Night of the Hunter (1955)

"They abide and they endure!"

This film is, I suppose, unique. Yes, it's a '50s film noir...but it feels like something else entirely. But it's a masterpiece, with Robert Mitchum's "preacher", Harry Powell, being surely one of the most fearsome villains of all time.

Incredibly, it was a flop upon its release, hence its being the one and only film that Charles Laughton ever directed. But I suppose one can see why it may not have been what an audience may have expected. It's fairly short, with a fairly simple plot. It shows a bleak and dark West Virginia of the Depression, suffused with poverty, hypocrisy and lurking evil. One mighy expect a film like this to be shot with gritty realism, but no- the camera angles, the framng and... well, the owls(!) owe far more to the German Expressionism of the silent era than anything of its own era.

Robert Mitchum is superb as a serial killer who hides behind the appearance of respectability, and the combination of his performance and the direction push the menace up to truly intense levels. The cellar scene...brr!

The other standout performance, though, is from Lilian Gish, another totem of the silent era, as Rachel, a surprisingly well-rounded, grizzled yet kindly character who feels very real, and stands for hope, decency, forgiveness and understanding. This is a film of grim beauty, of bleakness, a meditation on the suffering that is life... yet it has heart, too. One of the greatest films I've ever seen.

Richard III (1955)

 "Conscience is a word that cowards use..."

Ah, Richard III. Maybe he killed the princes, maybe he didn't. Maybe he was a tyrant, maybe he was a decent bloke and a goodand poular king. Certainly the Tudor propaganda- Shakespeare very much included- doesn't help his reputation.But one thing must be said: Laurence Olivier's mullet here is utterly horrifying. And on the evidence of portraits this is one crime of which Richard III is assuredly very guilty indeed.

This film, though, is as superlative as one might expect, given the director and the cast crammed with first class classical actors, including Claire Bloom, John Gielgud, Ralph Richardson and at least one Thorndike. Not that there isn't actor spotting fun to be had, of courdse. We get John Laurie of Dad's Army fame, plus Michael Gough as a murderer gets a line or two.

The sets are, perhaps, rather more dated than the acting. This is a very brightly coloured, Adventures of Robin Hood take on the late Middle Ages. The direction and cinematography are deliberately conventional and unexceptional, despite some creative use of lighting. Yet the performances and, of course, the words overwhelm everything. And Olivier's Richard, caricature though Shakespeare's Richard always is, remains utterly captivating throughout. Throughout all three phases of the play- the disturbing wooing/gaslighting of Anne, Richard's plotting, and his speedy unravelling and downfall to "despair and death"- Olivier';s Richard is superlative and,perhaps, definitive.

Godzilla Raids Again (1955)

"You bastard. Have you already limited yourself to a woman's level of drinking?"

Time for a second film after last night's devastation, methinks. Brexit will happen, Dominic Cummings will be let loose on the Civil Service, and a dangerously revolutionary and post-truth sect of not-very-conservative "Tories"who have left Edmund Burke far behind are free to break as much stuff as they want for up to five years. We;re all going to die, so what would be more appropriate than Godzilla and an ankylosaurus fighting each other to death, by means of the awesome power of stop motion, and decimating Osaka in the process?

There are air raid shelters this time, and aeroplanes scrambling, but the echo of the War feels not quite so intense. The echoes of King Kong are, of course, just as strong.The magnificent scenes of stop motion action as Godzilla and the ankylosaurus destroy Osaka are just as awesome as anything in the last fim, although the plot is somewhat different, spending a surprising amount of time developing actual characters in what turns out to be a rather tragic love triangle.

It's all about Godzilla, though, even if this isn't literally the same individual; any number of nukes can, it seems, create any number of monsters. We even get a cameo from the first film's Professor, who again gets listened to respectfully as he speculates absurdly about things he couldn't possibly know.

The ankylosaurus may ultimately be disposed of rather early to avoid upstaging Godzilla, but this is another hugely enjoyable film.

Quatermass II: Episode 6- The Destroyers

"This should have been a great moment..."

Mere weeks after a probe was landed on a comet it's instructive to watch this, where Quatermass and Leo make a manned flight to the aliens' comet home, one without fanfare or glory. But Nigel Kneale doesn't do fanfare or glory.

It's a fitting, tension-fuelled and deeply tragic finale, as the likeable boffin Leo meets a horrible end and the final shot is of a visibly shattered Quatermass. Still, cheer up; the great Cyril Shaps unexpectedly turns up. And it's clear that there was never a time when he looked young.

