Category: Directors

The More the Merrier (1943)

Very funny farce, excellently acted with some near pin-perfect farce.

Director: George Stevens

Cast: Jean Arthur (Constance Milligan), Joel McCrea (Joe Carter), Charles Coburn (Benjamin Dingle), Richard Gaines (Charles J Pendergast), Bruce Bennett (FBI Agent Evans), Frank Sully (FBI Agent Pike), Don Douglas (FBI Agent Hardy)

Wartime in Washington and housing space is at a premium, with the city full to bursting. Here to solve this housing problem is millionaire Benjamin Dingle (Charles Coburn), who is ironically unable to find a place himself to lay his head. Luckily, through charm and bull-headed perseverance, he persuades young statistician Constance Milligan (Jean Arthur) to sub-let her apartment to him. Taking a shine to the buttoned-up Constance, Dingle sub-lets half of his half to army engineer Sergeant Joe Carter (Joel McCrea), planning to play Cupid. Something he commits to even more after meeting Constance’s stuffy pen-pushing fiancée Pendergast (Richard Gaines). As the Farragut-loving Dingle says: Full steam ahead and damn the torpedoes!

This zany set-up is delivered to the screen with plenty of bounce and zing by George Stevens. Especially its first half, a near master-class in pin-perfect, near-miss, door-opening-and-closing farce that would have made Chaplin or Keaton proud. The More the Merrier is a funny, surprisingly sexy film boosted by not taking itself too seriously and powered by three lead actors having a whale of a time. If its final resolution feels a little too forced – and Dingle’s manipulations at points verges towards the sinister – that doesn’t change the fact there are so many laugh-out-loud moments along the way.

The More the Merrier starts with a dry, witty sense of tongue-in-cheek parody as a sonorous news-reel voiceover introduces us to Washington where “living is pleasant and leisurely”, singing the praises of the city’s hospitality, fine dining and gentility while a montage of shots shows us it’s a whirligig of frantic movement, food grabbed on the street and “no vacancy” signs turned towards us with a slap. It’s a sign of the film’s wry wit and the fun it will have at the nonsense just behind the way we talk about everyday life. It’s also a sign that Stevens understands gags land best with a straight bat and a sly wink – a subtlety that serves the film well.

It’s first act, as Dingle and then Carter move into the home of the reluctant Constance, sees all three actors playing wonderfully into the straight-faced farce. An obsessive control-freak, running her life to a tight timetable, Constance hands a detailed minute-by-minute itinerary of the day’s first half hour to Dingle, that’s hilarious in its minutiae. Jean Arthur deserved an Oscar nomination for this scene alone, a perfect minute of ludicrously detailed instructions on everything from newspaper collecting to bathroom door closing to coffee brewing – with Coburn’s earnest bafflement equally fine. The inevitable disintegration of this plan the next day (a parade of the two locking each other out of the apartment, knocking into furniture, getting sprayed by an errant shower and losing a pair of trousers) is such a masterclass in farcical underplaying – in particular from Coburn – that it’s guaranteed to bring the house down.

But perhaps even better is the next morning, the first after Carter has been smuggled into the house without Constance’s knowledge. With only Dingle aware of the situation – and wanting to keep it secret as long as possible – Stevens positions the camera in the hall and delights us with a five-0minute sequence of perfectly timed door comedy, as McCrea and Arthur continuously just miss each other, culminating in a perfectly timed corridor cross where both actors only narrowly miss walking smack into each other. This is choreographed comedy at its finest.

The More the Merrier seems ripe for fast-paced screwball from there, but Stevens shifts gears into a romance that’s both natural and surprisingly sensual. He’s helped by the huge chemistry between Arthur and hand-picked co-star McCrea, who with minimal fuss and no grand-standing manage to communicate beautifully two people surprised to be absolutely besotted with each other. Their playing of Carter’s gifting of a travel case to Constance simmers with sexual tension, as McCrea quietly but intensely leans in to extol the virtues of every feature while Arthur breathlessly agrees – never before has excitement about a suitcase been such a clear stand-in for something else.

Their spark only grows, lingering glances and an intense desire to be left without the interference of Pendergast (Richard Gaines doing exactly what’s required as a tedious bore and obstacle to happiness). They have a late-night walking scene culminating in them sitting on their apartment stairs that feels like one of the raciest scenes in screwball. Stevens leans into this with his shooting of their bedrooms. Shot from the exterior, their windows subtly blur the rooms together (at one shot, the dividing wall is just a blurry line making the two appear to be in bed together) culminating in a final sequence that gets the slow-build to a final wall punchline spot on.

All of this works as well as it does thanks to the excellence of the three stars. Jean Arthur is very funny as a control-freak growing increasingly flustered as her well-organised life spins out of control (even if her final act wailing becomes a little wearing). McCrea perfectly mixes dry, low-key wit with a quiet sexuality. Coburn won an Oscar for possibly his finest ‘cheeky old uncle’ performance, a gruff mischief maker with a twinkle in his eye. All three of the actors spark of each other in any combination, right down to Coburn and McCrea throwing themselves into reading cartoons out loud with childish glee.

But the final act doesn’t quite deliver. A forced resolution involving the FBI never quite feels like it matches with what’s come before. The manipulations of Coburn’s character at times become a little too forceful – and it’s hard not to feel more than a little uncomfortable when he takes Constance’s accidentally abandoned diary and reads it out loud, an invasion of privacy the film never holds him to account for. If there is one point where the chemistry between Arthur and McCrea doesn’t land, its ironically in many of the final scenes, not helped by those continual frantic wails from Arthur. You get the sense Stevens had a great set-up but not quite a clear idea on how to finish it. But what gets us there is witty, fast-paced and very funny – and that’s just more than enough.

Avatar: Fire and Ash (2025)

Third chapter in the story and it covers some familiar ground to the first, while still being great to look at

Director: James Cameron

Cast: Sam Worthington (Jake Sully), Zoe Saldaña (Neytiri), Sigourney Weaver (Kiri), Stephen Lang (Colonel Miles Quaritch), Oona Chaplin (Varang), Cliff Curtis (Tonowari), Kate Winslet (Ronal), Joel David Moore (Dr Spellman), CCH Pounder (Mo’at), Edie Falco (General Ardmore), David Thewlis (Peylak), Jermaine Clement (Dr Garvin), Giovanni Ribisi (Parker Selfridge), Britain Dalton (Lo’ak), Jamie Flatters (Neteyam), Trinity Jo-Li Bliss (Tuktirey), Jack Champion (Spider), Brendan Cowell (Captain Scoresby)

Back to Pandora we go. You can’t deny the beauty and spectacle of James Cameron’s imaginary world. Does Avatar: Fire and Ash take us anywhere the previous two films didn’t? On paper, I suppose it does. Some new locations, an interesting new tribe, some new visual wonders. But narratively, no it really doesn’t. Avatar: Fire and Ash perhaps shows the limits of the Avatar universe, essentially presenting us remixed elements of the previous two films, set out over a huge running time. It’s hard not to think that, already, we’ve seen it all before.

Picking off where the previous film left off, Jake (Sam Worthington) and Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña) mourn the death of their son Neteyam. With Neytiri increasingly hostile to humans and adopted human honorary son Spider (Jack Champion) just one failed breathing device away from dropping dead on Pandora, the decision is made to take him back to the rebel human scientists. En route, the family are attacked by a savage, fire-worshipping Na’vi tribe, led by the aggressive Varang (Oona Chaplin).

