People seemed to like the weekly ‘couple of stories from the vaults’, so I’ll continue them for a bit.
Some more fiction today. These weren’t easy to write and both took some time for the ideas to come into proper focus, but I was pleased with each when I was done. I hope you enjoy them.
A decade and a half ago, I threw out a challenge. and then repeated it thereafter whenever I felt like it. The challenge was the same in each case:
Give me a title of up to four words in length, together with a single word you want me to include in the tale, and I will write a story of exactly 200 words.
That’s it. The stories that resulted always included the word, they always fitted the title, but usually in ways the challenger hadn’t anticipated. And they were always exactly 200 words in length.
Here are two very different tales.
Enjoy…
Title: Results May Vary
Word: animated
Challenger: Cath Tomlinson
Length: 200 words exactly
Everything else could be explained away, but there was no simple justification for his use of hair dye. He hid it behind a loose brick in the stone fireplace, one of the objects in the large house of which he’d once been most proud. It was to this concealed hollow that he’d returned the dye moments earlier, now that it had done its job.
Before he set out, he followed the traditions he’d developed in the long ago: firstly, open the small notebook and count which trip this was, making a notation to denote another journey; next take a quick look around, as if to imprint the image upon his brain, just in case he’d never see the place again. Finally, a single word: “please.”
He triggered the device, (no longer fair to call it experimental), and a whirling shimmering maelstrom appeared in front of him, a myriad of animated effects swirling around the outer edges. He stepped into it, travelling back to the same day, as he had 941 times before, to ask her to marry him, hoping that this time she’d say yes.
He had been 27.
She was still 25.
By now, of course, he was 62.
© Lee Barnett, 2005
Title: Assignment Rights, Certificate Seven
Word: vituperative
Challenger: Larry Young
Length: 200 words exactly
The youngster looked up at the tall, grey haired man as the latter loomed over him. After six similar exercises, it had come to this.
Hands shaking, he gave his work to the gaunt unsmiling figure, who accepted it with a grunt and gestured to the young man that he should sit.
Seeing nothing upon which to plant his behind, he stood uneasily, until a long thin hand angrily indicated the dirty, dusty floor, in which he sat, eagerly.
He was rewarded with a scowl. A short time later, he saw a raising of eyebrows and could detect upset and, dare he suspect, anger?
The sheets of work were thrown at him with great force as the other man rose up. And up. And up, seemingly huge and deliberately self-important.
There was a brief silent pause, before The Scathing began. Merely vituperative and vicious at first, it rapidly got worse.
And then, suddenly, it was over.
He was ushered from the great man’s presence and left to contemplate for a while, as tradition demanded.
A short time later, he was taken to receive his qualification and certificate to become A Writer, having been through The Ordeal Of The Bad Review.
© Lee Barnett, 2005
Something else tomorrow…
Tuesday is my usual day off, you see; a day when I can enjoy the fruits of my labours. On Tuesdays, every Tuesday, I relax and surround myself in the results of my endeavours.
I knew that it was midnight.
When Theresa May announced in April 2017 that she planned to seek the House of Commons’ agreement to call a general election – hours after the message coming from ‘Number Ten’ had been no general election – I was far from the only person who viewed both the forthcoming campaign and election with dislike and distaste.
Strictly speaking, of course, under the terms of the Fixed-terms Parliaments Act – a piece of legislation I naïvely supported when it was created – we already know the date of the next election.
And, as I’d discussed with the chair and secretary of the CLP, I resigned from the party, four months after I’d joined it. I quit a few hours after having been in the hall watching him win the leadership. And I wrote about why 
Given my interest in science fiction, and the movie itself, there was no way this wasn’t going to go on the list. In fact, when I first thought ‘how about some ‘old-ish’ movies, rather than just ‘old’, ie before I was born, this was the movie I was thinking about including. Oddly, I came across the story before seeing the film. Marvel Comics did an adaptation of Planet Of The Apes in comic book form. Except back then, they didn’t bother to get the image rights to the actor, so my first introduction to astronaut George Taylor didn’t look anything like Charlton Heston. But I didn’t know that at the time. I just loved the story, loved everything about it. I was probably too young to appreciate the cynicism inherent in the character, and the journey he as a character makes; I was too enthralled by the world created within the pages of the comic.
