Film

Dial M for Murder / Rear Wondow

What better way to get through that rarher dull period between Xmas and New Year than a double bill of vintage Hitchcock on tv . i have seen both Rear Window and Dial M for Murder many times but like all classics you turn on for 5 minutes and are rapidly engrossed. Dial M for Murder has a [...]

December 31, 2025 // 0 Comments

Brigitte Bardot

I was saddened by the passing of Brigitte Bardot and thought it inaccurate to dismiss her as a talentlrss bimbo and later eccentric recluse. She was a fine dancer training in the same ballet class as Leslie Caron ( not many people know that). Both Joan Crawford and Rits Hayworth were excellent [...]

December 29, 2025 // 0 Comments

Nuremberg (1925)

Some 32 years ago I attended an international convention in Chicago. There was a reception out of town and a colleague and I waited for a taxi to take us back to our hotel. At the pick-up point were two elderly lawyers who already knew one another as they were part of the Prosecution team at the [...]

November 19, 2025 // 0 Comments

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

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Fulham 2 Brighton 1

January 25, 2026 // 0 Comments

No doubt about it. Fulham have got the wood over us. Even Marvo Silva admitted a draw would be the fairer result. In Carlos Baleba we had the most effective player on the [...]
The Tanner Report: Fulham 2 Brighton 1

January 25, 2026 // 0 Comments

This was a highly enjoyable victory, all the more so as undeserved. For long periods Fulham were not in the game but ended up winning it. When I asked a group of Fulham [...]
Sussex sport

January 20, 2026 // 0 Comments

Last night I watched Brighton HSFC draw 1-1 with south coast rivals Bournemouth in a game sometimes labelled El Coastico. The Seagulls started brightly but it was the [...]
THE ALFRISTON

January 19, 2026 // 0 Comments

In the many years (I know, I don’t look !!!) that I have been reviewing English country hotels I have seen a massive change in them. Twenty years ago they were little [...]
Biographies

January 17, 2026 // 0 Comments

I recently moved from reading fiction to biography. Why do readers like biographies? The obvious explanation is the desire to know more about the subject and the times in [...]