Film Reviews by Steve

Douglas Sirk's final American film is his best. It's a remake of the old Fannie Hurst best seller, revised for the era of black civil rights. Lana Turner becomes a big Broadway star while behind the scenes, Juanita Moore brings up both their daughters. The only way they can be together for mutual benefit, is for Juanita to act as the black maid, even though she isn't paid.

While bringing up the actor's child (Sandra Dee), she suffers the agonies of her own (Susan Kohler) who finds she can 'pass for white'. But this is a mirage. The reality is that her race will always limit her freedom. It is brilliantly acted, particularly by Moore as the black mother for whom American apartheid has been a lifelong trauma. This sounds like a soap. And it is, to a point.

 But the story suddenly mutates. Lana comments that she never knew Juanita had friends, and the 'maid' replies: 'You never asked'. And then the film becomes an overwhelming demonstration of the invisibility of black American lives in '50s America. This is a symphony of emotion conducted by Sirk to a conclusion which is so moving it is painful.

It has the opulence and glamour typical of Sirk's Universal melodramas. Lana wears a lot of fabulous gowns and diamonds in picture perfect domesticity. But never before has he exposed a sickness in American life with such passion. It is both subtle, yet operatic. It's a heartbreaker, but without the fundamental realism, it would be too much. It never falters. It is an extraordinary experience.

This stands apart from the rest of Douglas Sirk's melodramas for Universal in the fifties most obviously as it is in black and white, and because it focuses on a male protagonist. But it satirises the materialism of the American suburban middle class just as succinctly.

Fred MacMurray plays an affluent husband and father of a certain age who begins to feel stifled. He has become the financial support system to three awful kids and an indifferent wife (Joan Bennett). Temptation arrives with a visit from an old colleague (Barbara Stanwyck) who has been carrying a torch for him over many years.

This is Fred MacMurray's best performance. He's not cast against type as he was successfully by Billy Wilder, but he feels like the inevitable culmination of the sitcom dads he played over many years, but here, grotesquely trapped. He is identified, quite hideously, with the sci-fi robot his toy business is rolling out to the American market.

 This is a slender, compact film which focuses minutely on the condition of its distressed hero. Sirk tells us that the conventions of American society mass produce depressed, maladjusted people. Watching MacMurray being pinned by degrees to a profound emotional pain, purely through getting everything that he ever wanted, is actually quite distressing.

Gorgeous adaptation of Tennessee Williams' Pulitzer Prize winning play benefits enormously from its beautiful stars Elizabeth Taylor and Paul Newman. It was substantially changed from Broadway because of problems with censorship, and also to give the film a more upbeat resolution.

Big Daddy (Burl Ives) is dying and the awful family of his elder son goes head to head with Maggie (the Cat) to inherit the estate, just as her husband, the younger son (Newman), takes to the bottle. Taylor as Maggie in her beautiful Grecian dress looks like another possession, something brought back from a trip abroad. We encounter no love in this opulent mansion, only materialism and greed.

There's a vacuum in the heart of film left by the removal of any references to the alcoholic son's homosexuality, which nothing else fills. What remains is poetic melodrama with many great lines and reflections of the themes of mendacity and endurance. Music is used to great effect to evoke past lives. And sex is approached quite directly for the period.

Like most fifties screen drama, it looks stunning. And not just its stars. The use of colour is sensual and the sets are eloquent. Taylor and Newman are exceptional as those classic Williams archetypes, the frightened, wounded souls adrift in an ocean of corruption, surrounded by monsters.

MGM drafted in the ranks of British expats, for this exuberant telling of the Charles Dickens classic. Ronald Colman even shaved off his trademark moustache to play the complicated tragic hero Sidney Carton. He is charismatic and sympathetic and the calm centre of much flamboyant character acting. Basil Rathbone also makes a mark as the tyrannical aristocrat, Evrémonde.

 It is full of historical detail that brings to life all the social strata of Paris and London in the brutal regimes of the eighteenth century. The grave-robbers, the bankers, the highwaymen... The sets are magnificent and the action scenes hugely ambitious, particularly the storming of the Bastille by a cast of many thousands.

