Raindrops Keep Fallin’ On My Head (1969)

RIP singer B. J. Thomas who has died at the age of 78. The memories are indelible.

Tycoon (1947)

I support it because it’s become habit. The same is true of some of my relatives. Engineer Johnny Munroe (John Wayne) travels to South America to build a mountain railroad tunnel for wealthy industrialist Frederick Alexander (Sir Cedric Hardwicke). Complications arise when Alexander insists upon a shorter, more dangerous passage and when his daughter Maura (Laraine Day) develops a romantic interest with Johnny which causes problems because Frederick is aware of Johnny’s social life which includes a rambunctious partying friend Ricky Vegas (Anthony Quinn). He urges his second wife, Maura’s stepmother Miss Braithwaite (Judith Anderson) to enforce his curfew. However when Maura goes missing while horse riding and he takes off with a posse to look for her he doesn’t expect to see them together. He disapproves of their marriage, which quickly goes wrong because Maura can’t cope with being married to a workaholic. When a tunnel collapses and kills Curly Messenger (Michael Harvey) Maura realises it’s due to her father’s cost-cutting but an even larger problem looms and there’s a race against time … My daughter doesn’t happen to be one of my mistakes. Adapted from the 1934 novel by C.E. Scoggins, the screenplay by Borden Chase and John Twist frames the story as the moral lesson taught Hardwicke’s character, and it’s his action that dominates, a structural hook that keeps the interest in an otherwise somewhat cliched romantic outing kept afloat by the different stars and some choice linguistic playfulness pitting well established archetypes against each other. The performance to watch here is Hardwicke’s, who gets all the best lines. But Day and Anderson aren’t far behind. At this point Wayne is playing Wayne, albeit in the modern iteration (and he wears the same getup 15 years later in Hatari!) but it’s the same book more or less with some very impressive large-scale action scenes towards the end. Directed by Richard Wallace with Lone Pine, California standing in for the Andes. It’s an insane way to live

Stardust (2020)

Who are you David, as an artist? A spaceman? A madman? A laughing dwarf? London, 1971. David Bowie (Johnny Flynn) is being sent by Mercury Records to the United States to promote his album The Man Who Sold the World after the success of Space Oddity which he is yet to replicate. His latest single, All the Madmen, has tanked. Now don’t fuck this up. You can’t come home until you make it. Back in London, resentful and angry pregnant wife Angie (Jena Malone) is not impressed when he phones and tells her the truth – that he has been met by enthusiastic publicist Ron Oberman (Marc Maron) who has so little money he’s putting him up at his parents’ in Silver Springs, Maryland and driving him across the country in their station wagon, getting him to play to vacuum cleaner salesmen at private parties because legit gigs are out of the question without the right work visa. They want you to be more like Bolan. Bowie sabotages his interviews and ignores Ron’s advice, frequently acting out in mime to journalists. They finally bond over other outsider artists and Bowie starts piecing together a different approach by coming to terms with the mental illness that has destroyed his older half-brother Terry (Derek Moran) who is now institutionalised. He starts piecing together a new persona which he will unveil the following year … If you can’t be yourself then be someone else. A David Bowie biopic without any songs by David Bowie. The story of his first disastrous US tour has none of his music? Can this be right? Sadly, yes. And yet, and yet … this fictionalised exploration of what might literally be a schizoaffective personality (hark at us!) with a brother similarly afflicted and diagnosed ditto has its own identity crisis which it attempts to resolve in a dismayingly straightforward style. Bowie is a man in a dress who pitches up in America like an alien crash-landing on earth. Hmm … His individualistic shtick is tiresome, even if you sympathise with his being stuck with a fortysomething guy who puts him up at his mom’s then drives him around in the family car. Not very rock and roll. Except we remember The Man Who Fell to Earth, his casting being inspired by a BBC film when he was being driven around the US at a time when he was living on cocaine and milk. It’s at the midpoint when Oberman tells him about Iggy Pop and Bowie rejoins with stories about Vince Taylor that they reach common ground and tellingly Bowie finally joins him in the passenger seat (an Iggy reference!) and gets it. He stops being passive aggressive and plays the game, in his own way. He finally understands that he doesn’t have to present his authentic self on stage. He can adopt another persona. A rock star or somebody impersonating a rock star – what’s the difference? That’s the essence of this road movie but because we only hear him performing the cover versions Bowie himself did and we are deprived of his original material we don’t understand fully how he is being ignored, more or less, or even his putative significance. Too dark, too weird for the Yanks. Just as Terry figures at key moments – an influence in all kinds of ways, musical, psychological, a storm warning – so does the pattern of Bowie’s thinking alter and rearrange itself, finally resolving following a dark depression on return to the UK when he witnesses his brother performing Anthony Newley in drama therapy, It’s a new idea, essentially you discharge your psychosis by pretending to be someone else. And so Bowie is unlocked. Yes, it’s a shame about the lack of music (what am I saying! it’s tragic!) but bizarrely while Flynn doesn’t remotely resemble him yet somehow conjures a real man from a spun sugar enigma, the songs are AWOL and it’s cheap as chips and visually dull, there’s something infinitely interesting that adds to the starman’s text, exploring so many of the aspects that contributed to the collage that became Ziggy: Bowie sits on the floor literally using Burroughs’ cut-up technique to assemble his new stage persona while Angie flounces around. I am the message. It helps to have a witty script but underestimates Angie’s significance in Bowie’s rise and his image. There are some amusing sidebars with Lou Reed – it’s not him, it’s Doug Yule but Bowie can’t tell – Mick Ronson (Aaron Poole) rejecting the poncy outfits; Marc Bolan (James Cade) looking sniffy when Ziggy Stardust is finally revealed; and a disappointing encounter with that master scam artist Warhol, who remains unseen: yet he makes a very big impression on the cracked actor. Todd Haynes had the same issue with music rights making Velvet Goldmine so he retaliated by making it less Bowie-ish – Bowie commented at the time that Haynes got the gay stuff right but didn’t do story. Meow! And there are other subjects whose estates refused permission – Morrissey, Jeff Buckley, Jimi Hendrix. And the band played on. Copyright, schmopyright. Written by Christopher Bell and director Gabriel Range. Music by Anne Nikitin. Don’t insult my intelligence, I know a boring British import when I see one