Released October 1964, so it slides in, just. Pretty sure I saw this for the first time at school, one of those ‘last day of the school year’ things. Oh, I’m a sucker for a great musical, beautifully produced, and the only thing that stopped me including Guys and Dolls in the previous posts was the presence of Marlon Brando in the movie… shudder. Well, with My Fair Lady, they got pretty much everything right. I don’t even have a problem with Marnie Nixon’s dubbing for Audrey Hepburn. Never seen Julie Andrews in the role, so no idea whether she would have been better as Eliza, but Hepburn is magnificent in the role. Rex Harrison and Wilfred Hyde-White are gloriously old-fashioned, as the roles call for. And the songs. My heavens, the songs. Almost every one is an ear worm, every one of them has a tune you could whistle (even out of tunedly, as I do) and Stanley Holloway is… well, he’s Stanley Holloway. I’ve never actually seen Pygmalion on stage, so I’ve no idea how much of the dialogue is direct from the original stage play, but this is simply a masterclass of ‘how you do a musical’ on screen. (My only problem with it, as others have identified, isn’t with the movie, but with the plot of the musical itself. She should never have gone back to him at the end…)
As with Planet of the Apes, there was simply no way this could not be on the list. I’ve given up wondering whether I watch it now merely to enjoy the movie as a movie or whether it’s so I can sit their slack-jawed at the mastery of the medium of film, the sheer imagination slapped onto the screen, the wonderful cinematography, the special effects that haven’t’ dated (some have, but not many), or just to marvel at the conviction every actor brings to their role. Some changes from the novel, sure, but none that harm the movie, and a couple that flat out improve the story. Everything in this movie has a purpose. There’s not a wasted line, a wasted scene, a wasted shot.Ambitious, sure. Over-ambitious, occasionally. But what a movie, what a score, what a set of performances. Oh, and what a perfectly reasonable sounding, yet homocidal, computer in the form of HAL, voiced by Douglas Rain. Oh, and the monolith. What a wonderful cinematic image: flat, black, unknowable.
I loathed this movie when I first saw it. I hated the racism of one of the lead characters, of the entire town in which it’s set. I saw it purely as a whodunnit, and nothing more than that. I wanted the lead characters to like each other…
There’s nothing like an accurate retelling of history to make a great movie. And this is nothing like an accurate retelling of history. But it is a great movie. Based on a stage play, which for once is odd to me, for the scenery, and the settings, both inside and out, are so much a part of the movie, that for once it’s difficult to imagine the story without it. It’s Christmas 1183, and Henry II (a delightfully over the top, but necessarily so, Peter O’Toole) has summoned his wife Eleanor of Aquitaine from prison, and his three sons, to his castle for Christmas, and to decide the succession. Katharine Hepburn is regally… Well, she’s Katharine Hepburn, she was rarely anything else. The sons, played by Anthony Hopkins, John Castle and Nigel Terry are distinct characters, each with their own plans. Timothy Dalton as Philip II of France plays a significant role as well. And it’s completely fiction. There was no Christmas family get together at Chinon in 1183. But the performances, the direction and the script – gods alive, the script! – take hold of you from very early on, and don’t let your attention wander for one iota.
I’ve no idea when I first heard of Butch Cassidy. Nor of The Sundance Kid. I was fascinated by the old west as a kid, and read every western novel, watched every tv western. So I’ve no doubt I was aware of them before I saw this movie, knowing that there were more legends than accuracy in the telling. And to be fair to the movie’s makers, they didn’t even pretend that this was an accurate retelling of the story of the two outlaws. I suspect they reached back to a line from The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance and went with ‘This is the west, sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend’. And boy, did they ever. Butch and Sundance – played by Paul Newman and Robert Redford – are easy going, ruthless only when necessary, and portrayed less as outlaw protagonists than as outright good guys who just happen to be bank robbers. But this movie is about friendship and two men whose way of life, whose lives, are coming to an end. Whoever Robert Parker and Henry Longbaugh were, whatever they were like, you can lay odds they were nothing like the Butch and Sundance portrayed; no more than Etta Place was the demure schoolteacher played by Katharine Ross.
From lighthearted fare to something less affable. Less affable? That’s unfair. There’s no amiability in this movie, no kindness, no gentleness. Nothing but unfairness. This is about as blunt and hard as you can get, and Richard Burton portrays the doomed agent Alex Leamas with exactly as much cynicism for life, for his work, for his job, as required. Exactly as much. For he’s a spy, playing dirty, under orders from ‘Control’, the same ‘Control’ television viewers got to barely know from Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. 
