Glasgow; Odeon. Strathclyde; f Odeon (Hamilton). Rialto.
j o Defence of the Realm (PG) (David
5 Drury, UK, 1985) Gabriel Byrne,
Denholm Elliott, Greta Scacchi, Ian Bannen. 96 mins. Fleet Street hack
Byrne stumbles onto a nice juicy scandal involving an Opposition MP, the KGB and a call girl Edinburgh: Dominion
o The Devil is a Woman (PG) (Josef von Sternberg. US, 1935) Marlene Dietrich, Cesar Romero, Lionel Atwill. 82 mins. In 18903 Seville a fascination with the beautiful and alluring Concha Perez proves the downfall of many a good man.
Sumptuous. hypnotic directorial tour de force. Reputedly Dietrich‘s favourite film, ‘Because I looked more lovely in that film than in any other of my career.‘ Edinburgh; Filmhouse 0 Fire Festival (18) (Mitsuo Yanagimachi. Japan, 1984) Kinya Kitaoji. Ryota Nakamoto. 118 mins. See panel interview. Edinburgh; Filmhouse 0 Flaming Hearts (Bockmayer and Biihrmann, W Germany, 1978) How a Bavarian wins a trip to New York, meets up with a fellow countrywoman in the underground and is elected ‘Corn Flower King‘ at the New York Oktoberfest.
A surreal tale of melodrama and homesickness. Glasgow: German Cine-Club 0 The Go-Between (15) (Joseph Losey. UK, 1970) Alan Bates. Julie Christie. 116 mins. Staying at an Edwardian English country house, an unwitting 12 year-old carries love letters between his friends sister and a local farmer. Joseph Losey and Harold Pinter adapting the L.P.Hartley novel couldn‘t really go wrong, and it doesn‘t. Edinburgh: Odeon
‘ 0 Great Expectations (U) (David
Lean. UK. 1946) John Mills. Alec Guinness. Valerie Hobson. 118 mins. A mysterious benefactor assists the social rise ofa poor orphan who discovers that money and position aren‘t everything. Filmed in the marshlands of East Kent, along the Thames estuary. this
is a faithful encapsulation of the essence ofthe Dickens novel. : Edinburgh; EU Filmsoc
O Judex (PG) (Georges Franju. France. 1967) 97 mins. Affectionate 1960s remake of Louis Feuillade‘s early French silent thriller serials.
The comic strip genre with goodie . superhero vs baddie supervillain is now a commonplace. but the French
do this sort of thing with so much more visual inspiration. Edinburgh;
j Filmhouse
ABC. Strathclyde; ABC 26 The [Iii—311111.11 ' '
0 Letter To Brezhnev ( 15) (Chris Bernard. UK. 1985) Peter Firth. Margi Clarke. Alexandra Pigg. 95 mins. Lively Livernudlian comedy-romance ..1 which two scallies paint the town red with a couple of Russian sailors. One girl finds true romance and looks to the Soviet leader for a ticket to happiness. A gritty low-budget triumph of rough charm and ready wit. with notable performances.
Glasgow; Grosvenor. Lothian;
FILM LIST
Death in a French Garden (18) (Michel Devilie, France, 1985) Michel Piccoli, Nicole Garcia, Christophe Malavoy. 101 mins. Director Michel Deville, subject of a recent retrospective at Glasgow’s French Cine-Club, is little known in this country. Few of his films have been commercially successful and even fewer have made the journey across the Channel. Death in a French Garden, a stylish thriller, has proved an uncharacteristic box-office smash, breaking house records in Paris and London.
A young, attractive musician is hired by a well-to-do couple as a guitartutor lortheir precocious daughter. Soon he finds himself ardently pursued by the girl’s mother, a woman obviously smitten by his charm. However, her infatuation is just the prelude to an involvment in a bubbling stew of jealousy, deception and blackmail.
(Kilmarnock)
o The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner( 18) (Tony Richardson, UK. 1962) Tom Courtenay. James Bolam. Michael Redgrave. 104 mins. The one thing that Borstal inmate Colin Smith (Courtenay)
1 does well is run. The governor trains
him to win a long-distance. cross-country race in a forthcoming
5 sports match but Colin harbours only
contempt for the well-meaning society that his governor represents. Known in the States as Rebel with
a Cause this is a well-acted version of
Alan Sillitoe‘s short story. A
typically class-conscious product of its day. Edinburgh; Edinburgh
Film Guild
0 Lord of the Flies ( 15) (Peter Brook. UK. 1963)James Aubrey. Tom Chapin. 91 mins. After a plane crash a party of English schoolboys are left to their own devices on a desert island and find their ideas about civilisation shattered in the basic fight for survival. Adequate rendering of Golding‘s modern classic. though a little more technical resource might have helped. Edinburgh; Odeon
0 M (PG) (Fritz Lang. Germany. 1931) Peter Lorre. Ellen Widmann,
Inge Landgut. 99 mins. A
DEATH IN A FRENCH GAREN
In a spirit redolent of Peter Greenaway’s Draughtsman’s Contract, Death in a French Garden is a witty, clever and playful piece full of intriguing twists and dextrous editing. Characters like the enigmatic neighbour Edwige, sometimes a cripple and sometimes not, and oddball assassin Daniel add spice to the main course and it is all very polished, elegantly played and musically rounded out with a classical score. Nonetheless an aura of calculation detracts from its otherwise persuasive impact. Deville’s cool, clinical manipulation of his characters
; turns people into puppets and the
endless sleight-of—hand throws a shade tiresome. The film provides pleasurable, sophisticated entertainment but there is definitely less here than meets the eye. (Allan Hunter)
psycopathic child-murderer becomes a marked man. hunted by the police and the Berlin underworld.
