To celebrate the release of Room at the Top, on Blu-Ray, DVD and Digital from 11th March, we are giving away Blu-Rays to 2 lucky winners!
Based on the best-selling novel by John Braine, Room At The Top is Jack Clayton’s debut feature and is one of the earliest examples of the ‘Kitchen Sink Drama’ that helped pave the way for the incoming ‘British New Wave’ of film-makers. Featuring the first open reference to sex as well as the earliest depiction of adultery in a British film, it was a controversial film for the era and was initially refused a certificate by the censors before eventually securing an “X” certificate.
Starring Laurence Harvey, Simone Signoret, Heather Sears and Donald Wolfit, the film went on to become a major box-office success and opened the floodgates for more adult orientated movies.
The film also gained widespread critical acclaim and was nominated for six Academy Awards,...
Based on the best-selling novel by John Braine, Room At The Top is Jack Clayton’s debut feature and is one of the earliest examples of the ‘Kitchen Sink Drama’ that helped pave the way for the incoming ‘British New Wave’ of film-makers. Featuring the first open reference to sex as well as the earliest depiction of adultery in a British film, it was a controversial film for the era and was initially refused a certificate by the censors before eventually securing an “X” certificate.
Starring Laurence Harvey, Simone Signoret, Heather Sears and Donald Wolfit, the film went on to become a major box-office success and opened the floodgates for more adult orientated movies.
The film also gained widespread critical acclaim and was nominated for six Academy Awards,...
- 3/9/2024
- by Competitions
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
The man with eyebrows that can kill! Not really, but that’s the impression given by the poster illustration. The Baker/Berman producing team gave their Hammer/Terence Fisher imitation a decent production — good color, autopsy-grade gore, female victims in low-cut gowns — but neither Jimmy Sangster’s script nor the flat direction bring it to life. Donald Wolfit is the resurrected mad doctor stealing transfusion blood and committing murders with the help of his deformed servant Victor Maddern but the highlight is the strong performance from favorite scream queen Barbara Shelley. Artus’ fancy special edition Blu is Region A friendly, although the DVD is Pal and all the extras are French-only.
Blood of the Vampire
Blu-ray + DVD
Artus Films
1958 / Color / 1:66 widescreen / 87 min. / Le Sang du Vampire / Street Date April 6, 2021 / Available from Amazon.fr / 29.99 €
Starring: Donald Wolfit, Vincent Ball, Barbara Shelley, Victor Maddern, William Devlin, Andrew Faulds, John Le Mesurier, Bryan Coleman,...
Blood of the Vampire
Blu-ray + DVD
Artus Films
1958 / Color / 1:66 widescreen / 87 min. / Le Sang du Vampire / Street Date April 6, 2021 / Available from Amazon.fr / 29.99 €
Starring: Donald Wolfit, Vincent Ball, Barbara Shelley, Victor Maddern, William Devlin, Andrew Faulds, John Le Mesurier, Bryan Coleman,...
- 5/25/2021
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
One of the first ‘kitchen sink realist’ films of the British New Wave is also one of the best English films ever — believable, absorbing, and emotionally moving. The adaptation of John Braine’s novel launched Laurence Harvey as a major star, and English films were suddenly touted as being just as adult as their continental counterparts. It attracted a bushel of awards, especially for the luminous Simone Signoret. Unlike the average Angry Young Man, Joe Lampton’s struggle feels universal — bad things happen when ambition seeks a way through the class ceiling, ‘to get to the money,’ as says Donald Wolfit’s character.
Room at the Top
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1959 / B&W / 1:66 widescreen / 115 min. / Street Date January 14, 2020 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95
Starring: Laurence Harvey, Simone Signoret, Heather Sears, Ambrosine Phillpotts, Donald Wolfit, Donald Houston, Hermione Baddeley, Allan Cuthbertson, Raymond Huntley, John Westbrook, Richard Pasco, Ian Hendry, April Olrich,...
Room at the Top
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1959 / B&W / 1:66 widescreen / 115 min. / Street Date January 14, 2020 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95
Starring: Laurence Harvey, Simone Signoret, Heather Sears, Ambrosine Phillpotts, Donald Wolfit, Donald Houston, Hermione Baddeley, Allan Cuthbertson, Raymond Huntley, John Westbrook, Richard Pasco, Ian Hendry, April Olrich,...