Another western, but this one absolutely light-hearted in tone, deliberately so. A semi-remake of Rio Bravo (also starring John Wayne, but with Dean Martin in that one, Robert Mitchum in this), but based on Harry Brown’s novel The Stars In Their Courses, this one is tailor made for the roles Wayne wanted as he got just a bit older. James Caan is superb at the young man who can’t – not won’t, can’t – use a gun, but needs to win a fight, and Charlene Holt lights up the screen every time she appears. The plot is a fairly simple one: gun for hire (Wayne) with an old injury turns down a job out of professional courtesy for the local sheriff, an old friend, later hears someone else took it, and goes to help his mate… who’s now a drunk. That’s pretty much it, and you can guess how it goes from then on. Along the way, Wayne’s character picks up Caan’s.
Not for the first time, I was introduced to a movie I then came to love by my big brother. Mike loved this movie and sat me down to watch it. And I’m not sure which of us was more delighted that I shared his huge enjoyment of it. Based on the original novel, and sticking very close to it (which understandably the ensuing tv series ran away from fairly quickly), this is a fantastic movie about the dark humour necessary to survive a war while remaining relatively sane. I’d add the relatively, since the movie – and novel – makes clear these are brilliant war-zone doctors, yet as people there’s something missing in all of them.
Ah, what can I say about Fiddler of the Roof that others haven’t said with more wit, eloquence and heart? No idea. But it’s one of my favourite scripts, and it’s one of the best translations from stage-to-screen of any musical I’ve seen. A couple of songs have been cut, as have a couple of sub-plots, and more than a couple of characters. But it works beautifully. The score is, as you’d expect, wonderful. And the central performances – hell, every performance – is spot on.
The first ‘conspiracy’ movie I remember seeing, and I saw it long before I understood anything about ‘Senators’ or ‘committes’ or eve the separation of powers. I just watched, thrilled at the great acting, the easy to follow plot (well, plots, to be fair; the sub-plot is every bit as good as the main plot it serves) and the the dialogue sparkles.
From one area of ruthlessness – politics and the military – to another, the move from ‘silent movies’ to ‘talking pictures’ is depicted with class, humour, music, dance and some very, very funny comedy. I’ve seen all three of the main actors do better work, it’s true, but rarely when all three main leads were so damn good in an ensemble piece.
A proper old-fashioned – in the best of ways – private eye whodunnit, complete with red herrings, murders, good guys, bad guys, gunsels, betrayals, a femme fatale, and a great story, with a beginning, a middle and an end. Bogart and Astor are great onscreen together, and Sydney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre are just about perfect as villains about as different from each other as they could be. All looking for a black statuette of a falcon. There are double crosses, of course, and in the best traditions of film noir, there’s no one you can completely trust.
I’ve no idea when I first saw this movie. I know I was young, very young, and that I saw it with my big brother. And that both of us were flat out astonished and amazed that I wasn’t scared at any point. Instead I was thrilled. I was utterly thrilled, and enthralled by the story, the acting, but most of all by the special effects. I was old enough to know that Kong wasn’t ‘real’, but young enough to believe that he could have been. I certainly don’t remember thinking of Fay Wray as Ann Darrow as ‘attractive’; I was too young for that. I do recall thinking how brave she was… so y’know, maybe that comment about me not thinking Kong was ‘real’ was a bit of self-serving justification. The movie’s, the story has, been remade several times, but there’s nothing that comes close to the original for thrills and for sucking you in to the movie.
when movies are made of plays, there’s an instant temptation to take advantage of the medium to stretch the story outside the limitations of a stage. (The obvious example that springs to mind is A Few Good Men. I’ve never seen it onstage but I know that lots of scenes ‘outside’ in the movie take place in offices and rooms in the play.)
There’s very little to like about The Third Man. It’s not as if there are any characters who come out of the story as appearing good, or moral, or just. So you look for the flaws. And wow are there flaws. But they’re flaws that grab hold of your attention and shake it until you’re wondering whether the flaws are what makes someone interesting, and asking when do flaws become irredeemable? And further: are flaws irredeemable. Orson Wells as Harry Lime is a man made up of nothing but flaws, and yet, and yet, that’s what makes him interesting. Take away the flaws and you’d have someone empty. Jospeh Cotton’s character also has flaws but they take a while to identify, and you’re kind of disappointed in them and him when they come to the surface. While Alisa Valli’s character? Well, you know she has flaws, but you’re never quite sure what they are, and just when you think you do, she proves you wrong, by revealing another. This is their movie. Oh, sure there are other actors, other great actors, but it’s these three who are the centre of the movie, which is weird since Harry Lime, despite being the subject of the movie, doesn’t actually appear for some time, for some long time.
