Film Reviews by Steve

Lengthy but exciting update of Leslie Howard's classic The Scarlet Pimpernel (1934) to prewar Germany. He plays Horatio Smith, who anonymously rescues scientists and intellectuals from concentration camps while posing as a dusty professor of archeology. The star's alter-ego actually owes quite a bit to his performance as Henry Higgins in Pygmalion (1938).

The film establishes how the Nazis would portrayed during the war years: bureaucratic, uncultured, humourless and sadistic. And stupid. Of course, the British might not be militaristic, but they have wit and fair play on their side. At times it feels like the Brits plan to triumph through charming self deprecation.

It is surprisingly elitist. Smith's aim isn't actually to defend democracy, but save the great men who create history. Yes, the ubermensch. But the film does work as propaganda. Smith is the personification of presumed British values and culture and he continually bests the blundering Gestapo, while dropping quotes from Shakespeare and Rupert Brooke.

It is a patriotic thriller. Howard gives a fine performance, and becomes a mythic figure of justice towards the end of the film, cloaked in shadows, firing off rounds of sweet sounding rhetoric. It was a morale booster made at a time when the war wasn't going well. And it mysteriously captures an aura of anxiety, and of jeopardy.

Classy spy thriller set in the Orkneys during WWI, but released with UK on the precipice of another war. It would be a while until we again saw a good German on a British screen. Conrad Veidt plays a U-boat skipper sent to the Scottish isles to plan an attack on British warships, in cahoots with a phoney schoolmistress (Valerie Hobson).

This is espionage, so people are not always what they seem, but the captain is portrayed as a sensitive, educated and capable professional. The best part of the film is the developing relationship between the two stars as they plot in a remote, windswept schoolhouse. After the cast embarks for a shoot out at sea, it becomes less exciting, though there is a final ironic twist.

Veidt is an imposing presence, but the screen is dominated by the imperious, elegant Hobson. There are themes which were inescapable in the coming WWII films, such as the dangers of careless talk or trusting strangers. There is shadowy coastal photography and a tense orchestral score (by Miklós Rózsa), which bring the atmosphere.

The film is significant as the first collaboration between Michael Powell, and its co-scriptwriter Emeric Pressburger, which sparked a decade of some of the greatest films ever made. It's an improvement from Powell's earlier work; uneven, but intelligent and witty. The trace of Hitchcock doesn't obscure the duo's own unique signature.

Cheerful spy comedy which matched up theatre stars Ralph Richardson and Laurence Olivier. But this isn't an acting masterclass. It's fast talking hijinks with Ralph as the ebullient secret service officer and Larry as the waspish, moody test pilot who snap laconic witticisms at each other in cut glass accents.

These government agents are so posh, Valerie Hobson is able to pass as a tea lady. The lower orders are mostly represented by a superb comedy butler. It is very funny, in a British screwball style. The plot is perfunctory, with mysterious spies stealing hi-tech planes, and the three stars out to track them down, climaxing with a punch up at sea.

The crisp wisecracks and Richardson's comic aplomb are the main attractions. Apparently his undercover fixer from the ministry in a bowler hat was the model for Stead in The Avengers. Olivier is disengaged, but Hobson brings a lot of elegant fizz as a proto-Sloane Ranger/reporter who pugnaciously spars with Larry before deciding to marry him.

This is one of the pre-WWII thrillers that hint at the coming hostilities, but don't yet name the enemy. Though the baddies have pretty thick German accents. Still, with hostilities are only weeks away, it doesn't take itself at all seriously. This is end-of-the-pier frivolity. At least the British sense of humour was in good shape and ready to go.

Though this is promoted as a Will Hay vehicle, it is really a showcase for the special synergy of the comic ensemble he formed with Moore Marriott and Graham Moffatt. There is barely a moment when the trio are not on screen together, engaged in inspired, screwy, petty squabbling.

Sidney Gilliat's story is standard, but durable. The threesome are policemen in a sleepy coastal village. Head office plans to close their station due to lack of crime, so the hapless bobbies start a smuggling racket to give themselves something to investigate. This brings the coppers into conflict with real smugglers who operate a ghostly headless horseman to keep away the curious...

