Performance (1970)

An almost undefinable mix of gangster and philosophy, almost unique in its eccentric oddness

Director: Donald Cammell, Nicolas Roeg

Cast: James Fox (Chas), Mick Jagger (Turner), Anita Pallenberg (Pherber), Michèle Breton (Lucy), Ann Sidney (Dana), John Binden (Moody), Stanley Matthews (Rosebloom), Allan Cuthbertson (Lawyer), Anthony Morton (Dennis), Johnny Shannon (Harry Flowers), Anthony Valentine (Joey Maddocks), Kenneth Colley (Tony Farrell)

Performance seems to slop out of the swinging sixties dark side, a brash and darkly disturbing explosion of style and intellectualism. There are few films like it out there: its a sometimes tough but haunting watch, crammed with mind-bending imagery and swimming in strange and unsettling ideas. It’s both a gut punch and an unsettlingly erotic massage.

Chas (James Fox) is a ruthless gangland enforcer for mob boss Harry Flowers (Johnny Shannon). Ambitious but instinctively violent, he’s a slim, tall cocktail of anger and predatory resentment – so it’s not a surprise that he eventually provokes a minor gangland dust-up, which leads to him killing a rival against Harry’s orders. His life in danger, Chas retreats to a convenient bolthole. Passing himself off as a travelling juggler (!), he wheedles his way into the home of reclusive pop star Turner (Mick Jagger) who lives a life of philosophy, drugs and free love in a beat-up house in Notting Hill. There Chas and Turner will form an unusual connection as a mixture of drugs and repressed yearnings and longings see their personalities begin to mix and merge.

It was born from the mind of Donald Cammell and was originally commissioned as a sort of 60s romp. Many of the money men signed on, under the impression they would be getting a sort of A Hard Day’s Night for The Rolling Stones. God alone knows what they made of the nightmare fuel they ended up (rumour has it, the wife of one executive vomited at an initial screening). Cammell, heavily influenced by Jorge Luis Borges, created a dak dream-like work where questions of identity and sex get wrapped up in a surreal framework where reality bends around the crazy logic.

It’s reflected in the film’s artistically discordant style, re-edited to deliberately blur linear lines and (increasingly) tip the film into dream-like logic. From the opening ten minutes we start switching between different, complementing, tones. In this case between Chas and his cronies in a car and a stereotypically upper-class lawyer (Allan Cuthbertson at his most imperial) speaking in court to a pompous jury who themselves merge with the dirty-old men watching a cheap porno flick in one of Chas’ stopping points.

This surrealistically toned cutting – married to strikingly beautiful, unusual colour-filled lighting from Nicolas Roeg (who co-directed the film with Cammell, delivering much of its visual look) – lays the groundwork for a film that increasingly shifts into something strange and constantly unsettling, where we can never be quite sure where we are. Characters merge into each other, brief cuts showing Jagger switch places with Fox and Pallenberg (at one point Chas and Turner appear in bed together before Turner is replaced in the next cut with Lucy), sequences take place that must be fantasy and the real-world disappears in a finale that lays the entire film open to interpretation.

What’s striking about Performance is that, even with stylistic flourishes, much of the opening section plays like a hard-boiled gangster film. There is a marked reality about Chas’ moving around the streets of London, roughing up taxi firm owners, threatening rivals and intimidating the loose lipped. Surprising as it might seem, it reflects Chas’ conservativeness: a self-made man, Chas takes inordinate pride in his freshly-cut suits and perfect hair, lives in a flat that’s like an interior design brochure and has contempt for arty free-spirits. The film’s opening matches his everyday aesthetic.

He’s played with a snarling aggression by James Fox, a hugely successful piece of counter-intuitive casting. Fox makes Chas tense, cocky and no-where near as clever as he thinks he is. He’s a bully who delights in terrifying a posh chauffeur and resents taking orders. He’s vain– his apartment littered with glossy photos of his own half-naked athletic body – and his sadomasochistic sex with his girlfriend is carried out with hand-held mirror so he can watch himself. This is a rich, primal, brilliant performance by Fox, latching into a dark energy he rarely touched again.

What’s also striking though is that there is a vulnerability and emptiness to Chas. Odd as it might seem, it’s also a mirror-image of Fox in The Servant: there a naïve young man absorbed by his butler – here a seemingly worldly gangster, totally unsettled and slowly changed by a new domineering force in his life. Chas may believe himself to be the master, but he’s a rat in a maze in the psychedelic craziness of Turner’s world, with a freedom, wildness and gentleness completely alien to Chas’ ordered world.

Whipper-thin and with a natural charisma that almost masks his fundamental weakness as an actor, Jagger sashays into the film as a softly spoken force of nature, the sort of artist who pops pills then reads philosophy. His house, all ramshackle opium den chic, is a hedonistic place of relaxed freedoms where Turner lives in a menage with Pherber and Lucy (there was much scandal at the time about whether Jagger and Pallenberg had sex for real during filming). It’s a surrealist den, shot from unusual or unsettling angles with an oddly precocious child (whose gender seems to change from scene to scene) running around.

Turner finds Chas fascinating – and it’s here the film’s title comes to life as Cammell muses how much is Chas’ personality an affectation, a construct that he has built? Doped up on magic mushrooms, Turner (and the film) explore and deconstructs the sort of man Chas is. From Turner dressing-up as and impersonating Chas, to Chas himself stripping down physically and mentally, both in the sort of bohemian clothes he despised and even trying on feminine garb with face paint. It unpeels the construct of Chas hyper-masculinity to find a more tender, less egotistical man below.

And what better construct, you might argue, than gangsters? These are people living an eternal front (Flower’s office is awash with brash touches – like an equestrian painting of himself – that hide his closeted and violent nature; he’s clearly inspired by both Krays). It’s a front the openly hedonistic and relaxed Turner can shake up: Jagger sings ‘Memo From Turner’ in a surreal dreamish sequence, where he takes Flowers place and encourages his fellow gangsters to literally strip. Performance deconstructs this, using editing to merge Turner and Chas, as two sides of the performance coin.

The film spirals further down this rabbit hole of personality shifting, as Chas becomes more and more like the softly waif-like Turner, just as Turner experiments with the flouting masculine aggression of Chas. Mirrors allow us to visually mix and merge characters and strange cuts take us on an increasingly non-linear journey. This remains unconfirmed and undefined – one critic wrote it was easier to write a book about Performance than a review and he’s probably right – and the further down this metaphorical (and, in its final sequence, almost literal) rabbit hole you go, the more the surreal questions remain unanswered. What is going on in the end? Is it real? Who absorbs who? All questions remain enigmatically open and rife to multiple interpretation.

Performance is hardly an easy watch. I can easily imagine the wrong person at the wrong time finding it either disturbing or (probably more likely) a pile of pretentious wank. But it’s a daring, undefinable and unreadable film that offers itself up to ripe interpretation and re-interpretation while remaining playful. And that is one heck of a difficult performance to pull off.

