Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986)

The gentlest and least action-filled of all the Star Trek films is one of its most successful outings

Director: Leonard Nimoy

Cast: William Shatner (Admiral James T Kirk), Leonard Nimoy (Spock), DeForest Kelley (Dr McCoy), James Doohan (Montgomery Scott), George Takei (Hikaru Sulu), Walter Koenig (Pavel Chekov), Nichelle Nichols (Uhura), Catherine Hicks (Dr Gillian Taylor), Mark Lenard (Sarek), Jane Wyatt (Amanda), Robin Curtis (Saavik), Brock Peters (Admiral Cartwright), John Schuck (Klingon Ambassador), Robert Ellenstein (Federation President)

Most people’s Bingo cards probably didn’t have “biggest Star Trek hit film is about saving Whales”. In fact, when I told my wife this was the plot of Star Trek IV (which she had, resignedly, agreed to watch on a Saturday night) she immediately assumed I was pulling her leg. I guess this might also be what Paramount thought when Nimoy and Nicholas Meyer pitched this: time-travel with comedy for the crew, no villain, no battles and not a single photon torpedo fired in anger. There wouldn’t even be a proper love interest. But the formula was such a surprise hit, Paramount tried to repeat the trick again with Star Trek V and promptly fell flat on their faces.

After the events of Star Trek III, Spock is back from the dead and the crew are heading home to face the music after their riot of breaking orders, sabotage, theft and blowing up the Enterprise from the last film. (Since they’ve also not changed clothes since the start of that film, they must also be a bit whiffy). Before they arrive back though, Earth is thrown into chaos by a mysterious probe whose powerful signal is draining the planet’s power. Turns out the probe is trying to contact Humpback whales – which mankind hunted to extinction in the late twentieth century. Kirk, Spock and the crew take their stolen Klingon bird of prey on a perilous time-travel slingshot round the sun back to 1986, to grab a pair of whales and bring them back to their present. But of course, it’s not that easy.

There is something very refreshing about Star Trek IV, one of the entries in the series that really attempted to go its own way. It manages to pull this off pretty well, the crew settling into the fish-out-of-water comedy of being stranded in modern San Francisco without inducing eat-your-fist levels of embarrassment in the viewer (not a trick the franchise managed in other lighter entries, such as Insurrection and of course Star Trek V). Perhaps it’s because, by and large, the cast don’t overplay or force the comedy too much and the mix of both apocalyptic dread in the future and horror of the butchery of whales in the present counterbalances the comedy rather well.

In fact, Nimoy proofs to have a deft touch (he went straight from this to directing Three Men and a Little Lady and he was pretty much button-holed as a comedy director from hereon). He latches onto the rare chance for a Star Trek film to go fully on location – surely a nice change from the blatantly papier-mache sets of the Genesis planet in Star Trek III – neatly capturing the slightly dazed characters, dodging traffic in busy San Francisco streets, grabbling with the complexity of using money and struggling with the parade of “colourful metaphors” that pepper Twentieth century speech.

There is a pleasingly family-friendly quality to all this, continued with the missions Star Trek IV splits the crew up to achieve. Each of these is well-tailored to cater to the strengths of characters and actors. Naturally, Russian-accented Chekov winds up hunting for “nuclear wessels” to re-power the ship, including a desperate chase across decks of the real battleship USS Enterprise. Nimoy also captures some neat observational comedy with Chekov and Uhura plaintively asking non-plussed passers-by for directions to a Naval base (including a blank faced cop, and a flustered extra who parrots back the naval base name in her confused directions – Koenig nailing the polite exasperation of Chekov’s bemused response).

In addition, we get a Scotty struggling to understand why he can’t talk to computer and then not caring when he hands over future technology secrets in return for free plexiglass for a whale case (timelines be damned!). Or an increasingly grouchy McCoy railing against medieval medicine in a cutting-edge hospital, subtly handing over kidney restoring medicine to an ailing granny. And, of course, Kirk and Spock chasing down whales, shouting down road hogs (“double damn ass on you!”) or neck-pinching rude punks on buses and struggling to work out when to tell the truth and when to lie.

The whale part of the Star Trek IV works rather well. Shots of the butchery of whales is quite chillingly graphic, Spock’s mind-meld with whales George and Gracie (during an unauthorised swim in the aquarium pool they live in – met with slack jawed despairing shock by Kirk) stresses the animals intelligence and empathy (these whales are not just tools to do with as our heroes please). It’s easy to see why the film helped the cause of Greenpeace no end, especially since George and Gracie’s near-fatal encounter with a ship of scruffy whalers is genuinely tense as we dread seeing a harpoon in the side of an animal we’ve grown fond of. Catherine Hicks also gives a nicely judged performance as a passionate whale expert, who also manages to see through the crew’s (not particularly well disguised) bullshit.

That’s not to forget the destructive impact of the probe in the future, as its distinctively intimidating “froom-froom” boils oceans, scorches skies and leaves starships (crewed by an ahead-of-its-time diverse series of officers) drifting in space. It’s a neat metaphor for the results of mankind’s thoughtless impact on the planet. But also, its genuinely quite exciting, just as is the crew’s risky flash back in time to the past, Takei sonorously reporting their ever-increasing speed as the ship shakes. A final attempt to save the whales from a sinking Klingon bird-of-prey does feel like it’s been chucked in to give Shatner some final act heroics. But you can cut it some slack, considering that its genuinely tense.

Above all, Star Trek IV shows that you can make a successful Star Trek film without trying to make it as much like Star Wars as possible. This is the sort of conundrum the show used to deal with all the time, cleaning up our own mess and learning lessons along the way. It also allows the cast to relax and to be genuinely engaging, without drowning us in cringe-worthy comedy. Star Trek IV is what it needs to be: a really accessible way to get into the show, that riffs on things you’re likely to be familiar with, without needing a PhD in the show’s canon. Mix that in with a well-judged (Oscar-nominated) score by Leonard Rosenman that gets the tone just right between playful and epic and the fact that all that location shooting means the limited special effects budget could be used to ace effect, and you’ve got one of the best of the franchise.

The Barretts of Wimpole Street (1934)

Laughton dominates in a dry, rather stately adaptation of the romance between the Brownings

Director: Sidney Franklin

Cast: Norma Shearer (Elizabeth Barrett), Fredric March (Robert Browning), Charles Laughton (Edward Moulton-Barrett), Maureen O’Sullivan (Henriette Barrett), Katharine Alexander (Arabel Barrett), Ralph Forbes (Captain Surtees Cook), Marion Clayton (Bella Hadley), Una O’Connor (Wilson), Leo G Carroll (Dr Ford-Waterlow)

The poet Elizabeth Barrett (Norma Shearer) is confined to her bed (she hasn’t stepped out of the room let alone gone downstairs or stood up in years) and in love with fellow poet Robert Browning (Fredric March), a love he returns with all the giddy enthusiasm of a schoolboy. But despite what you might think, that’s not the real drama in The Barretts of Wimpole Street and there are precious few emotional obstacles between these two. The real drama comes from Elizabeth’s relationship with her father, Edward Moulton-Barrett (Charles Laughton), a possessive control-freak with an unhealthy concern for his daughter who he wants to keep locked away so only he can possess her. Can Elizabeth escape her gilded prison?

