MADEMOISELLE

 

Once upon a time this might have been directed by King Vidor with Bette Davis as the sexually frustrated schoolteacher but I doubt that even Miss Davis could have gotten up to the mischief Jeanne Moreau does here. "Mademoiselle" is Tony Richardson's hugely underrated, Jean Genet scripted tale of sexual obsession with Moreau's passion for handsome woodcutter Ettore Manni driving her to commit arson, flood farms and poison the water.

Vidor, of course, would have made this material even more hysterical than it is and probably a lot camper but Richardson and Genet manage to keep it in check and there is a shocking matter-of-factness about Moreau's actions where the distinction between pure evil and simple psychological malajustment becomes increasingly blurred.

Genet never 'explains' Moreau although her tendency to wear high heels and dress in her Sunday best while commiting her crimes sends its own kinky message. Filmed in France, released in English and magnificently photographed in black and white Panavision by David Watkins, this gem has never been given its dues and is largely unknown. See it at all costs.

LIFE WITH FATHER

Despite the love lavished on "Casablanca", Michael Curtiz has never really been thought of as an auteur but no-one can say he wasn't versatile; westerns, thrillers, swashbucklers, comedies and even the occasional musical may account for why he could just be the best jobbing director in the business. "Life With Father" was one of his comedies, based on a long-running and apparently 'autobiographical' Broadway play and it was fundamentally a vehicle for its stars, William Powell, (Father) and Irene Dunne, (Mother).

The setting was New York in the Eighteen Nineties and the cinematography, in Technicolour, of J. Peverell Marley and William V. Skall bathes everything in a gorgeously warm glow. It's really quite delightful even if it has no more substance than a marshmallow with a plot no thicker than a wafer-thin mint. The excellent supporting cast included Edmund Gwenn, Zasu Pitts, Jimmy Lydon as well as a very young Elizabeth Taylor and an equally young Martin Milner. Powell's terrific, (he won the New York Film Critics Best Actor award), and if the film is no "Casablanca" or "Mildred Pierce" it's a real pleasure nevertheless.
 

THE SAVAGE INNOCENTS

 Turned into something of a cult movie when Bob Dylan immortalised it in song, ('The Mighty Quinn'), "The Savage Innocents" would probably have otherwise gone unnoticed. A kind of ecological companion piece to Ray's earlier "Wind Across the Everglades", this was an almost documentary-like look at life among the Eskimos, visually superb though at times almost embarrasingly simplistic.

Anthony Quinn is Inuk, 'the savage innocent' of the title, who accidently kills a missionary and is forced to go on the run, (Peter O'Toole, no less, is one of his pursuers). If anything distinguishes the film it isn't so much the plot but Ray's mise en scene and attention to detail. It also highlighted a way of life not really seen on the screen since Flaherty's "Nanook of the North". It's hardly classic Ray; rather it's a curio from a maverick film-maker unafraid to take chances though some may say with this he took one chance too many and yet there is still much to admire. This is one 'lost' movie worth finding.

THE BATMAN

 Taking its cue from "Joker" and, to a lesser extent, from "Se7en", "The Batman" is the darkest Batman movie yet, literally. In an almost perpetually raid-sodden Gotham you have to peer through the murk just to see what's happening and a hearing aid might come in handy if you want to hear what's being whispered. Most of the usual suspects are here; Zoe Kravitz is Catwoman, an unrecognizable Colin Farrell, in a fat suit, is the Penguin and the great Paul Dano, effortlessly walking away with the film, is the Riddler. Robert Pattinson is the Batman; he's the strong, silent type and boy, is he grim.

Matt Reeves' film is aimed at the bigger kids. This is a Batman movie that years ago would have been given an 'X' certificate, meaning no-one under the age of 16 would have been admitted to the theatre and frankly, I can't imagine a younger audience taking to this. If, in the past, the Batman movies have only been a skip and a jump away from film noir this is the most noirish yet, (it's what Guillermo del Toro's "Nightmare Alley" should have been but wasn't).

Of course, whether it will appeal to the usual fan-base is another matter. I have a feeling this is a movie for the critics and die-hard fans rather than the general public. It's certainly imaginative but at 3 hours it's also overlong and some of the backstory is already overly familiar. On the plus side, it is brilliantly designed, photographed and directed and at its best it does put the other Batman movies in the shade. I just hope that when the inevitable follow-up comes along they will try to keep it shorter.

THE ASSASSIN

 We're back in 8th Century China in this visually sumptuous if largely oblique martial arts saga from Hou Hsiao-Hsien and being a Hsiao-Hsien film you can be sure there's more 'art' than 'martial' on display. Hou's films are slow and gorgeous to look at and this is no exception. "The Assassin" of the title is female though her gender seems to me to be somewhat irrelevant as indeed is the film's impenetrable plot. It would appear Hou wants us to swoon over the images rather than pay attention to the murky storyline, (it might help if you read Xing Pei's short story first). In fact, this is just the kind of movie that the expression 'like watching paint dry' was created for. The few fight sequences we get are well choreographed but this is certainly not an 'action' picture while the characters remain at arm's lenght throughout. A difficult watch, to say the least.

THE HOT ROCK

 A heist comedy and a superior one. William Goldman did the adaptation of Donald E. Westlake's novel and the always reliable Peter Yates directed. "The Hot Rock" is a diamond that Robert Redford, George Segal, Ron Leibman and Paul Sand steal from a New York museum at the behest of Moses Gunn except that, unlike in other heist movies, this is one hot rock that refuses to stay in the hands of the thieves.