In the chaos, daughter Kiri (Sigourney Weaver) discovers her unique bond with spirit of the planet Eywa, giving her the power to give Spider the ability to breathe Pandora’s toxic-to-humans air. This makes Spider the centre of a deadly game of push-and-pull: if the humans can retro-engineer his ability, they could conquer Pandora; if Jake lets him live, he will always be a danger. Then there’s the influence of Spider’s natural father, Quaritch (Stephen Lang), still living on in his Na’vi body, but increasingly fighting his own battles – and joining a passionate alliance with the dangerously destructive Varang.

I watched Avatar: Fire and Ash in about three chunks on Disney+. Which I actually think does the film a lot of favours. For starters, it avoids the crushing weight of watching the whole four hours in one sitting. Secondly, giving it an episodic breakdown like that works rather well with Cameron’s narrative structure which breaks the film down into three natural acts (conflicted opening – separated family – unity in the final battle). But what it can’t disguise is the fact that so much of this film feels like reheated elements of the previous films. Right down to the film’s final battle, which combines narrative and visual elements of the final battles of both the previous films, in both the sky and the air.

Throw that in with not only a repeat of Sully’s ‘chosen’ status and many elements of his original story gifted to daughter Kiri (though Sully clings on to more than enough of it). Sigourney Weaver has a lot of fun with the way motion capture gives her the chance to play a teenager, but her passionate, slightly scared exploration of what might be her profound powers does feel rather similar to Jake’s own journey in the original film. Even Neytiri’s increased hostility towards the humans sees her just taking on elements of her original families storylines and emotions, with her children shifted to her role in the first film.

The most original element of the film is the introduction of Varang’s tribe of Viking like savages, burning settlements down and disfiguring fellow Na’vi simply (it seems) for the hell of it. This brutal, destructive force in the series feels fascinatingly new – not least since Cameron’s depiction of the Na’vi has so often seen them portrayed as peaceful, Kumbia types at one with nature. Their savagery is visceral and embodied extremely well by Oona Chaplin, who contorts her body into sensual and violent shapes. Chaplin gives Varang a terrifying sadistic glee, quivering with excitement when she discovers the power of machine guns and viciously lashing at anyone who challenges her with a monomaniacal energy. She’s the shot in the arm the film really needs.

Bits in Fire and Dust are similarly slightly fresher. Cameron sprinkles in little bits of originality. The families grief at the loss of one of their own in the previous film – and the unspoken blame felt and given – is told tenderly. Sully’s moral dilemma about whether, for the greater good, he will dispatch Abraham-like his adopted son Spider is well drawn. There are interesting suggestions that Quaritch is starting to embrace parts of his new-found Na’vi skin more than he expected (considering his knee-jerk racism), and his confused parental feelings towards Spider are well played by Lang. But the characters relentless, Terminator-like indestructibility is starting to get a bit weary now.

Similarly, too much else feels familiar. The portrait of the Sully kids is better drawn – and Weaver gets some good material as Kiri goes on a spiritual journey in some visually impressive (what else!) visions. But much of their dialogue still has a clunky “Hey Bro!” feeling to it. The themes about the struggles between pacifism and rising up to fight when needed feel very well explored now from the previous films.

Cameron does land a few anti-guns points, with only Varang’s tribe of lunatics embracing them. He piles on the praise at the power of nature and bonds that unite us. There is a genuine pleasure in seeing the human hunters of the intelligent whale-like creatures on Pandora meet their comeuppance. One thing Cameron does well in these things is making the villains so repulsive and unsympathetic that we cheer happily at seeing them meet well-deserved ends. But the set-pieces, stunning and exciting as they frequently are, rarely offer anything new either dramatically or narratively. Like the rest of the film, they fit into a familiar template that suggests the world of Pandora offers few further opportunities.

It’s interesting to consider if the two sequels Cameron plans will manage to find somewhere new to take us in this marvellous technicolour world of awe-inspiring visuals. But I worry that those films too will benefit from being broken down into three digestible, almost more enjoyable chapters of a familiar story on a streaming service, rather than an overwhelming three and a half hour trawl through ground, stunning that it is, we have all walked over before.

Heaven Can Wait (1943)

Lubitsch brings his touch to death and infidelity all flown under the wire of the Hays Code

Director: Ernst Lubitsch

Cast: Gene Tierney (Martha), Don Ameche (Henry Van Cleve), Charles Coburn (Hugo Van Cleve), Marjorie Main (Mrs Strable), Laird Cregar (His Excellency), Spring Byrington (Bertha Van Cleve), Allyn Joslyn (Albert Van Cleve), Eugene Pallette (EF Strable), Signe Hasso (Mademoiselle), Louis Calhern (Randolph Van Cleve), Helen Reynolds (Peggy Nash), Clarence Muse (Jasper), Tod Andrews (Jack Van Cleve)

If you are going to start a film in Hell, it helps if you have the Lubitsch touch. Heaven Can Wait tells the life story of the late Henry Van Cleve (Don Ameche), a charming old roué being interviewed by ‘His Excellency’ (Laird Cregar) at the entrance of a place ‘where innumerable people had so often told him to go’. Van Cleve’s life is one of general well-meaning romance, from his boyhood discovery that kissing a girl doesn’t mean you have to marry her, through to his elopement with Martha (Gene Tierney), the intended of his stuffy cousin, his winning her back after his (implied) good-natured faithlessness, and their happy decades of marriage and his roguishly flirtatious final years.

Perhaps only Lubitsch had the wit – and cheek – to sneak the story of a shameless Casanova under the Hays Code wire as a sort of heart-warmingly decent fable. Because, in many ways, Henry Van Cleve is exactly the sort of person the Code had doubts about – and of course Lubitsch loved: a debonair, classy man of means, who appreciates fine art and beautiful woman, would die of shock at the idea of a hard day’s work and never repents his choices for a second. Played with a bashful smile and wide-eyed honesty (even innocence) by Ameche, this is the sort of seducer the Hays Code could get behind (especially as Lubitsch subtly blurs the reality of his many conquests).

But than you also can’t imagine any other director presenting Satan like this. He’s embodied by Laird Cregar as a sort of genial bank manager – in a Hell that looks like a hotel lobby – whose hilarious dropping (Bond-villain like) of a loud-mouthed society Grande Dame down a trap door mid-conversation only makes us like him more. Our framing device runs us through a series of Henry’s crucial birthdays (the original play was even titled ‘Birthday’ – Heaven Can Wait is a much better title), many of them making a hilarious mini-film themselves, with sharp-edged dialogue perfectly captured by Lubitsch’s smooth and witty camera, that knows just how long to hold a shot.

Heaven Can Wait is full of just-under-the-wire sexual energy, disguised but very apparent today. What else are we to make of new Van Cleve maid ‘Mademoiselle’ (a very funny Signo Hasso) announcing her two years working for a duke were what he called “the happiest of his life”? Not to mention the life advice – kissing don’t mean marriage – she gives the Van Cleve (who learned, as a boy, when wooing an impressed girl with his insect pets that it pays to have ‘lots of beetles’). Or the clear implication Henry and Mademoiselle spend a wild night sharing far more than just a bottle of champagne.

Lubitsch hints at this with mutual hiccups. Throughout Heaven Can Wait coughs, sneezes and hiccups serve as a code for very different bodily outbursts (that of course couldn’t be shown). Wooing Martha in his tedious cousin’s (a very funny role of pedantic tedium for Allyn Joslyn) library during a terrible private concert, Martha’s sneezing fit is a clear substitute for her real feelings. Perhaps only Lubitsch could have disguised this mutual wild sexual elopement as something reassuringly pure. There is something very sweet about Ameche passing himself off as a book-store clerk to spark conversation with Tierney as she searches for How to please your husband (a title ripe for inevitable innuendo).

