Reuniting the stars of Black Narcissus, this movie about a back-room boffin attached to a bomb disposal unit finds the film-makers pushing gloriously against genre conventions
Kathleen Byron and David Farrar were unforgettable presences in the 1947 Powell and Pressburger classic Black Narcissus, playing a hysterical nun and the taciturn colonial agent with whom she is peevishly infatuated. The film-makers reunited these remarkable performers two years later for this intimate, intense wartime drama thriller; brilliant on the emotional misery, low-level dread and petty office politics of wartime government. It takes place mostly in London’s noirish darkness and rain, except for the sensational final sequence in the bright sunlight of Chesil beach in Dorset.
Adapted from an autobiographical novel by military scientist Nigel Balchin, The Small Back Room is a work that shows the film-makers pushing – brilliantly – at the conventions and constraints of a regular wartime period drama. Any number of...
Kathleen Byron and David Farrar were unforgettable presences in the 1947 Powell and Pressburger classic Black Narcissus, playing a hysterical nun and the taciturn colonial agent with whom she is peevishly infatuated. The film-makers reunited these remarkable performers two years later for this intimate, intense wartime drama thriller; brilliant on the emotional misery, low-level dread and petty office politics of wartime government. It takes place mostly in London’s noirish darkness and rain, except for the sensational final sequence in the bright sunlight of Chesil beach in Dorset.
Adapted from an autobiographical novel by military scientist Nigel Balchin, The Small Back Room is a work that shows the film-makers pushing – brilliantly – at the conventions and constraints of a regular wartime period drama. Any number of...
- 5/30/2024
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
It seems only natural that Severin Films would follow up its two Eurocrypt of Christopher Lee box sets with a collection of some of the more offbeat entries in the filmography of Peter Cushing, Lee’s legendary Hammer Films co-star. Cushing Curiosities collects five films and the remaining episodes of a TV series that highlight the diverse aspects of Cushing’s always authoritative on-screen persona. Featuring crisp new 2K restorations sourced from original elements, Severin’s compelling new set comes complete with loads of bonus materials, including some priceless audio interviews with the man himself and commentaries by historians, as well as Peter Cushing: A Portrait in Six Sketches, a 200-page book by film historian Jonathan Rigby.
Cushing appears as a stiff-necked yet urbane airline pilot in 1960’s Cone of Silence, a modestly compelling exposé based on the actual investigation into a 1952 airplane crash. Reprimanded for a crash that killed his copilot,...
Cushing appears as a stiff-necked yet urbane airline pilot in 1960’s Cone of Silence, a modestly compelling exposé based on the actual investigation into a 1952 airplane crash. Reprimanded for a crash that killed his copilot,...
- 12/21/2023
- by Budd Wilkins
- Slant Magazine
Stars: Mandy Miller, Phyllis Calvert, Jack Hawkins, Terence Morgan, Godfrey Tearle, Marjorie Fielding, Nancy Price, Edward Chapman, Patricia Plunkett, Eleanor Summerfield, Colin Gordon | Written by Nigel Balchin, Jack Whittingham | Directed by Alexander Mackendrick
When you watch Mandy, you can’t help but feel it was a film ahead of its time. The story of a deaf girl unable to speak, the new Blu-ray is the perfect chance to watch the movie again.
When Mandy’s (Mandy Miller) parents discover that their child is deaf, they struggle to help her communicate not only with the outside world, but with themselves too. When Christine (Phyllis Calvert), the mother, decides to take Mandy to a school for deaf children, her husband’s reluctance to allow this puts a strain on their marriage.
What is impressive about Mandy is that it doesn’t over dramatise the story of a little girl trapped in her own little world,...
When you watch Mandy, you can’t help but feel it was a film ahead of its time. The story of a deaf girl unable to speak, the new Blu-ray is the perfect chance to watch the movie again.
