A very belated watching post
Oct. 28th, 2025 06:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thisbluespiritI see the last time I properly did some little write-ups of anything I'd been watching was about June, and that was a catch up one, so I'm forever out of date, but I'll see if I can do better now!
Suspected Person (1942) - a UK B-movie thriller, which I recorded off TPTV because it featured Clifford Evans, Patricia Roc and William Hartnell, and indeed, generally, the only thing worth saying about it was that I did enjoy watching Patricia Roc and Clifford Evans play brother and sister, and William Hartnell did his best to try and steal the film in his scenes, but everything else was very meh and run of the mill. Fine if you want a bonus bit of Hartnell! Or CE & PR, but not of any note for anything else, really. I only wrote this here, because it does prove I still have judgment and therefore my comments on the rest might be worth more.
Death Valley (BBC TV 2025) This was one of the many cosy detective shows I watched over the summer, and it was pretty good! A bit uneven, in that the two main characters were great & so was their odd friendship, but quite a few of the mysteries were very so-so, even for this kind of thing, although they did get better. Gwyneth Keyworth as Janie Mallowan, socially awkward detective with issues, and Timothy Spall as John Chapel, reclusive actor who used to playMaigret/Poirot her favourite TV detective Caesar, were very good together, though & I enjoyed them a lot.
Stephen Poliakoff's The Tribe (BBC 1998), only available via somebody's VHS recording on YT, unless you live in R1, where you might be able to snag a DVD, but the BBC somehow didn't even include it on their Poliakoff at the BBC set. (Why, yes, I AM annoyed that I cannot have a DVD of the Stephen Poliakoff that stars Jeremy Northam, even if it seems reasonable even on small acquaintance with Poliakoff to suggest that it is second tier Poliakoff. Is that not what completist DVD sets for significant playwrghts are for?) It stars Jeremy Northam, Joely Richardson, Anna Friel, Trevor Eve & Laura Fraser, plus Jonathan Rhys Meyers & Julian Rhind-Tutt & is all about a very 90s collection of concerns - creating different kinds of living spaces and the hypocrisy of those who grew up in the 60s having the sexual freedom of expression and creativity that they refuse to allow the 90s to have.
Property developer Jamie (Northam) is sent by his company to try and either pay off or dig up dirt on the supposed cult - "The Tribe" - who are (legally) occupying a building in south London that they want to buy and demolish, so he approaches them openly as a double agent, but is drawn in by their way of life, which represents a kind of fantasy to him, an allowed sexual experimentation/cheating - "every young executive's dream" Anna Friel's Lizzie says to him later. Joely Richardson's Emily, their leader, tries to create a safe living space by using the cult image as a way to effectively scare off predators, but everything falls apart; despite Jamie trying to help them, he can't really - and Emily and Jamie (both coming from comfortable backgrounds) can both just start again despite what they've lost, but people like Lizzie and the rest of the tribe are thrown back to the wolves. (On the JN front, he is very pretty in it and eats a lot of insects, for reasons.)
It got rather lost at the time in the UK tabloid hoo-ha over Anna Friel's nudity, which may be why only the US got a DVD, because nobody over there would have known what Brookside was to care. The scene in question is actually a m/m/f threesome between Jamie, Lizzie and Jonathan Rhys Meyers's character. It is generally pretty queer throughout as well and few of the relationships are clear cut. (This means it is Known in The Tudors fandom, because yep, Henry VIII did sleep with Thomas More one time). It was also apparently originally intended for cinema release and then delayed for 2 years and put out on BBC2 instead. Anyway, it and its themes still linger in my head, so I'm very grateful to the YT uploader.
