William Wyler | 113 mins | TV | U
Roman Holiday is the kind of film where its list of achievements don’t quite precede it — Best Picture nominee (it lost to From Here to Eternity), places on the IMDb Top 250, They Shoot Pictures’ 1000 Greatest and one of the AFI’s 100 Years lists — but something else certainly does: this is the film that made Audrey Hepburn a star.
So let’s start with Hepburn. Here she plays a European Princess on a world tour, for various diplomatic reasons, which is coming to an end in Rome. She’s not happy, running off to see the real Rome, and sending her entourage into a quandary as they try to cover up her disappearance. It’s a role that could easily be intensely irritating — the spoilt little brat who doesn’t know how good she has it / with no sense of responsibility — but Hepburn seems to be effortlessly likeable, and it’s easy to sympathise with the idea that seeing the sights and having fun in an iconic city is a lot better than meeting a bunch of stuffy old men.
Through various contrivances, the Princess winds up in the flat of journalist Joe Bradley, played by Gregory Peck. He initially doesn’t realise who she is; he’s helping her out by giving her a bed for the night — the fact he’s Fundamentally Kind will become important in a bit. The next day, when he sleeps in and misses his scheduled interview with the Princess, he twigs who she is and sets about a plan to secretly get a world-exclusive, roping in photographer friend Irving Radovich (Eddie Albert) to get candid shots of 
the Princess as they take her on a day messing about in Rome.
So, essentially, Joe is conning her. He doesn’t let on that he knows the truth, keeping up the act that he thinks she’s a school runaway after a good time; he tricks her into it so he can get a story that will undoubtedly bring some degree of shame, shock and/or scandal to her family and/or country. His moral underhandedness occasionally undercuts the movie: they seem to be allowing her to finally do the things she wants to do, but all along he’s memorising quotes and Irving is secretly snapping away. It all works out in the end — realistically, and therefore, perhaps, surprisingly — but on the way there…
On the other hand — and without wishing to give too much away — morals do get the better of Joe and Irving, and they do often seem quite genuine in the way they help the Princess do what she wants, and they have a good time too (and not because they stand to be rolling in it if they pull it off); and, naturally, Joe ends up in love with the Princess and all that, and it does all work out in the end… It’s a matter of interpretation, perhaps. If you choose to focus on Joe’s ultimate aim — selling the story — then most of the film is a nasty trick. 
If, instead, you remember that he’s Fundamentally Kind, it might be less troubling that he has a secret plan most of the time.
Morals aside, the cast work well together. The film is often painted as a Peck/Hepburn two-hander — easier to sell the romance angle that way — and I’m sure it would work as that, but Albert’s in it enough to qualify for attention, and is fairly essential to what makes it quite so likeable in my opinion. He and Peck carry much of the humour while Hepburn charms as a sweet girl finally allowed to be herself.
The bulk of the narrative is structured as a series of set pieces and individual sequences/moments, taking the cast from situation to situation: her scooter riding, cafe foolery, barge dancing/fight, and so on. In some ways, it’s just taking the audience along with them — there’s the Princess’ entourage trying to recover her and Joe formulating his story, but it’s more about the fun the characters are having doing whatever than the way it contributes to either of these plots. Wyler puts the genuine Rome locations to good use — and when you’re the first Hollywood film to be shot entirely in Italy, why wouldn’t you? It’s a cliché I know, but the city is as much a character as any of the cast.
In spite of some characters’ moral underhandedness, Roman Holiday emerges as a very likeable film about, essentially, having a lovely time on holiday somewhere nice. Hepburn may not be as obviously iconic here as she would become thanks to Breakfast at Tiffany’s, but I think it’s clear to see how she would become a beloved star.
Roman Holiday is on More4 today, Thursday 23rd April 2015, at 10:50am.
Fritz Lang is probably best remembered for the films he made in Germany; medium-defining classics like 
but it does manage what might be described as twists in how far it’s willing to go — mainly, who gets killed and how.
The further behind one gets on reviews, the easier it becomes to forget a film. Or not so much forget the film itself, but when one watched it. Or, to put it another way, I was a little surprised when I looked back over the 20 films I had left to review and saw Genevieve still there. At least I had a hundred or so words of notes for this one.
heightened by an evening of irritations and revelations, tipping the second half’s journey-back into an out-and-out race. It’s the second half that contains the more overt comedy as the rivals compete to scupper each other’s chances. That’s not to do down the more gentle style of the opening half, which has its moments. That said, depending on one’s perspective, the realistic sparring of the married couple during the opening scenes might be seen to give the film a bit of an edge of reality, making it not just the staged, (relatively) high-concept comedy it could have been.