What is remarkable though, even for a peak Will Hay film, is how many gags the writers cram into every minute of screen time. That's Marriott Edgar and Val Guest. It never flags. Even the inevitable extended chase sequence at the climax of the film is better than usual, and recalls the slapstick of the silent era.

It's the Will Hay formula in a different hat. But the trio burn through so much hilarious foolery. They are like grotesque, fearful children, out of their depth in the ordinary world. Not even all that admirable; Will Hay's persona is one of the great connivers. Another film and Hay would leave Marriott and Moffatt to fight screen Nazis. But without getting close to this quality.

This unique combination of oddball comedy, football and whodunit adds up to one of the great British cult films. After an extended action sequence on the field at Highbury where one of visiting players is murdered, we are introduced to the inspector (Leslie Banks) who is training his officers for a drag show.

So policemen in tutus becomes a recurring feature. Banks is (in my opinion) often quite a grey presence in early British films, but here he is a revelation as a strange, quirky flamboyance freely escapes his buttoned up exterior. There is a trace of camp, but not enough to dominate.

The film is more surreal, with the actual legendary Arsenal side of the '30s up against a team of proper actors speaking their inhibited pre-war received pronunciation. One of them is a killer, and the chief suspect is played by an unrecognisably handsome Brian Worth! Yes, a very young Foggy Dewhurst. The performances are comically stiff, by design.

The mystery is fine. The football setting is offbeat. The pantomime humour is a riot. The film is a testament to that strand of eccentricity often present in British comedy. And the breezy brass band soundtrack just enhances this feeling of oddness. There is an impression of the director throwing everything at the screen. And it all sticks. 

Atmospheric and gripping adaptation of Richard Llewellyn's debut play about a flood of poison pen letters which deliver scandal and then tragedy to a sleepy village. It's one of those classic English communities of the thirties, set in the pub, church and post office, where all classes are represented and everyone knows their station.

And the very engrossing mystery is, who is writing these letters? Flora Robson is excellent as a lonely spinster and pillar of the community. Ann Todd is incredibly posh as the young gal about to be married whose plans are threatened by lies. Among the familiar support cast, only Robert Newton as an incredibly dumb yokel fails to score.

With war imminent, it would be a few years before we would see the English presented as pessimistically as this. The villagers quickly become a vengeful mob, which leads to suicide in a bell tower. Despite the standard rat-a-tat of deadpan humour, this is a dark picture, all the way down to the sombre, ingenious resolution.

Llewellyn's premise was stolen in 1943 for Le Corbeau, by the French Hitchcock, Henri-Georges Clouzot. While Paul Stein wasn't an acclaimed auteur and mostly directed quota quickies, I actually prefer Poison Pen. It moves faster. There's a splendid ensemble of character actors. But most of all, Flora Robson brings unexpected psychological depth.

Ultra-sentimental melodrama set among the buskers who live off London's theatre district in the depression. The film opens with a montage of the West End and a soundtrack that can't help drifting into Rhapsody in Blue. It's a Broadway melody, but set in England; a story of the laughter and tears of the the big parade.

Charles Laughton is a middle aged veteran of the colourful slums who falls in love with Vivien Leigh, a skinny teenage waif he meets while she lifts Rex Harrison's cigarette case. They form a street act, until she makes it on the legitimate stage and leaves him behind to the bottle. It's shamelessly corny and Laughton overacts without impediment (he co-produced).

At times, his performance feels like a rehearsal for the hunchback. The film ends with him reciting 'If' to an indifferent theatre audience, and we blink away a tear... And yet, it is fabulously entertaining. Laughton and Leigh have tremendous rapport and while they play to the very back row, it's easy to get swept up in their chutzpah.

There are flavourful sets and lots of low-rent atmosphere as the street performers get squeezed out by the gentrification of the West End. The glorious lack of realism is its chief merit. All is comedy or tragedy in life's great pageant. It's an irresistible, though rather rich indulgence.

British comedy in the thirties was dominated by acts who progressed from the music hall to the big screen. And Will Hay made this transition better than anyone. His trademark was the officious incompetent who takes charge and spreads calamity while blaming everyone else. He was the boss of this archetype.

