Film review: The 39 Steps (1959)

No, not that 39 Steps (the 1935 Hitchcock one).  No, not that one either (the 70s one with Robert Powell that was surprisingly successful and I have a memory of having seen in the cinema).  This one is smack dab in the middle, and rather an interesting and fun little affair.  It seems to hew very closely to the Hitchcock version (I have read the Buchan book at one point and I don't remember any woman being handcuffed to Hannay), with a couple of small changes.  As is obligatory for British films between the 40s and the 70s, it has Sid James in a small role, 

and (delightfully) it has Joan Hickson (the Platonic Ideal of Miss Marple) playing very much against type as a dotty schoolmistress.  

But Hannay is the rather stocky (think Richard Attenborough proportions) Kenneth More, who doesn't really cut the heroic figure that Robert Donat does, but has a very nice line in dry line delivery and wry amusement (and smokes a mean pipe).  

What this film has going for it over the Hitchcock version is real location filming, particularly in Scotland.  

The Hitchcock one has very good backdrops, but it's sort of obvious that it's set-bound, whereas in this one we are out and about in fantastic Scottish scenery and small towns.  

There are a couple of plot changes from the 1935 one: instead of the shepherd's cottage (John Laurie and Peggy Ashcroft) Hannay hides out at a place run by an oversexed fake medium and her happily cuckolded doting husband (sidenote: I was surprised at the multiple casual sexual allusions, and the scene where the heroine takes off her wet stockings while still handcuffed to Hannay, which is borderline erotic - I guess my view of 50s British cinema was a bit blinkered), and instead of being mistaken for a political candidate and giving a rousing political speech at a town hall, Hannay is mistaken for a visiting professor and gives a meandering speech about the spleenwort to a girls' school.  Our heroine, 

whom, as in 1935, we first meet while heading north on the train, and who gives him up to the police so he has to jump out, is a teacher and netball coach at said school (where Joan Hickson is an older teacher).  I don't know if she's supposed to be English (her students call her Miss Fisher, and Hannay calls her "Fishpots"), but she's played by Finnish actress Taina Elg and her accent is pretty thick.  However, she's a very appealing performer, and the back and forth with Hannay is fun to watch.  

Everything's set in the 50s too, which leaves the sinister adversaries rather unclear.  Presumably the USSR, but it's never stated.  Otherwise, just as in 1935 Mr. Memory plays a key (and ultimately tragic) role, and the head honcho, who is for some reason a beloved uncle figure living in a sprawling Scottish estate, is missing a bit of a finger.  

And the 39 Steps are a huge McGuffin, mentioned briefly in passing at the end.  At least in the 1970s one they had them be the stairs inside the tower of Big Ben, so the title looked important.

Anyway, an enjoyable romp, in glorious color and lovely scenery.  You get to see Kenneth More's fat little calves as he toils away on a bicycle (in very unflattering shorts), too. 

 

Film review: Dial M For Murder (1954)

We've seen this one before, but for the life of me I could not remember much about it, which is surprising, because, after a slow start, this clicks into gear and just doesn't stop.  It's gripping and plotted tighter than a drum, and Ray Milland is a fantastic bad guy.  It is very obviously based on a play, though, and it occurred to me while watching it that Hitchcock has two subgenres of his films that are pretty much diametrically opposed.  There's the man (or often couple)-on-the-run ones (39 Steps, Young and Innocent, Saboteur, North by Northwest, Torn Curtain), and then there's the single-location ones (Lifeboat, Rope, Rear Window and this one).  It's a mark of Hitchcock's genius that he can make the latter as gripping as the former.  This one is very talky, and really I have to say it's carried by its English cast - Milland as the ex-profession-tennis-player turned current murder-plotter Tony Wendice, and the unknown-to-me (apart from the time I watched this before, and I guess he's also in Sabrina, To Catch a Thief, and The Solid Gold Cadillac) John "not the film composer" Williams, as Chief Inspector Hubbard of Scotland Yard 

