Films on Friday - Nov 27, 2009

ROBIN Hood, bad dads and the best movie title EVER, in the movie guide that spends its evenings at Harrogate Council.

*SPOILERS FOR APOCALYPSE NOW, PLATOON AND WWII - YES, IN THIS PRE-AMBLE*

Hola! Oh no, we're speaking Spanish. Was the Vietnam War all for nothing? (Please check this, subs.)

Was Colonel Kurtz grotesquely mutilated just so our fish, chips and napalm shops would be put out of business by swarthy piella salesman?

Did Willem Dafoe thrust his arms skywards to the strains of Samuel Barber, only for our brass bands to be silenced by the deft fingery of Flamenco guitar.

And what of Field Marshal Winston Patton, leading his brave forces into battle against a heap of devious, identikit guerrilla fighters armed with grenades and rice.

Still, perhaps the sun will come out now we've been invaded by Spain. If you'd missed the invasion, take a look out of your window. What do you see? Oh, well try the other window. Just look at them, with their impressive tans and Euro 2008 t-shirts, laying waste to the wilds of Yorkshire.

***

I'd like to apologise for the above, which is dreadfully hard to justify on any level (particularly a comedic one), but since it's the only pre-amble you're getting this week, that mightn't be wise. I was covering a meeting on Wednesday night and I'm spending Thursday bopping to Thea Gilmore at The Duchess, York, so this has been written on Monday and Tuesday, and uploaded in a frightful hurry. I hope it doesn't detract from your enjoyment of your life.

This week's guide features a heap of reviews covering the films showing on telly this week (though a few of them are recycled from old guides), along with the next five movies in our Top 100: #s 50 to 45. It's usually 10, and I generally endeavour to write as many brand spanking new reviews as I can, but like I said, 'been busy.

Your comments are welcome - no, essential - at rick.burin@ypn.co.uk or via the usual channels (post, graffiti, flaming human sacrifice).

***

Films on TV - your guide to the week ahead

Nov 28 to Dec 4

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 28

Up first this week is Warner Bros' superlative swashbuckler, The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938, Five, 3.35pm). Showcasing Errol Flynn's jaunty, irreverent persona - one of cinema's greatest treats - it's a lushly-photographed Technicolor romp stuffed with superb action sequences and colourful characterisations. Olivia de Havilland is ideal as Maid Marian, Basil Rathbone suitably hissable as Guy of Gisbourne and Claude Rains seductively despotic as Prince John, while the Merry Men include such familiar faces as Eugene Pallette and Alan Hale. The film is also notable for featuring one of Erich Wolfgang Korngold's greatest scores, a euphoria-inducingly fantastic creation. (5/5)

Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back (1980, ITV1, 4.35pm) is the best of the bunch. Requiring no set-up and no wrap-up, it's able to devote its time instead to a fast-moving, twisty-turny plot, a handful of ace action sequences and some atypically involving wordy stretches. The story was penned by George Lucas, but the script was done by Leigh Brackett and Lawrence Kasdan, with Irvin Kershner directing. That means that while the movie takes place in Lucas' essentially intriguing universe, it's blissfully free of his lousy dialogue and steeped in atmosphere – a palpable chilliness complementing the often bleak subject matter. The plot has throaty commander-in-chief (and world's worst dad) Darth Vader stalking rebel hotshot Luke Skywalker around the galaxy. At first it appears he's trying to kill him, but fear not, he just wants him to join the dark side. For non-Star Wars devotees, this is an example of just how good the series became; for fans, it's a chance to see the gaping chasm between this fine film and the actual greatest movie ever made, which we'll be revealing in January. (5/5)

I got No Way Out (1987, Virgin1, 9pm) as a blind buy on DVD (see also: Oldboy), having heard from both the Radio Times and Leonard Maltin that it was a first-rate thriller. Well it's not. It's a load of old guff. Riffing, cold war stylee, on the classic 1948 crime movie The Big Clock – starring Charles Laughton and Ray Milland – it casts Kevin Costner as an army officer who's forced to cover his tracks after an illicit liaison with his boss's mistress, who winds up dead. State propaganda merges with reality and soon he's suspected of being a Russian spy. The film begins like an erotic thriller, complete with hilariously asinine symbolism, then morphs into a moderately involving procedural, before going out in a blaze of incomprehensible idiocy. (2/5)