The Halfway House (1944), starring Mervyn & Glynis Johns and Esmond Knight. This is another film I recorded off TPTV because it's summary was "a bunch of strangers get stranded together." It was very much a game of two halves - I watched it in two sittings (unusually quickly for me), because I adored the first half of it. The premise was interesting, there was an unexpected supernatural element that was startling reminiscent of some aspects of Sapphire & Steel and the script had all these nice, gratuitous touches of humour and character. The final half all wound up in everyone getting remorselessly hammered into doing their moral wartime duty. I've never seen anything so relentless about dealing with its characters, especially something that had been handling things so much better before that. The Halfway House is an inn in Wales, which they all travel to, but which becomes apparent, was in fact bombed into nothing in a raid a year before, so they are staying in a ghost house, being seen to and moralised by two very elemental-like ghosts. Esmond Knight's rather more complex and melancholy ending (albeit still his proper wartime duty; I'm not exaggerating the relentlessness) was also good. Aside from the top notch if rather moralising haunting, highlights were the black marketeer at the start turning down a possible recruit because of the shame of him having been a part of the local council (he has standards), and the teenager's efforts to reunite her parents that just don't work like they do in the films - all of which would have been more fun if the Halfway House and its ghosts hadn't beaten everyone back into line with sledgehammers at the end. I will allow a lot for it being actually made during WWII, but even so, that was a bit much.
So, with that big caveat but nevertheless well worth watching if you're intrigued by possible S&S ancestors and ghost buildings & I'm sure going in warned would make it a better experience overall. If someone wanted to remake it but fix the ending, I would be all over it in a shot.
Anyway, I have no regrets over every film I've recorded off TPTV because of the summary being "bunch of random mid-century Brits get stranded somewhere," and I will continue to snag any others I see - if there are any more!
Suspected Person (1942) - a UK B-movie thriller, which I recorded off TPTV because it featured Clifford Evans, Patricia Roc and William Hartnell, and indeed, generally, the only thing worth saying about it was that I did enjoy watching Patricia Roc and Clifford Evans play brother and sister, and William Hartnell did his best to try and steal the film in his scenes, but everything else was very meh and run of the mill. Fine if you want a bonus bit of Hartnell! Or CE & PR, but not of any note for anything else, really. I only wrote this here, because it does prove I still have judgment and therefore my comments on the rest might be worth more.
Death Valley (BBC TV 2025) This was one of the many cosy detective shows I watched over the summer, and it was pretty good! A bit uneven, in that the two main characters were great & so was their odd friendship, but quite a few of the mysteries were very so-so, even for this kind of thing, although they did get better. Gwyneth Keyworth as Janie Mallowan, socially awkward detective with issues, and Timothy Spall as John Chapel, reclusive actor who used to play
Stephen Poliakoff's The Tribe (BBC 1998), only available via somebody's VHS recording on YT, unless you live in R1, where you might be able to snag a DVD, but the BBC somehow didn't even include it on their Poliakoff at the BBC set. (Why, yes, I AM annoyed that I cannot have a DVD of the Stephen Poliakoff that stars Jeremy Northam, even if it seems reasonable even on small acquaintance with Poliakoff to suggest that it is second tier Poliakoff. Is that not what completist DVD sets for significant playwrghts are for?) It stars Jeremy Northam, Joely Richardson, Anna Friel, Trevor Eve & Laura Fraser, plus Jonathan Rhys Meyers & Julian Rhind-Tutt & is all about a very 90s collection of concerns - creating different kinds of living spaces and the hypocrisy of those who grew up in the 60s having the sexual freedom of expression and creativity that they refuse to allow the 90s to have.
Property developer Jamie (Northam) is sent by his company to try and either pay off or dig up dirt on the supposed cult - "The Tribe" - who are (legally) occupying a building in south London that they want to buy and demolish, so he approaches them openly as a double agent, but is drawn in by their way of life, which represents a kind of fantasy to him, an allowed sexual experimentation/cheating - "every young executive's dream" Anna Friel's Lizzie says to him later. Joely Richardson's Emily, their leader, tries to create a safe living space by using the cult image as a way to effectively scare off predators, but everything falls apart; despite Jamie trying to help them, he can't really - and Emily and Jamie (both coming from comfortable backgrounds) can both just start again despite what they've lost, but people like Lizzie and the rest of the tribe are thrown back to the wolves. (On the JN front, he is very pretty in it and eats a lot of insects, for reasons.)
