Film Reviews by Steve

Gloriously baroque comedy horror which crosses the Hammer studio's run of sixties psychological thrillers with the psycho-granny trend that followed the success of Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? in 1962. In this case, the former golden age star is Tallulah Bankhead as a deranged older lady with unusual plans for her dead son.

And she is fabulous. She's funny and just creepy enough too. Her cherished child was killed in a car crash after he was dumped by his American fiancée (Stefanie Powers). So the female heartbreaker is invited to the isolated family home and held hostage while her soul is prepared for eternal marriage. Of course there are implications of incest, and his homosexuality.

Hammer usually managed to transform a modest budget into a sumptuous production, and they excel themselves. The luscious colour is unorthodox for sixties psycho-horror. The story is conventional but the actors coax the melodrama and dialogue to a delicious ripeness. Peter Vaughan and Yootha Joyce are menacing as the crazy servants.

Though this is set in England, it feels like American gothic. There is the old dilapidated ancestral estate with the dark family secret. It's an utterly immoderate black comedy, with little subtlety. Stefanie and Yootha even engage in an extended wrestling bout. And the legendary Tallulah is extraordinary in her final screen role.

Epic comedy-drama adapted from the satirical novel by William Makepeace Thackeray, published in 1844. It's a picaresque adventure story which follows Barry Lyndon from his beginnings as a nondescript ruffian in Ireland and via many escapades in the armed forces during the Seven Years War, to a propitious marriage with an English aristocrat. And his eventual downfall.

It's a long journey and Ryan O'Neal is on screen all the way, giving a numb, blank performance which matches the detached, tranquillised feel of the film. It is celebrated for the artistic set design and innovative photography which was inspired by contemporary painting. The score uses period classical pieces and folk songs.

So there is a powerful impression of Europe in the mid-to-late 18th Century. The story moves on sedately, offering familiar incidents like a highway robbery, the vogue for gambling, a couple of duels, and romance whether for love or advancement. There is a droll quality of comic irony which sustains the action most of the running time.

But going into the third hour, there grows a sensation that the narrative has wandered and we are just watching the splendid costumes and furniture. And when the tone darkens, even the roguish whimsy is gone. The disengaged performances are unable to come to the rescue and the script is flat. It's a critical landmark. But maybe not a crowdpleaser.

This was the first Ealing comedy to be a big success in the US, but it had quite a troubled production and was initially buried by the studio. It was Alexander Mackendrick's first film as director and he was dismissive of its chances, and felt it would only be of interest to students of anthropology...

And during the first half of the film it's easy to understand his gloominess. There is a lot of background about the Outer Hebrides. It was shot on the remote island of Barra, off the north west of Scotland, and the locals performed as extras. Though this is still interesting, especially as their way of life is now long gone.

But then the film comes alive. It is based on an incident during WWII when a cargo of whisky lost in a shipwreck off the western isles was seized by the thirsty locals. In the film, a cast of Scottish Ealing regulars hide the booze from the officious Home Guard, played by Basil Radford; surely a model for Dad's Army's Captain Mainwaring...

The later scenes are fine, whimsical entertainment as the community is revived by their good fortune. It's the classic Ealing scenario of the underdogs standing up to the bumptious official. And it must have resonated during rationing. Mackendrick came from advertising, and the entire film feels like a promotion for the Scottish national drink! Cheers!

Espionage romance set in World War I and released shortly before conflict resumed in 1939. So the Germans are still the enemy, but there isn't yet much propaganda. It's a slow, slightly creaky melodrama but full of atmosphere and uncertainty and suspense. And Victor Saville directs with a little style.

 Vivien Leigh is a French spy in neutral Sweden with a front as a dress shop owner which conveniently takes her into Paris to liaise between the underground and the British. Conrad Veidt is the head of German intelligence who is trying to shut down her network by any means.

Naturally, they fall in love. Veidt isn't much of a romantic lead, but can play mysterious German spies all day long. The role of the Stockholm based secret agent would have been ideal for Garbo. Still, Viv is enigmatic and glamorous enough while giving her most accomplished performance prior to arrival in Hollywood.

