. 'Ipcress' bridges the gap between these two eras.

On the one hand we have the upper-middle class army officers lunching at their clubs and strolling along in bowler hats with tightly furled umbrellas, and at the other extreme we have the way-out psychedelia of the interrogation chamber scene, and the grimy world of offices, warehouses, and men jumping out of vans that defined the TV and films of the 70s such as 'The Sweeney'.

In the middle somewhere is Harry Palmer, who rather than being working class, is classless. He has no discernable accent, dresses plainly, likes cooking and classical music and lives in nondescript surroundings. It is only his military rank, that of sergeant, that enables us to make any kind of judgement on his social status.

I think this is part of the enduring appeal of the film. Although the Dalbys of this world are long gone, Palmer would not be out of place in 2003, in fact the Palmers of this world are now the norm in many positions of British authority.

Overall a fascinating period piece but one which has worn well.

Diamonds Are Forever (1971)

'She's very pretty...for a lady!'

[19 December 2002]

In my opinion this is probably the worst James Bond film - although it's still watchable. For starters, Sir Sean Connery just looks a bit past it - his paunch and toupee are really starting to look obvious, and he just looks out of place in the tacky Las Vegas locations. Bond is at home wearing a dinner jacket in a casino - but not a casino like 'Circus Circus' populated by midwestern holidaymakers! You may as well send Bond to Blackpool!

The faltering plot and the lack of Bond's sense of revenge at Blofeld also leave the whole thing flat.

Good points are the great score and theme song, and I do like Mr Wint and Mr Kidd - of course they're un PC but they're such outrageously over the top old queens that you'd have to be very po-faced to dislike them. Plenty O' Toole is gorgeous but wasted.

Somehow Sir Sean just seems at odd with the slightly camp direction the series was taking, and by the end of the film we can see the way is clear for the best ever James Bond - the master, Mr Roger Moore.

Bullseye! (1990)

'hit' rather than 'eye' in the title would be better...

[30 October 2002]

Oh dear. I'm a big fan of Mr Caine and Mr Moore, and to be honest those two in the lead roles are the only reason to watch the film. Anyone lesser would have made it an utter waste of time.

The film is hackneyed with an incomprehensible plot. Films based on 'doubles' are always dodgy, so much so that even in the 30s it was considered bad plotting to use them in detective stories. At some points in the film I just didn't know who was meant to be whom, and by the time of the second 'double cross' I just lost interest.

While Caine and Moore were at times hilarious ('I come from a broken home...')a lot of the jokes and effects made me cringe. The scene where the train porter gets his head blown off had me rewinding to see if my eyes had not deceived me. That has to be the worst special effect for many years!

I also found the very obvious pitching of the film to the American audience patronising in the extreme. Tourist shots of London, Highland Games, stately homes, stuffy clubs, 'punk' taxi drivers and an unconvincing portrayal of the Queen - all this type of thing was being done far better and with greater irony by the Comic Strip team years before.

So don't expect a great plot or gags but if you like Caine and Moore, it's worth watching - just.

Mind Your Language (1977–1986)

Miss Courtney!

[22 October 2002]

The current stranglehold of political correctness in the UK media makes it fairly safe to assume this will not be shown again for many years to come.

What is interesting, however, is how popular this programme is with overseas viewers, for example those posting on this site, which suggests it isn't as 'racist' as people in the UK like to think it was.

I remembered it being hilarious when watching it as a child in England. A couple of years ago I was in India and happened to see it on tv. I was pleased to see it was as funny as I remembered - it was on every night and the Indians had even made their own version, about a Hindi language school - complete with stereotypical Englishman in tweeds and a cravat, speaking Hindi in an upper class accent!

Play for Today: 'Nuts in May' (1976) Season 6, Episode 12

If your bloke doesn't lay off I'll kick this table over!

[17 October 2002]

This little film is quite simply a joy to watch. Leigh's gentle humour and wry outlook on life shines through every scene. Effectively plotless, the film follows London couple Keith and Candice Marie Pratt on their camping holiday in Dorset.

The humour derives from the situations that the couple encounter which bring out the curious mixture of autocracy and liberalism in their characters. This reaches a climax with the arrival at the campsite of Honkey and Finger, a couple of rowdy Brummie bikers who infuriate Keith with their free and easy approach to life. When they try to light a campfire (forbidden by the camp rules), Keith attempts to lay down the law and all hell breaks loose.

The film is one long string of hilarious set pieces (still quoted in my family years after seeing it)My favourite is when Honkey and Finger shout 'get back to your tent' to Keith, who loses his temper and shows his true colours by shouting 'AND YOU GET BACK TO YOUR TENEMENTS!'

Overall a non-stop laughter session. But beware, the comedy is low key and character based. If your favourite comedy is 'The Nutty Professor' you probably won't like this much.

The Last Train (1999)

I'll take the bus instead

[16 October 2002]

Spoilers ahead.

As a big fan of the apocalyptic genre best exploited by John Christopher and John Wyndham, I was looking forward to this series. It started off well but it soon became ludicrously unbelievable.

The train survivors at first think they have been in suspended animation for about four years, and this was just about plausible, but they later find out they have been in deep freeze for FIFTY years.