Boomerang! (1947)

Effective journalistic investigation into a murder case turns into engaging courtroom melodrama

Director: Elia Kazan

Cast: Dana Andrews (State’s Attorney Henry Harvey), Jane Wyatt (Madge Harvey), Lee J Cobb (Chief Harold Robinson), Cara Williams (Irene Nelson), Arthur Kennedy (John Waldron), Sam Levene (Dave Woods), Taylor Holmes (TM Wade), Robert Keith (‘Mac’ McCreery), Ed Begley (Paul Harris), Karl Malden (Lt White)

In Bridgeport, Connecticut, a popular priest is gunned down in the street, the killer escaping into the night. The police are baffled. The city turns against the reformist mayor’s administration. Then, after several weeks, there is a lead as twitchy ex-soldier John Waldron (Arthur Kennedy) is dragged in and, after hours-and-hours of interrogation without sleep, signs a confession. But who cares about small details like that, when everyone is sure the police has their man? But State’s Attorney Henry Harvey (Dana Andrews) has doubts – and no pressure from the public or officials will make him build a case against an innocent man.

Based on an actual 1924 murder case, Boomerang! is told with journalistic sharpness by Elia Kazan that smoothly moves from investigative into courtroom drama. Boomerang! was cited by Kazan as when he started to find his voice, establishing a style that would carry him to Oscar-winning success in On the Waterfront and beyond. Shot largely in location (though admittedly in a different Connecticut town than Bridgeport), it’s full of the immediacy of the streets, avoiding sets and forced studio locations. Kazan leans into the journalistic feel, with a voiceover explaining events and an earnest attempt throughout to make it feel like we are watching real events unfold.

It captures people going about their everyday lives: gossiping over laundry, strolling down streets, pounding typewriters in press rooms, gathering in church and shops. This is a film designed to convey a full sense of a real world. That goes as well for reflecting the investigation, which is full of the visceral pounding of pavements and hustling of suspects into police cars as well as the interrogations of the worn-down Waldron, taking place in an inhospitable room where never-ending questions means Waldron’s head has to be literally picked up to continue answering the questions.

The observational strengths of the film’s opening eventually moves into something more straight-forwardly melodramatic, but Kazan’s documentary restraint tries it best to not make this shift too jarring. As Harvey’s doubts grow, he becomes under increasing pressure from officialdom, principally from Ed Begley’s sweaty Paul Harris (who is too noticeably dodgy from the start for his villainy to be anything like a surprise). This is before a series of courtroom dynamics that hue towards the sort of fireworks you find in larger-than-life films than the journalistic reserve Boomerang! starts with.

Which isn’t to say that these courtroom dynamics are not very well-handled, especially by the under-rated Dana Andrews, who brings just the right amount of humanity and dignity to an otherwise stiff-on-paper character of a crusading, too-good-to-be-true attorney. Andrews delivers the courtroom speeches, and the detailed breakdown of the flaws in the police case, with a real quiet passion – just as he brings a nice degree of moral outrage to the bullying attempts to silence him.

Boomerang! provides several opportunities for compelling character actors, many of whom went on to work again for Kazan to great success. Lee J Cobb’s bulldog fierceness is perfect for put-upon police Captain Robinson who lets his determination to prove he can crack the case compromise his judgement. Cobb gives Robinson a powerful sense of authority – there is a wonderful scene where he faces down a would-be lynch mob with little more than growling disapproval. There is also a lovely moment, where he lifts the sleeping Waldron and carries him into his bed with all the care of a loving father. He’s well backed by Karl Malden as an eager-to-please inexperienced cop.

Arthur Kennedy produces one of his expert portraits in weakness as Waldron, an embittered veteran who has found peace offers little more than failure. While never losing track of what makes Waldron suspicious, Kennedy finds a neat line in vulnerability and fear keeps him sympathetic. Opposite him, Cara Williams explodes with righteous fury as a former girlfriend who believes herself wronged, eager to see Waldron condemned. It’s a more interesting role than any other female role in the film, although Jane Wyatt finds some engaging warmth in the dull role of Andrews’ loyal wife.

Boomerang! at heart is a film about the barrel being fine, aside from a few rotten apples. The crime takes place after the old machine politics system has been cast aside by new politicians, not beholden to the system, willing to introduce reforms. And, by and large, they are shown to really mean it – even if, at one point, some express the view that it doesn’t matter if Waldron is guilty or innocent, since winning means the reformists can remain in power. But all the real sins are collected in the hands of Begley’s character: even the police are absolved, despite the fact we watch them essentially brow-beat a man into confessing (a sergeant even suggesting they rough him up a bit to speed things along, which makes you wonder what the system was like for people are not veterans the police captain feels sorry for).

Boomerang! pulls any punches of really exploring systemic flaws, even while it covers an innocent man being bum-rushed into a trial. But then it puts complete faith in the idea that the same system will turn around and do its job by ensuring he is completely absolved – with the only danger from corrupt elected officials, not the blindness of a potential system. It’s a factor Kazan (to be fair) felt the film made too many compromises on – and he’s right. It might tell a scare story, but Boomerang! is fundamentally a reassuring film that is sure everything will turn out right in the end.

Rustin (2023)

Solid biopic tells an inspiring story in a straightforward way with a Domingo star turn

Director: George C Wolfe

Cast: Colman Domingo (Bayard Rustin), Aml Ameen (Martin Luther King Jnr), Glynn Turman (A Philip Randolph), Chris Rock (Roy Wilkins), Gus Halper (Tom Kahn), Johnny Ramey (Elias Taylor), CCH Pounder (Dr Anna Hedgeman), Michael Potts (Cleve Robinson), Audra McDonald (Ella Baker), Jeffrey Wright (Adam Clayton Powell Jnr), Lilli Kay (Rachell), Jordan-Amanda Hall (Charlene), Bill Irwin (AJ Muste)

Bayard Rustin was on of crucial the civil rights activists in conceiving, planning and organising the 1963 March on Washington. A proponent of nonviolence and equal rights for all, regardless of race, gender or sexuality, he was a close friend and colleague of Martin Luther King and a key figure in innumerable campaigns. Rustin partly exists to bring his life more to public notice, focusing on the build-up to the March on Washington and exploring Rustin’s struggles as both a Black man and a gay man.

At its heart is Colman Domingo, who delivers a sensational performance as Rustin, bursting with energy and emotional compassion. Domingo brilliantly captures Rustin’s loud-and-proud nature, his overwhelming commitment to being who he is, and his passionate commitment to social justice. This is a force-of-nature turn dominating the movie, breathing passion and fire into Rustin’s compulsive desire to speak out.

Domingo matches this with a neat sense of comic timing (Rustin is frequently very funny) and a raw emotion. The emotional impact nearly all comes from Domingo. He’s genuinely moving when he misjudges the level of loyalty to him in the film’s opening act and has an offer of resignation accepted by the NAACP (after press reports suggesting he has seduced King). Even more so later in his emotional outpouring when the same NAACP members finally back him up. More focus on Rustin gaining full, unquestioning, acceptance from his colleagues could have offered a beating heart to the film.

Domingo’s performance elevates an otherwise, to be honest, fairly middle-of-the-road biopic that frequently wears its research heavily. It has an air of competent professionalism, with George C Wolfe’s direction lacking emotional or visual spark. Much of the dialogue – given a brush by Dustin Lance Black – frequently (and rather painfully) has the actors fill in historical context or clumsily shoehorns in real dialogue. There is very little spark to Rustin, as it dutifully ticks off events, building towards sign-posted emotional payoffs (and, admittedly, there are fewer payoffs more inspiring than a quarter of a million people gathering in Washington to cry for freedom).

