And honourable mention goes to...

At this point in the New Year, a chance to mention some of those that I could have included in this list of 100 favourites, and therefore deserve some sort of recognition all their own:

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The Accused (1988)

The first "adult" (ie. "18" certificate) film that I saw in the cinema, classified so because of the harrowing matter-of-fact rape scene at the end. As a legal thriller the plot's pretty one-dimensional, the real intention being to make a powerful statement about general attitudes towards rape victims. It also introduced me for the first time to the re-emerging talent of Jodie Foster, shedding her "child star" image to become one of America's best actresses.

The African Queen (1951)

I'm slightly amazed I haven't included this in my original 100 list. Bogart and Hepburn made for unlikely screen chemistry but were a perfect example of opposites attracting beautifully. The moment when Bogart's Canadian (changed from Cockney) boatman realises Ms. Hepburn's Rosie is still alive - and incriminates himself in the process - is one of the most joyously affecting moments in cinema. And all this in torrid conditions when director John Huston (who's also on top form) was more interested in shooting elephants than movies (as the film White Hunter Black Heart suggests.)

The Age of Innocence (1993)

Martin Scorsese's subtlest film, still rich in texture and with a great cast (many of them Brits) headed by Daniel Day-Lewis (now a Scorsese favourite), Michelle Pfeiffer and Winona Ryder.

A.I. (2001)
Steven Spielberg's requiem to Stanley Kubrick is one of the strangest versions of Pinocchio you're ever likely to see, but its timing (not long after September 11th) was eerie, and I felt very haunted about the fragile state of human existence when I walked out of the cinema that afternoon.

Alien (1979)
Can't say I really liked this film at first - Ridley Scott is just too manipulative both of his audience and his actors - but watching the non-director's approved "Special Edition" in 2003 was an eye-opener, restoring the missing scene with the ill-fated Captain Dallas (Tom Skerritt) giving the character a much more satisfying "closure" and for me, elevating the film towards the level of a classic which it is generally regarded.

American Graffiti (1973)
Some would say this is George Lucas's best film: certainly his warmest and most nostalgic, with some of his best ensemble cast performances, from the likes of Ron Howard, Richard Dreyfuss, Charles Martin Smith (a dead ringer for the young Lucas), and Harrison Ford - whatever became of him?

An American Werewolf in London (1981)

I sometimes wish there were more directors like John Landis who would come over here and make stirring pastiche comedy horror films, when we British are just a little too austere or too hard-edged for that.

The Angry Silence (1960)

Filmed partly in Ipswich (at the Ransomes tractor factory), and I remember seeing it at the Ipswich Film Theatre because of the local connection. A little dated perhaps (a more po-faced version of I'm All Right Jack), but its potency for the time still comes across. Richard Attenborough follows a familiar personal theme of his - social injustice - as the worker who is ostracised by his workmates (and worse) for walking through the picket lines for the sake of his young family.

Apocalypse Now (1979)
"The best ever film about Vietnam", shot shortly after the end of the conflict itself, is too expensive, too noisy and makes little sense - much like the war itself, some thought. However, nothing that Francis Ford Coppola does is ever dull (or wasn't up till then), and among the film's supporting players - in perhaps his last "obscure" role - was Harrison Ford (as "Colonel Lucas") just after he had finished making a film called Star Wars. I had the good fortune to see the "Redux" version of this film at the Empire Leicester Square, cementing its place as a near-favourite.

Arachnophobia (1990)
Jaws for arachnophobes; one of the best monster movies of recent times, playing on people's widespread fear of spiders, without overly manipulating the audience or turning too nasty. My Mum watched five minutes of this on video, until the scene where a spider leapt straight on the camera lens, and she was gone: a true test of a scary, but fun, film.

Awakenings (1990)

Robin Williams and Robert De Niro give powerful performances as doctor and unconscious patient respectively, in a story based closely on fact. De Niro as always is excellent (the first time I'd seen him in a film that was less than a '15' certificate), but the real revelation is Williams as the doctor (based on Oliver Sacks), completely shedding his funnyman trademark, and playing a genuinely warm, vulnerable, sympathetic human being. The ending is also refreshingly unsentimental.

Babes in Toyland (1934)

One of my favourite Laurel & Hardy features, although not necessarily one of their best comedies. Here they are the heroes (comedic ones of course) "Stannie Dum" and "Ollie Dee", at the house of the Old Lady Who Lived In The Shoe, helping Bo Peep and Tom-Tom the Piper's Son to overcome the evil Barnaby (an excellent sinister performance by William Brandon), in what was perhaps the only "crossover" L&H film where they dabbled into the fantasy genre. Three versions of this operetta have been made, but this one is the best.

Back to the Future (1985)

The appeal of this time travel comedy came to me late, in the 1990s (after the success of Who Framed Roger Rabbit), so I went Back to the Past to see it in Rep at the Ipswich Film Theatre. Not only is it a nostalgic evocation of the 1950s and a lively comedy fantasy, but also demonstrates how older people are never quite what you thought they were when young.

Battle of Britain (1969)

This would have been one of my top 100 favourites, but the battle scenes in the air are just too confusing (how does Michael Caine die exactly?), and the film also feels rather 1960's instead of 1940's. Laurence Olivier however gives my personal favourite performance of his, as Air Chief Vice Marshal Dowding (the first real-life character Olivier played that was still alive at the time), and the stirring music was composed by William Walton - controversially replaced by Ron Goodwin. The DVD has both scored versions of the film.

Before Sunrise (1995)

Ethan Hawke meets Julie Delpy on a train travelling through Europe, they chat amiably and decide to walk around Vienna together; that's the plot in effect, refreshingly free of "drama" or any sensationalist aspects, and rekindling the notion of romance in a very real, engaging way. I defy anyone not to relate to such a situation in real life. Together with its sequel BEFORE SUNSET (2004) where the two characters meet up again in Paris, this duo are a couple of minor classics.

