Film Reviews by AW

For the first episode of this SPRING & AUTUMN I got a complete sense of deja vu. I've recently seen SEVEN IN ONE, a series of one off short 'skits' (I suppose you call them). I thought they might be potential ideas for series....all with the venerable Ronnie Barker as the main character as the first ones were the main ideas that blossomed into his PORRIDGE and OPEN ALL HOURS. In the particular episode called MY OLD MAN Ronnie's a cantankerous old codger Sam Cobbett, a retired train driver, who's being evicted from his condemned terrace home & is supposed to go to live in a modern 70s high rise with his daughter & her husband (who really doesn't want Dad intruding on their life). Dad doesn't like or understand modern conveniences.

I found the RonnieB MY OLD MAN was later made into a 1974 series with Clive Dunn & Priscilla Morgan... also entitled MY OLD MAN.

To my surprise, and for a completely different reason, I ordered this series called SPRING AND AUTUMN (1972-1976) on CP which I only vaguely knew the premise of, as it featured Jimmy Jewel...the first episode on the disc was almost word for word the same script as MY OLD MAN.

Oh my, I thought. So they went on and did a completely different series on the same premise - a lonely old man not entirely welcome in his daughter's house? Only this time he's named Tommy and he befriends a 12 y.o. boy. All very kind and innocent as it could be in the 70s but at the end of the 2nd episode septuagenarian Tommy meets this lad, who thinks he needs to run away from home, in a bus shelter and goes off with him, arm around shoulder, to buy him a fish&chip supper. Gulp. These days it would automatically be reverse assumed to demonstrate more sinister intentions. And that's sad because the next few episodes are actually sweet and poignant, no smutty stuff, just a spring/autumn friendship of a lad growing up and an old codger blossoming as a less curmudgeonly man who thought he had nothing to look forward to in retirement, discovering many new sides to life from the lads perspective.

Episode 2 on this disc is re-filmed slightly differently in colour and setting, with the husband played by the same Larry Martyn and the daughter/wife changed to be played by June Barry.

I wasn't sure I'd like this by then, but it redeemed itself.

Give it a whirl. Classic 70s comedy.

Highly innovative premise in this 70s production, written by multi-talented Jeremy Lloyd (who was also one half of pop duo Chad & Jeremy) with laconic looking funnyman Lance Percival.

Multiple well known actors of the period have a lot of fun contributing to a short set piece containing a murder - whereupon sympathetic moderator Pertwee leads a panel of celebrities who then have to deduce Whodunnit?

Lots of long hair, flares, 70s makeup, big jewelry and colours. Patrick Mower, Anouska Hempel and Jackie Collins are amongst others on the panel who are just having fun.

Light viewing. Loved it.

Actually surprised to note this over 10 year old and 3-part series has no review as yet on here (7thJan2023) as I found it very interesting.

Yes it's a loose dramatisation of the true events, with an always interesting assumption of the real family dynamics behind the scenes.

Greg Kinnear is great as JFK with Katie Holmes a very creditable Jackie lookalike but the stand out for me was Barry Pepper, a face I didn't know, as JFK's younger brother Bobby, the Attorney General during his administration. Englishman Tom Wilkinson was strangely cast as the scheming Daddy Joseph P Kennedy, a Kingmaker figure, but he does a good job. The Kennedys were as near royalty as you can get in the U S. of A. but they had some dreadful tragedies en famille to contend with. It's hard to credit too that JFK only managed just short of 3 years in office yet is one of the best known of all Presidents, during a time of dissent and international upheaval. You see the anguish of the difficult decisions Jack had to make. Plus everyone over 60 knows exactly where they were in 1963 when Kennedy was shot in Dallas.

Found it slightly uneven and rushed in episodes 7&8 concluding the series, I thought there was a bit of deja vu in there, was sure I was seeing repeats of sections already shown previously, but I enjoyed it nevertheless.

Another in the large cabal of JFK biographies of the man and the death and the ensuing legend.

Switch International, World Wide Entertainment production claimed to be the Unauthorized story of the family & voiced by a rather dreary Australian sounding narrator and Creative Director (whatever that is) Marilyn Higgins, who frankly set my teeth on edge when pronouncing things she really should have known better or checked, simple things such as LA's Wilshire Blvd, Henry Cabot Lodge and Edgartown (on Martha's Vineyard). Unforgivable.

