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Carry on Nurse (1959)
Carry on Nurse
Carry on Nurse is the second Carry on film and it was a reworked stage farce called Ring for Catty.
The Carry on team end up in hospital as either patients or nurses. Bernie Bishop (Kenneth Connor) has a boxing injury. Percy Hickson (Bill Owen) had an accident at work. Jack Bell (Leslie Phillips) wants his bunion removed pronto as he needs to go on holiday.
Oliver Reckitt (Kenneth Williams) finds his stay at the hospital is getting in the way of his studies. The events are observed by local newspaper reporter Ted York (Terence Longdon) who has appendicitis. He also is smitten with Nurse Denton (Shirley Eaton.)
The Colonel (Wilfrid Hyde-White) causes chaos as he tries to get people to place bets and he plays pranks on the young nurses.
The movie works as the Carry ons are not yet formulaic. The characters are also not stereotyped. The best example is Kenneth Williams as the shy young man who falls for a girl.
There are hints of a few risque jokes, some double entendres. There is still some inventiveness in the comedy.
Eaton is sexy in heels and stockings. Phillips comes out with the catchphrases he became well known for in this movie.
The Colonel has the last scene with a daffodil acting as a thermometer.
Alleyn Mysteries: A Man Lay Dead (1993)
A Man Lay Dead
Patrick Malahide takes over from Simon Williams as Chief Inspector Alleyn, Maybe Williams was regarded as too lightweight.
The setting is still the post world war two period. Unlike the Ngaio Marsh books.
Alleyn is called to investigate two murders. All linked to a valuable bejewelled chalice that was stolen. It seems to have a curse. Ironically Sir Hubert Handesley (Julian Glover) was holding a murder weekend party in his mansion.
It might just be that the chalice might not be the motive for both murders.
Malahide might have more heft as well as a wig as an actor compared to Williams. I found him bland.
The mystery was good enough but nothing out of the ordinary. Glover gets to repeat a line similar to the one he had in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
Ludwig: Episode #1.5 (2024)
Episode 5
The chess motif from the previous episode continues. The main suspect is a PE teacher called Bishop.
Ludwig goes back to school when the headmaster of a private school is found dead. He hung himself in a locked room.
Ludwig went to a private school and it brings back memories of bullies and PE lessons. He believes that the headmaster was murdered. The suicide was staged.
In this school Ludwig also comes face to face with Mr Todd (Derek Jacobi) his old headmaster. Mr Todd's memory is not what it used to be. Once upon a time he was great at puzzles and was very much a mentor to Ludwig.
Essentially a locked room mystery. I felt disappointed that there was no ingenious solution to it all. It was all rather mundane.
As always Derek Jacobi was good value and noticed something the rest of the police force has so far failed to.
Ordeal by Innocence (1984)
Ordeal by Innocence
Dr Arthur Calgary (Donald Sutherland) is a palaeontologist who has returned to Britain after a two year expedition in Antarctica.
He belatedly returns an address book left book by a man called Jacko Argyle he gave a lift to. Only to learn from his father Leo Argyle (Christopher Plummer) that Jacko was hanged for killing his mother.
Shockingly it dawns on Calgary that Jacko was with him at the time when his mother was killed. Jacko could not had been the murderer.
Only his father and everyone else are reluctant to have the case reopened. Jacko was trouble but Calgary continues with his investigations. Stirring a hornet's nest.
Despite an all star cast, this is a poor adaptation of Agatha Christie's novel which had an intriguing twist. The acting is flat, the script is below par. Everyone is so dull.
Of course this movie was produced by Cannon Pictures, hence the low bar. Although Desmond Davis is the credited director, another one was drafted in for reshoots.
The jaunty music by Dave Brubeck is inappropriate. At one point it goes into Take Five.
Doctor in Charge: The Devil You Know (1972)
The Devil You Know
The spin off to Doctor in the House when the main cast were medical students.
Set a few years later. Dr Duncan Waring (Robin Nedwell) has returned to St Swithin's after practising medicine in America.
Only after a few years away. No one recognises him. Dr Waring was quickly forgotten, or so he thinks.
It is a trick played on him by Dr Dick Stuart-Clark and Dr Paul Collier.
Will they see the funny side when stern Professor Loftus decides to join in with some japes in his own inimitable style.
Co-written by Monty Python Graham Chapman. This is not a strong opener. It really is about promoting Nedwell as the main cast member when it was Barry Evans in the previous show.
Z Cars: Pressure (1974)
Pressure
It looks like the 1970s episodes of Z Cars that survived in the BBC archives were the weaker ones. Ironically some of the early 1970s episodes of Dixon of Dock Green were all on film and could go toe to toe with Special Branch on ITV.
