October 2008 Archives
CLASSIC REVIEW
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962)
Director: John Ford Certificate: U
Nothing's too good for the man who shot Liberty Valance
LIBERTY VALANCE (Lee Marvin) was a real nasty piece of work. This brutal thug and bully and his gang terrorised the people of the little Western town of Shinbone in the interests of big cattlemen. If you crossed him you were dead. The local marshall was a useless buffoon. The only man not afraid of Valance was tough local rancher Tom Doniphon (John Wayne). Doniphon was soon to find an ally in an ambitious young lawyer, Ransom Stoddard (James Stewart), who arrived in town in order to establish the rule of law and full statehood for the Western territory.
Stoddard first encounters Valance and his gang when his stagecoach is robbed and he is roughed up and left for dead but nursed back to health by local woman Hallie (Vera Miles). He is picked up and brought to Shinbone where he finds a job washing dishes in a local steakhouse. Doniphon is sceptical of Stoddard's approach but gradually begins to respect the earnest young lawyer. He is less enamoured with Stoddard's obvious interest in the only woman he can probably ever love.
Two of my favourite all-time actors – Stewart and Wayne – appeared for the first time together in this landmark John Ford film. Wayne brings his hard-bittten seen-it-all-before character to the peak of perfection in this movie. He's the Old West passing out of existence to make way for the New West as epitomised by Stewart's lawyer's emphasis on the rule of law and democracy. Valance seems to recognise this and does all in his power to undermine and destroy this uppity lawyer.
Doniphon is a noble character. He makes the sacrifices. He does what he believes to be right and allows Stoddard to get the girl and the credit for ending the threat posed by Liberty Valance and his gang. Stoddard is single-minded and determined to bring Valance to justice and establish the rule of law.
Twenty years after the events in the main part of the film, the respected veteran Senator Stoddard and his wife Hallie, return to Shinbone by train to pay his respects to an old friend – Doniphon. The local newspapermen have never heard of Doniphon and are curious about why such a respected politician should come back to attend the funeral of such an obscure man. They learn the truth of how Liberty Valance's reign of terror came to an end.
I like the clash of old and new values in this superb classic Western. It's still widely available on DVD so I hope that no-one in Hollywood is considering a remake. You can't improve on perfection!
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962)
Director: John Ford Certificate: U
Nothing's too good for the man who shot Liberty Valance
LIBERTY VALANCE (Lee Marvin) was a real nasty piece of work. This brutal thug and bully and his gang terrorised the people of the little Western town of Shinbone in the interests of big cattlemen. If you crossed him you were dead. The local marshall was a useless buffoon. The only man not afraid of Valance was tough local rancher Tom Doniphon (John Wayne). Doniphon was soon to find an ally in an ambitious young lawyer, Ransom Stoddard (James Stewart), who arrived in town in order to establish the rule of law and full statehood for the Western territory.
Stoddard first encounters Valance and his gang when his stagecoach is robbed and he is roughed up and left for dead but nursed back to health by local woman Hallie (Vera Miles). He is picked up and brought to Shinbone where he finds a job washing dishes in a local steakhouse. Doniphon is sceptical of Stoddard's approach but gradually begins to respect the earnest young lawyer. He is less enamoured with Stoddard's obvious interest in the only woman he can probably ever love.
Two of my favourite all-time actors – Stewart and Wayne – appeared for the first time together in this landmark John Ford film. Wayne brings his hard-bittten seen-it-all-before character to the peak of perfection in this movie. He's the Old West passing out of existence to make way for the New West as epitomised by Stewart's lawyer's emphasis on the rule of law and democracy. Valance seems to recognise this and does all in his power to undermine and destroy this uppity lawyer.
Doniphon is a noble character. He makes the sacrifices. He does what he believes to be right and allows Stoddard to get the girl and the credit for ending the threat posed by Liberty Valance and his gang. Stoddard is single-minded and determined to bring Valance to justice and establish the rule of law.
Twenty years after the events in the main part of the film, the respected veteran Senator Stoddard and his wife Hallie, return to Shinbone by train to pay his respects to an old friend – Doniphon. The local newspapermen have never heard of Doniphon and are curious about why such a respected politician should come back to attend the funeral of such an obscure man. They learn the truth of how Liberty Valance's reign of terror came to an end.
I like the clash of old and new values in this superb classic Western. It's still widely available on DVD so I hope that no-one in Hollywood is considering a remake. You can't improve on perfection!