Ben-Hur (1925)

The original and best version - chariot race included - of Edgar Wallace's yarn about a rich Jew who is affected by the life of Jesus - amply demonstrating why biblical epics were so much better in the silent days. I saw this version the first time at the Royal Festival Hall, with Carl Davis live on stage conducting his own stirring score with the London Philarmonic Orchestra.

Big (1988)

Tom Hanks' best performance - relatively early in his career - capturing expertly the personality of a 12-year old in an adult body. There were several Hollywood "body-swap" films at the time for some reason, but this one is by far the best, thanks to a decent script and Penny Marshall's sympathetic direction.

The Big Country (1958)
The distinctive opening music by Jerome Moss instantly conveys the atmosphere of the Wild West, and the story's a gripping mixture of Shakespearian feudal tragedy and Cold War allegory, as Gregory Peck inherits an ongoing conflict between the upstanding Tyrrells and the gruff, bullish Hennesseys (Burl Ives is on great form as their boss.)

The Big Red One (1980)

My favourite of Mark Hamill's films outside of the Star Wars saga, as a rookie member of Lee Marvin's platoon in the US Army 1st Infantry (hence the title), who discovers on the field of battle that he cannot bring himself to kill another man (and who hasn't wondered about that?) until however, he visits his first Concentration Camp, and decides to shoot a German soldier using all his bullets. Samuel Fuller tells the (autobiographical) story of war in a no-nonsense, truthful fashion, as neither the glamorous or horror-filled environment it is often perceived to be.

Blade Runner (1982)

Ridley Scott's cult sci-fi is a triumph of design over story - not much of which makes any sense: Harrison Ford's Marlowe-ish cop Frank Deckard hunts down robot "replicants", whilst Rutger Hauer as their leader decides to hunt Deckard down too. The 1991 "Director's Cut" vastly improved on the original's happy ending (lampooned in Brazil), but I confess I still miss the much derided narration.

The Blue Lamp (1950)

Ealing's classic crime drama. The word "bastard" was used in a British film for the first time because it was describing a man who had shot PC George Dixon (Jack Warner) who became a jovial enough figure to be revived for the long-running TV series Dixon of Dock Green. I sometimes wish that Britain could make more films like this - gritty crime dramas with a careful moral compass. Then again, I wish Britain would make more films. Period.

The Blues Brothers (1980)
Loud, noisy and action-packed - like some of the numbers (with several notable guest appearances by Ray Charles, James Brown, John Lee Hooker, Aretha Franklin, etc.) - this was perhaps the dying gasp of the Hollywood film musical, in very modern clothes. By the time I came to it (decades after first release) it was already a cult item, and a frequent slot at 11pm on Saturday nights. John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd had echoes of Laurel & Hardy or Abbott & Costello about them (although both those comedy pairings were better), and their onetime soulmate Carrie Fisher was at her feistiest (outside of Princess Leia) as a vengeful beautician at the "Curl Up and Dye" Salon.

Chicago (2002)
Rob Marshall's musical high heels and lethal ladies extravaganza, quite faithfully adapted to the screen and heavy with influences of Bob Fosse and Cabaret, which I found nostalgic. It brought Catherine Zeta-Jones her first Oscar, and helped me through a slightly difficult time at the beginning of 2003 with its cheerful cynicism and flambuoyant style. Also the first film I saw at the new Odeon Colchester multiplex.

Citizen Kane (1941)
Every critic features this on a 100 Best list, so I suppose I have to as well. It’s more a film that I admire and respect than adore, however. Orson Welles’s cinematic tricks are wonderfully inventive (thanks also to Gregg Toland’s superb photography), but tricks just the same, more than plot, and Welles himself enjoys being the centre of attention just a little too much. That twist ending is great, but even that was out of compromise between Welles and fellow writer Herman Mankiewicz.

Dad's Army (1971)
The feature film of the classic TV series followed a fashion for rushing out variably amusing spin-offs of hit comedy shows in the 1970's, and was admittedly a little overstretched in its thin plot (the first third was merely recycling the first TV episode), but the regulars were all present and correct and on good comic form. I've since visited some of the locations used for this film, including the lovely village of Chalfont St. Giles, the Dover Cliffs, and Littleton Church - just outside Shepperton Studios (see pictures).




















The Devil Rides Out (1967)
Christopher Lee's favourite Hammer film, cast against type as the dynamic hero battling Satanists, which makes his presence all the more effective with the horror confronted, epitomised by Charles Gray as the smoothly ruthless Mocata. The cast in Terence Fisher's commendably straight-faced drama also included Paul Edington and Sarah Lawson.

Digby the Biggest Dog in the World (1973)
One that I first enjoyed on children's TV in the 1970's, then happened to see at the Ipswich Film theatre years later, its humour and its quaintness undiminished.

Empire of the Sun (1987)
Time has withered my impression of this Spielberg epic, especially in the light of his subsequent masterwork Schindler's List, but this is still a sumptuous work, a little languid in parts, with the drawn out scenes in an internment camp reminiscent of an episode of Tenko, but the young Christian Bale is excellent as the boy who treats the war as one big adventure - at first - and Spielberg and J.G. Ballard seem as one in terms of the film's imagination.

E.T. The Extra Terrestrial (1982)
Apathy and partial jealousy prevented me from seeing this film on its first release. As the Empire Strikes Back blog will explan, I'd turned away from the cinema, and the notion that this was an even bigger film than Star Wars also prompted a certain amount of antipathy. Curiosity and the skill of Steven Spielberg's direction won me over in time however (the video release didn't come along until as late as 1987.) Despite a certain amount of cloying sentiment and parts of the film that lag, it is by and large a classic of entertainment, and so simple yet so grand in its concept. I finally got round to seeing E.T. in the cinema in 2002 - a partially revamped "Special Edition" which thankfully didn't change too much, and helped blow away the blues of the Queen Mother's death at the time.

Eroica (2003)
It doesn't seem to me that there's been a really good film about my favourite classical composer, Ludwig Van Beethoven: Immortal Beloved had a stab at it, but dwelt on speculation and the women in Beethoven's life, although Gary Oldman gave a good account of himself. But this BBC film is perhaps the closest it has come so far to a decent biopic. The real star is the 3rd ("Eroica") Symphony itself, played in its entirety throughout the film.

