Time Without Pity

Cast: Michael Redgrave, Ann Todd, and Leo McKern

Director: Joseph Losey

85 minutes (PG) 1957

Powerhouse / Indicator

Blu-ray region B

[Released 28th October]

Rating: 8/10

Review by J.C. Hartley  

I was thinking I was unfamiliar with Michael Redgrave’s cinematic work beyond The Heroes Of Telemark (1965), and his part in Cavalcanti’s The Ventriloquist’s Dummy, the stand-out story in British portmanteau horror film Dead Of Night (1945). But of course, I’ve seen him in far more than that - The Lady Vanishes (1938), The Browning Version (1951), and The Importance Of Being Earnest (1952), to name a few. In Time Without Pity he plays washed-up novelist David Graham, an alcoholic recently released from a Canadian sanatorium, who has travelled to England in a forlorn attempt to save his son Alec (Alec McCowen) from the gallows, after the young man has been convicted of murdering his girlfriend. 

We know that Alec is innocent because, in a pre-credits sequence, we have seen the deed perpetrated by Robert Stanford (Leo McKern), motor-car magnate and father of Alec’s best friend Brian (Paul Daneman). The Stanfords have almost been surrogate parents to Alec, given his father’s problem with the bottle, but that relationship has led to a burgeoning intimacy between Alec and Stanford’s wife Honor (Ann Todd), as we are to discover. Despite the early reveal of the true killer, this is no episode of Columbo where a dogged investigator eventually entraps the murderer, rather with just 24 hours in which to save his son, Graham twitches and sweats, succumbs once again to the booze, and eventually sacrifices himself to implicate Stanford. 

The film is directed by Joseph Losey, and is the first of his British movies to carry his own name, after he had settled in the UK in 1953 following his black-listing in Hollywood.  Losey directed a trio of outstanding films in the UK when working with Harold Pinter as screenwriter: The Servant (1963), Accident (1967), and The Go-Between (1967), as well as some bonkers camp ‘classics’ that I have a bit of affection for, such as Modesty Blaise (1966), and Boom! (1968). There are some neat stylistic touches in Time Without Pity which attest to Losey’s quality, a scene in a lift with Redgrave and Daneman which makes use of infinity mirrors, and a sequence where Redgrave follows McKern down a corridor, where the audience see McKern’s expression as Redgrave follows him a few yards behind.

This is a powerful British noir raised above the pedestrian through the quality of the performances and a strong supporting cast. Peter Cushing is Alec Graham’s lawyer, Joan Plowright is the murdered girlfriend’s sister, Lois Maxwell is another of Stanford’s mistresses, and Renee Houston plays her mother. McKern snarls and shouts and generally chews the scenery, but his character’s relationship with Graham senior hints at some deep psychological trouble, and it seems as if at any point he may confess to his crime. Redgrave is the standout turn, alternately aggressive or pleading, sucking on his squeezed sodden cigarettes, or juggling double whiskies as he almost abandons his quest for the truth.

There are a handful of extras on the disc. A 1973 John Player Lecture with Dilys Powell interviewing Losey, presented in audio but with the film playing over it for some reason.  An audio commentary to the movie by Neil Sinyard, Emeritus Professor of film studies at the University of Hull. Losey’s son Gavrik discusses his father’s work in ‘Sins Of The Father’, pointing out some Brechtian influences; Losey worked with Brecht, a relationship which counted against him in his dealings with the House Un-American Activities Committee. Also included is an advertising short that Losey made for a beverage known as Horlicks in 1960, this film Steven Turner introduced the eponymous character suffering from ‘night starvation’ in 30 seconds of noir imagery.

Young Winston

Cast: Simon Ward, Anne Bancroft, and Robert Shaw

Director: Richard Attenborough

157 minutes (PG) 1972

Powerhouse / Indicator

Blu-ray region B

[Released 28th October]

Rating: 4/10

Review by J.C. Hartley

I remember seeing an interview between Sir Ralph Richardson and Bernard Levin, in which Sir Ralph recalled a play he appeared in early in his acting career. At one point during the performance someone had called out from somewhere in the auditorium: “Is there a doctor in the house?” There was a pause, and then the reply came: “Yes, I’m a doctor.” Following this initial exchange, the original questioner concluded: “Doctor, isn’t this an awful play!” Without the benefit of a General Practitioner handy, I had to sit through this cinematic travesty alone. This really is an awful film.

