John Huston | 102 mins | TV (HD) | PG
The title may sound like a ’40s rom-com or a ’70s TV sitcom, but Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison is nothing of the sort. It’s set in the south Pacific in 1944, at the height of World War II, and begins with titular US Marine Allison (Robert Mitchum) washing up on an island that’s occupied only by a novice nun, Sister Angela (Deborah Kerr). He was the only survivor of a Japanese attack on a submarine; she ultimately the only survivor of a Japanese raid on the island. With no hope of rescue they must plot their own escape.
If this were made today, Allison and Angela would surely turn out to be dead and in purgatory; 50 years ago, however, all is as it seems. What we get is almost relentlessly a two-hander. Some Japanese turn up, and (spoilers!) some Americans, but there’s only one line of English dialogue spoken by someone other than the two leads. Luckily, Mitchum and Kerr are talented enough to carry a film alone, while Lee Mahin and John Huston’s screenplay (from a novel by Charles Shaw) has enough events to keep things ticking along — this isn’t the kind of two-hander where a pair of characters sit around and natter until something turns up to end their conversation.
As well as playing on their plans for escape and the tension of survival once the Japanese occupy the island, the film also draws a lot of thematic weight from the interesting comparison between the Church and Angela’s devotion as a nun, and the Marines and Allison’s devotion as a soldier. Though one may be opposed to violence and the other created purely for it, the kind of loyalty and rituals they both entail reflect each other intriguingly.
There’s also a kind of burgeoning romance between the two — as a novice nun she has yet to take her final vows — which creates a different kind of will-they-won’t-they than the usual love-hate dynamic. It all leads to a pleasing ending, where your expectations for what a Hollywood film will do (especially with the groundwork that’s been laid) are subverted in favour of a more plausible turn of events. It’s not the kind of ending that makes the film — it’s already done more than enough to hold one’s interest — but if done wrong I think it would have undermined the rest.
The idea of a two-hander can be off-putting — how can just two characters sustain a whole film without it becoming overly philosophical or overly dull? Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison does have some elements of the philosophical, but there’s enough action going on to satisfy the need for dramatic momentum, and Mitchum and Kerr are effortlessly watchable. It could’ve done with a better title though.
Monkey Business came 
followed by “Cary Grant and Ginger Rogers behave like 6-year-olds”.
Roman Holiday is the kind of film where its list of achievements don’t quite precede it — Best Picture nominee (it lost to 
the Princess as they take her on a day messing about in Rome.
If, instead, you remember that he’s Fundamentally Kind, it might be less troubling that he has a secret plan most of the time.
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.”
Film noir is a pretty unspecific genre, or unconscious movement, only really defined (however loosely) once it was already over. So to say a film noir isn’t particularly film noir-y might seem a tad daft, but, Panic in the Streets isn’t a particularly film noir-y film noir.
has a beautifully bad-guy-friendly skull-like face, with his jutting cheek bones and flat-ended nose. (I imagine I’m far from the first to make this observation, but hush.)
In this behind-the-scenes musical, Fred Astaire plays Tony Hunter, a slightly washed-up star of stage and screen. One can’t help but wonder if his performance has an autobiographical edge. It’s of no concern to the viewer though, because he’s as wonderful as ever.
Gigi is a film about largely horrid people doing morally dubious things. But of course it’s a musical from the ’50s, so it all has a veneer of loveliness and respectability.
eventually Gaston realises he loves Gigi and her training is stepped up so she can become his latest conquest. I won’t go into the details of the ending, but their part of the story ends well.
I’m Glad I’m Not Young Anymore is also a nice change of pace, celebrating old age for a change.
“Oh dear,” is surely the initial reaction to Brigadoon. The Scottish accents are appalling, the costumes and setting gratingly twee, the Highlands recreated entirely on a soundstage. I wonder if many Americans visited Scotland in the wake of this film expecting to find such things? If they did, I imagine they were sorely disappointed.
I think it’s fair to say this isn’t the greatest of musicals (though I know some might disagree). The poor realisation of Scotland takes some getting used to — and remains either irritating or amusing, depending on your mileage for such things — and generally there’s a dearth of particularly memorable songs or dances. But it’s not bad either, once things get underway.
Ivanhoe is the kind of film they don’t often make any more, a pure swashbuckling romp. And when they do make them they tend to muck it up with over-complicated mythology-obsessed sequels — yes 
Though the final duel that ultimately follows can’t quite live up to this in terms of sheer scale and excitement, it impressively holds its own as a climactic action sequence.
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