Adapted from a highly thought-of Broadway hit, and about two of the most famous poets of the nineteenth century, it’s not a surprise Barretts of Wimpole Street was singled out as another perfect vehicle to cement Norma Shearer as the leading actress of her age. Despite her Oscar-nomination here, as is often the case with Shearer, when called upon to do ‘serious drama’, her mannered breathlessness can be a little trying. That quality is present throughout Barretts, her delivery crammed with heightened earnestness and dramatic intensity. But, there is a real commitment, and she gives a decent performance, capturing Elizabeth’s complex feelings towards her father and the fierceness of her determination – even if it’s a performance that always feels like she’s trying too hard to be taken seriously.

You can say much of the same thing about the rest of this, at times very stately, film, which wears its theatrical, single-set roots very heavily. Shot with a safely staid camera, that frames the action with little invention, it can feel slow and artificial. As with so many other films about writers, we also get little sense of what drives them. The only moment we touch on this is the first meeting between Browning and Elizabeth, with March’s Browning bounding around the room apologetically trying to explain his work while distracted with romantic attraction. For Elizabeth herself, other than settling at her desk once with pen in hand – Shearer cocking her head to the left with a wistful stare as she thinks carefully – you could quite easily forget she is a celebrated poet.

What is perhaps refreshing is how uncomplicated the romance element of the story is. There are no doubts at all about the affections, and no sense of compromise or danger that anything (other than her father) will come between them. March actually seems slightly lost on some level with how little there is to play with Browning: other than a giddy enthusiasm and romantic earnestness, he has almost nothing to do and is all but banished from the film’s most dramatic moments. There is an undeniable chemistry between him and Shearer, but so little stakes between them – and Browning remains largely a pleasant cipher – that it’s very hard to really find much interest in their scenes.

But then that’s because the drama is at home, and the ogre dominating the Barrett household. Franklin communicates the dread this figure holds over his children, even subconsciously, from the start: during the opening shots, we are shown repeated close-ups of Shearer grinning as each of her several siblings enter, culminating in a shot of fixed neutrality when her father enters. This domineering monster controls every inch of his children’s life, makes it clear that disobedience (like getting married) will be met by instant disinheritance and banishment from the family home. A home that is run entirely to his whims and personal tastes.

Who better to play this vile bully filled with fear and loneliness, than Charles Laughton? The film had to remove all references to Edward’s potentially incestuous interest in his daughter but, as Laughton so memorably said, the censors couldn’t ‘cut the glint in my eye’. And they felt fine leaving in dark implications that Barrett’s later children were not “born of love”. Laughton’s performance is towering, a ramrod stiff body of frustrated desires, whose instinct when he feels threatened is to lash out with cruel, verbal and physical violence. He thinks nothing of literally twisting the arms of his daughter Henriette (a very good Maureen O’Sullivan) to extract her confession of loving another man, just as he feels free to browbeat her into swearing on the bible to renounce him.

His creepy parental desire – at one point he sits with Elizabeth and earnestly desires her to stay with him, with all the intense longing of a lover – is palpable, his frustrated sexuality clear. There is a great scene where Marion Clayton’s lisping cousin Bella playfully sits on his lap and asks him to kiss her: Laughton grabs the back of her head for a full-on snog, then leaps instantly to his feet as if terrified that she will detect his obvious arousal. At another, he sweeps a tired Elizabeth into his arms like some sort of Rochester to carry her up to her bedroom.

This but scratches the surface of Laughton’s portrayal of suppressed desires. All of them are bottled up in an intense fear and vulnerability that Edward has of being abandoned – Laughton almost trembles with fear at the prospect of any of his children leaving. At great length with Elizabeth, he hammers away at her confidence, a torrent of passive aggressive words stressing her weakness and incapability to survive. It comes from a deep insecurity but, whenever we feel even a moment of sympathy for this psychologically damaged man, he reverts to bullying, shouting and a willingness to commit acts of petty, damaging cruelty.

Laughton’s superb performance (rightly he was immensely put-out not to be Oscar nominated) not only elevates the film (all its most memorable moments feature him) but also draws some of her best work out of Shearer, who raises her game to match him in their confrontation scenes. The drama of these sequences is the heart of a film that otherwise fails to bring much energy, despite some good performances (including Una O’Connor, giving one of her finest maids, full of exasperated, supportive patience). Away from Laughton, the film feels slight and slow. But with him, it’s a portrait of creepy possessiveness and misdirected desire. Even if, of course, no one could say that at the time.

Night Moves (1975)

A private detective out of his depth in this excellent 70s conspiracy-thriller tinged noir detective drama

Director: Arthur Penn

Cast: Gene Hackman (Harry Moseby), Jennifer Warren (Paula), Susan Clark (Ellen Moseby), Melanie Griffith (Delly Grastner), Edward Binns (Joey Ziegler), Harris Yulin (Marty Heller), Janet Ward (Arlene), James Woods (Quentin), John Crawford (Tom Iverson)

“Yeah, but he didn’t see it. He played something else and he lost. He must have regretted it every day of his life. I know I would have.” That’s how Harry Moseby – PI, retired footballer and chess enthusiast – explains the fall out of a 1925 chess championship game, where the losing player failed to spot a checkmate in three through a brilliant flurry of knight moves. There’s a reason why a tweaked version of this makes the title (Penn argued it was because so many key scenes were set at night, though I suspect he just worried the alternative would either be too confusing or tip the wink too much). Turns out the case Moseby is investigating is just like that chess game, with himself as the losing player failing to spot the killer checkmate move.

That’s the set-up for a very seventies private detective movie, where the hero is effectively living out a fantasy of being Marlowe or Spade, turning down every opportunity to bring himself into the modern world (via a near-fangled database-using detective agency, awash with cash) and pays a heavy price. Because, rather like Matthau in Charley Varrick, Moseby sees himself as last of the Independents, but without (it turns out) the nous or ruthlessness to succeed. Instead, Harry misses everything that turns out to be important, heads down blind alleys, focuses on the wrong motives and ends the film like he spent it, drifting in circles drenched in defeat.

Harry (Gene Hackman) is hired by an ageing former Hollywood starlet (Janet Ward) to find her daughter Delly (Melanie Griffith), a case he solves with relative ease since she is staying with her estranged father-in-law Tom Iverson (John Crawford) and Tom’s wise-crackingly flirtatious marinist girlfriend Paula (Jennifer Warren). Easy peasy right? Wrong, as Harry finds himself embroiled in a further mysteries and deaths, revolving around links between the family and the world of Hollywood stunt drivers, led by the good-natured Joey Ziegler (Edward Binns). As he scratches the surface of the mystery, he will discover to his horror he is way out of his depth.

Arthur Penn’s detective drama soaks in the paranoic style he virtually made his own, mixed with grimy depression at the world gone to hell. “Where were you when Kennedy was shot?” Paula asks Harry who responds with a weary sigh of “which one?” Everything feels sordid and shabby: Harry’s job is essentially trailing unfaithful wives; Hollywood is a cheap exploitation flick machine and alcoholic ex-starlet Janet bemoans how good her breasts used to be. It’s a film shot with a grainy, dirty detail by Bruce Surtees and edited with a deliberately disjointed suddenness by Dede Allen, scenes often feeling like they end abruptly or jarringly, leaving us as off balance as Harry is. There is, throughout, a creeping air of confusion and uncertainty – Penn designed the film to require multiple viewings and even then questions remain – not least since vital clues and hints are dropped in with marked casualness, while major red herrings are flashed in front of us.

