Reviews

Charming musical comedy that follows the fortunes of a stockbroker (Jack Buchanan), his wife (a wonderful Brenda De Banzie) and his three daughters. The youngest, Gwen, played by a very young Janette Scott (Thora Hird's daughter!), tricks a rather over-made-up singer called Billy Denver into visiting her home by pretending that she's arranging a meeting between him and J Arthur Rank.

Denver's arrival is just the first of the trials that John Bentley (Buchanan) has to face. His two married daughters descend on the household looking for cash to help their respective husbands - one's an existentialist (played by the great Nigel Green. He wears shorts for most of the running time and shows off a rather nice pair of legs) and the other is a cowboy. Various complications crop up, but of course everything is nicely tied up by the credits. If you're looking for a deeper meaning then you could say that Pat (one of the daughters) and her husband Peter are forced to adopt the social norms of 50s Britain and have their individuality crushed, but I'm not the sort of person who looks that deeply! Pat sports one of the most unrealistic blackeyes ever caught on celluloid. It's powder blue at one point! It handily disappears towards the end of the film. She has a rather MGMish song and dance number in the garden. I wonder if the film's backers were trying to tap into that sort of market? Di Dors only appears in it for about five minutes. However, she looks gorgeous (though some may think her dress is a smidgeon tarty) and sings a mildly saucy song called 'The Hokey Pokey Polka'.

The colour is a bit garish and some of the make-up is appalling. There are two policemen at the beginning of the film who look positively orange.

There are a lot of famous faces in small roles. Joan Hickson, Hattie Jacques, Charles Hawtrey, Dora Bryan...Joan Sims plays the household's maid and steals quite a few scenes. She faints dead away whenever Denver starts to croon. The face she pulls when she first sees him is priceless.

If you're after undemanding fun then you could do worse than buy/rent this film. Be warned - Norman Wisdom has an irritating cameo.

A great cast are wasted on a pretty dire script. I suppose they thought they were making something insightful about the nature of trust or something, but it's a pretty average thriller which retreads the same path so many other thrillers have. I must admit I found it rather annoying that we are shown scenes that didn't happen (yes, I know none of it actually happened!). It would have been more acceptable to me if the scenes of Chloe's imagined relationship with the David, the husband (Liam Neeson) had been given a voice-over by her. That would have indicated that the action could have been taking place in her head.

It was very Hollywood, in spite of its pretensions to being meaningful. For example, Julianne Moore's character Catherine is worried that she's getting old, but this being Hollywood she's not allowed to look anything other than stunning for the majority of the time. Plus, she indulges in a bit of lesbianism at the drop of a hat because we all know that every woman has an inner lesbian dying to get out. Honestly, you could have cast Shannon Tweed in the role! Chloe's motivation seemed very vague. She's a prostitute, so I suppose we are meant to take that as shorthand for her being a DAMAGED PERSON. I came to the conclusion that she was after Catherine's wardrobe. Chloe wears endless pretty outfits (she seems to have a limitless number of coats) and has a shoegasm whilst being diddled by Catherine's son. She won't look at him, but fixes her gaze on Moore's shoes and clothes (she's being diddled in Catherine's bedroom btw).

It had a typical Hollywood ending, the outside influence who is trying to break up the family unit is killed. The only surprising thing about it was that she wasn't stabbed with the antique hair slide that we'd been shown several times. It reminded me of those yuppie-in-peril films of the late 80s/early 90s like Consenting Adults and Pacific Heights.

I sat down to watch Freeze Frame expecting a thriller but instead I got a comedy. This film is just plain BAD. Lee Evans, who I'll admit is not a favourite of mine, does his best but he's battling against a very poor script and some terrible production design. It borrows it's look of off the CSI franchise/Silent Witness. Everything is filmed in a muted palette and every interior is poorly lit. You want to shout out "Turn a light on!".The plot holes and illogical moments are legion...for example we are told that Evans character (Veil...how symbolic!) shaves his hair & eyebrows off so that he will stand out in a crowd, making him harder to frame for any crime. However he then proceeds to trot along to a book signing with the hood of his jacket obscuring both his head and his forehead! WARNING SPOILERS Another favourite of mine was when video tapes are found on the body of a dead woman...we see photos of her corpse and she's rotted down to a very white looking skeleton...how exactly did these tapes survive? Another question that popped into my mind was how does Veil support himself? Is he a millionaire?

The clichés are piled on relentlessly...the embittered cop, out to solve one last case...the relative who has disguised themselves to seek revenge...on and on....

The audience, myself included started laughing about ten minutes in...and continued right up until the truly hilarious finale. When Evans and Stirling are moaning in supposed emotional agony I had tears rolling down my face. Talking of Stirling she proves once again that she may be mummy's double but she can't act like her!

Two members of the audience left in disgust before the end! What more do I need to add? It's so bad that the only enjoyment you'll get out of it is if you forget about trying to be scared/intrigued and just revel in the awfulness of it.