STREET OF SHAME

As its better known English title attests Mizoguchi's last film deals with the subject of prostitution but like several of the masterpieces that preceded it, it really deals with the role of women in Japan, a subject Mizoguchi returned to over and over again. "Street of Shame" is set in the present, or at least in post-war Japan, and the government are proposing anti-prostitution laws that will close the brothels down. As it is, the women who work in 'Dreamland' earn little enough.

As you might expect Mizoguchi pulls no punches. For these women life is pretty much hell with survival the name of the game. It is, of course, beautifully acted by all the women concerned and for a film dealing with such dark subject matter, isn't without humour. If the film is no masterpiece it is still quintessential Mizoguchi as well as being one of the best 'women's pictures' of the fifties. Melodrama it may be but, like the best melodramas, this one has the ring of truth.

SPRING NIGHT, SUMMER NIGHT

Joseph L. Anderson's "Spring Night, Summer Night" is another sixties exploitation movie to be rediscovered and restored by Nicolas Winding Refn but this one really is something of a lost classic. Anderson filmed it almost entirely with non-professionals and shot it on location in Canaan, Ohio. It's a study of a close-knit Redneck family and of what happens when the oldest son gets his half-sister pregnant and it reeks of authenticity, helped considerably by the stunning black and white cinematography of Brian Blauser, David Prince and Art Stifel.

There isn't a great deal in the way of plot and the performances have a ropey, if real-life, feel to them but it's clearly the work of someone who knew his movies and whose influences were as much European as American but who went on to make only one other film before disappearing. Unmissable if you can track it down.

KILLING THEM SOFTLY

The great gangster films of the thirties were firmly set in the Depression at a time when, economically, the country had basically gone down the tubes and when, in the sixties, movies like "Bonnie and Clyde" and "Thieves like us" revived the genre they, too, acknowledged that criminals didn't always commit crime for power or profit but just to survive. Andrew Dominik's sublime "Killing them Softly" is set in the America of the economic melt-down that saw out the Bush years and saw in Obama's presidency and money, taking it, keeping it, getting it whatever way you can, is again at the heart of the picture, (and both Bush and Obama figure prominently throughout on any available television screen).

It begins when small-time hood Johhny Amato hires a couple of drugged-up, spaced-out and even smaller-time hoods Frankie and Russell to hold up a card-game run by Markie Trattman who had previously organized the robbery of another of his own games. But while they get away with the money things start going wrong for them very early. In no time hit-man Jackie Cogan is hunting them down and never mind the collateral damage.


Written and directed by Dominik, who also gave us that great elegiac western "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford", "Killing them Softly" may be the first great gangster film to come out of the current economic recession. It's based on the novel "Cogan's Trade" by George V Higgins, who also wrote "The Friends of Eddie Coyle" all those years ago, (this, too, was written some time ago and updated by Dominik), and talk, really good talk of the kind the movies used to give us a lifetime ago, is as vital to the film as the several spectacularly executed killings, one filmed in slow-motion showing the bullet leaving the gun before crashing, first through a car window and then through the victim's skull. And talk of this quality needs good talkers to carry it off and it gets them in the ensemble of Brad Pitt, James Gandolfino, Richard Jenkins, Ray Liotta, Vincent Curatola and two brilliant, relative new faces in Scoot McNairy and Ben Mendelsohn as the bubble-headed robbers. Indeed this may be the best thing Pitt has ever done and in a just world Gandolfino should be clearing space for his Best Supporting Actor Oscar. Come to think of it, this may be the best film I have seen so far this year; yes, it really is that good.

