Change Your Image
brian-joplin
Ratings
Most Recently Rated
Reviews
Keep It Quiet (1934)
Daft plot but sterling performances
This rare and forgotten British Lion comedy of 1934 is well worth the attention of cineastes for the presence of two of its actors. Firstly Frank Pettingell, best remembered now for his major role in the 1940 version of Gaslight, who in this film is seen in comic vein posing as a daft butler with hilarious consequences. Secondly Cyril Raymond, unforgettable as Laura's husband in Brief Encounter, here playing a rakish boyfriend but with a touch of gravitas. In both cases their performances in Keep it Quiet rank as, arguably, the best of their careers. Direction by Leslie Hiscott is slick and serviceable and, together with Michael Barringer's witty scenario, render this as one of the best of the unjustly scorned 'quota quickies' of the 1930s.
Calling the Tune (1936)
Fascinating historical record
By a curious coincidence, two of the only three major films based on the British recording industry were made at Ealing within a year of each other. One was the nowadays rarely seen George Formby vehicle 'Feather your Nest', the other the subject of this review, 'Calling the Tune'. As you might expect, the Formby movie uses gramophone recording as the basis for broad though effective comedy whilst 'Calling the Tune' could not be more different. Here the approach is that of melodrama, the story outlining the rivalry between two recording firms around the time of the onset of electrical recording in the late 1920s. The narrative is well-paced and plausible, and acted with some verve not only by stalwarts of the profession such as Lewis Casson (one of his best screen appearances) but also by newcomers such as Clifford Evans, later to achieve huge box-office success in 'While I Live', or Donald Wolfit, best seen in 'Room at the Top' and the inspiration for Albert Finney's hugely entertaining Sir in 'The Dresser' But the main claim of 'Calling the Tune' to posterity's interest is the line-up of notables who attend the recording studio to cut discs. For aficionados of classical music, the sight of Sir Henry Wood conducting his Queen's Hall orchestra is a genuine delight. For lovers of music hall, there's George Robey performing one of his patter routines. And, perhaps weirdly, Sir Cedric Hardwicke steps forward to declaim some Shakespeare in very much the oratorical style he employs in 'Things to Come' shot at Denham in the same year. As an historical record this movie is absolutely fascinating, but as entertainment it works pretty well too, especially at its exciting climax.
Gerontophilia (2013)
A controversial subject made palatable
Bruce LaBruce's 'Gerontophilia' exists on one level as a bold and thoughtful exposé of the shocking treatment of geriatrics in some care homes, whereby they pass their days under heavy sedation so as to make them less of a problem to handle. Though well-scripted and acted, this theme is hardly novel, having been seen in many earlier films, including Henry Koster's delightful mixture of the tragic and comic in 'Mr Belvedere Rings The Bell'. What makes 'Gerontophilia' unique is its other level - an unusual account of the developing relationship between the octogenarian Mr Peabody (Walter Borden in a complex and completely convincing performance) and a youthful student, Lake, who decides to intervene and improve Peabody's quality of life. This decision is not, however, completely altruistic since Lake is one of that minority of young males who are turned on sexually by old men. It is to LaBruce's great credit that he treats this controversial subject with just the right amount of restraint, avoiding the lurid, but not being afraid to call a spade a spade. There are no actual lovemaking scenes in bed, but sufficient moments where Lake's attraction to old flesh is made manifest, at the film's ending through the medium of humour, earlier in a poignant scene where Lake sketches Peabody with, as one might say, no holds barred. The film of course has its flaws: Pier-Gabriel Lajoie as Lake is just too impossibly good-looking, though this is to some extent offset by the charisma of his performance and his unerring sense of fun. Also there's the suggestion, inferred rather than stated, that his curious sexual preferences stem from his relationship with his drunken mother, but this comes over as a trite rather than illuminating idea. These, however, are small matters. This movie is a charming and unpredictable insight into a sub-world which is not just French-Canadian but universal, and will be a welcome addition to the programmes of those art cinemas brave enough to show it.