CLASSIC FILM REVIEW
The Night of the Hunter (1955)
I can hear you whisperin' children, so I know you're down there. I can feel myself gettin' awful mad. I'm out of patience children. I'm coming to find you now. Preacher Harry Powell
AS CONVICTED murderer and robber Ben Harper (Peter Graves) awaits his execution he tells his cellmate
Harry Powell (Robert Mitchum) about his crime. Harper goes to his fate without revealing the whereabouts of the $10,000 he stole. Preacher Powell is a serial killer who marries and murders widows for their money, believing he is helping God do away with women who arouse men's carnal instincts.
As he is only in prison for car theft, he is soon released. He heads off to meet Ben’s widow Willa (Shelley Winters) in the hope of getting his hands on the loot. The handsome preacher hides his true fearsomeness and his evil nature to win Willa’s heart and to marry her. He doesn’t realise that Willa has no idea where the loot is hidden. The secret is known only to her two children, nine-year-old John and four-year-old Pearl.
Preacher Powell breaks her down with his oily superficial charm, Bible quotations, sermons and hymns, and she agrees to marry him. On their wedding night he reveals his true evil sense and his hatred and disdain for women with their sinful, ensnaring ways and his determination to get his hands on Ben’s loot at whatever cost. It’s too late for Willa but the children still have a chance to get away.
This has to be one of the scariest chase movies in film history. Stanley Cortez’s dreamlike cinematography heightens the sense of horror and suspense in this truly frightening film. Mitchum’s Preacher has to be one of the most memorable screen villains in cinema history with his perfect mix of charm and menace.
This film is readily available on DVD and can be seen on the big screen at the Dublin Road Movie House on Saturday 22nd November at 7.00pm. as part of the Cinemagic festival. This will be £4.00 well spent.
The Night of the Hunter (1955)
I can hear you whisperin' children, so I know you're down there. I can feel myself gettin' awful mad. I'm out of patience children. I'm coming to find you now. Preacher Harry Powell
AS CONVICTED murderer and robber Ben Harper (Peter Graves) awaits his execution he tells his cellmate
Harry Powell (Robert Mitchum) about his crime. Harper goes to his fate without revealing the whereabouts of the $10,000 he stole. Preacher Powell is a serial killer who marries and murders widows for their money, believing he is helping God do away with women who arouse men's carnal instincts.
As he is only in prison for car theft, he is soon released. He heads off to meet Ben’s widow Willa (Shelley Winters) in the hope of getting his hands on the loot. The handsome preacher hides his true fearsomeness and his evil nature to win Willa’s heart and to marry her. He doesn’t realise that Willa has no idea where the loot is hidden. The secret is known only to her two children, nine-year-old John and four-year-old Pearl.
Preacher Powell breaks her down with his oily superficial charm, Bible quotations, sermons and hymns, and she agrees to marry him. On their wedding night he reveals his true evil sense and his hatred and disdain for women with their sinful, ensnaring ways and his determination to get his hands on Ben’s loot at whatever cost. It’s too late for Willa but the children still have a chance to get away.
This has to be one of the scariest chase movies in film history. Stanley Cortez’s dreamlike cinematography heightens the sense of horror and suspense in this truly frightening film. Mitchum’s Preacher has to be one of the most memorable screen villains in cinema history with his perfect mix of charm and menace.
This film is readily available on DVD and can be seen on the big screen at the Dublin Road Movie House on Saturday 22nd November at 7.00pm. as part of the Cinemagic festival. This will be £4.00 well spent.
FILM REVIEW
Taken
Producer and writer: Luc Goddard
As film fans await the new James Bond film, Quantum of Solace, they have the opportunity to compare it with other spy thrillers. Taken is one such film starring our own Liam Neeson.
Neeson’s character, Bryan is far from glamorous. Divorced, he seems at first to be a pathetic figure; easily upstaged by his ex-wife’s horrendously rich new husband in the affections of his 17-year-old daughter Amy. He buys her a karaoke machine for her birthday. The stepfather buys her a horse. Although he moved to town to live near his daughter after retirement, it seems that Bryan is going to struggle to build any kind of relationship with the lively teenager.
As we see him drown his sorrows with his old workmates at a barbecue at his home, we see that there is more to Bryan than first appears. His old buddies seem to have been members of some kind of covert intelligence agency. They now invite him to provide security to a young pop singer at a gig in town the next night. Bryan agrees to do the job. After the gig he manages to disarm a knife-wielding attacker and whisks her off to safety This is a man who can handle himself. You don’t want to mess with him if you know what’s good for you.
