Views from the 11th floor after dark

Film review: The Ladykillers (1955)

This is, of course, a re-watch, so I won't go into as much detail on the events but give more of a commentary.  The first thing that's obvious, given our recent viewing, is how blatantly Alec Guinness (Professor Marcus) is "doing" an Alastair Sim performance.  And it's a (deliciously) cartoonish one, too - Sim wouldn't have needed the props (ghoulish false teeth) that Guinness uses.  

As Jami said, the one area where it's not obvious that Sim would have at least been his equal is when he turns crazy (because Herbert Lom calls him that), but in a parallel universe this is another beloved Sim character.  Professor Marcus's introduction is also delightfully ghoulish, as you just see his silhouette out through various windows as Mrs. Wilberforce potters around inside her lopsided house-at-the-end-of-the-street.  And in general, this is not a film you would necessarily want your young child to watch, not just because of the casual attitude towards death (and corpse disposal) but because there are genuinely sinister moments.  The director, Alexander Mackendrick, would go on to direct the definite non-comedy Sweet Smell of Success where he would make Burt Lancaster similarly sinister.  

Another thing I notice on a re-watch is that Frankie Howerd was basically fully-formed as a character in 1955.  He's the owner of a fruit cart whose business Mrs. Wilberforce manages to destroy (as Peter Sellers' Harry notes bitterly later in the film when the boys are trying to justify bumping her off).  He is driven to such distraction that by the end he is ripping off the headlights of the taxi Mrs. Wilberforce showed up in (which is holding the trunk with all the stolen money in it, so the boys are watching this aghast from another car down the street), which is driven by his fellow Carry On stalwart Kenneth Connor.  Neither of them look particularly young, either.

One wonders where they filmed this.  If it was a set then it's very impressive, otherwise I absolutely adore Mrs. Wilberforce's house-at-the-end-of-the-street, even if it's lopsided "from the bombing".  And her daily walk up the street, which is teeming with local characters, and up and down which horses are still clip clopping is from another age.  (There is one moment that suggests fakery: in one of my favorite moments in the film, when Mrs Wilberforce (who is not as oblivious as she appears) has twigged that the boys are bank robbers, 

but they have convinced her that she'll go down with them as an accessory, has to answer the door to a policeman, who has actually just come to check up on her after the excitement of the fruit-barrow incident.  She is given all kinds of talking points by the boys, such as "you can't come in without a warrant" and "buzz off!" which she dutifully repeats, but there's one moment when the policeman is silhouetted against the backdrop of the street and it looks incredibly green-screened.  However, the scenes of the boys clambering around on the roof (where The Major meets his end) are obviously actually happening on SOMEthing, which leads me to think that maybe the house is a set.

The other main takeaway from the film is that, for all the presence of Guinness, Lom, Peter Sellers, et al., the film belongs to Mrs. Wilberforce and the marvelous Katie Johnson, whose performance had to be pitch perfect for the film to succeed.  

She is so natural that you never once question that this is a real little old lady, who is a little bit dreamy and forgetful and an innocent relic of a bygone age.  Her constant wittering is just done perfectly and she never once winks at the camera, as that would bring the whole edifice crashing down.  Perhaps my favorite scene of the whole film is when she goes ahead with her party of little-old-ladies despite the fact that she has just worked out that the boys are ruthless criminals and sternly insists that they take part, thrusting a cup of tea and a slice of cake into Sellers's hands as he returns from some errand, mystified as to what has become of his gang.  Where they found such an array of tiny, frail, bird-like little old lady actresses I have no idea.

Final summary [SPOILERS]: Louis kills the Major because he's trying to escape with "the lolly" after pretending to kill Mrs. Wilberforce.  "One Round" kills Harry (with a plank of wood) because thinks he has killed Mrs. Wilberforce (of course he hasn't - as Professor Marcus says at the end, nothing can kill Mrs. Wilberforce, she'll be with us forever), Louis kills One Round because he left the safety catch on, Professor Marcus kills Louis (by prizing his ladder off the wall) and Louis shoots Professor Marcus, who is then clonked on the head by the railway signal.  And of course, when Mrs' Wilberforce goes to the police to confess, she has to admit that all of the gang have disappeared (like the flying saucer she'd reported a few days ago).  So she gets to keep the lolly.  And buy a new brolly.

