Cat People - 1942 ***

This film seems to have been almost impossible to track down, and it was only by chance that I saw it was to be on late one night that I recorded it.

Anyway, in the end it didn't really matter, because it wasn't nearly as good as I was expecting it to be.

Simone Simon (I've always thought it was a stupid name) plays a woman named Irene who meets a draftsman and falls in love with him. However she is paralysed with fear that if she becomes intimate with him she will turn into a cat, like the Serbian myths told her in her childhood. However she goes ahead and gets married, and her husband soon realises that she needs serious help with her fears and tries to get her to see a psychiatrist.

It goes from being pretty terrifying (you will all have seen the famous scene where the woman is walking down a dark street and stops every now and again because she thinks she is being followed. It's really quite a scary scene) to being absolutely ridiculous (the girl jumping into the swimming pool in the dark because she thinks that will deter the giant black cat that is chasing her) with a load of dull blurb in between. Except for a few exciting moments there isn't much to recommend in this film.

(NOIR) Shoot to Kill - 1947 **

A really dreadful offering from Robert Lippert, in fact probably one of the worst noirs I have seen. I couldn't really make head nor tail of the story, the acting was hideous (the lead acts like she is tuned up to an electric wire) and the quality was dire (not that that could be helped of course.)

Not even so bad it was good, just very bad full stop. It wasn't even a good B movie, more like a diabolical C movie.

*goes off to fume about the acting in the film and the non-existant storyline *

Natalee Holloway:The Movie 2009 **

I'm not sure how close this film was to the truth and the real reactions of friends and family, but it certainly doesn't portray them in the best light.

Her friends are shown as people who can't look out for their drunk friend as she gets inot a car with 3 men she doesn't know. They also don't seem to put up much of a fight into staying on the island to help look for her the day after. Her chaperone doesn't pay any attention to the panic this is causing everyone and dismisses it as a foolish prank. The mother becomes manical, even breaking the law by speeding to get to the airport, then attacking witnesses and highjacking news reports about her daughter. The Aruba officials seem to have a friendly pact going on with the suspects, feeding them information to cover their tracks before the mother is told, and the suspects themselves are so completely lacklustre and relaxed about the whole thing that you couldn't actually believe people this stupid could be hiding something. Added to which, Natalee is presented as a girl who, despite not being a drinker, goes wild the second she is away from her parents getting drunk constantly and having strange men grope her. She then wanders off with 3 of them to the beach and 'teases' one of them into wanting to have sex.

I don't know this poor girl but I seriously doubt that she was anything like her character here.

I don't think her mother was this unhinged person either that she is being made out to be, and the only reason people seem to have a problem with her is because she made sure everyone knew about her daughter's case, and worked tirelessly to get her message across. I don't doubt however that the police in Aruba where totally corrupt, and I think they tried many times to cover up vital information from Natalee's family which may have ultimately have led to her being found, dead or alive.

Also, at the end of the film, the main suspect is bugged in a car and his "friend" (who is actually an undercover official or news man) gets out information from him, to the extent that he left her unconscious on the beach but didn't know for sure whether she was dead or not. Natalee's mother appeared to take this information at face value and the whole film sort of wrapped up with her announcing that she finally 'had the answers and could move on', despite the fact that the suspect then admitted that he had lied about the story to impress his friend. So nothing is ever concluded and we are no closer to knowing what happened to her. At the time the film was made, no one had been arrested regarding Natalee's disappearance, but fast forward a couple of years, and the main suspect has been charged, as well as being charged with another murder of a girl named Stephany Flores, who was found murdered in her hotel room. That at least, can be some comfort for Natalee's family.

Butterfield 8 - 1960 ****

I watched this straight after 'A Summer Place' and my goodness what a contrast in glamour for 2 films made just a year apart.

