35. The Invisible Man (1933)

by Allan Fish

Footprints in the snow

p Carl Laemmle Jnr d James Whale w R.C.Sheriff, Philip Wylie novel H.G.Wells ph Arthur Edeson ed Ted J.Kent m W.Franke Harling art Charles D.Hall spc John P.Fulton
Claude Rains (Jack Griffin), Gloria Stuart (Flora Cranley), Henry Travers (Dr Cranley), William Harrigan (Dr.Kemp), Forrester Harvey (Herbert Hall), E.E.Clive (Jaffers), Una O’Connor (Mrs Jenny Hall), Dudley Digges (Detective chief), Holmes Herbert (Police chief), Harry Stubbs (Inspector Bird), John Carradine (newspaper seller), Walter Brennan (man with bicycle), Dwight Frye (reporter),

The third of James Whale’s quarter of horror classics – after Frankenstein and The Old Dark House and before The Bride of Frankenstein – was probably chosen in response to the successful Paramount version of another H.G.Wells classic about a madman performing experiments, Island of Lost Souls. Like that earlier film, it starred a British actor, though in this case one who was not only in his debut, but whose face would hardly be seen.

Jack Griffin works in the laboratories of Dr Cranley, and is engaged to his daughter, Flora, who is also the object of devotion of Kemp, one of Jack’s colleagues. Jack leaves one day and doesn’t tell his employer or fiancée where he’s going, and arrives at a village inn heavily bandaged and wearing shielding dark glasses. He asks for a room and wants no disturbances. We learn that he has somehow managed to turn himself invisible, and is frantically searching for the antidote. However, his irritation with any interruptions grows into a deep psychosis and he soon begins to succumb to megalomania, in which he tries to implicate his colleague Kemp.

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The Genesis of Wonders in the Dark – A Tale of Three Sanshos

by Allan Fish

This post was originally published in late 2010.  Although Allan was convinced I wouldn’t pay him a return visit, we all did three years later in the summer of 2013.  Our snow shovels have long since been removed from our renovated first floor bathroom as well, though there is a bittersweet aspect to that update as per Allan’s fond testament here.  -S.J.

There are three DVDs of Mizoguchi Sansho Dayu in the picture above – well, durgh!  Question: which of the three do I treasure most?  In the middle we have the Criterion DVD, a lovely package as one might expect.   Nope, not that one.  On the right we have the Masters of Cinema Region 2 DVD set with the additional bonus of his underrated Gion Bayashi.  Again no, I’m afraid.  Yet let’s illustrate further.  Imagine there was a fourth Sansho there, a yet to be released Blu Ray looking sharper than a katana from Hattori Hanzo, and still my answer would be the one on the left.

There’s nothing special about it.  It was a purchase I needn’t have made.  I had Sansho on tape from Film Four, a nice enough print of it, but being a pedant, I just wanted a boxed DVD copy.  It wasn’t a genuine release, merely a tape to DVDR copy of the old US Home Vision VHS.  The quality – certainly compared to the other two in the photo – was rather poor to say the least.  So why on earth would I prefer it?  There have been cases where I have kept old VHS copies of films – imported copies of the once banned in the UK A Clockwork Orange and The Exorcist and an old pre-certification copy of Straw Dogs.  They were just for nostalgia’s sake.  Sansho was something else, a memento of something altogether more important. 

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49. The Man in the White Suit (1951)

by Allan Fish

(UK 1951 81m) DVD1/2

Knight in shining armour

p  Sidney Cole, Michael Balcon  d  Alexander Mackendrick  w  Roger MacDougall, John Dighton, Alexander Mackendrick  ph  Douglas Slocombe ed  Bernard Gribble  m  Benjamin Frankel  art  Jim Morahan  spc  Sydney Pearson  sound  Stephen Dalby

Alec Guinness (Sidney Stratton), Joan Greenwood (Daphne Birnley), Cecil Parker (Mr Birnley), Michael Gough (Michael Corland), Vida Hope (Bertha), Howard Marion Crawford (Cranford), Ernest Thesiger (Sir John Kierlaw), Miles Malleson (tailor), Henry Mollison (Hoskins), George Benson (lodger), Edie Martin (landlady), Mandy Miller (girl),

