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  • caractacus pottscaractacus potts Orbital communicator, level 10Posts: 3,907MI6 Agent

    @Joshua let me know if the link works, I post these links but nobody ever lets me know

    have you watched other Hitchcock? the 39 Steps is probably the best/most talked about of his early British films, and influential on the spy genre

  • The Red KindThe Red Kind EnglandPosts: 3,119MI6 Agent

    Btw, not sure if it has been discussed before but Benedict Cumberbatch is due to star in a new version of The 39 Steps on Netflix. Should be 2023.

    "Any of the opposition around..?"
  • JoshuaJoshua Posts: 1,138MI6 Agent

    I tried the link and it is working. I haven't watched it yet but it looks very interesting. Thank you again.

  • JoshuaJoshua Posts: 1,138MI6 Agent

    Speaking of links to films on YouTube, I know I have posted this before but here is a film which is well worth watching.

    Callan 1974.


    I recommend this film to everyone.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OuQMzArcyLs

  • Number24Number24 NorwayPosts: 21,709MI6 Agent
    edited November 2022

    Gunda (2020)

    This movie is about a 200 kilo single mother who lives on a farm in Norway. She's also a pig, and I'm not just talking about her eating habits. We also get to see the cows and chickens, but Gunda is the star. We only see humans from the animals' perspective, usually a pair of wellingtons walking by. The animals are lucky in the sense that they live on a type of farm that's getting rarer, the type where the animals are given a lot of outdoor space in the summer. But it's not all idyll, the darker moments of being a farm animal are also shown. While the pace is slow the viewer is gradually drawn in by Gunda and her small world. The movie has done very well in the award circut and I recomend it if you're looking for something unusual. The movie isn't subtitled.

  • caractacus pottscaractacus potts Orbital communicator, level 10Posts: 3,907MI6 Agent

    Gunda sounds really good! theres not enough films from the animals point of view. could you understand the oinking without subtitles TwoFour?


    I remember one a couple years back about a family dog that got lost and ended up joining up a pack of wild dogs running loose in the city, who then rose up in violent revolution against the stoopid humans. Forget the title, but I sure was rooting for them doggies


    but what if the animals did watch these films themselves? would they congratulate us for really digging their point of view, or accuse of cultural appropriation? like if real apes ever watched Planet of the Apes and could use sign language to tell us what they think, would they accuse us of condescending, or anthropomorphising, or implicating them in our petty political agendas, or what? I'm sure there's zero chance us stoopid humans guessed correctly what really goes on in those ape brains, or the doggy brains, or the pig brains

  • Napoleon PluralNapoleon Plural LondonPosts: 10,239MI6 Agent

    Or indeed your brain, @caractacus potts 😁

    Sons of the Desert

    Famous five-star Laurel & Hardy film. I get this movie confused because I expect to see L & H in the actual desert, like the foreign legion, when of course it doesn't refer to that. I twigged that the organisation our hapless pair belong to - Sons of the Desert - is really a riff on freemasonry, signing up to a solemn pledge that must not be broken, an organisation with a centuries old tradition, all-male and mostly about networking.

    The British comedian Bob Monkhouse observed that women laugh at different jokes to men, particularly when they're on their own and not with other men, they become less guarded, less observant of social codes. He observed that women don't seem to laugh at Laurel and Hardy - if they wanted to see daft, stupid blokes they can stay at home. I have some sympathy with this however, I find their shorts far better but their full-lengths, I mean some of the gags are very laboured and drawn out. As a kid I loved the idea that Laurel is thick and Hardy is the smart sarcastic one, of course when you get older you see that both are idiots, Hardy arguably more so for not knowing it. His looks of exasperated complicity at the camera aren't so funny to me now, because you feel some idiot is trying to get you go go along with him and his idiocy.

    Ironically, a lot of the humour comes from the reaction of their wives when they realise that their husbands have told them a pack of lies about having to go away for recuperation when in fact they're off to the Sons of the Desert meeting in California.

    I felt a bit the same about Swiss Miss, another of their classics.

    The blurb at the start of the film is a bit ill-advised, talking about how the pair got together under Hal Roach in the 1930s 'and the world hasn't stopped laughing since' er World War II anyone?

    "This is where we leave you Mr Bond."

    Roger Moore 1927-2017
  • Number24Number24 NorwayPosts: 21,709MI6 Agent
    edited March 2022


    While I did grow up on an idyllic farm like Gunda, we didn't have pigs. The sleeping arrangements, diet and family situation were also somewhat different. but we did speak to the animals and at times we felt there was a level of communication and understanding. Especially my grandparents consciously spent time with the animals, talking to them and patting them. It paid off, for example if we wanted to move the sheep from one field to another they would just follow grandma. I did ponder about how the animals saw things, but we will probably never know.