- 1/28/2020
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Robert Egger‘s “The Lighthouse,” which screened as part of the BFI London Film Festival, was hailed by the critics. This black-and-white picture is an intense psychological study of two men — Robert Pattinson and Willem Dafoe — working as lighthouse keepers in the 1890s. Eggers, who wrote and directed the 2015 thriller “The Witch,” pulled double duty on this film as well, with his brother, Max Eggers, as co-writer. The film, which debuted in Cannes, will be released stateside by A24 on Oct. 18.
Owen Gleiberman (Variety) observes that the film “is made with extraordinary skill and says that “both actors are sensational (and they work together like one).” However, he notes “in terms of sheer showboating power it’s Dafoe’s movie.” As he explains, “Dafoe plays Thomas Wake, the aging ‘wickie,’ as a knowing piece of kitsch — a crusty, bearded, limping old seaman with his pipe held upside-down and a brogue marinated in gin.
Owen Gleiberman (Variety) observes that the film “is made with extraordinary skill and says that “both actors are sensational (and they work together like one).” However, he notes “in terms of sheer showboating power it’s Dafoe’s movie.” As he explains, “Dafoe plays Thomas Wake, the aging ‘wickie,’ as a knowing piece of kitsch — a crusty, bearded, limping old seaman with his pipe held upside-down and a brogue marinated in gin.
- 10/7/2019
- by Jacob Sarkisian
- Gold Derby
Everyday Noir in Prague: a one-of-a-kind Czech/Brit coproduction teams fine British actors with the home-grown star Rudolf HruSínský, and the result is neither murder nor mayhem, but a real everyday tragedy that might happen anywhere. The bright B&w images chart an unhappy illicit romance, and a petty crime with awful consequences.
90° in the Shade
All-region Blu-ray
Powerhouse Indicator
1965 / B&w / 2:39 widescreen / 91 min. / + second version Tricet jedna ve stínu 83 min. / Street Date September 23, 2019 / available from Powerhouse Films UK / £15.99
Starring: Anne Heywood, James Booth, Rudolf HruSínský, Ann Todd, Sir Donald Wolfit, Jirina Jirásková, Jorga Kotrbová, Vladimír Mensík.
Cinematography: Becrich Batka
Film Editors: Jan Chaloupek, Russell Lloyd
Original Music: Ludek Hulan
Written by David Mercer story by Jirí Mucha, Jirí Weiss
Produced by Raymond Stross
Directed by Jirí Weiss
(note: a Czech friend who long ago helped me with research for Ikarie Xb-1 advised me not to even Try spelling Czech with full diacritical remarks.
90° in the Shade
All-region Blu-ray
Powerhouse Indicator
1965 / B&w / 2:39 widescreen / 91 min. / + second version Tricet jedna ve stínu 83 min. / Street Date September 23, 2019 / available from Powerhouse Films UK / £15.99
Starring: Anne Heywood, James Booth, Rudolf HruSínský, Ann Todd, Sir Donald Wolfit, Jirina Jirásková, Jorga Kotrbová, Vladimír Mensík.
Cinematography: Becrich Batka
Film Editors: Jan Chaloupek, Russell Lloyd
Original Music: Ludek Hulan
Written by David Mercer story by Jirí Mucha, Jirí Weiss
Produced by Raymond Stross
Directed by Jirí Weiss
(note: a Czech friend who long ago helped me with research for Ikarie Xb-1 advised me not to even Try spelling Czech with full diacritical remarks.
- 9/14/2019
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
For his follow-up to The Witch, Robert Eggers launches a salty story of two men trapped in a turret. Think Steptoe and Son at sea and in hell
Robert Eggers’s gripping nightmare shows two lighthouse-keepers in 19th-century Maine going melancholy mad together: a toxic marriage, a dance of death. It is explosively scary and captivatingly beautiful in cinematographer Jarin Blaschke’s fierce monochrome, like a daguerreotype of fear. And the performances from Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson have a sledgehammer punch – Pattinson, in particular, just gets better and better.
There is rare excitement in seeing these two actors butt heads and trade difficult, complex period dialogue with such mastery and flair. And the screenplay by Robert and Max Eggers is a delicious and often outrageous homage to maritime speech and sea-dog lore, saltier than an underwater sodium chloride factory. Their script is barnacled with resemblances to Coleridge, Shakespeare, Melville...
