THE PRISONER OF SHARK ISLAND

 John Ford may have made several masterpieces in his long career but sometimes, particularly in the early days, by letting his heart rule his head he had a tendency to go off the rails. "The Prisoner of Shark Island" may well have been an honest and heartfelt attempt to right a judicial wrong; to show that Dr. Samuel Mudd was completely innocent of the charge of conspiring to assassinate the president after unwittingly treating Lincoln's assassin.

It's a very melodramatic picture that's not helped by Warner Baxter's over-the-top performance as Mudd. Baxter was a star of the silent screen, as well as an early Oscar winner, who hammed his way into the talkies. Indeed the acting throughout this melodrama is pretty woeful with the exceptions of those two great, and mostly underrated actors, John Carradine as a sadistic prison guard and Harry Carey as the warden. Of course, you could say no Ford film was completely negligible and there are a few scenes here worthy of him, (the execution of the conspirators is particularly fine), and there are a few moments that are pictorially interesting but for the most part this mostly forgotten Ford film deserves to remain forgotten.

THE FIELD

 A superb screen version of John B. Keane's Irish classic that somewhat alters the original and actually improves on it. "The Field" of the title is a piece of Irish land, no more than three acres, owned by a dour widow but farmed by her tenant, the 'Bull' McCabe, (a magnificent Richard Harris). When she decides to sell it at public auction, 'The Bull' assumes no-one will bid against him but an outsider, a returning American, (Tom Berenger), outbids him. leading to tragedy for all concerned.

The theme, of course, is an Irishman's love of, or passion for, the land to the exclusion of all else, a cliche perhaps but like so many cliches, one founded in a kind of truth. Filmed on locations around Leenane in County Galway, director Jim Sheridan's use of landscape is integral to the plot and while he has assembled a first-rate cast, it's 'the Bull' who anchors the film. He's an Irish Lear, complete with his own Fool, a little hang-dog man nicknamed 'the Bird' and brilliantly played by John Hurt and Harris was robbed of an Oscar for his performance but then there really isn't a bad performance in sight. Now all we need is for Sheridan to film Keane's masterpiece "Sive".

FRANKENSTEIN

 It's not perfect; Colin Clive was a terrible leading man and Mae Clarke was never much of an actress and the sequel surpassed it in many ways but it's magnificent nevertheless and people who claim that James Whale's "Frankenstein" was the first masterpiece in Universal's horror cycle are not far wrong. It may not be the 'Frankenstein' of Mary Shelley's book, (it leaves out a lot of the novel), but visually it's extraordinary and in Boris Karloff it has a 'monster' unsurpassed to this day. Karloff may have been a dumb hulk prone to chucking obnoxious little girls into lakes but he imbued 'the creature' with a real humanity and with only a few small gestures. The film made him a star though unfortunately he was typecast for the rest of his career. It also should have made Whale one of the hottest directors in Hollywood but perhaps he, too, was typecast. He did make the magnificent sequel a couple of years later and the best screen version of "Showboat" but after that, really not much else of note. Still, these were enough to earn him his place in movie legend and this is seventy of the finest minutes in Hollywood history.

DECEPTION

 Delirious camp that reunited the three stars of "Now, Voyager" in a tale of amour fou and cello concertos. Miss Davis is the musician with a penchant for the Appassionata who's been living off rich composer Claude Rains in a penthouse apartment about twice the size of my entire house when she meets and marries former lover Paul Henreid, a struggling cellist, much to the ire of Mr Rains, who behaves just the way a spurned lover might. Henreid does his best to keep up but he was never in the same high-camp class of either Davis or Rains who go at each other with hammer and tongs and finally a pistol in settings that make the Palace of Versailles look like a country cottage. Irving Rapper directed simply by sitting back and leaving them to it. If it's terrible, it's terrible on an epic scale and I loved every daft minute of it.

GILDA

 The most homoerotic of all film-noirs and one of those unlikely masterpieces that the American cinema used to throw up every now and then back in the day. The director was Charles Vidor which, in itself, tells you nothing but with "Gilda" he hit the motherlode. No other film-noir had a central triangle as scintillating as the one between Glenn Ford, George Macready and Rita Hayworth, particularly when it's Hayworth's Gilda who comes between Ford and Macready, ('You must have lived a gay life', Ford's Johnny tells Macready's Ballin when they meet), while the innuendo-laden dialogue, courtesy of Marion Parsonnet and Jo Eisinger from a E. A. Ellington story with a little uncredited help from Ben Hecht, ('If I was a ranch they would have named me the bar-nothing'), sizzles even more than Hayworth when she sings, (dubbed, of course), 'Put the Blame on Mame'. Stunningly photographed by the great Rudolph Mate and with career-best performances from Ford and Hayworth, this is one of the great American movies, like "Casablanca", that has passed into movie legend and if it had been the only film Vidor ever directed, he would have been hailed as a genius.