Squeezing in a lake walk before the big defrost

Last year it didn't get cold enough to trust the lake ice, but all previous years it's been one of my favorite things to walk across the lake ice.  You can get to "hidden areas" otherwise inaccessible, and the very fact you're out on the ice means your walk is taking a route you won't take at other times of the year, so it's a nice change of pace.  Frederick used to be a lot more keen, but he's not enjoying walks much at the moment and he also showed marked reluctance to step out on to the ice the couple of times we've tried it, so yesterday I woke up early and thought, sod it, I'll go solo.  And I did, and I don't regret it.  This was at Holly Rec.

The fact that somebody had been driving some kind of vehicle out on the ice made me feel a lot more secure.

Something feathery met its end here...

In one of those inaccessible areas, out of breath from hiking up a steep hill.

Today it's supposed to get up into the 40s and stay that way all week (in the day, at least) with strong chances of rain, so I'm glad I got this in when I did.

Film review: An Inspector Calls (1954)

Just over two years ago we watched the 2015 BBC version of this J.B. Priestley play and I see that at the time I said we should seek out the Alastair Sim version.  Well, guess what?  We finally did.  I don't feel the need to recap the plot, because it's exactly the same in the important details, so I will just note the differences. 

First, the main inspector is called "Poole" rather than the a-little-too-obvious "Goole" (one is reminded of Robert De Niro's Satan-like figure in Angel Heart being called "Louis Siffre"), and he doesn't get to to deliver the final stern speech, which is a shame in some respects, but I think the reason he didn't is because Alastair Sim 

plays the inspector as somewhat mocking rather than lecturing, and instead of walking out of the house and the family later finding out that there is no inspector of that name, instead the prospective son-in-law Gerald Croft goes out for a walk to clear his head and bumps into a bobby on the beat who reveals that fact, so Gerald returns while Poole is still there and demands to speak to the family while Poole waits.  So they have him go into a side room to wait, where he sits in a rocking chair as Gerald tells the family he's a fake.  Then the same things happen: the parents and Gerald are greatly relieved, especially after Gerald calls the infirmary and finds out no girl has been brought in for any kind of suicide, let alone suicide by drinking disinfectant, for weeks.  But son and daughter are sickened by the others' relief and vow to remain changed by their experience, and then the phone rings...  But if the girl has just been brought in, how did Poole know?  And who is he really?  They open the door... to find the rocking chair, still rocking, but empty. 

So, how do the two versions measure up?  Well, I don't remember much about the 2015 one, but this one is excellent.  All the actors are good, including, of course (this being a Sim film) the inevitable George Cole in a tiny uncredited role as a tram inspector

(the mother is particularly hateable), 

with the possible exception of Eva, although it's a thankless task to portray a Christ-like victim.  

(The actor who plays the son, Bryan Forbes, had an amazing career of which acting was perhaps the smallest part.)  But it's the blocking that is particularly notable.  Every frame has the actors arranged in very dramatic ways, more befitting a film noir than a chamber-piece.  

The music is a bit over-the-top in places but definitely serves the story well, accentuating the drama at every turn.  The sets are good, too, including the dreary streets of the fictional industrial town of Brumley.  

And of course, Sim is wonderful.  His heavy lidded gaze set above the lips fixed in a slightly quizzical enigmatic smile, combined with a low-key delivery backed up with implacable self-assurance keep the pompous Birling family constantly on their heels.  He is at his most magnetic, never once winking at the audience or dipping into his bag of comedic tricks.  He conveys ironic detachment combined with a fierce commitment to justice just by his mien.  

One wishes there were more Inspector Pooles out there to nail the rich and powerful to the wall (or at least make them feel the force of their misdeeds for once).  In general I was amazed at how gripping and powerful I found the film.  It's easy to imagine finding a pre-WW1 story of the misdeeds of the wealthy (who aren't even that bad - both young men genuine feel for Eva and try to do right by her - they don't view her as just a toy to be played with - and even the odious mother feels the obligation to have a charity that helps the poor) completely inadequate at capturing what is wrong with 21st century late-stage capitalism, but it does a startlingly effective job at bringing out the power that the rich have over the poor and how even the well-meaning rich can destroy the poor, whose lives hang by a thread and whose freedom depends on the whims of the wealthy.  Strong stuff.  Deserves to be re-discovered by the young in the same way that 12 Angry Men has been.

