DVD/150: THAT HAMILTON WOMAN! (aka LADY HAMILTON, Alexander Korda, 1941)

Of the three films Vivien Leigh and Laurence Olivier made together, THAT HAMILTON WOMAN is the most watchable but it's obvious patriotism almost sinks it today.

Filmed in Hollywood in just five weeks, Korda made propaganda depicting Britain fighting a war against a European aggressor.  So what if Bonaparte was French?  It's patriotism that counted! 

Churchill's favourite film was made on a reduced budget although the lavish art direction by Vincent Korda belies it.

Destitute alcoholic Emma Hamilton is thrown in a Calais jail and she recalls her life in flashback.

As young Emma, it feels at times like Vivien was told "Just do it like you played Scarlett" as she pouts and teases her way into the dour Lord Nelson's affections but she is a total delight and rises to Emma's lonely end.

She deserves her top-billing; sadly Olivier's Nelson is as animated as the Trafalgar Square statue.

Shelf or charity shop?  A keeper for glorious Vivien who, despite Olivier's stolidness, makes their scenes together spark.  The standouts in the supporting cast are Gladys Cooper as Nelson's neglected wife Lady Frances and Sara Allgood as Mrs Cadogan-Lyon, Emma's gauche social-climbing Irish mother.

Dvd/150: A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE (Elia Kazan, 1951)

To celebrate Tennessee Williams' birth day I watched the greatest of the film adaptations of his works, Kazan's A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE which, nearly 70 years later, still grips like a vice.

Released four years after Kazan's original Broadway production, he was reluctant to repeat himself but relented and cast three of his original actors - Marlon Brando as 'Stanley', Kim Hunter as 'Stella' and Karl Malden as 'Mitch' - but had to replace Jessica Tandy with the more famous Vivien Leigh, who had played 'Blanche' onstage in London.

In retrospect, the casting was inspired: Vivien's 'outsider' status against the established bond between Brando, Hunter and Malden echoes the disturbing presence of Blanche in the working-class world of Stanley, Stella and Mitch.

Much has been made since of the opposing acting styles of Brando and Leigh with his gaining the more stature, but even he grew to respect her extraordinary performance.

Shelf or charity shop?  Really??  You even have to ask?  Tennessee Williams' extraordinary words, Harry Stradling's cinematography, Alex North's pervasive score, Kim Hunter and Karl Malden's multi-layered performances, the intensity of Kazan's direction, the electricity of Brando and of course, the gossamer, iridescent, quicksilver, haunting brilliance of Vivien Leigh.

Dvd/150: NOTHING LIKE A DAME (Roger Michell, 2018)

Every so often, four acting greats - Dames Eileen Atkins, Judi Dench, Joan Plowright and Maggie Smith - meet at Plowright's Sussex home to catch up and reminisce; this time director Roger Michell was on hand to film them.

With their friendships crossing generations. they have much shared experience: first nights, critics, playing Shakespeare, acting with husbands, getting older...

Of course Laurence Olivier pops up in conversation several times: when talking about acting partners, Plowright says "Mine was the most difficult" to which Maggie dryly responds "Well, we all found him tricky".

I suspect the real gold was left out - there is a flash of it when they discuss their wariness in playing Shakespeare's Cleopatra: Atkins says she has found all actors playing Antony dislike it as they realize the best role is Cleopatra "Alan Bates told me he hated it" to which Maggie says "That's because he wanted to play Cleopatra!"

Shelf or charity shop?  Shelf!

DVD/150: REBECCA (Alfred Hitchcock, 1940)

Hitchcock ended his British career with the misjudged JAMAICA INN based on a novel by Daphne du Maurier and his Hollywood career began with another, REBECCA, and it remains one of his greatest - his only film to win the Best Picture Oscar.

Despite producer David O. Selznick's interference, Hitchcock's film is a triumph of sustained mystery.

A timid orphan, a paid companion to an overbearing American, is befriended in Monte Carlo by the suave widower Maxim de Winter who proposes to her; although he is occasionally remote, she accepts.

At his mansion Manderley, she finds everywhere the oppressive presence of Maxim's first wife Rebecca who drowned a year before.  Her nemesis is the disdainful, obsessed housekeeper Mrs Danvers who keeps Rebecca's bedroom as a shrine to her beloved mistress.

Vivien Leigh lobbied for the lead role but was considered too forceful a presence, leaving Joan Fontaine to triumph in it.

Shelf or charity shop?  An absolute keeper, for Hitchcock's masterly storytelling as well as Franz Waxman's swooning score, and the performances of Fontaine, Laurence Olivier, the wonderful Judith Anderson as Mrs Danvers, sexy George Sanders as Rebecca's cousin and lover, and delightful support from Gladys Cooper, Nigel Bruce and Florence Bates.

Dvd/150: 21 DAYS (Basil Dean, 1940)

Larry Durrant has failed in business but made good with his girlfriend Wanda, but one night her past reappears in the shape of her slimy husband.  He pulls a knife on them and in the struggle Larry accidentally kills him. 

Larry dumps the body but loses incriminating gloves which are found by a tramp, a lapsed priest. Larry visits his older brother Keith, a successful barrister, who is shocked at Larry's dilemma but reveals that the tramp has been arrested for the murder.

Larry is consumed with guilt but, at Keith's suggestion, enjoys the three weeks until the trial and marries Wanda.  Larry decides that he will confess his guilt when the trial ends - but the priest is found guilty...

The hero's guilt shows Graham Greene's involvement and Basil Dean's taut direction just survives the vicissitudes of time.  Of the leads, Leslie Banks outshines stagey Olivier and under-used Vivien.

Shelf or charity shop?  One for the Vivien archive - by the way, the film was shot in 1937 but was held back from distribution until 1940 to capitalize on Vivien's sudden star power thanks to GONE WITH THE WIND...

150 word review: AS LUCK WOULD HAVE IT by Derek Jacobi

I have finally read Derek Jacobi's autobiography which I bought in 2013 at a signing session at the National Theatre.  When we finally got to the front of the queue, he threw his head back and declaimed in his best theatrical tone: "Good evening, gentlemen!"

I wish the book was as larger-than-life but it is infuriatingly placid; it's impersonal tone might be because it's ghosted, you can almost hear the click of the tape recorder at the end of each chapter.

Born and raised in wartime Essex, cosseted by his devoted mother and father, at times you wish he was given more of a hard time by life.  Oxford led to Birmingham Rep and later Olivier's National Theatre at the Old Vic.

I CLAUDIUS brought stardom and there have been more theatre and television successes but nothing here gives you insight into how it feels to live it.

Dvd/150: NATIONAL THEATRE 50 (2013)

A marvellous celebration of the National Theatre's 50th birthday, this 2-disc dvd includes the all-star gala which re-staged scenes and musical numbers from the NT's greatest shows plus the 2-part BBC Arena programme covering the National's tumultuous history, as dramatic as anything ever staged there.

Wonderful archive recordings and footage tell how Laurence Olivier launched the NT at the Old Vic and, in the second programme, how Peter Hall took over with it's move to the South Bank and how his successors Richard Eyre, Trevor Nunn and Nicholas Hytner have sustained it.  The programme interviews these directors along with the new Artistic Director Rufus Norris.

Also interviewed are Joan Plowright, Maggie Smith, Derek Jacobi, Michael Gambon, Tom Stoppard, Peter Brook, Ronald Pickup, Jonathan Miller, Ian McKellen, David Hare, Peter Shaffer, Judi Dench and Alan Bennett.

It's worth it for the footage of GUYS AND DOLLS alone!

Shelf or charity shop? It has a shelf all to itself.