Prawn Crackers but not Animal Crackers

SPOILERS AHEAD

Possibly the last film night of the year and we decided to include a meal as we used to on our earlier fish and chip film Fridays.

This time we decided to opt for a Chinese take-away but, following a less-than-clever decision about transport, arrived at the restaurant as the rain came on again and so decided on the rather more expensive option of dining in. This made a pleasant change though and it was relaxing to nibble prawn crackers, sip a Tiger and reminisce about the more colourful characters amongst our ex-colleagues.

After a good meal we had to venture out in the rain again and our brief but hurried journey saw us very soggy, although Arthur's constant chastising of himself for not taking the car kept me amused. Once back and warmed up we cued up the first film of the evening and our second Marx Brothers effort.

Horse Feathers (Image via RottenTomatoes.com)This time it was the College-based mayhem of Horse Feathers. In this, Groucho's Quincy Adams Wagstaff is for some inexplicable reason made president of Huxley college where his son (Zeppo!) has taken up permanent residence as an amorous student wooing the "College widow". The plot, such as it is, revolves around the need for Huxley to do better at football (clearly much more important than education) and the kidnapping, spying and skullduggery that beating rival Darwin necessitates. Along the way a case of mistaken identity only Groucho could fall prey to, sees speakeazy bootlegger Chico and dog-catcher Harpo recruited to the team. No Margaret Dumont in this one but several musical numbers which see Zeppo crooning, Harpo harping, Chico playing the piano and Groucho the guitar. The climax is a very unlikely football match and along the way includes the classic "password scene" so Arthur now knows why, whenever I pressed the intercom button to buzz his flat I used to say "Swordfish".

The first of the main features was another Western. We are still mining the gold of Arthur's Brighton Essoldo memories and this time we watched the classic "Day of the Outlaw".

Neither of us have seen it many times before and we thoroughly enjoyed it. It is a tense and claustrophobic film which initially seems to be revolving round Robert Ryan's villain in a confrontation about the coming of barbed wire fences to the formerly open range. In this typical showdown between cattlemen and farmers it doesn't hurt Blaise Starrett (Ryan) that he is about to make a widow of the woman he desires. This plot is suddenly swept to one side by the arrival of a desperate band of deserters and renegades just about being kept under control by "Captain" Buhn, memorably played by the larger than life Burl Ives. Buhn is wounded and if he dies the tenuous hold he has over these rapists, looters and sadists is going to be gone. One incredible scene has these animals dancing with the town's women, the simmering tensions and hatreds almost tangible. The denouement allows the redemption of some of the main characters and involves some extraordinary scenes in the Wintery wilderness surrounding the backwater town at the end of the trail as the gang try to make their escape with the proceeds of their earlier villainy with a troop of cavalry on their trail. An unusual and very well-made western. The cinematography was by Russell Harlan who was involved in several other of my favourite films including To Kill a Mockingbird and Rio Bravo. It was directed by Andre de Toth.

The final film of the evening was another of Arthur's Essoldo memories, this time from 1960: Who was that Lady. This is a screwball comedy with a highly unlikely premise but a likeable cast. A young-looking Tony Curtis and Dean Martin (who occasionally bursts into song, having released the title-song on record as noted in the credits) play opposite the ditsy Janet Leigh. Martin, who writes TV shows, concocts an alibi for Curtis (a chemistry professor!) who has been caught kissing a student by his wife. Unfortunately the lengths Martin goes to, to substantiate the fib that Curtis is FBI does not go unnoticed by the real Bureau and subsequently also the CIA.

Chaos ensues but somehow they get away with it. I can't help feeling that Curtis' cheating deserved more punishment but aside from some murky sixties morality it is fluffy fun. Directed by George Sidney, who has a long list of well-known musicals on his C.V. The original music was by Andre Previn and there are some good character turns by others in the cast notably James Whitmore as a long-suffering FBI agent and Larry Storch as an inept foreign spy attempting to interrogate Curtis.

The evening was rounded off by my showing a clip of the World Cinema awards featuring the career of Isabelle Huppert, an actress we both hugely admire. In her speech she mentioned one of the occasions when I saw her in the flesh: As Mary Queen of Scots in the Schiller play at the National.