It got rather lost at the time in the UK tabloid hoo-ha over Anna Friel's nudity, which may be why only the US got a DVD, because nobody over there would have known what Brookside was to care. The scene in question is actually a m/m/f threesome between Jamie, Lizzie and Jonathan Rhys Meyers's character. It is generally pretty queer throughout as well and few of the relationships are clear cut. (This means it is Known in The Tudors fandom, because yep, Henry VIII did sleep with Thomas More one time). It was also apparently originally intended for cinema release and then delayed for 2 years and put out on BBC2 instead. Anyway, it and its themes still linger in my head, so I'm very grateful to the YT uploader.
The Halfway House (1944), starring Mervyn & Glynis Johns and Esmond Knight. This is another film I recorded off TPTV because it's summary was "a bunch of strangers get stranded together." It was very much a game of two halves - I watched it in two sittings (unusually quickly for me), because I adored the first half of it. The premise was interesting, there was an unexpected supernatural element that was startling reminiscent of some aspects of Sapphire & Steel and the script had all these nice, gratuitous touches of humour and character. The final half all wound up in everyone getting remorselessly hammered into doing their moral wartime duty. I've never seen anything so relentless about dealing with its characters, especially something that had been handling things so much better before that. The Halfway House is an inn in Wales, which they all travel to, but which becomes apparent, was in fact bombed into nothing in a raid a year before, so they are staying in a ghost house, being seen to and moralised by two very elemental-like ghosts. Esmond Knight's rather more complex and melancholy ending (albeit still his proper wartime duty; I'm not exaggerating the relentlessness) was also good. Aside from the top notch if rather moralising haunting, highlights were the black marketeer at the start turning down a possible recruit because of the shame of him having been a part of the local council (he has standards), and the teenager's efforts to reunite her parents that just don't work like they do in the films - all of which would have been more fun if the Halfway House and its ghosts hadn't beaten everyone back into line with sledgehammers at the end. I will allow a lot for it being actually made during WWII, but even so, that was a bit much.
So, with that big caveat but nevertheless well worth watching if you're intrigued by possible S&S ancestors and ghost buildings & I'm sure going in warned would make it a better experience overall. If someone wanted to remake it but fix the ending, I would be all over it in a shot.
Anyway, I have no regrets over every film I've recorded off TPTV because of the summary being "bunch of random mid-century Brits get stranded somewhere," and I will continue to snag any others I see - if there are any more!
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Date: 2025-10-28 07:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-10-28 08:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-10-28 09:37 pm (UTC)I am entertained by this fact and also so glad the film worked out for you! It sounds actively good at opposed to a curiosity.
The Halfway House is an inn in Wales, which they all travel to, but which becomes apparent, was in fact bombed into nothing in a raid a year before, so they are staying in a ghost house, being seen to and moralised by two very elemental-like ghosts. Esmond Knight's rather more complex and melancholy ending (albeit still his proper wartime duty; I'm not exaggerating the relentlessness) was also good.
I still want to write about this one for exactly the ghosts and Esmond Knight. It was on the docket for October, but then the second half of the month went splat.
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Date: 2025-10-29 08:12 pm (UTC)I suppose the sheer number of Thomases would dictate that sooner or later he would sleep with one of them in some guise or another. XD
And, yes, it was. I'm not surprised because I know Stephen Poliakoff is suposed to be very good and I've always been intrigued by his BBC plays/dramas whenever I saw them advertised - I just had a feeling c.20 years ago I wasn't ready for them, and then of course I was so ill for so long, anything like that was out of the question. JN giving me a helpful intro by chance was great! I loved Glorious 39, too. He seems to write psychological stuff of one sort of another - G39 is a psychological thriller, The Tribe a psychological drama and the complexities of character and motivation is always very good. I shall have to catch some of his more famous ones now, when I can.
