The Innocent - 1993 film review

I'd never heard of the 1993 film The Innocent before it turned up on Talking Pictures TV. When I discovered that it was a spy movie set during the Cold War and not only directed by John Schlesinger but with a screenplay written by Ian McEwan and based on his novel, I was definitely interested. And when I learned that the cast was headed by Anthony Hopkins and Isabella Rossellini, it became a must-watch.

I wasn't disappointed, either. The film isn't a masterpiece, and you could argue that the whole isn't as great as the sum of its individual parts. This is partly due to some curious casting decisions, but the fact that fine actors are involved means that they meet the challenges head on and, overall successfully. The script is something of a slow-burn, which is also perhaps a weakness. But again, by the time the end credits rolled, I felt McEwan had done a good job.

The setting is Berlin in the mid-50s and a British telecoms expert arrives in the city to help the Americans to spy on the Russians with the help of state-of-the-art equipment hidden in a tunnel beneath the Russian zone of the city. I spent a week in Berlin in the 70s, when the Cold War was still ongoing, and the film brought back some memories of that very atmospheric trip.

The British guy, Leonard, happens to be played by an American, Campbell Scott (son of the more renowned George C. Scott) and the tough American who tells him what to do is played by Wales' own Anthony Hopkins. Leonard involves himself with a glamorous German woman (played by an Italian, Isabella Rossellini), so it's certainly a multi-national enterprise. There's an extended quasi-Hitchcockian sequence involving suitcases with highly compromising contents that is quite memorable, though overall the mood is low-key. The Innocent is as much a character-led drama as it is a story about espionage (or, indeed, a murder mystery), but it's well worth watching.   

Malice - 1993 film review

Malice is a well-known film, released over 30 years ago, but it's taken me a long time to get round to watching it. When I did, I found it twisty if improbable, and it certainly benefits from the quality of a cast that includes Anne Bancroft in a memorable if minor role as well as George C. Scott and Gwyneth Paltrow in smallish, but significant, parts. The key roles, however, are those of Nicole Kidman, Alec Baldwin, and Bill Pullman.

The screenplay by Aaron Sorkin and Scott Frank uses as minor ingredients plotlines that, in other hands, would be central to a movie. At first, this seems to be a story about a serial killer who is targeting young female students. Pullman plays Andy Safian, an academic at a local college who is recently married to Tracy (Kidman at her most glamorous). He is briefly a suspect after one of his students (Paltrow) falls victim to the murderer. But we know he's innocent. 

There's a separate strand involving a charismatic doctor, Jed Hill (Baldwin), who is new to the area. He turns out to be an old school colleague of Andy's and when Andy invites Jed to stay in the house he and Tracy have acquired, we start to wonder if this might be some kind of home invasion thriller, especially given that Andy seems to have his eye on Tracy. But no, that's not what this film is about.

Tracy's medical problems turn out to be central to the storyline. This is, however, definitely a film in which nothing is as it seems. There are quite a few plot holes, when you come to think about it afterwards, but the pace of the action is enough to disguise some at least of the improbabilities. So while Malice isn't a masterpiece, it's a pretty effective light thriller, still just about good enough to keep me engrossed after all this time.

 

Forgotten Book - A Perfect Match

I started reading Jill McGown's books, back in the late 1980s, and out of chronological order. Finally I've reached back to her debut novel, A Perfect Match, which introduced her cops Lloyd and Hill, and appeared in 1983. Here she reunites the duo, who have been interested in each other when working in the past, but have complicated things by being involved in other relationships. But it's clear that the spark between them is going to ignite...

I've only just realised as a result of reading this novel that, in some ways, this relationship is comparable to that between Hannah Scarlett and Daniel Kind in my own Lake District books. I can imagine that Jill had no detailed plan as to how the relationship would develop, just as I didn't - although I was clear in my mind that their connection would steadily turn into a romantic one. But there are various differences, including the setting and the link between Hannah and Ben Kind. Plus, Daniel isn't a cop at all. He's interested in the past, which Hannah researches in her own way as she tries to solve cold cases.

A Perfect Match is in many ways typical of the style that Jill McGown evolved over the years - a domestic scenario with a limited cast of characters and hidden relationships and affairs. The writing is crisp and unfussy, rather like that of Peter Robinson and Ann Cleeves, who came along a few years later and wrote in roughly the same tradition.

This is an enjoyable detective novel which remains a good read more than forty years on. A lie is told by a married couple at the start of the story which I found fairly implausible, but overall I felt that for a first novel this was a very mature piece of work. Jill McGown had real talent and her early death was a sad loss.

