The Saint in Palm Springs (1941)

Posted on August 19, 2012 by badblokebob

2012 #65
Jack Hively | 63 mins | TV | 4:3 | USA / English | PG*

George Sanders is the Saint for the final time in a film that isn’t the series’ best, nor its worst. It also marks the final appearance by Jonathan Hale as Inspector Fernack, and third-and-final turns from both Wendy Barrie and Paul Guilfoyle. For those keeping track (or not), that’s the same four leads as the last picture! Same director too, as Jack Hively helms his third (and, of course, final) Saint adventure.

By this point Fernack seems to have reconciled himself to Simon Templar being on the side of the angels (he is a Saint after all) and actually offers him a mission. A friend of Fernack’s needs some immensely valuable stamps escorted to Fernack’s friend’s daughter in Palm Springs, but being out of NYC that’s outside Fernack’s jurisdiction — but nowhere is beyond the reach of the Saint. Or something. Anyway, he agrees, but it goes quickly awry when Fernack’s friend’s brother is murdered; but the Saint, being the fundamentally decent adventure-seeker he is, agrees to take the stamps on to Fernack’s friend’s brother’s niece anyway.

Points are scored here for a change of format. Rather than racing back and forth around the same city, here the Saint sees action in New York, on a train, in a holiday resort in Palm Springs, and in the desert surrounding it. Somehow it feels different, more layered. That said, it gets a bit repetitive. The stamps are contained in a locket that is repeatedly stolen, recaptured, stolen-but-empty, recovered, rinse, repeat. Still, there are inventive spots along the way, and for once it manages to pull out a genuine twist — the culprit is obvious throughout, as per usual, but then… well, that would be spoiling it.

Hale isn’t in it nearly enough unfortunately, especially considering this is his last outing. Guilfoyle has the sidekick role and at least his and Sanders’ relationship is a fun substitute. Barrie is, for once, simply the ingénue and not some form of criminal mastermind. Don’t worry, there’s another girl for that: Linda Hayes, who seems a promising match for the Saint but, though prominent early on, is ultimately disregarded. The highlight for both women comes when they get invited along for a horse ride with the Saint and have a good bitch at each other. It’s a pickle quite unlike the ones Templar usually finds himself in! I have nothing against Barrie, but quite why they sought to use her repeatedly I don’t know. And, to be frank, she worked best in her first appearance.

The Saint in Palm Springs isn’t a grand send-off for this repertory company of Saint series filmmakers, but then I don’t imagine it was ever intended to be. At least it still has most of the fun and charm that characterise this era of the Saint’s adventures, something that is sorely missing as the series continues under new leadership.

Read my thoughts on the four other films to star George Sanders as the Saint here and here.

* As with many of the Saint films, this has apparently not been passed by the BBFC since its release in 1941. Nonetheless, it’s available on DVD, rated PG. ^

The Saint Takes Over (1940)

Posted on August 19, 2012 by badblokebob

2012 #64
Jack Hively | 67 mins | TV | 4:3 | USA / English | PG*

The first RKO Saint film to not be based on a story by the Saint’s creator, Leslie Charteris, is actually one of the better mysteries in the franchise. Sort of. The downside would be that the solution is glaringly obvious. For a mystery you might imagine that would be a major problem, but the process of investigating is nicely done. A bit more work might’ve been done to obscure the culprit, a character who we meet at the beginning and then more or less disappears and so will inevitably return somehow, but I had so much fun I don’t really care.

The reason it’s so fun is the setup. Inspector Fernack has been suspended from the force, implicated in taking bribes from gangsters. He hasn’t of course, but the criminals he just failed to put away want to see him discredited. Naturally his BFF Simon Templar swings by to help. What ensues is a 180 from the usual formula of the Saint movies: rather than Fernack constantly suspecting the Saint of being the actual perpetrator of the crimes he claims to be solving, here every murder (each of them a man who was conspiring against the inspector) occurs while the Saint is out of the room, but while Fernack has plenty of opportunity to commit it. Much fun ensues as Templar teases his chum.