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 29

Robots (2005, C4, 6.25pm) is a witless CGI variation on the 'little man versus the world' films so beloved of Frank Capra, with only an impressive visual sense to recommend it. Rodney Copperbottom (voiced by Ewan McGregor) is a young robot who moves to the big city in a bid to meet his hero, the famous inventor Bigweld (Mel Brooks). Finding him mysteriously absent, Rodney resolves to get to the (copper) bottom of the matter. Robot City is a stunning, extraordinarily complete and believable universe, but everything else about Robots feels shallow and underwhelming, from the under-nourished storyline to the weak comic relief (Robin Williams) and the film's abundance of tedious spot-the-movie spoofery. (2/5)

FILM OF THE WEEK – 1

There've been a few versions of The Secret Garden (1993, Five, 2.30pm) – including the usual edited highlights package from MGM in '49 – but this '90s reading from Polish filmmaker Agnieszka Holland is probably the best, retaining the spirit of the book along with its plot points. Kate Maberly is most appealing as Mary Lennox, the young girl who returns to England from India after her parents' death and begins to change the lives of those around her – including her frosty uncle and sickly cousin (Heydon Prowse, who you might recall filmed that Alan Duncan outburst the other week). Maggie Smith also shines as Mrs Medlock, the gruff but kindhearted head of the servants. Shot at Fountains Abbey and Allerton Castle, this is a rich, rewarding adaptation with a wonderful evocation of time and place. (5/5)

Miracle on 34th Street (1947, Film4, 4.45pm) is a near-classic Christmas movie about a department store Santa (Edmund Gwenn) who claims to be the real thing, and ends up having to prove his identity during a mental examination. Maureen O'Hara is the arch realist who starts to come around, Natalie Wood her big-eyed daughter and John Paine their affable neighbour. Among the stuffy, cynical souls trampling on everyone's fun, you'll find rent-a-villains Porter Hall and Gene Lockhart. While frequently winning, with a great Christmas atmosphere and sensitive, charming playing, there's something a little off about the plotting, which is disjointed and simply too stressful to provide the escapist wonderment required. (4/5)

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 30

As reviewed last week: I saw The Cheaters (1945, Film4, 11am) for the first time recently and was really taken with it. Playing like a cross between Merrily We Live, Christmas in Connecticut and Remember the Night, it sees a dizzy, well-to-do family take in a penniless, drunken former matinee idol over the Christmas period. But if you're expecting him to teach them a few life lessons, a la Merrily We Live or My Man Godfrey, you're liable to be surprised. Not only is he a complete fraud, but he has a severely dark side and is willing to help them defraud a showgirl out of her rightful inheritance. This intelligent, incisive prestige production from Republic Pictures looks and feels very Christmassy, that festive flavour augmenting a narrative that's loaded with interesting ideas and unexpected diversions, even if they don't always come off. It could have done with a few less jokes about drunkenness, too – Hollywood tended to see alcoholism as amusing until Wilder's The Lost Weekend, released the same year. Joseph Schildkraut, who appeared in perhaps the greatest Christmas film of all – The Shop Around the Corner – is the standout as the John Barrymore-esque actor, with an unusually strong supporting cast, given the studio, headed by Billie Burke and Preston Sturges alumni Eugene Pallette and Raymond Walburn. (4/5)

The World According to Garp (1982, TCM, 11.05pm) is an entertaining, episodic fantasy, based on the John Irving novel. Robin Williams gives one of his best (i.e. most bearable) performances as the illegitimate son of a feminist nurse - his late father is known only as Technical Sergeant Garp - whose character is forged in a blur of bohemia and bizarreness. A plane flies into his house, a transgender ex-American Footballer comes to stay and Garp delves into the question of female sexuality, as the film's none-too-subtle themes of love and loss in a wonderful, weird world come to the fore. This is sometimes a little too self-consciously quirky for its own good, but it's never dull - and it's an awful lot better than Forrest Gump. (3/5)

For TUE to FRI picks, please click on the link below right.TUESDAY, DECEMBER 1

Contraband (Film 4, 11am) was Powell and Pressburger's second film together. This time Conrad Veidt's on our side (following his sophisticated, villainous turn in The Spy in Black), playing a Danish sea-captain who tangles with German spies, and recruits some bakers to help his cause. This unheralded comedy-thriller recalls Hitchcock's banter-heavy '30s pictures, with a climax that offers serial-like thrills. For more, see The Spy in Black (WED). (4/5)