It is another story featuring juvenile delinquents. There has been a break in in a shop at the local precinct. It is put down by the police to some of the local kids.
One of them Eric Tyson is led astray by another lad. Eric's father regards him as useless. His sister Pauline (Lynda Bellingham) works as a hairdresser at the precinct.
When Eric is called in for questioning. Rookie cop PC Barratt, a former teacher makes a mistake. He allows Eric's stern father to bully his son to make a statement.
The courts throw the case out. The police are back to square one.
You know this is bad when you regard Lynda Bellingham's scouse accent as the high point.
Victorian Scandals: The Frontiers of Science (1976)
The Frontiers of Science
Daniel Dunglas Home was a real life medium with a gift of second sight in Victorian Britain. He could levitate, move objects in broad daylight. He had wealthy patrons.
In this drama Daniel Dunglas Home is played by Lewis Flander and is regarded as a genuine medium. In real life, Home was never publicly exposed but there were doubts about his abilities.
William Crookes (Ronald Hines) was a scientist who conducted experiments to determine the validity of the phenomena produced by mediums such as Florence Cook (Twiggy) and and Home. He concluded they were genuine, a decision derided by other scientists.
This dramatisation is based on real events. Cook and her cohorts know they are frauds. If they can convince Crookes that Cook is genuine. It is a ticket to ride. Crookes falls in love with Florence Cook and does not seem to show much scepticism.
Home is sceptical and goes about to expose Florence Cook and her trickery.
It was a good enough drama but the lack of doubt shown by the scientist Crookes weakens it. You cannot blame Crookes if Florence Cook really did look like Twiggy.
What's Love Got to Do with It? (2022)
What's Love Got to Do with It?
Zoe (Lily James) and Kaz (Shazad Latif) have been childhood friends and neighbours.
She is a documentary maker and endlessly has one night stands. British/Pakistani Kaz is a doctor. Now he has got his parents to have an assisted marriage through a marriage broker.
Kaz could had chose a Muslim bride from Britain. Instead he marries a girl from Pakistan. The family goes to Pakistan for the wedding, Zoe follows for her documentary.
Zoe wonders if Kaz's marriage could actually work out.
The problem with What's Love Got to Do with It is simple. It has to follow the template of a Rom Com. So there are no huge surprises. Everything is signposted. Although I never bought Kaz as someone who would marry a girl from Pakistan.
The only novelty is the Anglo Asian/Muslim angle. Writer Jemima Khan who married ex Pakistani cricketing legend Imran Khan makes some accurate observations regarding this. Especially as to how Kaz's parents are portrayed. Even Zoe's single mother is friendly with her Asian friends but makes petty ignorant remarks.
Saturday Night (2024)
Saturday Night
This fictional run up to the first ever edition of Saturday Night Live in 1975, is a self indulgent mess.
Jason Reitman and Gil Kenan might had hoped Saturday Night would reflect the chaos of those early days of the show.
It follows its young inexperienced producer Lorne Michaels (Gabriel LaBelle) who desperately tries to put this show together. It is about to go live but nothing is yet ready.
The network executives want the show to fail. They are in a contract dispute with star Johnny Carson. The show is just temporary leverage.
To me it felt plotless and empty. Nothing rang true about it. It was hugely contrived and I got listless very early on.
The New Statesman: Passport to Freedom (1987)
Passport to Freedom
Sarah B'stard has come into a major inheritance. A quarter of a million pounds worth of shares in Ocelot motor company from an uncle.
Now with her own finances she plans to divorce Alan. Well it is a loveless marriage. He picked up a one night stand on his way to a conference abroad.
Divorce though is bad news for Alan. Sarah's father is the chairman of the local Conservative Association. He would be dumped from his seat at the next election.
So Alan has a plan to send the Ocelot car shares plunging. It does mean breaking into the Prime Minister's office to place a forged letter with some information about the company planning to cut wages. So the workers come out on strike.
The second episode shows how cunning and cruel Alan B'stard can be. The butt of his venom seem to be both fellow Tory MP Piers Fletcher-Dervish and Labour leader, Crippen.
Although I cannot be the only one to notice that Norman Bormann, who is going through a sex change is played by a female actress.
Moonflower Murders: Episode #1.1 (2024)
Episode 1
Anthony Horowitz's Magpie Murders used a story within a story format. It was made for Britbox and purchased by the BBC. The follow up Moonflower Murders was commissioned by the BBC.