One of the highlights of the first Saint movie, Paul Guilfoyle, makes a re-appearance here as a different henchman (having (spoilers!) bit the dust in his first appearance). His role is bigger — he’s in the con-turned-manservant role, essentially — though not as independently memorable. Paired with Sanders and Hale, however, they make an entertaining team. The starring cast is rounded out by a return appearance by Wendy Barrie of The Saint Strikes Back. She plays a new character, this time brunette, but still a bit of a femme fatale. She’s underused, but hey-ho.

The Saint Takes Over is, on balance, not my favourite of the series, but still one of the best it has to offer.

Read my thoughts on the four other films to star George Sanders as the Saint here and here.

* As with many of the Saint films, this has apparently not been passed by the BBFC since its release in 1940. Nonetheless, it’s available on DVD, rated PG. ^

The Saint in New York (1938)

Posted on July 26, 2012 by badblokebob

2012 #59
Ben Holmes | 67 mins | TV | 4:3 | USA / English | PG

The Saint in New York is a B-movie in every sense of the term, but it’s certainly one of the fun kind.

There’s a crime wave in New York City. The police know which gangs are responsible but have been unable to successfully prosecute their leaders. So a bunch of people who are somehow involved in the policing of the city elect to call in elusive vigilante-type Simon Templar, aka the Saint, to sort it out for them. It’s the sort of premise you only get in pulp fiction and comic books, and these days the kind of thing that needs subverting or justifying (look how Batman of the ’60s (and even ’90s) works with the police, but is (officially) at odds with the law throughout Nolan’s trilogy)… and I love it. And despite what I just said, you could completely sell it today as a back-room conspiracy of powerful men — I’d love to see this film remade well (and I’ll return to that).

As the Saint, Louis Hayward makes for an appealing hero. He’s cocksure, and you could well argue (as Mike does in his spot-on review at Films on the Box) that he “seems to float through all the perilous situations in which he finds himself, as though he knows he’s the hero of the story and can never die”. Alternatively, he’s a James Bond character, so justifiably confident of his own abilities and plan that he has every right to believe he’ll be OK. (Indeed, this is certainly readable as a proto-Bond movie.) The downside either way is that there’s no sense of jeopardy or danger, which I suppose is a shortcoming; but instead there’s a kind of comic inevitability to the villains believing they could ever beat the Saint.

Screenwriters Charles Kaufman and Mortimer Offner also bestow him with a clever wit. There’s every possibility this results from how he’s portrayed in Leslie Charteris’ original stories, but I’m not familiar with them so couldn’t say; either way, Kaufman and Offner pull it off here too. Hayward wears it well, making a mischievously entertaining presence. His habit of jumping into moving vehicles, much to the surprise of their drivers, is also fun. The other stand-out character is henchman Hymie, played by Paul Guilfoyle, who is enamoured of the Saint and constantly comments on his actions. Together they make the film a light, fun, amusing experience, with more memorable lines than a film of its stature deserves.

The plot is in many ways stock crime thriller filler, though I believe it has more potential than is realised here — again, I’d love to see a swisher remake. Hitchcock was apparently interested in helming it and I think there’s little doubt he would’ve made a better fist of it than Holmes, whose work is fine if workmanlike. So the story loses some of its impact because it’s under-explained, the final twist solid if guessable (at least by me) because it’s hurtled towards so quickly. The real weak link, though, is a ludicrously rushed romance between the Saint and gangster mol Fay (Kay Sutton). Apparently they fall in love during a 30-second visit to the zoo. Again, the potential joy of a remake: bulk that up and it’d fly well enough. Same with the main plot. Perhaps I should try reading the novel this is based on…

For all its flaws, The Saint in New York is a quick jolt of B-movie fun. Clearly it doesn’t rival the Rathbone Sherlock Holmes series (it’s obviously not as fondly remembered, and that’s usually for a reason), but admirers of pulp ’30s/’40s thrillers are likely to be as entertained as I was. Daft, but certainly fun. Hopefully the rest of the series can live up to (or better) the enjoyment I got from this one.

The Saint in New York is available on iPlayer until 31st July.

