Bullet to Beijing (1995)

Glasses: Yes

Doing an Accent?: No

Accent for Whole Film?: N/A

Hair: Yes

Does He Point At Someone?: Yes

Best Line: *as about to be thrown off a train* 

"You said you weren't a cruel man, Colonel. Can't we wait for a slow bit?"

Finally, The Return of Harry Palmer. 

We all knew it was coming at some point, but perhaps not in a made for TV film made back to back with its sequel...........Oh, Michael, really? Had things fallen this low??

Still, with the lowest of expectations, and ignoring that I've seen half of it about 20 years ago, in we go....

Harry is still doing much the same crappy jobs in the service that we first saw him doing in Ipcress all those years before, this time spying on the protesters outside of the North Korean embassy and getting involved in some action there when theres a bust up. 

Before we continue, let me point something out here. This films geography is all over the place if you even remotely know Londons layout. Judicious editing making huge swathes of the city join together and disappear around each corner. Very distracting. And if you've ever looked up the North Korean embassy, then you'll know that it don't look like this!

Afterwards, he's called into the office, gives a quick resume rundown for those who haven't seen a Palmer film before and promptly gets handed early retirement. By no less than PATRICK ALLEN as his boss. Oh yeah, Big Pats and his Big Voice is in this one for one of his esteemed cameos.

After getting a bit crappy about his retirement, the H is summoned to The Savoy and offered a decent paying job in Russia, so off we go for some Post Soviet sightseeing. That'll teach the bloody government. Sack him off and then insult him? Right, work for that lot I've been working against for all this time!

We then get some standard "virus has been stolen, you need to find it" plot, the usual fare. Jason Connery is introduced as a bit of stunt casting and then has some odd in-joke "son of a British Agent" banter as they find out the virus is on the train and all aboard THE BULLET TO BEIJING...........

Its not bad really, but its not great. Sorry, but I was baffled towards the end but theres enough injokes, sights, the gorgeous GORGEOUS Mia Sara and nods to Caines history to make it worthwhile, but this isn't high end cinema, is it? So don't expect it to be so.

Caine is in full Stella Street pomp throughout this, which makes things much enjoyable and makes up for Connery seemingly being made out of cardboard.

We get a Rick Wakeman soundtrack too..............which I'm still not convinced by, frankly.

Still, I think they probably should have left Harry where he was. You can't swim in the same river twice, after all.

1. This film starts in the best possible way and had me truly fired up.

Caines name displayed on top of a fuckin' VENOM poster!!!

YEAH!

2. Harry Palmer reads The Sun? 

I am very very disappointed. The Scum, of all papers. Could be the Mail or Express, I suppose, but still.

3. Cut Price Lenin Weird Am Dram Doing Pet Shop Boys Go West

4. The indignity of being pointed at!

5. White shells in a 12 bore? Not red?

Confused the shit out of me, that has. What are they - blanks? Salt?

6. Theres an Italian Job homage in there, for whatever reason.

Spy film homage I can understand, but the Self Preservation Society?? 

Outfit of the film: Blue on Blue, classic trenchcoat. On point. So to speak.

Bonus track - take a good look at this modern poster for the film. What a winner!

Michael Caine: Acting in Film (1987)

Glasses: Yes

Doing an Accent?: No

Accent for Whole Film?: N/A

Hair: Yes

Does He Point At Someone?: Yes

Best Line: "If I keep blinking............it weakens me"

An acting showcase, a masterclass from the master, a rare glimpse behind the facade and an insight into the methodology of Snr Caine.

We begin with Caine overlording a group of students (inc Celia Imrie??) and the audience, firmly putting his generalship into place here and ensuring all know that he is the boss in this room. This is accentuated by lots of pointing and commands - he's in full Lahndahn voice here - to the assistants and crew.

This section mainly relates to the camera, its purpose, how to move around it, what to watch and how to anticipate what may happen during the making of a film. 

All great, but this is cut with endless terrifying close up shots of the man.