The Roads Not Taken (2020)

Does he understand English? The adult daughter, Molly (Elle Fanning) of dementia sufferer and New York City dweller, writer Leo (Javier Bardem) gives up her day to care for her father and bring him to appointments with the dentist and the optometrist. On their way around the city Leo flashes back to the life he had with first wife Delores (Salma Hayek) and a life he might have had in creative solitude in the Greek Islands. He is dehumanised and called ‘he’ repeatedly at his appointments. An unpleasant memory triggers him and he throws himself out of their yellow cab and hurts his head necessitating a trip to an Emergency Room where his former wife (Laura Linney) shows up and is unsympathetic to what she calls his manipulations. At a large store when Molly gets a difficult call from work he wanders off and takes a woman’s dog and security guards wrestle him to the floor. Late at night his daughter wakes up to find he has wandered away, barefoot … You are always you. Feminist British writer/director Sally Potter made this as a kind of homage to her late brother who died of Pick’s disease in 2013. It’s a tough watch with a mostly blank performance by Bardem, borne of dramatic necessity but also a lack of writing impetus due to the serious issues compromising the character’s persona. This man has little victories that are emotional – when he finally manages to recall his daughter’s name; when he somehow reconciles the tragic loss of a child with whom first wife Hayek wants him to attempt post mortem community in a late-night vigil; when he comes close to managing an almost Stygian boat crossing to join some women on their yacht. He was a novelist but there is no sign of any inner life and his railroad apartment surroundings are as inexpressive as he is, existing in a kind of twilight inbetween-ness that also affects the experiences of those who care for him. Despite its busy city setting and the widescreen memories that should permit the frame to breathe it’s shot by Robbie Ryan in a way that feels claustrophobic, the imminent loss of self always inescapable. It’s an honourable attempt to communicate what is difficult to understand as an outsider and Fanning, who previously worked with Potter in Ginger & Rosa, is excellent as the mostly tolerant but exhausted daughter who pays a high price for her loyalty and kindness to a man she barely knows yet loves dearly and ultimately she must choose a path for herself. What kind of endings do you prefer?

Le feu follet (1963)

Louis Malle’s head-spinning tale of depression, his great early film, set to the Gnossienes of Erik Satie, was adapted from a novel Will o’ the Wisp by Pierre Drieu La Rochelle. The novelist was a collaborator during World War Two and committed suicide in 1945 despite being under the protection of Andre Malraux. A decade after this film Malle made up for the mostly apolitical stance of the Nouvelle Vague by making Lacombe, Lucien, that masterpiece on the touchy subject.

Absolute Beginners (1986) David Bowie

The absolutely wonderful theme song from a great and underrated British musical co-written by my late and dear friend Chris Wicking. A gem.

Wild is the Wind (1957) Johnny Mathis

From the film directed by George Cukor and starring Anna Magnani, Anthony Franciosa and Anthony Quinn, those mellow Mathis vocals are just the thing to ease into the night …

Happy 80th Birthday Bob Dylan 24th May 2021!

The Nobel Prize-winning music legend that is Bob Dylan celebrates eighty years on the planet today. We are not worthy.

