Richard III (1955)

Now is the winter of our discontent, made glorious summer by this sun of York. King Edward IV (Cedric Hardwicke) has been placed on the throne with the help of his brother Richard, Duke of Gloucester (Laurence Olivier) having wrested power militarily from Henry VI of the House of Lancaster. After Edward’s coronation in the Great Hall, with his brothers George, Duke of Clarence (John Gielgud) and Richard watching, he leaves with his wife Queen Elizabeth (Mary Kerridge) and sons. Richard contemplates the throne, before advancing towards the audience and then addressing them, delivering a monologue outlining his physical deformities which include a hunched back and withered arm. He describes his jealousy over his brother’s rise to power in contrast to his own more lowly position. He dedicates himself to task and plans to frame his brother, George for conspiring to kill the King, and to have George sent to the Tower of London, by claiming George will murder Edward’s heirs. He then tells his brother he will help him get out. Having confused and deceived the King, Richard proceeds with his plans after getting a warrant and enlists two ruffians Dighton (Michael Gough) and Forest (Michael Ripper) to do the dreadful deed. George is murdered, drowned in a butt of wine. Though Edward had sent a pardon to Richard, Richard stopped it passing. Richard goes on to woo and seduce The Lady Anne (Claire Bloom). While she hates him for killing her husband and father she cannot resist and marries him. Richard then orchestrates disorder in the court, fuelling rivalries and setting the court against the Queen consort, Elizabeth (Mary Kerridge). The King, weakened and exhausted, appoints Richard as Lord Protector and dies after hearing of the death of George. Edward’s son the Prince of Wales (Paul Huson), soon to become Edward V, is met by Richard while en route to London. Richard has the Lord Chamberlain, Lord Hastings (Alec Clunes) arrested and executed and forces the young King, along with his younger brother the Duke of York (Andy Shine), to have an extended stay at the Tower of London. All obstacles now removed from his path to the throne, Richard enlists the help of his cousin the corrupt Duke of Buckingham (Ralph Richardson) to change his public image in order to become popular with the people. Richard then becomes the people’s first choice to become the new King. Buckingham helps Richard on terms of being given the title of Earl of Hereford with its income, but baulks at the prospect of murdering the two princes. Richard asks a minor knight Sir James Tyrrel (Patrick Troughton), whom he knows to be ambitious, to have young Edward and the Duke of York killed in the Tower of London. Buckingham, having requested his earldom at Richard’s coronation, fears for his life when Richard (angry at Buckingham for not killing the princes) shouts I am not in the giving vein today! Buckingham joins up with the opposition against Richard’s rule. Now fearful of dwindling popularity, Richard raises an army to defend his throne and the House of York against the House of Lancaster led by Henry Tudor (Stanley Baker), the Earl of Richmond and later Henry VII of England at Bosworth Field. However before the battle Buckingham is captured and executed. On the eve of the battle, Richard is haunted by the ghosts of all those he has killed in his bloody ascent to the throne. He wakes up screaming … You should bear me on your shoulder! On 11th March 1956 this became the most watched film broadcast on TV in the US (simultaneously released in cinemas) and 11 years later when it was re-released in theatres it made records again – it’s probably the most popular historical Shakespeare screen adaptation and contributes to the (mis)understandings about its caricatured protagonist which have lately been corrected by the quietly powerful recent English film The Lost King. It was Laurence Olivier’s third time to direct and star in a Shakespeare production and if not as initially outwardly acclaimed as its predecessors latterly it is viewed as his best film, a stark and lucid narrative whose Technicolor visual influence could even be seen in Disney’s feature animation Sleeping Beauty, among others. Olivier of course makes for a classic, charismatic even campy villain and the contours of his rise and fall make for an utterly compelling watch. Sometimes criticised for a staid staging, this is a vividly played drama led by an incredible ensemble of British acting talent provided by producer Alexander Korda’s London Films contracted players, with its occasional flourishes all the more surprising when Otto Heller’s camera (shooting in VistaVision) underscores an incident, moving or tracking to heighten the impact. Murder her brothers, and then marry her. This study of power and undiluted, wicked ambition is quite thrilling with the occasional emotional note struck by Bloom as the seduced widow Lady Anne or those unfortunate children, guilt tripping the audience who cannot wait to see what Richard will do next. Conscience is a word that cowards use. Those soliloquies delivered to camera insinuate themselves into the viewer’s brain and sympathies. A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse! Olivier had been working on this since he first portrayed Richard at the Old Vic in 1944 and after the successes of Henry V and Hamlet on the big screen this commemorated what might be his greatest performance as actor and director. Why, thus it is when men are ruled by women. Ably assisted by Gerry O’Hara, who took charge when Olivier was in front of the camera, this is literally masterpiece theatre, skillfully adapted (and heavily cut) by an uncredited Olivier from the 18th century stage presentations by Colley Gibber and David Garrick with a thrilling score from William Walton. I, that am not shaped for sportive tricks nor made to court an amorous looking glass, I that am rudely stamped and want love’s majesty to strut before a wanton ambling nymph, I that am curtailed of fair proportion, cheated of feature by dissembling nature deformed, unfinished, sent before my time into breathing world scarce half made up and so lamely and unfashionable that dogs do bark at me as I halt by them

