Time for another collection of mini-reviews of movies watched by me of late – and just for a change none of them is a sci fi, fantasy, or musical movie (but there is an animated one!).
.jpg)
COLD COMFORT FARM
On 3 March 2024, I thoroughly enjoyed the eponymous British film version of the satirical Stella Gibbons novel Cold Comfort Farm, published in 1932. Directed by John Schlesinger, produced by Thames Television and the BBC, and released in 1995, it stars Kate Beckinsale as city-sophisticated but newly-orphaned young lady Flora Poste, who accepts an invitation to spend some time with her eccentric rural relatives the Starkadders on their ramshackle homestead Cold Comfort Farm, which is supposedly overshadowed by a family curse. And as if that were not off-putting enough, it is also ruled with a fist of iron by Great-Aunt Ada Doom (Sheila Burrell), who has lived a Miss Havishamesque existence cocooned inside her bedroom there for countless years after seeing "something nasty in the woodshed" when a child. It's up to prissy but prescient Flora to drag the Starkadders out of their crazy, gloom, doom (and Doom!)-laden existence into the modern era and enable them to fulfil their various long-harboured but hitherto-repressed ambitions. Packed with famous names, including Joanna Lumley (as Flora's ditzy high-society friend Mary Smiling), Eileen Atkins (dread-filled and dreadful Starkadder matriarch Judith), Rufus Sewell (lusty youngest Starkadder brother Seth), Ivan Kaye (diligent middle Starkadder brother Reuben), Ian McKellen (hellfire-preaching eldest Starkadder brother Amos), Stephen Fry (irritating upper-class twit Mybug), Miriam Margolyes (the Starkadders' helper Mrs Beetle), and Freddie Jones (the delightfully-named Adam Lambsbreath), this is a thoroughly delightful and very amusing movie watch that is guaranteed to cheer and charm even the most downbeat of viewers. Please click here to watch an official trailer for this movie on YouTube.
D.O.A.
My movie watch on 3 November 2023 was a double-bill of 1950s b/w films, but that's where their similarities end. One of them was the sci fi comedy movie The Twonky, which I've already reviewed here. The other was the original film version of D.O.A. (its title's initials standing for Dead On Arrival). Directed by Rudolph Maté, and released in 1950 by United Artists, D.O.A. is a film noir mystery/thriller in which LA-based accountant and notary Frank Bigelow (played by Edmund O'Brien) is surreptitiously poisoned while visiting San Francisco. Moreover, the poison is lethal as there is no known antidote for it and will therefore kill him in a week, possibly less. So although Bigelow is presently still alive, he is already functionally murdered. Consequently, he decides to spend his final week alive tracking down his unknown killer and uncovering the cryptic reason why the latter has visited upon him this death sentence. With a compelling plot, full of twists and turns as well as a massive ongoing red herring, D.O.A. duly engaged my interest and attention throughout its 84 minutes running time. I own it on DVD, but please click here if you'd like to watch this entire movie free of charge on YouTube.
HELP!
My movie watch on 2 July 2024 was Help! – the 'classic' Beatles movie that I'd never previously viewed but had lately purchased in video format. Directed by Richard Lester, and released in 1965 by United Artists, it's all about a Kali-worshipping death cult heavily into human sacrifice who need a precious ring currently (and aptly) being worn by Ringo to place on the finger of their next victim – who may well be Ringo himself if he can't remove the tenaciously-attached item of jewellery from his finger! All manner of madcap chases and pursuits duly ensue, as the ring is being sought not only by the cult's maniacal head priest Clang (played by Leo McKern) but also by megalomaniacal mad scientist (is there any other sort??) Professor Foot (Victor Spinetti) and his clot of a cohort Algernon (Roy Kinnear). And yes, this movie is indeed every bit as barmy as it sounds, albeit imho not necessarily in a good way, filled as it is with disjointed nonsense and deadpan humour that was more dead and panned than humorous. Perhaps the most amazing thing about this movie, I feel, is that someone somewhere somehow felt that it was a good idea at the time. They clearly needed Help! The Beatles choosing to become musicians rather than actors was definitely music's gain – and acting's too! Please click here to watch an official trailer for this movie on YouTube.
