Reviews

This is an excellent film. There are very few if any American films that deal with anti-semitism in a school environment let alone a prep school. David Greene is a working class Jew in the 1950's who gets a football scholarship to a New England Harvard feeder school. They need a quarterback. While in a working class environment David can deal with anti-semitism by fighting on a one to one basis. Early in the film we see him battle against a rival gang leader who makes anti-semitic comments. In this film the working class kids fight hard but a least fight fairly. However, at the prep school the anti-semitism is more subtle and he overhears a casual anti-semitic comment. When his classmates later turn on him led by the jealous racist Charlie Dillon he is unable to fight back against the pack. He becomes the outsider-the stranger subject to all indignities. The redeeming character in this film is Chris Reece who after some soul searching finally comes to David's aid. This was a brave film to make and Bredan Fraser is wonderful as David Greene.

O.K. this is not a great film. But, the Catherine Deneuve/Johnny Halliday segment is so worth waiting for. Halliday serenades Catherine with the beautiful Azvanour song "Retien la Nuit" (Hold back the Night). The wonderful Catherine wears the typical French girl teen fashion of the time - a white shirt and plaid skirt - wow. I saw this film in London when I was eighteen years old and its effect on me was quite profound. Of I went to Paris and got myself a job as a monitor for the summer in a U.N.E.S.C.O hostel on the Left Bank. I also found myself a French girl friend- Chantal. This film brings back some great memories for me.

This is one of my very favourite films. It is about two people who are approaching early middle age having a chance at real unconditional love - and taking that chance. The casting is so wonderful and the setting is just beautiful. Although, it is an American film it has the ambiance of the post war realism of a an Italian film (Never Take No For An Answer also has this realism). The film is romantic and yet it is unsentimental. Both Joseph Cotton and Joan Fontaine are so very convincing as the lovers. On visits to Italy my wife and I have visited most of the films location. When there I just cant stop myself from singing September Song.

The Wooden Horse is a real life World War Two escape story. Stalag-Luft III is supposed to be escape proof but this is proved wrong by three incredible escapers. The film is divided into two parts. Firstly, the escape from the camp and then the series of adventures while travelling through Germany and occupied Danmark. The method of escape is ingenious; a tunnel built under a vaulting horse that ends under the camp perimeter wire. The escapers of course are all officers (after all this is a Brtish film) and the camp itself has an air of an English public (private) school. The Germans are baited as if they were form masters or prefects. The film follows Eric William's book The Wooden Horse quite closely. There is an omission though. In the book the two escapers played brilliantly by Leo Genn and Anthony Steele meet up with members of the Danish resistance at a secluded farmhouse. One Jewish member of the resistance tells the escapers about the deportation of Jews and how members of the resistance helped Jews get to Sweden. Another member of the resistance tells of The Schalberg Corps an organization of Danish Nazis who the resistance battle with. However, The Wooden Horse is a very good film and well worth seeing.

The Jazz Singer is one of a number of films made in the late 1940's and 1950 about the Jewish experience in the United States. Other than Crossfire(1947) and Gentleman's Agreement(1947) which dealt with anti-semitism they usually had a musical-theatre background. These films included The Jolson Story(1946), Jolson Sings Again(1949), The Eddy Duchin Story(1951), The Eddie Cantor Story(1953),The Benny Goodman Story(1956) and Margorie Morningstar(1958). The leading actors in these "Jewish" films were always played by non-Jews. For example Larry Parks a non-Jew played Al Jolson and Gene Kelly played Noel Airman in Marjorie Morningstar. This casting was probably done to make the Jewish theme palpable to a mainly non-Jewish audience. The Jazz Singer(1952) is no different. Danny Thomas was a devout Catholic and Peggy Lee was certainly not Jewish although she plays a non-practicing Jewess in the film. The clue to her background is when she attends the Golding's family meal before entering she says "I haven't been to a sader (passover service) since I left home".

The film is about a cantor's son who has just left the service after seeing action in Korea. His dilemma is whether to become a cantor, a family tradition or to be a singer in musical theatre. His choice of theatre leads to an inevitable conflict with his father.

However, there is much more to this film than this. This film was made after the Rosenberg trial during the McCarthy whitchhunts and the Hollywood blacklist. Therefore in this film the Jews are shown as good loyal citizens and

are quintessentialy American. The synagogue choir would rather play baseball than practice. The cantors friends also talk about baseball in fact one of them is a Major League umpire. The synagogue itself dates back to 1790 and George Washington is said to have visited. Therefore Jews are presented as part and parcel of American society. Nobody in this film has a Eastern European accent. Peggy Lee appeared in very few feature films. In this film you get to see her sing "Lover" and "Just One of Those Things" wonderful. Danny Thomas is quite credible and he acts and sings the part very well. The comedic routines could have been left out. Yes, the film is schmaltzy and sentimental but it is well worth seeing. I enjoyed it very much.

