Reviews

I really liked Chronicle when I was still at school and it covered history in the way I wish our teachers had done.

It covered archaeology and history from stone age to the Victorian period and did so in an accessible way without particularly dumbing things down (OK, a little bit but certainly not too much!).

Fortunately the BBC have some archived programmes on their web site...

Some of these programmes are a great reminder that Magnus Magnusson was far more than just the presenter of Mastermind.

Having watched the programmes on the web site, it is impressive that the BBC was prepared to back the Silbury Dig and to try experiments such as the Roman Goose March

The problem with this film is that the action it is trying to portray wasn't spectacular enough for Hollywood.

How many shots were actually fired in the real attack? I'll give you a clue -- it was a nice round figure.

Of course Hollywood needs gunfire and explosions or else what is the point of making the film? They don't let the fact that there wasn't any gunfire get in the way of their version of the story.

The romance part of the plot is all made up as well.

Ho, hum...

I suppose it just goes to show that when people complain that Hollywood is trying to rewrite history, there is plenty of precedent, this film being part of that. Why on earth didn't they just set the thing in some mythical place during WW2 and not pretend it was anything to do with a real action (which it wasn't really)?

I understand it was Saturday 16th January 1982 when I first saw this film. Dallas was on BBC 1 and Match of the Day wouldn't start for another half hour or so. So my brother and I decided to watch the beginning of this film on BBC 2 and then turn over for the football. Except we watched the whole thing. It really was that good.

Fast forward to 2006 and I finally got a copy of the DVD in my grubby mitts. I had to get it from the Czech Republic but it's PAL and the same region as the UK. I watched it and couldn't believe just how much I remembered from over twenty years previously.

Petr Koska is brilliant in his three roles: Jan Bures, Karel Bures and Jan pretending to be Karel. In this third role he improves his performance to the other characters as the film goes on because he has figured out how the plot should take shape after nearly mucking things up somewhat the first time round.

For me, getting the DVD has been a delightful piece of nostalgia!

An excellent programme with characters who were already well-developed when they first appeared.

Admittedly, the captain of the plane was very reminscent of Commander Bell, played by Ronnie Barker (qv) in the early series of the BBC Radio programme "The Navy Lark" but that made a new programme nostalgic!

Some of the best situations arose from people who really didn't like each other having to work together in a place where a) they couldn't get up and walk out, and b) they had to be all happy and smiling to the customers and pretend they were all part of one big happy family.

I am sure that, had the programme's run not been cut short after only a few episodes, the writing team would have been able to develop a lot more, and different, situations as they had the ability to include things which didn't only belong in an airline but benefited from the setting. It would have taken quite a while for the show to become one-dimensional. Great stuff!

As with a lot of TV-to-film sitcoms, this failed miserably to transfer to the big screen. The mainly studio settings of the TV version forced some sort of discipline which is sadly lacking here. Seems quite appropriate that this was made by Hammer Films. A classic of the horror genre!

OK, so the scenes and dress are updated to the 1930s but the language is not. OK, the line, "I can smile, and murder while I smile," while spoken by the right character comes from the wrong play (it is actually from Henry VI Pt3, Act 3 Scene 3), but I still like this film and think it works pretty well. Don't expect to be able to follow Shakespeare's text while watching it: it starts before Shakespeare's play; some scenes are moved around; and the numbers of characters are played around with somewhat (in some scenes there are fewer than in the original, in others more), but Shakespeare in modern dress but otherwise true to the original doesn't work as well for me.

This is the sort of adaptation which gives those of us too young to have witnessed them pause for thought when we remember that the likes of Moseley and events such as The Battle of Cable Street are only recent memories and it isn't too outrageous to believe that something like this *could* have happened within the last 100 years.

What an utter disappointment. Forget this abysmal film and get hold of the TV series instead. What on earth were they doing making the American president relatively sane? ALL the politicians should have been bumbling buffoons (Peter Cook is good as the British PM). It lacks the biting satire of the original, going instead for "lowest common denominator" slapstick. 1 out of 10 if I'm being generous! This is unfortunately yet another example of a remake which totally misses the point of the original, the difference with this one being that they were both written by the same people.

