Category: Theatre Adaptation

Gaslight (1944)

Charles Boyer and Ingrid Bergman excel in Cukor’s cinematic staging of Gaslight

Director: George Cukor

Cast: Charles Boyer (Gregory Anton), Ingrid Bergman (Paula Alquist Anton), Joseph Cotton (Brian Cameron), May Whitty (Miss Bessie Thwaites), Angela Lansbury (Nancy Oliver), Barbara Everest (Elizabeth Tompkins), Emil Rameau (Maestro Guardi), Edmund Breon (General Huddleston), Halliwell Hobbes (Mr Mufflin), Heather Thatcher (Lady Mildred Dalroy), Lawrence Grossmith (Lord Freddie Dalroy)

Spoilers: Spoilers here in for Gaslight both film and play

Paula Alquist (Ingrid Bergman) has terrible memories of finding her aunt, a world-famous opera singer, murdered in their home on Thornton Square when Paula was just fourteen. Years later she falls in love with, and marries, the charming Gregory Anton (Charles Boyer) who suggests she returns to London and her old home. To save his wife’s nerves, Gregory has all her aunt’s property moved into the attic. But then Alice starts to lose items, Gregory tells her she moves things and has no memory of it and at night she sees the gaslight dim and hears strange creaks in the attic. Is she slowly going mad as her husband insists? Or is she – and this is where the word comes from – being gaslit into thinking so by a husband who isn’t as nice as he seems?

Adapted from Patrick Hamilton’s play, George Cukor’s bring a sumptuous version of the iconic story of a decent wife manipulated by a bad husband to the screen (MGM allegedly tried to destroy all copies of a British version from 1940 so this could be the ‘only’ adaptation). While the original play is a claustrophobic one-set affair, using minimal characters and taking part in a narrow window of time, the film expands and deepens the stories timeframe and uses a host of locations to build-up Paula’s isolation and mounting insecurity. It’s a subtle and extremely well-handled costume-noir thriller, that holds it cards close to the chest and is powered by excellent performances.

It also makes several genuine improvements to the original play. There, the villainous husband is trying to drive the wife mad so he is no longer constrained by her presence while he searches the house he has purchased for missing jewels. It’s not clear why the villain has saddled himself with a wife (when his life would be much easier if he was a single man). The film improves this immeasurably by making marriage to the wife an essential prerequisite to the villain gaining entry to the house. This one change unknots many problems with the original play and also raises the stakes considerably, by increasing the personal connection to events from the wife.

Giving a traumatic backstory to the re-named Paula (all the names are changed from the play), also gives Ingrid Bergman far richer material in her Oscar-winning role. Bergman’s Paula is already nervous and vulnerable from the start, and her desperate need for love and security draws her inevitably towards a man who, even before we work out he’s a wrong ‘un, offers her a sort of fatherly reassurance. Bergman’s heartfelt performance also contains a streak of independence and determination: she struggles painfully with knowing she isn’t insane, even while being told she might be. The film also gives her a greater sense of agency, and Paula’s final act payback works as well as it does, because Bergman has made her gentleness so under-stated earlier, that her sudden iron and fury are even more striking.

Opposite her is an equally fine performance from Charles Boyer. Boyer inverts his charm and suaveness into a ruthless opportunist, devoid of morals, who takes a sociopathic delight in his own cleverness, even as he semi-regretfully mentally tortures and manipulates his wife. He’s never less than charming – making it all the more unsurprising that Paula places as much faith in him as he does – but the little marks of danger and control are there throughout. Cukor uses a wonderful shot early on of Paula disembarking from a train, at which point a hand enters frame and grasps her arm – it’s revealed as Anton, but a brilliant indicator of his threat and controlling nature. Truth is, Gregory is insane, and Boyer subtly suggests this throughout: there is another lovely shot from Cukor late on where studio lights are reflected in Boyer’s eyes giving him an insanely intense gaze.

It all revolves around finding those diamonds. If there is one area that film is slightly weaker is that it doesn’t actually dedicate much time to that dimming gaslight or those creaking floorboards at night. It feels like a beat that should be hit more regularly (a montage would have helped no end), a more constant presence would have helped make it a more convincing continual dread for Paula.

But its counter-balanced by the expansion of the film to multiple locations where Gregory manipulates Paula to disgrace herself in public. From a lost broach in the Tower of London to an evening soiree where she is made to appear as if she has stolen a watch, it all helps to tip Paula more and more into believing she is losing her mind. Again, Cukor keeps the focus within all this finery very much on our two leads, reproducing for us as much as possible the growing claustrophobic fear that is consuming Paula that was as at the heart of the stage production.

The moments away from this are slightly less strong. Joseph Cotton has a thankless role (with an awkward mid-Atlantic accent) as a police inspector, who smells a rat or two. The ‘investigation’ moments around this are often heavy handed, and labour under the sort of exposition that the scenes between Gregory and Paula skilfully avoid. Basically, Inspector Cameron barely has a personality, meaning he never really develops beyond being just a plot device.

Conversely, a character who takes on a great deal more presence is Angela Lansbury’s star-making turn as a sultry, defiantly sexual maid, parachuted into the house for goodness-only-knows what reason (!) by Gregory, who takes every opportunity to undermine her mistress. It’s a brilliantly pointed little performance from Lansbury, full of sass and smirk (it got her an Oscar nomination in her first movie) that adds even more to the feeling of Paula being a stranger in her home.

Gaslight is all smartly directed with Cukor, brilliant as always with actors, adding more visual flair than he often does with his fog-filled London and noir-tinged Edwardian home. With strong performances and many changes that materially improve the original material, it’s a fine adaptation.

Picnic (1955)

William Holden stirs up a small-town – and Kim Novak – in Picnic

Director: Joshua Logan

Cast: William Holden (Hal Carter), Kim Novak (Madge Owens), Rosalind Russell (Rosemary Sydney), Betty Field (Flo Owens), Susan Strasberg (Millie Owens), Cliff Robertson (Alan Benson), Arthur O’Connell (Howard Bevans), Verna Felton (Helen Potts), Reta Shaw (Irma Kronkite)

In a small Kansas town in the early 1950s, everything is sweet as apple pie. But under the surface, tensions bubble – and it only takes a stranger changing the status quo to make them explode. In William Inge’s Pulitzer-Prize-winning play – bought to the screen by original Broadway director Joshua Logan – that stranger is Hal Carter (William Holden), failed sportsman, actor and college drop-out, drifting into town looking for a new start from old friend Alan (Cliff Robertson). But Hal, an amiable screw-up, quickly puts himself in the middle of a love triangle between Alan and his girlfriend Madge (Kim Novak), the local beauty tired of being judged only by her looks.