(did I mention it's set in London?).  Rounding out our central four characters (really, there's only one other important role) are Grace Kelly (doing a not-terrible but very distracting received pronunciation English accent) and the rather anonymous obligatory American lug Robert Cummings (who plays the lead in Saboteur, which is one of my least favorite Hitchcocks) as Mark Halliday.  It's sort of funny that Cummings is playing a writer, while Milland is playing the (ex-) athlete, when really each is much more plausible as the other profession.  However, you have to have Milland play the villain, because he's wonderful.  He has such demonic eyes 

it's one of those instances where you can't see why the other characters can't see the evil oozing out of every pore, except that, of course, he's so suave and charming.  His suavity is sorely tested, though, as a fair number of things go wrong for him, however what's so impressive is the way he recalibrates on the fly.  You think he's getting away with it, too, except that the rather bluff Chief Inspector proves to be more than his equal.

Really, you have to think that the makers of Columbo essentially ripped this film off, because Hubbard does all the Columbo tricks of appearing to be convinced by Wendice's lies and even at one point is half out the door before he stops, turns around and says "there is just one more thing, sir..."

Anyway, very quick synopsis: after a beginning where we see Grace Kelly and Ray Milland in apparent connubial bliss at breakfast, when she reads 

that "a friend" (Cummings) is arriving by boat.  Cut to later when hubby is out and Kelly and Cummings are lip-locked.  It's not what it seems, though, because she tells him that, although she was ready to leave Tony when Mark was in London a year ago, he has since changed totally.  He gave up tennis to become a full-time husband and has been nothing if not uxorious.  Halliday is full of regret, but ready to give up, except that she tells him that she's burned every one of his letters "but one".  "When not that one?" he asks, hopefully.  Well, it turns out she carried it around in her handbag until said bag was stolen and she since got anonymous letters threatening to blackmail her.  Anyway, at this point Tony returns and everybody acts civil.  Cut to the next day (I think) and they're all planning to go out together to a play, for which Tony has bought 3 tickets, when he says that he can't go because his boss has demanded a report that will take him most of the night to write (and that's with making most of it up).  So they go off together... and at this point the film really kicks into gear, with Tony placing a call about buying a car, and asking the seller to come to him, because he's "twisted his knee."  Well, the person who shows up 

doesn't know him (at first) but Tony knows him, and what he knows will pressure said person into murdering Kelly's Margot.  Or, at least, attempting to.  

 But things go wrong,

but Tony makes the first and cleverest of his changes-of-plans so that things work out almost as well as if Margot had been killed.  

Then the entire second half of the film is a cat-and-mouse game, where the mouse doesn't know what the cat knows...until it's too late.  Definitely top-tier Hitchcock - I recommend (even if "WarnerColor" is a bit garish, I have to say).

 

Film review: The Small Back Room (1949)

I had never heard of this, despite it being a Powell/Pressburger production (the three films they made before this were the murderer's row of: A Matter of Life and Death, Black Narcissus and The Red Shoes - all glorious technicolor, whereas this is a black and white number), and it turns out there's a good reason for that, because... well, it's not very good.  I cannot recommend this to anyone, except maybe for two segments.  One is a kind of fever-dream-sequence where the main character hallucinates his furniture becoming huge and looming over him, which is gloriously silly, and the other is the climax of the film, where he defuses an explosive device, 

that is genuinely very tense.  The rest of the film was frankly tedious.  It seems to be a kind of propaganda film (a bit late, in 1949!) praising the efforts of the boffins behind the scene who helped unglamorously but essentially in the war effort (meanwhile Alan Turing was probably being chemically castrated at that very moment).  The main character is a, frankly peevish Sammy Rice (well played, I will grudgingly allow, by the dishy (pipe-smoking) David Farrar) who is peevish because he lost a foot in the war and now has a tin one that causes him constant pain, for which the "dope" that the doctors give him appears to do nothing.  This drives him to whisky, despite the entreaties of his bartender "Knucksie" (Sid James, 

looking seemingly exactly the same in the late 40s as he did in the Carry On films) (you should hear the sneering way Sammy says "Knucksie" when he's got surly drunk) and his long suffering love Susan, 

played saintlily by Kathleen Byron, which in itself is distracting, because this is how I think of her:

Most of the film alternates between office politics 

(Sammy is the brains of an outfit run by blowhard RB Waring (Jack Hawkins) with whom he is constantly bickering) and scenes of Sammy moping and Susan trying to cheer him up, and Sammy criticizing himself for dragging Susan down, and Susan saying isn't that for me to judge and so on.  Meanwhile the interesting part of the film, which takes up frustratingly little screen time, is that a new kind of German weapon has started cropping up all over England and Wales (cue some very scenic shots), about the size of a bulky flashlight (I was interested to note that they called them "flashlights" rather than torches), which keeps blowing up the people who pick them up.  The mystery is why they don't blow up before then, and what triggers them, but they keep blowing up before the boffins can get to look at them.  Anyway, the film drags on until Sammy drives Susan away 

(she even takes her picture from his frame and her cat), he gets raging drunk, and then the friendly soldier Captain Stuart (played by Celestial Toymaker Michael Gough) 

who first introduced Sammy to the concept, calls up and says they've acquired two of the things and can he come down to Portland Bill.  Despite Sammy's entreaties Stuart insists on trying to defuse one of them himself, with predictable results.  Cue the tense scene where Sammy defuses the device (dictating what he's doing over a funny strap-on telephone to a very pretty female soldier 

(Renée Ascherson, aunt of renowned journalist Neal Ascherson) who was doing the same for Stuart when... well, you know).  Anyway, Sammy comes out of it smelling of roses and gets to run his own section of the army, and comes home to find Susan's picture back in the frame and the cat back on its mat, 

and a refilled bottle of whisky waiting for him.  All's well.  There's also a minor subplot about a stuttering Corporal who's great with fuses but whose wife is unfaithful and everyone knows it.  I will say that it's possibly the most convincing stutter I've ever heard (handily beating Michael Palin's) - so kudos to Cyril Cusack. 

Overall: just for Powell/Pressburger completists, or those with less stony hearts than me, methinks.

Oh yes, one oddity: they appear to have filmed at Stonehenge, and fired off a big old gun there.  Those were the days.

 

Film review: Crossfire (1947)

Although shot in 24 days for a measly $250K, this B-movie nonetheless got its director, Edward Dmytryk, a best picture nomination, and Robert Ryan and Gloria Grahame best supporting nominations.  This movie has a reputation as a classic Noir (and we watched it on the Criterion Channel as part of the "Blackout Noir" collection), and Dmytryk is a name I keep seeing cropping up among lists of great Noir directors, so it's surprising that this was our first Dmytryk.  And false, I discover, because we'd already seen his next film, which in England was called Obsession, and in the US the more prosaic, but descriptive, The Hidden Room, which is an excellent little number starring Robert Newton.  It's also filmed in England with an English cast, which is why I was surprised to find out that Dmytryk directed it, but apparently it's because in the 2 years between the filming of Crossfire and Obsession, Dmytryk got into hot water with the House Unamerican Activities Committee (because he'd actually been a member of the Communist Party during the war) and was even briefly imprisoned, after which he pulled an Elia Kazan and Named Names, and that really tanked his career.  Shame, because this film, while I wouldn't put it up there with Obsession, definitely looks gorgeous (certainly considering how quicky and cheaply it was made) with several very striking shots (usually involving Robert Ryan, the despicable bad guy), as well as having exactly the right values, albeit expressed a little preachily, which is forgivable, considering the time, but which almost certainly got him targeted.

I don't really know why it's thought of as a Noir, except that it's certainly filmed like one, with lots of stark lighting and long shadows 

(it's not uncommon for us to see a character's shadow on the wall before we see them), but, although there are a couple of fairly tortured souls, there is a pretty clear divide between good and evil, and the good end happily, the bad unhappily (cue Miss Prism quote).  Also, the main cop is the most decent of all the characters, and gets to deliver a speech about ethnic tolerance that MAGA could stand to hear today (because of course that's all that's needed to bring them round).  I also don't know why it's called "Crossfire."  One gets the impression with a lot of these B movies that the name and the film have different sources, perhaps there were a couple of people tasked with coming up with all the names, like those people who invent new drug names, presumably by drawing letters from a Scrabble bag.