And she is photographed beautifully... But will they betray their homelands for love? Veidt would more or less repeat the denouement at sea two years later in The Spy in Black. Back in the golden age this was conventional genre material. But now it feels wonderfully exotic. A crackly relic of a time when cinema knew how to do romantic intrigue.

Long, evocative adaptation of a play from 1948 by Maxwell Anderson about the constitutional storm caused by the relationship between Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn. There's an acting head to head between Richard Burton and Geneviève Bujold who were among ten Oscar nominations. The one win for costume design was well deserved.

The script is pretty strong stuff, so perhaps changes in censorship were necessary before it could reach the big screen. And though it is sometimes a bit fanciful, this is a provocative interpretation. It is a tragedy; Anne is destroyed by her own hubris. But the king is so crazy that there is no escaping his capricious, intractable cruelty.

This Henry is a full on monomaniacal psychopath, and the representation of the monarchy is of a terrifying dystopia. And it excels as a vivid historical spectacle, in Panavision and stunning Technicolor. The sets and locations are outstanding, and complemented by the period score of fanfares and ballads.

Despite the Oscar activity, it sold few tickets. There were many blockbusters about the English throne in the late sixties. Maybe this was the one too many. But it is the most handsome of all and Burton and Bujold give the roles a credible vitality. There will be too much melodrama and too little politics for experts, but it's still fine entertainment.

Violent but irresistible gangster film scripted by Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais which contains so much comedy that it sometimes feels like a Spinal Tap spoof of The Sweeney. Its premise is that these crooks have the same humdrum concerns as everyone else, they just happen to be in organised crime. Where only the most ruthless and grotesque get to the top.

In an astonishing performance, Richard Burton plays a psychopathic cockney gang leader, modelled on both of the Kray twins. So he's a mother-fixated homosexual in a sadomasochistic relationship with a bisexual Ian McShane. He's a complete dunce, but not quite as witless as the rest of his gang. This stuff is as extraordinary as it sounds.

It's a cult film. The violence makes it a guilty pleasure, but the nasty stuff takes place off camera. It captures grubby London in that post industrial period when it felt like the country was in steep decline and nothing worked anymore. So, a lot like now. It's a city of derelict warehouses and ugly new concrete by-passes.

A decade earlier this would have been a B film in b&w, but this is in Technicolor and Panavision and features a real star. Wearing aftershave and a polyester shirt! Changes in censorship permitted new levels of brutality and swearing. It wasn't a hit but found an audience on tv. Who surely wondered what on earth they had just seen.

Delightful comic parable adapted from JM Barrie's play from 1902 which uses the classic shipwreck scenario to critique Victorian attitudes to social class. An entitled upper class family must survive on a desert island, and discover their resourceful butler is best able to to take charge in such altered circumstances.

But when they return to London, rigid class conformity dictates that relationships return to normal. Kenneth More is most winsome as the admirable Crichton who is governor on the faraway shore, but must become a servant again. Lewis Gilbert directs the sunny, frictionless comedy with a featherlight touch. It's all utterly charming.  

It would be mean-spirited to go looking for flaws... Yes, the characters are schematic, but that's often the nature of allegory. The performances are broad and genial but too much realism would kill the magic. It's still quite emotional, with Diane Cilento affecting as the cockney maid in love with Crichton. But everyone is excellent.

It's an adventure, like the Swiss Family Robinson, but the playful meditation on class means it is more than a family film. Still, the mod cons Crichton introduces to the island are fun- and anticipate The Flintstones! This is sublime entertainment. Though the film concludes that inequality is natural, so it's not as subversive as it first seems.

This police procedural was written by Janet Green, who went on to script classic British social justice films, like Sapphire and Victim. And it's tempting to suppose that her intention was to draw attention to the issue of psychological damage suffered by mothers who miscarry. This is more than just a MacGuffin which sets the plot in motion.

An 18 month old boy is snatched from outside a shop which triggers a police search led by David Farrar and the amateur investigations of the frantic parents (David Knight and Julia Arnall). The detective work is interesting and director Guy Green cranks up the suspense, but the cops are basically following random leads until one finally pays off.

And the law is hardly assisted by the people of London, who are mostly cranks with a grudge, or by the hysterical parents. And the film isn't helped by Arnall's shrill performance as the mother. Farrar's usual phlegmatic nonchalance is a positive. But the production is most memorable for the hot, luscious Technicolor, rare for a '50s crime drama.

