Reviews

Prettily photographed but on the whole fairly shallow account of Potter's romance with the publisher of her children's books. Unfortunately for the film's makers, her love affair was conducted very demurely so there's not much to work on. Little is made even of this; no mention for instance is made of Potter's credible and serious scientific ambitions. Filmically, it descends into cinematic clichés; for instance, the lovers exchange letters, so we are treated to shots of Potter scribbling with a voice-over of what she writes. She hurries to London so shots of her jumping into cabs, trains etc. The last part of the film we are treated to pretty shots of the Lake District; pity, then, no mention is made of her very substantial contribution to the National Trust, and only passing reference to her important role in sustaining local community life.

The film follows the plot of the novel if anything too closely, and in the process exposes the non-sequiturs and irrelevancies. As a film it has to tackle the problem of how to cover the lengthy explanations of the plot and fails the test. The characters are left to engage in wordy debates which is simply not cinematic. I found myself repeatedly looking at my watch and muttering 'get on with it, do!' Sir Ian McKellen gives good value, and is probably the main reason for sticking with it. The downside of that is that when he is not on screen the pace slackens considerably. About half an hour from the end I thought it had reached its climax and was reaching for my hat and heading for the exit when I realised with dismay it was lumbering off on another twist of the plot. Bonus points though for having the French characters speaking in French.

Well, it's prettily photographed ... but that's about all I can think of to say for it. It's based on one of those derivative novels - this time Stevenson's classic novella "Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde" as seen by his parlourmaid(!) the eponymous Mary Reilly. Possibly she is superwoman in disguise because she seems to run an enormous Edinburgh house more or less single-handed (the other household staff, all four of them, don't appear do anything very useful about the place). This includes cleaning, washing-up, gardening (converting the stone-flagged yard of an Edinburgh town house?!) while running all over Edinburgh on errands for Dr Jekyll for whom she nurses an ill-concealed passion. The dialogue is dreadful; banality separated by long meaningless pauses to spin this tosh out to what seems an interminable length. My sister and I watched it on DVD ... she said "can't you fast forward it?" I replied "I *am* fast forwarding it!" If you have the misfortune to come across this, do something more interesting like stare at the wallpaper.

The location shooting at Kirby Hall is symptomatic of the film - an impressive looking shell, with nothing inside it.

Mansfield Park is Austen's sharpest and subtlest satire, leavened with some splendid comedy characters. This however seems to have passed completely over the makers, who have provided us instead with an admittedly prettily photographed film that conveys nothing of the book. It's difficult of course to compress it into the space of two hours, but at least they might have tried. As it is the plot is sadly garbled; I doubt that anyone who had not read the book (or at least a synopsis of it) would make head or tail of what was going on, and anyone who has read the book would be completely baffled by the cavalier discarding of key elements of the book. What is unmistakably a 20th century cast with 20th century manners dresses up and romps through it as a bodice ripper, completely missing the point that it's meant to be a study of social power structures breaking down in 18th century England. I found myself with a finger on the fast forward butting, wanting the cast to get out of the way of the scenery.

Brilliantly written, directed, and acted mini-series made by BBC TV about the difficult and complex relationships in a close-knit family who discover, after a traumatic family death, that they didn't know each other as well as they thought. A searing psychological study of how people relate to and understand (or not!) each other and the effect, intended and unintended they have each other. Michael Bryant and Judi Dench are especially noteworthy in an all-round excellent cast

This is an amazing Indian comedu adventure film from the 1940s and terrific fun (you're not meant to take it seriously of course). The title role is played by an actress called "Fearless Nadia" who developed a great reputation in this sort of movie as the sort of girl you don't want to mess with. (Her real name was Mary Evans, she was Australian born who went to India and became a Bollywood star, learning Hindi in the process. She also did her own stunts.) In this movie Nadia is a thoroughly modern Hindu girl in a provincial Indian town that is in the grip of the local Mafia. The gangsters are opposed by a Robin Hood sort of figure who (of course) falls in love with Nadia. The gangsters try to frame the local good guys, but Nadia wades in sorts them out (wonderful to see her take on a gang of comical desperadoes), in between time conducting a demure romance with "Robin Hood". In the final reel, the local Maharajah (this is India remember) who has been visiting the place in disguise appears, has the bad guys thrown in jail, and "Robin Hood" pardoned, and they all live happily ever after.