As with Ameche, Lubitsch gets a light, underplayed performance by Tierney that makes these two feel like a perfect pair. Heaven Can Wait’s fourth movement sees Martha flying the marriage home after suspecting Henry of an affair. Henry reassures her it is a misunderstanding – but with such ease, and such heavy breathing fluster on Martha’s part – it feels pretty clear Lubitsch is inviting us to understand perhaps Martha thinks fidelity is an optional extra with someone she has such hots for. It’s all conveyed with such lightness – and Ameche plays Henry with such innocent earnestness, never once tipping the wink – it’s extremely funny.

As you’d expect with Lubitsch, the film is full of marvellous comic touches. Charles Coburn is excellent as Henry’s worldly-wise grandfather, who might love his family but only really likes Henry. Coburn’s wry amusement at Henry’s antics is consistently hilarious, Lubitsch gifting him two perfectly timed wonderful sight gags (one with a glass of water, the other seeing him emerge suddenly from a crowd). Even better though is the wonderful set-piece of Martha’s feuding parents (played with perfect passive aggressive bluster by Eugene Pallette and Marjorie Main), sitting at opposite ends of a long table, communicating only through long-suffering servant Jasper (a very refreshing role for Clarence Muse, where the Black man is smartest in the room). Lubitsch films this in a single take, gliding from table end to end which only magnifies the humour.

The first 70 minutes of Heaven Can Wait are so good – sharp, cheeky, funny – that when the Van Cleves effectively elope again, it perhaps would be better the film ends. Sadly, the final half hour dials up the sentiment (as Henry tries to steer his son away from a life of debauchery, an older Martha nobly resigns herself to cancer and Henry meets his end) and the energy drains out. Even Satan gets a moralistic, happy-ever-after closing speech! This closing act is duller, considerably less snappy and very easy to drift off in. You feel Lubitsch exhausted his interest and filmed the final act by contractual obligation.

But until then, this is a sharp, witty, delightful comedy, crammed with great performances. It balances naughty charm with surprisingly dark undertones (with each movement forward, more and more characters die off, a dark reminder this film opened in the afterlife) and has more than enough laughs in its first 70 minutes for you to sit through the closing 25. Perhaps second-tier Lubitsch, but his second tier his others first.

The Sundowners (1960)

Gentle episodic family drama, powered by some strong performances and lovely scenery

Director: Fred Zinnemann

Cast: Deborah Kerr (Ida Carmody), Robert Mitchum (Paddy Carmody), Peter Ustinov (Rupert Venneker), Glynis Johns (Mrs Firth), Dina Merrill (Jean Halstead), Chips Rafferty (Quinlan), Michael Anderson Jnr (Sean Carmody), Lola Brooks (Liz Brown), Wylie Watson (Herb Johnson), John Mellion (Bluey Brown), Ronald Fraser (Clint Ocker)

Who wants to settle down when the open road, and all the adventure it promises, lies ahead? Sure not Paddy Carmody (Robert Mitchum), an Irish-Australian sheep drover in the 1920s Australian outback, who loves the freedom of your home being wherever the sun goes down. Problem is, his loving wife Ida (Deborah Kerr) and teenage son Sean (Michael Anderson Jnr) are tired of this itinerant lifestyle. They want to put down some roots, ideally on an available farm they’ve got their eye on. But can they persuade the easy-going Paddy to settle down in the same old four walls?

This makes for some gentle, family friendly drama in this easy-going, episodic film which relies on some lovely location footage and a clutch of very charming performances to carry the day. While you can see links with some of the other film’s on Zinnemann’s CV – in the loose sense that Paddy has to choose whether to take a gentle stand by staying in one place for more than a few weeks – really it’s a leisurely ramble through a clutch of crowd-pleasing vignettes. The Sundowners probably stretches on a little too long, but it’s just about charming enough not to outstay its welcome.

Largely shot in Australia, it also follows Stanley Kramer’s On the Beach in introducing the country to American audiences. The difference being, while On the Beach was largely shot in Melbourne, all of the external footage here is in the dustbowl outback. These panoramas give The Sundowners the feel of a family western, with the Carmodys as decent, honest homesteaders. It’s a very familiar language for the film, spiced up by the film not shirking on chucking plenty of exciting wildlife. The parade of kangaroos, koalas and wombats that we get to see bouncing and crawling around – often looking impossibly sweet and cuddly – must have been catnip to audiences.

The Sundowners also presents an endearing, if terminally cliched, view of Australian life. With the dialogue littered with “g’days” and “fair dinkum” and the like, The Sundowners presents an affectionate portrait of Australian farmhands as honest, boisterous, hard-drinkers, quick to blows and equally quick to laughs straight after. The menfolk, after a hard day’s work driving sheep, like nothing better than to gather in the bar for a few cold ones or the barn for a few cheeky gambles. They’re decent, easy-going, never hold grudges and are a loyal, supportive community – naturally the bonds of friendship are formed in a mass punch-up which quickly turns into a boozy bonding session.

The Carmody’s fit right into this, with the family presented as a warm and supportive unit that, despite occasional disagreements, sticks together through thick and thin. At its heart is the relationship between Ida and Paddy, which is warm, affectionate and has a surprisingly strong sexuality in it (it’s hard not to notice their obvious continued attraction for each other, not least in a bedtime scene with a topless Mitchum). That also comes out of the natural, easy chemistry between Mitchum and Kerr (working together here for the fourth time) who genuinely feel like they’ve been together for years.

While you could take a pop at both actors less than faultless Australian accents, I prefer to think it’s smarter than that: Mitchum’s accent is half-way between Dublin and Brisbane, which feels right as does Kerr’s British-tinged Aussie. What’s more important is both actors give endearingly fine performances. Mitchum brings out a gentle, childlike quality, to Paddy. He’s softly-spoken, prone to moan rather than rage when things don’t go his way (his teenage sulk when roped into a sheep shearing contest is rather funny) and throws himself into things with all his heart – be that thrilled at a betting winning streak or mortified when a later streak goes wrong.

Perhaps even better though is Kerr, who mixes a motherly streak (she’s essentially looking after two kids’ here) with a determined outback assertiveness that sees her mucking in as much with the sheep driving as she does the cooking. But there’s also a soulful longing in Kerr’s performance for something more grounded in her life – a moment where, covered in dust and dirt, she stares at a woman adjusting her make-up on a train, radiates a longing for something more permanent in her life. But, while she may lose her temper with Paddy, she’ll never hold a grudge or leave us in doubt about her love for him. It’s a lovely, sensitive but strong performance.

Perhaps best in show here though is Ustinov, having a whale-of-a-time as grizzled old (pseudo?) posh drifter Rupert who the family effectively adopts and is as in love with the drifting life as Paddy. The role allows Ustinov to be tougher and more manly than ever before, while also using his natural gifts for whimsy and shameless yarn-spinning. Rupert, wearing a sailers cap allegedly from his service in the Chinese navy, claims expertise in everything, to have grown up doing any task you name and loves the refined things in life as much as he has a soft spot for the flirtatious arms of Glynis John’s blousy inn-keeper. It’s a very funny, but also surprisingly layered performance – if Ustinov hadn’t won the Oscar that year for Spartacus he would have stood a good chance of winning for this.

The Sundowners marshals these fine actors into a series of set-piece episodes. From driving sheep across the outback, to settling down at a farm, to the delivery of farmhand’s baby, Sean’s first beer, a sheep-shearing contest (where Paddy is royally hustled by an old timer), an epic coin toss contest, the closing adventures with the family’s newly won race-house Sundowner (with some well shot racing footage), the film constantly throws us into another small drama-within-a-drama, each unspooling with the same warmth and charm.

