A-Z of favourite films - I'll have a P please Bob

Onto number 16 in my series of blogs on the A-Z list of my favourite films, and we’re onto P. I’ve seen 78 ‘P’ films, so may as well get started.

Laurel and Hardy, as ever, have a few entries here – short films such as Pardon Us, Pack up Your Troubles, and Perfect Day. None of which are probably quite good enough to make the top five, but they’re well worth a watch nevertheless. A more serious contender comes with the 1940 film The Philadelphia Story. With ther presence of Katherine Hepburn, Cary Grant, and James Stewart, it would have been difficult to make it a bad film, and true to form it’s a fine comedy from the Hollywood golden age. Other films from the 1940s include Phantom of the Opera (the Claude Rains version), The Postman Always Rings Twice (the original version), The Pirate, and one of Ealing’s much loved films, Passport to Pimlico which stars Stanley Holloway as the shop keeper in a district of London that declares itself independent from the rest of England.

The 50s is pretty much a desert in terms of decent P films that I’ve seen so we move straight onto 1960 where we find two films from two major filmmakers which garnered very different reactions. First Michael Powell’s Peeping Tom, a film about a serial killer who films his victims whilst he kills them. An unsettling film, but also an exploration of the nature of cinema itself, the film was almost universally vilified and effectively ended Powell’s career, before he was rehabilitated in the 80s and 90s by filmmakers such as Martin Scorsese. If ever there was a filmmaker who was ahead of his time it was Powell, and he unfortunately paid for this. On the other hand, another similar release from the same year was Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho. Again, exploring similar themes on occasions, this ended up being one of his most successful films, made on a shoestring budget, but changing the cinema landscape immeasurably. (note – I know it’s another Hitchcock film in my blog, but hey, I left out his 1947 film The Paradine Case, which is really rather dull so am not completely blinkered). Anyhoo, other 60s contenders include Jean Luc Godard’s le Petit Soldat, Rene Clement’s Plen Soliel, Blake Edward’s The Pink Panther, featuring the first appearance of Peter Sellers as Inspector Clousaeu, and Jacques Tati’s intriguing Playtime. Then there’s the original versions of both Planet of the Apes and The Producers – the latter featuring a quite brilliant performance from Gene Wilder. The decade finishes with Paint Your Wagon, the Clint Eastwood and Lee Marvin musical western which features singing so bad, it’s actually good, and entertaining with it.

The 70s begin with a tour-de-force performance from George C Scott in the biopic Patton. He won an Oscar for his portrayal of the military man, then turned it down, saying he didn’t believe actors should be judged against each other. 1971 brought Clint Eastwood’s directorial debut with Play Misty for me, then two years later came Peckinpah’s flawed epic western Pat Garret and Billy the Kid, and the prison movie Papillon starring Dustin Hoffman and Steve McQueen. Alan J Pakula’s conspiracy tale, The Parallax View came in 1974 and that’s about it for the rest of the decade.

I’ll just be clear now that sadly none of the Police Academy films will make the top five – sorry about that. From 1984 however a contender is Paris, Texas, Wim Wenders road movie tackling the theme of isolation. A very different foreign language film was Jackie Chan’s Police Story from Hong Kong – Jackie would soon find world recognition. From 1985 and 1986 we have films from three American heavyweight directors – John Huston with Prizzi’s Honor, Woody Allen with the excellent Purple Rose of Cairo, and then Oliver Stone with the Vietnam war movie, Platoon. John Candy and Steve Martin teamed up to great comic effect the following year in Planes, Trains and Automobiles, the same year that Rob Reiner made The Princess Bride – one of the best children’s films from the era. The 80s end with Steve Martin again, this time starring in Parenthood.

Into the 1990s and Pretty Woman isn’t going to appear here either – sorry to disappoint. Point Break from 1991 has its fans, but I wasn’t as blown away by it as others appeared to be. More to my taste was the Robert Altman film The Player, with Tim Robbins as a screenwriter in a film chock full of celebrity cameos. 1993 goes a bit highbrow with the films Philadelphia and The Piano. All very worthy, I’m sure, but a tad dull and earnest for my tastes. Quickening the pace, Pulp Fiction was Quentin Tarantino’s follow up to Reservoir Dogs and garnered huge acclaim for changing the face of modern cinema. Whether he did or not is, of course, up for debate, but whatever your thoughts, it’s still a well constructed film with fine dialogue, and seemed to sum up a certain zeitgeist of the age. A couple of other films from the 90s are Pleasantville and Primary Colors, both decent films and worthy of mention.

Into the noughties (if we must call them that), and Pearl Harbor is possibly the greatest feat of moviemaking since the invention of cinema. The director Michael Bay is a genius and…. no, sorry can’t keep it up. Pearl Harbor’s an absolute abomination and Bay encapsulates all that is wrong with much of modern cinema. Anyway, moving on and Michael Haneke’s The Piano Teacher is an interesting film though not one I’d want to watch again in a hurry – it’s a bit grim at times. Speaking of grim, Polanski’s The Pianist tackled the experiences of Jews during WW2 again, though given the subject matter, it’s not entirely depressing and features a fine lead performance from Adrian Brody. (Note to fact fans – he became the youngest man to win Best Actor Oscar for that film – Richard Dreyfuss was the previous youngest). PT Anderson’s Punch Drunk Love is that rarest of things – a bearable Adam Sandler film, and we end our journey with the animation Persepolis – an involving tale from the perspective of a young girl growing up in Iran around the time of the revolution.

And now the final five

The Philadelphia Story – Grant, Stewart and Hepburn team up in the George Cukor directed comedy. Great lines, chemisty and performances create a most enjoyable film

Psycho – Hitchcock’s horror, starring Janet Leigh as the unfortunate traveller checking into Bates’ motel, with Norman Perkins as the boy whose best friend is his mother.

The Producers – Mel Brooks’ insanely funny tale of two producers trying to put on a broadway flop with Springtime for Hitler. What are the chances it would end up a success?

The Player – Altman’s insider look at the film industry, told from the perspective of struggling screenwriter Tim Robbins. Insider jokes, star cameos, - it could have ended up being too self-congratulary, but instead it’s an acerbic look at Hollywood for all to enjoy.

Pulp Fiction – Probably still Tarantino’s most famous film, playing with film structure and time. Stars Bruce Willis, Samuel L Jackson and Uma Thurman amongst others, this was the epitome of coolness back in 94.


And the winner is Psycho. Sorry – I know it’s Hitchcock again, but you’ve got to admit, he did make some fine films!