The Apartment

1960 - Dir.: Billy Wilder - 2 hours 5 minutes
Shown at The FeckenOdeon on 22nd February, 2014

When Billy Wilder made “The Apartment” in 1960, offices were only on the edge of being mechanised and armies of people were needed to operate them. One of the opening shots in the movie shows Jack Lemmon as one of a vast horde of wage slaves, working in a room where the desks line up in parallel rows almost to the vanishing point. This shot is a deliberate tribute to King Vidor's silent film “The Crowd” (1928), which is also about a faceless employee in a heartless corporation. Strangely the “open plan” office has made a comeback in recent years. 
This is the director’s second collaboration with Jack Lemmon, who plays a variation on that recurrent Wilder character, the weak guy who becomes a pimp or a gigolo to advance his career. In this instance, he's an insurance company clerk who wins promotion by lending his Manhattan flat to lecherous senior employees, among them his chilly departmental chief, superbly played by Fred MacMurray, also making his second appearance in a Wilder film. Alexander Trauner's sets are unforgettable and Shirley MacLaine is deeply moving as the exploited lift attendant Lemmon comes to care for. One of the striking things about this film isn't the romance, or even the comedy, but the shabbiness, pettiness and nastiness of the office politics - many of us will sympathise!
● The scene on the cold night on the park bench was really cold. Jack Lemmon had to be sprayed with anti-freeze to stop him frosting over.
● The nasal spray was actually milk - real spray wouldn’t have shown up on the black and white flm
● C.C. Baxter is just a poor worker - but inside his apartment are two authentic Tiffany Studios lamps, worth hardly anything when the film was made, but now worth between $30,000 and $40,000 each.

The Sapphires

2012 - Dir: Wayne Blair
Shown at the FeckenOdeon on 14th February, 2014

This is a light hearted film but the plight of Australia’s native people is hardly the jewel in that county’s crown. Until 1967 Australian law classed Aboriginal people as "flora or fauna." The government had the authority to remove light-skinned native children from their families as part of a program (depicted in "Rabbit-Proof Fence") to make them part of the white community. It’s against this background that the film is set. The fact that it’s based on a real group and that they did indeed become successful despite all the odds is encouraging - but one fears that it is not the end of the story of Aboriginal repression. The film is co-written by the son of one of the real-life singers and directed by Wayne Blair, who starred in the play based on their story, "The Sapphires" is clearly a labour of love for all involved. It's also a warm tribute to four women for whom success as performers was just the beginning.
The film is only partially accurate - there really was an all-female Australian aboriginal singing group named The Sapphires in the 1960s, although originally there were three of them: Laurel Robinson (the mother of screenwriter Tony Briggs), Beverly Briggs and Naomi Mayers. They performed at hotels, pubs, cabarets, clubs, parties, army barracks and universities around Melbourne. When they were invited to Vietnam to perform for the troops, Briggs and Mayers declined, as they were against the war, so Robinson enlisted her sister Lois Peeler to join her. In Vietnam, the duo of Robinson and Peeler performed backing vocals for a New Zealand Maori band they had performed with in Melbourne. It was this Maori band who introduced them to soul music; the character of Dave Lovelace, portrayed in the film by Chris O'Dowd, did not exist.... but without him there would have been no love story... and without the feisty four it wouldn’t have been half as entertaining. There was controversy surrounding the film’s American release when the distributor chose to promote Chris O’Dowd as the “star” and relegated the band to the background. 
The Sapphires was an enormous box office success in its native country - the biggest earner of 2012. Despite a clutch of awards from film festivals around the world, the big distributors chose to ignore it. It received minimum publicity for a minimal release of just 5 weeks at “selected screens” in the UK  and fared equally poorly in the USA. As is often the case it has been left to community cinemas and film societies to pick up the pieces and the film has been showing throughout the country to packed and appreciative houses. We’re delighted to be part of this “underground” circuit.