On Golden Pond (1981, Film4, 5.05pm) is a pair of sensational performances in search of a great film. Henry Fonda plays a retired academic unable to come to terms with old age. Katharine Hepburn is his sympathetic wife, and the only person who understands him. When their grandson comes to stay at their lakefront home, Fonda softens and finally comes of old age with good grace. The two Golden Age titans produce awe-inspiring characterisations that rank with their greatest work (The Grapes of Wrath and The Ox-Bow Incident for Fonda, The Philadelphia Story and Stage Door for Hepburn, in this reviewer's opinion), it's just a shame the script is somewhat thin and unambitious. Fonda's real life daughter Jane plays his offspring here, but registers zero in a poorly-written part. She said later the on-screen relationship mirrored her own experiences. On Golden Pond is well worth catching, thanks to the twin masterclasses in screen acting, but if you wind up feeling a smidgen disappointed, don't be surprised. (4/5)

Jet Li is the world's leadest wushu practitioner, a gifted martial artist who won numerous awards on his way to becoming his generation's Bruce Lee. Mel Gibson is that guy out of Mad Max. Which one of them would win in a fight? Surprisingly, the answer is Mel Gibson, and the evidence is on your screens tonight in the flaccid shape of Lethal Weapon 4 (1998, Five USA, 9pm), a threadbare fourth instalment of a series that was never that good to begin with. (2/5)

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 2

Witness the birth of British cinema's finest writer-director partnership with The Spy in Black (1939, Film4, 12.45pm), the first collaboration between Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. Silent film titan Conrad Veidt is the cultured German agent of the title who is sent to the Orkney Isles during WWI. This unusual suspenser is laced with Pressburger's usual sly wit and loaded with breakneck twists and turns. If Powell's visuals aren't as outlandish as usual, there's ample compensation in his heady evocation of the Scottish wilderness, as in his earlier triumph, The Edge of the World (our all-time #84). (3/5) There's more P&P goodness on Film4 tomorrow.

Jesse James (1939, Sky Classics, 3.15pm) is oft-criticised for printing the legend, but its real flaws lie elsewhere. The story is underwritten and unpersuasive, asking us to side with a hero whose sheer unlikeability renders the central romance uninvolving and difficult to comprehend. The narrative is also bitty, leaping forward in time with nary an unconvincing bit of exposition to cover the gap. And the film is populated by cardboard characters - far too many of them. Still, Tyrone Power's breakthrough performance as Jesse, Henry Fonda's understated turn as his brother Frank, and the sumptuous Technicolor photography go some way to compensating, while the first and final scenes at least feel like the real thing. The BBFC's policy of cutting all horse falls means that this will be missing its most famous piece of stuntwork. (2/5)

Above Us the Waves (1955, C4, 1.35pm) is one of a seemingly endless stream of British movies about the Navy's WWII exploits. Exciting plotting and a good cast – led by intrepid Johnny Mills (one of my favourites) – keep the film afloat. (3/5)

I haven't seen Half Past Dead (2002, Five, 9pm), but it does have the finest movie title in existence, so I'm recommending it unreservedly. I've lost count of how many times the title goes past bad and back to good again, but I'd imagine it's rather a lot.

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 3

FILM OF THE WEEK - 2

Long Day's Journey Into Night (1962, Film4, 1.55pm) is an acting showcase, with four magnificent performers at the top of their game. Each actor is given the time to delve deep into their role, each character laid bare across a day and a night. Ralph Richardson is the domineering former actor laid low by age and broken dreams, Kate Hepburn fittingly annoying - though tremendously sympathetic - as the former socialite belle ravaged by morphine addiction. Their youngest son is Dean Stockwell, at his most touching, vulnerable and good-looking - his doe-eyed juvenile sick with consumption as he's moulded in the image of his brother. And that brother? The great Jason Robards, Jr., nothing short of sensational as a cynical, tortured soul who destroys everything he touches, while pickling his liver. Like O'Neill's The Iceman Cometh, it's repetitive, but that's the point: the characters are trapped in a cycle of despair. The movie, directed by Sidney Lumet, is like a montage, each monologue - stuffed full of revelations - adding another layer to the portrait. It's stagey, sure, but that isn't a criticism. If feels like you're in the midst of the action, watching one of the greatest plays ever staged. (5/5)

"You're, like, the coolest person I've ever met, and you don't even have to try." "I try really hard, actually."

