Reviews

A delight! An unexpectedly complex episode with some wonderful surprises, not least the appearance of Barbara Flynn, who, to people of a certain age, is associated with some of the greatest tv drama of all time - though quite who her character is is a mystery.

I have always wanted Dr Who to aspire to episodes which are pure mystery and strangeness. I've been watching since 1963. Why should they be explained? Of course this is, but it suggests an ideal of strangeness.

It's the only because this series is a six part whole that it can go so far - and the frantic tone might lead to a fourth chapter in a very different style. Yes, Who needs change and challenges. It's not a cost soap or escapist fantasy for people who want a safe artificial world, it's a mad romp that reflects the real world and allows itself to be imaginative.

I will say no more to avoid spoilers.

This is an adaptation of a Francis Durbridge tv serial, which was in six half hour episodes, performed live and not recorded. It's easy to see where the cliff hangers were even though it's very compressed. Durbridge stories are full of twists. It's well worth seeing the later BBC ones that do exist. But I'm mainly writing this to correct the very annoying point in the goofs. Fenton is a surgeon and so is not addressed as doctor. Surgeons are always addressed as mister.

I love J Creek but this one is disturbing. It's a good story, though too long, but it has a huge fundamental error.

The castle is in Scotland. There's a flashback to 1557. There's a reference to Queen Mary persecuting protestants - and the sinister torture chamber that gives the story its name.

Queen Mary who? Mary Tudor was Queen of England at the time, and persecuting protestants (though no more than Elizabeth persecuted catholics). Scotland was a completely different country.

Do they mean Mary Queen of SCots? She was a catholic but tolerant of protestants as they were a growing power and her son was a leading protestant.

Surely someone in the entire production team could have pointed out that it didn't make historic sense? Also - one character is described as a Lutheran and then as a right wing fundamentalist. I wouldn't have thought Lutherans were particularly prone to extremism.

I am delighted to have the Spoils of Poynton in DVD. I saw it in Black and White in 1970 - we didn't have colour until February 1971.

Another post refers to primitive cinematography and I feel this needs explaining. These early (pre c1975) BBC dramas are mainly made in the studio on video tape (not long before they would have been live), The studio system used three or four very large colour TV cameras trundling round on trollies, and the scene was controlled from a control room. Generally entire scenes had to be done in one go as editing was still hard to do. Actors had to do 10 minutes or so without errors - not just words but being in exactly the right place.

So you can;t compare the style with a film, it's more like a stage play with a few 16mm filmed inserts. The great advantage was that the drama depended on dialogue rather than action. Seeing these things in colour I am amazed by the costumes and sets - and notice all the unnecessary extras in the shop scenes.

Spoils of Poynton mainly depends on Gemma Jones, a delightful performance. You had to have real actors in those days!

The Golden Bowl, also on the BBC R1 box set, is the ultimate production in this old style. Hardly anything happens but it really captures the Henry James style.

I thought this was lost but a watchable copy of the complete film can be found on Google Video. At last you can see how Prokofiev's music fits in. It's a bizarre film, with exaggerated Russian comic acting, but quite stylish. The score is, of course first rate and and comes over well even on a fairly poor copy.

The famous Troika appears as a song during chaotic night time ride and the romance is sung as a solo with harp accompaniment.

On the whole the sound is as goo as most prints of Alexandeer Nevsky that I have seen - though i await a restored version from Ruscico - the Russian Cinema Council.

I hope they do a restored version of this forgotten classic.

A very little seen Hitchcock, and a decent British silent film, from a Noel Coward play. It's surprisingly visual for a stage play, with titles kept to a minimum. As with a lot of early HItchcock the copies circulating are pretty bad. It must have looked good when it was new.

The courtroom sequence has some typical Hitchcock touches - views through the judge's monocle. The strangest link with later films is an odd prophecy of Marnie. The blonde wife with a mysterious past is brought home to the country house, with crusty colonel father in law and brunette sister in law meeting her. A bit later on you expect to see Strutt turn up at a party to identify her. Almost the same thing happens and at the final party Isobel Jeans glams herself up and makes a grand entrance down the staircase.

I am developing a theory that the things Hitchcock says nothing about in the Truffaut book are the important ones! Isobel Jeans reappeared in Suspicion 13 years later. Is she the original Hitchcock blonde? If only (BFI please note) there were proper bright restorations of these early Hitchcocks. The only one I've seen looking good is The Lodger. It makes a huge difference.

Having been a Hitchcock fan for forty years I have not been able to see this until now, thanks to a very cheap and poor quality DVD.

This straightforward fill of Sean O'Casey's play turns out to be a powerful piece of admittedly primitive early film-making. This is from a time when sound editing was impossible - scenes had to be taken in long takes with four cameras and cut ins added in - very much like studio TV.

I am shocked that one reviewer refers to bad photography with heads cut off. That's the bad transfer on the disc which cuts quite a lot of the image, often cutting of heads. If we could see a good print this would be powerful stuff with, surprisingly, a lot of very strong Hitchcock moments - including a ma in atrench coat waiting in the street - to execute JOhnny who was betrayed his republican group. It's also an extraordinarily authentic picture of an intensely catholic world. Ireland is still suffering from internal fighting but the is celebrating independence - but at the same time these people suffer from extreme judgemental attitudes. The rejection of the pregnant daughter by her previous boyfriend is simple and chilling.

We desperately need restorations of Hitchcock's pre 1934 films. The silents are excellent when you see them pristine. The copies in circulation are only hints of what they are really like. In its way a key work in Hitchcock's oeuvre. He may have dismissed it in the TRuffaut interviews, but take that with a pinch of salt. He avoids any mention of Fritz Lang influence too - and yet if you see Spione, M, or the Mabuse films you see how much he owed to Lang.