 The main weakness is the oddly un-starry casting of B-film stalwart Elizabeth Allen as Lucie Manette. Perhaps the second half of the film isn't quite as stunning as the first as it cuts the rich historical detail in order to get the story done. But it is easily the best of the run of classic European historical adventure yarns produced by Hollywood in the '30s.

 And it is the ultimate adaptation of this thrilling story. It's curious that MGM presented this film of a starving proletariat sparking a revolution to an American public suffering the Great Depression. Maybe it's plausible to read it as support for Roosevelt's New Deal? But primarily, this is an exciting, inspiring and flavourful spectacle.

Frank Capra's cherished classic didn't make a profit, and was released to a critical shrug. Strange that a film about sacrifice should underwhelm a world coming out of war. Today, Harry Bailey, Bedford Falls and Pottersville are paradigms. Now, it's curious that eventually America embraced so tightly such a nakedly socialist film.

The plot is like Charles Dickens wrote the Twilight Zone. George Bailey (James Stewart) has reached the end of himself. Having sacrificed his life for others, he faces financial destruction and decides that suicide would be the best way out. After a bang on the head, and a couple of drinks, he is confronted by a guardian angel and the world as it would have been had he never lived...

 So far, so whimsical. The film though manages to absorb its undoubted sentimentality in the utter desolation of its premise; Bailey entirely squeezed of his dreams until he is standing on that bridge in the darkness of his home town, staring down with fear into the void of the river.

 Hard to imagine that anyone but Capra could have done this. And that cast... It is an extraordinarily emotional experience, and a sustainedly bleak encounter that ultimately offers up an overwhelming catharsis. But it is also the film where Capra finally got swallowed up in the shadows. His famous ending is an act of mercy. We are all living in Pottersville now. 

Sentimental and nostalgic account of the immigrant experience in early 20th century San Francisco from the perspective of an extended family of Norwegian settlers. It mostly focuses on their heroic matriarch, irresistibly played by Irene Dunne.

 It doesn't dwell on the negative experiences of many expatriates. There is no indication of prejudice or sectarianism and little of ghettoisation. The family is working class, and frugal. The main ritual of their week is their sharing out of the father's wage. Not much is left after the rent. But they are not poor.

There are no major dramatic events. It's so moving because of Mama's pragmatism and selflessness and determination to survive. Their struggle and unbreakable domestic bonds are compelling. They are obsessively thrifty. There's a hilarious scene where the uncle (Oscar Homolka) finishes a bottle of whisky on his death bed so it isn't wasted!

It is beautifully photographed and scored. George Stevens' artful direction counteracts the sentimentality. Sure, it's idealised, but memories often are. The narrative is framed as the daughter (Barbara Bel Geddes) remembering the early life that led to her career as a writer. It's quite like Little Women, but this is better than any screen version of that story.

Terence Stamp- cast just before his tenure as a sixties face- plays a psychopathic butterfly collector, who abducts and imprisons Samantha Eggar's beautiful arts student. It's a two-hander, mostly set in a single interior.

 Although this is is a tense and unorthodox work of suspense, it is as much about class, and the stultifying conservatism of post war Britain. And its mistrust of modernism/modernity. Eggar is the creative, liberated butterfly trapped in Stamp's killing jar. She represents the new rules of permissive London.

She was nominated for an Oscar, but really Eggar and Stamp are captivating as a pair in their long, intense scenes together. The adaptation from John Fowles' novel, works as a very creepy thriller and a perceptive and evocative snapshot of its time.

William Wyler is often unjustly overlooked. It's remarkable that a director from the golden age was still making such relevant, invigorating and challenging films which capture moments in a changing world. It was mostly shot in Hollywood, but this is a key document of sixties London.

Meticulous and intelligent adaptation of Abby Mann's 1959 television play, mostly set within the single space of the courtroom. Four judges from Nazi Germany are on trial for crimes against humanity, but as the case progresses, it becomes less obvious who is actually responsible for these atrocities.

 In fact, as the Soviets enter Prague, is evident that neither side is interested in pursuing these convictions as the west needs Germany as a bulwark against Communist expansion and the Germans seek to bury their past. There is even the rather alarming insinuation that Republican politicians just want the men released and consider the trials to be the obsession of Liberal extremists.