In the middle of this, Harry wants to be a resourceful, determined, ingenious private eye plucked from Chandler. But he’s far from that, not quite smart enough to realise he’s not that smart. His naïve cluelessness should be clear, since he stumbles only by chance on an affair his wife (Susan Clark) has been having for some time. He lets his prejudices and opinions get in the way of conclusions – most especially in the instant dislike he takes (who can blame him) of James Woods’ snivelling bitter mechanic, a casual boyfriend of Delly, who looks more beat up and scarred every time we see him (a nice hint he’s not the criminal-in-waiting Harry assumes he is). On the other hand, since he likes Edward Binn’s jovial stunt driver Joey, he seems to forget in their first meeting he watched Joey violently rough up a young man in a bar for trivial reasons.

He’s superbly played by Gene Hackman, who makes Harry full of vulnerability and shyness that marks him out as a slightly naïve lost soul, despite his more hard-bitten outer shell. Hackman understands perfectly that Harry is really a big kid, living out a fantasy, but without the instincts or the skill to pull it off. He’s flustered by women (Delly’s casual teenage sexuality, in particular, disorientates him no end) and his all-too-obvious crush on Jennifer Warren’s very well-played mix of femme fatale and wisecracking sidekick is rather sweet. Hackman also invests Harry with an old-world decency and (knightly!) sense of chivalry: he’s disgusted at Tom’s sleeping with his step-daughter (“There should be a law against it” Tom sighs; “There is” Harry contemptuously states) and quickly feels a protective feeling towards Delly.

But despite this, he’s as much a clueless patsy in all this as he is in his marriage, unable to see the wood for the trees. Just like Chinatown, he ends up out of his depth – the difference being the case turns out to be far more mundane then he suspects. In fact, Harry turns out to be the main destructive force of the film: his ham-fisted persistence in delving deeper, panicking characters into murderous actions, even while Harry fails to understand for a moment what he is involved in and who he should be wary of.

It’s a great visual metaphor that Harry only realises (possibly) what’s been going on in the whole film, when he stares down through the sea-view window of Paula’s boat at a vital clue he’s missed all this time. Harry has to strain to interpret what he can see, water and bad lighting obscuring his view. It’s the murky, obscured world of the film bought to visual life. A film during which Harry has closed his ears and eyes to all the crucial details, failed to appreciate the real meanings of the things he has focused on and left himself alone and adrift in a sea of carnage, only just beginning to piece things together (but far too late).

It makes for a superb, labyrinthine detective drama, laced with paranoia and unsettling mystery, with a superb Hackman full of a mix of bashful charm, world-weary cynicism and tragic naivety, clinging to a fantasy that can’t survive contact with reality. Penn’s film might rival Chinatown as the definitive hard-bitten detective drama of the 70s, one where the hero’s every action leads to disaster, every decision is misguided in some way, every conclusion flawed and learns only too late how wrong he was. If that’s not hard-bitten 70s cynicism I don’t know what is.

The House of Mirth (2000)

Masterful adaption of Wharton, beautifully judged, brilliantly acted and superbly filmed

Director: Terence Davies

Cast: Gillian Anderson (Lily Bart), Eric Stoltz (Lawrence Seldon), Dan Aykroyd (Gus Trenor), Anthony LaPaglia (Simon Rosedale), Laura Linney (Bertha Dorset), Terry Kinney (George Dorset), Eleanor Bron (Julia Peniston), Jodhi May (Grace Stepney), Elizabeth McGovern (Carry Fisher), Penny Downie (Judy Trenor), Pearce Quigley (Percy Glyde), Lorelei King (Mrs Hatch)

When Scorsese bought Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence to the screen, it was seen as a wild swing out in his career. You could have said the same thing when Terence Davies made The House of Mirth, an unlikely follow-up from a host of artistically constructed, meditative memory pieces. But in doing so, Davies executed perhaps one of the most perfectly executed translations of a novel to the screen, a gorgeous, beautifully moving film. Put simply, in its grace and magic glow, it’s pretty hard to imagine The House of Mirth being done better.

Our hero is Lily Bart (Gillian Anderson), a woman who feels she is at the heart of 1905 New York society but will discover her grip on life is far less secure than she believes. Dependent on her aunt (Eleanor Bron) for financial support, needing to marry for money, perhaps in love with not-quite-rich-enough bachelor Lawrence Seldon (Eric Stoltz), unwilling to compromise on her principles and desires, Lily will make a series of catastrophic decisions. Thee will leave her facing the brunt of the ruthlessness of her so-called friends such as banker Gus Trenor (Dan Aykroyd) or Bertha Dorset (Laura Linney) and her world falling apart with extraordinary speed.

Shot with a visual beauty inspired by a host of painters – most notably John Singer Sergeant, whose compositions are referenced throughout to breathtaking effect – Davies film is measured, wise and slowly unleashes a powerful emotional impact. Carefully adapted, Davies film is awash with the intricate, ornate dialogue of early twentieth century New York: speech that, it quickly becomes clear, is about disguising and obscuring the true meaning of what is being said. New York society is awash with lies, deceptions, selfishness and greed, all of it disguised with fine words and high-living – as Lily says “Why is it when we meet we always play this elaborate game?”

What’s tragic about Lily Bart is that it’s a game she believes herself to be skilled at, time revealing she is a novice stumbling in the big leagues. On top of which, as someone penniless, unmarried and reliant on others, she has a terrible lack of security. A lack of security meaning people like Trenor can demand a very personal reward in exchange for his financial services, without worrying about disgrace. Someone savvier would have seen through Ackroyd’s wonderful portrait of barely concealed greed under Trevnor’s avuncular pleasantness. Just as a more worldly figure would have seen that (the simply brilliant) Laura Linney’s gossipy Bertha sees Lily as nothing more than a simple soul ripe for manipulation, a pathetic fall-guy to hide her own infidelities.

It becomes clear there is a doomed, tragic quality to Lily. She’s introduced emerging from a blackened screen in a puff of train steam, an Anna Karenina-ish echo hinting at her eventual fate. In an extraordinarily complex, perfectly judged performance from Gillian Anderson, Lily emerges as a woman of far greater depth and principle than we (or she) suspects. But prone to terrible errors of judgment, often for the right reasons. She is too principled to marry for money, but not savvy enough to play the courting game, publicly humiliating the wealthy Percy Glyde (Pearce Quigley) who she dutifully woos, only to stand him up for a walk that is a clear proposal hint.

But she is too aware of her wordly needs to embrace the mutual love between her and Eric Stoltz’s charmingly enigmatic Lawrence Stern. These two conduct a dance of suggestive flirtation, without ever truly committing their feelings openly. Lily seems to be almost a tease, but Anderson beautifully demonstrates a hesitancy born from an attempt to be honest, to find love and money in one man. The heart-rending realisation later in the film that she has made a terrible mistake, out of a mix of principle, pride, foolishness and decency is captured in Anderson’s superbly pained expression – not to mention a late emotional out-pouring that is heart-breaking in its pain and honesty.

Slowly, Lily’s world falls apart, Davies capturing the tragedy with coolly observant camerawork gliding through society, echoing the photographic approach that defined his earlier work. In every sequence, and between every scene cut, Lily’s position slowly, at first imperceptibly, becomes worse and worse. Less and less secure, until eventually she’s lost to society, in a world of run-down bedsits and laudanum addictions. Where she brutally realises her life of society balls has made her a “useless person”, with no skills and utterly out-of-depth in a world where she must earn her living.

Anderson’s punctures Lily beautifully throughout with a naïve vulnerability. In a way, the undeserved social disgrace Lily suffers (wrongly seen as a slut and a home wrecker) makes her cling even more closely to her principles – even as they become more and more damaging to her. These principles can seem as inexplicable to us as they do to her few allies: she pays out a stock of her limited personal finances to cover up Bertha’s affair with Lawrence, continuing to cover for her even as Bertha burns her in front of all of New York (and barely considers using her evidence for blackmail). It’s part of what makes Lily an astonishingly admirable figure, even as her life spirals downward.

