Tag: Rio de Janeiro

The Lavender Hill Mob

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 26 March 2024
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Director – Charles Crichton – 1951 – UK – Cert. U – 78m

*****

A Bank of England employee stumbles upon the perfect means to rob his employer of the gold bullion he transports there on a daily basis– classic Ealing comedy is back out in a new 4k restoration in UK cinemas on Friday, March 29th

Holland (Alec Guinness) has a lowly job at the Bank of England supervising the transfer of recently minted bars of gold bullion to the bank’s secure vault by security van., He rides in the back and is forever asking the harried driver to check round the corner for suspected cars lying in wait to ambush the van. He is considered an honest nobody, an appearance he has cultivated for the best part of two decades. He has a mind to rob the van, if only he could work out how to smuggle the bullion out of the country.

Fate intervenes in the form of a newly arrived tenant at the downmarket Balmoral Guest House in Lavender Hill, where he lodges. Pendlebury (Stanley Holloway) runs a business selling tourist tat, including lead models of the Eiffel Tour for selling at that Parisian monument. He melts the lead down on his London premises to cast it into the models.… Read the rest

Tags 1950s, Alec Guinness, Alfie Bass, alibi, ambush, Audrey Hepburn, back projection, Balmoral, bank clerk, Bank of England employee and employer, bank vault, breathlessness incompetent police, bureaucracy, burglar, car chase, casting metal, Charles Crichton, collision, comedy, cops and robbers, crime, criminals, crooks, downtrodden, Ealing comedy, Eiffel Tower, England, English schoolgirls, evidence, factory, falling into the river, faux respectability, fugitives, gang, gangster novels, giddy, gold bars, gold bullion, Guest House, heist, honest nobody, humour, industrial process, kaleidoscopic, landlady, Lavender Hill, lead and gold, lodgings, London, melt down, mistaken for a thief; bound and gagged, mob, national newspaper stories, nursery rhyme, Old Macdonald Had a Farm, Paris, plucky little hero, police and thieves, police cars, policemen on the beat, post-war, promotion, pronunciation, pursuit, radio, rebel against the system, rescued, Rio de Janeiro, robbery, safe cracker, salacious, schoolgirls, security van, self-advancement, Sidney James, smelt, smuggle, snatch and grab, spiral staircase, Stanley Holloway, T.E.B. Clarke, the missing piece, the perfect crime, tourist tat, UK, whimsy

Features Live Action Movies

Fast X

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 18 May 2023
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Director – Louis Leterrier – 2023 – US – Cert. 12a – 141m

*1/2

In this latest entry in the Fast & Furious franchise, the son of a crime lord killed ten years ago sets out to exact his revenge on daredevil driver Dom Toretto and his family and associates – out in UK cinemas on Friday, May 12th

The tenth installment in the Fast & Furious franchise turns out to be the first part of a two-parter, with Fast X Part 2 now in preproduction. So don’t be surprised when this ends on a cliffhanger (actually a couple of cliffhangers).

Ten years ago, in Rio de Janeiro, crime lord Hernan Reyes was pursuing along a lengthy bridge two cars which had physically ripped the vault containing all his monetary wealth out of the middle of his headquarters building before dragging it behind them, during which Dom Toretto (Vin Diesel) turned back to swing the vault on its chain to crush the crime lord to death in his car Hernan’s son Dante (Jason Momoa) survived the incident, and has sworn to inflict suffering and death upon Dom and his family. This is the move (or at least the first of two) in which he gets to work that out.… Read the rest

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Now, Voyager

Director – Irving Rapper – 1942 – US – Cert. PG – 117m

*****

A woman must overcome mental illness caused by her overbearing mother – out in cinemas on Friday, August 6th

The wealthy Vale family from Boston invites Dr. Jaquith (Claude Rains) to meet their youngest daughter Charlotte (Bette Davis) to see if he can do anything with her. Failing to get matriarch Mrs. Henry Vale (Gladys Cooper) to introduce him without his title, he presses Charlotte to show him round the house, including her room. There, she keeps a library in which are hidden forbidden books, smokes illicitly and makes ornate boxes with ivory decoration. Years of living with her domineering mother have given Charlotte a problem with her own self-image.

Jaquith has Charlotte stay at his rest home, then instead of returning to Boston has her take the place of her sister Lisa (Ilka Chase) on a cruise to Rio de Janeiro on which she meets and falls for married man Jeremiah ‘Jerry’ Durrance known to his friends as JD (Paul Heinreid), whose absent wife dominates one of his daughters Tina back home much as Charlotte’s mother dominated her. The pair spend time together in Brazil during which they are involved in a car accident in which no-one is injured. … Read the rest