There is a lot of talk over three hours, but it works as entertainment because the ideas are fascinating and the performances intuitive. There is a pair of raw, poignant cameos from Montgomery Clift and Judy Garland as victims of Nazi depravity. Maximilian Schell won an Oscar as the lawyer defending the judges.

The central role of the American judge was played with real dignity and authority by Spencer Tracy. He has many long passages to articulate including a lengthy summation in which he manages to remain objective to many interested parties and deliver a stirring and wise verdict. And this is that the end never justifies the means, however expedient. 

After Paul Leni arrived at Universal studios, the expressionism of German horror began to be standard in Hollywood too. His third US film is an adaptation of a novel by Victor Hugo about a boy who is disfigured by the king and grows up with a hideous grin which masks his ceaseless misery.

Conrad Veidt  is heartbreaking as the suffering grotesque who joins the circus. It's the pathos of a man so mutilated he can never reveal how he feels. Mary Philbin supports as a blind woman, fated never to see her own beauty. And because she can touch the lips of the clown, she is fooled that he's always happy.

Leni is brilliant at the visuals, but less gifted at narrative and while it looks like art, the pace is slow. The expressionist sets of 17th century England are excellent. There isn't the social critique of the novel, but it does expose the brutal oppression of the poor by the aristocracy. The wealthy are as physically hideous as the members of the freak show that exploits the young outcast.

There is something primal about the monstrous characters we encounter in silent horrors. They ask ask us to relive one of the terrible fears of childhood, that we ourselves are uniquely unlovable, and the love we need to survive cannot be returned. These figures are eternal, universal nightmares.

Loose remake of the German silent horror The Hands of Orlac (1924) directed by Karl Freund, the star photographer of German expressionism. So it looks wonderful. Famed cinematographer Gregg Toland paints with light most eloquently and there are evocative sets of the back alleys of the Parisian Grand Guignol. 

The plot is among the most brilliantly lurid in all horror. When the hands of a concert pianist (Colin Clive) are crushed, his beautiful wife (Frances Drake), visits the sinister/brilliant surgeon (Peter Lorre) who stalks her, and begs him to save her husband's precious fingers. So the doctor transplants the hands of a recently guillotined, knife-throwing murderer!

His patient is still unable to play the piano but can't stop chucking blades... And then things get really crazy! This is a quality mad doctor film and an early example of the dark hospital theme, which finds within its gleaming white sterility, suffering, transgressive behaviour and unbridled egotism. Lorre is memorably repellant.

Censorship was about to send horror into remission. Many classics were shelved for decades This is the last of it's early '30s golden age. The vision of the bald, baby faced, big eyed Lorre in his fetishistic leather neck support and robot hands is one of the great grotesque horror images. 

This is the debut as director of legendary cinematographer Karl Freund, who photographed Metropolis (1927) and Dracula (1931). It isn't as visually striking- there is no expressionism. Most of its impact is from the exotic set decorations; the parchments and symbols which embellish the mystery of a terrible curse unleashed after the opening of an Egyptian burial chamber.  

Boris Karloff is the mummy, who in ancient times was bound in cloth and buried alive. Exhumed thousand of years later, the living corpse goes in search of the reincarnation of his eternal love, played by the mysterious, Zita Johann. Who must have the biggest eyes in horror, as well as a precode dress designer.

This is a slow, lethargic film which creates a sense of unease through arcane curses and hypnotic trances. Of course, it's another defining role for Karloff, transformed by Universal's great effects artist Jack Pierce, both into the mummy, and its wizened alter-ego, Ardeth Bay (anagram of Death by Ra!).

Like other Universal horrors of the early '30s, it suffers from a supporting cast of rather effete and theatrical English expats. But Karloff is great and Zita is enigmatically sexy. The occult is challenged by academic rationality, but in Universal horror, superstition is always real and the scientific voice of reason is wasting his breath, and about to die inexplicably anyway.

This explicit precode adaptation of Richard Connell's short story was shot at night on the sets of King Kong (1933) by the same crew. An all American big game hunter (a slim Joel McCrea) is lured onto the rocks of a remote jungle island by a crazy Russian aristocrat (Leslie Banks in his screen debut). So the hunter becomes the game.