Based on an actual case history in Dusseldorf this acknowledged classic features an expressive use of darkness and shadow alongside a remarkable performance from Lorre. Edinburgh; Filmhouse 0 Manganinnie (U) (John Honey, Australia. 1981))Mawuyul Yathalawuy, Anna Ralph. 90 mins. A white child is separated from her family but develops a friendship with an aborigine who has survived the massacre of her tribe. Worthy but dull. Edinburgh; Edinburgh Film Guild
0 Manhattan (15) (Woody Allen, US, 1979) Woody Allen, Diane Keaton, Mariel Hemingway. 96 mins. Woody wanders through the female jungle of New York in search ofa perfect soulmatc after the demise ofhis marriage. Glasgow; GFT 0 Mask (15) (Peter Bogdanovich, US. 1985) Cher, Eric Stolz. 120 mins. A moving drama, similar to The Elephant Man. ofa California youth stricken by a rare bone disease. ,
Bogdanovich avoids an unsubtle assault on the tear ducts, telling his
story with grace, precision and fine acting. Edinburgh; Filmhouse 01941 (PG) (Steven Spielberg, US. 1979) Dan Aykroyd. John Belushi. Toshiro Mifune. 118 mins. Spielberg’s only floperoonie to date is a so-called comedy about some misguided Japs attacking Hollywood with chaotic results. Devotees of expensive destruction will revel in this childish extravaganza; others will find the sheer comic constipation of the exercise a trifle paining after a while. Edinburgh; Filmhouse
o Oskar Fischinger Programme 1 (U) The first in a three part season of work from one of the pioneers of abstract animation, who, despite devoting much of his life to film-making was beset by disappointment in Europe and America from the late 20s to late 405 and never achieved the recognition he deserved before his death in 1967. This programme concentrates on his 205 experiments on the image/sound relationship and shows his influence in the animation world. Edinburgh; Filmhouse
o Oskar Fischinger Programme 2 (U) More early experiments, as well as his 1934 film Composition in Blue in which he developed a ravishing
synthesis ofcolour and musical form.
The programme also includes related work by later animators. Edinburgh; Filmhouse
0 Out of Africa(PG) (Sydney Pollack,
US, 1985) Robert Redford. Meryl Streep, Klaus Maria Brandauer. 161 mins. See caption review. Glasgow; ABC (Sauchiehall Street)
0 The Outsiders (PG) (Francis Ford Coppola, US. 1982) Matt Dillon, C. Thomas Howell. Emilio Estevez. 91 mins. A story ofviolent conflict between the poor kids (Greasers) and the rich kids (Socs) in a middle American town based on S. E. Hinton‘s million-selling novel. Coppola’s earnest, and some might say sentimental, treatment of his material is a return to the sort of
movies you thought they didn‘t make
any more. Wonderful, in other words. Glasgow; GET
0 Overthe Edge (18) (Jonathan Kaplan. US, 1979) Matt Dillon, Vincent Spano, Ellen Geer. 94 mins. Suburban teenagers rebel against the carefully ordered world of their middle-class parents.
Tautly directed. high octane depiction ofalienated youth and its consequences. Glasgow; GET 0 Paris, Texas (15) (Wim Wenders, US/ W Germany. 1984) Harry Dean Stanton, Nastassja Kinski. 144 mins. A long-missing man turns up in the Texan outback and embarks on the painful process of reconciliation with his nearest and dearest. A fine story ofpersonal alienation with director
Wenders at his most life-affirming. Glasgow; GET
0 Pink Floyd -The Wall (15) (Alan Parker, UK, 1982) Bob Geldof, Bob Hoskins. 92 mins. Hysterically overwrought, plodding story ofa burnt-out rock star and his paranoid self—obsession as he sits in a Los Angeles hotel room watching The Dam Busters. A treat for the hard of hearing. Glasgow; GFT, Grosvenor o Priest of Love ( 15) (Christopher
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