Capital Celluloid 2018 - Day 335: Tue Dec 11

Clean and Sober (Caron, 1988): Regent Street Cinema, 7.30pm

This film gets a very rare screening (and on 35mm too) courtesy of the Celluloid Sorceress, who will bring along a host of vintage 35mm trailers to show before the movie.

Time Out review:
A film about addiction and redemption which avoids the usual sensationalism. Daryl Poynter (Michael Keaton) doesn't realise how bad he is until he wakes up to find his date dead of an overdose in bed beside him, and embezzlement charges brewing up at his real estate firm. Drink and drugs have eroded all sense of responsibility, and rather than face the music, he takes refuge in a chemical dependency centre without any intention of toeing the line. It takes some tough talk from the councillor (Morgan Freeman, excellent) and the shock of enforced abstinence to shape him up. A supportive romance with fellow inmate Charlie (Kathy Baker) nose-dives abruptly, and his rehabilitation is ultimately down to character. The film doesn't cheat at all - Keaton's Poynter is a dislikeable proposition, always ready with a contemptuous crack, his pzazz verging on panic. The cold turkey sequence is devoid of Elmer Bernstein's brass, and the end is no more dramatic than an admission of answerability. A level look at a common problem.
Brian Case

Here (and above) is the trailer.

Capital Celluloid 2018 - Day 334: Mon Dec 10

The First Born (Mander, 1927): BFI Southbank, NFT3, 8.30pm

BFI Southbank introduction for this 35mm presentation:
Film historian Rachael Low was a big admirer of Miles Mander’s The First Born, which uses novel techniques to deliver a surprisingly gutsy adult drama set in the world of 1920s politics as Sir Hugo Boycott (Mander) and Lady Madeleine’s (Carroll) perfect political marriage conceals a sordid reality. The experienced Alma Reville (Mrs Hitchcock) co-wrote Mander’s directorial debut and it has many Reville touches. It’s a tour de force of late-silent cinematic art.

Here (and above) is an extract.

Capital Celluloid 2018 - Day 333: Sun Dec 9

Easy Living (Leisen, 1937): BFI Southbank, NFT2, 3.15pm

This 35mm presentation, part of the ‘Screwball Sundays’ strand at BFI Southbank, is also being shown at the cinema on December 15th. Full details here.

Chicago Reader review:
A grumpy millionaire (Edward Arnold) throws his wife's coat out the window, and it lands on the shoulders of a humble working girl (Jean Arthur). As her friends accept the symbol over substance, she steps up the social ladder, and eventually into the arms of Arnold's son, Ray Milland. Preston Sturges wrote this Depression-era (1937) twist on the Cinderella story, and it acquires an airy grace from the direction of Mitchell Leisen. With Franklin Pangborn and William Demarest.
Dave Kehr

Here (and above) is an extract.

Capital Celluloid 2018 - Day 332: Sat Dec 8

Kind Hearts and Coronets (Hamer, 1949): BFI Southbank, NFT, 8.40pm

This film, which also screens on December 11th and 23rd, is part of the 'English Eccentrics' strand of the Comedy Genius season at BFI Southbank.

Chicago Reader review:
Robert Hamer's 1949 film is often cited as the definitive black, eccentric British comedy, yet it's several cuts better than practically anything else in the genre. Dennis Price, as a poor, distant relative of the rich D'Ascoynes, must murder eight members of the family (all played by Alec Guinness) to obtain the title and fortune he believes are his right. Hamer's direction is bracingly cool and clipped, yet he's able to draw something from his performers (Price has never been deeper, Guinness never more proficient, and Joan Greenwood never more softly, purringly cruel) that transcends the facile comedy of murder; there's lyricism, passion, and protest in it too. With Valerie Hobson and Arthur Lowe.
Dave Kehr

Here (and above) is the trailer.

Capital Celluloid 2018 - Day 331: Fri Dec 7

Brazil (Gilliam, 1984): BFI Southbank, NFT2, 8.20pm

This film, which is also being shown on December 14th and 17th, is part of the Big Screen Classics season. You can find the full details here.