Anyway: the film begins with a struggle in a darkened room, through which light is shot, but not enough for us to see any faces.  A man is clearly beaten to death 

and then his assailant drags another man out of the door of the room.  It emerges that the man is an ex-soldier called Samuels who, it emerges, was Jewish. While the detective is on the scene a soldier tries to enter the room and says that he's coming back to look for another soldier.  The present soldier is Robert Ryan's Montgomery, and he's looking for a soldier called Mitchell, who immediately becomes a suspect in the killing, even though Montgomery swears he's a good kid.  The military police go to the room in a nearby hotel where Mitchell is staying (this confused me - why are soldiers staying in hotels?  Apparently it's because they've been demobbed.  But why are they still being ordered around, then?  And why is only one of them, the doomed Floyd, out of uniform?).  Mitchell is not at the card game that is happening in his room, but his roommate, Keeley, is.  Keeley is played by the ever-laconic Robert Mitchum (gee but I thought she'd never ketch'em), whose voice is extra sing-song here (it might come as no surprised that he released a croony album).  Completing the trilogy of Roberts 

is Robert Young, who plays the thoroughly decent older detective Finlay, a little worn down by the iniquity of the world, but held together by his trusty pipe and herringbone suit.

We're never quite sure we're getting the full story, and there's a touch of the Rashomon in the telling of events from at least two different points of view, but basically Montgomery, Mitchell, Floyd and another soldier, the Tennessean Leroy are at a bar, and Leroy is jogged so that he spills beer on Samuels' lady friend.  Montgomery makes a huge show of being solicitous, in the process so shaming and ridiculing Leroy that he leaves.  Meanwhile Mitchell and Samuels get to talking and drift to a different part of the bar while Montgomery and Floyd exchange desultory conversation, and Montgomery eyes the other party with some ill-feeling.  Mitchell, Samuels and Samuels' girl exit, and Montgomery and Floyd follow.  Samuels is not that pleased to see Montgomery and Floyd arrive, especially as Mitchell, who appears to be completely hammered (this is why this was included under "Blackout Noirs"), staggers out, saying he's just getting some air and will shortly return.  This supports Montgomery's claim when we first see him come back to look for Mitchell - he claims to have left shortly after Mitchell, before Mitchell had a chance to return.  But Mitchell doesn't return, he wanders in something of a stupor until he stumbles into a bar where he meets Gloria Grahame's Ginny, 

who is initially sulky and standoffish, but warms to him and even gives him her apartment key and says she'll meet him there when she gets off her job (which is to dance with the customers).  Mitchell goes there, passes out, and is awoken by the weirdest character in the movie, 

who is a man who first claims to be Ginny's husband, then says he's lying, he's just a customer, then later claims to be the husband again when talking to Finlay.  We never do learn his real deal, which lends a realistic randomness to the whole affair.  Anyway, Mitchell's army buddies, led by Keeley, try to keep him away from arrest until a better candidate for the murderer can be found.  In the meantime, Floyd is in hiding, but calls Leroy, who alerts Keeley, who goes to visit Floyd to ask him what's what.  This enrages Montgomery to an, shall we say, murderous extent.  Anyway, it all leads up to a plan cooked up by Finlay and Keeley to entrap Montgomery with Leroy's help.  Leroy really doesn't want to help (he's understandably terrified of Montgomery 

(remember, Robert Ryan is about 6'5")) and has to be talked into it with the aforementioned lecture (Montgomery's motivation for killing Samuels turns out to be simple antisemitism).  Oh, and meanwhile Mitchell's wife is in town and seems incredibly willing to forgive Mitchell for his almost-transgression with Ginny, even going with Finlay to try to get her to provide Mitchell with an alibi 

(in the end it's Ginny's "husband" who does so).  Mitchell is the closest to the tortured soul common in Noir, and Samuels was the guy who talked him out of it, by explaining that his problem is that the end of the war has robbed him of his purpose, if not the artistic talent that provided him with employment before the war.  Well, let's just say that the closest the film comes to living up to its title is at the end, and antisemitism does not go unpunished.

As I said, a bit heavy-handed, but timely.  I have found that Twelve Angry Men is surprisingly popular among the TikTok set, and this seems due for a similar revival, for similar reasons.  Mitchum is a little wasted (no, not in the sense he used to get arrested for) in this film, but Ryan is effectively loathsome, and Grahame walks away with the film with her scenes.  And I like Robert Young - he was a solid presence.  I'd watch him as a detective in a series any time.

