Reviews

This is a fairly well made comedy; engaging and fairly lightweight, it would be quite forgettable were it not for Janet Leigh's somewhat animated performance. It is not that the other leads did anything bad, they just didn't do anything exceptional here. Janet Leigh was at the time married to Tony Curtis and this would be the last of five films they made together. In a case of art imitating life (or vice versa) her marriage was almost certainly in trouble by this stage; she was divorced from Tony Curtis about two years later.

I'm just watching this film again on UK TV, broadcast on 'Sony Movies Classic'. The transfer from celluloid to video is mostly OK, but my enjoyment is marred by the sound quality; they appear to have used some kind of auto-sound level control in the transfer somewhere, which has the effect of amplifying every tiny sound even when it is meant to be quiet. Another good film wrecked for posterity then...? Not quite, but almost.

If you have not yet seen either 'Mouse' film, it is probably better to see this one first, rather than view it with expectations raised by the other one.

It is easy to forget that this film was made before there had been any moon landings; plot points such as dust on the moon were real concerns for the Apollo astronauts when they landed for real, some years later. The planting of a flag (although not the first seen on film of course) was either prescient or life imitated art later on...?

Oddly enough both the look of the moon and the look of the rocket's interior are strongly reminiscent of those seen in the Wallace and Gromit animation 'a grand day out', which must surely have been inspired by the 'Mouse' film.

This film does appear on UK TV from time to time; for example on the Sony Movie Classic channel. However this raises my main disappointment concerning this film; the Sony 'watermark' is huge and obtrusive as usual, but the conversion from Celluloid to PAL video which they broadcast is almost an object lesson in 'how not to do it'; goodness knows what they did (possibly started with a bad print, converted badly to NSTC and then badly to PAL?) but the result is fuzzy, jerky in places, with poor/unsynchronized sound quality. The net result is pretty execrable; in places I'd describe it as 'almost unwatchable' in fact. This isn't the best film ever but my enjoyment of it was seriously impaired by the rotten quality of the broadcast video. I can only suppose (and hope) that commercial DVDs are better than that; they surely can't be worse...?

Six out of ten from me; might have been more but for the rotten video quality.

Starring roles for Rod Taylor and Cyril Cusack in this episode, which must have been filmed in summer 1979.

As far as I can tell the whole episode was filmed in the Cambridge area; many of the locations are quite recognisable even today. The Red Lion Hotel still exists and is near Whittlesford station. The final scenes are shot near Fulborn; it's distinctive windmill is clearly visible in the background.

The M11 western bypass wasn't yet finished when this was filmed, but further south the M11 was already in use.

Rod Taylor is perhaps most well known for 'The Time Machine' film, and for me, this episode's main interest is in glimpses of familiar locations forty years ago; this episode is its own time machine if you like.

The plot is pretty good and the acting is excellent. This makes it one of the better episodes in this series. Eight out of ten from me.

Bill Forsyth's quirky wee film is a proper gem. I've just watched it for the umpteenth time and yet again, even after thirty-seven years, it got to me in a way that few films manage to do. I have meant to post a review of this film before now, and the reason I have not before is because I hardly know how to describe it; I simply don't have the words.

For a film with an ostensibly slow pace, there isn't an on-screen moment wasted, or an off-key note struck, in either characterisation or musical terms. Mark Knopfler's score is an excellent complement to the film and once heard, the wonderful 'Going Home' theme is not soon forgotten; the intertwining melodies and musical motifs mirror the many strands running through the screenplay beautifully.

This film is one of the few I have ever seen where it is arguably perfectly cast; it is almost impossible to conceive of another actor in any of the roles. Another review here comments that Peter Riegert's performance is widely underrated, and I agree; his understated performance contrasts with the deep inner changes within, as he is seduced and beguiled by the circumstances he finds himself in. (According to Wikipedia, both Michael Douglas and Henry Winkler were considered for the role; boy am I grateful that they were passed over, it surely wouldn't have been half the film otherwise.)

