See, I'd phrase that as *already* two and a half seasons - that's a lot more than I expect to have time for this year. I've seen "The Wedding of River Song" because I was told it's a key, and it made a little sense but I could easily have misunderstood it all. I have "Angels Take Manhattan" in queue. But more than a…

I've tried jazz, and after about 1945 I can't hear music in it. Two or three minutes of Parker, Gillespie, Coltrane, or Miles Davis and I want to break something.

At the risk of creating an infinite loop: I find this thread when it has 1325 comments.

This has long been one of my favorite films, not least because of Leslie Banks in the lead. He handles the range from goofy humor to suspense seamlessly and with restraint. His career is interesting - an actor since 1911, he came out of the World War with half his face paralyzed *and kept right on acting*. He played…

Secret Agent is the film most in need of the Criterion treatment. They even have a master - I have their VHS version! - but for DVD, only crappy PD is available this side of the pond, and only crappy PD or a pricey box set from Europe.

Clive isn't a servant; I think he's Jill's brother. One of the problems with the original is Hitch isn't as interested in the characters, and so doesn't clarify things like that. The guy also loses a tooth for nothing. The singing-in-church scene in the remake isn't as much fun because their improvised lyrics spell…

It's a terrific montage, and it captures the moment when a frivolous vacation becomes life-and-death. Leslie Banks and Pierre Fresnay both underplay brilliantly.

Marnie takes the crap-rear-projection prize.

All that's true, but the original has many a sly laugh that the remake lacks. Also, the message passed on by the doomed spy Louis Bernard is properly brief and cryptic in St Moritz, and long and quite explicit in Morocco.

Overall I prefer the first, but there are some ways the remake improves on it, such as actually supplying a character for Brenda DeBanzie instead of just hinting at one for Cicely Oates. I actually find the longer Albert Hall sequence rather flabby, and Barbour the dentist much scarier than Chappell the taxidermist.…