Films you've seen lately

[Bryn]

Been gorging on The Tempest of late. Started with Derek Jarman (Heathcote Williams et al), then Peter Greenaway f(John Gielgud et al) followed by Julie Taylor (Helen Mirren et al). Next is to be the most 'traditional' I have on DVD, John Gorrie (Michael Hordern et al), which I have had for years as part of the BBC's "The Shakespeare Collection" yet never before got round to viewing. I'm wondering whether I am going to find it a bit tame after the others or a breath of fresh air?

[Leinster Lass]

The Children Act - Emma Thompson and Fionn Whitehead the pick of fine performances from the whole cast. A treatment of serious issues that results in compelling drama. Commendably crisp dialogue helps keep the action moving.

[richardfinegold]

Hello there Richard. I'm glad you enjoyed the film. I watched it on the recommendation of two colleagues - and to be honest it didn't convince me on a number of levels. As a short film its focus was on action but to my mind at the expense of character development. I found myself not caring about any of them - and given the premise and its star ( Tom Hanks won't get torpedoed) the film I found both predictable and lacking in suspense. I also found the period detail unconvincing ( as opposed to Saving Private Ryan which for the most part I feel it got right). In Greyhound I thought the CGI both obvious and distracting.

Then to trump it all the U-Boat Captain taunting the Convoy verbally over microphone and drawing attention to himself. Sonar/ Asdic would obviously pick this up as too would those on watch using binoculars and the like ( Subs prior to 1945 had to surface before launching torpedoes, if I recall correctly, and the same I suppose for radio communication.) So - definitely Greyhound is a work of fiction in that regard...

I think communications were used on both sides to deceive and mislead - but that was coded radio traffic / chaff deliberately put out in the ether.

If you have time - there is an old BBC Series called "Secret War" which delves into this kind of thing - particularly good re Aerial Bombing and counter blockades ( mine-warfare)

Best,

Tevot

Hi Tevot
sorry didn't see this until today. I certainly will pursue that TV series, hopefully I can access it here, it sounds interesting

[Cockney Sparrow]

RF - here is the AM UK listing for the DVD:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Secret-War-Complete-Original-1977/dp/B00LN8INSO/ref=sr_1_3?crid=1Q58MDPQWWPIU&dchild=1&keywords=secret+war+dvd&qid=1604658819&sprefix=secret+war%2Caps%2C183&sr=8-3

I found it very interesting. A similar programme but (I think) broadcast later so not an episode and not on the DVD can be found on You Tube - "The Secret War_7 Battle of the Atlantic_complete" :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Ojl1_vT4N8&list=PLga96pEu02EW-o2cqteKyf0xWosx0MUJY&index=3

Really, that programme should be on the DVD, but I suppose its a rights issue.....

[Serial_Apologist]

Dr Strangelove - one would not once have said this, but today its characterisations seem so apt: the crazed chewing gum pilot fanatically on mission to nuke Russia; his apologist in charge of the USAF, head full of all the nonsense that fires up the Trump bandwagon to this day.

The American experimental jazz singer Annette Peacock is well conversant with irony, as has always been apparent in both her lyrics and her manner of delivering them, and I once asked her, how does it come about that Americans are not known for appreciating irony. "Well", she answered, "you have to understand that we are less than 200 years old, and still too young as a civilisation to have taken irony on board".

[seabright]

There's a real rarity coming up on Sunday next, on "5 Select" (Channel 55) at 12 noon. It's "Forever and a Day" and was released in 1943. It's no lost masterpiece but it's interesting as it included many of the Hollywood-based British actors who were available at the time and, to quote Wiki, "was intended to honor their homeland's spirit and to benefit war relief charities." The story tells of the various inhabitants of a large house built in Napoleonic times, all the way through to the London Blitz of 1941. The interest in the movie lies in identifying the stars as they pop up during the story, so if you're an 'old-movies' film buff you should have fun spotting Claude Rains, Anna Neagle, Edmund Gwenn, Ray Milland, Jessie Matthews, Charles Laughton, Cedric Hardwicke, Buster Keaton, Herbert Marshall, Gladys Cooper, Elsa Lanchester, Roland Young, C. Aubrey Smith, Merle Oberon, Ida Lupino, and very many others. However, there's one terrible boo-boo at the start where an American in London, played by Kent Smith, tells Reginald Gardiner that he's catching the plane back to New York the next morning. There were no transatlantic passenger flights at all at the height of the Blitz, or indeed until after the war, so how the script-writers could have got that one wrong remains a mystery. Anyway, for star-spotters the film may be worth a look!