    You may have heard of the Norwegian concept of slow-TV. My father set up a camera in the barn and hooked it up to our TV. That way he could sleep on the couch during lambing season. He could watch them on the screen and recognize the behaviour of a sow that was about to give birth before he had to get up and go over to the barn and help out if needed. My father has given mouth-to-mouth on lambs!

    We had only two channels on TV: NRK and "Baa TV". 😀


    I don't have any photos, but this photo from online gives you a fair idea of how it was. Seriously.


  • Number24Number24 NorwayPosts: 21,709MI6 Agent
    edited March 2022

    Bandolero! (1968)

    This western is a new discovery for me. I think it's on my top ten list of westerns. Not on the level of "The Searchers" and "Once upon a time in the West", but better than "El Dorado". Dean Martin plays Dee Bishop, the leader of a brutal gang of bank robbers. After a particularely deadly robbery he and his gang are caught by sheriff Johnson (George Kennedy). Maria Stoner is a fresh widdow after her husband was killed in the bank robbery. The sheriff is a compentent and honest man, and not so secretly in love with Maria. At the hanging Dee and his gang are saved at the last minute - by the hangman! It's Mace, the older brother of Dee. Maria is taken hostage by Dee's gang who run away into Mexico together with Mace. The sheriff and a posse follow them into Mexico, hopeing to save Maria.

    Both the Bishop brothers are civil war veterans. Dee fought for the south in the Quantrill guerilla gang, Mace fought for the Union under Sherman. This means both brothers were at the minimum witness to war crimes. Especially in the begining Dee is a cold, brutal and shut-in man, different from the normal charismatic performances by Dean Martin. I think Dean Martin does some really good acting. The same goes for Raquel Welch. She is of course incredibly sexy, but her character is actually interesting and worth watching for more than eye candy. Her character is Mexican and she was sold by her very poor family into marriage. Her husband was kind, but she never loved him. Will she fall for the sheriff or the bank robber?

    The movie is at times brutal and serious, but it's also at times bizarre and funny. It also looks and sounds great. If you like westerns this one should be a must watch.

    The movie for free on YouTube: Bandolero 1968 - James Stewart, Dean Martin, Raquel Welch, George Kennedy - Bing video



  • JoshuaJoshua Posts: 1,138MI6 Agent

    I did watch the Thirty nine Steps film and enjoyed it. Thank you for recommending it.

  • JoshuaJoshua Posts: 1,138MI6 Agent

    The North West Frontier.

    I enjoyed this film (I will leave the colonialist aspect out of it). It was a good action film of it's time. It starred Kenneth Moore, the person who was mentioned in the Thirty Nine Steps. I recommend it to every one.

    It was on Talking Pictures so I'm sure it will be repeated.

    Here is the trailer.

    Actually, I've just noticed the full film is on Youtube

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSMDhBBLroI

  • Number24Number24 NorwayPosts: 21,709MI6 Agent

    The invention of destruction (1958)

    Do you sometimes feel movies are too simular? Then this movie is for you! Don't run away after reading the next sentence: The movie is from Czechoslovakia and the origonal title is " Vynález zkázy". The movie is heaviy inspired by the works of Jules Verne. The movies don't use the names from his stories and only elements from Verne are used to create a new story, but the source is obvious. Visually it gets even more obvious. The illustrations from the novels are used in the movie in a very stylistic way. There is no real attempt to make the scenes look real. Instead actors interact in and with Verne's world. Some set elements are real and 3D, others are taken directly from the book illustrations and others are 2D elements made for the movie. We're not just talking about backdrops actors walk in front of. Elements that could easily be made for real (such as flowers) are sometimes in 2D, and even set elements that really are 3d are made to look like they're 2D.

    The movie is absolutely a cyberpunk movie and I love that. It also feels like a Wes Anderson movie, where the style over realism approach makes it charming. This movie, in short, is GREAT!!

    Subtitled and for free on YouTube: Invention for Destruction (1958) (English subs) - YouTube



  • CoolHandBondCoolHandBond Mactan IslandPosts: 6,033MI6 Agent

    CARRY ON SERGEANT (1958)

    This was the first of the Carry On series and Kenneth Williams, Charles Hawtrey, Kenneth Connor and Hattie Jacques would become regulars along with Terry Scott who has a minor role. A pre-Doctor Who William Hartnell is the sergeant and our own Shirley Eaton is newly wed Bob Monkhouse’s wife.

