19. L'Age D'Or (1930)

The first and most acclaimed of the, fortunately few, surrealist feature films. It was made as a follow up to Buñuel and Dali's Un Chien Andalou, however they fell out during production so it is mostly accredited to Buñuel.

Being surreal, it focuses on dreamlike sequences and only shows the absurd rather than the real. Even so, like a dream, there are a couple of common threads running through the film. The surrealist notion of l'amour fou (mad love) is shown between a pair of lovers who can't seem to find time to get it on.
The other thread is a theme of extreme violence and cruelty, mostly to women and children and even now, quite shocking. A man slapping a lady for spilling a drop of wine on him, the same man pushing a blind man to the ground for a laugh and another man shooting a child for jokingly knocking his cigarette out of his hand. No wonder it was banned for 50 years following it's first public showings.

The absurdism prevails in the film from start to finish. I'm not sure it's supposed to be understood and nor do I care. Understanding madness is not a healthy pastime!

A cow in a bed. One of many absurdities.

18. The African Queen (1951)

A prim and proper missionary and a leery ship's captain are thrown together by circumstance in this excellent adventure by John Huston.

Hepburn plays Rose, a spinster who is helping her Reverend brother out at a mission in Africa. It's the onset of World War I and the local village is burnt down by German soldiers and the villagers either flee or are captured by the German army. This drives the reverend brother insane and to his death.
Bogart plays Charlie, a local ship's captain who delivers the mail. He takes Rose on board his ship t escape down river in order to sit the war out in safety. Rose has other plans. Learning that Charlie has explosives on board, she hatches a plot to destroy a German ship which is patrolling a lake down the wild river.

The adventure tale takes a back seat to the developing relationship with these polar opposites and their effect on each other. Once Rose experiences going down the white water rapids for the first time, her cool exterior begins to vanish. "I never dreamed that any mere physical experience could be so stimulating!" Indeed. He too changes. After he gets drunk one night and gives her what for, she pours all his gin away into the river. The sober Charlie is also seemingly seduced by Rose. As her looks become more dishevelled, he shaves and somewhere in the middle they meet and fall in love.

It is great chemistry between the two leads. Both big veteran stars and do not outshine each other, though it was Bogart who won his only Oscar for his performance. The repartee is at it's best when they are at each others throats.

Shot on location in Africa, the camera has plenty to point at as well as it's stars. The ship steaming down the rapid river and the sights from the riverbank all add to the sumptuous feast created by the sparkling script.

Definitely one to watch. Great adventure, witty riposte and not an ounce of sentimentality.

Damned waste of good gin!

17. An Affair to Remember (1957)

Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr star in this sentimental romance. Two strangers meet on a luxury cruise and fall in love, though both are involved with someone else. At the end of their trip, they agree to sort their lives out and meet, in six months, at the top of the Empire State building. Grant keeps the appointment, but Kerr is hit by a car on the way there. She is paralysed and is too proud to tell him. He believes she has forsaken him and decided to stay with her partner.

It's a film of two halves. The first, on the ship, is the more successful as a bit of a screwball comedy. Grant woos Kerr much to her protest and then they make a rubbish attempt at keeping the affair a secret from the other passengers. Unfortunately it's sentimentality outweighs its comedy.
The second half really lets it down. The reformed playboy begins to paint again and Kerr's crippled nightclub singer teaches a children's choir. Yep, if it wasn't sentimental enough, let's add some kids singing. Impoverished kids at that! We are talking diabetic dangers of sickly sweet.
The songs are really out of place. It's like they have been thrown in because the studio demanded a musical number or 3. It's not even Ker singing her parts. Why bother?

There are many things that don't ring true. The worst culprits are; their jilted partners understanding, Grant's paint-by-numbers 'masterpieces' and the very odd end line. Cary Grant's leading man attraction always troubles me too. Creosoted up like a young David Dickinson and that annoying voice that delivers lines so flatly. It's much better in parody by Tony Curtis in Some Like It Hot.

This just isn't a film for me. It tries to be like the brilliant screwball comedies of the time, but over eggs the pudding with the crass sentimental 'will they/wont they?' love story.

Thumbs down.

 "If you can paint I can walk- anything can happen, right?"

Actually, I'm not quite sure that's a good comparison.



16. The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)

Keep your Kevin Costners, your Disney foxes and your dodgy Russel Crowe accents. 1938 gave us the best and still unmatched Robin of Loxely in Errol Flynn.

