Monthly Archives: August 2012

Make/Remake: The Spiral Staircases

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The Spiral Staircase 1945The Spiral Staircase 2000

The Spiral Staircase (1945)

and

The Spiral Staircase (2000)


The Spiral Staircase started life as a 1933 novel titled Some Must Watch. Written by Ethel Lina White (who’s perhaps most notable for having also penned The Wheel Spins which became Hitchcock’s The Lady Vanishes), Some Must Watch is set on the Welsh border in the then-present day. In response to a recent spate of murders, the residents of a Victorian mansion are locked in one dark and stormy night — but is the killer among them?

Both of these adaptations keep the basic story of Some Must Watch, though one updates it to turn-of-the-century New England and the other to turn-of-the-millennium… somewhere (it was shot in Canada), and the latter adds a massive preamble and romance subplot. And apparently they both add the titular staircase. I’ve never read the novel so can’t comment on either of these as adaptations, but in comparison to each other one is vastly superior. The ’40s film is an atmospheric Gothic-noir treat, while the ’00s remake is a cheap TV movie that aspires to be little more than trashy romance welded on TV-friendly ’90s slasher movie. Risible.

For my full thoughts on each, please click through:


The good one is on BBC Two tomorrow, Friday 31st August, at 12:50pm. Record it and watch it on a dark and stormy night.

The Spiral Staircase (2000)

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2012 #49
James Head | 88 mins | TV | 1.33:1 | USA / English

The Spiral Staircase 2000A couple of years ago I discovered the ’40s Gothic noir thriller The Spiral Staircase, an exceedingly enjoyable film that I would heartily encourage you to see. It’s been remade twice: first a British effort in the ’70s, then this turn-of-the-millennium US TV movie. I find remakes immensely interesting — they’re almost always reviled, but that doesn’t mean they’re all bad; and even when they are, they can be interesting as an indication of what one era thought was a good idea for updating (or not) something originally made in a different time. The ’00s Spiral Staircase is definitely one of the bad ones, but if you want a snapshot of ’90s (not a typo) US TV movies, it’s bang on.

I believe it was made for a Women’s Network in the States, and it feels like an adaptation of one of those doorstop-sized airport romance paperbacks that I imagine are their stock in trade. (In fairness to doorstop-sized airport romances and the novel from which all versions of The Spiral Staircase stem, I’ve never read either.) Despite the implications of an “X months ago” prologue in which someone is followed by a spooky pair of eyes (presumably a whole person, but we only see the eyes), the first half is more cheap, tacky, romance-of-the-week TV movie than serial killer thriller.

The second half tries harder, seeing a bunch of potential victims locked in an island mansion, cut off by a terrible storm, and then finds reasons to have them wander back and forth around the place until they start being bumped off for no particular reason. This half isn’t necessarily good, but it has more atmosphere and more excitement, if not any more originality, even while contriving ways to divide its characters.

I think that guy did itThere are about three suspects in the entire tale. One is so clearly being set up from the off that you know it can’t be him; one barely even registers as a suspect; and it’s not the third one. But the film doesn’t pull off a twist because the attempt (by dragging that middle character back into it) comes so out of the blue as to make no sense. They don’t even bother to try to explain it properly! It’s about the only time the film holds back on painful over-exposition, and it’s about the only time it needs it. Either way, it’s not the same as the original film’s, and it’s not as good.

Every character is a cliché: the sweet new girl, the stern housekeeper, the drunk cook, the no-nonsense bed-ridden matriarch, the intelligent brother who stayed behind to look after mother, the playboy brother who only comes home when he needs a loan, his latest gold-digging floozy… The performances don’t help. As the mute heroine, Nicollette Sheridan only has her facial expressions to work with, and they don’t seem to change; she’s also at least a decade too old for the part. As her love interest, former Brat Packer Judd Nelson is awfully wooden. The rest of the cast are various degrees of adequate.

Head’s direction is flat and cheap, which I suppose is exactly what you’d expect from a late-’90s cable TV movie. The sequence where a character stumbles across the titular staircase is quite atmospheric, given added creepiness by it featuring about the only character whose fate doesn’t seem inevitable, but that’s all. Even given a storm in a house with no power, the only atmosphere generated is that which such a situation offers by default.

