Our introductions to films we’ve shown at film club about race and racial inequality.
Four musicals that are much better than Brigadoon
It’s too easy to point out that Brigadoon isn’t the greatest musical of all time, and even though it made a packet at the box office, it’s pretty unwatchable to a modern audience (especially to anyone who’s ever met a real live Scotch person).
The accents are Dick van Dyke- in- Mary- Poppins dreadful and the evocation of a Scottish community full of twinkly-eyed tam o’ shanter-wearing, bekilted Highland dancing gephyrophobiacs is sentimental and laughably twee
Might I draw your attention to any one of these glorious musicals that are more fun, have better tunes and superb dancing?
Gold Diggers of 1933 (Mervyn Le Roy, 1933)
Busby Berkeley‘s crowning achievement. As with most of the films where Buzz choreographed the dance sequences, the plot is largely irrelevant and you stick with it for the dance sequences. This film includes the breath-taking Lullaby of Broadway sequence: hundreds of perfectly synchronised tap dancers, filmed to emphasise the geometry of their mass. And with a peculiarly gruesome ending.
Lullaby of Broadway
Ginger Rogers could do anything Fred Astaire could do, only backwards and in high heels. They had rehearsed and danced this sequence so many times that the beautiful dress she is wearing is beginning to disintegrate and tiny filaments of ostrich feather float in the light. It’s said that she was bleeding into her shoes by the final take and she performs three amazing back bends, lower each time, and always ridiculously graceful.
Cheek to Cheek
Singin' in the Rain (Stanley Doonen, 1955)
Debbie Reynolds is so perky and loveable throughout this film. She’s wholesome and cheery and vivacious and is a contrast to the inherent seriousness of Gene Kelly, he always struck me as someone who took themselves terribly seriously. It’s worth talking “the whole night through” just so you can sing this song. It’s a real “let’s put on the show right here” song.
Good Morning
Strictly Ballroom (Baz Lurhmann, 1992)
Okay, it’s not strictly a musical, but it is a film about dancing and music and this song pops up several times throughout the soundtrack. At this point, we know that you can dance any steps you like, that Scott will fulfil his father’s thwarted dreams it’ll all end happily ever after and that love is indeed in the air.
Love Is In The Air
Other superior musicals: High Society (What a Swell party) , Oliver! (Food Glorious Food), and Swingtime (Pick Yourself Up) – such apparently effortless elegance.
Psycho, Vertigo, North By Northwest... everyone knows that these films are classics. But Alfred Hitchcock made more than 60 films in his career and others, like Rope, are less widely known.
These are my personal picks of five more of The Master's films that you might not have seen before but are certainly worth your time.
What?
Tippi Hedren is the serial thief whose problems stem from a horrific childhood incident. Sean Connery the wealthy man who uncovers her criminal ways, marries her and then tries to get to the root of the problem.
Why?
A strange, stylised and unsettling psychological drama that showcases Hedren's icy screen persona and Hitchcock's weird sexual obsessions. Connery twinkles as playboy Mark Rutland but none of the leading characters are truly likeable. Look out for the brilliantly suspenseful five-minute silent robbery sequence.
What?
A serial killer is stalking the streets of 1970s London. An ex-RAF officer falls under suspicion but the real murderer is his close friend.
Why?
Hitchcock's penultimate film was also the first that he had made in Britain for over 20 years. The city he depicts is strangely anachronistic - full of cheery market porters and pubs with pre-war atmosphere. The murders are starkly portrayed and Barry Foster is genuinely disturbing as the psycho. Look out for a majestic long tracking shot taking us away from the scene of one of the killings.
What?
In a small Californian town a teenage girl's humdrum life is enlivened by the arrival of her uncle who is a serial killer called 'The Merry Widow Murderer'.
Why?
Joseph Cotten, one of cinema's finest and least-appreciated actors plays the killer with eerie charm and Teresa Wright is perfect as the teenager he draws into his web. This is Hitchcock's most American film and his personal favourite. It features a discomfiting score by the great Dimitri Tiomkin.
What?
Crazy goings on in a Vermont mental hospital when the incoming director of the institution is unveiled as an imposter by one of the doctors. But did he commit murder to get there?
Why?
Stilted, some would say wooden and definitely featuring one of Hitch's more preposterous plots. Gregory Peck and Ingrid Bergman struggle through the dialogue, but this curiosity is also full of guilty pleasures - not the least of which are the haunting dream landscapes designed by the Surrealist painter Salvador Dali.
What?
From John Buchan's classic adventure novel - an innocent man goes on the run when he is implicated in a murder. To prove his innocence he must unmask the killers and their plan to steal military secrets.
Why?
Nearly 80 years after it was made this thriller is as fresh, sharp and funny as the day it was released. Robert Donat and Madeleine Carroll have real sexual chemistry as the pair thrown together by fate and there are some outstanding sequences including the music hall scenes featuring Mr Memory (not in the original book). Look out for a young John Laurie from 'Dad's Army' playing a suspicious Scottish crofter.