Bad Day at Black Rock (1955)

Posted on July 24, 2012 by badblokebob

2012 #47
John Sturges | 78 mins | TV | 2.55:1 | USA / English | PG

Bad Day at Black Rock comes with an air of the forgotten classic — or, at least, it did to me. I think that’s important to how I ultimately reacted to it. As is that wherever I first heard about it pitched it as a suspenseful mystery with a twist. I forget where that was now, but I remember consciously avoiding finding out the plot’s developments (more so than one naturally would anyway) before viewing.

The latter seems to pay off, at first. Spencer Tracy stars as Macreedy, who arrives in a tiny, remote town in the American West, shortly after the end of World War II. He’s there with an unrevealed purpose; the locals are, for some reason, immensely suspicious of him. Starting here, the story is built on slow suspense and mystery: who is Komoko? What happened to him? How does Macreedy know? And what does Macreedy want? Sturges happily lets this mull and build over the best part of an hour, before suddenly darting past the reveals as if they’re unimportant. I’m not saying they need to be sign-posted with dramatic camera angles, weighty overacting and thudding “dun-dun-DUN!” music, but they’re shoved in here as if they’re immaterial; a bit of bookkeeping before the all-action climax. Perhaps these reveals weren’t meant to be so vital to the story as I had been expecting, but it still undermined my expectation.

The film also raises issues that, in my opinion, it fails to adequately explore. Primarily, the American attitude to the Japanese in the wake of Pearl Harbor, and also notions of complicity and complacency in the face of crime. There’s room for these threads to be explored and commented on, to be better exploited than they are. I don’t think it’s an issue of subtly (that is to say, that they are present, but without a heavy hand), more that they’re only fleetingly touched upon. Perhaps that’s unfair — I’m entirely upon to the suggestion that I was so busy focusing on the mysteries, I missed the commentary. Indeed, in his piece at Riding the High Country, Colin notes that the issue of American reaction to the Japanese “is very obviously presented”. (He also examines the film’s representation of a third area, that of Bad Day… as a modern Western and by extension a commentary on “the nature of the west itself”, which as ever I heartily recommend.)

I’ve read that Spencer Tracy was reluctant to star (presumably because of the arguably-anti-American stance of the film), but he nonetheless gives an engaging Oscar-nominated performance, perfectly embodying the character’s odd mix of qualities. He’s authoritative yet acquiescent, disruptive yet quiet, placid yet can hold his own in a fight… In a film otherwise marked by its consciously single-note townsfolk, he makes an intriguing creation.

The most underused character by far is the only woman, Liz, played by Anne Francis, who is vital to the climax but barely has any screen time before that to make us care. Most of the other cast are served at least one scene which is ‘theirs’, in which we get to learn about their archetypal character and their piece in the town’s make-up and secretive past, but third-billed Francis is robbed any of that. Considering the film barely runs 80 minutes as it is, I can’t help but feel there was room to dig into her character a considerable amount more.

For a film so based in mystery and which has what I’d call a methodical pace (despite its short running time), there are surprisingly good action sequences to look out for: a car chase/battle along a thin path, a one-handed punch-up in a bar, and a climactic shoot-out that’s at its most tense once all the bullets have been fired. It’s not an action movie by any means, but these cinematic sequences stand out nonetheless.

I imagine I’ve come across as harsh on Bad Day at Black Rock. As noted, I’m not sure where I specifically heard it recommended — several sources, more than likely — but wherever it was made it sound like an under-appreciated minor classic, with a mysterious setup that specifically appealed to me. So perhaps that’s why I’m disappointed the mystery element wasn’t as foregrounded, and why I’m niggling at the ways it could have explored its own content better. At the very least, it leaves topics of consideration open for the audience to debate amongst themselves, and that’s never a bad thing.

Bad Day at Black Rock is on Film4 today at 5pm, and again on Thursday at 12:40pm.

Devil (2010)

Posted on July 11, 2012 by badblokebob

2012 #19
John Erick Dowdle | 77 mins | TV | 2.35:1 | USA / English | 15 / PG-13

Remember when M. Night Shyamalan was the wunderkind of Hollywood? Seems so long ago, doesn’t it? But clearly someone somewhere is still invested in him — or he’s managed to limp on well enough that stuff he works on seems worth a punt — because a couple of years ago he was able to launch a series of films dubbed “The Night Chronicles”. I don’t remember the details and they’re not worth looking up, but as I recall the idea is they were a series of low-key/low-budget horror-thrillers conceived by Shyamalan (he has a Story and Producer credit here) but helmed by others. Devil is the first of these. I don’t recall a second turning up yet.