#650straightdaysofmondomovies

The 1966 re-release poster

The Russia House (1990)

You live in a free society; you have no choice. Publisher Bartholomew ‘Barley’ Scott Blair (Sean Connery) is caught in a conspiracy when he receives manuscripts from a Russian scientist, Dante (Klaus Maria Brandauer) claiming that the Russian nuclear programme is a sham. Ned (James Fox) from British intelligence and Russell (Roy Scheider) and Brady (John Mahoney) of the CIA have the book intercepted en route to Blair at his Lisbon home because they consider it to contain crucial information.  They recruit him to investigate its editor, Katya Orlova (Michelle Pfeiffer) a divorced mother of two. As Blair goes to Moscow and learns the origin of the manuscript and discovers Russian military secrets, he falls in love with Katya and fights to protect her family even as he realises that Katya may have another admirer. The two intelligence agencies have a shopping list of questions to check that Dante is for real but Ned begins to wonder where Barley’s loyalties really lie … How the fuck do you peddle an arms race when the only asshole you’ve got to race against is yourself? Adapted from John le Carre’s novel by Tom Stoppard, this elegant look at Russian-British relations at the tail end of the Glasnost Eighties may have been overtaken by real events but it’s nonetheless a wittily constructed espionage story with one of Connery’s best performances as the sax playing book publisher whose heart is stolen by Pfeiffer, an atypically stunning editor with Pfeiffer turning in a really nuanced performance as the semi-tragic Russian. Only the second major American film to be shot in the Soviet Union, it’s picturesque indeed, using so many beautiful settings in Leningrad and Moscow and enhanced by the fantastic cast among whom film director Ken Russell makes a splash as Walter, the Brit spy, in his inimitable fashion; while the tension between the British and American agencies supplies much of the suspense. A superior entertainment directed by Fred Schepisi. If there is to be a hope we must all betray our country, we have to save each other because all victims are equal and none is more equal than others. It’s everyone’s duty to start the avalanche

Air Force (1943)

Don’t talk – shoot! On December 6, 1941 nine B-17 bomber sets off on a flight from San Francisco to Hawaii en route to the Philippines. The Mary Ann is commanded by pilot ‘Irish’ Quincannon (John Ridgely). Bombardier Tommy McMartin (Arthur Kennedy) has a sister living in Hawaii and his co-pilot Bill Williams (Gig Young) is sweet on her. Cynical rear-gunner Joe Winocki (John Garfield) is intent upon leaving the air corps. They arrive at Hickam Field on the morning of December 7, just as the Japanese are attacking Pearl Harbor and other military facilities. As Roosevelt announces the US’ entry into the war, all of the men prepare to face the enemy, including Winocki whose bitter attitude changes quickly in the course of combat in the Pacific … What kind of lunatics do I have in this air corps anyhow? Don’t any of you know what’s impossible? With a screenplay by Dudley Nichols (and a deathbed scene written by an uncredited William Faulkner), this Howard Hawks film is an indelible picture of a cross-section of American society at the helm of a bomber, made at the height of WW2 and based around an actual incident when a flight of B-17s journeying to reinforce the defence of the Philippines flew into the attack on Pearl Harbour. The characters are based, more or less, on people Hawks met while consulting with Lt. Gen. Henry H. Arnold, Commander of the Army Air Force, in Washington DC and the production was made in conjunction with approval of the War Dept. Originally scheduled by producer Hal Wallis to be released on Pearl Harbour’s first anniversary, the shoot was repeatedly delayed and WW1 aviator Hawks’ insistence on altering dialogue led to him being temporarily replaced by Vincent Sherman who then remained as assistant when Hawks returned. Garfield’s outsider character is the barometer for everything that occurs as he becomes integrated into the group and he is paid tribute by Tarantino in Pulp Fiction. There are historical inaccuracies but it packs an emotional punch in its vivid, electrifying violence and humour and Jeanine Basinger says it is “perhaps the purest combat film ever about the air service … It is like some hideous wagon train west, with problems of supplies and hostile forces constantly attacking the wagonload of heroes. It fits perfectly with the tradition of American films, and yet it is a unique and original film, not quite like any other.” Shot by James Wong Howe, Elmer Dyer and Charles A. Marshall, this is a bona fide classic. We’re gonna start a war, not a fight!