Robert Eggers’s gripping nightmare shows two lighthouse-keepers in 19th-century Maine going melancholy mad together: a toxic marriage, a dance of death. It is explosively scary and captivatingly beautiful in cinematographer Jarin Blaschke’s fierce monochrome, like a daguerreotype of fear. And the performances from Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson have a sledgehammer punch – Pattinson, in particular, just gets better and better.
There is rare excitement in seeing these two actors butt heads and trade difficult, complex period dialogue with such mastery and flair. And the screenplay by Robert and Max Eggers is a delicious and often outrageous homage to maritime speech and sea-dog lore, saltier than an underwater sodium chloride factory. Their script is barnacled with resemblances to Coleridge, Shakespeare, Melville...
- 5/19/2019
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
Albert Finney, one of the leading actors of the postwar period, has died after a short illness. He was 82.
The robust British actor began as a stage actor before transitioning to film. With his gravely voice and rumbling stare he brought an intense realism to his work, rising to fame in such 1960s classics as “Saturday Night and Sunday Morning” and “Tom Jones.” He later memorably played Agatha Christie’s legendary sleuth Hercule Poirot in “Murder on the Orient Express” and impressed critics and audiences with towering performances in “The Dresser” and “Under the Volcano.” Finney was nominated for five Oscars but never won the prize.
In 1963, Finney played the foundling hero in Tony Richardson’s Oscar best picture winner “Tom Jones.” The role made Finney an international movie star and earned him the first of four best actor Oscar nominations. A year earlier, Finney had turned down the title...
The robust British actor began as a stage actor before transitioning to film. With his gravely voice and rumbling stare he brought an intense realism to his work, rising to fame in such 1960s classics as “Saturday Night and Sunday Morning” and “Tom Jones.” He later memorably played Agatha Christie’s legendary sleuth Hercule Poirot in “Murder on the Orient Express” and impressed critics and audiences with towering performances in “The Dresser” and “Under the Volcano.” Finney was nominated for five Oscars but never won the prize.
In 1963, Finney played the foundling hero in Tony Richardson’s Oscar best picture winner “Tom Jones.” The role made Finney an international movie star and earned him the first of four best actor Oscar nominations. A year earlier, Finney had turned down the title...
- 2/8/2019
- by Rick Schultz
- Variety Film + TV
Cage is on magnificent, mind-boggling form as a chainsaw-wielding lumberjack hunting the gang who invaded his home
Now I need someone to kiss me and stop me from shaking. Mandy, starring Nicolas Cage, is a death-metal horror about a guy seeking revenge for the murder of his girlfriend … named Mandy. There is some serious vexation here. The displeasure is brought onstream. Granted, every YouTube consumer knows about “Cage rage”. But this time Cage really is as cross as two sticks.
This outrageously over the top film is nothing if not uninhibited, often visually amazing, not to say barking mad. There has been some discussion about how Cage is revolutionising acting, challenging the naturalist consensus. And maybe he is – although it’s possible that Mandy is his tribute to how an American version of Sir Donald Wolfit might play Titus Andronicus. Cage certainly takes us way beyond the laugh with/laugh at debate.
Now I need someone to kiss me and stop me from shaking. Mandy, starring Nicolas Cage, is a death-metal horror about a guy seeking revenge for the murder of his girlfriend … named Mandy. There is some serious vexation here. The displeasure is brought onstream. Granted, every YouTube consumer knows about “Cage rage”. But this time Cage really is as cross as two sticks.
This outrageously over the top film is nothing if not uninhibited, often visually amazing, not to say barking mad. There has been some discussion about how Cage is revolutionising acting, challenging the naturalist consensus. And maybe he is – although it’s possible that Mandy is his tribute to how an American version of Sir Donald Wolfit might play Titus Andronicus. Cage certainly takes us way beyond the laugh with/laugh at debate.
- 10/10/2018
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
The scope of this slice of wartime history is so small, it’s almost the movie equivalent of a one-man show. There are perhaps only a dozen speaking roles. Brian Cox is impressive as The Man Who Saved England in its Darkest Hour, but the drama reduces both the man and the historical crisis to trivial status, as little more than a personal emotional crisis: “Winston, the Haunted Imperialist.”
