Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941)

Nora's Nite

Porky's (1982)

Pamela's Nite

MovieNite supports European Film!

From the European Commission. (really!)

Vanishing Point (1971)

Peter's Nite

Via Wikipedia: Gilda Texter (born 26 November 1946) is an American costume designer, wardrobe supervisor and actress. While Gilda Texter is quite accomplished for her work in the Costume and Wardrobe Department of over 40 movies and television productions, ironically she is probably most famous for her feature film debut in the movie Vanishing Point in which she appears completely naked for her entire performance and being credited as "Nude motorcycle rider" despite having a speaking part.

Texter only appeared in three movies which all came out in 1971. Other than Vanishing Point she had parts in Angels Hard as They Come and Runaway, Runaway. In further irony to Texter's later career in costume and wardrobe, the tagline to Runaway, Runaway was "PLEASE NOTE: If you are shocked or embarrassed by total nudity and sexual activity, you are urged NOT to attend".

Fidanzati, I (1963)

Stuart's Nite

Chris Fujiwara in the Boston Phoenix:

Olmi is phenomenologist first, musician second, and storyteller third. In his roaming, nervous, expansive films, narrative is obscured, or elided, or cut off. Key plot points are invisible: in the pivotal scene of Un certo giorno/One Fine Day (1968; August 8 at 6 p.m.), neither we nor the characters notice until it’s too late that the advertising-executive hero has just hit a road worker with his car.
The sense of death that haunts most of Olmi’s films is linked to a passion for meaning and coherence. In Il posto/The Job (1961; August 1 at 8 p.m. and August 4 at 11 a.m.) and I fidanzati/The Fiancés (1963; August 2 at 6 p.m. and August 3 at 11 a.m.), two films about work, Olmi shows characters who are in danger of losing their lives to work. "We take nothing into account anymore of how we live, how we behave," the hero of Un certo giorno reflects. The filmmaker sets himself the task most of his characters can’t even articulate: recuperating the forgotten and neglected parts of their lives.He trained for this task from 1952 to 1959 by making some 40 short documentaries for Edisonvolta. He later said, "Whatever I try to say in my films derives from and belongs to that world, the world I have personally known: modern industry and the civilization it creates." In 1959, he expanded what was to have been another entry in his industrial series — a documentary on a hydroelectric dam in the Italian Alps — into his first feature, Il tempo si è fermato/Time Stood Still (August 1 at 6 p.m.). The film is astonishingly simple: during an interruption in work on the dam, a middle-aged watchman and a young student who has just signed on as a short-term replacement worker share a snowbound cabin. At first the older man is gruff and discourages contact, but eventually the two bond. In Il tempo si è fermato, Olmi establishes some constants of his later films: paid labor as a factor that organizes human activity; the impact of weather and nature on human behavior; the derailing of narrative teleology through distraction and detail; the exploration of the magic of down time.

Il posto, Olmi’s second film, is the key to all his work because of the way it illustrates a recurring motif in his critique of modernity: how the "place" or position becomes more important than the people who occupy it. Olmi’s sense of detail is evocative: shots are taken as if on the fly, as the young hero (a bumpkin from the outskirts of Milan applying for a job in the big city) surveys his strange environment with clear-eyed reticence.

Closely Watched Trains (1966)

Peter's Nite

Richard Schickel
In the late Sixties, when Czechoslovakian films burst upon the West, they seemed something of a miracle. They were small in scale. They were typically about ordinary, unglamorous people, who were generally regarded with a humorous and humane eye. They were also different in tone from other national cinemas that had earlier caught our attention—Italian Neo-Realism, for example, or the French New Wave. There was a wryness about them, a gently stated sense of the absurd, that reminded us that the Czech national epic was—uniquely—a comic one, Jaroslav Hasek’s The Good Soldier Svejk.

We were frequently told that Svejk’s sly subversions of the warrior mentality represented the best that a small, geopolitically unfavored nation could offer in the way of resistance to its surrounding bullies, and we were glad to see that the work of a new generation of filmmakers—their attitudes formed during the Nazi Occupation of World War II, sharpened by the Stalinist dictatorship of the post-war period—confirmed the novel’s continuing relevance. The portrait of Czechoslovakia we pieced together from its films of the 1960s was of what we might now call a slacker nirvana, a place where private problems always took precedence over public issues, where ideological pomp was ever subverted by the imp of the perverse.

