BBC Four does film noir

Lovers of film noir will be spoiled for choice this weekend as BBC Four serves up six classic films and a new documentary The Rules of Film Noir (Saturday 22nd, 9pm. Repeated 12.50am and Sunday 23rd, 10.35pm).

Matthew Sweet presents a celebration of the hard-boiled world of noir movie, exploring this classic genre from its earliest days around 1940, through its heyday in the bleak, cynical postwar era, to the dying days of the 1950s, when American audiences wanted a bit more certainty with their entertainment. Writers and academics such as Paul (Taxi Driver) Schrader and The Wire's George Pelecanos outline the rules to which film noir adhered, with clips aplenty from every noir you know (and a few you might not). Want to know about the movies? See over the turn.

DVD Review: All The Right Noises (1969)

Some people like fast-moving Hollywood blockbusters, but me? I love realism, especially when it comes in a 60s or 70s flavour. So I was very much looking forward to reviewing Gerry O'Hara's All The Right Noises, a film that's been off my radar until now, despite starring one of my favourite British actors, Tom Bell.

It's part of the second batch of releases from the BFI and Flipside and on the face of it, is very much the sensationalist flick - man falls for underage girl and has a fling. But unlike Pete Walker's Home Before Midnight, All The Right Noises adopts a more serious, level-headed approach to an accidental affair.

Network to release The Prisoner The Complete Series on Blu-ray

Invested in a Blu-ray player? Want to feed it something hip and cool? You're in luck - Network is about to release The Prisoner The Complete Series on Blu-ray as a six-disc limited edition box set.

The date for your diary is 28th September 2009, with the set containing all 17 episodes of Patrick McGoohan's 1967 cult classic in glorious high definition, along with a host of special features. Those include 'Don’t Knock Yourself Out' a feature-length documentary of the show told by those involved in its creation, a restored original edit of 'Arrival' with an optional music-only soundtrack featuring Wilfred Josephs’ complete and abandoned score, production Crew audio commentaries on seven episodes, trailers for all episodes, archive textless material, commercial break bumpers, behind-the-Scenes footage including much previously unseen, scripts on pdf, iamge galleries, an exclusive book on the making of the series by TV historian Andrew Pixley, 5.1 sound mixes on all episodes and much more.

The total running time is a whopping 850 minutes and the official price is £59.99 (although Amazon is already discounting to around £42 for pre-orders). Definitely one for the Christmas list.

Find out more at the Amazon website

DVD Review: Man of Violence (aka Moon) 1970

The second wave of BFI/Flipside movie releases is upon us, including this intriguing Pete Walker gangster flick - Man of Violence.

Also known as Moon (after the central character), Man of Violence is a strange, often confusing movie, but one I'm pretty certain anyone with any interest in Brit flicks of the 60s and early 70s will love. Set in a (just) swinging London, Man of Violence is essentially the tale of two warring northern property developers, Sam Bryant (Derek Francis) and Charles Grayson (Maurice Kaufmann). Both hire private eye / gun for hire / man about town Moon to spy on the other, demanding to know what big scheme the other is planning. It's actually the same scheme, something involving gun running, gold and oil rights in a post-revolutionary Arab state, one doing the deal, the other chasing the goods. So who does Moon (Michael Latimer) bat for? Simple - himself, aided by a blonde called Angel (Luan Peters), who has some vague contacts and a lot of knowledge about it all.

Reviewed: Joanna (1968) at the NFT

In their quest for the offbeat, outlandish and downright weird, Vic & Will Flipside routinely ransack the lesser-visited corners of the archives. This particular presentation of Joanna intrigued me not only because of the irresistible 60s Swingin’ London setting, but also because I had not heard of it before. The promise of a Q&A with the film’s director, Mike Sarne, guaranteed my attendance.

After a relaxing early evening on the South Bank, we made our way over to the NFT, meeting our friends M & K, regular Flipsiders themselves, ready for the 60’s film that appears to have got away.

As we learnt from Mike, the basic idea for ‘Joanna’ came from a true story, about a notorious shoplifter and party girl, who used to keep her ill-gotten gains in a left luggage locker at a central London train station. The script was pitched to potential backers on the back of the reflected success of Mike’s previous feature, which played support to the popular ‘Our Man Flint’. 20th Century Fox picked up the option on Joanna, awash with the staggering success of ‘The Sound of Music’ and duly handed Mike $1m, and carte blanche with it. This may have been a rash decision in retrospect, as the end product is lengthy, rambling, alternately joyous and pathetic, and sometimes a little difficult to swallow.