Elizabeth Taylor is as always breathtakingly beautiful, playing a good time girl (many would call her a call-girl) named Gloria, who struggles to maintain real relationships with the people around her that don't consist purely on where she can get her next fur coat or diamond bracelet from. Her close friend Steve is totally besotted with her despite having a girlfriend of his own who is fiercely jealous of Gloria. She also mingles with an assortment of unsavoury and dodgy men who treat her badly but always seem to deliver on the money/jewellery side which is the root core of all her energy.

Taylor does a wonderful job of this girl who, despite spending her time taking money from men, seems quite a pitiful and disturbed character with many problems in her life. You can see Taylor mirrored in many aspects, (especially the constant drinking) but she still manages to maintain a glamourous and exuberant existance.

The ending is really awful and quite upsetting, as the all familiar story of a girl who changes her life only when it's too late.

Watch it.

(NOIR) Born to Kill - 1947 ***

I can't say that this was one of the best noirs I have seen but it did have something going for it, and that was the roaring passion of Laurence Tierney and Claire Trevor.

Tierney plays a psychotic con man called Sam who likes killing people when they get in his way. He also has a weird and slightly homosexual relationship with his roommate Marty (played of course by Elisha Cook Jnr) as well as knocking people out left, right and centre if they annoy him. He becomes jealous after finding out the person he is seeing has another boyfriend and promptly 'does them both in.' Que Helen Trent (Trevor) who finds the bodies and doesn't tell anyone, oh except when she goes off to her sister's and casually lets it drop in a conversation. She also becomes fascinated by Sam despite the fact that she is engaged to be married and Sam is a thug and hooligan. Helen's sister is rich and so Sam goes after her, marrying her on a whim a short time later whilst being attracted to Helen. They don't think anything of having a grope in the kitchen in the middle of the night with the light on and the door open.

Things get sticky after a detective is put onto watching Marty and makes Sam believe that Helen is trying to double-cross him when all she wants is to double-cross her sister. This ends with a shoot-out etc, and I'm not telling you anymore. I'e probably told you too much already.

I love how Cook Jnr pops up in mostly all the 40s noir films that I see and nearly always plays the same character, he's like a staple of the film.

A good movie, worth a watch but not a classic.

A Summer Place - 1959 ***

The best thing about this film was the theme tune, I think I knew that before I started watching it. The movie cannot compare to how wonderful and typically 50s the music is.

The movie has become dated, despite the fact it deals with many modern topics such as adultery and teenage pregnancy.

Sandra Dee is utterly infuriating but she isn't the worst thing about the film by far.

A couple and their daughter (Dee) go to a lovely resort on an island in Maine for the summer to spend time together and when they arrive the father bumps into the love of his life whom he left a number of years ago when last at the island. She is now also married and has a son (Richard Egan), but both of them realise they still have feelings for each other and that they are still married to their spouses purely because of convention and their children. The same time they are there, the daughter and the son of the 2 families meet and fall hopelessly in love, despite the almost tyrannical afflictions of the girl's mother, who is completely backward in her way of modern thinking, and believes her daughter is becoming some sort of harlot.

Despite being forbidden to meet or see each other the couple exchange words on the phone and letters when they are back home and plan to meet secretly whenever they can. The next big blow comes when the daughter's father and the son's mother publicly divorce their partners and get married. The 2 children are distraught and refuse to accept it despite going up to spend time with the family in their lovely new home.

The film plays out like a modern day soap opera and the acting is completely ridiculous and over the top. The characters are mostly unlikeable (except for the father of the daughter and the mother of the son) and watching Dee and Egan exchanging romantic words and acting up to their parents gets completely predictable.

This film is only popular (I'm assuming it is actually popular although I have never heard anyone mention the fineness of the film without leaping in to praise the music) because of the breaktaking theme music immortalised by Percy Faith. Nothing more.

Pink String and Sealing Wax - 1945 ****

One of the first Ealing movies I have seen that wasn't a comedy. I've always been drawn to it by the title of the picture, it sounds so old-fashioned and just up my street!