Etre et Avoir (2002)
A beautiful French documentary about a small country pre school, all about the joys of early learning and the first building blocks of life. One typically charming moment is where a pet tortoise crawls slowly through the classroom while the snow rages outside. I can see why teacher friends took up the profession after seeing this film.

Evita (1996)
After 20 years waiting for a film adaptation of Tim Rice and Andrew Lord Webber's hit stage musical, Alan Parker did a more than creditable job, and even more surprisingly he etched out a suitably spirited star performance from Madonna, in perhaps her one and only film to effectively unite her talents as both actress and singer. This was also the most recent case of a full blown cinematic opera, and the wall-to-wall music (in Dolby Digital sound) made for a full-blown cinematic experience - together with a trailer for the 1997 Star Wars Special Editions, it's one I remember vividly.

Falling Down (1992)

I'd often wondered what it would be like to do a film about an ordinary everyday man taking his own personal revenge on the world around him (especially during the 1980's.) Michael Douglas's "D-Fens" wasn't quite that "ordinary", as plot details later reveal him to be psychologically disturbed as well as unemployed, but it was a compelling performance in a wry black comedy action drama, where he rampages across urban LA pursued by Robert Duvall's retiring detective (on his last day of course). "I'm the bad guy?", Douglas ironically asks as he and Duvall showdown at the end. I borrowed some of Douglas's look for a similar character I played in a stage play, Nasty Neighbours in 1995.

Flash Gordon (1980)
This is a cult favourite, and although hardly in the same league as Star Wars (George Lucas himself tried and failed to secure the rights to Flash Gordon years before), it has many exuberant elements such as Max Von Sydow's majestically evil Ming the Merciless, a young Timothy Dalton as dashing Prince Barin, the stunning Ornella Muti as Ming's daughter, and a sountrack by Queen. Brian Blessed thinks it's the greatest film ever made (so a friend tells me), and you can't can blame him, as he gives such a hearty performance as Vultan. Director Mike Hodges was brought into this typically overblown Dino de Laurentiis production of a comic strip - and that's exactly how he chose to make it.

From Beyond the Grave (1973)

One of my favoruite Peter Cushing films, even though he's mainly a linking device as a sleazy antiques dealer to a series of dubious customers who await grizzly ends to their ill-gotten gains, in what I think is the best of Amicus's horror compilations. Among the stories were David Warner and Ian Ogilvy compelled to commit murder by ghosts hidden within the antiques, Ian Carmichael and Margaret Leighton hamming it up in the comedy segment, and both Donald Pleasence and his daughter Angela in a macabre little tale of murder with Ian Bannen and Diana Dors.

Galaxy Quest (1999)
A wonderful fusion of spoof and homage to Star Trek, as Tim Allen, Sigourney Weaver and Alan Rickman play former TV sci-fi actors now reduced to doing the convention circuit, until they are hurled into a real life Galaxy Quest and have to call upon the strengths of the characters they played. Anyone who's been to a few sci-fi conventions or sat through a few episodes of Star Trek will recognise the jokes.

Gallipoli (1981)

The first video rental I saw (courtesy of my Dad) in the mid-80's was this rambling but powerful - if anti-British - war drama about two friends cajoling each other into joining up to fight the Turks at Gallipoli in World War I. The final image of youth lost on the battlefield (to the music of Albinoni's Adagio) is as heart-rending as they come.

Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990)

The first Gremlins had something of a 1980's feel to it, with some of Spielberg's sentiment tinged with darkness and Joe Dante's enthusiasm for horror pastiche: the sequel choose not to top it, but instead piled on a whole series of in-jokes and a typically surreal moment when the Gremlins get into the projection room (or the video machine, depending on your viewing media), done in a general healthy atmosphere of 1990's niceness. Composer Jerry Goldsmith even puts in an appearance, and the credits are presided over by Bugs Bunny, Porky Pig and (mostly) Daffy Duck!

Hannah and Her Sisters (1986)
The first Woody Allen film that I got round to seeing, and it's a clever mixture of wit and pathos (although Crimes and Misdemeanours was even cleverer.) The cast included Carrie Fisher, Barbara Hershey, Diane Wiest, Max Von Sydow, and of course, Mia Farrow, and Allen himself, who's on great form, and also as director selects some great music (mostly jazz). Need I say more? It also showed me for the first time that Michael Caine can really act when the right script comes along. The scene where he tells Hershey he loves her, and senses an element of reciprocation, is easily identifiable.

Howards End (1991)

The best, certainly my favourite of all the Mercant-Ivory period pieces from the 80s/90s which, regardless of their artistic merit or lack of contemporary resonance, always had the indellible stamp of quality. The ever reliable Helena Bonham Carter played a feisty English rose, and the film did wonders for the career of Emma Thompson, whilst I strongly related to the character of Leonard Bast (Samuel West), and E.M.Forster's novel did have something to say about the class system which still strikes home with society today.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1955)

The original and best version of Jack Finney's Body Snatchers short story, with Kevin McCarthy conveying a gripping portrait of gradually mounting terror as he sees all that he knows around him transformed into cold-hearted strangers inhabited by aliens. Director Don Siegel creates the maximum amount of horror and suspense with the least amount of gore or special effects. A "happy" ending of sorts was added by the studio but frowned upon by most fans, although poor Kevin surely deserved some sort of recompense after all his rushing around; come the 1978 remake, he was still warning the citizens of San Francisco of the oncoming danger.

The Manchurian Candidate (1962)
This is one of the most terrifying films ever made. Though the plot is crazy, it's too scary not to believe it couldn't happen - especially with all that we now know about Communist infiltration and attempts at brainwashing during the Cold War. Frank Sinatra is the traumatized Korean War veteran who can't understand why he so idolizes fellow veteran Laurence Harvey - a war "hero" who is prepared to kill indiscrimately at the merest gentle request from the true villain of the piece, Angela Lansbury. Jonathan Demme directed a variable remake updating the story for the Iraq War, but there's no way he could have topped the sinister atmosphere John Frankenheimer created for the original.

