Rebecca

1940 - Dir: Alfred Hitchcock
Shown at The FeckenOdeon on 28th March, 2009
In 1939 Alfred Hitchcock made what may be thought of as an opportune move to the United States to start a contract with Selznick international. His first job was supposed to be on a film about the sinking of the Titanic - but things changed. Hitchcock had considered producing “Rebecca” at Elstree Studios as a follow up to “The Lady Vanishes”. The asking price for the story was too high and Hitch abandoned the idea. The producer (and Hitch’s new boss) David O Selznick then bought the rights and gave the project a budget far in excess of anything the British Studios could have mustered - and assigned Hitchcock to direct it. Both men were larger than life characters and disagreed with each other on almost every aspect of the film. Shooting started just as war was declared in Europe and the largely British cast and crew struggled to concentrate. At the end of the filming schedule Selznick tried to take the film over but was frustrated by the fact that Hitch had only shot exactly what he needed - there was no way of altering any of the scenes. Both expressed their unhappiness at the final result... but all animosity dissolved when Rebecca pulled in vast audiences and an Oscar for Best Picture.
· Rebecca was shot almost entirely in the studio on 44 specially built sets. Shooting was delayed because they had to wait for “Gone with the Wind” to vacate the only sound stage big enough to accommodate the scenery.
· Although Selznick wanted to be faithful to the novel, the censors demanded that Max could not kill his wife without paying the penalty. Suicide was also frowned upon. After a hard-fought but futile battle, Selznick had to settle for Rebecca being accidentally killed.
· Vivien Leigh wanted the lead in Rebecca and, as she was enjoying an affair with Olivier, thought she would get it. She made her displeasure very clear when Olivia de Haviland’s lesser known sister (Joan Fontaine) got the part.

The Quiller Memorandum

1966 - Dir: Michael Anderson
Shown at The FeckenOdeon on 28th February, 2009
Spy movies were very much in vogue in the mid 1960s. The British Bond bandwagon was gathering speed, the Matt Helm series was trying to keep pace on the other side of the Atlantic and Michael Caine’s Harry Palmer was finding his feet in “The Ipcress File”. “The Quiller Memorandum”, though a thriller featuring spies, is a completely different kettle of fish. The film stands out from most of its contemporaries for its dreamlike, ritualistic, almost fairytale atmosphere. This derives largely from the cryptic dialogue by Harold Pinter and the stylish imagery supplied by director Michael Anderson and cinematographer Erwin Hillier.
There’s one other factor that makes this film stand out from the spy films of the time - while they focused on the Cold War between the West (mainly America and Great Britain) and the Communist threat from the East (mainly the Soviet Union), The Quiller Memorandum went back to an old enemy for its villain - the Nazis in Germany. Based on a novel by Trevor Dudley Smith (of Flight Of The Phoenix fame) The Quiller Memorandum takes place in mid-'60s Berlin, where Nazis new and old are attempting to make a comeback two decades after the Third Reich was defeated.
There are splendid performances from George Segal and Alec Guinness (perhaps limbering up for Smiley) and a haunting score from John Barry (who was simultaneously concocting much more energetic stuff for the Bond Movies)
We dedicate this showing of The Quiller Memorandum to the memory of Harold Pinter, who died on Christmas Eve 2008

Jour de Fete

1949 - Dir: Jaques Tati
Shown at The FeckenOdeon on 28th February, 2009
There's no one quite like Jacques Tati, a meticulous and innovative comic genius whose work grows from an acute but benevolent observation of humanity. He made only five feature films but as writer, director, and star of each of them he developed new techniques of filmmaking. Tati characterised his humour as "laughter born of a certain fundamental absurdity". “Jour de Fete” was Tati's first feature and is built upon his short “L'ecole des Facteurs”. This is truly international humour, very visual in style, with a minimal plot in which music, sound effects and speech are used only as embellishments. Tati the actor is lanky and awkward with all the skill of the great silent comedians to command the screen. The timing and sheer cleverness of the gags is breathtaking. But, above all, this film is supremely good-natured. We can laugh at the idiocies and embarrassment of Francois and his fellow villagers, but only because we recognise ourselves in them.
TECHNICAL NOTE: This film is shown in colour - as Tati intended. The prologue will explain what happened. You may like to know that the painstaking restoration took six years. We can only suppose that this is what Thomson Color would have looked like but it does appear to be a sort of tinted black and white. Tati was so frustrated by the failure of the original colour shoot that he resorted to hand tinting parts of the black and white negative for a re-release in the 1960s. He died in 1982 and never saw the film in colour - so we can’t be sure that this is what he really wanted.