This is not to say there aren’t fine moments and its recreation of the Washington March (some tight angles, well-chosen archive footage and subtle effects) works very well. There are some fine actors giving their all. Glynn Turman is a stand-out as the inspiring Randolph, savvy enough to play the game in a way Rustin isn’t. Aml Ameen’s capturing of King’s voice and mannerisms is perfect. Pounder, Rock, McDonald and others compellingly bring to life leading activists while Jeffrey Wright sportingly plays the closest thing to a heel as jealous congressman Clayton Powell.

However skilful reconstructions only take us so far. Often personal stakes are presented vaguely. The film avoids depicting Rustin encountering much personal homophobia – no member of the movement expresses negative views, with white pacifist campaigner AJ Muste (Bill Irwin) the only person to express openly homophobic opinions. The threat of someone discovering his past arrest (for a 1953 encounter with two men in Pasadena) is played as a core fear for Rustin, but the film is vague about the likely impact this revelation would have (since it seems to already be widely know). It’s astonishing that Rustin was so open when being so was a crime, but the film (aside from a brief moment when he considers a casual pick-up) risks underplaying the era’s prejudice and dangers.

To cover issues on homophobia and self-loathing guilt, the film invents a closeted reverend, well played with a tortured sense of shame and self-loathing by Johnny Ramey, who initiates a secretive relationship with Rustin. This fictional character absorbs all the fear and self-denial that many gay people felt at the time, allowing Rustin to show us what life was like for the many, many people who, for whatever reason, were not as outspoken as Rustin. But it does feel like somewhat of a compromise, and a character who feels a little too convenient, drifting to and from the story whenever it’s themes need a bit more of a personal touch.

It’s hard not to think the film could have gained more interest from exploring Rustin’s relationship with Tom Kahn (Gus Halper) – or even being clearer on the very nature of this relationship. An initial familiar intimacy indicates an established romantic relationship, but later scenes suggest instead a more casual flatmates-with-benefits set-up. Then we suddenly hit the inevitable moment when Kahn walks in on Rustin and Elias kissing and reacts like a betrayed partner. It finally decides Kahn is in love with Rustin, but Rustin hasn’t time for a relationship with so much work to be done. Despite this thought, the film wants to also say Rustin and Elias are profoundly in love, tragically only kept apart by social pressures. It’s trying to have its cake and eat it too. The cost to your personal life of being fully committed to a cause, or the awful pressures of loving someone in the face of prejudice, are both powerful stories. Settling on one and exploring it fully would have been more emotionally rewarding.

Rustin is a solid, well-handled, decent biopic. Bringing the life of a lesser-known civil rights activist to a bigger audience is a worthy aim, and Black and queer audiences (historically underserved) deserve to see films that centre their stories. It’s also refreshing to see a film zero in on the importance of logistics for major events (what other film has a scene where the fillings of thousands of sandwiches to be kept in the warm sunshine becomes a heated debate?) and its focus on the work recruiting attendees, buses and resources for the March is great.

But the real success in this sometimes workmanlike film is Domingo, who lifts the entire thing with an emotionally committed performance that is perhaps better than it deserves.

The Thin Man (1934)

Complex mysteries take a backseat to witty wordplay in this charming, funny comedy

Director: W.S. Van Dyke

Cast: William Powell (Nick Charles), Myrna Loy (Nora Charles), Maureen O’Sullivan (Dorothy Wynant), Nat Pendleton (Lt John Guild), Minna Gombell (Mimi Wynant Jorgenson), Porter Hall (Herbert MacCauley), Henry Wadsworth (Tommy), William Henry (Gilbert Wynant), Harold Huber (Arthur Nunheim), Cesar Romero (Chris Jorgensen), Natalie Moorhead (Julia Woolf), Edward Ellis (Clyde Wynant)

Wealthy businessmen Wynant (Edward Ellis) is missing and his daughter Dorothy (Maureen O’Sullivan) needs someone to find him: particularly as the police suspect Wynant is a killer after his mistress Julia (Natalie Moorhead) is found dead, under suspicion of stealing $25k from him. Can she persuade debonair, playboy detective Nick Charles (William Powell) to put the martinis aside and take a break from his never-ending banter with wife Nora (Myrna Loy) to help unpick this mystery?

But of course she can, in this hugely enjoyable murder mystery. Inspired by a Dashiell Hammett novel (but you feel only loosely). In fact, Albert Hackett and Frances Goodrich’s script (with the encouragement of WS Van Dyke) focused a lot less on the mystery and a lot more on the sparky interplay between Nick and Nora. The Thin Man is really a crackerjack, joke-a-minute screwball comedy with a murder loosely attached. If anything, it feels more like a comedic Agatha Christie Tommy-and-Tuppence yarn – it even has a final scene where Nick gathers the suspects together over dinner to explain exactly what happened.

Not that Nicks’ actor, William Powell, particularly followed the complex plot details. But then I’m not sure anyone making The Thin Man expected anyone else to either. For starters, most viewers came away with the impression that the debonair Powell was the title’s thin man, rather than Wynant (the original crime relied on the victim being thin) – and the producers eagerly embraced that misconception, with a host of sequels following, each titled with a twist on the thin man.

Besides, the viewers were here for the banter not the crime drama. The Thin Man was shot at a lightening pace by Van Dyke (earning his nickname “one-take Woody”) over no more than twelve days. The reason being that was the length of time Myrna Loy was available for, and her chemistry with Powell was second-to-none. And you can tell it in the film, which has a loose, improvisational quality between the two leads who are often essentially fooling around on camera with each other, pulling faces and telling off-the-cuff jokes far more than spending time actually cracking the case.

And that’s where the joy of the picture really is. It’s huge fun to see the two of them playfully mock hit each other before reverting to affectionate hugs when Lt Guild turns to look at them. Or slapstick business around an icebag to the head for a hung-over Nora. The sort of film where we spent several minutes watching Nick playfully shoot balloons off a Christmas tree with an air rifle from ridiculous positions (until he finally hits a window). Both actors capture perfectly the mood of jaunty, cocktail fuelled, archly witty fun that really powers the film, like Noel Coward goes investigating.

Both actors are at the top of their game. Powell’s casual air of permanent intoxication doesn’t dim his razor-sharp cleverness. Somehow, he manages to remain smooth and stylish, even as he pulls a parade of silly faces. It’s a hugely entertaining, charismatic performance that bounces brilliantly off Myrna Loy’s equally fine performance of arch comic skill. Like Powell, Loy matches playful silliness with sexy sensuality and a winning way with a comic line. Van Dyke encourages both of them to carry out as much natural kidding around as possible (there’s even a moment when Powell drops slightly out of frame, the camera not keeping up with his off-the-cuff japery).

The two of them are a perfect fit for a pair constantly in a state of inebriation. Nora even orders six martinis (all to be lined up) alongside Nick’s one when she finds out he’s that many drinks ahead of her. Nick’s first reaction to be woken up in the middle of the night is reaching for a drink. Despite this, the two of them are sublimely cool under fire (literally) as only Golden-era Hollywood types can be. In fact, being held at gun point in the middle of the night feels like only an inconvenience in the way of a nightcap.

