Heidi (Emma Bolger)

(Amazon UK link)

As a child I loved the book ‘Heidi’, which I had initially in abridged form. It’s the classic story of an orphaned girl who is sent to live with her hermit-like grandfather who lives high in the Swiss alps. Grandfather is rather spurned by the people of the local village, who fear him due to some damaging rumours. 

Heidi is lively and friendly, and her grandfather, despite his rather dour appearance, becomes very fond of her. She loves the simple life in the mountains and befriends Peter, the goatherd, who is the son of their nearest neighbours. When her aunt appears to take Heidi into the town to work as a companion to a wealthy disabled girl, Clara, Heidi is heartbroken… 

It’s a delightful story, one which I think I should read again some time soon. We watched the 2005 film adaptation on DVD over twelve years ago, and decided to watch it again last night. And it sticks pretty closely to the original story. The scenery is stunning, and given that it’s not a long film (not much over an hour and a half) it packs in plenty without adding anything unnecessary. The pace is good, and we were both engrossed in the story. 

But we were both disappointed by the three main child actors. We weren’t sure if they were over-directed, or if they weren’t involved enough in the story to be really believable. Emma Bolger plays nine-year-old Heidi, and she does it as an enthusiastic, animated child. She has a slight Irish accent, which is a little weird, but I quickly got used to that. However she shows little emotion at the more poignant times. When she has to wait (more than once) outside her grandfather’s chalet, she doesn’t look at all anxious or afraid. When she’s supposedly crying, there are no tears - just some artificial-sounding sniffs. When she’s tossing and turning in bed, it doesn’t look real at all. 

Worse is Clara (Jessica Claridge), who comes across as likeable but rather twee, as if she’s repeating her lines rather than acting. And although Peter is more believable, he seems much too clean to be a believable goatherd. And his jealousy of Clara, later in the film, is not really explored at all and doesn’t seem to fit with what we see of his character in the earlier scenes. 

However, I thought that Heidi’s grandfather (Max von Sydow) was excellent. I could believe in him entirely as a lonely, irritable old man whose heart is softened by his lively granddaughter. I wasn’t sure why he seemed so old - he could have passed for eighty, which seems to me the age of a great-grandfather to a nine-year-old girl. But that wasn’t a huge issue and only occurred to me towards the end. 

Diana Rigg is also very well cast as Clara’s grandmama. She comes across as a delightful, realistic woman who looks as if she’s in her late sixties. She’s kind and understanding, and quite lively too.  And I liked Sebastian (Del Synott), the servant in Clara’s household, who befriends Heidi. His face is very expressive at times, as he attempts to be discreet and almost invisible serving at table, but also reacts to Heidi’s liveliness and naivete. There are one or two quite amusing scenes involving Sebastian, where his facial expressions made us chuckle. 

There are two obviously caricatured adult characters in the film. Pauline McLynn plays Heidi’s strict, penny-pinching aunt, and Geraldine Chaplin is the appalling Miss Rottenmeier, who for some reason is employed as housekeeper at the house where Clare lives. Neither is supposed to be liked, and the exaggerated nastiness is a good ploy in a children’s film, so that - hopefully - they’re not taken too seriously, and therefore won’t provoke nightmares.

It’s a story about families, and friendship; about loyalty and the importance of looking out for other people.  Despite the rather wooden acting of the younger people, I would recommend it, on the whole. The rating is U, and that reflects the wholesome story with a lack of anything that would merit a stricter rate. I don’t think it would be of much interest to anyone younger than about seven or eight, but for older children and teens (and adults who loved the book as children) it’s a good adaptation. 

Our DVD doesn’t have any extras. 

Review copyright 2024 Sue's DVD Reviews

Noises off (Michael Caine)

(Amazon UK link)

We’ve had the DVD of the film ‘Noises off’ for a long time. It was made in 1992 and I’m pretty sure we acquired the DVD early in our time in Cyprus, probably the late 1990s. I expect I watched it, too, but had no memory of it at all. Neither did my husband. But it looked like a light and possibly humorous film so we decided to watch it last night. Apparently the film was based on a play of the same name. 

It opens to a scene of traffic somewhere in the United States, and commentary from Lloyd (Michael Caine), worried about a theatre production called ‘Nothing on’. It’s billed as a sex farce from London. Lloyd wanders around the foyer of the theatre, but can’t bring himself to go in. He explains that it’s gone from bad to worse. 

Then the action takes us back to the dress rehearsal months earlier. It was taking place late at night and Lloyd tries to keep his temper as more and more actors forget their lines or directions. We meet the housekeeper Dotty (Carol Burnett) who has to answer a phone, then put down a plate of sardines and remove a newspaper. She keeps forgetting what she has to do, and is somewhat over-acting anyway. 

As she vanishes, finally, into the kitchen, John (Gary Lejeune) arrives with Brooke (Nicollette Sheridan) on his arm. They’re clearly there for an assignation. John assures her they are alone, and tells her that he owns the place. Brooke is not very bright, or observant, although the character she plays is quite seductive. 

After some misunderstandings they disappear into a bedroom, only to have the front door opened again to reveal another couple on an assignation. There’s a lot of cleverly done choreography as doors open and close, different people noticing - or not noticing - each other. Dotty keeps appearing with plates of sardines which are accepted or moved… and even though Lloyd keeps having to stop to remind people of lines or stage directions, it’s all rather cleverly done. 

However there are clearly different relationships off-stage. Lloyd, we learn, is intimate with Poppy (Julie Hagerty) who is the prompter, and general backstage manager. But she’s not the only one. I rather lost track of who was keen on whom, and it didn’t seem to matter as there was a lot of chaos, albeit well done.

After this dress rehearsal, there are two more sections of the film - I imagine they were separate acts in the stage play. In the first, everyone just about manages to hold things together as we see the first half of the play again.  In the second location, more and more things go wrong as people make mistakes, or go missing, or miss their cues… there were several times when we smiled, or even chuckled as unexpected things happened or went wrong. 

It’s a good idea, and I expect worked very well as a stage play. It was a bit strange having just a handful of characters, almost everything taking place in the same stage set, or behind it, with only Michael Caine’s character appearing in the foyer or audience. But we quickly got used to it, and on the whole liked it.

The UK rating is 15 which seems rather high. Although ‘Nothing on’ is supposedly a sex farce, there’s nothing too inappropriate that happens. Plenty is implied, and one character does spend most of the play in her lacy underwear, but there aren’t any actual scenes of intimacy.  There’s some comedic violence, and some bad language (including a couple of incidences of ‘strong’ language) but it didn’t seem overdone, and I’d have thought a rating of 12 would have been more appropriate.

Having said that, it’s not for the prudish. Innuendoes abound, and there’s a lot of general silliness and some slapstick. It rises out of the mundane by the excellent choreography and impeccable comic timing, but it’s not one I’d particularly recommend. Still, it made a good evening’s light viewing, and on the whole we liked it.

