Silver Blaze

"That was the curious incident..."

This thirty minute curiosity is a one-off, produced in November 1977 under the auspices of an anthology programme, The Sunday Drama. It's an adaptation of what, I believe, is considered to be one of the more cleverly plotted of Conan Doyle's short stories featuring Sherlock Holmes.

I won't discuss the plot here- either it will be familiar to you, or I'll risk spoilers. I'll confine myself to saying that this is a very faithful, straightforward version, and very well done indeed, with some nice visual touches- the exposition at the start is done with an admirable economy, in particular. It's an excellent version of the tale.

Thorley Walters is a perfectly good Watson, if a little traditional. But the real standout is Christopher Plummer as Holmes. I've seen his only other attempt at the role, in the slightly later film Murder by Decree. But, unlike that film, this is a faithfully and straightforwardly written version of the character, and allows Plummer to show what he can truly do with the part. He doesn't disappoint, showing us a playful yet focused Holmes.

I had to roll my eyes at the predictable pipe and deerstalker, but I enjoyed this little curiosity very much.

Murder by Decree (1979)

 "I prefer bad manners in the theatre to violence in the streets..."

This film is an odd and intriguing beast. It's very well directed indeed, with the scenes involving the Ripper particularly well-realised. It has a superb cast. It's a very well made film. And yet...

Firstly, the script is somewhat plodding, slow, oddly paced and not quite worthy of the excellent way it's been realised. While James Mason gives us a first rate Watson, Christopher Plummer's generally impressive performance as Holmes suffers from the fact that the script doesn't really get the character- this Holmes is too openly emotional, too "normal".

This isn't the first time that cinema has put Holmes and Watson into the context of the Jack the Ripper murders but... well, SPOILERS, but this film adopts wholesale the then-fashionable theories advanced by Stephen Knight in his unfortunately titled Jack the Ripper:  The Final Solution, theories that woukd later form the basis of both the graphic novel and the film of From Hell..

And this is a problem. Not because such theories have fallen out of fashion (Personally, I don't buy the freemasonry nonsense- it's a very silly organisation but, except in the context discriminating against non-freemasons in their careers, harmless nonsense. I'd suggest borrowing a razor off that nice Mr Occam. The Ripper was probably Charles Lechmere.), but simply because adopting this narrative wholesale means that Holmes and Watson are by definition unable to have much agency or influence over events. 

Still, this is an interesting little curiosity nonetheless.

Star Crash (1978)

 "Time for a little robot chauvinism!"

What's that you say?You suspect this hilariously low budget space opera, clearly based on the style of old movie serials, may not be entirely uninfluenced by a certain Hollywood blockbuster of the previous year? Really...?

In one sense the contrast between this film and Star Wars is hilarious. The star fields and models, while trying to evoke Star Wars, are rubbish. The script and acting are gfloriously cheesy, although Caroline Munro is genuinely charismatic and awesome. David Hasselhoff's hairstyle is not merely awful, but the most awful of all possible hairstyles.

I'll cut to the chase: this is a terrible film. But there are two types of terrible films- boringly terrible and hilariously terrible.This is a hilarious episode of the second kind, with absurd concepts, dialogue and plot twist. The emperor (played by a visibly embarrassed Christopher Plummer) at one point just stops time for plot convenience. Even better, at one point Akton seems to know things he wouldn't obviously know, and Stella immediately makes the leap of logic that he can see the future. But Akton then explains he can never tell her what's to come because she would try to change the future that's "against the law, so therefore I can tell you nothing"... all while he's merrily changing the future himself. Perhaps I ought not to be applying logic and reason here.

This is also a fascinating halfway house between Star Wars and the previous generation of space operas. This may be obviously influenced by movie serials, but there's none of the Joseph Campbell fairytale vibes. And we also have moments of stop motion animation right out of a Ray Harryhausen film. This film may be awful, but gloriously so.

A Beautiful Mind (2001)

"What truly is logic? Who decides reason? My quest has taken me to the physical, the metaphysical, the delusional, and back."

A superb film, this, with a surprisingly subtle starring role from Russell Crowe as schizophrenic genius mathematician John Nash, whom we see from his brilliant if asocial youth, through the barbaric horrors of asylums and insulin shock therapy, to respected old age where, through sheer force of reason, Nash is able to accept that the delusions he still sees are false, and ignore them.

It's a deeply affecting film, although Nash's mental instability is rather cleverly demonstrated through some clever twists that I shall not spoil. Some are obvious from Ron Howard's obvious "dream sequence" directing; one in particular I didn't see coming. But this is a deeply affecting portrait of an incredible man, supported through everything by his loving wife Alicia right through to recognition by the Swedish Academy and his status, until recently, as the world's most famous living mathematician.

Sadly, John and Alicia Nash both died last year in a car crash, both in their eighties, but it seems their lives were well lived. 

Waterloo (1970)

"My God, Sir! I've lost my leg!"

"My God, Sir! So you have!"

There are three striking things about this superb film: Rod Steiger's electrifying, extraordinarily charismatic and career-defining performance as Napoleon, the incredible scope and accuracy of the battle scenes, and the fact that it was made in Brezhnev's Soviet Union with an international cast. That just seems bizarre.