In Oh, Mr. Porter he is a station master sent to Northern Ireland so he would at least cause mayhem as far away from head office as possible. There he finds the station under the wily local rules of Hay's usual sidekicks, Moore Marriott and Graham Moffatt. The best, funniest aspect of the film is the three comedians riffing off each other.

There are many great gags in this inspired bickering (Val Guest was among the writers). As so often with comedy films, the laughs thin out when the plot gets going. And this wouldn't be the first (or last) film where stories of a haunting are spread to hide the activities of a criminal gang. But the fight and chase sequences are more imaginative than most.

Hay was the finest pre-war comedy actor in British films and Moore Marriott a brilliant foil, who gets too little recognition. Neither quite reached the same heights in other partnerships. Oh, Mr. Porter is their masterpiece, and among the greatest ever British comedies.

This rousing adaptation of AJ Cronin's medical drama was made by MGM in England because Robert Donat was unwilling to transfer to Hollywood. And in King Vidor, the studio provided an American director familiar with social realist cinema. Together they made the great British political film of the thirties.

Donat is a working class doctor whose career takes him from the coalfields of Wales to Harley Street and finds medicine is obstructed by ignorance, inequality, insufficiency and vested interest. And among the wealthy, even by the mercenary medics themselves. Through Ralph Richardson's reformed whisky-doctor, the film makes a case for national insurance.

At the climax, Donat gives one of his trademark orations. It feels a missed opportunity that this is about professional elitism rather than the case for social medicine. Of the support cast, Richardson brings energy and Rex Harrison is most convincing as a materialistic narcissist with a clientele of rich old ladies.

Rosalind Russell has little to do as the doctor's wife, but does it with charm. It's Donat's film. He is convincing both as an idealist fighting for the poor, and the dilettante who gives up. Though it takes a line of dialogue to assure us that his accent is Scottish. One of many quality political films by King Vidor, though it's a shock to find that MGM campaigned for an NHS!

After retiring from monster movies, Boris Karloff spent about a decade in Mad Doctor roles, invariably transplanting brains or personalities between screaming victims. Here he swaps identities between monkeys. So how long before he is doing the same experiment with humans, particularly those who obstruct his ambitions?

And how much worse if he is a crazy megalomaniac? Karloff lisps the immortal line, 'They said I was mad' right at the start, and then he really goes nuts. Anna Lee is his attractive assistant, voicing her mounting reservations in an incredibly pristine Received Pronunciation, typical of the English screen back then.

This is the best of Karloff's mad scientist films. It is not a prestigious production, but better budgeted than usual for this genre. The stalwart cast plays it straight. There's a lot of atmosphere in the old dark house. But best of all is the dry, funny script, which Sidney Gilliat worked on: 'I don't mind dying, but I won't be accused of journalism'!

Once Karloff gets into his stride, swapping the minds of most of the credited actors, the film becomes enormous fun. The excellent score does plenty of heavy lifting. And the editors do fine work. Maybe this was intended as horror, but really it is science fiction, and in the '30's it was British cinema which did most to keep sci-fi alive.

HG Wells co-wrote this adaptation of his short story about a placid everyman who suddenly finds whatever he wishes for comes true. It feels like a dramatised essay, as the hero's potential to create a utopia comes into conflict with vested interest which benefits from the masses suffering lives of poverty and war.

Wells is especially tough on capitalism which he describes as the exploitation of want. But he also takes on religion, politics and the military. Eventually he predicts George Orwell aphorism that absolute power corrupts absolutely and the world ends up with something close to totalitarianism.

Roland Young plays a dull fellow with a want of imagination, stuck in a dead end job. He meets a series of antagonists who challenge his new found powers. Ralph Richardson stands out as an irascible army officer who finds his weapons optimistically changed to ploughshares. The tone of the film is comical, but more whimsical than hilarious.

For the miracle effects, producer Alexander Korda brought in specialists from Hollywood, and these are the real standout of the film. The scene at the climax when a palace assembles around the cast is quite spectacular. It's the visual ambition which makes this fantasy much more than an interesting idea for The Twilight Zone.

Landmark science fiction behemoth adapted by HG Wells from his own novel, which looks into the next hundred years. It's significant that the director was usually an art director because the most memorable aspects of the film are the extraordinary, huge sets of the cities of the future. The oratorical acting of the cast is of lesser interest.