All this eventually explodes into a series of furious confrontations where the true colours of various participants are revealed. In the 1950s Picnic looked like a criticism of the cosy conservatism of small-town America. But today, it actually feels more than a little nostalgic for the lost innocence of those times. Sure, some people in the town are less than sympathetic, or their lives have been crushed by the expectations of others. But generally, with its pastel colour palette and its generally fundamentally well meaning characters, it now feels a rather reassuring watch.

Like many films that pushed the envelope at the time, it also looks rather tame today. The film is strong on demonstrating the impact of the sexuality of a topless Holden on the women of the town – nearly all of whom go weak at the knees. But generally, the film’s sexual content now looks remarkably safe and gentle. A sense of powerful longing for something missing from their own lives does comes across strongly – Russell’s Mrs Sidney, worse for wear from drink, ends up feebly trying to pull up Holden’s trousers to look at his legs while dancing. But the sexual outbursts largely restrict themselves to that and a few passionate clinches.

Logan’s film throws in a few big visuals (such as the closing helicopter shot as a bus drives out of town) and clearly enjoys its location shooting, but remains stage-bound. Several scenes translate across exactly to backyard locations, the same sets in all but name that appeared on stage. It also struggles to fill the cinemascope screen, for all that James Wong Howe’s photography has a certain Autumnal beauty to it (you won’t see any vibrant greens, reds or yellows). In addition, many of the actors go for somewhere between naturalism and a mannered Broadway show-boating.

Perhaps the main issue is that film dwarves this slight and intimate story. Moments of intimacy that on stage you feel carry impact – heartfelt declarations and tortured confessions – don’t carry nearly so much on screen. In fact, the story ends up feeling rather slight and even predictable: the drifter has depths, but the town unfairly turns against him, the old-maid schoolteacher is deeply frustrated, the local beauty juggles depression, the good natured son of the local bigwig is a self-entitled bully. None of this really feels revelatory and, on screen, easily drifts by with little impact.

Logan’s stagy style also has a mixed impact on the acting with some going for a cinematic underplaying, and others inspired by a theatrical grandness to embrace the big moments. Leading the way in that camp is Rosalind Russell who gives a strong performance as the frustrated schoolteacher, but frequently allows herself to go a little too far in moments of emotional outburst. It’s particularly noticeable as she’s paired with Arthur O’Connell (reprising his Broadway role, and getting an Oscar nomination) who underplays with a quiet wit and honesty.

One of the film’s principle problems are with the two leads. William Holden gives a fine performance – fun-loving and kind but also cutting a rather sad and tragic figure behind the bonhomie – but is blatantly too old for the role. Hal is probably meant to be in his 20s – Holden was 37 and, with his craggy face, actually looks older. While it does add a level of Hal being increasingly irresponsible for his age, the part really means a charismatic youngster dripping sex appeal (think James Dean – Paul Newman was turned down for the part). Opposite him the inexperienced Kim Novak does, at times, give her line readings a striking genuineness but at others comes across as slightly wooden.

A stagy and slightly old-fashioned watch today, Picnic was nominated for several Oscars, but increasingly looks rather like a celebration rather than a gentle criticism of the small-town values it depicts.

Fences (2016)

Denzel Washington and Viola Davis triumph in an overly theatrical version of August Wilson’s Fences

Director: Denzel Washington

Cast: Denzel Washington (Troy Maxson), Viola Davis (Rose Lee Maxson), Stephen McKinley Henderson (Jim Bono), Jovan Adepo (Cory Maxson), Russell Hornsby (Lyons Maxson), Mykelti Williamson (Gabriel Maxson), Saniyya Sidney (Raynell Maxson)

Pittsburgh in the 1950s. Troy Maxson (Denzel Washington) works as a garbage collector after his dreams of becoming a professional baseball player came up against the colour bar. Troy lives with his second wife Rose (Viola Davis). Troy had a troubled upbringing, turning to crime (and serving time in prison – lost time Rose quietly believes may have had more of an impact on his failed baseball career) and claims to have beaten Death in a wrestling match. Proud of his self-made status and certain, always, that he is right, Troy has difficult relations with his two sons Lyons (Russell Hornsby), a musician he believes is forever sponging money and Cory (Jovan Adepo), a teenager being scouted by an American Football team.

Fences follows a couple of years (with a coda that jumps forward five years) in the lives of these characters, and principally the impact that Troy’s mixture of pride, selfishness and bull-headed self-righteousness has on the family. It’s adapted from August Wilson’s award-winning stage-play, with a script prepared before his death by the playwright himself (earning him a posthumous Oscar nomination). Washington, Davis and most of the cast all starred in a hugely successful Broadway production of the play a few years before, and the film is a careful restaging of this production.

Perhaps a little too careful. If there is a problem with Fences, it is that it falls rather awkwardly between two stools. It’s neither particularly filmic – few of the scenes have been adjusted from the single-set locations of the play, and it’s filmed with an unobtrusive conventionality that makes it look and feel pretty similar to watching a National Theatre Live production – nor is it sufficiently theatrical. I can well imagine the power – and they are undeniably powerful – performances by the cast, principally Washington and Davis, would have blown you away live: but on screen, they can’t quite capture that same impact, in a film that feels slightly constrained by its theatricality.

Most of this comes from Washington’s determination that Wilson’s words would be the star, and all other factors in the production would service that. To that end, the film is a clear success – and you can’t argue Wilson doesn’t deserve a certain reverence, particularly as transfers of his plays to film had been almost non-existent before Fences. Wilson’s plays have rarely crossed the Atlantic, so watching this – a play I was not familiar with – I was enraptured by the working-class poetry of Wilson’s language, not to mention the empathy with which he explores his characters.

At the heart is Troy, a fascinatingly flawed human being. Played with huge charisma, which masks a deep bitterness, cynicism and self-pity, by Denzel Washington, Troy manages to be both admirable and destructive at the same time. You can’t not admire the way he has built his own life from scratch, or the “go-out-and-grab-it” balls that helps him become the first black garbage truck driver in Pittsburgh. He’s witty, warm-hearted and loves his family deeply. He’s also domineering, proud and so convinced his view is right that he sees no problem with cheating on his wife or forcing his children, often against their will, to conform with exactly his ideas of how they should live their lives.

So, he’ll tell his son that because Troy’s dreams of becoming a professional sportsman came to nothing, so will his: so there isn’t even any point trying. He loves his mentally handicapped brother Gabe (Mykelti Williamson), and rages at the Government that failed to support this wounded veteran – but he also takes Gabe’s disability payout and uses it to buy himself a house and charge Gabe rent for living in it. He’ll talk endlessly about putting duty and family first – but that fence of the title, which Rose asks constantly him to build, is a job he’ll put off time and time again in favour of holding court in his backyard. Troy’s built the family – but he’s also the main factor holding it back from moving forward any further. He’s a classic tragic figure.

