The Importance of Being Earnest (1952)

 "To lose one parent, Mr Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune. To lose both looks like carelessness."

Somehow, in twelve years of blogging, I've somehow contrived never to blog and adaptation of an Oscar Wilde play, something which must be remedied forthwith. Comedy, often though not always, tends to date as the decades pass. Not only to tastes in humour change but so so the social more on which the humour depends. Yes Oscar Wilde remains as funny in 2023 as in 1895, as shown by this, the last of the style of plays for which he is most known, before his sad, complex, undeserved and much misunderstood downfall. Wilde should have lived and written for many more decades.

We no longer live in a world defined by the Season and the obliquely shifting snobbish oddities of the aristocracy: indeed, most of us never did. Yet we do not feel alienated. There is no anger aimed at the upper classes here, mainly observation, yet the humour skewers this world with perfection. Interesting that this, the result of aestheticism, should come from an author who, wearing another hat, happened to be a socialist.

This film is, perhas, unambitious in its direction, being little more than a stage play with a camera pointed at it, which it cheerfully confesses by presenting itself in this way. Yet it is perfection. Oh, Michaels Redgrave and Denison are merely quite good as Jack and Algy. Joan Greenwood is better, the poshest woman who ever lived and born to play Gwendoline. Yet Dorothy Tutin excels as Cecily. Any version of this play, though, stands or falls by its Lady Bracknell. And Edith Evans is simply THE Lady Bracknell. All other performances of the part are but a shadow of hers. It is she who makes this production simply unsurpassable.

Dead of Night (1945)

"Mr Craig is going to hit me, savagely!"

Oh well, I'm sure he can hit somebody else instead."

Wow. That blew me away, utterly and unexpectedly. Why is this not known as one of the greatest horror films ever? No, it's not exactly obscure, or indeed short of praise, but it's rarely seen in "best of" lists. This is an extraordinary film.

I can see where Amicus got the idea of the portmanteau horror film from having seen this, but Dead of Night is no B Movie and the horror is never cheesy but always effective. No monsters in make-up here, just ghost story uncanniness. And no silliness: there’s no silliness here, although there’s plenty of wit in the script.

The plot is fiendishly clever; an architect visits a house he’s never visited before, and recognises it and everyone there from a recurring nightmare, and events gradually unfold just as he fears, but with some devilishly clever twists at the end. Along the way he hears several tales- separate sequences by different directors- all of which are deeply effective, but the ones that stand out are Michael Redgrave and the creepy ventriloquist’s dummy and the bit of comic relief with a dead golfer haunting his estranged friend (“May the Lord have mercy on your handicap!”).

The acting is superb, with Redgrave and Googie Withers deserving extra praise, and although 1945 feels a very long time ago- no shagging before marriage, “how do you do?”, all the smoking, the plummy accents (the hide and seek lecherous wanker comes across very much like Tim, Nice But Dim...) - but this is an extraordinary film which will linger in the mind for a long time.

The Lady Vanishes (1938)

"I never think you should judge any country by its politics. After all, we English are quite honest by nature, aren't we?"

I've seen a fair few Hitchcocks but, shockingly, this is the first film helmed by the great Sir Alfred that I've blogged. It's an early, pre-Hollywood film, but all his gifts for suspense are already on evidence. Engaging characters, a worry script and a solid presence- an old lady mysteriously vanished from a moving train and people start denying that she was ever there- make this a bloody good film. Margaret Lockwood and Michael Redgrave are superb as leads.

The characterisation, direction, dialogue and acting come across as fresh and mover considering the film's age, and I love the two cricket-obsessed Englishmen. The plot twist is also handled extremely well and successfully as the conspiracy unravels and peril (I love that word) ensues. This isn't perhaps one of the best known Hitchcocks but it's certainly a bloody good film.

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.