Lawrence of Belgravia (2011) - Paul Kelly

Okay so the briefest of history lessons first. Despite what you might have read, heard or remembered the eighties was actually a phenomenal period for music. Back then Lawrence had a band called Felt. They were influential, heavenly, and easily one of the best bands of that era. Lawrence’s plan was to release ten albums and ten singles during the eighties and then split the band. Which is basically what happened. Lawrence desperately wanted to be a star, play Top of the Pops, sell a ton of records and live the whirlwind life of the fabulous. His records sounded like nothing else around at the time, the guitar heroics of Television fed through The Velvets swagger and topped off with a healthy dose existential poetry. Lawrence was ready for stardom, he sang about it, craved it, demanded it, but it never came. Felt were, and I suppose still are a cult band.

Paul Kelly’s remarkable documentary, Lawrence of Belgravia, picks up Lawrence’s story twenty years after Felt’s demise. Things aren’t too good for Lawrence when we catch up with him, he’s facing eviction and is suffering from mental health issues. That said he’s still recording and releasing music as Go-Kart Mozart, and dressing like a thrift store Brian Jones at his most dandyish. Still living the dream, still clinging to the vague hope that at any moment his boat will come in. Through a series of interviews with various interviewers, we get to meet Lawrence the person as opposed to Lawrence the failed pop star. All sorts of topics are covered from the formation of Felt right through to Lawrence’s opinions on the internet. Lawrence is an entertaining interviewee, coming across as someone who could wax lyrical and say something pithy about almost any subject dropped in front of him. One of the things that impressed me most about this documentary was that at no time is Lawrence ever made a figure of fun, you never get the feeling that anyone involved in the film is laughing at him in any way. It is funny, in places hilariously so, but the amusement always comes from Lawrence himself. One scene in particular of him trying to paint a door is painfully comical.

I’ve been trying to see this documentary for years, and have only just managed to do so. Being a huge Felt (and Lawrence) fan, I was worried that I’d built up what could have been unattainable expectations. Yet Lawrence of Belgravia didn’t disappoint. The whole documentary looks gorgeous, and is largely comprised of static shots, allowing the action to unfold within the frame. Which works well and allows Kelly’s great eye for composition to really come to the fore. Kelly’s background in photography is something that really shines through in his films. He's also aces at super-fast montage sequences, one of which manages to compress the whole history of Felt into a few seconds of screen time. Very nice.

The great thing is that you don’t have to be a fan of Felt, or even music to enjoy this, since it’s a portrait of a rather eccentric individual, who when given a platform tends to make amusing comments about everything. Please, someone just give him a TV show.

Lawrence of Belgravia is thoroughly watchable and for a Felt fan like myself an utter joy. For the eagle-eyed, there are some sublime cameos (my personal favourite being Pete Wiggs popping up for a second behind a door), Pete Astor, Martin Duffy and even legendary producer John A. Rivers turn up at various points. If you get the chance to catch a screening of this, then you’d be a fool to miss it. Hunt it down, you won’t regret it.

Rush (2013) - Ron Howard

Motorsport and Hollywood have never been the best of friends. Over the years there have been numerous attempts to get them together, but every single film has failed to capture the excitement that any racing fan will tell you lies at the heart of the sport. The big problem is that Hollywood seems to feel that the idea of some bloke hurtling around a race track in a flimsy car loaded with highly flammable fuel isn’t quite interesting enough. So usually a love story or some other old cliché that worked in other films is bolted on, while all the things that make motor racing so watchable in the first place - team politics, strategies, the various personalities of the drivers are quietly let go.

The best (and I use that word in the widest most general sense) racing film ever made is John Frankenheimer’s Grand Prix (1966). It’s a real stinker of a film, staring a pudgy James Garner as an American Formula One driver making a comeback. Awful film, utter rubbish with two huge exceptions. The racing footage is superb, and there’s a raft of cameos by most of the world’s greatest drivers including Jack Brabham, Jimmy Clark, Juan Manuel Fangio and for me the best of the bunch, the none more English Graham Hill. If that’s the best then just image what the others are like.

So with that in mind my expectations for a Ron Howard film about the 1976 Formula 1 World Championship battle between Niki Lauda and James Hunt were low. Extremely low. But it’s an absolute triumph, not only a great film about motor racing, but also a superb drama about obsession and rivalry. Not just that though it also manages to ask why would anyone do anything as crazy and dangerous as motor racing, and provide resonable answers to boot.

I’m not going to go into what happens during the film, since if you don’t already know, you don't need me to spoil it for you. I’ll just say that you really don’t need to know or love Formula One to get the most out of this, in much the same way you don’t need to be into sharks or swimming to enjoy Jaws. However if you do know your Balestre's from your Ecclestone's then there's lots of goodies in here for you.

So why does this work where Grand Prix, Le Mans, Days of Thunder and Driven all failed so badly? Well for starters it’s scripted by Peter Morgan who of course wrote the aces screenplays for The Queen and The Damned United as well as Frost/Nixon for director Ron Howard. It’s a good tight script that sticks closely to the facts and events of that ’76 season. Next up are the two main actors who not only look the part but manage to act it too. Chris Hemsworth as the cocksure James Hunt and Daniel Brühl as the intense perfectionist Niki Lauda. Both are totally convincing, even if at times the brushstrokes on screen are a little broad, sometimes in order to cram as much into a reasonable running time you need to simplify things. The third reason for me loving this film so much has to go to Danny Boyle’s regular cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle, who goes all out and gives the film a look somewhere between the frantic hyper editing and multiple camera set ups of a modern film, and a world seen through Timothy Leary’s 60s specs. So business as usual for ADM then. Visually it’s one of the most sumptuous films I’ve seen for a while, and yet despite using every modern trick in the book, it still manages to convince as a period piece. As such, Rush begs to be seen at the cinema, the sound alone is astounding with the cars screaming around the circuits to a suitably propulsive Hans Zimmer score.

I really can’t recommend this film enough, it does everything it promises and more. Who would have thought Ron Howard would have it in him? That he would have the savvy to not take the easy way out and pile on the melodrama, to have the faith to stick with the truth. The fact that he has made a film as good as this makes me feel that I’ve misjudged him badly in the past. Having said that though, there is nothing in his filmography that I would ever want to return to ever again. Except this, which I’m sure I will watch again and again and again.

Thursday's Children (1954) - Lindsay Anderson

Along with most Brits of a certain age I have a special place in my heart for Lindsay Anderson. Film critic, director, and most importantly of all the individual that gave British film a much needed kick up the arse back in the mid 50s as the founding father of the Free Cinema movement. He didn’t make all that many films, but when he did they were always, always, worth seeing. However, as much as I adore If...., This Sporting Life and Britannia Hospital, it’s his documentary shorts O Dreamland and Thursday’s Children that I return to time and time again. Both were shot in the British seaside town of Margate, and have a pull on me that I can’t really explain.

The better of the two is Thursday’s Children, which is about a school for deaf children. Every time I watch it (which is at least once a year), I cry. A lot. Narrated by Richard Burton using his best earthy brown vocals and lensed by the legendary Walter Lassally, it packs a lot into it’s brief 25 minute running time. We get to meet various children and two of their teachers. We see how they learn to form sounds and words, slowly. Very slowly.

It’s a painful watch, since as the documentary unfolds you can't help but wonder what is going to become of these poor kids? What does the future hold for them? Remember this is 1950s Britain, so any real sort of understanding of their disability from the general public is going to be a hard won battle. It’s heartbreaking to think about. The kids in the film are so happy and full of life, so much so that I can’t help thinking that once they leave school (where they live too), that their happiness will be quickly knocked out of them by the harshness of the outside world.

