Schalken the Painter (1979 TV Film)

 "The darkness is unsafe..."

This is an intrertestying little curiosity, a one-off Christmas ghost story broadcast on the BBC in late December 1979, on the surface feeling very much like the many M.R. James ghost story adaptations that were made at the same time. But, in reality, this is very different.

It's a ghost story, yes, this time from a short story by Sheridan Le Fau, and a rather chilling and atmospheric on, with a deathly, ghostly suitor that a man give his ward's hand in marriager to him in what we would, today, call a forced marriage... and there are terrifying hints that this many may be something undead or unholy, and that the poor girl is perhaps damned forever because "She is your property. She will become mine...".

The main character, Gottfried Schalken, is a very real, albeit relatively minor, Dutch painter from the late 17th century, and the period is shown perfectly in terms of cinematograpjhy, texture and direction. The actors are shot superbly,in an age where blocking was still a thing.

And yet, it's more than that. The slow, langorous pace, unthinkable nowadays, is essential to the creation of atmosphere. And the useof light echoes Schalken's paintings themselves, everything liyt by candlelight, strangely loveless, with something perhaps lurking in the darkness...

This is quite a wonderful little gem

The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes: The Mazarin Stone

 "You know my methods...

What a very odd episode, which I uppose we could dub "Holmes-lite", given that Jeremy Brett hardly appears in his penultimate episode- was this perhaps forced upon the prosuction team by Brett's health?

It's also odd that this is a mash-up of two diparate Conan Doyle short stories- the less than classic The Mazarin Stone and the far more intriguing The Three Garridebs- with one allocated to Watson and the other allocated to a Mycroft Holmes who is drifting further and further from his Diogenes Club personality. It's good to see Charles Gray again, of course, but this simply doesn't work, especially as both stories are tied together at the end. This sort of thing is a far cry from the original mission statement of adapting all the stories.

There's also that syndrome again of directorial touches that are in practice meaningless and simply don't fit into an ITV detective show. This is an episode which simply fails. Without Brett, they should simply have made one less episode.

I really hope the final episode is a good one.

The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes: The Golden Pince-Nez

 "May I shake your hand, Sir?"

"What? If you must."

Now that's more like it. This is the first solid episode in ages from the once-dependable Granada Sherlock Holmes. After a few episodes that were, essentially, not whodunits, at last we get an adaptation of a solid Conan Doyle murder mystery with a genuinely surprising and unpredictable twist. This may not be a highlight of the series, but it's an enormous relief to encounter an episode like this. Let's hope it represents an overdue return to form for the final stretch.

This is a broadly faithful adaptation, with the changes making sense with the casting- and the cast is truly excellent. The episode is notably missing Edward Hardwicke as Watson, of course, but it just about works having the superb but noticeably older Charles Gray return as Mycroft. The interplay between the two brothers is fascinating- Holmes archly notes that it os "ironic" that their late father left his magnifying glass to the sedentary Mycroft, although there's just about enough sleight of hand to excuse his not being so sedentary here.

There's a nice little red herring with Suffragettes too, and some wry social commentary on Edwardian attitudes to female suffrage, which Mycrofy is very much seen to share. The opening and concluding scenes with nihilists in Russia in the 1880s are well done, too- shades of the assassination of Tsar Alexander II.

Please let this not be the last good episode...

The Return of Sherlock Holmes: The Bruce Partington Plans

 "All the Queen's horses and all the Queen's men cannot avail us in this matter."

This is the final episode in the guise of The Return of Sherlock Holmes; sees the return of Charles Gray as Mycroft; and is one of the finest episodes thus far, after a couple that were perhaps a little below par. It's a fitting end to the eighties for the regular episodes.

Brett and Hardwicke are very much on form, with plenty of character moments, and the deduction in this episode is first class- the way Holmes sees the significance of the points, and what they mean for Cadogan West's place of death, is an extraordinary sequence. We also have some superb guest actors, not least of which is Catweazle himself.

