Henry V (1944)

 "But if the cause be not good, the king himself hath a heavy reckoning to make."

It is, I suppose, extraordinary that I've waited so long to see and to blog Laurence Olivier's version of this play, made in no small part to boost wartime morale, a task at which it broadly succeeds. Yet it is, of course, a far richer achievement than that.

The early scenes are inspired. We begin with a panorama of the London of 1600, such a small city focused north of the Thames, with the Tower on the eastern edge and the Globe, with other theatres, situated just south of the river. We then see the Chorus, and the early scenes, played out in the Globe, with glimpses of backstage and much of the groudlings. This makes perfect sense, given the Chorus' pleadings for us to use our imagination to conjure up vast armies and battlefields which cannot be shown in a mere wooden O.

Yet this is cinema, and the film soon shifts to allow us to see such incredible vistas. The matte paintings are obvious, but the effect is one of awe. This is, perhaps, whether we are looking at scenes of Elizabethan London or the muddy French battlefields of the early fifteenth century, a somewhat romantic, 1940s version of the past, reminiscent of The Adventures of Robin Hood. This is, perhaps, too clean and sanitised a recreation of an earlier age which, compared to Kenneth Branagh's version four decades later, does not quite feel lived in. While it is not necessary toshow blood and gore, the overall effect feels perhaps overly sanitised.

Nevertheless, the film is a triumph. Shakespeare stands and falls by acting, and Olivier's performance is spellbinding, the big speeches delivered to perfection. Olivier's style may be a little dated today, yes. That does not make it anything less than great.

One cannot help but see this film, released in the year of D-Day, through the prism of the time it was made. The heavy subtext of the horrors of war, that a war had damn well better be just for the suffering to be worthwhile, is unusually downplayed, the justness of resisting Hitler being clear. Yet the horrors are acknowledged, the humanity and the suffering. And the ending of the play, as Harry woos Kate through the language barrier, feels perhaps a little less odd here as it signifies the hope of peace that original audiences would have felt.

For me, this is not quite up there with Branagh's version. But it is great nonetheless.

The Ghoul (1933)

 "I shall be among the trees, waiting..."

There are quite a few '30s horror films, in the wake of Frankenstein, starring Boris Karloff. They are, as you would expect B movies. They have their charms, I'm rather fond of them, but you wouldn't mostly say they were actually very good.

Except this one.

Plot-wise, it's nothing special: an old man with a stolen Egyptian artifact manages to cheat death by means of ancient yet cursed magic. Yet the cast is startlingly excellent. Not only is there Karloff but also a typically camp Ernest Thesiger, a delightfully dastardly Cedric Harwicke, and even an alarmingly young and splendidly splenetic Anthony Bushelll as our heroic yet delightfully rude leading man. We even get Ralph bloody Richardson.

The film is well shot, certainly more so than one would expect for a B movie in the period. There are some nice touches- the leading lady's friend has a genuinely funny infatuation with a visiting "sheikh", clearly not having got over Rudolph Valentino. There's a comedy vicar who turns out to be not quite what he seems. Most of all, there's genuine suspense so that, despite the slow pace, there's none of the dragging quality often found with these sorts of films. 

An unexpectedly pleasant surprisew. Even Karloff's relatively limited screen time can't spoil this one.

The Man in the White Suit (1951)

“Tea break! We had to fight for it!"

This is, obviously, an extraordinary film on all sorts of levels; I'm hardly going to do other than praise this, one of the finest Ealing comedies. But its greatness lies not in its humour- after all, this is wry, ironic humour, not exactly a laugh a minute. No; this is a film which nicely skewers much of what's been wrong with this country since well before the War.

The concept is a brilliant one- Sdney, played with the usual brilliance by Alec Guinness, invents an indestructible and dirt repelling fibre which will free mankind from drudgery (according to Daphne, played with charm and splendidly cut glass vowels by Joan Greenwood), as well as destroy much of the industry and ruin both workers and management. What's particularly clever, of course, is that both viewpoints are correct: just not necessarily in that order. This is progress and, as ever, the omelette will come. It's just that the breaking of eggs will not be pleasant for many. It was this way with the Industrial Revolution, and with various smaller waves of progress ever since. These are big themes for an Ealing comedy, but handled with wit and verve in a brilliantly structured film.

Michael Gough has a nice little role, too, and Ernest Thesiger steals the show with his doddery campness as the wise Sir John. There are lots of nice little details, not least the wonderful tubes and bubbling of a very proper chemisty experiment. And, although I wouldn't know, the film seems to capture very well the reality of being an industrial chemist. Yet it also shows us a vanished world- one of strong trade unions and harmonious industrial relations, and of thriving Lancashire textile mills.

