The Doll (Die Puppe) - DVD review

The Doll, written by Francis Durbridge, was a highly successful TV series when first screened in 1975. Durbridge has always been very popular in Germany, and happily the German DVD of the series, which is now available under the title Die Puppe, can be viewed in the original English language version. Durbridge, an economical writer, later turned the script into a novel, which I reviewed on this blog seven years ago.

Watching the DVD, and having forgotten most of the plot twists in the interim, I found myself enjoying the story all over again. The baffling set-up is quite splendidly done, although as I said in relation to the book, the solution (and the explanation for the part played in the story by the mysterious dolls) is a bit of a let-down. Never mind: this is often the case when the premise of a murder puzzle is quite dazzling, as with so many of the stories by Cornell Woolrich or Boileau-Narcejac.

John Fraser plays publisher Peter Matty, who becomes besotted with a woman called Phyllis whom he meets in Geneva. Given that the actor playing Phyllis is Anouska Hempel, his infatuation is easily explained. She must have been one of the most beautiful stars of her generation. All the more frustating for Peter, therefore, when she disappears mysteriously while on a trip to the Isle of Wight.

The complications come thick and fast. Why did Phyllis lie about her trip to the island? Why did her photo appear in a shop window, and then get replaced with a photo of another woman? Why did a doll appear floating in Peter's bath? What is the secret nursed by dodgy journalist Max (played by Derek Fowlds, of all people)? And so on. Whilst I did find some of the answers to these questions a bit unsatisfactory, the pace of the story meant that I didn't mind too much, and the inclusion of one of my favourite songs, "The Look of Love" was an unexpected bonus. . Overall verdict: great light entertainment. .

Alive - film review

Alive is a 1993 film adapted from an acclaimed book by that interesting writer Piers Paul Read (long ago, I read and enjoyed his novel The Upstart). It's based on the true story of the Andes plane crash in 1973. After seeing the Andes for myself last year, and realising what a formidable range of mountains they make, I wanted to see the film, and I wasn't disappointed.

It's a very well made movie, tightly written and as gripping as a fictional thriller. But knowing that it's based on a real life catastrophe made it all the more compelling for me - and very poignant, too. The cast includes Ethan Hawke and Ileanna Douglas, but really it's a high calibre ensemble effort, with no real weak points. The action scenes are expertly presented, not least the plane crash itself.

To my surprise, two Bacharach and David songs find their way into the story. Douglas' character hums "The Look of Love" (which has featured in a very diverse range of films indeed) and when the survivors discover a transistor radio, it starts playing Dionne Warwick's "Do You Know the Way to San Jose?" I suppose if you're stranded in the Andes, great music is a comfort, but a pretty cold one.

The story is famous because the survivors resorted to cannibalism. This aspect is presented without crass sensationalism. It would be so easy for a shocking story like this to be an exercise in bad taste (so to speak) but John Patrick Shanley's screenplay and Frank Marshall's direction handle it very well. Really, it's a story about the indomitable nature of the human spirit. I found it unexpectedly uplifting.

Julia's Eyes - film review

Julia's Eyes is a Spanish film from 2010, directed and co-written by Guillem Morales, which occupies the genre borderland between crime and horror. It's a creepy, chilling movie that has earned widespread acclaim, and for good reason. It's a dark and compelling story, several notches ahead of most films about deranged killers.

The story concerns twins, Julia and Sara, who both suffer from an unspecified degenerative eye disease - a rather different one from the degenerative eye diseases suffered by friends which I've come across n real life, and some of the scientific details struck me as highly unlikely, but not so as to ruin the story. With this kind of movie, of course one needs to suspend disbelief.

At the beginning of the film, Sara is being tormented by an unknown adversary, to the extent that she hangs herself. Since part of the torture involves playing "The Look of Love", which for me is one of the most gorgeous popular songs ever written, I found myself rather taken aback; but of course, it's all about irony. Sara hates the song, which again tested credulity to breaking point, but let it pass!

The meat of the story concerns Julia's attempt to discover the truth about Sara's fate, and that of various other people who have the misfortune to get in the way of the unknown adversary. Several of the scenes are not for the faint-hearted, but crucially, the violence is not handled in a gratuitous way. Belen Rueda is Julia, and her performance, in a role where the temptation might be to ham it up, is impressive. A tense film that held my attention from start to finish.

Dr No

Forty seven years after it was first screened, I’ve finally watched the first James Bond film, Dr No. And I have to say that I found it thoroughly enjoyable – in fact I was surprised at how modern it seemed.

One of the secrets of the film’s enormous success is that the screenplay is very taut. I was amazed to read on Wikipedia that Wolf Mankowitz, who was involved with the original version of the script, was so unhappy with it that he had his name removed from the credits. If true, it was weird judgment on Wolf’s part. One of the writers who was credited, incidentally, was the late Berkley Mather, a thriller writer who is now little remembered, but who was chairman of the Crime Writers’ Association in 1966.-67.

Sean Connery immediately establishes himself here as the definitive Bond (though I admire Daniel Craig’s updated interpretation) and Ursula Andress is the definitive Bond girl -she also played Vesper Lynd in the spoof Bond movie Casino Royale, in 1967, inspiring Burt Bacharach’s classic melody ‘The Look of Love’. The eponymous villain is played by Joseph Wiseman, an actor I’ve never come across elsewhere. He portrays the bad guy bent on world domination as a kind of precursor of Gordon Brown, but with added charisma and bionic hands.

What of the music? The soundtrack was written by Monty Norman, who has won libel claims against those who allege that the great John Barry composed the ‘James Bond Theme’ rather than simply arranging it. I was fascinated to learn that Monty was chosen for the job because of a musical he had written called ‘Belle’ (with a book by Wolf Mankowitz – it’s a small world.) Belle was the stage version of the story of another villainous Doctor – Hawley Harvey Crippen. And the story of that musical deserves a blog post to itself, on another day.