Funny thing is, this is better than anything Shyamalan has done in a long time. At least since Signs, and I quite liked The Village (except the final act) and Lady in the Water (need to rewatch that, because it seems everyone else hated it). Without meaning to ruin the first act (which does take a little while to reach the point; but it sets up all the characters, so it works), the story concerns a bunch of people stuck in an elevator, one of which is an evil supernatural force… but which?

I like these small-group-of-people-in-one-small-room thriller/horrors — see also the exceptional Cube and the very good Exam. This is a solid addition to the sub-genre — not the best, but with enough action, intrigue and twists to fill its (admittedly very brief) running time. It comes to a head with a pretty good twist/reveal. Again, it’s kind of ironic that it’s the best twist in a Shyamalan film for years, but it comes in a movie he neither wrote nor directed. Maybe he should take another look at the kind of films he’s choosing to make. (I say “maybe”…)

The film impressed on a couple of technical fronts. The main titles, for starters (pun intended): they play out over upside-down aerial shots of a city. Sounds like a silly idea, perhaps, but it actually feels Wrong and terribly unsettling. It’s a highly effective start to a horror movie. Then there’s exceptional creepy sound design whenever the elevator’s lights go out. The filmmakers don’t overdo it, with (say) screams or possessed voices or goodness knows what else, and that’s why it works: the fact it’s quite understated, that you can’t tell what’s happening from the sounds — it’s just breathing, rustling, bumping, that kind of thing — is what makes it all the more realistic and therefore creepier.

As an aside, in my occasional run of Comments Paying Too Much Attention To Certificates, it’s funny what Americans allow at what age rating. Here we have neck stabbing, hanging, creepy devil stuff… Seems a bit much for a PG-13, to me. The UK’s 15 is much more appropriate.

I wasn’t expecting a great deal from Devil. As a Shyamalan film it starts off with, if anything, a negative perception; and as one he didn’t even want to direct himself, you have to wonder how dreadful it’s going to turn out to be. But John Erick Dowdle (previously only responsible for the US remake of [REC] and a couple of things no one’s heard of) does a solid job, creating an effective little horror-thriller that delivers a fair number of chills and a decent serving of mystery. That’s more than can be said of Shyamalan’s work this decade.

Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame (2010)

Posted on July 6, 2012 by badblokebob

aka Di Renjie: Tong tian di guo

This year’s 52nd film is, in many ways, thanks to DC’s The New 52 (the comic book initiative/publicity stunt that saw DC relaunch their entire universe across a series of 52 new #1 issues, for those who don’t do comics): it got me back into reading regular comics, and featured in multiple titles for several months was a cool-looking advert for the US release of Detective Dee, complete with the attractive review quote, “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon meets Sherlock Holmes, only a lot more fun”. A little research finds it highly recommended in other arenas too: there’s a host of awards nominations and wins, from the Venice Film Festival to the Hong Kong Film Awards; an 81% rating on Rotten Tomatoes; Blu-ray.com furnished the UK BD release with a glowing write-up; Time ranked it the third best film for the whole of 2011 (behind The Artist and Hugo). Even the unreliable film section of the Radio Times saw fit to give it four stars.

All of which hopefully establishes how I found it to be a massive disappointment.

Days before the coronation of China’s first Empress, a high-ranked man is mysteriously burnt alive from the inside out. Then the man charged with investigating the case suffers the same fate. On advice (from who or what I shall mention later), the Empress assigns the case to Detective Dee — who has been in prison for eight years for rebelling against the Empress. Sounds like a good setup, eh? A super detective, at conflict with his employer, looking into supernaturally-tinged murders; and it’s a Hong Kong movie so you know there’s going to be some impressive action sequences.