I see from Wikipedia that Young Winston was one of the most popular films of 1972 at the UK box office, and one can only conclude that this was down to clever marketing and the residual affection for Winston Churchill himself in the hearts of the British people. Director Richard Attenborough, in an interview - ‘Reflections Of A Director’, included here as an extra, notes that despite being opposed to Churchill politically, he believes that WW2 could not have been won without him. This is how a lot of people feel, and despite the revisionism of later historical scholarship pointing out many of Churchill’s flaws, and some arguably reprehensible acts, it is hard to hold that against him. I feel the same way about John Wayne. 

Those of us with parents and indeed grandparents who lived through the Second World War will already be aware of the gratitude that Attenborough expresses, and inevitably something of Churchill’s stature and reputation impressed itself upon our generation. Arguably, Churchill was a politician in the right place at the right time. Because if the War hadn’t happened, then, rather like his father Lord Randolph Churchill, he would have remained a footnote in political history, such are the fine margins at play. This takes nothing away from his achievement in leading the nation in war.

The film is effectively, and literally in this uncut version, presented in two parts. Part one deals with Churchill’s (Simon Ward) young life and his relationship with his parents, his father the political maverick Lord Randolph (Robert Shaw), and his mother the former American socialite Jennie Jerome (Anne Bancroft). Part two of the film deals with some of the young Churchill’s military exploits, and his early political career. In ‘Camel Blues’, assistant director William P. Cartlidge, who says that the film wasn’t a success, suggests that Attenborough and writer/ producer Carl Foreman had different visions about the film that they wanted to make. Foreman, who had High Noon (1952), The Bridge On The River Kwai (1957), and The Guns Of Navarone (1967), on his writing credits, wanted to make an action movie; Attenborough was interested in a film about fathers and sons.  Attenborough, in his own interview, says that it is biography that interests him. Sadly, as a hybrid, neither vision of the film works, although perhaps as a straight-forward action flick it might have stood a chance.

Attenborough praises Foreman’s screenplay and script, but some of the dialogue is stiff and unrealistic and has a consequent effect on the performances. That wonderful actress Bancroft seems in the grip of a particularly uncomfortable bout of constipation throughout. Foreman was apparently very impressed with Attenborough’s work on Oh! What A Lovely War (1969) and some sequences in the film appear to be attempting the same stylistic approach. As Kitchener, John Mills struts and marches about in precisely the same manner as he was required to do as Sir Douglas Haig in the earlier film, to the extent that one half expects him to play leapfrog or burst into song. 

More bizarre is the insertion of three stylised ‘interviews’ in which a supercilious ‘voice off’ interrogates Lord Randolph, Lady Churchill, and Winston himself. Alternatively sycophantic and accusatory this unseen interviewer pitches somewhere between the Today programme and Hello! magazine. The interview with Lady Churchill is the weirdest. She has already learned from medical specialists that her husband has an STD that will lead to General Paralysis of the Insane, if the audience are in any doubt as to the diagnosis the doctors ask Lady Churchill when she last had ‘relations’ with her husband, declaring ‘Thank God!’ when she tells them it has not been for some time. 

In the interview, the interlocutor demands to know details of Lord Randolph’s final illness, she attempts to leave and his parting shot is that surely in this day and age there is no mystery about syphilis. Quite what these interviews are intended to achieve is never clear, but they do hint at the film that might have been, an approach such as that seen in Oh! What A Lovely War might just have worked. Young Winston, despite appearing in 1972, seems like a film from a previous era compared to Oh! What A Lovely War. Just four years later, in 1976, BBC2 presented a stylised version of the life of Major-General Orde Wingate with the excellent Barry Foster, partly driven by budgetary constraints that production showed what might be achieved by an almost Brechtian approach to narrative.

There are some effective scenes in Young Winston, Lord Randolph Churchill’s final speech in Parliament when he is already in serious mental decline due to his illness, and an exciting sequence where a military train containing the young Churchill is ambushed leading to his capture by the Boers. Simon Ward in his break-out role is generally very good, and certainly self-assured, but did Churchill’s voice really have his distinctive growling tones at the age of 27 when he entered Parliament? 

The film is too long, too slow, particularly in the first half, and as noted seems to belong to a previous era of film-making. I’m not suggesting I can detect the magic hand of the Illuminati here, but one does wonder why this has been released on Blu-ray at this particular moment of time. Will it be the best-seller in the Brexit Party’s Christmas wish-list on Amazon? Perhaps before the old statesman is co-opted by today’s union flag-waving swivel-eyed lunatics and chancers they should examine his liberal position on immigration. 

