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Adventures In The Screen Trade… August 31, 2006

Posted by John Hodson in : General, Film General , 2 comments

The death of Glenn Ford - briefly, one of Hollywood’s brightest shining stars, and who famously, William Goldman tells us, Paul Newman didn’t want to be - brings to mind the brushes I had with a couple of my Tinsel Town heroes as a bright eyed and bushy tailed junior on one ‘those’ small town local rags in South Lancashire.

You know the type I mean; headlines such as ‘Man Trips Over Kerb’, ‘Town Empties for Wakes Week’ or ‘Mayoral Chain - The Big Debate’. In the case of Glenn Ford it was ‘Hollywood Star Comes to Horwich’; for the Canadian born Ford’s family hailed from that sleepy little town between Bolton and Chorley. And in the late ’70s, his visit was big news.

Ford was no longer a big star by then of course, but for the Horwich & Westhoughton Journal it just pipped ‘Councillor Warns of Pond Danger’ as the lead story. And he had, relatively recently, taken the role of Pa Kent in Superman that had sparked many a fan to remark: ‘Good grief, is he still going?’ Unfortunately, Mr Ford proved to be the shy retiring type; he flew in, he flew out again, and we had to rely on such second hand quotes as: ‘He’s a lovely man; no edge to him’ (’edge’ being considered the reserve of the ‘posh’). ‘Took three sugars in his tea and in a chipped mug. No complaints.’ Well, it seemed like that. ‘Superman’s Dad; Lovely Man’ might even have been the following edition’s headline.

And I never did get to meet him to tell him I thought he was smashing in The Big Heat…

The second (not very) close encounter, albeit post-mortem, occurred when Robert Shaw died of a heart attack at the end of August in 1978. The son of old Doctor Tom Shaw, the future star of A Man for All Seasons and Jaws had been born in Westhoughton where his father was a G.P., and something of a local character.

Doctor Tom, in the best tradition of the Irish stock character, was renowned for his fondness for taking the occasional nip. Fortunately, as he made his rounds in a buggy, the horse was well-used to his master being, shall we say, asleep at the wheel, and would often return him home, sat bolt upright on the narrow sprung seat, bowler at a jaunty angle, snoring loudly.

The mere mention of his name brought a smile to many a lip decades after the Shaw family upped and left the little Lancashire town, and when young Robert, (who would only have been a very small child when he departed), made it big, ‘Howfen’ (as it was known in local ‘Lanky’ dialect) claimed him as one of its own. Which is why, next to the column reviewing the Sacred Heart Dramatic Society’s latest farce (the farce was usually a drama, by the way), or the Anderton Choral Group’s musical hit (hmmm; their Sound of Music was particularly, ah, memorable), there would often be a couple of paragraphs on ‘Westhoughton Man in TV hit’ or ‘Next Stop Hollywood for Shaw!’

So, Robert dies. He’s front page news right around the world; so why should we be any different? The editor gets it into his head that for some unaccountable reason, his family is going to have the remains shipped over from his beloved Ireland to have him buried in his birthplace. I have to stake out the local cemetery. Seriously.

I first nip over to the Presbytery and quiz the priest, an amiable middle-aged Irishman (there are the usual rumours surrounding his relationship with his housekeeper; he’s wary of any approach by Her Majesty’s Press). I ask the question, and, head peeping round the narrowest door gap, he responds: ‘Good God no!’ He laughs nervously, shoots me a shy, ’see-I’ve-nothing-to-hide’ smile, then adds, fatally, ‘…at least, I haven’t been informed.’ So I’m to keep a watch on the churchyard for any signs of a grave being dug (and then I would ask who it’s for, which added to the growing suspicion that I was a looney). Oh, and ring the crem, because you never know. And we’ve got the number of his agent, so give him a bell. The laughs, at each and every enquiry, grew louder. Groan.

I was finally released from this hell when - surprise, surprise - Robert was buried ‘neath the green sod of auld Ireland. But even that was worthy of a sniffy ‘Snub for Westhoughton’ piece; though that hasn’t stopped them putting a plaque on one of the several houses Doctor Tom owned during his tenure, and naming a pub after his illustrious son.

Ah, showbiz - bright lights, the smell of money, hot and cold running women (no, wait; I’m describing the Amusement Arcade on Market Street…)

I Am A Director Of Westerns… August 29, 2006

Posted by John Hodson in : DVD News & Info, About John Ford, Ford DVD Filmography , 2 comments

“For a director there are commercial rules that it is necessary to obey. In our profession, an artistic failure is nothing; a commercial failure is a sentence. John Ford at RKOThe secret is to make films that please the public and also allow the director to reveal his personality…”

“I didn’t show up at the ceremony to collect any of my first three Oscars. Once I went fishing, another time there was a war on, and on another occasion, I remember, I was suddenly taken drunk…”

“I love making pictures but I don’t like talking about them.”

“When in doubt; make a western…” - John Ford

I was listening to an interview with a director on the radio and he was talking about his latest project; just started production, he said. Months away from shooting of course, and in all it would probably consume nearly a year of his life. A year for a run-of-the-mill Hollywood film, from casting to in the can.

At the 1940 Oscar nominations Ford had no less than three films up for awards, the following year, the year he won ‘Best Director’ another two. His output was phenomenal, and while he he didn’t strike gold all the time (his biographer Joe McBride describes Tobacco Road, made during the same amazing spell, as being directed by Ford’s ‘evil twin’), there are pictures (as Ford himself preferred to call them) that are among the greatest ever filmed.

This post takes a good hard look at one of the 20th century’s greatest and most influential directors; John Ford, and what is currently available on DVD.

Best known as ‘a director of westerns’ (a description he used himself) Ford entered the film business as a silent movie pioneer. By the time he died, in 1973, he had produced a body of work that any artist would have been proud of. And art it sometimes was. Though Ford himself shied away from the term, he secretly delighted that, especially in later life, he was lauded as a film genius. He influenced fellow professionals and subsequent generations of film-makers including Welles, Truffaut and Scorsese, Bogdanovich and Spielberg. And he keeps on influencing film makers.

The filmography below is mostly culled from IMDB; the notes I’ve made on the various titles are from my personal experience or a trusted second hand source. I hope this will be a decent resource for Ford fans that will be constantly updated; all contributions, reviews, views, news, corrections, additions welcome - please!