Back in the mid 80s, my junior school had a deaf unit. None of the children from that deaf unit were accepted by the other kids in the school, they were treated as outcasts and mainly used as a punchline for many cruel jokes. I got to know one of the kids, Robert. He was a sweet guy who lived down the road from my nan. Maybe it’s this memory that makes Thursday’s Children such an emotional watch for me?

Thursday’s Children picked up the Oscar for Best Documentary (Short Subject) at the 1954 Academy Awards. Which is neither here nor there really, but it does show that it had appeal outside of Great Britain, and probably allowed it to reach a far greater audience than a film like this should have any hope of finding. Whenever I watch it I can’t help but wonder what happened to all the kids? How did their lives turn out? How are Dennis, Linda or Katherine doing? I’ll never find out, I know that, but it never stops me from wondering. If you’ve never seen this, then you really should. It’s even on YouTube, so there’s no excuse. Just be ready to shed some tears.

Marley (2012) - Kevin Macdonald

Kevin Macdonald knows a thing or two about how to put together a decent documentary. After all he’s the guy responsible for both One Day in September and Touching the Void, two of the best documentaries of recent times. So when it was announced that Macdonald was taking over production of the documentary about the life and times of Nesta Robert Marley from Martin Scorsese, (who like both Spielberg and Del Toro, always seems to be attached to more films than is humanly possible to make), I knew that sooner rather than later I’d end up owning it.

Now I love a good music doc as much as the next man, especially when I don’t really know all that much about the subject. Which is just what Marley is for me. What I knew about Bob Marley were just the basics that everyone knows, those fantastic early Ska 7”s, the early Lee Perry produced stuff (Mr Brown being one of my all time favourite songs) and that after he signed to Island his music became watered down, but crossed over and sold like the preverbal hot cakes to the white folks. Oh and he died because of some injury sustained whilst playing footie. Beyond that I didn’t have the foggiest.

Macdonald’s documentary really wins out by concentrating on Marley the person, rather than being a definitive trawl through which album came when and what single charted where. I’m sure there are numerous books out there that cover that sort of thing in OCD style detail. The Marley family seem to have given their blessing to the project since they are interviewed, and have obviously given up a stack of never before seen pics and home video footage. Now normally that sort of thing could be a death blow for this sort of film. Since the director is obligated to show the subject in a certain rose tinted light in exchange for access to such previously unseen goodies. However Macdonald manages to have both his cake and eat it. For every story of Bob Marley bringing people together there is another about him shagging his way around the globe, or being a shitty parent. Eleven kids by seven different women while all the while being married, that definitely paints a picture that most families wouldn’t want talked about too loudly.

On top of that the interviews that Macdonald secures with various players from the late 60s Jamaican reggae scene are all gold. Jimmy Cliff, Bunny Wailer, Chris Blackwell and Rita Marley are all very forthcoming. Lee Perry is thankfully not in crazy man mode and manages to give a small insight too. Although his contribution is so small I do suspect the rest of his interview was unusable. Fire, water, CDs hanging from bits of string on a stick, his standard routine. Yawn. Then there are various girlfriends, long lost family members and a whole host of characters from Marley’s past. Weaved into these interviews are some gorgeous aerial photography of Jamaica and archive footage galore.

In short this is one of those documentaries that if you have any sort of love of music you have to see. I went into it thinking Bob Marley was an alright if somewhat overrated bloke, that managed to bring reggae to the sort of people that would never normally listen to it. I came away not having changed my opinion all that much, but with a greater respect for the man. The final chapter of the film, dealing with Marley’s untimely death is heartbreaking, and really hammers home the idea that behind the persona Marley had built for himself throughout the 70s, was a very real person who was dying and desperately didn’t want to. See it with the bass cranked up to max, but do see it.

The Squeeze (1977) - Michael Apted

The Squeeze is one of those diamonds of 70s British cinema just begging to be unearthed and rediscovered. On paper the plot sounds like something you’ve seen a hundred times before, nothing special in fact. Nasty types kidnap a wife (Carol White) and daughter, but the husband (Edward Fox) decides rather than coughing up the ransom he’d rather team up with his wife’s previous husband (Stacey Keach) and try and sort it out that way. Problem is that despite being ex-police, Keach is an alky and really not up to the task of sorting anything out other than ordering a drop of Sherry to steady his nerves.

As I say on paper it’s nothing special, but director Michael Apted brings a hell of a lot to it. Apted was already an old hand at shooting from the hip having worked in TV for years, most famously on the Up series. So The Squeeze massively benefits from his style of shooting on location rather than being set bound, plus the cameras are mainly hand-held rather than dolly mounted, all of which injects a fair amount of energy into what ends up on the screen. Then there’s the fact that The Squeeze is British, not just British but post Sweeney British. It’s a sweaty nylon shirt stuck to the faux leather seat of a British Leyland car, bags of rubbish in the streets and boarded up houses type of film. More than that though The Squeeze is aces because of it’s cast. Keach is actually a real find, I’m not sure if he was overdubbed (it doesn’t look that way) or if he could actually manage a decent accent - either way he sounds genuine enough, and is convincing as a soak. So much so that you can almost smell his stale breath at points. Edward Fox is his usual fantastic self, looking at all times as if he’s trodden in dog shit, his face fixed in a perma-scowl. Both he and Keach’s introductions are superb, Fox bursts into Keach’s home demanding to see his wife and for once has a real air of menace about him. Whereas Keach is introduced stumbling along through a London Underground station and eventually takes a nasty tumble down an escalator.

Just as good are the supporting cast, Carol White who had shone as the lead in two key Ken Loach films (Cathy Come Home & Poor Cow) is so very, very good. It’s a tough role, involving plenty of crying and nudity but she does a bang up job. Then there’s David Hemmings playing totally against character as one of the main villains. What at first feels like a huge piece of miscasting quickly reveals itself to be a bit of a masterstroke. Same goes for Freddie Starr as Teddy, in his only attempt at serious acting he plays a light fingered Scouser who helps Keach out throughout the film. It shouldn’t work, but Starr is actually pretty good and manages to reign in any urge to do his usual shtick. Add to that Alan Ford in his first screen role and you're onto a winner. I should also give a quick shout out to the Johnny Harris score which is a blinder, it's never been made available but two of the tracks appear on his genuis album - Movements. It's up there with the best of Roy Budd's scores. That good.

What little plot there is revolves around Keach and Fox squabbling, and Starr trying to keep Keach off the sauce long enough to rescue his ex. It’s grim, and not very action packed by todays standards but it is very dramatic and strangely earthy. Which is something that British crime films seem to lack nowadays, in the rush to look glossy and try and compete with the fluff that fills our multiplexes from across the pond we’ve forgotten about the things that made our crime films unique. It’s there in Get Carter, both of the Sweeney movies, Villain, The Long Good Friday, Robbery and a whole stack of other films. It’s that ordinariness mixed in with the criminal aspect, scenes used to take place inside a boozer rather than a club. Maybe I’m just being overly nostalgic for the past but it’s definitely something I miss in British crime films, which when done well can hold their own against anything Hollywoodland cares to throw at us.

This is a bit of a pain to get hold of, having not had a DVD release despite being owned by Warners. Hopefully someday this will be rectified, but until then just do what you have to do to see this. You won't regret it.

