THE HEARSE. (1980) REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©

sandrafirstruleoffilmclubharris

THE HEARSE. (1980) DIRECTED BY GEORGE BOWERS. STARRING TRISH VAN DEVERE, DAVID GAUTREAUX, MED FLORY, DONALD HOTTON, PERRY LANG AND JOSEPH COTTEN.

REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©

Trish Van Devere, who this very same year co-starred alongside her real-life husband George C. Scott in the classic ghost story THE CHANGELING, has the lead role in this spooky shocker.

She plays Jane Hardie, an attractive young city school-teacher maybe pushing forty who, in the same year, has suffered through the death of her mother and the break-up of her marriage.

Well, those things are enough to shake anybody up and Jane herself admits that she went ‘a little crazy for a while’ when these events came along to rock her world to its foundations.

She’s slowly getting better now though, and she’s ready for a change of scenery. She intends to drive out to the countryside and spend the summer in…

View original post 1,129 more words

Advertisements

ALFRED HITCHCOCK’S THE LODGER: A STORY OF THE LONDON FOG. (1927) REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©

sandrafirstruleoffilmclubharris

THE LODGER: A STORY OF THE LONDON FOG. (1927) DIRECTED BY ALFRED HITCHCOCK.

BASED ON THE NOVEL BY MARIE BELLOC LOWNDES AND THE PLAY CO-WRITTEN BY MARIE BELLOC LOWNDES.

STARRING IVOR NOVELLO, MALCOLM KEEN, JUNE TRIPP, MARIE AULT AND ARTHUR CHESNEY.

REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©

This fog-wreathed silent movie has the distinction of being the first real thriller ever directed by a certain Alfred Hitchcock, and the distinction also of being a bloody good film as well.

It already bears some of the future hallmarks of the great man’s directing and, in fact, it’s a jolly polished product for a first-timer. Not many thriller directors could have achieved such perfection on a first try.

Thirty-eight years have elapsed since Jack The Ripper held the city of London to ransom in the infamous ‘Autumn of Terror’ in 1888, and here now we have Alfred Hitchcock presenting us with this spooky…

View original post 1,037 more words

BLACKADDER. (1983-1989) THE COMPLETE FOUR SERIES REVIEWED BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©

sandrafirstruleoffilmclubharris

BLACKADDER. (1983-1989) THE COMPLETE FOUR SERIES REVIEWED BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©

WRITTEN BY ROWAN ATKINSON, RICHARD CURTIS AND BEN ELTON.

STARRING ROWAN ATKINSON, TONY ROBINSON, HUGH LAURIE, STEPHEN FRY, TIM MCINNERNY, MIRANDA RICHARDSON, PATSY BYRNE, BRIAN BLESSED, MIRIAM MARGOLYES, JIM BROADBENT AND GABRIELLE GLAISTER.

‘Baldrick, it’s the stickiest situation anyone’s ever been in since Sticky the Stick Insect got stuck on a sticky bun.’

‘Yes, the Teutonic reputation for brutality is well-founded, Baldrick. Their operas go on for three or four days and they have no word for ‘fluffy.’

By anyone’s standards, this British pseudo-historical situation comedy snaps, crackles and pops in all the right places. It’s bally well top-notch stuff, as Lieutenant George himself might say. It always comes near the top of Best Sitcom Lists and, as far as the English are concerned, only two other sitcoms could possibly top it: ONLY FOOLS AND HORSES and FAWLTY TOWERS.

View original post 1,415 more words

SEE NO EVIL: THE MOORS MURDERS. (2006) REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©

sandrafirstruleoffilmclubharris

SEE NO EVIL: THE MOORS MURDERS. (2006) BASED ON TRUE EVENTS.

DIRECTED BY CHRISTOPHER MENAUL. WRITTEN BY NEIL MCKAY.

STARRING SEAN HARRIS, MAXINE PEAKE, JOANNE FROGGATT, MATTHEW MCNULTY, GEORGE COSTIGAN , SUSAN TWIST AND JOHN HENSHAW.

REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©

‘Does a dog have a soul…?’

This one originally aired on ITV over the course of two nights in 2006, and I’d say there was hardly a family in the whole of England and Ireland that wasn’t glued to it. I was watching it myself and I thought it was phenomenally well done, despite the horrific subject matter. Having re-visited it recently as a two-hour-and-seventeen-minute film, the impact was no less powerful.

It’s the story of the infamous Moors Murders as seen through the eyes of Myra Hindley’s younger sister Maureen, whom Myra called Mo or Moby and genuinely seemed to love, if such a cold-hearted woman could be…

View original post 1,306 more words

SERGIO LEONE’S ‘ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST.’ (1968) REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©

sandrafirstruleoffilmclubharris

ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST. (1968) DIRECTED BY SERGIO LEONE.

STORY BY DARIO ARGENTO, BERNARDO BERTOLUCCI AND SERGIO LEONE. STARRING CLAUDIA CARDINALE, HENRY FONDA, JASON ROBARDS, CHARLES BRONSON AND GABRIELE FORZETTI.

MUSIC BY ENNIO MORRICONE.

REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©

‘He not only plays. He can shoot too.’

‘Gonna be a beautiful town, Sweetwater.’

‘People like that have something inside. Something to do with death.’

‘Nothing matters now. Not the land, not the money, not the woman.’

‘How can you trust a man who wears both a belt and suspenders? Guy doesn’t even trust his own pants.’

‘He’s whittling on a piece of wood. I gotta feeling when he stops whittling, something’s gonna happen.’

Christ Almighty, I love cowboys. Hot sweaty cowboys in films like this one really do it for me. With their week’s growth of beard, tousled hair, cigarette-smoke-narrowed eyes and big fat holsters, they push…

View original post 1,383 more words

THE REVENGE OF ROBERT THE DOLL (2018) and WEREWOLVES OF THE THIRD REICH (2017): TWO NAZI HORROR FILMS REVIEWED BY SANDRA HARRIS.

sandrafirstruleoffilmclubharris

THE REVENGE OF ROBERT THE DOLL (2018) AND WEREWOLVES OF THE THIRD REICH (2017): A DOUBLE BILL OF TRULY WOEFUL NAZI HORROR FILMS REVIEWED BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©

I received both of these films as a birthday present recently and I had great craic watching them, despite the fact that they’re both awful, lol. THE REVENGE OF ROBERT THE DOLL is apparently the third film in a trilogy, so somewhere out there, knocking around merrily as if they haven’t got a care in the world, are the two other films that spawned this unholy hell-child.

Based on a real doll, a doll that exists in real life and is said to be possessed of supernatural powers, it’s by far the worst film of my two birthday gifts. It’s a film of two halves. The first half actually promises to be good, believe it or not.

An obviously abused wife is…

View original post 908 more words

AUSCHWITZ: THE LAST JOURNEY. (2006) REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©

sandrafirstruleoffilmclubharris

AUSCHWITZ: THE LAST JOURNEY (DER LETZTE ZUG). (2006) DIRECTED BY JOSEPH VILSMAIER AND DANA VAVROVA. STARRING GEDEON BURKHARD, LALE YAVAS, LENA BEYERLING, SIBEL KEKILLI, ROMAN ROTH AND LUDWIG BLOCHBERGER.

REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©

‘Hey, don’t feed the animals…!’

This German language film is an absolute masterpiece, utterly compelling but undoubtedly grim viewing at the same time. It’s an historically and factually accurate depiction of the dreadful journey of one of the Holocaust trains transporting Jews to Auschwitz, as seen from the viewpoints of two or three specific little families or couples.

The journey starts at home, with the inevitable tramp of booted feet on the quiet streets outside in the middle of the night. Then it’s ‘Open up, it’s the Gestapo!’ and the terrified Jews, the last few Jews left in Berlin, have only five minutes to pack their things and get downstairs to the waiting trucks and…

View original post 1,190 more words