The Green Cockatoo (1937)

A small town is the nation’s greatest tragedy. Eileen (Rene Ray) is an innocent young woman from a small town in Devon who arrives in London looking for work and after disembarking from her train walks into an ambush, in which a couple of gangsters (Bruce Seton and Julian Vedey) knife an accomplice Dave Connor (Robert Newton) who has cheated them. The wounded man staggers with her to a cheap hotel, where he dies after begging her to tell his brother at The Green Cockatoo club. Going there, she is followed by police and hides in an upstairs room. It is that of Jim Connor (John Mills), the brother of the dead man but he does not identify himself to the girl. When the police leave he escorts her out but is followed by the gangsters. In another knife fight he gets away and takes her to a safe house. The police turn up, this time to take him to the morgue to identify his brother. When they leave, the gangsters led by Dave’s nemesis Terrell (Charles Oliver) abduct the girl … There’s lots of different ways of putting things. With a screenplay by Ted Berkman from an original story and scenario by Graham Greene (with an uncredited contribution by Arthur Wimperis) this British pre-war noir boasts quirk, visual verve and not a little wit. From Eileen’s meet-cute on the train with a philosopher who warns her of looming disaster in London, to Jim’s way with words in an overwrought Yankee accent, this conventional genre outing strains to make an impression along the lines of the poetic realist work coming out of France at the time and then reverts to humour. The Sex Life of a Newt. I thought if he was a newt he wouldn’t have one. Maybe I was thinking of a neutral. Eileen’s putative involvement in Dave’s demise isn’t revealed until late in the day by which time Jim is hooked. I always thought London would be beautiful. There are a few intriguing shot setups, a funny cab driver and a decidedly low-minded butler Provero (Frank Atkinson) but it’s a little short on plot. Mills of course is always worth watching particularly as this low-rent British Cagney parlays his way through a song (Smoky Joe by William Kernell) while Ray is a decidedly odd duck to be framed as the Wrong Girl and Newton bows out too soon but anything with Greene is of interest to see how his screenwriting improved over the years from this first feature credit. Shot at Denham Studios, this was partly re-shot and re-edited and not released until 1940. There’s an exquisitely exciting score by Miklos Rozsa compensating for any gaps in the story. Directed by famed production designer William Cameron Menzies. This is where we stop. And this is where we start MM#4444

The End of the Affair (1955)

Trust is a variable quality. London during World War 2. Novelist Maurice Bendrix (Van Johnson) meets Sarah Miles (Deborah Kerr) the wife of civil servant Henry Miles (Peter Cushing) at their sherry party. He is asking Henry for information to help with his next book. Maurice is intrigued by Sarah after he sees her kissing another man. They become lovers that night at his hotel. After his rooms are bombed when they are together there, she ends their relationship and he suffers from the delayed shock from the bombing and from her ending the affair. After their break-up and the end of the war, Bendrix encounters Henry, who invites him for a drink at his home, especially since Sarah is out.  Henry confides that he suspects Sarah is unfaithful and has looked into engaging a private investigator, but then decides against it. Sarah returns home before Bendrix leaves and is curt with him. Bendrix follows through with hiring a private detective agency on his own account. They come across information which suggests that Sarah is being unfaithful, which Bendrix shares with Henry in revenge. Bendrix then obtains Sarah’s diary via the private investigator Albert Parkis (John Mills) which reveals that Sarah is not having an affair and that she promised God to give Bendrix up if he was spared death in the bombing. Then they meet again … I’ve learned that you must pray like you make love – with everything you have. A deeply felt narrative revolving around love, sex and religious belief sounds like a melodramatic quagmire but Lenore Coffee’s adaptation of Graham Greene’s 1951 semi-autobiographical novel is a rich textured work with impressive performances by the entire cast. Kerr and Johnson might be perceived to be something of a mismatch but that’s the point of the story:  he is fated to forever misunderstand her and as he tries to navigate his way through her complex emotions and her deals with God, he responds with just one emotion – jealousy. His unruly misunderstanding in a world of good manners and looking the other way means he flails hopelessly while we are then persuaded of her beliefs via her diary, the contents of which dominate the film’s second half, leading him to regret his desire for revenge. Love doesn’t end just because we don’t see each other. The ensemble is well presented and their individual big moments are sketches of superb characterisation, Mills’ pride in his snooping a particular highlight. It’s extraordinarily well done, very touching and filled with moments of truth which never fail to hit home in a story that is cunningly managed and beautifully tempered with empathy. Kerr is simply great. Directed by Edward Dmytryk. The ‘not done’ things are done every day. I’ve done most of them myself

Great Expectations (1946)

