An Old but Happy Medium

Bullets Over Broadway (Image via RottenTomatoes.com)

Friday film night returned at the "Rialto" despite Arthur having been a bit under the weather of late. He declared himself to be "fit as a #*&$@ing flea" but declined to join in with the beer this week and so washed down the now traditional melton mowbray pork delicacy with some apple juice. I stuck to the Spitfire ale.

This week one of the films of choice was only available in our archive in VHS format so we hastily added an old tape player to the Rialto's projection system and decided to make it a double bill of tapes.

First up was a classic: The Green Man. This is one of those wonderful comedies that Alistair Sim made his own and of course also starred a young George Cole who regarded Sim as a kind of father figure. Several other comedy regulars from the era pop up including Brighton's own Dora Bryan as the Green Man's landlord's wife and the rotter's rotter: Terry Thomas.

Alistair Sim is up to no good in this delightful farce, and planning another in a succ

Alastair Sim (Image via RottenTomatoes.com)

essful line of assassinations. He specialises in bumping off the pompous and is intending to do away with an MP who it turns out is trying to have a dirty weekend with a mousy typist in the true "Mr and Mrs Smith" fashion. Despite the fact that he doesn't seem to merit saving, vacuum cleaner salesman Cole and a young lady with an unsuitable boyfriend whom he comes across as the result of Sim calamitously botched machinations set off to "The Green Man" to foil Sims' dastardly plan. I don't think I'll be giving too much away to say that it has a happy and romantic conclusion but along the way there are plenty of opportunities for farcical confusion and some splendid facial contortions on the part of the continually thwarted Sim.

The second part of the VHS double bill was one of our favourite Woody Allen film's: Bullets over Broadway. Both of us agree this is somewhere in the top ten of Allen's output, perhaps even top 5. Although Allen himself is not in this one, his trademark humour shines throughout a classic script by him and co-writer ahem. The cast is marvellous and includes the wonderful Diane Wiest, Jim Broadbent, Chaz Palmentiri and stars John Cusack. For all of them I would say this is one of their best performances.

Jim Broadbent at the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The screenplay also gives Woody a chance to say a few things about art and the compromises needed to allow its creation. It says a lot about selling out and questions the division of man and artist. Can you love the artist and not the man or vice versa? I'm always asking people to divorce the two when looking at Allen's work and to judge it separately from their opinion on him as a person so it is particularly apposite in a film written and directed by him.

The plot revolves around a play written by struggling "artist" playwright John Cusack who finds that the

John Cusack Berlin Premiere of 2012 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 only way he can get his play on Broadway is to have it funded by a mobster, who insists that his uneducated chorus-girl moll be given a large part in it. Chaz Palmentiri ("Cheech") is his strong right arm, ever-ready to rub someone out on command. He is set to see that "Olive" is treated right by the playwright and cast but while he is hanging around the theatre watching rehearsals another less fatal talent is revealed: He has a better instinct for writing plays that work, than Cusack.

Wiest is a fading star who is conscious that she has "legend" status and doesn't want to acknowledge that she is no longer offered roles. Broadbent is marvellous as a great British actor who is "on the wagon" from an over-eating disorder but falls off in a big way at the same time as falling for Olive in a very perilous one. There are some great lines and some nice throw away bits of humour. The world of literature and art is a closed book to Olive and while she is talking in her dressing room, fellow thespian (Tracy Ullman) looks round the door and in the nicest possible way reminds her that in the scene where she is supposed to be quoting Hamlet it's "or not to be".

Dianne Wiest (Image via RottenTomatoes.com)

There's some marvellous stuff with the expanding Broadbent and between Cusack and Wiest amongst others but I don't want to give too much away.

This was a great double bill of classic comedies and opens up the possibilities for plundering a wider archive of old films by including the VHS format in which, despite a large cull a few years ago both Arthur and I still have quite a large number of titles.