Equally superb is Viola Davis as Rose, endlessly patient and caring, holding the entire family together and quietly and carefully cleaning up after Troy’s outbursts or bad temper. Davis won the Oscar, and Rose is a dream of a part a woman who closes her eyes to problems, believing she lives a perfect family life, until it is too late. When finally confronted with the selfishness of Troy’s actions, Davis’ emotional devastation – her resentment and fury at having benched her own dreams and desires to service Troy – is hugely moving, perfectly showcasing Davis’ skill to play deep emotions while simultaneously holding those emotions in.

These two actors are both extraordinary – and there are also fabulous performances from Henderson, Adepo, Williamson and Hornsby. What stops it from being an outstanding film though is that its more of a theatrical event pushed into a cinema. With the majority of the scenes taking place in Troy and Rose’s backyard, you can picture the single-set theatre production. The camera moves calmly from close-up to medium shot but does very little else. Very little has also been changed or reworked in the play – compare to Arthur Miller’s reworking of The Crucible or Peter Shaffer’s re-imagining of Amadeus for the screen. It’s a film with a slightly worthy, mission quality to it. But as a showcase for the play – and the performances – it’s very fine.

Les Misérables (2012)

Hugh Jackman runs for years in Tom Hooper’s controversial Les Misérables adaptation

Director: Tom Hooper

Cast: Hugh Jackman (Jean Valjean), Russell Crowe (Inspector Javert), Anne Hathaway (Fantine), Amanda Seyfried (Cosette), Eddie Redmayne (Marius), Helena Bonham Carter (Madame Thenadier), Sacha Baron Cohen (Thenardier), Samantha Barks (Eponine), Aaron Tveit (Enjolras), Daniel Huttlestone (Gavroche)

Of all the behemoth musicals of the 1980s, Les Misérables may just be the best. An entirely sung adaptation of Victor Hugo’s door-stop novel, it’s been thrilling sold-out global audiences ever since 1985. It ran on Broadway for 16 years and never stopped playing in the West End. Plans to turn it into a film have took decades, with its scale always the problem (not least since musicals spent a large chunk of the 1990s as far from sure bets at the Box Office). Finally, it came to the screen, with an Oscar-winning director who supplied the ‘fresh new vision’ a show that had been staged literally thousands of times needed. That vision has its merits, but it’s also divisive.

The story follows Jean Valjean (Hugh Jackman), a convict imprisoned for nineteen-years for stealing a loaf of bread. He is persecuted by his nemesis Javert (Russell Crowe), a rigid policeman who believes a man can never change. On parole, Valjean is an outcast but his life is changed forever after encountering a Bishop (played by original West End Valjean, Colm Wilkinson) who claims he had gifted the silverware Valjean had in fact tried to steal. The Bishop charges Valjean to live his life for the good of others. Eight years later he has become a respected mayor of a small town. But his past starts to catch up with him as Javert arrives as the new chief of police. Will helping Fantine (Anne Hathaway), the mother of illegitimate child Cosette (growing up to become Amanda Seyfried), lead to his secret being revealed?

Tom Hooper has a difficult challenge taking on Les Misérables. There can be few people around who haven’t heard at least some of the songs – and no musicals fan who probably hasn’t at a minimum watched a concert version, if not the show itself. How do you even begin to make one of the most famous musicals of all time fresh? Hooper chose a new approach that would up the intimacy and drama, fore-fronting emotion over scale. It also allowed him to fuse his unconventional framing with the raw, hand-held camera work of John Adams, his hit HBO miniseries.

So, Les Misérables, unlike many other musicals was to be all-sung live by the actors, rather than separately recorded and lip-synched on set. The camera would fly into their faces and almost interrogate the actors as they performed, capturing every emotion passing across their face. It would be up-close and intimate. What in the theatre works as a series of powerful, theatre-filling, ballads would be repackaged into something very personal. At times it works extremely effectively.

Having the actors sing live, means all the power of the performances they gave in the moment are captured. Emotions are dialled up, with songs often delivered through cracking voices or snot-filled nose sniffs. This has a particularly huge benefit for Anne Hathaway, whose deeply heartfelt, devastating rendition of I Dreamed a Dream is delivered in a single shot close-up that turns the song into a powerfully raw song about trauma (this sequence alone probably ensured Hathaway won every major gong going). It’s the same with Jackman: Valjean’s Soliloquy in particular plays off the raw guilt, shame and self-disgust Jackman lets play across his face while later Who Am I gains even more impact from the fear, hesitation, regret and moral determination Jackman injects into it, cracked voice and all. Perhaps not a surprise the two most confident performers benefit the most.

The downside is that, repeating the same visual technique for every single song, does make the film at times rather visually oppressive and repetitive. Even the large group numbers sees the camera drill into the faces of the individual singers, rather than offer us any wide shots. In fact, the wide shots in the film are so few you can almost count them on one hand. While Hooper’s approach uses the close-up to present the songs in ways theatre never could (good), it does mean he sacrifices the scale and beauty cinema can bring (less good).

You actually begin to think perhaps Hooper doesn’t really like musicals that much. His vision here is to turn Les Misérables into more of an indie film than an adaptation of West End musical. Choreography isn’t, to be fair, a major part of the stage production, but theatrical spectacle is, and that’s almost completely missing. Some of the most powerful, hairs-on-the-back of the neck power of the big numbers has been sacrificed for grinding the emotion out (Jackman at points speaks some of the lines rather than singing them). Musically, Samantha Barks’ marvellous rendition of On My Own is the only song in the film I would listen to out of context. It makes the show different – but more variety and more willingness to embrace the spectacle of the show – mixed with the intimacy of the solo numbers might have added more.

Les Misérables is still however very entertaining: after all it can’t not be when it has some of the best songs in the business. The acting is extremely strong. Jackman is perfectly cast: he not only has the vocal range and strength, but also the acting chops to bring to life a character who goes from red-eyed fugitive to caring and dutiful surrogate father. Hathaway is hugely affecting as Fantine, vulnerable but also with a deep resentment. Redmayne is hugely engaging and charismatic as Marius. Barks is excellent, Seyfried gives a lot of sensitivity to Cosette and Carter and Cohen are fun as the Thenadiers. The only mis-step is Crowe, who has the presence for the role but notably lacks the vocal strength for a notoriously difficult role.

They all provide some of the most intimate renditions of these songs you’ll ever see and the film unarguably offers a take you will have never seen before, even if you had sat through every single one of the thousands of stagings. It works better for solos than group numbers (which, with their kaleidoscope of voices all in different locations are hard to replicate on screen anyway), and it’s a well the film dips into far too often, but when it works, it really does. Les Misérables divides some – and on repeated viewings its repetitive visuals make it feel longer, with the second half in particular flagging – but Hooper does something a West End show can’t do. It might well have been better if it has used more of the things cinema cando (scale, sets, mise-en-scene – it’s hard to picture an actual image from the film that isn’t a close-up) but a film with actors as good as this and songs as affected as these will always work, no matter what.