Pip – a young gentleman of great expectations! Orphaned Philip ‘Pip’ Pirrip (Anthony Wager) lives with his older sister and her blacksmith husband Joe (Bernard Miles). He encounters runaway convict Magwitch (Finlay Currie) on the marshes and assists him with food and helps him cut himself free. However Magwitch is recaptured when he has a fight with a fellow escapee. An eccentric elderly spinster Miss Havisham (Martita Hunt) wants company for herself and her teenage ward Estella (Jean Simmons) a cruel but beautiful teenager who mocks Pip but with whom he falls in love from afar. Pip is apprenticed to a blacksmith when he turns 14 and Estella goes to France to become a lady. Years later Pip (John Mills) is visited by Miss Havisham’s lawyer Jaggers (Francis L. Sullivan) and he is to be the beneficiary of a mysterious benefactor to become a gentleman of great expectations in London where he befriends Herbert Pocket (Alec Guinness) who tells him that Miss Havisham’s life is dedicated to revenge against men because she was jilted at the altar and Estella was brought up likewise. They are reunited when Pip is 21 and he visits Miss Havisham after getting his living stipend of £500 a year and he finds that Estella (Valerie Hobson) is engaged to a man she doesn’t love. Pip is visited by Magwitch who reveals he was his benefactor and that Miss Havisham was using him. He confronts her and she realises the great harm she has done and as Pip is leaving a terrible accident occurs. Magwitch should not be on the territory and is commiting a felony and Pip undertakes to help him escape England … I want to be a gentleman on her account. Director David Lean recalled a perfectly condensed theatre adaptation of the Dickens novel and wrote the screenplay with producer Anthony Havelock-Allan, Cecil McGivern, Ronald Neame and Kay Walsh. From its magnificent opening sequence on the marshes (shot by Robert Krasker) and the atmosphere conjured by the decaying mansion housing Miss Havisham, this is a film of such dazzling detail and character, brilliant playing and staging and flawless pacing, as to merit the description perfect. Lean came of age as a director and the cinematography by Guy Green and the soaring score by Walter Goehr pick out, express and complement the heart of the drama. It never dodges the little social critiques (Mills’ reaction to the public hangings) or the touches of humour (Pip popping Pocket in the jaw; his silly fashionable get up) nor the ideas of snobbery, stupidity, guilt or social injustice that characterise the text of the novel. The final scene, when Pip returns and throws light upon Estella is heartbreaking and delightful. A simply bewitching masterpiece. What larks!

The Wrong Box (1966)

He who Fate sees fit to favour. The Finsbury brothers, Masterman (John Mills) and Joseph (Ralph Richardson), are the last two surviving members of a sixty-two year old tontine [a pool of money/investment scheme] that will pay a huge sum to whomever lives longest. Hoping to bankroll his perpetually bewildered grandson Michael (Michael Caine), Masterman asks Joseph to visit with the intention of killing him. However Joseph’s two scheming nephews John (Dudley Moore) and Morris (Peter Cook) also want the money. and mean to keep Joseph alive long enough to stake their claim. When they think Joseph has died en route to seeing his brother, they attempt to cover it up but they reckon without the complicating factor of Masterman’s apparent death, the intervention of Michael when he realises that Masterman has killed Joseph and the arrival of the Salvation Army led by Mrs Hackett (Irene Handl) who assume Masterman has attempted suicide in the Thames and return him to his home. Then there are questions about the whereabouts of the notorious Bournemouth Strangler …  One should always broaden one’s horizons. Adapted from the 1889 novel by Robert Louis Stevenson co-written with his stepson Lloyd Osbourne, the screenplay by Larry Gelbart and Burt Shevelove is a frequently hysterical and witty black comedy filled with incredible lines and boasting great performances – Peter Sellers has a marvellous couple of scenes as an aiurophile doctor, concluding with him blotting his signature using the bottom of a cute kitten called Mervyn. I specialise in rare marine diseases of the spleen. Mills and Richardson play the brothers to the hilt – an eccentric and a drag – Shut up, you pedantic boring old poop! It’s dotted with hilarious incidents including a chase involving horse-drawn hearses but the butler Peacock (Wilfrid Lawson, brilliant) has the best bits and Nanette Newman’s (Julia) romance with handsome Caine is choreographed to a gorgeous romantic theme composed by John Barry. Extremely funny with a superlative titles sequence – just watch what happens when Queen Victoria (Avis Bunnage) knights someone. Look out for Nicholas Parsons and Valentine Dyall among the first victims in a cast that represents most of the best comic performers of the era including Tony Hancock who turns up as a detective and that’s Juliet Mills as the cross-dressing Lesbian on a train. Directed by Bryan Forbes (in the third of his four films with Caine) and shot at Pinewood and in Bath with some very funny camera setups from cinematographer Gerry Turpin. Lawson sadly died aged 66 five months after this was released. He’s just extraordinary here and steals every scene he’s in. There are in certain parts of this city men – unscrupulous men! – who will perform unsavoury tasks

