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World’s End July 26, 2006

Posted by John Hodson in : Books - News and Reviews , 3 comments

To France for a fortnight; no blogging, no posting at various fora (no work!), indeed, no films. But a chance to finish, at last, Patrick O’Brian’s fabulous Aubrey / Maturin series, something I’ve been putting off. Not that I don’t want to read them, of course, but I simply don’t want the adventure to end.

These supremely written and researched books formed the basis for Master and Commander - The Far Side of The World. Peter Weir’s excellent film took it’s title from two of of the 20 novels (I also have the unfinished - O’Brian died in 2000 - and untitled, 21st), but also little plot snippets and characters from many others. It’s a delight, now that I’ve read most of them, to watch the film again (and again) and pick up the various references. It’s also delightful to watch a film that so effortlessly entertains; a fine companion for the swashbucklers of the Golden Age. I can pay it no high a compliment.

I’ve followed the rambunctious Captain Jack Aubrey and his friend, the acutely intelligent surgeon and spy, Stephen Maturin, from their first meeting, blazing their guns across the seven seas, through riches and bankruptcy, illness, love, marriage and tragedy. I’ve come to know and love them both…and I don’t want to turn the last page.

I’ll also be taking Simon Callow’s second part of his mammoth Orson Welles biographical trilogy, Hello Americans, a lip-smacking prospect considering the breathtaking standard of his first Welles tome, and Maureen O’Hara’s autobiography ‘Tis Herself, for which I don’t hold out much hope, but what the hell.

I pledge, whilst away, to do as little as humanly possible, eat, drink (and eat) far too much (it’s a man’s work I have in front of me…) and return to these shores further pledging that next time - next time - I’ll see much more of la Belle France’s cultural delights, and ingest less of it’s gastronomic temptations.

Speaking of which, where’s that blasted toasted cheese? Killick? Preserved Killick there..!

These Things I Know… July 23, 2006

Posted by John Hodson in : Film General , add a comment

Crazy (Like a Fox) July 22, 2006

Posted by John Hodson in : General , add a comment

I wake up in the mornings, check the newspaper obituries and if I’m not listed therein, then I must still be alive…

Okay, it’s a hackneyed old gag, but sadly one that has a basis in truth. Jack Warden, one of that vast army of Hollywood ‘B’ players whose name amongst a cast list generally sells a movie to me, has died aged 85. I’m sorry for Jack, and for those that loved him, and the fact, selfishly, that he will no longer grace my film world. A decent, so the cliche goes, innings.

Whenever I read one of these obits, I say to myself: ‘85 - not bad’, then deduct my age from his (just as a yardstick of how much longer I’ve got left clinging to this whirling planet). Thirty five years: ‘not bad’ the voice in my head says. Then I think of myself 35 years past, and blimey, that was five minutes ago…

Gulp.

God bless, Jack, I’ll be along in, oh, let’s say five minutes or so?

Cause for Celebration? July 21, 2006

Posted by John Hodson in : DVD News & Info, British Film , 3 comments

Further to my entreaty, in a recent post, for more British films on DVD, by some happy coincidence this week, that’s exactly what we’ve got. Well, to a point.

Network, thanks to their licensing agreement with Granada Ventures, are in the next few weeks releasing a postive glut of goodies. August will see the release of Alan Clarke’s Billy The Kid and Green Baize Vampire, September sees The Uncanny, Countess Dracula SE, The Medusa Touch SE and William Campbell Menzies Things to Come SE. And on September 25, we’ll have Leslie Woodhead’s 1969 documentary The Stones in The Park. Those ‘Special Editions’ are encouraging, but without detail, I’m doing no cartwheels - I’ll be just glad if, for instance, Things to Come shines like the jewel it should. My suspicion is that it’s been restored by TLE Films, of Germany, the outfit reponsible for some fine work - not least on Eureka’s M, and Paramount Germany’s A Fistful of Dollars and A Few Dollars More. But it’s only a hunch based on the fact that they were touting it on their website until a few months ago - who knows?