Julius Caesar (1953)

Mason and Gielgud confront Brando in Hollywood’s faithful Shakespeare adaptation Julius Caesar

Director: Joseph L Mankiewicz

Cast: Marlon Brando (Mark Antony), James Mason (Brutus), John Gielgud (Cassius), Louis Calhern (Julius Caesar), Edmond O’Brien (Casca), Greer Garson (Calpurnia), Deborah Kerr (Portia), George Macready (Marullus), Michael Pate (Flavius), John Hoyt (Decimus Brutus), Douglass Watson (Octavius)

Hollywood has always been in awe of Shakespeare. For large chunks of Hollywood’s Golden Age, it was felt the Bard’s mighty words could only be performed in a certain way by certain actors and that it somehow besmirched the Bard to put him on celluloid. It’s partly why there are few truly radical productions of Shakespeare on screen. By 1953 Orson Welles had directed inventive, challenging productions of Macbeth and Othello that reworked Shakespeare for cinematic effect, but these had been met by horror by some critics (‘how dare he change things!’). Julius Caesar fit the mould in many ways for how Hollywood felt Shakespeare should be done – traditionally, respectfully and by a cast of trained theatre actors. Then they threw in a curve ball by casting Brando as Mark Antony.

It’s hard now to really understand the hesitancy (and outright snobbery) from many about the very idea of Brando doing Shakespeare. This was the mumbling Stanislavsky-trained star of Streetcar, the earthy, T-shirt wearing slab of muscle that yelled “Stella!” – who on Earth did he think he was? Shakespeare is for plummy accents, focused on poetry. Brando took a huge risk taking this role on. But, today, his performance feels fresh, vivid and in many places strikingly modern.

Brando bought a more relaxed, natural style – and, yes he also affected a slightly plummy Brit accent – and bought a emotional realism to the most exhibitionist of Shakespeare’s great roles. (Let’s not forget, most of Antony’s part is a massive public speech). Brando creates an Antony who is passionate, loyal, committed – but also cunning, manipulative and very aware of the effect he is attempting to generate in that famous speech. He delivers the speech with aplomb, but concentrated as much on the emotion of what he was saying as the poetry of how he said it. It makes for an excellent marriage between two different styles of theatre, and Brando’s powerhouse delivery (Oscar nominated) carries real energy and dynamism.

It sits within a very traditional production, carefully shepparded to the screen by Joseph L Mankiewicz. Mankiewicz was a two-time Oscar winner for Best Director – but his reputation was largely formed on his mastery with dialogue and actors, rather than any visual sensibility. Julius Caesar is intelligently and faithfully bought to the screen – albeit with little cinematic flourish – shot with a moody black-and-white (designed to ape news-real footage and add further dramatic urgency to the action) on sets that were leftover at the studio from Quo Vadis. (Some of the busts are hilariously out of place – pretty sure Brutus has a bust of the Emperor Hadrian in his home, quite something seeing as he died 160 years before Hadrian was born.)

Mankiewicz by and large lets the play speak for itself.  What Shakespeare wrote, he largely says, and there is little in the way of message in a play that has been reversioned to almost any oppressive regime you can imagine. A few flourishes diverge from the text. He radically simplifies Acts 4 and 5 of the play (particularly the Battle of Philippi and the consecutive suicides of Brutus and Cassius), reducing these down to little more than half an hour. Wisely he focuses on the more dramatic Acts 1-3. The scheming is tense and moody, the assassination swift and brutal. The crowd scenes in Rome bustle with an immediacy and vibrancy – the camera often sits among the plebians during the speeches, encouraging us to share their feelings and reactions to the speeches. Antony is made a calculating and cunning figure – consciously waiting for certain reactions: he even, in one directorial flourish, enters bearing Caesar’s corpse during Brutus oration.

Mankiewicz’s main strength is in working with actors. Although Brando claimed the plaudits, the play is actually centred around Brutus, the intellectual of good intentions drawn into a conspiracy for the best intentions who finds principles and coups make for impossible bedfellows. The film’s finest performance is from the simply superb Mason, who was born to play tortured decent patricians like this and creates a Brutus stuffed with doubt, pride, arrogance, uncertainty and a little touch of fear. His patrician voice is perfect for this “most honourable of all the Romans”, and he sets about murder as the deeply unpleasant task it is, guided by his assumption that he-knows-best. The little moments are brilliantly done: from his petrified nerves at the assassination to his pious sermons on morality to Cassius to his tenderness and care for his wife and servants. It’s a wonderful performance.

To complement him, Mankiewicz recruited one of the greatest Shakespearean actors living as Cassius. Gielgud hadn’t done a film for over ten years (he always felt the cinema to be a minor art), and Julius Caesar was the only opportunity he had to capture one of his great Shakespearean performances on film until Prospero’s Books nearly 40 years later. It’s fascinating to watch a film where the old school (in Gielgud) and new school of acting (in Brando), both bring their own approaches to Shakespeare. This is Gielgud’s finest Shakespearean performance on camera – he must surely have learned more about acting on camera from Mason and Brando – the first time his style moved away from ‘singing the verse’ towards something more emotional, his Cassius a bitter, manipulative man who starts the film holding all the cards and ends up with none of them.

Watching these three powerhouse performers work is a treat – and also to see their styles merging and playing off each other. Mason is the perfect fusion of the realism of Brando and theatricality of Gielgud. Brando learned huge amounts from Gielgud, frequently consulting him on delivery. Gielgud surely took as much from Brando on adding greater emotion and realism into his screen performances, shirking the declamatory style that often makes him grand but unconnectable. The other actors around them offer versions of these styles: O’Brien stands out best as a shrewd and cunning Casca, Calhern tries a little too hard to be grand as Caesar, Kerr and Garson are a bit too theatrical in thankless parts as “the wives”.

Julius Caesar as a whole though is a lean, pacey and intelligent staging of the play, directed unobtrusively but professionally, very well acted by the cast. While Mankiewicz does nothing radical here – look at Orson Welles Othello and there you’ll see how the language of cinema can add a whole new perspective to Shakespeare, in a way this film never does. But while not radical, it focuses on story and character really well. The set-piece moments – the speeches, the murder, the plotting – are staged with urgency, energy and drama. Mainstream Hollywood still wasn’t ready for radical reworking of Shakespeare (this got lots of Oscar noms, Welles Othello was a flop), still seeing him as someone best cast in marble – but with Julius Caesar Hollywood took baby steps towards suggesting there could be a different future.