The location shots around London glisten in radiant primary colours. Maybe the parents are too privileged to be sympathetic- it's nanny who loses baby- but this scores as an unusual story about every parents' worst nightmare, augmented by a standard thriller format. And there's an exciting climax at Beachy Head, which is a real cliffhanger.

Horrific and disturbing reflection on racism in Britain after the Notting Hill race riots of 1958, adapted from Ted Willis' play of the same year. John Mills is a trade union leader who works for equality in the workplace, but who draws down into a deep well of prejudice when his daughter (Sylvia Syms) falls in love with a colleague from Jamaica (Johnny Sekka).

This is candid stuff which uses racist language which was never acceptable, but now is unsayable. The mother, outstandingly portrayed by Brenda De Banzie, is an utter monster and it is hard to accept that she would be accommodated in her family given her extreme bigotry. Which evokes the deep hatred still heard about immigrants today.

So, its themes have never gone away. But while the film exposes intolerance, it uncomfortably looks for balance, which includes trying to sympathetically understand the racism in British society. It could be argued that Willis' is just being mindful of the profound impasse that exists. But there is no editorial voice of reason, just the two lovers who are vulnerable and alone.

The unchecked fanaticism is hard to watch, yet the film is expertly made and impassioned, though provocative. It isn't greatly opened up from the play, but the locations and interiors create a strong impression of period. As a critique on intolerance, it is complex but too forgiving. As an insight into the normal prejudice of the period, it is shocking.

Best known of the many crime films inspired by the 1964 Great Train Robbery. This strays well away from the facts, and the names are changed. Stanley Baker is the criminal mastermind who assembles a huge gang of specialists in order to steal over a million quid in used notes from a Royal Mail locomotive. While Scotland Yard, led by James Booth, closes in.

It follows a standard three act heist structure: the coming together of a diverse team of crooks; the staging of a complicated theft; and the unravelling of the caper due to internal conflict and individual flaws. Robbery is different for this period in that there is an abundance of action, particularly car chases.

And Peter Yates got to direct Bullitt off the back of it. The pursuits are okay, but don't look all that amazing by present standards. The measured pacing sometimes plods, and because the gang is so big, there isn't so much depth of characterisation. The photography is flashy in the style of the era with lots of focus pulls and pop art closeups.

The cast is all male, save for the brief intrusion of Joanna Pettet's peripheral glamour. Baker always stands out, and though the ensemble cast is fine, no one else makes an impact. There is an impression of the impressive logistics involved but it's mainly an action film inhabited by laconic, impassive tough guys with lots of cars and gadgets.

This is loosely adapted from a novel by Josephine Tey which was broadly based on a real life incident in Victorian Britain. But given the bizarre plot, that's hard to believe! There's an inheritance up for grabs, and a family member long presumed dead comes back to claim a share. But surely he's an imposter?

Alexander Davion is the nonchalant mystery man who returns to the country estate. Oliver Reed is the violent, alcoholic brother who is spending his inheritance before he gets it. Janette Scott is the beautiful, neurotic sister who might just be frightened to death. Best of all is Sheila Burrell as the wild eyed aunt who could well be the screwiest of the lot.

It's principally a thriller which crosses over into horror for the grotesque climax. There are some excellent suspense set pieces, including a cliff hanger on the coast of Dorset. But the most interesting theme is the romance between Scott and Davion. Her nerves can't stand it... she's in love with her own brother! And he loves her too...

So he has to either give up the girl, or the loot. But if Ollie can get Janette in the mad house, he will get the lot. It's a low budget psychological thriller. It's trashy enough, but far too beautifully photographed- in b&w- and handsomely staged for a B film. It's among the more enjoyable of Hammer's sixties Psycho rip offs.

This landmark British gangster film is Mike Hodges' debut as director and he says he was inspired by how Raymond Chandler used the crime story to make satirical observations about society. Which probably explains why Michael Caine is reading Farewell My Lovely while he travels up to Newcastle to investigate the death of his brother.