Mars Attacks! (1996)

Released coincidentally (and unfortunately) the same year as Independence Day, which celebrated the American Way, whereas this Martian invasion trashes it. The fact that the film flopped is testament to the fact that an all-star cast and an overconfident prodcution team are no guarantee of box office success, although Tim Burton clearly was having a ball, as too were Jack Nicholson (in 2 roles a la Peter Sellers in Dr. Strangelove), Glenn Close, Pierce Brosnan, Martin Short, and others (even Tom Jones). Natalie Portman as the President's daughter is left behind at the end of the devastation to reward Lukas Haas as the gawky hero who has discovered the secret weapon (and it's a hoot) to destroy the Martians - much more fun than the resolution to Independence Day. At the time I first saw it, I felt this was going to become a cult classic.

One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961)

Back in the 1970s like most kids I was brought up in the cinema on a regular diet of Disney films, most of which were the classics from the 1940s. This one resembled a 1940s classic too, except that to my later surprise, I found that it was a much more recent entry in the Disney canon. The moment when a crook accidentally grabs hold of a cat's neck instead of a wine bottle delighted me at the time, I remember. I also secretly enjoyed Stephen Herek's live action remake (he of Bill & Ted fame) in 1996 with Glenn Close, Jeff Daniels and Joely Richardson, with Hugh Laurie and Simon Williams as Laurel & Hardy-style crooks.

The Phantom of the Opera (1925)

The great Lon Chaney in probably the most famous of all his many cinematic rogues, and the best (Andrew Lloyd withstanding) of all the adaptations of Gaston Leroux's novel. The scene where the Phantom's hideous face under the mask is revealed still packs a hell of a punch. Imagine how it felt for audiences in 1925.

Poltergeist 3 (1988)

No great classic in its own right, I freely admit - following the law of diminishing returns as sequels go - with only Heather O'Rourke reprised from the original family of Poltergeists 1 and 2. But this was the first horror fim I saw in the cinema. On a wet afternoon in the Odeon Colchester, it had me hiding behind my seat with terror on many occasions. The scariest (and saddest) thing about was the end credit: a tribute to Heather O'Rourke, who died after the making of the film, at the age of only 13.

The Road to Perdition (2002)

This was the last film I saw at the old Odeon Colchester, and it has a suitable feeling of pathos about it. Sam Mendes is a good theatre director, who I find as a film-maker is overrated. Certainly American Beauty was, but here his poetic touches add something to this gangster saga approaching Greek tragedy, as Tom Hanks plays the hitman who grimly has to take vengeance on his father figure of a boss (Paul Newman) because his real son (the psychopathic Daniel Craig) has murdered Hanks' family. Newman and Hanks are moving and powerful, and even the OTT presence of Jude Law can't spoil this from being a classic.

Seven Days to Noon (1950)

I remember first seeing this on the telly one random Thursday afternoon, like the average British film you'd see every now and then, only this one drew you in more and more. Part of its effect is how someone as humble looking as Barry Jones could set the whole of London on Red Alert, as he threatens to blow up the capital with an atomic device if the arms race is not stopped. The Boulting Brothers crank up the tension and also provide many moments of ensemble character light relief.

2046 (2004)
A futuristic paean to nostalgia and lost memories by Wong Kar Wai (his first American road movie My Blueberry Nights was a less successful but nonetheless interesting variation on the subject.) The title refers to the year when Hong Kong will complete its transfer from the UK over to China, so it's a suitably melancholic time to reflect on past and future. The Sars virus broke out in Hong Kong at the time, abandoning the original production, so Wai rejigged it into a sequel to his previous film In the Mood for Love, with Tony Leung as a womanising but reclusive writer who pens his futuristic 2046 novel. A film better for general atmosphere than overall content, and it also has a great soundtrack CD that I often play.

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.....and I'll think I'll have to stop there, as there's still another 50 near-favourites that I still haven't yet mentioned, and believe me, there are probably another 100 out there that I could have further enthused about, that I may well have missed out!

Oliver Twist (1948)

With David Lean's centenary still upon us, and at this chilly season seems an apt time to reflect upon one of his darkest and most memorable films. As a benchmark of Lean’s career Lawrence of Arabia was probably the pinnacle of his success, but for many, his adaptations of Dickens were in another class altogether, and for me, his Oliver Twist is the most striking and enthralling of all his adaptations.

Like most of my generation, I have to confess that my first awareness of the Charles Dickens novel was through the film musical Oliver!, made in 1968 by another noted British film director, Carol Reed. Many would take this version to be the basic definitive telling of the story, yet many amendments were made to the original novel, and those scenes that were cut down or re-emphasised were not actually adapting the Dickens novel - but the Stanley Haynes and David Lean film script of 1948. Such is its impact.

David Lean with Josephine Stuart at Pinewood Studios

Where the musical mentions certain notable events of the book in passing (and then gets on with the songs), the 1948 film emblazons them in bold, dramatic style. Not least is the atmospheric opening, purely and perfectly visual, charting Oliver's birth, as a storm swells up reflecting the pains of his mother (Josephine Stuart) who struggles to the workhouse. An effect of tree branches (similar in some ways to the opening of Great Expectations) turn to spiky thorns as she struggles from the pain of labour. The weather (and her condition) deteriorates, but she fights on through to the workhouse, where the baby is born - just as the storm clears - and has just enough strength to hold the child in her hands and kiss it, before she dies. Back in the days when I was writing my own Star Wars prequel trilogy, this was how I envisioned the dramatic build-up to the birth of Luke Skywalker.

As the mother dies, a greedy nursemaid at the workhouse happens to notice a little golden medallion worn by the dead girl, and pilfers it (a plot detail that will have crucial influence later on) whilst the baby himself is taken into the custody of the workhouse. Here Lean lapses into a rare instance of using written words on the screen, instead of his largely visual style:

"Oliver Twist cried lustily. If he had known that he was to grow up in under the tender mercies of the Beadle and the Matron, he would have cried even louder.”