Trance (2013) - Danny Boyle

Oh dear. I wanted to like Trance, I really did. And for the first ten minutes or so I did. The art heist that kicks the film off and sets the story in motion is a thrilling piece of cinema. Typical Danny Boyle, looks gorgeous, booming soundtrack and very very fast paced. But then for some reason the voice over narration disappears (always a bad sign), if you’re going to use something like that (voice over) then at least have the grace to have it throughout the film, otherwise it feels like what it is - tacked on to explain things to the audience, information that a director of Boyle’s stature should be able to convey via images. But the voice over being given the heave-ho is the least of Trance’s problems. Where to begin?

Well let’s start with that wonderful beginning. Danny Boyle films have always had a strong start, think about how Trainspotting and Shallow Grave sucked you into the film straight away. Then consider probably his most audacious opening, that of 28 Days Later. Which is still just mouth open, jaw on the floor, how the fuck did they do that astounding. When it comes to endings Boyle isn’t quite so strong, he tends to slap a huge anthem on the soundtrack and over-egg everything a bit, not always but sometimes. Sunshine started well but around the halfway mark became something entirely different, same with 28 Days Later. Trance suffers the same fate but almost from the start of the film.

Simon (James McAvoy) is an art auctioneer with a gambling problem, Franck (Vincent Cassel) is a heavy type who is going to steal a Goya painting from the auction house that Simon works at, with Simon’s help. So far, so ordinary. Except Simon manages to swipe the picture before giving it to Franck and thanks to a bump on the head, can’t remember what he’s done with said painting. Deep sigh, it get’s worse. Enter Elizabeth (Rosario Dawson) a hypnotherapist who is hired to find out just what the hell is going on by talking softly to Simon. Now apparently she can not only make him remember things, but also make him forget other things, oh and shuffle around his memories. Cough, cough. By this point you’re already being asked to suspend an awfully large amount of disbelief. This isn’t the Inception world of Science-Fiction, this is supposedly set in the here and now of London. Basically things get weirder, and initial opinions about characters change as the film progresses, as does the whole tone of the film. There are huge chunks of the running time where you will not have a clue what’s going on, is he hypnotized now, or is this actually happening sort of stuff. And that’s all well and good, but you need a damn good ending to explain away everything that’s happened. Trance doesn’t have that ending. Everything (well almost everything) is rattled off in a monologue towards the end of the film, and it doesn’t work. It’s too insane, too far out to make any sort of sense. And after all that Boyle has the nerve to try the Inception spinning top ending. Sorry Danny but you haven't earnt that mate.

Trance is a film that demands to be watched multiple times, so that when you know the story you’ll be able to sit back and nod as it all unfolds second or third time around. Unfortunately it’s simply not a good enough film to ever want to watch again. The three main leads are all perfectly fine, like all of Boyle’s films it’s well edited and looks impressive (Anthony Dod Mantle is still on DoP duties so no huge surprise there). It’s well directed too, there’s lots of glass and reflections underscoring the theme of duality, and it’s got a nice huge electronic score (by Underworld’s Rick Smith). But the story is just too silly, and by the time it’s over you’ll be thinking about how Breaking Bad's going to end or what to have for dinner, anything but the nonsense you've just finished watching.

At the end of the day I still love Danny Boyle, I love him for trying things, for never getting stuck in the rut of making the same film over and over, for not being scared of being British and embracing the American glossiness that most British directors do so badly. I love that his films are pure entertainment, for someone that claims Alan Clarke and Nic Roeg as two of his biggest influences he couldn’t make films any further away from their output if he tried. Boyle makes films to be watched on a Saturday night when your plans have fallen through, and you’d still rather be out. For all his faults, his films are watchable and fun and always interesting. There’s no deep message, like Tarantino it’s all surface, and there’s nowt wrong with that. It’s just that Trance is the worst film he has made in a long time. And I haven’t even mentioned Rosario Dawson’s totally out of place full frontal scene, and the way it’s explained away in such a pathetic way. Please don’t fuck up Porno Danny. Please.

Sunday Bloody Sunday (1971) - John Schlesinger

At it’s heart Sunday Bloody Sunday is a simple enough film. Alex Greville (Glenda Jackson) is a divorcee who’s sleeping with young designer Bob Elkin (Murray Head). The thing is Bob is also having it away with Dr. Daniel Hirsh (Peter Finch), and that’s about the long and short of it. Being British and early 70s this could so easily have ended up being a seedy exploitation flick aimed solely at the dirty mac brigade, or maybe even a Robin Askwith wink to the camera trouser dropper. That it isn’t anything like those and actually one of the best dramas of the early 70s is why we are still watching and talking about it. Directed and conceived by John Schlesinger, arguably the greatest of the British New Wave directors, Sunday Bloody Sunday is a glimpse into a week or so of the lives of the above three characters. There’s no massive story arc, or bombshell ending (although the ending is one of the best you’ll ever see). Nothing too dramatic happens, Alex knows about Daniel and vice versa so there’s very little drama to be mined from the usual love triangle situation of secrets coming to the fore during the films running time.

So why is this such a great film then? Well for starters Schlesinger treats all his characters with dignity. Daniel Hirsh is a homosexual, that is simply accepted as fact and not dwelt on any more than the fact that he’s male or a doctor. There isn’t much nudity, Schlesinger returns again and again to the image of hands gripping the naked flesh of a back rather than showing any full on rumpy pumpy. The real triumph though is just how well written the core trio are. Based on a similar ménage à trois from his own life, Schlesinger was able to put a lot of himself into the film, since just like Daniel Hirsh he was a Jew and gay.

All three leads are irreplaceable once witnessed in their roles, Peter Finch in particular is just astounding. Watch his on fire role in Network to get an idea of the sort of range he has. Glenda Jackson wasn’t even the first choice for the role of Alex - Vanessa Redgrave turned down the part after reading the script that had been written with her in mind. As I say though it’s hard to imagine anyone else as Alex now.

By this point in his career Schlesinger was at the height of his game, Darling and Far from the Madding Crowd had both been hugely successful and he’d skipped across the pond to make Midnight Cowboy, which was not only a success but also defined a moment in time for a whole generation as much as Easy Rider or Woodstock did. So it was a pleasant surprise not only for him to return home, but to also use his clout to get something as small and difficult to sell as Sunday Bloody Sunday off the ground. Schlesinger brings little touches that others probably wouldn’t, such as the daydreams that Alex slips in and out of during the course of the film, which is otherwise filmed quite naturalistically.

It’s very much a film of it’s time, some of Glenda Jackson’s sexiness might be lost on a todays audience due to her ghastly haircut for instance. But ultimately the theme that people fall for the wrong people and often fall for them quite heavily is something that will resonate with generation after generation. Schlesinger made films about people on the margins of society throughout his career, and this film is no exception. Without a doubt both this and Billy Liar are his masterpieces, and this is from a director that made Marathon Man, Darling, Midnight Cowboy and A Kind of Loving. It’s that good. Plus you'll get to see a young Daniel Day-Lewis in his first screen appearance scratching the side of a car with a broken bottle. You know what to do.

Small Time (1996) - Shane Meadows

From little acorns…

After years of knocking together short films, Shane Meadows secured enough funding to make the huge leap into feature film territory with Small Time. As debuts go it’s not the strongest I’ve ever seen, but with hindsight it’s easy to pick out more than enough of Meadows’ tropes to make this well worth a look. What little story there is revolves around a group of ne'er-do-wells in a suburb of Nottingham, who basically steal, drink and smoke themselves through life. Meadows plays Jumbo, the gang’s leader and hard man. Once you get used to the comedy wig (which must have helped massively with continuity) you'll find that he’s not too bad as an actor. His next door neighbour and fellow gang member is Malc (Mat Hand), who’s under pressure from his girlfriend Kate (Dena Smiles) to ditch Jumbo and move on with his life.