Yet it also scolds us as a nation, reminding us that our businesses are far too short termist, too focused on this year's dividends instead of the long term, and that this blinds us to shocks from foreign competition- and prevents us from reacting as we should to things like climate change. I think that, as much as musings over the immediate human price of progress, is the message of this film.

The Old Dark House (1932)

"Even Welsh doesn't sound like that!"

I've been somewhat remiss in leaving it until now, when I'm forty-two years old, to see this excellent film (who cares about some dodgy attempts at British accents?) which is not at all the different-film-studio-but-pretty-much-Universal-horror type film I expected, in spite of he present of James Whale and Boris Karloff and a fair few chills. This is no horror film.

No; beyond the superficial genre tropes is a substantial script from J.B. Priestley himself, the famed Yorkshire intellectual of the early twentieth century, with fascinating characters and very real-sounding dialogue which now, eighty-seven years after the film was released, brings the past to life in a way few old films can. These people may be from a different age but they feel very real from the argument in the first scene onwards.

The cast is wonderful. Yes, Karloff is wasted as the mute butler in a role similar to last year's Frankenstein, but Ernest Thesiger delights as the extremely camp Horace and Charles Laughton shines as the rich but tragic, and very northern, Sir William. The cast is a collection of grotesques and sympathetic individuals, but it's the characters and cast, rather than the almost non-existent plot, that makes this film sing with atmosphere, pathos, danger and tension, in spite of the Charlotte Bronte madman in the attic. And at the centre of it all is the visionary and magnificent James Whale.

The Bride of Frankenstein (1935)

"He's a very queer looking gentleman, Sir."

This isn't the first time I’ve seen this film, of course, but it’s been a bit of a while. It’s as good as ever this time round, of course, one of cinema’s great sequels, but a different experience after so many years. It’s a lot more noticeable this time, for one thing, how the delightfully camp Dr. Pretorius, making Henry Frankenstein look even more neurotic by comparison, strives to separate Henry from his heterosexual relationship so the two of them can do things together of which society disapproves, for which Pretorius has been banned from academia, and which are generally considered (it being a vague Romantic period or 1935, depending on how diabetic we wish to be) to be going against God. Hmm. What are we saying here, Mr Whale? Incidentally, I love the little people with their silly costumes.

The other thing that surprised me this time round is just how late in the film the “Bride” appears; just for the last four minutes. Elsa Lanchester looks and is superb, however. And it is of course the real tragedy that the monster, having known a little friendship from a blind man rather keen to push smoking on to him (“No, no, this is good. Smoke- you try.”), is hated by all and the fact that his intended mate is terrified of him too is simply the final straw. He can have no connection with others, thus no happiness, and so he wants to die- bringing Pretorius and the Bride with him. There’s a hint of violent male attitudes towards rejection by women there, I think. It’s also hard to keep my inner Alan Partridge in check as both the title “Bride of Frankenstein” and the fact that Pretorius says the line for no diegetic reason at his moment of triumph seems to call the monster “Frankenstein”. But it’s hard to deny what an absolute work of genius this film is.

Scrooge (1951)

"Humbug!"

Mrs Llamastrangler suggested that, as Gremlins counts as a Christmas film only on a technicality, I ought to do one (interpret that how you will) before the Chrimbo Limbo concludes. I think she had Jack Frost in mind, but heigh-ho...

Anyway, this is bloody good. Alastair Sim proves that actors associated with comedy can be truly arresting at straight drama- although his comic side is of course very much on display at the end..The entire cast is magnificent, though.

While bits are expanded from Dickens’ original novella, chiefly concerning how Scrooge got his wealth, this is a faithful adaptation, on the whole. The film deserves top marks, in particular, for taking care to include Dickens’ social commentary; the unreformed Scrooge refuses to forgive a debt, potentially forcing his unfortunate debtor to spend Christmas in a debtor’s prison, and announces that prisons and the Poor Law, cruel though they are, are a suitable response to poverty. Also it’s clear, in what we see of Scrooge’s past, that his hardness is a response to a perceived hardening of the world from the ore-factory age, when money wasn’t everything, to now (1843-ish?) where money is progress and traditional considerations for the less fortunate have fallen by the wayside. It’s very much about the problems of industrialisation, but it has much to say to That her’s children in this new age of austerity. And it’s heartening to see Christmas being set against all this, rather than as another commercial pressure.

It’s all full of Dickensisms, of course, from those inimitable character names to the poor working class family that inexplicably speaks RP, but that’s all part of the fun. This is the finest adaptation of A Christmas Carol that I’ve seen, very much including those with Muppets in...!