Gregory's Two Girls :fresh: 8

Best in Show: John Gordon Sinclair
One for the future: John Gordon Sinclair
Stand-out scene: Cross-examination in Head's office
Brainer or no-brainer: Brainer
Stands up to one viewing or repeated?: Repeated
DVD commentary any good?: n/a

TV
For anyone who was an adolescent in the UK at the time this movie was first released at cinemas (1981) Gregory's Girl is a classic film of its time. Much to his credit, writer-director Bill Forsyth takes something of a radical tack with this belated follow-up (there's 18 years between the two movies). Instead of this being a lazy re-tread, as many belated sequels are (Men in Black 2 springs to mind) this has *shock horror* A NEW STORY TO TELL! Now there's a welcome turn up for the screenplays! Gregory is now a teacher at the school that formed the setting for many of the angst-ridden episodes of the first movie. He's still struggling with relationships with members of the opposite sex but that plot strand takes a backseat to the main issue to this movie; the manufacture of torture devices at a Scottish factory. Liberal-minded Gregory is called upon to put his money where his mouth is when two of the pupils at the school approach him with evidence of the production of said instruments by a firm owned by one of Gregory's childhood pals, Fraser Rowan (Dougray Scott). Using his friendship with Fraser to secure two work placements for the pair of outraged youngsters, Gregory seizes his chance to actively make a stand for human rights and expose the wrongs perpetrated on his doorstep. As one of the pupils is a young girl of whom Gregory has been having improper thoughts (the opening sequence) Forsyth has an opportunity to introduce some comic relief into the proceedings. This provides the best sequence of the movie when Gregory is summoned to the Head's Office to explain why he was in a park at night with one of his pupils. Badger-watching is the pre-arranged explanation but Gregory mixes up his words and instead of badger says beaver. It may be clumsy in places, and a tad overlong but this is a movie with its heart in the right place and that counts for a lot. Worth watching.

Best in Show: John Mills
One for the future: n/a
Stand-out scene: Getting the ambulance up the slope
Brainer or no-brainer: No brainer
Stands up to one viewing or repeated?: Repeated
DVD commentary any good?: n/a

TV
Black and white British war films conform to a set structure and this is no exception; there's stiff upper lips all round in this slightly incredulous but nonetheless interesting offering. Set in North Africa during WW2, during the evacuation of a British army base, Captain Anson (Sir John Mills, RIP) is charged with accompanying an ambulance to Alexandria. Accompanied by MSM Pugh (Harry Andrews), their numbers are swelled by the addition of two nurses (Sylvia Syms and Diane Clare) and a South African officer (Anthony Quayle), whom they pick up on the way. The subsequent action takes the form of a road movie, the various pitfalls of the journey threatening the protagonists' very lives. They soon suspect that the South African is not all he seems but several times during the journey his presence proves invaluable. Mills' Anson begins the film exhausted and three sheets to the wind; it transpires that he has been treating fatigue with booze and the crew need him to be on top form in order that they survive the trip. Hilariously, several scenes had to be reshot as Syms' blouse was deemed to be too revealingly unbuttoned, the movie being filmed in a studio in It Aint Half Hot Mom conditions. Despite this being over two hours long it was trimmed back to 80 minutes for its American release. More fool them as they missed out on a cracking story in its full length form.

Best in Show: Stanley Holloway
One for the future: n/a
Stand-out scene: The townsfolk pushing the train along the tracks
Brainer or no-brainer: Brainer
Stands up to one viewing or repeated?: Repeated
DVD commentary any good?:

TV
Ealing Studio's first foray into colour film, this 1953 farce is up to their usual high standard. No Alec Guinness though (a staple Ealing player); this time around it's Stanley Holloway and Sid James who are the recognisable names. Two years on from The Lavender Hill Mob, director Charles Crichton deftly weaves the farcical situations together, with a pleasing eye for sumptuous landscapes along the way. It's basically the story of a group of townsfolk who decide to run their local railway themselves when BR close the line. Pressure from a recently founded bus company is at the root of the action and it's the face off between road and rail that triggers most of the comedy moments. The film 'rails' against the nationalisation of the railway, harking back to the halcyon days of privitisation and it's highly prescient in the fact that shortly after it was made the wholesale closure of rural stations began in earnest. Comedy with a serious message.

:fresh: 8/10 Movie: The Titfield Thunderbolt

Best in Show: Phil Cornwell
One for the future: Phil Cornwell
Brainer or no-brainer: Brainer
Stands up to one viewing or repeated?: Once (sadly)
DVD commentary any good?: n/a

TV
I had high hopes for this 'full length' version of the hit 10-minute BBC2 comedy which began in 1997. Considering the time it must have taken to film (the cast predominantly consists of just two blokes) you would have thought they would have devised a better script than the one deployed here. Ronni Ancona is a welcome addition to the Cornwell-Sessions dynamic but her main role is that of the chief bad girl. I was hoping that Audrey Hepburn was going to be a new resident on the Street, but instead she chips in with brief renditions of Posh and Madonna. It's not without its moments; Cornwell's David Bowie is consistently funny and the sight of Mick Jagger querying a price as a supermarket checkout operator is hilarious. Al Pacino and Jack Nicholson's famous scenes reenactments raised a chuckle but director Peter Richardson of The Comic Strip fame should really have made the most of his opportunity here to come up with something really special. considering the talent at his disposal.

:rotten: 6/10: Movie