To take Time’s opinion as a starting point, I have to wonder if they would rank Detective Dee so highly if it had been an American-produced film with actors speaking English. I don’t mean if the film was Americanised, but exactly the same, just an American production. In that instance, I think it would very much be viewed as a summer blockbuster, because that’s definitely what it strikes me as. It’s one with lots of talky bits and an over-complicated story, certainly, but then it’s not unheard of for US blockbusters to confuddle the viewer with an under-written over-developed plot (less so these days, I grant you).

Apparently it makes commentary on the economic and political situation in modern China. It must be done quite subtly, then. That’s a good thing I suppose, but I imagine you’re only going to notice it if you already have a familiarity with what’s going on. I don’t. Best I can tell, the film’s message is, “even if you think your ruler’s a bad person who’s done bad things, they’re your ruler and you should let them get on with it and not rebel”. I could have misread it, of course, but that’s what I got from the ending. Not a position I’d personally agree with.

Naturally there are plenty of action sequences (choreographed by Sammo Hung), several of them tacked on for the sake of it. Personally I wasn’t impressed. They’re all clearly shot on digital video (the whole film was, but the smeary fights really show it up), several are under-lit, there’s too much Hollywood-style choppy editing, it felt like some had bits missing, others are stop-start in a way that adds up to not very much… Many of them left me confused about what was meant to be going on, not in awe of the performer’s abilities or entertained. One of them features the hero fighting a gaggle of cheap CGI deer. Yes, deer. Why?

Detective Dee is a film of moments. There are some pretty shots, occasionally even sequences; the fight in the Phantom Bazaar, an underground river network, is guilty of some of my criticisms but also pulls off a few nice bits. The CGI is what you’d expect from a mid-range US miniseries, but (with exceptions such as the fighting deer) it works well enough, even creating some dramatic vistas, particularly of the 200-foot tall Buddha statue that’s central to the plot. Some of the sets are also incredibly impressive — again, the interior of the Buddha. Occasionally I was frustrated reading the subtitles (which fly by at a rate of knots, it felt to me) because I wanted to look at the detailed, busy production design.

I mention the fast subtitles because the film feels like it’s moving at quite a lick. There’s little room to get to know the characters, or the situation, or their relationships, or their political machinations, before it’s racing on to the next plot point. And yet despite that it feels incredibly slow as a whole — I was clock-watching before the hour mark.

Perhaps one of the things that suffers for this is the film’s relationship with the supernatural. It’s at first supposed that the deaths are some kind of divine intervention, but then this is kicked away — what a silly idea by some foolish characters! But then everyone’s more than happy to accept a talking magic deer (seriously; and they happily take its advice (see second paragraph)), a fighter whose arms fly off and turn into… something else (choppy editing means I’m not sure), facial transfiguration (imagine Mission: Impossible’s masks with face-churning magic instead of masks), and so on and so forth. Some of it ultimately has a rational explanation, but why is “divine intervention” so much less believable than “magic”? And why do you have to explain the talking deer and flying arms when the face-churning-thing is left untouched? I can take people flying unrealistically through the air — that’s the style of the genre, much like regular folk breaking out into perfectly-pitched musically-accompanied song is the style of the musical — but not internal inconsistency in other areas.

I’ve avoided the comparison so far, but Detective Dee is like a Chinese version of Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes, only a less inventive and comprehensible one. And it’s certainly not “a lot more fun”. Dee is a great deducer, a la Holmes, though the film gives him no opportunities to significantly show that off. The plot concerns a series of apparently-supernatural murders that actually have a rational explanation, and are ultimately all about taking control of the country. It stars a period detective who’s been reconfigured as younger and a man of action. But whereas Holmes kept things clear-cut and fast-moving, Dee (as I’ve noted) fudges and obscures motivation and plot and feels tediously long.

There are actually quite a few little things to like about Dee, and maybe there are a few big things too, but I feel like it’s making you work for them — you could enjoy the characters, or the political machinations, but only if you take time to study them slowly and work out what was going on for yourself, because the film’s in too much of a rush to explain it to you. There’s something to be said for entertainment not spelling everything out — it’s often a highly-praised element of anything that achieves it — but Dee doesn’t do that, it rushes headlong past things that could do with more clarity. (One thing I should do is listen to Bey Logan’s commentary — there’s a fair chance he’ll have insights that illuminate me. But in a moment you’ll see why I haven’t done that before posting this.)