The powerful emotion of this, the deep investment Davies helps us feel for a woman who becomes more and more understandable to us as she is more and more stripped of privilege, is complemented by exquisite film-making. One breath-takingly superb transition sees Davies camera drift through a grand house with all its furniture and fittings carefully hidden under dustsheets, out into a rain-speckled stream, the camera swooping lower and faster until the water transitions into the sun-kissed waves of the Mediterranean: a gorgeously, masterfully simple transition that moves us across weeks and miles in a moment. Haunting images abound, a spilt ink pot in the film’s closing sequence like a gut punch of emotional rawness.

Really, what Davies understands, is that Wharton’s bitter comedy is set in a ‘vile’ world. In society, nothing matters other than the quality of homes and classiness of backgrounds. The finest people can lie, cheat and steal with no blowback. Nouveau riche like Simon Rosedale (a very good Anthony LaPaglia) are judged as vulgar when their actions reveal they are decent. It’s a world where you start to expect no one is happy: Lily’s cousin Grace (an excellent Jodhi May) is unloved, her aunt miserable, half of society are privately humiliated cuckolds, deeply bitter and unhappy.

The House of Mirth is a truly outstanding literary adaptation, beautifully assembled, wonderfully acted – Anderson, in particular, was and is an absolute revelation – and directed with a deeply powerful simplicity by Davies. It’s possibly his masterpiece.

Captain Blood (1935)

Errol Flynn buckles swashes in this stirring and exciting pirate adventure

Director: Michael Curtiz

Cast: Errol Flynn (Peter Blood), Olivia de Havilland (Arabella Bishop), Lionel Atwill (Colonel Bishop), Basil Rathbone (Lavasseur), Ross Alexander (Jeremy Pitt), Guy Kibbee (Hagthorpe), Henry Stephenson (Lord Willoughby), Robert Barrat (Wolverstone), Hobart Cavanagh (Dr Bronson), Donald Meek (Dr Whacker), Jessie Ralph (Mrs Barlow), Frank McGlynn Snr (Reverend Ogle), David Torrence (Andrew Baynes), J. Carrol Naish (Cabusac), George Hassell (Governor Steed), Halliwell Hobbes (Sunderland)

Dr Peter Blood (Errol Flynn) is having a bad day. Plucked from his bed to tend to a dying man by close friend Jeremy Pitt (Ross Alexander), he’s arrested. That’s because it’s 1685 and Jeremy and tat dying man are part of Monmouth’s ill-fated rebellion against James II. Blood, Pitt and many others are shipped to Jamaica and sold into slavery. Blood is purchased by the ambitious Colonel Bishop (Lionel Atwill), whose daughter Arabella (Olivia de Havilland) is strangely drawn to the proud slave. Blood struggles to find freedom for his friends, helped by his medical skills successfully treating the governor’s gout, until a fortunate Spanish attack gives them the chance to escape and set up a career as pirates – all while dreaming of one-day clearing their names.

It’s all gist to the swashbuckling mill, in this rip-roaringly entertaining adventure, the first collaboration of Curtiz, Flynn, de Havilland and Rathbone, that would eventually lead to the genre-defining brilliance of The Adventures of Robin Hood. Flynn was essentially plucked from nowhere, taking the part after an asthma-suffering Robert Donat turned it down, coached (or bullied) through the performance by the relentless task-master Curtiz, opposite a de Havilland with less than a handful of credits to her name. Everything pretty much comes together in a celebration of old-school matinee thrills, with a star oozing charisma at its heart.

Because, say what you like about Flynn, if there is star quality they guy had it in spades. Whether that’s swinging by rope from ship to ship, staunchly standing against injustice against Judge Jeffries (shooting off a few cutting one-liners on Jefferies ill-health along the way), defiantly stating he will never be broken when tied to a pole for a lashing or delicately navigating a spikey love-hate relationship with the haughtily playful Arabella, you can’t take your eyes off him. Captain Blood’s dialogue is frequently slightly heightened, but Flynn’s ease with it (which he learned the hard way – Curtiz reshot several earlier sequences later when he had relaxed and got better) lets it sing, as he stands tall and talks of equality and justice.

Captain Blood is in many ways the perfect Flynn vehicle, setting the template for the roles the star would later triumph in: an egalitarian man of nobility and principle, who fights when he must, with determination and never bitterness. Captain Blood uses this to maximum effect, surrounding Flynn with a cast of seasoned pros virtually none of whom were taller than his shoulders (just to make him look even more heroic as he towers above them). This was the guy Hollywood had been waiting for since Douglas Fairbanks, a hale-fellow well-met slice of masculine charm and energy.

He triumphs in a film which is often wordier and plot-heavier than you think. It’s a credit to the relentless energy Curtiz bring to it, that you almost don’t notice it takes nearly an hour before piracy enters this pirate movie, almost half its run time dedicated to Blood’s struggles in Jamaica. It works because the character dynamics are very well-drawn. George Hassell’s slightly pathetic governor, constantly whining about his gout is as entertaining as the two useless doctors (Hobart Cavanagh and Donald Meek) easily bested by Blood’s practical brilliance. Curtiz is also able to lay-on the grim injustice of indentured servitude on Jamaica, embodied by a gigantic mill wheel the prisoners turn round and round, to the constant soundtrack of lashing (it has to be said, Captain Blood does feel a bit awkward, especially today, in its near complete absence of Black slaves).

But you can don’t feel any drag when sequences like Blood’s defiant trial in England or the carefully measured flirtation between him and de Havilland (full of intelligence and allure) is so well done. And then of course, when you get to the piratical antics, it’s well worth the wait. Flynn, as noted, was made for making principled speeches in the nominal role of rebel (these pirates solemnly swear, among other things, never to mistreat a woman). The naval battles – brilliantly assembled from a mix of miniatures, old footage from silent films and studio-bound sets – are quite gripping, full of exploding ships, cannon fire, boardings and frantically energetic sword fights.

That’s almost nothing to the location-shot, shoreline duel among the rocks between Flynn and Rathbone. Basil Rathbone was surely only cast for his ability to fight duels like this – his character, a French pirate captain, is so unnecessary to the plot and turns on Blood for such trivial reasons, it’s hard not to feel it’s been shoe-horned in to give the actor something to do before the swords come out. The duel is full of deathly cut and thrust, with its final shot of Rathbone lying in the sand, the turf washing over his face (it’s no spoiler to say that Hollywood’s finest fencer again loses) beautifully done.

Captain Blood is full of visual style and flair, Curtiz the master-craftsman showing us all how it’s done. The Rembrandt-inspired locations of Stuart England are filled with angular lighting and giant-cast shadows. The camerawork through the mix of studio sets and location footing seamlessly ties locations together. His management of the film perfectly marries the scale of the adventure set-pieces with the elements of character stories that run throughout. It’s a film that manages to be exciting and witty, rollicking adventure and light comedy.

It also helps that it has a host of leading Hollywood character players doing fabulous work. Lionel Atwill is full of pomposity, self-importance and casual, unthinking cruelty as the ambitious Colonel Bishop. Ross Alexander – who tragically died only a year after the film was released – has a fair degree of earnest charisma. Guy Kibbee is hugely entertaining as grouchy Hagthorpe, a stand-out in a parade of crewmen (Frank McGlynn, David Torrance, Forrester Harvey and J Carrol Naish) who fully embrace their concisely written characters. And, of course, Olivia de Havilland is romantic allure itself, determined and independent and more than a match for Flynn.