There was something delightfully casual about the manner of these films, too. Loosely structured, often shot in the streets and on provincial back roads, frequently acted by amateurs, their lack of formality seemed all the more remarkable since they were, after all, the products of an Iron Curtain country. Perhaps its rulers were not as sternly censorious as those of the other Middle European Stalinist regimes, but still…

Prague Spring or not, Dubcek or not, we wondered how the chief figures of this renaissance—Milos Forman, Ivan Passer, and Jirí Menzel, all the other graduates of FAMU, the famous state film school—got away with it. Mostly, though, we were simply grateful and welcoming when, at roughly the same historical moment, Forman’s Loves of a Blonde, Passer’s Intimate Lighting, and Menzel’s Closely Watched Trains struck us with gentle, insinuating force.

None was more successful in the United States than Menzel’s marvelous film. Even cranky John Simon thought it was “unique, indebted ultimately only to [Menzel’s] individual genius”—and his opinion was echoed by every major American reviewer. It went on to gain the fond regard of sophisticated audiences, such modest, but meaningful, commercial success as their patronage could grant an “art house” movie, and the Academy Award as the Best Foreign Language Film of 1967.

We always return to such widely hailed and greatly beloved films with trepidation, so often is our initial enthusiasm betrayed by the passing years. We wonder, especially with films that are so immediately adorable, if we were taken prisoner by people carrying false papers, whispering too-sweet nothings in our ears. That’s not the case with Closely Watched Trains. If anything, it seems to me more powerful—certainly more poignant—now than it did when it first appeared some 34 years ago.

I think we were all somewhat misled by the film back then. A lot of us, Simon included, treated the end of the film as no more than a coup de theatre, a sudden lurch toward seriousness that the director and the writer (novelist Bohumil Hrabal) somehow pull off without spoiling the film’s overall sense of absurdist fun.

There’s some truth in that argument. But what most powerfully struck me when I returned to the movie was how integral to the movie that ending is, how carefully it all along prepares us for its conclusion. Yes, it is a surprise at first glance. But on second thought it appears to be utterly inevitable. And utterly right. What’s most clever about the movie is the canny way Menzel and Hrabal deceive us, lead us into believing, right up to the end, that their aim is nothing more than a sort of chucklesome and off-hand geniality.

It seems that Menzel is one of the many victims of 20th Century megapolitics, yet another artist on whose art the difficult business of surviving in a totalitarian society imposed too much of a distorting strain. The descriptions one reads of his many unseen works sound so graceful, so original. We can only hope for the opportunity to one day see those films, to be in touch with the full career of this most insinuating and ingratiating filmmaker. In the meantime, we are lucky to have Closely Watched Trains, a film that remains as fresh and potent as it was when we first saw it so many years ago, a film that continues to reward many a close re-watching.

TIME 100 Best Movies of all time:

In the brief cold war moment before the Soviet Union brutally crushed its vitality in the crackdown after the "Prague Spring," the Czech cinema exemplified the country's sly, humane rebelliousness to the world. And Menzel's film, about a feckless young crossing guard at a sleepy railroad station who becomes an unlikely (and tragic) hero of the resistance to German occupation was its sweetly funny, curiously moving masterpiece. TIME thought Menzel kept his mood-shifting movie "on the track all the way." Indeed, he did.

Czech radio on the Time Magazine selection:

The American weekly Time magazine has just published a list of the 100 best films ever, compiled by its two much-respected film critics Richard Schickel and Richard Corliss. The list, which includes such American classics as The Godfather and Pulp Fiction, is well-balanced, containing many non—US titles, among them 'Closely Watched Trains' -one of only three Czech films to ever earn the Best Foreign-Language Oscar.
Made in 1966, 'Closely Watched Trains' is generally considered a small masterpiece by both Czech and foreign audiences the coming of age story of a shy young man in wartime, who longs for love but sacrifices his life in a futile mission against the Nazi occupiers. Based on Bohumil Hrabal's novel of the same name, the film drew rave reviews in the 60s and continues to enjoy a great following today. We caught up with fim historian Karel Och:

