ThePublicEnemy Reviews

7de Laan (2000– )

Guilty pleasure

[6/10 · 15 September 2007]

7de Laan is my guilty pleasure. It's basically Neighbours, but South African. Same looking sets, same plots, more or less identical characters. If it wasn't in Afrikaans, I might easily believe it is Neighbours. Dialogue often slips in and out of Afrikaans and into English or an African language, which can be very funny to hear.

Unfortunately, we in the UK can't watch it anymore since the South African channel stopped being available on Sky. But I enjoyed it thoroughly while it was on. It's light-hearted, harmless.... pure escapism.

I won't pretend it's groundbreaking television. I won't even pretend it's particularly good television. But it has what Neighbours has: the ability to focus on the happier things in life and not to get tied up in anguish and melodrama all the time. It's truly easy to watch, and it was my guilty pleasure.

The Lady Vanishes (1938)

She was awfully decent about that cheese, though...

[19 July 2006]

Probably my favourite from the limited Hitchcock I have seen (Rear Window, The 39 Steps, Secret Agent and this). Every time I see it, I laugh at the same bits without getting bored.

Naunton Wayne and Basil Radford are hysterical. Every little look or comment shared between them is brilliant. I hear they appear in another Hitch film, and I'd love to see them again.

The two leads are sparky and amiable, and Paul Lukas makes a great villain. What really gets me is how the only person our heroine thinks she can trust is the mustachioed East European doctor...

The plot is somewhat convoluted, all revolving round spies and a thinly disguised pre-war Europe. Dame May Witty appears as the titular lady who may have more to do with the conspiracy than first thought.

The film is very British: check out Charters' reaction to being shot near the end. Hitchcock is much lighter here, before his move across the pond, but his gift for direction still shines through, in spite of the hilariously fake sets.

All in all, a thoroughly enjoyable little mystery from a master.

Murder, My Sweet (1944)

Most accurate Chandler adaption

[10/10 · 19 July 2006]

*Minor Spoilers herein*

The remake, Farewell My Lovely, with the great Robert Mitchum, was more faithful to Chandler's original text without doubt. However, this film is much more thematically similar. The central character is nailed down by Powell. The more famous portrayals are undoubtedly from Mitchum and Bogart, but Powell is the better man as far as this is concerned. He took the best bits from both of them: Bogart's wisecracking quick wit and Mitchum's tough cynicism, and added something to make the role his own. It's hard to define the 'something', but I think it comes from his grace of movement, not surprising considering Powell had previously made his living in musicals. And, unlike his predecessors, Powell's Marlowe actually looked like he had a job to do and was trying to do it, not merely wandering around with a glass of whiskey and some eye candy. The directorial duties are taken on by Edward Dmytryk, later blacklisted during the McCarthy Witchhunts. I recently read a comment which mentioned that John Huston was only a brilliant director when he was interested in what he was doing. I think the same can be said of Dmytryk. His most outstanding films aside from this are The Young Lions (1956), which I loved, and Crossfire (1947) which I have yet to see. He was obviously interested here: the direction is very good, though he mostly refrains from noir-ish camera angles. The lighting composition is also very good, and the stylistically fake sets add to the dark atmosphere. Claire Trevor is wonderful and characteristically energetic in her role as femme fatale Velma Valento/Mrs Grayle. The actor playing Merriot made me laugh, with his strange Cockney accent, "Oi'm not in the 'abit of givin' people grounds for blackmail, Mister Marl-OH!". Aside from that, all the other supporting players were very good. The special effects employed for the hallucination scene were quite cutting edge for the time, and managed to freak out my Terminator-hardened younger brothers.

A good introduction to film noir: the plot is dazzlingly complicated, the women have weird hair and the cops wear hats. Enough for anyone to get started on the genre, as far as I'm concerned.