Before the Devil Knows You're Dead - 2007 film review

Before the Devil Knows You're Dead was the last film directed by Sidney Lumet, but there's absolutely no sense of lack of energy about a movie that's unpredictable and gripping from start to finish. It's a thriller about a robbery, but that description does the film scant justice. This is at heart a character-driven movie, benefiting from fine acting and a tricky storytelling structure that works very well indeed.

I'm cautious about saying too much about the story, because of the risk of spoilers - especially since information is doled out in pieces, as events are recounted in a non-chronological way, and from more than one viewpoint. But the heart of the story is that two brothers, Andy and Frank Hanson, are in serious financial trouble. Andy is the dominant sibling and he persuades Frank to embark on what he optimistically describes as a 'victimless crime' - in fact, this is a story with all too many victims.

Andy is played by Philip Seymour Hoffman, who gives what must surely have been one of his finest performances. Andy (whose wife is played, again very well, by Marisa Tomei) is a monster, yet because of Hoffman's sensitivity to nuances of character, we can't help feeling at least a touch of pity, if not perhaps empathy. We also gain some understanding of why he behaves the way he does. There's a genuine sadness about Andy's drug habit, because Hoffman himself died far too young as a result of an overdose of drugs.

Frank is played by Ethan Hawke, another terrific actor, and we do have more sympathy for him - despite his gullibility and selfishness, his weaknesses are more forgivable than Andy's. And then there is Albert Finney, who gives a very strong performance as their father. Again, I don't want to say too much about the part he plays in the story, but in the second half of the film it is crucial. Strange to think that decades earlier he was Hercule Poirot in a certain train-based film directed by....Sidney Lumet. The two roles could hardly be more different. But Finney was more than equal to the challenge. This is a terrific movie.

Nocturnal Animals - 2016 film review

Nocturnal Animals is a film written, produced, and directed by Tom Ford and it boasts a fine cast. I was drawn to it because it's a 'story within a story' movie and that's a form of considerable interest to me at present. The script is based on a novel from 1993, Tony and Susan, by Austin Wright. I must admit I'd never heard of book or author but apparently it became a big success after publishers initially expressed reservations, although Wright died before the film version was made.

This is sad, because even though I gather the screenplay differs greatly from the book, it's well-written, with consistent pace - not something that's easy to achieve with this kind of material. And in some ways the sophistication of the storytelling obscures the fact that the central story is pretty straightforward - and I don't say that as a criticism. 

From the weird (very weird) opening images to the low-key, and some might think anti-climactic, final scene, this was a film that held my attention. The lead character is Susan Morrow (played by Amy Adams, who is good as usual). She's very rich but very shallow and the same is true of her husband (Arnie Hammer). Soon it becomes clear that, despite the surface glitter, all is not well in their lives.

Susan receives a manuscript called Nocturnal Animals from her ex-husband Edward (Jake Gyllenhaal, who is at his best in this film) and she begins to read it. We learn that their marriage failed because he was a romantic, creative individual and she was highly materialistic - like her mother (played by Laura Linney, who makes a big impact in a single scene) who had no time for Edward. 

Edward's story is about a couple who are driving with their young daughter in Texas one night when their car is rammed by a car driven by three wild and aggressive men. As things begin to turn very nasty, it dawns on Susan that Edward is really writing about himself - the husband is again played by Jake Gyllenhaal. But what exactly is going on? There's a brilliant performance by Michael Shannon, playing a detective with lung cancer, and the supporting cast includes such stars as Andrea Riseborough, Michael Sheen and Aaron Taylor-Johnson. This is a sometimes deeply uncomfortable film, but I thought it was powerful and compelling.   

Forgotten Book - Brink of Disaster

Brink of Disaster is another of Guy Cullingford's stand-alone novels about crime. The book was published in 1964 and has seldom been discussed in the past sixty years. The above cover image of the first edition jacket is of my copy, since there are none on the internet. You might say that it's a low-key book, and it's certainly unsensational, even though it features two murders and the threat of a third. The urban setting is rather bleak and the detective work of the official police less than stellar. None of this sounds like much of a recommendation, but I must say that I found the story extremely readable and I was gripped from start to finish.

The strength of the book lies in the unpredictability of the storyline, coupled with the author's ability to create characters who are interesting even if unlikeable. There's no mystery about the first murder. A man called Robert Cave kills a girlfriend on the spur of the moment. She finishes up in the bottom of the canal, but with the reluctant assistance of some family members, he is able to give the police an alibi, and they aren't able to pin the crime on him. But they are deeply suspicious and it's common knowledge that he's the prime suspect.

