There are so many swear words in England it's unreal. However very few of them are beyond the pale, and really context has a huge role to play. Words that could be used in abusive or derogatory terms can just as easily be used as jocular greetings to friends. 'Bugger' is certainly one of those. It s...

I caught this back in July and found it too much of a soap opera, even though any Barthelmess is a good Barthelmess. I much preferred both The Last Flight and Only Angels Have Wings which are both awesome. Here's the review I wrote for my blog: Amazing as it may seem, not every aviation film from th...

Did you not like The Sixth Sense ? Because I thought that was very well done. The first time I saw it no one had spoiled the "twist" for me and I thought it was very clever and a nice, underplayed role for Bruce Willis. I'd waited for years to see The Sixth Sense and was massively disappo...

There are three films that have me in stitches every time I see them: Blazing Saddles, Monty Python's Life of Brian and Dr Strangelove. However I guess only one of them really counts as American. Maybe two? When I think about the cleverest, I tend to think of things like Kind Hearts and Coronets, Mr...

Well it was a Bruce Campbell Christmas for me: both books (If Chins Could Kill: Confessions of a B Movie Actor and Make Love the Bruce Campbell Way), plus the Jack of All Trades and The Adventures of Brisco County Jr box sets.

Now if only My Name is Bruce hadn't been delayed until next year...

One word that hasn't been mentioned yet is 'holy'. I grew up in the Church of England and met a lot of people associated with the church from lowly servers and churchwardens up to the future Archbishop of York. I have a huge amount of respect for a lot of them and many are 'good' people in many sens...

Oh, I'll have to find this. I only have Passport to Pimlico on a cheap transfer in a 50 film box set. I haven't seen The Titfield Thunderbolt or Whiskey Galore! in far too long, and the other two films are new on me. You probably alread know this but Anchor Bay also put out the wonderful Alec Guinne...

The good girl is Jean Parker in Beyond Tomorrow . The bad girl who leads Richard Carlson astray is Helen Vinson . My favorite "girl" in this movie is actually Maria Ouspenskaya as the Russian émigré housekeeper for C. Aubrey Smith , Charles Winninger and Harry Carey . I'm a Helen Vinson f...

Eek, lots to reply to! Your penpal could sound a few ways, even assuming that she's a local. A lot of it may have to do with whether she spends most of her time in the country or in the town. Town accents are less pronounced, often by far. Also, as you mention, Redcar is about as north as you can ge...

He's one of those actors who was apparently great in everything he did, bringing a subtle quality to the film through acting not just with his body and his voice, but with his face and his eyes too. He has very cool sparkling eyes. I read somewhere that he relished the part of Mr Gower because it ga...

This is the film that really turned me on to how great an actor H B Warner was and it's the best portrayal of Christ on film to my eyes (so far, at least). I'd wondered about him ever since I realised that all the silent bridge partners in Sunset Boulevard were real stars. I hadn't even heard of H B...

And I just surprised myself by coming to the realisation that I haven't posted in this thread yet... Accents take a long time to really develop, as does dialect, which is being frustrated nowadays (the 20th century on, really) by the ease to move away from your locality via film, television and now ...

I'm surprised nobody mentioned A Bay of Blood for so long. I grew up watching eighties Hollywood video horror and A Bay of Blood is where the entire slasher genre (most obviously Friday the 13th, but really all of it) can work its influences back to. I watched it in 2004 and thought it was truly awe...

Thanks for the heads up, Dewey. I'll certainly be recording this one. And that proves how behind everything I am right now. I usually map out all my TCM recordings three months in advance and I haven't even got to January yet. Like many people I know who Jacques Tourneur is because of Val Lewton. I ...

That's an interesting question and it's one I'm asking myself at the moment anyway, in different ways. It could be feeling, which might explain why right now I'm completely confused about the time of year and am hopelessly behind on everything I need to do for the holiday season. My body is telling ...