Film Reviews by Steve

Micro-budget celebration of the work done by the scientists in WWII, particularly in the development of radar. It was released with the fighting over, which might account for the giddy holiday mood; this is more of a comedy than a drama and no one is going to learn any official secrets.

Peter Ustinov makes his debut as director and he opens up with a couple of ostentatious tracking shots to announce his arthouse credentials. But it mostly reflects postwar austerity with documentary lighting and a lot of talk. Ralph Richardson leads a group of superbrains to a coastal guesthouse for the duration to do some blue sky thinking.

And mostly explore their comic eccentricity. These boffins can think outside the box but can't boil an egg. Richardson is a genial presence. Maybe there is a suggestion of autism in Raymond Huntley's lack of empathy. Today, their input into the firebombing of Dresden and Hamburg doesn't seem so whimsical.

This was initiated as a training film for scientists enrolled in the cause, and later extended into a feature film. It seems war films were box office poison after '45, and maybe this suggests why. It's drab and unambitious, though amusing. And it at least offers an opportunity to remember the inventors, who also served.

Interesting but minor Fritz Lang espionage drama which is ultimately sabotaged by the long romantic subplot. It's one of a group of post WWII films which looked at the secrets of the war years; the spycraft, the gadgetry and the underground. It is based on a non-fiction book about the OSS, the forerunner of the CIA.

But it is unlikely that much of this was a revelation, even then. What we mainly get is an action adventure about a US nuclear scientist (Gary Cooper!) who goes undercover in Europe to see how far the Nazis have got with the bomb. As we soon learned the Germans didn't get very close, the plot is just McGuffin.

Lang and the screenwriters planned an anti-nuclear theme, but the studio wanted something less political. Instead there's an insipid love story between the two fisted boffin and a partisan in the Italian Resistance (Lilli Palmer). She is introduced knifing a Nazi goon in the back, but any hope she'll emerge a female action hero is short-lived.

Soon the American hero- an academic- is running the show. The dust up between Cooper and a fascist heavy (Marc Lawrence) must be the best fight scene of the studio era. Aside from the romantic padding, there's a decent spy story and moments of suspense. It's a case of what might have been, but a trace of the anti-nuke message remains.

Two years before his cinematic landmark with Bicycle Thieves, Vittorio De Sica broke though to an international audience with this neorealist critique of juvenile prisons in impoverished postwar Rome, which won a special Oscar for best foreign language film. It's a polemical exposé of unusual candour and insight.

Civic society has broken down. Rather than go to school, poor kids make money for their families. There is no social net for the orphans of war so they work to survive. A pair of close friends (Franco Interlenghi, Rinaldo Smordoni) are shoeshine boys duped into working on the black market and betrayed and jailed.

The bulk of the story is set in a destitute youth detention centre alive with fleas, bugs and lice, which is vindictive and without purpose. The boys are separated and gradually brutalised into tough kids who hide their vulnerability. It's some achievement by De Sica to draw such nuanced performances from this large cast of children.

There are the usual motifs of neorealism including a reformist, socialist agenda as well as the documentary approach and amateur cast. But there is more craft than the raw, earlier films, with faster editing and some visual style. But primarily, it is a cry for help. The two boys are not even guilty, but no one should go through this.

While not the first of the Italian Neorealism movement, this is the one that introduced it to the world when it became an unexpected success after WWII. This was made on the run; the vérité style is dictated by necessity. Roberto Rossellini doesn't always convey the narrative with clarity. But that's hardly the point.

It's a record of the struggle by the Italian Resistance against the German occupation. The underground was run by the Communists, for whom this was a long campaign. It was shot on the streets of Rome with minimal crew and equipment on remainder film stock begged from the news crews of the liberating Alliies.

And it looks absolutely authentic, like a newsreel or home video. It is mostly improvised by a non-professional support cast on the actual locations where similar events took place under the command of the Gestapo only weeks earlier. Nazis are played by German prisoners of war.

This feels closer to actual events than any other WWII film. Not so much propaganda as evidence. The torture of a Resistance leader (Marcello Pagliero); the gunning down of a pregnant witness (Anna Magnani); the execution of a partisan priest (Aldo Fabrizi)... it's so incredibly real. There is nothing else like this.

