Category Archive: Classic Film
The Third Man
Here's Harry
(Dir. Carol Reed) (1949) Graham Greene once wrote on the back of an envelope; “I had paid my last farewell to Harry a week ago, when his coffin was lowered into the frozen February ground, so that it was with incredulity that I saw him pass by, without a sign of recognition, among the host of strangers in the Strand.” Thus the idea of a story was born and, although substantially re-jigged later, Greene had the outline and as he claims, “it is almost impossible to write a film play without first writing a story. Even a film depends on more…
Continue Reading →Citizen Kane
"I'd make my promises now...if I wasn't so busy arranging to keep them"
(Dir. Orson Welles) (1941) The Most Famous Best Film in the World. Stunningly modern, stunningly Big, even today: when the RKO Radio signal and production credit fades, there it is in silently screaming faux neon: CITIZEN KANE. No film has ever made good on such immense ambition, no film has ever been so radically fresh in structure, tone, staging. It may take another art form to produce something as pure in its radical and daring arrogance. The opening is a morbid montage right out of S.T.Coleridge & Hammer Horror films – a “No Trespassing” sign, unofficial thematic emblem; an ascending cyclone fence, some iron tracery and…
Continue Reading →The Maltese Falcon
"You may have the Falcon but we certainly have You..."
(Dir. John Huston) (1941) Best film noir ever – even the colourised version seems shot in glorious black and white – the morality of the characters, on the other hand, reflect all 50 shades of grey. Humphrey Bogart is tough, wily, cynical detective Sam Spade, engaged by Mary Astor, pretending to be a damsel in distress. Spade is being circled meanwhile, by an unholy trinity: Joel Cairo (Peter Lorre), Kaspar Gutman (Sydney Greenstreet) and Gutman’s henchman Wilmer (Elisha Cook Jr). They are all interested in an artefact originally chosen by the Knights Templar as a gift for King Phillip of Spain, known as the…
Continue Reading →Midnight Cowboy
Are we there yet?
(Dir. John Schlesinger) (1969) A glorious story of two World Class Losers. If you can make it in New York, you can make it anywhere, but Joe Buck (Jon Voight) and Ratso Rizzo (Dustin Hoffman) are freezing to death, living in utter squalor and their prospects of success as hustlers are approximately nil. This is a great, bleakly charming and square-toed study of marginal depravity, with two towering performances (both suggesting an incongruous naivety), great direction and keen settings about some of the most scummy parts of the city. The deep sadness of the scenario is mitigated by a profound compassion,…
Continue Reading →Lawrence of Arabia
"The trick is not MINDING that it hurts."
(Dir. David Lean) (1962) Despite Lesley having almost invariably impeccable taste, we strongly disagree with her charge that this is the Worst Movie of all Time. Dare we suggest L was prejudiced by the abundance of sand, the monolithic presence of her beloved Peter O’Toole, and the undeniable fact this is a ‘blokes’ picture’? Long (few films these days have an overture, an intermission, an entr’acte) but not overlong (compare and contrast The Hobbit), this is film history on an heroic scale, focusing on T(homas). E(dward). Lawrence’s fostering of the revolt in the desert by numerous squabbling Bedouin tribes, against the…
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