The Duke (2020)

Directed by Roger Michell; produced by Nicky Bentham

In 1961, Kempton Bunton (Jim Broadbent) is an idealistic 60 year old Newcastle native, dedicated to causes - standing up for the underdog in general and securing free television licences for everyone, in particular. During his trip to London to press his demands, Goya’s painting of the Duke of Wellington is stolen from the National Gallery. It is soon reposing at the back of a wardrobe in Bunton’s spare room. What exactly he will do with it, and why it was stolen, are really mysteries as much to himself as to anyone else who finds out about it.

Based on a true story, the blandly named The Duke is a delightful, light-hearted movie about a genuine English character, mildly eccentric, a little baffling, at times vaguely annoying but immensely likeable. Broadbent gives a superb performance of a good-natured man who refuses to let circumstances muzzle his decent impulses. Acted more broadly, the character would have turned to caricature; with a man who writes stories and television plays - all rejected - such as Susan Christ, a tale wondering what would have happened if Jesus had been a woman, the danger of farce is present. But Broadbent keeps Bunton human, sympathetic and understandable. An example of this is the motive behind his apparent craze for free tv licences.

Helen Mirren plays Dorothy ‘Dolly’ Bunton, Kempton’s wife. Mirren has, in some ways, a more difficult role, since Dolly is the hugely practical member of the family. She has to be, with a quixotic husband, a daughter killed young, an older son involved with petty crime and a married woman, and a younger son turning out like his father. One gets the feeling that both Dolly and Kempton know how disastrous his schemes can be for the family, but only she thinks that’s bad. Playing the ‘straight man’ to the comic is never easy, but Mirren adds more lustre to her very shiny reputation.

The script is dead-on for the subject and the characters. This is the first movie written by Richard Bean and Clive Coleman, who seem to have experience only in live theatre, and not much of that, though the latter wrote for the Spitting Image tv series thirty years ago. The dialogue feels natural and spontaneous, and manages to show Kempton as both a working class Northerner and a learned (self-educated) man, who enjoys Chekov.

The supporting characters are realistic, as well, most of them sympathetic to Kempton, including Dolly’s employer (Anna Maxwell Martin) - Dolly works for the wife of a local councillor - and Kempton’s defence attorney (Matthew Goode), real life barrister Jeremy (later Lord) Hutchinson. (At one point, it’s mentioned that Hutchinson is married to actress Peggy Ashcroft, to which Kempton comments with a compliment. Hutchinson’s lukewarm response suggests the impending difficulties, culminating in divorce, that the couple were then facing.)

As with most very good movies, it’s hard to tell what is the result of the direction, the writing or the acting. All three are far above average in The Duke. Often, it is the ‘small’, brief, scenes that give so much to the film, and that is the case here. Of note are the scenes in which Dolly realises her employer knows that Kempton has been arrested, and she quietly loses her indomitable strength; also, Kempton’s reaction to Dolly’s acidic response to discovering he’d written a story about their daughter.

What is just as impressive about The Duke is the accurate and convincing portrayal of 1961 Britain. Too often, movies rely on songs of an era to convey the setting. Here, it is done through buildings and streets, cars and clothes. The cinematography re-produces the look of early ‘60s colour film in certain scenes that enhances the conviction of time and place.

Though Broadbent and Mirren are the undoubted centre of The Duke, everything about the movie works well and contributes to its success. It’s an excellently crafted feel-good movie for grown-ups.

Le Cercle Rouge (1970)

Directed by Jean-Pierre Melville; produced by Robert Dorfmann

Corey (Alain Delon) is just completing his five-year prison sentence when he is approached by a guard with a plan. He is reluctant to return to crime but listens to the scheme anyway. Vogel (Gian-Maria Volonte) has just escaped from the custody of Police Commissaire Mattei (Andrei Bourvil), and by chance hides in the trunk of Corey’s car. The two criminals recognise kindred spirits in each other and, with the addition of expert marksman and former cop Jansen (Yves Montand), put the guard’s plan for a multi-million-franc heist into action.

A good crime caper, Le Cercle Rouge is typical Melville fare in that it spends more time with the criminals than with the crime. In fact, just as much time is devoted to the detective on the case. Written by the director, the crooks’ personalities are obscured by a lack of exposition. This is, I am sure, deliberate; these are reticent men who appear dedicated to few things; one of them is crime.