Locations were cherry-picked from many parts of Scotland, some even manufactured on site, even, yet blend together to make a believable whole, and this forms a cohesive backdrop to the film, a non-speaking starring role, if you like.

Seduced and beguiled is pretty much how most folk are by this film; those who fall for its subtle charms, its boundless whimsy, which it seems to me is most folk, those with much of a head and much of a heart, anyway.

Easy ten out of ten, this.

As I write this in 2020, this film has only 17 user reviews and a rating of 6.4 on IMDB. This is usually symptomatic of a film that has been overlooked for some reason, often because it isn't very good, or has no big names attached to it, or thematically doesn't speak to a modern audience. None of the above apply to this film as far as I can see; it's worst fault seems to be that it gets a bit draggy in places. The film is otherwise well made in nearly all respects.

The premise of the film is a fascinating not to mention disturbing subject in its own right, a point which is explored more fully in a couple of the other reviews here. I must say I felt genuinely disturbed at several points in this film, which I wasn't expecting.

I didn't have great expectations of this film before I watched it, but ones I did have were comfortably exceeded. Not just for fans of period films or Bogarde, this film is well worth watching.

And I don't think I have been brainwashed into saying that....

This film is variously known by various titles such as 'Passing Clouds', 'The Spell of Amy Nugent", "Ghost Story", and "Spellbound". It was originally known by the last of these but when it was later released in the USA the title was revised to avoid confusion with the 1945 Hitchcock "Spellbound". I'd never heard of it before I saw it. As other reviews have noted this film is -to modern eyes- rather slow paced and something of a period piece. However to a great extent I wouldn't expect anything else; after all this film is now nearly eighty years old, much closer to the start of film as a medium than anything else. The subject matter is unfamiliar to most and the social context is quite literally another world. I think it is an interesting film because it explores a subject area which doesn't lend itself to film-making, not without dissolving into the realms of fantasy, which is largely avoided here. I've only scored it 6/10 mostly because it won't appeal to modern tastes, partly because the print that had been used for the video transfer I saw was in diabolical condition. One or two badly repaired film breaks are almost inevitable in an old print but this had at least half a dozen which I found somewhat intrusive. At least they were not at the most critical junctures. This isn't a cinematic masterpiece by any means but if you can overlook its shortcomings it is at heart a competently made and intrinsically interesting film.

Put simply this is a remarkable piece of TV, portraying the lives of a few people who, like many otherwise unremarkable folk, have their hobbies and interests which form a backdrop to their lives. It is gentle, endearing, subtly funny and beautifully made.

Two features which are welcome bonuses for me are the English countryside, and the wonderful theme song by Johnny Flynn. The largely tranquil countryside never looked so lovely, and not being overproduced, in this show the eye is allowed to linger on it. The sounds of birdsong can be heard in most of the outdoor scenes; so different from background sounds in other programmes.

The theme song is utterly charming, and in one episode, Johnny Flynn appears in a cameo role during a pub song night, performing it.

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Will you search through the lonely earth for me, Climb through the briar and bramble, I'll be your treasure.

I felt the touch of the kings and the breath of the wind, I knew the call of all the song birds, They sang all the wrong words, I'm waiting for you, I'm waiting for you,

Will you swim through the briny sea for me, Roll along the ocean's floor, I'll be your treasure,

I'm with the ghost of the men who can never sing again, There's a place, follow me, Where a love lost at sea, Is waiting for you, Is waiting for you.

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There is also another verse which only appears in the final episode of series three.

This isn't riotously funny or fast moving so won't appeal to anyone with a short attention span . It is very good though.

Well directed and atmospherically photographed, this is no mere action film but more a study of the human condition, viewed through a particular prism, distilled in the crucible of conflict.

Slightly odd casting choices here but the quality of the performances is high and the overall result is pretty good. This isn't a film to watch if you just want to see another war flick, this is more a film to watch if you want to see how a character study is made.