Juno (2007, Sky Indie, 11.05am and 8pm) is a comedy in the Heathers/Ghost World/Brick vein, and just a touch less sublime. Ellen Page is terrific playing the pregnant 16-year-old of the title who puts her unborn sprog up for adoption and finds willing parents in the shape of neurotic Jennifer Garner and husband Jason Bateman - who's got some growing up of his own to do. Michael Cera is really nice as the baby's father, his offbeat characterisation chiming nicely with Page's and creating a laid-back chemistry. The film is devilishly funny and utterly memorable, thanks to Diablo Cody's stylised dialogue and an idiosyncratic, folky soundtrack, but it can't maintain the unconventionality and hilarity of the first half. (4/5)

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 4

Film4 continues to trawl the back catalogue of two of Britain's finest filmmakers, with One of Our Aircraft Is Missing (1942, C4, 1.25pm), from Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. Their first co-credited film, it's a fairly straightforward wartime thriller, coupling standard escape heroics with propagandist heavy-handedness. But while the picture lacks the depth and warmth of The Way to the Stars and Appointment in London, it has an immediacy and an invention that lifts it out of the average. In a superb pre-credits sequence, an RAF bomber jet smashes into a pylon, crashing to the ground in a ball of flames. We flash back briefly, then play on to reveal the fate of the six British airmen on board. Our film industry did its best to celebrate the contribution of Allied troops and civilians the world over, culminating in the arguably superfluous Malta Story. Powell had already "bigged up" the Danish in Contraband (see TUE) and here it's the Dutch who get the rousing treatment, helping Eric Portman, Bernard Miles and the boys to escape. It's a bit episodic, but there are fine moments, including a church-set suspense sequence that's brief but show-stopping, and a great bit with a smuggled record. (3/5)

"If I'd known this was all it would take, I'd have put that eyepatch on 40 years ago."

John Wayne certainly deserved a Best Actor Oscar. He deserved it for The Searchers. You could make a case for She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, too, and he was great in Red River. But he didn't deserve one for True Grit (1969, Sky Classics, 9pm) which isn't one of his best films, or his best performances. Well, unless wearing an unusual costume is the same as acting, in which case Humphrey Bogart should have won for The African Queen. Oh I see. It's a picturesque, but broad, obvious film about a 14-year-old girl (Kim Darby) who recruits a drunken old US Marshal (John Wayne) to track down the farmhand who killed her dad. There's nothing new about the scenarios or the treatment though, a couple of good action scenes and a strong ending give it a bit of a lift. I like Glen Campbell as a singer, but his acting is frankly dire. (3/5)

For #s 50 to 46 in our Top 100, please click on the link below right.Top 100 - for the list so far, please see the archive at the foot of the page

50. One Foot in Heaven (Irving Rapper, 1941) is a simple, stunningly effective movie about the life of a Methodist minister (Fredric March) and his family at the turn of the last century. Based on the memoirs of the real life clergyman's son and told in an episodic style, this quiet, wise, sometimes very funny film sees March confront the hypocrisy of self-congratulatory sections of his parish, as well as leaky roofs, whispering campaigns and perhaps the most severe of all early-20th century ills – the coming of motion pictures. It's an uplifting film, but also a wistful, nostalgic one, marvellously acted and possessing the certain magic that exists only in '40s and '50s Americana, an almost intangible, nigh-on indescribable rose-tinted evocation of a vanishing world. March, a freelancing lead at a time when there were virtually none in Hollywood, had his pick of the most interesting vehicles, and makes the most of this multi-faceted one. Martha Scott is warm and wonderful as his wife, Peter Caldwell and Frankie Thomas do great work as son Hartzell (aged 10 and 18 respectively) and the supporting cast is filled with familiar faces, including Harry Davenport as a kind loner and Gene Lockhart doing his usual villainous bit. The climax, in which a joyous March thumps out 'The Church's One Foundation' on a carillon as the parishioners march through the streets, is immensely satisfying.