Wells goes straight into the blitz, and then predicts a long period of continual warfare and the breakdown of civilisation brought on by diseases triggered by biological weapons. Mankind regresses into another dark age. This is the most interesting part of the film, and anticipates the dystopia of post nuclear films.

Tribal warfare is eventually replaced by a new scientific order of democracy and equality, which is never entirely free of superstition. The actors exchange long editorials which are sometimes interesting, but not very cinematic. Perhaps Wells might have collaborated with an experienced screenwriter, but these oddities are part of the attraction.

Though the film is long winded, Alexander Korda's production is never less than magnificent, including the rousing score by Arthur Bliss. The vision is pessimistic, which is understandable in a country sliding into another major war. But the story ends with humans about to explore space, and the possibility of a brave new world in the stars.

The principal interest of Rome Express is that the story and some of the dialogue was written by Sidney Gilliat and it is obviously a run out for his co-script on the classic train thriller The Lady Vanishes. And while it isn't in the same class as the Alfred Hitchcock film, it is still an engaging watch, with a lively score.

The MacGuffin is a stolen Van Dyke which is stowed on an overnight train (with dining car) from Paris to Rome full of British character actors (and Conrad Veidt) playing a range of mysterious eccentrics and heavies. The painting is limited as a focus of suspense as most of the passengers aren't involved in its theft or discovery.

Still, the cast is colourful, though the characterisations are broad; Gordon Harker plays the most boring man in the world, and Cedric Hardwicke is among the most unpleasant. Like in The Lady Vanishes there's an eloping couple (married, but not to each other) who refuse to get involved in the mystery. But sadly- no Charters and Caldicott.

Typical of early talkies, the camera rarely moves. And like most British films of the thirties, the accents are very theatrical, which pick up well on the primitive microphones, but make the exchanges rather stiff. Maybe the working classes can't afford tickets. It's a dated film, but it has momentum and still entertains.

Leisurely, low budget thriller which was the solo directing debut of cult British director Thorold Dickinson. The lack of money on screen is obvious, but the producer did manage to send a crew out to Ghana to shoot on location which is expertly cut into the studio footage to help lift the film out of the ordinary.

Though dated, there is evidence of real craft here, with intelligent editing, occasional noirish photography, visual wit and imaginative use of sound. The art direction is good and there's decent dialogue. Performances are quite theatrical, but engaging, with a fine early role for James Mason.

And it's great to hear the evocative tones of Lucie Mannheim (the spy who died in Robert Donat's flat in The 39 Steps). Lionel Atwill is a stolid lead, an army man who has a scandal in his past which follows him to a malaria hospital in North West Africa. There is a strong impression of place, and the contrast between local traditions and those imported by the British.

Dickinson satirises the occupation, but not enough to trigger the censors. Despite the slow pacing, this is an engrossing and atmospheric mystery, set in British colonial Africa. I doubt much was riding on this production, but the talent of the director and crew made an interesting film out of familiar melodrama.

British cinema wasn't a golden age in the 1920s. And Shooting Stars isn't as lavish as the great Hollywood feature films of the silent era, but it compares extremely well on quality. AV Bramble was a journeyman of pre-sound cinema and Anthony Asquith a key director of British films, so it is tempting to regard this as Asquith's film.

This was his debut, and he co-wrote the story about a love triangle on a film shoot. Brian Aherne plays a handsome and likeable leading man who is in love with the tempestuous star of the British screen (Annette Benson)... who is his wife.  But she falls for an affable sad/funny man (Donald Calthorp) who makes slapstick in a bowler hat.

The diva plans to kill her husband by swapping a live cartridge for the dummy in the studio rifle. Then leave for Hollywood. Shooting Stars is a brilliant satire on the film business which handles the drama very well too. There is wonderful mobile, expressionist photography. The trio of leads give intelligent and absorbing performances. 

There is so much fascinating detail of British cinema and London society in the twenties, and visual insight into the characters and their motivations. Intuitive connections are made between the actors and their personas; and fiction and real life. It's an early film about film. And the final scene, with that last shot, is a triumph.