Orders Is Orders (1933)
Archetypal British humour at its best
Based on a stage play by the great Ian Hay, 'Orders is Orders' would appear to be a standard British comedy of its period - in fact it turns out to be even more interesting. For one thing, in transferring the very basic plot (American director wishes to make a movie in a British army barracks)to the screen, director Walter Forde takes the opportunity of including extensive shots of infantrymen drilling on their parade ground. Thus the film has considerable historic interest as a social document - but even more when you look at the cast. Ray Milland, for instance, as the romantic lead, reminding us what a devastatingly handsome man he was before age and Hollywood took their toll. Or Cyril Maude as Colonel Bellows in one of his very few film roles, portraying a Blimp figure even more wittily than George Graves' Colonel Lukyn in the better-remembered 'Those were the Days' shot the following year. Or Cedric Hardwicke, two years before his knighthood, and already, it would seem, rehearsing his Count Frollo in the 1939 'Hunchback of Notre Dame'. Or Hay Plumb, in his younger days director of the 1913 version of Hamlet, and who ended his career as a bus driver in Clapham, but here playing one of a pair of bumbling privates (the other is the ubiquitous and ever-delightful Eliot Makeham)in much the same droll style as Laurel and Hardy. Which brings me to the central point of the film - its humour. The characteristics of British humour at its best (innuendo rather than obviousness, wry wit, mock solemnity) are sometimes difficult for those born elsewhere to grasp. But if ever a movie could be used as a demonstration lesson, this is it. As the confrontation between British and American values proceeds, the action becomes more and more hilarious, culminating in an inspired farcical climax. Though not the absolutely most amusing of British comedies of the thirties, 'Orders is Orders' certainly counts as one of the most watchable, and should not be missed by serious enthusiasts of the cinema. One final point: the film's taking its title from the catchphrase "orders is orders", common in Britain from Victorian times to the 1960s. When the story was remade twenty years later, the studio opted for the more grammatically correct 'Orders are Orders', thereby missing the point entirely. Both versions occur on the soundtrack of Forde's film, but it's the older idiom which provides, and pointedly so, the very last words of its spoken dialogue. What does the phrase suggest? Watch Maurice Evans delivering it in 'The Story of Gilbert and Sullivan' when his valet insists he goes to bed early, and all will become clear without further explanation.
Return to Yesterday (1940)
Early Ealing at its best.
One of the most charming light comedies to come out of Ealing, and Robert Stevenson's last British film before his flight to Hollywood, 'Return to Yesterday'is a veritable treasure trove of British character actors of the period (including Frank Pettingell, Dame May Witty, O.B. Clarence and Garry Marsh) all ably led by Clive Brook in one of his most sensitive screen performances, and one well up to the heights of his later triumph in 'On Approval'. The film also benefits, however, from a clever script (based on a play by Robert Morley), some nostalgic location shooting at Paddington station and on the GWR main line near Dawlish, and a delightful evocation of British seaside life in the last summer before war took hold. Stevenson's direction is characteristically deft and lends the movie a welcome air of spontaneity. Note, for instance, the last shot of O.B. Clarence and his reaction to being tickled from behind - with many directors, this would have ended up on the cutting room floor. Not so with Stevenson, and this film throughout is imbued with the same sense of fun which he brought to his better-known movies for Disney. Though its story of thwarted love is common enough, 'Return to Yesterday' simmers with a love of film and theatre - and the world which was about to be lost forever in the years of war and the privation which followed it. Call it sentimental if you will - but, once watched, this is a film you'll return to again and again.
The House of the Spaniard (1936)
British crime thriller
This comedy thriller, in the same vein as Hitchcock's pre-war Gainsborough movies, but much less accomplished, sees an upper-class twit (skint, but owning an expensive Bentley!) pursuing a girl across Spain whilst incidentally bringing to justice a smuggling ring headed by her father. The hero is played by Peter Haddon whose main claim to fame is that he was the first actor to play Lord Peter Wimsey on screen (in The Silent Passenger) but whilst he manages some amusing moments, he lacks the charisma a real star might have brought to the part. Although the movie contrives some half-hearted references to its Spanish Civil War context, on the whole it seems rather anaemic, with a notable absence of suspense. Its main set-piece, for instance, an avalanche which wrecks a train, is over in about five seconds, with the carriages looking as though straight out of a Hornby catalogue. Nevertheless there are some saving graces: some well-handled location shooting, plus interesting cameos from stalwarts of the period, including Hay Petrie, Ivor Barnard, and, most notably, Alan Jeayes whose portrayal of the smuggler boss is played with his usual suave professionalism. On the whole, though it passes an hour and a half or so not unpleasantly, one wonders why its producer and director bothered to make it at all. As a chase movie, for instance, Dusty Ermine, made a couple of years later, is infinitely better in all ways.