REBECCA. (2020) REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©

REBECCA. (2020) DIRECTED BY BEN WHEATLEY. BASED ON THE 1938 NOVEL BY DAPHNE DU MAURIER.

STARRING LILY JAMES, ARMIE HAMMER, KRISTIN SCOTT THOMAS, KEELEY HAWES, ANN DOWD AND JANE LAPOTAIRE.

REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©

I’m not crazy about this re-make, to be totally honest with you. Let’s get something clear from the start. It could never have hoped to rival the original 1940 movie, directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring Joan Fontaine and Laurence Olivier as the bride and groom respectively.

That original film is a masterpiece of gothic romantic horror and mystery combined, with superb acting, tension building and wildly beautiful Cornish scenery. It was one of Hitchcock’s finest films, and probably Joan Fontaine’s best performance ever.

She has a genuinely believable air of naivete and gullibility about her that makes us really see her as the frightened Mrs. de Winter Mark Two who doesn’t come close to her predecessor for sophistication and worldly-wise confidence, but that’s exactly why she appeals to tormented widower Maxim de Winter.  

Where was I? Oh yes. Harrumph. This re-make was never going to be fit to polish the boots of the original, but that’s okay. As long as it showed us something a bit different in it, we’d be okay with it, or as long as it presented some aspect of the original in a new light, say.

But it just plods along really, in a rather dull and pedestrian fashion, changing a few things here and there for the sake of change, and because it’s change for the sake of change, it kind of comes across as annoying and superfluous.

The handsome and muscular Armie Hammer is a bit wooden as the millionaire husband, and Lily James is whingy and irritating as the gauche, lower-class bride he brings to Manderley on the Cornish coast, a year or so after the death of his wife Rebecca. We know the plot inside-out by now.

The new Mrs. de Winter sees the deceased Rebecca’s stamp of ownership all over Manderley and her new husband, Maxim de Winter. Mrs. Danvers, Manderley’s austere, forbidding housekeeper, is still devoted to her now-dead mistress, having known her from a child, and she takes every opportunity to rub the new bride’s face in the fact that she isn’t a patch on Rebecca and never will be, so she might as well kill herself… Good old Danny, always looking on the bright side!

Socially, a chasm the size of the Grand Canyon yawns fearfully between Maxim and Wife Number Two. He lives in a fabulous mansion on inherited wealth and she is an orphan, reduced to providing companionship to sour, embittered old biddies whose glory days are long behind them. Maxim and his bride are sexually attracted to each other, at least, but their sex scenes are far from electrifying, sadly, more like a damp squib.

All the main checkpoints are still here. The dreadful Mrs. Van Hopper, for whom the nameless bride is ‘a friend of the bosom.’ The old boathouse, and the crazy old man who says, ‘she’s gorn, isn’t she, into the sea? She won’t come back no more.’

The ill-fated costume ball, in which the bride plays right into the hands of Mrs. Danvers and wears a costume guaranteed to repulse Maxim, not delight him. The shipwreck with the decomposed corpse on board. The coroner’s inquest. The fire, but the person you think should die in it doesn’t die in it. They have something else in mind for themselves as a grand finale. Sorry, that’s a spoiler.

We really miss the smooth, suave, sardonically self-serving Jack Favell as played by George Sanders here. We miss his eccentric, half-hopping entrance through an open window, the way he taps his cigarette on the case before lighting up, and the air of sleazy sexuality that surrounds him permanently and that allows him to have a forbidden love affair with his beloved cousin, Rebecca, who, by all accounts, what quite a wee goer in her day.

Sam Riley as Jack Favell in the 2020 adaptation might cut it in a modern version of UPSTAIRS DOWNSTAIRS or DOWNTON ABBEY, but is somewhat lacking in the sex appeal needed to produce a good performance as the louche Favell.  

The one thing that’s completely new- and good!- is the addition of veteran British actress Jane Lapotaire (THE ASPHYX, LADY JANE) as Maxim and Beatrice de Winter’s Aged Grandmother. She shames the new bride most dreadfully by telling her stridently, more than once, that she’s ‘not Rebecca!’ The very idea that she could be the mistress of the house! The Aged Crone cackles mirthlessly at the notion.