The Sundowners is, at heart, a slight tale and probably is overextended over its two hour plus. Much of its Australian setting, so eye-opening at the time, looks a bit twee and cliched today. But it’s got strong performances across the board, a good heart and a firm hand holding it together. It’s not a classic for the ages, but is a charming afternoon’s entertainment.

The Odyssey (2026)

Nolan’s epic takes deep, thoughtful bites out of Homer, looks amazing but maybe tries to do too much

Director: Christopher Nolan

Cast: Matt Damon (Odysseus), Tom Holland (Telemachus), Anne Hathaway (Penelope), Robert Pattinson (Antinous), Lupita Nyong’o (Helen of Troy/Clytemnestra), Samantha Morton (Circe), John Leguizamo (Eumaeus), Zendaya (Athena), Charlize Theron (Calypso), John Bernthal (Menelaus), Himesh Patel (Eurylochus), Bill Irwin (Polyphemus), Elliot Page (Sinon), Benny Safdie (Agamemnon), Mia Goth (Melantho), Corey Hawkins (Polybus), Logan Marshall-Green (Melanthius)

I think pretty much everyone knows the story: Odysseus (Matt Damon), after ten years fighting the Trojan War, has the longest, most hellish commute ever. Will he see his Kingdom of Ithaca again, or wife Penelope (Anne Hathaway) and now-grown son Telemachus (Tom Holland) again? And, even if he does, what will he do about the fact his home is awash with hostile suitors, led by the bullying Antinous (Robert Pattinson) who want to take his throne and wife for themselves?

Nolan’s adaptation of Homer is epic as few other films are. Shot it seems with the whole Mediterranean (and Iceland for good measure) as a soundstage, its visual imagery is almost impossible to beat, shot with immense skill for IMAX without letting the scale flood the story. It’s a surprisingly faithful retelling of the legend, with Homer’s non-linear style catnip for an architect storyteller like Nolan, who promptly opens the film in the final year of the timeline and spools backwards and forwards from there.

The film is set in “a time of apparent magic”, an oblique idea in a world of Cyclopes and trips to Hades (a stunningly, bleakly unsettling vast black landmass, with bodies crawling forward to sip goats blood and share terrible prophecies), but where the presence of the Gods is open to interpretation. Zeus cracks thunder and Poseidon rolls waves, but maybe it’s just superstition. Is Odysseus right to be a sceptic? The only God present is Athena, played with warm distance by Zendaya, who may or may not be a figment of Odysseus guilty conscience.

Despite its length, it frequently zips along, with a marvellously staged sequence from Homer cropping up every few minutes. Sequences like the Fitzcarraldo-like laborious dragging of a wooden horse (half buried in the sand) that looks like a grim bronze statue of a bucking horse, over many miles by the luckless Trojans are brilliantly done. It’s hard to fault almost anything about its production. But it’s not perfect.

Perhaps the major thing missing from Nolan’s film is a sense of personal hubris (as opposed to the imperial hubris of Agamemnon). Nolan has a very interesting interpretative idea of the fall of Troy being effectively the fall of man, the deception and brutality being a Bronze age Hiroshima. But a more interesting film would have seen Odysseus initially proud of his role in this orgy of war-ending killing, only to realise during the disastrous journey home he is in fact the villain. That he broke his own sacred code, of twanging the bow to warn the prey. Instead, Odysseus is plainly aware of his crimes from the start, and his shame perversely gives the character little room to develop, beyond Nolan’s implication his journey is self-inflicted.

Strangely then, it’s hard to get a sense of the journey changing Odysseus. Nolan is far more successful as seeing the whole film as a self-inflicted punishment. Odysseus doesn’t believe he deserves to go home. Instead, as the destroyer of peace and order, part of him embraces his journey (he even leaves Troy on a self-imposed longer route, over his crew’s protests). While his long exile with Calypso is largely pushed into montage, the film implies Odysseus willingly eats the lotus to forget his guilt.

Nolan attempts to fill the gap by having Odysseus strain to save his crew’s lives. But, while Odysseus is weighed down with guilt, his crew emphatically isn’t; this borderline mutinous bunch merrily ransacking and burning a farming village. When Circe denounces this bunch as rapists in waiting, neither the film (or Odysseus) can really argue otherwise. The Odyssey can never quite decide what it feels about these characters, and their resentment at Odysseus for their numbers being whittled down tends to get outweighed by the film’s empathy for Odysseus’ guilt and shame.

There are similarly confused emotional lines in Odysseus relationship with young warrior Sinon. The Odyssey wants to establish Odysseus’ double betrayal of this man – first allowing Antonius to bully him into taking his place in the army, then using him as a pawn to get the Trojans to drag the horse into the city – as a foundational crime. But there isn’t time to establish a surrogate father-son bond between them, meaning Odysseus betrayal of Sinon feels muddily motivated. Again, the film wants to keep Odysseus sympathetic so avoids stating the conclusion he must have made: Sinon’s life is an acceptable sacrifice to end the war. The Odyssey leans heavily on Elliot Page’s sensitive, traumatised performance to make us fill in this blank.

This is a sign of Nolan’s film covering a lot of complex meat, without always finding room to digest it fully. Alongside this, he wants a more conventional, crowd-pleasing tale of a hero coming home to a loving wife. As part of this, many of the female characters of The Odyssey are stripped of some of their richness. Most egregiously, Charlize Theron’s Calypso and Zendaya’s Athena are little more than sounding boards for Odysseus. But even Penelope, despite an emotionally intense performance from Anne Hathaway, is more of a traditional faithful wife. Nolan is trying to show the vulnerability of her position in a masculine world – but you long for more sign of the shrewd resentful figure of either The Return or Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad.

Perhaps because this is because Nolan is grimly realistic in suggesting women are often trapped in victim roles in this male world. Lupita Nyong’o’s Helen of Troy may be critical of the Greeks but is also an abused wife (her face disfigured by Jon Bernthal’s brutish Menelaus), plagued with shame about how her name was used to justify so much death. Even Circe, the most complex and engaging female role, dreads becoming a victim. That doesn’t take away from the barn-storming cameo of resentment and paranoia by Samantha Morton. The creepy Cronenbergesque body-horror of Circe using her hands to craft the sailor’s faces into pigs – including shoving her hand down one man’s throat – is perhaps the film’s most unsettling moment.

What a lot of this comes back to is Nolan’s admittedly fascinating idea that Odysseus has opened a Pandora’s Box that unleashed destruction on the world. His burning of Troy, broke Zeus’s Law of treating guests as you yourself would wish to be treated. In echoes of Oppenheimer, Odysseus believes he has laid the groundwork for the end of the world, by creating one where hospitality can be betrayed and people’s word is no longer their bond (exactly the world the suitors are exploiting in Ithica).

This keys into Nolan’s most interesting concept. Throughout this subtly fracturing world – where the Gods may be falling silent and the world is shorn of rules – there are reports of ‘men of the sea’ roaming the coasts taking anything they want. Is this another cause for the Greeks to fight? Perhaps not: like nuclear weapons, violence become self-perpetuating. The actions of Odysseus crew should clue us in that these men are in fact the Greeks themselves, their humanity gone, continuing a cycle of destruction and death started by Odysseus who has “become death, destroyer of worlds”.

