“You can never help anything, can you? You’re like a leaf that the wind blows from one gutter to another.” ‘Out of the Past’, directed by Jacques Tourneur in 1947, is a film noir starring Robert Mitchum as a private investigator in hiding whose past catches up with him when a businessman tracks him down…

“Do you have to open graves to find ghosts to fall in love with?” In dark and eldritch celebration of Halloween I’ve made the sign of the Devil, summoned up the spirits of the dead, called on the services of Mephistopheles, raised the dread demon Pazuzu, supped with the Great God Pan and abandoned my…

My experience of the films of Akira Kurosawa before I started this journey through international cinema was limited. I’d seen ‘Rashomon’, bits of ‘Seven Samurai’ and, because of the film’s connection with ‘Star Wars’, the beginning of ‘The Hidden Fortress’. As with Andrei Tarkovsy, it took a few films to adjust my expectations to what…

“You must have patience, even while people die. Only thus can the whole evil be destroyed. You must let it grow.” I’m a happy member of the ‘Folk Horror Revival’ Facebook group. I bought the ‘Folk Horror Revival: Field Studies’ book and I’ve contributed a poem to the up-coming ‘Corpse Roads’ anthology, but I have…

“We all need discipline. You said yourself they’re like children. Without discipline we should all behave like children.” ‘Black Narcissus’, directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger in 1947, is a British melodrama set in a convent of nuns in the Himalayas. Sister Superior Clodagh, played by Deborah Kerr, is placed in charge of a…

“You’ve got the brain of a pancake. This isn’t just a story you’re covering – it’s a revolution. This is the greatest yarn in journalism since Livingstone discovered Stanley.” ‘His Girl Friday’, directed by Howard Hawks in 1940, is an American screwball comedy based on a play by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur. Rosalind Russell…

“No, that room made her happy in some strange way I couldn’t understand. She lived in a world of her own fancy. She didn’t always tell the truth. In fact, I’m afraid she didn’t know what the truth was.” ‘The Seventh Victim’, directed by Mark Robson in 1943, is a psychological horror set in contemporary…

‘Le Sang des Bêtes’ and ‘Judex’, are two French movies directed by Georges Franju in 1948 and 1963 respectively. The former is a short documentary depicting the men working in abattoirs in post-war France, whilst the latter is an adventure movie based on a silent film from 1916. ‘Le Sang des Bêtes’ is a brutal,…

It is now five months since I finished watching Mark Cousins’ ‘Story of Film’ and decided to increase my knowledge of and exposure to more interesting movies (I’m aware all this makes it sound like a prison sentence). I’ve watched, thought about and written about 133 movies watched which means around 30,000 words or a…

“This movie, shot in Berlin in the summer of 1947 aims only to be an objective and true portrait of this large, almost totally destroyed city where 3.5 million people live a terrible, desperate life, almost without realizing it. They live as if tragedy were natural, not because of strength or faith, but because they…

“Ever done any hitchhiking? It’s not much fun, believe me. Oh yeah, I know all about how it’s an education, and how you get to meet a lot of people, and all that. But me, from now on I’ll take my education in college, or in PS-62, or I’ll send $1.98 in stamps for ten…

“It is one of those works that has proceeded directly to the status of Great Movie without going through the intermediate stage of being a good movie. I hope earnest students of cinema will forgive me when I say every serious movie lover should see it – once.” ‘Ivan the Terrible’, a two part film…

“Bad luck can make a man or destroy a man.” ‘Stray Dog’, written and directed by Akira Kurosawa in 1949, is a noirish police-procedural set in a sweltering heatwave in 1940s Tokyo. Murakami, played by Toshiro Mifune, is a cop who has his gun stolen and used in a murder. Together with his partner, played…