Dear Mr Prohack (1949)

You mustn’t confuse patriotism with self-destruction. Stuffy Treasury official Arthur Prohack (Cecil Parker) has a reputation for fiscal efficiency and running a tight ship. One day he finds out that a struggling businessman to whom he once loaned money used that money to amass a fortune, and after his death he left £250,000 to Prohack. Despite his reputation for his adept handling of money at his job, he seems to be incapable of handling his newfound riches. His son Charles (Dirk Bogarde) persuades him to invest £50,000 in a shady scheme involving the intriguing Lady Maslam (Heather Thatcher) while a colleague at his club persuades him to part with presumably even more (we’re not told). Prohack’s wife Eve (Hermione Baddeley) becomes an even worse spendthrift while daughter Mary (Sheila Sim) gets him to invest a small amount in her theatrical troupe and then takes up with a younger version of Prohack, Oswald Morfrey (Denholm Elliott) a stuffy official at the Department of Agriculture. Prohack’s sly secretary Mimi Warburton (Glynis Johns) is romantically involved with Charles which leads to a contretemps between them. Then sterling falls … I’m putting the whole thing through on sheer personality. This updated interpretation of Arnold Bennett’s 1922 novel Mr Prohack from Edward Knoblock’s stage adaptation by Ian Dalrymyple and Donald Bull is notable for giving character stalwart Parker his only lead (replaying his stage role) and he does what Parker always does, amusingly dry in a performance that some say echoes Bennett’s person. It’s also something of a rarity for British cinema – a rather stiff screwball comedy with a moral lesson and a momentary comment on the fate of the post-war former soldier when Bogarde declares, There’s no place for me any more. Enjoyment of the set-to between him and Johns is ironically underlined by post hoc knowledge that in real life Johns’ husband Tony Forwood had moved in with Bogarde and they remained lifelong companions. Baddeley and Sim are fine as always while veteran Thatcher makes quite the impression as the monocle-sporting aristo. The whole thing runs riot with a bizarre fever dream when a drunken Parker falls asleep during a play on the Third Programme and reimagines his life as an Arthurian joust. There’s a fun score by Temple Abady, sketching in some gaps in the narrative logic. Directed by Thornton Freeland. Our ideas of excellence have always been at variance

Bronco Billy (1980)

Billy, my considered diagnosis is that you have the worst ailment known to man – no money! As the leader of a struggling Wild West show, Bronco Billy (Clint Eastwood) gives it his all to keep his entertainers’ spirits high despite the declining public interest. While on tour, Billy encounters Antoinette Lily (Sondra Locke), a spoiled, newlywed heiress who was recently deserted by her scheming con artist husband, John Arlington (Geoffrey Lewis). After some convincing, Lily decides to join the troupe as Billy’s assistant meaning he throws knives at her head for sport but, much to the crew’s displeasure, she seems to bring only bad luck and the only solution must be to hold up a train … Deep down in my heart I always wanted to be a cowboy. Star and director Eastwood marshals the tonally disparate material with the expertise of a high-wire act desperate to please all of the people all of the time. This mix of The Outlaw Josey Wales and the screwball template manages to channel Burt Reynolds’ good ol’ boy southern dioramas and a purer sentiment familiar from frontier storytelling creating a kind of modern western carnivalesque that seemingly only Eastwood can muster, a blend of comedy and drama exploring idealism and identity. Shot in southern Idaho, the underlying sadness is that the west has been tamed and the reality of being broke exposes the romantic dream to its natural limits with the former shoe salesman turned cowboy confronting what looks like the end of the road. The cast is a joy with Scatman Crothers making a particularly good impression as ringmaster Doc Lynch. The unconventional group of roustabouts includes Bill McKinney as one-armed bank teller Lefty LeBow, Sam Bottoms as Leonard James, Army deserter, Dan Vadis as Chief Big Eagle, a snake wrestler and Sierra Pecheur as Lorraine Running Water, the Indian’s wife who isn’t Indian at all. What happens when the brittle monied Locke tries to break in to this troupe is a lot of the story. Funny, sweet, melancholic and romantic, it’s a testament to Eastwood’s evolving directing style in his seventh outing that he makes this mix of nostalgia and anachronism work and creates a new kind of western hero. His character’s dream is countered by a Stars and Stripes tent stitched together in a home for the criminally insane where Antoinette finds her husband. The metaphor operating throughout is that it takes all kinds of people to make up the United States where everyone gets to reinvent themselves. Look out for Lewis’ little daughter Juliette: whatever happened to her?! Written by Dennis Hackin and co-producer Neal Dobrofsky, Eastwood regularly refers to this heartland journey as a personal favourite among his films and we might infer from his titular character that this is by way of an homage to the first western film star, Broncho Billy Anderson. Despite its being one of Clint’s cherishable road movies with its barroom brawl and portion of country music (and Merle Haggard makes a notable appearance singing Here I Am Again) there’s not an orangutan in sight although a psychiatric orderly hums the theme from Every Which Way But Loose. You can be anything you want. All you have to do is go out and become it