In fact, what’s really striking about The Thin Man is how it shows a real marriage of equals. They may bicker at points – and Nick may joke he married Nora for her money – but they work as a fully unified team. If one has a sharp line, the other an equally sharper comeback and if they make decisions they make it as a team. And, of course, they still have the hots for each other (the film ends with a classic cutaway to them climbing into the same bunk, hammering it home with their dog Asta covering her eyes and a cut to a train steaming away on the track). No wonder audiences absolutely soaked up the energy: just years after the end of prohibition, here was a fun-loving couple all about enjoying every inch of the pleasure’s life had to offer.

The whole tone of The Thin Man is about coating murder mystery in fun. From party guests who tip into the comically ridiculous (my favourite being a melancholic businessman who keeps weeping at the Charles’ Christmas Bash because he feels he needs to call his Momma) to an over-enthusiastic dog (Asta, played by celebrity mutt Skippy) whose whims constantly butt into the Charles’ never-ending drinking, flirting and banter. I love William Henry’s Gilbert, who never moves without a large reference book and uses a parade of out-of-context terms he clearly doesn’t understand from Oedipal to thinking sexagenarian is a sex addict to mispronouncing sadist as sad-est.

With all this background colour, no wonder most people didn’t really give a damn who did the thin man in (or even who the hell the thin man was). We were here for the fun, for Powell and Loy and for the jokes and banter. With Van Dyke encouraging a freeform style from start to finish (Powell’s first scene was his first practice, unknowingly filmed, his relaxed comedy so perfect Van Dyke printed it straight away), The Thin Man is wild, entertaining and funny ride which continues to entertain as viewers try to stop giggling to work out its elaborately obscure mystery.

Father of the Bride (1950)

Gentle, well-made comedy is elevated by a star turn from Spencer Tracy

Director: Vincente Minnelli

Cast: Spencer Tracy (Stanley Banks), Joan Bennett (Ellie Banks), Elizabeth Taylor (Kay Banks), Don Taylor (Buckley Dunstan), Billie Burke (Doris Dunstan), Leo G. Carroll (Mr Massoula), Moroni Olsen (Herbert Dunstan), Melville Cooper (Mr Tringle)

Apparently almost 70% of couples find wedding planning stressful. Perhaps they would be reassured to hear things haven’t changed much since the 1950s! Stanley Banks (Spencer Tracy) is a successful partner in a law firm whose domestic bliss is disrupted when daughter Kay (Elizabeth Taylor) announces she intends to marry boyfriend Buckley (Don Taylor). With the support of her mother Ellie (Joan Bennett), Kay dreams of a big church wedding – and Stanley is left counting the cost while struggling with his sadness at his daughter growing up and flying the nest for good.

Father of the Bride delightfully takes a simple idea and mines it for as much comic effect as possible. The structure is simple: the build-up to and staging of the wedding, with all absurdities of such things as fussy caterers and exacting church wardens pointed up. There are minor bumps and hiccups, but nothing that would make a viewer ever seriously worry that all will not turn out well. Instead, the film riffs on the constant exasperation of a father watching the plans (and cost) of the wedding spiral ever upwards, as more and more extras pile on top of others.

Much of its success is linked to Spencer Tracy, excellent as the eponymous father. The role was written for him and Minnelli demanded he should play it when producers suggested a more comic actor like Jack Benny might fit the bill better. (Katherine Hepburn did not take on the wife, though I can’t imagine she would found much to engage her in Joan Bennett’s underwritten role.) The entire success of the film revolves around our connection with Tracy, something never in doubt with his skill and assurance.

Minnelli cements this with an opening shot panning across wedding debris before craning up to introduce us to a fourth-wall breaking speech of resigned weariness from Tracy. His narrative voice is returned to again and again, as Tracy shares a wry and exasperated commentary. Father of the Bride is a testament to Tracy’s comic chops, his mastery of the micro-reaction providing constant laughs, from a look of disbelief across a dining table to one of shock as the latest bill flies in. It’s a hilariously effective performance, in which Tracy embraces the ridiculousness of farce. Like a practiced comedian he spays himself (three times) while attempting to open a coke or kids himself into believing he looks dandy in a morning suit several years too small for him.

But the performance – and the film – really works because Tracy also communicate its humanity. In his relationship with Elizabeth Taylor (suitably radiant as Kay, and full of a forceful personality she surely inherited from her father), Tracy makes clear his love for his daughter and his sadness at an end of an era: he won’t be ‘the man’ in her life anymore. Even with small inconsequential moments (such as Kay ignoring Stanley’s appeal to wear a coat before fetching it immediately when Buckley suggests the same), Tracy shows sadness dance across his face. The wedding is awash with bittersweet moments, with Tracy as harried host desperately attempting to speak with his daughter one last time before she leaves. Father of the Bride through Tracy’s performance mines a great deal of quiet, genuine emotion from a parent struggling with a child grown up.

It’s a bittersweet thread Minnelli’s film keeps pinging away under the comedy. Minnelli seems an unlikely choice (you’d expect a Cukor or Capra), but his skill with composition adds to the film without overwhelming the slender story with flash. The opening shot of wedding debris prepares us for the hustle and bustle of the big day, where a parade of carefully choreographed background events in the Banks’ house is as skilled as the bustling crowds of the event. Minnelli gives a Dali-inspired flair to Banks’ pre-wedding nightmare (his feet melting into the ground and clothes falling apart) and he plugs into Tracy’s reactive skill to frame these off-the-ball moments for maximum impact.

Editing also helps accentuate jokes. On hearing his daughter intends to marry, Banks reflects with horror on who this suitor might be, a montage of assorted suitors (from athletic, to bookish, to dancing) spooling past us. (The biggest joke now might be how utterly safe all these suitors are, the sort of lads you imagine fathers today would be desperate for daughters to bring home). Minnelli also fades in and out on blurry close-ups on glasses to communicate both the passing of time and Stanley’s rising inebriation (after a growing parade of martinis) when the Banks meet with Buckley’s parents.

This sort of comic energy helps carry the film very effectively. Of course it is all very simple – the 1991 remake added more moments of crisis and obstacles for the characters to overcome – and that can explain why events sometimes feel stretched out even over its slim 90-minute run time. For all the film’s tagline (“Bride gets the thrills; Father gets the bills!”) suggests frustration on Stanley’s part, moments where he weeds through a huge invite list (525!) or bemoans paying for an orchestra no one is listening to are generally underplayed (perhaps it was thought we could only sympathise so much before starting to think of Tracy as a penny pincher?)

But, overall, the film works very well indeed, mostly due to Spencer Tracy’s hugely effective performance – funny, endearing, likeable and hugely relatable with a perfect balance between comedy and emotional depth. It would have been nice to have had more of a contrast between Stanley and Buckley – when Buckley turns up to a heart-to-heart with father-in-law clutching a briefcase full of his work, I immediately thought ‘never has a woman more clearly married someone like her dad’. But what the film aims to do it, it succeeds at. And that’s to have some good-natured, heart-warming fun showing how even stars like Tracy can find weddings stressful.

