Category Archives: cinema

Wages of Fear (Le Salaire de la Peur) (1952). Set in a declining oil-boom town somewhere in South America, full of unemployed foreigners who can’t afford to leave. The oil company hires four of the becalmed drifters to drive two … Continue reading →

The Master of Ballantrae (1953) is a swashbuckler done right; from a book by R L Stevenson. Technicolor, of course, though not as luminous as in Scaramouche. Fifteen years after Robin Hood, Errol Flynn is my age, which gives me … Continue reading →

Technicolor is always fun, and Scaramouche (1952) is a splendid example. Does digital image processing software (such as Photoshop) have filters that try to match the flavor of Technicolor? Later: Technicolor could not save The Crimson Pirate (also 1952). I … Continue reading →

In The Importance of Being Earnest, is Algernon Moncrief meant to resemble Oscar Wilde? In the film of 1952 he does.

I watched half of Don’t Bother to Knock (1952) and found none of the characters at all interesting. My housemate and I both enjoyed Outside Edge (1994), a series about two contrasting couples (Brenda Blethyn and Robert Daws; Josie Lawrence … Continue reading →

“I wonder how often Angela Lansbury has played somebody evil” (as in The Manchurian Candidate which is on KQED now). “Not nearly often enough.”