THE CLUB

 "The Club" in question is a community of disgraced priests and one nun condemned to live together in a remote coastal resort as penance for past sins, mostly involving the sexual abuse of children. After one of them blows his brains out another priest, a counsellor, is sent to investigate and to keep them in line. Pablo Larrain's extraordinary film is totally unlike any other dealing with abuse inside the Church. It plays like a thriller but is actually about social injustice and is deeply critical of the Catholic Church and I think it's a masterpiece; (it's also very explicit and very disturbing).

Larrain shoots it in Cinemascope in hues of mostly grey and brown as if we were peering through a fog, both literal and metaphorical, to see what is happening. The performances throughout are superb; you never get a sense that anyone is acting here, (it helps that none of the actors are familiar), and the use of locations is inspired. The grimness of the settings is perfectly in keeping with the theme. Far from easy viewing but absolutely essential.

THE MUMMY

 If the 1932 version of "The Mummy" isn't quite the masterpiece of horror some people claim it to be, (the 1959 Hammer remake is actually more frightening), this has beauties of its own and for the most part they lie in Karloff's superb performance as the resurrected Mummy of the title. It also helps that it was directed by the great cinematographer Karl Freund who gives the film 'a look' that makes up for the clunky dialogue and poor supporting performances, (Zita Johann and David Manners, anyone?). It also wastes no time with exposition; we are in there right from the start and, if truth be told, Karloff, first seen in bandages that barely contain his rotting flesh, is even more chilling here than he was in "Frankenstein", (the scene where he comes back to life is a classic). No masterpiece, then, but a guilty pleasure that has endured down the years.

BULL DURHAM

A sex comedy about baseball and why the hell not! I guess if you're a fan baseball can be a real turn-on and it certainly is for Susan Sarandon, the fan who makes a point of sleeping with a new player each season and this season it's the turn of big lug Tim Robbins and let's just say that in or out of the sack these two are hot but then so is Kevin Costner as the older player assigned to Robbins' case leaving Sarandon with something of a dilemma. Written, (brilliantly), and directed, (brilliantly), by Ron Shelton and terrifically acted by the three leading actors this had classic written all over it when it appeared in 1988 and it's stood the test of time beautifully. "Bull Durham" is a sex comedy that is both sexy and funny and, believe it or not, it's pretty good on baseball, too.

THE WHOLE TOWN'S TALKING

"The Whole Town's Talking" may hardly be typical John Ford or indeed, for that matter, typical Edward G. Robinson, (it's a screwball comedy for starters), but it's a gem and Robinson is positively magnificent in the dual role of a mild-mannered clerk and the Nation's Number One Most Wanted. Naturally the clerk is mistaken for the criminal giving Robinson ample opportunity to send himself up. Throw in a wise-cracking Jean Arthur at her very best and a supporting cast that includes Donald Meek, Wallace Ford, Edward Brophy and that great and underrated character actor Etienne Giradot and you may have one of Ford's least typical but most enjoyable films. A treat from start to finish.

L.I.E.

L.I.E. was 17 year old Paul Dano's sophomore film. He plays a 15 year old troubled teen who forms an unlikely relationship with the local neighbourhood paedophile, (a magnificent Brian Cox). Michael Cuesta's film is a darkly funny look at an aspect of growing up in 21st century America not often tackled in the cinema. It certainly doesn't pull its punches and it benefits considerably from Cox's performance. He doesn't do anything to make his character sympathetic but he is recognizably human and not always in a bad way; in fact, it's the film's and Cox's triumph to make his character the most likeable person on screen. Dano, too, shows considerable promise here and there's a very nice performance from Billy Kay as a young hustler. The film was a huge hit on the Indie circuit even if it was never going to find a mass audience. Not seen much now, it is worth seeking out.

STEAMBOAT ROUND THE BEND

Minor Ford at his most homespun and with Will Rogers in the lead they don't come much more homespun than this piece of Americana. Of course, minor Ford is still pretty good when set beside some of his rivals. This one is almost a companion piece to "Judge Priest" with Rogers' steamboat captain racing his boat against a rival while trying to clear his nephew from a charge of murder. Rogers is excellent and there's a fine supporting cast of Ford regulars but as the young lovers Anne Shirley and John McGuire are terrible. Still, it's richly atmospheric, at times verging on the poetic and if you think the scenes with Stepin Fetchit are more than a little racist try to remember when it was made and the period in which it is set and put it into some kind of historical perspective and be thankful we are living in more enlightened times. The race itself, (and it's a long time coming), is superb