There’s some lovely scenery and settings in the film, but it’s still a cheap, clunky imitation of one of the best mystery movies ever made. Watch it if you like out of curiosity, or if you like Armie Hammer (I do!) or nice views of the cliffs and the sea, but there’s not a lot else here to sea, I mean, to see, to be quite blunt. I don’t like being so negative about a film but I think that here we have a distinct case of all style and no substance. Sorry…!

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY OF SANDRA HARRIS.

Sandra Harris is a Dublin-based novelist, poet, short story writer and film and book blogger. She has studied Creative Writing and Vampirology. She has published a number of e-books on the following topics: horror film reviews, multi-genre film reviews, women’s fiction, erotic fiction, erotic horror fiction and erotic poetry. Several new books are currently in the pipeline. You can browse or buy any of Sandra’s books by following the link below straight to her Amazon Author Page:

http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B015GDE5RO

Her new book, THIRTEEN STOPS EARLIER, is out now from Poolbeg Books:

Her debut romantic fiction novel, ‘THIRTEEN STOPS,’ is out now from Poolbeg Books:

The sequel, ‘THIRTEEN STOPS LATER,’ is out now from Poolbeg Books:

MILDRED PIERCE. (1945) REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©

MILDRED PIERCE. (1945) BASED ON THE BOOK BY JAMES M. CAIN. DIRECTED BY MICHAEL CURTIZ. STARRING JOAN CRAWFORD, ANN BLYTH, EVE ARDEN, BUTTERFLY MCQUEEN, JACK CARSON, BRUCE BENNETT AND ZACHARY SCOTT. REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©

JOAN CRAWFORD: THE ULTIMATE MOVIE STAR- A FEATURE-LENGTH DOCUMENTARY. (2002) WRITTEN, PRODUCED AND DIRECTED BY PETER FITZGERALD. NARRATED BY ANJELICA HUSTON.

REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©

What perfect viewing for a lockdown Saturday! I absolutely love Joan Crawford, she of the fur coats with the wide shoulders and the imposing eyebrows. She’s every bit as good an actress as Bette Davis, her one-time screen rival and her co-star in one of the best psychological horror films of all time, WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE? (1962).

Maybe more people have a soft spot for Bette Davis than they do for Joan Crawford, though, and I suppose the book (1978) and the subsequent film (1981), MOMMIE DEAREST, about Joan’s alleged mistreatment of her children and especially her daughter Christina, didn’t do the lady any favours. I still love her work though. She really was an incredible actress, a true star in an era when that word truly meant something.

MILDRED PIERCE is the film for which Joan Crawford won the coveted Oscar. Along with another of Ms. Crawford’s wonderful old films, GRAND HOTEL, it was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library Of Congress as being ‘culturally, historically or aesthetically significant.’ That’s a great honour, by the way, as if you didn’t know…!

MILDRED PIERCE is the story of a downtrodden, unhappily married housewife who makes a conscious decision to improve her lot for the sake of her daughter Veda, whom she thinks deserves only the best things in life.

Mildred leaves her deadbeat husband, Bert, who may or may not be seeing a certain blonde Mrs. Biederhof on the sly, and then works her fingers to the bone until she’s the proud owner of a chain of successful restaurants. Now that’s how you do it, ladies.

The heartbreaking thing about this film, of course, is this: the more riches, treats and goodies Mildred bestows on her spoilt, selfish ungrateful daughter, the more Veda throws the whole lot back in her face. Nothing is good enough for the snobby Veda.

Except, maybe, for her mother’s second husband, the caddish and weak Monte Beragon… That little bitch. She gets one good backhanded wallop from Joanie in the film for her despicable rudeness and ingratitude, but it’s not enough. It’s not enough by a long shot. That kid is poison, pure poison.

Joan Crawford gives a powerhouse of a performance as the mother whose efforts to improve and enrich her daughter’s life have not yielded the results for which she would have hoped. On the contrary, they’ve ended in disaster. It’s a lesson for the parents of today who lavish too much of everything on their kids. As a result, the kids don’t value or appreciate things the way they should.