Every Saturday on the blog, I recommend silliness. Indeed, I regularly do so on Twitter. For all the harsh truths that surrpinds us, for all the shittiness around and abroad, sometimes you need some silliness in your life. Hell, we all need more silliness.
Another conspiracy tale, but a very different one, with very clear goodies and baddies. The goodies are good, the baddies are evil. Is there such a thing as evil? Watch this and you’ll answer yed. But, and here’s why this movie is so bloody good, the killer isn’t the evil; those who make him one are. A group of soldiers return from a war; they were saved from certain death by their captain, who becomes a national hero. Which is odd, because while they’re certain beyond doubt that he’s the finest human they know… they also remember him as being disliked, being cold, being aloof. And why are the soldiers having nightmares about being tortured when they weren’t? And why is the hero, being groomed for the right marriage, the right political career, suffering blackouts… during which people inconvenient to his future are being killed.
As a ‘by the numbers’ movie, To Catch A Thief can’t really be beaten. The plot is by the numbers, the direction is pretty pedestrian, the sets are… nice but ok. So why will I rewatch it? Cary Grant and Grace Kelly; the pair of them on screen set the screen alight. I’ve never been completely convinced by the romance they’re supposed to be having but the friendliness – and the sheer pleasure they’re having acting with each other – comes through strong, strong enough that it’s an equal pleasure watching them play off each other. The other actors are all solid as well, and with only a couple of exceptions, every sentence of dialogue either moves the plot forward or tells you something about the character. There’s enough suspense to keep you wondering what happens next, although the final revelation of the true thief isn’t exactly earthshocking. The basic plot of a retired cat burglar discovering someone else is impersonating him, using his style, and being forced to find out who is, as I say, pretty by the numbers but it’s fun to watch, and fun to feel part of.
British science fiction went through a very ‘matter of fact’ stage in the late 1950s and early 1960s; several films showing ‘ordinary people doing ordinary jobs’ facing weirdness and strangeness. What marks The Day The Earth Caught Fire as something special is how the strangeness is portrayed, as something happening to the characters rather than then being involved with it. The main characters work for a newspaper and it’s through their efforts that we discover what’s happened… and what has happened is that various weapons tests have tilted the Earth on its axis. We watch the journalists, and the editor, put the story together, while seeing their flaws as people contrasted with their skills at their jobs. Chasing leads, getting the quotes right, doing the research, this is as much a movie about working for a newspaper as it is about the earth losing a battle against science. The final scene of the movie shows two editions of the newspaper ready to go to print: one if the attempt to ‘save the Earth’ succeeds, one if it doesn’t. Edward Judd is amazingly good as a newspaperman who used to be very good, but hasn’t been very good for quite some time, and Loe McKern is glorious as his friend, colleague and fellow scribbler. It’s very British, very 1950s, and very good indeed.
I don’t speak any languages, really, other than English, although I can get away with fluent Rubbish when called upon to do so. I can understand some written Hebrew and even speak a teeny tiny bit of it… and the occasional Yiddish phrase, in the same way as I know some Latin phrases. Doesn’t make me anywhere close to fluent, and I’m at as much of a loss when listening to people speak fluent Irvrit as I would be hearing someone speak fluent Mandarin.
OK, so how about “British”? Do I feel British?
I’m pretty sure I first saw this film at school, one of those ‘it’s the end of the school year, you can all watch a movie in the assembly hall’. Anyway, I remember watching it as a child. And although I’m sure I got different things from it, I enjoyed different elements of it back then – I’m certain I couldn’t have given a damn about the central love story, for a start – the charm and the grace of the movie hit me as strongly then as it does every time I watch it. David Niven is glorious in his role as a wartime bomber pilot, about to very obviously die when his plane crashes, and he jumps from his plane without a parachute when he… doesn’t. Die, that is. He survives, and the reason why is, as the movie goes on to demonstrate is either because heaven made a mistake, and he slipped though their ever so efficient system… or he was just lucky. And the rest of the movie very much doesn’t tell you which is the ‘right’ answer. Niven’s character has a brain tumour that is giving him delusions of him having to fight his case that since he did survive, he should get to continue his life. And heaven argues against it. There’s even a trial, with historical characters arguing against him, while his surgeon tries to argue Niven’s case. It’s become famous not only because of the glorious performances but because of the cinematic decision to film/ the ‘real world’ in colour, and the ‘Other World’ in black and white. (Not quite accurate; all the scenes were filmed in colour, but the Other World bits omitted the colour part of the Three strip technicolour part when processed.) Roger Livesey, Raymond Massey and Marius Goring somehow manage not to act everyone else of the screen, as does Kim Hunter in a perfectly judged performance. I think she has the hardest role in the movie, and he pulls it off with style and class.
