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The 39 Steps - Unmissable Hitchcock Thriller

Advantages: Robert Donat, one of Hitchcock's favourites in action
Disadvantages: None

Alfred Hitchcock's adaptation of the John Buchan novel"The 39 Steps" produced in 1935 was the 24th film that he directed. Voted into the British Film Institute's top 5 British Films. It runs for 106 minutes and is in black and white. A classic Hitchcock thriller based upon the mistaken identity theme, starts with Richard Hannay, brilliantly portrayed by Robert Donat) meeting the exotic "icy blonde" (Lucie Mannheim) at music hall show presenting ...
...she is being followed. In the night she appears to him with a knife in her back, clutching a map and muttering something about the "39 Steps", telling him the leader has a portion of his little finger missing. Fleeing to Scotland as he is wanted by the police he meets Pamela (Madeleine Carrol) who acts as his accomplice after they are handcuffed together, something Hitchcock did hours before the filming started, and the first time Donat and Carrol ...

jackwilliams86 03.05.2007 · Read full review
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Review of The 39 Steps (DVD)

Early Hitchcock doesn't quite cut it

Advantages: Very entertaining in those days I'm sure...
Disadvantages: but we're in the 21st century now

...films deemed too irrelevant for the common movie-goer. Alas I just can't seem to give this DVD the thumbs up. You see, the thing is -if a black and white film, handicapped with the inevitable restrictions of movie-making in yesteryears, is to be an enjoyable experience for an audience today, it must have certain qualities of timelessness to it. Casablanca, The Seventh Seal and The Lady Vanishes are adored, remastered and distributed widely today ...
...to people still. I watched The Lady Vanishes (Hitchcock's last British film before he moved to America to make such international blockbusters like Vertigo and Psycho) prior to this DVD and found that to be suspenseful enough despite it being made around the same time with this film. However I must say that The Man Who Knew Too Much proved just too boring and sketchy for me despite having such a promising plot and such a decent cast. Vintage Hitchcock ...

habitualdamnation 13.07.2005 · Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of The Man Who Knew Too Much (DVD)

Action-packed with some witty dialogue but still flawed somehow

Advantages: Quite thrilling when it gathers pace, seemed an authentic depiction of London, some humour
Disadvantages: Something about Downey Jnrs depiction of Holmes didnt work somehow, not for all ages/the squeamish

...Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's novels, Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson start out by catching a serial killer who dabbles in the the supernatural, an evil man called Lord Blackwood who is sentenced to death, indeed Watson confirms he's dead after he's hung. Things take a distinctly sinister turn, however, when they discover than Blackwood has apparently risen from the dead and Holmes recalls what he told him before he was hung, which indicated that more ...
...actor (Robert Downey Jnr.) played Sherlock Holmes, while an English actor (Jude Law), played his right hand man, Dr. Watson. Now of course I knew that before I went to see the movie, infact I quite like Robert Downey Jnr. as an actor and I have enjoyed some of his other movies and the fact that he plays the main character was one of the main reasons I wanted to see it in the cinema but there was something about him playing this role that I just didn't ...

IzzyS 27.12.2009 · Read full review
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Review of Sherlock Holmes

What goes around comes around..

Advantages: Enigmatic
Disadvantages: Perhaps too long

...I wouldn’t say this was in that impact category but certainly a quality piece of film. The drama begins with the return of thirty-something award winning war photographer Paul Harris (Mathew McFadden) to the small rural town of Steimer where he grew up, his first visit for 17 years. The night bag over the shoulder arrival is for dad’s funeral, mum long returned to the Earth, Paul’s relationship with big brother Andrew (Colin May) still not good after ...
...As per normal in these movies Paul has awakened ghosts from his and others past on his return, none more so than a long lost relationship with Penny (Miranda Otto), the reason, we discover later, he skipped town. Deciding to stick around and sort out the family estate, his brother begrudging Paul’s promised third of the Will & Testament, the rest going to an unnamed charity, things take an unexpected turn in his closed world with the arrival of a ...

thedevilinme 22.12.2009 · Read full review
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Review of In My Father's Den (DVD)

About as fun as being stuck in the Channel Tunel

Advantages: Acting
Disadvantages: Yawnnnnnnn

The dust-cover proudly states that this is the best film of the new millennium! They obviously haven’t seen Brazilian Girls Go Wild In Cancun then. I took both films up on their boasts and I can confirm there was only one winner—and I didn’t need the subtitles. Talk about over rated. I had heard good things about Hidden; it had won the Palm De Or` in Cannes no less. But it’s French and so that means its going to be very talky and actor centered, ...
...the limited and predictable script. For a movie pushed as a mysterious thriller the only mystery here is how it won anything, dribbling out to a very disappointing finish. One broadsheet even voted this film of the decade?? The movie opens with a single static shot of the front of one of those comfy urban secluded houses in a nice middle class Paris superb. From across the street we observe the house panacea and everyday movements in the street ...

thedevilinme 20.12.2009 · Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of Hidden (DVD)