Googie Withers was looking lovely as Pearl, the wife of an alcoholic pub owner who befriends an innocent chemist's son in an effort to obtain some poison to kill her husband. At the same time there is another story going on in the son's household where the strictly religious father keeps a tight leash on his family to the extent where his daughter's plea to become a professional singer falls on deaf ears.

Exciting film, and a bit bizarre, plus it has the guy from George Formby movies as the alcoholic pub owner (and of course Googie Withers who was in one of George's films too, ironically with the pub owner actor!)

Hold Your Man - 1933 ****

A great film. Jean Harlow can never be in a bad film and I think she knew this by the time she starred in 'Hold Your Man.' By this time her social life was constantly in the tabloids and she was one of the most talked about stars of the early 1930s. So basically we know for sure that if Harlow is in something then it's going to be great.

In this snappy picture she plays Ruby, a wisecracking and smarmy girl who bumps into con Clark Gable whilst he is running away from his latest scheme (well to be precise he runs in on her in the bath!) and she hides him when the police come looking. Gable is also smooth talking and the pair hit it off immediately, bouncing off jokes and insults at each other as fast as Grant and Russell in 'His Girl Friday'. However after a plan of his goes wrong, Ruby gets blamed and taken down and placed in a penitentiary for 'fallen women.'

Harlow looks absolutely stunning in every scene, and her presence lights up the whole shot. She has this amazing quality whilst acting that means you can't take your eyes off her. A bit like Monroe. She also has some lovely costumes. Harlow was a national treasure.

This is one of a number of films that Gable and Harlow did together and I can't wait to see the first one they did (Red Headed Woman).

PS What I love about films like this is how much they incapsulate the time period they were filmed in. You really get to see what the city and the restaurants/bars, vehicles etc looked like and so from that aspect it's good to have as a keepsake of how the world has changed.

The Catered Affair - 1956 ****

I was surprised by this film. In fact from the beginning I could tell it was made for the stage.

Bette Davis is a really brilliant actress, and each time I see her in a film my appreciation of her grows. And Ernest Borgnine was a really good addition to the family.

The story basically encapsulates this one family. The young daughter (played superbly by Debbie Reynolds) announces to her parents that she is getting married. Her mother Aggie (Davis) is determined that she will have a big, exciting wedding despite the fact that the family are barely surviving on the father's (Borgnine) low income as a taxi driver. The daughter herself and her fiance don't actually want a big wedding, just a simple affair with their closest family. But the mother wants her to have the wedding she never had, with hundreds of people, limos, champagne. The more Aggie pushes the daughter, the more the daughter feels trapped into doing what her mother wants and what will be right for her. Added to which the father realises how much it will put him in debt paying for the extravagance of a reception for people that he doesn't really know.

The film is tense, gritty and quite hard to watch, and Davis nails her part exactly as the tired and worn housewife who never had an exciting or worthwhile part to play in life.

I realise that times were different then and being a housewife was the norm, but I found Aggie's attitude to money really awful. I hate the fact that she doesn't work and instead of looking for work herself when she knows how expensive the wedding will be, leans harder on her husband to give up the last amount of money that he has scrimped and saved for years and years because of something she wants. She has an attitude that the money is also hers to do what she wants with it, and I think that's a very arrogant way to behave. She actually has the nerve to go off and start booking a totally over the top venue for the wedding without even consulting her husband.I feel so sorry for him!

Anyway, my rant over, it's a well acted film, and as usual Bette Davis makes me feel strongly about a character that she plays.

Harry, He's Here to Help - 2000 ***

I can't say I think much of the translation of this film's title, it sounds completely unsuitable for the film. It sounds like the lead has broken down in their car and sent for the AA, which appears in the form of Harry..

I much prefer the rougher translation that the English have used ' With A Friend Like Harry.'

I must say this was a remarkably strange film, if slightly bizarre and unsettling.