Once again it has the story within a story pattern. Susan Ryeland (Lesley Manville) is now running a hotel in Crete. She is enticed back to England after meeting hoteliers Lawrence and Pauline Treherne. Their daughter Cecily has gone missing.
It might be connected to the murder of a guest some years earlier. That of Frank Parris. The events of which became the subject of an Atticus Pünd novel by Alan Conway.
The jumbled up format of events in the present. Then the story set in the past in the novel was incongruous. Even though that is the unique selling point of the show.
The opening episode just did not feel homely to me.
John Halifax (1938)
John Halifax
John Halifax is a brisk, simple adequate B movie based on the novel by Dinah Craik.
John Halifax is an orphaned boy who regards himself as a gentleman. Not because he comes from landed gentry.
It is something his father told him. To make his way through life by honest hard work and treating people fairly.
A young John arrived in the town of Norton Bury starving. He was shown kindness by a young girl who he would later marry. Then a disabled lad whose father owned a mill.
Eventually John would become a partner at the mill.
The movie has some Dickensian type characters. His wife's dastardly cousin Lord Luxmore.
Stevie Van Zandt: Disciple (2024)
Stevie Van Zandt: Disciple
For years, Stevie Van Zandt to me was Bruce Springsteen's sidekick who had some dodgy screeching vocals. He later co-produced the Boss's later albums before departing just as Bruce hit paydirt with the Born in the USA album.
Stevie was not part of the lucrative Born in the USA touring band. Instead he got involved in political activism such as raising awareness about Apartheid in South Africa. It culminated in the supergroup Artists United Against Apartheid with the song Sun City. Although it was a minor hit, its impact was more felt in the USA.
This documentary shows that Stevie actually had nice vocals in his younger days. He was soulful and an aficionado of rock, pop and rhythm and blues music and anything in between.
He was a consigliere to Bruce, the most important member of the E Street Band. Later becoming the consigliere Silvio Dante in the television show The Sopranos.
This sprawling but comprehensive documentary showed various chapters in his life. From rock star, to political activist to television actor to radio show disc jockey.
Stevie Van Zandt has lived a multi faceted life. I always judge these documentaries on whether I have learned new things about the subject.
Given that I have known of him since the 1980s. I learned a lot of new things about Stevie Van Zandt.
Bruce Springsteen mentions that Stevie is either all in or nothing type of guy. I would had liked to hear more from his fellow E Street band members though.
Your Monster (2024)
Your Monster
Your Monster is a feminist black horror revenge indie rom-com. Directed and written by Caroline Lindy who adapted it from her own short movie.
Laura (Melissa Barrera) is an aspiring actress who is dumped by her playwright boyfriend Jacob (Edmund Donovan) as she is recovering from cancer.
The break up leaves Laura alone and in tears. Feeling self pity, her main contact is the Amazon delivery driver who brings her boxes of tissues she ordered.
Then suddenly a gruff Monster (Tommy Dewey) emerges, demanding she leaves her place of abode. The bullying Monster spurs Laura to take back control of her life. She gets a part as the chorus in the musical that Jacob is directing. Not the lead part that was originally written for her.
The film is a twist on Beauty of the Beast and Drop Dead Fred. You sense early on the Monster is a projection of Laura's psyche. To make her realise that the real monster is Jacob and she needs to have the courage to take him on.
This low budget genre bending movie does not entirely work. The performances from the main leads are fine. Donovan is too smarmy as the baddie. The ending did not feel right to me.
The Glass: Episode #1.1 (2001)
Episode 1
The Glass was John Thaw's final series before his death from cancer. He was only 60.
On paper The Glass was meant to be a cross between Dynasty and Glengarry Glen Ross.
Thaw plays Jim Proctor. He runs a successful double glazing company. He gives seminars on salesmanship to packed out audiences.
Each month the salespeople's figures are publicly announced in the firm's offices. There is no hiding place for the losers. The top salespeople get lauded and rewarded. It is cutthroat.
Proctor has a younger girlfriend. Carol Parker (Sarah Lancashire) is also a saleswoman at the firm. However Jim wants to retire, he wants to sell out.
Jim wants to groom his nephew Paul Duggan (Joe McFadden) to take over the firm. Only he is a young man who was a bartender in New York. Can he really manage a double glazing firm. Jim plans to teach him the ropes.
Paul's arrival causes him to flirt with Carol, she already pranked into his car.
The sales action bits were good. The soapy bits were dismal. It was predictable and bad, such as Carol getting the wrong end of the stick when Jim is trying to propose to her.
Rear Window (1998)
Rear Window
This remake of Rear Window cannot be compared with Alfred Hitchcock's superior version. At least it is not the pointless shot by shot remake of Psycho which came out around the same time.