Review copyright 2024 Sue's DVD Reviews

Young at heart (Doris Day)

(Amazon UK link)

Another Tuesday evening, another opportunity to watch a film with my husband. We had quite liked ‘Pillow talk’, with Doris Day, when we watched it in September. So we decided to watch another film with the same star, which we were given by a friend who was downsizing earlier in the year. 

Doris Day plays a young woman called Laurie in this film. She lives with her father, her father’s sister Aunt Jessie (wonderfully portrayed by Ethel Barrymore), and her two older sisters in a large mansion. Her father Greg (Robert Keith) is a musician, and all three girls have learned to play instruments so they often play together in an ensemble. Fran (Dorothy Malone ), the oldest of the girls, arrives back from a date with Bob (Alan Hale Jr) and announces that they are engaged.

Laurie and her middle sister Amy (Elisabeth Fraser) talk about having a double wedding, or staying old maids together. Laurie has no young man in mind, although it’s clear that their plumber Ernie (Lonny Chapman) is very keen on Amy. Into their lives - via a litter of puppies at their neighbour’s - comes a competent, confident young man called Alex (Gig Young). He composes musicals, rather to Greg’‘s disgust, but he’s full of charm and very persuasive. He not only has dinner with the family, making it clear that he’s very attracted to Laurie, but becomes a house guest.

All three of the girls like Alex very much, despite him being somewhat overbearing at times, but he has eyes only for Laurie. We see them at the beach, and there are some light-hearted moments - it’s not a comedy, exactly, but there were places where I smiled. There might have been amusing comments that I missed since the dialogue was quite fast and strongly accented, so I realised that I missed quite a bit. 

We knew that Frank Sinatra was billed as Doris Day’s co-star but he doesn’t appear until quite a way into the film. He plays Barney, a cynical, rather depressed musician who plays in restaurants, and who does the arranging of Alex’s music. Barney is convinced that life is against him, that he will never have a ‘hit’, and that if anything good happens, he’ll soon be brought down. 

Laurie, who is cheerful and upbeat, can't believe that anyone can be quite as cynical as Barney. She does her best to persuade him to smile, and to be more positive, not realising that he is starting to fall for her. She and Alex seem made for each other...

The acting, 1950s style, is over-played, and we didn’t think there was much chemistry between any of the characters, let alone the ones who ended up getting married. There’s a fair bit of singing - not ‘musical’ style, but in appropriate situations; mostly in the house, as part of a family get-together, or elsewhere, trying out a new song. Both Doris Day and Frank Sinatra sing very well, of course, and I liked the music sections of the film. 

It’s quite a complex story, too. It includes some traumatic scenes, with a jilting at the altar, almost literally, and a marriage that is very one-sided. There's also a dangerous drive through a snowstorm, with increasingly ominous background music… and more. It’s perhaps a bit slow-paced by today’s standards, and some of  the direction and filming seemed a bit crude. But the story is well-told, the ending quite satisfactory.  

I doubt if we’ll watch it again, but it was worth seeing once. The rating is U, although I’d have thought PG would be more appropriate, given the tense nature of some of the incidents. But there’s no bad language, no nudity or even innuendoes.  There’s a lot of cigarette smoking, but that’s not unusual for this era.  It’s not the kind of film likely to appeal to anyone under the age of about 12 anyway. 

Review copyright 2024 Sue's DVD Reviews

The Cutting Edge (Moira Kelly, DB Sweeney)

(Amazon UK link)

It’s nearly eleven years since we watched the DVD of ‘The Cutting Edge’. We remembered that it was about ice skating, but nothing much else. Indeed, we briefly confused it with the film ‘Ice Princess’, which we saw in 2021.

This film opens at the 1988 winter Olympics, but starts with two separate storylines. Kate (Moira Kelly) is a wealthy and very spoiled figure skater. She has trained extensively, on her private rink, and is strongly encouraged by her father (Terry O’Quinn). But her arrogant attitude has lost her several different skating partners. During her performance, her current partner drops her, meaning they lose their chance of a gold medal. She doesn’t really do solo skating, so her trainer Anton (Roy Dotrice) has to find someone else to be her partner. 

Meanwhile, Doug (DB Sweeney), a young man from a much more impoverished background, is a champion ice hockey player. He is also playing in a match at the Olympics, although he arrives late after a night with a girl. It’s clear that he’s rather arrogant, too, confident in his abilities. But there’s an accident during the game, giving him a head injury, which leads to permanent damage to his peripheral vision. 

This means he can no longer participate in competitive ice hockey. His brother Walter (Chris Benson) wants him to help in the family business and he does so, playing ice hockey in a local league but hoping for more. His brother has little patience with his ambitions and doesn’t understand his need to skate. 

Unsurprisingly, Anton tracks down Doug, and invites him to try working with Kate. Doug rather looks down on figure skating, but he’s willing to give it a go. He’s shocked at the magnificence of Kate’s family home and her private rink, and rather scathing at what he is expected to do. He struggles at first with the figure skating boots, and doesn’t like Kate laughing at him when he falls down. They have a lot of conflict, but he’s persuaded to stay… 

Most of the film charts their progress as Doug realises just how strong and flexible he has to be for figure skating. He and Kate have a lot of arguments but evidently she needs someone with a strong character who is willing to stand up for her. And he’s full of determination and courage. 

There are scenes at the US national competition where Kate and Doug just scrape a place at the next winter Olympics. And then they work on a new routine which includes a dangerous and unusual move which takes them a long time to perfect. Even then they’re not sure that they’re going to include it…

Alongside this, rather inevitably, Doug and Kate realise they find each other very attractive. It’s kept as a low-key part of the story, which contributes to the film's PG rating, despite some bad (though not ‘strong’) language in places. We see Doug in a ‘morning-after’ role more than once with other women, but there’s nothing explicit. 

In a sense there isn’t much of a storyline: without the skating it would be a very predictable romance with two people clashing strongly and gradually realising they are attracted to each other. But the ice dancing makes this a different and very watchable film, with some humour as well as some exceptional skating. It’s also interesting to see how the two principals gradually mellow - just a little - realising they have to rely on and trust each other.  

I wouldn’t class it as one of my favourite films, but I’m glad we decided to watch it again, and expect we’ll get it out to see again in another decade or so. Cheesey? Undoubtedly, but the figure skating pulls it out of the ordinary.  According to the IMDb site, neither of the main actors could skate at all, so they had to undergo three months of extensive training prior to filming. I assume that some of the most advanced skating must have been done by stunt doubles although it's not mentioned anywhere that I can find. 

Recommended for teens and adults if you like films about ice skating with a bit of romance thrown in.

Review copyright 2024 Sue's DVD Reviews

Doctor Who Series 1 (Christopher Eccleston)

(Amazon UK link)

Although the 21st century Doctor Who revival started in 2005, we didn’t watch the first series until 2011. Since then we have gradually acquired DVDs of the various seasons and ‘specials’. We finally caught up with ourselves in June this year, when we saw the 60th anniversary specials that followed the 13th series, ‘Flux’. At that stage, there were no more DVDs to be bought. 