Ealing comedies have long been a staple diet amongst fans of the so-called golden-age of British cinema, part of our national heritage to be cherished for ever more.  In truth, though they made a host of classics, including Passport to Pimlico, The Titfield Thunderbolt and Hue and Cry, only four stand up to real scrutiny over half a century on; Whisky Galore, The Lavender Hill Mob, Kind Hearts and Coronets and this wonderful satire from Ealing’s greatest director, Alexander Mackendrick.  Many who associate Ealing with a cosy England that is no more often find Mackendrick’s later acerbic Sweet Smell of Success to be the antithesis of his earlier work.  In reality, there’s more than a little darkness in this earlier masterpiece, too.  David Thomson was right to point out the debts to Kafka, and it also dates a lot better than the later Boulting satires (such as I’m All Right Jack).

Sidney Stratton is a working class lad who has been thrown out of his Cambridge fellowship after some radical experiments go awry.  Finding himself eventually in Wellsborough at Birnleys, the biggest mill in the land, he manages to swindle his way into the laboratory.  When he claims to have invented an everlasting fabric, he not only antagonises the industry and unions but attracts the attention of the owner’s daughter.

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67. Dark City (1998)

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by Allan Fish

Which way to Shell Beach?

p Andrew Mason d Alex Proyas w Alex Proyas, Lem Dobbs, David S.Goyer ph
Dariusz Wolski ed Dov Hoenig m Trevor Jones art Patrick Tatopoulos, George
Liddle
Rufus Sewell (John Murdoch), Kiefer Sutherland (Dr Daniel Schreber), William
Hurt (Inspector Frank Bumstead), Jennifer Connelly (Emma Murdoch), Ian
Richardson (Mr Book), Richard O’Brien (Mr Hand), Melissa George (May), Colin
Friels (Det.Eddie Walenski), Bruce Spence (Mr Wall), John Bluthal (Uncle Karl),

Quite possibly the most left field entry in this selection, and certainly the most
left field of modern times, Alex Proyas’ cult sci -fi opus is one of those films you
just love or loathe. Indeed, the same could be true of many a cult sci -fi film of the
1990s, and there were many of them. Each of us has our favourite – Gattaca for
some, Cube for others, The Fifth Element for the adolescents among us and The
Matrix for a good many more. Yet, whereas the Wachowski brothers’ hit now
looks to have increasingly less to it than meets the eye, Dark City, now restored
and reedited for the 10th anniversary release, is a film I can put on any time, and
appreciate on numerous levels, while still being critical of some of its detail and
narrative construction. The most important aspect of understanding the film and
its ambitions ironically comes during the closing credits where the dedication
reads “in memory of Dennis Potter, with gratitude and admiration.” Those who
have been baffled by the great TV writer’s work, especially the valedictory Cold
Lazarus, will know where I’m coming from.

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79. The Prestige (2006)

 

by Allan Fish

(USA 2006 131m) DVD1/2

Are you watching closely?

p  Christopher Nolan, Aaron Ryder, Emma Thomas  d  Christopher Nolan  w  Christopher Nolan, Jonathan Nolan  novel  Christopher Priest  ph  Wally Pfister ed  Lee Smith  m  David Julyan  art  Nathan Crowley  cos  Joan Bergin

Christian Bale (Alfred Borden), Hugh Jackman (Robert Angier/Gerald Root), Michael Caine (John Cutter), Scarlett Johansson (Olivia Wenscombe), Rebecca Hall (Sarah), Piper Perabo (Julia McCullough), David Bowie (Nikola Tesla), Andy Serkis (Alley), Samantha Mahurin (Jess), Roger Rees (Owens), Ricky Jay (Milton),

Christopher Nolan’s fifth film was met with muted applause on its release in 2006.  Many critics were impressed by it, yet at the same time maddened by it.  Others didn’t rate it at all and couldn’t take it seriously.  The reasons for ironically slighting this sleight of cinematic hand were numerous, but mostly centred around several factors, the biggest being the release earlier that year of similar magic trick The Illusionist – backed up by the fact that in the UK the earlier film came out afterwards, and received the fate Nolan’s film had received in the US.  That other film was a fine film in its own right, but once the trick is unravelled, there’s not much else to it, while it’s never explained how its protagonist managed to make himself incorporeal.  There is nothing in Nolan’s film that isn’t explained, and yet for all that, it remains enigmatic, multi-textured and involving no matter how many times you see it.  This is not merely a case of pulling the rug out from under the audience, but convincing them that the rug was never there in the first place.