It Was Just an Accident (2025)

Compelling, compassionate and deeply political drama, full of humanism and warmth

Director: Jafar Panahi

Cast: Vahid Mobasseri (Vahid), Mariam Afshari (Shiva), Ebrahim Azizi (‘Eghbal’), Hadis Pakbaten (Goli), Majid Panahi (Ali), Mohammad Ali Elyasmehr (Hamid), Delnaz Najafi (‘Eghbal’’s daughter), Afssaneh Najmabadi (‘Eghbal’s’ wife)

Late at night, a father (Ebrahim Azizi) driving his heavily pregnant wife and daughter home, hits a wild dog. His young daughter is deeply upset, but the father impassively responds it was ‘just an accident’. But the car is damaged, so the father pulls over for help. When he does so, the distinctive squeak of his artificial leg brings near-by Vahid (Vahid Mobasseri) into a horrified cold sweat. Vahid has heard that squeak before: belonging to Eghbal (‘Peg Leg’) the man who brutally tortured him in prison.

The next day Vahid kidnaps Eghbal, intending to bury him alive until doubt sets in: has he got the right man? To get the confirmation he needs, he reaches out to others tortured by Eghbal, including wedding photographer Shiva (Mariam Afshari), bride Goli (Hadis Pakbaten) (with groom Ali (Majid Panahi) in tow) and Shiva’s former partner Hamid (Mohammad Ali Elyasmehr). Can this motley group confirm Eghbal’s identity? What will they do with him?

It Was Just an Accident takes inspiration from Death and the Maiden and it’s a story that could be happening right now. Jafar Pahani’s outstanding film is set in Iran, where anyone can be seized from the streets and face months of relentless, brutal questioning from furious interrogators. Pahani, himself imprisoned for seven months in 2022-23 (only gaining release after going on hunger strike) shot the film secretly (and illegally) in Iran, the sixth film he has shot in this way, after being banned from film-making. Smuggled out of the country, it won the Palme d’Or, and makes compelling political points about life in Iran while never losing track of the human stories at its heart.

Pahani asks searching questions about truth, reconciliation and what separates the oppressed from the oppressor. Each character, a rag-tag assemblage of the regime’s victims all bundled together in a beat-up van like an eccentric Scooby-gang, must ask themselves what they want from their former torturer. Is it vengeance pure and simple? Or something deeper? And would taking satisfying, violent revenge really fill the hole years of brutal treatment left inside them? Do they want to stoop to the same vile level as their torturer – if he can take the last vestige of their humanity from them in this state, is this not a victory of sorts for Iran?

There is no doubt about the lasting trauma years of imprisonment has left on its victims. Vahid, constantly stooped with back-pain, literally freezes in mute horror at hearing Eghbal’s squeaking leg, before rushing into a sudden, ill-thought-out kidnapping. Shiva can barely bring herself to look at her possible torturer, barely suppressing vomit when she recognises his smell. Goli has to be restrained from beating him, her pain roaring to the surface. Hamid’s instinct to immediately kill Eghbal needs all the group to restrain him: his fury so intense, the man’s identity is almost irrelevant to Hamid’s desire for revenge. Even the calmest people find themselves succumbing to the cathartic need to assault Eghbal, to work some of the pain out of their system.

But yet… aside from Hamid, the group find it hard to embrace the violence of their oppressors. Instead, all crowded into Vahid’s van with a drugged Eghbal locked in the boot, they meander, arguing over what to do. Bury him in the desert? Confront him? Let him go before he identifies them? These people fell foul of Iran’s government because they campaigned for worker’s rights – they are not revolutionary fighters, but ordinary people. This dilemma leaves them sitting in the desert, emotionally sharing stories of their imprisonment, seemingly waiting (as Hamid says watching Shiva sit under a dead tree, like Waiting for Godot) for a decision to come to them.

These heart-rending stories reveal the oppressive horror of Iran’s system. Tales of mock executions, people left hanging upside down for days, harangued under brutal conditions to confess and name names. The fear of returning there is a constant, all of them scared that a released Eghbal may come for them. The abusive infection at the top of the country, trickles down. Anyone with any authority abuses their power, from car park attendants who carry card machines to force bribes for turning blind eyes to suspicious activity to hospital staff who place rules above treating people (and nurses who expect ‘tips’ for service), the system feels corrupt from top-to-bottom.

But that doesn’t mean the country is. Pahani reminds us throughout that real people are kind: there is a strong, uplifting humanist streak throughout It Was Just an Accident. From an ordinary person’s instinctive offer to help when Eghbal’s car breaks down, to passers-by who rush to help push Vahid’s van when it breaks down (filmed in long shot, these passers-by didn’t even knew they were in a film) to a doctor who over-rules petty officialdom to help a woman in need. It Was Just an Accident is full of small moments of human warmth and decency. Each of our group displays these attributes at points, with Vahid and Shiva in particular revealed as people of deep generosity and kindness. The film also takes surprising turns, with the characters responding to circumstances with a decency and humanity that is immensely moving.

Pahani shoots with a series of measured, long-takes allowing performances and themes to naturally expand. He films a series of virtuoso extended scenes of intense emotion, where the camera simply sits or glides gently to follow the action. The long desert scene, where the characters share their stories is all the more powerful for the gentle, unobtrusive distance the camera gives them. Best of all, a hugely powerful sustained shot, lit by the brake lights of the van, explodes with grief, cathartic anger, menace and shame – as well as eliciting extraordinary performances from the actors.

It Was Just an Accident is wonderfully acted across the board. Vahid Mobasseri is heart-breakingly decent beneath his pain. Mairam Afshari’s Shiva is superb as a principled woman who won’t allow herself to be corrupted. Mohammed Ali Elyasmehr’s Hamid never lets the anguish beneath his rage get forgotten. Hadis Pakbaten gives Goli a desperation to speak out while Majid Panahi’s Ali allows his character’s reserve to slowly break. Ebrahim Azizi walks a fine-line with the possible Eghbal, switching from assurance to desperate confusion, pleading to rage – and closes with an impassioned tour-de-force that provokes complicated, enigmatic reactions from the audience.

Enigmatic is also part of Pahani’s ending, a quiet, open-to-interpretation final sequence that could be either a haunting reminder of how the past never lets us go, or a suggestion that there is a hope for truth and reconciliation. How you take it, is to you. But there is no doubting the extraordinary power of Pahani’s film, or how lightly it wears its political and social messages. This is not a film without humour, nor is it a film that forgets people are capable of decent, humane acts that can surprise even themselves. It’s a film that will leave you thinking deeply.

The Man From Laramie (1955)

Psychological complexities abound in a gripping revenge Western full of intriguing characters

Director: Anthony Mann

Cast: James Stewart (Will Lockhart), Arthur Kennedy (Vic Hansbro), Donald Crisp (Alec Waggoman), Cathy O’Donnell (Barbara Waggoman), Alex Nichol (Dave Waggoman), Alice MacMahon (Kate Canady), Wallace Ford (Charley O’Leary), Jack Elam (Chris Boldt), John War Eagle (Frank Darrah), James Millican (Tom Quigby)

It’s the classic Western set-up. A mysterious man rides into town, shaking up the local rivalries while secretly searching for something himself. The final collaboration between James Stewart and Anthony Mann, The Man From Laramie proves to be one of their most complex and, in the end, uncomfortably unreassuring of them all. It seems to promise a fiendish scheme only James Stewart can blow apart. What we actually get is something far more haphazard, put together by a panicked villain, where our hero is only a few shades less compromised than the villain.

