I CLAUDIUS (BBC iPlayer). Intrigue, murder and lust in ancient Rome. Trust no one. The legendary 1976 TV adaptation of Robert Graves’s novels, adapted by John Pullman and directed by Herbert Wise, holds up well, thanks to the excellent cast, which includes Derek Jacobi’s humane disabled Claudius, all tics, limping and stuttering, who didn’t want to be emperor; Sian Phillips’ elegantly and cruelly evil Livia; Brian Blessed’s Augustus, geniality personified; George Baker’s stern Tiberius; John Hurt’s vicious, outrageously OTT camp-mad Caligula.
KING AND COUNTRY (StudioCanal). World War I working-class, shell-shocked young soldier, unable to take any more, walked away from the guns, and is on trial for desertion. Joseph Losey directs this stark and stagy anti-war tribunal drama which is set entirely in the muddy, waterlogged, rat-infested trenches. Tom Courtenay won the best actor award at the1964 Venice Film Festival which was a bit unfair on Dirk Bogarde who, arguably, gave an even better performance as his defence lawyer.
OFFICIAL SECRETS (BBC iPlayer). British Intelligence whistleblower Katherine Gunn leaks GCHQ memo during the immediate run-up to the illegal 2003 Iraq invasion which she wants to stop. She is prosecuted as a traitor under the Official Secrets act. Keira Knightly is the courageous Gunn. Matt Smith is the Observer journalist. Ralph Fiennes is her lawyer.
WOMAN IN GOLD (BBC iPlayer). Austrian-Jewish woman wants to retrieve a Gustave Klimt painting, which was stolen from the family by the Nazis during World War II. The Austrian government wants to keep it. She claims she is the rightful owner (the painting is of her aunt) and she goes to court for justice. Helen Mirren gives a performance.
THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL (BBC iPlayer). They seek him here. They seek him there. Those Frenchies seek him everywhere. Is he in Heaven? Or is he in Hell? That damned, elusive Pimpernel. This is the 1934 version. Leslie Howard is almost too foppish as the hero. Raymond Massey is perfect as the suave villain, Chauvelin.
THINGS TO COME (BBC iPlayer). H G Wells’s 1936 Sci Fi epic, directed by William Cameron Menzies, predicts World War II and journeys to the moon. The message is loud and clear: “Stop this progress before it is too late.” The grandiose futuristic set designs upstage the poorly directed actors and weak script. Ralph Richardson’s portrait of a fascist dictator didn’t please Mussolini, who banned the film.
I KNOW WHERE I’M GOING (BFI Player) is a gentle Scottish romantic drama by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. An independent young woman (Wendy Hiller) travels to the Outer Hebrides to marry an elderly millionaire. She is delayed by bad weather and falls in love with a nice friendly laird (Roger Livesey). The stormy sea climax feels added on and doesn’t convince.
CRY, THE BELOVED COUNTRY (StudioCanal). Zoltan Korda directs Alan Paton’s novel. It’s all a bit stilted but of historic interest, since, in 1952, it was the first film to show what life was like for black people in South Africa during Apartheid. There is a fine performance by Canada Lee as a black priest whose son has killed a white farmer.
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