Chesty: A Tribute to a Legend (1976)… aka Chesty (USA: informal English title)
Vietnam! Vietnam! (1971)
7 Women (1966)
Young Cassidy (1965) (uncredited)
Cheyenne Autumn (1964)… aka John Ford’s Cheyenne Autumn (USA: complete title) - R1 (Warner), said to be coming in R2 in Germany 2008, and part of a Warners Ford collection in R1, review here.
McLintock(1963) (uncredited) - R1 (Paramount), Ford alledgedly directed for a week while Andrew V. McLaglan was sick - numerous terrible PD versions in all regions, but the only really worthwhile disc is the Paramount/Batjac collaberation in R1, also coming in R2 Germany, review here.
Donovan’s Reef (1963) - R1 (Paramount), R2 (UK, Germany; Paramount), no extras, nice transfer, R2 review here
How the West Was Won (1962) (segment ‘The Civil War’) - R1 (Warners), poor, but rumoured to be being worked on and coming 2007 in a new SE, R1 review here
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962) - R1 (Paramount), R2 (Paramount), barebones, but excellent transfer, R1 review here, and another R1 review here.
‘Alcoa Premiere’ (1961) TV Series (episode Flashing Spikes)
Two Rode Together (1961), R2 (Germany; Sony, UK; Sony); barebones, but quite a decent transfer.
The Alamo (1960) (uncredited) - R1 (MGM), R2 (MGM), there is material used in the film shot by the great man; decent transfer but we want the full Roadshow version, R1 review here
Sergeant Rutledge (1960) - R1 (Warner), part of a Warners Ford collection in R1, review here.
The Horse Soldiers (1959) - R1 (MGM), R2 (MGM), poor transfer, no extras, R1 review here
Korea (1959)
The Last Hurrah (1958) - R1 (Columbia), excellent transfer, no extras
Gideon’s Day (1958)… aka Gideon of Scotland Yard (USA) - looks to be coming to the UK thanks to a new deal between Columbia and DDHE.
‘Wagon Train’ (1957) TV Series… aka Major Adams, Trail Master
The Rising of the Moon (1957)
The Wings of Eagles (1957), - R1 (Warner), part of a Warners Ford collection in R1, review here.
The Searchers (1956) - R1 (Warner), R2 (UK, Germany; Warner), part of a Warners John Wayne / John Ford collection in R1, also available in R2, review here.
‘The Bamboo Cross’ (1955) (TV)
‘Screen Directors Playhouse’ (1955) TV Series (episode Rookie of the Year) - R2 (Germany; Kinowelt), an extra on the German ‘The Quiet Man’ disc. 
Mister Roberts (1955) - R1 (Warners), co-directed by Ford (after his spat with Fonda) fair transfer and extras, R1 review here
The Long Gray Line (1955) - R1 (Columbia), barebones but decent transfer, R1 review here
Mogambo (1953) - R2 (Warners), R4 (Warners), R1 (Warners), barebones but decent transfer, R4 review here, R1 review here
Hondo (1953) (uncredited) - R1 (Paramount), Ford was invited to direct the climatic battle after John Farrow was called away. One of the ‘Batjac’ CE discs, superb in every way, review here
The Sun Shines Bright (1953)
What Price Glory (1952) - R1 (Fox), R2 (BFI) - barebones but good transfers, R1 review here, R2 review here.
The Quiet Man (1952) - R1 (Lions Gate), R2 (UK; Universal, Germany; Kinowelt), the only good thing to be said is that the extras are decent on the R1, in all cases the transfers are terrible. The German Kinowelt version does contain ‘Rookie of The Year’ as an extra. , R1 CE review here.
This Is Korea! (1951) (as Rear Admiral John Ford USNVR Ret.)
Rio Grande (1950)… aka John Ford and Merian C. Cooper’s Rio Grande (USA: complete title) - R1 CE (Lions Gate), R2 (UK; Universal, Germany; Kinowelt), the R1 is pretty good, nice transfer, good extras. The UK R2 isn’t., R1 CE review here.
Wagon Master (1950) - R2 (France; Èditions Montparnasse, UK: Universal), acceptable transfer on the UK disc, could be better.
When Willie Comes Marching Home (1950) - R1 (Fox)
She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949) - R1 (Warners), R2 (UK; Universal, Germany; Kinowelt), superb transfer from both Warners and Kinowelt, awful from Universal. The German DVD features an hour long BBC interview with Ford, the R1 some interesting 16mm home movies. UK R2 review here, German R2 review here, R1 review here. Also part of that John Ford/John Wayne Collection from Warners in R1.
Pinky (1949) (uncredited) - R1 (Fox), another where Ford was replaced, by Kazan in this case, but some of his footage remains; R1 review here.
‘Fireside Theatre’ (1949) TV Series
3 Godfathers (1948) - R2 (UK, Germany; Warners), R1 (Warners), R4 (Warners), barebones but decent transfer, also part of a John Ford/John Wayne Collection from Warners in R1, 2006 R4 review here, R1 review here
Fort Apache (1948)… aka War Party - R1 (Warner), R2 (France; Èditions Montparnasse, UK; Universal, Germany; Kinowelt), part of a Warners John Wayne / John Ford collection in R1, forget the rest, review here.
The Fugitive (1947)… aka Fugitivo, El (Mexico) - R2 (France; Èditions Montparnasse, UK; Universal)
My Darling Clementine (1946)… aka John Ford’s My Darling Clementine (USA: complete title) - R1 (Fox), R2 (UK, Germany; Fox), excellent presentation again in R1 on the ‘Studio Classics’ label, features the pre-release cut, commentary etc. Review here
They Were Expendable (1945) - R1 (Warner), R2 (Germany, UK), older title, but decent enough. R1 review here and here. Also part of that John Ford/John Wayne Collection from Warners in R1
December 7th (1943)… aka December 7th: The Movie (video title - restored version) - R1 (Fox, VCI). R1 VCI review here
We Sail at Midnight (1943)
The Battle of Midway (1942) - R1 (Fox, Delta)
Sex Hygiene (1942)
Torpedo Squadron (1942) - R1 (Fox)
How Green Was My Valley (1941) - R1 (Fox), R2 (Fox), superb presentation in R1 in the ‘Studio Classics’ range. R1 review here
Tobacco Road (1941) - R2 (Germany, UK; Fox), R1 (Fox)
The Long Voyage Home (1940) - R1 (Warner), R2 (Universal), part of a Warners John Wayne / John Ford collection in R1, review here.
The Grapes of Wrath (1940) - R1 (Fox), R2  (Fox), superb presentation in R1 in the ‘Studio Classics’ range. R1 review here
Drums Along the Mohawk (1939) - R1 (Fox), R2 (UK; Optimum, France; GCTHV, Germany MC One) - The first R1 and R2 (UK) discs boast very nice if not stellar transfers. The new R1 transfer is superb; comparison here.
Young Mr. Lincoln (1939) - R2 (France; GCTHV, UK; Optimum, Germany; MC One), R1 (Criterion) - Comparison of the UK R2 and R1 here and R1 review here.
Stagecoach (1939) - R1 (Warner), R2 (France; Èditions Montparnasse, UK; Universal), part of a Warners John Wayne / John Ford collection in R1, review here.
Submarine Patrol (1938)
Four Men and a Prayer (1938) - R1 (Fox)
The Adventures of Marco Polo (1938) (uncredited)
The Hurricane (1937) - R1 (HBO) R2 (Japan), the R1 is now OOP, no information on the quality of the Japanese disc.
Wee Willie Winkie (1937) - R1 (Fox)
The Plough and the Stars (1936)
Mary of Scotland (1936) - R2 (France; Èditions Montparnasse, UK; Universal), R1 (Warners), part of the Warners Ford collection in R1, review here.
The Prisoner of Shark Island (1936) - R1 (Fox), R2 (France, GCTHV, Germany MC One, UK, Eureka), excellent release from Eureka; superb extras. Transfer of R1 superior; comparison here.
Steamboat Round the Bend (1935)… aka Steamboat Bill - R2 (UK; Optimum), R1 (Fox), part of a Will Rogers box set in R1 and the Ford at Fox set review here.
The Informer (1935) - R1 (Warner), R2 (France; Èditions Montparnasse, UK; Universal), part of a Warners John Ford collection in R1, review here.
The Whole Town’s Talking (1935)… aka Passport to Fame (UK)
Judge Priest (1934) - R1 (Fox), R2 - avoid the various appalling public domain releases.
The World Moves On (1934) - R1 (Fox)
The Lost Patrol (1934) - R1 (Warner), R2 (France; Èditions Montparnasse), part of the Warners John Ford collection in R1, review here.
Doctor Bull (1933) - R1 (Fox)
Pilgrimage (1933) - R1 (Fox)
Flesh (1932)
Airmail (1932)
Arrowsmith (1931) - R1 (MGM) excellent transfer, barebones, R1 review here
The Brat (1931)
Seas Beneath (1931) - R1 (Fox)
Up the River (1930) - R1 (Fox)
Born Reckless (1930) - R1 (Fox)
Men Without Women (1930)
Salute (1929) (uncredited)
The Black Watch (1929)… aka King of the Khyber Rifles (UK)