Poor Mildred, busting her hump for a child who will never repay her with the love and gratitude she thinks she deserves. Veda is an extremely unlikeable character and it’s hard not to root for Joan to cut her off without a cent. She’s possibly one of the most easy-to-dislike characters in a film from that era. The actress who plays her is still alive, actually, an amazing feat of longevity.

I much prefer the character of Wally Fay, Joan’s dynamic business partner and would-be lover. He sure does dig a dame with a pair of gams that don’t quit…! Mildred’s first husband Bert is weak and doesn’t put his foot down about Veda to Mildred. A pity. A few good spankings from her father might have turned Veda into a nicer person. Monte Beragon is that most despicable of swines, the gadabout cad-about-town who sponges off women and cheats on them to boot.

Prissy from GONE WITH THE WIND (aka Butterfly McQueen) does a nice job of playing Mildred’s maid. Remember in GWTW when Prissy told Scarlett she was an expert at ‘birthin’ babies,‘ and then when Scarlett found out she was lying she gave poor old Prissy a backhander that you could probably hear all the way out to Tara? Happy days.

I also love Ida, Mildred’s manageress, beautifully played by Eve Arden. She’s a game broad who’s been there, done that and hand-stitched the bloody T-shirt. She’s wise to men and their tricks, in other words. She’s a good friend to Mildred, probably more of a friend than any of Mildred’s husbands, lovers or suitors have ever been.

Also, check out the scene with the typically American policeman from the ‘Forties who doesn’t feel like ‘taking a swim.’ That’s one way of putting it. American movie cops and health workers, eg, sanatarium olderlies, are always being portrayed as horribly unsympathetic, cold and short on understanding in the films of the period. Can you imagine having been a female rape victim in these times and bringing your story to the police? It doesn’t really bear thinking about, does it? I suppose it was the same in all countries back then.

My own copy of MILDRED PIERCE comes complete with some rather spiffing extra features, the best of which is undoubtedly the feature-length documentary from 2002: JOAN CRAWFORD: THE ULTIMATE MOVIE STAR. My kids and I watched this over the Saturday night takeaway and we were so glued to it our chips went cold.

It literally tells the story of Joan Crawford, from her birth as Lucille Le Sueur in the early 1900’s to her death in 1977, by which time she’d cemented her position as one of the greatest stars of the Golden Era of Hollywood. Her oeuvres are mostly truly marvellous films.

Women will certainly love the films and guys will too, if they love classic movies from the days of the big studios when a film was called a ‘picture’ and a real star made some of the so-called ‘celebrities’ of today look like total nobodies. Miaow…! Sorry about that.

Joan started her career as a dancer and a chorus girl. She was apparently a brilliant dancer and she loved to dance. In the ‘Twenties, she was seen as the perfect embodiment of the flapper: the gay girl-about-town who danced till all hours and was never seen without a fancy martini in her hand.

‘Early Joan,’ as I call her, does indeed make the ideal ‘Twenties girl. She’s stunningly attractive and doesn’t even look like the Joan Crawford she eventually grows into, the Joan with the strongly-defined lips and eyebrows and the glamorous fur coats and massive shoulder-pads.

A whole host of people who knew Joan, including her former husband Douglas Fairbanks Jr. and her adopted daughter Christina Crawford, talk on-screen about their memories of Joan. Some of these memories are very moving, while others are humorous or just plain fascinating.

We know that Christina wrote her infamous book, MOMMIE DEAREST, after the reading of her mother’s will at which it was revealed that Joan hadn’t left so much as a penny to Christina or her brother, ‘for reasons which are well known to them.’

I’ve read the book myself and it does make for uncomfortable reading. If it’s all true, then Christina deserves our sympathy. I still love Joan’s movies, though. Am I allowed to say that? Well, I’ve said it anyway.

One of the interviewees in the documentary comments that it’s a shame that the book kind of overshadows some of the accomplishments that Joan actually achieved, such as making her way all alone in a man’s world, first as a movie star and then as the ‘First Lady of Pepsi-Cola’ after she married Alfred Steele, its managing director.