As is the way with this era of Hollywood, there are several period details that are all over the place (a street light outside Blood’s London home?), with things like coaches and de Havilland’s dresses parachuted in from several decades later. But these little details are almost by-the-by in a film as full of energy, entertainment and excitement as this, a swashbuckler that continues to thrill and delight almost 90 years on.

Coal Miner’s Daughter (1980)

Biography of Loretta Lynn, faithful to the official line but sometimes lacking in dramatic interest

Director: Michael Apted

Cast: Sissy Spacey (Loretta Lynn), Tommy Lee Jones (Doolittle Lynn), Beverly D’Angelo (Patsy Cline), Levon Helm (Ted Webb), William Sanderson (Lee Dollarhide), Phyllis Boyens (Clara Ramey Webb), Bob Hannah (Charlie Dick)

Born in poverty, in a Kentucky coal mining community, Loretta Lynn became one of the biggest Country and Western stars in America. Based on her hugely successful biography, Loretta and husband Doolittle were closely involved in this faithful translation of her life story (or at least the official version of it) to the big screen, Lynn handpicking Sissy Spacek to portray her from age 13 to 35. Coal Miner’s Daughter traces her life from teenage marriage to Doolittle (Tommy Lee Jones), to leaving her family home, Doolittle pushing her into performing with her musical talents, through to success with their loving but sometimes tumultuous marriage as a backdrop.

Coal Miner’s Daughter really splits into two halves. The first is an extremely well-observed and respectful portrait of Lynn’s working-class routes among a coal mining community which, while far from perfect, is a community full of honesty and decency despite the odd bad apple. It’s in this half that it feels the heart – and much of the drama – lies. Strangely, once Lynn starts singing (nearly an hour into the film), its second half feels a lot less dramatic, much more of a ticking off of various landmarks in what feels like a mostly uninterrupted march to success (this is despite the odd marital feud, the death of Lynn’s mentor Patsy Cline and a nervous breakdown).

Perhaps that’s because the film hues so closely to the Lynn “official line” that the film ends up feeling very curiously structured. A lot of this is in the portrayal of Lynn and Doolittle’s marriage. I don’t doubt the undoubted strength of this marriage – or the devotion of these two for each other – but, with an outsider’s eye, it’s hard not to feel its presentation here is a little odd. Apted’s film frequently presents it as borderline abusive and toxic relationship, while simultaneously celebrating it as a romance for the ages. The mismatch in tones can be hard to process when watching it, the film setting up narrative zigs before offering up layer and layer of zags.

Loretta Lynn was devoted to her husband, while cryptically saying it was a relationship she fought for. Perhaps today one of the strangest things about it is that Lynn aged herself down by two years (a fiction the film repeats), meaning that here she marries the 22-year-old Doolittle at 13. It’s harder to see this as charming today, instead seeing Doolittle as a borderline groomer. Especially as he caps the wedding night by playfully raping Loretta, who has been wildly unprepared for married life (she seems to not fully understand what has happened to her here, so is pleasantly untraumatized feeling instead guilt at not being good enough at sex for Doolittle’s high standards). Before the marriage of their first child, Doolittle will have: thrown her out of the house as a punishment for her domestic failings; cheated on her; raised his hands against her in an argument (breaking a cardinal promise he made to her dad).

He also merrily breaks the other without a second thought by carrying her hundreds of miles away to start a new life. Under the influence of booze and drink, Doolittle can have a slightly childish, sulky temper – although Lynn herself will give as good as she gets (at one point she breaks his finger by walloping him with her handbag). The two of them frequently seem never quite on the same page at the same time. Alongside this, Doolittle drives his timid wife into performing at bars and honky tonks at least partly to show her off, as much as enjoying hearing her sing.

What’s unusual – and in some ways anticlimactic – in Coal Miner’s Daughter is that these marital negatives remain un-resolved and unengaged with. Perhaps it’s because, not that far down, Doolittle really is proud of his wife and does love her music. He dedicates himself to furthering her career – at least in part so he can share in the rewards – and as she grows in fame, the power subtly swings in the relationship. Now she drags him out of the backseat of a car from a floozy, harshly deals with his bouts of drunkenness, and rejecting his attempts to try and control her image (including repeated demands that she should never wear make-up, because he doesn’t like it).

It’s never quite clear to me what the film wants us to make of all this. Is this Lynn turning the marriage into one of equals? Doolittle being put into his box? A subtle commentary on a relationship that perhaps didn’t always bring out the best. What you end up with – and I’m aware this is way more likely to be an issue today than in 1980 – is a relationship presented with several obvious negatives, continuously celebrated as a force of good. And I get that the Lynn’s themselves saw the marriage that way – but I wonder if a film they were less involved in the making of might have raised a bit more of a critical eye.

You can’t doubt the chemistry between the two actors though. Sissy Spacey won an Oscar for a near-note-perfect capturing of Lynn, and her quirky oddness fits very well for a timid country girl struggling to find her place, even as her spikey self-confidence grows. It’s a very well observed and interesting performance, Spacek also very effectively transitioning from child to adult without jarring. Tommy Lee Jones is also excellent as Doolittle: charming, relaxed, capable of real anger but also of a deep and lasting affection, loyal in his own way even when he’s disloyal. It’s a relaxed, impressive performance that makes a slightly unclear character work.

But the finest parts of the film are in the perfectly observed Kentucky mining community of Lynn’s childhood – far more dramatically interesting that watching her tick off local stations on her way to the Grand Ole Opry. Apted’s documentary experience perfectly captures the casual poverty – bedrooms lined with newspaper, a radio that needs to be turned off because there is no money for batteries, the permanent dirt of the coal dust everywhere, the moonshine. It’s all wonderfully pulled together, and Lynn’s childhood home is one of love and gentleness, helped by very impressive performances from Levon Helm and Phyllis Boyens as her devoted parents (who just about come to terms with her young marriage to a slightly wild man).

It’s a shame that backend of the drama doesn’t capture either the same depth or carry the same dramatic energy, largely because the sort of resolution (or even addressing) of the complexities the film has been displaying never comes. Despite strong performances, Coal Miner’s Daughter eventually feels like it offers little real challenge or exploration of its subject’s self-image.

Viva Villa! (1934)

Despite some impressive moments, this largely fictional epic veers wildly in tone from scene to scene

Director: Jack L Conway

Cast: Wallace Beery (Pancho Villa), Leo Carrillo (Sierre), Fay Wray (Teresa), Donald Woods (Don Felipe), Stuart Erwin (Johnny Sykes), Henry B Walthall (Francesco Madero), Joseph Schildkraut (General Pascal), Katherine de Mille (Rosita), George E Stone (Emilio Chavita)

It’s not often a historical epic opens with text explaining pretty much everything you about to see in it is made up. But that’s what you get with Viva Villa!, nominally about the life of Pancho Villa, but so unconnected to real events that the Mexican government (who hosted a fair bit of the filming) called for it to be boycotted. This didn’t stop Viva Villa! becoming the biggest box-office hit of the year. This feels like bit of a mystery today with its strange mix of broad comedy, historical sweep and surrealist darkness. In other hands, it might have been a masterpiece (perhaps Howard Hawks’ hands, if David O Selznick hadn’t fired him and hired placemen Conway), but here it’s merely a competently executed semi-epic that works best if you accept its fictional.