And it's the impression of Britain in decline which is the most penetrating aspect of the film. Newcastle is a filthy corpse, fed on by gangsters, pimps and worse. Its coal industry is a black stain on the land. If Britain boomed during the sixties, the wealth hasn't trickled down to these mean streets. And the culture has surrendered to a tawdry, joyless Americanism.

The weakness of the film is the uninspired plot. Basically, Caine's antihero knocks around from one hoodlum to the next until he stumbles upon the truth by chance. And then he kills everyone involved. It's a signature role for the star, playing a relentless, cold hearted loner set on revenge; a laconic, incredibly violent sociopath.

There's a large supporting cast, though only Caine gets much screen time. Britt Ekland is barely in it. Which is a pun. Carter famously tells Bryan Mosley that he is in bad shape. But Caine is also plainly overweight. And it's this shabby realism which is the visual style. It's a grim gangster film with a large body count and a famously bleak last shot.

This is an odd blend of genres but most potently a protest film which makes a case against the death penalty. Diana Dors plays a shopgirl who murders her boyfriend's rich lover. It relates her last few days in a procedural narrative style, before she hangs. But it also feels like film noir, with the voice over, flashbacks and expressionist photography.

It is most remembered for the casting of DD as the guilty woman. She gives a competent, subdued performance outside her usual range. Her face is scrubbed of makeup and her rather blank ordinariness is emphasised. This is no monster. The implication is that the murder was temporary insanity. But the character is so passive it's a struggle for the star to sustain interest.

Compare the dynamism of Susan Hayward in the similar but superior I Want to Live! two years later. There are parallels between Yield to the Night and the hanging of Ruth Ellis in 1955. Director J.Lee Thompson points out that the source novel by Joan Henry preceded the Ellis case, but the film came after and the publicity must have been influential.

So, the release was topical. But not influential; the death penalty remained for another 13 years. Thompson directs with a flourish and the b&w photography is artistic. Yvonne Mitchell gives a typically nuanced performance as a sympathetic screw. But the appeal of the film rests heavily on Diana's stunt casting, and she just about pulls it off.

This is a companion to Alexander Korda's production of The Four Feathers, released a year later. They are Technicolor empire adventures based on novels by AEW Mason. This time the British redcoats put down an uprising in Northwest India with the heroic assistance of a loyal tribal Prince, played by the 14 year old Sabu.

And today, both films share similar snags. There is the assumption of the moral right of empire and the steadfastness of British honour. There's Raymond Massey under makeup as a two dimensional, perfidious Islamic warlord. Its portrayal of the indigenous population provoked riots in major Indian cities.

It's a contemporary story, but feels like the Victorian era. There's a handsome production with authentic location footage in Kashmir and Peshawar, and the colour must have looked glorious in 1938. Roger Livesey and Valerie Hobson look enchanting in (now) washed out Technicolor; like '30s cigarette cards brought to life by magic.

The viewers' response will depend on a willingness to watch it in the spirit of the times. No one will make a film like this again. The assumptions about the legitimacy of empire are exhausted. It's staggering to realise that only nine years later, the British left India for good. Maybe this now gives the film an unintended moral dimension.

Out of all the war stories shot in the UK after 1945, this one stands apart because the hero is a German. It's a biopic of Franz von Werra, a Luftwaffe pilot who was gunned down over Kent during the Battle of Britain and became the only Nazi to escape from captivity. After many attempts, he finally got away while being transferred to a POW camp in Canada.

He claimed asylum in the neutral USA before making his own way back to Germany. The film overlooks his politics and mostly tells the events as a triumph of the spirit. Particularly in the final scenes as he drags himself across the frozen Canadian border to America. Hardy Krüger plays the flying ace with a blend of arrogance and single-minded courage.

Krüger manages to get us, if not actually on his side, at least amenable to his escape. So there is little friction; interrogation is so benign that it seems homeland security plans to keep the country safe with a mix of bureaucracy and self deprecating humour. Every time the prisoner breaks free he is thwarted by being given a form to fill in.

Von Werra isn't portrayed as a Good German, but the film does stress his audacity and resilience. Roy Ward Baker tells the story well, and keeps the narrative moving forward at pace in convincing locations with a good degree of realism. And there's a rare and interesting insight into British intelligence. Its a unique fifties British war film.