Meanwhile from Optimum, if that was a glut, this a veritable vomit of British classics. For August release: The Blue Lamp, for September release: Billy Liar, The Doctor Who Boxset, The Graham Greene Boxset (The Fallen Idol, The Third Man, Brighton Rock), Peter Sellers Collection (Heavens Above, I’m Alright Jack, Two Way Stretch, The Very Best of Peter Sellers - a TV compilation), Tony Hancock Double Bill (no detail but it’s obvious is it not), The Wicker Man SE, The Ealing Ultimate Box Set (again no detail but the retail price indicates all the previous Warners / Studio Canal Ealings, plus Optimums)

For October release there’s The Green Man, Hammer Ultimate Boxset (at £150 retail it should contain every one of those previous Warners / Studio Canal titles and then some). For November release: The War Box Set (Cross of Iron, The Wooden Horse, They Who Dare), The War Box Set (The Colditz Story, The Cruel Sea, The Dam Busters), The War Box Set (I Was Monty’s Double, The Colditz Story, Went The Day Well)

Alas, I don’t hold out too much hope for better than previous releases from Optimum, either in the way of transfers (and one or two were, frankly, pretty ropey first time round), or extras. And slapping Peckinpah’s Cross of Iron in the same box as The Wooden Horse and They Who Dare is, to say the least, eccentric. Dammit, I want a 2-disc Special Editon (with knobs on).

My guess - and I hope I’m wrong - is the same old, same old in new shiny boxes. At least Network’s reissues (though it must be admitted several are new to DVD in R2) have the saving grace of ‘added value’ extras. Whether they are of any interest, though, remains to be seen.

Monsters, John! Monsters from the id! July 20, 2006

Posted by John Hodson in : Film General , add a comment

The news that Warners are about to release not only a Special Edition (capital ‘S’, capital ‘E’) of their seminal sci-fi classic, Forbidden Planet, but also one of those bells and whistles Ultimate Collectors Editions (capital U. C. E.) complete with a model (or should I say toy) of Robby the Robot, makes me feel - as James Tiberius Kirk once said - ‘young’.

I’ve always been a sucker for toys. For some reason, even at a very tender age, my purchases were influenced by what I had seen on the big and small screens. I clearly remember a tearful first day at school salved only by a visit to the local toy emporium. I’d seen Gregory Peck sail the seas as Captain Horatio Hornblower a couple of nights before, so that was what I wanted - that humongous model of a 19th century frigate. I got a colouring book (”..and be grateful! You little bugger…” my gran would no doubt have said. I miss her still)

So, I’ve variously been, courtesy of numerous visits to that same shop (now a Bookmakers - shame), Napoleon Solo (Illya Kuryakin when my brother commandeered my number ‘11′ badge), James Bond - various incarnations, from the Corgi Aston Martin, to a vicious plastic knife and ‘undersea mask’ from Thunderball and Bond ‘Action Man’ clothing. Dollies for boys; who knew?

I’ve been Batman (mask and cape in washable nylon), had umpteen Daleks, of most shapes and sizes, every which kind of lawman (a ‘Kiss Me Quick’ hat with the slogan removed for public decency, but with the fringes left on. I liked the finges), the Universal Monsters (though, come night time, I had to hide the figures away in a drawer. They come alive at midnight y’know?), most of the Thunderbirds outfit (not Alan - shudder), and quite definitely Robby the Robot. Whether he was making the funnies in Forbidden Planet, or even guest starring in other shows (Lost in Space being one), it didn’t really matter. The toy was so cool - though, god bless it’s little vacu-formed Mattel soul, it is now probably still part of South Lancashire’s increasingly worrying landfill problem.