As a boy, Pancho Villa (Wallace Beery) watched his father whipped to death by the Spanish Dons that rule the roost in Mexico. Now it’s the 1910s, and Pancho is a brutal bandit dishing out vigilante justice to the peasant’s oppressors. It takes a gentle man of vision, Francesco Madero (Henry B Walthall), to convince him there are better things to fight for than just grabbing a wife in every town. Pancho joins the revolution, helps place Madero on the (Presidential) throne – only to have his rival General Pascal (Joseph Schildkraut) orchestrate his banishment. But, when Pascal murders Madero, nothing is going to stop Pancho returning to wreak vengeance and bring justice.

Viva Villa may be, tonely, a very confused film (of which more later), but it undeniably has several moments of grand filming, James Wong Howe’s photography is a gorgeous parade of shadows, with scenes such as Villa’s unilateral execution of a parade of officials playing out with stream of light pouring from a window to cast gigantic shadows of hands and weapons on the walls behind them. Later war sequences, featuring further firing squads and executions, have a Goya feel to them with their thunderous dark lighting and towering shadows. The on-location shooting is impressively grand – so much so, it shows up the painfully unconvincing back projection that places Beery and others in front of troops of real armies.

However, the film never quite decides what to do with its hero (anti-hero?). Wallace Beery basically plays the same character he did in The Big House (but with a painful Mexeecan accent): a not-too-bright lug, with a capacity for violence and a childish sense of loyalty. The film never quite knows what to do with him. He’s introduced like a sort of Mussolini-strong man, cracking smiles when he has a group of “just following orders” officials gunned down in front of a ‘jury’ of recently executed peasants they have (not surprisingly) failed to convince. Like some sort of randy Speedy Gonzalez, there is a lot of fun had at his taking a wife in every town. He excuses his campaign of brutal violence during the revolution with a cheeky smile, like he’s been caught with a hand in the cookie jar. He leers over Fay Wray’s Teresa like a second King Kong and frequently kills with a smile and no second thoughts. He’s a ferocious force of destruction.

But then he’s given moments of genuine heroism. He accepts his banishment with a wry shrug. His loyalty is as highly praised as his “don’t take your hats off to me” egalitarianism. He’s presented as the sort of incorruptible, plain-speaker the country seems to need to solve its problems. Ahistorically becoming President, he remains uncorrupted, talks down his suitability for the job and humbly plays down his achievements – all while doing everything he can to protect those peasants rights. At moments like this, he’s less a chillingly ruthless men capable of great violence but a lovable rogue, bashfully pinching a minor treasure from the Presidential palace. But then he’s also a guy who a few moments earlier made an enemy for life by whipping Fay Wray half-to-death in a fit of frustrated lust (another scene making marvellous use of shadows).

There is no coherence to this: it feels like Villa is whatever the scene requires him to be in the moment. Moments of comedy land a bit awkwardly, when we’ve watched Pancho gun down a relatively inoffensive bank manager. And, vampish as Wray is, she hardly deserves her fate or the general indifference Pancho meets it with. The tone shifts feel awkward and jarring, just as the shifting of Pancho’s character feels random and calculated moment-by-moment. You can say the same for Madero, played with a wispy gentleness by Henry B Walthall: he’s partly a sort of secular-saint (with his own gently inspiring music), partly a naïve, weedy weakling who literally needs someone else to open his heavy office door whose enemies run rings run round him. At least Joseph Schildkraut, a preeningly camp villain caked in brown make-up, has a consistent character (even if its two dimensional) as an unashamedly selfish general, jealous of how much Pancho’s men love him. Similarly, socialist journalist John Reed is reimagined here in a tediously crude performance by Stuart Erwin as a barely competent drunkard.

It’s all part of what is a big, brash, crude epic that frequently aims for the crude, comic angles it can find whenever it can. Which is odd, as I say, for a film with such a ruthlessly high body-count (everyone from countless prisoners of war, weeping officials and even an inoffensive bank manager gets it) and has its vampish female lead fend off possible rape by our hero only to be beaten in silhouette and accidentally shot. What becomes clear in fact as it goes on, is that it seems to see Mexico as a country of wild, destructive children – like a sort of Lord of the Flies among the revolutionary set. Every Mexican character in it, except Manduro, is basically dirty, none-to-bright and impetuous (needless to say none of them are played by actual Mexicans).

Which, when you think about it, is a little uncomfortable (not helped by the fact the Spanish Dons – the likes of Donald Woods – all speak with comfortably refined mid-Atlantic accents). In that context, it’s less of a surprise to remember that the Mexican government basically banned it. There are several handsome moments of filming, and its scale is impressive, but with its tone varying wildly and a Beery lead performance that feels oddly out of place it only rarely works as well as it should.

Le Cercle Rouge (1970)

Melville delivers one of his patented, stripped-back, gangster films full of monochromatic Bogart-like cool

Director: Jean-Pierre Melville

Cast: Alain Delon (Corey), André Bourvil (Inspector Mattei), Gian Maria Volonté (Vogel), Yves Montand (Jansen), Paul Crauchet (The receiver), Paul Amiot (Chief of Police), Pierre Collet (Prison guard), André Ekyan (Rico), Jean-Pierre Posier (Mattei’s assistant), François Périer (Santi)

Can you have honour among thieves? Perhaps only when all of you sink or swim together. Three men need a big score and will stick together to get it. Corey (Alain Delon) has the tip-off about a high-end jewellery store, ripe for turning over. He needs the money, as he’s earned the enmity of gang boss Rico (André Ekyan), who repaid Corey’s years of jail-time silence by shacking up with Corey’s girl. Vogel (Gian Maria Volonté) is on-the-run after a daring train escape from dedicated Inspector Mattei (André Bourvil). And retired police sharp-shooter Jansen (Yves Montand) just needs a reason to stop hitting the bottle. All of them will come together for a heist.

It’s a classic journey for Melville, another exploration of the director’s love for stripped-back cool with a bunch of broodingly silent 40s throwback crooks in Bogartian-rain-jackets puffing cigarettes and going about their dirty-but-strangely-honourable business in a monochromatic world of nightclubs and hideouts. So far, in fact, so Le Samouraï, Melville’s previous Delon starrer, with Le Cercle Rouge echoing that film’s mix of stripped-back Bresson simplicity with French New Wave existentialism. Like that film, this also starts with an import-filled opening quote (claiming to be from the Buddha) which in fact, Melville actually made-up.

Le Cercle Rouge was a film Melville had planned to make years earlier – only for Rififi to come along and execute (flawlessly) his central conceit of a heist conducted in deadly-cool silence. (“They’re not much for talking” Mattei drily observes here when watching the surveillance footage.) But enough time had gone by for the idea to feel fresh again and the heist is another masterfully forensic piece of Melville-magic, that soaks itself in the detail of carefully executed timing, pin-point marksmanship, just a touch of ruthless violence and unflappable cool. (He even speeds us over the duller parts of the prep with skilfully executed wipes). Montand even gets a kick-ass moment of marksmanship that nearly raises a cheer.

The thieves go about much of their work with ice-cold professionalism. We’ve already had Corey’s anti-authoritarian cool well-established, as he effortlessly disarms and steals a bundle of cash from the furious (and humiliated) Rico before casually besting in a pool-hall punch-up two of Rico’s heavies (Corey doesn’t hesitate to take down the first man in seconds with a pool cue). He’s similarly unphased by taking his new car through a police road-block – neither is he anything more than wryly amused when he spots (naturally, while supping an expresso and cigarette) Vogel climbing into the boot of said car to avoid the cops. Its Delon to a tee, here playing to the hilt the casual, confident cool of a guy who knows he’s pretty much tougher than anyone else in the room.