What is there to say? It's a camp swashbuckling costume drama with a gallop of romp. It's the traditional story, though the Sheriff of Nottingham is a cowardly underling to the evil Prince John. Errol Flynn IS Robin. Swarve and dashing. The right mix of light-hearted trickster, trellis climbing romantic and heartened rebel leader. Cuts a fine figure in tights too! Olivia de Havilland is just damn gorgeous in technicolour and plays Marion well.

Great set action pieces, lovingly shot and a righteous conclusion where the good triumph and the hero gets the girl. Perfect Sunday afternoon fodder.

Really though, you think the costume department would be wary of VPLs seeing as they made him wear tights!

Patric Knowles as Will Scarlet. A rather camp man if ever I saw one. Plays the lute whilst Robin duels with Little John and insists on wearing vivid red whilst everyone else is camouflaged in Lincoln green!

15. The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994)

This film is #3 on my Flickchart and that's probably quite accurate. I am frequently quoting/stealing lines from it and it gets watched a least once a year. Never fails to cheer me up


2 Sydney based drag queens and a transsexual get a job performing in Alice Springs. To get there they buy a bus ("from 3 swedes named Lars, Lars and Lars!") and head across the desert with hilarious consequences. That would be the pitch anyway.

As all great comedies go, this is grounded in telling the story and showing depth in the characters and it's the characters that I love bout this film. It isn't over egged with back story, just very effective flashback cutaways for all 4 of Priscilla's passengers (they are joined by Bob the Mechanic along the way.)

It is a sumptuous looking film too. The outback is so monochrome, but to throw the brightness of the outfits and the bus against the red of the desert is extremely effective. A little bit of sparkle goes a long way!

The outfits really are something. Very in vocative of the times in the Sydney drag scene. Whereas in other parts of the world, drag artists were just caricatures of women miming to pop songs, in Sydney, the drag scene had developed into some strange cabaret monster with astonishing outfits that were more like art installations than dresses. It was encountering this whole scene at Sydney Mardi Gras that had inspired Stephan Elliot to write this screenplay.
The costumes won an Oscar that year, which is hilarious considering they were put together on a shoestring (thankfully one of the designers mum worked in Kmart and had a discount) and they were the most disposable garments ever, falling to pieces when removed. However the vibrancy of them makes them an essential role in the film.

The dialogue contains some very witty banter, most of it lifted from the lips of real life drag queens and encounters with homophobia by the writer/director. This film certainly does equip you with an arsenal of rapier comebacks. It's the polarised tender moments that also get you. As I say, the drama adds so much depth to the piece. Terence Stamp's portrayal of Bernadette is very well done. You see from the slightest touches that it is a well studied character. Not to take away from the other guys. It is a well balanced act. Cynical old Bernadette, constantly fretting Mitzi and young, carefree Felicia are a winning trio. Bob is just along for the ride, but the development of his relationship with Bernadette is shown in a touching way.

All in all, this is a great film. On a par with Torch Song Trilogy at showing drag artistes in a sympathetic light and the first transsexual I saw in a film. Gay politics aside, it is just a great film. Laugh out loud funny and not just through joke after joke. It's clever, witty and caring about it's protagonists. A+

Lizzie Gardiner and Tim Chappel collecting their Oscars. Her in a dress made from gold Amex cards, him in a tuxedo dress. That's how to red carpet!

"Oh Felicia, where the fuck are we?"

14. L'avventura (1960)

This film by Michelangelo Antonioni was hailed by Sight & Sound magazine as the second greatest film of all time.
When it was screened at Cannes, it was jeered and booed by a hostile audience before critics saved it with plaudits.
I'm with the hostile audience.

The synopsis of the film is roughly; Some rich people go on a cruise off the coast of Sicily. During a trip to a volcanic island, one of them goes missing. The missing woman's fiancee and he best friend get together back on Sicily whilst searching for her. He then cheats on the best friend with a local whore, but she forgives him. Fini. No really, that's it.

It's shot around the coast of Sicily, but it's so oppressively lit that it could be the coast of Scotland. It just looks rather chilly.

Heavily melodramatic, everything (bar Monica Vitti) is poorly lit, at 145 minutes it's a good hour too long and from what little happens, nothing is resolved.

NOT a film to see before you die. Big bag of nothing.

One of the odder scenes, where Vitti is left alone in a town piazza and is stared at by a lot of men who, seemingly, have never seen a woman before. This scene, like the rest of the film, is there with no consequence.