Quartet

2012 - Dir.: Dustin Hoffman - 1 hours 38 minutes
Shown at the FeckenOdeon on 25th January, 2014

All of a sudden it’s OK to be old in the movies - not only old but old and British. A crop of box office hits including “Calendar Girls” and “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel” convinced the big cinema chains that the wrinkly pound was worth chasing. It won’t last long of course. The studio executive committees are busy grinding out predictable clones and there have already been a couple of fairly nauseating examples - including one that virtually repeated the plot of Calendar Girls (only with chaps - try not to think about it!). 
Quartet could easily have turned out that way but it’s saved by a director who eats, sleeps and dreams cinema - and who, surprisingly, has never directed a film before. Dustin Hoffman was 75 when he first shouted “action” on a movie set and you can feel his determination to make this one count (perhaps his first and last chance?) - undoubtedly his sympathy for the subject matter is perfectly natural. He’s helped by a literate script by Sir Ronald Harwood (76) who rewrote his stage play of the same name. 
The play ran in London in 1999 and 2000 and was a popular success.  The Daily Telegraph commented: "...the show's heart is in the right place and a cherishable company of senior thesps give it everything they’ve got, breathing vitality into a script that could be an inert embarrassment if performed by less accomplished players." The senior thesps involved in 1999 were  Sir Donald Sinden, Alec McCowen, Stephanie Cole and Angela Thorne. Tonight’s quartet are no less senior and no less cherishable!
Tom Courtney (75), Maggie Smith (78), Billy Connolly (70) and Pauline Collins (72) relish the chance to prove that it really ain’t over until the fat lady stops singing.
PLEASE REMAIN SEATED DURING THE CREDITS - apart from the fact that the music is beautiful, there are fascinating “then and now” pictures of members of the cast - many of whom have been performers on the operatic and musical stage for a very long time (opera lovers should look out for former Royal Opera stars Dame Gwyneth Jones (76) and John Rawnsley (a mere 62).

To Catch a Thief

1955 - Dir.: Alfred Hitchcock - 1 hr 46 mins

Shown at The FeckenOdeon on 28th December, 2013

Alfred Hitchcock devised this witty romantic mystery to team his blonde obsession at the time, Grace Kelly, with his old favourite, Cary Grant. This box-office hit follows a retired jewel thief's attempts to catch a copycat criminal. Grant and Kelly are on sparkling form, as is Jessie Royce Landis as the latter's formidable mother, and the French Riviera is beautifully captured by the Oscar-winning cinematography of Robert Burks.

It’s a good thing the sheer force of star power carries the film, because the plot only works if you don’t think about it. Even if you think just a little, you realize that there about a thousand ways for Cary Grant to accomplish his goal that are easier and safer, but then he would not have had to spend 100 spellbinding minutes juggling the attentions of Grace Kelly and Brigitte Auber.

The only thing that really doesn’t work in this film is the character Bertani, played by french actor Charles Vanel. He spoke no English at all and the English dubbing in his scenes is not just bad, but embarrassingly bad. It probably would have been much more effective to have Vanel learn his lines phonetically, like Bela Lugosi did for Dracula.

But that can’t detract too much from the gorgeous scenery, Oscar-winning cinematography and the pure unadulterated pleasure of watching Cary Grant and Grace Kelly remind us what it once meant to be real movie stars.

 