Churchill
Blu-ray
Cohen Media Group
2017 / Color / 2:39 widescreen / 105 min. / Street Date October 3, 2017 / 30.99
Starring: Brian Cox, Miranda Richardson, John Slattery, Ella Purnell, Julian Wadham, Richard Durden, James Purefoy.
Cinematography: David Higgs
Film Editor: Chris Gill
Original Music: Lorne Balfe
Written by Alex von Tunzelmann
Produced by Claudia Bluemhuber, Nick Taussig, Piers Tempest, Paul Van Carter
Directed by Jonathan Teplitzky
No, it isn’t Gary Oldman as Winston Churchill … that’s another movie, Darkest Hour. This is the Brian Cox Churchill movie.
Any...
Churchill
Blu-ray
Cohen Media Group
2017 / Color / 2:39 widescreen / 105 min. / Street Date October 3, 2017 / 30.99
Starring: Brian Cox, Miranda Richardson, John Slattery, Ella Purnell, Julian Wadham, Richard Durden, James Purefoy.
Cinematography: David Higgs
Film Editor: Chris Gill
Original Music: Lorne Balfe
Written by Alex von Tunzelmann
Produced by Claudia Bluemhuber, Nick Taussig, Piers Tempest, Paul Van Carter
Directed by Jonathan Teplitzky
No, it isn’t Gary Oldman as Winston Churchill … that’s another movie, Darkest Hour. This is the Brian Cox Churchill movie.
Any...
- 9/30/2017
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Robert Mitchum all but snoozes through this promising war-espionage thriller that pits lazy Gestapo agents against clueless partisans in occupied Greece. It's got great locations and a good cast, but director Robert Aldrich seems off his feed -- there's not a lot of excitement to be had. The Angry Hills DVD-r The Warner Archive Collection 1959 / B&W / 2:35 enhanced widescreen / 106 min. / Street Date February 16, 2016 / available through the WBshop / 21.99 Starring Robert Mitchum, Stanley Baker, Elisabeth Mueller, Gia Scala, Theodore Bikel, Sebastian Cabot, Donald Wolfit, Marius Goring, Jocelyn Lane, Kieron Moore, George Pastell, Marita Constantinou, Alec Mango. Cinematography Stephen Dade Film Editor Peter Tanner Production Design Ken Adam Original Music Richard Rodney Bennett Written by A.I. Bezzerides from the novel by Leon Uris Produced by Raymond Stross Directed by Robert Aldrich
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
Director Robert Aldrich had come through with successes for Burt Lancaster's production company (Apache, Vera Cruz...
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
Director Robert Aldrich had come through with successes for Burt Lancaster's production company (Apache, Vera Cruz...
- 5/31/2016
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
This year marks 50 years since the debut of Tom Stoppard’s “Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead” and 25 years since the release of the play’s film adaptation. Stoppard himself took on the challenge of scripting and directing a film adaptation of his celebrated absurdist comedy that depicts what’s going on “off-stage,” so to speak, during Shakespeare’s “Hamlet.” Then relative unknowns in the U.S., English actors Gary Oldman and Tim Roth starred as the Danish prince’s untimely death-bound friends, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. And for the Player — who, with a twinkle in his eye, schooled us on death and exits and entrances — Stoppard turned to Richard Dreyfuss. Packed with wordplay, super-speedy banter, existential musings, slapstick, and silly anachronisms, “Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead” got its big screen premiere at the 1990 Venice International Film Festival, with a release in U.S. theaters the following February. Today the film is available on Blu-ray for the first time.
- 1/12/2016
- by Emily Rome
- Hitfix
The Dresser's Us TV rights have been picked up by Starz.
Based on Ronald Harwood's classic play, the film marks the first time Sir Ian McKellen and Sir Anthony Hopkins have worked together.
The movie will be set during World War II and is based on Harwood's own experiences as a dresser for the distinguished British actor Sir Donald Wolfit. Hopkins has been cast as Wolfit, while McKellen will play his dresser, Norman.
The BBC co-production is directed by Richard Eyre and executive-produced by Colin Callender, Sonia Friedman, Polly Hilly and Ben Stephenson.