MAJOR DUNDEE

Dismissed at the time of its release and cut by the studios, the restored version of "Major Dundee" is now just regarded as one of Peckinpah's masterpieces. It's a richly detailed and beautifully structured, as well as a psychologically and morally complex, study of men in conflict and it's one of the greatest westerns ever made. It's set during the closing days of the Civil War and it's about a Yankee major's hunt for the Apaches who have massacred a community and made off with their children. To help him in his search he recruits a group of Confederate prisoners under the command of Richard Harris as well as six 'coloureds', (their spokesman is Brock Peters), so it's a western as much to do with racism as anything else, (the internal conflicts between the Confederates and the Negro soldiers and the hatred Dundee has for the Apaches not to mention a punishing dalliance with the French in Mexico). If the middle section, involving an unlikely romance between Dundee and a German widow played by Senta Berger, feels a little tacked on it doesn't substantially weaken the picture. It also gives Charlton Heston one of his greatest parts; indeed his performance as Dundee may be the best of his career and in a superb cast Richard Harris and, perhaps surprisingly, Jim Hutton are stand-outs. The magnificent widescreen photography is by Sam Leavitt and the brilliant script, again one of the finest of any western, is by Peckinpah, Harry Julian Fink and Oscar Saul.

IRRATIONAL MAN

"Irrational Man" seems to have been grossly misinterpreted by critics who saw in this movie Allen striving for profundity and then falling short when, in fact, this is one of Woody's best and brightest comedies in years. I suppose it can be seen as the third part of a loose trilogy of films in which murder is central to the proceedings and which began with "Match Point" and was then followed by "Cassandra's Dream". I liked "Match Point" a lot; it was a very clever comedic play on "Crime and Punishment" and Woody, moving fully away from the US for the first time, made great use of his London locations. "Cassandra's Dream" was considerably less successful, partly because he abandoned the comedy element entirely but more so because he was working in a milieu he simply didn't understand. But with "Irrational Man" he is well and truly back on form.

The setting is one of those Eastern, small-town colleges, (in this case, Providence), where Joaquin Phoenix is the new kid in the philosophy block, (not to be taken literally; he's actually the new professor). He has a reputation for philandering and heavy drinking, both well-founded, (he carries a hip-flask everywhere he goes and has affairs with married teacher Parker Posey and student Emma Stone). He also finds an opportunity to redeem his life by murdering a 'bad' judge, thus ridding the world of someone whose position in it can only be seen as detrimental to his fellow man. The way in which Phoenix goes about executing his plan and its subsequent aftermath is what gives the film its comic edge yet Woody, being Woody, never loses sight of the philosophical arguments either.

We have, of course, been here before but there is no-one as good at this kind of thing as Mr Allen; it's a formula with which he really can't miss. It's also blessed with three superb performances, (well, several actually; the tiny roles are beautifully fleshed out, too). Phoenix is perfectly cast as the professor, right down to his pot belly. It's a great comic performance. As the two women in his life neither Parker Posey or Emma Stone have ever been better. Allen is renowned for directing actresses to Supporting Oscars and there is no reason why he can't do so again, though I would be loathe to have to choose between them. Stone's realisation that the man she loves may be a murderer is a joy to behold. Oh, and it's got a great jazz score too, mainly courtesy of the R
amsey Lewis Trio.

CHIKAMATSU MONOGATARI

"Chikamatsu Monogatari" , (aka "The Crucified Lovers"), is one Mizoguchi's lesser known works and yet it is no less extraordinary for all that. It is, of course, typical of its director; another tragic tale of corrupted innocence and the terrible hand fate plays in people's lives, in this case a wrongful accusation of adultery over a very simple misunderstanding. Shakespeare could have written this.
It's set in the 17th century and it paints as relentless a picture of cruelty and hypocrisy as Mizoguchi has given us and he shoots it almost in semi-darkness, (even the exteriors take place at night or are shrouded in mist or in shadow), so there is no escape for its protagonists nor for us; the inevitability of the lovers' fate is clearly signposted from the beginning.


As the couple forced to acknowledge their love for each other by unfolding events Kazuo Hasegawa and Kyoko Kagawa are superb, particularly Kagawa whose performance as the wronged wife is a masterclass in subtlety and tenderness. This is surely one of the key films in all of Japanese cinema.

45 YEARS

I have no doubt that in 70 years from now Andrew Haigh's new film will be as highly thought of as "Brief Encounter" is today. "Brief Encounter" dealt with a love affair that wasn't and the effect it had on a conventional middle-class marriage. "45 Years" is set within similar territory but here the disruptive love affair is, arguably, all the more powerful and its effect all the more devastating. It takes place over six days, Monday to Saturday, and begins when husband Geoff receives a letter in German informing him that the body of the girl he loved 50 years before, and who died in an accident in the Swiss mountains, had been found, presumably preserved in ice just as she was the day he lost her, and ends up at the party held to celebrate Geoff's 45 year marriage to Kate.