There had been a previous version of The Dawn Patrol, in 1930, like this version based on a short story. But this version is just perfect. It’s about the terrible inevitability of both death, and the impossibility of terrible decision making making. I don’t mean terrible as ‘wrong’ but as ‘unpleasant, seriously, horrifying’. The movie starts as it ends, with a man in charge of a Royal Flying Corps squadron in the First World War, receiving new recruits, sending them up, knowing that some of them won’t return. Not ‘won’t return from a mission sooner or later’, but knowing with absolute certainty, that of the men he sends up, men he knows aren’t ready for it… some won’t return from that mission. The major in charge, Basil Rathbone, used to be ‘one of the lads’. But now he’s in charge. And he’s hated by Eroll Flynn and David Niven for his uncaring attitude, his ‘we follow orders, so send them up’ attitude. (Of course, they don’t know that he does care, but he has a job to do.) Then Rathbone leaves and promotes Flynn to the job… and Flynn quickly discovers why Rathbone’s character did what he did, and his friendship with Niven falters, then fractures, then dies. Eventually of course, Flynn is replaced… by Niven. And Niven discovers the truth of command. The movie ends with Niven telling the new recruits who’ve just arrived, with hardly any experience in the air… to be ready for the dawn patrol. There have been plenty of other movies that cover the same subject material (Aces High springs to mind) but The Dawn Patrol did it better and with both more heart and more ruthlessness.
I went back and forth on this one, since there was a tv series in 1968, with Edward Mulhare and Hope Lange in the lead roles, but it was effectively a sitcom, and so under my rules it’s an entirely different thing. Look, I bloody love this movie, so it’s in. A widow with a young daughter moves into a cottage that used to be owned by a seaman, who long ago killed himself… and is reputed to be haunted. It’s a love story and Gene Tierney and Rex Harrison were never better than as the genteel widow and the rough and ready seaman. Over a decade, before he realises he’s harming her by not letting her live her life, he shows his feelings and she shows hers. She becomes a writer, telling ‘his’ stories, and they become closer still… until, until… He leaves, to let her live her life for herself. Or at least he says he does, and waits… And waits. George Sanders as a particularly loathsome ladies man is wonderfully lizard like, and the supporting cast and crew don’t put a step wrong. But it’s the central performances that raise this movie from ‘Yeah, ok, ghost falls in love with human…’ to ‘oh my god, this is just wonderful’. I find it genuinely impossible not to rewatch this if ever it’s on.
Another one I first saw at school. Great Expectations has always been a weird one for me. I saw this at school, and loved it. Then I was forced to read it at school… and hated it. I’ve never been a huge fan of Dickens’s writing (with the notable exception of A Christmas Carol), and I suspect being forced to read Great Expectations at the age of 14 is a large part of the reason why. But pretty much everything I don’t like about the book is either cut, or reinterpreted, or just made alive by this movie. And yes, it’s been filmed lots of times, has been shot as a period piece and as a modern piece a couple of decades back. But none of them for me have the skill, wit and talent involved as this movie does. John Mills as the young, then slightly older, adult Pip shows all the charm, arrogance and ultimate folly, you’d expect from an actor of his calibre. David Lean’s directing is smart and shows the light touch you’d hope for. Jean Simmons and Valerie Hobson as Estella (child and adult respectively) shine off the screen. Miss Haversham is suitably pitiful and pitiable, bitter but apologetic by the end. And Finlay Currie is the flat out scariest Magwitch there’s ever been… this is an objective fact. Oddly, the only character who comes over to me as less than he could have been is Alec Guinness’s Herbert Pocket, and I’ve never been able to figure out why. But that’s a small price to pay for this wonderful movie.
