THE LIMEY

With "The Limey" Steven Soderbergh has a very commerical subject, (an English gangster comes to LA to find out who was responsible for his daughter's death), and then directs it like Alain Resnais on speed or John Boorman in his "Point Blank" mode. Terence Stamp at his most taciturn, (and at his best), is the gangster and the cast also includes Lesley Ann Warren, Luis Guzman, Barry Newman, Joe Dallesandro and Peter Fonda who almost walks off with the movie. It also looks terrific, (Ed Lachman was the cinematographer and this is one of the great Californian movies), and has a cracking script from Lem Dobbs. In fact, this has all the makings of a cult movie classic, which in this case means most people will shy away from it. Cinephiles, on the other hand, will love all the references, (we even get loads of clips from the Ken Loach movie "Poor Cow" to show Stamp's character as a young man), whereas a mass audience will probably find it too tricksy. Still, its pleasures are manifold and it already feels like a great little neo-noir. I rate it high in the Soderbergh canon.

ON DANGEROUS GROUND

One of Nicholas Ray's masterpieces and certainly his most underrated film. It begins in the mean streets of the city where Robert Ryan is a brutalizing cop who likes to beat confessions out of suspects. When he goes too far he finds himself reposted to a small, snowbound town which is in complete contrast to the sleazy city streets he's left. He's there to help in the investigation of a young girl's murder and soon finds himself becoming romantically involved with a blind woman he meets, (a superb Ida Lupino).

It's a highly unusual picture in which the murder becomes secondary to the study of Ryan's character and Ryan is simply magnificent here. He's always at his best as taciturn loners with a mean streak and several chips on his shoulders and he's matched by Lupino in her most beautifully understated performance. Essentially classed as a film noir, thanks largely to George E. Diskant's superb black-and-white cinematography and Bernard Herrmann's score, it is rather a psychological thriller about two people who discover their true nature in the way in which they interact with each other. It was adapted by Ray and A.I. Bezzerides from Gerald Butler's novel "Mad With Much Heart".

THE LONG HOT SUMMER

Martin Ritt's movie, based on a couple of stories by William Faulkner, may not be earth-shatteringly profound or even particularly serious but it's a hugely enjoyable melodrama nevertheless. Paul Newman is Ben Quick, an alleged barn-burner, who drifts into a sleepy small town, the whole of which seems to be the property of Will Varner, (Orson Wells, going way over the top), during that long, hot summer of the title.

Quick is aptly named as it doesn't take him long to make his mark as the son Varner would rather he had instead of feckless Anthony Franciosa. Joanne Woodward is also on hand as the prim school mistress daughter who has the hots for Quick, (just as Woodward had the hots for Newman, who probably never looked more beautiful on screen). Others on board include Lee Remick as Franciosa's trashy wife and Angela Lansbury as Welles' mistress and they are all good value. Lushly photographed in widescreen by Joseph LaShelle and with a good score by Alex North this remains something of a forgotten gem.

ESCAPE FROM PRETORIA

"Escape from Pretoria" will never win any Oscars but this heartfelt, social-conscious thriller, based on a true story and set in a South Africa under Apartheid, is a lot better than I thought it was going to be. As the title tells us, it's an escape movie, (obviously), and by their very nature, escape movies usually make for good thrillers and this is no exception. It's very exciting while not afraid to show the horrors of the South African prison system at the same time.

Daniel Radcliffe and Daniel Webber are the two young white members of the ANC imprisoned for distributing anti-government propoganda and Francis Annan's film is about how they escaped from Pretoria Prison. Ian Hart and Mark Leonard Winter are other prisoners in on the plan. It's a very compact little movie though it's unlikely to cause Bresson's "A Man Escaped", "The Shawshank Redemption" or "Papillion" cause for concern.  That said, this is still edge-of-the-seat stuff, very skillfully done, and the performances throughout are first-rate. In the end, you might just say, it does what it says on the tin.

PULP

"Pulp" is a self-reverential comedy-thriller that pays homage, not just to the kind of pulp fiction you find in dime-store novels, but to gangster movies as well and it's almost too smart for its own good but Mike Hodges, who both wrote and directed, was just clever enough not to go too far. Michael Caine is the writer of said pulp fiction hired to ghost the autobiography of a former actor mostly associated with gangster movies. He's Mickey Rooney, Lizabeth Scott is an ex-wife and Lionel Stander his righthand man so you know the homage also applies to the casting.

It's a highly entertaining picture that's been shamefully underrated; indeed it's hardly known at all despite Caine's name above the title and this is one of his best performances. Rooney's terrific and even Scott's good here and there's a nice supporting turn from Dennis Price as a sinister Englishman. Hodges shot it on location in Malta though it's meant to be an 'unnamed Mediterranean island'; that way, you see, we can spend more time getting around when in reality you can get around relatively tiny Malta in a couple of hours or less. A treat that deserves to be better known.

WHIRLPOOL

Probably Preminger's most underrated masterpiece, (nobody seems to like this one), but I think it can take its place up there with "Laura", "Fallen Angel", "Where the Sidewalk Ends" and "Angel Face". It's only fault really, and it's a big one, is the casting of Richard Conte as a brilliant psychiatrist when the part cried out for Dana Andrews. He's married to Gene Tierney, (who else!), who happens to be a kleptomaniac although for all his brilliance he hasn't figured that out. Unfortunately for her, her kleptomania has been uncovered by nasty and murderous hypnotist Jose Ferrer who uses his knowledge to worm his way into her life in the pretext of curing her.

Both Tierney and Ferrer are superb, good enough in fact to make this one of the best movies dealing with psychiatry to come out of Hollywood at the time. The plot may be a bit hard to swallow but Preminger's handling of it is magnificent and it's got a wonderful, grown-up and intelligent screenplay by Ben Hecht and Andrew Solt from a novel by Guy Endore. Perhaps its failure might have been attributed to the miscasting of Conte or on the unlikely, melodramatic plot but it cries out for reassessment and it's an absolutely essential part of the Preminger canon.