It's also exciting, especally at the end, so see Sherlock Holmes straying into spy territory. It's also interesting to see how Mycroft is far more important within the Civil Service than we had previously been told, beng a kind of proto-Cabinet Secretary. This is an appalingly small Civil Service, too, with "clerks" being given what seem like senior responsibilities. On the other hand, "junior clerk" Cadogan West appears to be paid rather well, so some Victorian values are certainly worth emulating. It's also instructive that MI5 does not yet exist, so Inspector Bradstreet is called in.

Diversions aside, though, this is a truly fine episode.

The Devil Rides Out (1968)

 "In magic, there is neither good nor evil."

It's been many years since I've seen this film, certainly a decade and a bit. I well remember being impressed with it, and this viewing has cemented its excellence for me. This is, without a doubt, the finest Hammer film I've seen, and the finest performance I’ve ever seen from a compellingly charismatic Christopher Lee. On the strength of this performance is staggering that he wasn’t asked do play more parts as the hero protagonist. He radiates authority and steadfastness as few actors can.

It’s not just the excellence of its leading man that elevates this film to greatness, though. For one thing Richard Matheson’s superb script, full of incident and tension and using up all the best occult tropes such as the chalk circle and sacrifice, adapts Dennis Wheatley’s novel superbly. I’ve never read any Wheatley and may never do so- occult-themed pulp fiction is not really my thing- but it’s clear that he’s a little vague in his definition of Satanism, conflating it with the worship of pagan deities and “magic” as it would presumably be understood by Aleister Crowley or, indeed, Alan Moore, and combining ritual with the kind of orgies that would be a nightmare for we introverts. But it certainly makes for a first class suspense-based horror film. And Charles Gray is a wonderfully urbane baddie.

More than that, though, this is Terence Fisher’s claim to greatness. Everything about the way this film is shot is magnificent- taut, terrifying, and deadly serious. This film shows him- and Hammer- to be capable of far more than the cheesiness for which we know them. A truly outstanding gem of a film.

Cromwell (1970)

"An England without a king is unthinkable!"

I watched this film principally because I wanted to see two great actors- Richard Harris and Alec Guinness- play two iconic roles from history; Oliver Cromwell and Charles I. And they are, indeed, magnificent. Their performances- Harris as a principled sociopath slowly descending into a dictatorial sociopath and Guinness as a politely arrogant congenital liar- are superlative and alone enough to make the film worth watching. The film succeeds brilliantly if seen as a character piece based on its broadly valid idea of Cromwell- a man who can honestly give everything for the supremacy of Parliament and then simply dismiss it when it does not live up to his expectations. For this reason the film succeeds as drama in spite of being so incredibly rush and in spite of its ending so suddenly.

And yet... no film set in the past can be historically accurate in full. I accept this. Events must be compressed into a shorter period of time and simplified to fit the medium of cinema. And yet... here we have Cromwell as one of those MPs whom Charles tries to arrest in January 1642. We have Cromwell present at Edgehill. We have the Earls of Essex and Manchester making speeches in the Commons. We even have arch-republican Henry Ireton (a shockingly young Michael Jayson) trying to persuade Cromwell to take the crown, in spite of having died during the (glossed over) Irish campaign in 1651. All this is a little much to swallow; these are not small things.

I'm also uncertain about the dialogue; a film set in the mid-seventeenth century should either use modern dialogue or contrive to use contemporary speech but contrive to favour those sentence constructions and that vocabulary that would be understood today, preferably the second. Instead we get a bizarre mish-mash of speech which mixes archaisms such as "withal" with modern coinings such as "international". The effect is clumsy and distracting.

Still, it all looks magnificent and, in the final analysis, it's all about the acting. And, judged by this criterion, the film is superb.

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: Series 2- The Greek Interpreter

"I'm not built for running, Sherlock!"

In what must have been one of the most long-awaited episodes we finally get to meet the legendary Mycroft Holmes, and the ever-splendid Charles Gray, reprising his role from The Seven-Per-Cent Solution, does not disappoint. The central mystery is engaging too and, again, dark.

Our introduction to the sedentary genius Mycroft is well-written, superbly acted and rather faithful to the books, although what leaps up to me is that this unparalleled genius seems to do no more for his living than to audit the books for a civil service department. No hints of espionage, then. At least not yet.

