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Reviews
Screen Two: Shadow on the Earth (1988)
A gem
Brilliant, brilliant film. I didn't see this when it was first shown on television but when it was repeated a friend recommended it so I caught up with it. It captures childhood so well, the way in which children know things but can't make sense of them because the gaps haven't been filled in yet. The audience can see perfectly well what is happening with the adults but the children can't. The child actors are so good and the setting isn't glamourised, 1950s Scotland as I remember it. It's one of those pieces that is so vivid one immediately suspects it's biographical, although of course it may not be.
I taped it off the TV and watched it again and again, but I've given away my VCR so I wish they would release it on DVD, or that the BBC would show it again so that I could record it onto DVD. It's a genuine classic.
Young Wives' Tale (1951)
A treat if you like '50s movies
I love this comedy and have watched it umpteen times. I haven't seen it for a while so the details of the plot escape me, but they don't really matter. What is so good about it is the unselfconscious depiction of London picking itself up after World War II, and the relaxed comedy style of the actors, most of whom will be familiar faces to anyone who watched British TV in the '70s too. Joan Greenwood is a dream as usual - watch out for the vault over the sofa - as a young housewife feeling ever so slightly bored with staying at home and the continuing hardships of the period - and where else could you see Athene Seyler, Fabia Drake and Irene Handl all together? Last and far from least there is a charming appearance from Audrey Hepburn in her fifth film. The men are good but this is really a treasury of female performances. It's all very light and stylish without being over-glamorous, very refreshing.
Also, for serious buffs, the cinematographer was the great Erwin Hillier who worked with F.W. Murnau on 'Tabu', with Fritz Lang on 'M', and with Powell and Pressburger on 'A Canterbury Tale' and 'I Know Where I'm Going', and many other major movies.