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gervase_fenA viewing schedule determined by the order the disks arrived from Lovefilm. It Always Rains on Sunday is a brilliantly achieved day-in-the-life drama, pitching an escaped convict into the humdrum backwater of Bethnal Green in 1947. It's a prototype for both EastEnders (the original, Julia Smith years) and Dixon of Dock Green (Jack Warner is on the convict's trail, and has tabs on the dosshouses and spivs of the district.) The Blu-Ray is excellent - the night filmed shunting yard chase is heart-in-mouth stuff.
Seventies paranoia is the tone that dominates The Parallax View, a film that I've encountered secondhand through David Fincher's homages to it in The Game and Zodiac (if I recall correctly Mark Ruffalo wears a brown leather jacket in Zodiac the exact match of Warren Beatty's). Alan J Pakula's film is admirably no-nonsense in executing its premise -- one by one characters tell Warren Beatty's Frady that they're in fear of their lives, and one by one they are proved right in their fears. The movie takes a left-turn when Frady stumbles across a mail-order self-improvement questionnaire from the Parallax Corporation ; infiltration requires that Frady is screened -- and then, gets screened 'The Parallax Sequence', alone in a viewing room at the Corp. HQ. The sequence is a bravura one, flash cuts of photos, artwork and captions (MOTHER, FATHER, PATRIOT etc.) (One of the recurring pictures is of the hero of the number one film at the UK Box Office at the moment). Has Frady been brainwashed by this? There's a superb sequence shortly afterwards where he pursues a suspect - and then a suspect package - onto an internal airflight (I had no idea that in those days you could just walk on board and pay for your seat in-flight.) Gordon Willis' cinematography is typically Godfather chiaroscuro - the bad guys really do step out of the shadows - and Pakula loves framing the action on as wide a scale as possible, the characters tiny figures in front of stunning industrial or modern architectural landscapes.
The Small Back Room is one of my favourite war movies -- David Farrar's tortured scientist hero, Sammy Rice, is caught up in battles against petty government bureaucracy that the Third Doctor would recognise. Kathleen Byron's Susan is devoted but not blind to Rice's self-destructive tendencies, the bomb defusing sequence is as good as any on screen, and its always a pleasure to see a young Michael Gough and Sid James. Colonel Strang also seemed to be a familiar face - it's Anthony Bushnell, Colonel Breen from Quatermass and the Pit. Renee Asherson - 'ATS Corporal' - is named in the opening credit roll for good reason - the film just stops when she delivers a devastating monologue twenty minutes from the end.
Seventies paranoia is the tone that dominates The Parallax View, a film that I've encountered secondhand through David Fincher's homages to it in The Game and Zodiac (if I recall correctly Mark Ruffalo wears a brown leather jacket in Zodiac the exact match of Warren Beatty's). Alan J Pakula's film is admirably no-nonsense in executing its premise -- one by one characters tell Warren Beatty's Frady that they're in fear of their lives, and one by one they are proved right in their fears. The movie takes a left-turn when Frady stumbles across a mail-order self-improvement questionnaire from the Parallax Corporation ; infiltration requires that Frady is screened -- and then, gets screened 'The Parallax Sequence', alone in a viewing room at the Corp. HQ. The sequence is a bravura one, flash cuts of photos, artwork and captions (MOTHER, FATHER, PATRIOT etc.) (One of the recurring pictures is of the hero of the number one film at the UK Box Office at the moment). Has Frady been brainwashed by this? There's a superb sequence shortly afterwards where he pursues a suspect - and then a suspect package - onto an internal airflight (I had no idea that in those days you could just walk on board and pay for your seat in-flight.) Gordon Willis' cinematography is typically Godfather chiaroscuro - the bad guys really do step out of the shadows - and Pakula loves framing the action on as wide a scale as possible, the characters tiny figures in front of stunning industrial or modern architectural landscapes.
The Small Back Room is one of my favourite war movies -- David Farrar's tortured scientist hero, Sammy Rice, is caught up in battles against petty government bureaucracy that the Third Doctor would recognise. Kathleen Byron's Susan is devoted but not blind to Rice's self-destructive tendencies, the bomb defusing sequence is as good as any on screen, and its always a pleasure to see a young Michael Gough and Sid James. Colonel Strang also seemed to be a familiar face - it's Anthony Bushnell, Colonel Breen from Quatermass and the Pit. Renee Asherson - 'ATS Corporal' - is named in the opening credit roll for good reason - the film just stops when she delivers a devastating monologue twenty minutes from the end.
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Date: 2013-11-11 02:08 am (UTC)The Small Back Room I only know through a clip seen as part of a Kathleen Byron retrospective at the NFT, in front of the lady herself. Renee Asherson is I think still with us in the care of Denville Hall.