Slapstick 2012 programme launched

Bristol’s Slapstick Festival is one of the highlights of my cinematic year and it’s back from 26 – 29 January 2012.

Stuffed with screenings of silent films introduced by experts and celebrities (including many experts that are celebrities) and illustrated talks on all aspects of comedy, Slapstick manages to walk the fine line between populist and scholarly without faltering.

The 2012 schedule looks typically enticing, with a heavy focus on my favourite silent star, Buster Keaton. Events include Ian Lavender recalling his time on Dad’s Army; Buster Keaton expert Kevin Brownlow looking at various aspects of the silent star’s career; Charlie Chaplin biographer, David Robinson, discussing the former’s place in the history of world art; The Goodies’ Graeme Garden looking at the work of the “forgotten” Charley Chase; Barry Cryer introducing a Harold Lloyd double bill; and Bill Oddie discussing his top comedy moments with Chris Serle.

Those are just a fraction of the events on offer (did I mention Terry Jones introducing Life of Brian or Griff Rhys Jones introducing Keaton’s The General with a brand new score?) and I’d urge you to head over to the Slapstick 2012 website to take a look at what you can enjoy in January.

That’s after you watch the brand new trailer for the event and my own short slide show from Slapstick 2011 including contributions from The Goodies and a few other well-known names:

and…

Visit the Slapstick 2012 website and book your place now.

Audio interview: Welcome Back Robert Osborne!

Welcome Back, Bob!

For anyone outside the USA who may have stumbled upon this post, you’re probably wondering who Bob is and why I’m welcoming him back. That’s a valid question, as even those who do know who Bob is may be questioning why a blogger in the UK is mentioning a TV star from the other side of the Atlantic whose shows aren’t screened in that country.

When I decided to head to Hollywood earlier this year to attend the second TCM Classic Film Festival, a spin-off from the TV station launched in 1994, I had hoped to immerse myself in old movies and find out what it’s like to watch them on the big screen in cinemas such as Grauman’s Chinese Theatre and the Egyptian Theatre, venues I’d only ever glimpsed on TV.

Robert Osborne

What I discovered were a small army of people who had arrived by car, bus, train and plane to celebrate classic films in the company of strangers, the only thing binding them together being the TCM channel and its public face, Robert Osborne.

Born in Colfax, Washington, Osborne began his career as an actor in the 1950s, before moving on to journalism. Osborne became the host of TCM in 1994.

Osborne’s introductions to every film shown during the week have become almost as important to the channel’s subscribers as the films themselves; for millions of people who love classic cinema in America, Robert Osborne is their guide.

The love shown for Osborne at the TCM Festival was palpable, and to British eyes it was something of a shock. We don’t really have anyone in the UK media who could be compared to Osborne, though it could perhaps be said he’s something of a mix between film critic Barry Norman and interviewer Michael Parkinson, though I’m not sure that does him justice.

It’s also worth noting that we really have nothing to compare to the US TCM in the UK, with our version a pale imitation of the original.

I was able to interview the man on the eve of the Festival’s launch as part of a roundtable discussion and the result was published on the blog of the Edinburgh Evening News.

Osborne was a charming and erudite interviewee and his love for cinema shone through.

In July 2011 it was announced that Osborne would be taking a break from hosting duties to undergo a minor operation, leaving his fans concerned and a little lost.

This Thursday, 1 December, sees Osborne return to US TV screens and the fans are celebrating with various blog posts, photos, videos and tweets. I was asked to write something about his return and this blog post is the result.

I decided to dig out the audio of the interview I carried out at Hollywood’s Roosevelt Hotel and snip out the section where I asked a question about the rise in popularity of classic movies. It runs to just under five minutes and it hopefully gives a flavour of his knowledge and interest in the subject. You can read some of the transcript from the original interview below.

“Have you noticed an increase in popularity in classic films in the last few years?”

“In the last five years I’ve noticed a passion that was never there before and I think that television has something to do with it,” says Osborne.

“We have all these channels now, and when I go home and I always check TCM first to see if there’s something I particularly want to watch and if not I try the others and it’s just terrible. Even family sitcoms like Two and a Half Men are so smutty and basic. Then there are the reality shows.