The name Oliver Twist, we learn, was coined by the workhouse Beadle, Mr. Bumble (brilliantly played by Francis L. Sullivan as a sort of masculine Edith Evans), who pays a house call on the Matron (also forcefully played by Mary Clare). Shortly thereafter, we see the boy himself, now eight years older, with that famous, oddly beautiful countenance that seems out of place in such a horrid setting, just as Dickens intended.

Oliver is played by future TV comedy producer and all-round supremo John Howard Davies, and though there’s little sign of his future career to come, he perfectly suits the role, and clearly seems mature enough for one so young to handle material so demanding. That, and of course, he had a brilliant director to see him through the role.

Indeed, it is unfair to single out any individual character in a film like this, when practically all the performances etch them out so well and so distinctively: much later into the film comes Henry Stephenson as kindly old man Mr. Brownlow, played with a genuine air of grandfatherly benevolence and dignity by veteran Hollywood Brit Henry Stephenson. His mood of despondency when Oliver disappears during a chess game, I find incredibly moving. Elsewhere in the far from distant background can be see the likes of Hattie Jacques (as a Cockney tavern singer) and a young Diana Dors as Charlotte, maid and girlfriend of slimy Noah Claypole (Michael Dear), at the house of creepy undertaker Mr. Sowerberry, (amusingly played by Gibb McLaughlin) and Mrs. Sowerberry (played by the great Kathleen Harrison.)

And then of course, once Oliver escapes the Sowerberrys to London, there come the most memorable characters of the lot: the Artful Dodger (a brilliant young performance from the emerging Anthony Newley) who befriends the starving Oliver, but what he leads him into is something else indeed: a nest of a gang of child pickpockets, led by their Jewish mastermind, Fagin (Alec Guinness).

There were objections at the time (across the Atlantic in America at least) that the portrayal of Fagin - only 3 years after the end of World War II and all the horrors of the Nazi regime – was grossly anti-Semitic, when in truth all that Guinness, Lean, Stanley Haynes and make-up maestro Stuart Freeborn were doing were faithfully translating the character as written by Charles Dickens in the 19^th century. Freeborn’s make-up design (based upon the novel’s original illustrations by George Cruikshank) had all the stereotypes, but was nonetheless a vividly drawn character. I don’t believe Alec Guinness has ever bettered this portrayal for sheer total transformation into the character. Just think - from young Herbert Pocket in Great Expectations, just two years before, to old Fagin in Oliver Twist.

Some scenes that were censored from the American release of the film - where Fagin revels in his riches and also briefly encourages Oliver to become a pickpocket - were actually rather more endearing than anti-Semitic, and their omission only served to make Fagin appear like a monster. The enjoyable performance by Ron Moody in Oliver! compromised Fagin by trying to redeem him, whereas the portrayal in the David Lean film was totally true to the character as written, and was, as with many subsequent performances by Alec Guinness, the definitive article.

As if Fagin wasn’t imposing enough, in comes the terrifying figure of Bill Sikes, electrifyingly played by Robert Newton with demonic drunken torment. The drink element was not entirely fictional on Newton’s part: a heavy alcoholic, he could be inclined to ham on many occasions (and was a brilliant Long John Silver in later years), but his Sikes was an extremely focused and powerful performance, and it was thanks to David Lean’s skill that he was able to control his acting, and (where possible) his alcoholism.

Sikes’s “squeeze”, Nancy (given no surname but presumed wife/lover) is, often I find, a character slightly out of sync with the rest of the set-up, just a little too inherently good to really fit in with these extremely unpleasant men. Kay Walsh, who plays Nancy in spirited fashion, was in fact the instigator of the project. She was then married to David Lean – the opening scene was her conception – and what is clearly established in this version (and the other ones subsequently), is the semi-maternal attitude that Nancy adopts towards Oliver, that ultimately leads to her downfall.

There were many other characters and scenes in the book of course, and Dickens fans may lament the absence of Harry Maylie, Rose Maylie, and the wider significance of Noah Claypole's relationship to Oliver. But David Lean was making a film, not a book, retaining the book’s most memorable scenes, and where the characters and lines were omitted, Lean compensated with his own rich, visually Dickensian language, together with the help of Guy Green's striking Expressionistic black-and-white photography, a marvellous score by Arnold Bax, and John Bryan's brilliantly clever sets, making maximum use of limited space with seamless integration of matte paintings.

The memorable finale, where the mob pursues the murderous Sikes, who has also abducted Oliver (nowhere near this spot in the original novel), but is strangled by his own rope in his attempts to escape, is suitably rousing. The final moment, as Oliver is reunited with old Brownlow and his housekeeper Mrs. Bedwin (a lovely cameo by Amy Veness) captures all the excitement and satisfaction of Dickens, especially after all that has gone before.

Oliver Twist has not dated: this version is still as vivid and exciting as it was 60 years ago. This was David Lean at his most unstoppable. It was no wonder that within ten years he was on his way to even bigger films.

The original costume for Fagin (Alec Guinness) at the BFI South Bank's David Lean exhibition.








Criterion Contraption review blog

JFK (1991)

Most people who lived through it can remember exactly where they were and what they were doing on 22nd November 1963 when they first heard the news that President Kennedy had been assassinated. For my mother, it was at "The Eight Bells" in Putney where the news was revealed on a television set inside the pub. My father was a conductor on the buses when he overheard the news. It is a moment as pivotal in history as 11th September 2001 was for a later generation when the World Trade Centre was destroyed.

Oliver Stone was a budding stockbroker (chronicled in his semi-autobiographical Wall Street) at the time of 22nd November 1963, but he like everyone else, especially in America, felt the depth of anguish and heartbreak at the loss of arguably their greatest President. It is this passion which fuels his brilliant assassination conspiracy drama JFK, highly speculative for the most part, but all based on factual incidents witnessed by a variety of sources.

The one undeniable incident of the whole sad story is of course the assassination itself, on Dealey Plaza in Texas, which, the media were quick to tell the public at the time, was committed by Lee Harvey Oswald. The subsequent assassination of Oswald himself, by Jack Ruby, left a whole load of questions unanswered before anyone even thought to ask them - and set in motion over 40 years of conspiracy speculation - about Oswald's part in the overall plot to kill Kennedy, which surely could not have been his alone, especially as the results were so fatally successful.