I think it adds that this film is in black and white; it is after all the only thing about the film that is, er, black and white. However there is a whole generation of would-be film-goers who simply won't watch films like this one because 'they are old-fashioned' and being in monochrome is seen as part of that. It is their loss, of course, but one wonders how the film would have stacked up had it been made in colour instead.

On paper, one of the chief protagonists ought to have been delighted at the final outcome, but of course this isn't necessarily the case. There are no real heroes here, only the living and the dead, both flawed, and the dead don't get to tell their story.

This isn't a truly great film but it is a pretty good one; definitely worth a watch. Seven out of ten from me.

Its fair to say that this film probably wasn't funded by the Weymouth Tourist Board; it looks scenic enough but the town in this film is infested with psychopathic leather-clad hoodlums and the nearby cliffs are home to a bevy of radioactive sprogs kept in a secret military establishment.

The bleak overall picture painted is one of society on the one hand corrupted by the youth within it (something of a presage to 'a Clockwork Orange'), and on the other hand the values of the establishment are just as warped, set as they are on carrying out strange experiments on small children, in order to forestall the effects of an anticipated nuclear holocaust.

In the midst of all this more human values of love and caring are seen to have a role after all.

Its been suggested that this might make a good middle section to a triple bill also comprising 'Village of the Damned' and 'Children of the Damned'; its not a bad idea since these films explore the other-worldly nature of small children who are not normal.

Shirley Anne Field is lovely but her acting -and her accent- are a bit hit and miss here. Her romance with Carey seems a bit weird; Carey was well over twice her age when this film was made.

Overall this film is a pretty good example of early 1960s film-making; it explores the themes of youth culture and the threat of nuclear Armageddon in an intriguing way. Oh, by the way, I've been to Weymouth and it isn't like that after all. Six out of ten from me.

Frankenheimer's 'Ronin' is a pretty exceptional film and is rightly compared to earlier efforts such as "The French Connection".

The plot is fairly convoluted and keeps you guessing; no less than folk living in that world might be guessing, I'd say. In any event it is a believable take on the fall-out from changes in the cold war and Irish terrorism. So, as a thriller it works well enough and the roles are well cast; with De Niro you can't really go wrong, and Jean Reno adds a Gallic counterpoint, amongst other roles; I don't thin there is really a duffer amongst them. But the things that really make this film stand out are the sparse and realistic directorial style and the action sequences.

If you don't have any love for car chases and car stunts you may find this film a turn-off; a good litmus test is whether you enjoyed 'The Italian Job' (original) or not; if you didn't then sorry, about 1/3rd of this film will probably leave you cold. But if you have any penchant for this sort of thing then this film delivers; the car chases are rightly praised as being some of the best seen on celluloid.

Six BMW E34 M535i (dressed up to resemble E34 M5), plus countless other vehicles were sacrificed to make this film, in a sometimes almost relentless trail of smoke and destruction.

Is this a 'perfect movie'? -no, of course not. But it is a dashed good one, for what it is. Nine out of ten from me.

Following the success of the first Conan film, a sequel was always on the cards; the Conan role seemed a perfect fit for Arnie's combination of physique and acting skills, so if you liked the first film you would be forgiven for having expectations of Conan the Destroyer (CtD), the second one.

However CtD takes a slightly different slant on the whole Conan deal; this is a Conan with (intentionally and unintentionally) funny sidekicks in a PG rated film, not the same Conan as in the first film, with more adult themes throughout. Some folks think it is a step up from the first film but most don't.

In truth it is a pretty enjoyable romp of a film if you don't come at it with expectations of 'more of the same' having watched the first one. A bit of a disappointment; not exactly a great film then, but not an entirely terrible one either.

For me, the good points in this film include Arnie's action sequences, some occasional moments of humour, and Jack Cardiff's cinematography. But there is plenty to gripe at too.