Two biographical sections: The JFK Assassination which really only touches briefly on the run down from the incident, and a Bonus: The Kennedy Curse, a 6 chapter section on the family, their political aspirations starting with dad Joseph P, One Trauma After Another, The Effects of JFK's Assassination, Bobby's Death and the Chappaquiddick Incident.

Deals much more with the general history of the Kennedy family members who between them covered 64 years in US government.

The perceived Kennedy "curse", that incredible run of bad luck in their personal fates (where sadly only a few died of natural causes) is explored.

There were some other very interesting revelations that I hadn't heard previously, such as the cause of elder brother Joe's downing of his plane in WWII, Bobby surviving some time after being shot in 1968, and the name of JFK's 4th child.

Apparently a last minute change was made to the motorcade routing in Dallas that fateful day that led them down Elm St past Dealey Plaza - so how come the professed Lone Gunman, LHO was there ready and waiting, in the Texas School Book Depository?

Interesting but quite short, about an hour.

Half hour episodes.

Nice and gentle Canadian cop series with a dog, a very clever German Shepherd. Filmed in Newfoundland and Labrador, interesting for the location views themselves. Not familiar with any of the actors, but Hudson (John Reardon) fits his role nicely, and is not bad eye candy. Apparently he's a very single minded singleton in the Major Crimes unit, solving mysteries with the help of his trusty 4-legged companion.

I got Disc 2, not entirely remembering if I'd sampled H&R before (actually I was thinking of an Australian cop and hound series) Rex' real dog name is Diesel vom Burgimwald. Very majestic.

Hudson's colleagues are all competant and they're fairly solid mysteries too.

To be honest, what's not to like?

Somehow Dick Francis's racing themed novels never translated well to the small screen and sometimes it's hard to see why as they're cracking mysteries. DF had a huge following and fans still flocked to the books when his son Felix was co-authoring them in the years before Dick died in 2010, but Felix has set out competently on his own using the tried and trusted formula.

This ITV series was short lived - only 6 episodes - assume it fared poorly in the ratings - have no idea what it was up against at the time, but these things happened.

Episodes are: Odds Against, Trackdown, Gambling Lady, Horses for Courses, Horsenap, and Needle. They're standalone stories and aren't too shabby.

There were only ever 3 Sid Halley books (the last one written well after 1979 when these were presumably being written or filmed) and this series I felt did reasonably well in developing the character of retired jockey Sid. Mike Gwilym's portrayal is sympathetic and at times touching especially when he's struggling with the new prosthetic hand. Chico Barnes, the karate expert and his partner in crime made a curious team with amusing banter as they criss-cross the racing world investigating horse related crimes.

Shy well away from the later appalling hash-ups of DF stories featuring Ian McShane as 'investigator David Cleveland'. If you like Ian, wallow instead in the diamond luxury of the later LOVEJOY series instead.

Picture quality reproduction here is rather grainy but don't let it put you off. Sid gets a sympathetic and brave girlfriend ( the pretty Anne Zelda) in one episode so I thought it might go somewhere but she mysteriously never appears again. Interestingly the last episode 'Needle' features the real 3 times Grand National winner Red Rum as a kidnapped racehorse. Now that's class!

Gainsborough Pictures working of a play written by Arnold Ridley , best known in his later years as Private Godfrey in Dad’s Army. This play has been a stalwart on stage for many years. I think I’ve seen two versions so far. Like all good mysteries, you shouldn’t remember the exact minutiae of the plot so that the script can be endlessly tinkered with to allow a single fixed set onstage, but here we have the luxury of multiple scenes, ON a train, OFF a train, ON the tracks, and IN a tunnel.

BBC radio comedian Arthur Askey was put into this film as the main star, possibly in an attempt to inject some humour into what is generally a perfectly constructed serious thriller. I began to wonder if perhaps it was a exercise in lifting cinema viewers’ spirits with dabs of comedy in the 2nd year of the war, but ultimately I felt it detracted from the suspense that should be mounting as the passengers deal with spending an unexpected night in the already spooky, rundown wayside station of Fal Vale. After all this IS a ghost story.