Topsy-Turvy is an odd film. It's very pretty to look at, well crafted, and pleasant enough to watch, but I couldn't make out what the point of it was. It's a sort of dramatised documentary about how Gilbert and Sullivan came to write "The Mikado". There are coy little cameos of Gilbert and Sullivan themselves, D'Oyly Carte, and the actors who formed their stock company. We get some excerpts from "The Sorceror"; we get told that Sullivan didn't like writing comic operas very much and was unhappy with Gilbert's libretto offered him, so, by chance, Gilbert is taken off to a Japanese exhibition in London and is stirred to write "The Mikado" which saves the partnership and they all (more or less) live happily ever after. But at least half the film is taken up with showing how Gilbert set about staging the play. Which is all very jolly and quite interesting if (like me) you like G&S. But when the end-credits rolled up, I couldn't help thinking "so what"? As a film, it couldn't seem to make up its mind what it wanted to be. It looked like it would have made a good 1 hour Channel 4 docudrama, but someone had decided to turn it into a feature length film. But there wasn't enough there. It told us nothing about G&S that you couldn't find out from an entry on them in any encyclopaedia; and if you wanted a documentary about staging a G&S operetta, why go to all this bother? Alternatively, if you wanted a film of "The Mikado", let's have that. I thought it was rather a missed opportunity to explore something about the relationship between the three men (G&S and Carte) that created this remarkable series of operettas, but instead we got an amiable souffle of a film that tasted nice enough but did nothing to satisfy (dramatic) hunger.

Intriguing mild (very mild!) British musical comedy. Noteworthy mainly for the eponymous car (a Rolls Royce Phantom III coupe - those were the days when you get a RR PIII and still get change out of £2,000...) and some Brirish film stalwarts. The hero is a youthful John Mills near the start of his cinematic career; Robertson Hare has a supporting role, both trying to inject some life into a leaden script. The rather clunky back projections give some fascinating glimpses of 1930s London and the Lake District.

(Purists might quibble why the heroine (Grete Mosheim)has a German accent while her "sister" has a "cut glass" English accent) RW

An odd little curiousity of a film. An assortment of unlikely characters take an express train from New York to California, the main plot revolves around a stage director in pursuit of his leading lady (the same plot that was used much more successfully in Twentieth Century the year before) and a crook on the run from the police who engages in a little robbery and blackmail en route (he fails and is exposed by the stage director).

As a film its very stagey, the acting is too - they all make their entrances and exits as if they're treading the boards. Mainly of interest for the train itself, as a 1930s idea of what rail travel should be like. This is a double deck, 160mph monorail, luxuriously fitted out like an art deco ocean liner!

It starts off quite well, and has some amusing touches - like Dustin Hoffman's revelation of how he cam to write his 'expert' report, which sounds all too realistic - but about 20 minutes in it not only seems to lose the plot it also seems to lose its scriptwriter. It has a halfway decent cast who battle valiantly but vainly to give it mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, but it fades rapidly into vapid dialogue where the characters argue with each other and tell each other (a) that they don't know what's going on and (b) not to do things that they promptly go off and do. (What's the matter with these people? Don't they ever go to the movies? Haven't they ever seen 'Alien'?) Being brought up on Star Trek I can swallow the imbecilities of the plot, but when it gets to the point where the commercial breaks are better than the movie that's the cue to switch off. So I did.

Inane "plot" involving the inept duo as mousetrap salesmen in Switzerland; the studio apparently decided the film needed some romantic interest, but if you ignore that (as you should) there is some classic gags. The one with the gorilla and the piano, and Stan and the St Bernard are personal favourites!