It's a love story, plain and simple, and is, in its quiet way, unbearably moving. As the days pass between the receipt of the letter and the planned party, Kate comes to realise that she might not have been first in Geoff's affections, let alone the great love of his life and this knowledge becomes unbearable to her. For most of the picture Geoff and Kate are the only two characters on the screen, (the only other sizeable part is that of Lena, Kate's best friend, beautifully played by Geraldine James). In a very short space of time we get to know these people intimately. It helps that they are magnificently played by Tom Courtenay and Charlotte Rampling, neither of whom has ever been as good before and both of whom should be brushing up on their acceptance speeches come the awards season, (they have both already taken home Silver Bears at Berlin). The picture belongs very much to them but it also establishes Andrew Haigh as perhaps the foremost director working in Britain today; the leap from "Greek Pete" through "Weekend" to this is staggering. Haigh never puts a foot wrong; every detail of the picture is perfect. Nor is there an ounce of sentimentality to be found though the closing scene is a heart-breaker of the kind rarely found in the cinema. I have no hesitation in calling "45 Years" a masterpiece. Its success in Britain is guaranteed; let's hope the Academy are as welcoming come Oscar time.

THE PASSIONATE FRIENDS

This David Lean romance seems to have been swept under the carpet and yet it may be his most underrated masterpiece, (it's infinitely preferable to such elephantine fare as "Ryan's Daughter" and "Doctor Zhivago"). It marked the first time Lean would abandon the studio for more exotic locations, (in this case, the Swiss Alps), and seems designed as a vehicle for his wife, Ann Todd, who is outstanding as the respectable English wife who dallies with an old flame who happens to check into the room next door at the hotel she's staying in while on holiday. He's Trevor Howard and it's as if this is what might have happened in "Brief Encounter" had the lovers a bit more chutzpah.
Howard, too, is superb, (he always was; he remains one of the most underrated of all the great actors), and Todd's husband is the consistently excellent Claude Rains at his very best. As a tale of a genteel marriage threatened by genteel adultery it's beautifully done and why it isn't more highly appreciated is something of a mystery. If, like me, you believe Lean to be one of the great directors then this is essential viewing.

THE LITTLE STRANGER

If you hadn't figured it out by now Lenny Abrahamson is something of a maverick; he also happens to be one of the finest directors alive today. From a Lenny Abrahamson film only one thing is certain and that's nothing is certain. If he's now making genre pictures they certainly won't be like other films in that particular genre. His latest film, "The Little Stranger" is a ghost story...but then it might not  be. Abrahamson himself has said he doesn't want his film 'sold' as a ghost story or as a horror film though it is indeed a very disturbing one.

The tropes of the ghost story are very much in evidence; a big pile of a country house, things that go bump in the night and bells that ring all by themselves. Then there's the child who has died, (we never learn how), before the film begins and the siblings who feel the dead child has upstaged them. The central character is the youngish doctor, (Domhnall Gleeson), called to the house at the beginning after the sole maid takes ill. While he's examining her she lets slip that her 'illness' may simply be fear. However, if you think you are in for some early 'frights', think again. As I said, Abrahamson doesn't make genre pictures that are in any way predictable. This movie has a very slow build that may not endear it to a mass audience. Nevertheless when the first signs that there may indeed be something wrong and not just in the imagination of the battle-scarred son and brother and the jumpy maid, do appear, about midway through, the feeling of dread is considerable.
This is a consummate piece of film-making, superbly adapted from the Sarah Waters novel by Lucinda Coxon, beautifully photographed and designed and, of course, brilliantly directed by Abrahamson. I think I guessed 'the twist' quite early on but then Abrahamson never quite explains things; he simply lets things happen and leaves it to his splendid cast to help us make up our own minds.
As the doctor Domhnall Gleeson is so buttoned-up he may as well be in a straight-jacket which, of course, he is in his way. As the spinsterish daughter he is drawn to Ruth Wilson is extraordinary but then when is Ruth Wilson not extraordinary and both Will Poulter as the mentally unstable, physically disfigured son and Charlotte Rampling as the much too quick to accept the supernatural explanation mother lend brilliant support. Indeed, every performance, no matter how small the part, is superb. Abrahamson may have said he doesn't want us to think of this as a ghost story but there are many different types of ghost stories and many different kinds of ghosts. Call this a genre picture if you like but it's one that's out there on its own. I loved it and I am sure it will haunt me for a long time to come.