Believe it or not, I didn’t hate Detective Dee… but I didn’t exactly enjoy it either. Not fully. I started this review by saying it and I think it’s my key feeling: after getting a little hyped up about something I’d previously ignored the UK release of, I found it to be disappointing. Your mileage may vary.

The UK TV premiere of Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame is on Film4 and Film4 HD tonight, Friday 6th July, at 11:10pm.

The Scarlet Claw (1944)

Posted on June 21, 2012 by badblokebob

2012 #46
Roy William Neill | 71 mins | DVD | 4:3 | USA / English | PG

According to Wikipedia, “David Stuart Davies notes on the film’s DVD audio commentary* that [The Scarlet Claw is] generally considered by critics and fans of the series to be the best of the twelve Holmes films made by Universal.” That’s always a bold kind of assertion to make (it’s never trouble-free to define an entire fandom’s favourite), but I can still believe it’s true: The Scarlet Claw is marvellous.

When looking it up before viewing I was surprised to find it had a spot on the Top 500 Horror Movies (voted by users of IMDb’s horror boards, apparently), where it had a place in the lower 300s. I was surprised — Holmes is a detective series, not one I’d think of nominating for such a list. But there is one arguable exception to that — The Hound of the Baskervilles, of course — and it’s clear that Scarlet Claw draws significant inspiration from that preeminent entry in the Holmes canon. Lists of similarities are available for them that wants them, because I think Scarlet Claw does enough to merit consideration in its own right.

And it really is a horror movie too. There’s not just the elements of occult in the myth of the Canadian town Holmes and Watson find themselves in almost by chance, which you always know will be debunked in a Sherlock Holmes plot, but also the way the production is staged. Indeed, the film’s scariest sequence occurs after it’s revealed that the killings are being committed by a mere human — a properly chilling murder scene, quite out of step with the film’s age and PG certificate.

A lot of this is thanks to director Roy William Neill. On a previous review of mine, Ride the High Country’s Colin noted that Neill “turned out some quality low-budget stuff for Universal. He had a real knack for creating a spooky and mysterious atmosphere that’s evident in his horrors and thrillers.” This film demonstrates that fact more than any Holmes yet. His direction is incredibly atmospheric, from a wonderful mist-covered opening scene, replete with an incessantly tolling bell, to regular instances of shadow-drenched photography afterwards; not to mention various pleasing camera angles and moves.

The story — in which townsfolk believe a mythical beast has returned to murder its residents — presents a well-constructed mystery all round, though as it moves into the second half some of its twists become all too guessable. There simply aren’t enough supporting characters to provide any meaningful sense of having to ponder who the villain might be (because, as I noted, you know it’s not really a beast). There’s also a hefty dose of coincidence that everyone involved, both on screen and off, conveniently ignores.

If we’re looking at the flaws, there’s a return for the painful closing speech from Rathbone, this time a Churchill-quoted ode to the wonder of Canada. Ugh. Still, you half expect it from this series, and it’s very easy to ignore.

The other little niggles may stop the film from being perfect but, like the similarities to The Hound, while they’re certainly there, they’re easy to overlook in the name of a rollicking good horror-mystery-adventure.

The Scarlet Claw merited an honourable mention on my list of The Best Films I Saw For the First Time in 2012, which can be read in full here.

* I could verify this for myself, but I haven’t, so… ^

The Man from Earth (2007)

Posted on June 19, 2012 by badblokebob

aka Jerome Bixby’s The Man from Earth

2011 #98
Richard Schenkman | 87 mins | DVD | 1.78:1 | USA / English | PG

IMDb’s Top Rated lists tend to be full of films you’ve heard of; the kind of features that are sufficiently well-known to have been seen by a lot of people and so attract enough qualifying votes, and are well-regarded enough (be that critically or the baying masses) for those votes to be fairly high. So The Man from Earth has been an odd fixture on the Top 50 Sci-Fi Films for the last few years. It’s a low-budget, low-key feature from a TV writer (the titular Jerome Bixby) that stars mainly TV actors (the kind of faces recognisable to those who watched a lot of ’90s US SF and no one else). It’s not very widely seen, but has managed to maintain a permanent place on the list’s lower end for years now, despite increased awareness no doubt due to that very list (the number of votes it’s received has gone up considerably; as of this posting it sits at 42nd, whereas I swear it used to be in the top 25).