Terry Gilliam’s movie has a fascinating history. Universal Studios were horrified on seeing the original cut Gilliam wanted to put out and after a lengthy delay while studio executives dithered the director was forced to take a full-page ad out in trade magazine Variety demanding to know why his film had not been released.

The version of Brazil released outside the United States was very different from the one seen by Americans, which was drastically re-edited and given a happy ending. The Brazil Gilliam wanted the public to see and the one which will be screened here is a bold and superbly imaginative movie with an ending which haunted me for some time when I saw it on its initial release.

Gilliam himself said he wanted Brazil to be "the Nineteen Eighty-Four for 1984". In many ways he  succeeded, creating a nightmarish Orwellian world in which freedom is limited while fashioning a film which leaves its audience dumbfounded and despairing. No wonder Universal could not face unleashing it on an unsuspecting American public.

Chicago Reader review:
Terry Gilliam's ferociously creative black comedy (1985) is filled with wild tonal contrasts, swarming details, and unfettered visual invention—every shot carries a charge of surprise and delight. Jonathan Pryce is Sam Lowry (the name suggests Stan Laurel, and Pryce wears Laurel's expression of perpetually astonished innocence), a minor functionary in a totalitarian government of the near future; his only escape from the parodistically bleak urban environment (resourcefully rendered by Gilliam through a combination of sets, models, and locations) is in his dreams, where he becomes a winged, heroic figure rescuing a ravishing blond. Of course, it isn't long before the blond (Kim Greist) walks into his waking life. Robert De Niro contributes a gruffly funny cameo as the one knight of honor in the ashen land: a guerrilla heating-duct repairman. With Michael Palin, Katherine Helmond, Ian Holm, Peter Vaughan, and Bob Hoskins.
Dave Kehr

Here (and above) is the trailer.

Capital Celluloid 2018 - Day 330: Thu Dec 6

The Shop Around the Corner (Lubitsch, 1940): Prince Charles Cinema, 6.25pm

This 35mm screening is also screening at the prince Charles on December 13th. Details here..

Chicago Reader review:
There are no art deco nightclubs, shimmering silk gowns, or slamming bedroom doors to be seen, but this 1940 film is one of Ernst Lubitsch's finest and most enduring works, a romantic comedy of dazzling range that takes place almost entirely within the four walls of a leather-goods store in prewar Budapest. James Stewart is the earnest, slightly awkward young manager; Margaret Sullavan is the new sales clerk who gets on his nerves—and neither realizes that they are partners in a passionate romance being carried out through the mails. Interwoven with subplots centered on the other members of the shop's little family, the romance proceeds through Lubitsch's brilliant deployment of point of view, allowing the audience to enter the perceptions of each individual character at exactly the right moment to develop maximum sympathy and suspense. With Frank Morgan, Joseph Schildkraut, Sara Haden, and Felix Bressart.
Dave Kehr

Here (and above) is the trailer. 

Capital Celluloid 2018 - Day 329: Wed Dec 5

The Virgin of Stamboul (Browning, 1920): Cinema Museum, 7.45pm

Cinema Museum introduction to this 35mm/16mm double-bill:

The main feature is The Virgin of Stamboul (1920), directed by Tod Browning, and starring Browning’s wife Priscilla Dean, Wheeler Oakman and Wallace Beery. Achmet Bey (Beery), a Turkish chieftain, catches one of his many wives in adultery and murders her lover. Throwing aside the cuckolding wife, he abducts an innocent girl (Dean) to his harem. However, a brave American who loves her (Oakman) comes to her rescue. The 35mm print from the BFI will be introduced by Kevin Brownlow.  In the first half of the programme we will show a lost British feature, Maria Marten (1928), courtesy of the Pat Moules Collection. This is one of the five film versions of the Red Barn Murders of the 1820s, and is directed by Walter West and stars Trilby Clark, Warwick Ward and Dora Barton. This 16mm print will be introduced by Michael Pointon.

Here (and above) is an extract.