He’s meets a match of sort in Vogel – in what Melville develops into his idea of bromance, where the bros are two hoods who bound over popping a couple of hitmen. Vogel’s escape from the police has a wildness to it that’s almost missing in the rest of the film until its end, a desperate dive through a window and a helter-skelter run through the forest dodging bullets. There is more twitch in Gian Maria Volonté, but when he decides to trust Corey – and Melville captures this moment with a striking fourth-wall-breaking stare in turn from both actors straight down the camera – he’s all in. So much so, Corey is confident that when Rico’s thugs catch up with him moments later, Vogel will be on hand to dispatch the pair of them, and the two remain inseparable (Corey even loaning Vogel his spare pyjamas) throughout the rest of the movie.

It’s these bonds of loyalty that are an underlying theme to Le Cercle Rouge. In a crime world full of bounders who constantly betray those around them – from Rico’s betrayal of Corey to François Périer’s excellently grimy boss Santi only slightly reluctantly turning informer to make his life easier – these men stand out. The cops seem little better: Melville’s policemen are frequently heavy-handed (Mattei frustratedly has to slap down one cop for pushing Santi’s kid almost to breaking point in a manufactured case set up as a light bit of quid-pro-quo with the gangster), have little loyalty for each other and reach for their guns at every opportunity. Corey’s prison guard is on the take and ex-sharp-shooter Jansen left the force because the corruption was sinking into his soul.

Probably why Jansen is now a drunk, Melville introducing him with a strikingly surreal Buñuel-inspired nightmare, where the sweating Montand imagines jerky, giant spiders, then rats and snakes crawling over him in his gin-soaked bedsit. Nevertheless, Montand has his own code of honour: the job is not about the money, but the chance to chuck the demon drink. And he’s got as much contempt for the police’s corruption as anyone, despite that proudly framed police pistol on his wall. Montand’s nervy attempts to hide his booze dependency are well-done, and Melville executes some fine tension by not showing us the results of Jansen’s pre-heist shooting practice, showing us only Montand’s ambiguous face as he inspects the target.

Arrayed against them, André Bourvil brings a Maigret-like quality to Inspector Mattei – the guy who goes home to his classically-named cats, who he dotes on like a loving dad – but when action comes, he’s just as ruthless as anyone, for all his softly spoken professionalism. He’ll lie, cheat and steal to get evidence or witness co-operation and is as quick to pull his gun (and as deadly with it) as the most hardened criminal. In this cruel, winner-takes-all game of cops-and-robbers (and it’s hard not to spot Michael Mann’s Heat owes a huge debt to Le Cercle Rouge, right down to matching his cooly monochrome visuals) he’s as determined to win as anyone.

Le Cercle Rouge has an odd ending, all characters converging almost with a sense of magical realism in one place, at one time. Of course, this echoes the words of Melville’s opening words of men coming together, on a said day, in the red circle – but then you remember that this quote is just some bollocks Melville made up and it was probably written to add a little bit of philosophical justification to what would otherwise be a very sudden and shallowly plotted, fortuitously unlikely, arrival of every character in a key location at the same time. With the expected deadly results.

Le Cercle Rouge though is taut, chilled and cool Melville at his best, with a dark air of danger throughout and a host of characters playing metaphorical chess while puffing cigarettes and looking unflustered. And, when it comes to that sort of thing, few did it better than Melville.

Hell’s Angels (1930)

Hughes magnificent folly has stunning scenes of aerial combat, among it’s more functional dialogue scenes

Director: Howard Hughes (& James Whale)

Cast: Ben Lyon (Monte Rutledge), James Hall (Roy Rutledge), Jean Harlow (Helen), John Darrow (Karl Armstedt), Lucien Prival (Baron von Kranz), Roy Wilson (Baldy Maloney)

There is an old line about Orson Welles calling a film set “the biggest train set a boy ever had”. A feeling no doubt shared by Howard Hughes, one of the wealthiest men in America, who loved pouring his fortune into his private passions: fast planes and big movies. So, why not throw the two of them together into Hell’s Angels, the film which he planned to use to scoop recent Best Picture winner Wings title as the greatest fighter-ace film ever made. To get there, money would be no object at all.

Which meant Hughes didn’t think twice of reshooting most of the film over again when sound took over Hollywood. After all, why not put more money in: he had already spent millions on assembling a personal army of world-war-one planes, all of them frequently kept waiting on the ground for days on end (pilots and film crew sitting around collecting pay cheques) while he waited for the clouds to be perfectly positioned to best demonstrate the speed the planes flew at. Since he was waiting, why not bring in James Whale to re-shoot all the dialogue scenes with all the actual talking?

Whale came on board, fresh from directing Journey’s End on Broadway (after his work was finished, Hell’s Angels release was so further delayed he had time to shoot a film of that too and release it before anyone outside Hughes’ office saw a frame of Hell’s Angels), Whale first insisted the script be re-written. Hughes was more than happy with that, since I doubt he really gave a damn about the very-loose story used to join together the bits with the planes in. The cast was kept the same, bar one change: original female lead Greta Nissen’s Norwegian accent was judged impenetrable, so Jean Harlow was bought in to slip into something a little more comfortable in her place.

Not that it mattered particularly. The story of Hell’s Angels is simplicity itself. Two Brit brothers (though neither them or Harlow make any attempt to change their accents) join the flying corp at the outbreak of war. One brother, Monte (Ben Lyon), is a selfish, care-free rogue. The other, Roy (James Hall) is so painfully noble and dutiful (he even fights duels on behalf of the cowardly Monte) he’s nearly an idiot. Roy loves Helen (Jean Harlow) but is utterly unaware that she is nymphomaniac vamp who will do it with anything in a uniform – including Monte. Monte thinks war is a fool’s crusade, Roy considers it well-worth dying for – attitudes that will lead to a clash when they both volunteer for what turns out to be a suicide mission behind enemy lines.

None of this is particularly a surprise and, despite Harlow’s charisma, none of the three leads particularly stand-out on the acting front (though James Hall makes a decent fist of Monte’s big speech on the suicidal futility of war). Each of these characters is fairly thin in any case, and none of their actions carry any real surprise factor at any point. Whale shoots the dialogue scenes with a breezy competence, doing his best with material that on paper would hardly be winning any plaudits.

In fact, the most interesting thing about these scenes is how much it seems to subvert expectations of a martial flag-waver. It’s natural to assume the cowardly brother will either redeem himself or shown to be completely in the wrong, while the noble brother will be vindicated. In fact, Hell’s Angels ends up having more than a little sympathy with Monte who, while undeniably “yellow” (he looks terrified after his first solo flight and its downhill from there), is also given a fair bit of sympathy when he rants about war being murder and patriotism being just a word. It’s hard not to feel he’s right after watching the insane uber-nationalism of the German zeppelin crew who willingly fling themselves to their death to lighten their ship with cries of “Kaiser and Reich!” on their lips.

Just as it’s hard not to think Roy’s blind-nobility makes him less of a hero and more of a clueless buffoon. How he misses that Helen (who, at one point, staggers out of a bush immediately followed by an officer straightening his uniform) is as shallow as a puddle and faithful as a cat in heat is a complete mystery. It’s hard not to see him as a duped cuckold, cluelessly waiting for Monte in their digs (unaware Monte and Helen are currently going at it), or insanely obsessed with honour as he nearly gets himself killed fighting a duel in Monte’s place. It’s not surprising that (as Monte says) war is “like being drunk – it brings out who you really are”. It makes Monte increasingly wild and selfish, and Roy increasingly mule-like his in rigid following of form.