So we decided that we would re-watch from the beginning, starting in the middle of August when we were both back in Cyprus after travelling. It’s going to be a lengthy process, watching Doctor Who one evening per week, so we agreed that sometimes we would watch two episodes in an evening. 

Disc One

The first episode of Season One, just called ‘Rose’, is, I thought, very well done. We first meet a young woman (Billie Piper) who works in a big department store. At the end of the day, she has to take something down to the basement… and very peculiar things start happening with the display mannequins. Then her hand is grabbed by a strange man, who rushes her away and saves her. Christopher Eccleston tells her he is ‘The Doctor’, and leaves her to go home. 

But he hasn’t stopped the danger. Rose’s boyfriend Mickey (Noel Clark) is somehow assimilated and cloned, and once again the Doctor comes to the rescue - although Rose has to rescue him, too. Little bits of information about the Doctor are cleverly introduced for the benefit of anyone who was not familiar with the series before. It’s a dramatic episode, with a bit of humour here and there to lighten the mood.

The second episode, ‘The End of the World’ sees the Doctor taking Rose several billion years into the future, to the moment half an hour before the Earth is due to be destroyed. They arrive on a spaceship with many different representatives of a variety of alien races, including the last ‘human’, Lady Cassandra. She has had so many surgeries to preserve her essence that she looks nothing like a human. Inevitably there are more dangers, and sabotage, and more information about the Doctor is revealed, including the fact that his own planet (Gallifrey) no longer exists.

In the third episode, the Doctor takes Rose to the 19th century where they discover an alien force trying to take over the bodies of people who had recently died. I found it  a bit disturbing at first, but the episode is lightened by their meeting with Charles Dickens. He is played to perfection by Simon Callow, who apparently loves Dickens, and has acted his character many times. The ‘extras’ on the first DVD mention that the Doctor has not previously been shown with historical figures, although in the previous incarnations he sometimes mentioned having met them. Historical figures play a significant role in many of the later ‘new’ seasons: I had not realised that the 20th century episodes did not include these. 

Disc Two

The second DVD in our box set has three episodes. It’s a good thing we allowed the time to watch two of them, as the first two are a dual-part episode. ‘Aliens of London’ begins with Rose discovering that she’s been away for longer than expected. Then a spaceship crash-lands in the Thames, after destroying the clock face of Big Ben. This is the episode where the ‘Slitheen’ are introduced. I found them quite scary when we first saw them, thirteen years ago. This time they looked rather dated, and much less intimidating. 

There’s some humour in the episode as well as tension, and it ends on such a cliffhanger that I would have wanted to see the sequel at once, even if it had been late. That episode, ‘World War Three’, resolves the issue, as we expected. It also includes some good scenes with Rose’s mother Jackie (Camille Coduri) and also her boyfriend Mickey. Harriet Jones (Penelope Wilton) is introduced, as a backbencher with political ambitions. We thought she was excellent, providing some of the light relief as well as aiding in the eventual solution. 

I was not looking forward to Episode Six (third on the second DVD), simply entitled ‘Dalek’. Of all the Doctor Who enemies, the daleks are the ones who terrify me the most. But it was a very good episode. The Doctor and Rose land in a kind of museum of aliens, and discover the final dalek in existance. It is being tested and tortured to try to make it speak, but only in the presence of the Doctor does it find its voice. By the end, I almost (though not quite) found myself feeling sorry for this dalek… 

Disc Three

The third DVD begins with episode Seven, ‘The Long Game’, which features a satellite populated with humans many thousands of years in the future. They are apparently all happy, and are broadcasting news around the universe. I had vaguely remembered some of what transpired; it’s perhaps a warning not to accept the status quo, and to be suspicious of ‘promotion’ which nobody is allowed to speak about.

‘Father’s Day’ is the next episode, one I thought particularly engaging. Rose asks to go back in time to the day her father died. She’s warned about the dangers of time travel to one’s own past, and that it might be traumatic for her. But the Doctor doesn’t take into account Rose’s emotional reaction to seeing her father hit by a car. And then it becomes rather disturbing, with results quite at odds with the principles established in the very different ‘Quantum Leap’ series. But I very much liked the background into Rose’s life, and the scenes involving her mother Jackie.

It’s a good thing we had plenty of time the following week when we watched ‘The Empty Child’, another episode that’s full of human interest. The Doctor and Rose arrive in London during the Blitz, to find odd things happening after a strange object landed near a hospital. Jack Harkness, another time traveller from the distant future, is introduced in this episode. I recalled him appearing every so often throughout the series, with a mixed kind of relationship with the Doctor and his companions. John Barrowman is excellent as a charming rogue who rather bewitches Rose, and makes the Doctor oddly jealous.

That episode ended on such a cliffhanger that we immediately watched its sequel,’The Doctor Dances’. Again there’s a lot of human interaction and some insights into the London Blitz. For instance, we see a young girl, stealing from wealthy houses during air raids in order to feed hungry boys. And the conclusion of this double episode was, we both thought, very well done and entirely satisfactory. 

Disc Four

The fourth DVD in our box set contains the last three episodes of Series One. The first, ‘Boom Town’ takes place in Cardiff. The Doctor, Rose and Jack think they’re just relaxing for a few hours while the Tardis recharges. But it’s quite a stressful episode, featuring an alien whom the Doctor thought had been fully destroyed. There are some interesting exchanges and it’s impossible to know who can be trusted. There’s also some emotional turmoil as Rose catches up with her former boyfriend Mickey.

Then there’s another two-parter to end the series: ‘Bad Wolf’ and ‘The Parting of the Ways. The Doctor, Jack and Rose are back on the satellite of episode Seven, a hundred years later. This time it’s broadcasting game shows, many of them spoofs on real television game shows. But there’s a drastic end for anyone eliminated from the competitions. It’s quite a complex storyline involving some unexpected terrible enemies and the potential destruction of the human race.

The climax of ‘The Parting of the Ways’ is a bit ‘deus ex machina’ but well done nonetheless, after some humorous attempts on Rose’s part (helped by Mickey) to open up the tardis. What happens is far from amusing, and I’m not sure I entirely understood the significance. But in the end, as we knew would happen, The Doctor is unable to continue as he is, and regenerates into a very young-looking David Tennant. 

There are a couple of interesting ‘extras’ on this last DVD of the set. One of them looks at the incredible detail put into the creation of the sets (in particular the tardis) and some of the aliens. I’m astounded that anyone would spend so much time and effort on things that were only needed for one episode, but the people involved loved what they were doing. The second extra is by John Barrowman, talking about Jack - I found that rather more interesting, but then what matters for me is the human interest part of the show. 

Three things struck me overall, watching these episodes again, thirteen years after we first saw them. One is that the pace is rather slower than it was in the later series. I liked the slower pace very much, as it makes the stories so much easier for me to follow. 

The second thing I noticed is that the Tardis looks oddly old-fashioned! It reminded me somewhat of the 1960s Tardis, which, perhaps, was deliberate. By the thirteenth series, it had been modernised and transformed many times.