KNAVE OF HEARTS

Before "Alfie", there was "Monsieur Ripois" (aka "Knave of Hearts"). Gerard Philipe is the French Lothario let loose in London and among the women whose hearts he breaks are Joan Greenwood, Margaret Johnson, Natasha Parry and Valerie Hobson (he marries her). Directed by Rene Clement, this is a very French take on an English comedy and today its principal attraction is in seeing what London looked like in 1954, (it was filmed, superbly, on location by Oswald Morris); that and Philipe who simply exudes Gallic charm even if his character is hardly likeable. It was, of course, doing for Britain, and London in particular, what the French had been doing for Paris for some time and its influence on the British New Wave is obvious.

TYRANNOSAUR

Were it set across the English Channel, Paddy Considine's stunning directorial debut "Tyrannosaur", which he also wrote, could just as easily have been directed by the Dardenne Brothers or Bruno Dumont. It's a film about lives barely lived at the very bottom of the barrel. It's deeply harrowing but also cathartic and ultimately strangely redemptive. It's also a love story about two people whose lives seem blighted never to be touched by that emotion or that feeling.


Its central characters are a hard-drinking Scot wallowing in self-pity and a hatred of almost everyone and everything around him, except perhaps the abused kid across the road, and the soft-spoken, pragmatic woman into whose charity shop he stumbles one day. They are played magnificently by Peter Mullan and Olivia Coleman. Equally good is Eddie Marsan, unusually cast against type, as the woman's despicable, abusive husband who thinks nothing of urinating over his sleeping wife. These are the kind of people the cinema tends to ignore and they are not really the kind of people we would choose to hang out with but Considine gives them to us in all their flawed, bitter humanity. In particular, he allows us to see into the battered souls of Mullan and Colman which makes the horrors he presents at least bearable. This is certainly not the easiest film to watch but it is hugely rewarding. Neither is it the kind of film that wins Oscars; the Academy could never handle anything this raw, yet it is essential viewing nevertheless. It's one of the best films I've seen this year.

LOOSE CANNONS

Having been subjected to 'gay comedies' in the past I must confess I wasn't much looking forward to "Loose Cannons", a 'comedy' about two gay brothers in a well-off Italian family and the effect that one of them coming out has on the other and the family in general but this is funny and surprisingly likeable and it handles the fall-out with a great deal of affection and originality. The gay cliches in this film are few indeed, (and it may have the most original suicide in any movie). Good performances, too, from everyone involved and first-rate direction, in the Sirkian mould, from Ferzan Ozpetek, even if the title doesn't quite reflect the seriousness of the comedy in hand.

CAFE SOCIETY

So now Jesse Eisenberg is Woody Allen; well, of course, he isn't actually Woody Allen, just the latest in a long line of Woody alter-egos and he's the best of them, (the great Owen Wilson notwithstanding). Not that Woody is letting go completely; it's Woody who does the narration, (and sounding now like the old man he is), and if this is an old man's film it's a great one, (though it never feels like an old man's film). In fact, I can't quite remember when I last enjoyed a Woody Allen film as much. It feels totally fresh and new until you realise it's just an updated "Radio Days"; not that that diminishes it in any way.

The first half takes place in Hollywood, (Woody finally allows himself to go there but with two stipulations; he isn't really Woody but Jesse and it is the 1930's, the time of his beloved Marx Brothers and Fred and Ginger), but Hollywood doesn't work out so Woody/Jesse heads home to New York and his Jewish family and his gangster brother. However, while in Hollywood he falls for Vonnie, his uncle's secretary, (she's having an affair with her boss), which means the path of true love never runs smooth and all that....



