INTERNAL AFFAIRS

It's always been something of a mystery to me that Mike Figgis was never one of Hollywood's major players. Apart from "Leaving Las Vegas" his films always seemed to slip under the
radar. "Internal Affairs" was his second film after the excellent "Stormy Monday" and it's still one of the best cop movies of the last thirty years and it gave Richard Gere one of the best parts he ever had, as charming and sexy as ever but with a mean streak as wide as the Grand Canyon. He's the bad cop that good cop Andy Garcia is out to nail and he's terrific in the role, (I wish he had played a villain more often). Garcia's pretty good, too and there's a very good supporting turn from Laurie Metcalf as Garcia's partner. But ultimately it's Figgis' taut handling of Henry Bean's first-rate screenplay that keeps "Internal Affairs" bubbling along. This is great entertainment; funny, exciting and razor-sharp and it's a shame it isn't better appreciated.

THE YELLOW BALLOON

You won't find the films of J. Lee Thompson on any list of all-time great movies nor will you find Thompson mentioned on any list of great directors and yet he was one of the best directors Britain ever produced and he went on to have a sizeable international career. He made "The Yellow Balloon" in 1953; it was only his second film and while a minor movie in the Thompson canon it showed considerable promise, making great use of its London locations. It had a good plot, involving the accidental death of a child and a blackmailing murderer and it gave that fine and underrated actor William Sylvester one of his best roles as the villain.

The talented Andrew Ray is the boy being blackmailed after his friend falls to his death and he's spotted at the scene by Sylvester who then uses him in a robbery that goes wrong. Ray's parents are the always reliable Kenneth More and Kathleen Ryan while Bernard Lee is once again on the side of law and order. There's also an uncommonly good supporting cast of British character actors. It's a small film but it is genuinelly exciting and it showed Thompson was definitely a name to watch.

CITY GIRL

Not as well known as "Sunrise" but in its own way just as fine, "City Girl" is another Murnau pastoral in which "City Girl" and waitress Mary Duncan moves to the wheatfields of Minnesota as the wife of farmer Charles Farrell, (one of the greatest and least appreciated of silent movie stars), only to find his father taking against her and life down on the farm not as ideal as she thought it would be. It's a film that is said to have influenced Terrence Malick and there are images here as eloquent as any in "Days of Heaven" and its one of the few really good parts Duncan ever had. Although she lived to be ninety-eight she only made 16 films and retired in 1932.

If the plot is novelettish Murnau's handling of it is anything but. He takes melodramatic material and situations and imbues them with a realism that the American cinema never really seemed to develop for at least a decade or two, aided by the magnificent cinematography of Ernest Palmer and the wonderful performances of the leads. It also proved to be Murnau's penultimate film; he died in a car crash the following year leaving behind a body of work as fine as any in all of cinema.

RACHEL, RACHEL

From a time when the American cinema turned out strong, intelligent, grown-up pictures and the Academy recognized them, (it was nominated for Best Picture). The film is "Rachel, Rachel" and it marked Paul Newman's directorial debut. The Academy overlooked him but the New York Film Critics named him Best Director and Joanne Woodward, who plays Rachel, was their Best Actress. She is, like Rosalind Russell before her, 'an old-maid school teacher' who experiences a summer of love when she reaches what she describes as the exact middle of her life before it's all downhill to the grave and Woodward is simply magnificent in the part, (it's a career-best performance). She's also supported by some superb players, not all of them familiar, (Kate Harrington, Terry Kiser, Frank Corsaro). The object of her affections is James Olson; handsome, sexually demanding and a bit of a sleaze and Estelle Parsons, fresh from her Oscar success in "Bonnie and Clyde", is her lesbian colleague. It's a beautifully written film, (Stewart Stern adapting Margaret Laurence's novel 'A Jest of God'), and superbly directed; funny, thoughtful and now generally underrated. It shouldn't be missed.

THE LINEUP

"The Lineup" is a classic B-Movie from Don Siegel derived from a television series of the time and starring Eli Wallach as a psychopathic drug courier in San Francisco. It was an original screenplay by Sterling Siiiphant and was superbly shot on location by Hal Mohr. If it plays like an episode from a tv series that isn't necessarily a bad thing; the fifties and sixties represented a Golden Age in American television, particularly where crime dramas were concerned but Siegel gives this one an edge of brutality that wouldn't have been possible on tv as well as some A-list production values. Wallach's terrific, (it was only his second film), and Robert Keith is quite magnificent as his somewhat philosophical associate. It may not have launched Siegel into the big-time but it certainly established him as a cult director and as a maker of tough, lean crime movies and action flics. This is a terrific genre piece.