Director Henry Cornelius was vetoed on most of his first [casting] choices… and he was forced to make it at studios he didn’t want to work at. Cornelius’ displeasure was acutely felt by cast and crew as he didn’t hide how unhappy he was. He was also seemingly highly lecherous. Consequently both Dinah Sheridan and Kay Kendall carried whistles on them at all times… Olive Dodds, Rank’s head of contract artists, later testified that every leading cast member came to her at one point and said they wanted off the film.”
The most recent example of this speedy-remake phenomenon is Swedish vampire drama 
in fact, the director is keen to point out (in a surprisingly unpretentious fashion) that he doesn’t aim his work to slot into any particular genre — while Reeves set out to make a horror movie first and a young-love drama second. Though don’t go expecting out-and-out vampire thrills and gore from Let Me In, because it retains enough of the original’s DNA to make it still a pleasantly unusual genre entry.
Owen is a 12-year-old loner in New Mexico in 1983, spending his days at school being bullied and filling his evenings spying on his neighbours. Then a girl, Abby, and her father move in next door and it looks like he might finally make a friend.
The nighttime scenes are bathed in the orange glow of street-lighting, a nice choice of colour scheme as it’s evocative of the real world, especially as it’s not unnaturally overdone: the colour is abundant where there is such lighting, but more natural tones are used in forests, etc. It also provides a very different feel to the original, where a more white, snow-emphasising light was adopted throughout. Despite its realism, though, such a solidly orange palette does make the US one feel more visually stylised. Ironic.
Despite it being easier to spot omissions than additions, Reeves’ film runs the same length as the original and feels faster moving. This may just be because I knew the story well, watching both versions just 24 hours apart, but some things are quantifiable: as well as far fewer scenes with the neighbours — in the original, characters; here, victim-extras — there’s also fewer arty shots of scenery, which helped give the original its sedate arthouse tone. What’s taken the place of all these things? Scenes from the novel, you might think, but from what I’ve read it’s faithful to the film more than novel — stuff I’ve read about being in the novel but not the Swedish film hasn’t been reinstated here either.
It seems he isn’t innocent in the same way Oskar was, that Reeves is building up his awareness of sexuality… but then he asks Abby to go steady and he still considers it to mean you don’t “do anything special”. What? Also, if she says “I’m not a girl”, surely the logical response is “you’re a boy?!”, not “what are you?” — especially if the only answer she’ll give is “I’m nothing”. But she’s not a boy — probably. It’s not explicit, but she seems much girlier, and of course it would remove any dangerous homosexual element. Or possibly they just wanted to make damn sure they didn’t need to include The Crotch Shot. Considering they’ve changed the bully’s teasing of Owen from “piggy” to “little girl”, it seems even more obvious a shame to have stripped Abby of her androgyny. Unless that’s the point? They tease Owen about being a little girl, before getting their asses kicked — or, rather, bodies ripped apart — by one.
Similarly, the CGI is overdone throughout. It’s not bad per se, just used too overtly. Whereas the original remained grounded and (perhaps surprisingly) plausible, Reeves occasionally indulges in more stereotypical horror movie excess — take Abby’s first attack in the underpass, for instance: superficially similar, but in this version a computer-aided Abby flies all over the place. It draws attention to its has-to-be-fakery and is therefore a less effective sequence.
It’s probably unfair to judge Let Me In by watching it so close to the Swedish version. I expect it benefits from a bit of distance. It’s still a well-made film, still an unusual take on a familiar genre. But it is — obviously — not as original or innovative. It’s also not as well acted, not as nuanced, not as beautifully made — the images Reeves conjures up do not burn themselves into your mind in the way so many from the original do.
Oskar is a 12-year-old loner in Sweden in 1982, spending his days at school being bullied and filling his evenings with fantasies of revenge. Then a girl, Eli, and her father move in next door and it looks like he might finally make a friend.
For instance, when the usual skills do crop up, they’re presented in a very grounded way — any CGI required is used subtly and incredibly effectively — or kept off screen. They’re at the best when used to slightly emphasise Eli’s weirdness — the way she drops ever so slightly slower than is natural from the climbing frame when she first meets Oskar, or to shape and manipulate her face almost imperceptibly at times.