But the toys never stopped; on to my Airfix period, my ‘I wanna be George Best’ flirtation (or a ‘Beatle’ - Paul; the girl’s liked Paul - or Roy Wood), the cars - girls - my oil paints (some of the tubes haven’t quite petrified), a journalist (no, wait, that was real; well, when I say, ‘real’…)…and now the DVDs. As well as satisfying my culteral needs (repeat the mantra), there’s little doubt that gathering great arms full of these little shiny discs fulfills my desires in much the same way as trotting off to that toy shop and frittering away my 2s 6d a week pocket money. I get the same shuddering frisson of pleasure.

Why else would I have the Universal Monsters box set, complete with figurines, and both the Tin and Box Set versions of King Kong?

Worse, I’m incredibly attracted by the thoughts of buying that Forbidden Planet tin (for, having seen a picture, that’s what it looks like), in which lies not some tacky plastic figure, but part of my youth. You see, we are both 50 years old this year, the Forbidden Planet Robby and I. We’re blood brothers, conceived in that same technological white heat of a post WW2 world, perhaps even in the same moment. Actually that’s a particularly gruesome thought (my conception, not Robby’s - but, hell, I can’t unthink it)

However, it’s fate. And no matter how much I set my face against it, deep down I know I’m lost.

I must have him…

Phew! What a Scorcher… July 19, 2006

Posted by John Hodson in : Film General , 12 comments

10 films to watch in a heatwave:

Time to Celebrate British Cinema July 17, 2006

Posted by John Hodson in : Film General, British Film , 11 comments

My old mum, bless her, tells me that before I was even a glint in my dad’s eye, that she would go nowhere near the local Odeon if a British made film was showing. They were all, without exception ‘rubbish’. My old mum has, I’m afraid, as I often tell her, no taste whatsover. ..

Surveying my ever diminishing shelf space, I can see a wealth of treasures from the vaults of Hollywood; terrific sets devoted to Alfred Hitchcock, John Ford, Greta Garbo, Busby Berkeley et al. Set devoted to genres (Film Noir, Golden Age Comedies) and whole eras on which studio fortunes were built (Universal Horror, Gangsters).

But where are the sets, and features packed special editions, devoted to classic British cinema? Why aren’t there boxed sets of carefully restored British films, loaded with the extras we’ve come to expect from the best American releases? Why not boxed sets featuring London Films, the Kordas, the Boulting Brothers, British Lion? While other Eurpean countries have sets of films featuring Alfred Hitchcock’s early period, we have no equivalent. Madness. Isn’t there a market for a Dirk Bogarde box, John Mills, Noel Coward, Charles Laughton, Jessie Matthews, George Formby; someone, somewhere is probably gasping for Gracie Fields to be boxed (and, I realise, there are a 1001 witty retorts to that; try and restrain yourselves…) and granted acknowledgement of the superstar status she enjoyed at the height of her fame? Why not a Betty Box, er, box?

Where is there a decent DVD of Seven Days to Noon, Things to Come, The Private Life of Henry VIII, Pimpernel Smith, Contraband, The Spy in Black, Rembrandt - 100s and 100s of films, seemingly unloved. I’m perfectly aware that some of those titles have indeed been transferred to a digital medium, not with any sense of style or celebration of the fact that they emerged from British studios.

Surely there’s a market in this country for boxed sets of Hammer films, chock full of extras? DD Home Entertainment have tried, but both their range of titles, and their expertise it would seem, is limited. It’s frustrating that Warners hold the Hammer ‘crown jewels’, but seemingly refuse to present them in anything but barebones fashion. Even Anchor Bay UK have apparently gone off the boil, and I had high hopes after their Amicus set; but, then, they have an excuse. Prising licenses from the grasp of rights holders is both difficult and expensive.

Yes, Carlton - now Granada Ventures - who hold the rights of 100s of British films, did produce some box sets, notably for Will Hay (rumoured to be being prepped for reissue with extras - huzzah!), Norman Wisdom and the ‘Carry On’ series. There are their ‘Powell and Pressburger’ and ‘Rank 70th Anniversary’ boxes, but both those sets are reissues of extant material (save one film in the P&P box), and in some cases, the material is in dire need of further restoration.

