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KING OF THIEVES (Dir: James Marsh, 2018) My quest to watch as many movies as I can in 2019 continues with movie King of Thieves. Based on the true story of the Hatton Garden safe burglary of 2015, King of Thieves is something of a sweary throwback to the British crime caper films of yore. The Italian Job’s Michael Caine stars as criminal mastermind Brian Reader and, as his criminal cohorts, is supported by a top notch cast including Ray Winstone, Jim Broadbent and various other Harry Potter cast members. The real-life crime was as audacious as its perpetrators were ultimately careless and is neatly told here against the London locations on which it took place. While King of Thieves won’t change cinema history it is stylish, old-fashion (in a good way), frequently humorous and well worth a watch! 100+ movie reviews now available on my blog jinglebonesmovietime.blogspot.com
BORN YESTERDAY (Dir: George Cukor, 1950) Movie of the year number 8, Born Yesterday, is an absolute classic. Judy Holliday’s recreation of her Broadway role as the uneducated mistress of bent junk magnet Broderick Crawford is one the greatest comedic performances in cinema history. Maybe the greatest. Completing the trio of fine star performances is William Holden as the journalist who Crawford hires to smarten Holliday up. All three are excellent but the movie is really Holliday’s; deservedly winning her the Best Actress Oscar in a tough category including heavyweights Bette Davis (All About Eve) and Gloria Swanson (Sunset Boulevard). Perhaps slightly betraying its stage origins, this is still a cinematic gem with Cukor handling the intelligent razor sharp Garson Kanin dialogue with his usual class. Born Yesterday is truly classic Hollywood at its finest. I cannot recommend this movie highly enough. 100+ movie reviews now available on my blog jinglebonesmovietime.blogspot.com
ALL ABOUT EVE (Dir: Joseph L Mankiewicz, 1950). Fasten your seatbelts for movie number 9: All About Eve. This backstage drama made cinema history with 14 Oscar nominations, a record it held for almost half a decade until Titanic equalled the feat in 1998. Both Bette Davis and Anne Baxter we’re nominated in the Best Actress category, although both went home empty handed (see previous post). In truth the movie is more of an ensemble piece, with above the title Celeste Holm and George Sanders equally important to the narrative. Mankiewicz’s highly quotable screenplay is witty and waspish by turns and, as director, he elicits excellent performances from the entire cast, including a pre-stardom turn from ingénue Marilyn Monroe. 100+ movie reviews now available on my blog jinglebonesmovietime.blogspot.com
AN AFFAIR TO REMEMBER (Dir: Leo McCarey, 1957). Soon to be wed playboy Cary Grant and in-a-relationship Deborah Kerr engage in a chaste shipboard romance in movie number 10: An Affair to Remember. After some smart comedic attempts to avoid the attention of the fellow passengers, the couple arrange to rendezvous atop the Empire State Building six months later to circumstantiate their affair. Tragedy, however, intervenes before the lovers can reunite (hankies at the ready ladies). I am fully aware that this movie is considered a romantic classic and is loved by many (most famously Sleepless in Seattle director and co-writer Nora Ephron) but I, alas, am not among them. Yes, Milton Krasner’s Deluxe Color CinemaScope photography is beautiful. Yes, the leads are very attractive, although Grant at 53 was getting a bit long in the tooth to play these playboy types. But the addition of the toothsome children’s choir, some laboured shipboard farce and the manipulative sentimentality of the second half just doesn’t do it for me. It is certainly worth a watch for its leading players and some genuinely smart dialogue from McCarey and cohorts. If you like this sort of thing you may well love this glossy and glitzy cinematic equivalent of pink champagne. I personally would rather stick with Ephron’s superior rom com tribute Sleepless in Seattle. 100+ movie reviews now available on my blog jinglebonesmovietime.blogspot.com
SUSPICION (Dir: Alfred Hitchcock, 1941). Cary Grant is a decidedly dodgy geezer and Joan Fontaine his timid bride who suspects him of murder in movie number 11: Suspicion. Let’s be honest; this is not quite top drawer Hitchcock. It is, however, very, very good. Lacking much of the gallows humour and nail-biting set pieces which characterise Hitchcock’s later work, this is still a thoroughly entertaining romantic melodrama-cum-thriller. Some slightly artificial Hollywood sets stand in for the English countryside, but otherwise the whole thing is beautifully shot and expertly played by a stellar cast, especially Nigel Bruce as Grant’s bumbling, naive business partner. Highlights include a grizzly conversation about autopsy over a chicken dinner, a t ense game of ‘Anagrams’ and the single most suspenseful glass of milk in movie history! Great stuff! 100+ movie reviews now available on my blog jinglebonesmovietime.blogspot.com
THE LOVES OF JOANNA GODDEN (Dir: Charles Frend, 1947). I will admit to knowing little about movie number 12 before watching. Yet The Loves of Joanna Godden is an Ealing Studios production of some pedigree, with a screenplay by H E Bates and music by Ralph Vaughan Williams. Somewhat atypical of Ealing, Joanna Godden is a romantic period piece starring Googie Withers as a young woman who inherits a sheep farm and is determined to make it a success without the aid of a husband. This proto-feminist plot is unusual in post-war British cinema and especially so from Ealing whose protagonists are almost always men. This is certainly to be commended. As is the beautiful Romney Marsh locales and the realistic depiction of the devastation caused by an outbreak of foot and mouth disease. It is perhaps here where Joanna Godden most belies its Ealing roots as the studio was paramount in the British documentary and social-realist movement. Watching Miss Withers juggle the duel concerns of lambing and of finding or fending off potential suitors is not exactly thrilling; yet the film is enjoyable and worth a watch as an unusual release from the years when Ealing was at the peak of its powers. 100+ movie reviews now available on my blog jinglebonesmovietime.blogspot.com
ON DANGEROUS GROUND (Dir: Nicholas Ray, 1951).