Will Lockhart (James Stewart) is nominally in Coronado to deliver goods to Barbara Waggoman (Cathy O’Donnell). But he’s really a cavalry officer searching for a mysterious person selling repeating rifles to the Apache; rifles that led to the ambush and slaughter of a cavalry troop. Lockhart soon finds himself butting heads with the impulsively angry Dave Waggoman (Alex Nichol), son of local rancher Alec (Donald Crisp) who runs the town with his trusted lieutenant Vic Hansbro (Arthur Kennedy) as mediator. Lockhart is more and more determined to uncover the truth.

No one in The Man From Laramie is quite what they seem – or who others see them as. Lockhart seems like the mild-mannered James Stewart, a humble trader looking to make money and move on. But he has obsession in his eyes, a capacity of sudden, compulsive violence and is hiding a complex past that leaves the town reeling. The Waggomans aren’t quite who they seem either. The Lear-like Alec feels like a domineering dictator, but he’s strong-willed but fair. His son Dave seems like a villain, but he’s more a spoilt, impulsive child and the reasonable Vic is more compromised than he appears, a nominal second-son to an Alec but painfully away he comes a distant second to flesh-and-blood. Even Jack Elam’s eccentric is also a dangerous man.

Donald Crisp’s stoic, gruff, hardened rancher is raging against the dying light, covering up his incipient blindness (he can barely read accounts or see the dials on his safe, let alone accurately count out money). He’s facing a conundrum: his actual son, Dave, is a foolish weakling who will be eaten for breakfast by Alec’s crushed rivals – and Vic isn’t his son. Not to mention pressures reveal Vic as liable to stupid, ill-thought out and panicked decisions himself. There is an obvious Shakespeare beats playing out in the wilds of the West.

This combines with a mission of personal revenge for Lockhart. Stewart excels again as an obsessively single-minded man who won’t let anything get in the way: even a gunshot to the hand doesn’t shake his determination. Slapped down early on by Dave –accusing Will of stealing salt and rustling cattle, Dave shoots his mules and burns his carts – he responds with slaps of his own, roughing up Dave in the street and with quiet determination sets about pointedly not doing what the Waggomans want, allying with their rival, sharp-tongued Kate Canady (a wonderfully arch Alice MacMahon) who likes a challenge as much as he does.

But the film avoids a Shane-like clash between little guys and ranchers that we expect. Alec, who clearly learned a lot getting where he is, makes a very generous financial offer to Will as an apology and has no delusions about the (lack of) qualities in his son. There are hints of a past relationship between Alec and Kate, making him less of a bully than you think. And when Alex objects that he never interferes once he appoints a sheriff, you feel inclined to believe him. Alec has risen to power through merit, hard work, investing wisely and reaping the rewards; in fact he’s almost an American business hero. And Lockhart isn’t interested in settling rights and wrongs in the town (he’s not the dangerous stranger Alec keeps dreaming about) however sympathetic he might be.

The Man From Laramie constantly unspools unexpectedly, all it filmed in gorgeous cinemascope that captures the vastness of the West. Mann is also confident with more intimate settings, captureing some truly striking images, not least a Stewart-focused dolly shot that sees the furious Lockhart march through a crowd for retribution against Dave. Mann also shows the terrible power of violence. Opening with the discovery of the smoked-out ruins of a cavalry patrol, it presents violence as the tool of bullies and a blunt instrument. Hand-to-hand battles are desperate, messy struggles in the dirt with no nobility at all. A shoot-out between rocks feels tight and scary and when bullets land the camera captures intense pain in the victim’s faces. The Man From Laramie’s most famous scene focuses violence as a tool, a humiliated Dave ordering Lockhart held down while he shoots him point blank in the hand (a reaction Stewart sells perfectly).

It leaves Lockhart visibility compromised for a large chunk of the film, his hand wrapped in bandages, barely able to aim and fire his rifle. It contributes to another great mini shoot-out where the near blind Alec attempts retribution on a one-handed Stewart, a great scene that deglamorises and builds empathy at the same time. And always we circle back round to Arthur Kennedy’s Vic, an expert portrait of a man who feels like he is constantly paddling violently under the surface to float serenely at the top.

It’s one of several excellent performances, lead brilliantly by Stewart, that round out a very well-shot and psychologically engaging Western that cleverly inverts and realigns expectations and presents a resolution that is deliberately unsatisfying (for us and for Stewart) and a comment itself on the strangers who ride into town to shake it up and then disappear. It’s a fine swan song for a great collaboration between star and director.

Kameradschaft (1931)

Pabst’s very earnest plea for brotherhood is also a gripping underground disaster epic

Director: GW Pabst

Cast: Alexander Granach (Kasper), Fritz Kampers (Wilderer), Daniel Mendaille (Jean Leclerc), Ernst Busch (Wittkopp), Elisabeth Wendt (Anna Wittkopp), Gustav Püttjer (Kaplan), Oskar Höcker (Mine foreman), Héléna Manson (Rose), Andrée Ducret (Françoise Leclerc), Alex Bernard (Grandfather Jacques), Pierre-Louis (Georges)

Pabst’s Kamerdschaft was his second sound film after Westfront 1918 and follows on from that film’s politics. Kamerdscaft is a heartfelt plea that, deep down, we are all comrades, who should be working together not tearing at each other. It’s based on a real 1906 mine disaster in Courrières where a coal dust explosion left thousands of French miners trapped underground, relying on teams of French and German (from Westphalia) miners to save them. Pabst shifts this to 1919 and the location to the French-German border (so new, it even runs through the mine itself with both sides literally walled off from each other). It’s straight after the war, and never have tensions been higher.

Pabst argues though that this lethal squabbling between nations distracts us from the ties that bind us. He opens with two children – one French, one German – arguing over a game of marbles both claim to have won, demanding the other hands over all the marbles. They even literally draw a border in the dirt to make their point. Pabst’s symbolism here is not exactly subtle, but it makes the point swiftly and clearly. Whenever we encounter the border officers, they are rules-bound and small-minded. A French border guard almost fires on a truck of German miners offering their help. Bosses from both sides put obstructions in the way of the effort to free the miners. The film closes with military forces from both sides solemnly re-building the underground border wall knocked down during the rescue.

It’s carried over into tensions between both communities. The French are generally encouraged to look down on the Germans. Life on the French side seems more secure and comfortable – with rows of workers houses, bars and plentiful jobs – with the Germans frequently crossing over to try and find work and relaxation in the French side. A trio of jolly Germans nearly get into a bar fight when a French girl declines to dance with one of them: a loud atmosphere in the bar disappearing, as Pabst’s camera pans past a row of faces suddenly turned confrontation and hostile.

This tension is increased by the language barrier. Kameradschaft was a French-German co-production and the actors used their native language. This allowed for a strong cast, with Alexander Granach particularly notable as the jolly Kasper. It’s fascinating to watch Kameradschaft with only one language translated, plunging you into trying to follow the stumbling French of the Germans and vice versa. Misunderstandings frequently arise. That bar near-fight is started when Fritz Kamper’s German miner assumes Héléna Manson’s Rose doesn’t want to dance with him because he’s German, when actually she says its only because she’s tired.