Life of Pi

2012 - Dir.: Ang Lee - 2 hours 7 minutes

Shown at The FeckenOdeon on 30th November, 2013

Special effects, animation and model work are taken to the ultimate level in this most realistic of films. The caption “No animals were hurt in the making of this film” is pretty well redundant - barring a couple of shots of animals in the wild, all of the furry creatures have been created through CGI and conventional stop frame animation. The special effects team had been able to practice on the Narnia films but this is on a scale that even they couldn’t have imagined.
Taiwan-born Ang Lee rapidly established himself in the 1990s as one of the world's most versatile film-makers, moving on from the trilogy of movies about Chinese families that made his name to Jane Austen's England (Sense and Sensibility) to a martial arts movie in medieval China (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) followed by a spy thriller in wartime Shanghai (Lust, Caution), and then a western about a gay relationship in present-day Wyoming (Brokeback Mountain). He adopts different styles to fit his new subjects, and while there are certain recurrent themes, among them the disruption of families and young people facing moral and physical challenges, there are no obsessive concerns of the sort once considered a necessity for auteurs. He has a fastidious eye for a great image but he also has a concern for language. There are differing opinions as to the success of his interpretation of Yann Martel’s novel but it’s certainly one of the most intelligent and beautiful pieces of work to emanate from a Hollywood studio in recent years.

The Women on the 6th Floor

2010 - Dir: Philippe le Guay - 1hr 37mins

Shown in FeckenOdeon 2 on 15th November, 2013

This delightful film was never going to win any awards or break any boundaries - but not all films have to do these. Not all films have to shock, astound, amaze or provoke. This one is likely to make us smile. It’s constructed with us in mind. The Friday night, end of the week, drink in hand crowd. Let the wind blow, the fog swirl and the malignant approach of the frantic festive season fade into insignificance as we cocoon ourselves in gentle escapism. Cheers!

If you saw "Potiche" you’ll recognise the lead actor, Fabrice Luchini - here in a more relaxed and droll role. Fabrice is a long time favourite of French audiences having appeared in 72 films since his debut in Erich Rohmers’s "Claire’s Knee" in 1970. His career has had its ups and downs - "Emanuelle 4" in 1984 could hardly be counted as a highlight - but his likeable character and solid professionalism have ensured that he’s always worked. Since this film he’s completed the latest Asterix movie and an Alain Tanneur film intriguingly entitled "Cycling with Molierre" - with a script by tonight’s director Phillippe le Guay. Fabrice is currently filming "Gemma Bovary" for release next year.

Director Philippe le Guay has an equally long track record. He’s been making films for 20 years - many of them with Fabrice Luchini. He says that he based the character in this film on his father - only his father never had the chance to break free. He says of the setting "If you ever go to Paris and look down the streets, you have a look at the buildings that have been built by the end of the 19th century or the beginning of the 20th century and you will notice that under the roofs there are these little maid rooms with no running water. No heating. It was part of the approach of society. So the architecture says everything already. I took inspiration from the way things are made. When you leave an upstairs apartment kitchen, you step into another world. It’s almost like that series The Twilight Zone. Of course my film is very realistic, it’s not science fiction, but the metaphor works that way.

The late and much lamented Chicago Sun film critic Roger Ebert wrote of his last reviews about this film: "The Women on the 6th Floor" is a pleasant movie, even-tempered, a romantic fantasy. It works because Fabrice Luchini makes a sympathetic hero, Sandrine Kiberlain makes a bewildered wife, Natalia Verbeke as Maria is warm and friendly, and the maids as a group believe in solidarity forever. There's some mild political and social satire as the lifestyle of the proletarian maids challenges the stodgy owner-managers, and as the Jouberts come to understand a marriage they seemed to accept unthinkingly. There are few reasons you must see this movie, but absolutely none that you should not."

12 Angry Men

1957 - Dir.: Sidney Lumet - 1 hour 36 minutes

Shown at The FeckenOdeon on 26th October, 2013

 
 In form, "12 Angry Men" is a courtroom drama. In purpose, it's a crash course in those passages of the United States Constitution that promise defendants a fair trial and the presumption of innocence. It has a kind of stark simplicity: Apart from a brief setup and a briefer epilogue, the entire film takes place within a small New York City jury room, on "the hottest day of the year," as 12 men debate the fate of a young defendant charged with murdering his father. This is a film where tension comes from personality conflict, dialogue and body language, not action. It is a masterpiece of stylised realism.