A stellar cast including Robert Ryan, Ida Lupino and Ward Bond feature in Nicholas Ray’s tough and surprisingly violent film noir-ish thriller.
On Dangerous Ground is kind of a movie of two halves. The first sees sadistic cop Ryan clash with the lowlife of New York’s mean streets. However, after one display of brutality too many he is sent out of town to a rural, snow-covered isolated small town to track down the killer of a young girl, having to deal with the girl’s vengeful father and the killer’s blind sister.
The beautiful, contrasty monochrome photography in the second half is a definite plus, and the relationship that develops between Ryan and Lupino is unexpectedly tender.
A fairly overlooked title among Ray’s work, On Dangerous Ground is an enjoyably gritty hardboiled 50’s crime flick.
100+ movie reviews now available on my blog JINGLE BONES MOVIE TIME! Link below.
RUBY GENTRY (Dir: King Vidor, 1952).
A ripe slice of Southern Gothic with Jennifer Jones as gun toting, skinny jeans wearing, swamp wildcat Ruby; using her womanly wiles to ensnare local stud Charlton Heston and marrying wealthy, lonely chump Karl Malden.
Jones is literally wild in the part of Ruby and is undoubtedly the movie’s greatest asset. Heston is less effective in a role perhaps slightly underwritten and which does not particularly play to his strengths as an actor. Malden, by contrast, is fantastic in this sort of thing (see ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ and ‘Baby Doll’) and demonstrates why he was one of Hollywood’s most in-demand character actors.
Admittedly, there is, probably, an unpleasant, deeply misogynistic subtext about powerful women in this movie as Ruby, with her new found wealth, wreaks revenge on the townsfolk who hold her in distain and upon the man she thought was in love with her. A better writer than I would go into this in greater depth (and if anyone wishes to, please do so in the comments below - polite, serious discussion is welcome and encouraged!)
In spite of this, I must confess, I love a 50s melodrama, where what was once torrid and sexy has become overblown and camp. Ruby Gentry is hopelessly dated, but that is not to suggest that it isn’t also wholly entertaining if you are in the right mood!
100+ movie reviews now available on my blog JINGLE BONES MOVIE TIME! Link below.
OLIVER! (Dir: Carol Reed, 1968).
Carol Reed’s movie adaptation of Lionel Bart’s blockbuster stage musical is a universally acclaimed, multi-award winning masterpiece.
Based, of course, on Charles Dickens’ novel Oliver Twist, it is certainly a sanitised depiction of Victorian East End London; a film about child exploitation populated by thieves and murderers should probably not make for suitable family entertainment, and yet it does.
A top drawer cast includes unknown juveniles Mark Lester, winsomely appealing in the title role and Jack Wild gives a spirited and charismatic performance as Dodger. Of the adults, Ron Moody as Fagin, Oliver Reed as Bill Sykes and Harry Secombe as Mr Bumble are all impressive but perhaps the stand out is the previously little known Shani Wallis. As Nancy, Ms Wallis gives a genuinely moving, sympathetic performance. It’s staggering to think that Oliver! did not launch her to international movie stardom.
Bart’s outstanding score is easily one of the best to grace stage or screen; unusually for any musical all 13 songs taken from the show, from Food Glorious Food to Om Pah Pah have entered the public conscious and are all exquisitely staged, lavish production numbers.
In spite of the tremendous critical and commercial success of Oliver! by 1968 the big budget family musical was becoming a less commercially viable prospect for Hollywood. The previous year had seen the commercial failure of Disney’s The Happiest Millionaire and Fox’s Doctor Doolittle and in the half decade since its initial release few non-animated film musicals have had anywhere near its impact. Although the genre has undergone a successful revival, such recent examples as Mary Poppins Returns and the live-action Beauty and the Beast, as good as those movies may be, have not managed to match it for artistry or sheer entertainment.
It is easy to see why critics and audiences were so enamoured by Oliver! as 50 years on it remains a genuinely fantastic film that withstands many repeated viewings.
100+ movie reviews now available on my blog JINGLE BONES MOVIE TIME. Link below.