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Reviews
Runaway Railway (1966)
Amusing railway chase
Ronnie Barker is the best attraction as baddie Sydney Tafler's tough guy sidekick in this chase between the threatened branch line loco Matilda and the mail train which the crooks have a cunning plan to hi-jack. Shot on the Longmoor Military Railway just like the Great St Trinian's Train Robbery, with similar speeded-up chase sequences. The plot with children trying to save a branch line by selling it to a rich lord felt a bit half-hearted...
The Small Back Room (1949)
Uneven Powell-Pressburger war film.
Low key war film focusing on scientists unravelling the secret of booby traps being dropped by the Luftwaffe. David Farrar plays a boffin in constant pain with an amputated foot who takes to drink. Kathleen Byron is his long-suffering girl, Michael Gough, Cyril Cusack, Milton Rosmer, Jack Hawkins, Geoffrey Keen, Bryan Forbes, Robert Morley (anonymously as "a Guest"), Sid James as pub landlord refusing to serve the drunk hero and last but not least Renee Asherson in the climactic bomb defusing sequence tasked with relaying David Farrar's narrative as he carefully dismantles the explosive device. Apart from this effectively tense scene on Chesil Beach, the only sequence identifying this as a Powell-Pressburger film is where David Farrar experiences a brainstorm surrounded by an increasing number of alarm clocks ticking ever louder. And did I hear a theremin on the soundtrack, or was it just a musical saw? Oh and the Hammer employee Freddie Francis was credited as Cameraman.
It Always Rains on Sunday (1947)
Very much the old postwar London with bomb sites everywhere
Well made thriller which really brought the period to life. Jack Warner already looked too old to be a tough cop on the beat though. And he was still playing Dixon of Dock Green nearly 30 years later! Quick q: the odd little sports car nicked by the fugitive, KMD 727 - any idea what it was? Thanks!
Jason and the Argonauts (1963)
Ray Harryhausen at his peak
Terrific film, I almost wish that Talos the bronze giant could have come towards the end as he acts better than most of the Argonauts. Incidentally, Bernard Herman's spectacular score must be one of his best.
There is a slip on this page: Still number 6 states that it features Hylas played by John Cairney but although the b/w inset shows him, the photo is of Gary Raymond as the treacherous Acastus.
"Hecate, Queen of Darkness - revenge us from the Thessalians - deliver to me the Hydra's Teeth; the Children of the Night!" (Jack Gwillim as King Aeetes).
This Happy Breed (1944)
Richly ambitious family drama over the years after the Great War
Robert Newton as the capable paterfamilias of an ordinary London family with Celia Johnson as his anxious wife, Stanley Holloway as his jovial neighbour, Kay Walsh as his erring daughter and John Mills as the neighbour's son who loves her. Based on a play by Noel Coward, who is definitely credited now even though it says not on IMDb. John Blythe is good too as the son who straightens his life out after a father-son talking to of the kind not even attempted nowadays.
Seance on a Wet Afternoon (1964)
Effective if lengthy drama
Excellent acting by Kim Stanley as a medium with an alarming inability to distinguish between fact and fantasy. The great Richard Attenborough as her hen-pecked husband in a highly distracting long nose (why?). Unique and sinister direction by Bryan Forbes.
Heartbeat: Take Three Girls (2008)
P F Sloan uncredited
I seldom spot mistakes in Heartbeat, but Eve of Destruction' was P F Sloan's big hit - he may have been trying to sound like Bob Dylan but it wasn't him. Interesting to see Michelle Dockery in a pre-Downton role too...
The Sound Barrier (1952)
Gripping Test Pilot drama
First rate flying drama set in the days after 1945 while Britain was still at the forefront of aeronautical research and Test Pilots were the modern successors to Sir Lancelot and Sir Gawain. I noticed one anachronism: after Nigel Patrick and Ann Todd fly home on Comet 1, they see a headline Geoffrey de Havilland Jr dies in attempt to break the Sound Barrier. But that event was in 1946, 3 years before Comet 1. The tension centres in a conflict between Ralph Richardson as the aircraft magnate and his daughter Ann Todd who holds him responsible for the deaths of first her brother (Denholm Elliott in an early role ) and her husband Nigel Patrick. Ralph Richardson's final scene in an astronomical observatory reminded me a bit of Raymond Massey's big speech at the end of Things To Come where he foresees Humanity conquering the Universe.
'Pimpernel' Smith (1941)
Mild-mannered prof outwits Nazis
A duel of wits between Leslie Howard as an archaeologist and Francis L Sullivan as a Nazi general. Very much a remake of Howard's earlier success as the Scarlet Pimpernel rescuing condemned prisoners from the terror of (1932) the French Revolution (1941) Nazi world domination.
A Technicolor Dream (2008)
The origins of the 1965-8 'underground' movement in London
Fascinating account of all things literary, educational and musical which followed the Beat poets 1965 reading in the Albert Hall. Barry Miles, Peter Jenner and John "Hoppy" Hopkins were there throughout, recruiting the Pink Floyd, the Pretty Things, the Soft Machine and others as it gradually grew too big to contain any more.