“I think people gravitate towards TCM because you can find a really nice story, you don’t have to worry about who’s in the room with you, your grandmother, kids or wife and you’re not embarrassed about what’s going to be on the air.”

Osborne pauses before continuing. “The one thing movies don’t do today is necessarily leave you with a positive feeling when you exit the movie theatre. But those sharks who ran the industry back in the 1940s were showmen and wanted you to come back the following week, even if you had The Grapes of Wrath or High Sierra.

“At the end of that Humphrey Bogart is shot and killed and this little dog is licking his hand and Ida Lupino is distraught because Roy is dead. She picks up the dog and she’s walking to the camera and she’s saying “Roy’s free, oh yeah, he doesn’t have to be chased anymore,” and the audience is thinking “Oh yeah, Roy’s free,” and they always knew how to put a positive spin on things.

“Even with the Grapes of Wrath, where there’s a family who have been through just about everything, you go away thinking you can make it if you’ve got family and you stick together. I think the movies we have on the air, the mix of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, Bacall and Bogart, Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland, Robert Mitchum and Jane Greer, offers movies that are endearing to people who don’t get that elsewhere.”

Are class and style four letter words to filmmakers today?

“We’re in an era where people love everyone to be common and real,” muses Osborne. “If you’re a taxi driver you don’t want Robert Taylor or Tyrone Power you want Robert De Niro looking just like a cab driver in New York. If you have a beautiful woman like Michelle Pfeiffer you want her to downsize the glamour and not have her look like Grace Kelly.

“I think people still love the reason they used to go to movies, and that’s for something different from their everyday life. There’s nobody like Barbara Stanwyck, Bette Davis or Gary Cooper today. Even when they were playing real people there was something larger than life and heroic about them and we don’t really have that today.

“I’m sure those people are out there but they’re not able to have careers.”

I hope the TCM viewers enjoy having Bob back and that I get another chance to head to Hollywood again in 2012 to mingle with the fans and perhaps Osborne himself.

The titles of Saul Bass

I spotted a link to this video on the Warner Archive Twitter feed today, a look at the visual history of Saul Bass’ title sequences by Ian Albison.

Watch and enjoy.

The Title Design of Saul Bass from Ian Albinson on Vimeo.

TCM Classic Film Festival 2012 details announced

Now’s the time to reach for your diary/calendar/smartphone and to mark some upcoming dates: 12 – 15 April 2012 sees the third annual TCM Classic Film Festival take place in Hollywood.

The central theme of the 2012 edition of the Festival will be a celebration of style in the movies, from fashion to architecture to production design. The theme will touch on both the influence that movies have on popular styles and the impact that current trends have on the movies. Whether it’s the look of a film’s sets, costumes, title design or movie poster, this theme will put the Hollywood aesthetic in whole new light.

I’m still recovering from my visit to this year’s event, which I wrote about over on my personal blog, and I hope to make it back to Hollywood next year to meet some old friends, make some new ones and discover some classic movies for the first time.

You can also watch some of my interviews from 2011 over on my YouTube channel.

DVD Review: Voice Over (1983)

Does the fact that a film is about a misogynist make it a misogynistic film? That’s the question that plagued Voice Over director, Christopher Monger, on the film’s initial release and which helped hasten its relegation to relative obscurity.

Ian McNeice stars as “Fats” Bannerman, the writer of a radio drama for women set in the 19th Century which has attracted a loyal following, much to everyone’s amusement.

When he’s faced with some home truths about his show by a local journalist, before being taunted by two women whom he meets in a bar, Fats’ career starts to take a new direction. Then he stumbles upon one of the women in an alley, bloodied and bruised, and things go into freefall.

Shot on a miniscule budget in less than a month, Voice Over is a rough and ready piece of filmmaking with a terrific central performance from McNeice as a man with a seemingly violent past.

Bemused by the opposite sex, Fats’ discovery of “Bitch” (Bish Nethercote) is never adequately explained, the viewer left to wonder if he did indeed find her post-attack or if he carried it out himself.

Not having a reliable central character to relate to does leave the viewer detached from his plight, though that’s no slight on McNeice. In fact, Fats is the warmest character in a cast of vaguely sketched characters, his radio station colleagues required to do little more than react to situations.