The thieves do not come across as evil, but merely creatures of habit, of their environments. Crime is what they know, so crime is what they do. Corey can’t resist hearing about the guard’s plan. Vogel, when aided by Corey, falls in with the scheme as if he had been part of it from the beginning. Jansen accepts his part as though he were a bureaucrat dealing with paperwork. None of the principals has much of a life beyond what could be termed their trades. Mattei lives with three cats, whom he likes very much. Corey had a girlfriend who now lives with a former associate. Jansen spends his time battling alcoholism. The men’s acceptance of their places in society is foregone.

These bland lives, in which desperation is most assuredly of the quiet variety, are illustrated by the settings. Bare wintery woods, muddy, desolate farm fields, abandoned apartments, give a bleakness to the movie that is a reflection of the characters within it. Only Mattei’s cosy but lonely home seems a pleasant place. It is his refuge; do the criminals think a big score in jewels will provide something similar? We never know.

The acting is very good. Four excellent actors all have major parts, even if a couple could be considered supporting. Delon was, by this time, an experienced veteran of movies, a very popular actor. But he is aging just a little here: 35 years old, moustached to look older, he gives Corey a tired air. Nonetheless, he imbues him as well with professionalism and care toward his trade.

Montand, another famous actor (and singer) but from an earlier generation, was still a leading man in 1970, but makes a supporting rôle memorable. Volonte, like Delon, was very well-known to audiences, and gives Vogel a more anxious persona than has Corey. Bourvil’s Mattei has professionalism hidden in his nondescript approach.

The one problem with Le Cercle Rouge is the heist itself. It is a very complex caper, involving clambering over rooftops, through bathrooms, avoiding electric eyes and shooting out locks; maps, foldable ladders, body-belts. None of this is bad, but I found it hard to believe that they were all encompassed in the guard’s initial explanation, which he begins by telling about his brother-in-law’s new job working on a security system. At no point do we see the criminals collecting blueprints of buildings, or having the route over rooftops pointed out. It seems implausible that this was simply elaborated to Corey in a couple of hours in a prison cell.

Despite this anomaly, Le Cercle Rouge is a good crime film, one that dwells more upon the crime - or crime in general - its essence and nature, rather than the caper, a more contemplative story than many in the genre.

The Body Snatcher (1945)

Directed by Robert Wise; produced by Val Lewton

In 1834 Edinburgh, young Donald Fettes (Russell Wade) is training to be a doctor under the guidance of the respected anatomist Dr Wolfe MacFarlane (Henry Daniell). Bodies for dissection and study are at a premium, and Fettes discovers that his mentor relies on the unsavoury John Grey (Boris Karloff), a cabman, to provide them by robbing the fresh graves of the newly dead. When even that source proves inadequate, however, Fettes suspects that Gray is killing people to supply the doctors’ needs. This, and the hold that Gray has over MacFarlane, creates a sinister situation which will only grow worse.

Karloff was dissatisfied with the direction his career was taking when he was offered the part of Gray. The movie not only gave him an excellent part but revitalized him professionally, and showed what he could do as an actor. It would be inaccurate to write that the movie revolves about Karloff, but his performance is top-notch and, combined with the slightly hammier part played by Daniell, does provide most of the entertainment.

Karloff’s Gray seems a menacing man right from the beginning, yet he is often amiable, in a deceptively harmless way, and it would be easy for strangers to see him as genial fellow. The actor gives his character an unpleasant edge, however, so that even those strangers would not quite trust him. Daniell’s MacFarlane, on the other hand, is a cold, unsympathetic, flawed but ultimately decent man played very highly-strung, which contrasts nicely with Gray’s almost smooth confidence.

The other actors are good but rather ordinary, though Sharynn Moffet, as the child Georgina Marsh, is highly competent, and Wade convincingly portrays Fettes as a man trying to balance his morals against medical necessity. Bela Lugosi gives a small, restrained contribution, his character pathetically naïve in his dealings with Gray.

The story is based on a tale by Robert Louis Stevenson, adapted by thriller-writer Philip MacDonald and Lewton, the latter writing under the unlikely pen-name of Carlos Keith. The significant part of the script is not the lurid story of murder and vivisection, but the intense relationship between Gray and MacFarlane.

It is clear that the real hold the former has over the latter is nothing tangible but merely that of a powerful and evil man over a weak and better man. In interpreting this relationship, the two actors show their worth. Interestingly, the script refers to Burke and Hare, ‘resurrectionists’ who killed people to provide bodies in 1828. One might have thought the story to be inspired by them, but it cleverly uses them, rather, as inspiration for Gray’s actions.

