John Carradine's mercurial whiskey preacher and Jane Darwell's salt-of-the-earth farmer are sharply etched, and Fonda's quietly authoritative performance has stood the test of time.

Hawks was determined to capture the buzz of a newsroom with overlapping dialogue and rat-a-tat gags; it works marvellously. [30 Oct 2021, p.24]

Overblown and melodramatic, it somehow achieves more than the schmaltz of its parts, thanks to a spirited modern heroine, the spoilt Scarlett O'Hara, and its refusal to give us the neat conclusions you'd expect from a 19th-century saga of "cottonfields and cavaliers."

Daphne du Maurier's rum tale of romance, ripping bodices and roguery was rewritten for this so-so Alfred Hitchcock screen version to accommodate the demands of its star and co-producer Charles Laughton, who felt himself deserving of a grander role than any du Maurier had deigned to write. [30 Mar 2019, p.33]

Few films are more fun to watch than The Wizard of Oz, and few have such a charming message either. [28 Aug 2020]

There have been countless adaptations of Emily Brontë's classic 19th-century romance but none of them captures the spirit of her novel quite like William Wyler's production. [10 Aug 2013, p.32]

Although overshadowed by his later classics Psycho and The Birds, Alfred Hitchcock's thriller is still a masterclass in suspenseful cinema. [14 Sep 2022, p.29]

Alfred Hitchcock is at the height of his skin-prickling powers in this brisk spy story, seasoned with oodles of humour and a dash of kink. [14 Jun 2013]

It Happened One Night is pure delight.

Perhaps the best (and certainly the most realistic and violent) of the great 1930s gangster films, with Paul Muni as an Al Capone surrogate. Directed by Howard Hawks at a flat-out pace, with thrilling shoot-outs and intriguing if depraved characters. [18 Jun 2013]

Another play Hitchcock was resistant to adapting, this time by John Galsworthy, made for a static but honourable picture. [14 Jul 2012]

All Quiet on the Western Front remains an essential piece of social history and a heart-wrenching film.

In the hands of the great Danish director Carl Theodor Dreyer it becomes a potent saga of battered faith, vicious bullying and personal torment.

Not a hugely comfortable fit for the silent treatment, Noël Coward's play might have transferred better in the stagey confines of the early sound era. [14 Jul 2012]

Skilful photography boosts a standard-issue love triangle into one of Hitch's own favourite films from the period. [14 Jul 2012]

It is an outrageously ambitious and intermittently staggering piece of work, though it completely lacks the kind of discipline or focus that might have made its themes or images really stick.