Reviews

The director of this melodrama displays the customary tenuous grasp on how chess is played, and the mawkish sentimentality found in many an old school film. The actors do well to deliver the corny lines and represent the saintly kids of the Bronx.

Unfortunately I teach chess to kids in a school, voluntarily and not as part of any job, as do many chess teachers: and know that chess is the great underdog of the educational world. Hey, I'd be over the moon if some individual ever bunged in a quid or fiver to support the chess, never mind a few thousand dollars. So this film had me weeping uncontrollably all the way through, and I'd watch it again just to get in touch my emotions.

Kids, don't bang down on those clocks you'll break them, and Ted, don't swish the pieces at the and of the games, that would be the chess equivalent of spiking the football at the end of the game. OK, its only a film...sob, sob.

Put together the worlds best actors with an Oscar winning director and what do you get? Probably worst film any of them have ever been in. Struggling for an explanation, I hone in on the awful wooden screenplay. But that's too generous. The director must get the blame for totally failing to bring out the talents of the normally skillful cast. Mason makes a go of it, apart from the unconvincing accent, but Helen Mirren appears woefully miscast as a downtrodden local girl with natural beauty and personality that is supposed to inspire the artist. She does not demonstrate enough rough edges to be believable. Helen Mirren has just stepped out of the Royal Shakespeare Company (as the cast credits insists on reminding us) and the director should have realised that, and demanded more of the actors. Mind you, I don't recall her ever playing this type of role again.

If you were looking for an evening in (or out) watching a romcom (and don't we all feel that that sometimes), choose this one above some of the more well known and popular examples. It's well-crafted and tries hard to avoid many of the well-known clichés. Plenty of twist and turns: sentimentality, yes, but not laid on with a table-knife rather than a trowel. Admittedly not quite Harry met Sally or Annie Hall, as, though competently acted, the characters are still romcom cyphers. But marvel at the script-writers' solid achievement of entertainment and engagement. Competent production values keep it rolling along to the last second, without padding. If it had just added those witty little touches of human observation that characterise a great movie it might have made it into my "8" rating, reserved for films that have something outstanding.

No need to add to the assessment of this film's quality, but I can throw some light on aspects of the film. Someone who was present at the making of this film clarified to me what the significance of this film was, and why certain things are as they are.

This film was commissioned after independence during the short reign of Ben Bella, but was not completed until after the coup of Boumedienne. The short- lived Ben Bella revolution was full of the ideals of genuine peace-loving idealism and cooperative socialism. The dispassionate message of the film was very much in tune with the intellectual thinking of the regime. (Compare, perhaps ,the film "Memories of Underdevelopment").

Unfortunately the regime was easy prey for a military coup which happened during the making of the film. The crowd scenes, remarked on as so authentic, were in fact made so because this was the only form of gathering allowed immediately after the coup, and one is watching an odd blend of staging and reality, where Algerians were taking to the streets in a disguised protest against the coup.

Are there any heroes in the film? Well, yes. If one looks closely towards the end of the film one can see the scrawled message "Un seule hero - le peuple" - (only one hero - the people).

In a way then, one is witnessing not just a film about what had passed, but the beginning of the unfolding of the Algerian tragedy as it later became, and that is part of the film's potency.

Beware of seeing this film and the events it portrays through today's prism. The question of religion did not arise - the movements were anti-colonial & nationalistic at first, as portrayed. Later socialist, secular, communistic and cooperative, but finally succumbing to militarism. These cannot be termed as "Muslim". Only after the failures of the subsequent militaristic and anti-democratic governments that popular political Islam gained in importance.

As a footnote it may be observed that one of the Milk Bar bombers became a political figure in her own right, married a later president, and is, as I write, the Vice-President of the Council of the Nation. In appearance, she could still easily be mistaken for a French women.

Drowning in mediocrity that is. I cannot believe I wasted a couple of hours on this, waiting for the plot interest, ingenuity, excitement, characterisation,or even a final twist to materialise. They never did.