Vonnie is Kristen Stewart, fast becoming my favourite young actress, and the uncle is Steve Carrell and they are both superb in a superb ensemble that also includes Jeannie Berlin, (you may be shocked to find Elaine May's daughter is now an old lady), Parker Posey, Ken Stott and Blake Lively. The movie itself is a cross between the early funny ones and smarter fare like "Hannah and Her Sisters" and "Husbands and Wives", though with none of that movie's acerbity. This is a bitter-sweet affair ending, as Woody's films often do, at year's end and with a closing shot as fine as any in the great man's oeuvre.

JULIETA

After taking something of a major nose-dive with "I'm So Excited" that many other directors might not have recovered from, Almodovar is back on something approaching his best form. In many respects, "Julieta" is his 'All About My Daughter' though it doesn't have the same emotional clout that "All About My Mother" or "Volver" had. This is Pedro is a very serious mode, perhaps too serious; maybe a little bit of humour might not have gone amiss.

Julieta is played by two different actresses, (Adriana Ugarte and Emma Suarez), at different stages of her life and much of the film is told in flashbacks. These women, and Almodovar's meticulous direction, hold our attention but I was never moved by the film in a way I felt I should have been, at least until the very end.

The source material is three stories by Alice Munro, none of which I've read, but considering how seamlessly Almodovar keeps the material flowing I am sure he has done a very fine job of adapting them for the screen, nor can I imagine how the original conception of filming this in English with Meryl Streep might have worked. So not quite top-notch Almodovar but proof, nevertheless, that he can still deliver the goods when he's called to.

VICTORIA & ABDUL

Last year it was ethnicity that dominated the Oscars and this year it could well be longevity. I recently predicted that, at the age of 91, Harry Dean Stanton could be Oscar's oldest ever Best Actor and even now there is every chance he will be posthumously nominated while Dame Judi, a mere 82, should have no worries in being a sure-fire contender for her performance as Queen Victoria in "Victoria & Abdul". It's a part she has already played in "Mrs. Brown", (losing out to Helen Hunt in "It's As Good as it Gets"), and to be fair, this is something of a walk in the park for her.

We are told the movie is 'mostly' based on actual events but I think we have to take a lot of what we see with a pinch of salt. It's certainly an entertaining picture, if a little twee and whimsical at times, but there is also a little more heft to it than meets the eye. As written by Lee Hall and directed by Stephen Frears this is no mere sentimental, historical romp. It is, of course, the story of the Queen's friendship, in the years before her death, with her Indian servant Abdul Karim, (Ali Fazal, an actor new to me), which until recently was something kept very much under wraps and which was very much opposed to by the Prime Minister, her son the Prince of Wales and the entire royal household and Hall makes this another post-Brexit movie, (I have a feeling we are going to see a lot of post-Brexit movies in the next few years).



What we have here is a film about racism and about empire and it's quite as relevant today as it was back in Victoria's time. Not that you have to take it too seriously; there's a lot of low comedy on display and Frears has assembled an outstanding cast of British character actors. Eddie Izzard is an obnoxious future king, the late Tim Piggot-Smith is quite wonderful as the toadying head of the household, Michael Gambon is the befuddled Prime Minister and Paul Higgins practically walks off with the picture as the Queen's concerned doctor; concerned, not with her health, but with the number of Indians about the place. As a piece of film-making there is, naturally, a large dose of Masterpiece Theatre on display but that, in itself, isn't such a bad thing. "Victoria & Abdul" goes down a treat.

UNDER CAPRICORN

Largely derided in critical circles, Hitchcock's "Under Capricorn" is, in fact, one of his greatest films; on the one hand it's deeply romantic with an antecedent in "Rebecca" and on the other, a dark, psychological drama as good as anything he's done. It's a Victorian melodrama set in Australia, though it equally could have been set in the American Deep South during the Civil War. It's got a mansion, a distressed heroine, malevolent servants and a hero who used to be an ex-convict. If the Irish backstory is unconvincing, it's a small price to pay. As the once great lady who has taken to drink Ingrid Bergman is quite magnificent, (it's one of her greatest and most underrated performances), and as her husband, the stable-boy who has struck it rich, Joseph Cotten is very good indeed. The 'Mrs Danvers' role of the nasty housekeeper, (here called Milly), is brilliantly played by Margaret Leighton and even Michael Wilding acquits himself well as the visitor from Ireland. In some respects it's the least Hitchcockian of his films, (which may be why it isn't that highly thought of), but rather than dazzle us with tricks he just gets down to the business at hand. This is a good tale, superbly told and surely it 's time it was re-assessed.