As Amy is still a minor, she needs Bryan to sign a document to allow her to spend a holiday in France with her older schoolfriend, Amanda. He’s not too happy about the idea but relents provided that she agrees to a number of conditions and always keeps in touch using a mobile phone he gives her.
I can’t imagine that the French tourist board will appreciate this film. Bryan worries about his daughter come terribly true. The two American girls are marked out by Peter, a spotter for a ruthless gang of kidnappers, who shares a taxi from the airport with them in order to discover where they are staying. I can see thousands of American and other filmgoers mentally crossing off Paris as a possible holiday destination after watching this film.
Amy is on the phone with her dad as the gang breaks in and kidnaps the two girls. He records the background sounds as Amy hides under a bed and describes as much details as possible about the kidnappers before she is taken. In a brief phone exchange with one kidnapper he demands that his daughter be released unharmed or he would come over to Paris, use his ‘special skills’ and track them down and kill them. Contemptuously one kidnapper answered ‘Good luck’ before smashing the phone and making off with the two girls. He really should have listened and saved himself a lot of grief.
Bryan learns that he has only 96 hours to act before the girls are turned into junkies and sold into sex-slavery by an Albanian gang. He calls in favours and sets off in pursuit.
This is where the film starts to lose its moral compass. Taken was thrilling and compelling as Bryan learned of Amy’s kidnapping and set out to track down his daughter and the gang who stole her away. It looked fantastic too. However, its message on the use of torture, murder and violence – even on innocents who get in the way – is very disturbing.
Bryan cuts a swathe of mayhem across Paris as he chases after the kidnappers of his daughter. In his ruthless determination to catch up with them he does not hesitate to use torture and murder. Few people would show much sympathy for a gang of Albanian people-traffickers or perverted sheikhs. In our angrier moments we might think that they probably deserve all the get from the likes of Bryan. Fair enough, but he even puts a bullet into a totally innocent woman – the wife of a top French former colleague – to pressurise him into giving up information on a suspect. This scene was brutal and shocking. I think it crossed a line in its display of gratuitous violence purely for entertainment. Bryan may well love and care for his daughter but a man who is this dangerous needs locking up.
Taken
Producer and writer: Luc Goddard
As film fans await the new James Bond film, Quantum of Solace, they have the opportunity to compare it with other spy thrillers. Taken is one such film starring our own Liam Neeson.
Neeson’s character, Bryan is far from glamorous. Divorced, he seems at first to be a pathetic figure; easily upstaged by his ex-wife’s horrendously rich new husband in the affections of his 17-year-old daughter Amy. He buys her a karaoke machine for her birthday. The stepfather buys her a horse. Although he moved to town to live near his daughter after retirement, it seems that Bryan is going to struggle to build any kind of relationship with the lively teenager.
As we see him drown his sorrows with his old workmates at a barbecue at his home, we see that there is more to Bryan than first appears. His old buddies seem to have been members of some kind of covert intelligence agency. They now invite him to provide security to a young pop singer at a gig in town the next night. Bryan agrees to do the job. After the gig he manages to disarm a knife-wielding attacker and whisks her off to safety This is a man who can handle himself. You don’t want to mess with him if you know what’s good for you.
As Amy is still a minor, she needs Bryan to sign a document to allow her to spend a holiday in France with her older schoolfriend, Amanda. He’s not too happy about the idea but relents provided that she agrees to a number of conditions and always keeps in touch using a mobile phone he gives her.
I can’t imagine that the French tourist board will appreciate this film. Bryan worries about his daughter come terribly true. The two American girls are marked out by Peter, a spotter for a ruthless gang of kidnappers, who shares a taxi from the airport with them in order to discover where they are staying. I can see thousands of American and other filmgoers mentally crossing off Paris as a possible holiday destination after watching this film.
Amy is on the phone with her dad as the gang breaks in and kidnaps the two girls. He records the background sounds as Amy hides under a bed and describes as much details as possible about the kidnappers before she is taken. In a brief phone exchange with one kidnapper he demands that his daughter be released unharmed or he would come over to Paris, use his ‘special skills’ and track them down and kill them. Contemptuously one kidnapper answered ‘Good luck’ before smashing the phone and making off with the two girls. He really should have listened and saved himself a lot of grief.
Bryan learns that he has only 96 hours to act before the girls are turned into junkies and sold into sex-slavery by an Albanian gang. He calls in favours and sets off in pursuit.
This is where the film starts to lose its moral compass. Taken was thrilling and compelling as Bryan learned of Amy’s kidnapping and set out to track down his daughter and the gang who stole her away. It looked fantastic too. However, its message on the use of torture, murder and violence – even on innocents who get in the way – is very disturbing.