"The Dresser is a timeless and poignant story about the relationship between artists, and to have this classic play brought to life on-screen by such acting giants as Anthony Hopkins and Ian McKellen is thrilling," said Starz managing director Carmi Zlotnik (via Entertainment Weekly).
"We are glad to be working in partnership again with the...
Based on Ronald Harwood's classic play, the film marks the first time Sir Ian McKellen and Sir Anthony Hopkins have worked together.
The movie will be set during World War II and is based on Harwood's own experiences as a dresser for the distinguished British actor Sir Donald Wolfit. Hopkins has been cast as Wolfit, while McKellen will play his dresser, Norman.
The BBC co-production is directed by Richard Eyre and executive-produced by Colin Callender, Sonia Friedman, Polly Hilly and Ben Stephenson.
"The Dresser is a timeless and poignant story about the relationship between artists, and to have this classic play brought to life on-screen by such acting giants as Anthony Hopkins and Ian McKellen is thrilling," said Starz managing director Carmi Zlotnik (via Entertainment Weekly).
"We are glad to be working in partnership again with the...
- 1/10/2015
- Digital Spy
Actor who played many major Shakespearean roles on the stage
Few actors played as many major Shakespearean roles as did Paul Rogers, a largely forgotten and seriously underrated performer, who has died aged 96. It was as though he was barnacled in those parts, undertaken at the Old Vic in the 1950s, by the time he played his most famous role, the vicious paterfamilias Max in Harold Pinter's The Homecoming at the Aldwych theatre in 1965 (and filmed in 1973).
Staunch, stolid and thuggish, with eyes that drilled through any opposition, Rogers's Max was a grumpy old block of granite, hewn on an epic scale, despite the flat cap and plimsolls – horribly real. Peter Hall's production for the Royal Shakespeare Company was monumental; everything was grey, chill and cheerless in John Bury's design, set off firstly by a piquant bowl of green apples and then by the savage acting.
The Homecoming...
Few actors played as many major Shakespearean roles as did Paul Rogers, a largely forgotten and seriously underrated performer, who has died aged 96. It was as though he was barnacled in those parts, undertaken at the Old Vic in the 1950s, by the time he played his most famous role, the vicious paterfamilias Max in Harold Pinter's The Homecoming at the Aldwych theatre in 1965 (and filmed in 1973).
Staunch, stolid and thuggish, with eyes that drilled through any opposition, Rogers's Max was a grumpy old block of granite, hewn on an epic scale, despite the flat cap and plimsolls – horribly real. Peter Hall's production for the Royal Shakespeare Company was monumental; everything was grey, chill and cheerless in John Bury's design, set off firstly by a piquant bowl of green apples and then by the savage acting.
The Homecoming...
- 10/15/2013
- by Michael Coveney
- The Guardian - Film News
Alec Guinness: Before Obi-Wan Kenobi, there were the eight D’Ascoyne family members (photo: Alec Guiness, Dennis Price in ‘Kind Hearts and Coronets’) (See previous post: “Alec Guinness Movies: Pre-Star Wars Career.”) TCM won’t be showing The Bridge on the River Kwai on Alec Guinness day, though obviously not because the cable network programmers believe that one four-hour David Lean epic per day should be enough. After all, prior to Lawrence of Arabia TCM will be presenting the three-and-a-half-hour-long Doctor Zhivago (1965), a great-looking but never-ending romantic drama in which Guinness — quite poorly — plays a Kgb official. He’s slightly less miscast as a mere Englishman — one much too young for the then 32-year-old actor — in Lean’s Great Expectations (1946), a movie that fully belongs to boy-loving (in a chaste, fatherly manner) fugitive Finlay Currie. And finally, make sure to watch Robert Hamer’s dark comedy Kind Hearts and Coronets...
- 8/3/2013
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Click here to read our french "Blood Of The Vampire" movie review, directed by Henry Cass with Donald Wolfit, Vincent Ball, Barbara Shelley starring.A man and wife are terrorized by Mad Scientist Dr. Callistratus who was executed but has returned to life with a heart transplant. Along with his crippled assistant Carl, the 'anemic' Mad Scientist, believed to be a vampire, conducts blood deficiency research on the inmates of a prison hospital for the criminally insane to sustain his return to life....