"The camera is your lover"

"The camera is your belt behind you"

"If you are going to do action or movement.....*point*....Plan It"

Why does this exist? Who conjured it into being? For what purpose? They should be lauded, whoever they are, as this is purest purest gold. Essentially, its an hour of Caine strutting about in front of an audience (he looks nervous at the beginning but soon warms up by professing love to the nearest camera) throwing out bon mots, advice and his personal knowledge of what it takes to be a good actor. All seemingly without stopping to even take his coat off. He points like a fuckin' madman too, almost every line being punctuated with jabs and the occasional double jab.

Along the way, we find some fine insights into MC, (when he's not cadging for fags off the students)

"Always Steal, but only steal from the best. Because what you saw them do.........they stole!"

"I never watch the rushes...everyone buys their yachts at the rushes and goes bankrupt at the premiere"

We then fade out and into the next session, in which the students take the lead and perform some classic Caine scenes, whilst the master observes and dispenses sage wisdom from a bar stool.

We start with Alfie. Not sure about this fellow, he's not very good. Now, acting out an Alfie scene whilst Alfie himself lurks in the background is intimidating enough, but doing when its going to be evaulated?

The boy moves about a lot. Tries pointing. MC chips in with some advice - very good advice - but the younger is visibly more stiff than he was. He keeps blinking too......in spite of being told not to just ten minutes before. Eventually, MC sits in and goes through it, with the gulf in quality between the two clearly apparent as soon as the scene starts again.

Incidentally............why did Caine never direct a film? (I think its safe to assume he'll never do so at this point in his life).

At this point...........its audience question time who soon start barking them out in rapid order. Hold back people, hold back, he's only able to answer so many people at the same time!

Next up - Death Trap......and a sudden line of narration from Caine?? Theres literally one line of voiceover and thats it? Bit like that bizarre moment (of very very many) in Argentos "Phenomena" when theres a sudden line of narration in a film that has no other narration throughout. Oh, OH, had that Caine taken the Donald Pleasance role in that! 

But we digress............Celias up and shes doing an accent. The older, more thickset of the  male actors ain't up to much either, as he's stiff as a board.

"You have to listen very carefully to every god damned thing he says, cos you don't know what the FUCKING HELL he's gonna say!"

Cut to the students sat at MC's leather shoe'd feet and some direct questions. We learn:

1 - Special effects. Let them explain, then get the stuntman to do it first. Fair enough, I say!

2 - The difficulties of "intimate" scenes. Keep a bottle of throat spray in yer pocket.

Then a peach of a question:

"What makes you decide to do a film, if you get a script? What makes you decide to make it?"

Caine pauses. Shuffles uneasily. 

Gives a slightly woolly answer about "is it different?", "career", "is it a challenge?", "what kind of film is it, budget wise" etc etc.

Look mate, we all know the answer. THE CHEQUE

Oh, and we get an answer to why he's never directed a film. "Its too much work. Theres a economic reason to me not doing it" i.e. CASH

Lastly, a scene from Educating Rita is played out and more accents get deployed. The perms been there since the opening of the film. Pretty by numbers this, but we do get a full blow by blow of how Mike does his drunken actings - which, lets be honest, he does an awful lot of the time. Just click on that "drunken master" tag and see how many times he's trotted this routine out on camera. 

Nice to finally see how its done, mind. And it is very good, to be fair.

Suddenly, the film ends on this freeze frame for about thirty seconds, after which it fades to black and white, allowing the credits to roll in somber silence.

Outfit of the film. Well, theres only one and its his own clothes - but he's looking pretty damned regal in that leather jacket.