For the most part it all works well, the acting is a bit all over the place at times but the dialogue has a crackle to it that makes up for any actorly shortcomings. With a budget of just £5,000, it’s not that surprising to find that it’s not the most beautiful film you’ll ever see either. However Meadows works at his best when on a tight budget, and manages to turn this to his advantage. It’s all location, no sets, and hand held rather than dolly shots, all of which inject some life into the film. Just look at the scene towards the end of two robbers running away from a botched heist. It's lifted wholesale from Reservoir Dogs, a film that seems to have had a hold on Meadow's around this time - his short Where's The Money, Ronnie? being hugely influenced by it too. It's the most exciting scene in the film and has a real kinetic energy to it. As does the hilarious car boot sale montage, where our heroes distract stall owners just long enough to swipe anything they can get their mitts on.

Small Time’s biggest flaw is the balance between it's comedy and violence. Jumbo knocks his girlfriend Ruby (Gena Kawecka) about, but this is never really addressed as much as just accepted. There’s a running gag about Ruby using a vibrator that falls a bit flat, but it’s after one of these scenes that Jumbo lays into her. Meadows doesn’t give the audience time to adjust to the sudden switch in tone, and it becomes a bit of a mess. Within three years though he would nail this particular idea with A Room for Romeo Brass, which successfully managed to shift from comedy to domestic horror without any warning to great effect.

The core idea running through Small Time is the influence that violent people can have over others. It’s a theme that runs through most of Shane Meadows’ filmography. It’s there in A Room for Romeo Brass, Dead Man’s Shoes and more recently This is England. Another constant in his work is Gavin Clarke’s music which is all present and correct here. Pretty much all of the above crop up again and again in Meadows’ work, the Nottingham setting, the working class characters, the music, the humour, the hand held camera work - it’s all there in abundance in every film he makes. Over the years he has refined all this and managed to make it his own thing. Almost twenty years later Shane Meadows has become the closest thing we have as a successor to Ken Loach, Mike Leigh and Alan Clarke. Now who would have thought that when watching this all those years ago?

What Have You Done Today Mervyn Day? (2005) - Paul Kelly

Paul Kelly’s second foray into the world of film making is this wonderful short (45 minutes) film about the Lower Lea Valley in London’s East End. The announcement on 6th July 2005 that this long neglected area was soon to become the center of the worlds attention (due to it being transformed beyond all recognition into the Olympic Park for the 2012 London Olympics), was met with a smattering of applause and a healthy dose of scepticism from the local population. Luckily Paul Kelly was on hand along with long time friends and collaborators Saint Etienne to capture the area on film before it disappeared forever.

We follow a paperboy as he cycles through the various places that make up his route. It’s a simple narrative that allows Kelly to focus on a number of seemingly unconnected images and places that appear to have been forgotten by all but those that live there. Mervyn Day (the paperboy) meanders around the downtrodden area exploring derelict buildings, cricket grounds and canals. On top of this we get various audio bursts from the locals, waxing lyrical about everything from a crocodile that lives in the canal, Dick Turpin and a kidnapper on the loose. There's also wonderful gravelly narration from David Essex and Linda Robson as Mervyn's grandfather and mother respectively.

What Have You Done Today Mervyn Day? works in the same way as The London Nobody Knows or even The Long Good Friday in that it records a whole swathe of London that has now gone for good. A time capsule for a future generation if you will. There's references to The Smiths, Eastenders (signs for both The Dagmar and The Queen Victoria turn up), stories about great leaps in industry (plastic being invented here) and how nicking toy cars from the Matchbox factory wasn’t really thought of as stealing. More than anything there is a strong feeling of nostalgia running through the film. This comes across not only in the audio interviews, but also in Saint Etienne's score.

Peppered throughout What Have You Done Today Mervyn Day? are snippets of radio news about Britain winning the Olympic bid and of the bombings that knocked London for six the day after that announcement. Which cleverly manages to convey both the mixed feelings (excitement & gloom) that was in the air at the time. It also firmly anchors the film in a particular moment in time. It might not mean much now, but in 50 years…

Coming from a photography background Kelly has a keen eye for where to place his camera and manages to find beauty in things that most people would normally look away from. An old Coke can and half deflated football sitting atop a puddle of scum on a waterway, rows of long abandoned industrial premises, old street signs and heavily graffitied walls. All look interesting and invoke a nostalgia for ‘the old days’. I found a shot of an old bin with wooden slats particularly moving. Maybe you had to be there.

Just as with their previous collaberation with Paul Kelly, 2003's Finisterre, the Saint Etienne soundtrack works a treat. The music itself is almost an updated version of John Cameron’s aces score for Kes. Very pastural yet modern at the same time, very Saint Etienne in other words. It's all flutes and beats, the sound of the past and the present clashing with great success. They performed it live at the film's premiere at London’s Barbican Centre.

By the film's end our paperboy is down at the Thames staring across the water at that other huge London redevelopment project of the recent past - The Millennium Dome. It leaves the viewer questioning what will happen to the communities around the Lower Lea Valley in the aftermath of the Olympics? Will they be pushed further afield and not get to enjoy the rejuvenation of their own area? After all, that has been happening for donkey's years now with the gradual 'gentrification' of London. Time alone will tell. Once the lovely animated credits for What Have You Done Today Mervyn Day? start to role though you’ll find yourself wanting to go for a stroll along the waterways, or maybe pop into one of the local caffs for a mug of tea. It’s too late though since it’s all gone now. That’s why this film is so important. A total triumph.

I, Anna (2012) - Barnaby Southcombe

Great slow burning London set crime drama that for once doesn’t involve gangs of hoodies talking in a language that no English speaking person over the age of thirty can understand, nor does it involve shooters, there’s no tart with a heart, no swearing, no Danny Dyer and no silly action scenes. Instead we get that old fashioned thing of actors, for want of a better word - acting.

Charlotte Rampling is middle aged lonely heart Anna Welles and Gabriel Byrne is D.C.I. Bernie Reid investigating the murder of George Stone (played by the always value for money Ralph Brown). Anna and George meet up at a singles night and by the next morning George is dead. Bernie clocks Anna and being recently separated himself decides to try his chances with her. Throw into the mix Hayley Atwell as Anna’s daughter and Eddie Marsan as one of the flatfoots working the murder with Bernie and you have a seriously decent cast.

Written and directed by Rampling’s son Barnaby Southcombe this is a slice of modern noir set in and around London’s Barbican. The acting is top notch, not at all showy, with Rampling in particular giving a note perfect performance. At it’s heart I, Anna is a murder mystery, but an old fashioned one without the yawnable multiple twists we’ve become so accustomed too. In fact the ending feels right on the money, well earned if you like. Southcombe directs the whole thing with a keen eye but never allows his camera to take center stage, everything is geared to serving his script and allowing the cast to do their stuff.

It’s always a treat to see actresses over a certain age up on the screen in an interesting role. It seems to be that in Hollywood once the wrinkles set in then for some reason there’s no work for actresses as a leading character. It’s all mad aunts and grandma’s, which is a pretty tragic state of affairs and one that probably goes quite a way to explaining just why so many of them feel the need to have the dreaded plastic surgery. Anyway I’m drifting a little here, so to get back to the film I’d say this is a must see. Unpredictable in a way so few films are nowadays, if that sounds like your cup of tea then I'd say it's well worth taking a punt if you get the chance to.

Dead of Night (1945) - Alberto Cavalcanti, Charles Crichton, Basil Dearden & Robert Hamer

Much like Hammer, Ealing Studios have become pigeonholed for a certain type of film. With Hammer it's obviously horror, despite the fact that they knocked out a whole range of other films back in their heyday - everything from Sci-Fi to comedy and crime films. The same goes for Ealing who are well remembered for their excellent run of comedies, but less so for the hundreds of other films they produced between the early thirties and late fifties.