Production began in occupied France and continued through liberation to be released into a national celebration. Behind the scenes legends compete with the drama on screen. This isn't merely a film, it's part of the story of France in WWII. Who better to tell it than Marcel Carné whose prewar Poetic Realism reflected a nation on the precipice of defeat?

The pessimism of those films is gone, replaced by a wistful regret. In this context, it matters less that Arletty isn't really unspoiled and beautiful enough to be the romantic muse of four men, than she has survived from Hôtel du Nord and Le Jour se Lève. She plays a courtesan in 1830s Paris, pursued by an actor, an aristocrat, a mime and a gangster.

The period recreation of the Parisian theatre district is evocative and magnificent. Jacques Prévert long, poetic script is wise and often very funny. The main characters are historical figures, and Jean-Louis Barrault haunts the film as Baptiste Debureau, the mime artist unable to render his spiritual love into human desire.

But most of all, salutations to Carné who takes these diverse, epic dimensions and makes them accessible. And that's setting aside the production difficulties. This artistic miracle isn't so much about Paris in the Restoration, but an entry into Shakespeare's insubstantial pageant. The cloud-capped towers. The stuff of dreams.

Billy Wilder said this is a response to his collaboration with alcoholic writer Raymond Chandler on Double Indemnity. So it was fortunate that Charles Jackson had a current bestseller about an alcoholic writer for Wilder to adapt. There are no narrative twists, this is just a story about the degradation of an intelligent but flawed drunk.

It's a fictional case study for which most of the interest is in the public exposure of a condition then not much talked about. Without that novelty, some weaknesses become apparent. Mostly that the storyline contains no surprises. Still, it is well executed, with a virtuoso Oscar winning performance from Ray Milland.

John Seitz's photography was only nominated, but now this looks like the main asset. Wilder must have been influenced by neo-realism, and the b&w documentary style footage of New York is extremely evocative. And the use of expressionism for the withdrawal scenes is effective too, combined with the woozy sound of the theremin.

Milland's fragile, egotistical addict is a loquacious bore, which feels truthful, but not always easy to endure. It's not obvious why his girlfriend (Jane Wyman) takes it for so long. And the happy Hollywood ending is disaster. Wilder won Oscars for best film and direction, but this isn't his best work and it no longer has the power to shock.

This is chiefly of interest because it begins a short cycle of films about combat veterans who return to Europe to chase up loose ends related to their WWII experiences. They are primarily Americans, but in this case Dick Powell plays a Canadian pilot who revisits to the ruins of France to investigate the death of his wife in the Resistance.

And then onto Buenos Aires to chase up the remnants of a fascist group planning a second act for the fatherland. A year earlier, Edward Dmytryk directed the superior Murder, My Sweet which was a success and this is made in its image with most of the same personnel. Powell basically repeats his performance as Philip Marlowe.

John Paxton returns to script the nervy one-liners and Harry Wild to duplicate the film noir photography. Adrian Scott again produces. While the intrigue looks like a lot of McGuffin, most of the crew and some of the cast were soon in front of HUAC accused of 'premature anti-fascism, so the content actually meant something to them.

There's a big speech towards the end about the threat from Nazi survivors in South America, but Hollywood wasn't concerned. This sort of espionage was rewritten for Communists and Dmytryk and Scott ended up in jail. The labyrinthine plot never really engages, but we get an insight into the psychology of WWII survivors, and the Hollywood left. 

Undemanding entry in the Universal Sherlock Holmes cycle which is fun but betrays evidence that the series is starting to run out of inspiration. In a castle on the remote and rugged Scottish coastline a fellowship of elderly bachelors are being murdered one by one, and their demise foretold by the delivery at dinner of orange pips.

While it's only an hour, the scenario feels stretched. Nigel Bruce as Dr. Watson eases into his end of series imbecility and when he's running amok in a thunderstorm, this might as well be Abbott and Costello Meet Sherlock Holmes. Except Bruce is much funnier. Then Inspector Lestrade (Dennis Hoey) arrives to double up the comic relief.

