Midnight Oil:Movies and More

"Witness for the Prosecution" (1957IMDb) Billy Wilder's classic court room drama features Tyrone Power as the accused, Leonard Vole, and Marlene Dietrich as his wife. Charles Laughton is at the top of his form as defense lawyer Sir Wilfred Robarts. You never can tell with a wily old fellow like Sir Robarts up to his old tricks in the court room. Not to be missed in this production is the irrepressible Mrs. Charles Laughton, Elsa Lanchester. Lanchester plays the rather shrill Nurse Plimsoll to the hilt, running after Sir Wilfred with her sharp hypodermic syringe and a wit too dull to perceive crafty old coot’s concealed flask of brandy. Thoroughly entertaining fare derived from a successful Agatha Christie play.

Catch the TVO preview of the movie “Witness for the Prosecution”.

Also presented on on SNAM on the same evening highlighting legal wrangling were films previously featured on Midnight Oil, "The Ox-Bow Incident" (1943)and "Compulsion"(1959).

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A must see is this short video scene of the irritating Miss Plimsoll plying her trade with the irascible Sir Wilfred.

Catch the original movie trailer for "Witness for the Prosecution" (1957) here.

“Dear Frankie” (2004) IMDb is a real gem starring Jack McElhone as a young deaf boy and Emily Mortimer as his mom. Gerard Butler is the stranger who is brought into the picture in order to play the role of Frankie’s “dad” for a day. Things have a way of getting kind of complicated when the adults involved find they have to bend over backwards in order to maintain the charade for Frankie’s benefit. It’s a lovely tale told with much care and compassion for the plight of the single mom who tries to do her best with a very difficult dilemma.

TVO producer, Thom Ernst talks on his blog about how this unusual and charming film came to be screened on SNAM.

See the TVO interview related to "Dear Frankie", in which the issue of telling lies in order to protect children is examined.

Real Life: Shannon deals with her fatherless childhood and leaves an abusive relationship.

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“Soylent Green” (1973) IMDb with Charlton Heston and Edward G. Robinson turns out to be a surprisingly effective film for a sci-fi flick. I’ve watched it a couple of times now on TVO. Quite unexpectedly, I've been moved by its stark vision of future humanity. I don’t know exactly what it is about this film that gets me, because there is lots that is unremarkable about it by today’s audience standards. Maybe it’s the “scoops” scene, or “the furniture” or the Beethoven playing over top of Edward G. Robinson’s compelling death scene. What should be written of as just kind of corny somehow gets beyond the limitations of, well, the film’s limitations, and becomes kind of haunting. It’s worth a peek in my estimation.

This film was recently screened with Bradbury’s “Fahrenheit 451” found in the Midnight Oil video trailer archives.

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Catch the video trailer for "Soylent Green" (1973) here.

"Operation Crossbow (1965)" -INDb combines a good spy story and WWII military history with a pinch of the human interest angle thrown in for good measure. George Peppard is the British spy masquerading as a Dutch engineer in the pay of the Germans to help create the dreaded V2 rocket bombs (no explanation of his American accent). Sophia Loren makes a cameo appearance as the Italian wife of the Dutch engineer trying to escape the Nazi occupation with her (trilingual ?) children. It's all very confusing. You have to keep an eye on those German subtitles. Sophia is evidently there to prop up the galmour factor. If you like rockets a lot, wartime intrigue or Sophia Loren, this film may have some points of interest for you.

This movie was recently screened with two other wartime movies on TVO. See reviews for “The Man Who Never Was” 1956 and “Went the Day Well?” 1942 in the Midnight Oil video trailer section.

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See director, Michael Anderson interviewed in the video trailer of "Operation Crossbow" from TVO.

Catch the opening scenes video trailer of “Operation Crossbow” 1965

“The Who Never Was” (1956) IMDb with Clifton Webb spins an intriguing yarn about British military intelligence during WWII. Apparently based on actual events, Lieutenant Commander Ewen Montagu (Clifton Webb) finds himself with the challenging and somewhat gruesome task of diverting the attention of the German High Command away from a planned invasion of the continent through planting misinformation on a dead body. Montagu and his team are indefatigable in their efforts to serve the national interest. In contrast, the cost of the war in terms of personal loss is depicted through the part of the grieving father of the dead man and the distraught girlfriend (Gloria Greene) who is told that her beloved is dead. Though perhaps not the greatest spy thriller every made, I find this film to be interesting enough to be watchable. The fictionalized account of actual spy stuff certainly makes this movie of historical interest for WWII film buffs.

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See the TVO SNAM preview for “The Man Who Never Was” (1956)

Catch the video trailer for the opening credits of “The Man Who Never Was” 1956. I believe that the dramatic reading in the opening is from a poem by H.G. Wells.