The central “relationship” between Fats and Bitch is one of the oddest to be put on film, her silence juxtaposed by his inability to shut up. Fats’ decision to take on the role of guardian angel can equally be said to be an act of extreme cruelty towards a clearly damaged individual, but the film doesn’t make excuses for him and his descent is fascinating to watch, though hardly comfortable viewing.

Thirty years on from the controversies which dogged Voice Over’s Edinburgh International Film Festival debut, detailed at length in the liner notes, the film’s stance on misogyny can hopefully be put into perspective while the central drama still remains potent.

The transfer on this new Dual Format release may not be perfect but it’s the best we’re going to get thanks to issues with the original prints. Extras include two other Christopher Monger films, including 1976′s film noir homage, Repeater.

★★★★★

DVD Review: Little Malcolm and His Struggle Against the Eunuchs (1974)

Recent years may have seen John Hurt take his place as one of the elder statesmen of British cinema, but back in the 1970s he was still best known for his television and stage work, the latter seeing him cast as the eponymous character of Little Malcolm and His Struggles Against the Eunuchs at London’s Garrick Theatre.

That was in 1965 but it would take a further nine years for David Halliwell’s play to make it to the big screen, mainly thanks to the efforts of George Harrison who saw merit in the political and sexual intricacies of the script.

Hurt returned as Malcolm Scrawdyke, recently made an “ex-student” having been booted out of art college and left to wallow in his room. Initially depicted as something of an Everyman contemplating getting out of bed on a bleak winter’s day, Malcolm soon mutates into something far less likeable as his political leanings are brought to the fore when his sexual prowess is thrown into doubt.

Surrounded by lackeys who aren’t entirely sure why they’re agreeing to join his newly formed Party of Dynamic Erection, a fascistic organisation whose ideals are made up to suit any given situation, Malcolm has an opportunity to divert his energy into a relationship with Anne (Rosalind Ayres), but he instead veers off into more dangerous territory.

Hurt is a powerful presence as the repressed Malcolm, his speeches to both his followers and to himself showing how easy it is to convince oneself that wrong is right, but there’s equally strong support from John McEnery, Raymond Platt and David Warner as Dennis Nipple.

Describing Little Malcolm as “Last of the Summer Wine meets Downfall” may not be completely accurate, but a sequence involving the Erectionists plotting a kidnap while wearing old vests over their heads, which segues into a frighteningly believable interrogation of McEnery’s Wick, encapsulates the humour and the horror that director Stuart Cooper manages to balance.

Mention must also go to Ayres, whose character weaves in and out of the story before becoming a key part of the shocking climax.

Little Malcolm is an odd little film which manages to both mock and highlight the dangers of disaffected youth, something as relevant today as it was almost 40 years ago.

Winning the Silver Bear at Berlin in 1975, Little Malcolm subsequently fell out of sight, meaning the BFI Flipside’s decision to issue it on DVD and Blu-ray is a welcome one. Restored from the original negative, the film looks and sounds as good as new, with two short films, Put Yourself in My Place (1974) and The Contraption (1977) offered as extras.

★★★★★

Holyrood or Bust(er) #4: Love and Marriage

Buster Keaton in Daydreams

To celebrate TCM’s month-long screening of Buster Keaton films every Sunday in October, I’ve been following along from the UK through the week with the aid of various DVDs, Twitter and this blog.

This final Holyrood or Bust(er) post takes many liberties with the TCM schedule and I’ve decided to end my personal Buster marathon with 1925′s Seven Chances.

Seven Chances (1925)

Seven Chances is a film which Buster had little interest in making and that I find hard to label top level Keaton, even if he doesn’t falter for a moment.

Opening with a clever gag involving the passage of time that sets up Buster’s ineffectual character perfectly, here he’s a young bachelor who inherits money, a cool seven million dollars, from his grandfather. The only catch is that he must be married by his 27th birthday, which happens to be that day. Cue Buster and his cronies trying to come up with the goods, namely a viable wife, before 7pm.

For many of Buster’s contemporaries the story that follows would make a fine film, but for Keaton it’s not particularly inspired. Trying to get both Buster and a girl to the alter results in a number of fun sequences, but it’s the chase towards the climax that has endured more than anything else here.

