Quick takes on 5 CLASSIC films

I’m ashamed to admit I had never seen David Lean’s Brief Encounter before. Considerd one of the greatest British films of all time, and directed by one of the greatest as well, this one should be on every film lover’s list. Released in 1945, this movie tells the tale of a chance meeting by Mrs Laura Jesson and a doctor, Alec Harvey, at a train station. Every Thursday Laura comes to town to shop for the family, and Alec comes to work at the hospital. They meet one day, and begin an emotional affair every Thursday over the next month. Remember that this takes place in the ’40’s, so Laura and Alec leaving their respective families is unheard of for a middle class family, and Laura is torn by this turn of events. The film is mostly narrated via Laura’s thoughts, and features stirring, sometimes heart-breaking dialogue and a sweeping backdrop soundtrack. A tremendous, multifaceted movie. Anyone that says they don’t like “old movies” should see this one, it will change your mind.

I followed this one up with another David Lean/Noel Coward collaboration, 1942’s In Which We Serve. This one, about the men serving on an English gunship in World War II, is equally well written, but not quite as engaging as Brief Encounter. For me it almost feels like wartime propaganda. It is definitely a rah-rah, patriotic film, telling the story of the men’s joined experience and their anxious families at home. Early in this film, the ship these men are on is destroyed by the Germans, and while the survivors cling to flotsam, the backstory is told in flashbacks. In this way we get to know each of the main characters. The movie glosses over shortcomings and paints nearly all of them in glowing lights. A good film, though for me, not all that memorable.

In the spirit of Halloween, I watched some old scary movies this weekend. Eyes Without a Face is a great, classic French horror film dating to 1960. At a time when Hollywood and Britain were pumping out movies of this genre, these filmmakers wanted to get in on the act, but didn’t want to do another Dracula. Eyes Without a Face is a deeply emotional movie about a young lady who has lost her face to an accident. Her father is a doctor, and he has been killing beautiful young women and doing face transplants on his daughter, in an effort to give her beauty back to her. This was a horror movie from a different era, and doesn’t have the same kind of scares we know today, but it is great classic cinema. The graphic (and very well done) scene where the dad slices off a victim’s face on camera is simply fantastic, and the ending (very French) is tremendous.

The Innocents is from the same era, being released in 1961. Starring the great Deborah Kerr, this one is about a governess, Miss Giddens, hired to look after a young boy and girl left alone when their previous governess dies suddenly (the parents too are dead). She arrives to the expansive estate and likes the girl immediately, but finds the boy slightly disturbing. Miss Giddens also starts to see spirits floating around in the empty wings of the large house. She is convinced the children see them too, though the housekeeper isn’t much help initially. We start to question Giddens’ sanity, but ultimately the story plays out to a grand conclusion. A good pyschological thriller.

The Brood is a newer film (1979), but it did come out before I was born, so I’ll consider it a classic this time. Another good old thriller, this one is a little less psychological and a lot more straight-forward gore fest, the kind you’d expect from the ’70’s. Frank is fighting his estranged wife Nola for custody of their daughter, Candace. Nola, however, is currently getting mental help from Hal, a new-agey “psychoplasmics” therapist who has very strange ideas about how to get better. People around Frank start to be killed by a team of small, dwarf-like creatures, who pass for children upon cursory examination, and he starts to suspect Hal (and possibly Nola) is connected. The penultimate scene at the climax of this film is fantasticly gross and unexpected, there for pure shock value but definitely worth it. A great film to watch on Halloween, I’ll be watching this one again this time next year.