The third is that, although I thought Christopher Eccleston did a good job as the ninth Doctor, he seemed quite hard in the earlier episodes. He did soften in the later ones, and I thought he was an excellent choice to introduce Doctor Who to a 21st century audience. 

Rose, we thought, was a very good companion. We weren’t too sure the first time around, as she looks a bit too like some of the rather fluffy companions of the past. But she has lots of determination and ideas, and The Doctor is evidently very taken with her. We’re glad to recall that she remains as companion to the Tenth Doctor in Series Two, which we hope to start watching next week. 

I would recommend this series very highly to anyone who likes this kind of TV show. 

Review copyright 2024 Sue's DVD Reviews

The King's speech (Colin Firth)

(Amazon UK link)

It’s twelve years since we first watched ‘The King’s Speech’. We recalled liking it very much, despite our general lack of interest in royalty. It’s the story of King George VI’s ascension to the UK throne, with Colin Firth brilliantly starring in the title role. His performance is flawless. 

The story starts when his father King George V is still alive, though elderly. Michael Gambon is excellent as the grumpy monarch who feels a lot of frustration with his two adult sons. David (Guy Pearce), the elder, heir to the throne, is something of a womaniser. And while that’s not unusual for royalty, if discreet, he is currently involved with Mrs Wallace Simpson, an American who has already been married twice. At the time it was unthinkable that a monarch could be married to someone who was divorced. 

But the King rather despises his second son, known by the family as Bertie. Bertie is married to the beautiful Lizzie (Helena Bonham Carter), who is elegant, and charming, and very supportive of him. They have two young daughters, Elizabeth and Margaret. Bertie is shown as a fond father and loving husband. But he has a speech defect: a terrible stammer, which has affected him since early childhood.

To make things worse, he has to make speeches in public, some of which are broadcast on the ‘wireless’, as the early radio was known. And he is very nervous of the microphones, which tend to echo back everything he says, making him even more inclined to stammer. As his father becomes frailer, Bertie has to make more speeches, and feels increasingly humiliated. 

Lizzie has persuaded him to try working with several renowned speech therapists, none of whom has been the slightest use. Then she finds Lionel Logue (Geoffrey Rush), a specialist at Harley Street. His initial meeting with Bertie is not very encouraging, but Lionel is confident that he can help, if only Bertie will cooperate. He is very discreet, but insists on terms of equality. Although this leads to a lot of frustration at first, the two start to develop a relationship of trust, and eventually a real friendship. 

The story is superbly told, the pace exactly right to hold our interest, with some moments of mild humour which nicely contrast with the seriousness of the story. When David takes the throne as Edward VIII, he is unwilling to make any real decisions despite the likelihood of World War II breaking out. And he is torn, eventually (as is well known in 20th century history) abdicating for the sake of the woman he loves. 

So Bertie, who has been the Duke of York, has to take the throne. He adopts the name of King George VI, but he is not well respected due to his speech problems. Thus it becomes increasingly important for him to develop techniques that enable him to read a speech without stammering, particularly when he has to make important announcements over the radio. 

We see quite a few of the speech therapy sessions, in one of which Bertie is persuaded to swear since he doesn’t stammer while doing so. It’s the scene which has given this an ‘18’ rating in the US, as there are a large number of instances of ‘strong’ language. But, as our DVD says on the back, they are all in a speech therapy context, and the UK censors, rather more reasonably, have given it a ‘12’ rating. Were it not for this scene it might even have been PG, since there’s nothing else that would trigger warnings: no nudity or violence, and only hints at what Bertie’s brother is up to with Mrs Simpson.

We thought the principals were all extremely well cast: Jennifer Ehle as Lionel Logue’s wife Myrtle deserves a mention too; her expressions of shock are entirely realistic when she learns, unexpectedly, who her husband’s eminent client is. As for Helena Bonham Carter, we had forgotten that around the same time she was playing Bellatrix Lestrange in the Harry Potter series. We would not have recognised the same actress as the gentle, but firm young woman who was eventually to become known as the Queen Mother. 

However it was quite a jolt to see Winston Churchill played by Timothy Spall, looking almost exactly as he did when playing the traitorous Peter Pettigrew in the Harry Potter franchise. He did Churchill very well, as did the actors who played other important politicians and churchmen of the time. But it was a pity his face wasn’t made up to look more Churchillian.

That’s a very minor gripe in what was, overall, an excellent film that tells the true story in a believable and watchable way.   

We saw a couple of the ‘extras’ afterwards: a ‘making of’ documentary which was interesting, and a fascinating interview with the real Lionel Logue’s grandson, who had found a box of his grandfather’s diaries just a couple of months before the filming started.

I would highly recommend this film whether or not you have any interest in the British royal family.

Review copyright 2024 Sue's DVD Reviews

Relative values (Julie Andrews)

(Amazon UK link)

It’s nine years since we watched ‘Relative values’, and we had both entirely forgotten what it was about. That’s possibly because the plot isn’t all that memorable. But we watched it again yesterday evening, and thought it was good light entertainment. Apparently it was based on a Noel Coward play of the same name. 

The opening sequences are quite long and somewhat hectic, with newspaper announcements flashing up, and photos of film stars. It doesn’t make much sense but gives a hint of what’s to come. The story involves an American film star who has been romantically linked to other actors. But she is now engaged to be married to a British peer. 

Julie Andrews is one of the main characters in this 2000 film, which is set fifty or so years earlier. She is perfectly typecast as the widowed marchioness, Felicity Marshwood. We meet her discussing her son’s engagement with her maid and close companion whom she calls Moxie (Sophie Thompson). Neither is happy about him falling in love with someone unknown, who is not in their circles. And the engagement has happened far too rapidly for their tastes.

Julie Andrews is a great actress, but as she grew older she almost always seemed to play exactly the same kind of person. It was impossible to forget who she was, while we were watching the film. And at times Felicity reminded me forcibly of the grandmother in ‘The Princess Diaries’. Not that it mattered at all. 

The other family resident of the stately home is Felicity’s nephew Peter, played to perfection by Colin Firth. Again, the character was very much in keeping with many of the actor’s other roles, and we couldn’t forget who he was. But he and Julie Andrews have excellent screen chemistry in this film, and some of the humour comes from Peter’s rather sarcastic asides, given with excellent timing. 

The other famous actor in a typecast role is Stephen Fry as the butler Crestwell. Although rather older, he’s very similar to Jeeves, in the brilliant TV adaptations of PG Wodehouse’s iconic series. Perhaps he was specifically chosen for the role due to the similarity. 

Felicity’s son Nigel (Edward Atterton) arrives in a sports car with the flashy Miranda (Jeanne Triplehorne) who is welcomed, but rather clearly not popular. She admires the stately home, but isn’t entirely comfortable in it. Her agent - and former boyfriend - Don (William Baldwin) follows her and tries to persuade her to return to the United States with him to continue her career. He’s rather sleazy but although she resists, it’s evident that he’s not going to take ‘no’ for an answer…

There’s one extra subplot which relies on a huge coincidence but works well all the same. Felicity’s maid Moxie doesn’t feel that she can remain in the same household with Miranda visiting. When she eventually explains her reasoning, Felicity, Peter and Crestwell come up with a story to make her look different, and behave like a close family friend. It’s all a bit ridiculous but Moxie does this very well, and there’s a lot of humour in the interactions that take place over dinner. There’s also some poignancy and anger which arise later. 

