Richard Attenborough

  • The League of Gentlemen (1960)

    The League of Gentlemen (1960)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, June 2021) As far as competent and entertaining crime capers go, The League of Gentlemen feels like a successful prototype of something that would be perfected in later years. The premise of having an ex-military officer recruit fellow veterans to organize and carry out an ambitious robbery is something that would often be reused on both sides of the Atlantic (starting the following year with the Las-Vegas-set Ocean’s Eleven and extending—so far—to 2021’s Wrath of Man), but it’s interesting to see a variation of that formula at that stage of history, clearly playing on the British male audience’s memories of WW2 fellowship and past glories. The production date does mean that they don’t quite get away with a purely happy ending, but no matter — the film is executed with some flair, and the ensemble cast (including Richard Attenborough, Jack Hawkins and Nigel Patrick) makes it work. The other thing that’s not quite there is the humour of the modern(ish) caper film — as a justifiable lesser crime against rich people and institutions that clearly deserve to redistribute those riches among the poor. You can further evaluate the roughness of the emerging formula by how the supporting players are introduced — not just as veterans, but with a proven track record of deviancy that enables them to commit another crime. Such deviations from the increasingly polished formula of genre movies are what makes films such as The League of Gentlemen so interesting: they play to expectations… up to a point and while the result may frustrate audiences used to the refined formula, it can be interesting to be surprised from time to time.

  • Miracle on 34th Street (1994)

    Miracle on 34th Street (1994)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, December 2019) If there’s a time for being sappy, nostalgic, and sentimental, then Christmas is it. Consequently, there’s no use getting mad at a Miracle on 34th Street remake being sappy, nostalgic, and sentimental: That’s the point of it. Polishing the 1940s original by giving it an antagonist, a slightly different ending and not obsessing so much about a character being a divorcee, this remake (penned by John Hughes) does a creditable job bringing the story forward nearly fifty years while keeping its core sentimentality. Briefly summarized, it’s about the judicial system trying to prove whether an old man is indeed Santa Claus—the answer is unsurprising, but it’s getting there that’s important. The Manhattan setting of duelling department stores is oddly comforting, although adding an explicit antagonist does nothing good to the story. I’m divided on the decision to replace the original’s, “bags of letters” resolution in favour of a more abstract “in God we trust” climax, but that may just be the separation-of-church-and-state rationalist in myself speaking—and rationalists need not apply to this movie. At least the acting credentials are fine—Richard Attenborough gets the role of a lifetime playing Santa (was that a spoiler?), while Elizabeth Perkins and Dylan McDermott make for a cute romantic lead. There’s something noteworthy in the film’s cinematography, in that it really does go for the full “soft Technicolor” mood of earlier eras, with characters being shot in diffuse light and strongly backlit to stand out. More accessible but less magical than the original film, this Miracle on 34th Street is fine—we can quibble on the details and its more markedly mercenary intention, but it still works relatively well, and completely understands what it’s trying to be.