The Seven-Per-Cent Solution (1976)

 "Tell them I was murdered by my mathematics tutor!"

This is the first time I've ever seen this rather good film, but I did read Nicholas Meyer's splendid original novel, at least twice, during my youth. And, while much of the plot was familiar to me, albeit with some jogging of the memory, I din't recall the ending, with the uncomfortably Orientalist overtones: an Ottomas pasha, in 1891, would not, I suspect, of being in the habit of kidnapping European red-headed ladies for his harem as they remindeds him of Circassians he'd, er, known. Still, that aside(!), this is a bloody good film despite a moderately low wattage cast and a rather straightforward directorial style.

The sets are sumptuous, the location superb, and to cast a film entirely with character actors is no bad thing. Robert Duvall is a good Watson, Alan Arkin carries the film well as Sigmund Freud, And Nicol Williamson- excellent as Merlin in Excalibur- is a superb but necessarily different Holmes, still the deductive genius but coming to terms with his cocaise addiction and haunted by childhood trauma: untill the end, not recalling exact details from the novel, I was worried that he may have been sexually abused as a child by his maths tutor. Thankfully,and wisely, the story does not take this path.... I was a bit worried, after all that cold turkey montage stuff with that phallic snake from The Speckled Band being so very prominent, in a film featuring Sigmund Freud...

It's not all character stuff, though. It's fun to see Holmes and freud work together and learn from each other, much though it felt a little roo easy for Holmes to fall fr the initial ruse and show so little resentment. There's lots of adventure, a sword fight, a train chase,and lots of deduction. Even better, there are lots of nice little Sherlockian touches- and, in the brief mention of the orang-utan case, an oblique reference to a Poe short story starring Holmes' literary progenitor, Auguste Dupin.  

The hints of romance at the end, though? Very brave! Overall, then, a film which may lack a certain visual flair but has astrong enough story and cast to carry it through.

The Godfather: Part II (1974)

”Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer..."

 I've always thought, before seeing both films again lately, that whilst The Godfather: Part II is utterly sublime,it isn't as good as its genius predecessor. Now I'm not so sure. This epic sequel (there's even an intermission!) just carries on where its predecessor left off, like a Patrick O'Brian novel, giving us another splodge of saga with the same unbelievably awesome directing and acting. Al Pacino is awesome in exactly the same way as before, but Robert de Niro amazes as the younger Vito Corleone in a wonderfully realised 1917, with mannerisms that evoke the earlier performance of Marlon Brando but also branch out into new areas,

It's a non-linear narrative, taking us from Vito's brutal Sicilian origins in 1901, through to the beginnings of his empire in 1917 towards (the bulk of the film) a present day that has moved on to the late 1950s and Michael Corleone is safely ensconced in Nevada, branching out to Cuba and losing touch with the old-fashioned New York world exemplified by the rather interesting character of Frank, too "Italian" and too old-fashioned for this brave new world. And yet, the Corleone family is tested, but it survives even if Michael's hopes of a normal family life cannot.

Again this is a film on the Italian-American experience, showing us the early waves of tired, huddled masses on Ellis Island, the fascinating period details of early twentieth century life in Little Italy with everyone in those early decades still speaking Italian with each other, and to the almost contemporary struggle to escape the Mafia legacy. But theme isn't really the point; the characters, the visuals, the acting- this is just the pinnacle of how to make a film well. Right up there with the greatest.

Apocalypse Now (1979)

"I love the smell of napalm in the morning..."

 I may have waited until I was forty but at last I can claim to have seen this troubled yet magnificent and iconic film, and now at last I know where the phrase "Charlie don't surf" comes from. But there#s so much more, and not just the well-known set pieces with eccentric warfare, surfing chat and Ride of the Valkyries.  No; this modern take on Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness (which I read long ago, in Florida, when I was nineteen) doesn't just transplant the events from the Belgian Congo to Vietnam but imparts added meaning. There's far more going on in this film than a single viewing can pick up, but there's the barbarity and ethics of warfare, misogyny, mortality and so much more, and it all feels so much more profound for the extraordinary skilled direction from Francis Ford Coppola.

It doesn't feel over-long; yes, Kurtz (a magnificent Marlon Brando, always filmed in some degree of shadow as metaphor for the character's ambiguity) is held back to the end, being built up slowly until his final, iconic appearance, but the film is equally about the events that happen to Willard (an extraordinary and very young Martin Sheen) along the way, alongside such characters as Chef, Clean (a teenage Laurence Fishburne) Dennis Hopper's nameless fawning photojournalist and the unforgettable Colonel Bill Kilgore. There's more than a hint of Aguirre: Wrath of God in how the journey along the river is shot, but the characters feel real and human; this isn't some aloof art flick.

There's a surprisingly small part for Harrison Ford but the cast as a whole is magnificent and entirely worthy of what must surely be one of the finest films ever made, however difficult it's creation.

The Godfather (1972)

"He made him an offer he couldn't refuse..."

There's a school of thought, one I'm sympathetic too, that says this is the greatest film ever made, and that's a heavy burden to bear. Can any film survive such expectations? Best to ignore the whole question, I think, and just say that the film is superb.

Few films are as well directed as this, with every shot framed beautifully, and incredible cinematography. Marlon Brando and Al Pacino are both, of course, sublime. And the script is the perfect take of both the Mafia and of the Italian (or Sicilian) immigrant experience in America.

There are so many iconic scenes, from the infamous horse's head to the moment when the murders of all Michael Corleone's enemies are juxtaposed with him affirming his Catholic faith at his nephew' christening. But the scenes hang together perfectly in a tale of how war hero Michael, at first intended to be kept away from the business of the family, is slowly drawn in and takes over from his imposing yet declining father and his fatally hot-headed brother Sonny. The change is convincingly and carefully shown, with a brilliantly inscrutable performance from Pacino. The film pretty much centres on the tension-filled scene with Michael slowly retrieving the gun from the restaurant toilet, ready to Kill for the first time out of family revenge. A film right up there with the very best.

So, yes- this is quite the contrast from Barbarella!