Chicago (2002)

Catherine Zeta-Jones struts her stuff in Rob Marshall’s fabulous Oscar winner Chicago

Director: Rob Marshall

Cast: Renée Zellweger (Roxie Hart), Catherine Zeta-Jones (Velma Kelly), Richard Gere (Billy Flynn), Queen Latifah (“Mama” Morton), John C. Reilly (Amos Hart), Christine Baranski (Mary Sunshine), Taye Diggs (The Bandleader), Colm Feore (Martin Harrison), Lucy Liu (Kitty Baxter), Dominic West (Fred Casely), Mya (Mona), Susan Misner (Liz), Denise Faye (Annie), Deidre Goodwin (June)

It’s become quite the fashion to knock Chicago. Heck I’ve done it myself. How did this mere musical win Best Picture? It’s not even as if the original production was much more than an entertainment. It’s another of those films diminished by whispers that it doesn’t deserve the title of Best Picture. But, look at the film with an unprejudiced eye, and you’ll see that this is the best stage-to-screen musical theatre adaptation since Cabaret. Chicago is such dynamic, high octane entertainment, you would have to a really cold heart not to enjoy it.

A heart as cold, perhaps, as most of the characters. Its set in a 1920s Chicago where it doesn’t matter what you are famous for, so long as you are famous. Who are the bigger stars? The people on stage of the infamous on death row? Roxie Hart (Renée Zellweger) is a wannabe who guns down her conman lover Fred Casely (Dominic West) when his promises of the stage career she’s dreaming of turns out to be all hot air. Roxie works out that she can turn her infamy into just plain fame – following the inspiration of vaudeville-star-turned-accused-murderer Velma Kelly (Catherine Zeta-Jones), who is now more famous than ever. With amoral lawyer Billy Flynn (Richard Gere) in their corner, can they play all sides against the middle and find freedom and fame?

Chicago’s debt to Bob Fosse is in almost every single frame. Rob Marshall’s brilliant choreography is inspired by Fosse’s own work for the original production. It means the entire film drips with the passionate sexiness of Fosse’s best work. It’s also inspired by Fosse’s Cabaret in its use of the musical numbers. There all the musical numbers were kept within the nightclub, acting as a subtle commentary on the events of the film. Here they occur in Roxie’s imagination, staged in a shadowy empty theatre with a mysterious band leader (a charismatic Taye Diggs) introducing each song. It’s a brilliant concept, that allows them to be staged with the sort of exuberance and theatricality that would look plain odd in a ‘real’ setting.

And what musical numbers they are! These are toe-tappingly, finger-clickingly fun, that will make you want to jump up and join in. Marshall’s choreography and direction is not only faultless, but also covers a range of styles. From the sultry opening of All That Jazz performed by Catherine Zeta-Jones, we get burlesque (When You’re Good to Mama), sensual sexiness (Cell Block Tango), knock-about farce (We Both Reached for the Gun), classic 1930s Astaire and Rogers (Roxie) and surreal madness (Razzle Dazzle). The one thing they all have in common is the high-octane energy they are performed with (no wonder all those dancers are so slim!), with no one leaving anything in the dressing room.

Chicago is possibly one of the best edited musicals ever made. Marshall gets a superb balance between camera movements, cutting and the dance numbers. We can appreciate – and see – every step of the intricate choreography, with clear camera movements and angles. But the film is also edited practically on the beat. Cuts accentuate changes in the tempo and even marry up with the exact movements of the dancers. Not only that, the numbers frequently cut from reality to fantasy and back again – and this parallel montage is superbly done, with perfectly timed transitions. The cutting complements each number so well, it actually makes them more exciting and dynamic. It’s a masterclass in using the language of cinema to accentuate the impact of dancing.

But Marshall manages to make Chicago not just a collection of amazing dances and fabulous tunes. In our celebrity worship age, Chicago feels increasingly more relevant – you can imagine Roxie would love to be on reality TV and would never be off Twitter. It doesn’t matter that she’s got no real talent (in fact it makes the fact that all the musical numbers are fantasies even more witty), she’s just desperate to be known. Shooting her lover is the best thing that’s ever happened to her and she’ll do anything to stay in the newspapers, from a fake pregnancy to playing the timid ingenue.

Everyone in Chicago is just playing the game. Velma is just as desperate to cling to fame – and her growing desperation at losing the limelight to Roxie is almost touching. Mama Morton, the quietly corrupt prison warden, lives vicariously through her inmates (she even dyes her hair to match Roxie’s). The media lap up the details of every killing, turning the trials into huge soap operas. And at the heart you have Billy Flynn, as much a showman as he is a lawyer, playing every angle and knowing its all about telling a good story rather than truth or justice.

Chicago is played with absolute commitment. Renée Zellweger is excellent as the fiercely ambitious, amoral Roxie, her fragile softness perfect for the image Roxie likes to project, just as she is able to twist her face into selfish meanness. Zeta-Jones clearly hadn’t forgotten her years of musical theatre, demonstrating she is a superb singer and dancer, her vampish glamour perfect for Velma’s dark ambition. Richard Gere (in a role turned down by Travolta, as he ‘didn’t get’ the framing device) channels his natural charisma and good natured smirk into a role that could have been made for him. Reilly is surprisingly sweet and effective as Roxie’s put-upon husband and Latifah hugely entertaining as the knowingly manipulative Mama.

Chicago may be “just a musical” – but you’d be hard pressed to find a better entertainment. The song and dance numbers are superb and the film still manages to land some blows on celebrity culture. Hollywood has always loved musicals – can you imagine how the viewers of Broadway Melody would have responded if they had seen this? – and with Chicago we get something we’ve not seen since the golden days of Bob Fosse. There are few Oscar winners as straight forwardly entertaining as this.

Cavalcade (1933)

The Marryots and the Bridges face a world in motion in Cavalcade

Director: Frank Lloyd

Cast: Diana Wynyard (Jane Marryot), Clive Brook (Robert Marryot), Una O’Connor (Ellen Bridges), Herbert Mundin (Albert Bridges), Beryl Mercer (Cook), Irene Brown (Margaret Harris), Frank Lawton (Joe Marryot), Ursula Jean (Fanny Bridges), Margaret Lindsay (Edith Harris), John Warburton (Edward Marryot)

Before Upstairs, Downstairs and Downton Abbeythere was Cavalcade. Winning the Best Picture of 1933 (beating out more highly regarded films today – and King Kong wasn’t even nominated!), Cavalcade shows a romantic weakness for dramas about the struggles of the British Upper classes and their servants is nothing new. Based on Noel Coward’s play, it’s a grand, soapy drama that’s been done better since (not least by those two shows) but makes an entertaining genre template.

Carefully ticking off historical events between 1899 and 1933, the film follows the Marryot family – father Robert (Clive Brook), mother Jane (Diana Wynyard) and their two sons Joe (Frank Lawton) and John (Edward Marryot) – and their servants turned pub owners the Bridges – Albert (Herbert Mundin), Ellen (Una O’Connor) and their daughter Fanny (Ursula Jean). From the Boer War via the death of Queen Victoria, the first flight across the Channel, two characters taking an unfortunate honeymoon trip on the Titanic to the First World War, we see how events affect both families (invariably with tragic consequences) as Britain slowly changes.