Wooden. The staircase, I mean.The original story is clearly suited to a Gothic historical setting (the ’40s film didn’t keep the novel’s time period, but it chose one similar enough), but that doesn’t mean a modern-set rendition isn’t without potential. Or maybe it is — it’s hard to be certain from a movie that certainly doesn’t realise what potential there may be. Yet for all its countless weaknesses, I can’t quite bring myself to entirely despise it. Can I really give this wholly derivative remake 2 stars? It may be some kind of Stockholm Syndrome — after 90 minutes with it, I can’t help but find some point in it all; some thing to like.

But no, it’s woeful; and unless you have a fondness for romance-focused late-’90s US cable TV movies, or for seeing just how remakes have changed things (like me… the second, that is, not the first), then I recommend you stay clear.

1 out of 5

The 1945 version of The Spiral Staircase is on BBC Two tomorrow, Friday 31st August, at 12:50pm. You can read my review here.

The Spiral Staircase featured on my list of The Five Worst Films I Saw in 2012, which can be read in full here.

Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003)

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2012 #24
Peter Weir | 133 mins | TV | 2.35:1 | USA / English | 12 / PG-13

Master and CommanderThere are a few Oscar nominees from the ’00s that inspire little desire in me to bother seeing them (I’m certain that’s completely true of every era, but I’ve seen most of the ’00s nominees so I tend to focus on them more often), meaning it’s taking me a very long time to get round to them (maybe I never will). Master and Commander isn’t really one of those — it’s no Seabiscuit or In the Bedroom — but I can’t say a naval inaction film with Russell Crowe held massive appeal. Turns out I was completely wrong.

For starters, it’s definitely not an “inaction” movie. It’s not an action movie in the regularly understood sense of non-stop fights on varying scales, but there are a few stunningly realised naval battles, and other exciting sequences as the hero ship either tries to keep track of or elude their enemy. That’s essentially the film’s plot — one ship after another — and the long chase (they rarely have each other in direct sight) gives it an epic feel, as they chase an almost phantom ship, rather than engaging in regular heated battles.

There’s lots of good detail about what it would be like to live that life, woven in and around the plot. I’m sure this thoroughly thrilled maritime enthusiasts (assuming it’s all accurate), but for those of us whose interests lie elsewhere it still provides a vivid picture. It’s not so much a character picture, although the nature of Russell Crowe’s Captain is surely revealed in the way he goes about his tactics and the nature of his various relationships with various crewmen. Paul Bettany, as the ship’s doctor, is more our point of view: Character creationhe’s not a naval man and doesn’t always understand their traditions. He’s not a crass audience-cipher in the way such parts often can be, but it does make him identifiable.

This is also the first movie ever to film on the Galapagos Islands, featuring it in an extended sequence in which Bettany — who also happens to be a keen amateur whatever-ist — ventures onto the island to collect specimens of the strange and unusual creatures they see as they sail past. Bettany would later play Darwin in 2009’s Creation, which lends this stuff some kind of odd intertextual significance in retrospect. While it’s an interesting aside from the story — an unusual kind of diversion — it is nonetheless an aside, and perhaps kills some of the momentum. On the other hand, along with some earlier sequences of trading with natives, it lends the film a feel of exploration, of an era when parts of the world — and the people and creatures that inhabited them — were still being discovered, even just by common sailors.

It looks like too many people felt as I did and didn’t turn out to see Master and Commander in big enough numbers: it opened at #2 in the US, grossing just $93.9m on a budget of $150m. It managed $212m total worldwide, but when you consider marketing costs… It was clearly considered quite a pricey proposition, considering it was, unusually, produced and/or released by 20th Century Fox, Universal and MiramaxAction man commander (that makes for a strangely bizarre array of company logos at the start). Despite the fact it’s based on a series of 20 (completed) books, and various people involved have mentioned the possibility down the years, a sequel is so unlikely it seems silly calling it just “unlikely”. And that’s a shame, because this is an entertaining action-drama with likeable characters and an engrossing atmosphere. A little to my surprise, I loved it.

5 out of 5

Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World placed 3rd on my list of The Ten Best Films I Saw For the First Time in 2012, which can be read in full here.