There is an extensive selection of extras on the disc. An audio-only of a John Player Lecture from 1971, with critic Dilys Powell interviewing Attenborough, and - bizarrely - the film starts playing with audio only. The cast and crew interviews are Attenborough’s ‘Reflections Of A Director’, Simon Ward in ‘A National Hero Brought To Life’, assistant director William P. Cartlidge in ‘Camel Blues’, and second-unit director Brian Cook in ‘Stars And Sand’, particularly praising Attenborough’s ability in casting minor parts. Stuntman Vic Armstrong explains how they had to rent 300 horses for six months and train infantrymen in North Africa as cavalry, John Richardson talks about special effects and the train ambush sequence which was filmed in Wales, in ‘Fires In The Sky’, and make-up artist Robin Grantham explains his role in ‘Making It Up’. Other extras are deleted scenes, amateurish footage from the US premiere at the Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, the theatrical trailer, a gallery of stills, lobby cards and posters, and the souvenir brochure.

Godzilla: King Of The Monsters

Cast: Kyle Chandler, Vera Farmiga, and Millie Bobby Brown

Director: Michael Dougherty    

132 minutes (12) 2019

Warner Bros 4K Ultra HD  

[Released 14th October]

Rating: 8/10

Review by Christopher Geary

This sequel begins with a prologue in San Francisco, 2014 - where the Russell family lose their young son in the city’s ruins. Five years later, Dr Emma Russell (Vera Farmiga) is a top scientist working in China, where Mothra hatches and communicates with humans via Emma’s ORCA invention, much to the delighted amazement of Emma’s daughter Madison (Millie Bobby Brown, Stranger Things). Angelic scene-stealer Mothra transforms from that larval caterpillar and later cocoon to become a glowingly beautiful insectoid queen of this Monsterverse, a goddess of re-minted mythology. Young Maddy’s dysfunctional dad Mark Russell (Kyle Chandler, First Man), is recruited by highly secretive organisation ‘Monarch’, and he’s flown to their Castle Bravo base under an off-shore platform, in Bermuda, where Mark confronts Godzilla, the giant beast that killed his son.

These kaiju entities and other Lovecraftian creatures, named Titans, are wholly protected by the varied science heroes of Monarch, but also hunted by soldiers whose leader, Jonah (Charles Dance), appears ruthless enough to capture civilian hostages in eager pursuit of profits from exotic DNA samples. Buried in Antarctica, ‘monster zero’ Ghidorah, the ‘alien’ dragon with three-heads, is freed after destroying a huge scientific base so that the beast effectively rules that continent, before a siren bid for global domination. Emerging from a volcano in Mexico, winged ‘fire-demon’ Rodan generates mini-hurricanes in its wake. The Monarch mother-ship Argo is a flying aircraft-carrier, launching fighter-jet squadrons and Osprey transports, while following legends and myths as a moral compass in a fluid state of doomed competition or urgent co-operation for desperate mankind’s ongoing struggles against nature.

Godzilla: King Of The Monsters has a fine supporting cast, including Ken Watanabe as Dr Serizawa - dispensing fortune-cookie wisdom, Ziyi Zhang as Dr Chen - ably explaining the Titans’ history, David Strathairn as Admiral Stenz - rallying the US military, and Sally Hawkins as Dr Graham. The generic influence of earlier Transformers and Jurassic World franchises is especially and clearly effective in this epic production. Various grandly scaled action sequences have comparatively tiny humans as hapless participants or, more often, merely as helpless bystanders, sometimes killed by just a quick, casual nudge from titanic curiosity, or a withering blast from their storm-force breathing.

A submarine journey into the underworld, in a hollow-Earth scenario, finding the ruins of an ancient civilisation, and the revelations of Godzilla’s secret lair adds further themes to this comprehensive collection of iconic fantasy and sci-fi disaster elements. Boston serves as ground-zero for waves of mighty monster appearances and the climactic battles. Delivering a balance of nightmarish thrills, big-fun adventures, and enough giant mayhem to challenge Hollywood absurdism like Pacific Rim (2013), while paying honestly compelling tributes to the Japanese Toho formula is an extraordinary pure trick. With its magnificent combination of rewarding human-scale dramas and some massively destructive widescreen-quality visual effects, Godzilla 2 pulls off its winning saga of heroic new dimensions in this enduring legacy of awesome super-species cinema, built upon the unlimited scope and scale of wonderfully child-like imaginations.

This 4K Ultra HD edition showcases powerful symbolism, alongside magnificent spectacle, so there’s more than sufficient chills and joys to satisfy even the most jaded of monster-movie fans. The bonus Blu-ray disc’s extras include: Monsters 101, Evolution Of Titans, Monarch In Action, and etc. with multi-part featurettes exploring an impressive creativity and technical works involved in realising these gigantic stars, each one meticulously designed to match the human characters played by a capable and talented cast.

Adam Wingard’s Godzilla vs. Kong is due in March 2020.