Inevitably there will be comparisons made between CtB, CtD, and the Conan (2011) and Red Sonja movies, the last two of which I found unwatchable and watchable respectively. Perhaps the best complement I can pay CtD is that despite it being a bit of a disappointment in absolute terms it is still probably a better film than Red Sonja or the 2011 Conan film.

Five out of ten from me; it could easily have been a much better film than it was.

Hollywood has a habit of making war films where the events portrayed are only loosely -in some cases very loosely- based on reality, and the discrepancies rub some folk up the wrong way. Needless to say this is one such film.

The film is loosely set around events that occurred in the Ardennes forest during the winter of 1944/1945. Hitler's last gamble on the western front saw a massed armour counterattack that set the inexperienced US troops in that sector reeling. Significant initial advances were made in this attack, not least because of the poor weather which meant that Allied air superiority couldn't be brought to bear. However German success was short-lived; once Allied forces were organised to meet the German attack and the weather improved, the 'Bulge' was soon eliminated. Historians speculate that this attack actually shortened the war, because it deprived the German army of vital reserves of men and materials.

This film was intended to be a big screen spectacle to follow the success of 'the longest day', and as such you would expect it to have depictions of battle scenes, in this case tank battle scenes. Modern audiences may assume that it is easy to depict such battles, and (relatively speaking) it is, these days; sprinkle a little CGI magic dust and you can have as many tanks as you like. But back in 1965 you had the choice of very small scale set pieces, models, or using tanks that are not accurate if you want lots of them. For this film the Spanish army came through and made 500 tanks available for this production. Sure the tanks are not exactly correct and the Spanish landscape isn't exactly Ardennes-like, but that is the price you pay for having lots of tanks on screen at the same time.

Apparently the film's producers claim that they used real Tiger tanks in this film; well they did no such thing. The number of extant tiger tanks that would have been mobile for filming would have been fewer than the fingers on one hand. Still, the average viewer isn't going to let this worry them.

Much is made of the historical inaccuracies in this film, and there are indeed plenty of them. But there are plenty of events that are fairly realistically depicted too. For example this includes;

• that the German offensive dredged the bottom of the barrel and included very young and inexperienced troops
• that the Germans achieved near-total surprise and made good advances initially
• that the bad weather was a positive advantage to the Germans initially
• that the SS massacred prisoners of war in the 'Malmedy massacre"
• that English-speaking German troops in disguise were used behind allied lines to disrupt communications
• that the commander of the garrison in Bastogne did indeed reply 'nuts' to an invitation to surrender
• that the German tanks were short of fuel and that this limited their operations

Against this there are numerous historical inaccuracies too. But it is a Hollywood film so maybe you can forgive this. In any event the historical distortions are 'very slight' by comparison with such films as "U571" for example, which bears so little resemblance to reality it is basically a complete joke.

Anyway Ken Annakin does his best with this unwieldy beast of a film but its always going to be a struggle for him. Savalas plays a character not so far removed from that seen in 'Kelly's heroes' a few years later, by which time presumably people's expectations of historical accuracy had entirely evaporated. Standout performance here is Robert Shaw, as the leader of a tank division, a fanatical warmongering Nazi until the bitter end.

This film is a bit uneven in places but provided the historical inaccuracies don't stick too badly in your craw, this is at heart quite a watchable film.

Five out of ten from me.

Made in 1969 this adaptation of a Le Carré novel isn't faithful to every element of the original book, and is heavily influenced by other contemporary films.

This means it isn't quite as uniformly bleak as many other Le Carré adaptations but depending on how you take it, it is perhaps hard to really believe in or sympathise with any of the characters. This is despite some pretty good performances by some of the lead actors.

What is perhaps missing is the clever editing, taut direction and sheer screen presence that (say) Michael Caine brings to the Harry Palmer movies (even though the plots of those are not exactly uniformly brilliant) or Richard Burton brings to "the spy who came in from the cold". Those movies stand head and shoulders above this.