"The most beautiful thing on the film for me is this sort of intimacy which goes together with the main character. And all the things that are happening to him are sort of by coincidence, but actually describe the most important things in life. He is not sort of a likeable young man, he is very, very ordinary, very unglamorous, let's say. But, there's this gentle way of showing him, and all the absurd things that happen to him, which is very universal."
The loss of innocence and absurdity where characteristic of Hrabal, who also contributed to the final screenplay. Following the success of 'Closely Watched Trains' Hrabal and Menzel collaborated on several notable screen adaptations in the 70's, but never got around to Hrabal's seminal "I Served the King of England". Jiri Menzel, after a long hiatus, is getting set to make that film that now, something many film fans are looking forward to with great anticipation. Karel Och again:
"Jiri Menzel sort of disappeared, I mean it's been a long time since his last film, and as we can see a lot filmmakers who were successful in the 60s changed a lot and maybe their films are no longer as successful as they were before. It's one of Hrabal's most beautiful books, so it will be a tough task."
If anyone is up to it, it should be Jiri Menzel, who adapted more of Hrabal's work anyone else. The only shame is that Hrabal himself could not live to see it.

Prague Life on Hrabal:
Along with Milan Kundera, Bohumil Hrabal is one of the most important Czech writers of the 20th century, and even more central to Prague than Kundera.
Kundera even said of Hrabal: “Bohumil Hrabal embodies as no other the fascinating Prague. He couples people's humor to baroque imagination.” Hrabal finished Law at Prague's Charles University, and lived in the city from the late 1940s until his death in 1997. Though not as internationally known as Kundera, Hrabal had more admirers than adversaries in the Czech Republic than the former, probably because he didn’t leave his homeland and language behind for France. However, Hrabal does have his admirers abroad, even inspiring the novel The Book of Hrabal by Hungarian writer Peter Esterhazy.

Hrabal was born in Brno in 1914, but his home became Prague after he finished university there. In 1965 Hrabal published his best known novel, Closely Watched Trains, which was made into a film by Czech director Jiri Menzel. Hrabal’s style was distinctive, often utilizing run-on sentences (the whole novel Dancing Lessons for the Advanced in Age is written in one long sentence) and the schizophrenic struggle between individual moral conscience and the demands of society. The classic Shakespearean clown character is ever-present, seemingly a fool but often pulling bits of profound insight out of the air.

Many of Hrabal’s works were translated and published in English, including his last, Total Fears: Letters to Dubenka, published posthumously. When in Prague, the best place by far to find English translations of Hrabal and other Czech writers is Anagram Bookstore, where they have a whole section of Czech literature. Hrabal’s death is nothing if not ironic like his works: in 1997, he fell from his fifth story hospital window, supposedly feeding pigeons. Hrabal lived in a fifth story apartment, however, and in several of his works a character has ended his life by suicide from the fifth story. Coincidence? Perhaps, but the truth shall never be known.

Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949)

Nora's Nite

Writer-Director Robert Hamer (1911 - 1963)

Whenever anyone who knew Robert Hamer writes about him, they paint a portrait of a doomed figure whose early promise was cut short. He shares this quality with many of the characters in his work. Yet, with less than a dozen films to his credit, he still managed to achieve more than most of his contemporaries.

He was born in Kidderminster. His schooldays were successful and he gained a scholarship to Cambridge. He seemed set for great things but he was suspended for homosexual activities and his academic career never recovered. After graduation he started in the film industry as a clapper-boy at Gaumont.

He worked his way up through the ranks and by 1940 he was an editor at Ealing and also making script contributions. He was also married to aspiring actress Joan Holt. His big break as a director came with the Haunted Mirror section of Dead of Night. His next two films also starred Googie Withers but it was his fourth for which he will best be remembered: Kind Hearts and Coronets.

Despite his success, his gloomy world view was at odds with that of boss Michael Balcon and he found it difficult to come up with acceptable projects at Ealing. Outside Ealing things were worse as the 50s industry stopped taking risks and turned bland. Hamer's drinking, always a problem, got worse and his marriage disintegrated. His alcoholism finished him off in 1963 shortly after he got the push from writing additional dialogue for 55 Days at Peking.

With his first five films, Hamer created a stylish reflection of post-war disillusionment. The films he made after, though lesser works, usually have moments which make them worth watching.