Misunderstandings continue throughout the film. The German’s underground struggle to make themselves understood, using a range of physical gestures and pigeon-French; the French stumble through basic German. While subtleties are missed, it’s striking how Pabst demonstrates in the big things, meaning is always clear: emotions and actions convey a universal meaning we all understand. In the aftermath, a French miner makes an impassioned speech about brotherhood: his German counterpoint responds with a heartfelt speech that he didn’t understand a word but he agrees they are all brothers.

“A miner is a miner” says Ernst Busch’s Wittkopp who insists on the rescue mission. (Busch was a veteran of Brecht and an impassioned Socialist). You can see why they feel this when you see the conditions below ground. Claustrophobic, dark, sooty and terrifyingly confined, the mines quickly become intimidating traps as support beams buckle and crumble. It’s even more impressive when you realise these extraordinarily convincing sets were indeed sets, build in a studio by Ernő Metzner and Karl Vollbrecht. It’s honestly hard to believe that the crew didn’t go underground when you watch, giving the film a strong steak of realism.

It’s a realism mixed with a moody expressionism in the lighting. When the explosion comes, the fire rolls through the smoke and steam filled rooms and then seems to continue, consuming everything in its path. Pabst uses a tracking camera to keep us just ahead of these advancing flames. He stages brilliantly the collapse of the mine, showing miners trapped or crushed as roofs cave in and rocks tumble down. Kameradschaft is just as strong in showing the panic above ground, as the families of those trapped race through the streets to gather at the mine’s locked gates, howling to be allowed in and help with the rescue of their nearest and dearest.

As in Westfront 1918, Pabst employs the same sound-proof casing to his camera to give it as much flexibility as possible while still capturing sound. Kameradshaft is full of the audio hustle and bustle of a town in torment, and he’s equally effective with sound below ground. Not only the collapse of the mine, but the sounds that come with being trapped: heavy breathing of rescuers in their breathing equipment, metallic tapping on pipes to attract attention, desperate scurrying of trapped miners to find a ringing phone in a ruined engine room. All of this is executed to perfection.

Pabst’s finest sound use comes when one trapped French worker succumbs to delusion under the pressure as a German rescuer approaches. As he sweats in panic, the tapping on pipes shifts to the rat-a-tat of machine guns. From his POV we see the approaching German in breathing transform from a miner into an infantryman. In a series of cuts, the French miner imagines himself in the trenches, launching himself in desperate self-defence against his would-be saviour. It’s a beautifully done moment that hammers home Pabst’s message that when nations turn natural friends into enemies, we are all left weaker.

Kameradschaft isn’t always subtle in saying this. You could frequently call it naïve. Pabst stresses the point with a zoom into the shaking hands of German and French rescuers meeting for the first time under-ground (holding the shot for longer than necessary). But it’s an earnest and decent message. But sadly, not one people were going to listen to. The film was, of course, banned in Nazi Germany almost immediately – and they would have approved of Pabst’s more cynical coda of the underground border being re-built (a scene cut from some prints, as being too glum). We may dream of brotherhood and peace, but sometimes it is just a dream. But Kameradschaft is a fine enough film to persuade us its worth dreaming.

The Shootist (1976)

Wayne’s final elegiac Western as a dying gunslinger tries to go out on his own terms

Director: Don Siegel

Cast: John Wayne (JB Brooks), Lauren Bacall (Bond Rogers), Ron Howard (Gillom Rogers), James Stewart (Dr Hostetier), Richard Boone (Sweeney), John Carradine (Beckum), Scatman Crothers (Moses), Richard Lenz (Dobkins), Harry Morgan (Marshall Thibido), Sheree North (Serepta), Hugh O’Brian (Pulford)

It’s 22^nd January 1901 and Queen Victoria has passed. Automobiles are starting to chug down roads, towns filled with electricity, telegraphs and trams, no longer look like the beat-up, dust-bowls the likes of Wyatt Earp policed. It’s a new age and the end of the Wild West. Which also means it’s the end of the gun-toting cowboys, like JB Brooks (John Wayne), who rode freely and grabbed their six-shooters faster than anyone else. Brooks rides into Carson City, his cancer terminal, his life lonely and full of enemies, wanting to live (and die) in his final week on his own terms.

You don’t need to be a psychologist to see more than a few parallels between Brooks and the man playing him, Hollywood legend John Wayne. Wayne himself was struggling with a cancer that claimed his life three years later and you could argue he too had outlived his time. The glory days of the Westerns were gone along with men like John Ford who built it. The Shootist draws huge piles of its elegiac emotion from this – with even more retrospectively added when it turned out to be the star’s swan song.

It’s strange to think Wayne wasn’t even first choice for the role (the producers were worried his health might not last), because he is so perfect for it that the line between Wayne and Brooks seems paper thin. Wayne still has the spark under the weakness of a sickly one who downs laudanum and relies on a cushion to sit comfortably. He’s a vulnerable man, raging quietly against the dying of the light. Lonely, devoid of friends whose entire life’s possessions are wrapped up in a saddle bag. But he’s also dangerous who can still be extraordinarily ruthless. He kills without hesitation when called on and resorts to violent threats (backed with a gun) when he needs to. But he needs to believe there is more to him than this.

Brooks is a man ‘scared of the dark’, quietly terrified about how he will be remembered. He sees himself as a ‘shootist’, a prowling man’s-man who shot when he needed to. What he doesn’t want to be seen as is a ruthless blood-soaked assassin dealing death left-right-and-centre. He humiliates a journalist (the weasily Richard Lenz) who wants a blood-and-guts killer’s story, sending him packing with a gun in his mouth. He turns away a funeral director (John Carradine, a lovely cameo) who offers a free funeral so he can sell tickets to see the dead killer. He’s desperate for some sort of positive legacy.

This overlaps with Wayne who, if he didn’t know this was his final film, surely knew it was probably his final Western. Siegel opens with a montage from Wayne films past (including Red River, Hondo and Rio Bravo) before crashing into a wide-screen, Fordian landscape that sees Wayne swiftly get the better of a would-be robber. Wayne’s performance is, whatever you think of him, undeniably heart-felt. His drawling pain-wracked face, full of fear and frustration, when told his fatal diagnosis by an old friend (an almost equally emotional cameo from that other drawling icon of the Western, James Stewart) is very moving.

You can see Brooks regrets when an old flame (Sheree North) arrives to suggest they marry – and the hurt when it becomes clear she only wants marriage so she can sell his story. The closest thing he has to a friend – Stewart’s doctor – he hasn’t seen for fifteen years (coincidentally the exact length of time since the two actors shot The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance). In fact it becomes clear the people in his life are enemies and rivals. From Richard Boone’s weasily rancher who blames Brooks for his brother’s death to Hugh O’Brian’s suave gambler who wants the chance to take down a legend. Even that’s better than Harry Morgan’s nervous Marshal, who bursts into relieved laughter when he hears cancer is going to take care of Brooks so he doesn’t have to.