You should be aware that all but a handful of Ford’s silent pictures are considered lost forever; but as these things continue to pop up from time to time, there’s always a slim chance…

Strong Boy (1929)
Riley the Cop (1928) (uncredited)
Napoleon’s Barber (1928)
Hangman’s House (1928) (uncredited) - R1 (Fox)
Four Sons (1928) - R1 (Fox)
Mother Machree (1928) (uncredited)
Upstream (1927)… aka Footlight Glamour (UK)
The Blue Eagle (1926) (uncredited)
3 Bad Men (1926) - R1 (Fox), R2 (Japan)
The Shamrock Handicap (1926)… aka 1732
Thank You (1925)
The Fighting Heart (1925)… aka Once to Every Man (UK)
Kentucky Pride (1925)
Lightnin’ (1925)
Hearts of Oak (1924)
The Iron Horse (1924) (uncredited) - R1 (Fox), R2 (UK, Japan) decent presentation, but barebones by BFI of the UK cut of the picture, but now out of print, no info on the Japanese disc. R1 disc contains two cuts - excellent; R2/R1 comparison here.
Hoodman Blind (1923)
North of Hudson Bay (1923) (as Jack Ford)… aka North of the Yukon (UK)
Cameo Kirby (1923)
Three Jumps Ahead (1923) (as Jack Ford)
The Face on the Bar-Room Floor (1923) (as Jack Ford)… aka The Love Image (UK)
The Village Blacksmith (1922) (as Jack Ford)
Silver Wings (1922) (as Jack Ford) (prologue only)
Little Miss Smiles (1922) (as Jack Ford)
Jackie (1921) (as Jack Ford)
Sure Fire (1921) (as Jack Ford)
Action (1921) (as Jack Ford)… aka Let’s Go
Desperate Trails (1921) (as Jack Ford)
The Wallop (1921) (as Jack Ford)
The Freeze-Out (1921) (as Jack Ford)
The Big Punch (1921) (as Jack Ford)
Just Pals (1920) (as Jack Ford) - R1 (Fox)
Hitchin’ Posts (1920) (as Jack Ford)… aka The Land of Promise (UK)
The Girl in Number 29 (1920) (as Jack Ford)… aka The Girl in the Mirror
The Prince of Avenue A (1920) (as Jack Ford)
Marked Men (1919) (as Jack Ford)… aka Trail of Shadows
A Gun Fightin’ Gentleman (1919) (as Jack Ford)… aka The Gun-Fighting
Gentleman (USA: review title)
Rider of the Law (1919) (as Jack Ford)… aka Jim of the Rangers
Ace of the Saddle (1919) (as Jack Ford)
The Outcasts of Poker Flat (1919) (as Jack Ford)
Riders of Vengeance (1919) (as Jack Ford)
By Indian Post (1919) (as Jack Ford)… aka The Love Letter - R2 (France; Lobster Films) appears to be an excellent transfer - part of collection of short films.
The Gun Packer (1919) (as Jack Ford)… aka Out Wyoming Way
Gun Law (1919) (as Jack Ford)… aka The Posse’s Prey
Bare Fists (1919) (as Jack Ford)… aka The Man Who Wouldn’t Shoot
A Fight for Love (1919) (as Jack Ford)… aka Hell’s Neck
The Fighting Brothers (1919) (as Jack Ford)… aka His Buddy Roped (1919) (as Jack Ford)
The Last Outlaw (1919)
Rustlers (1919) (as Jack Ford)… aka Even Money
Three Mounted Men (1918) (as Jack Ford)… aka Three Wounded Men (USA)
The Craving (1918)
A Woman’s Fool (1918) (as Jack Ford)
Hell Bent (1918) (as Jack Ford)… aka The Three Bad Men (USA: bowdlerized title)
The Scarlet Drop (1918) (as Jack Ford)
Thieves’ Gold (1918) (as Jack Ford)
Wild Women (1918) (as Jack Ford)
The Phantom Riders (1918) (as Jack Ford)
Bucking Broadway (1917) (as Jack Ford)… aka Slumbering Fires (UK) - R2 (France) available as a supplement to the French magazine Cinema, review here.
A Marked Man (1917) (as Jack Ford)
The Secret Man (1917) (as Jack Ford)… aka The Round Up / Up Against It
Straight Shooting (1917) (as Jack Ford)… aka Joan of the Cattle Country / Straight Shootin’ (USA: cut version) / The Cattle War
Cheyenne’s Pal (1917) (as Jack Ford) … aka A Dumb Friend / Cactus My Pal
The Soul Herder (1917) (as Jack Ford) … aka The Sky Pilot
The Scrapper (1917) (as Jack Ford)
Trail of Hate (1917)
The Tornado (1917) (as Jack Ford)
Red Saunders Plays Cupid (1917)

—
Publications:
John Ford; The Complete Films - excellent book, containing some wonderful photographs, nice quotes and titbits of information, plus a complete filmography and more. Dirt cheap and super value for money.
Searching for John Ford - Joe McBride’s amazing examination of the life and work of Ford. Not just the best book on this film maker, but one of the best biography’s around IMHO.
About John Ford - Lindsay Anderson’s wonderful examination of Ford’s work. A classic.
John Ford: The Man & His Films - Tag Gallagher has just made the latest edition of his wonderful book available as a free download. A hefty PDF, but worth it if only as a preview prior to buying a hard copy.
John Ford and the American West, a beautiful book at a very nice price. Chock full of stills, on-set photos, and reproductions of Remington’s and Russell’s wonderful western paintings.

—
Bits and pieces:
The American West of John Ford; a public domain DVD of a 1971 documentary, aired in the US, featuring many of Ford’s colleagues, clips etc. Fascinating, terrible, terrible quality DVD.
Becoming John Ford - fine R1 documentary concentrating on the Fox years, reviewed here.
John Ford Goes to War - superb R1 documentary, review here

—
Useful Web Pages
John Ford: A Bibliography of Materials in the UC Berkeley Library
John Ford at Silent Era
Two Big Missing John Ford Stories
Argosy Pictures: The Independent Film Company of Director John Ford and Producer Merian C. Cooper
The John Ford Papers
Ten Underappreciated John Ford Films
Films of the Century; Young Mr Lincoln
John Ford at IMDB

Last updated: June 24, 2008.