We hear about Joan’s rivalry with fellow stars Norma Shearer and Bette Davis, and how she outlasted all the big female MGM stars of her day except for Davis herself. We hear about how Joan’s unhappy and maybe even abusive childhood caused her to constantly seek approval, admiration and adulation from the people around her. In fairness to her, she treated her fans really well and was never too tired to sign autographs or reply to fan letters.

We’re told of her obsession with cleanliness that probably has its roots in her childhood and the alcoholism that seems to have gone largely undetected by the public until Joan was quite old.

We hear about her many husbands and about the way in which she was a consummate professional in her work. Not only could she cry on demand but if she was asked to produce a tear, she’d even say: ‘Which eye…?’ I’m a woman too, but even I can’t cry on demand, never mind out of a specified flippin’ eyeball. I need to work up to it, lol.

As a big horror fan, I was thrilled to see Betsy Palmer, otherwise known as Mrs. Pamela Voorhees from the FRIDAY 13TH films, sharing her memories of Joan for the camera. Joan apparently treated actress Mercedes McCambridge as a rival. The name Mercedes McCambridge will of course also be familiar to horror fans, as this lady went on to do some rather famous voice work in the most iconic horror film ever made, THE EXORCIST.

‘Your mother sucks cocks in hell, Karras…!’

We hear about how Joan slept with her directors in order to bind them to her and how she was once upstaged at a grand event by Marilyn Monroe in a tight, low-cut dress with her legendary tits locked, loaded and ready to fire. Now that was kinda funny…!

Christina Crawford talks about the notorious ‘night raids’ which resulted in the infamous ‘NO WIRE HANGERS!’ scene in the movie MOMMIE DEAREST, in which Joan was wonderfully played by Faye Dunaway who looked uncannily like her subject.

We hear about the horror films that were the only films that Joan could find work in towards the end of her career. There is no shame in working in a horror film. Bette Davis, who incidentally turned down the leading role in MILDRED PIERCE when it was offered to her, starred in BURNT OFFERINGS, one of the best horror flicks ever made, when she was in her sixties. Starring in horror is nothing, I repeat, nothing to be ashamed of. Some of Joan’s horror films, like STRAIT-JACKET and SUDDEN FEAR, are films I’m now dying to get my mitts on.

The documentary is every bit as good as the film itself, MILDRED PIERCE. It’s a fascinating insight into a Hollywood that doesn’t exist any more, and an absolute must-have for fans of Joan Crawford’s.

She always felt like it was her fans who made her a star. Wherever she is right now, I’m sure she’s ticking off names on a list and writing her famous thank-you notes, about which she was most assiduous, to the folks who still watch her movies. If you want to be sure of getting yours, then watch the film. Happy Monday.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY OF SANDRA HARRIS.

Sandra Harris is a Dublin-based novelist, poet, short story writer and film and book blogger. She has studied Creative Writing and Film-Making. She has published a number of e-books on the following topics: horror film reviews, multi-genre film reviews, women’s fiction, erotic fiction, erotic horror fiction and erotic poetry. Several new books are currently in the pipeline. You can browse or buy any of Sandra’s books by following the link below straight to her Amazon Author Page:

http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B015GDE5RO

Her debut romantic fiction novel, ‘THIRTEEN STOPS,’ is out now from Poolbeg Books.

SOME LIKE IT HOT. (1959) REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©

SOME LIKE IT HOT. (1959) DIRECTED, PRODUCED AND CO-WRITTEN BY BILLY WILDER. STARRING MARILYN MONROE, TONY CURTIS, JACK LEMMON, GEORGE RAFT, PAT O’BRIEN, JOE E. BROWN AND JOAN SHAWLEE.

REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©

‘Well, nobody’s perfect…!’

This black-and-white romantic comedy is generally considered one of the best films of all time, never mind just best comedy film. Its sparkling quickfire dialogue, inspired comic performances and zany plot have ’em rolling in the aisles every time. With laughter, that is, lol, not with anything else.

It stars Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon as, respectively, Joe and Jerry, a couple of down-on-their-luck session musicians living in Chicago in 1929, during the good old days of Prohibition. A tendency to booze, womanise and gamble their every penny away (well, on Joe’s part, at least) sees them permanently skint and looking for work.