Askey’s partner on radio before the war and a foil for his somewhat annoying dialogue and jerky antics was the tall Richard “Stinker” Murdoch (and so listed in the credits – apparently the nickname Askey gave him that followed him most of his life) who was latterly known for his role as Uncle Tom, the brief-less barrister in chambers in Rumpole of the Bailey.

It’s ultimately an OK story, despite the script changes to accommodate the bumbling Askey. Other characters included Raymond Huntley, Peter Murray-Hill (marred to star Phyllis Calvert), Carole Lynne (who was a Lady, married to Lord Bernard Delfont) and Linden Travers (elder sister of Born Free’s Bill Travers). Offhand I did not recognise the other ladies, Betty Jardine or Katherine Harrison – but then so many were contract players for the studios and probably jogged along with busy careers. Carol Reed was due to direct but in the end the job was given to Walter Forde who had made another film version 10 years earlier. That one apparently was discovered after being missing for many years, but was in a poor state. I don’t know if that is now available to view – just thank goodness for film restoration specialists who are keen to get hold of any of these old complete films or TV shows and bring them to a new audience. That so many pieces in the long history of film have been lost through sheer neglect is astonishing. Even TV episodes and made-for-TV films up to the late 70s and into the 80s simply were not preserved or even considered worthy of keeping by institutions like the BBC – the masters were just chucked out. This film version is not wholly bad and may be worth a watch if you like 40s B&W movies. Askey doesn’t completely ruin it, in my head I briefly tried interposing fall-about Norman Wisdom in the role – oh heavens, No! Aargh – it really would have lacked any credulity. In the theatre it was much more scary.

Yes, I wondered what the heck the title meant too! That's what drew me to it.

At the begining of this film the main character goes to a takeaway to get a BUNNY CHOW. And no, no rabbits were harmed in this transaction nor any rabbit meat used!

Bunny chow is a distinctive South African fast food consisting of any kind of curry mix contained in a hollowed out round bread loaf. The boys are seen eating it communally with their fingers. I'd love to try it - but the film was still boring and incomprehensible.

2014. The question is: "How far would you go?"

Gritty, dark, and moving drama. The two top Danish Nicholajs (Coster-Waldau as the cop and Lie-Kaas as the wonderfully repellent tattooed, violent, druggie Tristan) are both great. May Andersen as the drug-addled partner was entirely convincing but I had a problem believing cop Andreas's beautiful wife Maria Bonnevie's descent into what was probably severe PostNatal Depression, since there was very little obvious visual story lead up to it until her abuse of their baby is shown in Andreas' assumption flashbacks.

***POSSIBLE SPOILER*** What really irked me was once the deceased infant was found it was xrayed but clearly not DNA tested which I would have thought would have been normal, thus proving it wasn't the child of the detective. The assumption that all baby boys look the same is stretching it a bit. No body marks, moles, hair or eye colour differences of any kind? Pull the other one.

Also, as in so many foreign films with subtitles, especially Scandinavian ones, the spoken languages are sometimes different but you're never given a sense of it. At least it's not "speaks in a foreign language" as so many lazy film subtitles do.

After a wife's death the parents arrive and are clearly Swedish and speaking Swedish (even I recognised that from knowledge of the language plus from Swede Peter Haber as the Dad - he played Sjowall & Wahloo's eponymous Martin Beck for years from the late 90s) but you're not given that relevant info. I think some actors and characters can manage to switch to speaking/comprehending a 2nd or 3rd language but the languages are only semi-similar; my Swedish friend says she can never make out Danish and always needs the subtitles! Ouch.