There is absolutely nothing left of Arthur Conan Doyle's story, The Five Orange Pips. This is more like Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None. Still, no matter, there's all the atmosphere typical of the Universal series with the gothic old dark house and the craggy clifftops and the superstitious locals.

The series survives as it always does: because Basil Rathbone is perfect as Holmes and makes an endearing double act with his old pal; Roy William Neill is an expert B-picture director and continually drives the narrative forward, however illogical; and because Doyle's legendary heroes are immortal.

This is usually labelled film noir, but can also be regarded as the middle of German émigré John Brahms' melodrama trilogy which begins with The Lodger in 1944 and concludes with Hangover Square a year later. While those are gaslight melodramas, this is contemporary and draws on the '40s vogue for Freudian motives in thrillers.

But we still get the imposing house of shadows, the intrusion of madness and the grand climactic thunderstorm. Anne Baxter is discharged from a mental hospital and takes up residence in the family of her fiancée's brother. Then seeks to establish control through psychotic manipulation, while eliminating all her rivals.

Now, this looks very much like a prototype for the '90s cycle of yuppie nightmare thrillers. A bad seed is allowed to germinate in the heart of an ocean facing domestic paradise. Another point of interest is how good is Ralph Bellamy as the head of the household, a darker role than his usual affable buffoon.

Maybe the blend of genres is due to production difficulties; four directors were used. It lacks suspense and it's disappointing there isn't more of a period noir look. But Baxter is creepy as the malevolent threat and we get to see plenty of why Marie McDonald's studio nickname was 'the body'. It's an interesting oddball.

A popular observation about this WWII action adventure is that it is written by two winners of the Nobel Prize. It's freely adapted from the Ernest Hemingway novel by William Faulkner. But what we see on screen is an inferior reshuffle of Casablanca, which has a much better script. Once again, Humphrey Bogart refuses to fight until he does.

He runs a fishing boat out of Martinique and (eventually) gets involved in the struggle between pro and anti-Nazi groups, and an enigmatic drifter played by an 18 year old Lauren Bacall in her screen debut. The political intrigue never catches fire, but the chemistry between the stars is explosive. And they married after the shoot.

It's most like the Hemingway source in that it's a sequence of loosely linked episodes. The best of them showcase the flirtation between Bogart and Bacall. The scene in which she famously purrs 'You know how to whistle don't you?' is pure innuendo mayhem. Unfortunately, the narrative runs out of gas, and doesn't have an ending.

Like many Howard Hawks films, it's about an assembly of individualists and emotional refugees who meet in the kind of exotic place where adventures happen. The plot isn't paramount, and the whole thing ends up feeling like a revue, with some decent musical numbers by Hoagy Carmichael. It's a lesser Hawks film, but worth seeing for the stars.

This is often acclaimed as the best of Universal studio's series of Sherlock Holmes mysteries starring Basil Rathbone as the great detective and Nigel Bruce as the loyal Dr. Watson. This time they are in Quebec where a mythic glowing fiend with lethal claws is said to be killing the superstitious villagers.

Luckily Holmes and Watson are attending a nearby symposium on the occult, so can investigate. As they are not in Baker Street, this means there is no Lestrade or Mrs. Hudson, which is disappointing. The story outline draws on The Hound of the Baskervilles. They seem to be in Canada solely to deliver a postscript praising the nation's war effort.

It's an exciting and suspenseful thriller as we pick from the long list of locals to discover the murderer. This is the entry closest to the style of Universal horror, and it extensively exploits the studio's rural backlot constructed for their monster sequels. But this has a much better story, as well as all the fog and ruined churches.

Holmes demonstrates there's a perfectly rational explanation, while Watson falls into a bog- twice. Bruce introduces the habit of ending scenes harrumphing about his misfortunes, which would lead to the doctor becoming a complete imbecile. Maybe not my absolute favourite, but still one of the best ever entries in a Hollywood series.

This is the most faithful of the Universal Sherlock Holmes series to the original stories by Arthur Conan Doyle. The premise of the Adventure of the Six Napoleons is intact, though the script elaborates to good effect. It introduces The Creeper played by Rondo Hatton, a huge actor whose features were deformed by acromegaly.