Bombón el Perro

(Bombón the Dog)
2004 - Dir: Carlos Sorin
Shown in FeckenOdeon 2 on 13th February, 2009
Argentina is a bit of a mystery to most of us. Our thoughts of this vast country (the 8th largest in the world) are inextricably entangled with images of war and the crude "Argie" bashing headlines the Falklands conflict generated. It’s good to be able to present a film that lifts the lid to reveal ordinary people leading ordinary lives - and to note that, despite all else that divides us, Argies and Brits have one thing in common - a weakness for big slobbery dogs.
The film was made in Patagonia, the arid, featureless flatlands of southernmost Argentina - a harsh landscape that reflects both the desolation and the resilience of the principal character. Poverty caused by Argentina’s economic collapse is the source for Juan’s adventures, but the director concentrates on how his characters overcome it rather than dwelling on the depressing side of hardship. It's filmed with a beautiful sense of the Patagonian countryside--expansive deserts, dusty towns, invasive commercial culture. Basically this is a simple series of adventures for a man and his dog as they transform each other's life. Each sequence is inventive and disarmingly entertaining, with big laughs and small insights.
Director Carlos Sorin handles his simple tale with an unashamedly sentimental touch. He’s aided in this by the delightfully simple acting style of his main character - Juan Villegas is an amateur actor and was formerly employed as the studio’s car park attendant - his gentle and genuine performance carries the film. The rest of the charm offensive is in the expert paws of Gregorio who plays Bombón as if he was born to star on the silver screen.
The film has a 15 certificate. You may think this odd for such a charming and inoffensive film. The censor apparently took exception to one scene. You’ll know that scene when you see it - it’s the one where Bombón (ahem!) "comes of age" and proves that this is not so much a shaggy dog story as a.... erm ... doggy sh** story.

Babette's Feast

(Babbette’s Gaestebud)
1987 - Dir: Gabriel Axel
Shown in FeckenOdeon 2 on 14th November, 2008
"Babette's Feast" is about edible art - Art with a capital A - a tour de force for the taste buds laid down before neither gourmets nor gourmands, but a sect of gruel-eating puritans. In this piquant Danish drama, an exiled artist confronts the uneducated palate, awakening interest.... if not applause.
"Babette's Feast," a precise and elegant piece, is adapted from Karen Blixens’s (real name Isak Dinesen) short story by director Gabriel Axel, a fellow Dane who, like Dinesen, found inspiration elsewhere. Axel is uniquely suited to this story of a culinary genius who spends 14 years in Jutland smoking cod. And then one day she stuns the taciturn Jutlanders by preparing a mighty feast.
French actress Stéphane Audran is perfection as the enigmatic Parisian Babette, who flees the Communard uprising in 1871 and is taken in by two sisters, Martina (Birgitte Federspiel) and Philippa (Bodil Kjer), the leaders of a small Danish sect. Her handsome face, her voice like a rich sauce and her strong, healthy stride are set against the prettiness and primness of the older but still angelically beautiful Martina. But like the gifted singer Philippa, Babette possesses a great talent denied. The film is beautifully photographed and paced and there’s something about it that makes one appreciative of the good and gentle things in the world - in these "interesting" times it’s perhaps a useful reminder!

O Brother, Where Art Thou?

2000 - Dir: Joel Cohen
Shown at The FeckenOdeon on 31st January, 2009
Our main feature is set in the same period as Little Caesar but there the similarity ends! It’s a product of the talented and remarkable brothers Coen and is resolutely uncategorisable. A combination of musical, comedy and fantasy, it follows a trio of convicts who escape from a chain gang to find some hidden treasure. Things are never quite what they seem. The film is loosely based on Homer’s 'Odyssey' and as such the boys bump into all manner of folk on their quest, from a one-eyed bible salesman to a campaigning mayoral candidate. The whole thing is immaculately designed and photographed (it won an Oscar for this) in a style designed to give a period feel without actually seeming old fashioned and it’s constantly inventive and original. George Clooney acts his hairnet off in a style that owes more than a little to the young Cary Grant. The music’s great too - Yee haww!!
· Tim Blake Nelson is a film director who was only offered a part because he’s a friend of the Coens - he makes the film as the endlessly thick Delmar.
· The prisoners’ musical chant from the beginning of the movie is an old recording of a real chain-gang.
· The film’s official website ran a trivia contest to promote the film and gave winners canisters of Dapper Dan pomade. (No, you can’t buy it - it’s not a real brand).
· The American Humane Association mistook a computer-generated cow in the movie for a real animal and demanded proof before they would allow the use of their famous disclaimer, "No animals were harmed in the making of this motion picture." After seeing a demonstration of how the cow was created, the Humane Association added "Scenes which may appear to place an animal in jeopardy were simulated."