A newcomer to the town called Forbes decides to turn Cave's predicament to his advantage by framing him for the murder of his (Forbes') cousin Lucy. This struck me as an intriguing set-up for a novel and Guy Cullingford (whose real name was Constance Taylor) develops it in a very pleasing way. You never quite know what is going to happen next.

Constance Taylor was a member of the Detection Club (my copy is inscribed to her fellow member Michael Underwood, who was clearly a good friend) and her books received positive reviews, but even in her lifetime she was never very well-known. I think this is because she didn't write a series and each book she wrote seems to have been quite distinctive. That isn't really the way to achieve fame and fortune as a crime writer, but she has left a legacy of fascinating and unorthodox stories. I'm now very keen to read the rest of her books.

The Leading Man - 1997 film review

The Leading Man is a fairly obscure film from the late 90s that benefits from a very good cast and an unusual screenplay by Victoria Duigan, sister of the director John Duigan. It's set in the world of the theatre, with a charismatic and egotistical American actor called Robin Grange (played by Jon Bon Jovi, who is pretty good in the part) cast as leading man. The play is written by Felix Webb (Lambert Wilson) who is having an affair with young Hilary Rule (Thandiwe Newton), whom he manages to get cast in a key part.

Felix's wife Elena (Anna Galiena) is aware of the relationship - which certainly isn't as well-kept a secret as Felix believes - and at first it seems like her menacing response (she cuts Felix's hair while he is sleeping) is going to be the focus of the plot. But things take a different turn when Robin offers to do Felix a favour by seducing Elena. One oddity of the storyline is the way that Elena's personality seems to chance once Robin takes an interest in her. I'm not sure this is psychologically convincing, but who knows?

Some of the pleasure of the film comes from the performances of the actors in the play. They include such stalwarts as David Warner, Harriet Walter, Patricia Hodge, and Diana Quick. There's even a blink-and-you-miss-it cameo from Nicole Kidman. I was intrigued by the set-up of the story and couldn't guess how the tangle of relationships would work out - though it was pretty clear that a gun, featured as prominently as Chekhov's, would be relevant to what happened.

Unfortunately, the climax of the film is its weakest part. Possibly Victoria Duigan herself couldn't quite decide how to end the story. The finale that she chose has a low-key irony, but I felt it was a little disappointing. Overall, however, there are enough good moments and enough good actors in this film to make it worth watching.     

Never Say Never Again - 1983 film review

Over the years I've avoided Never Say Never Again, mainly because some people have said it's the worst James Bond movie. However, one evening when I felt in need of some fairly mindless entertainment, I decided to watch it. At the risk of damning with faint praise, I certainly don't think it is the worst Bond film. It's not bad. The real problem is that it doesn't make the best use of some excellent ingredients.

The story of how the film came into being is more interesting than the actual storyline (the same is true of the spoof version of Casino Royale in 1967). It was an outgrowth of the long-running litigation involving a hard-nosed guy called Kevin McClory and Ian Fleming and Eon Productions. McClory was a minor figure in the film world when he met Fleming. A writer called Jack Whittingham wrote a James Bond film script with some input from McClory but it got nowhere. Fleming used this material for his novel Thunderball, a foolish plagiarism that McClory exploited to lucrative effect for the rest of his life. There's a less than flattering obituary here. 

Following his court success, McClory was entitled to reuse material from the novel of Thunderball (but not the film version) and became executive producer of Never Say Never Again, which competed with the 'official' Bond movie of the time, Octopussy. There was enough money sloshing around to lure Sean Connery back to resume his most famous role and to hire Lorenzo Semple Jr (whose CV included The Parallax View and Three Days of the Condor, two excellent films) to write the script. But the director, Irvin Kershner, wasn't happy, and he hired the British comedy writers Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais to work on the script (they weren't credited, possibly a good choice on their part). John Barry declined to write the music, so Michel Legrand - another film composer of the highest class - was brought in, and the theme song was performed by Lani Hall.

The result was an uneasy compromise. There are some good ideas in the storyline, as Semple sought to make a virtue out of necessity - i.e., the fact that Connery was an older man - but some of the attempts at humour introduced in the rewrite were thin. A young Rowan Atkinson has a disappointingly feeble cameo role, and Edward Fox, another actor I like, struggles with the role of M, who is written as a buffoon. Clement and La Frenais have done some fine work over the years, but their contribution to this film seems more reminiscent of their 1985 movie Water, which...well, didn't deserve to make a splash.