Film review: The Green Man (1956)

Having seen Green for Danger we had a hankering for more Alastair Sim "Green" films, and this one was the obvious candidate.  It's nearly ten years on, and Sim is noticeably older, but probably at the height of his comedic powers.  

And this is definitely a comedy, but a dark comedy, of the Kind Hearts/Ladykillers type, with Sim playing a hitman for hire who specializes in very targeted bombs.  (He's also a character for our times because his targets are always big shots and he takes special delight in bringing down the self-important.) The film begins with a montage of his successes, starting with when he manages to off his headmaster as a child.  (He is often in disguise and it's jarring to see him with hair.)  In a voiceover he announces that he took a break during WWII, as there was enough killing to go around, and took up employment as a clockmaker.  But he's coming out of retirement and his next target will be Sir Gregory Upshott, a bloviating diplomat, about to head off to the Middle East.  Sim's Harry Hawkins has already ingratiated himself with Upshott's secretary, Marigold, 

who has revealed to him Upshott's plans to have a little dirty weekend with a girl from the typing pool.  Hawkins visits her and gets the precise details as he delivers an engagement ring.  She is called away and he writes down the name of the hotel and times of the stay on a piece of paper in a stack on her desk before setting off whistling.  However, this is the butterfly's wing flap that will cause the hurricane of his undoing, because in the stack of papers is a solitary carbon sheet, and as he heads off home (to his very nice house in Turnham Green - which here looks like a leafy suburb) oblivious, Marigold is discovering the notes he made and looking very troubled.  Hawkins wants only to work on his bomb in his workshop (with his beret-wearing Scottish henchman McKechnie) 

but is startled to find a policeman waiting in his house, before he remembers that it's Friday, and as a pillar of the local community he plays chess with Sergeant Bassett on Fridays.  Well, no problem, he'll lose quickly to the Sergeant... but then Marigold rings up and insists on coming round to really discuss his reason for taking notes (which reminded her of all the times he spent pumping her for information and aroused her (entirely justified) suspicions (this is just the first instance of people very quickly seeing through Sim's character's machinations).  Hawkins quickly delegates McKechnie to dealing with her by switching nameplates of his house and next door's, which he happens to know is empty, as it's just been sold.  (Hawkins lives in Windy-something, which is the address Marigold is looking for, and the neighbors' is Appleby's.)  We see Marigold coming down the street...  And then we see a young man coming up to the door, checking the sign and barging in.  McKechnie is very taken aback, but it turns out that this young man (George Cole, Sims' frequent co-actor who was more-or-less literally adopted by him, here looking and acting a lot like Michael Crawford in Hello Dolly) is vacuum cleaner salesman William Blake, who has an appointment with Hawkin's housekeeper, who clearly forgot about it when he dismissed her early.  McKechnie desperately tries to get rid of him, but William cheerfully talks through him and just keeps unpacking and setting up his fancy vacuum cleaner until McKechnie just beats a retreat when his back is turned and switches back the signs.  Meanwhile, William empties a pile of soot on the carpet and then starts telling the story of a salesman who did that not knowing that there was no power before, of course, discovering that there's no power.  But then he also discovers a strange dark (the film's in black and white, of course), wet patch on the carpet... And then an attractive young woman (Jill Adams), 

carrying a pile of parcels, walks into the house.  This is one of the engaged couple who has just bought the house, and she is started to discover William.  He assumes she is the woman who arranged the appointment with him, but of course she isn't - her name is Ann Vincent - and in the course of their discussion it emerges that his appointment was at "Windy-something" and she assures him he's in the wrong house.  He thinks she is (remembering specifically checking the sign before coming in) but is mystified when he goes outside to check and find's "Appleby's".  However, he does convince her there's a body in the house, and tells a story about how the signs were purposely changed that's surprisingly close to the truth.  They decide to search the house and are upstairs in the bedroom when they hear somebody come in the house.  It is thus that her fiancé (a very stuffy-looking man) 