Dead of Night is one such film, it's a portmanteau horror effort and although it's a little creaky in places is basically a wonderful little British horror film. Directed by a motley crew of Ealing stalwarts, Basil Dearden, Charles Crichton, Alberto Cavalcanti, and Robert Hamer it cracks along at a fair old pace. As well as the linking story there are a whopping four others crammed into the 97 minute running time. Dearden directs the main story in which architect Walter Craig (an excellent nervously edgy performance by Mervyn Johns) arrives at a country cottage, only to quickly realise that the inhabitants are the people from a recurring nightmare he's been having. This revelation then encourages the assembled characters to each tell a ghostly story.

Dearden directs the first of these about a racing driver who foresees a bus crash. It's a slight but effective slice of spookiness well directed and well acted, but as is often the case with these anthology films it's almost over before it's begun. The same can be said of the first of the two segments by Cavalcanti, about a ghostly boy at a Christmas party. Far better is the last story (also directed by Cavalcanti) about a ventriloquist and his relationship with his creepy dummy. It's the best section in the whole film, largely down to the fact that it gets a decent amount of time to evolve on screen and the always great Michael Redgrave is the ventriloquist. If you've ever seen Magic then you'll know just how scary a ventriloquist's dummy can be. Not only is it the best segment, but for a modern audience it's the one that will make it hard to sleep after seeing.

The other two stories are a very short but effective effort from Robert Hamer about a freaky mirror staring the excellent Googie Withers, and a misjudged comedic effort from Charles Crichton about a couple of golfers. As a separate film this last one would have worked just fine especially since the two golfers in question are our old friends - Charters and Caldicott. Except here they are renamed (for legal reasons I imagine) Parratt and Potter. They are just as good here as they were when we first met them seven years before in The Lady Vanishes. As I say there's nothing really wrong with their story it just doesn't really fit in here due to it being first and foremost a comedy.

Overall this is a wonderful film, the sort of thing that you should return too again and again (especially during the Halloween season). It also has one of the best endings you'll find in a horror film. All the directors involved in this would go on to make great landmark films for Ealing and others. It'd be nice to see Ealing receive a little more attention for it's output outside of the 'classic comedy', and I think as long as films like this find their way back into shops they will.

Storage 24 (2012) - Johannes Roberts

We Brits have a long history with that often maligned film genre - Science Fiction. Don't laugh it's true. From the crew on the original Star Wars films (and director of Return of the Jedi), through to classics such as The Man Who Fell to Earth, Alien, Blade Runner, 2001, Brazil and Things to Come we've always had a strong pedigree for intelligent Sci-Fi. Lately we've had Danny Boyle knocking out a half decent effort with Sunshine, and Joe Cornish writing and directing one of last years best films - Attack the Block. Let's just leave Prometheus out of this for now shall we?

So it's always interesting for me when a new Brit Sci-Fi flick hits the multiplexes, and I almost always end up giving them a whirl. Storage 24 was written by and stars Noel Clarke, who let's not forget wrote the still excellent Kidulthood. A plane crashes in central London, causing half of London to be locked down (oh yes I know my military jargon). Meanwhile Charlie (Noel Clarke) and best mate Mark are on their way to the titular storage facility to pick up Charlie's possessions after his recent split with girlfriend Shelley (Antonia Campbell-Hughes). Upon arriving it turns out Shelley is also there along with two friends (Nikki and Chris). Sparks fly and conversations get heated but they all need to learn to get along since (drum roll, here comes the high concept bit), they are locked in the warehouse with… an alien. And said alien is a bit miffed.

It's a reworking (or direct steal depending on how nice you're being) of Alien. Except without the defined characters, twists, stunning cinematography, genuine hands over the face scares or any of the other things that make Alien the landmark film that it is. What they have managed to half inch is the idea of being trapped in a confined space with an extra terrestrial, and having a set that consists of lots of corridors. Corridors that you can get your cast to run up and down for most of the films duration in fact.

I wasn't impressed I have to say. The script is one of those scribbled on a fag packet jobs, it's full of holes and is also just so bloody unoriginal. The effects were nasty in the wrong way, the cast felt like they were waiting for the lunch bell and the direction was both uninspired and flat. All in all well worth giving a miss, go and see Dredd instead. You'll thank me in the long run I promise.

Kill List (2011) - Ben Wheatley

Ben Wheatley? Ben Wheatley? I recognised the name, but I couldn't place it back when everyone was arguing over whether Kill List was any good or not. So I IMDB'd him (like you do) and it turns out he'd directed the last film I ended up watching in 2011 - Down Terrace. That was on New Years Eve, right before going out for the night, and it was God awful. A real pile of rubbish. Now it's not often I think something like that about a film, since all films no matter how bad take time and a heck of a lot of effort to put together. But it has to be said Down Terrace was painfully bad.

So you can imagine how low my expectations were going in to see Kill List can't you? Let's say they were non existent, and leave it there. It turns out Kill List is the film I've watched most this year (three times so far), it's a triumph of modern film making and a truly nasty little horror flick to boot. But let's not get ahead of ourselves, first a quick plot synopsis. Gal (Michael Smiley or Tyres from Spaced to you and me) and Jay (Neil Maskell) are a couple of hit men, employed to bump off people from the titular list. Jay's a family man and his wife Shel (MyAnna Buring) sets up the hits for them. It sounds like a typical genre film that you've seen a hundred times at least, but director Wheatley manages to spin it in directions that make it feel fresh. For a start he wrong foots you by making you feel like you're watching a Mike Leigh suburban drama, the first twenty minutes of the film being set around a typical Leigh style dinner party. However once the boys get off on the road and on with the mission things start to get weird. I can't really write much about what happens other than you'll leave the film with the feeling that you need to sit down and watch the film again.

This film has really made people get hot under the collar, some dismiss it as utter rubbish (which it really isn't), while others seem to think it's the best British horror film since Christopher Lee tricked Edward Woodward into spending the night on Summerisle. Like I wrote earlier I thought this was wonderful, and when watched again it becomes apparent that Wheatley and co-writer Amy Jump (who are a real life couple) have fashioned a clever tale that on the surface can feel a little slight, but when looked at a little closer reveals hidden depths. It actually has a decent structure with elements at the start being repeated at the end of the film.

The sound design is great (although the dialogue is mixed too low), scenes that would normally feel ordinary are full of menace thanks to Jim Williams' creepy humming  soundtrack. The whole cast are so much better than you'd expect too, everyone manages to make their characters into believable living breathing people. Best of all though it has a great ending, not one that everyone will love since you'll need to go away have a pint, mull it over, have a chat with some friends about it and then watch the film again. But that's a good thing, it really is. In fact it's probably this that Kill List has going for it most, you have to put your brain in gear and do a little work. I think I've finally figured out just what the hell is going on, and that's taken three viewings.

I really can't recommend this enough, it's not for the fait hearted since it's brutal in places, but if you like a bit of mystery in your films and if you miss David Lynch then this might be the film for you. Best British horror since The Wicker Man? No, but it's up there with Eden Lake and that's praise enough I think.

The Four Feathers (1939) - Zoltan Korda

This fourth film adaptation of A.E.W. Mason's boys own style adventure novel is widely regarded as the best of the seven out there. Who am I to argue? I've never read the book, or for that matter seen any of the other versions, including yet another by Zoltan Korda (who directed this). From what I understand this version is one of the least faithful to the source material. Still I've said it before and it bears repeating, books and films operate in very different ways. A film with a book style narrative needn't work very well and vice versa.