The two lads are also blessed with a real gift for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, which is how they come to be unwilling witnesses to a terrible mass shooting based on the real-life Saint Valentine’s Day massacre, in which seven mobsters were lined up against a wall in a dingy garage and brutally mowed down by four unknown gun-wielding assailants. Still unknown to this day, in fact, though of course there are theories.

Anyway, the two lads escape the murderous mobsters, who don’t like to leave no witnesses, by only the skin of their teeth. With the terrifying mob boss ‘Spats’ in pursuit, not to mention his even more frightening henchmen, Joe and Jerry decide they need to scarper, and on the double too.

Desperate for work and possessed of a healthy desire to stay alive and out of the clutches of Spats & Co., they dress up as dames and join Sweet Sue and her Society Syncopators, an all-girl band headed by overnight train to a Miami hotel for a series of gigs. They’ll be paid, and Spats’ll never find them there. He’s looking for a couple-a dudes, after all, not a pair of broads with gams up to here and pointy booby things…!

Sweet Sue, the ballsy band-leader who’s been around the block a time or two and whose trademark is to screech continually for ‘Bienstock,’ the band manager, when things go awry, thinks there’s something a little ‘off’ about Josephine (Curtis) and Daphne (Lemmon), but I think they both make smashing broads, especially Tony Curtis who has such a lovely feminine face in full make-up.

Both Josephine and Daphne fall immediately in love with Sugar, the singer with the band. Sugar (Marilyn Monroe) is stunningly beautiful, with her bleached blonde hair, red lips, great pins and fantastic boobies, but she’s an emotional mess from years of being jerked around by guys and well on her way to becoming an alcoholic.

Daphne is hilariously pursued by an ageing eccentric billionaire when the ‘girls’ drop anchor in the Miami hotel, while Josephine/Joe disguises himself as a young eccentric billionaire in order to win Sugar’s badly dented heart.

Much the same way as Daphne has to keep reminding himself, I’m a girl, I’m a girl, I’m a girl, I have to keep reminding myself that it’s a comedy film, when I watch poor Sugar falling more and more under the spell of that lying bastard, ‘Shell Oil Junior.’ It’s really despicable to play with Sugar’s heart the way he does, but okay, I get that it’s a film and that, in 1959, this was the kind of thing that passed for a great laugh…!

Joe E. Brown is superb as Osgood Fielding the Third, and his tango scenes with Jack Lemmon are so funny. They make a really good couple! Spats’s henchmen are terrific too. You definitely wouldn’t want to bump into any of them down an alleyway on a dark night, and none of ’em ain’t gonna win no beauty contests no-how, but they’re all great intimidating fun.

Sweet Sue’s gals are all top totty, and the boozy party in Daphne’s bunk on the train remains a major highlight, along with those nude-effect dresses Marilyn Monroe wears in her musical numbers that make her look topless. How did they ever get those dresses past the censors? And what sublime titties, lol. Boop-boop-be-do…!

So, does Spats ever catch up with the two hapless witnesses to his foul crime? Does Sugar end up with the fuzzy end of the lollipop again, or has she really found true love this time with yet another in a long line of no-goodnik saxophone players? (I really doubt it, but whatever. It’s just a film. It’s just a film…!)

Will Osgood Fielding pop a question to a certain someone, and will he and that certain someone live happily ever after on Mumsy’s yacht and on Mumsy’s money? Well, I ain’t psychic, you know. Maybe we should ask someone who might know. All together now: ‘Bienstock…!’

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY OF SANDRA HARRIS.

Sandra Harris is a Dublin-based novelist, poet, short story writer and film and book blogger. She has studied Creative Writing and Film-Making. She has published a number of e-books on the following topics: horror film reviews, multi-genre film reviews, women’s fiction, erotic fiction, erotic horror fiction and erotic poetry. Several new books are currently in the pipeline. You can browse or buy any of Sandra’s books by following the link below straight to her Amazon Author Page: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B015GDE5RO

Her debut romantic fiction novel, ‘THIRTEEN STOPS,’ is out now from Poolbeg Books.

