A-Z of favourite films - M it is then.

And we're up to letter 13 out of 26 in the A-Z of my favourite films of all time

Crikey Charlie, M is the biggest category so far, – I’ve seen 147 films beginning with M. That makes it the second biggest category after S, so lots of M films may get skipped – I’ll just try to mention the pertinent ones.

The Man appears to be very busy – I do worry about him. He knew rather too much information in both versions of Hitchcock’s The Man Who Knew Too Much, yet then clearly had amnesia as in 1997 he was The Man Who Knew Too Little. This is surprising as he has double the brainpower in The Man With Two Brains. We don’t know a huge amount about him apart from where he came from – The Man from Laramie tells us this, although he left without permission in Robert Bresson’s A Man Escaped. We learn what he wears in Ealing’s magnificent The Man in the White Suit and what he carries in Vertov’s The Man With the Movie Camera and the Bond film, The Man With the Golden Gun. He battles alcoholism in The Man With the Golden Arm and commits murder in the excellent John Ford western, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, (or did he?) starring Jimmy Stewart and John Wayne. In 2001 he sued God in the below par Billy Connolly film and he even got his own documentary made in the excellent 2008 film, Man on Wire. But did he even exist at all – after all where was he in the Coen Brothers’ excellent film The Man Who Wasn’t There?

Anyhoo, onto films not featuring “The Man” and early highlights include two Fritz Lang’s film. First Metropolis, the silent epic sci-fi that to be honest goes on a bit too long, but is still an astonishing achievement of the 1920s. Probably more influential than enjoyable, there’s not a sci-fi film made since that doesn’t in some way bear the hallmarks of this seminal film – for a prime example see Blade Runner. Also from Lang came M, the early German talkie starring Peter Lorre (who also appeared in Hitch’s first The Man Who Knew Too Much) as a child-killer – another highly influential film filled with expressionism and atmosphere; a film that remains long in your memory.

There’s a fair few decent Laurel and Hardy films in this category including Men o War, Me and My Pal and The Midnight Patrol, but their best would be The Music Box- the short film where they try to get a piano up a set of stairs. Simple but effective, I’m pretty sure it won them an Oscar, and has been parodied to death ever since. From Chaplin comes Modern Times – a great satire on the industrial age, made several years after sound came in, but containing no discernable dialogue – we just hear mechanical noises and the like. Frank Capra then comes up with a couple of gems to round off the 1930s – in 1936 Mr Deeds Goes To Town was released with Gary Cooper in the leading role, but that was outshone three years later when Jimmy Stewart played the idealistic young senator in the truly great Mr Smith Goes to Washington.

The standout of the early 40s is The Maltese Falcon with Humphrey Bogart as the private eye Sam Spade and with Peter Lorre (who else?) cropping up again in a supporting role. We’ve also got Hitchcock’s Mr and Mrs Smith – unusual for him in that it’s a comedy, not a thriller, Orson Welles’ The Magnificent Ambersons, famous for its studio interference and films depicting British life during the war such as Mrs Miniver and Millions Like Us. There’s an unusual film noir in Mildred Pierce in that the protagonist is female, and then in 1946 we get what I think is the best British film of all time – A Matter of Life and Death. Starring David Niven this is a glorious fantasy set on earth and in the afterlife and is just filmmaking at its best from the directing team of Powell and Pressburger, ably contributed by cinematographer Jack Cardiff to create an almost perfect film. My Darling Clementine is a decent John Ford western starring Henry Fonda, and Charlie Chaplin makes another appearance with Monsieur Verdoux; a tale in which he plays a man who goes around murdering old women – quite the departure for him.

The 50s begin with the oddity that is Miracle in Milan – a neo-realist fantasy which is something of an oxymoron. Monkey Business is a really enjoyable Howard Hawks comedy starring Cary Grant, Ginger Rogers and Marilyn Monroe – Grant plays a professor who develops a potion that makes the recipient younger – trouble is he takes too much and regresses to childhood! Then there’s Jacques Tati directing himself in Monsieur Hulot’s Holiday and Douglas Sirk’s melodrama Magnificent Obsession.