Set back in the Victorian age when Johnny Foreigner was nothing more than someone to be killed while we picked his pocket, this is very much a tale of stiff upper lips and doing the right thing. Harry Faversham (John Clements) comes from a long line of military men, despite not having any desire to enlist, he buckles under the weight of his ancestry and his overpowering father and joins the army. On the eve of being shipped overseas to fight Fight FIGHT, and with his father now firmly six feet underground, he decides to resign from the army and start to live his own life. Three of his best friends (also military officers) send him a feather with their names attached to it (the fourth comes from his fiance). Apparently this is what was done if you felt someone was a coward back then, it's a notch up from flapping your arms about and making bad chicken noises I guess.

Anyway Harry decides that he needs to redeem himself and prove that he's a brave little soldier after all, so that he can win the dame and the film can end on a high note. So off he sets under his own steam to do just that.

At just five minutes under two hours this chugs along at a fair old pace, the screenplay is by none other than R.C. Sherriff and it's faultless. In fact the whole shebang has so much talent both behind and in front of the camera that it would be more surprising if this was trash rather than the classic that it so clearly is. As well as Zoltan, you have both his brothers;- Alexander (no mean director himself) and Vincent working as producer and designer respectively. Then there's the great Georges Périnal as the Director of Photography, and even both Jack Cardiff and Geoffrey Unsworth as uncredited camera operators.

In front of the huge Technicolor camera are such old favourites as John Laurie, C. Aubrey Smith and best of all Ralph Richardson. Richardson really steals the film especially after he goes blind half way through. He plays the whole thing with just the right shade of hopeless bravery, and will have you digging out The Fallen Idol for certain once the film has ended.

This version of The Four Feathers looks absolutely gorgeous too. Now I'm not the worlds biggest Technicolor film fan but sometimes when used on the right subject matter I think it works a treat. This is one of those occasions. The location footage is great, be it the greenery of England or the huge dry expanses of Egypt, it looks lush. It's hard to imagine just how this must have looked to those people living in black and white, when they saw this at the time down the local Roxy. It wouldn't shock me to read that David Lean had had a peek at this before setting off to film Lawrence of Arabia for instance.

In fact it's Lawrence that springs most readily to mind when watching this. After all both are well scripted epic productions that rattle by and look as good as any film could look, add to that the desert setting, camels galore and that aforementioned stiff upper lip mentality and it's not all that surprising to find out that Alexander Korda had been trying to get Lawrence of Arabia made since the mid 30's.

So all in all a great British film, but not only that but a great epic film too, one of those cast of thousands type affairs that feel as old fashioned as a VCR player does nowadays. Pretty much since Gladiator we've been duped into thinking that CGI crowds are something to look at with open mouthed joy, when in fact films like this put them to shame and show them up for what they are. I like it when you can see what a struggle it must have been to get a crane shot, some slight camera wobble or some such, whereas I hate the obligatory zooming and floating all over the shop modern style. Since the camera is in the computer so we can put it anywhere we want, right? Well would it be so bad to at least try and make it look like it was being held by a person?

Alright rant over, seriously this is a cracking film and well worthy of all the praise heaped upon it. Does make me wonder just why Zoltan Korda would reshoot it using the same script 16 years later though. Strange bloke.

The Maggie (1954) - Alexander Mackendrick

 

Some films are best viewed at certain times of the day/week/year. Michael Bay flicks for instance aren't ever going to play as well on a Sunday morning as they do on a Saturday night. The same can be said for the films that emerged from Ealing Studios back in the middle of the last century. Whenever a rainy Saturday or Sunday afternoon comes along and I find myself at home alone, it's those warm unquestionably British films that I reach for first. Especially those directed by Alexander Mackendrick such as The Maggie. Which sadly seems to be overlooked in favour of Mackendrick's big hitters for the studio - The Ladykillers, The Man in the White Suit and Whiskey Galore! Which is a shame since this is just as perfect as any of those classics.

The Maggie is an old puffer (coal fueled boat) who like it's captain Mactaggart (Alex Mackenzie), has seen better days and should probably be put out to pasture now. Brash American businessman Calvin B. Marshall (Paul Douglas) meets his match when by a typical Ealing twist of fate, The Maggie is contracted to carry his valuable load. Once the mix up is discovered Marshall is determined to have his cargo removed from The Maggie and shipped by someone more reputable. After his bowler hat wearing lacky Pusey (Hubert Gregg), tries and fails (ending up in jail for poaching in one of the films most memorable sections) to reverse the problem he has set in motion, Marshall takes matters into his own hands. This is where the real meat of the film is, since from here on in the film becomes a battle of wits between the gentle Scottishness of Mactaggart and the throw money at problems, time is money attitude of Marshall.

It's a truly perfect post war British film, and contains just about everything I love about this period in British film making. Mackendrick's eye for framing is every bit as good as Carole Reed's or Hitchcock's, his compositions are both beautiful and practical. Just look at the way Pusey is framed when the cell door is slammed shut. The locations that The Maggie and her crew bob past are those jawdroppingly epic Scottish coastal ones that I love, and Mackendrick being a Scot himself obviously feels the same way. Although he never lingers on them, they are just there in the background drifting by looking sublime. There are no David Lean style setting the scene by showing the landscape shots. The script is tight with the film itself coming in at just under 90 minutes, the comedy is gentle and easygoing. Best of all though is the cast, who are just wonderful, from the smallest rolls up to that of the two leads, everyone turns in a great performance. The Wee Boy (Tommy Kearins) has quite a bit of business, loads of lines and is an essential part of the script, and yet despite the fact that this was his first and only film, Kearins proves to be a real find, believable yet still childlike.

There is almost a sub-genre of films set in rural Scotland pitting the wiley locals against some suit from the big smoke. I'm thinking about another favourite film here Local Hero, which is the closest film to The Maggie that I can think of in both feel and subject. Both films feature the fish out of water character changing and learning that life doesn't have to travel at such a fast pace. In fact in both films that character even ends up wearing the costume of the locals. So much so that Pusey doesn't even recognise Marshall when he eventually catches up with him at the films conclusion.

Apparently Mackendrick always saw The Maggie as flawed, I only wish he could have seen it through my eyes since for me it's nothing short of a masterpiece. So if you haven't seen this, and the weather forecast is bad for the coming weekend, then you know what to do. Believe me you'll be hard pressed to spend a better 90 minutes in front of your TV.

Slade in Flame (1975) - Richard Loncraine

British music films are a funny old breed, most tending to stick to the A Hard Day's Night template of the band playing songs interspersed with a few wacky situations for 90 minutes. Sometimes there's an attempt at a story, and almost always they involve some kind of journey too. They're always quite light and fluffy, typical common denominator stuff, after all you don't want to scare the fans off. Plus the film acts as a whopping great advert for your b(r)and, so best make it as wholesome as possible. During the sixties there were some great Brit pop films such as the Cliff and The Shadows actioner Summer Holiday, and some less great ones - Magical Mystery Tour and Catch Us If You Can being about as far away from goodness as is possible.

'73's That'll Be the Day, was a huge step away the smiling happy pop moppets of the previous decade, but suffered from not having the strongest soundtrack. Slade in Flame takes the gritty realness that That'll Be the Day achieved and runs with it. The film is a fictional account of the rise and ultimate fall of Flame, who just like Slade have a brown chugging boogie vibe about them. It's the kind of film you'd expect Ken Loach to have made, if he'd been a fan of popular music. It's also the sort of thing that you wish The Beatles had done during the late sixties, but never did. Slade in Flame is set in the grim reality of mid seventies Britain, houses are being boarded up, everything feels black and white. It's actually what Glam was supposed to make you forget about, and probably why that particular period in music was so damn popular back then. Cheap and tacky, but also honest and rocking, you could dance to it and if you spent a few quid in Woolworths you could look like your idols. Well sort of.