There are many, many good ideas in The Odyssey, which I’ve mulled over for several weeks after seeing the film. Fundamentally, I feel some of it doesn’t always land from the casting of Odysseus. Would Matt Damon have been my choice? Probably not: there is a boyish decency about Damon, not a tortured cunning. He’s probably not helped by recent memories of Ralph Fiennes (almost born to play the role), but Damon can’t bring out the depths of conflict, guilt, regret and misplaced pride in the way (say) Cillian Murphy did in Oppenheimer. Damon is a little too similar to the optimistic, earnest energy Tom Holland very successfully gives Telemachus. The Odyssey tries to follow The Return in making Odysseus keen to ensure Telemachus does follow him into a life of violence – but can’t resist giving Holland one last sword fight to flex his muscles.

I feel conflicted about The Odyssey and I need to see it again. It is so close to everything I wanted. Its practical effects and epic scenes with Polyphemus, the sirens and Sicilia and Charybdis have a wonderful Jason and the Argonauts feel to them that I loved. But it also feels quite damning that the sack of Troy is less shocking here than it was in Troy (especially as the brutality is at the heart of what the film is trying to do) and its final third covers similar ground to The Return, but (for me) with less clear-eyed honesty, awkwardly balancing action set-pieces and its thematically ‘happy’ ending.

But there are so many delights to appreciate, not least Ludwig Göransson’s imposing score, the stunning imagery and costume design (Ellen Mironijck’s imaginative use of a range of inspirations reaches an apotheosis in Agamemnon reimagined as a mix of Darth Vader and Batman). There are wonderful performances in smaller roles, not least Morton, Bernthal, Himesh Patel and most of all John Leguizamo as the loyal Eumaeus and Robert Pattinson as the despicable. But while it tackles an array of brilliant idea, it can’t always balance these all successfully. It’s almost the first Nolan film where his reach overextends his grasp – but when you have a reach like this, does it matter?

On the Beach (1959)

Extremely bleak anti-nuclear drama, that today also serves as a rather neat climate parable

Director: Stanley Kramer

Cast: Gregory Peck (Com. Dwight Towers), Ava Gardner (Moira Davidson), Fred Astaire (Julian Osborn), Anthony Perkins (Lt Peter Holmes), Donna Anderson (Mary Holmes), John Tate (Admiral Bridie), Harp McGuire (Lt Sunderstrom), Lola Brooks (Lt Hosgood)

If there was a prize for the bleakest, most depressing mainstream Hollywood film ever made, surely On the Beach would be in the running. Based on Nevil Shute’s novel, it’s a grim, hope-free recounting of the aftermath of nuclear war. One that has irradiated all life on Earth, bar Australia. Which is, in any case, doomed to death by an approaching fall-out cloud of lethal doses of radiation. Not exactly a laugh a minute.

Among those spending the last few months in Melbourne, before the extermination of the human race are the crew of an American submarine captained by Commander Dwight Towers (Gregory Peck). He’s living in denial about the death of his wife and therefore can’t commit to a final-days romance with hard-drinking (and who wouldn’t be in this situation) socialite Moira Davidson (Ava Gardner). Towers is tasked with investigating two last hopes for mankind: a possible drop in fatal radiation in the Arctic and a strange morse code signal from San Francisco. Joining his crew is Australian liaison officer, Lt Peter Holmes (Anthony Perkins) worried about ensuring he and his family end things before the radiation becomes unbearable, and guilt-ridden nuclear scientist Julian Osborn (Fred Astaire) who blames himself for this mess.

On the Beach is another Kramer message movie. The message this time being that, frankly, all the official gumpf about a nuclear exchange being a sort of rougher version of the Blitz, was a pile of bunkum. On the Beach plainly shows that, no matter who starts a nuclear war (and the film avoids saying who did) we all lose. The idea that cooler heads would prevail, or America’s technological genius would stave off destruction is shown as the nonsense it is. Radiation doesn’t care who are you and when the equivalent of ten thousand suns have detonated across the world, no amount of duck and cover is going to save you.

This is lies behind On the Beach where, as the Eliot poem it takes its title from says, “this is the way the world ends/Not with a bang but a whimper”. The last days of mankind aren’t a fiery conflagration. It’s a host of ordinary people and regular joes, sitting around waiting to die. Ordinary life in Melbourne continues as much as possible. People still go to work – although, due to petrol shortages, some do so on horseback. People fuss about running out of real coffee. A few old bores in a gentleman’s club bemoan there are too few days left to get through the stock of port in the cellar.

The film itself is really a long, gentle musing on suicide. How do people decide to go? With the end nigh, the government lays on suicide pills, offering a sleep no one can wake up from. It’s the preferred option for Anthony Perkins’ sensitive naval lieutenant, struggling to get his horrified, shell-shocked wife (Donna Anderson, the only actor in the film allowed to truly submit to stunned terror) to understand the kindest thing they can do for their baby daughter is feed her some drugged milk before they end their own lives. Banners flutter in the breeze in the final days of Melbourne telling people it’s not too late to find the Lord. Others throw caution to the wind, not least the drivers in the world’s last ever F1 race who hurtle around the track with such reckless abandon, several of them meet fiery deaths with surprisingly little reaction from the crowd.

If there is something quite dated about On the Beach it’s how stoically the world faces imminent death. Perhaps not a surprise considering Shute’s background, every character straps on their best stiff-upper-lip and knuckles down to their duty. Personally, I can’t imagine I’d still be giving up most of my remaining time on Earth to the 9-5 grind. But if there is a spot of hope in On the Beach it’s that mankind can face the end of things without people turning on each other and without a hint of societal collapse (it’s hard to imagine an equivalent film today not featuring this – and On the Beach looks tame in its vision of post-apocalyptic life compared to the hell hole Peter Watkins The War Game presented a few years later).

There is a dryness to this side of On the Beach, captured you could argue by that most stoic of classical Hollywood stars, Gregory Peck. But that’s unfair to Peck, who in his best work was always more vulnerable and filled with doubt than you’d think. Dwight Towers is living in comprehensive denial, still buying presents for his wife and talking about his kid’s future (despite the certainty of their deaths) – but still eager for some form of consolation. It comes in the form of Moira, bought to life in a vibrant but subtly damaged performance by Ava Gardner. Their tentative romance is beautifully paced – and little moments, such as Towers absent-mindedly calling Moira by his wife’s name after some beachside horseplay carry real emotional impact. Peck and Gardner – close friends in real life – have superb chemistry, and their tentative, awkward end-of-days romance is both the brightest and, in some ways, saddest spot in On the Beach.

Plenty of the rest of this well assembled and well-shot film however continually reminds you of the bleak despair of the end times. This is not Kramer’s most subtle or dramatically vibrant work, but it certainly carries a bleak impact. Shots of an abandoned San Francisco, or the empty streets of Melbourne that close the film, are haunting. There are striking moments like the crewman who swims ashore to certain radioactive death in San Francisco, because he’d rather die ‘at home’ (you think the film could do with more of those moments). Kramer also gives an excellent showpiece to Fred Astaire, who still has just enough spots of twinkle behind his sad-eyed self-disgust.

But is On the Beach a little too grim, depressing and on-the-nose to work? Well yes and no. It’s easy to write off its insistence, its relentless reminder of stupidity of mankind. But then you remember how it feels we are currently sleep-walking not to nuclear death, but climate change disaster. How different are the heat waves of today, to a deadly cloud of radiation drifting over to kill us all in the future? And, just like Astaire bemoans, we all knew the danger and did nothing. Perhaps, the dangers change but the despairing relevance of On the Beach doesn’t.