THE MAN WHO CHANGED HIS MIND. (1936) REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©

THE MAN WHO CHANGED HIS MIND. (1936) GAINSBOROUGH PICTURES. DIRECTED BY ROBERT STEVENSON. STARRING BORIS KARLOFF, ANNA LEE, FRANK CELLIER AND JOHN LODER.

REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©

This is a sort of sci-fi-and-horror-by-numbers film, of the kind that the legendary Boris Karloff probably could have churned out in his sleep. It’s not the greatest film he ever made, but it’s still great fun to watch and a lot of the tropes we’ve come to expect from this kind of movie are present and correct.

Boris Karloff himself plays the ‘mad scientist,’ Dr. Laurience, pronounced ‘Lorentz.’ Tall, imposing, chain-smoking, wild-haired, with the famous beetling eyebrows and those iconic glowering eyes, used to such good effect when he played Imhotep in THE MUMMY in 1932, he’s the very picture of the introverted academic, driven half-crazed with the need to work, work, work every hour God sends on his kooky projects. Well, they’re not kooky to him, of course…!

He’s working on a very kooky project indeed at the moment. He honestly thinks that he can transfer the thought content of a human brain into another human, and vice versa. Apparently, it can all be done in a few minutes, and just by pulling a few levers, as well.

There’s no need to saw open the skull with one of those pizza cutter things we see in films; it all happens pretty much by magic- scientific magic. He’s practised it on some really adorable chimps, so, if it works on monkeys, could it not work on human beings, as well…? That’s the sixty-four million dollar question, isn’t it?

When a wealthy entrepreneur in the form of one Lord Haslewood offers to fund all of Dr. Laurience’s experiments (without knowing what they are, I hasten to add), in return for which Haslewood’s newspapers will get all the scientific scoops as they happen, Dr. Laurience feels like all his birthdays and Christmases have come together. Woo-hoo! Now to practise swapping people’s brains around to his heart’s content without anyone guessing what he’s up to…

One person does guess what Dr. Laurience is up to behind closed doors: the film’s eye candy, his assistant and a budding surgeon herself, Dr. Claire Wyatt. A blonde bombshell with studio-tamed eyebrows and red lipstick, she’s engaged to Dick, Lord Haslewood’s son. That’s if he can persuade her to stop working or thinking about work for a minute, that is. She’s quite the bluestocking, is Claire. She probably votes in local and national elections as well, just like a man, the brazen hussy.

When Claire finds out about the doctor’s unethical plans for willy-nilly brain-swapping, she freaks out and begs him to cease and desist from all further experimentation. But the doctor is on a slippery downwards-leading slope now that he’s going to find it difficult, if not impossible, to come back from. With a power like the one he’s got his nicotine-stained mitts on just now, he could quite possibly end up ruling the world.

When an audience of his peers rejects Dr. Laurience’s findings and ridicules him as well, Lord Haslewood wants Dr. Laurience out of the snazzy new laboratory currently being funded by Lord Haslewood’s enterprises, but the mad scientist runs amok with rage.

Then he remembers that he has the power to swap people’s brains, including the essence of their personalities, around. Could Lord Haslewood find himself in the power-mad Dr. Laurience’s hot-seat?

And, if he does, who could his brain be swapped with? And will the ravishing Claire, now the object of the frightening Dr. Laurience’s scary romantic affections as well as Dick’s, be able to somehow foil his crazy, mad scientist-type plans for world domination? Answers on a postcard, please, folks…

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY OF SANDRA HARRIS.

Sandra Harris is a Dublin-based novelist, poet, short story writer and film and book blogger. She has studied Creative Writing and Film-Making. She has published a number of e-books on the following topics: horror film reviews, multi-genre film reviews, women’s fiction, erotic fiction, erotic horror fiction and erotic poetry. Several new books are currently in the pipeline. You can browse or buy any of Sandra’s books by following the link below straight to her Amazon Author Page: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B015GDE5RO

Her debut romantic fiction novel, ‘THIRTEEN STOPS,’ is out now from Poolbeg Books.