Britmovie.com on Hamer:

Hamer was the son of British character actor Gerald Hamer and educated at Cambridge University. He worked as an editor at London Films during the 1930's on films including Hitchcock’s Jamaica Inn (1939). He joined Ealing Studios in 1940, first as an editor, then producer, writer, and from 1945, director. Hamer made an uncredited co-directorial debut on San Demetrio, London (1943) and Fiddlers Three (1944), before shooting the "Haunted Mirror" sequence in the portmanteau chiller Dead of Night (1945). His first feature-length assignment was the Googie Withers femme-fatale drama Pink String and Sealing Wax (1946).

For several years, Hamer's career soared, thanks largely to his quartet of films with Alec Guinness; superior black-comedy Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949), Father Brown (1954), the weak comedy To Paris with Love (1955) and impenetrable Daphne Du Maurier adaptation The Scapegoat (1959). After Ealing, and affected by alcoholism, Hamer directed two films of note, the John Mills film-noir The Long Memory (1952) and comedy classic School for Scoundrels (1960).

Britishpictures.com: Joan Greenwood (1921 - 1987)

It was the voice that set her apart. Husky, plummy, sexy. It cut through her essential gentility and made her seem like a woman of the world even when she was playing it innocent. In one of the most memorable cinema quotes, Karel Reisz described her speaking her lines "as if she dimly suspected some hidden menace in them which she can't quite identify".

She was born in London and went to RADA and then did some theatre. In her first films she usually played children and it wasn't until Latin Quarter that she got her first star role. Shortly after, she signed a Rank contract. Her parts improved but it was Whisky Galore and Kind Hearts and Coronets for Ealing that really put her on the map. Her sexy ingénue in The Man in the White Suit was equally memorable.

Her Gwendolen in The Importance of Being Earnest is the definitive portrayal. Unlike other actresses of the period who made films but preferred theatre, she never gave the impression that she was slumming. She made a couple of films in Hollywood and then retreated to the stage. Marriage in 1959 (to Andre Morell) and children meant that she worked less though she did manage to appear in The Mysterious Island battling against giant crabs and wasps. She also got another good role in Tom Jones.

Her career petered out in small roles in bad films. She turned up on TV in the sea-going soap Triangle as the passenger who never got off the ferry. Triangle was a low point in many people's careers but she was watchable. She was the mad landlady in the sitcom Girls on Top and looked set for a long career playing old bats, but she died after a fall at home. Before she died she left one great performance as Mrs Clennam in the two-part version of Little Dorrit.

With glowing skin and cheek-bones to die for, she photographed beautifully. Unlike many beautiful actresses, she could deliver wonderful performances. She was mannered, but that never seemed to matter since she chose roles for which her style was appropriate. On the rare occasions she chose a realistic role (The October Man) she showed that she could cope well with its demands.

For more see our July 2004 post on The Man in the White Suit also starring Guiness and Greenwood.

Fame (1980)

Pamela's Nite

Pickpocket (1959)

Stuart's Nite

Cérémonie, La (1995)

Peter's Nite
Dinner: Salads from Lalas

Images Journal on Chabrol:

Yet if Chabrol is apparently tabloid in theme, his style has frequently been sophisticated and languorous -- a slow burn examination of his characters' lives with a rapt, patient camera. Consequently, place is of immense importance. Britanny, Massif Central, the Loire Valley, out of season St. Tropez: many a region, small town or village has been focused upon, not simply utilized. In maybe his finest film, Le Boucher, Chabrol gives an onscreen credit to the Perigaud valley villagers who give the film so much of its atmosphere.

Even Chabrol's houses are memorable and significant. The stretched, low slung and vaguely Americanized abode in La Femme Infidèle; the minor chateaus of Wedding in Blood and La Cérémonie, each isolated and aloof; the marvelous convivial country house in the early stages of Un Partie du Plaisir, and the nouveau riche home of the garage owner in The Beast Must Die all indicate characters inextricably linked to the place in which they live. A man's home is almost literally, in Chabrol, his castle, and it is equally true that the castle is the man.

