THE COMEDIANS no stars

 Peter Glenville was a fine stage director but he didn't seem to possess the temperament for cinema and consequently the films he made remain in large part actor's pieces but not much else. With this screen version of Graham Greene's "The Comedians", shot in Panavision and on location in the Caribbean, he had the opportunity to branch out and make something expansive and yet the film is dull and sluggish, unforgivably so since it is set in Haiti during the time of Papa Doc and should, at least, have had a sense of danger. Also the casting of Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor was an obvious mistake; they are clearly performing in 'movie star' mode and are in need of a better director and better dialogue. Despite being written by the author himself the film has the stilted ring of a soap opera.

The supporting cast, on the other hand, do go some way in trying to redeem the film. Alec Guinness is a superbly seedy Major Jones, Peter Ustinov a nicely pathetic cuckold and Paul Ford and Lillian Gish are excellent as the naive Smiths, pedaling their creed of vegetarianism. There's also fine work in smaller roles from Roscoe Lee Brown, Raymond St. Jacques, Zakes Mokae and a young James Earl Jones but in the end even the cast can't save the film which amounts to a series of missed opportunities and it just drags along for its 150 minute running time. Perhaps it really needed a Carol Reed to do it justice.

PRIMROSE PATH no stars

 Cast as the tomboy daughter of a family of 'loose women', (not quite identified as prostitutes in this 1940 film), Ginger Rogers was given the chance to show she was more than a great dancer and fine comedienne and failed miserably. She was way too old for the part and considering the background of her character, far too naive. She falls for nice guy Joel McCrea, also totally miscast, and marries him but when he meets her family their marriage runs into trouble.

"Primrose Path" was a cliche-ridden mess only marginally redeemed by Marjorie Rambeau's performance as Ginger's no-good mother, (Rambeau was Oscar-nominated). The director was Gregory LaCava who did his best with the material which was based on Victoria Lincoln's novel "February Hill" and the subsequent play by Robert L. Buckner and Walter Hart but by 1940 it already seemed three decades out of date. Of course, in the same year Ginger also made "Kitty Foyle", a somewhat better romantic melodrama, and won the Academy Award. She didn't deserve it but at least in "Kitty Foyle" she showed some of the skill that had made her a household name. "Primrose Path" is best forgotten.

UNDER SUSPICION *

 Another case of America taking a fairly well-known 'foreign language' film and remaking it for audiences who don't like reading subtitles and probably haven't seen the original, in this case Claude Miller's "Garde a vue". As it turns out, I haven't seen the original either so this 'did-he-or-didn't-he-do-it' thriller wasn't ruined for me by any knowledge of the outcome. This is very much a talkative, character-driven piece with Morgan Freeman as the police chief and Gene Hackman as his friend and now murder suspect.

Two young girls have been raped and murdered and Hackman has found the body of the second victim but is now the prime suspect in both killings and has been brought in for interrogation during which we get, not just the events surrounding the murders, but Hackman's life and marriage dissected with Freeman breaking down the fourth wall by entering into events as a character.

I found this device alienating rather than involving and the material itself somewhat old-hat but what just about redeems the film is, as has been so often the case, Hackman's performance. He strips his character to the bone making him a truly tragic figure in a film that aspires to tragedy but which never rises above the routine. I can only presume the French version was better.

SICK OF MYSELF ***

 Poor Signe, (a brilliant Kristine Kujath Thorp), doesn't get a lot of attention, particularly not from her boyfriend Thomas, (Eirik Saether), for whom craving attention is like his need for oxygen. Then one day day a woman staggers into the bakery where Signe works, covered in blood, and falls into Signe's arms. Later Signe walks home wearing her blood-splattered clothing and suddenly finds she is getting at least some attention and so begins Kristoffer Borgli's brilliant and very black 'body-horror' comedy "Sick of Myself".

Of course, the more Thomas ignores Signe the more she goes out of her way to feign illness but when that doesn't work she goes to even greater extremes like taking a drug she's read about online and which causes severe facial disfigurement. Now Thomas is taking notice but is it enough?

"Sick of Myself" is the blackest of black comedies, taking in not just body horror but brilliantly lampooning our constant need to be the centre of attention, to be looked at and talked about in this age of social media. Both Signe and Thomas suffer from it though both react differently; Signe in disfiguring herself and Thomas in stealing stuff which he uses in his exhibitions, (he's an artist who wants to be more famous than he is). Disturbing and very funny in equal measure, this is unquestionably the most original and best comedy you are likely to see all year.

SNATCH ***

 This classic British gangster comedy is just the type of film Quentin Tarantino might have made if he had been born and raised in London's East End but Guy Ritchie's "Snatch" is a lot funnier than anything Tarantino has given us and it's got one of the best casts, as well as one of the daftest, yet most original, plots of any 'heist' movie although any attempt at summing it up would be wasted.

