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alexmgreig
Reviews
Payroll (1961)
Prevost Vs Whitelaw
Gritty well made 60s British heist movie set in Newcastle, although I didn't notice too many Geordie accents. Surely they could have rustled up a few locals to add authenticity.
One or two familiar settings may remind you of Get Carter although this lacks Michael Caine.
Being in black and white adds to the grittiness.
The plot is run of the mill - team of scumbags plan and execute a raid on a payroll van, escape with the money and then fall out among themselves before perishing.
A good cast of British character actors are given a chance to develop their roles. To my mind it is the powerful performance of Francoise Prevost as the frustrated avaricious wife of one of the conspirators which steals the show. I wonder whether Billie Whitelaw, playing the wife of one of the heist murder victims bent on revenge might have preferred Prevosts role.
This is far superior to many of the cheap British crime B movies churned out in the 60s and deserves to be better known. Worth looking out for
A special mention for Joan Rice who stirred my heart as Maid Marian in Walt Disney's Robin Hood in 1953 but failed to achieve stardom, who makes a brief appearance.
The Power (1968)
Intriguing science fiction/whodunnit
If you can accept George Hamilton and Suzanne Pleshette as top brainy scientists then you'll probably go along with this. A decent budget and competent veteran director keeps you involved.
At the Institute of something or other in the California desert they are researching the limits of human endurance and such exotic projects. One of the mad professors beloved of these movies is convinced that one of the research team has super extraordinary powers and carries out some simple experiments to prove it. Unfortunately he soon comes to a sticky end at the hands of a rogue centrifuge. Hamilton is somehow framed for this and sets out to investigate with Pleshette in search of a mysterious Adam Hart. Members of the team are variously bumped off in nasty ways as Hamilton follows the clues out into the desert where he is strafed by the USAF and almost murdered by Aldo Ray.
The plot meanders to an unlikely conclusion with the unmasking of the real Adam Hart and various murders. The film is rather too long for its own good. The acting is competent but wooden, which means that Hamilton fits in, and is dated. Worth a watch but don't go out of your way.
Mackenna's Gold (1969)
Plot - don't ask me.
This could have been the epic Westerns last hurrah. Carl Foreman, music by Quincy Jones, star studded cast led by Gregory Peck, a quest for hidden treasure, spectacular scenery. What could possibly go wrong?
The answer is practically everything. Banal script, a plot so dense it needs a narrator and even that doesn't help. No continuity, amateur editting.
Confronted with this, Peck phones in his performance. Omar Sharif chews the scenery, Telly Savalas looks ridiculous on a horse. Camilla Sparv delivers a performance so wooden that she should be carved into a totem pole. In fact it is hard to nominate a decent bit of acting unless it's Julie Newmar having a naked swim. The star studded cast consists of a few veterans earning a last payday for a couple a days work.
The plot is indescribable. Sundry whooping native Americans and the cavalry attack each other and our intrepid heroes for no particular reason or purpose. Peck, Sharif,Newmar and Lurch from the Addams family (or was it the Munsters?) try to kill each other at random .
For the denouement we are treated to a few fifties special effects and a grotesque impossibility., and everybody tries to kill each other again.
If you enjoy a good traditional Western ...... Avoid!
Jigsaw (1962)
Taut and engrossing police procedural
This is a very well made early sixties murder mystery, so much better than the cheaply made B movies churned out as second features at the time. It stars Jack Warner as the acerbic chief inspector (who else!) investigating the discovery of a dismembered body of a young woman in a house in Brighton. The police have no idea who she is and the story covers the search for her identity and the eventual unmasking of her killer.
There is no violence or bloodshed and the investigation is very much police legwork with clues gradually emerging.
The dialogue is crisp and engaging and the cast , consisting mainly of well known British character actors, are well defined and believable. The chemistry between Warner and his put upon sergeant played by Ronald Lewis is excellent and there are very good performances from the reliable Michael Goodliffe and an affecting cameo from John le Mesurier. Moira Redmond gets an opportunity to play a vamp instead of her usual worried mother role. The only jarring note is the overracting of Yolande Donlan miscast as the mousy almost victim, whose American accent is unexplained, other than the fact that she was married to the director Val Guest.
Highly recommended.
Enduring Love (2004)
Enduring pretentions
After a very impressive opening scene the film deteriorates into a middle class stalker movie. None of the characters is particularly likeable or believable especially Rhys Ifans who doesn't exactly have straws in his hair but should have. Everybody else talks and behaves as if they have been taking lessons from Bill Nighy and the whole enterprise drags.
The Mercy (2018)
Becalmed
Turning the astonishing saga of the amateur sailor Donald Crowhurst and his overweaning ambition, ludicrous deception and slow descent into madness into a thoroughly boring film might be considered a difficult feat, but the makers have managed it.
Crowhurst, a weak, vain and delusional unsuccessful inventor of navigational equipment who had never sailed further than Cornwall decided that he would design and build a trimaran in which he could win a single handed round the world yacht race and somehow persuaded otherwise sensible people to back him.
Setting off unprepared and before the boat is ready, having mortgaged his house and business he soon founders and realises he has no chance of winning and conceives a ridiculous plan to fake his round the world trip and spend the time pottering around the Atlantic, even putting into a small port in Brazil to effect repairs. He pretends to beat all existing distance records and soon attracts significant press coverage as he is apparently on course to beat the record for the fastest circumnavigation.
Problems arise when other competitors drop out and he realises he is on course to win, which would inevitably lead to investigations and unmasking of his deception.
Becalmed in the Sargasso Sea, alone and faced with this appalling dilemma he gradually suffers a total mental breakdown, convinces himself he is the son of God and ends up committing suicide by walking off his yacht into the sea. All this is graphically chronicled in hundreds of pages of rambling script in his logs.
An astonishing story turned into a mindnumbingly dull film. Colin Firth as Crowhurst lacks the depth to get inside his mind. Rachel Weisz looks alternatively winsome and worried but little else. David Thewlis as his larger than life agent Rodney Hallworth appears to have had a charisma bypass operation. Crowhurst's devastating drawn out breakdown is condensed into five minutes of frowning and muttering.
My advice would be "don't bother". Watch the far better documentaries and read the original book "The Strange Voyage of Donald Crowhurst" by the Sunday Times Insight Team.
A Warning to the Curious (1972)
The best of the BBC ghost stories
Absolutely unbeatable as a Victorian ghost story this 1972 BBC production has everything. Haunting theme music, an ancient mystery, wintery coastal vistas, shadowy figures seen in a distant landscape, beautiful slow pace, sudden terror and the gradual disintegration of the main protagonist as he is pursued by the guardian. Solid performances by Peter Vaughan as the seeker of treasure and Clive Swift as the holidaying doctor who befriends him. No blood or silly special effects, it is a spine chilling masterpiece that still causes frissons even after 50 years.
Beau Séjour (2016)
Belgian provincial life with added ghosts
Certainly a different setting from the norm - the flat marshy countryside east of Genk near the Dutch border and an unusual premise - a young woman wakes up to find her own bloodied corpse in a bath in a small yet to open hotel. However the interaction between her and the few people who can still see her is deftly handled. The characters are mostly flawed and unhappy but they all have depth and their complex relationships are well depicted. The storyline meanders fairly slowly but there are several unexpected twists to keep you involved.
There are a few plot holes and a certain suspension of disbelief is needed, but eventually the murderer is unmasked and the sequence of events unravelled.
As a bonus, if you enjoyed the series, you could actually go and stay in the real hotel where poor Kato's grisly demise occurred.