Favourite bit: March attends his first film, a William S. Hart silent, promising to offer a prototype audio commentary for his son, pointing out the sinfulness of the pursuit. Then he finds that he rather enjoys it.

See also: The Smallest Show on Earth, a fine British comedy from 1957, in which the aged custodians of a crumbling fleapit – Peter Sellers, Margaret Rutherford and Bernard Miles – stage their own tribute to the silent days. It's a moment of sheer wonder.

Trivia note: The real life Hartzell coined the phrase "pin up", whilst editing Yank magazine.

49. Breaking the Waves (Lars von Trier, 1996) - Emily Watson is probably the closest thing modern screen acting has to a genius. That is, a performer of "extraordinary creative power". And I'd say she's on a par with Lillian Gish as the flat-out best actress that we've seen. As with another genius of the cinema, Orson Welles, Watson's reputation rests largely on a remarkable, bravura debut. Her turn in Breaking the Waves, as a repressed, religious Scotswoman seeking a miracle through sexual degradation, is the most audacious, original, unspeakably sad characterisation put on screen since the movies learned to talk. It really is that good.

Favourite bit: Watson's telephone call with her husband, with whom she's utterly besotted. Woken from her slumber in the phone box, she tells him: "Everyone says I love you too much…"

See also: Director von Trier's Dancer in the Dark, my favourite musical about a Czech factory worker who's robbed of her savings and later accused of murder. Bjork is our protagonist, retreating into the fantasy of song-and-dance as her world begins to unravel. Lawyers hoof, machines become the rhythm section and Bjork goes blind, in this singular mixture of soap and musical, filmed on handheld camera. The film's most effective number, ironically, is 'The Next to Last Song', presented stripped-down and a capella. The film's a heartbreaker. Dogville, von Trier's odd, three-hour stage-bound melodrama, is great too.

48. Ride the High Country (Sam Peckinpah, 1962) - Sam Peckinpah's career seemed to happen in reverse. Most directors begin with unpolished, but energetic, inventive works, before graduating to stately, reflective fare. Ever the rebel, Bloody Sam's career was kickstarted by an elegiac, nostalgic paean to a lost era - Ride the High Country - before he graduated (through bracingly violent variations on a theme) to shapeless, difficult, sometimes barely coherent conspiracy thrillers. The only time he got final cut on a film, he handed in Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia. "Thanks Sam - a road movie about a border town bartender trying to land a $1 million bounty by decapitating a dead gigolo? That should be an easy sell to middle America." Ride the High Country is his greatest work, a tender, noble western that sees two old friends (and rivals), Joel McCrea and Randolph Scott, hired to transport a gold shipment through perilous territory and picking up a young buck and an abused girl along the way. As with John Ford's The Searchers (more of which higher up the list), the cinematography and music are both breathtaking. Indeed, the film recalls Ford at his peak, perfectly fusing Western drama, romance and knockabout comedy. Sweeping and surefooted, it's a genre classic, and in Joel McCreait has one of cinema's most underrated actors at the top of his game.

Favourite bit: The climactic shoot-out, in which Peckinpah shows what distinguishes him from the old breed of director with a bit of slo-mo and an abundance of ammo.

See also: The Wild Bunch, Peckinpah's most famous film, is just great, with William Holden's dying breed of bank robbers, well, dying. All the director's hallmarks are here, from alpha males with crippling psychological defects to blistering action sequences. The lengthy shoot-out finale is in a league of its own. Ernest Borgnine, Robert Ryan, Edmond O'Brien, Ben Johnson, Warren Oates and Bo Hopkins shine in a super supporting cast. The director's Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid, scored by Bob Dylan, is also exceptional, particularly the re-edited 2005 version.

47. Charlie Chan at the Olympics (H. Bruce Humberstone, 1937) is the pick of the delightful mystery series from 20th Century Fox. Following the odd, bowdlerised Behind That Curtain, which isn't a part of the official series, the studio put out 27 mysteries (21 of which still remain) from 1931 to 1944, featuring first Warner Oland and later Sidney Toler as the Chino-Hawaiian sleuth. Olympics was made when the series was its zenith, with top actors, screenwriters and directors attached. The story sees Chan trying to track down some murderous spies who've made off with a new aircraft radar invention. As in all the best entries, he's ably assisted by son Lee (the marvellous Keye Luke), the pair's easy banter and mutual affection providing both humour and heart. Also along for the ride this time is Charlie Chan, Jr., played by the charming child actor Layne Tom, Jr., one of my favourites, who appeared as three different Chan sons in three different films. This one is fast-moving and funny, as well as possessing a head-scratching mystery, and the skilful, good-looking production belies the B-movie budget. Olympics is also historically fascinating, utilising footage of both zeppelins, which were briefly the zeitgeist, and the 1936 Berlin Olympics – including Jesse Owens racing in the 4x100m relay.