Technically this film is well-photographed and the dubbing is well done too; however it is perhaps understandable if the pace of the film wanders, given that it looks a lot like they decided to shoehorn various sequences into the plot purely for stylistic reasons.

Some of the criticisms in the other reviews here are spot on and others are (IMHO) thoroughly misplaced; no spoilers here so you will have to work out which for yourself. I guess it is a bit of a curate's egg, this; "good in parts". Therefore if you approach it with suitable expectations you will probably find enough things about this movie to like to make it worth watching.

Overall this film probably isn't as bad as the knockers would lead you to suppose and nor is it as good as the 'ten' folk make out either. It is certainly an interesting period piece but it is also a little more than that too, so it gets 6/10 from me.

Howard Goodall's expert and forensic gaze is brought to bear on the Beatle's seminal 'Sgt Pepper' album; this film will be of interest to Beatles fans and musical scholars alike.

I largely agree with dbdumonteil's review ( the only user review here at the time of writing). However everyone has a different take on this album and will obviously have a different take on this film too. I was a mere babe when this album came out, and as I grew up, it was part of my musical firmament; not quite 'the musical wallpaper' but not far off. I recognised that it was different to what came before but I probably didn't recognise just how revolutionary this album was, until fairly recently.

It seems to me that the Beatles intuitively used whatever means they could find to make sounds that conveyed their emotions and meanings as best as possible; most listeners react to the music in the same visceral fashion, without quite understanding why. It really isn't necessary to understand exactly why, after all the music was seemingly made without this luxury, but it is interesting nonetheless. In this film you find out more about how certain musical structures and techniques work ; this kind of dissection has the potential to diminish the raw enjoyment of and wonder at the music, and maybe for some folk it will do. However there is much to be seen in terms of how the songs were structured and indeed how they were able to record the right sounds even with the primitive (by today's standards) equipment then at Abbey road.

In conclusion if you are a Beatles fan, the only reason for not watching this film is if you wish to preserve the mystery and the magic of the inner workings of these songs. For every other Beatles fan, this is must-see stuff.

In post-war times, Neil Blair (Price) is unexpectedly sent to the Alps by his wartime C.O. Derek Engles (Newton). His mission is to keep an eye, on an Italian ski-lodge, populated with a mixed bunch of folk, most of whom are pretending to be something they are not.

This film is based on a Hammond Innes novel and the plot is -in the broadest terms- quite credible in that folk scoured Europe for loot in the post war years. Obviously there are twists and turns here which I won't go into, but covert activities here are somewhat amateurish for the most part; perhaps audiences in 1947 had a different level of expectation in this regard.

Most of the film was shot in Shepherd's Bush but there was location shooting in the French Alps, mostly using doubles (who could ski properly) in long shots and also for footage that was used in back-projection studio work. The location shooting was beautifully done; marvellous unspoiled snowscapes with skiers (mostly) making fresh tracks in virgin snow. It should be remembered that, at this time, skiing in the Alps was an almost impossibly exotic thing to do. It was the province of the wealthy and not for the unfit or risk-adverse either; proper 'release' bindings and very supportive boots hadn't been invented yet (broken ankles were commonplace) and ski-lifts were a rarity; if you wanted those few minutes of glorious downhill ecstasy, you usually had to work for it, by legging it up the mountain first; for every five minutes of downhill skiing there might be an hour of breathless ascent beforehand.

Fashions change of course but one thing that made me chuckle was Mayne's (Middleton's) headgear; presumably some kind of ear muffs, I did a double take, wondering if he was in fact wearing his underwear on his head for a bet or something.

This film is moderately interesting as a thriller but earns itself an extra star from me for the location shooting, little of it though there is . Seven out of ten.

This is a not very widely known portmanteau film from 1949, in which four disparate stories are told, each culminating in the protagonists boarding a train to Liverpool, their stories becoming ever more enmeshed, only this train is headed for disaster.