When Mandy’s (Mandy Miller) parents discover that their child is deaf, they struggle to help her communicate not only with the outside world, but with themselves too. When Christine (Phyllis Calvert), the mother, decides to take Mandy to a school for deaf children, her husband’s reluctance to allow this puts a strain on their marriage.
What is impressive about Mandy is that it doesn’t over dramatise the story of a little girl trapped in her own little world,...
- 6/15/2017
- by Paul Metcalf
- Nerdly
No, not a blind Sherlock Holmes, but a blind Van Johnson, who directs his butler, his girlfriend Vera Miles and the London police to thwart a crime based on something he overheard in a bar. Henry Hathaway directs a complicated murder mystery that plays like a combo of Rear Window and Wait Until Dark, with a cranky Van Johnson as the central character.
23 Paces to Baker Street
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1956 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 103 min. / Street Date February 21, 2017 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95
Starring: Van Johnson, Vera Miles, Cecil Parker, Patricia Laffan, Maurice Denham, Estelle Winwood, Liam Redmond, Isobel Elsom, Martin Benson, Queenie Leonard.
Cinematography: Milton Krasner
Film Editor: James B. Clark
Original Music: Leigh Harline
Written by Nigel Balchin from the novel Warrant for X by Philip MacDonald
Produced by Henry Ephron
Directed by Henry Hathaway
In the 1950s the murder mystery thriller came of age, as creakier older formulas...
23 Paces to Baker Street
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1956 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 103 min. / Street Date February 21, 2017 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95
Starring: Van Johnson, Vera Miles, Cecil Parker, Patricia Laffan, Maurice Denham, Estelle Winwood, Liam Redmond, Isobel Elsom, Martin Benson, Queenie Leonard.
Cinematography: Milton Krasner
Film Editor: James B. Clark
Original Music: Leigh Harline
Written by Nigel Balchin from the novel Warrant for X by Philip MacDonald
Produced by Henry Ephron
Directed by Henry Hathaway
In the 1950s the murder mystery thriller came of age, as creakier older formulas...
- 3/25/2017
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Oscar-winning writer Julian Fellowes (Gosford Park) will begin production on his directorial debut, A Way Through The Woods, on September 8, according to Variety. The film, based on Nigel Balchin's novel, depicts a couple whose marriage is challenged by a troublemaking third party. Tom Wilkinson and Emily Watson will star as husband and wife, with Rupert Everett in the bad-boy role. Produced by Celador Films (Dirty Pretty Things), filming will take place in London and Paris.
- 8/29/2003
- IMDbPro News
Tom Wilkinson and Emily Watson will topline the British feature A Way Through the Woods, which will mark the directorial debut of Oscar-winning screenwriter Julian Fellowes. Paul Smith's Celador Prods. is producing the project, which goes into production in September. Way is loosely based on Nigel Balchin's novel of the same name, which Fellowes also adapted. Wilkinson and Watson play a married couple whose lives are complicated when a third party enters the picture. "It's a triangle about people who should be happy but aren't -- people who have everything society deems will give you a fulfilled life, yet they are unfulfilled," Fellowes said in an interview. "The central plot theme is how, in a split second, you make a bad decision, and from that spreads an endless seam of mistakes, and it's impossible to go back and correct it."...
- 5/29/2003
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Tom Wilkinson and Emily Watson will topline the British feature A Way Through the Woods, which will mark the directorial debut of Oscar-winning screenwriter Julian Fellowes. Paul Smith's Celador Prods. is producing the project, which goes into production in September. Way is loosely based on Nigel Balchin's novel of the same name, which Fellowes also adapted. Wilkinson and Watson play a married couple whose lives are complicated when a third party enters the picture. "It's a triangle about people who should be happy but aren't -- people who have everything society deems will give you a fulfilled life, yet they are unfulfilled," Fellowes said in an interview. "The central plot theme is how, in a split second, you make a bad decision, and from that spreads an endless seam of mistakes, and it's impossible to go back and correct it."...
- 5/29/2003
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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