Suspiria

Cast: Dakota Johnson, Tilda Swinton, and Mia Goth    

Director: Luca Guadagnino    

153 minutes (18) 2018

Mubi Blu-ray region B

[Released 7th October]

Rating: 9/10

Review by Christopher Geary

A lavish remake of and homage to Dario Argento’s classic horror from 1977, this lengthy drama is set in the 1970s, pointedly evoking that era of Argento’s early work. Taking its inspiration from Argento’s trilogy of movies about a coven of powerful witches known as ‘Three Mothers’ - the superior Inferno (1980) followed the original Suspiria, while garish gore-fest Mother Of Tears (2007) attempted a belated finale - director Luca Guadagnino and his screen-writer David Kajganich have ably constructed a masterpiece of diabolically matriarchal terrors and absurdly extremist feminism.

This new version of Suspiria explores a compelling psycho-sexual and apocalyptic plot, with ambitious detailing and expression of its esoteric themes related to eldritch sorcery and grossly physical transformation. Suspicious but apparently unconnected events have profoundly bizarre links. A victim of supernatural ‘puppetry’ suffers grisly contortions that end with agonising death. Guadagnino winningly recreates the ominous atmospherics of Argento’s Suspiria, but his revisionist approach means its genre pitch and cinematic verve owes even deeper debts to Zulawski’s weird-SF shocker Possession (1981), where the spectre of impending social apocalypse and a tentacled manifestation of uneasily erotic disturbance was specifically coupled to Cold War anxieties.

Frankly, this is a far superior genre production to any of the horror movies, such as Giallo (2009), and Dracula 3D (2012), that Argento has made recently. His last good effort was Sleepless (2001), and his last great movie was probably The Stendhal Syndrome (1996). Guadagnino’s Suspiria is well composed as a stupendously grotesque shocker even if, or especially when, it is considered as a remake.

Set in the divided city of Berlin, the six ‘acts’ of Guadagnino’s Suspiria begin with distraught student Patricia (Chloe Grace Moretz) visiting elderly shrink, Dr Klemperer, before she is reported to have disappeared. Arriving from the USA, nervous and wholly alienated Susie (Dakota Johnson) joins the Markos dance company, where she meets Sara (Mia Goth), considered a good ‘ambassador’ for the busy troupe. Rehearsals by the dancers for their Volk show continue, directed by Miss Blanc (one of three roles played brilliantly by Tilda Swinton), despite an emotional meltdown where Patricia’s troubled stand-in Olga denounces the women’s group as a “box of rabies”.

Fleeing the studio, poor tearful Olga is attacked by invisible forces and she’s broken like a rag-doll in a disturbing sequence of brutality that foreshadows ghastly abuses in the climactic scenes. Here, words and gestures by the Markos matrons - including Renee Soutendijk as Miss Huller - combine with surrealistic montages in dreams of agonising punishments, clearly signifying a gathering of overwhelming terrors hidden from view in reality, but not from second-sight. Shadows of Nazi atrocities linger, as if to prepare for a destiny of unwelcome return, as the practiced rhythm of jumping dancers echo like the approaching noisy menace of marching boots, as Blanc instructs Susie in the particulars of performing arts, with obvious pretensions about ‘poetry in motion’ striving to become darkly magical spells.

Architecture looms over people, hooks stab human flesh, and vague reflections mimic ghosts. Discovering the hidden rooms of a witchcraft archive, a dungeon of maddening screams with zombified victims unveils a devilish conspiracy for an impending explosive advent of hell on Earth, and Klemperer explains to baffled innocent Sara: “You can give someone your delusion... That’s religion. That was the Reich.” Radical choreography is presented as a clockwork battle-plan by the coven’s witches. Whispering by huddled dancers rises to a theatrical chant. A robotic performance of Volk rituals has the girls wearing rope outfits like severed puppet-strings, or bloody entrails. The movie’s haunting score from Thom Yorke (of Radiohead), reportedly drawing upon avant-garde Krautrock styles, adds many uncanny chills to already brooding visuals.

Telepathy and possession work together in this fusion of weird sci-fi and occult horrors. Jessica Harper, the star of Argento’s Suspiria, has a fine cameo role. Female supremacy is depicted as a psychic war of will-powers, although the witches in action still sometimes fall prey to cackling stereotypes, prone to humiliating men. Guadagnino’s Suspiria evokes a grisly biologic of death and inhuman immortality, with violent splatter effects outdoing the censor-baiting excesses of previous gothic horrors about witchcraft, including works by Mario Bava, Ken Russell, and Argento himself. This is a brand new classic of its type, with formidably terrifying images designed with compositional skills to withstand a batch of repeat viewings, probably necessary in order to fully appreciate the artistic filmmaker’s authentic genius.