Reginald Willoughby-Cruft discovers them hiding under the bed, and leaps to conclusions that Ann finds very insulting.  Eventually he has to leave (after having insisted that Ann not try to hang any paintings because only he will get that right - yes, he's a snob and a prig) to go off to his job as an announcer at the BBC, leaving Ann very angry at William for having misled her.  She goes after him insisting that William clean up the ash and be out of the house when she returns.  William sweeps up the ash but then is inspired by one of the abstract paintings that appears to have musical notes on it to try to play it, at which point he discovers... Marigold's body in the piano!  He races out of the house in a panic (McKechnie has been watching the house and reporting to Hawkins as one person after the other leaves, as naturally he is keen to get back in there to dispose of Marigold) but then comes over to use the phone.  Hawkins has to act all shocked but stresses (in order to make himself appear above suspicion) that Sergeant Abbott has just left.  Meanwhile McKechnie does get Marigold (Hawkins making sure to keep William from seeing him cart her into the workshop behind the house) and Hawkins has to pretend to be phoning the police.  Then he tells William to go next door and wait for the police but not to touch anything and the two pack up to make tracks to the hotel where Sir Gregory will be staying (the titular Green Man, off on the coast).  MEANWHILE, Ann has returned while William was next door and is trying on the lingerie that was in the packages she brought home.  William hears her and thinks it's the murderer, and bursts in on her clutching a poker.  

Again he assures her that there is a body, and she believes him, and he tries to recreate how he thinks it was done and they collapse in a heap... and Reginald returns to find them again (because he left behind a poem he has to read out on the radio later).  They tell him about the corpse, but then of course it's not there, and he storms off, and Ann is furious at William again... but then Marigold staggers in!  

She's climbed out of the boot of McKechnie's car without him realizing (he drives off to dig a big hole in the woods).  Alas, in trying to revive her William and Ann give her the drugged wine that she refused to drink for McKechnie which was why he had to resort to beaning her, but not before she reveals that she's Sir Gregory's secretary and that he's in danger and he's staying at the Green Man at.. and she starts to say the town name but passes out.  But she also revealed what she overheard while in Hawkins's house, which is that he's set the bomb to go off at 10:28 that night.  (What she doesn't know is that it's in a radio that contains a recording of Sir Gregory's own speech that Hawkins himself made, on the assumption (later confirmed) that if he heard his own voice on the "radio" he would huddle up close to it.)  So William and Ann (who now has been bitten by the detective bug) look up all the likely Green Mans and set off in hot pursuit.

The last act of the film is at the titular Green Man, where Sir Gregory is squiring Joan, his anxious typist 

(Sir Gregory is even more stuffy and priggish than Reginald, and sneers at Joan's choice of "sliced toad" for dinner (turns out it's toad-in-the-hole), to the extent that you half hope Hawkins succeeds.  We also get Terry-Thomas 

as a married philanderer who is sweet on the hotel receptionist, an elderly all-female musical trio (who threaten Hawkins' schemes by playing in the room where the radio is, so he has to lure them out into the bar).  It's in this part of the film that Sim's comedic acting is at its height, as you read his thoughts on his face in between seeing him smarm to the old ladies and you feel his frustration and triumph.  Will William and Ann succeed?  Is it over between Ann and Reginald?  Watch it and see!  (It's not on YouTube, but we signed up to Kanopy, the excellent free streamer that you log into via your library card, and there it was, in a pristine print.)  The screenwriters are Launder and Gilliat, creators of basically most of the films we've seen lately, including The Lady Vanishes, Night Train to Munich, Green for Danger, and whose connection to Alastair Sim and George Cole continues in the St. Trinians series, which we might track down next.  It was a play first, though, which makes sense given its use of locations and farcical situations.  Sim and Cole are great, of course, and you'll recognize a slew of familiar faces 

(like Michael Ripper as a waiter, and Arthur Lowe as a radio salesman) 

from 70s BBC, but perhaps the revelation is Jill Adams.  Not just a pretty face but an excellent comic actress.  She deserved to be a star - I don't know why she wasn't.

A walk across the frozen lake at Metamora Hadley

Guaranteed to give Grandpa kittens (but there were at least two people ice-fishing, so we knew we wouldn't be drowning alone if we went through the ice).