Oswald, as played uncannily by Gary Oldman, is depicted as an occasionally aggressive but largely bewildered "patsy", and is just one of many star names whose appearance in the film is of secondary importance to that of the subject itself: there is the chief suspect put on trial by Jim Garrison, Clay Shaw (Tommy Lee Jones), in addition to other dubious witnesses such as David Ferrie (Joe Pesci), Willie O'Keefe (Kevin Bacon), shady lawyer Dean Andrews (an unusually edgy John Candy), and notably a mysterious Washington insider named "X" (aka. Colonel L. Fletcher Prouty) played with dignified relish by Donald Sutherland. Even veterans like Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon (in separate scenes) and Ed Asner have cameos, giving the film an added respectability from the supposedly stubborn older generation. All of these actors deliver characteristic, ready-to-order performances which are woven brilliantly by Stone into the narrative of history.

Indeed, the secret of the film's (artistic) success is the brilliant intercutting and cross-flowing narrative of the editing of real/fake and colour/black-and-white footage, by Joe Hutshing and Pietro Scalia, which makes a 3 hour+ film incredibly gripping - and led in some ways to something of a Hollywood trend for long films not to have (or in in this case not need) an intermission. Be it not forgotten also, the rhythm of the film is orchestrated by an impassioned and typically fine score by the ever adaptable John Williams.


The only fundamental criticism I would have is that the film whitewashes John F. Kennedy, but the story is not really about him anyway. Kennedy was a great enough man for his flaws to be well charted as well as his triumphs. It perhaps also paints too clean-cut and heroic a picture of Jim Garrison, as played by the handsome looking Kevin Costner (if you want to know what the real Jim Garrison looked like, he actually appears in the film - as Earl Warren, the very man who headed the report which Garrison sought to debunk.) Despite this, Costner invests a great deal of energy and unassuming integrity to his part, feeling the same sense of outrage and yearning for the truth as his director.

The tone of the film is investigative and interrogative, rather than outright statement of history, as some detractors of the film have been misled to believe. Its opinions are forthright and controversial - but opinions just the same. Certainly the way Stone manipulates certain elements such as the Zapruder footage, combined with his own reconstruction of the event, are seamlessly crafted, and he is generally given more credit as a film maker than as a conspiracy theorist. In both aspects he is very forceful.

Stone never says that Oswald didn't pull the trigger: what he maintains throughout the film is a view of impassioned cinematic detective work.

He throws the many varied and wild conspiracy theories about the assassination (including the official one) into the air like tennis balls, to see where they land and how they stand up. Ultimately all he is doing is asking questions, not coming to any firm conclusions himself; all bar one: that the truth has to be told to the American public. You could argue that his wild assertions are just a lot of muck-raking because he has no concrete evidence of his own. On the other hand, there are so many cases in history (such as the Titanic disaster) where all that is definitely known is what individual witnesses have experienced, so their views have to be respected and taken as (possible) truth.

Nothing since has proven that Stone's assertions of a conspiracy were unfounded - although plenty of fellow historians have been quick to chastise his version of events, as indeed they were towards Jim Garrison. When I first saw the film back in January of 1992, I came out of the Odeon Colchester impassioned, exhilarated and highly discussant of the film's many arguments, which is just what Stone wanted his audience to feel. It was certainly the most arresting of an otherwise fairly conservative crop of films around at the time.

Oliver Stone has since taken on the mantle of charting modern American history, his way, (although rather less successfully ancient history in Alexander) with two notable screen biographies of Richard Nixon and George W. Bush. He also interestingly went up close and personal in a documentary with one of Kennedy's old adversaries, Fidel Castro. Kevin Costner meanwhile was sufficiently moved by the subject to switch his political allegiance away from his Republican loyalties towards the Democrats, and also appeared in an excellent account of the Cuban Missile Crisis, Thirteen Days - as John F. Kennedy's appointments secretary Ken O'Donnell.

Of his other films, Platoon is a brilliantly searing (and perhaps the first truthful) memoir of the Vietnam war, and his other previous historical epic Born on the Fourth of July is subjective but brings out a surprisingly visceral performance from Tom Cruise. But JFK unquestionably demonstrates Oliver Stone at his most passionate, his most skillful as a film maker, and with a sense of urgency that this is a subject which demands attention.

The Kennedy memorial in Runnymede

This is Cinerama (1952)

The Wonder of Widescreen

At the National Museum of Photography, Film and Television in Bradford - or the National Media Museum as it's now more simply known - is contained a slightly withering original print of the first film produced in Cinerama, It is shown at the museum's adjacent Pictureville Cinema every first Saturday of the month. The Pictureville is - in point of fact - the only remaining facility in the world that shows the original 3-strip, triple projection Cinerama format.

The process began officially in 1952 with this demonstration film, but the evolution of Cinerama stems as far back as the 1920s, when Abel Gance experimented with many photographic innovations for his 1927 epic Napoleon, with a finale where one standard image became three in a giant triptych, creating a glorious panorama. Other widescreen experiments came along in thesubsequent decades, including a 1940s John Wayne Western, The Big Trail, which didn't catch on, largely because of the scarcity of the equipment required to project the film in general theatres.

Come the 1950s however, and a new menace to cinema had arrived in the shape of television. To combat the threat many Hollywood studios looked to some of their earlier experiments, and most of them were struck in awe by the success of the fledgling new Cinerama company, and their debut demonstration film This is Cinerama in 1952.

The opening of the film feels like witnessing the first telephone conversation by Thomas Edison or the first TV broadcast by John Logie Baird - or indeed the first words spoken by Al Jolson in The Jazz Singer - all of which such pioneering achievements are referred to in the opening prologue presented and narrated by one Lowell Thomas, then a distinguished radio newscaster and noted chronicler of the adventures of T.E. Lawrence, and now unwittingly the first "star" as such to be seen in Cinerama. Walking around his office in a conventional 35mm black & white frame, Thomas introduces himself to the premiere audience of that first momentous screening in September 1952 (and all subsequent screenings of the film), declaring to the audience with great gusto "this is Cinerama!".....