Since the Granada Ventures takeover there has also been a shift in strategy; many of the old Carlton titles went out of print, as Granada issued licenses to first Network, then DD Home Entertainment (apparently a loop-hole in the Network contract means that we have the ridiculous situation of both firms issuing the same films). Network have been improving, in some cases, the old Carlton transfers and, again in some cases, adding decent extras; but it’s laborious work, with no boxed or themed material on the horizon. DD have been slapping films into boxes with little fanfare, but it’s ever so slightly shoddy stuff - three film sets for Alastair Sim and John Mills; nothing really to write home about.

There is also some hope following the end of Warners UK license with Studio Canal, the rights holder for many, many British films, including Ealing titles. Studio Canal has now sealed a deal with Optimum who produced the very best of the Ealing box sets in terms of extras and quality. Indeed, Optimum’s handling of Whisky Galore! showed just how it can be - should be - done for quality British films. In this respect, it is surprising that the BFI hasn’t been more on the ball; the BFI’s pricing of discs is breathtaking, sometimes it’s not reflected in the content. And on the marketing front, it can be argued that the British Film Institute has not always been seen as a champion of British film; it may not be the actualité, but it’s certainly the perception.

The British are just awful at promoting themselves; we stand around, coyly looking down, refusing to raise our hands, waiting for someone else - usually Anchor Bay US or Criterion - to tell us how terrific we are.

Isn’t it about time that the British celebrated the fact that we have made some terrific films over the years, films that have had a profound effect on cinema as a whole? Celebrated them with releases containing genuinly useful and informative extras, with transfers that sparkle like the jewels that they are?

John Ford Goes to War… July 16, 2006

Posted by John Hodson in : Film & DVD Reviews, About John Ford, War Films , 1 comment so far

John Ford’s love affair with the military possibly hit the heights with They Were Expendable, a ’from the heart’ view of the war in the Pacific.

Produced just as the war was coming to an end (and released after the conflict had ended - which proved its undoing at the box office), it’s a downbeat film in many ways, ’sacrifice’ the running thread throughout. In the Navy’s ‘Field Photo Unit’ Ford had served, had seen colleagues killed, and, as their commanding officer, had written letters to the families of the dead, the responsibility weighing heavily on him. Ford was on first name terms with ’sacrifice’.

‘Expendable’ was his homage not only to those that had served their country, but to those that had made that ultimate sacrifice, to those that would never come home.

Ford’s brilliant documentary style gives the film a grittiness that is founded in reality. His hero ‘John Brickley’ is based on his friend John Bulkeley’s experiences as a PT boat commander in the Philippines. There’s a vérité here that is rarely found in other contemporary war films; a deliberate stylistic decision from Ford, but also helped in the casting. As ‘Brick’ Brickley, Robert Montgomery’s service was on board PT boats (ironically his time in the service is thought to have fatally damaged his Hollywood status). Ford also went to great pains not to demonise the Japanese (they are never on screen), and it is to his credit, as news filters through of the attack on Pearl Harbour, Asian faces are amongst those seen reacting with horror

There’s no faux sentiment here; even the reverential treatment - usually meted out for such figures as Lincoln - granted his unnamed ‘General’ (obvious to all as Douglas MacArthur), is heartfelt and somehow right - young men were still dying as the film was in production, a point that the film puts right to the fore.

I can’t add too much more than the views and opinions in Mike Sutton’s DVD Times  review. But I do find a couple of lines of dialogue early on interesting. It’s very pointed in the opening credits that everyone of any military rank is credited so; thus the world is told that Ford, Montgomery, writer Frank ‘Spig’ Wead, etc., have served their country. But not John Wayne, who famously did not serve in the armed forces.