Where do you start with Casablanca? One of the most quoted – often inaccurately quoted – movies ever made… it’s a glorious, wonderful, movie with humour, seriousness, suspense, and satisfaction. Bogart as the now utterly cynical nightclub owner Rick Blaine, minding his own business, catering to whoever… surviving. He’s a survivor, and that’s all he cares about. And he doesn’t much care for that either. He’s friends, well maybe friends is too strong a word, with the local police chief, a cheerfully corrupt Claude Raines (who’s quite clearly having the time of his life in the role), less friendly with the thieves and criminals in the city, but on ‘polite’ terms with the Germans occupying the city. As long as no one bothers him, as long as no one causes him inconvenience, Rick is if not contentedly living, then at least miserably… existing. And then even that is turned upside down as an ex-lover, who abandoned him walks into his nightclub with her thought-lost husband and begs him for help. And what he does, how he does it, how his life changes… is the movie. Oh, there’s plenty else that goes on, but it’s a character study of a man brought low, but who survives, stops existing and starts living again. And as a character study of a place, a person, a man who doesn’t want to be a hero, isn’t a hero in fact, how he rediscovers a world outside his nightclub where he’s been hiding from life… it’s rarely been done better, and never with such class and style.
Trying to identify which is my favourite Marx Brothers’ film is a bit like asking which is my favourite single malt whiskey. Sure I may have a favourite, but the others are pretty damn good as well. In Duck Soup, however, everything can together perfectly as a movie… it’s not only riotously funny, it not only showcases each of the brothers’ talents, not only is the script a delight… but it’s shot beautifully, letting the visual gags breathe. The plot involves Groucho’s character – Rufus T Firefly – being appointed leader of the small, bankrupt country of Freedonia, in order to continue to get financial aid, and a neighbouring country senidng in Chico and Harpo as spies to get dirt on Firefly so their ambassador can romantically pursue Margaret Dumont’s character, who is supplying the financial aid. So there IS a plot… but, as always, that’s just an excuse for everyone to have an an enormous amount of fun.
I quite like the later High Society as a film, but I love the original. Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn, James Stewart, Ruth Hussey. with a sparkling script, easily as quotable as Casablanca’s, and with flawed characters that somehow are more attractive as characters because of their flaws. Katharine Hepburn is more imperious than at any time until her later Eleanor of Aquitaine in The Lion In Winter (another of my favourite ever movies). I’ve seen it described as a love story, but it’s not; not really. It’t a story about love, about falling in love, discovering that’s not enough, and wanting the other person to change… not realising that even if that happened, that’d not be enough unless you also change.
Another Bogart movie and althought he’s unquestionably the star of the movie, and his performance superb, he’s not the reason I rewatch. In fact, whisper it very quietly, the scenes with Bogart aren’t my favourote parts of the movie, by a long way. It’s Jose Ferrer as the smart, not entrely sympathetic, lawyer, Van Johnson as a main character facing court martial, and Fred MacMurray playng against type as a good old fella, love and soul of the party, smart, a fella you could trust… who turns out to be a thoroughly unpleasant piece of work, cowardly and self-centered beyond belief. At the centre of this movie is ‘doing the right thing is never as simple or risk free as it appears, and if it seems so, you’re wrong’. A disliked captain is relived of command during a naval engagement. Should he have been relieved? Was it jealousy, concern, over-reaction? Or was it only but always merely a judgment call… and – if so – was the right all made?
Another trial movie, but this one is set almost entirely around the trial. Tyrone Power is an American accused of killing a woman for her money, and his wife – Marlene Dietrich – goes into the witness box to voluntarily testify against her husband… causing Charles Laughton, her husband’s barrister to go that extra mile to discredit her…. Which he does, proving she perjured herself out of malice towards her husband. So why doesn’t he feel satisfied? Strong story, clever performances, with one of the best twist endings ever committed to film. Wonderful. I can’t say that this was Laughton’s greatest ever performance – I’ve rarely seen him deliver a i performance – but I particularly love his portrayal as a famous and deservedly respected barrister heading towards the twilight of his career, enjoying the legal argument and the cut and thrust of cross-examination… and thinking he’s aware of his own limitations but as with so many great men, wholly but sadly mistaken.
For all its faults – and there are many, and for all that its plot makes no bloody sense whatever, this is a masterpiece in keeping you watching; the acting is first rate, the dialogue makes you pay attention every second it’s on, and there are so many little bits that in a few seconds portray in detail without a word. Whether it’s physical distance between a husband and wife as an analogy for the increasing emotional distance, or the long shot turning into a dingy nightclub the morning after the night before via going a rainy window, there’s not a moment of this film that hasn’t been thought through. Ostensibly an examination of a life, it’s actually a pretty good look what what people want others to see of them. The dialogue varies between pedestrian and pithy, between clever and cocky. But damn, when it delivers, it delivers in style.
