Also showing: Nuremberg, Requiem for a Killer and Jaws

All the new releases from the silver screen...
15 June 2012

Cert 12a, 78 mins

***

Stuart Schulberg’s documentary is subtitled A Lesson for Today and explores the 1945-6 trial of 22 of the top Nazi leaders, jointly prosecuted for crimes against humanity by the Allies. The film uses some of the Nazis’ own material, discovered under the command of John Ford. It was originally only given a theatrical release in Germany but has been restored and re-released by Schulberg’s daughter, Sandra Schulberg. It will be shown at the Barbican Cinema, for one week only, from today.

Cert 12a, 82 mins

**

This sadly workaday French thriller, all sheen no substance, looks like a continental version of a bad Agatha Christie as a pretty hitwoman played by Mélanie Laurent, right, accepts a final job to kill an opera singer who threatens the interests of a big corporation. She is hired as a soprano for a Scottish performance of Handel’s Messiah, excerpts from which are the best thing in a film which becomes more improbable as it sails along. Looks swish, though.

Cert 15, 81 mins

**

With a title borrowed from a Leonard Cohen song, Dana Lustig’s ambitious film has a care nurse (Jodie Whittaker) discovering her past after her mother’s death and the end of her affair with Dougray Scott’s sadistic musician. She does so literally as we watch, almost as in a waking dream, as the past catches up with her again. Everyone does their best but this exercise in the methods of psycho-analysis often seems stilted and misconceived. Even David Warner, as a somewhat sepulchral janitor, seems at a loss.

Cert PG, 125 mins, reissue

****

“When you’re in love with a married man, you shouldn’t wear mascara,” says Shirley MacLaine’s Fran in Billy Wilder’s The Apartment (1960). She is the secretary, used as a mistress by Fred MacMurray’s businessman, who borrows underling Jack Lemmon’s flat for his assignments. The film, once thought daring and closely followed by the same director’s Some Like It Hot, is marvellously acted and has the courage of its wry convictions. It’s a superb example of Wilder’s finesse as Lemmon falls for Fran and shames the man to whom it is all just office politics.

Cert 12a, 124 mins, reissue

****

“What’s this all about? A porno dentist?”, said Spielberg, picking up a copy of Peter Benchley’s Jaws from producer David Brown’s desk. The resultant film, about the shark (that original director Dick Richards was in the habit of calling a whale) was handed over to Spielberg and became his breakthrough movie. Few know, however, that the film was also saved from disaster by the impressive editing skills of Verna Fields. After its huge success, Spielberg commented: “My next picture will be on dry land. There won’t even be a bathroom.”

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