The entertainment value inherent in seeing the two brothers interacting again distracts us somewhat from the nastiness of what is going on, but there's no doubting the excellence of the episode. Two episodes in and this series is unfailingly excellent so far.

The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)

"Planet, schmanet, Janet."

I'm not sure, in hindsight, that watching this film on the telly, alone, after Mrs Llamastrangler had an early night; it's a film that should be watched with others and with audience participation. Oh, I enjoyed it, but I've seen the live show- and can do the Timewarp flawlessly, he said, trying to keep a straight face- which was a much more fun experience than seeing the film. It falls rather flat when watched alone on a small screen. I've seen it, but not, I suspect, at its best.

Still, I love Tim Curry's performance. And the Charles Gray cutaways are a brilliantly cinematic touch. The design is inspired, the clothes a clear influence on punk fashion. And, well, it's Rocky Horror. And this time I get the film references. It's an inspired one-off, and it's amazing to think that such a very LGBT film was getting such a following back in 1975, just eight years after homosexuality was legalised in England and Wales- and was still illegal in Scotland and Northern Ireland. Brad and Janet, the essence of heteronormativity, are thrust into a joyously gay, bisexual, transsexual milieu which gleefully seizes control of the narrative from them- and note that Frank N Furter's sin is none of this, but the murder of Eddie; his alien executioners are as LGBT as he is.

I enjoyed this film but, well, it's not one to be watched alone.

Henry V (1989)

"I'm afeared there are few die well that die in battle, for how can they charitably dispose of anything when blood is their argument?"

This is the second screen adaptation of this play that I've seen and blogged after The Hollow Crown, albeit one made twenty-three years earlier, and the differences are stark from the opening scene, where Derek Jacobi's chorus awakens us by lighting a match. This introduces two themes: this production's constant okay with light and it's claustrophobic feeling, indoors and on small sets as much as possible and with the location scenes shot so as not to look expansive. Hal finds the crown as uneasy as did his father is the clear message, and his guilt over being an usurper's son, paralleled by his anxiety over the war being just (because sending people to their deaths and their bereaved dependants into penury because of who should be King is totally just, right?) is reflected in the visuals.

Kenneth Branagh is a suitably angsty Henry. Yes, the speeches are present and correct, but this is not a jingoistic Henry V but an anxious one.

The rest of the cast excellent too, including a surprisingly unshouty Brian Blessed, whose message to Charles VI reeks of a menace he hasn't exuded since he was Augustus in I, Clavdivs. And, on top of those mentioned in the tags, we didn't have room for Derek Jacobi, Robbie Coltrane as a splendid Falstaff in scenes nicked from the Henry IV's, Robert Stephens, Paul Scofield, Harold Innocent and a very young Christian Bale. I particularly enjoyed Ian Holm's Fluellen, discoursing on Pompey the Great- for Shakespeare, all Welshmen are in some way his old classics teacher!

This is a superbly visual production, superlatively acted and directed. The emphasis on sparse lighting, points of light in the darkness and claustrophobia gives us an individual version of the play from Kenneth Branagh that is highly effective. A fine film.

Diamonds Are Forever (1971)

"I was just walking my rat and I seem to have lost my way..."

This film really has no right to be as brilliant as it is. On paper it's worryingly retro even at the time, with not only the bringing back of Sean Connery, which seems desperate, but even getting Shirley Bassey to do the theme tune. And there's that boggling thought of why on earth a British agent is working in the USA, where both the CIA and FBI exist. Plus, it's suddenly the '70s, and the fashions are suddenly rubbish. And yes, against the odds, for the third film in a row we have a work of absolute brilliance?

How do they manage it? Well, the script is superb, a never-ending series of brilliant set pieces. Connery is brilliant, too. Oh, at 41 he suddenly looks much older than he should, certainly too old for the part, and you can't believe it's only been four years since You Only Live Twice. But he's still Connery.

Then we have the splendid Messrs Wint and Kidd, however godawful the cut of their suits. We have the splendid Jill St John. We have Charles Gray, fresh from a bit part in You Only Live Twice, as a fine Blofeld, albeit with a puzzlingly full head of hair.

