Chabrol's camera is super stylish, gliding and sweeping through the haute bourgeoisie machinations, picking its observational viewpoint with humorous precision. Unfortunately I watched the English-language version, when I should have sought out the longer French cut - two linguistic versions of each scene were shot. Anthony Perkins of course voices himself, but all those other fantastic French actors (most notably Maurice Ronet and Stéphane Audran) are dubbed into American or English accents, draining credibility from the highly French proceedings.

It…

Meryl gives a sprightly performance but Tommy Lee is such a huge unreconstructed grouch that you are shouting at the screen, "Just go girl, he's really not worth the effort!" Unfortunately I'm not sure the film is worth the effort either: slowly paced, repetitive and then suddenly giving us unearned character right-hand turns. David Frankel's use of music leaves a lot to be desired and Vanessa Taylor needed to inject more humour into her script. Ultimately it is worth seeing…

As much as I love Fay Wray and her legendary lungs of scream, this is Glenda Farrell's picture. She's fabulous as the hard-bitten, wisecrackin' reporter and has literally all the best lines - "You can go to some nice, warm place - and I don't mean California!"; "I've been in love so many times, my heart's calloused"; "You raise the kids, I'll raise the roof. I'd rather die of an arthritic heart from shaking cocktails and daiquiris than expire in…

To some dear readers there may be an element of sacrilege in the following query, but what makes this a Howard Hawks film? This is a Billy Wilder film. The story originated with him and the script (from him and Charles Brackett) is filled with obvious Wilderisms, toying with the English language and sexual mores in his uniquely mischievous Viennese fashion. As one of the exchanges between professor and gangster goes:
'You don't mind if we talk, do you?'
'Just…