One of the best pilots I’ve ever seen, bar none. The concept is a clever one, the setup explained in the first few minutes, and it’s an ‘everything changes’ moment. And from that instant, it’s non-stop. The number four on the FBI’s most wanted list – a facilitator for criminals – walks into the FBI and surrenders; states them he knows about a terrorist attack that’s about to take place, and he’s there to tell them all about it but that he’ll only talk to a named newly-qualified FBI profiler. the attack attempt duly takes place, it’s averted… and then he says “that’s just the first”. He has a list of criminals – the Blacklist – the FBI don’t even know about. And the FBI work with him – on occasion, it seems for him – to capture them. Great concept, great writing, so bloody much happens in the first episode of the series, you have to pay attention. But it’s the performances of James Spader and Megan Boone as the criminal and profiler that make this pilot something special. It’s their show, and their performances keep your attention throughout. Spader is having the time of his life, and acts everyone else off the screen. Everyone apart from Boone, that is, who somehow manages to hold her own against him. Both of their characters have secrets, both discover yet more. And yes, there is a ‘WTF? Ccome back next week…’ moment right at the end. I’ve seen the pilot loads of times and there’s not once I’ve not spotted something new in the rewatching.
I can’t recall another show where so damn much happens in every episode. It isn’t so much that there’s a twist in every act of every episode, although there are a lot. More than the writing is so dense, the military dialogue is both enthralling and delivered crisply. I’ve no idea how accurate it is, by the way. I don’t care it seems accurate and that’s good enough for me. And the actors are aided by the military setting in that respect. Every line either tells you something about the characters, or advances the plot; not a wasted line, nor a wasted gesture. So what makes the pilot so damn good? Because it starts as it means to go on: a routine military exercise testing equipment in radio silence for months at the South Pole, while a couple of scientists research bird populations. Everything’s going normally. Until Russian helicopters and snowbikes turn up, try to kidnap or kill the scientists. And then The Reveal: a virus has swept across the planet, killing half the population. The scientists are looking for the original strain of the virus, that one of them believes is in the permafrost. It’s perfectly timed, perfectly acted, gorgeously written. I don’t think I’d like to know any of the characters in person; none of them are particularly likeable but damn, they do know their jobs. And again, a ‘WTF? Ccome back next week…’ moment right at the end.
Reaching back into pre-history here. Or at least it seems that way. I recently rewatched the pilot of 24, the very first time they’d tried the ‘events occur in real time’ stunt, writing around the ad breaks, starting at midnight, and following characters through the next 24 hours. If two or more things were happening simultaneously, you got a split screen, and it was often used as a technique to move from one scene to another, or to reopen the action after the ad breaks. The main character, Jack Bauer, played by Kiefer Sutherland, wasn’t yet the ‘superhero’ he later became. He wasn’t as prepared to break every law going ‘for his country’. Not quite as prepared to go for the torture-first-ask-questions-later. He was a good agent, not a great one. And that showed. He made mistakes. He found himself being used… and panicked as he didn’t know what to do. And while the good guys weren’t all good, the bad guys were pretty much all bad, and mistakes had consequences. But we didn’t know that in the pilot. We didn’t know much at all. But that ticking clock (or beeping clock, anyway) kept the tension high from about ten minutes in.
Gregory House, as introduced to the audience, was unpleasant from the off. He was rude, in pain, older than he wanted to be, didn’t suffer fools at all, and was brilliant at what he did. And he didn’t give a shit about patients; he wanted to cure the disease. Actually, that’s not true, either. He wanted to figure out what was causing the patient to be ill. Once he knew, curing them was just what he had to do to keep his job. I’d say the pilot made it clear that he delegated ‘caring about the patients’ but he didn’t. not really. He viewed the junior doctors in his department with mild contempt for caring about the patients as much as the disease. The pilot sets all of this up, sets up the conflicts, has a great medical mystery, and a suitably great guest star as the patient. But it’s Hugh Laurie who steals the show. As the lead character, he’s almost instantly unpleasant, brilliant, and a character you care about almost against your better instincts. I can take or leave most episodes of House, the overwhelming majority in fact, but I’ll rewatch the pilot whenever it’s on.