I largely agree with Robert Temple's review (although there are spoilers and it is John Clements who plays the composer, not Gregson).

In contrast to many of the other reviews I found something rather good in all four stories, be it drama, witty dialogue, or humour. I thought it was all rather well done actually. For me, the standout performance was probably that of Peter Finch, who looked gaunt and utterly riven throughout.

In addition to the intriguing structure of the film -which has surely acted as an example to later directors- this film has interest today because it shows many street scenes in London and various scenes shot on the railways; who would have thought the age of steam would be over about fifteen years after this?

Anyway whilst some of the facets of this film will be lost on some folk, overall I thought it a pretty good effort, deserving to be better known and more widely appreciated than it is. Eight out of ten from me.

GK Chesterton's Father Brown (Guinness) not only solves crimes, he does it with the intent of 'catching the criminals' body and soul, i.e. for him helping to reform the criminals is more important than merely apprehending them. Here he crosses swords with career criminal Flambeau (Finch) and with the help of parishioner Lady Warren (Greenwood) he endeavours to 'catch' his man.

This film is not the finest GKC adaptation there is, nor is it the best film with Alec Guinness as the star. But that is like saying a lesser gem is not as wonderful as the finest diamond; it is still a very fine thing in its own right.

Here Guinness makes the most of his material and (speaking as someone who has read a few of GKC's stories and has largely enjoyed the ongoing BBC TV series) he makes a fine Father Brown. Location shooting by the Thames in London and in various parts of France makes this an interesting and unusual film for the time.

The film is well made and the supporting cast is excellent. Whilst he is a catholic priest aiming to enlarge his flock this aspect is not laid on with a trowel and doesn't really interfere with the plot much., just the motivations. I had no idea that this film even existed until I saw it nestling in the TV schedule, and it came as a very pleasant surprise to me.

Of course you can -with modern eyes- criticise the pace, plot and content of this film but to do so is to rather miss the point of what this kind of thing is meant to be. Very few pieces of sixty-five year-old popular culture (based themselves on even older writings) have any real appeal to a modern audience, yet this film is still rather enjoyable.

Well worth watching this; eight out of ten from me.

A mixed lot of young ladies put their differences aside and do their bit for the war effort.

This film is more than competently made mid- WWII, both produced and narrated by Leslie Howard. Obviously the film has a strong element of propaganda to it, but this isn't laid on with a trowel and doesn't dominate proceedings.

Some reviewers complain that there is a lack of plot. Well, this is meant to be a slice of life for average folk in wartime; there isn't meant to be 'a plot' for most protagonists, because mostly they are just following orders and not asking questions. You could argue 'nothing happens' because at the start of the film the war is on and at the end of the film the war is still on.

However to argue 'nothing happens' is to lose sight of the changes in the circumstances and internal make-up of each of the seven ladies; they all change and develop in their own way, and each is a little more revealed as a person by the end of the film; by the end we see that they are perhaps more disparate than we thought at the start, but for different reasons.

Given the film only runs for 90 minutes and there are seven ladies, the character development is arguably somewhat subtly done. A good number of their trials and tribulations were ones which, at the time, a good fraction of the audience would have been able to relate to. Particularly revealing is the reaction of the ladies to successful ack-ack gunnery late on in the film.

It would have been very easy to dwell exclusively on the matter in hand but this film also discusses the future, eg how society might change in future years. All this at a time when it was by no means clear what the outcome of the war might be.

If you watch this film you might conclude that you would be able to see where you were going by the light of blackout-specification headlamps. Well this is a piece of cinematic licence; the amount of light projected through the usual two tiny slits was barely enough to be seen by let alone see by. Accident rates on wartime roads in the UK skyrocketed; some believe that the loss of life so incurred was greater than if the headlights had been left unmodified (and visible to enemy aircraft).