Lest we are in any doubt, watch how Chabrol subjectifies the camera even when not utilising point of view. In La Cérémonie, for example, where swift, darting camera pans have all the admiring envy of a petty bourgeois social climber. When a character finally passes comment upon the property, its pleonastic: the camera's already done all the work for us. However, the repetition suggests the depth of envy. If the camera indicates a keen interest, the words of the lowly postal clerk Jeanne give the film a murderous intent. "A la la ... now there's class for you," she says on seeing the Lelièvres' family home. Teamed with the family's maid, Sophie, Jeanne's powder-keg character awaits the fuse of indignation and finds it when Sophie's sacked by this haute bourgeois family. Jeanne returns one evening to the chateau with Sophie, apparently to pick up Sophie's things. They quietly make hot chocolate while the family obliviously watches Don Giovanni in the study. Then we watch as the pair of them creep up the stairs, pour hot chocolate over the master bed, and rip the wife's clothes to shreds.

Ehe der Maria Braun, Die (1979)

Stuart's Nite

Fassbinder Foundation bio:
Rainer Werner Fassbinder (May 31, 1945 - June 10, 1982) was born into a cultured bourgeois family in the small Bavarian spa town Bad Wörishofen. Raised by his mother as an only child, the boy had only sporadic contact with his father, a doctor, after the divorce of his parents when he was five. Educated at a Rudolf Steiner elementary school and subsequently in Munich and Augsburg, the city of Bert Brecht, he left school before passing any final examinations. A cinema addict ("five times a week, often three films a day") from a very early age, not least because his mother needed peace and quiet for her work as a translator, "the cinema was the family life I never had at home."

Fassbinder made his first short films at the age of twenty, persuading a male lover to finance them in exchange for leading roles. He also applied for a place at the Berlin Film School (dffb), but was refused.

Only after these amateur directing-scripting-acting efforts did ­Fass­binder take lessons with a professional acting studio, where he met Hanna Schygulla, his most important actress, who thanks to him became an international star. It was through Schygulla that Fassbinder turned his interest to the theatre.

In 1967 Fassbinder joined the Munich action-theater. He directed, acted in, and adapted anti-establishment plays for a tightly knit group of young professionals, among them Peer Raben and Kurt Raab, who along with Schygulla and Hermann, became the most important members of his cinematic stock company. Jean-Marie Straub directed the action-theater in an eight-minute version of Bruckner's Krankheit der Jugend , using part of this stage pro­duction in his short film DER BRÄUTIGAM, DIE KOMÖDIANTIN UND DER ZUHÄLTER (1968), with Fassbinder as the pimp. In 1968 Fassbinder directed the first play written by himself, Katzelmacher , a twenty-minute highly choreographed encounter between Bavarian villagers and a foreign worker from Greece, who with scarcely a word of German, becomes the object of intense racial, sexual, and political hatred among the men, while exerting a strangely troubling fascination on the women. A few weeks later, in May 1968, the Action theater was disbanded after its theatre was wrecked by one of its founders, jealous of Fassbinder's growing power within the group. It promptly reformed under Fassbinder's command as the antiteater, which pursued an equally radical and frequently provocative production policy.

By 1976 Fassbinder had become an international star. Prizes at major film festivals, premieres and retrospectives in Paris, New York, Los Angeles, and a first critical study on his work appearing in London had made him a familiar name among cinephiles and campus audiences the world over. He rented a house in Paris and could be seen in gay bars in New York, earning him cult hero status but also a controversial reputation in and out of his films. Art house circuits avidly took up his films: because he had so many to his credit by the time he was 'discovered' with FEAR EATS THE SOUL, the rerelease of his earlier films, together with the steady stream of new work, made his extraordinary productivity seem even more phenomenal.

His flamboyant and at the same time seedy life-style, his openly displayed and well advertised homosexuality, and at the same time life and love to women, the scandals, public outrages and bouts of self-pity ensured that in Germany itself Fassbinder was permanently in the news, making calculatedly provocative remarks in interviews, which nonetheless were usually shrewd and to the point. His work often received mixed notices from the national critics, many of whom only began to take Fassbinder seriously after the foreign press had hailed him as a genius.