The story is partly about class consciousness and snobbishness, and partly about some of the differences between American and British culture. It’s dated, as one would expect of a Coward story, set in the 1950s, but the people seem believable for the era, and the story, if somewhat ridiculous, works well as a film. We chuckled at one scene and smiled several times as it’s extremely well made. 

The outcome is somewhat predictable, with a nice little cameo scene at the end as the family go into church on a Sunday morning. We were a bit caught between eye-rolling at the snobbery and amusement at the way it was made. We didn't think it 'outstandingly funny' as the DVD case suggested, nor did we roar with laughter. But overall, I liked it very much.  

Recommended if you like this kind of film. 

The rating is PG which reflects the refreshing lack of bad language, nudity and scenes of intimacy.  But it's unlikely to be of interest to anyone under the age of at least fifteen. 

Review copyright 2024 Sue's DVD Reviews

Pillow Talk (Doris Day, Rock Hudson)

(Amazon UK link)

A few months ago we were offered first refusal on a large number of DVDs belonging to a friend, who was downsizing. Most of them were classics. We accepted about twenty, thinking they would be interesting to watch even though we had never heard of most of them. The one we decided to watch last night was ‘Pillow Talk’, a film from 1959 although it was in colour. 

Doris Day stars as Jan, an independent young woman who works as an interior designer in New York. She lives in an apartment where she’s quite comfortable. Except for one problem... Her telephone is on a ‘party line’ with a man called Brad Allen, who is a serial womaniser. A tad ironic, perhaps, that Brad is played by Rock Hudson, whom I had not heard of until the 1980s when he died.

Jan needs her phone for business calls, but every time she picks it up, she hears Brad flirting with another woman. He works as a songwriter, and tells each woman that she is his inspiration. Jan becomes more and more annoyed, even going to the phone company to see if they can do something about it.

What she doesn’t know is that Brad is close friends with Jonathan (Tony Randall), one of her clients. Jonathan is very keen on Jan, and keeps trying to persuade her that she should marry him. He really doesn’t want Brad to meet Jan due to his reputation for attracting every personable woman around…

When Brad spots Jan with Jonathan, he is very drawn to her. So when he meets her again he adopts a completely different persona, that of a country hick from Texas who always behaves like a gentleman. Rock Hudson does this switch extremely well, and there’s plenty of humour in the way he gently woos Jan…

Of course there’s the inevitable discovery of his treachery, and an eventual happy (if rather rapid) conclusion after she has taken unusual revenge. But it’s a good story, light-hearted and somewhat ridiculous but the ‘comedy of errors’ situation is well done. There are even extra amusing scenes when Brad takes refuge in places where he shouldn’t have been. And there are also humorous incidents involving Jan’s maid Alma (Thelma Ritter) who is outspoken, and has a drinking problem. We didn’t laugh aloud, but we both smiled several times. 

As a light-hearted evening’s viewing, it worked well. The acting is, of course, American 1950s style, rather caricatured and unrealistic. But that didn’t matter. We didn’t have any trouble with the accents, as I sometimes do with American films, but then the New York accent is quite mild. 

There are several songs in the film, but it’s not a musical. Nobody stops the action to break out into singing and dancing. Instead some of the songs are those written by Brad, and some are sung in a bar or elsewhere. They add to the film in a positive way, I thought. 

I was a little surprised that the rating for this film is PG. Although there’s no nudity or anything overt, there are a lot of innuendoes and implications. The main story, after all, involves Brad attempting to get Jan into bed without her knowing who he is. There’s also an unpleasant scene where a young man tries repeatedly to assault her in a car, and another where, due to a misunderstanding, another character is punched in the face. 

It’s not something I would want to show to children or teens, but then I can’t imagine that this would be of the slightest interest to anyone under the age of at least fifteen or sixteen. 

Recommended if you like rather risqué lightweight1950s American comedies.

Review copyright 2024 Sue's DVD Reviews

Emma mini-series (Romola Garai)

(Amazon UK link)

I have mentioned to various people that I liked the 1990s film version of Jane Austen’s Emma a great deal more than I liked the book. But I had no idea that there was another version of Emma made for the screen: a TV mini-series, made by the BBC in 2009. Some relatives gave it to me for my birthday a few months ago, and we decided to start watching it last week. As the entire thing is almost four hours long - with two DVDs in the box - we agreed to watch it on two separate evenings. 

The series starts with a bit of background in Emma’s life. Whereas the book only touches on it lightly, we see Emma as a baby, then a toddler. Her mother died when she was young and her father - the late Michael Gambon is wonderful in the role - becomes very over-protective of his two daughters. By contrast, two other orphaned motherless children in the neighbourhood, Jane Fairfax and Frank Churchill, are sent away to live with relatives. 

Isabella and Emma grow up in the large stately home known as Hartfield, where they lack nothing. Their governess, Anne Taylor (Jodhi May), lives with them and is treated more like a family member than a servant. In the book, she has just got married when the story opens; Isabella is already married to a family friend called John Knightley. In this mini-series, we see Emma predicting that Isabella and John will fall in love. We then see her introducing Anne to another family friend, Mr Weston, certain they are right for each other. 

Emma is decidedly self-centred and strong-willed, but at twenty-one she’s very good at running the household and is devoted to her hypochondriac father. And although she doesn’t want to get married herself, she becomes convinced that she’s a natural matchmaker. Romola Garai is perfect in the role, in my opinion. She’s lively, and outgoing, but she can be outspoken. That she might sometimes be wrong, however, has not occurred to her.

Emma decides to make friends with a young woman called Harriet who attends a local school for orphans. It’s rumoured that Harriet is the illegitimate offspring of a nobleman, and Emma is modern enough to feel that Harriet should not be punished for her parents’ behaviour. Harriet is in love with a local farmer, but Emma feels that she’s made for higher things… in particular, the new and rather handsome clergyman, Mr Elton. 

Apparently Jane Austen deliberately made Emma somewhat dislikable to her readers, and in a sense this mini-series veers away from that. Despite her faults, Emma has a great deal of charm and vivacity, and she can be very generous. Her neighbour Mr Knightley (brother of Isabella’s husband) has been her mentor for many years. He regularly criticises Emma for things she has done wrong or thoughtlessly, and on the whole she takes it well. Mr Knightley is played to perfection by Johnny Lee Miller. 

It’s a bit of a comedy of misunderstandings; it’s also something of a coming-of-age story for Emma. She slowly becomes aware that she is fallible, and that sometimes people need to choose their own marriage partners. Love, she discovers, can’t be turned off and on, and needs to find its own path. She finds it hard to accept other people’s intuitions or instincts, convinced that she understands better than anyone. 