Still, it's an extraordinary piece of cinema and one of the most accurate historical films ever made; even the dialogue is mostly documented from real life and I recognised a few of Wellington's. The only inaccuracies I could spot were the constant references to "Belgium" (not a country until 1830) and the slight musical reference to the modern German national anthem as Blucher's Prussians arrive to save the day. This is anachronistic; the tune existed at the time but it's lyrics were a paean to Emperor Franz of Austria, hardly a friend of Prussia. The Habsburgs were hardly friends of pan-German nationalism, which in any case wouldn't really become a thing until after the revolutions of 1848. Anyway, the film...

 Steiger steals the show as Napoleon, a charismatic genius refusing to give in to the failing health of his body, but Christopher Plummer also deserves high praise for his unflappable and blunt Wellington, refusing permission to have Napoleon assassinated ahead of the battle as such things are Simply Not Done. The opening scenes are extraordinary, though: Napoleon rants and raves like Hitler in Downfall before finally abdicating, only to escape from Elba with but 1,000 troops and suede power again through sheer magnetic charisma. It's eyebrow-raising here to see a somewhat corpulent Orson Welles in a cameo as Louis XVIII.

This is a true epic in scope, both thematically and visually. If you haven't seen it.. sorry for the spoiler, but Napoleon loses. Sorry.

The Man Who Would Be King (1975)

"And now the woman's of Er-Heb will cut his bollocks off. Ha ha!"

Let's deal with the elephant in the room first: is this film racist?

First, let's consider that this is an adaptation of a story written in 1888 by Rudyard Kipling, and we can therefore expect a bit of raving imperialism which can't fail to be transferred to any adaptation.

Secondly, let's consider that there are two stupid answers to the question: "yes" and "no". These answers betray the mindset that thinks there are only two types of people in the world- outright Nazis and people "without a racist bone on their bodies". That's what's implied by any question that asks us to rule on whether something is either racist or "not racist" whereas, in fact, 99.99% of us fall between these poles. Personally, I'm a Guardian-reading liberal type who abhors racism, but I wouldn't dream of claiming that I "haven't got a racist none in my body". How could I possibly know that? There could be all sorts of unexamined racist assumptions hidden somewhere in my subconscious. They're unexamined. That's the point.

So let's just briefly note that the original source text, given the author, the subject matter and the setting, can hardly fail to display both racist attitudes and a voyeuristic othering of people from other cultures. Let's also briefly note that, being integral to the plot, these things are inevitably transferred to this film adaptation. Also, 1975 is an age ago in terms of attitudes to race- a film like this would never be made today- and both India and Kafiristan are presented as an exotic "other", not on their own terms. But let us also remember the context. Past attitudes are what they are. This film was less racist in the context of 1975 than it would be if made today.

So let's talk about things that are more interesting. Such a show unusual it is for John Ford to direct a film like this, how amazing the location filming looks, or how Sean Connery's Scottish accent jars somewhat with dialogue clearly written with a voice from south of the border in mind.

Also interesting is that Kafiristan was a real place, called this by its Muslim neighbours as it was the only pagan part of Afghanistan, and thus mysterious and unique, at the time Kipling wrote his original story. Sadly, though, it was converted en masse during the 1890s and is now called Nuristan. Isn't the onward march of conformity a depressing thing?

But what of the film? Well, it's superb: gripping, great to look at and full of incident and deeply charismatic performances, not least from its stars Sean Connery and Michael Caine but also from Saeed Jaffrey, whose superb comic timing helps to partly hide the vaguely racist undertones of the character he's playing.

The emphasis on freemasonry is... odd, and doesn't give us an entirely sympathetic portrayal of Kipling. Interesting. But this is ultimately a classic tragedy, where Danny is brought down utterly by his hubris and Peachy brought down low by his own relative hubris. As a tale, and as a film, it is superb. 

Battle of Britain (1969)

"So don't threaten or dictate to us until you're marching up Whitehall. And even then we won't listen."

Well, that was strangely underwhelming. I'm British. I hate the Nazis. The real, historical Battle of Britain puts fire in my belly. So why is it that this film leaves my belly distinctly cold?

What's especially surprising about this is that the film has an extraordinary cast- Lawrence Olivier is particularly superb as the drily realistic Hugh Dowding. Yet none of the characters have enough screen time, or are sufficiently fleshed out, to make a difference. Michael Caine, in particular, is wasted on a role that doesn't give him anything to do and then suddenly killed off. The only exception to all this is Curd Jurgens' charismatic general, and he's a bloody Nazi. Still, at least Ralph Richardson gets a magnificent speech in his cameo.

It must be said, too, that this film is a little deceptive in implying that Britain would have been finished if it had lost the Battle of Britain. It wouldn't. Just Google "Operation Sealion" for why. Large parts of the country are out of German bombers' air range, for a start, and there's the entire Home Fleet waiting at Scapa Flow, in an age where accurate bombing of ships was simply not a thing.

There are a couple of nice moments- I like the bit where German POWs are made to clear up their own mess- but sadly this is a film that fails to raise my patriotic heckles. A slow, meandering missed opportunity.