NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN

 I don't know whose bright idea it was to coax Sean Connery back to the role of James Bond, (never say never again, indeed), outside of the Broccoli/Saltzman franchise but a bright idea it certainly was. "Never Say Never Again" was a remake of the earlier Connery vehicle "Thunderball", (one of the least of the Bond movies), and while die-hard fans of the series thought it was sacrilege that it was made at all, this is actually one of the best of all Bond movies with an excellent Lorenzo Semple Jr. Screenplay, ('Now you're on this, I hope we're going to have some gratuitous sex and violence!', Alec McCowen's Q tells Bond), a first-rate director in Irvin Kershner and two of the best of all Bond villains; Klaus Maria Brandauer as Largo, (a vast improvement on Adolfo Celi in the first film), and Barbara Carrera as the murderous Fatima. Throw in Max Von Sydow as Blofeld and you know you're onto a good thing. Did we need it? Absolutely not, unless, like me, you didn't care for "Thunderball" and there's no denying Connery was now past his sell-by-date but even his age and physical condition was factored into the plot. Hugely enjoyable.

PETER IBBETSON

Henry Hathaway's "Peter Ibbetson" is one of the strangest love stories ever to have come out of Hollywood. It's a kind of 'Wuthering Heights' but with the roles of Heathcliff and Cathy reversed and Gary Cooper makes for a very strange 'Cathy'. It was based on George Du Maurier's novel and a subsequent play and is about how childhood friends Gogo and Mimsey, (those precociously talented brats Dickie Moore and Virginia Weidler), grow up to be Peter and Mary, (he's Cooper and she's Ann Harding), are separated, reunited though she's now married to John Halliday, and whose love knows no bounds in that even death itself can't tear them apart, (yes, it's that kind of nonsense).

On the plus side it is visually superb and it's certainly not like anything else by Hathaway while both Cooper and Harding are excellent but it's also preposterous in an often gob-smackingly awful way and its reputation in some quarters, (David Thomson, amongst others, is quite a fan), is highly exaggerated. Maybe you have to be in the right mood for it and perhaps one day I'll revisit it just in case I missed something first time round. For now, however, let's call it a curiosity but give kudos to Hollywood for making it at all.

VENOM

 This monster movie, from the Marvel stable, is surprisingly entertaining and pleasingly old-fashioned as in that feels like a late sixties picture despite all the 21st century technology on display and it gives that very fine actor Tom Hardy a chance to flex his superhero muscles as well as giving Michelle Williams the opportunity to dumb down. Throw in the hugely talented Riz Ahmed as the bad guy, some excellent cinematography from Matthew Libatique and great special effects and what's not to like.

Ok, at its core it's just a big, dumb monster movie about shape-shifting aliens and we've been down this road at least a hundred times before but it's also very funny and does make for a highly enjoyable might out at the multiplex; oh, and don't leave when the end credits begin.

PUSHOVER

 Richard Quine was certainly no Billy Wilder and "Pushover" was a long way from "Double Indemnity" but perhaps someone somewhere had the idea that if they cast Fred MacMurray as the crooked cop who falls for gangster's moll Kim Novak, (in her debut), perhaps some of the old "Double Indemnity" magic might rub off. It didn't but this noirish crime film is still a very solid entertainment with a more than decent plot.

It might have been better, of course, had Novak a tenth of Stanwyck's talent or if it had a screenplay by someone like Chandler but on the plus side it did have a supporting cast that included Philip Carey, Dorothy Malone and E. G. Marshall and some first-rate cinematography from Lester White and if, fundamentally, it's a B-Movie it's a good one and MacMurray is always worth watching. No classic, then, (though it is quite highly thought of in some quarters), but a very enjoyable genre piece nevertheless.

THE FOUNTAINHEAD

 A classic of American literature, though some people think its florid style marks it out as a camp classic, Ayn Rand's "The Fountainhead" simply had to be filmed and yet perhaps it was always one of the great 'unfilmable' novels to begin with. It was King Vidor who finally did bring it to the screen and Vidor, more than anyone, knew what 'florid' meant and was probably the director most capable of capturing the novel's hysteria and there's certainly a lot of hysteria on show.

It's about an architect, Howard Roark, clearly modelled on Frank Lloyd Wright, but the real theme of the film is fascism and the freedom of the individual. It might seem to be about architecture but equally it could be about McCarthyism, (how it slipped under the radar of the HUAC is a bit of a mystery). Roark's played by a miscast, over-aged Gary Cooper. Vidor had wanted Humphrey Bogart for the part, (an even greater piece of miscasting in my opinion), but Rand insisted on Cooper and to be fair he does carry it off.

As the spoiled, over-wrought young woman who loves him, abuses him and, in turn, is abused by him Patricia Neal is excellent and there's also a superb performance from Raymond Massey as the newspaper magnate Neal marries. Visually, too, it's extraordinary; there are shots here that could have been lifted from "Citizen Kane" while, at the same time, being almost unbearably 'literate', (Rand also wrote the screenplay). There's nothing remotely naturalistic about it; this was as over-the-top, visually, verbally, in every way, as it was possible to get. A camp classic, then, or a masterpiece or maybe both? It's certainly one of a kind and it really should be seen.

BOUDU SAVED FROM DROWNING

 Jean Renoir's 1932 masterpiece, "Boudu Sauve des Eaux", which he made on location in Paris, is one of cinema's great humanist comedies that makes you totally forget that Paul Mazursky ever remade it as "Down and Out in Beverly Hills" or indeed that it was even remade in France with Gerard Depardieu as Boudu. The simple plot is about how the over-sexed, ageing and kind-hearted Monsieur Lestingois, (a superb Charles Granval), resuces the tramp Boudu, (a magnificent Michel Simon), from drowning in the Seine, takes him home where he wrecks havoc, seducing both Lestingois' wife and maid.

It's a film about what's come to be known as the milk of human kindness and how easily it can turn sour but Renoir never plays it for easy laughs; watching this film you can see why some people believe he may be the greatest director of them all. Boudu may embody elemental man but you would have to be a saint to embrace him. He's a rogue and remains so and your sympathies are always with poor, misguided Lestingois. Renoir may indeed be a humanist but he can see how our good deeds come back to bite us while at the same time saving a good deal of affection for the rascally tramp. Yes, this is a masterpiece and one of the finest of all French films.