I had wondered how the book, condensed into 90 minutes for the film, could be expanded to fill four full episodes of nearly an hour each. But it didn’t drag at all. I very much liked the extra parts at the beginning, showing Emma growing up. They were totally in keeping with the spirit of the book. There are one or two places where I felt that a shot of people smiling or laughing was perhaps a little too long, but it didn’t matter. There’s a ball, and a picnic, both of which are given a good amount of time: not so little that they seem rushed, but not so much that they drag out. 

There’s some beautiful scenery, and many shots of people walking. There are a few extra scenes too, such as a snow-fight which I don’t recall from the book, which don’t feel at all out of place. I don’t recall the book in detail as it’s a while since I read it, but nothing struck me as out of place, and I couldn’t remember anything that was left out. It’s all set firmly in the correct era, the early part of the 19th century when it was written. The details of the sets and the costumes are superb - there are ‘extras’ on the DVDs giving insights into both. 

The language, too, is that of Jane Austen. And yet.. the whole has an oddly up-to-date feeling to it, at the same time. Perhaps it’s that human nature really doesn’t change. Emma sometimes looks like a 21st century person in 19th century dress, as do others of the cast; but I think this was probably deliberate on the part of the series producers. Jane Austen, after all, did not write ‘historical’ fiction. She wrote contemporary novels, based on people she knew and situations that would have felt quite ordinary to her. Her characters are slightly caricatured, but very much alive, and that comes over in this mini-series. 

All in all, we thought this a wonderful adaptation of ‘Emma’, one I would recommend very highly, although Austen purists might prefer a more traditional adaptation. 

Review copyright 2024 Sue's DVD Reviews

ET: The Extra Terrestrial (Henry Thomas)

(Amazon UK link)

It’s nearly twelve years since we last watched the classic film ‘ET’. We wanted something light to relax to last night, but didn’t feel like either a musical or a rom-com. So ‘ET: The Extra-Terrestrial’ was ideal. 

We remembered the story, of course. We first saw it at a cinema when it came out in the early 1980s. Our DVD is a 20th anniversary issue; the film had some changes made in the animating and processing which fixed some problems that the director, Steven Spielberg, found irritating back in the 1980s. But I wouldn’t have noticed. 

I had recalled the moment when young Elliot (masterfully played by nine-year-old Henry Thomas) met the little alien. But I had no memory of the first part of the film, where there’s a bit of backstory. We see a spaceship landing in a deserted area, and several shadowy beings including one who is apparently searching for plants. And then the spaceship takes off, leaving someone behind…

We also see a family scene: several children playing a board game in a kitchen - I gather it was Dungeons and Dragons, which was popular at the time. Their conversation relates to the game and it’s not clear what they’re saying, but it doesn’t seem to matter. Elliot’s mother Mary (Dee Wallace) is in the background, half aware of them. We learn later that one of the children is Elliot’s teenage brother Michael (Robert MacNaughten) and the others are local friends. 

Someone orders a pizza and Elliot goes out to collect it, only to be terrified by what he finds…

I do recall that the early part of the film was spooky and quite frightening when I first saw it at the cinema, and had no idea what was coming. This time, of course I knew that ET wanted to be friendly, but it was still quite a tense opening. It felt a bit long - if the film was made today, it would have been much more tightly edited, and probably only an hour and a half rather than close to two hours long. 

There’s plenty of humour as Elliot gradually gets to know the little alien, and as ET learns to communicate. Elliot’s siblings Michael and Gertie (Drew Barrymore aged six) are introduced to him, but he is kept a secret from their mother. They’re pretty sure she wouldn’t approve. And there are some rather tense cameo scenes showing the legs and feet of men prowling around, trying to find signs of ET, converging on the family home. 

It’s a beautifully made film, poignant as well as having some quite funny scenes. We didn’t laugh aloud but I smiled several times, and found myself totally caught up in the story. Even though I knew roughly what was coming, I found myself tensing as ET is discovered. The scientists, in full hazmat suits with anti-contamination tents around, try to discover why Elliot and ET seem to have developed a psychic bond. It’s making Elliot weaker as ET himself struggles to survive in what is to him an alien environment. 

I hadn’t really thought about how ET was created, in the days long before CGI, and had forgotten entirely that I had previously seen the 'making of' extra. So it was very interesting to watch the documentary on the second DVD, where Spielberg and others recount the immense detail that went into making the physical ET. Indeed, there were several ETs, controlled in different ways, including ET ‘costumes’ which were donned at times by actors. It was the apparent realness of the little alien that made the young actors react so very believably, with shock, or terror, or tears as appropriate.

It’s an excellent film, one which the cast and crew felt great satisfaction in making, according to the ‘making of’ documentary. Nobody knew whether it would be a success or a flop, as nothing quite like it had been made before. But it was an immense success, and I’m very pleased we’ve seen it again. Perhaps we’ll watch it another time in a decade or so.  

Highly recommended to adults and children. It’s rated PG rather than U because there are some instances of minor bad language, and also because of some intense, potentially scary or disturbing scenes. I don’t think I would show it to anyone under the age of about nine or ten, but a lot depends on the child’s maturity levels. 

Review copyright 2024 Sue's DVD Reviews

Matilda (Mara Wilson)

(Amazon UK link)

We were both feeling a bit tired yesterday evening. We wanted to watch a film that was light, undemanding and not too long. We realised that although we had owned the film of ‘Matilda’, based on Roald Dahl’s book for children with the same title, we had never seen it. So that’s what we chose. 

‘Matilda’, made in 1996, stars Mara Wilson in the title role. She was nine at the time, and clearly already an accomplished and confident actor. I knew the outline of the story, which I read more than once when my sons were small, but I hadn’t remembered the details. And the film, inevitably, has a more visual approach than the book. It’s also set in the United States rather than the UK, with American accents rather than British ones. But although that disturbed me slightly at first, I quickly got used to it. 

So it starts with Matilda’s dreadful parents, Mr and Mrs Wormwood. They are brilliantly played by Danny DeVito and Rhea Pearlman (who was his wife in reality as well as in this film). They are caricatured slobs, in the best Roald Dahl style. Mr Wormwood is a used car salesman who buys stolen car parts and cheats his customers. Mrs Wormwood uses a lot of makeup and dyes her hair, and spends her afternoons playing bingo. 

Matilda has an older brother, Michael, who is likely to follow in his father’s footsteps. But her parents have no interest in her. And the film shows this: Mr Wormwood wonders if he can send her back after she’s born, and basically ignores her. She’s left home alone from a very young age, and quickly becomes self-sufficient. We see a younger Matilda dressing herself at age two, teaching herself to read all the family’s magazines at age three, and then daring to ask her father for a book to read when she is four.

When this is refused, the action moves to the library, and eventually she starts school. She has a lovely class teacher, Miss Honey (Embeth Davidtz).  But the school headmistress is the dreadful villain Miss Trunchbull (Pam Ferris), who terrorises the children, and makes examples of any who dare to stray outside her strict rules. She’s a former athlete who thinks nothing of throwing a child around by their hair and out of the window…

If it were taken seriously this would be a terrible catalogue of abuse. But the action is so exaggerated, Miss Trunchbull so horrendously caricatured, that it feels like fantasy rather than reality. and Pam Ferris plays the part to perfection (or whatever is the unpleasant equivalent). As one of the children comments, they can’t complain because their parents would not believe that a school head could be so appalling.