[Leinster Lass]

There's a real rarity coming up on Sunday next, on "5 Select" (Channel 55) at 12 noon. It's "Forever and a Day" and was released in 1943. It's no lost masterpiece but it's interesting as it included many of the Hollywood-based British actors who were available at the time and, to quote Wiki, "was intended to honor their homeland's spirit and to benefit war relief charities." The story tells of the various inhabitants of a large house built in Napoleonic times, all the way through to the London Blitz of 1941. The interest in the movie lies in identifying the stars as they pop up during the story, so if you're an 'old-movies' film buff you should have fun spotting Claude Rains, Anna Neagle, Edmund Gwenn, Ray Milland, Jessie Matthews, Charles Laughton, Cedric Hardwicke, Buster Keaton, Herbert Marshall, Gladys Cooper, Elsa Lanchester, Roland Young, C. Aubrey Smith, Merle Oberon, Ida Lupino, and very many others. However, there's one terrible boo-boo at the start where an American in London, played by Kent Smith, tells Reginald Gardiner that he's catching the plane back to New York the next morning. There were no transatlantic passenger flights at all at the height of the Blitz, or indeed until after the war, so how the script-writers could have got that one wrong remains a mystery. Anyway, for star-spotters the film may be worth a look!

Channel 133 on Freesat (other platforms also available!)

[Serial_Apologist]

There's a real rarity coming up on Sunday next, on "5 Select" (Channel 55) at 12 noon. It's "Forever and a Day" and was released in 1943. It's no lost masterpiece but it's interesting as it included many of the Hollywood-based British actors who were available at the time and, to quote Wiki, "was intended to honor their homeland's spirit and to benefit war relief charities." The story tells of the various inhabitants of a large house built in Napoleonic times, all the way through to the London Blitz of 1941. The interest in the movie lies in identifying the stars as they pop up during the story, so if you're an 'old-movies' film buff you should have fun spotting Claude Rains, Anna Neagle, Edmund Gwenn, Ray Milland, Jessie Matthews, Charles Laughton, Cedric Hardwicke, Buster Keaton, Herbert Marshall, Gladys Cooper, Elsa Lanchester, Roland Young, C. Aubrey Smith, Merle Oberon, Ida Lupino, and very many others. However, there's one terrible boo-boo at the start where an American in London, played by Kent Smith, tells Reginald Gardiner that he's catching the plane back to New York the next morning. There were no transatlantic passenger flights at all at the height of the Blitz, or indeed until after the war, so how the script-writers could have got that one wrong remains a mystery. Anyway, for star-spotters the film may be worth a look!

Well the film was made in 1943, so possibly had hopes! Radio Times states that "While the film feels slightly rushed and uneven in places, the whole enterprise is to be commended: everyone worked for free and profits were given to war charities" [p.32]. I am always amazed at the quality of the films that managed to be made here in the middle of WW2.

There's also a couple of good 'uns from the period coming up on Saturday on the ever-loveable Talking Pictures TV

12.15pm - A Widow in London, with Michael Redgrave (1939), and

1.50pm - This England, (1941) - with an advance trailer from a scene on a District Line train.

[gradus]

Well the film was made in 1943, so possibly had hopes! Radio Times states that "While the film feels slightly rushed and uneven in places, the whole enterprise is to be commended: everyone worked for free and profits were given to war charities" [p.32]. I am always amazed at the quality of the films that managed to be made here in the middle of WW2.

There's also a couple of good 'uns from the period coming up on Saturday on the ever-loveable Talking Pictures TV

12.15pm - A Widow in London, with Michael Redgrave (1939), and

1.50pm - This England, (1941) - with an advance trailer from a scene on a District Line train.

A Widow in London might improve on the original story.

[DracoM]

Night of the Wolf / Haneke

[seabright]

Just to confirm that "Forever and a Day" was made in Hollywood, as per the Wiki article ...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forever_and_a_Day_(1943_film)

[gradus]

Tony Hancock in The Punch and Judy Man on Talking Pictures; makes me wish he'd had the chance to make more films.

[Bryn]

Tony Hancock in The Punch and Judy Man on Talking Pictures; makes me wish he'd had the chance to make more films.

I'm rather fond of The Rebel, which can be found, paired with The Punch and Judy Man, on DVD/Blu-ray.

[Serial_Apologist]

Tony Hancock in The Punch and Judy Man on Talking Pictures; makes me wish he'd had the chance to make more films.

The actual Tony Hancock in that characterisation, I thought, or pretty close.

[Nick Armstrong]

A Frederick Forsyth spy story I’d never encountered before:

The Fourth Protocol

Surprised it’s not better known... to me, anyway: not as classic as Day of the Jackal, but better than The Odessa File (which I think are his two best-known).

Good stuff, a young pre-Bond Pierce Brosnan as a crack Soviet agent on a mission in the UK, and Michael Caine as the British agent pitted against him. Fun to see Ian Richardson on classic ‘secret service chief’ form.

Interesting scene filmed during a concert in the Barbican Hall (Sibelius violin concerto, with Vengerov (?)), the posters visible in the foyer for the ‘Mahler, Vienna and the Twentieth Century’ festival dating filming to 1985 (fond memories of many visits to concerts in that series).

The film was on Talking Pictures TV a week or two ago and will doubtless pop up again. Definitely worth a couple of hours’ winter viewing.