Set around the turn of the century, Robert Angier and Alfred Borden are two rival up and coming magicians working the theatres of London.  Their semi-friendship is blown asunder when Angier’s beloved Julia is drowned on stage in an accident which might have been caused by Borden.  Blaming him for her death, Angier swears to make him pay, and their professional rivalry reaches new levels when Borden introduces his long cherished new trick, The Transported Man, onto the London stage, and leaves Angier obsessed with how he did it.

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Jacques Rivette’s “Paris nous appartient” (1961)

by Allan Fish

Note:  This review by Allan Fish considers a seminal work of the late Jacques Rivette.  Though it was previously published, it reappears to pay homage to the great director, and will be followed by a few others in the coming weeks.

(France 1961 140m) DVD2

Aka. Paris Belongs to Us

The star Absinthe approaches earth

p  Roland Nonia  d  Jacques Rivette  w  Jacques Rivette, Jean Gruault  ph  Charles Bitsch  ed  Denise de Casablanca  m  Philippe Arthuys

Betty Schneider (Anne Goupil), Gianni Esposito (Gerard Lenz), Françoise Prévost (Terry Yordan), Daniel Crohem (Philip Kaufman), François Maistre (Pierre Goupil), Jean-Claude Brialy (Jean-Marc), Jean-Marie Rohain (De Georges), Jean-Luc Godard, Brigitte Juslin, Jacques Demy,

It was only a few weeks ago.  The 11^th Doctor crash-landed on earth, David Tennant had finally turned into Matt Smith.  The latter had promised a little girl he’d be back in five minutes but it turns out to be twelve years.  He comes back only to bashed over the head with a cricket bat, handcuffed to a radiator and come round to find the first thing he sees is Amy Pond’s endless legs.  She doubts his existence; four psychiatrists in twelve years have told her he can’t exist.  Then he asks her a question.  “On this floor, how many rooms?”  She’s incredulous but finally responds “five.”  After all, she should know; she’s lived there for over a decade.  The Doctor replies “six”, Amy is even more incredulous, and then the Doctor tells her to look where she’s never wanted to look, in the corner of her eye.  There, slowly looking back over her shoulder, she sees it.  “How is that possible?” she protests.  “Perception filter”, the Doctor says, of an entire room she never knew existed.

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The Manchurian Candidate (1962)

by Allan Fish

A little solitaire?

Note:  This review is part of the Frank Sinatra Blogathon run by Judy Geater and two others.  The host site is Emily at The VintageCameo.com. 

 

p  Howard W.Koch  d  John Frankenheimer  w  George Axelrod  novel  Richard Condon  ph  Lionel Lindon ed  Ferris Webster  m  David Amram  art  Richard Sylbert  cos  Moss Mabry

Frank Sinatra (Bennett Marco), Laurence Harvey (Raymond Shaw), Janet Leigh (Rosie), James Gregory (Sen.John Iselin), Angela Lansbury (Mrs Iselin), Henry Silva (Chunjim), John McGiver (Sen.Thomas Jordan), Knigh Dhiegh (Yen Lo), Whit Bissell,

 

The Manchurian Candidate is the film Oliver Stone would love to have made but never could, a film that subtly and nail-bitingly exposes the hypocrisy of political machination and the often blurred distinction between the so called ‘left’ and ‘right’.  Frankenheimer made several classic conspiracy movies in the sixties (see Seven Days in May and Seconds), but this is undoubtedly his masterpiece and one of the all-time great political films.  Not merely a thriller, not merely a military exposé, Candidate is also just what Pauline Kael said it was; “the most sophisticated political satire ever to come out of Hollywood.”

            In 1952 in Korea, an officer, Raymond Shaw, saves his group of men on patrol and receives the Medal of Honor for bravery.  All his former subordinates refer to him in an uncommonly generous, adulating way that seems detached from his gloomy, introspective personality.  Bennett Marco, who has been having nightmares about a brainwashing program conducted by the Soviet and Chinese governments, comes to believe his dream and thinks that Raymond is not all he says he is.  It turns out that he is merely an instrument in the machinations of some truly diabolical master plan. 

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