Favourite bit: Layne Tom, Jr.'s efforts to solve the mystery, centring on a woman in a white fox fur.

See also: Any of the others, since all the movies in the Fox series are great in their own way. My particular favourites are Opera, Paris, Shanghai, Honolulu, Broadway, The Black Camel, Treasure Island and Castle in the Desert. Horror fans should seek out Wax Museum, history students will want to catch City in Darkness and fans of white headgear won't want to miss Panama.

46. Hannah and Her Sisters (Woody Allen, 1986) - "We enjoy your films," a bunch of aliens tell Woody Allen's moviemaker in 1980's Stardust Memories. "Particularly the early, funny ones." Well I'm sorry to have to argue with our friends from outer space, but I disagree. Not with the first part of course - Allen is arguably the best writer-director of his generation - but with the second. While those knock-about, scattershot gagfests like Love and Death and Take the Money and Run remain good fun, Allen is at his best when he's not just being funny. From the scrappy but important Annie Hall in 1977 to 1992's Husbands and Wives, he created a series of coruscating comedy-dramas (along with three straight dramatic pieces) the like of which we have never seen. Pertinent, intelligent and frequently poignant - whilst possessing a laughs-to-minutes ratio to rival the best of Preston Sturges (or Kevin Smith's Clerks) - these films, among them Manhattan, The Purple Rose of Cairo (our #80) and Crimes and Misdemeanours are unfailingly fantastic. Hannah and Her Sisters is the best of the lot - and I don't hesitate to call it Allen's masterpiece. His '80s muse Mia Farrow is the film's - and her family's - flawless centre. But her life is far from perfect. Her husband (Michael Caine) is cheating with her sister (Barbara Hershey), while her other sibling (Dianne Wiest) is a self-deluding druggie. She's also saddled with a hypochondriac ex-husband (Allen) who finds solace only in the Marx Bros. Allen is aided by a superb ensemble that recruits stars from three different decades for its key supporting roles: Maureen O'Sullivan (the '30s), Lloyd Nolan ('40s) and Max von Sydow ('50s). Wiest, a phenomenally talented, oft-overlooked performer, also deserves a specialmention. Hannah and Her Sisters is a heartfelt, wonderfully scripted offering that feels utterly true. I feel a bit queasy about adultery apologias, but this one is as riddled with guilt as anything Allen's put on screen.

Favourite bit: Nolan and O'Sullivan duetting on Rodgers and Hart's 'Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered' – the sort of quietly affecting thing Allen did so effortlessly during his peak years.

See also: Lloyd Nolan in the classic Michael Shayne mystery-comedy series, Maureen O'Sullivan (and none-too-convincing nude double) in Tarzan and His Mate - and the Booker-longlisted Me, Cheeta, and Max von Sydow in The Seventh Seal.

Top 100 Movies

The list so far:

#s 100 to 91: featuring His Girl Friday, Stand by Me and The Red Balloon

#s 90 to 86, including Five Easy Pieces, Ghost World and Confessions of Boston Blackie

#s 85 to 81, where you'll find The Edge of the World, Judge Priest and A Thousand Clowns

#s 80 to 76: including The Purple Rose of Cairo, Singin' in the Rain and Lawrence of Arabia

#s 75 to 71: boasting Le Samourai, Kiss Me Kate and Swing Time

#s 70 to 66: in which you can read about Naked, Casablanca and Chinatown

#s 65 to 61: including The Night of the Hunter, Hail the Conquering Hero and Peeping Tom

#s 60 to 56: saluting the merits of The Royal Tenenbaums, Pixote and A Star Is Born

#s 55 to 51, with Distant Voices, Still Lives, The Killer and The Railway Children

Thanks for reading. I'll try to put the next five up as a stand-alone article during the week, time permitting, so please check back.

• Email to a friend
• Print this page