The story’s central relationships — mainly, Eli/Oskar and Eli/Håkan, he being the ‘dad’ figure who helps Eli survive — can be read various ways. The author/screenwriter, John Ajvide Lindqvist, has one interpretation — indeed, based on what I’ve read, the novel is quite clear on these points — but the film leaves many facts ambiguous. Is Håkan related to Eli? Does he love her? In what way? Does she love him? Does she even like him? Is he just a facilitator? Was he once in Oskar’s position? If he was, is she just manipulating Oskar? Or is it really love? Or is it just friendship? The joy of such well-placed ambiguities in a story is that each viewer can bring their own interpretation, without anyone being clearly right or wrong and without undermining the quality of the story being told. I think I know what I think; but, just as much, I enjoy the fact there are numerous possibilities. (Of course, equally valid is the argument that there are no ambiguities because most if not all have been cleared up Lindqvist and/or Alfredson in interviews. But where’s the fun in that?)
Though most of Let the Right One In’s irregular take on vampires seems genuinely unique, one of those unusual elements — a 12-year-old girl being a vampire — immediately draws comparison to 
if they’d filmed some of the stuff in the novel, the filmmakers would’ve gone to prison — but also about refocussing the story to be a two-hour film instead of a novel. I’m not sure, therefore, how faithful the climax is, but it’s a sequence that seems made for the screen. I shan’t say much more on this point, just in case you’ve not seen the film and still read this far (tsk tsk), but it seems having a vampire for a best friend is a great way to deal with bullies.
Despite the city being as associated with him as jam is with donuts, Melinda and Melinda was Woody Allen’s last New York-set film before he began his current European phase with London-set thriller 
If it wasn’t for the framing device that clearly tells us not only the thematic point of the film but also which bit is the comedy and which the tragedy, I don’t think it would be immediately possible to tell which was which. Indeed, one might think that was Allen’s point: life is neither tragedy nor comedy, but both at the same time, so of course you can’t tell the difference. But as it goes on the comedy does introduce a couple more laughs, but even more so a general niceness that leads to the predictable rom-com ending. Concurrently, the tragedy introduces darker elements and refuses to provide a neat, conclusive or satisfying ending, which is both thematically sound (I suppose) and also dramatically frustrating.
and then they’ve crafted them completely independently. So that is to say, for instance, that the same restaurant may appear in both tellings, but at different points and with a different scene taking place; or in one storyline the director-character is an outsider who holds the husband’s future in his hands, while in the other the director-character is the wife and a different outsider holds her future in his hands. If that makes sense.
Richard Lester’s Four Musketeers was shot at the same time as the previous year’s 
the murder of Constance; the cold-blooded execution of Milady; and ending up with Richelieu still in power too — none of it sits well with the jolly swashbuckling tone that still dominates. There are some good action sequences nonetheless — for instance, the ice-covered lake; breakfast/siege in the ruined fort; and the burning-building finale — which go some way to make up for the shortcomings.
I like a good swashbuckler. I don’t know exactly what it is about sword fights, but they’re probably my most favourite kind of action sequence. The 1973 Three Musketeers, then, is a film I’m slightly amazed I’ve not seen before. Especially as I absolutely loved it.
Thanks to this most of the fights aren’t strictly sword fights, I suppose. Indeed, Oliver Reed seems to dispense with his blade at the earliest opportunity and turn instead to sticks, wet towels, whatever else happens to be at hand. It lends a certain kind of organised chaos to proceedings; the kind that elevates a technically proficient duel into a funny, exciting, memorable segment of cinema. I would list standouts, but instead may I recommend you watch the film and, every time an action sequence starts, count it as one I mentioned. But particularly the one in the laundry and d’Artagnan and Rochefort’s lightbox-lit nighttime duel. And also— Now, this is why I said I wasn’t going to list any.
Constance and Faye Dunaway as the conniving Milady de Winter. York earns his place as the lead amongst such company, though, making a d’Artagnan who is by turns athletic, clumsy, hot-headed, loyal, and funny. As I said, everyone pitches the lightness just right, but York perhaps most of all — he doesn’t send up the youngest musketeer, doesn’t make him a pun-dispensing action hero, but finds all the humour in his actions and dialogue.
It also means the film ends with a sort of “Next Time” trailer, which feels very bizarre indeed, but is also a tantalising glimpse of what’s still to come.
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