...and suddenly the single black & white image transforms into three vibrant colour images on the giant screen - almost as far as the average human's peripheral vision - and the audience finds itself on the front seat of a giant rollercoaster. Seated in the front row of the auditorium (as I was at the Pictureville), with the curved screen surround, gives all the impression of riding on the rollercoaster itself, without the cinema seats having moved one inch!

The exhilarating opening few minutes on the rollercoaster are the undoubted highlight of the film (and the doubtless inspiration for thousands of funfair simulation rides), but there's much else to enjoy, starting with the now in full colour and three-screen Cinerama Lowell Thomas, as he takes us on a journey around some of the sights and sounds of the world in all its spectacle, which include Venice, La Scala Opera in Milan, a Highland Games in Scotland, and most curiously, a Florida theme park at Cypress Gardens in Lake Eloise, with a motorboat and water ski display, the water skis ridden by several "Aquabelles" who sit around the park looking pretty the rest of the time. One of them in particular, is named "Toni", and clearly has elements of Scarlett O'Hara's feistiness about her. To my surprise and disappointment, I can find absolutely no record of the actress who plays this particular part, in what is in effect, the first dramatic character performance in a Cinerama film.

How the effect looks in the cinema

The finale is one of the best advertisements for America that I know, as the Cinerama cameras take a helicopter ride all the way from East Coast to West (parts of which were also used for the finale of How the West was Won), with a stirring soundtrack of American music (partly scored by Max Steiner). This is Cinerama is perhaps a bit of museum piece nowadays, especially in the light of subsequent big screen developments which came along in 50s - such as 70mm Cinemascope, Todd AO (developed by one of this film's producers, Michael Todd), Panavision, Technirama, and now most recently IMAX - but it's worth noting that the widescreen revolution began in earnest right here. It's also a nice slice of the 1950s, and for me, I find it a lot of fun to watch those three images trying to keep together, and it's often breathtaking when they do. Treat yourself to a day out in Bradford to watch it.





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The Omen (1976)

"When the Jews return to Zion, and a comet rips the sky, and the Holy Roman Empire rises, then you and I must die. From the eternal sea He rises, turning armies against either shore, turning Man against his brother. Till Man exists no more."   

Complete poppycock, in point of fact, but with a hint of the Book of Revelation about it, and delivered in such a way to make it feel compelling and chillingly predictive. The one actual quote from the Bible does appear at the end of the film:

"Here is Wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is 666."

The theme of the three sixes forms the basis for David Seltzer's slightly overrated but highly commercial script, which thanks to the careful direction of Richard Donner made The Omen a compelling premise for the rise of the Antichrist in the late 20th century, and a big hit for a 1970's American audiences still trying to come to terms with a society crumbling and the Vietnam war being lost, and needing some sort of spiritual solace or affirmation in a similar vein to The Exorcist.

Opening apocalyptically enough, on the 6th June at 6am, we see the dignified figure of Gregory Peck, no less, as American diplomat Robert Thorn (changed from "Jeremy" Thorn because of the similarity to the controversial British MP Jeremy Thorpe) urgently on his way to a Rome hospital where his wife Kathy (Lee Remick) is in labour, but the news - dare one say the omens - are not good. A mysterious priest (Martin Benson) reveals in voiceover that their baby son died soon after leaving the womb. But deliverance is at hand. For fear that the loss of another baby (there'd been an earlier miscarriage) would destroy Kathy, Thorn apprehensively agrees to secretly take on another little sprog as substitute, that happened be born the same time as the Thorns' beloved, with "its mother" dying in childbirth.

"On this night Mr. Thorn, God has given you a son.", the priest declares, and so Thorn walks in with little Damien in his arms to the delight of the innocently unaware Mrs. Thorn, who is told that this is her child. Little though Thorn realises it, he has made a fateful decision which will herald the beginning of the apocalypse....

...though there's little sign of it at this early stage in proceedings. Interestingly, Donner's approach was to treat the story as a gradual mental deterioration of the principal characters rather than as a definite charting of the rise of the Antichrist. It is this straightforwardness, combined with suspenseful elements of the potentially supernatural that make The Omen so effective. The truth of the matter is never in doubt as far as the audience is concerned however, thanks to the ominous opening credits and Jerry Goldsmith's screechingly Gothic theme music.

But indeed, for the next reel or two, all seems to proceed smoothly and happily for the Thorns, and unusually for a horror film, it even briefly takes on the pretence of being a love story. There's some more good news just round the corner for the Thorns too: Robert has been promoted (prophetically perhaps) to the Court of St. James, ie. US Ambassador to London (in those days the most senior role outside the White House), thanks to a little helpful influence from an old college roommate: the President of the United States.

One particular reason for my enthusiasm for The Omen was its choice of location. Back in the 1970's Star Wars was the thing, but that was set in a galaxy far, far away, and shot in distant faraway countries (with the exception of Elstree Studios). Here on the other hand, was a film which contained similar elements of the fantastic, but in recognisable places, and right in one's back yard so to speak. I've since visited some of these locations, including the actual US Embassy in Grosvenor Square (left), and also Pyrford Court in Woking, which becomes Thorn Manor, and where the first signs of untoward happenings begin to occur. It is Damien's 5th birthday, and he's now grown into the cherubic but slightly mischievous looking form of Harvey Stephens - it amused me how, being born myself in 1971, this 1976 film therefore had the Antichrist born at a similar time! At the sight of an unidentified stray bloodhound, Damien's nanny (Holly Palance) inexplicably decides to hang herself, in full view of all the partygoers, including the horrified Thorns, and a seedy looking photographer, Keith Jennings (David Warner), who's been on the look-out for any dirt to dish out - and may have bitten off much more than he can chew.

