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Rating 3¾
Directed by Adrian Shergold
Written by Jeff Pope and Bob Mills
Starring Timothy Spall (Albert Pierrepoint), Juliet Stevenson (Annie Pierrepoint), Eddie Marsan (James ‘Tish’ Corbitt), Claire Keelan (Jessie Kelly), Maggie Ollerenshaw (Mary Pierrepoint), Clive Francis (Field Marshal ‘Monty’ Montgomery), Elizabeth Hopley (Dorothea Waddington), Sheyla Shahovich (Irma Grese), Michael Norton (Josef Kramer), Ben McKay (Timothy Evans), and Mary Stockley (Ruth Ellis)
Albert Pierrepoint follows in the footsteps of his father and uncle and becomes an executioner. He attends to the task strictly as a job to be done, taking great pride in his work and ensuring meticulous attention to detail. However, after he receives a personal request from Field Marshal Montgomery to preside over executions in Germany following the war crimes trials at the end of World War II, his name and picture appear in newspapers, making him something of a celebrity and he begins to question what he does, as the psychological impact it has on him and his wife Annie becomes ever harder to bear.
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Albert Pierrepoint worked as an Assistant Executioner from 1932, when he was 27 years old, and became a chief executioner in 1941. He is believed to have conducted at least 450 executions (and possibly as many as 608, as quoted at the end of the film) before resigning in 1956 because of a disagreement about his fees. The executions he presided over included those of Josef Kramer, the “Beast of Belson”, and Irma Grese, the “Beautiful Beast” who, at 22 years of age was the youngest woman to be executed under British law in the 20th Century. He also executed William Joyce (“Lord Haw-Haw”) and Derek Bentley, whose execution in 1953 came despite widespread pleas for clemency and is told in the 1991 film ‘Let Him Have It’. Bentley received a posthumous pardon in 1998. These two executions are not referenced in the film, but those of Timothy John Evans in 1950 and Ruth Ellis in 1955 are. Ellis was the last woman to be hanged in Britain and the controversy surrounding her execution lit the flame that would eventually lead to the abolition of the death penalty in 1964. Evans received a posthumous pardon in 1966 – Pierrepoint also, in 1953, executed the serial killer John Reginald Christie, who was actually responsible for the killing that Evans had been found guilty of.
‘Pierrepoint’ paints a picture of Britain as a monotonously drab and austere place, which is what it was, and shows Albert Pierrepoint going about his business in a methodical manner, deeming it his responsibility that each hanging be quick and painless and that the bodies of those he executed be treated with respect afterwards, because, as he explained, through their execution they had atoned for their sins. Executioners were not employed full time, but “invited” to preside over individual executions and paid per hanging, so Pierrepoint also worked as a drayman and later owned a pub called Help the Poor Struggler with his wife, using money earned in Germany to buy it – he presided over thirteen hangings in a single day on 13 December 1945 and is thought to have hanged over 200 war criminals in total. Pierrepoint did not tell his future wife Annie about his “other” job when they first met and it was not until 1944, over a year after they were married, that they first discussed it, although she had actually known about it for several years, but chose not to mention it, waiting instead for him to do so.
Timothy Spall is excellent in the role of Albert Pierrepoint, as is Juliet Stevenson, playing his wife, and Eddie Marsan as John ‘Tish’ Corbitt, the friend and regular in their pub who Pierrepoint was later called on to hang. The attention to detail means that the film certainly looks authentic.
I found the film fascinating but quite harrowing to watch and the claim that almost all adults in Britain now would be in favour of a return to the death penalty is, if that statistic is in any way true, a horrific thought. In his autobiography, published in 1974, eighteen years after he presided over his last hanging, Pierrepoint wrote, “I have come to the conclusion that executions solve nothing and are only an antiquated relic of a primitive desire for revenge which takes the easy way and hands over the responsibility for revenge to other people,” although some people have subsequently questioned whether he was being entirely truthful about his stance on capital punishment when he wrote these words.