Brickley says in the first reel, to his pal ‘Rusty’ Ryan, played by Wayne: ‘What are you aiming at, building a reputation, or playing for the team?’Wayne, in fact, cemented his reputation as a major Hollywood player at Republic during the war years, fighting his nation’s enemy on a soundstage; Ryan eventually becomes that team player the stoic Brickley urges him to become…did Wayne become that ‘Superpatriot’, that cheerleader for the American way, to belie any suggestion that he wasn’t a ‘team player’? Was this the turning point, the trigger?

A beautiful looking film, with truth and genuine emotion showing in every frame.

1957’s The Wings of Eagles, like ‘Expendable’ part of that R1 Ford / Wayne Collection, is the story of the aforementioned Frank ‘Spig’ Wead (who had died 10 years earlier), starring Wayne as Wead, Maureen O’Hara as his wife ‘Min’, and Ward Bond as ‘John Dodge’ a (very) thinly disguised John Ford. Very highly romanticised, it’s far more interesting when viewed not so much the story of Wead, but about Ford himself.

The old man approached the project with great trepidation. Great pals, Ford said he didn’t want to film it, but he didn’t want anyone else to film it either. That was probably down to two factors; Ford was simply too close to Wead, and his story doesn’t make particularly pretty viewing. ’Pappy’ (as Ford was known) could fully identify with a man who had an unhappy family life, who was far more at home with his pals than with his wife and children, but who also treated old friends shamefully.

Ford does little to gloss over this, though his film is still, nonetheless, sympathetic of Wead, a navy flyer and record breaker, who was told he would never walk again after a fall at home. Wead not only succeeded in defeating the surgeon’s dim chances for his recovery, but also became a successful playwright and screenwriter.

Bond, surrounded by set decor from Ford’s own office, must have relished playing the irascible ‘Pappy’; barking at a bemused Wead in typical fashion. O’Hara - no problems with chemistry with her leading man here - is fine as ‘Min’, despite being hamstrung when Wead’s children objected to their mother’s drink problem being highlighted on screen. Those scenes were left on the cutting room floor.

The film does have it’s problems; Wayne is simply too old (despite heaps of soft focus) to play Wead as a young and impetuous flyer and the film’s knockabout opening reel doesn’t sit well as a result.

But as the middle-aged Wead, Wayne comes into his own, playing, if I recall correctly, without a toupee and revealing his balding pate for the first and only time on screen. The final scene, as Wead’s old navy and army pals line the deck to send him into final retirement, is wonderfully played by the Duke, despite the dollops of schmaltz on show.

Presented in anamorphic OAR, this is another very fine presentation of an MGM film, with that Metrocolor shining through, bright, sharp and clean. Not first rank Ford by any means, but interesting nonetheless.

The Greater Enemy

Posted by John Hodson in : Film & DVD Reviews, British Film, War Films , add a comment

There are, in this writer’s humble opinion, few British war films better than J. Lee Thompson’s Ice Cold in Alex. A heroic and episodic narrative that rarely lets up, John Mills, Anthony Quayle and the wonderful Harry Andrews on the top of their game, Sylvia Sims possibly the only weak link as the simpering nurse Murdoch; hardly her fault, given the hand she had to play.

Thompson’s admirable direction (he’s clearly inspired by The Wages of Fear) keeps the tension nice and taut while Christopher Landon’s script (from his novel) goes to some lengths to avoid the usual stereotypes that populated ’50s war films; this isn’t the typical ‘us versus them’ shoot ‘em up, this is about, as Hauptman Otto Lutz says, beating “…the greater enemy; the desert.”

There are some nice cameos from a plethora of familiar faces - David Lodge (indespensible, it seems, to casting directors during this period), Liam Redmond (excellent as the slightly eccentric Brigadier), Allan Cuthertson, Walter Gotell, Frederick Jaeger, Peter Arne and Paul Stassino. 

A word of praise for Warners / Studio Canal R2 which has been transferred very nicely to DVD from an almost pristine print - top marks too for presenting it in anamorphic 1.66:1; a rare beast.