In 1972 Fassbinder began his collaboration with a highly experienced and successful producer at West Germany's most prestigious television network, Peter Märtesheimer of WDR. Under Märtesheimer's influence, Fassbinder turned with even more determination to recognizably German subject matter. Together they made, among others, the television series EIGHT HOURS DO NOT MAKE A DAY, and in 1978 cowrote THE MARRIAGE OF MARIA BRAUN , Fassbinder's commercially most profitable film and the first in his post-war German trilogy (the other two were LOLA and VERONIKA VOSS). For many foreign critics, his crowning achievement was the 14-part television adaptation of Alfred Döblin's Berlin Alexanderplatz , much maligned by the domestic press. Although for VERONIKA VOSS Fassbinder received the Golden Bear at the 1982 Berlin Film Festival, a much-coveted Oscar nomination eluded him. As had often been noted, Fassbinder was the engine and motor (the "heart" in Wolfram Schütte's words) of the New German Cinema. His sudden death from a vicious combination of drugs and sleeping pills in June 1982 symbolically marked the end of the most exciting and experimental period the German cinema had known since the 1920s.

The Commitments (1991)

Pamela's Nite

Roddy Doyle (1958-) via The Guardian

"I still live in the same neighbourhood where I grew up, and I still have to face the milkman and the neighbours if they don't like what I write. "
Birthplace
Dublin, Ireland

Education
University College, Dublin

Other jobs
He was originally a teacher in his old school; his students were the inspiration for his self-published first novel, The Commitments. He didn't give up teaching until the day Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha came out.

Did you know?
He swears that his first novel, the promisingly titled Your Granny Was a Hunger Striker, will never see the light of day.

Critical verdict
Critically and popularly acclaimed for his Barrytown trilogy, a Booker Prize for Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha (he had already been shortlisted for The Van) drew some anti-populist sneers - and sold more copies than any other winner. Doyle was the Dublin northsider's pride and joy, until a brutally frank film about domestic abuse (Family, later developed on page as the extraordinary The Woman who Walked into Doors) was seen as over-dramatised betrayal.
Recommended works
Doyle's greatest portrayals of dignity in degradation are Jimmy Rabbitte coping with unemployment in The Van and alcoholic, abused Paula, Doyle's only first-person narrator, in The Woman who Walked into Doors.

Influences
Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha pays homage to Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (compare the opening lines).

Now read on
Frank McCourt; Patrick McCabe

Adaptations
The Barrytown trilogy has been committed to celluloid; first was The Commitments (dir. Alan Parker), adapted by the duo behind 70s comedy Porridge and The Likely Lads as an exuberant musical with a simple storyline and plenty of jokes. Stephen Frears directed The Snapper and The Van, with screenplays by Doyle; the mood is more bittersweet and understated, but retains the authenticity of the books. Doyle has also written two plays, War (1989), about a pub quiz, and Brownbread (1993), in which a bishop is kidnapped.

49th Parallel (1941)

Stuart's Nite

Screenonline:
For their third collaboration, Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger were engaged by the Ministry of Information to make a propaganda film. 49th Parallel (1941; The Invaders in the US), was a concerted attempt to influence opinion in neutral America into supporting their government's entry into the war.

Pressburger proved an enthusiastic propagandist. As he later said, "Goebbels considered himself an expert on propaganda, but I thought I'd show him a thing or two." This is despite the fact that Pressburger's own status in Britain at the time was as an 'enemy alien'. On returning from Canada he found himself imprisoned and threatened with deportation, until Powell and the MOI intervened.

Pressburger's script, which won him an Academy Award for Best Original Story, charts the progress of a German U-boat crew stranded in Canada after the sinking of their craft off Hudson Bay. As the six crew members, led by the unflappable Corporal Hirth (Eric Portman), struggle to reach the neutral territory of the United States, they encounter a series of opponents, who serve to contrast Canada's democracy and ethnic diversity with the Nazis' moral bankruptcy.

The ruthless Hirth is a far cry from the more sympathetically portrayed German officer played by Conrad Veidt in Powell and Pressburger's earlier Spy in Black (1939). Unburdened by doubts in himself or in his philosophy, he has no patience with weakness or sensitivity. But his arrogance is his undoing, for he repeatedly underestimates his opponents. The other Nazis each have their own distinct characters, and there is even a 'good Nazi', which attracted some criticism at the time.

