When Mandras Christian Bale Cruz’s spurned fianc?returns from the front unkempt hollow-eyed and looking like
When Mandras (Christian Bale), Cruz’s spurned fianc?returns from the front, unkempt, hollow-eyed and looking like the Ancient Mariner, it’s as if he has stumbled out of another, far harsher film. Then, as Mussolini falls and the Germans betray their Italian allies, the mood darkens. All of a sudden we’re plunged into the middle of a thundering war movie.The film makers never really explore the complexities of the relationships between the Italians and the islanders. Nor are we offered any explanation why the one sympathetic German officer, Weber (David Morrisey), turns against his former friends.There is a dispiriting sense that the death and bloodshed is being trivialised, and that all the film makers are interested in is serving up a big, cheesy, Dr Zhivago-style finale one that in the event proves surprisingly easy to resist..
In 1958, when Val Guest first considered writing his autobiography, he asked his friends for their advice “Tell it as it was,” Peter Sellers argued. In 1958, when Val Guest first considered writing his autobiography, he asked his friends for their advice “Tell it as it was,” Peter Sellers argued “Not with everything smelling of roses We spend half our lives in the crap. The interesting part is how we get out of it.” David Niven had other recommendations: “Before you write it,” he cautioned, “make a list of your friends and decide how many you’re prepared to lose. Also, if the book’s no good, can you take seeing it on the remainder counter at Foyles?” Cary Grant was more blunt: “Don’t. Unless you feel like an ego trip.”
Now he’s approaching his 90th birthday, Val Guest is finally ready to take that ride “Everybody’s fallen off their perch except me,” he reflects.
“Amazingly, I’m still standing.”Guest’s life in pictures as director, writer, producer and performer is immense in its chronology and variety He spent the 1930s writing scripts for Will Hay. He broke into directing with The Nose Has It! (1942), a wartime public- information film in which Arthur Askey illustrated how sneezing near a munitions factory might inadvertently aid the cause of Mr Hitler. He gave young hopefuls called Peter Sellers, Cliff Richard and Frankie Howerd their first starring roles in the movies.He inaugurated Hammer horror with The Quatermass Xperiment (1955), a film that screamed its status as the first British X-certificate picture. He made the only significant British film noir, Hell is a City (1960), a tough police thriller shot on location in Manchester.