Action in the North Atlantic (1943)

Aka Heroes Without Uniforms. We’ve run into a wolfpack. Merchant Marine sailors First Mate Joe Rossi (Humphrey Bogart) and Captain Steve Jarvis (Raymond Massey) survive the sinking of SS Northern Star by German U-boat U-37 en route from Halifax. After 11 days drifting they are rescued. Steve spends time with his wife Sarah (Ruth Gordon), while Joe meets and marries singer Pearl O’Neill (Julie Bishop). At the union hall, merchant seamen, including the Northern Star survivors, spend their time waiting to be assigned to a new ship. Over a round of poker, Johnnie Pulaski (Dane Clark) jokes about getting a shore job and reveals his fear of dying at sea. The others shame him into signing along with them on another ship. Alfred “Boats” O’Hara (Alan Hale, Sr.) is tracked down by his wife, who has apparently not seen him since he was rescued. She angrily serves him with a divorce summons. O’Hara, knowing he is headed back to sea, gleefully tears it up, saying Them ‘Liberty Boats’ are sure well named! When they are charged with getting supply vessel Seawitch to Russian allies in Murmansk as part of a sea convoy and the group of ships comes under attack from U-37 again, Rossi and Jarvis are motivated by the opportunity to strike back at the Germans but now have to dodge Luftwaffe bullets too … For a sailor’s wife this war is just another storm.  Tremendously exciting action adventure paying tribute to the men of the US Merchant Marine. The evocation of a group under pressure with their particular avocations and tics is expertly done and the characterisation is a model for war movies. There are all kinds of devices and diversions, from an onboard kitten and his successor; to envy of a Naval officer Cadet Ezra Parker (Dick Hogan); and the usual carping about the quality of the nosh. With a screenplay by John Howard Lawson (from a story by Guy Gilpatric) and additional dialogue by A.I. Bezzerides and W. R. Burnett you can be sure there are some riproaring lines: A trip to perdition would be like a pleasure cruise compared with what we’re going into. Wonderfully shot by Ted McCord with marvellous effects, you would never guess that this was shot on the studio lot due to wartime restrictions. Directed by Lloyd Bacon with uncredited work by Byron Haskin and Raoul Walsh. I’ve got faith – in God, President Roosevelt and the Brooklyn Dodgers – in the order of their importance!

Mr Jones (2019)

The Soviets have built more in five years than our Government has in ten. In 1933, Gareth Jones (James Norton) is an ambitious young Welsh journalist who has gained renown for his interview with Adolf Hitler. Thanks to his connections to Britain’s former Prime Minister, David Lloyd George (Kenneth Cranham), he is able to get official permission to travel to the Soviet Union. Jones intends to try and interview Stalin and find out more about the Soviet Union’s economic expansion and its apparently successful five-year development plan. Jones is restricted to Moscow where he encounters Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times Moscow bureau chief Walter Duranty (Peter Sarsgaard) a libertine who sticks to the Communist Party line.  He befriends and romances German journalist Ada Brooks (Vanessa Kirby) who reluctantly sees him follow the path of murdered journalist Kleb in pursuit of a story. He jumps his train and travels unofficially to Ukraine to discover evidence of the Holodomor (famine) including empty villages, starving people, cannibalism, and the enforced collection of grain exported out of the region while millions die. He escapes with his life because Duranty bargains for it on condition he report nothing but lies. On his return to the UK he struggles to get the true story taken seriously and is forced to return home to Wales in ignominy … They are killing us. Millions.  Framed by the writing of Animal Farm after a credulous commie-admiring Eric Blair aka George Orwell (Joseph Mawle) expresses disbelief that Stalin is anything but a good guy, this is an oddly diffident telling of a shocking true story that’s art-directed within an inch of its life. Introducing Orwell feels like a disservice to Jones. Norton has a difficult job because the screenplay by Andrea Chalupa is too mannerly and the film’s aesthetic betrays his intent. Director Agnieszka Holland is a fine filmmaker but the colour grading, the great lighting (there’s even a red night sky shot from below as Jones and Brooks walk through Moscow) and the excessive use of handheld shooting to express Jones’ inner turmoil somehow detracts from the original fake news story. It happens three times during food scenes including when he realises he’s eating some kids’ older brother. Shocking but somehow not surprising and amazingly relevant given the present state of totalitarian things, everywhere, in a world where Presidents express the wish to have journalists executed and some of them succeed. Some things never change. Chilling. I have no expectations. I just have questions