Odd Man Out August 27, 2006

Posted by John Hodson in : Film & DVD Reviews, British Film, Crime / Noir / Thriller , 7 comments

A veteran fighter for ‘The Cause’, this was going to be one of Johnny McQueen’s last jobs with a gun. He has a vision of replacing the bullet with the ballot box, but he’ll never see the day. Stumbling through a snow filled landscape, life is ebbing out of him drip by bloody drip onto the cobbled streets of Belfast…

Odd Man Out is one of the finest films I’ve ever seen; literate, achingly beautiful, a haunting score, wonderfully acted and deftly directed. It is probably Carol Reed’s masterpiece, but , in general, today is largely forgotten other than by film fans, and even amongst that community, it’s certainly overshadowed by Reed’s The Third Man (which the briefly seen Orson Welles dominates so completely, that many - not you, gentle reader - credit him with the film’s success).

Reed’s dark tale of greed and love lost in post-war Vienna is indeed a scintillating piece of work by any standards. But it’s the story of the I.R.A. (although his affiliation is never made clear, McQueen’s ‘chief’ must surely be so) man on the run that resonates so much more deeply, with this viewer at least.

Despite the highly charged political backdrop, Reed’s 1947 film largely skirts those issues, as a pre-action title card makes plain. This is a film not about the ‘Troubles’ per se, but about the human heart; well, that’s the claim. The camera swoops in from above Belfast’s dockland taking us - the ones that live outside the province at least - into a city and a conflict of which we know little.

Johnny, just escaped after eight months in jail doing a 17-year stretch for gun-running and still not fully recovered, is first seen in the upstairs room of a small terraced house in Belfast’s town centre. The cell is planning a fund raising raid on a local mill; of course, they’re going armed, but Johnny urges no gun play. In fact, the three men who lift the cash - McQueen, Nolan (a very young Dan O’Herlihy) and Dennis (the excellent Robert Beatty) - do so in an affable fashion, smiling, nodding and winking at those they surprise in the mill office, bundling notes from the safe into bags.

As they make their getaway, Johnny is taken ill and is grappled to the ground by a gun-toting Mill worker. Two shots ring out, Johnny taking a horrific wound to the shoulder, the mill worker dead where he lies. As he races their car from the scene, nervous and excitable driver Pat (Cyril Cusack, fine tuning his brogue for north of the border) allows Johnny to fall from the running board. It’s a mess; the alarm bringing the authorities, the gang on the run without their wounded chief.

Reed paints a picture of a divided Belfast full of traps for those engaged in the struggle; informers after cash, police everywhere. Denis O’Dea’s intractable Inspector is determined that his man will face justice, and if his portrayal is in danger of being perceived as fascist - clad in black, with a swagger stick he uses to lift faces up to his - Reed weighs this against the incompetent gun happy Pat, who is desperate to use his gat. And with fatal consequences, while full of spine-stiffening whiskey, he does so.

James Mason turns in a remarkable performance as the charismatic Johnny; his weight as an actor is to spend most of the film dying, with little in the way of dialogue, but he dominates the proceedings effortlessly. In truth, McQueen’s dead from the moment the bullet was fired - he first escapes to an air raid shelter, where he makes a couple of spectral appearances, to a child, then to a courting couple who don’t even notice at first that this human wraith is in there with them. Later, as he leaves the home of an English woman who attempts to patch him up - then shrivels away when she realises who he is - the wind howls as if it is his spirit and not the corporeal being that is about to walk the freezing cold Belfast air. His travels across the city take him to a monumental mason’s yard, where he slumps, surrounded by headstones, statues of angels, the detritus of the dead.

Reed films him, semi-conscious, delirious, in agony, trying just to get somewhere, anywhere, where he can die in peace. And all the time, the constabulary is closing in, picking up his comrades, cutting him off from safety. If Reed eschews the political angle, he doesn’t shy away from the spiritual. Johnny’s girl, Kathleen (the gorgeous Kathleen Ryan), who is plotting an escape route, seeks help from the wise Father Tom (W.G. Fay) who taught Johnny as a child. Father Tom wants to save Johnny’s immortal soul, and gently lectures the fey Shell (F.J. McCormack), seeking the reward the police are offering, that there are rewards worth having greater than mere money. Shell can’t quite grasp it…

Father Tom’s simple reflections on the basic tenents of Christianity - the basic necessities of humanity - have been falling on deaf ears for years; ‘They can’t hear you Father!’ says a hallucinatory Johnny. But the words spoken by his vision to the child long ago finally break through. From Corinthians, Johnny, standing on legs that will barely support him, yells a memory of a lesson he can just remember: ‘When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I felt as a child, I reasoned as a child…’ If there is a religious message - underscored by a Christ-like vision of McQueen, arms outstretched against bare railings - it is surely that 2,000 years in, none of us, of any faith or creed, is listening. Despite the protestations of that title card, maybe William Hartnell’s English publican, who spots Johnny but wants nothing to do with him or his business, is indeed intended to send a political message; but a film such as this? How could it not? Belfast is filled with conspirital shawl-clad republicans; the forces of the Crown, the enemy - to part of the populace at least - for generations.

All this gloom is relieved by a couple of scenes that, I think, Reed handles beautifully. Firstly, as The Third Man demonstrated amply, he’s a superb director of children. Robert Beatty quizzes a Belfast street gang, one of whom simply asks over and over ‘…’ave you got a ciggie? Give us a cigarette…’ and another who answers him with great dollops of cheeky insolence, that only a child who’s aware has the upper hand can dole out to an adult. It’s a lovely vignette. The second, which tends to divide opinion, involves Robert Newton, that old soak, who plays artist Lukey (who is, by coincidence, an old soak). Lukey is searching for the meaning of life and, grotesquely, thinks he can find it in Johnny’s dying eyes. Playing off a cynical failed medical student, Tober (a world weary Elwyn Brook-Jones), their dialogue could almost be described as Pinteresque, though the combination of low comedy and utter tragedy is Fordian, or Shakespearian, depending on your view.

The ending is inevitable, and shattering. Changed from the novel because of the demands of the American censor, it’s possibly more fitting and more satisfying. I’m left in pieces.

Network’s new Special Edition R2 DVD of Odd Man Out is quite, quite gorgeous. The previous R2 disc from Carlton was okay, but suffered from a large amount of telecine wobble, dirt and scratches. This transfer, the sleeve notes tell us, was made by Granada from the best available safety element, after being compared to the BFI held original nitrate fine grain master and found to be in better condition. Digitally restored in high-definition, it’s a peach, showing off Robert Krasker’s absolutely masterful, simply stunning, high contrast cinematography to best possible effect. With much of the action taking place at night on stark snow filled streets - beautifully lit sets and Belfast locations - it’s finely detailed, barely a mark on it. The restored print is, by the way, just about to start a limited theatrical run in the U.K.

The soundtrack too, has had a wash a brush up and William Alwyn’s spare and wonderful score, played on set so that Mason walks in agony in time to the music, is rendered perfectly. There’s a deathly calm, by the way, about the whole production, the blanket of snow that covers Belfast transfigured into a shroud for the dead, the wind eerily becomes part of Alwyn’s overall palette. That’s echoed in Reed’s hit two years later, as Harry Lime’s fingers (actually Reed’s own) probe the night air of Vienna through the sewer grating.