    The story follows a new bunch of conscripts in the army and the escapades they get up to while a side bet on the success of the training leads to the conscripts getting to grips with their task towards the end. The double-entendres are mild and the visual jokes are pretty funny.

    Worth seeing. All the early entries in the series have turned up on BritBox so I will see them all again in due course. Shirley Eaton is lovely, it’s odd how her career never really took off.

    Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.
  • chrisno1chrisno1 LondonPosts: 3,178MI6 Agent

    THE RAVEN (1963)

    Following on from the humour laden The Black Cat episode in Tales of Terror, director Roger Corman and writer Richard Matheson decided to go for all out comedy when adapting Edgar Allan Poe’s The Raven. I don’t know how comic a tale this is in Poe’s bibliography, but the result here certainly has more laughs than chills.

    Vincent Price, Peter Lorre and Boris Karloff spar marvellously throughout the piece as a trio of grand wizards all attempting to out do each other. Central to the story is Lorre’s Dr. Bedlo, who is behind the times in still conducting magic with props. He angered the head of the Brotherhood, Karloff’s slick Dr Scarabus, and for his sins was turned into a raven. He fled to Erasmus Craven’s mansion, knowing this good doctor, the only wizard not in the brotherhood, could help him without revealing his folly. Price’s Craven is about as over-the-top as you’d expect, but why shouldn’t he be when the script is packed full of japes and jests like this one? Karloff and Lorre compete for attention. Sterling support is leant by the supporting cast, including a young Jack Nicholson, who looks both confused and irritated. They don’t have to try too hard as it’s all a lark to show off the aging stars, gently mocking their established screen personas.

    The final confrontation between Craven and Scarabus is excellently done, lots of cheap effects looking as good today as they would in 1963 and standing up well against much more modern fare. You can see where J.K. Rowling and the Harry Potter filmmakers got a lot of inspirations from. The burning castle is once again the same burning castle we saw in The House of Usher. Cheap, cheerful and a lot of fun.

    Boris Karloff also starred in Universal’s 1935 chiller The Raven, but that movie only blended elements of several Poe stories into a new framework.  

  • TonyDPTonyDP Inside the MonolithPosts: 4,279MI6 Agent
    edited April 2022

    @Chrisno1, just FYI The Raven is a long form narrative poem by Poe. The unnamed narrator is mourning the death of his love and a Raven appears, repeating the word "Nevermore" again and again. It is very much a rumination on death and loss (two Poe hallmarks) and the narrator's fervent but ultimately unfulfilled desire to be reunited with his lost love.

    The Corman movie has only the barest of connections to the poem, again ultimately descending into another unfaithful wife trying to screw over her unsuspecting husband plot that Corman loved to regurgitate over and over again. I saw it ages ago and as a longtime Poe fan I almost threw up after watching it. I wouldn't mind if it was treated as an original story but calling itself "Edgar Allan Poe's The Raven" is about on par with referring to the 1967 Casino Royale as "Ian Fleming's Casino Royale" and I just could never get past that.

  • Golrush007Golrush007 South AfricaPosts: 3,418Quartermasters

    Great stuff! The Right Stuff, Apollo 13 and From The Earth to the Moon are three of my all time favourite films/tv shows.

  • Golrush007Golrush007 South AfricaPosts: 3,418Quartermasters
    edited April 2022

    It's been a long time since I've posted about a film in this thread. In fact, I haven't been watching as many films as usual lately. But last night I watched Akira Kurosawa's noir crime drama HIGH AND LOW (1963), in which a Japanese businessman is caught up in a kidnapping where his chauffer's son is held for ransom.

    I've seen a few Kurosawa films over the years, but this is the first one that I've seen which takes place in a contemporary setting. It still has pretty much everything that I've come to expect from Kurosawa though. Striking compositions, creative and meaningful blocking of scenes, and a memorable lead performance by Toshiro Mifune. But the film isn't entirely focused on Mifune all the way through, as for much of the second half it goes into police procedural mode, with the focus on the detectives trying to track down the kidnapper. The film is engaging and gripping throughout, with a dark and memorable final scene. I think I'll be watching more Kurosawa noir in the future.

  • chrisno1chrisno1 LondonPosts: 3,178MI6 Agent
    edited April 2022

    I've not seen this one. Sounds good. The best contemporary Kurasawa IMO is Living. A drama, but an exceptional one about age fulfilment and, well, living.