Above Suspicion (1943)

Her conception of foreign affairs derives directly from Hollywood. In 1939 just prior to WW2 honeymooning couple Oxford professor Richard Myles (Fred MacMurray) and his new bride, undergraduate Frances (Joan Crawford) are recruited to spy on the Nazis for British intelligence. Initially finding the mission fun the trail gets them in real danger as they try to interpret their encounters with contacts.  They then realise a fellow guest Peter Galt (Richard Ainley) at their holiday destination is actually a hitman on a mission of his own and his girlfriend has been murdered at Dachau after the Brits let them take on a job without informing them how bad the Nazis really were … Here we have an iron maiden, also known as the German Statue of Liberty. Crawford may have railed at the preposterous plot in TV’s Feud:  Bette and Joan and it would be her last film at MGM but the fact is Helen MacInnes based her excellent wartime novel on something that actually happened to herself and her husband. Crawford has several good moments – and a ‘bit’ involving what happens her ankle when she’s nervous – including when Conrad Veidt inveigles his way into their museum visit and shows her an instrument of torture which she describes as a totalitarian manicure. It’s a preview of coming attractions. She and MacMurray have chemistry and there are terrifically tense musical moments with some remarks that just skid past innuendo regarding their honeymoon. Fact is, they’ve been dumped in a really dangerous situation and now don’t they know it and the mention of concentration camps proves beyond reasonable doubt the Allies had a pretty good idea what was going on despite post-war claims. There’s an assassination that will only surprise someone who’s never watched a film. A sprightly script by Keith Winter & Melville Baker and Patricia Coleman (with uncredited work by Leonard Lee) keeps things moving quickly in Hollywood’s version of Europe, circa, whenever, and who can’t love a movie that reveals suave Basil Rathbone in Nazi regalia? Directed by Richard Thorpe but it should have been Hitchcock, as Crawford herself stated. Typical tourists – above suspicion

Appointment in Berlin (1943)

That’s the whole point of Secret Service – to prevent people suspecting. In 1938 disillusioned and recently disgraced RAF officer Wing Commander Keith Wilson (George Sanders) risks his life in Berlin by broadcasting pro-Nazi propaganda as a cover for counter-espionage. His broadcasts have a military code enabling British manoeuvres. He falls in love with Ilse (Marguerite Chapman) sister of a high-ranking Nazi Rudolph von Preising (Onslow Stevens) and forges links with journalist Greta van Leyden (Gale Sondergaard) who is actually a spy as well and when a message needs to be taken to Holland he’s the only one left standing … If you are going in at the deep end you may as well do it for England. In a rare tragic role, Sanders scores as the officer whose disgust at Britain’s politically neutral stance prior to WW2 leads him to become a pariah – lending him handy cover when England expects. The question of identity hovers over every scene here as Ilse’s transformation is nicely nuanced whereas Sondergaard’s situation is more extreme and her ending is well staged. There’s an amusing double act from a pair of American neutrals whose constant haranguing of supposedly treacherous Wilson adds humour to proceedings – inevitably they assist in his time of need. Nice references to Goebbels and his role in the manufacturing of truth. An interesting propaganda picture of pre-war problems and the reason why cross-border co-operation was required. Michael Hogan and Horace McCoy wrote the screenplay based on B.P. Fineman’s story.  Directed by Alfred E. Green. It’s finally happened