The direction by Wise (whose versatility also would bring audiences The Haunting, The Andromeda Strain and The Sound of Music) is, as may be expected, above average. It is atmospheric and gives the impression of unknown danger lurking around every corner and in every shadow. There are a number of effective moments, such as the unseen murder of a street-singer.

There are a few problems, though none ruins the movie. Foremost is the matter of accents. Though taking place in Scotland’s capital, none of the major players speaks with a local accent. MacFarlane has refined English speech (he may have been schooled in England, though Edinburgh was one of the leading centres of medicine, especially teaching medicine at that time); Gray speaks like a Cockney stranded in the far north of the British Isles, and Fettes might as well be from upper New York state: Wade doesn’t even attempt an accent. At least Lugosi’s character announces his Continental origins in his Continental speech.

Nonetheless, The Body Snatcher is a very good thriller, with fine performances, an engaging script and a creepy atmosphere.

Strange Illusion (1945)

Directed by Edgar G Ulmer; produced by Leon Fromkess

Young Paul Cartwright (James Lydon) has a recurring nightmare about his father’s mysterious death, involving a faceless man who is bringing danger to his family. He thinks it’s connected to the impending marriage of his mother (Sally Eilers) with the handsome and suave Brett Curtis (Warren William). Though everyone likes Brett, and nothing seems wrong with him, Paul is suspicious, and the more he looks into the new man, the less he likes him.

A film noir with slight supernatural overtones, Strange Illusion takes its inspiration from Shakespeare’s Hamlet, with a dream replacing the ghost. The plot isn’t as intricate as the ‘original’ and, despite some difficulties in proving his case, Paul’s suspicions are hardly red herrings. It’s straightforward - too much so, in fact, for a mystery (eg. the villains conveniently keep an incriminating automobile hidden under hay in a barn.)

While the plot is ordinary, the script itself is a little better, principally in dialogue, though it leaves questions both unasked and unanswered. It never reveals completely what the villains’ motives are. Curtis was investigated by Paul’s father, an eminent judge, while Curtis’s accomplice, a psychiatrist (Charles Arnt) who runs a sanatarium, doesn’t seem to have a reason, though it might be the money Curtis may - or may not - have access to after his wedding.

Nonetheless, the writing provides a bit deeper characterisations to a number of the personalities, something cheap film noir doesn’t often do. Curtis is a reasonably devised bad guy (if one doesn’t count the vague motive) with a penchant for forcing himself on young women, something his partner suggests will be his undoing. Paul’s mother reveals real conflict over her attachment to Curtis, after her husband’s death.

The production is cheap. It was directed by someone now rather renowned for his low-budget movies, three for Producers Releasing Corporation, the smallest of Hollywood studios (though, unlike many companies that ground out cheap films, PRC was an actual studio), which was responsible for Strange Illusion. Ulmer certainly does make an an effort, giving the whole film a kind of dream-like/nightmarish aspect, which the low quality of the film inadvertently assists.

The performers, too, are adequate for the level of movie they are in. I suspect none is familiar even to the average fan of 1940s black-and-white cinema. The only one I recognise is Regis Toomey, taking on his usual role as a support player. Interestingly, two of the actors, Lydon and Eilers, resemble others from later times, Tommy Kirk and Virginia Madsen, respectively.

Never one to deride a movie because of its straitened budget, I nevertheless found Strange Illusion little more than a satisfactory time-filler. The principal disadvantages are the b-level acting and the story, while the low budget is easily overlooked.

Diva (1981)

Directed by Jean-Jacques Beineix; produced by Irène Silberman and Serge Silberman

Jules (Frédéric Andréi) is obsessed with opera singer Cynthia Hawkins (Wilhelmina Wiggins Fernandez), who has never consented to being recorded. He illicitly tapes one of her concerts, intending the music for just himself and friends. But a pair of Taiwanese mobsters learns of and covets it. Meanwhile, the police are trying to shut down a murderous prostitution ring, their efforts hinging on a cassette recording. In the deadly confusion that results, Jules may or may not be aided by a roller-skating kleptomaniac and her boyfriend - an enigmatic man who assembles giant jigsaw puzzles in an empty warehouse - all the while growing closer to his idol.

Not your usual crime or caper film, Diva nonetheless entertains with a number of its elements. Ironically, the relationship between Jules and Cynthia is the least compelling aspect of the film, and the scenes given to their platonic romance seem to come from a rather different movie. Even so, these scenes create an atmosphere that gives Diva a definitely French background.