Wuthering Heights (1939)

Defining the public image of the novel, a sweeping romance that continues to win admirers

Director: William Wyler

Cast: Laurence Olivier (Heathcliff), Merle Oberon (Catherine Earnshaw), David Niven (Edgar Linton), Geraldine Fitzgerald (Isabella Linton), Flora Robson (Ellen Dean), Hugh Williams (Hindley Earnshaw), Donald Crisp (Dr Kenneth), Leo G Carroll (Joseph), Miles Mander (Mr Lockwood), Cecil Kellaway (Earnshaw), Cecil Humphreys (Judge Linton)

If there is a reason why Emily Brontë’s dark, Gothic revenge novel is now chiefly remembered as a sort of definitive Great Romance, it’s probably because of this movie. Wuthering Heights takes the bitter fury of the original novel and quite brilliantly boils it down into a frustrated, denied romance between two people who cannot be together rather than charting the self-destructive passion of two fundamentally selfish people. That caught on so much, nearly every adaptation that followed essentially copied this film, and many still dream of being swept up by Heathcliff.

Wuthering Heights achieves this by significantly hacking back Brontë’s novel. In fact, it pretty much only adapts half the book, scrapping all together the second volume charting the damaging impact on the characters children from their parents obsession. Instead, the focus is resolutely on the young orphan Heathcliff (Laurence Oliver), growing up in the home of the Earnshaws where is he hated by the jealous Hindley (Hugh Williams) but adored by Hindley’s sister Cathy (Merle Oberon). Humiliated once too often, and heartbroken after he mistakenly overhears Cathy feels he would be a disgrace as a husband compared to the wealthy Edgar Linton (David Niven), Heathcliff disappears. He returns, years later, wealthy and determined on revenge on those who wronged him while also claiming Cathy for his own.

This is the entrée to a romantic obsession Wyler’s film successfully dials up on a convincingly windswept reconstruction of the Yorkshire moors (actually California). It’s a film that works hard to smooth down its lead characters less sympathetic qualities – helped enormously by jettisoning that second half of the novel – and get us rooting for this lovestruck Romeo and Juliet, despite the obstacles put before them. Those obstacles are of course principally class-based, with the posh hats of Yorkshire (defined by David Niven’s suavely polite but relentlessly superior Linton) firmly glancing down their noses at Heathcliff’s tearaway qualities and poor background.

Mind you, Cathy seems rather torn as well. Merle Oberon’s version of Brontë’s heroine swerves between longing for the fiery romance Heathcliff promises and the security and comfort in the Linton’s home. The film’s attempt to make Cathy more sympathetic than her literary roots, is to stress this tearing between her heart and her head. Ironically, this actually tends to make her slightly less sympathetic today. Oberon frequently has to yo-yo between different emotional states, as Cathy juggles her longings and desires. What Oberon most comfortably takes on is the wind-swept passion of Cathy, her wild lack of common-sense that can frequently tip into blistering, jealous bitterness. Clearly, her unhappiness at love denied is what the film wants us to focus on, but Oberon can’t quite capture the inner pain that drives these actions here, making Cathy feel more selfish then intended.

Similarly, Heathcliff’s considerable rough edges (his original ruthless, malevolent force) are sanded down (the jettisoning of the second half of the novel is even better for him) to become a Byronic romantic hero. It’s further helped that Olivier is excellent, able to deliver both the romantic middle-distance starring, but also giving a real emotional weight to the turmoil and vulnerability in Heathcliff. Olivier can stare down the disapproving posh-nobs with calm defiance but also be driven into distraught shame and pain when he feels Cathy’s contempt. Few actors could do haughty coldness and arrogance as well as Olivier, but would have also made Heathcliff seem like a little-boy-lost, out-of-his-depth with the emotions around him.

Much is made to make Heathcliff sympathetic, in contrast with other characters. Linton – and Donald Crisp’s dismissively smug doctor – treat him with haughty contempt and don’t hesitate to label him as a force of evil for his treatment of the drunken Hindley. Something we can’t blame him for, after we’ve seen the casual meanness of Hugh William’s pathetic drunk or his snivelling cowardice when finally challenged by Heathcliff. To be fair, the film presents Linton surprisingly sympathetically – he adores Cathy and treats his servants well, it’s only Heathcliff’s awkward outsider status that riles him, like Niven’s gentlemanliness can’t process a man who doesn’t fit.

Flora Robson’s Nelly Dean – in the novel a far more critical figure of – is here a sympathetic ally. Wuthering Heights re-frames the vital Heathcliff overhearing scene – that motivates his departure and grievance – not as Nelly allowing him to hear the worst, but instead an accident she feels too embarrassed to prevent. At every point, the audience are invited excuse Heathcliff – to the extent we don’t even feel bad when Isabella Linton (a very fine performance by Geraldine Fitzgerald) insists she be allowed to marry him, despite Heathcliff’s clear using of her to provoke jealousy in Cathy. Poor Isabella seems only dimly aware of how much Heathcliff only has eyes for Cathy – and for that matter that Cathy’s protestations of indifference are far from convincing – but so powerfully faithful are our lovers presented, for all their betrayals of each other, it’s hard to berate them.

Wuthering Heights is also helped a great deal in its romantic mission by Wyler’s superbly atmospheric direction and the wonderfully brooding photography by Gregg Toland. Brontëland here is a place of looming shadows, with a real sense of the windswept coldness of the moor contrasted with the blazing passions of the leads. Alfred Newman’s score is full of luscious, rich themes adding to this effect. Wyler’s direction is pacey and draws excellent performances from the cast, while his superb framing and cutting adds tension throughout. The idea of the moor as somewhere outside societies rules, where Cathy and Heathcliff can live out a fantasy of full equality and romance, comes across so powerfully it’s now nearly the defining image of the novel.

Nearly. But for its lasting impact, it’s hard not to disagree with producer Sam Goldwyn’s claim that, while Wyler directed Wuthering Heights, Goldwyn made it. It was Goldwyn who pushed the development of the script towards romance and passion away from obsession and revenge. And it was Goldwyn who insisted on the final shot, a ghostly image of Heathcliff and Cathy walking away into the mist (a pair of extras with their backs to us, as Olivier and Oberon had moved on to other projects) that has had more impact than any other in cementing the idea this novel was about a love so strong it outreached death. It’s a far cry from Brontë’s view of a destructive obsession that ruined lives for generations– but then that would never have sold as many tickets would it?

Blossoms in the Dust (1941)

Sentimental and straight-forward biography that tells a simple, unlifting story

Director: Mervyn Le Roy

Cast: Greer Garson (Edna Kahly Gladney), Walter Pidgeon (Sam Gladney), Felix Bressart (Dr Max Breslar), Marsha Hunt (Charlotte Kahly), Fay Holden (Mrs Kahly), Samuel S Hinds (George Kahly), Kathleen Howard (Sarah Keats), George Lessey (Mr Keats), William Henry (Allan Keats), Henry O’Neill (Judge Hartford)

From the 19s0s, Edna Kahly Gladney (Greer Garson) was a Texas-based campaigner for the rights of orphans, pouring what money and time she and her husband Sam (Walter Pidgeon) had into the Texas Children’s Home and Aid Society, that dedicated itself to find homes for orphans. Even the death of her husband doesn’t stop Gladney from campaigning, lobbying to have the word illegitimate struck off birth certificates, since that was condemning children to a lifetime of frowns from Texas society.

The proceeds of Blossoms in the Dust went back into that Children’s Home so something good came from this sentimental, middlebrow biography. Made after an MGM publicist, who had adopted a child from Gladney, pitched the story to the studio, it became a cosy, box-office hit that helped cement Garson as the star-of-choice for the noble, suffering women’s film (the sort of role Norma Shearer would have grabbed five years earlier). It’s a slight, very safe and reassuring film that presents its march to inevitable triumph with an unchallenging hagiography-istic glow.