In Which We Serve (1942)

This is the story of a ship. After the dive-bomb sinking of the destroyer HMS Torrin during the Battle of Crete in 1941, the ship’s survivors including Captain Kinross (Noël Coward), Chief Petty Officer Hardy (Bernard Miles) and Seaman Blake (John Mills) of the Royal Navy recall their tour of duty in flashback – including Dunkirk and their life under the Blitz – while awaiting rescue in lifeboats.  They are still being strafed by German aeroplanes as they cling onto a Carley float in the open waters of the Mediterranean … Inspired by the experiences of Lord Louis Mountbatten, his friend actor and playwright Noël Coward made his directing debut, co-directing with editor David Lean. It’s an outstanding piece of propaganda, delineating the class differences between the different levels of serviceman with Coward a model of condescension, carefully creating scenes designed to unify people. Brilliantly stirring piece of nation-building with a marvellous score and Mills beginning a long career as the embodiment of British Everyman. Shot by Ronald Neame, edited by Lean with Thelma Connell and narrated by Leslie Howard. Shoot when you see the whites of their eyes!

The Thirty Nine Steps (1978)

By the way – I’ve brought you the announcement of your death. South African engineer visiting London, Richard Hannay (Robert Powell) gets caught up in an intricate spy plot when a British secret agent Scudder (John Mills) takes shelter in his apartment after witnessing a political assassination. When the spy is killed by a secret organisation, Hannay becomes its next target, and must flee to Scotland, where he may be able to uncover the mystery by locating a black book lost by Scudder.  He is pursued by the police and the killers and it is only when Chief Superintendent Lomas (Eric Porter, Soames from TV’s The Forsyte Saga) gets bona fides from Hannay’s employers that the Government tries to save him – by using him as lure. Aided by the lovely Alex Mackenzie (Karen Dotrice), Hannay figures out the organisation’s sinister scheme to launch WW1 and attempts to halt it… John Buchan’s classic novel has such good bones that any alteration merely enhanced its reputation, as Hitchcock’s adaptation proved. This, the third version, is a different proposition – more straightforwardly faithful and dramatic, less comedic, and very suspenseful indeed. Michael Robson’s interpretation cleaves to the novel and it’s still an exercise in tension using trains, boats, planes, taxis and bikes in a travelogue that spans from London to the Scottish moors. Hannay is a bit of a cold fish to begin with but defrosts when the bullets start skimming his legs and he meets Alex. It’s tautly told and acted and ironically there is a fantastically Hitchcockian climax on the face of Big Ben concluding a literal race against time. Directed by Hammer veteran Don Sharp, with a very tasteful score by Ed Welch.

I Was Monty’s Double (1958)

That was bloody close.  Before the planned D-Day landings the British Government is spreading disinformation to distract German attention from the Normandy beaches.  Two intelligence officers, Colonel Logan (Cecil Parker) and Major Harvey (John Mills) are running the operation but they are initially unable to devise such a plan.  One night at the theatre in London Harvey sees an actor do a convincing impression of General Bernard Montgomery. He is M.E. Clifton James, in the army Pay Corps stationed in Leicester and the officers hire him to act as a decoy – playing Montgomery doing a tour of North Africa. After studying him and meeting him, he is dispatched to Gibraltar where the British anticipate that a known German agent Karl Nielson (Marius Goring) posing as a businessman will encounter him and hopefully inform Berlin. ‘Monty’ is accompanied by Harvey who is promoted to Brigadier to act as his aide de camp. When the British learn that the Germans are moving their panzer divisions away from Normandy this ‘Monty’ is sequestered in a North African house until it is safe to return him to his original job but the Germans have other ideas …  Adapted from the autobiography of M.E. Clifton James by Bryan Forbes (who plays a crucial role in the penultimate sequence) this is a spry and suspenseful account of Operation Copperhead.  Told efficiently, with James playing himself – and Monty! – it moves quickly and two scenes in particular are handled very well by director John Guillermin:  when Nielson meets Monty it transpires it’s for the second time – a shocker;  and the inevitable kidnapping.  With a brisk score by John Addison and a good turn by Mills, one of the many in the Fifties that encapsulates his particular brand of British masculinity, this is an entertaining account of yet another Believe It Or Not from WW2: the gift that just keeps on giving, especially when you realise that the man who actually recruited Clifton James was none other than … David Niven! There are good supporting roles for Michael Hordern, Leslie Phillips with James Hayter, Sid James and Sam Kydd down the ensemble.