- 6/11/2013
- www.ohmygore.com/
Actor best known as the haughty department store supervisor Captain Peacock in the TV comedy Are You Being Served?
The actor Frank Thornton, who has died aged 92, had a flair for comedy derived from the subtle craftsmanship of classical stage work. However, he will be best remembered for his longstanding characters in two popular BBC television comedy series – the sniffily priggish Captain Peacock in Are You Being Served? and the pompous retired policeman Herbert "Truly" Truelove, in Roy Clarke's Last of the Summer Wine.
Robertson Hare, the great Whitehall farceur, told him: "You'll never do any good until you're 40." And, said Thornton, "he was quite right." In the event, he was 51 when David Croft, producer of another long-running British staple, Dad's Army, remembered the tall, long-faced actor from another engagement and decided to cast him as the dapper floor-walker in charge of shop assistants played by Mollie Sugden, Wendy Richard,...
The actor Frank Thornton, who has died aged 92, had a flair for comedy derived from the subtle craftsmanship of classical stage work. However, he will be best remembered for his longstanding characters in two popular BBC television comedy series – the sniffily priggish Captain Peacock in Are You Being Served? and the pompous retired policeman Herbert "Truly" Truelove, in Roy Clarke's Last of the Summer Wine.
Robertson Hare, the great Whitehall farceur, told him: "You'll never do any good until you're 40." And, said Thornton, "he was quite right." In the event, he was 51 when David Croft, producer of another long-running British staple, Dad's Army, remembered the tall, long-faced actor from another engagement and decided to cast him as the dapper floor-walker in charge of shop assistants played by Mollie Sugden, Wendy Richard,...
- 3/19/2013
- by Carole Woddis
- The Guardian - Film News
My friend Maurice Stewart, who has died aged 79, was a consummate theatre professional. He was a stage manager, company manager and director in many parts of British theatre, working on operas and West End productions of American musicals. He toured with "third-rate variety to the Folies Bergère in Paris" and travelled to America with the Old Vic company. Renowned in the West End as a script doctor, he also wrote plays for BBC TV.
Maurice was a prime mover in the Puppet Centre and Trust, which evolved from talks held at Wandsworth library in 1976. He championed puppetry and played a part in its renaissance in the 1970s and 80s. More recently, he lectured at colleges in Europe and the Us on topics including "modern actors recreating the past" and British music hall and Gilbert and Sullivan. He built a substantial theatre archive and his interest in music hall led to...
Maurice was a prime mover in the Puppet Centre and Trust, which evolved from talks held at Wandsworth library in 1976. He championed puppetry and played a part in its renaissance in the 1970s and 80s. More recently, he lectured at colleges in Europe and the Us on topics including "modern actors recreating the past" and British music hall and Gilbert and Sullivan. He built a substantial theatre archive and his interest in music hall led to...
- 7/30/2012
- The Guardian - Film News
There have been more than 400 film and TV adaptations so far, and counting, some brilliant, some memorably awful
The opening credits of BBC1's new three-part adaptation of Great Expectations (27-29 December) show a chrysalis cracking open to reveal a pair of trembling wings. A few seconds later this delicate emergence is replaced on screen by the escaped convict Magwitch (Ray Winstone) erupting from the stagnant waters of the Essex marshes. Covered in blood and slime, he is at once the monster of nightmares and a huge misshapen baby gasping its first breath.
In a single sequence, the director Brian Kirk gets to the heart of Dickens's novel as a fable of rebirth and renewal. Together with Sarah Phelps, the screenwriter, he has created a world in which characters are forever seeking to transform themselves – or each other. A spookily young Miss Havisham (Gillian Anderson), still cocooned in her tatty wedding dress,...
The opening credits of BBC1's new three-part adaptation of Great Expectations (27-29 December) show a chrysalis cracking open to reveal a pair of trembling wings. A few seconds later this delicate emergence is replaced on screen by the escaped convict Magwitch (Ray Winstone) erupting from the stagnant waters of the Essex marshes. Covered in blood and slime, he is at once the monster of nightmares and a huge misshapen baby gasping its first breath.
In a single sequence, the director Brian Kirk gets to the heart of Dickens's novel as a fable of rebirth and renewal. Together with Sarah Phelps, the screenwriter, he has created a world in which characters are forever seeking to transform themselves – or each other. A spookily young Miss Havisham (Gillian Anderson), still cocooned in her tatty wedding dress,...