Although "Outpost in Moroco" was made in 1949 it has more in common with adventure films that were made during the 1930's. I suppose along with "Morocco" "Beau Geste" and "under Two Flags" is makes up a quartet of American black and white French Foreign Legion films. "Outpost in Morocco" was actually filmed in Morocco with the co-operation of both the French government and the Legion. The story has the romance of the Legion with a love affair between a rebel Amir's daughter Cara, played by Marie Windsor and a french officer Captain Gerard played by George Raft. The are the desert campfire scenes, escapes over rooftops, an outpost on the frontier, desert marches and men struggling to survive through lack of water. The action sequences are very well produced and photographed. The story obviously does not take place in 1949 because there is nothing mechanized in this film. Also we get to see George Raft and Mari Wilson dance the tango in an early sophisticated cafe scene( it has a cirtain similarity to Rik's in Casablanca) - the film is probably set in the 1920's. Good fun.

The film was serialised as a strip in a British comic called "Film Fun" after its release in Britain in 1950.

I first saw this film at the Mile End Odeon in East London when I was a kid. I was with a couple of friends and we thought that this film would be just another British war film. However, Mile End in those days still had a reasonably large Jewish population and older people all around us kids were openly weeping throughout the showing of the film. Later, in the foyer a woman told us that her family had been killed during the Hollocaust. A saw this film again quite recently on television and it really is quite a remarkable film. The characters have real depth and the the story about nuns sheltering Jewish children from the Nazis in Italy during World War II is not sentimentalised. The sub-plot concerning an unrequited love story between an Italian officer and a novice nun is is really well presented and does not intrude on the main story concerning Nazi ruthlessness and brutality towards the Jewish children and the nuns.

I First saw this film on its release in 1962. Unfortunalely, I had read John Castle's biography of sargant- major Charles Coward before I saw the film. A large section of the book deals with Coward's attempts to help Jews escape from the Auchwitz death camp. The film dealt with this by having a five minute segment where Henry Piek's drawings of the horrors of Auchwitz are shown with Dirk Bogarde giving a voice over commentary. Well, at least it was a film that mentioned the Hollocaust . A very rear thing in the early 1960's. I saw this film again just recently on television and the Auchwitz segment had been edited out of the film. So, now the film is just another Second World War adventure movie along with an unlikely romantic interest that was not in the biography (Coward was married and very much devoted to his wife). But, there is something about this film that makes it different from other British war time escape films. It is about ordinary soldiers and not officers. These soldiers have been put to work by the Germans and the p.o.w. camps do not have the air of the British public school. These other ranks do not just try to escape but commit dangerous acts of sabotage. Therefore, on the whole this film is still worth seeing. It it was great to see the wonderful Dirk Bogarde playing a cockney character part that he does so well.

I first saw "The Blue Lamp" when I was a youngster at the Mile End Empire cinema in East London. At that time I thought it was a really good film. However, I saw it again recently on television.

It is still a good film. It takes place in post-war London. It was a time of severe austerity, rationing and people just making do. However, it was a time of public order and most crime was petty. Most men has done military service and women had been marshaled into war work and accepted discipline easily . The youth movements, play centers, and a large network of youth clubs kept teenagers busy and out of trouble and military conscription looked after the older male teens. There was a"teddy boy" problem but it was easily contained and minimal. Unlike today, people could walk the streets and feel safe and there were no no-go areas in London. Furthermore,football teams such as Arsenal, Spurs and Chelsea attracted large gates of over50-60,000 and there was never any crowd trouble. The metropolitan police was at the grounds to play music at half time and that's about all they did. The "Blue Lamp" does however,highlight a few policing problems. There was a serious working class resentment against the police. There was a feeling that many police officers had "done well" out of the war through contacts with the black market. Other police officers they thought had had a good war by being exempt from military service. Also it was thought that the police ware harassing people for petty things (the barrow boy for example). This resentment is shown in the film by the little girl who finds the murder weapon and does not want to talk to the police about it. She is not shy but says that her father says " all coppers are ....." The police interfere in peoples lives. A seventeen year old is picked up for leaving home and given a "talking to" even though she is old enough to get married and is holding down a job. Many of these police officers are not from London and do not know the community or its culture. One is from Wales and another Andy is from Maidstone. It is apparent that the police do not really have the consent of the people they are policing. The George Dixon character has been a police officer too long and is somewhat cynical about the job. His murder by psychotic killer played wonderfully by Dirk Bogarde shows the dangers faced by an unarmed police force. Lastly, I don't really understand why the B.B.C. resurrected George Dixon from the grave when they already had a "beat copper" series on the radio called P.C. 49. This radio series was very popular and there was a cartoon strip spin- off which appeared in "The Eagle" comic. Also there were two successful films made: "The Adventures of P.C. 49 and "A Case for P.C. 49." It could have easily been adapted for television.