HEY GOOD LOOKIN'
After rewatching the live-action/animation mash-up movie Cool World a few days earlier (click here for my full review of that movie), on 6 July 2024 I rewatched another film conceived and directed by Ralphi Bakshi, this time the fully-animated flick Hey Good Lookin', released in 1982 by Warner Bros after an earlier 1970s version that had been a previous attempt by Bakshi to create a live-action/animation mash-up movie had remained (and still remains) unreleased (but click here to view a very rare promo for it, showing how the four principal animated characters interacted with the live-action world that they inhabited in this earlier version). Set mostly in early 1950s Brooklyn, NYC, its central characters are Vinnie, the cool but cowardly Fonzie-lookalike leader of a greaser gang named The Stompers, and his aptly-named psychotic sidekick Crazy, and culminates in a violent rumble between the Stompers and rival gang the Chaplains, earning the movie an 18 certificate. It contains very slick animation throughout, and is accompanied by some excellent foot-tapping rock'n'roll songs (including the title number), but I found none of the characters in it to be even remotely likeable. I had previously watched this movie only once, about 30 years previously, soon after buying it as a big-box VHS video (pictured here), and which is what I watched again five months ago in July (though I do now own it on DVD too), and experienced a mystifying 'false memory' moment. I would have sworn that during the rumble, Vinnie turns ugly and stabs someone to death, yet watching it this second time, on the same video that I'd watched it on before, no such event takes place. On the contrary, Vinnie cowers behind a car and leaves his gang to do all the fighting. Very curious indeed – a veritable Mandela Effect instance, perhaps (click here for details of what may be another animated film-related Mandela Effect experience of mine, and here for a very famous non-animated movie example of this phenomenon), or just a bad memory on my part? You decide! Please click here to watch an official trailer for this movie on YouTube.
THE MILLIONAIRESS
My movie watch on 9 July 2024 was the British rom-com film The Millionairess. Directed by Anthony Asquith, inspired by the eponymous play by George Bernard Shaw, and released in 1960 by 20th Century Fox, it stars Italian screen goddess Sophia Loren (Ava Gardner had been Fox's first choice) as Epifania Pererge, the egocentric wealth-obsessed richest woman in the world, and iconic British comic actor Peter Sellers as Dr Ahmed el Kabir, the wealth-indifferent selfless Indian doctor whom she is determined to ensnare as her husband. Several other famous British thespians appeared in supporting roles, such as Alastair Sim, Alfie Bass, Miriam Karlin, Dennis Price, and Graham Stark. Even so, I have to confess that I found it to be nowhere near as funny as I'd been led to believe, probably due to the highly unpleasant, brattish nature of Loren's character, making it very difficult to warm to her. Earlier plans to film Shaw's play with Katharine Hepburn and Alec Guinness in the leading roles never came to fruition. Worth noting, incidentally, is that contrary to numerous claims, the hit Loren/Sellers song 'Goodness Gracious Me' (click here to listen to it on YouTube with scenes from the movie), in which they feature as their characters from this movie (and which contains dialogue from one particular scene in it in which he is medically examining her), never actually appears in the film. It was meant to, but the producers changed their minds about including it, and it was instead released separately, as a means of publicising the film, which it did very effectively as this song went on to become a smash hit in the UK music singles chart. Please click here if you would like to watch this entire movie free of charge on YouTube.
THE MILLION POUND NOTE
On 10 July 2024, my movie watch was, like The Millionairess that I viewed on the previous evening (see mini-review above), a classic but nowadays not so famous British comedy film – The Million Pound Note (aka Man With A Million), which was directed by Ronald Neame, released in 1954 by General Film Distributors, and based upon a Mark Twain story. Set in the late 1800s, it stars Gregory Peck as Henry Adams, a penniless jobless American stranded in London who is presented by two wealthy gamblers with a genuine one million pound banknote, to see whether he can last a month without spending any of it yet still prosper simply by the respectability that possessing it brings to him, or whether he will need to spend at least some of it in order to survive. Henry finds the former prospect to be the one that works very well for him, at least to begin with, but matters become ever more complex, farcical, and hilarious as the month progresses. A host of famous British stars feature in this film, not least of whom are Joyce Grenfell, Wildfrid Hyde-White, Bryan Forbes, Laurence Naismith, Joan Hickson, and Hugh Griffith. Sumptuous decor, sparkling dialogue, and with Joyce Grenfell as a delightfully dotty duchess, how could any such movie possibly go wrong? And it doesn't – it's a total joy throughout. I vaguely remember watching this movie just once before, at least 50 years ago in b/w on TV when I was a teenager, but I had scarcely remembered it at all except for its title, so it was like watching a totally new film when I played my recently-purchased DVD of it. Please click here to watch this movie in its entirety free of charge on YouTube.
Finally: to view a complete chronological listing of all of my Shuker In MovieLand blog's other film reviews and articles (each one instantly accessible via a direct clickable link), please click HERE, and please click HERE to view a complete fully-clickable alphabetical listing of them.