There's some hope, I suppose, in that the aliens are thwarted and those who are controlled, including Dillon, are themselves again. But the price, as always with Kneale, is high indeed. Trying landmark television.

Quatermass II: Episode 5- The Frenzy

"And we've only wiped out a single nest..."

The penultimate episode is a tension-fuelled base under siege narrative as Quatermass and the striking workers are trapped in the factory by the murderous aliens whose promises of lenient treatment are horrible broken; the scene where blood drops from the pile is horrifying. This is a lesson on how to build tension and suspense without actually showing much of the threat; television as theatre rather than cinema.

Our friends win out but, as the quote says, this is just one of many nests. And we end with the aliens in control of the Rocket Group- in the person of John Dillon. 

Quatermass II- Episode 4: The Coming

"I'm not listening to reason..."

This is, of course, the episode that climaxes with the excellent Roger Delgado as journalist Conrad, infected  by the alien has, makes a desperate and probably fruitless phone call back to the news desk before he inevitably succumbs to its effects. And we end with a glimpse at the alien, which looks absolutely nothing like a kind of proto-Nestene. Absolutely not, guv.

Before that, though, we have both Quatermass theorising on somewhat dodgy grounds that the alien consciousness comes from a moon of Saturn. He seems on firmer ground in theorising that it may be a hive mind. He's brave though, Quatermass, stopping at nothing to investigate this plant and always getting away unharmed, whatever vile fate always seems to be incurred by those whose help he enlists. He's not an entirely sympathetic character, whether you consider him as written or with the harder edge as portrayed by John Robinson. He's certainly called a lot of people fools so far. I suspect he isn't, quite, the voice of the author.

Nevertheless, this is still first class telly.

Quatermass II- Episode 3: The Food

"These questions must not be asked!"

This time round I noticed it: the father at the picnic is played by Sydney Bromley, who would (much) later play Engywook in The NeverEnding Story. Fancy that.

The plot thickens further as Bromhead is seemingly brainwashed, the picture quality unfortunately decreases (but we should be glad to have this at all), and Quatermass sneakily arranges to be let into the plant for a look. All this happens gradually, extracting maximum suspense and mystery, and allows time for Quatermass to be gloriously rude to people.

Quatermass is brave to visit the plant: it seems that most whom have visited before eventually came back... changed. The food produced seems not to be amenable to human consumption, And the domes appear to be intended to support an ammonia breathing life form in the same way as Quatermass imagined domes on the Moon. At last we have an inkling of the nature of the threat.

We end back at the lab, with asteroids approaching. Excellent, still.

Quatermass II- Episode 2: The Mark

"Dillon, there's something on your face!"

The plot thickens as Quatermass finds odd and evasive goings-on at the mysterious factory site, and Dillon is taken away without explanation. Even odder, these people have friends in high places, there are identical facilities in Brazil and the Soviet Union, and we end with Quatermass and his tenacious northern MP friend Bromhead finding that it's official representatives all have that distinctive mark.

Wilfred Brambell appears as a tramp with a strangely southern accent and a willingness to provide useful exposition. Quatermass makes a thundering speech on civil liberties- John Robinson is splendidly rude at times, and an obvious influence on Jon Pertwee's Doctor. And the meteorites, it seems, are not natural objects. The pace is slow, but this provides for atmosphere and intrigue. This is just as good as the first episode; telly of the very first rank.

Quatermass II- Episode 1: The Bolts

"Things were better when there was less government about!"

The second series of this famously pub-emptying and pioneering piece of television starts out as superbly as the first, although John Robinson, who does a good job in the circumstances, has clearly been parachuted into the part of Quatermass at the last moment. This tale of hollow alien meteorites being sent from above with nefarious purposes has been deeply influential (as we Doctor Who fans well know). Yet it obviously comes from another age, when scientists were treated with deference and the power of the benevolent State is questioned only by silly old men. Even a science fiction conspiracy theory thriller like this, in 1955, can casually have all of its heroes be public sector employees.

The early scenes with the soldiers would have had an extra resonance, too, in the days of National Service. And the flourishing and ambitious British space programme- prior to the awful disaster- reflects a very pre-Suez view of national importance.

It's a slow-paced start, full of unease and subtexts everywhere. The opening titles are, again, inspired and forward-looking. This is brilliant, first class telly.

The Quatermass Xperiment (1955)

"It's me legs!"