It begins with hundreds of potential brides-to-be chasing Buster through the streets and climaxes with him being “chased” down a hill by dozens of boulders, the little man dodging them as best he can. On a TV set it’s impressive but it deserves to be watched on a cinema screen, particularly the bit where he’s whacked by a giant boulder.

If you haven’t seen the film I won’t spoil things by saying whether or not he does get himself a wife, hopefully you’ll enjoy finding out.

In conclusion

Spending many of my October evenings in the company of Buster Keaton provided me with some of the finest viewing experiences I’ve had for a long time. I hadn’t seen all of the films before, meaning some of those 85-year-old misadventures were as fresh as they were to the original audiences, even if my sitting room and TV aren’t quite as impressive as the cinemas and big screen that they witnessed his antics in and on.

What has hopefully become obvious in these brief write-ups is that Buster’s work was endlessly inventive and pretty much timeless. I suspect that if I can still enjoy a silent black and white film almost 100 years after they were made, in another 100 years the basic idea of a man taking on the world and winning (in one way or another) will still be funny.

It’s also become obvious that while modes of transport and communication have changed radically, human relationships haven’t. It’s still about boy meeting girl. There are still men who’ll fight for no apparent reason and little guys who have to fight back. We still want to improve ourselves and we still have to bounce back when things go wrong.

Buster Keaton may be shy, romantic, hopeful, happy, sad and determined but so are we. Buster takes things to the next level and often stretches credibility, but most of his films are based in some sort of recognisable reality and audiences want him to succeed, just as they try to in their own lives.

I’ve still got more Buster to watch, and I may blog about them at some point, but for now I salute Turner Classic Movies for taking the time to screen such a wealth of material and apologise I didn’t manage to write about every film. As long as I showed that Buster is still relevant to film fans and the world all these years later, and perhaps inspire one of them to check out a film on DVD, at a film festival or on YouTube, I’ll be smiling as much as Buster is behind that old stone face.

DVD Review: New York Confidential (1955)

An ageing New York mob boss receives constant grief from his employees, family and doctor. The mother of said mob boss is still a major part of his life, imparting wisdom that he fails to heed. Corruption and double-crossing are a way of life.

The above may read like a synopsis for 1990s TV drama, The Sopranos, but rewind 40-or-so years and you’ve got the set-up to Russell Rouse’s long lost 1955 noir, New York Confidential, a film based on the book by Jack Lait and Lee Mortimer which goes beyond the standard scenario of tough guys and their molls so beloved of the genre.

A sonorous voiceover and shots of the New York sky line introduce us to The Syndicate, a crime organisation headed up by Charlie Lupo (Broderick Crawford). A member of Lupo’s business empire has performed an illegal hit on a rival, resulting in him signing his own death warrant as Nick Magellan (Richard Conte) is flown in from Chicago by Lupo and his number two, Ben Dagajanian (J Carroll Naish).

Eager to please and comfortable doling out violence as required, Magellan seems the perfect addition to Lupo’s organisation, at least until the latter’s beautiful-yet-troubled daughter, Kathy (Anne Bancroft), is introduced and Magellan’s relatively straightforward job starts to get complicated.

Restricted somewhat by the production code, which meant that some of the more violent sequences had to be implied rather than seen by impressionable viewers who may go out and organise a mob hit of their own, New York Confidential still manages to pack more than a few punches.

Watching the great Mike Mazurki follow his prey into a bedroom, we see him beat him up a little before the camera cuts away and returns as he’s folding up his pocket knife. No blood is seen, but we know the result of his handywork.

Crawford’s fast-talking and hilariously no-nonsense Lupo is tired of being surrounded by incompetents (to him, everyone is a pig or illiterate) and sees his operation as merely the lower rung of an America that is inherantly corrupt and corruptable. When his daughter argues that she lives on blood money, Lupo’s response is that she’s “spoiled”, not that he’s done any real wrong.

The view of the USA’s political ecosystem is one which still resonates today, and it’s hard not to empathise with Lupo, even if gunning down the opposition hasn’t quite become a way of life for politicians (that we know of).

While Crawford is a hugely entertaining presence, it’s the pairing of Conte and Bancroft that is the most interesting aspect of the film. Magellan knows he needs to avoid getting romantically involved with his boss’ self-destructing daughter, but it’s not easy. The pair should be a couple but we know that if they do it would mean trouble for everyone.