The disc has a handful of very useful extras; the 1972 documentary from Yorkshire Television, Home James, in which Mason returns to his native Huddersfield, is marvellously nostalgic stuff, while there are some fascinating snippets from another 1972 interview, which is basically a collection of unedited rushes. Also worthy of note is the 24-page booklet, Soldier in the Snow, well researched and written by Steve Rogers, and containing lots of useful and interesting information - about the Abbey Players, Mason and Reed’s careers, Krasker’s immense influence, the original novel and much more. At the back of the booklet is a reproduction of the original press book.

There are also 165 images in a rolling gallery, plus the script, in PDF format.

Superb - more of this standard Network please!

The Pleasure Principle August 25, 2006

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

Pleasure.

In film, at least, it’s what you see and hear that produces a reaction in the brain, releasing all the right chemical and electrical stimuli. These resulting little jabs of joy make you either (depending on level, possibly circumstance, but certainly the concurrent state of mind) smile or yelp with sheer ecstasy. I have been known to do the latter, upon which people around edge away from me, slowly and deliberately…

Thankfully, despite Thomas Jefferson’s assertion that we are born equal, we don’t come off life’s production line all to the same specification, so one man’s yelp can be another’s yawn. I’m fascinated by what presses my own particular buttons; sometimes obvious, sometimes obscure. But it’s these little moments of sheer pleasure - out of hundreds - that I look to to lift me when I’m down, and, no matter how many times I see or hear them, or even simply think of them, lift me they do:

I’ve just noted that there’s an awful lot of violence in there; now what does that say about my ‘concurrent state of mind’..?

Ants…and Pants August 22, 2006

Posted by John Hodson in : Action / Adventure / Thriller, Film & DVD Reviews , add a comment

First published in another form at The DVD Forums. 

‘Marabunta!’

Included in the CVs of director / producer team of Byron Haskin and George Pal are the sci-fi classics War of The Worlds and the strangley prescient but lesser known Conquest of Space. Sandwiched in between those two movies, in 1954, they came up with a peculiar hybrid of over-heated melodrama and creature feature, The Naked Jungle.

It’s 1901, and hard nosed plantation owner Christopher Leiningen (Charlton Heston) has been hacking his way through the jungles of South America since he was 19 years old, building himself a cocoa empire reclaimed from the Amazon basin. Along the way, he’s forgotten a few things; no family, no real friends, no woman. Incredibly wealthy, he sets his brother the task of acquiring a wife; Leiningen is lucky in that he strikes it rich when flame-haired beauty Joanna Leiningen (they married by proxy), played by Eleanor Parker, arrives from up river to pop his cherry. Yes folks, he’s the only 30-odd year old, square jawed, broad shouldered virgin on the whole continent.

For more than an hour we dance around Leiningen’s virginity and ‘Madame’s’ (as Leiningen insists on calling her) attempts to take the starch out of this stuffed shirt and get him between the sheets. He wants kids, though he’d rather do without the whole nonsense of actually having sex, or even having a woman around, never mind a woman who talks back to this ‘master of all he surveys’. She wears skimpy nightclothes in front of him (the harlot!), he gets drunk and determines to do the deed but can’t when he finds out that - shock, horror - she’s not the virgin he expected. And there’s some laughable dialogue about the master’s brand new piano, which has never been played until the mistress arrives. As she tickles the ivories she tells him, eyebrows arched: “If you knew anything about music, you’d know that the best piano is one that’s been played.”C’mon Chuck - get your kecks off and bang a tune out of this old Joanna! I mean, there will be rumours…

After all that fluff, we finally get down to the meat of the tale. The local Commissioner (played by William Conrad) tells Leiningen that there’s something nasty in the jungle, something 20 miles long and two miles wild, unstoppable, brutal, and they’d all better get the hell out of the way. Of course, Chuck, and the woman he’s now slowly falling in love with, say they’ll make their stand against…Marabunta! The word is so memorable because of Conrad’s stentorian delivery; the future fat detective rolls the single word around his tongue like a vintage Merlot, gargles twice and spits it out, endowing each and every vowel with spine-tingling horror. We ain’t see it yet, but we clearly ain’t gonna like it…oh, goody!

Alright, alright, after all the dark mutterings, we are in fact talking an army of soldier ants; I expected Haskin, a master special effects technician, to give us the works, but sadly what looked so ’special’ to me 40 or so years ago, now looks rather feeble, and, worse, feeble possibly even to contemporary audiences. However, the battle between Leiningen and the lethal, flesh-stripping army should have occupied more of the films 95 minute running time, but it doesn’t. And as exciting as the all too brief denouement is, it’s all too predictable. There’s a scene, by the way, where Chuck rides to high ground to get his first view of the vast ant army. He takes quite a small eyeglass and scans the horizon…and the camera suddenly switches to a view of ants which are plainly a foot or so from the lens. For Father Ted, fans it’s a familiar reference from the first episode; and, still in Craggy Island mode, no Chuck, these are small and those are far away… It’s also worth noting that this is one of the films that Paramount, encouraged by the CIA, made sure showed Americans treatment of natives was seen in a good light (See here).

As films go, not very special, and even as homicidal ant films go (a genre that is, I accept, rather limited), it holds out a promise it simply fails to keep. Give me Them! every time.

What is special about Paramount’s R1 release is the transfer. Filmed in three-strip Technicolor, they have got hold of almost pristine elements, given them a good wash and brush up and the results are quite superb. That Paramount would do this for such a relatively minor work is all to their credit; colours are strong, with only a very few shots being ever so slightly out of registration, contrast is excellent, and it has that Technicolor golden ‘glow’. It’s all nice and sharp and I couldn’t detect any intrusive edge enhancement. The English mono soundtrack is excellent too.

Paramount has transferred this with the film matte opened up; 1954 was the year widescreen movies were launched proper, and several movies photographed in Academy (Shane probably the most famous) were cropped for showing in theatres so equipped, as the new format took off. The obvious difference here is that The Naked Jungle was plainly photgraphed with widescreen in mind; there’s plenty of headroom, allowing the film to be viewed either way, and it looks quite comfortable (unlike Shane which was shown at 1.66:1 - it wasn’t filmed for such, and I don’t think it works at all) when seen in a 1.85:1 (or thereabouts) ratio.

Discs this good are a joy to behold and, sometimes, actually make up for deficiencies in the narrative; they do enable you to better enter the fantasy world of cinema - my hat is off to film restorers whose work is as good as this.

The Blue Max August 18, 2006

Posted by John Hodson in : Film & DVD Reviews, War Films , 2 comments

First published in another form at The DVD Forums

The Western Front, 1916. A blasted landscape.

As far as the eye can see, a wasteland of mud, a few shrapnel scarred tree trunks, total and incredible destruction. Suddenly, the air is filled with sound of explosions, the chatter and whine of machine gun bullets and a motley band of dishevelled and terrified German troops run for their lives.

They are scythed down, all bar who one leaps into the water and corpse filled safety of a shell hole. Covered in filth, gasping for breath, he hears the sound of aircraft engines. He lifts his head and looks upwards, longingly, into a sky as clear and true as his blue, blue eyes.

