Film, Miles Fielder

The High Command

(PG) 84min (Optimum) This the first of the nine features made by the brilliant but undervalued British filmmaker Thorold Dickinson may not be a patch on his masterpieces, Gaslight and The Queen of Spades, but this 1936 drama set in colonial West…

The Clouded Yellow

(PG) 90min (Optimum) This gripping, fast-paced British thriller from 1950 follows the man-and-woman-on-the-run formula popularised elsewhere by Alfred Hitchcock. Based on a witty screenplay by Janet Green (who later went on the write Victim), it…

Brendan Gleeson has roles in both Perrier’s Bounty and Green Zone

Name Brendan Gleeson Born 29 March, 1955, Dublin, Ireland Background The lazy line to take on this scene-stealing character actor is he was a maths teacher for ten years before he decided to become and actor, and got his big break playing…

Dr Jekyll and Sister Hyde

(15) 94min (Optimum) By the turn of the sexploitastic 1970s Hammer Films were upping the erotic content of their already titillating takes on horror classics with this transgender spin on Stevenson’s evil alter-ego tale of terror. Released in 1971…

Bernard Rose: Russian Studies

London-born, Los Angeles-resident filmmaker Bernard Rose talks to Miles Fielder about Russian authors, classical music and drug dealing...

The Kreutzer Sonata

(18) 99min Having discarded cumbersome period trappings for his superb, stripped down, contemporary Los Angeles-set Tolstoy adaptation Ivansxtc, writer/director Bernard Rose does the same with another story by the Russian master, the second in a…

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

(U) 92min (Oracle) Premiering on DVD to coincide with the release of Hollywood goth Tim Burton’s take on the Lewis Carroll classic, this 1972 British musical version can certainly be described as both lavish and faithful to its much-loved source.

The Bargee

(PG) 102min (Optimum) Forty years before Ewan McGregor shagged his way up and down the Edinburgh to Glasgow canal, Harry H Corbett was doing the same thing between Hertfordshire and Middlesex (oo-er). Corbett’s handsome Hemel Pike is a scruffy…

Motherhood

(15) 90min (Metrodome) Released in time for Mother’s Day, this comic drama about a day in the life of a harassed middle-class New York married mom of two sets hard about eliciting the sympathy of maternals everywhere. In an unlikely role…

Legacy brings The Wire's Stringer to the big screen - Idris Elba interview

Miles Fielder checks in with The Wire’s Idris Elba, who closes this year’s festival in Glasgow-produced film Legacy

Tower of London

(15) 92min (Optimum) This long unavailable (on DVD), deliciously nasty historical horror made in 1939 is all dungeons, manacles, torture and beheadings. But it’s also fairly classy stuff, boasting a fine cast headed by Basil Rathbone, Boris Karloff…

An Inspector Calls

(PG) 77min (Optimum) Edinburgh’s famous son Alistair Sim leads the quality cast in this excellent 1954 adaptation of JB Priestly’s celebrated play. Set in small town England in 1912, it opens with the interruption of a dinner party at the home of a…

Chaw

(15) 117min (Optimum) This blackly comic South Korean horror film arrives on the back of the success of the Asian monster movie The Host. Like that film, Chaw (pronounced ‘chow’, meaning animal trap, but probably intended to invoke Jaws) is at once…

The Constant Husband

(U) 85min (Optimum) A man wakes up in a strange country with no recollection of who he is or how he got there. Enlisting the assistance of a local psychiatrist, the dazed chap begins to piece together his life and discovers to his mortification that…

In The Electric Mist

(15) 117min (High Fliers) The real mystery surrounding this adaptation of James Lee Burke’s bestselling crime novel In the Electric Mist With the Confederate Dead is why a perfectly respectable Hollywood movie boasting such an impressive cast and…

Profile: John Hurt

Name: John Hurt Born: 22 June 1940, Chesterfield, Derbyshire, UK Background: The third child of a vicar and an actress (yes, really), Hurt followed a strict Catholic education at a local prep school with an escape to London to study art at St…

La Grande Dadrouille

(PG) 118min (Optimum) The principle attraction of this madcap 1966 Gallic comedy (aka Don’t Look Now – We’re Being Shot At) is the presence of British comic marvel Terry Thomas, here delivering his lines in a mix of English and badly dubbed French.

Mad Monster Party

(U) 94min (Optimum) You can see how this 1967 stop-motion animated feature (allegedly being remade) has had an enduring influence on Tim Burton, from his most recent foray into old-school-style animation The Corpse Bride, all the way back to his…

Night of The Comet

(15) 91min (Optimum) Cult classic alert! This 1985 sci-fi horror parody benefits from just the right combination of genre knowing and lightness of comic touch. Its apocalyptic storyline has the Earth pass through the path of the titular celestial…

The Queen of Spades - Michael Medwin interview

‘The Queen of Spades is a terrific film,’ Medwin says. ‘It’s a very gripping piece. At the time, it was one of the most expensive British films and, at the time, it was critically acclaimed. It’s nice that it’s being resuscitated.’ Born in London in…

The Queen of Spades

Following its recent rediscovery, re-mastering and reissue in cinemas, this criminally overlooked British masterpiece receives its DVD debut 60 years after it was made. Adapted from a story by Alexander Pushkin, it was directed by the largely…

The Box

(12A) 115min As with his debut, Donnie Darko, Richard Kelly’s third film boasts an intriguing conundrum and an evocative period setting to complement it. Unfortunately, like his second film, Southland Tales, Kelly’s latest eventually unravels into an…

The Girlfriend Experience

(15) 77min Steven Soderbergh returns to his roots with more sex and lies on tape (now disc) in this low-budget drama about a high-class hooker in New York who offers her clients the titular relationship facsimile. Hard-core porn star Sasha Grey plays…

Gangster Story

(PG) 65min (Brightspark) Walter Matthau had a handful of supporting roles under his belt (Bigger Than Life, A Face in the Crowd, King Creole) when he directed himself in this 1959 low-budget crime movie. But Matthau had yet to develop his trademark…

Scared to Death

(U) 65min (Network) This B-movie chiller from 1947 is chiefly distinguished for being the only colour film to star Bela Lugosi (he appeared but did not star in the 1930 Technicolor film Viennese Nights). Lugosi was long into his poverty row years at…