You can look at Cavalcade and find it hilariously old-fashioned. The accents are so sharply clipped they could be cut-glass, while the working-class characters speak with “evenin’ guv’ner” ‘umbleness. In preparation for the film, the Studio flew a camera team over to film the London production (then hired several of the actors to repeat their roles, including O’Connor) and the film sometimes feels like a slightly stuffy stage production bought to the screen.

This is most noticeable in Diana Wynyard’s performance. She clearly has no idea to act for the camera – and Lloyd didn’t correct her. ‘Asides’ see her frequently turn towards the camera and stare into the middle distance. For the innumerable times she is called onto to weep, she throws herself to the floor dramatically. With her declamatory style, she’s constantly playing to an imaginary back row. It sticks out particularly badly when watching the far more experienced Brook relatively underplay each scene without physically telegraphing every emotion. Surprisingly Wynyard landed an Oscar nomination – but soon left Hollywood and returned to the stage.

The rest of the cast are split between the two approaches, all while balancing the stiff-upper-lipped demands of the script, with its “I must go the war/Don’t go darling/I must they won’t start without me” exchanges (to paraphrase Eddie Izzard). The younger actors – John Warburton and Margaret Lindsay as the young couple booking a berth on the Titanic – offer performances so restrained they feel strait-jacketed. The working-class characters cut lose a little. Una O’Connor is a little broad, but quite engaging while Herbert Mundin gives possibly the best performance as a landlord too fond of his own product. Ursula Jeans makes a fine romantic lead as their daughter, delivering decent renditions of several songs in particular “Twentieth Century Blues”.

Those blues are nominally what the film is about, as the world leaves the Marryots behind. It’s bookended by two New Years –in 1899 and 1933 – during which time the world has changed completely. War has shattered the cosy Victorian status quo, leaving millions dead and the Marryots struggle to recognise this new England. Cavalcade only lightly engages with themes of societal upheaval – probably because it is simultaneously wallowing in so much nostalgia, that Coward’s more sombre ideas would bring the party crashing down.

Instead, Cavalcade luxuriates in nostalgia, loving the idea of a hierarchical, old-fashioned, English world where everyone knows their place (even after leaving their employ, the Bridges treat the Marryots with deference, while the Marryots look at them with a paternal indulgence). But its soapy stories – predictable as they seem to us now – are actually rather effective, and the flashes of genuine emotion (best of all, when Brook’s Robert says farewell to his son as he heads out on “one last patrol” in the last days before the Armistice) are surprisingly effective.

Lloyd’s direction of the larger set-pieces also show an impressive flair. The domestic scenes may seem stagey, but when the camera films a crowd it feels ambitious and dynamic. A huge pier scene with hundreds of men heading to the Boer War is handled very well. Bustling street scenes feel real. Wynyard’s finest moment comes in a crowd scene as she tries to merge into a crowd celebrating the Armistice, while caught up in a personal grief. A montage covering 1918 to 1933 is effective in showing the march of change.

Best of all is a wonderful montage communicating the horrific cost of the First World War. Lloyd presents the war as a never ending stream of soldiers marching into a tunnel. Initially the backdrop around is an English town, with smoking chimneys. This morphs into No Man’s Land, with the chimney smoke becoming explosions. Super-imposed over this are images of soldiers in close-up, at first marching in smiles, then dying at an accelerated rate. Nostalgia turns into Danteish circle of hell, innumerable bodies piling up. It stands out as a moment of expressionist inspiration (and must have had a strong impact on the audience).

It’s the finest moment in Cavalcade, your enjoyment of which will be directly related to how much patience you have with Downton Abbey. Find that an enjoyable diversion (as I do), and you will certainly find something to enjoy in Cavalcade. If Downton’s rose-tinted view of Edwardian social structures puts you on edge, you will struggle. I was pleasantly surprised by how charmed I was by it. And that World War One sequence is worth the price of admission alone.

Hamlet (1948)

Laurence Olivier makes Shakespearean cinematic history in Hamlet

Director: Laurence Olivier

Cast: Laurence Olivier (Hamlet), Basil Sydney (Claudius), Eileen Herlie (Gertrude), Jean Simmons (Ophelia), Felix Aylmer (Polonius), Noman Wooland (Horatio), Terence Morgan (Laertes), Peter Cushing (Osric), Stanley Holloway (Gravedigger), Anthony Quayle (Marcellus), Esmond Knight (Bernardo), Russell Thorndike (Priest), Harcourt Williams (Player)

Close your eyes and picture Hamlet – chances are you will see an image inspired by Olivier. Olivier’s second Shakespearean directing outing coated him in plaudits. He became the only actor to win an Oscar for Shakespeare (and, until Roberto Benigni, the only actor to direct himself to an Oscar) and the film itself became the first non-American film to win Best Picture. Hamlet will live forever, a corner-stone production of the play and a part of Shakespearean and cinematic history. It skilfully weaves together theatre and cinema and still works as a cracking production of the play.

To bring it to the screen, Olivier made some big calls. Smaller parts were cut to ribbons (particularly the Player King) or in many cases (I’m looking at you Rosencrantz and Guildenstern) excised all together. Over half the dialogue cut, with the focus being bought onto domestic tragedy (the politics of Fortinbras is never mentioned). This is a family tragedy, and a Hamlet-centric production, where Claudius is a jovial villain and Gertrude a mother with confused feelings for her son.

Oliver set this in a sprawling medieval castle using the best elements of theatre and cinema. The sets are beautifully constructed: winding corridors, towering halls and imperious battlements provide the sort of realist set Olivier could only dream of in the theatre. But Olivier (and photographer Desmond Dickinson), lights this with the moody intensity of film noir. Shadows dominate the castle and the frame, frequently provide hiding places. Olivier’s debt to Wyler (and Welles) can be seen in his pictorial framing and use of deep focus, while domestic tragedy in a grand house has more than a few calls backs to Hitchcock’s Rebecca. Frequently shots show an actor in the foreground, being observed in long shot by a second actor in perfect focus.

It also takes inspiration from expressionist cinema, especially in its mist-laden battlements, with some neatly surreal touches. The Ghost (whose voice, heavily distorted, is also Olivier’s) is a shadowy demonic figure, emerging shrouded in mist. A wonderful series of shots sees the camera seem to soar away from the throne room steps where Ophelia weeps, through the castle towers, into the sky and then down towards Hamlet staring at the waves at the foot of the cliff, passing through his skull where the image of the crashing waves is overlaid across the interior of Hamlet’s skull. It’s a more effective use of visuals than the film gets credit for.

For all its traditional trimmings – cod-pieces and men-in-tights abound – it’s easy to forget how influential this was. It cemented for years a view of Hamlet as a man wracked by indecision and made it standard to see Gertrude and Hamlet locked in Freudian-inspired Oedipal lust. The first idea came from the opening narration’s reductive phrase “This is a tragedy of a man who could not make up his mind”. It’s an odd statement to make – especially as Olivier’s Hamlet hardly seems wracked by indecision – but it matched a perception of the play so, true or not, it stuck.