Holyrood or Bust gains a back catalogue

For the last few years I’ve been writing about film for my local newspaper, the Edinburgh Evening News, who trust me to jot down my thoughts each week in a column entitled Reel Time.

The column also has an associated blog which has allowed me to expand on the 300 words allowed in the print version, also allowing me to publish more reviews and opinions of the sort of things I plan to cover on this blog.

With the newspaper about to gain a new look and a new behind-the-scenes system, the current blogger system is being phased out, meaning most of my writing will be lost forever…until I discovered I could export the .xml file and import it to this site.

What this means is that there’s now lots more for people to read, should they (that’s you) feel the need. There are various reviews, interviews, thought pieces and other odds and ends that relate to classic cinema, with the odd post that I’ll need to delete as it refers to modern films, whatever they are…

I do feel like I’ve cheated a bit as this was a newly minted blog, but hopefully you’ll forgive me as my Holyrood or Bust(er) month is going to prevent me writing too much else on here.

Please feel free to comment on any of the posts, it’ll be nice to have some company around here!

Holyrood or Bust(er) #3: Detectives, Cameramen and Charlie Chaplin

Buster Keaton in Sherlock Jnr

To celebrate TCM’s month-long screening of Buster Keaton films every Sunday in October, I’ll be following along from the UK through the week with the aid of various DVDs, Twitter and this blog.

This second Holyrood or Bust(er) post will cover many of the films being screened on TCM on Sunday 9 October 2011, all grouped under the banner of An Artist at Work: Sherlock, Jr, Good Night Nurse, Steamboat Bill, Jr, The Cameraman, Coney Island, Back Stage, Limelight, The Bell Boy, She Went to the Races, The Haunted House and Hard Luck.

Sherlock, Jr (1924), Good Night Nurse (1918) and Steamboat Bill, Jr (1928)

Week two of this Buster-a-thon has started slightly later than planned but Sherlock, Jr isn’t a bad place to do so.

A recurring idea in Buster’s films is the dream sequence, something which allowed him to come up with even more outlandish ideas than his films set in “reality” would allow.

Here, Buster is a cinema projectionist who wants to be a great detective, but who is destined to pine after Kathryn McGuire while Ward Crane’s nasty piece of work con man tries to get her first. The opening minutes, as Buster goes about his duties at the cinema, may be more leisurely compared to what comes later, but anyone who manages to get that much humour out of sweeping some trash clearly knows what he’s doing.

The major dream sequence of the film, which sees Buster enter the cinema screen to interact with the locations being screened, is one of the most impressive moments in any of his films, and with Buster Keaton that’s saying something.

As ever, he’s not content to go for the simple gag, instead lining up each scene change seamlessly so that the joke is flawless. We’re an audience who are watching an audience watch Buster and it’s hard to imagine quite how audiences in 1924 would have reacted to something so unique.

But that’s Buster all over, always trying something new and experimenting with the medium he’s working in, while other performers were happy to work within the constraints.

That’s certainly the case with 1918′s Good Night Nurse, a Roscoe ‘Fatty’ Arbuckle picture featuring Buster in a supporting role.

The pair were good friends and it shows here, Buster seemingly having a good time – he even smiles a few times! – and going with the flow as Fatty indulges in the bizarre routines that made him so popular. Fatty’s tendency towards cross-dressing mixed with a man-child type persona make him an acquired taste today, though Good Night Nurse is by no means a bad film. It just isn’t a proper Keaton film, which is the real problem.

We’re back on track for 1928′s Steamboat Bill, Jr, a wonderful slice of Buster which casts him as the estranged son of an old sailor who comes to work with his dad, only for the latter to worry that his boy is too soft to do anything much.

I love watching this film, particularly the sequence in the jailhouse, when Buster arrives with a loaf of bread that has clearly fallen into the tool chest…ahem. The entire 10 minutes is a joy and it could have been a film in itself, Buster’s expressions and hand movements as he tries to convince his father to take the bread. Bliss.

The infamous stunt involving a house falling on Buster can be found here (he’d done it before, but never on this scale), and it still shocks 80 years on. Considered to be one of Buster’s last great films, it’s a joy from start to finish (a phrase I may have used before in these blog posts, but there are only so many ways to describe the man’s work).