Little Caesar

1931 - Dir: Mervyn LeRoy
Shown at The FeckenOdeon on January 31st, 2009
The following is taken from Variety Magazine’s 1931 review of “Little Caesar”: “There are enough killings herein to fill the quota for an old time cowboy-Indian thriller. And one tough mugg, in the title part, who is tough all the way from the start, when he's a bum with ambition, to the finish, when he's a bum again, but a dead one. For a performance as Little Caesar no director could ask for more than Edward G. Robinson's contribution. Here, no matter what he has to say, he's entirely convincing. No new twists to the gunman stuff [from the novel by W.R. Burnett] same formula and all the standard tricks, but Mervyn LeRoy, directing, had a good yarn to start with and gives it plenty of pace besides astute handling.”
This probably says it all - but fails to predict the impact this short film had on the style of crime pictures made over the following decade - this is very much a trend setter. The acting is over stated to say the least but actors had only just learned to cope with the new fangled sound - the style is very much a combination of silent movie exaggeration and theatrical projection (“Can’t hear you at the back, luvvie!”). The gangsters upon whom the film was based were still active - Warner Brothers must have been hoping they didn’t recognise themselves!
· The character of Cesare Enrico Bandello is not, as widely believed, based on 'Al Capone'. Instead, he is based on Salvatore "Sam" Cardinella, a violent Chicago gangster who operated in the early years of Prohibition. The character Diamond Pete Montana was modelled on Big Jim Colisimo, who was murdered by Al Capone; and "The Big Boy" was based on corrupt politician Big Bill Thompson, Mayor of Chicago.
· The underworld banquet sequence was also based on a real event - a notorious party in honour of two gangsters, Dion "Deanie" O'Bannion and Samuel J. "Nails” Morton.

High Society

“My dear boy, this is the sort of day history
tells us is better spent in bed”

1956: Dir.: Charles Walters
Shown at The FeckenOdeon on 27th December, 2008
High Society is a remake of the popular 1940 romantic comedy The Philadelphia Story, which starred Cary Grant as C.K. Dexter-Haven, Katharine Hepburn as Tracy Lord, and James Stewart as Mike Connor. The plot details and character names are the same for both versions, as are some of the lines of dialogue, but there is one critical difference: the addition of nine top-notch musical numbers from Cole Porter. While it's true that some of the character interaction in this film isn't as pointed or witty, the musical component more than makes up for this deficiency. If you’d like to compare the two it’s entirely possible that we may show The Philadelphia Story soon.
· Grace Kelly was no singer as she would have freely admitted, but Cole Porter wrote True Love specifically to accommodate her limited range The song sold a million records - and it was Bing Crosby’s 20th Gold record.
· Katherine Hepburn owned the rights to The Philadelphia Story and didn’t want “her” film re-made. MGM got round this by changing the name and removing the original writer’s credit... though much of his dialogue seems to have crept into High Society.
· Grace Kelly had just become engaged to Prince Rainier of Monaco when this film was in production. She couldn’t resist the chance to show off her real engagement ring on the silver screen.
“That man's gonna wind up a juvenile
delinquent mark my words”

Every Day Except Christmas

1957: Dir.: Lindsay Anderson
Shown at The FeckenOdeon on 27th December, 2008
This film was made possible because Lindsay Anderson’s Free Cinema accomplice Karel Reisz was working for the Ford company. Reisz had accepted the job on condition that he would be allowed to produce a series of non-advertising documentaries. He invited Anderson to make the first film. They started looking for a subject, and when the idea of a film about Covent Garden came up, Anderson spent a few nights following workers around the market. A very rough treatment was written, but most of the film was improvised on the spot.
Every Day was the centrepiece of the third Free Cinema programme at the National Film Theatre in May 1957. Reviews of the film were almost unanimous in their praise. It went on to win the Grand Prix at the Venice Festival of Shorts and Documentaries later that year.

