Movies at Home: American Star, Chaplin and The Thirty Nine Steps

 

Ian McShane (looking good for his age – he was over eighty when he made this film) plays an ageing hitman in American Star. He's waiting in Furturventura for instructions on his next victim. Without McShane this might have been a boring movie, as nothing much happens in the first hour. He makes a connection with a young woman played by Nora Arnezeder; the actress had many award nominations for her role in Paris 36. The film is well filmed on this island in the Canaries; the light and colour make it worth seeing. The film's title comes from a ship that was washed up on a distant shore. 

Chaplin is an interesting biopic of this star of the silent movies. We find out that he was difficult to work with but never what was behind it all. Except for his true belief in his own talent. Robert Downey Jr was perfect casting, not so much the rest of this large cast. It was clever that his career was described by those intermittent segments that involved Anthony Hopkins talking to the ageing star for his life story. It becomes a little tedious after a while as the film traces his affairs and marriages as well as his rise to fame. But it looks excellent; I wished I had seen it at the cinema. The film is a labour of love for director Richard Attenborough. But it dashes through his films and relationships; perhaps one or the other would have been better. And, of course, there is that fantastic score from John Barry.

This was the first time I had seen this version of The Thirty Nine Steps. This was the 1978 production starring Robert Powell as Richard Hannay and directed by Don Sharp. There were, of course, other versions, including, in date order, Alfred Hitchcock's film with Robert Donat in 1935, Kenneth More in the 1959 film directed by Ralph Thomas and, more recently, Rupert Perry-Jones in the 2008 TV movie.

Robert Powell was strange casting; he seemed too lightweight for the role, although it does rely on Hannay being out of his depth. But it does have a certain momentum. It is helped by a cast of top British actors of the day, including David Warner and John Mills. It is, perhaps, closest to the book by John Buchan than any of the other versions, and it does have those physical steps that the others ignored. The baddies also have a much larger role than the others I can remember. 

The sequence under the railway bridge is not as dramatic, but the final sequence that involves the clock face of Big Ben is memorable. I have just the Hitchcock black and white film to see, but there is a decent colourised version on YouTube.