Jump to 1918 and we see the same the same blue-eyed, blond haired soldier now wearing the uniform of the German Air Corps and thus transfigured into a higher being. He’s being transferred to his first squadron from training school. From the comfort of his transport, he looks with an almost condescending pity at the retreating battalions around him, lying by the roadside; those earthbound wretches from whose ranks he has very recently escaped. He swigs from a bottle of schnapps and with a toss of his wrist, charitably throws the remains to a thirsty trooper. Bruno Stachel has access to plenty of booze; he’s a flyer now, and, in more ways than just the obvious, he is on his way up…

The pre-credit sequence of the 1966 John Guillermin WW1 flying epic The Blue Max is economical film making at its best, getting pages and pages of narrative over in a couple of minutes. For Guillermin, an English journeyman director, this was his first big Hollywood film, though by 1966 he was an experienced hand, having worked with the mad genius Peter Sellers twice (the marvellous Never Let Go and Waltz of The Toreadors), Peter O’Toole (The Day They Robbed the Bank of England) and even had a stab at a legendary (if not a little shopworn by that stage) Hollywood figure with the pretty lame Tarzan Goes to India. Guillermin went on to helm The Bridge at Remagen, The Towering Inferno and the misguided but sometimes fun King Kong remake (man in ape suit; yikes! Jessica Lange; yum!)

At two and a half hours, this could have been a bit of a slog, but it’s surprisingly entertaining, in fact, more entertaining than it has any right to be. As Stachel, George Peppard is excellent. In a nutshell he’s a quintessential patsy and everyone knows it but poor Bruno. From the off he’s used and abused, and ultimately he’s the victim of his own drive to be accepted and to break out of the stifling European straitjacket of class and status.

The battle lines are drawn when he’s asked by Heidermann (Karl Michael Vogler), the squadron commander who his ‘people’ are. Stachel is non-plussed, but Heidermann, who, like many airforce officers of the period is upper middle class, insists: ‘What does your father do?’ Stachel stammers that his father runs a small hotel, and then compounds his social faux pas by adding ‘It has five bedrooms.’ So exhausted have the German Air Corps become (like the Royal Air Force post Battle of Britain) that it has been forced to accept the lower classes into its ranks; what next? Egomaniacal ex-Corporals leading the nation of the Kaisers?

Heidermann is gently horrified and seems determined that this upstart will get nowhere. Stachel’s fellow pilots see this guileless child in their midst, and mercilessly take the rise, but Willi von Klugermann (Jeremy Kemp) - though he refers to Stachel as ‘your kind’ - sees something in the newcomer to mark him out as a rival. Stachel confirms this when he determines that he will gain the respect of his peers, and the surest route is to kill. Winning the Order Pour le Merit, awarded to aces for 20 ‘kills’, and commonly known as ‘The Blue Max’, becomes Bruno’s obsession.

Still playing at war with notions of a demented ‘chivalry’* (don’t talk about your kills, don’t boast, kill your opponent then honour his memory, etc., etc.) Stachel is wrongly accused by his peers of not behaving honourably. Klugermann’s uncle, General Count von Klugermann (the ever magnificent James Mason), also treats the newcomer with contempt, but sees an opportunity to create a hero for the beleaguered German working classes - they are used to seeing Baron Von Richtofen lauded by the press, but says, von Klugermann, his eyes flashing at the mere thought,‘one of their own…?’

Stachel is also marked out by the Baron’s young wife, Countess Kaeti von Klugermann (Ursula Andress), as a future ‘kill’. The Countess fancies a bit of ‘rough’, especially one on the verge of becoming a national hero. The problem is, she’s already shagging Willi (no pun intended, gentle reader), her nephew by marriage.

This sets Stachel and von Klugermann on a collision course, but while Bruno’s star rises with every enemy ‘plane downed, he doesn’t realise that, one way or another, he’s doomed anyway. Against his will, circumstances, and the prejudice of others, turn him into the liar and the cheat that they all expect him to be. And there’s the fact that the 1918 offensive, which very nearly wins the war for Germany, soon becomes a headlong retreat. Will Stachel get the Blue Max and the respect he craves?

Guillermin’s film obviously takes wing with the spectacular flying sequences, directed by Anthony Squire, who had performed the same chore for David Lean with The Sound Barrier. Using replicas of Sopwiths, Fokkers, disguised modern biplanes, and other ’string and candle wax’ aircraft of the period, these are never less than exhilarating. The sparing use of models - hard to spot by the way - make for very realistic flying scenes, the biplanes and triplanes careering around the skies as mad kites, spitting machine gun fire like deadly airborne pea shooters. Towards the end of the film you see Peppard, a keen aviator, perform in his own monoplane.

The flying sequences are far better than those of The Battle of Britain, during which, the myriad problems of filming the airborne footage almost wrecked the production. Filming aircraft whose speeds were over 200 mph less than those of Hurricanes and Spitfires must have, in comparison, seemed a doddle. The ’scope cinematography by the legendary Douglas Slocombe is quite marvellous, and Jerry Goldsmith’s score is used sparingly, but his main theme in particular is one of his very best. The way his conjures up the feeling of soaring, the thrum, thrum, thrum, of engines, the thrill of victory - quite superb.

The one problem with movies in English, but seen from ‘the other side’, is the variety of accents employed. It’s easier to accept in this case, for instance, with the number of European actors in the cast, so everyone has a stab at ‘a Cherman ackzent’, except Peppard who gets by by enunciating his lines very carefully indeed… Anyhow, I’m always hugely entertained by Darren Nesbitt’s European accent, though this version is not quite as hilarious as the one he used for Where Eagles Dare. Bless. I must mention that Andress and Peppard do share the most erotic bedroom scene, which must have done wonders for fluffy white bathroom towel sales. Whatever happened to eroticism in movies?

The 150 minutes pass quite quickly. This is not a movie with any great deep meaning or message, even if it does examine the class system and the underpinnings of fame and celebrity; it’s just decent, solid entertainment.

Fox’s DVD of this film is pretty good. In anamorphic OAR, there are few instances of dirt or marks, and it’s pretty sharp with little evidence of edge enhancement. It is a little dark in places, but as I didn’t see this theatrically, I can’t confirm that this vaguely ‘antique’ look was an intentional stylistic production decision; it doesn’t detract as far as this viewer is concerned. They’ve retained the intermission screen, with Goldsmith’s original music to cover it - I love that. The only extra is a trailer. The R2, which is the subject of this review, also comes with a whole slew of subtitles and language options; you can listen in mono in English, French, German, Italian or Spanish.

*Chivalrous notions still exist; in Iraq the Americans lambasted their opponents for flying white flags, then, when US commanders stepped forward to parlez, insurgent spotters targetted them with morters. Far more chivalrous to blow people to little bits with rockets and tanks…Madness, madness…

List-o-mania August 16, 2006

Posted by John Hodson in : General , add a comment

I would love to come up with, say, a top 10 film list and be truly comfortable and happy with it; behold my mighty list, it would trumpet, this is ME, and it defines who, and what, I am. Tremble, puny mortals, ’neath it’s titantic tabulation!