AMERICAN GRAFFITI

Still probably the greatest 'teen' movie ever made, "American Graffiti" introduced two great new talents to the world. This was director George Lucas' sophomore film and it had a freshness and a 'look' that took the breath away and still does. On the strength of this, (and his later "Star Wars"), you might have thought that Lucas would go down as one of best directors the movies had ever seen and it introduced an extraordinarily talented new 'kid' called Richard Dreyfuss. Although Dreyfuss had been working since 1964 was 26 when he made "American Graffiti" he had no problem passing for 17. His is a great performance in a cast full of extraordinary performances from people mostly new to the movies. Former child actor Ron Howard was the best known; others included Charlie Martin Smith, Cindy Williams, Paul Le Mat, Candy Clark, (Oscar nominated), a young Mackenzie Phillips and a totally unknown actor called Harrison Ford.

The entire action takes place over the course of one night as a high school class breaks up for the last time. That's about as deep as it gets but seldom has the talk of a bunch of high school kids sounded as interesting or indeed as profound. In fact, this is the film that will make anyone who's ever been to college pine for their lost youth. It also has the greatest 'pop' soundtrack ever heard in the movies.

HOME AT SEVEN

It's not uncommon for actors to direct themselves in films but many do it only once, perhaps because they believe in a project, either as vehicle for themselves or just as a vehicle worth bringing to the screen. In 1952 Ralph Richardson felt the need to direct a film of R. C. Sherriff's play "Home at Seven" casting himself as the bank clerk who has a 24 hour memory lapse and then finds himself implicated in a murder.

It's a good plot and if Richardson handles it in a somewhat theatrical fashion he, at least, draws first-rate performances from his cast while he is outstanding as the clerk. After Olivier, I've always felt Richardson was the finest of the theatrical knights to make it in the movies and he doesn't disappoint here. It's a wonderful performance and Margaret Leighton and Jack Hawkins are just as good as his fretting wife and the doctor who tries to help him. The plot itself may be a little far-fetched but the treatment is excellent making this one of the best and certainly one of the most underrated British films of the period.

THE EFFECT OF GAMMA RAYS ON MAN-IN-THE-MOON MARIGOLDS

Joanne Woodward gives a tour-de-force performance as the slatternly widow with two teenage daughters in hubbie Paul Newman's superb screen version of Paul Zindel's Pulitzer Prize winning play "The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds". Unfortunately, the title wasn't a crowd puller, (no, it's not a sci-fi film), and while it now has something of a cult following it was never the success it deserved to be. It's funny and sad in equal measure and Nell Potts, (Newman and Woodward's own daughter), and Roberta Wallach, (daughter of Eli Wallach and Anne Jackson), are both excellent as the daughters.

Of course, we are in William Inge territory here but whereas Inge had a tendency to get hysterical Zindel was more prone to surreal eccentricity, (Alvin Sargent did the superb adaptation), and Newman has opened it out beautifully. In a just world this would be thought of as an American classic and Woodward would have picked up at least another Oscar nomination but we don't live in a just world and this isn't well-known. Nevertheless, it is a classic and it shouldn't be missed.

HOME BEFORE DARK

This cross between 'a women's picture' and a semi-serious study of mental illness isn't as well known as it ought to be. Maybe if it had been made ten or fifteen years earlier it might have been something of a classic since we're firmly in Bette Davis/Miriam Hopkins territory here. Jean Simmons, (wonderful, but then she was always wonderful), is the woman who comes home after a year in a mental hospital. Home is where she lives with hubbie Dan O'Herlihy, step-sister Rhonda Fleming, step-mother Mabel Albertson and handsome lodger Efrem Zimbalist Jr. and it isn't too long before the reason for her initial breakdown becomes all too clear.

At two and a quarter hours it's a little on the long side but director Mervyn LeRoy certainly demonstrates just why he was considered a consumate jobbing director in his handling of old-hat material and all the performances are first-rate, (Simmons was robbed of a Best Actress Oscar nomination), and its small-town New England setting is at least unusual. However, by 1958 this was a very old-fashioned film and no amount of professionalism in front of or behind the camera was going to turn this into box-office gold. A pity, as it's really rather good.

ISADORA

One of the better biopics thanks in large part to a stunning performance from Vanessa Redgrave in the title role of "Isadora" and meticulous direction from Karel Reisz who obviously knew what he was doing and displayed an obvious affection for his subject. It's intelligent and it looks great and there's a fine supporting cast so with all this going for it why does it feel like a very high-class soap opera? Perhaps because all biopics can finally do nothing but reduce their subject's lives to a series of melodramatic incidents or 'highlights'. Perhaps because most famous people's lives are dull most of the time and it's only the melodramatic incidents that people are interested in. This one spins out a series of dances, (very well recreated by Redgrave), and romantic encounters with sufficient aplomb to give it an edge over most biopics. It isn't quite in the same class as Ken Russell's shorter, rawer television version but it comes close.