So does it deserve its place? Well, that’s a trickier question. The low-budget roots show through plainly: it’s all shot on grainy digital video, looking cheaper than even lower-end TV shows do these days, and all takes place in one location where a group of characters sit around and have a natter. You could perform it on stage and not have to lose anything. But that doesn’t make it inherently bad, just more surprising that it’s upheld its place on a public-voted list. You can see reviews on IMDb that bemoan the digital video, the wordy script, and so on, and yet they’re clearly not influential enough to pull it down.

Judged on its own terms, however, The Man from Earth is what one might call Proper Science Fiction. Most films classed as sci-fi just feature aliens or what have you; they’re space opera, or just action movies where Americans fight off-planet enemies instead of out-of-country enemies; the kind of thing Ray Bradbury termed fantasy rather than sci-fi (I’m inclined to agree, but that’s a discussion for another time). Instead of Shooting And Blowing Up Stuff, or even comedy antics with a twist, The Man from Earth deals in Ideas.

To say too much might spoil the setup, though I imagine it’s given away in the blurb, but let me try anyway: a college professor has decided to quit his job and move on, trying to slink away without anyone noticing; his friends and colleagues arrive at his house to cheer him on his way, but get sidetracked into a long discussion about a revelation he has for them. Something like that. This is why its IMDb place continues to surprise me — because the wider voting audience generally don’t like movies where nothing happens but chat.

As you may have guessed from repeated statements of surprise, I don’t think The Man from Earth is for everyone. You have to be able to look past the budget production values, the occasionally lower-end-TV level acting, the limitations of setting and action. If you sit down to view it as a filmed discussion between friends that you are a silent part of, and are prepared for all the slowness of pace that involves (because compare the experience of doing anything in real life for an hour and a half to how much gets crammed into a movie’s 90 minutes — that’s the speed Man from Earth moves), and are open to a movie that posits an idea and then explores it — including twists and turns of variable merit — then you might enjoy this film. I did.

I’ll continue to be surprised by its IMDb placement (unless it ever drops off, of course), but I’m glad it’s there. Whether it’s one of the 50 best sci-fi films of all time, I’m not sure, but it’s the kind of SF that should be on the list, and if by being there it reaches a broader audience than it would otherwise, that’s a very good thing.

And that concludes the reviews for 2011! I’ll try not to take until June next year.

Glorious 39 (2009)

Posted on February 7, 2012 by badblokebob

“This year’s Atonement,” proclaims the poster, and DVD cover, and probably much more of the marketing for Stephen Poliakoff’s first venture into the cinema for 12 years, in the process probably explaining why he’s made (or “how he found the funding to make”) the return-jump from exalted TV auteur to cinematic hopeful: the titular “39” means “1939”, the year World War II began. Throw in a plot that concerns the aristocracy and an ‘English rose’-type to stare thoughtfully open-mouthed into the distance on all the posters, and Poliakoff’s film is automatically lumped in the same ballpark as Joe Wright’s Ian McEwan adaptation. Only this one comes light on awards nominations.

I was going to add “light on star power” too, but whereas Atonement could only offer Keira Knightley and a still-rising James McAvoy, Glorious 39 offers a host of above-the-title names: trailing behind Atonement‘s own Romola Garai we find Bill Nighy, Julie Christie, David Tennant, Jenny Agutter, Jeremy Northam and Christopher Lee, not to mention a host of other recognisable British faces. If the combined cult might of Mr.s Tennant and Lee wasn’t enough to make this a hit, nothing could be. Some quite critical reviews obviously didn’t help.

I, however, thought it was rather good. I can see what turned some people off though. It’s a thriller, but it moves leisurely, especially early on. It’s also quite elliptical at times, not so much requiring you to pay attention as put the pieces together yourself. Plus it lacks a grand finale in which the hero triumphs, or at least loses in dramatic style — it’s quieter than that. Yet I liked the ending, finding it triumphant in a whole other way. But I won’t go spoiling that here.