Slight romantic comedy about the dress rehearsal of a fairly dire amateur play, interspersed with the complicated love lives of members of the cast. An inconsequential piece of froth, but watchable for splendid performances from Margaret Rutherford as the playwright and Robert Morley as the producer who tries to bring his version of dramatic sense into Rutherford's incomprehensible and unactable plot. When Morley falls into the pit and is injured, Rutherford takes over. All ably supported by a reliable cast of regulars from British movies. It has to be said though that it's all a bit stagey (for a movie) and Rattigan did it better

Love's Labours Lost is a play that's not performed very often and that should really have warned Branagh. LLL has a complicated and more than usually improbable plot, and Branagh has made a valiant effort to jazz it up by throwing out a lot of Shakespeare's dialogue and replacing it with songs by Gershwin, Kern and Porter. It's a clever idea, but it doesn't work. The songs bear little relation to what is supposed to be happening in what's left of the plot; and he seems to have rather missed the point that they're actually rather good songs and need good singers to put them across. Silverstone et al while decorative and energetic weren't able to put it across. Branagh has also updated the action to 1939 just before the outbreak of WW2, which gives the girls a chance to wear some pretty party frocks, but unfortunately makes a bit of a nonsense of the drama. Nice try. Ken; better luck next time.

Competent if slightly stodgy (and now rather dated) British B-movie. The plot centres around a child critically ill in hospital who needs a blood transfusion to save her life. Unfortunately she has a rare blood group, so Scotland yard are called in to track down possible donors. This is used as a framework for a collection of little stories about life in London ca 1950 rather in the style of "The Blue Lamp". Jack Warner and Sid James as a boxing manager (who could be a decent character actor when he tried) do a reasonable job at keeping the plot afloat. Now mainly of interest as a social document.

An ingenious but not entirely successful translation of Flaubert's classic novel to contemporary India. A nice idea, but it doesn't capture much of the sense of the original. Maya is shown as fey rather than bored and it's difficult to see this Madame Bovary as a doomed temptress. If you've read the original and are prepared to stick with it, it's not bad, but it's definitely on the slow side and on the whole you wonder why they bothered.

Dire British comedy, so pathetic it's almost worth watching as an object lesson in how not to make a film (I've seen better amateur films). Largely wooden cast are baffled by an inept script. The only glimmers of light are some stalwart comedy actors trying hard (but vainly) to inject some grains of humour. Wilfrid Brambell impersonates a Scottish postman, and there's a neat little cameo from Spike Milligan as a tramp fishing in the Serpentine. Fortunately he's near the beginning so you can turn it off once he's said his lines.

Dire horror movie about a mad artist with a penchant for making bronze statues out of his models. The Cornish scenery is the best bit of it; it's the sort of thing you see on midnight TV, and frankly, you're better off going to sleep

Competently made film with a thoughtful plot, makes its point without getting overly melodramatic. James Mason puts in a typically solid and workmanlike performance.

"Side Street" is a stylish, if convoluted murder mystery about a failed small-time business man (Joe Norson) who is tempted into committing a robbery. Unfortunately the money he takes belongs to a couple of ruthless blackmailers, who aren't impressed when Joe offers to return it - mainly because the "friend" he left it with for safe-keeping helped himself to it. From then on, everything Joe tries gets him deeper into trouble.

Over-long and over-complicated, but competently made and in best film noir style makes good use of light and shade. Conveys well the general seediness and desperation of small-timers trying to make the big time in New York.

Very watchable, not least for Jean Hagen as the vamp who sets the guys up.

The film is about a young woman in a small conservative community in southern Germany who decides to do some research into life during World War 2, and discovers that the version of events she has been brought up to believe is not backed up by the facts. A witty and biting satire on bourgeois hypocrisy and people's refusal (or unwillingness) to remember unpleasantness. To its credit the film is not didactic or one-sided and manages to make its point in a highly watchable but thought-provoking manner.

Well made, good looking, but highly romanticised, suspiciously clean and historically suspect account of the famous Scotch hero. The non-stop music is tedious and intrusive; even in the Hollywoodised Highlands they don't go around accompanied by string orchestras. It never seems to make up its mind what it wants to be, pseudo-history, action drama or love story. Carefully positioned to breed a spin-off TV series!

Wonderfully hyped up, and the SFX are entertaining, but the reality is that ID4 is a mish-mash of every B-feature SF/disaster movie made since the days of Georges Melies. Great fun if you're into Flash Gordon space opera, but something resembling a vaguely plausible plot would have helped immensely. As it is it makes a good compendium of SF movie cliches; I don't think they've missed one!

Amiably daft B-feature with Bob Crosby as a singer going out west to act as the sheriff of a cowboy town where he unwillingly has a run-in with a gang of local desperadoes and succeeds in bringing them to justice. The "plot" is mainly an excuse for Bob to sing every now and then (which he does rather better than brother Bing)

RW