This is a wonderful, very funny, clever series, from 1979 onwards, in 10 series. The dialogue zings. Brilliant writing by Peter Tilbury. Hywel Bennett plays James Shelley, with Belinda Sinclair a wonderful foil as his girlfriend then wife. To start out they're living in a bedsit rented from "Mrs. H" (the inimitable Josephine Tewson). Shelley's interactions with the Job Centre, the Tax and dole offices are cracking verbal exchanges. Shelley moves from fiance to husband to ex-husband in series 1-6, all the while cleverly resisting any type of real work wherever possible. It then moves on to The Return of Shelley from 1988 in Series 7-10, when apparently he's been away teaching language for 5 years in the Middle East and returns to find a new world of yuppiehood in the UK. He reluctantly rents from the posh couple nextdoor, snooty Carol (Caroline Langrishe) and Graham, a dim city trader. We even think he's reformed again when he applies for a job in the Foreign Office and to his astonishment gets it, but the exchange between him and the FO hotshot (the excellent Geoffrey Chater) behind a desk I found an absolute hoot.

I never knew about the original programme in the 70s-80s (being overseas myself) so it's a real treat finding this series and binge watching it via CP.

Give it a go yourself, it's totally worth it.

Jeremy Brett was by far the best incarnation of the titular character. Strangely enough, apart from Conan Doyle's need for a 'friend' to chronicle the investigative methods of the clever amateur detective, I never quite understood why Holmes was so clingingly friendly with or tolerant of the good doctor nor how the endlessly patient Mrs Hudson tolerated Holmes sometimes black moods.

Oh well.

More or less binge-watched this as I'd never seen the series when first broadcast. Clever storylines about the hapless but grouchy Meldrew as he suffers mounting frustrations after being forced into retirement after losing his job to mechanisation. Annette Crosbie as his long suffering wife is a perfect foil.

Loved this series with Nicholas Ball as the cockney ex-cop turned private detective James "Jim" Hazell, created by Gordon Williams and ex footballer Terry Venables. There are 3 books by the pair.

Series 1 has been available for a while but Series 2 was never made available for ages.

FYI: Episode 1 was transmitted Jan 1978 and last episode transmitted January 1980.

Hazell's boss Dot Wilmington (the wonderful Barbara Young) is one tough cigarette smokin' cookie who runs an agency and rents him a room that he's constantly unable to pay for, so sends him out on jobs. He gets totally hassled by a By The Book Det. Inspector "Choc" Minty.

Celia Gregory as Vinnie Rae the lady enforcer with 2 dobermans provides glamour and a bit of love interest and Desmond McNamara is great as his streetwise cousin Tel. Urbanely handsome James Faulkner as Gordon Gregory also gets him cases.

Pamela Stephenson appeared in one episode.

She ultimately went on to marry Ball for a while but is better known now as the wife of comedian Billy Connolly.

Fantastic theme tune sung by Maggie Bell.

I really enjoyed this one first time round in the cinema then 6 mos later to pick up on the clues and the route to resolution that I missed. It holds up well and unlike many contemporary films I'd be happy to re-view it in another 6 mos.

The main stars (Jamie Lee C., M.Shannon, D. Johnson and T.Collette) are excellent and repulsive characters at the same time, the real standout is Ana de Armas. She was lovely, an entirely new face to me but she carried the film admirably. She ought to go far.

Oh boy, Daniel C took a lot of getting used to with a flat N'Orleans drawl. He could have had any accent including his own or the character been dragged in from anywhere and not ruined the plot. For heaven's sake WHY?

Harlan Thrombey (what a strange name??) or masterful Christopher Plummer had every right to be vengeful of this nasty family but then half of them were his, his responsibility....and the method of despatch seemed a bit drastic.

What a weirdo house, who'd ever want to keep it, never mind live in it - but really they were all fighting for division of the spoils, and he knew it.

The last scene however was brilliant karma. Excellent.

A German-produced English-narrated expose that interviews Alexander Haig and former FBI and CIA agents plus Mexican and Cuban Security service agents, giving rather vague reports but all concluding that Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone assassin, groomed and apparently happily willing to knock out the President of the USA on the orders of the US's grand enemy, Fidel Castro.

Shows the usual well known black and white newsreel footage of the Dallas motorcade, LHW's murder, & Kennedy's funeral, but this is the first time I have been aware of any post-mortem pictures of Oswald.

Trouble is, there are still too many conspiracy theories out there, including the possible collusion of CIA head GeoWBush and LBJ himself, plus the angle and frequency of the shots when LHW was known to be a lousy shot, really don't convince, so I reserve judgement on this.