While this is not necessarily impossible, it is not reflected in the settings. For example, someone manages to start a van that has been in a garage for fifty years and drive it for hundreds of miles. We see wrecked cars littering the roads with pristine paintwork, and houses in good repair - hardly likely after fifty years, most of which was a nuclear winter! Similarly the village pub that the group stay in looks like it could win an Egon Ronay award - it is clean, tidy and well maintained, there is a well stocked bar and the juke box strikes up as if it had never been turned off!

Then at the end, the fact that the pursuers are in fact the survivors of 'Ark' is patronisingly drummed into the viewer several times. For a really good apocalyptic mini series, try Stephen King's 'The Stand' or BBC's 'Day of the Triffids' instead.

Dracula A.D. 1972 (1972)

Vampirism's quite a groovy bag baby!

[15 October 2002]

This film is watchable mainly for curiousity value, nostalgia and unintentional humour. The depiction of the swinging Chelsea 'group' is hilarious, Austin Powers would not look out of place amongst this lot (actually note to Mr Mike Myers: 'Austin Powers v. Dracula' - any thoughts?).

Mr Cushing is excellent, as ever, although Miss Beacham is a slightly embarrassing heroine, especially in her attempt to reassure her grandfather that she isn't 'dropping acid', 'shooting up' or 'sleeping with anyone just yet'.

Mr Lee is somewhat wasted as a confused looking Dracula who rarely leaves the confines of a deconsecrated church - a lot more mileage could have been made out of Dracula in London in 1972, but the denoument scenes could have taken place in Transylvania in 1872 as far s the audience is concerned.

Instead we are left with a cringingly camp vampire with the laughable name of Alucard (I thought he was called Avocaat when I first watched the film) and a bunch of ageing teenagers who look like rejects from 'Please Sir' and who spend their time in coffee bars, going to 'jazz spectaculars', crashing Sloaney parties and then thinking nothing of going to a black mass in a deconsecrated church.

All I can say is thank heavens the eighties came along!

Octopussy (1983)

'That should keep you in curry for a few weeks!'

[2 August 2002]

Contains spoilers

Roger Moore's penultimate outing as Bond is a definite 'all time high'. 'Octopussy' is a great film, visually impressive and with some real vintage Bond scenes (the backgammon club, the escape from Kamal Khan's castle, the German car and train chases).

The increasingly elderly Mr Moore looks far better placed against the more mature Bond 'women', and an allusion to this is made when Moneypenny gets a younger, more attractive female assistant.

My one criticism of the film would be the very poor, tv-movie style rapid cutting of linking scenes. For example, Bond manages to make complicated costume changes in seconds (when he puts on the knife thrower's outfit and the clown outfit)and how on earth did he get out of the gorilla costume on the train so quickly and quietly before the villain tried to chop his head off? That scene is pure 1930s 'saturday morning serial' fare.

The campery does rather go over the top in places as well - the Union Flag balloon (complete with Q in vintage flying helmet) is fun but a poor attempt to ape the opening scene of 'The Spy Who Loved Me', and the 'tarzan' sound effect is reminiscent of the infamouse 'slide whistle' moment in 'The Man With The Golden Gun'.

Overall though the film is cracking entertainment that just needs slightly more careful plotting and editing to tighten it up.

Moonraker (1979)

Champagne! If it's the '69, you've been expecting me!

[23 July 2002]

(may contain spoilers)

Yes, Moonraker has its bad points, but overall it's worth watching.

First of all here are the major flaws:

This was the first Bond film in which Mr Moore started to look just a little bit past it. He seems to have aged quite a bit in the two years since the excellent 'The Spy Who Loved Me' and his wardrobe doesn't help - naff looking flares, blazers and safari suits in comparison with the far cooler suits and naval uniform of TSWLM. The makeup team also seem to have gone over the top with the hairspray - perhaps to keep Mr Moore's hair in place during 'zero-g'?

Some great action scenes are spoiled by poor special effects and editing. For example, the fight scene on the cable car had an obviously fake backdrop - surely this could have been done more realisticly with a safety net or good camera angles (like in the Harold Lloyd films)?

The whole of Drax's evil plan is ultimately pointless. Why go to all the trouble and expense of building a space station for a few people? Why not use a sealed underground cave (which he already has) while the rest of the earth is gassed? Surely this would be easier.

The humour is poor. Bond films (especially those with Mr Moore) have always been funny but the humour has usually been verbal. In this film feeble attempts at visual humour abound, such as our friend from TSWLM who looks at his bottle when he sees Bond driving the gondola. (Hmm - remind me to buy some of that hallucinogenic wine from Italy.)

Now the good points!

Excellent score - the music is really atmospheric and there are some memorable tunes that I found myself humming after the film.

Superb locations, (even if Drax's Amazonian lair does look like a 1970s garden centre)

To balance the feeble visual humour, Bond has some good quips: 'If it's the '69, you've been expecting me'...'I think he had a crush on me'...'your perfume is a trifle overpowering'...'Heartbroken, Mr Drax'.

Good supporting work by Mr Lonsdale and Ms Chiles, as reasonably believable villain and Bond girl. Even though Jaws is played more for laughs, Mr Keil still manages to make him a frightening opponent.