Glam was split into two distinct groups, the arty lot - all yr Roxy Musics, Bowies and Eno's at one end of the spectrum and everyone else at the other end. Basically bands that had been trudging around the working mans club/pub circuit for donkey's years discovered that some glitter and dodgy clothes could get them noticed. So while these other groups such as Mud, The Rubettes and best of all Sweet and Slade would never instigate any great change in music, they kept the Glam flame burning long after Roxy and Bowie had moved on to pastures new. It's something that happens in popular music all the time, just a few years down the line the same thing would happen with Punk.

Anyway back to the film. Now what normally happens with films starring bands is that the musical segments are great, but the stuff that happens in between (acting etc) is usually well below par. That's where this film really triumphs, because not only does it have a great story and tight little script, but both Noddy Holder and Jim Lea are superb actors (admittedly playing versions of themselves - but what the heck). Props to director Richard Loncraine for recognising they could act and giving the bulk of the action to them. Dave Hill has a few moments but in general looks most comfortable on stage doing what he does best. As for Don Powell it looks like he's just doing his best not to look directly into the camera. Which for the most part he manages. He does have the funniest moment in the film though, when he stands up on a train and declares that he's off for a piss. Tom Conti turns up as a monied investment banker type that sees Flame as a way to diversify, and then there's Johnny Shannon playing pretty much the same character he did in Performance. The rest of the cast are made up of people that you'll remember from The Sweeney, and various other seventies Brit TV staples.

I absolutely loved this film. I've been meaning to see it for years but just never gotten around to it, but now that I have I can't think of a better film from this genre. Some parts of it do whip along just a little too fast, and there is far too much time spent on the idea of the band being manipulated by their management (which is the central theme of the film). Then before you know it it's over and some wonderful black and white Dad's Army 'You Have Been Watching' style credits appear. Which is a shame since I wanted more, but maybe more would have been worse, it's hard to say. Of course the music was spot on, How Does It Feel in particular standing out as a blinder of a song. What more could you want? Well how about Noddy Holder screaming most of his lines through the first half of the film, or the band being formed by two blokes standing at a urinal, you also get to see the biggest set of ginger sideburns ever. If only for that alone this should be seen. But really you should see this because it's an important pre-punk glimpse of England on the cusp of going to the dogs, soundtracked by some top notch stomping tunes.

The Lady Vanishes (1938) - Alfred Hitchcock

It's easy to see why this film over almost all others from Alfred the great's British years, still manages to enrapture generation after generation. It has a certain charm to it that is lacking in a lot of the fat mans other work from this era. In fact I wouldn't be sticking my neck out too far, if I said that it's by far and away the best film he made before upping sticks and moving across the Atlantic.

Set in the fictional European country of Bandrika on the eve of WWII, a rag tag bunch of Europeans are homeward bound on a train. Amongst the various types making the journey are Michael Redgrave as Gilbert, who despite looking like a typical boys own type is actually quite an odd character, a sort of proto-beatnik if you will. Then there's Margaret Lockwood as Iris, who's also nicely unique being quite firey and independent. After all she's all the way out in the heart of Europe by herself, that sort of thing never normally happens in British films from this time, young women are almost always chaperoned by someone or other. Of course these two are bound to end up together by the end of the film, it's Hitchcock after all. As per usual in films of this ilk they don't hit it off immediately, and only really start to get it on once Miss Froy (Dame May Whitty) goes missing.

The film actually kicks off with the whole cast being stranded in a hotel overnight due to heavy snow. It's an odd way to get the film rolling, and feels like an excuse for the ace writing team of Sidney Gilliat & Frank Launder, to fill some screen time with a succession of gags mainly centered around their most successful creations Charters and Caldicott. Who themselves would go on to appear in numerous films and even their own TV series, after the success of this film. However like so much else in this film, all is not what it seems. So the whimsical opening scene is actually pretty essential, since not only does it introduce us to the principal characters, but it contains information vital to understanding what transpires later in the film.

The pace of the film really picks up once the train journey begins and doesn't let up until the final beautifully framed shot. It's here that it really feels like a Hitchcock film, especially once Miss Froy goes missing. It's also at this point of the film that it becomes obvious that The Lady Vanishes isn't so much about bumbling Englishmen trying to find out the cricket result, or even old ladies disappearing, but is rather an allegory of the imminent war. People that once seemed perfectly normal and friendly, suddenly seem less so, and of course the Italian's are in league with the German's.

My favourite section of the The Lady Vanishes is towards the end of the film. One of the train cars has been uncoupled in the middle of nowhere and surrounded by the enemy. There's a shoot out, but it's not that that endears the scene to me. It's also where we find out just what the film is about, but it's not that either. It's more to do with the fact that the carriage represents Britain, which itself is of course cut off from mainland Europe. Britain would stand it's own ground against the threat from across the Channel, in much the same way that the Brits in the carriage pull together for the first time in the film (except Eric Todhunter, but I'll get to him in a minute), and stand up for what's right. As a piece of propaganda it's second to none, but the thing that makes this so good is that it's also great film making. You don't feel like you are being force fed a message like in so many other films made during the war years. Charters and Caldicott step up to the mark, as does almost everyone, except as I said Mr Todhunter (Cecil Parker), who strangely for someone who doesn't believe in violence carries a gun. Hmm.

Anyway I've rambled on plenty about this film, it's definitely essential viewing for anyone who loves Hitch, or for that matter films. Plus there is so much more to it than what I've written, a nun in heels, a wrapped up body, a wonderful scene using magicians props, lashings of romance and derring-do all filtered through the genius eye of Alfred Hitchcock. As I say essential stuff.

To the Devil a Daughter (1976) - Peter Sykes

There's only a handful of Hammer films that I could really claim as firm favourites, and even fewer that I'd say were beautiful to watch. To the Devil a Daughter manages to tick both of those boxes for me though. After all, just like The Devil Rides Out (which if push comes to shove I'd say is my favourite Hammer flick), it's Christopher Lee in an adaptation of a story by Dennis Wheatley. It's not only that though, the cast is eclectic enough to make my mouth water. There's Richard Widmark proving that even in his twilight years he had a menace about him, and could slap people about with the best of them, Nastassja Kinski making up for what she lacks in acting chops by giving mid seventies Britain some full frontal nudity and Denholm Elliott giving a wonderfully nervous performance, as Denholm at his best always did. Then there's a gaggle of smaller roles filled by such actors as Honor Blackman and Frances de la Tour all of whom have little to do, but do it well.

Plot wise, Catherine (Nastassja Kinski) has been raised as a nun since childbirth by Father Michael (Christopher Lee). However it soon becomes apparent that things aren't quite what they seem, Lee for starters has set up a church that looks Catholic to the outside world but is actually worshiping a demon called Astaroth. For some reason or other Catherine's dad (Denholm Elliott) has agreed for her to give up her body on her eighteenth birthday so that Astaroth may walk the earth. You know like you do. As the day approaches Denholm bottles it and backs out of the deal, persuading occult writer John Verney (Richard Widmark) to take care of her while he tries to sort everything out.

Most of the above makes sense as you're watching it, but after that things start to get a little odd, and to be honest I normally struggle to keep up with some of the logic in the film. Lee is great as Father Michael, leering into the camera at every opportunity, he was a big star by now and this would end up being his last Hammer role. It's funny to think that two men in their sixties can be so entertaining when pitted against each other, but Widmark and Lee battling it out for Kinski's soul are the real high points of the film.

