Nearly there. Stay awake at the back. It's the 23rd edition of the series of A-Z of my favourite films.
So, after the relatively small categories of U and V, we’re faced with another biggie – not as large as M or S, admittedly, but pretty substantial with around 70 films seen. Yep, it’s time for the dubyas.
A few silent films that we’ll just skip past – there’s Chaplin’s A Woman of Paris from 1923 and the Laurel and Hardy film Why Girls Love Sailors. Neither of those will trouble our top five however. 1927 marked the year sound came to cinema, but Wings was a silent epic – the first winner of an Oscar for Best Picture, yet also the last silent film to win the award. To be honest I found it too long and melodramatic, but the flying sequences are well worth catching – they put cameras on the planes themselves to achieve some of the shots, and the director, William Wellman had flown planes during the Great War. So it’s a case of ignoring the rubbish story, and just picking out the action sequences – I guess you could say the same about Pearl Harbor nearly 75 years later.
There’s a few more Laurel and Hardy short films – With Love and Hisses, We Faw Down, and Wrong Again, before we move from comedy to horror with Werewolf of London, a creaky tale that’s really not that scary, but is notable for being the first proper American werewolf tale. Following this in 1937, we get another Laurel and Hardy offering, this time the feature-length Way out West, one of my favourites of theirs in which the villain James Finlayson is trying to get his hands on the deeds to a goldmine – deeds which Laurel and Hardy have been entrusted to deliver to the rightful owner. The 1930s end with The Wizard of Oz, the perennial family classic with Judy Garland as Dorothy making her trip down the yellow brick road.
The forties and another werewolf tale with The Wolf Man which is an improvement on Werewolf of London, due to the story and the cast which includes Lon Chaney Jr, Claude Rains, and Bela Legosi. Worth catching, if only to compare with the upcoming remake. 1942 sees a classic of British cinema with Went the Day Well which sees a village being taken over by Nazis disguised as British soldiers. It must have been pretty frightening in its day, made whilst the war was still going on, and when the events in the film could have conceivably become a reality. It’s a fine film and where else are you going to see Thora Hird shooting German soldiers? The Way Ahead is another British war film from 1944 and then the following year Gainsborough Studios gave us The Wicked Lady, a rollickingly enjoyable historical romp starring Margaret Lockwood as the titular “heroine” and co-starring James Mason. We finish the 1940s with two very different films; from the US we have White Heat, a James Cagney gangster picture, and from the UK’s Ealing Studios, Whisky Galore is one of their best comedies, revolving around a shipment of whisky that washes ashore on a Scottish island, and the repercussions that follow. The ensemble cast includes Basil Radford, Joan Greenword and Gordon Jackson.
Skipping joyfully into the 50s (yes, I’ve run out of ways to begin paragraphs), from 1950 there’s the little-known but pretty good film-noir Where the Sidewalk Ends and a marvellous James Stewart western, Winchester 73. Directed by Stewart’s frequent collaborator Anthony Mann the film uses the journey of the gun of the title to weave the story round as it passes from hand to hand. 1953 sees the first version of War of the Worlds, and then in 1956 you didn’t think I’d forgotten Hitchcock did you - it’s The Wrong Man. Hitchcock’s take on an almost neo-realist style, it stars Henry Fonda as the falsely accused man, and the impact this has on him and his family. Based on a true story it’s a departure from Hitchcock’s usual work, but is still adeptly done and a solid film. The following year brought Ingmar Bergman’s Wild Strawberries following the roadtrip of an elderly professor in Sweden, and from the US in the same year, Billy Wilder made Witness for the Prosecution, a top notch courtroom drama with Tyrone Power, Charles Laughton and Marlene Dietrich.
The 1960s brought the caper movie The Wrong Arm of the Law from the UK, with Peter Sellers amongst the cast. From the US, the same year saw the emergence of the overblown Whatever Happened to Baby Jane with Bette Davis and Joan Crawford tearing strips off each other, apparently behind the scenes too if rumours are to be believed. Talking of overblown, in 1966 Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf saw Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor also tearing strips off each other – a fine cast in this adaptation makes for riveting viewing as long as you don’t mind people arguing. From France came Godard’s baffling Weekend including a ten minute continious shot of a traffic jam, and Richard Burton again appears, this time opposite Clint Eastwood in the boys-own adventure Where Eagles Dare. If you ever meet my Mum, which is admittedly unlikely, she’ll tell you this was the film which my dad wooed her with at the cinema – she was expecting Dr Zhivago but got a World War Two caper instead. Fair enough, I’d have thought. Also in 1969 comes The Wild Bunch, one of Peckinpah’s bona fide masterpieces. Controversial on release for its violence, it helped coin the term “Peckinpah/Penn aesthetic” and is almost ballet like in some of its sequences. You can argue the morals until the cows come home, but it sure is a film from a director who knows how to make proper movies.