I still want to write about this one for exactly the ghosts and Esmond Knight. It was on the docket for October, but then the second half of the month went splat.
I hope you get the chance sometime. <3 The haunting and Esmond Knight were both great and it's such a fascinating near miss that could have been a hidden gem, really, if only. I still haven't deleted it off the DVR.
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Date: 2025-10-31 01:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-10-31 08:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-10-28 10:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-10-29 07:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-10-29 08:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-10-29 08:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-10-29 01:57 pm (UTC)Boo to 'The Tribe' being on the wrong region disc. Still, it's good to hear to it did does typical second tier "auteur" business in that it has more effect than it's labeling suggests.
'Death Valley' was a nice change from grimdark Sunday dramas, apart from the murders;p
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Date: 2025-10-29 08:18 pm (UTC)He and the ghosts were very good! And it's not that the rest weren't, just they were hammered into place at the end so firmly. Worth watching; just brace yourself for everyone being packed off to do their wartime duty, no other options available.
Boo to 'The Tribe' being on the wrong region disc. Still, it's good to hear to it did does typical second tier "auteur" business in that it has more effect than it's labeling suggests.
Oh, yeah, I didn't really doubt that it would have substance and be interesting, even if it wasn't top tier. And who knows, maybe I'll disagree re. which are top tier, heh? Maybe I'll still prefer Jeremy Northam eating dried insects and getting nervously seduced by Jonathan Rhys Meyers anyway. XD
'Death Valley' was a nice change from grimdark Sunday dramas, apart from the murders;p
It is the downside of all these cosy detectives! People keep having to die and be arrested or else there's nothing to do all week.
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Date: 2025-10-29 09:35 pm (UTC)I just hadn't realized that his CV had a bug period.
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Date: 2025-10-30 06:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-10-30 02:06 pm (UTC)I'd be rearranging all the tiers and bah-ing critics as is my wont;p Nervous seduction sounds fun. Not so much insect eating, not so bad if they're dried.
Why can't people be cozy without death? That's the real mystery...
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Date: 2025-10-30 06:31 pm (UTC)He clutches the sheets and JFM has to chat to him for a bit until he relaxes enough to get into the whole idea. XD
idk, though, the others do sound very good... But, yeah, fave seduction and bug-eating is a plus. I also liked that the less keen he was at work and the more he bulshitted his way through things, the more his boss wanted to promote him. It seemed very accurate.
Why can't people be cozy without death? That's the real mystery...
We need murder to solve! Although, really, more robberies should be a thing and then you could have mysteries without death. Some of the very cosy ones do resort to that occasionally, it's true.
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Date: 2025-10-31 03:21 pm (UTC)It seemed very accurate prob based on real life experience!
Yes a few more nice clean robberies! I think the Cornwall 'Death in Paradise' thingy one faves mysteries over murders, but I've watched too many cozies to recall:S
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Date: 2025-10-31 06:09 pm (UTC)S&H have always tended to be more small scale too, but idk if that's true of the new series.
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Date: 2025-11-01 01:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-11-01 02:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-10-29 02:19 pm (UTC)Shame about The Tribe not having a(n accessible) DVD release.
Esmond Knight?? Nice! (Not so nice the moralising shtick...)
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Date: 2025-10-29 08:21 pm (UTC)He did try to liven up the film!
Shame about The Tribe not having a(n accessible) DVD release.
If it's a thing by someone as famous as Stephen Poliakoff, made for the BBC, yeah, I'm protesting as this injustice. :D
Esmond Knight?? Nice! (Not so nice the moralising shtick...)
If you bomb some Welsh people into being ghosts, they WILL make sure you do your wartime duty or else! XD
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Date: 2025-10-29 05:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-10-29 08:00 pm (UTC)