- 12/24/2011
- by Robert Douglas-Fairhurst
- The Guardian - Film News
Versatile British film director known for Bullitt, The Deep and Breaking Away
The director Peter Yates, who has died aged 81, helped Steve McQueen achieve iconic status with the cop movie Bullitt (1968), enjoyed a massive box-office success with The Deep (1977) and made one of the most beguiling of all youth movies in Breaking Away (1979). He maintained a steady career throughout five decades, initially in the theatre and then in mainstream cinema, but he suffered the critical neglect so often accorded those who tackle a variety of subjects and genres and become known, somewhat disparagingly, as journeyman directors.
Pauline Kael described him as a competent director "with a good serviceable technique for integrating staged movie action into documentary city locations". David Thomson suggested that, in America, Yates had "done nothing more profound than send hubcaps careering around corners". Bullitt's famous San Francisco car chase (later revived by Ford as part of...
The director Peter Yates, who has died aged 81, helped Steve McQueen achieve iconic status with the cop movie Bullitt (1968), enjoyed a massive box-office success with The Deep (1977) and made one of the most beguiling of all youth movies in Breaking Away (1979). He maintained a steady career throughout five decades, initially in the theatre and then in mainstream cinema, but he suffered the critical neglect so often accorded those who tackle a variety of subjects and genres and become known, somewhat disparagingly, as journeyman directors.
Pauline Kael described him as a competent director "with a good serviceable technique for integrating staged movie action into documentary city locations". David Thomson suggested that, in America, Yates had "done nothing more profound than send hubcaps careering around corners". Bullitt's famous San Francisco car chase (later revived by Ford as part of...
- 1/11/2011
- by Brian Baxter
- The Guardian - Film News
To be young in front of a TV is to be suddenly old, in a world where the past eternally survives
It was a child's straightforward question: "Are they dead, grandpa?" And yes, indeed, they are. Georgina and I were watching Kiss Me Kate on its umpteenth TV outing: with Howard Keel (Rip 2004, aged 85), Ann Miller (2004, aged 81) and Kathryn Grayson (who died only 11 months ago , aged 88). But Georgina, just 10, knew none of that, of course. She loved Miller's tap-dancing and Keel's barrel-chested booming. She just wanted to know whether these particular stars of the great Christmas/New Year movie banquet were still around.
And the answer, inevitably, counted them out. Along with John Wayne, Dean Martin, Katharine Hepburn, Alec Guinness and dozens more. Say goodbye to Eric and Ernie, one more time? No: this New Year they jig and joke again via a drama-cum-biog, after Christmas, and Ronnie Barker returns from beyond the grave.
It was a child's straightforward question: "Are they dead, grandpa?" And yes, indeed, they are. Georgina and I were watching Kiss Me Kate on its umpteenth TV outing: with Howard Keel (Rip 2004, aged 85), Ann Miller (2004, aged 81) and Kathryn Grayson (who died only 11 months ago , aged 88). But Georgina, just 10, knew none of that, of course. She loved Miller's tap-dancing and Keel's barrel-chested booming. She just wanted to know whether these particular stars of the great Christmas/New Year movie banquet were still around.
And the answer, inevitably, counted them out. Along with John Wayne, Dean Martin, Katharine Hepburn, Alec Guinness and dozens more. Say goodbye to Eric and Ernie, one more time? No: this New Year they jig and joke again via a drama-cum-biog, after Christmas, and Ronnie Barker returns from beyond the grave.
- 1/3/2011
- by Peter Preston
- The Guardian - Film News
A hoard of lost TV dramas – starring the likes of Sean Connery, Maggie Smith and Derek Jacobi – have resurfaced. What do they say about TV then and now?
We have become used to the idea of major TV dramas being imported from America: series such as The Wire, The Sopranos and The West Wing. But a stash of programmes heading for Britain this month have a more complicated history. These are not strictly imports; rather, they are being returned to their country of origin.
The 65 plays – starring actors such as Sean Connery, Maggie Smith and Derek Jacobi – were transmitted by the BBC and ITV between 1957 and 1969, but were only seen once. Subsequently, if they were asked after by historians or biographers, they were found to be missing, presumed wiped, a frequent fate in a period when the preservation of TV programmes was an expensive business. However, during a recent stock-taking...