Hugh Sinclair as The Saint

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In the ’30s and ’40s, RKO adapted Leslie Charteris’ series of novels about a modern-day Robin Hood called the Saint into a series of eight films. Following the departure of George Sanders for the similar Falcon series (of which more soon), the mantle of the Saint was adopted by English actor Hugh Sinclair. He may have had the look of a quasi-aristocratic man of action, but Sinclair was no match for the actors that went before, though it apparently wasn’t his fault the series fizzled to an end so quickly.

He ultimately appeared in just two Saint films, which I have naturally reviewed here:


The Saint Meets the Tiger (1943)

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2012 #67
Paul Stein | 66 mins | TV | 4:3 | UK / English | PG*

The Saint Meets the TigerProduced in 1941 but not released until 1943, owing to Saint creator Leslie Charteris’ dispute with RKO over their new Falcon series (which is fairly unashamedly a rip-off of the successful Saint films), The Saint Meets the Tiger is a belated adaptation of Charteris’ first Saint tale, but was to be the series’ final film. Fortunately, it’s quite a good one.

Whether it be by conscious effort or serendipity, several of the problems suffered by The Saint’s Vacation are rectified here. Consensus seems to hold this is even worse than Hugh Sinclair’s first Saint film, but I definitely preferred it. The plot is not only engaging but makes sense, flowing onwards rather than going round in circles and not trying to push ‘twists’ that can be seen a mile off. The sense of place is also back: it’s very much The Saint in Cornwall. The downside is that’s a bit less glamorous than New York or trotting around Europe, the tiny Cornish village setting giving a low-key and quaint sensation, despite the story concerning international gold thieves. Secret passages, a smugglers’ cave and a yacht add some Boy’s Own excitement and borderline grandeur nonetheless.

Unfortunately the titular villain is a damp squib. Clifford Evans’ performance is good enough, and the notion of him working with our heroes under an alias is a good one, but ultimately he’s not the kind of crime lord the dramatic title and initial setup serve to imply. His underlings are the focus of the Saint’s investigations at first, and then they overthrow the Tiger with a basic double cross and become the focus for the climax too. Insert some predictable comment about him being a tiger without teeth here.

The Saint Meets the TigerIt still lacks the wit and light touch that make the Sanders films so entertaining, with only vague attempts at humour that generally raise little more than a smile. Sinclair doesn’t seem quite as wooden this time out, but he’s a straight-cut hero-type, not the kind of charmer this series really wants. In fact, one moment when he bursts into laughter, only to suddenly cut it short, is actually quite creepy. Perhaps he was trying to emulate Sanders more — the film does feel lighter than Vacation — but he still comes up short.

Gordon McLeod is Inspector Teal for the third time, but is still no Fernack; and Wylie Watson as Templar’s butler-butler (as opposed to the usual criminal-turned-butler) isn’t the series’ best sidekick either. Still, they’re both light years ahead of the ones offered in Vacation. Jean Gillie is actually one of the better ‘Saint girls’, though.

All in, Meets the Tiger plays as a straight-up thriller in the ’40s filler model. It’s fine for what it is, with some nice moments particularly during the third act, but it’s not quite as entertainingly memorable as the series’ middle entries.

3 out of 5

Read more of my thoughts on Sinclair’s time as the Saint here.

* As with many of the Saint films, this has apparently not been passed by the BBFC since 1941 (when it was also 12 minutes longer — that’s not just PAL speed-up!). Nonetheless, it’s available on DVD, rated PG. ^

The Saint’s Vacation (1941)

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2012 #66
Leslie Fenton | 58 mins | TV | 4:3 | UK & USA / English | PG*

The Saint's VacationThe Saint’s gone on vacation indeed — with the saintly George Sanders nabbed for RKO’s rip-off Falcon series, here we’re treated to fellow Brit Hugh Sinclair’s take on Leslie Charteris’ hero. For “treated” read “subjected”. I’ll come back to him, because sadly he’s not the only thing that makes The Saint’s Vacation the worst film in the entire series.

On paper it should have all gone fairly swimmingly too: not only is this film adapted from a Charteris story, it’s also the first to have the Saint’s creator co-pen the screenplay; plus the character has spiritually come home, as RKO moved filming to the UK to make use of funds frozen by the British government’s Cinematograph Films Act.** But none of that helps; indeed, perhaps it hindered, because the result is a mess.

