1979 - DON GIOVANNI, Mozart's opera on film

 Probably as good a version of a filmed opera as you are going to see anywhere.  The Blu Ray is an excellent transfer and the photography courtesy of Gerry Fisher is absolutely stunning.

 

Be forewarned that this is a 3 hour film.  However the nice thing about the Blu Ray disc is that you can pause it and take as many breaks as you want or need.

The director Joseph Losey has done an excellent job transferring this opera to film.  Amusingly enought he apparently fell asleep while attending a live performance of the opera.

 

It doesn't hurt to have a good filmed version of what is considered to be one of Mozart's greatest operas.

The screenplay was by Losey, Rolf Liebermann, Patricia Losey, Renzo Rossellini, and Frantz Salieri based on the libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's music of course.

1975 - THE ROMANTIC ENGLISHWOMAN, snooty British drama wrapped in an enigma

Lots of high class British talent in one of those "what is reality" dramas that occasionally get made to appeal to the art house crowd and maybe win a few awards. 

The writer is Tom Stoppard and the director is Joseph Losey.  Glenda Jackson and Michael Caine in one of his roles where he's not trolling for a paycheck, are the married couple.  They are either having marital problems or Caine who is a writer, is making it all in his head as part of a screenplay he is writing. If this doesn't scream classy sophisticated drama I don't know what does.

This is one of those films where everyone sits around and sips sherry out of a decanter and spouts witticisms to show how erudite they are. Tom Stoppard is known for his way with clever dialog and there are some witty lines, but the whole thing seems rather artificial to me.  The fantasy scenes the writer creates between his wife and her lover are more silly than satirical, if satire was what the filmmakers were trying to achieve, hard to tell.

There is a Mr. Smartypants nature to this film where the people making it want to rub it into everyone's face with how clever they are with their fantasy vs reality crap.

115 minutes.

1963 - THESE ARE THE DAMNED, British science fiction with social commentary

Hammer Studios made fairly interesting films at times.  These Are The Damned filmed in the early 1960's is a strong as any film they produced. This film has a very good cast, an interesting premise and strong direction from blacklisted 1950's director Joseph Losey. 

The plot involves a middle aged American on vacation in England who gets himself involved with the sister of the leader of a "teddy boys" gang, sort of a British version of the Hell's angles.  The film takes a hard 90 degree pivot and turns into a science fiction story about the fear of nuclear war.  The plot then involves the British government selectively breeding radioactive children for survival after nuclear annihilation.

The 1960's was an era of paranoia about nuclear war but the depressing nature of the subject usually made for pretty downbeat films like, Fail Safe or On The Beach.  These Are The Damned has more of a focus on ordinary people and is more of a small scale film as is typical for a modestly budgeted Hammer film.

The acting by the entire cast is at a very high level.  American MacDonald Carey who will probably be remembered for playing Dr. Horton on the long running soap opera Days Of Our Lives, gives a strong performance as a middle aged insurance executive disillusioned with his life.  Carey  gets involved with a barely out of her teenage years  Shirley Anne Field who was usually cast as a British teenage sexpot and is also pretty good.  Oliver Reed is  in the film and does his usual creepy misanthrope performing thing, but he does it well. 

This intelligently made film about the paranoia of nuclear war is worthy of a lot of respect.

96 minutes, screenplay by Evan Jones