February Film Update

Ten films, all of which I watched in 2024. Does this finish up the year? Heh, no.

1. The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (2015)

In East Berlin in 1963 CIA agent Napoleon Solo (Henry Cavill) helps Gaby Teller (Alicia Vikander) escape to the west, despite the efforts of KGB agent Ilya Kuryakin (Armie Hammer) to stop him. Her father Dr Udo Teller was a nuclear scientist, and is believed to be working with Italian industrialists and Nazi sympathizers Victoria and Alexander Vinciguerra to build a nuclear bomb. To Solo’s surprise he is ordered to team up with Kuryakin and Teller to go to Rome and try and contact Teller’s father through her uncle Rudi.

This begins a convoluted Cold War thriller, with spies, gadgets, the characters trying to one up and take advantage of one another. Solo’s smooth, Kuryakin is struggling with rage. Neither trusts the other and neither quite trusts Teller.

This manages to keep much of the tone and fun of the 1960s tv show that this is a reboot of. There’s a few odd bits – the film loves flashbacks, but occasionally these make no sense. The cast mostly work pretty well together. Unfortunately this is not an age where you can make a couple of films to figure out what works and what doesn’t and they didn’t make a sequel.

Watch This: Light hearted period spy thriller with some fun twists and turns
Don’t Watch This: Struggles to find the charm of the original and also to modernise the film-making

2. Brides Of Satan

Mary and her fiancée go to a sleazy bar as a last hurrah before their wedding. Things go wrong when a trio of women led by satanic cultist Sidney Zero rob the place and kill the fiancée. Mary ends up in a junkyard where Lenny Lester teaches her to fight. Before she finishes her training Lenny’s killed, leaving her two revenges, and also his last wish, to take something to his estranged daughter.

She goes on, fights some cyber-punks by a railway line and getting a cool long coat, finds the daughter in a carnival-esque sideshow place, singing. She goes on to a bar, fails to meet Switchblade Kitty, who may run everything in the city, gets a lead to the satanic cult, goes there and fights a demon.

This is all fun enough in a sleazy, do-it-yourself, gory, style. But only Mary carries anything from scene to scene (chapter-to-chapter). That Sydney Zero is a satanic cultist is barely even mentioned until they summon the demon in the last chapter. The film keeps hinting Switchblade Kitty is behind everything, and at the end she’s just hanging out in her bar, with her odd sidekick/lover being odd. We start out seeing the pole-dancing and stripping before Mary and fiancée go to the bar, with intro scenes for each of the dancers, then they’re all left behind. Lester has regrets, dies, sends his last message to his daughter and she kind of accepts it, has a drink with Mary and goes on her way. It’s not clear why Mary is going by the railway, what the cyber-punks are up to, or what their hinted relationship to the Brides of Satan is. The film nods at us that it knows this is all silly and rough around the edges, yet it could have had a tighter plot to make it less stop-start, not feel like they just shoved in everyone involved’s most interesting ideas, then stitched them awkwardly into a revenge plot.

Anyway, like seeing women fighting, occasionally topless? It’s okay at that.

Watch This: Roaring rampage of revenge through sleaze city
Don’t Watch This: Just a bunch of stuff that the film keeps putting out and nodding at going, this is cool, or daring, or disgusting, isn’t it, you like that don't you

3. Czech Mate

Hammer House Of Mystery And Suspense

Vicky Duncan is a TV researcher and a contact got her some film of Warsaw Pact security chiefs meeting including the elusive Czech one, but there’s not enough to run a piece. Her ex-husband John is courting her, and suggests a trip to Prague where he has some business to do. However he disappears and a strange note is slipped under the door. She goes to the address on the note but he’s not there, just a woman.

Her passport is missing, having been left at the front desk and the man on duty is also missing. The police don’t believe her story as the meetings John is supposed to go to doesn’t exist. At the British embassy one of the staff takes her details, gives her money and promises to try and get her a passport. But while trying to find John, she spots the security chief from the film with Maria, the woman at the address.

A spy thriller from the point of view of someone who has no idea what’s going on and doesn’t want to be a pawn in any of three different plots. Perhaps a little dated with the Cold War over, yet it manages to convince.