1971 brought the original Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory with the fabulous Gene Wilder. If you think the Tim Burton remake is better, you’re wrong. Sorry. Also from the 1970s came The Wicker Man with Edward Woodward and if you think the Nicholas Cage remake is better, well you’re not only wrong, you’re mentally deranged. Westworld is another fun movie from 1973 with its mix of the sci-fi and western genres; Yul Brynner is the robotic cowboy and if that sentence doesn’t want to make you see the film, nothing will.
The 1980s bring Who Dares Wins from the UK which is a bit, well, meh. From the US War Games was a film I liked as a youngster with a young Michael Broderick and Ally Sheedy helping to take the world to the brink of nuclear war, and then saving the day through noughts and crosses. 1985 brought a fine Peter Weir film in Witness; Harrison Ford is a cop that has to go undercover in an Amish community, and he gives a nice understated performance. Less understated is Wall Street with its “Greed is good” mantra. Ironically director Oliver Stone intended it to be an anti-capitalist film, but many capitalists themselves jumped on the Michael Douglas stock broker character as an aspiration rather than a warning. Martin Sheen also stars along with his son, Charlie. In 1987 Withnail & I was released in the UK; it would become a massive cult hit and spawn hundreds of drinking games amongst students for decades to come. Probably less suited to drinking games was Wings of Desire from Wim Wenders; Bruno Ganz plays an angel who descends to earth to become mortal; bizarrely Peter “Columbo” Falk is another former angel. Two films round off the decade; Who Framed Roger Rabbit mixes live action and cartoon effects to create an outstanding spectacle, and When Harry Met Sally was one of the romantic comedies of the 80s with Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal taking the leads who love, hate, like, hate, then eventually love each other all over again.
1990 brought Wild at Heart from David Lynch, one of his more understandable films, and from Nicholas Roeg came a fine adaptation of Roald Dahl’s The Witches, replete with dark humour, though sadly changing the ending of the book, presumably to make it more palatable. What About Bob was an excellent 1991 comedy with Bill Murray as the patient who makes psychiatrist Richard Dreyfuss’ holiday less than relaxing. Wayne’s World and Wayne’s World 2 were both more than watchable comedies for the MTV generation, with Mike Myers and Dana Carvey as the likeable leads running their own cable programme. Other 90s offerings include the passable White Men Can’t Jump; the Kevin Costner flop, Waterworld; Sandra Bullock in romantic comedy territory in While You Were Sleeping; average footballing drama When Saturday Comes; and the excellent American satire Wag the Dog. Waking Ned practically defined the word “whimsy”, Wild Things excited the male population with a threesome including Denise Richards and Neve Campbell, though admittedly the rest of the film was decent too, and Michael Apted helmed the Pierce Brosnan Bond film, The World is Not Enough, also coincidentally featuring Denise Richards as a nuclear scientist – yes, really.
Into 2000 which saw a fair few comedies – the Mel Gibson vehicle What Women Want, the hit man/dentist tale in The Whole Nine Yards with Bruce Willis and Matthew Perry, and from the UK the amiable comedy Wild About Harry with Brendan Gleason in the lead role. Also in 2000 came a nice little thriller Where the Money Is with an increasingly rare performance from Paul Newman. The final film here from 2000 was Wonder Boys which was Curtis Hanson’s follow up to L.A. Confidential; it didn’t hit the heights of his previous film, but was still decent enough. 2002 saw Waking up in Reno which was fairly disappointing given the quality of its cast, and then in 2005 came the frankly marvellous Wallace and Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit which saw the Aardman creations on top form. Spielberg’s remake of War of the Worlds came out in 2005 with its 9/11 and terrorist undertones; I liked it apart from the whole sentimental family subplot. I wasn’t blown away by Wedding Crashers or We Own the Night either, but one I was pretty blown away by was Wall-E, an excellent animation from Pixar which also packs an emotional punch – not easy for a romance between machines!
And that’s the longlist – what about the final five?
The Wizard of Oz - the timeless family classic
Whisky Galore – Whimsical whisky from Ealing studios
The Wild Bunch - Groundbreaking Western from Peckinpah
Wallace and Gromit in the Curse of the Were-Rabbit - Aardman animation achieves er. Amazingness?
Wall-E – Another winner from Pixar, beautifully made
And the winner is… The Wild Bunch. The violence gets the headlines but the story of men outliving their time is pretty flawless too.
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