Seeing the world in black-and-white … and shades of grey

Time is running out for small-time entertainer Sammy Lee (Anthony Newley) in Ken Hughes' The Small World of Sammy Lee (1963)

The pleasures of black-and-white cinematography are on full display in Ken Hughes’ The Small World of Sammy Lee; shot on the streets of Soho and the East End by the great Wolfgang Suschitzky, this story of a small-time entertainer and compulsive gambler desperately trying to raise cash to pay off a gangster is a finely observed depiction of the seedier side of pre-Swinging London, shot through with bleak humour and the tentative possibility of redemption.

A 3D New Year

The fossil claw, in your eye, in Jack Arnold's Creature From the Black Lagoon 3D (1954)

At my annual New Year’s ritual of dinner and movies at my friend Steve’s, I finally got to sample the home 3D viewing experience; we sampled a number of movies, old and new, cheap and expensive, but while the experience had some interesting aspects, I can’t imagine wanting to watch in 3D too often.

Blasts from the past

When Horror Came to Shochiku: from absurd to apocalypse …

Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds (1963)

Sam Peckinpah’s swansong: The Osterman Weekend (1983)

DVD Review: Compliance (2012)

>