The Maltese Falcon

Generally regarded as the first example of film noir, The Maltese Falcon is a slick and engaging thriller set in San Fransisco. The low key lighting and interesting camera angles add to a thrilling story which focuses on the search for a 16^th Century statue. The valuable gold statue was stolen long ago and has been hunted for years. Its location has finally been tracked to California where several people are working to discover its exact location. Private Detective Sam Spade (Humphrey Bogart) becomes entangled in the search along with three unscrupulous hunters, each of whom is out to outsmart and outwit the others. With several murders on the books and a number of motives and suspects, Spade is tasked with not only helping to solve the mysteries but also clearing his own name.

I’d been looking forward to watching The Maltese Falcon for a long time and had long heard about how good it was. I’m sad to report then that the movie failed to live up to my raised expectations despite some genuinely inventive story and film making craft. Although I wasn’t as disappointed as when I watched a couple of other classics (Vertigo), I failed to be entranced by the movie and wavered between gripped astonishment, dull boredom and everywhere in between.

Citizen Kane

If you were to talk about the best video game ever made, you might describe it as ‘The Citizen Kane of video games’. You might describe New York City as ‘The Citizen Kane of cities’. Personally I mentioned in my review of The Room that it’s known as ‘The Citizen Kane of bad movies’ Citizen Kane has come to be used as a bench mark for all that is great. The best of the best. The top ‘thing’ in any particular field. This of course arose due to the 1941 films’ long held standing of being the greatest motion picture ever made. For fifty years it topped Sight and Sound’s poll of the ten best movies of all time, it is listed as the AFI’s top movie and is currently battling for top spot with one other on my Ultimate Greatest Films of All Time list which is under construction at time of writing.

To my great shame I’d never seen the movie until today. I’m twenty-seven, have been interested in film for nearly a decade and have been writing about the medium for over a year yet I’d never seen the ‘greatest of them all’. If I’m honest I can’t put my finger on why. The movie wasn’t difficult to track down; I have no issue with the black and white, the time period or the subject matter. I think I’ve narrowed down my reasons to two things. The first is the title. Citizen Kane doesn’t do anything for me and as titles go I don’t think it’s particularly strong but I think the main reason was that I was afraid of disappointment. So many times since I began to write my thoughts on film I have been let down and then let down my readers when I didn’t get or didn’t like classic, highly rated films. I think The Lion King is poor, I gave North by Northwest 6/10 and much of 8 ½ was lost on me. It was with great trepidation then that I recently took the plunge and bought Citizen Kane on Blu-ray. And was I disappointed? The short answer to that question is, no. A slightly longer answer is No, I wasn’t and for a longer answer still, you can read the next 1,110 words.

British Council Film Collection

The British Council Film Collection is an archive of over 120 short documentary films made by the British Council during the 1940s designed to show the world how Britain lived, worked and played. The films vary in length between around three and thirty minutes and show all aspects of Britain during this tumultuous decade. The films were produced as a way of promoting Britain and Britishness and were seen in over 100 countries as cultural propaganda, as a way of counteracting the Nazis own propaganda about Britain being stuck in the past. In amongst the collection there will be at least a few films that are of interest to everyone with subjects as diverse as the Criminal Justice System, Town Planning, Shakespeare, Ship Building and even the life of an Onion...

Although at the time these films were produced to show how modern and diverse Britain was they feel very dated now. They are voiced over by men with accents that no longer exist outside an American tourist's imagination and you'll be hard pressed to find anyone who isn't white on film. Some of the views are also quite outdated. In one film nursing is described as "the most interesting and satisfying career open to women." If you are familiar with any of the towns and cities featured in the films then their appearance will also be a big shock to you. The country has changed a lot in seventy years. Most of the films are shot during the Second World War and this is another interesting feature about them. We are able to see how the nation coped with rationing, bombing and death on a daily basis.

Below are links to and a brief description of four of my favourite films. These are films which for various geographical, historical or personal reasons were of interest to me.