This film is particularly bittersweet because it was Leslie Howard's last film. Just weeks after it was released, he was lost; the Luftwaffe shot down a scheduled BOAC flight over the bay of Biscay which had only civilians on board. A great loss to cinema; we only have films like this to stand tribute to him, and the recently made (and rather good) 'The Man Who Gave a Damn' documentary.

Given the sort of film this is and when it was made, I'm giving it eight out of ten.

Brilliant but slightly eccentric RAE scientist Theodore Honey (Stewart) has a theory that the tail section on the new "Rutland Reindeer" aircraft may fail suddenly via metal fatigue, after an exact number of flight hours. He is dismayed to find that not only are aircraft in service getting close to the anticipated point of failure, some -including the one he is on- are about to exceed it. He acts on his as yet unproven predictions and has to live with the consequences....

This 1951 UK production is based on Nevil Shute's novel and whilst it doesn't follow the plot of the book exactly it is pretty close.

At the time the science of metal fatigue in aircraft wasn't fully understood, and Nevil Shute's interpretation of it was a little lacking. Between those things and the usual cinematic licence there is a substantial discrepancy between the portrayal of metal fatigue and how it works in practice.

In particular there are a couple of points that deserve clarification; first, the impression is given that the structure would 'look completely normal and then suddenly fail'. This is not the case; normally there would be cracks which grow until there is not enough strength in the remaining material. Provided you inspect for cracks at certain intervals and carry out whatever remedial actions are required then a structure can remain in service almost indefinitely.

Second the prediction of lifetime is not exact. The growth rate of extant cracks is fairly predictable in some cases but cracks don't always initiate immediately. Thus a conservative estimate of a structure's lifetime assumes that there is a crack that is just too small to find in combination with a certain crack growth rate; this sets the minimum possible time to failure. Provided the structure is re-inspected at an interval shorter than this (and usually by a generous amount less than this to allow for any errors) then the structure can remain in service.

Thus the prediction that failure would definitely occur after a certain number of hours is quite false. And the idea that a thorough inspection wouldn't necessarily indicate an imminent failure is also quite false. Modern aircraft are inspected and repaired at regular intervals and today fatigue failures are very rare as a result.

However the prediction that modern aircraft might fail via metal fatigue was quite prescient; not long after this film was made De Havilland Comet aircraft did start to fail in flight because of metal fatigue and it took a long time to work out exactly why. To their credit the results of these studies were made known to the whole world of aviation quite freely and this undoubtedly saved many lives.

As an aside, we are arguably embarking on another 'experimental phase' in aircraft design and manufacture; modern types increasingly use composites and structures made from both metal and composite parts; these are all very well tested of course but it would surprise me very greatly if we understood everything there is to know about how these structures behave in the long term or even whether we can inspect them perfectly. As these structures age in service I daresay that there will be another learning curve in the coming years.

As in later films such as 'Jet Storm' the aircraft portrayed is quite fictional, doesn't make much sense in detail and deliberately resembles no extant type; no names, no pack drill and all that. Oddly enough the 'Reindeer' aircraft is portrayed with large square windows, which turned out to be one of the problems with the Comet 1. Similarly the north american airport which the plane lands at, "Gander", is quite fictional but is almost certainly based on Bangor. Around this time not that many commercial aircraft could fly transatlantic with ease, but more could comfortably manage to fly as far as Bangor, Maine, which is on or close to many 'great circle' routes across the Atlantic. Thus many transatlantic flights would land there, refuel, and then carry on to their final destination. A large international airport was built in Bangor to service this need, but the market soon dried up as the range of commercial aircraft increased. Today Bangor airport is like a ghost town; plenty of aircraft pass by, but almost no international flights stop there any more.