Deadfall (1968)

Glasses: No

Doing an Accent?: No

Accent for whole film?: No

Hair: No

Does he point at someone?: Yes


Best Line: "He doesn't have to like it, he's a philosopher"

Deadfall........a long remembered film for us at Caineology, mainly due to strong memory of having it recorded on a video many years ago and the tape running out about an hour in, post heist. Yes, kids, this used to happen all of the time.  You had to work for your film viewings back then - especially if the film was due to be shown after the late night golf and ended up being cancelled due to the golf overrunning. I mean, what is more important - seeing the finale to the golf being played out or my being able to watch Horror Hospital at 11.55 on a Saturday night on BBC2?  Purest white heat outrage when they did that, I tell you. I think my splenetic ravings awoke Mrs Caineology in the next room. But I digress.


Now, in our minds, Deadfall was a great heist film full of sunny med vibes, a languid atmosphere and cool 68 threads. And it is, lets not get that wrong, but then we watched the other hour of the film........


Our Man plays a brilliant cat burglar, currently working on a big job by getting himself into a boozers drying out clinic and becoming friendly with a member of the local super rich. Whilst there, an approach is made from a seductive wife of another, older, jewel thief proposing a partnership/proxy job.


After some deliberation between parties, they agree to work together and pull a warm up job before the main act, played out in a rather fantastic 20 mins of live concert (John Barry conducting! I think he still had the same suit on when I saw him conduct at the South Bank around ten years ago) intercut with the robbery being carried out, scored by the music shown on screen. Superb cinema and certainly our strongest memory of the film that carried across the years. Lets leave aside the slightly absurd method of getting on that windowsill, the "Deadfall" itself, which would either:


1 - Tear your arms from your sockets, or.........
2 - Leave you in a broken legged sobbing mess waiting for the security to arrive, or.......
3 - both of the above.


Great - and then onto the second hour, which manages to highlight why having a strong sequence like this in the middle of a heist film isn't always the best idea as the film runs flat almost straight afterwards and turns into a domestic drama/sordid secrets/mind games film, but a really bloody tedious one.


By god it needed something in the second half. Something. I can take slow film, I can take vibin' over action, I'm really quite happy to let lush scenery and fashion wash over me........but this one was really testing my patience - and we rarely, if ever, switch a film off halfway through. We've never sit through half this crap on our boys CV if we did.


So - watch the first hour, pretend the film finishes there. Maybe prior to the old boy turning up at the beach house. Thats about 75 mins worth of decent film right there.




Minutae


1 - Whats with all the seagulls? Solarised ones, cuts to them at random moments, shots of them screeching about the place. Maybe they mean something? Symbolism, man, symbolism.


2 - This film was apparently a £1,000,000 job but ended up looking about as costly as an episode of The Persuaders. Actually, I could see our Roger doing this one.


3 - Michael Caine dressed as a matador attempting to seduce a woman whilst holding a sausage on a stick.

4 - Strikingly, this film seems to share a lot with Caines other 1968 entry "The Magus" which I actually prefer of the two. And going by the rep that one has, that should tell you something. It seems as though they were done under contract to 20th Century Fox - but the boy had no memory of signing the contract and nor did his agent. The swinging sixties to blame there, I think. Perhaps that explains his general somnambulistic approach to the proceedings in both?


5 - Its night. Its dark. You are about to scale and burgle an enormous house next to a main road and a seemingly busy river. What do you choose to wear for this?

 Beige turtleneck, beige slacks, beige shoes.

Blending with the sandstone building, I suppose? Theres a reason ninjas wear black, mate, theres a reason. But then the classic burglar top is breton stripes, so who knows?

Speaking of which

5 - you've taken the time to sneak into the place, drug the dogs and carefully plan it for when the owners are out and the security is eating their dinner. At night. In silence.

So what do you do when the safe proves awkward?

 

Get a hammer and chisel.

Beat the utter shit out of the wall.

 

Remove safe and lug it across the courtyard.


How much noise did that make?


I mean, 10/10 for effort, Mike, but 1/10 for the victims not realising they've been turned over and allowing clear getaway, fencing the goods and erasing suspicion time.




Outfit of the film: Plenty of sharp suits in great colours and cuts. So much to choose from, so lets go for this casual light lunch ensemble

Vignettes #1

Another grate performance.