This subliminal interest is the best spark you can take from the otherwise fairly turgid dialogue scenes. The real interest is those dog fight scenes. And they remain outstanding today. There was no question Hughes wasn’t going to direct those – and he directed them from the sky himself, calling the shots from a plane amongst the action. These sequences are all stunningly assembled and genuinely compelling in their sense of speed and danger. There is also a real visual beauty to them: in particular a shot of a German zeppelin emerging from blue tinged clouds is awe-inspiring. The epic sweep of tight formation planes, swooping closely between each other, tailing each other, bullets flying and pilots whizzing by is brilliant.

And the film doesn’t shirk on the horrors. Flames – whether they come from machine guns or from burning planes – are hand painted yellow to make the destruction stand out. The human impact on the pilots is brilliantly captured. During these battles, pilots will burn or die with blood streaming from their mouth. Panicked flyers will gulp back shots of whiskey midair, or scream in agony as their bullet riddled planes and bodies crash to the ground. Planes ram into each other in fiery explosions, or streak bullets across each other. That’s not to mention the horrifying madness of that German zeppelin crew stepping into the oblivion of a long fall, pushed towards their fate by their fanatically insane captain (who has already sacrificed/murdered sympathetic German Karl – an old college friend of Monte and Roy – to lighten the zeppelin).

The dog fight sequences are compelling and if the drama on the ground never quite reaches these heights, in a way that’s only to be expected. For all the quiet subversion – and it’s up to you how much you think Hughes noticed or cared about that – they are functional moments to carry us to the drama in the skies. That’s what Hell’s Angels does best – and few have done it better.

American Graffiti (1973)

Comforting, nostalgia-tinged film, full of wit and comedy, but without a real sense of insight

Director: George Lucas

Cast: Richard Dreyfuss (Curt), Ron Howard (Steve), Paul Le Mat (John), Charles Martin Smith (Terry the Toad), Candy Clark (Debbie), Mackenzie Phillips (Carol), Cindy Williams (Laurie), Wolfman Jack (Himself), Bo Hopkins (Joe), Harrison Ford (Bob Falfa)

Years before he went a long time ago to a galaxy far, far away, George Lucas went not nearly so far back or away: Modesto, California 11 years earlier for a story seeped in nostalgia about the America he remembered growing up in. Much like Star Wars, studio execs thought this hardly sounded like a film people would pay money to see – only the support of a red-hot Francis Ford Coppola got it the green light. It then became one of the most profitable films ever made, repaying its tiny investment many, many times over – not to mention helping kick-start a nostalgic wave that would also (in a way) help Star Wars become a mega-hit.

Told over the final night of the summer vacation, four late teenage friends go through various coming-of-age quests. Curt (Richard Dreyfuss), having second thoughts about leaving for college, spends the night in a Quixotic quest for a girl who mouthed ‘I love you’ to him from a passing car. Best friend Steve (Ron Howard) is more keen to depart, despite the pleas of his girlfriend (and Curt’s sister) Laurie (Cindy Williams). Their geeky friend Terry (Charles Martin Smith) desperately tries to impress Debbie (Candy Clark) with a borrowed car. And cool kid John (Paul Le Mat), is saddled with 12-year old Carol (Mackenzie Phillips) while fending off a challenge for his drag-racing crown from Bob Falfa (Harrison Ford).

There is an undeniable charm to American Graffiti so it’s not remotely a surprise it was a smash hit – or that, with its warm nostalgia for what felt a simpler, happier time, it helped inspire (among many other things) hit sitcom Happy Days. Lucas made the film after the disappointment of his debut, THX 1138, a chilling piece of dystopian sci-fi unlike anything else he ever made again. His segue into something fun, unchallenging and entertainingly crowd-pleasing as this marked a shift that stretched over the rest of his career: a desire to produce stuff the regular cinema-goer wanted to see.

American Graffiti is brilliantly assembled, cut together with a superb sense of pace by Marica Lucas and Verna Fields as it moves between what is effectively four short films. What’s particularly striking about its well-timed pace is that it never jars that, fundamentally, all four stories are thematically the same: horny young men learn lessons and reach surprising decisions in comic situations that place them out of their comfort zones. It’s further helped by its sharp dialogue – Lucas turned over his storyline to Gloria Katz and Wiliard Huyck to punch it up (as Stars Wars prequels viewers know only too well, dialogue was never Lucas’s strength).

It’s all then extremely well-executed by the cast. Best in show, not surprisingly, is Richard Dreyfuss who rode the wave from here to create one of the most impressive 1970s CVs. Dreyfuss – already nearly 25 when playing this teen – has just the right balance of naïve, dreamy decency and cheeky charm as a young man struggling to leave childhood behind to grow-up. He has a brilliant sense of comic timing for his smart-aleck one-liners, while totally convincing as the sort of romantic kid who wants to believe in love-at-first-sight. From awkwardly covering-up a dime-store theft, to impishly sabotaging a police car, or launching into a romantic plea for help in locating the woman who has stolen his heart with a glance, it’s a stand-out performance.

Ron Howard as the want-away Steve who begins to question his decisions, has less spark not helped that the interplay between him and Cindy Williams’ Laurie makes for the film’s dullest and most earnest pairing (both actors went onto play versions of these characters in Happy Days). Especially since they are contrasted with the comedy of mishaps (failed attempts to get alcohol, car jackings, bungled attempts to tackle thieves) of a very funny Charles Martin Smith (cementing a career of geeks) and Oscar-nominated Candy Clark, funny and very sweet as a cool girl who wants something meaningful from the boys fawning over her. The final pairing has some similarly sparky interplay between Paul Le Mat’s frustrated cool-kid, secretly worried his best days are already behind him and Mackenzie Phillips’ precocious pre-teen.

All this take place in a setting marinated in nostalgia and charm. It is a reassuring, unchallenging and romantic view of a particular era in American cultural history. One before the challenges of counterculture, Watergate and Vietnam. It harkened back to an era where kids had neatly cut-hair and wore plaid-shirts tucked into their trousers; where the most dangerous thing a teenager might do is thumb their nose at bossy cops or bum a bottle of booze. All four of the kids are the sort any girl could bring home to their parents without any concern about how they would be received, and even the film’s nominal bad boy is a stand-up guy with firm principles and loyalty.

In fact, what becomes clear is, unlike films from the likes of Fellini (which partly inspired Lucas) this is without any real introspection at all. Other films – take a look at Last Picture Show – would have looked at this setting and wondered if there are darker elements underpinning small town America. Prejudices, jealousies and the like – or the sort of dark foreshadowing of historical traumas like Vietnam and Nixon being just round the corner. There is none of that there – so little in fact that it’s a little jarring when the film’s on-screen “what happened in next” reveals two of its leads would suffer tragic early deaths, one in Vietnam (it’s also jarring – even at the time – that these on-screen captions tell us nothing at all about the futures of the female characters).

It’s a reminder that Lucas is an entertainer, not a director looking to challenge or explore deeper truths. And, to be fair to him, if he had really allowed American Graffiti more space to acknowledge the darkness to come, or some of the less seemly sides of small-town life, it certainly wouldn’t have become one of the most profitable films of all time. Instead, this is a film that served as a warm hug, a rose-tinted memory of what their childhoods might have been like, when everything was simpler, safer and more straight-forward and the biggest problem you could possibly face was finding the girl you liked and dealing with college. It’s undeniable entertaining, fun and heart-warmingly enjoyable, but it’s also a carefully reassuring view of a far more complex world.