  • Golrush007Golrush007 South AfricaPosts: 3,418Quartermasters

    At first I wasn't sure what film you were referring to there @chrisno1 but I think you must be referring to Ikiru. I haven't heard it called that before. I haven't seen it yet, but it's on my list of Kurosawa films to watch.

  • chrisno1chrisno1 LondonPosts: 3,178MI6 Agent
    edited April 2022

    Yes. Sorry Living is the [indirect] translation of Ikiru. Do watch it. IMHO it is superb, one of the Master's very best.

  • Number24Number24 NorwayPosts: 21,709MI6 Agent

    The wicker man (1973)

    Shocking as it may seem to the British members here, I've just seen The Wicker Man for the first time. I liked it. I rarely watch horror movies, but this one is different. it doesn't rely on lots of blood and jump scares. Instead it has mystery, the bizzare and a story we rarely see. Christopher Lee delivers a great performance and Britt Ekland changes her accent and voice, but not her hotness!

    Here's the movie: The Wicker Man (1973) | Full Movie | w/ Edward Woodward, Christopher Lee, Britt Ekland, Diane Cilento, Ingrid Pitt - Bing video

    In the Random Chat thread I was compared to Lord Summerisle. This is completely unreasonable since us Norwegians would never condone such pagan traditions!



  • HardyboyHardyboy Posts: 5,882Chief of Staff

    Saw Clint Eastwood's latest, CRY MACHO. I could gripe about a lot--the story is slight and even a little silly (the rooster "Macho" is actually a major character here), and the kid who shares screen time with Clint can't act his way out of a paper bolsa--but it's touching to see old Clint still at it, championing old-fashioned values during a time when they seemingly don't apply. I wasn't bored and I smiled a lot, and that says something.

    Vox clamantis in deserto
  • caractacus pottscaractacus potts Orbital communicator, level 10Posts: 3,907MI6 Agent
    edited April 2022

    Royal Flash, 1975

    directed by Richard Lester (A Hard Days Night, Help!)

    screenplay by George MacDonald Fraser (one of ours)

    starring Malcolm McDowell as Harry Flashman, Oliver Reed as Otto von Bismarck, and Britt Ekland (another of ours) as Duchess Irma


    you know, I don't think we have a Flashman thread in this forum or I would've bumped it. surprising since we've talked about the series of novels so much in the Last Book Read... thread

    McDowell seems too young and skinny for my image of Flashman, the books always insisted he was tall and butch and broadshouldered. but of course that was the character himself telling us that, and he's a compulsive liar. Reed of course makes for an excellent villain, a bigger bully than our school bully protagonist. And Ekland gets more to do than as a BondGirl, but not much more: first she plays it frigid, than after one night with Harry she is insatiable (so maybe the braggadocio about the women was true even if he's skinner than he led us to believe)

    this all seems quite faithful to what I remember from the second novel, with flashbacks (FlashmanBacks?) to certain scenes from the first. Beautiful architecture in Bavaria, well used, and lots of largescale set-pieces with hundreds of extras. Several extended comic sequences with elaborate choreography, and good swordfights too. its all very funny and cynical, but the humour is mostly physical comedy, whereas in the books most of the jokes came from exploration of Harry's bad attitude and the ridiculous things he told us.

    Royal Flash wasn't my favorite of the novels, as it seemed more conventional. I think its the only one set entirely within Europe, and I enjoyed learning the history of other parts of the world, plus the imperialist prejudices made those exotic adventures all the more outrageous which is part of the fun. But nice we've got at least one adaptation of the books, and it was by Fraser himself and quite competent.

  • Number24Number24 NorwayPosts: 21,709MI6 Agent

    Someone (HBO?) should make a Flashman TV series.

  • Napoleon PluralNapoleon Plural LondonPosts: 10,239MI6 Agent

    Re The Wicker Man, like Britt's Get Carter this was a typical movie shown late night on British TV when there were only a few channels and before they were officially cult classics so one watched with a growing sense of awe and delight, glad the parents had turned in for the night.

    What added to the legend of Wicker is that it wasn't a big hit and large chunks of the movie were cut never to be found again. Later they resurfaced and went into the Director's Cut which I caught - but I'm not convinced it improved the film. The pace was lost and admittedly having seen it, one wondered if Sgt Howie couldn't have figured out what was actually going on over the longer duration of the film.