Matilda is highly intelligent, already reading Charles Dickens and other classics, and doing complex arithmetic in her head. And she also realises that when anyone gets angry with her, she has strange magical powers that can move objects. At first this happens a bit randomly but she manages to train it. 

The acting from the villains is all overdone, but then that’s the way Dahl’s books work. Danny DeVito is the director as well as playing Mr Wormwood, and he sticks pretty closely to the story.  I read the book this morning to see just how close it was. There are a few changes made, which probably work better from the point of visual continuity. There are some extra scenes in the film, too, such as a delightful sequence where Matilda dances in her living room as she moves blinds, pictures and other objects without touching them. 

There’s also a lengthy sequence when Matilda and Miss Honey venture inside Miss Trunchbull’s house. It’s entirely in Roald Dahl’s style and fits well with the overall story, adding some action and tension, and also some humour. And there are scenes in Mr Turnbull’s garage, whereas the book just describes him talking to his son about what he does. I thought it a very good balance of following the book closely and adding in new scenes that demonstrate people’s characters or behaviours in ways that wouldn’t work in a book.

We were engrossed in the story right from the start, and even though I knew it would end satisfactorily, there are some quite stressful moments. The images of Miss Trunchbull glaring at children, her face distorted close to the camera, demonstrate brilliantly how the children might have seen her. 

The rating for this film is PG, which makes sense. Most children would probably find it funny, with Miss Trunchbull taking the place of a vicious dragon or other monster of fantasy stories. But some might find her disturbing, particularly her worst punishment - the ‘chokey’ - and others might be upset at the way Matilda’s parents are so neglectful. So parental guidance is recommended; ideally a parent should watch this with a sensitive or young child seeing it for the first time. 

But with that proviso, I would definitely recommend it.  Particularly for children who have enjoyed the book. 

Our DVD came with a few ‘extras’, which surprised us.  One required re-watching the film to be able to see how the 'magic' scenes were made, and we did see a few of those, which were quite interesting, but we didn't want to see it all again. One 'extra' was an ironic and mildly amusing list of etiquette rules, illustrated (or not!) by snippets from the film. 

Another of the extras was about libraries, perhaps for children who weren't familiar with them. Oddly, the librarian was portrayed as rather a scary-looking woman with bright red lips and a face that came too close to the camera, almost like Miss Trunchbull, though clearly the librarian was a likeable person.  And the final extra that we watched was a rather wobbly video made by Mara Wilson herself. 

Review copyright 2024 Sue's DVD Reviews

Doctor Who 60th Anniversary Specials (David Tennant)

(Amazon UK link)

I had been looking forward for a while to seeing the Doctor Who 60th anniversary special episodes. I knew - from social media - that the tenth Doctor, David Tennant, was returning for these three episodes. He was my favourite of the ‘new’ series Doctor Who. 

When I heard that Donna (Catherine Tate) was also returning, I was intrigued to know how this was possible. The last time we saw Donna, her memory was altered so she would not remember any of her travels with the Doctor. The alternative was for her to die…

Jodie Whittaker’s 13th Doctor regenerated into David Tennant’s 14th Doctor at the end of the 2022 specials, which we watched in May. I know this was a  surprise when it was first broadcast, since Ncuti Gatwa had been announced as the next Doctor. But since we are not in the UK, we had to wait for the DVDs. So we knew this would happen. 

The 60th Anniversary set contains three DVDs. Each one holds one episode of about an hour, plus a lot of feature ‘specials’. We watched one per week; we didn’t manage all the extra features, but very much appreciated the insights into the production of the show that we saw in the first ones on each disc. 

The Star Beast

The first episode, ‘The Star Beast’, sees the 14th Doctor landing in the UK in the 21st century, only to come across Donna. He tries to hide from her, not wanting to trigger any memories, but inevitably they end up in her house after a spaceship crashes nearby. Years have passed since he last saw her, and she now has a husband and teenage daughter Rose. Rose is clearly very bright, and creative. She meets an alien called The Meep, who reminded me a bit of ET at first…

It’s an exciting story with plenty of twists and turns. There’s fast action at times, but to my surprise I followed the story without problems. In some of the previous episodes, I found the storylines confusing, and had to turn away at some of the shooting scenes. But ‘The Star Beast’ held me captivated, and felt as if it had more of an interesting story than some of the recent series. 

I also loved the way that David Tennant, who is such a great actor, seemed to be channelling some of the quirks and energy that Jodie Whittaker portrayed in her incarnation.  

Wild Blue Yonder

The second episode, ‘Wild Blue Yonder’, sees the tardis out of control, taking the Doctor and Donna to the edge of the universe and then abandoning them in what is apparently an empty spaceship. There’s a cute, if rather rusty robot, taking very slow steps in a long corridor. The Doctor tries to figure out what is going on, and it’s quickly clear that there are imperfect copies of both The Doctor and Donna in scenes that are both amusing and rather creepy.

In contrast to the first episode of specials, The Doctor and Donna (and their copies) are the only characters involved and the entire story takes place inside the unknown spaceship. It was fascinating learning how it was created on the first of the features on this DVD. Once again, this is a tense episode, but, as with the first one, I had no trouble following it. I appreciated the asides and conversations that happened, as well as the story itself. 

At the end of the second episode, the tardis manages to return to the UK. They are met by a very frail Wilf, Donna’s grandfather, in what turned out to be the actor Bernard Cribbins’ last appearance. He assures them that the rest of Donna’s family are safe, and asks for help as the world seems to be ending…

The Giggle

The third and final 2023 special, ‘The Giggle’, follows on from that. Life is in chaos because everybody suddenly thinks they are right about everything. Drivers stop obeying traffic laws, pedestrians believe they have the right to walk down the street, people say exactly what they think and want without any filters. Alongside this, we’re taken back to 1925 where a young man buys a puppet from a strange shopkeeper with a fake German accent, who is clearly not who he appears to be. Neil Patrick Harris is superb as The Toymaker, and plays a major part in this episode.

Once again this is an episode with a lot of story; there’s a bit of history involving John Logie Baird and the beginnings of television and a clever plot that, while rather far-fetched, was also straightforward enough for me to follow it. And at the end, while I was sure that Ncuti Gatwa would eventually appear, I was surprised - and pleased - to find that even the regeneration had a twist.

I expected to like these three episodes because of David Tennant and Catherine Tate, and they certainly provided superb leads. It was an unexpected bonus to have such good and memorable stories. They are excellent anniversary specials and I’m so pleased that we finally managed to see them.