That relationship between Hamlet and Gertrude adds a perverted romantic twist to the bedroom scene between the two (you can sense the inspiration of Wyler’s Wuthering Heights), with the film frequently framing the encounter with romantic angles. Eileen Herlie, for all the unflattering make-up and filming, looks all too much like Hamlet’s contemporary rather than mother (Herlie was in fact nearly 12 years younger than Olivier). While the scene does have a little too much heavy-breathing – and Olivier overplays the heart-beat soundtrack as white noise – it’s an effectively unsettling balance of intimacy and incest. It also runs through the production – from Gertrude kissing Hamlet on the lips, to her conscious decision to drink the poison and protect Hamlet.

The production – partly driven by cuts – is fiercely Hamlet-centric. Olivier speaks most of the dialogue (all of Olivier’s films revolve around massive star-roles for himself, fitting his competitive dominance). His Hamlet is beautifully thoughtful, but also dynamic and energetic (not much doubt there). Olivier perfectly captures the intellectual, as well as the humanity, grace and charm. Some of the nuance of the soliloquies is lost by Olivier’s decision to deliver them in voice-over (although Olivier does a good job reacting along to the narration) – but fortunately “To Be or Not To Be” and his speech on Yorick’s skull remain delivered ‘live’, and coated in emotional honesty.

The rest of the cast are relegated. Sydney’s Claudius is little more than a scowling villain, Herlie has little presence. Norman Wooland makes a great deal of the loyal Horatio (a famously dull role), while Peter Cushing adds some comic energy as a foppish Osric. The best non-Hamlet moments go to Polonius and his children: Aylmer is the portrait of a doddering interferer nowhere near as smart as he thinks he is, while Morgan has a matinee idol energy as Laertes. Best of all is Jean Simmons, wonderfully heart-felt and fragile as Ophelia, whose gentleness dooms her.

Olivier might give himself most the best moments, but he allows plenty of directorial flourish elsewhere. There is a wonderful shot at Yorick’s tomb, where Hamlet’s shadow is cast over the skull, the skull seeming to become the shadow’s head. While a crane shot during Claudius-Laertes scheming is unwisely used twice in quick succession (more likely to raise chuckles), there is an impressive amount of camera movement and tracking shots. The production ends with a knock-out sword fight – and of course only Olivier would cap that with a life-and-limb risking dive from a platform. Olivier’s charisma is used brilliantly in these scenes, and while it’s not always quite clear emotionally what Hamlet is considering in these moments, his forceful presence drives the action and adds great weight to his final speech.

Because, this isn’t a film about a man not making up his mind. Sure, he’s a thinker – and one of the final shots brings us back to Hamlet’s chair, now empty – but when action is needed, this Hamlet grabs it. Just as Olivier grabbed the tools of cinema to create a production of the play that feels like a film. Some critics at the time were horrified that Hamlet should even be in the crude medium of film (Olivier took to calling it an “essay” on Hamlet) but today it stands quite rightly as both a great film and a key example of how to bring Shakespeare to the screen.

Doubt (2008)

Amy Adams and Meryl Streep wrestle with certainty and Doubt

Director: John Patrick Shanley

Cast: Meryl Streep (Sister Aloysius Beauvier), Philip Seymour Hoffman (Father Brendan Flynn), Amy Adams (Sister James), Viola Davis (Mrs Miller), Joseph Foster (Donald Miller)

It’s 1964 in a Bronx Catholic School, run with an iron hand by Sister Aloysius (Meryl Streep). This arch-conservative is in the middle of an unspoken struggle with progressive reformer priest Father Brendan Flynn (Philip Seymour Hoffman), who doesn’t feel Catholicism has to be stern, unyielding and guilt-inducing. These tensions underlie Sister Aloysius’ concerns about Father Flynn’s closeness to the boys – in particular the school’s only black student, Donald Miller (Joseph Foster). When young and naïve Sister James (Amy Adams) reports that Donald returned from a meeting with Father Flynn with alcohol on his breath, Sister Aloysius is convinced Flynn is guilty of sexual misdemeanours – and makes it her mission to remove him from the school.

Adapted from a Tony-Award winning play, and directed by its author John Patrick Shanley, Doubt is an intense, well-staged, subtle opening-out of a four-hander, that works on screen due to Shanley’s flexibility with the material and the wonderful performances from the four principals. The story serves as a parable of sorts for clerical sex scandals, but ties this smartly into questions of faith and the limits of belief.

Because there are no clear answers in the film (or the play). We never know with cast-iron certainty if Father Flynn is guilty or not. All we have are his passionate denials, Sister Aloysius’ equally passionate certainty of his guilt, and a few moments we witness of his interaction with Donald Miller and the other students that are left open to interpretation. Tied into this as well, we have a very clear clash between modernisers and conservatives within the church – and we worry that, in being drawn towards the more sympathetic Flynn, we are in fact rooting for a sex-offender.

Doubt is a film that is likely to keep you questioning who you believe. I even found that repeat viewings can change your perspective on guilt or innocence – this time I was far more alarmed by Hoffman’s genial Father Flynn than I remembered (a lecture on clean nails he gives to the boys walks a wonderful line between hygiene and unsettling creep). Shanley’s expansion gives us more scenes of Flynn interacting with other priests. It’s clear the priesthood is a boisterous boys club, with jokes and drinking – much more fun than the staid, milk-drinking silence of the nuns’ meals – but this is also the clubbish pact of secrecy that let real-life paedophiles be quietly moved from parish to parish.

Sister Aloysius may be practically a poster-child for why people find religion off-putting, but she’s absolutely on-the-money in her determination to root out abuse. Yet while her determination to rid the church of abusers is genuine, does she really believe in Flynn’s guilt, or is it a prop she reaches for to justify her own dislike of him and his beliefs about the church? We’re never certain.

And that is part of the smartness of Shanley’s work. Because in the end all we have to go on is faith and our own belief. Which is pretty much like the whole of religion itself. There is enough in the film to convince you of the guilt or innocence of Flynn, the upright justice or corrupt selfishness of Aloysius. Their approaches to religion are radically different – Flynn sees it as their duty to be open and involve the community, to integrate their interests; to Aloysius the church only works if it is strict, austere and sets a moral example to all. A meeting between the two of them is a masterclass in micro-aggressions over everything from choice of chairs, pouring of tea, serving of sugar, closing blinds, you name it.

This is the trace of theatre in the piece – and theatre is when it is at is strongest. Shanley’s direction is largely unfussy, although he is prone to overuse Dutch angles to hammer home the uncertainty and to overplay a metaphor of the wind (a storm is coming you know!). But when he avoids too much fuss, the film is very effective. The opening up of the play works very well, with most of the additional characters (be they added nuns, parishioners or children in the school) largely used as silent extras that help to create a wider world as well as adding more reaction shots that help us build up even more our questions and doubts about the versions of a story we are hearing..