There are some good action scenes, although some of the underwater action at the end is...well, underwhelming. I am a lifelong Michel Legrand fan, but his style was not suited to a Bond movie, and the song (which isn't bad, though not one of his best) is misplaced over an action scene at the start of the movie. However there are compensations. Kim Basinger and Prunella Gee are very glamorous 'Bond girls' and Klaus Maria Brandauer is okay, if not quite menacing enough, as the villainous Largo. Above all, Connery eases his way affably through the movie, making the best of it and reminding everyone that, when it comes to James Bond, arguably nobody does it better. 

Forgotten Book - Advisory Service

A hugely pleasurable dividend of posting on this blog is the fascinating correspondence I receive from readers. Recently I've been delighted to correspond with - and chat on the phone with - Betty Telford, who first got in touch with me some years ago, when commenting on a blog post about Martin Russell. Betty knew Martin, a fellow journalist, well, and I've learned more about him from her than from anyone. I am very grateful to all of you who comment and get in touch and I hope you will feel encouraged to continue to do so. Speaking to Betty has further increased my interest in Martin Russell's writing and I've just read one of his early novels of psychological suspense, Advisory Service, which dates from 1971.

Like a number of Russell's books, this one gains immediacy in part because the story is told in the first person and in part because he was good at writing snappy dialogue which moved the story along at a good pace. A middle-class couple, Eddie and Pearl Mills, who live in Hampstead with their nine year old daughter Lorna seem to have a very pleasant life. But beneath the surface, all is not well.

They receive some concerning anonymous telephone calls (the details of the landline calls are one of the things that differentiates this storyline from anything that could be written today, in the age of the smartphone). Then the pressure on them escalates as they receive anonymous letters from a so-called 'Advisory Service'. And then the unthinkable happens...

This is, as usual with Russell, a tense story and an easy, pacy read. I must say, however, that there were various elements of the story that tested my ability to suspend disbelief. To say more than that would be a spoiler, but (despite an unusual, cliff-hanger ending) I wasn't really convinced. Yet even though it's not one of his stronger books, in my opinion, I was still keen to keep turning the pages, and that was Martin Russell's great strength and the reason why he enjoyed quite a successful career for the best part of thirty years. 

An E.C.R. Lorac Exhibition

How times change. Not so long ago, the name of E.C.R. Lorac was little-known to crime readers. Almost all her seventy-odd novels had been out of print since the late 1950s, some of them long before that. And now she is the current best-selling writer among all those published in the British Library Crime Classics series. Quite a transformation. I'm sure my parents, who extolled the virtues of Lorac (especially Still Waters) to me when I was young - and at a time when her books were impossible to find - would be amazed and delighted.  

I was thrilled to be invited yesterday to, of all things, an E.C.R. Lorac exhibition at Halton Library in Lancashire. Halton isn't far from where Lorac (in real life, Carol Rivett) lived in Aughton (pronounced Afton) for the last decade and a half of her life. And Halton is now the home village of Lena Whiteley, who lived next door to the author when she was young. Her mother was Lorac's housekeeper and Lena helped in the house and garden from being very young.

The exhibition, which has previously been on display at Bolton-le-Sands library, is splendid and includes several items that are in Lena's possession. She and her son David gave a talk about the author to an appreciative audience and mentioned that the fact that Lorac's Lunesdale books, which are among her very best, give such an evocative picture of the local area means that it's great fun to try to figure out the thinly disguised locations in the stories. A couple of years ago, Lena and David took me on a tour of the setting of Crook O'Lune, which was as interesting as it was helpful when I came to write the book.

When I was in my twenties, I started picking up Lorac novels whenever I could find them in second hand shops and giving them to my parents, who devoured them. Now all those books are in my possession, but there are still quite a few of her novels (including many of the books she wrote as Carol Carnac) that I haven't read. Treats in store.

I mentioned Lorac briefly in my first Northern Blood anthology, more than thirty years ago, but it was only when I became involved with the Crime Classics that I was able to encourage the British Library to republish Lorac. It took years to trace the estate and copyright holders, but the work and the wait were worthwhile. Lorac (and Carnac) are being enjoyed all over again, by a new readership, and she's getting fantastic sales and reviews. In writing my intros, I've benefited enormously from my friendship with Lena, David and his sister Helen; the help they've given me has been invaluable. 

And the good news is, there's another Lorac reissue on the way. Murder in Vienna is due out in November.