Oh, and the great Sid Haig is in it somewhere, although I'm buggered if I know where. Joseph Furst is in it, fellow '60s Doctor Who fans. We get Vegas, lots of the Nevada desert, Bond in a moon buggy, an epic car chase with American cop cars (something the Bond films had to do!) and more of the now traditional space stuff by Blofeld. It's also nice to see the character of Q being used as outright comic relief, cheating at Vegas with gadgets. It suits the character perfectly and Desmond Llewelyn is brilliant.

Surely Blofeld is really dead? And surely this run of quality can't last? But for this film, at least, the series is in rude health.

You Only Live Twice (1967)

"Well, at least he died on the job..."

Well, it's quite the contrast. Thunderball was a pile of pants, an incoherently directed film with little in the way of charm or entertainment, whereas You Only Live Twice is superb, and easily the best Bond film so far. What went right? Well, the straightforward direction by Lewis Gilbert helps; Thunderball may be much artier (It has wipes, for Christ's sake! In a James Bond film), but it fails to make the narrative clear. Here we have no such problems. What we do have is a well constructed and paced film courtesy of a script by the great Roald Dahl. Yes, that Roald Dahl.

Even the opening sequence is innovative-the image of a NASA space capsule being eaten by another spacecraft is delicious, as is Bond's apparent death before the titles. And the image of a spacewalking astronaut drifting helplessly through space to what he knows will be his death has all the existential horror of the late David Bowie's "Space Oddity" a couple of years later.  All this before we even get to the theme song from Nancy Sinatra, who gives the great Shirley Bassey a run for her money.

We then move straight to the Americans blaming the Soviets for the swallowing of the spacecraft, with both of them portrayed as squabbling juvenile warmongers, leaving the British (naturally) as the voice of reason. This is a little uncomfortable to watch from a distance of fifty years, however. In the wake of Dean Acheson's famous comment Britain is being portrayed here as a "Greece to America's Rome", which smacks very much as a consolation prize for a wannabe superpower. Even this film, which portrays the clever British as in control and saving the world, can't hide the fact that the Americans and Russians of 1967 are sending people into space and we are not.

The fact that M and Moneypenny are in a submarine is brilliant, as is the recognition of Bond's naval rank. The two superpowers are at loggerheads and world war beckons if all this is not sorted out before the next spacecraft is launched. Fortunately, there's a lead pointing to Japan. Also fortunately, Bond took a First in Oriental Languages at Cambridge.

It's interesting that the film's inevitable misogyny (as ever, women are seen through the eyes of a fifteen year old boy) is somewhat obscured by the presentation of all this in the context of what Japanese culture is supposed to be like. There's also the question of ethnic stereotyping, and while this can't be dodged the film gives a broadly positive image of Japan, perhaps remarkably so less than a generation after the War. We get Sumo wrestling, geishas and, of course, ninjas. The tropes are all here to play.

Is impossible at this point not to mention the cute and willing Aki ("I think I will very much enjoy serving under you") who is killed, while Bond's initially more modest "wife" is not. Hmm. Still, this Japan is cool, and I love Tanaka.

The bit with "Little Nellie" looks suspiciously as if it was just crowbarred into the film to give Desmond Llewelyn something to do, but it isn't long before the Russians launch a rocket of their own (Norse pagans will be either pleased or outraged that the Russian for "three" is "Odin"), which is duly swallowed again. Cue more recriminations and a reminder of the stakes, although it certainly makes me wonder how credible it is that a criminal organisation like SMERSH could have the resources to send a rocket into space capable of doing this. Best to banish such thoughts.

This film is possibly the most influential Bond film in popular culture and certainly for Austin Powers: the volcano base is brilliant, and Donald Pleasance's splendidly hammy performance as the now-revealed Ernst Stavro Blofeld is blatantly the inspiration for Dr. Evil. And the piranhas, and the collapsible ramp above them, are perfect.

This is an incredible film and easily the best so far. I'm genuinely unsure if anything will top it.