2025's Film-watching summary

2025 - Wake Up Dead Man
2025 - Weapons
2025 - Mickey 17
2025 - Companion 
2025 - The Ballad of Wallis Island
2025 - Heart Eyes
2024 - Strange Darling
2022 - Troll 
2014 - The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies
2013 - The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
2012 - The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
2011 - Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
2010 - Trollhunter
1981 - The Prodigal Son
1980 - Encounters of the Spooky Kind
1979 - Knockabout
1978 - Warriors Two
1977 - Eraserhead
1976 - The Bad News Bears
1973 - Paper Moon
1966 - Blow-Up
1966 - The Battle of Algiers
1966 - Andrei Rublev
1963 - Irma La Douce
1962 - Knife in the Water
1961 - Murder, She Said
1960 - The Apartment
1957 - How to Murder a Rich Uncle
1957 - Blue Murder at St. Trinians
1956 - The Green Man
1955 - The Ladykillers
1954 - An Inspector Calls
1954 - The Belles of St. Trinians
1953 - Ugetsu
1953 - Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
1951 - Scrooge
1951 - The Man in the White Suit
1950 - The Happiest Days of Your Life
1947 - Dear Murderer
1947 - They Made Me A Fugitive
1946 - Green For Danger
1945 - And Then There Were None
1945 - Children of Paradise
1944 - On Approval
1941 - Inspector Hornleigh Goes To It
1941 - Love Crazy
1940 - Night Train to Munich
1939 - Inspector Hornleigh
1939 - Inspector Hornleigh on Holiday 
1938 - Bank Holiday
1935 - The Phantom Light
1933 - Lady Killer
1933 - Picture Snatcher
1932 - Jewel Robbery 

This year started off incredibly strong, with the first two or three months seeing us watch tons of movies (notably a lot of 30s and 40s British films), but petered out considerably in the second half of the year.  Probably a major factor was that I was on sabbatical in that period and working on a book.  But also we tended not to want the mental effort and just collapsed into our King of the Hill binge watch (motivated by the reboot, which we have yet to get to).  Highlights of the year for me would include (in chronological order) Children of Paradise, Scrooge, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Ugetsu, An Inspector Calls, The Green Man, The Apartment, Andrei Rublev, The Battle of Algiers, Blow-Up and probably The Ballad of Wallis Island.  It really is true that the classics are classics for a reason, even if you have to gird your loins to watch them (I'm looking at you, Andrei Rublev).  They're nourishing meals that stay with you.  (A few films would also be in this list were they not re-watches - The Man in the White Suit, The Ladykillers, Green for Danger, The Bad News Bears, and Trollhunter for example.)  There are also films that I didn't necessarily love but that have lingered, like Knife in the Water and Eraserhead (long a favorite of Jami's).  If I had to pick just one film, it would probably be The Apartment (which I can't believe I watched for the first time in 2025), for pure enjoyment, or The Battle of Algiers, which is sort of the MC5 (or perhaps Gill Scott-Heron) of movies, but oddly, the film I most want to re-watch is Children of Paradise, mainly because I think I didn't wring everything out of it the first time.  Biggest disappointment was almost certainly Mickey 17, because it just should (and could) have been so much better. Once again, the most under-represented decade (with ZERO) was the 90s, which is now regarded as being a great decade for movies, but maybe it's because we were in LA, going to actual cinemas and walking distance from a fantastic video rental place that I don't feel the need to revisit it.  But it's weird that there's such a huge gap between 1981 and 2010 in our viewing this year.  It chaps my hide that we still haven't watched every film in our Criterion Art-House box set, falling three short, but they're not very appealing and it's hard enough to persuade Jami to watch any film these days, let alone Ballad of a Soldier or Miss Julie.  Still: that will be my New Year's resolution.

One last note: we started the year with the 2011 film of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, and we're about to watch the final episode of the 1979 Alec Guinness BBC version tonight (we haven't gone out for New Years in about 4 decades).  I have newfound respect for Gary Oldman because of his performance as Jackson Lamb, but nobody's beating Alec Guinness as Smiley. 

Last year's summary