The African Queen

“I never dreamed that any mere physical experience could be so stimulating!”

1951 - Dir: John Huston
Shown at The FeckenOdeon on 29th November, 2008
The African Queen is the uncomplicated tale of two companions with mismatched, "opposites attract" personalities who develop an implausible love affair as they travel together downriver in Africa around the start of World War I. This quixotic film by director John Huston, based on the 1935 novel of the same name by C. S. Forester, is one of the classics of Hollywood adventure filmmaking, with comedy and romance besides. It was the first colour film for the two leads and for director Huston.
The acting of the two principal actors - Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn - is some of the strongest ever registered on film, although this was their first and only pairing together. This was 44 year-old Hepburn's first screen appearance as a spinster, and marked her transition to more mature roles for the rest of her career. At 52 years of age, Bogart was also past his prime as a handsome, hard-boiled detective. John Mills, David Niven, and Bette Davis were, at one time, considered for the lead roles. Romulus Films took the almost unheard of risk of filming on location in central Africa
· Contemporary articles detail the various perils of shooting on location in Africa, including dysentery, malaria, bacteria-filled drinking water and several close brushes with wild animals and poisonous snakes. Most of the cast and crew were sick for much of the filming.
· To show her disgust with the amount of alcohol that Huston and Bogart consumed during the shoot, Hepburn drank only water - and suffered a severe bout of dysentery as a result. Bogart later said, "All I ate was baked beans, canned asparagus and Scotch whiskey. Whenever a fly bit Huston or me, it dropped dead."
· Scenes in the water were filmed in a tank at Isleworth Studios for “health reasons”.
· John Huston’s next project was “Moulin Rouge” starring Jose Ferrer and Zsa-Zsa Gabor - a very different film to that shown here last month!

Moulin Rouge

“Outside it may be raining, but in here it's entertaining”
2001 - Dir: Baz Luhrmann
Shown at The FeckenOdeon on 25th October, 2008
This was a huge worldwide popular success but was not as well received by the critics. You’ll either love it or hate it but it’s such and eyeful and earful that you’re hardly likely to remain indifferent to it. It’s certainly a big film that demands a big screen—the sheer visual bravado of it is hardly likely to come across on the telly.
The story is based on one of the oldest operatic warhorses—the one where the heroine, tortured by emotional dilemmas, dies of a nasty cough while singing at the top of her lungs. Alexander Dumas’ “La Dame aux Camellias” is usually blamed for starting the fashion and Verdi used it for “La Traviata”. Puccini’s Mimi (she of the tiny frozen hand) also died of the same plot. Mr Luhrmann adds a chunk of Orpheus in the Underworld and uses it as an excuse to go way over the top. He mixes musical genres, batters us with sweeping camera moves and throws in oddities (like Kylie Minogue’s Absinthe Fairy) without a care. We shall not be serving Absinthe but you may feel in need of a drop when you get home!
· The film was shot entirely in Australia—Paris was created by special effects magic
· Ms Kidman was badly injured during rehearsals and did much of her role from a wheelchair.
· Originally the Green Fairy was to be played by Ozzy Osbourne but Kylie was thought to be a more suitable shape.

The Naked Truth

1957 - Dir.: Mario Zampi
Shown at The FeckenOdeon on 27th September, 2008
This is British Comedy from the tail end of the age of whimsy. Things were about to get more gritty and realistic... and then Barbara Windsor’s exploding bra and the truly awful “Confessions of...” series would condemn our local film industry to decades of tawdriness. Here though, the established stars of a more innocent age do their turns and make us smile. There are a couple of digs at the political establishment but, as in the Ealing comedies, Mr Zampi is content merely to prick the bubble of pomposity. The earthy delights of Steptoe & Son were five years away and Alf Garnett hadn’t been invented yet - so relax and wallow in a bygone age where the most racy thing about the film was its title.
Watch out for the young pre-Carry On Joan Sims giving a critically acclaimed performance as “a walking, twitching, comedy of hysteria”.
For an Italian, Mario Zampi had an amazing grasp of the British sense of humour. In the 1950s he made five tremendously enjoyable romps that had something of the Ealing flavour. He died in 1963 after completing the sophisticated Jimmy Edwards picture “Bottoms Up”