Of course, the real story of Edna was not quite tragic or satisfyingly neat enough, so the film invents several biographic details to beef up her motives. Now, the young Edna’s best friend (played with decency by Marsha Hunt) kills herself in shame, once her perspective fiancée’s heartless, posh family discovers her illegitimacy and unceremoniously tells her they don’t want her in their family, thank you very much. Secondly, Edna and Sam are given a fictional young son who exists purely to almost immediately die in a tragic sledge accident as a boy.

Of course, she will now care about illegitimacy and orphans – motivations established! Both events are so dramatically neat, it’s not a surprise they didn’t happen. Inserted, it seems, in case we objected that no one could care about the fate of children unless one happened to have lost one. The death of the boy is also so insistently sign-posted – repeated shots of his cuddly horse on its side leave us in no doubt he’s doomed the second he steps out of the door on a winter’s day – it’s impact for the viewer is almost washed away.

These tragic fictional events feel even more functional because, thanks to the film’s tendency towards sudden massive time jumps, by the time the next scene comes around years have flown by and any grief long-since shelved. No where is this more awkward than practically the next shot after the death of Gladley’s son, being Greer Garson laughingly pouring drinks at a society soiree. It continues thus: even the death of her husband Sam (Pidgeon exiting the film surprisingly at the half-way mark) is followed by a flash forward of Edna stoically but smilingly getting on with it. Blossoms in the Dust introduces tragedy throughout as a cheap motivation tool, but never once allows it to carry real, lasting impact.

Despite all these flaws, Greer Garson carries the film relatively well. Edna is the sort of part that requires middle-distance staring, mixed with can-do stiff-upper-lipness and a resolute determination to put the needs of others in front of her own (no matter how tempted she might be, in the case of orphan Tommy, to keep this child to herself rather than send him to a better home). Garson gets several barn-busting speeches at the injustices of the various systems set against the young and disadvantaged, which she delivers with aplomb. A particular fine moment is her railing – ever so politely of course – against the Texas Senate from the viewing gallery, announcing “there are no illegitimate children – there are only illegitimate parents!”. It’s fine, decent work that never stretches Garson, but is perfectly suited to her persona.

The story itself is fairly episodic. The Gladney’s wealth rises and falls, depending on the (dubious) business talent of her husband. There is a sweet moment, as they face bankruptcy, when thankful town residents buy from the auction of their goods a garish vase both Gladney’s were secretly glad to see the back of (“We’ll have to keep it now” a deeply touched Edna tells her husband). Orphans suffers various crises. A shallow single father falls over himself to hand his unwanted child over, and then takes Edna to court when he sniffs he can wrangle money out of the wealthier home the child has been sent to. No events really threaten the long-term, blissful sentimentality of the film and we are left in no doubt that Edna will ever choose herself over her work.

Blossoms in the Dust does have some rather uncomfortable racial politics. Every Black character in it is a faithful servant, deferring to their masters and happy in service. The Gladney’s servant Zeke is, of course, so thrilled to work with them he insists that he carries on doing so unpaid when they go bankrupt. A Black maid is so dim, she doesn’t realise washing a thermometer in hot water will affect its result. The Black characters are treated with the same paternal charity as the babies Edna cares for, which is of its time but still somehow a bit disappointing.

Aside from that though, this is a gentle, extremely sentimental – you might almost say icky – drama, shot with technicolour beauty by Karl Freund and decently directed by Mervyn LeRoy. However, it is also a purely functional, heart-string tugging crowd pleaser of a film, which desires to do nothing more than make us feel good about the fact the human race can still do decent things for other people without reward. Which is fine now and then, but not exactly challenging stuff.

Playtime (1967)

On a huge set, modern life is gently parodied in this unique, demanding but joyous comedy

Director: Jacques Tati

Cast: Jacques Tati (Monsieur Hulot), Barbara Dennek (Young American), Jacqueline Lecomte (Her friend), Georges Montant (M Giffard), Erika Dentzler (Mme Giffard), John Abbey (M Lacs), Yves Barsacq (Friend), Jack Gauthier (Guide)

Jacques Tati, heir to the great silent comedians, had dreamed of making his own perfect film. It would have the synchronisation of sound and image together, where every detail could be honed and measured to maximum effect. To achieve this, he was willing to sink every franc he had into the experiment. Most of those went on building a gleaming city block, with the interiors built to Tati’s exact requirements, nicknamed Tativille. And in this playground of his making, Tati created (over a couple of years) Playtime, a sprawling, almost incomparable masterpiece that pretty much lost him every single one of those francs when it was released.

There is no plot as such to Playtime. It follows a disparate group of people across a single 24-hour-period in Paris. Not the Paris of postcards mind you: this is the modern Paris of the 1960s, where every building is a shining, glass-covered cathedral of commerce and every street is a perfectly laid-out boulevard with cars moving down it in perfect unison. Over the course of a series of vignettes – set, in turn, in an airport, a labyrinthine office-block, a series of personality-free apartments, the opening night of a restaurant and a regimented supermarket – a group of American tourists, office workers, visitors and Jacques Tati’s famous creation Monsieur Hulot, stumble about never quite letting the monumental modernity around them crush their free spirits.

Perhaps it’s not a surprise Playtime flopped. It’s a long film and, with every single frame choca-block with comedic action which your eye is invited to roam over it, it’s often hard-work to watch, demanding a large amount of focus and attention to get the most out of it. Tati loathed the concept of the close-up, and Playtime almost totally lacks anything not a medium- or long-shot. Without the camera to guide you, it’s left to the viewer and the odd audio nudge from Tati’s use of ambient, carefully modulated sound to point the viewer where to look and what to pay attention too. This can, however, be richly rewarding, allowing you to ‘pick your own adventure’ in the detail-crammed frames, where almost every character has their own story.

Tati pulled together everything in Playtime himself, working Bresson-like with a cast of amateur actors (some of them his neighbours!) who were carefully drilled into hitting their appropriate marks without losing their spontaneity. Watching Playtime is to see almost a metronome bought to life, with every single decision on every single footstep made to the neatest, closest detail – the sort of obsessive level of detail Kubrick would be proud of. And everything is timed to perfection, a few big sight-gags never crowding out a litany of little moments, small glimpses of situational humour, that reward the viewer whose eye happens to stroll to the correct point at the correct time.

It’s only just controlled by Tati’s use of sound. Dialogue is nearly non-existent in Playtime, as a smattering of French, English, German and other languages is overheard, but only really when we are required to be looking in the direction of the speaker. Otherwise, across the massive 70mm image, sound fades up and down on key points, depending on where Tati wants us to look. The sound of feet walking a corridor can suddenly carry real aural impact. But then so can the squeak of a restaurant door, or the squirt of a lemon, the tapping of a finger… the sound nudges and guides us around this complex, shining world to draw our eye to key moments.

Playtime is a triumph of production design, its gleaming, artificial world of glass-fronted buildings and aesthetically clean surfaces part of the robotic modern world – one far different from our brief glimpses of the Eiffel Tower or Montmartre in reflections. There is no character at all to this world of consumerist, futuristic Utopian surfaces, where chairs are perfect identikit leather, offices are perfectly laid out blocks of cubicles and supermarkets enforce rigid one-way systems between its pristine aisles. Part of Tati’s joke is how this new world of gleaming futurism is not only taking over everything – in a travel agent, a series of posters for exotic locations all show the same anonymous office block – but even seems to excite the tourists more than the idea of the ‘real’ Paris.