It's tragic his disfigurement meant he was cast as a human monster. But he turned it into a career and even appeared in a couple of spin offs. Someone has hidden the priceless Borgia Pearl in the bust of one of six new plaster Napoleons. The giant killer breaks the spines of all the buyers, scattering their corpses with the broken pottery.

So Sherlock Holmes investigates. Basil Rathbone complained that all his performances as the great detective were just copies of the first. But he's so perfect, that's a good thing. Nigel Bruce isn't the Dr. Watson from the page, but provides comic relief with some expertise. Miles Manders and Evelyn Ankers make excellent villains.

Ankers was frequently cast as support in Universal monster pictures, and there is a conspicuous aura of horror in this. But the big takeaway is how artfully photographed it is. It's just a B feature, but time has been spent on these lighting setups to create an attractive noir look. This is far better than it needed to be.

Superior entry in the Universal series of Sherlock Holmes B-pictures made during WWII. The title sounds like it features one of the studio's legendary monsters, but the spider woman actually just kills her helpless victims with poisonous arachnids. After relieving them of their life insurance, naturally.

So send for Holmes and Dr. Watson. Basil Rathbone hunts down the odious gang of crooks and Nigel Bruce raises some laughs. But they are (arguably) upstaged by Gale Sondergaard who is the best villain of this whole cycle. She even starred in a 'spider woman' sequel, though- disappointingly- in a different role.

The screenplay is crammed with references to multiple Arthur Conan Doyle's stories, which is gratifying for the fans. Most obviously, The Speckled Band, though with spiders rather than snakes. Roy William Neill gets it all done in under an hour. There are no lulls and a sudden plot twist is along every few minutes.

And there's a suspenseful climax at the fairground, with the great detective tied to a target in the shooting gallery. A baby would see through Holmes' disguises, even if they are beyond Watson, who having been fooled once too often tries to yank the beard off an eccentric entomologist. It's the Universal series at about its peak.

After three entries in which Sherlock Holmes (Basil Rathbone) investigated Nazi plots, Universal studios altered its approach with a series of films which stayed in the present day, but shifted closer to the spirit of Arthur Conan Doyle's stories. And this proved successful. This one takes its outline from The Musgrave Ritual.

Dr. Watson (Nigel Bruce) is working in an isolated old dark house which has been taken over by the military to treat officers suffering from PTSD in WWII. Only someone is murdering the aristocratic family which owns the estate. Could it be related to the cryptic rhyme that has been passed down for generations?

And does the code lead to a hidden fortune? Roy William Neill directed the last nine films in the series, and he gives them an atmosphere of Universal Horror, with the thunderstorms, the fog, the ancient crypt and the folklore. The many changes to the original story are not necessarily improvements, but still effective.

Anyone who has seen this will remember the human game of chess, which is unique to the film. There's a lot of comedy; the way Watson and Inspector Lestrade (Dennis Hoey) as a pair of buffoons are instinctively competitive, is always funny. And thankfully, Rathbone is rid of the weird Roman haircut he wore to fight the Nazis.

Nostalgic social comedy which was legendary director Ernst Lubitsch's only completed film in glorious Technicolor. It's a life story which begins in the 1880s and extends into the 20th Century as the boy grows up into Don Ameche, a wealthy libertine who presents at the gates of hell to explain why he deserves to be admitted.

And the irony is that the devil's receptionist (Laird Cregar) is smooth talked just like everyone in his privileged life. Mainly women. Or alternatively, that in a time of social puritanism, we feel guilt for our normal human impulses. The whole film is saturated in a woozy haze of whimsy as the newly deceased describes his misdemeanours.

Gene Tierney- as his wife- is top billed but doesn't appear in the first half hour. Ameche is handsome and she is beautiful and their opiated performances give the fantasy the resonance of a dream. Though they are upstaged by Eugene Pallette and Marjorie Main as her feuding parents and Clarence Muse as their stoical domestic help.

Some period details are now obscure. And it's a comedy with few laughs. Where it excels is the extraordinarily literate script which accumulates a momentum that elevates the whole film into poetry. It's an exercise in the art of romantic flirtation and a monument to Lubitsch's longtime screenwriter, Samson Raphaelson.