W.P. Lipscomb

I was fossicking about in a Classic DVD section and stumbled across a copy of this 1956 film based on Neville Shute's novel of the same name, starring Virginia McKenna and Peter Finch.

This is a fictional story of a group of British women and children civilian prisoners in Malaya in the Second World War, and an Australian soldier who helps them. Actually quite a powerful film, especially when you consider it was filmed only 11 years after the war.

Neville Shute always intrigued me as an author - immensely popular in the 1950's and 60's he appears to have faded into seeming obscurity with the passing of the years. He left Britain after the war and moved to Australia, settling not far from where I grew up on the Mornington Peninsula. I first encountered his work at high school when I read 'On the Beach'.

Likewise, Peter Finch is an Australian actor who has seemingly faded from view with the passage of time, and probably worth the time finding some more movies in which he starred.

Filmed on location in Malaya, Australia and the ubiquitous Pinewood Studios, England. DVD release by ITV studios.

Recommended if you can find a copy.

- Copy Purchased by the Reviewer, JB-Hi Fi, Brighton $A19.… (altro)

It's okay

I watched this one night after watching the 1989 James Wilby version, and in several ways I found it superior to that more recent one. The mob scenes in Paris had people stretching as far as the eye can see instead of topping out at maybe 30 or 40 rather harmless looking individuals. The muddy Dover road and the filthy Paris street where the wine cask broke seemed more authentic. I thought that both Stryver and Cruncher were more interesting in the 1935 version, and Colman's Carton definitely came across more sympathetically than Wilby's.

Nevertheless, I felt this movie was a pale imitation of the novel. Here are some the reasons:

1) The movie felt too American (almost like a Western) and too permeated with a chipper attitude.

2) While it's nice not to have Carton sulking throughout the movie, I think Colman's portrayal goes too far in the opposite direction. I feel that the Carton that Dickens created needed that night wandering the streets of Paris pondering life and death and salvation to give him the strength to go through with his sacrifice. The closing episode between Carton and the seamstress is one of the most powerful in literature, and it's disappointing that that episode loses so much power when translated to the screen.

3) I've got nothing against Christmas, but I disagree with the filmmaker's decision to turn this into a Christmas movie (complete with anachronistic Christmas carols).

4) Dickens was not just a good storyteller; he had a remarkable mastery of the English language. Of necessity, his text needs to be cut and pared in order to make a movie of reasonable length, but most dramatizations of his work seem to go far beyond what's necessary in replacing the author's words with words that the screenwriter/director/producer like better. I felt that this film didn't preserve as much of the author's magical phrasing as it might have.… (altro)