Ice Cold in Alex (1958)

Aka Desert Attack. Two million men. Two million stories. This is one that happens to be true. Captain Anson (John Mills) is dying for a drink but he has to leave his post in Tobruk before the Germans invade and make his way with a medical unit by field ambulance (nicknamed Katy) to Alexandria in Egypt. He has to travel with MSM Tom Pugh (Harry Andrews) and a couple of nurses, Diana Murdoch (Sylvia Syms) and Denise Norton (Diane Clare). They make their own way when they get separated from the rest of their colleagues and come cross a South African officer Captain van der Poel (Anthony Quayle) who wants a lift to the British lines.  They are fired on by the German Afrika Corps and Denise is shot through the walls of the vehicle. When van der Poel approaches the Germans they withdraw. Anson is suspicious. Van der Poel cannot be parted from his backpack – he shows Anson a couple of bottles of gin and the Brit comforts himself with dreams of a a drink in Alexandria. Pugh is suspicious when van der Poel doesn’t know how to make tea the (British) Army way and is convinced he’s seen an antenna in the backpack. When van der Poel goes off again at night they shine the ambulance lights on him and he gets stuck in quicksand and they have to decide what to do with a German spy … This is a classic British fifties wartime adventure, with John Mills at the peak of his career exploiting notions of his occasionally abject masculinity and he’s especially impressive here, battling alcoholism and exhaustion. Syms has a very good role as the woman who appears to understand him while Quayle is excellent as the interloper with a diplomatic way about him and the brute strength required to push the ambulance when it gets stuck in an escarpment. Christopher Landon adapted his own Saturday Evening Post articles (and then a 1957 novel) with T. J. Morrison and it was directed with verve by J. Lee Thompson. This got a whole new lease of life thirty years ago when the final sequence was used as an ad by Carlsberg because as everyone knows and John Mills says, Worth waiting for. Iconic.

Swiss Family Robinson (1960)

Johann Wyss’ book was a big part of my childhood and when I went to the Disney theme parks I loved seeing the treehouse – I’m old fashioned, dontcha know and it was a toss-up between that and Alice’s tea cups as to what was my favourite thing. Napoleon’s on the warpath so it’s time for the Robinsons to depart Europe for Guinea – but their ship is wrecked, chased by pirates onto rocks and the crew have abandoned them to their fate. So they set up home on an uninhabited island, experiencing crazy adventures with wild animals, fighting off the returning pirates and generally making themselves very handy indeed. Then another ship is run aground …  Mom and Dad are played by Dorothy Maguire and John Mills, the kids are James Macarthur, Tommy Kirk and Kevin Corcoran,  cute as a button, as always. And you might recognise Turk the Great Dane,  (future) star of The Ugly Dachshund. Supreme action adventure beautifully shot in Widescreen and Panavision by Harry Waxman, with a rousing score by William Alwyn, adapted by Lowell Hawley and directed by Ken Annakin. The real treehouse in Tobago remained until it was destroyed by Hurricane Flora in 1963.

 

Run Wild, Run Free (1969)

Beautifully made nature film shot in Dartmoor. What more do you need? Extraordinary child actor Mark Lester is the (selectively as it turns out) mute boy whose parents Gordon Jackson and Sylvia Syms are at their wits’ end trying to figure out how to handle him when retired colonel and moorman John Mills helps him get acquainted with a stray white colt and his life is transformed as he has something to care about other than himself. Fiona Fullerton is his friend from a nearby farm and together they set out to tame the horse. It runs off and Lester makes do with a lovely kestrel until … bad things happen. Brilliant as Lester is, it doesn’t quite resolve the problem that the viewer might have of wanting quite frankly to beat his nonsense out of him. (Autism is not my bailiwick, dear reader.)  Lester had achieved fame by playing a child with a stutter in Our Mother’s House which led to his being cast in Oliver! The lustrous Syms is a little complicated if not outright neurotic (wouldn’t we all be with a son like that) and Mills gets to do his abject masculinity thing at the end when we narrowly avert a tragedy. However it’s generally a lovely piece of work about the issues around problem children, country life, the incredible light an animal can bring into your life (thank you, gods) and it’s excellently directed on location by Richard C. Sarafian. It’s fabulously shot by Wilkie Cooper and  adapted from the novel The White Colt by David Rook.  I hadn’t seen this since I was a child myself and I got a lot out of it. It is of course about taming children and perhaps nowadays we understand more about animals and their therapeutic roles in our lives …  Mind you, this child does dreadful things to them. Mills and Syms were of course previously seen together in the fantastic Ice Cold in Alex (so that final scene with Mills … is deja vu all over again!) This was Bernard Miles’ last big screen appearance.