This version was reframed due to the disability suffered by its star. The television movie was Christopher Reeve's return to acting after a horse riding incident left him as a quadriplegic.
Reeve plays wheelchair bound architect Jason Kemp who spies on his neighbours as he has little else to do after his accident. He believes that his neighbour has murdered his wife and hidden her body.
Only no one believes him. Only to become the target of the murderer.
There is no getting away from Christopher Reeve's performance. You genuinely feel dread when his breathing tube comes loose. This was an actor who came close to death several times after his accident. Now he was making movies when he could not even breath unaided.
Despite a cast that includes Robert Forster and Darryl Hannah. There is no getting away from the movie of the week roots. A better script, budget and director could had elevated this.
Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story (2024)
Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story
Terrific, thoughtful, comprehensive. This is man and superman. The play Christopher Reeve's father thought his son had bagged, When instead he got the Superman gig back in 1977.
At the time Reeve was doing an off off Broadway play with other young actors such as William Hurt. He told Reeve's not to sell out, not to take on the role of Superman. The same Hurt who later played General Ross in the Marvel movies.
After noting Reeve's rise to fame. The documentary takes a dark turn as the actor had his horse rising accident in 1995. Leaving him paralysed after his neck broke. Initially it was touch and go if Reeve would survive the day.
With the help of his wife Dana. Reeve survived but now he was an observer in life not a participant. He would need around the clock care. He could not even breath unaided.
Even then Reeve turned his life around. Becoming an advocate for the disabled. Raising funds for his charitable foundation. Battling for stem cell research and still being a father to his young family.
The documentary uses Reeve's own words from his spoken novels, interviews and movies. There is participation from his children as well as close friends of the Reeves family.
There is archive footage of Robin Williams, his acting school roommate providing close support to his friend. There is speculation whether Williams would still be alive if Reeves not had died.
At my time of life, it is not easy for me to get emotional when I watch something. I saw Superman in the cinema as a child. I definitely got a lump in my throat when I saw this.
Hancock: The Eye-Witness (1963)
The Eye-Witness
While getting mistaken for a newspaper vendor. Hancock sees some robbers fleeing after robbing a gang.
The bank manager rushes out and asks Hancock if he saw anything. He claims to have seen the robbers but did not note the registration number of the getaway car.
Detective Sergeant Hubbard (Peter Vaughan) does not think much of Hancock as a witness. His testimony is unreliable and even contradictory.
By coming forward to the press. Hancock put himself in danger from the robbers. They might try to silence Hancock. Hubbard has requested some police officers keep watch.
This was not a great episode. Almost feeling like a series of sketches.
Hancock comes across as an irritating imbecile.
Doctors: Go Out Dancing (2024)
Go Out Dancing
I only planned to review the final episode of Doctors. However the penultimate episode features Timothy West whose death was announced a few hours before broadcast.
This was billed as his last onscreen performance. Although I believe he might appear of the Christmas Day special of a certain time travel adventure.
West plays Artie Simkins who has to call for help when his elderly neighbour Sylvie Mackie (Trudie Goodwin) has a bad fall in the garden. While Sylvie is being attended by the rapid response medic Dr Sid Vere.
Artie manages to flirt with Sylvie. While the latter tries to fix her daughter up with Sid.
Back at the Mill. The medics are not happy with the changes proposed by the dictatorial Dr Graham Elton. It leads to possible mass resignations. Maybe one person could stop him.
It has been a while since I watched Doctors. It does look like something running on fumes. The main story was not that interesting. It was left to the continuing arc that would be wrapped in the final episode to do the heavy lifting.
The Goodies: The Goodies - Almost Live (1976)
The Goodies - Almost Live
Almost Live is almost a variety show featuring The Goodies singing some of their hit songs and also doing parodies.
Just a few years earlier, The Goodies were regulars on Top of the Pops with songs such as the Funky Gibbon.
It starts of as a parody of country and western shows. The kind used as late night filler by ITV regions. Tim Brooke-Taylor is having fun as the camp cowboy who has an unfortunate encounter with a cactus.
There is a nod to Top of the Pops as the Goodies dance as Pan's Grannies. The choreography is by Flick Colby.
Some of the songs are hit and miss. The Funky Gibbon is certainly the highlight.
Sherlock Holmes: The Case of the Royal Murder (1955)
The Case of the Royal Murder
After successfully cracking a case. Holmes and Watson are invited by Balkan royalty to spend a weekend with them.
During dinner Prince Stefan dies of poisoning. It leaves King Conrad as the main suspect, even though the evidence is circumstantial. They may have been in love with the same woman.