Certainly one of the more original pilots on the list. Takes place in two time periods, present and past, the latter being revealed in flashback while two retired detectives are being interviewed on camera by current day detectives about an old case. The two retired detectives haven’t spoken for years, and make it plain they never actually liked each other much. The acting is the thing here. Oh, the writing is glorious, the dialogue wonderful, but it’s the acting of Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey, playing effectively two different characters each, their characters in 1995, and again in 2012, when they’re very very different people. (Later in the series, they also portray the characters again, as they were in 2002.) But there’s no doubt at any point of the convincingness of the portrayals in any time period. I find it impossible to not watch to the end of the episode once I’ve started watching. And every time I watch, I’m more impressed with both the acting, and especially how generous both Harrelson and McConaughey are in their scenes, with each other and other actors. And even the “WTF’ moment at the end, perfectly delivered by McConaughey seems so casually delivered that you wonder what the hell this is… but you know you want more.
This is the one. This is the one that tested my “if it’s a good pilot, I’ll stick with the series”. And ultimately failed the test. Great concept, good writing, good enough acting. And at the end of the pilot, I wanted to know ‘what happens next’. Setup is a couple of hundred people are rescued on a beach from the ocean; when asked where they come from, they tell the lcoal sherif and authorities they’re escaping from the war… a war that hasn’t happened yet.. As I say, great concept. And yet I gave up after four or five episodes. It felt like all the smart writing was done in the pilot, and even the actors knew it. Could have been great – the pilot still is great, but oh my.
An hour and a half – it’s BBC so it’s genuine 90 minutes, not 70 plus ads – a fella who designs illusions for a magician gets caught up when his boss is interested romantically (for want of a less discreet term) in someone involved in an ‘impossible crime’ mystery. And then teams up with an freelance investigative journalist to solve it. and it just works. Most of the clichés are subverted, the ‘it’s simple when you know the trick’ often isn’t, the kind of mind that thinks up this stuff isn’t necessarily someone you want to know, and both lead protagonists aren’t really that sure – in the pilot – whether they even respect each other, let alone like each other. At one point, challenged to do so, Creek – Alan Davies – makes scale models to prove that the victim’s ex-wife could have committed the murder undetected. And then reacts with scorn when the journalist – Caroline Quentin – exclaims ‘so she did do it!’ Of course not, Creek says. There were so many ways it could have gone wrong, so many times the plot would have fallen apart.. he did it merely as an intellectual exercise to see if the ex-wife could have. The dialogue sparkles, Davies and Quentin are a delight on screen and Anthony Stewart Head as Creek’s illusionist boss, the guy on stage, is delightfully repulsive. I was hooked from the start, and stayed with the show for years.
The best sitcom pilot ever. I’ll brook no dissent on that. If you think otherwise, then either you’ve not seen the Cheers pilot or you’re wrong.
One of my favourite sitcoms, and one of my favourite pilots. Setup is simple and clever: two people out on separate disastrous ‘dates’ (she’s taken someone out from the office as a nice gesture; he’s out on a proper date) bump into each other, speak politely. Then the penny is dropped suddenly on the audience: he jilted her five years’ earlier, and they’ve not seen each other since. And it starts from there. Paul Young and Jan Francis are just superb as the two protagonists, both completely messed up in their own ways. she reluctantly at first still likes him. He still likes her. And despite friends interference, despite parents’ interference, they try to make whatever the hell they have now… work. The gags flow fast and furious – it’s written by the same fella who wrote, among other things, Only Fools And Horses – the pacing of every scene, let alone every episode, is perfect, and you care about the characters while your sympathy shifts from one to the other and back again. And, uniquely for a sitcom, it had a cliffhanger, or a coda, at the end of every episode. The credits would role over one of the characters doing… something (lighting a cigarette, or walking across the road)… and then the credits would fade, there’d be a final couple of lines… and then the end. Every episode was wonderful, and the pilot started it all, perfectly.
Yes, well, this was an obvious one. This shouldn’t be here, really. Not really. The opening credits are awful as is the theme tune. They changed it immediately for the familiar Scarfe credits and Westminster tune for episode 2. But you have to shudder and put them to one side because the show starts as it means to go on… and the show truly, truly gets every bit of comedy from the situation: new minister, already in place civil service, the clash of the political will and the administrative won’t. Not the first sitcom set in a ministerial department, and certainly not the first ostensible servant is really the one in control sitcom or drama, but this one works because Hacker as the minister isn’t an incompetent fool. He’s a politician who’s completely out of his depth, sure. But even in the first episode, he realises that quickly, and realises both the advantage of having the civil service, while the danger of them as well. Every performer is perfect for the role they play. And even now, having watched it dozens of times, it makes me laugh.
budgie's perch 