This is a movie that is best approached raw; just sit back and revel in Ritchie's quick-fire direction, his brilliant and, at times, incomprehensible dialogue and that terrific cast, (Brad Pitt, who may as well be speaking in tongues, might just be giving his best performance here). All you need to know is that involves a very large diamond, a lot of very incompetent gangsters, a load of gypsies, of whom Brad Pitt is one, and Benicio Del Toro as a gambler called Frankie Four Fingers. This is a movie you might even call obscenely enjoyable.

THE WOMAN IN QUESTION no stars

 "The Woman in Question" may be the least well-known of Anthony Asquith's films and to be honest, I'm not surprised. It's a fairly routine 'Rashomon'-style murder yarn. Jean Kent is the victim and we see her through the eyes of five different people, (the movie's told in a series of flashbacks), each one describing her in very different terms giving Kent a chance to display what little acting chops she had.

It's got a decent enough cast, (a young Dirk Bogarde, Hermione Baddeley, excellent as a gossipy landlady, Stewart Granger lookalike John McCallum, Susan Shaw, Charles Victor, taking the acting honors and the always reliable Duncan Macrae as the investigating copper), but the script's poor and the film's only 'novelty value' lies in which version of the truth is true, if any.

It's a nice idea, badly handled and Bogarde's dreadful, initially putting on a terrible American accent before actually admitting he's from Liverpool which in itself takes some swallowing. Bogarde and Asquith completists may get something out of it but everyone else should give it a wide berth.

FAIR PLAY **

 No-one can say we're not getting our fair share of psychological 'thrillers' these days. Like buses, as soon as one comes along there's another one behind. The question is, are they any good as in, are they original, are they 'thrilling' and how soon will overkill set in. "Fair Play" is actually very good indeed as well as being highly original. It's set in the world of high finance where the term 'cutthroat' can be both metaphorical and literal especially if sex is also involved. Emily, (Phoebe Dynevor) and Luke, (Alden Ehrenreich, in a role finally worthy of his considerable talents), work together but have been hiding their relationship from colleagues. When one of the them gets a promotion things in general start to go pear-shaped.

What distinguishes "Fair Play" from its rivals is its attention to detail. Here we have an environment that feels painfully real and a plot that initially might seem unlikely yet doesn't actually feel that contrived. It's not perfect. I found it hard to believe that its protagonists could not only live together but also be engaged without anyone at work catching on. Nevertheless, as a movie about the toxicity of office politics where men and women think they can compete on an equal footing with disastrous results "Fair Play" ultimately lands a gut-punch thanks largely to terrific performances from Dynevor and especially from Ehrenreich as well as an excellent turn from Eddie Marsan as the boss from hell. Not necessarily pleasant viewing but certainly a cut above.

REPTILE **

 This slow-burner of a murder yarn may just turn out to be the best thriller of the year. A realtor is found dead by her colleague and partner who naturally becomes a suspect but then there are a few other men in her life who are also suspects; so far, so common-place but Grant Singer's "Reptile" is as much about the police investigating the killing as it is about the investigation. These are a close-knit bunch of cops who both work and play together and who may not be as clean as they should be.

A sterling cast, (Benicio Del Torro, Alicia Silverstone, Justin Timberlake, Eric Bogosian, Michael Pitt, Frances Fisher), add a further touch of class to an already classy thriller and one that is as far from conventional multiplex fare as you are likely to get. It may not always be that easy to follow and midway through the killing seems to fade into the background but it's always highly intelligent and while it may not appeal to a mass audience I think it has cult status written all over it.

PLEASE BABY PLEASE no stars

 Beyond bad! The credit sequence is just dandy so long as you love pinks, blues, highly stylised camp and a little violence. Amanda Kramer's "Please Baby Please" is more of a homage to Kathryn Bigelow's "The Loveless" than it is to "Absolute Beginners" but with a very Queer agenda and while visually this is often easy on the eye its socio-political posturings are very hard to swallow and given the dreadful dialogue they have to speak leads Andrea Riseborough and Harry Mellings simply can't create characters who either seem real or with whom we can empathize.

You might call "Please Baby Please" a queer, feminist, art-house semi-musical shot, again in homage to films of the past, in Panavision and giving Demi Moore the 'guest starring' role. It is, in other words, pretentious in a very bad way, a one-of-a-kind movie that makes you glad it is; at least another one won't be coming along any time soon. What attracted Riseborough to rubbish like this is a mystery.

TIGHT SPOT **

 Excellent, hard-boiled crime movie that wastes no time in getting down to the action and then never really lets up, despite its enclosed setting, (it was based on a play). Ginger Rogers, (very good), is the tough-talking jailbird taken from prison so she can testify against the mob though Ginger isn't too keen on talking and the mob aren't too keen in keeping her alive.

