Nothing But the Night - 1973 film review

Nothing But the Night is a curious film with a first-class pedigree and an outstanding cast. It's fair to say that the whole is less than the sum of its considerable parts, but I found it watchable and interesting, despite several significant flaws. It's a film that spans more than one genre: crime, sci-fi, and horror all play a part. Overall, though (and I'm trying to avoid spoilers here), it would be a stretch to describe it as a crime film.

The stars are Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing, two actors who were never less than watchable. In fact, this was the film that Lee made just before The Wicker Man, and there's one scene which has slight Wicker Man aspects to it, although this movie doesn't compare in quality to Anthony Shaffer's classic. Lee here plays a retired senior cop called Bingham, who is convinced that there is a connection between three recent deaths.

Those deaths get the film off to a dramatic start. They are all incidents which are designed to appear as accidents, but the viewer knows from the start that they are murders. It turns out that all three victims are trustees of an orphanage on a Scottish island. In fact, when I first saw a brief synopsis of this film, I did wonder if the story might bear a resemblance to Gallows Court. It's always irritating when you come up with an idea, and then find someone else had the same notion years earlier! But I needn't have worried. Suffice to say that it is a very, very different sort of story.

The script was written by Bryan Hayles, who was an accomplished exponent of sci-i, and based on a novel by John Blackburn, whose work did span several genres. The cast includes Keith Barron, Georgia Brown (better known perhaps as a singer), Diana Dors (a very over-the-top performance), Fulton McKay, and a young Michael Gambon. The soundtrack was written by Malcolm Williamson, later the Master of the Queen's Music. With all that talent involved, one would have hoped for a less uneven film than this, but it's not bad entertainment. 

Midsommar - 2019 film review

If you're looking for some comfortable viewing to escape darkness in the real world, then Midsommar isn't really for you. This new film, directed by Ari Aster, is often described as a "folk horror" film and it's provoked a lot of discussion. Some critics think that it's ridiculous, and I feel it's over-long, but I also think it repays careful viewing, more than once - if you like this sort of thing, which I do.

One of the finest horror films ever made was The Wicker Man (the original version, that is, with Edward Woodward and Christopher Lee) and in many respects Midsommar borrows from the earlier movie. Outsiders come in to a small, enclosed community which proves to be a pagan cult. Bad stuff happens, culminating in fireworks. So Midsommar is, as Aster has admitted, in some ways very predictable, but what he does with the premise is intriguing.

The story begins with the suicide of the sister of Dani (Florence Pugh), which also leads to the death of the girls' parents. Dani's grief isn't adequately understood by her crass boyfriend Christian (the name is significant, though the symbolism is heavy-handed), who is getting bored with their relationship. In fact, Aster has described this as a sort of horror version of a break-up movie. With some friends, the couple decide to accompany a Swedish college pal, Pelle, to his home commune in Sweden to celebrate a once-every-90-years festival. Bad move...

The filming of the Harga community is visually stunning, and I found this aspect of the movie quite memorable and impressive. The runic symbols, strange buildings, and distinctive landscape all play an important part, as do ancient Norse rituals. And the locals get to watch Austin Powers movies...Yes, the film goes on rather too long, but although it's not for everyone, it's very watchable and several scenes are genuinely horrific. But The Wicker Man is snappier and even better.

Bear Island - film review

Bear Island is a 1979 film based on book by Alistair MacLean that I read when it first appeared as a paperback. As a teenager, I was a huge MacLean fan, and devoured all his novels, including a couple written under the name of Ian Stuart. Although he was an action thriller writer, he often used devices familiar to whodunit fans, above all "the least likely suspect", and this is why I preferred his books to those written by other thriller writers of the time such as Desmond Bagley (though I really did like Bagley), Duncan Kyle and so on.

I also watched several of the films based on MacLean's books, such as Ice Station Zebra, Where Eagles Dare, When Eight Bells Tolls and Puppet on a Chain. Some were relatively faithful to the source, whereas others (notably Ice Station Zebra) were not. The problem I began to find with MacLean was that the quality of his work began to deteriorate, and Bear Island was the last of his novels that I really enjoyed. By the time I got into student life, my reading tastes had shifted, and I didn't bother to watch the film of Bear Island.

Had I done so, I would have found that, once again, the screenplay bore little resemblance to the book. There's a starry cast, led by Donald Sutherland as the daring hero, joining up with an expedition to a remote frozen island in the North Atlantic Unfortunately, Vanessa Redgrave, cast as the love interest, is wholly wasted as a Norwegian medic, and her accent is as dodgy as Richard Widmark's attempted German accent. Christopher Lee, who is rarely less than excellent, is not at his best, either, while Lloyd Bridges takes the role of Sutherland's trusted friend (and regular readers of MacLean will know what that means....)

The action scenes are very well done, but the story is laboured and over-long. I wanted to see what the landscape of Bear Island really looks like, and felt cheated when I learned that the film was shot in Canada and Alaska, because the landscape there is more photogenic. All in all, this film is a decent time-passer, but not as good as, say, Where Eagles Dare. Watching it has, however, reminded me of my long ago enthusiasm for MacLean, and I'm tempted to write more about him in the future.