The adventure is a runaround across Europe. I say “Europe” — it looked broadly Germanic to me, but there’s mention of Paris, and I read online it’s meant it to be Switzerland. Possibly it’s a combination of the above. Considering it’s technically set during the war (not that anyone explicitly mentions that), at least one of those is thoroughly implausible. Having praised the series for its palpable sense of location in earlier entries, that’s all gone here.

The plot itself barely hangs together. The Saint for no apparent reason decides to stick his oar in to someone else’s business, at which point everyone’s racing around the countryside after a mysterious little box that we have no idea why anyone wants. Things are compounded by the regular appearance of local police who will apparently believe whatever they’re told by the first person who tells them something. The Saint's gullible policeApparently the villains are Nazis, though there’s absolutely nothing to suggest that here (again, that’s something I’ve since read online). The Saint knows both the villain and a Mysterious Woman of old, but it’s never explained how or why or what their relationships are. It’s like a set of stock adventure-story elements assembled without any understanding of how or why they should connect, which makes for an unsatisfying and unenthralling experience.

Matters are compounded by this apparently being a TV-friendly version created in retrospect. The title screen has a badly superimposed TV company credit stuck on it anyway, so I presume that’s why a fight scene halfway through has been butchered. It’s that or it was a complete hash job in the first place, with continuity-destroying jumpy editing and choppy music. It doesn’t even look especially violent, as you’d expect from ’40s filler, and it’s certainly no worse than other bits included later… but then of course I don’t know what was cut.

So we return to Hugh Sinclair, who is not a match for Sanders or The Saint in New York’s Louis Hayward. To be blunt, he’s as stiff as a board — pretty much literally, at least to begin with. Sanders oozed charisma just by appearing on screen; Sinclair doesn’t manage any throughout the entire film.

The Saint's new faceThe rest of the cast don’t offer much compensation. Arthur Macrae as the Saint’s cowardly friend Monty is no replacement for the parade of ex-cons he formerly hired as manservants, while Sally Gray of The Saint in London (but here a different character) aims again for pluck but somehow isn’t gifted with the same quality of screenplay and/or direction. Cecil Parker is a solid villain, not that the screenplay treats him that well.

This is easily the worst entry in the series to date — and, having seen the final one before writing this, I’m prepared to say the worst overall. The series spluttered to an end after the next film over an argument between RKO and Charteris about the Falcon series, which was essentially a thinly-veiled Saint rip-off, but one wonders if it wouldn’t have tottered to its own end anyway.

2 out of 5

Read more of my thoughts on Sinclair’s time as the Saint here.

* As with many of the Saint films, this has apparently not been passed by the BBFC since its release in 1941 (when it was also 20 minutes longer — that’s not just PAL speed-up!). Nonetheless, it’s available on DVD, rated PG. ^

** According to IMDb, The Saint’s Vacation “was the first film made using those frozen funds”. I’m no expert on this era, but the act I presume that bit of IMDb trivia means is the 1938 one discussed in the final paragraph of this section on Wikipedia, so presumably it was just the first RKO film to use that money. As I said, no expert — everything I know about this was gleaned from those two pages. Back to the review: ^

Burke & Hare (2010)

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2012 #20
John Landis | 88 mins | TV | 2.35:1 | UK / English | 15 / R

Burke & Hare

This is a true story
Except for the parts that are not

As an opening title card, you’d have to go some way to beat that. It’s also very apt: John Landis’ return to feature directing after a twelve-year break is based on real events (a pair of Irish grave robbers who operated in Edinburgh in the 1820s), but it takes massive liberties with what really happened, particularly the ending (but I won’t spoil that here). There’s no real surprise in that — it’s quite hard to make a comedy out of real-life serial killers, I should think.

And it is funny. Well, quite funny. It’s amiably light rather than laugh-out-loud hilarious. The titular characters are played by Simon Pegg and Andy Serkis, one who has a pedigree for comedy and one who doesn’t so much, but both are solid. Pegg’s role was originally to be played by David Tennant (he had to pull out due to commitments to an ultimately-cancelled US TV series). I like Tennant, but the replacement was probably for the best — Pegg plays up the comedy without overdoing it, and handles the slightly dramatic stuff well too, whereas I fear Tennant might have over-egged both for this film’s particular tone. Or maybe not, who knows.