    Re Flashman, another guilty pleasure, I think it's been observed that Reed himself would have been good in the role 10 years earlier. I loved reading these and got up to Flashman's Lady after a hiatus during Flashman and the Redskins which put me right off the character, less a dastardly rogue more a sociopath. I made the mistake of reading them in chronological rather than in published order, there's often a point when an author tires of his creation and wants to destroy him by making the reader go off them.

    I can see Richard Lester doing this kind of film but it doesn't sell it to me. Royal Flash is a riff on Prisoner of Zenda - an innocent being mistaken for an illustrious double and you either buy into that story - more credible in days of yore before multimedia when there really might be your double in some part of the world - or you don't, and I don't really.

    I do recall the author's vivid account of the 1848 Revolutions and the strange atmosphere in the streets of Vienna I think, sort of eerie and deserted.

    "This is where we leave you Mr Bond."

    Roger Moore 1927-2017
  • CoolHandBondCoolHandBond Mactan IslandPosts: 6,033MI6 Agent

    A Flashman series will never be commissioned until the scourge of wokeness is replaced by common sense. It would be perfect for an Amazon series but would be pointless unless the scripts were like how the original books were written.

    Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.
  • Number24Number24 NorwayPosts: 21,709MI6 Agent

    I think the trick is to make it clear that Flashman isn't a hero.

  • HardyboyHardyboy Posts: 5,882Chief of Staff

    Saw Kenneth Branagh's DEATH ON THE NILE. Entertaining--hard to go wrong with an Agatha Christie plot and an all-star cast--but there's a weird focus on Poirot's mustache. . .it's all connected to trauma and loss and by the end Poirot realizes he doesn't need it. Oh fer Gawd's sake--isn't it enough that Poirot is a vain little man and during his time a finely-groomed mustache was the height of men's fashion?

    Vox clamantis in deserto
  • caractacus pottscaractacus potts Orbital communicator, level 10Posts: 3,907MI6 Agent
    edited April 2022

    napoleon said:

    Re Flashman, another guilty pleasure, I think it's been observed that Reed himself would have been good in the role 10 years earlier. 

    I hadn't thought of that, but you're right: oliver Reed is physically more the type, easy enough to die his hair blonde, and even if I'd never seen him in another film I'd just assume he's a big bully, he almost cant help but give that impression. whereas Malcolm McDowell is relying on my memory of his persona from Clockwork Orange moreso than anything he's actually doing in this film, he really looks (and acts) like a kid with a big moustache who's gotten into a situation way over his head.


    coolhandbond said:

    A Flashman series will never be commissioned until the scourge of wokeness is replaced by common sense. It would be perfect for an Amazon series but would be pointless unless the scripts were like how the original books were written.

    The books really don't make the British Empire look great. The first one shows the attempted occupation of Afghanistan as disastrous and near idiotic. And one of the most unforgettable scenes of the whole series is in Flashman and the Dragon, when he witnesses the British Army destroy a Chinese city more beautiful than he's ever seen anywhere in Europe (despite his foul and cynical language, Flashman is more sympathetic to the people he meets abroad than are most of his countrymen). A lot of the educational value in the books is that Fraser reveals well-documented aspects of history that are less flattering than the conventional narratives that are usually told, sometimes quite disturbing.

    That said, could a modern film handle that nuance? could it tell a story that reveals mistakes of the British Empire without audiences misunderstanding and assuming its glamourising the subject matter? I think of some of the controversies Tarantino got into with Django Unchained, where character used the language of the times and the slave owners look more villainous than I've ever seen before in film, yet some argued that shouldn't be shown at all, as if it were glamourising slavery.

    Funny how movie audiences are assumed to take whatever they see at face value without appreciating moral complexities, are we all really that dumb? but Hollywood in particular is risk-averse when it comes to judging an audience's reaction, so you may be right, they just wouldn't try.


    twofour said:

    I think the trick is to make it clear that Flashman isn't a hero.

    in the books he tells us in own words he isn't a hero, and proves that to us over and over, usually there's at least one big moment per book that should make us really despise the man (I'm not sure there was a moment quite like that in the Royal Flash film). That should be easy enough to do in a new film, though it seems like a lot of morally ambiguous antiheroes are celebrated by their audiences for being "bad-ass", rather than being held responsible for their transgressions. Back again to the question of dumb audiences, and risk-averse film studios pandering to that assumed lack of critical thinking.

  • Number24Number24 NorwayPosts: 21,709MI6 Agent

    Correct. In the book Flashman is clearly isn't a hero, and it's important that he isn't a hero on TV to make a series work.

    I think Dominic West, who has expressed an interest in the role, can be a great Flashman.

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