Jingle Bones Movie Time

200+ movie reviews are now available for your reading pleasure on my blog jinglebonesmovietime.blogspot.com!

Real life becomes reel life in the dramatisation of the courtship of poets Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning. Read my new review of The Barretts of Wimpole Street here:

Supernatural fantasy romance from Hollywood’s golden age. Read my review of Beyond Tomorrow (1940) here:

New review! Van Johnson spins a web of intriguing in Web of Evidence! Read my review of this Brit crime flick here:

New review alert! Check out my thoughts on Batman: Mystery of the Batwoman (2003) here:

https://jinglebonesmovietime.blogspot.com/2024/07/batman-mystery-of-batwoman-2003.html?spref=tw

ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN (Dir: Alan J Pakula, 1976).

Sometimes you forget how powerful a storytelling medium film can be until you watch a truly great movie. Such is the case with Alan J Pakula’s masterpiece All the President’s Men. Goodness knows why it has taken me 45 years to finally watch it.

Recent events in US politics, and indeed the years leading up to them, may have de-sensitised some to political corruption or at least ruined their appetite for movies about political corruption. Fret thee not as All the President’s Men is less a film about politics, rather the investigative journalists who uncovered the Watergate scandal which eventually led to the impeachment of 37th US president Richard Nixon.

Read the full review on my blog JINGLE BONES MOVIE TIME! Link below:

ROCK & RULE (Dir: Clive A Smith, 1983).

Rock & Rule is a futuristic, dystopian sci-fi rock musical from Canadian animation studio Nelvana.

On a post apocalypse planet Earth in which mutant rodents have displaced extinct humans as the dominant species, evil genius rock god Mok (voiced by Don Francks with singing by Lou Reed) plots to summon an inter-dimensional demon, presumably in pursuit of world dominance. In order to fulfill his maniacal plan he must engage the talents of Angel (Susan Roman with singing from Blondie's Deborah Harry), a young, ambitious singing mouse with the desired vocal frequency to open up a portal to the demon's domain. Kidnapping Angel and whisking her off to his lair in Nuke York, the pair are soon perused by Angel's fellow band members on a daring rescue mission. Yeah, I kinda lost the thread of the plot a couple of times, but what the hey? Hallucinogenics may help...

Read the full review on my blog JINGLE BONES MOVIE TIME! Link below.

ATTACK ON THE IRON COAST (Dir: Paul Wendkos, 1968).

Following the success of The Great Escape (John Sturges, 1963), producer Walter Mirisch would attempt to repeat its success with other WWII themed movies including 633 Squadron (Walter E Gruman, 1963), Submarine X-1 (William Graham, 1968) and this cheap and cheerful effort.

Inspired by the real life Operation Chariot, a raid on the German occupied French port St Nazire, Attack on the Iron Coast details an mission to destroy a Nazi stronghold, lead by hardheaded Canadian army Major Jamie Wilson (Lloyd Bridges) and dissonant British navy Captain Franklin (Andrew Keir).

Read the full review on my blog JINGLE BONES MOVIE TIME! Link below.

ESCAPE IN THE FOG (Dir: Oscar Boetticher Jr, 1945)

The evocatively titled Escape in the Fog is a B-movie thriller from Columbia Pictures; directed by Budd Boetticher, billed here, as on all his early movies, as Oscar Boetticher Jr.

Wartime nurse Eileen Carr (Nina Foch) has a nightmare about the attempted murder of friendly neighbourhood G-Man Barry Malcolm (William Wright). The premonition proves prophetic and on this preposterous premise is hung a convoluted plot involving smuggled documents, kidnapping and Nazi bad guys.

Read the full review on my blog JINGLE BONES MOVIE TIME. Link below.

MAJOR BARBARA  (Dir: Gabriel Pascal, 1941).

An impressive array of British acting talent headline Gabriel Pascal’s feature film adaptation of George Bernard Shaw’s acclaimed 1905 satirical play. Receiving an Assistant in Direction credit, it is widely acknowledged that Major Barbara was almost solely directed by the great David Lean with some help from stage director Harold French. Producer Gabriel Pascal owned the film rights and took onscreen director credit. 

Wendy Hiller stars as the titular Salvation Army major and estranged daughter of weapons manufacturer Andrew Undershaft (Robert Morley). Rex Harrison is the Greek philosophy professor Adolphus, who sparks romantic interest from the major and business interest from her father as a possible heir to his ammunition enterprise. 

Read the full review on my blog JINGLE BONES MOVIE TIME. Link below.

SANTA AND THE ICE CREAM BUNNY (Dir: R Winer & B Mahon, 1972). 

If you are looking for alternative Christmas viewing it doesn’t get much more alternative than this, frankly weird, no-budget effort from indie production company R & S Films, Inc. 

Santa (Jay Clark) touches down in sunny Florida and gets his sleigh stuck in the sand. Using his powers of telepathy(!), Ol’ Saint Nick summons the help of some local kids including, for reasons unexplained, Mark Twain’s literary Tom and Huck. The kids employe an assortment of animals, gorilla included, to shift the sleigh to no avail, until the appearance of the titular rabbit who, despite co-star billing, doesn’t appear until the final moments of the movie. When he does finally make an entrance he is inexplicably driving a fire truck, not an ice cream van as you might expect.

Read the full review on my blog JINGLE BONES MOVIE TIME. Link below.

CHRISTMAS CAROL THE MOVIE (Dir: Jimmy T Murakami, 2001). 

A UK production from Jimmy T Murakami, the talented supervising director of The Snowman (Dianne Jackson, 1982) and director of When the Wind Blows (J T Murakami, 1986); an all star cast and a story seemingly ideally suited to feature length animation treatment. What could possibly go wrong? Plenty. 

Read the full review on my blog JINGLE BONES MOVIE TIME. Link below.

A CHRISTMAS CAROL (Dir: David Jones, 1999).

So numerous are the adaptations of Charles Dickens’ evergreen A Christmas Carol that it is difficult for any new retelling to bring anything original to the tale. This Hallmark produced made for TV movie features decent production values, some neat visual effects and a somewhat more sombre tone than expected but doesn’t really stand out from the Christmas Carol crowd.

Visit my blog JINGLE BONES MOVIE TIME to read the full review! Link below.

A CHRISTMAS CAROL (Dir: Clive Donner, 1984).

Be they traditional retellings or radical reworkings, new adaptations of Charles Dickens’ ever popular 1843 novella are as common as a cock’er’ny street urchin. Less numerous, but still pretty plentiful, were they back in December 1984 when this prestigious US/UK coproduction premiered on CBS prime time, while simultaneously released to cinemas internationally.

George C Scott here stars as the original grinch, who is persuaded to change his ways after overindulging in Christmas spirits.

Read the full review on my blog JINGLE BONES MOVIE TIME. Link below.