The story is based on a television play by Reginald Rose. Rose and Henry Fonda acted as co-producers and put up their own money to finance the film. It was Sidney Lumet's first feature, although he was experienced in TV drama, and the cinematography was by the veteran Boris Kaufman, whose credits ("On the Waterfront," "Long Day's Journey into Night") show a skill for tightening the tension in dialogue exchanges. To make the room seem smaller as the story continued, he gradually changed to lenses of longer focal lengths, so that the backgrounds seemed to close in on the characters. "In addition," Lumet writes, "I shot the first third of the movie above eye level, shot the second third at eye level and the last third from below eye level. In that way, toward the end the ceiling began to appear. Not only were the walls closing in, the ceiling was as well. The sense of increasing claustrophobia did a lot to raise the tension of the last part of the movie." In the film's last shot, he observes, he used a wide-angle lens "to let us finally breathe."

This film is commonly used in business schools to illustrate team dynamics and conflict resolution techniques.
Nominated for 3 Oscars, the film lost out in all its categories to The Bridge on the River Kwai.
The "unusual-looking knife" is an Italian stiletto switchblade with a Filipino-style Kriss blade.

Wadjda

2013 - Dir: Haifaa el Mansour
 Shown in FeckenOdeon 2 on 18th October, 2013

As the first woman to shoot a Saudi Arabian feature film, writer-director Haifaa Al Mansour has already assured herself of a small place in history. And yet Wadjda stands on its own merits. The road is dusty, bumpy and fraught with danger but up ahead lies a bittersweet party and the scent of a happy ending. Wadjda knows it is there and she bears down on the pedals. In Saudi girls don’t ride bikes and they certainly don’t ride them with their male friends... in fact Saudi girls aren’t allowed to do much at all. This tale could so easily have delivered its message in a worthy, plodding way. Instead it’s light, funny and very human - and opens up a window on a world we westerners know little about.
While the film has no direct moral message, it becomes a clear illustration of how many of the rules Wadjda faces are not about being a moral person, but about control—control of women by men. The main drama in the film revolves around the absurdity of laws that control the independent movement of women: Wadjda has to watch with envy as her male friends bike around the neighbourhood streets for fun, while her mother has to rely on an unreliable driver just to get to work. As she learns the Koran by heart, Wadjda also begins to figure out which nonsensical rules she should subvert and which ancient lessons she should aim to follow.
It took Mansour five years to pull together the funds to film Wadjda - the money eventually came from a German company.  Her crew had always to be on the lookout for religious police during the six-month shoot and she was often obliged to hide in the back of a van to avoid detection. She was driven to make the film that she says is based on a niece, whom she described to the New York Times: "She's very feisty, she has a great sense of humour, but my brother is more conservative, and he wanted her to conform," she said. "To me, that's a great loss. It reminds me of a lot of girls in my home town who had great potential. They could change the world if they were given the chance."
While Haifaa al-Mansour's gruelling effort to make the film is certainly impressive, Wadjda doesn't rest on the accomplishment of being an international first - the film is excellent by any standard. It would be a great film even if it were the fourth film shot in Saudi Arabia or the hundredth.

Les Misérables

2012 - Dir.: Tom Hooper - 2 hr 40 mins

Shown at The FeckenOdeon on 28th September, 2013

Oh, how musicals divide us! Some of us love them, some of us hate them... and some of us don’t quite know what to make of them - especially when they’re as quirkily made as this one. This is a film based on a stage show based on a play based on a book. All the previous incarnations were incredibly successful. The novel, written by Victor Hugo in 1862, was a best seller in many lands and in many languages. Hugo’s text is regarded as a great humanitarian work that encourages compassion and hope in the face of adversity and injustice. The musical version originally appeared in 1985 as a collaboration between the Royal Shakespeare Company and impresario Cameron Mackintosh - it continues in the West End, on tour and on stage throughout the world. When the movie was proposed it was widely expected that it would be a glossily made and star studded extravaganza - a faithful, OTT, big screen version of the stage show.... but then Tom Hooper got involved. Mr Hooper, an experienced TV director, came fresh from his first big screen success in the form of “The King’s Speech” and Mr Hooper had his own ideas. To start with he didn’t cast singers in the leads. Instead he chose singing actors (as well as some who hadn’t done singing at all). His second decision was to make his actors sing throughout - making it more of an opera than a musical. The success or otherwise of this approach has been the subject of much debate - you will doubtless make up your own minds as you watch tonight’s show. What can be said without pre-judging is that there has been nothing like this attempted ever before and that Mr Hooper is a brave man to tackle a “national treasure” in this very bold and imaginative way.

