Just in

Film

And God Created Woman (movie 1956)

It’s well known that this film made the careers of Brigitte Bardot, and its director Roger Vadim – as well as put Saint Tropez on the map. Less well known is that it was an early film of Jean Louis Trintignant, arguably France’s finest post war screen actor with whom Bardot had an affaire [...]

October 12, 2025 // 0 Comments

The Alamo (1960 movie)

There are those who dislike “THE ALAMO” – starring and directed by John Wayne – for its gung-ho patriotism but (for me) it’s a big action war movie of the ilk that is made so often these days. I watched it for the third time yesterday The story is of a make-shift fortress, [...]

October 12, 2025 // 0 Comments

Classic British Cinema

Over the weekend I watched the the Sky team review in their Classic Films series and acclaim Kind Hearts and Coronets and then on Film 4 The Long Good Friday: both are – in their different ways – classics of British cinema. Kind Hearts and Coronets is an Ealing Comedy though Ian Jarvis, [...]

July 20, 2025 // 0 Comments

The Great Escape

A Bank Holiday would not be one without showing The Great Escape (1963) and – sure enough – Film 4 showed it on a cold Easter Monday. The previous day I had watched another team movie – Ocean’s Eleven (2001) – but it compared unfavourably. The Great Escape has the [...]

April 23, 2025 // 0 Comments

Greta Scacchi

One of the reasons why I enjoy the repeats of Bergerac is the casting of the young actors and actresses who appear on it. In the first series – made in 1981 – appeared a young actress aged 21. I thought at first she was Liz Hurley because of  her fine facial features. In fact it was [...]

March 20, 2025 // 0 Comments

El Cid/The book and the film

I was recently given a new biography of El Cid, the Spanish 11th Century knight, by Nora Berend, a Cambridge University historian. Her thesis is that Rodrigo de Viva – far rom being a patriot – was a mercenary. She concedes that many of the primary sources are unreliable. However this [...]

January 12, 2025 // 0 Comments

Top Hat (1935)

Time was when Christmas television would show a ‘big film’ but now these are to be found on Amazon Prime or Netflix and the main channels have to recycle tired old war films or superannuated blockbusters. It was therefore a huge relief that BBC broadcast – at the unlikely time of 8.15 am [...]

January 4, 2025 // 0 Comments

Operation Daybreak

Fred Trueman one made the cutting comment: there haven been many great bowlers from the Kitkstall Lane Emd but Neil Mallender is not one of them” the same  or similar comment might be made of director Lewis Gilbert. He directed many niteable films like Alfie, Shirley Valentine , Educating Rita  [...]

December 30, 2024 // 0 Comments

(WW2) Arctic convoys & opening a Second Front.

It did not take Hitler long to repudiate the Molotov/Ribbentrop pact and invade the Soviet Union. It was also not that long after – with Stalin’s ‘not one step back’ and ‘scorched earth’ strategy – that the Wehrmacht was in trouble. Stalin implored the Allies to open a [...]

December 25, 2024 // 0 Comments

The Critic (2023 movie)

I missed out on this film on general release and watched it yesterday on Amazon Prime. It’s based upon the Anthony Quinn novel Curtain Call but fell short of the book. It featured Ian McKellen as the acerbic Daily Chronicle theatre critic Jimmy Erskine modelled on James Agate. Set in the 1930s, [...]

December 24, 2024 // 0 Comments

1 2 3 … 41

Copyright © 2025 The National Rust | Design by Premonition