Quite the worst Harrison Ford film I ever saw: its bland plot, cardboard characters and the clichéd but unfulfilling Paris travelogue failed to ignite for more than a few damp-squib seconds.

Never referring to "my wife" as anything but that throughout, one simply could not believe he cared that much about finding her,except as an excuse for heroics.

There is a strange disconnection between Ford and the female lead Emmanuelle Seigner, who is obviously performing sexy for the camera but does not connect with the on-screen world, and has zero chemistry (sexual or otherwise) with Ford.

None of this made any sense until I just found out she is married to the director Polanski. Prestige director (and one assumes, prestige fee) also might explain Ford's willingness to take up with this hackneyed script and uninspired direction.

Oh, and that corny ending...what?!

The cream of British comic acting talent could not disguise the somewhat thin script, that was clearly intended as a wartime morale booster, but somehow appeared past its sell-by date, in 1947. Its true length should have been half an hour but they didn't have TV then.

Nevertheless it has some fascination as a period piece, and we are kept in dull suspense wondering why they are waiting for the visit of a monarch, an interesting twist, which gives it its patriotic wartime message.

The best cameo is undoubtedly Yvonne Arnaud as the scatty Bordello keeper (who - for the benefit of those below a certain age or not French or British - continued to have great success on BBC comedy radio throughout the 1950s till her death aged 66.)

Robert Morley too, as usual, never fails to entertain.

The absence of reviews here prompts me to say a few words. I saw this in a cinema in Moscow in 1966 [despite date above], a popular film there at the time. I couldn't follow all the dialogue at the time, but I recall being struck by the believability and humanity of the whole thing. Russian public were right on the side of the anti-hero, though he was no swashbuckler and the ending is dispassionate. This was still during the time of the Soviet thaw, and Moscow was heaving with American tourists. Life was better for Russians and things were looking up. The old gallant Soviet war heros had become less interesting, and the time was right for someone more complex, surfacing, perhaps, from the rich literary tradition. A perfect Geroi nasha vremeno - my theory anyway. I'd just like to see it again before giving it a rating!

This acceptable example of the swashbuckle genre passes an enjoyable afternoon. However, only Johnny Depp's original interpretation as the cynical pirate captain gave it any depth. Nothing else excited old the grey cells.

Nice effects, including a convincing set of ghostly pirates.

I should have liked to have seen Knightley's character, for the sake of humour, a bit more caricatured, more girlishly excited about pirates, (edging towards Miranda Richardson's Queen Elizabeth in Blackadder) which would have made her a better foil to Depp. And Jack's new crew should have been allowed to get more into their characters, not dragged in from the actors' bank with ten minutes rehearsal.

This British (very) light comedy, is a conventional modern Pilgrims Progress that attempts to do for the Offa's Dyke long-distance walking path what "Shirley Valentine" did for Greece and "Educating Rita" did for the Open University.

The cluster of UK TV-hits acting talent did their best with the script, but ultimately were unable to get past the contemporary clichés and cardboard characterisations. Since the star was meant to be the landscape and a flavour of how nice it is to walk through the English/Welsh Countryside, the director should have gone the whole hog and treated us to the best spectacle the location has to offer. However, the shots are fine enough, authentic and evocative, and that's what kept me awake late at night watching it right through to the end. And the message of the story - that I have turned into a TV/computer couch-potato, managed to hit home.

Just for the record, Offa's Dyke was the Anglo-Saxon equivalent of the Berlin Wall, (or, to be more up to date, the Palestine Wall.) It is 180 miles long, and built by Offa, King of Mercia, in the latter half of the 8th century to separate the Welsh from the English. Today it winds through English and Welsh Counties, thus one gets a bit of both, which the film conveys.

I wanted to give it 5.5 heading for 6 by my scoring method, but for some reason I settled on 5, probably through feeling embarrassed for the competent team of actors, and the UK comedy industry as a whole.