In his final week, Brooks finds some sort of connection not based on fear, envy or greed with Lauren Bacall’s (yet another golden-voiced legend) Bond Rogers, a widow with a tearaway son Gillom (Ron Howard), whose initial suspicion of Brooks soften. Bacall is excellent, full of humanity and sharp no-nonsense sincerity that hides a warmth you feel she’s had to crush down over years of holding hearth-and-home together. Brooks and Mrs Rogers form a quiet friendship, based on mutual loneliness, both actors playing beautifully in a series of quiet, sombre but gentle scenes, with Bacall drawing even more humanity from Wayne.

Mrs Rogers’ son, Gillom, becomes the embodiment of Brooks battle for a legacy. Ron Howard makes Gillom a cocky, immature dreamer, exactly the sort of guy who’d lap up the sort of blood-and-guts stories Brooks is worried his life will be turned into. He’s wowed when Brooks – alerted by his pain-ridden body keeping him awake – takes down two would-be assassins. But his mother is terrified that he could lead the wrong sort of life. And, eventually, Brooks himself starts to worry that all he’s doing spending time with him is leading Gillom towards an end like his: lonely and dying in a guest house, surrounded by strangers. It becomes the thematic struggle of the film, which is handled (like the rest) with an unlaboured patience.

It’s all building of course to Brooks deciding to go down on his own terms, clutching a gun not a laudanum bottle. The Shootist ends with a blood-soaked shoot-out that we all suspect its heading to, expertly assembled by Siegel. Siegel’s direction throughout is faultlessly smooth, avoiding all temptation to layer on sentimentality but instead let the sad tiredness of Wayne carry the emotion without loading the deck. It’s a beautifully done, quiet, restrained and perfectly elegiac picture that makes for a perfect final role for John Wayne. A sad, touching film about a strong-willed man fighting a last battle he can’t win, it’s a compelling watch.

In Old Chicago (1937)

Entertaining melodrama leads into a very well-staged disaster epic that burns a city

Director: Henry King

Cast: Tyrone Power (Dion O’Leary), Alice Faye (Belle Fawcett), Don Ameche (Jack O’Leary), Alice Brady (Molly O’Leary), Phyllis Brooks (Ann Colby), Andy Devine (Pickle Bixby), Brian Donlevy (Gil Warren), Tom Brown (Bob O’Leary), Berton Churchill (Senator Colby), Sidney Blackmer (General Phil Sheridan)

San Francisco showed Hollywood the way: spice up a melodrama with a disaster-laden ending. The first took the San Francisco earthquake: In Old Chicago takes the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 which burnt down over three-square miles of the city, destroyed over 17,000 buildings and killed over 300 peoples. Despite a rather earnest message that research was scrupulously carried out with the Chicago Historical Society – other than the fire itself, the entire film is a great big fictionalised soapy melodrama, building towards a grandly staged recreation of the great conflagration itself.

The melodrama is built around the O’Leary family. In legend Mrs Catherine O’Leary, of the city’s large Irish community, was the fire’s unwitting cause after her cow knocked over a barn lamp. Here she is reimagined as Molly (Alice Brady), mother to a flock of sons. In the way of these melodramas one, Dion (Tyone Power), is a cheeky rogue with criminal links the other, Jack (Don Ameche), is a legal straight-shooter determined to clean this town up. Club owner Dion controls a stack of corrupt votes to get Jack elected Mayor – screwing over kingpin rival Gil Warren (Brian Donlevy) in the process – under the mistaken impression he can control his brother (dead wrong). Meantime, Dion bounces through a heated love-hate relationship with glamourous bar-singer Belle (Alice Faye), who knows a little too much about his corrupt dealings.

These elements are expertly melodramatically mixed together with very few narrative surprises to establish some recognisable faces for when the city-burning destruction kicks in, with its punishments and redemptions. King directs all this with a glitzy, big-budget flair while the shallow characters go through familiar motions. Truth be told, there isn’t much especially new about In Old Chicago, which follows the San Francisco model to a tee with soapy personal rivalries (skimming the surface of Chicago’s corruption) beefed up with (fairly forgettable) songs from Alice Faye. There’s even a literally soap-sud filled transition at the start to take us into a superbly re-constructed nineteenth century Chicago, in a film full of impressive production design. But yet, don’t get me wrong, it’s all done with such energy it’s consistently enjoyable.

The two brothers are, of course, studies in contrast (third brother, Tom Brown’s Bob is so decently dull he barely makes any impression). As the ‘bad’ brother, Tyrone Power enjoys himself as a lip-smacking cad obsessed with power. Smirking and full of self-satisfaction at his own cleverness (not as clever as he thinks), he’s a ruthless liar and manipulator who deceives everyone around him: his brothers, the woman he loves, his political allies and rivals. It’s one of Power’s most engaging performances, successfully making Dion the sort of bastard you love to hate without ever making him utterly deplorable. In fact, he feels like a big kid (and a mummy’s boy at that), literally leaning back in his chair and expecting praise for his cleverness.

Opposite him, Don Ameche is saddled with the impossibly noble Jack, a crusading lawyer (who wouldn’t think of charging low-earning clients) and who wants to become Mayor to change the town for the better. His straitlaced decency is constantly thrown off by his brother’s dastardly lack of principle (their relationship eventually culminates in an entertainingly well-staged, no holds-barred fisticuff scuffle). Ameche does a good job of investing depth in this on-paper rather dull character.

The film presents an entertainingly straight-forward picture of machine politics, with votes controlled by bosses, various voters encouraged to register (and vote) multiple times and bosses controlling vast teams of followers. Brian Donlevy brings a very fine sense of arrogant domination to would-be boss Gill Warren (the sort of guy who casually mentions a rival’s bar looks rather flammable during a shake-down). It’s all very much presented as bad apples spoiling the whole barrel (rather than the whole system being a bucket of corrupt snakes), but fun nevertheless.

The romance comes between Dion and Belle, played with a decent mix of rascally bad-girl and misunderstood decency be Alice Faye. Faye (taking over the role at short notice from the late Jean Harlow) gets a few decent songs but the meat of the role is her love-struck switching between adoring and loathing Dion, who (with his flirtation with Senator’s daughter Ann Colby, played by Phyllis Brooks) barely deserves her. Some of Dion’s initial courting – consisting of sneaking into her carriage, pinning her down and kissing her – hardly feels comfortable now, but it supports a neat running joke of Belle’s maid running for help only to return to find the two locked in a passionate embrace.

But all of this is just build-up for the main event: an impressively staged reconstruction of the Great Fire. Shot with a mix of real sets and models – you can see where the money was spent on (briefly) the most expensive film ever made. It throws at us buildings aflame, crashing to the ground, huge crowds of extras charging past the camera in tracking shots, a panicked army of bulls fleeing (and crushing those unlucky enough to get in the way). This sequence is genuinely grippingly put-together and impressively epic, utilising some very effective aerial model shots of the city to establish the scale of the fire and the devastation. It balances culminating its plot threads at the same time as embracing the disaster excitement.

This end sequence makes the slightly patchy, familiar soap beforehand retrospectively work even better. It certainly helped deliver a box office bonanza for the film – just as Alice Brady’s closing speech about the unbeatable spirit of Chicago probably helped her to an Oscar (it’s a part Brady clearly enjoys, cementing a stereotype of the domineering Irish mother). After San Francisco, In Old Chicago proved entertaining disaster epics could thrill audiences with destruction for years to come.