Author

Susannah Straughan

Hidden Depths: Jacques Audiard’s Rust and Bone

Director Jacques Audiard describes Rust and Bone, his widely acclaimed follow-up to A Prophet, as a “gritty melodrama”. I wonder whether something got lost in translation. On paper, there is plenty here that would excite the likes of Pedro Almodóvar… Continue Reading →

Action Man: an A–Z

Middle age can be tough on the hairline and murder on the waistline, but how good would you be looking after 30 or 40 years mouldering away in an attic? That was the ignominious fate that befell Action Man, the… Continue Reading →

To the Manor Born: The London Group Centenary Exhibition

A warm welcome and a chilled beer greeted visitors to The London Group‘s Centenary Exhibition private view at Pitzhanger Manor last week. As snow blanketed the streets of west London, the heating was cranked up a little higher in the… Continue Reading →

La Piscine (1969)

If you’ve watched enough Hollywood films, you’ll already know that the 1960s were just one long drug-fuelled odyssey, with semi-improvised plotlines, gratuitous nudity and great music. For those who weren’t lucky enough to be tuning on or dropping out in… Continue Reading →

Back on Track: The Titfield Thunderbolt

Prime Minister Harold Macmillan may have been thinking about The Titfield Thunderbolt when he made his often misquoted “never had it so good” speech in 1957. Released four years earlier, Ealing’s first colour film is an unabashed celebration of post-war… Continue Reading →

Forbidden Games (1952)

Animal lovers will be moved to tears by the opening of René Clément’s World War II drama, Forbidden Games (Jeux Interdits). As terrified families flee Paris during the summer of 1940, adorable six-year-old Paulette (Brigitte Fossey) and her parents are… Continue Reading →

And Hope to Die

Mist rises through the trees in an eerie-looking landscape, as pan pipes play on the soundtrack. Momentarily, I thought I’d dropped in on the action at Picnic at Hanging Rock. But this is the post-credits sequence of René Clément’s And… Continue Reading →

Outspoken Sports Personality of the Year 2012

In this year of extraordinary sporting achievement, the voters have got their work cut out trying to pick a winner of BBC Sports Personality of the Year 2012. Bradley Wiggins, Andy Murray, Jessica Ennis, Mo Farah and all the shortlisted… Continue Reading →

Silver Linings Playbook

If the definition of a real movie star is that he looks good wearing a plastic bin bag, then Bradley Cooper has definitely made the transition from A Team to A-list. After watching Silver Linings Playbook, it’s also pretty clear… Continue Reading →

The Man in the White Suit

"Why can't you scientists leave things alone?" Cinema in the 1950s often focused on the dangers caused by experiments that went horribly wrong. But Ealing's The Man in the White Suit isn't a sci-fi movie about marauding giant ants, or… Continue Reading →

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