Tawny Pipit (1944)

This is meat and drink to me. Fighter pilot Jimmy Bancroft (Bernard Miles) is recuperating from injuries sustained during WW2 in a Cotswolds village. He and his nurse Hazel Broome (Rosamund John) come across two rare birds they find nesting in a wheat field and have to stop two evacuated boys from stealing the eggs. Together with Colonel Barton-Barrington (Bernard Miles) and others in the local community they band together to save the area from roads development that would encroach on the nesting place, stopping army tanks from crossing the field and getting a boost from a visiting Soviet sniper Olga Bokalova (Lucie Mannheim) …  Most people have to start from the bottom and work up. We’ll start from the top and work down! Written and directed by star Miles and Charles Saunders, they created a rare propaganda picture of the bucolic home front during World War Two. Not only that, it dares to paint a portrait of deep eccentricity, silly officialdom and a bizarre scene of a female Russian soldier who inspires a moment of flag-waving solidarity between Britain and the Soviet Union. And in the middle of this romance about birds is an affecting narrative about a pilot getting better from his war wounds by saving those feathered creatures while developing a relationship with his nurse. The link between the thriving pipits and his successful mission is encapsulated in the final images of his aeroplane Anthus campestris swooping over the village’s church tower. Barmy and lovely, with beautiful cinematography by Eric Cross and an uplifting score by Noel Mewton-Wood. These eggs are yours and mine and his and his and his … they belong to England!

The Gentle Sex (1943)

We’ve got a world where people have to die because we don’t know how to live. Seven women from different backgrounds meet at an Auxiliary Territorial Service training camp. “Gentle” British girls, including sensible Scot Maggie Fraser (Rosamund John), Anne (Joyce Howard), who is from a service family and the youngest, Betty (Joan Greenwood), they are joined by Czech refugee Erna Debruski (Lilli Palmer) and are now doing their bit to help out in World War 2 from drilling and driving lorries to manning ack-ack batteries … You’ve a great resemblance of a girl I’ve a mind to marry. Writer and co-director Leslie Howard [with an uncredited Maurice Elvey who worked on it following the death of his colleague’s mistress] voices an ‘ironic’ narration (written by Doris Langley Moore) which may have its own ironically patronising overtones but this portrait of female solidarity, hard work and loss while those brave menfolk are overseas is not just fine propaganda but a bewitching home front experience. Six characters in search of … what? Howard deadpans. With additional dialogue by Aimee Stuart and uncredited rewrites by Roland Pertwee and Elizabeth Baron from an original story and screenplay by Moie Charles, it gifts John with one of her best roles and she excels, especially in the comedic relationship with John Laurie. This is a woman’s war. The structure provides the anticipated social overview but interestingly these are women who do not require men’s approval (unlike the similarly themed Millions Like Us). Good on detail, relationships and loyalty, it’s a fount of social history, utilising a documentary style and emphasis on the collective to achieve the affect of togetherness:  it works. Now we have hatred to fill the empty spaces in our hearts

Jet Pilot (1957)

I’m a refugee, not a traitor. During the Cold War, a Russian jet enters air space over Alaska and is escorted to an American air base. The pilot turns out to be a woman – Anna Marladovna (Janet Leigh). She claims to be defecting and demands asylum but refuses to provide information on Soviet activities. USAF Colonel Jim Shannon (John Wayne) receives orders to befriend her in order to win her confidence and gather information. The pilots compete with each other but gradually fall in love. When it appears Anna may be deported, Jim marries her – only to discover that she may be a spy and his mission to seduce her may have played right into her hands … This might be some new form of Russian propaganda. Shot between 1949 and 1951 by a likely uninterested auteur Josef Von Sternberg, producer Howard Hughes was basically reworking Hell’s Angels and spent a staggering seven years messing about with the edit before unleashing it upon an unsuspecting world. Despite its terrible reputation it’s mostly played for laughs with a first indication when sound effects literally trumpet Leigh’s stripping off her commie uniform. Naturally a woman that beautiful can’t be trusted, so the inevitable honeytrap is set. This is meat and drink to writer Jules Furthman and it’s all done with tongue firmly in cheek with the bonus of some incredible aerobatic cinematography from Winton C. Hoch. My favourite line? The one that provides a running joke and hints at a more lauded Leigh film a decade later:  Do you stuff birds too? A total hoot.