Albert Pierrepoint died in 1992 and the age of 87. He wife Annie died in 1998 at the age of 93. Contrary to popular belief, Pierrepoint was not Britain’s last executioner (hangings continued to take place for another nine years after he resigned), but he was its most famous.
‘Pierrepoint’ has a 76% fresh rating at Rotten Tomatoes from 50 reviews. Roger Ebert made the excellent point that, “The key to the film is in the performances... The utter averageness of the characters, their lack of insight, their normality, contrasts with the subject matter in an unsettling way.” The film’s worldwide box office gross is a little under $640,000.
Review posted on 8 November 2009
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Rating 2¼
Directed by Mike Newell
Written by Steve Kloves, based on the novel by J K Rowling
Starring Daniel Radcliffe (Harry Potter), Emma Watson (Hermione Granger), Rupert Grint (Ron Weasley), Michael Gambon (Albus Dumbledore), Maggie Smith (Minerva McGonagall), Alan Rickman (Severus Snape), Robbie Coltrane (Rubeus Hagrid), Ralph Fiennes (Lord Voldemort), David Tennant (Barty Crouch Junior), Brendan Gleeson (Alastor ‘Mad Eye’ Moody), Robert Hardy (Cornelius Fudge), David Lloyd Pack (Barty Crouch), Timothy Spall (Peter Pettigrew / Wormtail), Jason Isaacs (Lucius Malfoy), Tom Felton (Draco Malfoy), Matthew Lewis (Neville Longbottom), Warwick Davis (Filius Flitwick), Mark Williams (Arthur Weasley), Julie Walters (Molly Weasley), Bonnie Wright (Ginny Weasley), James Phelps (Fred Weasley), Oliver Phelps (George Weasley), Robert Pattinson (Cedric Diggory), Stanislav Ianevski (Viktor Krum), Clémence Poésy (Fleur Delacour), Katie Leung (Cho Chang), Frances de la Tour (Madame Olympe Maxime), Miranda Richardson (Rita Skeeter), David Bradley (Argus Filch), Shirley Henderson (Moaning Myrtle) and Eric Sykes (Frank Bryce)
An old gardener called Frank Bryce disturbs Lord Voldemort, Peter Pettigrew and an unnamed figure and is killed. Harry goes with the Weasley family and Hermione to the Quidditch World Cup, but the camp in which they are staying is attacked by mysterious hooded figures. Barty Crouch of the Ministry of Magic accuses Harry, Hermione and Ron of conjuring up a Dark Mark. Hogwarts School is hosting the Triwizard Tournament, in which a wizard from Hogwarts competes with wizards from two rival schools to complete three dangerous tasks. The goblet of fire chooses the competitors, a decision that cannot be reversed afterwards, and selects a fourth name, Harry Potter, even though he is too young to compete. Albus Dumbledore asks Alastor ‘Mad Eye’ Moody, the new professor of the Defence against the Dark Arts, to watch over Harry. Harry does compete in the tournament, briefly becoming estranged from his best friend Ron, but there are dark forces at work and he must face up to Voldemort.
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‘Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire’ is the fourth book and film in the series. I enjoyed the third film quite a lot more than the first two, something that might be down to the change of director from Chris Columbus to Alfonso Cuarón, the Academy Award-nominated Mexican director, screenwriter and producer who gave ‘The Prisoner of Azkaban’ a noticeably darker edge than the previous two films. ‘The Goblet of Fire’ marks another change of director to Mike Newell, the first English director to work on the films. His previous credits include ‘Four Weddings and a Funeral’, ‘Donnie Brasco’ and ‘Mona Lisa Smile’. Cuarón had faced some criticism for his approach to the third film and it does have the lowest box office gross of the five films to date, although J K Rowling is said to consider it her favourite instalment in the film series and he did apparently express an interest in directing another Harry Potter film. I think it’s a shame that he was not on board for ‘The Goblet of Fire’, which is a definite step backwards in many ways and, I thought, very messy and unfocused in places. Newell has talked about the problem of compressing the book into a coherent film and a number of key scenes from the book were cut during this process.