Oh, I wish…

I mean, I doodle away the odd hour, and scratch out lists, say, of my favourite westerns (obviously), noirs, comedies, musicals (well, you get the idea), but then sit back and goggle at my own imbecility. How could I include (insert title ‘X’) without mentioning the quite truly fabulous (insert title ‘Y’). And how could I forget (title ‘Z’ is squeezed in here, starring whatisface; always the one, like Brad Dexter, that seems on the tip of your tongue, but hang on, you’ll get it in a minute…)

In film Fora the world over, these lists also produce the incredulous responses (and here you must adopt the tones of EL Wisty, co-founder of the late lamented ’World Domination League’) ‘I cannot believe you didn’t include / no one’s mentioned…’ which makes me leap up and down (mentally of course, hard to jump in a knackered swivel chair staring at a computer screen) in the fashion of Basil ‘I knew that you bastard. I knew it!’ Fawlty. Especially when those comments are posted six and one half minutes after you’ve finely tuned your list and determined that it cannot, will not, be improved on. And more especially when the smarmy, smug, sonofabitch is 100 per cent correct.

‘Ah, yes’ you post, ’smiley’ grimly attached to show that your demeanor is sunny, and you mean him no harm. In point of fact, your teeth are clenched so tight they squeak like nails down a blackboard, as you add: ‘thank you for that!’ What you actually want to do is reach your hand down the optical cables that connect you with this piece of ordure, and pull his bootlaces out through his lungs. The mere thought of doing so is somehow…calming. Which in itself is alarming - but I digress.

I’m like the dithering arse from The Fast Show, whose indecision is final. I look at my lists and I can feel my head starting to implode. Once upon a time there was the problem of credibility. Wot? (my brain yells loudly at me in thoughts laced with a dripping sarcasm) You haven’t included Only Two Can Play, you love that film you damned fool! But you can’t go public with that, you can’t admit to the world that you think the machinations of Peter Sellers as an oversexed Welsh librarian are more satisfying to your tiny intellect than, say, oh, Battleship bloody Potemkin? (The little known original title, by the way…) What would the neighbours think? What can I do with Krzysztof Kieslowski (what indeed)? And (suicidal thoughts now skitter nervously across my synapse) there’s not one single Iranian film in there; ALARM, ALARM - take The Band Wagon out of the list and slap down something by, let’s say, Bijan Daneshmand (big fan…). Do it now, goddammit, before you’re rumbled and carted off to Room 101! I need some bloody CREDIBILITY!!!

The brain has stopped shouting now. It’s down to a simpering, cringing whimper. Won’t. Someone. Help. Me.

Thankfully, I’m now entering that stage in life where credibility left the building long, long ago (looking a tad wan, by the way, in a stretched Hummer, snorting coke), and the neighbours can, quite frankly, go take a flying fuck. I don’t care what others think (well, not much), so that part of the angst ridden process of list creation is no longer a problem. But the list itself, of course, still is.

So a list of favourite films, covering all genres, all eras?

Not. Possible. It’s right on the schedule just above plaiting fog, and three steps down from buying a long stand. It’s a task that would defeat Hercules, Einstein and the combined robotic brains of Marvin, Mother, Colossus and Robby (you know, ‘The Robot’). How can I ever hope to produce a list that covers 1000s and 1000s of films, each of them catering at some point to my ever changing moods, and ever changing needs? Which change from hour to hour, if not minute to minute. Second to second.

Hmmm. There’s a thought. My ‘Top 10 Films for When I’m Feeling Depressed’ (feed the angst; right in at number one: Shoah), or ‘Hungry’ (Goodfellas would make it somewhere; that food pornography that Scorsese does so well), or ‘Libidinous’ (The Age of Innocence? Blonde Venus? Debbie Does Dallas?), ‘Fat’ (something from Brando’s late period I think. Anything in fact), ‘Stupid’ (Titanic makes me feel like the bastard son of Bamber Gascoigne and Germaine Greer), ‘Like Ordering a Pizza’ (Big Night. Number One, with extra anchovies), ‘Voting Liberal’ (anything by Ken Loach would be the antidote), or ‘Agreeing With Something A Tory Spokesperson Has Just Said’ (Brannigan. Knock knock…’nuff said).

This might have legs. Hang about, I feel a list (or two) coming on…

We Be Texicans August 14, 2006

Posted by John Hodson in : Film & DVD Reviews, About John Ford, Westerns , 4 comments

‘Now Lars! It just so happens we be Texicans. Texican is nothin’ but a human man way out on a limb, this year and next. Maybe for a 100 more. But I don’t think it’ll be forever. Some day, this country’s gonna be a fine, good place to be. Maybe it needs our bones in the ground before that time can come. Bedtime!’

Is it my favourite film? Well, a little like choosing the happiest day of ones life, it is, to put it mildly, a real tough call. But, yes, right now, I’d say The Searchers, John Ford’s immensely influential picture of frontier life in late 19th century Texas, is my favourite. It’s like an older, wiser friend (though it was born the same year as I) trustworthy and true, with something fresh to say, something new to see and hear every time I screen it. Which is, ah, quite often.

It’s wonderfully layered, with beautiful, but simple imagery, and it speaks just as loudly when there is no dialogue to hear. ‘Ya stupid bastard’ Ford would yell at Wayne, smacking him between the eyes (the edges of a chewed, spittle wet handkerchief no doubt adding to the Duke’s misery), ‘you act from here. Here!’ In this film, Wayne proves to Pappy that he’s learned the lessons, possibly better than either of them could have imagined.

There’s so much been written about the movie that I hesitate to add my impoverished thoughts, so I’ll keep it mercifully brief. That little speech quoted in the first paragraph, spoken by Olive Carey, is, I think, the central theme of The Searchers, and rings loud and true just as much today as it did 50 years ago. Our stupid, petty prejudices, our bile filled hates, mankind’s disdain for his fellows, is recorded in blood down the centuries and we’re a long, long way from any kind of civilisation (whatever that is). It’s an almost nihilistic outlook, Ford casting the ultimate American hero in a role where he’s anything but. Look, he’s saying, here’s the best of us; capable of the very worst.

Ethan Edwards could be a middle-aged version of Ringo, the bright-eyed tarnished knight of Stagecoach. In this case, our hero’s mantle has been knocked askew by nothing more than life itself. He’s not a born racist; ‘This country’, says a dewy-eyed Lars, shaking his head and sniffling, ‘Oh Ethan, this country…’

Edwards, a man who speaks ‘pretty good Comanche’ learned the language more than likely from the very people who became his avowed enemy, so we must assume that he’s been in very close contact with them, knowing their words, their customs. But his mother (and possibly more family members, lying in that makeshift cemetary out back of the Edwards’ home) was a victim of the war of attrition between the Native Americans and the invading white settlers. Ethan subsequently went to war to fight in one of the bloodiest, meanest, conflicts on Earth, and this man who doesn’t ‘believe in surrenders’ had to suck down the bitterest pill of defeat.

He’s even given up on God; ‘…by what you preach’ he roars disdainfully at the Reverend. Ethan Edwards’ humanity is being remorselessly chipped away, he’s becoming someone few recognise anymore, he ‘fits alot of descriptions.’