Burke or HareAs seems to be the case fairly often these days (I feel like I’m noting it in more and more reviews, anyway) there’s a host of famous cameos and recognisable faces. This time I won’t ruin it by listing them, but there’s a regular stream to look out for.

I sense there’s a serious movie to be made about the real Burke and Hare… though I believe there are several others, so maybe one of them does it well. This won’t serve anyone as a history lesson, but then that’s not its job. As a knockabout black comedy, it works well enough. I think I’ve given probably-lesser comedies higher scores before now, but in a renewed spirit of trying to be more accurate — and maybe less forgivingly generous — this gets

3 out of 5

Unstoppable (2010)

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In tribute to the late Tony Scott, perhaps one of my favourite filmmakers, and normally a distinctly underrated one, 100 Films’s 600th feature review is of his final film…

2012 #17
Tony Scott | 94 mins | TV | 2.35:1 | USA / English | 12 / PG-13

UnstoppableTony Scott teams up with Denzel Washington for the fifth time to tell the (kinda) true story of a runaway train with the potential to cause massive destruction.

One of the first questions provoked by any ‘true story’ movie is, “how truthful is it?” And the appropriate answer is, “does it matter?” The main thing here is the same as in most of Scott’s movies: a good ride. As an action-thriller take on real-life, naturally much of what occurs has been fabricated for the movies — generally, the more exciting bits. It’s “inspired by” a real incident from 2001, not a factual re-telling of it. And as it’s a movie not a documentary, that’s fine.

Scott certainly knows how to direct some action. Here he reins in the crazy editing and grading effects of Man on Fire and Domino, but keeps a tense, restless roving camera. The attempts to stop the train are suitably nail-biting and exciting in equal measure. It’s still got that modern, digital intermediate, genre-based colour wash going on though: its a thriller, so of course all the photography is spun from ‘natural’ towards either ‘steely blue’ or ‘metallic green’ depending on location.

For all the excitement, and a brief running time of just over an hour and a half, it could do with being a bit quicker at the start. The time spent establishing character helps our emotional investment later, but even just five minutes trimmed from the fairly sedate first half-hour would help matters. It’s not as if it’s an actors’ film either, though the three leads sell their characters with ease. Chris Pine and Washington seem to have a chemistry that works, even if their roles — the know-it-all young hothead and the experienced about-to-retire old-timer — Stopping the unstoppableare as stock as they come. Also look out for Kevin Dunn playing the kind of role (condescending middle-management ‘bad guy’) he always plays.

Nor is it a film with a message, although mention of redundancies coupled with the imagery of an uncontrollable runaway train means there’s something to be read in there about the state of the economy.

Although the Rotten Tomatoes summary describes it as “Tony Scott’s best movie in years”, that might not be saying much coming off the back of critical flops like Domino, Deja Vu and The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3. It’s not his best work, of that I think we can be certain, but it shows a director still capable of crafting a compelling story that delivers thrills alongside solid if familiar characters, and feels cutting-edge without resorting to tired shakeycam confusion.

4 out of 5

Ridley Scott may get all the awards and honours, because, as Tony once described them, he is “classical” while Tony is “rock and roll”; but for my money the younger Scott brother’s influence on movies will be just as sorely missed. I think Ron Howard put it best: “No more Tony Scott movies. Tragic day.”

Three Colour TV

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Sky Arts 1 are showing Krzysztof Kieslowski’s Three Colours Trilogy over the next few weeks, starting tonight with Three Colours: Blue at 11pm (I believe it’s also repeated later in the week). My ‘reviews’ from back in the blog’s first year aren’t really up to much, but now seemed as good a time as any to bring them over.

This is a set of films I really need to re-watch (and perhaps then re-review), preferably with some kind of academic extras to put them in context. I believe Criterion’s Blu-ray box set is pretty stacked in that department, but at at least £40 it’s a tad rich for my pocket when I do already have them on DVD. (That said, it’s less than I initially thought and only about a tenner more than the UK set, so it’s not so bad really. But as anyone who follows BD releases knows, this September/October is a spectacularly busy one.)

Anyway, here’s the little I had to say in 2007…