German actress Elisabeth Bergner, the only woman in a leading role, jumped ship after shooting a few scenes in Canada; it became clear she had only signed on to get to America. Fortunately, she was very effectively replaced by the unknown Glynis Johns. Two other stars, Laurence Olivier and Raymond Massey, almost pulled out, and the MOI threatened to pull the plug due to budget overspend. When Hollywood giants David O. Selznick and Samuel Goldwyn showed an interest, however, J. Arthur Rank stepped in and provided the rest of the money. He - and the Treasury - made their money back comfortably: a success at home, the film became the biggest British hit to date in American cinemas.

49th Parallel was the first of two collaborations between Powell and Pressburger and the already highly regarded editor David Lean.

The Servant (1963)

Peter's Nite

Caroline Millar via Screenonline:
The opening sequence of stark, leafless trees outlined against a cold English sky suggests the clinical austerity of 1960s Britain and hints at the cold manipulations that follow. The first shot of Barrett, leaving Thomas Crapper Sanitary Engineers (presumably his previous workplace), slyly insinuates the theme of the film as the 'flushing away' of the old order. His clipped appearance and punctuality tells us he means business, while the first shot of Tony (a 'businessman') finds him vulnerable, asleep in a chair.

The drama revolves around issues of both class and gender, and the relationship between the two. While Barrett slowly insinuates himself in the house and manipulates his master by slyly rearranging the decor, it is through sex (in the shape of his alluring and sexually permissive 'sister', Vera (Sarah Miles)) that he finally brings about Tony's downfall. The calculating allure of Vera, in contrast to the stuffy, over-bred Susan (Wendy Craig), cuts through the class barriers and brings Tony down to the same level as his servant. Soon the boundaries between master and servant break down, as Tony succumbs to the will of his stronger adversary.

Belonging to an era of filmmaking which for the first time dealt explicitly with issues never before seen on screen, The Servant (in common with many of the contemporary British New Wave) is also artistically ambitious. Several scenes (particularly those between Tony, Barrett and Susan) are seen through the distortion of the big, round, convex mirror which sits on the living room wall, reflecting the unnatural, misformed relationships between the people in the room. Each shot is directed with precision, often framing Susan or Vera between Tony and Barrett, or positioning one of the two men close to the camera while his rival lingers in the background.

Tom Sutpen via brightlights:
Although Pinter was a contemporary of John Osborne and Arnold Wesker — and was often cited as an essential figure in the “Angry Young Man” school of British theater those men had largely forged — his work resembled theirs only superficially. While Osborne’s plays, for example, couldn’t have been more direct about their social concerns, Pinter’s were obscure to the point of abstraction. If he was “angry” about anything, it was impossible to determine what he was angry about. His work was simply never concerned with the larger issues of society, and the only politics he routinely confronted were those in the language of human interaction, He was endlessly preoccupied with the treacheries inherent in the most time-worn relations. In fact, it was the only theme he returned to again and again: the subtle determination of some to undermine and destroy one another while maintaining a façade of order and civility. In this respect, his screenplay for The Servant is one of his greatest works, the equal of anything he wrote for the stage. With his devastating economy of dialogue and explication, he unblinkingly chronicles the savage destruction of one man’s will at the hands of another; not the half-bright social parable of some critics’ dreams. This, and not a barely existent subtext, is what makes The Servant such a disturbing film.

Viewers and critics who sought to drown The Servant in sociopolitical syrup were avoiding the obvious. There is something indeed tragic about the decline of this upper-class twit that failed to register with more class-conscious critics. In the final sequence, when Susan sees for herself the sodden, hopeless laudanum freak Tony has become, and flees from what she suddenly realizes was always Barrett’s house, she clings to a tree and weeps uncontrollably. And along with her, we can’t help but feel that, despite Tony’s basic lack of character, something has been irretrievably lost. But anyone who imagined that some fundamental reversal had taken place between Barrett and Tony at the end needed glasses. Barrett is no more the “working-class hero” of The Servant than Tony is. Though Barrett has laid waste to Tony’s will more thoroughly than if he'd murdered him, he’s still the man’s servant. He continues to cook the meals, fix the drinks, answer the doorbell, lock up at night. He has attained an enduring power over Tony, and can now indulge himself with the impunity of a Tiberius. But it is a limited power. A power achieved only by performing his duties, by pleasing his employer.

The Rainmaker (1956)

Pamela's Nite

Arsenic and Old Lace (1944)

Nora's Nite