Watch This: Creepy and scary thriller
Don’t Watch This: Vicky is comprehensively betrayed, and cannot catch a break or even an explanation

4. Darkman

Peyton Westlake (Liam Neeson) is a scientist researching synthetic skin, and can make masks indistinguishable from life. Unfortunately they fall dissolve after 99 minutes in the light. His girlfriend, Julie Hastings finds an incriminating document that her boss, real estate mogul Strack has been bribing city officials to get permits. He admits it, saying it’s the only way to get things done and make the city better. However, as he notes, if the wrong people got it they might blackmail him.

The wrong guy, violent mobster Durant and his gang of weird gimmicky criminals, come after it, killing Westlake’s assistant, destroying his lab and leaving him for dead; he’s badly burned and blown into the river. Anonymous in the hospital, they sever his pain receptors to prevent him dying form the agony of his injuries, though this has the side effect of making him enormously, violently angry and strong from adrenaline. He escapes and rebuilds his lab in an abandoned building, hoping to repair his face and body.

He decides to seek revenge, concealing himself in overcoat, hat and scarf to pass at night and listen in. He makes masks with synthetic skin and impersonates voices (his impressions are perfect because they’re played by the same actor). This causes chaos, including them executing one of their own.

He manages to recreate his own face and meets Julie, making excuses why he can only stay with her for 99 minutes. This goes wrong, he gets angry and attacks a worker at a carnival, fleeing, and she follows him and finds out where his lab is and how disfigured he is. She says she still loves him but he rejects her. She lets slip to Strack Westlake is alive, and then discovers the same document, Strack and Durant are working together. This leads to a long and occasionally spectacular final set of confrontations.

A dark and gritty superhero vigilante film. Occasionally compelling, the gimmicks good as Westlake’s two abilities, to impersonate and to go berserk, conflict. Because they were disarmed for a meeting in the first scene, the criminals produce guns from one of their number’s false legs; all of the gang have something visual or otherwise to distinguish them, even though they’re going to end up killed by Darkman in an unlikely and gruesome manner.

Watch This: He’s dark, man
Don’t Watch This: Very silly

5. The Golden Hawk

Kit “The Hawk” Gerado is a French privateer captain with a crew but no ship in the 17^th century Caribbean. As the film starts he’s spending his time seducing women, his trademark move being to give them a pistol so that they can shoot him if they don’t want to go through with it; they trust him after that. Then Luis del Toro, a Spanish captain’s ship is spotted; Kit wins The Sea Flower in a duel and heads after him. Del Toro has a cargo of women; one escapes and swims to The Sea Flower. There Kit tries to seduce her; she shoots him and escapes to a nearby island. They then realise she’s the infamous pirate Captain Rouge.

After some more pirating – sorry, privateering – Kit seizes a Spanish ship with Bianca, who is engaged to marry del Toro. Kit demands 10,000 gold pieces. Del Toro pays, but traps Kit; eventually he escapes.

Kit’s success has the French decide to put him in charge of attacking Cartagena, the great Spanish fortress. He raids Jamaica to prevent the English attacking him while laying siege, there discovering Captain Rouge is Lady Kane Golfin, and he’s destroyed the plantation she became a pirate to regain after it was taken from her. Sorry to hear that, by the way who works that plantation?

It all comes to a head at Cartagena. There are reveals of love, of family, Kit is captured and sentenced to hang, Captain Rouge cross-dresses, all the classic bits. If it’s confused and confusing plotwise, the swashbuckling fights mostly succeed. The recurring pistol bit is good, and even pays off at the end.

Watch This: Old school pirate film with romance action and intrigue
Don’t Watch This: A lot of very silly plot twists

6. The Lady From Shanghai

Michael O’Hara (Orson Welles) is an Irish seaman who rescues Elsa Bannister (Rita Hayworth) from thugs in New York. Her husband, rich, disabled and much older lawyer Arthur Bannister hires him on their yacht for their voyage through the Panama canal and to San Francisco. O’Hara’s dubious about this; it’s weird and his attraction to Elsa will get them into trouble.

Bannister’s partner George Grisby has an offer; for $5000 O’Hara will confess to killing him (Grisby) but as it will be a fake there will be no body and he cannot be convicted. Grisby wants to escape Bannister who blackmails everyone as a matter of course. O’Hara thinks that with $5000 he and Elsa could get away from Bannister (who has a blackmail hold over Elsa).