Brian Keith is the cop whose job it is to ensure she stays alive and Edward G. Robinson, (superb as ever), is the District Attorney who wants her to testify. The director of "Tight Spot" was Phil Karlson and this was right up his street and it's still one of his best films. Talkative, yes, but then the talk is good and while it may have been a B-Movie it was certainly a first-class one.

THE BARRETTS OF WIMPOLE STREET ***

 Sidney Franklin's first screen version of "The Barretts of Wimpole Street", (he remade it again in 1957), is a ridiculously entertaining period piece about the blossoming romance between the poets Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett, (Fredric March and Norma Shearer, both excellent in their very Hollywood way), and how finally Elizabeth and the rest of the Barrett clan, (there were nine of them), rebelled against their tyrannical father, (a superb Charles Laughton, at the time only three years older than Shearer).

It was a very typical prestige production of the period. Irving G. Thalberg was the producer and he obviously chose it as a vehicle for the missus, (he was married to Shearer at the time), but it's almost stolen by Maureen O'Sullivan, surprisingly good as one of the Barrett girls and Una O'Connor is a delight, gliding across the room as if on wheels. The source was a play by Rudolph Besier and it's the kind of thing that would have gone down a treat on the London and Broadway stage, the archetypical 'well-made-play'. Yes, it's decidedly old-fashioned and very talkative and unlikely to appeal to today's audiences but it's also very good, a little on the camp side certainly but a very fine example of just how good the studio system could be at its best.

DONKEY SKIN *

 Jacques Demy was certainly a frivolous film-maker but what's wrong with frivolity in the name of art? "Peau D'ane" was his very literal fairy-tale made in homage to Cocteau's "La Belle et Le Bete" down to the casting of Jean Marais among a litany of famous French actors and while it was never going to be in the Cocteau class it certainly looks like a highly attractive entertainment and features a luminous Catherine Deneuve in the central role of a princess who must flee her home when she is forced to marry her own father, the king, (don't ask!).

Naturally, this being a Jacques Demy film every tiny detail of its production design is close to perfect and the cast, that also includes Delphine Seyrig, Jacques Perrin and Micheline Presle throw themselves into the confection with abandon and yet it's all a little too twee to be considered among Demy's better works. It might appeal to little French girls and bigger French boys with a crush on the gorgeous Deneuve but Demy aficionados will be disappointed. Oh, and the songs are pretty bad, too.

BARBIE ***

 "Barbie" is undoubtedly one of the most enjoyable films I've seen this year and yet it's also the most infuriating. Highly imaginative, (it's got the best pre-credit sequence in years), and laugh-out-loud funny it's got ideas to burn and therein lies the problem. Director and co-writer, (with partner Noah Baumbach), Greta Gerwig has set out to make the ultimate feminist tract dressed up in the brightest of pinks as a satire and while it works perfectly well as a satire full of self-conscious digs at its very creation, (we are constantly being reminded this is a movie called "Barbie" that we're watching), it's as a tract that it's in danger of sinking. That it doesn't is very much to Gerwig's credit; she's much too smart to really ruin her product and there is an awful lot here to enjoy.

The thin plot has Barbie and Ken leaving Barbieland for the real world so Barbie can repair some sort of hole in the spectrum or some such nonsense that has allowed 'real' feelings (of a negative kind) to slip in and, naturally, since this is a film about dolls coming to life, it's decidedly silly and if had stayed silly it might have been inconsequential fun but Gerwig and Baumbach wants this to be 'consequential' fun, a laugh-a-minute message movie. Unfortunately one message doesn't appear to be enough; there were times I felt I was being battered to death by a giant message-wielding Barbie and by the time Will Ferrell's CEO of Mattel has left the real world for Barbieland the laughs had begun to dry up.

Perhaps if someone had snipped about 20 minutes from the running time and dropped a few of the film's sermons this might have been the classic it was clearly aiming to be; that said, there are a lot of plusses here. It looks fantastic, the best gags are as good as anything Gerwig or Baumbach have given us in the past and best of all, it's got a couple of living dolls worthy of the name.

Margot Robbie was born to play Barbie, (there's even an in-joke about her in the movie), and, of course, she's wonderful and yet the film isn't hers. Barbie really belongs to Ryan Gosling who might become the first actor to be Oscar-nominated for playing a doll and given that the film is structured to make him a mouthpiece for its creators he brings an uncanny degree of feeling to the role and his performance is up there with his very best. As for Gerwig, maybe now that she's got her inner Barbie out of her system she might finally settle down to make comedies that are funny and meaningful and leave the sermons at home. We already know how good she can be.