There’s one chance for him, even though he must know he’ll have to endure more pain, more suffering. And that’s to return to the little Texan shack and claim his brother’s wife as his own. Edwards knows that without her love, he’s probably damned, and this outsider is willing to become an outcast to save his own soul. Her horrific death at the hands of Scar, a Comanche war chief, pushes Ethan over the edge. It’s no accident that Ford is determined that Scar is Ethan’s doppelganger, a man who lives at the edges of his own people, a man with similar reasons to hate whites, as Ethan has to hate indians.

So Ford smudges the lines between good and evil, and in more ways than one. The old man, the author of those brilliant love letters to the military, the Cavalry trilogy, gives us two views of his beloved horse soldiers. Patrick Wayne, in possibly his most artless and believable role as a green cavalry officer, is desperate to impress Sam Clayton - and his pa (both fictional and real, one imagines) - while another deliberately faceless troop (and Ford tells us it’s the 7th Cavalry), casually and callously annihilates a Comanche village, to the tune of fife and drum; women, children and all. Good and evil exist side by side amongst us, and sometimes it’s hard to distinguish the two.

Both Ethan and Scar, then, are flint hearted racists, capable of the most callous, brutal acts (Ethan is shown taking a scalp, just as we’re beginning to believe he’s not such a bad fella; it’s a breathtaking moment) their morals, their lives, shaped by society and the country they inhabit. There’s no redemption for either of them; Ford lets Ethan return home, but he’s not permitted through the door, he’s just not fit for ‘civilised’ society. Edwards wearily turns from the camera, from the doorway, to ‘walk forever between the winds.’

It’s a version of hell. But then, in civilised society, we are, mostly, allowed the luxury of making our own.

By God, I love that film.

No Plough-boy, Tinker, Tailor’s Any Fun To Be… August 13, 2006

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

(Previously published in another form at The DVD Forums )

There’s a great Michael Powell story, but I can’t for the life of me remember who told it. It goes something like this; in the 1980s our hero goes to Hollywood for the first time, he’s on the lot for an appointment, goes into a lift and a small, dapper, elderly gent is in there with him. Our hero obviously recognises him and is beside himself - he’s with a movie God. In Hollywood. In a lift. What does he - what can he - say?

Before he can say anything, Powell starts to hum a little ditty…and it’s Abu’s theme from the beautiful The Thief of Bagdad an early Rosza score: ‘I want to be a sailor, sailing out to sea…’. Our man smiles. He’s in a lift with Michael Powell. In Hollywood. And this genius of British cinema is humming, absent-mindedly, a tune from decades previously. The door opens, Powell leaves…no words were exchanged…and our hero is left with a golden moment he’ll treasure forever.

MGM, before they were swallowed whole by Sony, were quite rightly derided for the treatment of their back catalogue of classics; sadly, since the takeover, we are still all too used to poor prints and transfers, movies in the wrong aspect ratios or presented non-anamorphically. Things have gone from bad to worse.

But the Lion was perfectly capable of some good work, and their presentation of the 66-year-old fantasy masterpiece, The Thief of Bagdad, is quite excellent.

Filmed at Denham Studios, and using locations around the Grand Canyon to substitute for parts of the world that were, at the time, made inaccesible (there was a war on, you know…), The Thief of Bagdad was a special effects spectacular. Indeed, at the following years Oscar ceremony, it scooped three statuettes, for William Cameron Menzies & Vincent Korda’s Art Direction (colour), Georges Périnal’s beautiful Technicolor cinematography and special effects (Lawrence W. Butler, photographic / Jack Whitney, sound). Miklos Roza’s wonderful score (a dry run for Ben Hur) was nominated but, unbelievably, lost out to Pinocchio.

A film of this scale boasted company credits equally as grandiose; the titles tells us that Ludwig Berger, Michael Powell & Tim Whelan directed the movies but they were, apparently, joined by Alexander & Zoltan Korda, plus William Cameron Menzies (the legendary art director who also worked on the 1924 version) all uncredited. Korda was very clearly a demanding taskmaster, as the production turned into a game of musical (directors) chairs.

The cast is spot-on. Sabu, with just the right amount of thespian artlessness as the little thief Abu, John Justin, the blighted Ahmad, June Duprez, subsituting for first choice Vivien Leigh, as the Princess and the superb Conrad Veight as an evil, and quintessential, Jaffar. The always delightful Miles Malleson not only starred as the Sultan of Basra, but wrote the screenplay, and, in the editing room, was Charlie Crichton, later of Ealing but probably as famous today for directing A Fish Called Wanda.

In short, what we are looking at is the grandaddy of today’s special effects blockbusters, a film that has a great story, heroes you can cheer for, villains you can hiss at and which stands up as a piece of timeless entertainment that will surely go on entertaining for generations to come. And it’s British.

MGM rather hustled this out on to the market at the back end of 2002 in R1, with little or no fanfare. It cartainly passed me by and I was surprised to see it available when a (computer Luddite) friend asked me to buy it for him. When he told me it was stunning, I didn’t know whether to believe him or not - can you trust a chap without a computer about anything?

Well, now having seen it myself, he’s wrong. It’s not stunning. Well, not simply stunning; it’s a (very nearly) magnificent piece of work from MGM, from the moment a perfectly preserved - and colour - London Films logo hits the screen you know you are in for a treat. The Lion must have worked from a nigh perfect print to get this pensioner of a film looking so spritely. Three strip Technicolor looks absolutely gorgeous when reproduced well on DVD; it looks horrendous when handled badly. Thank God this is the former.

The colours are vivid and true, skin tones, the sumputous sets and magnificent costumes look as if you could reach out and touch them. No, it’s not absolutely perfect, there are some compression artefacts on show, and one brief passage of colour misregistration, but it is, with that stupendous production design, for the greater percentage of the running time, genuine eye candy, parts of it on a par with Warner’s miraculous The Adventures of Robin Hood. The sound, produced from elements that obviously were not quite in such good condition, is a little dull and could do with some work, but it is not a major problem.

Perhaps the biggest problem, ironically, is those special effects, the sheer clarity of the presentation rather blunting their effect; the mattes are visible if you look close enough as are the wires holding the magic carpet, and if Rex Ingram had realised his bald cap would look so amateur hour in the 21st century, he’d have probably shaved his head. Ah, suspend your belief just a touch more and forget it, let yourself be swept up by the sheer wonderous, panto-like naivete of it - The Thief of Bagdad is a terrific, wonderfully crafted, film, beautifully presented on DVD - the lack of any kind of extras notwithstanding - and deserves a place in any serious enthusiasts collection.

I’m aware that there are now three PAL versions of the film on the market, an R4 disc (no information sadly - anyone?), a recently released version from Network in the UK (again, any opinions would be welcome - though I suspect the print MGM worked with came from the same vault, courtesy of Carlton, now Granada Ventures) and what looks to be one at least as good as the R1 on the German market - Der Dieb von Bagdad - with a few more extras than the MGM disc (which only boasts a trailer), including a 10 minute black-and-white silent movie parody Grief in Bagdad. Take your pick…

If ever a film cried out for a special edtion, it’s this. I had high hopes when Network announced this, plus two other films featuring Sabu, Elephant Boy and Jungle Book, sadly, all bereft of any kind of extras. We should, I suppose, be thankful for small mercies, that it exists in the digital arena at all, and in such good condition.

On Being English August 12, 2006

Posted by John Hodson in : Film General, British Film , 7 comments

Ten films that define my England…

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