Film Nite 19: Emma's choice "bought to you by the letter E, an Ealing double bill"

It's the fag end of winter: it's cold and grey; you're skint; you've not seen the sun for months and your skin is so pale it glows in the dark. What better counterpoint to this abject misery than some rollicking, charming and cheeky Ealing comedies: "Kind Hearts and Coronets" (1949) followed by "The Lavender Hill Mob" (1951).

Both star everyone's cinematic surrogate grandfather, Alec Guiness, on top form.

To fully restore your faith in humankind and the world in general, look out for the scene in Lavender Hill Mob where Stanley Holloway and Alex Guinness are descending the Eiffel Tower - it's magic!

Film Nite 13: Clips nite special! Emma's clips

Gould meets McLaren (1993)
by Norman McLaren

The music is Bach's Fugue 14 in f# minor (from the Well-tempered Clavier Book 1 BWV 859) played by Glenn Gould. Gould had a habit of humming along as he played (much to the annoyance of his producers and sound recordists): you can hear him in this recording.

It's from the excellent 1993 film Thirty Two Short Films about Glenn Gould. This is one of the 32 films featured.



Hedghog in the Fog (1975)
This is Yurij Norstein's seminal animation which is either loaded with Soviet analogies and metaphors, or just a really beautiful, tender folk story - you choose.

I saw both this and the McLaren animation during insomniac nights after my A-levels, back in the days when you could still see really interesting stuff on TV if you were ready to forsake sleep and wade through a lot of bad smut and/or 'pages from Teletext'.



The Cat Concerto (1946)
Tom & Jerry at their finest. Please note that the sequences in which Tom is playing piano are musically accurate and correct -- I doff my cap to the animators for this.

I put it in as a counterweight for the McLaren animation, plus who doesn't love Tom & Jerry?

I first saw this on that Rolf Harris animation show for kids, when I was about 10, but which profiled some of the most skilful and well-crafted animations around the world. Lots of the stuff I saw on that show really stuck with me -- another notable T&J episode sees them figure-skating on the frozen floor of the kitchen.



Fishing with John (1991)

There's no YouTube for this one because the Criterion Collection people have been jumping on people posting it up there illegally.

This series is a marvel of scuzzy VHS tape. Each episode sees anarcho-jazzist John Lurie setting off on a fishing expedition with a famous person in tow. In this episode, Lurie takes Jim Jarmusch off the coast of NY state to catch some sharks.

Later episodes feature Tom Waits, Matt Dillon, Willem Dafoe and (a special double episode) Dennis Hopper. They are all brilliant and the (Lurie composed) soundtracks especially so.

I love Fishing with John for its combination of satire, humour, dreaminess and experimental/surreal techniques. Though I don't really care for angling.

Fishing with John on IMDB

And that, children, is what is going on inside my brain.

#11 Kate's second

*The Bogey-man Cometh*

An evening in honour of the great Bogey-man, kicking off with 1946 noir classic, The Big Sleep. Private Investigator Philip Marlowe takes on a blackmail case set in a backdrop of a seedy, searingly hot, stormy and debauched L.A. populated by murderers, mobsters, debt-ridden party girls and callous good-time Charlies. Humph and Bacall's sizzling off-screen chemistry is clearly apparent on-screen. Bogey is electric, managing to exude a kind of shabby uber-cool sex appeal with style, charm and wit. Based on a Raymond Chandler novel, the film was directed by the great Howard Hawks with a screen play co-written by William Faulkner. With such delicious lines as 'Get up angel, you look like a pekinese' what's not to love?!


Then on to my personal fave Woody Allen film, Play it Again Sam from 1972, Woody's homage to the great man himself! Woody stars as Alan Felix, an unlucky-in-love film critic who, deserted by his wife, develops Bogey's Marlowe persona as an alter-ego to mentor him and improve his confidence with women, to great comic effect. Cue a great number of romantic disasters and misguided, cheesy chat-up lines like 'I love the rain. It washes memories off the sidewalk of life'.

A rare San Francisco set film for Woody (lots of lovely shots of trolleys and thrift stores) with a fabulous supporting cast; Diane Keaton has never been more adorable and Tony Roberts puts in a great comic performance as assured, dead-pan work-obsessed executive, Dick. This is also one of Woody's best performances as a scriptwriter and actor; he exudes a very natural charm. However, the film was directed by Herbert Ross (perhaps this enabled Woody to concentrate more on his own acting performance?). There are great slapstick moments and the film hangs together very well with a good linear narrative as opposed to a series of unrelated amusing comic sketches, which sometimes Woody is guilty of in other films. Perhaps this is in part due to the film having been based on a successful play by Woody.

#4 Emma's first

Suspiria (1977)

Red Shoes (1948)