This is one of the best, blackest, most satirical comedies you will ever find. Unfortunately most people will remember the abysmal big screen slapstick version. There are so many great performances, not least from Barry Morse and John Barron as the US president and his advisor; Peter Jones, Geoffrey Palmer and Richard Davies as members of the cabinet when the Labour Party wins the UK election; John Cleese as the terrorist and the brilliant double act of Bruce Montague and David Kelly as the deposed Shah of Iran and Abdab, the Shah's blindfolded manservant. You've got to see this.

The Goodies and Monty Python both came out of the radio programme "I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again". Python was surreal and got well known for it. "The Goodies" was more consistently surreal and obviously missed the boat because of it. Personally I think "The Goodies" was more consistently funny than Python and, for the most part, as surreal (the chase at the end of "Saturday Night Grease" should be enough to confirm that!) or more so. I just wish that they were as popular so that more programmes were available on DVD! The "card" game in "The Bun Fight At The OK Tea Rooms" is enough to make people agree with that!

I definitely do not agree that this film is a bit of a let down (as another commenter suggested).

Although this is considered to be a "B-movie", it possibly contains Bernard Bresslaw's finest ever performance. He is absolutely brilliant as Snowdrop. Another class act is John Le Mesurier as the judge when Billy Gordon (Terry-Thomas) goes to court. On top of that you've got Sid James being one of his best known characters (i.e. the down at heel crook he played in Hancock's Half Hour on radio and TV and in the film Father Brown), George Cole as an early Arthur Daley, but a bit more on the wrong side of the law than Arfur ever was, and a supporting cast containing the likes of Nicholas Parsons (a great B-movie actor, unfortunately now better known as a game show host), Brenda de Banzie,Vera Day and Joe Melia. The plot was later used to provide the basis for the American film Ruthless People. As usual, a British B-movie shows incredible attention to detail (the "Keep Death Off The Road" gag and the van they finally arrive at St Albans with Gordon's kidnapped wife spring to mind). The scene where Gordon's wife returns is worth watching the rest of the film for, even if you aren't too keen on it (although I personally think this is one of the best films ever made, so I know I'm biased!).

I went to see the film as I saw parts of it being made. I wanted to see how Woburn Walk could be turned into a road in Hampstead. I liked the film. I wondered why the critics had such a downer on it. Then I read the book and could understand why.

Richard E. Grant was not vicious enough as Comstock and somehow the poverty which Orwell depicted in his book has been cleaned up to the point that you just can't see why Comstock was having so much of a problem. Comstock's arrest has been cleaned up too and the ending was all wrong.

If the film had been released under another name then it would probably have got a smoother ride and only been said to be a pastiche of Orwell's work. If you haven't read the book or seen the film, see the film first.

The "Colonel Blimp" of the title is Brigadier-General Sir Clive Wynne-Candy, portrayed by Roger Livesey in probably his best ever role. The film is almost entirely in flashback, starting with the end of his military career when he, still believing that gentlemanly conduct is a requirement for an officer, is beaten in an exercise by the underhand tactics of a much younger man. He is seeing the light much later than his German friend (and former duelling opponent) Theo Kretschmar-Schuldorff, played to perfection by Anton Walbrook, who has escaped from Nazi Germany. The story then harks back to 1902 when, as Clive Candy VC, he has just returned from the Boer War and then follows his life as a soldier, concentrating on the times when his path crosses with Kretscmar-Schuldorff's, to the point where he finds he is no longer needed by his country - a crushing blow for such a patriotic Englishman. Apart from Walbrook, Deborah Kerr is the other link throughout the story, playing three very different young women, one of whom becomes Theo's wife, one Clive's wife and one the older Clive's driver.

Add to that a cast which includes as bit-parts such greats as Valentine Dyall, A E Matthews (in the days when he bothered with a script), John Laurie and Felix Aylmer and this is one of my favourite films of all time.

When it was made, during World War 2, the film was not allowed to be shown because it had a sympathetic German in a lead role.

Yes, it's a good film and I enjoy watching it. Yes, I have watched it many times and have never gone out of my way to avoid it. But it only has half the plot of DADOES and misses out an awful lot of Rick Deckard's motivation because of this. One point in its favour is that the title was changed for the film because it really isn't a film of the book.