Bryan cuts a swathe of mayhem across Paris as he chases after the kidnappers of his daughter. In his ruthless determination to catch up with them he does not hesitate to use torture and murder. Few people would show much sympathy for a gang of Albanian people-traffickers or perverted sheikhs. In our angrier moments we might think that they probably deserve all the get from the likes of Bryan. Fair enough, but he even puts a bullet into a totally innocent woman – the wife of a top French former colleague – to pressurise him into giving up information on a suspect. This scene was brutal and shocking. I think it crossed a line in its display of gratuitous violence purely for entertainment. Bryan may well love and care for his daughter but a man who is this dangerous needs locking up.
In 1987 after having been made redundant from the Head Line, G Heyn and Sons, I found work with another shipping company, Cawoods Container Services. At the time containerisation had just begun to supersede the famous Kelly coal boats. Coal came from South Wales and the North East of England in 20foot open top containers to Ellsemere Port in Cheshire. Much of it came by rail. It was then shipped across to Belfast where it was distributed to coal yards throughout Ulster. We would generally distribute around 90 boxes of 23 tonnes or more a day. Our boxes went out to Cawoods at Queen’s Quay where the Odyssey Centre now stands; Carryduff Coal; Charles Neill of Bangor; Howden’s of Larne, Lane’s of Londonderry and Kane Fuels here in Carrickfergus.
Prior to this, Kelly’s vessels used to call at Belfast, Larne and Carrick to unload coal in bulk. Younger folk living in the town may not recall it, but the area around the marina was once a working harbour. Kane Fuels used to have quite a sizeable coalyard there.
Kelly later began to operate a rival container service in collaboration with Dragon Shipping Line from Swansea in south Wales.
Gradually, though coal started to fall away. Though he was foolish in many ways, Arthur Scargill’s predictions during the 1984 miner’s strike were spot-on. Once the strike was broken it was only a matter of time before mining ceased as a large-scale industry in Britain. There is virtually no British coal industry left even though there are hundreds of years of useful coal still to be mined should it become necessary.
Most of the coal coming into Northern Ireland these days is foreign. Bulk coal ships - much larger than the friendly Kelly coal boats – now bring in all the coal we need. There are fewer separate distributors now, too. Kelly Fuels’ boats may be long gone but the company itself has gobbled up many of its former rivals here and in Scotland.
The company has not forgotten its history and still sells prints of oil paintings it commissioned of most of its former vessels. If you or a relative ever sailed on the Ballyduff, the Ballykern or any other Kelly boat you’ve a good chance of getting one of these prints. Check out the picture gallery on the company’s website www.kellyshipping.com or drop into their offices in Lombard Street the next time you’re in Belfast.
I was chatting to a work colleague the other day about this largely forgotten history. There were some rare characters working in the coal trade in the postwar years right up to the late 1980s. Some day I’ll tell some of these tales in a future Kerr’s Corner.
Prior to this, Kelly’s vessels used to call at Belfast, Larne and Carrick to unload coal in bulk. Younger folk living in the town may not recall it, but the area around the marina was once a working harbour. Kane Fuels used to have quite a sizeable coalyard there.
Kelly later began to operate a rival container service in collaboration with Dragon Shipping Line from Swansea in south Wales.
Gradually, though coal started to fall away. Though he was foolish in many ways, Arthur Scargill’s predictions during the 1984 miner’s strike were spot-on. Once the strike was broken it was only a matter of time before mining ceased as a large-scale industry in Britain. There is virtually no British coal industry left even though there are hundreds of years of useful coal still to be mined should it become necessary.
Most of the coal coming into Northern Ireland these days is foreign. Bulk coal ships - much larger than the friendly Kelly coal boats – now bring in all the coal we need. There are fewer separate distributors now, too. Kelly Fuels’ boats may be long gone but the company itself has gobbled up many of its former rivals here and in Scotland.
The company has not forgotten its history and still sells prints of oil paintings it commissioned of most of its former vessels. If you or a relative ever sailed on the Ballyduff, the Ballykern or any other Kelly boat you’ve a good chance of getting one of these prints. Check out the picture gallery on the company’s website www.kellyshipping.com or drop into their offices in Lombard Street the next time you’re in Belfast.
I was chatting to a work colleague the other day about this largely forgotten history. There were some rare characters working in the coal trade in the postwar years right up to the late 1980s. Some day I’ll tell some of these tales in a future Kerr’s Corner.