The castaway proves a wily quarry, with his experience of bloodsports. He is accompanied by the original Queen of Scream, Fay Wray. As they make their way though the rugged terrain pursued by the Count and his hunting dogs, their clothes get shredded in a way that would lead to extensive cuts by the Hays Office on further release.

This is a tremendously exciting action film with a rich atmosphere as the fog falls on the island at twilight. There are evocative sets and locations. And there's a brilliant display of theatrical overacting by Leslie Banks, who wears the goatee of evil with conviction. A touch of philosophy in the script adds depth, without slowing the pace.

The film's most grisly moment is when the Count shows his prisoner around the human remains mounted in his trophy room. There was much more of this but audiences complained it was upsetting so RKO cut 20m. It has been remade many times, but even with the cuts imposed, it is the touch of the macabre, the feeling of transgression, that makes this the best version.

After Frankenstein (1931), James Whale returned to Universal for this first sound version of HG Wells' sci-fi classic. Claude Rains makes his starring debut as a scientist who invents a formula for invisibility before he discovers the antidote. Big mistake. Unfortunately, something in the elixir turns the doctor insane as he attempts to use his innovation to gain power and wealth.

This doesn't have the visual panache of Whale's other Universal horrors, I guess because of the already complicated process for designing the effects. A major weakness is the amount of knockabout comedy, which the director apparently loved. This hasn't aged well, and actually diminishes the sense of threat and suspense.

The triumph of the film is the astonishing effects. Not only of Claude Rains removing his bandages to reveal... nothing, but at the climax when a dissolve finally exposes the face of the actor for the first time a few seconds before the credits roll. We might not see much of Rains, but his distinctive voice gives the invisible man a valuable presence..

This is the first Hollywood production that feels more like science fiction, rather than a horror film with some sci-fi jargon added on. It looks at the duality of science for good and bad. It's a genre landmark, but a bit of a shame Whale was seduced by the comic potential of Wells' premise above most of the philosophical themes.

Most Hollywood horror films of the early silents were melodramas which included some element of the physically or mentally grotesque. This is unambiguously a horror film. It has the look, with the expressionist shadows and freakish props and sets. And it retains the body-horror motif of the twenties,-perhaps the definitive example- with the grinning death's head of the monster.

The Phantom is a multifaceted figure. He is the satanic Svengali with whom an operatic ingénue makes a Faustian pact. He is also the distressing victim of nature, condemned to be persecuted by the normal world. He is the hideous true face behind the mask that we all hide. It's is a hard act to pull off, but Lon Chaney is sensational. We forget all about the actor under the spell of his creation.

Mary Philbin is attractive and sympathetic in a difficult role as the opera singer. But Chaney is the star. He is mainly supported by the astonishing sets and costumes, with the startling technicolor scene of the masked ball. The recreation of the Paris Opera House is legendary. The impressionistic cellars and the underground river are immensely haunting.

 This original version of Gaston Leroux's classic novel (the author actually worked on the film) has a perverse authenticity shared by none of the remakes. This is partly through its antiquity which gives the film a psychedelic logic where we can accept these sort of events might happen. But it triumphs because of Chaney's extraordinary gift. He creates one of the enduring images of terror.

This lavish adaptation of Victor Hugo's historical melodrama was Universal studio's most lucrative hit of the '20s. It is set in 1482 and focuses on the romance of the gypsy Esmerelda with a nobleman in a socially polarised Paris; of the arrogant, brutal aristocracy and the persecuted peasants.

Patsy Ruth Miller overacts and lacks appeal as the untamed dancing girl. What everyone remembers this for is Lon Chaney's extreme portrayal of the title character, Quasimodo, the ringer of the bells. It's Chaney who makes this a horror film at all, not just for his legendary make-up effects, the deformity and gymnastics, but for the strange, primal enigma of his character.

This is early cinema and it doesn't have the visual expressionism of some of the later silent horrors. But what it does abundantly present is spectacle with its huge cast of extras in period costume and the magnificent sets, particularly of the medieval cathedral.

This is the film where the Lon Chaney became a big star around the world. His Quasimodo remains definitive. This is a silent blockbuster. Chaney's demonic aura and the convincing recreation of fifteenth century Paris makes the original Hunchback the earliest classic of Universal horror.