This goes wrong, Grisby is actually killed mysteriously, his body found and O’Hara’s pre-written confession discovered. Bannister defends him, the court case getting out of hand as the two lawyers make speeches, and Bannister putting himself on the stand. As more and more secrets are revealed O’Hara escapes into Chinatown, only to be double-crossed by Elsa to an ending in a hall of mirrors.

This is a twisty tricky noir. Too twisty? Too tricky? The outlandish plot is held together by the fact that everyone is obsessed with Elsa Bannister and she does look like Rita Hayworth so that’s believable. Some of the directing (Welles) is very good, occasionally the framing of a shot so interesting that I lost track of what was happening. Welles’ accent, supposedly Irish is initially distracting, though on the other hand he’s been a sailor in foreign ports and multi-lingual ships since he was a boy so I guess he gets away with it.

Watch This: Gorgeous crime thriller
Don’t Watch This: A lot of disjointed sections of people acting weirdly, with an annoyingly superfluous voiceover

7. The Last Duel

In France during the Caroline War (part of the Hundred Years War) two squires, Jean de Carrouges and Jean le Gris, are initially friends. Carrouges is hotheaded and a warrior’s warrior. Le Gris becomes a close adviser to Count Pierre, their overlord. Pierre has a rich and slightly decadent court. Carrouges marries Marguerite, the daughter of a nobleman who previously supported the enemy (the English, ugh) but finds that part of the promised dowry has been claimed by Pierre for debts. Later, when Carrouges’ father dies, his captaincy of a fort and the estates with it are not awarded to Carrouges, instead to Le Gris, the two falling out.

They reconcile, Le Gris getting on well with Marguerite. Carrouge’s mother and Marguerite do not get on and the Marguerite fails to become pregnant. Carrouges goes to Scotland as part of a French contingent fighting there; although the campaign goes poorly Carrouges is knighted for his part in it. When he returns Marguerite tells him she has been raped by Le Gris; avoiding a trial that Pierre would preside over Carrouges appeals to the king. Using an old precedent Carrouges requests trial by combat, which Le Gris agrees to, proclaiming his innocence. This is based on historical events and was the Last Judicial Duel fought in France.

The film is split into three parts, each from a different point of view; Carrouges, Le Gris and finally Marguerite with a coda (the fight). In this way we see the events play out differently according to whose point of view we see. Carrouges’ has him as a warrior who is continually being cheated out of things by the fops and popinjays at Pierre’s court while away at war. Le Gris does enjoy the decadent pleasures of the court, but he's also working, getting the taxes that pay for the war. He does Carrouges several minor favours, before attempting to seduce his wife.

If the film wants us to understand Le Gris’ point of view then I don’t think it quite gets there. The conventional and disingenuous refusal of a woman to having sex is shown in one scene, but it’s obviously different when Marguerite says no, runs away and so forth. And that Carrouges is a violent, stupid man who is a terrible husband, and Marguerite is much happier when he’s away (and she’s more competent running the estate too) does not bear especially on this central question. It’s not that this isn’t an interesting part of the story and characters, yet the film is called The Last Duel, it opens with preparations to the duel and closes with the duel itself and each of the three parts are evidence on the matter as well as revealing the principal characters.

A good historical drama, with action, well drawn characters and a central spine that is compelling.

Watch This: Three different views of 14^th century France, exploring war, law, marriage, politics and economics
Don’t Watch This: Rape, war and betrayal

8. Tom Brown’s Schooldays (1951)

Tom Brown goes to school at Rugby in the 1830s. There’s a lot of singing, quite a bit of bullying and sports, some muscular Christianity, a lot of obscure rules and some talk of reform. The nature of that reform is not seriously discussed; it stems from the Headmaster (historical) Thomas Arnold and is opposed by some senior masters.

Tom is half-heartedly helped out by his friend Scud, and bullied by Flashman, who insists that younger pupils “fag” (run errands, do chores) for him even though he is not a fifth former with “fag” privileges. This comes to a head when Tom gets a favourite horse in a sweepstake and refuses to hand it over to Flashman, who burns him on the fire. Tom refuses to tell who did it in accordance with the schoolboy code.

Having come to the headmaster’s attention Tom is put in charge of a young, slightly delicate pupil, George Arthur. Due to some shenanigans involving Flashman having a fight with a local farmer (exactly what he’s been doing on the farm is, again, not said but apparently it’s bad) George Arthur falls in the river and is ill. This has Scud believing in prayer again when he recovers and the film ends with them proving both their piety and their capacity for manly exercise.

