Quick Millions moves like a getaway car—at speed. Within the first two minutes we meet a lowly truck driver who dreams of becoming a big shot. Within five, he’s committed a crime. Within 10, he’s laying out plans for a protection racket, the first of many schemes which pave his way to the top. Like […]
All That Money Can Buy: ‘The V.I.P.s’ (1963)
Ensconced in the lobby of Grand Hotel, Dr. Otternschlag famously observes: “People coming, going. Nothing ever happens.” The joke is of course that he’s wrong. The V.I.P.s is filled with people coming and going, specifically a group of passengers at a London airport en route to the US. We witness one tumultuous day in their […]
Grand Tapestry: ‘War and Peace’ (1966-67)
Yesterday I spent eight and a half hours swept up in the great current that is Sergei Bondarchuk’s adaptation of War and Peace—now playing in a dazzling new restoration at the Film Society of Lincoln Center. A patriotic Soviet response to King Vidor’s 1956 version—which starred Henry Fonda and Audrey Hepburn and had been a […]
La Belle Dame sans Merci: ‘Baby Face’ (1933)
Baby Face has earned a reputation as one of the films that led to the enforcement of the Motion Picture Production Code—and it’s easy to see what gave censors the vapours. Not only does Alfred E. Green’s film dare to speak plainly about female exploitation, it depicts a woman ruthlessly exploiting men and celebrates her. (The story […]
My Favourite Discoveries of 2018
As 2018 ticks to a close, time for one more list. These are my favourite discoveries of the year—films that aren’t new, but were new to me. Bells Are Ringing (1960) A musical featuring the combined talents of Judy Holliday, Dean Martin, Vincente Minnelli, Betty Comden and Adolph Green. This film is so easy to […]
Stranger in a Strange Land: ‘Local Hero’ (1983)
Local Hero is a fish-out-of-water comedy about an American oilman who travels to a tiny Scottish town and tries to do business with the locals. So far, so run-of-the-mill. But look again. Bill Forsyth’s film is also about the price we pay for progress, the emptiness lurking in seemingly full lives and the beauty of […]
His Last Duchess: ‘Corridor of Mirrors’ (1948)
Corridor of Mirrors begins with a respectable British housewife sneaking out of the house to see her lover—or rather, the wax figure of her lover in the Chamber of Horrors at Madame Tussaud’s. FilmStruck was made for oddities like this. How else would I have found a film so nonchalantly bizarre, so casually baroque? The […]
Life with Fathers: Nine Fathers for Father’s Day
Happy Father’s Day! As we celebrate fathers of all shapes and sizes, here are a handful of cinematic ones who run the gamut of paternal devotion. To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) When Scout Finch (Mary Badham) comes home weeping after a disastrous first day at school, her father comforts her with the following advice: “You […]
The Walk to the Paradise Garden: ‘A Month in the Country’ (1987)
As the hundredth anniversary of the Armistice approaches the First World War slips further away. The last veterans are gone. A collective memory of trenches, poppies, lions led by donkeys, and Rupert Brooke giving way to Wilfred Owen remains. Yet the Great War, fought by those who never imagined there would be a greater one, […]
The Riddle Called Married Life: ‘Two for the Road’ (1967)
Two for the Road begins with a love affair gone sour then cycles back to when it began, skipping back and forth in time and through different phases: flirtation, rancour, complacency and newly-wedded bliss. The film is a non-linear slide into heartache. Driving through a small town, Mark (Albert Finney) and Joanna Wallace (Audrey Hepburn) […]