The first thirty minutes or so disappointed me greatly, but once the triwizard challenges begin it does pick up a little bit, although Brendon Gleeson’s “Mad Eye” Moody, who plays a central role here, proves to be a strangely disappointing character much of the time. The story deals with puberty and the fact that Harry, Hermione and Ron are now growing up. Harry and Ron are faced with the challenge of finding dates for the traditional Yule Ball. Harry finally builds up the courage to ask Cho Chang, but leaves it too late, even though she had clearly been waiting for him to ask. In the end she has said yes to another offer. Ron refuses to believe Hermione when he clumsily asks her and she turns him down, saying she already has a date. At the ball itself she becomes very upset, shouting at him that he has ruined everything because it took him so long to ask her, by which time she had accepted another offer. All three end up having a miserable time, in stark contrast to the usually hapless Neville Longbottom, another student from Gryffindor, who has a splendid time.
I found the climactic confrontation between Harry and Voldemort decidedly underwhelming, perhaps not helped because the preceding scenes in the magical maze, which should and could have been so much better, are ruined by being shot in virtually complete darkness. These scenes should be creepy and unsettling, but I just ended up squinting at my television screen, trying to make out what was going on. The film then ends on an unexpectedly low key note, as Hermione observes that nothing will ever be the same again.
Albus Dumbledore, the aged and wise headmaster of Hogwarts, had been played by Richard Harris in the first two films. His health was in sharp decline by the time of ‘The Chamber of Secrets’ and he apparently only reprised the role because his ten-year-old granddaughter refused to ever speak to him again if he did not. Harris died on 25 October 2002 from Hodgkin’s disease, his death coming before ‘The Chamber of Secrets’ had opened in cinemas in America. Michael Gambon, another acclaimed Irish actor, assumed the role of Dumbledore from the third film onwards. Gambon deliberately approached the role from a different angle so that his interpretation of Dumbledore is quite different to that of Harris. I think I prefer the Harris interpretation.
‘Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire’ has an 88% fresh rating at Rotten Tomatoes from 213 reviews. It had a whopping production budget of $150 million and grossed nearly $896 million at the box office worldwide, the highest gross since the first film.
Review posted 16 July 2009
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Rating 2¾
Directed by Alfonso Cuarón
Written by Steve Kloves, based on the novel by J K Rowling
Starring Daniel Radcliffe (Harry Potter), Emma Watson (Hermione Granger), Rupert Grint (Ron Weasley), Michael Gambon (Albus Dumbledore), Maggie Smith (Minerva McGonagall), Alan Rickman (Severus Snape), Robbie Coltrane (Rubeus Hagrid), David Thewis (Remus Lupin), Gary Oldman (Sirius Black), Robert Hardy (Cornelius Fudge), Richard Griffiths (Uncle Vernon), Pam Ferris (Aunt Marge), Fiona Shaw (Aunt Petunia), Harry Melling (Dudley Dursley), Julie Walters (Mrs Molly Weasley), Mark Williams (Mr Arthur Wesley), Tom Felton (Draco Malfoy), Warwick Davies (Filius Flitwick), Dawn French (Fat Lady), James Phelps (Fred Weasley), Oliver Phelps (George Weasley), Emma Thompson (Sybil Trelawney), Julie Christie (Madame Rosmerta) and Timothy Spall (Peter Pettigrew)
Harry Potter is spending a miserable summer with his Uncle Vernan and Aunt Petunia. When he uses magic outside school, he runs away, fearing punishment. He is picked up by the Knight Bus, a magical triple-decker bus, and taken to the Leaky Cauldron, where Cornelius Fudge, the Minister for Magic, tells him he will not, as he had feared, be expelled. Harry also learns that Sirius Black has escaped from Azkaban. Reunited with his friends Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley, Harry boards the Hogwarts Express. During the train journey he encounters a Dementer, a soulless wraith-like creature that is searching for Sirius Black, but it is driven away by Remus Lupin, a new professor joining the school. During the first assembly at Hogwarts, Albus Dumbledore announces that the Dementers will be guarding the school. Harry also discovers that Sirius Black was implicated in the deaths of his parents and is heading for the school, seemingly intent on killing him.