This is the third version of The Quatermass Xperiment I've blogged, easily the shortest and, to be brutally honest, the third best. It's a very perfunctory, rushed version with none of Nigel Kneale's subtleties and Brian Donlevy's Quatermass (no characters comment on the fact that either he or Judith Carroon are American) is unsympathetic and entirely devoid of charm.

Still, in spite of the first half of the film actually being quite dull with the absence of the interesting bit (the alien is just possessing Carroon, not a gestalt entity, and Judith hasn't been sleeping with Gordon), the second half becomes more interesting as it suddenly turns into a horror film, and Richard Wordsworth clearly basing his performance on Boris Karloff: there's even a scene with a little girl that strongly evokes James Whale's Frankenstein.

Other interesting performances are a comic turn from a cockney Thora Hird and a young Gordon Jackson as a to producer, but the film never quite takes off. 

It's strange that this is considered the first of the Hammer horrors; having seen this, X the Unknown and The Abominable Snowmen I wouldn't really consider any of them as such, not really being "horrors" and not necessarily featuring the cast and crew we would expect. Still, from little acorns..

It Came from Beneath the Sea (1955)

"The mind of man had thought of everything- except that which was beyond his comprehension!"

Yesterday's long film review is today followed by a short one. This is a '50s monster B movie, no more and no less. It's fun, but there's not a huge amount to say about it. Still, let's try, shall we?

The most famous name associated with the film is Ray Harryhausen, but he's young here, and won't have an executive producer credit for many years yet. His stop motion giant octopus is brilliant, yes, but at this early stage of his Hollywood career it barely scratches the surface of what he's capable of.

It's interesting that Professor Lesley Joyce, portrayed as an eminent and respected scientist should happen, in a 1955 film, to be a woman. She's young, she's glamorous, and she's the Jeff Goldblum character. There's some tension in the film's attitude towTds her gender- she is given absolute professional respect, yet in terms of her romance with Pete the sexual politics are rather primitive. Still, you get the sense that the film's heart is in the right place.

The plot beats are exactly where you'd expect them in this sort of film but it's all competently done; this is far more fun than The War of the Worlds. There's a very '50s obsession with radiation but that's all part of the fun, and the atomic age even has its own atomic submarine. This is a short and entertaining diversion of you just want to switch off your brain and enjoy.

The Dam Busters (1955)

"Every time one of these Lancasters flies over, my chickens lay premature eggs!"

There's something about a British war film of this era, a decade or two after the war. There's the stuff-upper-lip mood; the straightforward, linear storytelling and the slow, steady pace. This is a typical example of the best of such films, I suppose.

It's a shame, of course, that the film has been somewhat overshadowed by the name of Guy Gibson's dog, a name that I have no intention of repeating. It isn't ok now and, with due acceptance of the different context of 1955 and, indeed, 1943, when the concept of racism was rarely thought of, it wasn't exactly ok then. But the past was what it was.

It's a pity, really; this is a bit of a barrier between us and the original context of the film, as the narrative point of the dog is to humanise Gibson, otherwise a rather flat, straightforward hero type, the kind of figure whom it's easy to admire but hard to empathise with. A shockingly young looking Richard Todd nevertheless does a good job playing a square-jawed hero, a man who, in reality, died for his country in 1944 aged 26. No wonder these men get so bladdered so often.

Michael Redgrave portrays Barnes Wallis with rather more depth, but then this is a part which allows him to do so. Wallis is humanised by his like ability, his long-suffering wife, his easy relationship with his children, and his easy categorisation as the traditional British boffin. The British boffin is an iconic figure, the lone, eccentric individual in his shed, fighting the narrow minds of bureaucrats. But that such a figure can, albeit with difficulty, find himself listened to (appropriately by an equally eccentric prime minister) shows that a muddle-through democracy is both superior to and more efficient than a totalitarian, goose-stepping tyranny.

Wallis, incidentally, lived to be 92. He seems to be the only male non-smoker in the film, something implied to be an eccentricity.

The film uses suspension and tension well, particularly in the final scenes as the squadron's sorties are juxtaposed with Wallis and co at Bomber Command, barely able to cope with the tension; the film is long, but doesn't feel so. The climax is satisfying, with some great model work and what I can only assume is stock footage of the damage done to the industry of the Ruhr. One has to raise an eyebrow here at the total indifference shown to any German civilians killed as a result, but that would not have been much of a consideration in 1955. But it's fitting that we end, not with scenes of triumph, but mourning for the fifty-six men who did not return. 

Best film I've seen in 2015 so far; a film that pointedly equates the inventor in his shed (in modern parlance, the geek) with the square-jawed pilot hero. Brilliant.