DVD/150: JULIETA (Pedro Almodóvar, 2016)

After the mile-high-jinks of I'M SO EXCITED, Almodóvar returned to family drama for his 20th film JULIETA.

Based on three Alice Munro stories, JULIETA should have starred Meryl Streep but Almodóvar felt more comfortable working in Spanish.

Julieta has not heard from her daughter Antia for 12 years but her pain returns when she meets Antia's best teenage friend who tells her she recently saw her in Switzerland.

Julieta moves back to her old apartment building, the last address Antia had for her, and remembers her life.

Julieta met Xoan, a Galician fisherman. on a train journey in the 1980s while working as a supply teacher.  They made love, and months later, with her contract over - and pregnant - Julieta learned Xoan was now a widower so moved to Galicia to be with him and give birth to Antia.|

But Julieta learns tragedy can break families in different ways...

Shelf or charity shop? JULIETA is a keeper for Almodóvar's mastery of multi-thread storytelling.  Tellingly, especially after the camp of I'M SO EXCITED, JULIETA is played without any comedy undertone.  Their are fine performances from Emma Suárez and Adriana Ugarte as the older and younger Julietta - Almodóvar gives them a marvellous transition moment halfway through - and a delightful supporting turn from Pedro regular Rossy de Palma as Marian, Xoan's stoic housekeeper.

DVD/150: DOUBLE INDEMNITY (Billy Wilder, 1944)

DOUBLE INDEMNITY is a Film Noir classic with it's tangy dialogue, vivid characters and the darkness lurking behind it's California sunshine.

James M Cain's 1936 novella was considered unfilmable until Paramount chose it for Billy Wilder to direct as his third Hollywood film.

With Cain unavailable to co-write the script, Wilder chose Raymond Chandler whose hard-boiled dialogue worked wonders.

Insurance salesman Walter Neff meets Phyllis Dietrichson when he visits her house wanting her husband to renew his car insurance.  Instantly attracted to each other, Phyllis soon asks if Walter could arrange life insurance for her husband without him knowing. 

Walter gets Dietrichson to unknowingly sign the policy and soon the lovers plan the perfect murder to get the money...

But when Neff's friend, claims investigator Barton Keyes, suspects foul play and gets closer to the truth, Walter realizes he was a pawn in Phyllis' murderous game all along...

Shelf or charity shop? DOUBLE INDEMNITY lives in my DVD storage box but is definitely a keeper.  With it's shadowy photography and ominous score DOUBLE INDEMNITY is definitive Film Noir; Wilder and Chandler's crunchy dialogue crackles onscreen while Wilder's direction keeps the motor racing to the end.  Fred MacMurray, playing against type, is the perfect Noir anti-hero, the man who thinks he is running the game until he realises he's the one being played and he is ably partnered with Edward G Robinson as the fatherly Keyes.  As the deceiving Phyllis, Barbara Stanwyck gave the cinema one of it's great femme fatales.

DVD/150: THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE (Tay Garnett, 1946)

Three James M Cain stories became Film Noir classics: DOUBLE INDEMNITY, MILDRED PEARCE and THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE.

Drifter Frank enquires about a 'Man Wanted' sign at a roadside diner, he is hired by owner Nick whose young wife Cora treats Frank disdainfully.

Their antagonism turns to lust - Cora knows she would lose the diner in a divorce so they decide to murder Nick

Their first attempt is unsuccessful but it arouses the suspicions of the District Attourney.

Nick announces plans to sell up and move to Canada to live with his invalid sister so the couple realise they must act fast.  They kill Nick but are interupted by the DA while attempting to make it look like a car crash. 

The DA charges only Cora with murder - hoping she will implicate Frank - but is out-manouvered by her conniving lawyer.

Frank and Cora are free but fate awaits...

Shelf or charity shop? This lives in my DVD storage box but THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE cries out for more viewings. Lana Turner was never better than as the fresh-faced adultress Cora - her first appearance is Film Noir gold - while John Garfield brings great intensity as Frank.  Tay Garnett's non-stop direction is first class while there is excellent support from Leon Ames as sly DA Sackett and Hume Cronyn who steals scenes as Arthur Keats, Cora's crooked lawyer.

Dvd/150: LADY KILLERS (Nicholas Ferguson / Philip Draycott / Kenny McBain / Joan Kemp-Welch / Brian Mills / Peter Moffatt, 1981. tv)

The second series of seven murder trial dramatisations, introduced by Robert Morley.

Where the first series concentrated on women criminals, this focusses on men killing women - except for Edith Thompson and Freddy Bywaters: he killed her husband but they were tried jointly, one of the great judicial miscarriages.

This series doesn't match the first, an obvious choice for the producer but it doesn't carry much conviction.

Chewing the scenery are Kenneth Haigh as brides-in-the-bath killer George Smith and Christopher Cazenove as mad Ronald True, while John Fraser as Crippen is colourless.

However Ian Charleson shines as fake posh cad Neville Heath, Michael Jayston is fine as arrogant Frederick Seddon, on trial for murdering his tenant, as is Carol Drinkwater as his edgy wife.

The best is the Thompson/Bywaters episode with touching performances from (miscast) Gayle Hunnicutt, Christopher Villiers and Margaret Tyzack as his stricken mother.

Shelf or charity shop? I will keep this as it's my Ian but it's also worth keeping for the Thompson/Bywaters episode and some fine supporting performances across the series from Heather Chasen, Michael Ripper, John Justin, Michael Byrne, Joan Hickson, and Joan Sims' voice-over as the virago Mrs Crippen.

DVD/150: THE GREAT GATSBY (Jack Clayton, 1974)

Jack Clayton's leisurely film of the Fitzgerald classic - meticulously adapted by Francis Ford Coppola - infuriates some but I have loved it since becoming enraptured by it on the big screen as an impressionable lad.

Geoffrey Unsworth's cinematography shimmers as in a nostalgic haze, especially showing the extravagant opulence of Gatsby's mansion, while the cast all drip with perspiration in the heat of the 1922 summer.

Theoni V. Aldredge's gorgeous costumes won the Academy Award as did Nelson Riddle's swooning music score which also incorporates 1920s ballads as mood music and wild Charlestons for the parties.

Over the years I have come to appreciate Robert Redford's performance; always guarded on screen, his aloofness suits Gatsby's mystery well.  I have always been a fan of Mia Farrow's maddeningly gossamer Daisy, Karen Black's tragic Myrtle, Scott Wilson as her sad-sack husband George and Sam Waterston is wonderfully sympathetic as narrator Nick Carraway. 

Shelf or charity shop? Now living in my plastic storage box, THE GREAT GATSBY will be viewed again - and again - for the film itself but also for the nostalgia it stirs in me for my early cinema-going years.