THE STRANGE ONE

Jack Garfein made "The Strange One" in 1957. It was adapted by Calder Willingham from first his novel and then his play "End as a Man". Actually the title "The Strange One" doesn't really do it justice; a better, if somewhat declamatory, title might have been 'The Evil One' since its central protagonist, Jocko De Paris, is one of the most sadistic and warped anti-heroes in all of fiction. The setting is a military academy in the Deep South and Jocko is cock of the walk. He rules with a combination of charm and viciousness but it all goes belly-up for him when he targets a young cadet and his father, who happens to be an officer there. His scheme involves four other cadets whose fear of him he's counting on. It's a melodramatic scenario that culminates in a bravura, sustained passage of mounting hysteria but it's brilliant in the way that the best of Tennessee Williams or William Inge are brilliant. Willingham's dialogue has the ring of poetry to it and Garfein, whose first film this was, (he's only made one since), directs it superbly.

Of course, it would have been nothing were it not for its cast, many of whom were totally unknown at the time. Ben Gazzara may already have been a star on the New York stage, (he was Brick in "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof"), but was an unknown quantity in the movies, (it was also his first film). His performance as Jocko should have made him a much bigger star than he ever became and it remains a career-best performance. Those who fall under his spell include Pat Hingle, James Olson, Arthur Storch and George Peppard. They are all terrific; Peppard, also making his screen debut, shows real promise and Hingle in outstanding.



There's also one overtly gay character, (though the whole picture is suffused with homo-eroticism), a cadet who fancies himself a writer and who is obviously in love with Jocko. He's played by Paul Richards as a grotesque and flamboyant queen, part Truman Capote and part Gore Vidal. In any other film this character would be offensively out of place but here he's just one more poisonous plant in this insidious hothouse. The film wasn't successful and is almost impossible to see now, at least here in the UK but it's a masterpiece and one of the best American films of the fifties. Essential.

SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT

Long before Vin Diesel and "The Fast and the Furious" there was "Smokey and the Bandit". This road-movie was a monster hit and spawned several sequels and while no-one would claim it to be a great film it is a hell of a lot of fun and it put Burt Reynolds centre-stage with a star-making role as the titular Bandit. It might not have been the kind of part that would win Reynolds an Oscar but he is surprisingly good here, helped by a very decent script from James Lee Barrett, Charles Shyer and Alan Mandel.

The director was former stuntman Hal Needham who certainly knew his way around these backroads and highways and the terrific supporting cast included Sally (You Really Like Me) Fields, Jackie (Minnesota Fats) Gleason and Country singer Jerry Reed as well as Pat McCormick and Paul Williams. It may be reasonably minor in the grand scheme of things but it is very likeable.

PRIDE

Relying solely on his material, a terrific script by Stephen Beresford and a bevy of flawless performances, theatre director Matthew Warchus, (this is only his second film), has made in "Pride" the best feel-good gay movie since "Beautiful Thing" as well as a powerful piece of political manoeuvering in much the same vein as "Brassed Off". In 1984 a small group of lesbian and gay activists based in London decided to raise money for the Welsh miners during Britain's almost year long miner's strike. It was an uphill struggle; they had to battle the miner's homophobia for a start but their determination and their winning personalities won the day. As we know, the miners lost but out of this alliance a bond between the Trade Union movement and gay rights groups was forged that still exists to this day.


To enjoy "Pride", and it is a hugely enjoyable film, a knowledge of the events portrayed isn't any more necessary than being gay, a miner or even particularly left-wing in your beliefs. This is a humanist entertainment that is as funny as it is moving. It doesn't shy away from issues like homophobia and AIDS but its ultimate message is entirely positive. In a superb cast it's only fair to single out Bill Nighy, Imelda Staunton, Dominic West, (he's centre stage in one of the films two great musical interludes), Paddy Considine and Andrew Scott. Of the younger cast members George MacKay as a young activist coming to terms with his homosexuality, edges out his co-star and the film's ostensible male lead Ben Schnetzer but then almost everyone on screen makes their mark in what is a great ensemble. I can already see it seizing a slew of BAFTA nominations next year. Hopefully it will also make it across the Atlantic. British cinema has built up a good relationship with Oscar and there is no reason why "Pride" can't continue that relationship; it really is that good.