The 60s begin with The Magnificent Seven – a marvellous Western based on Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai. Try and name all seven actors – go on – I always forget Horst Buchholz or Brad Dexter. John Huston’s The Misfits is more famous for its production than the resulting film – it was Clark Gable’s last film, and Montgomery Clift wasn’t long after. The Manchurian Candidate is an intriguing tale with a stellar cast and outshines its remake in the 2000s. For musical fans there’s My Fair Lady and the decade ends with the only X Certificate film to win Best picture at the Oscars as Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voigt star in Midnight Cowboy.

Highlights from the 70s include Robert Altman’s MASH, a tale about army medics and their gallows humour during the Korean war, Polanski’s bloody version of Macbeth, Scorsese’s Mean Streets and the uproarious Monty Python and the Holy Grail. There’s also Marathon (is it safe?) Man, and Woody Allen’s black and white love letter to New York in Manhattan. Finishing off the decade it’s the gang again with the hilarious Monty Python’s Life of Brian.

The 1980s brings Manon de Sources the sequel to Jean de Florette, and it doesn’t disappoint. From the UK comes Mona Lisa with Bob Hoskins as the taxi driver developing a relationship with prostitute Cathy Tyson, and then there’s US comedy with Moonstruck and Midnight Run.

Into the 90s with Miller’s Crossing from the Coen Brothers and Misery from Rob Reiner starring James Caan and Kathy Bates. I used to be quite partial to My Cousin Vinny from 92, though haven’t seen it for a while now. Woody Allen’s Mighty Aphrodite was enjoyable even if not one of his best and there’s big budget films with Mission: Impossible and Men in Black from 96 and 97 respectively. Ken Loach’s hard hitting My Name is Joe is definitely worth a viewing, as is the classy ensemble piece from PT Anderson, Magnolia – funny, tragic, sweet, vulgar, heartbreaking – there’s not enough adjectives to describe it. The decade ends with a film you may have heard of as Keanu Reeves takes the lead in The Matrix. It’s about computers and that.

Into the last decade and Maybe Baby takes the distinction of worst M film, in fact perhaps the worst film I’ve ever seen – was this really the same bloke that wrote Blackadder? On the plus side, Meet the Parents was a good laugh with Ben Stiller and Robert De Niro getting most of the best lines. From the same year came Memento, an absolutely superlative film starring Guy Pearce as an amnesiac. Adventurous filmmaking, pulled off with aplomb by Christopher Nolan. Two very different films from 2001 – the animation comedy Monsters Inc. and the almost impenetrable David Lynch film Mulholland Drive. An interesting double bill they would make! Other contenders include Minority Report from Spielberg, Master and Commander with Russell Crowe, and Mystic River from Clint Eastwood. Eastwood also crops up the following year with Million Dollar Baby, and Spielberg returns too with Munich. To round the decade off there’s Moon, an excellent sci-fi film directed by David Bowie’s son, Duncan Jones.

So out of the 147 films, what’s made the final five?

M – Peter Lorre as a child killer in this early German sound offering. His performance is the highlight of this highly influential film.

The Maltese Falcon – Private eye movie from 1941 – Bogie, Lorre, Sydney Greenstreet and Mary Astor star in this Hollywood classic.

A Matter of Life and Death – Shot half in black and white, half in colour, this is one of the greatest movie fantasies of all time. David Niven falls in love with Kim Hunter – the only trouble is he’s meant to be dead and Heaven wants him back. Film-making at its most imaginative.

Monty Python and the Holy Grail – In my opinion the best of the Monty Python movies – they may not have had much money, resulting in coconuts replacing horses, but that led to some of the best gags ever seen on film.

Magnolia – Ensemble piece that lasts over 3 hours, but never feels that long – the stories draw you in and weave in and out each other splendidly. Confident filmmaking from PT Anderson.


And the winner is…

A Matter of Life and Death. Stiff competition, but this still comes out on top – it’s my favourite British film of all time and I have to watch it at least once a year.