Carlsberg finally woke up to the commercial possibilities a few years ago with their famous ad featuring the scene in the bar at Alexandria - as Captain Anson (Mills always claimed they used real beer and he was drunk after the 14th take) says as he downs an icy brew in one: “Worth waiting for.”

Still wonderfully entertaining - anyone fancy a beer?

The Last Idol July 15, 2006

Posted by John Hodson in : Film & DVD Reviews, Swashbucklers , 1 comment so far

(First published in another form at The DVD Forums) 

My earliest cinematic memory: I was in the local flea-pit with my older brother watching the Saturday afternoon kids matinee - it was Zorro, one of those rehashed cliff-hanger serials from the 1950s. The next thing I remember is we were on the pavement, bruv was furious and I was grinning like a Cheshire cat. We’d been turfed out because I had made several spanking Tarzan calls.

When I was a very small child, there was something so incredibly right about having an imaginary sword fight, or strapping on a chrome cap-firing six shooter (or knowing all the names of the dinosaurs). What was it? Genetic memory? To be honest, while there may once have been mastodons striding the plains of south Lancashire (some would say, still are), or even the occasional damsal in distress (that’s a given), there weren’t too many frontier townships among those blue remembered hills that required a gun-toting, befringed stetson wearing lawman. So that theory’s canned.

Whatever. Hollywood plugged right into this boy child’s pleasure receptors with the swashbuckers who parried and thrust their way across the screen. Errol Flynn - more of him some other time I hope - was my idol in this respect, but Tyrone Power, similarly (but not quite) as charismatic came a close second.

Rouben Mamoulian’s The Mark of Zorro is a quite, quite fabulous swash-buckler starring a very young, very handsome Power; ironically, both actor and director were capable of much, much more. But Power was, against his wishes, type-cast in actioners, and Russian born Mamoulian was something of a maverick. He discovered new and interesting ways to move and use his camera, but when his vision was compromised he found himself at odds with his studio masters. His cv includes the 1931 Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Blood and Sand (again with Power) and uncredited contributions to Laura and Cleopatra.

There are some beautiful matte shots and the opening sequence sets the scene well, but there’s not alot that’s particularly innovative in The Mark of Zorro; it is precisely what Fox set it out to be, a cracking action adventure that, coming even after the Douglas Fairbanks silent original, is now accepted as the definitive screen representation of the masked avenger.

It is the early part of the 19th century and Don Diego de Vega (Power) is called back by his father from military service in Spain to his home in California. To his chagrin, he finds his beneficent father’s rule has been usurped by the evil and greedy Captain Esteban Pasquale (the magnificent Basil Rathbone), who is grinding the local peasantry into the dust. The quick-witted Vega takes on the persona of a hapless fop, but soon adopts the role of Zorro, a mysterious masked swordsman who strikes fear in the heart of Pasquale’s lackeys, leaving his trademark sword slash ‘Z’ in his wake. The gorgeous Linda Darnell plays Zorro’s obligatory love-interest, Eugene Pallette reprises his Friar Tuck impersonation as an unlikely Fray Felipe and there’s useful support from the later to be blacklisted Gale Sondergaad, Montagu Love and J. Edward Bromberg, Darnell’s cowardly, nasty uncle and puppet of Rathbone.

Of course, as is usual, there must be a showdown between Rathbone’s Pasquale - a master swordsman famed in Spain for his duelling skills - and Power’s Zorro, and it’s here that Mamoulian is at his most interesting. The duel takes place not in some great hall, or across several staged sets, but in one small room (as most scenes are). There’s a definite feeling of claustrophobia and danger as the two protagonists cut and thrust. Of course, it’s hard not to stifle a giggle when Zorro/Vega whips his blade across a candle as the pair loosen up; the candle appears untouched. ‘Ha-ha!’ sneers Pasquale; Zorro steps forward to lift the top off the decapitated candle and kill Pasquale’s laugh in his throat. Is Pasqule about to fight the effeminate Vega, or will he be in for more than he bargained for?