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I have never read a ‘Harry Potter’ book and do not expect to do so. I have also only previously seen one film, the first, ‘Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone’, which I found slightly underwhelming. The same would have to be said of ‘Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban’, the third film (and the third book) in the sequence. However, I did enjoy this one more, enough so to be interested in watching the other films.
‘Harry Potter’ is a phenomenon. The seven books, written by the British author J K Rowling (Joanne Murray), starting with ‘The Philosopher’s Stone’, which was first published in June 1997, have sold in excess of 400 million copies. Likewise, the films (five to date, with the sixth just about to be released into cinemas) have been hugely successful. ‘The Prisoner of Azkaban’, which had a production budget of $120 million and was released into cinemas starting in June 2004, has a worldwide box office gross in excess of $795 million, with DVD and television broadcast revenue likely to have been at least that much again.
The film races along at a breakneck pace, although strangely it often seems as if not much is happening. The special effects are state-of-the-art, but I cannot help but think that these do sometimes take away some of the magic. In the famous 1967 Jonathan Miller adaptation of ‘Alice in Wonderland’, made for the BBC, Alice enters the surreal wonderland through a narrow tunnel, used by Miller because no special effects were available to show Alice disappear down the rabbit hole. It works perfectly and that imagery has always stayed with me. I was just nine years old when ‘Alice in Wonderland’ was broadcast and tunnels continue to have something magical and slightly unsettling about them for me, just as old wardrobes do because of ‘The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe’. The ‘Harry Potter’ books are, to some degree, this generation’s ‘Chronicles of Narnia’, insomuch that they have succeeded in capturing the imaginations of children. I have no time whatsoever for the claims that the books are anti-religious and promote witchcraft.
There has been some criticism of the acting of the three young leads, Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint – Radcliffe in particular. All three came to the series with little or no previous professional acting experience. None of them are exceptional, in the way that, say, Dakota Fanning acts with a degree of skill and confidence well beyond her years, but all three are perfectly likeable and competent in their roles. Each film has a wealth of British acting talent on display.
‘The Prisoner of Azkaban’ is a good family film, if perhaps a little violent at times for very young children. It’s a rollercoaster ride that is probably tremendous fun for anyone who has grown up with the books. I feel a little bit divorced from it and from my outsider’s perspective it does all seems a little clichéd, cobbling together lots of pre-existing themes and stories that are already familiar to me. That said, it’s enormous popularity speaks volumes.
‘Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban’ has an 89% fresh rating at Rotten Tomatoes from 225 reviews.
Review posted 12 July 2009
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Albert Pierrepoint follows in the footsteps of his father and uncle and becomes an executioner. He attends to the task strictly as a job to be done, taking great pride in his work and ensuring meticulous attention to detail. However, after he receives a personal request from Field Marshal Montgomery to preside over executions in Germany following the war crimes trials at the end of World War II, his name and picture appear in newspapers, making him something of a celebrity and he begins to question what he does, as the psychological impact it has on him and his wife Annie becomes ever harder to bear.
‘Pierrepoint’ paints a picture of Britain as a monotonously drab and austere place, which is what it was, and shows Albert Pierrepoint going about his business in a methodical manner, deeming it his responsibility that each hanging be quick and painless and that the bodies of those he executed be treated with respect afterwards, because, as he explained, through their execution they had atoned for their sins. Executioners were not employed full time, but “invited” to preside over individual executions and paid per hanging, so Pierrepoint also worked as a drayman and later owned a pub called Help the Poor Struggler with his wife, using money earned in Germany to buy it – he presided over thirteen hangings in a single day on 13 December 1945 and is thought to have hanged over 200 war criminals in total. Pierrepoint did not tell his future wife Annie about his “other” job when they first met and it was not until 1944, over a year after they were married, that they first discussed it, although she had actually known about it for several years, but chose not to mention it, waiting instead for him to do so.
Albert Pierrepoint died in 1992 and the age of 87. He wife Annie died in 1998 at the age of 93. Contrary to popular belief, Pierrepoint was not Britain’s last executioner (hangings continued to take place for another nine years after he resigned), but he was its most famous.