Michel and Claire live in a lovely old French house on the outskirts with their 2 children. One day whilst out driving, Michel bumps into an old classmate named Harold at a rest stop.

Harold "Harry" invites himself and his girlfriend Plum, over to their house to have a drink despite it apparently being hundreds of miles out of their way. And once they reach the house, both Harry and Plum start to intergrate themselves into the family, and aren't going anywhere...

This is a sort of mixture of all the well known films that cover this 'captive at home' scenario, (The Strangers, Funny Games, The Talented Mr Ripley) although it's never quite that bad on the surface. It's more a terrible uneasiness of feeling like your visitors have outstayed their welcome and won't take the hint to leave. Harry starts off as a rather charming and friendly man, but soon it feels like his mask has slipped and he becomes outwardly obsessive (I'm assuming over Michel) to the point where he is trying to destroy everything in Michel's life. It's very weird, and there are a few loose ends as regards to what happens in certain scenarios that will have you scratching your head, but on the whole, an interesting and surreal experience into a very twisted mind.

The Roommate - 2011 ****

Yes, this film is very like 'Single White Female', so if you are one of the vast population who has seen that then you won't be surprised. However I'm quite a fan of obsessive friendship/relationship films, so I wasn't too bothered about roughly knowing what was going on. Many of you will notice that the joint lead is Leighton Meester from 'Gossip Girl.' This actress could not play a more different character if she tried. I watched the film thinking 'she must be loving playing this part!'

Minka Kelly plays a student named Sara who gets assigned a new roommate named Rebecca. Things start off well and both girls bond. But when Sara starts dating someone and hanging out with another girl, Rebecca's true colours come out and she becomes a total nutcase, obsessive of everything Sara does and who she is with. Several eerie events make up Sara's mind that she doesn't want anything to do with Rebecca anymore, but Rebecca isn't letting her go that easily...

In all fairness, the acting from these 2 girls was amazing. Meester really can act and I will never stereotype her as the ditzy girl from 'Gossip Girl' again. Billy Zane also pops up as Sara's art teacher who can't stop hitting on female students in a half funny and half creepy way. Don't take the film too seriously, as 'Single White Female' is a better crafted example of female obsession, but 'The Roommate' is certainly not far behind.

The Suspicions of Mr Whicher - 2011 ***

I wouldn't agree that this production was a classic, although I suspect that the book itself was probably much more detailed and interesting. Paddy Considine as Mr Whicher was very good as a sort of 1860's Sherlock Holmes who finds all the clues that people miss despite being ridiculed and very unpopular with the crowds of the time. The story is based around the true events that happened in Road Hill House in 1860, where a 3 year old boy named Saville was brutally murdered by an unknown person, his body dumped in a privy outside the family home. The results are somewhat bizarre, and at times it seems that the film hasn't really progressed from the beginning to the end. I understand that the dramatisation is being very precise in the facts, and none of the names or events have been changed, but it was a bit of a shame that *SPOILERS* you never know the true identity of the murderer. As a big fan of Victorian murders I was surprised that this book and film have become so immensely popular over the last year. I would very much now like to read the book to see if my opinion about the story is justified.

Dorian Gray - 1945 ***

George Sanders stole the show for me in this. If he hadn't been in it I would have been pretty disappointed. Hurd Hatfield was in my opinion pretty dreadful as the main character, only saved by the quick-witted Sanders (quoting like mad from Oscar Wilde) and the beautiful Donna Reed as his love interest. Angela Lansbury is very good as well. In fact most of the characters have some redeeming qualities about them except for Dorian Gray. Everyone knows the story so I won't go into it, but will say that the painting (amazingly shot in colour) is absolutely hideous and gives me the shivers thinking about it. I'm not sure whether the actor chosen to portray Gray was completely dull because all his energy and emotion was supposed to have gone into the painting, or whether he was just genuinely a boring actor. Either way I didn't agree with the choice.