Tom Brown’s Schooldays, the novel, is a paean to Thomas Arnold, whose reforms to Rugby school (bringing in maths, history and modern languages while instilling in the boys Christian virtues) influenced public schools in Britain and beyond throughout the 19^th and 20^th centuries. This film gets across the events, the boyhood adventures. It fails in offering the despair at bullying and the anguish at events beyond their control when George Arthur falls ill. A rather light and frothy adaption of a somewhat outdated novel.

Watch This: Easy to watch adaption of the classic novel
Don’t Watch This: Struggles to find the depth of feeling to meet the challenges of the stronger themes

9. The Son Of Monte Cristo

General Gurko has taken control of the Grand Duchy Of Lichtenburg, imprisons the Prime Minister, suppresses the free press etc. Grand Duchess Zona tries to escape to get help from Napoleon III in France, is aided by the Count Of Monte Cristo, but is recaptured, despite being in a neutral country. Monte Cristo, already on his way to Lichtenburg, is enamoured of Zona, and also her cause (freedom? Or noble monarchy rather than the lower class dictatorship of Gurko?) and decides to help her.

He does the classic Zorro dual identity thing. First the foppish international banker of the house of Monte Cristo, there to arrange for a loan of 25,000,000 francs to General Gurko. Zona is unimpressed by him, but he learns a lot, including that Gurko intends to invite the Russians in, and also to marry Zona. As masked vigilante The Torch he rescues the Prime Minister and helps some of the illegal newspapers. In an interesting bit he gets them to print fake invitations to the wedding. Obviously the wedding gets interrupted and there’s some swordfighting (plenty of that throughout).

A brisk and fun swashbuckler. There’s something very funny about the idea of Napoleon III as the guarantor of liberty and freedom (see also The Sword Of Monte Cristo). On the other hand this film was made in 1940, hence all this underground newspaper business, and the short-haired military dictator, is making a point, if in a rather silly manner.

Watch This: Fun swashbuckler in a Ruritanian mold
Don’t Watch This: For all it’s pretensions it’s about rich aristocrats fighting over power

10. The Terminator (1984)

The Terminator (Arnold Schwarzenegger) a humanoid robot comes back in time from 2029 to 1984, planning to kill Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton), fated to be the mother of John Connor, leader of the human resistance to the machines. Also coming back in time is Kyle Reese (Michael Biehn), a human soldier and companion to John, to try and protect her. They can’t being weapons, equipment or even clothes with them. The Terminator acquires clothes and a motorbike from some bikers by violently intimidating them. Without good records the Terminator works his way though the phone book killing every Sarah Connor in it. This lets Reese, now with clothes stolen from a homeless man and a shotgun stolen from the cops and sawn off, get to her first.

Spotting Reese, Conner thinks he is stalking her, and ducks into a nightclub; the Terminator hunts her through it and she and Reese get away. He explains to her what’s happened; then the Terminator catches up with them and they escape in a car chase to be caught by the police.

The police have explanations (the Terminator is on PCP the super-drug of the time, wearing body armour etc and Reese is insane). Connor accepts this; unfortunately the Terminator then breaks into the police station to get to her, killing lots of police. Reese escapes, gets Connor out and they go on the run. Together he makes explosives he hopes will kill the Terminator; also the two, attracted to each other, have sex, conceiving the future John Connor and closing the time loop. Sarah calls her mother but the Terminator has got there first and impersonates her over the phone, getting her location from her and setting the scene for the final confrontation.

Coming back to this there’s a lot of stuff I hadn’t remembered. The police loom large in the first half of the film. We’re invested in their investigation, they’re annoyed by the press and have banter and lives, so it’s frustrating when they don’t believe, and sad when they’re killed. There’s a bit of sleazy LA, the 1980s futuristic nightclub. And technology betrays them; after killing Sarah’s roommate the Terminator learns from the answer machine he’s not killed her and where she is; the phone call to her mother. Even the phone book is a danger! It turns out the incoherence of time travel that comes into play in the continuation of the series is here from the start; Reese admits that he doesn’t know how, or even if it works

Watch This: Classic science fiction action film
Don’t Watch This: Violent, dated, very pleased with itself