It's hardly "Rififi" but it is very funny and is very well played, especially by Redford, (it's one of his best performances), and by Zero Mostel as the crooked lawyer father of the Sands character. It may not be the most sophisticated of comedy-thrillers but it's certainly one of the most entertaining.

A PATCH OF BLUE

 It could have been worse. The problem with 'problem pictures' is that mawkishnness often rules the day and instead of genuine emotion we are left with great dollops of sentimentality and if the problem is a mental or physical handicap, reason hardly enters into it. Throw in a second 'problem' and you're really in danger of messing things up. In "A Patch of Blue" blindness is the handicap with Elizabeth Hartman as the blind girl living with a harridan of a mother, (it was the mother who blinded her), who one day meets a nice man in the park; the 'problem' is he's black, doubling the movie's potential for mawkishness. It's a 'Guess Who's Coming Dinner' romance but with a blind heroine who can't see the potential 'problem' in front of her.

The director was Guy Green who made the not dissimilar "Light in the Piazza" and he does very well with material that would defeat a lesser director, helped by a cast headed by Sidney Poitier, (who else), Hartman, Shelley Winters, (winning an Oscar and chewing the scenery as the mother), and Wallace Ford and a screenplay, (Green was also the writer), that sidesteps both mawkishness and sentimentality for most of the time.. The film's heart is certainly in the right place and Poitier, as always, is superb. Today, of course, neither Hartman's 'handicap' or Poitier's skin colour would be a problem so a movie like this is something of a period piece but, remember, back in 1965 it was both controversial and challenging. It may be no classic but it's no disaster either.

THE LOST PATROL

 Lost indeed; this John Ford film has largely been forgotten and yet "The Lost Patrol" is a classic of its kind. The title says it all; a group of soldiers finds itself lost in the Mesopotamian desert, going mad or being picked off one by one by unseen Arabs. It's very much an actor's piece with Victor McLaglen, Boris Karloff, Wallace Ford and Reginald Denny taking the lion's share of the honours, working from a very good Dudley Nichols screenplay. Of course, it could just as easily have been about a cavalry patrol in the American West and if had been perhaps its reputation might have been greater. It may not be one of Ford's masterpieces but it's still well worth seeing.

WINGS

 "Wings" was the first film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture and now, fully restored, it stands up remarkably well almost one hundred years later. It also set a standard in terms of size; this war film and tale of rivalry, on the ground and in the air, between two flyers was an epic in every sense with leads Clara Bow, Charles 'Buddy' Rogers and Richard Arlen ensuring it appealed to the largest possible audience. Certainly it was the action scenes and the flying sequences that people remember and they are magnificent but director William Wellman also handles the 'romantic' moments with great restraint and while obviously sentimental in the extreme it remains a remarkably touching picture and both Rogers and Bow are excellent. It also features an early Gary Cooper performance, displaying real star quality in only a few minutes of screen time.

HAPPY END

The bourgeoisie family at the heart of "Happy End" are totally lacking in charm, discreet or otherwise, but then, this being a Michael Haneke film, perhaps that's only to be expected. Eve, (Fantine Harduin), is the precocious pre-teen girl given to poisoning her pet hamster and probably her mother too, so when mum overdoses and is rushed into hospital Eve goes to live her with estranged father Thomas, (Mathieu Kassovitz), his new wife Anais, (Laura Verlinden) and his larger family, (aunt Isabelle Huppert, cousin Franz Rogowski and grandfather Jean-Louis Trintignant), and this being a Michael Haneke picture they make for an icy bunch of relatives to say the least and in typicial Haneke fashion, nothing seems to be going well for them.

Since "Funny Games" the horrors inherent in Haneke's work have slipped further into the background but they are still there; little by little things happen to ensure that for this family a happy end isn't really on the cards. There's a hole where their hearts should be and even though she was raised away from them, their malaise has affected Eve, too.

I've heard "Happy End" described as a comedy or, at best, a satire but essentially it's just a continuation of Haneke's journey to his heart of darkness, immaculately directed and superbly performed by the entire cast and, of course, Haneke wouldn't be Haneke without a wider malaise lurking around the corner, in this case the immigrant crisis but again, Haneke being Haneke, he keeps this element very much on the fringes. These bourgeoisie are quite capable of messing up their own lives without worrying too much about their North African servants or the immigrants who wander around Calais, where the film is set, and whom errant son Rogowski brings to a family celebration. To my eyes, this is yet another perverse masterpiece in the Haneke canon.

DAUGHTERS OF THE DUST

 A virtually plotless meditation on a sphere of the African-American experience most people will be unaware of, Julie Dash's extraordinary "Daughters of the Dust" is one of the most beautiful looking films ever made as well as being one of the greatest of independent American films though its lack of 'plot' and its languid pace were never likely to lead to queues around the block; this is a film that requires an amount of work from its audience.

You could, of course, simply let its beauty wash over you but for a truly immersive experience you need to pay close attention to writer/director Dash's elliptical dialogue and what is happening, or indeed not happening, on the screen. It is a film without stars but rather a cast of wonderfully naturalistic actors who fully embody their characters. This is the film that should have established Dash as one of the most important directors working in cinema at the time but which was obviously too esoteric for mass consumption. Now that it's been rediscovered we should treasure it.