It's almost inevitable that the The Devil Rides Out and To the Devil a Daughter will always be intertwined despite being made some eight years apart, since they share the same studio, star and source novelist. But whereas The Devil Rides Out is the better film by an absolute country mile, To the Devil a Daughter is the better looking, thanks to Sykes really being able to frame shots well whilst still telling the story. Splitting the screen into four with a crucifix for example at the start, or that gorgeous tracking shot up Christ's body in the same section. Great locations scenes too, with loads of the film being set in St Katharine Docks in London.

Something that works less well, and might have been better if Sykes had a bit more clout is the wrinkly embryo devil thing, which looks pretty naff. Watch the scenes it's in with the sound off and you'll think of The Muppets.  Now that can't be good for a horror can it? But that pales next to the biggest problem the film has, the end scene. It's all really abrupt and has the feel of studio interference all over it. Still it's not enough to ruin the film, it's not like Lee breaks out in song, although I'm sure he would have if given the chance.

The Exorcist really changed the horror landscape forever, overnight Hammer films looked incredibly passe and it became obvious that they were either going to have to up their game or become a relic of the past. To the Devil a Daughter feels to me that they did too little too late. Only one more Hammer film dribbled out of the studio after this - '79's remake of The Lady Vanishes. It flopped and the studio folded. It's a shame since if To the Devil a Daughter had been made just a few years earlier, Hammer's fortunes might have been totally different. If you're a Hammer head then you've seen this multiple times, if you're not but like your British horror then you could do far worse than seeing this.

Glastonbury Fayre (1972) - Nic Roeg & Peter Neal

I love these late 60's early 70's festival documentaries. Gimmie Shelter and Message to Love (about the 1970 Isle of Wight festival) are watched at least once a year in my house. I've always hankered after seeing Glastonbury Fayre purely because of the Roeg connection. He basically shot all the footage but then buggered off to make Don't Look Now leaving Peter Neal to put the film together.

Anyway said footage is from the second ever Glastonbury festival, the one that Pink Floyd were going to headline but never did. Instead we get a slew of 'underground' groups from the time. Most left over from the sixties, and seemingly a little rudderless. Which is why this documentary is such a great time capsule piece. Music was in a proper transitional phase back then. The sixties had fizzled out into the seventies, and with glam just around the corner, British music was in a bit of a rut. Enter David Bowie who would release Hunky Dory by the years end, and within a year would have given British music that much needed kick up the arse by transforming himself into Ziggy Stardust.

Bowie's set at Glastonbury '71 was made up of songs from Hunky Dory and a smattering of tracks from his already half decent back catalogue. Sadly for us though the people making the documentary were sound asleep when La Bowie hit the stage at dawn. Still what we do get is a great rip roaring track from Terry Reid to kick the film off. Another highlight is a fine 100 miles per hour Fairport Convention reeling, jigging, toking and generally being a fuck sight better than I would have expected they would be considering Richard Thompson had just left. What else? Well music wise there's a tough sounding Family, Roger Chapman singing like his vocals were being filtered through a sheep. Arthur Brown's band proving that they were better when Arthur wasn't onstage. The highlight though was Traffic belting their way through Gimme Some Lovin'. It reminded me Sly Stone putting everyone else to shame at Woodstock. It just sounds powerful, soulful and doesn't meander. Grinding bass, percussion all over the place, Winwood giving it his all into the obligatory gaffa taped mics, and the biggest baddest guy on congas since Big Black walked the earth. Everyone else sounds flat compared to this performance.

To be honest it's hard to see this as being by Roeg, there aren't any of the touches that we all love about him present here. But that isn't to say this isn't worth watching, because it definitely is even if it's just for the footage of Magic Michael. Don't know Magic Michael? Well imagine a seventies version of the Chemical Brothers, the blonde one whacking away with no sense of rhythm at a couple of tiny bongos held at head height. The dark haired one meanwhile is gurning and caterwauling away, pulling some truly excellent electroshock therapy faces, he's also clutching an acoustic guitar which is as close as he comes to playing it. Oh and he's bollock naked except for a grimy grey tank top. As I say Britain was waiting for Roxy, Bowie, Bolan to come along and lead people into the decade proper.

One of the best things about Glastonbury Fayre is the fact that (just like the festival itself) it doesn't focus purely on the music. There is plenty of the spiritual side of things, which could still be found even when I was going to Glastonbury in the 90's. Plus like all the best music docs from this period there is a lot of footage of the people, all 7,000 of them. Oh and Glastonbury back then was free. How hippy a concept is that, eh? Most of the crowd look at best like Mike Oldfield or at worst a Ginger Baker/Van Morrison hybrid (and yes that's the ladies too), but at least the barrier between audience and performer was almost invisible. Something that Punk would later claim to have torn down. It was never really there at Michael Eavis' farm back in the day. Everyone looks like they live in a commune, and it becomes apparent that decent hair products hadn't reached the early seventies British underground. I did find myself wondering if everyone went back to the daily grind after this or if they really did live the life.

Of course it wouldn't be a festival without two things;- naked types and mud. There are plenty of naked people, and they roll in mud, but they also do really bad interpretive dancing, ride motorbikes and paint their sagging dirty pillows really poorly. The weird thing is they just blend into the crowd. I remember one afternoon at some Glastonbury I was at being passed by a guy who was naked except for a bum bag, with the bag bit actually worn at the back. Real horror show like. I would never have been able to stomach Glasters back in the 70's. I could only just manage the few I did attend. Anyway to sum all this up, if you haven't seen this then do, it's a scream, it even has a guy doing stage announcements with a live chicken sitting on his shoulder. What more could you ask for?

Proud to Be British (1973) - Nick Broomfield

So so documentary from everyone's favourite Marmite documentarian. The actual on screen title is 'England and Class', but I guess somewhere along the line that got changed to Proud to Be British. This was Broomfield's first synched sound effort, and since Broomfield hadn't hooked up with long time collaborator Joan Churchill yet, he handles camera duties himself rather than his usual soundman role. To be honest his camera work is quite lifeless, he even throws in some odd high angle shots at one point which feel totally wrong.

Anyway the film takes place in and around Beaconsfield in Buckinghamshire, England. Here we meet a working class family, the local lord of the manor, the Conservative member of parliament and the local vicar. Basically they all wax lyrical about the problems that Britain is going through, placing the blame squarely at the feet of the immigrant population. It's this stuff that was most interesting in a time capsule way. The local Tory thought the British marching around the globe and making countries part of the Commonwealth a wonderful idea, and was of the opinion that those same countries lamented the day we left them (with pockets weighed down with loot). However the very idea of those 'darkies' coming over to our country appalled him, despite the fact that they're part of his beloved Commonwealth. Silly man.

So there's plenty of the old 'I'm not a racist, but…', and 'I can't be racist since I've worked with colourds', type of nonsense. At one point one person even accuses those foreign types of not wanting to mix with us 'sticking to their own, and forming ghettos which we then get blamed for'. Great stuff, absolute gold. The problem is that Broomfield was too young and inexperienced (he was still at film school) to make the best of use of such material. Then there are other little things such as the footage from a scout troop and a local girls school. It feels like Broomfield is trying to shoehorn in too many things into too short a running time. But as I say the guy was still at school, so it's all forgivable.

So to sum up I'd say that this is worth seeing if you've been through the rest of Broomfield's oeuvre, otherwise it's probably not engaging enough for the casual punter. I'll leave you with my favourite quote from the film, it came from some bloke on horseback out fox hunting - 'we have the wrong type of immigrants here, the unintelligent ones'. What a cock.