Daily Archives: January 4, 2023

The Silent Partner
Directed by Daryl Duke and Curtis Hanson
Written by Curtis Hanson from a novel by Anders Bodelsen
1978/Canada
IMDb page
First viewing/Amazon Prime rental

Harry Reikle: I’m just going to give you a little time… to try to be reasonable. If you decide you’re not going to be reasonable, then one night when you come home, you’ll find me *inside*, waiting for you. And that will be the night you’ll wish you’d never been born.

This prototypical 70’s thriller gets an extra star for the performance of Christopher Plummer.

Elliott Gould plays chief bank teller Miles Cullen. He is outwardly quiet and nerdy with his main interest being aquarium fish. Fellow employee Julie (Susannah York) is dating her married boss. Miles takes an interest in Julie too.

One day Miles finds a deposit slip that has a stick up instructions on it. He figures out that the writing on the slip is the same as that of a Santa Claus in the mall. So he slips $40,000 of the bank’s money into his lunchbox before Santa has a chance to do his robbery. He hasn’t counted on the wrath of the sadistic psychopath bank robber Arthur Reikle (Christopher Plummer) who stalks and terrorizes Miles relentlessly until the explosive climax.

Christopher Plummer is absolutely the best thing about this movie. He is scary, charming, cunning and deadly by turns. Otherwise, I found this to suffer from a bad case of seventy-itis. The whole plot is about sticking it to the man and the bank robbery is treated as just another way of accomplishing this. There is a fair amount of cursing and sex just because they could. The whole story takes place at Christmas time possibly making it a worthy entry in your offbeat Christmas movie list.

Trailer (spoiler)

Sense and Sensibility
Directed by Ang Lee
Written by Emma Thompson from the novel by Jane Austen
1995/US/UK
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/Amazon Prime rental

Elinor Dashwood: You talk of feeling idle and useless. Imagine how that is compounded when one has no hope and no choice of any occupation whatsoever.
Edward Ferrars: Our circumstances are therefore precisely the same.
Elinor Dashwood: Except that you will inherit your fortune. We cannot even earn ours.

I am rereading the divine Jane Austen’s novel so decided it was time for a rewatch of this excellent adaptation.

The Dashwood family consists of four females: Fanny (Gemma Jones), the ditzy mother; Elinor (Emma Thompson), the sensible eldest sister; Marianne (Kate Winslet), the ultra-romantic middle sister; and young Margaret, about 12 or so. One day their benefactor dies. Archaic inheritance laws prevent females of the line from inheriting. And although the benefactor makes the girls’ half-brother promise to provide for them, his selfish, greedy wife talks him out of it. In the meantime, Elinor falls for her sister-in-law’s shy brother Edward (Hugh Grant). But the sister-in-law has plans for him that do not include marrying an almost penniless partner.

Finally, the women are invited to rent a distant relative’s cottage in the countryside, where they barely make ends meet through Elinor’s economizing.

Marianne is rescued from an ankle sprain by the dashing Willoughby (Greg Wise) and soon her love for him knows no bounds, despite her sister’s advice for restraint. The much older Colonel Brandon (Alan Rickman) also takes an interest, but Marianne spurns him. I won’t reveal more except to say that the course of true love never did run smooth and I always finish watching this with happy tears.

This is a first rate adaptation, all the actors are charming, and England never looked more beautiful. Recommended.

Emma Thompson won the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay. The film was nominated in the categories of: Best Picture, Best Actress (Thompson), Best Supporting Actress (Winslet); Best Cinematography; Best Costume Design; and Best Music, Original Dramatic Score.