It’s very much a Poliakoff work, I think. Perhaps that catches some film critics unawares: as noted, he worked solely in TV for over a decade before this, albeit in an auteur mode, writing and directing his own TV movies and miniseries, and perhaps this means he passed them by. But then that’s just about managing expectations. It’s not a melodramatic epic love story like Atonement, nor is it a pacey wartime thriller like… no example comes readily to mind, actually. Can someone please make a pacey wartime thriller? Or tell me which I’ve missed/forgotten?

By taking its time it creates a mood of creeping terror and dread; of an oppressive conspiracy that our hero, who’s just a fairly ordinary girl, has no chance of overturning — if it’s even real, and if she can find details about it if it is. And, by extension, by taking its time it’s being A Bit Different, and that means you can never be sure where it’s going to go; never be sure who’s on the side of the angels and who of the devils; of who is reliable and what is really happening; of who will survive. What’s better in a thriller than not actually knowing what will come? There should be twists in this genre — genuine twists when possible, not a stock array of “small character played by famous actor turns out to be vitally important” or ” good guy is actually bad guy” or what have you — and Glorious 39, with its balanced uncertainty, pulls some of those off.

It’s also well written, prettily shot, and expertly performed by that array of quality performers. I don’t recall a weak link.

Ignore the critics, ignore the comparisons to Atonement, and give Glorious 39 a chance on its own terms. I very much liked it.

* I own Glorious 39 on DVD, but watched it on TV when it premiered because it was shown (and available on iPlayer) in HD. There is no UK Blu-ray of the film, but I believe one is available in America. Such a fate seems to have befallen several British films of late — Easy Virtue is another example that quickly comes to mind. ^

The Spider Woman (1944)

Posted on January 15, 2012 by badblokebob

2011 #96
1944 | Roy William Neill | 60 mins | DVD | U

It’s the second season finale of the brilliant Sherlock tonight, so what better time to post a review of another Holmes adaptation that’s based in part on the infamous The Final Problem…

The seventh feature starring Basil Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes and Nigel Bruce as Dr John Watson is the first since Hound to drop Holmes’ name from the title and, at under an hour (59 minutes 33 seconds in PAL, to be precise), is the shortest yet.

It’s previously been asserted (in this blog’s comments) that The Spider Woman is “one of the best of the series”, and it’s certainly a strong effort. Screenwriter Bertram Millhauser (who also wrote the previous two films, and would go on to pen two more) skillfully mixes elements from various Conan Doyle tales — while I spotted two or three, Wikipedia says the full list includes The Sign of Four, The Final Problem, The Adventure of the Empty House, The Adventure of the Devil’s Foot and The Adventure of the Speckled Band.

As they’re combined here, the story sees Holmes fake his own death to help tackle the Irene Adler-esque titular woman, apparently his intellectual match, who’s somehow causing a spree of suicides. Several of these borrowed elements — the faked death and The Woman — lead to some delicious scenes, such as when Holmes reveals he’s alive to Dr Watson, offering one of those occasions where Bruce’s comedic rendition of the role actually works; or when an incognito Holmes meets the woman, who is actually aware of his true identity. Indeed the woman, played by Gale Sondergaard, is so good that they crafted a sequel around her, albeit Holmes-less. I’ve not seen it and don’t own it, so I’ve no idea what that does for its quality.

The mystery itself is solid enough, but that’s not necessarily the point of these Holmes adventures. They’re not play-along puzzles like an Agatha Christie adaptation, where there’s a set of definite clues and a finite number of suspects, but rather exciting tales that whip you along their incredible path — adventures indeed. You can certainly see the (deliberate) tonal link between these ’40s films and the modern-set Sherlock, or indeed the pair of Robert Downey Jr. films.

At the halfway point of the Rathbone-Bruce films (it’s only taken me four years to get this far), the series is still producing exciting, good-quality re-arrangements of Conan Doyle’s works. And I’m assured there’s more to come. Fantastic.

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