However, what follows is a sweaty, nasty, muscle-draining battle that really, really works and is one of cinema’s best filmed duels. The timing of the actors can only be marvelled at, and there are some wonderful lines: “I needed that scratch to awaken me!”

Power, who died at just 44-years-old, is wonderful in the title role, carrying off the duel personalities with aplomb, flashing that Tyrone Power smile and displaying every bit of the charisma that made him such a huge star.

Alfred Newman’s rousing score, nominated for an Oscar, adds to the fun, and it comes as something of a disappointment when the 94 minutes is up; I’m tempted to give another Tarzan call for old times sake.

The R1 Fox Studio Classics DVD contains the usual goodies that we have come to expect from this excellent range, with a fascinating 45 minute documentary on Power (Tyrone Power - The Last Idol), trailers of other FSC movies, the usual studious, but easy-going commentary from film historian Richard Schickel, with a myriad of facts and trivia. That said, of all the FSC’s I have seen, this print bears the most marks and damage. Don’t panic! This is far from disasterous, but the other movies in this range are mostly so perfect it comes as something of a shock to see any real damage at all! There are some artifacts, lines even a tear or two, but there’s a wonderful luminence to the transfer, blacks all across the greyscale so that the film positively leaps from the screen.

Now here’s the slightly controversial bit. In both R1 and R2, Fox has since reissued the film on a disc that contains both the original monochrome version plus a ‘colorized’ version, the work of ‘Legend’ films. There’s no denying that the crayoned in ‘Zorro’ is the product of cutting edge technology but to my eyes it simply looks ghastly; as if the whole thing had been sent, post mortum, to the undertaker for an open-casket makeover. Say ‘no’ to ‘colorization’ folks…

But there is a plus side. In prepping films for the colour process, Legend also gave them a thorough wash and brush up; hence the monochrome ‘Zorro’ looks spiffier than previously. In R1, the mono/colour version loses the ‘Studio Classics’ documentary Tyrone Power: The Last Idol, the R2 SE, however, includes it.

Just out in R1, the FSC has now finally released Henry King’s The Black Swan, in lush three-strip Technicolor. Fox is rumoured to have spent upwards of $5m restoring both films elements and prepping it digitally (the DVD claims ‘40 hours’ digital restoration - there must be at least one nought missing there).

And what a restoration it is; barely a mark, not a scratch to be seen anywhere, no misregistration problems - it’s simply beautiful, from the opening ‘20th Century Fox’ logo to the closing title shot. Anxious to mine the same vein of gold plundered by Jack Warner, Fox spent and spent big on this production and it shows, not just in the location shooting. Henry King had his production designed quite carefully to show off that colour for all that it’s worth - lots of blues and golds, the occasional splash of vivid red in a costume.

The film itself? Well, not quite as good as I remembered. Power is wonderful as the pirate captain Jamie Waring, unfortunately not only is his character largely unsympathetic for much of the film, but there’s no real spark between him and his leading lady, Maureen O’Hara. Funny that, I had the misfortune to watch Flynn and O’Hara (and BTW, Anthony Quinn, underused in both) in Against All Flags recently. A quite terrible low budget late career swashbuckler from Flynn (nevertheless, he props up the whole thing), but once again, no chemistry. None.

Laird Cregar (just three years from a tragic early death himself), is an impressively larger than life Henry Morgan (he only gets a ‘B’ though for his Welsh accent, ‘look you’), but George Sanders - what were you thinking of? His Captain Billy Leech spends the whole film leering and gurning in an extraordinary fashion. I can only think Sanders, a Hollywood exile (born in Russia of English parents), longed to spend a season or two in panto at Bognor. It makes Victor McLaglan’s appearance in Prince Valiant look like King Lear. Again, Alfred Newman’s score is excellent, but I longed for a little of Korngold’s magic touch.

A beautiful presentation of a beautiful looking film, that doesn’t hold a candle, quite frankly to, say, The Sea Hawk, or Captain Blood but still well worth a look. Avast, ah, me hearties!

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