Anyway this film, whilst it (quite understandably) doesn't portray the science with perfect accuracy, stands up pretty well as entertainment; Jimmy Stewart had a knack of playing eccentric characters with a disarming deftness (think of his role as Mr Dowd the film 'Harvey' from the year before, for instance) and this is a case in point. Marlene Dietrich plays well but really her role is incidental to that of Glynis Johns, who is utterly charming in this film as stewardess/nurse Corder. The supporting roles are well played too; Jack Hawkins as a straight man to counterpoint Stewart's eccentricity, and a very young Janette Scott as precocious daughter Elspeth reminded me very strongly of how Wednesday Addams was portrayed in later years, but without the overt creepiness of course. I would go as far as to say without Stewart's deftness of touch, much of the humour in the film would be lost and the film wouldn't be half as enjoyable as I found it to be.

So this film is of historic interest for several reasons (NB I grew up near Farnborough, have a passion for aircraft and the science behind them) and is also pretty good entertainment. I was as happy as a pig in poop for the entire running time of the film and I accordingly give it 9/10. I don't expect everyone else to rate it that highly but it is almost certainly worth watching even if you only have a mild interest in some aspects of the film.

Charleston (Redgrave) lives in self-inflicted isolation as a lighthouse keeper, having become completely disenchanted with the outside world, most of which is complacent in the face of rising evil and looming war. In a dialogue with spirits of the past, he re-evaluates his decision to isolate himself.

Robert Ardrey's 1939 play railed against the widespread complacency at the rise of fascism, and anticipated WWII. That the play flopped in New York on first release and yet did well in wartime London a little later says plenty about how receptive the audience was to the message. In this film adaptation the story is broadened and filled in; it played to packed houses in 1943 America and did well in the UK.

Here the Boulting brothers -perhaps better known for their later comedies- have made an excellent film that is both absorbing and intriguing.

Of course it was made in wartime and the message is played for all it is worth as propaganda. But that doesn't make this film any less interesting or thought provoking. It is a little less overtly metaphysical than some other films from around this time and that is no bad thing; one foot is kept grounded at all times, more or less.

Someone once said "the greatest journeys we go on are those in our own minds" -or words to that effect- and this play/film is testimony to that.

The message that came through most strongly for me was that we owe the past a heavy debt; it is, in the present, always our obligation not to turn away, not to give up or hide away in the face of adversity.

Despite its flaws this film rates a 9/10 from me.

Two men turn up at a Mexican ranch and join a cattle drive north to Texas. One is a refugee from justice, who also loved the ranch-owner's wife long ago. The other is the lawman that is hunting the first, bearing a grudge as well as the law. Things can change on the long drive north but the truce between them is bound to be broken; when and how is the question.

This melodrama-set-in-cowboy-style has all the ingredients to make it a great film; a good scriptwriter, a great director, and a fine cast. However the end result is at best good in parts, and at worst pretty hopeless.

The main protagonists in making this film variously either were distracted or just phoned it in, and it shows. Aldrich said of it that making this film was an unpleasant experience but did also comment that the end result would have been a lot better if everyone concerned had approached it with the same professionalism as Hudson did.

Really this is a melodrama with a rather unrealistic plot (and very many sub-plots, some a bit risqué for 1961) in a western setting. As a drama maybe it still works but as a 'straight' (i.e.1950s style) western it lacks credibility and realism in nearly every respect.

For example Hudson appears at the end of a long ride and he looks like he had just stepped out of a dressing room (which he probably had). Not a mark on him. And Kirk Douglas wears the kind of outfit that no cowboy ever did, remaining elegantly coiffed more or less throughout.

One thing I found quite distracting was the time of day it was meant to be; they talk of mornings, evenings and night time, but there seemed to be little action shooting that didn't occur (randomly) around midday. Thus shadows appear, disappear, and vary in length nonsensically considering the time of day it is meant to be. one moment we are looking at a sunset and the next they are standing on their shadows. Likewise clouds appear, change, disappear equally randomly.

So there are things that not really good enough and that distract from the main plot for sure, but what remains is still a reasonable film. I didn't love it but I didn't hate it either; there are much worse films in this genre and this has an interesting plot, reminiscent of greek tragedy, even if it is unrealistic.

So a bit flawed but still enjoyable; 6/10 from me.