We have now caught up, as far as is possible, since the next series is still being broadcast. And ‘The Giggle’ ends with an entirely satisfactory scene which, for me, made it feel almost as if this was the end. I know it isn’t, and that we will, no doubt, continue to acquire further DVDs of Doctor Who. But we’ve decided that, before we do, we’ll re-watch all the ‘new’ series from 2005 onwards.  That’s 150 episodes in all, so if we only watch one per week it will take us three years.

The 60th Anniversary DVD set is excellent, one of my favourites so far. Each episode is complete in itself, but with so much backstory referred to that it would be very confusing to anyone who has not seen at least some of the earlier episodes involving the Tenth Doctor and Donna.

Definitely recommended to anyone who is a fan of Doctor Who.

Review copyright 2024 Sue's DVD Reviews

Loving You (Elvis Presley)

(Amazon UK link)

While we did, of course, know of Elvis Presley as a famous American singer, I don’t think I had realised that he was also quite a talented actor. I probably wouldn’t have come across the film ‘Loving You’, had it not been offered as a freebie in a UK newspaper many years ago. A relative acquired it, and passed it on to us. It’s taken us more than a decade to get around to watching it, but we finally did so yesterday evening.

The film was made in 1957, when Elvis would have been in his early twenties. He stars in this film as Deke Rivers, a young man who was orphaned young and grew up in a children’s home. He’s finally managed to secure a job in a delivery company, and wants to keep it. He’s somewhat shy, but is persuaded to sing in a small country show, and it’s clear that he has a lot of talent.  

Glenda (Lizabeth Scott) is the other main character: she’s an attractive but tough-minded woman who works as a press agent for a politician. When she hears Deke singing, she decides to work for her ex-husband Tex (Wendell Corey) who runs a band, if he will include Deke as an extra member.

Inevitably there are a lot of Elvis songs in this film, but it’s not a typical musical as the songs only happen when the band are on stage. Nobody breaks into song and dance at other times. Well, other than when Deke is persuaded to sing in a restaurant. There’s a low-key love interest, as the girl singer in the band becomes close to Deke, and there’s also a lot of romantic tension between Glenda and Tex.

But there’s a great deal more than that. Glenda is quite manipulative, often at the expense of Deke’s happiness; she persuades people to behave in specific ways so as to gather extra publicity. And she pretends to be a lot more interested in him as a man than she really is. 

Deke is a well-rounded character - we were very impressed with Elvis Presley’s acting - whom we could quite believe in. He’s in a world he knows little about, surrounded by people who insist they have his best interests at heart. He is lonely, longing for a real friend, and isn’t entirely sure who to trust. Nor does he know whether he wants stardom, when he was happy being a small part of a band. 

I understand that the storyline somewhat mirrored Elvis’s own journey into becoming a musical legend, although he was not an orphan, and was close to his parents as a young adult. But he was, apparently, quite shy as a teenager; perhaps that’s why his character seems so authentic. 

There are some deeper themes touched upon lightly, which I thought were well handled in this film. In particular, a passionate plea is made for understanding by the older generation who considered rock and roll to be disgraceful, with a well-crafted argument that is quite persuasive. 

There’s a bit of violence in the film, involving some fist fights as well as some general public rioting; but nothing gory. There are some quite passionate kisses too, and implications about nights spent together, but nothing explicit is shown. There’s some minor bad language, but nothing too shocking.  This is probably why it’s rated U although the storyline wouldn’t be of the slightest interest to children. 

Neither of us is a huge fan of Elvis music, though we don't dislike it. From the perspective of 2024 it feels nostalgically old-fashioned and quite tame by contrast with some of today’s trends in music. We were surprised at how much we liked this film. 

Recommended. 

You can find more information about this film, and see a brief trailer, here at the IMDb site: Loving You.

Review copyright 2024 Sue's DVD Reviews

Dad's Army Series 1 and 2

(Amazon UK link)

As an older child and teenager I regularly watched ‘Dad’s Army’ on television. My father loved this series, and while I didn’t understand all of what was going on, there was sufficient to make me laugh now and again. Gradually the main characters began to feel familiar, and as a young adult I sometimes watched repeats on TV. So when the opportunity arose to buy some of the DVDs, many years ago, I went ahead and acquired some of them. 

They sat on our shelves for a long time, but finally, over the past couple of months, we have watched the DVD set entitled, slightly mystifyingly, ‘The Complete first series plus the ‘lost’ episodes of Series Two’. I know that three of the six Series Two episodes are missing, unlikely ever to be recovered. But the three which are in this set are surely the ‘found’ ones, rather than being lost. 

In any case, it’s probably forty years since I saw any of these, which are in black-and-white; from Series 3 onwards, they were filmed in colour. I did recall some of the first episode, when the platoon is formed, headed by Mr Mainwaring the bank manager (pronounced 'Mannering'). But it’s possible I was remembering the full-length feature film that was made later, as a lot of it seemed quite new to me. It’s possible that I had never seen these early episodes - or not for nearly sixty years.

The whole series is set in the second World War, when men unable to join up in the army formed their own defence groups locally. Some them start with real film from the era, cleverly edited with some of the characters from the series. The first ‘Dad’s Army’ episode was broadcast in 1968, and shows the first gathering of the unlikely troops. 

Captain Mainwaring (Arthur Lowe) is suitably pompous; his second-in-command, Sergeant Wilson (John le Mesurier) much more relaxed, unwilling to shout or give orders. Lance Corporal Jones (Clive Dunn) is the local butcher, and possibly the most enthusiastic of the new recruits. He fought in a previous war and considers himself an expert. 

Other characters who recur in the series are Private Wilson (James Beck) who works in the black market and tries to make money any way he can; Private Fraser (John Laurie) who is fiercely Scottish and works as an undertaker; Private Godfrey (Arnold Ridley) who is a retired tailor; Private Pike (Ian Lavender) who is 17 and works as a bank clerk. Pike’s mother regularly appears, worried about her son’s health; she is a widow, and it’s quickly clear that Sgt Wilson is romantically involved with her. 

The first few episodes include attempts to get hold of weapons and uniform. A few items are issued, and they try to commandeer items from local people or organisations, usually with amusing results. There are episodes where the platoon learn new skills, or go out on watch, usually at night. Inevitably things go wrong, or misunderstandings arise.

There are just six episodes in Series One, and three remaining from Series Two. The characters are established right from the start, and these early episodes form the basis of the future series, although each one is complete in itself.

‘Dad’s Army’ often appears quite basic, television-wise. Backgrounds are sometimes artificial, and props are not always realistic. But it doesn’t matter. This is classic material, well-choreographed humour, and a stalwart of British television. 

The whole series is a caricature of the reality of the 1940s Home Guard, and it was probably so popular in the 1960s because people watching could remember the war years clearly. Yet somehow there’s still an appeal, even to people considerably younger than we are. It's possibly worth seeing for the social history aspect, even if the real Home Guard were rather better organised and less prone to error. 

Definitely recommended if you don’t mind the very British ridiculousness of some of the situations.  There’s even an ‘extra’ feature on this DVD set, explaining the circumstances of the losing of Series Two, and the finding of three of the episodes. 

Review copyright 2024 Sue's DVD Reviews