We have become used to the idea of major TV dramas being imported from America: series such as The Wire, The Sopranos and The West Wing. But a stash of programmes heading for Britain this month have a more complicated history. These are not strictly imports; rather, they are being returned to their country of origin.
The 65 plays – starring actors such as Sean Connery, Maggie Smith and Derek Jacobi – were transmitted by the BBC and ITV between 1957 and 1969, but were only seen once. Subsequently, if they were asked after by historians or biographers, they were found to be missing, presumed wiped, a frequent fate in a period when the preservation of TV programmes was an expensive business. However, during a recent stock-taking...
- 11/4/2010
- by Mark Lawson
- The Guardian - Film News
A talented Irish actor on stage and in films for Ford and Huston
For an actor who worked with two of the greatest movie directors of the last century and appeared in the world premieres of plays by Brian Friel, Ireland's leading contemporary dramatist, Donal Donnelly, who has died after a long illness, aged 78, was curiously unrecognised. Like so many prominent Irish actors in the diasporas of Hollywood, British television, the West End and Broadway – all areas he conquered – Donnelly was a great talent and a private citizen, happily married for many years, and always seemed youthful.
There was something mischievous, something larkish, about him, too. He twinkled. And he had a big nose. He had long lived in New York, although he died in Chicago, and had started out in Dublin, although born in England.
In John Huston's swansong movie The Dead (1987), the best screen transcription of a James Joyce fiction,...
For an actor who worked with two of the greatest movie directors of the last century and appeared in the world premieres of plays by Brian Friel, Ireland's leading contemporary dramatist, Donal Donnelly, who has died after a long illness, aged 78, was curiously unrecognised. Like so many prominent Irish actors in the diasporas of Hollywood, British television, the West End and Broadway – all areas he conquered – Donnelly was a great talent and a private citizen, happily married for many years, and always seemed youthful.
There was something mischievous, something larkish, about him, too. He twinkled. And he had a big nose. He had long lived in New York, although he died in Chicago, and had started out in Dublin, although born in England.
In John Huston's swansong movie The Dead (1987), the best screen transcription of a James Joyce fiction,...
- 1/7/2010
- by Michael Coveney
- The Guardian - Film News
British film producer Robert S. Baker teamed with Monte Berman to produce, and occasionally direct, a handful of Gothic horror and science fiction films in the late 1950s. The duo produced the classic 1958 terror tale Blood of the Vampire (1958) starring Sir Donald Wolfit, and the cult sci-fi thriller The Crawling Eye (aka The Trollenberg Terror) (1958) starring Forrest Tucker. They produced and directed the 1959 gruesome recounting of Jack the Ripper (1959), and told the tale of the bodysnatching team of Burke and Hare in 1960’s The Flesh and the Fiends (aka Mania, The Fiendish Ghouls) starring Peter Cushing and Donald Pleasence. They also produced the period thriller The Hellfire Club (1961) and the horror comedy No Place Like Homicide! (aka What a Carve Up!) (1961).
Baker was born in London on October 27, 1916. He served in the Royal Artillery in North Africa during World War II, before being transferred to the Army Film and Photographic Unit.
Baker was born in London on October 27, 1916. He served in the Royal Artillery in North Africa during World War II, before being transferred to the Army Film and Photographic Unit.
- 11/6/2009
- by Harris Lentz
- FamousMonsters of Filmland
Every Sunday in October, Film School Rejects presents a horror film that was made before you were born and tells you why you should like it. This week, Old Ass Movies and 31 Days of Horror team up to present: Blood of the Vampire (1958) Synopsis: In what totally isn't a vampire movie, Dr. John Pierre (Vincent Ball) is sent to prison for doing a blood transfusion (an illegal practice in the 19th century) where he starts working for the mad scientist Callistratus (Donald Wolfit). Callistratus has his own sorted past with blood - notably that he was actually staked through the heart as a vampire and only remains alive through the blood experiments he's done and a sweet new heart. Luckily, he's got a ton of prisoners to kill and steal the red stuff from. Killer Scene: Although there are several great scenes, the opening is probably the best at creating the tone for the rest of the...
- 10/4/2009
- by Dr. Cole Abaius
- FilmSchoolRejects.com
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