The death could lead to uproar in the Balkans. The King wants Sherlock Holmes to clear his name.
Only for Holmes and Watson to feel the King's wrath later on as they find themselves incarcerated.
There is a sword duel that is inspired by the Errol Flynn/Basil Rathbone Robin Hood movie which is a highlight. The rest is rather so-so.
Bramwell: Episode #1.1 (1995)
Episode 1
The first episode of Bramwell stars Jemma Redgrave as Eleanor Bramwell. She striving to be a doctor in male dominated Victorian Britain.
Bramwell has medical training, her father is a doctor. She is progressive but her ideas are mocked.
Bramwell is working in a hospital run by Sir Herbert Hamilton (Robert Hardy.) He tries to calm a hysterical woman by removing her ovaries. She dies at the operating table.
Later Bramwell manages to persuade Hamilton to let her treat a patient with a crush injury to his foot. Hamilton wants to amputate the leg, Bramwell could save it.
It all goes awry when Bramwell has a friend who has syphilis. If she ever gives birth, her child could have serious disabilities. Her husband is Lord Edward Carstairs. A powerful man who wants Hamilton to treat his wife's hysteria. She is angry at Carstairs for giving her syphilis.
In the end, Bramwell gains a financial benefactor allowing her to run a clinic in the slums of London.
The first episode is atmospheric. There are good scenes as Sir Herbert Hamilton talks to an audience while he operates. It then goes rather formulaic thereafter.
The series feels like a precursor to the popular Call the Midwife. It even has Cliff Parisi.
Gunpowder Siege: Fugitives (2024)
Fugitives
This Sky Documentary has gone for a contemporary and visceral examination of the Gunpowder Plot.
The first episode is set a few days after the failed plot to blow up Westminster. Guido Fawkes has been caught and is interrogated. First it is a softly softly approach but it will soon be enhanced.
His cohorts Robert Catesby (Chuku Modu) Thomas Wintour (Luke Hobson) and Thomas Percy (Luke Roberts) have fled London. Confident that Fawkes will not talk.
The plan was to get rid of the Protestant King James I. Install his daughter Princess Elizabeth instead. She was seen to be more sympathetic to Catholicism.
The plot has failed, the men are on the run. There might still be a chance to blow up Parliament, but the gunpowder has become wet. It is not easy to dry out in November.
The actors use contemporary language, there is even a well known phrase from the Lethal Weapon movies. In fact some of them seem to have emerged from those British gangster movies as they try to justify their actions and how they have been persecuted for practising their religion.
It is not Horrible Histories, there is no humour to lighten the mood. There is context but it also fell too macho at times when in reality there would had been panic.
The New Statesman: Happiness Is a Warm Gun (1987)
Happiness Is a Warm Gun
After playing nerdy twerps like Rick in The Young Ones or Kevin Turvey. Rik Mayall went for a change of pace with the ruthless Thatcherite politician Alan B'stard.
Handily The New Statesman began just a few months after Mrs Thatcher's third election victory. Thatcherism was at full pomp. A new wave of charmless MPs such as Michael Portillo and John Redwood were her acolytes.
Writers Laurence Marks and Maurice Gran who always had a political edge to their previous writings. Now had a sharp dagger for the Tories.
Alan B'stard is the newly elected as the Conservative MP for the Yorkshire town of Haltemprice. He sabotaged the car of the rival candidates who ended up in intensive care.
Chief Constable Sir Malachi Jellicoe knows what B'stard has done. He feels the aspiring politician will be more useful in the House of Commons. Jellicoe wants a law passed so the police can carry guns.
It also gives B'stard an opportunity to sell guns to the police which he has acquired from some shady connections.
Almost 40 years later, it is surprisingly fast moving. It very much caricatures the obnoxious Tories of the era. The use of words from B'stard such as common sense, means it also chimes with the Tories from the post 2010 government as well. Demonstrating nothing much has changed with them.
The Cuckoo Waltz: Connie (1976)
Connie
A shocked Connie arrives to Fliss and Chris's home. She has been burgled and is afraid to return to her house.
Gavin decides to give up his room to Connie. She is rather impressed with Gavin's bedroom and his music system.
Gavin ends up staying with neighbour Austen Tweedale.
Connie talks to Fliss about her life and as a single mother after Fliss's dad left.
While Mr Tweedale mentions to Gavin how he always had a shine for Connie but did nothing about it.
Maybe it is not too late for Austen Tweedale to make a proposal to Connie. It could be the kind where Fliss and Chris are left shocked.
There is some background to Connie in this episode. It looks she would had been born in the 1920s. It is nice but as with other episodes, it just never feels that funny.