 

Skyfall

2012 - Dir.: Sam Mendes

Shown at The FeckenOdeon on 31st August, 2013

This is James Bond’s 23rd film appearance in 50 years... which, assuming that he’s in his 30s in the first film, makes him at least 70 years old and, considering his lifestyle, he’s looking remarkably trim. In fact this film is widely considered to be one of the best Bonds ever. This is a full-blooded, joyous, intelligent celebration of a beloved cultural icon, with Daniel Craig taking full possession of the role still inevitably identified with Sean Connery. Lots of things have changed in 50 years - Q and Miss Moneypenny are practically kids. M has not only changed sex but is preparing to retire - and "Skyfall" at last provides a role worthy of Judi Dench. At 77 she is all but the co-star of the film, with a lot of screen time, poignant dialogue, and a character who is far more complex and sympathetic than we expect in this series. The film is guided by a considerable director (Sam Mendes) who delivers not only a terrific Bond but a terrific movie, period. Mendes, better known a a theatre director, abandons any arty pretence and gives us a well shot, well told story - here is James Bond lifted up, dusted off, set back on his feet and ready for another 50 years.
● Daniel Craig was 43 when Skyfall was made and has said that he fears that he’s getting a bit old for the physical demands of playing Bond. Sean Connery gave up the role at the age of 53 and is now 82 - the same age as Honor Blackman.
● The film's opening sequence shot in Adana and Istanbul in Turkey took around two months to film, three months of rehearsals, four months of preparation, 200 crew members from England and another 200 local crew in order to produce around 12-14 minutes of screen time. For the motorbike chase Coca-Cola was sprayed on the tarmac of the streets in Istanbul to keep the bikes from sliding.
● The Paddock Tank (aka the Exterior Tank) at Pinewood Studios doubled as the exterior of the Shanghai Golden Dragon Casino. The set was lit by three-hundred floating lanterns and two thirty-foot high dragon heads.
● Work on the film was halted for several months because MGM went bankrupt. A financial deal and a tie up with Columbia/Sony rescued the project, time was made up and Skyfall was released as planned - in time to celebrate Bond’s 50th anniversary.
● The Aston Martin DB5 car is the same one used in Goldfinger.