Will watch the new version to see how it compares.

Too Many Crooks - 1959 ***

I think in all honesty, that if Terry Thomas and Sid James hadn't propped up the majority of this film then I would have been rather disappointed.

A gang of crooks set out to kidnap a wealthy man's (Thomas) daughter, but get his wife instead who, unbeknownst to them is driving her husband up the wall. The initial excitement of having kidnapped his beloved and thinking of the huge ransom they can ask for is short-lived when he tells them that they can have her for nothing because he's fed up of her and has his eye on his new secretary.

Hearing this, his wife decides to get her own and join the crooks, and help them to a vast sum of his money, stupidly stashed under the floorboards of his house.

The plot sounds funny and it really is, but I felt the presence of some actors (such as Bernard Bresslaw) really dampened the mood. Bresslaw would later go on to play in the Carry on films with Sid James, but his character is so desperately unfunny and dull that it's only luck that gives us Sid James to actually make us laugh. (Why is Sid James always called 'Sidney' in his films??)

Terry Thomas is always funny, and as I said at the top, without him this film would not be as well thought of as it is. Despite being a thoroughly unpleasant character he still manages to be charming and very 'caddish' which only Thomas can be. 3 stars for him.

Christmas in July - 1940 ***

As another viewer quite rightly pointed out, this has all the makings of a 'B' not an 'A' movie. Dick Powell is average, this time playing an office clerk who has dreams of winning a huge amount of money and being able to marry his girlfriend and give her a good life. Several of his colleagues overhear his wishes and decide to play a prank on him, sending him a letter pretending to be from the winning company. However events do not go as they planned.

It's not a bad film, and I am trying to see all of Preston Sturges movies, but I can't honestly say that this is one of his best.

(NOIR) The Shanghai Gesture - 1941 ****

I would imagine that this completely underrated classic was very shocking for it's time. It followed the decline of a woman who goes to Shanghai for some fun and excitement and becomes obsessed with gambling at the hands of the casino's owner 'Mother Gin Sling'.

One thing that stands out in this neo-drama is Gene Tierney's outstanding acting. She really acted her socks off and you believe every word that she says. She also seems to take on this amazing physical transformation throughout the course of the film, starting out with a bubbly, lively girl, and ending with a tortured, bedraggled addict. Amazing.

PS Victor Mature is great as well in his fez hat.

Sabrina - 1995 ****

I was surprised how much I enjoyed this 1990s version of the 50's movie starring Bogie and Hepburn.

Harrison Ford was excellent as the dry and uncompromising Linus Larrabee, the man obsessed with his multi-million dollar company on Wall Street whilst Greg Kinnear was suitably slimy and in my opinion completely unattractive as Linus' younger and completely immature brother David.

Sabrina Fairchild is the 'ugly duckling' daughter of the Larrabee chauffeur and so has had a crush on David since she was young. She has spent her adolescent years watching his many exploits with various women at his various parties from her favourite tree in the grounds, and has always wished more than anything that she coulod be one of those women. Fast forward a period of time (I would imagine it's a year or so) and Sabrina has been to Paris to 'find herself' and is back at the Larrabee household with a more sophisticated outlook on life, causing David to fall for her despite being finally engaged to someone else.

Of course as we all know, obsessive crushes on people when we are young never really shows us what the person is like in reality, and Sabrina discovers that whilst she thinks David is very handsome, he is also a pretty shallow and arrogant human being.

I can't say I liked this characterisation of Sabrina as much as the 50s one, (in fact I found the actress utterly annoying and whimpish with a ridiculous, angelic opinion of a man she didn't know well at all) but I did like the two male characters very much, especially seeing them bring an ounce of humour to the storyline.

A good story, showing us that the value of attraction towards another person should be more than skin deep, and also the whole 'love is more important than money' adage.

Harrison Ford is great in sarcastic comedy!