UNE FEMME EST UNE FEMME

Taking as his jumping off point the American musical-comedies of the 1950's, Godard then totally subverts them, following his debut masterpiece "Breathless" with something even more radical. "Une Femme est une Femme" is, on the one hand, Godard's most accessible film while being, at the same time, totally unconventional, even perversely so. It's like a home-movie in Cinemascope and colour and his use of colour and widescreen is up there with Minnelli and Sirk even as his script and his actors veer off into places his mentors would never have considered.

Anna Karina stars as the young stripper who wants to have a baby, either by Jean-Claude Brialy or Jean-Paul Belmondo, (she isn't too fussy), and she looks gorgeous. The camera loves her even if what she is doing up there on the screen might not quite approximate to 'acting' any more than what Godard is giving us could be called a typical film. This is the kind of movie that cemented his reputation and as many people hate it as love it. However, unlike many of his later films, (the out-and-out political ones), the last thing you could call this is boring.

SEANCE ON A WET AFTERNOON

This is probably Bryan Forbes' best film. It's an extremely taut, bleak and downbeat piece of work, the kind of thriller that truly merits the adjective 'clammy'. It is set in one of those London suburbs you really wouldn't want to live in, certainly not with a neighbour like Kim Stanley's demented medium who hatches a plot, (her weak-willed husband, played by Richard Attenborough, forces himself to go along with it), to kidnap a child then reveal the child's whereabouts to the police so she can achieve a kind of fame. But you know instantly that the woman is dangerously unstable and things can only go from very bad to much worse. Both Stanley, (much underused, at least so far as the cinema was concerned), and Attenborough give terrific performances and Forbes handles the unsettling material, (from a novel by Mark McShane), with considerable brio.

BONNIE AND CLYDE

When Arthur Penn's Thirties-set gangster movie first appeared in 1967 it was like a breath of fresh air in the American cinema, (though to be fair, on hindsight, the American cinema in the previous few years, particularly in the Independent sector, wasn't doing too badly). Still, Penn's movie seemed to break new ground and not just in it's depiction of violence. It had a lyrical intensity that belonged more to the French New Wave, (and at one time Truffaut's name was associated with the project), and, in that it took back to the American cinema the trappings that the French had originally borrowed in films like "A Bout De Soufflé" and "Shoot the Pianist", seemed to square the circle.

In the intervening years it has fallen somewhat out of fashion. It now almost seems quaintly old-fashioned, it's form more classically structured and narrativley driven than might first appeared. But there are virtues that have largely been overlooked. Like "The Graduate" which came out in the same year, it is a young person's film yet it burns with a fierce intelligence that is conspicuously absent from similar films today. I suppose you could say  the film has a pop-art sensibility, (a close-up of Faye Dunaway's face, lips burning bright red, could come from a Lichtenstein poster), and its cast seem unnaturally young, (only Beatty had  established a persona for himself at the time; the others had yet to establish a reputation), but they became stars because of it. (Gang members Parsons and Pollard didn't make the leap; they were character actors from the start). Arguably you could say Beatty, Dunaway, Hackman, Parsons and Pollard were never to better their work here. They may have equalled it but their performances were definitive.

Arthur Penn, too, was never to make another movie as good. The film's extraordinary critical and popular success gave Penn the freedom to tackle 'weightier' material, but "Little Big Man" and "Georgia's Friends" now seem misguided attempts at solemnity, while even his brilliant western "The Missouri Breaks" seems to succeed more for it's oddness rather than it's originality. Perhaps "Bonnie and Clyde" was a one-off though it did spawn an awful lot of break-neck thrillers and up-dated film-noirs, and was more responsible for the baby-boom in movies in the seventies than "Easy Rider" which followed it two years later. It remains a film ripe for reassessment.

THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY

First of three masterpieces by the great Italian director Sergio Leone and the last of a trilogy of westerns which he made with Clint Eastwood, this marked a significant step-forward on the two previous films on which they had collaborated, ("A Fistful of Dollars" and "For a Few Dollars More"). The 'Once upon a time ...' movies would see Leone's films take on a much darker turn but although there is quite a lot of violence and death on display here, this is an almost jovial epic, (the humour comes from Leone's subversion of traditional western clichés). Almost every sequence feels, and looks, like a classic, (the climatic gunfight has the choreographed precision of a ballet), Tonino Delli Colli's widescreen cinematography is magnificent, and although dubbed, (very effectively), the English translation of the Italian script is first-class.

The plot is simplicity itself as Clint Eastwood, Eli Wallach and Lee Van Cleef search for some buried gold but the plot is only the thread of a much richer tapestry centred around events in the American Civil War. Stylistically and thematically this film would later influence Eastwood as a director. At a time when, in America, the western seemed long past it's sell-by date, in Europe Leone's homages single-handedly revitalised the genre paving the way for a whole new breed of post-modernist classics.

TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT

Howard Hawks made "To Have and Have Not" in 1944 and Bogie made it two years after he made "Casablanca", (his character and the plots of both films are very similar), and like "Casablanca"it's a masterpiece but like many masterpieces that came out of Hollywood during the studio years it's one almost by default. It's not deep or profound or particularly artistic but it's absolutely perfect; as good as movies are likely to get. The story goes that Hawks bet Ernest Hemingway that he could make a good film out of Hemingway's worst story and "To Have and Have Not" was what came up. There isn't too much of the original story left. The writers were Jules Furthman and William Faulkner and they expanded and greatly improved Hemingway's short story. In fact, "To Have and Have Not" has some of the best dialogue ever written and it's delivered by a dream cast.

This was the film that introduced a strapping 19 year old called Lauren Bacall to the world and introduced Bacall to Bogie. She's magnificent; she acts as if she was born into the role and maybe she was. Unfortunately she never got a part as good again but, at least, she got Bogie and kept him until he died a dozen or so years later, (you can see them falling in love). There's also Walter Brennan as the rummy; this, too, was probably his finest hour. The piano player is Hoagy Carmichael and the songs include "Am I blue" and "How little we know". It's similarity to "Casablanca" almost certainly did it no favours but in no way lessens it; it's greatness is definitely not in question.

M

Films about child murderers are reasonably rare perhaps because the subject of child murder is so repugnant. The definitive movie about child murder, (Fritz Lang's "M"), kept the killings off-screen and concentrated instead on the psychopathology of the killer, (a superb Peter Lorre), whose final speech, ("I can't help myself..I have no control over what I do..."), brought the nature of his actions into sharp focus. Like many great movies, then, it seemed inconceivable that anyone would want to remake it, particularly in view of the subject matter, and yet in 1951 Seymour Nebenzal, who also produced the Lang version, decided to do just that.

The 1951 version of "M" was not a success. It dealt with a subject much too dark for an American audience and, furthermore, its director Joseph Losey was on the cusp of being black-listed and yet I think it is as much a masterpiece as the earlier German movie. The setting was moved from Berlin to Los Angeles, (superbly shot and making great use of LA locations by Ernest Laszlo). The plot remained very much the same with a few noticeable changes, (both the police and the criminal underworld are more 'enlightened' here), while the pivotal role of the murderer, seen for most of the picture as a mostly silent, shadowy figure was given to David Wayne, who up to that time was seen as a light comedy actor.



Casting Wayne may have been a risky strategy but it certainly paid off. There was something simple and unobtrusive about his presence, the ease with which he moved about children easily explainable as he seemed so childlike himself. When finally he is tracked down and brought to a large underground car-park for 'trial' his fear and panic are palpable and, like Lorre's, his long speech direct to camera is heart-breaking as well as a stunning example of the actor's art. If in the end there is the tiniest touch of melodrama introduced into the climax, it is forgivable in view of all that has gone before. This is an "M" for the McCarthy age, a genuinely frightening picture of an America where even the murder of a child isi viewed as collateral damage in a society where criminality is corporate. It's failure is both understandable and troubling; it is certainly Losey's best American film and one of the finest things he was ever to do. It is long overdue a re-release and a reassessment.