Goldfinger

1964 - Dir: Guy Hamilton

Shown at The FeckenOdeon on 31st August, 2013

James Bond is the most durable of the twentieth century's movie heroes, and the one most likely to last well into the twenty second century - although Sherlock Holmes of course is also immortal, and Tarzan is probably good for a retread. One reason for Bond's longevity among series heroes is quality control - Bond is consistently Bond: He remains recognizably the same man he was in 1962, when "Dr. No" first brought Ian Fleming's spy to the screen. Even the crypto-Bonds, like the oddball David Niven hero of the maverick "Casino Royale" (1967), or the spoof Bonds, like Our Man Flint and Matt Helm, follow the general outlines of the Fleming legend. He is an archetype so persuasive that to change him would be sacrilegious. Of all the earlier Bonds, "Goldfinger" is undoubtedly the best - if it is not a great film, it is a great entertainment, and contains all the elements of the Bond formula that would work again and again. It's also interesting as the link between the more modest first two Bonds and the later big-budget extravaganzas; after this one, producers Albert "Cubby" Broccoli and Harry Saltzman could be certain that 007 was good for the long run.
Bond’s creator, Ian Fleming, visited Pinewood during shooting but died before the movie's release. No doubt he would have approved of producer Albert R. Broccoli's perfection of the 007 myth. Goldfinger is more than just a spy thriller; it establishes the Bond film as a genre all of its own. Forty-nine years after its original release it's obviously dated: Bond's gripe about needing earmuffs to listen to The Beatles seems quaint and the rear-projected European locations are jarring (the studio still hadn’t budgeted for expensive overseas locations - and you have to bear in mind that until 1969 we Brits were not allowed to spend more than £50 per trip outside the country). Yet what's incredible is how authoritative Connery still seems. At the top of his game, he was never so comfortable in the role, a perfect synthesis of cynicism and sophistication.  Moore, Lazenby, Dalton and Brosnan never came close to that - though Daniel Craig has a good crack at it in  “Skyfall”. (As a Goldfinger ticket holder you can buy a ticket for tonight’s showing of Skyfall for just £3!)
● In the Ian Fleming novel, Pussy Galore is a lesbian, which is why she gives Bond the cold shoulder to start with. Her team are known as the Cement Mixers. Honor Blackman was 37 when the film was made - making her the oldest Bond “girl” in the series. She’s now 82 and still working.
● The producers wanted Orson Welles to play Auric Goldfinger, but Welles was too expensive. Then Gert Fröbe began arguing over his salary (he wanted 10% from the movie's earnings) prompting the producers to wonder whether Welles would have been cheaper after all.... especially as Fröbe’s English turned out to be so poor that he had to be dubbed by an English actor.
● Author Ian Fleming partially based the title character on the controversial Modernist architect Erno Goldfinger. The architect threatened to sue Fleming's publisher who contacted the author to inquire whether he might consider renaming the character, and the novel. Fleming replied that he'd be delighted to comply... if he could change it to "Goldprick."

The Commitments

1991 - Dir: Alan Parker
Shown in FeckenOdeon 2 on 2nd August, 2013

The Commitments was Alan Parker's third film about pop music. His first, “Fame”, was a frothy coming-of-age-musical that made the most of its youthful enthusiasm despite a lacklustre script. The second, “Pink Floyd: The Wall”, was a depressive, insular, and angular pastiche of moody myth-making that was interesting mainly for people who fried their brains listening to "Shine on You Crazy Diamond" a hundred times too often. The Commitments sits somewhere in the middle: An engaging, open-hearted entertainment that pulls off two neat tricks. First, it's one of the few movies about rock-pop-soul music that seems to have the right idea about why and how bands come together, with some fine performances from rank amateurs. But more impressively, it finds some great humour in a setting that's defined by grinding poverty. That setting is North Dublin, where Jimmy Rabbite (Robert Arkins) is trying to simultaneously shrug off his parents' bad taste and the dole-driven life that surrounds him. The film is based on the first of Roddy Doyle's so-called "Barrytown Trilogy" about the lives of the Rabbitt family. The remaining two books, The Snapper and The Van were also made into films starring Colm Meaney as Jimmy Rabbitt, Sr.
The really weird thing about watching “The Commitments” now is that it is suddenly a period film. Not so much dated but capturing an era just before it disappeared. Real time-capsule stuff. Relics like video stores abound. And if you don’t get a wave of nostalgia when the price of a bag of chips gets mentioned, you probably weren’t alive in 1991.
As for the music, it propels the film completely in places powered by Andrew Strong’s blistering vocals - Andrew, son of Irish soul singer Rob Strong, was 16 when the film was made and got the part when he tagged along with his dad to an audition. This is his only film appearance but he continues to record and perform. In casting the band at the centre of what was his fourth musical, director Alan Parker auditioned over 3,000 musicians, picking the top 12. It's the old manufactured pop band trick, but Parker also manufactured his cast - 10 of the main players had no previous acting experience. Full performances of soul standards start to dominate as the film goes on culminating with three songs in their entirety towards the end. It’s an amazing latitude given to the material by Parker that is almost unthinkable today.