That atmosphere is assisted by the direction and cinematography, and especially by the choice of locations. They move from stereotypical Parisian streets to a seaside lighthouse - called ‘the magic castle’ which, in a glowing dusk does indeed seem magical - to the literal dump in which Jules lives (it appears to be a resting place for severely damaged automobiles.) The settings are well used by the director, whether the narrow confines of straitened lanes or the wide, open spaces of huge, empty rooms. It may be a commonplace that the use of colours, sometimes one shade for everything in a scene, creates mood, but the old axiom pays dividends here.

Also included is an exciting chase sequence, involving a running cop and a fleeing suspect on a moped; external and internal staircases, subway trains and ancient arcades are all used in an unusual and extended action sequence.

The story is rather complicated, as may be guessed from the synopsis. It is not difficult to follow, but the different strands of the plot move along separately, then intersect, then part once more. It opens up from the simple tale of gentle obsession that it at first appears to be.

Added to the interest is the uncertainty as to what side some characters are on, if any, and what they will do. The character of Serge Gorodish (Richard Bohringer) in his warehouse has many layers; one suspects his calm and confident demeanour throughout the movie comes from being more than, well, whatever he is. Also, since personalities involved in the story seem either fluid or mysterious in their allegiance, there is no predicting how the movie will end, which is always a plus with thrillers.

The acting is very good, with the exception of Fernandez, whose lines are recited rather stiltedly, and whose emotions while convincing, nevertheless feel too acted. The other performers, most of whom have bigger parts than she, do fine work, managing to blend realism with the slightly fantastic, and making the plot, at first small and personal, actionful and entertaining, yet credible.

Equal parts style, plot and character create a winning film in Diva.

The Pied Piper (1942)

Directed by Irving Pichel; produced by Nunnally Johnson

Mr John Howard (Monty Woolley) is an active Englishman just past middle age; upset at not being found useful in the fight against Nazi Germany, he retreats to rural France, to fish and mope. With his country on its beam ends, though, he changes his mind and heads back home to take on whatever job he can do. A British couple (Lester Matthews, Jill Esmond), hoping to get their children (Roddy McDowall, Peggy Ann Garner) home, even if they themselves can’t, ask Howard to take them. Soon, the reluctant guardian is saddled with a number of kids, and while he finds them an ordeal, they are nothing compared with the hazards of travelling through war-torn France.

A pleasant and amusing movie, The Pied Piper doesn’t quite fulfill its potential. Even so, it benefits greatly from the lead actor and supporting players. Woolley, though an American, has what came to be termed a ‘mid-Atlantic’ accent, allowing him to portray convincingly Englishmen or Americans without altering his speech. (Cary Grant famously had the same quality, as did James Mason.) Howard’s gruff but decent personality allows him to push through obstacles with a determination that is natural and enjoyable to watch.

The other performers include two well-known child-actors of the time, McDowell and Garner. They do well in their roles but don’t contribute as much as they might have. Anne Baxter is rather needlessly added to the cast; if the lead were a younger man, she would be his love-interest. Instead, their connection is through Howard’s son, an RAF officer killed even earlier in the war. Otto Preminger has the biggest supporting role, as an SS officer. His voice is tremendously grating, probably intentionally so.

The principal problem I found with The Pied Piper is the story. It comes from a novel by Nevil Shute, with a screenplay by Nunnally Johnson, so the talent is there. Nonetheless, there seems to be a level of digression that hurts the over-all flow of the movie.

Initially, Howard and Ronnie (Roddy McDowell) are rather gentle adversaries, the boy having contradicted the man in the latter’s belief that Rochester is a state and not a city in the U.S. Ronnie shows himself resourceful (not least of which because he can speak French) and mature, and is as much a protector of other children as is Howard. It would have been interesting to have developed their relationship - perhaps paralleling what might have been Howard’s with his own son. Instead, Ronnie is sidelined to make room for Major Diessen (Otto Preminger).

This distraction leaves Howard’s character incomplete. The audience gathers that he doesn’t like children - principally because he says so - but he is hardly rough or even impolite with them. It might have been intriguing to use Howard’s son’s death to put a wall between the man and other children, which those in his care would have broken down.

Diessen’s inclusion is sometimes cited as a detriment, with Preminger’s performance suggested to be that of a stereotype or over the top. Certainly those are legitimate judgements, though the era and the situation in which the movie was made must be taken into account. But I thought - aside from the sudden shift from the adult/child dynamic to an adult/adult confrontation - that Diessen’s part was an interesting twist to the plot, given the solution to the showdown between him and Howard. It also made Diessen more than just a cardboard cut-out.

The Pied Piper, therefore, is mostly entertaining. It is well-acted and directed, and well-written as far as it goes, though it could have gone farther.