It’s easy to think Tati was parodying the sort of commercialist thinking of de Gaulle (satirised here as an impossibly short president arriving at the airport, with a luggage flap prominently blowing behind him). After all, even the homes we see (only filmed from the outside) look like shop windows peering in at a stack of furniture identical to the sort we’ve seen in offices, with people at home as tucked into cubicles as they are in their offices. But in fact, Playtime suggests that, even in a world as hideously over constructed as this one, people will find a way to break down barriers and bond. That people don’t naturally become cogs in a machine, but wild, unpredictable elements.

That’s at the heart of the film’s longest vignette, that covers what is really a disastrous opening night at a restaurant – where the walls fall down, the chairs leave terrible marks on the clientele’s backs, the waiters are overwhelmed and the floor becomes an impassable mass of people. But the night isn’t a disaster, despite a parade of comic pratfalls, sight gags and misunderstandings that would make Fawlty Towers look like fine-dining, because people are there to have a good time. And that they do, whether it’s turning the collapsed area into a VIP zone, forming an impromptu band or encouraging a sing-along, what could have been a parade of fury becomes instead something joyful and, yes, playful. You actually don’t watch Playtime at these moments feeling embarrassed for them, but instead wish you were there.

It’s a tone that Playtime ends on, suddenly upbeat, magical and almost like the entire film is about to break into a charming Busby Berkely number, with cars moving together in circular patterns. That’s where you admire the skill of Tati, the superb control and attention to detail that never also forgets that all this stuff is meant to be fun. And yes, as noted, Playtime puts a lot of focus on the viewer to find that fun. But when they do spot it, it’s hard not to be a little bit charmed and entertained by it.

And there are some great jokes. A business switchboard that emits a shriek of sounds when operated by its concierge (who smokes his cigar whenever out of sight of his boss). Hulot bamboozled in an office, where people call each other to be delivered papers in their own desks. A game of charades Hulot is roped into playing in a house. A waiter who swops his pristine clothes for damaged ones from others until he stands in rags. A doorman who continues operating his glass door, even after it’s been smashed to smithereens. You could spot a thousand other gags in the corner of every frame, in a film almost like no other designed for multiple re-watchings. Tati may have lost a fortune, but he also delivered a film like few others.

The Informer (1935)

Ford’s atmospheric film is superbly directed and visually impressive, despite some clumsy moments

Director: John Ford

Cast: Victor McLaglen (“Gypo” Nolan), Heather Angel (Mary McPhillip), Preston Foster (Dan Gallagher), Margot Grahame (Katie Madden), Wallace Ford (Frankie McPhillip), Una O’Connor (Mrs McPhillip), JM Kerrigan (Terry), Joseph Sauers (Bartly Mulholland), Neil Fitzgerald (Tommy Connor), Donald Meek (Peter Mulligan, D’Arcy Corrigan (Blind man)

It’s hard to make ends meet in the fog-filled streets of 1920s Dublin. Especially if you are a non-too bright former boxer with an eager eye for the bottle. That describes “Gypo” Nolan (Victor McLaglen), a tough bruiser totally at sea after being expelled from “The Organisation” (that’s the IRA to you and me). Desperate for a bit of cash, Gypo instinctively rats out old friend Frankie McPhillip (Wallace Ford) to the British in return for £20, cash-in-hand. Guilt will slowly eat away at him over one long, self-destructive evening as his old colleagues from the Organisation ruthlessly hunt down the informer.

Ford’s richly filmed The Informer takes a limited RKO budget and makes it work to spectacular effect, disguising its largely unconvincing Dublin street sets with misty, Murnau-inspired photography from Joseph H August. The Informer is supremely atmospheric, fog coating around the edges of the frame and only interrupted by beaming streetlights or the odd shaft of light – almost all of which actually lead to danger (be it lighting the way to the British headquarters or the dreary basement where the Organisation measure out summary justice). The Informer still feels, in many ways, like a silent film – but in a good way, one where its story and the emotions would be perfectly easy to follow from the striking compositions that flood the frame.

This is Ford at possibly his most stylistic and impressionistic – influenced not just by Murnau but also clearly by Fritz Lang, the closing trial of Gypo feeling like a straight lift from Peter Lorre’s pathetic fate in M. As Gypo stumbles through the streets, he seems haunted by super-imposed images of the Wanted poster that instigated his betrayal – not to mention, his feet buffeted by wind-swept remains of the same poster. This fateful Wanted poster pops up repeatedly, even a version burnt by Gypo in a fire seems to sear through the frame as its edges disappear in flames. It’s a continual reminder to our hero of his weakness, foolishness and lack of character – his betrayal being so selfish that even the British toss the reward money to him with veiled contempt.

Our hero is played by regular Ford mucker Victor McLaglen, plucked from his regular pack to play the lead over the claims of several more prominent stars. Although it won McLaglen an Oscar, Ford selected him because he felt he was the sort of actor (a hard-bitten drinker, whose every fault was well-known to him) that could be manipulated into giving a virtuoso performance. McLaglen’s physicality is perfect for it – a former boxer himself, he’s got the perfect boisterousness and knuckle-ready force the part needs – but Ford also readily identified his vulnerability and nervousness. Deliberately keeping the actor on his toes, changing the shooting order on a day-by-day basis, Ford draws from McLaglen a performance of bubbling, hesitant, unaffected uncertainty. Gypo is forever stumbling over his words, glancing around waiting to be corrected, a sweaty nervous mess when the pressure piles on.

It’s a role that many actors could shine in, so rich is the material, and McLaglen doesn’t disappoint. The Informer follows his collapse in excruciating detail, as guilt leads to drink, leads to further guilt. Ford’s film surprisingly isn’t really awash with sympathy for this deeply flawed, child-like bruiser lost in the world of real men – despite the decency we discover in a man who was expelled from The Organisation because he wouldn’t kill an unarmed man. Chalk it up the director’s old-school ideas of loyalty and his notable Irish sympathies – not going to be easy to hold sympathy for a man who has betrayed both those elements.

Ford gives a striking martyrs death of McPhillip – played by his brother Wallace – who is caught in his home with his sister and mother (Una O’Connor, very good). He takes a few Black and Tans with him, before being machine gunned while climbing out of a rear window, our last view of him his hand disappearing over a ledge, nails scratching loudly on the surface. The members of the Organisation look like raincoat wearing hoods from Chicago, but fitting Ford’s sympathies they don’t leap to decisions (even if they execute anyone they find guilty), setting up a people’s court to trial those they suspect.

Their main suspect is an innocent tailor, excellently played with a mix of affronted innocence and weary defiance by Donald Meek, largely because they initially want to give the benefit of the doubt to Gypo and the string of half-formed, barely credible lies he has pulled together to shake the blame. Doesn’t stop them tailing Gypo during a night on the town, surrounded by ordinary people spending time with him for his new-found money, as he impulsively gives away the cash he has sacrificed his honour for.

The Informer does have a tendency to lay on its moral judgements a little too thickly. There are a few too many slightly sentimental shots of McPhillip’s grieving sister, a little too much of the moral judgement piled on Gypo, for all the passing sympathy for the boxer’s general lack of savviness. The Informer’s final ending, set inevitably in a church, is about as close as a great director like Ford can get to being flat-out bad: on-the-nose, clumsy, hectoring and simplistic and (particularly striking in a film as generally so beautiful as this) badly filmed. Max Steiner’s score similarly forces some of the emotional points a little too strongly, while his use of Irish Folk and Rule Britannia to hammer home points can wear a bit thin.

But there is still a lot to admire in The Informer, not least its extraordinary visual brilliance and the creeping paranoia and claustrophobia of its telescoped plot – you can feel the real influence it must have had on Carol Reed’s Odd Man Out with which it would make a fascinating double-bill. It might make its moral points with a little less subtlety than you would like, but it’s still an expertly executed, richly affecting film.