A-Z of favourite films - Okay, it's K.

So it's the 11th in the series of A-Z of my favourite films and we arrive at K

Following the J films, K is another category with less films than usual; at the time of writing I’ve only seen 28 K films. For the avoidance of doubt that doesn’t mean I’ve seen 28,000 films, just 28 films beginning with K. (note to self - find out if there actually are 28,000 films beginning with K in existence)

First the ones that didn’t make it. From 1933 comes King Kong; its effects may look a tad shaky now, but at the time they were state of the art. Fay Wray took up the screaming honours as the woman the monkey develops a crush on. In the interests of disclosure I should state that I’ve not as yet seen any remakes of the film and that includes Peter Jackson’s recent “reimagining”.

The 30s and 40s pass without further troubling this category (apart from one which you’ll find in the final five). 1957 brought A King in New York, one of Charlie Chaplin’s lesser films in my opinion, though notable for being the first film he made after his forced return to the UK, and also for being the film in which he last had a leading role.

In the 1962 Roman Polanski emerged with the Polish thriller, Knife in the Water, a tense tale set aboard a yacht where the owners make the mistake of picking up a stranger. In 1964 Don Siegel’s The Killers was released – this was the last film to star Ronald Reagan before he turned to politics and was never heard of again; here he plays the bad guy, starring alongside Lee Marvin and Angie Dickinson among others.

Closer to home, quite literally in my case being from Yorkshire, Kes was released in 1969. Ken Loach took the directing reins and a career was born. It’s a bit grim, admittedly, hence the reason it’s not in my top five, but you get a real sense of time and place, and who can forget Brian Glover’s deranged P.E. teacher on the football field?

Back to the US in the 70s and there’s the jolly good yarn Kelly’s Heroes with a group of allied soldiers sneaking across enemy lines to try and purloin some Nazi gold. The fact that these soldiers include Clint Eastwood, Telly Savalas and Donald Sutherland adds to the fun. A year later with a very different tone, Donald Sutherland appeared again in Klute alongside Jane Fonda who played a prostitute and won a best Actress oscar for her troubles. Changing tone again, we move to anarchic comedy with the 1977 film Kentucky Fried Movie. Directed by John Landis and written by the team behind Airplane, it’s more a series of sketches rather than a narrative film, but is still good fun.


The 1980s bring a couple films from Asia. There’s Kagemusha from Akira Kurosawa which is decent enough, though not up there with his best films – he would return to form a few years later with Ran. Then there was The Killer in 1989, a typically stylish action film from John Woo, still working in Hong Kong at this time. There’s also a couple of films from the US, but perhaps not up to the standards of their Asian cousins, being as they are The Karate Kid in 1984 and K9 in 1989. I think the States lose the battle of the 1980s!


The 1990s don’t start a whole lot better with Arnold Schwarzenneger in Kindergarten Cop, then King Ralph with John Goodman finding himself the King of England a year later. What actors like John Hurt, Peter O Toole or Joely Richardson were doing in it is anyone's guess, but possible money played a bigger part than artistic endeavour! A Kiss before dying improves the standard a little in 1991 and then in 1996 there’s Kingpin from the Farrelly brothers which is laugh-out-loud comedy starring Bill Murray, Woody Harrelson and Randy Quaid in an uproarious tale about ten pin bowling.

2000 brings the good - Keeping the Faith, a decent comedy directed by Ed Norton who also stars alongside Ben Stiller, and the truly dreadful with Kevin and Perry go Large – the embarrassing Harry Enfield spin-off. A year later Paul Bettany steals the show from the late Heath Ledger in A Knight’s Tale, then in 2003 and 04 Quentin Tarantino released the long awaited Kill Bill Volumes one and two. Those films divided opinion but I enjoyed them – probably the second one more than the first as it had more narrative than the first which contained most of the action. In 2004 Stephen Chow made Kung Fu Hustle which was a fun tongue-in-cheek Kung Fu film from China and Hong Kong. Back to the UK and I was thoroughly underwhelmed by Kinky Boots in 2005 – a comedy about a plucky shoe factory fighting to stay in business – a film clearly made by someone wanting to recreate the style of The Full Monty or Brassed Off, and failing.


But those are the ones that didn’t make it. What about the final five?

Kind Hearts and Coronets – A 1949 masterpiece from the great Ealing studios, Robert Hamer directs, but this is Alec Guinness’ film all the way. He plays all 9 members of the same family who Denis Price is trying to kill in order to avenge the way they treated his late mother. A devilishly dark comedy with a bite, this is superb stuff that can be watched over and over again.

Kiss Me Deadly – 1955 film noir from Robert Aldrich. A private eye makes the mistake of picking up an attractive woman lost on the highway. When she turns up dead, the private eye is drawn into an unsavoury world where things may not be quite as they seem. With a complex plot revolving around some highly radioactive material, it’s a film that certainly goes with a bang.

The King of Comedy – Scorsese’s underrated gem with Robert De Niro as the deranged fan obsessed with Jerry Lee Lewis *edit - I mean Jerry Lewis of course - oops*. Funny and dark at the same time, it’s more relevant today than ever in this celebrity obsessed world. Maybe not as high profile as Taxi Driver, Goodfellas etc, but just as enjoyable and probably my favourite Scorsese film.

Kikujuro – 1999, - A quite simply marvellous offering from Japanese tour-de-fource Takeshi Kitano. The story’s basic – a young boy goes on a trip to try and find his mother and finds himself accompanied by a quite unsuitable companion in Kikujuro (played by Kitano) – a grumpy, low level gangster, a man of few words. Doesn’t make it sound great, but it’s full of charm and is a real treasure. I’m not making a good job of explaining it but if you get the chance, watch it when you can.

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang – From Lethal Weapon writer Shane Black comes this splendid directorial debut.; self referential to the nth degree. Our narrator is Robert Downey Jr. a crook who somehow finds himself in LA auditioning for the role of a private investigator. He has to spend time with gay P.I. Val Kilmer and it is this partnership that drives the film and produces much of the humour. A spoof of the world of Chandler, film-noirs etc. but it is done with affection and it works splendidly as well as having enormous fun at its own genre's expense.


And the winner is…

Kind Hearts and Coronets, one of the best Ealing films; wickedly funny and containing a bravura performance(s) from Alec Guinness