Pursuing the story further, Jennings decides to stick around the US Embassy, where an odd little priest, Father Brennan (Patrick Troughton) turns up, not to spread the good tidings of the Lord, as Thorn expects, but to tell him that he is the father of Satan. Thorn naturally decides to thrown the old codger out, but Brennan has a chilling coda: he has seen Thorn's "son" being born (overlooking how a mad Irish priest would be anywhere near a hospital in Rome.) As Brennan is escorted out of Grosvenor House, Jennings takes a photo, and then things start to get a bit odd, as the photograph of Brennan has a strange mark on the negative, the same as for the dead nanny.

The seemingly normal but slightly odd developments continue when a replacement nanny arrives from nowhere, a Mrs. Baylock, played with deceitful relish by Billie Whitelaw as a sort of Machiavellian Mary Poppins. Soon the real mother and son relationship is not between Kathy and Damien, but Damien and Mrs. Baylock.

Damien himself then starts behaving strangely - common for a five-year old you might think - at a high society wedding for one of Thorn's friends, because of the sanctity of a very Gothic looking church - Guildford Cathedral in fact (left), and is prepared to go to the length of pulling Mummy Thorn's hair out to prevent himself entering holy ground. Loving Kathy deduces that the little brat's just had a bad moment, as there's nothing else wrong with him - at all. He's never even had a cold, Thorn notices, as well as noticing that mangy mutt from the birthday party is still hanging around the house.

At Windsor, things fare no better for the Thorns: Kathy takes Damien on a mother-and-son bonding trip to the Safari Park, but this time instead of the little beast not liking the place, it's the little beasts that don't like Him. Ambassador Thorn meanwhile is on official business at a rugby match near Windsor Castle, with Jennings ever on the look-out, when that pesky priest turns up again, and demands a showdown with Thorn, as his wife is in danger this time - not to mention the whole world.

The grounds of Shepperton Studios, where Father Brennan confronts Thorn after the rugby match.

At Bishop's Park in Fulham (right) seated by the Thames, with a grave, martyr-like tone in his voice, Brennan recites the apocalyptic verse about Jews returning to Zion, etc., which proves to haunt Thorn in his subsequent travails, but at the time he dismisses it as nonsense.

Brennan's time is up however, and as Thorn departs, some unnatural winds begin to stir up in the trees.... The nervous priest rushes through Bishop's Park towards All Saints Church next door (left), which alas is locked, and a bolt of lightning just happens to strike a weather vane on the church tower, which flies off and impales Brennan right through the heart. Serves him right for delivering the Antichrist.

The weird deaths continue: the already plastercasted Kathy (who's had another miscarriage thanks to naughty Damien) is thrown out of a hospital window (filmed at Northwick Park) by the evil Mrs. Baylock, but the piece de resistance comes much later in the film with the demise of Jennings - who by now has decided to get in on the act with Thorn to find out the truth - decapitated by a sheet of glass, a suitable send-off for perhaps the most interesting character in the film.

Thorn realises that enough is enough, and sets out with the daggers that will destroy the son of Satan given to him by an old exorcist named Bugenhagen (an uncredited Leo McKern) who, though German-named, lives for some reason underground in Jerusalem - even odder than an Irish priest from Rome.

Thorn outwits Damien's demonic guard dog, and then defeats the even more demonic Mrs. Baylock (aka. "Balaack" the beast) in the film's one moment of genuine silliness - before we come to the main event of Damien himself, who is hurled out of Pyrford Court and driven at breakneck speed down the road to St. Peter's Church in Staines, but not before a police escort is on the trail of the irrational American ambassador.

Damien makes his first - and potentially last - visit to hallowed ground, and Thorn looks to God for assistance on the altar, as he raises the first dagger to do the ghastly deed. But a police marksman is on hand to intervene...

At the film's end, at a funeral at Brookwood Cemetery in Woking (standing in for Arlington), guess who's holding the hand of the President of the United States, with not a scratch on his impish little face....

The policeman's intervention at the climax of The Omen suggested the theme of a possible corporate conspiracy to protect Satan, in order to appoint Him to the pinnacle of power, a theme that was continued in DAMIEN: OMEN II (1978), which was also unfortunately a basic rehash of the original, with William Holden (who turned down the Gregory Peck role) as Damien's uncle, and for me, the bad idea of shifting the setting away from Europe into rather less Gothic corporate America. The sequel's lack of success led to the apocalypse being downscaled from four films to three, with Damien grown into sinister adult Aryan-looking Sam Neill by the time of THE FINAL CONFLICT (1981), although at least this rather low-budget rendering of the apocalypse did have the good sense to return the setting to Europe, with Damien Thorn following in his father's footsteps to Grosvenor Square, and the score by Jerry Goldsmith is his best of the entire Omen trilogy. A half-hearted TV sequel came along in 1991, but by then the story had pretty much been told. My own initial reaction to The Omen on first viewing, I must admit, was one of silliness, but it's grown on me since. The best and worst thing about it is the score by Jerry Goldsmith, which is overbearing at times, with its use of Satanic Latin chanting that make the outlandish deaths even more ridiculous. At other times however the music is much creepier and unsettling, in keeping with the tone of most of Donner's film. My favourite musical moment is the scene in Father Brennan's house, where Jennings and Thorn enter the dead priest's room wallpapered with pages from the Bible (the masterwork of art director Carmen Dillon), and Jennings unfurls the build-up of information leading to the unthinkable - at the end of which, he reveals the photograph foretelling himself being decapitated. Goldsmith builds up the atmosphere and then right at the end of the scene there's even a minor cadence of the decapitation music which will be reprised in much louder fashion later on. Goldsmith's Oscar for The Omen was at least deserved recognition for his lifetime's work in many different film genres. The Omen was one of a breed of films in the 1970s that dared to take chances (its twist ending was suggested late into production by Fox studio head Alan Ladd Jnr.), and did so in much subtler fashion than its many imitations or follow-ups. Its Biblical overtones and the use of various locations around the world helped to give it an epic feel (yet the film was actually made on a very restrained budget), and with the participation of a veteran Hollywood star at its centre, it hit the box office jackpot. The less said about the cut 'n' paste remake of 2006 (released on - aha! - 06/06/06), the better. That was truly the work of the devil.

See also The Omen Filming Locations