If one wants to witness the artform of tragedy , don't see this one first. Nothing thereafter will measure up to it. It is as near a perfect crafting of the tragic form that ever hit celluloid. Nowhere is this masterwork sullied by a note of optimism. The glimmers of happiness for the characters serve only to offset the bleakness of the unfolding tragedy. Classicly, the fatal flaws are laid out from the outset: single minded ambition, fated love, and a working class hole that the hero just will not be allowed to climb out of.

Anderson also achieves miracles with his low budget - the game of rugby - as experienced by the players - is superbly portrayed - and the (literally) cardboard extras in the stands, perform better than any real crowd ever could, for the purposes of this film. The portrait of everyday life is spot on.

Can find no reason not to award it ten.

I saw this movie in an English Cinema, in Birmingham, in the mid- 1970's, and was quite bowled over by its startling originality, at least to my eyes as a western viewer. It is far better constructed than most of the Kung Fu type movies that have world popularity, and will appeal to a discerning audience. The intricate plot deals with the fate and adventures of two women, masters of their marshal arts, and sworn to vengeance. The significance of the relationship between the two women grows until it becomes central to the film. That alone was original enough in the 1970's - but amazingly it is still original now.

The film has a legendary, classical feel to it, and is absolutely not self-conscious about the role of its female leads. The plot twists and turns down to its tragic denouement, breathtaking in its melodrama and beauty. I don't know enough about this but it felt very rooted in chinese culture , and had the classical structure of a greek or shakespearian tragedy.

It is also beautifully filmed, and has many of those chinese fencing scenes the mass public has only really just become familiar with in Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. But the latter is really not a patch on the earlier film.

There may be many more like this - I don't know - and although it didn't feel formulaic to me, perhaps it might to the chinese audience. So I only gave it eight, rather than the nine that was tempting me.

So why is this film so unknown, alone and unrated? That, I think, is the result of the unfortunate terms of its original release. Subtitled chinese movies at the time would appeal only to a specialist audience - (and Enter the Dragon had not yet appeared to change all that ) . But the specialist audience would instantly have been put off by the unfortunate "Confessions" marketing title, which immediately put it into the category of the contemporary naff British comedy series "Confessions of a window cleaner" and the like. Many a time I have tried to recommend this film title to friends only to be looked at incredulously as if - oh dear - how pathetic. Not that they would have found it easy to see it - it can't have enjoyed wide release.

Now is the time for re-release.

The central character, glamourous thief B Monkey, is rather badly camouflaged against the very believable sleaze and no-hope of the city. She has not been given the easiest of parts to carry out in a realistic fashion, so what the hell, she sets her own terms on the character. And I loved it, and swallowed the lot. More than that I came to see the characters and situations as very well drawn,and well observed sketch on the human condition, and started to recognise and identify. The twist at the end had a classical feel to it - she finally becomes camouflaged in the most unlikely setting. (Hope that's sufficiently cryptic.)

I loved the sense of place, both of the City and the Yorkshire countryside, the rather made-for-TV style with occasional echoes of documentary. And the very competent cast. And despite the lead spending quite a bit of time with her clothes off, she does this in a good cause, never gratuitiously, always advancing the plot. I was seduced. A good seven.

I bought this cheap from the rental remnant at our local store. It was in almost mint condition, and I'd never heard of it before. Clearly nobody else had either.

I can't believe my luck. You go through the whole realm of emotions and it attempts to get over a complex message - the very moral and non-triumphalist stance of the Mandela Party, undoubtedly. Despite its enormous length (I had to watch it in two sittings) - it was like a book one couldn't put down. Perhaps the songs are not all that memorable, but the spirit of the thing glows on forever. I cannot understand comments that a musical (clearly designed for stage) is not realistic! I've seen "South Pacific" and read the book too, and can guarantee that musical is not realistic compared to the book. I'll treasure this little find until it wears out. One day they'll make this again on a better budget.