Jewel Robbery is like a lattice of spun sugar: intricate, elegant, beautiful to look at and delicious when devoured. It’s morning in Vienna and a high-end jeweller’s is opening its doors. The grill goes up, the safe opens and reverent hands extract dozens of necklaces and bracelets, the camera closing in to caress each glistening […]
Unmade Movies: ‘The Blind Man’ and ‘The Unquenchable Thirst of Dracula’
There are films I long to see and know I never will: Michael Powell’s Prospero; Orson Welles’ Heart of Darkness; Martin Scorsese’s Gershwin; Max Opühl’s The Duchess of Langeais. Film history is haunted by the spectres of unmade movies, films which for whatever reason—cast reshuffles, vagaries of financing—never saw the light of a projection booth. […]
The World of W. Somerset Maugham: ‘Quartet’ (1948), ‘Trio’ (1950) and ‘Encore’ (1951)
“In my twenties the critics said I was brutal, in my thirties they said I was flippant, in my forties they said I was cynical, in my fifties they said I was incompetent and then in my sixties they said I was superficial.” So speaks W. Somerset Maugham in his wry introduction to Quartet, an […]
Monster from the Id: Cody Jarrett in ‘White Heat’ (1949)
This post is a (very late) entry in the Great Villain Blogathon, hosted by Shadows and Satin, Speakeasy and Silver Screenings. See the other posts here. I’ve decided to try something a little different for this post: not a review but a look at a single performance. (Spoilers ahead.) Some villains have chainsaws, others vats […]
Five Riffs on ‘Paris Blues’ (1961)
Paul Newman has been TCM’s star of the month this May; presumably because the programmers knew just how many of his films I hadn’t seen and decided to make me happy. On my must-watch list, Paris Blues, a film I’ve longed to see, if only to further appreciate the origins of this gif: Directed by […]
Maestro: Erich Wolfgang Korngold
When I think of the classic Hollywood sound I think of Erich Wolfgang Korngold. The first internationally respected composer to write music for Hollywood, he was also one of the most influential, setting a template for symphonic scores which shaped the sound of American films for over a decade. He was born on 29 May […]
A Trip Into ‘The Twilight Zone’
Submitted for your approval, The Twilight Zone, a science-fiction/fantasy/horror anthology series created by Rod Serling that first aired in 1959—and remains one of the most influential television shows ever made. Over the course of five seasons and 156 episodes, Serling—who was also the show’s executive producer and head writer—presented […]
From Page to Screen: Seven Films Set in Bookshops
Happy Independent Bookstore Day! Every last Saturday in April, since 2015, bookworms across the country have celebrated indie bookshops: marvellous, idiosyncratic creatures that these days feel like an endangered species. It’s a great excuse to buy books. Not that I’ve ever needed one. Glancing at my shelves, I’ve sometimes wondered if I’m in danger of […]
The Circus is a Wacky World: ‘Inside Daisy Clover’ (1965)
Inside Daisy Clover has urgent news to impart: Hollywood is full of phoneys. Beneath its sparkling veneer, Tinseltown is a snake pit filled with sycophants and fiends who pay millions for your smile, while also stealing your soul. This revelation isn’t particularly shocking, or much of a revelation, but the film repeats it endlessly and […]
Lonely Town: ‘The Crowd’ (1928)
Here’s the second instalment in my ‘New York State of Mind’ series. The Crowd is about a man who moves to a big city and waits for his life to get started, without realising that his life has become waiting. So desperate is he to stand out from the crowd, he never considers there might […]
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