And the added question over this is the identity of the victim. As the only black child in the school, does his dependence on Flynn come from Donald’s sense of isolation? Is he vulnerable because of bullying and simply in need of the genuine kindness of a substitute father figure, in place of the bullying and violent father he actually has? Or does this isolation make him the perfect target for a predator? Most daringly, Foster’s mother (brilliantly played by Viola Davis in a single extended scene) when confronted with the possibility of abuse by Sister Aloysius even suggests that abuse might be price worth paying for the opportunities being at the school will give her son, the sort of opportunities his parents never dreamed of. Race is a low-key note, but it’s there.

Doubt’s real strengths are in the acting. All four of the principals were Oscar-nominated. Streep was the obvious choice as Sister Aloysius and she delivers one of her finest performances. Aloysius is stern, unbending, dangerously, even recklessly certain of herself and her faith in herself as a force of justice – but believes she is acting for the best motives (or at least is very vocal that she is, rather that is actually true is a whole other question). Streep adds wit (this is after all a woman who views ballpoint pens as the end of civilisation), but also understanding of the vulnerabilities under Aloysius’ rigid conservatism. It’s an outstanding performance.

Amy Adams is charmingly sweet and endearing as a woman caught between two poles, naturally inclined to Flynn’s liberalism and desire to win hearts as well as minds – but also open to using Aloysius’s tactics in the classroom in her struggle to maintain order. Sharply divided, Adams leaves it open whether her desire to see the best in people make her either saint-like or a rube. Hoffman walks an extraordinarily difficult tight-rope as a character both engagingly warm but also (by necessity) unknowable and unreadable. It’s a performance bursting with emotion, but which skilfully disguises that emotion’s motivations. Davis offers a master-class of restrained anxiety, using every ounce of control to keep her difficult life together.

Doubt is a thought-provoking and well-handled staging of a very-good play. Brilliantly acted, it expands the staging of the play but never loses sight of what makes it effective to start with: and will leave you thinking over small moments and as uncertain about truth and prejudice as Sister Aloysius is at its conclusion.

A Soldier's Story (1984)

Howard E Rollins Jnr investigates a racially motivated murder with a difference in A Soldier’s Story

Director: Norman Jewison

Cast: Howard E Rollins Jnr (Captain Davenport), Adolph Caesar (Sergeant Waters), Art Evans (Pvt Wilkie), David Alan Grier (Cpl Cobb), David Harris (Pvt Smalls), Dennis Lipscomb (Captain Taylor), Larry Riley (CJ Memphis), Robert Townsend (Cpl Ellis), Denzel Washington (Pfc Peterson), William Allen Young (Pvt Henson)

A Louisiana military base, 1944. A company of black soldiers prep for Europe to fight for Uncle Sam. All that is put on hold when hard taskmaster Vernon Waters (Adolph Caesar), their sergeant, is shot outside the base. Black JAG officer Captain Richard Davenport (Howard E Rollins Jnr) arrives to investigate the murder – to the hostility of his fellow officers, who are unused to saluting a black man as the common soldiers are. But is Waters murder the result of racism from the town? Or is it due to the tensions within the platoon?

Jewison’s adaptation of a notable stage success by Charles Fuller is a professionally mounted, sharp film – nominated for Best Picture in 1984, but largely forgotten since – that while never quite inspired, does provide plenty of insightful racial commentary on America. It never quite manages to come together as a film – and at times its pace is still better suited to the theatre than the movies –but it counterbalances this with its strength of good acting and an underplayed anger at divisions in America.

Racism is at the heart of the film. Many types of it. Jewison’s opening sequence – depicting Davenport’s arrival on the bus – provides us plenty of sightings of America’s apartheid, segregation being clearly visible in shops, benches and the bus itself. Davenport is addressed as “boy” and instinctive racial unease and disgust is in the eyes of every townsperson we meet. The officers range from paternalistic to patronisingly contemptuous of their men. Every element of the base is designed to remind the soldiers of their second-class status. Davenport is only with great reluctance allowed the trappings of his fellow officers. The film ends with a march of the soldiers towards war – a war they are volunteering to fight in, to protect a country that sees them as less-than-human.

But at its heart this is a film about the real insidious horror of racism. How it can turn someone against themselves. Because the real racial villain, it becomes clear, was actually Sergeant Walters himself. Played with a tightly-wound, self-loathing resentfulness by Adolph Caesar (repeating his stage role and Oscar nominated), Walters loathes the black men under his charge. He sees them as embodying the elements of black culture that (he believes) has led to them being treated so poorly by the whites. He hates their choices in music, in food, the way their talk. Most of all he hates the late Private CJ Memphis (Larry Riley), a good-natured, music-playing, sweet soldier who he believes embodies all the casualness and simplicity that he believes his people need to put them behind them to gain respect.

It’s Fuller’s brilliant insight that the most insidious thing about racism is that it is about creating barriers and hatreds – and it can lead to a black man loathing himself and his own people for not being white. Bad enough that the rest of society is against black people: worse that it is also secretly encouraging them to turn on each other. The tensions in the company all stem from Walters barely concealed unease at his colour, and his fury that his men don’t feel the same way.

Unwrapping in a series of flashbacks as Davenport investigates, the film reveals a fascinating series of tableau that demonstrates the confusion in Walters’ psyche and the impact it has on others. In a society where everything is all against them – as Jewison’s film is at pains to show – these are people who should be sticking together. Instead Walters crusade is to turn them against themselves and each other – to deny who they are in an attempt to become their oppressors. The quest for an acceptance that Walters eventually realises will never happen.

Because, as he bitterly states, no matter how much blood a black man sheds for America, no matter what sacrifices he makes – to many he will still be an “other”. Someone who the people of Louisiana are happy to have fight for them, but wouldn’t share a park bench with. These destructive attitudes are there as well in Davenport’s attempts to investigate, butting up against resentment from junior officers who can’t stomach being spoken to like this by a black man. Howard E Rollins Jnr plays the role with a terrific cool underneath which lies a tightly-controlled fury (he rather effectively channels Poitier in In the Heat of the Night).

A Soldier’s Story is crammed with some wonderful and challenging insights into race. It has a wonderful cast – Art Evans and a young Denzel Washington also stand-out – and a real sense of moral outrage at the evil of racism. What it sometimes lacks is the energy and dynamism the story needs to carry more immediate impact. Too often the film feels a little too safe, a little too conventional to really grip. It wraps up things with a rather conventional feel-good position (with Davenport and Dennis Lipscomb’s Captain Taylor coming to a soapy ‘mutual respect’ position). With the pace slightly off, it can drag at times. However, it’s insight can’t be doubted: it will certainly make you consider that the impact of racism can be even deeper and more damaging than the obvious, initial signs.