THE RAINS CAME *

 From a time when 'blackening up' wasn't just acceptable but apparently essential if you wanted to make a movie set in some exotic locale. "The Rains Came" is set in India so in the absence of any Indian actors of note or indeed of any Indian actors at all, here we get Tyrone Power, H.B. Warner, Joseph Schildkraut and that go to actress when you need someone to play someone of whatever nationality going, Maria Ouspenskaya, (this time she's a Maharani), applying the make-up and going native.

It might seem offensive today but if you can get your head around such carryings on back in the day then this is a slightly better than average melodrama with some really special special-effects, (they won the Oscar), comprising not just the rains of the title but also an earthquake and a flood, killing thousands no doubt but sparing most of the cast at least until the plague hits, (disaster movies really lived up to their name in the thirties).

Cast somewhat against type as a rich bitch who finds love and a kind of salvation when the rains come, Myrna Loy gives the movie a touch of class while the supporting cast of Hollywood regulars are all excellent. Remade as "The Rains of Ranchipur" with Richard Burton applying the paint as the Indian doctor and Lana Turner as the self-sacrificing lady but despite all the glitz and glamour it never measured up to the original. For reasons that should be obvious it's unlikely that either version will be seen much today.

ROMEO IS BLEEDING *

 This tale of a corrupt cop whose past catches up with him is certainly stylishly made but is so confusingly plotted and so hard to take seriously that it's difficult to work up too much enthusiasm for it. Hungarian-born British director Peter Medak made "Romeo is Bleeding" in the US and it was a fairly typical neo-noir of its period. Gary Oldman is excellent as the dirty cop but his character remains utterly unbelievable while Lena Olin as a Russian hit-woman is straight out of a cartoon so it's left to Roy Schneider as the Mr. Big character to give the film a tiny touch of class. Otherwise it's watchable in its dumb fashion but it still feels like something David Lynch or Tarantino might have passed on.

HAMNET **

 There's one great moment in "Hamnet" and it occurs at the very end, (I won't say anymore on that score for those who have yet to see it), but it's a long slog getting there. Of course, even if you haven't seen the film most people will know that "Hamnet" is the story of how Shakespeare's young son Hamnet died of the plague and how Will and his wife, here called Agnes, coped with their grief and it's based on a highly praised novel by Maggie O'Farrell who co-wrote the screenplay with director Chloe Zhao.

I haven't read the novel but perhaps my expectations were unduly high having loved Zhao's early work and being very much part of the Buckley/Mescal fan-base and neither of them really disappoints here. Indeed the four central performances, (Buckley, Mescal, Emily Watson and the remarkable young Jacobi Jupe as Hamnet), are excellent so I suppose the fault has to lie with Zhao.

This is a movie about grief and nothing else; everything is directed towards Hamnet's death and how his parents deal with it, Agnes by withdrawing into herself and Shakespeare, we are lead to believe, by writing 'Hamlet' and if you are going to channel everything into grief then it must be primal if it's to devastate you or even move you but Zhao gives us grief smothered in a blanket of good taste and all the restraint of never allowing your primal scream to upset the neighbours.

This is grief that finds its climax at a performance of 'Hamlet' at the Globe Theatre to a packed house with Agnes standing right at the front. It might have worked were it not for the fact that Zhao casts Jupe's older brother Noah as the young actor playing Hamlet and he simply isn't up to the challenge while, at least what we assume is this initial performance of the play, Shakespeare casts himself as the ghost of Hamlet's father so he can weep and embrace his dead son, (Hamlet/Hamnet; getit-gotit-good?).

This performance of the play takes up about the last twenty minutes or so of the film and just when I thought it was all over Zhao pulls off one final magnificent coup with a great final single shot that, if it didn't quite jerk my tears, at least ended the film of something of a cinematic high. Still, Buckley, Mescal and young Jacobi deserve better than this noble weepie.